Episode 602 - Richard Lewis / Greg Proops

Episode 602 • Released May 13, 2015 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you?

00:00:10Marc:What the fuckers?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:12Marc:What the fucking ears?

00:00:13Marc:What the fucksters?

00:00:14Marc:What the fuckaholics?

00:00:16Marc:What the fucking avians?

00:00:19Marc:Mark Maron, this is WTF.

00:00:20Marc:Welcome to the show.

00:00:21Marc:Tonight is the premiere of season three of Maron on IFC.

00:00:27Marc:I'd like you to watch it.

00:00:28Marc:I'd like you to DVR it if you have to and watch it a few days later.

00:00:31Marc:Don't wait too long to watch it.

00:00:33Marc:If you can possibly watch it tonight, that'd be nice.

00:00:36Marc:If you don't have IFC, you could get it.

00:00:37Marc:If you are a cord cutter and vigilant, I know you're going to be able to get them on iTunes.

00:00:42Marc:You know, eventually they'll be on Netflix.

00:00:44Marc:Someone told me about sling.

00:00:46Marc:You know, there are places you can go to get this thing.

00:00:49Marc:Just do what you got to do.

00:00:50Marc:If you can watch it on IFC, that'd be great.

00:00:52Marc:And let me just tell you something.

00:00:53Marc:Can I tell you something?

00:00:54Marc:Did I mention my name is Mark Maron?

00:00:56Marc:Hi, how are you?

00:00:57Marc:This is my show.

00:00:58Marc:Who's on the show today?

00:00:59Marc:While I talk about myself, why don't I just tell you, give you a heads up so you can decide whether you want to hang in.

00:01:05Marc:I've got Greg Proops for a little while and I've got Richard Lewis for a little while.

00:01:10Marc:How did that happen?

00:01:12Marc:Both of them have been on the show and usually I don't do that.

00:01:14Marc:Well, here's what happened.

00:01:15Marc:Sometimes my friends, they call me up and they're like, can I come talk about my new thing?

00:01:21Marc:And I think Greg and Richard both have books.

00:01:24Marc:And I said, of course.

00:01:25Marc:And I usually I do it like you've heard it before, 10 minutes up front and maybe 12 minutes, 15, maybe talk a little bit about the thing.

00:01:32Marc:Well, both of these guys, we just got to talking and they turned out to be longer conversations.

00:01:37Marc:And I thought, why not put them both up together?

00:01:40Marc:It was nice to talk to Richard again.

00:01:42Marc:And also, Greg Proops is here, and I never did a full solo episode with Greg, so it was good to get into it with him.

00:01:48Marc:He's one of the wizards.

00:01:51Marc:Big thinker, that Proops.

00:01:53Marc:Very quick on his feet, Mr. Proops.

00:01:55Marc:But anyways, that's what's happening on the show today.

00:01:58Marc:Also, geez, so much going on.

00:02:00Marc:I'll be in Asheville, North Carolina tonight.

00:02:02Marc:There are two shows.

00:02:03Marc:There may still be tickets for the second show at the Orange Peel.

00:02:06Marc:Then I'll be traveling over to Charleston, South Carolina.

00:02:10Marc:There's still tickets available for that.

00:02:12Marc:Actually, if you live there and you have friends and stuff, quite honestly, you need to step it up a little bit.

00:02:17Marc:Really, it was, you know...

00:02:19Marc:Not the greatest sales of the two.

00:02:21Marc:Like, I don't want to rank it last, but maybe just not a lot of love for Mark Maron and Charleston.

00:02:26Marc:Maybe I said something to piss South Carolina off.

00:02:28Marc:It's going to be a few hundred people there, but I'm just saying, you know, get with it.

00:02:33Marc:Is that rude?

00:02:34Marc:Whatever.

00:02:35Marc:Atlanta, Georgia, Variety Playhouse, Saturday, this Saturday, May 16th.

00:02:38Marc:I believe it's sold out, if not close to sold out.

00:02:41Marc:Sunday, May 17th at the Joy Theater in New Orleans.

00:02:44Marc:Tickets available for that.

00:02:47Marc:I'm coming to Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Port Chester, New York, Brooklyn, New York, Huntington, New York, Red Bank, New Jersey, Portland, Oregon, Boulder, Colorado, Denver, Colorado.

00:02:54Marc:Go to WTFPod.com slash calendar for all those dates.

00:02:59Marc:I just wanted to give you a little update on the weekend.

00:03:01Marc:But what I'm saying is,

00:03:03Marc:tonight my show premieres and i'm going to be on stage in north carolina if that's not commitment to the stand-up craft i'll be checking in i'll be dvr-ing it i i feel like a hypocrite i'm not i'm not going to watch my own show in real time because i got to do stand-up comedy but damn it what i want to tell you and i want to tell you this honestly

00:03:24Marc:I'm very happy with this season of my show.

00:03:27Marc:And look, I knew going into doing a TV show, I knew that the first year would be a little stiff.

00:03:32Marc:I need to get the hang of some stuff.

00:03:34Marc:I knew I was ready to do what I was doing and I was excited to do it, but I knew I had to learn some things.

00:03:39Marc:Second season was better.

00:03:40Marc:It was better in the writing.

00:03:41Marc:It was better in how we came together and wrote for the world.

00:03:44Marc:It was better.

00:03:45Marc:I was better as an actor.

00:03:46Marc:But this season, I really think that we nailed it.

00:03:49Marc:I think that the shows are hilarious.

00:03:51Marc:I think the guest stars are hilarious.

00:03:53Marc:The stories are great.

00:03:55Marc:Tonight's show features Elliot Gould as Elliot Gould.

00:03:59Marc:And the pitch of the show or the story is, I really want to get a talk show on television, but I need an agent.

00:04:07Marc:So Elliot refers me to his agent, who was played by Alex Rocco, who was Mo Green in The Godfather.

00:04:13Marc:The lovely Lucy Davis from the original British office plays my British manager based on my real British manager, kinda.

00:04:21Marc:But I guess what I'm saying is I'm very happy with the show.

00:04:25Marc:There's nothing that happens on the show that I didn't okay or didn't create or was not part of the creative process on.

00:04:32Marc:This is exactly the show I wanted to do and all my writers wanted to do.

00:04:36Marc:And I guess here at the onset of everything,

00:04:40Marc:um i'd like to thank those guys and thank ifc and fox studios and fox 21 and uh fox uh no that's enough foxes apostle jim serpico tom over there at uh apostle and avalon i'm not accepting an award but there's just so many people to thank uh you know what there's wardrobe people there's caterers there's craft servicers there's lighting guys i mean

00:05:04Marc:It's an amazing collaborative effort that brings a TV show into full realization, and I don't know.

00:05:11Marc:I'm just excited.

00:05:12Marc:Most importantly, my writing staff, Dave Anthony, Jerry Stahl, Michael Jamin, Sievert-Glarum, Sean Russell.

00:05:19Marc:We worked hard, and they all did a great job, and I think you're really going to enjoy this series.

00:05:24Marc:Okay?

00:05:25Marc:Greg Proops, I've known since I was a child in a way.

00:05:27Marc:He was there when I moved to San Francisco in 1992.

00:05:31Marc:He was there to see a chaotic, confused, boundaryless, little stoner mark.

00:05:36Marc:And he contributed.

00:05:37Marc:He contributed.

00:05:38Marc:His new book, The Smartest Book in the World, is available now wherever you get books.

00:05:42Marc:Let's talk to Greggy.

00:05:49What the fuck?

00:05:50What the fuck?

00:05:51Guest:What have you been doing?

00:05:53Guest:I'm on the road.

00:05:54Guest:I finished the book, and now we're getting ready to go out and do a book tour and junk, and I'm still doing stand-up and improv and podcast.

00:06:00Marc:The book's really fun, dude.

00:06:01Marc:Thank you, buddy.

00:06:01Marc:It's very specifically you.

00:06:03Marc:It actually functions as a reference book.

00:06:07Marc:I believe that if you take the lessons from this book, you will be at least the illusion of sophisticated and interesting.

00:06:14Guest:That's all I present Mark.

00:06:16Guest:The shallow illusion of sophisticated and interesting.

00:06:19Guest:My horizontal knowledge can only present a veneer of sophistication.

00:06:23Guest:Actual sophistication is up to you.

00:06:25Guest:And how's the podcast going?

00:06:26Guest:The podcast is going real well.

00:06:27Guest:We go all over and this year

00:06:30Guest:We're going to do London and Paris, I hope, for the book tour.

00:06:33Guest:But something might come up.

00:06:34Guest:But last year we did, I don't know, Helsinki and Stockholm, Amsterdam, Paris.

00:06:39Guest:You do a live podcast there?

00:06:41Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:06:42Guest:In Helsinki?

00:06:43Guest:Yeah.

00:06:43Guest:It was great.

00:06:44Guest:We went to the first annual Helsinki Comedy Festival or whatever it was.

00:06:48Guest:Really?

00:06:49Guest:Were you the only American there?

00:06:50Guest:Yep.

00:06:51Guest:How was it?

00:06:52Guest:Oh, Glenn Wall, but he's Canadian.

00:06:53Guest:Yeah, Glenn was one other North American.

00:06:55Marc:Glenn lives in the world.

00:06:56Guest:We did it in a rock and roll club in Helsinki, and we went in, and the sound guy's name was fantastically Nico, and I-K-K-O, right?

00:07:04Guest:Because that's the kind of names they have in Finland.

00:07:05Guest:And there was a rock band up there hammering through, like, a Tom Petty song.

00:07:09Guest:And they were all our age, right?

00:07:12Guest:No, come on.

00:07:12Guest:Like, they weren't kids.

00:07:13Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:07:14Guest:And they were hammering through it very poorly.

00:07:16Guest:And I went over to them, and I'm like, hey, fellas, how's it going?

00:07:18Guest:And they fronted me.

00:07:19Guest:Oh, really?

00:07:20Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:07:20Guest:No, wouldn't talk.

00:07:22Guest:Jennifer was like, look at this fucking dressing room, right?

00:07:25Guest:Because it was just, you know.

00:07:26Guest:Like, what?

00:07:26Guest:What, like just a shithole?

00:07:27Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:07:28Guest:It was a rock club in Finland.

00:07:30Guest:Classic rock club.

00:07:31Guest:I did it there and it was great fun.

00:07:32Guest:And of course I played the immigrant song because every Scandinavian country I go to, then I'm getting ready to go to Stockholm and a guy sends me an email and he says, when you get here, don't play the immigrant song because we're not really Vikings.

00:07:42Guest:So of course I played it immediately.

00:07:44Guest:And every time you play it in the Scandinavian countries, they love it.

00:07:47Guest:What, the Zeppelin song?

00:07:48Guest:Yeah.

00:07:49Guest:We come from the land of the ice and snow.

00:07:51Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:07:52Marc:And some one guy, no, no.

00:07:55Guest:Right, right.

00:07:55Guest:And he said, don't mention how good looking we are.

00:07:57Guest:We know we're good looking.

00:07:58Guest:And I read the email on the air.

00:08:00Guest:This was in where?

00:08:00Guest:That was in Stockholm.

00:08:03Guest:And I go, yeah, you guys are good looking.

00:08:05Guest:Ever been to Italy?

00:08:06Guest:I wouldn't get you high on yourself, Sweden.

00:08:08Marc:Yeah, but that's the opposite.

00:08:09Marc:That's like the other side of the good looking spectrum.

00:08:12Marc:Like I knew a guy who went to Sweden.

00:08:14Marc:He's like, you go into like a gas station.

00:08:16Marc:You're like, there's a supermodel working here.

00:08:18Guest:It's true though.

00:08:18Guest:It's true.

00:08:19Marc:And they're tall.

00:08:19Guest:yeah they're tall they're really tall and the Dutch are amazingly tall I remember at the airport in Amsterdam I go excuse me I want to go to the bathroom before we get in the cab and the urinal was this high I felt like I was a child you know like you had to wash your face right I was like oh my goodness splash splash yeah what is this it's a face bidet yeah they were so tall and all the Scandinavians are really tall

00:08:40Marc:I love that you do that international thing.

00:08:43Marc:I'm still sort of mildly nervous about travel.

00:08:46Guest:Oh, no, they love it.

00:08:46Guest:They love it.

00:08:47Guest:And there's always English speakers in every place.

00:08:48Guest:To be honest, Helsinki was good, but Stockholm was extraordinary because I did it in Norway, and they were all right, but I think they were a little more Who's Line-oriented.

00:08:55Guest:They knew me from Who's Line.

00:08:57Guest:But in Sweden, everyone seemed to really know about podcasts.

00:09:00Guest:We went into a coffee shop.

00:09:01Marc:Do you do any stand-up, though?

00:09:02Marc:Do you do stand-up and a podcast?

00:09:04Marc:Do you just consider the podcast stand-up?

00:09:05Marc:Do you just riff anyways?

00:09:06Marc:Do you riff in the theme?

00:09:07Guest:I won't go anywhere that I don't do a podcast, but I did stand-up in Helsinki as well.

00:09:12Guest:And in Sweden, no.

00:09:14Guest:I just did the podcast.

00:09:15Guest:And in Brussels, just the podcast.

00:09:18Guest:But I will do stand-up in those countries.

00:09:20Guest:They almost all speak English really well, but the Swedes speak it extraordinarily well.

00:09:25Marc:Well, yeah, I hear Finland is huge fans of, like, they're big Conan fans, so if you had any presence on that show.

00:09:30Marc:Like, I've always wanted to go, but I haven't gone.

00:09:32Marc:I want to go to the Scandinavian countries.

00:09:34Guest:It's a matter of making time, and of course, can you afford it?

00:09:37Guest:Because these things don't pay for themselves.

00:09:39Guest:The money they make is nominal or whatever.

00:09:42Guest:So I do it to have fun and everything.

00:09:43Guest:And eat fish?

00:09:44Guest:I eat fish.

00:09:45Guest:And eat fish.

00:09:46Guest:Oh my God, the seafood is to die.

00:09:48Guest:Is it?

00:09:49Guest:Yeah.

00:09:50Guest:It has to be.

00:09:53Guest:We were in Oslo, and we ordered shrimp, and I'm like, where are the shrimp from?

00:09:58Guest:And she's like, Greenland.

00:09:59Guest:We don't have any more.

00:09:59Guest:Okay.

00:10:00Guest:No more?

00:10:01Guest:Yeah, but it was like buckets of shrimp, you know.

00:10:03Guest:Yeah.

00:10:04Guest:And Sweden, the food was tremendous in Sweden.

00:10:07Guest:It's like a culinary explosion there.

00:10:09Guest:Because we go into this coffee shop, there was a real old-fashioned one that Jennifer found, where everyone drinks coffee with sandwiches.

00:10:14Guest:Like, that's a big thing to them.

00:10:15Guest:Gotta have the sandwich.

00:10:15Guest:So they drink coffee with food, which I rarely do, unless it's breakfast.

00:10:19Guest:Right, yeah.

00:10:19Guest:And the waiter or the guy who ran the place with his mother, his mother didn't speak a word of English.

00:10:24Guest:And he goes, Greg Proops.

00:10:26Guest:And I'm like, hey, dude.

00:10:27Guest:And he goes, you've been on Joe Rogan's show.

00:10:30Guest:He goes, I love Joe Rogan.

00:10:32Guest:So I texted Rogan.

00:10:33Guest:I'm like, I'm in Stockholm and they love you.

00:10:36Guest:And of course, he went over and did it.

00:10:37Guest:He went over and did a concert in Stockholm and sold it out and everything.

00:10:41Marc:Oh, it's interesting where, you know, who resonates and why and how it happens.

00:10:47Marc:Jennifer's like, Joe Rogan?

00:10:48Guest:Out of nowhere.

00:10:49Guest:And he goes, I love wrestling.

00:10:50Guest:I love the, what is it he loves?

00:10:52Marc:The fighting.

00:10:53Guest:Yeah, the fighting.

00:10:54Marc:Ultimate fighting.

00:10:55Marc:UFC, is that what it's called?

00:10:56Marc:I'm not.

00:10:57Marc:No, me neither.

00:10:58Marc:But yeah, people love Rogan.

00:11:00Marc:He's got a big reach.

00:11:01Marc:I guess we all do.

00:11:02Marc:I'd like to go and see what's out there for me.

00:11:05Guest:You should, Betty.

00:11:06Guest:And I guarantee you if you... Well, you've been to Lending before.

00:11:08Guest:I have for two weeks.

00:11:09Guest:Just once.

00:11:10Marc:Just once.

00:11:10Marc:Yeah, for two weeks.

00:11:11Marc:And it was okay.

00:11:12Marc:I think it would be better now.

00:11:13Marc:Yeah, of course it would.

00:11:14Marc:Like when I went, I was on the set of another show.

00:11:17Marc:Right.

00:11:18Marc:You know, I did a two-week run on the set of... I can't remember.

00:11:21Marc:It wasn't a late... Were you in front of an office set or something?

00:11:25Marc:No, it was like a dirty loft set.

00:11:27Guest:Yeah, sure.

00:11:28Marc:But it was...

00:11:29Marc:La Boheme.

00:11:30Marc:It was an interpretation, a modern interpretation of La Boheme, I think.

00:11:34Marc:Does that make sense?

00:11:35Marc:Yes.

00:11:36Marc:You know, yeah.

00:11:37Marc:So that was, it was good.

00:11:39Marc:I need to go back.

00:11:40Marc:People want me to go back.

00:11:41Guest:Yeah, they do.

00:11:41Marc:So when you wrote the book, it's named for your podcast, which is smart.

00:11:46Marc:So it's almost a companion.

00:11:47Marc:All branding.

00:11:48Marc:It's a companion book.

00:11:49Marc:It is.

00:11:49Marc:Yes.

00:11:49Marc:It's a companion.

00:11:50Marc:But what were you like?

00:11:52Marc:You just thought like everything proves, you know, what is the context of my mind and what is important to me?

00:11:58Marc:And then you put that in there.

00:11:59Marc:That was it.

00:12:00Marc:That was pretty much.

00:12:01Guest:I mean, I went in for a pitch meeting a couple of years ago.

00:12:04Guest:That's how long it takes.

00:12:05Guest:As you know, the goalposts keep getting moved.

00:12:08Guest:Yeah.

00:12:08Guest:And I pitched this and this and that.

00:12:10Guest:And then, of course, it all changed.

00:12:11Guest:You know, then you end up writing it.

00:12:12Guest:And as things go on, my editor would give me an idea for something or Jennifer would give me an idea for something.

00:12:17Guest:Who's your guy?

00:12:18Guest:Matthew Benjamin, Simon & Schuster.

00:12:20Marc:Yeah, I met that guy.

00:12:20Guest:Yeah, and he's really cute.

00:12:23Guest:I just met with him.

00:12:25Guest:Yeah, he's a good guy.

00:12:26Guest:He's really smart, and he follows all this man.

00:12:28Guest:The reason I even got the book was because he's a fan of the podcast.

00:12:32Guest:So he got me into the meeting, and I got in there, and I said, oh, it'll be about this, and it'll have this, and feminism, this, that, and baseball, blah, blah, blah.

00:12:40Guest:And then, of course, you end up writing it, and a couple of the best things in it that I think are the funniest things weren't my idea.

00:12:49Guest:Like what?

00:12:49Guest:That's, I think, where the magic...

00:12:50Guest:Of an editor goes.

00:12:51Guest:Of everything, yeah.

00:12:54Guest:One was, I talk about art theft on my podcast from time to time.

00:12:58Guest:I'd like to steal this piece of art.

00:13:00Guest:And then, of course, you always have to give a caveat because you know how people are.

00:13:02Guest:Like, don't really steal art.

00:13:04Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:05Guest:And so Matthew said to me- Please, Greg.

00:13:07Guest:Right.

00:13:07Guest:Why don't you do a chapter called 10 Pieces of Art I Wish I Had the Balls to Steal?

00:13:12Guest:Uh-huh.

00:13:12Guest:So I did, and it's one of my favorite chapters, and then I was working in Montreal last year at the festival where I saw you, and I was working over at a place called the... Are you about to tell me you stole a piece of art?

00:13:24Guest:No, it would not have been great.

00:13:26Guest:The best part would have been if I'd said, yes, I went to the Marmotown Museum, and I took a... I have a very small Degas on me right now.

00:13:32Guest:It's in my bag.

00:13:32Guest:Yeah, I have a Brock.

00:13:33Guest:Look.

00:13:34Guest:I have an etching, yeah.

00:13:35Guest:Yeah.

00:13:35Guest:And the cat, Jeremy, who runs the club I played at in Montreal, said, I told him about the book.

00:13:41Guest:And he goes, really?

00:13:42Guest:And I go, yeah, this one chapter I'm doing is about art I'd like to steal.

00:13:44Guest:And he goes, what about the paintings of George W. Bush?

00:13:47Guest:And so I put it in.

00:13:48Guest:The paintings of George Bush?

00:13:50Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:51Marc:I've seen some of those paintings.

00:13:52Guest:Right.

00:13:52Guest:And I said, I forget what I say in the book, something like, he's challenging Art Brute because Art Brute is usually done by what they call outsiders, meaning the mentally defective or whatever.

00:14:01Guest:Yeah.

00:14:01Guest:And it's a scheme on how we steal his paintings.

00:14:04Guest:You go to Dick Cheney's house dressed as a color guard, and then we run in and grab it off the refrigerator.

00:14:09Marc:I'm sure if you were pleasant and you showed up at his house, he'd give you one.

00:14:14Marc:Could I have the one of Putin?

00:14:15Marc:Yeah.

00:14:17Guest:The one who looked into his eyes and didn't even trust him.

00:14:19Marc:All you'd have to do is sit on the couch and talk baseball with him for an hour.

00:14:22Guest:You could walk with a painting easy.

00:14:24Guest:Hell, that guy's nice.

00:14:24Guest:I'm going to give him a couple of those.

00:14:26Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:14:27Guest:Here's one I did to Margaret Thatcher.

00:14:28Guest:I never met her.

00:14:30Guest:I think I did.

00:14:31Marc:You got the 10 smartest drugs in the world.

00:14:34Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:14:35Guest:There's all those lists.

00:14:36Guest:And all the baseball teams were not something I thought of.

00:14:39Guest:As you know, mistakes are...

00:14:41Guest:what Leonard Cohen said, you know, cracks are where the light shines through.

00:14:46Guest:Every time I make a mistake, I try to amplify it because I find like, you know, the stuff you think of isn't as funny as the stuff that just happens and then you jump on it.

00:14:55Guest:And I didn't make up baseball teams, but people started getting up at the show and going, who's your 10 greatest, who's the all-time baseball team of Kings and Queens of England?

00:15:04Guest:who's the all-time baseball team of roman embers oh okay so i would just do them off the top of my head so they all ended up in the book right i kept the lists from the show because i would write them down and you're just ripping them yeah and like uh my friend nick jones in england who i've worked with him we made i know that guy you know thank you we made him didn't i meet him wasn't he here ever we made it we made a documentary on bob hope last year and and i've done a lot of work with him but he he was at a show and and a guy got up and went

00:15:29Guest:here's your old time kings and queens of england i'm doing mc jagger now yeah baseball team and so i did it and then after the show he came up and he went oh i was kind of worried about you for that one i go i know i know enough kings and queens of england and you did yeah it was ethel you know ethel read the unready and uh edward the confessor and you know where do

00:15:46Marc:get this like how do you maintain this encyclopedic knowledge did you like again it's weird though because you're a real baseball fan right oh yeah and that's the one that's the the left field for greg proofs is like you know you don't you don't seem like a sports guy but you are no i love baseball because you grew up with it yeah mostly mostly baseball i like track and field as well uh football i could i go back but did you go to college yeah but i never graduated

00:16:10Guest:I don't think you need to graduate.

00:16:11Marc:Did you graduate?

00:16:12Marc:I did, but it took a long time.

00:16:13Marc:But it doesn't matter.

00:16:14Marc:You're right.

00:16:14Marc:You don't need to do anything.

00:16:15Marc:But, like, the idea that you could just name off, what, 12 kings and queens of England.

00:16:22Marc:Like, I imagine if I sat and thought about it, maybe I could.

00:16:25Marc:No, you would.

00:16:26Marc:But I don't.

00:16:27Guest:What compels you to know that?

00:16:29Guest:It's the putting them in the positions in the field and then giving a justification for why they're playing the position they're playing.

00:16:34Guest:That's the tough part.

00:16:35Guest:About the eighth or ninth one, I was like, okay.

00:16:37Guest:Okay.

00:16:38Guest:But what's your specific interest?

00:16:40Guest:Why do you know that?

00:16:41Guest:I don't know.

00:16:41Guest:I know a little about a lot of things.

00:16:45Guest:I don't know a lot about a little things.

00:16:47Guest:I don't have in-depth knowledge of anything.

00:16:48Guest:My knowledge of science and biology and physics and things like that.

00:16:53Guest:Numbers.

00:16:54Guest:Absolutely.

00:16:55Guest:Completely useless.

00:16:57Guest:Every once in a while I get caught out because someone will ask me a science question.

00:16:59Guest:I'm like, oh.

00:16:59Marc:So nothing to do with planets?

00:17:02Guest:Oh, no, no.

00:17:03Guest:Or math.

00:17:03Guest:I can't do math.

00:17:04Guest:Yeah, me neither.

00:17:05Guest:Geometry, algebra.

00:17:06Guest:I gave that up at like 14.

00:17:08Marc:So the stuff you can kind of bullshit your way through.

00:17:10Marc:Precisely.

00:17:11Guest:Which is what the book is.

00:17:12Guest:It should have been called The Stuff I Can Kind of Bullshit My Way Through.

00:17:15Guest:It would have been a more honest appraisal.

00:17:17Guest:I think it's called a clamorous compendium or something.

00:17:19Guest:I gave it some, I gave it some alliterative nonsense to make it sound, you know.

00:17:24Marc:No, but it's great.

00:17:25Marc:It's great because like, you know, like I like books where you can just sort of, even in a good memoir, if you can be passionate about something, I mean, there's a lot of stuff in here is shit you like.

00:17:34Marc:Yeah.

00:17:35Marc:It's just stuff like, well, that's good.

00:17:36Marc:Right.

00:17:36Marc:And there's always going to be some idiots who are like, but what about, and like, I don't know that guy.

00:17:39Marc:It's not my responsibility to know all of them.

00:17:41Marc:This is the one I like.

00:17:42Guest:Shut the fuck up.

00:17:43Guest:That's exactly right.

00:17:44Guest:And I was required to write an afterword to fill some pages because the pagination didn't fill out.

00:17:48Guest:You know how these book things work.

00:17:50Guest:You finish the thing, you're like, oh, thank the fuck I finished it.

00:17:52Guest:And then I get a call, we need like five more pages.

00:17:55Guest:So can you write an afterword?

00:17:57Guest:So I wrote, in the next book, it will be more stuff that you like instead of the shit that I like.

00:18:03Guest:Oh, man.

00:18:06Guest:You got vinyl?

00:18:07Guest:I made an album in San Francisco over New Year's week.

00:18:11Guest:And that one's going to come out on vinyl probably in the summer, but also on download and everything else.

00:18:16Guest:You got to do it the way.

00:18:17Guest:But I wanted to do some vinyl ones as well.

00:18:19Guest:And we're in the process of like trying to design the cover and jazz like that.

00:18:23Guest:And I did a long bit on the Giants and the new album.

00:18:26Guest:because the giants have won three world series but i mostly it's an impression of bruce bocce the manager yeah which i hope works for everyone and so it's not too baseball intensive because bruce bocce talks like you remember that bear cartoon bearer talk like this yeah yeah yeah that's what bruce bocce talks like it's right it just turned into a surreal you know angel began's out in center field you want to give him a chance gonna it turns out gregor blanco had buried a goat out in the bullpen a couple years ago we really couldn't believe how tender it was and i don't know

00:18:51Guest:Hunter Pence made a kill shake the other day that put us back on our heels.

00:18:55Guest:It's nonsense.

00:18:56Guest:It's just nonsense.

00:18:58Guest:That's what the album is.

00:18:59Guest:It was killing?

00:19:00Guest:It was San Francisco.

00:19:01Guest:All you have to do is go, Giants.

00:19:04Guest:When you walk on and the place goes crazy.

00:19:05Guest:I was up there.

00:19:07Guest:Do you miss it?

00:19:09Guest:No, because I'm up four or five times a year.

00:19:10Guest:I've already been up like three times this year.

00:19:12Marc:Do you miss living there?

00:19:13Guest:I do, but I don't think I could afford it anymore.

00:19:15Marc:Really?

00:19:16Guest:Well, I mean, say we sold our cribs in L.A.

00:19:19Guest:and you wanted to go up and buy a place in San Francisco.

00:19:21Guest:Where are you going to live?

00:19:22Guest:Yeah.

00:19:23Guest:You're not going to live in San Francisco unless you live in Visitation Valley or Hunter's Point, and even then those places have gotten cheat sheet.

00:19:30Marc:So it's crazy.

00:19:31Guest:Well, I don't want to live in Cupertino or Hercules or whatever.

00:19:34Guest:I know you probably couldn't live in Cupertino because there's so much IT going on there.

00:19:38Guest:Yeah.

00:19:38Guest:The prices have gone through the roof.

00:19:39Guest:I do miss that part because...

00:19:42Guest:I love how not showbiz San Francisco is.

00:19:46Marc:There was something great about waking up in San Francisco.

00:19:49Marc:Yeah.

00:19:49Marc:Like, you know, I like waking up here, but there was a weird kind of fog and crispness to it.

00:19:55Marc:And you just wake up.

00:19:56Marc:But that was back in the day where I'm like, I had nothing to do.

00:19:59Marc:Right.

00:19:59Marc:Like, you know, I wake up and be like, I guess I'll walk over to Valencia and go to Muddy Waters and get a pint of coffee.

00:20:06Guest:Right.

00:20:06Guest:Oh, no, I'm going to go to the horseshoe today.

00:20:08Guest:Right.

00:20:09Guest:Or I'll go get a burrito for three hours.

00:20:10Guest:Sure.

00:20:11Guest:Or go bullshit with my friends for the rest of the day.

00:20:14Marc:And sit in that coffee shop until someone I know walks in.

00:20:16Marc:Right, right.

00:20:17Marc:And then we'll go have a day together.

00:20:18Guest:And then see what they're doing.

00:20:20Guest:Yeah.

00:20:20Guest:Those were the days when you didn't have stuff to do all day.

00:20:24Marc:And you'd do the Bennett show and you'd be fucked up for hours.

00:20:26Guest:Right, right.

00:20:27Marc:The whole day was fucked.

00:20:28Marc:Yeah.

00:20:29Guest:Oh, do you ever talk to him?

00:20:30Guest:Yeah.

00:20:30Guest:I emailed him, and I follow him on Facebook and stuff.

00:20:34Guest:He's doing good.

00:20:35Guest:I did a show with him, I think, last year.

00:20:37Guest:He's not on a serious radio show anymore.

00:20:40Guest:He's not?

00:20:41Guest:No, he was doing a podcast of his own, so I did it with him.

00:20:44Guest:Really?

00:20:44Guest:I always liked Alex, and he did so much for us when we were in San Francisco.

00:20:49Marc:I came in a little late.

00:20:50Marc:You know, like, you know, I remember the first time I met you too.

00:20:53Marc:But I came in a little late to Alex.

00:20:56Marc:By the time I got to Alex Bennett, it was pretty much, you know, he'd interview guests and then complain about ailments.

00:21:00Guest:I was going to say, then he'd talk about his health for half a fucking hour.

00:21:05Guest:You know, I can't sleep anymore because I've got a creeping yick inside my lower colonic.

00:21:11Guest:Yeah, and then he'd ask you, like, do you ever get the sweaty, like, the back of your neck?

00:21:16Marc:I'm not 60.

00:21:17No.

00:21:17Marc:Not yet.

00:21:18Marc:You know, you'd sit there and watch him interview a celebrity that you'd get through.

00:21:21Marc:And then you'd have to just sort of sit there with three other comics listening and complain about his colon.

00:21:26Guest:Or watch him eat a bagel for half an hour.

00:21:28Guest:Or drink a Diet Coke.

00:21:29Guest:I was thinking about the other day, though.

00:21:31Guest:All the celebrities I met on his show.

00:21:33Guest:Agnista Holland, the director.

00:21:35Guest:Dennis Farina.

00:21:36Guest:Eric Stoltz.

00:21:38Guest:I think of all these movie stars and directors that they would just casually come by.

00:21:42Marc:Well, that was sort of the end of...

00:21:45Marc:When I got there, the end of the morning radio thing.

00:21:48Marc:But yeah, I can't remember who I met, but I remember I got into a little bit of trouble.

00:21:52Marc:I was always sort of a dick then.

00:21:54Marc:First time I met you was in New York, though, at the Westway Diner, around the corner from the original improv.

00:21:59Marc:I was with some other comics, and I was a dick to you.

00:22:02Marc:I was like, yeah, doing the Tom Kenny thing, wearing glasses and the hair.

00:22:06Guest:I've seen that before.

00:22:07Marc:You're doing Tom Kenny's look, aren't you?

00:22:09Marc:I was like that guy.

00:22:10Marc:And you were like, no, I don't.

00:22:13Marc:Why is this?

00:22:14Guest:I was a dick then too, though.

00:22:16Guest:When I think about how I acted in my 30s and even into my 40s, I was a little too, I remember getting, I was in like Edinburgh and Provenza was there, who of course we're buddies with and I've known Provenza for 100 years.

00:22:27Guest:And what was that show used to do?

00:22:29Guest:Comics only or for comics?

00:22:31Marc:It's just so weird with Provenza.

00:22:32Marc:You could be doing like a one-nighter, you know, outside of Reno.

00:22:36Guest:Yeah.

00:22:36Guest:And Provenza's like, hey, we're doing a thing around the corner.

00:22:38Guest:Yeah, right.

00:22:39Guest:There we are.

00:22:39Marc:Internationally, you could be in Helsinki.

00:22:42Marc:Like, what's Provenza doing here?

00:22:43Guest:Right.

00:22:44Guest:No, he's always everywhere.

00:22:45Guest:I know.

00:22:45Guest:And this was, you know, 20-some-odd years ago.

00:22:48Guest:And they go, him and his producer or whatever go, oh, we wanted to get you on the show on the comics only, which was on, like,

00:22:54Guest:The Ha Channel?

00:22:55Guest:Yeah, right.

00:22:56Guest:Maybe Comedy Central when it first started.

00:22:58Guest:What was it?

00:22:58Marc:It was Comedy Channel.

00:23:00Marc:Comedy Channel.

00:23:01Marc:Maybe it was called then.

00:23:02Guest:Right.

00:23:03Guest:And I went, no, you didn't.

00:23:06Guest:You didn't try to get me because I'm easily fucking available.

00:23:09Guest:You can call my fucking number anytime you like.

00:23:11Guest:I'm sitting by the goddamn phone.

00:23:13Guest:I don't remember getting a call from you, so why are you bullshitting me now?

00:23:16Guest:And I fucked.

00:23:16Guest:and they both like, what the fuck?

00:23:18Guest:Their eyes got all big.

00:23:20Guest:And I thought, I'd never do that now.

00:23:21Guest:Now I would be the nice person to go, that's terrific, thank you.

00:23:25Guest:Instead, I contested it.

00:23:27Guest:Just slighted.

00:23:27Guest:Oh, no, no, right.

00:23:28Guest:I've been waiting.

00:23:29Guest:How dare you tell me you tried to get me on the show?

00:23:32Guest:Liar!

00:23:33Yeah, exactly.

00:23:33Guest:And there's no point in it.

00:23:36Guest:I'm all for honesty, but there's a line between honesty and dickitude.

00:23:40Guest:Sure.

00:23:41Marc:Yeah, honesty used as a weapon out of your own fear.

00:23:45Guest:He's a very good comic and he still plays.

00:23:46Guest:And I played with him in Oregon years ago when I was playing with him in San Francisco.

00:23:50Guest:And he goes, you remember we played together in Portland?

00:23:53Guest:And I go, yeah.

00:23:54Guest:And he goes, do you remember what you said to me?

00:23:56Guest:And I went, no, what did I say?

00:23:59Guest:And he went, you said, you're a fucking hacker.

00:24:01Guest:And I don't know what the fuck you're doing up there, but you need to change your shit around.

00:24:05Guest:And I went, oh, my God, did I really say that to anyone?

00:24:08Guest:You were right.

00:24:08Guest:And I did change my shit around.

00:24:10Guest:And I was like, oh, thank God, because I thought the next one was going to be in here.

00:24:15Marc:Just karate chop me.

00:24:16Marc:He was probably middling for you.

00:24:17Marc:Yeah, he was literally.

00:24:18Marc:And he was putting it up your ass.

00:24:19Marc:Yeah.

00:24:19Marc:And you're like, oh, fuck it.

00:24:20Marc:Like, by the third day, you're like, you know what?

00:24:22Marc:Yeah.

00:24:22Marc:Oh, no.

00:24:23Marc:Oh, no.

00:24:23Marc:Enough of your Ricky Lake routine or whatever it was.

00:24:26Guest:Yeah, right, right.

00:24:26Guest:I laid into him for something.

00:24:27Marc:Whatever he was killing.

00:24:28Marc:Right.

00:24:28Marc:Whatever he was closing with and making it hard for you for the first 10 minutes.

00:24:31Guest:Yeah.

00:24:32Guest:I laid into him for it.

00:24:33Guest:And I thought, I'd never do that again.

00:24:35Guest:And, you know, you work with some middle acts.

00:24:37Guest:I'm sure you do, too, occasionally.

00:24:39Guest:That...

00:24:39Guest:You know, they could use a little more focus or maybe they talk about masturbating for like 30 minutes.

00:24:44Marc:Years ago, I worked with a Latino middle act who closed with like, and let's thank, you know, God bless the firefighters.

00:24:50Guest:Oh, no.

00:24:51Marc:Like it was a 9-11 piece.

00:24:53Guest:Right, right, right.

00:24:54Guest:And like they're standing ovation.

00:24:55Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:56Guest:People are crying.

00:24:57Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:58Guest:And now, the dissident Jew.

00:25:00Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:25:00Marc:Exactly.

00:25:01Guest:He will disagree with everything you hold dear.

00:25:04Guest:He'll be burning the flag with a menorah.

00:25:06Marc:Oh, it's brutal.

00:25:07Guest:Oh, God.

00:25:08Guest:I hate it.

00:25:08Guest:The only two things I object to, because people go, do you care who opens for you?

00:25:11Guest:And I'm always like, no, unless racism and misogyny.

00:25:15Guest:I remember a guy opening for me at Irvine, and he did 20 minutes on how much he hated Iranians.

00:25:20Guest:And I was like, this is horrible.

00:25:23Guest:And then you get on, the crowd's a lynch mob.

00:25:25Marc:Well, the weird thing about like this whole, there's this weird kind of this idea that, you know, political correctness or that there's some sort of wave of censorship.

00:25:34Marc:Yeah, right.

00:25:34Marc:But the weird thing is like, no, there isn't.

00:25:36Marc:You can say whatever you want.

00:25:37Marc:Of course.

00:25:37Marc:Then you just have to accept the people that you're going to surround yourself with.

00:25:41Marc:Yeah.

00:25:41Marc:You can go say that to those people and you can all be like, why can't we say this?

00:25:45Marc:You can.

00:25:46Marc:But not, you know, to the other people who are decent moral people, they're going to be like, we don't really like those people.

00:25:52Marc:No.

00:25:52Marc:That's all.

00:25:53Guest:No, there's no.

00:25:54Guest:I love that people go that, you know, the PC police, they prescribe what you can say.

00:25:58Guest:Where?

00:25:58Guest:No, they don't.

00:26:00Guest:It's simple, common decency.

00:26:01Guest:If you want to say something insulting about a race, that's on you.

00:26:04Guest:Right.

00:26:04Guest:That's on you.

00:26:05Marc:And, you know, you take responsibility for it or find people that enjoy that kind of thing.

00:26:09Marc:Right.

00:26:09Marc:And we'll know where you are.

00:26:11Marc:Yeah.

00:26:11Marc:And they often do.

00:26:12Guest:Yeah.

00:26:12Guest:Please identify yourselves.

00:26:13Guest:And please don't come to my show.

00:26:15Guest:Please do not come to my show.

00:26:18Guest:I did one in Chicago, and I'm sure you let people email you.

00:26:22Guest:I did one in Chicago.

00:26:23Guest:It was last year, 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's March for Jobs and Freedom.

00:26:30Guest:So I played a little of his speech, and I talked about Martin Luther King.

00:26:32Guest:I thought the show went pretty well.

00:26:33Guest:There was a couple hundred people.

00:26:34Guest:It was a podcast.

00:26:35Guest:Yeah, the podcast.

00:26:36Guest:and a guy wrote me afterward and he wrote i didn't like your show i went to it and all you talked about was politics and i didn't agree with what you said and i want my money back and i wrote him back and i said your hostile tone is not conducive to discourse and i said and secondly you don't get to ask for your money back after the show if you have an issue that's a five minute you know warning yeah if within the first five minutes if you're not digging it walk right out to the box office and that's demand your money back because this commie bastard right yeah

00:27:01Guest:You don't sit through two hours with the crowd cheering and then go, you know what?

00:27:05Guest:I took exceptional.

00:27:06Guest:And I thought, wait a minute.

00:27:07Guest:That was the show I talked about Martin Luther King.

00:27:09Guest:So you were angry that we talked about I Have a Dream?

00:27:13Guest:And it was like, yes, he was.

00:27:14Guest:Did you go back and forth with him?

00:27:15Guest:No, no, no, no.

00:27:16Guest:He didn't write me back after that.

00:27:17Marc:But where's the entitlement to that?

00:27:19Marc:That's what I mean.

00:27:21Marc:You disagree with somebody.

00:27:24Guest:Walk away.

00:27:25Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:27:25Guest:I want my money back for what you put in my head.

00:27:27Guest:I disagree with almost everything everyone says.

00:27:29Guest:Yeah.

00:27:29Guest:So I can't spend the day fuming about it.

00:27:32Guest:That's fucking bizarre, dude.

00:27:33Guest:I know.

00:27:34Guest:Where's the next big trip?

00:27:35Guest:I'm going to be all around the country in May.

00:27:38Guest:Seattle, Portland, Philly, Chicago.

00:27:41Guest:Exciting.

00:27:42Guest:LA, San Francisco, da, da, da.

00:27:43Guest:Well, awesome, man.

00:27:44Guest:I wish you the best of luck.

00:27:45Guest:Thank you, brother.

00:27:45Guest:And thank you for reading the book.

00:27:46Guest:I really appreciate it.

00:27:47Guest:Yeah, it's good to see you.

00:27:48Guest:Thank you.

00:27:53Marc:So, Greg Proops.

00:27:55Marc:I know Greg from San Francisco.

00:27:56Marc:Now, when I moved to San Francisco, I was sort of at the end of one of many of the ropes that I'd gotten.

00:28:02Marc:Like, I would swing from rope to rope and then eventually work myself to the end of those ropes and have to get a weird momentum going where, you know, it was either fall into the pit or get to the next rope and climb up.

00:28:15Marc:And one of the ends of those ropes was San Francisco back in the early 90s when I moved there.

00:28:20Marc:And I met Proops and a bunch of other people.

00:28:23Marc:And I have very little recollection of what I really did there.

00:28:27Marc:I know I was doing comedy and I was wandering around.

00:28:30Marc:I was smoking weed.

00:28:32Marc:uh it was before i got sober i tried to get sober then i was not so smoking a lot of weed wandering around drinking pint-sized cups of coffee with brown sugar in them at the horseshoe hanging out the naked eye video store with the hyperactive steve walking around the lower hate walking around the mission eating burritos talking thinking writing things down stealing my roommate's valiums after doing too much coke

00:28:57Marc:one day, and then causing trouble there.

00:29:00Marc:I was living there with the woman that became my first wife, and we were living with another couple.

00:29:05Marc:He had a gun in the house, which was a problem for the woman I was living with.

00:29:09Marc:I don't know that I thought about it that much.

00:29:11Marc:I played his guitar once with stinky food on my hands, and that caused trouble.

00:29:18Marc:I was not cut out for roommates.

00:29:21Marc:Oh, boy.

00:29:22Marc:San Francisco.

00:29:23Marc:Anyways, didn't have a pot to piss in.

00:29:27Marc:Wander around high, wandering around high, trying to figure out how to get some traction in the comedy game.

00:29:34Marc:And then last Sunday night, for those of you who were there, Mother's Day, Mother's Day night, I played Symphony Hall, Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco for 1,900 people and change.

00:29:49Marc:There was over 1,900 people there.

00:29:51Marc:in a room that was designed to accommodate symphonies, I stood alone on that stage and looked out.

00:30:00Marc:And man, what a fucking trip that was.

00:30:03Marc:I'd never played a room that acoustically perfect and that big with that many balconies.

00:30:08Marc:I don't know that I was nervous, but there were moments where I felt very alone up there and I was talking to the people.

00:30:15Marc:And it's amazing to be in a hall that's acoustically perfect.

00:30:19Marc:where you can just talk and people can hear you.

00:30:22Marc:I got off the mic a couple of times on purpose just to play with the acoustics of the room.

00:30:27Marc:There's a very up and down set.

00:30:28Marc:There was moments where I thought it was amazing and I was connecting and everyone was laughing.

00:30:32Marc:Then there were moments where people were just listening.

00:30:34Marc:Then there were moments where I thought I wasn't connecting.

00:30:36Marc:And so usually if I go in and out like that or I feel like I'm not connecting, I'll do a longer show.

00:30:41Marc:So in the middle of the set, it's somewhere two thirds of the way through.

00:30:44Marc:I just broke into a Q&A.

00:30:45Marc:We got some riffing going.

00:30:47Marc:Then I closed the show.

00:30:48Marc:It was...

00:30:49Marc:Spectacular, and I appreciate the standing ovation.

00:30:51Marc:I appreciate everyone who came back.

00:30:53Marc:It was the highlight of my life, one of them.

00:30:56Marc:From walking around that city, nowhere to go, not knowing what the hell I was going to do with my life, to returning there at Symphony Hall was, I appreciate it.

00:31:09Marc:I can tell you that.

00:31:11Marc:It is not lost on me, and I am grateful for it.

00:31:14Marc:All right, so Richard Lewis came by.

00:31:16Marc:His book, Reflections from Hell, Richard Lewis's Guide on How Not to Live, is available now in the same places you can get Greggie's book at bookstores or online where you get books, okay?

00:31:28Marc:And I love Richard Lewis.

00:31:29Marc:He was a hero of mine and remains a hero of mine.

00:31:32Marc:One of the great stand-up comedians.

00:31:34Marc:Let's talk to Richard Lewis.

00:31:44Marc:But, you know, I'm nervous because, like, you know, now how do I make that, you know, me?

00:31:50Marc:You know, that impulse to try to get larger, which I don't want to do.

00:31:54Guest:What do you mean larger?

00:31:55Guest:In what way?

00:31:56Marc:Well, I mean, I like it to be intimate.

00:31:57Marc:I like to have the freedom of mind.

00:31:58Marc:And sometimes when you're at theater, you know, you've got to figure out that pacing.

00:32:01Marc:Well, it's not the garden.

00:32:03Marc:No, it's like 800, 900 people.

00:32:04Marc:Those are great.

00:32:05Marc:You can just...

00:32:06Marc:It's my first time doing it.

00:32:07Marc:First time.

00:32:08Marc:Get out of here.

00:32:08Marc:No.

00:32:09Marc:First time doing a tour that's mostly like that.

00:32:12Marc:Oh.

00:32:12Marc:Usually it's clubs.

00:32:13Guest:It'll blow you away.

00:32:14Guest:Yeah?

00:32:18Guest:Yeah.

00:32:19Guest:All right.

00:32:21Guest:I thought you would be ready for Carnegie Hall.

00:32:23Marc:I'm ready.

00:32:24Marc:I'm ready.

00:32:25Marc:But this is what I do.

00:32:26Marc:This is my preparation.

00:32:27Marc:Are you going to tell me that before... Are you taping this shit?

00:32:30Marc:Yeah.

00:32:30Marc:Are you telling me that before you do 100, 900 seats, you're like, this is great.

00:32:34Marc:I can't wait to get out there.

00:32:36Guest:What are you asking me again?

00:32:37Guest:The limo driver got me so fucked up.

00:32:40Guest:You know what he kept saying?

00:32:41Guest:It was like a sitcom.

00:32:43Guest:He kept saying, you know why I can't find it?

00:32:45Guest:I go, why is that, Talbert?

00:32:46Guest:Talbert, by the way, was the wolf man's fucking name.

00:32:49Guest:Is that his name, Talbert?

00:32:49Guest:Talbert.

00:32:50Guest:Okay.

00:32:51Guest:He says, because I'm a professional.

00:32:52Guest:Yeah.

00:32:53Guest:I got into the car 45 minutes early.

00:32:56Guest:Yeah.

00:32:57Guest:And he was way, and he was driving while holding the MapQuest.

00:33:02Guest:Okay.

00:33:02Guest:in a car that was 25 years old.

00:33:05Guest:I'm sitting on gum, the spinners spit out.

00:33:07Guest:And he kept saying, I'm a professional.

00:33:11Guest:And then when he picked me up, he says, Mr. Lewis, I'm a big fan.

00:33:15Guest:But, you know, you want to hear music?

00:33:16Guest:And I said, you know, I'm in a series now and I'm going over a scene for tomorrow.

00:33:20Guest:He goes, oh, I won't bother you.

00:33:22Guest:Hey, listen, I just, one thing.

00:33:23Guest:I picked up this comedian, you know, people our age would know him.

00:33:27Guest:Jack Carter used to be on the outside.

00:33:29Guest:Yeah, I know who he is.

00:33:30Guest:And that was then nonstop all the way to finding your house, an hour and 40 minutes of his stories.

00:33:36Guest:I just heard your whole fucking life story while you're driving like a mental patient holding MapQuest and talking about your neighborhood, which I like.

00:33:45Guest:It's a hip neighborhood, even though all the cafes are closed.

00:33:48Guest:Where?

00:33:48Guest:Here?

00:33:49Guest:I looked around down the two streets.

00:33:51Guest:Every cafe had names like the old, like, Bah and Coo and Glee and Boom and Bang.

00:33:56Guest:One.

00:33:57Guest:One bar.

00:33:57Guest:I see fences.

00:33:58Guest:No, bar was open.

00:34:00Guest:Bar's open.

00:34:01Guest:But be and come and share is closed.

00:34:05Guest:I know.

00:34:05Guest:They don't open until later.

00:34:06Guest:They do?

00:34:08Guest:No, there was fences around it and condemned.

00:34:10Guest:Oh, geez.

00:34:10Guest:Do you eat a condemned property?

00:34:12Guest:Well, no, that's hip now.

00:34:13Guest:That's not really... It's not...

00:34:17Marc:Let's get back to your question.

00:34:19Marc:Your question.

00:34:20Marc:I'm just a little... I get a little nutty.

00:34:22Marc:I get nervous.

00:34:22Marc:It's not even nervous about performing.

00:34:24Marc:I know I'm going to be fine.

00:34:25Marc:But it's sort of... My issue is that, like, do they know what they're getting into?

00:34:30Guest:You have diehard fans who can't wait to hear you riff do new and old.

00:34:34Guest:And my hunch is when you do old, you take it to... You keep riffing on it.

00:34:38Guest:That's right.

00:34:39Guest:Well, that's... That happened last night.

00:34:40Guest:Our favorite comedians do that.

00:34:42Guest:You know, we feel...

00:34:43Guest:Like Lenny used to do that a lot.

00:34:45Guest:When he went back to familiar stuff, he would get bored and he would open it up.

00:34:50Guest:Yeah.

00:34:51Guest:If they're going with it, you get right off what you normally would have done.

00:34:54Guest:I'm telling you, you're a master at this shit.

00:34:56Guest:But I mean, you know.

00:34:57Marc:I stay away from it.

00:34:58Marc:A lot of times I'll stay away from old stuff.

00:35:00Guest:Yeah.

00:35:00Marc:Some kid asked me last night when I was getting off.

00:35:02Marc:He said, do that thing from 95.

00:35:04Marc:Yeah.

00:35:05Marc:Like a big piece.

00:35:06Marc:And I was like, all right, fuck it.

00:35:07Marc:I'll try to get back in it.

00:35:08Marc:And that's what happened.

00:35:09Marc:I just opened it up.

00:35:10Guest:Yeah, because you have all the experience after that.

00:35:12Guest:Yeah.

00:35:13Guest:Yeah.

00:35:13Guest:No, it's funny.

00:35:14Guest:It's actually not a bad idea.

00:35:16Guest:To re-explore?

00:35:17Guest:Yeah, because you have a new perception, adding all your 20 years or whatever on a pit that struck you funny when you were in your 20s, 30s, whatever the fuck.

00:35:27Guest:How are you doing?

00:35:28Guest:Seriously.

00:35:29Guest:Well, I'm doing, this has been a good time for me, man.

00:35:32Guest:Yeah.

00:35:32Guest:I mean, my marriage is cool.

00:35:34Guest:I'm sober 20 years.

00:35:36Guest:Graduations.

00:35:37Guest:Thank you.

00:35:37Guest:I appreciate it.

00:35:38Guest:And I'm just trying to shake the fucking driver.

00:35:42Guest:All right.

00:35:43Guest:All right.

00:35:43Marc:I'll shake it.

00:35:44Marc:You got to get ready to get back in the car.

00:35:45Guest:I got to move over.

00:35:46Guest:You got to.

00:35:47Guest:Don't even say that to me.

00:35:48Guest:I said, because it's 900.

00:35:49Guest:The map cost is 40 pages.

00:35:51Guest:Look like the Bible.

00:35:52Guest:He's looking at papers?

00:35:53Guest:Papers while he's driving.

00:35:55Guest:But what is he?

00:35:55Guest:Doesn't he have a phone?

00:35:56Guest:And the street names here.

00:35:57Guest:Hiawatha.

00:35:58Guest:All right, all right.

00:35:59Guest:Hatchet Avenue.

00:36:00Guest:All right, I'm not going to use him anymore.

00:36:02Guest:No, no.

00:36:03Guest:He's hilarious.

00:36:04Guest:He said he came out of retirement for me.

00:36:06Guest:What is this?

00:36:07Guest:Old-timers day at Shea Stadium?

00:36:10Guest:What was the Jack Carter story?

00:36:12Guest:Huh?

00:36:13Guest:Oh, it was great.

00:36:15Guest:Because for you who don't know, Jack Carter was a great comic in the 50s and 60s and 70s.

00:36:19Guest:Yeah.

00:36:20Guest:But he's always known to be sort of bitter.

00:36:22Guest:A monster.

00:36:23Guest:But a killer on stage.

00:36:24Guest:Yeah.

00:36:25Guest:So he had to pick up Jack Carter to take him to a charity.

00:36:27Guest:Yeah.

00:36:28Guest:And he was of the age to know Carter.

00:36:30Guest:He was a kid watching him.

00:36:32Guest:However old this Talbot guy was.

00:36:33Guest:So he says...

00:36:35Guest:He gets there 15 minutes early.

00:36:37Guest:Yeah.

00:36:38Guest:And Carter was in doing his front lawn.

00:36:41Guest:Yeah.

00:36:41Guest:Fertilizer and shit.

00:36:42Guest:Yeah.

00:36:43Guest:And Carter sees him.

00:36:44Guest:It's usually good when they come early.

00:36:46Guest:It's better than being late.

00:36:47Guest:Right.

00:36:47Guest:And he says, you're early.

00:36:49Guest:Scream at him.

00:36:50Guest:Yeah.

00:36:50Guest:And then he ran off.

00:36:53Guest:He got scared.

00:36:57Guest:Scary Jack Carter.

00:36:57Guest:Let's get back to your problem.

00:36:59Guest:I don't have a problem.

00:37:00Guest:I'm happy to see you.

00:37:00Guest:No, no.

00:37:01Guest:I mean, doing theaters is where it's at.

00:37:04Guest:I don't ever see... I've done a couple.

00:37:06Marc:My only issue is like, for me, it's best if I get into one mind thing and I feel comfortable and it feels intimate.

00:37:12Guest:I understood going.

00:37:13Guest:I'm sorry.

00:37:14Marc:And then sometimes, like, if I perceive that they're not, if I'm not hitting where I want to hit, then I'll overcompensate when it's a theater.

00:37:20Marc:There's no fucking end to that, to the ability to overcompensate.

00:37:25Marc:You got all that space to get big and run around.

00:37:31Marc:Yeah, well, you don't have to run around.

00:37:32Marc:No, I want to sit down.

00:37:34Marc:I want to lie down.

00:37:36Guest:Really?

00:37:37Guest:I get emails from you.

00:37:37Guest:You're all over the place.

00:37:38Guest:You're killing.

00:37:39Guest:You're sending me articles.

00:37:40Guest:Let me get this out.

00:37:41Guest:What?

00:37:41Guest:There's one thing.

00:37:42Guest:I was a patron to this artist, and Larry David was too.

00:37:46Guest:Carl Nicola Stottola for 35 years.

00:37:48Guest:A painter?

00:37:50Guest:He's an artist.

00:37:51Guest:A painter can imply house painting.

00:37:55Guest:No, art.

00:37:56Guest:Yeah, painter.

00:37:57Guest:Right.

00:37:57Guest:You're a painter.

00:37:58Guest:Yeah, painter.

00:37:58Guest:I can't wait.

00:37:59Guest:No, I'm saying you're right.

00:38:00Guest:You're right, Mark.

00:38:01Guest:And so I came up with an idea so I can show people off this guy basically.

00:38:08Guest:And it's an art book.

00:38:10Guest:I don't mean to be grandiose, but Edgar Allan Poe and Manet did a book similar.

00:38:17Guest:I didn't know.

00:38:18Guest:So for the Edgar Allan Poe family.

00:38:20Guest:Oh, really?

00:38:21Guest:Like he would do a poem and then Manet illustrates.

00:38:24Guest:You know,

00:38:24Guest:Can I be illiterate on this show in front of you?

00:38:27Marc:You're an intellectual.

00:38:28Marc:No, I'm not.

00:38:29Marc:I'm short on words.

00:38:30Marc:I use words improperly.

00:38:32Marc:Me too.

00:38:33Marc:I don't know what the plural of squash is.

00:38:36Marc:Squay.

00:38:36Marc:Is it?

00:38:37Marc:Yes.

00:38:37Marc:Is it squashes?

00:38:38Marc:What the fuck is that?

00:38:39Guest:That's the fucking limo driver.

00:38:40Guest:Am I here?

00:38:41Guest:Am I here?

00:38:43Marc:You know who the last two people I talked to on that phone?

00:38:49Marc:Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

00:38:50Marc:That's great.

00:38:51Marc:They called this phone.

00:38:53Marc:I don't even know who they were calling, but they called this phone on purpose to talk to me.

00:38:57Guest:Well, that's beautiful.

00:38:58Guest:They're on tour.

00:38:59Guest:Yeah, they're doing the North America tour.

00:39:01Guest:Started already?

00:39:02Marc:No, it starts in San Diego.

00:39:05Marc:Somehow I got hooked up with 10-minute interviews with two of them, with the both of them.

00:39:08Marc:Fantastic.

00:39:09Guest:It was incredible.

00:39:10Guest:Which leads me to ask you, when you were talking about, not nervously, but with anxiety about theaters.

00:39:16Guest:Yeah.

00:39:17Guest:on a commercial headspace, you're so, you've done so much in the last eight or nine years to get such an intense, rabid following that just from my own experience, a theater would, to me, would be a piece of cake for you to sell out fast.

00:39:37Marc:Well, I did okay in some cities, you know, and I'm excited to do it.

00:39:41Marc:I'm not saying I'm not excited, but, you know, I'm just sort of like, don't, look,

00:39:46Guest:Even... It's okay to be... You don't have... Are you beating yourself up?

00:39:50Guest:A little.

00:39:51Marc:I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint him.

00:39:53Marc:I don't want to disappoint anybody.

00:39:54Marc:No, that's the way we should feel.

00:39:55Marc:Okay, so that's all I'm saying.

00:39:57Marc:That's all I'm saying.

00:39:57Guest:Because it's a larger group of people?

00:39:59Guest:I don't know.

00:40:00Guest:What kind of theory is this?

00:40:01Guest:It's a daily theory.

00:40:02Guest:What if someone was dying and you went to the hospital?

00:40:04Guest:Would you care as much about that person if they wanted to see you and you did like an hour?

00:40:08Guest:It's just all based on... Yes, that's how I see everybody in the room.

00:40:12Marc:It's only a matter of time.

00:40:16Marc:For everyone in the theater, they're all dying, Richard.

00:40:18Marc:We're all dying.

00:40:20Guest:That's how I look at it.

00:40:21Guest:How can I help these dying people?

00:40:22Guest:I'd be honored.

00:40:23Guest:Even though I started the thing, we're in the writer's room now.

00:40:26Guest:Use it on the IFC show.

00:40:28Guest:And then let me come in and die in the seat.

00:40:30Guest:You want to do it?

00:40:31Guest:Yeah.

00:40:32Marc:And then I dropped that.

00:40:33Marc:We would definitely have you on, but we thought you were like, you know, your dad, the other guy.

00:40:37Marc:You did the other show.

00:40:38Guest:Yeah.

00:40:39Guest:You're like that guy.

00:40:40Guest:Now I'm doing a show called Blunt Talk.

00:40:42Marc:I know.

00:40:42Marc:That sounds like a hell of a show.

00:40:43Guest:It's unbelievable.

00:40:44Guest:What is the angle?

00:40:45Guest:The angle is Sir Patrick Stewart plays this progressive British guy who has, you know, like a crazy progressive talk show.

00:40:55Guest:Yeah.

00:40:56Guest:Like the opposite of that whack, you know, what's his name on the Fox?

00:41:00Marc:He's a progressive British guy, comes over as an hour talk show.

00:41:04Marc:It's based on the kind of British guy that was on CNN for a while, right?

00:41:07Guest:Right.

00:41:07Guest:What the hell is that guy's name?

00:41:08Guest:Yeah, but that's what it would be like.

00:41:09Guest:But this guy is a coke addict, a womanizer.

00:41:13Guest:Yeah.

00:41:13Guest:And he has a butler.

00:41:16Guest:Adrian Scarborough is a great character.

00:41:19Guest:Really?

00:41:19Guest:Hilarious.

00:41:20Guest:Yeah.

00:41:21Guest:And Jackie Weaver, who won an Oscar nomination for Silver Linings.

00:41:25Guest:The cast is great.

00:41:25Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:41:26Guest:And I play, I guess what goes around comes around.

00:41:29Guest:It's like a punchline.

00:41:30Guest:Yeah.

00:41:30Guest:But I played the psychiatrist.

00:41:32Guest:That's kind of brilliant casting.

00:41:33Guest:Well, how do you figure, man?

00:41:35Guest:Yeah.

00:41:35Marc:Yeah, because it's a nice turn for you.

00:41:37Marc:It's a big turn for me.

00:41:38Marc:It forces you to realize maybe you've made some progress.

00:41:43Marc:Don't judge me like that.

00:41:44Guest:What are you talking about?

00:41:46Guest:It was like I was really high and you morphed into a high school principal or a guidance counselor.

00:41:51Guest:You're making progress, Dick.

00:41:53Guest:Really.

00:41:54Guest:Don't call me fucking dick.

00:41:56Guest:People call my guides.

00:41:58Guest:Most people would take that as a compliment.

00:42:00Guest:Would you?

00:42:01Guest:I don't know.

00:42:04Guest:I know.

00:42:04Guest:You know what I read that really I thought was very exciting?

00:42:07Guest:What?

00:42:07Guest:Because it's a podcast now.

00:42:09Guest:Ghosts do podcasts now.

00:42:11Guest:You know, you sort of- Oh, is that true?

00:42:13Guest:Ghosts?

00:42:14Guest:You think you're- Seriously?

00:42:16Guest:They call in the questions from another room.

00:42:18Guest:Yeah.

00:42:18Guest:And they play the way- It's a guy with a Ouija board.

00:42:23Guest:What kind of book do you have?

00:42:24Guest:Go, oh.

00:42:25Guest:Yeah.

00:42:25Guest:No, no, I read and it was great and I heard it.

00:42:28Guest:Yeah.

00:42:28Guest:And I love the guy.

00:42:29Guest:Which guy?

00:42:30Guest:They said, in your- I'm just doing some Google searching, just for briefly- Getting up to speed?

00:42:35Guest:No, no, I know what you do.

00:42:37Guest:I'm just saying I wanted to talk about podcasts because I've done a few of them, but only a few.

00:42:42Guest:Yeah.

00:42:42Guest:And it said that allegedly or historically, Mark Maron's podcast with Louis C.K.

00:42:50Guest:is considered- The best.

00:42:51Guest:No, no.

00:42:51Guest:The greatest podcast in the history of the medium.

00:42:56Guest:Yeah.

00:42:56Guest:All 10 years.

00:42:58Guest:No, no, but that's pretty impressive.

00:43:00Guest:Like it's a time capsule.

00:43:01Guest:Yeah.

00:43:02Guest:I just saw these guys landing on Mars.

00:43:04Guest:And I put the Marc Maron-Louis C.K.

00:43:07Guest:podcast here on Uranus.

00:43:09Guest:Yeah.

00:43:10Guest:It's in.

00:43:11Guest:I know.

00:43:12Guest:Congratulations.

00:43:13Marc:It's going up in spaceships in case they need aliens.

00:43:15Marc:They want a good example.

00:43:17Guest:Well, how could it be any better than that?

00:43:18Marc:Emotionally disturbed friendship.

00:43:20Marc:Can't get much better than that.

00:43:21Marc:No, it was very nice.

00:43:23Marc:It was just a few months ago.

00:43:25Marc:Oh, was it there?

00:43:25Marc:It was a few months ago.

00:43:26Marc:It was voted the best podcast of all time by Slate.

00:43:30Marc:No, I'm thrilled.

00:43:32Marc:At least it wasn't like a Klansman.

00:43:34Marc:I'm thrilled.

00:43:34Guest:I'm thrilled.

00:43:35Guest:You should be.

00:43:36Guest:I'm trying to feel good.

00:43:38Guest:No, I was springing in.

00:43:39Guest:I wasn't being sarcastic.

00:43:40Guest:That's pretty fucking impressive.

00:43:42Guest:But how hard is it for you to feel good?

00:43:43Guest:Seriously, do you feel good?

00:43:45Guest:Lately, now, it has to do with a function of age...

00:43:48Guest:And right now, look, I don't preach about this shit.

00:43:53Guest:I mean, it's like going on stage and saying, you know, I'm a Democrat, I'm a progressive, or I'm a right.

00:44:00Guest:You lose half the audience, if not more, immediately.

00:44:02Marc:Right.

00:44:03Guest:Now, if you have your people there, they know what to expect, so they know where I'm at.

00:44:06Guest:Sure.

00:44:06Guest:when I talk about my sobriety it's so few people to sober yeah that they oh fuck I don't want to hear about this shit it's monumental they're slamming fucking shit in their arms so I don't talk about it but you ask me the question you got guys slamming shit in their arm in your audience now

00:44:22Marc:At this point.

00:44:23Guest:Only the seats that you can get online.

00:44:26Guest:Some old dopers.

00:44:29Guest:Old dopers who I understand their problem.

00:44:32Marc:So you're saying you think you're judged negatively because you're sober sometimes?

00:44:35Marc:Because so few people who need it, who are...

00:44:40Marc:They take it as a personal offense.

00:44:41Guest:Forget heroin.

00:44:41Guest:I mean, you're doing heroin, and then you're in.

00:44:44Guest:It's over.

00:44:44Guest:You're in the fucking grave.

00:44:46Guest:It's just a matter of when.

00:44:47Guest:Good luck.

00:44:47Guest:Yeah, look at the Farmers Overman.

00:44:49Guest:You die March 3rd, and it's going to be 19 degrees in the Antarctic.

00:44:54Marc:Hard to kick that shit for anybody.

00:44:55Guest:Yeah, it's hard to pick chocolate.

00:44:58Marc:Yeah, I had some this morning.

00:44:59Marc:I'm up.

00:45:01Guest:I shoot mine, though.

00:45:01Marc:But then you crashed, though.

00:45:03Guest:You think I stole your notes?

00:45:04Guest:I'm ethical.

00:45:05Guest:I shoot you my chocolate.

00:45:06Guest:I shoot chocolate.

00:45:07Guest:Just slam the chocolate.

00:45:08Guest:Weird, right?

00:45:09Guest:And if you really were a true narcissist, you'd be slamming up.

00:45:11Guest:You would make liquid out of your jokes.

00:45:13Guest:And snort them.

00:45:14Guest:Freeze them.

00:45:14Guest:Snort your fucking own material.

00:45:16Guest:Cook my own jokes.

00:45:17Guest:If you snorted your own material and got an erection, that would really be the end.

00:45:20Guest:Yeah, that's my evening, generally.

00:45:23Guest:LAUGHTER

00:45:24Guest:You listen to your tapes and jerk off.

00:45:26Guest:Yeah, this is me again.

00:45:27Guest:My wife leaves early for the meeting tonight.

00:45:28Guest:I'm going to try that.

00:45:29Guest:Yeah, I can barely watch that.

00:45:31Guest:I don't want to talk about my fuck.

00:45:33Guest:Dude, I talk about it.

00:45:34Guest:I'm just over 15.

00:45:36Guest:I'm coming up on 16.

00:45:37Guest:Oh, I was talking about notes, but that's great.

00:45:40Guest:Congratulations.

00:45:41Marc:Right, but it's a great thing.

00:45:42Marc:It's unbelievable.

00:45:43Marc:If you need it, it's a great thing.

00:45:46Marc:I don't preach program or anything like that, but I talk about my sobriety all the time.

00:45:51Marc:And I tell you, I get a lot of mail, a lot of email.

00:45:53Marc:People thanking me, people asking me what they do, what do they do.

00:45:56Guest:Yeah, both of us.

00:45:57Marc:Yeah, and I'll always answer it.

00:46:00Marc:The hand has to be there all the time.

00:46:01Marc:Right, it's true.

00:46:02Marc:So I do it.

00:46:03Marc:The hands were there for us.

00:46:04Marc:Right.

00:46:05Marc:So, you know, I'm very... It's delicate, but... Because I was on... What was that?

00:46:09Marc:I was on Chris Hayes the other night.

00:46:11Marc:Right.

00:46:11Marc:And he wanted to talk about podcasts or whatever.

00:46:12Marc:But then he brings up this article about AA.

00:46:14Marc:Oh, that one on... That new one that just came out?

00:46:17Marc:Right.

00:46:17Marc:In the Atlantic, right?

00:46:18Marc:They write one of those every five years, right?

00:46:19Marc:Yeah, of course.

00:46:20Marc:But he sort of... It wasn't that he sandbagged me with it.

00:46:22Marc:But, you know, it's very delicate.

00:46:23Marc:You know, when you're in the thing.

00:46:24Guest:Yeah.

00:46:24Marc:Yeah.

00:46:25Marc:So I said, look, I'm not a representative.

00:46:26Marc:No, right, we're not.

00:46:27Marc:Work for me, but I don't represent the organization or anything.

00:46:31Marc:It's a solo trip, man.

00:46:32Marc:Exactly.

00:46:32Marc:So whatever you got to do, however you get sober is fine.

00:46:35Guest:Yeah.

00:46:35Marc:Whatever you got to do.

00:46:36Guest:But don't slam things that help.

00:46:38Guest:That was ridiculous.

00:46:39Guest:Yeah, it was a pathetic article.

00:46:40Marc:And that's why I said to Hayes, I said, you know who writes things like that?

00:46:43Marc:People who don't understand.

00:46:44Marc:Or a drunk.

00:46:45Marc:Don't understand the bug.

00:46:46Marc:Or, oh, right, that's true.

00:46:47Marc:Could be a guy that's got it.

00:46:48Marc:Just can't look in the mirror.

00:46:49Marc:Right.

00:46:50Marc:That's how, you know.

00:46:51Marc:Yeah.

00:46:52Marc:Of course, you know.

00:46:52Guest:So Sobriety, the new show.

00:46:54Guest:Yeah, the series is great because it's for two years already.

00:46:56Guest:That's great.

00:46:57Guest:So you're working.

00:46:58Guest:And I'm working for my old friend, Chris Albrecht again, who I did most of my- Oh, my God.

00:47:03Guest:With Curb and all my- How far back?

00:47:05Guest:Do you go back to the improv with him?

00:47:06Guest:We were comics in 1971.

00:47:08Guest:Isn't that something?

00:47:10Guest:He had a team with Bob Samuta.

00:47:11Guest:Right, at the old improv, the original improv.

00:47:14Guest:But we would find... Yeah, but we weren't going on.

00:47:17Guest:Before that, right.

00:47:17Guest:It was like Klein and Dangerfield and Brenner and Pryor.

00:47:21Guest:So we had to find... I played a health club.

00:47:24Guest:That was a good gig.

00:47:25Guest:Right.

00:47:26Guest:In the middle of a health club.

00:47:27Guest:And they had all those gigs down the village.

00:47:28Guest:Were you telling me about those?

00:47:29Guest:Yeah, that's what it was.

00:47:30Guest:Yeah, Folk City was where Dylan and all those guys played.

00:47:33Guest:It was very surreal back then because there weren't that many comics.

00:47:37Guest:There was no comedy clubs?

00:47:38Guest:The gigs were usually opening for singers?

00:47:40Guest:No, no comedy.

00:47:40Guest:Yeah.

00:47:41Guest:If you got the big gig.

00:47:42Guest:If you got the gig.

00:47:42Guest:Right.

00:47:43Guest:If you got the gig.

00:47:44Guest:It was all about getting the same shit together.

00:47:48Guest:You had to get clean three or four monologues back to back to back to back for The Tonight Show producers.

00:47:54Guest:Because they had to know that you could come on three or four times.

00:47:57Guest:Right.

00:47:58Guest:And, you know, so you had to do the same stuff.

00:47:59Guest:It would be just, well, look, I mean, I'm an old guy now, but I mean, can you imagine having to do the same 30 fucking minutes?

00:48:06Guest:But that's why I stopped doing specials after a while, because I couldn't take it anymore.

00:48:10Guest:My head was going to fucking burst.

00:48:12Marc:Which is constantly...

00:48:13Guest:They want you to, they want to see what you're doing.

00:48:16Guest:They want it, the directors need to know where you, I said, you know what?

00:48:19Guest:Can't do it.

00:48:19Guest:I don't need any, I did Carnegie Hall in 89 and I said, if I do that, do I don't have to do the same material for anything anymore?

00:48:25Marc:I think that's what I want to do.

00:48:26Marc:I just want to do that once.

00:48:28Guest:Carnegie Hall.

00:48:29Guest:Oh, you should and you will.

00:48:31Guest:Just want to do it once and I can stop.

00:48:32Guest:No, you can't.

00:48:33Guest:I, I,

00:48:35Guest:Because you know what?

00:48:36Guest:Listen to this.

00:48:36Guest:I tried to be, I was sober.

00:48:39Guest:I had like one drink of wine that day.

00:48:41Guest:It was a great night.

00:48:42Guest:Yeah.

00:48:42Guest:And I had, used to bring, here's the deal.

00:48:44Guest:I used to bring, this shit pours out of me.

00:48:47Guest:I'm not saying it's all good, but I had notes.

00:48:50Guest:So let's say I would do Caroline's three times a year in New York.

00:48:52Guest:Right.

00:48:53Guest:Down to Seaport.

00:48:54Guest:Yeah.

00:48:54Guest:Or the one downtown.

00:48:55Guest:Downtown.

00:48:56Guest:The dinner club.

00:48:56Guest:Yeah.

00:48:56Guest:I would do it three times a year.

00:48:57Guest:Yeah.

00:48:58Guest:And I would make it a point to do a different hour and a half every time.

00:49:02Guest:Yeah.

00:49:02Guest:So all of a sudden, after one year at Caroline's, because I had legal pads.

00:49:06Guest:Yeah.

00:49:07Guest:Like on Carnegie Hall, I had a big piano.

00:49:10Guest:I had like at least 10 hours of material.

00:49:13Guest:I mean, I had the stuff, but then some agent, I've had 100,000 agents and managers, no more managers.

00:49:19Guest:I've had it with that shit.

00:49:20Yeah.

00:49:20Guest:I don't want to wait for them looking out for my life when they're getting a floor job in Rome.

00:49:26Guest:You come to the show, what happened?

00:49:28Guest:They're following around their young client, the new guy.

00:49:30Guest:Yeah, the $100,000 a week.

00:49:32Guest:What's the show called?

00:49:33Guest:Space Gods.

00:49:35Guest:Yeah, but I just want to know how my ticket sales are in Tulsa.

00:49:40Guest:No, his toilet didn't work.

00:49:43Guest:Vinnie Crowman's toilet didn't work.

00:49:44Guest:He's getting $100,000.

00:49:45Guest:They follow the money, man.

00:49:46Guest:Yeah, they do.

00:49:48Guest:They follow the money and pretend to be your friend.

00:49:50Marc:would you do you work with management i do good for you if it's that's working obviously well you know it's like i took me a long time you gotta be careful i don't want to fuck up the relationship i had no no it took me a long time to understand that they weren't necessarily my friends that was a working relationship and that they weren't necessarily going to do a lot for me but i was with a big guy for a while and then i left and the person i'm with now is pretty great you know she's actually you know helpful and gets you man she doesn't want to put you on the wrong yeah yeah

00:50:16Guest:you know sometimes you know the old thing for me was and i you know i really enjoy acting and and and and like and this blunt blunt talk show yeah i'm really playing a freudian therapist who's twisted right so i'm really twisted how this is jonathan ames right he wrote this jonathan ames yeah he's something huh

00:50:34Guest:He is a fucking brilliant, twisted, great writer, man.

00:50:39Guest:I mean, the words are like... I mean, going from Curve where you make everything up, you don't really miss that on this show because he's really quite a writer.

00:50:47Guest:Solid.

00:50:47Guest:Oh, man.

00:50:48Guest:You would love it.

00:50:49Guest:I'm excited to see it.

00:50:50Guest:Yeah.

00:50:52Guest:So Carnegie Hall, so you have one glass of wine.

00:50:54Guest:Yeah, yeah, I know.

00:50:54Guest:But then everybody's... I was about five years away from bottoming out on crystal meth at that point.

00:51:02Guest:So I wasn't doing crystal then, but...

00:51:04Guest:I had 300 people that had like a little party room out in the basement.

00:51:10Guest:What basement?

00:51:10Guest:Not in the basement.

00:51:11Guest:It's Carnegie Hall.

00:51:12Guest:It's in the den.

00:51:13Guest:Sylvie, get out.

00:51:14Guest:Stop eating the carpet.

00:51:16Guest:The den.

00:51:17Guest:No.

00:51:17Guest:The den at Carnegie Hall.

00:51:18Guest:Yeah, it's in that little porch.

00:51:20Guest:The game room.

00:51:20Guest:With the jalousy windows.

00:51:22Guest:They had a fucking... They had a little room for a party.

00:51:25Guest:Right, sure.

00:51:25Guest:So...

00:51:27Guest:The truth is, I did about an hour and 45 minutes, no opening act, and as I'm walking to the elevator, I couldn't wait to get a drink.

00:51:36Guest:In fact, Elton Johnwood said that.

00:51:38Guest:The only reason I wanted to finish the show was to get drunk.

00:51:41Guest:Wow, it's cool.

00:51:43Guest:Subconsciously, I probably felt that way.

00:51:45Marc:I can't wait.

00:51:46Marc:When I hear people say that about that, they only do it to get laid.

00:51:49Marc:The only reason I do shows is to receive love that I will reject.

00:51:53Guest:You check because you don't believe you deserve it?

00:51:57Guest:Still?

00:51:57Marc:No, no.

00:51:58Marc:I'm getting better at accepting it.

00:52:01Marc:I can receive it.

00:52:02Marc:I'm okay, man.

00:52:03Guest:I'm okay.

00:52:03Guest:I'm not angry.

00:52:04Guest:Once you realize that you're doing, you become an authentic voice of your generation, what will it take to smack you around?

00:52:11Guest:It's done.

00:52:12Guest:I'm smacked.

00:52:13Guest:By who?

00:52:14Guest:By all of it.

00:52:15Guest:You know what?

00:52:15Guest:I'm so narcissistic.

00:52:16Guest:I thought you were going to credit me for the smack.

00:52:18Marc:No, you just smacked me.

00:52:19Marc:You gave me a second smack just then.

00:52:20Guest:You're right.

00:52:21Marc:But no, I feel like I'm comfortable.

00:52:23Marc:I feel like I'm funny.

00:52:25Marc:I'm in my own skin.

00:52:26Marc:I'm all right.

00:52:27Guest:But some people feel that you're crippled emotionally in terms of accepting all your blessings.

00:52:33Guest:Yeah, no, I am.

00:52:33Guest:They say that.

00:52:34Guest:No, I know.

00:52:34Marc:And it comes out on your act, too.

00:52:36Marc:No, I'm a little gratitude deficient.

00:52:40Marc:That's perfect.

00:52:42Marc:But I had to learn how to be empathetic.

00:52:44Marc:I had to learn how to listen.

00:52:45Marc:There's a lot of things you've got to learn as a selfish fuck.

00:52:47Marc:And you have the equipment.

00:52:52Guest:That was Bud Abbott, ladies and gentlemen, before he shot up a martini at the polo lounge.

00:53:02Marc:But it's happening.

00:53:03Marc:I'm growing up.

00:53:04Marc:Maybe someday I'll master the relationship thing, but everything else is fine.

00:53:08Marc:Yeah, that's how you do an hour and 45.

00:53:10Marc:I do an hour and 45.

00:53:11Marc:Carnegie Hall.

00:53:12Guest:Get off.

00:53:13Guest:You want to get drunk.

00:53:13Guest:I'll go to the elevator.

00:53:14Guest:I want to go to my dressing room.

00:53:17Guest:And crazily, at the time, I didn't ask, and it should have been done for me.

00:53:25Guest:They didn't put it on the board, so I have no tape of the fucking show.

00:53:30Guest:Oh, really?

00:53:30Guest:Yeah.

00:53:31Guest:Oh, shit.

00:53:32Guest:That's really, you know.

00:53:33Guest:Yeah.

00:53:34Marc:It was good, though?

00:53:37Guest:I got a standing ovation.

00:53:38Guest:So, I go back and the manager runs after me and he says, and it was cool.

00:53:42Guest:He says, you got to go back.

00:53:43Guest:I went, hey.

00:53:44Guest:I mean, I had never done a show that long.

00:53:45Guest:Yeah.

00:53:47Guest:So, I go back.

00:53:48Guest:I do another 15.

00:53:49Guest:Because I had a whole decade of jokes, literally.

00:53:52Guest:I mean, I had thousands.

00:53:54Guest:But I knew these things.

00:53:55Guest:To put those yellow pages out there, it would take me months to get like five or 10 of these books.

00:54:00Guest:Because they were all new.

00:54:01Guest:And I laughed when I came up with it.

00:54:02Guest:I wrote it down.

00:54:03Guest:So if I looked down and saw Circus, I could pop my head up and do 15 minutes on it.

00:54:08Guest:I had at least my eyes had to see it.

00:54:10Guest:I couldn't remember it.

00:54:12Guest:So I did it, walked off.

00:54:14Guest:The manager got me again.

00:54:16Guest:You got to go back.

00:54:17Guest:I went back another time.

00:54:18Guest:Third time, Carnegie Hall.

00:54:19Guest:Three standing ovations.

00:54:21Guest:Then I said to him, I'm out.

00:54:25Guest:Leave him wanting more.

00:54:26Guest:I thought I was, you know.

00:54:27Guest:So I go upstairs and I had hundreds of gifts, all champagne.

00:54:32Guest:Oh.

00:54:33Guest:And I got fucking hammered.

00:54:34Guest:Yeah.

00:54:35Guest:And I went down to the den.

00:54:36Guest:Yeah.

00:54:37Guest:The porch.

00:54:37Guest:The party.

00:54:38Guest:And a whole lifetime of people were there from kindergarten to showbiz people.

00:54:43Guest:Yeah.

00:54:44Guest:And I was a total fucking mess.

00:54:46Guest:Yeah.

00:54:46Guest:Just staggering around.

00:54:49Guest:Like poor Dean Martin towards the end, you know?

00:54:52Guest:I couldn't, I was blinded by the booze.

00:54:55Guest:Are you mad?

00:54:55Guest:Are you sad about that now?

00:54:57Guest:Yeah, well, no.

00:55:00Guest:Okay.

00:55:00Guest:Because the show was the thing.

00:55:02Guest:Right.

00:55:02Guest:And I was still active drunk.

00:55:04Guest:Right, yeah.

00:55:05Marc:You know, so, but, you know.

00:55:07Marc:So how do you approach playing a Freudian therapist?

00:55:09Marc:I mean, what's the angle?

00:55:10Guest:Well, the angle is just that it's, you know, Hollywood doctors and, you know, do anything to, you know, to help their clients.

00:55:18Guest:So I'm the network shrink.

00:55:20Guest:Okay.

00:55:20Guest:Just like hotels.

00:55:21Guest:So they brought you in.

00:55:21Guest:You're a fixer.

00:55:23Guest:I'm a fixer.

00:55:23Guest:Yeah, give him some pills.

00:55:24Guest:But he's bright though.

00:55:25Guest:Well, I mean, if the script calls for things that might sound unethical, he might do it.

00:55:31Guest:Right.

00:55:31Guest:But he's, you know, all therapists are.

00:55:33Guest:I've always had this thing with doctors.

00:55:35Marc:Yeah.

00:55:35Guest:That they were projecting.

00:55:37Guest:If I would tell them things.

00:55:39Marc:Yeah.

00:55:39Guest:One, I always thought immediately, whether they were alone or straight, gay, married, or whatever, that night.

00:55:46Guest:So, Richard Lewis, you know, the neurotic fucking... Let me tell you what he dreamt of.

00:55:51Guest:A camel with a rabbi jerking off during Passover, and he had a waterbed made of matzo, and then he woke up screaming, what are you going to get?

00:56:00Guest:What's the specials here?

00:56:02Guest:They're going to use celebrities to...

00:56:04Guest:to get laughs do you think they do yes but worse than that i think that they let's say they're let's say they're not fucking right okay yeah and let's say in your relationship it's you know the lust factor is you know nothing is better than that anyway as we all probably discussed uh they say you know you don't have to have intercourse man they don't they don't say it like sammy davis jr for

00:56:28Guest:Yeah, man.

00:56:28Guest:Hey, man.

00:56:29Guest:Hey, dig it, man.

00:56:30Guest:You don't have to fuck.

00:56:30Guest:You don't have to put your penis in.

00:56:32Guest:Yeah.

00:56:33Guest:You can leave it there.

00:56:34Guest:You can even be flaccid, man.

00:56:35Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:56:36Guest:Just kiss her.

00:56:37Guest:Yeah.

00:56:38Guest:Tell her you love her.

00:56:39Guest:Yeah, baby.

00:56:40Guest:I said, no.

00:56:40Guest:And I said, then I would tell her, no, no.

00:56:42Guest:Here's what I like.

00:56:43Guest:Yeah, sure.

00:56:44Guest:See someone for the first time up the back of the restaurant in the alleyway.

00:56:48Guest:Yeah.

00:56:48Guest:And it's no amends needed.

00:56:51Guest:We both want to fuck hard and leave.

00:56:54Guest:Yeah.

00:56:54Guest:You tell her that, but she'll say, no, that's not intimacy.

00:56:58Guest:I go, hey, who's looking for intimacy?

00:57:00Guest:I want to come really in a big way, man.

00:57:04Guest:And she says, well, you can do that with your wife, but I would say, and my wife and I have a good relationship and sexually too, but we have both been around, and we also, that's the secret to my life now.

00:57:15Guest:My wife is, I got married at 57.

00:57:17Guest:So that's a different route.

00:57:19Guest:I'm almost there.

00:57:21Marc:You were never married before.

00:57:22Guest:No, I didn't.

00:57:23Guest:So I did all the drugging and the womanizing.

00:57:26Marc:Without doing it behind someone's back.

00:57:27Marc:Good for you.

00:57:28Guest:Yeah, no.

00:57:30Guest:No, I cheated on, not on my wife, but everybody else.

00:57:33Guest:Sure.

00:57:33Guest:Everybody else.

00:57:34Marc:Yeah.

00:57:35Guest:And I was just, you know, my cross addiction was that too.

00:57:39Guest:Sure.

00:57:40Guest:But you're saying that you think that these celebrity shrinks, they use- They might, yeah.

00:57:45Guest:I think the one I have, I play Dr. Weiss.

00:57:47Guest:I got to tell you a trippy thing, man.

00:57:49Guest:What?

00:57:50Guest:I had a best friend who died who was a rock and roll star at Ohio State University back in the 60s when I went.

00:57:57Guest:Yeah.

00:57:57Guest:66 to 70.

00:57:59Guest:I stayed there as long as I can.

00:58:00Guest:Yeah.

00:58:00Guest:It was a whole other deal.

00:58:02Guest:I told my father, do you know who Kurosawa is and Truffaut?

00:58:05Guest:I want to stay here and get a master's.

00:58:07Guest:You come home!

00:58:08Guest:When I said Kurosawa and Chuforda, kosher caterer.

00:58:12Guest:Because I could have gotten a master's, because he was paying for my bills.

00:58:16Guest:That's it.

00:58:16Guest:I was an upper middle class son.

00:58:18Guest:You're rolling meat.

00:58:19Guest:But I said, yeah, yeah.

00:58:22Guest:Roll the meat.

00:58:22Guest:You're making the fruit salad with the Russian immigrants with your hands.

00:58:26Guest:and chanting Gregorian chants, you're coming in.

00:58:29Guest:Yeah.

00:58:30Guest:Kurosawa who?

00:58:31Guest:Yeah.

00:58:32Guest:Roll some turkey up and make it nice on the platter.

00:58:35Guest:You mean Phil Kurosawa the gardener?

00:58:37Guest:No, no, no.

00:58:38Guest:This is a genius, Dad.

00:58:40Guest:Poor guy didn't understand it, but I knew he was desperate.

00:58:43Guest:So Kenny Weiss was my best friend, and he was a rock and roll star in Columbus, and he was with the James Gang for a while.

00:58:52Guest:Yeah.

00:58:53Guest:With Joe Walsh.

00:58:54Guest:Briefly, but things didn't work out on the big... He had a kid and he was only 19.

00:58:59Guest:It's tough, man.

00:59:00Guest:So he couldn't make the trip out to Hollywood and do that thing.

00:59:03Guest:But you couldn't blame that.

00:59:04Guest:You can't blame anybody for anything.

00:59:06Guest:You just do what you want to do.

00:59:07Guest:He could have still worked out with his son who's a cool kid.

00:59:10Guest:He has two great kids, but he's gone.

00:59:13Guest:And he taught me rock and roll.

00:59:17Guest:We just line up.

00:59:18Guest:He would say... You've got to imagine, back in 66, he says,

00:59:21Guest:You ever hear of this guy, Rod Stewart?

00:59:23Guest:Oh, man.

00:59:25Guest:Procol Harum.

00:59:26Guest:Yeah.

00:59:26Guest:And all these classic rock.

00:59:27Guest:He was the guy.

00:59:28Guest:He was my guy.

00:59:30Guest:Yeah.

00:59:31Guest:But he read everything.

00:59:34Guest:He was a real intellectual.

00:59:35Guest:He said, you got to read The White Room, man.

00:59:37Guest:You got to read everything.

00:59:38Guest:You got to read The Ginger Man.

00:59:40Guest:You got to read this.

00:59:41Guest:You got to read Frederick Exley.

00:59:43Guest:You got to read...

00:59:43Guest:No, he was my guy, my intellectual touchstone and my rock and roll touchstone because he was the star in Columbus when he didn't go big time.

00:59:52Guest:But once he really had to make a living, he changed and became a psychologist.

00:59:56Guest:He was Dr. Weiss.

00:59:58Guest:So when I got the audition sides, they call it, the audition pages, it said Dr. Weiss.

01:00:05Guest:And I was hit like a fucking...

01:00:08Guest:A spiritual hit like, because I was a really good friend to him before he passed away.

01:00:12Guest:And I said, you know, sounds like a lifetime.

01:00:16Guest:I went, Kenny, you're helping me.

01:00:19Guest:He said, no, you're in.

01:00:21Guest:I was having this little fucking conversation.

01:00:24Guest:And he had a lot of, you know, I don't know when you started.

01:00:27Guest:When did you start going on stage?

01:00:28Guest:There's a point I want to make.

01:00:30Guest:I think I was 19.

01:00:32Guest:Yeah.

01:00:32Guest:In my time, I had to graduate college, all these part-time jobs, going to get fed up with fucking life, feel hopeless, and then find your answer through comedy and then ultimately drugs and sex, as long as that lasts.

01:00:45Guest:But so...

01:00:47Guest:He told me Weiss had all these bands.

01:00:51Guest:And that's why a lot of our friends, like you're talking about Keith called you and Wood, because they had bands at 10.

01:00:58Guest:So I'm in college, and I'm friends with a lot of these guys who are already legends.

01:01:03Guest:Right, right.

01:01:04Guest:And Ringo, if it wasn't for Ringo, I wouldn't have met my wife.

01:01:07Guest:Really?

01:01:07Guest:It's trippy.

01:01:08Guest:Really?

01:01:08Guest:All this shit trips me out.

01:01:09Guest:Yeah.

01:01:10Guest:But I'm not being grandiose.

01:01:11Guest:It's just a surreal shit.

01:01:13Guest:But anyway, so I may just finish.

01:01:15Guest:So Kenny Weiss from Columbus had this band, Trish Tram Shandy, which was a novel in the 18th century, I think.

01:01:24Guest:Yeah.

01:01:26Guest:And he loved the book.

01:01:27Guest:It was a volume, a lot of volumes.

01:01:29Guest:And I never read it.

01:01:30Guest:So I get to the set and I meet the director and a producer of Bluntalk.

01:01:36Guest:His name is Tristram.

01:01:38Guest:Tristram, same spelling.

01:01:39Guest:Really?

01:01:40Guest:And I went, whoa.

01:01:41Guest:What the fuck?

01:01:42Guest:Yeah, what the fuck is right times a thousand.

01:01:44Guest:So I said, this is it.

01:01:46Guest:And then I found out that when I read it,

01:01:50Guest:It was almost a done deal.

01:01:52Guest:I just nailed it.

01:01:54Guest:And so when I go on stage, I mean on stage, on the set, and I hear action, I'm so fucking calm, man.

01:02:00Guest:Yeah.

01:02:00Guest:I just feel him cursing through my veins, Kenny.

01:02:04Guest:I actually asked Jonathan Ames, who's really an extraordinary caddy.

01:02:07Guest:I said, you think it could be Dr. Kenny Weiss?

01:02:10Guest:And he says, well, they were trying to clear the name.

01:02:12Guest:I don't know how you clear names.

01:02:13Guest:Yeah.

01:02:13Guest:But it doesn't matter because you don't have first names all the time.

01:02:17Guest:Did they clear it?

01:02:18Guest:No, they couldn't clear it.

01:02:19Guest:But I've never used the name whatever.

01:02:21Guest:But in your mind?

01:02:22Guest:Well, I'm Dr. Weiss.

01:02:23Guest:That's plenty.

01:02:23Guest:And his kids know about it and his widow.

01:02:26Guest:Yeah.

01:02:26Guest:And they're tripping on this man.

01:02:28Guest:It's a hell of a story.

01:02:29Guest:So you used him as like a template?

01:02:31Guest:Yeah, he was a real eccentric genius.

01:02:34Guest:And I knew him in our rock and roll days too.

01:02:38Guest:Yeah.

01:02:39Guest:And you knew him all through it.

01:02:39Guest:What, he got sick?

01:02:41Guest:Yeah, he had a lot of health problems and he died real young in his 50s, late 50s.

01:02:45Guest:Well, that's a hell of a tribute, hell of a bit of coincidences.

01:02:48Guest:Yeah, I think so, man.

01:02:49Guest:Right?

01:02:50Guest:Yeah, I think.

01:02:51Guest:But I want to just segue into, I was talking about the notes in Carnegie Hall.

01:02:56Guest:Like my 18th manager, I only had him for two days because he said one thing to me.

01:03:00Guest:I don't even know what it was.

01:03:01Guest:Two days.

01:03:02Guest:That was my record.

01:03:03Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:03:03Guest:I had, because I'm a people pleaser because I got so abused emotionally that even if managed, even if a doctor gives me a bad fucking diagnosis and I go to get another doctor, I'll say, and the doctor said, well, come back.

01:03:16Guest:I'll go, well, why am I going back to a doctor who wanted to rip my shoulder out for a torn rotator?

01:03:23Guest:You don't want to hurt his feelings.

01:03:25Guest:That's exactly right.

01:03:26Guest:Yeah.

01:03:26Guest:But when it gets into the fucking health area where it is with me recently.

01:03:29Guest:Yeah.

01:03:29Guest:I don't want to go back to this doctor anymore.

01:03:32Guest:So I have this trainer because I have torn this bad back.

01:03:34Guest:He says, what are you fucking going back to that guy?

01:03:37Guest:Yeah.

01:03:37Guest:He's a nice guy.

01:03:39Guest:Yeah, I've been with him a long time.

01:03:40Guest:Yeah, but he gave you a bad fucking diagnosis.

01:03:45Guest:Even the prognosis sucked.

01:03:46Guest:Right.

01:03:47Marc:Well, there's one mistake.

01:03:48Marc:You make one mistake.

01:03:49Guest:That's right.

01:03:49Guest:Yeah, the guy's been great.

01:03:51Guest:Ridiculous.

01:03:51Guest:Yeah, no.

01:03:52Guest:Fear of change, too.

01:03:53Guest:Yeah, so this guy was talking to fear of change.

01:03:55Guest:So this manager I had for two days, I forget what he said.

01:03:58Guest:I said, that's it.

01:04:00Guest:Over.

01:04:00Guest:Yeah.

01:04:01Guest:I'm sorry.

01:04:01Guest:48 hours.

01:04:03Guest:Yeah.

01:04:03Guest:Gave him enough time to drive home, tell his wife I just signed Richard Lewis.

01:04:06Guest:I saw him the next day.

01:04:08Guest:He drove home and told him.

01:04:08Guest:You're fired.

01:04:09Guest:Yeah.

01:04:10Guest:He said something that was so brutally wrong and stupid.

01:04:13Guest:Yeah.

01:04:13Guest:You know, yeah, it was unbelievable.

01:04:15Guest:Must have been.

01:04:15Guest:It was unbearable.

01:04:17Marc:Can't remember it though.

01:04:18Marc:That's good.

01:04:18Guest:I can't.

01:04:18Marc:That's good.

01:04:19Marc:I almost had like a blackout.

01:04:21Marc:It's traumatic.

01:04:21Marc:It's post-traumatic stress disorder.

01:04:23Guest:I had a blackout.

01:04:24Guest:Post-traumatic management syndrome.

01:04:26Guest:P.S.

01:04:26Guest:P.T.

01:04:27Guest:M.S.

01:04:29Guest:Yeah.

01:04:30Guest:Want to do a benefit for acts that are struggling because of their bad management?

01:04:35Guest:Isn't that most of show business?

01:04:36Marc:We would sell out that fucking- Huh?

01:04:38Marc:Isn't that most of show business?

01:04:39Marc:It is.

01:04:41Marc:Every night at the comedy store.

01:04:42Guest:Well, that's why you can't blame anyone but yourself if you're with people that aren't doing the right thing for you.

01:04:47Guest:Get out of it.

01:04:47Guest:It's like a relationship.

01:04:48Guest:Get the fuck out of it.

01:04:49Marc:You're doing it all yourself anyways.

01:04:51Marc:They're waiting to take credit for it.

01:04:52Guest:Yeah, and well, but some appreciate their clients.

01:04:56Guest:I've had some people that, but then after a while, if they're, as you said, if they have some new chick who's making a woman, woman I meant.

01:05:03Marc:If you don't do, you know, a lot of times, what I realized with my managers, we had a lot of shots.

01:05:08Marc:It didn't work.

01:05:10Marc:And, you know, he didn't want to fire me.

01:05:11Marc:I didn't want to fire him.

01:05:12Marc:It's like a relationship.

01:05:14Marc:You know, it's sort of like you don't know what to do anymore, but you don't have the guts to say, like, it's over.

01:05:18Marc:But you think you're making a mistake, too.

01:05:20Marc:Right, yeah, because, like, then what am I going to do?

01:05:21Marc:I'm going to be out there without anybody.

01:05:23Marc:But it all worked out.

01:05:25Marc:He's a huge guy, and we're friends, you know.

01:05:27Marc:They're not the parents we never had.

01:05:29Marc:That's right.

01:05:29Guest:And it's really easy to mistake them for that.

01:05:31Guest:Oh, fucking A. Yeah.

01:05:34Guest:So anyway, long story short, he said to me, the manager, for 48 hours.

01:05:38Guest:Yeah.

01:05:39Guest:I wish I could remember.

01:05:39Guest:I'll probably remember driving back with the mental case.

01:05:43Guest:Don't fire him.

01:05:44Guest:He's a lot of fun.

01:05:45Guest:You should do a show.

01:05:46Guest:Just tape this fucking guy.

01:05:47Guest:Just with him?

01:05:47Guest:Okay.

01:05:47Guest:It's unbearable.

01:05:49Guest:And it's funny.

01:05:50Guest:That's the name of the show.

01:05:51Guest:Unbearable.

01:05:52Guest:Unbearable driver.

01:05:53Guest:With Talbot the limo driver.

01:05:55Guest:And he was almost going to park and get a globe out of the fucking trunk.

01:06:00Guest:And he always says, why are you getting a globe?

01:06:02Guest:I'm a professional.

01:06:03Guest:I said, that's the boot of Italy, you fucking idiot.

01:06:06Guest:Right around here.

01:06:08Guest:Yeah.

01:06:09Guest:So this guy said, Richard, why don't you try doing stand-up the traditional way?

01:06:13Guest:And I immediately fought back.

01:06:15Guest:I said, what do you mean?

01:06:16Guest:Don't bring any notes on stage.

01:06:17Guest:I said, wait a minute.

01:06:18Guest:This was like a thing that was important to me because it changed my life on stage.

01:06:23Guest:I said, why?

01:06:23Guest:It hasn't stopped me.

01:06:25Guest:This is years after Carnegie Hall and all the specials.

01:06:27Guest:I brought notes on.

01:06:28Guest:He said, because people will think it's a work in progress.

01:06:32Guest:And then it hit me like a fucking bolt.

01:06:33Guest:I went, it is a work in progress.

01:06:36Guest:But I can't remember the way I free associate like you do, too.

01:06:39Guest:I bring shit up there.

01:06:40Guest:I don't always look at it, though.

01:06:42Guest:Oh, you do bring it?

01:06:42Guest:Where do you put it?

01:06:43Guest:I put it on a music stand sometimes.

01:06:44Guest:Oh, you do?

01:06:45Guest:Or sometimes I throw it on the floor.

01:06:46Guest:Well, that's cool.

01:06:47Guest:I mean, I did it up until about eight or ten years ago.

01:06:50Guest:And he says, and I said, you know what?

01:06:52Guest:It's a work in progress.

01:06:53Guest:And if you're playing, like, I was doing it in Vegas.

01:06:55Guest:I said, yeah, people don't, they just want to see you do that.

01:06:57Guest:I said, yeah, but I can't remember this shit.

01:07:01Guest:And isn't that a cool thing that I'm trying?

01:07:03Guest:That's what it was.

01:07:03Guest:I said, I think this is a good thing to fans.

01:07:06Guest:This is right out of the fucking gate.

01:07:08Guest:I'm fearless, man.

01:07:10Guest:But just by looking down for one second, he thought that he eradicated that theory.

01:07:14Guest:And I bought it.

01:07:16Guest:And here's the bottom line is this.

01:07:17Guest:I am tortured now on stage.

01:07:19Guest:I ad-libbed half the show.

01:07:20Guest:I spent...

01:07:21Guest:3,000 more hours, 3,000, hyperbole.

01:07:25Guest:I used to have my notes.

01:07:26Guest:Yeah.

01:07:27Guest:And that would be like four hours of stuff if I turned it around.

01:07:30Guest:Yeah.

01:07:30Guest:I said, I'm stuck.

01:07:31Guest:I mean, I'm cool for this whole tour.

01:07:33Guest:Yes.

01:07:34Guest:And I would make a copy of the sheet and just have that one sheet.

01:07:37Guest:I know I do that too.

01:07:38Guest:Yeah, but I don't have the sheet now.

01:07:39Guest:Now I just have my computer and I have to put it in categories.

01:07:42Guest:I'm in my hotel going over like, all right, low self-esteem, marriage, health.

01:07:49Marc:You don't bring

01:07:49Guest:anything up there?

01:07:50Guest:Nothing.

01:07:50Guest:I haven't for 10 years and my performance level skyrocketed.

01:07:54Guest:Yeah.

01:07:54Guest:Because for television, for seven minutes, when you consider doing... I can do that.

01:07:58Guest:I don't need a pad for that.

01:07:59Guest:But sometimes I bring... No, no.

01:08:00Guest:But I'm saying you just figure out what you want to talk about.

01:08:03Guest:You talk three minutes, they talk three... Hey, thanks very much.

01:08:05Guest:You're going to be at the Hammond.

01:08:07Guest:And in your case, you're going to be at 300 theaters in a row.

01:08:09Guest:You nervous?

01:08:10Guest:Yeah.

01:08:10Guest:You nervous?

01:08:10Guest:What if they say that?

01:08:12Guest:Scared.

01:08:12Guest:Huh?

01:08:12Guest:No, I'm not at 300.

01:08:13Guest:I know.

01:08:14Guest:I just... Hyperbole.

01:08:16Guest:No, no.

01:08:17Guest:Scared is not hyperbole for you.

01:08:20Guest:That's just warming up.

01:08:21Guest:I feel good.

01:08:22Marc:I didn't mean scared.

01:08:23Marc:I think I have to... It's something I have to do.

01:08:27Marc:I have to diminish the joy.

01:08:30Guest:Listen, that's why I always dug you.

01:08:33Marc:Preparation is diminishing the joy and sitting in the possibility of like, oh, I don't know.

01:08:40Guest:Listen, take this.

01:08:41Guest:I don't mean to sound grandiose any which way.

01:08:44Guest:And this is only because I'm praising you and it seems like it's a... I could stop now and not press send, but I want to.

01:08:53Guest:I so identify with you and you have a totally authentic voice.

01:08:57Guest:And I love talking about you and hearing people talk about you.

01:09:00Guest:Oh, thanks.

01:09:01Guest:But when I saw you initially, you know the last scene of Rosemary's Baby?

01:09:05Guest:Yeah.

01:09:06Guest:And this is only a one moment thing.

01:09:07Guest:What's wrong with its eyes?

01:09:08Guest:No.

01:09:09Guest:That I saw like, because I never had a child.

01:09:12Guest:Yeah.

01:09:13Guest:I just felt like this would have been the greatest son.

01:09:17Guest:And unfortunately, you would have been fucking reamed.

01:09:21Guest:And it was just after seeing one little bit.

01:09:24Guest:So you would be half a sheep.

01:09:25Marc:Yeah.

01:09:25Guest:A little bit of me, a little bit of your head.

01:09:28Guest:Not that you took from me.

01:09:29Guest:It's just that you reminded me of all the fucking pain.

01:09:32Guest:And as it turns out, our lives are pretty similar in a lot of ways.

01:09:36Guest:And so you're a fucking joy for me to watch.

01:09:39Guest:I mean, you're your own man, totally.

01:09:42Guest:But when I first saw you, I said, there's my story.

01:09:44Guest:son i never had yeah because if i fuck somebody at woodstock you could have been my son i would have been the guy yeah you would have been the kid yeah i think i yeah obviously we're you know in the same wheelhouse i'm not even it sounds like that's that's half-assed praise it's meant to be that i think you're just i appreciate it but you sure you can garner from that all gold it's nothing like hey come on no nothing nothing all right yeah absolutely all right yeah huge fan of yours

01:10:10Marc:And I definitely related to you all my life.

01:10:13Marc:So, you know, I mean... You were my son.

01:10:15Marc:You had no choice.

01:10:17Guest:And I had to take you to that clinic, you know, in England to take the sheep's horns off your head.

01:10:20Marc:You want to see if I'm really... It'd be a relief.

01:10:24Marc:It turns out I'm Richard Lewis's kid.

01:10:27Marc:That explains everything.

01:10:29Guest:Imagine that.

01:10:30Guest:That would have been a horror.

01:10:31Guest:Oh, it would have been amazing.

01:10:32Guest:No, you just came... Listen, people come from certain trees.

01:10:36Guest:I came from certain trees.

01:10:38Guest:And I was blown away by the free associating of Pryor and Bruce.

01:10:43Guest:And Bruce had a mother and lived in Brooklyn.

01:10:48Guest:The mother was just overbearing.

01:10:50Guest:Yeah.

01:10:50Guest:And Woody, the same thing.

01:10:51Guest:And it's like, you know, you come from a certain place.

01:10:54Guest:Yeah.

01:10:55Guest:You know, Shelley Berman was real emotional.

01:10:57Guest:I mean, these were giants, and you hear some of their stuff.

01:11:00Marc:Yeah.

01:11:00Guest:So there's some people that seem to like, you know, they're too numerous to mention, but guys like Stephen Wright seem to have grown their own tree in the middle of a fucking desert.

01:11:09Marc:yeah they have a certain control over it you know there's a you know that need to like connect and be in the moment and shit what are we talking about us oh us yeah oh yeah we have to you know those guys like Stephen Wright they manage their time better but I mean I don't know where he came from I know where we came from yeah I don't know where that

01:11:26Guest:But I don't care.

01:11:27Guest:There's others, of course, but you've been doing it because you're really in that fucking mode now.

01:11:34Guest:Compelled.

01:11:35Guest:Compelled to.

01:11:37Guest:Even if I have two or three months off, I'll be in New York in May for this book, for the Reflections from Hell.

01:11:42Guest:I always pop into Caroline's or I'm in Chicago in May, too.

01:11:48Guest:I'm just happy I have an open heart about it.

01:11:50Guest:I'm just saying, even if I haven't... I'm not on that road tour right now.

01:11:53Guest:Why not just get up there?

01:11:54Guest:No, I'm going to go to Zaney's for six nights and I'll go to Caroline's.

01:11:57Guest:So I'm not thinking about it.

01:11:58Guest:I'm not on that theater tour right now.

01:12:00Guest:Right.

01:12:01Guest:Or sometimes I would mix and match.

01:12:02Guest:Some cities, like, you know, I'm not going to sell out a thousand seats in Utah.

01:12:06Marc:Yeah.

01:12:07Marc:I'm doing clubs.

01:12:08Marc:Look, I think it's all going to go away at any second.

01:12:11Marc:So, like, I...

01:12:12Marc:And I love doing stand-up.

01:12:13Marc:Like, I just go, I'll go to the comedy store now.

01:12:16Marc:I only go to the comedy store.

01:12:17Marc:I won't go anywhere else.

01:12:18Marc:The comedy store's turned around again.

01:12:19Marc:Dude, it's huge again.

01:12:21Guest:Oh, really?

01:12:21Marc:Yeah, we made it hip again.

01:12:22Marc:I don't know how the hell it happened.

01:12:23Marc:Wow.

01:12:24Marc:Like, they're selling out the fucking main room.

01:12:26Marc:Really?

01:12:27Marc:On the weekends again.

01:12:28Marc:Wow.

01:12:28Marc:It's crazy.

01:12:29Marc:Young people.

01:12:30Marc:Doesn't feel evil.

01:12:31Marc:It's bizarre, dude.

01:12:33Marc:Bizarre.

01:12:34Marc:So that's all I'll do is I'll go there and I'll work some shit out and I'll do these other things.

01:12:39Marc:But what about colleges?

01:12:40Marc:I mean, I had to stop them alone.

01:12:42Marc:Never did them.

01:12:42Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:12:43Guest:Never did them.

01:12:44Marc:When you start looking at 17-year-olds,

01:12:47Marc:I don't think I'm their bag.

01:12:48Marc:I have a very specific type of person that comes.

01:12:53Marc:The clubs are always very happy with me because they're grownups.

01:12:55Marc:They tip well.

01:12:56Marc:They're not animals.

01:12:57Marc:I don't know how at my age I was able to pull together an audience that's mature people.

01:13:04Marc:No one goes out.

01:13:05Guest:No, that's right.

01:13:06Guest:To have them come.

01:13:07Guest:I wrote a joke like 40 years ago when I was playing colleges because I started at 23.

01:13:12Guest:You know, four years after you.

01:13:13Guest:So all of a sudden, I'm 28.

01:13:14Guest:I'm struggling.

01:13:15Guest:I'm going, what the fuck, man?

01:13:16Guest:What am I doing?

01:13:17Guest:Yeah.

01:13:17Guest:To use your phrase.

01:13:18Guest:I'm sorry.

01:13:19Guest:But I, so the best thing I got out of the colleges, which I slowly didn't want to do.

01:13:24Guest:It was interesting.

01:13:25Guest:Colleges, you know, they're too young.

01:13:27Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:13:28Guest:I can't be real.

01:13:28Guest:It's true.

01:13:29Guest:Because I like to just unpeel the layers on stage like you.

01:13:33Guest:Yeah.

01:13:33Guest:So one thing I came out of that, I said, you know, I'm playing these colleges.

01:13:38Guest:This is like a joke I did on a special like 40 years ago where I wrote.

01:13:41Guest:I said, you know, they don't understand the premises, so I got to change it.

01:13:44Guest:So I say, you know, Adlai Stevenson, I mean Madonna.

01:13:48Guest:I mean Madonna.

01:13:50Guest:And that was it for me.

01:13:51Guest:And I'm walking away.

01:13:52Guest:I'm walking away.

01:13:53Guest:You know, I had to walk away from colleges.

01:13:56Guest:All right, so this is good.

01:13:57Guest:We're good.

01:13:57Guest:Yeah, it's all good.

01:13:58Marc:So you got the book, which is cute and nice and beautiful.

01:14:02Guest:Yeah, the artist called Totoro.

01:14:04Guest:It's a cool little book.

01:14:05Guest:And the TV show.

01:14:06Guest:Blunt talk on stars starting this summer for two years.

01:14:09Guest:I love the Albrechts.

01:14:10Guest:stuff because he was at hbo and he started as a doorman at the improv man then a comedy with bob samuda agent and then he was with hbo he's a brilliant executive i mean he just picks people and he lets you alone that's what he did with hbo i'm looking forward to seeing you do the thing yeah blunt talk is i think you know i'm talking about a show i'm a recurring shrink in the homage to dr weiss that's right and in this box set what is the box set

01:14:37Marc:When did that come out?

01:14:39Marc:No one sent me that.

01:14:40Marc:Why can't I have that?

01:14:41Guest:It's a little documentary of my house that I've been in 25 years.

01:14:45Guest:This is a bundle of nerves thing?

01:14:46Guest:Yeah.

01:14:46Guest:I boxed that and a thing like that preempted Saturday Night Live, Diary of a Young Comic back in 79.

01:14:52Guest:It's all in there.

01:14:52Guest:It's all in there, yeah.

01:14:53Guest:A movie, Drunks, that was never out.

01:14:56Guest:I saw that movie, didn't I?

01:14:58Guest:I don't know.

01:14:58Guest:It's pretty cool.

01:14:59Guest:It's a heavy movie.

01:15:00Guest:Really?

01:15:00Guest:You play an addict.

01:15:01Guest:Yeah, Junkie.

01:15:02Guest:I saw that.

01:15:03Guest:I saw that.

01:15:03Guest:Yeah, it's pretty cool.

01:15:04Guest:And then an old special from the bottom line that never got out on DVD.

01:15:07Guest:Really?

01:15:07Guest:From what year?

01:15:09Guest:From 95.

01:15:10Guest:About six months sober, so I wanted to put it out there.

01:15:14Guest:Oh, I'd like to see that.

01:15:15Guest:Yeah, it's okay.

01:15:16Guest:I mean, when you look at stuff 20 years back, you go, oh, gee.

01:15:19Marc:But you still know it's you.

01:15:20Marc:It took me a long time to realize.

01:15:22Marc:I see stuff before I even knew how to be a comic.

01:15:24Marc:I'm like, I was really trying.

01:15:26Marc:I could see myself there.

01:15:27Guest:Well, maybe your performance level, but the jokes are probably still funny to you.

01:15:31Marc:Kind of.

01:15:31Marc:No, just like that I can identify my voice because I'm a guy that always, I can always start like, you know, I'm not where I need to be.

01:15:36Marc:You know, I don't have a point of view or whatever.

01:15:38Marc:And then I look back and I'm like, you were always you.

01:15:40Marc:What the fuck were you?

01:15:41Marc:Yeah, right, right.

01:15:41Marc:What am I nuts about?

01:15:43Guest:You know?

01:15:43Guest:But you, you'll change.

01:15:45Guest:If something crazy happens to you this afternoon, it'll be on stage very soon.

01:15:50Guest:I talked about pizza for seven minutes last night.

01:15:52Marc:I don't know what the hell that was about.

01:15:53Guest:But do you listen, you have to, I never record it.

01:15:55Guest:I record it.

01:15:56Guest:You record, but isn't that, that was always torturing me.

01:15:58Marc:I never, I don't listen.

01:15:59Marc:I listen to it.

01:16:00Guest:I record them all.

01:16:01Guest:I used to listen to everything.

01:16:03Guest:Now I don't record either.

01:16:04Guest:It's very existential for me now.

01:16:05Guest:I can't take it anymore.

01:16:07Guest:I bring the pad up on stage and I don't look at it.

01:16:09Guest:And I record and I don't listen.

01:16:12Guest:I think that's an ouch.

01:16:14Guest:We can't top that stupidity.

01:16:16Guest:It was great to see you.

01:16:17Guest:I love you, man.

01:16:19Marc:Richard Lewis.

01:16:24Marc:Always consistently Richard Lewis, that guy.

01:16:28Marc:And I am not like Richard Lewis.

01:16:29Marc:I have my own version of aggravated neurotic bullshit.

01:16:33Marc:I think that's clear to everybody.

01:16:35Marc:All right?

01:16:36Marc:We are kindred spirits.

01:16:38Marc:All right, look.

01:16:38Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.

01:16:43Marc:You know what I'm saying?

01:16:45Marc:Check out my tour dates.

01:16:46Marc:I had to shut down the poster shop for a little while.

01:16:51Marc:We're a little backed up on posters because I've been on tour.

01:16:54Marc:If you're waiting for a poster, it'll be there soon.

01:16:55Marc:I'm sorry.

01:16:57Marc:Also, get on the mailing list.

01:17:00Marc:Get on the mailing list.

01:17:02Marc:I'll send you an email every Sunday.

01:17:05Marc:But check those tour dates because I might be in a town near you.

01:17:09Marc:WTFpod.com slash calendar.

01:17:11Marc:Right now we are playing probably a slightly out of tune Telecaster through a hummingbird.

01:17:20Marc:That is an Earthquaker hummingbird.

01:17:24Marc:And that is also running through a Ghost Echo.

01:17:29Marc:Also an Earthquaker device.

01:17:38Marc:Boomer Lives!