Episode 612 - Judd Apatow
Guest:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:Wait a minute.
Marc:Wait, I can't.
Marc:I can't even do the intro.
Marc:I can't even do it.
Marc:All right, let's just let's just deal with this.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Today on the show is Judd Apatow.
Marc:I kind of told you a little something about maybe something big was going to happen.
Marc:So brace yourselves.
Marc:Are you sitting down?
Marc:Okay.
Okay.
Marc:All right, now take a breath.
Marc:All right.
Marc:If everything goes as planned, on Monday, I will post a WTF, an episode of this show that you're listening to now featuring myself in conversation with talking to at my home in my garage.
Marc:Me talking to
Marc:the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama.
Marc:That is what's happening Monday.
Marc:If everything goes well tomorrow, I don't know when you're listening to this, but I'm talking to him tomorrow.
Marc:If everything goes well, if everything goes as planned, by the end of the day, tomorrow, Friday, I will have a conversation in the can with the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama.
Marc:If you are tuning into this show right now because you heard about that episode, and this is the first time you've listened to my show, to WTF, go subscribe to the show, to this show on iTunes, or go to the WTF app for whatever device you use and get that at the App Store.
Marc:That way the episode with the president will be there for you when you wake up Monday morning.
Marc:Now...
Marc:What am I doing in terms of planning?
Marc:That's a good question, Mark.
Marc:That's a good question.
Marc:Why don't I just interview myself now about how I'm going to handle the interview with the president?
Marc:Well, what I'll probably do first is freak out for about a week or two.
Marc:All right, I already did that.
Marc:Check.
Marc:Done.
Marc:Now I just have one more day to freak out.
Marc:And I'm in Hawaii, his home state.
Marc:So I've been down here on vacation.
Marc:I will be back in time for the interview.
Marc:If everything goes well, I should be back today.
Marc:But now I'm thinking about it.
Marc:I'm spinning.
Marc:Because I want to do a WTF interview.
Marc:That's what I do.
Marc:I haven't done political talk radio in years.
Marc:No desire to.
Marc:But now I'm going to have a conversation with the president, which is inherently he's a political figure.
Marc:I don't know if you realize that, but he's the president of the United States of America.
Marc:He's at the top of the political food chain, if you will, which I never say.
Marc:But nonetheless, an incredibly brilliant and interesting man with a life that I'm going to talk to him about.
Marc:If everything goes well, we do a classic.
Marc:Can I refer to myself as that?
Marc:Is there a standard or classic WTF style interview?
Marc:I think so.
Marc:I'm not exactly sure what they are, what they entail, but I know when I do them.
Marc:And I hopefully will do one of those with the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama.
Marc:That you will be able to hear on Monday wherever you get this podcast.
Marc:But I'm not freaking out about it.
Marc:I mean, does it sound like I'm freaking out about it?
Marc:Because I'm not.
Marc:I'm not freaking out about it at all.
Marc:I don't think it's.
Marc:Why would I freak out about the president coming to my house?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I hope my bathroom is clean.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I should probably clean the house a little.
Marc:I should probably prep the cat somehow.
Marc:We let the neighbors know.
Marc:My producer and business partner, Brendan, has been at the house dealing with Secret Service.
Marc:My street is going to be incredibly safe for the next few days.
Marc:Incredibly well-secured.
Marc:Big day on my street.
Marc:had a very relaxing week other than knowing that the president of the united states barack obama is going to be in my garage i'll be sitting in my garage with the president of the united states directly across from him trying not to lose my shit trying to play it cool and act like we're just hanging out having a little chat
Marc:For an hour.
Marc:That's the deal.
Marc:I'm a little queasy.
Marc:Hey, you guys.
Marc:All right, look, I'm coming to the East Coast.
Marc:June 25th, the Capitol Theater, Port Chester, New York.
Marc:June 26th, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Howard Opera House.
Marc:That one's almost sold out.
Marc:So get on that.
Marc:Bam.
Marc:That's bam.
Marc:For those of you who don't know what bam stands for.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Saturday, June 27th, the Paramount Theater in Huntington, New York.
Marc:Out on the island.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So why don't you get some tickets for that, right?
Marc:All right, that's all I'm saying.
Marc:Sunday, June 28th, Count Basie Theater, Red Bank, New Jersey.
Marc:All right, Jersey, please.
Marc:That's where my genes are from.
Marc:Not the genes I'm wearing.
Marc:That's where my DNA was brought together.
Marc:That's where it all happened.
Marc:I was conceived and came out in New Jersey from Jersey people.
Marc:The least you can do, New Jersey, is show up for me.
Marc:Your wayward native son.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Can you do that?
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Hawaii's been great.
Marc:We are having a very nice time down here between panic about many things and just awe-inspiring beauty and food, a lot of fruit.
Marc:I've had enough of fruit.
Marc:I don't think I've eaten any meat down here.
Marc:Some aji, a bit of aji, some seared aji, some seared poke, a Kentaro sushi.
Marc:which is memorable.
Marc:I've had some amazing snorkeling experiences with my mask, my prescription snorkeling mask from Snorkel Bob's.
Marc:Seen some fish.
Marc:I wanted to jump in and see some turtles, but it made my girl nervous.
Marc:She didn't want me to jump in and not come out.
Marc:I understand that fear.
Marc:Though I think she was overreacting.
Marc:That's fine.
Marc:Sometimes you do things just so they don't freak out, I guess.
Marc:Don't want them freaking out.
Marc:Tough enough when we're driving in the car.
Marc:Slow down.
Marc:Slow down.
Marc:Slow down.
Marc:It's a yield sign.
Marc:It's a yield sign.
Marc:This is that turn.
Marc:Slow down.
Marc:Stop.
Marc:Can you stop...
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Had some good food, but mostly I cooked here at the place we're staying.
Marc:It's this gorgeous place, Hanalei Beach Resort Community.
Marc:Yeah, there's some people here that seem to be part of a community.
Marc:There's a dude just over, you know, I can see part of the ocean from my resort community, temporary vacation.
Marc:and the guy below facing the water is prone to sort of just do a little, you know, the Grateful Dead shake.
Marc:He does a little of the hippie dance.
Marc:He's out there, you know, in his early 60s with his little oval sunglasses on and his headphones doing that hippie dance, that convulsing in rhythm with something we can't hear.
Marc:But I know it's a jam band situation, I'm thinking, or some smooth jazz.
Marc:Maybe before I go, I'll ask him what he's doing the old man hippie dance to.
Marc:Seems like a pleasant guy.
Marc:Apparently he lives here.
Marc:Very chatty.
Marc:But how could you not be just living down here?
Marc:I mean, look, I love it.
Marc:It's beautiful.
Marc:The idea of Kawhi is great.
Marc:But like we're a weekend.
Marc:And I think if we stayed one day longer, everything would fall apart.
Marc:Just like, it's just time to go.
Marc:I've had enough of the island.
Marc:I'm relaxed.
Marc:Now I'm starting to spin.
Marc:I'm ready to get back on the treadmill of my life.
Marc:Oh, and I mentioned, talk to the president of the United States of America tomorrow.
Marc:Judd Apatow is here, and I generally don't do guests.
Marc:I don't repeat them.
Marc:Sometimes people are on live ones and regular ones, but this one just came out of nowhere.
Marc:Judd had some things he wanted to promote, and I do that with friends, and then we ended up talking for an hour.
Marc:So he's here.
Marc:His book is called Sick in the Head, Judd Apatow's book.
Marc:It's available now wherever you get books.
Marc:He's also doing comedy for charity on the Trainwreck Comedy Tour with...
Marc:Amy Schumer, David Attell.
Marc:David?
Marc:Did I just call him David?
Marc:David Attell.
Marc:Maybe he's a David.
Marc:I think he is a David.
Marc:David Attell, Vanessa Bayer, Mike Berbiglia, and Colin Quinn.
Marc:They're in Chicago tonight, Seattle tomorrow, San Francisco on Saturday, and LA on Friday.
Marc:Go to trainwreckmovie.com to get tickets.
Marc:Trainwreck is the Amy Schumer movie that Judd directed.
Marc:It comes out July 17th.
Marc:So let's go now to what would, I think, effectively be a third hour of conversation that I've had recorded with Judd Apatow over the years.
Marc:Okay, enjoy this.
Marc:You should have, like, you know, Elvis had his trophy shack.
Marc:Have you been to Elvis' house?
Marc:He has a whole, almost like a warehouse out back that you can walk through of just his trophies and gold medals and shit.
Marc:Like he built that for himself.
Marc:You need to build that for yourself.
Marc:No?
Guest:I'd like to.
Guest:I don't know if I can get permission from the home front.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:For the Michael Jackson 40-foot statue of myself.
Marc:Isn't that coming?
Marc:It's got to be close.
Guest:At some point, that's all you can do is build a statue to yourself and build your own in-memoriam reel so you could watch what you think the reel will be after you die.
Marc:Yeah, I've often thought about putting that montage together.
Marc:I don't know what the... I don't know if there'd be tremendous fanfare.
Marc:That'd be funny if that's what you left as a living will, is a memoriam montage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Guys, when I die, I've already put it together as a montage.
Guest:It's 200 minutes long.
Marc:I tried to cut it down, but I couldn't.
Guest:There's too much good stuff.
Guest:There's too much good stuff.
Guest:I got the young comedian special in there.
Guest:My first evening of the improv in full.
Yeah.
Marc:I have one of those of my HBO special from 95.
Marc:Yeah, the 45-minute set.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:But when I saw it, I was like, they made the right choice.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I had to trim that shit down.
Guest:I got involved in my HBO Young Comedians special edit because someone slipped me a look at it.
Guest:I knew somebody who was...
Guest:A part of the production.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was a very bad edit of it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And thank God I was able to get some notes in.
Guest:Are you serious?
Guest:Yeah, because usually back then you wouldn't have any say as to how they edited yourself.
Guest:And you weren't anybody then.
Guest:You were just a kid on the thing.
Guest:No, I just happened to just know an editor or a low-level producer.
Guest:What was the problem with it?
Guest:How did you tighten that thing up?
Guest:That's a very good question.
Guest:I made a mistake on my HBO Young Comedian special back in 92 is I didn't have a dirty act, but I was so excited to be on HBO that I kept cursing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now whenever they show it on television, I get bleeped so much like I'm Richard Pryor, but there's no reason for the curses.
Guest:It's just like, hey, have you ever seen this shit?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Can you believe this fucking shit?
Guest:You're like, I have the freedom.
Marc:But I know jokes that needed a curse.
Marc:Yeah, I no longer know how to talk appropriately in situations because I've been a comic too long.
Guest:You go too far and you don't realize people don't talk that long.
Marc:I go too far.
Marc:I just say fuck at the weird time.
Marc:I punctuate with fuck.
Marc:And it's like normal people don't talk like that.
Guest:I'm about to do Jimmy Fallon and I'm going to do stand-up on it.
Guest:And now I have to look at all of the stand-up I've been doing in...
Guest:Really assess how much I've been leaning on cursing and dirty for survival.
Guest:How much have you been?
Guest:more than i'd like to acknowledge really i well that things are you know a little too dirty i can't really do the in hell bill cosby should be raped by himself bit yeah on the tonight show well how does that i don't i don't haven't i haven't heard that joke how could he be raped by himself if he's asleep exactly that every morning bill cosby wakes up and goes oh shit i got raped by i spy
Guest:And then the next day, I got raped by Huxtable.
Guest:I got raped by the Jell-O pudding guy.
Guest:Every morning, it's a different era of Cosby that has raped him.
Guest:I have only done it a few times, but most of the things that make me laugh don't really work on television.
Marc:So what is it?
Marc:Okay, so you told Fallon, because I see I'm trying to get on Fallon, but for some reason, I'm not interesting enough for something.
Marc:I'm just an oddity.
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, I should be an oddity.
Marc:You're an oddity because you're Judd Apatow.
Marc:It'd only be an oddity if you do not do any panel.
Guest:Are you not getting on as panel or as stand-up?
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:I don't know what it is.
Guest:I had that with Letterman where I did Letterman in 2007.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was so excited to do it.
Marc:Oh, right.
Guest:That was the biggest thing, yeah.
Guest:I wasn't doing stand-up.
Marc:I was doing panel.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I did one panel with him before he left.
Marc:One.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Marc:I saw that.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:It was great.
Guest:The Mel Brookson.
Guest:And then I couldn't get back on again.
Guest:Right.
Guest:For the next- Ten years?
Guest:Eight years.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And so as everyone was saying goodbye to Letterman, I'm like, I kind of got blackballed, I think.
Guest:And I kept saying to my publicist,
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then he's so nice to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's like, Chad, I feel like I know you.
Guest:All your friends have been on.
Guest:And I shit a brick because the kindness was not what I threw you and threw me completely.
Guest:I didn't know what to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I tell my stories and I told a funny story about.
Guest:When I was a kid, I wrote every single staff member of Letterman asking for an internship.
Guest:And the gaffer, like Hiram Bullock, the guitar player, which really made him laugh, the Hiram Bullock reference.
Guest:And you just sent them to the address of the studio?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I did get an interview.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With Hiram Bullock.
Guest:With only Hiram Bullock alone in a room.
Yeah.
Guest:And I get to the interview.
Guest:Now, I'm completely broke at the time.
Guest:I'm going to college.
Guest:I fly from California to the interview.
Guest:This is the dream, the internship at Letterman.
Guest:When I get there, the lady says, it's filled already.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And nothing like that had ever happened in my life.
Guest:I spent like $1,000 to fly home to be told something that I could have been told on the phone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I wrote the woman a letter, like very formally, but at the end called her the C word.
Guest:No.
Guest:But like, you know, I really spent a lot of time and this cost me a lot of money and I just don't know why you acted like such a C-word.
Guest:I'm like 18 years old.
Guest:And I was so upset, I couldn't watch Letterman for almost a year.
Marc:Did he, was this ever brought up to him?
Guest:Did he have any recollection of it being presented to him?
Guest:No, of course not.
Guest:And I'm sure he knew nothing about it.
Guest:And I did not mention the C-word elements on the show.
Guest:But right at the end of my panel, which went pretty well,
Guest:I tried to read the Motion Picture Academy's reasoning for giving it an R rating, which was incredibly long.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like sexual content and some moments of junk abuse.
Marc:You didn't edit it at all?
Marc:You just went into it?
Marc:You didn't make a plan?
Marc:Well...
Guest:I tried to squeeze in one more bit about the numerous reasons why we were R-rated.
Marc:Which movie?
Guest:For Knocked Up.
Guest:Oh, Knocked Up.
Guest:And I rushed it.
Guest:And I didn't get the laugh.
Guest:And then ever since then, I'm like, that joke was the fucking nail in my coffin at Letterman.
I did not...
Marc:I don't know if it ever has anything to do with that.
Marc:I don't understand the Fallon thing.
Marc:It sort of upset me because I didn't want to be in this place at this point where it's like I have the third season of a show.
Marc:Granted, okay, it's on IFC, whatever, but it is the third season.
Marc:What do I got to be?
Marc:What do I got to do to be a legit guest?
Guest:Well, also, I think what happens is you think.
Guest:Does Fallon not like me?
Guest:Is it one talent booker who doesn't like me?
Guest:And you never find out.
Marc:You never find out.
Guest:Until I ask him.
Guest:You ask him.
Guest:I'm there.
Guest:Do it.
Marc:Jimmy.
Marc:What's up with Mark?
Marc:I'm just going to pull out a photograph of you.
Marc:You remember this guy?
Guest:He thinks you don't like him.
Guest:Look at that face.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah, that's the thing is you don't know because it could be as simple as a scheduling thing and that's the only reason why you didn't get on Letterman.
Guest:But I really think my publicist is lying to me.
Guest:I think he knows exactly why I can't get on and he never told me because he knew it would break my heart.
Marc:You know what's shitty about that?
Marc:We have the same fucking publicist.
Marc:And I'm not... Son of a bitch.
Marc:And I'm not getting an answer out of him either.
Marc:He's chewing tobacco.
Marc:He doesn't care.
Marc:Is he now?
Marc:No, he's off of it.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:So what the... All right, so you're going to do stand-up.
Marc:But are you going to do panel?
Marc:Are you just going to go out and do stand-up and then not do a guest panel segment?
Guest:Well... Now, that would be freakish.
Guest:Well, Adam Sandler is the other guest.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So what I requested was, because I'm promoting Trainwreck, I said, I'll do stand-up.
Guest:Because I really didn't want to do stand-up.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But I knew that they would really get a kick out of it because Josh Lieb, who's the executive producer, is an old friend.
Guest:And as soon as I started doing stand-up, he said, you have to do it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I think because he doesn't even think it'll go well.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I said, OK, I'll do it.
Guest:But you have to let me do some panel so I can mention the movie.
Guest:And I want it's fun for Adam to see me do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because Adam is one of the few people who's always gotten a kick out of me doing stand-up.
Guest:And he'll be funny making fun of me.
Marc:He's another guy I think that you need to, like apparently this is going to work, I don't know if it'll work in my favor at all actually, but I think he has a problem with me that he might not remember, but it's somehow.
Marc:He vaguely doesn't like you?
Marc:No, he doesn't like me for a reason, but I think he should be on this show, don't you?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He doesn't do too many of them.
Guest:The one that I heard him do, which was fun, was he did Norm MacDonald's podcast.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I think that was the only time I've ever heard him do that.
Guest:Maybe it's not personal.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:He tends to have a philosophy that he's best seen in person on video.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So he doesn't do magazines pretty much ever.
Guest:And he likes to just... Doesn't like to speak as himself, perhaps.
Right.
Guest:Well, maybe less so lately.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he just thinks if I'm on video, you can just see me like no one's editing it.
Guest:No one's deciding what quotes define me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I just like to be there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which makes complete sense.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And and I think it served him well.
Marc:Well, you interviewed him in the book.
Marc:And that was a Charlie Rose appearance we did.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:Together.
Marc:It was a transcript.
Guest:Yeah, that was fun because because even at the time, I thought you kind of don't hear Adam talk too much reflectively about his career and his experiences.
Guest:So I thought it was special to get in the book.
Marc:yeah i don't yeah i have no sense of uh you know these guys you know i went and saw the stones and i went and saw uh you too oh yeah i'm going tonight to see you too that's probably good because now they're a few days away from the tragic loss of their tour manager um which i saw them the night of i saw the next night at the roxy oh you did they did it the night they did a small show the night after a big show how was that
Guest:Phenomenal, because they can't run around, and so they're very focused on just sounding great.
Marc:Well, I would have liked to have seen that, because they have a huge show.
Marc:There's a cage the length of the forum that goes up and down, and they're in it, and they're projecting things on it, and they're running around beneath it, and occasionally they get inside it and run around.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:And is it great crazy?
Marc:It's one of those things where you're like, holy fuck, the technology that we're at now, that they can do that.
Marc:They're projecting images on it.
Marc:My problem with the screens in general is that you tend to not look at the guy.
Marc:It becomes very weird to look at the small man who's singing when you have all this other shit going on.
Guest:That's why the Roxy was fun, because he's 20 feet away.
Guest:Is he a short man?
Guest:He's not short, but he's not tall.
Guest:He looked about Ben Stiller's size to me.
Guest:Yeah, that's probably right.
Guest:And the second he opens his mouth, you get chills and you think...
Guest:this is one of the greats of all time top three right of all time yeah and they played 12 songs and off the top of your head you can list 30 right you wish they also play well that's the point i was making is that there are these guys and it's you're not there yet neither is adam but you've had long careers of over like it's over 20 years or 25 years right
Marc:30 now.
Marc:30 years, and we're still doing something.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And I've been lucky enough to meet Bono a couple of times, and he's in the same position as everyone else, which is, how do I stay relevant?
Guest:And the fact that this guy is still relevant, and I started listening to him when I was 15 years old, washing dishes on Long Island in 1983.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:I mean, the new record, forget the controversy of they tried to give it to you.
Guest:It's phenomenal.
Guest:I mean, it really is an amazing record.
Guest:And that's all of our dream.
Marc:It's all of our dreams.
Marc:To stay relevant.
Marc:I mean... I'll be happy if I have a window of relevancy.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:If I had six years, I was very relevant.
Marc:Well, relevant just even in terms of just doing good work where you feel engaged.
Marc:Right, good work.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:I think that's really, that's what determines it.
Marc:Not whether or not you can sell records or whether or not.
Marc:The feeling I got when I saw both of them was like, these are professional showmen putting on a show and being who they are at the age they're at.
Marc:I mean, there is a little denial, I think, about... There is a little vanity, but they can't hide it.
Marc:That's one thing the screens can't hide.
Marc:Well, they have fun with it.
Guest:I think that when you talk to him, what I was most impressed with is he has a great sense of humor about all of it.
Guest:He does.
Guest:He understands what he represents.
Guest:He understands what people think about him and... What part?
Guest:Well, like...
Guest:I think he is like a beautiful charitable person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That in addition to this rock and roll iconography.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He really dedicated his life to finding ways to help people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's so easy to think ill of that as a, you know, just a...
Guest:Cynical person.
Guest:Right.
Marc:A cynical person would think ill of that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because you think he is like, well, why sting doing so many benefits?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But when you really break it down, have you ever like flown to the Sudan and talk to people at a refugee camp?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like these people put in.
Guest:an amazing amount of time and really do change lives.
Guest:Like, things that Bono has done has raised probably a billion dollars.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And every dollar that probably affected someone's life.
Guest:But he's also aware that... People are sitting at home on their couch going, fuck that guy!
Guest:Well, it's kind of like charity fatigue.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That people have, like, I'm tired of watching people care so much for so long.
Guest:Or this one guy.
Guest:Yeah, and I think that...
Guest:Anyone who does charity work, whether it's Angelina Jolie, Jerry Lewis, people have an instinct to make fun of it.
Guest:But no one does shit.
Guest:People make fun of it and they don't do anything that touches people's lives.
Guest:And it's good to remember these people.
Guest:I've seen Angelina Jolie speak about what she does.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's jaw-dropping when she talks about visiting a country.
Guest:And this is what it's like for these people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What it's like to have no home.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And imagine sitting with these people and trying to figure out politically what
Guest:what can you do with the million refugees coming out of Syria?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And who in their lives tries to take it on in any way and try to get involved in solving things?
Guest:So I love people like that.
Guest:I feel like we don't... Appreciate them enough.
Guest:No, because it's so easy to just go, he gave me a record for free.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, sorry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sorry that you had to take one billionth of a second to not, you know, download it.
Guest:To delete it from your queue or whatever.
Guest:You know, I mean, and the record's phenomenal.
Guest:So...
Guest:I'm excited to see them tonight because all my heroes are those people.
Guest:I love that when Dylan makes time out of mind and you think, wow, he found a new fucking vein of something amazing.
Guest:And Warren Zevon's last album, it inspires you for decades when people...
Guest:I don't think most people understand how hard it is to keep creating, keep finding new ideas, new things that engage you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And also with those guys to keep finding a presentation of themselves that honors themselves, but also is provocative.
Marc:Because they have to reinvent, like Dylan has got, I don't know how conscious he is of it.
Marc:The funny thing about Dylan, I've talked about this to other people, is that he put out this last album, it was all sort of crooning.
Marc:And he's been on the road for what, about two decades now?
Marc:Like hit or missing with entire evenings of people going, I don't even know what song this is.
Marc:So it's sort of funny to me that this last album is sort of like a fuck you to anybody who spent money on Dylan tickets in the last two decades and couldn't figure out what he was doing.
Marc:Because clearly he can do it.
Guest:He can do anything.
Guest:I saw him and he was playing the organ.
Guest:I don't know why he wasn't playing the guitar.
Guest:Because he's got, I think he's got arthritis or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the organ is facing one side of the forum.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The other side of the forum is looking at his back.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Like, he didn't set it up where he was facing forward.
Marc:That's a tough room to do that.
Marc:He picked, like, I'm going to face.
Marc:Oh, I see.
Marc:So the whole side of good seats, not the ones behind the stage, but on, like, the other side.
Marc:Like, it was.
Marc:He's not facing forward.
Marc:He's facing left.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Got it.
Guest:And so everyone on the right is looking at his back.
Guest:And the whole show, you think, okay, halfway through, they rotate the organ.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No.
Marc:They don't rotate the organ.
Marc:Well, see, that's how you'll see tonight, how you two solved that.
Marc:Because this cage is vertical, and it plays to both sides.
Marc:But the images of the video are on both sides, but they sort of have to move around.
Marc:They're very aware.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It's a very articulated shtick they're doing.
Marc:Big presentation, big show.
Guest:And they've been doing it forever.
Guest:I mean, to keep reinventing.
Guest:The big show.
Marc:So what are you doing for... Well, first, let's talk about your involvement with charity now that we've brought it up.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Is it relatively new to you?
Marc:No, it's actually what I've done from day one, which is... Day one, like HBO special day one?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, the first job I ever had was for Comic Relief in 1986 while I was in college.
Guest:And they raised money for the homeless and homeless healthcare around the country.
Guest:And...
Guest:I just met a lot of great people who cared about charity.
Guest:In my house, no one ever talked about charity.
Guest:The word was not spoken.
Guest:I never saw my parents give a nickel to anybody else.
Guest:You don't have a tree in Israel?
Guest:Nothing?
Guest:No trees.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:And not out of anything negative.
Guest:It just was not even brought up that your life should be about that.
Guest:How can I give to other people?
Guest:It was always, why are we getting fucked?
Guest:There's no time for giving.
Guest:Where's our charity?
Exactly.
Guest:Everyone's ripping us off.
Guest:And so when I met these people at homeless shelters and this great guy, Dennis Alba, who taught me a lot about charity, who ran the charity side of Comic Relief, it just woke me up to it.
Guest:And my job was to produce small benefits around the country.
Guest:They would do the big HBO show, and then I would call every comedy club in the country and ask them to do a night for Comic Relief.
Guest:So it's a production job.
Guest:Yes, and I did it for years and years.
Guest:Really?
Guest:No writing?
Guest:No, I was just producing benefits.
Marc:That's why I love putting shows together.
Marc:So you were the guy that when we got booked on a comic relief thing, thinking maybe one of the comic relief people would show up.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, you hit the comedy corner.
Marc:It's a comic relief thing.
Marc:Maybe Billy or Robin will show up.
Marc:No one does.
Marc:No.
Guest:It's just me at home alone with nobody.
Marc:It's looking for a name.
Guest:But we raised, you know, like a million dollars that way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you did that for years?
Guest:For years.
Guest:I got paid nothing for a couple of years, and I got paid $200 a week for a couple of years.
Guest:And then it went up to $400 for a couple of years.
Guest:And so when I started doing stand-up,
Guest:I had a couple hundred bucks a week doing that, and then if I can make a couple hundred bucks a week driving out to Rancho Cucamonga to do an opening spot at a pizza place, I could make $400 a week and pay my bills.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you're doing these shows at Largo, which are all charities.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But how do you decide, as a person with a ridiculous amount of money, what charities to give to?
Marc:Do people lobby you?
Marc:Do you have a personal connection to it?
Guest:Well, this great man, Dennis Alba, who passed away,
Guest:He used to send me a list every year of charities that were in a bad situation.
Guest:And he would say... Charities that needed charity.
Guest:Yeah, he said, if you don't help them, these are charities that could go under.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's who I would give to for years and years.
Guest:And a lot of it was like...
Guest:The LA Men's Place, which takes care of mentally ill homeless men.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The unsexiest charities in the world.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's no one advocating for them.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And they're small.
Marc:They're small.
Marc:They might just be like a small non-for-profit thing that like to feed people or whatever.
Guest:And they're local.
Guest:And doing work that, you know, most people don't want to do, like really difficult work.
Guest:And he would give me a list of those places.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then as the years go by, you have friends who are involved in different charities.
Guest:Seth Rogen is very involved with Alzheimer's charities.
Guest:Ben Stiller is involved with Haiti and Project ALS.
Guest:And you just start amassing people that you know are doing good work.
Guest:So at Largo, it's been fun because we've been putting on shows almost every other week.
Guest:And because they're for charity, it's easy.
Guest:People will show up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we just give the money away.
Guest:Every once in a while, we auction something.
Guest:But over the course of the last six months, so many people have been there.
Guest:We had Fiona Apple and Jackson Brown and Sandler and Sarah Silverman.
Guest:And it's just so much fun.
Guest:It's fun to produce shows.
Guest:I really like producing comedy and music nights.
Guest:I love...
Marc:Calling people up?
Guest:Figuring out how to get Lindsey Buckingham to show up.
Guest:Oh, good guitar player.
Guest:Lindsey Buckingham with Whitney Cummings.
Guest:And just putting together these really- Randy Newman.
Guest:Randy Newman was amazing.
Guest:Did you ever get screwed by a charity?
Guest:No.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:No, because I don't go for anything fringy.
Guest:And so then I met Dave Eggers, and Dave Eggers, who I look up to because- The 627 thing?
Guest:He's writing.
Marc:Is that what it's called?
Marc:826.
Marc:Yeah, 826.
Guest:I didn't have the number right at all.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:You're way off.
Guest:People could not have donated money based on your recommendation.
Guest:And he has this charity where he provides free tutoring and literacy services to kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at first I did it just because I liked Dave Eggers and was happy to have a reason to talk to him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I find him to be a very inspiring guy.
Guest:Have you read his books?
Guest:Love his books.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's funny as hell.
Guest:He does everything in literature that I like in movies.
Guest:It goes deep.
Guest:It's very human.
Guest:It's also going to be very funny and very vulnerable.
Guest:So I've done a few charity events with him.
Guest:One was, the first one was before Seth Rogen was famous, we did a tribute to Seth Rogen for the charity work he might do one day.
Guest:And so we gave him an award for all of his charity work, even though he had never done anything.
Guest:And it was really funny.
Guest:And Dave Grohl performed with Will Ferrell.
Guest:And it was a really big affair.
Guest:Where was that?
Guest:It was, I don't remember, but it was...
Guest:Spaceland?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And Silver Lake?
Guest:Yeah, and all these stars came out to pay tribute to Seth, who was completely unknown.
Guest:And it was a parody of benefits.
Guest:And so then I was talking to him about raising money, and I said, you know, I have all these interviews I've done since I was a kid when I would interview comedians in high school for my radio station, and I've done so many over the years with different people.
Guest:Maybe I could do a few new ones, and we can give all the money to charity.
Guest:So he says, okay.
Guest:And so we put a couple together and we auctioned off the book and it sold for a lot of money, almost to the point where you go, I should have kept this money.
Guest:This didn't have to be a charity event.
Guest:This could have been just- So this is for the book that's coming out now?
Guest:Yeah, it's called Sick in the Head.
Guest:You can get it on Amazon.
Guest:Our discussion is on there, is in there.
Guest:And then I have- Me and you?
Guest:Me and you talking, our WTF.
Guest:It's all in there?
Guest:It's in there.
Guest:An edited down version of our WTF.
Marc:I went through it today.
Marc:I was going through all the people in it.
Marc:I didn't get all the way down.
Marc:Good.
Marc:But also, I have an interview I did with Steve Allen when I was 15 years old.
Marc:We have all those good ones, the old ones that we talked about the first time we talked, huh?
Guest:Like Harry Anderson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sandra Bernhard from 1984.
Guest:But then I did Louis and Jon Stewart and Chris Rock and Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham in the last year and did and Colbert and did, you know, these great conversations, which are different, I think, than what you do.
Guest:Because I'm still interested in how they do it.
Guest:So I'm interested in the emotional aspect.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, how are you doing?
Guest:But also, how are you doing this show?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, the nitty gritty.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:How do you do the daily show for that many years and keep the quality high?
Guest:What do you say?
Yeah.
Guest:He said a lot of interesting things.
Guest:What was most fascinating was when the interview ended, I thought, oh, he's about to leave the show.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It felt like an exit interview.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Because I could tell he felt like he put in a lot of time there, spent a lot of time away from his family.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Marc:he did what he had to do and and he he did it great and now was the time like when when you heard like somebody like steven colbert i met years ago like i met him when he was on a sketch show like exit 57 when we we shared office space at hbo downtown when i was hosting short attention span theater he's always been a funny guy and you know before the the colbert rapport and all that stuff so when you hear when you first heard that he was going to be replacing letterman what was your first thought
Guest:I think he's one of those people that is going to do something remarkable in whatever form you put him in.
Guest:He's just one of those guys.
Guest:And I had noticed that on the show he was doing more and more that seemed to be... Away from the character?
Guest:Away from the character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had talked to him about it.
Guest:He was at the first Tonight Show taping.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And he was saying how much fun he was having just, you know, doing a singing a song.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And doing things that were slightly outside of the character because he felt like he had really milked that character for a long time.
Guest:He has a lot of other things he wants to do.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I think it's going to be tremendous.
Marc:That's what I think, too.
Marc:Like, he's like so quick and so, you know, focused and funny and charismatic, but very, you know, he's got a lot of class, that guy.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And like, I think the Phil Letterman shoes, you got to have a lot of class.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, what's fascinating about Colbert is he has this history where he lost members of his family in a plane crash.
Guest:And he talked about that in the interview, that it makes him just see life differently.
Guest:He's like, I've already been through the worst thing.
Guest:If you think of the worst thing you ever can imagine.
Marc:Was it his brother or something?
Guest:I can't remember.
Guest:Multiple siblings and his father.
Guest:And he said...
Guest:What is there to worry about when the worst thing that ever could happen has happened?
Guest:And he said that his mom said to him, you need to look at this through the light of eternity.
Guest:And I said, yeah, but why didn't you listen to her?
Guest:Why didn't you just do drugs?
Guest:And he said, oh, I did do drugs.
Marc:The light of eternity.
Guest:But he's a very spiritual person and a religious person.
Marc:What does that mean?
Guest:Well, that's where I get stuck.
Guest:And the funny thing in the book is, because I have a lot of problems with...
Guest:existential issues that when someone says something like that I just never understand why it works because he is truly a touched person and a really good guy and he teaches Sunday school and he's very sincere and and I think trying to do good things in all ways yeah and but also fearlessly hilarious because he has a an amazing perspective on right life but Seinfeld was talking about
Guest:that he used to put a photo from the Hubble telescope of space in the writer's room to feel better.
Guest:That would calm me when I would start to think that this is important.
Guest:See, I go the other way with that.
Guest:That makes me depressed.
Guest:Most people would say that.
Guest:I've often said this, and people always say, it makes me feel insignificant.
Guest:And I don't find being insignificant depressing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I find it uplifting.
Guest:And he kind of doesn't even understand my point of view because it's so clear to him.
Guest:You go with we're meaningless?
Guest:Meaningless doesn't work for me.
Guest:I don't want to be meaningless.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:I've tried very hard.
Guest:I've really read everything there is about being cool with meaninglessness and egolessness.
Guest:I have decided I'm not that guy.
Guest:Against it.
Guest:Yeah, I want to- You're against ego-lessness.
Guest:I can't get there.
Guest:You're against the very premise of spiritual living.
Guest:I do it, I'll meditate, I'll breathe on it, but ultimately when it's quiet and I'm alone and I think in a thousand years, it's like none of this ever happened, I don't feel good about that.
Marc:But the other side of that is when you're dead, you won't know the difference anyways.
Guest:That never works for me either.
Guest:Like, I keep looking for something that will work for me.
Guest:Like, I have a friend who has a great near-death experience story.
Guest:It's a full, like, walk into the lights story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And sometimes I'll think about that for a couple of years.
Guest:Like, well...
Guest:That guy saw the light, so maybe he's right.
Guest:And I'll try to calm down when I get scared in the middle of the night and just go, well, he saw the light.
Guest:But I can't really get an answer.
Guest:And I know you're supposed to love the mystery, but that doesn't work at all.
Marc:You're supposed to love the mystery?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:People say, embrace the mystery.
Marc:What is the mystery of this?
Guest:Just the universe.
Guest:Like, what the hell are we doing here?
Guest:I can't think of that shit.
Guest:Me neither.
Guest:I can't at all.
Guest:And that's why...
Guest:I like comedy because I do like that comedy is just saying, ah, this is so fucked.
Guest:And also you get to laugh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You have to.
Guest:You have to.
Guest:I don't really know any other escape.
Guest:And sometimes, you know, people or family members will say, you know, why do you work so much?
Guest:Because, you know, the quiet is tough.
Guest:And the opposite of the quiet of this, the fun of this.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:i'm fine yeah well if i if it quiet for me it's sort of like i'm like i get uncomfortable and then like you know it can happen in minutes yes then i'm like i gotta eat something i gotta i gotta smoke a cigar i was smoking a cigar like and i'm home like i don't mind being alone but like the quiet like i'll start organizing shit i mean you like like you'll write a movie i'll i'll put my records in alphabetical order
Marc:That's the difference between our ambition.
Marc:You could be making so much more money.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Stop alphabetizing.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:If I stop organizing my refrigerator.
Guest:That could be like if I had a self-help program.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It would all be about not alphabetizing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Don't do it.
Guest:Hire someone else to do that.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And it does drive so much of it.
Guest:But I do think that...
Guest:We're doing this tour for Trainwreck.
Guest:And each city, I said, Damian, let's pick a charity in the city and we'll give all the money away on the tour.
Guest:And it's hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Guest:And it makes the whole tour just more fun.
Guest:It gives it a purpose.
Guest:And the whole time we shot the movie, Dave Attell's there, Mike Birbiglia's there, Vanessa Bayer, and Colin Quinn.
Guest:We just kept saying, oh, we got to do the show.
Guest:Yeah, the tour.
Guest:This is ridiculous.
Guest:So we're doing seven shows, and it's exciting.
Marc:So it's going to be Colin, Attell, Birbiglia, you, Schumer.
Marc:And Vanessa Bayer.
Marc:Vanessa Bayer.
Guest:And you can get tickets at LiveNation or CrowdRise.com.
Guest:And it's going to be so fun.
Guest:And that's also part of it is we just want to have fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Of course you're going to have fun.
Guest:You're going to host it.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'll be on early.
Guest:I'll tell you, I won't be on after a tell.
Guest:That's for sure.
Guest:And the movie opens when?
Guest:The movie opens, I believe it's July 17.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How long is it?
Guest:Three hours?
Guest:It's 97 hours.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I keep telling people, I've just realized I would like my movies to be my age.
Guest:I like them to be 47 years, and every year the movie gets a year longer.
Guest:Well, now they have Periscope.
Guest:You can do that.
Guest:You can just turn that on.
Guest:It's perfect for me.
Guest:All my hoarding, because I've realized that my movies are just hoarding.
Guest:I'm just hoarding life.
Guest:It's not just newspapers.
Guest:I'm actually just recording all of it and forcing you to watch it because I can't let go of any of it.
Marc:But we talked about it in the Vulture thing, but no one read that.
Marc:So what, was it 97 minutes?
Guest:The new movie, I think it's about two hours on the button or something like that.
Guest:You like it?
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Amy really crushed it.
Guest:She's so funny and works so hard and was willing to go there emotionally in a way most people won't.
Guest:Because I've worked with other people and we're writing a personal story and they'll just say,
Guest:Nah, this is too deep.
Guest:I don't want to do this.
Guest:And every time I would say to Amy, are you sure you want to say this?
Guest:She'd be like, oh yeah.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:I mean, never a moment debate of, do you think that'd be weird for someone in your family to hear that or anyone in your life?
Guest:Nope.
Guest:It's fine.
Guest:And that's why the movie's good.
Guest:She was very courageous and she's insanely funny and loves writing jokes.
Guest:So in addition to writing an emotional story, she loves, if I say, can we top that joke?
Guest:And she goes off in a corner with her sister, Kim, who's a great writer, or Kevin Kane, who's the executive producer of her show, who was on set the whole shoot.
Guest:They're having the greatest time ever coming up with those toppers.
Guest:And then I can take a nap.
Guest:Usually I got to think of those.
Guest:You like joke writers.
Guest:I love joke writers.
Guest:There's nothing more fun than saying, I think we could beat this joke in having someone hand you a paper with 10 attempts.
Marc:It's just the most fun thing.
Marc:How is the Marc Maron role coming along for the next Judd Apatow project?
Guest:The Marc Maron role is... It's percolating.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's percolating.
Guest:But I feel like you keep forgetting my excitement and interest in your appearance on Girls.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That that was the first...
Guest:The first non-Mark Maron part that America was given.
Guest:Yeah, with the come over.
Guest:Yeah, I'm glad you noticed.
Marc:And now we see what's possible.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:That you're also a chameleon.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I can be nice.
Marc:I think the idea you had was to cast me as a nice person.
Marc:That's my new idea.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The kind Mark Maron.
Marc:I was once cast in a Janine Garofalo.
Marc:Remember that thing?
Marc:that was written, maybe Greg Daniels did it, that got shelved theoretically because of Janine's political stuff.
Marc:It was a CBS show, I think.
Marc:It was about a local magazine show.
Marc:Like she was the lead, she was the producer of a local magazine show and it was this cast of goofy people that were supposed to be involved in the show that she was producing.
Marc:Do you remember that at all?
Marc:And did it ever air?
Marc:No, it didn't get shot.
Marc:We had our tickets.
Marc:I was fucking, it was like 2002 or something.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that's when Janine made this horrible mistake to say that us getting into a war in the Middle East would be a mistake.
Guest:Yeah, was it then?
Guest:It was exactly then.
Guest:Janine went on television, on CNN.
Guest:I remember it so clearly.
Guest:She was on CNN, and she laid out exactly what would happen if we went into Iraq.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everyone really was dismissive of her.
Guest:This was when there was a giant rally in New York.
Guest:Against Janine?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Against the war.
Guest:And the president just acted like it never happened.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And every single thing that Janine said has come true.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But she took a beating for being completely correct.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And one of the only people to scream it from the rooftops, this is a disaster.
Guest:Right.
Marc:That costs you money, is what I'm saying.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's fine.
Marc:But it was the point being outside of... Yeah, and then I went on to rant and rave with her on the radio.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But the thing is, is that...
Marc:Though she was right, whatever ultimately happened, the part that I was supposed to play was a very excited guy.
Marc:Not an angry guy.
Marc:I just want to tell you I was ready to go.
Marc:You had a peppy gear.
Marc:I was manic.
Marc:I was a PA who wanted to get into producing television.
Marc:I was once like a Wall Street lawyer or something.
Marc:I'd given up this huge job in life to humble myself and be a PA for Janine.
Marc:See, that would have worked.
Marc:Why can't we pull it out now?
Guest:I'm with you.
Guest:Just let me know.
Guest:Where's Greg Daniels?
Guest:He's done fine for himself.
Guest:He has a little more pull to make it happen right now.
Guest:Oh, to do that show again?
Guest:He did The Office, Parks and Rec.
Guest:He's got more pull than 2002 Greg Daniels.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:What TV thing were you working on?
Guest:Do you talk about it yet?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:We have a TV show called Love, which I created with Paul Rust and Leslie Arfin, who are a couple.
Guest:And it's just a romantic comedy for Netflix that moves very slowly.
Guest:And it's like an R-rated.
Guest:Did you write it?
Guest:I wrote it with them.
Guest:And it's based a little bit on the dynamic of their relationship.
Guest:And it's going to air in March.
Guest:We did 10 episodes.
Guest:It's been fantastic.
Guest:They just let you go do your thing.
Guest:You just keep working, man.
Guest:I'm working and having a really good time for the most part.
Guest:How's everything at home, Judd?
Guest:Everything at home is great.
Guest:My daughter's 17, and so she goes to college in a year.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so that's the main... Is it sad?
Guest:It's very sad.
Guest:You notice life...
Guest:moving with a child.
Guest:You know, if no one's around... Yeah, I know.
Guest:It's like the weather in California.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Because it's always 72, you don't know that weather exists.
Guest:It's that you're dying.
Guest:But when you have a child, they go through movements.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, this is the year that they like playing with kittens and Lego.
Guest:And this is the year they discovered boys.
Guest:And this is the year they drive a car.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Different levels of worry for you.
Guest:Well, the worry is just...
Marc:the whole thing it's all it is right it's all worried the rest of your life you're you're uh i don't have that like i'm sad i'm emotionally stilted or stunted like that because i just look at my cats going like no you're getting a little older sad skin is getting flappy well it probably is similar to that i'm not a big no my cat person but i understand the love not somewhere at all my cat's not gonna knock me like i borrow the car
Guest:But do you think in some way that that has affected you negatively?
Marc:No, I just think I don't have that perspective.
Marc:I don't have the sort of like my humility is going to come all at once.
Marc:Like I think that when you have children, you know, you learn to navigate and negotiate emotionally and with your own anxieties and you become wiser and more kind of humbled by that.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And, you know, I think you have an emotional depth because of it if you do it properly that I don't have.
Marc:So, like, I don't know that I feel crippled by it, but I do know that I'm missing that experience.
Yeah.
Guest:Yes, it's definitely a big experience.
Guest:I know there's a lot of people who don't have kids and they feel very, very happy about it.
Guest:And they make a conscious choice to do it.
Guest:And they say, this is my life.
Guest:This is how I want to live it.
Guest:And they are very upset with anyone thinking that they missed out on anything.
Guest:So there's many ways to look at it.
Marc:My life has always been like, I'm not conscious of how to activate my will for things that even like minor things.
Marc:Like, you know, why not buy a new house?
Marc:Why not fix this one?
Marc:Too much anxiety.
Marc:Like most of what I didn't do was just because I'm like, I can't.
Marc:Then I'm gonna have to, that's all.
Marc:It wasn't like a principle.
Marc:You just got to get up and do stuff.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's just I don't like I talk too much about it.
Marc:I talk myself out of it.
Marc:Because you're in this house.
Marc:And it makes me anxious.
Marc:Like shit makes me anxious.
Marc:I have anxiety issues.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Isn't it weird it doesn't go away?
Marc:Well, you don't have the same ones I do because you've taken a lot of risks and done a lot of things.
Guest:But that's also driven by anxiety.
Guest:It's a different expression of anxiety.
Guest:I feel like there's a safety gap.
Guest:in accomplishing things or just being in the middle of trying to make things.
Guest:And that calms me down, knowing that I'm doing something to make things okay.
Guest:Really?
Guest:So it is an expression of anxiety.
Guest:Make what okay?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:There's no real answer to it.
Guest:It's just a feeling that I had as a kid...
Guest:Like, I need to do something.
Guest:I need to act because this isn't working.
Guest:And when I am working on a script or making something, I'm just... You can lose yourself in it.
Guest:I'm still anxious about it not working, which is the weird thing.
Guest:I have the nervousness of what if this is shit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But...
Guest:It's way more calming than doing nothing, which is where I can go to terror sometimes.
Guest:And so I like the idea of doing things.
Guest:And hopefully it's positive and we're making people laugh and think about positive things.
Guest:So I don't think of it as...
Guest:a negative, but it's driven by anxiety.
Marc:But you've seen a lot of comics.
Marc:You know a lot of guys that, like, you know, for whatever reason, have just driven themselves into the ground with mental issues.
Marc:Yes, that's true.
Marc:That's true.
Guest:Mine aren't that complicated, but...
Guest:I am always surprised that they don't fade.
Guest:We talked about this a few years ago, and I don't really feel any different than the last time we've talked.
Guest:But I also feel a little more self-acceptance of, well, whatever.
Guest:I'm a nice guy.
Guest:I'm not hurting anybody.
Marc:I'm trying to put good stuff out there.
Marc:How do you parent?
Marc:What's your relationship with your oldest daughter?
Marc:Do you fight?
Marc:Do you sit down and go, okay, I don't agree with...
Guest:Well, I talk a lot about this on stage, which is... You don't want to ruin your Fallon set?
Guest:No, I don't punish them that often, but mainly because I don't want to be a jailer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't want to be...
Guest:I don't want to have to maintain the boundary of punishment.
Guest:Like punishment is painful.
Guest:So one of my weaknesses as a parent is I'm much more likely to say, come on, don't do that than to be stern and go, you're grounded for a week.
Guest:Because if they're grounded, I got to maintain the grounding and I have to like be solid and not break and go, when you're done with this grounding, hopefully you have learned this lesson.
Guest:So I would have to suffer for the week.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And you choose not suffering over disappointing your child properly.
Guest:Or like I don't, I really spoil my children mainly because I want to spoil myself.
Guest:And if I don't spoil them, I don't get to spoil myself.
Guest:I don't want to sit and coach with them to teach them the values of coach.
Guest:I worked hard to get to first class and I'm not going to give it up so you could have a value.
Guest:You know, you'll learn it sooner or later.
Guest:No, they won't.
Guest:Well, who knows?
Guest:I've been saying I feel like the first half of my life was kind of crappy and the second half was really good and maybe the first half of their life will be really good and the second half will be crappy.
Guest:It all evens out.
Guest:Does it?
Guest:They'll get the same amount of good.
Guest:Well, look, she's going to college now.
Guest:Are you going to buy her an apartment?
No.
Guest:No, no, I don't do things like that.
Guest:But, you know, we bought her a car.
Guest:We bought her a safe car.
Guest:I didn't go, let me get her a shit box.
Guest:You get stuck in this thing of you want a safe car and then slowly the safe car becomes like a pretty good car.
Guest:But when I was a kid, not only did I not get a car, there literally was not even a discussion of the possibility of how it could ever happen.
Guest:It wasn't like my dad even said no.
Guest:It just didn't even come up because clearly there was no way he was going to get me a car.
Guest:How'd you get a car?
Guest:I didn't have a car.
Guest:I was like the guy just getting driven around by his girlfriend in 12th grade.
Guest:But my dad never said like, I feel bad.
Guest:Let's go get you a car for three grand, get you old Camry or something.
Guest:Did not happen.
Guest:Zero discussion.
Guest:So that's different for me because I feel like
Guest:a lot of the reason why I succeeded was because I felt a little fire under my ass to get that stuff.
Guest:And because my kids grow up in a more solid situation, it's not like they're going, I've got to get the fuck out of Brentwood and make my way in the world.
Guest:They live a pretty good life.
Guest:They haven't rebelled against that?
Guest:They're not rebelling against the Malibu Country Mart.
Guest:No.
Guest:But I know a lot of people who...
Guest:grew up in solid situations with parents who were happy and did okay.
Guest:Jake Kasdan, his dad wrote Star Wars for God's sakes.
Guest:He's one of the nicest men ever.
Guest:His mom's fantastic.
Guest:And Jake and his brother John, they couldn't be better and more hardworking.
Guest:So I believe there is a way to raise a solid kid where you can afford- Without suffering, without making them suffer or miss something.
Guest:Yeah, like their lives don't need to be shit to motivate them.
Guest:But you do get nervous about that.
Guest:You want them to have the energy to want to take on the world and accomplish their goals.
Guest:Do they have specific interests?
Guest:Well, they're both very creative.
Guest:Iris is on the new TV show, and she's 12, and so funny, it's somewhat stunning to watch.
Guest:And Maude was on Girls this year.
Guest:And we'll see if they decide to pursue it.
Guest:I want them to write because I feel like an actress's life is very hard if you can't create your own material.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If you're just doing auditions, I think it's a rough road.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:So you want everyone to follow the Amy Schumer, Lena Dunham example.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Have your Marc Maron show.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:That's what you did.
Guest:At some point, you get off your ass and you go...
Guest:People always said I should have written my own Cosby show, and then you do it, and like, oh, they let me do it.
Guest:I'm on season three.
Guest:I could have done that 15 years ago.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:So I don't know what my priorities were.
Marc:How's Wesley doing?
Marc:She's doing great.
Guest:She's shooting a movie in New York and having fun.
Guest:Yeah, what movie?
Guest:It's a movie called How to Be Single with Rebel Wilson and Dakota Johnson and Alison Brie.
Guest:So she's about to finish that up.
Guest:Are you going to New York?
Guest:And then I'm going to go to New York.
Guest:When?
Guest:For the Trainwreck Comedy Tour.
Marc:I'm going tomorrow.
Marc:And what happens then?
Guest:You promote The Vice Show?
Marc:I'm going to go shoot the first interview for The Vice Show.
Marc:With who?
Marc:John Cameron Mitchell.
Guest:Let's talk about John Cameron Mitchell for a minute.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:I saw Hedwig with Neil Patrick Harris, and I saw it again with John Cameron Mitchell, and I saw it when he originally did it.
Guest:And I just think he's one of the great artists of this time, and I think his work is stunning.
Guest:Did you see the new version of it with him?
Marc:No, I didn't.
Marc:I'm coming at it.
Marc:I just missed it.
Marc:I saw the movie.
Guest:He hurt his knee.
Guest:He blew out his knee doing the show.
Guest:And the whole show is running around dancing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's like a punk rock show.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then he has to do the show where a majority of the show now, he was seated.
Guest:And the show was even better and deeper because of that restriction.
Guest:That's how interesting and talented he is.
Marc:He's a pretty amazing actor and he's a really good director.
Marc:I watched that rabbit hole movie.
Marc:Jesus fuck.
Marc:Yeah, that's a rough one when you're a parent.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know how a parent could watch it.
Guest:Yeah, no, that's a tough one.
Guest:But that's a great first... I'm just saying that's a great first interview.
Guest:He did a bunch of episodes of Girls.
Guest:He was at the premiere of Girls at the Party, and Lena and Jenny and I saw him, and we were like...
Guest:How come he isn't in everything just as an actor?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because he's usually directing and writing.
Guest:And then he came on and was spectacular.
Guest:And he beat up Ray because he changed the song from Ray's song at the party.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know if you remember that scene.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they had a fight over whether or not you're allowed to...
Guest:push a DJ to switch the song.
Guest:You have to let the other person's song play out first.
Marc:I was watching his other movie, the one he wrote and directed, Short Bus.
Guest:I haven't seen Short Bus.
Guest:That's the one where there's actual sex in the movie.
Marc:Dude, I had to shut the blinds.
Marc:For your cats?
Marc:So your cats wouldn't see it?
Marc:No, so people walking up didn't think I was watching gay porn.
Marc:There's a...
Marc:I'm just sitting there watching this movie, and all of a sudden there's a guy eating another guy's ass.
Marc:That guy's blowing a guy, and the other guy's doing something with the other guy's balls.
Marc:And I'm like, I should maybe shut the blinds.
Guest:I should make sure my kids don't have that on their iPad.
Guest:I want to see that.
Guest:See, now I'm going to watch that tonight.
Guest:You know what's a fantastic movie while we're on it?
Guest:Jason Segel in the end of the tour...
Guest:it's a story about David Foster Wallace.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And he plays David Foster Wallace.
Guest:And a guy, David Lipsky, went on the road with him when he was promoting Infinite Jest, and he recorded all their conversations, and they made it into a movie, so it's all based on... Real conversations?
Guest:Real conversations, and it's stunning.
Guest:And Jason Segel is brilliant in it.
Guest:I think it comes out in the beginning of the summer.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I like to plug the projects of all the Freaks and Geeks people.
Guest:I haven't seen him in a movie in a while.
Guest:Well, he was in sex tape last year, and he's always working.
Guest:He had the Muppet movie, which he wrote, which is pretty stunning.
Guest:The guy sat down and said, I wish there was another Muppet movie, and I wish they were a little bit better.
Guest:He wrote it, I guess him and Nick Stoller, and it is awesome.
Guest:They have to convince the Muppets to let these outsiders make the Muppets movie.
Guest:You interviewed Jason at one point, didn't you?
Guest:I never did.
Marc:You had Stoller.
Marc:I had Stoller.
Marc:Martin Starr's doing good from that crew.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:He's funny on that show.
Guest:Linda Cardellini's in the Avengers.
Marc:Yeah, and then she was in Mad Men too, right?
Guest:Mad Men and Bloodline.
Guest:Yeah, it's pretty great to see how well everybody's doing.
Guest:It's almost ridiculous at this point.
Guest:Franco's doing his thing.
Guest:Yeah, it's like it's silly now.
Guest:Like at first it was like, wow, the Freaks and Geeks kids are doing kind of good.
Guest:But then like 10 years down the line, it's like multiple Oscar nominations.
Guest:And I'm very proud of all of them because they're all really good people.
Guest:Do you talk to Paul Feig?
Guest:I do talk to Paul Feig all the time.
Guest:And I hear his movie Spy is riotous and fantastic.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:Should I make a movie?
Guest:Should I write a movie?
Guest:You should write a movie.
Guest:It's funny because when you first were talking about doing your show and I was always encouraging you to direct your show.
Marc:I did direct one.
Marc:The one I directed was on last Thursday.
Marc:It was on two days ago.
Marc:What's the name of it?
Marc:X-Pod.
Marc:See, now you're a director.
Marc:And I directed The Joke.
Marc:You should watch both of the ones I directed.
Marc:See, you're not...
Marc:A guy who has directed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're a director.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know how you become a director?
Guest:Director.
Guest:Just say you're a director.
Guest:I'm a director.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Hey, you know Mark Maron?
Guest:He's the director of Mark Maron?
Guest:Have you seen that guy?
Guest:Yeah, I just bumped into him.
Guest:Mark Maron, the director.
Guest:You know, he's also a producer.
Guest:He's a producer of Mark Maron.
Guest:He produces that show.
Guest:You just keep saying it?
Guest:How do you become a producer?
Guest:I'm a producer.
Guest:I produced.
Guest:What does it mean?
Guest:I don't even know what it means.
I don't know.
Guest:You should watch those two episodes.
Guest:Watch X-Files.
Guest:Very raw.
Guest:I'm going to.
Guest:I'm proud of you that the show has gone three years, and I was laughing the other day because you asked me to be on one of the episodes early on, and I was excited, and then I read the scene, and it was like three pages long, and I just looked at it and went...
Guest:Oh, wait, I don't know how to act.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:And I got scared and you had Jeff Garland do it.
Guest:But but it was funny because that's happened like two or three times where people have asked me to do something.
Guest:And then I'm like, oh, wait, this is not my skill set.
Guest:You can act.
Guest:Well, we'll see.
Guest:We'll see.
Guest:All I'm saying is year four, I may be ready.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I may be ready.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, it was good talking to you.
Guest:It was great to be here.
Guest:And you live... I know everyone jokes about how you live in the boonies, but this was... It's comically...
Guest:In a place that no one would ever go.
Guest:Like, I don't even know how you found it to even have decided to live here.
Guest:I don't know if, like, you think this is New Mexico.
Guest:Like, you actually, this is so far out that you think you're in your hometown.
Marc:How did you come, though?
Marc:See, like, I think if you would have come down to New York, you'd see the amazing things that were going on down there.
Marc:Is it because it's Bohemian?
Marc:Is this like Williamsburg?
Marc:No, it wasn't when I got here.
Marc:What happened was I was driving around with another guy who was looking for a place to rent, a guy I knew, and he wanted to look in Garvanza, which is over there somewhere.
Marc:And we're driving around, and I saw this house for sale, and I didn't know how to buy a house, but I had some deal money.
Marc:And I said to my girlfriend, we were living over by UCB, over there off Franklin.
Marc:A normal place to live.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:And I said, I found this house.
Marc:And for a few years, it felt like I was far away, but now it doesn't anymore.
Marc:How far is the drive from here to the Comedy Store?
Marc:I can do it like 25 minutes.
Marc:Okay, I'm going back to Santa Monica.
Marc:How do I do it?
Guest:You're going to go to Santa Monica?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You just go to the 110 to the 10.
Guest:110?
Guest:Oh, I got to go across the 10.
Guest:I can't go across the valley.
Guest:That doesn't work?
Marc:You can go the back way if you want.
Marc:Like go 134 to... Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, you can do that.
Marc:I don't know why you would do that.
Marc:Like, and then go over on the 405?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, you can do that.
Marc:But that's a bad way to go.
Marc:There's some traffic on the 10 on the way in.
Marc:Oh, there was?
Marc:Are you going home?
Marc:Yeah, I'm going to go home.
Marc:I'll take a rest before the U2 show.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You go on the forum.
Marc:See, like, you've still got to be stuck in fucking traffic with everybody else, right?
Yeah.
Marc:In what sense?
Marc:I mean, what time are you going to go?
Guest:No, no, here's the thing, because I'm very Jewy.
Guest:I will arrange the dinner, the six o'clock dinner before the show.
Guest:I'll give myself an hour to get to the forum because I hate being late.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'll do the hour and a half dinner so I don't have to rush.
Marc:But even with the special parking, there's no special Judd Apatow Lane.
Right.
Guest:Are you saying there's some sort of monorail system just for my family that I pay for with the Superman money?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No.
Guest:None of those problems ever disappear.
Guest:Fuck.
Guest:That's why I listened to your Kevin Corrigan WTF on the way here.
Guest:If you were Louie, you'd take a chopper in.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's why people start thinking about the chopper.
Guest:You call up Bill Burr.
Guest:You go, you got a chopper?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Can you get me to the farm?
Guest:Did he chopper someplace?
Guest:No, he flies a helicopter.
Guest:He does?
Guest:He took helicopter lessons.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So I'll call him.
Marc:Yeah, maybe he'll take you over there.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:All right, Jed.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:I hope I make it home today so I can interview the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, tomorrow.
Marc:And by the way, that was Judd Apatow.
Marc:Lovely conversation.
Marc:We had fun, informative, good guy, good-hearted guy.
Marc:I enjoy his company.
Marc:All right, so next time I talk to you, next time you hear from me in bulk will be a conversation with the President of the United States if everything goes this way.
Marc:I keep qualifying you like that because I can't believe it's going to happen.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Last day of vacation.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Boomer lives!
you