Episode 666 - Bob Forrest
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters uh what the fucking clauses that was my attempt at a christmas moniker for you people but it doesn't really make sense what the uh fucking bells
Marc:Doesn't matter.
Marc:Doesn't matter.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:If you're just tuning in for your first time as we head into another year, if everything goes well in the next couple of weeks, I think we'll all be heading into another year.
Marc:Well, most of us.
Marc:Well, let's not get grim.
Marc:You know what I'm saying?
Marc:I mean, as a world, the individuals come and go on any given day.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I just I dug us into a hole right out of the gate.
Marc:And I was trying to fill this with holiday cheer.
Marc:And now I'm basically prophesizing some of you will not be alive in the new year.
Marc:And I'm not saying interview in particularly.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:Why can't I just get out of this now?
Marc:Let's just start over but not start over.
Marc:Hey, how you doing?
Marc:Happy holidays.
Marc:I hope they're going well for you, and I'm looking forward to 2016.
Marc:Did that seem honest?
Marc:Look, what I meant to say is I hope everybody is having a pleasant and somewhat relaxing holiday, if that's possible.
Marc:I am, because I'm on vacation.
Marc:I am in my home state of Nuevo, Mexico.
Marc:I'm up in the Santa Fe area.
Marc:I'll be heading to Albuquerque shortly.
Marc:Go see my dad for a couple hours.
Marc:Try and make it through that.
Marc:I'm here with the lady.
Marc:Sarah's on the couch.
Marc:It's been good.
Marc:It's been intimate already.
Marc:It's only been a few days.
Marc:You know, I imagine this has been talked about by other people.
Marc:But, you know, when you're in a place where there's nowhere to hide and you can hear and smell things just right over there and you just have to be.
Marc:Here's my point.
Marc:I think that a big moment in a relationship probably has to be when both people eat the same thing that's bad and it fucks them both up inside.
Yeah.
Marc:So here you are in this situation where you're like, well, you know, there's no second room.
Marc:There's only one bathroom.
Marc:And that stuff fucked me up, too, in my stomach.
Marc:We're going to have to ride this out.
Marc:Look, I'm telling you, man, intimacy is a broad, it's a big tent, all right, with a full range of sounds and smells ranging from the beautiful to the grotesque.
Marc:That is...
Marc:what what love and relationship is about engaging in all the sounds and smells of the person you're with it's mostly me mostly me i'm not gonna throw her under the bus i'm stinky and i make noises that's just i'm just putting that out there all right merry christmas did i say that merry christmas so i didn't even mention who's on the show today
Marc:Bob Forrest, musician and sober guy, rehab celebrity and coach and advisor.
Marc:Might remember him from the Dr. Drew business.
Marc:What was that?
Marc:Celebrity rehab.
Marc:He was in the band Thelonious Monster.
Marc:Did a few records.
Marc:And a notorious L.A.
Marc:character, primarily defined back in the day by his heroin use.
Marc:His most recent album is Survival Songs, which I like a lot.
Marc:I'd never really listened to Thelonious Monster, and I put a little research in.
Marc:I did my homework.
Marc:And it's just interesting.
Marc:You know, I'd heard about them for years, and I'd heard about Bob for years, and I'd even seen him around at the secret meetings and never talked to him.
Marc:But this was a pretty amazing conversation.
Marc:I know a lot of you got sort of hung up with the idea of...
Marc:You know, what's episode 666 going to be?
Marc:What's that going to be, man?
Marc:Are you going to interview Satan, dude?
Marc:What's it going to be?
Marc:666, what is that?
Marc:Well, this is episode 666.
Marc:We didn't plan it out.
Marc:We didn't use that context to deliver you some ironic or non-ironic relative guest to 666.
Marc:So I'm going to bend this one into something that you sort of latent Satanists and people who are mystified by the triple number.
Marc:I'm going to try to bend it into something for you.
Marc:Like, for instance, quite honestly, on this planet and in this life, there's fewer things that can be honestly called demonic possession
Marc:other than heroin.
Marc:Heroin is as close as one can get, I think, to demonic possession because it robs you of your will and it takes over your life and it destroys you from the inside and the outside and it makes you do things that you would never do if you weren't under the spell and addiction to heroin.
Marc:Heroin is the fucking devil.
Marc:Now anything can be a devil if you let it go too far.
Marc:That's what them sins are all about.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Food.
Marc:Food can do a number on you.
Marc:Power, lust, envy.
Marc:Seven deadlies.
Marc:Swath.
Marc:Those things get too far with you.
Marc:That's the work of the devil there.
Marc:But heroin...
Marc:Heroin, because it was so romanticized by so many people, is no doubt the devil.
Marc:Or definitely a franchise.
Marc:Heroin is a franchise of Satan.
Marc:If there is a Satan, if that's your thing.
Marc:Depends how you look at it.
Marc:Where your mystical...
Marc:parameters are what those are but bob forest is a great example of somebody who fought that fucking devil came out the other side with an amazing amount of self-awareness and creative energy and also helps a tremendous amount of other people
Marc:See, you know, you fight with the fucking devil and then maybe you come out with some good stories and a little bit of wisdom.
Marc:And he's one of those cats.
Marc:And I was excited to talk to him.
Marc:And obviously we had a conversation that had a lot to do with that.
Marc:And those of you out there on the holiday, I've been getting a lot of emails from people struggling.
Marc:with addiction, alcoholism, people wondering whether or not they're an alcoholic.
Marc:Generally, from where I'm sitting, in my experience, if you're asking other people if you might be an alcoholic, I would say you're probably an alcoholic.
Marc:If it comes into your head where you're sitting there and you've just shit your bed or something, and you're like, I wonder if I have a drinking problem.
Marc:No, you probably do, I would say.
Marc:A couple of tell the red flags, peeing in your sleep in your bed, shitting your bed.
Marc:Those are big red flags.
Marc:Losing everything.
Marc:Sitting in a room alone.
Marc:Weeping, wondering where your life went, but still saying like, I need a drink.
Marc:That might be bad.
Marc:If a lot of people tell you you might have a drinking problem, that's not easy for other people to say.
Marc:And it's not, I don't think it's said lightly usually.
Marc:So you know who you are, and I hope you take care of that.
Marc:There's things you can do.
Marc:There's places you can call.
Marc:I know there are some people that say, and this is an important holiday message, depression too, get help.
Marc:There's help out there.
Marc:And I'm not going to tell you what help to get.
Marc:It's each to their own.
Marc:If you think something's going to work for you, try it.
Marc:Just get off the shit.
Marc:Get the devil out of you if you can by any means necessary.
Marc:Just do it for a few days.
Marc:See how you feel.
Marc:You'll spin around.
Marc:You'll freak out.
Marc:But you get through it.
Marc:People are built to adapt.
Marc:And let's do a couple of corrections and then get on with it.
Marc:I have a couple of corrections.
Marc:On the Brian Grazer episode, apparently a lot of people, rightfully so.
Marc:Folks, it's not so much that I'm getting old, but, you know, I have brain farts and problems.
Marc:And, you know, I use the wrong word.
Marc:I'm not Norm Crosby level.
Marc:It's not my act, but I'll fucking... You know, I used the wrong word.
Marc:Like apparently in the Brian Grazer episode, I used the word deliberate power, which I don't even know if it really makes any sense, as opposed to delegate.
Marc:I've made note of that, and I've rewired my brain to not use that word inappropriately anymore.
Marc:It's not inappropriately.
Marc:Wrong.
Marc:It wasn't inappropriate.
Marc:It just was the wrong word.
Marc:In my conversation with Horatio Sands...
Marc:Apparently, we were both talking about different movies.
Marc:He was talking about Crank and I was talking about Crank 2.
Marc:And we never really got resolution around that.
Marc:That I was literally telling him he was wrong, but he was right and I was right.
Marc:They were just different movies.
Marc:I couldn't imagine, I guess, that they would make a second one.
Marc:So I thought I was seeing the only one.
Marc:Though it was pretty compelling.
Marc:The other thing I'd like to direct you towards...
Marc:um and i'm you know look i i'm not that self-serving or self-promoting really i do a podcast but you know it's usually a some sort of fucked up internal wrestling match but a guy by the name of james parker
Marc:wrote a piece on me and my show, this show, for The Atlantic.
Marc:The title of the piece is Mark Maron's Brilliant Mistakes.
Marc:The star podcaster's success is rooted in his early career failure and despair.
Marc:Of course, they're going to read stuff about me.
Marc:But look, I'll tell you this.
Marc:I don't Google search my name.
Marc:Look, I'm not trying to appear humble or like I have humility.
Marc:I just don't have a Google search on my name.
Marc:I don't do that shit.
Marc:I wait till it gets to me some other way.
Marc:So somebody sent me the link to this on Twitter the other day, and this is a well-written piece.
Marc:It's like it's got a point.
Marc:It's got a context, a historical and stuff.
Marc:I know it's about me, but I'm just saying that there are people that write criticism out there that are thoughtful writers, and I'll take shit, and I don't mind being characterized badly in a piece if there's a point to it.
Marc:And this guy, though it's a very nice piece about me,
Marc:The way he describes me, I think if it was in another context or even if I was reading this wrong, I would be like, why is he saying that about me?
Marc:Like, am I really that guy?
Marc:But you know what?
Marc:I am the guy that he depicted here.
Marc:And I learned some things about myself and about the show because I don't think the way somebody outside of me thinks.
Marc:And this guy wrote a very thoughtful, eloquent, pointed book.
Marc:piece of criticism see a lot of people don't fucking understand in this culture you know what real criticism is and that there's a context and there's cultural relevance to it but in order to keep their job they write clickbait bullshit they write you know snarky reviews there's a definite difference between a review and a piece of criticism and real critics are real writers reviewers are generally any asshole and clickbait is cancer
Marc:Merry Christmas.
Marc:Did I mention Merry Christmas?
Marc:I want to make sure that's clear.
Marc:Hope you're having a good holiday.
Marc:And be careful, will you, this holiday season.
Marc:Don't hurt yourself in one way or another, emotionally, physically.
Marc:Don't hurt other people.
Marc:All right, just try.
Marc:Try.
Marc:Oh, wait.
Marc:I just remembered something.
Marc:Before I forget, again, to promote my own thing, Marin Season 3, my IFC show, will be on Netflix starting December 28th.
Marc:That's a little uplifting stuff you can have between Christmas and New Year's.
Marc:You can binge watch Marin Season 3.
Marc:I know some of you are waiting to get caught up.
Marc:Gets a little intense.
Marc:Gets a little heavy this season.
Marc:But enjoy Marin season three again on Netflix starting December 28th.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So that's I did it.
Marc:I promoted myself.
Marc:I can do it.
Marc:I can do it.
Marc:Right now we're going to go to my conversation with Bob Forrest.
Marc:As I said, his new album is a folk album actually called Survival Songs.
Marc:And he is going to play a couple after our chat.
Marc:It's available now.
Marc:Happy holidays.
Marc:I'll talk to you after Bob.
Marc:i picked up the new record today the survival songs yeah it's fucking great man i got it yeah i got it yesterday and i just started you know i just listened to it real close and uh like i'm not a big lyrics guy and i'm not necessarily you know i don't know how much new folk music i listen to or whether you call it that
Guest:Not Devander Barnard?
Guest:You're not playing that stuff?
Guest:No, man.
Marc:But it really resonated with me.
Marc:It seemed real honest, and some of the songs are just fucking great, man.
Guest:Well, thank you.
Marc:Do you look at this new record as one of your best?
Guest:I just wanted it to be in people's faces.
Guest:I think that America's lost its storytelling.
Yeah.
Guest:My dad used to tell stories, and you didn't know if half of them were true or half of what he was telling you was true, but there's something about storytelling that Studs Terkel and Gore Vidal and all these people, they used to just tell stories.
Guest:And it's not around anymore.
Marc:We don't have time.
Marc:We don't have time, Bob.
Marc:No time for stories.
Marc:Stories teach us.
Marc:We have to wait till the end of this story.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it was very compelling.
Marc:So that's where it came from is that you were writing.
Marc:But it seemed like most of those things.
Marc:I talked to a lot of songwriters in here where, you know, and I always assume that everybody's writing from a first person point of view.
Marc:Those seem pretty personal to me.
Guest:They're personal.
Marc:Right.
Guest:They're my perspective of my life.
Marc:So storytelling was the inspiration.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it always has been.
Guest:I wanted to be a poet in college and it didn't go, you know, poetry wasn't too popular.
Marc:Yeah, that's really turned around.
Marc:But it missed a real opportunity there, Bob.
Marc:You should have stuck with that.
Guest:I should have stuck with it because I was up in San Francisco.
Guest:They're going for it like crazy up there now.
Guest:Well, where'd you grow up?
Guest:In here in LA.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Palm Desert.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Palm Desert.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Out there.
Marc:Out in the desert, just like you.
Marc:Desert guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Not like that desert.
Marc:Albuquerque may be desert, but it sort of passes as a city.
Marc:I mean, Palm Desert's kind of desert.
Guest:There was nothing.
Marc:But that's, how far is that from Desert Hot Springs?
Marc:It was like 20, 30 miles.
Marc:It's fucking nuts out there.
Marc:So how the hell did you end out there?
Marc:Was your dad not there?
Guest:Well, I was an illegitimate child, and so my parents wanted to hide me.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah, it was my sister's son.
Guest:Really?
Marc:So your sister's how much older than you?
Guest:15 years.
Guest:So they just... We had a vacation house down there, and I guess they just... Well, here's the forest story.
Guest:My dad had three daughters, and his middle daughter got pregnant at 14.
Guest:And so they put her in St.
Guest:Anne's Home for Unwed Mothers here in Silver Lake...
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, Catholics.
Guest:And my dad apparently said, because he's my dad, he's who raised me.
Guest:He said, if it's a boy, we'll adopt it.
Guest:If it's a girl, it goes up to Catholic charities.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's old school.
Yeah.
Guest:And he wanted a son, and he got one, and he spoiled me, and he was the greatest.
Marc:Do you know who your father is?
Guest:I know his name, but I've tried to track him down two or three times, and he doesn't want any contact.
Marc:So your sister's your mom?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Not in Chinatown type way, not like incest, but in a rock and rolly Elvis Presley way.
Guest:Sure, I get it.
Guest:Because she told me when she didn't really know about sex, but her boyfriend had a 45 player in the glove compartment of his truck.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And so they'd park and pull that thing out and put Elvis and Jerry Lee on.
Marc:They had a slide in the dash 45 player?
Marc:Yeah, it came out of the glove box and the 45 player was just sitting there.
Marc:So he rigged it up.
Marc:Yeah, he rigged it up.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's how he seduced her?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I guess so, because that was, how much older are you than me?
Marc:That was in the early 60s.
Marc:So that was early 60s, just coming out of the 50s.
Marc:What she did was pretty bad news.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:For the family and culturally.
Guest:Well, what happened was they, my family, you know, thought of themselves as some Los Angeles family.
Guest:So they had a vacation now.
Guest:So they just decided, you know, my mom who raised me,
Guest:and my three sisters and i would live in the desert house until i was like five and then i would come back and everybody would just not notice i guess so that was the plan they did yeah they sort of came back for kindergarten and this was your dad's idea yeah that like we just had this other kid yeah we just you know late in life jesus christ
Marc:You know, we were on the rhythm method.
Marc:We didn't know what happened.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What was your dad's business?
Guest:Thrifty Mart, supermarkets.
Guest:He owned them?
Guest:No, he built them.
Marc:Oh, he's a contractor?
Guest:And they were famous here in L.A.
Guest:because they had big T signs.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, one of the great things.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:He died when I was 15, but one of the great things that was touching for me is in Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays, which is one of the greatest novels written about L.A.,
Guest:When she's going to get her abortion.
Marc:What's it called?
Guest:Play it as it lays by Joan Didion.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:When she's going to get an abortion, the character or whatever, they say, get on the Hollywood freeway and go north and get off as soon as you see the big red T. That's my dad's signs.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:These 40 foot tall neon signs.
Marc:All gone.
Marc:Yeah, they're all gone.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:It's smart and final now.
Marc:Not as exciting.
Marc:All right, so you're out in the desert with your sisters and your mom.
Marc:Your dad's in town building shit.
Marc:And what are you doing out there?
Marc:That's not 29 Palms.
Marc:Palm Desert.
Guest:Palm Desert is, well, years later when I went to Joshua Tree, it's very much like Joshua Tree.
Guest:It was very rural.
Guest:There was nothing, just desert and date trees.
Guest:And we rode motorcycles.
Marc:We caught lizards.
Marc:You thought you had a pretty good childhood?
Marc:It was great.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you had some friends?
Marc:Because I know Josh Ami comes from Desert Hot Springs.
Guest:Yeah, those guys are much younger.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:It was a city by the time they were born.
Marc:Yeah, but it was crazy out there.
Marc:There's still something about desert rats and desert life.
Marc:Desert people.
Guest:Yeah, right?
Guest:Yeah, I have a house out in Pioneertown.
Guest:There's desert people.
Guest:They're their own breed.
Marc:It's a weird mixture of drifters and eccentrics and meth heads.
Guest:Yeah, antisocial, but idealist.
Marc:They build shit out there.
Guest:Yeah, they build art.
Guest:Big ideas.
Guest:There's guys out there, they build these huge art installations with the intention of nobody seeing them.
Marc:Out of bottles, that kind of shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's wild, man.
Marc:They got something to say.
Marc:Did you ever go over that Integratron thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What's the story?
Guest:I was living in a cave.
Guest:Well, he kind of thought he was talking to aliens, I think.
Marc:Right.
Marc:He was trying to start some sort of commune thing.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, everybody was back then.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Hell yeah.
Marc:I want to start one now.
Marc:And you're...
Marc:And you kind of have one, don't you?
Marc:What a start one.
Marc:You have a recovery commune.
Marc:Oh, the super secret society.
Marc:Yeah, that's what I like to call it, secret society meetings.
Marc:We're not so secret on this show.
Marc:I don't use the name.
Marc:I don't utter the name.
Marc:It's always been a problem for me.
Marc:I mean, it must be tricky.
Marc:I mean, it's weird.
Marc:I often wonder because...
Marc:I missed a lot of that generation of music that you come from with Thelonious Monster and Bicycle Thief and some of that LA music.
Marc:I didn't get into it until later because I wasn't out here and I was really mainstream oriented.
Marc:But I was wondering before you came over.
Marc:Well, what did you like?
Marc:Like Steely Dan?
Marc:No, fuck no.
Marc:I love Steely Dan.
Marc:I'm not a Steely Dan.
Marc:You put the one band.
Marc:The one band.
Guest:Drink scotch whiskey all night long and die behind the wheel.
Guest:I get it.
Marc:Yeah, but it's a little too... I don't feel like that guy's dying, and he hasn't.
Marc:There's not enough menace in those tunes, bro.
Marc:I mean, I can understand.
Guest:There's something about it that is so slick and jazzy and cool, and the lyrics are so depressing and suicidal and rugged.
Guest:Look, I have the records.
Marc:I try every so often to engage, and it's not unlike me to... I do engage.
Marc:So you like Skinner?
Marc:Of course, sure.
Marc:I love Skinner.
Marc:I love Skinner.
Marc:I love Skinner.
Marc:It had all the records.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:I liked the Stones.
Marc:Early on in the late 70s, I got a box of records with some shit in it from the record store next door to where I worked as a high school kid.
Marc:They were R&B focused, and they had this big box of rock records they gave me.
Marc:They had Elvis Costello's first record in there.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And what else?
Guest:Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking when I hear them silly things that you say.
Marc:That album was a gut puncher.
Marc:It really was.
Marc:But other than that, fairly standard townie fair.
Marc:I had some inspiration.
Marc:Fog Hat?
Marc:A little bit of Fog Out, a little before my time, but certainly on the radio.
Marc:Had all the Skinner records.
Marc:Had a few Dead records.
Marc:Had the Stones records.
Marc:Had the Beatles records.
Marc:A lot of Bowie.
Marc:Had a lot of Bowie.
Marc:A lot of Bowie.
Marc:Pretty important to me.
Marc:And then there was a guy at that record store who was an art rock dude.
Marc:Turned me on to The Residents.
Marc:Turned me on to Fred Frith, Brian Eno.
Guest:My five-year-old's favorite song is Constantinople.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, he calls them the eyeball people.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And his name is Elvis after Elvis Costello.
Marc:Oh, after that, Elvis, good.
Marc:You make a differentiation.
Guest:Oh, he now, he's five, and he tells people, oh, after Elvis Presley, he says, no, Elvis Costello.
Marc:Yeah, he was sitting right there last week, Elvis Costello.
Guest:Yeah, he's got the book out.
Marc:Yeah, so that was sort of where I came from.
Marc:If it weren't for that guy that turned me on to the residence and that stuff, I don't know if my mind ever would have been blown.
Guest:Was it Bow Wow Records?
Marc:No, Bow Wow Records came much later.
Marc:We used to play there.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:We used to play there.
Marc:With the Dalmatian spots on it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Up on Central.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that guy was sort of kind of dickish, but he was all right.
Marc:He let you play there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, back when I was a kid, it was Natural Sound next to the General Store, which was a head shop over by the university.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it was all wooden across the street from the university.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:I remember that place.
Guest:Yep, yep.
Guest:Because I started touring in 83, Rodian for the Chili Peppers.
Marc:Was that their first album?
Marc:Yeah, 83.
Marc:Up with MoFo Party Plan?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Holy shit.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:The first one was called Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Guest:It was only like 28 minutes long or something.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that was with, who was guitar playing?
Marc:Was it Israel?
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:Hillel never made the first record.
Guest:He came back.
Guest:They got a guitar player named Jack Sherman.
Guest:He played on that record and that tour.
Guest:But he just didn't fit.
Marc:No?
Marc:No wrong kind of playing?
Guest:Kind of a teetotaler.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So how do you get from, so Palm Desert, did they make you go to Catholic school?
Marc:Oh, of course.
Marc:So you were real shit, you real fucking dyed-in-the-wool Catholic.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I'm a God-fearing atheist.
Marc:Yeah, but still God-fearing.
Marc:I don't believe in him, but just in case, my head's my best.
Marc:I'm in a world of shit.
Marc:You're making up for it, man.
Guest:I am trying to break even.
Guest:That's what I always say.
Guest:But you brought up with a real fear of hell.
Guest:Oh yeah, for sure.
Guest:If you masturbate or all that kind of stuff.
Marc:Really?
Marc:And you went to confession and you had a priest.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:Catholicism sort of fascinates me.
Marc:I mean, in retrospect, what are your feelings about it?
Guest:the mind it's changed a lot but it was like to me it was like child cruelty you know right you know what i mean yeah but i tell you the funniest thing ever happened i was an altar boy right and my job was to hold the tray in case the host might fall out of the mouth of one of my students coughing up the body mass every morning right so i'm 13 12 maybe 12
Guest:And the girls always went on one side and the boys on the other side of the church that kept them all separate, right?
Guest:But in the same room, of course.
Guest:And so I'm doing the tray and I remember like it was yesterday, all of a sudden looking at these girls like that.
Marc:With their mouth open.
Guest:And me holding the tray, I got a hard heart.
Guest:And I was like, and the priest knew it too.
Guest:It was just like, holy shit, this is the greatest job ever.
Yeah.
Marc:The priest knew it, of course he knew it.
Marc:Oh, he knew it.
Marc:And so you went to Catholic school and all your sisters, any of them turn out to be nuns, any of them?
Marc:No.
Marc:No?
Marc:Any of them?
Guest:My sister mom's been married like five times.
Guest:Your sister mom has been married five times.
Guest:It's like a Mormon thing, like sister mom.
Marc:What about the other sisters?
Guest:My one younger sister, the younger of the three died from Lou Gehrig's disease a few years ago.
Marc:It's crushing.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:How long did that go on for?
Guest:Like three years.
Guest:And how old was she?
Guest:She was only in her early 50s.
Marc:And that's when it came on, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:and uh you know when i first you know i was we were trying to find out what it is and i was standing in the nurses uh station at our our rehab years ago and i wrote this you know the long-term thing and dr drew was standing over to my right and he looked down he goes who has that and i said my sister and he goes oh fuck and i was like what is it and he goes it's known as lou gehrig's disease
Guest:And so, you know, you know you're gonna get sick.
Guest:That's the torture of it.
Marc:And it's one of those ones where you lose complete muscular control.
Guest:Eventually, you're just inside your body and it's not working.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:How fucked up is that?
Marc:Well, you were sober and there for her, right?
Guest:I was trying.
Marc:Where was she?
Guest:In Huntington Beach.
Marc:Oh, she was close.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You were trying?
Guest:Well, I was like the black sheep of the family.
Guest:My brother-in-laws have never really quite taken to me.
Guest:oh yeah and plus i know now because i've i've been married a few times too and that that thing with girls and their brothers yeah i fucking i don't understand it yeah but i you know what is it do you know what i'm talking about what the they just love their brothers no matter how big a fuck-ups they are and i was a fuck-up for decades
Marc:But the husbands didn't go for it.
Guest:Oh, they were not.
Guest:And just couldn't seem to, no matter how long I stayed sober or did the right thing, it was just- Didn't matter.
Marc:Or were they stiffs?
Marc:Were they, what do you call them?
Guest:They're like Republicans, if that's what you mean.
Sure.
Marc:I was trying to use an old term that sort of covers a lot.
Guest:I grew up in Republican land, and I've been a liberal or whatever you call it.
Guest:What do you call it these days?
Guest:Progressive?
Marc:Sure, whatever you want.
Marc:Progressive, liberal, lefty.
Marc:Used to be a commie.
Guest:I liked when they called us commies.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a little specific now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You've got to broaden it out.
Marc:It's a big tent.
Marc:Progressive.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Progressive's good.
Guest:Progressive in thought.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I remember I was watching, you know, my dad was watching the news and it was the Vietnam War and I was like eight or seven.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I went up to the TV and it was right when they were starting to show when Cronkite wanted to show the blood of the war.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I said to my dad, that's not real blood, is it?
Guest:And he said, Bobby, get out of here.
Guest:It's none of your goddamn business.
Guest:And I was like, the real kids are getting killed.
Guest:This is fucked up.
Guest:At seven or eight, I knew it was wrong.
Guest:Now at 54, I know it's wrong.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know, when we feel it, it's strange, though, how obsessed and kind of, you know, this obsessed with war the world is and particularly the American perspective of war.
Marc:Well, after that war, American got, you know, pretty cynical about it.
Marc:Once they sort of started to see the truth of it and and the the confusing.
Marc:You needed a better agenda.
Guest:You needed a better enemy.
Guest:Now we've got the greatest enemy of all.
Guest:yeah ourselves well but but was your dad that guy was he a monster no he was a fun guy he was a larger than life guy like that story post-war guy golfer hunter fun dodger games did you learn how to play golf yeah oh yeah it was pretty good yeah well what the fuck are you gonna do out there
Guest:I've been golfing since I was like three.
Guest:Do you golf now?
Guest:No, I can't do it.
Guest:What happened was I played in high school and college, and then, of course, I found all kinds of other things, more interesting things.
Guest:Not drugs predominantly, but girls.
Marc:Yeah, and fuck golf.
Marc:Golf wasn't too cool, I guess.
Marc:Golf is not going to get you too popular.
Marc:Well, I guess at the time you were growing up, which is a little ahead of me, I mean, there were two paths.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:If you're going to choose the golf path, it's not as cool as slog, and the chicks are certainly different than the rock and roll path.
Guest:Yeah, the rock and roll thing.
Guest:Well, it was really Lenny Bruce.
Guest:There's the book.
Guest:I read it when I was 13 years old.
Marc:Ladies and gentlemen, Goldman's book.
Guest:Goldman's book.
Guest:I read that.
Guest:I went and saw Lenny at the movies.
Guest:Did that come out in 74?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That sounds about right.
Guest:I was 13.
Guest:I went and saw it, and I just became obsessed with him.
Marc:I always have been, yeah.
Marc:So wait, so you go to high school, you do the Catholic thing.
Marc:Where do you go to college?
Guest:I go to college lots of different places, like for years and years.
Guest:LACC, Golden West College in Huntington Beach.
Guest:I faked my way into Cornell for a semester.
Guest:How'd you do that?
Guest:Because it was before computers.
Guest:And I got financial.
Guest:Isn't that in upstate New York?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I had an aunt that lived up there.
Guest:I had to get out of LA.
Guest:The black beauties were killing me.
Guest:Speed.
Guest:I remember those.
Guest:Open them up and snort them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And those yellow jackets.
Guest:Everybody talks about those.
Guest:I don't know what those are.
Guest:They had black beauties here.
Marc:And you could open them up and snort them.
Marc:And the white crosses.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah i don't remember snorting you want to hear an interesting story about the super secret society when i was a senior in high school yeah i used to drink picardia and coke in class you know yeah i lived on my own i lived in my own apartment yeah and a del taco cup and so my teacher my english teacher i really like said uh could i talk to you after school bobby and i was like okay so i came and you know and she said do you think you have a drinking problem and i was like
Guest:no and she goes she goes would you be interested because i used to have a drinking problem and i don't drink anymore would you be want would you want to come and meet some people that i uh like i forget how she phrased it right and she was a lesbian so i knew she's asking me to go somewhere with her yeah i wanted i didn't really know what lesbians were but i wanted to go where lesbians were sure so i went with her it was a 12-step meeting in laguna beach yeah chuck c was probably there yeah i remember
Guest:I was 17.
Guest:I remember thinking, this is good for old people.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I'm just starting drinking.
Marc:I don't know how these people got here.
Marc:They must misunderstand it.
Guest:I like the stories.
Guest:I like that old people got together and didn't drink.
Marc:That's another interesting thing that you bring up stories because the narrative of an AA pitch is at times the most moving thing.
Marc:Really?
Marc:like it kills me every time like I think it taught me how to feel properly me too you too yeah because like I find you know that an identification sure identify you get it and then that moment where where they where AA reaches out or they find it and you start I started getting weepy man I do it's like there's a there's a there's natural turn where this life is saved life is changed and
Marc:So that story thing is really cathartic.
Guest:But now, Southern California has been perverted by rehabs.
Guest:There's 3,000 rehabs around here.
Guest:So the 12-step thing gets, nowadays, those stories now become the solution.
Guest:I'm going to tell you how to do it, which is a real problem for me.
Guest:I'll ask somebody I like to tell me how to do it.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:I don't need your opinion of how to do it.
Marc:Let me find somebody who has what I want.
Guest:Who I identify with.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:And so it's become so solution-oriented and telling people to do the steps and do this and do that.
Guest:I guess that's the sort of thing about... Well, rehab's AA for profit.
Guest:So, you know.
Marc:Well, I mean, this is an interesting point of view for someone that helped commercialize it in a way, you know, publicly and media-wise.
Guest:And I will pay for that after I'm gone.
Guest:You feel that?
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:Out of all the things?
Marc:That's what you're going to go to hell for?
Marc:So every rehab.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You're going to die and get to the gate.
Guest:They're going to go, you put celebrities on television suffering from disease of alcoholism?
Guest:And I was like, yep.
Guest:How many seasons?
Guest:Uh, five.
Marc:Y'all, you're going to hell.
Marc:I know, for sure.
Marc:Everything else you did, we can forgive you for.
Marc:Stealing money out of my mom's purse.
Guest:No problem.
Guest:No problem.
Guest:Exploiting sick celebrities.
Guest:One of the worst thing I ever did, I used to steal from a friend of mine that lived in Los Feliz because I felt that he had a lot of things and I didn't have any.
Guest:You know that rationalization?
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:When Laserdisc first came out, he had a bunch of them, right?
Guest:And they were very valuable if you remember.
Guest:Sure, because no one had the machines.
Marc:It was like a very rare thing.
Guest:Very elite thing.
Guest:So I'd grab like three or four and put them by the front door and take them and go sell them and get dope.
Guest:And one time I was selling them and it was the Lion King.
Guest:He had like a seven-year-old daughter.
Guest:And I was like.
Guest:You had a seven-year-old?
Guest:No, he did.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I was like, oh, and they were going through it at Rockaway over there in Silver Lake.
Guest:They're like, I go, oh, no, no, I don't want to sell that one.
Guest:Because I knew it was his daughter's.
Guest:And I was like going to sneak it back in or something.
Guest:And he says, Disney is 20 bucks.
Guest:I said, oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in the okay, the rationalization of the junkie is, I'm going to sell it right now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to come back when things are... Right, sure.
Guest:Buy it back.
Guest:Yeah, buy it back and sneak it back in.
Guest:But right now, that's two bags, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So the fact was, you know, it was the worst thing I ever did.
Marc:And you're fucking nodding off and there's some seven-year-old girl crying, where's the lion cage?
Marc:In a downtown going, sorry, kid.
Marc:Priorities.
Marc:Priorities.
Marc:All right, so you're drinking at 17, but how long did you fake at Cornell?
Guest:Just like four months until they caught me.
Guest:Well, the thing was I got both Social Security because my dad had died and I got financial aid.
Guest:How'd he die?
Guest:He died of suicide, actually.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Was he sick?
Marc:Yeah, he was sick.
Marc:So it was like he took himself out?
Guest:Yeah, he had one of the first open-heart surgeries in California.
Guest:He didn't like it.
Guest:It made you an invalid back then.
Guest:You literally went from... Because you're all purple and you circulated.
Guest:He just couldn't golf.
Guest:He couldn't do much.
Guest:He couldn't eat the way he wanted.
Guest:He couldn't smoke.
Guest:He couldn't drink.
Guest:And he just felt like his life was over.
Guest:Then his best friend shot himself.
Guest:Before he killed himself?
Guest:Yeah, a couple weeks before.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:And you knew that guy, too?
Guest:Yeah, Curly Einboden, one of the greatest guys ever, my dad's best friend.
Guest:Why'd he kill himself?
Guest:Because he was having health issues, too.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, and it's still going on.
Guest:Too proud to go through it.
Guest:You can drink and drug yourself crazy if you know what you're doing, let's say.
Guest:But you hit mid-50s, late-50s, you're going to implode.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I've watched my friends in this generation.
Guest:I'm 54.
Guest:I've watched the people that didn't go to rehab or get sober because they just drink or they do dope on the weekends or whatever or do some coke and then they put coke behind them.
Guest:They just physically implode right around now.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Liver can't take it.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Heart can't take it.
Guest:Isn't that wild?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's fucked up.
Yeah.
Marc:You want it to last longer?
Marc:Well, no, because I've got 16 years, so I stopped when I was like, what?
Marc:35 or something.
Guest:35, me too, 35.
Marc:And I'd gotten enough in, but I didn't go as hard as you, but there have been guys- You know the price of dope.
Marc:Uh-uh.
Marc:$10.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, I knew that.
Marc:That's the guy that knows.
Marc:That was not my thing.
Marc:No?
Marc:No.
Marc:How'd you know it was $10?
Marc:Well, he tried it a couple times.
No.
Marc:But didn't stick I was lucky really like it now.
Marc:I like going up and I never was a needle guy So it was all coke and weed and drinking for me.
Guest:What is it mostly going on here in New York?
Marc:I It was mostly I guess it would have been mostly in New York I you know I got I started in college a lot of coke and then you know and then when I got out here I got fucked up on coke and I got psychotic and I had to leave I was here for a year at the Comedy Store hanging out with Kenison I lost my mind
Marc:from Coke and sleep deprivation, and then I cleaned up the first time, went back to Boston where I went to school and sort of started over.
Marc:I'd get a year and a half here, year and a half there, never locked into the program, and I'd always pick up with the Coke and booze again.
Guest:Coke, really?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Marc:It was always my thing, and I never knew enough about drug guys to get fucking downers.
Marc:Like, I was always the guy up all night next to a sleeping chick who was just, like, not on Coke.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:thinking i was gonna die never never had a goddamn valium connection never got into dope to come down i imagine if somebody had said like this dope if you snort this it'll take you back down it would have been a different life for me or it might have been over yeah yeah but you know the the thing about coke i had a lot of friends that were on coke um
Guest:Just like it calmed hyper people down.
Marc:That's sort of what I did to me.
Marc:You know, you'd kind of lock in to like a weird kind of peaceful confidence.
Marc:Yeah, peaceful.
Marc:Yeah, and it makes me agitate.
Marc:I need heroin.
Marc:But I do that all the time.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So you go to Cornell for four months and then you come back and your dad commits suicide.
Marc:But that was when you were 15.
Marc:So we're jumping around.
Marc:But I guess I'm trying to focus in on...
Guest:Where the torture comes from?
Marc:Well, no, where does it start?
Marc:Where did you get turned on to Lenny Bruce?
Marc:What were you doing that sort of threw the switch?
Guest:Well, I was an only kind of isolated kid, right?
Guest:So the desert, when you grow up in the desert, there's nobody around.
Guest:It's just a bunch of retired people, really.
Guest:And so really my room was always my sanctuary.
Guest:That's where I listened to Bowie's, Ziggy Stardust, or the Beach Boys.
Guest:I loved the Beach Boys.
Guest:Did you?
Guest:Loved them.
Guest:And so I'd listen to the Beach Boys.
Guest:To me, the Beach Boys are always sad music.
Marc:No, he makes me terribly sad.
Marc:It's sad.
Marc:People think it's so happy.
Marc:When I listen to Pet Sounds, it's like almost unbearable.
Marc:It's like listening to Daniel Johnston music.
Guest:It was really something.
Marc:Yeah, it was just like, I just hear this fucking weird, almost bottomless pain.
Guest:I had a funny thing where he, Bob Dylan played the Greek theater, and I was walking in that guest thing, this in the late 80s or something, and I happened to be right behind Brian Wilson and his Dr. Eugene Landy, walking in that backstage area.
Guest:And Bob Dylan was standing there.
Guest:And I just happened to be like three feet away from Bob Dylan.
Guest:What were you doing there?
Guest:I'd seen Bob Dylan play, and then I just had a backstage pass or whatever.
Guest:Brian Wilson comes up, and Bob Dylan goes, hey, Brian.
Guest:And Brian Wilson's looking confused, and he goes, it's Bob, it's Bob.
Guest:And Brian Wilson's like, and Bob Dylan explains that.
Guest:how they know each other really it was the weirdest thing and i think when you watch the movie that came out i think that eugene landy had him so doped up on medicine i don't think that's really right he was that disconnected from reality it was medicine probably you know thorazine and all kinds of crazy who he was and how they knew each other and i was just sitting there like privy to this really weird rock and roll moment
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that doctor right next to him.
Guest:Incredible.
Marc:So you're out in the desert, you're listening to Ziggy's.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And where's Lenny come in?
Guest:Lenny came in because I saw the movie.
Guest:I loved movies.
Guest:Movies is what you could do.
Guest:You could go see the world right down at the Palm Desert Twin.
Marc:And they were playing Lenny.
Marc:Bob Fosse's Lenny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're like, who the fuck is this guy?
Guest:I saw Chinatown, Lenny, Godfather 2.
Guest:That was the greatest era of movies.
Marc:I just watched both Godfathers back to back.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Dude, Michael Corleone.
Marc:Great, man.
Marc:I mean, just those two generations of Method guys acting the fuck out of that movie.
Guest:Going right at it.
Marc:I know.
Guest:Oh, it's crazy.
Guest:It's really something.
Guest:So I saw Lenny and I just, that whole world, it was kind of like the books I was reading at the time, like on the road.
Guest:Beatnik shit, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then I got that book, that Albert Goldman book, and it was literally my Bible.
Guest:Like when I used to tour in Thelonious Monster, I toured like how Lenny Bruce did with a briefcase full of magazines and books, cassettes, ghetto blaster, tinfoil, tinfoil up the windows.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You learned it from Lenny?
Guest:Yeah, that's what he would do.
Guest:That was your model.
Guest:Well, everybody, rock and roll is very, it's a very kind of imitating thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And what's funny is so many people are imitating, you know, Keith Richards and David Bowie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, David Bowie and his cocaine era when he's so thin or whatever.
Guest:Oh, yeah, young Americans?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so a lot of, it's like, it feeds off itself.
Guest:Nowadays, kids are doing it like they think John Fashante did it.
Marc:I've seen him look pretty bad sometimes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, he was there.
Guest:He was out there as far as you can go.
Marc:I got a record that came out not too long ago, and I did not get what he was doing.
Guest:Oh, the techno stuff?
Marc:Yeah, and maybe just the last record.
Marc:What's the last record?
Guest:Yeah, it's a Venetian snares.
Guest:It's all techno.
Marc:Yeah, it's not my cup of tea.
Marc:I was like, where is this at, man?
Marc:Where is he at?
Guest:He's at, I know exactly where he's at.
Marc:Well, you got your buddies, right?
Guest:He doesn't want to have to, you know, rock gets so big.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's just like theater.
Guest:You have to stand in this place.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Because the lights are programmed.
Guest:You got to play this song that way.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And he's just not that type of guy.
Marc:But he's a hell of a guitar player.
Marc:Oh, he's the best.
Marc:And when he played with the Chili Peppers, you guys go way back, right?
Guest:Way back, till when John was 16, he was in Thelonious Monster.
Guest:For a minute.
Guest:Yeah, and then the Chili Peppers saw him play.
Marc:All right, so you're getting into any Bruce.
Marc:When do you first find drugs in Palm Desert?
Marc:How the fuck does that happen?
Marc:Well, alcohol.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We used to break into vacation houses.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, it was like the River's, not the River's Edge, Over the Edge.
Guest:Remember that Matt Dillon movie?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That's what my life was like.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We like, you know, we'd take steel golf carts because the people would just park their golf carts in the breezeways, they were called.
Guest:They didn't have garages.
Guest:They had breezeways.
Guest:They would just plug them in.
Guest:We'd just unplug them and go drive around with them.
Marc:But the cops must have known you.
Guest:Well, yes.
Guest:Bobby Forrest, Tommy Paletti, David Vaughn, Scott Sims.
Guest:One of my gang was the principal's son, Scott Sims.
Guest:So we were like a gang of hoodlums.
Guest:And we started really getting more and more daring when we were like 14, 15.
Guest:And it was in the newspaper, this vandalism stuff.
Guest:And one of them brought it to school.
Guest:They're like, dude, we're going to get caught.
Guest:And I go, where'd you get that?
Guest:Because I was the tough guy of the group.
Guest:I was like, dude, don't fucking say a word.
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:yeah you know i was holding our gang together right don't crumble right now and who ratted anyone right scott got caught the principal's son he threw everyone under i just played innocent like mom i don't know what they're talking about oh yeah i wasn't involved in any of that uh-huh so i learned yeah my parents were older they didn't know okay sonny i know bobby you would never do that
Marc:It's all right, so you're drinking, you're breaking into houses.
Marc:When's rock and roll start?
Guest:Well, when I start playing it, or not playing it, but I moved to LA in 1980, and I had an apartment going to LA City College, and the thing that fueled me was my dad's money and Social Security.
Guest:As long as I went to college, I had money to live, right?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:But he had a trust?
Guest:Yeah, and Social Security and all these school loans.
Guest:You could just keep rolling.
Guest:I went to college from 79 to like 85, I think.
Guest:I probably have like six months of credits.
Guest:But I started going to- You knew what you had to do.
Guest:Yeah, I started going to the clubs in Hollywood on Hollywood Boulevard and then I started DJing.
Guest:I told him I was a DJ.
Guest:And they didn't know.
Guest:Did you have records?
Guest:I had a fake ID.
Guest:I had a crate of records.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Played Michael Jackson.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Defunct.
Guest:Remember that band?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Defunct.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that's how I met Anthony and Flea because I was like a DJ on Hollywood Boulevard at the Cafe de Grande and at the Club Lingerie.
Marc:In 1980.
Marc:So what bands were you seeing?
Guest:I was seeing Dream Syndicate.
Guest:That was the greatest band.
Marc:What's his name, Steve Wynn?
Guest:Yeah, Carl Pakoda and Dennis Duck.
Marc:What was Wynn's first name?
Marc:Steve.
Marc:It was Steve.
Marc:Yeah, they were so great.
Marc:Yeah, Days of Wine and Roses is a fucking masterpiece.
Marc:And I like Medicine Show, too.
Marc:Yeah, me too.
Guest:I love that fucking... John Coltrane on the stereo, baby.
Guest:yeah and daddy's girl yeah oh they were so good yeah and that that's that salvation army and then black flag circle jerks you know that was their time yeah but i wasn't a punk rocker i never like that was like second wave right so that was were the blasters x blasters yeah low slobos right that was the greatest era well that was did you talk to me in the rhythm pigs you ever heard of no oh man
Marc:So did you gravitate more towards that Americana stuff?
Marc:Yeah, always rock and roll.
Marc:Anything honest and earnest.
Marc:But not punk rock, because you're not punk rock.
Guest:I didn't like the beating up people.
Marc:I didn't get it.
Guest:I like public image a lot.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, he's like a clown.
Guest:Yeah, nowadays.
Guest:An old clown.
Guest:He's got a National Geographic show, doesn't he?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Yeah, he's like a traveler.
Marc:They've offered him to interview, and I'm just like, I don't know if I could put up with it.
Marc:I don't know where he's at with talking, but you watch every interview that guy does.
Marc:You know what's interesting about him?
Guest:I know a little bit about him because we had the same manager.
Guest:He's actually a really interesting, good Renaissance guy, but he puts on the Johnny Rotten thing.
Guest:Yeah, it's like, when does that stop?
Guest:He's raised his...
Guest:wife's daughter's children.
Marc:As his own.
Marc:His wife's daughter's kids.
Marc:I'm sure he's a good guy, but he's like, I don't have time to try to beat down a wall of Johnny Rotten to get to the good guy.
Marc:I've heard you beat things down.
Guest:I was all nervous coming here.
Marc:I was like, what is he going to get out of here?
Marc:Well, you're pretty wide open.
Marc:I try to be.
Marc:We speak the same language.
Marc:I don't beat too many people down.
Marc:Sometimes I got to push a little.
Marc:Because you don't want the bullshit, right?
Marc:Well, yeah, it's just sort of like- I got a new album out.
Marc:Well, there's some of that, but also people who talk a lot publicly have a public narrative.
Marc:And it's not necessarily that it's a lie or that it's bullshit, but they don't need me to do it.
Marc:You know, so it's just a matter of engaging.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Sometimes you just some guys just see it as prompting, you know, prompting this.
Marc:And we all do it.
Marc:You do it.
Marc:I do it.
Marc:But, you know, there has to be a moment where we're just talking.
Guest:Yeah, that's what I think that special about your show and the idea that.
Guest:You're not going to come in here and just railroad like I have a new album, a new movie, a new book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But how do you keep pure?
Guest:That's what I really wanted to ask you some questions.
Guest:How do you keep pure?
Guest:Because you must be bribed like a motherfucker to just go along to get along.
Guest:And I hate all the fucking talk, the nighttime talk shows.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's all such bullshit.
Marc:Well, I'm pure because they've got no boss.
Marc:And, you know, I get offered a lot of people, but we don't do junk in interviews.
Marc:Sometimes we'll line shit up in order to get the guest.
Marc:But we always sort of pretty clear.
Marc:It's like, well, this is the way we do the show.
Marc:So can they do this for an hour?
Marc:And most of the time it works out.
Marc:But there's no muscle.
Marc:You know, obviously, occasionally you think ahead.
Guest:You must have been bribed.
Guest:I always think there's a corruptibility to this town once you get on your spot.
Marc:Here's the biggest bribe that happens.
Marc:My old manager Dave Becky says, we interview Bob?
Marc:I'm like, yeah, fuck yeah, I'll interview Bob.
Marc:Becky, my biggest advocate.
Marc:He's a great guy.
Marc:He's really something.
Marc:No, but that's a friend thing, but there's no...
Marc:The weird thing is I operate in this odd space where for some reason that machine respects me and they listen to my show, but they can't buy it.
Marc:So they like having people on it and they like listening to it.
Marc:And sometimes they have clients, but I can't get everybody either.
Marc:Not everybody wants to do this.
Marc:So there's no real move.
Marc:There's nothing they can gain from it other than letting me talk to people.
Guest:Well, here's my thing is that the whole world is focused on how many Twitter followers somebody has, right?
Marc:That's fading, but yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's bullshit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's bullshit.
Marc:Oh, yeah, it's bullshit.
Guest:It was a good run for a little while.
Guest:But before that, it was pay-per-clicks.
Guest:Because I'm a rehab guy, really.
Guest:And I know marketing and how they... It doesn't mean shit.
Guest:Actually, what gets down to it is word of mouth.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And people liking the show.
Marc:With a show like this where you're doing audio and you do it consistently...
Marc:People build a relationship with the show, with me, with the types of conversations we have.
Marc:And there's nothing to really own.
Marc:It's a pretty beautiful moment in media right now that if you can find your niche or you can find your area and hold your audience, you can kind of run your own ship.
Marc:I mean, there's no gates to close.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:No one's going to come down and like... But I've just watched every comedian for the last 30 years fight for Johnny Carson's slot, fight for this, fight for Letterman, fight for all that shit.
Guest:And all it does is it just gets more and more watered down until it's unwatchable.
Marc:I don't... It becomes sort of... And these are funny people, Mark.
Marc:You know that.
Marc:Well, that's because they're all sort of... It's a context.
Marc:And they think that's the... They got to honor that context.
Marc:And no one even gives a fuck about it anymore.
LAUGHTER
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's like, I don't know who watches it.
Marc:They pay a lot for it.
Marc:Yeah, but I mean, even that's starting to slow down a little bit.
Marc:I mean, you know, some people believe that TV is going to remain vital.
Guest:I'm going to tell you why Celebrity Rehab exists.
Guest:You want to know?
Guest:Because of Jay Leno.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:all right i was you know i've been an advocate for drug addicts i'm a drug addict i love drug addicts i love the whole process of the using and sobriety and how you get there it's my life yeah as important to me as who played bass on walking the wild side which was my obsession in my younger life who played based on walking herbie flowers okay
Guest:Do you know that band?
Guest:Want me to name all five members of Angel?
Guest:This is what Becky is so impressed by.
Marc:Oh, he loves this shit, yeah.
Guest:He loves Angel.
Guest:You know that band, The White Kiss?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's Barry Brant was the drummer.
Guest:Frank D'Amino was the singer.
Guest:Punky Meadows was the guitar player.
Guest:Remember that?
Guest:Do you remember Punky Meadows?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Greg Jafria, the only one that went on to have a career, Jafria, the happy metal band, and the bass player was Mick Jones, the third Mick Jones.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:So as obsessed as I was about music, I became obsessed about addiction and drug addicts and how they get better.
Marc:That's where you nerd out.
Guest:Yeah, I just became obsessed with it.
Guest:So I really hold it in high, high regard.
Guest:Sobriety, how people find it, the storytelling of it.
Guest:So every night about eight, nine years ago, the punchline on Letterman, on Leno and everything was these two little girls that were obviously one was very mentally ill and drug dependent.
Guest:And one was just a straight up drug addict.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Little girls, 19 and 17 years old, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was watching Leno one night and the punchline again was, hey, Lindsay Lohan.
Guest:And I just got so fucking pissed.
Guest:And I went into work the next day and I said, Drew, you know what?
Guest:America's so stupid, it doesn't believe anything it doesn't see on television.
Guest:We need to humanize addicts on television.
Guest:We need to have a TV show that shows them how painful the process is, how haunted they are.
Guest:And what it is that we do.
Guest:So we should just have cameras here and let a bunch of people get free treatment and have a TV show.
Guest:And that's what led to celebrity rehab.
Guest:I didn't want it to be celebrities.
Guest:I wanted the humanness of addicts that we all know.
Marc:Well, yeah, because when I used to watch Intervention, I'd just be bawling.
Marc:Because as somebody in recovery, you sort of get that thing like, I don't know if he's going to make it that guy.
Guest:No, he's probably not going to make it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How about the girl?
Guest:Remember the girl, the Huffer girl?
Guest:I loved that episode.
Guest:I don't know if I remember.
Guest:And she would put two things of Huffer in her mouth at Walmart and shoot them and then she'd go, I'm walking on sunshine.
Guest:I don't remember her.
Marc:She got sober.
Guest:She did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just loved her.
Guest:I remember watching it and I was single at the time and I said, I would marry that girl.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I'm codependent too, right?
Marc:Yeah, I just learned about my codependency pretty recently.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:It's a hard one to fucking hit bottom with.
Marc:So, all right, so you're listening to the music, you're being a DJ, and what happens?
Marc:You meet Flea, and you meet Anthony.
Guest:I met Flea and Anthony, and I saw a band called The Replacements.
Guest:You weren't playing music.
Guest:No, but I saw a band called The Replacements.
Marc:In that year in Haiti?
Guest:Oh, that Hootenanny tour in 83.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Guest:That was a mess, huh?
Guest:Yeah, it was a train wreck.
Guest:And I thought, see, because Anthony and Flea already had a band.
Guest:It was called Tony Flo and the Majestic Mayhems of Funk or something.
Guest:Masters of Mayhem or something.
Marc:So Flea always liked that.
Guest:Yeah, he's been a genius since the day he was born with music.
Guest:So they had this thing where Anthony rapped and a band called What Is This, which was Flea, Hillel, and Jack Irons played behind Anthony Rappings.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were all like cool, great musicians and Anthony's super handsome and cool.
Guest:And so it was just like, well, people like me don't play music.
Guest:But then when I saw The Replacements, I was like, hey, hey, hey, people like me play music.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they played more of the kind of music you like.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so that was very inspiring.
Guest:I went home that night and I called a bunch of friends.
Guest:I said, well, I want to form a band.
Guest:And slowly, you know, Thelonious Monster was born out of seeing The Replacements.
Guest:And when did The Dope start?
Guest:i was scared of dope i did it one time with top jimmy and then i was scared of it you shot it yeah yeah first time i was like 19 1980 yeah and i was just scared of it and i stayed clear of it and then anthony and flea and i were really into coke yeah right and we didn't come down yeah we came down two or three days later we'd eat watermelon yeah because i i thought watermelon is like saline solution yeah yeah yeah it'll purify
Guest:Yeah, the weird hangover cures.
Guest:Yeah, watermelon and sleeping and listening to Graham Parsons' Grievous Angel.
Guest:That was our process.
Marc:That's a hard come down a little bit.
Guest:We play cribbage.
Guest:Me and Anthony play cribbage.
Guest:We'd eat watermelon and listen to Graham Parsons.
Marc:That's how we came down.
Marc:You guys have been up for a few days.
Marc:Make note of that system and then get to a meeting.
Guest:And then slowly about 85, 86 is where dope starts coming.
Guest:I had a girlfriend that did dope and I was like, I always steered clear of it.
Guest:And that was around the first album?
Guest:Yeah, when our first album came out is when I had just started doing it.
Guest:In 85, we made it.
Guest:And so, you know, and it was just like a weekend warrior type thing.
Guest:I didn't do it all the time.
Guest:Mostly drinking was my primary problem, always has been, really.
Marc:And the first record, like, unlike, which was the first one?
Guest:Baby, You're Bumming My Life Out in a Supreme Fashion.
Guest:and yeah so that record was a little all over the place stylistically right yeah it was we were trying to be lounge lizards but we weren't good enough so it came out this hybrid hodgepodge of blues and little funk yeah wannabe i don't know what and so slowly we you know because that wreck because of our live show was pretty you know it's pretty dangerous yeah because i was kind of obsessed with darby crash so oh you were the whole thing yeah but you didn't like
Marc:but you're obsessed with him.
Guest:I liked him.
Guest:I liked his lyrics.
Guest:Were you able to see him?
Guest:No, I saw the Darby Crash Band, but not the germs.
Guest:Like right before he did?
Guest:Yeah, right before he died, a couple weeks, a couple months before.
Marc:Yeah, so you liked his performance chops.
Guest:Yeah, I just liked his whole, you know.
Marc:Loose, floppy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Spontaneously aggressive.
Guest:Like Jim Morrison.
Guest:It was more like Jim Morrison than what is like anything else.
Guest:Well, he's definitely in his own time zone.
Guest:Yeah, he's definitely.
Guest:Yeah, and he couldn't sing and he couldn't really keep time.
Guest:But you can sing.
Guest:I learned how to sing.
Guest:You know, I sang in choir in Catholic school.
Guest:And you listen to David Bowie.
Marc:That's all you need.
Guest:That's all you need.
Guest:Elvis Costello.
Guest:People ask me all the time, how do you really learn how to sing?
Guest:And I say, get the first four Elvis Costello records and play them in your car and sing along.
Guest:And eventually you'll know how it works.
Guest:Imperial Bedroom.
Marc:Imperial Bedroom is unbelievable.
Marc:Yeah, he's a hell of a singer.
Marc:So then you do, I guess most people know you for Beautiful Mess primarily.
Marc:That was the big record.
Guest:Tom Waits song on there.
Guest:Is that on that one?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but how'd you know Waits?
Marc:Because that's Waits in, what is that?
Marc:And that's 92, so that's, where's Waits at in his journey in 92?
Guest:He's about to make Bone Machine because he called me.
Guest:I became acquaintance with him or friends with him.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:I saw him at Keith Richards' show.
Marc:So it's right after Heart Attack and Vine when everything breaks apart?
Guest:No, he had made Rain Dogs.
Marc:Oh, he did Rain Dogs, okay.
Guest:And he had done Frank's Wild Years, and then he was trying to reinvent it.
Guest:That's when it really got weird.
Guest:If you thought Rain Dogs was weird and Swordfish Trombone was weird, wait till you hear Bone Machine.
Guest:So he calls me one day, and I pick up a landline, and I go, hello, and he goes, Bone Machine!
Guest:And I was like, Tom?
Guest:And he goes, bone machine.
Guest:And I was like, what's going on?
Guest:And he goes, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
Guest:And I was like, because you always want to answer right for Tom Waits.
Guest:I was like, I don't know, like a car made out of bones?
Guest:And he goes, oh, shit.
Guest:And then Kathleen was there, his wife, and she said, what did he say?
Guest:And I heard her say that.
Guest:And I was like, I knew I said the wrong answer.
Guest:He thinks a bone machine is a human body.
Marc:It's a bone machine.
Guest:I just tried to answer it right.
Marc:It was like his version of Meat Puppet.
Guest:I got the sense that he wanted to call the album Bone Machine, and she did not.
Wow.
Guest:Let's call Bob.
Guest:They were calling a cross-section of their acquaintances to see what the reaction was.
Marc:I guess they got enough of the percentage for Kathleen to lose that one.
Guest:He was over at my house here in Mount Washington one time, and I had bought that record that he got ripped off by so bad by that company.
Guest:He got ripped off really bad.
Guest:Early on in his career.
Guest:And Asylum released some greatest hits thing.
Guest:And I had just bought it and it was in my house.
Guest:And he came in and he goes, what's this?
Guest:And I said, it's got Martha on it and everything.
Guest:And he opened my front door and threw it out the front door.
Guest:So he came into my life for like a year and a half, two years, and then he just disappeared to Roseville.
Guest:But I went up there and recorded with him.
Guest:Recently?
Guest:No, just that song.
Guest:Are you guys still friends?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I see him.
Guest:He's very reclusive.
Marc:I know, I know.
Marc:I'd love to talk to him, but he don't come out much.
Guest:He won't do it?
Guest:Well, I don't even know how to get in.
Marc:you know he does like one guy i know he doesn't have a manager he doesn't he does like one interview a year you gotta go up there maybe i'll go up there take this shit up there i take shit up there i got a rig he meets you at a truck stop i'll travel with this there you go i was a huge weights fan man he's in high school that's another guy i didn't mention i some in that box of records i told you about was nighthawks at the diner oh my god i was like holy fuck what is this
Marc:big joe and phantom yeah and i used to wear that hat like he had on the cover i'd wear shirts like his i dressed like weights i'd probably my sophomore year of high school there you go man yeah that he was my guy for a while i just saw how can he be this fucking funny and this fucking cool and playing this old style music you know it's great it's fucking amazing
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:So I was peeing next to him at the Keith Richards show at the Palladium and I looked over and I was kind of drunk and I said, oh my God, Tom Waits.
Guest:And he goes, oh my God, Bob Forrest.
Guest:And I go, how the fuck do you know who I am?
Guest:And I almost peed on him and I was like, I almost fainted.
Guest:And he goes, I go see Thelonious all the time.
Guest:And then we were in the bathroom there and I was like, what?
Guest:I would hear that if you were at our show.
Guest:And he goes, let me tell you something.
Guest:I was at a show a couple of months ago and you and the drummer just went at it physically.
Guest:Physical.
Guest:You decked him and he knocked you over and then you just walked back to your places and continued on.
Guest:Is that real hostility or is that some sort of stage thing?
Guest:And I said, no, I fucking hate him.
Guest:And he goes, that's what I thought.
Yeah.
Guest:And that's when you met Tom Wayne?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was so cool to have him in my life.
Guest:He called me one time.
Guest:He said, you want to go to the Wiltern and see this bald chick?
Guest:And I was like, what?
Guest:It was Sinead O'Connor.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So now you're doing dope.
Marc:Your first record's out.
Marc:You're finding your groove.
Marc:Because by the time Beautiful Mess comes out, you definitely have a style.
Marc:It's not punk rock.
Marc:It's sort of like pop Americana, but good.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when did you get strung out bad?
Guest:Bad was a little before Beautiful Mess.
Guest:I got this solo deal with RCA.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Back in the day, they used to give you a lot of money when they thought you could be a star.
Marc:Even the sweating guy.
Marc:Let's give the sweating guy a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Marc:It was crazy.
Marc:The guy with no pupils.
Guest:Let's give him some money.
Guest:I literally went from living in this one-bedroom house on Fountain to living in the Hollywood Hills and doing whatever the fuck I wanted, and it was crazy.
Marc:On a record deal.
Guest:That's bad.
Guest:That's a bad deal.
Marc:And that was the deal for Beautiful Mess?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:It was for the solo deal that never came out.
Guest:I made the most horrible record ever made.
Guest:Do you have the tapes?
Guest:Yes, I do.
Guest:How are they?
Guest:My mom has them.
Guest:My sister mom.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I sometimes listen to them when I'm in Oklahoma.
Guest:That's where she is now?
Guest:Yeah, she's in the Witness Protection Program.
Guest:That's a whole other story.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She went there.
Guest:She married a Coke dealer, and then he turns evidence against the Bonanno family, and they had to get out.
Guest:Is she still married to him?
Guest:No, they divorced, but she stayed out there.
Guest:She likes it out there.
Marc:She's got to stay in the program?
Marc:Huh?
Marc:She's got to stay in the witness protection program?
Marc:No, no.
Guest:It was just to get away and lay low.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that's why she went out there 20 years ago.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And she stays out there.
Guest:She was born in LA.
Guest:What happened to the dude?
Guest:Did they hit him?
Guest:He's still around, Terry.
Guest:He's a good guy.
Guest:He's married to somebody else, has a bunch of kids.
Guest:ah but so the the the curse is off him though yeah wow yeah holy shit all right so you make a shitty solo album you're all fucked up on heroin and you're living up that's when i go to my first rehab because the girl i was dating's dad was sober and he was like what's that 87 88 87 yeah yeah and um and so i went to hazelden i remember they did this kind of intervention on me but i knew it was coming because i'd been working on an album for a year and i had nothing
Guest:And so, you know, I went to this restaurant.
Marc:That's when I went to my first rehab.
Guest:I went to Hazelden.
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:But they said they wanted me to go to this one in L.A.
Guest:And I said, I'm not going to one in L.A.
Guest:I'll just leave.
Guest:I know myself.
Guest:And I said, listen, I read in the National Enquirer that Elizabeth Taylor went to some rehab in Minnesota.
Guest:I want to go to that one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's how I chose my first rehab, the National Enquirer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I was so much like Liz.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Maybe you could hang out.
Guest:Maybe she'd come up there.
Guest:But that was a great experience.
Guest:That's when rehab really worked.
Guest:I knew when I walked out of Hazelden 33 days later, I knew what the problem was.
Guest:I knew that I had it.
Guest:I knew it was a disease.
Guest:I knew what to do about it.
Guest:I just didn't want to do anything about it.
Marc:How long did you stay sober?
Guest:About eight months.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What pulled you back?
Guest:I'm an atheist, so it was kind of hard.
Guest:I'd go to meetings every day.
Marc:But you got hung up on it.
Guest:You got hung up on the God thing.
Marc:Yeah, I got hung up on the God thing.
Marc:That's so much the mental ticket out for guys who get it.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so nowadays, regardless of what people believe, we're all doing the same thing.
Guest:So just keep doing the same thing.
Guest:I have a two-step program, if you'd like to join it, Mark.
Guest:Sure, what is it?
Guest:Be cool and don't use.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Be cool is a big tent thing.
Marc:There's a lot of things in the be cool.
Marc:Try to hit a meeting occasionally.
Marc:Check in.
Guest:That's being cool.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Helping out.
Marc:Driving people to meetings to pick them up at rehab.
Marc:The God thing, some guy said something in a meeting once that just sort of works for me.
Marc:God doesn't wake up and think he's you.
Marc:All right, there you go.
Marc:That's a good one.
Marc:That's enough.
Marc:You haven't heard that one.
Marc:How often do you hear one you haven't heard after that?
Guest:How long you got sober now?
Guest:19 years.
Guest:Holy fuck.
Marc:All right, so you get sober the first time, but you were able to, what, you were in and out?
Guest:I knew that it was the solution.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just wasn't, you know, I met a great counselor, her name was Gloria Scott, years later in her rehab, and I said, why is it so hard for me just to catch on to these simple shit?
Guest:And she goes, I have a theory.
Guest:To the degree of your arrogance will be the degree of your suffering.
Guest:Pride.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was a pretty arrogant, frightened child.
Marc:That's pretty good.
Marc:That's a good one.
Marc:Pride's a fucking bitch.
Guest:I was scared of what it is.
Guest:And I also thought sobriety was going to be boring.
Guest:You know, that's what a lot of young people think these days.
Marc:It turns out it's fucking insane.
Guest:It's really hard to go through a month, a year.
Marc:If you think in terms of what using is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I talked to a guy.
Marc:It was interesting.
Marc:It was an interesting moment.
Marc:I've tried to explain it a couple times, but it doesn't quite resonate.
Marc:I know a guy's on medicine.
Marc:And he's on, you know, like bipolar medication.
Marc:They gave him some Klonopins to self-medicate when shit got out of hand in case the Lamictal wasn't working.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, you know, and basically the prescription was, it's like, you know, when you need to feel better, you know, take one of these if you're going, you know, either way.
Marc:I need to feel better all the time.
Marc:That's what he said.
Marc:He said, you take one.
Marc:It's like, of course this feels better.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It feels better.
Marc:It's always going to feel better.
Guest:Always.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Here's my thing is, when Lenny Bruce was doing dope, there was probably one-tenth of one percent of the population was doing dope.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Nowadays, a third of the population is doing dope.
Guest:Something.
Guest:You know, it's not outlaw.
Guest:It's not outside the norm.
Guest:It's mainstream.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Your mom and your grandma are on drugs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Addictive, deadly, destructive drugs.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They may be coming from Walgreens instead of Chewy, but they're the same thing.
Guest:So you roadied first for the Chewy Pepper?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they were just your buddies and you just hang out?
Guest:I started as the manager, then I became the road manager, then I became the roadie, then I was fired completely.
Guest:By my best friends.
Guest:And you guys are all still friends.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Talk to them all the time.
Marc:And everybody's sober.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's fucking- It's weird, right?
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:The funny thing is, we used to talk about it a lot and talk about it less now and gone round and round about it, whether it helps or hinders.
Guest:One of the things I think was 16 and 19, I think that discourages.
Guest:Discourages what?
Guest:People to think they could be sober and live a happy, fun life, not on drugs.
Guest:A lot's been made about my sobriety.
Guest:It's just like the first seven, eight years felt so purposeful and I felt so connected to new people and whatever.
Guest:As the years have rolled on, I try to be there and present with them, but it's a big distance.
Marc:I don't know, like lately, I guess we can just talk freely about it.
Marc:It's like I get to a point where I get pretty dry and I can see it and I can feel it.
Marc:No matter how many good things are going on, like there's that weird thing.
Marc:Like I just become relatively successful in the last few years and I'm still uncomfortable and I still get angry and I still have very little patience.
Marc:So my gratitude situation is not in good place.
Marc:And then I get that weird, dry, aggravated, oh, why don't I have something?
Marc:And then I'll go to a meeting and I'll talk to a new guy.
Marc:I just started talking to a new guy and I'm like, holy shit, I know how this works and it feels pretty good to tell someone else how I did it or to be helpful.
Guest:Or just be present with them.
Guest:That's what I like.
Guest:When I really connect with somebody and it's a couple of years process really where you really become this closeness
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, it's not every sponsee, but it's once in a while, it's pretty magical.
Guest:And I always say there's three states of being in relation to AA, right?
Guest:You're entering into it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're fully engaged in it or you're leaving it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:What's great about it is if a new person asks somebody who's leaving and they really connect, they both immediately become fully engaged in it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So that to me is the thing that saved me time and time again.
Marc:Then that lays the foundation.
Marc:Here's the weird thing is that I always tell these guys, it's like, just fucking make it your own.
Marc:Don't get hung up on who's doing it right or whether you're doing it right or which guy's like shoving what down your throat and how to do it and when to do it.
Marc:Oh, you're speaking.
Marc:my language well yeah because i was always the aggravated guy at every year at every juncture to this day i'm not i'm not comfortable i'm not you know i'm grateful to be sober and i don't want to live any other way and i you know my first the woman who brought me in used to say this thing where she'd be like the only step you have to work perfectly is the first one and i believe that and i believe meetings will keep you sober but i also know that like i can't play this thing by the rules i
Marc:I understand how to make these steps my own and also how to integrate them into my life so I can own them.
Marc:You got to own that shit.
Marc:Do you want to get really technical about it?
Guest:There's a sentence in the book that says, this is a design for living, a bridge back to the real world.
Guest:That suggests that AA is not the real world, that we're supposed to go out and practice this shit with the people down the street here.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Marc:Sure.
Guest:And that's like the old Buddhist saying, easy to be spiritual on a mountaintop hard down in the village.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:That's where my- Yeah, and also I get very defensive when these articles start coming out about why AA's a cult or why- It's like, no, it's not- Who cares?
Marc:But yeah, but no one's making any money.
Marc:It's a benign cult.
Marc:Don't go.
Guest:It is a cult.
Guest:It's a benign cult.
Guest:Nobody's in charge of it doesn't make any money.
Marc:I had a guy say this.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:But the thing is, it's like-
Marc:don't fucking tear it down if you offer nothing in return don't go you know if you don't have the bug and it's not for you go well then fuck off
Guest:Yeah, I think that AA used to be much more welcoming of other things.
Guest:A lot of my friends have gotten sober in lots of different ways.
Marc:Stay sober.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Those gifted people that just are like, no, no, no.
Guest:One of my friends I worked with went back to the Catholic Church and became like a devout Catholic and he's a concierge or whatever it's called.
Guest:It's not a priest, but it's something.
Guest:And he's all into that.
Guest:Like, fine.
Guest:He doesn't shoot dope anymore.
Guest:Good for him.
Guest:You know.
Marc:Some guy used to tell this story about how he told his sponsor early in sobriety.
Marc:It's like, yeah, I don't want to fucking get brainwashed.
Marc:And his father said, your brain needs washing.
Marc:Gloria Scott said that to me.
Guest:Same woman that said, to the degree of your arrogance.
Guest:There used to be, that's the other thing.
Guest:There used to be champions of storytelling.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I one time drank a six-pack of beer in the A.M.
Guest:and see what happened.
Guest:You know what happened?
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:No, they're just like, that guy.
Guest:Nobody said anything.
Guest:Then I'm walking out as a third and gardener at the old original one.
Guest:I'm walking out.
Guest:About 100 people said, keep coming back, Bob.
Guest:You thought you'd start some shit?
Guest:I wanted to get thrown out so bad.
Marc:They absorb everything.
Marc:And the showboats who have a new way or a different way.
Marc:There was a while there in New York and San Francisco where there was this subgroup coming around called the Transmitters.
Marc:And they would sit there and they would inventory constantly.
Marc:It was like an inventory.
Marc:Are you kidding?
Marc:No.
Marc:Exhausting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Every five minutes.
Guest:I immediately became tired.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Every five minutes, they were inventorying, and they thought they were going to do a branch-off group.
Marc:And people were kind of panicky at first.
Marc:And it's like democracy in a way.
Marc:It's like, they'll go away.
Marc:Just come and go.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:They'll filter out.
Marc:But okay, so when did you get sober for real, and how did Beautiful Mess?
Marc:What was the thing that leveled your career in the band?
Guest:Well, the band ended.
Guest:They got tired of me.
Marc:But did your record come out?
Marc:company fuck you?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It was all good.
Guest:We were actually doing the best we had done when we kind of broke up.
Guest:It was in Europe and I had ruined this big tour.
Guest:Because you were fucked up?
Guest:Yeah, really fucked up.
Marc:Was that where there's stuff on YouTube?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, that's one show, but it was just a... One time I didn't even go to our show.
Guest:I went and saw Guns N' Roses at another...
Guest:and I forgot that we were playing.
Guest:Would you shoot up right before you went on?
Guest:No, I mostly smoked crack.
Guest:I was always pretty high from heroin, so I needed something to pick me up.
Guest:Then I'd play, and then I'd drink while I played, and then I'd do dope when I got back to the hotel.
Guest:Oh, yeah, to come down from everything?
Guest:Just a constant self-medicating life.
Marc:But it's interesting, because I have to assume that I watch some of this stuff, and it seems to me that you must have informed Cobain a little bit
Marc:Just singing stylistically and it felt that.
Marc:Did you, does anyone say that?
Guest:Yeah, you know, I feel sad because we were a generation that was very positive about celebrating, you know, debauchery.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I think the casualties came in that next generation, which were Kurt and Shannon Hoon and Brad Knoll from Sublime.
Guest:I think they looked up to us.
Guest:They were like five or seven years younger than us.
Guest:We were already bands that had records.
Guest:When I say we, I'm looking at Anthony, Perry, me.
Guest:We were pretty obviously drug addicts.
Guest:he's great he's like mr husband oh yeah we see him with his wife and kids like it's really weird he and i were at the uh what was it called the tony hawk foundation luncheon the other day with our kids and like yeah it's just so weird yeah well yeah i mean you're lucky you got out you had kids late right yeah well i have a five-year-old and a 28-year-old where'd the 28-year-old come from
Guest:from you know that era oh yeah mid 80s vagina yeah that's how it happened yeah but uh you know and i tried to be a dad and wasn't very good at it and then when i i got sober he was eight and he moved in with me and we got a good relationship yeah he lives in baltimore yeah he wanted to get out of la
Guest:Oh, that's smart.
Guest:It was weird.
Guest:He's a musician, and all of us tried to help him, and he didn't want our help.
Guest:Is he still a musician?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He makes a lot of records.
Guest:Kids nowadays, they make records every six months.
Guest:What's his band?
Guest:It's called The Terrors.
Guest:Well, he doesn't like you to say the, because there's an interesting thing.
Guest:We always say The Terrors, but it's just terrors.
Guest:So Anthony talks about him in Rolling Stone magazine.
Guest:I say, did you see Anthony talked about you in Rolling Stone?
Guest:He's like...
Guest:i don't know he was talking about he was talking about the terrors i don't know who that is i was like you are such a prick tell your friend to get it right dad so after a beautiful mess and everything what you've just you did a couple solo albums and mostly focused on sobriety was that the way i just started working like i was i made the bicycle thief record and i toured that and it was just kind of ran its course and then i thought i'm you know i'm like 40 years old what the am i going to do with hopefully i'll live 30 more years yeah
Guest:And there wasn't a lot of roadmaps of musicians.
Guest:Like, what do you do?
Guest:Do you go back to school?
Guest:Were you bitter?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I was pretty content.
Guest:You know, the Bicycle Thief did pretty well.
Guest:And so I was financially sound and I was just like wondering, but wondering what the fuck am I going to do?
Guest:Am I just going to go to Tropical and wear rock and roll t-shirts and like be 50 years old?
Guest:Be the legendary sober guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so Anthony said, why don't you go down and volunteer at MAP?
Guest:And so that's what I did, and that's how I got into the racket.
Guest:There was this thing called Musician's Assistance Program, and it was just the greatest thing.
Guest:Paid for hundreds and thousands of musicians who go to treatment, and it was this brother and sisterhood, and it just was a magnificent thing.
Guest:It became Music Cares, which is kind of a corporate kind of thing.
Guest:And your relationship with Drew started how?
Guest:I took some of my clients, I started working at this place, first fundraising, and then running groups, and I really liked it.
Guest:They needed extras for this Bill Nye the Science Guy show about addiction, and Drew was the host of it, and I had known him from the 80s being on the radio.
Guest:And he kept looking at me, and then afterwards he said, what's your name?
Guest:And I said, it's Bob Forrest, dude, from Thelonious Monster.
Guest:And he's like, I heard that you died.
Guest:And I go, well, I certainly did not.
Guest:And he said, do you need to come and work with me?
Guest:So then about a year later when MAP dissolved into music, I went and worked with him.
Marc:And history is made.
Guest:Well, you know, I learned a lot from that.
Guest:I mean, he helped me grow up a lot.
Guest:If it wasn't for him and this other doctor, Dr. Blum, they gave me a dictionary and said, there are other words in the English language than fuck.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And so they challenged me, you know, and they mentored me, and I kind of... But you got out without the HEP?
Guest:I got the HEP.
Marc:Oh, you do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I've been in remission or, like, low viral count, so I don't qualify for the medicine.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I got a medicine that gets it.
Guest:Yeah, a thousand bucks a pill if you want it cash.
Guest:You got to get it covered by your insurance.
Guest:Now I heard Blue Cross PPO doesn't have the same criteria as mine, so I might switch when the next Obamacare thing comes around.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Just in case.
Guest:But I'll switch to Blue Cross PPO and they'll say, we don't pay for that anymore if you're healthy and whatever.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So you've been all right with it.
Guest:I've been all right.
Guest:When I go in to get sonograms or viral counts, they just like, they can't believe how low it is.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:You know, I've been sober a long time.
Guest:I try to eat right.
Guest:I don't smoke.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, but eventually it'll catch up with you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I just couldn't do the interferon.
Guest:I was so... Yeah, it knocks a lot of guys out.
Guest:Well, I knocked my friend Harold out, and then it didn't cure him.
Guest:And I thought, fuck, you got six months of that shit, and then it doesn't work?
Guest:Now this new drug is so magical, but it costs so much.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, maybe eventually it'll lower a little bit.
Guest:Yeah, it's got to.
Marc:So do you have your own rehab center?
Guest:Yeah, I got this place out in Malibu called Acadia.
Guest:It's all insurance-driven.
Guest:But I used to own it, and I kind of sold it to my partners.
Guest:I'm trying to play music.
Marc:Well, yeah, well, this new record, it's good.
Marc:You want to play some?
Marc:Yeah, I'll play.
Marc:All right.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:What are you going to play?
Guest:I figured I was going to play two songs.
Guest:I'll play the first song and the last song.
Marc:What about the Serial Song?
Marc:Do you play that?
Guest:Oh, you want to play that?
Guest:Well hell well, oh hell well And cocaine, and cocaine Well I love them both, yeah But they took my life, they took my friends They won't give them back, well I want them back Give them back now, yeah
Guest:And what has it got me?
Guest:Just some teeth that can't chew My favorite cereal with Oh, being cool and looking good Keith Richards and Lenny Bruce And all of them, well, I give up now, yeah
Guest:But sometimes I'll get sad Or I'll get mad About where I should be now And where I am And I want to go back to them
Guest:But what has it gotten me?
Guest:Just some teeth I can't chew My favorite cereal with Yeah, where has it gotten me?
Guest:35 years old now Washed dishes in a restaurant
Guest:Well, my friend Robert Well, he can't stop And his teeth are falling out He's living at his mom's And it's no fun, love I guess it's lucky I'm alive They say it's lucky I'm alive Cause I should be dead Well, I have been dead But I'm not no more
Guest:And what did it get me?
Guest:Just some teeth I can't chew.
Guest:My favorite cereal with.
Guest:Yeah, where's it got me?
Guest:35 years old now.
Guest:Washed just in a restaurant.
Guest:Hellwind, oh hellwind And cocaine, and cocaine I love them both, yeah
Marc:I love that one.
Marc:That'll work.
Marc:Yeah, sounds great.
Guest:Oh, thanks.
Guest:That was fun.
Marc:What other one do you do?
Guest:I've been trying to do them all.
Guest:I play, you know, but the one I really like is, you know, people always ask you, don't they ask you, like, what have you learned from being sober all this time?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:All this, what's the wisdom?
Guest:I'm like, fuck, I'm just barely getting through the day today.
Guest:Don't have any real, don't use.
Guest:Be cool.
Guest:You got a song?
Guest:Yeah, I wrote it.
Guest:It's like when I was in my best state of thinking I knew something.
Guest:There'll be peace in the valley When there's peace in my heart But the road gets so winding That you just get lost
Guest:My friends, let me tell you As dumb as it sounds Well, kindness is everything And love is all there is Well, kindness is everything And love is all there is
Guest:True chaos and beauty True chaos and beauty Religion and philosophies Can teach you to hate But the sun's coming up again
Guest:another baby gets born kindness is everything and love is all there is well kindness is everything love is all there is true chaos and beauty
Guest:chaos and beauty there'll be peace in the valley when there's peace in my heart when the road gets so winding
Guest:That you just get lost Remember kindness is everything And love is all there is Well kindness is everything And love is all there is Take some water
Marc:That sounded great, man.
Guest:Crackly, but it's all right.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:What do you want to do?
Marc:You good?
Guest:Yeah, I'm good.
Guest:Thanks for having me.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:It was great to see you.
Marc:I'm glad you're doing well.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I love the record.
Guest:Glad to be here.
Marc:Do we cover it all?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:So podcasts, right?
Guest:They say, well, yeah, that was good.
Guest:And then we'll tighten it up.
Guest:Where does tightening it up come from?
Marc:It's got to be a sexual term.
Marc:Well, it used to mean, I think getting tight meant getting high at some point.
Marc:But tighten it up means, you know, just... Because I think Archie Bell and the drums do the tighten up.
Guest:Tighten up, y'all.
Marc:I guess it's been used a lot of different ways, but I think it just means we'll tighten it up.
Marc:All right, man.
Guest:Tighten it up.
Marc:I hope that was exciting and interesting and inspiring.
Marc:And again, don't be afraid to ask for help.
Marc:There's help out there.
Marc:Save your life if it needs to be saved.
Marc:And have the will to at least pick up a phone or go get some help if you need help.
Marc:For whatever it is.
Marc:There's no shame in it.
Marc:Merry Christmas.
Marc:I love you all.
Marc:Most of you.
Marc:Tell me I don't.
Marc:Some of you I tolerate, but that's mature.
Marc:Tolerance is a mature and decent thing to do.
Marc:I love you all right now.
Marc:It's fading, though.
Marc:No, I'll stick in.
Marc:I'll stay in.
Marc:Happy holidays.
Marc:Boomer lives!
you