Episode 674 - Cintra Wilson / Zach Galifianakis
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF, my podcast.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:If you're new to the show, glad to have you.
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I don't know where you're listening, but I hope everything's going okay.
Marc:Alright?
Marc:We've got a pretty...
Marc:A pretty amazing show today.
Marc:Central Wilson, the amazing, brilliant cultural critic and writer, has just written a new book.
Marc:Well, it's out.
Marc:It's been out a little bit.
Marc:It's called Fear and Clothing, Unbuckling American Style.
Marc:It's available anywhere you get books.
Marc:That's happening.
Marc:She's going to be here.
Marc:I love her.
Marc:I haven't talked to her in a long time.
Marc:Last time I talked to her was in New York.
Marc:It's always an amazing conversation.
Marc:Very funny, very smart, exciting.
Marc:It was exciting.
Marc:Also, what else is going on with me?
Marc:Talking about reading.
Marc:If you never read my book, Attempting Normal, there's a special right now for the next two weeks.
Marc:It's on sale for $1.99 everywhere e-books are sold.
Marc:$1.99.
Marc:That's a real ego boost.
Marc:Everywhere e-books are sold.
Marc:So go do that.
Marc:Get Attempting Normal right now.
Marc:There's a special for the next couple weeks if you have not read that.
Marc:All right?
Marc:And also, what else?
Marc:Zach Valofagakis.
Marc:Yes, Zach Valofagakis dropped by the garage the other day.
Marc:Always nice to see Zach.
Marc:I've not seen him since I talked to him.
Marc:Maybe I ran into him a couple of times, but he was on a very early WTF.
Marc:And he's got a show, a new show produced by Louis C.K., who I also got to spend some time with.
Marc:Not here on the mics.
Marc:But we went out and had a nice meal, me and the Louie.
Marc:But the show that they co-created it, it's called Baskets, premieres tonight on FX with new episodes coming at you every Thursday.
Marc:So that was fun to talk to Zach.
Marc:So it's a pretty packed show and I'm kind of tired.
Marc:We have begun production.
Marc:Of Marin season four.
Marc:And I got to tell you, man, the first two days went great on this block.
Marc:Got a lot of the same crew back there.
Marc:All the writer guys are there.
Marc:Joe Kessler is on the camera.
Marc:Lynn Shelton, the amazing Lynn Shelton is directing the first two episodes.
Marc:I've never worked with her as a director.
Marc:It's been phenomenal.
Marc:And it's I got to admit, it's pretty funny.
Marc:It might be the funniest season.
Marc:It's a bit dark.
Marc:It's going to be a show not like the show you saw before in a way.
Marc:It's a completely new show.
Marc:I'll say again, for those of you who have kept up with Marin, you can see it on Netflix now, all of them.
Marc:I think you can see all three seasons.
Marc:At the end of season three, things were not great.
Marc:for the character of marin so we start there we start a year here here's here's what i'll give you we start a year after that last episode of marin on season three so it's a year later from whatever might have happened starting the day after that finale all right that's that's what i'll tell you
Marc:That could go either way.
Marc:But think it through.
Marc:Make your assumptions.
Marc:All the scripts will look real good.
Marc:We got them all done before I started shooting because it was important to do that because I don't really have time to be rewriting on set.
Marc:And I require less grooming this year.
Marc:That's another hint I'm going to give you.
Marc:And that's all I'm going to say.
Marc:I don't want to say any more other than I'm heavily employed right now.
Marc:And of course, we do the podcast throughout the shoot.
Marc:So I squeeze it in and have some conversations with some people.
Marc:Get on the mic here.
Marc:But I'm a little exhausted.
Marc:I'll tell you how exhausted I am.
Marc:Last night, I was just I got back from the shoot.
Marc:I was sitting there having a bowl of cereal.
Marc:And and my two cats, Monkey and La Fonda, were on the couch.
Marc:And I said, I said, hey, you two fuckers.
Marc:And they looked up at me at the same time and I laughed for a little while.
Marc:Tired, punchy.
Marc:That's where I'm at.
Marc:That got me going.
Marc:That was all it took.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Also, Glenn Frey died and he was in the Eagles.
Marc:And I know a lot of people that kind of like the Eagles.
Marc:And I think one of the reasons some of us think that is because we've heard the Eagles a lot.
Marc:But I got to be honest with you.
Marc:Some of those songs like the song Take It to the Limit.
Marc:Somewhere in there, like maybe with Stairway to Heaven and a couple others, I think was one of my first slow dances.
Marc:And that has a profound impact.
Marc:You always heard the Eagles all through your life.
Marc:And this guy was a great songwriter, a good singer, and a great guitar player.
Marc:I mean, it was just...
Marc:It's to the point where I don't even really know how classic rock stations are going to do a tribute to the Eagles because every other song is generally an Eagles song.
Marc:That's how many hit songs I had.
Marc:But it's a sad thing, and I do want to give him and them their props because a couple of those songs were pretty powerful.
Marc:in the mind of a junior high kid back in the 70s.
Marc:And that, so R.I.P.
Marc:Glenn Frey.
Marc:Anyways, Zach Galifianudels, Zach Galifianakis, Zach Galifianakis co-created the show Baskets with Louis C.K.
Marc:and he dropped by.
Marc:We talk about a lot of stuff.
Marc:So this is me and Zach Galifianakis.
Marc:No, I know comics have a need to do something.
Marc:Do you know what that is?
Marc:I mean, you seem to have managed to... I'm good.
Marc:I'm with you.
Guest:I don't like to do... I like my life better than my profession.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I think I need to get there.
Marc:I don't know if I'm quite there because I don't know what my life looks like.
Guest:Well, I think people come to this town and they get hijacked by this way you're supposed to live your entertainment life.
Guest:It's not attractive to me whatsoever.
Guest:Has it ever been?
Guest:No!
Guest:going to the Sky Bar and whatever people do.
Marc:It's good to see you.
Marc:I feel like I immediately felt when we saw each other at the front door after you kicked over the cat bowl.
Guest:Well, why do you put your cat bowl right in the walk path?
Marc:It's a wild cat.
Marc:It's not really my cat.
Marc:Oh, it's like a feral.
Marc:It's a feral that I feed out there.
Marc:But I know it's a problem, and I apologize for that.
Marc:But I felt right away that we're getting along better.
Guest:Oh, but you always, see, you always have this thing with people, I think, Mark.
Marc:No, just with you sometimes.
Guest:With me only?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:And you don't think we get along?
Marc:No, I know we get along, but sometimes, like, sometimes I've, and maybe it's true, in the past, maybe this happened.
Marc:If you knew you were going to do this, maybe in the past you'd be like, oh, I got to, okay, go talk to Mark.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that's your own insecurities, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I feel like that for people too.
Guest:I feel like, oh shoot, someone has to come talk to me.
Guest:I feel bad for them.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I think that sometimes I've been unnecessarily bitchy, but I feel better now.
Marc:I'm just telling you that at the outset.
Guest:Well, I always liked, and I think your, if you want to call it whatever, anger, was always so funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right, and that makes me want to do it with you.
Guest:Well, anger makes me laugh.
Guest:Like, I don't, it just does.
Guest:It always has.
Guest:That's why I liked it.
Guest:But, yeah, you and I have no, I look up to you.
Marc:Yeah, I look up to you, too.
Marc:Yeah, like, it took me a while, but I think you're funny.
Marc:it takes a while it takes a while to like me but there was this one time that i maybe i should say it because i wonder if i know what you're talking about but i wonder if i if i might have covered it like years ago when we did you actually were one of the first yeah i gotta thank you i mean your podcast that we did in albuquerque was really one of the essential ones towards building an audience so i appreciate that well you know i love to build podcasts
Marc:Yeah, I know you do.
Marc:From the ground up.
Marc:Marcel Marceau's podcast.
Marc:You know, a lot of people aren't getting that.
Guest:No.
Guest:It's because it's weird.
Guest:It's just one person.
Guest:It's just me going, you're skateboarding now?
Guest:Wait.
Guest:He doesn't say anything.
Guest:You're in a box.
Guest:I know you're pulling something.
Guest:What is it?
Marc:No, but there was one time that I always felt bad about.
Marc:Well, it was not even about bad.
Marc:It was at the Old Largo.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And I didn't live here and I was bitchy and I was here and I was going to go do this dumb set at this dumb club where everyone's doing these cool things.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And it was in that right by the door, like before you go on stage.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I think you were wearing like a George Washington outfit.
Marc:You had a, like a- I had a get up.
Marc:It was a get, but it was a full get up.
Marc:You'd gone to a, you'd outfitted yourself.
Marc:You were a founding father or something.
Guest:I was a standup comic from the 1700s.
Guest:Oh, all right.
Marc:And there was just, this is beat where I walk in, you look at me, you're about to go on stage.
Marc:And I was just sort of like, really?
Marc:It takes that much?
Marc:You're going to-
Guest:I know.
Guest:Look, I'm not above doing prop humor.
Marc:I don't have the... I felt bad about that because it was funny and I could not see the funny at the time.
Guest:Well, you know, you're the first stand-up I ever met.
Guest:In a laundromat.
Guest:In a laundromat in North Carolina, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it was a weird thing.
Marc:I don't even know, like in retrospect, I'm not sure why I was there.
Marc:Had I been away that long to where I needed to wash clothes?
Marc:I mean, it didn't pack properly.
Guest:No, it was in North Carolina.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And you were doing Charlie Goodnights.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:And it was walking distance from wherever you must have been staying.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you walked in.
Guest:And I lived near the laundromat or maybe in the laundromat.
Guest:And I saw you and I was like, I've seen him on television.
Guest:And I just asked you about stand up.
Guest:Yeah, I remember that.
Guest:I remember when I was living in New York and I was contemplating trying to figure out if I could do stand-up and get it.
Guest:And I remember I was a nanny in New York and Al Franken's kid was a... You were a nanny?
Marc:I was a nanny in New York.
Marc:Did I know that?
Marc:Don't you need a license for that or something?
Marc:No.
Guest:I mean... But how do you... Well, the family wanted a male nanny because she had two boys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were older.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Kind of rambunctious, I think.
Guest:Like in their teens?
Guest:No, they were like seven and... I can't remember seven.
Marc:And how they find you.
Guest:I put up an ad at NYU, even though I didn't go there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they called me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Wonderful, nice family.
Guest:But I remember the school in which I would pick the kid up, Al Franken would pick his son up there, or a child, I don't know.
Guest:And I walked up to him and I asked for his advice.
Guest:And he said, well, to be honest with you, you're probably not funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To be honest when he was talking to his nose.
Guest:At the time, what did that mean?
Guest:But he was saying, look, a lot of people think they're funny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they're not.
Guest:And you should know that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it turns out he was right.
Marc:But you made a great living out of it.
Marc:But it doesn't matter, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You made a great career out of it.
Marc:But that thing about, like I always appreciate the fact that you don't seem to, like we were talking about at the beginning, you don't feel compelled to do stand-up right now.
Guest:no i do feel compelled to do stand and you fight it or you do it well i mean i do it i mean i did it two i just did it two nights ago but i mean i do it as much but to me if you don't do it often yeah your rhythm is off oh yeah and and i haven't i haven't done it often enough of late to get my rhythm back so it's it's it's just one of those things that you have to practice i feel like you
Marc:yeah right and where'd you do it at largo yeah with on someone's show or you did a whole night i did it with uh regina specter john uh mulaney and judd regina specter the apatow oh for oh regina specter the singer singer oh so it was one of apatow's uh things yeah and then there was a q a after with me and judd and for some reason and uh
Guest:So there was a few questions, and the last question this woman raises her hand, and she goes, yes, can Regina Spector come out and sing another song?
Guest:Did he let her?
Guest:I got so livid at it.
Marc:You did not.
Marc:Fake livid.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Fake livid.
Guest:We are talking.
Guest:I was so offended.
Guest:I was so happy she asked that.
Marc:Did she come out and sing one?
Marc:Oh, she sang one, yeah.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Are we working in the same building?
Marc:This new show, what is it, Baskets?
Marc:Yeah, it's called Baskets.
Marc:And we heard at the beginning when we were put in the writer's room together, like, you know, Baskets is here.
Guest:And Dave Anthony writes on your show.
Marc:Yeah, he does.
Marc:And he performs on it.
Marc:He's taking it over like a cancer.
Guest:Oh, like a cancer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We have a good chemistry together.
Marc:Yeah, I like Dave a lot.
Marc:Yeah, he always speaks highly of you.
Marc:He does?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:Yeah, he mentioned to me that you lost some weight.
Marc:You look good.
Guest:He mentioned it to you?
Guest:What is your assessment of it?
Marc:No, no, you look good.
Marc:He said it makes me uncomfortable, but I'm not throwing him under the bus, but he's having a hard time adjusting to you looking healthy, apparently.
Guest:Well, if it makes him feel better, the reason I'm thin is because I'm dying.
Marc:Oh, well, I'll tell him that.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you want to go into that at all?
Guest:No, it's not that important.
Okay.
Marc:What did you do?
Marc:Did you stop doing things?
Guest:You know, I mean, I stopped drinking.
Guest:That helps.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I don't drink.
Guest:At all?
Guest:Mm-mm.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When did that happen?
Guest:Well, I had one of those nights that I've been looking for for a while, and I woke up and I was like, okay, that should be probably the end of my drinking life.
Guest:How long ago was that?
Guest:Four years ago in March.
Guest:It's hard for me to – and then I drank at my wedding, and I drank at one other wedding, Bobby Tisdell, who you know.
Guest:And that was – and I gave myself those breaks, and I just – it's hard to –
Guest:i was a good drinker but when you get older it your focus goes exhausting it's too much it's it's and i also think god i i mean as i hate to i think we're kind of trained through madison avenue and all that like that's the way to be a man and all that horses through madison avenue well did we just time travel you know i mean you know the no i like it the advertisers yeah there
Marc:No, no, I think that there was something put in place.
Marc:Like if you watch Mad Men, it's all about that.
Marc:Those guys were drinking all the time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was set in motion then.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:Well, you know, Mad Men, it's not a documentary.
Marc:No, it is a documentary.
Marc:Am I watching it wrong?
Guest:It's a nice looking documentary.
Marc:It is.
Marc:And I was surprised how much access they had.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:Yeah, I had to get all that access.
Yeah.
Guest:How did they do that?
Guest:Fascinating.
Guest:And there were color cameras back then.
Marc:It was all amazing.
Marc:It was all amazing.
Marc:And a real dedication, the director and crew to stay with that group of people.
Guest:Have people come here to ask you about the president?
Guest:Are you bored with people asking you how that?
Marc:No, there's this cup.
Marc:People like the cup.
Marc:I put the cup under glass.
Guest:You got it.
Marc:I hear this weird machine noise.
Marc:I haven't been able to.
Guest:Oh, that's my car.
Guest:I left it on because my son's inside it.
Marc:Some people have said, when are you going to stop talking about that?
Marc:Never.
Marc:The president came to my house.
Marc:There's no reason.
Marc:I'm curious about the lockdown.
Marc:It's like going to space.
Marc:Did Secret Service come here first?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Did all that?
Guest:And did they come with a big motorcade?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Whoa.
Marc:That's the way he travels.
Marc:It's not like he's going to hop into a rented- Oh, really?
Guest:He didn't come into Vespa?
Guest:No.
Guest:Was there anything afterwards where you wish you had asked him?
Marc:Yeah, one question.
Marc:What was it?
Marc:like moving from like a senator to that all of a sudden you are making decisions almost unilaterally that are both options are going to end in in human the loss of human life you know what was the first one of those and and you know how do you process that
Marc:Can you answer that question?
Guest:You want me to answer it instead?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I haven't heard the interview yet, but did you get a chance to ask him anything about Wall Street?
Marc:No, not specifically.
Marc:Why you have worried about your money?
Guest:Because he did a Between Two Ferns thing with me, and when we were done, I was like, I wish...
Marc:Well, that was a weird thing, because that was for the health care plan.
Marc:That was for the health care thing.
Marc:That was the quid pro quo that you had to deal with.
Guest:That's exactly right, if we're going to use Latin terms.
Guest:But yeah, I mean, he had a thing, but I believe in the thing, so why not?
Marc:And I like him, and I think that, well, there's always going to be, and there wasn't much from, more so of me, because I did have some experience doing politics.
Marc:That there might have been an expectation to sort of put his, you know, to grill him a little bit.
Marc:But the thing that people don't realize about politicians is that you can ask them whatever you want.
Marc:I mean, they didn't give us a list of questions or vet us at all.
Marc:Because you know why?
Marc:Because the president can handle himself.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:that's right so like you can ask him like how does it feel to kill uh kill all those civilians and he'll be like well you know there's a there's a tough decision uh in these and then all of a sudden you're into this thing where like three minutes in you're like i don't even know what he's talking about so like he's gonna you know he's gonna take it where he's so i tried to just stay engaged yeah yeah and um and it went pretty well what was your experience with him
Guest:I tell you.
Guest:Were you in awe?
Guest:I mean, because you had to do a character.
Guest:I was nervous.
Guest:I mean, because we did it in the White House, and he came to your house, I went to his.
Guest:But I was, I mean, I was nervous.
Guest:But after the fact, and after we did it, and the video was released, I get a phone call from him.
Guest:And we're chatting, and we chatted for a couple minutes, and then the last thing he said was,
Guest:okay i'll talk to you later brother and uh i hung up and i i didn't know what to do i was by myself at a construction site yeah and i just stood up and took a picture of the chair i was standing in as there's you have a cup sitting in your desk for the president i have a picture of an old chair uh but it was just amazing what did he want to talk about
Guest:He was... Thanking you?
Guest:He wanted to talk about some of my bits.
Guest:No, he wanted to talk... He just wanted to thank... It was nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:But let me ask you this, though.
Marc:Because I had to... Like, my struggle was to be myself.
Marc:Like, you had to hold, you know, whatever the tone of that show was.
Guest:I have to be rude to... Yeah, the president.
Guest:The president and the White House.
Guest:But, I mean, I'm a respectful person, you know.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:So...
Guest:But there was a question that I'm sure was not... Because his speechwriter, before we went in, I said to his speechwriter, Cody, who's so very funny, this guy.
Guest:And I pointed to a question.
Guest:I said, has the president seen this question?
Guest:And it was, what's it like to be the last black president?
Guest:And Cody goes...
Guest:I think so.
Guest:Absolutely, he did not see it.
Guest:So when I knew I had to ask that question, there was a big lump in my heart.
Guest:But he's a funny... I mean, he has a good sense of humor, President Obama.
Guest:And that's rare in that town.
Guest:Washington, D.C.
Guest:is not a funny town to me.
Guest:Is that Iggy Pop?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was in here.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
Guest:what do you mean you know i didn't i mean i didn't know he was do you listen to anything uh pop uh i'm not asking you to listen to my podcast but i've been doing it a while you know mark i gotta tell you i've been on if you remember this but years ago i told you you should be on 60 minutes as the andy rooney at the end right the cranky guy you should i mean that's where you're you this job that you're doing i'm envious what no i mean i don't need 60 minutes anymore no you don't need radio i don't need anything you don't need the man anymore no
Marc:I don't need the man.
Marc:It's a very weird feeling.
Marc:No one does if you plan it right.
Marc:But there's still some people that are sort of like, nah, I kind of like the man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, certain avenues you need the man, I guess.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:You know, the man's sort of like, you know, it's literally a lot of the reason why some people need the man is the same, is a parental thing.
Marc:It's like, well, you know, he got me this chair.
Guest:Yeah, that's true.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:He made me this nice room and I can sit in here.
Marc:So, all right, so let's talk about, but before we talk about baskets,
Marc:Which, how many episodes of that did you do?
Marc:10.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Do you like them?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's a very specific odd show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With kind of weird dramatic undertones, but very dumb humor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the tone of that is kind of new, and I hope audiences find it okay.
Marc:Now, did you, now, Louis produced it?
Guest:Yeah, well, Louis C.K.
Guest:called me and asked me if I would have any interest in trying to write a TV show.
Marc:Because he had the deal at Fox or at FX.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So they were like, make some shows.
Guest:I guess.
Marc:And he called you.
Guest:I guess, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, my confidence level has never really been strong for anything.
Guest:And I thought about it and then he and I started chatting and he made it really easy and gave me a lot of room and freedom.
Guest:And, you know, we came up with this show about a bitter rodeo clown.
Marc:That was something that you both, you sat there with Louie or on the phone and you were like, here's some of the ideas that I'm having.
Guest:Well, first it was going to be a behind the scenes of Between Two Ferns.
Guest:That was my idea.
Guest:I was going to kind of make it that.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I couldn't make sense of that in my head and then Louie and I started chatting and I remember sitting around.
Guest:I like to sit and act like I'm thinking.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Rodeo Clown popped in my head and something about him being trained in...
Guest:And Paris made Louis and I laugh.
Guest:Like a trained clown, a real clown.
Guest:Yeah, like, you know, more artistic.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:And he ended up there somehow.
Guest:So he goes there to study clown theory, and he's terrible.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he drops out and goes and moves back to his hometown in Bakersfield, and the only work he can get is a rodeo clown.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So he has a chip on his shoulder.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:so that's that's the that's the uh basis basis so it takes place in bakersfield yeah bakersfield in paris in paris too yeah did you shoot in paris yeah really yeah those are flashbacks or those are flashbacks yes yeah yeah it's it was so fun to go to paris i mean obviously i mean i've never really been behind the scenes of a tv show well no i had a talk i had a talk show years ago but i wasn't paying attention at vh1 yeah with the hat
Guest:Yes, Mark, with the hat.
Marc:I'm not condescending.
Marc:I was the guy that had the game show on the flip side of your fucking hat show.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And we both tanked together.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:I forgot.
Marc:I'm not taking the upper hand here.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:We both went down together with what's-his-name.
Guest:Well, VH1, I mean, it was not the greatest place to do...
Marc:The weird thing was, though, is like they, you know, in terms of changing the tone, they were just like about a decade too soon that, you know, what they saw in you or the idea of was like to make it more specific to what they pictured, you know, primarily, I think, white youth as being at that time.
Guest:But they came to me and told me people I could not make fun of.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Artists of theirs that I couldn't make fun of.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I think they were trying to reach out to a segment of audience that didn't quite exist yet.
Marc:What, the Cher fans?
Marc:Well, yeah, I had to do... Yeah, you know, Tony Braxton fans.
Marc:I just remember, like...
Marc:There was this horrible moment in show business where I think we were both there, maybe I'm wrong, where they were doing the sort of the big kind of like launch thing, in-house launch thing.
Marc:And they wanted me to do like an episode of the Buzzcocks live with a couple of people.
Marc:I don't know if you were there or not.
Marc:Maybe you weren't, but I just remember that, what's his name?
Marc:Fred?
Marc:Oh, Graver.
Marc:Graver, right.
Marc:And he got up there to address VH1, which was pretty entrenched in what VH1 was.
Marc:And he thought it'd be cute to wear that hat that you were wearing, you know, on all the bus stops and everything.
Marc:So he gets up there with that dumb hat going, and I just looked at a room full of people who had been doing it a certain way for over a decade, just like this, like...
Marc:yeah no this is toughest fucking room and i'm like this is doomed yeah i i couldn't have been happier that didn't work out for me yeah i had no idea what the game show was i i hosted it for 13 episodes i have no idea i remember when that show when i that show got canceled for me i just went right back to open mics yeah i just right back to open mics like okay it's a do-over
Marc:But then you've gone on to amazing success.
Marc:So now, okay, Baskets is exciting.
Marc:It sounds good.
Marc:I'm excited about it now.
Marc:The billboards are hard to understand.
Guest:Well, you've never liked my billboards.
Guest:I haven't?
Guest:Well, that's what you were alluding to with the hat thing.
Marc:But that was like Marky Mark's ass in New York.
Marc:I mean, it was like fucking everywhere.
Guest:But that's the thing with this business is like...
Guest:everything has to be out of the gate big.
Guest:It's like, just let people find a show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:The one thing you get with FX2, and because you're working with Louis, and what I get with IFC is that you do have freedom to do it.
Marc:Yeah, there's no... And there's nothing better than that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't know that even existed.
Guest:I assumed it never existed, but when Louis told me,
Guest:hey, they won't bug you, he was completely to his word.
Guest:They have been nothing but cool.
Guest:And the notes they have given me, and I don't have to blow smoke up, but have been really, really, I agreed with all the notes, which is rare.
Marc:Well, I think that happened to me too on Marin.
Marc:And it's like, it's a gift.
Marc:It's a great thing.
Marc:And I think one of the reasons is because they, in some ways, have less to lose.
Marc:It's a much more competitive market.
Marc:There's no system in place anymore.
Marc:They can't pretend to know the answers.
Marc:They just can't.
Marc:So, you know, they trust in the creatives.
Marc:That's what it is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's the smart way to be.
Guest:They're the business people.
Guest:We're the jokesters.
Marc:When's it on?
Marc:Do you know?
Marc:Is there a date?
Guest:It's the 21st of January.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And I don't know what time it's on.
Marc:That's soon.
Marc:The 21st.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'll get the information.
Guest:Do you know Louie Anderson?
Guest:He's in it.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For a lot of them?
Guest:I think he's in all of them.
Guest:Really?
Guest:He plays my mom.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know if I'm supposed to say that.
Guest:I can't remember if we're trying to keep it a secret or not.
Guest:I wanted to cast Brenda Bleffen.
Guest:Is that her name?
Guest:The English actress?
Marc:I'm not sure.
Guest:She's one of my favorite actresses, but I never know how to pronounce her name.
Guest:And she was not available.
Guest:And Louis C.K.
Guest:and I were talking about it.
Guest:And I was like, I don't know, Louis.
Guest:There's a voice in my head.
Guest:And we looked at a lot of people, actresses, reels.
Guest:And I was like, there's a voice.
Guest:And he goes, what kind of voice?
Guest:And I'm like, kind of like Louis Anderson's voice.
Guest:And he goes...
Guest:Should we call Louie?
Guest:And I went, yeah.
Guest:And a minute later, Louie and Louie are talking on the phone.
Guest:And I remember the conversation.
Guest:Hey, Louie, it's Louie.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Hey, I'm doing this show with Zach Galifianakis.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:We want you to be in it.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Here's the thing.
Guest:We want you to play his mom.
Guest:I'll do it.
Guest:exactly how it went down and it has been uh a really really i mean he he's he steals the show does he yeah yeah and i i like i kind of want to be the straight man in this show a little bit so uh um he is that's so funny to me it's oh no it's beautiful he's very funny he he has like a lot of siblings he was telling me and uh and i mean like nine or ten and uh
Guest:I said, Louie, where do you fall in line for a number of siblings?
Guest:And he goes, almost successful.
Marc:No, he's a sweetheart and one of the great comics, really.
Marc:Yeah, he's really great.
Marc:But what about how many more hangovers are there?
Guest:We're contracted up to 12.
Guest:And I feel a real appetite out there for more.
Yeah.
Marc:I feel people really want.
Marc:Everyone always asks me when I told people I was talking to you.
Marc:I'm like, ask them when it's coming.
Marc:Where do they go now, those guys?
Guest:Yeah, look, that was a chunk of my life that I do not regret at all.
Marc:It was a good time.
Guest:I wish we had just done one.
Marc:Really?
Guest:I think leave well enough alone sometimes.
Guest:How many did you do?
Guest:Three?
Guest:Three.
Guest:Now we have to do nine more.
Marc:are you doing anymore okay all right no i mean in 10 years when this all dries up i'm sure i'll be knocking on people's doors like hey i got this idea yeah yeah look i'm still weird and now you see i think one of the reasons you seem better outside of perhaps uh not drinking and growing up is you have you have a child yes how old is a child i don't know oh yeah
Guest:He's something.
Guest:No, he's two.
Guest:He's a he?
Guest:It's a he.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think, I mean, I'm pretty sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, these days.
Marc:You might check in occasionally.
Marc:That must be great for you.
Marc:You seem like a good father guy.
Guest:I gotta tell ya.
Guest:Going back to what we were talking about, Madison Avenue and all the beer commercials.
Guest:Fatherhood is fantastic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I just love it.
Guest:I have no complaints.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's changed the chemistry in my body.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I'm a morning person now.
Guest:I go out and walk and say good morning.
Guest:Morning people are the nicest people in the world.
Guest:If you want to meet nice people in Los Angeles, go out at six in the morning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, but, uh, yeah, I, I, I can't, I, I, I just, I, I don't want to bore your audience, but I just, I just, being a dad has been, uh, has been the highlight of my life.
Marc:Do you have an exit strategy?
Guest:For what?
Marc:For life.
Marc:Like, are you going to like, at some point go like, I'm taking the family and there's a, there's a dropout scenario that's definitely going to happen where you just kind of, but you can do that if you want.
Marc:I mean, theoretically, like, and I'm, you know, I'm just saying, because I think about this, like, obviously, you're at a different pay grade than me, but, but there is a little... Also, you got my text.
Marc:Yeah, there is three of them.
Marc:Like, just remember who's in charge.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, I mean, you could, like, this is, I'm just fighting with this myself.
Marc:It's like, why don't people go, like, I'm done.
Marc:I'm going to take my kid and my wife and go live a deep, quality life away from this shit.
Guest:But I think that somebody like you and I have a selfish pull to entertain people.
Guest:There's, like, a need.
Guest:So I don't think I can ever stop doing, I don't want to stop doing stand-up ever.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:Because I feel like that's the one thing I would really miss.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:But all the other stuff, I mean, look, as we were saying early, there's your life and there's your work life.
Marc:And you're able to separate it.
Guest:Your life is more important.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Do you still have a farm?
Guest:I still own that, but we moved our farm to another.
Guest:Farm?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So we moved out of North Carolina.
Guest:don't tell me where you went but you've got another place yeah and it's a it's a nice place uh well it's there's nothing i mean it's it's it's just a farming farming community really and an artist community it's really the two things i love i like artists and i like farmers uh-huh and we found this place where it has both uh-huh it's just it's magnificent and and um so you got some property you got an existing farm or you built one
Guest:We bought a cabin from a woman who I think was a witch.
Marc:Oh, great.
Marc:A good witch.
Marc:A good witch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's a pretty hippy-dippy place.
Marc:You like hippies, huh?
Guest:I like, no, hippies, I just like grounded.
Guest:Free living.
Guest:No, I like grounded, earthy type people.
Guest:I think the tree huggers in the end, and I don't mean the dope smoking hippie that kind of irresponsible.
Guest:I mean the tree huggers, they're always right in the end.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, the tree huggers have been worrying about climate change.
Guest:I remember as a kid since the 70s.
Guest:I mean, and everybody rolled their eyes and just dismissed them.
Guest:Right, now it's too late.
Guest:Now it's too late.
Marc:Now we're fucked.
Marc:There's no turning it back.
Marc:It's always great to see you.
Guest:What?
Guest:Let's go to dinner and stuff.
Guest:You and I went to dinner with an old girlfriend of yours in Albuquerque.
Guest:At El Pinto.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Fuck is that noise.
Guest:Can you hear it?
Guest:It might be my pacemaker.
Marc:Oh no.
Guest:I do hear that noise.
Guest:What is that?
Marc:Let's go find out.
Marc:It was very nice to talk to Zach.
Marc:That was the best we ever got along.
Marc:And we always kind of get along.
Marc:But for some reason, I used to just kind of bust his balls a little bit and mildly bully him.
Marc:But it was not there this time.
Marc:And he looks great.
Marc:He lost some weight.
Marc:So, folks, I don't know if you know Central Wilson, but she's written a lot of great stuff.
Marc:And she's an incredible wit and quite a brilliant person.
Marc:I was very excited to talk to her.
Marc:As I said before, you can get her new book, Fear and Clothing, Unbuckling American Style, now.
Marc:And you can listen to me talk to the brilliant Central Wilson right now.
Marc:The last time I saw you was probably 2007, and you were like, you had an energy.
Marc:It was very specific.
Marc:It felt like you were on the run.
Marc:Like there was clandestine forces against you, and you've been in D.C.
Marc:too long.
Guest:Are you sure I'm just not socially anxious in ways?
Guest:Well, tell me.
Marc:I mean, at that time, you were entrenched in politics.
Guest:I was.
Guest:Yeah, that'll bum anybody out for a long time.
Marc:Right, but you're literally like, I got to be cool.
Marc:There was some part of you that was like... I'm not supposed to talk about that.
Marc:Yeah, I know too much.
Guest:Yeah, I was being warned that I did at certain points.
Marc:Really?
Guest:It'll make me sound crazy if I discuss it, but yeah, I was like...
Marc:Then let's discuss it.
Guest:I was dating a senior Pentagon official.
Guest:Oh, that was what it was.
Guest:And I had been in the White House press corps, and so I knew my phone was tapped because they actually tell you we're going to tap your phone for the rest of your life, and you can hear them clicking in and clicking off.
Guest:So I wasn't actually paranoid, but it could come off that way.
Guest:If I was talking to me, I'd think I was paranoid.
Marc:Well, yeah, for someone who's on the outside of that, I was like, man, you've got to get out.
Marc:I felt like I was a sort of pivotal part in a movie.
Marc:I was like...
Guest:You needed to do a Potomac intervention on me.
Marc:Get you out of there in hiding into some sort of witness protection program or out of the country.
Guest:I don't hang out there anymore.
Marc:You're out?
Guest:Yeah, I'm out of politics in D.C.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:I really just, you know, you learn the thing and you go and you take the blue pill and you see the truth and it's hateful and horrible.
Marc:The truth is, like, what truth did you find?
Marc:I found that no matter what you do or how above it all or critical you may be, you're going to be carrying water for somebody.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And that and that you cannot talk about politics in a way that will actually engage people that you wish would be engaged.
Guest:Like I tried to make really obscure information palatable and funny.
Guest:And basically the only person who read Caligula for president.
Guest:My last book was you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, I basically wrote it for you or it doesn't exist.
Marc:Thank you for doing that.
Marc:That's a lot of forethought on your part because it wasn't like we were talking, but you knew somewhere that I had to get it to Marin.
Guest:It's actually dedicated to Batman because the senior Pentagon official I was dating didn't want me to dedicate it to him by name.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, I was in a bad place.
Marc:That was my feeling.
Guest:You were in a bad place.
Guest:Well, I mean, I didn't think I was.
Guest:I'm very, very insatiably curious about things.
Marc:But what was it that made you sort of hit the wall with that?
Marc:Because when I did political talk, when I did the radio stuff,
Marc:We were fielding stuff from the left, from the far left, and from trying to get the facts as well, and also keeping abreast of whatever the right was dishing out.
Marc:But it really gets to a point where you realize that it's not a game, it's a business.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And that there is no real representation, that the idea of democracy is kind of like, it's just placating people who are okay and completely brainwashing people who are angry.
Guest:The brainwashing part is the part that really bummed me out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, and also when you realize that these organisms are just so immense.
Guest:I mean, a place like the Department of Defense, there's, you know, four million employees with security clearances in the country.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, there's no way to keep track of any of that.
Guest:Like the defense industry doesn't have any idea how much the defense industry is spending.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, they just watch the wheel spin at a certain point and the money go by.
Guest:I mean, nobody there's no checks and balances on anything anymore.
Guest:I mean, the dragon has no head is right.
Guest:I was fond of saying.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah, I guess.
Marc:So.
Marc:And did you eventually get disillusioned and fall into a deep darkness?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, you have to, I think.
Guest:But I feel like you have to do your time.
Guest:Wasn't it Kafka who said, you know, well, if you're an artist, you have a certain moral obligation to talk about these horrible political things that nobody wants to talk about.
Guest:And I thought, well, yeah, Kafka, I should really do that.
Guest:Nobody loved me for it.
Guest:Nobody cared.
Guest:Nobody read it.
Marc:Well, Kafka was dealing in sort of, you know, long and dense metaphors.
Guest:Well, he had to or he'd get killed.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Maybe you should have approached it that way with the fear for your life.
Guest:Yeah, I'm going to start by talking about the DOD as like an insect hive or something like that.
Marc:So you lived there?
Marc:You were living in D.C.
Marc:for a while?
Guest:I was in and out of there.
Guest:I had a lot of friends there.
Guest:My best friend from childhood had a major program in the Pentagon, which is the human terrain system.
Guest:And I was what my friends called a counterterrorism groupie.
Guest:which is probably the worst kind of groupie.
Marc:What is the human terrain system, please?
Guest:It is no longer a part of what we do, but it was the reintroduction of anthropology into defense because anthropology was just not something like when we first went into Iraq and Afghanistan after 9-11.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We made a lot of really, really stupid mistakes as a country just by not knowing basic stuff, like the difference between Sunni and Shiite.
Guest:The tribal culture, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And not knowing anything about how to deal with the people.
Marc:So they needed to create some sort of program to educate people about the people they were killing?
Guest:Correct, correct, yes, correct.
Guest:Know your enemy, I think.
Marc:Or at least know what they like to wear and what team they're on.
Guest:Or just how not to offend them by offering them a handshake full of what they think is shit or something.
Guest:I'm sorry, should I not swear?
Guest:No, you can swear.
Marc:I can swear.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So that's interesting.
Marc:So this is a person you knew from childhood who we went to as an anthropologist?
Guest:Yeah, I wish we had the same impoverished upbringing on the Sausalito houseboats.
Marc:She's in this book.
Guest:She is.
Guest:She's in most of my books.
Marc:At the beginning of the book.
Marc:Oh, she is?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, she's just been a major influence on my life because she's absolutely brilliant, the most brilliant person I've ever known.
Guest:She went from, you know, by her own bootstraps, ended up getting a full ride to Yale and then went to Harvard and then went to D.C.
Marc:Do you have a chip on your shoulder about Ivy League people?
Marc:I used to.
Guest:I used to.
Marc:Because you're pretty smart.
Guest:I wrote this book and then I was like, fuck it.
Guest:I have a Ph.D.
Guest:I'm giving it to myself.
Guest:I don't care anymore about anybody's education.
Guest:I can go toe to toe with most people about my chosen subjects.
Marc:Well, let's talk about that because I'm trying to think about the first time I saw you, like when I fell in love with you was probably when you were on the cover of Mondo.
Guest:That was so long ago.
Marc:No, I know, but I don't know.
Marc:I probably brought this up before.
Marc:What was that time?
Marc:So was it 91, 92?
Guest:Yeah, I was doing plays in San Francisco.
Marc:You're this local sort of child genius playwright, like a cultural icon.
Guest:Did a lot of bad plays, did a lot of nude photographs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I think I met you once at a party.
Marc:Your parents were 60s lunatics, right?
Guest:Totally, yeah.
Guest:No, they're beatniks.
Marc:Mostly like... Beatniks, like that generation?
Guest:Educated.
Guest:You know, it's like they sort of looked down on other hippies because they didn't do as many drugs.
Guest:But my mother is still a jazz musician in San Francisco who calls herself the Duchess.
Guest:And my... I knew you'd like that.
Guest:My father taught art at one of the world's worst universities for 37 years, Chico State, where I was born.
Guest:I was born in Chico, California.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I don't even know where Chico State is.
Marc:I know where Davis is.
Guest:Yeah, Chico's like in the middle of the Sacramento River Valley where all the orchards are.
Marc:Sacramento's the worst.
Guest:Oh, it's grim.
Guest:It was actually in 1986, it's in the book, it was voted the number one party campus in America because people kept dying in the swimming pools.
Marc:Because they were too drunk to swim?
Guest:They were too drunk.
Guest:And then there was these people called the Beer Pirates.
Guest:I talk about it a little bit in the book where they had taken a Coors belt buckle with the Coors logo on it and made a branding iron out of it.
Guest:And they would actually sear the Coors logo into the skin of passed out freshmen.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they had to cancel Frontier Week.
Guest:Just tradition around that school.
Guest:That's what your dad taught.
Marc:What did he teach?
Marc:Art history?
Guest:Art.
Guest:He was a full professor.
Guest:He taught art.
Marc:So you grew up in an educated, open-minded, exploratory- They both have terminal degrees.
Guest:They're very, very intelligent, crazy people.
Marc:Well, how the fuck did they end up on a houseboat in Sausalito?
Guest:It was cheap.
Guest:I mean, they were trying to get me into a better school district and they're like, this is $9,000 and everybody's stoned.
Guest:So it's like it was an interesting community.
Guest:I mean, it was very radical.
Guest:And actually, it was a community that was pretty much like we would we would talk about it as being off the grid now.
Guest:Because they were openly flouting all of these laws in Sausalito.
Guest:And they kept... Like where Mitzi grew up, my friend, it was actually just like about a quarter of a mile down the street.
Guest:There were riots during our childhood because they were trying to gentrify her doc.
Guest:Which was, you know, all this crazy shit.
Guest:Like, you know, just like...
Guest:trailers sitting on like orange pontoons and then like everybody's toilet was basically just like a shelf that emptied out into the bay.
Guest:And Sausalito didn't like that.
Guest:Everybody was getting their power from the street light in the parking lot and they would just run a million extension cords to like 17 different homes.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:It was a crazy time.
Guest:But how old were you?
Guest:Under 10 probably.
Marc:But you have very specific memories.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, it was very formative.
Marc:Those are weird memories that you have because they're usually sort of like either terrifying or sexual, like the memories that hit you.
Guest:You know, it's especially in the 70s and especially in that area.
Marc:I can't imagine it.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:Like when I would catch the school bus every day, there would be these women that we called the hitchhookers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:who would be standing right next to me in, like, rabbit fur jackets who would, like, be hitchhiking with their thumbs out.
Guest:And they totally looked all, you know, walk of shame, clapped out at 7 o'clock in the morning.
Guest:And, like, I'd be there with, you know, going to fourth grade, you know, waiting for the school bus.
Guest:And if the hitchhikers weren't there and I was waiting for a bus, like, coit drapery vans would pull up and honk and, like, wait for me to get in.
Guest:And I'm like, no.
Guest:No, I'm a child.
Guest:No, keep going.
Guest:No.
Guest:God, there was famous children's authors who lived in the houseboats and you knew like not to go near certain people because they had, you know, short eyes tendencies.
Guest:But I mean, back then it was like you knew that, you know, like people would warn you like you don't you don't want to go over to that guy's houseboat.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The house.
Guest:We're not going to name names.
Marc:But they were neighbors.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And everybody knew, like, just don't let your 11-year-old girl near that guy.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:But so what was your... Because, you know, you're really sharp.
Marc:And you write for The New York Times.
Guest:I did.
Guest:They fired me.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, you know, you sort of came about it and, like, really creating... It was your own path.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you didn't like you see like because in the book and even just the part I read, which seems to be a pretty important part because it really deals with your formative years of of what drove you to sort of assessing culture and being consumed by it.
Marc:And then somewhat defining some of it on your own.
Guest:Right.
Marc:There's I like the little the little part where you you were a swimming cap to.
Guest:Oh, I felt like that was one of my great fashion triumphs of all time.
Marc:It made so much sense.
Marc:It was so hilarious.
Marc:This was like, so where do we go?
Marc:You go from fourth grade, and then what happens in San Francisco?
Marc:You move off the boat?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I moved off the boat, and then I kind of just went into, I moved into the city very early when I was a teenager.
Guest:I mean, I don't know how far you got into the book.
Marc:You weren't a runaway, though.
Marc:You were just getting, your parents let you.
Guest:I was a runaway.
Guest:I was a runaway, but I kept, yeah, I mean, they kept kind of making me come back.
Marc:You were a runaway, but a car ride away.
Guest:I was a truant.
Guest:They knew where you were.
Guest:I was in juvenile hall and stuff.
Guest:I was a problem child.
Marc:How'd you end up in juvie?
Guest:Oh, all kinds of reasons.
Guest:Drugs.
Guest:Drugs?
Guest:But mostly just like being completely rampant and uncontrollable.
Marc:But that's what led to your genius.
Guest:That's what they say now.
Guest:At the time, I was just a bad child.
Marc:But when you finally got into the crystal meth period, that was... I'm glad you read that part.
Guest:I didn't want to have to bring it up myself.
Guest:No.
Marc:That was a great part.
Marc:I love the description of hobbies and fashion choices and making your own outfit.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:You're going to bring up the fish, aren't you?
Marc:Oh, you had goldfish earrings?
Guest:That is the lowest fashion point of my life.
Marc:Was that also the lowest drug point of your life?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely the lowest.
Guest:I've never been that high ever since.
Marc:Well, the weird thing about... Because I lived in San Francisco only for like a couple years, but I never...
Marc:I always felt off center there.
Marc:I could never figure out what was... It always felt so ungrounded to me.
Marc:Like I couldn't get... Unmoored?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I could not get a handle on it.
Guest:You can't get an anchor anywhere there.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Why is that?
Guest:Shifting sands.
Guest:Well, I mean, especially when you were there.
Guest:I mean, when we're talking about the...
Guest:At those times, I mean, it's like this is when we were still describing the Haight-Ashbury as where, you know, 20-year-olds get a B.A.
Guest:and then go to retire to a life of broken motorcycles and black T-shirts.
Guest:I mean, it's sort of like I did it, you know, for a while.
Guest:It was fun.
Guest:You thought you were going to live forever and you got really stupid tattoos and, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you could afford to live there, kind of?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you could afford to live in what was then a rotting old Victorian and you could buy a lot of rotting old Victorian clothing to go with it and, you know, the thrift store.
Guest:And it was fun.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But yeah, but like even now, like I know that everything's changed.
Marc:I was living on, I guess I lived on South Van Ness in like 23rd.
Guest:I lived there too.
Guest:I lived there too.
Marc:Really?
Guest:I lived on 23rd and South Van Ness in several different apartments.
Guest:I lived in 24th and South Van Ness, 22nd and South Van Ness and 23rd and South Van Ness twice.
Marc:I think I knew, like you described some woman.
Marc:There was a woman that I saw one morning when I woke up walking down the street that is like indelible in my memory.
Marc:She was walking down the street wearing like a tutu and combat boots with a shaved head.
Guest:Was that you?
Guest:I probably knew that girl.
Guest:No, that sounds like my friend Lisa.
Guest:Like, and I was like, oh, my God.
Guest:That was the look.
Guest:That was the look.
Guest:Yeah, my friend Lisa.
Guest:That probably was Lisa.
Marc:I bet you it was.
Guest:Yeah, I bet it was.
Marc:Because there's, like, so many locals there.
Marc:They're still around.
Marc:You go up there, you probably see a lot of the people that you grew up with.
Guest:It wasn't like there was a lot of girls in tutus and combat boots.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It wasn't a day look for a lot of girls.
Guest:Right.
Marc:No, I couldn't stop.
Marc:I was just stopped in my tracks like, what the fuck is happening in the world?
Marc:It's amazing.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Yeah, I felt partially responsible for her decline.
Guest:I can maybe directly attribute that fashion crime partially to myself.
Guest:Were you guys in some sort of fashion battle?
Guest:I introduced her to the wrong people.
Guest:Oh, you did?
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Marc:Your friends?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, I did.
Marc:Something about that, about San Francisco and that weird feeling, I think you described it really well, and I didn't know some of that history about why it became sort of the gay capital and gay-friendly port that it is.
Guest:I thought that was really fascinating.
Marc:How come I never knew that?
Guest:I looked it up because it was just the hunch that I had that the local economy, because when I talk about in the book how growing up in San Francisco, I was very influenced by drag queens and speed freaks because they were fabulous fashion animals.
Guest:And these were the people who taught me about glamour and style and personal style.
Guest:And then I was thinking about that as an economy, because there is a huge gay economy.
Guest:And then I was like, well, why is there a huge gay economy in San Francisco?
Guest:And then I looked it up, and during the 40s, when they decided that homosexuals could not be in the Army or Navy, they out-processed 40,000 service persons out into San Francisco and just left them there.
Marc:And they were like, this is nice.
Guest:They stayed, yeah.
Guest:They were like, great, thanks.
Guest:You know, then...
Marc:Because I always sort of track the history in my mind without being very informed that it was always kind of a capital of weirdness and American sort of individuality with the prospectors, which you brought up.
Marc:And then I guess the the gay population, but how that led into, you know, the beats and the hippies and like how it all happened and why there it's sort of I can't quite define it.
Marc:I don't know why.
Guest:I mean, there's different theories about that.
Guest:I mean, you know, the hippie theory is that there was so much yerba buena, you know, like herb, like wafting off of the mountainsides that everybody was like sort of high all the time.
Guest:And it just created this sort of euphoric sense of community.
Guest:Who knows?
Marc:That all came tumbling down because of speed.
Guest:It really did.
Guest:I mean, we thought speed was a uniter back then.
Marc:No, it destroyed the love.
Guest:And the teeth.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So so where did you end up like you grew up a little bit.
Marc:You didn't end up in jail for long periods of time.
Guest:Not well.
Guest:I mean, I was I was detained.
Guest:I know I went to juvie and then I was in an institution or two.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Not for long.
Guest:A couple of months, you know, because I was crazy.
Marc:I mean, I was from the speed.
Guest:More just from the crazy.
Guest:I mean, like when I was a kid, they really didn't know that girls could be hyperactive and have ADHD.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I was like this freak show.
Guest:I mean, they didn't understand what they were looking at.
Guest:And they just thought, you know, I was, you know, evil.
Guest:Possessed.
Guest:Pretty much.
Marc:So you ended up in a couple of hospitals.
Guest:Yeah, for short periods of time when I was like a teenager.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then my parents sent me to Poland, which was a really strange choice.
Guest:Why?
Guest:I think they wanted me to get shot.
Guest:It was under martial law.
Guest:I really cannot fathom what the thinking process was.
Marc:What they presented as.
Guest:Well, they said that, you know, there was this Polish guy who was living in my bedroom and he couldn't go back home because he had been running underground newspapers.
Guest:And, you know, the Polish equivalent of the Stasi was going to, you know, put him away if he ever went back.
Guest:So they sent me to live with his family.
Guest:An exchange program with an outlaw, you know, enjoy the riots of Warsaw.
Marc:How long were you there?
Guest:Another couple months.
Marc:How'd that go?
Guest:It was very curious.
Guest:Well, they gave me a one-way ticket, and they said, you know, there's a film school in Woot.
Guest:Why don't you learn Polish and go to this film school?
Guest:And I was like, what?
Marc:So they dispatched their parental duties.
Marc:They're like, we're done.
Marc:We've done all we could.
Oh.
Guest:I'm just not even going to, I'm just going to nod and you and I will wink at each other and I won't say anything to confirm or deny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So they sent you off and you didn't go to film school.
Marc:Did you get in trouble in Poland?
Guest:I couldn't learn Polish in two months.
Guest:Woot is like in the middle of Poland.
Guest:It's like rural Poland, you know, and it's like, what, I'm supposed to go like knock on Andrzej Wajda's door and go, hi, I'm an American drug addict.
Yeah.
Marc:Hello.
Marc:So did you come home and, well, you must have been pretty, was there any social excitement there?
Guest:I had a very nice time there, actually.
Guest:I mean, the guy, the Polish guy's sister and his family turned out to be a really lovely family, and they were really, really nice to me, and I had a very, very good time.
Guest:I traveled on a little boat around all the weirdest, weirdest places in Poland, you know, Węgoziewa and Mikołajki and Gzicku, where you like, you know, park your little boat and then you like walk two miles through cow shit into some like sort of like amazing little throbbing proto disco that looks like it was made by like disco cavemen, you know.
Guest:Really amazing.
Guest:So it was good for you.
Guest:It was a healthy trip.
Guest:Actually, it really was.
Guest:It was really good for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the beer is only like 8% alcohol there.
Guest:So you basically, you know, you had to drink your entire body weight to get even remote buzz on.
Guest:So it was pretty much impossible to get fucked up.
Marc:And that was all that was available to you?
Guest:That was it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:So your parents did the best thing they could.
Guest:Perhaps.
Guest:I don't want to call this a good decision.
Guest:I hate them too much for it, but it might have been productive.
Guest:You still hate them?
Guest:Do I still hate them?
Guest:Hate is not that, you know, we're enlightened and we're in our 40s now.
Guest:We don't say things like hate.
Marc:I'm in my 50s and I still process this shit.
Guest:I have to process this shit all the time.
Marc:Every time I think about them and their self-centeredness and their ridiculous self-involvement.
Guest:The me generation sucked as parents.
Guest:Can we just say that categorically?
Marc:No one calls it what it is.
Marc:It's fucking emotional neglect.
Marc:Your kids aren't your friends.
Marc:They're your kids.
Marc:And you can't just be like, well, this one, I don't want to hang out with them anymore.
Guest:I've had it with you.
Yeah.
Guest:But they did that all the time.
Guest:I mean, it's like half of the kids that I know were out of the house at 15, 16.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Couch surfing.
Guest:I mean, yeah, I grew up with this incredibly high risk generation.
Guest:Very weird scene because I grew up in Marin County, which is supposed to be the wealthiest, one of the wealthiest suburbs in the world.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we had one of the highest suicide rates on earth.
Guest:It was like Finland or Japan.
Guest:You know, it's like just massive.
Guest:Like something like 15% of my high school in the four years I was there killed itself.
Guest:Yeah, really amazing I like not even not just at high school, but in the probably 15 years that followed there was just a Staggering amount of that's interesting.
Marc:It was all that well that generation of those type of people who lived in that area most of them probably came to that area for specific selfish reasons and
Guest:Yeah, the hot tubs and the wife swapping and the cocaine.
Marc:And they just left their kids without a sense of identity or structure.
Marc:It's true.
Guest:There's these goddamn orthodontists and their sense of entitlement.
Guest:What did they do to us, Mark?
Marc:Well, I don't think I experience as much hate as I try to, you know, have some empathy, but it's hard.
Guest:Well, you know, my mother's big fallback excuses.
Guest:It was a different time.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that one, yeah.
Guest:And it's sort of like, yeah, okay, but I still can't have a relationship and I blame you.
Guest:It's true, right?
Guest:It's true.
Guest:I'm emotionally crippled.
Guest:I'm emotionally traumatized completely.
Guest:I have emotional PTSD.
Guest:It's triggered by all kinds of shit.
Marc:I'm capable to receive or give love properly and completely distrusting of emotions.
Guest:You and I should go to the same old folks home and we can play backgammon for tranquilizers.
Guest:It'll be good.
Marc:I haven't met anybody with specifically similar problems like that, but it's a really weird thing to, you know, you can forgive, I guess, to a certain point, but then you still have to deal with what is your emotional life.
Marc:I mean, we've obviously done okay for ourselves.
Marc:We're creative people.
Guest:We can think.
Guest:We've worked hard.
Marc:hard at it too i mean i know you have you are shockingly scouringly investigational of yourself i mean right in the shows of yours that i've seen i'm always like you know it's like staring into the sun of somebody but how do you get over that shit that you didn't like there's this whole you know that the the the idea of like well i can parent myself now or i can make cognitive decisions to do things differently it doesn't mean you're going to be comfortable you're ever going to get fucking comfortable and the bad shit still feels better than the good shit
Guest:It's exactly true.
Guest:But there's also so many more layers of this because I also think that we grew up, and I talk about this further along in the book, I believe that not only did we have me generation parents, but we also suffered from this sort of much larger form of social engineering, which I like to call sexual apartheid.
Guest:where I think that we have been conditioned by all of the forces of the media since Barbie and G.I.
Guest:Joe, who couldn't play on the same playground together because they were the wrong scale.
Guest:Remember, Barbie was too fucking tall.
Guest:They couldn't interact.
Guest:You had the boys on one end of the playground, the girls over here.
Guest:And then I think it has led to this.
Guest:And then we have all of these mythologies like the Disney princess.
Guest:Everybody's supposed to get married.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You have the prom dress and then that's a gateway dress to, you know, the wedding dress.
Guest:Everything's about that goddamn wedding dress.
Guest:And, you know, women are still conditioned to think that you're going to get married and your life is going to be solved.
Guest:And even smart, hateful girls like me on some terrible reptilian level...
Guest:I was still seeking out that kind of strange thing until I was like, yeah, because you don't even realize how deeply it is embedded in your DNA at this point.
Guest:I mean, we really do believe these terrible myths like women believe terrible myths about what men are and what they're supposed to be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And men have terrible misunderstandings about us and what we're supposed to be.
Guest:And then we each project all of these things onto each other all the time.
Guest:And we can't ever just sort of deal with each other as is.
Guest:I don't think we deal with each other straight because there's too much expectation.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Until you get old and none of that shit matters anymore.
Guest:Yeah, and by then you're not fuckable.
Marc:Let's just hang out.
Marc:Let's just sit here and drink some coffee.
Guest:And talk about how much you hit everything.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:No, I guess that's true, but if I think about myself, I never played with G.I.
Marc:Joe's.
Marc:I always felt so uncomfortable with just about everything.
Marc:Yeah, I agree.
Marc:Like squirrely, but yeah, and then eventually you bust out and you seek identity through what you were talking about in the book, through when you learn how easy it is to become sort of something just by putting on your outfit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, the ways that you can sort of pull a snow job over an immediate community.
Marc:But you're also seeking some definition of self.
Marc:I don't think when I decided to dress like Tom Waits when I was a sophomore in high school with my little hat, just like Tom Waits on the cover of Nighthawks at the Diner, that I was looking for an identity.
Marc:I don't think I had any real idea that this was going to be powerful or anything.
Marc:I just wanted to be associated with something that seems set.
Guest:But it's also about how I think this is how you find yourself and or your wardrobe and your personal style.
Guest:It's like, you know, you're not going to invent the goddamn wheel again.
Guest:It's like this is what you find yourself attracted to certain images.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And certain.
Guest:And this is how you recognize a part of yourself.
Guest:And then I think that, you know, you correctly incorporate this.
Guest:And then you're like, OK, well, maybe the Brian Setzer, you know, rockabilly pompadour and the really, really pointy creepers aren't going to work for me into my 30s, you know.
Marc:Well, that's funny, because a lot of those things only happen on album covers.
Guest:The rest of the time, Brian Setzer is wearing Dockers and a polo shirt with a Microsoft logo on it.
Marc:I think that's probably true, that so many of the things that we were modeling our entire lives around were someone else's job.
Guest:It's really true.
Guest:It's really true.
Guest:And then I do think that like pervasive media imagery kind of told us that we were supposed to dress like the fantasy because there is this fantasy that the fantasy and I call it the fantasy, you know, capital E, capital F. I mean, just now, not in the book or anything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's sort of this image of lifestyle that you see in like rap videos or in the ads for like in Vogue or W or high fashion magazines where you see this impossible lifestyle where everybody looks amazing and perfectly plucked and trimmed.
Guest:Everybody's, you know, ass out in a bikini and wearing Jimmy Choo's and, you know, graciously accepting diamonds and looking half dead with teased hair.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's amazing, you know, but nobody really lives that life.
Guest:I mean, the great lie, I think, is socioeconomic, as you know.
Guest:I mean, it's like .00001% of the world owning everything and selling the mythology that this lifestyle exists and is attainable by you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And while this lifestyle has never been attainable for people like me, I mean, my family used to be middle class, and now we're like a Walker Evans photo.
Guest:It's like...
Marc:You've got the old truck filled with everything, looking for a home.
Guest:The bath mats, you know, like on the clothesline with the ham radio antenna.
Guest:It's grim.
Guest:Yeah, it's grim.
Marc:Well, I think just by that percentage number, it's fair to say that really no one lives like that.
Guest:Well, I mean, what was that statistic?
Guest:And I'm going to be really close if this isn't actually it.
Guest:But 86 people in the world own 56 percent of everything that is ownable on planet Earth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when you think about, you know, incredibly rich families, it's like, what does somebody do?
Guest:With $33 billion a year that they may need to make more than that.
Guest:I mean, it's like, I don't even think that if you can't abstractly quantify the spending of $33 billion, like, okay, I'm going to cover Iowa four miles deep in pumpkins.
Guest:You know, it's like, if you can't...
Guest:think of a way to spend it you shouldn't be able to have it it's just power it's power man and it's it's at that point it's like abstract wealth and the only thing that they're doing is keeping it from you or other people i mean they're just hoarding and making sure that you can't get it i mean hoarderism wasn't a thing that you know you and i heard about no that was the that was uh that was the cool guy's house
Marc:Growing up in San Francisco, if you knew a hoarder, you're like, wow, this is a lot of shit.
Guest:You've got issue 16 of Mad Magazine?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Dude, so cool.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:I'm bordering on hoarding in here.
Guest:No, my bookshelves are easily that cram packed with love.
Guest:It's all good stuff.
Guest:I mean, you know, it's all interesting.
Marc:Yeah, but you probably read most of yours.
Marc:I read some of mine.
Guest:I read some of mine.
Guest:I actually don't think you need to read the whole book of anything except my books.
Marc:I mean, cultural criticism or criticism in general, that's always been one of the areas where, like, I think you make it very accessible.
Guest:I try.
Guest:It's not really accessible.
Marc:It is accessible.
Marc:Why do you keep saying that?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think I was intimidated by it.
Guest:Like, I didn't think I could just, you know, jump off the deep end and start reading, you know, Deleuze.
Marc:What did you understand?
Marc:Deleuze?
Guest:i like the good news very much but you know i also cheated a lot like i would i would sort of you know my introduction into a lot of critical thinking was by buying those for dummies or idiots like comic books oh yeah yeah and you know this gave me some sort of solid you know ideas and then i could go in so you got the post-modernism for dummies oh absolutely fuko you know and then i could go read you know capitalism and schizophrenia and go i can't get it
Marc:Yeah, I've got a thousand plateaus sitting over there.
Marc:I've talked about it with three people that know that the book exists.
Guest:Like, I am never going to get through Kant.
Guest:I'm never going to get through Ulysses.
Guest:You referred to it in the first 10 minutes.
Guest:I know, but that's the only part I know.
Guest:That's not good.
Guest:I figure I just drop it in and then I sound smart.
Guest:I say, like, this is what I mean by cheating.
Guest:Well, where'd you go to college?
Guest:I did not go to college.
Marc:Did not go at all?
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Guest:I did a couple of semesters at San Francisco State where I did, like, Afro-Haitian dancing and marijuana selling.
Guest:But I don't think that counts.
Marc:And then you started writing plays?
Guest:And then I started writing plays because I was with Dude Theater, which was a really weird... It was out of Club Flick, which was one of the old punk rock venues.
Marc:Where was that?
Guest:Way out on 3rd Street in San Francisco, next to the old dockyards and stuff.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it was where Sonic Youth used to play.
Marc:Right on.
Guest:And it was, you know, before my time.
Guest:But by the time I got there, it was a punk rock theater.
Guest:And we did, like, garage theater with Dude.
Guest:And I met Chris Brophy, who was one of the founders of Dude, by selling him marijuana at San Francisco State.
Guest:And then he incorporated me into the fold.
Guest:And then when dude stopped casting me because I was too stoned, I started writing my own plays.
Guest:I was like, fuck that.
Guest:I'll cast myself.
Marc:And then you got some attention.
Marc:I remember you were sort of like... I won some awards and I did okay.
Guest:I wasn't making any money, but I definitely got exploited by a number of institutions that I was very happy to be exploited by at the time.
Marc:Did your plays travel?
Marc:Did they make money?
Marc:Are they done?
Marc:No.
Guest:More plays done.
Guest:You mean, are they dead?
Guest:No, no.
Marc:Have I stopped doing them?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:I had one play.
Guest:The last play that I wrote.
Marc:Did the French's publish any of them?
Guest:No.
Guest:But I did get one published by some weird other lesser play publishing outlet.
Guest:But it was called Triple X Love Act.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, which I did at Magic Theater just because I hated the artistic director there so much that I wanted him to have to put that on the marquee.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that had some legs.
Guest:I mean, I saw about 14 productions of that all over the United States and then decided finally that it was a terrible, terrible play because even the greatest production I saw were John Cameron Mitchell and Fisher Stevens and all these great actors running it.
Guest:It was still bad and I realized it was my fault.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like, nah, it's just the writing, man.
Marc:There's no there there.
Marc:Well, you don't have to tell them that.
Marc:They're actors.
Guest:Well, I had to figure that out.
Guest:What was it about?
Guest:Oh, it was about the Mitchell brothers.
Guest:Remember the Mitchell brothers?
Guest:Yeah, they ran this sex emporium.
Marc:I have a beautiful poster.
Marc:Didn't you see that poster in the bathroom?
Marc:No, I didn't.
Marc:You didn't even notice.
Guest:I didn't, but I'm going to have to go back and look.
Guest:That was what the play was about.
Guest:My play was about the Mitchell brothers' murder.
Marc:Didn't they try to make a movie of that once?
Guest:I was called into a million little weird... Independent film things?
Guest:Independent film groups.
Guest:And I met with Sean Penn and stuff like that about it.
Guest:And then I think Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen ended up doing something called X-Rated, which had nothing to do with... So your play was based on that, their relationship and the murder?
Guest:My play was based on the Emilio Estevez vehicle.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:No, it wasn't.
Guest:It was actually based on the...
Marc:No, but I have a casting poster that was put up on telephone poles.
Marc:Mitchell Brothers now casting for 1973 film production.
Guest:Get Out, really?
Marc:Yeah, it's a silkscreen.
Guest:That place is legendary.
Guest:You know that Hunter S. Thompson was the night manager?
Marc:We had a business card, I think.
Marc:Someone I know has a business card of Hunter's from when he was doing that job.
Guest:That's just hilarious.
Guest:I mean, he was basically just drunk there.
Guest:Drunk and there.
Marc:It's sad, because you used to see him like...
Marc:That Tosca and shit.
Marc:Did he influence you at all?
Guest:Utterly.
Guest:The name of my new book is Fear and Clothing.
Guest:I guess that's true.
Guest:Sorry.
Marc:That's a dumb question.
Marc:I'm an idiot.
Guest:No, you're not.
Marc:But his essays, he was very succinct, man.
Marc:Very fucking funny.
Guest:When I was in eighth grade, I have to thank you, Tim Madison, wherever you are, the stoned-est boy in my eighth grade when I was a completely unsuspecting larva of a blonde person, walked up to me after lunch one time, and his eyes were spinning, and he opened Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and he said,
Guest:We were halfway to Barstow and the drugs kicked in.
Guest:And he basically read me the whole first page.
Guest:And I just kind of stared at him open mouth for a minute.
Guest:And he just kind of nodded at me like, yeah, you know, and it was I have to say I was intrigued.
Guest:You know, I went I got the book and it was all over for me from that point on.
Guest:great right so that was the brain changer that and there is an issue and actually one of my dear friends is uh ted man do you know ted man he was an editor at national lampoon and then he went on to write a bunch of like he went deadwood he wrote hatfields mccoy's he's writing on i liked hatfields mccoy's actually he's a brilliant writer like i don't know that movie like uh it was like on it was like on the history channel or exactly yeah and i ended up watching one night i'm like wow this is a real movie
Guest:Well, the greatest thing that I mean, well, for me, the biggest influencing thing that Ted ever did was in 1982 when I was working at a 7-Eleven.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He wrote the utterly monstrous mind roasting summer of O.C.
Guest:and Sticks.
Guest:Great.
Guest:O.C.
Guest:and Sticks.
Guest:Great.
Guest:He and Todd Carroll wrote that.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:I'm bellowing.
Guest:No, I love it.
Guest:I'm so enthusiastic.
Guest:I mean, I.
Marc:I remember that, too, when I was reading Lampoon.
Marc:I was like, what the fuck?
Guest:I coveted that thing.
Guest:I had this dog-eared copy of it that, like, it was so, like, the edges were frayed because I read it so many times.
Guest:I mean, I have pages of that thing memorized.
Guest:I used to give it, I used to Xerox it off page by page and give it to people for Christmas if I really loved them.
Guest:Like, that's what I gave my mom one year.
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Guest:Ted and Hunter, man.
Marc:Fear and Loathing and Ocean State's Great Adventure.
Guest:Yeah, and I also read some, you know, Dostoevsky and shit.
Guest:But those aren't as fun to talk about.
Guest:John Fonte.
Marc:Yeah, not as funny.
Guest:Ted Man and...
Marc:Ted Mann, though, I think that was probably the last time that Lampoon was good, like around then.
Guest:Pretty much 82, yeah.
Guest:You got to kind of go backwards on that.
Guest:Yeah, right?
Guest:Right after 9-11, everybody was freaking out and buying cans of tuna fish and stuff.
Guest:I basically got on eBay and bought all the old National Lampoons.
Marc:From 71?
Guest:Because I thought, if I'm going to die, that's what I want.
Guest:I want to get killed while reading National Lampoon magazine.
Guest:Did you see the doc?
Marc:No, I needed to.
Marc:It's brand new, I think.
Marc:It just came out.
Marc:Like, I got a screener in there.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:I like a lot of shit I didn't know.
Marc:It was really great about Lampoon, about the whole history of it.
Guest:I'm dying to see that.
Marc:Like, I still have a resentment against my, like, I had a second cousin who lived in Cambridge, Jane and Jim, my father's cousin, Jane, who I used to stay with a lot.
Marc:And they were older, right?
Marc:And he had the first, like, three or four years of the Lampoons in binders, like, starting at episode one.
Marc:And I was always like, God, you got to give those to me if you ever want to get rid of them.
Marc:And he never did.
Marc:And one time I was at this bookstore in Boston.
Marc:He used a bookstore.
Marc:It was on like Newberry Street.
Marc:And I saw those ones out of the binder with his name on it.
Guest:Get the heck out.
Marc:He just went and fucking got rid of them.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:That's a relative to never speak to again.
Guest:Almost, right?
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:That's a crime.
Marc:God, they were so good, man.
Guest:Yeah, I hate that.
Guest:That makes me angry.
Guest:And also, somebody, some motherfucker.
Guest:I'm going to dedicate my life to hunting them down and killing them.
Guest:In the New York Public Library, they actually have binders with a complete set of national lampoons.
Guest:And somebody stole the second one.
Guest:It was the good years.
Guest:They stole the 70s.
Guest:Those bastards.
Guest:gone gone like somebody just pimped it so let's go let's go state for state what'd you learn oh god I mean it's like what I did you was your thesis confirmed very much so yeah to the point where I kind of went crazy you know when you like learn too much too fast and you kind of start babbling in inchoate sentences your agent starts worrying about you and stuff that was me for quite a while yeah I was looking at codes fashion codes like trying to be extremely reductivist and sort of
Guest:figure out, like, what is the code of this region?
Guest:So, like, I went to Washington, D.C., where everybody's freakishly conservative all the time because sartorially, you know, in terms of their dress, they just don't want to tell you anything about themselves because they want to be this blank canvas for you to project power fantasies on you.
Guest:So, like, they just wear the same, like, Brooks Brothers suit and Ann Taylor loft, you know, corporate Secretary Burka office wear for, you know...
Guest:And it's expensive, but not too expensive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Practical.
Guest:It's fitted, but not too fitted.
Guest:It's like not dowdy, but not revealing.
Guest:I mean, there's this really absolutely invisible tightrope that DC fashion is.
Guest:And so it's deliberately boring.
Guest:So it deliberately tells you nothing about, you know, because if you look at people on the street, you can say, you can extrapolate a lot by looking at them.
Guest:You can say, yes, you are sexually active.
Guest:Yes, you have a job that pays over $30,000 a year.
Guest:Yes, you probably own a cat.
Guest:Can you?
Marc:Like 90% of the time or all the time?
Guest:I am pretty... I think that if you start looking at people with an eye to how much can I read about you and your life and your intelligence and how you want to be perceived and what you think your future looks like.
Guest:I mean, I think you can pick...
Marc:a tremendous amount of that if it's like if they dressed like if they're not just you know going to the store in their sweats oh no even if they're going to the store in their sweats well you wrote this line another underlined line in your book we are all at our most psychologically naked when we have our most deliberately selected clothes on
Guest:I think that's very, very true.
Marc:Explain that to me.
Guest:Well, I mean, because we're always, you know, we're full of flaws as people and perceived flaws and things that we think are wrong with us or our bodies.
Guest:And I think that, you know, where that becomes especially relevant to you is in your closet when you're getting dressed in the morning.
Guest:And so you're going to dress defensively against all of your own perceived weaknesses, I think.
Marc:I definitely do.
Guest:I do.
Guest:We're all black all the time because I'm terrified of everything.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I mean, it's like, well, I mean, I try to I look all deathy death goblin death girl because I'm really so wimpy and tender.
Marc:I have I've sort of leveled off on primarily plaid shirts, but I definitely have ones when I'm feeling fat and when I'm not feeling fat.
Guest:I don't know if you notice my drop crotch leather trowel right now, but damn.
Guest:I'm just going to tell you, if you want to gain that extra 20, the drop crotch will serve you well.
Guest:No one will ever know.
Guest:They're like maternity pants for hipsters.
Guest:Great.
Marc:The baby you're trying to hide is really just your incapable.
Guest:No one will ever know.
Marc:Your emotional stuffing.
Yeah.
Guest:It's my parasitic twin.
Guest:Shut up.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:So, D.C., that's what you learned there.
Guest:Well, I was trying to get... I took too long to get to the point.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:But I tried to get everything down to a fashion statement.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And to me, the fashion statement of Washington, D.C.
Guest:was like a Freedom of Information Act document with all the relevant information blacked out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, I decided that the D.C.
Guest:fashion statement was redacted.
Yeah.
Marc:It made sense.
Marc:That's a good metaphor.
Guest:Yeah, you know, I mean, like where I went to South Beach for the first time, you know, and it's basically, isn't it great?
Guest:I mean, it's like you're in all the rest.
Marc:I don't even know what's going on there.
Guest:It's ridiculous.
Marc:I can't, like, my mother lives in Hollywood, Florida, and you drive into South Beach, it's like, what country are we in?
Marc:Everywhere.
Guest:Like chrome orange Montserratis, and everybody's just naked and in jewelry.
Guest:It's like Rome.
Guest:It's fantastic.
Yeah.
Guest:I like to say the fashion statement of Miami is a sext, which I think makes sense.
Marc:That's it?
Marc:It's a sext.
Guest:Well, it's that short, you know?
Marc:But it's also like the one thing I feel down there, and in a lot of ways because of what you're talking about, is...
Marc:Someone you're going there as a journalist or somebody is going to experience whatever.
Marc:But but the weird thing is, is like, how do I interface with this?
Marc:And there's definitely parts of the country where even though I'm not dressed in any way that definitive, but like, I don't know how to interface here.
Marc:I don't know how to go in.
Marc:D.C.
Marc:is one of them.
Marc:South Beach.
Marc:I'm like, I can't even begin a conversation here.
Guest:It was a very funny story.
Guest:I went with a guy friend who was my photographer, Robert Brink, who does a lot of photography for skateboard magazines and stuff.
Guest:And he's a good writer.
Guest:He's been around a long time.
Guest:And he went to be my photographer because I told him, I want to go to game day at Ole Miss.
Guest:Because Ole Miss is where Hugh Hefner got all of his tall, ironed, blonde hair, butterscotch leg, button-nosed, ultra-cheerleader, Gattaca eugenics.
Guest:and so he's like yeah i'm coming over there so we went to we went to oxford mississippi and we're looking at blondes you know wearing like these mini dresses with like that are of football jerseys with like the big padded shoulders and the number on them and um we talked to some boys because the boys all dress like they're like 75 year old southern lawyers right like you know it's like yeah very much like oh gentlemen will right in polo and not afraid to wear pink
Guest:And I was with Brink, who was dressed more or less like you or I. Alternatively, he had an army jacket and a plaid shirt on and maybe a pair of skateboarding shoes.
Guest:And they were very polite.
Guest:The Southern boys are very, very polite.
Guest:But they said, they broke it to him very gently that he would not get any suction in the lady area around Ole Miss with the outfit that he had on and that he would be recommended to the alternative bar.
Guest:Which they took to mean gay.
Guest:And they said, yes, one of the guys was like, I definitely had to change my style into much more aggressive, preppy stylings because I look essentially like that guy when I got here.
Marc:But doesn't that have something to do with the, like, in terms of the...
Guest:the the cultural critique that that really has to do with almost planned marriaging that's exactly right that's exactly right i mean what they have to do is pollinate and give the the the children at old miss are are pollinating like enormous tropical flowers at each other and the boys are projecting bright polo colors of wealth and polo and lawns and they end up together
Guest:They do.
Guest:They do.
Guest:And then the girls go there looking for it.
Guest:And it's about mating, essentially, and wealth.
Guest:It's about mating and wealth.
Marc:Aristocracy.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And in the South, they're very blatant about this, too.
Guest:I mean, unlike the coasts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I do find this to be a social difference.
Marc:But then what do you go with it then?
Marc:But from there you went, you did some work with the other side of the South.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The more.
Marc:Well, I mean, not the other side of the South, but like more working class, more camouflage wearing.
Guest:I mean, oh, yeah.
Guest:No, you're talking about.
Guest:Well, actually, that was in Kansas.
Marc:But still, but there is that class there.
Marc:There is a code that because in the South, I mean, you have that Southern aristocracy, but you've got plenty of what I imagine that class of person thinks is hill people.
Marc:And oh, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And they have their own codes as well.
Guest:Oh, sure, the backward people.
Marc:Sure, and that's what hipsters aspire to.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:We want our beards and we want to pickle things.
Guest:But, I mean, fashion is very tribal.
Guest:It's very tribal and it's very referential to its own three-block radius, I think, in a lot of ways, or your group of friends.
Marc:Well, what happened in Kansas?
Guest:Oh, I thought you were referring to this passage about Cabela's.
Guest:Have you ever been to Cabela's?
Guest:That's more like hunting fashion.
Guest:You said camo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I thought because it is like camo Disney.
Guest:It's sort of like if Disneyland was devoted totally to stalking, killing, and eating large game animals.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:in various shades of camouflage and like ghillie suits with like duck blinds and like you know incredible like gauge weapons and then meat slicers in another section and uh and also taxidermy that is like it's it rivals the uh new york natural history museum in terms of
Guest:of taxidermy, but it's all staged in these ways that it's like this Hobbesian war of all against all, where cheetahs are jumping over the gun rack to attack a zebra who is then kicking the face of a lion at the same time, and then as a bunch of wildebeests are coming down a shale mountain that's so steep that they're all crashing
Guest:And this is in private homes?
Guest:Oh, no, this is in this enormous, like, if you took eight Costco's and then had it run by a secessionist group of people who hate animals with a lot of artillery, and then put a natural history museum that was full of agony and killing.
Marc:And that was in Kansas?
Guest:That's in Kansas.
Marc:What's it called?
Guest:Cabela's, man.
Guest:No, it's really a sight to see.
Guest:I mean, it's an awesome American wonder.
Guest:There's even a log cabin hotel next to it with its own water slide.
Marc:Oh, so you got everything for the family?
Guest:People come from out of town.
Guest:I mean, it is a real destination.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Death paradise.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I went to the Creationist Museum in Petersburg or Petersburg.
Marc:What is it?
Marc:In Kentucky.
Guest:Was Jesus riding a dinosaur?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah, they got that kind of stuff.
Marc:No way.
Marc:Well, Adam and Eve was like, they were quietly sort of like sitting with dinosaurs.
Guest:Just, you know, coexisting.
Guest:Yeah, just right there.
Guest:Before the shame.
Marc:There's a dinosaur eating some flowers and Adam and Eve.
Guest:Before we discovered we had genitals, we could hang out with pterodactyls.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was all good.
Marc:We ruined everything.
Marc:God, we could have been a perfect world.
Guest:Original sin.
Marc:Where else did you go?
Guest:Oh, let's see.
Guest:I went to Savannah.
Guest:I went to Alaska.
Marc:Oh, I lived in Alaska for two years when I was a kid.
Guest:God, you did?
Guest:Really?
Marc:My dad was in the service.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:69, 71.
Guest:That makes sense.
Guest:Were you like over in Seaward?
Guest:Anchorage.
Guest:Anchorage, sure.
Marc:What was that base called?
Marc:There was a... Fuck, I don't remember.
Marc:was he was he spooky your dad no no no he just uh he went in as a you know after uh medical school like he could enlist as an officer to finish out i think his his residency like a rotsy thing yeah kind of like he just like at that time he could have gotten drafted he might have gotten drafted i don't remember but if you were a doctor yeah you could he was a major he went in as a major and he was stateside in alaska
Guest:Yeah, it's not a bad place to be stationed, from what I understand.
Marc:Well, I remember having a profound impact on my brain, just the space up there.
Guest:Because of all the snowmobile fumes that you huffed with the Inuit children?
Guest:Yeah, a lot of snowmobiles.
Marc:And I just remember there was wreckage on the inlet from the 63 earthquake.
Marc:Good God.
Marc:Yeah, and everything was so gray up there all the time, it felt like.
Guest:It's so gray.
Guest:Isn't it a strange place?
Guest:And it's interesting to me that Alaska is one of the stabbing capitals of the world.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:i heard that i read it um and then you go into these gift stores and you see that they're selling all these like walrus bone like like shark murdering knives you know that people just carry around with them or to gut a seal with yeah exactly i mean it's like well if you need to kill the seal yeah today then you know we've got the nice scrimshaw knife for you to deal with with like you know the scissor teeth that's what people are getting stabbed with those kind of things
Guest:I guess.
Guest:I mean, I don't know.
Guest:I heard that a lot of people got stabbed there.
Guest:What did you learn there?
Guest:Because a lot of people carry knives.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Gee, fashion-wise, you know, it's fucking cold and people dress warmly.
Guest:I mean, it wasn't, you know, it was sort of a moot point, the fashion of Alaska.
Guest:I mean, because it's very much dressing not to die from freezing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And which just looks, you know, very similar to other parts of the country.
Guest:Heavy layered.
Guest:Like, you know, Jackson, Wyoming, not dissimilar.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Just like layering out of necessity.
Guest:Bunch of polar fleece layers.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And then... Did you do New England?
Guest:I... Wait, where did I go?
Guest:Well, I sort of talked a little bit about Rhode Island and Connecticut and things.
Guest:I mean, I was there.
Guest:I mainly... There was a lot of places that I went that I didn't spend a whole lot of time writing about.
Guest:I was trying to kind of... Because I had to finance all of these travels myself.
Guest:I didn't get a big enough book advance to actually do it right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I had to sort of pick my battles.
Guest:um but sure new england i mean yeah what they call the the cardiac belt because for some reason i i divided all the regions into belts because it's about fashion get it belts belt regions um so yeah that's apparently the cardiac belt that's where um where if you go from maine essentially to to connecticut that's where like all the white men eat too much pork is that true i think so yeah yeah or pot roast or something i'm not sure what they're doing wrong but they have a lot of strokes
Marc:I liked Maine.
Marc:I liked the country up there.
Marc:I spent a lot of time in New England.
Marc:I like layering.
Guest:Yeah, I do, too.
Guest:I like layering, and it's always nice to get that sort of Pantone shades of muted, faded T-shirts going on, where you've got the ochre T-shirt and then the faded burgundy T-shirt, and then you put the really nice matching, clashing plaid over that.
Guest:Tweed.
Guest:Bald corduroy.
Guest:I like corduroy.
Guest:Corduroy with the knees blown out.
Guest:Nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:kind of like hip professorial yeah exactly like you know i was like john cheever goes duck hunting yeah i was doing that for a while going duck hunting no no just dressing like that i'm big on corduroy like i'm so excited to cool down here so i could wear my new filson wear so you had a tweedy period are you telling me i'm still well i i'm definitely a corduroy i'm still kind of in corduroy
Guest:You know, I have to say, one of the times I ran into you on the street in Soho and you looked very, very dashing.
Guest:You were on your way to some important meeting.
Guest:You had a very elegant tweed jacket on and a colorful scarf.
Marc:Oh, I like scarves.
Guest:And I thought, wow, Mark's wearing a colorful scarf.
Guest:He must be successful.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I think I was affected.
Guest:No, you looked happy.
Guest:I knew you were on a good trajectory.
Marc:I like overcoats and I like scarves.
Guest:Overcoats are good.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I want to see a return to the say anything overcoat.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:You remember the say anything, your eyes, the light, the heat.
Guest:But where all the people in high school wore those really shapeless, large overcoats.
Marc:I love those.
Guest:I love those.
Marc:Because you get them at thrift stores.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Huge old overcoats.
Guest:You can't find them anymore, but they were a great thing.
Marc:You know where you can get stuff like that for pretty cheap is in places where they don't, if you go to Nordstrom Rack in a place that's hot all year round.
Guest:It's true.
Marc:That's where you can find the good overcoats.
Guest:But you cannot find them in Gabardine.
Guest:And a really good overcoat should be Gabardine.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:I love Gabardine.
Marc:I can't dress in fancy clothes because I sweat a lot and I just destroy clothing.
Guest:Gabardine is made for like sweaty 50s businessmen.
Guest:It's ideal.
Guest:It's like what rodeo stars wore and stuff.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like that really thick, beautiful weave that's got like, what is it?
Guest:Cotton and rayon or something like that.
Guest:But Gabardine was just like when you see those really tightly.
Guest:It's like the thousand thread count sheet set of the Eisenhower jacket.
Marc:Oh, okay, okay.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I know exactly.
Marc:You're talking about those Ike waistcoats that are in that thick military issue.
Guest:Before Fonzie wore a leather jacket, they wore that sort of white Eisenhower jacket.
Marc:I used to love those.
Guest:And if they had slightly padded shoulders because they were from the 40s or the early 50s, that would be a gabardine jacket.
Marc:Well, I used to like those military waistcoats.
Marc:oh yes i don't remember i had a couple of those i can't remember how old i was but that was a thing you wear a military waistcoat with drop crotch pants you can gain 30 pounds and no one will know i'm here to tell you i got a plan so like okay so after all of this uh what kind of closure did you get for uh for your for your thesis and also with yourself and with your parents
Guest:And America.
Guest:And America.
Guest:You mean all of my problems?
Guest:How did it all roll up?
Marc:Isn't that what you set out to do with Cultural Crit?
Marc:Is like come, you know, come, arrive at something where you're like- I'm gonna have meaning.
Marc:Yeah, I've got it.
Marc:I've got it all.
Guest:Now I understand.
Guest:Everything.
Guest:Everything.
Guest:I'm insufferable.
Guest:I can't talk to anybody but you now.
Guest:No, I got very – it was a complicated journey for me, but basically it was kind of about don't be tyrannized by fashion or any other form of social brainwashing.
Guest:Sort of know how they're doing it, know who's doing it to you, and know what it looks like, you know, like –
Guest:I always like to say that a Louis Vuitton bag is absolutely meaningless as a fashion statement because it's so pervasive.
Guest:The only thing that it's declaring, it's not an act of individuality.
Guest:It's a statement of your tax bracket.
Guest:It's a separation of your economic condition from everybody who can't afford a Louis Vuitton bag.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And most of them are fake anyways.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I mean, it's ridiculous.
Marc:Go to 14th Street.
Guest:It's gang colors.
Guest:It's just saying, fuck you, you're poor, and I'm not.
Marc:Gang colors for people with doormen.
Guest:Yeah, and it's kind of tasteless in that respect because that's not saying anything else.
Marc:I never got it.
Guest:And so, you know, and I am all for, you know, if somebody's got their old grandmother's Louis Vuitton bag or like, you know, it's always hilarious to see kids in their grandpa's Gucci slippers or something.
Guest:I love all that stuff.
Guest:As long as it's got some personal resonance for you, I don't care whose label is on it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I mean, from Payless Shoes Source to, you know, Louis Vuitton, who is essentially the pole star of human fashion evil.
Guest:I mean, like, it's all fine, you know, just...
Marc:Just as long as you know why you have it.
Guest:As long as it's meaningful to you and actually says something about you.
Guest:And I think that most of capitalism seeks to hide you from yourself and your community and your fellow man.
Guest:Your desires.
Marc:yeah i mean it's like it's about making you an isolated consumer who feels like oh but if i had you know those other pants people like me more and you don't but see it's weird because you don't really realize that happens until like until like everyone's wearing it and it's like the the idea that this brainwashing goes on and and capitalism on you know is in it's it's part of its agenda and it's part of its consciousness but it
Marc:It's just the rules of the game.
Marc:But you somehow, like people like me, you think, well, how could I be a victim of that?
Marc:Because I live outside the box here.
Guest:You think you do.
Marc:But you don't.
Marc:All of a sudden, I'm buying records and every fucking other idiot hipster is buying records.
Guest:I don't know how that happens.
Guest:And this is where you think you are.
Guest:This is where you think you are.
Guest:And this is like your super ego.
Guest:This is where your motivations, you know what they are and you're willing to admit what they are.
Guest:And then there's a second level of motivation where you might sort of know what you want and why you're doing what you're doing.
Guest:might not be willing to admit it to other people because it might sound like you're a little bit selfish or you know gruesome in some way it's it's you you might feel like you have some ugly reasons for doing what you're doing there's a third layer of consciousness which is where all advertising and political campaigns are focused which is into the shit into the back of your brain which is where
Guest:All bets are off.
Guest:I mean, this is like straight to the id.
Guest:This is why Sigmund Freud was terrified of all human beings for the rest of his life.
Guest:I mean, like, this is where your motivations are so murky.
Guest:You don't know what they are.
Guest:And even if you did, you'd be so horrified by them, you would never admit them to yourself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that is where all the fun happens in terms of brainwashing.
Guest:and that's what they're trying to mine that's like we can let's get it like we can guide that force they know that so well and they knew it in the 50s they knew it in 1957 and they just pull it through the other two and make you buy the thing oh my god the things that they can implant into your brain now I mean I'm it's it's beyond comprehension really I mean it's like they have your number they dial it repeatedly they've Manchurian candidated everybody to a certain extent I mean to a large extent to a huge extent
Guest:I don't think that anybody who grew up in America in the last 20 years has any idea how to live a human life, really.
Guest:We're just these robots?
Guest:There's that guy who died in a camper van out in Alaska.
Guest:They made a movie about him.
Guest:That was the only guy, I think.
Marc:into the wild.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And he fucked up with a plant.
Guest:Yeah, you know, the mushroom killed him.
Marc:He didn't even have to die, that guy.
Guest:It was dignity, though.
Guest:There was dignity in letting the mushroom kill him and not, you know, Iraq.
Guest:But, yeah, I mean, I think that there's... Well, that's an optimistic, upbeat way to close this conversation.
Marc:I love you.
Marc:I love you, too.
Guest:It's always a great, deep pleasure to talk to you.
Marc:It's a fun book.
Guest:Let's sell some.
Marc:Fear in Clothing, Unbuckling American Style, Central Wilson, The Genius.
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:Yay.
Marc:Lover.
Marc:I love Central Wilson.
Marc:Fucking great.
Marc:Anyway, what else?
Marc:This is it.
Marc:The end of the show.
Marc:Just remember, go to WTFPod.com for all that stuff.
Marc:And go get Hal.fm if you want to hear all the archives and have them with you when you want them.
Marc:How can I not find my pick?
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives!