Episode 70 - Dave Anthony
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what-the-fuckers?
Marc:What-the-fuck buddies?
Marc:What-the-fuckineers?
Marc:It's Mark Maron.
Marc:Welcome to this episode of WTF.
Marc:I'm glad you're here.
Marc:I've been crazy.
Marc:I know a lot of you have been listening and seeing that I'm running around the country a lot, running everywhere.
Marc:I'm exhausted.
Marc:I'm nuts.
Marc:But some part of me likes it, I guess.
Marc:You know, there's something about being tired and strung out and wasted and sleep-deprived completely where I actually think...
Marc:I feel buzzed and being a guy that doesn't get to engage in the stuff that really buzzes you good.
Marc:Being exhausted is just another way of getting kind of high.
Marc:So I've been kind of high on complete exhaustion.
Marc:As you know, I was in New York.
Marc:And again, I think I thanked you already, but thanks for coming out to the live WTF tapings.
Marc:I also was there to do some comedy.
Marc:I want to thank you guys for coming out to comics to see the shows.
Marc:It was great seeing all the what the fuckers and what the fuck buddies there.
Marc:Happy to meet you.
Marc:Happy to get you a CD or a sticker.
Marc:And thanks to all the new listeners that are coming in because they're starting to realize that we're doing something interesting on this show.
Marc:I'm very grateful for all that.
Marc:And I gratitude is not something I come by easily.
Marc:I don't know if you're like that, but I certainly am.
Marc:My first thought is great.
Marc:I just got something or great.
Marc:What's next or great.
Marc:That wasn't good enough.
Marc:I actually say, great, that wasn't good enough.
Marc:That's an indicator of where my head's at.
Marc:I have to go out of my way to remember to be grateful and to say thank you.
Marc:And there's something else you're witnessing on this show if you listen to the show.
Marc:I have actually been able to appreciate the work of my peers, to appreciate that this is my life.
Marc:And I don't want to get all gushy on you, but I used to be so paralyzed with resentment that I was incapable of appreciating almost anything.
Marc:And I'll explain that to you in just a second.
Marc:I do want to say that I'm happy to be back at the cat ranch here in Los Angeles in the hills of the barrio because I don't know that I am cut out for New York anymore.
Marc:I know there's a part of me that loves it.
Marc:There's a part of me that knows how to live there.
Marc:There's a part of me that has complete appreciation for it.
Marc:I actually was happy to be down the meatpacking district, which has become sort of a weird clusterfuck of a international mall.
Marc:during the week and on weekends it becomes a a clusterfuck of an international mall mixed with horrendous drunk bridge and tunnel people jesus man those streets look like a prom night for adults just drunk women in heels stumbling over themselves and guys who are overdressed uh still you know persisting on taking advantage of the women who are drunk and stumbling over themselves in heels but i had this moment in new york where
Marc:It's very interesting.
Marc:The exact thing that makes New York amazing can become the exact thing that makes it horrendous in the drop of a fucking dime.
Marc:You know, when I'm on that subway and I'm surrounded by all of humanity, people from all classes, from all cultures, from all ages, all one pumping through the arteries of this massive organism of which we are all just a cell and feeling at one with it.
Marc:At one with the organic nature and pace of New York City, enjoying it, digging it, sweating on the train with everybody else in the world of New York.
Marc:And that that moment of all inclusiveness, of all connectedness can just shift in a second to like, hey, dude, dude, a little.
Marc:Could you not?
Marc:You're right on top of me.
Marc:All right.
Marc:You're right on top of me here.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I think you got something damp on my arm.
Marc:just like that and that world just crumbles into this selfish angry moment of resentment for everybody involved so in other words i'm happy to be up here at the cat ranch driving my car not having someone else's sweat on me so let's get back to the resentment gratitude uh the moments of humility you know i went to a gallery
Marc:When I was in New York, because I was right there next to the galleries, they're all down in Chelsea.
Marc:And I just got it into my head that, you know, this is what high minded people do.
Marc:This is what sophisticated people do.
Marc:This is what I was trained to do as a lover of art, as an urbane individual.
Marc:You know, go take in some art, you know, enrich yourself.
Marc:Take it in.
Marc:Go go stand and ponder.
Marc:So I go to a couple of galleries and I stand in front of canvases that that may or may not move me.
Marc:That's the weird thing as I get older.
Marc:It's like I don't feel the pressure to pretend like I know what the fuck is going on with almost anything.
Marc:Certainly not art.
Marc:But I do have a certain resource in my mind that I built through studying it that, you know, what appeals to me or what doesn't appeal to me.
Marc:I just don't have to force it.
Marc:I think it's important to stuff some art in your head occasionally.
Marc:Just fill it up, even if you don't get it.
Marc:Put it in there.
Marc:You know, get it just, you know, swirl it around, you know, stand in front of a few canvases, because what I've grown to appreciate about almost anything creative is that you're usually looking at the work of somebody that is sacrificed all, you know, parameters, all contexts of a normal life to do this thing that you're standing in front of.
Marc:They've sacrificed security, a sense of belonging out of this passion to to do what's sitting there in front of you.
Marc:And it's it's easy just to go like, I don't think so.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't get it.
Marc:That's ugly.
Marc:That may be the case.
Marc:But just stick it in your head to know that there's just years and years of like, oh, fuck, when am I going to sell a painting?
Marc:How come my parents don't accept this?
Marc:You know, why don't they like me anymore?
Marc:Fuck them.
Marc:I'm going to just drink for three days until I get a vision for this.
Marc:I mean, there is a lot in there that that sometimes is what is at the core of something beautiful.
Marc:It's just an angry guy going, I'm going to kill myself.
Marc:Oh, that's a nice brushstroke.
Marc:So I think it's important to put that in your head.
Marc:Not that it's not good to feel that way.
Marc:But, you know, sometimes out of that comes incredible flowers and poems and and pieces of art.
Marc:So just stick it in your head.
Marc:So I saw some moving art and then I started to realize when I was younger.
Marc:This is where it comes into that.
Marc:Something is given way.
Marc:Something has gotten softer in me.
Marc:Like I used to be so paralyzed with resentment.
Marc:I couldn't appreciate art at all.
Marc:There was a time where I would go to the Museum of Modern Art and just walk by, you know, masterpieces by Cezanne, by Picasso, by Monet.
Marc:And I had these moments where I would think like, yeah, I could do that.
Marc:Yeah, I could do that.
Marc:Yeah, I could do that.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:If I just made better choices with my electives in college, I could do that.
Marc:I could make a masterpiece.
Marc:I could design an atomic bomb.
Marc:I could be a mathematical genius if I had just done this.
Marc:And I don't even know if it's resentment as much as it is as it is completes grandiosity.
Marc:If I had only done this or that, I could have been a genius in any art form that I chose.
Marc:That's how powerful I am.
Marc:And I appreciate what everyone's doing.
Marc:But I just want you to know that I could have done that had I taken that one course that I decided not to take.
Marc:Or had I picked up a brush.
Marc:Or had I actually figured out how to do algebra.
Marc:So I was incapable of enjoying anything out of my narcissism.
Marc:And when it comes to, if it's narcissism, I guess, okay, yeah, we'll call it that.
Marc:And then when it comes to like comedy, you know, there's such a resentment, you know, that is easily fueled when you're in the same business.
Marc:It doesn't matter what you do, but you're always going to look across the hall or across to the other cubicle or onto the stage or into the studio and say, man, you know, that guy's better than me.
Marc:Fuck him.
Marc:And, you know, and I you know, why can't I be that guy or why?
Marc:Why am I not as accepted as him?
Marc:So, you know, it just diminishes your ability to appreciate anything.
Marc:And something just gave way.
Marc:Something just quit.
Marc:You know, I realize my own limitations.
Marc:I realize that, you know, maybe I didn't do those things or I couldn't have done those things because I didn't want to or I just couldn't.
Marc:And I realize also I love talking to my peers.
Marc:I like hearing people's stories.
Marc:I like being entertained.
Marc:And I have respect for people that do it.
Marc:And it was such a relief.
Marc:It was such a relief to realize that, you know, that isn't me.
Marc:You know, this is me.
Marc:This is my life.
Marc:That's their life.
Marc:That's their craft.
Marc:This is what they say.
Marc:They're not doing everything to make me feel smaller.
Marc:They're not doing everything in their creative being to spite me.
Marc:It's so relieving to not think that anymore.
Marc:I can't believe I told you guys that shit.
Marc:What the fuck is wrong with me?
Marc:That being said, I'm very excited to talk to my guest, Dave Anthony.
Marc:Now, Dave's a guy I've known a long time, and he's one of these guys not unlike my buddy Kyle Kinane.
Marc:There's a rare breed of person that is actually naturally cranky, but not cranky to the point where you don't want to hang around them.
Marc:Just a natural crank with a nice edge.
Marc:Dave used to do a lot more comedy than he does, but he's a...
Marc:He's a friend, and I always enjoy talking to him, so I'm looking forward to talking to him.
Marc:So let's do that now.
Marc:I actually was going through some of the shit in this garage.
Marc:I was taking stuff to the storage thing, and I found a big folder of college and high school writing.
Marc:But, you know, I wish that wasn't the saddest part of it, Dave.
Marc:What am I saying?
Marc:My guest at the Cat Ranch in the garage is Dave Anthony, a comedian and I guess you would say blogger and writer.
Guest:Sad.
Marc:It's not sad.
Guest:Blogger's a little sad, but let's go.
Marc:We're going.
Marc:So the saddest thing about this envelope full of college and high school writing is at some point I'd gone through it before and paper clipped labels on some good stuff here, used later.
Marc:But the most self-inflated one was original version of.
Marc:This is in college.
Marc:I had big plans for my poetry career, man.
Guest:Yeah, well, I'm surprised it didn't take off.
Guest:That's where I always saw you going, honestly.
Marc:Did you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess I wasn't as clear as everybody else was when they were like, Mark, you have a career in poetry.
Guest:Yeah, something really deep is happening in you.
Guest:It really needs to come out.
Marc:I needed to get the message out to more people.
Marc:But like we were talking about before I turned the mics on, I'm surrounded by shit here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's really... I don't know why I'm... After a certain point, it really just becomes like...
Marc:evidence of a life gone?
Marc:This is pointless.
Marc:Well, I didn't want to put it quite like that.
Marc:Let's just get to the fucking, let's just get to it.
Marc:This is boxes of shit you don't need.
Marc:But isn't there some, why do people hold on to it then?
Marc:I mean, I don't feel that nostalgic about a lot of it, but for some, but when I really start to think about what's going to happen to it, when I, when I, when something happens, nothing's going to happen to it.
Marc:No.
Guest:The only thing that's going to happen with this stuff is it's going to sit in boxes and
Guest:And every once in a while you pull it out and you go, oh, wow.
Guest:I can remember that by looking at it.
Guest:You can remember it anyway.
Guest:It's just a box of shit.
Guest:No, isn't that worth something?
Guest:No, I don't think it is.
Marc:What's the point?
Marc:Well, I don't take any pictures now.
Marc:I don't do anything.
Marc:I don't even video anymore.
Marc:I'm all audio now.
Marc:Wait, what?
Marc:You don't take pictures?
Marc:No.
Marc:That's what pictures do.
Guest:What you just explained is the only reason that people take pictures.
Guest:Yeah, but you can keep them on a digital now.
Guest:Well, you're not going to have kids, right?
Marc:Not that I know of.
Marc:I mean, it could happen.
Marc:It could sneak up on me.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:The cats, they might want some keepsakes.
Marc:If I ever have pictures of my cats on my phone, fucking shoot me.
Marc:If I ever come up to you and go, dude, look at this monkey.
Marc:It's monkey on the couch.
Marc:Oh, he's wearing a hat.
Marc:If that ever happens, I'm done.
Marc:So wait, okay, but you have a kid.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:So then what, you're saying you're taking him for the kid or to remember when you liked him?
Marc:A little bit of both.
Guest:There's a little bit of, hey, remember when you were fun?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And before you turned into, I guess, an asshole at whatever, 16 or whatever.
Marc:Who knows?
Marc:Maybe your kid will be all right and won't turn an asshole until he's like in his mid-20s.
Marc:Oh, come on.
Marc:What, you think it's going to happen earlier?
Marc:Well, I don't know.
Marc:Look at you.
Guest:Look what he's dealing with.
Guest:I know, man.
Guest:He's got a... How old is that kid?
Guest:He's 11 months.
Guest:And he's starting to talk?
Guest:He's talking and he's walking.
Guest:Well, he says two words.
Guest:He says hot and he says dada.
Guest:And so that's a fucking awesome vocabulary to say everything.
Guest:I think if you ever do another CD, you got the title.
Guest:Hot Dada.
Guest:I feel like he doesn't use it in that context, although he should.
Guest:Yeah, he doesn't really know it.
Guest:So look, you take pictures of him, and I think it's more for him in later years when, if he gets married or whatever happens, you go, this is the whole deal, this was the family, and blah, blah, blah.
Marc:Yeah, this is before we got divorced, and this is your mom before she... When we lived in that house.
Marc:Before my mom slept with Marc Maron.
Marc:What?
What?
Marc:Let me play that podcast for you where he said he wouldn't.
Marc:Well, things didn't work out that way.
Guest:That's so wrong.
Marc:It is wrong.
Guest:How could you do that in the future?
Marc:I'm sorry, buddy.
Marc:She threw herself at me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I really had no choice.
Marc:Well, we were going through some hard times.
Marc:I know.
Marc:No matter how much I said, look, Dave and I are kind of friends.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, yeah, and then she kept talking to me about and talking me down.
Marc:Like, you don't know him that well.
Marc:I mean, you just kind of started in the same town.
Marc:I'm like, we didn't even do that.
Marc:I just met him when I was there.
Guest:This is the worst future ever.
Guest:It's really bad.
Guest:Sorry, Heather.
Guest:But you know what's weird is I'm going to box it up and keep it in the attic.
Marc:Yeah, do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Keep this as evidence.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So now, how did you have a kid?
Marc:I mean, was that?
Marc:Intercourse.
Marc:Intercourse.
Marc:Really?
Marc:What do you mean, how did I have a kid?
Marc:You mean, like, how did I decide to have a kid?
Marc:I mean, you're one of those guys where I know you're on the live one, but we didn't really get to talk in depth about it.
Marc:I knew you when you were younger, and we were both younger, and we've run into each other over the years, and, you know, you were doing stand-up, I was doing stand-up, and then all of a sudden, everyone I know just becomes grown-ups, and they have kids, and I don't see them anymore, and, you know, they have stories about me as to why I can't see them, and...
Guest:Well, I'm okay with seeing you.
Guest:You're an oddity that I like to keep track of.
Marc:That's a good description.
Marc:Can I put that in?
Marc:I'm all about archiving things now.
Marc:That's going to be on the sleeve of my next CD.
Guest:I like it.
Marc:Can I put that as a quote on my posters?
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:An oddity that I like to keep track of, Dave Anthony.
Marc:A blurb.
Guest:I want that to be a blurb.
Guest:It's very fitting.
Guest:Why did that happen?
Guest:You know, yeah, he grew up.
Guest:When we knew each other, when we hung out a lot in San Francisco, I was just completely fucked up.
Guest:I mean, I was just a complete mess of a human being.
Marc:You mean when you were funny?
Marc:Yeah, back then.
Guest:No, it feels that way sometimes.
Marc:Sorry.
Guest:No, I know.
Guest:Yeah, you know, I was just a total mess.
Guest:I was just destroying my career as much as I could and, you know, whatever else.
Guest:I was the integrity man.
Guest:I wouldn't do anything.
Guest:Were you?
Guest:Yeah, I was that boy.
Marc:You had this rare quality and you still have it, so I have not lost hope for you.
Marc:There are certain people that are natural cranks.
Marc:It's very hard to make crankiness funny in that way because it's a very fine line.
Marc:And it's rare that it happens.
Marc:And there's only a few people that can do it at any one time.
Marc:Like true crankiness that's endearing.
Guest:And you have that.
Guest:Because I think that that's who I am.
Guest:And I think it's very funny to be that way.
Guest:I think that the majority of people you see doing it, that it doesn't work, it's not who they are.
Guest:They're trying to.
Marc:You mean like Orny Adams?
Guest:Yeah, that would be.
Marc:He's a great example of everything.
Marc:Yeah, he's so cranky.
Marc:Horribly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I remember when he was maybe 30, he was out there going, I'm an old man.
Wow.
Guest:look at me i'm an old man they're the kind of guys that are like mad at canada like they don't get what to actually mad at you know yeah you can see when someone's actually mad about something that literally they shouldn't be mad about oh yeah yeah they're just fucking i'm worked up yeah so i'm the guy who's mad at shit and people go what is he fucking mad about right right i don't know yeah why am i mad my dad didn't give a shit yeah but you don't want to go that deep you don't want to go that deep so you talk about this unless you're eddie pepperton i just work with eddie pepperton
Guest:Brilliant.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The best.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:He's so good.
Marc:When he gets going, you wind him up, let him go, and then he just stops.
Marc:He's done.
Marc:When he's done, he's done.
Marc:You watch him pee around and become like a soft guy.
Marc:He's like, yeah, da, da, da, da, da.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I'm okay now.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But, like, Kyle Kinane's a good crank.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Kyle Kinane is... And I consider him the younger generation.
Guest:He's, like, what, 30?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He just has a beard, so it's a little misleading.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But he's, like... I love his new album.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Fantastic, yeah.
Marc:But he's, like, got that cranky thing, and then there's Louis Black, and, you know... But it's just a type of...
Guest:character that it doesn't come along that often no and you know it's also hard to it's hard to be that guy in stand-up because you as you when you start out you have to open you have to be the opener right and they and that's the antithesis of what you're supposed to do you're not supposed to you're supposed to be the happy fun yeah get the crowd going crowd going and i was never that guy so i would just i mean you know that one comedy club we go at cobs like the owner just wouldn't move me up to middle because i wouldn't
Guest:I couldn't get past that.
Guest:I'm the fucking cranky guy, and that's what I'm going to do, and I'm the sour guy on stage.
Guest:Just move me up.
Guest:He wouldn't do it?
Guest:No, he wouldn't move me up.
Marc:We were talking about Chris Rock, and I miss this whole thing, and I think some of my listeners might be interested, because I miss the real time.
Marc:I don't watch enough television.
Guest:I don't watch real time that much.
Guest:anymore either because it's what we just talked about but rock was they were talking how did the topic of people who sabotage your careers come up you know I actually don't know because I just saw the quote I didn't see how it went into it but you know you saw it from Jim Earl's post yeah yeah
Marc:Because Jim Earl, who many of you know from my podcast, is a fairly righteous guy.
Marc:To a fault, almost.
Marc:But very righteous.
Marc:And apparently Chris Rock had called one of our peers, who has now passed, Warren Thomas an asshole for fucking up his career.
Marc:And Jim Earl called bullshit on Chris Rock.
Marc:And Chris Rock apologized in an email to Jim Earl for calling a dead guy an asshole.
Marc:And he didn't mean that.
Marc:Though Warren was, you know, arguably...
Guest:I, you know, someone apologizes like that.
Guest:I totally believe him.
Guest:But there was like a day where there's something about because there's a San Francisco thing where we there's just that we got each other's backs.
Guest:I don't know what it is, but it's like we were sort of this little tribe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we thought we were better than all the other comics and that whole shit.
Guest:Who was in that tribe?
Guest:Can you refresh my memory?
Guest:There was me, there was you, there was Hedberg, there was Patton Oswalt, there was Greg Barrett.
Guest:Hedberg wasn't there that long.
Guest:He was there like two years.
Guest:Barrett.
Marc:Patton.
Marc:Yeah, and then the older generation.
Marc:Margaret Cho.
Marc:Yeah, and then there was the generation above us, which I think Earl belongs to, or no?
Marc:Was Earl a little older than us?
Marc:I think he is.
Marc:Yeah, I'd say Earl's a generation.
Marc:Like Jim Earl and Barry Lank did Lank and Earl, and they were there with Warren Thomas, and I guess that was sort of the tweeners in between the Paula Poundstone, Bobcat, Goldthwait.
Marc:But no, they're probably around the same age as Bobcat, right?
Guest:Yeah, they are.
Guest:I'm not sure when they started, but I know they've been around for a long time doing their thing when we came on the scene.
Marc:Well, there was this whole thing about San Francisco is that when you got there, you felt like it was comedy mecca.
Marc:This was the place where you weren't hinged to jokes of any kind.
Marc:They would indulge your fucking bullshit for God knows how long.
Marc:The riff style was invented up there where it was just sort of like, let me noodle till I land on something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And people would sit there and take it.
Marc:And it was very infused into the culture of San Francisco.
Marc:And there was a unique freedom up there.
Marc:But by the time you and I got going, by the time I moved there and Pat moved there and Blaine moved there and you were starting out, you know, that whole thing had been, they'd all left.
Guest:Yeah, it was all gone and over.
Guest:But we, but you know, the sort of the spirit of it, hold on, because we really pushed each other
Guest:in a direction to be creative and be different.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And there's a little bit too much of let's make it dark.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But, yeah, really dark.
Guest:But, yeah, overall, I think Hedberg really greatly, that helped him being in San Francisco and sort of finding himself because that's when he kind of figured it out.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So are you doing stand-up now?
Guest:no i mean that's the thing god i mean i have a i have an 11 year old yeah and that i take 11 month old that i take care of and so that's just like you know it's sucking the life out of me well let's let's go through a day then dave because i you know i to see you as a father and i know that like you know how you behave around me around other people
Marc:is probably this other thing.
Guest:What do you say?
Guest:Are you saying I'm sort of putting on a... Yeah.
Marc:No, I'm assuming that when the kid cries when he wakes up, you're like, what?
Marc:What?
Marc:The fuck?
Marc:You know what?
Guest:How about another hour?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you say that?
Guest:No, but I want his first word to be, first sentence, his first full sentence to be, do you need a minute?
Guest:That's all I want.
Marc:I'm sorry, Dad.
Guest:Take a time out.
Marc:Do you need a minute?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, look.
Guest:I get up.
Guest:My wife wakes me up at 7 and hands me the baby.
Guest:And I get out of bed.
Guest:And then he runs around for about an hour.
Guest:And then I feed him.
Guest:This is going to be great.
Guest:No, it's good.
Guest:This is great radio.
Guest:And then I feed him.
Guest:And then he runs around for another hour.
Guest:And then he starts screaming.
Guest:And then I put him to bed.
Guest:And then I have two hours to myself.
Guest:To blog angrily about the state of the world.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:To blog angrily.
Guest:Or I just sort of sit there and stare at the internet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or to take a shower.
Guest:or to sleep right uh and then and then he gets up and then it's you know it's the same thing and then we we do it he runs around and then he runs until he gets tired and he eats is there any joy involved in this dude yeah i mean he's fun he's a i love him he's a fun kid yeah
Guest:But there's still, like, you know, look, there's part of me that I wanted to be a stand-up comic since I was five years old.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wanted to do this.
Guest:I had some success.
Guest:I always fucked up.
Guest:I'm the guy who had potential.
Marc:What happened?
Marc:Let's go through the all-star fuck-ups of Dave Anthony.
Marc:Oh, Jesus Christ.
Marc:What were the big mistakes?
Guest:Uh...
Guest:In San Francisco, the big mistake was not pushing myself.
Marc:But there was no outward sabotages where it's sort of like me, where it was like when Chelsea Handler first got her show and I had nothing but contempt for her.
Marc:I was like, I'm not doing your show.
Guest:Oh, no, there was nothing.
Guest:No, because I never got to the point where someone wanted me to do their show.
Guest:Oh, OK.
Guest:So this is all an inner dialogue.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, look, I'm the self-sabotager.
Guest:I'm the guy who you just beat yourself up.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:And it's all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's because my father was an alcoholic and he wanted me to succeed.
Guest:And how to get back at him is to never succeed.
Guest:But that wasn't intentional.
Guest:No, I realized that when I was like 35.
Guest:I realized that's what was going on.
Guest:There's the key.
Guest:It was just all like, so San Francisco, literally one of the club owners was like, you're the next Jon Stewart.
Guest:I'm going to give you the keys to the city.
Guest:I'm going to give you all this time on stage, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And I moved to New York.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, that's the kind of shit I did.
Guest:Like, hey, you know what?
Guest:We're going to set you up.
Guest:Okay, thanks.
Guest:See ya.
Guest:Gotta go.
Guest:And then, you know, New York, I went to New York and I was,
Guest:Although I did have a fight with a club owner in New York.
Guest:Lucian?
Guest:No, Manny.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Who did?
Guest:Yeah, he was always fighting.
Guest:He's dead, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was a big thing with another...
Marc:another comic uh louis louis louis ck no louis this guy wore oh louis uh right louis shaffer louis shaffer oh the worst i had a thing with him too who didn't he was a psycho yeah and he and manny at the comedy cellar put him in charge of running the shows for some reason i remember one time i was on stage i wasn't doing great which wasn't unusual at the comedy cellar and louis was in the doorway telling me to wrap up before my time was up yeah and i got off stage like who the fuck are you
Guest:Okay, almost the same, nearly the same.
Guest:I am on stage.
Guest:There's a guy heckling me, completely hammered out of his mind.
Guest:So I start giving it back.
Guest:We go back and forth.
Guest:Crowd's laughing, but I'm really hammering this guy.
Guest:And then I get off stage and Lewis goes up and goes, I want to apologize for the comic.
Guest:He was completely out of line.
Guest:And I'm like, what the fuck just happened?
Guest:You don't take the jackass's side.
Guest:Whose team are you on?
Guest:Me and another comic, Ray James, got into it with Lewis and back, and then it escalated to a whole meeting with...
Guest:got to call a meeting with all 30 comics in which Manny wanted me to say, uh, that I had lied about the incident and that I wasn't a man because I had lied.
Guest:And he wanted me to say that in front of all 30 comics, Sam Peckinpah movie.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It was just fucking weird.
Guest:And, uh, and then I just got up and said, I'm not going to fucking do that.
Guest:And I walked out and then tell was like, David tells like, yeah, he does it to everybody.
Guest:Yeah, it's a rites of passage.
Marc:Fuck.
Guest:I can't handle those kind of rites of passage.
Marc:Yeah, no, it's pride, dude.
Marc:Pride is human.
Guest:It's pride and it's fucking justice.
Guest:That's justice.
Marc:There's no reason to do that.
Guest:No, there's no reason to do it.
Guest:Just, let's just everything, treat everyone like fucking human beings.
Guest:Which is why.
Marc:There it is.
Marc:Yeah, which we come back around to Chris Rock's justification for calling Warren Thomas an asshole, which he meant to say cocky, was that Warren Thomas, when Lorne Michaels had him sit out in the front office for what he usually would be about six hours to wait to see him.
Marc:And he did it on purpose.
Marc:Warren said, fuck that.
Marc:And he left.
Guest:And he left, which I totally get it.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:I probably would have sat there, although I gotta say when I was younger, I probably wouldn't have.
Guest:Now I would.
Guest:I mean, who knows?
Marc:Are you reaching out?
Marc:So, Lauren, if you're listening to this, Dave Anthony's ready.
Marc:How old do you now?
Guest:42.
Marc:He's 42.
Marc:He's ready.
Marc:It took a while, but he's come full circle.
Guest:So, I don't know if the demographic you're looking for is sort of an older guy, kind of letting himself go, but that's my shit.
Guest:That's my wheelhouse.
Marc:Do you have brothers and sisters?
Guest:Yeah, I have a sister.
Guest:Older.
Marc:And how'd she turn out?
Guest:She turned out good.
Guest:She's...
Guest:Yeah, she's not nearly as angry as I am.
Marc:What is it about the character?
Marc:Because I've not discussed this thoroughly.
Marc:Odenkirk and I got into it in passing.
Marc:But the character of the child of an alcoholic.
Guest:Okay, let me just say this.
Guest:I don't know a comic who has a...
Guest:father that's not crazy, an alcoholic.
Guest:Or gone.
Guest:Or gone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:A good comic.
Guest:A good comic.
Guest:Yeah, that's the key.
Guest:I mean, that's what it is.
Marc:Yeah, it's very baffling to me when well-adjusted kids actually find their talent young and they have no darkness.
Marc:But there's a whole generation of them now, dude.
Marc:I don't fucking get it.
Marc:All these kids that come out of Sketch because already they're anomalies because they work well with others.
Marc:I think we were the last generation of comics to be like, I don't fucking need anybody.
Marc:I'll use people.
Guest:I don't need anybody except for this audience.
Guest:Please love me.
Guest:You didn't laugh.
Guest:I'm gonna go cry for a week.
Marc:Yeah, I could take it personally for a long time Yeah, but that is true though now that you mention it like you know if I think about the guys I know their their dads are crazy Alcoholic are gone.
Marc:Yeah, the ones who are gone I think actually if they survive that do better because they have a lot more to prove you know Children of alcoholics and crazy people have spent a life managing chaos and
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And it's not just that.
Guest:If your father's an alcoholic or like your dad was- Mad depressive, still is.
Guest:So what you did and what I did was to use humor to try and make sure that your dad or my dad wouldn't go to that bad place.
Guest:So we thought that we could control it by trying to be funny.
Guest:We were just trying to make the whole place lighter and happier when we didn't want the dark thing to come in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now, oh, fuck, dad's screaming at the television.
Guest:I'm scared.
Marc:Right when he heard the tone change.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, my dad, because of the depression, it would be weeks and months.
Marc:So it was like that was an ongoing audience situation where you'd get up and be like, already?
Marc:We got to start the show now?
Guest:Well, okay, so what's worse?
Guest:Is it worse?
Guest:Because that sounds horrible to me.
Guest:You're just talking about months of blackness.
Guest:Is that worse?
Guest:Or not knowing minute to minute what's coming through the door?
Guest:I just never knew if or when he was coming through the door.
Guest:Usually I was asleep.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't know which guy.
Guest:And the bad thing is my dad was always shut off when he was sober and nicer when he was drunk.
Guest:Just in the middle.
Guest:Until he got really drunk.
Guest:So when he was drunk, he was the happy drunk.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then, so then, how confusing is that?
Guest:Oh, you like me when you're drunk, but when you're sober you don't?
Guest:Like fucking, why are you angry?
Guest:Figure it out, motherfucker.
Marc:Jesus.
Marc:So there was this horrible window of possibility in between dad without alcohol in him, dad with a little bit.
Marc:That was the window.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then one drink beyond that.
Guest:Yeah, well, a few drinks beyond that.
Guest:Then there's the really drunk guy that's embarrassing.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Well, and embarrassing, but just so drunk that, like, we used to drive home from baseball games.
Guest:We lived in the Bay Area, and so we'd go to a Giants game, and you'd drive on the highway home to Marin, and I would have to tap him to stay awake because he was so hammered.
Guest:You got to open with that.
Guest:That's my new line about everything.
Guest:How great would that be to come out and just open with that on Letterman?
Marc:Just suck the wind out of the room.
Yeah.
Marc:I was telling Eddie Pepito that story.
Marc:I remember Louis C.K.
Marc:had his first Letterman.
Marc:I think it was his first time on the day of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Marc:And I'm walking with him.
Marc:He's like, I can't fucking believe it.
Marc:I can't fucking.
Marc:And I'm sitting there.
Marc:Of course, you know me.
Marc:I'm like, you got to bring it up.
Marc:How are you not going to bring it up?
Marc:It'd be a lie.
Marc:It'd be disingenuous.
Marc:I mean, this is happening now.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:And apparently, Louis told Bob Morton, who was then producer of Letterman, he said, Maren said, I should bring it up.
Marc:And Bob Morton said, that's why Maren's not doing the show.
Guest:I never got to.
Guest:I never got there.
Guest:My closest was Conan.
Guest:And this is classic me.
Guest:So it's my third.
Guest:You know, you do several auditions.
Guest:Third audition.
Guest:They really like me.
Guest:Then now they're just coming in to see me, do a set, a set that I want to do.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You're in.
Guest:I'm in.
Guest:This is it.
Guest:This is the one that gets me on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so they're waiting.
Guest:So they don't want to watch the comics before because that's sort of something they don't do.
Guest:They don't just go in and watch comics because then it...
Guest:Maybe it gives people an idea that they're going to be on the show and blah, blah, blah.
Guest:So they don't want to deal with it.
Guest:So they usually just stand outside the door and then they know when you're going on.
Guest:Well, Judy Gold was on before me.
Guest:I'll never forgive her for this.
Guest:I don't like her.
Guest:I don't want to know her.
Guest:She was supposed to do 10 minutes.
Guest:She did 35 minutes talking to the audience.
Guest:And then I went up.
Guest:Just drained the room.
Guest:Just fucking destroyed the fucking room.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I went up and just... But here's the thing.
Guest:I could have just persevered and been like, no, no, no problem.
Marc:I can handle this.
Marc:They're just there to see it.
Guest:But I let it get inside my head.
Guest:And for 30 minutes, I'm pacing around getting furious.
Guest:And so I go up there and I'm just a ball of rage.
Guest:And, you know, it sucks.
Guest:Yeah, that's that's my career.
Marc:Yeah, I've done that so many times.
Marc:And I guess that's why, you know, I feel like you're a kindred spirit, because I mean, I've done that, too, where you set up a scenario in your head.
Marc:There's no bearing on anything like because executives, you know, they don't know.
Marc:No.
Marc:and and the thing is is that like if you get off and you're like that was great they're like it was great like unless you if you don't let those demons like the the people i've seen succeed are people that like you know if that's the situation the situation is bad they don't even they just go and do their yeah they don't try to get the audience necessarily yeah they just walk into what they have to do and get off it's like you know who does you know tom papa is that guy
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He's that guy.
Guest:He'll just go up.
Marc:He's very efficient.
Guest:He's very efficient.
Guest:And he and his half hour is great.
Guest:Like Comedy Central.
Guest:I just watched it.
Guest:I'm like, this is a good half hour.
Marc:Like very real craftsman.
Guest:Nothing like.
Guest:So he's just that guy that just go.
Guest:He would.
Guest:And that's it.
Guest:And we were we were on the exact same level at that point.
Guest:Me and Tom were hanging out.
Guest:We do sets back to back, blah, blah, New York.
Guest:He just took off because I was the guy who lets that get to him, and he's the guy who just goes, I'm going to go do my thing.
Marc:Right, but the weird thing about someone like Tom is that he took off in the sense that he became a very efficient, palatable, slightly original mainstream comic.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Like he was a guy that sat down and designed his disposition.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He said, we can't even do that now.
Marc:I mean, for me, in almost every set, it's sort of like, oh, God.
Marc:I've got to put it out there.
Marc:And I haven't been doing it that much anymore, so when I do do a set, it's like pulling teeth.
Marc:It's horrible.
Marc:For the first time in my career, there's people coming to see me, so I'm very happy.
Marc:I'm playing for people that like me, and I don't have that urge to assume that there's a contingent within the room that really just is judging me and has had enough, because they're always there in my head.
Marc:But coming back to the alcoholic or manic-depressive father thing, I do this bit on stage where
Marc:If I push the audience away and I feel it, I tell them, I say, look, sometimes I do that with the crowd.
Marc:I push you away, I bring you back, I try to bring you back, I push you away.
Marc:It's a little dynamic I call dad.
Marc:That's funny.
Marc:But see, that's the weird thing is that I think, like you say, that the sabotage is to disappoint them.
Marc:I really think it's to protect ourselves.
Marc:That I think that they were so emotionally inconsistent that the risk was actually to get into the situation where they either said that we're doing a good job or they took it away from us.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So I feel like we're programmed to sort of make sure that we don't do just a great job.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:No, I think you're right.
Marc:Because then the risk is, like, then the old man's going to go, yeah, it's not as good as I can do.
Marc:Or some version of that.
Guest:Or you think you're good?
Guest:Well, you know what's crazy about my dad?
Guest:He's still alive, and he's, you know, really, really drinking out.
Guest:But over the years, I would just think, well, he doesn't really give a shit about my stand-up career.
Guest:But I would find out he would tell other people that he thought I was awesome and the comedy was great and he'd watch this and watch that.
Guest:Never a word to me.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right here.
Marc:I'm right here.
Guest:I'm in the room.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Hey, how about some acknowledgement?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is why I can't succeed.
Guest:So it's, it's, it's, it's crazy making.
Guest:I mean, that's, that's insanity to, because he, he like brings tapes and gives them to people and we'll never say a word.
Guest:And here's the worst part.
Guest:I found this out like two years ago.
Guest:My sister, uh, we were, I was at my sister's and we always talk about my dad when we get together and she goes, uh, well, don't you remember wit training?
Guest:And I was like, what?
Guest:She said, we had wit training.
Guest:He would sit us, he had, when my parents were divorced, we would go over there on Sundays, he would sit us down at the end of the night, after dinner, and give us wit training, where he would throw out stuff, and we were supposed to be funny back, and my sister would just sit there, and I would engage in it, because I wanted daddy's love, and I was younger than her.
Guest:Yeah, so I had wit training.
Marc:How creepy is that?
Marc:Well, I've always thought that most father-son relationships are battles to the death.
Marc:That there's an innate competition, especially in insecure fathers, that they can't let it up.
Marc:And even if they don't do what you do.
Marc:I mean, my dad, I can't tell you how many phone calls I get.
Marc:It's like, you know, you should be the anti-HMO comedian.
Right.
Marc:Like, whatever his... Now he's into vitamins, so I'm like, you should really come to one of these vitamin conventions.
Guest:Yeah, but you're taking all the vitamins.
Marc:I am, yeah.
Guest:So there is a part of you that's still... Yeah, he won that one.
Guest:But there's a part of you that wants to please him.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Marc:You're still there.
Marc:You're still doing the dance.
Marc:No, I'm not doing the dance in an emotional way.
Marc:But the thing is, my dad's fairly persuasive.
Marc:And also, to his credit, he was never a good enough father to realize I got a drug problem or anything else.
Marc:Given the opportunity, I think he would prescribe them for me if I convinced him well enough.
Can you talk?
Marc:What do you need?
Marc:Let's get some Xanax going up in this.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:I just think that.
Marc:I know what you're saying.
Marc:Yeah, the vitamin thing was just sort of like, but you're right, because I fought it for a long time.
Marc:And then I was sort of like, I think my memory's a little fucked up.
Marc:And he's like, this is what you got to do.
Marc:This is what you got to do.
Marc:And now I'm taking like 20 fucking pills a day and I feel pretty good.
Marc:You do?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know if it's the vitamins.
Marc:Everyone who listens to me says you're an idiot.
Marc:They don't do anything.
Marc:What do you know though?
Marc:Maybe they do do something.
Marc:I don't think they do anything, but I also don't know otherwise.
Marc:But are you one of those people that like I get emails from people like I had a conversation with Ron Shock.
Marc:I had a conversation about with other people about, you know, mystical things about like not so much the afterlife, but is there another plane or, you know, is there something beyond coincidence?
Marc:And then I get these emails from these fucking rationalists that say, well, that's easily explained by science.
Marc:It's like, well, you know what?
Marc:I don't want it to be.
Marc:No.
Marc:Where's your imagination?
Guest:Well, the response to that is, why does that have to be rational?
Guest:Like, how about I just have my thing and you can have your rational thing?
Marc:Because they're pissed off because you're lying.
Marc:It's not the truth.
Marc:Who gives a shit?
Guest:I mean, seriously, who gives a shit?
Guest:I mean, it's one thing if my religious beliefs or my spirituality or whatever is getting all in your shit, like abortion laws or whatever the fuck it is, but...
Guest:you know if if you're spiritual you can keep that to yourself and do your thing it's just so insane when you bring it up and people have that reaction i've been around those guys do you talk about you're lucky though you're lucky you didn't become that kind of control freak yeah but i'm the guy if if i you know people don't do and i actually don't talk about any spiritual shit at all but but if if someone brought it up to me i'm not the guy who'd be like yeah i would you're not the guy that says that's ridiculous you're delusional and
Guest:I would say, fuck you.
Guest:Who the fuck are you coming into my head?
Guest:Get the fuck out of here.
Marc:Well, what I've grown to believe is that if your beliefs are personal and they work for you and they somehow sustain your mental well-being as much as possible in this world of shit we live in, then so be it.
Marc:More power to you.
Guest:For some people, it's so difficult just to get up and get out of bed and take a shower and get in the car and go to work.
Guest:Let them believe in God if that's what gets them being a normal human being.
Marc:It's when people become moralizing or proselytizing or murderous.
Marc:The killing of other people.
Guest:My wife works at UCLA and we were... She's a psychiatrist, right?
Guest:Yeah, she's a psychologist.
Guest:That guy just can prescribe drugs.
Guest:She doesn't.
Marc:And you said that at some point she was really into the show and then we went through a hard time.
Guest:You guys did.
Guest:You guys had a connection.
Guest:She thought you were really great.
Guest:And then you had sort of a dark period, your relationship.
Guest:We don't know what caused that, though.
Guest:Not sure.
Guest:I don't remember what caused it.
Guest:But I think like most people, people get taken in by you, and then they get to learn more about you, and that's when the difficult time happens.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:It's like I had no idea.
Marc:I got an email today.
Marc:I told a story about killing a mouse.
Marc:I got an email from a very, very upset woman who said, and I had just bought front row seats in Philly, and this whole macho bullshit about killing the mouse.
Marc:What the fuck is that?
Marc:It upset her.
Marc:It upset her that I killed a mouse where in her mind I should have.
Marc:Where was the mouse?
Marc:In my house.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Seriously?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That is mice.
Guest:They have vermin on them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are they vermin?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No.
Marc:Well, some people call them vermin.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay, but they have little bugs and they carry, they shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they eat your food.
Guest:So you're supposed to, what are you supposed to do?
Guest:Catch the mouse and let it- Right.
Guest:Out back and then it comes back in because it's a house mouse.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:You're much better if you have field mice.
Guest:There's something called the carrying capacity and that's, it's a scientific term and it's when there's too many of one animal, if you don't kill them, if there's no predators, there will be too many of one animal and then they will start to get diseases-
Guest:and die.
Guest:So by killing a mouse, you're actually keeping it at the carrying capacity that it needs to be at.
Marc:Well, I, I thank you.
Marc:Well, this is just, that's one of those rational arguments that we were just talking about.
Marc:I just brought it.
Marc:That's not what I said.
Marc:I, I, I wrote her back saying, well, look, I'm sorry if I upset you, the mouse.
Marc:Wait a minute.
Marc:Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Marc:Let me follow through.
Marc:I said, I'm sorry that I upset you.
Marc:The mouse I killed in the coffee shop was a mercy killing.
Marc:The mouse I killed in my apartment because it was shitting.
Marc:I killed because I didn't want it in my house.
Marc:I understand your feelings.
Marc:You know, I don't know if I would do that again, but I am very decent with animals.
Marc:You make your own decision about the show in Philly.
Guest:Okay, please.
Guest:That's too nice, but yeah.
Guest:Can I write my own letter?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Listen.
Guest:I have a house, and it's not the cleanest house.
Guest:There's boxes and shit I work, so I'm a little bit of a hoarder at this point.
Guest:Are you?
Guest:Well, I'm in a transitional period where I used to be sort of a mean narcissist, and now I'm trying to be a nicer narcissist, but I still keep all my shit in boxes, and it's a little... I thought you threw some of it away.
Guest:No, no.
Marc:Do we just talk about that?
Guest:I pretend to throw... I'm talking about you.
Guest:I'm being you right now.
Guest:You can't even fucking see when... I'm sorry.
Marc:I thought you were... Okay, go ahead.
Go ahead.
Guest:I didn't know you were getting an impression.
Guest:Well, I don't do the voice.
Guest:Okay, go ahead.
Guest:Fuck, it's all bad now.
Guest:No, it's not.
Guest:Just finish it.
Guest:So listen.
Guest:So yeah, I killed a mouse.
Guest:And here's why.
Guest:Because I'm not like a dirty hobo.
Guest:And I don't like to live with small rodents crawling around my apartment and getting in my shit and tearing up my boxes.
Guest:So actually, since I own the house, I get a little bit upset when I see something disgusting crawling around my house.
Guest:So I kill it.
Guest:Because I'm a human being.
Marc:and i'm not a freak just don't listen to the show if that upsets you i cannot imagine the shit down the road that's going to upset you you should leave now no i i understand that i i put it i put the onus on her and she got back to me and said that uh you know she's still a fan she understands she's not a fan of me though is she not now because i did that
Marc:Well, no, but I just think that I've gotten a little callous about animals in the sense that I have to live with the idea that maybe a coyote will take out Boomer.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:But quite honestly, Boomer sprays pee everywhere in the house.
Marc:Oh, that's not good.
Marc:No, everywhere.
Marc:Like, you know, like, like, and you never, you never know where it's going to be.
Marc:It's like, where's it coming from?
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:Um, you know, I'm in my car.
Marc:He couldn't have peed in my car, but could he have peed in my shoes?
Marc:Yep.
Marc:So, so, you know, but boomers okay outside and he, and he sleeps under the house and he's perfectly happy, but I know in my heart that maybe he could be hurt out here, but I have to live with that.
Marc:And the fact is he's an animal.
Guest:He is an animal.
Marc:And I've gotten flack for that.
Marc:Like, you know, you're not being a responsible cat owner.
Marc:I'm like, dude, I rescue cats.
Marc:I love my cats.
Marc:Where was he?
Marc:But I like to not smell like cat pee in my shoes.
Guest:Where was he before you had him?
Marc:In a shelter.
Marc:Okay, so fuck.
Marc:And he was a freak.
Marc:Someone had abused him.
Guest:Okay, so right now he's living the high life as far as he's concerned.
Marc:Yeah, he's out there on a lounge chair.
Guest:He's got a cactus and a lounge chair.
Marc:Yeah, he's hanging out.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:He is an animal.
Guest:There's predators, and then there's animals, and then there's animals that pee in your shit, and they have to be outside.
Marc:Yeah, because my vegetarian friend at the time, I killed that mouse in my apartment.
Marc:It suggested the trap where you take the mouse somewhere.
Marc:I'm not driving to the country.
Guest:Okay, let me tell you something.
Guest:When I lived in New York, I had mice in my apartment, and this is the worst thing.
Guest:How did you kill it?
Guest:Sticky trap.
Guest:Fuck.
Guest:Yeah, I did that.
Guest:That sucks.
Guest:Well, you got to kill it twice.
Guest:Yeah, that's the problem.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I look back on it.
Guest:People are like, you can't do the snap one because that just breaks their back or their neck.
Guest:It's much better if they're fully aware.
Guest:It's better if they stick to something and then try to gnaw their feet off.
Guest:Yeah, no, that's good.
Guest:And then you have to kill them somehow, even though you don't want to see it.
Marc:It's horrible.
Marc:But you grow up with a lot of animals, and sometimes you've got to take care of it.
Guest:I like animals.
Guest:I've got three cats.
Marc:I've got too many cats.
Guest:You do?
Guest:Yeah, I've got too many cats.
Marc:I heard there's something about having cats and babies, no?
Guest:No, it's horseshit.
Guest:It's so crazy.
Guest:Everyone says that you've got to get rid of your cats now.
Guest:No, you don't.
Guest:You know why?
Guest:Because everybody has cats.
Guest:There's a lot of cats in the world.
Guest:And you know what you never hear?
Guest:Oh my God, my cat killed my baby.
Guest:You don't hear that.
Guest:But you hear just old ladies going, you have to get rid of your cats.
Guest:I thought it was a disease or something in the poop or something.
Guest:Anybody who has cats has that disease.
Guest:It's the most common disease in the world.
Guest:I have it?
Guest:Yeah, it's tricto something or something.
Marc:I had no idea I had that.
Guest:Maybe I don't because the vitamins I'm taking are kidding me.
Guest:No, you got it.
Guest:We all got it.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:And they don't know what it does, and it doesn't seem to do anything.
Guest:It doesn't cause genital warts to other people?
Guest:Do you have that one?
Guest:Never mind.
Guest:It's all coming together.
Guest:Oh, Jesus.
Guest:yeah uh no it it it it only hurts uh people who have weak immune systems oh like anything like aids yeah is you know really bad for people who have the cat disease yeah you saw transpotting right it's it's fairly bad for anybody true story yeah aids is just bad it's not good for well i mean i'm that's why yeah i try not to get it yeah yeah you're out of the i think you're out of the tunnel now
Guest:Yeah, I'm seeing the light coming out of the I won't get AIDS tunnel.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:It's really great, Mark.
Marc:It is.
Marc:I was going through an old box of shit that I brought up earlier.
Marc:You were?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where was it?
Guest:I can't see any.
Marc:Yeah, it was right out here.
Marc:I moved it to the house.
Marc:I'm calling hoarders.
Marc:You should call Horace.
Marc:Look at this place.
Marc:I'm close.
Marc:I don't know who you're going to call between the cats and the fucking books and papers.
Guest:But look, I mean, like anybody else, you have your record collection and a Japanese lamp on top and a cowboy hat.
Marc:But what I found was something sort of surprising.
Marc:I'd found a list that I'd made, I guess probably, it looks like maybe a year or so after college, my last year of college, of women I'd slept with.
Marc:I made that list.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:And I'm sad to say, couple of names down there.
Marc:Don't remember.
Marc:Couldn't place it.
Guest:Yeah, I can't remember people's names that I slept with at this point.
Guest:I can barely remember anything.
Marc:I can't either.
Guest:Yeah, but look, I've listened to your show and I've thought about this.
Guest:I had no... Do you know what emotional geography is?
Guest:Or maybe it's just a fucking term I made up.
Marc:I like it.
Marc:I don't even know what it is.
Marc:I like it.
Guest:I had, like, no... I had, like, my feelings until I was about 32, until I got therapy and got my shit worked out, was anger.
Guest:Just different levels of anger.
Guest:There was, like, no happiness or this or that.
Guest:I basically had no feelings until I got... No range.
Guest:No range.
Guest:I mean, there wasn't even.
Guest:Like, it was just... I was... Angry charm.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then the other versions of the hurtful anger.
Guest:Well, some people are like happy and then I'm okay.
Guest:And then I'm mad for me.
Guest:It was like, I'm really not angry.
Guest:I'm kind of angry.
Guest:I'm very angry.
Guest:Like that was my.
Marc:Have you ever had that anger where you're trying to behave and own your anger?
Marc:So you just shut down completely and tear yourself up on the inside.
Marc:I call that my twenties.
Yeah.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:I seem a lot better.
Marc:I'm not communicating.
Guest:OK, check this out.
Guest:I when I was I was living in New York and I took a trip out here and with my girlfriend at the time and we were driving and I'm a huge like National Park nature.
Guest:I love that shit.
Guest:So we were driving to this place called Red Rock outside of Las Vegas.
Guest:And you have to get there when the sun's setting because that's when the rocks are red.
Guest:And I misjudged the drive.
Guest:And so it was clearly we were going to miss it by like 45 minutes.
Guest:And I am just driving like 110 down the highway.
Guest:Will not say a word for like an hour and a half.
Marc:Because you had no one to be angry at.
Guest:I was just...
Guest:mad like so for an hour and she did nothing wrong and she thinks that I'm like now gonna kill her or something you probably could have in the car yeah and so you know and then we get there and then and then I miss and then I'm mad I'm still mad we miss the sunset then we go to Las Vegas and and then I'm like okay well I'm over being angry and she's like okay well I'm no now I'm in a different place you don't just like that's my whole fucking life they don't that's what I always did it builds up in them like plaque
Guest:Yeah, well, how can I'm like a psycho?
Guest:And then I'm like, OK, I'm not anymore.
Guest:She's like, well, now I am lunatic.
Guest:Like, that's everything.
Marc:It's emotional plaque.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Look, when you when you get to a point where you realize how taxing it is.
Guest:I found that.
Guest:And how exhausting it is.
Guest:You don't want to do it anymore.
Guest:And how much of it you make up.
Guest:Oh, you make up all of it.
Guest:It's all bullshit because it's all conversations in your head that haven't happened.
Guest:I went through a period where I had to realize that it was all conversations in my head.
Guest:It's that thing where you...
Guest:You're having this argument in your head, and then the person knocks on the door and walks in, and you're like, what the fuck about Japan?
Guest:And they're like, I don't know what's happening.
Guest:We've been talking about it in my head for an hour.
Guest:It's that fucking... And I know I see people come up and do that.
Guest:I'm like, you're having a conversation in your head.
Guest:So once I realized I was doing it, it was a conscious effort to stop it.
Guest:And once you stop it, you go, oh...
Guest:This is so easy.
Guest:I have a choice.
Guest:To not do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It is a choice.
Guest:It's so easy to not do it.
Guest:And the other thing was me being a victim.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I realized that even my fan, even, you know, when you just kind of fan, I saw Daydream or whatever about shit.
Guest:They would always end up in, in, in victim story.
Guest:Because the classic time I remember is I was at the gym.
Guest:and i was jogging there was some sort of poster about nepal and i was like so great to go to nepal and just just check out that country and just see the buddhist monks and just the mountains and everything and then and then i get probably kidnapped by uh muslim terrorists and they would hold me hostage and then they'd eventually just cut off my head and then i just stopped running i was like what the just happened seriously i just took the the most awesome fantasy and turned into me getting my head cut off
Guest:it's like so crazy and that was a minute i was like oh my god i'm a victim and you know because i was in therapy at that time and i literally like set out and did all this shit where like i was i was mad at my dad because he never ever ever once said he loved me so i went up and said it to him and he's like but you just i stopped being a victim because that was my whole thing right you know it goes all the way back to childhood of your bullshit right so i was just piling on top of each other and it became me and then there's self-pity involved in that too right yeah
Guest:Yeah, it's all that stuff.
Marc:Yeah, it just reminded me of this story.
Marc:My buddy told me he was taking his dad to Ireland, his old dad.
Marc:He had to go to the home country kind of deal.
Marc:And, you know, they're planning the trip, you know, and they got the tickets and everything.
Marc:And his father's just like, you know, a couple weeks before they're going, his father's beside himself, you know, just, you know, kind of like, you know, he can't keep his shit together about the trip.
Marc:And my buddy Jim's like, what's the matter?
Marc:And his father goes, where are we going to park?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Fuck.
Guest:See, I'm just so glad I don't think like that anymore.
Marc:There's certain stories like that that never... My father does that, too, and it's worry, too.
Marc:It's all control shit.
Marc:And that's one of the other things that people who have God...
Marc:or some you know spirituality you know sort of get past is that you know anything that keeps you in the present and makes you realize that you don't have the type of control and there's no in any fantasy you're going to put forth whether it's you know you win or whether you lose it's probably completely different to what's really going to happen and if you're not careful you may not even experience the experience itself because you're too busy judging against this idea you had yeah I mean
Guest:My idea of spirituality, and this is just something I arrived at because I had a hard time with all that shit, but it was basically like there are doors that are open and there are doors that are closed.
Guest:And for the first 30 years of my life, I was banging through walls instead of looking at the doors.
Guest:There's just shit.
Guest:You can survey the situation and go...
Guest:okay, that's what's supposed to be happening.
Guest:I'm going to go that way.
Guest:Instead of I would always be like, it's going to be my way and just walk through a cinder block and it oddly didn't work.
Guest:So that's sort of my idea of spirituality is just like there's open doors and hey, why don't you fucking use them?
Guest:Right, take a chance also.
Guest:Yeah, take a chance, walk into the fear and all that stuff.
Marc:Right, right, as opposed to get stuck in that circle.
Marc:There was one moment, it's all a matter of when you hear that shit too.
Marc:I mean, I remember one time where I think my book was coming out
Marc:and uh and you know uh we were releasing the book and it was literally i think uh you know just i think 9-11 happened you know a couple weeks you know before it was supposed to come out that's a good sign well no but but like despite despite the the amount of fear that everybody in the world was in yeah mine was fairly personal is that how is this going to affect my book yeah so that's i think a lot of authors said that when the
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:How is this going to affect my book?
Marc:No, but I said to I was remember I was just talking to my my editor and I'm like, well, it's going to be OK, right?
Marc:And he goes, he goes, might not.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but there was something about that moment where, you know, that, of course, that's the truth of it.
Marc:Yeah, nobody knows.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's like, you can, there's that other, the other side of anger is that guy's constantly looking for reassurance.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like, you know, like, am I going to be okay?
Marc:Like, in that moment of panic, you need somebody to tell you it's going to be okay, even though, you know, it might not, it might not work out the way you want, but it will be okay no matter what.
Marc:Well, you didn't have that guy when you were growing up.
Guest:I didn't have that guy either.
Guest:There was no guy going, you know what?
Guest:Sometimes it works out.
Guest:Sometimes it doesn't.
Guest:Right.
Guest:At the end of it, you're fine.
Marc:Right.
Marc:No, I never had that.
Guest:No.
Guest:And that's, that's what like 12 step programs do and all that shit.
Guest:They tell you that, you know what?
Guest:It's actually going to be, it's actually going to be all right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:All the shit that you go through, that actually all usually turns out fine.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:One way or the other.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You'll get through it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think that's a, I think that's probably true.
Marc:I think we probably figured it all out.
Marc:It's going to be okay, man.
Guest:I don't want to fucking hug.
Guest:Are we going to hug?
Guest:We don't have to hug.
Guest:All right, but that just got weird.
Guest:It did?
Guest:Nah, thank you.
Guest:I know it'll be all right.
Guest:You know, there's a fucking internal struggle of me going, it's going to be all right, and then I beat that up.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Shut up.
Guest:I'm in charge here.
Guest:It's a long process for me getting through.
Guest:It's not depression, but getting through just kind of being a funk.
Marc:Yeah, the testament to both of our inner beings is that that guy we keep pounding down, he keeps getting back up.
Guest:That's the sad thing.
Guest:Just stay down.
Guest:Jesus, give up.
Guest:I gotta be on Letterman.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You didn't knock me down, Ray.
Marc:You didn't knock me down, Ray.
Guest:God.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Thanks, man.
Yeah.
Marc:That's it, folks.
Marc:I hope you like the show.
Marc:Thanks again to all you folks that showed up in Portland, that showed up in New York for supporting the show.
Marc:I'm glad you enjoy it.
Marc:And remember, you can always donate in several different ways.
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Marc:a very special best of WTF volume one CD that you can only get.
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Marc:Also go to punchline magazine.com for all your comedy news needs and hold on.
Marc:Let me do it.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Wow!
Marc:I just shit my pants.
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you