Episode 705 - Clark Gregg / Dan Pashman
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuckaholics?
Marc:Yeah, what the fuckaholics?
Marc:How you guys doing?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:As I mentioned today on the show, the actor Clark Gregg is here.
Marc:You might know Clark from his The New Adventures of Old Christine, from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,
Marc:from bits and movies.
Marc:He's an interesting guy, got an interesting frequency, interesting vibe, interesting focus and energy, interesting actor.
Marc:I was excited to talk to him because I always like him when I see him in things, and he's one of those guys that can do comedy and serious pretty seamlessly between the two, and he was also an Atlantic theater guy.
Marc:You know, started in Mamet's operation.
Marc:So I kind of wanted to learn a little bit about that.
Marc:I did have somewhat of a David Mamet fascination for many years.
Marc:I found him to be very compelling.
Marc:I don't know, as we get older, some of those fascinations, some of those obsessions wane a bit.
Marc:And you just see people as people who are getting older.
Marc:And I just haven't checked in with David Mamet in many years.
Marc:I know he's gotten a little angrier, a little Jewier, a little to one side here.
Marc:I guess that's the word.
Marc:Look, I don't fucking know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:We also have Dan Pashman on the show from the Sportful podcast.
Marc:Dan and I, I developed these relationships with some people.
Marc:I know Dan a long time and we're doing that a little more on the show where I got a guy that I like to talk to just about bullshit and comes in and we just talk about bullshit.
Marc:If you listen to the show, you know how how me and Dan operate.
Marc:I do want to pay a little lip service to, you know, the new season of Marin and to Jason Molina and to it.
Marc:Like I talked about a song called Ride on Molina by Rivulets a couple of weeks ago.
Marc:And then I got some feedback.
Marc:that, you know, I didn't, you know, it's about Jason Molina.
Marc:I know who it's about, and I love Jason Molina.
Marc:It's a sad story, that Jason Molina story, but he did leave some great music.
Marc:I listened to the song from the Magnolia Electric Company, and there's a song on there called Farewell Transmission that I listened to just like I did right on Molina, and they seemed to be intricately connected, and that was Jason's last record, and I do believe that he died very young, at 39, I think,
Marc:from alcohol-related problems.
Marc:And that's another thing I kind of want to talk about.
Marc:I know people are responding to the new season of Marin.
Marc:Some people are very excited about the change in narrative.
Marc:Some people were concerned.
Marc:Some people find it a little painful.
Marc:But I will tell you, not unlike recovery, that it does get better emotionally and for me.
Marc:And I am okay.
Marc:I did not relapse on painkillers.
Marc:I do not want to relapse on painkillers.
Marc:I'm okay with that.
Marc:I don't want to take painkillers or drink alcohol.
Marc:But it can happen, and it happens to a lot of people.
Marc:I'll talk about that in a second.
Marc:I don't want it to be a heavy Monday.
Marc:So I'm thrilled at the response to Marin season four.
Marc:It was a very exciting thing to do.
Marc:It was a bold thing to do.
Marc:And I just want to make sure that people understand not only that I did not relapse.
Marc:But but also that I went out of my way to respect addiction and to respect recovery in the sense that there was no way that I would allow it to be trivialized in any way.
Marc:And I wanted it to be as as real as I possibly could muster emotionally and within the context of a comedy.
Marc:I do not represent AA.
Marc:I am not a spokesperson for AA.
Marc:There's plenty of ways to get sober.
Marc:12 Steps can be a little daunting for some people, a little alienating, a little cult-like.
Marc:But look, it changed the way I think about things.
Marc:And however you need...
Marc:To figure out that you have no control over whatever it is that is destroying your life is what you need to do.
Marc:And that is the crux of it.
Marc:But I do know, this is the thing that I'm getting to.
Marc:is that some people are very protective of the program, very protective of AA, and I knew this was gonna be an issue a bit.
Marc:I'm very public about my sobriety.
Marc:I'm also very public about not being a spokesperson, not representing the program.
Marc:Look, if it works, it works.
Marc:If it doesn't, it doesn't.
Marc:I do know it's free.
Marc:I do know there's all kinds of meetings in every fucking town in this country, and you can go to one and just sit there and not say nothing to nobody.
Marc:So I get this email.
Marc:Subject line, no subject line.
Marc:WTF, what the fuck is with all the AA stuff you used in the show?
Marc:You should be a better custodian of our literature.
Marc:Go ahead and make fun of the rehab bullshit.
Marc:You could have done it without showing the text in conjunction with your show.
Marc:Have been a big fan, Fred L.
Marc:There are people that are very protective of the system and the traditions of AA, and I understand that.
Marc:I understand the tradition.
Marc:The tradition is it shouldn't be involved in radio or film.
Marc:It should not be promoted.
Marc:It should not be involved.
Marc:It's an anonymous culture, an anonymous program, and you need to protect the program.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:So I wrote back sensitively, kick me out.
Marc:And then I thought better of that.
Marc:And then I wrote again, it all helps people.
Marc:The program is culturally relevant.
Marc:I didn't mention AA.
Marc:I do more outreach and get more feedback and help more people by being openly sober.
Marc:I don't claim to be a representative of the program or a spokesman or even that specific.
Marc:I understand the tradition.
Marc:I also understand the problem.
Marc:You be the custodian.
Marc:You or I will be what I am.
Marc:And the program will go on forever.
Marc:And even right now, I shouldn't be talking about it.
Marc:But there's a lot of people out there that need help.
Marc:And I do know that these meetings are free.
Marc:They ask nothing of you other than to show up because you're in a bad place.
Marc:But like right after I got his email, like I get a lot of emails about this, you know, and I never set out on this show to help anybody do anything but myself in a lot of ways just to speak openly about what's going on with me and whatever my struggles are.
Marc:And obviously that helps people when you hear other people talk about stuff.
Marc:That's how people, you know, feel connected and feel new things in their brains and make new decisions and listen to new things and have a life that is engaged, you know, to other people.
Marc:So there are two emails here.
Marc:It's hard, man.
Marc:It's hard.
Marc:Life is hard on its own.
Marc:But I got this email, which is heartbreaking.
Marc:Mark, I'm watching the newest episode of your show.
Marc:It's very entertaining.
Marc:My wife and I have been fans for years.
Marc:We lived outside of Fort Worth in a senior stand-up in San Antonio in Oklahoma City.
Marc:She passed away two weeks ago on April 20th at the age of 37.
Marc:I don't know why I'm writing this to you right now, except to say that I don't know what to do.
Marc:Ultimately, alcohol took her life, and I am drinking as I write this.
Marc:Everyone in my family avoids the reality of how and why she died.
Marc:I don't have anyone to talk to because I think they all blame me for not fixing her.
Marc:I don't expect a response to this email.
Marc:I just feel like I need to write down my guilt.
Marc:i'm considering aa and grief counseling but i'm having a hard time getting through each day i'm going to go back to watching your show and she and i were very much looking forward to it after the last season she's not here anymore and so yeah i want i want that guy to get help and you know and you know i just want generally i just want people to know that look it may or may not work whatever it is that you do but jesus you know try and
Marc:Try something.
Marc:Try.
Marc:Don't fall into yourself.
Marc:Don't insulate yourself.
Marc:You know, there's definitely help out there.
Marc:And then this one came right after that.
Marc:Hey, I'm a what the furniture mover other shit.
Marc:I feel the need to say that you helped me look up.
Marc:I had lost hope for about 15 years in my random drug addictions.
Marc:You helped me believe that there is something else out there for me.
Marc:I have tons of hobbies and talents and I've recently rebegan investing my thoughts and time into my new future.
Marc:I'm putting eggs in all my baskets and I have hope.
Marc:You help me feel like it's at least possible.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:You're welcome.
Marc:It's hard.
Marc:And that's one of the reasons why I did this season like I did it.
Marc:Could happen to anybody.
Marc:I still just come out here to the garage and do this thing.
Marc:And I live my little life with my little neurotic problems.
Marc:So when I get these emails of the effect the show has on people or that, it's just like I want to share them with you because there is some sort of community and there is some sort of, you know, real struggle going on out there for a lot of people.
Marc:But I wanted to read this.
Marc:What the fuck, Canadians, surviving wildfires in Fort McMurray.
Marc:Also the term, what the fuck, another for you Canadians.
Marc:Hey, Mark, if you haven't heard, there was a wildfire that pretty much took out the entire town of Fort McMurray, Alberta.
Marc:Population 80,000.
Marc:Myself, along with my wife, four-month-old daughter and dog, had to evacuate from our home without any notice as our backyard and surrounding area was set ablaze in a matter of minutes.
Marc:We could not find our cat and sadly had to leave her behind.
Marc:while getting the family in the car safely and pulling away, watching our house slash neighborhood go up in flames.
Marc:I just wanted you to know that your podcast is helping us get through these difficult times, letting our minds fade out and thinking about something else for a change.
Marc:Keep up the good work, Mark, and thanks again.
Marc:Loyal Fucknadian Kevin.
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Marc:That thing was brutal.
Marc:And I just thought I'd take it upon myself here to say that if you want to help out, there's a lot of people that have been displaced.
Marc:Redcross.ca is the Red Cross in Canada.
Marc:You can help out.
Marc:And the E-E-R-S-S.org, Edmonton Emergency Relief Services.
Marc:But just know that whatever your day is today, most of you,
Marc:it's going to be okay and i didn't want it to be a downer and i'm not trying to be a downer i'm okay things are you guys most of you are good but i just want you to know there's there's help on the way there's help available you know there is a way to to sort of uh kind of you know do what you need to do to get by but also to lead a little better life jesus christ what's becoming of me oh my god
Marc:My heart is overwhelming me.
Marc:Jeez.
Marc:Let's get to me and Dan Pashman.
Marc:If you haven't heard Dan Pashman on here before, we go way back.
Marc:We used to work together on the radio and argue about bullshit.
Marc:Now Dan has turned that into a job.
Marc:You can hear him doing his thing on his podcast, The Sportful.
Marc:He just had Maria Bamford on, so you can go check that out.
Marc:And when he's out here in L.A., I always like to have him come over so we can pick up where we left off.
Marc:It's an ongoing argument about bullshit with me and Pashman.
Marc:So this is me and Dan.
Marc:Yeah, you got pretty excited there, Dan.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You were like, oh, and you ran into the house.
Marc:So now you've got a plan.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I didn't have a plan.
Guest:It wasn't a plan.
Guest:I didn't have a plan until it appeared in my head just now.
Marc:We're drinking coffee and you're like, oh shit, I got an idea.
Guest:We were talking about the taste of the coffee and the ratios of coffee to water and water temperature and we were nerding out.
Guest:And we did this episode of The Sporkful a little while ago about how sound affects the eating and drinking experience.
Guest:And there's an experiment you can do.
Marc:I want to eat my way away from your voice right now.
Guest:This could be a new diet.
Marc:I just know that there's food inside and I'm listening to you.
Marc:So why'd you get the computer?
Guest:Okay, so it turns out that the background music
Guest:that you're listening to at a given time can affect how something tastes.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Is that proof?
Marc:Do you have proof?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Is there proof?
Guest:Well, we're gonna do an experiment right now.
Guest:Valid proof?
Marc:Okay, fine.
Guest:Charles Spence, researcher at University of Oxford, England.
Guest:Are you gonna play copywritten music?
Guest:No.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Charles gave me the permission to play this music.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Okay, here's what I want you to do.
Marc:I want you to- Should I take my nicotine lozenge out?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:All right.
Guest:Take a sip of coffee and hold the coffee in your mouth.
Guest:And as you do, I want you to really think carefully.
Guest:And listeners can do this at home as well.
Guest:Think carefully about how sweet or bitter.
Marc:People have that kind of time.
Marc:People like me and Dan.
Marc:You want us to give you a second?
Guest:Because this podcast is really for people who are short on time.
Guest:Come on now, Mark.
Marc:Do you have a second?
Marc:Do you have your coffee?
Marc:Go get your coffee.
Guest:You ready?
Marc:I'm ready.
Guest:Take a sip and hold the coffee in your mouth for a second and really think about how sweet or bitter the coffee tastes.
Guest:Hold it in your mouth, think about it.
Guest:Try to give it sort of a rating in your mind of how sweet or bitter the coffee is.
Marc:Do I need a number rating?
Guest:No, but just try to peg it in your mind.
Guest:Okay, now I want you to take another sip and hold it in your mouth and keep it in your mouth as I play this music.
Guest:Okay, play it.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Guest:How did that affect the flavor?
Marc:It dulled it.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:All right, interesting.
Guest:You ready for the next one?
Marc:Why, is there a right answer?
Guest:I wouldn't say right answer, but take another, put the coffee back in your mouth, take another sip.
Marc:I'm drinking this fast now.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Take a little sip, hold the coffee in your mouth, think about how sweet or bitter it is, and listen to this.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:What happened?
Marc:It made it a little tarter, a little sharper, a little like, you know, it lit it up a little bit.
Marc:Like the first one kind of made it, it flattened it, and the second one kind of sparked it up a little.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You see that it made a difference.
Marc:Okay, so how does this apply to my fucking life?
Marc:What am I supposed to look out for in the future?
Guest:What do we learn?
Guest:Typically, lower-pitched music will make things—this works with chocolate, too.
Guest:Lower-pitched music will make it taste more bitter, and higher-pitched music will make it taste a little sweeter.
Guest:And some scientists think that this may be a way to get people to make things taste sweeter or fattier while reducing the amount of sugar in it.
Marc:But does this mean that you now become the guy at Starbucks who when they have something on the music inside, you're like, hey, you know, this music's really making your already bitter, burnt, shitty coffee really taste even worse.
Marc:Like, I can't drink it.
Marc:So could you turn off the Kurt Vile, please?
Guest:And put up something a little more upbeat?
Guest:Yeah, this could make you into that person.
Guest:But like, you know, it's something that restaurants should think about.
Guest:I just think it's interesting.
Marc:So now we're doing this for restaurants?
Yeah.
Marc:maybe or for the way people eat you know like it could allow people to make healthier food that still tastes as decadent as ever oh I see so your approach is this is a healthy approach so if you pick the right sort of droning shitty music you might be able to eat something that is not as good as you as it should be and it'll taste better if you're sitting there alone eating say you know diet ice cream but the music is like like this is sweeter
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like imagine if you opened up your shitty diet ice cream and when you opened up the lid, you heard this.
Guest:Pretty soon you just have an association that it was sweeter and it would taste better to you.
Marc:Yeah, and I also want each flavor to have a different... Right, right.
Marc:That's good branding right there.
Marc:What are you doing out here?
Guest:I'm going to a conference.
Guest:That was the main reason.
Marc:What kind of conference does Dan Pashman go to?
Guest:Well, this is International Association of Culinary Professionals, and they're having a special panel on food podcasters.
Guest:So I was one of the food podcasters they asked to come.
Marc:Are you a preeminent food podcaster now?
Guest:I guess you could probably say that.
Guest:Sure, I'll take that.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I was asking.
Guest:Well, it's awkward to say it for yourself.
Guest:If someone said to you, are you a preeminent comedy podcast?
Marc:You want me to do it more radio-like?
Marc:Oh, so here, I'll do it more radio-like.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, so you're here because as a preeminent food podcaster, you've been asked to be on a panel?
Guest:Yes, well, that's quite right, Mark.
Guest:Yes, thank you.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Marc:All right, so what's going on?
Guest:So, yeah, I mean, I've been pretty busy.
Guest:We just finished up.
Guest:I was starting to tell you in your house this big series we did.
Guest:I would love to hear your take on it about food and culture and race.
Guest:We did it on the Sporkful.
Marc:It feels dicey.
Marc:It already feels like we're going to get in trouble.
Guest:Well, exactly.
Marc:Are you calling food names?
Guest:Well, it's funny because leading up to the series, a lot of people were saying to me, they're like, are you nervous?
Guest:And I was like, I wasn't nervous until everyone started asking me that.
Guest:But you were playing me that Linda Ronstadt record in your house and talking about how like, why doesn't, like what you were saying, like,
Marc:Why does this sound so fucking good?
Marc:Whereas if you listen to new folk music, like it was Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Ponies, which was a folk trio where she was just too big, I think, a talent for folk music in general.
Marc:Not that there aren't talented folk people, but she was too, there was something about her that obviously was destined to go somewhere else.
Marc:But even the folk music sounded better than what I would hear today.
Marc:And my argument was with a lot of stuff, and this is not being old guy or at all,
Marc:sort of closed-minded is that they were closer to the source.
Marc:It was a new thing, you know, like young white kids doing folk music, you know, kind of that first or maybe towards the end of that first wave of folk revival.
Marc:So closer to the source, I think, was what you picked up on.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And so, like, this is one of the things we talked about in the series is, like, what happens when people start messing with food that isn't food from a culture other than their own?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sometimes it's confusing or people that want to fuse other cultures with, you know, like this is Polish tapas.
Marc:No, that's just that's a pierogi with the wrong sauce.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But like what happens when especially when it's a white person who is messing with and changing around a food associated with it?
Marc:people of color well having had experience with this myself in that you know there was a period there where i was so taken with indian food that i wanted to make it and you know back when i lived in san francisco i've gone through a couple waves of this actually where you want to try to do something like you get the uh i got mudhar jaffe's book and i also got uh to count what's her name uh the other big uh indian chef the old school one
Marc:Julie Sani.
Marc:Yes, Julie Sani.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Then you run into this weird thing as a non-Indian person who went to these restaurants.
Marc:You can make a tandoori marinade, but you don't have a tandoori oven and you do not have the skill set that would enable you to make it authentically.
Marc:And what makes something good that is a cultural cuisine or an ethnic cuisine is that you're usually dealing with a kitchen that is equipped and has been seasoned to make that kind of food and people that know what they're doing to make it.
Marc:So to really capture that's going to be different.
Marc:So a lot of times, I guess my point is that as somebody who's trying to to do it themselves, it's obviously going to be inferior or different because you can't make it authentically just by nature of who you are unless you've studied it.
Guest:But in that analogy, you are the modern day folk singer.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Guest:Because you are like too far removed from the source to render it well.
Guest:Whereas Linda Ronstadt is someone who maybe is an Indian American first generation immigrant whose parents were born in India, who grew up still traveling to India, whose parents cooked Indian food in their house.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:But I think the source is different because that's sort of a time thing like like like.
Marc:Like cuisine or traditional cooking is something that, you know, is what it is.
Marc:Like it'll stay the same if somebody makes it correctly.
Marc:Whereas music is sort of like things change, you know, amplification, guitars, you know, people's distance from it.
Guest:But food changes to be, you know.
Guest:But not really.
Guest:New equipment gets discovered, recipes get changed, people move around the world and they combine spices.
Marc:Fine, but I'm just saying that the analogy, the source is always going to be ever present with cuisine.
Marc:Whereas with music, a lot of those people die.
Marc:You know, like the source is dead now.
Marc:Do you understand?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like the cuisine has a life of its own.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Does that make sense to you?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I mean, I don't 100% agree because I feel like I think.
Marc:Here we go.
Marc:What is so hard to understand?
Guest:I just think that there's, you know, I think we have this idea that like whatever the present is, that there's this, sometimes there's a sensibility like, oh, it's always been this way.
Guest:And now someone's coming along and changing it.
Guest:You know, like people in Mexico, some Mexican people would say that mole is like has been mole in Mexico for thousands of years, but it hasn't been the same for thousands of years.
Guest:And actually some of it has some root ingredients have been.
Guest:But 50 percent of the ingredients of mole came from other parts of the world.
Guest:They came from South Asia.
Marc:OK, so let's say let's say 100 years.
Marc:That's still longer than, you know, than Woody Guthrie.
Guest:There are many restaurants.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the point is, like, which one was the true one?
Marc:The one that's really hard to digest.
Marc:Have you been to Oaxaca?
Marc:Have you eaten real mole?
Marc:I have not.
Marc:It's a little rough going, dude.
Marc:Comes with a side of grasshoppers.
Marc:I'm not fucking kidding.
Marc:I ate them all.
Marc:I enjoyed it.
Marc:I took it in.
Marc:I had mole in Oaxaca.
Marc:I think that original mole has a fairly big lard component.
Marc:So I think that some things are shifted because of availability and just sort of like, who the fuck wants to cook with lard?
Guest:It's rough.
Guest:But that's another issue.
Guest:So let's say, so one of the things we talk about in this series, Reno Rick Bayless.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Famous celebrity chef.
Marc:I like his restaurants.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:I love his one.
Marc:I actually love his restaurant in the Chicago airport.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:He does the Mexican food, right?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:The Torte restaurant.
Marc:I look forward to flying America into Chicago so I can go get his Cubano sandwich with Torte.
Guest:I'm sure he'll appreciate that.
Marc:I've talked to him on Twitter.
Marc:Have you?
Marc:I've eaten his other restaurants.
Marc:He's good.
Guest:And his restaurants are very popular.
Guest:And he's someone who has studied deeply Mexican food and culture and spent years living there.
Guest:I trust him with it.
Guest:But there are also those Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who are like, screw this guy, Rick Bayless.
Guest:He's ripping off our food.
Guest:He's getting rich off of our food.
Guest:Are there those people?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Like there's a unified front against Rick Bayless?
Guest:Unified is a strong word, but he has faced a persistent criticism throughout his career.
Guest:um that he especially because he is very rich and so on top of that and he puts himself forward as an authority in this cuisine he makes a lot of money off the cuisine yeah and there are people who feel like there are a lot of mexican grandmothers who can cook as well or better as he can and they get nothing but does he ever bring up the fact that like he's got mexicans cooking in the kitchen
Guest:He does.
Guest:Oh, God, that's horrible.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Pedro's making this stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I asked him in the interview if he ever thinks that it's to his advantage to be white.
Guest:And there was this really awkward, long silence.
Guest:And then he said he had never thought about it.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You changed his life.
Marc:Now he's going to quit cooking Mexican food.
Guest:Yeah, unlikely.
Guest:But he wasn't happy with some of the line of questioning.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You got controversial.
Marc:Well, that's the thing.
Marc:Sometimes I go up to...
Marc:to Cacao Mexicatessen up on Colorado, which does a very refined, in a way, refined Mexican food.
Marc:But it's Mexican-owned and operated, but they've taken it to another level.
Marc:Like they have duck tacos and things like that, but they make all their tortillas there.
Marc:But then if I want to get dirty Mexican food, and I say that with love, I go down to Huarache Azteca where they make the Huaraches, but they make them from scratch as well.
Marc:That's like a sandal-shaped, thicker tortilla where you put stuff on it.
Marc:But it's definitely a different experience, but they're both Mexican.
Guest:But what's interesting is the way you said, you know, the duck taco place has, quote unquote, taken it to another level.
Marc:Well, they have because they, yeah, they do.
Guest:They've added a level of sophistication.
Marc:They have, yes.
Marc:But in a very Mexican way.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:It's got nothing to do with Rick Bayless.
Marc:Maybe it's a statement against, it's actually, he's spearheading the movement against Rick Bayless.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:The guy at Cacao.
Guest:I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong answer.
Guest:It's something we explore in this series.
Marc:I think cuisine evolves and that people bring stuff.
Marc:Like I've had Amplified and, you know, like it's like barbecue.
Marc:Like now every asshole in the world opens a goddamn barbecue restaurant, but I'll only eat barbecue at a couple of places in Austin and a couple of places in the more formal South.
Marc:because I feel that they're authentic places.
Marc:So if you want authentic food, you can go to these places that take it to a different level if they're rooted in the authenticity of the cuisine.
Marc:And I think somebody like Bayless, I trust him to have done his homework and I like his food.
Marc:And yes, it makes me a little uncomfortable that maybe he's making a lot of money, but in the sense that I understand the issue.
Marc:But the thing is, is that he did his research.
Marc:He respects the cuisine.
Marc:And I would imagine that
Marc:You know, not unlike anywhere else that if you go to a fancy or Mexican place, I would imagine like some Mexicans would go to Rick Bales and goes, this isn't good.
Marc:Why'd he ruin it with this thing?
Marc:What is this?
Marc:What is this sauce?
Guest:Right.
Marc:It's like Jew food.
Marc:You know, you don't want any, just anybody, you know, making a Jewish soup.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But, right, I don't think that there's, you know, we didn't set out to have like a clear yes or no, right or wrong answer.
Guest:I think it's complicated.
Guest:I think it's true that food is always evolving, like you say.
Guest:And I think even the term authentic is kind of problematic because what's the one true authentic?
Guest:And I talked to one cookbook author who said she was trying to do a recipe for a cookbook about this Indian dish, russum, and she couldn't get the people in her family to agree on what the recipe was.
Guest:So she's like, so what's the authentic way to do it, you know?
Marc:But there's authentic things that are carried down traditionally.
Marc:And who the hell knows, four generations ago, if your grandma decided to replace schmaltz with butter, you know, it's just the way it's made in your family.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the point is that things are always changing.
Guest:So I agree that things are always changing.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But what I learned in this series is that, like, food is such a stand in for identity and a lot of the tensions that exist just over general issues of inequality.
Mm hmm.
Guest:manifest themselves in food.
Guest:And foods assimilate into American culture in parallel with the people who bring them.
Guest:And so, for instance, Mark, why do you think it is that we pay more for Italian food than Mexican food, typically?
Marc:That's a good question.
Marc:I'm going to go with ingredients.
Guest:Well, I talked to a professor who studied this and he said that it is more because we have a perception of a certain person.
Guest:We think of Mexicans as being relatively impoverished new immigrants.
Guest:So we downgrade our perception of their culture and their food.
Guest:Italian immigrants have assimilated.
Marc:And so they- But it's sort of like the, I get what you're saying, but it's sort of like the difference between Huarache Azteca and cacao.
Marc:It's like cacao, you're going to spend a little change.
Marc:You're going to spend some money.
Marc:Huarache Azteca, me and three friends can go and spend $12.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But a cacao would be like $45, right?
Marc:But it's also the same.
Marc:It's sort of like I could go get a pizza and a shitty sub for $7, whereas if I go to Asteria Angelini on Beverly, I'm going to spend $70.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yes, but I think that in most places in America, that higher end Mexican place doesn't exist yet.
Marc:But there's also a difference in cuisines.
Marc:You know, there is high end Mexican food, you know, like a mole dish or a chicken dish, the stuff that isn't tortilla based.
Marc:There's that, too, that we're talking about.
Marc:You know, you get a, you know, an ace buco is different than a fucking eggplant parmesan, if you know what I'm saying.
Guest:Yeah, but there are a lot of Italian restaurants in America that would charge 15 or 20 bucks for a plate of pasta.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's not all that expensive.
Marc:It's not enough of a good Italian here.
Marc:But that's besides the point.
Marc:So the Sporkful is available.
Marc:You can listen to it on iTunes and WNYC.
Guest:Yeah, wherever you get your podcasts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you feel good about what we did here?
Guest:I feel really good about it.
Marc:Thanks, Dan.
Marc:It was always nice to see you.
Marc:And you know that when I'm mean to you, it's all in good fun for the most part.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:See that?
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:I like seeing Dan.
Marc:I like Dan's laugh.
Marc:He's got an award-winning laugh.
Marc:Let's get on to Clark Gregg.
Marc:I was sort of fascinated with Clark Gregg.
Marc:That's why he's on the show.
Marc:I see him around.
Marc:I'm like, I like that guy.
Marc:I like that guy.
Marc:What's that guy about?
Marc:So now we can find out.
Marc:Clark is on Marvel's Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., which airs Tuesday nights on ABC.
Marc:Next week is the season finale.
Marc:This is me and Clark Gregg.
Marc:So, you're one of those guys, man.
Marc:You're one of those guys where you- Oh, Jesus.
Marc:That could be nine different categories.
Marc:No, it's a good category.
Marc:The category I have- Sociopaths?
Marc:Which one of those?
Marc:No, you're one of those guys where you're watching a movie or TV show and you go, hey, there's that guy.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:That's that guy.
Marc:He's in this thing too.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And now he's not funny.
Marc:He's serious and scary in this one.
Marc:I hope that was one of the ones where I wasn't supposed to be funny.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:You can do fucking everything.
Marc:You're like a real like working class actor guy.
Marc:Thanks, Mark.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I just talking to somebody recently who said like, there aren't those guys anymore.
Marc:I'm like, no, there's a few of them.
Marc:I think it was actually Rockwell who you directed.
Guest:I love that guy.
Marc:Great guy.
Guest:Great guy.
Guest:I just talked to him a few days ago.
Guest:Yeah, sneakily one of the great actors.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I mean, not that sneakily, but I think one of the truly towering.
Marc:Yeah, and it's an interesting thing about him where you're like, you know, he decides against doing projects that, you know, won't necessarily represent him well, even though there's some big bread involved.
Marc:Like, I think he could have been a huge movie star.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:He's just too interesting.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:But he's become a friend.
Guest:I've known him a long time.
Guest:And you directed him, right?
Guest:I directed him a couple of times.
Guest:We did a play together years ago.
Guest:What play?
Guest:It was a play called Unidentified Human Remains.
Guest:In New York.
Guest:And the True Nature of Love.
Guest:It's a long title.
Guest:Oh, sorry.
Guest:It was in New York.
Guest:It was a Canadian import via Chicago.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I think everyone else in the cast had been in it in Chicago, except for Sam and I. They lost a couple of people or replaced them, I don't know, in Sam and I. So you guys were acting together.
Guest:We were acting together.
Guest:What year are we talking?
Guest:It was called The Naked Play.
Guest:Everybody was naked on stage.
Guest:You did that?
Guest:I think the pitch was my character turned out to be a serial killer.
Guest:One of those guys.
Guest:And so they said, you're not naked.
Guest:It's our first hint that this guy's got some things he's hiding.
Guest:You're the only not naked guy?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I know that theater.
Guest:It's damn cold and this is winter, so I'm not bummed.
Guest:Which theater?
Guest:The Orpheum on Second Avenue.
Guest:It was two blocks from my house and I was still late sometimes.
Guest:Although the director was a bit of a drinker and a bit of a lech.
Guest:And at a certain point he decided that he'd made a terrible mistake suggesting that I could keep my clothes on.
Guest:He said, darling, darling, we need to see more of your cock.
Guest:And I was like, hey, Derek, pal, we had a deal going in here.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:So that was a life in theater.
Marc:What year was that?
Guest:Boy, let me try to do the math on that one.
Guest:That's got to be 89.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:89, 90.
Marc:So that was before anything, right?
Marc:That was right at the beginning for you, basically.
Guest:Yeah, I'd done a couple of jobs in New York with a theater company I helped form called The Atlantic.
Guest:With Mamet?
Guest:Mamet and Macy, yeah.
Guest:Mamet and Macy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You helped form that?
Guest:Felicity Huffman.
Guest:I did.
Guest:They really formed it more than any of us.
Guest:So let's go back though.
Marc:Where'd you come from?
Marc:How'd you get into this racket?
Marc:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:My dad is a professor and an Episcopalian clergyman.
Guest:Episcopalian, that's not a hard liner, right?
Guest:No, it's kind of waspy, post-Catholic.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Shares a lot of the traits of that liturgy, but it's very, hey man, it's okay.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, it's okay.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:No blood.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:It's all good.
Guest:Is there hell?
Guest:Sure, they talk about it.
Guest:In that tone?
Guest:Nobody's too concerned about it.
Guest:No.
Guest:How are we going to hell?
Guest:We're in Volvos.
Guest:But where'd you grow up with him?
Guest:We moved around a lot.
Guest:It's the short answer.
Guest:Really?
Guest:The first thing I remember, I was born in Cambridge because he was doing grand school at Harvard.
Marc:At Harvard Divinity?
Guest:I think so yeah that's nice pretty yeah I mean I was tiny and then he was the chaplain at St.
Guest:George's prep school in Newport Rhode Island oh really fancy and then he went to Brown for some more grad school so we moved to Providence this is high level shit this is high level Episcopalianism yes I was a faculty rat kid had a lot of nice schools
Guest:yeah and uh where via pen um a seminary at northwestern he taught at in chicago and then uh good cities man north carolina raleigh chapel hill close chapel hill to live because he taught at duke wow that's pretty the only the only one that was a little questionable is rhode island uh the where brown is isn't brown in rhode island yeah providence yeah it's a rough town
Marc:It's gotten nicer.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:I mean, 20 years ago when I was there, I thought, hey, this is nicer.
Marc:All I know is my car got stolen there once, and I've never felt the same about it.
Marc:It could have happened anymore, but it happened there.
Guest:That can color your perception of the town.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Definitely.
Guest:There's a lot of things to do, and that's pretty high on the list.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Car stolen, injured.
Guest:Those two things.
Guest:What, when you were doing a stand-up gig?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I was doing a stand-up gig.
Guest:What's the comedy place called in Providence?
Marc:Back then, it was called Periwinkle's.
Marc:Perry Winkles was in like an old... It was in Davio Square, which I can't believe I'm remembering this because I don't remember shit.
Marc:You don't go back there anymore.
Marc:No, I haven't been there in decades.
Marc:But it had all kinds of paintings on the wall of these comics.
Marc:And it was in a mall and it was a pretty good comedy room.
Marc:But I remember I left... I don't know.
Marc:I think I got too fucked up.
Marc:And what happened was...
Marc:i i i went back home like i left my car to go get it the next day so i didn't get in trouble you know i was living in boston and i came back and there was no car and it wasn't towed it was gone it was stolen kind of my fault i know that feeling i was upset about the jacket that was in the car more than the actual car exactly you know that feeling yeah were you a booze guy i was oh yeah i
Guest:I was boozed to get to the place where I could rationalize the drugs.
Guest:Oh, what was your drug?
Guest:All of them.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:When did that start?
Guest:Before the acting?
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:It's the miracle the acting ever happened.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:I was functional.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was very functional.
Guest:You managed.
Guest:Managed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For a long time.
Guest:Got up.
Marc:You knew exactly how much weed that you had to smoke.
Marc:No, I didn't like weed.
Marc:No, you didn't like weed.
Marc:Booze and drugs.
Guest:Booze and drugs.
Marc:Hardcore.
Guest:Weed made me really paranoid.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:How long you got?
20.
Guest:12 and a half oh yeah 12 and a half years i got 16 good for you isn't that fucking crazy it's nuts i can't believe i there's like they have pot now that's like so beautiful that i never experienced that no i miss pot i don't see those those stores when everyone's so gleefully yeah getting their pharmaceutical and it's just i'm like oh thank god that wasn't i can just imagine how meth
Guest:it was just acid and marijuana were the same to me wow acid you're an acid guy no no that scared the crap out of me too except a couple of times that were really amazing yeah me too right there was like there was like four trips two of them were good yeah the other two i was quite panicked and i didn't know if my friends liked me right every you know when when you're tripping and everything turns on you i think i was i think i got a hold of that dose same sheet yeah
Marc:So you're running around doing academia with your dad.
Marc:You have other siblings?
Marc:Yeah, I'm the oldest of four.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So how old are you?
Marc:My age?
Guest:54 last weekend.
Marc:Is it scary or is it good for you?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Let's talk about... What?
Guest:Yeah, it's funny.
Guest:I had a couple of moments this weekend on my 54th birthday where I went... Happy birthday.
Guest:This is getting a little scary.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Marc:right you're looking this getting these are big numbers they're big numbers and you start hearing about buddies who are like yeah i'm sick and you're like oh shit yeah guys are going down people going down lately yeah i know dude they're a little older than us i know but it's still it's not all of them no i know
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So how do you manage that being a progeny of clergy?
Marc:Do you have a functioning spiritual system in place that enables you to transcend the terrorizing fear of mortality?
Guest:No.
Guest:It's very taped together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I find it from a lot of sources.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I do?
Marc:I don't think about it.
Marc:you don't i try not to i don't believe you no i can't handle it you know when i think about it dread you have a dread shield no i i put my dread onto other things i'm very good at dreading the mundane oh you do the dread channeling sure dread channeling dread deflection uh-huh okay i'm gonna try that it's good it's good just move the dread of mortality onto like ah fuck i gotta get up you know like or yeah i gotta do a thing
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I try not to think about it.
Marc:When it creeps up on me is when I'm falling asleep.
Marc:I'm just laying there, and there's that moment where I go, am I going to wake up?
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That's when it hits me.
Guest:Oh, I start to go to sleep, and I think, I really shouldn't be wasting this time.
Guest:There's not that much left.
Guest:Well, fortunately, you sleep less when you're older.
Guest:Did you notice that?
Guest:I know this from last night.
Guest:This is why I made you just make me some coffee because I just... Woke up?
Guest:I didn't pull off the sleeping so good last night.
Marc:Me neither, buddy.
Marc:So we're both a little groggy.
Marc:We're having coffee.
Marc:We're talking about death 10 minutes in.
Marc:It's already great.
Guest:We don't mess around.
Guest:I was thinking about this anyway.
Guest:There's something kind of freeing about it.
Marc:No, there is.
Marc:I don't...
Marc:I don't know what to do with it, really.
Marc:You know, because I think that life is good.
Marc:And, you know, things are going pretty well for me.
Marc:But it's hard for me not to get to think it's some kind of jip in some way.
Marc:Like, you know, right when you get good.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Like, look at yourself.
Marc:You're working.
Marc:You got, you know, recurring roles on television, on The Shield, right?
Marc:I feel great.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you're doing these big movies, the Iron Man movies.
Marc:People know you as the guy.
Marc:And then, you know, you feel great about everything.
Marc:And then you're like, well, this shit, I want this to go on for a while.
Marc:Why is it right now?
Marc:Why couldn't I have the dexterity in the body of a 20-year-old?
Marc:But I guess that's stupid.
Marc:I don't ever think I want to go back.
Marc:I think I'm better off now.
Guest:No, I don't.
Guest:It took me a long enough time to arrive at places like a happy marriage and having a kid and working consistently that I really appreciate it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're old enough and humbled enough to appreciate it.
Guest:I didn't really think any of this stuff was going to happen.
Guest:I definitely kind of looked into the abyss of, oh, yeah, no.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I'm going to be parking cars for somebody into my 50s.
Guest:When did you get married?
Guest:It'll be 15 years this summer.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So you were like late 30s?
Guest:Yeah, late 30s.
Guest:That's not bad.
Guest:No, it's good.
Marc:I thought of it that way.
Guest:Yeah, this is the right time.
Guest:Okay, good.
Guest:I've been out there.
Guest:Yeah, I've done it.
Guest:I've had enough seasons.
Guest:I'm really ready to quit.
Guest:And also, if you wait till later, you think, well, this is finite.
Guest:I mean, I don't think I could actually be with somebody for 50 years without them wanting to kill me, but I feel like I could remain tolerable and tolerant for the finite period of like 30, 40 years.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And he married an actress with an actor father.
Marc:Indeed.
Guest:Jennifer Grey and her father, Joel Grey.
Marc:Jews.
Marc:Top notch.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Top notch.
Marc:They have brought me into the fold, I would say.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a lot of Jewishness.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I come from Jews.
Marc:Do you?
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:So is that exciting, being an Episcopalian wasp now being integrated into a very emotional, I imagine, and talkative bunch?
Yeah.
Guest:You know, as I said, I had really gotten involved with David Mamet and the theater company in New York and the theater community in New York for 20 years.
Guest:So, no, it felt like kind of, ah, I'm home.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Very early on, my wife said, I'm going to Temple for high holidays.
Guest:I really want you to come.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like,
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I mean, I have outsider problems.
Guest:The weird thing is, even when I was at Episcopal churches, I always felt like a freakish outsider.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it's going to be even more upsetting to feel like I don't belong at your temple.
Guest:But then I found I really dug with the rabbi I had to say, and now I go by myself.
Guest:I'm like, honey, do you want to go with me?
Guest:I'm going to shul.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she says, no, no.
Guest:Just on a Friday?
Guest:Saturday.
Marc:Oh, you go on Saturday morning?
Marc:Torah study in the morning.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, but you didn't convert.
Marc:You just go.
Marc:I didn't.
Guest:I mentioned it to this rabbi.
Guest:I said, I feel like I kind of want to, you know, you say, on the one hand, he said, you know, it's like water.
Guest:Just wade in whatever you're comfortable with.
Guest:And probably 10 years into doing this, I said, do you?
Guest:I feel like I had to maybe, you know, talk about making this official.
Guest:You know, I feel like if I really want to be committed to something.
Guest:And he said, you know, you've been coming for years.
Guest:So I feel like you're already Jewish.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I was like, I feel like I'm Jewish.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's still something I'm talking about.
Guest:But if I do something, I feel like I tend to be kind of... All in?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I want to.
Guest:I would really want to get some Hebrew down.
Guest:You're not going to use it.
Guest:It's like algebra.
Guest:I already know so many songs and prayers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Phonetically.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Well, that's about all you're going to get.
Marc:But I'd like to know what I'm saying.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I mean, I did that for my bar mitzvah and I learned all the songs and I can maybe read some Hebrew now, but I couldn't translate it for you.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It goes away?
Marc:It never was there.
Guest:Okay, you talked me out of it.
Guest:I'm not going to do a bar mitzvah.
Guest:I watched my daughter's bar mitzvah, and she was very impressive, and I don't like that she just lapped me.
Marc:Oh, no, but you could do it.
Marc:You could do it.
Marc:Did you see A Serious Man?
Marc:I did.
Marc:Have you ever auditioned for the Coens?
Guest:I have.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:I have.
Guest:I did a play with Ethan Coen a couple years ago that he wrote for Atlantic in New York, and it was called Happy Hour.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And...
Guest:It was 3-1-X, and I thought it was so funny.
Guest:And people didn't laugh that much.
Guest:I thought it was one of the funniest things I'd ever read.
Marc:Theater's tricky, isn't it?
Marc:I mean, in terms of the audience.
Marc:I mean, who are you really playing for?
Marc:I've gone to see some recent theater, and it's still a pretty old crew.
Marc:that's going to see it on a regular basis.
Marc:It's hard to pull... You're really playing for old New York City, some intellectual, some people are just on a subscription.
Marc:Who is it really going out to?
Guest:It's a funny balance, too, because this was 3-1-X, and the first one was kind of terrifying about a guy who was having a nervous breakdown.
Guest:I'm not sure people could really...
Guest:Work their way back.
Guest:Oh really to the tone of ours at the third and for the third one was so they're sillier.
Marc:They were all different They weren't all Cohen's they all were they were all three plays by Ethan He's a terrific playwright, but he just decided to put the the troubling one first to see if the others could follow I don't know.
Guest:I don't know
Guest:I did audition for a couple of their movies, and I've had this thing where when it's somebody that I'm truly a reverent fan of, not always, but I can choke.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Like the worst auditions I maybe have ever done for the people I admired the most, and I would have to put...
Guest:Joel and Ethan at the top of that list.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:Yeah, and how does that manifest itself when you choke?
Marc:You do your preparation, and then you just get in there, and you're like, oh, fuck, there's Ethan.
Guest:It's a funny thing.
Guest:There's so many variables.
Guest:I'm not a big baseball fan, but it's like you go up to the plate, and you think you really know what you're doing.
Guest:You hit the ball pretty often.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you stand up there, but you just never know what's going to be coming at you.
Guest:You never know how the room's going to feel that day.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Some days you're like, wow, I kind of felt crappy, but they really seem to be eating that up.
Guest:And other days you're just feeling really good.
Guest:And the next thing you know, you're having an out-of-body experience where you're behind yourself in the room watching yourself and you get prickles on your neck.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you just see the guy watching you who is you is saying like, here you go.
Marc:I did it.
Guest:I did it.
Guest:Once I did it, I walked, I said, this is just not happening today.
Guest:I got to go.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I just left.
Guest:Did you get that part?
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:No, the guy looks grateful, frankly.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Was it for a comedy?
Marc:Yeah, a little bit.
Marc:Wait, wait, I want to, before we get away from it, what is it about Torah study?
Marc:What is it about the Torah in general that compels you?
Marc:Because you're a guy that grew up in this.
Guest:I mean, did you study- Yeah, it's a lot of the same stories I listened to.
Marc:From your father and from Episcopalian church?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Old Testament stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Old Testament.
Guest:You hear the Old Testament stuff.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:A little bit more of the focus on the New Testament.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I guess I listened to this rabbi-
Guest:And, of course, I was drawn to him immediately because his name's Rabbi Mordecai Finley.
Guest:So he comes from Irish people who are Jews.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:Yeah, it's true.
Guest:He's an amazing rabbi, actually.
Guest:Reform, conservative?
Guest:A blend, I'm told.
Guest:I don't have a lot to compare it to.
Guest:But there are elements of, I believe, Hasidic traditions that he likes, but it's very reform in terms of... So he's integrating.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is he a young guy?
Yeah.
Guest:I'll say yes, but I think he's about five years older than me, so no.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it's not the Reconstructionist Jews, the sort of hipster Jews, is it?
Guest:No.
Marc:Not that it matters.
Marc:No.
Guest:In fact, I would say that he's married to a wonderful Israeli woman, and I think politically more conservative than I am, certainly.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:There's just a way that he's very, very knowledgeable about kind of social psychology and moral work on yourself in ways that, as a sober person, struck home for me.
Marc:Sure, because we put the sort of framework into ourselves, and the beautiful thing about the program is it's of your understanding.
Marc:So, you know, chip away at it how you will.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah, and he, for example, he would...
Guest:Very early on, I would go to these things and he would talk about Exodus and Passover, the Jews getting out of Egypt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it becomes very personal.
Guest:What's your Egypt?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's the place that you get to this Red Sea and you're like, well, this is kind of scary.
Guest:Let's go back.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And in far more complex terms than that.
Guest:And once it becomes...
Guest:Once all this stuff becomes an intricately examined metaphor for how you become a moral person in the world, suddenly it became very compelling to me.
Marc:That sounds pretty good.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:I feel like going.
Marc:Okay, I'll take you.
Marc:I'm in.
Marc:But it's weird that moral questions are interesting because the only enemy of personal morality is rationalization on some level.
Marc:Talk about that.
Marc:Talk about that?
Marc:Yeah, let me hear you.
Marc:So what do you mean?
Marc:Well, I mean, like it's what you negotiate.
Marc:See, like there is a personal value system that you abide by.
Marc:And if you're not beholden to a real moral structure, you know, everything becomes sort of slippery.
Marc:It's really what you can rationalize and what you can justify and what you can sort of, you know, back burner, you know, but, you know, how you're going to pay for it.
Marc:That becomes something you don't think of.
Marc:And certainly as an addict person, you know, you don't think about the wreckage or you don't think about necessarily, but you have to think about that.
Marc:So part of for me, personal morality is like, you know.
Marc:Did I learn from my mistakes?
Marc:Do I know how to be a decent person, a righteous person in this situation?
Marc:I think in some situations I do.
Marc:Other ones, not so great.
Guest:So few people that I come across seem to carry with them a desire to find out where they went off.
Guest:You know, in relationships, whether professional or personal people...
Guest:when you come across someone who says, you know, I've been thinking about this and I think I wronged you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or you say to them, this didn't feel good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And sometimes they say, well, I'm sorry it didn't feel good.
Guest:Here's what it was from my perspective.
Guest:And you go, oh.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's something this rabbi actually says.
Guest:Just because it feels bad doesn't mean anyone did anything to you.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But sometimes they did.
Guest:And when you come across people who, I don't know, sometimes they're sober people, sometimes they're not.
Guest:Right.
Marc:uh just spiritually evolved people who say i i want to own this i i don't want to be that i don't want to have done that to you yeah yeah i've done a little of that it's kind of cathartic very humbling yeah yeah yeah very yeah is your old man still alive yeah he is uh-huh he just retired a couple years ago from the clergy or from uh from academia
Guest:really more from academia he was the dean of the chapel at stanford for probably 15 20 years and then really focused more on uh writing and being a professor the last days did he write some books he did he wrote a number of has a new one out um and uh shared stories rival tellings is the title he arrived on it used to be called we have that story too and it's remarkable book yeah
Guest:about the stories that are talked about in the quran and the torah and the christian texts oh really because he's got kind of that level of game yeah yeah with art yeah it just came out it's pretty great wow so you grew up in the the deep thinking yeah me no i was it was happening in the house just not in my room
Guest:I was reading comic books.
Marc:Deep thinking downstairs, upstairs, comics.
Marc:Well, when did you start to act?
Marc:What town were you in?
Guest:We were in Chapel Hill.
Guest:I was more of a soccer player, and yet my homeroom teacher was the drama guy.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And I must have been interested in it because I kept grabbing whatever they were doing.
Guest:Hey, let me read a few lines of this, Mr. Curley.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he tortured me into auditioning for something and I did it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What was it?
Guest:Plaza Suite by Neil Simon, where I played the Walter Matthau part at 17.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Funny part.
Guest:It was fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mimsy, come out of the bathroom.
Guest:That's all I remember.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it must have stuck with me because I then went to school in Ohio and
Guest:To play soccer.
Guest:And when that... When I think the more the... The drinking and the drugging kind of became the major.
Guest:Was that where that really started?
Guest:Yeah, it was intense there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I thought I was...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Chapel Hill, North Carolina was a strange place to come of age because it's a huge college party town.
Guest:And so we ended up at frat parties and stuff by 15.
Guest:In high school.
Guest:15, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Kind of trying to keep up with... Yeah, yeah.
Marc:crazy drinking college kids sure yeah no i i grew up with that in university of new mexico you know you got the one high school buddy who knows the frat guy and then you're in is that where you're from i grew up in albuquerque albuquerque i spent some time there you did yeah on a on a shoot the avengers was there oh in that big new complex that big new studio yeah that's nice that wasn't there when i was growing up now they shoot everything there they shoot a lot of stuff there yeah families from jersey grew up in albuquerque third grade through high school i love it
Guest:Wow, I liked it there.
Guest:It's kind of interesting.
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:Yeah, there's parts that are sad, but there's parts that are great.
Marc:It's a beautiful part of the country.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So that was which Avengers movie?
Marc:The first one.
Marc:Just the Avengers.
Guest:The Avengers, yeah.
Guest:I was murdered in the Avengers, but it was really fun and a great script and a great time.
Guest:And then about 10 months later, I got a call saying, you know.
Guest:These are comic books.
Guest:These are comic books.
Yeah.
Guest:And we think you might not be all the way dead.
Guest:And so Joss Whedon and this great guy, Jeff Loeb, and Joss's brother, Jed Whedon, and his really talented wife, Marissa Tancheron Whedon, they made a TV show.
Guest:With another great writer named Jeff Bell called Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., of which the whole first season kind of focused around Agent Coulson didn't really die.
Guest:And then actually by the end of the season, you realize, oh, he did.
Guest:And they use some rather dark stuff to bring him back.
Guest:And he's not right at all.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's the show you're involved with now?
Marc:It's still.
Marc:It's still on?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what season are we in?
Guest:We're shooting the last episode of season three.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you're like heavily employed and you have been for a while.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've been playing this guy for about eight years, I think.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Is it New Adventures of Old Christine that long ago?
Guest:Yes, I think it is.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:Is that right?
Guest:2008?
Guest:No, it overlapped a little bit.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:It overlapped a little bit.
Marc:Two very different roles, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:You're very good at comedy.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:You have a very unique timing.
Marc:You don't stick.
Marc:You've got a persona.
Marc:You're one of those dudes that you seem to honor yourself in the role.
Marc:You transcend the jokes.
Guest:Oh, that really means a lot to me.
Guest:Those are the nicest things to me you could say about someone trying to do comedy.
Marc:Yeah, and it's quirky, and you always stand out in everything you do.
Marc:It's pretty insanely... It's a great attribute.
Guest:Oh, that's really nice.
Guest:I love comedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is more, there's less of it lately in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and I miss it a bit, but it's certainly, the plays we did in New York, they always had a darkness and a comedy, and it's what I'm interested in, and I certainly find in my car I'm listening to comics.
Guest:Oh, are you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On Sirius?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Raw Dog?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I didn't know a lot of those people.
Guest:I never really- Sure.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Went to comedy clubs.
Guest:I'd never heard Mitch Hedberg, for example, until I started listening.
Guest:I went, this guy's incredible.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was great.
Marc:It's a very timeless material.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that's interesting because, you know, as funny as New Adventures of Old Christine was, I mean, there is a darkness to that dynamic.
Marc:I mean, the weird, sad relationship with the ex-husband.
Marc:I mean, it is a weird relationship.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the fact that it was so warm and so sort of congenial against her, you know, her kind of neurotic being.
Marc:It wasn't dark, but I mean.
Guest:No, you're spot on.
Guest:Carrie Leiser, who wrote that show, to me, a genius.
Yeah.
Guest:It wasn't really appreciated until after the show was over.
Guest:It has many more fans now, I think, than when it was on.
Guest:And there's an unsentimentality to what she does.
Guest:And people are very calling each other out all the time.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And you were always like, even in your sort of strange kind of like well-boundaried way, you always showed up for her and there was never any doubt about that.
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, but then she had Wanda Sykes on.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Who I thought was amazing.
Marc:This powerful comedy acting going on on that show.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:And she's, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is like, what a fucking talent.
Marc:I mean, it's like, I don't, it's like beyond.
Marc:She's Hank Aaron.
Marc:I mean, she's.
Marc:It is.
Marc:And I don't know that people really appreciate it as much as they should.
Marc:What a phenomenal, like timeless comic talent that woman is.
Guest:Well, also think about her to go from Seinfeld, which was one very specific kind of also unsentimental comedy, to our show, which was a different... I don't know how you would put that.
Guest:It was a woman's show stuck on a male network in a way.
Guest:And then to go to Veep.
Marc:Yeah, Veep's a trip.
Marc:And still a little bit unsentimental.
Marc:She's always kind of like...
Marc:Neurotically needy and giving in her own way, but sentimentality, there's not a lot of that.
Guest:Fearless.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Maybe that's the word I'm looking for.
Guest:I couldn't believe the stuff I was seeing.
Guest:She just, whatever you want to bring it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whatever's embarrassing or humiliating or personal, that's what I want.
Guest:Yeah, that's where the funny is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you didn't start out initially doing comedy, really.
Marc:Were you?
Marc:Did you find yourself in, it feels to me that you were pretty intense probably at the beginning.
Marc:No.
Guest:yeah oh so we met huh you know the 80s in new york i don't know i guess so we would we had we did our own thing is that where you ended up after college college was myu i left that school in ohio and i just dropped out and moved to new york so i could go to punk clubs and listen to music uh-huh and uh no no real you weren't pursuing the acting thing
Guest:no i know i just went to new york for the summer and went well this is i'm not going back to ohio i'm going to go to the mud club and watch richard hell again yeah yeah yeah you know and uh that was a great time oh it was a great time there was amazing music this was already 82 yeah so richard hell was uh you know through the through the tunnel of the blank generation and stuff yeah but there was still a lot of great music yeah yeah sure go out to music almost every night and
Guest:and uh i just lived there and was a guard at the guggenheim museum and really just hanging out in a uniform yeah this tremendous trinidadian dude named skelly who i knew from some the beginnings of hip-hop were really going on and i liked that a lot too and i met some guys at some of these late night hip-hop clubs and this guy skelly got me a job there uh-huh and uh oh my and these guys you know the the guggenheim museum is a sure
Guest:yeah it's a descending circular ramp and these other guards would they had a you can't really talk much but they had a snapping system oh really to let you know when they thought someone hot was coming down and i would see the little women that these guys thought were hot coming down there i'd see a lot of snapping like for real yeah wow okay i'm broadening my perspectives here did you have any relationship with the art in any way or were you just doing a job
Guest:You know, I started really just doing a job for the most part, but I fell in love with it.
Guest:I guarded a show, a Kandinsky show.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I just, you know, I don't know that I would have...
Guest:And hung over ADHD.
Guest:I don't have it, but it might as well have been.
Guest:Early 20s mindset, ever stared at anything that long.
Guest:And then I started to fall in love with some of this stuff.
Guest:And then the docents would talk about it and say, oh, yeah.
Guest:okay, no, that's not in there, but what this is, wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So that's sort of like- Oh, it blew me away.
Marc:That was really your graduate work in a way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like to see, even if it's not in the, like, because it doesn't sound like you were focused creatively, but to hear somebody read a painting,
Marc:It must have kind of made you realize something about creativity.
Guest:I had done a play or two at that school when my soccer career was torpedoing.
Guest:And there was this English woman who was the director and she said, get out of here.
Guest:Get out of here.
Guest:You're in central Ohio.
Guest:Get out of here.
Guest:Go to New York.
Guest:Because you're good.
Guest:And I said, okay, well.
Guest:Well, I just think I was kind of, I want help.
Marc:Something.
Guest:And I went to New York and dropped out, and then a year later went back and finished at NYU.
Guest:And, you know, stumbled through a friend who'd been in my band in Ohio.
Guest:You were in a band?
Guest:I was in a band.
Guest:What do you play?
Guest:I played the drums pretty badly.
Guest:Yeah, it's okay.
Guest:But it was a punk band, you know, a new wave band.
Guest:Did you play it badly and fast?
Guest:Badly and Fast and I sang.
Guest:And they said, you know, we want you to focus on the drums.
Guest:We want to free you up.
Guest:So they brought my friend, this amazing actress, who's been one of my best friends for 30 years now, Mary McCann.
Guest:And they put her in kind of, I don't know what, punk gear.
Guest:And she would sing the Chrissy Hines songs.
Guest:And a year or two later, she showed up in New York and said, I'm going to NYU.
Guest:I heard you are too.
Guest:And we...
Guest:Kind of been together ever since creatively.
Guest:And she said, I'm in this cool workshop this summer with this guy, Mamet, and this young actor of his named Macy.
Marc:So this was 82, 83?
Guest:This was like 84 after the year off.
Marc:So there's no Atlantic Theater Company yet.
Guest:No, this was just a workshop through NYU.
Guest:And had he written American Buffalo or anything?
Guest:He'd written Buffalo in Chicago.
Guest:I think he was there doing the first production of Glen Gary.
Guest:And they started a program at NYU.
Guest:And she said, come on, come on.
Guest:I owe her everything.
Guest:She got me to beg and borrow my way into that workshop.
Guest:Felicity Huffman was there.
Marc:So this is a young Mamet and a young Macy's.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Firebrands.
Guest:The method is bullshit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're Meisner distillers.
Guest:We've already done 40 plays and we're 30.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Meisner distillers.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So they were against the method but pro-Meisner?
Guest:To a certain extent.
Guest:Mamet had his own version already.
Marc:I mean, I read his books.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And my first wife was a student there in...
Marc:the late uh early 90s so i don't mamet was not there but you know they had the school at that time yeah and she was in it and i used to hear about it and i were you teaching there no not really i was once in a while i'd fill in for somebody right and i read the books and of course i romanticized the method and the people that came out of the method
Marc:And there was something, you know, kind of is the word utilitarian about his approach to to acting or maybe practical in the way that practical they would say.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, so but but the idea was like what my problem with it was when I would take it in just as an outsider was like, he's just saying anyone can do it.
Marc:And then I have a problem with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that was part of it.
Guest:Although I would say it was reactionary to a certain extent.
Guest:I get that.
Guest:Because there was a kind of demagoguery going on a lot at a lot of places, which is a few of you will be elected by the gods to carry this golden chalice to the mountain.
Guest:Not you, you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that part's bullshit.
Marc:So the hierarchy of the managers of the myth of the method.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Well, not even the method.
Guest:Some of the greatest actors I've ever worked with.
Guest:Esper's more of a Meisner guy.
Guest:But whatever works.
Guest:I've come a long way.
Guest:I've come very full circle.
Guest:I take from everyone I work with.
Marc:Well, that's what everybody says ultimately.
Marc:And what I think a lot of people also don't necessarily say is that on some level with acting and certainly the ability to stand out on stage or on screen, some of it is just a fucking gift.
Marc:yeah and that's just the way it is yeah it's not even necessarily talent per se it's just like some people just they're they're alive up there and that's you know what are you gonna do yeah and they're not self-conscious they just have this thing presence yeah
Marc:So, okay.
Marc:So this is interesting to me.
Marc:So you're, you're hanging out with these guys and they're, they're revolutionaries because they're like, you know, fuck the old New York style.
Marc:We're, we're going to, this is how, this is how men talk.
Marc:It's time for this now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's time for this.
Marc:That was really his thing.
Guest:it was life-changing i'd been in another studio there and which one circle in the square which was amazing but i had three or four different teachers all saying different stuff and i was confused and awful you know i didn't know what i was doing and to have somebody say this is simple do this do this it's improvisatory figure out what you're doing and then it's never going to be the same twice you have to get this person to do that and the text is gibberish and i thought what
Guest:whoa, that's very reductivist.
Guest:I feel like I should be suffering more and believing that I'm in, you know, Moscow in 1880.
Guest:And yet it was freeing.
Guest:It was liberating for me.
Guest:Later I would go, I need to want to add back some things.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So ultimately they said like backstory is not important.
Marc:Just find the emotion however you're going to find it and make your choice and get what you need.
Guest:I don't think so.
Guest:To me, what they were saying was, backstory is absolutely important in terms of how you analyze what it is you're doing, but you can only do one simple thing at once, and that is play the objective.
Guest:And I think the metaphor was, you don't have to believe that you're Theodore.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If you can, you might be a little crazy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's like the magician having to believe that he's actually producing a rabbit out of thin air.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's the audience's job to buy into that.
Guest:And they just were trying to break down more simply what... Oh, interesting.
Guest:...what you could do.
Guest:But then you have to make it personal to yourself.
Guest:So you got to go beat for beat almost.
Right.
Guest:No, I mean, in a way, it was kind of the opposite, which was in any given scene.
Guest:There's like, if you watch human behavior, a person wants one thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It may shift based on new information, but in any given exchange, the two people are negotiating a transaction of some sort.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I want to get, you know, you to give me this.
Guest:I want this woman to come home.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm going to say or do whatever I think will happen, will make that happen.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:and then you have to put them within a within a place especially if you're doing superhero stuff yeah you know i may not be able to convince myself that i care a ton about whether or not this person comes in from the outer planets to rescue this person i may have to think about something that's a little closer to my family and you do that yeah you got the job yeah sure so okay so tell me about like how you become uh are you a founding member
Marc:Yeah, I am.
Marc:So at the beginning, you just meet these young guys who are full of fucking piss and vinegar and they're going to tear it all down.
Guest:But also, I mean, that's kind of the myth around them.
Guest:Also, just the most generous, kind people who really, as I said, there was this culture of this is not, this is, it's worse than Navy SEAL training.
Guest:Three of you will survive this.
Guest:The rest of you will ring the bell.
Guest:That was kind of the culture of acting training in New York and at NYU.
Guest:And with a lot of love of the art, but that can beat your soul down.
Guest:And I don't really buy it.
Guest:I feel like a lot of the people who people said, oh, that person will never make it have become the most successful artists who came up at that time.
Marc:And sometimes it may not be in acting.
Marc:It could be in directing.
Marc:It could be in writing.
Marc:If you're in the culture, sometimes you find your own way to go with the talent.
Guest:And these guys were like, oh, you guys are amazing.
Guest:This is fantastic.
Guest:You can do this.
Guest:This is as good as it gets what you just did.
Guest:That simple work you just did is as good as it gets.
Guest:And...
Guest:That was freeing.
Guest:And at the end of, I don't know what, we had a semester at NYU, and then they sat us down.
Guest:At the end of it, Bill and Dave, and said, we are going to do a production of The Cherry Orchard at the Goodman in Chicago.
Guest:Do you want to all come?
Guest:It was 30 people.
Guest:Everyone just packed up and moved, and we got NYU credit.
Guest:We became interns at the Goodman, and we studied there for another three months.
Guest:And at the end of it, they said, do you...
Guest:Who wants to go to Vermont and form a theater company?
Guest:We'll be on the board.
Guest:We said, yeah, let's do that.
Guest:He said, don't sit there trying to get a commercial audition.
Guest:Do a bunch of plays.
Guest:Starve.
Guest:So over the next six or seven years, we did 50 plays and starved.
Guest:In Vermont.
Guest:Chicago, Vermont.
Guest:Chicago, then New York, and then we would go to Vermont in the summers.
Guest:And get out of the city.
Marc:And you were doing, you know, historical plays.
Guest:No, mostly New American plays.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Hustle.
Guest:I was the artistic director for a while and I would ride around New York on a messenger bike to different agencies trying to get whatever good plays they had that no one would produce.
Marc:So this is exciting.
Marc:So you start the company.
Marc:When did they take over that building over there in the 20s?
Marc:Where was that?
Guest:Yeah, that's exactly right on 20th Street.
Guest:I guess it was about three or four years after we founded the company.
Guest:And we'd been in Chicago and New York.
Guest:And being a nomadic theater company was just a dead end.
Guest:You're always trying to rent a space and...
Guest:There was a play that I had found when we were doing that play at Lincoln Center because I went to their associate artistic director and I said, what are you not going to produce that's good?
Guest:And they had this amazing play called Distant Fires about a mixed construction crew, black guys and white guys in Baltimore in the 70s.
Guest:And then they kind of get along, kind of.
Guest:And then there's a race riot in the town.
Guest:And it kind of tears them up as a crew.
Guest:And it seemed very archaic.
Guest:And then I went to, and I put it up in New York, and it did pretty well.
Guest:And I went to that theater to rent it, and they were losing it.
Guest:And it was owned by the Episcopal Church.
Guest:And I said, I can't believe this.
Guest:My dad has been of zero help to me in my professional life.
Guest:Dad, do you know anyone involved in the Episcopal Diocese of New York?
Guest:And he made a call, and we somehow took over that space 20 years ago.
Guest:That was you?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, you know, a lot of people helped.
Guest:Your dad showed up, huh?
Guest:He really did.
Marc:Thanks, Dad.
Marc:And previous to that, he was skeptical of your journey?
Guest:Deeply.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I didn't come from a family that had a tradition of the arts.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:They certainly loved the arts, but it wasn't.
Marc:How heated did it get in terms of his disapproval?
Guest:No, not like that.
Marc:No.
Marc:They're usually just nervous.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now that I've got a daughter, I'm sure they were like, oh, Lord, the guy's 30.
Guest:He's not making any money.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's usually what it comes down to.
Marc:It's not that they're judging you.
Marc:They're concerned that you're going to end up with nothing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think based on other stuff they knew about me from growing up, they thought this was just another way to avoid growing up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The boozy kid.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The troublemaker who can't stay in school.
Marc:Now he wants to be an actor.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Marc:But what about... Well, that's a... They got behind it.
Guest:They got behind it.
Guest:They've been very, very supportive.
Guest:Once you showed up in a movie?
Guest:He came to see that play.
Guest:Oh, he did.
Guest:So we did that play.
Guest:At the Episcopal Church.
Guest:We did that play at the Episcopal Church.
Guest:It did well.
Guest:Someone said, we want to move it to a bigger theater.
Marc:Were you just the art director or were you in it as well?
Guest:I directed that play.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wanted to direct that play.
Guest:I wanted to see it.
Guest:There wasn't a role for me, really.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I came out here to try out pilot season, which was disastrous.
Guest:But I lived through the riots out here.
Guest:And I thought, this is crazy.
Guest:And all of a sudden this play about riots was suddenly very germane.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I became obsessed with putting it up here because I just thought people had to see it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And did eventually with Sam Jackson and a great cast.
Guest:And when my dad came and saw that, because he'd been a civil rights worker in the 60s and a big liberal, there was something when he came to see that, I felt like he went, okay, I see what he's on about here.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:And what about Mamet?
Marc:Now working, because I was sort of obsessed with him as a person.
Guest:He's an amazing person.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And like, you know, he seemed to really sort of know, you know, like he cut a very powerful presence in the world to me somehow.
Guest:Very powerful presence.
Guest:One of the greatest writers I've ever read.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Once I saw American Buffalo in Boston with Pacino.
Marc:I was in college.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:And it changed my whole life in terms of what theater was.
Marc:Because you go through college, you see a lot of okay plays.
Marc:I acted a little bit in some plays, but I wasn't in theater school or anything.
Marc:But I went to that and I was like, holy shit, just the set decoration and just Pacino owning that character was like in the language of it.
Marc:It was really the language.
Marc:It's poetry.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then, like, I sort of got into a little bit, like, you know, that, you know, I saw that this was his style, that he liked to play this rapid-fire, poetic, you know, rhythm with mostly male language.
Marc:And I became sort of fascinated with the, it wasn't a brutality, but there was definitely a momentum to it.
Marc:And then I, you know, and then I started to, you know, read about him a little bit, and I thought, like, well, he's overcompensating me.
Mm-hmm.
Marc:But this is the vision of this guy.
Marc:And it runs through all his shit.
Marc:I really like that fucking movie, the weird movie with Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I like that movie because of that.
Marc:No one really writes sort of man shit like Mamet does.
Marc:Not since Peckinpah, even in movies, that there was this real focus on the dynamics of men.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, Glenn Gary.
Guest:Oh, no, exactly.
Guest:Glenn Gary's like Arthur Miller levels of the savagery of capitalism.
Guest:Yeah, no doubt.
Marc:Yeah, on his soul level, like, you know, down to... Right.
Marc:But there's a lot of Willy Lomans in there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, there's like four.
Guest:Yeah, everybody's tap dancing.
Guest:Just keep them getting sucked down the drain.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, like, what was he like as a person to work with?
Marc:What'd you learn directly from him?
Marc:Just a work ethic or...
Guest:oh so much i mean it's luckiest thing that ever happened to me are you guys still pals yeah i see him i see him in santa monica but he's here yeah he's here oh wow yeah he's there's a reputation you know a kind of macho reputation that just bears very little resemblance to the guy that i know who's been this visionary generous
Guest:mentor, teacher.
Guest:I ran the theater and he was on the board and I would go to have lunch with him to talk about the plays we were going to do and I couldn't make a sentence.
Guest:I would be so nervous and years later he put me in a couple of his movies and stayed in Maine or Spartan and gave me really some of my first breaks as an actor.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:state in maine that was a big cast man that was some that was really fun it was a fun movie yeah it was one of his better ones i thought really funny yeah yeah he directed that yeah so you start you know but you start doing movies you came out here for pilot season but you were mostly a theater guy theater director and a theater actor yeah for a long time yeah you did a lot of shit on stage 10 11 years what do you think is the importance of theater
Guest:you do the whole story every night.
Guest:If it's slow or if it's not grabbing them, you feel it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like you hear the chairs start to creak.
Guest:You hear people coughing.
Guest:You learn how to do the fast parts fast and the slow parts slow.
Guest:And you also learn when you're getting stale.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you just kind of, I know how to do some replication of this moment, you're going to lose people and you kind of- You got to stay in it.
Marc:you gotta stay in it people like sam rockwell you know like there's people out there who really it's jazz yeah you know you don't know what they're gonna do right you better be ready to go with it right and and when you say you know over your career but like what do you think it means culturally what do you think the culture of theater where it's at or what it's supposed to do what's the importance of it
Guest:wow man you're not messing around well i mean you know you hear about that because no i like it it's good it's a really good question i don't it feels in some ways in the digital age like an archaic art form which is why i went to see hamilton and i went oh cool this guy just bought us another 30 years of relevance right the theater
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But there's something immediate and live about it.
Guest:Human.
Guest:Human.
Guest:You feel it.
Guest:Now, have you been going to more of it?
Guest:You made it sound like... No, I don't go here.
Marc:Like, I don't really go much.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But every time I go, especially musicals, I immediately start crying for reasons I don't even know.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:I wouldn't even have thought of myself as a musical person.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I kind of avoided it.
Guest:They were the other gang.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then my wife and her family, they're musical people.
Guest:They are, sure.
Guest:And I started to go see musicals with her and sobbing.
Guest:Yeah, and it's supposed to be happy.
Marc:There's an elation to it.
Marc:So many people singing, there's a vulnerability to singing and dancing that I can't even, I don't even know what it does to me, but I'm literally like choked up the entire time.
Guest:Oh, good.
Marc:I thought it was me.
Guest:No, it was just me.
Guest:I was like, I can't believe this.
Guest:Musical, it's a direct...
Marc:mainline right to your soul it is when what they're doing in the story matches the chords uh-huh that you're hearing and maybe there's a dynamic uh-huh yeah it's in a tab if it's good it taps right in but like uh you know like i know that that that it's supposed to serve that purpose because like i get hung up on the the sort of community relevance of theater you know that you know when you have community theater like that theater was supposed to be important and
Marc:And I think the reason it is important is because of that very visceral human element, that there's a natural humility to the event, there's a connectiveness to the event, and there's the possibility of, I don't know what, but you can feel it living and breathing in front of you because it's right there.
Marc:You can hear the floorboards.
Marc:There's something about telling stories like that that is irreplaceable.
Guest:Well, you know, I sense that just from listening to your podcast, you can probably think of the four or five best concerts you ever saw.
Marc:Probably.
Guest:And when you think of them, it gives you chills.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I can do that about a couple of concerts that I saw, CBGBs, a couple other places.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I can also think of the four or five evenings in the theater when I saw something just crack it all open in a big group.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And as you say that, I think, oh, no, I used to have that in some movie theaters, too.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But those are maybe maybe we're all just going to end up in these weird cocoons.
Marc:I think that's the plan.
Marc:I mean, that seems to be the solution to all the problems is just make people stay at home.
Marc:You don't have to shop anymore.
Marc:Everything just comes right to the house.
Guest:We're putting ourselves in those matrix batteries.
Marc:Yeah, we are kind of.
Marc:Yeah, in the little cocoons.
Marc:Yeah, it is disturbing.
Marc:But now there's this weird craving for something authentic.
Marc:And I feel like when I go see these plays that Annie Baker wrote and Stephen Karam's play, that it really is just about finding the pulse of it again and bringing people out.
Marc:People will come.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You just have to figure out how to get them there because they know when they're complacent and they know when they're deadening, even when you're locked in your computer.
Marc:I mean, I don't know anybody who doesn't go like, I'm on my phone too much.
Marc:I mean, we know.
Guest:We know.
Guest:We know, man.
Guest:We do.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I think, why can't I put this down right now?
Guest:I don't even want to be looking at this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I add up the amount of time I spent on this versus how much I wrote this week, like I'm writing something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It would have really upset me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I think that because we know, there's hope.
Marc:So when do you feel like you really had your big break in movies?
Marc:When did you feel like on screen you really did something?
Guest:I know it's coming any moment.
Guest:No.
Guest:It's a good question.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Because you've done a lot of movies and you've had a lot of smaller parts and you have some of them probably pretty small, right?
Guest:I did a lot of smaller stuff.
Guest:A wonderful guy, another playwright I knew in New York, Paul Weitz, took a shot on me in a movie called In Good Company.
Guest:I love that movie.
Guest:I fucking love that movie.
Guest:It's a really good movie.
Guest:He had to fight for me.
Marc:Topher Grace.
Marc:Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid and Scarlett.
Marc:I loved that movie.
Marc:Like I saw it and I'm like, how come more people don't know about this movie?
Guest:It's such a sweet type movie.
Guest:And so I played their kind of dickish young boss of Topher Grace.
Guest:And it was a really good part, really well-written part.
Guest:You were really good in that.
Guest:He fought for me.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:He's like, you have to go do a screen test.
Guest:You got to...
Guest:They don't want to make this happen.
Guest:We're going to make this happen.
Guest:And so I was lucky I had somebody fight for me a little bit.
Marc:And he found the funny in that thing.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:And then another pal of mine, a writer, Bill Rubel, got me a gig on Will & Grace.
Guest:And it was one episode, and I had so much fun doing it.
Guest:acting with Debra Messing and Sean Hayes and these guys and really funny writing and Carrie Leiser who created but this guy just got me the job Bill Rubel playwright friend of mine from New York Atlantic guy and Carrie Leiser was another writer on that show and she was doing New Adventures of Old Christine and she remembered me from that and she got me that job so people you know people looked out for me show business but you had the goods yeah
Marc:You got the goods, man.
Marc:So how would you like it?
Marc:Because now that I know you had all this experience directing plays and then I see that you adapted and directed Choke, which was a fun movie, almost reminiscent of like Joseph Heller, like of the Catch-22 and like that type of 70s sort of carnal knowledge, surrealism, like a lot of weirdness.
Guest:I just watched Carnal Knowledge again.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:My God, that's a good movie.
Marc:Oh, God, it's so good.
Guest:Mike Nichols, I'm so sad about.
Marc:Right, like Mike Nichols movies, exactly.
Marc:Those two movies, Catch-22 and Carnal Knowledge, were really something.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I think they probably both hold up pretty good.
Marc:He really committed to his interpretation of a Fellini-esque trip through those things.
Guest:I haven't seen Catch-22 in a while, but I couldn't remember everything that happened in Carnal Knowledge, so we rented it again recently.
Guest:It's deep.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:Disturbing.
Guest:Hilarious.
Guest:Disturbing.
Marc:But I felt like some of that kind of the insanity of that made its way into Choke.
Marc:I mean, that's a pretty crazy...
Guest:Choke is a great book, a great, really dark out there book by Chuck Palahniuk.
Guest:And I thought Fight Club was an astonishing book.
Guest:Pretty good movie too.
Guest:Pretty great movie.
Guest:But I thought this guy's onto a kind of satire I'm not seeing anywhere.
Guest:And I had come out here and not gotten any work as an actor.
Guest:And I directed that play.
Guest:And one of the agents at my agency said, you know.
Marc:The riot play.
Guest:The riot play, Dissent Fire, said, you know, you should try to make a movie.
Guest:And I said, okay.
Guest:I was like, I want to do that.
Guest:How do I do that?
Guest:And they said, write a script that's so good, they'll overlook the tremendous liability of having you attached as director.
Guest:Good advice.
Guest:Okay, good.
Guest:That's what I'm going to do.
Guest:And I started writing and I almost got something made.
Guest:And then they hired me to write.
Marc:You optioned it from Chuck?
No.
Guest:How'd you do it?
Marc:Were you in contact with him?
Guest:The first thing I wrote, I wrote as a job for DreamWorks, and it became this movie, What Lies Beneath.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Lucky, right out of the gate.
Guest:Big movie.
Guest:That's a big movie.
Guest:Big thriller, big thriller.
Guest:And then people sent me this.
Guest:They said, would you adapt this book?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:It's really different.
Guest:It's about a sex-addicted colonial theme park worker.
Guest:Well, they kind of had.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I read it, and I went...
Guest:oh fun book this is i i connect with this guy who's kind of overly sexualized but has terrible intimacy issues for some reason and um yeah i know that guy and you know that guy yeah and uh and so uh i i optioned it for me and it took me a couple of years but uh we got it made and i called sam rockwell my pal from the naked play
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, hey, you didn't mind being naked in this play.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to make you naked in a movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was in.
Guest:And he was in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's game for cool shit.
Guest:It's a really complex, difficult role.
Guest:And it's a Sam in a nutshell.
Guest:He's like, oh, man, this is Hamlet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He finds the thing in there.
Guest:It just gave an amazing performance.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you've really sort of traveled all the routes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And not just show business, but as an actor and like you come from a, you know, real grounded tradition of like, you know, knowing your craft and being a stage director and then like, you know, doing this other thing with a certain amount of not innocence, but like it must be exciting to make a movie for the first time.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:It nearly killed me, but I loved it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's an outgrowth of the same stuff of having a theater company.
Guest:You'd act in one, you'd do the lights on the next one, you'd direct one.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's all storytelling.
Guest:Well, that's interesting.
Guest:And it really informs back and forth what you're doing.
Guest:You kind of become a better actor from directing a little and vice versa.
Marc:Well, yeah, that is really what theater is about when you're in it like a theater company.
Yeah.
Guest:And if you're just acting, a lot of times, I've said this before, but you're a little bit, you're a song in somebody else's mixtape.
Guest:And you kind of want to get in there and do the arrangements and write the song and see how something that you cook up out of nothing, how that affects people.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're doing it.
Marc:So what's the plan?
Guest:Which is what must be what stand-up's like.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, well, stand-up, you know, for me, what I'm doing, like now, like I'm trying to, you know, do some new material.
Marc:And, you know, I've been shooting a TV show for six months and writing and shooting it.
Marc:And the stand-up, which is what I've always done, you know, was, you know, that's my lifeline.
Marc:That's the core of what I do, whether I'm successful or not or whether people know me or not.
Marc:That's always been what I've been.
Marc:That's your baseline.
Marc:Yeah, that's my ground zero.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's like getting back up there and trying these new things.
Marc:And I write on stage, so it's all very interesting.
Guest:No, you don't.
Guest:I do.
Guest:You're out there talking about what you've experienced, because that's what it comes off like.
Marc:Well, that's what I do.
Marc:And that's how they form.
Marc:I don't know how else to do it.
Marc:There's easier ways to do things.
Marc:But I started talking about this thing that happened, and then I've gotten very...
Marc:involved in long form, but like doing it very diligently.
Marc:Like I've got to make these beats work all the way through.
Marc:Like, you know, taking a story and not just like telling about my life, but you know, what are the beats?
Marc:Where can I go with it?
Marc:So the challenge for me now is to take these things that become long form things.
Marc:bring stuff into them, take them a direction that's surprising, and have laughs all along the way.
Marc:That's how I challenge myself within the last few years.
Marc:It's fairly new, because I have a fearlessness that wasn't there as a younger man.
Marc:I was just trying to get through it.
Guest:Well, because it's so personal.
Guest:It sounds like you're being very stream of consciousness.
Marc:I am a lot of times.
Guest:I don't know what you watch.
Guest:Doesn't that make you feel, here are my thoughts.
Marc:And what if people don't... Well, yeah, it happens.
Marc:But because of the podcast and because of how I think out loud on here, which is really... Some of the stuff I say at the beginning of the podcast stick in my brain.
Marc:I'm like, I might be able to build that out as a stage piece.
Marc:So it becomes a workshop here.
Marc:And then I go workshop it again and find the beats.
Marc:But it's very exciting because I'm in it now.
Marc:I've been working this bit for two weeks.
Marc:It's one fucking bit.
Marc:And every time I do it because I'm not restricted by a written thing, things happen.
Marc:Like I love, that's the only, if I do an hour show, the moment that I'll enjoy the most is like that one moment where I never said, that never happened before.
Marc:I never said that before.
Marc:And a lot of times I won't remember it.
Guest:Because when you're out there, you drift past kind of,
Marc:Well, yeah, I drift past it, but I want the audience, I want us all to be right here.
Marc:I don't want a fourth wall situation.
Marc:I really try to create the same type of intimacy I create here.
Marc:This is where I get my emotional needs met.
Marc:I'm not proud of that, but my relationships and the most vulnerable it's gonna be is talking to you or talking to an audience.
Marc:My girlfriend doesn't like to hear that, but it's just that's what I've evolved into because the audience will go home, you'll leave, and then I'll be like, oh, that was a good relationship.
Marc:But that's the exciting thing for me is to be so present that things happen on stage.
Marc:And that's where I get the stuff.
Marc:And things are delivered.
Marc:I don't know where they come from.
Marc:When people ask me what my writing process is, it's like I start with an idea that's funny enough, and I get on stage, and I wait.
Marc:I keep doing it until the thing comes.
Marc:And then one night out of my mouth, I'm like, oh, thank God.
Marc:A year later, that bit's finally got a punchline.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:But it was funny enough without it, but now it's like- You're stuck with it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it's a crazy way to work, but it's very exciting.
Marc:That's how I do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what's the plan, man?
Marc:So now you got a family, you got a daughter-
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you've got a job.
Marc:Now, are you going to direct and write?
Marc:Because it feels like that's what needs to happen.
Guest:You know, every great blessing has another side.
Guest:I'm busy.
Guest:22 episodes of network television.
Guest:We finish in a couple of weeks, and then I'll have about three months.
Guest:There's a script I wrote for somebody else that I now may be directing.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:There's a thing I've been writing that's something I've been working on off and on for 15 years.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I leave it alone for eight years.
Guest:I come back.
Guest:That's something I miss.
Guest:I'm hungry for that now.
Guest:But, you know.
Marc:You're employed, man.
Marc:But I'm employed.
Marc:You got health coverage, making some good money.
Marc:Insurance.
Marc:Oh, it's the best.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:Yeah, it's good.
Yeah.
Guest:A lot of years with no insurance.
Marc:Well, you know, it's good.
Marc:It's hard to find that time to do the things that, you know, but, you know, you will.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:I feel like you'll get to a point where you'll have the run and you'll do the job with the television show and it's going to do what it's going to do.
Marc:And then eventually if you're compulsive enough, you'll be like, there's my window.
Guest:I'm compulsive enough.
I'm compulsive enough.
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you.
Marc:Really great talking to you, man.
Marc:Thanks for coming.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:That was cool.
Marc:I like learning about theater.
Marc:It's a new thing.
Marc:Opening my heart and learning about theater.
Marc:And I enjoyed hearing about the Atlantic Theater group there.
Marc:Also, go check out WTFPod.com, sponsored by Squarespace.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Yeah, I'll play a little guitar.
Marc:¶¶
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives!