Episode 73 - Jim Norton
Guest:Lock the gates!
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:okay let's do this what the fuckers how are you what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears and thanks to a gentleman somebody thought what the fuck nicks how did we not think of what the fuck nicks i like what the fuck nicks
Marc:All right, maybe I'll add it to the list.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:A couple of things right out of the gate.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:Thank you, San Francisco.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:The Purple Onion shows were amazing.
Marc:I had a great time.
Marc:If you came out, I got to tell you, they were some of the best shows that I've ever done.
Marc:I don't know if it was that place.
Marc:It was the history of that place.
Marc:I had great openers.
Marc:I had Moshe Kasher.
Marc:I had Kyle Kinane.
Marc:Steven Pearl on Wednesday night, but they were just fantastic shows.
Marc:I want to thank all of you, what the fuckers, for coming down, bringing me cupcakes, bringing me comic books, telling me stories.
Marc:Had one guy at the Purple Onion told me a story that just blew my mind.
Marc:This dude...
Marc:his name escapes me but he maybe he doesn't want it on the air i believe it was uh brian he comes up to me and he says that when he was 12 years old he was watching me on comedy central on the a-list that was a weird one because i remember that i i was wearing a borrowed jacket and the way the way they structured that show was that the new guy went after the uh the headliner guy so i had to follow amazing jonathan uh
Marc:who had just cut his arm off on stage.
Marc:That was his closing trick.
Marc:And I was backstage and they said, you know, we'll get you on as soon as we clean up the blood.
Marc:I don't know if I've told you that story, but that's not the point of this story.
Marc:The point of this story is Brian comes up to me.
Marc:He said he saw me on that show and I'd done a joke about the second coming of Christ.
Marc:I it was something along the lines of, you know, if this were to happen today, you know, would it be like, you know, the second coming world tour?
Marc:The king of beers brings you the king of kings in a 50 state, 60 country global extravaganza.
Marc:If you pop open a nice cold bud and get the blood of Christ, we'll send you and two of your friends to Jerusalem for the Judgment Day bash.
Marc:And then there was something about a tractor pull.
Marc:And I can't quite remember the bit, but this guy remembered seeing that bit when he was 12 years old, memorizing it verbatim and then performing it at his church in rural Tennessee, thinking that it was an appropriate thing to do.
Marc:And apparently his entire family was kicked out of the church of that.
Marc:They were kicked out of that church.
Marc:And he said that it blew his mind that it freed him from what could have been a life of religious servitude to to insane Christianity.
Marc:And he sort of thanked me for it.
Marc:And I, of course, said, well, I'm sorry that your family went through that.
Marc:But I think that's very flattering.
Marc:And I'm glad I helped you out.
Marc:Apologize to your parents for me, would you?
Marc:That being said, and thank you again for all the cupcakes.
Marc:I know I've established a baked goods.
Marc:thing and i certainly love them and i eat them and and there's there's nothing more sad and more beautiful than me after a show alone in a hotel room shoving cupcakes into my mouth and believe me i'm grateful but if i don't start going to the gym we're gonna have to figure out another thing to bring i appreciate the cat toys as well by the way
Marc:And two different guys brought me the same comic.
Marc:Not the same edition or the same book exactly, but the same character.
Marc:So maybe I'm exuding something.
Marc:I should read it.
Marc:I don't have it with me.
Marc:But thank you is what I'm saying.
Marc:Now, let's get on to some business.
Marc:This Thursday, May 21st, we're doing a live What the Fuck at the UCB Theater, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater here in Los Angeles.
Marc:You can go to ucbtheater.com.
Marc:That's theater spelled with an R-E at the end.
Marc:Go to the L.A.
Marc:branch and get the reservations if you want.
Marc:It's going to be a great show.
Marc:I got Laura Keitlinger coming out.
Marc:Have not seen her in years, but one of the great comedians.
Marc:Also, Moshe Kasher will be there, as well as Brendan Walsh and, of course, Jim Earl and Eddie Pepitone.
Marc:That's May 21st, this Friday.
Marc:uh at the used to be theater in la now i'm reaching out to canada toronto people people within the vicinity of toronto i will be at yuck yucks in toronto may 27th through 29th you can go to yuckyucks.com for information on that love to see you up there it's been a long time since i've been to toronto all right that business out of the way let's get this out of the way
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Oh my God, I just shit my pants.
Marc:I gotta take a break.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Do it.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Go get some coffee.
Marc:They're my sponsor.
Marc:I've got a freezer full of coffee.
Marc:Now, the task at hand...
Marc:This show, I got to put out a warning right now, a super explicit warning.
Marc:I love my guest, Jim Norton.
Marc:He's one of the true authentic characters in stand-up comedy.
Marc:Great comic, but truly a unique guy.
Marc:But he's unique in a very specific way.
Marc:He's got a lot of facets, and one of them is being ridiculously filthy.
Marc:That's his life.
Marc:He has no shame about it.
Marc:it's going to be a very exciting conversation for you.
Marc:But what I want to tell you right now is that if you get a little weird around sex or what you may call filth, you might want to just get ready.
Marc:If you're driving to work or you're driving your kids to school, I think that's the big one.
Marc:If you've got kids in the car, you might want to temper this one.
Marc:You might want to give it a listen first.
Marc:That being said, I talked to Jim Norton after I did the ONA show recently in New York.
Marc:And I've always loved Jim.
Marc:I remember when he came around in New York.
Marc:But he's got a shamelessness.
Marc:And an honesty about about sex that you don't find anywhere else.
Marc:Now, look, I am not a pervy guy.
Marc:OK, I'm not it's not even perv.
Marc:That's the wrong way to look at it.
Marc:I don't judge other people's sexuality.
Marc:Certainly, I'm curious about things that I may or may not act on.
Marc:But generally, I'm not a fetish guy.
Marc:I'm not that.
Marc:adventurous necessarily i just like good deep soul meshing sex that could lead to crying afterwards i like when you can't when it's so good you literally have to uh to you literally have to lay there after sex and and hallucinate i'm normal right isn't that what everybody wants i'm not saying that you can get it
Marc:But I've never really been that much of an explorer.
Marc:Sure, I've had a cock ring on.
Marc:Yeah, I've done that.
Marc:Yeah, I got no problem with that.
Marc:They're kind of nice.
Marc:They're kind of fun.
Marc:And it's been a long time.
Marc:And it was a different time in my life.
Marc:But I've been known to put a cock ring on.
Marc:But aside from that, nothing too unusual.
Marc:I do find that as I get older that there are things that I know that I like, but they're within the spectrum of relatively normal sex.
Marc:I'm not a hooker guy.
Marc:The couple of experiences I had with hookers were not good.
Marc:Uh, they, they were, they were, they were not good at all.
Marc:Actually.
Marc:I don't want to pay for sex.
Marc:I know that on some level you're going to pay for it one way or the other, but I never, I just, I need, I need to feel like I, I know the person that the person that I'm connected to the person I, all right, I guess I'm going to tell you.
Marc:I will share my two prostitute stories that I'm not that ashamed of, but they didn't really pan out because, all right, look at me.
Marc:I'm getting embarrassed, and you're going to listen to Jim Norton.
Marc:He's just shameless.
Marc:He's a shameless shopper of prostitutes.
Marc:Okay, here's hooker story number one.
Marc:I lived in Boston, Massachusetts.
Marc:I was, you know, all hopped up on coke and drinking and doing comedy every night.
Marc:And I was living in a neighborhood where prostitutes used to hang out.
Marc:Not good prostitutes in terms of the quality of escort.
Marc:But, you know.
Marc:I think like 30, $40 prostitutes and I would walk by them all the time.
Marc:And, and it would just, it was just, I was fascinating to me, but I never found it that compelling.
Marc:I remember one morning I got up to, to move my car at literally seven 30 in the morning to switch sides of the street.
Marc:And this woman walks up to me, she looked a little fucked up and she walks right up to me, grabs my crotch and says, you want a date baby?
And,
Marc:And I'm like, it's a little early.
Marc:How about breakfast?
Marc:Do you want breakfast?
Marc:No, but you know what I'm saying.
Marc:It was that kind of neighborhood.
Marc:So what had happened one night, and I was seeing someone at the time, and I remember we were living there, and...
Marc:And I guess I have shame about this.
Marc:So I'm coming home from a gig.
Marc:I just hung out with some guys.
Marc:We did some coke.
Marc:And I was drunk.
Marc:And it was like 3.30 in the morning.
Marc:And the woman I was living with was out of town.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:Am I going to tell this story?
Marc:Okay.
Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So so this woman first, a guy walks up to me.
Marc:He said, you want some Coke?
Marc:You looking for Coke?
Marc:And I'm like, no, I'm all good.
Marc:And he's like, all right.
Marc:And then right behind him, this woman walks up and she's like, you want a date?
Marc:And I don't know what it was, I guess, because I was so consumed with self-hatred and so high.
Marc:I'm like, yeah, OK, how much?
Marc:And she's like 30 bucks.
Marc:And I'm like, OK, what do we do?
Marc:And she goes, well, where's your car?
Marc:And I'm like, I live here, right here.
Marc:She's like, OK.
Marc:So we walk up and it's like four flights.
Marc:And this poor woman was wheezing.
Marc:She's like, how many more flights is it?
Marc:You know, I'm like, it's just right up here.
Marc:And it felt very awkward because it's not my thing.
Marc:And I was already immersed in some sort of horrible shame about it.
Marc:And we get into the into the house, into the apartment.
Marc:And I'm like, well, what do we do?
Marc:And, you know, I lay down the bed.
Marc:She says, you know, take your pants off.
Marc:I'm like, OK, great.
Marc:And then she starts, you know, going down on me, you know, giving me head.
Marc:And it's just ugly.
Marc:And I'm like, you know, I had to give her the money first, of course.
Marc:So I gave her the thirty dollars and.
Marc:And it's really not working for me.
Marc:There's just too much shame involved and too much weirdness.
Marc:And I go, I don't know, can you take your shirt off or something?
Marc:She's like, yeah, it's 10 more bucks.
Marc:And I'm like, okay, here's $10.
Marc:So she takes her shirt off and she puts my hand on her breast.
Marc:And then she says, do you feel a lump in there?
Marc:And I'm like, really?
Marc:You know, she's going down on me.
Marc:She has my hand on her breast and she asked me if I feel a lump.
Marc:Not hot.
Marc:This is not this.
Marc:I guess this is you get what you pay for because it definitely was not sexy.
Marc:And I did feel a lump and it was horrifying.
Marc:And I had this moment like, well, maybe she should she should be paying me.
Marc:for the examination i mean i i you know she should definitely get a second opinion which she said she was going to get but it was awkward and then in the middle of this the phone rings and it's my girlfriend leaving a message you know and we hear it in the room and i'm sitting there holding you know what might be a cancerous breast with my cock in the mouth of a
Marc:of a woman who i'm paying to have sex with on this bed and all of a sudden i hear hi honey and i'm like i don't know why she's calling you're so late whatever but it was just more it was like god's fist coming down on me if there was one the shame and the horror of it but somehow you know i i want this story to have an arc i was able to finish and
Marc:uh you know because once you set your mind to something and you know she tells me of course that like she doesn't usually do this you know she works with computers and uh and then she looked at my I had my dresser there and she took my cigarettes and she took uh some condoms and she took the change on my dresser and and uh and I thanked her and then I I immediately went into uh to the bathroom and and scrubbed myself
Marc:Sorry, folks.
Marc:I hope this doesn't make you think differently.
Marc:That's hooker story number one.
Marc:Hooker story number two.
Marc:Similar situation.
Marc:And these are the only two hooker stories I have.
Marc:And neither one of them good.
Marc:This one a little more poetic.
Marc:Again, I'm downtown Boston.
Marc:Just got done at Nick's Comedy Stop.
Marc:It's 2.33 in the morning.
Marc:Hung out after hours.
Marc:Partying with some dudes at this bar.
Marc:So it's like coming up probably 3.30 in the morning.
Marc:Down in the combat zone.
Marc:Driving home.
Marc:Again, festering high.
Marc:See the street walker, this hooker.
Marc:And I'm like, all right, I'm going to try again.
Marc:So I pull up.
Marc:She gets in the car.
Marc:I'm coked out of my mind.
Marc:And I'm like, how much?
Marc:And she's like, $30.
Marc:So I'm dealing with a very high level of escort here.
Marc:And I go, $30 for a blowjob?
Marc:She's like, yeah.
Marc:And I'm like, okay, where do we go?
Marc:And she goes, just pull around the corner.
Marc:So I pull around the corner and she's like, you know, I just want you to know I don't usually do this.
Marc:And I'm like, OK.
Marc:And then she says, I'm actually I'm just in town for my father's funeral.
Marc:And for some reason, that was so profound to me because it was disturbing.
Marc:Yet I felt like I was helping her get some closure.
Marc:I like to help people.
Marc:And I don't know why that I never forgot that.
Marc:But, you know, it just seemed everything seemed to make sense in that moment, the situation.
Marc:So she was in town for her father's funeral.
Marc:And I go, OK, what do I need to do?
Marc:She goes, well, I guess you're going to pull your pants down.
Marc:So I pull my pants down.
Marc:uh you know in my underwear she puts a condom on me and is about to start you know uh you know going down on me and then all of a sudden out of nowhere bam spotlights everywhere just you know searchlights and three cop cars pull up right in front of me and all of a sudden there's cops all over the place and like I freak out and you know I pull my pants up really quickly uh
Marc:and and uh and she goes are you pants up i'm like yeah yeah and and then she's like don't worry i'll deal with this so she gets out of the car with my 30 dollars which i'm not really worried about at the moment she starts doing this song and dance for the cops like he helped me out my boyfriend was beating me up he picked me up this whole big show and i'm freaking out you know and i'm barely together and a cop comes up to the door of my car he shines a light in my face he goes uh
Marc:What are you doing?
Marc:And I go, I'm just, you know, I was helping her out.
Marc:She goes, where do you live?
Marc:And I said, I live in Somerville.
Marc:He's like, you know, why don't you go there now?
Marc:And I'm like, yes, yes, I am.
Marc:Because, you know, I was coked up.
Marc:It was a nightmare.
Marc:I was drunk.
Marc:And they used to put the names of Johns in the paper in Boston at that time.
Marc:So I just had this moment where I'm like panicking.
Marc:I'm sweating.
Marc:And, you know, the adrenaline's going.
Marc:And I'm driving down the expressway.
Marc:And I'm so thankful.
Marc:And I'm just like losing it.
Marc:And I look down.
Marc:And I had not, like, I, you know, quickly pulled my pants up.
Marc:I didn't really pull my underwear up.
Marc:And I just looked down.
Marc:And there's my sad, unsatisfied, shamed little cock with just, you know, this horrible limp rubber hanging off it.
Marc:Almost like, it was almost like nodding its head in shame at me.
Marc:Like, you know, like with a hat.
Marc:And quite honestly, that was the last of my prostitute experiences.
Marc:Many years ago.
Marc:and i feel kind of weird telling you to be honest with you feel a little weird and that's the difference between me and jim norton
Marc:So I am at Undisclosed Location in a large building in New York City with Jim Norton, who is one of my favorite comics and a comic I respect.
Marc:Thank you, man.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:You know, it's weird that I feel like we operate in two different worlds.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That, you know, I come from regular stand-up and you come from regular stand-up, but there's this whole other world of comedy fans that I guess the thrust of the conversation, you know, I want to have is, do your balls ever smell?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, they do.
Guest:A lot.
Guest:Like you just wake up and you're like, where's that smell coming from?
Guest:No, in the morning I'm okay, but it's after I fuck.
Guest:I always refuse to shower after I fuck on principle.
Guest:For how long?
Guest:Usually until the next night.
Marc:Now you see, there's part of me...
Marc:You know, when I listen to what you do, and I appreciate what you do, but there's part of me that I actually cringe a little bit, only because I couldn't say what you're saying, and there's some part of the male spirit that you speak for that I think is within all of us, but so few of us have the balls to actually put our balls out there like that.
Guest:Did you just find that you had no choice?
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:That's what always made me funny to other comedians when I first started was it seems like when I talked about myself and my own sexual shortcomings or my own addictive behavior sexually,
Guest:So, yeah, I think that's I don't know why I'm so comfortable doing it, but I am.
Guest:And then doing radio, it's like you got to fill time.
Guest:So you just get comfortable saying anything.
Marc:But your life, your sexual life is I guess it's hard to avoid judgment.
Marc:But do you feel that in terms of what you talk about that you have to defend yourself?
Guest:Ever, you know, your point of view.
Guest:I've never had a problem with it because anybody truly questioning it is going to be fraudulent.
Guest:Like any man that acts like, even if a man doesn't cheat or get hookers, any man that acts like he doesn't comprehend how another man could pay for a blowjob is a liar.
Guest:And I know he's a liar and he knows he's a liar.
Guest:So any type of criticism like that, you have to meet, I think, with complete belligerence.
Guest:When people are kind of apologetic about themselves...
Guest:that's when they run into trouble and people smell blood and they pounce.
Guest:But I've never been apologetic about the things I talk about.
Marc:Because that means they were ashamed of it.
Guest:Yeah, I'm not ashamed of it.
Guest:Or if I am ashamed of it, I say I'm ashamed of it as part of me relaying it in stand-up.
Marc:Well, I think that's why it works and that's why you're so genius about it is that...
Marc:You know, you as a character and you providing your life, you know, about, you know, whether it's being pissed on or having hookers or, you know, whatever your shortcomings are, what you like vaginally.
Marc:I call them strengths.
Marc:Is that, you know, you are sort of a, just your whole being is sort of an underdog.
Marc:So, like, the sense is that you're not saying everybody should do this.
Marc:You're saying, like, this is my life.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:As long as you're not, like, here's the thing.
Guest:I don't judge what other people do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I won't accept the fact if they judge me.
Guest:It doesn't bother me if they do.
Guest:But if I hear about it, then I'm just, again, I'm belligerent about it and I tend to attack.
Guest:As long as you're not a pedophile or an animal fucker, I don't care what you do.
Guest:You know, you're gay, you're gay.
Guest:If you like, you know, getting shit on, you like getting shit on.
Guest:None of it matters to me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because only it's like the longer you live and the more you like too many married women have shaken my hands and slipped me their number when their husband was standing right there for me to believe in anybody's absolute morality.
Guest:Like I see what fucking pigs people really are.
Guest:So I don't I don't believe them when they act like they don't understand.
Marc:And do you think most of that piggishness comes from their repression?
Marc:That like in the sense that like what makes it worse for most guys is when I think that's what you represent is that you have an honesty that they can't have.
Marc:If they're out fucking whores behind their wife's back or fucking around on their wife or gay behind their wife's back, the amount of shame and secrecy they're living in has got to be like a prison.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:So when they hear you talk, you know, at least they feel better for a second, but doesn't mean it's going to help their life at all.
Guest:but at least they have the turn-on of it being a secret.
Guest:That is the fun part of it.
Guest:It's so much worse when everybody knows about it.
Guest:It's like it's not as sexy when everybody knows about it.
Guest:There is something about sneaking around.
Guest:For me, sex and sexual behavior is isolating.
Guest:It's very, very dark and alone.
Guest:I don't like to cruise prostitutes with friends.
Guest:I never enjoyed that, like me and a bunch of buddies.
Guest:It was me alone being ritualistic.
Guest:And I would only let a hooker in the car if she approached from the right and leaned in the right side of my window.
Guest:It was this weird seduction game I would play with myself.
Marc:Oh, so you actually had, they had to honor a fantasy before you even exchanged money.
Guest:Yeah, because to me it's too easy.
Guest:If they just get in and suck my dick with money, then there's no seduction.
Guest:Again, there's no push and pull.
Guest:There's no...
Guest:there's no tension.
Guest:I like to have a little bit of tension, a little build up to it.
Marc:See, the way you even think about it, there's a sort of connoisseurship to it in that it's not just about getting the need met.
Marc:You sort of have a system that has to happen.
Marc:So if they approach from the wrong side, you go, I don't know.
Guest:It just doesn't do it for me.
Guest:It really, it also, it cuts down on the ritual.
Guest:Like the more, the more little pieces of the ritual you put in, the longer the ritual can go on.
Guest:So I could have wasted, I mean, I get up at five in the morning to do this, but like when I was off radio, I would literally start, I'd go out to the comedy cell, I'd be done by 11 or 12 and then cruise prostitutes until six in the morning listening to sports radio or whatever else I could listen to, which would take my mind off the fact that we'd been fired from radio.
Guest:So it was this ritual that just kept the night going because once you come, it's over.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So, but, so now you say that this is a problem.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:I mean, but do you acknowledge that you have a sex problem?
Guest:Oh, it's a total addiction.
Guest:I mean, in an addiction sense, yes, absolutely.
Marc:So in relation to that, it being a problem, is there any part of you outside of talking about it and making your pain and your life hilarious to people that are willing to laugh at it?
Marc:Is that part?
Marc:Is that a function of trying to get past it or shame or anything like that?
Guest:I'm kind of afraid that without it, there's a part to be afraid of being healthy because I'm afraid I won't be funny or interesting without it.
Guest:You know, it's like they talk with alcohol or drugs, the hole in the donut.
Guest:Like, what am I going to be if I'm not that?
Guest:So there's also a fear with it.
Guest:But it also feels really good, man.
Guest:Sex is a really hard one.
Guest:Like, I can't drink and I can't do drugs.
Guest:It's an absolute.
Guest:But, you know, you can act out by being on the computer and you read an email that has one trigger word in it or one thing.
Guest:And all of a sudden you're acting out, you know, without jerking off, without cruising.
Marc:Yeah, I agree with that because I've had my own experience.
Marc:Like, you know, I was originally brought to my attention that if you are a daily masturbator, perhaps, you know, that's an issue.
Marc:Whereas I thought that was like a meal.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, I was 11.
Marc:There's not a day.
Marc:If I missed a day, I'm like, I better catch up.
Marc:There's something wrong.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I'm also starting to realize now because I'm single and because, you know, I've been sexual a lot more than, you know, with other people than I have with myself in terms of, you know.
Marc:is that the zone of sex.
Marc:There's some weird zone that you enter, where no matter how hard you try, it's almost like when you're sitting there, it's almost like a dream, you're like, I'm gonna remember this, I wanna be present for this.
Marc:And then all of a sudden it happens and you're like, where the fuck were we?
Marc:And that is like a real fucking high.
Guest:Yeah, it's half the times I'm acting out, I'm actually doing it for the memory to jerk off to.
Guest:It's a really weird thing.
Guest:There's times where I actually miss the activity because I'm just getting through it so I can jerk off thinking about the memory of it.
Guest:I'm more addicted to masturbating, I think, than I am to actual intercourse.
Guest:I'm more addicted to the ritual than the actual coming.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There have been moments where you actually got out of a situation and said, holy shit, what the fuck did I just do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember one time I went to see a prostitute on Second Avenue in the 80s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it really shook me.
Guest:I walked into her place and it was an abandoned apartment.
Guest:And I looked into the bathroom.
Guest:This is probably five years ago.
Guest:And there's dirty water in the tub.
Guest:And there was fruit flies and garbage just strewn about.
Guest:And the place, like an old railroad apartment, was dark, pitch black.
Guest:And she was holding a screwdriver.
Guest:And I gave her $300.
Guest:And she went to the door.
Guest:I don't know if she had somebody outside that she gave the money to.
Guest:But then she sat down with a screwdriver.
Guest:And I've never felt this acting.
Guest:I just felt like something very, very bad is about to happen.
Guest:Something really bad.
Guest:frightening is about to happen.
Guest:I sensed that there was something else in the room.
Guest:I was gonna be hurt badly, and I just actually said, look, I'm sick, I have to leave.
Guest:And I let her keep the 300, and I was shaking when I left, and I don't know why, it's like we have instincts, we have feelings.
Guest:I stopped calling that night, and I was like, something really fucking bad just happened.
Guest:And it really threw me as to what danger I was putting myself in.
Marc:Well, I think that's the liability.
Marc:Same with drugs.
Marc:After a certain point of drugs and drinking, it's not the drugs and drinking that may hurt you.
Marc:It's a situation you're going to end up in.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:And I think that with prostitution, it's the same thing.
Guest:Yeah, you're going to have... Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I've seen plenty of these fucking girls that hold box cutters.
Guest:I've seen that.
Guest:And I've had a girl pull my fucking keys out of the ignition asking for money.
Guest:Oh, one time a tranny stole my glasses.
Guest:I was fucking riding around looking at trannies in the meatpacking district.
Guest:And I stopped.
Guest:And I just wasn't buying.
Guest:I just kept looking.
Guest:So this is when I lived in Jersey with my parents.
Guest:I was like 28.
Guest:And this fucking transsexual walked over and just took my glasses off.
Guest:And she's like, for wasting my time.
Guest:And I'm sitting there in fucking 15th Street in New York with no glasses.
Guest:And cops drove by.
Guest:And I literally can see 20 feet in front of me without my glasses.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I had to flash my high beams and flag the police down.
Guest:And I'm like, that person took my glasses.
Guest:And they're like, you know, that's a transsexual.
Guest:I'm like, really?
Guest:I didn't know.
Guest:And the cops went over and they're like, just give him his glasses back.
Guest:So the fucking tranny gave him my glasses back.
Guest:But it's like, this is humiliating shit like that.
Guest:I'm a grown up.
Marc:That's the humiliating part, not the tranny part?
Marc:How do you accommodate the idea of trannies?
Guest:Oh, come on.
Guest:What am I, you know, what am I judgmental?
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Please.
Guest:They give wonderful blowjobs.
Guest:They're good people.
Guest:Everybody knows that.
Marc:So there was never, on your first tranny, there was never the issue of, this is kind of gay?
Marc:Nah, please.
Marc:Really?
Marc:It's open-minded.
Guest:I'm a free thinker, man.
Marc:Is that a regular thing?
Guest:No, but it's like, you know, when you're a complete addict, look, if you only drink vodka, life gets boring, so you have to drink fucking, you know, you have to drink a little Seagram's, you have to drink a little bit of this, you have to drink a little bit of whiskey, come on.
Marc:It is what it is.
Marc:What is the other thing?
Marc:Like, what's the pee thing?
Marc:Explain to me the pee thing.
Guest:That was one of my first turn-ons as a child.
Guest:I can remember being a kid, and there was a brother and sister.
Guest:They were, I was either in first or second grade, because I lived in Edison, New Jersey.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And a brother and sister, he was my age, she was a year older.
Guest:And I would get them both at different times.
Guest:I would lay behind the shrubs and convince them to sit on my face because they both had pissed their pants a lot.
Guest:So I would just breathe in the urine smell through their pants.
Guest:But that was one of my first turn-ons as a kid was the smell of piss.
Marc:You don't know why or where it can be.
Guest:It's animal on some level.
Guest:I mean, we're probably supposed to be turned on by it when you look at it.
Guest:I mean, animal's more territory.
Guest:It's used for something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it would turn me on.
Guest:And I forget the first girl.
Guest:One girl I dated used to piss her panties for me.
Guest:I was like in my mid-20s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I would tell her I wanted to smell it and just fucking lick her pussy after she would piss her panties.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I'm not into cross-dressing, but I did one time it was the dirtiest thing I had done to that point Yeah, she pissed her panties for me and then She asked me to put them on and I did and and she kind of blew me through her own piss panties Yeah, and I know that was like that probably has really ruined her since then But to me it was just the start of really enjoying piss now
Guest:So that was in high school?
Guest:That, oh, I was in my mid-20s when I really, that was, I think the first time I'd experienced it actual, the actual, actually doing it and, you know, and being, having piss on me.
Guest:And then I just had girls do it on me or I would drink it, whatever, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I used to have her piss in a cup.
Guest:Yes, this is a girl, I would have her piss in a cup.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I would try to get her to make me drink it.
Guest:She was going to college at the time and I was, again, mid-20s and I would actually have her tip my, the cup into my mouth like she was forcing me to drink her piss.
Marc:Do you think that at some point your, you know, your your desires and, you know, in terms of doing comedy was somehow to make it OK and to and to own it and to overcome any shame about it?
Marc:I don't know if that's why I did comedy.
Guest:I mean, to me, did you feel it every at any point where it's like, you know, I'm fucked up?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I've always felt, of course, always fucked up.
Guest:And to me, the fact, like, the thing that makes it less fucked up.
Guest:Do you think you are fucked up?
Guest:I know I am.
Guest:Yeah, it's not normal, dude.
Guest:It's not normal.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Normal people don't do that.
Marc:But what is normal?
Marc:I mean, that's it.
Marc:But that's the issue.
Marc:And that's the defense of, like, you know, the transgender community, the, you know, the transsexual community, even the gay community at the beginning was about the fact that there is no normal.
Marc:And who are you to fucking judge?
Guest:Well, normal to me, normal is not a judgment.
Guest:Normal just says it's the norm.
Guest:It's the common.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We're not like that anyways, as people in our lives at all.
Guest:But I don't judge it is for me to like piss.
Guest:It is abnormal, but I don't judge it as terrible.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Being gay is abnormal only in the sense of the majority of people are not gay.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, it's wrong.
Guest:Doesn't make it any more right to be this way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I don't judge what I consider abnormal.
Guest:It's just not the common.
Guest:So most people look, it's what can you maintain an erection through?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:If a girl tells me she loves me while I'm fucking her, my dick, it just, it wilts like somebody threw fucking hot water on it.
Guest:I can't keep a hard on through that.
Guest:It does nothing for me unless she's a prostitute.
Guest:If a prostitute says I love you, I'll come immediately.
Marc:But does that concern you?
Marc:Do you find that you have love in your life?
Marc:Are you capable of it?
Guest:I am, yeah, but it's embarrassing to be so trapped in the Madonna whore thing, but it's very hard for me to combine the things.
Guest:It's very hard for me to love the same person, and I want to smell their armpits.
Guest:To me, none of it's shocking.
Guest:I don't talk about it to be shocking.
Guest:I'm annoyed when people are shocked by it.
Guest:I want them to enjoy the honesty of it and laugh at it, but I never want them to be shocked anymore.
Guest:Because to me, it's stuff that a lot of them do anyway.
Guest:It's like, come on, we're not really breaking ground here.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm not a kid fucker.
Guest:I don't like to me.
Guest:Those those are things that go into two levels where you should be judged and treated horribly.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I think I agree with you on that.
Marc:And I think that when people, you know, put you in a category of shock comedy, I think they're misunderstanding the comic character and the level of self deprecation that you are capable of.
Marc:I mean, the self-deprecating comic has always been something.
Marc:And I think that that format, you know, in the 70s was always Jewish and self-pitying.
Marc:Poor me.
Marc:And that shit is over.
Marc:But I think that for people to dismiss you as a shock comic, they misunderstand the comedy character and the level and the depth of self-deprecation that's available.
Guest:Yeah, I just try to tell the truth.
Guest:I'm not always right.
Guest:I think most of us bat about 500.
Guest:We're right half the time, wrong half the time.
Marc:Wrong how, though?
Marc:What do you mean?
Guest:What's wrong?
Guest:Whenever we're talking about the war, we're talking about health care, or any real issues, half the time people will agree with you, half the times they won't.
Guest:Half the times I'll be point on, and half the times 10 years from now I can be proven wrong.
Guest:It doesn't matter, as long as I'm truthful about the way I feel about it.
Guest:Are you willing to be contrite if you're proven wrong?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Sure, I'll talk about things I wish that I had thought of differently.
Guest:Sure, because everybody, anyone who's so married to an ideology that their opinions about things won't change just because it doesn't go hand in hand with the ideology are fraudulent anyway.
Marc:And they're ignorant.
Guest:They're very ignorant, and they're obsessed with being right.
Guest:To me, that's where comedians...
Guest:go wrong and get boring is when they become obsessed with being right.
Guest:It's like be right as much as you can, but always be funny because that's what gives us the right to stand in front of a room full of people and give our opinions is that we have opinions and we're funny with them.
Guest:Right.
Marc:That's what separates us from them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:We can make them funny.
Marc:Well, before we get to the politics and race, because, you know, I do want to address my own discomfort with moments I've had in your presence.
Marc:There was never any risk of you being normal.
Marc:I could tell.
Marc:I could just tell by the way.
Marc:You know, the way you talk and your energy that and you always wear, you know, usually a Black Sabbath shirt of some kind.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Now, I'm trying to picture what your situation was.
Marc:You know, let's say, you know, starting in like seventh grade when he started to come into your own, you know, as you know, not as a comic, but as a person.
Marc:Were you a freak?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Was no I was funny and that was the only thing that made me feel you know how they all you had a free Pass to to travel anywhere in high school because your sense of humor Yeah, because even the big dumb jocks were afraid of being embarrassed And they knew you could do to them what they couldn't do to you you could humiliate them verbally, right?
Guest:And that's why they were nice to me, but I had cowlicks I had really embarrassing my whole hair
Guest:was horribly cowlicked.
Guest:I had a McDonald's M in the front.
Guest:I couldn't get it over my forehead.
Guest:My hair was a source of- Did your mother do that?
Guest:No, it was just the gift of being a Norton.
Guest:It was like, we have cowlicky, horrible hair.
Marc:Oh, I see your hairline now.
Marc:So you shave it all off now?
Guest:Yeah, that's why I do it.
Guest:But it was really the- I forget how- Because you have hair.
Marc:You're one of the few people that shaves their head, and you have hair.
Guest:Full head.
Guest:Full head.
Guest:But it cowlicks, and it was a source of humiliation, and my hair was always greasy, and I was kind of a grub.
Guest:I was a virgin until I was 18.
Guest:Yeah, me too, 17.
Guest:Yeah, it was... First couple times were not good.
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:High school was a source of complete torture.
Guest:And you get along with your folks?
Guest:I do.
Guest:They're nice people.
Guest:My father's in recovery, alcohol since 1970.
Guest:You got, like, how many sober?
Guest:You got, like, 20 years sober.
Guest:I have February 1st of 87.
Guest:So, yeah, about 23 years.
Guest:I was 18 when I got sober.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, it helped that my father was in, you know, A program, too, that he was sober, too.
Guest:But yeah, I was very, very awkward in school and just trying to be funny was the only way I got people to notice.
Guest:Do they like what you do?
Guest:They love it.
Guest:They love it.
Guest:I'm not suicidal anymore.
Guest:I don't drink and do drugs.
Guest:I don't black out.
Guest:They're just happy that I'm alive and pursuing what I love.
Guest:They're very supportive.
Guest:I have great parents.
Guest:When were you suicidal?
Guest:When I was using... I was a cutter when I drank.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was a bad cutter.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But was it real suicide attempts?
Guest:Nah.
Guest:Most of it was suburban melodrama.
Guest:Notice me.
Guest:No sexual abuse?
Guest:No.
Guest:And I show all the signs of it.
Guest:I show... I asked my mother.
Guest:That's why I asked.
Guest:Yeah, I asked my mother.
Guest:And she said that she actually went in the other direction and was overprotective of me.
Guest:She kept me away from anybody who might be.
Guest:But I show all the signs.
Guest:I mean, I had...
Guest:I moved to North Brunswick from Edison in Halloween of fourth grade, which is October of fourth grade.
Guest:And I can count 10 sexual partners before that move.
Guest:All of them, I'd say almost all of them boys, couple of girls, oral sex.
Guest:I vaguely remember someone trying to fuck me in the ass, but I think they were my age.
Guest:So it was never, I don't count it as abuse because it was consensual between kids.
Guest:I didn't even get erections at that age.
Guest:I didn't know what they were.
Guest:My friend Sean got hard-ons.
Guest:Like he would blow me and I wouldn't get an erection and I would do him and he would get an erection.
Guest:I had no idea why his penis did that.
Guest:It was just something that you thought like, okay, let's do that.
Guest:It felt good and it was secretive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we loved the secretive nature of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And girls scared me because they had something different than me.
Guest:Yeah, seemed complicated.
Guest:Yeah, the fucking hard.
Guest:I kicked a girl in the pussy when I was a kid named Sue.
Guest:She stole my tire.
Guest:I was rolling a big car tire and she took it because she was like one of the dykey girls in the neighborhood.
Guest:And I kicked her right in the crotch and she bled.
Guest:And I think that fucked me up with the vagina for a while.
Guest:I'll never forget her.
Guest:You saw it as a wound?
Guest:She might have just pissed.
Guest:But I know there was wet in the front of her pants.
Guest:And it just, that whole area became horrifying for me.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that, and then like when did you like first, how were the first couple sexual experiences?
Guest:Awkward.
Guest:I was drunk.
Guest:I used to wear hats because of my hair insecurity.
Guest:You know, I went through that white kid who loves a hip-hop phase before it was fashionable.
Guest:You know, it was like Adidas with fat laces.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Oh, I was a humiliating asshole.
Guest:When did the Black Sabbath thing start?
Guest:I've always loved them, but then, you know, again, when you're looking for an identity.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:You know, as a Kiss fan since childhood, you start looking for these other identities.
Marc:That's an interesting thing, and I've not talked about that with other comics, because I'm the same way.
Marc:If I even look at my history on Conan O'Brien and the outfits I've done...
Marc:and the number of glasses I've worn, and the hair.
Marc:And when I was a kid, that search for identity.
Marc:I don't know if that's common among us, but I share that with you.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:I think we all have that.
Guest:Like, what's going to make me unique and memorable?
Guest:Instead of realizing, like, maturity teaches.
Guest:Because you're afraid.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Terrified.
Guest:And somebody once told me that,
Guest:don't worry about finding who you are, get rid of all the shit you're not, and whoever you are shows up.
Guest:And that made a lot of sense to me.
Guest:It was like, I didn't need to go externally.
Guest:Oh, I can go.
Guest:Was that a sober thing?
Guest:Yes, it was a sober guy that told me that.
Marc:See, because I'm just really sort of like, literally, and I'm a little ashamed to admit it, I'm just feeling that now.
Marc:That I am who I am and it's enough.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because when you have that insecure brain, when you have that fear, you're constantly judging yourself against other people.
Marc:You constantly don't think you're good enough.
Marc:And you're always wondering, what do I got to do to feel better and to feel accepted and to feel good enough?
Marc:And you go the gamut of that shit.
Guest:Well, to me, it's what makes us original as comedians or as people is our own, and I hate to say it, not to be melodramatic, but whatever a person's truth is, whatever their life is, to me, what makes, I love listening to you when you come on the show because I know exactly where you are in life because you're going to tell me and you're going to make it funny.
Guest:And to me, that's what makes you a great comedian is the fact that you talk about your life
Guest:Colin described it really well as what he hated was an ironic distance that a lot of guys go through where they think it's hip to show no emotion and be detached.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:I like a guy who really tells me what their life is like or their genuine opinions about things without feeling preached at.
Guest:You know, that's what I admire.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:And I think that's, you know, you're talking about Colin Quinn for those of you who are listening.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think that's a good point.
Marc:And I think that a lot of that detachment is really just by virtue of immaturity and a certain amount of fear.
Marc:Because what I'm starting to realize, I sit in a comedy club and they become interchangeable.
Marc:No one's taken any risks other than saying vagina or the N-word.
Marc:And no one's really doing anything to show who they are.
Marc:So they have no point of view.
Marc:And I've grown to believe it's just that they don't have any life experience.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, there's like, you know, the type of comics we are, there are guys like us where, you know, we've, we've risked our lives to do this, but we've also risked our lives in other ways because we got no choice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We just live a fucked up life and that's what we live.
Marc:But a lot of these kids are well adjusted.
Marc:I don't, there's a whole generation of comics that are well adjusted.
Marc:So to compensate for the fact that they're not out of their fucking minds, they just say shocking things and they don't invest anything in it.
Guest:And a lot of them try to create things.
Guest:and try to create the things that they find interesting in comedians, they try to create those things in themselves because they think that will make them interesting.
Guest:And it's like, in New York you see a lot of guys who try to be Dave Attell.
Guest:And Attell is easy to spot because Dave is such a specific guy.
Guest:Like, okay.
Guest:And Dave is such an original.
Guest:So when you see a young comic going, blowjob.
Guest:Oh, I know who you watched a little too much.
Guest:You know, you see guys looking for that identity.
Marc:How is that different than, like, I don't take comics to task for that as long as they grow through it because that's no different than you wearing the hats.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:But, you know, and sometimes some guys are infectious.
Marc:I mean, I couldn't watch Bill Hicks when I knew him because, you know, you're going to, you know, everyone has influences, but it's the guys that lock into the Mitch style or the Todd style or the or the Attell style.
Marc:Those seem to be the big three delivery systems.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:That are like sort of subconsciously appropriated.
Marc:Whereas you, you know, the one thing that's interesting about you is that your timing is completely stilted to you.
Marc:That you actually, your rhythm is not something anybody can take because it's frenetic and it's impulsive and it's unique to you.
Marc:So no one's going to be able to do Norton.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:But that's good.
Marc:Yeah, thank you.
Marc:When you were younger, I mean, I know that you have this fetish almost of taking pictures of yourself.
Marc:I do.
Marc:Every fucking celebrity.
Guest:Celebrities, yes.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:I didn't do it for a long time, and then I met Pryor, and he was my idol, so I got an autograph.
Guest:I always regret not taking a photo, but I am happy that I got an autograph.
Guest:I got him to sign my business card.
Guest:It was like child's handwriting.
Guest:And we talked about... But he was sick.
Guest:Very sick.
Guest:Yeah, he had MS at the time.
Guest:So I was lucky he was able... He signed two autographs that night and he's like, no more.
Guest:And his wife was there.
Guest:I'm like, look, I'm a comedian from the East Coast.
Guest:Could you ask him?
Guest:Because I'll never meet him again.
Guest:And she's like, Richard, one more.
Guest:So he signed for me.
Guest:And Kinnis and I met one time and he signed a napkin.
Guest:And I was always grateful that I got something from those guys.
Guest:And with the photos, it became something I started to do.
Guest:Like, Ozzy was one of the first photos I took.
Guest:I was with Jim Florentine.
Guest:We met Ozzy.
Guest:He's like, get a picture.
Guest:So I was like, oh yeah, I should get one.
Guest:And then it became addictive.
Guest:And I noticed that sometimes I got good stories out of it.
Guest:Sometimes I didn't.
Guest:But it just became this fun thing.
Guest:So I feel sorry for myself.
Guest:Like, oh, you know, your life is not this.
Guest:And it's like, you fucking cunt.
Guest:Shut up.
Guest:You fucking, look what you're doing.
Guest:You're meeting your idols.
Guest:You're having fun.
Guest:It's like, shut your fucking mouth.
Guest:It became a way.
Guest:That's how you talk to
Guest:yourself it really was it's the only way I listen it was like it was like a visual slap to my fucking spoiled face it's like you're one of the lucky ones man yeah most people who should be sober are dead I can't tell you how many guys I got high with that are either either they're they're dead now from drinking and drugging they had heart attacks or how many people I got sober with that died of AIDS because they had shot up before you know AIDS was known as much it's like you lucky little fuck shut your mouth yeah I get so mad at myself for that fucking sense of entitlement or I deserve more I should have more
Guest:And to me, that is a way of looking and going, look at what a fun life you have, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's fucking fun what you do.
Marc:Yeah, it's great.
Marc:And I appreciate that about you.
Marc:You're one of the few people I'm not jealous of, and I really am happy that you're having success.
Marc:Thank you, man.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:It's mutual.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:I'm working on it.
Marc:I'm working out in my garage, but I'm a man.
Marc:But who do you see yourself as a legacy of?
Marc:For some reason, I think it might just be because of your frenetic disposition.
Marc:You know, I can see Truth Tellers.
Marc:I can see Pryor.
Marc:I can see Kennison.
Marc:But I can also see a little Rickles, a little Rodney Dangerfield.
Marc:Is that possible?
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:Rickles is the one I've gotten compared to, and I never—
Guest:I think I heard hello dummy recently for the first time.
Guest:I don't never studied right I mean I watched CPR shark you when I was a kid and yeah He'd be on Letterman sometimes with it or the tonight show, but I never really prior was the guy I watched yeah, I mean it was prior Rodney when he's on the tonight show a tip I was a huge Robert Klein fan I think he's one of the greatest ever Woody yeah, I club years might be the best records that ever released.
Guest:Yeah The prior for me was the guy.
Guest:I mean I use the truth
Guest:Loved.
Guest:And he never made you feel guilty.
Guest:Vulnerability.
Guest:That's what people miss.
Guest:He wasn't an angry black man.
Guest:No.
Guest:He was showing you a wounded black man, a hurt fucking guy.
Marc:Yeah, you watched some of those.
Marc:I watched some of them recently.
Marc:And the things he talks about are very interesting as a man.
Marc:Because he gets misunderstood and misrepresented by black comics now.
Marc:And also by people who don't really assess what he did.
Marc:But that whole bit about running away...
Marc:you know when you're with your girlfriend yes I mean that is not masculinity and the stuff he talks about sex about you know when he's on coke I mean you know these are very unique vulnerable positions and that's what made him great yep and I think that you do that as well so now let's talk about politics I think the only problem that we ever had was really in during 9-11 and you know then you know I was obviously you know the lone lefty at the table at the comedy cellar who refused
Marc:to acknowledge the idea of internment of all Arab citizens in this country as a reasonable response to 9-11.
Marc:And it was at that point where I think you and I, if we had any contention, it was over the politics of race.
Marc:Now, where do you stand on that now?
Marc:Profiling specifically.
Guest:Profiling, I completely think it's accurate and it works.
Guest:I think it's an unpopular thing to say, but when you're looking for the mafia, when you're trying to clean up the mob, you want to clean up the Fulton Street Fish Market.
Guest:You don't go to 145th and look at black guys.
Guest:You don't look at Italians.
Marc:Yeah, but you look at Italians who have a history of crime and who have been, you're surveilled and wiretapped, have associations with other mobsters, probably the drug trade or the construction business.
Marc:That's different than every black person.
Guest:But I don't think every black person should be profiled.
Guest:What I'm saying is you go for Italians.
Guest:You know the ethnicity you're going through.
Guest:Then you can narrow it down specifically.
Guest:You want to go for the mob.
Guest:You want to go for the Westies?
Guest:You're looking at the Irish.
Guest:Then you narrow it down.
Guest:You want to go for the Jamaican drug gangs?
Guest:If you look for Crips and Bloods, you're looking at black guys.
Guest:You narrow it down.
Guest:Okay, well, he's between 18 and 35.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So it's almost like...
Guest:People are very comfortable with their ethnicity being used when it's positive.
Guest:Like you've never seen anybody say, look at all these Italians marching for Columbus, feeling good just because they're associated with an ethnicity.
Guest:That's acceptable.
Guest:But if it's negative, then all of a sudden it's unacceptable.
Guest:So people want it both ways.
Guest:They want to be lumped in with the accomplishments of another person of their group if it's positive, but they do not want to be lumped in with that group if the association is negative.
Guest:So to me, it's just a matter of it's phony.
Guest:It's like you can't have it both ways.
Guest:If you wanna be lumped in on a positive, then you gotta be lumped in on a negative.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like Americans, we feel good if our country wins the America's Cup, whatever the fuck it is, that's okay.
Guest:But if you lump negatively something a country does, that's bad.
Marc:It's like, why not just accept it both ways?
Marc:Or they deny it.
Guest:But I think you have to do it with dignity.
Guest:And I don't think that all Muslims or Arabs should be mistreated either because the majority of them... And I'm not saying this to be polite.
Guest:The majority of them are good citizens.
Guest:And the majority of them were repulsed by what went on.
Guest:The scary part is, I don't know if we've ever faced this situation before.
Guest:How do you deal...
Guest:with a group that does assimilate into the population and does use the fact that they're allowed to assimilate the population to attack you.
Guest:It's a hard one to deal with.
Marc:Well, you do it in the same way, like you said, with the mob, through police work, feet on the ground, local police work, surveillance, investigations.
Marc:So you, in a sense, this is one of those situations where your opinion has evolved.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I think, not unlike everybody else, the reaction to 9-11 was... No one could understand the anger and the fear and the frustration.
Marc:So we were all talking in a certain way.
Marc:But it seems to me that you've evolved on this.
Marc:Yes, but I still do agree with profiling because I think it works.
Marc:Profiling with a means of intent, with a reason.
Guest:Yeah, always.
Guest:But I never felt that you shouldn't have any...
Guest:Like, I never felt that a 40-year-old Arabic woman was as likely as a 21-year-old Arabic male.
Guest:Not impossible, but when the airport does this, and again, I know that you can't always tell.
Guest:I understand that.
Guest:But when you see a 58-year-old Chinese lady being stopped and a Middle Eastern guy going through, there is not one person who's being honest that can say they are as comfortable with him on the plane as they are with that old Asian lady.
Marc:Well, I tell you, in all honesty, this is like something, you know, in dealing with the type of comedy to do and doing the ONA show and trying to assess this stuff for myself, because I'm naturally a reactionary person.
Marc:I'm going to go to the left and I am to almost to the other way.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But but not but not morally, not with social issues, not with homosexuality, sexuality.
Marc:No, but I want to be a liberal.
Marc:I really do.
Marc:No, I think I think you that all of us comics on on First Amendment issues are liberals.
Marc:That one of the fights that Lenny Bruce did, that one of the fights the comics did was to free the language.
Marc:And I think that all comics are liberal in that area.
Marc:But that is not the part.
Marc:And that's not the parlance of liberalism at this point in time.
Marc:There's other issues.
Marc:But I think like on gay marriage, on language, on political correctness, you know, I'm with you on that.
Marc:Like, I still believe by the First Amendment rights that were fought that language should never be questioned.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:So I think there are meeting places, you know, but in terms of race, one of the things that I learned from you...
Marc:was that essentially that if your heart's in the right place and you're going to use language, that you have to trust yourself.
Marc:And that, you know, in the sense that, you know, political correctness in most conditions, in most cases, you know, outside of the workplace, it can be bullshit and can be censorship and can be used to actually hinder the conversation between races.
Guest:I find the most politically correct people are being, and again, they're not being viciously dishonest.
Guest:But to me political correctness is in a way based in paternalism and it's also people who are really overly PC are afraid of being exposed I've never really met a PC person that had a lot of black friends or that had really honest conversations back and forth They'd still cross the street if there were three black guys coming towards them But they wouldn't even admit to themselves like wow those three black guys make me a little uncomfortable
Guest:And the black guys know it.
Guest:You know, just at least respect them as much as men if you sit down and talk with them to tell them what happened.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And that's something I think I learned from hanging out, from doing Tough Crowd.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And from, you know, because I don't have many friends in general.
Marc:But as comedians, you know, we work with guys, with Patrice and Keith and, you know, in black comics.
Marc:I never think about race in that way.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, you know, I know in my heart that, you know, racial identification, that the black community has a way of being that is specifically theirs and they're proud of it.
Marc:And that's the way it is.
Marc:So, you know, when you talk about like stereotypes, if they're not used angrily and they're used as a matter of fact, they do exist.
Marc:And it's not a generalization, but that's one of the things that separates us and makes us interesting, not separates us and makes us hate each other.
Guest:And we've gotten into this thing where the only people that can be called out for their horseshit is white people.
Guest:And believe me, there's a lot of it.
Guest:But it's like no white people are comfortable calling out black people on their shit.
Guest:It was like where liberals really bothered me.
Guest:It was when I just got fired because, again, I do radio, too.
Guest:So it's like I watched we almost got dumped or something very similar.
Guest:We got suspended for a month on satellite when I watched him get fired for that.
Guest:And I watched nobody.
Guest:For the girls basketball team?
Guest:Nappy headed hoes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everybody knew that the joke was he was the old white guy using a younger black expression.
Guest:It's almost like when you see the old white lady dancing to hip hop, it's fish out of water type shit.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:And somebody else said, one of those guys said the wannabes and the jigaboos, which was a direct reference to school days from Spike Lee.
Guest:Everybody knew that was the intent of the joke.
Guest:It didn't matter.
Guest:It was a feeding frenzy.
Guest:And nobody, not one liberal.
Guest:I mean, there may have been somebody who didn't see them.
Guest:Fucking Media Matters targeted him.
Guest:None of them stuck up for him.
Guest:And fuck rappers, too.
Guest:Because all of them, the ones who got killed on censorship, turned into a bunch of suburban white ladies and wanted him thrown off the air.
Guest:And I talked about it on the special.
Guest:It was Snoop.
Guest:Even was saying that he should be fired for disrespecting black women snoop Who has a pimp mentality?
Marc:Yeah, the phone is coming out of right the black community on that that fake outrage Drives me not and this is a language issue This is a First Amendment issue in some respects sure it is that that you know that you're being censored for the language and it's a censorship It's a grassroots censorship.
Marc:It's not a government-enforced censorship, but that's the way that works.
Marc:I understand that and
Marc:And the thing that's interesting to me about the dialogue is that in what you were saying before, I have a joke that I do now that I say everybody's a little racist.
Marc:And the people that are the most racist are when you ask them, they say, I'm not a racist.
Marc:Right.
Marc:With that tone, because clearly you've interrupted an argument they're having.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Great way to say it.
Guest:Yeah, you really have.
Guest:And I think we all have the right.
Guest:And if you don't think we're polarized as a country, the OJ verdict, you could not have had anything that split the country down the middle.
Guest:Black people weren't surprised by white reaction white people were shocked by black reaction They how could you not you know because they thought they were cheering for a murderer Which is not what it was, but it was what it was seen that you know, right?
Guest:I think it was my opinion is it was more blacks going you see how it feels right when you know he's guilty and he gets off you see I think it was more that but you know to not address race honestly
Guest:I'm one of those people I hold everybody the same standards that I want to be held to I have never Wanted a comedian or anybody penalized ever for something they said in humor Never if you look if you violate the FCC if you're on the radio and you say fuck you got to be fired But that goes across the board.
Guest:That's black white Hispanic anybody who says it on the radio right fired But when it comes down to social stuff like this, it's very arbitrary and so therefore it's phony
Marc:Well, I got to be honest with you.
Marc:Sometimes when I do ONA and the jokes start, you know, that there's something, you know, there's something that happens in there around blacks with Anthony.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that, you know, I get uncomfortable.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:Because I'm not used to the type of... Because I think that on some level, even though Patrice is in and Keith is in and you've got black guys in there playing along and defending the turf, that somehow or another...
Guest:I I get concerned about how it's interpreted and and whose brain you're feeding with that shit because I I don't I I get a sense sometimes that I get concerned with people that really do hate blacks and that you're gonna feed that that Sentiment see I never ever think of that only because it's the same thing I hold other people as accountable as I want to be held and I'm responsible for my own thinking so I never give myself that much credit meaning
Guest:I'm not going to get credit for good shit.
Guest:That's why I never believe the parents argument.
Guest:Well, my children, I don't give a fuck about your kids because if they get A's in school, you're not going to give me credit.
Guest:So if they give F's, don't pass me the blame.
Guest:You understand?
Guest:If the kid gets A's, the parents are like, well, it's because we're great parents.
Guest:But if the kid gets F's, they want to blame television.
Guest:They want to blame video games.
Guest:Bullshit.
Guest:It's like the same thing with Stephanie.
Guest:They want to be lumped in for the positive, but not the negative.
Guest:Well, it's the same thing it is with stuff like this.
Guest:I don't believe in feeding peoples.
Guest:There's no joke I'm going to make that's going to take a person
Guest:who is very neutral and make them just like black people.
Guest:And unfortunately, there's no joke I'm going to make that's going to take a real racist and make him not a racist.
Guest:And when you have guys like Patrice and Keith, you can't get too blacker guys, meaning Keith and Patrice are as unphoney as you can be about race.
Guest:They're brutally honest.
Guest:and they never care who they're offending, and they never care about being polite or appeasing.
Guest:So guys like that, when you interact with guys like that, you get very comfortable talking about it.
Marc:So you're saying that in the room, because of the... If Patrice and Keith were not on the show, or that black people didn't have a voice on the show, then it would be wrong in your model, in the sense that they do have an opportunity.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Yeah, they do have an opportunity.
Marc:Everybody does.
Marc:Right, but it is enabled in the show.
Marc:Without a doubt.
Marc:That I'm saying that if there was no blacks ever on the show, then it would be dubious.
Guest:If we kept blacks off because we were afraid of them hearing our opinions, then we're phonies.
Guest:But there's nothing that gets said in that room.
Guest:There's no jokes that go out over the mic that wouldn't go out if Patrice was sitting right there.
Guest:And we have regular black listeners, hardcore guys that will call in.
Guest:Sometimes they agree with us.
Guest:Sometimes they fucking want to shoot us.
Guest:But they love us because they always say you're white guys who at least speak like white guys and tell the truth.
Guest:And sometimes it's funny.
Guest:Other times it's tasteless.
Guest:But that's the same as black radio.
Guest:It's the same as Spanish radio.
Guest:It's the same as everybody.
Guest:We're not doing anything earth shattering.
Guest:We're just being funny.
Marc:I guess that historically, when you talk about patriarchy or you talk about, you know, manifest destiny and white supremacy, that I think that the models are built on this white entitlement.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And I think that the argument becomes more about that, that the dominant race is still shitting on the lesser races in their minds that they're lesser.
Marc:But what's happening now is that it's no longer balanced like that and that the honesty is buffered by the fact that there is racial identity in all these other communities and that the dialogue is more exciting and more engaged.
Guest:What happens is, and this is where...
Guest:when Imus is getting fired, or if you say black instead of African-American, or God forbid, you say anything that is deemed racist, other white people attack you.
Guest:And what that is, is that is the ruling class.
Guest:That's true paternalism.
Guest:That's the ruling class spanking themselves and holding themselves more accountable than they hold the group they deem to be the lesser.
Guest:That's what drives me nuts.
Marc:But do you believe that at this point in history, there is a rabid,
Marc:and disturbing racist contingent within this country that is picking up momentum and that as a reaction to a black president has become empowered.
Marc:No.
Guest:My take on the tea party, I've never been to a tea party thing.
Guest:I don't get involved in any of that shit.
Guest:But I really do think that the charge of racism, it's amazing.
Guest:It's a bunch of people
Guest:who are protesting higher taxes.
Guest:And if you remember JFK, there were charges of treason by radical right groups.
Guest:And, you know, it's just it's an attack made on liberals by people when they don't like liberals, communists.
Marc:So you're saying that the racist contingent is the same as it's always been.
Guest:It's not a part of this one.
Guest:It's amazing how the media mocked these Tea Party protesters.
Guest:And yet they don't mock Code Pink.
Guest:They don't mock really radical groups.
Guest:They don't mock the Gay Pride Parade or any of these protesters.
Guest:They don't mock any of the Latin protesters.
Guest:They don't mock any of them.
Guest:They handle them with kid gloves and reverence.
Guest:And yet the Tea Partiers who are protesting basically taxes.
Guest:Whether you agree or disagree or not.
Marc:There's other elements within there.
Marc:There are ones that say that Obama's the Antichrist.
Guest:Why didn't the media mock Farrakhan and the Million Man March, where there was a lot of radical... You don't think it did?
Guest:No.
Guest:Absolutely not.
Guest:I've never heard the media.
Marc:And do you think that's, again, the white entitlement and the white guilt?
Guest:Yes, because you're holding people who hold black people to a different speech standard than they hold themselves are paternalistic and racist.
Guest:I hold people to the same standards I want to be held as.
Guest:You and I should both be able to say the same thing.
Guest:I mean, that's a real simple concept.
Guest:But anytime I put myself in a position where I have to edit, but it's okay if you don't, then I am the parent and you are the child.
Guest:And that drives me crazy.
Guest:And it's a sickness.
Guest:It's people don't even see they're being racist.
Guest:And nothing I say, I would say on D.L.
Guest:Hughley's show, I would say I'm completely comfortable talking about this.
Guest:I don't edit when I'm talking to black people.
Guest:If I disagree with them about something, I say I disagree.
Guest:And they tell me the same thing.
Guest:It's a real simple thing.
Marc:Have you ever censored yourself ever for whatever reason?
Guest:Where you knew you were doing it?
Guest:If I'm on stage and I was going to do a Christopher Reeve joke and there's a guy in the front and he's obviously paralyzed, I wouldn't.
Guest:I mean, I do have some social grace where I'm not a fucking monster.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Or if I see a retarded guy in the front, I don't think I'm an artist if I go, hey, Down syndrome.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:To me, it doesn't mean I can't have compassion or common sense.
Guest:I mean, again, I still understand social interactions.
Guest:So sure, I've edited it.
Guest:Everybody has.
Guest:But I mean, as a rule, as a rule, especially talking on the air for all those hours, I try hard just to be truthful because to me, if I'm not truthful, then I'm fucking, the nerve of me to demand truth from other people and then fucking lie.
Marc:But I think that the important part of that conversation, I'm the same way, is I think the thing that makes a difference between someone telling the truth and just being righteous is the fact that it's an ongoing conversation.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And when you're telling the truth, you have to understand you're going to be wrong sometimes.
Guest:And to me, somebody being righteous is, again, agenda-driven and boring.
Guest:Telling the truth, and there's always that asterisk as I see it, because that's the way it is for all of us.
Guest:And again, sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong.
Guest:In my experience.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And when I'm right, I'm right.
Guest:When I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
Guest:So what?
Guest:As long as I'm truthful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because again, everybody bats about 500 as far as I can see.
Guest:I've never met a comedian who was always right.
Guest:And I've never met a comedian that never got it right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:There's plenty of... I just... I want to be a liberal for real.
Guest:Because I agree with 80% of the things that liberals stand for.
Guest:But that language shit... And we interviewed Carlin before he died.
Guest:I wanted to hug him for this.
Guest:Even he said it.
Guest:He goes, I hate to say it, man, but the most...
Guest:Censorship lately has been coming off of college campuses.
Guest:That's where the censorship is now.
Guest:And I was so happy to hear it confirmed by a guy who knew more about the language than any of us and who spent a longer time fighting language policing than any of us.
Guest:You know, you've done colleges, man.
Guest:You can't attack.
Guest:You know, if you attack Christianity, you make fun of the church.
Guest:It's cool.
Guest:But if you attack Islam, it's not that they care about Islam.
Guest:It's that they're afraid of it.
Marc:Well, I think that's true, and I think that because of certain lack of experience and the youth and the paranoia of being appropriate or inappropriate and not really knowing what their opinions really are yet, that can lead to a future for them as self-censoring people.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I think that's dangerous.
Marc:And the good thing about you is that it's truthful and always funny.
Guest:Thank you, man.
Guest:I try to be funny.
Guest:It's like, to me, I've actually called myself, if I say something for, really, I try to get to the jokes quickly and on stage when I'm talking about this stuff because otherwise it's boring.
Guest:Like, two friends talking is one thing, but in front of an audience, I don't have the right, I really don't, to sit there and just give my, who gives a fuck?
Marc:really who gives a shit the self-importance prior got to the jokes yeah i've been that guy i've been self-important we've all had those you know you know i'm saying but i can step out and realize and i've and crowds love it you call yourself out on it they love it well i think that what's great in in in terms of what you're doing and what i do as well is it's involuntary but we are challenging people
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that the comedy we do is challenging and that makes us specific, but it also makes us unique and we can't help but be that.
Guest:You know, what's funny is the way people, a lot of comedians avoid certain issues as comics and our job, to me at least, is to take
Guest:your knuckle, it's like when you're massaging and you get that knot.
Guest:And it's to put your knuckle in those social knots.
Guest:That's what our job is.
Guest:And there are guys that just completely sidestep it and avoid it.
Guest:And I'm talking about guys that will consider themselves talking about social issues.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:A guy like Demetri Martin's a little bit different.
Guest:He's a guy...
Guest:who's a different style of comic.
Guest:He's not claiming to be, I'm going to talk about Raid.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So it's like, I think he's great at what he does.
Guest:But guys that are up there talking about social issues and doing the same phony, you know, fucking cornball maverick routine.
Guest:It's like, we get it.
Guest:We get it.
Guest:White suburban people.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:You're never going to get penalized for that shit.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Stop it.
Guest:And they take that shit into a black room and they bomb.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Black people don't like that.
Guest:Black people don't like some fucking hip white kid, you know, sitting there trying to bond.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Meanwhile, he's lived in the suburbs his whole life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he has no real experience.
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, shit, Jim.
Marc:Thanks for talking to you.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I babbled, but it's I love you, man.
Marc:I appreciate you having me on.
Marc:I love you, too.
Marc:And I'm glad we had the talk.
Marc:Thank you, buddy.
Marc:I enjoy writing the mailing list and you'll get information about our guests.
Marc:I'll write a little stuff about me, maybe send some pictures.
Marc:Also, we're going to be offering some special deals to people on the mailing list and also special deals to people that do a certain premium package.
Marc:I don't lean on this too much, but we are listener supported here at WTF and we are working pretty hard for you.
Marc:And we'd like you to donate.
Marc:And there's several options.
Marc:You can donate whatever you want.
Marc:And I certainly appreciate it.
Marc:You can get on the $10 a month rolling donation, a subscription donation.
Marc:And with that, you'll get a T-shirt, some stickers, and be a monthly $10 a month contributor.
Marc:There's also the super premium donation of $250, a one-time donation.
Marc:And with that, you get a Nerdcock shirt, a What the Fuck shirt, all three of my comedy CDs, a very special Best of WTF Volume 1 with material on it that has never been on the show, and some stickers.
Marc:And also, if you do the $250 premium, we're going to have a special gift for you in the very near future.
Marc:But as I said, whatever you can afford, I'm glad you like the show.
Marc:If you can't afford to pay at all or to donate,
Marc:Just enjoy the show.
Marc:I'm certainly glad you're here.
Marc:But do go to WTFPod.com and get on the mailing list at the very least.
Marc:Get yourself some JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Go to PunchlineMagazine.com.
Marc:Get up to speed on all the comedy news.
Marc:And go check out Stand Up Records catalog.
Marc:StandUpRecords.com.
Marc:because he's got great taste over there.
Marc:He's done my three records, and now he's somewhat sponsoring the show.
Marc:He did help us put out that Best of WTF Volume 1 CD that you do get with the $250 premium.
Marc:I really appreciate you listening, and it's a joy to be doing what I love to do with no one telling me what to do.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:Talk to you next time.
you