Episode 730 - Eric Andre
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fucktuckians?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:How's everything going?
Marc:Welcome.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:My guest today, this is actually kind of an old style WTF.
Marc:Old school.
Marc:I'll explain to you why in a little while.
Marc:My guest today is Eric Andre, the very funny, very ballsy, unique Eric Andre.
Marc:And it was somewhat of a long time coming, folks, this WTF, and not because he was hard to get.
Marc:Well, quite honestly, it's because he didn't want to do it, and I didn't want him to do it.
Marc:And quite frankly, we had some trouble.
Marc:We had some problems.
Marc:And, well, again, this is the way it used to go.
Marc:This is what the original WTFs sounded like, a lot of them.
Marc:And it was nice.
Marc:It was it was at once a sign of progress on my part, but also a sign of, you know, continued progress necessary in a way.
Marc:Let me let me let me do a couple of things and I'll try to fill you in if you haven't been with us since the beginning.
Marc:brian jones the guy who makes the cat mugs uh made some new ones all right they're available uh right now i believe um today is it today yeah they go on sale at 12 noon eastern 9 a.m pacific you can go to brianrjones.com to get your hand thrown ceramic mug by a local artist in portland if you live in portland he's a local artist but these are
Marc:of his creation originally again if you didn't know these mugs were made exclusively the original version of them were made exclusively to give to to guests on the show as sort of a a little piece of unique swag and now you can have them and they are not they are not like the original ones they're they've evolved there's been several styles because you know brian jones is an artist
Marc:He's got to make his pots and plates and pitchers and things look different.
Marc:He's got to evolve.
Marc:So you're looking at some evolved mugs there.
Marc:So grab those if you want.
Marc:They usually sell pretty quickly, and they're pretty fancy.
Marc:And they're also a fine gift idea, if I could say so.
Marc:Could I say so?
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Also, before I forget, I'm going to keep it shallow.
Marc:in terms of looking out at the landscape.
Marc:But I'll be in Phoenix, Arizona, August 20th for two shows.
Marc:That's a Saturday at Stand Up Live.
Marc:And shortly thereafter, I'll be at the Albuquerque Journal Theater September 3rd for a benefit there for the Endorphin Power Company.
Marc:It's a rehab sort of halfway house type of facility where they have meetings and do some work.
Marc:And there's places for people to live that hit the skids of one kind or another.
Marc:But you can get the links to those both of those for tickets at WTF pop dot com slash tour.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that's a little business out of the way.
Marc:I also want to thank everyone for all the nice feedback about the surprising Roseanne interview.
Marc:Apparently a lot of you forgot about why you loved her.
Marc:Like I just got this email, Roseanne, episode 729.
Marc:Mark, I worked a small theater show back in 1992 with Roseanne and Tom.
Marc:It was chaos between them backstage and eventually ended with a tray of fried chicken being thrown down a hallway at Tom and the crew.
Marc:I've been under the assumption this whole time that she was just one of those showbiz types that just treated people kind of poorly after listening to your show today.
Marc:That logic has shifted.
Marc:Like all of us, she is only human and has endured some heavy, heavy shit.
Marc:I was young and cocky and presumptuous, and she had every right to throw that chicken.
Marc:Well, that was the interesting thing, you know.
Marc:Rosanna has a lot of different manifestations, but at the core of it, she's a sensitive and brilliant comedic entertainer that made out pretty well for herself, and she's got other stuff on her mind.
Marc:I was just happy we were able to really focus on comedy in her career and what makes her great.
Marc:There was also a bit of feedback about my poetic vitriolic ramble about the nature of Trump supporters in some respects that I thought was very empathetic.
Marc:Most of the feedback was positive.
Marc:There were a few of those weird trolling type of emails of people.
Marc:There's only a couple of people, types of people that do that.
Marc:And usually neither one of them are telling the truth in any real way.
Marc:There's the guy that writes email, says, yeah, I heard what you said.
Marc:And, you know, I'm completely opposite to what you described and you're wrong.
Marc:And then, you know, if you go into an exchange with them, they become exactly what you described.
Marc:Then there's the other one.
Marc:It's like, hey, I heard what you said, and I used to be a regular listener.
Marc:Not anymore.
Marc:There was like two of those.
Marc:And you know what?
Marc:Not regular listeners.
Marc:Look, if you can't handle five minutes of poetic vitriol about something that's happening right now that comes from my heart and my mind, if you can't get through five minutes of that without shutting the show down...
Marc:We don't need you.
Marc:We don't.
Marc:I don't need you.
Marc:And I don't believe you.
Marc:If you're that sensitive, you know what I mean?
Marc:It's interesting how this this campaign, though, does shift from, you know, at once one one day being like terrifying and then the next day being completely hilarious.
Marc:Obviously, deep on a deeper level, it indicates something much more grave.
Marc:But but you know what I'm saying?
Marc:It's exciting some days in a funny way.
Marc:And it's exciting some days in a terrifying way.
Marc:And I guess that's just going to be the way it's going to be.
Marc:Eric.
Marc:Andre is here.
Marc:Now, here's the deal.
Marc:As some of you have listened to this show for a long time, a lot of the show at the beginning was me kind of patching it up with people that I either actually offended or that I thought I offended or that people that I needed to make amends with or sort of meet halfway.
Marc:It was a lot about reparations.
Marc:and eventually I ran out of people to have reparations with, but there was a few outstanding.
Marc:There are some that are probably going to stay outstanding for the rest of my life, and I'll just have to resolve that stuff on the inside.
Marc:But Eric Andre...
Marc:I first met him and he reminds me because I didn't remember, I guess, at the Aspen Comedy Festival where years ago, it must have been the last one where I was actually a decent dude.
Marc:When I remember meeting him was after the divorce was sort of like I was just beaten, beaten and broke from a divorce.
Marc:Cranky, cynical, miserable, full of the fucking rage and hate towards me, towards everything.
Marc:Didn't know where everything was gonna end up.
Marc:It was not a good time.
Marc:And Eric Andre was hosting a show that I did.
Marc:And I thought, I was like maybe,
Marc:And I've had this problem.
Marc:So I mean, and I'll own it.
Marc:You know, sometimes I've, I've had little problems with younger comics.
Marc:I obviously, maybe I, I feel threatened or maybe I just am judgy or maybe I'm jealous or, or, or, or just annoyed.
Marc:I don't know, but there was one night and I remember it where he fucking, you know, he, it's something he did stuck in my craw and I was, and I laid into him on stage and I didn't stop for a while.
Marc:And here's the honest to God truth about it.
Marc:And I don't know that he really knows it.
Marc:So that went on for years.
Marc:I mean, because that happened in like way back, like 2007, 2008.
Marc:And he was always, you know, he's been around a long time, but he always annoyed me because I didn't really know what he did.
Marc:And I just didn't I just didn't like him.
Marc:He just was fucking annoying to me.
Marc:And he was cocky.
Marc:And it just he always annoyed me.
Marc:And then eventually it just kind of lessened.
Marc:And then it was sort of like, well, he got his show, but I had not really seen the show.
Marc:And and I, you know, I felt better about myself and, you know, whatever.
Marc:And I just didn't care anymore.
Marc:And I didn't see any reason for me to be mad at him.
Marc:And then I tried to get him on the show and he wasn't he wouldn't fucking do it.
Marc:But I get it.
Marc:Why would he?
Marc:But then part of me was like, well, fuck him then.
Marc:So there's a lot of emotions tied up with it.
Marc:And then I ran into him at some magazine book fair thing, and I ran into him, and we looked at each other, and I'm like, well, where are we at?
Marc:Are we okay?
Marc:He's like, I don't know, I guess.
Marc:It was still not good, but it was better.
Marc:It opened up sort of a line of communication, but not quite.
Marc:But then like then, you know, he's got his new seasons out.
Marc:I said, do you want to do it or you want to come on the show?
Marc:Let's do it.
Marc:And he's like, OK, but you got to watch the show.
Marc:Like he's basically kind of like, I really want you to watch him.
Marc:And I watched it and I loved it.
Marc:There's very few people that can do that shit good.
Marc:You know, the pranking and the fucking, you know, like just like off the fucking grid, punk rock, insane shit.
Marc:But he does it well, and his man on the street shit is hilarious.
Marc:And I like the show.
Marc:I got it.
Marc:I thought he does it differently.
Marc:There's not many people doing that.
Marc:I mean, Tim and Eric, and there's been some jackass guys, but there's a way of pranking and doing things.
Marc:It just kind of blew my mind, and I respected it, and I appreciated his talent.
Marc:But we recorded this before he did the RNC.
Marc:And I saw that clip of him, that sort of gonzo pranking guy with a mic at the Republican National Convention when he just kind of stepped in with fucking Alex Jones.
Marc:He just baffled that, you know,
Marc:That guy, what is that guy?
Marc:He's like one of these sort of radio champions of elaborate impotence.
Marc:One of these great sort of fist-wagging kind of like conspiracy theorists that just will never get any resolution.
Marc:But
Marc:But but Eric just stepped in and just was fucking whack job with him.
Marc:And it just kind of threw him off his groove entirely.
Marc:And just all he could do is sit there and say, like, you know, we're going to edit this out.
Marc:We're going to edit this out.
Marc:It's just interesting when some sort of odd fucking reality just comes into the periphery of a complete fucking control freak's life.
Marc:And all they can do is, like, just sort of close it down.
Marc:We're going to take care of this.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Real life is happening.
Marc:And I don't understand it.
Marc:Who is this?
Marc:And what?
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:I wonder if this is part of the Freemasons.
Marc:But it was very funny.
Marc:And his new season is very funny.
Marc:And I think we pulled it together.
Marc:I think we we definitely had a good time.
Marc:I'll tell you that.
Marc:I have a respect for pranksters.
Marc:I have a respect.
Marc:And it sort of rides the edge of envy at the freedom of it and the sort of complete, confident cojones to risk making a fool out of yourself but be able to live there.
Marc:I mean, we all do that to a certain degree, comics.
Marc:But...
Marc:Boy, man, some of that shit on this new season, Eric Andre show of him out on the street there.
Marc:It's so funny.
Marc:Cause he's always got, there's always blood involved.
Marc:There's always a little bit of blood involved.
Marc:I talked to him a little bit about that, but you can watch the show.
Marc:The Eric Andre show is back tomorrow night, August 5th on adult swim.
Marc:And now this is me.
Marc:And, uh, initially, uh, a slightly not tense, but, uh, you know, he had his, he had, you know, he had his thing.
Marc:He had his territory.
Marc:I had mine.
Marc:And we, you know, we needed to bring it together.
Marc:So this is me and Eric Andre.
Marc:Wait, how long have you been here?
Marc:When did I piss you off?
Marc:When did we piss each other off?
Marc:How long ago was that?
Marc:I'd say like five years ago, maybe.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So should I tell the story?
Marc:You want to tell?
Marc:I know that I was wrong, but I'd like to hear your side of the story.
Marc:I was hosting a show.
Marc:At the fucking... At Tiger Lily.
Guest:At a fucking Italian restaurant.
Marc:Hollywood Gulch.
Guest:At Hollywood Gower Gulch.
Guest:I don't even think it's an Italian restaurant.
Guest:It's like a vague, it's almost like an airport restaurant.
Guest:Hollywood Bar and Grill.
Guest:Hollywood Bar and Grill, the vaguest restaurant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm hosting a show.
Guest:I hate hosting.
Guest:Hosting is like a miserable position.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Work the crowd and set up each comic.
Guest:You can't just dive into your regular set.
Guest:You got to bring the audience to the show.
Guest:Right, and it wasn't an easy room ever, really.
Guest:There's like three people in the room, three like civilians.
Guest:Everybody else is comedians and they're eating dinner.
Guest:They don't even know what the fuck's going on.
Guest:They just see me.
Guest:I'm some guy talking into a microphone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was very stressed.
Guest:I was a stress ball in those days.
Guest:I was like, now I like meditate and go to therapy.
Guest:You were the new guy in town too, right?
Guest:I was relatively new in town.
Guest:And I like, I was like, I fucking hate hosting, but I'll host.
Guest:And I had, I never get fucked up on stage, but I had like that night I took a Xanax and drink some wine.
Guest:Oh really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was just like Lucy goose.
Guest:And I was like, I got a host.
Guest:I'll just do some crowd work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Bring the people to the show.
Guest:It's like, I'm not, I wasn't working on my Carnegie hall special by any stretch of the imagination for three people.
Guest:That's a 7 PM show at an Italian restaurant.
Yeah.
Guest:and i'm just like riffing and just like weaving in and out of jokes and trying to like you know work the two people in the audience that are confused what's happening yeah and then you got on stage and you fucking ripped me a new asshole like out of no i was like blind you were like what's your name you like whispered in my ear as you're walking i'm like yeah what's your name i was like eric andre and they're like
Guest:I'm Eric Andre.
Guest:Like Comedy Central roast ripping into me.
Guest:And all the comics are like, fuck him.
Guest:You got to rip into him next.
Guest:And I'm like, hi.
Guest:So I'm like, what the fuck did I do?
Guest:Why am I getting bullied?
Guest:I'm doing it.
Guest:I just moved to LA.
Guest:I'm doing an Italian restaurant for two people trying to host.
Guest:And this guy, I kept calling you Professor Comedy.
Guest:You were up there lecturing me.
Uh-huh.
Marc:I was actually calling me when you went back up.
Guest:Did you call me Professor Comedy when you went back up?
Guest:Yeah, I was like, thanks.
Guest:I was like, I don't remember.
Guest:I was like, thanks, old man Winters, fucking Professor Comedy, lecturing me and wagging your finger.
Guest:I was like, I'm not practicing my HBO special.
Guest:Like, I'm fucking...
Guest:Hi.
Guest:Well, sorry about that.
Guest:Yeah, and then I ripped on you for wearing patchouli.
Guest:Yeah, patchouli.
Guest:That's about as much as I get in, but I'm not like a roast comment.
Guest:That's not my bag.
Guest:Me neither.
Guest:So I'm like, I'm high.
Guest:I feel good.
Guest:I'm on Xanax.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:I didn't even mind that.
Guest:I wasn't pissed off about that.
Guest:I was like, you know what?
Guest:We're all just razzing each other, whatever.
Guest:I was pissed off because my...
Guest:Writing partner came up to me the next day and he was like, hey, did you piss off Marc Maron?
Guest:I go.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Yeah, I was just hosting the show and he goes No, I had nothing to do with the show.
Guest:I was at Bar Lubitsch and I overheard him talking to somebody So it's some other comic and he was like, you know this Eric Andre guy who the fuck does this guy think he is he fucking sucks I was like, what the fuck did I do?
Guest:This is fucking crazy.
Guest:Well, I was like, what do you want from?
Guest:me so that's when i was pissed off and i was like mother fuck this guy man right like and that went on for a while we yeah and then every time i saw you you'd be like come up to talk to me i was like you just talked shit about me at some random shows because i wasn't like up to your standard of perfection no no at the fucking gower gulch hollywood bar and grill i know i know that fucking 6 30 p.m on a tuesday i was being a dick i was being a dick but i can explain it yeah go ahead do you want me to
Guest:I would love you to.
Marc:I would love nothing more.
Marc:But do you feel malice towards me now, or are we truly cool, or is this going to work it out?
Guest:No, I think you got over... I think you were... I didn't take it... Eventually, I didn't take it too personally.
Guest:I think you were dealing... With my own problems.
Guest:With your own problems.
Guest:In hindsight, I was like, he might be a man who's dealing with his own problems.
Guest:Then I heard how many other people you were having...
Guest:Problems.
Guest:Similar problems with you.
Guest:And then it was when the show started, when WTF started, and you started airing your beefs with Louis and Jon Stewart and all these people.
Guest:I was like, okay, I'm not alone.
Guest:This guy seems to have a pattern.
Guest:A pattern.
Marc:pattern a behavior pattern i thought it was okay with you what here's what happened with me here's what i don't know if it was a particularly good night i didn't love going there but i felt like i had to you know because like i needed this uh stage time and i like doing all rooms and whatever but it was never easy to do that room and my it's like three people i know i know but i'm crazy so like
Marc:So when I saw you up there, having done comedy in San Francisco for a couple years, I sort of knew that riff style.
Marc:And I just felt like, you know, you were over-performing for the situation.
Marc:And I thought, like, well, that's a fairly ungracious host, just to deplete the room of all its energy by putting too much energy.
Marc:Whatever.
Marc:I am not a good host.
Marc:I'm crazy.
Marc:I'm not a good host.
Marc:No, you were a terrible host.
Marc:I'm never like, you know what I want to get into?
Marc:Hosting.
Marc:No, no, you weren't.
Marc:That's my calling.
Marc:Hosting.
Marc:i thought i thought what i think at the moment what i felt was that uh you were it was wrong given the backstory that you were uh you know just sort of not caring about the hosting yeah and just fucking blowing out the room and then bringing i didn't even realize i was i mean that's how you perceived it blowing out the room i was probably nervous and high and i'm like grabbing and i'm new to la and i'm grabbing at straws to make hosting work i don't feel comfortable doing it yeah so my nervous energy is to get
Guest:loud and like, you know what I mean?
Marc:Because I'm scared.
Marc:It's primal fear.
Marc:I probably thought you were like, you know, a cocky fuck you guy.
Marc:No.
Marc:I will.
Marc:I'm like a cocky like dice clay kind of guy.
Marc:I'm like, hey, fuck you.
Marc:Not like that, but sort of like, you know, yeah, I'm the shit.
Marc:I'm the new guy.
Marc:This is what comedy looks like now.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I wish I had that comedy.
Guest:This is what comedy looks like now?
Guest:Three people at the fucking Hollywood Bar and Grill at 5 p.m.?
Guest:That's fucking crazy.
Guest:But I really didn't even mind that.
Guest:It was the aftermath that you're going around to other comedy shows talking shit about it.
Marc:It sounded like it was probably the day after.
Marc:Maybe the day.
Guest:Yeah, but I didn't know.
Guest:So my mind leads me to think that you're going around town telling people that I'm shit.
Guest:So I'm just like, what the fucking... And there was this culture of...
Guest:There was this snobby, pretentious... The thing that sucks about this hipster generation is this pretentious, eye-rolly, snobby... Snarky shit.
Guest:Snarky shit.
Guest:Yeah, I don't like it.
Guest:That comes with it.
Guest:So there was this just... When I started out doing comedy, I did my first year in Boston, then I moved to New York City.
Guest:There was this whole...
Guest:group of comedians and I was like young and naive I was 20 years old when I started I was 21 when I moved to New York and like there I was like oh comedians they're so smart and funny it's gonna be a fun group of people to hang out with I'm 20 you know I was a kid so I was like and then I was so bummed out when I first moved to New York I was like they're so mean and not all of them but like there was enough mean curmudgeon
Guest:pretentious wet noodle handshake like no eye contact handshake the club guys are the alt guys both both full force full force and the alt guys it was even more of a shock i was like i thought you're supposed to be the counter to this to what you perceive as the jocks you're acting like more of the jocks than the jocks
Guest:And we were all nerds in fucking high school.
Guest:We all got beat up.
Guest:Why don't we come together on that?
Guest:Why is everybody being a high school clicky dick?
Guest:So it was not only that you would have roasted me at the Hollywood Bar and Grill, but also that you were talking shit about me at other shows, and that I was surrounded by this culture of snobbery and clickiness and eye-rolly shit.
Guest:It was just like, oh, it was so hard.
Guest:Plus, I was just going through my own...
Marc:insanity insanity just moving to la so i was just like what the fuck did i do nothing i i apologize and i felt and it bothered me for a long time because like i didn't know really what to do and i and there was one point where i reached out to you to talk and you're like no i mean like you didn't respond to me why would you i understand and then i think we had a break in the tension a year or so ago at that book comic book place yeah
Marc:Book fair, I saw you with some dude.
Marc:But like I just wanted it to be over because I knew that it had made an impression and I knew that I had like it was just me being a dumb old cranky bastard being judgmental.
Marc:And I knew you were good and you were funny and you were doing interesting things, but you annoyed me.
Marc:What am I going to do?
Marc:What?
Marc:That's never happened to you before?
Guest:No, but if I'm annoyed by a comic, I wouldn't go on after him and be like, hey, fuck that last guy, right?
Guest:Unless he was saying something so offensive.
Guest:Unless he was like in blackface and like passing out, you know, neo-Nazi literature after the show.
Guest:And you're right.
Guest:I just like you stomach so many horrid comics when you come, especially like you started on Boston too, right?
Guest:I did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I did actually.
Guest:There were lunatics in Boston when I started in Boston.
Marc:Well, let's go back.
Marc:Let me just finish this.
Marc:I think what it was, it hit a trigger with me only because having been in San Francisco and having sort of known Warren Thomas and Greg Proops and probably guys you don't even know, that there was this type of improvising that when it was done really well, it's great to watch, but I just thought, what is he doing up there?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like he's just doing that like, ooh, look at this, a mic stand.
Marc:I got it on my head.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:And there's no substance.
Guest:There's no writing.
Guest:It's just like flailing around.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Which is fine.
Guest:Which I don't like either.
Guest:I would have probably watched my set and I'd be like, yeah, that was shit.
Guest:I'm on a Xanax.
Guest:I'm drinking wine.
Guest:I'm hosting a fucking six o'clock show at an Italian restaurant.
Guest:It wasn't at six o'clock.
Guest:Or whatever.
Guest:I'm speaking hyperbolically.
Guest:I'm embellishing.
Guest:It wasn't at six o'clock.
Guest:That's your fucking point.
Guest:It was at eight.
Guest:It was at eight or nine.
Guest:Why did you carry that with you into Bar Lube at other shows?
Marc:Because I decided that- That I was the devil.
Marc:Not the devil.
Marc:You decided that was my whole act.
Marc:You saw that in five minutes.
Marc:I wasn't out to get you, but it stuck with me.
Marc:I felt there was something grandstanding and fucked up about it.
Marc:So it really bothered you that much.
Marc:Yeah, because I'm a little crazy.
Marc:I'm less crazy.
Marc:It wouldn't happen today.
Marc:Why did you get a lot better?
Marc:Through success or through therapy?
Marc:No, not through therapy.
Marc:I think what happened was over time.
Marc:The success of the show.
Marc:Maybe a little.
Marc:Well, that certainly helped me in a lot of ways.
Marc:Yeah, but I still get crazy.
Marc:You seem a lot healthier.
Marc:But I keep it to myself.
Marc:And at that time, I don't know where I was with my life or my relationship.
Marc:I was mad at the situation.
Marc:I had my own fears about going on stage.
Marc:I didn't know why because it was always a struggle.
Marc:Because I have found that a lot of times with alt audiences, they're terrible.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:they're just they're judgmental they don't they don't necessarily know what good comedy is yeah everything feels like an inside joke or something which is i know how to do it but that like it was just that night and something just stuck with me and then like even like um but because sam varela used to work for me you know sam yeah and she loved you and and she would be like i think you're you know you're wrong about him i'm like i don't know
Marc:Just based on that one set.
Marc:I wish you saw me do like a regular set.
Marc:But I know it's a six o'clock show at an Italian restaurant.
Guest:I wish you had just seen, if you saw my set a bunch and you had that attitude, that would, it wouldn't have been great, but it still would have been better.
Guest:It was so unfair.
Guest:It was unfair.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It's unfair to judge somebody's set of hosting a show.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:If you had to host.
Guest:All right.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:But if you were doing your set or not even their set, because some people are working on material and it's
Guest:can be awful but if you saw my special yeah if i put out a special and i just had the microphone on top of my head and i was going well then fucking by all means you could you could adjust i agree i you know and i you know and i you know i thought it was unfair i thought it was unfair well yeah you're gonna forgive me or what do we forgive you i was wrong
Marc:Fucking... You're going to forgive me or what, you fucking asshole?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry.
Marc:I don't want any problems.
Marc:Are we going to talk for 10 minutes or are you going to be like, just wait a minute.
Marc:So I'm on a Xanax.
Guest:You know I was on a Xanax.
Guest:Well, it affected me.
Guest:It was the last straw.
Guest:It was like the final...
Guest:It wasn't like that one thing.
Marc:It was like this culture of... Oh, I was the tipping point?
Marc:You were the tipping point.
Marc:Well, let's go back then.
Marc:So where'd you grow up?
Marc:Florida, Boca Raton, Florida.
Marc:Really?
Marc:My mom lives in Hollywood.
Marc:Yeah, that's very close.
Marc:Yeah, really?
Marc:Boca?
Marc:Boca Raton.
Marc:Like your whole family's there?
Marc:Yeah, Boynton, Delray Beach, yeah.
Guest:But I grew up in Boca.
Marc:No shit.
Marc:You have brothers and sisters?
Marc:Older sister.
Marc:That's it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're like, what's your background?
Marc:My dad's from Haiti.
Guest:Really from Haiti?
Guest:Really from Haiti.
Guest:My dad's name is Pierre Andre.
Guest:English is his fourth language.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What are the other three?
Guest:French?
Guest:Creole, French, Spanish, and English.
Guest:Can you speak all those?
Guest:No, you didn't teach me a goddamn thing.
Guest:Nothing?
Guest:No.
Guest:Why?
Guest:He's like, you spoke to me in English.
Guest:I would speak back in English.
Guest:I was like, you're a fucking asshole.
Guest:You're supposed to teach a kid languages when they're young.
Guest:So that's when their brains develop.
Guest:And he's like, I don't know.
Guest:Did he have a Haitian accent?
Guest:My dad has a thick Haitian accent, yeah.
Guest:He's like, oh, you crazy.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:My dad's from Haiti.
Guest:My mom's a Jew from New York.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Like a Jewish Jew?
Guest:Like a Jewish Ashkenazi Jew.
Guest:I have a joke where I say my dad looks like Arthur Ashe and my mom looks like Howard Stern.
Guest:She grew up Upper West Side in like the 40s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Before there were suburbs and highways.
Guest:So it was like working class families in Manhattan.
Guest:And she lived in Manhattan, Bronx, Jersey.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you have Jewish grandparents?
Guest:Jewish grandparents.
Guest:Where are they?
Guest:In Jersey?
Guest:Are they around?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:They're dead.
Guest:Oh, they're dead.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Everybody's dead.
Guest:Everyone's dead?
Guest:No, mom and dad are alive.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But like my grandma died.
Marc:uh when i was 18 and my grandpa died when i was two but like florida's nuts man sucks but it's the worst i hated it but like i've grown as again you know around the same time that i started to evolve over our problem and grow as a human i've grown to appreciate florida for how much it sucks in a very specific way yeah there's no place like it ever anywhere it's the weirdest fucking place i've ever been in my life
Guest:I think culture kind of stops around Atlanta and then just like this, like runoff.
Guest:It's like fucking poison drips down.
Marc:I used to say they're either at the end of their life or the end of their rope.
Guest:It's like, it's a fucking, it's a, it's a bummer.
Guest:It's like, yeah, it's either God's waiting room, just elderly people waiting to die.
Marc:It's crazy.
Guest:Or George Zimmerman fucking lunatics.
Marc:And then all the fucking Latin people.
Marc:From all over the Latin world.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, you go to Miami, it's like this, and then there's fucking rednecks and freaks.
Guest:I mean, I like Cuban people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like Cuban coffee a lot.
Marc:Oh, me too.
Marc:But like this weird sort of mixture of like kind of white, you know, redneck-y types.
Guest:It attracts a lot of different lunatics for different reasons.
Marc:Yeah, for the weather, I guess.
Guest:For the weather.
Marc:And then like where my mom lives, you got German snowbirds that come down.
Marc:It's a state built on weather.
Marc:yeah yeah this is too kind of it's also very cheap is it california is expensive florida's cheap so what did you do were you just like you know chomping uh what did they chomping at the bit to get the fuck out of florida get the fuck out of there what were you doing as a kid though were you like play the hollywood gulch the gower where he took his annex and drank some wine and some old bitter comet some bitter jews
Marc:just rained on your goddamn hollywood parade it was the last straw well you know what is also awkward doing that movie we did well we were still mad at each other yeah yeah it felt bad you seemed you seemed i was over it you were not over it yeah you were still like you seemed like you were trying to extend yeah yeah yeah you wouldn't let me you wouldn't have it more needed to be done i need to humble myself somehow
Marc:You weren't having it.
Marc:And that movie is the equivalent of the Gower Golt.
Guest:Gower Golt's the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:it's the gower gulch of movies yeah it really is i remember talking like i don't even like is it out i don't know i just know like i know no one's taking ownership no like it's like somebody brings it up i just like walk through the question it's like this weird shameful event we were all part of it's gonna be it's gonna surface somebody said i was funny and i had one funny beat i mean isn't that the best you can do
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:I couldn't even... I don't want to talk too much shit.
Guest:I'm friends with those guys.
Marc:But I was trying to figure out, because I watched a couple episodes of the new season, which I like, and I like for specific reasons that we'll get to.
Guest:I'm actually surprised that you like it.
Marc:Dude, I have a very open mind.
Guest:Because there's this one time at 6 p.m.
Guest:specifically.
Guest:My mind closed.
Guest:Your mind closed.
Guest:I'd had enough.
Guest:My mind was closed for business.
Marc:Cool.
Marc:No, but what were you doing?
Marc:What kind of kid were you?
Marc:Were you a skateboard kid?
Marc:Were you getting your ass kicked?
Marc:Were you a smart kid?
Marc:A problem?
Guest:I was...
Guest:I got good grades.
Guest:I got straight A's, but I was always acting out in class, very hyper.
Guest:I would get straight A's for my grades, and then I would get straight F's in conduct because I was always getting detentions.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Acting out to get girls' attention and make my friends laugh and class clown and stuff like that.
Marc:Like riffing on the desk and stuff?
Marc:riffing on the dad take the microphone stand to put on my head and do a lot of like san francisco style improv no i just fucking hyper yeah and were you clinically hyper did you need medicine no no none of that shit but were you like but you got straight a's so your parents were cool with you but you were still kind of a problem or what
Guest:Yeah, I was a problem in middle school and high school, but I just get in trouble a lot in class.
Guest:But I went to... I was in public school, but I wasn't gifted, so I was a nerd.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I sucked at sports, and I couldn't skateboard or do anything cool.
Guest:I was kind of awkward and nerdy.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I looked like Steve Urkel from first grade to all through college.
Guest:And like...
Guest:Once I started passing puberty, I'm a Jew, so my nose was like twice the size of my head and my ears.
Guest:I look like the cartoons that Hitler would draw, the Nazis would draw.
Marc:Except with an afro.
Guest:Except with an afro.
Guest:And then I went to this really shitty, bad, racist school in ninth grade that was kind of like that John Singleton movie, Higher Learning, but in real life.
Guest:because I was in the pre-IB program.
Guest:It's called International Baccalaureate Program.
Guest:It was like the nerds of the nerds, like the gifted, gifted kids would be in this college prep kind of program.
Guest:What was your particular gift?
Guest:Well, I got out of that school.
Guest:I was in that school for a year.
Guest:But were you math or were you what?
Guest:I was good at math, but I went into an arts high school, magnets arts program the next year because that school was so bad and I wasn't doing that well and the teachers were miserable and the administration was racist and the kids were racist against each other.
Guest:It was very...
Guest:segregated white kids and black kids just hated each other and i got like rocks thrown in my head it was so miserable only there and then in 10th grade i got accepted to this magnets arts high school yeah for cello and upright bass and then it was like night and day it was like fame everybody was like super there were no jocks everyone was super nice no not a lot of racism and
Guest:I met the first gay person, you know what I mean?
Guest:Like for the first kids to come out of the closet the earliest they had there and stuff like that.
Guest:So I really had both ends of the spectrum.
Guest:Have you been playing music your whole life?
Guest:I've been playing music my whole life.
Guest:I was playing piano since I was five.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't play anymore.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I have a use, and I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Marc:Get the fuck out of here.
Guest:Yeah, for Albright Bass.
Guest:And I have a useless music degree.
Marc:You went to Berklee for the whole time?
Guest:Yeah, the whole time for upright bass.
Marc:And you can play like jazz bass?
Marc:Yeah, that's what I studied.
Marc:But you can also play with a bow?
Marc:With a bow or arco, yeah.
Marc:And you can read music?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you just decided to do this other bullshit with your life?
Marc:Well, when I entered college- But like, were you a prodigy?
Guest:I wasn't like Charles Mingus or something.
Guest:I could play, but I wasn't like- Right, right.
Guest:I always got bored.
Guest:I would always cheat on different instruments.
Guest:I was like, oh, I'd be really into the drums for two years.
Guest:And then I played tuba in sixth grade.
Guest:You played tuba?
Guest:I played tuba, drums.
Guest:Your parents had to rent you a tuba?
Guest:I had to rent a tuba.
Guest:An old, rusty, fucking sludgy tuba.
Marc:Where the fuck do you play tuba?
Marc:Were you in the marching band?
Guest:I was just in the band band.
Guest:We didn't march.
Guest:We just sat around.
Guest:Yeah, tuba's fun.
Marc:But you always gravitated towards bass.
Guest:yeah maybe I did you like the low end I guess but now if I could do it again I'd do trumpet or like saxophone I don't know but I like piano piano's the whole range drums there's no pitch I wanted to like chip away at a little bit I like guitar too I wanted to chip away at a little bit of everything so I could kind of understand you know what I just got into just yesterday that's what's amazing about the world we live into I've been buying records again you know just fucking got my mind blown by Roland Kirk
Marc:Holy shit.
Guest:Yeah, he's awesome.
Guest:He can circular breathe, too.
Marc:Circular breathe, but the flute album, before he added Rashawn Roland Kirk to his name.
Marc:Oh, no, I don't know.
Marc:It's all jazz flute.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:He's like, yeah, circular breathing, but he's like, he's mumbling.
Guest:Yeah, he's like a virtuoso.
Marc:But the flute, I never really took it in.
Marc:I grew up having to listen to Jethro Tull at different points in my life, but I never knew the flute could fucking be such a big dick instrument.
Guest:Yeah, no, you should listen to Eric Dolphy.
Marc:That's what someone else said.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Eric Dolphy.
Guest:Get an album called Out to Lunch.
Marc:Are you a jazz guy?
Guest:Yeah, that's what I studied.
Guest:I was like a big jazz dork.
Guest:But it's fucking dead, man.
Marc:It's dead.
Marc:No, it's not, man.
Marc:Don't tell Kamasi Washington that.
Marc:It's fucking dead, baby.
Marc:Did you get the Kamasi Washington record?
Guest:No, I don't know the new guys.
Guest:I just listen to stuff in the 60s.
Marc:His first record.
Marc:Called Epic is three records.
Marc:He means fucking business.
Marc:I got to listen to it.
Marc:You got to look at him to know it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, dude.
Marc:He's the guy that plays.
Marc:He did.
Marc:He was on the Kendrick Lamar record.
Marc:The big one.
Marc:Oh, uh-huh.
Marc:He did.
Marc:Yeah, I got to check him out.
Marc:I'm friends with Thundercat who will produce that.
Marc:Yeah, he's a fucking monster-based player.
Marc:Yeah, he's a monster-based player.
Marc:I went to see Kamasi over here at the whatever thing.
Marc:What's it called?
Marc:The arena.
Marc:It's named after a camera.
Marc:Something.
Marc:Nokia.
Marc:Nokia Center.
Marc:Isn't that a camera?
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:Sorry, I'm not good at the San Francisco riff thing.
Marc:Yeah, he's at the camera.
Marc:Let me put this microphone on my head.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:There you go.
Guest:But Thundercad.
Guest:Was that a thing in San Francisco?
Guest:The riffing.
Guest:What was it?
Guest:Give me like a little taste.
Guest:It was like Robin Williams.
Guest:There was not a lot of substance.
Marc:It was just like.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:It was just an improv.
Marc:It was just really just fast paced improv.
Marc:It was like what created Robin Williams style.
Marc:And you resented Robin Williams.
Marc:No, no, I didn't resent Robin Williams.
Marc:What really struck me was Warren Thomas, who's passed.
Marc:Is Warren Thomas, did he die?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I think he's an older black guy.
Marc:Yeah, he didn't die that old, but he died.
Guest:uh from hiv right yeah yeah yeah i met him like his the last week he was alive right i met him i met him and then they were like hey you know that guy you met last week he died i was like what the fuck but i didn't know him that way right well it was like he was one of the the the inventors him and you hated him no i loved him oh you did yeah so i thought you were hacking oh i see yeah so you love those you love proops and warren thomas sure
Marc:but you saw me in your... I was like, this guy's just doing them.
Marc:And they were already doing somebody else.
Marc:They were doing Steve Pearl.
Marc:Like, I know the history.
Marc:I know the history.
Marc:Steve Pearl, I don't know.
Marc:Well, no, no one knows Steve Pearl.
Marc:Who's Steve Pearl?
Marc:Steve Pearl was this genius...
Marc:improvising comic in San Francisco in the late 70s at the Holy City Zoo.
Marc:And he was like just this monster stream of consciousness guy.
Marc:And all those other guys, Robin and- They tried to emulate him, but they didn't quite- You had to have that mind.
Marc:They sort of took it a different place.
Marc:No, I think Proofs has that mind.
Guest:I actually met you before the Gower Gulch, now that I'm thinking about it.
Guest:We met at the Aspen Comedy Festival in 2007.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:And you hosted a- An alt thing?
Guest:No, I didn't even think it was an old thing.
Guest:It was just like... Oh, my God.
Guest:You hosted.
Guest:And the comic that went on right before me was having a really hard time.
Guest:Oh, I remember.
Guest:And you were like, hey, you want me to... He was having a panic attack.
Guest:And then you were like, hey, you want me to do a few minutes and get them back?
Guest:And I was like, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you seemed very cordial.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, I remember.
Guest:We had a civil... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was totally civil.
Guest:Our first meeting was very civil.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I asked you about the first... I was like, when's the first time you did comedy?
Guest:And you were like, 83 in Boston.
Guest:I was like, oh, I went to school in Boston.
Guest:But it was very civil.
Marc:Was it 83?
Marc:Wow, you're right.
Guest:I think that's what you said.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right, because who was that guy who went on there?
Marc:He was all sweating.
Marc:Oh, he's a nice guy.
Guest:I don't want to talk too much shit about him.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Which one was it, though, so I can remember?
Guest:He's a very, very successful guy now.
Guest:What's his name?
Guest:John Mulaney.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I remember.
Guest:Yeah, I felt bad because he was like- He went on and he had like a panic.
Guest:And I've had panic attacks on television.
Guest:But it was an altitude thing.
Guest:It was an altitude thing.
Guest:Yeah, he had to have the oxygen mask.
Marc:It's horrible.
Marc:It's horrible.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I remember that.
Marc:See, I liked you then.
Marc:I didn't remember you.
Marc:Yeah, you're very sweet.
Guest:But I think-
Guest:I think you were married then.
Guest:Yes, that was the end of it.
Guest:And I think, because I think I met your wife.
Guest:Mishnah.
Marc:She was like a foxy, like... Yeah, but that was the night I did the storytelling show, and I told that horrible story about the fight we got into, and then she got mad at me.
Marc:That was like the beginning of the end of my marriage, that trip.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Oh, she was fucking livid.
Guest:Ah, see, and then I think I saw you at the Garrett Gulch days, you were going through a divorce.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I remember I saw you at UCB and you were like unraveling on stage.
Guest:Like you weren't really telling jokes.
Guest:You were just like spewing dark poetry for half an hour.
Guest:And then I was like, fuck this guy.
Guest:He's not telling jokes.
Guest:Where's the microphone?
Guest:Put the microphone stand on his head ASAP.
Guest:No, but it was like dark.
Guest:It was dark.
Guest:You were in a dark place.
Marc:You were brooding.
Marc:Yes, bad.
Marc:You were like Edgar Allan Poe on stage.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't know how to process it.
Marc:Yeah, all I had was the raven.
Marc:But why don't you think therapy?
Marc:You don't think therapy helps?
Marc:No, no, I don't have any problem with therapy.
Marc:I don't have any problem with therapy.
Marc:I've gone to therapy at different points in my life.
Marc:Definitely it helps.
Marc:But at the top of the conversation, you were like, no, therapy didn't help me.
Marc:Well, because I don't really attribute it as helping me in that way.
Marc:I still think experience.
Marc:I know myself well enough to know that I'm not fucking normal.
Marc:I've got problems with relationships.
Marc:I've got emotional problems.
Marc:I know where they come from.
Marc:I know what they are.
Marc:Does it come from your childhood?
Marc:Is it like parents' stuff?
Guest:Yeah, it has to do with- What relationship with your dad, with your mom?
Guest:Yeah, both.
Guest:You?
Guest:Dad, more than mom.
Guest:Mom was good.
Guest:Dad was very aloof.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Detached.
Guest:Absent.
Guest:Detached.
Guest:Absent.
Guest:Workaholic.
Guest:Psychiatrist.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And raised in a very, very chauvinist...
Guest:1940s haiti culture where the men do not do the child raising right so his dad was compared to his father he was an angel because his dad was completely absent did they get out of haiti because shit went bad because of devalier yeah papadakia right yeah and they got out under the wire my dad left haiti with 80 bucks in his pocket speaking no english moved to new york city you know in like an apartment with like 50 other haitians right and um
Guest:was doing messenger service shit.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:Biking around.
Guest:Can he put himself through medical school and everything?
Guest:Yeah, and then he met my mom at a rent strike in 1970, 71.
Guest:They were both living in this apartment building that was shitty and falling apart.
Guest:And he kept asking my mom.
Guest:He was like, oh, can you teach me English?
Guest:Like, I need an English tutor.
Guest:But he was just like kicking it to my mom.
Guest:My mom had dated a bunch of African guys in college.
Guest:And she was like, I just want to date an American guy.
Guest:There was all these, I think, Nigerian guys coming to university.
Guest:She went to school in Madison, Wisconsin.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:She's from New York.
Guest:Went to college in Wisconsin.
Guest:And she's like, me and my friend Davida were the only two white women that would date these African guys.
Guest:And I dated like five African guys.
Guest:So when I got back to New York, I didn't want to date.
Guest:I wanted to date an American.
Guest:And then my dad kept kicking it to her.
Guest:And then she caved.
Guest:And then they dated for eight, 10 months.
Guest:And then got married for 25 years.
Guest:And then they got divorced when I was like 12.
Marc:12?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, so they were divorced.
Marc:That's a bad time, 12.
Marc:It's not a good time.
Marc:And he's detached.
Marc:Detached.
Marc:He's a doctor.
Guest:He's a doctor, and he's very not good at communicating.
Guest:It's funny he's a psychiatrist because he's not the best with communicating with his family.
Marc:That's always the way.
Marc:My dad was a doctor.
Marc:He was a surgeon.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:My parents were very self-involved, lacked boundaries.
Marc:My dad was a little volatile at times.
Marc:Like, you know, I can track all that stuff.
Marc:Like abusive?
Marc:Not really abusive, just erratic.
Marc:You know, bipolar a little bit.
Marc:And, you know, he wasn't around much, but when he was around.
Marc:Did you grow up in Boston?
Guest:Albuquerque.
Marc:abecurian new mexico yeah you get along with mom and dad now yeah you buried the hatchet yeah they're not mean people they're just annoying
Guest:That's how I'd say my dad.
Guest:That's the problem.
Guest:My dad's not a dick.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's just detached.
Guest:He's removed.
Guest:And if you confront him, he just kind of mumbles his way out of it and changes the subject and half pays attention.
Guest:And you're just like, Dad, you didn't come to my high school graduation.
Guest:That affected me.
Guest:You didn't come to soccer practice ever.
Guest:That affected me.
Guest:You're a psychiatrist.
Guest:You should know how that's going to affect your child.
Guest:Your dad did it to you.
Guest:And you shouldn't do it.
Guest:You shouldn't pass that shittiness on to your kid.
Guest:And he'll just be like, I had to bring home the bacon and I'll get defensive.
Guest:And then he'll kind of slowly space out and turn on CNN and then start talking about politics.
Guest:And you're just like, there's no.
Marc:so yeah so you had to carry that the you had to sort of get it for yourself that's the fucked up thing about it is like you're not getting that feedback you're not getting that support you're not getting that love i think for a boy too yeah he needs the mail well you're lucky because my dad was that he was at my college graduation he was crying um and got lost and he's really jump off a bridge somewhere yeah really yeah it's exciting
Guest:Like, literally.
Guest:My dad came to my college graduation.
Guest:I will give him that.
Guest:He didn't come to my sister's high school or college graduation.
Guest:He didn't come to my high school graduation.
Guest:But he came to my college graduation and guess who the fucking guest speaker was?
Guest:Who?
Guest:Bill Cosby.
Guest:And I have an autographed Bill Cosby record.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, should I burn this or should I keep it forever?
Marc:It was very hard to separate the Bill Cosby we grew up with.
Marc:And it's no longer a question, but it's fucked up.
Marc:It's fucked.
Marc:Woody Allen, too.
Marc:Do you think Woody Allen jerked off his kids?
Marc:It seems like he did something.
Marc:But, you know, it's like, again, you know, I got a bummer, man.
Marc:People are fucked.
Marc:Everybody's fucked.
Guest:they are and that's a those those two specific ways of being are really i mean i'm i heard that gandhi this is crazy gandhi i'm a gandhi i know you know well personally not a great comic not a great comic but i heard that his wife was dying of some disease and he for some reason he talked her out of taking this medicine i guess for religious reasons or something like that
Guest:she died and then he contracted the same disease years later and he took the medicine he told his wife not to take and he lived and he took a valve celibacy even with his wife and he had like 14 year old girls like bathe him every morning he was like oh I don't have sex I don't have sex but I will have a group of 14 year old girls like bathe me every morning so sound like he wrote the line so I feel like even Gandhi
Guest:Hey, look, people are not excusing Woody Allen or Bill Cosby's fucking sorcery.
Guest:But sure.
Guest:Even the most what we perceive to be the most altruistic fucking Buddhas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Flawed.
Marc:Still a flaw.
Marc:Morally flawed.
Marc:Morally flawed.
Marc:It's a bummer.
Marc:So how do you go from fucking bass playing to comedy?
Guest:When I first got to college, Napster came out and everybody had a CD burner in their laptop and the music industry disintegrated.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right when I got to music school.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It just like imploded.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And like Geffen and Capitol Records, these huge, you know, not mogul, but like huge companies were folding and Tower Records folded and Virgin Megastore folded.
Guest:It was like, huh.
Guest:So I was like, that's not good.
Guest:And I would see incredible musicians struggle and live in poverty their whole life.
Guest:And then horrible musicians make millions of dollars.
Guest:It didn't seem like there was any rhyme or reason to it.
Guest:So you were assessing the business possibility.
Guest:I was assessing it.
Guest:And I was in a band.
Guest:Jazz?
Guest:No, it was like Frank Zappa, everything kind of music.
Guest:It was like Beastie Boys, Frank Zappa, how they do like a little bit of everything.
Marc:You Zappa fan?
Guest:Huge Zappa fan.
Guest:Love Zappa.
Guest:It's like a requirement for going to Berklee College of Music that you listen to Zappa.
Guest:Well, basically, music industry falling apart, and my band was doing, my band was called Blarf, and we were doing shows all around Boston.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At like All Asia and Cambridge and all these like shitty bars.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I would always see like, open my comedy night, open my comedy night flyers for...
Guest:Comedy nights at the venues I was playing, and I was like, you know what?
Guest:I should try.
Guest:I was like 19, 20 years old.
Guest:I was like, I should fucking try that.
Guest:I have all these ideas for bits.
Guest:I just kind of did it on a whim.
Marc:Were you watching comedy at the time?
Guest:I was watching not a lot of live comedy, but more.
Guest:Like, who are the people you're watching?
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:I wasn't watching.
Guest:I was influenced more by TV shows than stand-ups.
Guest:Like, I loved Ren and Stimpy and Beavis and Butthead and Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Space Ghost.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I also, Ollie G Show and Chappelle Show were on TV when I was in college and I fucking loved those guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I love Chris Farley.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But not stand-up specifically now.
Marc:I love stand-up, too.
Guest:I love stand-up, too, but I wasn't as versed in stand-up when I started doing stand-up.
Marc:Well, you like high-concept shit, too, it seems.
Marc:You like animation and shit that was a little off.
Guest:Yeah, I love, like, Space Ghost.
Guest:I was obsessed with Space Ghost.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:The absurdity of Space Ghost.
Guest:So, yeah, I just started doing comedy.
Guest:As soon as I started doing it, I fell in love with it.
Marc:Where'd you go first?
Guest:i went to uh god dick's and was it dick remington's what was the bar dick doherty's and nick's comedy stop and uh regular comedy connection yeah and there was one out in dorchester called emerald isle i don't know that it was a shitty little bar it was it wasn't a comedy club
Guest:Emerald Isle.
Guest:There's a mic?
Guest:It's an open mic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And God, what else?
Guest:All Asia, which was a bar in Cambridge.
Marc:Was the comedy studio there yet?
Guest:Yes, comedy studio.
Guest:That was the first place I ever bombed.
Marc:Rick Jenkins place?
Marc:Rick Jenkins.
Guest:And he would spit on me when he would talk.
Guest:And he would give me such shit for eating the light, even if I was like 30 seconds over.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:but i would do the it was the first time i bombed because it was the first time the first four times i did stand-up comedy i invited all my friends you know what i mean i was like 20 so i was like oh you gotta come and of course you're not gonna bomb when like 40 of your friends are there like yeah that comedy studio was the first time i didn't invite my friends and i went up with the same confidence and swagger and i just fucking ate shit so bad and i was like
Guest:I remember going into like fight or flight response and like every, all the light was like really bright.
Guest:Like I couldn't see anything.
Guest:It was like in this void cloud.
Guest:And I was like, holy shit.
Guest:It was like traumatic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, you know.
Guest:All alone up there in front of people.
Guest:It's a fucking, it's like being, you know, it's like when the swimming instructor throws you in the pool to learn how to swim when you're a little kid and you drown for those like.
Guest:first 30 seconds you're literally like can't breathe that's like that's what it felt like um and it felt like that for like the next 10 years of doing stand-up i was like just traumatized and terrified but uh i realized that comedy it feels like it it pays off much more than music i knew i wanted to be in entertainment and to perform and i felt like if i got really good at comedy i
Guest:I would get some type of work somehow.
Guest:Versus really good at upright bass or jazz, I would have been scraping by the rest of my life and playing cocktail gigs and weddings.
Marc:But did you feel like even with Blarf or whatever the band was called, did you feel that you were creatively servicing yourself?
Marc:Because it seems to me that it's not like you're going the easy way.
Marc:yeah i mean it's not just a business decision i mean you had to be at some on some level had some creative like uh shit to work out like you wanted to express yourself i imagine yeah yeah i think so i feel like
Guest:a little bit of what performers have what i have is like that feeling where you don't really feel like you fit in everywhere so you want to perform to express yourself so people understand you and love you right so you can you can find yourself yeah like this is my this is my territory here right what i do
Guest:Because Florida, growing up in Florida, it was so segregated and racist and anti-Semitic and anti-Haitian.
Guest:People hated Haiti.
Guest:There was this influx of Haitians coming in in the 90s.
Guest:Everybody fucking hated Haitians.
Guest:And being called a Haitian was an insult.
Guest:And I'd be like, fuck you, I'm Haitian.
Guest:And people would be like, oh, you're not like the Haitians I know.
Guest:I'd be like, fuck you, you know what I mean?
Guest:Outsider.
Guest:Yeah, I felt like...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Blah, blah, blah.
Guest:That's every comedian's plight.
Marc:I don't want to be like... No, no, but it makes sense because I like the idea of that because I don't know if I ever got into it to be an entertainer.
Marc:I really kind of wanted to find my voice, figure out what the hell... I think there's that too.
Guest:I don't think it was so academic like, I want to get into entertainment.
Guest:I wasn't like... I was just like...
Guest:That urge was inside me.
Marc:I had to do something.
Marc:Where were you working?
Marc:Were you making any money doing stand-up or were you working jobs?
Marc:No, I was broke.
Guest:So that was in college and then I went to New York the next year and I was doing stand-up every night.
Guest:Where, just open mics?
Guest:Open mics and just like bringer shows and passing out flyers in the snow for five minutes of comedy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:For like five minutes of unpaid...
Guest:at ha and just all the miserable it's fucking miserable yeah so but you were in it you were committed i was committed and i was just working awful jobs temping i worked at a doggy daycare place and got fired immediately and got sick all the time and bit by all the dogs i was fucking miserable and scraped by and then like i would start booking commercials and that was like
Guest:I could kind of live off that.
Guest:That would be peaks and valleys.
Guest:Like I'd book like a fucking, you know, whatever Budweiser commercial and like I'd have money for six months and I'd be doing okay and I'd just be doing stand-up and then I'd run out of money and be miserable again.
Guest:And what were your parents saying during all this?
Guest:My mom has always been super supportive.
Guest:My dad, it took him a while to come around, but now he's fully on board.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Even before...
Guest:Eric Andre show.
Guest:He just saw how stubborn and determined I was.
Guest:And like, I remember he wanted me to, when I first moved to New York, he's a doctor.
Guest:So he's like, you should go to med school.
Guest:You should go to law school.
Guest:You should go to med school.
Guest:You should go to law school.
Guest:And he was like, you should study for the LSATs.
Guest:Just take the LSATs.
Guest:I'll pay for a tutor for you if you take the LSATs.
Guest:I was like...
Guest:okay.
Guest:And in my 21 year old brain, I was like, maybe I can be a lawyer and a comedian at the same time and like practice law during the day and go out at night.
Guest:It was like insane.
Guest:So I remember studying for the, studying with this LSAT tutor and, uh, for months and then taking the train out to Flatbush at some college out in deep in Brooklyn.
Guest:And, um,
Guest:About to take the LSAT and the teacher was like, you know, this is your last chance to go to the bathroom or something like that.
Guest:Pick up your pencil, make sure it's sharpened.
Guest:It was like the last chance.
Guest:I'm about to start the LSAT.
Guest:And I looked down at the Scantron and I broke my pencil in half and I got out and I walked out.
Guest:I got up, walked out, and went back on the train and just never took the L set.
Guest:I was like, fuck this.
Guest:I am a comedian.
Guest:I was like, I'm doing it.
Guest:I had this very dramatic moment.
Guest:I was just like, I'm not doing anything else except comedy.
Guest:I don't care if it fucking kills me.
Guest:I don't care if I'm broke for the rest of my life.
Guest:I'd rather be broke and happy about what I'm doing.
Marc:What did you tell your dad?
Guest:I think I told him that.
Guest:And he was like, well, I'd have to come around.
Guest:He's like, you're breaking the pencil and making this dramatic exit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Everyone else in the room is like, what's happening?
Guest:You stand up and you're like, this is bullshit.
Guest:This is bullshit.
Guest:Yeah, I had a really Jerry Maguire kind of moment.
Marc:So you kick around New York for a while and you do the commercials and stuff, but no real break comedically.
Guest:No, nothing.
Guest:And I was the worst actor in the world.
Guest:And when I finally got an agent and started auditioning, I was having a panic attack in every audition.
Guest:And I was just...
Guest:Well, I saved up a bunch of money.
Guest:Not a bunch of money, but I saved up enough money from commercial work before I moved to Los Angeles eight years ago to invest in what was the Eric Andre show, Sizzle Reel, that I shot in an abandoned...
Guest:illegally occupied a bodega in Bushwick.
Marc:So that was brewing then?
Guest:That was like 2008, 2009.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was brewing then.
Guest:Before you went to LA.
Guest:Right before I went to LA.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Months before.
Guest:I was actually going back and forth between New York and LA.
Guest:kind of filming pieces for it and then editing in LA and I was in LA and I was living off a little bit of commercial money and I totally ran out of money and it took me like a year I had to buy Final Cut for Dummies and teach myself how to edit because I couldn't afford an editor and the fucking the sizzle reel was just this hodgepodge of footage and I had to
Guest:And then I was going out and auditioning and not booking anything to save my life, and I sucked at acting, and I had to get my ass in acting classes.
Guest:And I just had such bad anxiety and so hard on myself that I had to get my ass in therapy, and I started meditating, and that got a lot better.
Guest:This was eight years ago?
Guest:This was about, yeah, seven or eight years ago.
Guest:What is it, 2016?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Seven years ago.
Marc:That's when you moved here permanently?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And so you're doing that.
Marc:You learned how to do Final Cut.
Marc:You got these bits and pieces of what was going to be the Eric Andre show pilot-ish.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:And then I finally got it together and finally got it to Adult Swim in 2010.
Guest:And they loved it.
Guest:And then we shot a pilot in 2011 and then we shot season one in 2012.
Guest:But I literally, when I found out the email, when I got the email that said that they were going to pick up the show...
Guest:had like 200 bucks in my bank account I was like totally broke I was like in between unemployment checks I had like because when you fill out unemployment you have to fill out what you made that week yeah and not like when the check comes in so I think I like did some temp job thing yeah
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I was just down and out.
Guest:It was like.
Guest:And then on top of it.
Guest:It was like eating beans by candlelight.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:The week before.
Guest:Where were you living?
Guest:You know, like a hobo, like cracking open a can with a rock.
Guest:You had to have a little bag on a stick.
Guest:And a bag on a stick.
Marc:And then you just wandered in.
Marc:You put your bag on a stick down at the Gower Gulch.
Guest:I put my bag on a stick on my head.
Guest:And I was doing like a fucking.
Marc:Riff style.
Marc:Warren Thomas riff.
Marc:Warren Thomas riff.
Marc:But, like, so when you were here and trying to integrate into L.A., where were you living?
Guest:I was in a teeny little shithole studio apartment in Hollywood off Santa Monica and Vine.
Guest:And you didn't have friends?
Guest:I had comedian friends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But L.A.
Guest:is very hard to figure out when you first get here.
Guest:It's kind of like... Yeah, no, it's the worst.
Marc:It's an odd city.
Marc:There's no center to it.
Guest:There's no center.
Marc:It's sprawled out.
Marc:You can't really... It's not easy to...
Marc:When did you get that?
Marc:But you got up to Aspen.
Marc:Somebody must have seen you do something.
Marc:Yeah, I like you were on the scene.
Marc:You must have some representation or something.
Guest:yes i got the representation through aspen oh you did i did an audition for live at gotham and the woman that booked the fresh faces for um that last aspen thing that was the final aspen right i think it was yeah yeah so you're doing stand-up and you you could have like but you didn't tour much necessarily you weren't out there doing stand-up on the road it wasn't not i i have a whole bunch but it wasn't like
Guest:Like since the show, you mean?
Guest:Oh, since Eric Andre's show, I have more.
Guest:But like in like fits and starts.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Like Hannibal is out like 300 dates a year or something insane.
Guest:He's a worker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I'm not on that.
Guest:How'd you meet him?
Guest:We were doing comedy in New York at the same time.
Guest:We're the same age and he moved from Chicago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I moved to New York and then like six months later he moved from Chicago to New York.
Guest:And we were just doing the same chicken shit shows.
Marc:And you guys became friends?
Guest:Yeah, and I just loved how he was... How funny he was and how polar opposite an energy he was for me.
Guest:He'd be the great... It'd be such a good odd couple.
Marc:He's also gotten more energy as a performer over time.
Marc:He does, but he was super mellow.
Guest:I was super hyper when we met, and he was super mellow when we met.
Guest:So...
Marc:Yeah, he just seemed like the best.
Marc:So the conception of the Eric Andre show, of which I watched the most recent two episodes from the new season.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:Is that the one Stacey Dash?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Okay, cool.
Marc:And the guy from... 30 Rock.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Jack McBrayer.
Marc:Jack McBrayer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I get the idea of it.
Marc:So the idea originally was to just sort of like go balls to the walls and deconstruct the talk show.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it wasn't that academic.
Guest:I think I just, I liked, I was obsessed with the mock talk show.
Guest:It's really like a derivative of a derivative because the mock talk shows like Jiminy Glick, Space Ghost, Tom Green Show were doing that to Johnny Carson.
Guest:We were deconstructing Johnny Carson.
Right.
Guest:I liked, and Jay Leno, I liked, I just loved those shows.
Guest:I just loved Jiminy Glick and Holly G Show and Tom Green Show.
Guest:The discomfort of it.
Guest:So like I was a derivative over derivative.
Guest:Right.
Guest:uh like when punk music came out it was like a derivative of rock music but when hardcore music came out it was removed from rock music it was like a derivative of punk music so like it more it came more out of me loving mock talk shows than me
Guest:There was still like me watching Jay Leno's monologue and right like oh my god.
Guest:This is like a fucking wreck.
Guest:Yeah train wreck Yeah, but I came more from my love and appreciation of the mock talk shows and the dysfunction and you wanted to take it further I wanted to take it further.
Guest:Yeah, and I
Guest:And just be like the most inept and competent talk show host.
Guest:How did Tim and Eric get involved?
Guest:We were looking for a production company.
Marc:Did you like their shit?
Guest:Yeah, I loved Tim and Eric.
Guest:Awesome show.
Guest:I thought it was the first live action show on Adult Swim.
Guest:They were like forced to do cartoons because it was Cartoon Network.
Guest:And then...
Guest:When they started doing live action, I was like, oh my God, thank God.
Guest:It was so cathartic to watch.
Guest:And Tim and Eric were so funny.
Guest:And they had this absurd silliness that was so refreshing.
Guest:So they were looking to expand their company.
Guest:And we were looking for a production company.
Guest:And we were just like, these guys are the perfect fit.
Guest:They'll have the crew that gets this kind of...
Guest:They get the timing of it.
Guest:They get it, yeah.
Guest:They're not like hands-on EPs on it, but the crew that they have assembled, we share, and they are the perfect people for the job.
Guest:They understand the sensibility.
Guest:Yeah, because you don't want to crew up with people.
Guest:It's such an uphill battle if you're crewing up with people that don't understand the sensibility of such a specific kind of thing.
Yeah.
Guest:It just, it's just, it's tough.
Guest:Well, I fucking liked it.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Marc:I was really worried.
Guest:I think that's why I was sending you, trying to send you as much as possible, because I was like, I hope he sees that there's a mind to it.
Marc:Oh, no.
Guest:And it's not just me with a microphone stand on my head.
Marc:No, man.
Marc:I like Tim and Eric, too.
Marc:I can't explain why, but I know they occupy their own universe and that what they're riffing on is multi-layered, and there's a lot of different tiers to it in terms of format and just timing and pacing and kind of like goo and things.
Marc:There's always a lot of food being mashed.
Mm-hmm.
Marc:But, like, when I was watching your show, a couple of things that immediately hit me was, well, the violence of the comedy.
Marc:Not violent actions, but, like, when something happens on your show, it's like, yes!
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You're like, what the fuck?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, the pacing of it is like you're just waiting for it.
Marc:Gah!
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I like it.
Marc:It's jarring.
Marc:But I also like the fact that for some reason, most of the time, you have blood coming from something.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Shit.
Marc:It's a bloody show.
Marc:No, but it's just like you're on the street.
Marc:Even when you don't have a bone sticking out of your leg, there's just a trickle of blood on your head.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It gets a good reaction.
Guest:I'll tell you that.
Guest:Blood helps.
Marc:But it's just like you don't acknowledge it.
Marc:It's not like too much blood.
Marc:There's just blood.
Guest:Yeah, and we were going for more of this dystopian theme this season to differentiate between...
Guest:This season and the other season.
Guest:So like, yeah, we just wanted it more like Eraserhead, Lynchian.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:The other seasons aren't like that?
Guest:The other seasons have an element of that, but the season before I permed my hair like Cat Williams and I was more like up and swinging and they had like a kind of a tropical aesthetic on the set.
Guest:So we just wanted the polar opposite this season and we want to make it very gray and
Marc:broken gloomy and broken and then nothing's that permanent yes the impermanence of all things so when it was right and the monologue is there's no real monologue structure yeah there it's just the the bare essentials of staging yes yeah that that imply any sort of monologue yeah yeah yeah
Guest:That's why this season I grew out my nails and I didn't wear deodorant the whole season and I didn't go out in the sun.
Marc:I fucking love the opening bit with that one where you're just being thrown around on a line.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That was fun.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it's one of those situations where do those guests, like, what's her name, Nash?
Marc:Stacey Dash.
Marc:Stacey Dash from Fox News.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And Jack, did they have any idea what they were walking into?
Guest:No idea.
Guest:Zero idea what they were walking into.
Marc:So great.
Marc:But they signed releases before they went on?
Guest:Yeah, we got the releases before.
Guest:We've never had a guest.
Guest:We've had people we pranked in the street pull a release, but we've never had a guest pull a release.
Guest:We had one guest.
Guest:We've had two guests walk out.
Guest:We've had only one guest that was like screaming at us and didn't want us to air it, but they didn't ask for the release back, which was weird.
Guest:Did you air it?
Guest:Oh yeah, that was last year.
Guest:That was Lauren Conrad.
Guest:This year, T.I.
Guest:walked out, but he walked out, but he wasn't like Lauren Conner.
Guest:He walked out just, he was like, you know what?
Guest:I've had enough.
Guest:And he was very polite and we were cool afterwards.
Guest:The rapper?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He walked out because he was like, I've seen enough male nudity for one day.
Guest:He's like, I'm at my cap.
Guest:And we cut it out.
Guest:I was kind of making fun of Jesus, and I was making fun of pimps and stuff like that.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Like, so I think he just had... He hit his... But the segment... He had, like, a polite walkout.
Guest:So we had one polite walkout, and we were cool afterwards.
Guest:I was like, hey, you know, I'm just being a fucking nut job.
Guest:He's like, yeah, yeah, it's fine.
Guest:And I could tell he was like... All right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But Lauren Conrad was like...
Guest:Fuck your age.
Guest:I was like fuck yeah, you know I drew a swastika on my face during the interview and they were trying to like use that as leverage little lady was like I might I had family members die in the Holocaust I was like I I had family members I know I was like I'm black and Jewish Hannibal's black as night My director's Japanese and Jewish and my producer's name is Joshua Cohen We're not exactly the Aryan nation don't act like we're a bunch of neo-nazis harassing Lauren Conrad who's the waspiest person in the fucking world so like
Guest:But she didn't even walk out because of that.
Guest:They were just using that as leverage.
Guest:She walked out because I barfed on the desk and slurped it back up, and she didn't appreciate that.
Guest:But I was also being nuts, and I had a chainsaw, and I was being nuts all the time.
Marc:But I don't want to spoil any of it, but it's weird because they're, what are they, 12 minutes a piece?
Marc:Each episode?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a quarter hour.
Guest:It's a punk song.
Guest:You want it to be short.
Guest:You don't want a minor threat to play a half an hour song.
Guest:They're not Emerson, Lincoln, Palmer.
Marc:Well, that's what I said to my producer.
Marc:I said, you know, the effect of it is it's almost like, in a way, that punk aesthetic of really... Because you do kind of stick it up.
Marc:You do speak a certain amount of truth to power, and there is a sort of anarchy to it.
Marc:But it's almost going further than Jackass because Jackass seemed like some sort of initially like, what kind of boys club bullshit is this?
Marc:But then you realize like, oh, these guys don't give a fuck.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they're just going to go for it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That you do that, but it's a little angrier.
Marc:There's a little less.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that those guys are the master of physical comedy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Those kind of like high, high, high stakes stunts where they're fucking with sharks in the ocean and alligators and like.
Guest:But they're really getting hurt, as I think you are.
Guest:They're really getting hurt.
Guest:And it's also about their party ensemble.
Guest:I think that I've taken elements that I've liked and can actually do, because I don't have the balls that those guys have.
Guest:I never fuck with a wild animal.
Marc:Yeah, but that fucking thing on the train with the Chinese food.
Guest:I can fuck with human beings, but I wouldn't fuck with animals.
Guest:Because I know how to bob and weave with a human being.
Guest:I don't know how to bob and weave with a silverback gorilla or anything.
Marc:That thing on the train was funny.
Marc:How many, like two or three dudes who just went at you to sort of like hit you?
Guest:Those guys were pissed.
Guest:They were pissed.
Guest:And it was like the hottest day of the summer, so it's like boiling in that sunlight.
Guest:Well, if you're in New York and you're like, what is this shit?
Guest:This isn't real.
Marc:When it gets hot in New York, you're fucking tolerance for bullshit.
Marc:It goes way down.
Marc:And the Sprite guy, that was funny.
Marc:And McBride, I'm surprised.
Marc:He wasn't angry after?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He was like, I didn't know it was a prank show.
Guest:No, he was not.
Guest:He was just like... We cut it out in the middle of the interview.
Guest:Because we shoot each one of those interviews for like an hour and a half.
Guest:And we will it down to like three minutes.
Guest:So in the middle, he's like, oh, this is a prank show.
Guest:He didn't burp.
Guest:I added that.
Marc:I embellished that.
Marc:Who was that other woman?
Marc:I didn't know her.
Marc:Was she a singer?
Marc:Oh, Abby Lee Miller.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She's a dance mom.
Guest:She's a reality show.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:She knew nothing.
Guest:I mean, she showed up and walked up to my first AD and went, so what is this, like a cartoon?
Guest:Before she walks to the stage, she was just in the hallway.
Guest:You shoot them here?
Guest:We shoot them in Burbank.
Guest:We shoot the street stuff in New York, and we shoot the studio stuff in LA.
Guest:Right.
Guest:but uh yeah i think she's in jail for embezzlement right now oh no yeah she was having like she was like laundering money she was having people from australia send her like ziploc bags of like hundreds of thousand dollar bills or something crazy it was so funny how she kept trying to manage her charm through it all yeah she was grabbing it's like she had some type of media training like when shit goes south just smile find your camera and smile at it
Guest:She was really struggling.
Marc:And the whole presence of Hannibal, I always like that kind of shit where it's like the guy, like, you know, what is he really doing?
Marc:Sometimes he's just standing there.
Guest:He's the most dysfunctional.
Guest:Yeah, just standing and looming every once in a while, chiming in.
Marc:Do what he does?
Guest:Just let it, yeah.
Guest:You just riff it, the whole thing?
Guest:Yeah, he's best when he's just...
Guest:you know off the cuff yeah yeah i'll send him the script i don't know if he's reading it right he reads like the bare minimum but like it does it's better that way it's just right if he's just like in the moment and just being himself and that stacy chick she like that was fucking hilarious that was fun the reaction that she had to the fake the fake picture of obama like where she was like oh what what like
Marc:She was hot and bothered.
Marc:She had no idea she was going to see a big old dick.
Guest:She was just going to see the president's dick.
Guest:The president's fake dick.
Guest:What was she like afterwards?
Guest:She was actually really sweet.
Guest:I think like she had never done anything like that.
Guest:And even though I was like.
Guest:It was really funny.
Guest:Saying a bunch of fucked up crazy shit to her.
Guest:I think she was like.
Guest:She needed it.
Guest:Oddly charmed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like she needed it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:She's so tight.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And I could tell she was kind of forgetting all of her Fox News talking points because she was like, there's rats under her feet and she's looking at Obama's dick.
Guest:Yeah, it was good.
Guest:And that rat handler has to hide in that goddamn under my desk for like 20 minutes.
Guest:He's just boiling under there with a bunch of rats.
Guest:So a lot of things happen under the desk.
Guest:A lot of shit happens under the desk.
Guest:Or we've even tickled the guest's taint.
Guest:We had Jimmy Kimmel on and we tickled his taint under the chair.
Guest:We had a PA under his chair.
Guest:What'd he do?
Guest:He's like...
Guest:He's like, it feels like there's a human under my chair.
Guest:He played it cool.
Guest:He played it cool.
Guest:But yeah.
Guest:Did he know the show?
Guest:He probably knew it better than Stacey Dash and Jack McBrayer.
Guest:It's interesting.
Guest:How long are you going to- The comedians know it better than- Right.
Marc:But it's so like, how long do you think you can get away with people not knowing?
Guest:I don't know, but we had Jack Black and Howie Mandel on this year, and they both knew the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It didn't matter.
Guest:And it didn't matter.
Guest:We were like, how are we going to do it if they know the show?
Guest:And we're like, let's just hit them with some of our hardest pranks.
Guest:Like, let's save our hard stuff for those two guys.
Guest:Because, like, no matter how much you know the show...
Guest:If it starts raining, use dental floss.
Guest:You know, Harry Mandel's a germaphobe, so if we start raining, use dental floss down on his head, he's going to have a reaction.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So it was okay.
Guest:It was actually like the Harry Mandel interview and the Jack Black interview were two of the best interviews.
Guest:We just went so fucking hard and crazy on them.
Guest:well they'll they'll both play yeah yeah that it was it was fine even when I mean you don't want to stack the season with people that know you the ideal guest is somebody that walks in knowing nothing I just realized I haven't interviewed Howie Mandel he's great I know yeah interview his ass
Marc:I get pitch people now and I'm like, yeah, let's try that.
Guest:Let's talk to them.
Marc:But then also I just had Billy Crystal on for the first time.
Guest:How was that?
Marc:It was great.
Guest:You got along with him?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Who was the most contentious?
Marc:Well, nobody's really... Gallagher.
Marc:He walked out.
Marc:He was your Lauren Conrad.
Marc:Yeah, kind of.
Guest:But I listened to that, too, and it seemed like he was in a frazzled state.
Guest:He always is.
Guest:He didn't seem like he was listening to what you were saying.
Guest:Yeah, I was just trying to guide something.
Guest:It seemed like...
Guest:like you were talking yeah and he already had whatever made up in his mind and it seemed like this like like all he heard was white noise this is like yeah in his brain yeah he made some was that in here no that was in a hotel room in portland that was and did you ever reach back out and you're like hey gal really not really did he ever reach out and say fuck you man or not really you know we had him on the eric andre show
Guest:How'd that go?
Guest:It's the only interview we've ever filmed that we didn't really use.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We used two seconds of the footage because he was hard to... I think we had 21 interviews and we had to cut one and he was the hardest to shake because it was the same thing.
Guest:I was talking to him, but he wasn't really processing anything I was saying.
Guest:So how do you prank somebody like that or have any type of semblance of anything?
Marc:The weird thing about him is I'm always pretty respectful unless somebody really is fucking pushing at me.
Marc:And...
Marc:Like, he deserves his place.
Marc:And, you know, he was a big deal.
Marc:You know, he's a real comic.
Marc:He did the work.
Marc:You know, he did, like, ten specials.
Marc:I mean, I was willing to do that, but it just got a little away from me.
Marc:And I didn't respect him that much.
Marc:And that was before I was able to respect people, even if I didn't like them.
Marc:But...
Marc:Contentious, it doesn't really get contentious.
Marc:What happens is sometimes people come in here and they don't know what it is.
Marc:So they expect questions and I don't, I got nothing.
Marc:I don't write, you know, I'm banking on a conversation happening.
Marc:And if that doesn't happen, then it's sort of like, oh fuck.
Marc:So it's not contentious.
Marc:It's like to keep at it until something opens where you're kind of like, they're engaged and then hold that somehow.
Marc:That's what I'm looking for.
Marc:So it's not usually contentious, but sometimes it's a little like, what are we doing?
Marc:What do we got?
Guest:Why don't you get like a neo-Nazi in here or somebody like-
Marc:Yeah, it's primarily a creative person show.
Guest:Like a really creative neo-Nazi.
Marc:I guess I could do that, like get Jim Goad or somebody.
Marc:He's not really a neo-Nazi, but he's definitely on the margin.
Guest:But he's like a wife woman beating white supremacist.
Marc:Kind of, yeah, right.
Guest:Wasn't he in jail for beating his wife within an inch of her life or something?
Guest:Jim Goad, the writer?
Guest:Jim Goad, the writer, yeah.
Marc:i don't know the vice magazine contributing yeah before that he did a thing called answer me there these three magazines he did uh-huh uh he went to jail for like beating his wife within an inch of her life or something horrid again we can't verify that you don't exactly know so no i i mean i maybe i would do that i mean i wasn't there but i think like i went down a wormhole of like researching the case and that's what i came back with
Marc:i think like i do better with people that i'm just talking about everybody i'm just using just using people and beating their wives just willy-nilly no but i heard jim goat are you all right you got a girlfriend uh no i just uh had a breakup yeah in therapy you're going to therapy going therapy and that's okay yeah you got medicine
Guest:No, I'll take a Xanax on a bad day, but not permanently on medicine, though.
Guest:Weed?
Guest:Weed a little bit.
Guest:I hated weed for a long time, and I just got back into it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got a weed card.
Guest:I was like, you know what?
Guest:I lived in LA for eight years.
Guest:Let me see what this weed card business is all about.
Guest:It's interesting.
Guest:I'll take a little puff before bed and take a bath in Epsom salt.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I'll listen to Willie Nelson or something.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:Is that true?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You take a bath in Epsom salt?
Guest:I take like an Epsom salt bath.
Marc:Where'd you learn that?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:From CVS.
Marc:Yeah, your riffing's not as strong as it used to be.
Marc:I gotta get this mic on top of my fucking head.
Marc:What am I, in a bathtub with Epsom salt listening to Willie Nelson music?
Marc:You used to have more speed to him.
Marc:Those are my Gulch days.
Marc:Yeah, I'm glad it worked out for you, man.
Marc:I like the new show, and I like you, and I hope we're okay.
Marc:Yes, we're okay.
Marc:All right, thanks, man.
Marc:That worked out okay.
Marc:That worked out.
Marc:You know, I was very, I liked the guy.
Marc:I mean, usually isn't that the case when you have these dumb beats with somebody that rubbed you the wrong way?
Marc:When you finally kind of get around to spend some time, you kind of have fun together and you like the guy.
Marc:And he's a bright guy.
Marc:He's a funny guy.
Marc:Very talented.
Marc:Listen to me.
Marc:What am I?
Marc:His show's funny.
Marc:Watch it.
Marc:It's tomorrow night.
Marc:Starts August 5th on Adult Swim.
Marc:And go to wtfpod.com slash tour to check out my upcoming dates.
Marc:You can go to the merch to get some posters or t-shirts, whatnot.
Marc:Yeah, you can do all that.
Marc:All right?
Marc:I'm going to play my Telecaster.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Boomer Lives!