BONUS Marc's HBO Special Taping - Two Days After
Marc:So I'm actually texting the director right now.
Guest:Steve Feinertz?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What are you texting him about?
Marc:Well, just about, you know, whether or not.
Marc:Yeah, I just I'm obsessed with, you know, being able to cut between the shows because there were certain things that needed to be, you know, that were better in one show and that kind of thing.
Marc:And I know I started to sweat a little bit, but he's you know, he had nine cameras.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So it's almost like we can do anything.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:You could literally switch minute to minute and no one would know.
Marc:Well, that's how everyone's doing these video podcasts seamlessly.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Is that you set up enough of those little cameras, you can kind of, you know, almost edit like you edit audio.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Free real.
Guest:Well, I mean, I think it's funny.
Guest:I was saying to David, you know, that you're David, your manager, that I can't remember a taping or any kind of thing involving a comedy culminating event that you've done, whether it was for a special or for a large show, like at a festival or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That went as smoothly as this one.
Guest:So I wonder if it is it because it went so smoothly?
Guest:Are you looking for ways to, you know, find out if it was fucked up?
Marc:No, no, no, no.
Marc:Like, you know, when I talked about it on the show, you know, the collaboration of, you know, the production designer is a brilliant guy who came to me with that idea about Katsugi early on.
Marc:And I had no idea what that was.
Marc:And then I looked it up and I'm like, yeah, sure, dude, you do you.
Marc:You know, you've got a vision.
Marc:Do it.
Marc:Fine arts, the director.
Marc:You know, look, you know what this is.
Marc:You know, I'm not expecting, you know, anything.
Marc:I am of the belief that, you know, you can't do a comedy special is going to be a comedy special.
Marc:You bring what you can to the to that particular genre of filmmaking and we do it.
Marc:You know, we don't need it to be self-consciously different.
Marc:So, you know, with him, it's about coverage and he knows me well enough.
Marc:Certainly he's shot me for thousands of hours.
Marc:So I knew that was in place and I knew all that stuff was in place.
Marc:And having you there for notes and having Sam Lipsight there for input was important.
Marc:But ultimately, I don't have any question about any of that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, there are moments where I had brain farts, you know, that we corrected one, you corrected one.
Marc:I knew I had to correct one.
Marc:I knew on the first show that in the opening that I kind of had a brain fart during a piece.
Marc:And there was a couple of things that got lost because even though I've been doing this,
Marc:set for for you for however long in one form or another there were still things that I added you know a couple weeks ago and and so and there was a lot you know it's you know when I do a comedy special it's not you know it's not 45 minutes it's not 50 minutes you know it's
Marc:It's an hour and 20 that I'm packing into 70.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I'm operating at a different pace.
Marc:You know, sequence is important.
Marc:There are callbacks within it that are important.
Marc:And if I fuck up the setup of those.
Marc:So there was a lot on my mind that, you know, that I can be sloppy with.
Marc:You know, in performing it without being filmed.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And even in the way I pace things, it's differently.
Marc:You know, I have to be economical and I have to be on top of it in a way that...
Marc:shooting a special requires as far as I'm concerned.
Marc:Look, I could do a loose special and I've done one.
Marc:You know, I mean, Thinkie Paint is one of the fucking, you know, loosest, you know, specials ever made.
Marc:And it's some people's favorite.
Marc:But as I've gotten further along in my craft, you know, I have certain expectations around how to do these things.
Guest:And did you feel the same way that it seemed to me and probably to other observers as well that it was...
Guest:Pretty much a low stress, low key environment there.
Guest:And obviously you put pressure on yourself to do a good job, but it didn't feel like an inordinate amount of heavy duty pressure.
Guest:It just felt like a day at the office.
Marc:Kind of.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, when I when I went over there Friday the night before shooting, I saw what they were building and I was just thrilled with the the vibe of the space and what Mark Janowitz, the production designer, had really created.
Marc:And the theater, I felt, was warm.
Marc:And heading into it, I had no stress about the material.
Marc:I knew I was loaded up.
Marc:I knew the shit worked.
Marc:There was nothing that I was like, this might not land.
Guest:But I found from you in the past, you've been stressed out at cutting it down.
Guest:That was definitely the case for the last two specials, at least.
Marc:Yeah, but oddly, when it comes down to the wire, I fucking land on the fucking mark.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you didn't, you didn't fret about it at all.
Guest:Like I, I didn't hear you once say like, Oh, I don't know how I'm going to do this.
Guest:I don't know how I'm going to get this in at 70 minutes.
Guest:And you said that a lot, like during, especially the last one from bleak to dark.
Guest:I remember you saying that a lot that you were concerned.
Guest:You just had too much and you weren't going to get it down.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, you know, oddly, you know, maybe it's from radio experience.
Marc:Maybe it's just from me, you know, because I choose, you know, to do a full hour that's loaded up.
Marc:You know, it's you know, there's the last three have been.
Marc:you know, very full, you know, almost too full.
Marc:Like, you know, I could cut 20 minutes off of this thing and do an hour, you know, with a different sort of pace.
Marc:I mean, my feeling is that in, in with bleak to dark, I think that I just became more aware of like, dude, the reason you are who you are is that you are a, a, a, a broad, you, my emotional spectrum is, is, and my, my, my,
Marc:being on stage, it has a lot of different nuances.
Marc:And there's different ways that I've got to sell material or I've got to make things work.
Marc:And I have to accept that tonally, that outside of me just being me, you know, within me, I have several different frequencies that
Marc:in terms of what I put behind delivering certain types of material.
Marc:And I think I drew attention to that, this one.
Marc:I don't think I did the last one.
Marc:But this structurally, it's similar.
Marc:I have to address what's going on in the world.
Marc:And for me to do that, I have to have a certain intensity.
Marc:And I was fucking with that going in.
Marc:So I've become very hyper-aware of how I craft these things.
Marc:But no, I knew...
Marc:from the last week or so of shows, like the ones I did,
Marc:in Toronto and then the three at the club in Vermont, which is a smaller room, I definitely was like, just do the shit.
Marc:Just do what you're gonna do with the special.
Marc:Don't go off so you can say to yourself afterwards, well, I don't know, because I decided to riff or whatever.
Marc:I was like, just do it.
Marc:Even if the response is stilted because you're locked in, just fucking do the work and take the hit so you know going in that you're within the timeframe.
Marc:So I wasn't worried about that.
Marc:All I was worried about was just, you know, fucking up the sequence and losing chunks for whatever reason.
Marc:Because there is an intensity and a heightened feeling when you're shooting.
Marc:You know, and with a comedy special, you got two shots.
Marc:You know, that's it.
Marc:And it's not like you're shooting a scene for a movie and you want the continuity to be solid.
Marc:The reason I like to do it, you know, on the money is because I don't want to be in the editing room, you know, with five, even four extra minutes.
Marc:where you're kind of like, or 10 extra minutes, like where you got to really make choices about disrupting the continuity and the structure of the set as it exists in order to get time off it.
Guest:Well, and I think with this one, though, because you delivered it at the time that you did...
Guest:Already, you're talking about you're going to be probably two to three minutes under that time just on the basis of tightening things up, just the regular natural pacing of edits.
Guest:Fine.
Marc:That's fine with me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You know, all I'm obsessing on after the fact is... Well, I just talked about this with this writer.
Marc:Is that like, you know, I could have...
Marc:I really could have, like the one thing I thought of today was like, you know, the missing piece that will make you a whole person from the demented mind.
Marc:I could have like done that line about my mother, you know, I didn't know how to love you and kind of called back like, well, there's a missing piece that, you know, was fully, you know, and she's fully emotionally, mentally capable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So like little things like that that become connective tissue that, you know, of course I can think about that after the fact and be like, well, whatever.
Marc:I'm not.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But there seems like there's no end to that.
Marc:You could add a million things.
Marc:That's the liability of doing it the way I do it.
Marc:Everything remains fluid.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Right.
Guest:Well, so how do you feel now in like the kind of come down of it, not just the special being done, but that these, you know, roughly two hours full of full of content in however way you finally shaped it for the special that you've been doing for about two years?
Guest:How do you feel about that being done?
Marc:I feel okay.
Marc:It's a natural course of things.
Marc:I'm not having any sadness that those bits are done for me.
Marc:On some level, it's like, well, thank God.
Marc:You get into a mindset and somebody like me who needs to shake things up a lot on stage, I no longer have that thing where I got tired of the material.
Marc:I didn't because I thought...
Marc:I think it was the same with Week to Dark.
Marc:There was no way I could get tired of that stuff because...
Marc:you know, they, they had a lot of depth and a lot of life in them.
Marc:And, you know, but, but sometimes you wonder like, and, and also I performed a lot of those bits a lot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because like, you know, when I think of the one regret I have around some of this stuff, like, like when I did that long piece on John Oliver, that show he had on comedy central, the,
Marc:the airplane thing.
Marc:The plane going, yeah, you're in the air.
Marc:It took a long time.
Marc:Situation in your mind.
Marc:Yeah, I wrote that in the book, too.
Marc:But that's a bit that a lot of people haven't seen.
Marc:And I worked months on that.
Marc:So I do know that once this stuff goes out there, that it will be available.
Marc:you know, in a fairly large way.
Marc:But even the bat at the end of From Bleak to Dark, I mean, that bit's like a monumental bit.
Marc:And like, it's not even grandiose.
Marc:It's like, it's one of the things where...
Marc:Like, I think if I lived in a different time where the media environment or whatever, it's not that I'd be a big star.
Marc:But these bits that I think are memorable bits that, you know, every comedy fan should know, it just doesn't go that way anymore.
Marc:Like, the bad is, like, one of the best bits ever.
Marc:And it's mine.
Marc:But, you know, whatever.
Marc:Maybe it has had a profound effect.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That turn from, you know, you're never going to look at a bat and think, like, I'm going to kill myself.
Marc:You know, that's fucking classic.
Guest:And then actually doing it.
Guest:Like, that's the thing that makes it a memorable bit.
Marc:It's a great piece of stand-up.
Marc:And not just a joke.
Marc:Yeah, I feel underappreciated.
Marc:But one thing I'm noticing now, you know, in terms of, like, look, I knew when I got off.
Marc:Both shows of this last taping, you know, when I walked into the room with you or I saw David or I saw the people at the monitors, I was, you know, whatever doubts I had, I know enough about doing this for as long as I have that I wasn't walking into a room of people going like, you know.
Marc:You did what you could.
Marc:You know, like people were like, holy shit.
Marc:It was like, holy shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody watching it in the back was, you know, both times was just like fully on board with this is a grand slam.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So whatever I was feeling because of the sort of like out of body experience of it in a way.
Marc:Was not, you know, real.
Marc:Because I'm just sitting there like, you know, I fucking garbled this or, you know, I missed this word or whatever.
Marc:It was very minutia.
Marc:It was really minutia.
Guest:But I knew that.
Guest:Speaking of the garbling the word, that's what prompted me to tell, to suggest that you redo that first part.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was because there was, so there's a list, not to go through your whole joke, but there's a kind of list that you do to set up the way of the government right now and all the acolytes of Trump.
Guest:And in the first hour, first taping, you kind of transposed.
Guest:I tried to add one.
Marc:And then I realized in the middle of it that there was a redundancy.
Guest:that's right so so it wouldn't i wouldn't say it would be it's like if you could we're only taping the show for one hour yeah it could and you didn't have a second crack at it it'd be like if it was live yeah it'd be fine yeah but knowing you i'd be like oh he wouldn't he's not gonna like that right but so okay you got a second crack at it in the in the hour yeah i don't even know how i fucked it up the second time
Guest:Well, you didn't fuck it up, but you, you stumbled over a word and I watched you do it.
Guest:And I kind of like, I was in an awkward position personally because I was like, I, if it's Steven's call, he's the director.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But he's thinking about a lot of things.
Guest:Well, that's what I was, so I'm sitting there, I sat there for like a half hour and watched like nobody react to that, like to, to go say something or do something.
Guest:And so I kind of like finally brought it up.
Guest:First of all, I like clarified with Sam to make sure I wasn't seeing things.
Guest:Did he kind of fuck that up in the, and he was like, he got the list down, but yeah, it's just a little like word hiccup.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I said to David and I figured, OK, David, your manager, he can like it's it's it's not me jumping, you know, overstepping my bounds now.
Guest:I'm just saying something to David.
Guest:And if he thinks it's worthy of mentioning it to Stephen, he will.
Guest:And he did.
Guest:And then they, you know, Steven came out and he talked to me, I guess David said, Brendan heard him say something weird there or whatever.
Guest:And I was just like, look, I think you'll just be better if you get him to just redo that list and you'll have, have it as an option.
Guest:And he agreed and everything.
Guest:And I do think like when all is said and done, you're going to be happy that you have a clean version of that because it would probably piss you off to be like, just like you said, I've stumbled that word or whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was kind of like I I had to like maybe, you know, have this feeling in it like I had to eat that when like you went back out there after the show and you're just like fucking around and they're like backstage going like we got we got curfew coming up.
Guest:We got to close this thing down.
Guest:I'm like, oh, shit.
Guest:Did I fuck this up for everybody?
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Well, that's so funny because, like, in terms of people I'm going to trust with notes, I mean, you're number one on the list.
Marc:So the fact that you didn't just come to me directly and then have me go to Steven, that's your own issue.
Marc:But because, like, that would have been the call.
Marc:Like, you know, God damn it.
Marc:I mean, I know you long enough and I trust you implicitly in terms of things I say that, you know, you could have just said, you know, look, just, I mean, you did kind of fuck that up.
Marc:And I would have been like, oh, well, fuck it.
Marc:Steven, let's just do that again.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Well, that's the funny thing.
Guest:I guess I probably would have done that if like the, my overtures had not gone well down in the, you know, like I just, I, you know, I'm not hired by HBO to direct the film.
Marc:But you're my right hand man.
Guest:I get that.
Guest:That's cool.
Guest:But I just also didn't want to like, you know, I didn't want to be the one who's like, oh, fuck, we got to keep all these people on for another 10 minutes, 15 minutes.
Marc:I just remember that from after I taped after I did Carnegie Hall and I wanted to have a party and I just didn't we didn't plan when we ordered all that food to be in that room backstage at Carnegie Hall.
Marc:And then we had to we had to get out of there.
Guest:You were just like, it was one of the most Jewish things I've ever seen you do, that you were in Carnegie Hall with meat from Cass's Deli.
Guest:And you were like, here, everybody, take some.
Guest:Take some when you're going.
Guest:You got to take some of this.
Marc:Yeah, because she ordered like this massive amount.
Marc:I have this weird thing about like, you know, why these cows didn't have to die in vain.
Marc:This is all going to end up in the garbage.
Guest:Yeah, I just also think there's something genetically about you that you were like, oh, got to make sure everybody goes home with some meat.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:But yeah, but we got it, you know.
Marc:And I did another, I did sort of a half hour there at the end after the second show.
Marc:And I think the audience liked it.
Marc:And it also gave me that thing where...
Marc:I think that was one of the reasons why the second show had a different vibe is because, you know, I'd forgotten a chunk, and then I did the chunk, and then I fucked that up.
Marc:But it got me into a present that I think probably informed the rest of the set.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Because it's hard to get into that present.
Marc:And I think if I ever get an opportunity to do one of these again, that I thought, like, dude, if you ever tape again...
Marc:Go out and do 10 minutes you before you come out for the special because these people all know you and they want you to be you.
Marc:And it's not like the surprise is going to be ruined.
Marc:Just go open for yourself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you get into a different zone, a different connection.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:as opposed to this heightened, like, here's the opener, and now he's going to come out and we're going to do it.
Marc:Like, if I just ambled out there and, you know, said everybody okay, you know, you want to ask me anything, you know, this is a bit we're not going to do tonight, all right, I'll see you in a minute.
Marc:It'd be different.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:Even if you just did it for one of the two tapings, you could then also, like, judge the difference of the two.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Well, I think it happened naturally, the second show, at least partially the way through.
Guest:Well, you're saying if you ever get a chance to do one of these again, like, that's...
Guest:That's a lot more open-ended and optimistic from you than I think has normally been the case with these things.
Guest:I would say almost every one of the more recent specials you've done, you've really kind of been like, this is it.
Guest:This is the last one.
Guest:I'm not going to do it.
Guest:I don't want to go back out on the road.
Guest:I want to do it again.
Guest:This is the first time I'm hearing you ever at the end of one be like, well, if I ever do another one of these, you're much more kind of open-minded about it.
Marc:Well, I mean, it's just like it's incentive, you know, and the marketplace is different and I'm old and, you know, I'm already out of the Netflix loop and I'm not going to do the YouTube loop.
Marc:So it really comes down to, you know, if HBO still exists in the way it exists in a year that somebody is going to have to step up and pay me because I'm not going to, you know, at least I don't think I'll be like a year from now, be like, I guess I'll just self-produce one.
Marc:I'm like, you know, fuck it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But even just the idea that you would do another one, if something like, let's take that off the table.
Guest:The idea that there may or may not be another offer coming.
Guest:If you knew that there would be another offer, you sound like you're like, yeah, I'd do that.
Guest:And that sounds different.
Guest:You weren't always like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think I do the other thing.
Marc:Cause I don't, I don't ever see a new hour coming, but do you feel like there's a potential for one net?
Guest:Like, are you kind of jonesing to get back out there after you take a little break?
Guest:No.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Not really.
Marc:I mean, because like the one feeling that I can't shake, you know, sometimes, you know, is, you know,
Marc:I get off and there's this weird feeling of embarrassment.
Marc:Why do I even share that part of myself in certain bits?
Marc:Why is that the only place I can go?
Marc:There's a feeling of exposure that's uncomfortable and I don't know how else to do it.
Guest:Do you still feel that with this material even after you did it so many times?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I did in terms of knowing that it's now going to be
Marc:You know, you're almost anonymous out there in Portsmouth or Skokie.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Or wherever.
Marc:You know, you go out and do a theater in a town.
Marc:It's like, you know, that show ends there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But this was the official coming out party of the babysitter bit, basically.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I don't know if that one, does that one embarrass me?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It's just the way I do it, you know, there's a vulnerability to it and a feeling of exposure.
Yeah.
Marc:that once I know it's going to be there for everyone to find,
Marc:and out there for, I would assume, the biggest audience that will ever see it collectively, you know, I feel like, you know, like, you know, why do I owe my audiences or why do I do this to myself?
Marc:I don't know where else to draw from, you know.
Marc:You know, that babysitter bit sort of evolved out of, you know, knowing that trauma therapy was, you know, a thing and that I had done it in dealing with Lynn and some other stuff.
Marc:And that story, it was funny because I saw my brother afterwards,
Marc:I said, are you okay with everything now that it's done and I didn't okay with any of it?
Guest:Now that you have no recourse.
Marc:You know, and he goes, yeah, because he knows that story.
Marc:I mean, we've talked about that story.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And in early versions of it, one of the tags, which I took out eventually, was that, you know, I'm pretty sure I didn't do it.
Marc:I don't know about my brother, but...
Marc:And I told him that afterwards.
Marc:And also that, you know, some of the stuff about my mother, I think is a little bit exaggerated.
Marc:You know, I don't think she, I know the diet pill, you know, was real and it did happen many times.
Marc:But, you know, I kind of, you know, you kind of, it's not fudging.
Marc:I mean, it happened, you know, but I amplified it a bit.
Marc:But...
Marc:You know, like I think about like, you know, my mother, you know, got, you know, got took a hit in that one.
Marc:And, you know, my dad, whatever, he's not going to remember.
Marc:And like, it was all pretty honest, you know, but it all is pretty damning.
Marc:And, you know, it's like when I wrote the book and I was, you know, honest.
Marc:It's like it does have an effect on people.
Marc:You know, I kept my girlfriend out of this one and I had a piece about her.
Marc:But, like, that became sort of like, you know, you start to realize my audience and –
Marc:Even the bit about fucking, I can feel my sweet, troubled, righteous fans out there.
Marc:It's not like they don't know that about me, but it's pretty frank.
Marc:And you feel kind of like, what?
Marc:And it's like, I don't mind that.
Marc:And certainly I do bits that have that, that are honest.
Marc:But people hold you in a certain light.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're kind of up against that.
Marc:And when you kind of show your other parts of yourself that they already kind of know, there's a vulnerability to it that, you know, it's kind of whatever.
Marc:But I feel it.
Guest:Have you thought about the fact that the Sarge's son might actually watch this?
Guest:no i i don't yeah that's an email i would love to get okay well now how there's two other people that i was thinking of are it's like the likelihood of them seeing this is high it's at least it's at least there i guess what are you gonna do to my brain now yeah
Guest:Well, one is Trump.
Marc:Like, do you think about that, that he might watch this?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But like, you know, and I don't really, you know, I'm not excited about that, you know, because, you know, there's no way that's going to land well with him.
Marc:Right.
Marc:There's no way.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, it's indicting.
Marc:And it's indicting of some of my peers in my business, one in particular who I name by name.
Marc:But I really think that one is fairly diplomatic.
Marc:I mean, I think that the Theo Vaughn bit, if that makes the cut, like I think that's what would happen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that's a totally absolute 1 million percent fair game joke.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:You know, with Trump.
Guest:That's a joke where it's like, oh, that fucker had this coming.
Guest:He better have better take this joke.
Marc:But it's weird.
Marc:It's like, you know, I'm not I am doing an impression of him probably badly.
Marc:And it's it's it's an honest burn.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's not like somebody.
Marc:It's not like he's this or he's that.
Marc:No.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:And even the the implied.
Marc:Anti-Semitism is mushy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's more about him being completely out to lunch.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And if I hurt Stephen Miller's feelings, I'll be okay.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, there's that.
Guest:But there's no difference between you doing that joke and, like, people who did jokes mocking Jimmy Fallon for having Trump on the show when he did in 2016, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that side doesn't think the same way.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But, you know, the one that I was really kind of fudging on
Marc:was calling out the 50 million people who just decided, like, I just like the guy and saying I hate them the most.
Guest:That got a huge laugh the first show.
Guest:Huge.
Guest:And then the second show, it got the laugh I think you were kind of figuring it might come across as a little too aggressive.
Guest:It didn't get a non-laugh, but it wasn't the big laugh.
Guest:It got the first time.
Guest:The first time people clapped.
Guest:Like, they were like, yeah, I hate them too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, maybe it was me.
Marc:Maybe it was a timing thing.
Marc:But that line always gets a laugh from my audiences.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I mean.
Guest:There was another one that was like tremendous in how it worked one time.
Guest:Like it was one time when it was the reverse, though.
Guest:In the first show, it didn't get a huge reaction.
Guest:And in the second show, you had to stop because people were laughing so much.
Guest:Was that when you were like, I'm not an arena act.
Guest:I turn them down all the time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And in the first one, I think people weren't sure if you really did or not.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's like that's that's the nature of the world we're in.
Marc:You know, it's like, yeah, well, I mean, I'm glad they think I'm that big.
Marc:But but whatever.
Marc:But also, there's a couple of lines in there like, you know, the fucking thing and the empathy whore thing, because that's such a weird thing.
Marc:two words.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, but the second show that got the laugh it deserved, but it's always sort of touchy because people have to put it together.
Marc:And then that weird little thing like, can I help?
Marc:Is there anything I can do to help?
Marc:No, we don't need your help.
Marc:Let me help.
Guest:You know, like, yeah, there's a wonderful moment that happened and I will get back to the second person who I think is going to watch the show.
Guest:But there's a wonderful thing that happened with the audience with a joke that feels like it's a relatively new thing you've added on as you were building out the stuff about your dad and
Guest:But when you talk about, you know, that, you know, his family that he's married into now is Mexican.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That's a great joke.
Guest:With them taking care of him.
Guest:What does he say?
Guest:They'll put him in the center of the room?
Marc:Oh, they'll just put the hospital bed in the living room and have Christmas around him.
Marc:Like have Christmas around the dying Jew.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:And so that gets a laugh.
Guest:And the laugh is, as the laugh's happening, how is it that you tag it?
Guest:What's the phrasing?
Marc:There's a poetic symmetry to that.
Guest:Yeah, there's a poetic symmetry to that.
Guest:And the laugh kind of, it's simmering, simmering.
Guest:And like within two seconds, it bubbles up even higher as people make the recognition of that joke.
Guest:It was really fun.
Marc:It happened both times.
Marc:Yeah, that's like a few weeks old.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:That and we annoyed them to fascism.
Marc:We annoyed the average American to fascism.
Guest:Well, that was literally a joke you only tagged over the weekend, either whether it was in Vermont or Portsmouth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:it was about the cats and you like we're sitting in your green room and you were like i gotta listen to that i forgot i forgot how i tagged that recently and you had gone out you went on your phone and listened to the recording to hear a thing that you had just done and you added it into the show and it gets a huge it's almost it almost feels like oh of course that's how that joke was built from the start like it's like the exact arc of that joke yeah yeah i just didn't have it
Marc:That's funny.
Marc:Well, that's just the way I do it.
Marc:And it's crazy.
Marc:But it was delivered to me in Portsmouth.
Marc:And I was like, that's where that lands.
Marc:That's how it lands.
Marc:The jokes already gets a huge laugh.
Marc:One of the biggest laughs in the show.
Marc:And it's so simple and it's a cat joke, but, but it's like, there's a turn to it that, you know, it's just so it's like a no brainer observation.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But, but to hear it said, like, I don't know that people put that together.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's just like it's a it's a very simple to the point where I'm like, this is a joke joke.
Marc:Make sure you say I like to watch Charlie play with the ball.
Marc:Make sure that is clear.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because that is that's your setup.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And yeah.
Marc:And what what the hell can I tell you?
Marc:I mean, that just you know, that it finally fucking landed.
Marc:You know, I was delivered the punchline, you know, three days before the taping.
Guest:I think you're right that you have it set up and then a joke joke, but then the tag that you have added to it, that is the Marc Maron of it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because like what, what people then are laughing at is that it's not just the joke.
Guest:It's then Marc Maron, the character of Marc Maron that I know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:would absolutely react to that in this personal way that is conspiratorial, that is like anthropomorphizing the animal, but also with total certitude that it is this, right?
Guest:And you don't even realize that.
Guest:It's just, like you said, it's delivered to you, it comes to you.
Guest:But that's why the joke then is funny.
Marc:Yeah, the essence of me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I, you know, I'm, I'm glad we're not like, you know, stepping on too much here because I do think people will enjoy experiencing this special for the first time and get everything out of it that you get from seeing a show.
Guest:I don't want to give away too much, but I don't think it's secret at this point.
Guest:If anyone's listened to the show over the last year and a half that you're doing a kind of centerpiece bit.
Guest:In fact, in this, it becomes your closer.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That involves a Taylor Swift song.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you were able to secure the song for the special, which is great.
Guest:With money.
Guest:Yeah, but am I allowed to talk about this?
Guest:It sounds like you got a discount.
Marc:I don't know if I did.
Marc:I'd have to ask Jack.
Marc:It sounds like maybe I got a 10 grand discount.
Guest:It sounds like from who I was talking to, you did.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, maybe.
Guest:I mean, it's still a lot of money, but it sounds like it would be a lot more money if it was just, you know, some random show.
Marc:Well, I'll text Jack and I'll thank him either way.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:Because I never heard about anybody giving me a discount.
Guest:I mean, the fact that you got, you know, vouched for by Jack Antonoff.
Guest:I don't know if he produced that.
Guest:I don't know if he has a stake in that specific song.
Guest:He did.
Guest:He co-wrote it.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So there you go.
Guest:All I could think of, though, with that is that there seems like there's absolutely a chance
Guest:that she will get a text or a comment somehow from him that's like, hey, you should watch this thing.
Guest:This guy used your song in this joke and she will watch it.
Marc:They sent a clip to whoever.
Marc:Somebody approved the usage.
Guest:Yeah, so sure, that's part of the team, right?
Guest:You don't know how high that gets up directly to her or whatever.
Marc:Oh, is that the other person you're wondering about?
Guest:yeah yeah like that's i i would if if i were you that would be the one i'd be like huh i wonder if she's gonna see that because i feel like it's a tremendously respectful joke oh no she i mean it's like yeah why not now i'm texting steven again uh
Marc:uh, the second show Taylor bit.
Marc:Cause I don't know if I said I put it on loop for a show.
Marc:See, I, I think about these little, I don't know why I miss certain lines.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:But you also are going to have the opportunity to, you know, know these things in edit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I'll tell you, I was, you know, standing in the back of the theater for the first show as you did that.
Guest:And there are people who just the reaction to that bit from and, you know, I'm not being I'm not stereotyping by saying this.
Guest:I'm just saying what I observed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:it's all younger women, like women in the, from ages like, you know, 20 to 30 are like leaning on each other laughing.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:With that bit.
Guest:And like, I do feel like that's good.
Guest:Like there's something about that whole joke.
Guest:And I've, I've thought this since the minute you told the story on the show that I'm like, this is prime stuff for,
Guest:for the Swifties.
Guest:Like this is such a, like to them, especially if they're a fan of yours as well.
Guest:It's like, Oh my God, a tribute to my two favorite people.
Guest:It's like all the things that make them both great.
Marc:I mean, you know, like it's interesting that it, it became the center or the closer, you know, more than the centerpiece.
Marc:I, I, you know, and also like, you know, that, that cat stuff that was given to me just a few months ago.
Guest:The fire cat stuff.
Marc:The fire cat stuff.
Marc:I've been doing this set for a year and a half.
Marc:And then I'm like, holy shit.
Marc:And to set it up like I just want to be entertaining, that gets a good beat.
Marc:And I let it sit there.
Marc:And I'm like, there are these big fires.
Guest:Yeah, that's great.
Guest:Because that is your version of this is entertaining.
Guest:Again, that's like the Marc Maron of it.
Marc:It's like your version of this being entertaining.
Marc:And those two bits, the evacuating the cats and the rat bit, are just pure comedy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But, you know, not out of character for you.
Guest:It reminded me, the rat bit specifically reminded me of Earl's Rooter.
Guest:Yeah, oh yeah.
Guest:Which I believe was on This Has to Be Funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, you know, and I kind of had to fudge some stuff a little bit because they, you know, took me a couple I could for a while I was talking about engaging Terminix and the rats, but which I did, but I took them out because it just kind of you got a rat guy is a great.
Marc:Yeah, you got to make it lean.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:yeah uh i mean you're saying you know it's interesting that the taylor swift thing became the closer i i see again this is one of those things where it's like it's best then i think that this stuff just kind of gets like you said delivered to you and you you perform it mostly on feel because to me it's like the most obvious structure of the show that that's the culmination it's kind of the thesis of the show like yeah
Guest:If you don't learn to just let go and be okay with this shit, you're going to drive yourself to an early grave.
Guest:And it's like, that's the metaphor.
Guest:That story.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, the sort of work that goes into making these bits kind of really pop.
Marc:You know, because I don't know why exactly.
Marc:that the arc of that bit, you know, really kind of lands with the last line, you know, but it really does.
Marc:You know, I think I say funnier things, but it's so satisfying.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And the shirt thing was resolved.
Marc:That was good.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:You had, you had your wardrobe taken care of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's another thing.
Guest:Like normally in history of me knowing you, that would be like a, a two hour long spiral.
Guest:It was finished fixed right away.
Marc:Yeah, well, I had sort of surrendered to it.
Marc:And I'm like, all right, so this is good.
Marc:But when they said, you know, we had the issue that was really the prime issue and this wardrobe person, and I didn't even bring my own wardrobe person because I knew what I was wearing, but she works at the theater.
Marc:She is the wardrobe person for the Bam Harvey.
Marc:She's like, I could put some snaps in.
Marc:I'm like, and you don't see him?
Marc:She's like, yeah, I should do it.
Marc:And I'm like, okay, do both shirts.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah fixed so quickly yeah yeah it was great that was it was it was really great so what do you think you'll do what will be your next thing you'll just go to the store and poke around and see where you know what comes out of your mouth yeah I put in for this week you did yeah oh no kidding
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, more so sort of like I want to kind of like do my own little dumb victory lap and just, you know, I haven't been there in weeks and just be like, yeah, I just shot the special.
Guest:When do you think you're going over there?
Guest:Every night?
Marc:No, no, I'm going to go over there Thursday and Friday and just, you know, I'm kind of curious about the bit about, you know, a presidential pardon being an authoritarian diploma.
Guest:Okay, well, so listen, if you heard us on Friday say that Mark was not going to do shows at the Comedy Store this week, you heard it here first.
Guest:He will be there Thursday and Friday.
Guest:I don't know if that person who asked is still listening, but there you go.
Guest:Breaking news.
Guest:Okay.
Thank you.