BONUS Mike Birbiglia Just Called (and David Cronenberg Just Left)
Guest:So, first off, have you been invited to join the Papal Conclave?
Guest:Yeah, I just got the email.
Marc:Oh, you did?
Marc:They're sending emails still.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It went out, it looked like a pretty large group email.
Guest:Did it have any advisories on it this time about like no one with a uterus allowed?
Guest:Like are they making precautions this time based on the last papal conclave?
Marc:Well, what was interesting about it is that they, I think they mistook me for, they're letting conservative Jews be part of the conclave.
Right.
Marc:So they're kind of opening it up a little bit, but not.
Guest:Yeah, they got to do that.
Guest:The numbers are dwindling.
Marc:No liberal Jews, but they're all good with, you know, I think that, you know, the copy list wasn't hidden.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Steven Seagal.
Marc:He's got good ideas for this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What were some other ones?
Marc:Jeff Ross.
Guest:Jeff Ross.
Marc:Oh, well, of course.
Marc:He's not conservative, but I guess he is on the, you know, straddles both worlds.
Guest:He's the Roastmaster General, so they need somebody to, you know, keep the proceedings moving along in there.
Guest:It's going to be a long couple of weeks.
Marc:I'd like Jeff to be Pope.
Marc:I think it's high time a Jew is Pope.
Guest:Yeah, why not?
Guest:At all kinds.
Guest:This is now the third Pope that I've been working with you as the transition has happened.
Guest:So many Popes.
Guest:I was reminded that we were working together on Air America when they were picking the successor to John Paul II, which wound up being Benedict.
Guest:The Polish Pope?
Guest:Yeah, the Polish Pope was JP II.
Guest:Then it was the German guy who might have been a Nazi.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Ratzinger.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was Benedict XVI, I think.
Guest:And then that's the weird one where he just like went away.
Guest:Like he just decided like, nah, not going to be Pope anymore.
Guest:And then he left.
Guest:What happened to that guy?
Guest:Did he die?
Guest:He died like well after he stopped being Pope.
Marc:It was a weird one.
Marc:Yeah, well, I guess something was about to surface.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:Yeah, that's what everybody always figured.
Marc:What was that great joke that Leno had years ago for, remember Kurt Voltheim?
Marc:When he got, what was he?
Marc:He got nominated for something.
Marc:There were these pictures of him in uniform.
Marc:And it was, the thought was that he was a Nazi.
Marc:And Leno used to do this bit like, no, no, that was the bowling club.
Marc:We were in a bowling club.
Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That was probably when he was being named to be the secretary general of the UN, I would guess.
Marc:I think that was it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I did.
Guest:It called to mind in my memory that when we were working at Air America, we did a bit about the selection of the new pope, which, frankly, I don't think it was as ridiculous as the movie Conclave.
Marc:It would have been a shorter movie.
Marc:Yeah, it would be shorter and probably a little more reality grounded, frankly.
Marc:The thing I hated about that movie was the goddamn procedural music.
Marc:They literally had, you know, cutaway procedural music.
Guest:My absolute favorite part of Conclave is that he's, you know, Conclave has a buddy who goes around to like his assistant who's like, you know, trying to clean up all the messes, you know?
Guest:And he comes up to Conclave at one point and he's like, hey, I found out about this secret clinic in Geneva that this guy went to.
Guest:And he's like, oh yeah, what'd you find out?
Guest:And he's like, well, he canceled that trip so we don't need to worry about it.
Guest:I'm like, oh really?
Guest:Did you just...
Guest:Just leave that hanging there, huh?
Guest:Oh, no need to know anymore about the secret clinic in Geneva.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:The Pope has a vagina and a cock.
Marc:One of each.
Guest:yeah it's gonna be a lot for them to top that yeah uh we we might have played this before when we did the uh and in fact i'm certain we played it before when we did our look back at morning's edition but i know not everybody's heard it and if you have heard it it's very quick so i'm going to play again our uh our segment from back in 2005 when when the new pope was selected this was uh this was our take on it on the air
Marc:We have a new pope, Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
Marc:Now, we actually, Cardinal Milfington, had a friend who was actually in the Vatican, which was, of course, one of the oldest megachurches.
Marc:And he was there, and he witnessed the process by which they picked the pope and was actually able to record some of it.
Marc:And we got this mini-disc this morning, and it's pretty powerful.
Marc:And let's hear that.
Marc:Can we, Kayla?
Guest:Gentlemen, gentlemen, if I may have your attention, please.
Guest:P, as in Paul, 6.
Guest:P, 6.
Guest:Next.
Guest:O, 15.
Guest:Oh, you know, I get Old Testament 15.
Guest:O, 15.
Guest:Ah, here she comes with the next ping pong ball.
Guest:Here, as in Ecclesiastes.
Guest:Eight.
Guest:Here, eight.
Guest:Hey, I got a Pope here.
Guest:Everybody, I'm in a new Pope.
Guest:Okay, bring over your card, Giuseppe.
Guest:Let me check your numbers.
Guest:Hey, she's looking good.
Guest:We got a new Pope.
Guest:Somebody crank over the white smoke.
Yay!
Marc:A lot of people didn't realize that they are forced to speak in Chico Marx-like Italian accents.
Marc:Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Italian accents in a couple of cases.
Marc:Yeah, and even the Ratzinger, who's German, they're all forced to speak like that.
Marc:Because you would think that, you know, he says, I'm the new pope.
Marc:You would think it'd be more of a German, you know, whatever that, you know.
Marc:He speaks ten languages, apparently.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So this might have been one of the ten, which was, you know, Italian-American accent.
Guest:Uh, that was exactly the kind of thing we could do.
Guest:Like if we came in in the morning, we were like, Hey, I have an idea.
Guest:Let's do Pope bingo.
Guest:Just make that in the like brief period of time before we got on the air.
Marc:I assume we couldn't find, uh, the sound of a rolling bingo cage.
Guest:No, it was very, very, in fact, uh, I don't know if you recognize your own voice.
Guest:You're one of the grumbling.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You're the, you're the one that went, ah, Jesus.
Yeah.
Guest:And yes, that was Dan Pashman doing the terrible accented lead cardinal running the conclave.
Guest:It's weird.
Guest:I have a hard time remembering any of that.
Guest:No, I wouldn't remember it if I didn't have the actual evidence because it was all such a haze.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:We literally made that at five in the morning.
Guest:I know.
Marc:It's crazy how little I remember from that time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, and now we're going on 20 years, so you can be forgiven.
Marc:It's like waking consciousness.
Marc:It's like having a job at like six hours a day while you're not sure if you're awake or not.
Guest:Well, one thing that I did want to bring up because you mentioned it on the, you know, it was mentioned on the show Monday in your talk with Lisa Trager was, and this was something that's a little behind the scenes thing because you and I kind of
Guest:went through a little thought process on it was you and Lisa kind of taking digs at Mike Birbiglia, who we had just last week, the audience doesn't know this.
Guest:We were just in the process of, of rebooking him for like the ninth time.
Guest:Well, he has been on, I think this would be the fourth time.
Guest:And he hosted an anniversary show.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:He did his own episode.
Guest:Then the 200th episode was Mike interviewing you and asking questions from past guests of you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then we had him back on, I believe it was when he did his, the movie of Sleepwalk with me that you were in.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, okay.
Guest:Yeah, we had him back on for a short one for that.
Guest:But so he reached out to you, told you that he had a special coming up.
Guest:And I don't know if that coincided with what Lisa was talking about.
Marc:No, because it was at the cellar because, and I think she said that, because I was there.
Marc:And Mike was there was that night that I was there and I talked to Louie and Chris Rock and Santino was there and Bobby Lee.
Marc:But when I got there, Mike was there.
Marc:And I guess when he left, I said something.
Marc:And that got back to Lisa, who was on that show later, I think.
Marc:Oh, I see.
Marc:Same show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it was that night.
Marc:It must have been that night.
Guest:Well, I, I found that in, in trying to, you know, put the show together, I found that, uh, you know, we would, um, we, it was, it was kind of like a, it was a little, to me, a little dicey in the sense that we're going to have him on, right?
Guest:He's being booked to come on.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And I felt like, well, it would be really shitty for him to, like, hear this secondhand or thirdhand or just listening to the show himself and get, like, you know, surprised by it that you and Lees are talking about him that way.
Marc:Well, it was one of those things where it's like we don't really do that stuff.
Marc:So the question was, you know, what's the point of leaving it in?
Marc:And oddly, it is one of the things that all of our guests –
Marc:If there's ever a request to cut something out, it's always like 99 percent of the time they said something about somebody else.
Marc:And it's just right.
Marc:It's just not worth the outside of, you know, feeling bad, you know, that Michael have to wake up to that.
Marc:It just it just starts shit and usually unnecessarily.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the thing that was tricky with that is obviously we could cut out whatever we want.
Guest:However, if I had cut that out, it really would have done a number on the narrative of that episode because it really connected once you guys started talking about that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was an entry point to talking about like how she does her comedy based on, you know, kind of her wanting it to be her own self and not a character.
Guest:And it got into her special.
Guest:And so, you know, we had this text chat about it that it's like, this is a little tricky to cut this out, but it's also like, what do you want to do about it?
Guest:And, and, you know, it was my recommendation that you just give Mike a heads up.
Guest:I felt like that would be the right thing to do.
Guest:And then I said, just cut it out.
Guest:Yeah, you were like, well, then I'd rather cut it out.
Guest:And I said, I think we'd lose too much.
Guest:Like, I really do.
Guest:I think is kind of is a thorny situation.
Guest:So at this point, I don't know necessarily the next step.
Guest:What happened from that point?
Marc:Well, I was like, well, what am I going to say?
Marc:You know, because it's not stuff I haven't said.
Marc:And him and I have hashed it out before.
Marc:And despite, you know, him wanting to come back on the show, there was a point there where the tension between us was on his side, like just him knowing how I felt, you know, different times during our relationship and having not wavered from it much if it comes up.
Marc:He was asked to moderate.
Marc:That thing that me and Lynn did down there in the village, the screening.
Marc:Oh, one of the movie theaters?
Marc:Yeah, I think Ira ended up doing it.
Marc:Is that right?
Marc:Ira did one and Josh Radner did one.
Marc:Well, yeah, but we went out to Mike because, you know, Lynn liked Mike.
Marc:And Mike said, well, I don't think Mark likes me.
Marc:And I'm like, I don't know.
Marc:All right, whatever.
Marc:But this weird thing that I have with him has been on and off for years.
Marc:So, you know, I didn't remember exactly what I said, but, you know, we decided that you were going to put it in and that I should text him a heads up.
Marc:And so we put together a text.
Marc:And to be transparent, I didn't send it out until this morning.
Guest:Well, but still, that was what he got.
Guest:He got the text and then he responded to you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I sent the text, which was, hey, just so you hear it from me and not someone else I was talking with.
Marc:Lisa Traeger on my show and you came up and I was honest about how I've perceived you throughout the years.
Marc:I don't think it will be surprising to you, but I also wanted to be upfront about it.
Marc:And then I said, more grist for our mill when we talk.
Marc:And he texted back immediately.
Marc:Can I call you?
Guest:so that's what i got from you i got a text from you being like great now mike wants to talk yeah like and to me i'm like well okay but that like that's a better talk than him texting you because you didn't give him a heads up and him being like hey can i talk to you because what the fuck are you talking about me like out of nowhere just you know yeah so but the funny thing the feelings i go through is like um you know like yeah
Marc:When you really have to, like, now I got to, like, he's going to want to, you know, tell me, you know, when's this going to end?
Marc:What do you, you know, like, why does this keep going?
Marc:I don't know if I should do the show.
Marc:And I got to listen to that.
Marc:And I got to, you know, take the consequences of just saying that thing.
Marc:And I was sort of like, ah, maybe, like, we don't have to have him back on the show in my mind, you know.
Yeah.
Marc:It's just like the and then like I got out of the gym and I'm like, just literally out loud.
Marc:I'm like, just fucking call him.
Marc:Let's just do this.
Marc:And I'm like, hey, man.
Marc:He's like, hey, what's up?
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:Well, he's like, how you doing?
Marc:I'm like, fine.
Marc:And it's just a normal conversation.
Marc:We literally talked.
Marc:Like people who, you know, like each other for like five or 10 minutes.
Marc:And then I kind of edged into, you know, what I said.
Marc:He's like, yeah, you know, it didn't affect me in any way.
Marc:But if I come back on, I just we don't have to we're not going to do that, are we?
Marc:Like we're not going to go back through it for, you know.
Marc:Our whole relationship again or whatever, you know, because, you know, you've had specials that I liked and I've just I've done two specials.
Marc:And we ended up talking like a half hour about jokes and, you know, like normal comedy stuff like that.
Marc:That's the problem with me is I have this thing that's stuck in my craw that I can't really get out.
Marc:But it's not active, but it becomes active if someone's going to poke at it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and it was just a lucky guess.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And my criticism of him was what it always has been.
Marc:But oddly, you know, he ended the conversation on the phone.
Marc:He was like, well, this new special, it reminds me a bit of the one you did last from Bleak to Dark.
Marc:It's about my dad had a stroke and dealing with that.
Marc:And then he said, I think it's the most myself I've been ever, you know, in a special.
Marc:I'm like, finally.
Marc:Great.
Marc:We could start there.
Marc:But I told him, I said, look, you can call me out.
Marc:You can call me a dick, and I'll cop to it.
Marc:Because I am being a dick with this thing, and I have been for years, but it doesn't necessarily stop it.
Marc:But it hasn't really surfaced in a long time, has it?
Marc:Maybe it hasn't.
Marc:You've cut it out.
Guest:It actually hasn't.
Guest:I would know if it did.
Guest:But it's funny.
Guest:It's that I remember a long time ago,
Guest:being like you know it was like there were there were these incidents one like one was like when you were doing your uh scorching the earth special in the same theater that he was doing his show in and he like invited you to come see his show and
Guest:And you took offense to that.
Guest:You were like, he's fucking trying to rub my nose in this.
Marc:But you're not characterizing it right.
Marc:Like, yes, he was in that theater.
Marc:Like it was, what was that called?
Marc:The Bleecker Street Theater.
Guest:Bleecker Street.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or Barrow Street.
Guest:Wherever it was.
Marc:Bleecker.
Marc:Nice space.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In the basement of that theater was this dungeon of a fucking space that had been set up as a kind of black box workshop theater.
Guest:Well, he was in an official off-Broadway theater and with a show being produced by Nathan Lane.
Guest:I was in the basement.
Guest:And you were in the basement of that same theater.
Marc:And I had to live with that.
Marc:And the guy who was producing mine was kind of nuts.
Marc:And I was all fucked up because it wasn't a real show.
Marc:It was just me kind of going on about my divorce.
Marc:And people came and then Time Out wrote about it.
Marc:And I didn't want anyone to see it.
Marc:And they were like, it doesn't seem like Mark has any distance from this stuff.
Marc:I'm like, no, I don't.
Marc:And you can't even get tickets to it.
Marc:Why are you writing about it?
Marc:But just the fact that he was up there, Mr. Likeable, you know, you know, with this big produce show.
Marc:Yeah, it was resentment.
Marc:It was just, you know, just straight up kind of like, you know, fuck that guy.
Marc:Why am I, you know, in the basement in the catacombs?
Guest:But the same exact thing of him.
Guest:Like it's it's.
Guest:it just repeated itself over and over again.
Guest:Like this recent time where he has sent you a text saying, I did this new special and I think you will really like it.
Guest:And it's close to stuff you have done.
Guest:Like it's the same thing as that of him wanting you to come up and see his special.
Guest:It's the same as him putting you in his movie, playing a guy who's like, you know, an influential comic to him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it like always, what's that?
Guest:But a dick.
Marc:yes right i mean like he's not gonna give you a you know full uh beatification in these things but at the same time it's always been very clear to me that this guy um you know wants your approval yeah it's me misunderstanding that like i read it as like he's rubbing my face and i mean at this point you know arguably you know i'm plenty successful i'm not gonna you know
Marc:You know, try to figure out who's more successful necessarily.
Marc:But I think it was one of those things that there was something always out of my reach that I still think on some level I see is out of my reach was just really having a decisive approach and brand and tone.
Marc:That, you know, was was, you know, affable and and, you know, pleasant that there was something about he being so put together in his character and and him doing one person shows that were look, they were fine and they are fine in in in that zone.
Marc:But, you know, to me, you know, you know, I'm going to go more towards, you know, Spalding Gray or or or Boghossian or it seemed to be gutting the notion of performance art, whatever.
Marc:There was a lot of a lot of things going on in my head.
Marc:But the main one being is like, you know, this guy's got it more together than me.
Guest:And also mixed with don't don't forget mixed with the fact that you can kind of spot someone doing a kind of performative character.
Marc:Well, yeah, but that's always been the issue.
Marc:But like, you know, I can accept that in other people and arguably we all eventually evolve one.
Marc:Mm hmm.
Marc:And ultimately, every time I watch him, I'm like, he's a great comic.
Marc:I mean, he knows how to do it and he's funny and, you know, he's a long form comic and I like that.
Marc:But there's just something about the hidden ambition that always kind of bothered me because, you know, I don't know that I'm that clear on my ambition.
Marc:I know that I'm competitive.
Marc:And I know that, you know, I'm I come from a more desperate place than I should.
Marc:But I'm just not I don't see myself as ambitious.
Guest:Well, there's lots of there's a laundry list of people, though, who kind of fall into that category that you've always kind of had an issue with because there's a few.
Guest:Yeah, like Pete Holmes and Chris Hardwick.
Guest:And going all the way back to the kind of beginning of your career with this was Jon Stewart.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And the interesting thing I found was today, before you talked to Mike...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You were just like, yeah, this just, it's annoying that these things, you know, get compounded over the years.
Guest:And it's like, winds up being like the Jon Stewart thing.
Guest:And I was like that you saying that to me, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on.
Guest:This is like the, the opposite interpersonally.
Guest:Like Stewart was angry at you, you know, and felt, he felt resentful toward you because of how you've treated him.
Guest:Mike is like a puppy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's like, why do you keep hitting me?
Guest:All I want is to rub your leg.
Marc:Yeah, but see, I still can't, like, it must be something about my wiring.
Marc:I still feel like it's a little manipulative, but we had a nice conversation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, when I let my guard down, you know, I have no, there's no problem with that guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that's what happens when you're like, you gotta, when he's like, can I call you?
Marc:I'm like, oh, okay.
Marc:You know, like...
Marc:Why do I, I just, I just said a thing.
Marc:Can we just not, why, you know?
Marc:So, but it was fine.
Marc:It's fine.
Marc:And it's stupid.
Marc:And, you know, I try to manage it, but.
Guest:Well, I do think, yeah, I do think it was, you know, handled well and handled in a way where, you know, you guys can do an episode coming up, record an episode, not have it be the, the, the thrust of the episode, but also, you know, now it's a little flavor in the mix.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but it's like, why...
Marc:We're old now.
Marc:I'm old.
Marc:And I'm older than all these guys, too, by almost a decade, probably.
Marc:And there's some parts of me that just sort of... They remain there, but they're not connected to anything that present.
Marc:Nothing present.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And it's just kind of... It's like a vestigial limb of resentment.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And it just is a...
Marc:It's... I don't know.
Marc:It still feels good.
Marc:Um...
Marc:To talk shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I do think that was a kind of good thematic moment in that interview with Lisa Trager because, you know, she was saying, this is what we just like to do as comics.
Guest:It's like one of, and you both talked about like, yeah, it's gotten me in trouble.
Guest:And like, you know, in the meantime, you had this moment, you know, the first 10 minutes of the episode where you, where you, you guys did that about some other guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like it was like this good representation of the example of doing that.
Guest:And then your discussion of like the repercussions of that throughout both of your careers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But also like, you know, it becomes tricky.
Marc:You know, this is just an ego thing, you know, and it's just, you know, a personal issue.
Marc:But like, you know, sometimes talking shit, like in the case with Adam Sandler, I thought that, you know, he was fair game.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There are people in our business that become cultural touchstones or points or whatever the expression is or cultural have cultural impact.
Marc:Whereas somebody who makes jokes about culture, they should be fair game.
Marc:But when it comes right down to it, there's still that guy you see at the comedy club.
Guest:But frankly, I would say, so this was, you were on Conan, right?
Guest:And you said something about Adam Sandler fans, right?
Guest:Yeah, it was a joke, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and then he confronted you about it saying, you know, I heard you were talking about me.
Guest:And you said, yeah, on television.
Guest:Yeah, I was on Conan.
Guest:uh and i would say that is how i feel like lisa's position is in this thing with berbiglia like she's absolutely within her rights to say oh i don't like that guy for how like her criticism of him was his stage persona yeah she's like i don't like this guy grown-up guy talking like a baby doofus yeah like
Guest:You know, be a real guy.
Guest:Be yourself.
Guest:You fuck your wife.
Right.
Guest:But like anybody could say that.
Guest:That's criticizing.
Guest:That's criticism of his persona.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's all people do.
Marc:It's not just comics.
Marc:Everybody talks shit.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Marc:There's a whole industry based on it.
Guest:But because it's a comic doing it about a comic, it winds up seeming personal.
Marc:Or player hating or jealousy.
Marc:It's like my criticism of the anti-woke guys.
Marc:I mean, you know, that tribalized, that definitely put me on the outside of that thing.
Marc:And I know all those guys.
Marc:But, you know, that that is of utmost political importance and cultural importance that somebody do that, because that's why you have a bunch of not necessarily political comics, but certainly left leaning people in my business who are afraid, you know, just like like everyone's afraid of Trump, of Rogan or whatever.
Marc:But somebody's got to just, you know, throw in.
Marc:It's not even like it's weird.
Marc:Last night I had a moment where.
Marc:You know, along these lines in terms of, you know, what we do that, you know, like our my policy and I think rightfully so.
Marc:And our approach to this is that we do our show.
Marc:This is how we do it.
Marc:There is some there is some.
Marc:insulation because we are audio and we're not easily clipped.
Marc:And if somebody wants to reference something I say, they have to put it in print.
Marc:And that's, you know, not really the currency of the time.
Marc:And it protects me a little bit from, you know, troll pylons and being dragged into a larger cultural conversation, you know.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Um, but I still say my piece, but you know, there is part of me that wishes it would even land harder.
Marc:And I had to saw it last night is off topic, but I was like, you know, God damn it.
Marc:Are we, you know, after I read that article I sent you from the Hollywood reporter, I'm like, Oh yeah.
Marc:Are Brendan and I doing the right thing?
Marc:Should we produce some video pieces that I know will fucking crawl up the ass of these people?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because it's our duty, not, you know, look, we run our own shop, we make a good living, and we're okay with that.
Marc:But there's part of me, there's a higher calling for me to trash these guys on video.
Marc:And maybe I'll just ask Brendan if we should just, you know, script like five or six pieces that I can go to a studio of a peer and put on a video for my platform guys to put up just so we're on record.
Marc:You in?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The hilarious thing about that though is like, I can't think of a thing that you would hate more than the repercussions of that.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I know that's always part of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like it's like, it's like, it's like a hundred thousand Mike Birbiglia's I got a call.
Marc:It's just going to be going like, oh, God damn it.
Guest:That's the rest of your life.
Guest:Every day.
Guest:Oh, God, you got to do that thing now.
Marc:Why did I put that out there?
Marc:It's never going to stop.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But isn't that cowardice?
Guest:Wait, no.
Guest:Cowardice would be if you did that.
Guest:if that was a thing you do right if you if you have a show where you're you know supposed to call people on the carpet for the things like if you were john oliver right and you all of a sudden stop talking about trump because you're afraid what trump's gonna do to you that's cowardice then that's why john oliver doesn't do it he's not a coward yeah he's not he's not a guy who's gonna be like well i'll shut up then if this guy's gonna threaten me yeah but like
Guest:you have never established that you're some guy who your job is to police comedy.
Guest:That's just not, it's not your job, but you definitely can speak your mind.
Guest:And every fucking intro that you do is, is laden with your opinions vis-a-vis other comics and how they conduct themselves.
Guest:That doesn't mean that by not being like, I'm going to do a takedown of them every day, you're being a coward.
Marc:Well, I guess I didn't see it as a takedown.
Marc:I think that because from the side I'm on,
Marc:You know, and the appreciation I get from comics that, you know, don't have a platform big enough or don't have the balls to do it.
Marc:It's just not being done.
Marc:And in my mind, these lines, these dividing lines are very real.
Marc:And a lot of them don't want to, you know, a lot of them can't see past the opportunities offered to them by being...
Marc:Diplomatic with these comics that have this power, you know, which I don't really have.
Marc:So sometimes I think it's on me to call out collaborators and to broaden the conversation around the impact of people who are, quote unquote, just comedians now, you know.
Marc:That's what it is.
Marc:It's not.
Guest:But it's like, don't you think you do that?
Marc:I definitely do it.
Guest:Not just on the podcast, but you've done it in your specials.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Guest:You do it when you guest on late night shows.
Marc:Yeah, I guess there's part of me that's sort of like, I'm not, like, I guess there's always part of me that thinks like, you know, if I do it, it'll free up the dialogue.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, I think you're just bumping up against the thing that you've bumped up with any, regardless of what it is.
Guest:It could be with your comedy, your acting, anything that when you do it, you're like, shouldn't the whole world see this?
Guest:Doesn't everybody get to see this and celebrate it?
Marc:Turns out, no, not many.
Marc:It's never the whole world.
Marc:But no, but also just sort of like...
Marc:Because there is that same fear that people in Congress feel around speaking their minds or being honest about what's happening.
Marc:That happens in comedy, too.
Marc:But the implications are different.
Marc:They don't want to fuck opportunities up.
Marc:They don't want to be targeted by the army of meatheads.
Marc:There's a lot of things that...
Marc:But, you know, I wish, I think it would be helpful if more people could, you know, speak their mind about it.
Marc:But then again, it's not many comics that do that, period, you know, in terms of this type of stuff.
Guest:That's funny that we got to all this from Birbiglia, who is definitely not of that type.
Marc:No, but I think what's important is that, you know, my, the sort of, the difference between my engagement around this stuff,
Marc:And around speaking my mind that that I is part of me and it is something I do and it is important.
Marc:But there is another operative part of me of like, you know, oh, man, you know, now I've caused all this trouble for myself.
Marc:I've caused other people trouble.
Marc:And, you know, now I have to sit with that.
Marc:Or try.
Marc:Yeah, I've gotten better at that because you got to do some things that are going to come back at you in the form of of attacks or trolling or, you know, judgment.
Marc:And, you know, it's just life.
Marc:But I'm very aware of the decision making around doing it.
Guest:Well, one of the things that I always take to heart, and I remember hearing this from one of Letterman's producers, that Letterman told the producers of the show, your job is to protect me from myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've always taken that to heart.
Guest:And I don't mean that from the sense of, like, I've got to censor you.
Guest:I obviously do not, because, like, we, you know, have a pretty...
Guest:connected relationship.
Marc:It's literally protecting me from myself.
Marc:There's a, it's not censoring, but that's why, like, you know, when I think about doing things, I'm like, I got to run this by the brain.
Guest:And that's, and my thinking is not like, Oh, what would I do?
Guest:No, I know.
Guest:My thinking is what does this do for him?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like that's a distinct difference.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sometimes I just picture you when I have to do other appearances, just watching going like, Oh my God, what is it?
Marc:What's he going to do?
Marc:I'm not there to.
Guest:Oh, no, I don't think I've ever, I don't think I've literally, I've never done that.
Guest:I've never done that.
Guest:I did.
Guest:And it's, it's definitely less now.
Guest:I did have a sense that the horses were out of the stable, but
Guest:once the instagram live stuff right became right right um you know very prominent yeah because there was just no way to have any set like it would be one thing if you were do you did a show let's say like you did i'm not going to name which one it was but you did a show recently you said something on it and you and i were talking about it you were not talking about the show that you you taped and
Guest:with a, with a, you know, you, as a guest, but we were talking about something else, something that related to that.
Guest:And you said, I just did a joke.
Guest:I talked about that on this show, uh, you know, and then based on the conversation you and I were having, you said, yeah, I think that's probably not a good thing to put out there.
Guest:So you contacted the person you did the show with, you said, Hey, can we cut that part?
Guest:And they said, sure.
Guest:And you did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was like, that's the ability that we have as a, as a partnership that like, I didn't know you said that.
Guest:And I, but it was just that we were having, we have regular conversations.
Marc:But it's like, I like that.
Marc:I have this, this part of myself where I'll say something.
Marc:I'll be like, Oh, I got to come clean on that and talk to Brendan.
Marc:Like, you know, like,
Guest:yeah but okay but then you didn't do that with the ig stuff because you didn't remember you're just talking right so it's not like so then i'd find out sometimes literally years later we'd be dealing with something and it's like oh it's because you said this thing two years ago on instagram live
Marc:Yeah, I don't like I I've gotten into a little personal issues with that stuff and also like, you know, other issues because it was very free form.
Marc:Yeah, I wasn't thinking in terms of it not necessarily lasting, but by the looks of the the participation, it wasn't like some global hit.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:But it was it existed.
Guest:And all you need is all you need is a couple hundred people for that to actually some in some way metastasize.
Marc:But oddly, like, you know, a lot of it, the only stuff that kind of bit me in the ass was about comics.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And some some people developed, you know, peculiar parasocial relationships with me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I mean, look, here's the thing.
Guest:I always say to you when you're talking, when you and I talk about, um, you know, like, you know, not specifically what you brought up before about making a video about these, the anti-woke guys, but like you've brought up things like this, like, like that and been like, um,
Guest:you know, well, where can I do this?
Guest:And I'm always like, you have amazing platforms for yourself that you fully control.
Guest:You don't have to go on somebody else's show and talk about it because you're out of control.
Guest:That's not in your control.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, and the bottom line is, even if you don't feel it as the, the relevancy of,
Guest:the audience of of of this podcast not this bonus one but the the main podcast is as substantial a platform as i would say you know 99 of your peers yeah have sure right yeah or could you hope to have yeah and so like it does i think because you just go sit in that room you're in right now and do it and there's nobody else around i think sometimes you just have no grasp on that you don't get no i never do
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, hundreds of thousands of people just heard me say that actual thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that's true.
Marc:And, you know, and I think that our dynamic, you know, works towards, you know, uh, managing that properly.
Marc:And I, you know, and there are things I've said on here where I literally text you after I'm like, yeah, you're, you're going to probably cut that thing out.
Marc:And you're like, I already did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's sometimes there's the like, Hey, uh, did this make it in?
Guest:Nope.
Guest:Nope.
Guest:Did not.
Guest:Well, I'm glad that this all, even if it was uncomfortable for you, it ended in the right spot.
Marc:It was fine.
Marc:I'm pretty much a softy at heart.
Marc:And, you know, and I think Mike appreciates that.
Marc:I think what's happened with that generation of comics is I, I'm sort of like this, like a guy that despite what I think, they all kind of understand me.
Marc:And if they still want to engage with me, it's because I'm like, I am, but they know like how I really am, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's like a junkyard dog.
Marc:It's like, like maybe an old character of some kind, like, you know, cranky Mark or shit talking Mark, because I, I love doing it.
Marc:Like I went out to dinner with Mulaney and, uh,
Marc:Joe Mandy and Dan Levy and Max Silvestri.
Marc:You know, they invite me to those things.
Marc:And I like to tell stories and I like to talk shit.
Marc:And, you know, I'm a bright person and I like listening to their shit.
Marc:But I have to accept that I'm kind of this old man character to some of them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I also think that's probably, that's, that's, that's revealing in the sense that you do that.
Guest:These are, you know, some of those guys, you know, all of those guys are very funny and here they are like listening to you and you, you're getting big laughs out of them telling these stories.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Like you spend your whole life,
Guest:Getting feedback from audiences and here's like a good audience and they think what you're saying is very funny.
Guest:Why are you going to keep that to yourself then?
Guest:Like it's, it's, it's giving your brain permission to like, no, I'm going to go do this somewhere else.
Guest:I'll get other people to laugh.
Marc:And also because I'm not hungry.
Marc:I'm not really in the game in the same way.
Marc:I'm not playing the same game they are.
Marc:So I speak with a freedom of mind.
Marc:It was very funny because with that group, it's always sort of like, how's this going to land?
Marc:And I was talking about somebody somewhere.
Marc:Is that the name of that show?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Am I going to talk to her?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, Bridget Everett.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I didn't know anything.
Marc:I don't know anything.
Marc:I didn't know anything about her.
Marc:I didn't watch the show at all, but I watched all the seasons and I'm like, like, I go like, have you guys, what do you think of this show?
Marc:You know, somebody somewhere.
Marc:And as I said, I love it, man.
Marc:He's like, I hate it.
Marc:Simultaneously.
Yeah.
Marc:And Melanie's like, that was the best.
Marc:That was perfect.
Marc:Like, you literally, I'm looking around for someone to, you know, get on board.
Marc:And right as I say, I love it.
Marc:He's right next to me because I hate it.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, my God.
Marc:And then we had to have that conversation.
Marc:Like, how could you hate that?
Marc:Because it's not, there's nothing, it's not badly written.
Marc:It's not, and really what it was, was that that thing, either it's going to get into your heart or it's not.
Marc:And if it doesn't connect with your heart, it's just going to be boring and terrible.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like you've got to respond to that thing emotionally.
Guest:Well, you know, yes, that's going to come up soon in a future episode.
Guest:And really before the Berbiglia call happened, my intention of getting on the mics with you today was going to be to talk to you right after David Cronenberg left the garage.
Guest:So I have not heard from you yet about how that talk was.
Guest:And I know you put a lot of prep into that.
Guest:You watched a lot of movies and you did a lot of thinking about him.
Marc:Well, yeah, I really like...
Marc:People like him demand that.
Marc:And, you know, no matter how much you're like, well, you've seen enough or, you know, whatever, I definitely need it in order to get a full sense of the arc of their output and creativity.
Marc:I really have to...
Marc:go into it and see where we meet and where I meet his work.
Marc:And it was very interesting because, you know, I had one of those things where, you know, I watched, I think, his new movie and then I watched some really old stuff and...
Marc:And I just kind of my brain just kind of kind of started generating your ideas and takes and, you know, where he is, you know, metaphysically, spiritually around, you know, how he is with, you know, body dismemberment, disembodied bodies.
Marc:I wrote this whole big page here, you know, manifesting psychic violence, physical violence, harm done by machines, symbiosis with machines.
Marc:versus truth, core truth is decomposition.
Marc:And I read that it looks like a math problem.
Marc:And at the bottom, I read this to him.
Marc:I said, the depth of his secular anti-mysticism is that he'd rather deal with the meat, the machine, the mutations of desire and pain.
Marc:And he's like, yeah, okay, that makes sense.
Marc:And also watching what I became fascinated with was what work of authors...
Marc:he chose to reckon with, you know.
Marc:Because I'm a big fan of the movie The Dead Zone.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I've rewatched it several times.
Marc:And then I watched... I haven't seen Naked Lunch in years, but I did see it.
Marc:But I did watch his Bruce Wagner script.
Marc:Like, he wrote the script for...
Marc:Naked Lunch, and he also wrote the script for Cosmopolis, which was a DeLillo book.
Marc:But Bruce Wagner wrote the script for Maps to the Stars, which is a difficult novel, and it's big, and I never got through it.
Marc:But it's a Bruce Wagner script, and I felt like I'd seen the movie, but I don't know if I watched it all the way through, but I watched it all the way through last night, and it's great.
Marc:It's dark as shit, but it's Wagner writing Wagner, so this is his conception of
Marc:And it's it's kind of amazing, especially if you like Wagner and the same with Cosmopolis.
Marc:I talked to him about DeLillo and and Cronenberg had just he liked the book and he just wrote some scenes just with DeLillo's language.
Marc:And after he wrote a bunch of scenes, he's like, I think this is a movie.
Marc:And it's kind of a great movie.
Marc:And it made me re-excited about DeLillo because it's hard to pull off.
Marc:And then we talked a bit about that, about, you know, working from novels.
Marc:But we also talked a lot about, you know, we talked about...
Marc:the new movie, the shrouds a lot.
Marc:And we talked about scanners a bit.
Marc:We talked about the brood a bit.
Marc:We talked about the fly a bit.
Marc:We talked about the history of violence.
Marc:Um, we talked about, um, the very first movie stereo, um,
Marc:which he's surprised anybody ever sees.
Marc:And yeah, so it was a pretty, and the brood, which I watched with Kit, because that's her favorite, Kornberg.
Marc:And so I had a very full sort of sense in my head of places to go with him.
Marc:And he was a pleasant guy?
Marc:Oh yeah, he's a nice guy.
Marc:You know, he's one of those guys that when he stops talking, he stops talking, you know, like it's not that he's not a conversationalist, but I put stuff out there and he'd say something and I noticed like, oh, he's done with that.
Marc:So I'd have to, you know, keep it going like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Hit the next button.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It wasn't so much questions, you know, because a lot of times I don't ask questions.
Marc:I just want them to respond to ideas.
Marc:The ideas.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was good.
Guest:Yeah, that's great.
Guest:I mean, it's one of those things where the nice benefit to doing an interview like that for you is that you get to do a little like film school of this person, like a crash course, which obviously you've seen Cronenberg movies through a good portion of your life.
Guest:It's not new to you, but it's nice.
Guest:I always find it's nice to get it like a good concentrated hit.
Marc:Well, yeah, because it's, you know,
Marc:You don't reckon with movies all the time.
Marc:You know, like The Fly, we all know.
Marc:Most people, nerds, know scanners, you know, and Videodrome, which I can't imagine aged well.
Marc:And there's quite a few that I've never seen.
Marc:But watching Cosmopolis and Maps to the Stars was just mind-blowing to me.
Marc:Because they're there, you know, Cosmopolis is interesting because he does shoot a certain way.
Marc:And that was one of the things I talked to him about that.
Marc:It all seems, you know, early on, it was very stark.
Marc:And then I realized it goes all the way through and it's a decision he makes.
Marc:So he was able to speak to that a bit, speak to how he works with actors a bit.
Marc:You know, speak to, you know, these themes that he has, though he doesn't see them as themes.
Marc:So I kind of reframed it that as an artist, you know, you're going to whether they're themes or not, you find yourself in the same zone.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Time goes goes on, maybe not continuing to understand them.
Marc:We talked about the nature of resolution not existing.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:Well, good.
Guest:I'm excited to listen to it.
Guest:I know you love having directors on, and he's a top one.
Guest:There's only one David Cronenberg.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And it's interesting in talking about the idea of horror as a genre.
Marc:And then I actually, in my sort of frenzy of thinking, I went and looked up the definition of horror.
Yeah.
Marc:Not as a film genre, but just as a word.
Marc:A word, yeah.
Marc:And it's kind of telling in a sort of way, you know, because he doesn't like genres.
Marc:He doesn't like necessarily the idea of body horror.
Marc:I mean, he knows what they're saying, but it's a critical word.
Marc:But the word horror is an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust.
Marc:And I'm like, well, you do that.
Yeah.
Guest:Could he get on board with that at least?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, good, man.
Guest:Good, good that that happened.
Guest:I look forward to listening to it and I look forward to your eventual talk once again with Birbiglia.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:All right, buddy.