BONUS Producer Cuts - Moon Zappa, Michael Rooker, Greg Fitzsimmons and more
Guest:Hey there, Full Marin listeners.
Guest:It's Brendan, here with another edition of Producer Cuts.
Guest:We bring you these monthly.
Guest:It's a collection of some of the things that didn't make it into the WTF episodes, but might be of interest to you, those of you who subscribe to the Full Marin and want all of you.
Guest:all the extra Mark content that you can get.
Guest:And so here are the producer cut tracks from the month of August.
Guest:And we'll start back with episode 1561.
Guest:That was with Anna Akana.
Guest:And this is from Mark's monologue.
Guest:I just needed to thin this monologue out.
Guest:And what I've come to learn is there are people who do like to know about Mark's ongoing issues with food and with staying healthy.
Guest:And I figure a lot of you are here on the full Marin.
Guest:So here is a section that I cut out and now present
Guest:I was on the treadmill today.
Marc:Aren't we all every day?
Marc:I was on the treadmill today because I'm a compulsive idiot.
Marc:And I realized that even if I don't want to go to the gym or I don't want to exercise, if I do it, I don't know if I feel better, but I know if I don't, I don't feel great.
Marc:And it's not always just sort of a dopamine thing or like it gets my brain level.
Marc:I just feel uncomfortable if I don't exercise to pay for my sins of eating.
Marc:To somehow ease the shame of shoving food into my face, even if it's not necessarily bad food.
Marc:I'm not going crazy up here.
Marc:It's not insane.
Marc:But this vegan thing, at the end of the day, this is one of the reasons why I cook.
Marc:And I don't know if you can relate to this, but like I will spend a day cooking stuff for the week.
Marc:And I'm doing it up here, too, because when I get home at the end of the day of shooting or if I'm home all day or in this condo because I'm not shooting, I'm going to be eating compulsively a bit.
Marc:I'm not saying sitting here just all day long eating.
Marc:I mix it up.
Marc:Got the nicotine pouches going.
Marc:Got some sodas.
Marc:But if I have stuff in the fridge that is relatively healthy, somehow or another, that eases the experience, the mental experience of fuck.
Marc:If it's healthy stuff, but there's this thing I've been doing and it's not great.
Marc:I just really late at night when I should just go to sleep, I'll just slather fucking crackers with nut butters of sorts.
Marc:Peanut butter, almond butter, salt, honey.
Marc:And right now, I'm sort of recovering from a pumpkin seed butter cracker.
Marc:Not a binge, but a couple.
Marc:Have you ever even heard of pumpkin seed butter?
Marc:I've never seen it before in my fucking life.
Marc:I'm not even sure it's good.
Marc:I mean, I like pumpkin seeds all right, but it's not great in the mouth.
Marc:And I but there's this part of me that's like, well, it's got to be good for you because pumpkin seeds are good for you.
Marc:This idea that any seed is good.
Marc:And when you're doing the vegan thing, you can you know, you want to stay seated.
Marc:You want to stay seated up.
Marc:You know, you got to get those omegas from those walnuts and hazelnuts and stuff.
Marc:But just the nut butter thing.
Marc:And then I realized, like, dude, if you're doing that right before you go to bed, it's not unlike ice cream calorically.
Marc:And why don't you just go to bed?
Marc:Why do you need to consume 1,200 fucking calories in nut butter before you go to bed?
Marc:And honey?
Marc:Oh, well, you know, because it's healthy.
Marc:Yeah, I guess.
Marc:I guess it is.
Marc:But it still is what it is.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:pumpkin seed butter i don't know what to do with it i'm eating it occasionally but you know if i eat it once you know i gotta i gotta give it a rest for a few weeks it's just it's it's a lot somehow okay now on to episode 1564 and this is mark's talk with moon zappa this happens a lot i cut stuff when the mics are turned on
Guest:And they get to talking and they really don't find a landing point or an entry point yet.
Guest:But I thought this was good.
Guest:And this is so you can hear like the first things that were being said when Mark and Moon sat down and they were trying to, you know, kind of get some chemistry going.
Guest:You know, this has been the first time they were together since breaking up.
Guest:And this was the way they eased into it.
Guest:I think the way we started it in the actual episode was better.
Guest:But here's what you would have heard if you were just in the room with them.
Marc:Now explain to me the water thing again, please, because I was distracted with the panic and trying to get you to the bathroom.
Guest:No, what I was saying was for all the water you use, you have extra because I'm hardly showering.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because California makes me feel like no matter what I do with the water.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm killing the mother.
Guest:I'm killing the plant.
Guest:I'm killing the mother.
Guest:It just is on a loop in my head.
Guest:So I try to use very little here.
Guest:That's why I like traveling to tropical places where there's an abundance of water because then I feel... Isn't it exciting when you just see water?
Marc:It's unbelievable.
Marc:I'm up in Vancouver.
Marc:I'm like, there's nothing but water up here.
Guest:Which is... Yeah.
Guest:It has a different effect on your nervous system.
Marc:Well, here, when they told us to not use water, and we all watched our yards die, and I realized it was the right thing to do.
Marc:I thought about getting succulents.
Marc:But it was also like there was a drought, and everything was burning, and Trump was president.
Marc:The sky was orange.
Marc:It was horrendous.
Marc:And right now, I've been watering my yard, and I know that we're probably not out of the woods, and I don't feel great about it.
Marc:But I haven't made the jump to cactus.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, the other thing that happened to me was I was basically building an extended deck.
Marc:Where?
Marc:Here?
Guest:On my property.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because my thinking was I don't have to water anything and I can step on all this deck.
Guest:And then I got flagged because apparently there's a rule about how much lawn to deck you can have.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, this is so illogical.
Guest:And of course, then with all the drought stuff where they're putting plastic down that heats up and then you put gravel over that.
Guest:How is that any better for the environment versus a wooden deck that does none of that?
Marc:I don't think those rules were made in relation to maintaining the environment.
Marc:They were not.
Marc:They were just made to make money.
Guest:And for people to say the word policy at you a lot.
Guest:And then for somebody who hates his life and can exert some control over you, comes and visits you often and threatens you.
Guest:Right.
Marc:An inspector.
Marc:Correct.
Marc:That, you know, if you're charming or, you know, can bullshit well, they're completely malleable.
Guest:Well, I found one that absolutely was not.
Guest:And I went above his head and contacted my city counselor and said, get this inspector off this job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And?
Guest:A new one came and threatened me.
Guest:And I was like, bring it because I'll keep doing what I'm doing.
Guest:Keep calling the councilman?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Until they're out of inspectors?
Guest:I love tattling on terrible people.
Yeah.
Guest:It's a hobby.
Guest:I feel like it's my job.
Guest:My side hustle.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, you got to have something you love.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, no one else is going to point that stuff out to them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think that most people just say fuck it or they work around it somehow.
Guest:OK, now the opposite of what happened there with the moon episode is in the episode with Michael Rooker.
Guest:That's episode 1566.
Guest:Sometimes the episode ends and the guest says something and Mark says, oh, well, why don't you get back on the mic?
Guest:We'll talk about that.
Guest:And sometimes I just don't have anywhere to reintegrate that into the episode.
Guest:But I thought this was a fun bit of info.
Guest:Particular fans of a certain show might be interested in knowing this.
Guest:And so here it is.
Marc:So what are you doing in between this massive Western project?
Guest:Yeah, well, the UPM of Horizon and the UPM of the Righteous Gemstones got together and they figured out a way that I can go to and from.
Guest:Because, you know, in one, I have a full beard, and the other one I have not as full beard.
Guest:So they had to plan it all out.
Marc:For Righteous Gemstones?
Guest:For Righteous Gemstones.
Guest:What are you doing in that?
Guest:And so I'm doing Righteous Gemstones.
Guest:I play a character by the name of Cobb, and I'm a gator farmer, and I'm having an absolute killer blast.
Guest:Dude, that's it.
Marc:Those guys are funny.
Guest:They are stupid funny.
Guest:It's so crazy.
Guest:I love it.
Marc:Are you doing scenes with Goggins?
Guest:Everybody.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:We're having a blast so far, and I go back real soon.
Guest:I go back in about a day or two.
Marc:Where's that, like on the coast in Carolina somewhere?
Guest:Down in Charleston.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He's set up down there, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, dude, and it's hot.
Marc:Yeah, humid and hot.
Guest:Oh, you could walk four blocks and you'll be, like, drenched in sweat around this time of year.
Marc:Well, that's what you need for a gator farmer.
Marc:Well, that's fun.
Marc:So you're doing some comedy.
Guest:Doing some comedy, yeah.
Guest:Good.
Marc:All right.
Guest:Yeah, having fun doing that.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:That's a blast.
Guest:Okay, going back to some monologues here, this was from episode 1567 with Paul W. Downs, and I thought this was another expendable part, and mostly because, as you'll hear, this is a story about Mark drinking too much coffee, and what I have come to learn is too much coffee on the microphone makes it hard for listeners in their ears.
Guest:But with that caveat, you will know this is Mark amped up on too much coffee, talking about how he's had too much coffee.
Guest:And maybe you can kind of prep your anxiety for that now when you hear how frenetic Mark's pace is.
Marc:So last night, you know, I drank coffee like I made myself like a strong ass fucking coffee after having a full day of interviews, exercise, errands, whatever the fuck.
Marc:And I got to go out to the store, comedy store, to do a 945.
Marc:And God damn, I made a coffee.
Marc:And I know better.
Marc:It's like 8 at night.
Marc:I'm drinking a fucking coffee.
Marc:And I stayed at the store all night.
Marc:I couldn't sleep.
Marc:And I don't know if many of you know the terror.
Marc:It's one thing.
Marc:not being able to sleep because you've over jacked yourself for whatever reason.
Marc:Some people have trouble sleeping in general or getting to sleep.
Marc:I don't generally have any trouble getting to sleep.
Marc:And, you know, I got back and it was late and it was coming, you know, now all of a sudden I'm laying in bed trying to convince myself I'm sleeping and I'm jacked.
Marc:And I know it's annoying for anybody to have that happen.
Marc:But when you have a history of cocaine use,
Marc:The shit that that triggers not being able to sleep, seeing that sun come up, everything comes back.
Marc:And then that like weird kind of self-induced trance state of trying to get the sleep, you know, kind of, you know, my brain's working it out.
Marc:Like what usually gets me to sleep?
Marc:And what happens is usually your brain gets distracted with the thing.
Marc:And the next thing you know, you're waking up.
Marc:It's usually a story that you don't have any control over or you just detach from your brain into some kind of fiction in your brain or something that's being generated by your brain naturally that gets you out of the self-awareness that you're not sleeping.
Marc:I kept trying to trigger that.
Marc:You know, I'm saying, you know, a mantra of like, come on, sleep, you fuck, sleep, you fuck, you fuck, sleep.
Marc:And then I'm doing the serenity prayer because that sometimes loops me in.
Marc:And then I do that thing where I'm completely hyper awake, but I'm kind of hallucinating in my brain.
Marc:There's bits and pieces of faces, events.
Marc:You know, I'm at a picnic.
Marc:I'm on a street.
Marc:There's a car accident.
Marc:There's people kind of morphing into other things.
Marc:And then I start realizing, like, well, AI is kind of doing this when you have an AI generated thing from a couple ideas.
Marc:It kind of morphs in the same way your brain works when you kind of leave it untethered to try to convince yourself from sleeping or convince yourself to sleep.
Marc:You know, there's weird waves of hallucination, lights and everything.
Marc:It was pretty enjoyable.
Marc:And I felt like it was just kind of like my brain doing its thing, firing off little bits and pieces from my past, bits and pieces from the future, maybe bits and pieces from some.
Marc:you know, parallel life I'm living, but none of it was dreams.
Marc:None of it was fucking dreams.
Marc:And that's what I needed.
Marc:I needed to trigger the dreams.
Marc:Whatever was going on in my head was fine.
Marc:But the kind of underpinning was, you know, just anxiety, fear of not sleeping.
Marc:I had to get up.
Marc:I had to interview Chris Robinson, you know, from the Black Crows.
Marc:And, you know, I just started kind of spinning.
Marc:And then and then I fucking finally fell asleep.
Marc:You know, when you can't get to sleep and then all of a sudden you wake up and you're like, oh, God, thank God I did it.
Marc:I broke up the days I broke.
Marc:There was a separation.
Marc:There's a separation between the days.
Marc:Thank God, because I just can't live in the ongoing day that last past 24 hours.
Marc:So anyways, yeah, I'm a little punchy.
Guest:OK, and this is from the monologue in episode 1568 with Greg Fitzsimmons.
Guest:Again, people who like following the details of Mark's life are most likely full Marin subscribers.
Guest:So when I cut out extra details of him talking about things he's doing in his life, you're the people that I think would be interested in hearing them.
Marc:I came back home here.
Marc:I've been home.
Marc:And I just leaned into the fucking comedy.
Marc:Like, I have talked about this before.
Marc:I don't think it's like some jobs.
Marc:I don't think it's like any job, obviously.
Marc:Look, I've got a lot of jobs.
Marc:I'm acting.
Marc:I'm doing this.
Marc:I'm talking to you.
Marc:I'm doing the comedy.
Marc:But I don't like taking a week off comedy.
Marc:I don't like taking five days off a comedy.
Marc:Because it's not just a job.
Marc:It is who you are in the world...
Marc:And if I get away from it, I know I've talked about this, probably ad infinitum.
Marc:Is that what you say?
Marc:If I get away from it, I really think that it's all going to go away.
Marc:And also, I fall into myself.
Marc:If I don't talk to people in here, I don't get up on stage.
Marc:I'm like, too much Mark.
Marc:Too much me.
Marc:And I'm watching people power wash cars on my phone.
Marc:In my car.
Marc:Jesus.
Jesus.
Marc:But I leaned into the stand-up.
Marc:I did like five or six spots down at the store.
Marc:I did a spot at Largo with Nick Kroll on his show.
Marc:And I saw some old friends.
Marc:I saw Santino.
Marc:I saw Pavitsky.
Marc:I saw Bytes.
Marc:socializing with the people, with the comedians.
Marc:Saw my old pal Sean Conroy.
Marc:He showed up.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But that's my social life.
Marc:And the comedy was good.
Marc:Did some riffing, got in the moment.
Marc:There's nothing that feels better than when a set starts awkwardly.
Marc:And you have to work with that.
Marc:I remember how fucking embarrassing it used to be.
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Marc:I was going on stage in the main room, and my buddy Jerry Stahl was there, hung out with Jerry.
Marc:Got to hang out with your good friends.
Marc:And I couldn't find my phone.
Marc:I was about to go on stage, and I was like, where the fuck is my phone?
Marc:And Jerry's sitting in the back of the room, so I got to get up on stage.
Marc:And I'm like, is my phone over there?
Marc:You got my phone.
Marc:My phone on the table.
Marc:For some reason at the comedy store, I'll just leave my phone around.
Marc:Nowhere else in my life, I leave it around at that place, that den of thieves and monsters and funny people.
Marc:But yeah, he says, I got the phone.
Marc:And then I just started talking about that panic.
Marc:That panic about that moment where you don't know where your phone is.
Marc:And there's only one analogy to that in my life.
Marc:And that's when you don't know where your bindle is.
Marc:You know, when you're walking around with a bindle of Coke for the evening.
Marc:You know, just knowing it's there.
Marc:Just knowing where it is in your pocket, in your wallet, in your box of cigarettes.
Marc:Just knowing where it is.
Marc:Man, there's a dopamine hitting that.
Marc:Might be better than the actual line of blow.
Marc:When you have that moment of panic where you're not sure where your fucking half gram is.
Marc:And you're scrambling, looking in all your pockets, checking your cigarette box.
Marc:That moment you find it after no matter how many seconds of looking for it, it's like, ah, yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:The evening is still alive.
Marc:Not all is lost.
Marc:I've still got my fucking, I've still got my little bindle, my little envelope, my little waxy envelope of gold powder.
Marc:So I just talked about that.
Marc:It was nice.
Marc:I've talked about that before.
Marc:I've probably talked about it with you.
Marc:And don't worry, I'm not triggered.
Marc:I'm not about to do blow.
Marc:But I can name this tune in two beats.
Marc:How's that?
Marc:Is that triggering you?
Guest:What is going on?
Guest:Okay, that was from the Greg Fitzsimmons episode.
Guest:And now here from Mark's talk with Greg, I had to cut a lot of stuff out of this episode.
Guest:They talk, as this happens, when Mark is talking to someone he's very familiar with, an old friend, an old comic, you know, somebody that he knows, especially somebody who's been on before.
Guest:Sometimes they do a lot of catching up.
Guest:The length of this episode got very unmanageable and...
Guest:I always kind of have to be aware of too many trips down memory lane.
Guest:There's a lot of Boston details here in this clip.
Guest:And some of it, I think, is just for people who are tuning in, maybe they're listening for the first time.
Guest:I've always got to be aware of that.
Guest:It would just be too much.
Guest:This is a perfect place to put this stuff.
Guest:Again, it's two people reminiscing and they're enjoying the memories they're having.
Guest:That doesn't make for the greatest thing in the middle of an episode.
Guest:But I think hearing it right now in that context, you can enjoy it.
Marc:I never worked for those guys.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:I worked for Cats, Barry Cats.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I worked for Mike Clark.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And but for some reason, I don't know.
Marc:I didn't like those guys or they didn't like me.
Marc:There's some I've got some holes in my memory as to my impact on people.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:I think for you, it was you were very associated with the cross comedy thing at Catch a Rising Star.
Guest:That was later.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you were also a guy that had a foot in both worlds.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You were also a guy that would work the hell gigs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You had hard, solid jokes.
Guest:You had Elvis shitting out on a toilet as a closer that fucking killed.
Guest:But you also were esoteric.
Guest:So I think that...
Marc:They didn't know what to do with me.
Guest:Well, I think it's like it was almost partisan.
Guest:I think it got to where, oh, he's one of those guys.
Marc:It wasn't quite partisan.
Marc:It was just sort of I wasn't a regional act.
Marc:They understood I wasn't doing the thing they understood because because I remember like, you know, I remember going on gigs with Cross, but none of those guys could work too much for Mike.
Marc:But it was important to me to be able to do that.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:You know, and I don't looking back on it.
Marc:Going out and opening in those rooms, I don't know who that guy was.
Marc:How the fuck did he do that?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, going into, like, you know, rooms in, like, Lemonster.
Guest:Sports bars.
Marc:Yeah, sports bars.
Marc:Whatever the fuck it was, hotel ballrooms, you know, Poncho Villas in Lemonster.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:With the big disco ball and you're on this elevated stage.
Marc:And all I remember is, like, you know, Lemonster was known for, like, teen suicides or something.
Guest:So you open with that junk.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Marc:And you drive out for these things, the Taunton Regency.
Guest:The Taunton Regency, the Laughing Lobster in Wells, Maine, where it was a lobster with a lobster on the roof.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Who booked that?
Guest:Uh...
Guest:Might have been Paul Barkley.
Marc:He's Billy's partner, right?
Guest:Yep.
Marc:Yeah, see, I didn't work those.
Marc:When I did Captain Nick's.
Marc:Captain Nick's in Maine.
Marc:In Agunquit, Maine.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:That was one of my first gigs.
Marc:I opened for Nick DiPaolo.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Nick was such a killer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I haven't heard his act lately because he's gotten, you know, more into radio than I, I don't know how much stand-up he has.
Marc:I think it's more of a rally now.
Guest:Yeah, but his stand-up man was fantastic.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:He was he was a slugger.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Dick Daugherty was the guy.
Guest:Well, Dick Daugherty used to have three person acts, mostly because the opening act was then in charge of seating people and stacking chairs after the show.
Guest:So you were getting paid twelve dollars and you were working for him.
Guest:So he brought you out and then he goes, you know, Chris McGuire.
Guest:You remember Chris McGuire?
Marc:He's out here, isn't he?
Guest:Yeah, good comic.
Guest:He's a big writer out here now.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so Dick Daugherty's thing was if you were an open-miker, for him you were an opener.
Guest:And if you were an opener for everybody else, you were a feature for him.
Guest:But he paid you...
Guest:The level below.
Guest:So if you were headlining, you were making middle money.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I just remember he called up Chris McGuire.
Guest:He's sleeping one morning.
Guest:It's like, you know, it's like 1030 in the morning.
Guest:He's sleeping.
Guest:His phone rings.
Guest:He picks it up.
Guest:And Dick Daugherty goes, are you ready to headline?
Guest:He had 22 minutes of material.
Guest:He's like, yeah, Dick, I'm ready.
Marc:See, Dick had not set up his little empire by the time I was out of there.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:You missed a good slice of Boston lore.
Marc:Well, I didn't because I worked with him.
Marc:You know, I would go do the gigs with him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I don't think he had set up the vault.
Marc:I think when he set that up, I was gone already because I moved to New York.
Marc:In 89.
Marc:And I just go do one nighters.
Marc:But I never like I don't think I ever performed at the vault.
Marc:It wasn't a thing.
Guest:The vault.
Guest:The irony of the vault was it was a comedy club set up in what had been a bank.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And yet nobody made any money.
Marc:All I remember about Dick is driving him somewhere.
Marc:And I think there was another guy, too.
Marc:And, you know, he was a sober guy.
Marc:And he was this mythic.
Marc:You know, he's one of those guys that came out of the happy hour circuit.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Because he had a big... Cape Cod.
Marc:Cape Cod guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But he was a big deal down there, whatever that meant.
Guest:Oh, he had albums that sold really well.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's so funny with that shit.
Marc:Yeah, the albums, it sold well.
Marc:Did he?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What, you mean the ones he sold after the show at the Chinese restaurant or whatever fucking residency he was doing there?
Marc:But people don't realize that, that when we started comedy, you know, happy hours had shut down because they became illegal, I think, for some reason.
Marc:You couldn't, you know, offer free drinks.
Guest:Probably because of the drunk driving.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So there was this influx of fucking guitar acts and happy hour acts that were just on the comedy circuit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Paul D'Angelo, right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:With the guitar.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:DJ Hazard.
Marc:Well, DJ was always a comic.
Marc:I don't think he was a happy hour guy.
Marc:DJ, oh my God, dude.
Marc:I just remember probably the last time I really hung out with DJ was before I sobered up.
Marc:And I was just at an apartment with him and some woman.
Marc:And we're doing coke.
Marc:It's like 4 in the morning.
Marc:And he's just looking at me with that DJ word.
Marc:And he's like, I want to play a pirate.
Marc:And it was just like, we're sweaty.
Marc:And he's got this big vision of playing a pirate.
Marc:But he was... Well, people gotta know.
Guest:He had a handlebar mustache.
Guest:He wore a leather jacket in August.
Marc:And he was huge.
Guest:Had a motorcycle.
Guest:He was about six foot six.
Marc:He had that ponytail for a while.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then he got that Subaru Brat.
Marc:He used to drive around in that Subaru Brat.
Marc:He was a good guy.
Guest:DJ was a fucking great guy.
Marc:And he's so funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'll tie my ankles in the morning, baby.
Marc:He used to do a joke.
Marc:I don't even know if it was his, but I quoted it the other day.
Marc:The joke was Japanese tourists with their cameras.
Marc:And he's like, are they building a scale replica of our country in their country?
Marc:That's pretty good.
Marc:And there was some dubious stuff, but I just did, you know, I just did comics come home and Lenny.
Guest:Did you really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Lenny did, you know, 10 minutes on immigration.
Marc:So like, you know, the spirit lives on.
Guest:Well, Lenny is the guy that.
Marc:Lenny.
Guest:You can't argue it.
Guest:Like he of course did questionable material, but I don't know anybody that had the charisma has the charisma of Lenny Clark.
Marc:Oh my God.
Guest:On and off stage.
Marc:What was that story?
Marc:Do you know that story?
Marc:I tried to tell it to one about, I don't know if it was Billy Martin or Bobcat.
Marc:Now that I think about the story about how the way I used to tell it was that Lenny Clark, like Bobcat had gotten Letterman.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and he was like, what, 22 or 23.
Marc:And he had moved down to Boston from upstate New York with Tom Kenny.
Marc:And he got Letterman.
Marc:And the story is, is that Lenny went up to him at a club, picked him up by the shirt collar, slammed him against the wall and said, it's not your turn.
Guest:And it's like, yep, that tracks.
Guest:That's hilarious.
Guest:Well, they were all furious.
Guest:I think they talk about it in that film.
Guest:Oh, the Boston Comedy doc?
Guest:The Fran Salamita doc.
Guest:Fran, Fran.
Guest:When comics stood up or something.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I watched that.
Guest:It was great, but I think they touched on...
Guest:How at the ding-ho, you had Sweeney and Gavin and Rogerson and, you know, Lenny.
Marc:Kevin Meaney.
Guest:Kevin Meaney.
Marc:Jimmy Tingle was a bartender there.
Guest:Yeah, I think.
Marc:And the lost Clark brother worked the door.
Marc:Matt Clark.
Marc:Mike Clark.
Marc:Mark.
Marc:No, Mark Clark.
Marc:There was a Mark Clark.
Marc:Oh, no shit.
Marc:Yeah, he used to work the door there.
Marc:Because when I was in college and I started doing open mics, the ding was just barely hanging on.
Marc:And I remember it was like one of those situations where,
Marc:Where you'd go there because Lenny would host the open mic.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it was a fucking nightmare.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Because he'd go up there, he'd do 45 minutes.
Marc:Destroy.
Marc:Yeah, and then do like 20 between acts.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:It was a fucking nightmare.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that was the Boston style.
Guest:The headliner hosted the show.
Marc:Kenny Rogerson hosted the one that played against Sam's.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And I remember one night, like, because when you're starting out, when you're doing open mics, there's a good part of you that would rather not go on.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, like, you get there, you've been thinking about it for fucking a week, this spot, or two weeks, you're fucking five minutes, and you don't know when you're going to go on, and there's a list that evolves over the night, and you just watch as people, you know, the audience diminishes, and they keep leaving, and there's part of you that's sort of like, maybe I can just...
Marc:Not do this.
Marc:But you had to.
Marc:There was some part of that.
Marc:And Kenny was hosting that fucking open mic.
Marc:And I remember these certain things.
Marc:And he was shit-faced.
Marc:And he just kept going and going.
Marc:The audience was leaving.
Marc:And he closed the show.
Marc:And he didn't put me on.
Marc:And I was like, hey, what happened, dude?
Marc:He's like, oh, man.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:But there was part of me that was like, got out easy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, there was always that old guy.
Marc:Like, I used to work at Nick's.
Marc:It's a miracle, you know.
Marc:There's that story I've told before, but it's one of my favorite stories.
Marc:You remember Bob Batch?
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, Batchelador.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:He...
Marc:You know, he used to close with that bit with the signs.
Marc:I've seen it in other places, but I don't know if he started.
Marc:It was the, you know, like he'd have a sign that would say like, it would just have one word on it, like M-E-E-R-F-I-R-M-I-N-I-T.
Marc:And he'd hold it up and people would be like, what is that?
Marc:And he'd be like, come here for a minute.
Marc:Come here for a minute.
Marc:It was like translations of Southern.
Marc:That was his big close.
Yeah.
Marc:We got a gig in like New Britain or somewhere.
Marc:We're driving down.
Marc:It's a Katz gig.
Marc:It's like an hour and a half, two hours.
Marc:It's outside of a sub base.
Marc:Yeah, next to Groton.
Marc:Yeah, and the whole way down.
Marc:It's just a one-nighter.
Marc:I don't even know what we're walking into.
Marc:The whole way down, it's just like him, like, I don't know how you get on fucking Letterman.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, I've been doing this a long time.
Marc:One of those guys.
Marc:I can't tell you how many of those conversations you had to listen to driving those guys.
Marc:It's like, what the fuck?
Marc:I mean, I'm funny, and, you know, what am I doing wrong?
Marc:How the fuck you get on Letterman?
Marc:These guys are like, that's fucking two hours of that.
Marc:And we get to this place, and it's a bar that's trying to be like one of those 50s kind of diners.
Marc:There's a DJ booth that's half a car, but it takes up half the bar.
Marc:It's terrible.
Marc:And we walk in.
Marc:In my recollection, it was maybe nine people.
Marc:And just to add color, one guy was in a wheelchair.
Marc:It had nothing to do with anything.
Marc:So you walk in.
Marc:There's nine people.
Marc:Guy in a wheelchair.
Marc:It doesn't matter.
Marc:So I go up, and it's right at the beginning of my career, and I do everything I got, a good 25 minutes.
Marc:And I'm like, yeah, this guy is great, national headliner.
Marc:Please welcome Bob Batchelor, right?
Marc:So he goes on stage, and I must have gone outside to smoke.
Marc:Well, we could have smoked in the room.
Marc:Maybe I went to the bathroom.
Marc:All I know is I come out.
Marc:And he's on stage doing what he was doing in the car.
Marc:He was like, I don't know how you get a fucking letter.
Marc:Total meltdown.
Marc:Whoa.
Marc:Losing it.
Marc:Losing it.
Marc:And there's nobody in this place.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I've never done this before.
Marc:And I never did it again.
Marc:But I literally said, hey, Bob, let's just take a breath.
Marc:Let's just take a break here.
Marc:Let's regroup a little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because it was just awkward.
Wow.
Marc:And he's like, he fucking, you know, he settles down.
Marc:And he's like, well, what the fuck am I going to do now?
Marc:And I go, do the signs.
Guest:And he did it.
Guest:He did the signs.
Guest:Okay, one more quick monologue chunk for you here.
Guest:And this was from episode 1569 with Brendan Walsh.
Guest:Just a thing I had to cut for time.
Guest:And now it is here for you.
Marc:It seems that getting older and living through stuff, there's part of the brain that experiences all this stuff and gets worn down and has a hard time compartmentalizing or maybe even remembering certain things.
Marc:But
Marc:The reason, especially if you don't have kids, which I proudly don't, and I do have cats proudly, and I don't think that makes me any less an American or any less a person.
Marc:I'm just throwing that in there.
Marc:I'm going to politicize this beginning of this story a bit.
Marc:But what seems to me to happen, and I think it might have something to do with not having kids on some level, but maybe not because I see it in other people, is that there is some fundamental...
Marc:loop that you run in your head or some part of your being that really doesn't change much as you get older.
Marc:You know how people say like, well, I don't feel older.
Marc:I don't feel like I'm any different than I ever was.
Marc:And I think that that component of the brain, I don't know what it's there for.
Marc:It's probably some sort of a mutated survival thing.
Marc:But I think
Marc:that part of it is the part that's constantly surprised that the rest of it all seems to be breaking down.
Marc:But there is that part of you that keeps you thinking that like, well, I'm pretty much the same guy, but I'm not.
Marc:I mean, yeah, there are patterns in my brain that kind of spin around and cycle around over and over again.
Marc:Some take longer than others that sort of define myself or whatever I believe it to be.
Marc:But there's other stuff that's just sort of like, dude,
Marc:Dude, you got to give that a rest.
Marc:That's just going away on its own.
Marc:Yeah, you're not going to be able to fix that.
Marc:There's just so much other stuff.
Marc:But there is this kernel of who you think you are that doesn't go away.
Marc:And even some of the desires of that stuff, that's one of the hardest things I have.
Marc:And one of the challenges I have as I get older is that a lot of the race has been run.
Marc:And it's not even clear who I'm running against.
Marc:So there's part of me that thinks like, is there even a race?
Marc:How am I defining myself?
Marc:When am I going to settle down with this shit and just accept it?
Marc:Well, you will be humbled.
Marc:You will be humbled by the great wheel.
Marc:That is going to happen.
Marc:And if you can let go of that stuff,
Marc:You might ease into this final phase with a little more grace.
Guest:Okay, that'll do it for producer cuts this month.
Guest:We'll be back with these next month.
Guest:Also, in the coming weeks, Mark is now back at home.
Guest:It's a lot easier for us to record bonus stuff when he's home for an extended period of time.
Guest:And so we'll have more of Mark on the mics for you here on these Tuesday bonus episodes.
Guest:I know everyone enjoys those a lot.
Guest:We'll make sure to get them to you in this month and the coming months.
Guest:So stick around with us here on The Full Mirror and thanks for subscribing.
Thank you.
Thank you.