BONUS Producer Cuts - Marc's Monologues from July

Episode 733958 • Released August 27, 2024 • Speakers not detected

Episode 733958 artwork
00:00:06Hey, Full Marin listeners, it's Brendan, and welcome to Producer Cuts.
00:00:10But before we get into any cuts, I just want to bring this up right at the front here.
00:00:14We are going to be doing another Ask Mark Anything episode.
00:00:17And we really like that the last time we did this, we solicited questions only from you, the Full Marin listeners.
00:00:24So we are going to put a link to Ask Mark Anything.
00:00:27in this episode description.
00:00:29Just scroll right to it and click on it.
00:00:31They will be in the upcoming bonus episodes as well.
00:00:34And we want to get your questions for Mark for the future Ask Mark Anything episodes that will be exclusive to Full Marin listeners.
00:00:42And now we'll get to the producer cuts from the month of July.
00:00:46And this is one of those months where I have no producer cuts from any of the interviews.
00:00:50This is a Mark monologue bonanza.
00:00:53You're just going to get a bunch of things that had to get cut out of Mark's monologues.
00:00:57And I think one of the reasons why is that in the transitions between Canada and the U.S.
00:01:03and Mark spending time in Vancouver and then trying to get back home to L.A.,
00:01:07You know, a lot of times he just sits down to record the monologues and he goes very long.
00:01:11So most of this stuff has been cut for time.
00:01:14I will say that there is one section that was cut where he talked at length the day after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
00:01:23And I thought it was probably not a wise idea to include all this stuff in the episode when it was feeling so fresh and raw for Mark.
00:01:31And I think that was probably a good idea, especially now where it feels like so long ago and barely anybody even talked
00:01:37about it uh so uh this is a collection of monologue outtakes from episodes 1552 1555 1556 1557 and 1558 and i'm just gonna lay out i'll let these play kind of back to back and you can kind of pretend they're all one big mark monologue all right we'll see on the other side of this
00:02:00Quick story.
00:02:01I flew coach home.
00:02:03I do that sometimes.
00:02:04Not on purpose.
00:02:05Had no choice.
00:02:06Business was sold out.
00:02:07And judge me if you want.
00:02:09Call me whatever you want to.
00:02:11But I'm not married.
00:02:14I don't have kids.
00:02:15I save my money.
00:02:16I will always fly business whenever I can because it matters.
00:02:21And I needed sleep, dude.
00:02:22I told you earlier, four in the morning.
00:02:25I thought maybe I could get two hours on the plane along with the three that I got before.
00:02:30I hate watching the sun come up.
00:02:32Triggers all kinds of cocaine trauma.
00:02:35But I get on this plane and I'm in coach.
00:02:37I'm in the aisle and some dude sits next to me with his wife or girlfriend.
00:02:41Dude must have been 6'5", big boy.
00:02:44And he just sits there and I was, I was just doing Zen shit, man.
00:02:49And he just started, he couldn't stop moving.
00:02:51He was fidgeting.
00:02:52And then he turns his phone on to watch a screen there.
00:02:55He's playing games on the screen.
00:02:59of, of the airplane system.
00:03:01He's digging into chips bags.
00:03:03He's got, he's, he's just, everything is moving.
00:03:06Everything is moving all the time, eating, watching two screens.
00:03:11Then he's picking up a book.
00:03:12He's reading that for a minute.
00:03:13It was like a giant toddler and,
00:03:15And I didn't like I was upset and it was making me very livid.
00:03:20And I know that a lot of people snap on planes now.
00:03:22A lot of people say, yeah, it's because COVID broke people's brains.
00:03:25Maybe it did.
00:03:26But the the closeness of it all and I I somehow or another in my brain said, well, he's he's got problems.
00:03:36There's these like there's something going on ADHD or whatever.
00:03:39And I was able to muster up enough empathy for this guy who was it was beyond it was beyond it just.
00:03:49But I was able to muster up enough empathy not to make myself sick with anger and weird resentment.
00:03:57And I don't know why I'm proud of myself.
00:04:00but i am i've got a a kind of a not a shitty guitar but not a great guitar up here so i've been noodling i've been playing i've been focusing on that focusing on the writing focusing on the thinking you know there's there's some big thing in my brain there's shit man
00:04:20I started thinking about panic.
00:04:22I started thinking about worrying.
00:04:24You know, if you're a chronic worrier, it seems to me that you might be somewhat addicted to being wrong, right?
00:04:33that if your brain works that way, that if the relief you get is that you were not correct about your worry or you were not correct, it didn't happen, that that is somehow some reinforcing thing.
00:04:46So your brain is kind of spinning with all this sort of like, what if this happens?
00:04:49What if that happens?
00:04:50What if I don't get the thing?
00:04:51What do I got to do next week?
00:04:53Is it...
00:04:53You know, I can barely keep my fucking schedule together, but I seem to be able to sort of in any sort of hour to two hour span kind of just lock into a bit of panic about that hour or the next hour.
00:05:08But it just seems like it must be a dopamine thing, man.
00:05:13I just don't need a lot of feedback on this.
00:05:18I'm kind of putting it together myself, which is usually the way it works with me.
00:05:22But there's just something about this arc of dopamine management.
00:05:27I mean, it's just it's kind of baffling to me.
00:05:30It's not baffling.
00:05:31I get it.
00:05:32Look, I have an addictive personality.
00:05:35You know, your brain, if you have that, is going to figure out how to get it.
00:05:38However, it's going to get it if you need that push, if you need to, you know, kind of push back on on being present.
00:05:45God knows that's a good fight to fight.
00:05:49How do I avoid this present business?
00:05:52But I'm telling you, man, these drug addicts in this town are just, I have not seen this much out in the open drug use in a long time.
00:05:58And I think I mentioned that before, but they're doing the equipment they have.
00:06:02They've got these, most of them are smoking meth and fentanyl.
00:06:06And they got these huge torch-like lighters and they got the little glass pipes.
00:06:10And I've seen a couple of them with these pieces of garden hose.
00:06:14And that apparently is so they can get some distance between the pipe and their mouth so they don't burn their lips.
00:06:21And I guess, you know, the guy that figured that out out there on the streets must have been like goddamn Einstein.
00:06:27The first guy that had the piece of garden hose was probably like, holy shit, that's a game changer for smoking ice.
00:06:37But the point is, I guess I'm trying to make, and I've been thinking about it since I've been up here, is that when you see these kind of tragic moments
00:06:46drug addicts on the street who have given up all dignity, all self-respect.
00:06:55And a lot of them are hunched over, they're on the nod, they're curled up, they're just, you know, some of them are OD'd on the street here.
00:07:02A lot of them are just running around talking to themselves.
00:07:06So you give up all personal dignity
00:07:09And they are fighting against reality or the reality they're in to the point where they no longer have a degree of sort of self-perception, I would imagine, because they've sacrificed everything to sort of crank this dopamine thing going.
00:07:28And I think that most people are probably on the spectrum of addiction.
00:07:32If we're talking spectrums, if we're talking...
00:07:36Like I believe there's a PTSD spectrum and there's definitely an addiction spectrum.
00:07:41I, I, you know, I don't see like I'm seeing whether it's exercise, whether it's panic, whether it's anger, uh, there's all these different ways that you can get your brain chemicals juiced up, get your cortisol going.
00:07:54And depending on whether or not those are patterns, uh,
00:07:57You know, you're addicted to something, man.
00:07:59And I've been talking about my phone a lot.
00:08:01Boy, but that thing is one of the most controlled delivery systems of self-generating dopamine and neurotransmitters that's ever been invented.
00:08:13I guess I'm just talking about it in hopes that I can get powerless and put the fucking thing down.
00:08:22You hear what I'm saying?
00:08:26You know, I'm up here and someone tried to shoot Trump and I took that information in from word of mouth.
00:08:35And then I did some I looked at the news on my phone.
00:08:38I'm not tapped into American TV or news.
00:08:43So I was kind of just processing it from from print.
00:08:48And look.
00:08:49I went on stage last night or the night before last, the day it happened after I had a little bit of information.
00:08:56And it was one of those things.
00:08:57And I've talked about this on stage before about the type of comic I was, the type of comic I am.
00:09:03But there is an element of me.
00:09:05And I don't think it's unusual now.
00:09:07And I'm just talking about my own experience where some part of me, because I had no one really to talk to up here about it, who is American.
00:09:16I didn't even talk to, I don't think I talked to anybody that day on the phone even, but so I'm a little isolated, but I had feelings and I needed to work it out.
00:09:26And the way that I work it out is through standup.
00:09:29I mean, I work things out here, but I become fairly calculating about what jokes I do that I'm working on in my act or whether I should even bother doing some jokes here.
00:09:40This is a different format, obviously the podcast, but
00:09:44I go down to the Comedy Underground here in Vancouver.
00:09:47I'm just going to do a guest spot.
00:09:49And it's on my mind.
00:09:50And I feel I have a lot of feelings going into it.
00:09:56You know, this is an awful thing is one of the feelings.
00:10:01Political violence is awful.
00:10:03And, you know, that we're coming to that.
00:10:06And also that he's probably...
00:10:10Trump is probably a shoe in.
00:10:11This is a great a bit of it's tragic, but, you know, it might seal the deal.
00:10:19So all of that is kind of churning in me.
00:10:21And also, like, how do I approach it?
00:10:23How do I approach it comedically?
00:10:25What are the risks?
00:10:26Well, the basic risk is it's not going to be funny.
00:10:29And you kind of ride that line with this stuff.
00:10:31But again, I'm in Canada and I'm doing a small crowd.
00:10:36I've got nothing to lose.
00:10:37I want to burn off some steam.
00:10:39I want to fucking release, not even burn it off.
00:10:42I want to release the valve a little bit to see if other people need that release as well.
00:10:49So I'm in the I'm in the showroom and it's it's kind of it's it's full.
00:10:53It's about 50 people and not huge, but it's a nice little club.
00:10:57And the host is on and he's doing a little crowd work with the audience.
00:11:01And it's just very interesting to me sort of what unfolded in the moments before I went on stage, because I had an angle.
00:11:08I had a plan and I was just trying to formulate how to present it.
00:11:12So it's funny.
00:11:14And as he's talking to audience members, he's asking people if they're from out of town.
00:11:19And there was a couple right up front that said they were from Texas, that they were from Dallas.
00:11:24And whatever plan I had, now I'm thinking like, oh, my God, they're here.
00:11:29I can't avoid them.
00:11:30Now there's an obstacle.
00:11:34I've got two people who are going to have a reaction to what I'm saying.
00:11:38In that sort of like, you know, butt hurts, snowflakey kind of, you know, right wing snap judgment, kind of, you know, push back, turn the talking points around.
00:11:49It's like saying that the Trump assassination attempt was brought on by Biden's rhetoric, which is ridiculous.
00:11:56They just, you know, hijacked the frame from the other side.
00:12:00which would be the frame that Trump's rhetoric caused the attack on the Capitol.
00:12:12So there's that.
00:12:13So all that's going through my mind.
00:12:15It's like, there's only two people there, but it's going to be, I'm going to be aware of it.
00:12:20uh that you know i'm not it's not secret anymore i'm not just you know up here talking to canadians i've got representatives from the fascist state of texas in the room and and now do i want to do it now that question is is an interesting question heading into what is most likely an authoritarian america like do i want to do it like there's other questions um
00:12:44you know, about it.
00:12:45And I don't think people really kind of take into account the full, you know, what's at stake here, how dire it is.
00:12:51Certainly up here in Canada, they don't.
00:12:54And I think a lot of people in America don't really.
00:12:56What's at stake?
00:12:58What an authoritarian America looks like?
00:13:01We don't know.
00:13:02But, you know, all this talk about Project 2025 and what that implies, I mean, to really sort of wrap your brain around it,
00:13:10It becomes much bigger than me going like, do I want to bother telling this joke if I'm going to get some weird tension and angry reaction from people that think differently?
00:13:21That is self-censorship at its best.
00:13:24And it's protective.
00:13:25And it's like, what's the point?
00:13:26Fuck it.
00:13:27But that kind of thing culturally, where you start saying to yourself, and already people live in this environment, if you live in a red state or you work among people who are shamelessly celebrating what is really...
00:13:45a type of, of Christian fascism that you're already keeping your mouth shut.
00:13:49And then there's the old sort of adage of like, you know, we don't talk politics here, you know, cause we're just people politics are separate.
00:13:55Well, it's not separate anymore because there's a, a momentum going on where the minority of people with grievances that have found a home for those grievances under the umbrella of, of really repressive, uh,
00:14:10Fascist thinking, whether it be religious or in the guise of like, you know, anti-wokeness are quite proud and quite, you know, loud and ready to fucking confront and argue.
00:14:25But when that thing becomes when that kind of like desire to just mind your own business becomes a cultural epidemic.
00:14:33And then it just all of a sudden, you know, the need for legal or law enforced repression becomes unnecessary.
00:14:41If everybody shuts their fucking mouth and all that technology is already in place to just kind of steamroll people with different points of view.
00:14:48And but those are bigger thoughts.
00:14:51I'm just heading in to do a fucking 15 minute set for 50 people in a basement in Vancouver.
00:14:56But like all of it's starting to kind of illuminate itself.
00:15:01And look, the jokes were easy, but they were funny and they were of the moment.
00:15:06And you start to realize things like, well, is there even such thing as too soon anymore?
00:15:12I mean, I don't know that there is any too soon.
00:15:14You just do it as quickly as possible because, you know, by the next day, it could be too late.
00:15:19It's just the pace of media now.
00:15:22And I remember doing jokes shortly after 9-11 that were loaded.
00:15:28And there was just that nervousness.
00:15:30And there was that nervousness in the room.
00:15:32And then I said something like, look, this guy's been looking for a way to present himself as a real victim for years.
00:15:38And now he's got it.
00:15:39And he's going to take it right to the end.
00:15:41And he'll probably be president for life.
00:15:44And I said something that was more poetic than it was humorous, but I said, as an American, that realization, whether it be emotional, who knows what's going to happen, but that moment of realizing that this is going down,
00:16:01that you know that american authoritarianism is is is likely and and a real thing and it's not just a president issue and it's not the you know it's a it's a bigger fucking reality and there's a lot at stake and i said you know sort of acknowledging that is kind of like being diagnosed with stage four cancer of the spirit
00:16:24Yeah, that's more of an adage than it is a joke.
00:16:29But, you know, I got it out and I got it off my chest and I did the rest of my act, but it was very well received.
00:16:34And it turns out that I had misjudged Texas.
00:16:37I had misjudged the idea of the Texans who were there.
00:16:40They were completely on board and in their own state of panic about the dire situation in our country.
00:16:49And that started to make me think about, well, what does it really mean?
00:16:53Because on some level, as a thinking person, as a rational person, you have to start to accommodate the idea and realize that authoritarianism could be real and that somehow we're going to have to adapt to it.
00:17:07And there was an interesting thing that my buddy Peter sent me about that day.
00:17:14It came from, I don't know if it was the New York Times, but it was an account post-shooting.
00:17:21And it just said, as people passed the press risers elevating the cameras, some took out their anger on the media.
00:17:27Others sought out the cameras to offer eyewitness accounts, but they were jumbled and sometimes contradictory amid the panic.
00:17:34And then this line, the crowd trudged glumly to the parking lot, a few stopping for a last minute hot dog or snow cone.
00:17:43That's most people.
00:17:45We're talking minutes, less than a half hour after.
00:17:49You want to grab something to eat?
00:17:51That's most of America.
00:17:53That's the America on both sides.
00:17:55It doesn't seem to know what's at stake.
00:17:58The bigger question is, how does it look?
00:18:00What kind of job do you have?
00:18:01What kind of – do people in other countries that are authoritarian, which is most of them, have those jobs?
00:18:07Can you live your life seemingly unaffected by what authoritarianism is or might look like?
00:18:14Now, what I talked about earlier in terms of self-censorship is one thing.
00:18:18But there is this idea that certain states I don't perform in because I just assume even if I have a few people there –
00:18:25It doesn't justify necessarily me going just on a ticket sales effect.
00:18:31But, you know, in the future, I think the issue with the reality of authoritarianism and the reality and possibilities of Project 2025 become on a state to state level with Christian nationalist, you know, government, state governments, you know, what becomes illegal.
00:18:48I mean, already this is happening with abortion, with gay rights, with certain issues or options for diversity hiring and whatnot, a lot of things.
00:19:01But when it really goes into place,
00:19:04What's to stop state government from saying it's illegal to say this or that?
00:19:09A lot of these kind of anti-woke, righty-adjacent comedians yammering on about being canceled or this or that, which they won't, and saying all these quote-unquote provocative things about trans people, about woke people, about whatever, means nothing.
00:19:27It means nothing because there's nothing really at stake.
00:19:30It's just an angle.
00:19:31It's a hook.
00:19:32It's a grift.
00:19:33But what's to stop in the very near future the legal enforcement of repression of voice, of saying things?
00:19:45Nothing.
00:19:46Nothing.
00:19:47Nothing.
00:19:48I mean, with all the pushback that Lenny Bruce did back in the day, you know, around the First Amendment, that can all become very relevant again.
00:19:57And if you have, you know, Christian nationalists or authoritarian sympathist apologists or just appointed judges in a state, who's to say you can't get fucking locked up in Arkansas forever for saying bad things about Jesus on a comedy stage?
00:20:14Who's to say that won't happen on a state to state basis?
00:20:17Nobody.
00:20:19Because the whole thing will be shifted.
00:20:22And I don't know that people really think about this.
00:20:24Look, I'm already uncomfortable in some places.
00:20:26But usually there's enough of a group of scared, angry, progressive people that need a little relief.
00:20:34And I'll go put on a show.
00:20:36And look, I can perform for any audience.
00:20:38And I think that most of the stuff that I do is pretty clearly jokes with a point of view.
00:20:45But who's to say that somehow or another that won't become illegal certain places?
00:20:52Nobody.
00:20:54Nobody.
00:20:55And that's just the tip of the iceberg with the possibilities.
00:21:00It's dire.
00:21:03Talking about music, I did a piece, Mojo Magazine has a questionnaire.
00:21:11They were kind of, I think, trying to promote the vinyl from bleak to dark.
00:21:15And there were these questions, and I don't ever know how to answer questions about one record.
00:21:21If it's in the question, what one record, whatever the question is, I don't know how to fucking answer that.
00:21:29I just don't.
00:21:31Even if it's a question like, what was the first record you remember buying?
00:21:35Cause it was a weird bunch of records for me, but it wasn't all that I was surrounded by.
00:21:39There was like these, and I've, I've probably talked about this before and, and I don't know why, but I remember what the records were.
00:21:46And I kind of think I got them at Skaggs pharmacy right down there on, uh, what, like on Lomas and San Pedro and,
00:21:55If that sounds right.
00:21:55Does that sound right?
00:21:57Across from my high school's McDonald's, Skaggs Pharmacy, and those records, in my recollection, were Jethro Tull's Aqualung, Mountain's Greatest Hits, and the Beatles' second album.
00:22:13I know it sounds a little weird.
00:22:14Why Aqualung, out of all records?
00:22:16And I'll tell you why.
00:22:18That fucking cover.
00:22:19I think my grandma had taken me down there and I asked her to buy me these records.
00:22:24I'm like, look at that cover.
00:22:25What's up with that guy?
00:22:27And also, pretty great record.
00:22:29But it was the cover.
00:22:31And Mountain, Mountain's Greatest Hits, I think the only reason I got that, also the cover, like what the fuck are those guys up to, was because they covered Roll Over Beethoven.
00:22:41As did the Beatles on the second album, a song I've been obsessed with or was at least my early life.
00:22:48And I didn't get to the Chuck Berry version until I got through Mountain and fucking the Beatles.
00:22:55But that wasn't all that was going on.
00:22:56My parents had records.
00:22:58When I was a very little kid, there was a box of cassettes that they had that didn't play anymore.
00:23:01They didn't have a cassette player.
00:23:03And in that box, the ones that fucking blew my mind, Bobby Gentry's
00:23:08greatest hits no bobby gentry's ode to billy joe credence clearwater cosmos factory and johnny cash live at san quentin
00:23:17those were in the wiring those those beveled some neural pathways and in the vinyl area beatles let it be melanie's uh i got a brand new pair of roller skates record um chuck berry the london sessions yeah yeah my dingaling that's right and also janice joplin's pearl that was big and
00:23:41Because I was a kid.
00:23:42I wasn't even 10.
00:23:44And I saw that cover of Janice just laying there all pretty on that Shea's Lounge, all dressed up.
00:23:51And I asked my mom, who's this?
00:23:53Maybe my dad.
00:23:55And they said she died of heroin.
00:23:57And then I just identified her as heroin.
00:24:00And it was sad because if you turn that record over, I'm like...
00:24:03Those four look more like heroin.
00:24:07That band.
00:24:09But whatever.
00:24:10But see, I couldn't just answer the record.
00:24:12What was the first record you bought?
00:24:14All of those.
00:24:15Yeah, and then they're like, what's your favorite record?
00:24:17What's the one record you go to you listen to?
00:24:20What's the record, your go-to record?
00:24:21Whatever the question was.
00:24:23And I listened to so many records.
00:24:25And I just started thinking, which one pops up more than most over the course of your life?
00:24:30And I said, well, I think ACDC's Powerage usually gives me what I need when necessary.
00:24:36Then there was a question, what do you sing?
00:24:38Which album do you sing in the shower?
00:24:40I do not sing in the shower.
00:24:42What's your Saturday night record?
00:24:44I don't know what that even means.
00:24:47So I said Iggy Pop, Lust for Life.
00:24:49What's your Sunday morning record?
00:24:50What does that mean?
00:24:52So I said Mingus.
00:24:55But it's all sort of random because it's like, how do you just have those conversations?
00:24:59What's the one record?
00:25:01I mean, it's crazy, right?
00:25:02Isn't it?
00:25:05I don't know, man.
00:25:07I woke up...
00:25:09You know, it's just like I'm at home.
00:25:13I get reconnected to the home front.
00:25:16It's very strange what's happening to me up there in Vancouver.
00:25:20As lovely as it all is, and I'm situated pretty nicely.
00:25:25The work's been good.
00:25:26There is something about being surrounded by your own garbage on a personal level that is very grounding and I think essential to my fucking sanity.
00:25:36Sure, I come home.
00:25:37I've got things to deal with.
00:25:39I've got house things.
00:25:39I've got to reconnect with the cats.
00:25:42I've got to reconnect with Kit.
00:25:44I've got to reconnect with my car.
00:25:47I've got to run a few errands around here.
00:25:49That is familiar.
00:25:50But this is...
00:25:53the extensions of my neural pathways.
00:25:56These are my things.
00:25:58This is my life.
00:26:00And when I get away from it for too long, it's not, it's a kind of loneliness, but it's not really a loneliness because I'm okay.
00:26:09I'm not, you know, isolated.
00:26:12It's a beautiful city where I'm at, but there is something about all the anxieties of your own fucking house that gets you right back into your own skin.
00:26:23Even if they're bad, even if I get home and I'm like, fuck, I got to deal with this.
00:26:28When did this break?
00:26:29How long has that been like that?
00:26:31What's wrong with this one?
00:26:32all that stuff, that is your life.
00:26:36And it's nice to be away from it for a little while, but eventually it's sort of like, what do I do without all this immediate aggravation that requires my attention all the fucking time?
00:26:47I know what I do.
00:26:48I get way up in my head.
00:26:50I start picking apart my life.
00:26:52I get down to the core of who I am.
00:26:54Which is OK.
00:26:56Probably a little emotionally younger than I'd like.
00:26:59And also surprisingly familiar in its kind of mental spirals.
00:27:08Like there are certain things that you think like, well, I'm older.
00:27:10I've changed.
00:27:11in these ways, but when you really sort of, you know, separate from your life and sit there and meditate or think about or reacquaint yourself with who you are, you're sort of like, wow, well, that thing seems to still be operative.
00:27:24I thought I had gotten rid of that.
00:27:26Just like never ending fucking beating the shit out of myself for food.
00:27:31But hey, maybe I'm alone in that.
00:27:34So stupid.
00:27:36So stupid.
00:27:37Last night I got home, I fucking went to Scaff's
00:27:40Had the amazing baba and the cabbage salad.
00:27:43And I got home late and I'm tired.
00:27:46It's like 9.30, 10.
00:27:47It's not that late.
00:27:48And I'm like, I want some fucking ice cream.
00:27:52And it's sort of like, dude, you know, you're half asleep.
00:27:56Just fucking don't do it.
00:27:58And the next thing I knew, I was in my car, driving around the corner to the Ralphs.
00:28:03Two for one, I'm Ben and Jerry's plant-based ice cream.
00:28:06Probably all the ice cream.
00:28:08And I got some, and I'm like, just have a little bit, you know, just feed the monkey a little bit.
00:28:14A bite and a half later, I'm like, what the fuck did I do?
00:28:17I woke up with a goddamn ice cream hangover.
00:28:20I feel like my heart's beating too slow.
00:28:21Yeah, I'm back in it, man.
00:28:24Back in the game of my life.
00:28:26And...
00:28:27It may not sound great mentally, but it's what I know.
00:28:31It's who I am.
00:28:33Oh, so much ice cream last night.
00:28:37Oh, on top of all that.
00:28:38Oh, it doesn't matter.
00:28:40It doesn't matter.
00:28:41This is just my cycle.
00:28:44Anyway, back in Los Angeles for a bit.
00:28:50And, you know, I, I guess I'm kind of, uh, um, what's the word?
00:28:56Insulated, isolated.
00:28:58I don't, I don't know what the word is, but I don't, uh, you know, I don't surprising things, you know, don't always happen.
00:29:07And sometimes the mundane surprising thing is, uh, it's kind of interesting, right?
00:29:14You know, I mean, there's unpredictable things.
00:29:17Obviously, I wasn't anticipating my dad's wife getting into a fender bender or many things during the day that can happen.
00:29:26But the other night, like, I flew into LAX late.
00:29:33I guess I got in around 1230.
00:29:36And I usually deal with this car service that sends a driver over.
00:29:40Usually my guy, Tom.
00:29:42Tom's my dude.
00:29:44My driver guy.
00:29:45You know, nice old Armenian Tom.
00:29:48We have a nice time.
00:29:50Get to know your driver.
00:29:51I guess that's one of the...
00:29:53of a mid-level celebrity hood is that, and also not having kids and not having much debt and having saved my money.
00:30:03You know, I can afford these, these small things that are afforded a certain lifestyle.
00:30:08Like I got a car service that I use and my guy, Tom comes and picks me up usually, but I knew it would probably be too late for Tom, but I get out of the airport.
00:30:17I'm waiting and I'm, usually I get a text from the driver.
00:30:21You know, when I land, nothing.
00:30:23I get out and I realize I'm looking at my phone.
00:30:26I realize, fuck, I think I gave Jason the wrong day, the right date, but the wrong day.
00:30:32So I don't think there's a car coming.
00:30:33And so now I got to text Jason, who's probably sleeping, but he gets up and I'm like, yeah, I think I fucked up.
00:30:39He's like, yeah, I don't I don't have anybody now.
00:30:40I could try to find some.
00:30:41I'm like, you know what?
00:30:42Look, I can just be like everybody else.
00:30:45Yeah, I'm just going to use Uber or Lyft, just the car service.
00:30:49So I set one up and I get a, you know, I get it.
00:30:54I asked for one of the nicer cars like the, you know, like the limo type of car.
00:30:59I figure, you know, why not?
00:31:01I'll just get one of those and order it.
00:31:03And then a few minutes later, it's like telling me I got to go somewhere.
00:31:07And I'm like waiting outside at the passenger pickup area at LAX.
00:31:12I don't know how anything works.
00:31:14And, you know, I get the driver and it's not not a premium car.
00:31:18It's some little Mazda, some woman driving a little red Mazda.
00:31:23And I'm like, well, fuck.
00:31:24And then I text her because they give you contact.
00:31:25I'm like, I'm between tower six and 60 and 60 or whatever.
00:31:30And she doesn't get back to me.
00:31:31And I'm like, and then I realized like, oh fuck, there's no Ubers or Lyfts here at the airport.
00:31:36I gotta, I gotta go.
00:31:38Where do I gotta go?
00:31:401230 at night.
00:31:41I'm like, oh fuck, there's a bus.
00:31:42I gotta take a bus to an offsite place to get the Lyft.
00:31:45That's what these numbers mean.
00:31:46All right, fuck it.
00:31:47So now I'm running for a bus at quarter to one in the morning and I get on and she's like, I can try to come to the airport, but I'm like, no, you're not supposed to.
00:31:55So don't, I'm on the bus and I'm watching her car on my app and I'm watching me on the bus and,
00:32:02I get to this pickup area.
00:32:03I guess it's part of the redesign of the airport.
00:32:05I don't know how anything works.
00:32:07So that was sort of exciting to me.
00:32:09I wasn't even frustrated.
00:32:10I'm like, it's good that I know how to do this.
00:32:13You fucking, you know, get down.
00:32:15Come on, be a goddamn regular person.
00:32:18You privileged fuck.
00:32:20So I'm kind of excited about it all.
00:32:21And I get to the zone, the spot, the off-site pickup area for Ubers.
00:32:28Me and everyone else waiting in the middle of the night.
00:32:30Some people with canceled flights and whatnot.
00:32:33She eventually gets there, and the premium car is not a premium car.
00:32:36It's a beat-up little Mazda.
00:32:39And she's driving.
00:32:40And, you know, it turns out she comes in from the desert to do these runs, to make ends meet.
00:32:47She lives out in Palm Desert somewhere, and she comes and drives the night shift.
00:32:52And, you know, it's looking okay on the ride.
00:32:55You know, it looks like a clear ride.
00:32:56But right when we get on to the 110, there's some massive fucking accident.
00:33:01And, you know, it was like, fuck, I was so close.
00:33:04I didn't even think I was going to make the plane because I think I was going to be out because I thought I was going to be on set all day.
00:33:10But the director did a did me a solid because I nailed the scene the night before with diminishing light.
00:33:16And he was very excited about it.
00:33:18And I said, just remember this tomorrow when I got to get out.
00:33:21And, you know, he cut me he cut me loose in the middle of the day.
00:33:24So I have plenty of time.
00:33:24So I'm like, hey, man, everything's working out right up till the last bit.
00:33:28the last bit, the car wasn't there.
00:33:31I'm in the, I'm in this, uh, this car service, you know, the car, the Lyft, the Uber thing.
00:33:37And, uh, and we hit this wall of fucking traffic.
00:33:40And I look at the goddamn map.
00:33:41It's going to be an hour.
00:33:42It just happened.
00:33:43Who the fuck knows?
00:33:44And there was no way off.
00:33:45But we figured one out.
00:33:48I don't want to go into details because I don't want to go get anyone into trouble because this driver was a hero.
00:33:53But we figured it out and we got off the highway and we're driving through the hood.
00:33:58And it's like it's dark and she's a little nervous.
00:34:00I'm like, it's going to be fine.
00:34:01We just got to get up past this accident and get back on the highway.
00:34:05And through the course of all this, you know, we're kind of chatting and, you know, she's listening to some sort of empowerment podcast and everything.
00:34:12You know, it was just one of those things where we did it, you know, and she got me home and the ride service was significantly more than what I would have paid.
00:34:21And I gave her the difference as a tip.
00:34:23And it was it was just sort of a lovely kind of human interaction.
00:34:27And when I told Kit about it, it's like she's like, oh, my God, this sounds like the beginning of a rom-com.
00:34:33It's too bad you're, you know, my guy.
00:34:35And I'm like, well, it probably wouldn't have panned out that way for a lot of reasons.
00:34:39But but OK.
00:34:40But I guess the point being is like I didn't anticipate, you know, any sort of obstacle with this kind of, you know, just getting home from the airport.
00:34:48But it turned out to be a lovely human experience.
00:34:53And the woman driving me did a great job.
00:34:55And I don't even know why I'm telling you.
00:34:57I guess it's just me getting out of my bubble.
00:35:00And, you know, I just it was just because it was so late at night.
00:35:05There was nothing aggravating about it.
00:35:07It was all kind of exciting.
00:35:10And that's where we are as a country.
00:35:12Who the fuck knows who's going to come in what kind of car?
00:35:15I don't know.
00:35:20That'll do it for Producer Cuts this month.
00:35:22We'll be back next month with more of these.
00:35:25And like I said, we're doing another Ask Mark Anything episode and we want to get your questions.
00:35:30So there is a link to the Ask Mark Anything question submission form.
00:35:34It's in the episode description.
00:35:36Just scroll to it in whatever app you're using and you can click on it and send Mark a question that he will read on an upcoming Ask Mark Anything episode.
00:35:45And until then, this has been Brendan and these are the Producer Cuts.
00:35:48We'll see you again next time.

BONUS Producer Cuts - Marc's Monologues from July

00:00:00 / --:--:--