BONUS WTF Origins - The Early Days
Marc:Check one, check two.
Marc:All right.
Marc:This is good.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, hey, you just came back from the road.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And I had to laugh at the fact that when we first started doing this, you know, 2009, if you were ever on the road, it was like the most chaotic situation trying to get the show up.
Guest:Like it was like life or death every minute.
Marc:It's crazy, man.
Marc:It was so crazy.
Marc:And I still have that part of my brain.
Marc:Only in the last year or so have you just sort of like, the day you said, hey, dude, it'll be fine.
Marc:You know, if you have to use your phone, we can work with it.
Marc:I'm like, what's happening?
Marc:Are we...
Marc:Are we giving up?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I brought all my equipment just in case my plane's late.
Marc:I recorded intros that we didn't even use.
Marc:I rented meeting rooms and airport lounges to do intros.
Marc:I went to a radio station at a college in Buffalo, New York during a snowstorm.
Marc:to record an intro with a bunch of kids who had no idea who I was, but my intensity and focus somehow, you know, I got them to do it.
Marc:I went to a college.
Marc:I'm like, where's the radio station?
Marc:Because, you know, I was snowed in on a Sunday after a gig and I wasn't going to get home in time to do the intro.
Marc:And I was freaking out.
Marc:I go to that radio station.
Marc:I'm like, I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:They're like, we don't know you.
Marc:And I'm like, well, I do a podcast.
Marc:It's important.
Marc:You know, I think I got, I got, I got Billy Gibbons on.
Marc:They're like, who?
Marc:You know, so like it was one of these things where I'm like, all I need you to do is just record.
Marc:Let me just do this.
Marc:And they didn't even really know how to record it because we needed a WAV file.
Marc:And, you know, it's like a college radio station, old timey one that they didn't have any of the, you know, they didn't have what I needed really.
Marc:Other than a studio and OK mics.
Marc:But I remember I went in and did that and we had to figure out how to get it on my computer in the form that they had.
Marc:And then we ended up not using it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So it was quite a day.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I got home and I just recorded it later.
Guest:There were ones I remember that happened in the car like that, like you driving to the airport and you'd like, you know, you're like, I'll send it to you in the car before I tried it, before I get there, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just like trying to use my phone in weird ways in terms of getting the file to you.
Marc:Wondering if I can record outside at an airport.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There were those.
Marc:I don't think I ever did.
Marc:I was like looking for hallways.
Marc:So one time I was like, maybe this bathroom will work.
Marc:But there was like a panic to all of it.
Marc:Like if there was a glitch at Libsyn, the server, and it didn't go up.
Marc:I just remember waking up at six in the morning like, dude, it's not up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Call Rob.
Marc:We got to call Rob.
Guest:It was fucking life or death, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, the weird thing, though, was you could call people back then.
Guest:You can't do that anymore.
Guest:Like if there's a problem and your podcast isn't showing up on Apple, you're like, well, I might as well be dead.
Guest:Like I can't.
Guest:There's nothing I can do about it now.
Guest:But we always had an issue with Apple.
Marc:It was always tricky.
Guest:yeah but we at least had contacts and a small group of people who knew us by first name and you could just talk to them and do that stuff get to somebody and find out where it was we'd wake up rob walsh from lips and yeah well that that
Guest:That is to say, you know, we've been doing this Origin series here and talking about the things that led up to doing WTF.
Guest:And it almost seems like we were done because the last thing we talked about was, you know, getting fired from Break Room Live.
Guest:And that was where we started the podcast.
Guest:But...
Guest:I think something that probably hasn't been covered, and I'm kind of just doing this for posterity's sake at this point, is that in those early days of doing the show, we've kind of told the narrative and the story of WTF a lot, and we have several episodes even where we've done that, the thousandth episode, we've kind of chronicled the whole thing, and we've done some live shows where you and I have done this to a crowd.
Guest:But I'm realizing that...
Guest:One of the things we kind of pass over as we're getting to the kind of success of the show when we tell this story is we pass over that in those first, I'd say, six months to a year, we didn't really know what the heck this was going to be.
Guest:And so we were thinking, and I know you were probably thinking, what's my next move?
Guest:Like, okay, great.
Guest:I've got this podcast.
Guest:We're rolling this out.
Guest:But what is that going to turn into?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there were like projects and there were ideas and things that would be monetized or the idea of this.
Guest:We could try to monetize this somehow and make this something other than a thing we're doing on the side.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And just to promote me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And I think the place to start with that is that you had to fire Dave Becky.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:My manager of 20 years.
Marc:It was, you know, that was a long time coming because of my inability to understand how show business worked necessarily or my inability to accept or know why I didn't have any traction or any opportunity.
Marc:And it's not like he didn't try.
Marc:We had deals.
Marc:We, you know, I had several pilot deals.
Marc:I had, you know, with NBC, HBO, and other Comedy Central, we did a pilot.
Marc:But
Marc:Yeah, it was it was after I think also because what we're talking about off the air for a minute there is that one thing we were on top of and realized early on in terms of the smaller social media platform universe that we were existing in is that I knew instinctively that I didn't have enough Twitter followers.
Marc:And there was sort of this movement towards figuring out how to do that.
Marc:I mean, I used to talk about it on the podcast early on, you know, to get the sort of recognition of the thing we were doing out there.
Marc:And Facebook, to a degree, I would promote gigs and boost ads and stuff.
Marc:I don't know if it ever made a difference, but there was no TikTok.
Marc:There was no Instagram.
Marc:It was just Twitter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Twitter, especially as a mode of personal communication for you.
Guest:I think you latched onto that platform, as did a lot of people, because it became the place where there was a capital C conversation.
Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And a lot of people early on were approached by Twitter and were promoted, I think, and got a million followers fairly quickly.
Marc:The people that kind of figured it out.
Marc:I kind of used it in all kinds of weird ways for a while.
Marc:But oh, but but yeah, with Becky, it was just one of these things where, you know, the podcast was starting to get traction.
Marc:We had some big guests.
Marc:I don't know exactly when I fired him, but it was just one of these things where I walked in.
Marc:I'd sent him some WTFs and I just remember what he said.
Marc:I sat in there.
Marc:He's like, I don't get it.
Marc:Where's the where's the WTF?
Marc:I don't get it.
Marc:And I'm like, what do you mean?
Marc:It's an interview show.
Marc:And it's like, you know, we're dealing with major people.
Marc:It's like, yeah, I'm just, I don't get what the angle is.
Marc:And at that time, he had an assistant named Josh, who I had big problems with.
Marc:You know, because he was just, he just annoyed me.
Marc:He lied badly.
Marc:He was kind of a doofus.
Marc:He's, of course, gone on to be a big manager.
Marc:But, you know, I just, you know, I felt like, you know, Dave...
Marc:you know, was sort of moving me into Josh's camp.
Marc:And that, like, for me, just on a pride level and, you know, practicality level and what it means to have the big manager, you know, give you to his assistant, basically, you know, means, like, it's fucking over to me.
Marc:And I had issues with Josh because he had lied to me, you know, to my face in a way that was undeniably a lie and doubled down on it.
Marc:And I was just like, fuck him.
Marc:And and when I went into the WTF meeting, you know, and had that meeting with Dave, you know, he said, you know, and on your way out, apologize to Josh.
Marc:You know, like, yeah, go get your fucking shine box.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So so that just did it.
Marc:I just was you know, I was done.
Marc:And I met with a couple other managers and ended up with Olivia Wingate.
Marc:And as time went on, Dave became one of our biggest fans of the show.
Marc:He listens to it all the time.
Guest:So you met with a bunch of managers, but you went with Olivia Wingate, who, did you go with her through John Oliver's recommendation?
Guest:Was that it?
Guest:Because I know she was managing John at the time.
Guest:She was?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:You know, like with managers and me, it's always been like, who are her roster?
Marc:And, you know, we were not a good fit necessarily.
Marc:But that was her roster was John and... And Eugene Merman.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Reggie Watts.
Marc:A couple of the alt crowd.
Marc:But I just, you know, there was part of me that thought, you know, like, well, how do I get into...
Marc:you know, a world that's, you know what I mean, different.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, old-timey comedy world outside of television, it just remains the same.
Marc:You know, when you see signs and billboards on the highway for casinos, you know, I see Chris Titus.
Marc:There's just something that never changes about, you know, stand-up comedy on the road.
Marc:So I thought that she was a little outside the box for me.
Marc:And she was independent at the time.
Marc:She was running her own shop.
Independent.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And she was her own person, and I liked that.
Marc:And I kind of talked her into it.
Marc:She knew who I was, and I was definitely different for her.
Marc:She really didn't know what to do with me or how to do with me, but she was very attentive, and that was the opposite of Becky.
Guest:But correct me if I'm wrong, too.
Guest:My memory of this, and this could be me conflating things, was that...
Guest:what really pushed you in the direction of going with Olivia was that she seemed to think there was something to the podcast.
Guest:Like that was new at the time.
Guest:I don't think there was anyone in her client base that had much to do with podcasting at the time.
Guest:And so I think it was a real, you know, to her, it was going to be a real good tool for getting you out there and we could do things with it.
Marc:Yeah, I think that's true, and I think that by that point we had high-profile people on already, and she saw that it was not nothing, and I think, yeah, she saw it as a good promotion tool, and then ultimately she thought we should, you know, have our own publishing label, and she was very sort of entrepreneurial in trying to get us to expand the business, but also because, and I've been pretty, you know, we always held the line on this thing, that, you know, in most manager-client roles,
Marc:relationships, you know, you just give them 10% of whatever you make.
Marc:And with all of my managers, you know, we have either given them nothing or a very small stipend, a very small percentage.
Marc:Because I remember- Yeah, because we had the podcast before any of them.
Marc:Yeah, it's like, it's almost like property in a marriage.
Marc:You know, if the house is in your name and you bought it before the marriage, it's not on the table.
Marc:But I learned you can lose a lot of money that way too.
Guest:Well, in that sense, that was kind of our play with Olivia.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, we gave Olivia a percentage just almost like as a retainer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it was the only thing I was doing that was making money and it wasn't a fortune.
Marc:And I remember I had to write all those checks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, I had to sit there like, and I'm not a math guy or, and I don't know how to do Quicken or anything.
Marc:And I was sitting there every month in terms of going through our fucking money and, and breaking down like how much we got in on, in these columns on a piece of typing paper and with a calculator trying to figure out how to do all that shit.
Marc:It was a nightmare.
Marc:And then, well, that's true.
Guest:But that was like, you're, you're jumping ahead to at least a year in because we made no money right away.
Guest:Like it was, it was a while.
Guest:In fact, we got coffee.
Marc:We got coffee and we got $400 a month.
Marc:We had the coffee going.
Marc:We had the coffee going.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then we did.
Marc:Well, hold on.
Marc:Was it within that year that we did?
Marc:We're going to sneeze.
Marc:I hope.
Guest:Oh, God.
Marc:This is the worst.
Guest:You don't always get them out.
Guest:God, it's the worst.
Guest:I wonder if it's your mustache.
Guest:Does it like hold them in?
Marc:No, because they cum.
Marc:It's just sort of... But, um... And they scare the shit out of my cats.
Marc:It's so hilarious.
Marc:Like, they just never... They don't understand what's happening.
Marc:And I'll blow his knees out and they'll just scatter and almost hurt themselves.
Marc:But, um...
Marc:Yeah, but I mean, once we started to figure out the paywall, it was all crazy and it was all cobbled together.
Marc:But I just remember like, you know, being, you know, doing shit in my life for the podcast, that whole thing with the jeans.
Marc:And then I had a stash.
Marc:Anastasia.
Marc:This is your roommate.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right, roommate, you know, who I had, who used to be in the same office with us at Air America with that book thing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, she was there, and we were stuffing envelopes because we tried to do the, you know, the schwag thing.
Marc:Remember, like, we tried to do what Jesse Thorne did with the tiered donation thing.
Marc:So we had to figure out that money.
Marc:I mean, I don't know when we started doing that, when that money started coming in.
Yeah.
Guest:it wasn't right away i mean it was maybe i would say within the first seven or eight months right so that was in the time zone you know we had to but what happened first i went back and looked at some old emails and you know we we met with olivia and you know we were just very you know surprised by the amount of people downloading the show like the numbers were exceeding our expectations
Guest:And Olivia, you know, jumped at the opportunity to say like, well, OK, if that's what's happening, then you should have like a battle plan to make some money off of this.
Guest:And I think the basically the first thing we decided to do was try to build out a a four pay contract.
Guest:Like, we had to use a guy.
Guest:I remember the guy's name was John Poulos.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that guy.
Guest:Yeah, he had to build basically from scratch, like, a site where people could go purchase a la carte audio files.
Guest:Because then what we started to do was...
Guest:do live shows that we would sell only, you know, for pay.
Guest:They wouldn't be part of the podcast.
Guest:So you could either only see them if you went to them live or you would buy them.
Guest:And that was the site we were doing that with.
Guest:And then the other thing we...
Guest:started to use that for was once episodes got a little older, we'd make them not available for free.
Guest:But if you, you know, you still want to hear the Jim Norton one, you got to pay for it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We were doing that like a la carte.
Guest:And that started with Olivia's prompting, you know, let's get some infrastructure in place so that you can.
Guest:So, so this thing doesn't just have to be this free giveaway, which every other podcast was.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, no, some these were like these conversations happen all the time because they they weren't all that.
Marc:I mean, Pardo, you know, was doing a paywall.
Guest:Well, that was if you remember, Mark, that was initially our model.
Guest:We were going to do what Jimmy Pardo was doing, which was, you know.
Guest:after we got a few shows under our belt, we would put it all behind a paywall.
Guest:And that was why we got connected with that guy, John Poulos, because we were anticipating that the whole show would be paywalled.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, you'd get the couple of thousand people on your mailing list to be subscribers.
Guest:It's like not unlike what we're doing right now, literally right this moment for the full Marin.
Guest:It's just like you get the most devoted fans to want
Marc:Yeah, but you still get, you know, but back then the thing was is that, and I remember us talking about it a lot, that if we put a paywall up for the entire show, there'd be no way to build the audience.
Marc:And that was one of the best decisions we ever made.
Marc:That's right, that's why we did away with that very quickly.
Marc:Yeah, because like at the simultaneous to all this going on, some of those old timey radio consultant advertising middlemen were around and we had contacts with them.
Marc:And it was clear that they they were kind of sniffing around and knew it might be the new way.
Marc:And it just became like, well, then I guess this is the way broadcasting works.
Marc:And it is.
Guest:I mean, the other thing is, I was surprised to go back to my emails and find that it was November of 2009.
Guest:So we started September 1, 2009.
Guest:And already in November was when you had the deal to do a pilot presentation for Comedy Central.
Guest:So it was just two months in, there was enough attention and interest in what the show was and what this idea was that you got a deal to put something together called WTF that would be for television.
Marc:Yeah, but it very... It didn't work, but... Very quickly, it had nothing to do with our podcast.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it was a...
Marc:It was, you know, somehow I talked Chelsea Peretti into co-hosting with me, and it was like a monologue, and then we did a segment on freegans, and then we had a panel.
Marc:I think it was Leo Allen, or maybe not.
Marc:Maybe it was... No, it was Kyle Kinane and Kamau Bell.
Marc:And then some people brought paintings.
Marc:I don't remember, but it was more of a talk show.
Guest:But... It was probably what essentially became, you know, if...
Guest:If it had gotten picked up by Comedy Central, it would have been in the same orbit as like Tosh.0.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But like, I had no idea what we were doing.
Marc:It was at that time where they gave you like $35,000 to pull together a presentation.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I can't remember where we did it.
Marc:Maybe at the Comedy Central space.
Marc:That was it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was sort of a disaster and it didn't really have a rudder.
Marc:And, you know, it was fairly traditional, but it was weird.
Marc:It wasn't quite like Tosh.0 because it was more...
Marc:you know, a sort of host-driven, you know, segment, a couple of bits, and then, you know, guests.
Marc:It was more of a talk show format.
Guest:But I think the fact that you're having a hard time even nailing it down is why it didn't go.
Guest:No, absolutely.
Marc:You know, we were just trying to work with the momentum or the intention WTF was getting, and that was a Josh Lieberman undertaking.
Marc:You know, that was something that Dave had given to Josh to oversee, and, you know, it was fine.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:so you think that the comedy central thing, that was just basically like a remnant of the things that, uh, Dave Becky was already trying to get you.
Marc:No, I, I just think that, you know, that somebody had decided they were giving away those deals, like these very low money deals that cost them.
Marc:It didn't hurt them at all.
Marc:Like it was some sort of, you know, uh, uh,
Marc:development process they were into.
Marc:And a few people did those.
Marc:Just like $35,000, $40,000 to put together a presentation that you could record.
Marc:And I feel like that was the last thing that Three Arts did for me, really.
Marc:And it was mostly Josh heading it off.
Marc:I can't remember exactly why I was so mad at Josh.
Marc:But that was the breaking point.
Marc:It was really Josh.
Marc:And it was the best thing that could have happened.
Marc:Because I'd been languishing with Becky for years.
Marc:And it wasn't like we didn't get shots.
Marc:Just none of them happened.
Marc:And with managers, they don't know what to do.
Marc:And they don't have any real reason to fire you if you're still getting a little attention.
Marc:So they just leave you hanging.
Right.
Guest:Well, what were you doing, though, in terms of stand-up at that time?
Guest:Because I remember as simple as the episode we put up recently, again, where you were out on the road with Eddie Pepitone.
Guest:You were getting gigs in places, but your draw was still very limited.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:That was so embarrassing, man.
Marc:Like, these big ideas of promoters.
Marc:I mean, when me and Eddie did that thing, you know, the guy who was promoting it, where was it, in Arizona?
Marc:It was supposed to be, like, at a movie theater.
Marc:And...
Marc:You know, we didn't sell enough tickets to fill the theater that this guy had worked a deal out with.
Marc:He said he worked a deal out with the hotel.
Marc:That wasn't real, so we didn't even know if we had a room.
Marc:That guy was shady.
Marc:And, you know, we get there and we had to change the theater.
Marc:And it was like maybe 35 people.
Marc:And it was...
Marc:Just fucking terrible.
Guest:What do you think turned like, do you have a memory of that kind of thing turning around?
Guest:Like all of a sudden you felt like you had more of a draw or you were getting better bookings.
Guest:Like, I wonder, was it just a gradual thing along with, you know, just from doing the podcast or was there, you know, something more to it?
Marc:That's a good question, man.
Marc:I mean, look, I don't know.
Marc:You know, I do know that after a certain point, and you know as well that this whole time during the beginning of this, that, you know, I was begrudgingly a host.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Like, you know, I always saw myself as a comic, and it used to annoy me when audiences would come out because they wanted to support me because they were a fan of the podcast, and they knew exactly my life, and then I became very self-conscious about stuff I developed on the podcast through stream of consciousness and then built into bits, and I thought they would think they'd heard them already.
Marc:Like, there was a lot of anxiety, and I resented them for not knowing I was a comic.
Marc:So there was this real, like, love-hate thing
Marc:with being an interviewer, because I wanted to be known as a comic.
Marc:And all of a sudden, I'm becoming this interviewer.
Marc:So it took a long time to accept that.
Marc:But in terms of, like, selling tickets, I just think that as our audience grew...
Marc:And because they felt part of something that was new, which it was, and they felt a sort of loyalty to it, you know, because they liked me, they started to come out to my shows.
Marc:But I remember a lot of them not really being comedy people.
Guest:Well, and that was why we were able to get people to live shows that we taped for the podcast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because of that exact thing of people feel, it's like what you're seeing now with, you know, people selling out live podcasting.
Marc:Well, we were there at the beginning of that because there was those pod fests, but we were doing those live ones as a revenue generator pretty early on.
Marc:And, and we created that pay site for just the live ones, which were a different type of show.
Marc:And I never to this day know how efficiently that site worked.
Marc:It always seemed glitchy and weird.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I guess it was both.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I guess we made some money.
Guest:Yeah, well, I mean, but then the interesting thing was each step of the way, we kept realizing the thing we were doing was probably small bore.
Guest:Like, it would have made much more sense to have a steady revenue stream on the basis of the show we were doing regularly rather than selling these one-offs, right?
Guest:And that was where we wound up kind of leaning more heavily toward advertising.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I just always loved it.
Marc:I really loved, you know, seeing these, you know, old timey radio ad people kind of scrambling.
Marc:And we had a real good relationship with a couple of them.
Marc:What was that woman's name?
Marc:Patty Newmark.
Marc:Yeah, she was great.
Marc:And but they were smart.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:But but I think early on we weren't going to do Vermont teddy bears.
Marc:You know, we weren't... Yeah, all the things that we would hear on... But I do think we did a couple of Sherry's Berries, didn't we?
Marc:Oh, we did Sherry's Berries for a good deal of time, actually.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just remember that from Air America and then from doing the Alex Bennett show that there was a specific world...
Guest:of radio huckstering that you know sometimes the product was fine i mean there's nothing wrong with a vermont teddy bear and sherry's berries was okay they were a little oddly bland for as good as they looked but uh i think bill burr really nailed the uh sherry's berries market who did burr oh did he yeah i think he just you know made a mockery out of the ads and they wound up actually working
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He'd be like, all these fucking berries, you're going to fucking love them.
Guest:And they like contacted him and said, please don't curse during the berries ads.
Guest:And he was like, what do you think I'm doing?
Guest:I'm selling your fucking berries here.
Marc:Well, that's what happened.
Marc:This is going to get attention.
Marc:Well, that's what happened with pow.
Marc:I just shit my pants.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Which I, which we did.
Marc:That was the first ads we did.
Marc:Cause we had this ongoing sponsor of just coffee who came over from break room live who paid us like $400 a month and sent me coffee.
Marc:I still, I got coffee from them yesterday, but I came up with that pow.
Marc:I just shit my pants.
Marc:And I remember the email from the guy who ran the place.
Marc:He's like, we don't love it, but you know, we're selling a lot of coffee.
Marc:We made their fucking business, dude.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I remember they had a thing, and I'm sure they weren't the only ones to do this, but they had a very quick turnaround on their graphic design and packaging situation where they would just all of a sudden...
Guest:We'd be doing Break Room Live, and you'd have a guest on, John Oliver, come on as a guest, and they'd send within two days a John Oliver blend that had a picture of him on the label and everything.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I do think, you know, they're that as a like they were just basically waiting for that to pop with somebody.
Guest:And it worked with you because you were able to integrate it just like we've been talking about through this audience and through this communal thing.
Marc:I think that the WTF blend still sells pretty good.
Marc:I think it still exists.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but I knew that coffee is like, that's a drug.
Marc:So if you get people on it, you know, I still use it.
Marc:I drink it all the time.
Marc:You know, I don't know if it's the best coffee.
Marc:I mean, it doesn't have a unique flavor profile like a Stumptown or Intelligentsia where for some reason all those coffees, not even depending on the blend, have a roasted element to it that you can identify.
Marc:But it works.
Marc:It works.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, so, okay, it's interesting, though.
Guest:We're talking about this, and it's like you basically, you know, we were utilizing the advice and the resources of your management to try to find ways to monetize the podcast.
Guest:You had already, you know...
Guest:done the route that was typical in those days of someone trying to get you a TV deal based on the thing you were doing and it didn't pan out.
Guest:So that was par for the course.
Guest:And it also was kind of clarifying to us.
Guest:It's like, hey, how about we stop...
Guest:worrying about extracurricular things and let's focus on this.
Guest:But, you know, okay, you're trying to then get yourself out there as a draw.
Guest:I'm also wondering where were you standing personally on like doing TV, movies?
Guest:Like were you in your mind being like, I gotta start getting more gigs.
Guest:I gotta start being in more things.
Marc:Well, I think I was, you know, that part of me has always been the same.
Marc:And it became clear, I think, to me that the podcast wasn't going to get me acting roles or anything.
Marc:So I just, you know, I kind of surrendered to that in terms of, you know, knowing that.
Marc:And that didn't really change much.
Marc:You know, until I did Marin and I was still doing Conan's, I imagine.
Marc:And I was still doing all the comedy like John Oliver show.
Marc:I was still doing all the things I always used to do on basic cable and on, you know, I don't remember.
Marc:Well, look, I did.
Marc:I did my last Letterman appearance, you know, and I did panel because of the podcast.
Marc:You know, I did stand up on Letterman four times and I did panel and told that Mel Brooks story.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that was many years in.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But I mean, but I'm just saying that that part of my business was always the same.
Marc:And it still didn't dictate, it still didn't translate necessarily to huge draw numbers.
Marc:But I think over time, the one thing that I was curious about and was hoping for and had a love-hate relationship with, as I said before, was, you know, getting people to the shows.
Right.
Marc:But I had to reckon with the idea that they knew me better than me having the mystique of just a guy who does stand-up.
Marc:Many of them knew my life because of how I do the podcast.
Marc:So I really had to straddle that.
Marc:But...
Marc:But ultimately, because of that, it afforded me a comfort level that I don't know if it did, if it's the best thing for me in terms of, you know, being a comedic act.
Marc:But it certainly facilitated over time my ability to just sort of expand on, you
Marc:and do comedy in a pretty true way to me.
Marc:You know, I have complete freedom of mind up there now, and I'm pretty fearless, and I'm still writing good shit, but I think that the evolution of...
Marc:Having these crowds who knew too much about me created an intimacy and a connection with them that I think is probably a little different than what would have happened just as a comic.
Marc:And I think that's with all podcasting people, even the ones that do big draws.
Marc:But a lot of guys...
Marc:who do this are not showing themselves the way I am.
Marc:A lot of guys have a persona.
Marc:And I think I do have one, but it's pretty close to who I am.
Marc:And because of that, it's at once exciting, but also exhausting, because I have to show up.
Marc:I can't autopilot any of this shit.
Marc:And I think professional entertainers, most of them, can autopilot.
Marc:I mean, I can do the same jokes over and over again, but that's a comic thing.
Guest:So do you remember any time where you wound up feeling like the way you were able to be on stage was really peaking for you?
Guest:Like, did you have any sense, like, you know, especially if you could kind of draw some circles around the type of specials you were doing, right?
Guest:So in 2011, that's when you did the This Has to be Funny at the Union Hall in Brooklyn.
Guest:That was your Comedy Central record taping.
Marc:That's a crazy album.
Marc:There are records I've done that are pretty crazy.
Marc:You know, that final engagement, and I don't think we had started the show yet.
Guest:We hadn't.
Guest:I mean, that's like the major.
Guest:That was the end of it.
Guest:That's the bottom.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:That was all really dark and angry.
Marc:And, you know, I was recording an album over four shows for very not sold out crowds at a very small club.
Marc:I would say that the biggest audience I had on any of those tapings for final engagement was probably 80 people.
Marc:Yeah, and you recorded that in 2008.
Marc:At Giggles.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That horrible little place with Dan Schlissel.
Marc:But it was actually a good comedy club.
Marc:I did two albums there.
Marc:I think I did tickets still available there.
Marc:Um...
Marc:But yeah, well, there was a lot going on, dude.
Marc:For this has to be funny, I definitely filled up Union Hall.
Marc:I guess I did two shows.
Marc:I don't remember.
Marc:You did.
Marc:You did.
Guest:I remember because that remains my sole producing credit on an album.
Guest:And no, I take that back.
Guest:We did that Record Store Day thing that I produced.
Guest:But I was the editor and producer of that Comedy Central album.
Guest:And you did it twice.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That weekend was a fucking nightmare, dude.
Marc:Personally, it was for you, right?
Marc:Yeah, because I'd broken up with Jessica and she was going nuts.
Marc:And I fly out and I'm in that interview.
Marc:That was the weekend we did the interview with Saltzine.
Marc:Dan Saltzine for the New York Times.
Marc:That's the thing that made us in a lot of ways.
Marc:And it was a big deal for podcasting.
Marc:It was a big deal for us.
Marc:It was a huge cover spread in the art section of the Sunday Times with pictures.
Marc:It was, you know, looking back on it, one of the biggest things that ever happened to me.
Marc:And to us, I think.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I don't even remember if you were able to be mentioned then.
Guest:I was, yes, I was quoted in it as, you know, nobody, they didn't talk about me contemporaneously.
Guest:They talked about me as the person who helped start it up with you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that always upset me.
Marc:Always upset me that, like, I had to have this mysterious producer.
Marc:I got that.
Guest:I couldn't mention because you had, well, I mean, but that's the funny thing is that like, yeah.
Guest:Meanwhile, I'm, I'm in the midst of, you know, producing your comedy album as well as the podcast.
Guest:Like it was, we were doing a full, we had a full fledged operation.
Guest:I know, but didn't that bother you?
Marc:No, no, I, I was like, I'm like, I did.
Marc:I got to give Brendan all this credit, which I always do, you know, because we're partners in this, but I just couldn't say it for years.
Marc:It was like, yeah, no, I mean, like the wizard of Oz is producing my podcast.
Yeah.
Guest:Look, I mean, here's the other thing.
Guest:It's like, it's part, it comes with the territory of doing this.
Guest:It's like, I can do my best work.
Guest:I can do the, and in those days I needed to do, everything needed to be the best, right?
Guest:You need to get the, be optimized in what we were doing, you know, in order to succeed because we were going from the bottom up, right?
Guest:Everything was ground floor.
Guest:And so to do that, it was best if I had no interference.
Guest:I didn't want to be handling anything from a public facing point of view with the show.
Guest:I want, and, and I also knew that a large element of the success of the show was that the show just sounded like a thing you accidentally turned the microphones on for you alone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, and all of this, you know,
Guest:none of us having any kind of reflection or discussion about it was ever important until, you know, we got a thousand episodes in or whatever, or when we had the president on, right?
Guest:Like this was not the show.
Marc:Well, this has to be funny.
Marc:I knew like, it was probably around then where I knew like, well, okay, I've got an audience.
Marc:They know me.
Guest:That's where I was going with this is that I remember, I felt that like, I remember being at that show, you know, you, and the funny thing about that is union hall fits what?
Guest:200 people maybe yeah yeah and uh we you know you you had two shows there over it was december 9th and 10th of uh 2010 yeah and um it was you know i remember being there and being like oh good he's fine this mark finally has the audience that i thought for the last you know six years of working with him yeah that he could have and it wasn't a huge audience no but it was your audience like that's like
Guest:They came to be part of your CD taping and they were like there for it to the point where that's where the title of the album comes from, which is that like you made that comment, this comment you've made many times since about your mom saying she didn't know how to love you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a woman in the crowd went, Oh, like a concerned sound.
Guest:And I go, no, this has to be funny.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That was,
Guest:It was actually Ira Glass, who was in attendance, said that should be the title of the album.
Guest:And he was absolutely right.
Guest:Because that was the best moment.
Guest:But it was also the most indicative of what it took to go from the guy who, you know, just was scrambling in terms of leaving a manager, taking a new manager, thought, okay, the way to capitalize on this, it's go do a pilot presentation for Comedy Central or whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:to go from that to know the way to capitalize on this and have something that makes it viable going forward is to just connect with the audience.
Guest:And it was at that point where I remember sitting there going like, he's got them, he's got these people.
Guest:And it was like, yeah, it was 200 a night for two nights.
Guest:You know, that's not a ton, but that felt big to me.
Marc:Well, I mean, I still do that.
Marc:I still know that I am a, on stage now I say I'm an artisanal act.
Yeah.
Marc:And I say, I am the farm, you are the table.
Marc:And in relation to, you know, my appeal, and I say that a lot when I go on the road, like if I'm in Detroit and I've sold, whatever, 850 tickets, you know, I just barely fill up the place.
Marc:I'm like, this is the ceiling.
Marc:This is everyone in Michigan who likes me.
Marc:They're here.
Marc:This is all of you.
Marc:And that's good, but it is, you know, this is it.
Marc:And that's okay.
Marc:I've wrestled with that being okay.
Marc:I don't know what I expect or what I want.
Marc:And I also know that when I see my audience before a show or I'm in the town and they're walking up to me, I'm like, you're coming?
Marc:Like these decent looking couples and stuff.
Marc:Like how did this happen?
Marc:Because from my gritty beginnings, I never saw myself as attracting reasonable, grown up, decent people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, I didn't know who I would attract.
Marc:But but, you know, something in that thing, I always say that I have a I don't have a demographic.
Marc:I have a disposition, which I think is true.
Marc:But yeah, I think when with this has to be funny.
Marc:But that was also the thing is like I'm in the fucking New York Times building talking to Saltzine in and he's writing the article that's going to change.
Marc:our lives forever, and I'm getting texts from a woman I just broke up with who was hiding under the deck in my house.
Marc:And she's like, you know, when can I go back in the house?
Marc:I'm like, you can't.
Marc:She's like, I'm under the deck right now, and I had to call her dad, and the police were there.
Marc:It was a fucking...
Marc:I always got a lot of plates in there, Brendan.
Marc:Some of them, not good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's the funny thing is that it's like, I think that probably impedes a lot of your ability to really see the trajectory of this and how it was, you know, it did not come without, you know, tremendous diligence and the right moves being made.
Guest:Somehow.
Yeah.
Guest:You know, a lot of your thought on this, I think, just thinks of it as like a wave that you got swept up in as doing the podcast.
Guest:It led to all this stuff because you have these moments like this is a pivotal moment in your career doing this show at Union Hall and having this New York Times interview.
Guest:And yet it's still all tied up in whatever was going on with you personally.
Guest:That felt just as intense as all those other things.
Yeah.
Marc:But I always knew that we worked and I always think that, you know, certainly with your sort of work ethic and your practicality, that the balance of our personalities works because it's symbiotic.
Marc:But I rely, you know, I'm going to follow your lead.
Marc:And I think ultimately from knowing you since, you know, Air America that, you know, I think I learned how to put that stuff aside, even if it was, you know,
Marc:You know, like if it was, you know, on fire in my brain, you know, we always worked.
Marc:And, you know, you don't you know, I don't get into your personal life too much and you get into mine as much as, you know, I talk about on the podcast.
Marc:And sometimes if I'm in real trouble, I'll call you.
Marc:But the idea was because of our work ethic is that this is the job, dude.
Marc:We can do the job.
Marc:So I was always aware of.
Marc:that we were working.
Marc:I mean, look, man, I was in my house, you know, surrounded by 1500 envelopes, putting stickers in them and sometimes t-shirts.
Guest:So I think that going back to the beginning of what you were saying about, you know, the life or death stakes of getting intros recorded.
Guest:It's like you're, you're,
Guest:But part of the kind of almost like monomaniacal way you focus on something was to the benefit of this show when we were starting, even if in the back of your head or in management's head or in anyone else's head, there was some thought that like, oh, it's going to lead to something else.
Guest:Like, sure, maybe so.
Guest:But what mattered was this became the thing you focused on.
Guest:And then therefore, that allowed it to be the most successful it could be.
Marc:Well, that was and it's been that way forever.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, even with the stand up, you know, the stand up sort of began to evolve, you know, alongside of it in a way where I'm like, well, both of these things are working.
Marc:Like, you know, I'm doing this show, you know, I'm good at it.
Marc:I'm respected for it.
Marc:And the comedy is is right there on the same level.
Marc:They're both relative.
Marc:And I think they're relative in their appeal.
Marc:Like, I got what I worked for.
Marc:And any sort of, when you get frustrated with me in talking or comparing myself to others who are huge or this or that, I think sometimes it frustrates you that my gratitude is not in place.
Marc:And I don't always acknowledge that we did it.
Marc:Because I still have that part of my brain, whether it's an addict or something's missing, that I'm always like, well, what about that guy?
Marc:How come I'm not?
Marc:And I know it's pathological.
Marc:So now the effort is to balance out, to stifle those voices, not unlike exercise or anything else.
Marc:I don't like to exercise.
Marc:But over time,
Marc:when I wake up and I don't want to do it, you know, some other part of me is walking to the gym.
Marc:So, you know, it was learning how to override my own insecurity and, you know, self-sabotaging
Marc:ways to sort of do the job.
Marc:But I think, you know, looking back on it, we were both operating at that same level.
Marc:It was of utmost importance.
Marc:Like when I was doing, you know, recording those intros, you know, back then when I was like, I think I can get a, I'm going to run to a conference room in the, in the American lounge.
Marc:You weren't saying like, no, dude, don't, don't,
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:No, because I think for the both of us, we saw this as a thing that we were, you know, we were plowing this field.
Guest:And the other people who were plowing the same field, they had no edge on us.
Guest:We were all doing it at best an equal level.
Guest:And in some cases, I felt we were edging ahead.
Guest:And that's an interesting thing.
Guest:I have never thought about this until just now.
Guest:But you're saying, you know, it's like so much of your brain gets wrapped up in the comparison to other people.
Guest:there were that we were winning like we were the ones that we were getting people were comparing to us right you were in some ways doing a benchmark thing with this show and i do remember like the weird jealousies you would get would all be like things that that went away quickly because it would just be like oh hardwick got that same guest that we did or whatever and then what would wind up happening was the both shows would come out and only anyone would be talking about was ours
Marc:Well, it took a while to learn that I was doing it differently.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But then, like, in this part of, like, you know, in sort of dealing with where we're at now, you know, we are...
Marc:Once everybody made the jump to video and once the thing opened up and contracted and opened up again, it was like, we do this.
Marc:So now we've done what we do and we do what we do, but we don't feel the desperation to adapt in another way because you have a sense of how the business works and it's also not how we do the show.
Marc:And I agree with that.
Marc:because the product we do is so tight and it's specific, but it's hard to be a pioneer and then to watch the world move on without you.
Guest:Well, I guess so, but then you also have to think that very few things stay the way they are forever.
Marc:No, I get that, yeah.
Guest:And so you, you know, to me, in any sense, I think of it, it's like...
Guest:This is a legacy podcast.
Guest:There are a bunch of legacy podcasts.
Guest:We're not alone in that level.
Guest:And in a way, to me, it's comforting that we just get to exist in this space and we don't have the kind of pressures on us that, you know, somebody who maybe started three years ago and had a really popular show three years ago...
Guest:but is now having a hard time keeping up with the content demands.
Guest:Like, we don't have those pressures because we built this thing that's just now a 15-year-old machine.
Marc:Yeah, and it's audio.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, yeah, well, that was always the thing with us and with me, you know, and I think we both knew that if we started to...
Marc:you know, kind of lose our audience or something that we, you know, bow out before it got sad, but it just never happened.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We always said that we, you know, if we, you know, we saw it going South, we would stop and we'd, we'd never had to do that.
Guest:The other thing that we always kind of came back to, I don't think, and this, you know, goes back to that original comedy central pilot presentation was it took me a while to kind of figure
Guest:feel like I had enough experience and authority in the business to say, no, I know that that's not good or that's not going to work or to shoot things down.
Guest:Because there was always this desire to make more out of what we were doing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I think that culminated ultimately.
Guest:I mean, frankly, that's how you got Marin, right, on IFC was do something with the podcast.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I think it really kind of culminated with getting that deal.
Guest:And this was through Olivia.
Guest:And I don't want to knock Olivia for it because she was just trying to do things in your best interest.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In terms of projects.
Guest:But we got that deal to do the show for Vice.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was a total misfire.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was, you know, essentially they wanted us to do an interview style show for the new Vice TV network.
Guest:And we did one episode of it and basically got out of the contract that we signed with them because it was great.
Marc:They couldn't book anybody.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we, that was our like excuse.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were like, great.
Guest:The fact that they can't book anybody for this and they're, they keep running up against a predetermined schedule that you had.
Marc:Right.
Guest:We were like, that's our out.
Guest:That's the way we get out of this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Thank God.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And well, you know, it's, it's, I remember these two moments.
Marc:moments in our relationship or our career that there was the day you told me you were going to go full time on the podcast.
Marc:And I was like, dude, you know, you don't have to, man.
Marc:I mean, you got a kid and like, and it was my naivete.
Marc:You're like, oh, I've, I've, you said like, no, I've, I've looked, I can do that.
Marc:I've looked at the numbers and I'm like, of course you did.
Marc:You weren't going to wing it.
Marc:But that was a big day.
Marc:And then there was the day that we both realized that we were able to say no.
Marc:And there was power in that.
Marc:And it was self-protective.
Marc:That's a big deal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, wait, do you put that on a particular day or do you just mean in general the ability to say no?
Guest:Just in general.
Marc:general that like, you know, there was because you're dealing with a lot of what's coming in in terms of people's ideas about what we should do or how they can use us or, you know, they want us to use them or whatever it is.
Marc:And sort of you were always kind of like fending a lot of that shit off and processing it in a practical and intellectual way.
Marc:And like there was one day we had a conversation where you were like, you know, expressing how much you enjoyed saying no.
Marc:And I was like, yeah, that's a great thing.
Marc:Good for you.
Guest:Well, it's so funny.
Guest:That was probably within the last, I would say, six or seven years.
Guest:Because I do remember, I don't think I've ever told you this, a thing that stuck in my head, and I use it in my mental calculus for a lot of decision-making things, was a line that you had in GLOW.
Guest:So it's funny.
Guest:It's a thing you said.
Guest:But it could have been any act.
Guest:Like just the fact that I was watching it because you were on it is irrelevant to the fact that it was a line a writer wrote.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was when you're auditioning the women for the thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:First episode.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's either the first or second.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's probably the first.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Allison's character is in the ring trying to try out for the show.
Guest:And you cut her.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she's like, is this because I don't have a famous wrestling father like these other girls do?
Guest:And you're like, no, it's because I don't like your ass or your face or I like them too much.
Guest:I don't have to have a reason.
Guest:That's why I'm the director.
Guest:and i was like it's it was rude and it's like you know it's like like a crude version of the joke but it did crystallize something with me it was like oh yeah i gotta stop with like the like i is you know it's my codependent nature like i had a lot of uh people pleasing instincts in me even as a producer right and that was a moment where i was like man it's in my court to say no to stuff and to to not have to give a reason yeah and then like when people ask a reason and go like
Guest:I don't need to tell you the answer was no.
Marc:Well, ultimately, after all these years, what's funny is that, you know, when I get this opportunity.
Marc:you know, to do this Apple show.
Marc:I mean, there's other reason, but it's nuanced.
Marc:But like really, you know, I knew I didn't have to do it.
Marc:And I said no.
Marc:And it was a real struggle to sort of like make the columns and figure out the pros and cons and what do I want to do in my future versus what do I think I want to do in my future.
Marc:There's a lot of things.
Marc:But ultimately, the reality of it
Marc:Given our nature and our work ethic and our, you know, contractual obligation to the platform at this point in time, what I thought my out was was like, no, I can't, you know, because my primary job is the podcast.
Marc:And, you know, I don't want if we can't do that exactly how we do it, then there's no way I can move forward.
Guest:And I fucked up your out because I was like, oh, we can totally do this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm like, God damn it.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, I mean, I looked at it and I was like, oh, we've done much worse than this.
Marc:Well, that was a that was a reality check for me.
Marc:I'm like, because I do tend to forget just how much how crazy it's gotten and where I've had to do interviews and what we've had to do over the years.
Marc:And yeah, it'll be fine.
Guest:Yeah, I think I outlined for you this like one stretch of time where you were doing like eight different things and we still, you know, got the show done every week, twice.
Marc:But yeah, but I am getting older and I am a little tired.
Marc:Oh, sure.
Guest:Well, but that's also the other thing.
Guest:Like you do, we both, I think, have gotten ourselves into this position where we obviously we're still looking to do this show and we're still giving it our all every week, but we're looking for ways to not have to kill ourselves.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that, you know, some of that has just been, you know, realizing like we're operating at a level and that, you know, sometimes we don't have to do it any different than that, but we don't have to, you know, be so hard on ourselves that it becomes, you know, detrimental to our mental health.
Guest:Yes, that's absolutely true.
Guest:Well, we can, you can do those to do that in many other ways.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't have control over it, sadly.
Guest:Well, we, we, we do have control over is deciding when we've done enough of this looking back at the history of the show.
Guest:And I think we've, I mean, obviously there's plenty of stuff that we can unearth, but
Guest:from time to time.
Guest:But I think over the course of doing these origin shows, we've pretty much gotten the trajectory of how we got from there to here.
Guest:And I think the interesting thing about all of it is every step of the way, whether it was me with you or even before we met and you were doing the alternative comedy rooms in New York and that...
Guest:we were driving toward this.
Guest:Like, this is not a mistake or an off-ramp or something different.
Guest:Like, it actually, that is the satisfying part of it, that at least in my participation in it, which now goes back 20 years with you, and then, you know, obviously the stuff you were doing on your own before that, like, we were making the right call.
Guest:Like, the impulses were correct, and it landed in a place that makes sense for those impulses.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But that was mostly you because, I mean, for whatever reason, you identified as a radio guy, you know, my talent in the medium early on.
Marc:And I think the real turning point was when, you know, we got you enough money to leave Sirius because you believed in what we could do.
Marc:And even if that show didn't pan out, I think that was the beginning of... Break Room.
Marc:Break Room, yeah.
Marc:Of you knowing that we had something that I might not have known we had as much as you did.
Guest:Chris Lopresto asked me that on the Friday show.
Guest:We were talking about that Break Room Live stuff.
Guest:And he was like...
Guest:So wait, you're at this serious and that's a stable company, you know, and they were paying you well.
Guest:What in the world would make you think to go back to Air America, which you knew was a disaster?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was honestly like, oh, I was pretty sure it would be a disaster.
Guest:But this was the way back in to doing the thing you and I could do.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like if no one, if nothing was going to come of it other than a year of this money mark paying for it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:For us to play around and figure out exactly the way to do this.
Guest:And we didn't even know it would be a podcast, but like just some way for us to get that thing going.
Guest:And that made sense to me.
Guest:That was the best investment I could make.
Guest:I wasn't staying at Sirius.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, the shift from sort of upper management to, you know, independent, you know, kind of creative business owner, that was a big shift for you.
Marc:That was good.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's still kind of weird that we do it this way.
Guest:But, you know, honestly, like, obviously, it's like the kind of...
Guest:culmination of my work and it has you know provided me a living and a you know life that that that i like but you know for you where you have all these other things you can go off and make a tv show now you have your stand-up and you have um you know a a vast uh body of work yeah in your life that you've been building i've been on the simpsons
Guest:Right.
Guest:But like all of this stuff, like the, the, the idea that like the podcast was still the thing that, you know, going back to what you were saying about, you didn't have to pay a man.
Guest:You didn't have to give a manager a percentage of this podcast.
Guest:It was yours.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that I think is the, probably the going to wind up ultimately being the biggest legacy of it for you.
Guest:It's like the thing that I made.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's the important thing.
Marc:Yeah, but also that, you know, how it's changed me as a person and how it is an essential part of my creativity and my humanity.
Marc:And, you know, in terms of being with other people, it really does function in a lot of ways that are much deeper than, you know, just creating the podcast, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I think we can always have some room to look back on stuff like this.
Guest:We won't do this straight up series anymore.
Guest:And, you know, but I don't know.
Guest:I never liked the idea that this is this kind of stuff is navel gazing or whatever.
Guest:Mostly, mostly nostalgic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Navels are interesting.
Guest:You want to look at them.
Guest:They're kind of weird.
Guest:They're either weird and gross or, you know, you have to remember to clean them.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Which I think we've done.
Guest:We just did it.
Guest:We've been pretty spick and span with this operation.
Guest:All right, man.
Guest:All right.