BONUS Ask Marc Anything #13
Okay.
Ask Mark anything.
Number 13.
They keep coming.
These questions.
Here we go.
What is your happiest memory at the comedy store?
What is your most memorable experience at the comedy store?
Wow.
Well, there's several different periods of me in that place.
I would have to say that my happiest memory at the comedy store as of late was,
was that hallway encounter with dice and my fan came up and interrupted us.
That was pretty, uh, pretty happy, pretty funny.
And I've told the story before, but I'll tell it again.
I was just talking to dice and he was talking about, you know, dice stuff, a lot of talking, going to do Madison square garden.
He's back on the road.
He's this, he's that, this and that, that, and this, uh,
And some kid comes up.
He's not a kid.
Young man comes up, interrupts us, says, look, I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but I just got to say, Mark, you know, I've been meaning to email you and I don't know, you're here now.
I think I should just tell you how much you helped me and how much you changed my life.
I was going through dark times and your podcast really got me through it.
And I'm just want to tell you how grateful I was and to thank you in person.
And I was like, great.
Well, I'm glad to help out.
No problem.
Glad you're doing all right.
And that guy walks away and Dice says, I never get that.
You know, I get you're the reason I lost my job.
You're the reason they threw me out of school.
You're the reason that my girlfriend left me.
I never get that.
That was pretty funny.
Pretty happy.
What is your most memorable experience at the store?
Well, there's a couple.
I remember when I was a doorman there and Pryor came in.
And he went on in the original room.
And he didn't do well.
He bombed.
But he went up there with that prior vulnerability.
This must have been, I don't know, what year would that have been?
86, 87.
I don't know where exactly he was at in his life.
But he wanted to get up there and work on some stuff.
And he had that real weird prior vulnerability.
And he just had a hard time up there.
And it was a hard thing to watch.
But it was important to see.
And then there was a lot of memorable experiences back in the day.
I remember when Sam Kennison on Easter... Must have been Easter...
1987, he came out on stage that night on Sunday wearing a black cap, black sunglasses, black trench coat, black sweatpants, a torn black T-shirt with a black rosary beads around his neck.
And he said, how do you like my Easter outfit?
That's pretty memorable.
Like, I remember that.
Do you have a preference between the original room and the main room?
What room would you recommend for a fan if they only have one night to go to the comedy store?
I don't know.
See who's on the lineup.
I mean, the original room is a smaller room, so you get a more intimate thing.
The main room is set up like a showroom, like a big, like a sort of nightclub or almost a Vegas-y showroom.
So the performances are a little different.
If you want like a gritty, intimate...
where you're very close to the performer and there's kind of more of a possibility of a one-mind experience between audience and performer, I would do the original room.
But if somebody you want to see is in the main room, they do a bigger set.
It's not that they work harder, but it requires a more less loose.
Some people do loose both places.
But the main room is sort of a tighter, bigger set.
So it's up to you.
Can you walk us through a typical night for you at the Comedy Store from the drive to the club to the drive home?
Yeah.
Usually I leave my house an hour before my spot.
It takes me about a half hour to 40 minutes, sometimes less, to drive to the comedy store.
I get out of my car, park behind the store.
I go in.
I see where we're at on the lineup and who's up in the room, see which comic is up, where I am in the lineup, and
Then I walk down the hall, check out what's going on in the main room, look at that lineup.
Then I'll go into the kitchen, hang around, maybe get a soda, see who's in the hallway, talk a little bit.
Sometimes I get a pretzel.
They make those New York kind of salty big pretzels now with mustard.
Sometimes I just talk to some of the servers.
Sometimes I say hello to the crew back there.
Then I'll wander around.
Sometimes I'll sit in the back of the room.
Sometimes I'll just talk to whoever's around.
Usually in the main room, I'll go back in the dressing room when the person who's going to bring me up is on stage and hang out back there, talk to whoever's back there, wait it out.
In the original room, you sit in the back sometimes and wait to go on.
Then sometimes I'll hang out after.
Usually I'll go get some lifesavers now that I'm off the nicotine.
They always have like a stash of single wrap giant wintergreen lifesavers.
Go grab a handful of those.
And then I'll drive home.
Just swerve out of the lot.
Try to get going to the left, which is a hard left turn out of the comedy store onto Sunset.
Sometimes I got to go right and take a U-turn right there.
Then I just drive over the hill, drive over Laurel Canyon and go home.
And that's one or two sets usually.
And the only thing that changes is how much I hang around, I guess.
Favorite comedy club outside of Los Angeles.
I don't know.
Most of the clubs, my favorite ones are, both of those Denver clubs are really good, the Comedy Works.
I had good shows up in Portland at Helium.
Acme is pretty good.
I haven't been going there as much, but that's always thought to be a good club.
It's okay.
I don't think any club is really as good as those Comedy Works clubs in Denver, though.
Is there an exact meaning to alternative comedy and where it begins and ends?
Alternative comedy was sort of a... I wouldn't call it a movement, but it was a community of comics that started performing in stages other than comedy clubs.
I guess, what would it be, in the mid-'90s, early to mid-'90s, that was going on here in Los Angeles and then in New York at Luna Lounge.
There was sort of...
It wasn't just comedy.
There was variety to it.
Sometimes there were sketch bits and pieces.
For me, it was another place to work out stuff without the pressure of...
doing it in the middle of a set on the road or doing it in a, in a mainstream comedy club, I could riff a little more.
It really enabled me to, um, uh, get comfortable with, uh, writing on stage, but, uh, but it begins and ends, you know, at the pay level, you know, I mean, a lot of the alt comedy stuff, those, a lot of those comics went on to do regular comedy and most people end up in clubs.
But for me, uh,
it was more of a workout space that wasn't a mainstream club, but you know, all comedy has its own community, but everybody ultimately ends up doing a regular standup or moving into the industry some other way.
I don't know that alternative comedy really exists anymore as it was in terms of being up and against mainstream comedy.
And,
As a kid growing up in Mill Valley, California, I worked at the Throckmorton Theater on nights and weekends where I believe you performed.
I'm curious if you have any memories, impressions of Mill Valley and the Throckmorton, and if you and Mark Pitta ever reconciled.
Mark Pitta being the comedian that booked the place, who I kind of knew back in San Francisco back in the day, who helped facilitate me interviewing Robin Williams.
I guess my memory at the Throckmorton was one night I was performing there.
There's two memories.
There's a bad memory where I got up there and I thought I was supposed to be headlining, but another headliner was booked.
I don't remember whose fault that was.
Might have been mine, but we both did it.
I remember, what was that guy's name?
I remember that comic.
God damn it.
I can't remember.
Now it's bothering me.
Then another night I was there and Robin Williams used to hang out there.
And I was on stage and Robin was up in the in one of those booths, you know, up like the Lincoln booth where, you know, you could sit up there in what do you call those?
A balcony booth.
And I was doing my set.
And every time a joke, if I had jokes, it didn't go as well as I wanted them to or they wouldn't get the laugh.
After the laugh died down, I just hear Robin go, oh, just laughing at the awkward silences.
Robin Williams.
And seeing him and hanging out with him afterwards and talking to him was good.
I feel like me and Pitta reconciled.
I feel like I, I don't know if it reconciled well, but I feel like there wasn't a men's maid.
Do you get sick of your standup material?
Do you ever throw stuff out for a while just to see how it feels to riff instead?
Yeah, all the time.
I'm always getting sick of my material and forgetting it and then leaving it.
Now I got to go out on the road and I got to figure out what I have.
in terms of the hour, where a lot of the stuff I was working on, I do shorter sets so it doesn't, doing the longer bits, I don't do them in the shorter sets.
Yeah, I get tired of stuff all the time.
And then I just wait to lose my mind and get angry and then find some new stuff.
That's how it works.
Would you ever consider doing standup shows in non-English speaking places?
I live in Mexico City and sadly traveling to the U.S.
is not an option for me in the near future.
I guess.
I've never really done it.
I went to China, but that was for expats.
I don't know.
I'll think about it.
I guess I'm open to it.
Where will you film your next special?
I don't know.
We don't have a deal on on who's doing it yet.
I like doing it in New York, but we'll see.
What will you do to prevent burnout on tour?
I don't know.
I pace myself on tour.
I only go out two or three days at a time and I space it out.
So I don't generally burn out on tour.
How many guitars do you have on stage when you perform music?
Usually one, maybe two.
When a performer switches guitars, is that about the preference for the sound of one guitar versus another?
Or is there another reason?
Well, sometimes you break a string.
But for me, not being a professional musician, I'll take two guitars up there that definitely have different sounds.
We all know how you feel about Keith Richards, but who is your favorite of his weaving guitar partners and why?
Oh, well, I mean, Ronnie's the guy for me.
I love Ronnie Wood, and I think that their sort of volleying is really the best.
I think that Ronnie has...
the deepest understanding of Keith and they are kind of totally symbiotic and they can both kind of wander around doing their own things simultaneously.
And that usually works.
P.S.
I've been listening to WTF since I was in grade 10.
I'll be 30 next month.
Thanks for being my guide to the good shit all these years.
Sure, pal.
I hope you turned out all right.
Did you get to keep the wardrobe and guitars from your Marin TV show?
I did.
I kept a lot of that wardrobe.
I still wear some of it.
The guitar I got for Marin, I think I got that E30, that Gibson 335, and I kept that.
I had to beg for that.
It wasn't like they, you know, I told the guy I'd use it on TV.
And, yeah, I have that one.
You mentioned in a recent episode that Willem Dafoe didn't like you, but I went back and listened to that episode and he seemed perfectly engaged.
What did I miss?
I don't know.
You missed how I was feeling in the room, how he was looking at me.
Maybe it was just him.
Far be it for me to project that stuff.
I do that often.
I've been listening to the first year of WTF and had a kind of where are they now question.
Are you still in contact with Matthew Weiss or Eddie Pepitone?
Loved every time Eddie showed up.
Matthew, not so much.
Um, yeah, I see Eddie at the clubs.
Uh, I'm in contact with Eddie.
I see him around.
We are still, uh, connected somehow.
Matthew, I sometimes, uh, talk to when I'm in New York.
We email occasionally, usually, uh, when I'm coming to New York or I'm in New York.
Also, we did a full bonus episode with Matthew September 8th, 2022.
Um,
Would you ever sit down with Jon Stewart for a WTF episode?
You two, for all your clashes many years ago, are very like-minded today in your cultural and political tone, conversations, and beliefs.
Yeah, I would, but I doubt he ever would.
And it wouldn't be fun.
I recently listened to your Amy Mann episodes.
In both episodes, Amy mentions that you should come over to the pool since they redid it.
Have you been over there since those episodes aired?
I have not.
I ran into her at a restaurant recently.
But no, I haven't been over.
We haven't really been friends since then.
Was there a conscious decision to stop doing live WTFs or did it just fade away?
Well, we did those primarily to create a revenue stream for the podcast, which was almost impossible to do back when we were doing that.
We would allow people to donate money.
This would be for Patreon.
Yeah.
And also the live WTFs were purchasable through a separate pay site.
And also it was a big ordeal to get it done.
And it was really a different show.
So it was a mixture of fading away and also getting more ad money and shifting out of that economic model or that pay model.
When you're on the road, do you take a portable podcast recording setup with you in the event you get a spontaneous opportunity to interview someone in their home city?
I do.
I usually bring it in order to specifically record Monday's show or Thursdays, depending on how long I'm away.
But always the opportunity is there.
If it's there to interview somebody, I'll do it.
It doesn't happen too often, but I do take the rig with me when I go out there.
How many guests roughly have you interviewed that didn't want the talk to be released?
Conversely, are there any talks that WTF decided not to release?
There's only been a couple where guests have said don't release it.
Neil Brennan, the first time, the first one we did, he decided that I didn't give him the respect he deserved.
And eventually we...
made up and did another one.
And David Fincher, I don't know why he didn't want it.
Who knows?
I don't know why.
But we're sitting on that.
There were some guests that asked us not to release the episode, but we convinced them it would be okay.
There were a couple of those where they were just freaking out, a little insecure, looking back at it, wondering what they said.
But but they eventually relented and were fine.
There were guests we chose not to air for various reasons.
No reason to say who they were.
It was not necessarily their fault.
It just was what it was.
Would you categorize the Fincher talk as a good talk or a great talk?
It's a great talk.
We talked for a long time.
Never to be heard, I guess.
What is the best sandwich you've ever made?
Shit, I don't know.
That's a good question.
The best sandwich I ever made.
I used to enjoy making a patty melt for reals, you know, with a good burger and Swiss cheese and fried onions, fried nice and brown on rye bread, crispy toasted rye bread or grilled rye bread.
You get the patty.
You put that bread into the butter or oil in the pan on one side.
Put the slices of cheese on each one.
Get them good and fucking toasty.
Put the patty in there already cooked.
And then the grilled onions.
And then put the other piece on top.
And then press it a little bit.
That's a pretty good fucking sandwich.
Really good sandwich.
I do enjoy the post-Thanksgiving turkey chopped liver sandwich, sometimes with a little cranberry sauce.
That's a pretty good sandwich.
Whatever sandwiches I like.
Those are pretty top-notch if I think a sandwich.
I'm not a big sandwich maker.
Do you snack at the movies?
Yeah, I'll have a big popcorn, no butter, giant Diet Coke.
Are you a Louis Guzman fan?
Who isn't?
That guy's been in everything.
It's always good to see Louie Guzman.
Isn't it?
Hey, there's that guy.
You and Brendan always seem to get along great.
Was there ever a time when he made you really mad?
No.
I got him pretty mad, though.
But really, oddly, only once.
Really.
I'm sure I annoy him.
And I can tell if I'm... Sometimes I read into texts, but it's usually not right.
You know, he listens to me more than anybody.
I mean, he knows me really fucking well, even though, you know, we don't hang out that much or talk about private stuff so much.
Well, I talk to him about it a lot, but I don't get too far into his...
And I guess we don't... But he knows all my shit from what I tell everybody.
And then I talk to him.
We've never really not gotten along.
We have a very good working relationship and personal relationship.
A lot of love for each other.
And we've been working together a long time.
But I don't think we...
I think the focus is on professionalism and our work ethic, which is pretty deep.
But I've relied on him for counsel and advice.
And I think one time maybe during Trump where I really needed answers and he didn't have them and we were all in the same boat.
But I always think Brendan has the answers.
And there was one time where he just really didn't.
And I could tell he got a little mad at me.
Just not really at me, but sort of like, you know, dude, just shut up.
We're in it together here.
We're in the same shit.
There's no getting out.
I just always think Brendan has the answer.
And I think sometimes when he doesn't, it's hard for me to take.
And it might get a little aggravated.
But other than that, no, just one fight back in the day at Air America.
He kind of lost his shit on me.
And then I lost my shit on him about that.
And it never happened again.
And that must have been 2007, 2008.
Yeah, we have a miraculous working and personal relationship with most of the focus being on the working.
Did you ever end up finding out what that guy put in those eggs from when you were a kid in New Mexico?
The genius eggs?
No, I think I might be exaggerating for a joke that never worked, but I tell this story.
I don't think he put anything special in him.
Do you still have a desire to direct or act in a play?
It waned pretty quickly when I realized just how much of an undertaking it would be.
weeks and weeks and weeks doing the same thing you know what i'd have to do to my life i i i think i i'm i'm learning a little more recently how the difference between what is fantasy in terms of my desires and what is practical and things i really want and can and would probably do and i think acting in a play and directing a play is in the fantasy column
As you've talked about directing, where are you looking for inspiration technically?
I can imagine you have a lot of experience with scripts and story, but what about camera angles, lighting, all the visual stuff?
That part of movies and TV always seems impenetrable to me.
Well, having been on a few sets, not a ton, but enough to see how a set works and the timing of the set...
you know, how much time things take and who's involved with lighting and sound and set and production design and all that.
Having experienced that on sets, I sort of know what has to happen on a set to get a shot.
And lately I've been watching different directors, paying different attention, listening to directors talk more about working with actors, about getting shots, about...
DPs, uh, and production design and set design, been paying more attention and watching some Coen brothers movies.
Um, I just been paying more attention in general to everything I'm watching.
Uh, and also having been with Lynn Shelton for a while and seeing her process helped me understand a little more and seeing the other directors I've worked with on shows and movies.
Um, but yeah, I'm just, I'm just a little more attentive while watching almost anything right now.
You said a while back that you were developing sleep issues, twitching, light sleep, crazy dreams.
Have you Googled it?
What did you come up with?
I don't remember talking about that.
I get to sleep okay, but I wake up a few times, sometimes to pee, and sometimes my body just thinks it's awake at like four in the morning.
And that's usually when Charlie starts rubbing his nose on my face.
So there's a bit of a 15 to 20 minute awake break around 4, 430 usually.
And then I kind of make myself go back to sleep.
I don't know what that's about.
What are your fondest memories with one of your cats, past or present?
Well, you know, cats, the memory of cats never goes away.
And, you know, that original crew of cats I had back in Astoria, I have memories of trapping all of them, and they were all very feral, and it was insane.
They destroyed my house.
But I remember the first time I saw a monkey, because he was out in the alley going through the garbage in Astoria, and he had this little tuft of hair on his nose that made his face look like a monkey, which was why I named him that.
And Little LaFonda was this runt of this wild litter out back.
And she always had this little swagger, this kind of like almost bulldoggy like swagger.
Just seeing those dumb cats in the garbage before I trapped them with something.
And then having them both for, you know, 16 years is kind of crazy.
And then there was Butch who died a young death.
The first cat that was bought for me by my ex-wife Mishnah when we were dating after my marriage fell apart.
She got me Butch.
And Butch made the move out here to California with us.
That was my first cat, actually.
And we drove Butch.
It was just very funny because we put a plant that Butch used to like to sleep in, in the car, thinking that Butch would sleep in the plant in the car, which he didn't.
And that was a long journey across country with Butch the Cat.
And then when I went back to do Air America, that's where I got the other cats in 2004, had the brood.
And they went back and forth with me over the years.
I brought them out here and the monkey went back to New York with me.
And that was nice, just having a monkey.
I wanted company.
So he flew back with me.
You know, I travel with those cats more than you would imagine possible with cats.
But also, those were all good memories, you know.
Back in the day at the old house, then we had Boomer.
He peed on everything, had to live outside, then he disappeared.
But yeah, just the arc of the lives of those cats.
And now these new ones, you know...
Finding Buster on the front porch, trapping him, finding little Charlie out back, little Puffball.
You know, there's long histories with these cats and a lot of strays, too.
There's no specific memories.
But I do remember, like, when I decided to take Monkey back to New York with me, when I went back to do Break Room Live.
It was a good decision to bring him back to where he came from, just to have company.
He was a good cat.
You're a person interested in self-growth and personal development as I am.
And I get a lot out of your podcast because of that.
I also get a little depressed and discouraged listening to your ups and downs.
You often talk about progress in one podcast, but then indicate setbacks in the next.
I've tried therapy, coaching, self-help books, 12-step programs.
I see how I've changed in small ways, but the big stuff, the huge self-defeating stuff remains stubborn and hard to let go.
You don't seem to sugarcoat things.
Do you have actionable advice that works for real change?
You know, really over time, the only actionable advice is contrary action.
You know, not following your instincts, not following your inner voices that tell you not to do stuff or that tell you you suck.
I mean, all you can do is wait that shit out.
Stuff passes.
But in terms of stopping yourself from doing things because of...
insecurity or self-hate, you just have to force yourself to do it until it's a habit.
So I think contrary action, acting as if, you know, incremental steps as well are the only actionable advice I have.
And also vocalizing it and realizing that you're repeating patterns or whatever helps, but it all passes and then it comes back around.
But if you're living in something that's hobbling you, I mean, either you have to
Get in there and fix it and process the trauma or just, you know, force yourself to act against it.
And if you do that with regularity consistently, eventually that is what you'll do.
That'll become stronger than the negative thing.
I found out my 16-year-old cat Vinny has a bone tumor on his leg.
He has arthritis, so amputation isn't an option.
The vet told me he has maybe six months.
I'm 30, so you can imagine the emotional connection I have to a cat that I've had for more than half my life.
I've never had to put an animal down before.
I'm working hard to be present and enjoy this time, but the anticipatory grief is too much some days.
Do you have any advice for this kind of grief or how to cope until that awful day?
Well, no.
No, there's no advice.
Because what's happening...
And what happened to me in these situations is I sort of made my cats hang on for as long as I could.
And I think that alongside of your anticipatory grief is the realization that it's the right thing to do.
And eventually that'll sort of, that'll kind of become very obvious.
And you'll just realize that keeping them alive is probably selfish.
And that they'd be more... They'd be okay dead.
And then they're not people.
They're not experiencing this the same way you are.
And, you know, you're doing something loving.
And you're doing something necessary.
It's the hardest part about owning pets.
And I grew up with a mom that was very not present for it.
She'd just drop them off and have them put down.
But lately...
For the last two cats I had put down, I was there with them and held them while it happened, which is closure and it's horrible, but it's pretty good.
You feel like you're there from right up to the end, but there's nothing to do about that anticipatory grief other than know that you're doing the right thing and you'll sense when it's time.
Because they will have had enough.
And they've lived a pretty good long life.
You gave them a good life.
It's okay.
It'll be sad for a while.
And you'll always remember that guy.
But there's plenty of kittens around, pal.
You seem to be completely at peace with your parents now.
What is your advice on how to achieve this with parents who have provided years worth of trauma?
I don't know, man, you're not going to get them to, they're not going to make it better.
And eventually that's on you.
You know, you've got to make it better.
Whatever they did, you got to make it better.
Don't expect anything out of them after a certain point.
And, you know, they're going to get old and sad and feeble.
And you want to try to process that stuff for yourself, you know, before they're dead.
So at least you can, you know, you don't have any regrets around your side of things.
Just take the opportunity to do what you have to do to process it, whether it's with them or with somebody else.
But ultimately with my parents, it's like, I don't know.
I focus on the good things I got from both of them.
It's still a little annoying with stuff, but I don't feel that.
And I still, you know, I'm uncomfortable with it and with them to a degree.
But I don't know.
Once you correct the voices they planted inside of you that are damaging to you,
a bit you know you can let them off the hook a little and you know at least have some acceptance i don't know how it happened but it just happened and i am pretty at peace with them though i still wonder you know i still am sort of mining the depth of the trauma but it's sort of on me it's me now i don't expect anything from them i think that's where the shift is
But I kind of never did anyways.
But I was mad about it because they couldn't give it.
But once I realized that that's just the way they are, the expectations, whatever they were and however old they were, you know, they kind of diminished.
And then I just had to look to myself for to get the answers and get the the emotional needs met if possible.
I don't know.
It's tricky, but they get old and you might want to get some peace before they go.
All right, there you go.
Hope those were satisfactory answers.
Thanks for listening.