BONUS Archive Deep Dive - The Problematics
Thank you.
Marc:Okay, we can go.
Marc:All right.
Marc:We can do it.
Marc:We're in person.
Marc:We're live in person in a hotel room on the Bowery, Lower East Side.
Guest:We used to do it this way back in the Libsyn days, when we have to do bonus material for that.
Guest:We used to do it in a hotel room, just grab the mics, and we didn't do very much of it, but we did it when we...
Marc:The hotel room situation I remember with you and I was when we were doing that thing for Air America and The Guardian.
Guest:Oh, that too, yeah.
Marc:What a fucking nightmare that was.
Guest:It was, but it was still a hugely fun experience.
Marc:It was.
Marc:We were all over the country using a technology that no one cared about or engaged with.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And we were trying to do live things with...
Marc:With a technology that wasn't there yet.
Marc:Weren't we trying to live stream video at one point?
Guest:There was live stream stuff, but for The Guardian, we were paid to start out on the West Coast and travel with their team.
Guest:This was the same crew who shot the Air America documentary, Left of the Dial.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And they knew you from that, and they said that you would be the good guide for doing, like, a tour of America on the eve of the 2008 presidential election.
Marc:And I remember there was a campaign stop for...
Guest:We did a McCain stop.
Guest:We did a Palin stop.
Guest:Yeah, we saw Sarah Palin in Colorado, I think.
Marc:Yeah, and I remember at the Palin rally, there was a big runway for her to walk down.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And then I was wearing a Guardian laminate.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And there were literally people going like, oh, there's the enemy.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:It was happening even back then.
Guest:She really was the proto-Trump.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Yes, well, and those things, I don't even know if you can find them online anymore.
Marc:It's weird how much of my stuff, or the stuff we did, all the Air America stuff is up there somewhere, right?
Guest:Definitely the Break Room Live stuff, for sure.
Guest:And then, thankfully, that person who set up the Morning Seditionist's website had basically archived all of our shows from Air America.
Guest:So those are in existence, and I have been able to find stuff on there when I've needed to.
Marc:PJ, yeah.
Guest:That's the person who did the Morning Seditionist.
Marc:But it didn't have a name like the Green Sea or it was not Green Sea.
Marc:Not Green Sea.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:So, yes, that stuff is not easily found.
Guest:But what is easily found, especially for you full Marin listeners, is every episode of WTF.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And from time to time, we highlight stuff in our archives.
Guest:But something that came to my attention, this was recently because we were doing those third act guest segments, kind of pulling those out of the archives, putting them together as compilations.
Guest:You were doing intros on them, kind of explaining these past segments we did that were comedy segments.
Guest:And we got this comment from a listener named Juan after we did this for the first time.
Guest:And it's specifically because we featured the segment with Nick Kroll doing the Latin radio DJ character El Chupacabra.
Guest:And this guy Juan said, people can say jokes, but that was a 15 minute bit.
Guest:We Mexicans have been shit on my entire life in California.
Guest:Didn't expect it from you when I purchased the full Marin.
Guest:Didn't expect you to laugh at such obvious Latinos sound different jokes.
Guest:And, you know, there are plenty of people I think who understood that bit to be like a kind of impression done with authenticity and precision.
Guest:And frankly, there's YouTube videos of those chupacabra segments and the comments are filled with people that are like,
Guest:I'm Hispanic and this sounds exactly like our radio guys.
Guest:I love this, right?
Guest:But I don't want to take that away from this person who is offended by it.
Guest:And frankly, I was ready to post the second one of those that we did
Guest:and decided against it said oh well i got this message that would be kind of lousy of me yeah to read this and not take it into account and then just go ahead and post the second el chupacabra bit um you know because i i don't think that the fact that there are some people out there who like the bit and they're saying hey i'm hispanic i liked it that doesn't supersede sure someone else's opinion and these are now paying customers this isn't just on our free feed right so i understand that but i also get like why
Guest:context is necessary right like i i think that like there's plenty of reasons to still i still love those old bits that we did because they were so kind of pure of comedy spirit right but i don't think you would feel good about offending someone with them it's not the intention is not to offend
Marc:Yeah, I don't even know that Nick—it's interesting because that show, the Big Mouth show, that there was some controversy around casting in terms of honoring the ethnicity or gender-specific voices, which they owned and they changed.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And I don't know that Nick Kroll would do that voice again, given what is being said.
Marc:And I don't know that times were that different in anything other than cultural sensitivity.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:that I think that there might have been a time, and I can't speak for this guy, not unlike many of the Latinos that were entertained by it, where they just didn't think in those terms.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That this was some version of brownface.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:This guy called it in the topic of this, he said it was brown voice.
Guest:And it did give me some pause and made me think about it as a bit of a blind spot for myself to go, oh, I was just totally enjoying it on the level of the kind of precision of it and the, you know...
Guest:authenticity of it sounding like the type of radio.
Guest:We used to talk about it in that specific trip that we took for The Guardian.
Guest:You and I were driving cross country.
Guest:Sometimes it was just you and me in the car.
Guest:And we would put on Spanish language radio just to listen to how fun it sounded.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, morning Spanish radio or drive time Spanish radio.
Marc:It's just exciting.
Guest:Yes, right.
Guest:We were enjoying it just on the level of it being energetic.
Guest:And I think that was my general enjoyment of the Kroll bit.
Guest:But to think that it was offensive, it also made me realize...
Guest:oh yeah, I'm not blind to this.
Guest:I have thought of this before in other contexts.
Marc:Right, well, before we get to that, I think there's Hari Kondabolu to really thank for this raised awareness around brown voice.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:In terms of the Simpsons character.
Guest:Okay, but in the same sense, I don't think that they've stopped airing the reruns of The Simpsons, where Hank Azaria does Apu.
Marc:I don't think Azaria was in any other spirit other than comedy when he did it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But he now understands why there was a negativity associated with it.
Guest:And I think that's part of growth.
Guest:It's part of evolution.
Guest:It all makes sense.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But I also think that you have to understand the context of just because they're still going to show an episode from 1992 on TV with Hank doing that voice doesn't mean they're directly endorsing that negative depiction of Hindus and Indians.
Guest:I think they're saying this was, at the time, the way we did that.
Guest:And the context around that
Guest:is important.
Guest:And it is always something that has been at the front of my mind, and it wasn't in this specific instance, which again, I said, is a blind spot.
Guest:But I have always thought there are things in our archives where I am not comfortable just putting them back out into the world without an explanation.
Guest:And we've been through many partnership deals where it's been proposed to us
Guest:Like with SiriusXM, oh, we'll just start a WTF stream where, you know, it's like a live stream of WTF all the time.
Guest:And I have turned it down because I don't think that's responsible.
Guest:I think that a lot of stuff, if it's from 10, 12, 14 years ago, should be put in the context of the time that it was done.
Guest:And part of that, to me, is important because we have legacy involved here.
Guest:It's not just a legacy of our show, which I think is important.
Guest:I do think that we've done a lot in terms of documenting the evolution of comedy over the last almost 15 years.
Guest:But I think there's also some things for legacy of individual people who've been on the show.
Guest:Think about Robin Williams.
Guest:That got put in the Library of Congress for a reason.
Guest:People were like, I don't think I ever heard that guy talk like that.
Marc:Yeah, it doesn't exist anywhere else.
Guest:In an audio format.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Probably in any format that there is a level of candid conversation and sort of freedom of mind that shed light on his darkness, really.
Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I've thought that about several episodes in our past.
Guest:And I'm not just talking about any time where something you could go back.
Guest:I'm sure if you're listening to the show from the start, you might hear some stuff that seems insensitive in the modern context.
Guest:That's not what I'm talking about.
Guest:I'm talking about specific episodes that I think are worthy of...
Guest:of examination, of people listening to them if they never heard them, of, you know, frankly, enjoying, right?
Guest:That may have things in them that would rub people the wrong way.
Guest:And I'm thinking of three or technically even four episodes specifically.
Guest:And I kind of wanted to bring them up and have us talk about them and get your reaction to them.
Guest:And the first one that I'm thinking of is episode 95, and that was with Patrice O'Neill.
Guest:who is now no longer with us.
Guest:Patrice died several years ago.
Guest:But that episode was one of our, you know, it was a high attention episode when we did it, but not in a negative way.
Guest:Not that people were like, can you believe what these guys said?
Guest:It was mostly like, wow, this is crazy that these two people are talking like this, like honestly and openly.
Guest:Um,
Marc:on this show well the thing about patrice was it despite whatever you think about him or what whatever line he pushed uh in his stand-up is that he definitely had a point of view and and if you just watch his stand-up you realize that he would go over that line and and do it for a reason yeah and it was usually around race and it was usually around you know the
Marc:relatively wrong-minded about women but but he lived there but when you just saw it as stand-up you could do what you want with it you know there were plenty of women i would imagine that were like you know this is fucking awful yes but nonetheless it was his point of view and it was the jokes that he was doing and he was not going to pull back he was not contrite or or it was pre-cancel but he wasn't going to apologize for anything right
Marc:And I knew Patrice as this presence because he was a comic that I always liked seeing because you could always rely on him to bust your balls in a way that you would almost learn something about yourself in that moment.
Marc:And we had sort of a mutual respect, but he was a lot to deal with.
Marc:I remember...
Marc:when I used to do tough crowd where it was like, I remember there's one time where, you know, I said, who's going to be on to singer, the guy who was booking it.
Marc:And he's like, it's you and Patrice and whoever and whoever.
Marc:And I'm like, Oh fuck.
Marc:Cause like no one's going to be able to talk.
Marc:How am I like, now I've got to worry about how to get a word in edgewise with that monster.
Marc:And it's so like the entire episode, I'm just sort of like, how do I stop him from steamrolling me and everything?
Marc:Like, what am I going to do?
Marc:And you can see it happen.
Marc:And,
Marc:And Patrice and I have a very weird and long history.
Marc:Before he was anybody, and he was just relatively new to New York, we did a bit for Conan with him.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And it was a great bit.
Guest:Still talked about.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Well, I remember when we went to the wrestling show in L.A., there was a comic backstage who was like, oh, man, I know you from that video with Patrice where he attacked you on stage.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But at that time, no one knew Patrice.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And the premise of that bit, I guess you can still see it somewhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's just that I'm doing this set on stage.
Marc:It was at the comic strip.
Guest:You threw it to a tape.
Guest:You said I had a crazy incident.
Marc:Yeah, I'm on Conan, and I said, I'm trying to work on this one-man show, and I'm doing this type of material that it's hard to do.
Marc:The reaction is a little...
Marc:difficult.
Marc:Sometimes like this happened at a comedy club and we cut to this, which was actually a, it looked exactly like the camera at the comic strip, which was the stationary camera that wasn't even framed properly.
Marc:So you could just look at your sets, study your sets.
Marc:And I'm doing this bit and I snap and I'm like, you guys don't get me.
Marc:What the, what the, and then just added, you just hear Patrice's voice like, Oh,
Marc:Get off stage.
Marc:What is this?
Marc:And he just gets on stage and he's wearing this ridiculous outfit with his shorts and he's a giant.
Marc:And he just he just throws me down.
Marc:He just tackles me on stage and just starts, you know, he just throws me down.
Marc:And, you know, Conan's like, wow, that's like, that's a lot.
Marc:That's terrible.
Marc:And, and, and Conan's like, well, would you like to try some of it here?
Marc:And I'm like, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I think I can do it here.
Marc:And then I go into the same bit and I lose my mind, the same mind.
Marc:It's like, you guys aren't getting this out of the Conan audience wearing the same outfit.
Yeah.
Marc:Patrice comes out on code and he tackles me and it was hilarious.
Marc:But so my history with Patrice is long, but you know, Patrice is a genuine or was a genuinely controversial comic because he was unapologetic in his point of view.
Marc:Now,
Marc:I don't think anybody had any idea about how deep that point of view was.
Guest:And how informed it was by personal experience.
Marc:Yes, by personal experience, but also a need for a philosophical outlook that worked for him.
Marc:And so that interview took place at Sirius, because I think we had both just done Opie and Anthony.
Guest:Yeah, he was regular on that show.
Guest:You were a guest.
Guest:And then afterwards, you just went and found a studio.
Marc:A studio, empty studio, and sat down with this equipment.
Marc:And, uh, and did a WTF interview.
Marc:And it was interesting because if you really think about the moments and how some of these interviews, any of our interviews happen when they're remote is that, you know, if we just an Opie and a, if we just an Opie and Anthony, you know, we'd both been up since at least six or seven in the morning.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, we're tired and we've just spent, you know, four hours and whatever hell was going on in that studio.
Marc:And, uh, and then we came out.
Marc:So we're, we're kind of raw.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I just went at it with Patrice.
Marc:And it's some people's favorite episode.
Marc:There's a type of person that, you know, I can't speak for them whether it validates their point of view or not.
Marc:But Patrice had a personal worldview around culture, around, you know, men, women, you know, the legal system, you know, race.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And throughout that interview, and based on his personal experience, which was volatile and he was in trouble, I think that came up with the woman, right?
Guest:Well, it was that he went to jail for statutory rape.
Guest:And, you know, it was basically a thing that informed his entire life, or I wouldn't even say it's necessarily informed.
Guest:He sought ways to explain life, systematize, right?
Guest:He wanted to have these systemic explanations around things, which is why everything became analogies.
Guest:He has all these elaborate analogies.
Guest:Animal analogies.
Guest:Animals, right?
Guest:Being like a woman and a man are like sharks and whales, and it's like,
Guest:all this stuff.
Guest:And I think a lot of it was so that he could get his head around what he found to be
Guest:Both at the same time something justifiable and unjust, which was how he was treated in the judicial system.
Guest:And I think, you know, it was a scary life that he led, one that was definitely rife with a lot of racism, too.
Guest:Growing up, he grew up around Boston, right?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And he figured out ways to explain it to himself.
Right.
Marc:And I, there was the amazing thing about it, about the analogies is that there is a history.
Marc:It's almost a folkloric history about, you know, using animals.
Marc:But, but it, you know, while I was listening to it, I remember just having that experience.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know, man.
Guest:You can hear it in your voice in the thing.
Guest:I mean, this is another reason why I think to me, I would, I, I need this episode to have a context that,
Guest:before it's put out there into the world again, which is like, if you're going to go listen to it now as part of this subscription, this is good that you're hearing us talk about it first so that you're not just turning this thing on and going like, did Mark agree with all this?
Guest:And it's like, well, I would encourage you while you're listening to this to hear your voice.
Guest:Your laughter is not endorsement.
Guest:It's like almost you're marveling at this.
Guest:It's shocking.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And it's sort of awesome, not in the good way, in a way, that he had worked all this out, and there's a sort of confidence to his voice.
Marc:But I think the bigger point to why we're talking about this is that in the culture we live in, and this is a large point, and it's fluid,
Marc:Is that, do we take that down?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And that's the thing.
Guest:I would never take it down.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I wouldn't necessarily highlight it in a vacuum.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I think that to me, actually, if there was some reason to put it back on the main feed, and let's say you are unavailable, you can't talk.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But we need to put this out there.
Guest:I would just repurpose from that episode.
Guest:There's one section.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I would just clip that out, put it at the very beginning and say, hey, can you listen to this before listening to the full episode?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's a part right where he's about to launch into one of these things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:These analogies or whatever.
Guest:And he says like, you know, and you know, this may be all sophistry.
Yeah.
Guest:Like, that is the most clarifying thing about it.
Guest:Like, he knew that largely this is all shit talk, right?
Guest:And that he's, like, this is just his way of the brain churning, right?
Guest:It's what made him a compelling comic.
Guest:And, like, if you listen to the episode in light of that, I guess, clarification, I think it makes a world of sense.
Marc:Also, and sophistry could mean that he may know good and well that this is going to offend people.
Marc:It's like an extended version of the heart of his sense of humor.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He wants to find the place to poke.
Marc:Yeah, and he does it, but it's very lucid and elaborate, and he's presenting it as if you're taking a class
Marc:that would leave you feeling like wondering whether or not you're a racist and with a painfully wrong understanding of women.
Guest:Yes, that's right.
Guest:Well, the first text I got after that episode was posted was, and it was very early on in knowing this person.
Guest:I didn't know him well at all.
Guest:And I was shocked to get a text from him, but it was Tom Sharpling.
Guest:He texted me and he was like, that Patrice episode, my God.
Guest:I don't think you had even done the show with him yet.
Guest:I don't think I knew him yet.
Guest:I knew of him.
Guest:That was, again, episode 95, and I would encourage everyone to listen to it if you haven't heard it.
Marc:And I think the point that we have to make around...
Marc:and certainly around Patrice, and even in light of a non-controversial episode, but a revealing one, the Robin Williams, is that many of these interviews, I would say most of them that I do, function as fairly accurate and...
Marc:revealing portraits of a person.
Marc:So it's like an aural portrait.
Marc:And all of them are of a time in whatever point in these people's lives that we record them.
Marc:But you can't hide for an hour, really.
Marc:And even if you're hiding from me in that hour, that's going to reveal something about your character or your personality.
Marc:So what you're hearing and another reason, I wouldn't even call it an argument, but another reason why these have to remain available is that they are that.
Marc:They are historical portraits of these people done in an audio fashion.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, and that brings us to the next one I was going to bring up, which is another one that we get emails about all the time.
Guest:In fact, someone just emailed us, got an email from Ben saying this is one of his absolute favorite episodes, and he specifically cited a section where you were laughing so hard it seemed almost uncontrollable.
Guest:And I've also seen people say that this guy's their favorite comedian, and they've never heard him talk this way anywhere else before.
Guest:This is episode 224 with Stephen Wright, which I guess, I don't know if you ever really talked with him before this.
Guest:Was this your first time actually sitting down with him?
Marc:Well, I met him once or twice, and I remember talking to Mike Clark about it.
Marc:Because Mike Clark, who is Lenny Clark's brother, who's...
Marc:been a booker and manager in the Boston area forever, real Boston guy, you know, is friends with Steven.
Marc:And, you know, Steven occupies a space in comedy where he's almost like from outer space.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, you listen to his point of view and the way he structures jokes and he has a character around that.
Marc:But it's almost impossible to decipher
Marc:a personality or even a sense of his humanity in a way.
Marc:So when I learned that he's buddies with Mike Clark, I'm like, I don't know this guy then.
Marc:He's like, I know Mike Clark.
Marc:Mike Clark's like, hey, how you doing, Mac?
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:You want to get some coffee or what are you doing?
Marc:You still drinking?
Marc:You're not drinking?
Marc:He's a Boston guy.
Marc:And I'm like, well, they're hanging out all the time.
Marc:I don't know who Stephen Wright is.
Marc:And I remember running into him somewhere.
Marc:It might have been at a comedy festival.
Marc:And it struck me like, you know, he's really just this peculiar but very New England guy.
Guest:Very Boston.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's noticeable in the episode that when he's not doing the this.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Which is part of his act.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You really hear the Boston.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he's just a regional guy that can, you know, he still is Stephen Wright, but he can have a conversation.
Marc:You know, he has a life and a point of view in the way he engages with the world.
Marc:There aren't sort of, you know, abstract one liners.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I kind of knew that going in, but I didn't fully know where it would go.
Marc:And it was at the old garage.
Marc:And I just remember him coming over.
Marc:And it was just it was it was one of those moments.
Marc:And this happens, again, with almost every episode where, you know, I have ideas about a person.
Marc:But the humanizing factor of conversation when they're relaxed, it's just overwhelmingly amazing.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Where you're sort of like, oh, my God.
Marc:So half the laughter was like, you're just as funny.
Marc:As a guy out of the persona, as you are into the persona, it just adds more depth and expanse to it.
Guest:Well, and, you know, the only reason that this episode even shows up on the level of like a problematic episode is there's one brief moment.
Guest:And it speaks to where we were at the time culturally, not just that he said it, not just that you reacted to it, but also myself.
Guest:I'm involved in this.
Guest:I didn't cut it out.
Guest:I didn't think it was inappropriate what you guys were saying.
Guest:And it was that you were, he was talking about seeing a transgender person at a wedding, dancing on the dance floor, and how it seemed absurd to him.
Guest:And he was laughing at the absurdity of the image of the situation, and...
Guest:You were laughing at his retelling of it.
Guest:Like I said, I left it in the episode because I thought it was an honest expression of his reception of what he was seeing.
Guest:I wouldn't leave it in these days.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cut it, absolutely.
Guest:I think you would probably not laugh at it the way you did in the moment.
Guest:I think that Stephen Wright, maybe, I don't know him personally, I don't know what's in his heart or his mind, but I would think he has probably seen more transgender people or seen a different acceptance of them in the culture.
Marc:Right, evolved the sensitivity.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And...
Guest:What is also unknown to people listening to that episode is that you got, like, response from that, and it actually directly, I think, changed your perceptions, like, right from that moment on.
Guest:Like, you heard from people saying that was, like, hurtful for them to hear, and it made you think about things differently.
Marc:Yeah, that combined with the joke I was doing, you know, about—that I thought was—
Marc:uh you know embracing something that i used to do this joke about that like some transgender you know sort of movement you know transitioning people the the idea was that they were trying to become a mythological being it was not like fuck these people but it was some sort of you know symbolic interpretation that was still amplifying that i thought it was weird
Guest:Well, and it's also born out of a different perception of what that is as an identity issue.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:Right?
Guest:That we have more of an understanding now of... The psychology.
Guest:The psychology and the idea of gender being a construct, which I truly understand it as, and fluidity, non-binary gender representation...
Guest:Totally, absolutely something that is more understood now than it was 12 years ago.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And also my perceptions and Stephen's sort of reaction, which was one that I think, you know, I don't remember the exact context of what he said, but there is a sort of laughter that comes from discomfort.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:But all of it is really kind of cis point of view stuff.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And it holds them in an othering.
Guest:Well, do you remember what the person emailed you about?
Guest:Like, do you remember how that email exchange went?
Marc:With me?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Around the... I don't know if it was about him.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:No, about the changing with the joke and everything?
Marc:Well, the joke is, it's just sort of that...
Marc:I can't remember exactly, but it was just along those lines.
Marc:Like, look, this is fundamentally putting us in a box and pigeonhole us.
Marc:And it's not even a stereotype thing as much of it is an insensitivity to the realities that you just said.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That the understanding of it became more expansive.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And the respect for their journey or their identity, however they choose to have it.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Marc:You know, it diminishes that.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's funny.
Guest:I think of it in this term, and I'm not equating the two things, but this is kind of what helped me get around to the idea of, like, yeah, just because you felt a certain way in the past, you meaning yourself and me, about, like, oh, this was... Like, Stephen Wright's saying this.
Guest:I can leave it in.
Guest:It's his expression of something, and, you know, everybody doesn't have to have the same viewpoint on something, whereas now I understand it as regressive, and...
Guest:And not necessarily something that's helpful to a world of tolerance and progress.
Marc:Yeah, because it's fundamentally othering.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And I remember this incident that happened when I worked in news radio at WNYC.
Guest:And I worked with Brian Lehrer, who you've been on his show, or you at least know him from WNYC radio.
Guest:He's a news guy.
Guest:Oh, yeah, I've been on his show.
Guest:A very level-headed guy.
Guest:and a smart person, news person, news-oriented person.
Guest:And I remember there was this day, he went on the air, his 10 o'clock show, and was in the middle of February or something, and it was like a record cold day.
Guest:you know, negative 10 degrees or something.
Guest:And, you know, it's like New York.
Guest:Everybody knows when it's that cold.
Guest:Everybody's bundled up and then he got on the mic and he was like, you know, hey, Brian Lehrer's show and global warming be damned.
Guest:It is negative 10 degrees outside or whatever.
Guest:Just a tossed off thing.
Guest:Well, he got all these complaints from people calling into the show, writing into the show, saying, that is part of global warming.
Guest:And I remember it was like an after-the-show meeting with the staff and that, and I was in the newsroom, so I happened to hear that.
Guest:And everyone's like, oh, gosh, it was like people were treating it like it was pedantic, right?
Guest:Like everyone knows he was just making a flip comment to start the show about the weather, right?
Guest:And it's like in hindsight, well, no, actually, that is a thing that is helpful to know that extreme weather patterns are happening because of climate change, right?
Guest:Whether it's too hot or too cold or too many storms or too anything.
Marc:Right, and you don't want to give fuel to people that will stubbornly believe against science.
Marc:It's like, come on, you see?
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:This was the argument against what was going on with Chappelle, with all of his trans jokes, where he thought he was making some big stand for freedom of speech and not let people push back against... Don't let people tell you what you can and can't say, and yet it was so easily...
Guest:taken as a right-wing frame to suppress a group of people who are powerless, ultimately.
Marc:Yeah, proportionately, there's four of them, if you were to look at the ratio.
Marc:And also, not to take away from Dave's point, because I think there's legitimacy to it, but him sort of hammering away at it for two or three specials made it something else.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:And also like to speak again about, you know, cis culture discomfort around people who are different.
Marc:I think you're more prone to evolving and tolerance if you,
Marc:there's a crossroads with it where you're laughing because it's awkward, you don't understand it because it becomes in the moment relatively impossible to be empathetic to the plight of somebody who makes those decisions for themselves.
Marc:So you're just sort of like, oh man.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Right?
Marc:But in that moment, you can either move towards like, well, I understand and thank you for making that clear or like, fuck those people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, think about it this way.
Guest:What...
Guest:Stephen was laughing at in that moment of remembering this incident and his conclusion of like, it's basically, it's a comedy.
Guest:That was his mindset around it.
Guest:And it's basically how he made his jokes and that, observing things in the world.
Marc:Sure, he was seeing some sort of weird drag show in his mind.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And it's basically the same thing that Gallagher was saying to you, which you pushed back against Gallagher with, where he was saying, you know, if you see a woman in a Harley outfit riding a motorcycle, like acting like a man, basically he was saying about doing lesbian jokes and
Guest:And he said, like, that's funny.
Guest:I didn't make that up.
Guest:That's God made that up, made that different and whatever.
Guest:And you were like, but that's just a person trying to live their life.
Guest:And it's the same thing with Stephen.
Guest:And you both were not there yet, right?
Guest:Think of it in the same way that you had thought of it in that moment with Gallagher.
Guest:And that's what progress and time and evolving attitudes toward things are.
Guest:is you being able to be like, no, I feel the same way now as I did sit in that room with Gallagher, as somebody saying, hey, a trans person is inherently a comedy.
Guest:Well, no, now I know that to be the case that that's just inherently a person.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, and then if you want to challenge yourself to reframe your comedy, you can do that if you treat them as a person.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And the idea of punching down
Marc:I mean, the idea of stereotyping and minorities, which by the nature of that phrasing, you know, means that, you know, they've already got a struggle on their hands.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But the idea of punching down, look, and I have to credit Dan Natterman, you know, for a tweet on this because it stuck with me when people say, you know, this frame because of Carlin recently that, you know, comedy isn't about punching down.
Marc:And that's a lie.
Marc:You know, comedy for centuries.
Yeah.
Marc:has involved punching down.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Or just the most basic version of a person falling on their nuts or something.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It could be anybody.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But that frame of it makes it sort of different.
Marc:It makes it more challenging, and it makes it more inclusive to sort of be aware of that.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And to be aware and have some fundamental respect as opposed to a reaction based on an immediate experience of someone who's different.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:Well, and it's interesting because we've just talked about this so much in respect of this one episode where it's literally like...
Guest:you know, 90 seconds of this conversation.
Guest:And this is why to me, it's like, well, that conversation should remain in the world.
Guest:But I also would never want somebody to just be like, listen to Mark Maron and Stephen Wright be transphobes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like like it needs and it needs to be addressed.
Guest:It doesn't need to be cut out of the episode.
Guest:We should own it for what it is.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But the fact that you just said that, listen to Mark Maron and Stephen Wright be transphobes in terms of being cut out is that when you put something like this out in the world, things can be taken out of context over immediately and redefined.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Through recontextualization.
Marc:But that's a problem, a cultural problem that's different.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's a quick bait problem.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Well, speaking of clickbait problem, I would say that this basically became one of the most clickbaited things we've ever done in multiple eras.
Guest:It was when it came out.
Guest:It was again when it was highlighted as...
Marc:For different reasons, yeah.
Guest:Quote, the best podcast episode of all time.
Guest:And then later on with his fall from grace, I guess you would say.
Guest:And this was episode 111 and 112, a two-part episode with Louis C.K.
Guest:And this was the main thing that made me think when the Me Too movement started...
Guest:should we stop doing the show was that this was such a, uh, large part of our legacy.
Guest:And I, it made me question what that legacy was because of this specific episode.
Guest:Um, and you know, this is, this is not because you and Louie said anything in the episode that would be put in a
Guest:In present day, like it was with the Stephen Wright one, it's not like the Patrice one where it's all of the content is deliberately incendiary and controversial on purpose, right?
Guest:This is a thing where just what this person, Louis, as a person, came to represent publicly is different than what it was at the time.
Guest:I mean, if you remember, I'm sure you remember this.
Guest:that it was monumental to even get the interview, right?
Guest:Like, he was the early version of Lorne for this show.
Marc:And also, like, when I did it, I think it was one of those sort of rare instances where it kind of, two things met up.
Marc:Like, there was, this was an opportunity, it's like,
Marc:I'll help Mark out.
Marc:I don't know what this thing he's doing is.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, so there was a total innocence to what it was or what it would become, and neither of us really knew, but also it indulged him.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:To talk about him.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:And also to sort of deal with, you know, what our perceived friendship was at that time.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So it was all done in sort of a kind of excited innocence.
Marc:But I really think when he did it, he had no concept.
Right.
Guest:that it meant anything well also it was like you were pestering him a lot about it and i do think part of him thought let me do this thing so i can tell this guy why i've been unhappy with him right right like there was part of that too like yeah he was gonna do it and kind of school you a little i could have used you
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Well, this episode, when it came out, was instantly highly regarded for us.
Guest:It was told to us over and over again that people got into the show because of listening to this.
Guest:And then in 2014, December 2014, Slate did a week of podcast week where it was basically considered 10 years of podcasting at that point from the inception of the first podcast.
Guest:And they ranked the 25 greatest podcast episodes ever.
Guest:This episode, both parts of it, was considered their number one episode of all time.
Guest:at that point.
Guest:And I'm going to read what they wrote about it.
Guest:It says, Mark Maron's two-hour-plus conversation with Louis C.K.
Guest:is one of the best interviews you'll ever hear, providing genuine insight into the mind and career of one of the world's great comics, as well as thoughtful meditations on success, failure, friendship, and fatherhood.
Guest:On top of all that, this episode, for someone who's listened to a lot of podcasts, feels almost like a coming-of-age moment for the form.
Guest:Marin started his podcast at a professional low out of a desperation.
Guest:When he first began recording WTF, he was sneaking into the studios of the radio station that just fired him and not for the first time, putting something out into the world via this new independent medium because he wasn't sure what else to do.
Guest:Then a following grew.
Guest:Marin was self-consciously bitter about his professional disappointments, and many of his conversations were with more successful peers.
Guest:Though it wasn't a stated goal of the podcast, you could detect, in some of the early episodes, Marin working out some of his resentments and coming to know himself better through the frequently intense talks with fellow comics.
Guest:This all came to a head in the episode with CK, whom Marin had known for more than two decades and who had become widely acknowledged as the best stand-up in the country.
Guest:When the second part was over, it was clear not only that WTF was a wonderful thing, but that podcasts themselves were a remarkable form.
Guest:I mean, I remember that very clearly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember this being written.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember them telling us they were going to name it the number one episode, and they did an interview with you about that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I did think, wow, this is the legacy of the show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I didn't know how much time we had left.
Guest:I didn't know if we were going to do it for many more years or anything.
Guest:We still had no idea that Obama was going to happen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I did think, well, this is how we will be remembered.
Guest:This will be it.
Guest:And three years later, when Louis' transgressions came to light, and he was essentially scrubbed from all entertainment at the time.
Guest:His management, his television deals, production deals, everything gone.
Guest:And he had admitted to what he did.
Guest:And it just became very clear to me that like, well, now this is not this paragraph anymore, or at least that's what I thought at the time.
Guest:Like I thought this thing that was written by Slate, it no longer can stand on its own.
Guest:It has to kind of be rewritten and whatnot.
Guest:And my feeling now is that essentially, like, if I were today to have to re-release that Louis episode, I would want to just do what I just did, read that thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's what it was at that moment in time.
Right.
Guest:I mean, forget about the fact that in the interview, Louis talks about his compulsion to masturbate and how it was a stress relief, anxiety thing for him and some of those type of peculiarities.
Guest:It's like that's not the relevant part of the interview to me unless you're just looking for salaciousness.
Marc:Well, man, if we only got him to admit and apologize for what he had done.
Marc:Right then and there.
Marc:It would have changed everything.
Guest:I guess.
Guest:I mean, I think I've always said that, you know, his biggest mistake was not getting out ahead of that when it happened.
Marc:But conversely, you know, when it did go, when the shit did hit the fan for him, you know, that was like a Sunday Times piece, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And there was sort of like this...
Marc:awareness on your behalf and on the show's behalf and, you know, and then on my behalf that we were so publicly sort of connected and attached to Louie and me personally as well that we had to, you know, immediately respond.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:So, you know, and I was very careful, you know, when people like hundreds of people on Twitter were like, well, what are you going to do?
Marc:What are you going to say?
Marc:What do you, what do you think?
Marc:And I was like, I'll deal with this
Marc:on my platform, on the show.
Guest:And you saw the shitstorm even just from that.
Guest:People were ready.
Guest:The knives were out.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Just on the basis of you even saying, I'll address this on the show.
Guest:It was like, no, now.
Guest:Fucking now.
Guest:There was this demand.
Guest:And that was to tell you what a kind of volatile moment that was in the culture.
Guest:Understandably so in most regards.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But it was also prescient in that almost every moment became that eventually.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, uh, but no, but, and I remember cause we were out of town.
Marc:I don't remember.
Marc:We were, I think we were in Seattle.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was, and we were in a room like this, you know, trying to figure out how to frame and, and how to say what I needed to say, which was, and you know, in relation to, you know, what we talked about on the podcast years before, you know, friendship and whatnot was that there was a detachment that was necessary and, and, uh, and something I needed to say, uh,
Marc:But ultimately, it was that, like, well, I didn't know the depth of this and that, you know, he did something wrong.
Marc:But I am his friend.
Marc:And if he needs me to somehow be that, you know, I am still there.
Marc:Really, right?
Marc:Yeah, that was it.
Marc:And then...
Marc:That was our statement, and that was all we did.
Marc:We've handled things like that, too.
Marc:We've managed to maintain control over how we react to things that become publicly volatile.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Or Obama, too.
Marc:But...
Marc:But ultimately, our friendship didn't sustain it.
Marc:But getting back to it, this is still, for some people, the best episode.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also, with me, in terms of other things in my life, in terms of the work of people that have transgressed and paid a...
Marc:in many cases, a justifiable price for it, you know, what do you do with the work?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it's weird because, you know, whatever's happening with Louis, you know, I find that people, you know, despite, and sometimes they contextualize it, you know, even though he did this or that, he had that one bit.
Marc:But I just ordered a copy of Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Marc:By Woody Allen.
Marc:And, you know, I know what Woody Allen did, and I know where he stands in the world, but I don't know that I can separate that movie being a masterpiece, you know, from who he is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it's still, like, it's still part of me.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And my belief in that piece of work.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I think this speaks to the ideas that we're talking about here about leaving things up.
Marc:That you can't...
Marc:You know, for whatever reason, whether it's right or left reasons or ethics or whatnot, erasing history generally is not a great idea.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But that's the thing.
Guest:It's like I'm never obviously never going to go erase this Louis episode.
Guest:But if I went unannounced and reposted it today, so it's the first thing that shows up in your podcast feed tomorrow, it would be loaded.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, that's a statement in and of itself to just put that episode back out there without context.
Guest:But is it, though, if you just date it?
Guest:Because no matter what— But that's what it would need.
Guest:It would need more than just to have the date on it.
Guest:It would have to have, like, we're putting this up there because we still consider it the best episode.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But also, like, no matter what you do, you know, people are going to have their feelings, perceptions, and beliefs about—
Marc:that person, and they're going to bring that to the episode, and that's just going to be the way it's going to be.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Well, I guess in full circle, that's very similar to how this listener felt about hearing those El Chupacabra bits.
Guest:It's like, well, I'm not going to tell that person that he's wrong.
Guest:That's a valid opinion on that stuff.
Guest:I also have to feel like
Guest:Yes, I don't have to spring that thing on people unaware of the kind of racially loaded nature of it, right?
Guest:I should be aware of that just as you should.
Guest:And if we're going to have people hear it, we should say, this is...
Marc:what the bid is we did it at this time there wasn't really a consideration about it as a offensive bit back then and we understand that it might be well that's i mean i think that's the genius and the necessity and and sort of the decency of the the the trigger warning yes right i mean that that is a a way to
Marc:maintain the integrity of history, but provide some context and a heads up.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Well, I think it's good that, for instance, when I see it on the Disney streaming service, they'll put stuff ahead of some of those old cartoons and say there's racially questionable stuff in Dumbo, which there is.
Guest:There's a bunch of crows called Jim Crow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:friends and you know it's like it's not great but it also is there right and you should be able to watch that and if you have savvy kids they should be aware of that but be aware of it but also like it's a learning moment for anybody like that that like this is the way it was that's right this is where we're now we are now
Marc:Yeah, well, we were just talking about that with the French Connection.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Now I'm mad because I want to see that scene.
Guest:Yeah, well, that was taken out of the streaming of the French Connection is the scene where Popeye Doyle uses the N-word.
Guest:I shouldn't say he just uses it.
Guest:He says it deliberately, pointedly, as a slur.
Guest:And it's important.
Marc:It's important to know what a racist he is.
Marc:But it's a character moment.
Marc:It's intrinsic.
Marc:In completing that character as it was created.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And I think that also in speaking about the podcast that all of these conversations in their time, you know, reveal something about the person.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:So you can take that version of Louis and put it alongside the reality of the arc of his life and his transgressions and sort of kind of make different.
Marc:understandings of him and maybe hear it differently.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And that's an important thing.
Guest:I never thought there'd be a way to hear differently the story of a guy jerking off on a trumpet, but you definitely can hear it differently now.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:What was the tag of that?
Marc:If he'd only jerked off first, he wouldn't have bought the trumpet.
He wouldn't have bought the trumpet.
Guest:Well, with that, if you do want to listen to it, it's episode 111 and 112.
Guest:And again, all of these are recommended episodes, but I think it's important for us to do what we did here.
Guest:And if you are listening to our archives and you hear anything that you think it would be worth us talking about in this way...
Guest:Let us know.
Guest:Send us an email or comment about that, and we're always up for reexamining the stuff that we did.
Marc:I just got one, really, and I didn't show it to you, but it was sort of interesting because some of this stuff is relative to anyone's experience or point of view, and they may not be...
Marc:on the money.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Like someone sent me an email about that Wes, what's his last name?
Marc:Wes, you know, the guy.
Guest:Oh, Wes Bentley.
Marc:Yeah, Wes Bentley.
Marc:Someone who was very sensitive to recovery thought that, you know, me kind of prompting him to tell the drugologue was exploitive.
Marc:And, you know, and I thought about that and I was sort of like, no, this is how addicts talk.
Marc:You know, I'm in recovery.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And, you know, the war story is the war story.
Marc:And it is put, you know, it is put alongside of the recovery story.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So I didn't really agree with that, but I understood his point of view.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, we'll continue to think about these things.
Guest:We've got thousands of hours to think about, so it would be foolish of us to think we could just put these out there and be done with them forever.
Guest:They're always going to exist, and they're always going to live, and they're there for you if you're paying for it.
Marc:And also, even given whatever my intro was at the time.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Those things that change as well.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:Oh, big time.
Guest:Change not just in terms of social stuff, but just personal stuff.
Guest:Look, I've always said the whole thing here is this is a show that is the audio journal of one man's life that just so happens to have guests who come by that might be famous.
Marc:Fits and starts.
Marc:One step forward.
Marc:However many steps back occasionally.
Guest:And then sometimes we're right back here in a hotel talking about this shit.
Guest:Good talking to you.
Guest:All right, man.