BONUS Ask Marc Anything #10
Okay, welcome to it.
Welcome to it.
This is the 10th installment of Ask Mark Anything.
I didn't realize that there would be this many questions.
Not for this time, but for all of them.
I mean, it just keeps going.
Look, I'll do what I can.
Here we go.
Who is the drummer on your intro track?
He rocks.
Okay.
Well, that guy, that's John Montagna, who does all the instruments and
In the WTF theme, we solicited listeners for a theme.
We got other was a long time ago because we had to move away.
We used the opening chords of down payment blues by ACDC for a while.
And we didn't really realize whether or not we were breaking some kind of rules.
So we solicited listeners for a theme.
We got quite a few entries.
But then John did it.
And there's a video out there somewhere, if you can find it, of him actually putting together the theme with all the instruments used.
And there's some toys involved, as I recall.
What made you decide to start doing repeat guests for a full show?
And how do you decide who gets to come back to the garage?
Well, it became apparent that after doing this since however long we've been doing it, which is a long time.
What is it?
19.
It's like a long time since 2009.
So there are people that we interviewed early on that have had entire lives since we talked to them and
And it'd be silly not to be open to sort of kind of complete the arc or at least this portion of their life.
So that's one of the reasons.
Another reason is there are people that I like talking to.
So a combination of those things is what decides whether they come back to the garage, whether I like them and we had a rapport.
and mixed with how long it's been since I've been here.
But sometimes people just like to hear me talk to people I know, and usually comics.
So we figured, why not do more of that?
Especially now with the strike.
I mean, that makes a big difference.
A lot of the people that I get are out promoting things, and they're on junkets, and we kind of wedge them in.
But that shit is over.
That's okay.
You can only have so many actors.
Were there any talks you went into with low expectations and the guest exceeded them?
Look, I got to be honest with you, and I say this a lot.
I never know what's going to happen.
I don't know if my expectations are low, but I don't really know if most people can do what I want to do, which is have a loose conversation.
I think one that comes to mind is Norm MacDonald.
Because I didn't even know if he could talk like a regular person.
A lot of people who are somewhat characters on stage or have a certain style, I just don't know.
Another good example is this past Monday, Melissa Villasenor.
I always liked her.
I worked with her all the time at the comedy store.
I thought about having her on, but I didn't even know if she could have a full conversation.
Just by nature of what I thought her personality was, and I turned out to be wrong.
Does Sandler still not want to do the show?
Look, I don't know anything about Adam Sandler or if that is an active not want to do.
I don't know if if he's even been asked.
I mean, I've asked him and he said he would.
It didn't happen.
Sometimes things just get lost or they don't find time or or maybe he's being polite.
But I can't say that he is actively not wanting to do the show.
All I know is he hasn't done it.
He's been pitched it.
But I don't know if that pitch outside of the one that I made personally got to him or whether he really does this kind of thing outside of Stern or people that he's really close to in terms of talking on podcasts.
Has listening to old third act sketches for the bonus episodes made you consider making them a feature of WTF again?
Not really.
I mean, those were fun and they are kind of exciting to do, to improvise, to be the straight man for people doing characters and just treat it as real.
I enjoy doing that.
I've not really considered doing it again.
So many of your riffs at the end of the show would make great songs.
Do you ever turn your riffs into songs?
And if you do, have you ever considered putting a band together and putting out a record?
I don't remember all of those riffs.
There's got to be hundreds, and I would have to go through them.
I know some of them felt good in the moment.
You have to understand, like, I'll sit here, and I know a lot of them are similar because of my limitations or the sort of wheelhouse that I play within.
But there's been some pretty diverse sounds and riffage going on.
I'd have to go through them.
I've recently thought about doing some.
With the band I've put together that we usually do covers.
Not usually.
We always do covers at those Largo shows.
But I realized, like, I've got a way of playing.
I've got a thing that I do.
And I've got a lot of composed pieces.
I've not written words to any songs.
Just that one about Lynn in the last...
many, many years, but just to riff out, just to do some instrumentals would be nice.
So I have thought about pulling out some riffs and working them through with other musicians.
I've not thought about writing words to songs.
I don't know if that's what you've meant, but I have considered just jamming to some of those riffs.
But again, I have to go listen to them.
In a base off to death, who would emerge victorious?
Geddy Lee or Bill Wyman?
Well, I mean, I would imagine Geddy Lee.
Wouldn't you?
I mean, I don't even think Bill plays anymore, and it's a different kind of thing.
But in terms of just a base off to the death, I imagine that Bill could probably stay steady for a longer period of time, maybe wear out, maybe do the tortoise and hare thing.
That might work there, and that's the only scenario where I could see Bill emerging victorious.
Do you have guitar face?
Riff smirk?
Do you make funny faces during playing?
Or are you consciously trying to stay cool?
And in your opinion, who has the best, funniest guitar face?
Huh.
I have seen footage of me playing and I do do a thing.
There is definitely a guitar face there.
It's not too dramatic.
It's not forced.
It does happen naturally.
I'm very rarely consciously trying to stay cool.
I can't seem to pull that off.
But something does happen when you're sort of in it.
And it happens to me.
It's not particularly funny or over the top, but it's definitely there.
I think the coolest guitar player still, for the most part, is probably Keith Richards, because he does something with his whole body.
that's kind of laid back.
It's kind of a slow groove thing.
And his face is always cool.
He kind of leans back or leans into things.
And I still think as somebody who becomes an extension of his guitar in a fairly honest way, when he's not, you know, really doing a showboat thing, it's got to be...
It's got to be Keith.
The funniest guitar face, just right off the top of my head, I think that Jimmy Page, as cool as he seems, has a very peculiar and funny guitar face and also physicality when he's playing guitar.
When he's swooped over, you know, and his legs are kind of spread, he's cool, but he definitely has a goofy guitar face.
But those are just ones that come to mind.
I'm sure if you were to run a bunch by me, I could make other, you know...
Other suggestions as to both of those best and funniest guitar face.
What is your guitar signal chain?
Well, the fact that I don't really know what that is, I imagine you mean pedals.
I don't.
99% of the time I use no pedals.
I'm either going straight into an old Fender Deluxe, 53 Fender Deluxe.
I've got a little Fender Champ here or a Fender Blues Junior, but I'm almost always going straight in.
And only the Blues Junior has a gain on it.
So it's usually pretty cranked one way or the other to get that tone.
But no pedals.
I own a lot of pedals.
I've unloaded a lot of pedals.
I was sent a lot of pedals at some other point in time.
But I've played around with them early on.
You can hear me fooling around with some phasers and some echoes and this and that.
But generally, I go straight in.
I remember you saying you want to direct.
Is that still true?
I don't really, but I do.
Like, I'd like to, but it had to be sort of a passion project.
I had to be really into it in order to do it.
Because I've talked to directors, I've talked to actors, and the idea of spending a lot of time on something, years maybe,
And just even if it was rewarding, there's a good chance no one will ever see it was sort of daunting to me.
It's not daunting.
It was just sort of like, nah, not for me.
But I'm trying to get into a situation where I can direct a a script of my friend Sam Lipsight's book.
No one left to come looking for you.
And that might happen.
We're working on it.
You know, we got shut down on the deal to option the book just before the strike.
But that's the plan is to option Sam's newest book, have him write a script and then direct the film and maybe play a small part in it.
Would you like to make a movie about your time as a door guy at the comedy store in Sam Kennison days?
No.
I don't know where that movie would go.
I mean, and it would have to, if we were to really do it right, the scenes of us doing coke at the house, at the table, they would have to be like, you know, 18 hours long.
I'd actually like to see that in a way.
What the fuck could we have been doing, you know, from 2.30 in the morning till 10 the next morning?
What could we have been doing?
What could we have been talking about?
Has that ever been documented like straight through just a table full of people doing blow for like eight or nine hours?
I'd like to do that movie.
Be like an Andy Warhol film.
It'd be some sort of marathon just to see what it would look like.
I'd like to see a documentary of that.
What happened to the office you rented off-site that had the weird interference when you played records?
There was some sort of telephone box system that was suspected.
Do you still have this space?
I do.
I've just cleaned it all out.
I used that space a little more when I was at my old house because my old house didn't have room to process things.
But over time, it just became this fairly expensive storage unit.
But I got a good deal on it.
But it was getting very dusty and cluttered.
And over the last month, I've gotten rid of almost everything in there.
cleaned it up, dusted it, vacuumed, furniture polished, and now it's a beautiful space.
I just recently bought a...
a Bluetooth Bose speaker for it, and I've been going over there in preparation to sort of start working there, just to have a totally quiet space where I'm not distracted by cooking a thing or fixing a thing or cleaning a thing or watching a thing.
Yes, there was a sound problem because there was a cell tower on the top of it.
The woman who owned the building leased it to...
I think it was a Time Warner.
I can't remember who it was.
AT&T, Time Warner.
I can't remember who it was.
But, yeah, I threw a shit fit because I had a stereo system in there, a solid-state Marantz with a couple of Eclipse speakers.
And it was really bumming me out because it was picking up that noise.
That you hear like if you have your phone too close to a stereo, like a clicking and a buzzing.
And I made such a stink about it.
Apparently it went pretty far up the command chain and they made it a priority to fix it.
So I think they put copper mesh all over the entire roof of the place.
And it was just there was not any static at all.
They resolved that problem.
It took a while.
But now I don't have that stereo there.
Don't tell them, though.
I found it to be interesting that either I had a fan up the food chain over there in corporate or perhaps I just wouldn't shut up about it.
But it got fixed.
Oh, it got fixed.
What are some of your favorite local places to eat when you're in Albuquerque that are still around?
Well, I always seem to manage to go to Frontier Restaurant, which is sort of a large diner that at different times in my life was open 24 hours.
But I spent a lot of hours in high school there.
And it was sort of the center of the universe for me and a few of my buddies.
And it was right next to the Living Batch bookstore and just down the street from where I used to work.
the Posh Bagel.
It was really, it's a unique place.
And the food is pretty consistent.
And I always go there at least once when I'm in Albuquerque.
In terms of other places that were around when I was a kid that I used to go to, well, I haven't gone to a Whataburger in a while.
And I haven't gone to a Blake's Whataburger in a while, but they're still around.
I do go to Duran's Pharmacy, which I don't recall really, it was around, I think in the first Duran's Pharmacy version,
kind of happened after I went to college, but I go there for Mexican food.
I also go to Sadie's.
Sadie's, I still go there, was around, but I remember it used to be in a bowling alley, but now it's a very big operation.
But to me, they have very good carne adevada and so papillas, which I don't eat, um...
either anymore i don't know if so papillas have dairy in them but but i go there and i also go to el pinto which has been around forever uh for those red chili ribs when i was eating meat so those are the ones i tend to go to is that about it i think so from the places that were there when i was a kid have you underachieved overachieved or achieved exactly what you'd hoped huh
That's a good question because I don't know if I see myself as an underachiever in terms of what I've actually accomplished.
I do see myself as an underachiever in terms of what I think I should have or could have accomplished.
But those don't really count because I've accomplished a lot in the sense that I don't know that I've overachieved, but I have achieved exactly what I wanted to do.
I don't know if it's what I hoped I would do, but I've sort of slowly...
done most of the things that I was interested in and wanted to do.
And the reason I say hoped, because I don't know that my visibility in terms of my ego is as big as I hoped it would be, but I have actually somehow managed to do almost all the things that I set out to do when I got into show business.
i.e.
having my own show, doing stand-up comedy, directing some episodes of that show, playing music, acting in movies, and, well, obviously this podcast, but that was an outlier.
I didn't expect this to happen at all.
So I guess I have achieved exactly what I wanted to,
I don't know if hoped is a good word, because I'm not sure I have framed it properly most days that I feel like I could have not done more, but gotten more attention.
So that hope didn't happen.
And it's probably better off.
Since you're currently in a relationship with a woman in her 30s, do you ever worry that you could get stuck with a kid?
Well, you know, it's something we discuss.
And Kit is really pretty clear about not wanting kids.
We're both very involved with animals.
When I met her, she worked at an animal shelter.
We both she just got a new kitten, Maven, who's a half sibling of Charlie.
And we've talked about it, but I'm pretty clear that I don't want them.
And she is as well pretty clear on it and for real reasons.
And I don't really need to share those.
But so I don't worry I'll get stuck with a kid, with Kit.
I've had those worries in the past, but that's the past.
Have you been asked why you're never happy?
I'm asked that question all the time, and each time I'm genuinely offended.
Well, I've done jokes about that.
I mean, I don't know what happy is.
It's like, are you happy?
I never really saw happiness as a goal, and I guess a lot of people do.
I'm aspiring to okayness.
So I've gotten that question plenty of times in my life.
I don't know if I get –
But I'm just sort of like, what does that even mean?
How is that a goal?
Happiness is fleeting.
And I believe happiness is fleeting, but I do believe I experience it occasionally, more so now that I'm older.
I'm definitely not never happy.
I'm extremely interested in the contrast between my self-perception and others' perception of me.
Curious about where you think this comes from because most people don't give a shit, it seems.
Well, where it comes from for me is almost paralyzing insecurity and also from that comes paranoia and from that comes self-consciousness.
And from that comes projection in terms of what you think other people are thinking about you, because a lot of times they're not thinking about you at all.
But generally, I'm a lot harder on myself.
And I think people see me in a way that I see myself, which is not always great.
but they don't really see that.
The friends I have see me for who I am and the good parts of me because usually I'm comfortable to show those parts with those people.
But I think all that stuff comes from just, you know, not tremendous parenting or given a sort of grounded sense of self.
You're always going to be a little paranoid, a little hyper imaginative about your impact on things and people and also just tremendously self-conscious.
So it's sort of a curse.
But as I get older, I also realize, like, you know, I'm definitely not as bad as I think I am or as awkward and fucked up as I think I am.
And also many people only see, you know, the part of me that is genuine.
And there's more of that lately.
So I don't know.
I have a little more self-acceptance.
Do you have a favorite Stanley Elkin novel?
Well, don't tell Sam Whipsight this because because Stanley is one of Sam's favorite writers.
I've only read a couple of short stories, despite the fact that Sam has recommended his books.
And I have a copy of A Bad Man and I have the the collection of short stories that Sam edited and the original collection of short stories, Kibitzers, whatever's in whatever's.
And I've read a couple of those, but I haven't really locked in.
I've tried to start.
What is it called?
The Something Show?
The Dick Show?
The... Oh, fuck.
I just haven't... You know, it's a little... It's not easy reading for me for some reason.
Whereas I've read everything Sam's written, and he's sort of like Stanley.
lip sight is sort of like the son of um uh elkin and gordon lish and then you know that's about 30 or 40 percent sam of sam and then the other 60 or 70 percent is samminess how do i take my coffee black always occasionally i'll put some type of milk in there and sugar just for a treat
I'm about 30 and I've been dealing with a lot of things like career stress, identity issues, depression, etc.
I've had a couple of older individuals in my life tell me that it gets easier when you're into your late 30s, 40s and beyond.
Would you agree with this?
Do you have any advice to make these years easier?
Well, look, I mean...
It does get easier, but there's core things that, you know, will have an effect on your perception and disposition that are kind of deeply wired into you.
And they'll, you know, they'll they'll fuck you up all the time.
They'll they're just there to cause instability and and doubt.
But you learn how to sort of manage those.
I would say that.
And I've said this before that the one regret I have is I was so hard on myself.
And it sounds like you're being hard on yourself.
And I don't know that there's a way not to be hard on yourself.
But a lot of the things that are plaguing you now will resolve themselves naturally.
It just will happen out of you won't even know it.
And it's not a choice.
So a lot of things you can't have answers for where you're at, but they will resolve themselves for better or for worse.
So maybe be a little less hard on yourself and try to engage with the stuff that interests you and not, you know, be so don't beat the shit out of yourself about all these things that that seems so important, because the reason why it gets a little easier is that in your
40s and beyond you realize that they really aren't that important and they weren't but you couldn't have looked at them that way while you were in it I don't know if that's helpful
It might help because of the answer to this next question is sort of attached to that.
How do you get yourself to do the things you don't want to do?
I just told Kit this, and it's a habit I've gotten into.
I really, in my mind, when I don't want to do something, those are the things that just sit there undone.
You know, Kit got mad at me the other night because when I see something that needs to be done, I usually just freak out and do it.
It's just the way I am now.
Like, just so it doesn't stick in my craw or annoy me or get me obsessed.
But things you don't want to do, I find, obviously, you have to do them, is really consider how much time it's going to take you.
Because a lot of times, there are little things that are just annoying.
Even if you're one of those people that you can't make your bed.
Like, I make my bed every day.
I never think not to make my bed.
But if you have little things, even things that aren't so little...
Just really kind of think, how long is this going to take me, really?
This thing.
And a lot of times it's like 10 minutes, 15 minutes.
Even if it's an hour, like working out.
What's a fucking hour?
What's a half hour?
What's 15 minutes?
What's 10 minutes?
Just realize that, like, you don't want to do it.
You fucking hate it.
But it's only going to take you 13 minutes.
And it'll be done.
Maybe that'll help you.
I'm writing a series of children's books to promote mental health and wellness in the shit show that is modern times.
What are some important topics you think should be addressed?
Well, I used to do jokes about this, but you don't want to diminish a kid's spirit.
in terms of what we see as happening in the real world.
But I think a premium should be put on somehow making it understood that life can be difficult sometimes, and life can be scary sometimes, and sometimes there aren't answers for questions that you want answers to.
And also, sometimes you have to realize in the moment that you like what you're doing and that it's important to you.
And also, I think it's important to understand that sadness is part of life.
As is happiness and as is sort of learning things.
I guess these are all pretty normal children's book stuff, but I don't know how to handle death or sickness and stuff, but I think it's all in there.
I think it's just trying to be funny and earnest, but not overbearing about the difficulties of the reality of life.
and somehow try to make them perky.
That's what I do with my comedy for grownups.
What is the best way to start doing standup these days?
Well, I would imagine trying to get on stage somewhere would be good.
Getting behind a microphone in front of people, that seems to be pretty much the way one starts.
All right.
Well, I hope these were helpful answers or illuminating or settling some curiosities.
Yeah.