BONUS Extra Sam Lipsyte
Guest:Do you want to start again?
Marc:Yeah, we're going to have to start again.
Guest:We can do it by Zoom later.
Marc:What are you talking about?
Marc:No, we're here to do this.
Guest:Okay, man.
Marc:Get on the mic.
Marc:It's just like I can't believe that happened dude like I can't like I'm gonna tell them what happened Yeah, man, we just had a great conversation about about like maybe maybe this is some sort of sign that we weren't supposed to talk about the FX That we weren't supposed to talk I just me and Sam just talked for 15 minutes
Marc:And it was a really good groove.
Marc:We're getting moving.
Marc:He was nervous at first because I brought up something that, you know, his wife, the amazing Karidwin, said maybe we shouldn't talk about our being rejected by FX after two scripts.
Marc:And sure enough, we did like 15 minutes.
Marc:And, you know, it was setting up nicely for what's dark, what isn't dark, why is dark necessary, darkness.
Guest:Dark, darkness ping pong.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like if you have dark and light, that was your point.
Marc:It's a volley, you know, ping, dark, pow, light.
Marc:Yeah, and then you said, pow, I just shit my pants, which is great.
Marc:And then I'm like, but I'm smiling.
Marc:And that's really what we're going for.
Marc:The guy just shit his pants.
Marc:It's sad.
Marc:But look, he's all right.
Marc:But the point is, is that it wasn't recording.
Marc:And now I've turned it back on.
Guest:And now we're in this.
Guest:But you were wondering if that was all a sign that we shouldn't have had the conversation about the thing.
Guest:I'm disappointed.
Guest:And now you're going into the thing again.
Guest:I'm disappointed.
Marc:Look, I knew that it probably wasn't going to happen.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Because it's not a matter of us or anything else.
Marc:It's just the nature of television.
Marc:And this is good for anyone to hear, that if you write a thing, you sell a thing, that maybe will become a bigger thing.
Marc:It might not.
Marc:And if you really look at what gets on and what doesn't get on, the odds are against you.
Marc:And I've certainly had, I have had, dude, let's go back and count them.
Marc:One, two, three, four, five, five script deals.
Marc:None of them were ever shot, ever.
Marc:None of them, none of them.
Marc:My first one wasn't made, that was a bad one.
Marc:That was about an angry chef who had to work at a frozen food factory.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:Then there was the strip mall lawyer one.
Guest:That one sounds like it would go now.
Marc:It was kind of funny.
Marc:The strip mall lawyer one, that didn't go.
Marc:And then there was the one that I wrote with Jerry Stahl for HBO, that didn't go.
Marc:And then there was one for Comedy Central.
Marc:This was the fifth one.
Marc:So my sense of it was that like, yeah, dude.
Marc:But okay, I am gonna just talk about it for a second because I feel like it's important.
Marc:Because I've talked about it on the show.
Marc:that you know you and i were developing something yeah and i thought maybe you shouldn't even be talking about it on the show why do you think but do you think in your mind that somehow that was a liability no no it's just it's a superstition it's superstition it's not no it's out there you know what i mean like for me i wasn't even thinking about it because i'm just like i'm just talking about stuff on my show right
Marc:But in my mind, it's sort of like maybe they're over there going, he's talking about it on the show.
Marc:And now if we shut him down, we're going to be villains.
Marc:But they don't care.
Marc:No one cares.
Marc:No.
Marc:But the point of the matter was I had this idea.
Marc:I pulled you in.
Marc:We broke a story.
Guest:Well, it was an idea you had for a long time.
Guest:And then we talked about how to reframe it for now and given what things you've been thinking about in the last few years.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I pitched it.
Marc:We pitched it to several different networks.
Marc:A few were interested.
Guest:We did like 15 pitches.
Marc:FX stepped up.
Marc:They bought it.
Marc:They're like, let's do it.
Marc:Write the script.
Marc:We wrote a script.
Marc:They're like, okay, we see it, but maybe this is too pilot-y.
Marc:Let's write another script.
Marc:We wrote a second script.
Marc:And that was, you know, when we were pitching the story for the script, that was the great story when the head of development over there, Nick Grad, said, look, guys, I don't have any specific notes, but if we can just get it from bleak to dark.
Marc:And for me, that's like that's what we do.
Marc:That's what you and I do.
Marc:We get it from bleak to dark.
Marc:That's our life.
Marc:That's our point of view.
Marc:That's our way of seeing the world.
Guest:It's like we'll show up with a moving van.
Guest:Is this bleak?
Marc:Just put everything bleak in the truck.
Marc:We're not taking it all the way down the road to where the light is.
Marc:But you see that shitty building right there?
Marc:It's okay in there.
Guest:That's dark.
Marc:It's all right in there, though.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:And ultimately, the note was, look, they're just not doing the dark right now.
Marc:They've got enough dark.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But they loved it.
Marc:We're geniuses.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:We loved it.
Marc:They want to work with us.
Marc:We're full up on dark.
Marc:No more dark.
Marc:And that's the way is that weird thing, though?
Marc:I mean, because we the the other conversation we had about this stuff.
Marc:And again, I'm not mad at anybody.
Marc:It's fine.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I got health insurance.
Marc:You made some money.
Marc:You got a kid in college.
Marc:We're good.
Marc:But we have this script.
Marc:Maybe maybe someone else to do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And and we'll call it not at FX.
Yeah.
Marc:We'll call it Dark House.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:You know, big fans.
Marc:Everyone's a big fan, Sam.
Marc:Sometimes I think that's a curse.
Marc:Hey, Sam Website, big fan.
Marc:Don't say that.
Guest:Please don't say that.
Guest:But, no, you're right, though, about if you have a vision of something.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You know, and you really want to see it realized.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Don't try to do it on television.
Guest:Like, that's not the place where, you know, your dreams are going to come true.
Guest:Where do you do it then?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You can stage it in a little theater.
Guest:Or I can write a book.
Guest:Or you can do a show.
Marc:But you can do it on television.
Marc:That's the fucking thing.
Marc:It's like television that we've been led to believe.
Yeah.
Marc:You know, I watched Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul.
Marc:There's a lot of dark stuff, a lot of dark, funny shit on.
Marc:I think it can be realized.
Marc:But I'm just saying, like you said, the percentage of things that... Yeah, but that's the nature of the business, whether it's dark or light or anything.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And it has nothing to do with us specifically in the sense that, like, I don't know, how many shows do they have in the air at any one time?
Marc:It's one network.
Marc:And they're sort of like, does this fit?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like Lorne Michaels said to me, like, you just didn't fit.
Marc:And I have to believe that, Sam, because I can't go through my life thinking that I'm the problem.
Marc:At some point, I have to be like, hey, maybe I just didn't fit.
Marc:And then I realize, like, I've never fit.
Guest:Have you?
Guest:Was that because you did or didn't pick up the Jolly Rancher?
Marc:According to him, it wasn't a Jolly Rancher.
Marc:It was a Tootsie Roll, and it had nothing to do with it.
Marc:But the fact that he knew that they were there bothered me.
Yeah.
Marc:But but this is the conversation we had the other day that I think is more Relevant to what we're talking about is like, you know, we were talking about this idea In terms of like in a broader political sense, you know conservative versus liberal, you know, what you know What is allowed what isn't allowed what is necessary wasn't necessary in a world where you know You're supposed to have freedom of speech freedom of mind freedom of expression
Marc:there comes a point where you understand the conservative side because you're sort of like, why is that important?
Marc:Why is this poem about poop or about shit or about cancer or about death?
Marc:We're specifically talking about Bruce Wagner book, which I thought was amazing, the Marvel Universe, where it's sort of like, it took me, I don't think I've recovered from it.
Marc:The shattering darkness of the spiritual, moral, psychological decay and corruption of that thing.
Marc:Where it's sort of like, what did I just put myself through?
Marc:And is it necessary?
Marc:Is it?
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Guest:I mean, I think that the idea that...
Guest:we need the art to be able to have a place where we can safely view the evil yeah that might be oh that's good that might be something to think about like that yeah um where we can you know talk about these things in a way that we don't get to talk about them in the in the official discourse yeah and maybe it would be better it's better to have them yeah in these these uh zones of artistic expression yeah
Guest:so and also like i think that we all know in our hearts that as we were saying before when we weren't recording you know life is definitely a mixture of these very dark and also joyful yeah uh
Guest:Feelings experiences.
Guest:Yeah, and So I think that a books that can go there is our kind of commiseration, right?
Guest:Yeah, like I I see it with you work together We can acknowledge that this exists in the world sure and you're not crazy right for thinking it or for feeling it right?
Marc:So that's a big part of it or like another angle is sort of like oh you think you got problems and
Marc:Right read this right.
Guest:Do you feel you can feel better about your shitty life?
Marc:Compared to that shitty life and then also there's a there's an awe to it, you know, it's like Like who was it like, you know, also, I mean finally the thing is even the bleakest fucking thing Yeah, and maybe like the bruce wagner brook.
Guest:Yeah bleakest fucking thing.
Guest:Yeah, you know The philosopher charan said, you know every every book is a postponed suicide note
Guest:You know, the idea is like, I didn't kill myself.
Guest:I made this.
Guest:And that's life affirming.
Guest:No matter how bleak the thing is, the fact that that exists instead of a corpse is like incredibly life affirming.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So that's good.
Marc:It saved a life.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:God, that thing was horrible.
Marc:It was genius, but I feel so terrible.
Marc:It's like, yeah, but like the guy didn't die.
Marc:The guy wrote it still alive.
Marc:He did it.
Marc:yeah yeah so it's life yeah i like that math i think that's good logic yeah i think that's exactly what i do it's i think it's exactly what you do i think we're of the same mind that you uh you know i'm just a happy guy no oh yeah right no but i mean it's like you're you are creating and and i think like i don't think i really understood this totally
Marc:And it's weird that I didn't until, you know, like my ex Sarah Kane, who paints in these colors that are kind of profoundly, I wouldn't say uplifting, but bright.
Marc:And there's an experience to almost all to her palette that is anti-depressive.
Marc:in nature and and that's i think was some of her intent yeah and i think that along the same lines that you're saying that all of my comedy is you know literally what i'm closing with is about not killing myself yeah and and i guess that's true
Marc:That this is how we make sense of it and how we... We're going to laugh instead.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And we're specialists.
Marc:Bleak to dark.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:They blew it, but you didn't because the new book, no one left to come looking for me.
Marc:I'm the king of fucking transitions.
Guest:For you.
Guest:No one left to come looking for you.
Marc:Oh, I blew it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You blew that transition.
Marc:Damn it.
Marc:No one left to come looking for you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's so funny because we did... I wrote a... I think I had written a pitch or a treatment for a Jack Shit character years ago.
Marc:I don't know if it was Jack Shit, but we... Jack Boulware and I had written a story about a...
Marc:a guy who was in a one-hit band back in this sort of new wave punk rock thing.
Marc:And the entire band has sort of since kind of drifted on into other things.
Marc:The main character was driving a diaper delivery truck.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:The lead singer was out in the desert strung out on fucking...
Marc:drugs you know trying to still do music on his own uh the bass player was sort of like mia and it was one of these things where the lead singer kind of everyone realizes he's killed himself and they all have to come together to to to bury him or to do something with him and he'd left all these tapes of him rambling and like you know and it was just this journey of uh of the bass player and
Marc:It's like a rock and roll Big Chill almost.
Marc:Right, but the two guys, the bass player, they meet in L.A.
Marc:to sort of identify the body, and the bass player just punches the other guy out of nowhere, and it's not explained.
Marc:But the best thing that I think I ever created comedically that never got played out was they decide they cremate him, and they're going to dump his ashes in Joshua Tree.
Marc:And they're out in Joshua Tree, and there's another band dumping ashes.
Marc:That's great.
Yeah.
Marc:They decide they better just take them back to Tucson.
Guest:That's really nice.
Marc:Oh, it didn't happen.
Marc:We never got finished.
Marc:It could still, I don't know, finishing things.
Guest:Maybe FX will do it.
Marc:Yeah, maybe that's the pitch.
Marc:So you're teaching.
Marc:That's your gig.
Marc:Are you tenured now?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Tenured professor at Columbia University.
Guest:It took me a long time, but I finally got tenure.
Marc:At Columbia University, you teach writing.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Are you optimistic about the future of writing?
Guest:Yeah, I'm always optimistic.
Guest:I'm never optimistic about the future of publishing.
Marc:Right.
Guest:The business part.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm usually optimistic because I see a lot of young writers with talent and stuff to say.
Guest:So that's always exciting to me.
Guest:You know, what they're going to get, where they're going to get to show that.
Guest:That's always what I worry about.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because people are...
Marc:i guess it's the same as it always was people buy cookbooks and uh and big writers and everything else is just sort of like almost like a charity situation yeah i mean i think there used to be more room for like you know a novel that wasn't by james patterson or something yeah yeah but i think that that has contracted over the years yeah yeah i don't know like but you do see students where you're like oh shit
Guest:Oh yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's exciting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:And I love, you know, when I'm like right now, I'm in the middle of a, of a semester teaching and most of my, you know, thoughts about writing have to do with their stories and their novels.
Guest:That's what I'm, you know, so I'll, you know, in the middle of the night, I'll have an idea for one of their.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I'm in it.
Guest:And I like that.
Guest:Because it takes me outside of my shit for a while.
Guest:So do you suggest stuff to them like that?
Guest:Well, there's always this funny game.
Guest:Because in a workshop, at least traditionally, you're not supposed to be prescriptive.
Guest:You're not supposed to say, I think you should do this.
Guest:You're supposed to kind of ease.
Guest:It's almost like therapy.
Guest:You're trying to bring them to the.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:To your idea.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Marc:Trying to get them to have your idea.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Guest:But sometimes we just and we laugh about it.
Guest:We just kind of throw that away and just, you know, talk about what you're thinking that everyone goes around just saying, I think you should do this.
Guest:And I think sometimes people really appreciate that.
Marc:So it's kind of this Evel, this always evolving thing, like with the with the group.
Guest:Yeah, well, that's the other thing is when you're teaching a workshop, it's a it's about a group dynamic.
Guest:It's about, you know, 12 or 15 people who are in a room every week talking about each other's work.
Guest:And, you know, a lot of that depends on the chemistry of the group.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I kind of remember being in a poetry workshop with Daryl Starbuck.
Marc:Do you remember that guy?
Guest:I know the name.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and I wrote a sonnet about something had to do with the Arctic.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, I don't know, man.
Marc:Wait, do you still have it?
Marc:Yeah, I've got all that stuff somewhere.
Marc:I just remember one time when I was younger where, you know, I was in school with Joshua Clover.
Marc:Sure.
Sure.
Marc:he was joshua kaplan then and he was kind of a wizard you know so i was always comparing myself to them him but like i had no discipline and he was a an intellectual giant right but i'm just like this fucking you know kind of like compulsive sweaty you know yeah but i'm writing poetry i'm doing the business you know but i just remember like there was a teacher that that sort of championed joshua larry bryner was his name i think and i remember like
Marc:Like I just wanted to be validated as a writer of some kind.
Marc:And I just remember when I got out of Los Angeles or maybe it was before.
Marc:I just know that I was like full on psychotic drug stuff like cocaine psychosis.
Marc:And I don't know if it was before or after, but I'd put together this package of poems.
Marc:And I wasn't even in college anymore.
Marc:I was out of college.
Marc:But there was an urgency to this dozen poems that I had written.
Marc:It was the key to my brain at that time.
Marc:And I thought they were important.
Marc:And I just remember like, you know, going over to Larry's office and I'm not in school.
Marc:I'm just the sweaty Jewish kid that, you know, just wants some approval for his writing.
Marc:There's no responsibility on his behalf.
Marc:And I just remember like handing him the envelope and I'm like, I'm going, this is it.
Marc:It's all there.
Marc:And left.
Marc:No feedback.
Marc:That's what I'm doing.
Marc:It's all there.
Marc:You reckon with it.
Marc:And I don't ever know what happened to that.
Marc:But looking back on those poems, they were not great.
Marc:But the one that in Daryl Starbucks, I do remember the one sentence that he liked.
Marc:The point is that these things that teachers say do stick with you forever.
Marc:I had a line in there.
Guest:uh and it was uh it was uh it hummed my mind white like an empty whistle nice yeah i like that and he he said i like that yeah i did it yeah you did you did do it yeah yeah
Guest:and that's you know someone sometimes when in class i'm just saying like that line yeah that hummed your mind white line yeah just do that like just if you can get every other sentence up to that level right then you're then you have it yeah unfortunately for someone like me i'm like i was like oh i guess i did it right it's done
Marc:well then that's another problem that people have when they're starting out is they hoard the one or two things that they've gotten right approval for right so they're like walking around like well i got the hummed white yeah yeah not that line yeah yeah so it's all gravy it's all good yeah i'm gonna do all right but oddly i do write every week like i always i always think like you know i don't write enough but i write that i work on that update thing every week do you how often do you write well this way
Guest:honestly if i'm like in the middle of a semester yeah not that much right but if the but i have four months off well three and a half months right every every year yeah and then it's you know every day but do you like like because like you know if i'm in a groove or if i'm in a zone i haven't been lately really we're we're like i'll write bits and pieces down do you write bits and pieces yeah no i'm
Guest:writing stuff down yeah really well this is what I always say yeah to my students I and this was this is a my teachers of this to me he said not to me but to the to all of us you know even if you're not even if you know you're not gonna really write that day yeah just if you're working on something just check in with it open the document right read some yeah maybe write a sentence delete a sentence right pray at the altar
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So then you stay connected.
Guest:Whatever else you're doing that day, you're subconsciously still working on it.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:So then when you do sit down the next time, it's not like starting all cold.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That makes sense.
Marc:That's going to be helpful to people.
Marc:We're teaching a class here.
Guest:Yeah, there you go.
Guest:It's your master class.
Guest:It's a little clinic here.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:This is Sam Website's master class in writing.
Marc:What have you read lately?
Guest:Uh...
Guest:What have I?
Guest:I've just been reading a lot.
Guest:Well, a lot of some really good student manuscripts.
Guest:And...
Guest:I just read, I hadn't read it since maybe high school or something.
Guest:But Herman Melville's Billy Budd.
Guest:Have you ever read that?
Guest:No.
Guest:That's really good.
Guest:It is?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You should tell him.
Guest:Go to the grave.
Guest:Hey, buddy.
Guest:Good job on that.
Marc:Good job.
Marc:There's a couple sentences in here I want to talk to you about.
Marc:You're the sentence guy.
Marc:You're the sentence guy.
Marc:How did no one left to come looking for you start with a sentence or with an idea?
Guest:It started with that first sentence, you know, the day after I decide I'm jack shit, the banished Earl steals my fender jazz bass.
Marc:The day after what?
Guest:The day after I decide I'm jack shit, the banished Earl steals my fender jazz bass.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it all goes from there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I loved it, man.
Marc:So funny.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:So good.
Marc:Good talking to you again.
Marc:I think we covered everything.
Marc:Bleak to dark.
Marc:That's the t-shirt.
Guest:I don't know, man.
Guest:I think I'm going to go back to bleak now.
Marc:Well, we all go back to bleak now.
Marc:And then we start the journey anew.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:All right.