BONUS Archive Deep Dive: Episode 98 - Stewart Lee
Guest:One of the things we did when we started this bonus content was we started talking about old episodes since there are hundreds, over 1,000, over 1,300, frankly, in our catalog.
Guest:And people just who are new to the show or just even if you're not new to the show but you weren't listening from the beginning...
Guest:There's hundreds of things for you to go back and listen to, and it's probably hard to kind of figure out what the good things are, great things are.
Guest:To decide?
Guest:Yeah, it's just good for us to kind of give people a little guidance.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, it's weird.
Marc:You remember them more than me because you spent more time with them.
Marc:So my memory has to be jarred around these episodes because most of them I remember as conversations I had a while ago.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, but then there's also the thing that always happens to you during an interview.
Guest:Someone will say, what's the most memorable episode or something?
Guest:And you're like, they all are there.
Guest:And what I think needs to happen is something like this, where I can just kind of remind you with the name and what happened when you did it.
Guest:And that probably will spark something.
Marc:I had to look up.
Marc:I was watching.
Marc:You know what, man?
Marc:I had Guillermo del Toro's phone number.
Marc:I don't know what happened to it in my phone.
Marc:I like, does that guy, did he like go out of his way to erase himself from my phone?
Marc:Is that possible?
Guest:He can do that.
Guest:He knows all sorts of magic tricks.
Marc:But, uh, but I was watching that, you know, his cabinet of horror things and, uh, you know, Martin Starr was like in one and I'm like, I talked to that guy.
Marc:Like a long time ago.
Guest:That was a concerned one, too.
Guest:Like, you were concerned that he would not talk.
Marc:Well, he had the weird Buddhist upbringing, right?
Marc:Yeah, it's a really good episode.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:That's a good one to bring up.
Marc:Yeah, I just remember knowing he was intense and a bit odd and interesting, but seemingly quiet.
Marc:I just didn't know if he would engage around stuff.
Marc:And then it became this kind of lengthy...
Marc:journey through Buddhism and through acting and through not wanting to act anymore and through then coming back to acting and kind of rediscovering things about it and leaning into it more, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was in a kind of tender place because I think he was caring for his ailing mom who passed away shortly after we did the interview.
Guest:So he was in a kind of vulnerable spot when you talk to him.
Marc:Sweet guy, though.
Marc:Really nice guy.
Marc:Good actor.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Kate McCoochie's in...
Marc:in the episode of this horror series with him, and she was good too, really good, really uncomfortable, very awkward.
Marc:I didn't finish that one yet.
Marc:I've been watching them, because there's a lot of our guests in them.
Marc:Tim Blake Nielsen was in one that I watched.
Marc:F. Murray Abraham, who we didn't talk to.
Marc:I watched the first episode of White Lotus as well.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:With more of our guests in there.
Marc:Michael Imperioli.
Marc:Aubrey Plaza is in there.
Marc:The Coolidge lady.
Marc:What's her first name?
Marc:Jennifer.
Marc:Yeah, Jennifer Coolidge is in there.
Marc:Who else?
Marc:Well, we talked to Mike White back on that episode as well.
Marc:Sure, Mike White.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's an engaging thing, that White Lotus.
Yeah.
Marc:yeah i'm excited to watch i haven't watched the first episode yet but i loved loved the first season yeah yeah it was kind of good i just i love watching um miserable people be miserable like well they always he seemed he seems to want to cast some type of male douchebag there's this full spectrum of men in this that are you know showing the spectrum of how bad men can be but you remember the douchebag from the first season that
Guest:Yeah, Jake Lacey's character.
Marc:Yeah, well, there's a different type of douchebag in this one.
Marc:And Imperioli's half a douchebag, but he's the sort of fuck-around, divorced douchebag.
Marc:But the guy who plays the other one, the young douchebag, is the super wealthy guy who is just give zero fucks and is out to just be a bro.
Marc:And he's got a huge cock.
Yeah.
Marc:That was established.
Marc:It was meant to be noticed.
Guest:It's not just your guess.
Marc:No.
Guest:It's like, I got a feeling about this guy.
Guest:I wanted to bring up episode 98 because it just came up again with Armando Iannucci, which was Stuart Lee.
Guest:And I think it's probably good for people who haven't listened to that episode.
Guest:Go ahead and give it a listen.
Guest:That was another episode recorded in London.
Guest:So you just had this trip to London.
Guest:You recorded a bunch of interviews there, Armando being one of them.
Guest:But the Stuart Lee one, which was in August of 2010.
Guest:So, you know, over 12 years ago, that was also while you were doing stand up sets out there and you sat down and spoke with him.
Guest:And what was your like, what was your reasoning to seek him out like that?
Guest:That's that's, I think, the place to start with him.
Guest:Why did you want to talk to Stuart Lee?
Marc:Because I had talked to a few comics, Morgan Murphy and maybe a couple of other people who who told me that Stuart was revered there in the same way that Bill Hicks was revered here.
Marc:Like he was the guy that was pushing the envelope and taking it into new and interesting places intellectually and and material wise.
Marc:And I just had no familiarity.
Marc:With any of these acts and I and I still feel a bit limited when I when I deal with UK comics and not because I have nothing against them.
Marc:It's just that I have to go find them.
Marc:You know, they're not really exposed here that much.
Marc:A couple of them tried to get traction here.
Marc:Eddie Izzard.
Marc:But like I was in London and at that time there was you know, we were doing you know, the podcast was like.
Marc:You know, I got to figure it out.
Marc:Who do we talk to?
Marc:And I remember it was a weird crew of people.
Marc:But Stewart is one of the most respected modern British comics.
Marc:So I had to kind of get up to speed as well as I could without having grown up with the guy to kind of contextualize him in the place that...
Marc:he deserved and show him the respect he deserved, but also coming to it without really knowing that much about him other than he was this guy.
Marc:And I had seen him in Edinburgh.
Marc:The one time I was in Edinburgh, I went to see a Stuart Lee show and I got it.
Marc:He is definitely one of these guys that is doing provocative stuff, intellectually deep stuff.
Marc:political stuff in a way, but also a guy that kind of operates with a type of confidence where it's, you know, failure doesn't matter.
Marc:And, you know, he's going to take the time he wants to take to present what he's presenting.
Marc:There's no he's not going to accommodate.
Marc:an audience may turn on them but not going to you know buckle to them and it was it was great to see you know i i got it when i saw him live so i had that in me and then it was just really the conversation about you know his journey through stand-up and you know these other things that he's sort of interested in and did you know the the jerry springer opera i remember you know they and when you are british
Marc:talent, eventually you end up with some sort of TV show or appearing several, you know, the opportunities, I think, are more forthcoming because the media landscapes were intimate.
Marc:But it was really to talk to him about
Marc:you know, how he approached standup and also that he quit.
Marc:So that was, I think, the big takeaway was talking to him about quitting and starting again.
Guest:Well, you know, it's interesting.
Guest:You bring it up a lot when you talk to somebody about, you know, that specific thing you were saying, his relationship with the audience and how it helped kind of
Guest:readjust something in your brain.
Guest:But I remember specifically after you had that talk, something I think it really helped settle in you, something that was unsettled and something you started raising with other guests in episodes subsequent to that one.
Guest:is the idea of understanding and accepting your limitations.
Guest:So that was episode 98.
Guest:We're almost one full year into doing the podcast.
Guest:And it was something that was starting to feel real to you and feel like you had a handle on it.
Guest:And you were starting to now kind of get a handle on your stand up and having like that conversation with Stuart allowed you to feel like, OK, I can I don't have to be afraid of what I do up there.
Guest:I can just do it just like I'm doing this podcast.
Guest:I'm just having these conversations with people.
Guest:And I remember you start to talk about it a lot, like with other guests about like the the the liberating quality of figuring out your limitations.
Guest:And I really feel like that came out of that Stuart conversation.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it'd been in my mind for a while because I think it was John Daniel actually who planted that in my head at some point.
Guest:John Daniel, your friend, the record executive?
Marc:John Daniel, my friend, he's a talent manager who I've known a long time.
Marc:But it was an evolution of the idea of that if you have talent, it behooves you to figure out what to do with it.
Marc:because talent with a mixture of insecurity can really kind of do you in.
Marc:If you have this idea that like, hey man, I got this talent, I can sort of do anything.
Marc:All right, well, maybe make some choices or at least say, I'm not gonna worry about doing that or this or whatever.
Marc:But if you just go through the world without sort of,
Marc:harnessing what your talent is or what your skill set is or what you're good at if you are talented, then you can kind of be just okay at a lot of different things and sabotage yourself, which is part of talent's design.
Marc:There's a song that Bongwater used to do called Talent is a Vampire.
Marc:And I like the concept of that.
Marc:But in terms of realizing limitations,
Marc:It's just one of those things.
Marc:It's like, you know, give yourself a fucking break, man.
Marc:Like, yeah.
Marc:OK, sure.
Marc:If you're a talented person, you can probably do a lot of things if you apply yourself.
Marc:Like I could have been a better guitar player.
Marc:I could have been in a band.
Marc:I could have put all my eggs into the acting basket.
Marc:I could have worked harder at that.
Marc:But the truth is, is like, you know, what you start to realize is I'm a stand up now, whether or not.
Marc:What that requires of me is to engage in a very specific way.
Marc:And for years, I don't think that and I still don't think I work as hard as I can to do it in a way that's more disciplined and more organized that would give me a broader audience.
Marc:I don't do it like that because I don't have those concerns.
Marc:And I'm addicted to the immediacy of it all still.
Marc:I'm not addicted to laughs, but I like the idea that I have a skill set that I can sort of show up
Marc:and and and riff and find a way and and that's the way i express myself it's sort of a a jazz idea once you put the foundation in but the thing about stewart was like you know he you know there are guys that i've worked with and guys who have done stand-up that have gone into writing because they realize like fucking grown-ups that you know a life of a stand-up comic and banking on that is is not a grown-up uh pursuit
Marc:You know, I have a skill set.
Marc:I'm not going to be the next big comedy star.
Marc:I want to have a family.
Marc:So I'm going to be a writer.
Marc:But the thing about about Stewart is that at some point, like he obviously did a lot of different things.
Marc:And again, the landscape, media landscape and the comedy landscape is much more intimate there.
Marc:And there seems to be that, you know, you learn that from talking to Iannucci that, you know, they all kind of knew each other and the good ones, you know, work together of a generation.
Marc:But I think the idea that I found most compelling to me is that, you know, Stewart could not deal with the fact that audiences didn't get him and it made him mad at them.
Marc:And I think that that fundamentally comes out of insecurity and also not really assessing what
Marc:Not only your limitations, but what you want to do with your craft.
Marc:So for him to spend time and and think about that and then reenter comedy and upon seeing people in the audience that don't aren't enjoying themselves to instead of saying, like, you know, fuck them.
Marc:You know, how could they not get this?
Marc:Which I spent years doing.
Marc:You realize like, oh, this is sad.
Marc:That person made the wrong entertainment choice tonight.
Marc:So, you know, like they should have looked me up or something.
Guest:This is not going to be a good night for them.
Guest:And you guys are always hamstrung by it in the sense that like...
Guest:Culturally, I don't know if it's so much the case anymore.
Guest:You tell me.
Guest:It probably is.
Guest:But there at least as long as it was happening, it was definitely happening when we started this podcast, that there was still a kind of cultural notion around comedy as a live show is just something you went and did to see comedy.
Guest:But like there's nothing that kind of categorically falls under that umbrella in any other entertainment sector.
Guest:You don't just go see music, right?
Guest:Like it doesn't like you don't walk into a place and on the marquee it says music.
Guest:And you're like, great, I'll pay my ticket.
Guest:I'll go in and see it.
Guest:But people just accepted that you did that with comedy.
Guest:Oh, it's a comedy show with 10 people on the bill.
Guest:I will go see that.
Guest:And, you know, you and Dove Davidoff on the same bill were not going to be the same thing that night.
Marc:That's for sure.
Marc:I mean, but that was put into place with the franchising of comedy clubs is that, you know, that whole mode, I think, you know, there were comedy stars, you know, back in the day, you know, and in the 70s, as we've talked to many of those guys, there wasn't comedy clubs.
Marc:They'd open for, you know, musicians and hope to get on the Mike Douglas show and find their way in show business somehow.
Marc:But that was like a gig.
Marc:But once, you know, the comedy club happened and...
Marc:You know, everybody started doing comedy.
Marc:That whole boom, the comedy boom is what created that idea that, you know, these are professionals.
Marc:The first guy is probably not going to be that good because he's probably local and he works at the club.
Marc:The second guy is, you know, making his bones and he's going to, you know, probably be pretty good.
Marc:But the top guy, you know, you know, he's a professional.
Marc:So it was just sort of like you go to the comedy club.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's when that was created.
Marc:Years of that shit.
Marc:You know, years of like every city having a comedy club or a chain of improvs or whatever.
Marc:And a lot of great comics came out of that.
Marc:But a lot of it was just OK.
Marc:So.
Marc:So, yeah, that I think that happened.
Marc:at that time but you know i mean i think it happened before but it wasn't the same because the lounge act thing was you went to go see the the you know the singer and it's like oh there's a comic first who's this guy right who the fuck knows do you know what i mean you know who's billy braver opening for dinah you know diana ross you know yes
Marc:So it was a different game, but once the business became franchisable and enough idiots were doing stand-up, you could... But see, the thing, that created that mode of expectation, like the do's and don'ts.
Marc:of club comedy.
Marc:You know, if you want to be popular, if you want to get club work, you got to do this.
Marc:Not if you want to be a star, but if you want to spend your life on the road, you know, being a headliner, an unknown headliner, you could do it if you play by the rules because you could pick up these weeks.
Marc:You didn't offend anybody.
Marc:It was okay.
Marc:Wasn't inspired, but a lot of guys were working like that.
Guest:Well, and this is in defense of like our show and in defense of also just a general kind of cultural interest in standup comedy, which I know has come under fire in some ways for like this idea.
Guest:It's like, you know, the term that always gets thrown around is like navel gazing.
Guest:And, you know, a show like ours, especially in these early years when I was talking to a lot of comics, there was this kind of like shut up and make jokes philosophy around it in a lot of circles where it's like, who cares about the, you know, the psyche of comedians and breaking down why they do what they do.
Guest:And my pushback to that is basically what you're talking about right now had to be something that was like trained out of audiences.
Guest:Audiences had to be kind of retrained.
Guest:And I think social media, especially whatever's going on now, how people discover comedians and their type of entertainment that appeals to them, it can be very specialized.
Guest:And I think, again, tell me if I'm wrong, I think you have people going to places like the Comedy Store now who are much more savvy about what they're going to see there.
Guest:They're not just showing up with the sign outside that just says comedy.
Guest:And then they are like, make me laugh, monkey.
Guest:They know.
Guest:I know this guy.
Guest:I know this guy.
Guest:I know what this person does.
Guest:I know what that woman is.
Guest:Like, I think that that's happened.
Marc:But that place is also over time because of many of us talking about it.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:But the place itself has a personality.
Marc:So there's a mystique to the comedy store.
Marc:And there's still plenty of acts that people see there that, and I've noticed it myself, that they may not know.
Marc:The hope is that somebody will drop in or that somebody they know will be on the bill.
Marc:And sometimes they can find that out.
Marc:But most of the time you go, you may not know, but they'll do the job.
Marc:So there's still that element of it.
Marc:But you are seeing them at the comedy store, which now it's its own thing.
Marc:It's it's it's got a personality of its own.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You know, people are kind of like, this is it.
Marc:You know, there's no place like that place.
Marc:So it's a it's a destination.
Marc:But, you know, the shows are always good.
Marc:So it does.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think now people can do a little homework.
Marc:It's always amazing to me if they don't.
Marc:It's like, you know what I mean?
Marc:Like, we didn't know what you were going to see.
Marc:How what do you use your computer for?
Marc:How can you not know?
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:You had a week with these tickets?
Marc:You're like, we're leaving.
Marc:You bought the tickets online?
Guest:Go look at the video, stupid.
Guest:It's also what like I just can't ever imagine walking out of a comedy club because of something.
Guest:I mean, I guess I guess I can.
Guest:I guess if someone was deliberately racist or offensive or something, you'd be upset.
Guest:But like just someone being like, I didn't like that guy and leaving.
Guest:Like, that's crazy to me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, yeah, I can't understand it in terms of being offended.
Marc:I can understand it in terms of being bored or annoyed.
Guest:That's true.
Marc:yeah right right do you know what i mean if someone's not funny it doesn't mean you're offended you're just sort of like am i going to sit through another half hour of this you know this guy can't land one you know i i mean i get that sure but that's what's offensive is that you know he wasn't funny you know i mean i respect that more than like you can't say that about god you just say like not my thing man but uh yeah but double that that was the thing about stuart though that kind of was interesting to me you know because
Marc:The thing is, is like a lot of that thinking is gone.
Marc:People do know who they're going to see.
Marc:And we've all been able to build audiences.
Marc:But to whatever degree, you know, I'm starting to have new realizations around what I do and around my audience.
Marc:That is is is is bothersome and also interesting to me.
Marc:But what you do get is you get people bringing people who don't know you.
Marc:That certainly still happens.
Marc:And it happens a lot in my shows because I have these fans who have a specific mindset who know me from this, that or the other thing.
Marc:And they're like, you know, they have people that because you can have a relationship with a talent.
Marc:That's fairly intimate if it's a podcast or whatever.
Marc:And you can have friends or a husband or a wife who all they know is you listen to that guy.
Marc:And then all of a sudden that guy's going to be in town.
Marc:Do you want to come see that guy with me?
Marc:And they come, you know, and it can go either way.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:right it's very weird to be standing there with people and they're standing with a a partner and they're like oh my god it's so and the partner's like yeah you know she really likes you and i'm like okay well if you're okay with that i guess everything's okay here you know but maybe you should take her home now because she seems a little shook up but um also here's another thing hey hey guy maybe take some lessons maybe maybe do a little research right now okay
Guest:If you're seeing what it is that your wife is freaking out over, you can bring that home.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:But also they tend to like it and they get it.
Marc:It's kind of like a weird thing, those boundaries, where you have people who are friends or they're married or whatever, and one person's really intimate.
Marc:There's a moment there where it's sort of like, well, thank you.
Marc:There's a boundary to it.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:But the thing that...
Marc:struck me about steward is that like you know don't blame yourself for somebody who's not having a good time you can't like it's not it's not it has nothing to do with you and that's a big load off and it's also that's part of that idea of of learning your limitations like are you going to sit up there and try to get that one guy
Marc:Is that the most important thing?
Marc:Because that's something we do.
Marc:You get a bunch of people laughing and you focus on the one idiot who's like, who the hell knows what he's thinking about?
Marc:Why was the rhythm of that sentence word?
Marc:Who the hell knows what he's thinking about?
Marc:Who the hell knows what that guy's thinking about?
Marc:And you're going to be like, I'm going to make that guy laugh.
Marc:And then at the cost of...
Marc:The whole show, you're going to focus on these one or two people that you think aren't understanding things.
Marc:But that's the nature of our brain.
Marc:It's an insecure, fucked up, weird place.
Guest:Well, what's funny about that, too, is you had that in your brain before you ever talked to Stuart.
Guest:That was a bit in one of your CDs from like 2008 or 2006 that you did that bit about the guy who's like...
Guest:you suck Jew, I'm going to kick your ass in the crowd.
Guest:Do you remember that joke?
Marc:He lives in my head.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You say to them, is that what you think?
Marc:They're like, what are you talking about?
Marc:Like, oh, okay.
Marc:So that guy lives in my head and I can just put him on anybody.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, I think your thing too is that you, like this guy you were thinking it about in the crowd, like after the show came up to him, he was like, oh, hey, you were really funny.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And then it's like, oh, that means the guy who says you suck Jew, you make me laugh, lives in my head.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I can just put him on anybody.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But yeah, there's that.
Marc:But also as you grow into this thing, and certainly I'm just even now learning more things about my craft or whatever I can do up there, is you own your space.
Marc:And that continues to evolve.
Marc:And you aren't beholden to these three people that aren't laughing or the fact that you think they're not enjoying it or any of that stuff.
Marc:It's part of the maturing process of somebody who does something professionally to not answer to those voices or to not think those things and realize that they're not real.
Marc:And that's also part of learning and acknowledging your limitations in terms of honoring what you do
Marc:and and staying in it and not thinking you have to do what other people do that that's the biggest you know problem is like you know look man if i wanted like i do what i do because i can't explain why but i know there's other guys that do it differently and do it to a bigger audience and their concern is you know growing that audience and making that money you know like you know a lot of people basically should just
Guest:call their tours every year you know cash grab two you know like it's just right i don't think like that a lot of that comes from what you you said this a few minutes ago that the idea of people who figured out they should be writers because the life of a comic was no real life to be on the road and be doing all that it's not a grown-up's wife
Guest:Right.
Guest:But there are plenty of people who figured out to do it in almost as a business with business sense.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like I think about and you talk to him on the episode you did with him.
Guest:Actually, that's something to recommend to people.
Guest:Episode 272 with Kevin Hart.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:You know, he was big then.
Guest:That was April 2012.
Guest:And he wasn't even huge yet.
Guest:Like, he was not a movie star.
Guest:He hadn't had his second go around in movies.
Guest:He was just a massive selling act all around the country at that point.
Guest:He was selling.
Guest:And that was why you had him on.
Guest:You were like, little Kev is selling out all these arenas?
Guest:And it was crazy.
Guest:And his explanation was like, he treated it from the day he was in the clubs as a business.
Guest:And he was amassing, you know, mailing lists.
Guest:And every time he'd have
Guest:spreadsheets about the places he went and what how many people came out to each one.
Guest:It was a it was like a math problem for him that he was figuring out.
Guest:And I do think that that's it's a valid thing.
Guest:It's not exactly.
Guest:And it's not to say the Kev's not funny, but it's it was doing something that didn't necessarily require comedy.
Guest:It was just to the comedy was the conduit for that business model.
Marc:Yeah, I don't even know what we're talking about.
Marc:I mean, I know what we're talking about, but it's never been my approach to anything.
Marc:And I said that in London because I wanted to play a smaller theater there because my experience at Symphony Hall wasn't great.
Marc:And I realized I said to them, yeah, I don't even know on that trip to London and Ireland.
Marc:I don't even think I made money because I stayed at nice hotels.
Marc:I played smaller venues and I told them, I said, it's I'm not doing this for the money.
Marc:I don't exactly know why I'm doing it.
Marc:But what I was getting at before in terms of, you know, the evolution of knowing your limitations and accepting, you know, who you are and for who you are doing what you do is
Marc:is that like i i've i do it i've been doing this bit on stage about how i'm not an arena act and i don't understand who goes to see arena acts and i do this bit i do it i just do a guy going tell us what meat to eat joe so joe joe joe who should we like joe um
Marc:But but I don't get that that type of groupthink.
Marc:And I start to realize that, you know, I am I have a demo.
Marc:What is it?
Marc:I have a I don't have this position.
Marc:Yeah, I don't have a demographic.
Marc:I have a disposition.
Marc:And it's really true.
Marc:And I start to realize, because I just texted my agent today, you know, there's a ceiling to these cities, man.
Marc:Like, you know.
Marc:I can only draw so much in these places and it's not necessarily growing, but even like when there are some cities that are better than others, but usually it's not, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not looking at over 2000 people in any city.
Marc:So however these people know me,
Marc:You know, they're coming.
Marc:I'm a boutique act.
Marc:I'm operating at the top of my game.
Marc:I'm a good comic, you know, but it's definitely, you know, I'm doing it for these people that get me.
Marc:And it provides them a great amount of entertainment and relief and feeling seen.
Marc:But it's a very specific thing and it's not broad in any fucking way.
Marc:And I have to accept that because I did nothing.
Marc:you know, to counter that.
Marc:I didn't sell myself out.
Marc:I didn't, you know, focus my talent on other things.
Marc:I didn't write, you know, in a way or perform in a way that would bring me a bigger audience.
Marc:For years, I thought, I don't understand where they are.
Marc:But as I get older and I realized my own emotional liabilities and my own sort of way of seeing the world, it's like, oh, well, you know, we would all be in trouble if everybody thought like me.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So if I can help out.
Guest:So why should you have to why should you have to compromise that?
Guest:Why should you make yourself to be something that you're not?
Guest:Plenty of people do.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, plenty of people build their whole act to avoid the way I feel.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's not an uncommon feeling for a creative person to be dark or depressed or anxious.
Marc:All the things I have are part of the driveshaft of a great many creative people.
Marc:They just don't talk about it and they use it.
Marc:My act of antidepressant in terms of sharing my reality in its purest way is
Marc:you know, could come off as pretty depressing to other people.
Marc:But I don't I think that a lot of people do feel the way I do, but they they that's but they don't talk about it.
Marc:You know, why would they bum their co-workers out?
Guest:Well, and then it's very clear why there are certain comics, particularly ones you've talked to on the show, that you've always left yourself with kind of a bad taste about because they don't
Marc:reveal themselves at all and they they continue to hide that well i've grown a little more sympathetic but you know in terms of that you know i get it man you know it's like uh it's a real risk dude and like and as i look back on my life you know i realize that you know i've taken unnecessary risks i've i've traumatized myself in many ways and because i didn't know how to do it any better i i wasn't self-protecting and my needs were uh
Marc:As such that, you know, I was looking for something, you know, in very dangerous places, which is on stage.
Marc:So so I don't recommend that to anybody.
Marc:And I get it, man.
Marc:You know, like, you know, look at somebody like Mulaney.
Marc:That guy, you know, is obviously a much darker cat than any of us realized.
Marc:And, you know, he's confronting it on stage, but he's always going to do it in that sing song.
Marc:He kind of like, you know, kind of way he does.
Marc:So there's going to be a buffer.
Marc:You know, I don't offer much of a buffer.
Marc:And, you know, he's a great example.
Marc:For years, you would not have assumed he was as untethered as he was or as dark as he was.
Guest:No.
Guest:And in fact, it's, you know, it's hurt him.
Guest:And that's not hurting his ticket sales.
Guest:He's doing fine.
Guest:But there was this, you know, whatever this whatever it's worth, there was.
Guest:a kind of online backlash against him, mostly from younger fans who all of a sudden were like, you're not the guy you sold us on, right?
Guest:And you know, that is a liability of doing what you're talking about, about kind of creating a character.
Marc:Yeah, but also you've got to realize, too, I start to see guys that had a real point of view become hackneyed for the same reason.
Marc:It's like they want to deliver the goods they're known to deliver, so they repeat themselves.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, age old premises, you know, and it's just if anything, you know, that idea that we were talking about earlier about people just going to see a comedy show is a lot of times people may not do that, but they'll go to see big stars talk about the same shit that people have been talking about as comics for decades.
Marc:And, you know, just give me a new spin on why your wife annoys you.
Marc:I mean, you couldn't you know what I mean?
Marc:I'm just lucky that I have no kids and no wife and I have a problematic brain and I'm completely sort of anxious and at times angry because it speaks to a certain.
Marc:Population.
Marc:They're not the dominant population, but but it's better than being sort of tethered to hackneyed patterns that require reinventing.
Marc:But but you see that redundancy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I'm not I'm not.
Marc:Thank God I'm not beholden to that.
Marc:But, you know, I also, you know, don't fly private.
Guest:Well, but I also think it's interesting that it that it's something you still think about.
Guest:You're still conscious of.
Guest:It's basically a straight line from that conversation with Stuart Lee 12 years ago to your philosophy around this now.
Guest:And I would say, I don't know, you could again, tell me if I'm wrong.
Guest:I would say it seems like you're only kind of.
Guest:in a good comfort zone about it, as comfortable as you're going to get within the last three years or so.
Guest:Like it's probably still taking you a while to be able to say what you're saying today.
Guest:That wasn't instantaneous after talking to Stuart Lee.
Marc:No, it's hard.
Marc:And I have to still sort, there's still vigilance around it because sometimes I really don't understand why I'm not bigger.
Marc:Like, I don't understand.
Marc:But what happened was, you know, with... You know, like, if you look at, like, too real and end times fun, like, there are bits in there, and they're, like... Like, how is this not...
Marc:How am I not huge because of those specials?
Marc:And that sort of was like one of those heartbreaking lessons where it's sort of like, dude, it's just not your destiny.
Marc:Like, you know, whatever you think is everybody's cup of tea, you're mistaken.
Marc:You're delusional.
Marc:But then you're sort of like, well, it's just not enough people know me.
Marc:It's like, yeah, but they would have.
Marc:Like, I couldn't have, you know,
Marc:planned the timing for End Times Fun better.
Marc:You know, granted, I ended, you know, I do this bit.
Marc:Here's the thing about me is like, sometimes I think I'm utterly irrelevant.
Marc:You know, people talk about like, you know, Maren's woke or this, that or other thing.
Marc:Well, whatever, but watch that last bit in End Times Fun.
Marc:And I defy any of you, you know, sort of anti-woke motherfuckers to sort of create a premise where the vice president of the United States is blowing Jesus who turns into Satan.
Marc:And you're going to tell me I got a woke problem?
Guest:Fucking go fuck yourself.
Guest:But, you know, it's hilarious is that you thought you might get like whatever word you want to use.
Guest:Let's use the word canceled for that bit by like religious people.
Guest:Like you were concerned that there was going to be a shitstorm on you when it happened because of like the religious folks.
Guest:And like it's hilarious.
Guest:Like those people don't give a shit anymore.
Marc:Nobody gave a shit.
Marc:And that is the ongoing lesson.
Marc:There's something fundamentally unappealing about me to regular people.
Marc:And I feel the same way.
Marc:I don't know how to engage with some people that are just regular people, whatever that means.
Marc:But it also goes back to that moment I had with Becky.
Marc:There are these weird moments with Dave Becky, my old manager.
Marc:Where we're like, I was totally paranoid that there was this gossip going on around me because I had had, you know, I had I was married and I got involved with somebody in the business briefly.
Marc:And I just was totally paranoid.
Marc:There's many like 30.
Marc:How one was that?
Marc:I was like probably nineteen, you know, ninety three or something.
Marc:And it was somebody me and Becky knew.
Marc:And I just assumed that, you know, the entire industry knew that was, you know, fucking around my wife.
Marc:and i said to him i said hey man like you know i i you know or so are you hearing things dave are a lot of people talking about me you know about this you know anything and he's like no man unfortunately nobody's saying anything about you on any
Marc:Like no one is talking about you in any way.
Marc:So.
Marc:But but it's again, it's to get back to the idea of limitations that, you know, it's it's accepting them.
Marc:And, you know, that's not something you can do intellectually.
Marc:Sometimes, you know, you are you are presented with you have no choice, you know, to to live a somewhat life with some kind of peace of mind around your particular creativity is to stop.
Marc:chasing you know just stop making assumptions and accept the audience you have and and and maybe realize about yourself that you're just and I've said this out loud and you know I've known it intellectually that I'm just I'm really not everyone's thing and and and it's real and
Marc:And but I'm enough people's thing to make a living and to, you know, and to have some impact on some people.
Marc:But I'm not, you know, I'm not going to be a shaker and mover on the global scale.
Marc:Which is what people gun for now.
Marc:We actually live in a world where comics are like, I'm going to take over the planet for a while.
Marc:And it can happen.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's like, thank God you don't have that impulse.
Guest:What fucking terrible pressure that would be.
Guest:I can barely handle Twitter now.
Marc:Can you imagine if there's a global force?
Marc:You know, I didn't have any infrastructure in place.
Marc:Just me, like, you know, staying up all night reading, you know, at responses.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, like that's, you know, maybe we could talk about this at length a different time.
Guest:But really, like when it boils down to it, I know that we've had conversations, obviously off mic about this before.
Guest:But like the idea of like, what does Joe Rogan want out of his station in life?
Guest:And is it power?
Guest:Is it this?
Guest:Is it that?
Yeah.
Guest:Ultimately, like, my mind was made up on Joe when he had to do those multiple, one after the other, kind of, like, mea culpa videos about, like, the stuff that had been in his past shows and, you know, there's N-word and all that stuff.
Guest:And it's like...
Guest:Yeah, that proved to me, and maybe I'm wrong.
Guest:Maybe I'm seeing it wrong.
Guest:But to me, my takeaway from that was like, oh, this guy never thought through any of this.
Guest:He just likes being like on top of a little mountain and having people be around him and hang out.
Guest:And he's the king of that mountain.
Guest:But he never thought about it being global and having influence.
Guest:And it's like Rush Limbaugh thought every day about having influence.
Guest:Joe reads a story about a fake story about, you know, kids in a high school using cat litter boxes in the in the bathroom because they want to identify as cats and reads it as though it's real and does not think about the responsibility of that because he doesn't he didn't plan for it.
Guest:There was no plan.
Marc:But he instinctively, you know, there's there is a type of narcissism.
Marc:You know, that is pervasive, you know, in terms of cultural and told, you know, celebrity.
Marc:But I think he instinctively knows right now and then, you know, where the juice is for his audience.
Marc:So and he learned that from Alex Jones specifically.
Marc:like he so like he may not think about it in the way you're thinking about it but i think on another level he feels supported enough that he doesn't give a fuck really that's true yeah so you know whether or not he thinks about it becomes a moot point just because like he can do whatever the fuck he wants and i guarantee you he'll never apologize for anything ever again
Guest:I don't guarantee that.
Guest:To be honest with you, I don't.
Guest:I think his apologies come hand in hand with understanding that he does work for a major corporation.
Guest:As much as it's just a licensing deal or whatever, they butter his bread.
Guest:And if they say to him, we can fire you for cause over this, he will apologize.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:But like, you know, they, it's weird thing, you know, about that N word stuff.
Marc:Is that like, cause like there was a period there where, you know, edgelords and even me, you know, when we talk about morning sedition, you know, was like one of the first few weeks of that show within, we basically colonized a black station, right?
Marc:And, you know, I had a black co-host and I'm like, let's talk about that word.
Marc:Let's just talk about it.
Marc:Like this idea that white people could just sort of like, I'm not saying it.
Marc:We're talking about the word.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it was really just to steal some juice from saying it.
Marc:You know, and I knew that's what Joe was doing.
Marc:And I've done it myself, you know.
Right.
Guest:So listening to this can go back and listen to the episode you did with Dwayne Kennedy and Kamau Bell, which was which was episode 46.
Guest:So that's way back.
Guest:And Dwayne and Kamau were talking about how like the alt comedy scene was rife with this, like exactly what you're talking about.
Marc:Stealing the juice.
Marc:From saying the N-word in a way they thought wasn't offensive.
Guest:Or just didn't care if it was offensive or not.
Guest:They thought, I found a permission structure to do this.
Marc:Right, but by trying to contextualize it not as hate speech.
Guest:Yes, right.
Guest:I finally found my way to own that word along with the black community.
Marc:That was the subtext of it.
Marc:They wanted none of that.
Marc:no no and and rightfully so yeah it's so funny like i have to be like i noticed the other day when i was talking to uh quinta uh you know like quinta brunson quinta brunson like you know because everyone knows who listens to me that depending on who i'm talking to occasionally i'll like appropriate a tone you know yeah and like there was a moment like you know what i'm talking to quinta where i'm like so who who was in your crew you know i'm like
Marc:Do I say that?
Marc:I had to monitor myself.
Marc:Like, dude, lighten up on the black talk.
Guest:Well, thank God it didn't happen with Ron Carter.
Guest:I was listening.
Guest:I was waiting for it to happen, like, for you to go into, like, real jazz bowhead with Ron Carter.
Guest:Yeah, it never did.
Guest:You said cats a bunch, but that's fair game, I think.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What would have concerned you?
Guest:Oh, just, like, if you were like, hey, you want to talk some jive?
Guest:I can talk jive with his slim skillet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.
Marc:He sent me a nice little present, a cute present.
Marc:It was cute.
Marc:It was thoughtful.
Marc:Because during the interview, I said I played a little guitar.
Marc:So he sent me this little guitar, little toy.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, a little guitar.
Marc:He said you played a little guitar.
Marc:Was it like this one?
Guest:It's a joke.
Guest:That's very cool.
Guest:Well, I think we've done a great service to anyone who listened to the Stuart Lee episode that we basically have provided them with like an hour of supplemental material to that one interview.
Guest:That one interview from 12 years ago now has a whole new life thanks to this content here.
Marc:Great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like I said, this stuff is still...
Marc:sort of evolving as I wrestle with the idea of how long do I have to do this?
Marc:That's the other thing about being who I am in the world and realizing the ceiling of my audience.
Marc:I'm really always confronting, and I know I do it in a seemingly habitual way, but how long do I have to do this?
Marc:What is my particular relevance as a comic?
Marc:I mean, that was always from the beginning too, Brendan, of the podcast.
Marc:I was concerned
Marc:that my comedy would take a second, like the back seat, that people would only know me for the podcast.
Marc:I mean, I'm sure you remember, it must have been for a year or two, where I'm like, you know, I didn't plan to be an interviewer, I'm a comedian.
Marc:So, like, you know, and when people would come to my shows, I'm like, how do you know me?
Marc:Like, there was a period there where they were like, well, let's go support Mark.
Marc:I'm like, I know what I'm doing.
Marc:I don't need support.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I think you had bad you had bad, like past history with that, too, of being just like the guy with the mic at a, you know, at a venue.
Guest:And also, yeah.
Marc:And also being, you know, at Air America, having people coming with political expectations or that horrible thing that happened in Foxborough Casino in Connecticut.
Marc:where they booked me for this huge room and like 12 people showed up and one of them gave me a fire truck, you know, so that fucking fire truck.
Marc:But I'm always wrestling with the, you know, is it necessary?
Marc:Because part of if I'm not doing this for the money,
Marc:and I'm not specifically doing it for my ego, but I'm doing it to communicate these ideas with like-minded people who enjoy what I do.
Marc:If that becomes so small in the live sense, how long do I do it for?
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:And they're all getting older.
Marc:My audiences are old now.
Marc:I have a few young people, but a lot of them are like, you know, my age and that's fine.
Marc:But it's like they're paying for this right now.
Marc:No, it's great.
Marc:And who else would come?
Marc:You know, I get it.
Marc:But it's just sort of an interesting, you know, realization.
Marc:And it's not easy.
Marc:I've held an audience for a long time, but so is fucking Seinfeld, you know.
Marc:So.
Marc:It's all very active and still happening.
Marc:Am I seeing the world correctly in terms of how I'm presenting?
Marc:Am I vital enough to the...
Marc:the culture or show business.
Marc:But when it really lands, where it lands right now is that I'm going out to do these shows in Oklahoma and Texas, and the one thing I know is I have no apprehension because I've got the goods, and that's a good feeling, and that's not nothing.
Guest:So, you know, good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I hope the next time we do this, I pick an episode that gets us talking just as much as this one.
Guest:Like this is all around one past episode of our archives.
Guest:And I'm glad we talked about it was really prompted, just like I said, from having Armando Iannucci on.
Guest:But I really do think that Stuart Lee episode is a is a kind of fulcrum.
Guest:for the history of you.
Guest:It's a turning point thing in your life and career.
Marc:Yeah, definitely, definitely.
Marc:And it was weird because I barely knew his stuff.
Marc:Did you ever talk to him afterwards?
Marc:Have you ever met him since?
Marc:No.
Marc:Nope, I think we exchanged emails once or twice about something, I can't remember what.
Marc:But no, I haven't seen him, haven't talked to him.
Marc:I've talked about him to a couple people, but I haven't seen him, no.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, now the pressure's on for me to pick a good one next time.
Guest:And we will.
Guest:There's plenty to pick from.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:All right, baby.
Guest:Boomer lives!