BONUS Producer Cuts - Brett Morgen, James Acaster, Jerry Harrison and Marc's Back Injury
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Guest:Hey, it's Brendan back with some more producer cuts.
Guest:Got some stuff here for you full Marin subscribers, things that didn't make it into the episodes for whatever various reasons that I'm going to tell you about right now.
Guest:And generally, this is all stuff that I wish that could have been included in the show.
Guest:But for whatever reasons, we wound up cutting it out.
Guest:And now I play it for you because you subscribe and you deserve cool stuff.
Guest:And the first thing here is from the most recent episode with Brett Morgan, the documentary filmmaker, director of The Kid Stays in the Picture, and the latest Bowie documentary that he made, Moon Age Daydream.
Guest:And this is one of those things that happened literally recently.
Guest:right at the end of the episode they came to a stop they were ready to say goodbye and brett said oh one more thing and you'll hear he started asking mark questions about the movie that mark was in stardust which was um a kind of look at a very particular time in david bowie's life and you know the episode really ended already i mean this is not something that was a surreptitious recording but brett was intending for this to still be in the show it's just like
Guest:It ended.
Guest:And this was just extra.
Guest:And usually extra stuff gets cut out.
Guest:Now extra stuff gets brought to you.
Guest:So here's Mark and Brett Morgan talking about the Bowie movie Stardust.
Guest:Can I ask you a very Bowie-centric question?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you were in...
Guest:One of Stardust.
Guest:Yeah, Stardust.
Guest:As you know, the Bowie fans went apocalyptic when that film came out.
Marc:I'm not sure why, but yeah.
Marc:So were you aware of that?
Marc:Nah, because again, it wasn't on me.
Marc:What were they going to say about me?
Marc:That guy, I was playing a guy that was much younger than me at the time, and I did a good job.
Marc:You did do a good job.
Marc:They could say, the movie was terrible, why would you do that?
Marc:But for me, it was an opportunity to act.
Marc:It was not heavy lifting in terms of time.
Marc:And the guy really wanted me to do it, the director.
Marc:And we knew that he wasn't sanctioned, and that it was a big risk.
Marc:But for me, I just kept thinking like,
Marc:I hope Johnny's got thick skin.
Marc:I really wasn't that concerned.
Marc:And I didn't get too into the criticism of it.
Marc:Because as time goes on, it's not going to be looked at as some, it's not a terrible movie.
Marc:You know, I mean, it was shot on an insane budget.
Marc:And the guy who shot it was an old-timey British guy who shot some of the John Lennon Imagine footage.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Like, you know, he was there.
Marc:The guy was like 80.
Marc:You know, and he's like running and gunning that thing, man.
Marc:But like, I knew that they didn't like it, but I didn't get hung up on it.
Marc:Because again, it wasn't on me.
Marc:Yeah, that's interesting.
Marc:Why?
Marc:What are you thinking?
Guest:Oh, I just, I was wondering because I know you're a Bowie fan and then you got involved in that project, which seems so, um, it seemed like it was still birth.
Guest:Sure, of course.
Marc:But the weird thing is, is that like the guy who made it was like, it was his life's passion.
Marc:I see that.
Marc:I feel that.
Marc:And he didn't have enough money to do it thoroughly.
Marc:But he'd been wanting to do this movie forever.
Marc:And Johnny went into it completely in earnest and, again, did the thing that Bowie did.
Marc:Like, took a big chance to play that guy.
Marc:And I played along with it.
Marc:But I didn't realize until after the fact that he actually did a good job
Marc:for who he was at that time in his career.
Marc:I think he showed that embarrassing vulnerability and sort of weird kind of self-involvement of a guy that's going to do a little mime for an interviewer.
Marc:But at the time I was shooting it, I'm like, oh my God.
Marc:And my character was sort of like, maybe a little less mime.
Marc:But he really did that.
Marc:So in retrospect, I was sort of like, wow.
Marc:I mean, he did his homework and showed up to do the thing.
Marc:To be at a party playing by himself on a couch with a 12 string and no one gives a shit.
Marc:Some of that stuff was based on truth.
Marc:But yeah, I mean, look, it's not going to hurt me either way in terms of, and I feel, you know, I don't, I like my performance in it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Your performance was great.
Guest:One last question for you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You were in Joker, right?
Guest:For a second.
Guest:Did you ever see Todd Phillips' film Hated?
Guest:No.
Guest:Gigi Allen?
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, the doc on Gigi?
Guest:I didn't watch it.
Guest:No.
No.
Guest:You like it?
Guest:It was... At the time when it came out, it was... Yeah, it was... Fucking... Well, I've known Todd since that time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And... The Joker is just an extension of the Gigi Allen hated... Todd's...
Guest:been that guy the whole time yeah and um a singular force i mean at 21 yeah it was he was pt barnum it was so clear yeah he was but that that hated you should definitely watch
Marc:I'll watch it.
Marc:I just remember when I lived on the Lower East Side, I used to see his dumb brother everywhere.
Marc:Gigi's dumb brother with the Hitler mustache.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Walking around in his getup.
Marc:And it was already after the fact, because I was down there.
Marc:Well, maybe not.
Marc:I mean, I think, when did Gigi die?
Marc:Because I was down there like in 89.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I lived on second between A and B, but I think he was already dead.
Marc:Is that possible?
Marc:I think it was the early 90s.
Marc:No shit.
Marc:I never went to go see him.
Marc:It never sounded appealing to me.
Marc:I just remember seeing his brother and just every time like, really, a Hitler mustache?
Marc:But I'll watch it.
Marc:Give it a shot.
Marc:All right.
Guest:OK, the next thing we have here, this is going to be a little different than what I've done in the past producer cuts.
Guest:I'm going to play something where you have already heard.
Guest:If you heard the James Acaster episode, you've heard about the first two and a half minutes of this.
Guest:This was toward the beginning of the talk.
Guest:They started talking about microphones, particularly because Mark saw a microphone in one of James's specials that he really liked.
Guest:And they kept talking about microphones and gear for another four minutes or so.
Guest:And I just felt like toward the beginning of the episode, a lot of people who are not like super comedy nerds, they might want to kind of move past this part.
Guest:But at the same time, it was fun and it was interesting stuff, especially if you're a fan of the show and a fan of comedians talking about comedy.
Guest:You might get something out of this.
Guest:And just because I had to thin it out for the regular episode doesn't mean that it's not something you might like to hear.
Guest:So like I said, you're going to hear about two minutes of stuff that actually was in...
Guest:the main episode.
Guest:And that kind of sets up the context.
Guest:And if you're a careful listener, you might be able to spot where I took this out in the actual episode.
Guest:Here is that full section with Mark and James Acaster having some fun talking about their gear.
Marc:Where'd you get that mic?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And the cord.
Guest:Yeah, so that was, there's one of the shows, because all four of those shows was shows that I did over quite a big period of time and then filmed them all at once.
Guest:But there was like six years of touring them and then doing the next one.
Guest:And I think one of them, it just happened that like,
Guest:i had a red stall that the venue had for the month in edinburgh uh so i was using this red stall anyway and then uh the backdrop i wanted a backdrop last minute yeah uh because the stage was too deep and it looked mad so they were like we've got this red curtain and i thought this looks stupid i've got a red curtain and a red stall yeah um and then so i just lent into it and
Guest:all the red clothes I had in my suitcase I wore for the show as well.
Marc:For the one in Edinburgh.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So then when it came to doing that show on tour, I think my tour manager just suggested it and just went, do you want us to get you a mic that is also the same colour as everything else?
Guest:And I just said yes to it and managed to... And then just like...
Guest:I don't know if you've had it, but you just don't even look for stuff and you find it.
Guest:So I had to buy a new mic cord and then found one that matched the rest of the yellow one that matched the pattern on my tie.
Guest:And then I had to get new shoelaces and walked into a shop and it was like the exact same as my mic cord shoelaces, which no one has ever noticed, obviously, who's watched the specials.
Guest:But yeah, and then it just, when filming the specials, I was like, let's have that for all four of them and try and do the colour thing.
Marc:Well, I noticed it right away because I'm like, this is the only thing we work with.
Marc:I'm very hung up on microphones.
Marc:I only use ones with wires.
Marc:I won't use one with no wire because it bothers me.
Marc:I feel untethered.
Marc:They're usually too fat.
Marc:They don't fit into a mic stand properly.
Marc:So when I saw that mic, I started looking for colored mics.
Marc:I'm like, where the fuck?
Marc:What kind of mic is that?
Marc:Where would he get that mic?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Someone had to spray it.
Guest:Someone guy did it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sprayed it for us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that's what I realized after I couldn't find one.
Marc:It was a set deck job.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Somebody from Props did it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, someone had done it, and I've got it still somewhere at home.
Guest:I'm very fond of it, obviously.
Guest:Did you take it with you?
Guest:No.
Guest:For the last tour, I just used whatever mic they had in the venue, and then when we filmed it, I worked with the same production company who filmed the Netflix ones, and they are...
Guest:even more meticulous over detail than i am so they were like you can't just use a normal mic because you use the spray one for the last one so they got a mic and sprayed it the colors of that show and gave it to us but i just used it for the the taping right so you're now you're the guy that they're like we got to spray a mic that's it now if i ever do a show there's a normal mic everyone's gonna go oh he's slipping instead i'm not gonna bother watching that based on the photos because he's clearly not caring anymore i i
Marc:I noticed because I like I'm a I'm a corduroy jacket guy.
Marc:I like a nice corduroy jacket.
Marc:So everything was sort of like he really planned this thing.
Marc:There's like not that much to plan.
Marc:And then that weird.
Marc:What did they build that mic stand for you out of half a wooden stand like a lamppost?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And they stuck a tripod top on a boom on top.
Guest:Yeah, that took me by surprise when they got that.
Guest:Because that was the same people who did the mic.
Guest:And they were like... I think they suggested it.
Guest:No, that was it.
Guest:Because I had the show where I was going to take apart the whole set at the end.
Guest:And my manager said, you can't... Because in previews, in work-in-progress shows, I was throwing everything around the room.
Guest:And they were like, you can't do that with the venue's mic stand.
Guest:Like, they're going to...
Guest:obviously understandably get pissed off so I was like right well let's just get us a mic stand for the tour and by then they'd already got the mic that was that colour so they were like well let's just get the same guys to give you a mic stand and then they gave me that one which I was like oh I can unscrew that so there's even more taking it apart involved well that's
Guest:And the more I struggled with it... I hope you get this when it's like you're writing a show and you have a bit where suddenly you realise that you're going to look stupid when you do it.
Guest:And your instinct... My instinct is to fight against it.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Because now I've got this mic stand and there's going to be more stages to taking it apart than there were before.
Guest:So I'm going to look stupid doing that.
Guest:And then you realise...
Guest:You forget that you're a comedian and that that's going to work in your favor.
Guest:Of course, that's good.
Guest:The whole thing's more convoluted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You lead into it more.
Marc:Right.
Marc:If you know that it's going to be unpredictable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I don't I won't do like for a couple of specials you used.
Marc:I won't do any of that tripod.
Marc:Like I need a straight thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Into a round thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No bendies.
Marc:because as soon as you're dealing with bendy's it's over yeah because then you there's like even just to adjust it you're a fucking idiot yeah and i won't if i but like i know it's funny yeah but but it's a genuine sword and it's going to be funny your frustration is going to be funny yeah but but i imagine if you run it that way and you have a couple shots at it you're like all right well i can i can milk this yeah but a lot of times if i get to a venue and they've got like what is essentially a musician's mic
Marc:which has the boom in it, I'm like, I can't do it.
Marc:I can't get rid of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you can't slide it in easy and you can't adjust it easy.
Marc:I just need it in and out.
Guest:I don't want to... That's the dream.
Guest:I mean, for this one, I was like, it has to be... It had to be a boom.
Guest:That's the only thing I requested was it was a boom.
Guest:So that when I was taking it apart and messing up, I had more to do with it.
Guest:Okay, yeah.
Guest:So it was on purpose.
Guest:But then when filming the four shows, that meant now I've got a boom mic...
Guest:stand for all four shows yeah which uh just for one joke at the end of one of them yeah um and i didn't love it and also it was like a metal it was like quite heavy it wasn't like the wooden base yeah it was like a it was all made of metal so it was like the whole thing was like quite and i'm not a strong guy yeah so like every show i was like this is quite a chunky bit of kit to be uh having to mess around with every show uh i hope the end of the show that it's relevant to works because otherwise yeah it'll all be for nothing
Marc:uh yeah i i don't know like i asked for i guess they call it a 58 on a stick yeah and that's like with a with a wire that's what did i get 58 on a stick with a wire the ones where you can adjust them just by pushing it's like a squeezy even oh yeah the twisty ones can you yeah yeah especially an old club twisty one you could be up there like who the hell did
Guest:yeah yeah oh the squeezy one i mean you never know what you're gonna get one gig to the next but anytime you turn up and it's just the it's just the single uh mic stand uh and you could just squeeze it up and down it's the best yeah i feel like like a king it's very exciting these are this is shop talk with yeah james yeah we can do shop talk i think is there enough shop talk on the pod not enough
Guest:No, there's not enough.
Guest:People should be talking about kit.
Marc:What kit do you use?
Marc:People always ask me about this stuff.
Marc:I'm very specific about mics.
Marc:You sort of get attached to things.
Marc:I'm not one of those guys that brings a mic to the gig.
Marc:But if it's a weird mic, I'm like, where did you even get this?
Marc:Just get a 58.
Marc:There's one mic.
Marc:Why fuck with that?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Okay, and next, a really short one, and there's a very specific reason I took this out.
Guest:This is Mark with Jerry Harrison from Talking Heads and The Modern Lovers, and there was a moment where they started talking about Brian Eno, and I just felt like I had to cut it because Mark just said kind of quickly something about Eno, and then they went into talking about him, and I
Guest:I kind of felt like if you had no context for what they were saying, you might not have even known.
Guest:And then it would have just been distracting to go, who was that they were talking about?
Guest:So here's this pretty short section that I thought was cool because Jerry Harrison is talking about Brian Eno as he knows him personally.
Guest:I thought this was cool and I wish it could have been set up better within the talk, but sometimes we lose it.
Guest:And now that I can give you the proper context, here it is.
Marc:Eno's kind of a wizard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He strikes me.
Marc:It's like, you know him as a person.
Marc:For me, it's like, this guy did all of this stuff.
Marc:And his solo records are fucking, they're insane.
Marc:They're great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he's not exactly a musician.
Guest:It's like, he can't really play anything.
Guest:No.
Guest:He plays kind of like with one finger and stuff like that.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And sings a part and does.
Guest:So it's all sort of mental.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:But he also taught us to think of the recording studio as an instrument itself.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And, you know, when we even, especially before I was in even the modern, even when we were in the Modern Lovers, but earlier.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was a sense that, you know, you see these pictures of EMI records where the Beatles record where they're wearing white lab coats.
Guest:And it's like, oh, no musicians in here.
Guest:You guys are in that room.
Guest:This is where the technicians are.
Guest:You might bring some dirt in here.
Guest:Get some ashes on things.
Guest:Spill a drink.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So there was this transition going on where, you know, and he...
Guest:And we trusted him enough so that he would put effects on sometimes as we were recording and recorded them with effects.
Guest:So you had to really trust him because sometimes you'd go, I liked what I was playing, but yeah, well, it was pretty cool.
Guest:Okay, cool.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was kind of like that.
Guest:There were so few people that would go like, I could never have stood that, you know, but we were like, we were into it.
Guest:You trusted him.
Guest:All right, and we're going to end this with something that came out of one of Mark's monologues a couple weeks ago.
Guest:There's a thing that happens regularly when Mark is kind of doing these monologues from the top of his head.
Guest:He might start talking about how he's feeling health-wise.
Guest:And sometimes that happens a lot.
Guest:And I always point out to him that, you know, he remembers being on the radio in San Francisco with a radio host named Alex Bennett.
Guest:And Mark says after a while, Alex just was talking about his ailments all the time and certain maladies that he had.
Guest:And I'm always kind of warning Mark, hey, like, you know, don't turn into that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't want to just be complaining about your health all the time, especially if you're in fairly decent health.
Guest:And this story he told about a back injury he suffered just kind of came on the heels of him having recently told another story about his health.
Guest:So I cut it out, but I also think it's funny.
Guest:I think he describes the particular type of injury he got from not stretching in a way that I can relate to as a person with a bad back.
Guest:So here is Mark and his backstory from a recent episode monologue.
Guest:So here's the deal.
Marc:I hurt my back somehow.
Marc:I think the original injury came from sleeping.
Marc:I woke up.
Marc:Look, I don't know what your life is.
Marc:But I'm a 58 year old man who exercises fairly compulsively.
Marc:I do about two or three workouts with weights a week and two or three incline hikes of an hour plus and half hour down a week.
Marc:So I got to stretch every day just to even walk properly upon awakening.
Marc:In the morning, I have to get out of bed and get into what I call an old Asian woman squat because that's how I've seen them sitting, mostly down in Chinatown in New York in the park.
Marc:I used to see them just eating and just kind of low squat.
Marc:I do those because they open up everything.
Marc:And then I do the touching of the toes and whatnot just so I can...
Marc:kind of start moving.
Marc:A lot of things are cracking now, joints and whatnot.
Marc:But on the road, I can only assume I did not exercise on the road.
Marc:Matter of fact, I ate badly and swept the sleep of shame almost every night.
Marc:So maybe the combination of shame and a different mattress every night
Marc:caused me some back pain.
Marc:And it was the type of pain I've had before.
Marc:It seemed muscular.
Marc:It didn't seem like a nerve pain or a disc pain.
Marc:It seemed like a pull.
Marc:There was a bit of a spasm going on.
Marc:But it was a little bit debilitating by the time I got on the plane after the drama at the airport with a single gate agent and then landing in Dallas-Fort Worth and running.
Marc:This is where it happened.
Marc:This is where it happened.
Marc:the running so look it's important to stretch and I assume like even if you gotta sprint
Marc:I mean, I imagine that's why you get into good shape, but you have to realize that if you're going to just kind of launch into a sprint and you're not stretched out a bit, you're going to hurt yourself either after or during.
Marc:So my recommendation is if you're going to launch into a sprint because you're in a hurry,
Marc:Or if you're running for your life, given that you have enough time from whatever is pursuing you or raining upon you or about to collapse on you, take a second to stretch it out a little bit.
Marc:Hey, look, man, is it worth, you know, it's a life or death situation.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:But let's say you live.
Marc:You want to live with back pain for a month, two months, six months permanently.
Marc:Roll the dice.
Marc:If the tsunami is upon you and you see it in the distance, just do a little squat, get down in it, stretch out a little bit, touch your toes, and then bolt.
Marc:Because whatever the fuck I did to get to that goddamn gate, which was fly, fly,
Marc:out of one of the trains at Dallas-Fort Worth and then down these huge, steep escalator, holding my bag one arm up with the roller bag with the other bag slid into the handle of it.
Marc:And I just lifted it up, which was good.
Marc:That was some strength.
Marc:I'm glad I was trained for that.
Marc:But then I ran.
Marc:I ran with that thing in the air down that escalator and then I ran, bolted,
Marc:rolling with that goddamn bag, and I was debilitated.
Marc:So all that to say, I kind of know that
Marc:why did i just eat that i'm on the mic i kind of know that if you got a back thing you don't want to push it because if you push it with the back thing and it's adjusting to not cause you pain you could hurt your other back thing any of the thousands of back things that are hurtable you could hurt but i was just compulsively stretching and rolling and i just can't i can't do it man i can't go that long without exercise or i start to drift i start to drift into darkness
Marc:I exercise to run away from darkness.
Marc:I get those dopamine things.
Marc:I get those endorphins going and I don't get high, but it definitely makes a difference in my heart, in my mind.
Marc:so we'll see what happens i took ibuprofen i stretched out two or three times took ibuprofen and i went and did my thing and i feel okay it while i as i record this i feel all right we'll see if i can walk tomorrow maybe dumb someone asked me did you go to a chiropractor i don't go to chiropractors
Marc:I've gone to one chiropractor, and it's the hustle.
Marc:I couldn't... I could not overcome the hustle, the supplements, the strange tests, the equipment.
Marc:It didn't... It's the same with the Chinese doctor, the white guy Chinese doctor I went to.
Marc:You know, the strange scale and body fat.
Marc:It's just nothing...
Marc:Nothing looked real.
Marc:So, no.
Marc:I'm just going to stretch, take care of it.
Marc:We'll see what happens.
Marc:But just remember, if you're running for your life, take a minute to stretch before.
Marc:In the long run, you'll be better off for it.
Marc:And if you die, you die.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Maybe my priorities aren't right.
Marc:I don't know what to tell you.
Marc:I don't know what to tell you.
Guest:All right, and that does it for another batch of producer cuts.
Guest:I hope you like these.
Guest:I will bring more to you whenever they happen.
Guest:As you can tell, every few weeks I have a new batch of them because, well, I've had to cut things out.
Guest:So you get to hear them because you subscribe, and we thank you very much for that, both Mark and myself.
Guest:We are still super excited that we get to do bonus content for you guys.
Guest:I hope you're liking it.
Guest:All right, thanks a lot.
Guest:Talk to you soon.
Marc:Boomer lives!