Episode 765 - Dana Carvey
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuck in the ears?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF, my podcast.
Marc:Thanks for tuning in.
Marc:Off the top, right off the top, I want to thank the amazing people of Chicago for coming out to the Vic for two shows I did on Saturday night.
Marc:I love Chicago.
Marc:I wish I could have stayed there longer.
Marc:It's very weird.
Marc:Very weird to fly someplace for one night and work.
Marc:It feels like a dream.
Marc:I don't know if it really happened.
Marc:I do know that they were good shows.
Marc:I know that I love the venue, but it's operating in sort of a hazy space.
Marc:I'm in it right now, actually, because to travel to Chicago for one night to do two shows, I get up at about 435 in the morning here in L.A., fly to Chicago.
Marc:I took some time to go to Lou Malnati's and shove about three quarters of a small deep dish classic Lou pie into my face.
Marc:And then I went for a sound check at 6 o'clock.
Marc:Did the shows at 7.30 and 10.
Marc:Then went back to the hotel.
Marc:Went to sleep.
Marc:Woke up about 5 in the morning.
Marc:Chicago time.
Marc:And flew back here.
Marc:Both plane rides.
Marc:I couldn't really sleep.
Marc:I got jacked up on coffee.
Marc:But I was...
Marc:in and out of sleep.
Marc:So just the bookends of that and the fact that it happened within 24 hours, I'm not sure that I was really there.
Marc:Today on the show, I have the amazing Dana Carvey, who I had a great conversation with.
Marc:I had no idea what to expect.
Marc:I obviously made assumptions just based on meeting him for five minutes once and watching him on movies and SNL.
Marc:As I always do, I'll make assumptions and they were all wrong.
Marc:We had a very nice, deep, thoughtful conversation, me and Mr. Carvey.
Marc:He's back at it.
Marc:He's back in the world of entertainment in a big way.
Marc:He's got a special on Netflix called Straight White Male 60.
Marc:That's streaming now.
Marc:I was excited to talk to him.
Marc:I'm a little under the weather, so if you don't mind...
Marc:I have to save my delicate voice.
Marc:I have to save my instrument for tomorrow's shooting of GLOW.
Marc:We've only got a couple more weeks.
Marc:We're heading into the final episode this week of shooting.
Marc:And it's been very exciting to just be an actor and to act like somebody else who's a lot like me.
Marc:That's the way... He's not.
Marc:But...
Marc:I didn't have the whole show hanging on my shoulders.
Marc:And it was great.
Marc:And it was great to work with other people.
Marc:And it was amazing to work with all these talented women.
Marc:It was amazing.
Marc:And there's another week of it.
Marc:But I can't show up.
Marc:I can't show up...
Marc:With no voice, because that'll be a very costly sickness.
Marc:It's fucking everybody's sick.
Marc:Everyone gets sick at the same time in the whole goddamn country.
Marc:It's amazing.
Marc:I'm just on an airplane, and I'm like, there's no way I'm not going to.
Marc:And then it was cold in Chicago, and I was excited about it, because as I've said before, I have a lot of warm jackets.
Marc:That I'm just happy I get to wear.
Marc:So as you know, I get a lot of emails.
Marc:I get a lot of emails and I generally respond about 99% of the time to people with recovery questions, with needing a little support to...
Marc:Stop the boozing or the drugging or the whatever is destroying their life.
Marc:If I can help at all, I try to.
Marc:If I do read their emails, some of them get by me.
Marc:I like getting emails from the young people of the world.
Marc:Because I know that when I was a teenager, I had heroes and I could not access them at all.
Marc:But now it just seems like we can all access everybody.
Marc:And anytime, anytime you need to talk to anybody, if you're persistent, you can get through to them and probably get a response within a couple of weeks.
Marc:I'm willing to bet that is true.
Marc:The subject line of this email, just some shit to say, I guess.
Marc:Honestly, I don't really know why I'm emailing, but who cares?
Marc:Dear Mark or whatever monkey he has hired to skim through his emails for him.
Marc:My name is Britain.
Marc:I'm a senior in high school and I found your podcast around the time I was in eighth grade, which was 2012, I guess.
Marc:I just wanted to let you know, after all these years of thinking it, how much of a weird influence you and your podcast have had on my life before you get anxious and fear that my life has been ruined.
Marc:rest assured that it has been in only a perfectly positive way listening to your show every once in a while when you have a comedian i like on i feel like i'm adding on a new life into my brain a new perspective of life but the podcast and guests are only half of it after listening to your stand-up special and watching some interviews of you i have realized that the thing that draws me to you is your unique point of view you have on the world
Marc:Your crazy years in the 80s and 90s and your failure to get on SNL seem to be sets of lenses you wear while viewing life at first glance.
Marc:That's a pretty good sentence, Britt.
Marc:Back to the email.
Marc:You're an intriguing figure to talk to.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I live in Nashville and missed your show, but the more I dwell on it, the more I realize that it was probably for my own good.
Marc:As much as I love the Mark you see on stage, I always find the genuine Mark who sneaks out sometimes during a particularly deep podcast to be the one I cherish the most.
Marc:Oh, Britt, you saw that guy.
Marc:He comes out, huh?
Marc:Man, I can't keep that guy in.
Marc:You, whether you like it or not, are a special dude and will probably be my emotional tour guide until the day one of your wives kills you.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Thanks for the vote of confidence, kid.
Marc:I'm sure you get at least two of these a week, so you're probably overwhelmed.
Marc:So I'm sorry for not being as interesting as the email that was read before mine.
Marc:I just wanted to let you know that everything you do is pretty good.
Marc:Sincerely, you're honestly around the bottom 50% biggest fan, Britain.
Marc:Britton, thank you.
Marc:You're a funny kid.
Marc:You should maybe look into doing something with that funny.
Marc:All right?
Marc:That's all I'm going to say.
Marc:And I'm happy I've been a good influence on you.
Marc:It makes me feel like I've achieved something in my fucking life.
Marc:There's one thing that I can say is that the help that I give people trying to get off drugs and alcohol because of this show and the help that I give kids who might feel out of place or out of uncomfortable in their bodies and their minds and they're in the social environments...
Marc:And just the general good feelings or any sort of support that I don't know I'm doing because I'm sort of self-involved in giving to sensitive people of all sorts who are uncomfortable for any number of reasons.
Marc:That's what makes me grateful.
Marc:It ain't the money.
Marc:It ain't whatever mid-level fame I have.
Marc:It's actually being able to go through my emails and always get choked up.
Marc:I always get choked up.
Marc:I enjoy crying right now.
Marc:It's what's happening.
Marc:It takes colossal balls to cry.
Marc:I don't know why I said that.
Marc:I think I was responding to a tweet in my head of somebody who said, quit crying, grow some balls.
Marc:So there's a little context for that.
Marc:in case you needed it.
Marc:It's my privilege and pleasure right now to have you experience my first conversation ever, really, as you'll hear a lot of these conversations.
Marc:In general, our first conversations.
Marc:I've met people.
Marc:I've chit-chatted with people.
Marc:But this is the first time, not unlike a lot of the interviews, where I sat down with a guy we all know and we all love,
Marc:But I didn't really know.
Marc:And now I know a little better.
Marc:This is me and Dana Carvey in the garage.
Marc:His new Netflix special, Straight White Male 60, is now streaming.
Marc:So hang out.
Marc:Hang out with me and Dana.
Guest:My first thing about living alone here would be at night being paranoid that someone is breaking in.
Guest:How do you manage that?
Guest:Do you have a safe room?
Marc:The whole house.
Marc:I have a security system.
Marc:The fence is okay.
Marc:I have a plan in my head.
Marc:But has the security system ever gone off?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And doesn't that scare the living shit out of you?
Guest:Yeah, it's a horrible feeling.
Guest:So I never put them on because they go off and then you live with, oh, it was just a... So you've always had that fear?
Marc:I mean, you've always had the fear of, like, even before you were successful, you had this fear that someone was going to come in and... Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:One of my earliest stand-up bits, we're talking in college, was you get into bed, you're in your place alone...
Guest:And then you, like, you got, oh, fuck, I got to check the closet.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This was the joke.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So you get up and you go, I just need to know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But what have you found a guy in there?
Guest:How awkward is that?
Guest:I just wanted to know.
Guest:And the guys, it was all about surprise for him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'll just be, I'll let myself out.
Guest:Have you ever lost your keys and looked in the refrigerator?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Eventually you go, yes, I'm going for the crisper drawer.
Guest:Okay, so we all have these.
Guest:These are stand-up discs from somebody.
Marc:Did you ever find your keys in the refrigerator?
No.
Marc:As I get older, I find things are showing up.
Marc:I get halfway into something, and then it's like, what happened to that thing?
Marc:I know.
Marc:But where do you come from?
Marc:It was nice to meet you, and I know you were on SNL, but I don't know a lot about you.
Marc:I think I'm... You're a mysterious man.
Guest:Unintentionally mysterious.
Guest:serious but then you disappeared for a while i i did like 12 years yeah well where'd you where'd you grow up um northern california san carlos what's that by that's near near palo alto it would be in silicon valley now right but it was a middle class white suburb and you're and you just like grew up like a normal kid what'd your old man do
Guest:He was a high school teacher.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, at San Mateo High for 60 years.
Guest:For 60 years?
Guest:For 50, maybe, all right, let's call it 55.
Guest:Where Merv Griffin went.
Marc:Really?
Marc:That was the claim to fame?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Merv Griffin.
Marc:Merv Griffin went there.
Marc:Your father did not know Merv Griffin.
Marc:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:But he knew Arthur Treacher, and that's only for people over 50, folks.
Guest:Arthur Treacher's fish and chips?
Guest:Arthur Treacher, okay, that's a good one.
Guest:What is he?
Guest:He was the sidekick, the British guy.
Guest:Right, but didn't he have a fish and chips thing later?
Guest:I guess so, yeah.
Guest:Jimmy Dean's sausage, I'll go back to all those 60s icons.
Guest:No, but yeah, I had five kids all stacked.
Guest:There were five of you?
Guest:Five of us, all two years apart, younger sister, three older brothers.
Guest:You have three older brothers.
Guest:three older brothers all stacked really uh very tight with all of them speak to them was that a catholic thing or just uh no no we were you know at fifth we we were lutheran but yeah yeah yeah i mean a bit about it but we were i know i could tell my parents didn't really believe but felt they should go but the main thing i don't know lutheran's pretty diplomatic course it's not we're not trying to change anybody yeah
Guest:So we did that and, you know, the main thing was we were just a very rough and tumble dad in a really intense childhood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what about your mom?
Guest:Sweet and tiny, artistic, would draw and paint.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Had a voice like this, literally, hi.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Very feminine, very, you know, and my dad was just kind of a monster.
Guest:What did he teach in high school?
Guest:Business.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just business in high school?
Guest:High school, shorthand.
Guest:He taught shorthand, business shorthand.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, so that- And you got along with him?
Guest:No, no, he hated me.
Guest:He did, and you know, you check him- Were he the only one that he hated?
Guest:No, he hated Brad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Brad was the second one.
Guest:Brad was the guy I based Garth on.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He was the science kid of the family.
Guest:Is he still?
Guest:Yeah, he kind of co-invented a thing called the Video Toaster in the early 90s.
Guest:He named it the Video Toaster and designed the first prototype.
Guest:That was a big- Editing, home editing with Amiga computers.
Guest:Oh, so he got a big payout early on.
Guest:He did well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he's the only relative I don't give money to.
Okay.
Guest:But I should.
Guest:It's such an upending thing that happened to me where you're very tight with your siblings.
Guest:You've survived a sociopath and a sadist.
Marc:You really think he was?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Why didn't he like you?
Marc:You were about to say he hates you.
Guest:I had two brothers.
Guest:One thing great about modern society, micromanaging parents, is we know when kids are dyslexic, so we don't make them feel stupid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Mark and Scott were dyslexic, so they were in the red book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was the yellow, or maybe the yellow, and then you get the green, the blue book is the top.
Guest:So basically, I could read, so I got pretty good grades.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so somehow I got this nickname, Dane the Brain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was enough for Bud, so...
Guest:And I check in with, even in the last few weeks, I check in with my sister.
Guest:I go, so he had it out for me, right?
Guest:I'm not imagining this.
Guest:I'm 61 years of age.
Guest:Oh, no, no, no.
Guest:He hated you.
Guest:Yeah, he did.
Guest:He really resented me and was competitive with me.
Guest:Really?
Guest:But he gave beatings to everybody or he ruled, you know, he was hair trigger temper.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was very dark.
Guest:No booze?
Guest:He could rage with coffee or booze.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, here's an example, just one moment.
Guest:My brother's back from Berkeley, the oldest, sitting across from Bud.
Guest:They're talking about stuff, and he naively said to my dad, well, that's just a cliche.
Guest:They were sort of having a... And he took a big goblet of red wine and wound up like this and threw it right at my brother's head.
Guest:So it just missed him.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they got into some altercation.
Guest:You know, I'm 60 pounds, you know, so I get away.
Guest:But then he made us get in.
Guest:So my brother left.
Guest:We had to get in the car.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're driving down.
Guest:And he's going, flip your brother off.
Guest:Flip your brother off.
Guest:For some reason, my sister, my other brother and I. Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I just don't know how to ask this stuff.
Guest:I'm not easy to tell about it.
Guest:It's just that because I...
Marc:did impressions and characters i never integrated this into my stand-up like people i admire do that right well that's interesting that you would still like you're telling me that a few weeks ago you asked your sister to confirm that he had it out for you like it's still it it's something you never quite get over well you know
Guest:You want to check in with your Simpsons and go, am I being sort of theatrical after the fact?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:And when they can, no, no, no.
Guest:Okay, because I don't want to be a martyr or a bitter unnecessarily.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they're going, no, no, no.
Guest:But, you know, this was 60s parenting, so I found my way away from him, you know.
Marc:What do you think?
Guest:it was like creating characters or doing voices or doing impressions do you find that that evolved out of some sort of like uh detachment from the emotions that were in the house well i think certainly all of us were funny at the time i mean no one really thought i was going to be the comedian but yeah we but did you use it as some way to avoid emotions
Guest:Oh, totally.
Guest:I think for me, the most dime store psychiatric thing I could think is later on, not knowing how to just argue or have conflict because that would mean a beating.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I became a classic sort of passive aggressive nice guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Avoiding conflict.
Guest:And I think that I got some pleasure out of one of the first characters I did, the church lady.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because she would just say all this stuff in this left-handed way.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, I think I have a certain shutdown emotions in a way from my end and part of it professionally when you're on Saturday Night Live and it's all going wrong.
Guest:And, you know, I just learned I learned to live in that place like, OK, I got to be tough.
Marc:You were familiar with it.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And besides doing a whole distance running thing, which was very painful, which I think helped me survive also the high school years.
Marc:Oh, you were a distance runner?
Guest:Yeah, on a very intense program, Carlmont High School.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:You can look it up.
Guest:Marine coach, real tough, national champion type level, 410 milers on the team.
Guest:I ran 427, but we would run 15 miles, 20 miles, repeat quarter miles.
Guest:I mean, this was during the Frank Shorter, Steve Prefontaine American Revolution.
Guest:Of running.
Guest:of running and i think that you know people who go into distance running are kind of a little messed up they want the pain yeah you know because it gets them out outside of that other pain do you get to that other place though the the the sort of euphoria of crossing a line well man i could use it now i mean back then i don't even think we knew what we how high we were getting unbelievable
Guest:But now I could really use it.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:I go up Griffith Park.
Guest:I go there three, four times a week and go right up past the observatory, right to the top as hard as I can.
Guest:You do.
Guest:I do it to get all this anxiety out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, just that elevates me.
Guest:It's not discipline.
Guest:I go like my pulse 190.
Guest:I mean, I'm just like I waste myself on the mountain.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's interesting you say that about the kind of nice guy, passive-aggressive guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm trying to remember where I saw you briefly years ago.
Marc:You always struck me as a nice guy, but I'm always like, there's something else going on.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I mean, I'm not a nice guy.
Guest:It's got an edge to it.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Hyper-competitive.
Guest:The politeness is loaded.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:My kids always say you should bring that on stage because they see me being sarcastic and whatever, you know, or cynical.
Guest:You know, maybe it'll come out in this interview.
Guest:But, you know, when someone knows me, I don't sit around and do George Bush Sr.
Guest:It's all about sarcasm and just complaining.
Marc:Well, there's guys that are good at that.
Marc:I mean, the new stand-up special is mostly straight stand-up, right?
Marc:Kind of.
Marc:Are you going to continue this trajectory of being honest with who you are?
Guest:You know, well...
Guest:I might.
Guest:You know, I don't know.
Guest:I mean, what happens is you get caught up into sort of a brand.
Guest:I hate that word now, but it's used everywhere every second.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And eventually, everyone in show business becomes a caricature of themselves.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody.
Guest:Well, you're hoping.
Guest:I guess.
Guest:But it can be sort of... I mean, when I was doing Carson, I mean, Leno had told me that, you know, when it kind of turned into this other sort of feeling, it wasn't just...
Guest:having fun with Johnny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Sort of, that he would walk down the hall and say, I'll do the voice.
Guest:They're making fun of me now.
Guest:It's time to go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But Johnny, as Lorne Michaels would remind me, in 1972, was as cool as anybody...
Marc:around sure now yeah smoking smoking drinking babes whatever yeah it was that last sort of wave of that old hollywood yeah well i mean when you started well impressions are are tricky because like we can talk about that more specifically in a minute but so you're in high school you got two older brothers two younger sisters oh no a younger sister three older brothers and they're all still around yeah and they're all doing okay yeah parents are still around
Guest:No, they went to Jesus.
Guest:Yeah, they did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You sure?
Guest:Bud died six months ago.
Guest:Your dad just died.
Guest:He made it to 92.
Guest:Was he cognizant?
Guest:You know, my wife, who's, long story short, sort of became the one who would visit him the most toward the end and became his caregiver.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Just by weird circumstances.
Guest:She felt bad for him or-
Guest:Well, he was up in Northern California where we have a house, and she was going back and forth to L.A.
Guest:because I moved back down here two years ago.
Guest:So she was there, and my sister was sort of... She was daddy's little girl, so she had sort of feelings for Bud, but she was in Connecticut, so Paula took over.
Guest:And toward the end, he was real fuzzy, but she said...
Guest:We both looked at Trump when he first emerged on the scene and we said, she goes, oh my God, it's Bud.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I know Trump.
Marc:Right, narcissistic bullies.
Guest:My father would be, oh, I was an educator.
Guest:Oh, Jesus Christ.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The bragging and grandiosity.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, but yeah, he went and I didn't feel anything, to be honest, except relief.
Marc:Yeah, I wonder that.
Marc:I didn't want him to suffer.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, I'm not... Sure, but it's weird when the bond is broken, when you don't have that emotional trust of a parent, you don't feel that connection that you're supposed to.
Guest:I know, and when you... I've heard a little bit about you and your dad, but when I hear...
Guest:someone else talk about when their dad passes and how devastated they are yeah i i don't i yeah i'm sort of like wow what must that be like well he didn't allow there to be that connection like you know it was a fight all the way through no there was yeah he wasn't all he was given up at birth he was an orphan he was knocking around montana and chip on his shoulder yeah beaten up by his dad i mean he was a wounded you know like anyone so you're able to have some empathy posthumously
Guest:I guess... I'm not trying to force you.
Guest:No, no, these are big questions.
Guest:Like, well, why did I not emulate that?
Guest:And why does someone emulate when they're... Why do you become that?
Guest:Why do victims sometimes emulate their person who abused them?
Guest:Did any of your siblings?
Guest:no i can see dribs and drabs in my sure you know you've got the reflexes i mean if you it's weird when you grow up with a bully you have it in there and you got to choose to fight it but you know you do have it yeah i guess so yeah you wonder but that's another thing i check with my i go can i can you guys see any butt in me at all and they go no i go just be feel free to tell me
Guest:But I see different personality traits of them and Bud.
Guest:But that was when I had children and I think of them in that environment.
Guest:It would be very tough.
Guest:Heartbreaking, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that...
Guest:For me, what's helped me in life is every time you give something up, you get something and vice versa.
Guest:So what I did get was since the childhood was so like that, just moving out my Volkswagen Bug and living near the San Francisco airport on a frontage road, eating tuna pies from Safeway for a quarter, the whole thing.
Guest:I was like, wow, this is unbelievable.
Marc:The best.
Marc:You're free.
Marc:Just lift it.
Marc:Well, I used to do a joke about my dad.
Marc:I said, if you're a man, at some point, you're going to have that conversation with your dad where you sit down and you look him right in the eye and you go,
Marc:Is there any way I can avoid becoming you?
Marc:Because it's happening and I want out.
Marc:Do you have any advice at all?
Marc:That's funny.
Marc:And usually their reaction is like they just go.
Guest:Well, were you healthy enough to ever really sit down with your dad and have it?
Marc:out with him in a constructive way i don't know if it's constructive because they don't change so it's only did he acknowledge yes i mean he can acknowledge it but guys like that they have this weird blind side is that if they're truly narcissistic they'll they'll step up and in honor whatever you're saying if you get them at the right moment go like yeah yeah yeah but don't change nothing and and you don't even know where it's coming from it might just then be adapting to that moment
Marc:And then it just goes away.
Marc:It's not like there's going to be now a life of contrition or some sort of change.
Marc:My dad's kind of a broken dude.
Marc:I'm able to understand that and feel bad for him.
Marc:But do I get closure?
Marc:Yeah, I guess.
Marc:I'm fortunate in that his life didn't quite work out.
Marc:the way he wanted it to, and he's become very fragile.
Marc:And there's something that isn't schadenfreude, but that is almost sort of like, eh, he's just a sick guy.
Marc:And I did okay, despite him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When did that, how old were you when you sort of, you're on the scene?
Guest:Like, Mark's going to be a famous comedian, and he's going to make a lot of money.
Guest:How old were you, and how old was he?
Marc:When I started doing it, or when I started to become a success?
Marc:It was kind of, it was clear you were going to be successful.
Marc:So it's all recently.
Guest:Like six, eight years ago?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So it's this and then the show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And how old was your dad at that point?
Marc:Well, he's 78, I think now.
Marc:So what was that like when that happened?
Marc:Well, there was, like, there's a resistance to it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They do not want to, like, I think they see you as an extension of them somehow, even if they've beaten you down.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That they have control over.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So once you start to go against that script where you're clearly having your own life, then you become this weird threat.
Marc:You know, you're always a threat, but then it becomes a threat that's not in the house.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, I wrote a book and I talked about him and it just leveled him.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Like it just sort of like, you know, he knew that, you know, I was off reservation and there was no getting me back on.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that sort of helped, but it's not, then you're dealing with this guy who's afraid of you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I used to do this other joke about how I think all father-son relationships on a certain level are just battles to the death.
Guest:I suppose I got in the middle.
Guest:It's a long, long story, but I had two childhoods.
Guest:I had the childhood with them.
Guest:Then I had 10 years away, but would come home for Christmas for my parents.
Guest:What do you mean when?
Guest:Well, I mean, when I got on SNL and got money, my father changed toward me and then he sort of got my mother in with him and they became a dog and pony show for decades to suck every last penny they could out of me.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's when I really understood because my child was real seeing how they behaved.
Guest:And that was pretty dark.
Guest:Well, that's really dark.
Guest:And I got in their marriage a little bit, but I learned after that.
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:Well, my mom said she didn't want him to buy a camper.
Guest:So I'm just coming off Wayne's World and I go, Bud's buying the camper.
Guest:So for some sick reason, I was going to call Bud.
Guest:and telling me couldn't buy the camper ridiculous with your money yeah but they he had some money but but basically it was just the idea i was the surrogate husband i was sent to do this right and that was just all wrong clandestinely you know you had to look like you know your mom just gave put out the the the complaint yeah didn't expect it necessarily but knew you would but the thing was when she's 62 i sit with her and
Guest:and go if you want to get out i'll get you out someone will come get your stuff we'll get you a house you'll be you'll be fine no shit i had no idea that not only did she not want out she kind of she kind of dug the way it was right so that's it that's that's that's it yeah that you know you make all these assumptions my mother's the same way they're not together anymore okay but you're like you know she's got a new dude now and i'm like are you all right
Marc:She's like, yeah, no, they'll complain.
Marc:But then when you really, we did an episode of my TV show about this, when you really push it, they're like, why are you getting it?
Marc:As soon as the guy finds out, they're like, why are you getting involved in it?
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's controllable to them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:Especially if they're loudmouth guys that spin around all the time, there's very little emotional effort.
Marc:All you got to do is go like, okay, sit down.
Marc:It's like they're almost insulated from it in a way.
Guest:Well, what happened was is that he, I still have my heart on my sleeve for my mom because she was at least a sweet person.
Guest:So he would manipulate, oh, your mother seemed very tired.
Guest:If I could just get some money.
Guest:And then she became a, she had juvenile diabetes at 61.
Guest:He became kind of her nurse in terms of keeping track of her blood sugar.
Guest:So she got this.
Guest:Because they're terrified of losing them.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:And also he knew that she was the key to the money.
Marc:Really?
Guest:It was that conscious, you think?
Guest:Oh, well, I would have to get my siblings online because every time I think this is way too theatrical, I'm being way over the top.
Guest:We'd have to get them on the conference call.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they go, no, that's pretty much right.
Guest:Seriously.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Seriously.
Guest:It was so bald face, but I played into it.
Guest:You know, I only went into started getting therapy in August.
Guest:Just this last August?
Guest:Yeah, I was having dinner with Conan.
Guest:He goes, I think you deserve to be happy.
Guest:So I've been in it now.
Guest:But now it's kind of, it's sort of sad in a way to realize all these things six decades in, you know.
Guest:It's like, okay.
Guest:But there'll be a lot of choices going forward.
Guest:I'll try to be healthier about it.
Marc:Yeah, just mentally and emotionally.
Guest:You know, just not writing checks from my parents and never really being.
Guest:Well, they're dead.
Guest:That'd be weird.
Yeah.
Guest:Then you get real problems.
Guest:That was day one with the therapist.
Guest:I still, people go visit grave sites.
Guest:I just tuck a little 20 right under the thing.
Guest:Oh, I want to.
Guest:But yeah, I was a rescuer in a way.
Guest:Like when I, part of my psyche when I come in here, and I realize it's sort of like, I wonder, is Mark okay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I'm okay.
Guest:It's the way I think.
Guest:It's just the way I think.
Guest:Oh, he lives up here and I hope he's got a new show.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's the way I think.
Guest:And I'm not saying I'm as selfish as anybody else or narcissistic.
Guest:No, no, I know.
Guest:I know.
Marc:I get that with some people.
Marc:I get it with some people, you know, where I get concerned about them.
Marc:Yeah, I kind of.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Even if you don't really know them, like you're sort of like, I hope he's okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I had Al Lubella on this show because of that.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:He's not that okay.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:He and I was doing a gig and someone came and Al Abel came maybe two years ago.
Guest:I hadn't seen him in 40 years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but talk about it's just all on his sleeve.
Guest:And, you know, did he talk about his mother and all the stuff?
Guest:No, it's heavy, dude.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, I've heard all the stories.
Guest:I didn't know he would go public with all that.
Marc:He does it in a one-man show now, I think.
Marc:Well, now he really owns it.
Marc:Right, but I don't know who's going to that or what kind of entertainment it really is.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:But, no, he really owns it.
Marc:And it's heavy.
Marc:such a sweet wounded guy he is and he was funny dude i mean he was like you said he used to kill oh he killed he used to kill i mean i did one of my first weeks with him and you just sort of like oh my god and he'd do that song forever just killing yeah and you go and then back then it was like i should sing a song every time i saw a comic at one point because sort of novelty comedians were exploding like howie mandel would have the thing on his head
Guest:i i i thought i i need a nickname and maybe i'll i'll wear some kind of different shirt well when did you start doing it how old are you on my first set i was 20. where'd you do it um telegraph avenue berkeley um you know not a club open mic i went to watch because it was fascinating to me i i'd never done i'd never done theater art this is when you were living by the airport yep you so you moved out of your folks house you didn't go to college or you did
Guest:I did, I went to, well, we all went to community college.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All the gang, nobody, you know, and then went to San Francisco State.
Guest:But it wasn't a comedy club, it was in Berkeley.
Guest:Yeah, and it was just these comedians going up that weren't famous.
Guest:Do you remember them?
Guest:Oh yeah, Mark Miller came up, Mitch Krug, and then Robin came up.
Guest:So I literally had a napkin that I'd taken out of my pocket, because they said there'll be open mic at 11 o'clock.
Guest:And I started writing down, because for my friends, I did a Howard Cosell.
Marc:Oh, you did impressions, yeah.
Guest:For friends, a junior, when they were stoned.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Robin came up not knowing...
Guest:that this was unique because this was peak energy and I'd never seen anyone like a Shakespearean actor doing standup all over the, and so I literally put the napkin back in my pocket because I'm thinking, well, maybe there's thousands of them out there.
Guest:I have no idea.
Guest:Robins?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I actually interviewed him.
Guest:But he was not famous yet, right?
Guest:No, not famous.
Guest:But pretty quickly he was down doing, you know, Mork and Mindy or whatever.
Guest:Or he did the prior variety show.
Marc:So he was just visiting up there when you saw him?
Guest:No, no, he was still there.
Guest:He was still there.
Marc:So it was before he came down here.
Marc:It was before he came to the comedy store.
Guest:Before he came down.
Guest:So it was like the, what, the late 70s?
Guest:76.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then in 77, there were no clubs then.
Guest:The clubs started being built in 78, 79 on every corner.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He dies with hammers.
Guest:But he got the Laugh-In show, the Laugh-In revival show.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And they came up and saw us in San Francisco, me and these other comics, Bobby Slate and whatever, and
Guest:I look at it this way.
Guest:It's like, you know, now with YouTube and everything, I mean, comedians can see other great comics.
Guest:So like, I don't know, a lot of them are, at least three years ago, they said the young guys are all trying to be Louie or whatever.
Guest:And so it was an assortment pack back then.
Guest:Slayton was doing that thing.
Marc:I was doing- The aggressive, cute racist.
Guest:Yeah, the adorable racist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was doing just... I had props.
Guest:I couldn't write anything.
Guest:I couldn't think of anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got a little guitar.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I had no... I had Jimmy Stewart as a waiter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Saved me every night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, well, fuck you.
Guest:Jimmy Stewart saying fuck you in the 70s was...
Guest:It was over.
Guest:I mean, it was like Dennis Miller said to me once, Christ's sakes, Carmack, I can write jokes for decades and not top the stupid man losing his top, you know, the way.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So people hated me.
Guest:I didn't even know comedians hated me.
Guest:Because they thought you were just a cheater?
Guest:A trickster.
Guest:yeah i remember when i was i got a show in new york the mickey rooney show um and i was playing the improv and i'm i would put music on and do how people danced in high school and i would do these goofy impressions and i had kind of long blonde hair and i was sort of tan and and this guy probably 50 goes they don't like you you're outside of the bar whatever he points over like five comics they can't stand you yeah but kid you get laughs i
Guest:I thought, fuck, I had no idea they hated me.
Guest:Who was that old guy?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Uncle Dirty?
Guest:Who was it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:He was probably 38.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But in my imagination, it was just- So you go, you do the thing, you go look at, you see Robin on Telegraph Avenue, and then he started hanging around the zoo.
Marc:Terrified.
Marc:I had an incredible stage fright.
Marc:I would be- Who else was there?
Marc:Larry Bubbles Brown?
Guest:Bubbles came a little later.
Guest:Pritchard, Pritchard a little later.
Guest:Sue Murphy?
Guest:Barry Sobel.
Guest:Sue Murphy.
Guest:Then eventually in that whole era, Rick Reynolds, Sue Murphy, Mark Pitta, Larry.
Guest:Whitney.
Guest:Whitney.
Guest:I knew you wouldn't like it.
Guest:I just didn't know you wouldn't like it that much.
Guest:Remember that line?
Guest:No.
Marc:Where he would juggle and he wouldn't get applause?
Marc:Well, because he was a street performer, wasn't he?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got to get him in here.
Marc:He's in like Texas holed up somewhere.
Guest:Oh, he's a raconteur, a charming raconteur.
Guest:He would have amazing long, long stories.
Guest:He was there the first year I was on SNL.
Guest:Like Nora was around and Whitney, and they both got in SNL the year before I got on.
Guest:So suddenly San Francisco was really represented.
Guest:Nora's from there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, Nora was.
Guest:The thing that really helped a lot of us was the other cafe.
Guest:Was that gone by the time you came?
Marc:Yes, just gone.
Guest:Because that was no hard liquor, maybe 80 seats, kind of a place where you could.
Guest:That was the first time I ever said, maybe I'll be someone else for 45 seconds.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You couldn't do it at Rooster Teeth Feathers or what they call the country store.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Roosters was around.
Guest:I played there.
Guest:With the blender.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, then you would do dick jokes as many as you can.
Marc:Roosters, like, once they got the sound system, like, it should have been a great room, and it can be, because it's small.
Guest:It's pretty good now.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, they got a new sound system, I think.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I'm very weird about sound systems.
Guest:I'm weird about everything.
Guest:I mean, I go into a room, now that I've been doing some clubs with my kids, I'm like, okay, well, this will be rough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or, wow, the monitor's too loud.
Guest:Yeah, I got it.
Guest:Because it's really, if all things work, it makes our job so much easier.
Marc:Yeah, like if the sound says, it's like being neutered.
Marc:It sounds like it's going through mud, like a filter.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And when it's good, if the monitors are right, and you're kind of moving around the stage, and you just know, and you've got this whole mix you can do, like you can come here, go there.
Guest:Sometimes you get out there, and you got it right on your chin, and it's just not,
Guest:Popping.
Guest:Not popping.
Guest:You're just working.
Guest:Or when you get out there, you always ask the opener, is there a slap back?
Guest:Yeah, a little bit of slap back.
Marc:Oh, you mean one in a big room?
Guest:In a big room.
Guest:Yeah, slight echo.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I try to hammer that out on the sound check.
Marc:I'll go with less monitor than more monitor.
Guest:Right, because that's the problem.
Marc:You have to find a sweet spot.
Guest:I can't go to sound checks because it's too much energy at this age.
Guest:I'm always napping.
Guest:I nap every day of my life.
Guest:Well, you think you wouldn't need to.
Guest:It's like it's a mic.
Guest:It's one mic, but you should.
Guest:Because of my personality when I first got famous of wanting to be the nice guy, people pleaser, I'd get back to my apartment in New York.
Guest:I was out on my feet because everyone I met wanted to have...
Guest:It's like being at your own wedding.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Do you remember how exhausting your wedding was?
Guest:I don't know if you had a traditional.
Marc:I had one traditional and one back here in the yard.
Guest:Torture.
Marc:Oh, you did.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Torture is small talk.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So you, so the other cafe was more, it was less restrictive in that.
Marc:It wasn't a biker bar.
Marc:It wasn't hard liquor.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And that's where a lot of people broke open.
Marc:Cause like when were, so who were the guys on the scene exactly when you were there, like doing the other cafe coming into their own?
Guest:Well, Bobcat came in from Boston.
Marc:I remember I was at his garage sale at Stitches in Boston because I was in college, and he was huge there, and he was leaving for San Francisco.
Guest:He exploded.
Guest:I can't remember if he was maybe 82 or something, but when he came in, he exploded.
Guest:Paula Poundstone came in and lived with my wife and I. We had a place on Cabrillo Street.
Guest:My wife and I rented a house, and it became the comedy house.
Marc:And she was from Boston.
Guest:Yeah, and so we were so charmed by her and thought she was so brilliant.
Guest:I mean, of the three biggies that opened for me, well, Rosie O'Donnell, I have a different story, but it was Rosie, it was Ellen, and it was Paula, and there's Carol Liefer and others.
Guest:They were in San Francisco?
Guest:Ellen used to open for me.
Guest:Paula used to open for me.
Guest:And Dana, did he come, Dana Gould?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was a little bit later, a little bit later.
Guest:Okay, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But Poundstone was brilliant, and Robin would come up, and we'd play ping pong, and Jeremy Kramer was around.
Guest:Oh, yeah, he's around, I think.
Guest:And he was just so eccentric and really funny.
Guest:Obviously, I have to say, the first time in media, late great Kevin Meany was there.
Guest:Yeah, he moved from Boston, too.
Guest:A lot of the Boston wave came in there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the scene just exploded.
Guest:I mean, I didn't have to really travel much.
Guest:So that was the early 80s?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you had Roosters was great.
Guest:The Punchline came in.
Marc:In the late 70s.
Guest:Playing the Punchline.
Guest:Cobbs moved around in different locations.
Guest:So in the city, you had three.
Marc:There was an improv for a while.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I remember that down in the Mason.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then Roosters, then you had John Fox booking you up at- In Seattle, at the Underground.
Guest:I'm glad to have you do comedy today and I'll pay you tomorrow.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You'd wait two months for your check.
Guest:But he would, he booked that place and I would play there three times.
Guest:Seattle Underground?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was good.
Guest:It could be hot, except Friday night late show.
Guest:I had a couple times when people decided to come on stage.
Guest:Spontaneously.
Guest:Do you hold your ground when they come on?
Guest:I don't.
Guest:I'm not a fighter.
Guest:I go, you got it.
Guest:Some guys want to fight for the stage.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck?
Marc:had people i've diplomatically said what do you need do you need to tell a joke well that's good and then like some it hasn't happened that often but you know some one time at the punchline it was funny i'm on stage and some dude just jumps on stage yeah and i'm like what the fuck like i get really my first response is my space right what's happening yeah and the dude was just cut he wanted to get to the bathroom and you know how that stage is it's up yeah and the bathroom is in the back corner so he just decided he's gonna make a run for it get on stage
Marc:Cross over to go to the fucking bathroom.
Guest:Well, there's nice drunks.
Guest:You can tell.
Guest:Usually you can tell.
Guest:A nice drunk just wandering up.
Guest:Hey!
Marc:Why would someone be hostile at you?
Marc:What are you doing that's making them upset?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:It doesn't take much.
Guest:I was always there.
Guest:I was there to slay the audience, to win, to please.
Guest:Only later on did I realize that I was doing stuff that I wasn't really proud of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you just want to survive.
Marc:But you had a guitar.
Marc:So what was the first...
Guest:hour good question well between 1980 and 1986 i had this long bizarre route where i was doing stand-up yeah in san francisco and making a living but i was in la i got with buddy mora rollins and joffie yeah and they were managing you they were managing me yeah they they famously told me not to do the church lady because i was coming off gay yeah so yeah and
Guest:But I was only doing two minutes.
Guest:I said, I do- On stage.
Guest:Yeah, I'm doing an hour.
Guest:I do two minutes of this patronizing.
Guest:But I think eventually, and between 83 and 86, what eventually came in was a bunch of impressions, Casey Kasem, Jimmy Stewart, and I had the church lady became a longer bit.
Guest:First, it was just an attitude.
Guest:It was almost like what Gaffigan does.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was an ulterior.
Guest:It was like.
Guest:His other voice.
Guest:What people are thinking about me.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:That's the way I was using couch.
Guest:Isn't that special?
Guest:Right, you just drop it in.
Guest:It was like, well, well, well, they let little children on stage.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because I looked so young at the time.
Marc:Yeah, Meany did that too.
Marc:He had his own version of the ongoing monologue.
Guest:A great technique.
Guest:And also Churchley was fantastic for hecklers.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:We like to have a little drinky and Mr. Mouth, you know, it just never fails, has never not, never, never won't get a laugh.
Guest:And I think it's just being, it's just patronizing.
Guest:It has nothing to do with it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I had that.
Guest:And disarming.
Guest:Disarming.
Guest:I got the chopped and broccoli thing.
Guest:I don't know if I'm proud of it, but it's people still, it never got out of people's heads.
Guest:Chopping broccoli.
Guest:Chopping broccoli.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's still insanely become a thing that I have to do every time.
Guest:I did it once on SNL, once at Comic Relief.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I hatched that happened to be at the improv at that little piano one night.
Marc:In which improv?
Guest:Hollywood.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And then I expanded it up north.
Guest:So I chopped broccoli.
Guest:I had Church Lady.
Guest:I had a Robin Leach impression.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Basically all of this emerged and I kind of, the clubs exploded.
Guest:So I finally got pretty adept at doing standup because I was doing it so much.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I had so much stage fright and I was kind of a loner.
Guest:I never went to open mics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that forced me to actually learn how to just survive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Chopping Broccoli, basically everything I did the first two, three years on SNL, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had a Bud Friedman impression.
Marc:That you had honed because of the comedy boom.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because the boom, just they wanted bodies.
Guest:I mean, I was recruited to headline at Laughs Unlimited.
Marc:And you weren't necessarily, you weren't going to be like, I don't know what this guy's going to do.
Marc:They're like, this guy does everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But looking back on it, I was terrible.
Guest:I mean, it was.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Well, no, but I could charm the audience and do my voices.
Guest:But I mean, all my bits, I would do a premise.
Guest:And then a joke.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I didn't really understand it later how you stay inside a topic for a long time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:People would tell me, talk about yourself.
Guest:I had no idea what they were talking about.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it seems to me that because of your need to connect and your natural sense up there that you took impressions and
Marc:There's a trick to impressions.
Marc:You can impersonate somebody perfectly, but an impression has to be elevated somehow.
Marc:It has to be tweaked.
Marc:There has to be something.
Marc:You find some button.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's the real gift of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So I think that the way you found it was instead of just doing like Rich Little would have a shtick where he would do Carson, that you could riff within them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And learn the, you know, what, you could sort of push the character outside of you.
Guest:That's one thing I discovered at SNL I could do is write in the character.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I would just start doing Johnny Harsham for 20 minutes and then Smigel would be putting stuff together and then adding brilliant stuff himself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I think looking back on it, I was a sketch player who found himself as a stand-up.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And so I feel like I became kind of a hybrid so that as a stand-up to survive, you must kill.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because there's these brilliant people around you that want your job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You must kill.
Guest:But my instincts, really, I was a sketch player, so my stand-up reflected that.
Marc:But you didn't do sketch then, did you?
Marc:Well, I kind of did one-man sketch.
Marc:I mean, I would do- I think you're diminishing your stature as a stand-up.
Marc:Well, thank you, Mark.
Yeah.
Guest:I don't think stand-up has to be any particular way.
Guest:No.
Guest:But I understand.
Marc:I just probably have a little bit of a complex of... Yeah, because guys like me back then who were doing what we considered to be honest, real shit, or whatever, just doing the jokes, would look at guys like you going, yeah, he's a fucking Bodak.
Marc:He's just a...
Marc:Yeah, look at him like a P.T.
Marc:Barnum in it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Anything goes.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:No shame, this guy.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So there's a perfect example.
Guest:Now he's wearing a hat.
Guest:I had.
Guest:Oh, at one point I had a little sunglasses.
Guest:I'm playing a character.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:It's all so cute.
Guest:I had a trunk of props.
Guest:I would hold up Gumby and just go, stretch the legs.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I would do anything.
Guest:I did an eight minute bit, which I still did in the special was because in 83, comedians fell in love with the movie Scarface.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So a lot of comedians would go, hey, I'm Scarface.
Guest:I'm going to snort a cow.
Guest:And I, for some reason, did him at Thanksgiving dinner and it became at least a five minute bit.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:That's the other thing about doing characters.
Marc:You can fill some time.
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:And it always kills.
Guest:And I do it in the new special, except I extended it.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:You got to fill that time out.
Guest:I still... Here's the way I look at it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I want to hear how you look at it.
Guest:But...
Guest:In high school, when you're making your friends laugh, you don't do clever bits.
Guest:Usually it's redundantly making fun of the water polo coach, winding down one concept, especially if they're stoned and you're not.
Guest:And then in stand-up, it gets so organized and written.
Guest:But ultimately, the things, you know, I grew up with Kaufman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Thank you very much.
Guest:That rhythm of that character, Monty Python.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Spam and spam and all these, and Steve Martin.
Guest:That's what you gravitated towards.
Guest:musicality and rhythms that would be repeated i think it's and now look back it's kind of old-fashioned you know like here comes a church thing guess what this is their catchphrase and here it comes yeah well isn't that it's like it seems so corny but it's it does help people communicate with each other no absolutely peer groups have their own catchphrases absolutely and i and i don't think like i don't think it was
Marc:dubious or devious what you were doing this was how you performed and there was a lot of vulnerability to it and there was you know no one ever when you did something like there are impressions like i don't know who the fuck rich little is i don't you know i don't know daryl hammond that well i know enough yeah uh you know i didn't i didn't know phil but he seems a little more like you but like you know i i always see dana carvey you know i don't say like well that guy's afraid to be himself
Guest:I'm better at it now.
Guest:I would say that I, you know, like if you were unknown and I did a perfect impression of you, you would be my new character.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then if you got famous, you'd be my new impression.
Guest:So Garth was just my brother Brad, but that was a character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Hans and Franz was just...
Guest:I got bored with the character at first we talked like Arnold here we are Hans and Franz but by the end I was just doing this and the reason was is because they would put this enamel between my teeth to do the gap and I didn't want it to smear so I would be right before I'd be checking myself and I'd see that I had this little grin and that's the reason he started talking like this but right someone who's that pleased with himself that's just funny right the rhythm of that we like oh look I'm buttocks of lovey so
Guest:that just still evolved out of adapting to makeup yes because of the enamel on the teeth the black enamel you look in the mirror and you go that's who i am yeah oh it's incredibly powerful is it is it relieving um well i you know i was listening to um michael shannon the interview oh yeah yeah it was interesting about anthony hopkins because yeah leaping forward i end up in a movie with anthony hopkins yeah
Guest:So Anthony Hopkins hated his father, too.
Guest:So we bonded so greatly that on the last day of shooting, he very shyly said, would you like to come in my trailer and have lunch?
Guest:Someone had booked entertainment tonight or something during my lunch hour.
Guest:And I said, I got to go.
Guest:I gotta have lunch with Anthony Hopkins.
Guest:So the woman started crying.
Guest:We can't wait.
Guest:So I told Anthony, I can't.
Guest:And then after the thing wrapped, that was the last day of shooting, the assistant goes, you know, he's never invited anyone into Australia.
Guest:But he and I bonded over the father thing and impressions.
Guest:Like he would do James Cagney or he would do Hannibal Lecter and I would do Garth.
Guest:He would do Clark Cable and I'd do Jimmy Stewart.
Guest:And what he said to me was he would read the script 200 times.
Guest:But not think of anything.
Guest:He had a Polaroid picture back in the day of him in character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he could be talking to you like this.
Guest:They'd yell speed, whatever.
Guest:And he would just look at it, bend over and go like he's sucking it in.
Guest:And then he says it was all self-hypnosis between action and cut.
Marc:to get into character yeah he never thought about anything he read the script 200 times and then he just would look be the character huh said he did howard's end he looked in the mirror saw the mustache and said oh i'm that guy right so and then you lock into it i think that's the trickiest thing even when i act or when i i mean i can do some impressions for maybe if i'm like just impulsively in it but to repeat them and say like this is part of my act i can't do it i can only do it if i'm feeling something
Marc:Because what it takes for me to get into it is somehow intimidating to me.
Marc:Because I feel like, well, I don't want to disappear for too long.
Marc:You're afraid you might not come back?
Marc:Well, it's just weird.
Marc:Because the enemy of doing that is any sort of self-consciousness.
Guest:Well, I was listening to the other show and you were talking about how you played in Nashville or Tennessee.
Guest:I really related to it as a stand-up that voice was quiet the entire set, which is really unusual.
Guest:It is.
Guest:And very hard to do, but it's such a wonderful place to be.
Guest:There's no second.
Guest:voice and you're just in the moment.
Guest:That's all I'm trying to get to all the time.
Guest:And that's why the special, when I look at it, I can't look at it objectively.
Guest:I just see someone who's in his head trying way too hard.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:No, I do.
Guest:Can you look at anything you've done with the...
Guest:I probably have walked off maybe 10 times where I... Like when I did El Cantore or the Pepper Boy sketch with Sandler, I go, okay, that's a 10.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But mostly... But I'm not self-indulgent about it.
Guest:I understand people would enjoy what I do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I do have that still.
Guest:It hasn't gone away.
Guest:I don't have any sense that...
Guest:I was on SNL.
Guest:I got an Emmy.
Guest:I was on Rolling Stone.
Guest:It completely disappears.
Guest:I'm doing it as if I'm unknown.
Guest:I wish I could get out of this a little bit because it takes the fun out of all this stuff.
Guest:I went on James Corden the other night.
Guest:And I told him before the show and then now I'm re-legislating my ad libs and going, oh, why didn't I do that?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So do you have any of that?
Marc:No, I used to have more.
Marc:Like sometimes I don't watch what I do because I just... Oh, I never watch.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like I'll listen to this in maybe a year.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, I know that it's usually for me...
Marc:Like, I know exactly where I'm unsure of myself when I watch myself.
Marc:And I know where I could have done something a little differently.
Marc:But a lot of times when I used to do Conan, a lot of the bits that I would do on panel were not finished.
Marc:And they became finished.
Marc:And I just had to live with that.
Marc:Like, they were funny enough for panel.
Marc:But, like, as a stand-up, a lot of them continued to evolve.
Marc:But the thing I don't like seeing is I used to get...
Marc:I used to think I was hiding my anxiety or my nervousness or defensiveness, but I would see it in my eyes.
Marc:So for years, there was this thing like, am I going to have the look or am I not?
Marc:Totally.
Marc:I totally relate.
Marc:And I know the look and I know that was what was holding me back.
Marc:And I knew there was nothing I could really do to make it go away.
Marc:Maybe it would.
Marc:Maybe it wouldn't.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then there were times where like there were just these miracles where I do like on my first Letterman, like it was almost like I was channeling the history of comedy.
Marc:I chose not to have a mic.
Marc:I used my hands properly.
Marc:I had a nice suit on.
Marc:I was delivering jokes perfectly, but it was not me.
Marc:So then it, you know, it was me, but it was like not, you know, when you see me in a five minute set, you don't walk away from it going like I get that guy.
Marc:You know, I need more space and time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it took a while for me just to be like, well, fuck it.
Marc:This is who I am.
Marc:And when I do panel, like with Conan, he's always sort of like, are you all right?
Marc:And I'm like, I don't know.
Marc:I'm that guy.
Marc:And that's okay.
Guest:No, no, it's totally fine.
Guest:As long as it doesn't sabotage.
Guest:I mean, as long as you can get some joy out of this career we've chosen.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Well, now that's starting to happen, you know.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Right on time for the president to outlaw media.
Yeah.
Guest:I think he's so fabulous, Mark.
Guest:You know, we're terrific.
Guest:I mean, after he won, he just went so comatose.
Guest:He was just almost on 60 Minutes.
Guest:What are we going to do?
Guest:I don't want to hurt them.
Guest:I don't want to hurt these people.
Guest:I mean, when I do that, I find it interesting.
Guest:I'm not trying to be totally accurate.
Guest:It's like a character.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's an interesting, weird voice.
Guest:It's kind of strange that now I guess I will address it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're going to do it?
Guest:Well, you know, every week there's a little something that I look at.
Guest:Like when I saw him and Obama.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just thought, you know, part of me was him saying...
Guest:Please don't let go.
Guest:I mean, he was so vulnerable in that meeting.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We'll stay right here.
Guest:Don't worry.
Guest:We can shake as long as you want.
Guest:Please don't let go.
Guest:I'm so scared.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:So those are, I do these little, I don't really think them through much.
Marc:Boom.
Marc:That's just funny.
Marc:When you watch other Impressionists, do you kind of go like, all right.
Marc:I mean, like when you like.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I see Kevin Pollack.
Guest:Oh, he was there, wasn't he, when you were there in San Francisco?
Guest:Of course, yeah.
Guest:He was a mainstay.
Guest:I mean, I was from San Carlos.
Guest:He was from San Jose, 20 miles.
Guest:And we were always the Peninsula boys.
Guest:But did you guys have conversations?
Marc:Like, you know, are you doing Peter Falk tonight?
Guest:I think we kind of navigated naturally.
Guest:You didn't do a Nicholson, though, did you?
Guest:I did, but not near as good as his.
Guest:You know, it was like the walking of the day.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:You know, like you had to do it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Now out of board.
Guest:Did you pull your hair back?
Guest:I didn't do that.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:No.
Guest:I didn't do the hair back.
Guest:No, I never did that.
Guest:My big one was Jimmy Stewart.
Guest:I wonder what else.
Guest:I had Robin Leach.
Guest:I'm yelling and I don't know why.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, but I never, yeah, go ahead.
Guest:I never considered myself a pure impressionist.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, like Rich Little was.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But I do them when I need them.
Marc:Pollock's a little more like that, I think.
Marc:Like he was very deliberate about, you know, this is, you know, staying, like, you know, this is the impression of this guy, you know, and this is the impression of this guy, right?
Guest:Yeah, his Peter Falk was ridiculous.
Guest:I mean, he would work on them to the point where they're ridiculous.
Guest:Like, his Walken is ridiculous.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like Frank Caliendo's Morgan Freeman is now officially ridiculous.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I don't know if I... In a good way.
Guest:ridiculous in a way like seriously yeah oh really come on i don't know if i ever got anyone that accurate i mean my carson was kind of accurate a lot of them were abstract obviously george bush senior was a complete abstraction because there was nothing there right we thought to do right so we had to invent this character we meaning me and uh jim downey and and senator al franken yeah so
Marc:But you have to focus in on the repeats, these weird character moments that are repeatable.
Marc:And there's something really amazing about that, that you have these guys that you look at them and you, right, like George Bush Sr., where you're like, this guy's got nothing.
Marc:He's flat.
Marc:Oh, nothing.
Marc:But there's a repetition of something.
Marc:There's a shrillness that you found that becomes the funny thing.
Guest:And the lazy syntax, I mean, the key to that was just one night without it, trying to pull my hair out, trying to do it.
Guest:It took a year.
Guest:And just that thing out there, as I'm waving, and that whole area.
Guest:And then I remember Whitney coming in, because then, you know, when you're on SNL, it's the bully pulpit.
Guest:And then the New York Times was sort of observing the same things, but not giving me credit, according to Whitney.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're doing you now.
Guest:They gripped you off.
Guest:Well, how did you get SNL?
Guest:Oh my God, what a story.
Guest:I auditioned in San Francisco.
Guest:Al Franken saw me, didn't get it.
Guest:I auditioned at the Comedy Store.
Guest:It was probably 84.
Guest:Franken saw you?
Guest:Yeah, but I was probably a little nervous.
Guest:I had that look and I wasn't, you know.
Guest:He was funny, man.
Guest:Yeah, he's a great writer, really smart.
Guest:He was great to do political comedy with.
Guest:And Jim Downey, who's more of kind of a conservative, but brilliant.
Guest:But he was like the head writer forever, wasn't he?
Guest:He was, yeah.
Guest:He was just fantastic.
Guest:So you didn't get it in San Fran.
Guest:Who else was on the audition?
Guest:Probably Slayton.
Guest:Probably Pollock.
Guest:But when I, I did one night at the comedy store, I can't remember if it was 84, where it was five minutes each, like 20 of us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And no MC on stage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You brought each other up or off stage?
Guest:Off stage, Mike.
Guest:And I, this sounds like a bit, but I followed Kenison.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In his prime.
Guest:So.
Guest:What year?
Guest:Oh God, was it 84?
Guest:Four, five?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:kenison exploding that first record and i followed him um well isn't that you know just death and then the show comes around the year lovitz and norah who was in the room that night watching um just lieutenants lauren wasn't there right but it must have been producers and stuff but that was it yeah and i was just terribly so you're bummed out for months yeah
Guest:Really, and so it came around again in 86.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought, I bombed so many times auditioning at the Improv and so many times, playing to dead silence at 8.30 on a Wednesday, Norman Lear thought it was good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, fuck.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you come out of the box with what would levitate the room in Sacramento.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Your best joke with full commitment and swing and a miss.
Marc:Oh, you just feel that feeling when it doesn't land.
Marc:Oh, it's just the most awkward.
Marc:It's like someone just cuts something off of you.
Guest:Yeah, so I didn't want to do that.
Guest:So...
Guest:There was a club called Igby's.
Guest:Were you around for that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was on the west side.
Guest:100 seat, real intimate.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I said, okay, let me see if I can audition there.
Guest:Lorne Michaels was in town.
Guest:I had gotten with Brad Gray and Bernie Brillstein.
Marc:You left Rollins and Jaffe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then I said, I want to do it at Igby's, but Rosie O'Donnell, who I'd never met, was headlining that week.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And Jan Smith asked her, well, he's going to bring in Lorne Michaels, so Rosie said yes.
Guest:So I met Rosie right before I went on.
Guest:We flipped a coin.
Marc:And she was at the peak of her stand-up thing, too, right?
Guest:Yeah, and she was just, she seemed like Ethel Merman.
Guest:She seemed like a tough, really funny, mature woman.
Guest:I guess she was like 26, but she never, you know, she was powerful personality.
Guest:And she, so I went on first, scared out of my mind, really just, this is it, Lorne Michaels was coming to see me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he walks and I see him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then I see the head of NBC, Brendan Tartikoff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I see Cher.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now ladies and gentlemen, Dana Garney.
Guest:But I got, I did a C minus, but I was in really good shape for performing and the audience was not an industry crowd.
Guest:So I think that really essentially got me the show.
Guest:So how soon after that are you going to New York?
Guest:This is in July.
Guest:And he says, come out to Long Island.
Guest:I can do the voice if you want me to.
Guest:Please.
Guest:Dana, you come out to Long Island.
Guest:We hang out, you know, this and that.
Guest:At his house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I just move in with Lorne Michaels.
Guest:No.
Guest:For like three weeks.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I've never heard that one before.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I've never heard anyone have that experience, that they auditioned and you have to live with Lauren Michaels.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:So I'm up there with Lauren.
Guest:Chevy rented a house in the neighborhood.
Guest:Whitney was around a lot because he was sort of kind of the head writer at that time.
Guest:And Lauren.
Guest:And we just hung out.
Guest:You lived at his house?
Guest:Yeah, we just hung out.
Guest:And that was when, you know, the whole, which I've talked about before, but McCartney came over with Linda five nights in a row and came.
Guest:Because they lived down the street or?
Guest:They were, they had a rent in a house in Long Island that summer and they would come over, put their kids to bed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we'd all smoke marijuana together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And laugh.
Guest:Yeah, and play.
Guest:Did you play guitars?
Guest:No, but this one is kind of interesting.
Guest:You might find this interesting.
Guest:So when I met him,
Guest:It's not a joke.
Guest:I had to answer the door.
Guest:You know, Lord, you get the door.
Guest:And he did say, your face is going a bit funny.
Guest:Because I just, I'd never even been on TV.
Guest:Like, I'm not anybody.
Guest:But he was, I had the presence of mind to not ask him anything to do with the Beatles.
Guest:I brought up an obscure song called Tug of War and I asked him about the chorus.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One day we'll stand up on top of the mountain with our flag unfurled.
Guest:And he just lit up after that.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And so.
Guest:That was on a Wings album?
Guest:that was um no that was paul mccartney george martin 1980 okay i the thing that's in my so-called rotation is the the the original mccartney album with maybe i'm amazed on it which he did with a four track in the basement is that ram no it's just called mccartney oh he's got the kid with the little baby oh yeah yeah sure sure he did all the instruments it's so rudimentary that but there's something really cool about it i don't know if i even have that one
Guest:You should try.
Guest:It's only like 28 minutes long.
Guest:No, I should get it.
Guest:He has pieces of songs in a way.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I felt that with Wild Life, too, a little bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're just great.
Marc:I'm trying to figure it out.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Without the other guy.
Marc:The angry guy.
Marc:How do I just be the nice guy?
Guest:Well, it's hard because, you know, what happened to John.
Guest:Horrible.
Guest:And what they did together.
Guest:I mean, I'm a fanatic about the Beatles.
Guest:I don't know about you.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:How can you not be?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, when they last did the digital remastering, I listened all the way through again in my car.
Guest:And I did land on Revolver.
Guest:I went, hmm, yeah.
Guest:Because when they were in close harmony, I knew that they loved each other because...
Guest:Kind of the way Mike and I love each other.
Guest:We also fought like brothers because you're John Lennon.
Guest:You write Dear Prudence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got this chirpy guy in there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Comes up with a bass line from The Heavens.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then is playing the drums and does this great break because Ringo was on strike.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and then you think about the harmony that they would do together.
Guest:I got married to Love Is Real.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:When did you get married?
Guest:1983.
Marc:Oh, so she was on for the whole ride.
Marc:You freaking out for months after you blew your auditions?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, that is one thing that is great, is that I could call my wife on the way home from here and go, I talked to the business manager.
Guest:Mark and I had to talk.
Guest:Special's not that good.
Guest:All the money is gone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she would...
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Again?
Guest:Again, all the money's gone.
Guest:All the money's gone.
Guest:But yeah, that's something you get for being someone who really sees you.
Guest:I remember when I first started, people would make a fuss out of me on the street.
Guest:My wife goes, wow, so that's what famous people are.
Guest:You know one.
Guest:In other words, we're all pathetically normal.
Guest:And it's only this crazy technology that is exploding all of us into the... So you live with Lauren for three weeks.
Guest:yes and nervous scared out of my mind is he just walking around his bathrobe or he would he was just um very intimidating but charming you know we would take long walks five mile walks on the beach just around long island and sort not really the beach as much and what was he doing what was he talking to you about lauren can just talk i mean lauren is lauren
Guest:you know, I figured it out later, just he has this way of taking gigantic ideas, like any really smart person and distilling them.
Guest:Like I was, last time I did SNL in May, they asked me to stay.
Guest:I was doing, I shot the special.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, okay, what do you want me to do, Lauren, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm here.
Guest:So I did, and then usually I would leave the party
Guest:at 3.30 or 4.
Guest:And Lorne was always there.
Guest:A.M.
Guest:A.M.
Guest:And that night, because of the time of life I'm in and the people who've died, I just, and not to be morose, Lorne's fantastic, I'm fine.
Guest:I said, I'm gonna stay all night with Lorne Michaels.
Guest:And he just had a brilliant, you know, which I was struggling about how to describe Paul McCartney.
Guest:He goes, oh, he's Mozart.
Guest:You know, it was just like very, very quick.
Guest:Some of Lauren's favorites are like one thing he said to me was kind of brilliant because of we both have millennial sons and we're always wondering, you know, there's no men anymore.
Guest:And I go, well, what do you mean?
Guest:He goes, you and I, we were raised in the wilderness and then we became civilized.
Guest:We raised our children civilized and now we want them to go in the wilderness.
Guest:And it's like, man, that's brilliant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As a way to analyze all this micromanaging.
Guest:We gave them everything.
Guest:Didn't everyone want them to be sad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, you know.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:For better or for worse.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Are we happy?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Uh, I, I, if I can feel like not, if I feel okay and not insecure, if I'm not panicking, I'm, I'm happy ish.
Marc:Well, or angry, but anger is like dissipated a little bit.
Marc:Like, I feel like I'm, I'm finally myself, which is relieving.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:I feel like as a public person and as a private person, you're comfortable with yourself.
Marc:Yeah, because it's kind of the same.
Marc:That was always my goal, is to get everything synced up.
Guest:Well, see, I think that's great.
Guest:And I think there's a lot of energy that...
Guest:Is dissipated when you're a standup where sometimes I would want to say a really strong opinion or say exactly what I feel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I can't.
Guest:It seems like it would make standup easier if you could just say anything you wanted.
Guest:There was no censorship.
Guest:But for me, it's a good problem to have that.
Guest:Like when I shot the special, it felt like the audience, they were older and they'd all just watch my best of sketches from SNL.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And maybe just saw a Wings World matinee.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I'm going to come out and talk about racism.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's not.
Guest:It's just so it's.
Guest:Well, it's good.
Guest:It's a good problem to have.
Guest:Right.
Marc:It is interesting, though, when you talk about branding and about audience expectation, that when you do tweak it a little bit, you know, you might get a little resistance.
Marc:Like, no, I kind of wish you would have just done this or just done that.
Guest:Well, and also willing to disappoint them.
Guest:I was going to call the special Springsteen in tights.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it'd be like if Springsteen came out and did a ballet dance.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:What?
Guest:I mean, the boss is the boss is the boss.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Do you know him?
Guest:I've met him, but I don't know him.
Guest:You know, he's a freak.
Guest:I mean, anybody could do a four-hour set physically.
Guest:Hell of a performer.
Guest:Yeah, he's just up there.
Guest:He's like one of those- He's an earnest dude.
Guest:I don't stack them in any particular order, but as far as the guy who writes the songs and sings the songs, there's Neil, there's Dylan, there's Springsteen, and then there's a lot of others too, Jackson Brown, I mean, from my era.
Guest:Sure, but those guys- Paul McCartney, but yeah, they're freaks.
Marc:Yeah, good way, in a good way.
Guest:Right.
Marc:They're anomalies because they are singular and they're huge and they deliver.
Guest:If I could almost do anything, I would be able to sit down at a piano, play beautifully and sing an original tune.
Marc:Yeah, you can't?
Guest:Well, I play around on a little piano.
Guest:I fiddle with the guitar and the drums.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's for me for anxiety.
Guest:I have them in my town home that I have down here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I go to them all the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Several times a day, but I'm so rudimentary.
Guest:Yeah, I do that with guitar.
Guest:So you say, so you got, that's really a trick.
Guest:I mean, that's that you feel authentic on stage and off.
Marc:It's very evolved.
Marc:Well, that was, I didn't know that that was the journey, but that was the journey is that like, I think when I've talked about it before that I was on a,
Marc:My search was to be myself and be in me without doubting it or trying to hide it with anger and all this other stuff.
Marc:If I'm going to speak my mind, it's tricky because I have to make sure that I'm running it through my heart and not just my defensiveness.
Marc:It gets complicated.
Guest:Yeah, it's just all these human emotions.
Guest:It's kind of like if your foot hurts, it's telling you something.
Guest:And we have this whole cadre of emotions.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The thing I was going to come back to, which I think I can get in touch with, is just gratitude.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And of the fact of this part of my life that I was able to make a living on this planet doing this.
Guest:Because when I meet young comedians and performers, I run into them all the time.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And they're still not sure this is how they're going to live.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're going to make a living.
Guest:There's no, you can't bank on it.
Guest:No.
Guest:So they would, where you and I might look at people up on the food chain naturally because normal, Chris Rock got 40 million for a special.
Guest:Suddenly my, it doesn't look so good.
Guest:But you just get, you go back to the beginning and go, oh wow, don't forget that this didn't have to happen.
Marc:Now I just want to figure out how do we move forward as a creative person in this very quickly changing world that we have no idea what's going to happen.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So that's going to be the next thing.
Marc:And can I just go away?
Marc:Can I just disappear now?
Marc:How was it for you when you disappeared?
Guest:We need you more.
Yeah.
Guest:You know, I always did a Heisman with fame in a way.
Guest:I'm in therapy to figure out why I would just walk away like that.
Guest:But because of my childhood, I did want to be there for the kids.
Guest:But here's what happened, which is an interesting part of my journey that I've never really talked about, which I just because it's never been time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I...
Guest:The thing about what I like about people like you is it would appear as if you were never in a shitty movie or television show that was paying you a lot of money and you suffered through it.
Guest:It feels like you did your show.
Guest:I was never given that opportunity.
Guest:To be tortured.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so on SNL, you're kind of in charge of your stuff or you're working with like-minded people.
Guest:Wayne's World was kind of the same.
Guest:Then I come off, I do a movie called Clean Slate.
Guest:Right.
Guest:$3 million.
Guest:I waited a year after Wayne's World, but being a chameleon or a variety performer, it's like, well, what are we going to do with him?
Guest:Is he going to play the schlubby dad?
Guest:He doesn't look too schlubby.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I understand why it was difficult to step away, but I peaked on the show.
Guest:I just couldn't after Ross Perot and Bush and Wayne's World, and I was getting close to 40.
Guest:So it was sort of exactly what you're talking about.
Guest:I was able to be poisoned by this money, which wasn't for myself, but was a sense of taking care of everybody.
Guest:So I did that one.
Guest:That was a disaster.
Guest:The clean slate.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was horrible in it.
Guest:I think I could be okay in the digital age if someone, say you were going to direct me and I'm going to play this character, this person you've been talking to, and I'm quasi improvising.
Guest:But locking in line for line with 125 takes, I couldn't.
Guest:I was just dead.
Guest:So that was a disaster.
Guest:And that really shook me up.
Guest:Then I did Road to Wellville, which is a little side one.
Guest:And then I did Trap in Paradise, another $3 million with Lovitz.
Guest:And these are not big budgeted movies.
Guest:You're saying $3 million as a reasonable budget.
Guest:$3 million was what I got.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:In 1992, three.
Guest:So it's like $6 million.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I'll just have fun in the snow.
Guest:And Nicolas Cage, who I love, brilliant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the director, it was a disaster.
Guest:I didn't really know how movies were made.
Guest:I was naive and I was just made these bad, bad choices.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I think the missing piece of it was on the side.
Guest:Hollywood was saying, just put him in a movie as a typical stupid.
Guest:He's trying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, he does a church.
Guest:It doesn't matter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Put him in a movie.
Guest:The kids are going to come.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I was being corrupted by this money, which I don't really care about, but that's all in the story.
Guest:So on the side, I was developing stuff.
Guest:Like Oda Kirk and I wrote a comedy western called Tucson, which is really, really funny.
Guest:So that was being developed.
Guest:Bob or Steve?
Guest:Bob.
Guest:Okay.
Okay.
Guest:And Hans and Franz, the girly man dilemma.
Guest:I was riding with Conan and Smigel and Nealon.
Guest:And that was when Conan was sort of, I was being touted to take over the Letterman spot, which again was another thing that was coming at me.
Guest:Like so much was coming at me.
Guest:I mean, I was too hot.
Guest:And I had no confidence, experience.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And on SNL, you can't make money on SNL.
Guest:You have to leave SNL.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, Carell was probably making $400,000 a week at the end of The Office.
Guest:I'm just throwing Steve out for that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But so that was going along with that.
Guest:And then I just, after Trap in Paradise and Clean Slate, I just sort of stopped.
Guest:Then Arnold decided he didn't want to do Hans and Franz's The Curly Man Dilemma, of which we made him a third lead.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:which was okay.
Guest:He was developing 10 movies.
Guest:I didn't know how that worked.
Guest:So that collapses.
Guest:Tucson was made for me and Lovitz as a comedy western and John decided not to do it because he was kind of hot at the time.
Guest:We wrote it so great for John.
Guest:So great.
Guest:He had a very unique thing there.
Guest:When he had a very specific character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I come in as the Irish guy who only heard about, I'm the new sheriff in the West.
Guest:I'm from Dublin.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm lethal with these little guns and I'm very innocent.
Guest:And John is the guy, he's like his character.
Guest:So I come in, he's getting hung.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's a poster when he ran for mayor.
Guest:If I don't clean up the town, you can hang me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I show up, and so it's us on this journey.
Guest:There's a robbery, and we meet Lincoln on a train when he's, like, 28, and he's a prick.
Guest:And we actually stretch time so that Einstein's parents are there, and we change his diaper.
Guest:And we go back to New York in, like, 1830, and it's just rudimentary New York.
Guest:Like, there's one Chinese guy with a...
Guest:And baseball hadn't been invented.
Guest:It was very, and Old Kirk is brilliant.
Guest:Yeah, he's funny, yeah.
Guest:So that fell apart.
Guest:And then Bad Boys that Will Smith did, I was developing that.
Guest:Simpson and Bruckheimer wanted John and I to be in that.
Guest:But the script they were writing me, I sounded like Don Simpson, who was such a sweet guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they said, Don goes, we're going to add two inches to your- The producer?
Guest:Yeah, the producer, Simpson Bruckheimer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Don said, we're going to add two inches to your chest.
Guest:So I was going to play the stud Will Smith part.
Guest:We're going to get me in a gym.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I'd already gotten a half million dollars up front from Jeffrey Katzenberg to do the movie for another three million.
Guest:And I gave the money back.
Guest:So suddenly those three movies disappeared.
Guest:The clean slate disappeared.
Guest:And I just stopped at that point.
Guest:When did you do the Dana Carvey show?
Guest:That happened in 96.
Guest:I did a stand up special.
Guest:Then I did that.
Guest:The show that Smigel and Louie.
Guest:96.
Guest:And that thing lasted like four episodes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the movies bomb, I turned down those other movies because they were pay or play.
Guest:I could have done Tucson.
Guest:I could have done Hans and Franz and I could have done Bad Boys.
Guest:That was $9 million.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was being offered potato chip commercials for $10 million.
Guest:I turned down all this stuff.
Guest:And then I did the show sitting around.
Guest:It was a smile.
Guest:Let's do the variety show.
Guest:So that was 96.
Guest:And that lasted, I think it aired seven times.
Guest:Dino was there too, right?
Guest:yeah dino who's still a very good friend yeah uh brilliant yeah great comedy guys but it was just too crazy for people there's a long story it never should have been on abc it didn't belong on the disney and it was no one really knew what we were going to do and again with me and who i am that's what i i love that show yeah but my brand they didn't know that church lady is kind of subversive they thought i was sort of going to be cute and nice yeah
Guest:The show was really clean.
Guest:It was just very acidy and brilliant, except for the first sketch that Louis wrote where I'm- Where Clinton had the nipples, the teats.
Guest:Which wasn't Louis' fault.
Guest:We all decided to put it out there, but we banked it a month before and we lost perspective on what America would think.
Guest:So it went from 16 million to 2 million.
Guest:So basically, I get on SNL 86.
Guest:I do very well on that.
Guest:I got Wayne's World.
Guest:And then that's by 93.
Guest:I leave.
Guest:By 95, I'm telling you, what the fuck do I do?
Guest:But you're rich.
Guest:Well...
Guest:there's nets and you buy a house and the member, Bud and Billy from the beginning of the, of our journey.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:I was writing checks.
Guest:I mean, there's a difference.
Guest:If you, John Travolta came around once and told me I'll do the voice or fun.
Guest:You know, the whole point is like to live off the, live off the interest.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I took that advice.
Guest:That's just an exact answer.
Guest:So I always thought that real wealth is having enough money in the bank that gives you enough tax-free interest that you can live really comfortable and then do whatever you want.
Guest:But unfortunately, interest rates have been at 1% the last eight years.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I'm still working.
Guest:If they go to five, I'm done.
Guest:I'll buy you a house.
Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So there you are, 96.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You don't know what to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then we did the show and then that failed.
Guest:And then so then I thought, well, it's one thing to be an absentee parent and just have this flailing career.
Guest:So I was at the same time sort of being offered corporate stand up dates.
Guest:which was not my dream as a little boy.
Guest:But like for a quarter million bucks a pop or?
Guest:150 plus a jet.
Guest:I tried to get out of them by sometimes saying 150 and a Gulfstream.
Guest:And they kept saying yes.
Guest:So I was making money after that as if I was a movie star.
Guest:Through stand-up.
Guest:But you were out of the public eye.
Guest:But I was out of the guy.
Guest:I would just occasionally drive down and do Leno.
Guest:But staying home with the family, being a dad.
Guest:Because I could do these 40, 50 corporate dates.
Guest:I took all month at Christmas, summer.
Guest:I could just be a dad.
Marc:And you got two kids.
Marc:Two boys, yeah.
Marc:And the same wife.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And during this downtime, are you hanging out with your friends like Mike and Sandler or Robin?
Guest:Well, they were all around doing their thing.
Guest:But right in that time, just because it's one other piece that's very interesting is that I found out I had 100% blocked artery in 1997.
Guest:Did you feel it?
Guest:Only when I ran or exercised, I would feel like a roughness in my throat, like sort of as if you didn't warm up on a cold morning and just went sprinting.
Guest:And so I eventually got checked out, and then I went down that journey.
Guest:And something got fucked up, right?
Guest:They bypassed the wrong artery.
Guest:First, I had all these stents put in.
Guest:It was all just in one place.
Marc:That's so scary too, right?
Marc:It's horrifying.
Marc:They're cutting you open like that, and they had to do it twice?
Guest:Well, they only cut me open once with a saw.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'll never forget it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, I was out, but I remember lying there.
Guest:You know, they give you a few little drugs, but there was a towel.
Guest:And I was making jokes.
Guest:You don't know how you deal.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, I was doing Woody Allen literally at that moment.
Guest:I'm not a joke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, what's under the towel?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that also happened.
Guest:And then Sinatra died in my arms.
Guest:And then Phil and Bren, that happened, so.
Marc:What do you mean?
Guest:Well, when I found out they bypassed the wrong artery, it was May, I think May 8th, 98?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Sinatra came in that night.
Guest:I was reading a magazine, two in the morning, and he came on to the cardiovascular wing where I was.
Guest:Frank Sinatra.
Guest:Frank Sinatra died right down the hall from me that night, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you meet him?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, he was just coming in.
Guest:He died.
Guest:He had a heart attack, I assume.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Isn't that weird?
Guest:What about Phil?
Guest:Well, then two weeks later, Phil and Bren had that whole thing happen, which I assume- Were you close with Phil?
Guest:Very.
Guest:We lived around the corner.
Guest:Our kids were just being raised together.
Guest:Did you ever see that possibility of happening?
Guest:Everything in retrospect, you know, I remember them showing me the guns and, um, Bren was so loyal and so close to my wife and such a nice person.
Guest:Um, you know, what, what can you say?
Guest:It's, it's, it's probably something to do with, um, antidepressants and cocaine and a waking dream state.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, you know, so it's just horrible.
Marc:That's so, it was so fucking tragic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Phil, we were just really tight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jammed together.
Guest:One of the sweet guy.
Yeah.
Guest:Just, yeah, and so talented effortlessly and such a Renaissance man.
Guest:He'd go down to his motorboat, and he just was so meticulous.
Guest:I never flew with him because I had terrible fear of flying.
Guest:But we'd go out to Van Nuys Airport, and we'd put the headset on, listen to the things, and we would jam.
Guest:He'd play blues guitar.
Guest:And after he died and ran in that tragedy, his kids, they moved to Minnesota, and they came and visited us regularly.
Guest:in Mill Valley.
Guest:And my son was a pretty good guitar player.
Guest:I had the little drums.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Sean, his son, got on a bass and had invented this little cool bass line.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're jamming.
Guest:And that's the moment where it just waved over me.
Guest:And, you know, I'm crying behind my eyes right now, which I do often.
Guest:But it's just like, God, Phil should be here.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because his son is so cool.
Guest:And Bergen is so beautiful.
Guest:And just, they're great kids.
Guest:And so, yeah.
Marc:Everybody still friends?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, they all keep in touch.
Guest:My wife's been in touch sending Christmas gifts in on Facebook.
Marc:They live with his parents or something?
Guest:I think Sean now is up in the Bay Area.
Guest:He has a band, and he's really, really talented.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:It was right after it all happened, or a few years later, I was playing a New Year's Eve gig in Minnesota, and it was Dennis, Kevin, and Victoria Jackson.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And so we wanted to go visit them and Victoria volunteered to go with me.
Guest:And she was the person, I know she's very right wing, but this other person is the exact person you wanted because she wears everything on her sleeve.
Guest:Before the change.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Before that, yeah, which, you know, people were, that's a whole other story.
Guest:We may not survive the web and social media.
Guest:That's a whole other conversation.
Guest:If something's going to get us, it's this insidious thing.
Guest:It's a monster that's growing.
Guest:But I'll never forget just going in Sean's bedroom and he was just very quiet and he brought out a book, a picture book of his mom and dad.
Guest:And I just sat next to him and he just flipped through and they're beautiful black and white photos and just flipped through.
Guest:Ugh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Life is amazing, man.
Guest:Fuck.
Guest:So show business didn't seem quite as important.
Guest:Yeah, so you took a long time.
Guest:I lived up in Mill Valley, up in... When did they fix your heart?
Guest:The last time they go through your femoral artery and they do that.
Guest:So the bypass got one artery.
Guest:It was only two arteries on the right side.
Guest:It was very limited, but the main artery, the left lower anterior descending...
Guest:If that gets closed, you're really, it was a miracle I didn't have a heart attack, but I didn't.
Guest:And that's why I can hike and do anything.
Guest:But they did a subsequent angioplasty when they've discovered it because I kept having the burning symptoms, but I was going between Marin County and Cedar Sinai, but I got with Cedar Sinai and PK Shaw and their team.
Guest:And they found it.
Guest:In fact, I saw the cardiovascular interventionist who did the final angioplasty.
Guest:I saw him the other night.
Guest:I played the Thousand Oaks Theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Neil Eigler.
Guest:And that one is just held.
Guest:It just never clogged again.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And they don't know why.
Guest:But my cholesterol, I had familial hyperclestremia.
Guest:My cholesterol was like 450.
Guest:And now it's like 120 or whatever.
Marc:Do you take pills?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I take blood thinners.
Guest:I take baby aspirin, ZDS, Crestor.
Marc:So after all is said and done, you and your wife are still together.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:You're healthy-ish.
Guest:Well, I'm completely healthy.
Guest:People always say, how are you feeling?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they go, you know, I'm like a 747.
Guest:I fly when I'm perfect or not.
Marc:You know, it's fun that, you know, we didn't really talk about SNL, which is fine because you talk about it a lot.
Marc:You've talked about it in your life.
Marc:It was a good experience.
Marc:But like what's more concerned to me is that, you know, that that.
Marc:The triple, the sort of career crash, heart issue, friends tragically dying, you know, just sort of locked you into like, you know, appreciating life and connecting with your kids who are now in show business.
Guest:They're doing stand-up and they're loving it.
Guest:That wasn't my plan.
Guest:We raised them up there.
Guest:I told my wife and I tell my kids, make your career inside out.
Guest:Don't ask permission, just like what you did here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Make it inside out and you can do it.
Guest:I don't care if you're on a network that hasn't been invented or even thought of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You may not be famous, but I tell them, if you work hard, you can make 100 grand a year.
Guest:Their eyes get real big.
Marc:Good.
Marc:And you and your wife, after all these years, are okay day to day?
Guest:We have...
Guest:We were just instinctual back then, but our sensibilities, you know, and we're learning, we're still evolving, learning to argue and communicate with each other.
Guest:Good.
Marc:You're in therapy now.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It's such a cliche.
Marc:No, it's great.
Marc:I mean, it's a cliche or what?
Marc:I mean, after years and years of discomfort and the fact that Conan's the guy that told you maybe you deserve to be happy, because that guy didn't have it easy either mentally.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, Conan, yeah, I think, you know, people, comedians in general are sensitive instruments.
Guest:If they're good or whatever style they do, they're sensitive instruments.
Guest:They have to process the world in this way.
Guest:And there's a downside to that.
Guest:But I didn't come out with a full deck.
Guest:I mean, my childhood was too wicked for me to make choices around myself and celebrity and celebrity.
Guest:I just got exhausted by it.
Guest:And I know there's still more to go.
Guest:I mean, you just keep going, I think.
Marc:Why'd you come back this time?
Marc:I mean, the special straight white male is a comedy special, but I mean, what are you expecting now?
Marc:What do you want to do?
Guest:What I would really like to do is a single camera show on a live streaming network where I play a very subtle character.
Guest:It's with a narrative and in a film kind of thing.
Guest:I played around with this.
Guest:Oh, so you're working on it.
Guest:Yeah, it's just you get really distracted by stand-up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And stand-up takes so much energy.
Guest:It's like show business reinvents itself every 18 months.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I can't even, people talking about networks.
Guest:So to me, it's the greatest time.
Guest:I don't, I've saved a lot of money.
Guest:I have plenty of fame.
Guest:Whatever's going to happen when I go to Jesus has already been Garth, you know, Saturday Night Live, which is fine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's why I want to do cool stuff.
Guest:I love...
Guest:I love the Quentin Tarantino model of creating violent tension before, after, and then Samuel L. Jackson or Christoph Waltz doing these ornate, great monologues.
Guest:I mean, I aspire to that, but I know I would do it my own way, slightly funnier.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I want a real narrative and a real story, even wackiness and the sensibility of things that are on their sleeve funny, that are forced.
Guest:Right.
Guest:don't appeal to me.
Guest:And I do it my own way.
Marc:So this is the show you're thinking about?
Guest:This is the template for what I will do.
Guest:I don't know where it will be.
Guest:I'm circling the wagons around CISO.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Or the next CISO.
Guest:I just want to have it be creatively free.
Guest:And...
Guest:you know, you just find out, and I'm sure you're the same way.
Guest:It's like, well, when you were 33, okay, what will I be like at 53?
Guest:Will I give a shit about this?
Guest:And you're kind of like, I guess I didn't do it for the money or the fame, so I'm kind of exactly the same.
Guest:I'm possessed by it.
Marc:That's the same with me, but, like, my possession by it is lessening.
Marc:Like, I don't know if, it's sort of day-to-day, but, like, seeing that, like, what I really wanted to do was
Marc:not be terrified financially.
Marc:Right, that's good.
Marc:And to be able to take care of myself in that way, and also to feel comfortable in myself.
Marc:So I've achieved that.
Marc:So there's a big part of me that's sort of like, I'm done, right?
Guest:Well, I feel like I know that my most popular moves that I've had, like Dennis Miller always said, everyone's got one chimp trick.
Guest:If you get two chimp tricks, you're a superstar.
Guest:He sees it as a chimp trick.
Guest:So I feel like I have a couple more moves that I was never allowed to show because on SNL, it was a take no prisoners, repeat characters, big and loud.
Guest:There were a few little moments in the first Wayne's World that I liked that were played very small.
Guest:I ruined Wayne's World 2 because I was over the top and the makeup was terrible.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I don't mean literally.
Guest:My therapist always says that too.
Guest:But I feel like I have some moves.
Marc:Your therapist tells you you ruined Wayne's World 2?
Guest:Well, I flog myself too easily.
Guest:In the movie?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, in life.
Guest:I ruined the movie.
Guest:I don't really mean it that way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Very self-critical.
Marc:But you got another chimp trick is what we're saying.
Guest:I feel, and I've done some short films with it, but I don't say it would be the most popular trick.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:I think what people like me to do is what I do.
Guest:When I do Donald Trump, they levitate.
Guest:Are you still friendly with Dennis?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:The people who you go through that SNL experience with, you just stay connected to.
Guest:Who do you talk to regularly?
Guest:Kevin Nealon.
Marc:He's funny.
Marc:I haven't yet to have him in here.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:Kevin, John Lovitz, we're going to play Vegas.
Guest:We're doing 10 weekends in Vegas.
Guest:The three of you?
Guest:No, just me and Lovitz.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I know.
Guest:He's the funniest.
Guest:We're doing a little stand-up and then we'll do a little, he'll have the piano and stuff.
Guest:Mike?
Guest:Mike, yeah.
Guest:Not as much.
Guest:He's got three kids.
Guest:He's in New York.
Guest:Lorne?
Guest:Lorne, lately I've emailed him and stuff and said, nice show and this and that.
Guest:And I've seen him when I've gone out there.
Guest:I've seen him twice in the last few months.
Guest:And some of the younger ones, I come into their sphere here and there.
Guest:Like Bill Hader and John Mulaney are very cool to be around.
Guest:Bill Hader's like, you know.
Marc:He's a very nice guy.
Marc:Both of those guys are nice guys and they're funny guys.
Guest:Yeah, and Fred Armisen.
Guest:I'm friendly with these guys when I see them.
Marc:Well, I have to tell you, you seem like you're in a good place and I'm happy about that.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:Well, this was really cool.
Guest:I had no idea what to expect.
Guest:I kind of thought there might be two other people in the house somehow.
Guest:You know, most people, you do anything, even if it's in a garage, there's going to be a handler.
Guest:I mean, it wasn't just you and Obama.
Marc:Well, they were out there.
Marc:There was only one Secret Service guy back here behind me, and the rest of them were out there, and they let him talk freely.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So this podcast is huge, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You wouldn't know it from the surroundings.
Guest:I mean, it's very humble.
Guest:I guess that's the gift of it.
Guest:I guess that's why it is what it is.
Guest:If you went to a bigger room or dressed it up, it would destroy it.
Marc:Or it was a studio.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just have to keep things dusted.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But this would be like what I have.
Guest:I'm very messy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Pads of yellow.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:A lot of that.
Marc:Yellow.
Marc:And then you start looking at these piles and I'm like, I'm not going to do anything with any of this.
Marc:Why don't I just move it?
Marc:And then I don't know.
Marc:Maybe I'll give it to people to come over.
Marc:Yeah, take.
Guest:You can have that.
Guest:I totally relate to it.
Guest:I mean, like those papers, I've got thousands of those.
Marc:Those are specific.
Marc:Those are...
Marc:Well, I mean, I just like looking at those because there's not questions.
Marc:There's just these, like, I just box things.
Marc:I put words up.
Marc:And then, like, during the interview, I'll look down and I'll go, like, and the word will trigger, like, what I was interested in.
Marc:And I'll know whether or not I got it or not.
Marc:Like, I usually just look at them.
Marc:Like, I'll scribble all this stuff down when I put together what I want to talk about.
Marc:Like, some people that I'm intimidated by or I know I've got to be on point in my own fucking.
Marc:I would be nervous.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:guys.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because Lauren and I, that was a big deal for me.
Guest:Well, I remember that.
Guest:I never heard all about that.
Guest:Are you over that now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Kind of?
Guest:No, I am.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Oh, totally.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No, he charmed me, man.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's not personal.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also, he's just a guy who works at a building.
Marc:Ultimately, he is.
Marc:I know.
Marc:But really.
Marc:He's there.
Marc:He likes to work.
Marc:And the last time I did Fallon, he came down, said hi, then went back to work.
Marc:And he still really, really cares about that show.
Marc:It's amazing.
Marc:Whatever happened in that meeting I had with him,
Marc:You know, he was willing to address it point for point.
Marc:And, you know, sure, sure.
Marc:He you know, he's only going to tell me what he wants to tell me.
Marc:But for me to have that and for me to hit for him to ask me back and to finish it because we got cut short.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Whether it matters to him or not, it mattered a lot to me.
Marc:And I and I have a new respect for the guy, you know.
Guest:Any kind of, you know, as you get older, any kind of falling out with people or maybe you made them mad.
Guest:I mean, it's just at some point when you put your weapons down and you go, look, I mean, this life's hard.
Guest:We're all suffering here, man.
Guest:And then they go, okay.
Guest:Usually things can be worked out.
Guest:Grudges shouldn't last.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:If you go.
Guest:And even if so, you go, I fucked up or.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I should have called you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Ahead of time, but I retreated and then things got stirred up.
Guest:So anyway.
Guest:No, no, I know.
Marc:I mean, I got one of those like, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's one or two.
Guest:Oh, I have a couple.
Guest:Well, no, I only have one right now.
Guest:Yeah, it's probably one.
Guest:But I feel terrible about it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:When I think about it.
Guest:What are you going to do about it?
Guest:I should reach out.
Guest:I should reach out.
Guest:So it's on you.
Guest:Um...
Guest:That that person might have reached out to me, but it was in a subtle way.
Guest:And I, you know, your email feed and then it goes to the second page.
Guest:You're like, did I?
Guest:Was I invited to something?
Guest:You know, so.
Guest:Life's weird.
Guest:I just, the more I think about it, it just, you know, I think if being your authentic self is a good goal of reaching that.
Guest:It's also just letting go.
Guest:Letting go.
Guest:Of all of it and allowing yourself just to be experiential.
Guest:I tell young people, I go, it's experiential.
Guest:Get rid of the fear.
Guest:You're just going to experience stuff on the planet, whether you're Neil Armstrong or whoever.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:You're just experiencing stuff and then you... Yeah, don't be too hard on yourself.
Guest:Well, I'll try.
Guest:Let's see, for this one, will I be later on driving around LA going...
Guest:Oh, I should have been more forthcoming, or maybe I... I don't think I will.
Guest:I may not, because I wasn't... This isn't a performance.
Guest:No, we were good.
Guest:This was great.
Guest:It seemed really nice on my side.
Guest:I loved it.
Marc:I loved it.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:I had no idea what to expect.
Marc:I didn't know where you were at in your life, and the only impression I had was that when I met you, was that he's got that sort of simmering niceness thing.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:And that you were pretty diplomatic.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, I'm sick competitively.
Guest:I mean, Dennis and I will talk about it.
Guest:I mean, Dennis can say to me he had schadenfreude when I was Wayne's World.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I go, of course you would.
Guest:I would have too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Those are like sort of a Zen thing of these emotions are like little friends.
Guest:Like if I'm on a showcase show at the Comedy Store, I have it in my head.
Guest:Well, I have to dominate.
Marc:Yeah, I don't have that.
Guest:It's ridiculous.
Marc:I still have the- I never had that.
Marc:I always assumed I would fail.
Yeah.
Marc:How was your set that night?
Marc:Fine.
Marc:It was fine.
Marc:It was fine.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:It was not great.
Marc:It was fine.
Marc:But I went out there with a little of that, you know, and I lived in that.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I don't like it anymore.
Marc:I don't like when I'm there in it, but sometimes it happens.
Marc:Just sort of like, all right, so you like that guy?
Marc:Fuck you, but okay.
Marc:It's old.
Marc:But I got one Dennis Miller story for you I think you like.
Marc:I've told it before, because I don't know him at all.
Marc:I've never fucking met the guy.
Marc:But years ago, his brother Jimmy...
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was scouting around way back.
Marc:It must have been in the late 80s.
Marc:I was a Catch Rising Star in Boston.
Marc:He was in Boston doing something, looking at people.
Marc:I don't know what.
Marc:He wasn't the sort of mythic manager that he is now.
Marc:Right, I know.
Marc:But he and I and Janine Garofalo went out after Catch Rising Star in Boston to go to a club or something.
Marc:And I was bitter and angry and struggling.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I'd met Jimmy because he booked the comedy club in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I grew up.
Marc:He booked it.
Marc:Where my brother lives.
Marc:I must have played that place.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah, Brad lives there.
Marc:Well, Jimmy was one of the first guys ever seen me do stand-up, like way back.
Marc:But anyway, so I knew him kind of.
Marc:So we're in the car in Boston, me, him, and Garofalo, and I'm spinning out.
Marc:And I'm like, I just don't know how you, you know, how do you get your voice?
Marc:You know, what do you do?
Marc:I mean, your fucking brother figured it out.
Marc:And Jimmy Miller just goes, he's doing Belzer.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he would admit that was a huge influence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You always get it from somewhere.
Marc:The trigger.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The, the, the, that thing, you know, the, the drive shaft, the thing that hooks you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm not sure.
Guest:I mean, did church lane come from off record or something?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It's a tone.
Marc:It's a, you know, you, you, you're going to lean on things that, you know, work because you respect or, or a fan of somebody's and then it kind of fades away.
Guest:Well, I mean, in the early days, I was just trying to be Robin Williams.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I realized I couldn't, but I had the trunk and the props and I was doing the voices.
Guest:And then years later, the year before he died, he stopped me outside the Throckmorton in the misty sky.
Guest:I was leaving.
Guest:No one's around dead streets.
Guest:And with that incredible voice he had, Dan, I'd like to talk to you.
Guest:And he wanted to make amends to me.
Guest:for taking stuff.
Guest:And honest to God, I don't mind talking about this because I don't remember him taking anything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But he said he did.
Guest:And I said to him at that moment, but I don't know if it's an AA thing of making amends or something.
Guest:I said, but Robin, I tried to take your whole persona.
Guest:I tried to be you, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we had lunch the next day.
Guest:Oh, that's true.
Guest:But it was sort of interesting.
Guest:But I said, he said this at Dennis Miller's wedding like 25 years before.
Guest:People say, you know, he referred to his dick as Mr. Happy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He mentioned it again.
Guest:Some people say, Mr. Happy was yours.
Guest:And I go, no, no, no.
Guest:It wasn't.
Guest:It never was.
Guest:You know?
Marc:Well, that's nice that you had the line.
Guest:Well, I was sincere.
Guest:I go, look.
Guest:And I said to him, I said, look, don't be so hard on yourself because...
Guest:You invented a construct.
Guest:You invented an idea that a lot of other great comics, we don't have to mention this free form kind of thing.
Guest:You're Shakespearean actor.
Guest:So that's what he did invent.
Guest:Inside the jokes and the comedy, people would have their own opinions about.
Guest:But as an idea of a guy on stage, oh, this is an acid, this is a Frisbee.
Guest:Just that.
Guest:And also this baritone British accent he had.
Guest:So it was a brilliant.
Guest:Yeah, he was Robin.
Guest:He's just one of a kind.
Guest:And also, nobody had that film career and stand-up.
Marc:Immensely talented, sweet guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, good talking to you, man.
Guest:I know.
Guest:What did we say?
Guest:Do you have that little theme song?
Marc:No, it was nice to talk to you finally.
Marc:Nice to talk to you.
Guest:That was very interesting.
Guest:We can sing like one bar of a song.
Guest:Let me think of...
Guest:What's your favorite Beatles song?
Guest:That's a terrible question.
Guest:What's a Beatles song you like?
Guest:That we can go out on?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let me just think.
Guest:How about- No reply.
Guest:I've just seen a face.
Guest:I can't forget the time or places we just met.
Guest:There's just a girl for me.
Guest:And I want all the world to see we've met.
Guest:La, da, da, da, da, da.
Guest:Falling.
Guest:Yes, I am falling.
Guest:And she keeps calling me back again.
Guest:Thanks, Dana.
Guest:So we can sing in the same.
Yes.
Marc:Thoughtful guy.
Marc:Deep guy.
Marc:I feel like I got to know him a bit.
Marc:Do you guys feel that?
Marc:Oh, I think I can play some guitar.
Marc:I didn't prepare or anything, but I did plug it into a different amp.
Marc:Hold on a minute.
Guest:Close.
Marc:Boomer lives!