Episode 787 - Trae Crowder / Lena Dunham
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fuckadelics what's happening i am mark maron this is my podcast wtf quite a show today i gotta be honest with you
Marc:I gotta be honest with you, I went down into the American South, to North Carolina, to Durham and Charlotte, and had a pretty amazing, cathartic time.
Marc:Great shows, I'll tell you about that in a second.
Marc:Today on the show, Trey Crowder, the comedian who has become known as the liberal redneck comedian, will be on a little while from now.
Marc:Lena Dunham.
Marc:Stop by to talk for a few about the new season of Girls and some of the other stuff she's doing.
Marc:So, Durham.
Marc:I always like going down there.
Marc:I've been to Raleigh a few times.
Marc:I've been to Charlotte a few times.
Marc:It's pretty.
Marc:But I sold out the Carolina Theater there, and I still didn't know what to expect.
Marc:But, boy, it was great.
Marc:But the great thing was is that I know people there.
Marc:I know Mac.
Marc:Mac, who's been on this show from Merge Records, from the band Superchunk.
Marc:I got to my hotel within 15 minutes, man.
Marc:He came over.
Marc:We rushed over to the Nasher Museum on the Duke campus.
Marc:Saw an opening of work by Nina Chanel Abney.
Marc:This beautiful big canvases, a lot of color, a lot of themes.
Marc:It just, you know, and that place had a bunch of people there.
Marc:It's a beautiful museum, a beautiful space for art.
Marc:Just, you know, a celebration of diversity in the human spirit.
Marc:People taking it in, nourishing the soul, being around the art.
Marc:Had a little few hors d'oeuvres.
Marc:Then we split.
Marc:And I went right over to the Durham Hotel, which is where I was staying, and his wife, an award-winning chef, Andrea.
Marc:It's her restaurant over there at the hotel.
Marc:And yeah, swept in, took a walk around, went over to the Merge offices, saw how the...
Marc:Sausage was made, and then me and Mac and a couple of dudes that worked over there walked over to Carolina Soul, the used record store right there in Durham.
Marc:I picked up James Brown's Reality and Patti Smith's Easter, got a T-shirt, said hi to the fellas, and then later went over to the Carolina Theater.
Marc:And my opening act was a girl named Blair Niaz.
Marc:And my buddy, Brian Mallow, also a guy started out with back in.
Marc:I didn't start out with him, but I knew him back in San Francisco.
Marc:He happened to live there, too.
Marc:He reached out.
Marc:So I let him do a spot on the show.
Marc:Place was packed.
Marc:It was very cathartic.
Marc:It was very raw.
Marc:It was very real.
Marc:And it was very funny and relieving.
Marc:And it was nice to see everybody.
Marc:And I felt good after the show.
Marc:Went back to the hotel, crashed, woke up the next morning, ran into a couple people from the show, just one who had just gone to a bakery and bought a lemon chest pie.
Marc:Where the fuck do you get chest pie?
Marc:Nowhere but the South.
Marc:So they were like, we love the show.
Marc:Do you want a piece of this?
Marc:We're just driving.
Marc:We've got to drive an hour out into the country where we live.
Marc:Had a great time at the show.
Marc:Talked for a while.
Marc:Had the guy in the kitchen slice me off a piece of that pie.
Marc:Ate that shit for breakfast.
Marc:Plus some other pastries.
Marc:Got jacked on sugar.
Marc:Passed out.
Marc:Got my rent-a-car, drove two and a half hours to Charlotte, however long it was.
Marc:Drove straight on through, stopped for gas, got a little taste of the town along the highway, the gas station.
Marc:Felt like North Carolina, but it was good.
Marc:There's good people down there.
Marc:Then I got to Charlotte, checked into the fancy hotel.
Marc:That place is crazy at night, man.
Marc:Charlotte is a fucking shit show at night.
Marc:Just like people packed out, dancing, partying in the streets.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:I don't know what's going on there.
Marc:I do know that there's something going on there.
Marc:But that show was amazing, too.
Marc:I did the night theater and pulled in about 900 people or so.
Marc:Again, just, you know, connected, wrote it out, did about almost two hours, both nights, very appreciative crowds.
Marc:And again, a very emotional and cathartic experience.
Marc:Good nights of comedy, good nights of community.
Marc:And it was beautiful because, you know, a lot of people don't don't do North Carolina anymore.
Marc:Because of the HB2 legislation, the LGBTQ community has had a rough fight down there.
Marc:A lot of people don't perform down there.
Marc:I think it's hurt the state a great deal.
Marc:But I decided to go, and I'm going to kick in a good chunk of the proceeds that I got, the fee to charities.
Marc:I'm going to put most of it into EqualityNC.org.
Marc:And I'm going to pull a little bit into the Carolina Tiger Rescue.
Marc:which is not a social cause, but they need some money because they've got to keep them big cats alive.
Marc:They take in tigers and leopards and all kinds of strange exotic cats that people buy as pets or zoos, roadside attractions.
Marc:They've got all these cats down there that they're keeping alive and saving, very exotic large cats, and they just took in a bunch, so I'm going to put a little money there, but most of the money I will be sending to Equality,
Marc:nc.org but uh like i said it was like there were great shows man and it was great to be out you know once i got out it was great to be out and i do want to thank the people who came out and saw me so that's my update all right lena dunham was in town
Marc:The last season of Girls is on and she also does a thing called LennyLetter.com is the culture website she runs and Women of the Hour is her podcast.
Marc:This is me in a little chat with Ms.
Marc:Dunham.
Guest:You seem like you're in pretty good spirits, Maren.
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:It's really day to day, depending what my brain does to me.
Marc:I'm terrified all the time.
Guest:Your energy's positive.
Marc:I don't know what to do.
Marc:I'm trying to keep a positive energy.
Marc:Pull that mic into your face.
Guest:You've got a positive energy right now.
Guest:Like, I came in and I was like, I don't know, expecting something a little dark.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, you should have come in a half hour earlier.
Marc:Ask the people that came with you who were here a half hour early how my energy was.
Guest:That's amazing.
Marc:Hey, I'm a professional entertainer.
Marc:I can turn it on.
Guest:Well, I feel it.
Guest:I came in and I was like, Mark Barron's doing pretty good considering all of this.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Yeah, talk to my girlfriend about it.
Marc:Talk to my friends.
Guest:I'm always happy to hear that you're dating.
Yeah.
Marc:I've been with this woman a few years, I think, two and a half years, about.
Guest:Two and a half years?
Marc:So that means- She's a painter.
Guest:So you were beginning to date her when you came and did Girls.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Guest:I remember that because you were like, I'm with a painter.
Guest:And I was like, well, you're always with somebody.
Guest:So how am I going to keep track of this?
Marc:Yeah, she's an abstract painter.
Marc:She's very good.
Marc:She's a real deal.
Marc:You know about painters.
Guest:Yes, I do.
Marc:You live with painters.
Guest:That's so great.
Guest:And does she live here at the cat ranch?
Marc:No, she lives down the street on her own ranch.
Guest:Does that work better for you?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:That's great.
Marc:Yeah, there's no risk of destroying it just from claustrophobia.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I love it.
Marc:Don't you find that if you can manage... She got her own house.
Marc:She has a studio.
Marc:So we spend a lot of time together, but there is that ability not to be so far up each other's asses that that causes problems.
Guest:Yeah, Jack and I lived for a while in a studio apartment and it wasn't the best thing for our relationship.
Guest:And then once we had more space, we were like, oh, our problems went away.
Marc:Oh, did they?
Guest:Kind of, yeah.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:I mean, we have different problems, but the problems of the studio apartment went away.
Marc:What?
Marc:Now, tell me about painters.
Marc:Now, I'm starting to find that your dad's a painter.
Guest:My dad's a painter, yeah.
Marc:And she likes his work.
Marc:And he's a real guy, a real painter guy.
Guest:He's a real painter guy.
Guest:He's what's been referred to by people as a painter's painter, which is that a lot of painters love his work.
Marc:That painter's painter or comic's comic, that always comes with a little bittersweetness.
Guest:I know, because you're a little bit like, well, why can't I just be the world's painter?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It usually comes with sort of, well, I'd like to be selling like the painter who thinks I'm the painter's painter.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But it's interesting.
Guest:Whenever I meet a painter, they're always like, your dad had such an influence on me.
Guest:His work is so important to me.
Guest:Because, you know, also painting...
Guest:is not just straight up painting.
Guest:We have so many options now with media that just being a straight up painter goes into a studio with brushes and paint is becoming increasingly rare.
Guest:People are always like, I work in mixed media.
Guest:I digitally print and then I curl things on it.
Guest:And like my dad goes in every day and he paints and that's what he does.
Marc:The way they think, like, I don't know if it's common, but they sort of have their own time zone, don't they?
Marc:Like, they're very sort of sensitive, kind of like poetic people that, you know, just stay in that groove where you're just, you know, thinking about a canvas or working with a canvas and finishing.
Marc:I just feel like she exists in this sort of hyper real, you know, very intuitive reality.
Guest:Well, it's so funny.
Guest:I call my dad.
Guest:I feel exactly what you're saying.
Guest:And he works.
Guest:Usually he starts working around like 6 a.m.
Guest:and he'll work from like 6 to 11, then take some time in the afternoon, then go back in and work until dinner.
Guest:Maybe he'll go back in a little bit after dinner.
Guest:And when I call my dad in the studio, which I do, he has a barn that's outside his house where he paints, and I call him in the studio, and he always answers the same way.
Guest:He's like, hello, doll, as if he's incredibly surprised that it's me, even though only two of us have his phone number.
Guest:And then he's always like, I can feel the clock ticking on our conversation because he has to get back to what he's doing.
Guest:But sometimes I make fun.
Guest:He's like...
Guest:I got to go.
Guest:I'm right in the middle of something.
Guest:And I'm like, yeah, you've got to go.
Guest:You're filling in a bird.
Guest:I'm like, I want to make fun of him because I'm like, there's nobody there with you.
Guest:It's actually not urgent.
Guest:The only urgency is that like you have decided that this is the 10 minutes in which you're going to fill in this bird.
Marc:Or they're on a roll or they're in it.
Marc:You know, I mean, it's that thing about being in it.
Guest:He's like.
Guest:always in it which makes me crazy because he just goes in there and drops in it and the thing that's cool about being a painter is also even on a day that you're not inspired there's busy work for you to do so it's like if he's not feeling like he's creating new things he's filling in you know an entire like yeah yeah 10 feet of space with purple paint right he's done the you know he's preparing to do the other work
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:But it's interesting.
Guest:My mom is a photographer and a filmmaker and she's totally different and her work's super social and she's more like me.
Guest:She's always sort of tortured and annoyed at somebody and figuring out how to get something done.
Guest:And my dad's process is so solitary and really the only time that he seems to have frustrating interactions with other people is when it's time to hang a show and then
Guest:he's got to explain the idea that's been in his head to other people, which he does with lots of tiny diagrams.
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Marc:It's got to be right.
Marc:Everything's got to be right.
Marc:It's got to be sitting on the wall just perfect.
Guest:I'm going with my dad.
Guest:My dad's having a painting show in Oslo.
Guest:And so I'm going next week to Oslo with my dad for five days.
Guest:And I haven't traveled with him like that since... Have you been to Oslo?
Guest:I have been to Oslo.
Guest:Weird fact, I feel I can brag about my dad's like really famous in Norway.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He's a famous in Norway guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like he's big in Norway.
Guest:Like he like knows the queen of Norway.
Guest:I don't know how it happened.
Guest:And one time I asked a Norwegian, I was like, why are you guys so into him?
Guest:They were like, we have a very dark, we have a very dark aesthetic.
Guest:And like your father's work speaks to the anger and darkness of Norway.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Well, that's great because painters need patrons if they're not just rich people who may not get the painting.
Marc:It's nice to have the support, the aesthetic support of an entire sensibility that's another country.
Guest:He like has a whole life in Norway.
Guest:And so I haven't gotten to travel with my dad and I used to travel alone together a lot and do weird things like take the overnight train to Canada.
Guest:And like we like the same kinds of things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I haven't gotten to travel with my dad since the show started.
Guest:So it's been eight years.
Guest:Eight years.
Guest:So I was like, my dad kind of said like, hey, if you want to come to Norway.
Guest:And he was so shocked that I was like, yes, I do.
Guest:So we're going to spend five days together in Norway.
Guest:And I can't wait because I haven't watched him hang a show since I was a little girl.
Guest:So I'm like excited to just hang around the gallery and watch him do his thing.
Guest:Time travel.
Guest:Yeah, that was my whole childhood was just like sitting around the gallery with my dad and like a bunch of hot guys measured things.
Guest:And I like played in a coloring book.
Guest:And now I'm basically going to do the same thing, only I'll be 30.
Marc:Yeah, no coloring book probably.
Guest:No.
Guest:And my dad's really like, my dad's like a real, I don't know how to explain.
Guest:When I watched that movie Captain Fantastic, The Big O Mortensen, which is so great, where like there's the dad who's sort of like trying to raise his children off the reservation.
Guest:Like my dad's not that, but he is a little like...
Guest:trying to constantly impress upon me that everything that the universe says is important isn't and every you know so basically the last big concept big concept so basically the last like six years of my life and like becoming a celebrity and all of that is like he's proud of me as a creative person but all of that's like revolting to him and like a kind of um a false narrative that's been created by a broken culture so he's excited for me to step back and hang out in norway
Marc:Are you excited to step away from the false narrative created by a broken culture?
Guest:Isn't that super special?
Guest:I was like hanging out with my dad.
Marc:It's happening daily now.
Guest:I know.
Marc:Every 10 minutes.
Guest:There's a new false narrative created by a broken culture.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you want to get deep, he's the person to get deep with.
Guest:I mean, he'll basically tell you that like Donald Trump is a hologram.
Marc:Oh, and he'll support that?
Guest:I mean, he doesn't believe he's an actual hologram, but he'll explain that Donald Trump is like a kind of a figurehead for like the endless pain of a society that's been feeding upon itself.
Guest:I mean, my dad's just like, he's very philosophical.
Marc:You should have brought him.
Guest:I had him on my podcast, on my Women of the Hour podcast, and we talked for a long time about his relationship to psychedelic drugs.
Guest:And I found him to be the best guest because he said really insane things in a totally monotone voice.
Guest:So he'd be like, yeah, when I took a massive dose of acid and locked myself into a room for five days, I did learn a lot about triangles.
Guest:And you're like, but he's saying it like he's an economist.
Guest:And so it's a super, it's like, I'm like, you don't know how funny you are.
Guest:You're the funniest.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He was honest research.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, and I had to convince him.
Guest:I was like, he was like, you have a podcast?
Guest:I was like, yeah, it's like on the charts.
Guest:Like, like people listen, millions of people listen to it.
Guest:And he was like, oh, like he just had no idea to podcast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No idea that really there would be any, why we would have a conversation on.
Guest:And he was like, I don't know why you'd want to talk to me, but sure.
Guest:And he came into the studio.
Marc:I see that they have their, they're in their own place.
Guest:Yeah, that's very painterly.
Marc:Yeah, it is, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So how's that podcast going?
Marc:What's the woman of the hour?
Guest:Woman of the hour.
Guest:Thank you so much.
Guest:I was, you know, I really thought about you when I was doing it because interviews, interviewing people in a thoughtful and easygoing way is a challenge.
Guest:And I thought about how you're one of the greats.
Guest:And so I had a lot of a great time doing it.
Guest:I just did the second.
Marc:Was there a learning curve?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:My first interviews were like, I have prepared nine questions.
Guest:All of them have the word hegemony in them.
Guest:And you I was like, no, I want to be cool like Marc Maron.
Guest:But it also is a podcast about like modern feminism and women's issues.
Guest:So yeah, different.
Guest:We're hitting a different audience.
Marc:Yeah, I keep mine pretty broad.
Marc:I don't get that specific.
Guest:My boyfriend makes fun of the podcast.
Guest:He's like, on today's episode, we'll interview the first woman to play a very specific kind of flute.
Guest:Like, he's like, it's just so like, like, I turned into like a weird NPR lady.
Guest:And he thinks it's so like, I was like, have you listened to the podcast?
Guest:He's like, sure.
Guest:Yeah, it's the one where a woman did a thing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Secretly, I think my podcast is about me.
Guest:well i've known that for a long time like your monologues are even if there's an episode where i'm like i'm not that interested in hearing what that person has to say although admittedly you always surprise me and i step away i get surprised i'm always like that person's pretty smart yeah but i'll always listen to your really self-flagellating monologue thank you i think you're a minority but i appreciate that that's my paranoia but how is jack antonoff how is he he's
Guest:great he's so busy and good and he's make is he producing big records and things he is so he's right now he's producing um the lord new lord album which comes out soon and then um he works i feel like i'm not at liberty to say the other three but he's working on three big albums and then he's the number one song on itunes right now that he wrote and produced the from 50 shades darker the film it's a song called i don't want to live with zayn malik and taylor swift
Marc:Oh, he did that?
Marc:That's his song?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, Jack's like, he's on- He's big time.
Guest:He is.
Guest:I went with him.
Marc:Did I read that?
Marc:Did he tour with an old band of his recently?
Marc:Or am I making that up?
Guest:No, he reunited with his like- Like Steel Train?
Guest:Steel Train, his early 20s band.
Marc:The hippie band?
Guest:They are a hippie band.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he loves you.
Guest:He loved being on this show.
Marc:Well, we talked about the hippie music for a while.
Marc:That was a good interview.
Guest:Jack is interesting because I always say that he's like a musician who is the soul of a comedy writer.
Guest:He is like the tortured soul of a comedy writer, but just happens to be making pop music.
Marc:I thought that whole element of him seeking solace and refuge in that music because it was comforting in a dark time and then realizing that it was not his music necessarily.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, he's had, it's interesting because he's had a lot of different phases and I don't want to speak for him, but I will.
Guest:As his partner of half a decade, I guess I can say this, which is that I feel like he's had a lot of phases of like, what is my music?
Guest:And he ultimately realized like he's a pop musician.
Marc:He likes to pop.
Guest:He likes to pop, but he brings depth and power and emotion to pop, and pop is like the language of love, and it's the language of connection, and it's like the language of our youth, and so it has validity.
Marc:And it's also the language of the music business.
Guest:It's also the language of money.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I want to stop working at some point, so that'll be- Yeah, I'm ready.
Guest:I'm literally all the time, I'm like, I'm very- You ready to retire?
Marc:Pull out?
Guest:I don't know if I'm ready to retire and pull out, but I have lots of projects that aren't that I want to do that aren't like.
Marc:Pull out of the false narrative created by broken culture.
Guest:I mean, literally.
Guest:My dad's like, what did my dad say recently?
Guest:I think it's time for you to disappear for a while.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That sounds cool.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think about it a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I'm getting teared up thinking about it.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It's really emotional.
Guest:But a lot of the projects I have coming up aren't like big.
Guest:I mean, I'm working on a lot of stuff with Jenny that we're thrilled about.
Guest:But there's a lot of stuff I want to do that I wouldn't describe as like big, hot money projects that everybody wants to see.
Marc:What's the LennyLetter.com?
Guest:Well, LennyLetter.com is Jenny and my twice weekly feminist newsletter.
Marc:Jenny Connor.
Guest:Jenny Connor, who's my partner and my friend and your friend.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Producer and partner.
Guest:Partner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're like, it's beyond just like I know a lot of people like I have a producing partner, but she's my creative partner and my in many ways, my life partner.
Guest:In many ways, I have Jack and I have Jenny and that's my those are my people.
Marc:It's good to have a couple for different reasons.
Guest:It is.
Guest:It's good to have one you don't have sex with.
Marc:Yeah, I have a similar relationship with my producer and business partner, and then I have my girlfriend.
Marc:I think that you and Jenny, well, that's not true.
Marc:Me and Brendan are pretty tight, but I know there's only so much of my bullshit that he'll indulge sometimes.
Guest:Jenny doesn't indulge all my bullshit.
Guest:Jenny's very much just like like if I'm going down some kind of spiral, she'll straight up stop texting me back in a good like in just to send the signal of like, I do not feel I can be helpful here.
Guest:And like, please make contact when this is concluded in a supportive way.
Marc:It's her nice way of saying of it's her nice way of saying it's not all about you.
Guest:yes which by the way is like one of the like i feel a lot like when i started girls i was like a feral and i i knew how to do this certain thing which was right but i was very feral and that i didn't have a lot of normal female friendships i was extremely attached to my parents i still lived with them i didn't really have normal adult interactions i'd never had like a real job besides like
Guest:working part-time and baby clothes sales like I wasn't and Jenny really taught me how to be a grown-up like she was the one who was like when you're upset yeah you can't just walk out of the room and like hold your head in the bathroom for 45 minutes and then return like everything's normal like you sit there like she was the one who kind of taught me how to interact as a business person as a friend yeah
Guest:As a partner to a boyfriend, which is something I didn't ever really think I would be like, there's so much.
Marc:I mean, Jenny's taught you how to be a grown up.
Guest:She taught me how to be a grown up, which is a big job.
Guest:And she has two kids of her own.
Guest:So no one told her she had to do it, but she did it.
Guest:And I'm very grateful.
Marc:And it seems like the the advice you got from your dad's a little abstract at times and maybe not so practical.
Guest:Well, my dad's thing, that's very true.
Guest:And my dad's thing is very much like, his vibe's very like, fuck it.
Guest:Like if you're not feeling, not having a good day in the writer's room, move to Tibet.
Marc:For the day.
Guest:Yeah, like his vibe is very much like, we don't have to live within this.
Guest:Like he's always trying to figure out how to like game this.
Guest:I mean, he's not off the grid, but he's figured out a great way to like make his life extremely, really work for him.
Marc:And what about your mom?
Marc:What'd you learn from her?
Guest:My mom is really interesting.
Guest:My mom is like an artist, but she's also a very shrewd business person.
Guest:And she's extremely self-possessed and she doesn't take any bullshit.
Marc:So that's a role model.
Guest:Yeah, she's a role model.
Guest:My mom is a role model.
Guest:We're like really good friends.
Marc:So what is Lonnie Letter?
Guest:So Lenny Letter is something that Jenny and I created because we wanted to basically have a platform not only for women to engage with each other on the issues of the day, on feminist issues, but also a place to sort of elevate other women's voices the way that our voices have been elevated by having the platform of the show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:to political commentary, to letting you know how you can contact your local rep, to, like, a piece about nail care.
Guest:Like, we're really kind of running the gamut of things that are interesting to women because women contain multitudes and there's no one-size-fits-all.
Guest:And we wanted to create a snark-free...
Guest:sort of emotionally pure place for women to hopefully be comforted in this crazy time in history.
Guest:So we put it out twice a week.
Guest:I'm super proud of it.
Guest:I love and I'm proud of it not because I'm, you know, because it's like some shiny example of my creative work.
Guest:I'm proud of it because I feel like our editor in chief, Jess Gross and Jenny and I have been able to create a space where women feel really, really safe to express themselves.
Guest:And that's all I ever wanted because I haven't always felt safe expressing myself.
Marc:And people are coming and going and doing it?
Guest:We have our Lenny's.
Guest:There's a nice, strong pocket of devoted ladies and some men who really read it and really consider it and really respond to it.
Guest:And it's one of the first times I really understood because with girls, so much of the conversation around it got lost.
Guest:When you have a show on HBO...
Guest:People who don't get it and don't get what you're trying to do are still going to watch it and still going to have something to say.
Guest:And like Lenny's more of the kind of thing where its audience found it.
Guest:And so everybody who's engaged is engaged because it's their thing.
Guest:And so a lot of the like crazy noise that existed around the show that you had to parse through just to kind of connect to people who might understand you is not there with Lenny because the people who are reading it are the people who really want to be reading it.
Marc:So it must be very, unlike the show, I imagine that if you sit down and look at the engagement or the feedback of that, that it must be satisfying in a different way.
Guest:Completely.
Guest:And same with the podcast.
Marc:I feel like you're doing a service.
Guest:You feel like you're doing a service and also that they're doing a service for you.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I mean, do you feel this way about people who watch the show?
Guest:Like, wow, how did I listen to your show?
Guest:Like, how did I find it and watch your show?
Guest:How did I find this tribe of people who see the world how I do and connect and...
Marc:Yeah, I wonder if they feel like they're a tribe.
Marc:I definitely get a lot of emails from people who felt like they were alone or that they were inspired to get sober or, you know, it helps them with their fear or their darkness or whatever.
Marc:I don't always get the sense that they necessarily feel like there's a lot of them.
Marc:But I think they do feel like, well, at least there's you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I would think... Or whoever I'm talking to.
Guest:That's how I feel with Lenny.
Guest:I feel like we have these women who kind of didn't have a place to see themselves reflected back.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And also we're trying really, really hard, both on the podcast and on Lenny, to reflect clearly that there's no one kind of woman, there's no one kind of feminist, that being female right now is extremely multifaceted and that we want to create connections within that.
Marc:Okay, so now this is the last of Girls.
Guest:Yeah, we done.
Marc:The last 10.
Marc:Done.
Guest:We're done.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:What was it like after you shot the finals?
Guest:You were such a special part of Girls, by the way.
Guest:You really came and you really played a character.
Guest:You really turned it out.
Marc:Two eps.
Guest:Two eps.
Marc:I was a city councilman.
Guest:You were great.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:And I loved when you showed up at the party just to say, like, fuck you.
Guest:That was one of my favorite things we've ever shot.
Guest:When he was like, it was very big of you to show up at.
Guest:When Ray says, it was very big of you to show up at my party.
Guest:And you're like, fuck you.
Guest:And did you say you were moving to Katona?
Guest:You're going to move to Katona.
Marc:Connecticut.
Marc:Yeah, somewhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I think it was Katona, but I can't be 100% sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I did my fake comb over.
Guest:Your comb over.
Guest:Was that your idea, the comb over?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I wanted to look different, but I didn't want to shave it all off.
Guest:That was so good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You looked very like nasty insurance salesman.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Good.
Marc:I'm glad I pulled it off.
Marc:I was honored to do it.
Marc:It was fun.
Guest:It was an honor to have you.
Marc:I remember we were like- I think it was really the first time I tried to do something that wasn't me.
Guest:You were amazing.
Guest:And I remember we were sitting around trying to figure out who to cast and Jenny was like, do you think Marc Maron would ever do this?
Guest:And I was like, it's worth a shot.
Guest:And then there you were on a plane.
Marc:Coming to do it.
Guest:And it's a real honor.
Guest:I think about everyone who was on Girls and I kind of like look at the yearbook of it in my brain and I can't believe how many special people came through.
Marc:It's crazy.
Guest:And you're one of that.
Guest:Like, I can't believe so many people like came to play.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Actors like to work and people like to be funny.
Marc:Yeah, a lot of great people on there.
Guest:Got really lucky.
Marc:What was that last day?
Marc:Was there a lot of crying?
Guest:So much crying.
Guest:So much crying and just feeling like... It was interesting.
Guest:My grandma died this summer right in the middle of shooting.
Guest:And I took a couple days off to be with my family next to her while she was dying.
Guest:I wasn't in the room when she died, but I was sort of there for all the lead up.
Guest:We were then told by the hospice worker that we were all being too noisy and aggressive and we needed to leave her alone because we were like basically being like too noisy for her to die.
Marc:She let her die in peace.
Guest:Well, it's six Jewish women.
Guest:What do you expect?
Guest:So we're all in there like like I'm like braiding my cousin's hair and like shrieking about something with my boyfriend.
Guest:And like literally the hospice worker was like, how can you expect her to die under these circumstances?
Guest:So we went out and hung out in the hall.
Marc:And she passed away.
Guest:And she passed away.
Guest:Ninety six years old.
Marc:Ninety six.
Guest:Dorothy Simmons.
Guest:Good work, young lady.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That is good.
Guest:She really did it.
Guest:Almost 97.
Guest:But she was born on leap year, so she always liked to say, like, no, I'm 32 or whatever, like dividing it by three.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But she was a real flirt.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:At the first Girls premiere, she walked onto the red carpet.
Guest:She was, like, wearing, like, a little sequined dress.
Guest:So at this point, she must have been 90.
Guest:And she walks right up to Judd.
Guest:And she's like, I hear you from the island.
Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, are you flirting with Judd Apatow?
Guest:Grandma, I hear you from the island.
Guest:And the last words she said to anybody were to me.
Guest:And it's because I told her a lie, which is I said that Jack had proposed to me, which he hadn't.
Guest:I just have a diamond ring Jack got me.
Guest:And I was like, Grandma, Jack and I are going to get married.
Guest:And she smiled.
Guest:And I was like, look at the ring he got me.
Guest:And she was like, I like it.
Guest:And then she just like never said anything again.
Guest:And my family still doesn't believe she said it to me.
Guest:But I'm like, I didn't hallucinate it.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's how you rouse a Jewish grandmother, by showing them a large diamond given to you by a rich Jew.
Marc:That's how you do it?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So when you were considering how to end this thing, I mean... The first three episodes are weird because, like Jenny said, it's sort of like Black Mirror.
Guest:None of the first three episodes really have anything to do with each other.
Marc:Well, why'd you do it that way?
Guest:It just felt like we had stories to tell that weren't necessarily episodic, but that were like sort of these self-contained lessons for our characters.
Guest:And if we weren't going to be experimental now, when were we going to do it?
Marc:So they were primarily because it wasn't necessarily like this is the last season.
Marc:These are essential episodes.
Marc:It's sort of like these are things that this is the last time we're going to get to do this if we want to explore this stuff.
Guest:And it was like, these are the themes that I think that we still haven't hit and that we feel together we still haven't hit.
Guest:And like, this is the way that we want to tell the story.
Guest:And then it kind of gets a little more plotty in the middle.
Guest:And then the last two episodes, we really tried to do something that Jenny and I really tried to do something that was a little bit different than like a traditional season finale.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it worked out.
Guest:I think so, but people will tell you if they think it worked out or not.
Guest:It's a little bit... I mean, not experimental.
Guest:It's not like a Maya Darin film.
Guest:It's not like we painted on... No voodoo dancers?
Guest:No, but it's just a different way of wrapping up a story.
Guest:And it just felt... We'd known for a long time how we wanted to end the story, but not sort of... We'd known what we wanted to do thematically, but not how we wanted to approach it creatively.
Guest:And it was really...
Marc:challenging and weird and sad and now that we're finishing the press for girls is when the kind of like grief and identity loss and stuff is all really hitting me right oh yeah definitely it's like uh it when you really think about how much of your life is taken up by a project like that for that long a time it leaves a big hole
Guest:I mean, I started working on the pilot when I was 23.
Guest:I was living with my parents.
Guest:My life was completely different.
Guest:I mean, to say my life was in a different place is an impossible understatement.
Guest:And then my entire day, life, identity was completely wrapped up in this project.
Guest:And then now it's done, and there's a little part of me that feels like I sort of trapped myself emotionally in amber, and now I'm having to face a lot of things that I don't.
Guest:I said to Jenny yesterday, I was like, I'm finding out a lot about myself and I don't like it.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, you had to sort of like grow up in public in a way sort of kind of like embracing it, but also constantly defending it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, being controversial for that long for whatever reasons came at you.
Marc:But you did have to sort of do it all publicly.
Marc:So now, like, you know, the idea of silence and being thoughtful and working at a different pace, I guess you're going to figure out, you know, whether you really did grow up or not.
Guest:I know, because it's shocking what happens when you're alone with your own brain.
Guest:And I was never alone with my own brain for the entire time I was working on the show.
Marc:I don't have great success with it.
Marc:I'm much better if I'm talking to somebody else.
Guest:It's tough.
Guest:I love to be by myself.
Guest:I love to read.
Guest:I find the greatest luxury to just be curled up reading and writing and thinking.
Guest:But I was always doing it knowing that I was returning to this incredibly immersive work environment.
Guest:And now the next...
Guest:I mean, I'm working on a book that comes out in January, and it's fiction, and that's a slow, super private process that gives you plenty of time to figure out what you haven't handled.
Guest:And all the time that I wasn't working on Girls, I was throwing myself into causes that were important to me, which, again, I don't regret any of it, but I didn't.
Guest:There's ways I grew a lot, and there's ways I grew not at all, and now I'm finding out what those are, and it's not ideal.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's good that you're writing a book.
Marc:Because it's funny writing, as much as I hate it, when you get in it, things are revealed to you about you that you didn't have in context or a sense of.
Guest:Completely.
Guest:And there's also something about writing fiction that allows you, I mean, once you're a public figure, you can't ever sort of publish something.
Guest:You can't write with abandon about your own life again.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's why I like to stay a marginal public figure, sort of slightly under the radar.
Guest:You're not marginal to me.
Marc:Oh, thank you.
Marc:It's always good seeing you.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I'm glad that you ended the show and did the whole show on your terms and that you're happy with the way it went out.
Guest:That means a lot.
Guest:And I want you to know that something that was very comforting to me throughout the show, just like all your listeners, was hearing your interviews and hearing how many other creative people felt lonely, scared, tortured, frustrated.
Guest:You brought that out in such a clear and profound way.
Guest:And I actually think some of your interviews were probably the fuel that allowed me to make it through this entire experience.
Marc:Oh, glad to help out.
Guest:And I want everyone to know that his house looks just as shitty as it always has.
Marc:A little more.
Guest:Fame has not changed Marc Maron because it smells weird in here and it looks even weirder.
Guest:Your house smells like cats, dude.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Well, you know, this has been good.
Marc:It's time for you to go to your next junket stop.
Guest:I'm not even going.
Guest:I'm going to the gynecologist.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Well, make sure you do that on the podcast.
Guest:Okay, great.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:I've already done it on my podcast.
Marc:Oh, you went?
Guest:Yes, I recorded myself getting a vaginal ultrasound and a morphine drip.
Marc:Oh, did you ramble on the morphine drip?
Guest:I was like, guys, it feels like there's balloons in my head.
Guest:Like I was like said to my dad, I was like, I'm really nervous.
Guest:I really like morphine.
Guest:And he was like, join the club loser.
Guest:Like no one doesn't like morphine.
Guest:No one's like, it's not for me.
Marc:Your dad with more practical advice.
Guest:Love you, Mark.
Marc:Love you, too.
Marc:Well, that was fun.
Marc:That was nice to see her.
Marc:That was good.
Marc:Now, this next dude that I talked to, Trey Crowder, I seen him.
Marc:I heard about him.
Marc:I got his book in the mail.
Marc:Then I saw him talk to Bill Maher for a second, but I like the angle, you know what I mean?
Marc:He's been doing comedy a little bit, I think six or seven years, but he seems to...
Marc:to be an anomaly, at least publicly.
Marc:And he's claiming it.
Marc:His book, he's the co-author of The Liberal Redneck Manifesto, Dragging Dixie Out of the Dark.
Marc:You can get that wherever you get books.
Marc:He's on tour right now.
Marc:Check out his tour dates at wellreadcomedy.com.
Marc:That's wellread, R-E-D, comedy.com.
Marc:So this is me talking to Trey Crowder.
Marc:How old are you?
Marc:30, about to be 31.
Marc:So you kind of grew up with the truckers then, like you were part of your childhood?
Guest:Yeah, probably around like high school, early high school age is when I first found out about them or started listening to them.
Guest:And I remember...
Guest:I think, if I'm not mistaken, they were the first band that I ever played for my dad that he dug.
Guest:A new band.
Guest:Here's some new guys.
Guest:First band of mine that I brought to him and that he actually liked.
Guest:And so that's when I was like, oh yeah, well these guys must be super legit then or whatever.
Guest:And I started diving further into it and I just...
Guest:I don't know, it really struck a chord to me because I was like, oh man, you can be overtly Southern, but not in the stereotypical ways.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You can be progressive or intellectual or whatever too with what you're doing while still being explicitly Southern because there really isn't a lot of that in pop culture.
Guest:And that was one of the first things that I saw, especially from the newer things.
Guest:It was like that, and it just really resonated.
Marc:right like uh like uh cool culturally uh progressive southern stuff right well there's definitely been some pretty big literature from the south without a doubt yeah but this seems like that never i don't know it's like that's kept completely separate from the rest of it you know what i mean it didn't catch on with the working people right yeah
Marc:Yeah, and as far as the perception of the South, it doesn't seem like that really seems to make a difference, the fact that there's... Well, I'm not sure that it was necessarily the greatest view of them, like some of the Faulkner stuff and Flannery O'Connor.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that was... Yeah, well, I mean, you know, for years I was guilty.
Marc:of uh stereotyping the south i think it was just easy to do because you know there were certainly people that fit into that stereotype and it became sort of uh for sure as a as much a uh a kind of you know i don't know if it's racist but it definitely became a negative characterization that was very easy to do like it was almost like as comics almost any stupid voice was a southern yeah
Guest:For sure, always.
Guest:If you were going to do, if a comedian was going to do a bit about somebody being an idiot, they would immediately launch into some version.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It don't sound right to me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And it still makes you laugh.
Marc:But then when I started traveling there,
Marc:You know, outside of my own nervousness, you know, I remember going there early on and it was it was still kind of.
Marc:Well, I don't know if it was scary, but I made assumptions, you know, like back in the 90s, early 90s.
Marc:I went down to Raleigh or somewhere, which isn't even, you know, the deep south.
Marc:Is it really?
Guest:No.
Marc:But as I traveled there to Tennessee and even parts of Florida and I drove across country.
Marc:I have nothing but good stories and decent people that I've met there.
Marc:And it's a beautiful country.
Marc:But there still is the reality that as a voting block, it still represents something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, that's definitely true.
Guest:And the thing is, I've never, or at least I feel like I've never tried to deny that or say that that doesn't exist.
Guest:Like, hey, the South isn't that.
Guest:That isn't real.
Guest:That exists.
Guest:Those people are real.
Guest:They're out there.
Guest:My whole thing has just always been, but they don't speak for us all.
Guest:They don't represent the entire region as a whole or whatever.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:When I say we, I mean liberals, progressives, whatever, are in the minority down there without a doubt.
Guest:But it's still that's still a sizable amount of people just in terms of, you know, even if it's, you know, 30 and it's higher in a lot of places, but 30 or 40 percent of the people there.
Guest:I mean, you know, that's millions of Southerners.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Who are who aren't that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We are still the minority without a doubt.
Guest:Well, I mean, so where did you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in a tiny little town called Salina, Tennessee.
Guest:Where's that near?
Guest:So, Knoxville's on the east side of the state, Nashville's in the middle, almost directly between Knoxville and Nashville, and then 40 miles up on the Kentucky line.
Guest:We had no traffic lights in my hometown, no Walmarts, no McDonald's, nothing.
Marc:I mean, it's rural.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Very, very.
Marc:Like what, just a post office and a store?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was two grocery stores, post office.
Guest:There was a dollar store, three liquor stores when I was a kid.
Guest:But no, we had a Dairy Queen.
Guest:How big is your family?
Guest:Well, so my mom's side of the family is actually pretty big because her mom, my mama cat, my grandma, she had eight brothers and sisters.
Guest:So there was a lot of them, but a lot of them left and went north.
Guest:before i was born you know for work or whatever yeah so i would only see them for reunions and stuff but then i kind of i'm not i'm only i've only kept in touch really with a cup with a few of them honestly of your mother's mother's sister's kids my mom's just my mom's side of the family second cousins and whatnot yeah
Guest:First and second.
Guest:So my mom only had one sister, my aunt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She passed away.
Guest:She had two sons, my first cousins.
Guest:One of them passed away.
Guest:Her husband passed away.
Guest:How did your cousin pass away?
Guest:He OD'd.
Guest:There's a lot of that in my family.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My mom, in fact, is an addict.
Guest:I mean, like in recovery now, but you know the deal.
Guest:She's always an addict or whatever.
Guest:Opiates?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Pillbillies.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They got caught up in it.
Marc:Big time.
Marc:And your cousin, too?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He OD'd in 2015.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Recently?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:On Oxy or heroin?
Guest:Oxys.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so in terms of the extended family, you just don't keep in touch because...
Marc:Of ideological reasons or just because they're out in the world?
Marc:I mean, I don't keep in touch with mine either.
Guest:Well, honestly, I don't know how fair this is or not or whatever.
Guest:So like I said, my mom was an addict and she was kind of in and out of jail some too when I was growing up.
Guest:So like...
Guest:We have a relationship now.
Guest:It's okay, whatever.
Guest:But she wasn't around a whole lot for a long stretch when I was growing up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my only connection to that side of my family was her mom, my grandma.
Guest:And she passed away of just old age, bad health in 2010.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And after that, I just kind of...
Guest:She was like the last link to that side of family, you know what I mean?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I don't really have anything against most of them, but I just don't really keep in contact with them.
Guest:But your mom's doing better?
Guest:Yeah, she is.
Guest:She's doing better.
Guest:And the thing, I came to realize as I got older, as a lot of addicts do, she has genuine mental health problems.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I mean, so she still deals with that.
Guest:But in terms of her addiction, I mean, yes, she's clean and has been clean for a good little bit now, a few years.
Marc:And you never had any problems?
Guest:Me?
Guest:No, no, not with that.
Guest:I don't feel like I've, I mean, you know, I like to drink.
Guest:There's still time, Trey.
Guest:Yeah, right, yeah, don't count it out.
Guest:But no, no, I never really drifted into that because of all the shit that I've seen.
Marc:Yeah, it could go either way.
Marc:You know, I talk to people like that all the time, like either you're going to be that or you're going to never be that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I but I mean, again, you know, I you know, I like to drink.
Guest:I've been a drinker.
Guest:So you grew up with your dad primarily.
Guest:My dad raised me, me and my sister.
Guest:I have one sibling, a younger sister.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my dad pretty much raised us and he passed away of pancreatic cancer in 2013.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:But he was.
Guest:Sorry, buddy.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:He was an awesome dude.
Guest:He loved us a whole lot, but we didn't have much, you know what I mean?
Guest:We were super poor.
Marc:What did he do?
Guest:Well, when I was a kid, he actually owned and operated a video store.
Guest:Remember those things?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:relics of a bygone era not a chain store but like a local crowders video oh he had his own business yeah and uh that did okay there for you know when i was younger yeah just like but then in my insulina right uh for years and years the center of the town's economy was this big uh clothing factory yeah uh oshkosh bagosh sure the overall over they made overalls yeah
Guest:And in the 90s after NAFTA, that left and it utterly decimated the towns.
Guest:Like it's still to this day, it's in bad shape.
Guest:And that had a ripple effect on my dad's business and everything.
Guest:But honestly, it probably wouldn't have even mattered because he actually got sick shortly after that.
Guest:He he got hep C. He got hepatitis C. And that sort of knocked him out of because back then I know I've heard like now the drug treatment for it.
Guest:I mean, we didn't really talk about it.
Guest:And I know when I was growing up, if he was, I know it wasn't a huge issue because he was always there and everything.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:If he wasn't, you know what I'm saying?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But now back in the day, I mean, when he and my mom were younger or whatever, I mean, yeah, he was.
Guest:And so, like I said, nowadays, apparently hep C, that's not- Yeah, you can do it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It costs a bit or you can knock it out.
Guest:Even, but back then-
Guest:You know, and this is like late 90s or whatever, like he was on Interferon or whatever.
Guest:I mean, it fucked him up bad, you know, and so he couldn't work and that sort of knocked him out of that.
Guest:But then, like I said, I mean, the business honestly was going down anyway.
Guest:So it was about to get rough for us no matter what, basically.
Guest:And you were how old?
Guest:uh i mean around 11 yeah something like that so what in in the town like so you were 11 or 12 when oshkosh closed no i was about that was i was like 9 10 something like that and i'm saying people like held out you know what i mean for a couple years you know what i'm saying trying to make it work before it really like yeah so i'm saying the business was starting
Marc:to decline anyway and then his health did too and then that was so that with that like really is sort of the the you know uh a fund like an example of exactly what leveled the whole area yeah right that you know that a lot of these economic issues that are people are so angry about now and what was really i think made people vulnerable to the to the opiate
Guest:uh epidemic and everything else so but how did you get out of there you went to high school there and everything yeah and did you play ball or anything i played football but i mean i wasn't much of a football player i mean i was okay but it was 1a ball and i was like a lineman right i'm six foot tall like i wasn't gonna go to college and play offensive line you know what i mean yeah uh so i mean i did but i always made i always made really good grades so from very early on my dad and his dad my paternal grandfather
Guest:they like it was always you know you're gonna go to college and you're gonna you know oh yeah you're gonna be a lawyer a doctor or something big like that yeah like even back then i would be like well i think i'd rather be a comedian you know or whatever and like yeah and my so like my grandpa and a lot of like teachers and people like that when they heard that they'd be like what no no go to medical school you know what the hell's wrong with you yeah
Guest:But my dad, he was always like, hell yeah, I think that'd be cool as shit, you know, or whatever.
Guest:That's just how he was.
Guest:But I still went to college.
Guest:My thinking was, if I go to college, I don't want to do the whole starving artist thing.
Guest:I don't want to wait tables and stuff like that because I've had enough of being broke as hell.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I'm going to go to college and I'm going to get a degree that lets me just get any kind of job where I can actually make money while I try to be a writer or comedian or whatever.
Guest:That's what I was thinking.
Marc:So that's what I did.
Marc:When you were a kid, though, as you got into high school...
Marc:you know in this area because i mean the book you wrote the liberal redneck manifesto i mean you are in a you know an agenda driven driven comedian and it's a good angle at this point you've been doing comedy a little while but i mean what started to you know sort of inform that i mean were you like like when you were in high school after the factory closed could you see you know your classmates and everybody drifting you know into to something that was different than you remember when you were a kid
Guest:I mean, I definitely was aware of, like, I got to get the hell out of here.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because if I don't, it's not going to be good because I see plenty of people that don't.
Guest:And I knew that that was important.
Guest:A lot of that stuff, though, I didn't really gain a good perspective on, I don't think, until later.
Guest:The economic realities.
Guest:Right, exactly, until later.
Guest:Because the thing is, because of the way that it was there, whatever –
Guest:everybody most everybody was in the same boat in large part and so like my frame of reference was just so fucked up in that way right when you say the economic reality is coming from a poverty stricken area there's just a lot of shit i didn't understand until later and like looking back on it like oh damn that was poverty you know what i mean like abject poverty and at the time it's just me and all my buddies were like that right and was there a point where
Marc:something changed your heart or changed your mind?
Marc:Were you surrounded by hopelessness?
Marc:What was the social tone when you were in high school?
Guest:I actually tell people often, and again, this was something that I didn't realize until looking back.
Guest:I used to be even more defensive about the South.
Guest:When I was younger, I'd be like, it's not that bad.
Guest:It's not like that or whatever.
Guest:but i come to find out later it was just that my hometown oddly enough just wasn't as bad in those like stereotypical hateful ways or whatever and what i've chalked that up to is we actually there's actually a black community there yeah and like in a lot of towns of that size like very rural parts of the south uh they don't really have that a lot of times and so that's where you get like my wife's hometown they're no black people at all yeah
Guest:And so I think that made a big difference as far as all that went.
Guest:Because I didn't really see, I heard stories of people in neighboring towns, like, putting a noose in, like, a black kid's, like, the only black kid's locker or something like that.
Guest:And I was always like, really?
Guest:Like, I could never imagine that happening when I was growing up.
Guest:Because, I mean, shit, dude, my buddies, black guys I grew up with, they'll whip your ass.
Guest:You pull some shit out.
Marc:But there was but there but also it was a little is integrated and there was a black community and you know that Gave you a different perspective, but you didn't feel a lot of hate or a lot of tension in your world No, I dealt well I had to I would get very defensive about my uncle a lot my dad's brother He's gay and yeah, and I knew that he lived down there.
Guest:No, not at the time He does now because of my grandma his mom.
Guest:Yeah, she's I mean her husband my grandpa died her other son my dad died and
Guest:So my uncle was sticking around there taking care of her, basically.
Guest:But he got out.
Guest:I mean, he went to Nashville.
Guest:He lived in Nashville for most of his adult life.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But people knew that he was gay or whatever.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So I didn't get physically picked on.
Guest:I was always kind of a bigger kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But people just make cracks and shit all the time about him being a fag or whatever.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I mean, yeah, that kind of shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so that I've always been very defensive and very passionate about like, you know, gay rights and things like that from a very early.
Guest:And that's also why I quit fucking with Jesus.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We brought up pretty heavy.
Guest:Not not not compared to most people there.
Guest:My mom's side of the family.
Guest:And I already explained some of that.
Guest:You know, they a lot of them went to church and whatnot.
Guest:And so me and my sister would just go to just because that's what you do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then Jesus is part of it.
Guest:Yeah, but then when I found out that my uncle was gay, I mean, I was like nine.
Guest:That's also when I found out what gay even was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When I found out my uncle was gay, I started noticing shit that otherwise had been flying over my head about, you know, them being abominations and that kind of shit.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like the sort of rhetoric that...
Guest:southern baptister known for in regards to you know um homosexuals and i started i was like hold on what the fuck who you know you don't even know my uncle man like that kind of attitude sure sure and so i was like well i fuck that you know what i mean and when i told my dad i was like i don't think i want to go anymore he was just like well hell yeah you know whatever turn the scared back up you know what i mean like because he didn't go either
Guest:Probably because his brother was gay, I guess.
Guest:So I left pretty early, which I think also had a lot to do.
Marc:And what was your grandmother's tolerance of it all?
Guest:My uncle's mom, his mom, she was great and still is.
Guest:She was always... It's that mother's love thing.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:She loves the shit out of him.
Guest:And like they...
Guest:uh, him and his, uh, partner, uh, uncle Mike for years and years.
Guest:They always, I saw them together all the time.
Guest:Like they always were there at Christmas and Thanksgiving and whatever else.
Guest:And like my grand, the deal with my grandpa was like, you know, we just didn't really talk about it, but like, I mean, he knew what was going on and they were still welcome there and he still hugged his son and all that stuff.
Guest:Tolerance.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tolerance.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right, so you get out.
Guest:Where do you go to college?
Guest:Tennessee Tech University.
Guest:Where's that at?
Guest:It's in Cookville, the place I was telling you about earlier, so not that far away.
Guest:Actually, I went to UT, the University of Tennessee, at first, and literally right as I was in the process of moving down there, my grandpa, my dad's dad, I was just talking about, he passed away, massive heart attack, and that hit me real hard because he was sort of the authoritarian figure in my life.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:And so I came back home with the intent of just starting a semester late, just going to UT in the spring.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My guidance counselor taught me into going to tech instead because she was afraid that like so many other kids from there, I just would never go back.
Marc:Right.
Guest:She was like, so you can go here.
Guest:You'll be close to home and then you can transfer to UT later.
Guest:And so that was the plan.
Guest:But I ended up liking it there.
Guest:So I just stayed in Cookville.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what did you get the degree in?
Guest:Uh, I, I, they have a thing called the plus one program where you can major in whatever and take business courses and then get an MBA.
Guest:If you go to business school after that.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:That's what I did.
Guest:So I got an MBA.
Guest:My undergrad is in psychology.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just cause I was interested in it.
Guest:I knew I was doing the MBA thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I know you can't do shit with a bachelor's in psychology.
Guest:You know, I'm aware of that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It didn't matter.
Guest:The MBA was what mattered.
Guest:And so I was just interested in psych.
Guest:So that's what I did.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What did you, did you learn anything from psych?
Guest:I mean, I've forgotten it all.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like I feel like I was, I knew shit about it at the time, but I've, you know, it's mostly gone now.
Marc:So then you went to graduate school or you went to business school?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it was four semesters that I did all like back to back to back.
Guest:And then what were you set up to do?
Guest:Uh, so that was the high, that was 2009, like the height of the recession.
Guest:I was working at a bar for like five months afterwards and I was like, Jesus, what did I do?
Guest:I fucked up, you know?
Guest:But then I, I just, the first job I was able to find was with the U S department of energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Guest:You, are you familiar with Oak Ridge, the Manhattan project?
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Manhattan Project was split between Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Guest:That's where I grew up.
Guest:And so Oak Ridge is where they enriched the plutonium that was then shipped to New Mexico and put into the bombs or whatever.
Guest:Well, that was the precursor to the DOE, and they just never left.
Guest:They're still there.
Guest:They still have a- The lab?
Guest:The ORNL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex.
Guest:There's a particle accelerator there, a bunch of wild shit.
Marc:High security situation?
Guest:Very much so, yeah.
Marc:Still in use?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're building a big, multi-billion dollar, brand new nuclear facility out there right now.
Guest:For energy or for defense?
Guest:Defense.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And so what was your job there?
Guest:I was a contracting officer.
Guest:So the federal government, they don't really do anything.
Guest:They just contract it out to private industry.
Guest:I negotiated and awarded and administered federal contracts.
Yeah.
Guest:to uh subcontracting companies that do the stuff yeah i was like lower level so like i was mostly like uh you know contractors that like mow the grass or you know mop the floors or whatever yeah yeah that that kind of thing that's what i did no national security clearance no i mean well i had a i had a queue clearance which is like a top secret equivalent or whatever because i just i had to but i mean i never
Guest:I did see some shit that I think technically was like nuclear secrets, but I didn't understand.
Guest:It was all in like, I'd have to be a nuclear engineer to even know what the fuck they were talking about.
Guest:Oh, like you're walking into a room seeing a chalkboard or something?
Guest:Right, that kind of stuff.
Guest:Or they talk about it in the meeting.
Guest:I'm in there for business reasons, but all that stuff, it was like classified, whatever, but I mean, you couldn't get it out of me even if you tried, because I don't know what the fuck it meant anyway.
Marc:Right, so what were you experiencing in terms of...
Marc:You know, the realities of government or how did that shift your brain at all?
Marc:Did you did you feel like you were doing working for something bad?
Guest:No, no, not really, because I mean, as far as so DOE is split into DOE.
Guest:And then under that is the NNSA, National Nuclear Security Administration.
Guest:That's all the nukes shit.
Guest:I was with DOE, so it was all like I was paid by the Office of Science.
Guest:So technically, I was working to support the DOE's science missions and stuff.
Guest:So I felt philosophically or whatever, I felt okay about it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:I did.
Guest:And then that's another thing.
Guest:With all this shit with me, allowing me to quit that job and everything that I've done, one of the main things I'm most grateful for now in retrospect is that I'll never have to work for fucking Rick Perry.
Guest:Right.
Guest:who's now the secretary of energy yeah when i was there it was a nobel laureate yeah and after that the head of physics and energy at mit right and now trick perry so uh yeah yeah glad to not be there anymore well did you feel that we were surrounded by like what smart people or that you know that yeah a lot of a lot of smart people yeah trusted the leadership
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, yes, I did.
Guest:I feel like that.
Guest:But also a lot of these people are like lifers, like a lot of feds.
Guest:They tend to not leave because I mean, it's a pretty good gig as far as that shit goes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so they you adopt this philosophy over time that it's like it, you know, they do the work regardless of who the top guy is.
Guest:Most of them seemingly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they'll keep doing the same shit with Perry there, too.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, you got health coverage and everything?
Guest:Yeah, all that.
Guest:So why'd you quit?
Guest:Because I had made some videos that went viral and comedy became an actual viable option for me.
Guest:Were you doing stand-up when you were there?
Guest:Yeah, I started at Sidesplitters in Knoxville, was my home club.
Guest:Were you doing the kind of jokes you were doing now then?
Guest:yeah i mean i've always kind of done uh you know tried to be non-stereotypically southern humor you know what i mean like the videos and stuff the whole liberal redneck thing it not everything i do is overtly political but like it's always been in that vein of i'm not what you think i am based off how i look and how i sound or whatever right you know what i mean i don't say the things you expect me to say did you feel like there was pushback on that
Marc:From the club or just from crowds or whatever?
Guest:I mean, yeah, depending on what it was about, because some of their rules, like it had to be church clean, they called it.
Guest:I couldn't say damn it or hell or nothing.
Guest:And so any kind of remotely risque topics, you know, they'd be like, you don't do that.
Guest:The hosts don't do that.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, but I would, I was still, even that was my home club.
Guest:I was going down to Chattanooga or going to Nashville or doing alt shows, just whatever, like super early on.
Guest:And then I started, you know, hitting the road a little more.
Marc:How many years in are you when you do these videos?
Marc:Five and a half, five and a half years.
Marc:So, and that was a couple of years ago?
Marc:That was a year ago.
Marc:A year ago.
Marc:So what, what prompted you to do them?
Um,
Guest:Well, so, like I said, I was doing the same kind of thing on stage for a while.
Guest:And I had this bit that I thought was like my signature bit.
Guest:I closed with it a lot or whatever.
Guest:And it was very similar to the videos.
Guest:The bit was basically me, you know, yelling a bunch of liberal shit in an extremely redneck fashion after setting it up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I never said the words liberal redneck, but if I made a set list or whatever, that bit was entitled liberal redneck.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And my close buddies that were comics, I started telling them about two years ago, I was like, I think I want to do a video series about this.
Guest:And then I went to, I did this writer's workshop that NBC does.
Guest:I got into that and went to 30 Rock or whatever in 2015 and
Guest:you did you went up to new york yeah that nbc does this late night writers workshop program yeah you can like submit to or whatever and i got into it in 2015 and went up there and introduced whatever the liberal redneck character to them up there as part of that workshop and they like you know they loved it they were like you need to do something with that right so how long is that workshop uh it's just a week you go up there for a week is it like connected to snl or something
Guest:They'll bring in like SNL writers or Seth Meyers writers or Jimmy Fallon writers, stuff like that.
Guest:Did you learn anything?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:As far as that kind of writing.
Guest:I mean, it was an awesome experience.
Guest:I loved it, especially at the time.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:First time in New York?
Guest:Yeah, that was my first time in New York, period.
Guest:Did they put you up?
Guest:No, I slept in my buddy's basement in Queens on a mattress pad.
Guest:Yeah, one of the guys on tour with me.
Guest:Drew Morgan's his name.
Guest:So yeah, they loved the character.
Guest:Them and my friends were like, you should do something with it.
Guest:But in my head, I was like...
Guest:Man, I'll have to I'll have to save up money and buy a camera.
Guest:I have to learn how to edit.
Guest:I don't want to look like an amateur.
Guest:Hell, you know, like that's what I was thinking.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then early last year, I saw this video that went viral among the far right.
Guest:So like people I know from Salina or whatever, we're posting it, sharing it.
Guest:And it was a preacher in North Carolina.
Guest:but about my age like you know people you knew from home were posting it yeah and like so it's a guy early 30s preacher in north carolina standing in the woods by a big jacked up truck just yelling in his iphone about the transgender bathroom laws and perverts in the bathrooms and jesus will strike them down and all that stuff and it had 15 million views and i had just like a light bulb went off i was like
Guest:If that's what I'm trying to satirize or make fun of, and it is, I don't need any of that fancy shit.
Guest:I can just do it exactly the way he does it.
Guest:And hell, it might even play better that way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I just went out a few days later and made the first one.
Guest:And it got like 70,000 views on Facebook.
Guest:And I was over the moon.
Guest:I was thrilled.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I told my buddies, I was like, look, hey, people like it.
Guest:I'm going to keep this up.
Guest:And then the second one I made was about the HB2 laws.
Guest:And it ended up getting like over 25 million views or whatever.
Guest:And that's when my entire life changed was after that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:Well, I got all these like followers on social media overnight.
Guest:I put on there that I was like, yes, I'm a comedian.
Guest:This is supposed to be funny.
Guest:Having said that, like I really do believe these things.
Guest:I really am from that kind of background or whatever.
Marc:What was the what was the thrust of it?
Guest:That one, it was about those transgender bathroom laws, and I basically was just saying, you know transgender people have been around forever, right?
Guest:And how many times have you ever heard about what you're worried about happening actually happening?
Guest:And also, what about little boys?
Guest:The vast majority of...
Guest:uh kids that are molested or whatever are little boys and so unless you want to start making separate bathrooms for catholic priests you need to shut the fuck up you know whatever yeah that kind of thing yeah and uh and that was you know and it just like i said it just blew up so it blew up changed your life but now you're politicized
Marc:yes yes that's true so now like you know having spent time in that arena you know that means you know right out of the gate uh you're dealing with contention a divided audience that you're drawing a line yep and uh you're one of their own yeah so i imagine the northerners the yankees yeah are sort of like we got something here let's parade him around right
Guest:i mean yeah you know and and then like uh and then they're like thank you good luck with everything right well you know i you know hell we'll we'll see how it goes but like what what what opportunities happen right away right away people online started when i said i was a comedian they were like are you coming to fort lauderdale or you're coming to philadelphia you know whatever you had nothing on the book and i was like and i had i had actually for about six months i had a manager out here
Guest:here because i had come out here a few times i came out here did a show in santa monica at west side comedy theater and a manager saw me and so i had she was my representation at the time and so we started talking like you think we could i could actually tour off this shit and i mean i was sweating it man because there's a huge difference between clicking like on facebook and like paying money and leaving your house and going to a show or whatever how much time did you have
Guest:as a comic uh at that time like five and a half years well i mean how much oh i'm sorry how much time did i have that i could do uh i mean i could at the like stuff i thought was great about 30 right you know uh stuff i would be willing to do 45 or an hour but it's like strong features strong yeah right right and uh
Guest:and so I, we put this to a practice, a trial run of a tour, a week long trial run with me and the two guys I co-wrote the book with who are also progressive Southern comics.
Guest:So it's like thematic, you know?
Guest:And we did that.
Guest:And the first night was at the punchline in Atlanta and it was on a Sunday night and we sold out two shows and George Wallace came and like watch the show and went on stage with us and whatever else.
Guest:And like,
Guest:that that was and this was about a month after the video had first been posted and that was the first time when i was like oh shit this is a real thing maybe yeah you know and then i got the book deal and a development deal with warner brothers developing a sitcom right now yeah in the process of that and and then just toured heavily last year those are the major things that have come of it so far so and i was on bill maher yeah i saw you on there i've done you know a lot of media things like that or whatever and
Marc:So, but when you are in the position you're in, and, you know, what is the, in the book, you know, it's a joke book, but it's also like something that, you know, makes us, me, and people, you know, who maybe stereotype Southerners, see Southerners differently.
Marc:But you're also put in a position to sort of represent Southerners.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:You know, progressive ideas.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what in the book is practical information?
Marc:I mean, what was the sort of agenda of the book other than it being a joke book?
Guest:Well, we tried to, in addition to, like you said, trying to explain what the South really is or is not to people who don't really know or understand the South, we also tried to, like...
Guest:Tell how we think the South can do better about things like, for example, like in the chapter on racism, it's like, let's fucking get rid of all these monuments to Confederate generals.
Guest:Let's stop fucking flying the flag and get over the goddamn Civil War.
Guest:You know, I mean, let's leave that shit in the past.
Guest:Yeah, that kind of thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, but, you know, Grant, I mean, in reality.
Marc:the people who we are addressing that to a lot i mean a lot of them are not even going to read the book in the first place you know what i mean like those shitty people shitty southerners right and now they're now they're empowered now it seems that they've won yeah recently the possibility of the country being you know if not temporarily maybe permanently divided along those lines seems like a real possibility yeah for sure so when you were when you were touring
Marc:Like, how much pushback did you get?
Marc:Did the South disown you?
Guest:No, I mean, okay, this is separate from the tour, but like my hometown, Salina, for example, you know, I mean, there's a lot of people praying for me, you know what I mean, back home.
Guest:But they're not lashing out at you?
Guest:I mean, a couple have here and there like on Facebook or whatever.
Guest:I've went home a couple times, see my grandma or whatever, and nobody's tried to give me what fur at the Rite Aid or nothing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But as far as the tour, though, like the shows, our best shows have been in the South because the people that are coming, they know what they're signing up for.
Guest:They're familiar with me or my videos or whatever, so they know what they're getting into.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they get it on like every level.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because it's like not just, oh, we're liberals and we like the message behind this, but also we're Southerners and we're liberals.
Guest:So we appreciate that message, too, or whatever.
Guest:So our best shows have been in the South.
Guest:We haven't had a single.
Guest:Sure, because you found an audience.
Guest:They're relieved.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:They got a show they can go to and be who they are.
Guest:So many people have said to us after shows, you know, something along the lines of.
Guest:finally you know what i mean finally there's something like that you know that represents who i am you know what i mean right because i'm not you know i'm not the stereotypical southerner either and there's you know this hasn't well a thing before well okay so given that they like you know now you found this audience of like-minded people and obviously they were there like you said they've they've always been there um
Marc:And I know you're just a comic, but it comes down to what do we do with the people that can't see past their hatred or their religious beliefs?
Marc:How do you deal with them in your life?
Marc:Have you had to in your family or just in general coming from where you're coming from?
Marc:Do you have to sit down and have conversations with them?
Guest:yeah for sure not in my family as much anymore because all the reasons i told you earlier yeah the people i keep in touch with are very small and they're mostly on my on the same you know wavelength yeah but yeah growing up and over the years i mean yes all the time and i've my approach to that has always been like i don't back off of what my opinion is or whatever else you know what i mean i don't but i also you know
Guest:I don't shut down either.
Guest:Like I'll talk with them about it as long as they want to, you know?
Guest:And I try to just be honest about it or whatever.
Guest:And I don't flip out and be like, you know what?
Guest:You're a fucking piece of shit, man.
Guest:Or whatever.
Guest:You know, I just try to talk to them about it.
Guest:And some of them, they'll, you know, they'll be like, oh, hell, whatever.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like eventually.
Guest:And then just shut down.
Guest:Or, you know, I've never had anybody get, like, tried to get physical with me over my political beliefs so far, honestly.
Guest:They usually just, ah, fuck him.
Guest:And, you know,
Marc:what do you find are the biggest you know you know um touch points of resistance i mean obviously you know i assume that that you know before whatever's happening now was happening that you know if someone was racist they weren't necessarily a proud racist no yeah right and and uh so that you know that i imagine that wasn't part of the discussion but outside of social issues um
Marc:You know, what do you find the issues that people have are that are that are kind of unchangeable, you know, in terms of what are they defending?
Guest:Well, they're OK.
Guest:Right now I'm talking specifically about my hometown, but there's a lot of my hometowns out there.
Guest:And like I said, they're.
Guest:quality of life has just went off a cliff in the past you know 20 years or whatever and they just so like you said earlier you said they're vulnerable i mean they're desperate like they just want things to get better and they think that you know so when they hear oh we're going to bring your jobs back and whatever else you know oh yeah sounds good to me you know what i mean they just want they just want their lives to not be shitty as they've become it's not an ideological thing it's just you know it's just sort of like hopelessness and yeah and and anger and
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Because it's out of their control and all of a sudden it's all gone.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And they think liberal America or whatever just doesn't give a fuck about them at all.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:That's the perception that they have.
Guest:And they also think that liberal America thinks that they're all stupid, they're all racist, whatever else.
Guest:And so that causes them to just...
Guest:you know, lash out.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:They ain't voting liberal or whatever because fuck them big city liberals think they're better than me.
Guest:That whole kind of attitude is definitely real.
Marc:Well, yeah, right.
Marc:Using the word liberal as some sort of derogatory thing without really connecting anything to it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Libtards.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I've heard that, and I see that around.
Marc:I think that's an old Rush Limbaugh.
Marc:That's an old one.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Libtards.
Marc:But it seems to me that when I really think about it, that...
Marc:you know, had things like they got to blame somebody.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And, you know, they can blame the government.
Marc:And then when someone speaks to that, like, yeah, the government's awful and then gets into office and then just does the same fucking thing.
Marc:You know, just new guys, different government, usually worse.
Marc:What I don't always understand is how they can keep, you know, just shifting the blame to whatever makes their anger feel better when the blame, you know, lies in policy.
Marc:It's bizarre to me because, you know, liberal ideas, you know, what would you say are the liberal ideas that you're presenting, you know, as, you know, when you have conversations with these people or as a southerner, what are the ones that you think are like the misunderstanding lies in?
Guest:Well, okay, it's weird to me that, like, the problem with, like, welfare and food stamps and stuff like that, when so many of these people are also poor or whatever, but, like, you know... And some on welfare.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:But, well, I need my food stamps, you know what I mean?
Guest:But these motherfuckers, they're lazy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:There's a hypocrisy to it.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:And a lot of them, too, though, are like... And I'm not saying my in-laws are like that, but...
Guest:What they are is they're in that income class where they don't they're not getting food stamps and all that kind of shit, but like they're not doing great.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And there's a lot of people that are like that and they blame people on food stamps and whatever else for being lazy and just abusing the system and wasting all their money and all this kind of shit.
Guest:And that always really bothered me.
Guest:And they're paying for that.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:They think they're paying.
Guest:And like, I grew, you know, I mean, I grew up on food stamps.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So I've always I've always been very, I guess, defensive about that.
Guest:But also, like, it just doesn't track for me because, again, you know, like, really, those are the bad.
Guest:Those are the bad guys.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Not the motherfuckers who, you know, are wasting so much of our money on all this other shit.
Guest:And they will.
Guest:And they think like with Trump, they think they are voting in their own self-interest right now.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Or, well, in November.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because he's going to bring my job back.
Guest:He's going to know that that does represent their interest.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:To them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like even if liberal ideals, economic ones were in their self-interest from before.
Guest:Well, they didn't.
Guest:I mean, clearly they didn't feel that way.
Guest:So, you know, I would argue that, you know, that's still some kind of failure because we didn't.
Marc:convince them or whatever you know what i mean like the uh affordable care act business like i have to assume a lot of people that are in dire straits are on that and i you know and i and i imagine they they some of them voted for trump yeah there's a thing it's when it's been on going around the internet some somebody's been accumulating different social media posts from just regular people that say something about like
Guest:finally get rid of that sorry ass Obamacare.
Guest:You know, my ACA coverage is so much better.
Guest:Thank God I've got ACA.
Guest:Well, that's just not, you know what I mean?
Marc:And I mean, yeah, the lack of being properly informed.
Marc:I mean, that seems to be the real hinge to everything right now.
Guest:I completely agree.
Guest:Everybody's in there.
Guest:Everybody just gets their sources from or their news and information from the sources they picked out already.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But so many people like even myself, I mean, you know, like you, we all do that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, on one side or the other, because, you know, to take the time to actually source information properly is a whole other leap.
Marc:You know, and if you're just in a loop of Facebook posts of people that they've already, you know, targeted you.
Marc:As somebody that gets off on that, whatever the ideology of those posts are, then it comes to you.
Marc:You're like, well, this is the news.
Marc:There's still plenty of people that think like, well, it's on the Internet.
Marc:You can just Google it.
Marc:And that's enough to substantiate something.
Marc:But in times of desperation and hopelessness, you know, any information that's going to sort of like...
Marc:kind of like liven your anger or justify your point of view, when you're in pain or in dire straits, you're going to gravitate towards that because at least that feels good.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:And I've honestly and I mean, I'm very guilty of that, too, when it comes to just, you know, reading something.
Guest:And if it's, you know, fits my narrative or whatever, as long as it's not from some, you know, bumfuck.com or whatever, I'll probably go with it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Like you said, we all do that to an extent.
Marc:I've had to become very aware of it.
Marc:Like, you know, I'm saying something like, what do I really know about this other than I read a headline?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I heard that, you know.
Guest:But I've tried.
Guest:I've made, like, a concerted effort over the years to not, like... Like, a lot of people I know, when people say some shit on Facebook that they don't agree with politically or whatever, they'll either block or remove them.
Guest:Like, that kind of curating your own bubble in that way.
Guest:Like, I've tried hard over the years to not do that.
Guest:To, like, keep...
Guest:Keep those people around or in touch with what's going on with them or whatever.
Guest:Because, I mean, a lot of people I grew up with, a lot of them are like, you know, they're friends of mine.
Guest:And that's another thing, too.
Guest:Like, I know so many people that that voted for Trump or that other people in other parts of the country would be like, oh, God, you're what's wrong with America.
Guest:And I'm like.
Guest:No, man, he's a good dude.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:He's a good guy.
Guest:I love that guy.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I know people in our business, and we have maybe some common friends that did that.
Marc:And I talk about that a little in my act, just sort of like trying to understand –
Marc:Yeah, it's sort of there's there's it's it's complex in the sense that, you know, outside of their hatred for Hillary, which was, you know, probably maybe some of it is based in in in real policy.
Marc:But a lot of it was just demonization.
Marc:But also Republicans are Republicans, a lot of them.
Marc:And a lot of people don't.
Marc:Give a fuck after the DEA.
Marc:Once we won, get over it.
Marc:Like it's done that the nuances of, of, of government, they're just not, they don't know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And on both sides.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're just sort of like, you know, it's not part of their everyday life.
Marc:They're just like, and now we, the fact that we have a president where he's not just going to go do his job.
Marc:He's going to tweet all day long.
Marc:Like usually he's just sort of like, all right, well, I don't like getting vote for you, but go do whatever you're going to do.
Marc:But now every day we got to deal with like, what?
Marc:What happened?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What did he say?
Guest:I know.
Guest:And I mentioned this on when I was on real time and Bill was kind of like, really?
Guest:You really think so?
Guest:But like another thing that's crazy about the whole Trump thing to me is like, I know because I know these people.
Guest:If you would have polled,
Guest:I mean, what became his base, rural, working class, white Americans, whatever, if you would have polled most of those, especially the men, five, however many years, before he started calling Obama out, you know, a man for being Kenyan or what the fuck ever.
Guest:Before that, if you'd have polled them, what do you think about Donald Trump?
Guest:I guarantee you it would have been almost across the board negative.
Guest:He's a fucking billionaire, silver spoon up his ass, know-it-all Yankee who thinks he's better than everybody and, you know, whatever else, like...
Guest:That is not their kind of guy.
Guest:Like, he's really not just as a person or as a, you know, whatever, a personality.
Guest:And that's what was blowing my mind about it the whole time.
Guest:I was looking around again at friends of mine or whatever.
Guest:It's like fucking really that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think it just shows how how desperate they had become for somebody or a champion or whatever.
Guest:Even Donald Trump.
Guest:was good enough for them in that regard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Well, even W was the silver spoon, but he seemed to be some sort of renegade doofus.
Marc:Right.
Marc:He was folksy.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But he was the oddball of that family in that he was the one that could never get his shit together and actually grew up Texan in a way.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, you're just a comic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have to remind.
Guest:I say that a lot, I feel like.
Marc:Well, we're desperate, too.
Marc:I mean, that's the thing.
Marc:I don't think that whoever they're calling liberals or Democrats or whatever, that they...
Marc:You know, we don't understand some things, but I don't think it's fundamentally not understanding the life that they're leading.
Marc:But, you know, we don't understand, you know, intolerance or fear of diversity or, you know, or a fear of education.
Marc:Like there are things that are practical that are going to get lost in this dialogue.
Marc:And I mean, we on some level, you have to be more aware of that.
Marc:And we can't, you know, just, you know, draw the line.
Marc:I don't know how we start to bridge the gap.
Guest:Yeah, well, I mean, you're right, you know, as far as the intolerance and all that.
Guest:Yes, fuck all that.
Guest:There's no concessions to be made on those fronts.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I completely agree.
Guest:But what I've told people when we've had conversations about, you know, my people, whatever, rural Americans is like, especially in my hometown and a place like that.
Guest:To me, it's kind of ridiculous to actually think or believe that a lot of those people who are so motivated by how shitty their lives are and getting their job back and their way of life back or whatever else, that they care more about Muslims or terrorists or whatever else.
Guest:Right.
Guest:now that shit don't hurt i'm not saying i mean either way they go along with it right which is still shitty as hell right without a doubt right but like to a lot of people seem to believe that like oh no that's the thing that's what motive that's what they love about trump is all that stuff that's why they're on board yeah and i just i mean i don't think that's true i think it was the other shit that he sold them economically or whatever and they were like look if you can do that you know whatever fine fuck it like
Marc:And also the idea that there is this mythological America that's been lost.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Marc:And maybe generations ago, obviously, things were different and people could earn an honest living.
Marc:You know, that was lost.
Marc:But there has been, you know, a lot of progress made, you know, culturally and politically that is now going to be lost in the name of getting back to this idea of what America was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I don't know if he's going to bring back the manufacturing base or whatever.
Guest:I mean, I would be stunned if any of that happens, not regardless of policy or whatever, just, you know, automation, you know what I mean?
Guest:Robots and shit like a lot of those jobs.
Guest:They're not they're not coming back.
Guest:And like, I think there's a huge reckoning that we're all going to have to have, especially these people when it really reaches that tipping point where, you know, they just aren't those jobs, you know, because you mentioned earlier, they're proud to not be on welfare food stamp.
Guest:They're very proud of that.
Guest:They don't need nobody's help.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's going to reach a point where, you know, the actual feasible route might be, you know, universal basic income or something like that because we just don't have jobs.
Guest:And I know how that shit is going to play with these people.
Guest:And I don't know what the fuck's going to happen when we finally do reach that point.
Guest:My fear is that the fuck it vote is really existentially like, you know, let's end the whole thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think some of them, some people basically just fucking say that, you know what I mean?
Guest:Just like, yeah, fuck it.
Guest:Blow it all up.
Guest:Blow it all up.
Guest:Start all over.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I definitely think there's an element of that out there.
Guest:And yeah, that scares the fuck out of me.
Marc:Well, yeah, because that's like a complete existential crisis.
Marc:That was like the same the same sort of like hopelessness and dark desperation that leads to, you know, a devastating opium epidemic is is nihilistic in nature.
Marc:The idea of getting into a relationship with that drug, not being able to get out of it, but that sense of sort of like, you know, fuck it.
Marc:It's over.
Guest:This is not as shitty as the alternative.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Anything is better than the alternative, you know, like even if it's getting strung out on fucking pills or, you know, blowing the whole thing.
Guest:Hey, can't be worse.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's what a lot of people think, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know what divining, you know, it's a scary time.
Marc:But I'm glad that you're at least speaking for those who have, you know, care about other people and believe in the idea of an inclusive and tolerant democracy.
Marc:I just like, you know, right now, I mean, it's probably pretty good for business for you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I can't.
Guest:You know, I would...
Guest:I would rather we not be in this position.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I mean, yes, it's not going to be bad for me, I don't think.
Marc:Unless it's bad for everybody all at once.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Marc:So what is the sitcom?
Marc:How'd that pitch happen?
Marc:What's the show idea?
Guest:So Warner Brothers had come to me, wanted to do a development deal.
Guest:Because of the book?
Guest:No, because of the videos.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And they came and saw some of my live shows, whatever, scouted me a little bit.
Guest:See if you got the goods.
Guest:And then I signed a deal with them, and they were like, you know, here's the deal.
Guest:We want your voice, but you don't know what the fuck you're doing.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:They were more diplomatic, but they're like, you're brand new to this, so we're going to pair you with somebody.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you will have a say in that.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You'll go through that whole process.
Guest:That's the way they go, yeah.
Guest:So I did all that, and I got paired up with these two guys, Rob Thomas and John Embaum.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They co-created... Rob Thomas?
Marc:Thomas has been around for a while.
Guest:He has.
Guest:He did Veronica Mars.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And him and John did Party Down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, sure, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Rob does iZombie right now.
Guest:Anyway, I got... And Rob's from Texas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I got partnered with them.
Guest:And then the show concept we put together was, you know, based around my life or my point of view, but it's not autobiographical or anything.
Guest:But, you know, I mentioned earlier, Oak Ridge National Lab, all that shit in Oak Ridge.
Guest:So it's like...
Guest:A guy who grew up poor in a trailer or whatever in a town like that, like Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where it's a shitty little redneck town, except there's also these world-class scientific facilities or whatever.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:He left at 18, never wanted to come back or whatever, but now at like 30, he's got job opportunities.
Guest:He's a scientist, right?
Guest:oh yeah and he's got a job opportunity he can't pass up at the lab right and so he's moving back home with his wife from california to work at this lab in the town where he grew up so now he's surrounded again by his old redneck buddies and his you know with his wife from california and his highfalutin job yeah and exactly and his mom is just getting out of prison oh wow again that's somewhat autobiographical where are you in the process where are you in the development process
Guest:we're uh riding the pilot right now we actually just turned it in so oh good how'd it come out i mean i mean yes i feel good about it i've been stressing about it like a unsurprisingly yeah but i mean i feel pretty good about it so all right man so we'll see how it goes well congrats on the uh success and uh you know i i hope uh the best for all of us and it's nice that you're out there uh
Marc:providing that connectivity and relief for like-minded people.
Marc:I just hope that at some point, hopefully the effect will spread.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I hear you.
Guest:Believe me, me too.
Guest:I hope so too.
Guest:All right, buddy.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, that was interesting in terms of getting to know somebody from a different part of the country than me with, you know, some real life experience about it.
Marc:And I'm glad he's out there talking.
Marc:Maybe I'll play some guitar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:.
Guest:.
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Guest:Boomer lives!