Episode 793 - Kevin Nealon

Episode 793 • Released March 12, 2017 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:12Marc:What the fucking ears?

00:00:13Marc:What the fuck nicks?

00:00:15Marc:What the fucksikins?

00:00:16Marc:What's happening?

00:00:17Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:18Marc:This is WTF.

00:00:19Marc:This is my podcast.

00:00:21Marc:Thank you for joining.

00:00:22Marc:Thank you for being here.

00:00:23Marc:Thank you for listening.

00:00:25Marc:I hope your day is going okay or your evening or your drive or your workout or whatever the fuck you're doing.

00:00:31Marc:I hope it's okay.

00:00:32Marc:I hope you're enjoying life.

00:00:34Marc:I hope you're engaging in it.

00:00:36Marc:I'm in a hotel room.

00:00:38Marc:As we speak, I'm out here.

00:00:39Marc:I'm out here in the country, in the great American countryside, kind of.

00:00:44Marc:I'm in Burlington, Vermont, and we drove up.

00:00:48Marc:Sarah and I did the thing.

00:00:49Marc:We flew into New York.

00:00:50Marc:We hit New Haven, did that show.

00:00:52Marc:Great show.

00:00:53Marc:Then we went up to Troy.

00:00:56Marc:Troy, New York, and tonight in Burlington.

00:00:59Marc:I'm recording this before the show.

00:01:01Marc:I'll tell you a little bit about the trip.

00:01:03Marc:Sure, I will.

00:01:03Marc:Why not?

00:01:04Marc:But let's do this first, because I wanted to, my buddy Todd Berry, he texted me, and he's got this book out.

00:01:09Marc:He sent it to me.

00:01:10Marc:It's very funny.

00:01:12Marc:Todd is very funny.

00:01:12Marc:The book is very funny.

00:01:13Marc:It's called Thank You for Coming to Hattiesburg, One Comedian's Tour of Not Quite the Biggest Cities in the World.

00:01:21Marc:He calls it part tour diary, part travel guide and part memoir.

00:01:25Marc:And because it's Todd, you know, it's hilarious.

00:01:28Marc:It's out in bookstores tomorrow, but you can preorder it right now.

00:01:31Marc:Todd Barry's new book.

00:01:33Marc:All right.

00:01:34Marc:So did I mention Kevin Nealon is on the show?

00:01:37Marc:That was a long time coming because quite honestly, I didn't think Kevin Nealon liked me.

00:01:41Marc:I thought we had a problem.

00:01:42Marc:We discussed it.

00:01:44Marc:So New Haven was a it was great to be there.

00:01:49Marc:We stay.

00:01:50Marc:We're basically on the Yale campus and it was a very pleasant hotel.

00:01:55Marc:And we went, you know, because Sarah is a artiste.

00:02:00Marc:So she checked out, what was that, the gallery, and we wanted to see what was there.

00:02:05Marc:I have the, hold on.

00:02:06Marc:Yeah, I got the little brochure thing right here.

00:02:09Marc:Small and great objects, Annie and Joseph Albers in the Americas.

00:02:13Marc:Now, they were both artists.

00:02:15Marc:Joseph Albers was an abstract guy, did squares, did colors.

00:02:19Marc:Annie did a lot of textile work, weavings and whatnot.

00:02:22Marc:And this was a collection of little artifacts and bits of...

00:02:27Marc:you know, sculptures and weird figurines from Mexico and Latin America.

00:02:32Marc:And they kind of, you know, connected those things with the influence on him and art in general.

00:02:37Marc:And, you know, it was a learning experience.

00:02:40Marc:And a lot of times I need to kind of be, you know, it takes a lot for me to go to the museum, but it was just down the street.

00:02:45Marc:And it was, I always am happy when I go there because you should go.

00:02:49Marc:It's important, whether you think it's important or not, or whether you don't go very often, got to go look at the art, go look at the paintings, go look what,

00:02:57Marc:creative freedom looks like.

00:02:59Marc:Go look what putting it all on the line for a canvas looks like.

00:03:02Marc:Go look at what portals into the great unknown, the secret spirits of pure creation feel like.

00:03:10Marc:Don't let it go away.

00:03:12Marc:They require your attention.

00:03:13Marc:You don't have to look at everything.

00:03:15Marc:I know it's exhausting, especially the historical stuff, but go lock in for a few minutes to the art so you get your brain configured correctly.

00:03:23Marc:All right?

00:03:23Marc:That's all.

00:03:24Marc:Public service announcement for art in general.

00:03:27Marc:But then we go back to the hotel and we're going to have some coffee in the lobby.

00:03:35Marc:And we almost sat like there was two seats looking out the window, but they were too close to this couple that was sitting there enjoying their coffee or lunch or bread.

00:03:44Marc:And we decided not to sit there because we felt we'd be looking right at him.

00:03:47Marc:So we sat across the way from him.

00:03:50Marc:And then I realized, I'm like, that guy looks familiar.

00:03:53Marc:And I'm like, oh, yeah, he does.

00:03:55Marc:And then I look across from him and I'm like, holy shit, that's Meryl Streep.

00:03:59Marc:Meryl Streep was just sitting there in the lobby bar of the hotel we were staying at having some bread and meat.

00:04:06Marc:And I recognized her husband because he's always sitting next to her being her husband.

00:04:10Marc:I don't know that guy.

00:04:11Marc:I don't know what he does.

00:04:12Marc:but I knew it was him.

00:04:13Marc:I recognized him because she's one of those people where you're like, that's her husband.

00:04:17Marc:I wonder what he does.

00:04:18Marc:Who's that guy?

00:04:19Marc:It's easy information to find.

00:04:20Marc:I'm sure I never did.

00:04:21Marc:I want to keep it a mystery.

00:04:23Marc:So I'm just looking at her and I'm not staring at her, but I, I, I was like trying not to look at her, but you kind of want to look at her because it's Meryl Streep, the greatest actress that ever lived and somebody who was an outspoken person and sort of important to the cultural dialogue at this juncture in history and

00:04:40Marc:And also, how can you not fucking love her work?

00:04:43Marc:Right.

00:04:43Marc:As you know, I was just taking in her technique.

00:04:45Marc:You know, she was eating bread and having having some coffee, I believe, maybe a water also using her phone a bit.

00:04:52Marc:And I just wanted to see how she approached that stuff because she's a professional.

00:04:56Marc:And I got to say, it was brilliant.

00:04:58Marc:She she ate her bread brilliantly.

00:05:00Marc:It was like it was very seemed very real.

00:05:03Marc:Seemed very like she was committed to eating some bread and meat.

00:05:08Marc:But also like her phone style was like it was like she was really in it.

00:05:11Marc:She was like definitely checking her phone.

00:05:13Marc:Just it was a brilliant performance all around.

00:05:16Marc:And I was I was happy to have the seats that I had.

00:05:19Marc:So, yeah, so New Haven, that was a great show.

00:05:27Marc:And then we drove up to Troy.

00:05:29Marc:Troy is an old New York City, upstate New York.

00:05:32Marc:I'll tell you something about driving through, you know, Connecticut.

00:05:36Marc:And, you know, we're taking the small county roads.

00:05:39Marc:Connecticut, upstate New York, Vermont is one thing you notice after a little while is there there there's definitely been some slacking on in the barn repair department.

00:05:50Marc:Barn maintenance, I think, is at an all time low.

00:05:53Marc:But from the looks of some of these barns, it's been declining for probably a century.

00:05:58Marc:And, you know, it adds something to the landscape.

00:06:00Marc:I don't know if that's why people don't fix the barns.

00:06:03Marc:I mean, there are some dilapidated old fucking barns out there.

00:06:06Marc:But you're like, that's cool.

00:06:08Marc:But party is like, I guess, you know, just generations of people have looked out at that thing and said, nah, it's all right.

00:06:14Marc:No, we don't need to don't need to paint it.

00:06:16Marc:We don't need to fix it.

00:06:17Marc:all right maybe you just nail just nail that one board on but don't nail it don't hit it too hard because the whole thing could go you see barns and you're like there is that even that can you use holy shit there's stuff in it i mean i i'm not encouraging people i i'm just maybe a heads up that you know take a look at the barn it looks like it's about to go though it's very charming and it makes the landscape much more engaging and interesting and historical and

00:06:43Marc:Maybe there's a law in all these states.

00:06:45Marc:Hey, if you've got a barn built before 1800, don't fuck with it.

00:06:49Marc:Let it just crumble into itself over a century because it looks cool.

00:06:54Marc:I don't know.

00:06:55Marc:I don't know how it works up here.

00:06:57Marc:Troy Music Hall.

00:06:58Marc:What a fucking place that was built in the 1800s.

00:07:00Marc:Acoustically perfect.

00:07:02Marc:And like the seats that they have, there are still the seats.

00:07:05Marc:The guy told me they were all cast as entire rows, that the iron was, they're not separate seats.

00:07:12Marc:They were cast iron as entire rows.

00:07:14Marc:And underneath, there's still the little hook thing, the little thing that you stick your top hat in.

00:07:19Marc:And on the back of each chair, there was a little pouch, a little metal hook for women's shawls, top hats and shawls.

00:07:26Marc:That's how far that goes back.

00:07:29Marc:And it's weird with these halls that are acoustically perfect where there's an intimacy to them that transcends even like a small black box theater.

00:07:36Marc:I don't know why, but just the way the chairs were situated and how the people sat on the lower level.

00:07:41Marc:And I filled up that second balcony too.

00:07:42Marc:I did all right these shows.

00:07:44Marc:People are coming out, having a nice time, but just the way that seats were situated that they couldn't change them, that there was nothing modern about the seat situation, just the way it was tiered looked a little 1800s-y.

00:07:55Marc:Like I could picture people sitting in their 1800s clothes and obviously a couple of hipsters were there, so they were there, but I could just see and feel the history of the place.

00:08:05Marc:Sometimes the venue's history transcends any crowd or any performance that's in there.

00:08:10Marc:It is of itself and you feel it and it's humanizing somehow because you can't transcend something that old in structure and sound and it just makes it so no matter how

00:08:23Marc:technologically advanced anything's become that you're just people sitting in something that was built before microphones to sound perfect and it was uh it was it was bigger than the people so the people were small and it made it very sweet and intimate marina franklin opened for me these last two nights and it was uh she did a great job should i read an email real quick while i'm sitting here

00:08:47Marc:Yeah, I do like to.

00:08:48Marc:It's not so much tooting my own horn, but I'm always surprised at some of the emails I get and how the show influences people.

00:08:54Marc:This just says interview impact in the subject line.

00:08:58Marc:Hi, Mark.

00:08:58Marc:I loved your interview with Bruce Springsteen and made a strong impact on me.

00:09:02Marc:What struck me was the warmth and compassion you elicited from Mr. Springsteen in the moment.

00:09:07Marc:All caps.

00:09:08Marc:Through your willingness to engage him from the heart with honesty and humility and vulnerability, clearly he was willing to accept your invitation.

00:09:15Marc:And in the joy of that genuine moment in which two people were fully present to each other, Mr. Springsteen's humanity and his journey became evident.

00:09:24Marc:It's a very nice thing to say, but this is what I found very touching for me.

00:09:29Marc:Interviewing is a key part of my job, conducting forensic clinical assessments for juvenile court, and this got me thinking about the process.

00:09:36Marc:I get one shot around an hour with the kid and an hour or so with the parent to gather not only the relevant family, school, and social history, but also to gain an understanding of how the youth came to be involved in delinquency, what interventions might help prevent further delinquency, and how willing or able the family might be to engage in services.

00:09:57Marc:Under these demands, I have resorted to checklists and guides and adopted a businesslike manner, which does not invite more detail than needed.

00:10:05Marc:Thank you.

00:10:05Marc:But your interviews with Mr. Springsteen reminded me of the value of bringing something of yourself to the table, whether it's apologizing that my office is freezing cold or acknowledging that as parents, we never stop worrying.

00:10:17Marc:I'm again taking the time and making the effort to connect in some small way.

00:10:22Marc:I hope it helps the families I meet feel seen and cared for.

00:10:25Marc:At the very least, it reminds me that's what it's really about, being present, connecting, and trying to make this moment a little better for each other, which is what you do.

00:10:34Marc:Thank you.

00:10:36Marc:Jamie.

00:10:36Marc:This is very touching to me because I'm glad I helped out.

00:10:40Marc:That makes sense.

00:10:42Marc:Of course, those things would be good to connect.

00:10:47Marc:But I would like to say, Jamie, perhaps maybe a space heater would be good in the office if it's that cold, if it's something you'd have to say more than once.

00:10:57Marc:Sorry, it's so cold in here.

00:10:58Marc:Maybe I'm crazy, but space heater might be good.

00:11:02Marc:so kevin nealon i've always liked him i thought he was hilarious on update i've been a fan of his comedy and i've seen i saw him uh last at the gary shandling memorial and he was uh you know emotional and brilliant and hilarious but touching and it really gave me a whole different perspective on him and i had to have him on but i was concerned that he didn't like me uh so we'll talk about that among other things

00:11:26Marc:He's currently on the CBS show man with a plan, which airs Monday nights.

00:11:30Marc:You can go check out his comedy tour dates at Kevin Nealon.com.

00:11:33Marc:This is me and Kevin Nealon back in the garage.

00:11:43Marc:When I go out now, I just know the store will give me a bunch of spots.

00:11:46Marc:What do I got to run around for?

00:11:48Marc:Isn't it nice how it's changed?

00:11:50Marc:Remember when you used to wait in line to get on?

00:11:52Marc:Yeah, you'd wait in line or you'd scramble to do nine spots everywhere.

00:11:56Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:11:57Marc:But I started in New York.

00:11:58Marc:Where'd you start?

00:11:59Guest:I started in Los Angeles.

00:12:00Guest:Really?

00:12:00Guest:Yeah, but I'm from Connecticut.

00:12:02Guest:I went to New York to the Catch a Rising Star to see what comedy was like.

00:12:05Guest:Like what year is that?

00:12:06Guest:That was in 77.

00:12:07Guest:So it was pretty good then.

00:12:09Guest:it was good it was packed you know richard belzer was the mc yeah a lot of tough comics yeah you know larry david was on and uh you know all those guys and and and i would sit in the audience with everybody just jammed in there and you know cigarette smoke everywhere yeah you know watching belzer prance around yeah hecklers yeah diamond barry diamond yeah yeah yeah he's still around

00:12:31Guest:Yeah, but that scared me.

00:12:32Guest:That whole scene scared me in New York.

00:12:33Guest:I thought, I'm going to try Los Angeles, man.

00:12:35Guest:That's where all the prop comics are.

00:12:36Guest:It's got to be easier.

00:12:37Guest:I wasn't a prop comic, but I thought I could mix in.

00:12:40Marc:Yeah.

00:12:40Marc:I mean, New York was like crazy, but I felt like that was really the thing.

00:12:43Marc:I think I came out here.

00:12:46Marc:I don't know.

00:12:47Marc:LA has always been odd to me.

00:12:49Marc:Where'd you grow up?

00:12:50Guest:Connecticut, Bridgeport, Connecticut.

00:12:52Guest:And Germany.

00:12:53Guest:I lived in Germany when I was a kid.

00:12:54Guest:Why is that?

00:12:55Guest:When I was six until I was 10.

00:12:56Guest:My father got a job for, he called it a German outfit, which would have been lederhosen, but it was really a helicopter company.

00:13:02Guest:Yeah, so he worked for Sikorsky Helicopters and they had a contract with a company over there for an army contract.

00:13:13Guest:But we didn't live on a military base like a lot of the army brats and all the military people.

00:13:17Guest:We lived in a German neighborhood.

00:13:19Marc:Yeah.

00:13:19Guest:So I learned how to speak fluent German and I went to an American school.

00:13:23Marc:Did you really?

00:13:24Marc:Yeah.

00:13:24Guest:Can you still do it?

00:13:25Marc:Yeah, I can still speak it.

00:13:26Marc:I'm not as well as I used to.

00:13:28Marc:It's kind of choppy.

00:13:29Marc:Understand it.

00:13:29Guest:Yeah.

00:13:30Marc:Yeah.

00:13:31Marc:And that comes up a lot in everyday life in Los Angeles.

00:13:34Marc:It really does.

00:13:34Marc:When I go down to Germantown.

00:13:36Marc:German's very practical.

00:13:37Marc:There's not a Germantown in LA, is there?

00:13:39Marc:I don't think so.

00:13:41Marc:This is really an Italian town.

00:13:42Marc:It's weird out here.

00:13:44Marc:There's no Italians that I know of.

00:13:46Marc:Do you know good Italian restaurants?

00:13:48Marc:Like in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, there's a good Italian restaurant every two miles.

00:13:52Guest:Yeah, there's good pizza places.

00:13:53Guest:Here's what I think, Mark.

00:13:54Guest:I think they should take all the little Italys across the country, put them into one big city, make one big Italian city.

00:13:59Marc:One big little Italy?

00:14:02Marc:Yeah.

00:14:02Marc:So how old were you when you were in Germany?

00:14:04Guest:I was six until I was 10.

00:14:06Guest:so do you remember so you have memories oh yeah yeah i remember um like i said i lived in a german neighborhood most of my friends were german right and i would come home and i have these american toys and the german kids loved them they had the whole the old like um metal lead soldiers with real paint sure they're they're hollow and malleable yeah yeah yeah and i would trade them and my mother would get pissed because you know you traded your good toy for crap you know you trade the good plastic gi joe yeah and i remember this was not

00:14:32Guest:Long after the war ended.

00:14:34Guest:It was like 15 years after World War II ended.

00:14:36Marc:Really?

00:14:36Guest:Yeah.

00:14:38Guest:It was like 59.

00:14:38Marc:So there's still that feeling of wreckage and weirdness?

00:14:41Guest:I was a kid, so I didn't know anything about that.

00:14:44Guest:You didn't sense the darkness?

00:14:45Guest:But I do remember going to one of my friend's houses.

00:14:48Guest:And his father, I guess, was in the German Navy.

00:14:51Guest:And he had one of those display cases in the living room with all the U-boats in it and stuff on the fake water.

00:14:57Guest:I remember at the time thinking, oh, this is cool.

00:14:59Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:15:01Marc:Wow, I can't imagine.

00:15:02Marc:I've never been to Germany.

00:15:03Marc:Have you been back since?

00:15:04Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:15:05Guest:I was back last December.

00:15:06Guest:For performing for the troops or what?

00:15:08Guest:No, I did a river cruise down the Danube with my wife and kid.

00:15:11Guest:Oh, just to go?

00:15:12Guest:Yeah, we went to Vienna.

00:15:14Guest:Was it beautiful?

00:15:15Guest:Oh, it was gorgeous, yeah.

00:15:16Guest:I've never been to Vienna.

00:15:17Guest:Oh, you got to go.

00:15:18Guest:Yeah?

00:15:18Guest:These cruises are great.

00:15:20Marc:Bridgeport, Connecticut.

00:15:22Marc:That's where the... Didn't they have the P.T.

00:15:25Marc:Barnum Museum there?

00:15:26Guest:Yeah.

00:15:27Cool.

00:15:27Guest:Yeah, that's where Tom Thumb is from.

00:15:29Marc:He's from Bridgeport?

00:15:30Marc:Yeah.

00:15:31Marc:Were you sort of, you seem to know- Richard Bells is from Bridgeport, too.

00:15:34Marc:Is he really?

00:15:35Guest:Yep.

00:15:36Guest:I had one bad experience there, because there was a ferry there.

00:15:40Guest:I used to watch that ferry every day, go to Port Jefferson.

00:15:42Guest:I was a lifeguard on the beach down there.

00:15:43Guest:Yeah.

00:15:44Guest:And I watch it a couple times a day, going back and forth.

00:15:46Marc:What happened?

00:15:47Marc:Well, my buddy lived in, we took the ferry over, because he lived by Port Jefferson.

00:15:51Marc:We were in college, and we were going down there for the weekend.

00:15:53Marc:And we go, we're kind of drunky.

00:15:56Marc:I went to college in Boston, kind of hungover.

00:15:58Marc:We decided to go to the P.T.

00:16:00Marc:Barnum Museum.

00:16:01Marc:And some dude, old man who must have been with the circus at some point, I remember he was missing an eye and he was working there and he said he could tell people's fortunes.

00:16:13Marc:And he grabs my hand in a very awkward way and he looks at my palm and he says, you're gonna get in a very bad accident.

00:16:19Yeah.

00:16:19Marc:That's Bridgeport.

00:16:23Guest:That's the Bridgeport psychics.

00:16:24Guest:It's fucked up.

00:16:25Guest:It's all bad news psychics.

00:16:27Guest:It's fucked me up for weeks.

00:16:29Guest:Just waiting.

00:16:30Guest:That made you a better driver.

00:16:31Guest:Yeah.

00:16:32Guest:Well, it was just, it was terrifying.

00:16:33Guest:But Bridgeport is not like a town you would think would be in Connecticut.

00:16:36Guest:It's very industrial.

00:16:37Guest:It's a port city.

00:16:39Guest:A lot of gangs, mafia.

00:16:41Guest:Yeah.

00:16:42Guest:You know, like mafia drive-bys and stuff like that.

00:16:44Guest:Really?

00:16:45Guest:And I guess apparently, legend has it that Johnny Carson met with Wayne Newton at one of the diners there on Main Street in Bridgeport to discuss some kind of a casino deal.

00:16:56Guest:that's that's legend that's what that's what is bridgeport legend right there and it never happened i don't know you'd have to ask wayne so you're going you're hanging out your your your dad's like in was he always in uh airplanes and yeah yeah we had our airplanes like you have guitars and everything around here he had airplanes and helicopters and constantly smelling airplane glue growing up my whole life he made models

00:17:20Guest:Yeah, yeah, balsa wood from scratch.

00:17:22Guest:Uh-huh.

00:17:22Marc:With the razor blade.

00:17:23Guest:Razor blade, all the different levels of balsa wood strength, you know, and the paper you put on the top, you know, the glue.

00:17:31Guest:Yeah, with the wings.

00:17:32Guest:Yeah.

00:17:33Guest:That was his thing?

00:17:34Guest:But he worked for an aeronautic company?

00:17:36Guest:Yeah, he's an aeronautical engineer.

00:17:38Guest:Wow.

00:17:39Guest:so my whole life could he fly uh he did know how to fly i don't remember him flying ever though yeah um even though he made helicopters and helped design them and i got them built he was not a fan of helicopters oh really yeah because yeah there's so many moving parts and they're always vibrating you got to tighten them like every five seconds you know you got to land to tighten everything he didn't have a lot of faith in the helicopter no no i think he did but but i don't think he liked this did you ever go up in them

00:18:05Marc:yeah i've been up in them i don't like them it's kind of fun when you're up there but yeah as long as you don't start realizing it's just that one i did a movie um yeah i did a movie a couple years ago walk of shame it's called with uh oh steve brill's movie yeah a little bit thanks you know steve and i went to college together did you really yeah we wrote together we were best friends and then then it went away that happens doesn't it it does for some reason we're okay now we made it you know he came on and we got it back together and i see him occasionally

00:18:34Guest:So Steve goes, you know, we got a helicopter scene.

00:18:37Guest:You comfortable in a helicopter?

00:18:38Guest:I said, not really.

00:18:39Guest:You know, not really.

00:18:40Guest:He goes, okay, we'll do a green screen.

00:18:42Guest:I said, okay, that'd be great.

00:18:45Guest:And then he goes, you know, a day before, hey, the green screen's not working out.

00:18:49Guest:We got a really nice helicopter.

00:18:51Guest:You know, it won't be a problem at all.

00:18:52Guest:And I'm looking at the weather.

00:18:53Guest:You know, it's supposed to be rainy and stuff.

00:18:55Guest:And I said, okay, because I don't know how to say no to people, you know, even if my life is on the line.

00:19:00Guest:So I go down there, and I'm driving to the location, and I don't see the helicopter.

00:19:04Guest:It's up on the roof of a high building.

00:19:06Guest:And I hate heights to begin with.

00:19:10Guest:So I go up there and he's got a whole lot of new lines for me.

00:19:15Marc:On top of being on a building and a helicopter.

00:19:18Guest:So we get into, it's like that one of those little helicopters all glass in the front.

00:19:21Guest:So they have the cameras and stuff.

00:19:22Guest:and we take off from the building, and he's got the cameras mounted, and he's squished behind the back seat, and he's going, action.

00:19:29Guest:And I'm going, Steve, let me just rehearse as we're going and get used to this helicopter, okay?

00:19:34Guest:And we hung out for like 35 minutes over the 405 freeway, Dodger Stadium, and I think, this is really cool.

00:19:39Guest:This is cool.

00:19:40Guest:But I'm thinking, you know, let's not push it anymore.

00:19:42Guest:Let's head back.

00:19:42Marc:Yeah, we've done it.

00:19:43Guest:We got it.

00:19:45Marc:So you got through the nerves.

00:19:46Guest:Yeah.

00:19:46Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:19:46Guest:So that's like one of the few times I've been up in a helicopter.

00:19:49Guest:Oh, God.

00:19:50Marc:You have a hard time saying no to people?

00:19:51Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:19:52Guest:Is that an issue?

00:19:54Guest:It has been with my wife.

00:19:56Marc:Oh, really?

00:19:58Guest:And for me too.

00:19:59Guest:Yeah.

00:19:59Guest:And it's not good.

00:20:00Marc:Why?

00:20:01Marc:Because you spread yourself thin?

00:20:02Guest:Well, yeah, you spread yourself thin and the people that you love the most kind of are inconvenienced because you promised your time to other people.

00:20:08Marc:Oh, right, right, right.

00:20:09Marc:You know.

00:20:10Guest:I got to go do a thing.

00:20:11Guest:But it's a matter of wanting to be liked and accepted.

00:20:13Guest:Right.

00:20:14Guest:You know.

00:20:14Guest:Yeah, definitely.

00:20:17Marc:I don't know if it always pays off that way.

00:20:19Guest:It doesn't.

00:20:20Guest:People start taking advantage of you.

00:20:21Guest:Sure, you're like a mark.

00:20:22Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:20:24Guest:But I'm learning all these things later in life, how to be a better partner and also to have a fuller life and be more honest.

00:20:33Marc:Have those boundaries.

00:20:34Marc:Yeah, and have boundaries.

00:20:35Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:20:36Guest:Like, no, I can't.

00:20:38Marc:Yeah.

00:20:38Guest:I don't know about you, but I get mad, but I keep it inside.

00:20:42Guest:Yeah.

00:20:42Guest:Oh, good for you.

00:20:42Guest:No, I dump it all over the place.

00:20:44Guest:Passive aggressive and then depression.

00:20:47Guest:So I'm learning now to get very angry and to fight.

00:20:49Guest:Really?

00:20:50Guest:Yeah.

00:20:50Guest:How's it going?

00:20:51Guest:We'll see in the next hour.

00:20:53Marc:Well, that's funny because you say that because like for years, I thought you didn't like me.

00:20:58Marc:I didn't like you?

00:21:00Marc:Yeah.

00:21:01Marc:And like, you know, the weird thing is you probably didn't feel either way because I didn't see you that often.

00:21:06Marc:No, no, you're right.

00:21:07Marc:I didn't like you.

00:21:07Marc:Oh, good.

00:21:08Marc:I was hoping he'd say that.

00:21:09Marc:No, I liked you fine.

00:21:10Marc:You're another comic.

00:21:11Marc:Yeah, I always felt like, you know, there was some part of it like you were almost like, oh, this guy.

00:21:18Guest:I have people like that, too.

00:21:19Guest:I think they see me, they go, oh, this guy, this guy.

00:21:22Guest:No, no, it was not this guy, it was that guy.

00:21:23Guest:Oh, it was that guy.

00:21:25Guest:No, I didn't know you that well.

00:21:28Guest:I knew you were a funny comic, and you did your thing, you had a certain style, and I had my whole life.

00:21:33Guest:I think a lot of that, sometimes we are perceiving our own insecurities.

00:21:37Marc:Well, that's right, but the fact that you say that, a lot of times, if you're one of those people that keeps your anger in, and you control all that stuff,

00:21:45Marc:There's part of me that's sort of like, what's he got?

00:21:47Marc:What has he got going on?

00:21:49Marc:I can't read that guy.

00:21:51Marc:What's up with that guy?

00:21:52Guest:This is such a screwy business.

00:21:54Guest:It attracts the most insecure people.

00:21:57Guest:I know.

00:21:57Guest:And odds are, you're not going to make it.

00:22:00Guest:It's true.

00:22:01Guest:And yet we stay with it.

00:22:03Guest:We stay with it.

00:22:03Marc:Isn't it weird?

00:22:04Marc:Because at some point, you don't have a choice.

00:22:06Marc:There's nothing in your brain that's sort of like, I could always, there was never any answer to that.

00:22:12Marc:That was practical.

00:22:13Guest:It gets to a point where you're too far in and you can't back out.

00:22:16Guest:I always had my BS in marketing to fall back on.

00:22:20Guest:Oh, you went to college and did that?

00:22:21Guest:Yeah, I have a BS in marketing.

00:22:23Guest:But I just got a letter from the college telling me that I can no longer fall back on it.

00:22:28Guest:It's been expired.

00:22:30Guest:Not going to help you.

00:22:31Guest:No.

00:22:32Guest:Where'd you go to school?

00:22:33Guest:I went to Sacred Heart University in Connecticut.

00:22:35Marc:Catholic?

00:22:36Guest:Was that Catholic?

00:22:36Guest:It was Catholic, but you couldn't tell it was.

00:22:39Guest:We brought up Catholic?

00:22:40Guest:Yeah.

00:22:41Guest:Like hardcore?

00:22:42Guest:Nah, just church on Sundays.

00:22:44Guest:You get there before the communion.

00:22:46Marc:Scared of hell?

00:22:46Guest:Five minutes.

00:22:47Guest:No?

00:22:48Guest:No, good.

00:22:50Guest:Not anymore.

00:22:51Guest:Not after show business?

00:22:53Guest:Now, is that tobacco you're spitting in there?

00:22:55Marc:No, it's a coffee.

00:22:56Marc:Oh, coffee.

00:22:57Guest:I was going to say, that's a lot of tobacco spit.

00:22:59Marc:No, I wouldn't do that.

00:23:00Marc:I've done that occasionally in my life.

00:23:02Marc:I enjoy a dip occasionally.

00:23:04Guest:Yeah.

00:23:04Marc:So I was raised Catholic.

00:23:06Guest:How many brothers and sisters?

00:23:07Guest:I have two brothers, two sisters.

00:23:08Guest:Oh, so that's big.

00:23:09Guest:Yeah.

00:23:10Guest:And I have a son.

00:23:11Guest:I have a 10-year-old who is not raised in any...

00:23:14Guest:You're not giving him that?

00:23:15Marc:You're not going to do that to him?

00:23:16Marc:No, he believes in God.

00:23:17Marc:He does?

00:23:17Guest:He taught him that, yeah.

00:23:18Guest:He believes in there's a higher power.

00:23:21Marc:Yeah.

00:23:21Guest:And, you know, my wife and I, we thought we'd teach him about all different religions and let him choose.

00:23:27Guest:But that doesn't really happen.

00:23:28Marc:No, not at, yeah.

00:23:29Guest:And I always thought, you know, growing up, she said, you know, we're not going to baptize him or anything.

00:23:35Guest:That's ridiculous because she wasn't raised Catholic.

00:23:36Guest:And I said, okay.

00:23:38Guest:But in my head, I'm thinking, well, I'll just, you know, I'll just take him one day.

00:23:41Guest:When he's like, you know, eight months old, not tell her, have the priest baptize him, boom.

00:23:45Marc:Just in case, you know, just in case.

00:23:47Guest:And then I let too much time go by.

00:23:50Guest:Now he'll tell her.

00:23:51Guest:Now he'll tell her if I do that.

00:23:52Marc:He can't hide the secret.

00:23:53Guest:No, no, no.

00:23:55Marc:So he's unbaptized.

00:23:56Marc:He's just out there in the world defenseless against whatever not being baptized makes you vulnerable to.

00:24:01Guest:Yeah, but I will tell you that I am an ordained minister now.

00:24:04Guest:What?

00:24:05Guest:I did a thing for the Ellen show where I could, they wanted me to marry some people at the Little White Wedding Chapel.

00:24:09Guest:I was doing some field pieces for her.

00:24:11Guest:So they got me ordained.

00:24:12Marc:With the universal church or whatever?

00:24:14Guest:With the open ministry on the world wide web.

00:24:17Guest:And so I did that.

00:24:18Guest:I did some funky marriages out there.

00:24:20Guest:And then I just married a friend of mine the other day, Kirk Fox.

00:24:24Guest:I was looking over my thing to make sure this was going to be legal.

00:24:28Guest:So I was doing research.

00:24:29Guest:And then it says on there that I could also baptize.

00:24:31Marc:people really yes in in what in any church or like i guess in the open ministry thing just baptize somebody doesn't have to be any it's that nomination i guess so that's and and uh is this something you're gonna do like is this maybe like if things start to get thin well i might baptize my wife and my kid while they're sleeping sure yeah why am i wet

00:24:58Marc:What do I smell burning?

00:25:00Marc:Yeah.

00:25:01Marc:It's an accident.

00:25:02Marc:Who's smoking reefer?

00:25:02Guest:It's an accident.

00:25:04Marc:So, all right.

00:25:05Marc:So, when do you become disillusioned with the BS in marketing?

00:25:10Marc:What kind of jobs were you doing?

00:25:11Guest:You would be a great police interrogator.

00:25:14Guest:Really?

00:25:14Guest:So, you came out of the shop with your friend at about 8 o'clock.

00:25:17Guest:Yeah.

00:25:17Marc:And then what happened?

00:25:18Guest:What were you thinking?

00:25:19Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:25:19Guest:You know, it was dark?

00:25:20Marc:Why were you holding the gun?

00:25:21Guest:Yeah.

00:25:22Guest:Yeah, I only went to get my degree in marketing because I didn't know what I wanted to do.

00:25:28Guest:Or I was afraid to get into comedy.

00:25:29Marc:But that's one of those weird degrees.

00:25:30Marc:Did you actually learn anything?

00:25:31Marc:It seems like one of those kind of BS, BSes.

00:25:34Guest:You know, I learned how to get work done and the meet deadlines, if anything.

00:25:38Guest:And I kind of learned about subliminal advertising, which became one of the bits I did.

00:25:42Marc:It's a famous bit.

00:25:43Guest:Yeah.

00:25:45Guest:But also, I was interested in music, too, at the time, like you.

00:25:48Guest:I love the guitar.

00:25:49Guest:I grew up playing the guitar and the banjo, the five-string banjo.

00:25:51Guest:Really, you're a good banjo player?

00:25:53Guest:Not bad.

00:25:54Guest:I play with Steve Martin once in a while.

00:25:55Guest:We recorded the theme to Weeds on one of the episodes.

00:25:59Guest:I could see you guys being friends.

00:26:00Guest:You guys are pals?

00:26:01Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:26:02Marc:He's real good, though, right?

00:26:03Guest:Yeah, he's really good.

00:26:03Guest:I don't see him that often, but when he's in town, I see him.

00:26:06Guest:But I'm not a big bluegrass fan.

00:26:08Guest:I don't enjoy listening to a lot of bluegrass music.

00:26:10Guest:So do you play like blues, banjo?

00:26:12Guest:No, I just play bluegrass songs, but I don't play that often.

00:26:14Guest:I'll pick it up every once in a while.

00:26:16Guest:And I'm really, I'm looking for a lot of, like I play the guitar not that well.

00:26:20Guest:I've been playing forever.

00:26:21Marc:Me too, yeah.

00:26:21Guest:I got maybe 10 guitars at home.

00:26:23Guest:Nice ones.

00:26:23Guest:And then I just got a ukulele that I'm learning how to play.

00:26:26Guest:That's fun.

00:26:27Guest:I have a mandolin.

00:26:28Marc:It's like meditative for me to play.

00:26:31Marc:You know, to sort of take the time to do it.

00:26:33Marc:I don't have many things.

00:26:35Marc:I don't have the children or wives.

00:26:37Marc:Right.

00:26:38Marc:I don't know how to meditate, but if I lock into the guitar for a half hour, it's good.

00:26:43Marc:That's meditation, yeah.

00:26:44Marc:It is kinda, isn't it?

00:26:45Guest:Yeah, but I am playing the piano now.

00:26:46Guest:I started taking lessons last July.

00:26:48Guest:Really?

00:26:49Guest:Somebody goes, why now?

00:26:50Guest:Why now?

00:26:51Guest:It's like, what am I gonna tie?

00:26:52Guest:You know, why not now?

00:26:53Guest:How are you doing with that with the two hands?

00:26:54Marc:I love it.

00:26:55Marc:Are you good?

00:26:55Marc:Because it feels to me like to get the two hands doing different things hard.

00:26:59Marc:Well, that's what you do on a guitar.

00:27:01Guest:I guess that's true.

00:27:02Guest:But that is a little difficult.

00:27:04Guest:And also, you're reading two different lines of music.

00:27:06Guest:I can read the bass and then whatever they call it, the clef and the treble.

00:27:09Guest:And you can do that?

00:27:10Guest:I'm learning how to do it.

00:27:11Guest:It's not easy, but it's a challenge.

00:27:14Guest:And I do like it.

00:27:15Guest:I mean, you know, you really can understand music a lot better than what you're looking at on the fretboard.

00:27:21Guest:Yeah.

00:27:21Guest:You know, because it's all laid out there for you.

00:27:22Marc:Right.

00:27:23Guest:You see all the notes.

00:27:23Guest:Yeah.

00:27:24Guest:And you could see all the chord.

00:27:26Marc:Right.

00:27:27Marc:And you can kind of hear it.

00:27:28Marc:Yeah.

00:27:29Marc:And see where it's going.

00:27:30Marc:As opposed to just the three chords.

00:27:34Marc:Yeah.

00:27:34Marc:I'm going to go up to an A now.

00:27:36Guest:Yeah.

00:27:37Guest:And I'm learning why an A minor is an A minor, where I didn't really know on the guitar.

00:27:42Guest:I just knew how to form it.

00:27:43Guest:Right.

00:27:43Guest:Yeah.

00:27:44Marc:You take that finger off and put the other one there.

00:27:46Marc:It sounds different.

00:27:48Marc:It's sad now.

00:27:49Marc:It's sad.

00:27:50Marc:But I do like it.

00:27:52Guest:Did you play in bands?

00:27:54Guest:I was in a few garage bands.

00:27:56Guest:We didn't look that good.

00:27:57Guest:You didn't play out?

00:27:58Guest:We played at our parties.

00:27:59Guest:We would have the party and we would hire ourselves at the band.

00:28:01Guest:Right.

00:28:01Guest:He had like six songs.

00:28:03Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:28:04Guest:We started playing them over again.

00:28:06Guest:Yeah.

00:28:07Guest:Yeah.

00:28:08Guest:So where'd the comedy bug hit?

00:28:12Guest:The comedy thing came from...

00:28:15Guest:Like a lot of comics, I was very quiet growing up, very shy.

00:28:17Guest:Really?

00:28:18Guest:Yeah.

00:28:18Guest:I was the opposite kind.

00:28:19Guest:Were you?

00:28:19Guest:Yeah.

00:28:20Guest:Never shut up, annoyed people, disruptive in class.

00:28:23Guest:So you had to be funny then.

00:28:24Guest:Get kicked out of school.

00:28:25Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:28:26Guest:You had to have a reason for doing that.

00:28:28Guest:I loved practical jokes.

00:28:30Guest:I loved the fake brandy glass.

00:28:31Guest:Looked like you were going to throw it at somebody.

00:28:33Marc:I remember that.

00:28:33Marc:I had one of those, yeah.

00:28:34Guest:The fake puke, the fake melting ice cream.

00:28:36Guest:Sure.

00:28:36Guest:I love getting reactions from people like that.

00:28:39Guest:The surprise.

00:28:40Guest:The surprise.

00:28:41Guest:Yeah.

00:28:41Guest:And then as a family, we traveled a lot through Europe in cars.

00:28:44Guest:We drove a lot on vacations.

00:28:46Guest:I learned how to swim in Greece.

00:28:47Guest:I learned how to ski in Austria.

00:28:49Guest:And so my brother and my sister and I were in the car together a lot.

00:28:53Guest:My other brother and sister weren't born for 12 years later.

00:28:56Guest:But so we had to keep ourselves busy and entertained.

00:28:59Guest:Sure.

00:28:59Guest:And so we're always trying to outdo each other.

00:29:01Guest:Yeah.

00:29:01Guest:So I think that's where I started developing the comedy.

00:29:03Guest:And then probably like you, I grew up watching Jerry Lewis movies.

00:29:07Marc:Yeah.

00:29:08Marc:Not so much Jerry, but I think I was more, I'm trying to think.

00:29:11Marc:Woody Allen, I think, was really the thing that was sort of like, holy shit, that's funny.

00:29:17Guest:Yeah, Woody Allen came too.

00:29:18Guest:And then I liked guys like Albert Brooks and Steve Martin and Andy Kaufman because they were so unique and original.

00:29:23Marc:Yeah, my guys early on, I think, like Buddy Hackett.

00:29:26Marc:like actually like when I was really young yeah yeah that was wrong that's not right yeah Jackie Vernon also wrong yeah and then like later I got the records you know I got the Richard Pryor records the George Carlin records Cheech and Chong records it was the records you know the records Bill Cosby too yeah yeah yeah Chicken Heart Chicken Heart and the First Family did you listen to them the Kennedy the First Family I didn't listen to them there's a little too much going on for me hey speaking of Jackie Vernon I worked with him a couple of times you did before he died yeah in Houston I remember

00:29:54Marc:I just bought a record yesterday, a Jackie Vernon record with a watermelon on front.

00:29:58Marc:I don't know what he's doing.

00:29:59Marc:I got two comedy records yesterday, because I pick them up if I don't have them.

00:30:03Marc:I don't have a lot of comedy records.

00:30:05Marc:But what was that like?

00:30:07Guest:It was interesting.

00:30:07Guest:It was early in my career, and I was opening for him.

00:30:10Guest:Where?

00:30:11Guest:In Houston.

00:30:12Guest:Huh.

00:30:12Guest:I think Houston is somewhere else.

00:30:14Guest:And he was, you know, he'd been doing it forever.

00:30:17Guest:He was out...

00:30:18Guest:His idea of that during the day, he would go to a pharmacy and he'd get a shopping cart in the pharmacy.

00:30:26Guest:And he loved to get anything that came with like a free umbrella or free cologne with it.

00:30:30Guest:Anything with the extra thing.

00:30:32Guest:And he'd get a lot of hair dye.

00:30:33Guest:And he would go to the hotel and he'd show up at the club that night and he had jet black hair.

00:30:39Guest:Really?

00:30:40Guest:Yeah.

00:30:41Guest:And he did his famous slideshow.

00:30:44Guest:Yeah.

00:30:45Guest:And that was it.

00:30:47Guest:He flirted with the waitresses.

00:30:49Marc:What year was that?

00:30:49Marc:Because I saw him when I was like 11 and that was like sort of a life changing thing for me.

00:30:54Marc:My parents took me to a lounge to see him and we were close and he was just sitting there and I could just see the weird beaded sweat and he was old.

00:31:02Marc:Yeah, he did sweat.

00:31:03Marc:And he was sort of just kind of walking through it, but it felt dirty.

00:31:08Marc:Just to be that close to a comic at that age doing that thing that he's done a million times, it felt like, well, this is a different world.

00:31:15Marc:Whatever that is, I want a part of that.

00:31:18Guest:Well, a lot of those comics from back then, they didn't work in comedy clubs.

00:31:20Guest:They worked in strip clubs coming up.

00:31:22Guest:Same with Rodney Dangerfield.

00:31:25Marc:Did you know him?

00:31:26Guest:I met him.

00:31:27Guest:I was close to a guy from Car 54, Joey Ross.

00:31:31Marc:Oh, my God.

00:31:32Marc:He's a notorious monster.

00:31:35Yeah.

00:31:35Marc:He's a monster.

00:31:36Marc:Well, he's like the... You know from being a comic for years that there is a spectrum of behavior that comics are prone to.

00:31:45Marc:Right, right.

00:31:46Marc:And he was far into the spectrum.

00:31:49Guest:Yeah, well, I knew that he took a real liking to me.

00:31:51Guest:I was bartending at the Improv.

00:31:53Guest:This was like around 1980.

00:31:53Guest:Yeah.

00:31:54Guest:And he would come in.

00:31:55Guest:He knew I was an aspiring comic and...

00:31:57Guest:And we'd get on stage together sometimes.

00:32:00Guest:And we'd do bits.

00:32:01Guest:He'd have the cigar and we'd talk like we'd been doing vaudeville forever.

00:32:05Guest:Yeah.

00:32:06Guest:Oh, that's nice.

00:32:06Guest:And one day he came into the improv and he goes, I might have a job for you.

00:32:10Guest:Yeah.

00:32:11Guest:He goes, what do you get played in a club?

00:32:12Guest:Like 25 bucks?

00:32:13Guest:I said, yeah.

00:32:14Guest:Yeah.

00:32:14Guest:He goes, what is it, Joey?

00:32:15Guest:I said, I'll tell you.

00:32:16Guest:Let me think of it.

00:32:17Guest:I'll get back to you.

00:32:19Guest:I'll tell you now.

00:32:20Guest:And he goes, you know, I just married a Trudy.

00:32:23Guest:I guess her name was Trudy.

00:32:24Guest:I forget her name.

00:32:24Guest:But she was this ex-prostitute that had her eye shot out in Dallas, I think, a long time ago.

00:32:31Guest:A one-eyed prostitute.

00:32:32Guest:A glass eye.

00:32:33Guest:Yeah.

00:32:33Guest:And he married her.

00:32:35Guest:Yeah.

00:32:35Guest:And he said, you know, you come from a good family.

00:32:39Guest:You're a funny guy.

00:32:40Guest:Yeah.

00:32:41Guest:You know, good looking.

00:32:43Guest:And he said, you know, she wants to have a kid.

00:32:45Guest:I'm seven years old.

00:32:46Guest:And I can't, you know, I'm 70.

00:32:48Guest:I can't, you know, nothing's happening down there.

00:32:50Guest:So, you know, I'll give you what you get in the club, 25 bucks.

00:32:52Guest:You go up there and she'll show you a good time, too.

00:32:55Guest:Yeah.

00:32:55Guest:And I'm looking at him thinking, you know, this is a joke, right?

00:32:58Guest:It's a joke.

00:32:59Guest:And he was serious.

00:33:00Guest:I said, Joey, let me think about this.

00:33:02Guest:Well, you think about it.

00:33:03Guest:He comes in the next day, he sees me, makes a beeline to me.

00:33:06Guest:Because you know, she's back home thinking, what did he say?

00:33:09Guest:He comes over, he goes, what do you think?

00:33:11Guest:What do you think?

00:33:12Guest:I said, Joey, I'm flattered, first of all.

00:33:17Guest:But it's not really, I'm really trying to get into comedy.

00:33:20Guest:I'm trying to focus on that.

00:33:23Guest:I can't knock up your wife right now.

00:33:25Guest:He said, come on, come on.

00:33:27Guest:I said, okay.

00:33:28Guest:Because I can't say no.

00:33:30Guest:So I got a 22-year-old somewhere.

00:33:32Guest:No.

00:33:32Guest:No, no, I'm kidding.

00:33:34Guest:You were able to say no on that one, huh?

00:33:36Guest:Yeah, I did say no on that one.

00:33:37Marc:Did he up the ante?

00:33:38Marc:Did he say like 50 bucks?

00:33:40Guest:No, he didn't.

00:33:40Guest:I should have got my agent involved.

00:33:42Guest:But yeah, those guys all came from a whole different generation of comedy.

00:33:46Guest:So now you graduate college.

00:33:48Marc:How do you say, I'm going to do this?

00:33:51Guest:Well, like I said, I wanted to get into music.

00:33:53Guest:I loved like Crosby, Stills and Nash and James Taylor, that whole thing.

00:33:56Guest:So you wanted to be a folk singer.

00:33:57Guest:So I wanted to be like in a band like that.

00:33:59Guest:Yeah, sweet music.

00:34:00Guest:Yeah, and it was so hard to like, I would go to all the coffee houses in college and I'd listen to all the music and I'd play with a candle and have a ball of wax all over my fingers, you know, stay there for the whole thing.

00:34:09Guest:Trying to get up the courage.

00:34:10Guest:Yeah, but I wasn't even on the list.

00:34:12Guest:I was just there to watch because I thought I might want to do that.

00:34:14Guest:And I was so nervous about singing in front of people.

00:34:17Guest:It seemed so intimate.

00:34:18Guest:Terrifying.

00:34:19Marc:I feel the same way.

00:34:20Guest:Comedy seemed much easier.

00:34:21Guest:Yeah, me too.

00:34:22Guest:I'm terrified of singing in front of people.

00:34:24Guest:So I remember I was raking leaves once after college.

00:34:27Guest:I was back home, raking leaves, and the radio was on.

00:34:29Guest:I had the radio outside listening to music.

00:34:31Guest:And a report came on that Freddie Prinze died.

00:34:33Guest:And it was a big deal.

00:34:36Guest:And we all knew Freddie Prinze.

00:34:38Guest:And it dawned on me then what an impact comedy has on life, on people.

00:34:43Guest:And I thought, in a sense, I almost thought there was an opening in LA since he died.

00:34:49Guest:So I came out here and...

00:34:50Guest:That's one down.

00:34:52Guest:They probably need somebody.

00:34:53Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:34:54Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:34:54Guest:And I moved to San Diego at first.

00:34:56Guest:I drove my grandfather's old car out here.

00:34:58Guest:It had over 100,000 miles on it.

00:34:59Guest:Back then, that was a lot of miles.

00:35:01Guest:And breezed through LA, stopped, met Bud Friedman, saw the improv, went down to San Diego.

00:35:06Guest:Me and my buddy hung out there.

00:35:08Guest:We got more jobs working.

00:35:08Guest:There's department store Santa Claus is down there.

00:35:11Guest:You met Bud Friedman?

00:35:12Guest:Yeah.

00:35:12Guest:Would you just go by to do an open mic or how that works?

00:35:15Guest:No, we went like in the afternoon.

00:35:16Guest:We stopped in there just to check out the club.

00:35:17Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:35:18Guest:And he was there.

00:35:19Guest:Yeah.

00:35:20Guest:With his monocle?

00:35:21Guest:Yeah.

00:35:21Guest:No, this is before the monocle.

00:35:22Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:35:23Guest:And he was showing me the newspaper clippings on the wall.

00:35:25Marc:What year is that?

00:35:26Marc:It was very nice.

00:35:27Marc:This is 78.

00:35:28Marc:Oh, okay.

00:35:29Marc:So it's like sort of heading into that first boom.

00:35:32Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:35:33Marc:So you go to San Diego?

00:35:34Guest:So I go to San Diego, and my intention is to go back to LA.

00:35:38Guest:My buddy met a girl down in San Diego.

00:35:39Guest:They ended up getting married, still married, two kids.

00:35:42Guest:But I slept on the couch for a little bit.

00:35:45Guest:Then I came, I would go to the comedy store in La Jolla to watch.

00:35:48Guest:And there was two guys there.

00:35:49Guest:I didn't know who was who.

00:35:51Guest:And one of them had a gap between the teeth and the other one had a big chin.

00:35:54Guest:And it was Letterman and Leno.

00:35:55Marc:Oh, okay.

00:35:56Guest:She was sending them down there to do the weekend.

00:35:59Guest:Yeah.

00:36:00Guest:And I would see Johnny Dark down there.

00:36:01Guest:Johnny Dark.

00:36:02Guest:Kip Adada.

00:36:02Guest:Kip.

00:36:03Guest:And I thought, these guys are great, man.

00:36:04Guest:They were great.

00:36:05Guest:And then I would see Robin Williams.

00:36:07Guest:Yeah.

00:36:07Guest:Like at a laugh stop in Newport.

00:36:08Marc:So that place was open all the way back then.

00:36:10Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:36:11Marc:It's so funny that place, like as the years went by and the ivy crawled up the sides of the structure.

00:36:16Marc:Did you see, like a few years ago, I don't remember the last time I did La Jolla, but I went down there.

00:36:22Marc:And it's in the middle of San Diego.

00:36:23Marc:The entire place is covered in ivy.

00:36:26Marc:It was like the earth was trying to take it back.

00:36:30Marc:It was like, how could she franchise the haunted nature

00:36:34Guest:of that fucking place on sunset down to san diego and i'm like you walk into that place and you're like it's just as fucking dark and weird as the other one yeah yeah oh you know you see the you see the mc and you go wow this guy's good yeah this is before you kind of knew about comedy yeah yeah and then the opener would come on you go oh that guy's good oh that's better than the mc and the middle guy come on oh no one's gonna be better than this guy and then the headliner comes out oh my god right it's amazing yeah yeah that's the way it's supposed to work yeah

00:37:01Guest:So after that, Mark, I just went up to L.A.

00:37:03Guest:You know, I slept on some couches for a while.

00:37:05Guest:I got a really cheap apartment with a roommate.

00:37:09Guest:135 bucks a month.

00:37:10Guest:We split it.

00:37:10Guest:Yeah.

00:37:11Guest:Two ways.

00:37:11Guest:67.

00:37:12Guest:Where was it?

00:37:13Guest:It was near Paramount.

00:37:14Guest:Oh, okay.

00:37:15Guest:Yeah, in Hollywood.

00:37:16Guest:What was the other guy doing?

00:37:17Guest:He was, you know, aspiring comic.

00:37:19Guest:What happened to that guy?

00:37:20Guest:He went back to Ohio.

00:37:22Guest:Yeah.

00:37:24Guest:Through the towel in.

00:37:25Guest:Through the towel in, which is commendable.

00:37:26Guest:Some people don't know when to throw it in.

00:37:27Guest:That's for fucking sure.

00:37:29Marc:That's the problem with this business.

00:37:30Marc:You never know.

00:37:30Marc:Who's going to fire you?

00:37:31Marc:You.

00:37:32Marc:And then after a certain point, it becomes a pride thing.

00:37:35Marc:So how do you start?

00:37:36Marc:Where do you go?

00:37:37Guest:Well, you try to come up with your own style.

00:37:39Guest:You don't have that at the beginning because you're emulating.

00:37:41Guest:Everybody's emulating somebody.

00:37:42Guest:Back then, they were emulating either Letterman or Richard Pryor or Woody Allen.

00:37:48Guest:And so you go to open mic nights at the Comedy Store or the Improv?

00:37:54Guest:Potluck Monday.

00:37:55Guest:Yeah, Potluck.

00:37:56Guest:That's what I did.

00:37:56Guest:I had all the open mic club, tried to get a style together.

00:37:59Guest:You were conscious of that?

00:38:01Guest:Yeah.

00:38:01Guest:I worked at the Improv as a bartender.

00:38:03Guest:So I was there at the heyday when people, the room was packed

00:38:06Guest:Robin was coming back from work in 78, 78, 79, 80, around there.

00:38:11Guest:Really?

00:38:11Guest:He had the suspenders on from work in Mindy.

00:38:12Guest:He'd go in and kill it.

00:38:13Guest:You know, Andy Kaufman would go on.

00:38:15Guest:And I'd be watching from like a little peephole up in the office.

00:38:18Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:38:19Guest:And Richard Lewis, destroyed.

00:38:22Marc:You know, all these New Yorkers.

00:38:23Marc:He saw all those guys, yeah.

00:38:24Marc:Jay Leno.

00:38:25Marc:Yeah, they'd been there like two or three years by that point, right?

00:38:28Marc:Those were the established comics.

00:38:30Marc:Yeah.

00:38:30Marc:Right, because I guess the scene really started in earnest, like 74, 75, right?

00:38:35Marc:73, the guy started coming out.

00:38:37Marc:Yeah, I think so.

00:38:38Guest:And then there was the strike, the big strike, which was, I remember being at the improv and somebody coming in and saying, Steve Lubeckin just jumped off the hi-hat.

00:38:47Guest:Oh my God.

00:38:48Guest:Did you know him?

00:38:49Guest:I knew of him.

00:38:51Guest:I saw him.

00:38:52Guest:I watched him.

00:38:53Guest:But Richard Lewis was his best friend.

00:38:56Guest:He was at the club at the time when this guy came in and said it.

00:38:58Guest:And he just freaked out.

00:38:59Guest:He ran out and almost got hit by a car in Melrose.

00:39:02Guest:Oh, my God.

00:39:03Guest:So there was a lot of tension during that time.

00:39:05Guest:Who's working at what club?

00:39:06Guest:Who's striking?

00:39:07Guest:Who's not?

00:39:08Marc:It's funny because I had Jimmy Walker in here.

00:39:13Marc:And, you know, he played both clubs.

00:39:17Marc:And Bud thought, you know, he owed him in the midst.

00:39:20Marc:But, you know, Jimmy was just doing what he was doing.

00:39:23Marc:And he brought up the fact that, you know, it was still not... This was like a couple years ago.

00:39:27Marc:He said, you know, Bud's still mad at me for that.

00:39:29Marc:I'm like, come on.

00:39:30Marc:Come on, right?

00:39:32Marc:And then, like, I had Bud in here.

00:39:33Marc:And sure enough, I said, you have any grudges?

00:39:35Marc:Like, you know, Jimmy Walker.

00:39:39Marc:I was like, unbelievable.

00:39:41Marc:But then there was the fire, right?

00:39:42Marc:Were you there?

00:39:43Guest:I was there that night, yeah.

00:39:44Guest:What the hell happened there?

00:39:45Guest:I was bartending.

00:39:47Guest:Jack Grayman came out of the back showroom.

00:39:49Guest:Jack Grayman?

00:39:49Guest:Yep, a comic.

00:39:50Guest:Yeah, all those pictures in the comedy store, like he put faces to them.

00:39:54Guest:Yeah, I know.

00:39:54Guest:And he looks at me, wide eyes.

00:39:55Guest:He goes, I'm not joking.

00:39:57Guest:I'm not kidding.

00:39:58Guest:The back room is on fire.

00:39:59Guest:The showroom's on fire.

00:40:01Guest:So, you know, we called the fire department came.

00:40:03Guest:We all piled out, and we watched the place burn down in the back.

00:40:06Guest:I don't ever know what happened with that.

00:40:08Guest:There's a lot of different stories about what happened.

00:40:10Guest:It was an arson thing.

00:40:12Marc:An arson done by comics from the comedy store.

00:40:17Guest:I've heard other stories like Vegas.

00:40:19Marc:Oh, really?

00:40:19Marc:Kind of the mob and stuff.

00:40:20Marc:Oh, really?

00:40:21Marc:Yeah, because there was a club there too, but I don't know what the story is.

00:40:24Marc:No one knows.

00:40:24Marc:No.

00:40:25Marc:No.

00:40:25Marc:When did you start coming into your own then?

00:40:27Marc:You're bartending, so you're doing, what, one or two spots a week?

00:40:30Guest:I'm bartending on Sunday Monday nights, the slow nights, and I'm filling in if a comic doesn't show up, that puts me on, which is fun.

00:40:36Guest:So-and-so didn't show up.

00:40:37Guest:Who can go on?

00:40:37Guest:Me.

00:40:38Guest:Yeah.

00:40:39Guest:Yeah.

00:40:39Guest:He's not only a bad bartender, he's a bad comic.

00:40:42Guest:Yeah.

00:40:42Guest:So, yeah, I did that for a while.

00:40:44Guest:I was getting some commercials.

00:40:45Guest:I got an agent.

00:40:46Guest:Did you hang out with Kaufman?

00:40:48No.

00:40:48Guest:I would see him a lot at the improv, and I remember going up to him one night outside the front of the improv, because I was such a fan, and I asked him about TM, Transcendental Meditation, because I knew he was into that.

00:41:02Guest:And I'm telling you, he talked to me for maybe a half hour about it, and I didn't hear a word he said.

00:41:07Guest:I was just looking at his face, looking at the moles on his face, and just examining everything.

00:41:12Marc:Right, and he wasn't in character, and he was just being honest.

00:41:15Guest:Yeah, he was just being very...

00:41:17Guest:Yeah.

00:41:18Guest:That's wild, man.

00:41:19Guest:I think I dated an ex-girlfriend of his for a while.

00:41:22Marc:Because she was his ex-girlfriend?

00:41:24Marc:No, no.

00:41:24Marc:Well, they're around, right?

00:41:27Marc:Yeah.

00:41:27Marc:Yeah, people who are around comedy, you're around comedy.

00:41:29Marc:Yeah.

00:41:30Marc:So when did you meet?

00:41:31Marc:Because I did see you.

00:41:33Marc:I was at the Gary Shandling's memorial.

00:41:35Marc:And it was so sad, but so life-affirming in some odd way.

00:41:41Marc:And your eulogy was so beautiful and so...

00:41:45Marc:and so real and emotional.

00:41:48Marc:Did you plan that?

00:41:54Guest:Well, he died March 24th, and the memorial is April 24th, I believe.

00:42:02Guest:So I had a month to think about what Gary meant to me and the times we had together and what was so special about him and what was so unique and what was so unusual and what was so...

00:42:15Guest:difficult about him.

00:42:16Guest:The whole being of Gary.

00:42:19Guest:So I did plan it and I would be on the road working and I would be looking at old texts and emails from him and thinking about him really because he was a good friend and I lost a good friend.

00:42:34Guest:So, yeah, I put a lot of that together, and I shaped it, and I thought about it, and I thought about how would I get through this, you know, because I'm not good at that stuff.

00:42:46Guest:And so I tried to make it light at times and add a joke, you know, which was also kind of...

00:42:57Guest:you know, talked about the essence of Gary.

00:43:01Guest:Yeah, it was amazing.

00:43:02Guest:He wrote that with me because I would write with him so often on the phone or in person, you know, or from out of town somewhere.

00:43:10Guest:Yeah.

00:43:10Guest:I could just hear him thinking, no, this doesn't flow here.

00:43:13Marc:You know, that doesn't, you know.

00:43:15Marc:Yeah.

00:43:15Guest:And so it was...

00:43:18Guest:It was very powerful.

00:43:20Guest:It was very cathartic for me to be able to have that time and do that and to deliver it.

00:43:26Guest:When did you start hanging out with him?

00:43:29Guest:I don't know the exact time, but it was probably in the early 80s.

00:43:33Guest:Yeah.

00:43:34Guest:Just because we both had the same passion and same desires.

00:43:38Guest:So I'd see him in the comedy clubs.

00:43:39Guest:And you guys are joke guys too.

00:43:40Guest:You write your shit.

00:43:42Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:43:43Guest:It is jokes.

00:43:44Guest:Yeah.

00:43:45Guest:I mean, I don't know what it is now, but I remember coming from doing a college gig a couple years ago, maybe 10 years ago now, and the girl driving me back to the airport, the college kid, she's quiet in the car, and then halfway there she goes, I really enjoyed your act, old school.

00:44:02Guest:Really?

00:44:02Guest:Yeah.

00:44:04Guest:And so I guess they are jokes, but-

00:44:06Marc:I don't say that in a condescending way.

00:44:08Marc:I just mean like we all do jokes.

00:44:10Marc:Yeah.

00:44:11Marc:But there are guys like the one thing that having I talked to Gary in here, you know, and it was it was it was great.

00:44:17Marc:You know, it was very spiritual and thoughtful and as candid as he's willing to get because I didn't know him that well.

00:44:24Marc:But I found myself, you know, really sort of impressed and moved and inspired by him as a person.

00:44:30Marc:And I didn't know him.

00:44:32Marc:You know what I mean?

00:44:32Marc:Like I know I knew his work and I always liked him.

00:44:35Marc:But when I was at the memorial, it was profoundly moving to me to get the portrait of that guy from all you guys and just what was so special about him.

00:44:51Marc:And the reason I talk about jokes and the reason I say it with reverence is that the way that you balance a joke or the way that he balances a joke and how it fits with your personality and the sort of control you execute over it and the risks you take within it, they're very real.

00:45:10Marc:There's a whole craft in place there.

00:45:12Marc:I babble on until something works and then I do it again.

00:45:15Marc:And then I trim it up.

00:45:16Marc:You know what I mean?

00:45:17Marc:There's not much on the paper.

00:45:18Guest:Yeah.

00:45:19Marc:But like, you know, I became very impressed with because I don't know that I thought of him.

00:45:24Marc:Well, I think what really came together for me when when you guys, you know, were were reflecting on his life was that he really did show himself through his jokes.

00:45:35Marc:And I think that when you know, when people say that old school or, you know, you do jokes or stuff that the idea is like there's a distance there.

00:45:42Marc:But the thing I didn't really realize fully about him was that like he's all in it, you know, in his jokes.

00:45:47Marc:Yeah.

00:45:48Guest:And his jokes or his material was always changing because he was always changing in discovery.

00:45:53Guest:Yeah.

00:45:53Guest:And he was always trying to, like he did with his TV shows, always push it.

00:45:58Guest:Yeah.

00:45:59Guest:Try to get to that next level and evolve.

00:46:02Guest:Yeah.

00:46:02Guest:So it was fun to see him with all of his legal pad papers crumbled and scribblings on there mixed in with the Buddhist sayings and things.

00:46:11Guest:Right, right.

00:46:11Guest:And then just...

00:46:13Guest:you know, the chaos of all that.

00:46:15Marc:Well, the struggle to, to sort of, you know, kind of move your ego aside, you know, as a comic, you know, to find some sort of enlightenment when you're, you know, as neurotic as he was.

00:46:28Marc:I mean, that's like, that had to be an ongoing struggle.

00:46:31Guest:Oh yeah.

00:46:32Marc:Yeah.

00:46:34Yeah.

00:46:34Guest:yeah i mean if somebody said gary's crazy yeah you couldn't argue with them right you know you would say yeah yeah he's crazy and he's talented and he's sensitive and yeah yeah but crazy is definitely one of the uh quality characteristics yeah did you guys tour together a lot we did some touring yeah yeah we did a lot of touring um not a lot but we did a couple of tours here and there and we get together on stage a lot the comedy magic club we get on stage together and

00:47:00Guest:Do like a little comedy team thing.

00:47:01Marc:You don't see that much anymore, people playing like that.

00:47:04Marc:Maybe I'm not out enough, but it used to happen at comedy clubs.

00:47:07Guest:Yeah.

00:47:07Guest:I think he liked it because it was spontaneous and impulsive.

00:47:12Guest:And we both had a definite character we were doing.

00:47:16Guest:Yeah.

00:47:17Guest:I would say to him, why do you have to be with the potty mouth all the time?

00:47:19Guest:you know and he would recoil and you know and and he wouldn't he actually liked it because he didn't want to be on stage alone because i guess he was going through a thing where he had stopped doing stand-up for a while and he's trying to get back into it and he felt more secure with me on there with him right and eventually the plan was for me to leave the stage and let him do his act this is like just a few years ago right yeah yeah yeah because i saw him i never go down there

00:47:40Marc:But I saw him once there, the Comedy Magic Club.

00:47:43Marc:He showed up there and it seemed like he was trying to get back in it.

00:47:46Marc:Yeah.

00:47:47Guest:And it was interesting because also he was into boxing.

00:47:49Marc:Yeah.

00:47:50Guest:He had a little boxing gym.

00:47:52Guest:Yeah.

00:47:52Guest:He and Peter Berg leased in Santa Monica.

00:47:55Guest:So he loved boxing.

00:47:56Guest:And he'd get on stage and he'd almost be going through boxing moves as he's doing his delivery.

00:48:01Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:48:02Guest:Yeah.

00:48:02Guest:And then after a while, he would take long pauses on stage.

00:48:10Guest:And because people loved him and knew him, they allowed it.

00:48:13Guest:But I don't know if he was fishing for something or what, or if he was just... Being present.

00:48:18Marc:Trying to be as present and open as possible.

00:48:20Marc:Yeah, that sounds like it might be it.

00:48:24Marc:But also the other thing that I gleaned from everyone talking about him was just how secretly almost in selfless he was in helping people out.

00:48:32Guest:Yeah, and I knew him well, and I didn't know how much involved he was with these philanthropic causes.

00:48:39Marc:And also just comics.

00:48:41Marc:Comics, yeah.

00:48:42Marc:You know, like you needed a little help, a little writing, a little this, hang out, do the basketball game.

00:48:46Marc:The basketball game was famous.

00:48:48Guest:I sent them a script once, an idea, a pilot that I wrote.

00:48:50Guest:Yeah.

00:48:52Guest:With my wife.

00:48:53Guest:And he...

00:48:55Guest:We never really talked about it.

00:48:57Guest:And after he died, it was sitting on his office desk.

00:49:00Guest:This was like two years later.

00:49:03Guest:So it was constantly something that was on his mind, I think, and him wanting to get to it.

00:49:07Guest:And just never got to it?

00:49:09Guest:Either he got to it and he didn't like it and didn't want to tell me.

00:49:13Marc:Maybe it's better off if you don't know.

00:49:15Guest:Yes, yes.

00:49:16Guest:But just that it was still on the table made me happy.

00:49:21Marc:Oh, that's nice.

00:49:21Marc:Well, I'm sorry you lost your friend.

00:49:23Marc:Thank you.

00:49:23Marc:It was a horrible thing.

00:49:24Marc:Thank you.

00:49:24Marc:So how does SNL happen?

00:49:27Marc:Before I forget, I was a guest on The Conspiracy Zone, you know that.

00:49:33Marc:Were you really?

00:49:34Marc:I was.

00:49:35Marc:Which episode?

00:49:37Marc:it was so weird man like that was like 2002 and i got you know it was like that you know and i was sort of like into conspiracies kind of but i you know i it was it was kind of a vague show in a way it was yeah and you know it was like i think there was a panel of people and you had certain i hosted it and we had a panel of uh experts quote unquote yeah on the topic yeah and uh like we did one uh did we really land on the moon

00:50:02Guest:Yeah, right.

00:50:03Guest:And we tried to get Buzz Aldrin.

00:50:05Guest:Yeah.

00:50:05Guest:And he called me at home.

00:50:07Guest:He goes, I'm just not going to validate any of this by doing that.

00:50:11Guest:I appreciate you wanting me on the show, but I just thank you, but no thank you.

00:50:15Marc:He was aware of the conspiracy theory.

00:50:17Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:50:18Marc:I was on, oddly, I was nervous about it, and I was on with Ann Coulter.

00:50:23Marc:She was on too, huh?

00:50:25Marc:Yeah.

00:50:26Marc:And at that time, which showed you how naive I was about politics and the whole world.

00:50:32Marc:I was so self-consumed or whatever because a couple years later I got very involved in politics.

00:50:36Marc:But I had no idea who she was.

00:50:39Marc:I probably didn't either.

00:50:41Marc:Yeah.

00:50:41Marc:Well, you have a booker, right?

00:50:43Marc:Yeah.

00:50:43Marc:And I kind of knew you, and you kind of knew me, but I don't remember what I said or what we were talking about, but I was booked on that show, and I did it.

00:50:51Marc:I don't know if anyone saw it.

00:50:52Guest:That was Scott Carter who created that show.

00:50:54Marc:That was it.

00:50:54Marc:Scott Carter.

00:50:55Guest:From Bill Marshall.

00:50:56Guest:Yeah, from Politically Incorrect.

00:50:57Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:50:58Guest:That's why Coulter was on.

00:50:59Guest:That's right.

00:51:00Guest:That's right.

00:51:00Guest:That would have been it.

00:51:01Guest:Yeah, that kind of came and went, that show.

00:51:03Guest:But it was fun doing it.

00:51:04Guest:Saturday Night Live came.

00:51:07Guest:I was not pursuing Saturday Night Live.

00:51:09Guest:I was a stand-up.

00:51:10Guest:All I wanted to do was stand-up.

00:51:11Guest:And were you doing all right?

00:51:12Guest:I was doing good, yeah.

00:51:13Guest:Yeah, I quit the bartending job.

00:51:14Guest:I was working on the road.

00:51:15Guest:I was doing some commercials.

00:51:16Guest:And that was a big club boom, so there's a lot of clubs.

00:51:19Marc:Yeah.

00:51:19Guest:So you're headlining.

00:51:20Guest:Yeah, because I did The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and that went well.

00:51:23Marc:What year was that?

00:51:24Guest:That was 84.

00:51:26Marc:And who were your friends at that time?

00:51:27Marc:Were you hanging out with Dana?

00:51:30Guest:Well, I still have my answering machine from all my congratulations from my friends, like Gary Shandling.

00:51:35Guest:Oh, really?

00:51:36Guest:Brad Garrett, Paul Reiser, those types of people.

00:51:40Marc:Oh, really?

00:51:40Marc:You have the tape?

00:51:41Guest:I do.

00:51:41Guest:Yeah.

00:51:42Guest:I'm nostalgic.

00:51:43Guest:I save a lot of stuff.

00:51:43Marc:Oh, that's nice.

00:51:44Marc:Yeah.

00:51:44Guest:Yeah.

00:51:45Guest:So Johnny Carson, that kind of came quickly.

00:51:49Guest:A couple years ago.

00:51:50Guest:Got into stand-up in like 78, 79, and that came in 84.

00:51:53Guest:Yeah.

00:51:54Guest:And I auditioned a few times before for Jim McCauley.

00:51:56Guest:Sure.

00:51:56Guest:And it's always nerve-wracking.

00:51:57Guest:Yeah.

00:51:57Guest:And then I never passed.

00:52:01Guest:And then he calls and he says, hey, Mike Nesmith from the Monkees is doing a show.

00:52:05Guest:And he will put you on the bill too, see if you could pass, see if you could be on the show.

00:52:12Guest:So I said, I'm gonna do what I think is funny and not do what I think Johnny Carson will like.

00:52:16Guest:And I did that and he calls me the next day.

00:52:18Guest:He goes, hey, the bad news is you're not doing the Mike Nesmith show.

00:52:21Guest:The good news is you're doing the Tonight Show if you'd like.

00:52:23Guest:So it happened very quickly.

00:52:24Guest:and and it meant something it meant something i mean that was the show it was the only show right and johnny carson yeah and um now you don't even really put it on your resume because it dates you you know yeah but but but at that time you do it and everyone watches so you it ups your your your crowds right you you start people want to see you at the club i had met this guy mike brown he's still a good friend of mine my best friend

00:52:49Guest:And he and I meshed together.

00:52:52Guest:He wasn't even a comedy writer.

00:52:53Guest:He worked for UPS.

00:52:54Guest:Yeah.

00:52:55Guest:And we just hit it off, and we started writing stuff together.

00:52:58Guest:And that's kind of ultimately what got me on The Tonight Show.

00:53:01Guest:And I'm going over my five-minute act in my head.

00:53:04Guest:You know how you do it before you go?

00:53:05Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:53:06Guest:And this is huge.

00:53:06Guest:I've never done a big TV show like this before.

00:53:09Guest:And I'm going over it.

00:53:11Guest:Because three days later, I'm going to do it.

00:53:12Guest:Yeah.

00:53:13Guest:And you could be talking to me now, and I'd be nodding.

00:53:15Guest:You think I'm listening, but really, I'm going over my act.

00:53:17Guest:Sure.

00:53:17Guest:Yeah.

00:53:18Guest:I get to the Tonight Show.

00:53:19Guest:I had been there before.

00:53:20Guest:When I first moved out here, I would go all the time to the Tonight Show because it was free tickets.

00:53:23Guest:It was like a Vegas show.

00:53:24Guest:So you'd go watch?

00:53:25Guest:I would go watch.

00:53:26Guest:You did a lot of watching before you did something.

00:53:28Marc:A lot of watching.

00:53:28Marc:Yeah.

00:53:29Guest:A lot of pacing.

00:53:30Guest:And so I'm behind the curtain.

00:53:32Guest:Jim McCauley's there and the band's playing.

00:53:33Guest:I know the band.

00:53:34Guest:I know everybody in the band because I've watched them so many times.

00:53:36Guest:I know where Johnny's sitting.

00:53:38Guest:And the band stops.

00:53:39Guest:I'm going over my act in my head.

00:53:41Guest:And Johnny introduces me.

00:53:42Guest:The curtains open up.

00:53:43Guest:A crowd applause.

00:53:44Guest:I go blank.

00:53:45Guest:I cannot think of my act.

00:53:47Guest:I swear to God, I cannot think of my act, which has been a current nightmare for me over the years.

00:53:53Guest:Oh, how could that go away?

00:53:54Guest:And I get out to my mark, and they're applauding still, and I'm trying to remember my opening line, and applause subside, and it comes into my head, and I start, and I'm getting laughs, and applauses, and laughs, and I can't believe it, and Johnny behind me, I could hear him laughing, and Ed McMahon.

00:54:12Guest:And I'm out on the floor now.

00:54:13Guest:I'm doing what I've watched so many people do, even from the improv, watching the other comics on the TV set.

00:54:21Guest:And I do it, and I finish, and I go back behind the curtain.

00:54:26Guest:Johnny gives me the okay thing.

00:54:27Guest:I go behind the curtain.

00:54:29Guest:I'm so happy.

00:54:30Guest:I'm so relieved.

00:54:31Guest:And Jim McCauley goes, okay, great job.

00:54:33Guest:Hang here.

00:54:34Guest:I think Johnny's going to want you to come out and talk to you after the commercial.

00:54:37Guest:And I said, what?

00:54:38Guest:Yeah.

00:54:38Guest:He goes, yeah, what can we talk about?

00:54:40Guest:He goes, oh, you'll do fine.

00:54:41Guest:Just go out there.

00:54:41Guest:So I go out there and bam, more jokes, bam.

00:54:44Guest:And it's like the prize fight that I always wanted.

00:54:47Guest:It was like my dream come true.

00:54:48Guest:And to this day, it's the highlight of my over Saturday Night Live or Weeds or anything like that.

00:54:52Guest:That was the highlight of my career.

00:54:54Guest:And then I went to my friend Mike's house and watched it with him and his wife, Anita.

00:55:00Guest:And I knew everybody was at the Improv watching it.

00:55:03Guest:And the place just was quiet there.

00:55:06Guest:People tell me, quiet.

00:55:07Guest:And everybody just applauded afterwards.

00:55:08Guest:And it was like the biggest thing.

00:55:11Guest:To this day, I'm still floating on air.

00:55:14Guest:And between the time I taped it and before it aired that night, I was praying there wouldn't be some disaster over there preempting.

00:55:22Marc:That's an amazing experience.

00:55:24Marc:It was.

00:55:24Marc:An amazing story.

00:55:25Marc:It was totally cool.

00:55:26Guest:The electricity of it because like, and it was Johnny.

00:55:31Guest:It was Johnny Carson.

00:55:32Guest:And he, in between, you know, in the commercials, he's smoking the cigarette.

00:55:34Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:55:35Guest:And, you know, I picked the video of him throwing his head back laughing at a joke, you know?

00:55:39Marc:Yeah.

00:55:40Guest:It was just, it was just everything I dreamt of.

00:55:43Guest:Oh, it's so good that that worked out for you.

00:55:45Marc:And also that there was that moment where it went away.

00:55:48Marc:It went away.

00:55:49Guest:It went away.

00:55:51Guest:Oh, man.

00:55:52Guest:I remember I did one of the subsequent spots I did on there.

00:55:58Guest:You know, I approved it all with Jim McCauley.

00:55:59Guest:Yeah.

00:56:00Guest:And I go out there and I said, you know, I'm getting ready for the holidays.

00:56:02Guest:I'm doing a lot of drinking and driving.

00:56:04Guest:Yeah.

00:56:05Guest:And I didn't know that Johnny had a DUI.

00:56:07Guest:You know, he's like a famous DUI or something.

00:56:09Guest:Right.

00:56:09Guest:And Jim McCauley after goes, hey, where did that joke come from?

00:56:12Guest:I said, that was always the first joke.

00:56:13Guest:He goes, no, I never proved that.

00:56:16Guest:So they grobled it when they aired it.

00:56:17Guest:Oh, they did?

00:56:18Guest:And I come out, I go, how's it going, everybody?

00:56:19Guest:Well, I'm getting ready for... No.

00:56:22Guest:Yeah.

00:56:23Guest:And I don't think I ever did the show again after that.

00:56:25Guest:Really?

00:56:25Guest:Yeah.

00:56:25Guest:But it doesn't matter because the first one I did, I've only done maybe eight of them.

00:56:29Guest:I don't know.

00:56:29Guest:Maybe four.

00:56:30Marc:I don't know.

00:56:30Guest:Four, yeah.

00:56:31Guest:But then I did a lot with Jay and Shanling and Joel Rivers.

00:56:34Marc:Oh, you did a lot.

00:56:35Marc:Yeah.

00:56:35Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, I remember the first Letterman because Letterman was more my generation's guy.

00:56:40Marc:You know, I mean, I love Johnny, but he was gone before I, you know, before the, like, that ended before I had a show.

00:56:47Guest:That was the race, too.

00:56:48Guest:That was the chase to get on before he left.

00:56:50Guest:Yeah.

00:56:50Guest:So there was a ticking clock, too.

00:56:51Marc:Right.

00:56:52Marc:Yeah.

00:56:53Marc:But, like, doing Letterman the first time was mind-blowing.

00:56:55Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:56:56Marc:That's a good one, too.

00:56:56Marc:Yeah, but it took, like, years before I talked to him.

00:56:59Marc:You know, like where I sat.

00:57:00Marc:I actually did an all panel one with him, you know.

00:57:04Marc:And it was that feeling of like, because that was always really the grail as a comic.

00:57:10Marc:It wasn't really getting a TV show or any of that for me.

00:57:14Marc:It was like, you want to do that, you want to go be a comic.

00:57:17Marc:Yeah.

00:57:18Marc:On the TV, you know.

00:57:19Marc:That's what you're aiming for.

00:57:21Marc:Yeah, that's the grail.

00:57:22Marc:Like, you know, it really meant something to do Letterman.

00:57:24Marc:You know, like I'd have friends who did it and be like, ah, fuck, when am I going to do Letterman, you know.

00:57:28Marc:I know.

00:57:29Marc:So how did SNL happen?

00:57:33Guest:I was living in a house in the Hollywood Hills.

00:57:35Guest:And then Dana Carvey would rent the room over the garage when he was in town.

00:57:39Guest:There's a little apartment, a studio apartment over the garage.

00:57:42Guest:And I knew Dana from the stand-up clubs.

00:57:43Guest:Yeah.

00:57:44Guest:And I was dating Jan Hooks at the time.

00:57:47Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:57:47Guest:I had known Jan Hooks for seven years.

00:57:50Guest:Always was attracted to her.

00:57:51Guest:We became really good friends.

00:57:53Guest:But she was always dating somebody else.

00:57:54Guest:Right.

00:57:55Guest:But ultimately, we ended up dating.

00:57:56Guest:Yeah.

00:57:57Guest:That year that Dana got, that summer that he got,

00:57:59Guest:And Jan was up for it.

00:58:02Guest:And I was excited for them both.

00:58:03Guest:I was reading Backstage Live, Saturday Night Live, the original years.

00:58:06Guest:And I was excited.

00:58:09Guest:Never thinking that I would even be considered for it.

00:58:11Guest:You don't have a high power agent to get you a showcase even.

00:58:14Guest:And so I get a call from Dana that summer.

00:58:18Guest:He goes, Kev, I'm out at Lorne Michaels' house.

00:58:20Guest:I'm in the back bedroom.

00:58:21Guest:Guess who's in the kitchen?

00:58:22Guest:Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.

00:58:23Guest:I said, you're kidding me.

00:58:24Guest:No.

00:58:25Guest:Anyway, I told Lorne about you.

00:58:26Guest:They're looking for another cast member.

00:58:27Guest:I told him he might want to see your videos.

00:58:29Guest:I said, Bill Murray's in the kitchen with Dan Aykroyd?

00:58:31Guest:He goes, yeah.

00:58:33Guest:And he goes, I got to go.

00:58:34Guest:Somebody's coming.

00:58:36Guest:So I sent him my tapes thinking nothing's going to happen.

00:58:38Guest:Right, right.

00:58:38Guest:What kind of tapes, though?

00:58:39Guest:It was a stand-up from The Tonight Show and things like that.

00:58:42Guest:I sent it in.

00:58:43Guest:I don't think I'll hear back.

00:58:44Guest:Two weeks later, Dana calls me back.

00:58:45Guest:I'm back out of Lorne Michaels' house.

00:58:47Guest:Guess who's in the kitchen?

00:58:48Guest:Steve Martin.

00:58:49Guest:I said, no way.

00:58:50Guest:Anyway, Lorne likes your tapes.

00:58:51Guest:I think they're going to fly you in for an audition.

00:58:53Guest:I said, Steve Martin's in the kitchen.

00:58:54Guest:I said, yeah.

00:58:55Guest:i gotta go somebody's coming and uh so now i'm in the mix so they're gonna fly me in and i fly into new york thinking it's just a free trip to new york i'm not gonna get anything from it you know i'm a stand-up i don't get characters or skipses and everybody else is on the plane is going in for that one role too yeah yeah yeah yeah never easy even the pilot comes out of the cockpit hey you think this is funny for my audition

00:59:17Guest:and uh he so i get there and everybody's nervous sweating i'm having a good time i'm i'm excited here's 30 rock oh wow this is cool you know and they call me and i do my little audition i do some stand-up and i do you know dane and i worked on a few characters like in the driveway of our house we would kind of jam on different ideas so they're loosely loose characters you know yeah and um so i flew back to la thinking i'll never hear back

00:59:41Guest:And next thing I know, I'm meeting with Lorne Michaels at some high-rise in Century City.

00:59:45Guest:He's offered me a job on SNL.

00:59:47Guest:You know, he talked for about an hour about the show and what I would be doing.

00:59:51Guest:And he excused himself to go to the restroom.

00:59:53Guest:Brad Gray was my manager at the time.

00:59:55Guest:Right.

00:59:55Guest:And also his manager.

00:59:56Guest:And he goes, here's what we should tell him.

00:59:58Guest:Tell him you think about it over the weekend.

01:00:00Guest:You know?

01:00:01Guest:And I'm thinking, are you crazy?

01:00:03Guest:Yeah.

01:00:03Guest:So it was almost timing, like they had it planned.

01:00:05Guest:And then Lauren comes back and he sits down and, well, what do you think?

01:00:09Guest:I said, well, let me think about it over the weekend.

01:00:11Guest:And he looks at me and goes, well, you think about it over the weekend and we'll see you in New York on Monday.

01:00:17Guest:So I'm out of Lauren Michaels' house, you know, and then I got a call from Dana.

01:00:20Guest:Kev, I'm in the back bedroom.

01:00:22Guest:Guess who's in the kitchen?

01:00:23Guest:I said, I am, motherfucker.

01:00:24Guest:I'm in the kitchen now.

01:00:25Guest:I'm in the kitchen.

01:00:29Guest:That was it.

01:00:30Guest:That was it, yeah.

01:00:31Guest:And then Jan got hired on the show, and it was an interesting run.

01:00:35Guest:How long?

01:00:36Guest:Was it like six years?

01:00:37Guest:I was on for eight years.

01:00:38Guest:Wow.

01:00:39Guest:Yeah, I've been really lucky.

01:00:40Guest:I've had really good long runs.

01:00:42Guest:SNL, Weeds was for eight years.

01:00:44Guest:Yeah.

01:00:44Guest:And now I'm on a new show that hopefully will be running for a long time.

01:00:48Guest:What's it called?

01:00:48Guest:It's called Man With a Plan.

01:00:50Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:00:50Guest:That's what you're here to promote.

01:00:51Guest:Well, not necessarily.

01:00:52Guest:No, I know.

01:00:53Guest:But it's Monday nights at 8.30.

01:00:54Marc:Oh, good.

01:00:55Marc:We got that in.

01:00:57Marc:No, but with SNL, was he thinking of you for update?

01:01:01Marc:I mean, was that the slot?

01:01:02Marc:I think he might have been.

01:01:04Guest:Dennis was doing it at the time, and he was doing well.

01:01:06Guest:But I think if the day ever came that Dennis was leaving, that he thought...

01:01:10Guest:Dana told me that Dinah Minot, who worked for Lorne at the time, one of the producers, said, Dana, do you know any Chevy Chase types?

01:01:19Guest:Like, we need a tall guy.

01:01:20Guest:And Dana goes, well, I actually know this guy, Kevin Nealon.

01:01:23Guest:He's tall and funny.

01:01:24Guest:So maybe that had something to do with it.

01:01:26Marc:Right.

01:01:27Marc:What were you doing initially?

01:01:29Marc:You did a few characters?

01:01:30Guest:Well, I did Mr. Subliminal.

01:01:32Guest:Oh, that's right.

01:01:32Guest:Because I was doing that in my act.

01:01:33Guest:Yeah.

01:01:34Guest:And I went to school for that.

01:01:35Guest:And then Al Franken and I kind of came together and wrote the advertising guy.

01:01:39Guest:Yeah.

01:01:40Guest:And that was it.

01:01:41Guest:And then the next year, Dane and I came up with the Hans and Franz characters.

01:01:45Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:01:45Guest:But I was more the everyday guy.

01:01:48Guest:I wasn't big on characters.

01:01:50Guest:I never did characters.

01:01:51Guest:Right.

01:01:51Guest:Anything I did, like if it was Brent Musburger or somebody, it was just because somebody came up with it.

01:01:55Guest:I looked like the maybe.

01:01:56Guest:Yeah.

01:01:57Guest:You know, if I pull my eyes down a little bit.

01:01:58Guest:But you can do voices and stuff.

01:01:59Guest:I can do voices, yeah.

01:02:00Yeah.

01:02:00Guest:In fact, I wanted to be an impressionist originally, but then I thought, I want people to do impressions of me, not me to do impressions of other people.

01:02:08Guest:Yeah, I liked your update.

01:02:10Guest:I was on board.

01:02:12Guest:I look at it now, and I think, yeah, I would do it differently now.

01:02:15Guest:You do?

01:02:15Guest:Back then, I liked the way Chevy Chase did it, so I try to keep it kind of real, dry.

01:02:19Guest:Yeah, dry.

01:02:20Guest:Yeah.

01:02:21Guest:But I look back now and I kind of cringe.

01:02:23Guest:But, you know, at the time, that's what I chose.

01:02:26Guest:The jokes were good.

01:02:27Guest:Jokes were good.

01:02:27Guest:I wrote them all.

01:02:28Marc:I had people faxing me jokes.

01:02:30Marc:I think that's why I liked it because I knew it was you.

01:02:32Marc:You know, Dennis wasn't even trying to do a newscast.

01:02:35Marc:Right, right.

01:02:36Marc:You know, but you were honoring...

01:02:38Marc:the format exactly and and you know you knew what you could do comedically and you know you kind of made it your own in a way but honored the original idea yeah i'm a newscaster yeah that's it i'm a straight you know dry newscaster yeah yeah yeah there's the news yeah that's news to me that's right that's funny who is like you went through a lot there were a lot of guys around you i mean you do a lot of sandler movies so i assume you're close to sandler well sandler i met on snl yeah actually i met him at the uh

01:03:05Guest:A comedy club in New York.

01:03:07Guest:Yeah.

01:03:08Guest:Comic strip or the improv?

01:03:10Guest:It was a comic strip.

01:03:11Guest:Yeah.

01:03:11Guest:That makes sense.

01:03:12Guest:Yeah.

01:03:13Guest:And he was a young kid at the time.

01:03:16Guest:And we're walking back to the Catch a Rising Star at another club.

01:03:18Guest:And he knows I'm on SNL.

01:03:20Guest:He's excited.

01:03:21Guest:He went back and told all his roommates at NYU that he hung out with me and all that stuff.

01:03:25Guest:Yeah.

01:03:25Guest:And then ultimately he gets on the show and he does Weekend Update a lot when I'm doing Weekend Update.

01:03:30Guest:And I'm open to him doing whatever he wants to do.

01:03:33Guest:Opera man.

01:03:33Guest:Opera man, red-headed sweatshirt.

01:03:35Guest:And so he's very grateful, I guess, about that.

01:03:38Guest:And we become buddies.

01:03:39Guest:And he's kind of loyal in that way.

01:03:41Guest:He uses the same kind of group of guys on a lot of his films.

01:03:44Guest:And it was interesting because I was watching this.

01:03:47Guest:You ever see Charlie Chaplin, Untold?

01:03:49Guest:I think it's called Untold Chaplin.

01:03:51Guest:Something like that.

01:03:52Guest:He always burned all of his cuts, you know, his edits.

01:03:56Guest:Yeah.

01:03:56Guest:His guy burned them all.

01:03:58Guest:But apparently his editor didn't burn them all.

01:04:00Guest:And they put together this string.

01:04:02Guest:It's Unknown Chaplin.

01:04:02Guest:That's what it's called.

01:04:04Guest:And he put together this thing, DVD.

01:04:07Guest:And it shows how he works on all his films and how the pain and how long it takes to get him in.

01:04:14Guest:Maybe it starts with a fountain in the lobby of the hotel.

01:04:16Guest:Yeah.

01:04:16Guest:And then they get rid of that because it's not working.

01:04:18Guest:They put a staircase there.

01:04:21Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:04:22Guest:Or an escalator.

01:04:23Guest:And it was really interesting to watch that.

01:04:25Guest:But I noticed that he used a lot of the same actors in all of his films.

01:04:28Guest:Sure.

01:04:29Guest:So I guess, you know, it's kind of.

01:04:30Marc:Well, no, I think ensembles are good.

01:04:32Marc:You get to know people and also I think people who watch the movies are happy to see everybody.

01:04:37Marc:Yeah, yeah, you're familiar with them.

01:04:39Marc:And I know Steve directed a couple you were in.

01:04:41Marc:Steve did, yeah.

01:04:42Marc:When you had the boobs on your head.

01:04:44Marc:Little Nicky.

01:04:44Marc:Yeah.

01:04:44Marc:Yep, Little Nicky.

01:04:45Marc:Odd movie.

01:04:46Guest:The weirdest Sandler movie, I think.

01:04:48Guest:That was, and that one, I guess, didn't do that well for the Sandman, but he did what he wanted to do.

01:04:53Guest:You know what I mean?

01:04:54Guest:Yeah.

01:04:54Guest:And that's the great thing about Sandler.

01:04:58Guest:He does what he thinks is funny.

01:05:00Guest:And most of them work all the time.

01:05:03Guest:And are you friends with Spade and everybody?

01:05:05Guest:Yep, Spade.

01:05:06Guest:I see Dane a lot.

01:05:09Marc:I just had Eugene Levy in here.

01:05:10Marc:He lives out by you.

01:05:10Guest:Oh, I love Eugene.

01:05:11Guest:Yeah.

01:05:12Guest:Yeah, we did a sitcom together once.

01:05:13Guest:Which one?

01:05:14Guest:It was called Hiller and Diller with Richard Lewis.

01:05:16Guest:Me and Richard Lewis and Eugene Levy.

01:05:19Guest:And he's great, man.

01:05:21Guest:I love him.

01:05:22Guest:Don't go golfing with him.

01:05:23Guest:No?

01:05:24Guest:It takes him forever to hit the ball.

01:05:25Guest:Eugene, he gets out of the car and goes, interesting.

01:05:28Guest:Let's see.

01:05:31Guest:Yeah.

01:05:32Guest:Yeah.

01:05:32Guest:Okay.

01:05:35Guest:No, not that one.

01:05:38Marc:You're like, geez, come on.

01:05:40Marc:You play a lot of golf?

01:05:41Guest:I don't play a lot of golf.

01:05:42Guest:I play like once a year, and I'm not good.

01:05:46Guest:But I do one tournament in the summer, and it's called the American Century Championship.

01:05:52Guest:It's on NBC.

01:05:53Guest:Yeah.

01:05:53Guest:A lot of athletes play.

01:05:54Guest:Yeah.

01:05:55Marc:Charity.

01:05:56Guest:Aaron Rodgers.

01:05:56Guest:A lot of charity stuff, yeah.

01:05:58Guest:And it's on camera.

01:05:59Guest:And it took me like, I've been playing that for like 12, 13 years now.

01:06:01Marc:Yeah.

01:06:02Guest:In the first six years, I was a nervous wreck.

01:06:04Guest:Now it doesn't matter, you know.

01:06:07Marc:Oh, wait.

01:06:08Marc:Oh, thank God.

01:06:10Marc:I hate when I get like a text, you know, on here.

01:06:14Marc:I am in the middle of a conversation and it's like an issue.

01:06:17Marc:It wasn't a major issue.

01:06:19Marc:Nothing for you to be concerned about.

01:06:20Marc:I was still 100% present.

01:06:22Marc:I maybe missed 20 seconds.

01:06:24Guest:Yeah.

01:06:24Marc:I'm just telling you that.

01:06:25Marc:No, I know.

01:06:25Guest:I didn't know those 20 seconds.

01:06:27Marc:You did?

01:06:27Guest:Yeah.

01:06:28Marc:You felt it?

01:06:29Guest:Yeah.

01:06:29Guest:When was it?

01:06:31Guest:I said something funny and you didn't hear it.

01:06:33Guest:Oh.

01:06:33Guest:So I did the laugh.

01:06:34Guest:I did a little courtesy laugh for myself.

01:06:39Marc:Well, I apologize.

01:06:40Marc:That's not like me.

01:06:40Marc:No, that's all right.

01:06:42Guest:Oh.

01:06:42Guest:I remember pitching an idea at once to a producer.

01:06:44Guest:Yeah.

01:06:46Guest:And I would look down at my notes.

01:06:47Guest:And every time I looked up, I would catch him watching the game behind me on the TV with the sound off.

01:06:52Guest:Yeah.

01:06:54Marc:I had a guy, I went to a meeting with an agent once when I was looking for an agent, and the guy had just gotten a Casio address book phone when they were popular.

01:07:02Marc:Literally spent a half an hour telling me about the phone.

01:07:06Marc:Did not ask me any questions.

01:07:09Marc:I felt when I left, I get one, I think.

01:07:11Marc:I'm going to have to get one.

01:07:15Guest:It's horrible going into those things.

01:07:16Guest:I remember one guy, I was reading lines.

01:07:19Guest:yeah for a part yeah he started laughing he got into a laughing fit we couldn't stop laughing and at first i thought it was kind of funny you know and maybe he was laughing at the way i did something yeah yeah and then i realized he was kind of laughing at the situation that i was there reading probably for him and i was bad right now it's his job laughing for the wrong reason yeah yeah and then i i he just i i he said i'm sorry i'm sorry

01:07:43Guest:I said, okay, well, it was nice meeting you.

01:07:46Guest:And I left.

01:07:47Guest:I could hear him laughing as I left.

01:07:49Marc:My friend Jerry has a story about going into pitch, and he's pitching to the guy, and the guy's distracted and seems upset.

01:07:54Marc:And there's a pause, and I guess the guy says, yeah, I'm sorry, my mother passed away today.

01:08:00Marc:And Jerry's like, okay.

01:08:02Marc:He goes, but go ahead.

01:08:03Marc:Go ahead.

01:08:09Marc:Just horrible moments in show business.

01:08:12Marc:Oh, man.

01:08:13Guest:It is the worst.

01:08:14Marc:But you see, like, you know, you always work and you're always engaged and, you know, you do work outside the box and you're not afraid to, you know, I didn't see Weeds.

01:08:22Marc:I'm sorry.

01:08:23Marc:You would have loved it.

01:08:24Marc:I'm going to watch it.

01:08:25Guest:I tell Howard Stern the same thing.

01:08:26Guest:He's never seen it.

01:08:27Marc:I said, you and Marc Maron would have loved Weeds.

01:08:29Marc:I was on the show once with Howard.

01:08:31Marc:Were you?

01:08:31Marc:It was a big deal.

01:08:32Marc:It was another one of those big deals.

01:08:33Marc:Because, like, I didn't grow up with Howard, but, like, I know, like, on some level, we do a similar thing.

01:08:38Marc:And, you know, I was always intimidated by Howard.

01:08:40Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:08:41Marc:And, you know, I finally got an opportunity to do the show.

01:08:43Marc:Yeah.

01:08:44Marc:And, you know, he'd be shitting on podcasts and whatever.

01:08:46Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:08:46Marc:And he doesn't want to acknowledge that they exist.

01:08:47Marc:That's fine.

01:08:48Marc:I just wanted to have the Howard experience.

01:08:50Marc:And it was funny because it was one of these, like, I was nervous.

01:08:52Marc:I'm like, what's he going to find on me?

01:08:54Marc:Yeah.

01:08:54Marc:Oh, totally.

01:08:55Marc:Yeah.

01:08:55Marc:What's he coming at me with?

01:08:56Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:08:57Marc:And I was nervous, and I was sitting there, and I'm watching the TV, and I'm sitting there waiting, and they have the screen of Howard on break in there, and I just see him in there, he doesn't have his sunglasses on, and he's eating cantaloupe out of a bowl, and I'm like, that's just a Jew eating cantaloupe.

01:09:12Marc:I can handle this.

01:09:13Marc:Yeah.

01:09:14Marc:What am I afraid of?

01:09:15Marc:And I go in there and they do, they try to, you know, to fuck with your head.

01:09:19Marc:Like, you walk in and all of a sudden you have headphones on and you're in it.

01:09:23Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:09:23Marc:Like, you know, I'm on to that trick.

01:09:25Guest:I'm not going to throw me.

01:09:27Guest:Well, I woke up maybe three years ago and I said, I want to do things that excite me, that scare me a little bit.

01:09:34Guest:Yeah.

01:09:34Guest:You know, I'm tired of just playing the game that I know.

01:09:37Guest:Right.

01:09:38Guest:And one of the things was doing the Howard Stern show and the other one was the Bill Maher show, real time.

01:09:41Guest:Because I'm not that...

01:09:42Guest:politically uh i'm not a political junkie or anything yeah and i did both of those shows several times and it was great i had great it was so exhilarating well bill likes you and he knows you it's fun yeah you know what i mean but howard i didn't know yeah i went in there and he was it couldn't have been i think he likes comics yeah oh he definitely does like a lot of my friends used to do it and i was always upset i couldn't do it and then when i walked in there worried about what he was going to have i know you anticipate everything i had answers for everything didn't have to use any of all yeah all he said was like so i hear you're an asshole and i'm like oh okay this is easy

01:10:12Marc:sure i can do that i can answer to the asshole thing and it was fine it was you know it was good i'd like to go back but do you feel that same way about acting like when you do something like weeds well i've been really lucky because i've had a lot of you know i've been able to write yeah as a job i've been able to act in a lot of different i've done single camera weeds yeah live tv yeah saturday live and now i'm doing a multiple camera

01:10:37Guest:And movies with Sandler.

01:10:39Guest:So my career has always been kind of interesting for me.

01:10:44Guest:I didn't get caught in one rut.

01:10:45Guest:And I have the stand-up that I do.

01:10:47Guest:You still go out a lot?

01:10:48Guest:Yeah.

01:10:49Guest:Yeah?

01:10:49Guest:Yeah.

01:10:50Guest:Where do you play?

01:10:51Guest:Well, I'll be at the Comedy Works in Denver.

01:10:53Marc:I love that place.

01:10:54Guest:March 24th and 25th.

01:10:54Marc:That place is almost too good.

01:10:56Marc:March 24th and 25th is the comedy work.

01:10:58Marc:So it's a great place to work stuff out, but you can't trust it because the room is so hot.

01:11:02Marc:It is hot.

01:11:02Marc:I filmed a special there.

01:11:04Marc:You did?

01:11:04Guest:Yeah.

01:11:04Guest:So in that sense, I've been kind of lucky.

01:11:06Guest:I've done a lot of things that keep me interested.

01:11:08Guest:So what's the man with the plan?

01:11:09Guest:Did you create it?

01:11:11Guest:No, I didn't.

01:11:12Guest:Don't get angry.

01:11:14Guest:This is a plan.

01:11:16Guest:Is this the new Angry Kevin?

01:11:17Guest:I've created a couple other shows that didn't go.

01:11:19Guest:Which ones?

01:11:20Guest:Well, you don't know them.

01:11:21Guest:One was called Stays in Vegas.

01:11:24Marc:Yeah.

01:11:24Guest:And the other one was called The Pleaser.

01:11:27Guest:How far did they get?

01:11:28Guest:Well, we got them to studios, Warner Brothers and Fox.

01:11:31Guest:You didn't shoot either?

01:11:32Guest:Didn't shoot them, no.

01:11:33Guest:They didn't sell them to a network.

01:11:34Guest:The Pleaser would be about you and your people pleasing?

01:11:36Guest:Yeah.

01:11:37Guest:Oh.

01:11:37Guest:Pretty much.

01:11:38Guest:Which we turned into a film.

01:11:39Guest:Yeah?

01:11:40Guest:And now we're looking for investors to shoot that.

01:11:41Guest:Oh, it's an outreach today.

01:11:44Guest:Maybe someone's listening.

01:11:45Guest:Be like, I'm ready.

01:11:46Guest:Brillstein Entertainment Partners.

01:11:47Marc:Yeah?

01:11:48Guest:Yeah.

01:11:49Guest:You're still with them.

01:11:50Guest:Yeah.

01:11:50Marc:Okay.

01:11:51Guest:So anyway, I've done those two.

01:11:53Guest:But Man with a Plan is, I was just doing stand-up.

01:11:56Guest:I was writing this film, The Pleaser.

01:12:01Guest:And then my agent sent me the script.

01:12:03Guest:They said, you have a chemistry meeting with Matt LeBlanc if you'd like to do this show.

01:12:08Guest:So they sent me the script and I read it.

01:12:09Guest:A chemistry meeting where you just sit there like see if you hit it off with the guy.

01:12:16Guest:It's a nice way of saying audition to someone who's been in the business for a while and they don't want to insult you.

01:12:23Guest:But it does mean you're going to be reading with the primary.

01:12:25Marc:Yeah, right.

01:12:26Guest:So that morning I had a dentist appointment.

01:12:28Marc:Yeah.

01:12:29Guest:And there was more work that needed to be done than I thought.

01:12:31Guest:And the chemistry meeting is out in the valley.

01:12:36Guest:So they got me tilted back in the chair and he's got to give me extra Novocaine.

01:12:39Guest:I see the clock ticking and my auditions like in 30 minutes.

01:12:42Guest:Yeah.

01:12:42Guest:That's all the time I'm going to have to get there.

01:12:44Guest:Yeah.

01:12:44Guest:So I got, I said, I got to go.

01:12:45Guest:It wrapped up and he gave me extra Novocaine.

01:12:48Guest:My whole side of my face is numb.

01:12:49Guest:Yeah.

01:12:50Guest:So I said, how long will this take for the wear off?

01:12:52Guest:He goes, Oh, by this afternoon you should be.

01:12:54Guest:And I got a half, in a half hour.

01:12:56Guest:So I'm tapping it all the way and I'm driving the canyons, you know, and looking at my lines and stuff.

01:13:01Guest:And,

01:13:02Guest:I'm sitting in the room and Matt LeBlanc comes in off to the side.

01:13:06Guest:The producers are in another room.

01:13:07Guest:They're waiting.

01:13:08Guest:He goes, hey, you want to run this for a little while?

01:13:10Guest:Try it?

01:13:10Guest:Okay.

01:13:11Guest:So we try it.

01:13:11Guest:And then he goes into the other room.

01:13:14Guest:They go, how is he?

01:13:14Guest:He goes, well, he's really funny, a little shaky in the lines.

01:13:18Guest:He probably said he probably had a stroke.

01:13:20Marc:I think the guy had a stroke.

01:13:21Guest:Is that what he said?

01:13:22Guest:Because my whole side was like long like that.

01:13:25Marc:He's got Bell's palsy.

01:13:27Guest:Yeah.

01:13:28Guest:But anyway, so they hired me.

01:13:29Guest:He liked me.

01:13:30Guest:And Matt LeBlanc's amazing.

01:13:31Guest:You know, he's really... I thought I knew everything about comedy and getting the most out of a laugh, but he knows structure and character.

01:13:39Guest:Really?

01:13:39Guest:He's been doing it so long.

01:13:40Guest:I mean, he could just look at a scene and go, no, this is missing.

01:13:44Guest:We need this.

01:13:44Guest:We need that.

01:13:45Marc:Just from all those years.

01:13:47Guest:All those years and friends and Joey and...

01:13:51Guest:Isn't that interesting?

01:13:53Marc:Because I guess there's an element to doing that type of three-camera thing that is not in your wheelhouse.

01:14:01Marc:Right.

01:14:01Marc:Right?

01:14:02Marc:Yeah.

01:14:02Marc:And that's a very, it can be pretty sticky sometimes, and it's hard to subvert the shtick.

01:14:07Marc:to make it real enough to not be dumb.

01:14:11Marc:Yeah.

01:14:12Guest:I think it's a really good show.

01:14:13Guest:He's great in it.

01:14:14Guest:Liza Snyder's great.

01:14:17Guest:Matt Cook.

01:14:17Guest:So many great actors in there.

01:14:18Guest:Of course, myself, probably the best.

01:14:20Guest:How many did you shoot?

01:14:22Guest:Well, we started with 13.

01:14:23Guest:I wasn't in the pilot.

01:14:23Guest:I came after the pilot.

01:14:26Guest:We shot 13, then got picked up for a back nine, so 22.

01:14:30Guest:Great.

01:14:30Guest:But it's great because I wanted to be home more.

01:14:33Guest:I didn't want to be on the road so much.

01:14:35Guest:This is like perfect job.

01:14:36Guest:It's a great schedule.

01:14:37Marc:Do you feel like you have to go out there?

01:14:39Marc:I mean, is it, well, I mean, that's sort of a weird personal question.

01:14:42Marc:Is it financial or you love to do stand-up?

01:14:45Guest:Well, I love to do stand-up.

01:14:46Guest:I love making money, too.

01:14:48Guest:The money's good now.

01:14:49Guest:There's not many of us that can go out and make that much money.

01:14:52Guest:As a comic established, you can go out and make a good hunk of change.

01:14:56Guest:Yeah, I know.

01:14:56Marc:This has been the first time I've been able to do that.

01:14:59Marc:You can make up the $2,000 in one weekend.

01:15:00Marc:It's amazing.

01:15:02Marc:Do you remember the day where you realized, like when I started making money to stand-up, maybe it took a long time, just like five years ago because of the podcast or whatever, that I had an audience.

01:15:13Marc:And the first time you do a door deal at a club and you get that check and you're like, wait, what?

01:15:20Marc:Is this a mistake?

01:15:22Marc:But then a moment after that, all those dudes back in the 80s who were big then and you're middling or featuring, they were walking.

01:15:32Marc:When I was doing $1,500 a week thinking I was winning, those guys were walking with all that cash.

01:15:37Guest:I know.

01:15:38Marc:It was mind-blowing.

01:15:39Guest:And now they're not.

01:15:45Marc:Well, I hope they saved it.

01:15:46Marc:Yeah, man.

01:15:48Marc:Yeah.

01:15:48Marc:Now, this new approach to life that you're having, you know, with experiencing your anger, is that integrated into the act?

01:15:57Marc:You got an edge now?

01:16:01Marc:No, I don't think I'll ever have an edge.

01:16:03Guest:But, you know...

01:16:05Guest:Self-revelation, I guess, is always helpful when you're writing.

01:16:09Guest:You're standing up and how you think about things.

01:16:11Guest:I think a comic is kind of like a blues musician.

01:16:13Guest:You have to kind of live life.

01:16:15Guest:You have to evolve to create some kind of... Yeah, you don't want to get stuck.

01:16:19Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:16:20Marc:I think that's one of the liabilities of a lot of the guys we talk about that have sort of gone toward the wayside.

01:16:25Marc:There are some dudes that are always writing new stuff, but there was definitely a generation of comics that couldn't get past the first hour.

01:16:31Marc:Yeah.

01:16:32Marc:yeah so you have to constantly keep digging deeper into yourself too like gary would say you know you got to stay open and present and and and truthful you know if you want to do that kind of comedy and that's like that i got very reassured sadly at the memorial about you know what i was doing you know by hearing about him and getting to know him through you guys like it really it had a profound impact on me you know because i i work like that i i am pretty

01:16:59Marc:you know, put myself out there.

01:17:00Marc:There's never like, I never feel protected on a comedy stage.

01:17:04Marc:It's not sort of like I'm going to hide behind jokes.

01:17:06Marc:I just don't have that.

01:17:07Guest:Yeah.

01:17:07Marc:And, and like when things are like they are now where, you know, things are up in the air and scary and everything, I'm, you know, I'm scared.

01:17:13Marc:So I got to go out there and I've got to somehow share that as a common experience.

01:17:18Marc:And it's daunting.

01:17:19Guest:And you're brave to do that, too.

01:17:21Guest:I mean, you know, a lot of comedy now is confessional comedy.

01:17:24Guest:Yeah.

01:17:24Guest:And people don't seem to have a problem with confessing to whatever they do that may not be accepted.

01:17:30Marc:Yeah.

01:17:30Marc:Well, it really puts you on the spot.

01:17:32Marc:And it also, I think, is a reaction to the fact that, you know, if you don't have a very defined point of view and you're writing topical material or trying to be an observer because of there's so many comics, you know, someone else can be fucking doing the joke.

01:17:48Marc:So in a lot of ways, all you got is yourself.

01:17:52Guest:So it better be specific.

01:17:53Guest:You got to be as specific as possible.

01:17:55Guest:I tell newer comics that too.

01:17:56Guest:I say, there's so many comics now.

01:17:58Guest:You got to be original.

01:17:59Guest:You got to be unique.

01:18:00Guest:Otherwise, you'll just blend in to the background.

01:18:02Guest:You'll work maybe, but you'll never really.

01:18:05Guest:And sometimes it's hard to, you can't just do that on purpose.

01:18:07Guest:It has to evolve.

01:18:09Guest:it has to evolve and you know i go out and i do comedy maybe two times a week now two or three times a week right on town yeah and i see other comics who are like i was these younger comics that are doing maybe three sets a night every night yeah and they're and i'm thinking wow man if i was doing that i would have like two hours of material within a year sure you know oh yeah

01:18:29Guest:But yeah, I think when you're in touch with your emotions, it really helps.

01:18:35Guest:And I think getting therapy also as a comic is helpful.

01:18:38Guest:It helps you dig into that.

01:18:40Marc:Yeah, to figure out where some of it's coming from.

01:18:42Marc:Put it together.

01:18:43Marc:There was a joke, I was working on that.

01:18:47Marc:The only way I got confidence from it was from thinking about Gary and thinking about you.

01:18:56Marc:When I have a structured joke,

01:18:57Marc:it's very easy for me to think it's some sort of trick.

01:19:02Marc:But if there's a structured joke, because I have jokes, but I do it conversationally.

01:19:08Marc:But if I have one where I'm like, I know there are beats here, and I have to wait for this, and it might not work, but I believe in it.

01:19:15Marc:I had a couple of those, and they came after I was at the memorial service.

01:19:20Marc:And I was like, I'm gonna do this by drawing from the inspiration of Gary.

01:19:25Marc:And, like, it felt very satisfying to sort of, like, hold it.

01:19:31Marc:You know, just don't second-guess it.

01:19:34Marc:Let it sit.

01:19:35Marc:It's a tough one to process.

01:19:37Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:19:37Marc:But it's worth it.

01:19:39Marc:Yeah.

01:19:39Marc:And I stuck with it, and it worked.

01:19:41Marc:It was very... I don't know why I'm telling you.

01:19:42Marc:I'm just telling you.

01:19:43Guest:No, I love hearing stuff like that because I'm always trying to examine...

01:19:47Guest:the avenue of comedy and what would improve my delivery or my you know writing or performance and it's it's you're always learning something new and and that's why i like trying to get out and mix with people yeah you could watch and learn things and yeah and um it's every time you get on stage there's something can happen that's right there's a revelation there yeah if you allow it to happen

01:20:08Marc:I have to.

01:20:09Marc:Sometimes the best things that happen on stage are those moments that probably no one really noticed quite.

01:20:14Marc:But you're like, oh, that thing I did when I just said that thing out of nowhere?

01:20:18Marc:That was the best part of that hour and a half.

01:20:20Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:20:21Guest:I haven't seen your act in a while, but...

01:20:23Guest:When I used to see you, and I've seen you on TV, more of an anger kind of a thing?

01:20:31Guest:Do you go on stage thinking nobody likes you?

01:20:35Marc:I used to.

01:20:36Marc:That's sort of gone.

01:20:37Marc:That sort of went away in the last five years.

01:20:39Marc:And the reason it went away was I became more comfortable with myself by doing this.

01:20:45Marc:I'm worked up sometimes, and I'm still sort of self-centered and neurotic.

01:20:52Marc:But I'm not angry because a lot of that was really just fear.

01:20:57Marc:And something happened like five years ago.

01:20:59Marc:I started doing theaters.

01:21:01Marc:And there was this moment where I always go early to the sound checker to see the space and to walk around it.

01:21:08Marc:And there was just this moment where I'm like, I live up here.

01:21:11Marc:Some part of me, this is the one place where... Safe.

01:21:17Marc:Yeah, I own this place.

01:21:19Marc:What am I assuming the worst for?

01:21:22Marc:And it was lifted.

01:21:24Marc:I don't have any fear.

01:21:26Marc:Yeah, this is your home.

01:21:28Marc:Right.

01:21:29Marc:I remember going through breakups.

01:21:31Guest:I would always get devastated.

01:21:32Guest:Even if I went out with it for six months, the world was over.

01:21:35Guest:I would shave, I'd just get in bed.

01:21:38Guest:And then I would do these stand-up gigs where I'd have to get on stage.

01:21:41Guest:you know, as miserable as I was, but then I would forget about it for like, you know, 20 minutes or a half hour and I would be okay.

01:21:48Guest:And then I get, it was like leaving Disneyland when I got off the stage, like, oh, back to the real world.

01:21:52Marc:Exactly.

01:21:53Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:21:54Marc:Yeah, that definitely happened.

01:21:55Marc:And I've gone through breakups and divorces where I would process them on stage.

01:22:00Marc:And those were not great shows for people.

01:22:01Marc:I don't know that...

01:22:05Guest:i don't know if it was everyone's idea of a night out but no no i know it i know i think sometimes you could be abusive with the audience and i've seen a lot of comics i've probably done it too where you just stay on stage because you're you know they're letting you because yeah pop you're well known and yeah and you just rambling and you're not getting any laughs and you're using the audience

01:22:27Marc:And it's weird, though, because that quietness, that weird silence of them tolerating you.

01:22:32Marc:Yeah, there's there's no more.

01:22:34Marc:It's almost like there's a freedom to it.

01:22:37Marc:Like you're all alone and it's all your space.

01:22:41Marc:And it's a very weird feeling when they don't know what's happening and you don't know what's going to happen.

01:22:46Marc:And you're just standing there.

01:22:47Marc:There's some weird elation to that.

01:22:50Marc:And a lot of times, if I'm not doing as well as I want to be doing, that's when I'll go long.

01:22:54Marc:Like, I'll just keep going.

01:22:56Marc:You'll make them pay.

01:22:57Marc:Well, yeah, there's that angle, but I'd like to frame it as like, well, at least I want, I don't want them walking out going like, you know, we didn't get our money's worth.

01:23:04Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:23:05Marc:You know, like, if it wasn't as funny as they wanted, at least they could walk out and go like, he fucking did two hours.

01:23:10Marc:Like, wasn't great, but God, he tried.

01:23:13Guest:The thing when you get on stage, though, the audience is looking to you...

01:23:18Guest:they want to know that you're comfortable and that you're running the show.

01:23:21Guest:Because if you're not, they feel uncomfortable.

01:23:23Guest:It's like you're a bad pilot.

01:23:24Guest:Right.

01:23:25Guest:What's going to happen?

01:23:25Guest:So you got to kind of like let them know that you're in charge and everything's going to be cool.

01:23:30Guest:And they got to believe it.

01:23:31Guest:Yeah.

01:23:31Guest:And make it okay for them to laugh.

01:23:33Marc:Yeah.

01:23:33Guest:Yeah.

01:23:34Guest:But if you go on stage and you're like upset,

01:23:36Marc:you know you're oh yeah frazzled oh no this guy's not good it's gonna be it's gonna be a problem for this it's gonna be a draining evening yeah yeah oh yeah so i'm gonna have to give some fake laughs to make them feel better that's a lot of work for me

01:23:51Marc:The feeling of bombing, like those bombs where there's nothing you can do and it's probably your fault.

01:24:00Marc:You're just not connecting and that feeling of like, I'm not gonna get out of this.

01:24:07Guest:But I think that's good though, to be able to be in that position.

01:24:10Guest:I very rarely put myself in that.

01:24:12Guest:I'll take old stuff that I know is gonna kill just so that they get laughs and I walk off with an applause.

01:24:17Marc:But there's been a couple of times in my life where something just collapsed, where the fear or whatever, or I just, you know, the confidence went away.

01:24:25Marc:It's been a long time, but where I got to go up for an hour and I, you know, and I try.

01:24:30Marc:And then like, you know, I remember there was a time where I was less professional.

01:24:34Marc:I think part of being a professional is not letting this happen where.

01:24:37Marc:I just lost all of my confidence.

01:24:41Marc:Oh, wow.

01:24:42Marc:And I'm up there doing it, but it's not... Yeah, yeah.

01:24:45Marc:Believe in it.

01:24:46Marc:Right, and the job isn't happening.

01:24:48Guest:Yeah.

01:24:48Guest:You know what I mean?

01:24:49Guest:Well, I was just going to ask you, do you still get nervous before you go on stage?

01:24:52Guest:Because I don't get nervous anymore, and I think you should have some nerves.

01:24:55Marc:I get nervous in the fact where...

01:24:58Marc:I'm not afraid to be up there, but, like, I want to make sure I plant myself there.

01:25:04Marc:And it used to be by getting the laugh.

01:25:06Marc:Yeah.

01:25:07Marc:Like, you know, I got that first bit.

01:25:08Marc:It's going to get a laugh.

01:25:09Marc:And now it's really something different.

01:25:11Marc:Like, I need to be like, this will be all right.

01:25:15Marc:Yeah.

01:25:16Marc:I need to have that connection, not the laugh, but the sort of like, are we going to be all right here?

01:25:23Marc:And then go.

01:25:24Marc:So I'm nervous about that, that that won't happen.

01:25:26Marc:Because you feel it, man.

01:25:28Marc:You go out into a room and you're like, no, that corner, that's going to be a problem.

01:25:31Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:25:31Marc:Or you find that one person who's not laughing.

01:25:34Marc:Yeah, I tend to find, like, I always end up looking at those people at the moment they're not laughing.

01:25:39Marc:And there's always, like, if you're playing, like, a bigger place, like, you know, 800 people or whatever, you're always going to land on people, like a sleeping lady.

01:25:47Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:25:48Marc:But, like, sometimes when you do clubs and you know that they're not all necessarily there to see you, they might just be... There's, like, that table, that area...

01:25:58Marc:There's some bad thing happening over there.

01:26:00Guest:Yeah.

01:26:00Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:26:01Guest:You know what I mean?

01:26:02Guest:Yeah, sure.

01:26:02Marc:There's always a spot.

01:26:03Marc:No matter where you are, you'll find it.

01:26:05Marc:Yeah, exactly.

01:26:05Marc:Like, oh, I'm going to get that area.

01:26:08Marc:And now I make all assumptions.

01:26:09Marc:Like, they hate me.

01:26:11Marc:And then there are always the guys that come up to you like, I loved it.

01:26:13Marc:And you're like, no, you're not who I thought you were.

01:26:15Marc:Why don't you not like me?

01:26:17Guest:i i can remember only bombing once really badly yeah and it was a couple years ago i worked at that um that marine corps that marine base down by uh between ocean city yeah or ocean side whatever it is uh-huh it's fort something and it was for marines like 19 and under that were single yeah kids yeah and i could not connect with them at all

01:26:39Guest:Kids are hard.

01:26:39Guest:They were checking their texts, you know, their texting and stuff, and didn't get it.

01:26:43Guest:They didn't even know, like, my history of Hans and Franz or anything.

01:26:46Marc:Nothing.

01:26:46Marc:Nothing, man.

01:26:47Marc:Whole new generation.

01:26:48Guest:I was going through my Rolodex in my head.

01:26:49Guest:Who's the old guy?

01:26:50Guest:Yeah.

01:26:51Guest:And everything was hip-hop.

01:26:53Guest:The main guy was the hip-hop guy at the end, the headliner.

01:26:56Guest:Yeah.

01:26:57Guest:And then the MC was an ex-hip-hop guy who's MCing now, and he's an ex-Marine, so he knows all the lingo.

01:27:03Guest:Oh, did you know going in, you're like, oh.

01:27:05Guest:I didn't know.

01:27:05Guest:And then I walked off.

01:27:06Guest:I was sweating, actually.

01:27:07Guest:I hadn't sweat in a long time.

01:27:08Marc:Oh, that's the worst.

01:27:10Guest:And I tried to convince the producer.

01:27:11Guest:I said, that was good, man.

01:27:12Guest:These guys are great.

01:27:14Guest:And I just hated myself.

01:27:16Guest:I just kind of put a fake smile on, like this is the greatest thing in the world.

01:27:19Marc:That sweat, the bomb sweat.

01:27:21Marc:Oh, man.

01:27:22Marc:When you feel it coming, you're like, oh, no.

01:27:25Marc:It's like bad food poisoning or something.

01:27:27Marc:It's terrible.

01:27:27Marc:It's happening.

01:27:28Marc:I'm not hiding it.

01:27:30Marc:It's coming down.

01:27:31Guest:It's going to happen, baby.

01:27:32Guest:It's going to happen.

01:27:33Marc:It's happening now.

01:27:35Marc:Ease into it.

01:27:36Marc:Yeah.

01:27:36Marc:All right.

01:27:37Marc:Thanks, man.

01:27:37Marc:Thanks.

01:27:38Marc:That was great talking to you.

01:27:39Marc:You too.

01:27:45Marc:What a great guy.

01:27:46Marc:What a great conversation.

01:27:47Marc:I'm so glad that we made that happen finally.

01:27:49Marc:Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, Oakland, Denver, Boulder, D.C., Philly, Austin, Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis.

01:28:02Marc:Dig it.

01:28:04Marc:No music today.

01:28:06Marc:Boomer lives!

01:28:14you