Episode 815 - Jake Fogelnest / Ron Funches
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fucknicks?
Marc:What the fuckanistas?
Marc:What the fuckistanis?
Marc:What the fuckaricans?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:If you're new here, just hang out.
Marc:You'll get the hang of it.
Marc:There's some things you'll like, some things you won't like, but just hang out.
Marc:I have a good show today.
Marc:I have my buddy Ron Funches, the comedian.
Marc:Stopped by for a few minutes.
Marc:Gonna go on tour.
Marc:Wanted to say hello and tell people about that.
Marc:He's a very funny guy.
Marc:I got Jake Fogelnest.
Marc:on the show, who I've known since he was a child, kind of, when his dad used to bring him to comedy shows in New York.
Marc:But some of you know him from MTV back in the day and from his podcast and from Public Access, I believe.
Marc:He's had quite a journey, Little Jake, who I'm sure doesn't like being called Little Jake.
Marc:But me and Will Arnett were talking about him, and I realized, well, fuck, I've got to get Jake in here.
Marc:I'm going to New York later this week because we're doing the BookCon event this Saturday.
Marc:I'm going to be talking about the new WTF book, Waiting for the Punch.
Marc:You can get an advanced copy of the book if you're there.
Marc:I believe I'll sign them.
Marc:I believe that's the deal.
Marc:For tickets, you can go to thebookcon.com.
Marc:For tickets, me and my producer and business partner, Brendan McDonald, will be there talking the WTF stuff.
Marc:I tend to like to be in front of audiences.
Marc:I'm not going to throw anyone aside to get to the front.
Marc:That's not part of my agenda.
Marc:Hey, there's a lot of people in front of me.
Marc:I'm going to throw them aside and step up.
Marc:Not going to do that because it'll be my show.
Marc:So it'll be a little easier to fight those impulses to be an eight-year-old.
Marc:Boy, I'm being cryptic, but not so much.
Marc:The book con will be fun.
Marc:It'll be good.
Marc:I like to talk, as some of you may have noticed.
Marc:That was the fun thing about being in Chicago, doing that Joe Swanberg thing, was that improvising, it's interesting when you do scenes that you have to do over, yet you're encouraged to improvise, and you can just keep making shit up.
Marc:But I do want to read a couple of emails because sometimes I don't always know.
Marc:I don't always understand people's lives or, you know, because I don't live them.
Marc:But I got an email and it's just from a guy.
Marc:It says unimportant mail from some dumb foreigner.
Marc:Hey, man, I'm writing this at 6 a.m.
Marc:with no intention of sleeping yet.
Marc:I just had to say that you are my new idol, man.
Marc:You just made me understand my anger and also myself over the course of the last six months, gradually getting more and more time on my daily schedule.
Marc:I started with Thinkie Payne and now I'm obsessed with these podcasts.
Marc:Now I'm listening to the one with Jason Schwartzman and you just said the word gratitude and that made me want to thank you, man.
Marc:You changed some Turkish 21-year-old fuck-ups life for better.
Marc:Thank you for that.
Marc:Just keep doing what you're doing.
Marc:Sincerely, some kid in the Middle East.
Marc:You know, there just seems to be certain things that that we all share to one degree or another.
Marc:Some of us don't have the same flaws as others, but some flaws that we have speak to other people's flaws.
Marc:And they're all innately human.
Marc:It's a small, small spectrum, really, on how you handle your humanity.
Marc:You know, gratitude is good.
Marc:Humility is good.
Marc:Empathy is good.
Marc:Charity is good.
Marc:Mercy is good.
Marc:Generally, shutting the fuck up is good sometimes.
Marc:I would stay away from belligerent, ignorant, immoral, willfully ignorant, proudly dumb, hostile, bullying.
Marc:You know, the stuff we're getting known for lately.
Marc:So this is another, you know, I've got to own up to this shit.
Marc:I got to own up to this shit.
Marc:And I'd like to clear some stuff up.
Marc:I'll use this email to address it.
Marc:Subject line, I'm addicted to nicotine lozenges because of you.
Marc:Hello, Mark.
Marc:I've been addicted to nicotine lozenges for two years now.
Marc:When I was 18, I picked up a canister of two milligram nicotine lozenges because you had made them sound appealing.
Marc:At first, the lozenges improved my cognition and suppressed my appetite.
Marc:But after about eight months, they'd begun to lose their effectiveness.
Marc:To satisfy my increased nicotine tolerance, I began purchasing four milligram mini lozenges as opposed to the half dollar size lozenges I'd been sucking before.
Marc:Nicorette
Marc:is the most expensive brand.
Marc:So I've been lowering myself to Walgreens and CVS brands, which lack the distinctive sting of Nicorette brand lozenges.
Marc:I do not wish to encourage your listeners to emulate my emulation of you.
Marc:By and large, nicotine lozenges have made me perpetually dehydrated such that I constantly feel thirsty and irritable.
Marc:I cannot sustain concentration for very long because of those chronic pangs of thirst that accompany prolonged lozenge abuse.
Marc:Have you experienced this as well?
Marc:I find that I have to drink two glasses of water for every lozenge that I drop into the sewer of my mouth.
Marc:If I don't, the sensation of thirst overwhelms me.
Marc:I assume you are using mini lozenges since the larger ones obstruct speech to an intolerable degree.
Marc:I'm going to try to quit them because of this dehydration problem.
Marc:Please comment on this.
Marc:Perhaps it would be good of you to prevent dumb and impressionable people like myself from romanticizing nicotine lozenge addiction.
Marc:Best in all that, Sam.
Marc:interview a scientist at some point sam i am sorry if you feel that i romanticized nicotine lozenges i i understand that you know if you like me and you look up to me you think i i don't think there's anything cool about nicotine lozenges uh they are a practical solution to a problem uh of addiction to nicotine for me
Marc:I usually recommend them to people who want to get off cigarettes.
Marc:Obviously, the best thing to do is stop doing everything.
Marc:I personally like the little buzz that I get from nicotine lozenges.
Marc:And I've recently been thinking about quitting them again.
Marc:But it's primarily because...
Marc:You know, I have an addictive personality and I have a constant itch in my soul that somehow permeates to just beneath my skin that makes life difficult and unbearable.
Marc:And I know what it feels like to not have that.
Marc:But I eventually find my way around to, you know, I'm a hyper caffeinated, nicotized motherfucker.
Marc:And I don't feel great about it.
Marc:I didn't mean to romanticize it.
Marc:For me, it's just the most practical way and the safest way to ingest nicotine, which is the one of two, occasionally three, if you count my dick, addictions that I have.
Marc:So I apologize.
Marc:I didn't mean to be your nicotine lozenge, Keith Richards.
Marc:You're lucky it wasn't heroin or cocaine or alcohol that I was romanticizing or painfully addicted to, yet in enough denial to make it sound like an amazing way of life.
Marc:I don't feel like I romanticize these things, and I do have a certain amount of shame about it, and I apologize you got strung out on them.
Marc:It sounds like you weren't even a smoker.
Marc:But so I apologize for that.
Marc:And I will say to the rest of you, if you're not trying to quit smoking cigarettes, don't just start nicotine lozenges.
Marc:Don't start smoking either if it's possible.
Marc:Addiction is a bitch no matter what you're addicted to.
Marc:If you've got the bug, you're going to have it on you for the rest of your life.
Marc:And it's an ongoing struggle.
Marc:And you got to negotiate with the monkey if you want to keep living.
Marc:So that said, I apologize, Sam, and good luck getting off them.
Marc:And by the way, just to make it clear, I do not use the mini lozenges.
Marc:They dissolve too quickly and make me nauseous.
Marc:I do not experience dehydration.
Marc:I do have some stomach, some gassiness, I believe, because of some of the things that composes the nicotine lozenge.
Marc:But that is about it for the downside.
Marc:And I do rely on them in the morning and throughout the day to keep me level, which is my problem.
Marc:It's not a romanticizing thing.
Marc:And I didn't mean to mislead you, okay?
Marc:I'm not here to promote addiction or addictive things.
Marc:It's just what I do to stay sane and keep me off worse addictive things.
Marc:All right, Sam?
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:So Funches dropped by.
Marc:You know, he's heading out on tour starting this week in San Francisco, and he'll be out out all over the country through August.
Marc:You can go to Ron Funches dot com to see his tour dates.
Marc:And this is me and Ron Funches here in the garage.
Marc:Look at you, Ron Funches.
Marc:Hi.
Marc:Look at you.
Marc:You're all svelte.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Got your hair cut.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're looking good.
Marc:Thank you very much, Mark.
Marc:I haven't seen you in a long time.
Marc:It's been a long time.
Marc:The last time I talked to you...
Marc:Was in this garage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't even remember what was going on, but not much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think I just probably moved here recently.
Guest:I think it was me and Ian.
Guest:We were living together.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I think it was like a Portland thing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then, like, within days...
Marc:Within days, you're everywhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Big star.
Guest:Out of nowhere.
Guest:Yeah, C-level canceled sitcom star.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But, yeah, but, dude, I mean, come on, man.
Marc:I mean, that thing ran for a little while.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you got on another thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What's the other thing?
Guest:It's powerless, but it also canceled now, too, so...
Marc:But now you're a seasoned veteran of being canceled.
Guest:Yeah, I do like that because I feel like that's fun because you just realize it's just like being on a sports team.
Guest:You're like, oh, just get on the next draft, get on the next team.
Marc:Well, what was the, like the whole, like the undateable thing, that ran for what?
Marc:Three seasons.
Marc:Three seasons.
Marc:So like what, 36 or what, 39?
Guest:You nailed it, 36.
Marc:Was it 36?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And the struggle of that was you just got cast on that, right?
Marc:You went out for it.
Marc:How'd that happen?
Marc:Went out for it.
Marc:Audition, audition, call back, call back.
Marc:Got it.
Marc:And it seemed like it was going to be a fun show that would last a long time.
Marc:But then I remember there were struggles and there was some campaigning.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then there was a change where all of a sudden there'd be a live performance.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In the middle of a show.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it became an all live show.
Guest:We would do two episodes, East Coast, West Coast, all live with musical guests.
Guest:Yeah, it became like a circus because that's what they were wanting at the time.
Guest:They were leaning towards that Neil Patrick Harris live.
Guest:They were doing a lot of live events.
Marc:I've never been involved with a big network sitcom.
Marc:Was there a feeling that things were going south or was it a feeling like we're doing new things?
Guest:I mean, I think the great thing about Bill Lawrence is that he was not necessarily always honest, but very honest in his bullshitting.
Guest:Like you knew where you stood and he would tell you what numbers we needed to hit.
Guest:And if we weren't hitting them, you know.
Guest:So it was just like, well, I'm going to do what I can to keep this on.
Guest:We aren't hitting the numbers, but the network likes us.
Guest:The people who did watch, I mean, till this day.
Guest:I've been on the other show that got canceled since.
Guest:I go out on the road.
Guest:It's never about the new show.
Guest:It's about Undateable.
Guest:Right.
Guest:People still tweet to me about Undateable.
Guest:People like that show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I even had meetings with people in the network where they're like, oh, man, if we actually got the ratings that you guys were getting for that show, we'd be happy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because, you know, things have just changed.
Marc:So it gave you a following.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, like people come out and see you because of it.
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:That's helpful, yeah.
Marc:And what was the other show that got canceled?
Guest:Powerless.
Guest:It was a DC comic, back on NBC, DC comic book sitcom, Vanessa Hudgens, Dan Judy.
Marc:How many did you do that?
Guest:We taped 12, they aired 10.
Guest:And that was it?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Ugh.
Marc:But that's sort of, it's like, it is a little heartbreaking, isn't it?
Marc:You get into a momentum with a crew of people.
Marc:You got writers, you're on set.
Marc:It's almost like a play is opening.
Marc:And then, you know, you kind of go through it and you do it and you're like, let's see what happens.
Marc:And you're like, yeah, that family's over.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:well i just kind of like you just do anything and you put it out there and then you you like to me as long as you tell me what what i'm supposed to get and if we don't get it i just go okay like and they were like these are the ratings we need to get we didn't get them right so i'm like okay do i think that you know should the show could have been something if they gave it a more of a chance it could have been but it could have not been and also it's not on you all of it's not the burden isn't on you
Guest:No, at the end of the day, I feel like a sports player in the fact that I'm like, I play for my name on the back of the jersey.
Guest:I just want to be good.
Guest:Number one, Ron Funches.
Guest:Yeah, if I'm good in this, if I'm good in that, people will just know I'm good.
Guest:I don't necessarily, it's just so, what I've learned is how hard it is to make anything.
Guest:So I'm like, man, if you guys think it sucks, who cares?
Guest:At least we made it.
Marc:It's awesome.
Marc:Right, yeah.
Marc:So how has your life changed in the last couple years?
Marc:I mean, did you buy a big house?
Marc:Did you go spend all your money or what?
Guest:No, I have a little two-bedroom apartment.
Guest:I stay with my son.
Guest:I mean, I guess that would be the biggest change from last time is that my son wasn't living with me full-time.
Guest:Is he?
Guest:He is, yeah.
Guest:And how's that going?
Guest:It's fun.
Guest:It's a balance.
Guest:To me, it's probably the best thing for me because I can be a little adrift if I don't have something to anchor me down.
Marc:And he's got autism, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and the last time I talked to you, it felt like...
Marc:You were on top of it, and you were working with your ex, and the kid was challenging.
Marc:But how has that changed?
Marc:How old is he now?
Marc:He's 14 now.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:So we're dealing with a whole new set of challenges of him just being kind of a moody little teen as well as dealing with the autism and dealing with...
Guest:Just him masturbating and stuff like that.
Marc:Just normal stuff, but then also.
Marc:How do you discuss that with him?
Guest:Just tell him to keep it in the house.
Guest:Not outside?
Guest:Not outside.
Guest:Does he get it?
Guest:It took him a little bit, but he gets it now.
Guest:He gets it now, but he's indignant.
Guest:If you're in his space, he's like, this is my area for doing this.
Marc:I guess it's hard to... Is there a, like, in terms of...
Marc:The autism, I mean, how does that impact the reasoning?
Marc:I mean, when you reason with him like that, does he not understand, like, why can't I just do it?
Guest:One of the best things about him is that he's very rule-based.
Guest:He loves rules.
Marc:Oh, he does.
Guest:As long as you give him clear-cut rules that make sense, he'll follow.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So he's like, fine, that's fine.
Guest:Same thing we do with Soda Saturday.
Guest:He's only allowed Soda on Saturday, only allowed to masturbate in the house.
Guest:He gets it.
Marc:And so you're going on tour.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, now what are you doing?
Marc:Are you doing clubs?
Marc:I'm doing... Or small theaters?
Marc:Small theaters.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:My first little small theater tour.
Marc:Like, where are you going?
Guest:Like, which ones?
Guest:I'm going to... So I'm going to the Bell House in New York.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:The biggest one I'm doing is June 10th at the Wilbur in Boston.
Marc:That's about 1100.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I opened for John Mulaney there and opened for Aziz there.
Guest:And I've always wanted... I was like, this is the most beautiful...
Guest:It's a great place I've ever been.
Marc:So this is like the test run.
Marc:You're going to see what you can do.
Marc:We're going to see what I can do.
Guest:See where I can pull.
Guest:See where I don't pull.
Guest:Where else are you going?
Guest:Atlanta?
Guest:Atlanta.
Guest:Smith's Old Bar.
Guest:The Trocadero.
Guest:I don't know if I'm pronouncing that.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Trocadero.
Marc:Trocadero.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:In Philly?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a great room.
Marc:It's a very odd old theater.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:It's sort of like it's got a weird old history and you can feel it.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:And it's like open.
Marc:Like the theater, like the stage is there.
Marc:But like in my recollection, for some reason, you can kind of see backstage.
Marc:It's all sort of open.
Marc:And it's not a huge sheet or I think it probably, what, 450 or maybe between.
Marc:600.
Marc:600.
Guest:I checked that sheet.
Marc:Right, so they're right on top of you.
Marc:There's a balcony, and it feels intimate.
Marc:It's a cool old space.
Marc:That's good, that's good.
Marc:I'm happy you're going there.
Marc:Where else?
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:What other theaters?
Guest:Let's talk little theaters.
Guest:I'm going back to Portland to do Revolution Hall.
Marc:When you return to Portland, are you like, do people like, hey, he's one of our guys?
Guest:Yeah, I really like that.
Guest:I mean, I have a lot of friends there.
Guest:I mean, I feel like more, you know, it's more Carmel is like there because he was actually raised there.
Guest:I came, you know, just as a teen.
Guest:But I love, yeah, the amount of feedback I get and the positive energy I get from people there is amazing.
Guest:I love going back to Portland.
Marc:And how's old Ian doing?
Guest:He's doing great, working over at James Corden, just working it out, trying to get better.
Guest:Like everybody.
Marc:Where have you been working out?
Guest:I've been working out with my trainer, Jorgen.
Marc:I'm sure he loves to say his name, Jorgen Demay.
Marc:You also ought to wait.
Guest:Yeah, I lost 140 pounds right now.
Marc:Holy fuck.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:140 pounds.
Marc:Yeah, trying to get 20 more off me.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, all natural?
Marc:Yes, sir.
Marc:And tell me about it.
Marc:What'd you do?
Marc:How'd you change your diet?
Marc:Because you were large.
Guest:Yeah, 360 at my heaviest.
Marc:Do you feel like relieved?
Marc:Is it easier to walk?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I feel like you know the gist of it.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yes, yes, yes.
Guest:Any of those things.
Guest:What did you do to change it?
Guest:I mean, I just kind of, there was just like a series of events and it was mostly that I was traveling a lot more and like my knees would hurt and I would be like,
Guest:Oh, I'm like in my early 30s.
Guest:My knees should not be hurting.
Guest:I remember one time I was on a flight and then a lady woke me up at the end of it and she was like, I don't want to bother you, but I'm a doctor and I think you might have sleep apnea.
Guest:You might want to check into it because I heard you snoring on the plane.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I was like, oh, well, that's embarrassing.
Guest:And then my mother came to visit Thanksgiving a couple years ago, and she just went to go get me some clothes.
Guest:And she was just like, I just straight up don't like buying you clothes this size.
Guest:Make me feel good.
Guest:Makes her sad?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Bill Lawrence was a big helper in it.
Guest:After that, I kind of tried to do it on my own a little bit, and I lost like 20, 25 pounds.
Guest:And I got a little bit of money.
Guest:I put it right back on, thanks to Postmates.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:You don't know Postmates?
Guest:No, man.
Guest:It's just white slavery.
Guest:It's where you get people to just deliver you food at any time of the night.
Marc:Do you feel like you had a food?
Marc:I mean, it's one thing to be heavy, but do you feel like you were compulsive?
Marc:Of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, that's what I'm learning about myself.
Guest:I mean, I come from addictive people.
Guest:My dad had addiction issues.
Guest:So yeah, that's what I'm learning.
Guest:I just can't have it around me.
Guest:I just have to keep it away from me, which is real difficult.
Guest:I was watching Bill Burr's special and he had a whole bit about it, how he doesn't get it because he's just like, just stop.
Guest:stop doing it stop doing it and i was like man you that is clearly a dude who doesn't have to deal with addiction issues because you don't get it you don't see the fact that it's drugs are one thing and they're addictive to nothing but you don't have billboards every single where you go like oh we got new strawberry crack we got new double crack we got five hits a crack for five dollars yeah
Marc:You know?
Marc:Well, yeah, food's a tricky one.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because it's not one of those ones.
Marc:You need it to live.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You can't abstain from it completely.
Marc:And old Bill, like he, you know, he's just fortunate that he's compulsive about exercising.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which I think it becomes a lot of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, I feel like I can't.
Guest:And I don't know how you feel about it.
Guest:I think maybe you have a good you could talk to me about it is that I don't feel like you can truly like get rid of addictions.
Guest:Like I can like kind of aim them and change them.
Guest:So I'm like, I still have this addictive personality.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Whatever I do, I try.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'd like to do a lot of whether it's stand up or right.
Guest:Working in general.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so now I just try to like, oh, I take the eating one and I do it with exercise.
Guest:And so like I need to exercise six days a week.
Marc:Well, yeah, and there's also this sort of understanding, and I think you do, but I think the key to it is understanding unmanageability.
Marc:The reason I'm an addict in that it's undeniable is my life became unmanageable and horrible, and I didn't have any control over it.
Marc:So it's that admission that I can't do that safely, and I don't seem to be able to stop on my own, so I need help, and you got help.
Marc:But you're not going to meetings.
Marc:No.
Marc:But you're going to the trainer, you're learning how to eat better, and you're locking in.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but what did you have to cut out?
Guest:I cut out a lot of things, and it's just kind of like one by one.
Guest:I pick things that I'm like, oh, I love this, but I love this more.
Guest:So the first one to go was like, oh, I'm going to pick between candy and soda.
Guest:And so soda went, I love candy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now we're trying to get rid of candy.
Guest:And so that's been difficult.
Marc:But were you eating anything good, like vegetables or anything?
Guest:When I was at my heaviest?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, not really.
Guest:It's just I couldn't eat too much.
Guest:So it would be like, I'd have this giant burrito with my lunch and my dinner.
Guest:And then when I got on the show, it was like, oh, I'm going to have this burrito and I'm going to get cheesesteaks delivered.
Marc:And they got craft services.
Marc:And there's that buffet right over there.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:And you like the weed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:To shift from being high and working out to being high and eating, that's a big jump.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I did it.
Guest:My doctor is super.
Guest:My doctor is the best.
Guest:She was just like, the amount of weight you lost.
Guest:She's like, I don't know.
Guest:She's like, I've been a doctor for 20 years and I don't have a single patient who's done this naturally but you.
Guest:What do you mean?
Marc:What do they do?
Marc:Like surgery and stuff?
Marc:yeah surgery you know that seems scary to me that does because it wouldn't change my mindset you know right and it's just like you just get a bunch of your gut removed yeah and they're tight and what i don't even know what they do but it just like i mean it's rough it seems rough but i mean again i don't discourage anybody from however they feel they need to do it as long as they're trying to do it for their health first of all yeah so how much you took off a hundred and what 140 oh my god
Marc:I can't imagine that.
Marc:I can't imagine having that on me or losing it.
Marc:But like, so do you, are you running every day?
Guest:I'm not really, I mean, I'm doing some jogging.
Guest:I jog on an incline.
Guest:I've been going to Stone Yoga on Tuesdays.
Guest:Shout out to Stone Yoga, Tuesday nights.
Guest:And then I see my trainer three to four days a week.
Guest:Well, congratulations.
Guest:Thank you, sir.
Guest:How long's the tour?
Guest:The tour starts June 8th, and it'll go through August.
Guest:I'm sure I'll pick up some random dates after that.
Guest:And then I'm just kind of writing.
Guest:I pitched a show, sold a CISO about a wrestling cartoon that I'm waiting for them to hear.
Guest:Wrestling's the new hot thing.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Because it's just been my life, so I don't know.
Guest:I'm doing that.
Guest:I'm on that show, Glow.
Guest:Do you think I do not know that, Mark?
Marc:You think I wasn't jealous of that?
Marc:You're going to be one of the big guys.
Marc:You're going to be like, no, no, no, I'm a wrestling fan.
Guest:No, but I actually think you're perfect for that role.
Guest:I have the gist of the role you're playing.
Guest:You're perfect for it.
Marc:That makes sense.
Marc:I just want the wrestling fans to dig it because a lot of attention was paid.
Guest:Oh, sure they will.
Guest:Awesome Kong is in it.
Guest:I mean, the wrestling fans love Alison Brie.
Guest:They do love Chavo.
Marc:He's the guy that schooled everybody.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It was good to learn all that stuff.
Guest:I can imagine.
Marc:I didn't have to wrestle, but it was good watching them learn and do it.
Guest:I can imagine.
Marc:Did you ever do it?
Marc:Why don't you do it?
Guest:I mean, I'm interested in talking with some people about going and just doing a couple classes to try it out.
Marc:I talked to AJ Lee here.
Marc:Did you listen to that one?
Guest:No, I didn't listen to that one, but I love AJ Lee.
Marc:Yeah, it was just the other day.
Marc:We put it up earlier this week about how, because it's a lot like stand-up.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, you go to these, I don't know if they were classes, but you go to these gyms and you learn, yeah, I guess they are classes, but then you start to, it just sort of becomes this open mic thing.
Guest:Yeah, and you travel and you go into little shitty little dive bars and you're getting 50 bucks a night.
Guest:And I was like, man, I know what it's like to emotionally put myself through a table for 50 bucks at the end of the night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I do know that feeling.
Marc:Have you tried?
Marc:You've never done any wrestling?
Guest:I've never done any wrestling.
Guest:I'm interested.
Guest:Again, I'm going to try to take some classes.
Marc:Oh, you've got to do it, man.
Guest:I am.
Guest:I'm going to, Mark.
Guest:I'm doing it.
Guest:Because I love it.
Guest:I've always loved it.
Guest:I've been really applying it to a lot of my stand-up and the fact of...
Guest:Uh, just faking things up a little bit, hiding my failures and really yelling out my successes.
Guest:I feel like I like to wrestle things up a little bit.
Marc:So that's, oh, that's a, an application of the idea of wrestling for a sort of self-improvement in a way.
Marc:So, uh, okay.
Marc:So you're becoming, well, what, what, what are those tactics?
Marc:Those, well, they can be a heel or a face, I guess.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but it's really just about, I mean, it's the same thing in comedy.
Guest:The best you is you turned up to 11.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I just really, again, I just try to like, oh, I'm having, even if I'm like, I'll just put up pictures of me doing my sets and I'm never showing the other side where it's like 12 people not loving it.
Marc:I just show them like, oh, I'm on stage looking good, having fun.
Marc:I guess there is a point where you don't want to show that other stuff.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah, I'm better if I'm turned down to seven.
Marc:That's what it took you a long time to figure out.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:11's not good for me.
Guest:I'm good at 11.
Guest:Me and seven sleep.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Marc:So where can they find the dates for the tour?
Guest:You can find them on ronfunches.com.
Guest:My website is pretty simple.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:And do you live far from here?
Guest:Kind of far.
Guest:I live in East Hollywood.
Guest:I used to live right by here.
Guest:This is my little neighborhood.
Marc:Oh yeah, we had ice cream.
Marc:We had ice cream.
Marc:It was me and you and who?
Marc:Jonah?
Marc:Was it Jonah?
Marc:Who went with us that time?
Guest:Yeah, I think it was me and you and Jonah Ray.
Marc:Yeah, he lives down here too.
Marc:When are you coming back?
Guest:Come by a house over here.
Marc:I'm thinking about it.
Guest:I'm thinking about it, except for I'm always working at Warner Brothers and stuff, and it's such a track.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I guess that's true.
Marc:Yeah, I got lucky with the glow shoot.
Marc:They did it right in Atwater.
Marc:I was like, what?
Marc:I didn't even know there were stages in Atwater.
Marc:This is the best job I've ever had.
Marc:Well, it's good to see you.
Marc:I'm glad you're doing so well.
Marc:It's good to see you, Mark.
Marc:Thanks, Ron.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:The Very Svelte.
Marc:Ron Funches here in the garage looking healthy, lean, manicured, very funny, very sweet man, very funny man.
Marc:Go see Ron.
Marc:You can go to RonFunches.com for his tour dates.
Marc:I'm happy he stopped by.
Marc:So what do you need to know about Jake Fogelnest?
Marc:You're going to know a lot about him.
Marc:By within an hour, you can know a lot about him.
Marc:But but Jake, as I said earlier, I was reminded I needed to talk to Jake when I was talking to Will Arnett.
Marc:And I remember Jake Vogelness, his dad.
Marc:His old man used to bring him to comedy shows when he was like 11 or 12 years old.
Marc:I'm going to talk to him about that.
Marc:This is me and Jake Fogelnest here in the garage.
Marc:All right, Jake.
All right.
Marc:What are you doing?
Marc:Where are you living?
Marc:I live in Los Feliz.
Marc:You do?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How long have you lived here?
Guest:I moved out to Los Angeles about five years ago.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:Like, actually, like, this month.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's just a weird thing.
Marc:Like, you know, I've known about you and of you and known you kind of at different points in my life.
Marc:But the arc of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Somehow you landed on your feet.
Yeah.
Marc:well we met i mean we truly met 30 years ago well like it's weird now that i see you like like i kept trying to picture you as a kid and i can do it now uh-huh and i can't quite i kind of can picture your dad sure but like in my memory it was what year okay so i think it was when were you at the village gate top of the village gate
Marc:Oh, when were we doing shows there?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When I was living in New York, 89 to 92.
Marc:So, 89 to 92.
Guest:So, around 1989 is probably- Does that sound right to you?
Guest:That sounds exactly right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I had this father who-
Guest:You know, very much like anything.
Guest:There was no boundaries of like, that's an R-rated film.
Guest:You can't see that.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It's like I would walk by the A Street Playhouse in New York, see a poster for Rocky Horror.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:Take me to that.
Guest:And my father would.
Guest:And how old were you?
Guest:I was about, well, let's see, I'm 38 now.
Guest:So I was probably 10 in 1989.
Marc:That sounds about right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Your dad was sort of a character.
Yeah.
Guest:You know what it is?
Marc:Was he a music lawyer?
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:He was an okay, and I mean just okay, criminal defense attorney.
Marc:Okay, that was it.
Guest:Okay, yeah.
Guest:And I would come up and visit him on the weekends in New York.
Guest:From where?
Guest:From Philadelphia.
Guest:That's where your mom lived?
Guest:Yeah, my mom lived in Philly.
Guest:My parents got divorced before I was born.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like, as I understand it, it was like, all right, well, we have this child coming.
Guest:Let's do this kid a favor and not be together.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you don't have any brothers or sisters?
Marc:No brothers and sisters, just me.
Guest:And so the idea of my parents together is like the weirdest thing in the world.
Marc:It doesn't even exist.
Guest:It doesn't make sense.
Marc:What were the hippies?
Marc:Did they meet?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A hundred percent like hippies to the point where I don't really I never knew my grandparents.
Marc:Right.
Guest:They were the hippies that, like... Fuck everything?
Guest:Fuck you, mom.
Guest:Fuck you, dad.
Guest:I'm going off.
Guest:You're terrible people.
Guest:And, you know, they end up in Philadelphia together as, like, hippies.
Guest:And, you know, and then I'm born.
Marc:And you still never met your grandparents?
Guest:I met my paternal grandmother a couple of times, and she was nuts.
Guest:And the other three grandparents, no.
Guest:No.
Guest:I don't know why because they passed away or they well yes they have to have passed away by now right but I don't know their names that's weird Jake it is weird you never talked to your mother about it I a couple of years ago my mother got curious and like you know she has a sister and a brother and so she just they just disconnected totally yeah they totally disconnected from fucking weird and
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I really lived in this bubble of just like my family is just me, my mom and dad.
Marc:And they didn't talk to their parents.
Guest:They didn't talk to their parents.
Marc:But they have sisters and brothers, all of them.
Guest:My mother has a sister.
Guest:I don't think my father has any siblings.
Guest:You don't think he doesn't.
Guest:He I'm pretty sure I would be very surprised to find out you had a brother at this point.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My mother know this shit because this is how I grew up.
Guest:This is it was just, you know, you know, we're hippies.
Guest:Our parents were shit.
Guest:And they were bad parents.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like they were really bad parents.
Guest:It's amazing that my parents, you know, as many mistakes as they made, you know, you know, managed to like I'm sitting here today and I'm OK.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, well, it's like, OK, so you find out that your mother has siblings and
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:Well, I know my mother's sister.
Marc:She was around.
Guest:I do have some cousins.
Guest:And, you know, every once in a while they reach out on Facebook and I'm not so interested.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You met your grandmother once.
Guest:I met my grandmother once or twice.
Guest:You know, I remember her.
Guest:Her name was Charlotte.
Guest:And but but she was very I was like 15 and doing a public access show.
Guest:And I was very nice.
Guest:She was very naive.
Guest:So I would call my grandmother up and like crank call her.
Marc:So you used her as fodder.
Guest:Yeah, used her as fodder and stuff.
Marc:All right, so that's the backdrop.
Marc:So your parents are divorced.
Guest:It's just me, mom, and dad.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And...
Marc:So you'd go up and visit your dad in New York.
Guest:On the weekends, and that was, you know, New York City in the 80s in a playground.
Guest:Here's who sticks out to me.
Guest:You stuck out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Rick Aviles.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:The pigeons, junkie pigeons.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Mark Cohen, who I ended up in a car with with Dave Rathik a couple months ago.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, hey, I used to see you just, you know.
Guest:Sheck it.
Guest:Jews.
Guest:Jews.
Guest:And then, you know, but and Hicks maybe once or twice, but like there for a little while.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you were the you were the guy, you know, like you were the one that I that both me and my father latched into like, yeah, he knows what's up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:The angry guy.
Marc:The angry guy.
Marc:The sweaty guy.
Guest:The sweaty.
Guest:The angry guy.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And this is after, for you, like, this has to be... This is post you coming out here, improv, Kinison.
Marc:Yeah, and I was doing the Boston because I couldn't get into the cellar.
Marc:I did the improv.
Marc:I would do... Raffi would book me at the gate.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:So that was sort of my circle.
Marc:You know, that was...
Marc:That was what was happening.
Guest:We liked the gate.
Guest:The gate was like, to me, the best.
Guest:And I don't know if it was just the history of the village.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It's a great old place.
Marc:I had a big showroom downstairs for the music.
Marc:And upstairs, they had that weird L-shaped room where they had that front room, that front part in front of the stage.
Marc:And there was this other part that kind of went off to the left of the stage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The bar was over.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The bar was right over there.
Marc:And I remember there, I worked there one night with Bill, with Hicks.
Marc:Hicks would primarily, he was around, but it was only for a very intense short time that he was there.
Guest:Yeah, I must have caught him like one night.
Marc:Right, the improv.
Guest:Yeah, you I would see all the time.
Marc:Yeah, I know, because you guys would come and they'd be like, there's that kid again.
Guest:Yeah, and now I think back to that, and I'm obviously not a stand-up, but is that a nightmare for a stand-up comedian to have a kid in the audience?
Guest:I distinctly remember one time Susie Essman, and it's a classic line of hers, but Susie Essman seeing me in the crowd and going,
Guest:didn't I fuck you?
Guest:And obviously it worked huge with the crowd, but like, did it throw you off?
Marc:No, because there's a point where there are parents, they're kind of like, they bring the kid and you can tell they're nervous.
Marc:because they don't know if the kid, they don't know what I'm gonna do as a stand-up.
Marc:If they know me on the podcast or whatever, the kid likes me for my TV show.
Marc:They're entrusting me with some things and I can't really respect that in the sense that I'm not gonna not say things because the kid is there.
Guest:Of course not, yeah.
Marc:But I think I've made some parents uncomfortable.
Marc:It makes me a little uncomfortable.
Marc:But with you, because your dad was such a... Kind of this weirdo.
Guest:Fucking hipster.
Marc:Yeah, that he was sort of like into it.
Marc:And you were kind of... I don't remember it making me nervous after a certain point.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the weird thing was, I think for all of us, was that...
Marc:There was my generation of comics, like me and Todd and everybody who were around, who knew your dad and knew you as a kid.
Marc:And then you kind of surfaced as this part of show business.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As a teenager.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What I know about you is I know you pulled it together.
Marc:You do some writing.
Marc:You had a podcast.
Marc:I know that you're working.
Marc:I'm a showrunner now.
Marc:For what?
Guest:New show coming to Comedy Central later this year called Corporate.
Guest:Like, I have really pulled it together.
Guest:Well, good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Back then, what happened was, you know, New York City public access was happening.
Guest:So you remember New York City public access.
Marc:I kind of do.
Marc:I know that.
Marc:Is that what Gethard is on?
Marc:Yeah, Gethard's on that.
Marc:What was going on at the time when you were there?
Marc:I remember the stripper.
Marc:Yeah, Robin Bird.
Marc:Robin Bird.
Marc:Al Goldstein.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:But public access at that time, I mean, and it still is, you know, they'll give any lunatic a half hour on television.
Marc:So what year was that?
Guest:So 1994.
Marc:And you were...
Guest:14 turning 15 years old.
Guest:Still in high school.
Guest:Starting high school in New York City.
Marc:Because your mom had moved up?
Guest:My mom had moved up.
Guest:She was, and I can't believe she did this, she had a job, she was a graphic designer, and she had a job in New York, and she would commute from Philly to New York every day.
Guest:That's a brutal commute.
Marc:Not horrible, but New York's expensive.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So eventually she turns, I turn 13, it's time for me to go to high school, and she's like, we're moving.
Guest:And I say, all right, but you got to let me get a public access show.
Guest:And my parents are like, sure, whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Fine.
Guest:And I started doing essentially what is YouTube, you know, but from my bedroom with a video camera and putting it on public access.
Marc:Well, how did you get the hookup?
Marc:Like, whose idea was it?
Marc:It was my idea.
Marc:And you approached public access.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you said, can I get a cameraman?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I got my own.
Guest:I had my own camera.
Guest:I had saved up money working at a video camp in Philadelphia, you know, where I really learned how to like edit and all that stuff.
Marc:You went to a video camp when you were 13?
Guest:It's the nerdiest thing from like 11 to 13.
Guest:There was a place in Philadelphia that was like for kids that want to learn how to make movies and stuff and lasted for a little while.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And and, you know, and I got good.
Guest:I was like, you know, like a counselor in training.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And but then I moved to New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and I had bought, you know, like a high eight camera.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had a VCR.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that was enough.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And so I started doing the show, and it became... What was it called?
Guest:It's called Squirt TV, yeah.
Marc:So it's you, and then how does it pick up traction?
Marc:What happened?
Marc:Yeah, I have a theory about that.
Marc:You put it on public access.
Guest:It airs Sunday nights at 12.30 a.m.,
Guest:And at that time, it was still an era where you would flick through the dials.
Guest:But who were you following?
Guest:Robin?
Guest:I was following.
Guest:No, I was just some lunatic with like, you know, it could have been the black Israel.
Guest:You know, every time you turn on public access, it'd be the real Jews are black guys, black Israelites.
Guest:It could have been the costumes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With the costumes yelling in Times Square.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know who I was following, but I know that MTV was channel 20.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And 120 minutes was airing at that time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that would go to commercial.
Guest:People would flick down four numbers on the dial and see a Devo music video, which I'm showing completely illegally.
Marc:So you, from the get-go, were showing music videos?
Guest:Music videos, clips from movies, dissecting pop culture.
Marc:That you just edit together.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you would host it, cut things in.
Guest:Cut things in.
Guest:So imagine you're watching 120 minutes in 1994.
Guest:Oh, there's a Devo video on.
Guest:I haven't seen this in a while.
Guest:And then 15-year-old me pops up, and I'm like, hey, here's my thoughts on whatever.
Guest:And people were like, what the fuck is this?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it aired in Manhattan at that particular time, and...
Guest:you know it was sort of this immediate cult phenomenon early fan this is before guests so you didn't have guests did not have guests i had people i remember getting a phone i remember saying on the show like i need a haircut and then i i very smartly put a voicemail number right on the bottom of the screen yeah and uh people would call me up and it would be like hey it's uh this is a thurston moore i'm here with kim i'll give you a haircut
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like that's like the crazy thing was I used that they might be giant song is like my theme song.
Marc:Right.
Marc:OK.
Guest:And four weeks in.
Marc:Which one?
Guest:I wish it was minimum wage from from flood because it was short.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And four weeks into doing the show, I'm doing this thing for a month and I get a phone call and it's like, hey, this is John Flansburg from They Might Be Giants.
Guest:I'm watching your show and checking out, digging it.
Guest:Keep up the good work.
Marc:So you got a month in.
Marc:You got a pass to use the music.
Marc:Got a pass to use the music.
Marc:Because somebody said there's some kid
Guest:But imagine you're 15 years old and like your favorite band calls you up and is like, hey, I dig what you're doing, man.
Marc:Like that happened to me.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So you got like somehow or another the artsy nerds.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And the cool rock people.
Guest:Yeah, the Beastie Boys and all those people.
Marc:Who's this kid?
Guest:Who's this kid?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's what happened to me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, eventually, you know, who's this kid travels, you know, up the ladder.
Marc:But before you make your break, you have this voicemail line.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So and this was you were into the punk scene and whatever.
Marc:Who were your music people then?
Marc:Like, what were you doing?
Marc:Were you going you couldn't go out to shows?
Marc:You were.
Guest:I could, though, because it was New York City at the time.
Guest:And like, you know, there were like, you know, was I at CBGB's for anything cool?
Guest:No, nothing cool was going.
Guest:It was done.
Guest:It was done.
Guest:But no, I would go see, you know, you know, the Ramones and Pavement and Sonic Youth and Lushy Jackson and the Beastie Boys and all that stuff.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah, that was.
Marc:That was happening.
Guest:That was happening.
Guest:I distinctly remember going to see.
Guest:you know the beastie boys at wallapalooza in 94 it was a really interesting time but the voicemail was really funny because for for the one call that i would get you know like hey this is you know john flansberg from they might be giants there'd be 40 other calls of fuck you you white prep school bitch i'm gonna come kill you like you know just like because you gave a number out and why not why not like and you're following the black israelites yeah so like
Guest:So I would and and and and then what I would do is I would play those calls back on the show next week because they were so they were just so outrageous and funny.
Guest:And I don't know where I found a sense of humor.
Marc:So when did it like when did you who was your first guest?
Marc:Did you have a guest on the public access?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The first band that came to the public access show was mean, which is kind of perfect.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So that was, I think, around 1995.
Marc:Did they play?
Guest:They did not play.
Marc:But they came to your house.
Marc:They came to your mother's house?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, they came to my mother's house, just like I'm in your garage.
Guest:They came to my mother's house.
Marc:Gene and Dean?
Guest:Gene and Dean.
Guest:And hung out.
Guest:And I talked to them.
Guest:And then that set, once you book Ween, you can get anybody.
Marc:Well, you can get anyone in that world.
Marc:In that world.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So then who comes to your mother's house?
Guest:Um, well then, you know, it really starts to pick up with, uh, with MTV, but like, you know, once MTV got involved, that's, but were you still shooting at your mother's house?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I was very concerned about that.
Marc:Um, so after ween comes, how does the MTV deal happen?
Marc:I mean, what was, how did ICM play?
Guest:What happens is these tapes start getting passed around.
Marc:That's like people it was like the first South Park.
Marc:It was like Ryan boy time exactly right or you know They're traveling metal parking lot or something right so they're travel like agents are getting them They're being yeah tour buses agents until right now.
Guest:It's in Ari Emanuel's hands You know and and they're like and then all of a sudden it's like MTV's like hey go out and cover some spring break for us Comedy Central's like hey once you do an hour we've got a library of stuff and
Marc:And you're 15?
Guest:I'm 15, 16 years old.
Guest:And that happens.
Guest:And it became a bidding war.
Marc:Between who?
Marc:Comedy Central and MTV.
Marc:Wanted the bedroom show.
Guest:Yeah, they wanted Squirt TV.
Guest:And I was adamant, because there's the joke in the movie Wayne's World...
Guest:where they recreate his basement in a studio.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was adamant, no, we still have to shoot this in my bedroom.
Guest:That's just how it has to be done.
Guest:And they agreed.
Guest:Now when I look back on that, I'm like, that's the most impractical fucking thing ever.
Guest:I invited all of that crew into the house.
Marc:Well, how does that change?
Marc:So who'd you go with?
Marc:You went with MTV?
Guest:I went with MTV because Comedy Central was not South Park yet.
Guest:It was before South Park.
Marc:And it was big money.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's always big money at MTV.
Guest:No, it was a small amount of money.
Marc:But there was a bidding for it.
Guest:Yeah, but for a 16-year-old.
Marc:Yeah, and what's your mother thinking of all this?
Guest:You know, at a certain point, my parents were incredibly supportive, but I really think at a certain point, and I don't know if it was when I was seven or when I was 15, just my parents lost control.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:like it was just sort of like the idea of like hey you're grounded i was like yeah but what does that mean like i come home and i adhere to that and if i don't do it what you're gonna call the cops right like you're gonna throw me in jail like we're gonna go through all that i don't think so so i'm going out and that this was after the success or before i think before right you know so you were living in two different worlds and they couldn't manage you and they were self-involved anyways yeah
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:My, my, my father more so than my mother, you know, you were in her house.
Marc:I was in her house, you know, I had crews coming up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you know, and it was, you know, I think there was, here's what was interesting about it.
Guest:Um, you know, I remember my father, um, as this started to happen, um, was like, Hey, I'll, uh, I'll, I'll help you.
Guest:Like I'm a lawyer, I'll manage you and I'll help you with this.
Guest:And I was like,
Guest:No fucking way.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Are you, are you out of your fucking mind?
Marc:I know.
Marc:I know you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You're not, you're not like, why would I have you?
Guest:You have no professional experience doing this.
Guest:And so we didn't talk for six months.
Marc:Oh really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like that's how serious I took it.
Marc:A business problem.
Guest:It was a, it was a business problem.
Marc:But let's wait, wait.
Marc:So, okay.
Marc:So you take the deal with MTV and now you've got to, you know, make a schedule.
Marc:You've got to have a, like a crew there now.
Marc:What you were dealing with one high eight camera.
Guest:I was doing one high eight camera.
Guest:And now I distinctly remember.
Guest:like uh jason nash coming in to interview to be hired as a writer on the show and him not being hired yeah oh really yeah no you know i'm sure that he's i think he's still got resentment about it well he's got resentment um but like all of a sudden i'm this kid navigating through you know television how many were you shooting a week and how much how big was the crew so we did six episodes
Marc:A week.
Guest:No, we did six episodes total.
Guest:This is such a blip on my radar, this thing.
Guest:I did about 50 to 60 of the public access shows and the MTV show.
Guest:We did six episodes that played twice and it imploded because all the time while I'm doing this, you know, I have a whole other secret life going on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is?
Guest:Which is, you know, the older girlfriend and a drug problem.
Guest:yeah you know the older girlfriend how old well you know it's really it's the thing where if the situation was reversed you'd go that's disgusting it's criminal um but with dudes it's like high five she was like 23 i was 15 and now i look back on that and i go wow that's really fucked up that's a fucked up thing that that was going on yeah and she and who got you into drugs the girl
Guest:It's always the older girl.
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:I mean, I get that.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:That's not true, though, because I had already smoked pot.
Guest:Just bad teenager stuff.
Guest:And I think all teenagers go through that.
Guest:I just have the disease.
Guest:And you don't know you have the disease until you have the disease.
Marc:Well, so what was happening?
Marc:So when you were doing that, where'd you meet her?
Marc:She wrote a fan letter.
Marc:To the local access show?
Marc:I had a post office box.
Marc:With the voicemail.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She wrote a fan letter.
Marc:So you were with her before MTV.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you were... It was like my first girlfriend.
Marc:Doing dope.
Guest:Yeah, we did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, no problem...
Guest:I don't like to you know, when you're meeting and there's somebody telling a story like, yeah, man, it was the 90s and we were doing dope and it was great.
Guest:And that glamorization thing like I've listened to every one of these things, you know, that you've done.
Guest:So you were talking about it with Jennifer Coolidge recently.
Guest:I love the way you spoke about it.
Guest:So like, yeah, I was doing dope because it was 1994, 95 in New York City and you lived on the block and that was around.
Marc:And it was strong dope.
Marc:And it was good.
Marc:It was white dope.
Guest:And I look back on that now.
Marc:Wasn't that tar stuff?
Guest:I've never even, you know, like... Well, it was like just there was that period there where... It was a supermarket.
Marc:Well, what changed in New York, though, was that...
Marc:They realized they could hook guys like you by upping the grade of the dope so kids could snort it as opposed to boot it.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:So it was this shift from the guys with the spikes in their arms to this higher grade of dope, which they were thrilled about.
Guest:Absolutely thrilled about it.
Guest:I found out recently that kids, and I didn't finish high school, but the kids that I went to high school, everyone was a secret drug addict.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it was just all of a sudden heroin became accessible because you didn't need to shoot it.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Did you ever get into that?
Guest:That came later and it lasted one month.
Marc:Well, good for you.
Guest:That was the end of it?
Guest:I got in and out of that real, real quickly.
Guest:You know, what I've found too is that like it's because it's... I'm coming up on 11 years and it's so not part of my life today.
Guest:I look back on that and I go, it's fucking crazy.
Guest:I don't know what I was doing and like what's in... Like, do you have that feeling of like what was...
Guest:I don't even know what I'm taking.
Guest:What is this cut with?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, of course.
Marc:Well, you just kind of roll the dice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, but to be a young boy doing that, you know, while also going through like fame was crazy.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:And, but now like, you know, with, with the, with the, the prescription pills, it's like, it's horrible.
Marc:It's worse.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, because, you know, there's still a sort of dealing operation, but at least if you're getting pills, you know, it was made by professionals.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what you're getting.
Marc:But yeah, but having to go down to my block, you know, you were going down to like.
Guest:If I had to, you know.
Marc:The alphabet city.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yeah, I did.
Guest:And it's it's in.
Guest:I look back on it now with with a lot of empathy for my young self.
Marc:So you were 15.
Marc:You had like, how, what was your habit?
Marc:What was the intensity daily?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think, you know, it got there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I'm not going to, you know.
Marc:So, so, okay.
Marc:So you get this deal with MTV and you're with this 23 year old after you shoot, you're both hanging out, you're snorting the dope.
Marc:You're fucking like half awake all the time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Kind of sweaty and sick.
Marc:Yup.
Marc:And, uh, you know, how does the shit hit the fan?
Guest:I'll tell you exactly how this shit hits the fan.
Guest:And, you know, my parents who were, you know, cordial to each other, but not really together, all of a sudden showed up at my office.
Guest:It was humiliating.
Guest:They showed up at my office at MTV one day.
Marc:You had an office.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They closed the door.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they said, last chance.
Guest:Last chance.
Marc:Two of them.
Guest:Both of them together.
Guest:I'd never seen these two people together before.
Guest:So I was like, what do you mean?
Guest:And they took out just a bunch of empty dope bags and dumped them on my desk.
Guest:The little envelopes?
Guest:The envelopes.
Guest:And they said, last chance.
Marc:With the weird markings on them?
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Last chance.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Last chance for what?
Guest:To tell us the truth.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:But had they asked you before?
Guest:No, I mean, I think that they had they had rumblings.
Marc:The first chance was the last chance.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And they shipped me off to, you know, a rehab and.
Marc:But when that happened, had you shifted to needles?
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, that comes later.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:This is a multi-tiered story.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:In and out.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I have 11 years sober.
Marc:I'm 38.
Marc:This comes back around.
Guest:And it's not... Yeah.
Guest:But I was 17, and I went to a rehab.
Marc:And then MTV was like, fuck this kid, or you had a...
Guest:I, you know, Mark, I, you know, I held on hope while I was at that rehab for, you know, 30, 60 days.
Marc:But you had to come clean with them?
Guest:You know, it had to be handled.
Guest:I don't know how much they knew, how much they did.
Guest:I disappeared, you know.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I came back to, you know, that office that I had.
Guest:Two months later.
Guest:Two months later.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Maybe 90 days later.
Guest:And it was a bunch of stuff in boxes.
Guest:And that's when I knew it was over.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:That's when I knew it was over.
Marc:So you've done six episodes on MTV.
Marc:Who were the guests on those?
Guest:Oh, you know, Adam Sandler, Ginny Garofalo, the Fugees, Cypress Hill.
Guest:That was a fun day.
Guest:My mom comes home from work after a hard day.
Guest:Just weed.
Guest:Yeah, just weed in the fucking hallways.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Chibo Mato with, like, you know, Sean Lennon playing and, you know, Liz Phair.
Guest:I mean, just of that period of time, you couldn't ask for cooler.
Marc:Well, that's when I think I knew, like, that was around the time where I'm like, wait, that kid?
Guest:Yeah, and also Luna Lounge is happening at that time, and I'm there every week.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because that's like church.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Luna Lounge was church.
Marc:So you're hanging around again.
Marc:I'm like, you're that kid?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you're always that kid.
Guest:And actually, yeah, I was always that kid.
Guest:And actually, it was after, because I was hanging out, and it was Rebar.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was before Luna.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah, the place where everyone sat on the floor.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was in a weird part of town.
Guest:Well, now it's like, you know, Chelsea or whatever.
Guest:But at that point, it was not really built up or whatever.
Guest:Was it 8th?
Guest:Yeah, 18th Street and somewhere.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I would go to Rebar because Becky, I think, Dave Becky was booking it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's where I saw you and Todd and, you know, Sarah Silverman.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So then what happens is I get, you know, I go to rehab.
Guest:It's not a great rehab.
Guest:It's not a great...
Guest:You know, it's one of these, you know, West Palm Beach, Florida.
Guest:It wasn't a very expensive rehab.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, because my parents don't like... I was the poorest kid at my school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which was like... It was the first time I became aware of class.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, I was... You know, we were middle class people living in New York City in the 90s.
Guest:And I was like... You could do that then.
Guest:You could do that then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now you can't.
Marc:No.
Guest:But you could do that then.
Guest:And I went to...
Guest:this school probably on some sort of scholarship.
Guest:Uh, and it was rich kids.
Guest:It was rich kids.
Guest:So I made friends with like the one punk in, in, in the school.
Guest:It's like, I've got the great rock and roll swindle and laser disc come over.
Guest:And I'm like, Oh, thank God.
Guest:You know?
Guest:And, uh, but, but the, but I went to this rehab and it was one of those, we're going to break it down and build you back up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was humiliating because the show was still airing on MTV while I was in rehab.
Guest:So the counselors,
Guest:who all of which have gone out and relapsed, I've found out.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Because I've Googled them.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:They would come and they would yell at me and stuff.
Guest:But it planted the seed and it got me into the rooms.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Got me into the secret society and stuff.
Guest:And so I'm 17, 18 years old.
Guest:And that is my life for several years, you know, going to that.
Guest:And at the same time- How are you making a living?
Guest:Well-
Guest:Uh, I'm on K rock.
Guest:I, I, I called up the request line at K rock and I said, Hey, it's Jake.
Guest:I had that MTV show.
Guest:I want a job.
Guest:And they said, come on in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had a meeting with them and like in LA, no K rock in New York.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So where Howard Stern was and you know, and they put me on the radio.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Daily?
Guest:Not daily at first.
Guest:Weekly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, when you're 17, 18 years old, you're still living at home.
Marc:Right.
Guest:There's enough pocket change and stuff.
Guest:But it started a radio career for me.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And, you know, it saved me.
Guest:And then at the same time, you know, Upright Citizens Brigade came from Chicago.
Guest:Now, do you still have an agent?
Marc:Did Ari end up representing you?
Guest:That all goes away.
Guest:I, you know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's funny because I'm back with like, I got an email a couple of years ago from Ari, like, Hey, thank you to all our people.
Guest:Like it was the 20th anniversary of endeavor.
Guest:And it's like, thank you to all our people that have been with us for all these years.
Guest:And like, our, like I'm at WME now.
Guest:And Ari's like,
Guest:Hey, I'm proud of him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:So it's and I've seen him over the years and stuff.
Guest:But but but the Upright Citizens Brigade came to to New York City.
Marc:I remember.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because they used to perform at Luna.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like I remember before they moved.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They were sort of around.
Marc:They didn't have a theater yet.
Guest:Yeah, no, as I remember, basically, New York City, they're like, hi, we're the UCB.
Guest:We're going to come here.
Guest:We're going to get our own TV show.
Guest:We're going to start our own theater.
Guest:We're going to start teaching classes.
Guest:And New York City was like, yeah, that sounds great for some reason.
Marc:Yeah, but did it happen that way?
Marc:Like, was that always their arcing agenda?
Marc:I felt like they were a sketch troupe that was working a space and then it started to pick up.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And they got their own space.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:They were sketch comedians trying to do, sell a show to Comedy Central, and there was no improv and sketch community in New York City.
Marc:It didn't exist.
Marc:Right.
Marc:There was just like weird kind of- Now there's too much of it, but- Right.
Marc:What was that one place?
Guest:It was- Chicago City Limits, where you'd have like, you know, which is so funny now because you think of that and it was just like Paul Scheer and Eddie Pepitone playing short form games.
Guest:And I just imagine Eddie going back to his apartment afterwards and being like, why?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Is that who was in it?
Marc:Were they in it?
Marc:Yeah, they were in it.
Marc:But it was sort of like a franchise tourist attraction.
Guest:It was a tourist attraction.
Guest:It wasn't, you know, whereas UCB were coming in and doing, and, you know, improv was, you know, for me, what it was, was Upright Citizens Brigade was, oh my God, these are people my age that want to do the same kind of things I did.
Guest:The only reason I put myself on television was not because I was a narcissist or something or wanted to be on television, is I didn't have anybody
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that doesn't it there was a like new york was very specific to that and every everybody seems sort of around do you know what i mean i remember going to see the movie kids yeah at the angelic home center opening night and walking out of the theater and there were all the kids from the movie kids waiting to be recognized right you know yeah yeah like that was you know part you know yeah i remember new york then i remember that that
Guest:That was, you know, my New York.
Guest:And then thank God UCB opened up because then it was like, oh, this is focus.
Marc:Well, you're on the radio at that point.
Guest:I got a job on the radio, which I quit because they wouldn't.
Guest:The final straw was I had a show.
Marc:Was it daily at this point?
Guest:It was not daily.
Guest:I actually, I ended up going back there and they did put me on daily, but like I was 18 years old and I was in control of the playlist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then a new program director came in and he's like, you know, we're, we're taking control of the playlist away from you.
Guest:And at 18 years old, you tell me I can't play a Slater Kenny record on the radio.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I fucking quit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I quit.
Guest:And then Upright Citizens Brigade happened.
Marc:When did they open that theater?
Marc:They opened the theater?
Marc:The first one with the weird seats?
Guest:Yep, on 22nd Street.
Marc:Where'd they buy all those seats from a bus station or something?
Guest:It was the Harmony Burlesque Theater.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know, it used to be like a burlesque joint on 22nd Street.
Guest:And then Matt Walsh had the apartment upstairs where people would get hand jobs.
Guest:Not from Matt Walsh, but, you know.
Marc:Back in the day.
Guest:Back in the day, you know.
Guest:So they had to, you know, and every once in a while it was so funny because I ended up working at the theater and eventually becoming an artistic director for a while.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But like every once in a while, like a Hasidic Jew would come in during the day.
Marc:From the old days?
Guest:I'd be like, where's the girls?
Guest:Where's Cherry?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were like, it's a comedy theater now.
Guest:And then they were like, oh, and they would take a flyer pretending to be interested.
Marc:Where's the girls?
Marc:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But UCB saved me because- So you just became a sketch rat.
Marc:You just started hanging around?
Guest:Yeah, sketch rat.
Guest:Yeah, sketch rat.
Guest:i just made that up no but that's a good word for it because i was the guy it was like you know i took the improv classes and it was different than there was how many people now there's thousands of people taking classes like it was just the four of them it was the four of them and then they had like what a hundred students i happen to be one of them yeah yeah yeah i took improv classes because you know like i started hanging around ascat which is where i met tom sharpling for the first time and
Guest:And Horatio Sands and then Adam McKay, because it was like the improvisers at that time that would do the Sunday Night Ascot show were Adam McKay, Tina Fey, Brian Stack.
Marc:At the original UCB?
Guest:At the original UCB.
Guest:It was, you know, the top, you know, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, you know, the UCB guys themselves.
Marc:Dratch.
Guest:Dratch.
Marc:I remember seeing Dratch and Faye do their- I remember when they kind of popped Dratch and Faye.
Guest:Dratch and Faye, yeah.
Guest:Directed by- That show was very meaningful to me because it was the first time I had seen what a real produced sketch show could be like.
Guest:And Matt Besser was-
Guest:was really like good to me in the sense that he called me up and be like, ah, Jake, you're in charge of Tuesday nights now.
Guest:Okay, Mike.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it threw me, I said to Besser like, hey, I really want to start like writing and directing sketch because I would do improv and I was on Herald teams and I was like, this is all great and fun and I understand that this is an art form, but maybe we should write some of this shit down and make it better.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like I was that guy.
Marc:So you didn't really want to be a performer.
Guest:No, I've never wanted to be a performer.
Guest:You know, the radio stuff, I eventually ended up going, a new program director came back at K-Rock and that guy was awesome.
Guest:And he was like, hey, why don't you come back?
Guest:And like, you can't pick the music.
Guest:By that time I was a little older, I'm like, I'll play whatever you want me to play.
Guest:You let me talk on a mic?
Guest:But he was cool.
Guest:He was like, hey, your friend Paul Scheer's pretty funny.
Guest:And we're nobodies at this point.
Guest:Why don't you guys talk a little longer in between the songs?
Guest:I had more free.
Guest:It was fun.
Guest:It was fun.
Marc:Okay, so when Besser says you got Tuesday nights, you're a stage manager?
Marc:What does that mean?
Guest:No, I'm booking the open mic or whatever.
Guest:And then also starting to... Besser taught a sketch class.
Marc:And you're pushing people there on the radio show?
Guest:Yeah, sometimes, yeah.
Guest:It did have that outlet.
Guest:But basically, what happened was I started to meet guys like Brett Gelman and John Daly.
Guest:And they're like, hey, will you direct my one-man show?
Guest:So I directed Brett Gelman's first one-man show, John Daly's first one-man show.
Guest:We're all kids.
Marc:All right, so when do the drugs come back?
Guest:Okay, so from 17 until about 22, I'm good.
Guest:I'm good.
Guest:And, you know, UCB and comedy culture, you know, there's McManus, you know.
Guest:What, the bar?
Guest:The bar.
Guest:You go drink afterwards.
Guest:And I said...
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I've got my stuff under control.
Marc:My problem wasn't alcohol.
Marc:It was dope.
Guest:It was dope.
Guest:And I'm going to have a drink and see what happens.
Marc:That first one's good, right?
Guest:Well, what happened was nothing.
Guest:The world didn't collapse.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was, you know, it was a slow decline back.
Guest:So like 22 years.
Guest:I'm okay.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Did they move theaters yet?
Guest:I remember when we lost the theater, we opened, I think, the new theater, which is the current one.
Guest:One of the two current ones in New York was 2004.
Guest:Because I remember that being one of the last shows I did was Adam McKay.
Guest:I was sitting at a bar with... It was during the George W. Bush election.
Guest:He was like...
Guest:says to me in like sheer, he's like, there should be a show at UCB called George Bush is a motherfucker.
Guest:And we're like, we'll do that show.
Guest:He's like, I'll produce it.
Guest:And we did this like, you know, pretty political, you know, for us a sketch show at UCB.
Guest:And you know, that was, that was sort of the last thing.
Guest:And that was at the new theater, but the drugs, you know,
Guest:The drugs came back at the end, and it was very, very quick.
Guest:It was the drinking.
Guest:It was the drinking, and it was like, oh, I can't.
Marc:So you're hanging out.
Marc:Are you making a fool out of yourself?
Guest:I'm not making a fool out of myself, but I'm not fooling anyone, if that makes sense.
Marc:But everyone knew.
Guest:Well, I think that there were incidents where it's like, hey, you got to apologize to that guy because last night you made him cry.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, I got that in me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, especially with alcohol.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But really, I was hiding.
Guest:You know, I was the type of, you know, the way that I use drugs and alcohol was like, this is great.
Guest:It shuts off all feelings.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so all it was the feelings taker away.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was like alone in my house.
Guest:I wasn't like out partying.
Guest:It was that isolated.
Marc:So how long did you start?
Marc:How long drinking before you start using the drugs again?
Guest:A couple years.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Like four or five years.
Guest:What was the decision to... To get back on the drugs?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It showed up.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:You know, it just showed up.
Guest:With a woman?
Guest:No, actually, it just showed up one night.
Guest:And it was like, well, I'm handling the alcohol.
Guest:What's this going to, you know...
Guest:What's this going to do?
Marc:Snort some dope.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, crash.
Guest:And, you know, I think, you know, I hate to say this.
Guest:And again, I don't mean to glamorize it, but I think you can you can sort of manage a dope habit for about a year and a half before anyone catches on.
Guest:I think that's right.
Guest:That's about a year and a half before anyone catches on.
Guest:Um, but yeah, no, I had friends that, that were like, what the fuck's going on with you?
Guest:Uh, what's worried?
Marc:And, um, you were back for, you went out for a year and a half on the dope.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, but still working at that time.
Guest:Um, and you know, I'll tell this story now, but like, um, um, Howard Stern announced he was going to serious.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, um, um,
Guest:uh, I knew that I was going to be out of a job because they were going to switch formats to an all talk format.
Guest:Um, at K rock, it was going to become free FM.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And David Lee Roth was their big idea to replace Howard Stern.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I said, my days are numbered.
Guest:And, um, I've always had a great relationship with the Stern show.
Guest:They were great.
Guest:And I remember going and talking to Gary at like six in the morning, I was working the overnight or whatever.
Guest:And I was like,
Guest:Does Howard know that a bunch of DJs all across the country just got fired?
Guest:And he's like, he's like, do you want to go in and talk about it?
Guest:I was like, yeah.
Guest:So I went in and I'm talking to Howard about that.
Guest:And what happens is CBS radio, which I don't think exists anymore, in one day suspends me and then calls a few hours later to offer me a talk show.
Guest:So I and at the same time, I'm negotiating to go over to Sirius because I see the end of the line.
Guest:I do a talk show at Free FM for six weeks with Jackie Clark, who's another comedian at UCB, a successful TV writer now.
Guest:And we do the show.
Guest:And then I went over at Sirius and then and then some really great people sat me down and told me their stories.
Guest:they were like they saw it they you know and um they saw what the the shifting they saw it on my face oh you mean yeah you were fucked up yeah they saw it on my face they knew they knew the deal they told you some stories they told yeah three great people told me some stories and uh and i and sober people sober people yeah
Guest:And a week later, you know, June 26, 2006.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, that's it.
Guest:And ran up to a meeting and never and haven't been back since.
Marc:So, well, but so when they were telling the stories, was that that month where you started to get heavier?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you were.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It fucks your skin up and everything.
Yeah.
Guest:I had a beard.
Marc:I'm not a guy who should have a beard.
Marc:And you're probably more skinny than you were.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I'm skinny as it is.
Marc:You start to look like a ghost.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You start to look like a ghost.
Guest:And thankfully, I had serious.
Guest:And I had a job.
Guest:And I took sobriety very, very seriously.
Marc:How bad was the kick?
Guest:There have been worse, thank God.
Guest:I got lucky, man.
Guest:I got lucky.
Guest:It's a feeling I never want to feel again.
Guest:Withdrawal?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wake up every morning and I go... I don't wake up every morning.
Guest:There's some mornings I wake up and I go...
Guest:God, as bad as it is, I'm not feeling that.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It wasn't so bad, but it wasn't great.
Guest:But I just stayed in... I got the message this time.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And I did the thing.
Guest:And then slowly but surely, I started to put myself out there.
Marc:What was the first thing?
Marc:Well, it's weird because the interesting thing about our community, if you're not...
Marc:a guy who's some sort of fucking rogue cowboy who just is sort of like fuck you i'm doing stand-up yeah any help but like you were sort of locked in with a community that worked together so you know whatever you went through you still had all these feet you know you had uh you know sheer and mckay and you had people that knew you and besser and all these guys and they were were and i think that they were worried but they weren't you know there's nothing anyone can do there's nothing anyone can do but
Marc:What I'm saying is that on the other side of it, when you want to kind of figure out how to get back in, you've got numbers to call.
Guest:Well, for me, it was also like getting over the fear of fear of writing and being a perfectionist.
Guest:And also, I feel like I was the last person of my generation of UCB people to move to Los Angeles.
Guest:And, you know, it got to be about 2011.
Marc:I know that feeling.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah, I'm sure you do.
Marc:It was like, what the... You know... Everybody came out here with their sketch groups and their things.
Marc:And I'm like, I'm not going there.
Guest:And I really... You know, and I...
Guest:I didn't go to a friend's wedding because I was embarrassed.
Guest:I just was embarrassed about where I was at.
Guest:I felt like all of my people that I had come up with had surpassed me.
Marc:So you had the resentment.
Guest:It wasn't resentment, it was shame.
Marc:You failed.
Marc:I had failed.
Marc:Yeah, I wouldn't go to a couple high school reunions because of that.
Guest:Yeah, and this friend of mine called me and was like, hey man, why'd you, you know, and I cried on the phone and they were like, that's ridiculous.
Guest:That's ridiculous.
Guest:And I got over, it was really a pivotal moment.
Guest:Pivotal moment.
Marc:The guy who got married called you?
Marc:Yeah, he called.
Guest:It's like, why didn't you come?
Guest:And I was like, I was ashamed.
Guest:And he's just like, that is all in your fucking head, man.
Marc:That is all in your head.
Marc:And also, it's like, it was my wedding.
Marc:It was my wedding.
Marc:Yeah, it was my wedding.
Marc:What the fuck is wrong with you?
Guest:And got, you know, like...
Guest:made amends for that you know yeah but then i was like he's right you know he's right and you know and i really had it's not all about you yeah it's not all about me and i'd had this thing of everybody had surpassed me and now there's some people i look up fuck i've surpassed them you know like well thank god
Marc:At least you got one or two of those.
Guest:Mark, I wouldn't lie, but I didn't say it felt nice.
Guest:But I moved out here and I said to Sirius XM and I did my job very well there because that's the easiest job in the world.
Guest:But it was soul crushing because here's the job.
Guest:It's going in for an hour a day and going, hey, what's up, man?
Guest:Here's the arcade fire.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was like data entry.
Marc:Yeah, but eventually it's not like you're making a fortune there.
Marc:You're not making a fortune.
Marc:There's only one guy making money over there.
Guest:Yeah, there's one guy making money over there.
Guest:There's no creative fulfillment.
Marc:Now it's weird.
Marc:Every time you go to Sirius to do anything, it's like, is this under construction?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and, and, and I love the people that I work for, but I said to them, listen, I, um, I am moving to Los Angeles because I have to move to Los Angeles.
Guest:Um, I would, I can do my job from Los Angeles and thankfully they said, yeah, yeah, you can.
Guest:So I, you know, I immediately moved out here and, um, with the help of, uh, uh, uh, Jeff Ulrich, I started working for earwolf.
Marc:Like now when did, when did you and Jen Kirkman start up?
Guest:Okay, so Jen and I, and we're not together anymore, but... But you had been on and off for a while.
Guest:Yeah, we'd been on and off.
Guest:And Jen, we met at the end of 2011.
Guest:And it was a weird thing of like... Out here?
Guest:No, in New York, actually.
Guest:And it was a weird thing of like, hey, we're just having fun.
Guest:And like, oh, now I live in LA.
Guest:Uh-oh.
Guest:You know, and...
Guest:Jen is fantastic and great, but I don't want to tell her story, but I'll just say, yeah, we were running off and it's hard to be a person.
Marc:It's really hard to be a person.
Marc:Oh, yeah, especially like you two.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Especially us, too.
Guest:You know, I'm sure you understand that.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:You're both a lot to handle.
Guest:Uh huh.
Guest:So so we so I move out here and I'm helping out at your wolf and they're like, you can do whatever podcast you want.
Guest:And so I start doing a podcast, which which is, you know, which one files files.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You don't do it anymore?
Guest:I don't do it anymore.
Guest:I stopped doing it in 2013 because I got too busy.
Guest:But for me, it was like, I want to let people know, hi, I'm here.
Guest:I'm alive.
Guest:I have some things to say.
Guest:And also as an excuse to meet new friends or also talk to people that I admire.
Marc:Well, you're over at Earwolf, so you got, you know, Aukerman and everybody, guys you knew from New York.
Guest:And I want to say, Scott Aukerman,
Guest:did one of the nicest things ever.
Guest:He took me out to lunch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like 2011.
Guest:And he's just like, what do you really want to do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And nobody had ever asked me that question like that before.
Guest:Did you know?
Guest:I, I said, I did.
Guest:I said, I want to, I want to write and I want to make stuff with my friends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what happened was, um, uh, I started doing the podcast, started meeting people.
Guest:And then I got hired to write for Billy on the street.
Guest:and um billy eichner billy eichner people like that guy they love him he's the best yeah he's just there's no one funnier there's no one classier in in show business and um anyhow and i understand his you know pop culture sensibility and started writing for his show and and i did well there and i knew that when the show um and then his agents were like oh we like jake we'd like to talk to him and um
Guest:I made it my business.
Guest:This probably was December of 2012, 2013.
Guest:I can't remember.
Guest:But I said, when this show starts airing, I better have a new spec script.
Guest:And I wrote a spec script.
Guest:And the agents were like...
Marc:For a show existing?
Guest:No, no.
Marc:An original script.
Marc:An original script.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wrote an original script.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Which was untitled Jake Vogelman's project for a while.
Guest:And it was called, eventually became Start Making Sense.
Guest:And what happened was the agents were like, hey, this is good.
Guest:and we want to, you know, rep you, but we also think we can sell this.
Guest:And, um, they sent it out to a bunch of production companies and they all responded.
Guest:And in particular red hour.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And Ben Stiller's company, Ben Stiller's company, but then Ben read it.
Guest:And, um, Oh yeah.
Guest:You asked me if I would play.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:This is, this is the thing because Ben read it and I had this call with Ben and he's like, I want to direct this and I want to pitch this with you.
Guest:And, um, do you know Mark Maron?
Guest:And I go, yeah.
Guest:And I wrote this script, you know, I didn't have an actor in mind, but I needed a voice and
Guest:I needed a voice for the character in the show.
Guest:And your voice was in my head.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I didn't, you know, I knew that you had your own show at IFC at the time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And would be unavailable.
Guest:But I wrote with your voice in my head.
Guest:And it's like, maybe it could be John Cusack.
Guest:Maybe it could be Steve Coogan.
Guest:Who knows?
Marc:It was a narrator?
Marc:No, it was the lead role.
Marc:The lead role.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what happens is Ben Stiller attaches himself to direct this.
Guest:And we go out and pitch it.
Guest:And IFC buys it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They buy the script.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they order three more.
Guest:And at the same time- They order three- Backup scripts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I write half a season- Right.
Guest:Of a TV show by myself.
Marc:And you never made it.
Guest:No, they didn't make it because, you know, as I understand it, they don't have any money.
Right.
Marc:Not much anyway.
Guest:Not much.
Guest:But they were great to deal with and they were wonderful.
Guest:But that writing that script got me other jobs.
Guest:And then Michael Showalter and David Wayne, I got a call from my now agents and they said they're going to do One Hot American Summer as a television series.
Marc:What was the Funny or Die story?
Guest:Well, Funny or Die was just like, come here, write sketches, make stuff.
Marc:McKay said that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, McKay had talked to people and Billy on the Street was produced by Funny or Die.
Guest:And it was just like, we should have Jake around to write and direct.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And they did.
Guest:And I really thrived.
Marc:You did a lot of stuff.
Guest:I did a lot of stuff, but I was there for eight months because I got hired to work on... But you're like in-house at Funny or Die?
Guest:Yeah, I was in-house at Funny or Die, which is still one of the best jobs I've ever had.
Guest:It's like working at Saturday Night Live with none of the pressure and none of the money.
Marc:But also like not a recurring cast necessarily.
Guest:Not a recurring cast, but like, hey, Chevy Chase is coming in.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, you know, to do a thing to do a thing.
Marc:So you're sort of a segment producer slash director.
Guest:I was a writer director.
Guest:I wrote sketches and directed sketches there.
Guest:And interesting.
Guest:And then I had had this script and then, you know, went out American summer.
Guest:They hired you.
Guest:They hired me.
Guest:And that was really interesting because I'm in the movie for 10 seconds.
Guest:I was like the new one.
Guest:No, the original.
Guest:I'm in the original for 10 seconds.
Guest:Most of it got cut out because it was too disgusting.
Guest:But how'd they find you at 19?
Guest:They found me at 15 because the state where all those guys were like in their 20s and watching public access.
Guest:And then I was at MTV.
Guest:They did my MTV pilot.
Guest:So to get hired as an adult, they did this square TV pilot.
Marc:The entire state, the entire state came to my bedroom.
Marc:Interesting how everybody's connected.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But then to get hired as an adult.
Marc:Did they all knew you?
Marc:So you had one scene in the original Wet Hot American Summer that got cut down.
Guest:Yeah, that got cut down.
Guest:And then it was like, but I, but I, my agent said, we're submitting you.
Guest:They liked my script and they hired me.
Guest:It was my staff writing job, first staff writing job.
Guest:And that ended on a Thursday.
Guest:And then.
Marc:Which staff writing job?
Guest:Wet Hot American Summer.
Marc:That was a staff writing job for a movie?
Guest:For Netflix, for the Netflix series.
Marc:Oh, right, right, right.
Guest:The first Netflix series.
Guest:And then what happened was Julie Klausner and Billy Eichner sold their show to Hulu, Difficult People.
Guest:I started that on Monday in New York City.
Guest:I still work on Difficult People.
Guest:We're on the third season of that.
Guest:I'm a consulting producer now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and um and i you know i have c you know passed on my thing and then k cannon called me and was you know last year and was like what's that k cannon's awesome she wrote at um uh 30 rock for many years and the new girl and she wrote both the pitch perfect movies yeah and she's like i've got this netflix series girl boss starting and what's your availability and i
Guest:was hired as a co-producer and writer on Girlboss.
Guest:And that was so much fun.
Guest:And that comes out on Netflix April 21st.
Guest:And that's very much the John Hughes side of me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's an incredible story.
Guest:It's based on a true story, but it's definitely embellished and stuff.
Guest:And then...
Guest:And then Comedy Central called with the show Corporate, which is coming out later this year.
Guest:And that was some friends of mine, Jake Weissman, Matt Ingebretson and Pat Bishop had, you know, wrote a script, made a pilot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Comedy Central needed a showrunner.
Guest:They had never made a show before.
Guest:And so my first show as a showrunner is the show Corporate, which is coming out.
Marc:So you're like a writer guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I'm at the, you know, WGA showrunners meetings, like talking about, are we striking?
Guest:Are we not striking?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like that, which is all I've wanted to do is be an executive producer.
Guest:I want like when I used to watch Saturday Night Live as a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't want to be in the cast.
Guest:I wanted Lauren's job.
Guest:And I have my own loans.
Guest:You're not quite there yet.
Guest:Well, but I have my own Lauren story.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Which happened a couple of weeks ago.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Just a fresh Lauren story?
Marc:It's a fresh Lauren story.
Marc:Hot off the press?
Guest:Hot off the press.
Guest:I've been in a room with Lorne Michaels 200 times over my life just by going to SNL after parties and hanging around.
Marc:New York guy.
Marc:In New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And nobody ever introduced me to Lorne Michaels.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And, you know, with Lorne, you don't go up to him.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know, you just...
Marc:You need to be summoned.
Guest:You need to be summoned.
Guest:So, um, I was at, um, a party and I'm like, fuck this.
Guest:I, I see a friend of mine, uh, uh, uh, uh,
Guest:I see Horatio Sanz and he goes, hey, Lauren's over there.
Guest:You're going to go talk to him as a joke.
Guest:He goes, you're going to go talk to Lauren.
Guest:And I go, you know what?
Guest:I am going to go talk to him because for 200, I've been in a room with him 200 times.
Guest:None of you fuckers ever had the courage to introduce me because you're all afraid of your jobs or whatever.
Guest:Like he's this mythic figure.
Guest:I am.
Guest:And I do find myself in a conversation with Lauren Michaels.
Guest:And I say, so Lauren, I'm sorry.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:i've been in a room with you 200 times over the years and uh you know i'm i'm running a show for comedy central i've done this and i just want to say shake your hand and say hey it's nice to meet you yeah and he goes oh it's good you're speaking up and i go yeah and then thank god elizabeth banks is there she goes polite but condescending polite but condescending but it gets better so elizabeth banks is like there she goes yeah oh you don't know jake and i'm like oh thank
Guest:yeah yeah and uh and i go no he goes no and i go so he goes so it's just going well for you and i go yeah man yeah it actually is the meeting with the lord and then um and then we just started talking but it was like it demystified him i was like yeah oh you're just a person yeah you're just you're just you're you're a guy who's done a lot of stuff and yeah and he's funny right he's funny that's i was like oh you're you're just a funny guy this is going well for you
Guest:yeah so is this going well for you but i came back and was like yeah it is what am i you know you had nothing to lose really i had nothing to lose yeah that's the best time to talk to anybody it was the best way to go through life it was so fucking freeing because after all of this stuff that i've been through and like you know childhood trauma it's like all i've ever wanted to do was make stuff on tv with my friends and now it's like i'm at that point of new goals i'm like
Guest:I should write a movie or what's a little movie I could make.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:But I'm a writer guy.
Marc:Good.
Guest:I'm a writer.
Marc:Well, I'm glad we talked because I think the one thing that was and this has happened with other people.
Marc:There's a couple other people in my life where this is the problem.
Marc:Like, you know, I've known you forever and you're always around.
Marc:But in some part of my brain, you're like, what's that guy do?
Marc:What's that kid do?
Guest:Yeah, no, but here's the, I know that about you and I've known that we, I've known for years that we would sit down and have this chat and I was like, it would happen when it was supposed to happen.
Guest:But I know you, you get that, you know, but I have to say over the years,
Marc:That Fogelnest kid.
Guest:But you're kind of not like that anymore because we were at Sarah's party and I remember you going, hey man, you want to meet Jerry Stahl?
Guest:You never met Jerry Stahl?
Guest:You got to meet him, right?
Guest:And I'm being like, Jesus Christ, Maren's just taking me over to, you're not like, I know you had me placed in this certain way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because you know me since I was eight.
Guest:And I also am like, is this kid like talented or is he like a fucking vine star?
Guest:Like, what is this?
Guest:I know that about you.
Guest:But like, actually, I'm pretty fucking good.
Marc:Yeah, I believe you.
Marc:No, I yeah, it started to change.
Marc:I'm glad I introduced you to Jerry.
Guest:that was cool you know hey you dope guys yeah but then but then we were so we have the the stiller connection and then and then i saw you and jen well yeah then i saw you well that was years ago with jen i was sort of like jake you're with jake oh i know yeah no but that was the first time but then i but then there was you know not not too long ago and and i we had locked eyes you're like yeah okay yeah yeah oh right you're and at a thing at a thing yeah yeah at a benefit or whatever and um
Guest:And, you know, every time I've seen you, it's always like, like, I think it's because of the circumstances you've learned, like, well, he can't be just like a teenager anymore.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:I knew you were doing things.
Guest:Well, I'm listening to Will Arnett and my name comes up and it came up positively.
Guest:No, I never had negative feelings, really.
Guest:No, that's the thing about, like, I have never, I don't have one of those, like, ah, fucking Maren was an asshole to me stories.
Guest:I've always liked you.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:Because I've always, like, got you, and, like, you were never, because, first of all, probably because I was no threat to you.
Marc:Well, no, but you were just this kid, and then, like, you know, but, like, it was funny, because when Will said that, like, it really stuck in my head.
Marc:It's sort of like, why haven't I talked to that guy yet?
Yeah.
Guest:like he's got a perfect timing for me i have three tv shows coming out the next year so thanks yeah well you'll be doing ads for one of them oh good at least a comedy central one probably yeah you will be doing ads for corporate and but um but no like also just like i've always you know thought of you as like you know you look look man you ask on the show all the time who are your guys yeah like you're one of my
Guest:guys.
Guest:You've always been one of my guys, Mark.
Guest:You really have.
Guest:Well, I'm glad to talk to you.
Guest:It was fun.
Guest:You feel good about it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cool, man.
Marc:Bill Jakey.
Marc:Jake.
Marc:Nice talking to him.
Marc:That's the longest conversation I've ever had with Jake, and I'm glad we had it.
Marc:Hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:Am I set up to play guitar?
Marc:Did I play acoustic guitar already for you?
Marc:Maybe I'll just do some acoustic.
Marc:Yeah, I don't.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah, I will.
Marc:I will.
Guest:Boomer lives!