Episode 82 - The Sklar Brothers

Episode 82 • Released June 16, 2010 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:Lock the gates!

00:00:07Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:08Guest:Really?

00:00:08Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:09Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:10Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:12Guest:Pow!

00:00:12Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:14Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?

00:00:16Guest:What's wrong with me?

00:00:17Guest:It's time for WTF!

00:00:19Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:20Guest:With Mark Maron.

00:00:24Marc:Okay, let's do this.

00:00:25Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:26Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:27Marc:What the fuckineers?

00:00:29Marc:What the fuck nicks?

00:00:30Marc:Man, the suggestions keep coming.

00:00:33Marc:No matter how many shows I do, I seem to have settled on at least three or four there.

00:00:38Marc:Thank you for listening.

00:00:39Marc:As always, I am Mark Maron.

00:00:40Marc:This is WTF.

00:00:41Marc:I did just get back from the Aspen Comedy Festival.

00:00:44Marc:Thank you to you, what the fuckers that came out.

00:00:47Marc:Mike came down from Broomfield.

00:00:50Marc:Colorado, I believe it is, if I'm not mistaken, brought me a bag full of Celestial Seasons tea.

00:00:56Marc:Boxes upon boxes.

00:00:57Marc:He works up there in a t-shirt.

00:00:59Marc:It's great to see you and his wife.

00:01:00Marc:They came up to Aspen.

00:01:02Marc:A couple other what-the-fuckers came.

00:01:04Marc:Always happy to see you.

00:01:05Marc:Always happy to meet you.

00:01:06Marc:Thank you.

00:01:07Marc:Today on the show, I'm going to talk to the Sklar brothers, Randy and Jason.

00:01:11Marc:Now, look, I've known these guys for about 20 years and, quite frankly, didn't like them much.

00:01:16Marc:I had a lot of problems with them.

00:01:18Marc:I planned to talk to them about those problems.

00:01:20Marc:I don't even know which one is which.

00:01:23Marc:I used to just judge by which one.

00:01:25Marc:The angry one, I think, was Randy.

00:01:27Marc:And I always got the sense that he was a little pissy.

00:01:30Marc:I don't know.

00:01:30Marc:But they're nice guys.

00:01:32Marc:They reached out to me.

00:01:33Marc:I've known them a long time.

00:01:34Marc:I figured maybe I can find something in the Sklar.

00:01:37Marc:Something sorted, perhaps.

00:01:40Marc:There's got to be one sorted story.

00:01:42Marc:I mean, they're twins.

00:01:43Marc:There's something fucked up about that.

00:01:45Marc:Am I right?

00:01:46Marc:I'm not knocking if you're a twin, but I mean, it's it's a weird life.

00:01:50Marc:You know what?

00:01:50Marc:Let's do this first.

00:01:51Marc:Just coffee dot co-op.

00:01:53Marc:You can go there and get some just coffee.

00:01:55Marc:You can go to WTF pod dot com and get it, too.

00:01:58Marc:If you buy the WTF blend, they kick me a few shekels, as they say in the game.

00:02:04Marc:Hold on.

00:02:06Marc:I'm drinking water.

00:02:07Marc:It's a little late right now.

00:02:08Marc:I don't want to be jacked up on coffee.

00:02:10Marc:I've had enough today.

00:02:11Marc:I've had enough coffee.

00:02:12Marc:I've had enough nicotine.

00:02:14Marc:I got to get the fuck off of this goddamn nicotine.

00:02:17Marc:I haven't smoked in 10 years.

00:02:19Marc:I'm chewing the gum.

00:02:20Marc:I'm eating the lozenges.

00:02:21Marc:I'm back on the snooze.

00:02:22Marc:Feels like my mouth is about to fall out of my face.

00:02:25Marc:I think I'm going cold turkey next week.

00:02:27Marc:I'm going to do it and I'm going to drag you through it with me because I got a monkey on my back and all it wants to do is eat fucking nicotine.

00:02:35Marc:I know I've been through this with you guys before, but this is my life.

00:02:38Marc:I have to set up the mindset and the heart set to get off of this for good.

00:02:46Marc:I don't know what I'm going to be like.

00:02:47Marc:I don't even know if I'm going to be that appealing.

00:02:48Marc:I'm barely that appealing now.

00:02:50Marc:If I pull this thing out, if I pull this wedge between my soul and reality out from under me, I might just go really fucking crazy again and destroy everything.

00:03:00Marc:That would be fun.

00:03:01Marc:I guarantee it'd be some good podcasting.

00:03:04Marc:For those of you who want to come out, I'll be in the Bay Area.

00:03:07Marc:I'd love to see you.

00:03:08Marc:I'm going to be up there doing Greg Barron's Bring the Rock show tomorrow night.

00:03:12Marc:That's Friday the 18th and Saturday the 19th at Cobb's Comedy Club.

00:03:18Marc:Why don't I learn to turn off my phone when I'm doing the show?

00:03:24Marc:Cobbs Comedy Club.

00:03:25Marc:Bring the rock.

00:03:25Marc:It's going to be great, man.

00:03:27Marc:And I'm going to tell you something.

00:03:29Marc:And maybe if I tell you, I'll stick to it.

00:03:32Marc:Well, first of all, Grant Lee Buffalo or Grant Lee Phillips is going to be playing guitar.

00:03:37Marc:And my buddy, Mark Rivers, is going to be on drums.

00:03:40Marc:They're going to be backing me up.

00:03:42Marc:Listen to me.

00:03:43Marc:It's all about me.

00:03:44Marc:I'm going to be the front man in this situation.

00:03:46Marc:The way it works, Nick Thune's going to be on the show, Grant Lee Phillips, Greg Barrett.

00:03:51Marc:And you tell a story, and then usually it's always about music.

00:03:55Marc:And if you talk about certain music or a certain band, then the band plays a song from that band that you talked about.

00:04:01Marc:And in my case, I'm going to use this opportunity to sing for the first time in front of people.

00:04:09Marc:I'm going to do it.

00:04:10Marc:I've got my mindset.

00:04:11Marc:I went and rehearsed with the fellas, and I asked myself again, why am I not in a band, even if it's just for fun?

00:04:17Marc:I'll tell you why.

00:04:18Marc:Because when you play with professional musicians, I mean, we did one version.

00:04:21Marc:I got on my guitar.

00:04:22Marc:We played through the Velvet Underground song I'm going to play once, and it was spectacular.

00:04:26Marc:Everybody was at the right level.

00:04:28Marc:Everybody was, you know, helped, you know, pulled back a little bit, kept it tasty as opposed to when you play with amateurs within four minutes, everything is louder than you can even imagine.

00:04:39Marc:You can't even hear your fucking guitar or your voice or what the other people are playing within five minutes of playing with amateurs.

00:04:46Marc:And I'm an amateur, okay?

00:04:48Marc:I know how to play, but I'm an amateur.

00:04:49Marc:I don't play with people.

00:04:49Marc:But to play with some guys that know what they're doing, God, it was fucking fun, man.

00:04:54Marc:I got to do more of that.

00:04:56Marc:Why am I denying myself that?

00:04:58Marc:Why am I denying myself joy?

00:05:01Marc:You know why?

00:05:02Marc:Because I'm wired that way.

00:05:05Marc:I'm going to let more joy in my life and I'm going to stop nicotine next week.

00:05:09Marc:So hopefully I will sing if I don't lose my voice.

00:05:13Marc:That happens sometimes.

00:05:14Marc:If I'm nervous enough and I get enough stage fright, something will go wrong.

00:05:17Marc:I'll get sick.

00:05:18Marc:I'll have an excuse, but I'm going to do everything I can to do it.

00:05:23Marc:And I might even record the process.

00:05:25Marc:I might even record what I'm going through because I get stage fright.

00:05:29Marc:And when it comes to singing, for some reason, when I'm singing, I in my mind, I might as well be up there naked with someone else's penis, a much smaller one.

00:05:39Marc:That's how I picture it.

00:05:40Marc:So let's do a little something.

00:05:43Marc:I got some news articles.

00:05:45Marc:I haven't done this in a long time, but several people.

00:05:49Marc:All right, two.

00:05:50Marc:Two of you, what the fuckers, sent me two different news articles that I found interesting.

00:05:56Marc:All right, the stories I have in front of me have to do with lightning striking.

00:06:00Marc:And I'm sure some of you have heard these stories.

00:06:02Marc:But the first one was sent to me last week.

00:06:05Marc:Was it last week?

00:06:06Marc:Yes, this was...

00:06:08Marc:This was sent to me about this guy, Richard Butler, who went up onto a mountain in North Carolina with his girlfriend, Bethany, to propose to her.

00:06:19Marc:They went up there and they're up there and they both get struck by lightning.

00:06:24Marc:Struck by lightning and she dies.

00:06:27Marc:OK, struck by lightning.

00:06:29Marc:What are the fucking odds?

00:06:31Marc:The odd thing about that story is she died.

00:06:34Marc:And as she was dying or maybe after when the EMTs were working on her, he put the ring on her finger and is going to have her listed on her death certificate as his fiance.

00:06:45Marc:That's a little weird.

00:06:46Marc:Heavy, but let's stick with the lightning idea.

00:06:49Marc:Let's not get too attached to the people involved.

00:06:51Marc:And I'm sorry if you're a friend of theirs, but I'm trying to explore a broader theme.

00:06:56Marc:I got this today.

00:06:57Marc:Church will rebuild large Jesus statue.

00:07:00Marc:Here's what happened.

00:07:01Marc:Lightning struck this huge statue of Jesus and it caught fire and it struck his hand, his outstretched right hand caught on fire, burned the thing almost down.

00:07:14Marc:All right.

00:07:15Marc:Lightning.

00:07:16Marc:And then there's some pretty funny callers who called 911.

00:07:20Marc:Someone called the dispatcher and he says a bolt of lightning had hit the statue and the dispatcher said, Jesus is on fire.

00:07:30Marc:That's pretty funny.

00:07:31Marc:A woman caller said she couldn't quite believe what she saw.

00:07:34Marc:And the quote is, the giant Jesus's right hand is on fire.

00:07:37Marc:Is it supposed to be that way?

00:07:39Marc:She asked the dispatcher.

00:07:41Marc:Is Jesus's hand supposed to be on fire?

00:07:44Marc:No.

00:07:45Marc:So lightning strikes this couple.

00:07:47Marc:Lightning strikes Jesus.

00:07:49Marc:And then lightning struck the ship that was cleaning up the oil in the Gulf.

00:07:57Marc:A bolt of lightning hit a ship capturing oil.

00:08:00Marc:I mean, what the fuck?

00:08:02Marc:I mean, I don't want to.

00:08:03Marc:You know, I'm not a believer, but I'm not beyond mystical interpretation of things.

00:08:08Marc:You know, the odds of lightning striking twice, I know, are slim and lightning happens.

00:08:13Marc:And I'm sure there's a practical explanation.

00:08:15Marc:But I choose to extrapolate from this.

00:08:19Marc:the possibility that this is not the sign of Armageddon, but instead it is a power play by the Old Testament God, Yahweh.

00:08:29Marc:Yahweh is bouncing back.

00:08:30Marc:This isn't about Armageddon.

00:08:32Marc:There's no reason to read it that way.

00:08:34Marc:The Old Testament God was a temperamental, fucked up, pissed off guy.

00:08:38Marc:You never knew what he was going to do next.

00:08:40Marc:Who knows what's going to happen?

00:08:41Marc:And bigger yet, who knows what the fuck it's supposed to mean?

00:08:47Marc:But all I know is that if Yahweh is shooting out sparks and setting his son's hand on fire and they have a hard time putting it out, that's just a sign.

00:08:59Marc:If Yahweh is shooting down sparks and hitting the ship that's cleaning up the oil, what does that mean?

00:09:06Marc:He's done this before.

00:09:09Marc:He's basically said, you know, fuck you people.

00:09:11Marc:If you can't wake the fuck up.

00:09:13Marc:I mean, everyone wants to sit around and try to figure out whose fault that oil spill was and why didn't Obama regulate this or that.

00:09:20Marc:Even if he had put regulations in place, it wasn't going to stop this.

00:09:23Marc:This shit was bound to happen.

00:09:24Marc:The real concern is that it's not fixable.

00:09:27Marc:It's just going to ooze.

00:09:29Marc:We've opened up, we've cracked open to the underworld.

00:09:33Marc:I saw some sci-fi show on the other day where some spell had been cast and there was a crack in the earth that led right to the underworld and who knew what was going to come out of there and kill mankind.

00:09:45Marc:This is similar to that.

00:09:46Marc:Who fucking cares whose fault it is?

00:09:49Marc:I'm surprised BP didn't blame the ocean.

00:09:51Marc:But the truth of the matter is, you can't put a cork in it, and they can't figure out how to stop it except by siphoning off on another well.

00:09:58Marc:All I know is that this, more than any other thing...

00:10:00Marc:You can sit around and think global warming doesn't exist.

00:10:03Marc:You can sit around and think that people who say it doesn't exist are idiots.

00:10:07Marc:You can conserve energy.

00:10:09Marc:You can use your recycling bin.

00:10:11Marc:You can claim that you're a good person.

00:10:13Marc:All of that shit, whatever side you are on.

00:10:16Marc:All I know is that this is the clearest indication that environmentally we are beyond the point of no return.

00:10:21Marc:Because if this thing keeps oozing that shit into the ocean, it's going to kill off most of the ecosystem in that part of the world.

00:10:28Marc:I don't know what it's going to take to get people to change, really.

00:10:30Marc:I mean, what are we going to have to run out of shrimp as a culture?

00:10:33Marc:Is that what's going to facilitate a shift in the energy paradigm as people sitting at Sizzler going, what do you mean there's no more shrimp?

00:10:43Marc:I mean, like tonight?

00:10:45Marc:Never.

00:10:47Marc:There's never going to be any more shrimps.

00:10:50Marc:But we come here on Friday for the shrimp and the steak and no shrimps.

00:10:58Marc:Oh, my God.

00:11:00Marc:What's happened?

00:11:02Marc:I mean, is that what it's going to take?

00:11:03Marc:Is that how we are?

00:11:04Marc:Is that how you are?

00:11:05Marc:Is that how I am?

00:11:06Marc:I don't even eat shrimp.

00:11:07Marc:My dad apparently likes an occasional shrimp.

00:11:10Marc:And I don't know what it's going to take people to stop and just say, you know what?

00:11:13Marc:Maybe we need to figure out how to make fuel out of our pee.

00:11:16Marc:Maybe we need to figure out how to make fuel out of garbage.

00:11:19Marc:Maybe we need to make fuel out of our shit.

00:11:21Marc:Maybe we need to find some other vegetable-based option or solar-based option.

00:11:26Marc:Build a business out of it.

00:11:27Marc:I don't give a fuck, but if people don't wake up after this thing...

00:11:30Marc:fuck it then then god's test has been realized that you know then that then another flood is coming all right he's pissed off at his son sets his arm on fire everyone who believes in that that's an indication from the big daddy all right the bp thing is you know fuck you grow the fuck up wake the fuck up

00:11:52Marc:I'm not even going to help you clean it up.

00:11:54Marc:The first one with the couple, and this is what makes me more, you know, religiously inclined, is that if Old Testament God is so pissed off that he's striking couples on mountaintops on the day that the man is proposing,

00:12:13Marc:For marriage.

00:12:15Marc:I mean, that is the almighty cock block.

00:12:17Marc:I mean, he is furious on such a personal level that I don't know if we're ever going to.

00:12:24Marc:Yeah, it's problematic.

00:12:26Marc:It's problematic.

00:12:27Marc:What do we extrapolate from these lightning incidents?

00:12:31Marc:Sure.

00:12:31Marc:Be scientific about it.

00:12:33Marc:Coincidinky.

00:12:34Marc:OK, I just choose to make it a little more interesting.

00:12:37Marc:All I know is Yahweh is pissed, and when Yahweh gets pissed, there's no immediately decipherable lesson.

00:12:45Marc:It's very erratic, and it takes hundreds and hundreds of years of arguing Jews to even begin to figure out what the fuck it means, and we don't have that amount of time.

00:12:54Marc:I mean, how do you even interpret that?

00:12:56Marc:The lightning strikes and your almost fiance dies.

00:13:01Marc:I mean, how do you interpret that other than look up at the sky and say, God, God, you fucking cock blocker.

00:13:12Marc:I knew why my girl, why me?

00:13:19Marc:And you know what God would say?

00:13:21Marc:Because I'm God.

00:13:26Marc:Alright?

00:13:28Marc:You got a problem with that?

00:13:29Marc:Now walk home crying, man.

00:13:33Marc:Life is tough.

00:13:35Marc:God is a cock blocker.

00:13:49Marc:Randy, Jason, so sorry.

00:13:56Marc:Randy, Jason.

00:13:57Marc:Yeah.

00:13:58Marc:Yeah, you know, I have to admit to being somewhat dickish about that.

00:14:04Marc:In the past, to me, it was always like the nice Sklar and the not so nice one.

00:14:09Marc:Really?

00:14:09Marc:Yeah.

00:14:10Marc:Was there a difference?

00:14:11Marc:I guess this is one of those situations where it's Randy and Jason Sklar in the garage right now.

00:14:16Marc:It's one of those situations where I probably have to make an apology of some kind.

00:14:21Marc:I feel like you should just start that, just be like... Your opening instead of hello should be like, I'm sorry.

00:14:27Guest:It's like a 10-year swath of time.

00:14:29Guest:That's right.

00:14:29Guest:Where you're like, I'm going to go back and...

00:14:31Marc:There are some people that I genuinely owe apologies to because they know me or I've said something wrong.

00:14:38Marc:But you guys, I was kind of a dick to for a long time.

00:14:41Marc:Yeah, I knew we were going to get into this.

00:14:43Marc:Did you feel that?

00:14:44Marc:Yes.

00:14:44Guest:But here's the thing, and I'm going to say this.

00:14:47Guest:Yes, you were kind of a dick to us for a while, but...

00:14:50Guest:Looking back at us back then, I kind of... You had every right.

00:14:53Guest:I agree with you.

00:14:54Guest:You had every right to be a dick.

00:14:56Guest:You should have been dicky to us.

00:14:58Guest:I don't know if that's true.

00:14:59Guest:I do.

00:14:59Guest:I think it is.

00:15:00Guest:When we go back, if you rewind the time machine and you say, where were we when we first were like, actually, our spheres were connecting.

00:15:06Guest:It was right as, remember when Rebar was born in New York?

00:15:10Guest:That's right.

00:15:11Guest:That was it.

00:15:11Guest:Luna Lounge was big.

00:15:12Guest:And there was a period where you would do Luna every week, basically, in the four spot or the sweet spot.

00:15:19Guest:Yeah.

00:15:20Guest:Which is pretty remarkable that you would come with new stuff.

00:15:24Marc:Well, I just lost my shit every week.

00:15:27Marc:It didn't always go well.

00:15:28Marc:I mean, I don't know.

00:15:29Guest:No, but it mostly did.

00:15:32Guest:People came to see you, I think.

00:15:33Guest:And when people were like us, you'd get a spot.

00:15:36Guest:I remember when we were told someone fell out and they were like, oh, you guys are up.

00:15:40Guest:You can do a spot.

00:15:41Guest:And we weren't really prepared.

00:15:43Guest:And they called us the day of and they said, do you want to do a spot there?

00:15:45Guest:We were so nervous.

00:15:47Guest:So then when you think that like, okay, here's a guy who's going up and doing it every single week, whether it, again, whether it goes super or not, it's like, that was impressive.

00:15:55Guest:That was always impressive.

00:15:56Marc:It used to drive me crazy.

00:15:58Marc:Well, I think the reason why I had a resentment is I couldn't get past the novelty of the fact

00:16:03Marc:That you were identical twins.

00:16:04Guest:Which, by the way, probably one of the most difficult things for us to overcome in this business.

00:16:09Guest:There's no way you can overcome it.

00:16:10Guest:I don't think you can.

00:16:11Guest:I don't think you can't.

00:16:12Guest:But here's how we tried to navigate it, for real.

00:16:16Guest:We always thought, okay, we're funny people.

00:16:17Guest:The fact that we're twins is interesting and a unique twist.

00:16:20Marc:He was a nice one, by the way.

00:16:22Guest:Jason?

00:16:22Marc:He was not.

00:16:23Guest:I felt like you and Maren had more friction.

00:16:25Marc:Well, maybe it was.

00:16:26Marc:See, now I can't.

00:16:27Marc:Because you're talking more now, and it's hard for me to tell.

00:16:29Guest:I'm letting him talk.

00:16:30Guest:I'm letting him dig a hole.

00:16:31Guest:I'm not going to dig it because what I said was that I believe for real that our goal was not to be the funniest twins ever to do stuff or just to have a career just as twin comedians.

00:16:43Guest:It was to be a great two-man comedy team.

00:16:46Guest:Whether we ever achieved it is not for us to decide, but the fact that we're twins makes it unique and different.

00:16:51Marc:Right.

00:16:51Marc:Well, I think that was my issue.

00:16:52Marc:And then I realized after a certain point that you got no control over that.

00:16:55Marc:And it was just, I guess my thing was like, really, they have to be on stage because they're identical.

00:17:00Marc:I mean, to me, it would have been interesting if we were connected at the waist.

00:17:03Marc:Right.

00:17:03Guest:Because to me, it was sort of a freak show.

00:17:05Guest:Like we weren't even that, we weren't even an interesting, like we were there, but not all the way there.

00:17:09Guest:It was a fully actualized freak show.

00:17:11Marc:Yeah.

00:17:12Guest:exactly that was my i i thought like well this is interesting but it would be really interesting if we were connected in some way like the one who's like the woman who's a country singer and then the other one who's like in a wheelbarrow that's like her job are you serious yeah it's one who's connected at the head oh no that's right girls connected at the head she's got to go what if she doesn't like country music i don't want what does she do there like i don't like rascal is the one connected at the head is it smaller or freakish smaller and

00:17:36Guest:And she's on a hospital gurney or some sort of a table that gets wheeled around whenever she needs to be doing interviews.

00:17:43Marc:But wasn't there a point where you guys were like, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, Randy, fuck you, Jason.

00:17:48Marc:I'm doing my own thing.

00:17:48Marc:I mean, how the fuck do you live with each other and look at each other over and over again?

00:17:52Marc:I get along with my friends.

00:17:53Guest:Thankfully, now we have families and we don't have to live with each other.

00:17:56Guest:So we have new people to say, fuck you too.

00:17:57Marc:I understand.

00:17:58Marc:I understand.

00:17:59Marc:But I mean, like when you're growing up, I mean, I would think at some point when you realize that you were separate people and had different personalities.

00:18:05Marc:I mean, who is the dick?

00:18:07Marc:Seriously.

00:18:08Guest:I think we both had dickish qualities in this.

00:18:10Marc:Let's not be diplomatic here.

00:18:11Marc:I'm not being diplomatic.

00:18:12Marc:Somebody beat the shit out of somebody.

00:18:13Marc:No.

00:18:14Marc:Right now?

00:18:14Guest:Right here?

00:18:15Marc:I don't know.

00:18:15Guest:He said in the past, somebody did it.

00:18:16Marc:Like when you were a kid.

00:18:17Marc:I have a brother.

00:18:17Marc:Oh, we were kids.

00:18:18Guest:Yeah.

00:18:18Guest:We used to beat the crap out of each other.

00:18:19Guest:We used to beat on each other.

00:18:20Guest:In weird ways.

00:18:22Guest:Like, I feel like we would just, because we expected a lot out of each other.

00:18:26Guest:Like, what you expect out of yourself.

00:18:27Guest:Take the beating you give yourself.

00:18:29Marc:Right.

00:18:30Marc:So you do it to each other?

00:18:31Guest:You expect that.

00:18:32Guest:Can you imagine expecting that out of somebody else?

00:18:34Guest:What you put, the standard you put yourself to.

00:18:36Marc:Not someone that looks exactly like me.

00:18:38Marc:Right.

00:18:38Marc:I mean, because I have that guy.

00:18:39Marc:You were married.

00:18:39Guest:Maybe that's because it's a representation of you out there.

00:18:42Marc:But where'd you grow up?

00:18:44Marc:St.

00:18:44Marc:Louis, Missouri.

00:18:45Marc:So that's even weirder.

00:18:46Marc:So your identical Jew twins from St.

00:18:48Guest:Louis, Missouri.

00:18:49Guest:Strange.

00:18:49Guest:Weird.

00:18:49Guest:And what did you, you look like you were kind of- And this is in a time pre-fertility drugs when like actually twins were a novelty in that way.

00:18:57Marc:Right.

00:18:58Marc:But now, okay, so pre-fertility drugs, everyone knew the Sklar brothers because you're twins and people were like, there they are in their car.

00:19:04Marc:What kind of car was it in high school?

00:19:05Guest:It was like a novelty car.

00:19:07Marc:Was it a clown car?

00:19:08Guest:Yeah, clown car, no roof.

00:19:09Guest:Just us.

00:19:11Guest:It was a tiny Shriners-like car.

00:19:12Guest:It's like a parade car.

00:19:14Guest:No, we always had to share cars.

00:19:16Guest:We didn't have a lot of money.

00:19:17Guest:And our parents never, even though they did have a little bit of money, it was never like spended on stuff like that.

00:19:25Marc:So we shared stuff.

00:19:25Marc:Middle class Jews from St.

00:19:27Marc:Louis, identical twins.

00:19:29Marc:You went to school together all the way through.

00:19:31Marc:You were in classes together.

00:19:33Guest:No, not really.

00:19:35Guest:No, and that was good.

00:19:36Marc:Did you ever love that?

00:19:37Marc:I mean, you must get these questions over and over again.

00:19:39Marc:So you played sports?

00:19:41Marc:Yeah, played some sports.

00:19:43Marc:Together?

00:19:44Marc:Yeah.

00:19:44Marc:Soccer?

00:19:45Marc:Soccer, yeah.

00:19:47Marc:St.

00:19:47Guest:Louis was a big soccer town.

00:19:49Marc:So you guys were soccer players on the same team?

00:19:51Marc:We actually played for... Those Squire brothers did it again.

00:19:53Marc:Any of that?

00:19:54Guest:No.

00:19:55Guest:No.

00:19:55Guest:Because I don't think we were ever good enough to do it.

00:19:56Marc:We were never that good.

00:19:57Guest:We were never good enough to do it in the first place to where someone would be like, they did it again.

00:20:00Guest:Yeah.

00:20:01Guest:You know what I mean?

00:20:01Guest:There was never like... Amazing, they did something.

00:20:04Guest:There was never a reprise of our mediocrity or someone saying that.

00:20:08Guest:Right.

00:20:09Marc:Commenting on it.

00:20:09Marc:I hear you.

00:20:10Marc:But, all right, so now girls, you like the same girl?

00:20:14Guest:No.

00:20:14Guest:No, never really happened.

00:20:16Marc:I don't think that ever happened.

00:20:17Marc:You're the married one?

00:20:17Guest:We're both married.

00:20:19Marc:Oh, when did that happen?

00:20:20Guest:A couple years ago.

00:20:21Marc:I ran into your wife, right?

00:20:23Marc:The decorator?

00:20:24Marc:That's mine.

00:20:24Marc:I'm sorry.

00:20:26Marc:Interior designer, Amy.

00:20:27Marc:Yeah, she's very nice.

00:20:28Marc:I ran into her at Staples.

00:20:29Marc:Oh, did you?

00:20:29Marc:And she said she was in the middle of the Oswalt project.

00:20:33Guest:Yes.

00:20:34Marc:Famed Oswald Project.

00:20:35Marc:Is that project over?

00:20:36Guest:No, still in the midst of it.

00:20:37Marc:Ongoing.

00:20:37Marc:The ongoing Oswald Project.

00:20:38Marc:Very good project.

00:20:38Marc:What does your wife do?

00:20:39Guest:My wife is a therapist.

00:20:41Marc:Who's got kids?

00:20:41Guest:She's a psychologist.

00:20:42Marc:Both.

00:20:43Guest:I got two girls, two daughters, five and three.

00:20:45Guest:I have a son.

00:20:45Guest:I have one son.

00:20:46Marc:When did this all fucking happen?

00:20:47Marc:I mean, one of you wasn't married for a while.

00:20:50Guest:When did this all happen?

00:20:50Guest:I have a daughter who's five and three.

00:20:52Guest:Okay, so five years ago it started.

00:20:54Guest:Basically.

00:20:55Guest:Well, I knew you were on your way.

00:20:56Guest:Yeah.

00:20:57Guest:But yeah, no, I was single when he was married.

00:20:59Guest:And then having other...

00:21:02Guest:Like families to go to and just where you have a role in a family that's separate from where this is, I think for us has been incredibly healthy.

00:21:11Marc:All right.

00:21:12Marc:Here's the other thing that used to bother me about you guys.

00:21:15Guest:I'm sure that there's only two.

00:21:16Guest:The other thing is surprising.

00:21:18Marc:No, I don't have anything against you anymore.

00:21:19Marc:Neither do I.

00:21:20Marc:We were on a show recently.

00:21:21Marc:It was fun.

00:21:22Marc:It was sort of dewy.

00:21:24Marc:Was it dewy?

00:21:25Marc:I got asked to do some dewy thing.

00:21:26Marc:What was that thing that I got asked to do?

00:21:28Marc:Someone called me and said they wanted me to do a video, a dewy video.

00:21:32Marc:Oh, the ish video.

00:21:33Marc:And their big point of reference was like, the Scars did it.

00:21:36Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:21:36Guest:You should have run in the other direction.

00:21:39Guest:I did.

00:21:40Guest:It was somebody... That's your indication to go.

00:21:44Guest:No, the Jewish Federation did these videos of what's your ish, what is your... What makes you Jewish?

00:21:50Guest:And for us, we did a whole thing about how the Eliot Spitzer scandal was what made us Jewish, and really not so much how...

00:21:57Guest:He dealt with it and everything, but just like Jews' reaction to the scandal for us was everything.

00:22:02Guest:That like Jews, when it happened to Eliot Spitzer, weren't like, oh my God.

00:22:06Guest:Like non-Jews were like his poor wife.

00:22:08Guest:That's bad for him and his career.

00:22:10Guest:Like for us, Jews everywhere was like, oh, this is bad for Jews everywhere.

00:22:13Guest:When that happened, you're like, this is bad for the state of Israel.

00:22:15Guest:It's bad for Rod Carew, a man who converted to Judaism.

00:22:17Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:22:19Marc:But Spitzer always seemed like he wanted to pass.

00:22:22Marc:He didn't seem that Jewish to me.

00:22:24Marc:His wife doesn't look that Jewish to me.

00:22:27Marc:I don't own Spitzer.

00:22:28Marc:You don't own him?

00:22:29Marc:No.

00:22:29Guest:Now if it was Fivish Finkel.

00:22:31Marc:If Fivish Finkel got caught in a prostitution ring, I'd be happy that Fivish Finkel was still functioning.

00:22:38Guest:Still out there.

00:22:40Marc:But you guys got bar mitzvahed together?

00:22:41Marc:What, you split a haftorah?

00:22:43Guest:We shared the half tour.

00:22:45Guest:Yeah, we did.

00:22:45Guest:That's unbelievable.

00:22:46Marc:And you both wore silly little suits?

00:22:48Marc:Of course.

00:22:48Guest:Did you wear matching silly little suits?

00:22:50Guest:No.

00:22:50Guest:3B suits and didn't shave.

00:22:52Guest:That was a big thing.

00:22:53Guest:You had beards then?

00:22:54Marc:No.

00:22:55Guest:Like thin, Mexican.

00:22:57Guest:If Lou Dobbs met us, he would build a fence around us.

00:23:00Marc:Did you say Mexican?

00:23:01Marc:Yeah, Mexican.

00:23:02Marc:So you had a bar mitzvah and you both were sporting your 13-year-old busses?

00:23:06Marc:That your parents said, take them off.

00:23:09Marc:They said, shave it.

00:23:09Guest:They said, you'll want to shave it.

00:23:11Guest:And my response in clearly demonstrating no foresight as a 13-year-old was, I don't want to, because then I'll have to start shaving for the rest of my life.

00:23:18Marc:Oh, that was it?

00:23:18Marc:That was it.

00:23:19Marc:That was your defense?

00:23:20Guest:And then, of course, I started shaving maybe three weeks after my bar mitzvah for the rest of my life.

00:23:25Guest:Just terrible foresight.

00:23:26Marc:But now, the other thing I was going to tell you about was that when I talk behind your back.

00:23:32Marc:Sure.

00:23:32Marc:Love it.

00:23:33Marc:This is what I say.

00:23:34Marc:I say, you know, the Squares are nice guys.

00:23:36Marc:And this is not recently because everything's changed.

00:23:38Marc:Because like I said, I like you now.

00:23:39Marc:They're nice guys.

00:23:40Marc:They know what they're doing up there.

00:23:42Marc:But it's not really a team because the team has a straight man and a goofy guy.

00:23:46Marc:They're just finishing each other's thoughts.

00:23:48Marc:It's almost peculiar.

00:23:50Guest:Well, I think our thing, well, I'm glad that you found that because we were like, well, should we, I mean, that's all the advice we got from people was like, just one of you be this way and one of you be the other way.

00:24:00Guest:And we were like, but that's not who we are really.

00:24:03Guest:It felt very, it felt very inorganic and felt like it had been done before.

00:24:06Marc:I don't even know if that would work, though, if one of you acted like a moron and the other one was the straight guy.

00:24:12Guest:I don't think it would work.

00:24:13Guest:I don't think it would work at all because I think that it just, for us, it's not who we are.

00:24:17Guest:It's not the way we tell a story if we were just going to talk to you about something.

00:24:20Marc:Do you know what he's going to say right now?

00:24:21Guest:No.

00:24:22Marc:Seriously, because sometimes it seems like there's some other weird biological thing going.

00:24:26Guest:No, I think it's just listening you We've been around each other enough that I can I know when he's gonna finish something maybe or maybe not I don't know now what now when your career like okay, so you you got to work together Have you ever worked apart?

00:24:38Marc:Yeah, sure.

00:24:38Guest:Yeah doing what I did an episode of curb I think I remember that

00:24:43Marc:But I just said there's a squar.

00:24:44Guest:Yeah, there's a squar.

00:24:45Marc:I do a lot of that.

00:24:46Guest:You're like, hey, you guys were great in Curb.

00:24:48Marc:Yeah.

00:24:49Marc:Just me.

00:24:50Marc:It was only me.

00:24:50Marc:When you guys did that, and then you go, ah.

00:24:53Guest:It's fucking him.

00:24:54Guest:Yeah.

00:24:55Guest:You ruined it for me.

00:24:56Guest:I did.

00:24:56Guest:I ruined it for me.

00:24:56Marc:Is there malice?

00:24:57Marc:Did you find yourself resentful?

00:24:58Guest:There was a little malice.

00:24:59Guest:I think at first I was bummed.

00:25:01Guest:I was like, ah, man, that sucked.

00:25:03Guest:Because, I mean, the way it sort of went down.

00:25:05Guest:Jeff Garland basically said, I think one of the squars.

00:25:07Guest:Get me a squar.

00:25:08Guest:I think one of them.

00:25:09Marc:And you just happened to be around?

00:25:10Guest:No, the agents sent me in and I was like, all right.

00:25:14Guest:And they're like, if he doesn't get it.

00:25:15Guest:Get it, bring the other one in.

00:25:17Marc:That's hilarious.

00:25:18Marc:I think that you guys should, even when you appear on Episodics or anything, even if one of you isn't talking, you should always go together.

00:25:25Marc:That if you get a part, you show up and do your part, but he's just sort of lurking.

00:25:29Guest:We did this thing for Children's Hospital, the David Wayne thing.

00:25:33Guest:The Rob Corddry thing.

00:25:34Guest:Or the Rob Corddry thing where David Wayne directed it.

00:25:35Guest:But it was a... Basically, they were going in a retrospective about a fake history about Children's Hospital.

00:25:41Guest:And they did this whole thing about how there was the twin doctors, the good doctor and the evil doctor.

00:25:47Guest:But we pitched it to Rob that like...

00:25:50Guest:they use this really complicated split screen just for me.

00:25:53Guest:And even though Jay was like right off camera and they showed him that he could have just easily been there.

00:25:58Guest:They were too cheap to hire both actors.

00:25:59Guest:So he's got to like take off his jacket.

00:26:01Guest:Is this my frame?

00:26:03Guest:Am I cutting my hand off?

00:26:04Guest:If I go over here, meanwhile, Jay's like right there.

00:26:06Guest:He could have done it the whole time, but they were like, so that I'm again, that was a fun way to sort of twist what it was.

00:26:11Marc:I want to, I want to hear about the, uh, the screaming and the crying and the arguments about material.

00:26:16Marc:I mean, you guys, about our material.

00:26:18Marc:I mean,

00:26:18Marc:You've got to be at each other's throats.

00:26:20Marc:We are.

00:26:20Guest:We are.

00:26:21Guest:We fought.

00:26:22Guest:We physically fought as adults.

00:26:23Marc:And didn't you like, did you ever do this?

00:26:26Marc:Like, why do I have to be a twin?

00:26:28Guest:Yes.

00:26:28Guest:Yeah.

00:26:29Guest:Yeah.

00:26:29Guest:I mean, and to be honest with you, yes.

00:26:31Guest:There were times, like when we started in New York.

00:26:34Marc:No, I remember.

00:26:34Marc:You got to start.

00:26:35Marc:I can't believe we've been doing this 20 years.

00:26:36Marc:Like, there's some part of me that every time I see you, it's like 15 years ago.

00:26:40Marc:I know.

00:26:41Marc:Except that I like you more.

00:26:42Marc:Right.

00:26:42Marc:Well, sure.

00:26:43Marc:Did you find that, like, because, like, see, I keep trying to compare you guys to me and my brother.

00:26:47Marc:Right.

00:26:48Marc:And, you know, I was clearly the favorite.

00:26:49Marc:What's the age difference?

00:26:50Marc:Two and a half years.

00:26:51Guest:You're older or younger?

00:26:52Guest:I'm older.

00:26:53Guest:Okay.

00:26:53Marc:And I, you know, I was a celebrated favorite.

00:26:56Marc:I was the first grandson of all the grandparents.

00:27:00Marc:Yeah.

00:27:00Marc:and Craig sort of got, my brother sort of got shortchanged in a lot of ways.

00:27:05Marc:But like were there moments?

00:27:07Guest:Moments where one of us was like far celebrated.

00:27:09Guest:There was a, Jay got into like the gifted program.

00:27:13Marc:Oh shit.

00:27:14Guest:And I did not.

00:27:15Marc:Oh, smart score.

00:27:17Marc:It was like the smart score.

00:27:18Guest:He was like doing like weird like,

00:27:20Guest:Yeah, I don't even know what that... Models of dodecahedrons.

00:27:23Guest:Yeah, it was a weird... Still in regular class.

00:27:26Guest:Sitting there with your baseball mitt.

00:27:28Guest:Just glue.

00:27:29Marc:What do you do?

00:27:29Guest:Just a bunch of shitty glue.

00:27:30Guest:I made this tongue depressor house.

00:27:33Guest:And then I think he did better in school than me as a way to compensate for that.

00:27:37Guest:So it drove you?

00:27:38Guest:Yeah.

00:27:38Guest:It maybe made me more motivated to...

00:27:40Guest:I can beat this gifted thing if it kills me.

00:27:44Guest:What an awful thing.

00:27:45Guest:Yeah.

00:27:45Guest:I mean, I actually think all that stuff is now that we're older, I think it's all great.

00:27:49Guest:And now that I have kids and I have two kids that are basically almost the same age split as you and your brother.

00:27:55Guest:I actually think it's amazing.

00:27:56Guest:It's, it's, we are doing a better job as parents to the little one because we don't over do it with, with her.

00:28:02Guest:right it's like the older one we just you know you're like you want to be the best fucking parent you can be and you just lavish all this stuff on them and then the second one comes around and you're like i don't have all the time to do that they're still going to be fucked up later in life everyone will be he created a monster with the one he spoiled that i mean and i think everybody does i wish i could have gone back and done the first one the way we did the second one which is like to let a bunch of shit go and be like you got to work it out you got to do your own thing right well now the

00:28:28Marc:You created a monster with the spoiled one, and then the second one is going to have a chip on his shoulder because of how the other one expects everything.

00:28:35Guest:Well, is that what your brother has a chip on his shoulder?

00:28:37Marc:Oh, God.

00:28:38Marc:He's got chipped aside.

00:28:39Guest:Can he watch you do comedy?

00:28:40Marc:No, he likes me doing comedy.

00:28:42Marc:I think we both have something stuck in our souls.

00:28:48Marc:I'm not sure what it is, but some of his beefs don't seem to go away.

00:28:52Marc:It's the same way when you're married.

00:28:54Marc:Yeah, like me.

00:28:55Marc:Like, you know, if some shit does hit the fan, then I get this sort of like, do you remember when he stabbed me with that pencil?

00:29:01Marc:Oh, God.

00:29:02Marc:You know, and it was like, I mean, that was... That's bringing some... 1971.

00:29:06Guest:That's still under the surface.

00:29:07Marc:Well, yeah, I think the dynamic he sees in his head when shit gets bad is being the same.

00:29:11Marc:But we get along better than we ever have because, well, he's got several kids and... Where is he?

00:29:16Marc:He's in Arizona.

00:29:18Marc:Yeah, we're getting along better now, but we're very similar emotionally.

00:29:21Marc:Are you really?

00:29:23Guest:That had to have been very combustible.

00:29:24Marc:Yeah, we are very similar.

00:29:25Marc:I feel like we are.

00:29:26Guest:Although he gets more sort of riled up and more emotional.

00:29:29Guest:Randy does.

00:29:30Guest:I do.

00:29:30Guest:And I feel like Mike, and I'm seeing that.

00:29:32Guest:Yeah, you still not like me.

00:29:34Guest:Oh, no, I think I like you, and I think Jay is the one who had the problem with that.

00:29:38Guest:I still have an issue.

00:29:40Marc:No, because there were times where I'm trying to remember which one he used to be like, oh, fuck.

00:29:45Guest:This guy.

00:29:45Marc:Marin, yeah.

00:29:46Guest:This guy.

00:29:46Marc:He's going to bust up balls again.

00:29:48Marc:Because I think I made fun of you on stage and shit.

00:29:50Guest:I probably did.

00:29:51Guest:I don't know.

00:29:52Guest:We deserved it.

00:29:52Guest:Like I said, I think we deserved it.

00:29:54Guest:Well, no, no, no.

00:29:54Guest:But, you know, you got to come up somewhere.

00:29:56Guest:I mean, think about it.

00:29:57Guest:You came up in Boston.

00:29:58Guest:Like, I feel like we came up in New York.

00:30:00Guest:So all the mistakes we made at the beginning, unfortunately, were seen by people that we really respect and liked.

00:30:05Marc:What mistakes?

00:30:06Marc:You're shitty when you're a comic when you start out.

00:30:08Marc:But everyone's shitty, but you're shitty times two.

00:30:10Marc:Yeah, we're shitty times two.

00:30:11Guest:Our shittiness is like, we're shitty and someone's like, why are there two of them up there being shitty?

00:30:15Guest:It's like if there were just one person up there being shitty, it's half as shitty, then you double it.

00:30:19Marc:Stereo shittiness.

00:30:19Guest:Yeah.

00:30:20Guest:You're like, oh my God, there's two of them and they suck.

00:30:22Guest:Oh man.

00:30:23Guest:At least one of them could be pulling this thing.

00:30:25Guest:It can't work.

00:30:26Marc:You guys really figured it out.

00:30:27Marc:I mean, like, you know, I saw you the other night.

00:30:29Marc:It was very funny.

00:30:30Marc:Thank you.

00:30:30Marc:When was that?

00:30:31Marc:Was it that Bar Lou bitch place?

00:30:32Guest:Yeah, it's a fun show.

00:30:34Marc:It's a good show.

00:30:34Marc:Now, what are you working on now, though?

00:30:35Marc:Sports-wise, are you doing a sports show still?

00:30:37Guest:You know, we're going to do, I think, a sports comedy podcast.

00:30:41Guest:And again, you know, we sort of were... Part of just, like, listening and loving podcasts, we're saying, you know, a lot of people are like...

00:30:48Guest:Because we fill in for Jim Rome, who's a popular sports talk radio guy.

00:30:51Guest:He's kind of like the Howard Stern of sports talk radio.

00:30:53Marc:You fill in for that guy?

00:30:54Guest:Yeah.

00:30:55Guest:He's in 200 markets, North America, Canada, and we get to fill in and do his show for three hours.

00:30:59Marc:Yeah, you've got to do the podcast and then fill in and then pitch your podcast.

00:31:03Guest:Punch in.

00:31:03Marc:Because guys like sports, and the podcast is a thing.

00:31:08Guest:But our thing again, maybe this is even born out of the fact that we are like, look, we don't, it's the same thing with being twins and trying not to make that entirely what our act is about.

00:31:17Guest:We've kind of said, all right, here's the kind of the thing.

00:31:20Marc:You did do that.

00:31:20Marc:I mean, that was impressive.

00:31:21Guest:Like you don't even acknowledge it really anymore.

00:31:23Marc:Not really.

00:31:24Marc:Everyone gets it.

00:31:26Guest:We're past it.

00:31:26Guest:It's like behind us now.

00:31:28Guest:Same thing with the sports.

00:31:29Guest:And then when we did our show on ESPN Classic, our show Cheap Seats, it was like,

00:31:33Guest:We want to do a comedy that people who are watching the show said, I like this show and I also like The Daily Show or Conan or whatever.

00:31:41Guest:Not that I like this show and I also like SportsCenter and I like the sports reporters and I like to watch ABC.

00:31:47Guest:You don't want it to just sit in that realm.

00:31:49Guest:So we said, let's make a comedy first.

00:31:51Guest:The backdrop is that it's sports.

00:31:52Guest:Whereas like, all right, if we were comic book nerds and we knew everything about comedy.

00:31:55Guest:I mean, nerdism is the same process in your brain.

00:32:00Guest:It's just different subject.

00:32:01Guest:Nerdy sports guys are like, if you go to Comic-Con and see that, that's the same thing all the way around.

00:32:06Guest:Except that nerdy sports guys might kick someone's ass.

00:32:09Guest:No, nerdy sports guys are super geeky.

00:32:11Marc:Oh, really?

00:32:12Guest:Yeah, there are dumb meatheads.

00:32:14Guest:Meathead sports guys, but I don't think we appeal to that audience.

00:32:18Guest:I think we're more... So you're talking about a sports nerd might be somebody... Who writes for the Colbert Rapport.

00:32:24Marc:Right, but somebody that knows all the stats, that's really into it.

00:32:27Marc:And there's a difference between that kind of sports fan.

00:32:29Marc:They're like, go, you fucker!

00:32:31Marc:I never understood sports until a guy said to me, a guy I was working with, who I said I didn't like sports, he said, well, then how do you feel alive?

00:32:39Marc:And he was very serious about it.

00:32:40Marc:Frank Sanarelli said that to me.

00:32:42Marc:I just never was wired that way.

00:32:44Marc:I don't have it in me.

00:32:46Guest:Well, no, and it takes... I mean, I think it's just different.

00:32:50Guest:It's different for everybody.

00:32:51Marc:What do you get out of sports?

00:32:53Guest:To me, it's drama.

00:32:54Guest:It's drama and performance.

00:32:56Guest:It's like people doing what they do at the highest level.

00:32:58Marc:But do you jump off your couch and shit?

00:33:00Marc:I get excited.

00:33:01Marc:I get excited.

00:33:01Guest:I get excited when I see stuff like, here, the World Cup's coming up.

00:33:04Marc:That's hockey?

00:33:05Marc:Soccer.

00:33:06Guest:There you go.

00:33:06Guest:Soccer, but I mean, like...

00:33:08Guest:You gotta throw some jokes in here.

00:33:10Guest:Come on.

00:33:11Guest:I know.

00:33:11Guest:World Cup's coming up.

00:33:13Guest:I just saw Invictus.

00:33:14Guest:I should know about that.

00:33:15Guest:You just saw Invictus?

00:33:16Guest:I think that's rugby.

00:33:18Guest:Yeah, but they have a World Cup in rugby.

00:33:19Guest:They do.

00:33:20Marc:All right, well, whatever.

00:33:21Guest:Whatever, but I mean, again, that is more about like, you know, you see like all these countries and how political it gets and how, you know, what's behind it.

00:33:28Guest:I mean, for us, we were...

00:33:30Guest:It's storytelling.

00:33:30Marc:According to Invictus, rugby literally saved the country from history.

00:33:36Marc:It did, really?

00:33:36Guest:I'm sure it did.

00:33:37Guest:They did 30 documentaries on ESPN, 30 for 30, and they did the real documentary on that game.

00:33:46Marc:And all that was true?

00:33:47Guest:All of it was true.

00:33:48Guest:No shit.

00:33:48Guest:Now Mandela coming in, white people chanting Mandela for the first time ever because he, I think it just, I'm tearing up again.

00:33:55Marc:I sat on a fucking plane with tears on my face.

00:33:58Guest:I read your update.

00:33:58Guest:I know I'm gonna talk about it on a podcast.

00:34:00Guest:It's genius.

00:34:00Guest:But it was, I don't know, there's something about it that when that element comes into it, I mean, to be honest with you,

00:34:06Guest:How we really got into, we played soccer as kids, but then I got like serious radio in my car and I was flipping around and I listened to a British, British announcers announce an English Premier League soccer game.

00:34:17Guest:Now the English Premier League is widely known as the best soccer league.

00:34:21Guest:They get people from all over the world, the best players play.

00:34:23Guest:It's like the NBA, but for soccer.

00:34:25Guest:Right.

00:34:27Guest:listening to this guy call the game i can't see the action but they're the announcers are so good they're so emotional they get so into it they describe the action so beautifully it's very poetic so as a as a performer as a storyteller i was like god i'm gripped by this whole thing i think that's really amazing and then you start to hear about who these players are and you get into it in terms of like watching the game and people say soccer is not exciting at all like sometimes it's zero zero at the end of the game but that's not necessarily the case it could be a really exciting game so there's a lot about it that i think

00:34:56Guest:emotionally you tap into that I think is really cool.

00:34:59Guest:I think it's the last piece of civic pride that exists anywhere.

00:35:04Marc:I also think that, and I've talked about this before, that I was never taught to have a sort of healthy sense of competition.

00:35:13Marc:I think that if you play sports and you grow up with sports, you learn that losing isn't life-threatening in most situations.

00:35:19Marc:Yeah, that's true.

00:35:19Marc:Whereas I'm a sore loser, I would rather quit playing

00:35:24Marc:Then finish it out.

00:35:27Marc:I get very angry when someone else is winning.

00:35:30Marc:And even if I don't know how to play.

00:35:31Marc:So I just was never taught.

00:35:33Marc:And I think it's an important part of raising kids too.

00:35:38Marc:Absolutely.

00:35:38Marc:Because especially if someone taught me that losing happens.

00:35:43Marc:You wouldn't hate us.

00:35:44Marc:I wouldn't hate you.

00:35:45Marc:And I probably would feel better about myself in general.

00:35:49Marc:I'm not losing right now, but I am working in my garage.

00:35:51Guest:Well, yes, I mean.

00:35:55Guest:What does that say about us?

00:35:56Guest:We're just a guest and you're losing.

00:35:58Marc:That's right.

00:35:59Marc:Do you feel like now I'm a little uncomfortable because I realize that other guys who are into sports look at me as some sort of pussy because I'm not into sports.

00:36:08Marc:Am I getting that from you right now?

00:36:09Marc:No, not at all.

00:36:10Marc:Not at all.

00:36:11Guest:I don't think you're a pussy.

00:36:11Guest:I look at you as someone who like maybe you should check something out and see if one piece of it taps into something.

00:36:18Marc:Like what?

00:36:18Marc:I can watch tennis, but everything else gets too comfortable.

00:36:20Guest:Watch the next time they do a 24-7 series, which is basically four half-hour shows that lead up to a big boxing match.

00:36:34Marc:I like boxing.

00:36:34Guest:I mean, I can watch it, but I don't seek it out.

00:36:36Guest:Right, but these are the stories leading up to the show.

00:36:40Guest:It's beautiful documentaries, half-hour documentaries.

00:36:42Guest:They're amazingly put together.

00:36:43Guest:Liev Schreiber does the voiceover, and so it feels official.

00:36:47Guest:It feels like it was years ago.

00:36:48Marc:I don't love him.

00:36:49Guest:It's all right.

00:36:50Guest:His voice, just his voice.

00:36:51Guest:He's not on camera.

00:36:53Guest:He's a good actor, but there's something annoying about him.

00:36:54Guest:I will tell you something.

00:36:56Guest:You will watch that and you'll say, I need to watch this fight.

00:37:00Guest:I actually want to go back to what you were saying about losing and winning.

00:37:04Guest:There's learning lessons.

00:37:06Guest:Honestly, there's like a whole movement in the United States right now to ban... Kids losing.

00:37:11Guest:Kids losing.

00:37:11Guest:Basically saying, don't give a trophy to everyone and there's no winners.

00:37:14Guest:We're not going to play games with winning and losing.

00:37:16Guest:And I think that's a huge mistake because...

00:37:18Guest:there are no stakes in a game, none.

00:37:21Guest:Like there's no life and death other than the game.

00:37:23Guest:And so you teach a kid with no stakes, again, how to lose, how to lose the right way, how to, if you win, what that feels like to win and be successful.

00:37:32Guest:But then also like, so then you have all these kids who have grown up without knowing how to lose and then they get out off, you know,

00:37:38Marc:that's right from college in this economy this economy they get a job and they fail and they're like well i don't know they don't get a job or they don't get a job like i don't know how to deal with it i'm gonna move back with my parents right but so if they move back with their parents and they didn't get a job then their parents should theoretically give them a trophy exactly you didn't get a job trophy yeah we're all getting little league everyone's getting them even if you got a job you'd get the same trophy yeah that'd be great

00:38:02Marc:Are you finding with your kid, I mean, it's your daughter who's five, right?

00:38:07Guest:Yeah, Daisy's five.

00:38:08Guest:She turns five tomorrow.

00:38:09Marc:Are you instilling sports in her?

00:38:11Guest:You know, I try to.

00:38:12Marc:You can't force it.

00:38:12Guest:You can't force it.

00:38:13Guest:I mean, I try to.

00:38:14Guest:The difference is, and this is what I'm having a hard time with dealing with, is that when I was a kid and there was something that I really wanted to do, I would like...

00:38:22Guest:go after it with like a certain you know of like a tenacity of like wanting to go after it so when i see like my kids aren't doing that like they'll just not give up or just kind of lose focus or whatever i'm like well if it were me i'd want to like kick the ball into the thing and go run after that right there and you're not doing that right now what the fuck yeah but then you got to kind of pull back and be like well that's not your thing but it's hard to know where the line is you don't want to be the great santee you do not want to throw a ball in your kid's face because

00:38:49Guest:You're like a step away from that.

00:38:50Guest:That doesn't make anybody feel good.

00:38:52Marc:But I mean, I was driven towards other things.

00:38:54Marc:I guess that was just a case.

00:38:55Marc:And also I was on a Little League team that was horrible.

00:38:57Marc:Every, like the Little League team I was on, they were just like the Bad News Bears.

00:39:02Marc:And I was like, and it was horrible.

00:39:03Marc:And I was fat.

00:39:04Marc:It was a bad experience.

00:39:05Marc:It's not good.

00:39:06Marc:But like I was never compelled towards it.

00:39:08Marc:My brother became a semi-professional tennis player.

00:39:11Marc:Did he really?

00:39:11Marc:Yeah.

00:39:12Marc:So he was a real jock in that way.

00:39:14Marc:But like hardcore, like went to Nick Bellateri's tennis.

00:39:17Marc:Did he go down there?

00:39:18Marc:Was he down there like when Agassi was down there?

00:39:19Marc:No, but he was down there for a year and it was too much for him.

00:39:21Marc:The poor kid, when it came right down to it, he couldn't have been a better player, but he did not have the natural ability to put him over the top.

00:39:28Guest:Is that what it was?

00:39:29Guest:So he had all the intangibles, but then couldn't.

00:39:31Guest:see to me that that story is fascinating like i think that and again that to me is what sports is all about you tell the story about this kid who's got all this you know he's got a lot of talent more talent than most people enough to be invited down to this like special camp right he can and yet he lacks the one in you know ingredient but isn't there a similar filter thing in comedy i mean you see a lot of people up there who kind of have the ability to get on stage and tell jokes so they can go to new york they can go to la right they go to a certain distance but

00:39:58Guest:There's like an ability level that's different.

00:40:01Marc:Well, the weird thing about comedy is that I've seen people get funny.

00:40:05Marc:And I've seen plenty of people write jokes and perform them that are not great comics, but they're good enough.

00:40:11Marc:And once you cross over that line, I mean, it depends on what you're trying to do.

00:40:14Marc:What are you trying to get out of it?

00:40:15Marc:I mean, some people can hold an audience.

00:40:17Marc:Some people give love.

00:40:19Marc:I'm finding in my own career that I don't know how to do that in general.

00:40:23Marc:I don't have the natural ability.

00:40:25Guest:As a person.

00:40:26Guest:As a person.

00:40:26Marc:I can be kind and I can be gracious and I can treat people well.

00:40:31Marc:But the actual idea of being selfless enough to give love is like... But you might not realize it, but you are.

00:40:41Guest:Because you're giving people laughter and even if it's like a window into the part of you that is dark and crazy, other people can be like, well, either I have that same dark spot or...

00:40:52Guest:I don't, so I can laugh at that in some way and feel good about the fact that I, wow, that was a dark thought.

00:40:59Guest:I mean, it's just good because I've always found the stuff that you do is very truthful.

00:41:02Guest:Same with like Louis C.K., again, as a comic who, you know, you think about the truth and what he's saying on stage are one and the same.

00:41:10Guest:Right.

00:41:11Guest:So, you know, as comics for us.

00:41:12Guest:You're saying you don't like your kids?

00:41:14Guest:I don't like my kids.

00:41:15Yeah.

00:41:15Guest:suddenly his act got really funny now that we have kids yeah exactly he started talking about leaving the kid by the exhaust pipe while the yeah baby in a dumpster i get it that joke you're like suddenly wow that's fucking true but uh no i mean i don't know that that that level of truthfulness i think is there is something in terms of like where you you

00:41:36Guest:What you're saying, you're saying you don't give love, but I say to give anything to an audience, you're giving something.

00:41:41Marc:Well, right, if you give rawness and you give truth.

00:41:43Marc:I mean, obviously, I'm a pretty lovable guy if you get to know me, but there's something about... That's fun for you.

00:41:50Guest:Don't you enjoy that, though?

00:41:51Marc:I feel like that's... I do, and even now when I do the podcast, it's better because I can really listen, I can empathize.

00:41:57Marc:I have to learn how to do these things because I'm a fundamentally selfish person.

00:42:00Marc:Right.

00:42:00Marc:Now, that must be something that... But we all are, aren't we?

00:42:02Marc:I feel like... That's a good question.

00:42:03Marc:I mean, when you guys... We all are.

00:42:06Marc:Were you selfish at the same time?

00:42:07Guest:I mean... I think it's just like... We took turns being selfish.

00:42:10Guest:We were really courteous as to whose turn it was to be selfish.

00:42:12Guest:Is it my turn to be selfish now?

00:42:13Marc:Yeah, I think it's you.

00:42:15Marc:It's you.

00:42:15Guest:Let me check the selfish wheel.

00:42:17Guest:Selfish wheel?

00:42:17Guest:Is one more selfish than the other?

00:42:19Guest:I think...

00:42:20Guest:Honestly, I think if you get into this, yes, at times.

00:42:24Guest:I would say I'm probably more selfish than you are.

00:42:26Marc:You probably are more selfish than me.

00:42:27Marc:I'm inclined to be more selfish.

00:42:29Marc:Jason is more selfish.

00:42:30Marc:More selfish than you.

00:42:30Marc:What are the little differences?

00:42:32Marc:Because I don't know any other identical twins.

00:42:35Marc:What are the little differences?

00:42:36Marc:I mean, how do you differentiate?

00:42:38Marc:I mean, how do people differentiate between you?

00:42:40Guest:The people who know us don't even feel like we are.

00:42:42Guest:They're like, you guys are brothers for sure, but I don't even think.

00:42:45Guest:But like when you were growing up, they were like, oh, Jason's the one.

00:42:48Guest:Again, I don't think we went, you know, in the same way that like people when we were kids, they're like, why don't you guys switch classes?

00:42:53Guest:Why don't you switch over here?

00:42:55Marc:Girlfriends and stuff.

00:42:56Marc:Yeah.

00:42:56Guest:And we were like, did you ever do that?

00:42:58Guest:No, we didn't.

00:42:59Guest:You guys are too nice.

00:43:00Marc:No, no, no.

00:43:01Guest:At the age of 10, it felt hacky.

00:43:02Guest:It felt hacky.

00:43:03Guest:It's been done before.

00:43:04Guest:Is this really ours?

00:43:05Guest:Can we claim it as our own?

00:43:07Marc:There's a limited spectrum of things identical twins can do to fuck with the world.

00:43:10Marc:That's right.

00:43:11Marc:Seriously.

00:43:11Guest:And then that also shows you the ceiling of what is sort of accepted general social humor connected with twins.

00:43:18Guest:So you say, we said in our lives, let's go away from that and do something different.

00:43:22Guest:I remember when we were in preschool.

00:43:23Guest:This will show you where I was.

00:43:24Guest:In preschool.

00:43:25Guest:My kids are in preschool now, so I think of this as a funny thing.

00:43:27Guest:But someone was like,

00:43:29Guest:To me.

00:43:29Guest:It's April Fool's.

00:43:31Guest:You should switch shirts.

00:43:32Marc:You couldn't even remember who it happened to right there.

00:43:34Marc:I couldn't.

00:43:34Marc:It was to me.

00:43:35Guest:I knew I was involved in the story.

00:43:37Guest:It was a long time ago.

00:43:38Guest:So Stacey said to me, you should switch shirts with your brother and switch classes in preschool.

00:43:44Guest:And I was like, nah.

00:43:46Guest:I don't want to do that.

00:43:47Guest:I'll switch with that kid over there.

00:43:48Guest:They're like, that's not funny or good.

00:43:51Guest:And we're like, well, neither is the other way.

00:43:52Guest:So then we didn't do it.

00:43:53Guest:And I felt like people could, they were trying so hard.

00:43:57Guest:Yeah, it was a breakthrough.

00:43:58Marc:Well, let's get back to the fighting.

00:43:59Marc:Now, have you guys fought on stage?

00:44:01Marc:I'd love to see that.

00:44:02Marc:A fight on stage?

00:44:03Guest:No, it's usually like we fought in a New York City cab over a set of comedy that went terrible.

00:44:10Guest:Now, again, you get into like,

00:44:12Guest:for whatever reason, again, this is the expectation level of the other person.

00:44:16Guest:This is where it'll go.

00:44:16Guest:If it's not going well and there's like a heckler maybe on my side of the room, he'll blame me.

00:44:21Guest:I would be like, handle your business.

00:44:23Guest:Like handle it.

00:44:24Guest:It's on your side of the room.

00:44:25Guest:There's no reason why he's over there.

00:44:27Guest:Handle your business.

00:44:27Guest:How is that my fault?

00:44:29Guest:He could have been walking from there to me.

00:44:31Guest:Do you want me to cross over and handle that?

00:44:33Guest:That's suddenly my jurisdiction.

00:44:34Marc:So you'll sit there on stage and watch him try to handle a heckle and not step in?

00:44:38Marc:You'll step in.

00:44:38Guest:I'll step in.

00:44:39Guest:He'll step in if it's ruining us.

00:44:42Guest:But if something's bothering and he's not getting it.

00:44:44Guest:So we got into a cab.

00:44:46Guest:Where were we?

00:44:46Guest:Standing in New York or something?

00:44:48Guest:You remember the days where you were like, I've got four shows.

00:44:51Guest:I've got to do like stand up in New York, then go down and do Gotham, then come back up and do this, and then go down and do that, and then do the last one.

00:44:57Guest:And so we were in the midst of all that.

00:44:58Guest:It was a heckler issue?

00:45:00Guest:Some heckler issue.

00:45:01Guest:The show didn't go well.

00:45:02Guest:I felt like it was his fault.

00:45:03Guest:He probably knew that it was his fault and was upset about it.

00:45:08Guest:We got into a fist fight in the back of a cab.

00:45:09Guest:A fist hunt?

00:45:10Guest:Punching, punching each other.

00:45:12Guest:And the cab driver literally like pulled over and was like, I can't take you.

00:45:15Guest:I will not take you.

00:45:15Marc:I will not allow this.

00:45:17Marc:Because it was too fucking funny?

00:45:18Marc:I think it was too funny for him.

00:45:20Guest:See grown men hitting each other.

00:45:21Marc:Grown twins.

00:45:22Marc:Grown twins.

00:45:22Guest:And then you're kind of like, I just was reminded of Jordan Rubin's old joke about the cab driver.

00:45:27Guest:I was like, hey, can you pull me up?

00:45:29Guest:Just let me off up there in that accident that you're in.

00:45:31Guest:This guy who's a cab driver who like could get into massive accidents is now upset that like we're going to like

00:45:38Guest:hurt each other yeah yeah so we're punching punching but it was it it's funny that it's a territorial thing yeah did you have to go to each when you stopped fighting was like just stay on your side the funny thing about the way we fight and this is weird i mean i'll acknowledge that this is all weird is that we get it is all weird weird it is i am not going to stand here and say that it's normal in any way shape or form but i we will fight get it out of our system and move on it's a great quality to have but like do you have you don't you don't you can't like for us we can't harbor those i

00:46:06Guest:I mean, I hear stories about people who are like, this person didn't send a note to my family, or my uncle didn't tell my father thank you for something, and now they don't talk from 40 years.

00:46:17Marc:I can't understand that.

00:46:19Marc:Well, they don't also, they're not identical twins.

00:46:21Marc:Sure.

00:46:21Marc:Whose life and work depends on what they're doing.

00:46:24Marc:But even if it just be weird, I mean, I kind of wish for the sake of the podcast that you guys had unsurmountable difficulties that may break up the identical twin-ness.

00:46:33Marc:Yeah.

00:46:33Marc:But I'm glad – now, okay, here's another question.

00:46:35Guest:I think there's a shelf life as to what we can do.

00:46:38Guest:I mean, I definitely think – Together.

00:46:40Guest:But again, I think that was a big choice for us not to go the route of doing typical twin stuff because there's a limit of all what you said before.

00:46:48Guest:It's like there's only a certain number of things that twins can't do.

00:46:51Marc:What about when one of you get – I mean, aside from the fight, I like the idea that you each have to handle your own side of the stage.

00:46:56Marc:Handle it.

00:46:56Marc:Sure.

00:46:57Marc:But neither one of you, you're not fucked up.

00:47:00Marc:You didn't get fucked up on drugs.

00:47:02Marc:No.

00:47:02Marc:Neither one of you had a specific event in your life happen where the other one was like, I guess we're going to lose him.

00:47:07Marc:Yeah.

00:47:08Guest:Exactly.

00:47:08Guest:No?

00:47:09Guest:No, he went off to war.

00:47:10Marc:Yeah.

00:47:11Marc:Well, that would be tragic.

00:47:12Marc:But just in terms of anything crazy chicks.

00:47:16Marc:Like, was there ever a time where, you know, you were going out with somebody and your brother was like, that chick is crazy.

00:47:21Marc:That's Yoko.

00:47:21Marc:She's fucking Yoko on it.

00:47:23Guest:She's gonna break us up.

00:47:24Guest:I mean, to be honest, there was a point in time where, like, I got married and right as I was getting married, he was, like, ended a five-year relationship with a girl.

00:47:33Guest:And so, like, and it ended in not such a great way.

00:47:35Guest:It was ended for me.

00:47:35Guest:It was ended for him.

00:47:36Marc:I know that feeling.

00:47:37Guest:Okay.

00:47:38Guest:so imagine so again we'd been on the same so you're heartbroken and i'm like ecstatic yeah static like go back from my honeymoon did you bring it on stage was that there we did talk about it we did more in like the un cabaret shows where we actually there was never like a period where it's like uh jason's the unhappy one he was really that would have been the way to do the team thing one of you is miserable right right and he was really upset and and and carry that and of course i was super happy so i mean it was just

00:48:02Marc:But it didn't show itself in the performance.

00:48:05Guest:Well, it was only true.

00:48:05Guest:No, it did.

00:48:06Guest:We did a whole show about that.

00:48:07Guest:We did a whole show.

00:48:08Guest:But he's saying, did it come through when we were performing other material?

00:48:11Guest:Is that what you're saying?

00:48:12Guest:Right.

00:48:12Guest:You know, again, one thing we sort of stuck to is like, you got to do... You got to do your show.

00:48:18Guest:You got to do whatever you're feeling in that moment.

00:48:20Guest:Like, you can't...

00:48:21Marc:if that's what you did I mean it would come out sometimes like we would you know I don't know maybe only we would be able to tell it but like but it'd just be so funny to me you guys have never thought about actually maybe doing a series of you know slightly planned YouTube videos where you guys are falling apart breaking down just sort of like I'm so sick of looking at you I know

00:48:41Marc:It's like looking at me, only different.

00:48:43Marc:Only worse.

00:48:45Guest:Being with you is lonelier than being alone.

00:48:47Marc:Or where one of you storms off stage and there's just one Sklar.

00:48:51Marc:Left to do all the setups.

00:48:53Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:48:54Marc:To do the setups and then maybe you'd step over to the other side of the stage.

00:48:57Marc:Just do the other half of it.

00:48:58Marc:I think that's the documentary.

00:48:59Marc:I'm pitching it to you right now.

00:49:00Marc:Are you?

00:49:01Marc:The end of the Sklar Brothers.

00:49:02Marc:Because let's be honest, there's an elephant in the garage that we need to talk about.

00:49:06Guest:One of us needs to go.

00:49:07Marc:No, no, it's an actual elephant, but there is another set of identical Jewish twins.

00:49:13Marc:Oh, man.

00:49:14Guest:You know there are other twins doing comedy.

00:49:16Marc:That's what I'm saying.

00:49:17Marc:The Stone Brothers are out there, and not only are they identical twins, they're Jews.

00:49:22Marc:They kind of look like you.

00:49:23Marc:No.

00:49:24Guest:Do they?

00:49:25Marc:They're Jews.

00:49:26Marc:Well, I guess we all look vaguely Semitic.

00:49:28Marc:Don't tell me you haven't fucking Googled them.

00:49:30Marc:No, I've seen it.

00:49:32Guest:I saw it on Last Comic Standing.

00:49:33Guest:Someone said, hey, you should watch this because there are other... Have you met the Stone Brothers?

00:49:37Guest:Never met them.

00:49:38Guest:Now they're in New York, right?

00:49:40Guest:I think they're in New York.

00:49:40Guest:This doesn't bother you?

00:49:42Guest:At first it bothered me because I was like, oh man.

00:49:44Guest:But then I was like, you know what?

00:49:46Guest:This is really, thank God, again, it made me say I'm happy that we chose to go the route that we did.

00:49:51Guest:I mean, these guys wear the exact same blazers on stage and kind of- Oh, this is interesting.

00:49:56Guest:So they chose to go the identical- They chose to go that route in some way.

00:50:00Guest:Yeah.

00:50:00Guest:But I mean, like, I guess-

00:50:02Guest:I don't know, it makes me feel good about what we're doing.

00:50:05Guest:I mean, I watch their stuff.

00:50:06Marc:You're so different than me.

00:50:07Marc:It's like, you know, I'm fairly specific, but, like, if I see someone who's kind of like me... Like a mini Marin.

00:50:12Marc:Well, yeah, or just, like, I get resentful, I get jealous, but now, like, it's clear.

00:50:16Marc:There's another set of Jew-identical twins...

00:50:19Guest:But don't you think it would shine a light on, don't you think with all the work you've done that if you saw someone else who'd be kind of like you, they'd be like, oh, that's a poor facsimile of you.

00:50:27Guest:Like people would say, so you would feel better.

00:50:29Guest:It would make you feel better about yourself.

00:50:32Guest:I draw strength from that.

00:50:33Guest:I'm like, hey, look, if they were funnier than us and they were doing crazy stuff that felt even better than anything we've done, I'd be like, oh, man, we should quit.

00:50:41Guest:I'd be pissed about that.

00:50:42Marc:But you've had the conversation.

00:50:43Marc:You've sat down and said, what are we going to do about the Stone Brothers?

00:50:46Guest:No, we've looked at it.

00:50:48Marc:No, there was another set of twins.

00:50:49Guest:This is a crazy... Did you know these guys, the Leatherberries?

00:50:51Guest:You knew those guys.

00:50:52Marc:I didn't know the Leatherberries, but Paul Mooney had some kids who were twins.

00:50:56Marc:The Mooney twins were identical twins that were doing comedy for a while.

00:51:00Marc:No.

00:51:00Marc:But they were black, so they wouldn't tread on your trip.

00:51:03Guest:Never know.

00:51:04Guest:So there was another set of twins.

00:51:05Guest:Actually, this is way back.

00:51:07Guest:We had just moved to L.A.

00:51:08Guest:from New York.

00:51:08Guest:This is about 97.

00:51:09Marc:I think twins in show business and vaudeville in previous is fairly common.

00:51:13Marc:Sure, absolutely.

00:51:14Guest:Well, again, there's a freakish element that people are like, oh, I want to see what that's all about.

00:51:19Guest:And I guess our attitude is like, how do we do it in a way that is, what do people want to see?

00:51:24Marc:Maybe you should do a short film where you get surgically connected to elevate the freakish element.

00:51:29Marc:To just take it up to another level just at the head.

00:51:31Marc:We've done our fair share.

00:51:32Marc:To get more work.

00:51:33Marc:I just can't believe that you don't resent the Stone Brothers.

00:51:35Guest:I don't resent them.

00:51:37Guest:Again, if I really felt like what they were doing, honestly, if I felt like what they were doing.

00:51:40Marc:They introduced themselves to me and I'm like, really, you're serious?

00:51:42Marc:Do you know the Sklar brothers?

00:51:44Marc:I mean, you gotta be aware, right?

00:51:46Guest:Yes, and what'd they say?

00:51:46Marc:Well, I didn't say that, but that was my, they were all excited and they were like, hey, what's going on?

00:51:50Marc:I'm like, come on.

00:51:51Marc:Now I gotta deal with another set?

00:51:53Marc:Oh, God.

00:51:53Guest:You're like, I've finally gotten overhating the first ones.

00:51:56Guest:Now I gotta deal.

00:51:57Guest:Thanks for making me remember what it was like to hate the Sklar's 10 years ago.

00:52:01Marc:I don't know.

00:52:02Marc:I'm not as hateful as I used to, but I thought that's got to drive them nuts.

00:52:06Marc:I mean... All right, it doesn't.

00:52:08Guest:If it doesn't, it doesn't.

00:52:09Guest:I mean, you definitely are a little annoyed by it.

00:52:12Guest:I don't think it's... Hate it.

00:52:14Guest:Hate it.

00:52:15Guest:I don't hate it.

00:52:15Guest:Again, if they did... Annoyed by it.

00:52:17Guest:If they did amazing material, then I would be like... What do they do?

00:52:20Guest:I think it's just...

00:52:22Guest:I think it's a lot of talking over each other.

00:52:24Guest:At the same time, both of them saying different things.

00:52:27Guest:It's hard to understand.

00:52:28Guest:And then they'll come together at the end on a punchline thing.

00:52:32Marc:So that's a gimmick they do.

00:52:36Marc:Whereas you guys talk, and then the other one talks.

00:52:38Guest:Again, are we trying to listen to each other?

00:52:39Guest:Are we trying to create... Actually, I think what we figured out the way our act kind of works the best in the new material that we've been writing, at least the last hour and a half of material that we've written over the last 10 years.

00:52:52Guest:Or at least like five years is that we'll bring up a stand up premise.

00:52:56Guest:And then whereas other comics would use examples to illustrate it, a lot of times we'll act out a scene to like make to and you have two people on stage, you have actors, we consider ourselves to be actors.

00:53:06Guest:So to play out a scene, basically demonstrating what you just brought up in premise form.

00:53:12Guest:And if the premise is born out of a truth that's truthful to our lives and our experience, then how can anyone else recreate it?

00:53:19Marc:No, no, I agree with you.

00:53:20Marc:And I think that's the best way.

00:53:21Marc:I think that's got to be the approach for most of us now because there's so many comics and everyone's drawing from the same... Don't you feel like it's like trying to build a brand new building in...

00:53:30Guest:There's like no space to build.

00:53:33Guest:So that's what I think about comedy.

00:53:34Guest:If you want to make it original, you have to, and you want to build it up to where everybody can see it.

00:53:38Guest:It's like you have to build this super tall building that's on like a one foot by one foot area.

00:53:42Marc:Well, I think that what happens now is that, you know, if you're talking about something that isn't you, that is just your,

00:53:49Marc:point of view on that thing that you're going to run into anybody else could do that that's right pick it up yeah if you're going to talk about yourself in a unique way then that's that's the way you got to go but fortunately there are two of you so you know that means that you're already unique yeah but you don't want to talk about being twins

00:54:08Guest:Well, we do actually now.

00:54:10Guest:We've started to, but approach her.

00:54:11Marc:You guys never liked the same girl or had a threesome?

00:54:14Guest:No.

00:54:15Guest:Threesome?

00:54:15Guest:I couldn't do a threesome.

00:54:16Marc:Isn't that weird?

00:54:17Marc:I can't touch him.

00:54:17Marc:It's weird no matter what.

00:54:18Guest:I would say that I physically can't skin on skin touch him.

00:54:21Guest:It's weird.

00:54:21Guest:That's not true.

00:54:22Marc:It's weird.

00:54:23Guest:I can, but I don't like it.

00:54:24Guest:It feels weird.

00:54:25Guest:You don't hug?

00:54:26Marc:Not really.

00:54:26Marc:It feels really weird.

00:54:27Guest:Not unless we have to.

00:54:28Marc:Is that with anybody?

00:54:29Marc:No.

00:54:30Marc:I'll hug other people.

00:54:31Guest:I'm a very touchy person.

00:54:32Marc:Are you afraid that you're going to meld into one person?

00:54:36Guest:No.

00:54:36Guest:It's like we become one person.

00:54:40Marc:That was our fear.

00:54:41Guest:We become one person.

00:54:42Marc:What happened to Jason?

00:54:43Marc:We are both one.

00:54:45Guest:He melded in.

00:54:45Guest:What if we became one person that just really hated the Stone Brothers?

00:54:49Guest:You know what I mean?

00:54:50Guest:Like we just melded together.

00:54:51Guest:See what you've caused?

00:54:52Marc:We used to be twins.

00:54:54Marc:Now we're one person.

00:54:54Guest:We tried to touch each other.

00:54:56Guest:Actually, we joked that it was like, and for real, like when I shake someone's hand, there's a real connection and you feel like there's energy being passed forth between two people.

00:55:05Guest:When I shake his hand, it is like when you sleep on your arm and you kind of wake up and you feel like your arm is dead.

00:55:12Guest:You have to bang it against the wall just to make sure you're not paralyzed.

00:55:15Marc:You get there from a handshake?

00:55:16Guest:It's like touching your own dead self.

00:55:18Guest:Your own cold, dead self.

00:55:21Marc:Did you guys go to college?

00:55:23Guest:Yeah.

00:55:23Marc:What did you study?

00:55:24Guest:English.

00:55:25Marc:Me too.

00:55:25Marc:What did you study?

00:55:26Marc:English literature.

00:55:26Guest:You both study English literature.

00:55:28Guest:Great.

00:55:28Guest:I mean, it taught us what to read and how to write.

00:55:31Guest:Do you need any books?

00:55:32Guest:I have a lot of books.

00:55:33Guest:You do have a lot of books.

00:55:34Marc:I was saying, that's a very... That's weird though, because I was English too, and then I went into comedy.

00:55:37Marc:How quickly after college did you go into comedy?

00:55:39Guest:We went into comedy during, we were performing when we were in college.

00:55:43Marc:See, that's another thing I felt when I first saw you.

00:55:44Marc:It's like, this is college shit.

00:55:46Guest:Yep.

00:55:47Guest:And that's what I was saying at the beginning, that like, again, our material at the beginning, we made our mistakes.

00:55:51Guest:Like, it was so sketchy almost.

00:55:53Marc:Yeah, from what I recall.

00:55:54Guest:Well, we were figuring out what it was.

00:55:55Marc:Wasn't there, like, didn't you do a bit where you were playing a sport or something?

00:55:58Guest:No.

00:55:58Guest:No, I never did that.

00:55:59Marc:That must have been the Stone Brothers.

00:56:00Marc:I'm sorry.

00:56:01Guest:Stone and Stone.

00:56:01Guest:Please, please.

00:56:02Guest:Stone and Stone.

00:56:03Guest:That's the most insulting thing.

00:56:05Guest:I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

00:56:06Guest:I didn't say Chang and Ang used to do that.

00:56:09Guest:Yeah, no, that's horrible.

00:56:10Guest:Not only getting us confused with each other, but getting us confused with another set of twins.

00:56:14Guest:You know who we looked up to, like teams who were doing it?

00:56:16Guest:Do you remember in New York, they were kind of a downtown.

00:56:19Guest:They weren't really comics, but they were more performance art.

00:56:22Guest:They were really cool.

00:56:23Guest:Premium Bob.

00:56:24Guest:Do you remember those guys?

00:56:25Guest:Yeah, I do kind of.

00:56:26Guest:They kind of dressed somewhat like UPS.

00:56:28Guest:UPS.

00:56:29Guest:Almost like sort of UPS guys.

00:56:30Guest:Yeah, I kind of remember them.

00:56:31Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:56:32Guest:There was a tall guy.

00:56:33Guest:and then there's a short guy and they were incredibly interesting and thoughtful and what they did back and forth their relationship back and forth was very intriguing to us I kind of remember them but I don't remember them they were performing like The Kitchen remember that place down there on the west side and so like those guys really inspired us we were like oh well that's really interesting because they're not

00:56:54Guest:taking the form of like, I'm this guy and then he's this guy.

00:56:58Guest:It was sort of like, wow, then they can go back and forth.

00:57:00Guest:When we started watching like the Rebar and whatnot, you'd see like.

00:57:03Marc:I can't believe it's been that long.

00:57:04Guest:Because Rebar was like pre-everything.

00:57:07Guest:Rebar was a U-shaped couch.

00:57:09Marc:I mean, to be honest with you, the worst performance situation in the world ever.

00:57:12Guest:Except that the audiences were great and people loved it.

00:57:15Marc:I sat on the floor and that was sort of the beginning of that alternative scene in New York.

00:57:18Marc:But Rebar, there was one show previous to when it moved to Rebar at some other place.

00:57:23Marc:And I remember it was me, Jeffrey Ross, Sarah Silverman, you know, Mark Cohen.

00:57:28Marc:And then the Rebar thing happened and that became a real thing.

00:57:31Marc:That became a real thing.

00:57:32Marc:And then Luna happened.

00:57:33Marc:I don't even remember what the time frame of it was.

00:57:35Marc:I think it was a year ago.

00:57:36Marc:It was a year.

00:57:36Guest:A year at Rebar.

00:57:37Guest:And we started going to Rebar through Kindler.

00:57:40Guest:Kindler we met and just went out and saw a show that he did.

00:57:44Guest:And we brought him to Michigan when we were still there.

00:57:46Guest:We were doing a comedy show, hosting a comedy show there.

00:57:49Guest:And he was our favorite comedian.

00:57:50Guest:It's like we saw him in St.

00:57:51Guest:Louis.

00:57:52Guest:He's so funny.

00:57:53Guest:So funny.

00:57:53Guest:And he was the first person we'd ever seen who...

00:57:56Guest:who was so committed to his material even if it wasn't working.

00:58:00Marc:I think that's the name of the CD.

00:58:02Guest:He's committed to my material if it's not working.

00:58:05Guest:He did like an hour in St.

00:58:06Guest:Louis that was hilarious, like every bit hilarious, and he was on fire and the crowd didn't get it.

00:58:12Guest:Of course they didn't, and it was in St.

00:58:15Marc:Louis.

00:58:15Guest:But we went nuts.

00:58:16Guest:I've seen that happen.

00:58:17Guest:It was a weird gig, but we were loving it.

00:58:20Guest:And afterwards, like, hey, you want to come perform at the University of Michigan?

00:58:22Guest:Can you imagine you have a really bad show and then you get work off of that?

00:58:26Marc:Were you guys in charge of booking comedy?

00:58:28Marc:Yeah.

00:58:28Guest:Yeah.

00:58:29Guest:At the time for our senior year there.

00:58:30Guest:And we brought him there and we're like, take a look at our comedy and tell us what you think about it.

00:58:33Guest:Do you think that we actually have a shot to do this rather than go off?

00:58:37Marc:What did Andy say?

00:58:38Marc:I can't imagine.

00:58:38Guest:Andy was 100% truthful.

00:58:40Guest:He's like, I like you.

00:58:42Guest:I like hanging out with you guys.

00:58:43Guest:You guys are really funny hanging out.

00:58:44Guest:Your material is going to have to.

00:58:45Guest:You're going to have to get rid of all your material.

00:58:46Marc:You're going to have to lose the brother.

00:58:48Marc:One of you is going to have to lose.

00:58:50Guest:You're going to have to meld together.

00:58:51Guest:You're going to have to meld together.

00:58:52Guest:Can you do that?

00:58:53Guest:And he just is like, you're going to have to lose your material.

00:58:56Guest:But if you write all new material that's truthful to how you guys are offstage and when we're hanging out and being funny, then I think you guys absolutely have a shot of doing something.

00:59:04Guest:And as soon as we heard that, we're like...

00:59:06Guest:This is it.

00:59:07Guest:Fuck law school.

00:59:09Guest:You're on it.

00:59:09Guest:No law school.

00:59:10Marc:When did that, do you still think about law school occasionally?

00:59:13Guest:There are times when I don't work for a long time and I have a mortgage and I'm like, I'm really glad.

00:59:19Guest:Wouldn't it have been great to be a funny lawyer?

00:59:22Marc:Scar and scar.

00:59:25Marc:That's just so suck.

00:59:25Guest:So that plan B is gone.

00:59:27Guest:It's gone.

00:59:28Marc:No more plan B. No more plan B. Do you guys write regular scripts together?

00:59:32Guest:Yeah, we have.

00:59:34Guest:Yeah, we've written TV stuff.

00:59:36Guest:But like for other people?

00:59:37Guest:Oh, for other people to do?

00:59:38Guest:Yeah, we wrote some movie stuff together.

00:59:40Guest:I mean, it's fun to write together because really, I mean, the stuff we're the best at is the dialogue and the scenes because we can just sort of say, well, what is this?

00:59:48Guest:Where is this going to go?

00:59:48Guest:Let's improvise this out.

00:59:49Guest:And then it's there.

00:59:50Guest:The things that we have harder time with are like massive story arcs and getting the thing right.

00:59:56Guest:But I think that's what comedians have a problem with that in general.

00:59:58Guest:No, I think that's true.

00:59:59Marc:Are all your other projects written for twins?

01:00:02Guest:Yes, all of them are Stone and Stone.

01:00:04Marc:Yeah, they're all Stone and Stone.

01:00:06Marc:Vehicles for the Stone Brothers.

01:00:09Guest:We have the untitled Stone and Stone Brothers.

01:00:11Guest:That's a good story.

01:00:12Guest:Vehicles for the Stone Brothers.

01:00:14Guest:That would be a great story.

01:00:16Guest:Like twin comedians who tried their best to stay truthful to who they were.

01:00:20Guest:Right.

01:00:20Guest:Like totally took the high road with everything and tried to do it and are struggling to make it.

01:00:24Guest:And then they get one shot to write...

01:00:27Guest:A sitcom that's like everything that they wouldn't do for an upcoming twin comedian.

01:00:33Guest:Wouldn't that be great?

01:00:33Guest:That's great.

01:00:34Marc:Can we do that?

01:00:34Guest:And then it's a super success.

01:00:35Marc:Should I mail this podcast to myself?

01:00:37Marc:Yeah, mail the podcast to yourself and get to work on that project.

01:00:40Marc:So if you see it, you saw the genesis of it here, folks.

01:00:44Marc:It's called Getting Stoned and Stoned.

01:00:45Marc:Getting Stoned and Stoned by the Squire Brothers.

01:00:48Marc:That's right.

01:00:48Marc:Thanks, fellas.

01:00:49Marc:Thank you.

01:00:56Marc:Okay, that was Randy and Jason Sklar.

01:00:58Marc:And quite honestly, they just walked out and I really, I don't, I still probably couldn't tell you which one was which.

01:01:03Marc:And I don't mean that to be offensive.

01:01:05Marc:I'm just, I don't know.

01:01:06Marc:It's hard for me.

01:01:07Marc:It's hard.

01:01:08Marc:I don't see them enough.

01:01:09Marc:Perhaps if I was integrated into their life in some way, I would have an easier time.

01:01:13Marc:I'm going to start watching sports too.

01:01:15Marc:So that's my list.

01:01:17Marc:Get off nicotine, sing in public, and enjoy sports.

01:01:23Marc:I'm still on the fence about the God thing, although I did that early lightning reading in the show.

01:01:29Marc:A couple of things I want to tell you.

01:01:30Marc:I want to remind you about the Bring the Rock show tomorrow night, July 18th and 19th at Cobb's Comedy Club with me, Greg Barron, Nick Thune, Grant Lee, Buffalo, and the boys.

01:01:41Marc:I will be singing.

01:01:43Marc:If I'm not singing, I will have a very good reason not to.

01:01:46Marc:And I will be capturing that process, I believe, for a future WTF.

01:01:50Marc:Please, folks, go to wtfpod.com and get on that email list because I'm doing it.

01:01:56Marc:If that's not a reason.

01:01:58Marc:I mean, I'm actually doing it.

01:01:59Marc:I'm doing a weekly email list with pictures and links to the people on the show, some of my thoughts.

01:02:04Marc:I'm emailing you mydates.com.

01:02:06Marc:So do that, and if you have it in your heart, please donate a little money.

01:02:12Marc:You know that we got the $250 Super Premium donation package, a one-time donation of $250.

01:02:17Marc:We'll get you a WTF shirt, a Nerdcock shirt, a special Best of WTF CD, all three of my CDs, all of these signed, and stickers.

01:02:27Marc:I'll send some stickers, and if you want to forego one of the shirts, I will send you a copy of my book, Jerusalem Syndrome, signed to you.

01:02:35Marc:$250 super premium membership.

01:02:38Marc:The $10 a month regular subscription donation gets you a What The Fuck shirt, a few stickers, a signed postcard, and my eternal love.

01:02:49Marc:You can also go to WTFPodShop.com to get the premium episode that's up there now with Greg Giraldo, Janine Garofalo, Todd Berry, Tom Shalhoub, John Mulaney.

01:03:00Marc:I feel like I'm forgetting someone.

01:03:01Marc:Oh, I know why I'm forgetting.

01:03:02Marc:Morgan Murphy, who decided to call me out on our strange brief affair in front of the 300 people at Comics.

01:03:11Marc:So that's up at WTFPodShop.com.

01:03:15Marc:Aside from that, fuck, man, you know,

01:03:18Marc:Have a good day.

01:03:19Marc:Next week, probably going to get the Jim Jeffries up.

01:03:23Marc:Jim Jeffries, Australian comic.

01:03:24Marc:Worked a lot in Britain.

01:03:26Marc:Now is here.

01:03:26Marc:Funny guy.

01:03:27Marc:A lot of good stories.

01:03:29Marc:Look forward to that.

01:03:31Marc:Love you all.

01:03:32Marc:Seriously, I do.

01:03:34Marc:Fuck my lips with chat.

01:03:41.

01:03:50.