Episode 823 - Jenji Kohan
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:What happened?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck abilities?
Marc:Wow.
Marc:That just dropped out on me in the middle.
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:It's called WTF.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:If you're not familiar with it, if you're just here for the first time.
Marc:to listen to me and the amazing Jenji Kohan, you know, talk about her life, her career, her creativity.
Marc:You know, some of these GLOW interviews are not, these are not promotional interviews.
Marc:This is a choice that...
Marc:I made with my producer, Brendan, to talk to the people that I worked with on GLOW, but we've got some good ones coming up.
Marc:But this is a full career interview with Genji, and I've got the writers coming up to sort of talk about that process.
Marc:I've got these showrunners, the creators coming up to talk about that process.
Marc:And I got Chavo Guerrero, the wrestler, and Kia Stevens coming up to talk about the real wrestling angle of the show Glow.
Marc:It's all happening in the future, among other people.
Marc:It's not all going to be about Glow.
Marc:We're going to pace it out.
Marc:We're going to spread them out like professionals.
Marc:So thank you.
Marc:for all of the amazing feedback for the show, Glow, the gorgeous ladies of wrestling.
Marc:I appreciate all the love for my acting, for my character, and for the show as a whole.
Marc:I couldn't have, you know, I was made better by the people surrounding me and the people around, certainly, on the show.
Marc:And I just watched it.
Marc:I watched the first five, but I had not watched the second five, which is where my character, Sam Silvia, sort of kind of gets a little deeper, gets a little more stuff going on, get a little more inner stuff.
Marc:And it was it was wild.
Marc:It's wild to watch yourself on television as somebody else.
Marc:And I know some of you folks are like Marin just playing himself.
Marc:But am I really?
Marc:I mean,
Marc:You guys know me.
Marc:I mean, I was never that much of an asshole.
Marc:Look, I was an asshole, but I was not that particular kind of an asshole.
Marc:I had a little of that in me, obviously, but I was not essentially that abusive in that way.
Marc:It's a little muted on the show because the guy's sort of a loser, but look...
Marc:I'm going to bring myself to every role I'm in because that's all I got.
Marc:I got some chops.
Marc:I got, you know, I got some experience, but, you know, I'm no wizard.
Marc:I'm no method man, method actor.
Marc:I'm no, you know, I just I can do stuff that's within my wheelhouse.
Marc:And he certainly was.
Marc:But again, thrilled.
Marc:That all of you like it.
Marc:And watching it, you know, the second half and watching the whole series, which I binged, the emotional component of this show and the sort of, you know, the drive of the entire show moving towards this team of wrestlers dealing with the obstacles personally and professionally and, you know, as a team and as a group.
Marc:was very compelling to me.
Marc:I get choked up watching all the scenes.
Marc:I get hurt watching me as a guy yell at Allison or just being the way I am.
Marc:I watch it and I'm tearing up.
Marc:That's how much distance I have from it, even though I was in it.
Marc:I just find it to be a very entertaining and heartfelt show.
Marc:And I'm happy to be part of it.
Marc:And I'm happy that you like it.
Marc:And I'm excited to talk to Jenji Kohan today about all her shows and about where she came from.
Marc:So that's happening.
Marc:I am I'm doing what I said I would do.
Marc:I'm taking some it's kind of downtime.
Marc:I'm just, you know, through the tunnel of it all.
Marc:And, you know, I might I might actually have a summer here, but I I do have to get on the cardio.
Marc:The cardio has to happen.
Marc:Apparently, I just got my blood tests back and my cholesterol is under control, thanks to medicine.
Marc:But now everything else is normal and healthy except for this one test.
Marc:I don't know what it was, but it implies the nerve of science.
Marc:The nerve of medical testing to imply that I may eat too much sugar and carbs and I'm at risk for maybe diabetes.
Marc:The nerve of science.
Marc:And so I don't even know what that is.
Marc:I don't need candy.
Marc:I don't need ice cream.
Marc:I think it's like I do consume probably two to three pineapples a week and slathering wasa crackers with almond butter and honey might have a bit to do with it.
Marc:You think maybe that's it?
Marc:Brown rice is a carb.
Marc:Whatever the case, I'm just happy that I have health coverage.
Marc:I'm happy that my union has not been destroyed and that it functions and that they take my money when they take it.
Marc:And if I make enough money in either the actor union or the writer union, that I get wonderful health coverage.
Marc:And I can go in that day to the clinic and see what's up.
Marc:And most people can't do that for years.
Marc:I didn't have coverage.
Marc:I was in and out of plans.
Marc:I was on Cobra or I was just winging it.
Marc:You know, I've been freaked out and I've gotten onto Kaiser when necessary.
Marc:I know what it feels like not to have health coverage.
Marc:And after a certain age, if you're certain, depending what your life is, it's terrifying.
Marc:We're all going to get sick.
Marc:We're all going to die.
Marc:You would hope that we could live in a country where we could do everything we could to not die if it is a medical problem and everything we could to sort of die comfortably with the right care.
Marc:You would think that would be a part of it.
Marc:But I guess what I'm getting at is what they're doing to health care in this country is horrible and it's frightening and it's going to kill a lot of people.
Marc:It may be 10 years down the line or however far down the line they want to push it.
Marc:I know there are those people.
Marc:Look, if you can afford it, good for you.
Marc:Life's working out for you.
Marc:But if you can't or if you're old or you're poor or you have preexisting conditions, I guess the idea is like, well, you know, good luck.
Marc:And, you know, the way capitalism works is that, you know, we can't afford money.
Marc:to have the government involved with health care because capitalism needs a turnover.
Marc:If you're only taking and you're not giving back at some point, we've got to let you go.
Marc:Cynical.
Marc:It's cynical.
Marc:Call your senators.
Marc:and express how you feel because they are elected representatives.
Marc:Capitalism does have some flaws, completely relying on the free market as a belief system.
Marc:For some reason, it doesn't really take into consideration as a belief system, as a dogma, that there's nothing there to regulate.
Marc:There's no seven deadly sins.
Marc:And even if there is, if they're not all consuming, it's okay.
Marc:It's okay in the system.
Marc:For some reason, they never really take into mind just the malignancy of greed.
Marc:But, you know, believers are believers.
Marc:But do call your representatives if you feel strongly or you're sick and you're going to die or you care about people who are sick or are going to die and now it's just going to be a decade-long freefall for them.
Marc:If you care about those people, give your senators a call.
Marc:Do it.
Marc:I've been down the Vietnam rabbit hole.
Marc:I got a screener of Ken Burns' new documentary.
Marc:I believe it's a 10-part documentary on the Vietnam War that's coming out, I believe, in September.
Marc:I'm preparing to have a conversation with Mr. Burns, but man, did I not know.
Marc:You know, that is not my generation.
Marc:You know, I knew there was a I knew it was a bad news.
Marc:And I knew that, you know, it changed everything, everything culturally.
Marc:And I just I did not know the history.
Marc:And it's just mind blowing that some of the same fights that we were that we were fighting culturally then that started then are just continuing now.
Marc:Where does it all come from?
Marc:Greed.
Marc:And ego.
Marc:And the Powell memo.
Marc:That's all I'm going to say.
Marc:Yeah, you can Google that.
Marc:That's all I'm going to say.
Marc:Not going to get too deep into it.
Marc:But do, you know, take action.
Marc:Tough times we live in for a lot of people.
Marc:So Jenji Kohan, she's a bonafide showbiz genius in a lot of ways.
Marc:She's created a lot of great shows.
Marc:Weeds, Orange is the New Black.
Marc:She's been in the game for a long time.
Marc:She sort of comes from show business.
Marc:I was excited to talk to her because she doesn't talk a lot in these things or to people from what I know.
Marc:And I worked for her.
Marc:And I wanted to get the true story as to how I was cast in GLOW.
Marc:So I'm asking everybody who knows.
Marc:So I'll bring it right to the top.
Marc:So this is me and the producer, Jenji Kohan.
Marc:You don't do this much, huh?
Guest:I do not.
Marc:I think I met you at a thing.
Guest:What thing?
Marc:The round table where I was outgunned and out of place.
Guest:Oh, God.
Marc:I just remember, like, why am I here?
Marc:I have not done anything.
Guest:But you did.
Guest:You made a show.
Marc:I know, but I'm not... Yeah, but I didn't do it at the level...
Marc:That you guys did.
Marc:It's the level.
Guest:You still have to write them, produce them, post them, everything.
Marc:It's still all the work.
Marc:Right, but if you were to ask me about post-production, I'd be like, oh, those other guys did it.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Well, no, I mean, I did editing, and I was there, but it's scheduling and all that.
Marc:I didn't do that.
Guest:Neither do we.
Marc:You know?
Guest:We don't schedule it.
Guest:We have line producers.
Guest:Right, line producer.
Marc:I was there with the writing, the acting, and the stories, and the casting and everything else, but the nuts and bolts of it, like how it works.
Guest:But the nuts and bolts is you hire people who are really good at their job and say, yeah, go do that.
Marc:When did you earn that?
Guest:pretty early on i got lucky that's the whole trick you can't i mean you can't control it as a sort of control freak yeah i try to control it but i've had as a human being i've had to learn to relinquish so let's start with a couple of pressing questions what wait and i don't usually do this but what happened with that the hostage taking of the oranges new black season
Guest:Was that a real thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The dark overlord took the show hostage and we were advised not to pay because someone else had and they still released them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they're untrustworthy.
Guest:Oh.
Marc:They don't even abide.
Marc:There's no honor among those thieves.
Marc:No honor.
Marc:Yeah, wow.
Guest:But the fortunate thing was they only got the first 10 out of 13.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So now it's like a cliffhanger for anyone who watched The Bootleg.
Marc:Really?
Marc:But I mean, how many people really do that, though?
Guest:Hopefully not a lot.
Guest:And surprisingly, the fans were amazing.
Guest:They backed the corporation over the Dark Overlord.
Guest:They're like, don't do this to the show.
Guest:Don't watch.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it's not easy, usually it's not that easy to find where that stuff is posted.
Marc:You've got to have a certain know-how.
Marc:But was there anything, did Netflix say, like, you know, it's not going to hurt us?
Guest:No, they said they describe it as a situation and that they're dealing with it.
Guest:But yeah.
Guest:What season is this?
Guest:They kidnapped season five and now we're writing season six.
Guest:But again, there are still three that weren't pirated.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I guarantee you very few people watched it.
Guest:I choose to believe that.
Marc:Yeah, I just don't... I don't think that people are that proficient in finding things.
Marc:It's not like they put it up on an alternate Netflix.
Marc:It was probably buried somewhere.
Marc:It was.
Guest:I think somewhere like Pirate Bay.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:I like giving people the place.
Guest:But...
Guest:I think people are afraid to illegally download because there's so many bugs and viruses and things like that.
Marc:Yeah, and you don't know what list you'll be on.
Marc:So the other question is, let's start with me.
Marc:How did I get cast in GLOW?
Guest:Because you were perfect for the part.
Guest:You completely inhabit that man.
Guest:There is no competition at all.
Guest:And you were amazing and are amazing.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Well, how do you conceive of things?
Marc:Because you're obviously, the ensemble cast that you put together with you and whoever you've delegated.
Marc:Jen Huston.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Jen Houston.
Marc:But I mean, it's massive, you know, with with Orange is the New Black and even this show.
Marc:I mean, there's like 14 girls, women.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And like, it's so important to balance that out.
Marc:And I guess I was just curious in terms of glow, because I talked to I talked to Carly and Liz and I know you're all part of it.
Marc:And I don't know who else you looked at.
Marc:But what was the element in terms of maleness that had to be at the center of that thing?
Guest:Honestly, you just took it.
Guest:You did.
Guest:Because you're the perfect combination of smart and jaded, hard edge with a soft center.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know that era to a certain extent and was able to you were able to yeah and it's just one of those serendipitous things when you find the perfect person for the part you just say yes you stop looking you don't you know it's enough and that happens yeah it does on occasion
Marc:All right, so now we'll come back to glow.
Marc:I want to talk about show business.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:I'm going to drink more coffee.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I'm having the most L.A.
Guest:drink ever.
Marc:What is it?
Guest:I'm having a hemp milk dirty chai latte.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Well, I usually have regular milk, but I was told it's bad for your voice, and this is my big radio debut.
Marc:Oh, is it?
Marc:I don't know about that hemp milk.
Marc:It has some sort of weird gaminess to me.
Guest:There's a little sourness, I would say.
Marc:Right, yeah.
Marc:I don't think it was ever meant for milk.
Marc:I think it's a stretch.
Marc:Right, I think so.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's my first one.
Marc:I talked to you briefly on the set and then I became sort of fascinated with the idea that you were brought up in show business.
Guest:I wasn't, though.
Marc:But as an industry, I mean, you know, right?
Guest:It was a very... There was a division of labor in my household.
Guest:And my dad was in the business, and he did his thing over here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my mother was in the domestic sphere, and she did her stuff over here, although she was a writer, too.
Guest:And my father's work was always really separate.
Guest:He'd go off...
Marc:You grew up in Beverly Hills, though.
Guest:It's like the last house.
Guest:Across the street was L.A.
Guest:It was so we could go to the schools.
Guest:But yes, officially, yes.
Marc:But you're not living next to Carl Reiner or anybody?
Marc:Not in the big houses?
Guest:Not in the big houses.
Guest:My mother describes it as Hawaiian modern.
Marc:That's what it was?
Guest:It had big rocks.
Guest:Did it have a tiki bar in it?
Guest:No tiki bar, but they did turn the garage into a music room with carpet on the ceiling and the corners for my brother's band, Midnight Fantasy.
Marc:How did Midnight Fantasy pan out?
Marc:How did that go?
Guest:They made it all the way through high school.
Guest:It was really impressive.
Guest:Although now they claim the name is Mount Funk because Midnight Fantasy isn't as cool, but it was Midnight Fantasy.
Marc:It was Midnight Fantasy.
Marc:Everyone makes that bad mistake with the first band name.
Marc:So what part of show business was he in?
Guest:My father was the king of variety television.
Marc:The king.
Marc:That's what they called him?
Marc:The king?
Guest:I mean, he really, I don't know.
Guest:He's more biblical than regal.
Guest:But he did every special award show, variety show, nightclub acts.
Guest:He has, I think, 13 or 14 Emmys.
Guest:He was the guy.
Guest:He was the go-to guy.
Marc:He produced them.
Marc:No, he wrote them.
Marc:He wrote them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So he was a big joke writer.
Guest:Joke, but patter and music, and he knew how to put on a show.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Where did he learn that?
Guest:Well, he was a composition major at Eastman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where's that?
Guest:In Rochester.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And he came out of school, and he was in the entertainment corps.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And he traveled around the world entertaining the troops.
Yeah.
Marc:But putting together shows, like variety shows?
Guest:Yeah, putting together shows, variety shows.
Marc:So that's where he learned it.
Marc:Probably.
Guest:Well, then he went back to New York and he was doing the High Mom show and writing Felix the Cat and Beetle Bailey cartoons and things like that.
Guest:And then he was offered 30 weeks of steady work in California.
Guest:And that was the longest stretch he'd ever been offered.
Guest:So my whole family moved to L.A.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was the Carol Burnett Show.
Guest:So he started on the Carol Burnett Show in L.A.
Marc:As a writer.
Guest:As a writer.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how old were you?
Guest:I wasn't born yet.
Marc:I was born in L.A.
Marc:The Carol Burnett Show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's like a massive comedy show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he was like, I don't even know how many writers, those kind of things.
Marc:Now some places have a dozen writers.
Marc:I can't even.
Guest:I don't know how many.
Marc:It's probably like three or four guys.
Guest:But he also did music.
Guest:You know the thing that comes out every Christmas with Bing Crosby and David Bowie?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:My dad wrote The Counter Melody.
Guest:The Peace on Earth Canada.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Because that was from one of his Christmas specials.
Guest:Peace on Earth Canada.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And they were both going at the same time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Because I guess David Bowie came to him and said, I don't want to sing Drummer Boy and blah, blah, blah.
Guest:So they quickly ran downstairs and wrote this counter melody and that became... And what show was that for?
Guest:It was like Bing Crosby Christmas special.
Marc:And it's one of those things your dad wrote for?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And he was just there...
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Now, like, does that mean like I'm always trying to force this this idea that at that time in Los Angeles and show business was a much more intimate business and people hung around with each other and everybody knew each other.
Marc:Like, did you have people?
Marc:Well, he was a writer, though.
Marc:It wasn't like you had people at the house.
Guest:Well, my one access to sort of Hollywood.
Guest:at large was there used to be the Carl Reiner family picnic every year in Rancho Park.
Guest:And it was this crazy potluck picnic where everyone happened to be in the business with their kids doing potato sack races.
Guest:Mel Brooks would judge the makeup contest.
Guest:Oh God, who would lead Simon?
Marc:He's so funny, right?
Guest:Yeah, I think he's got a good sense of humor.
Guest:And it was just like sort of this weirdly star-studded thing, but it was like this annual, not like, it was this annual family.
Guest:It was a neighborhood thing?
Guest:Neighborhood being Hollywood, I guess.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But beyond that, I mean, we had access to people if we needed to talk to someone for a school project.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Did you do that?
Guest:Well, I got into a fight with a teacher once over interpreting Michael Jackson lyrics, and I got a signed affidavit from Michael saying that it's open to interpretation.
Guest:You did?
Guest:I had to be switched out of that class.
Guest:We were not getting along.
Guest:What was that about?
Guest:She was saying this is what he means in this song.
Guest:What song was it?
Guest:I honestly can't remember.
Guest:And I was saying that's not necessarily, you know, I was just.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:Pushing the envelope.
Guest:Always, always.
Marc:I was not an easy kid.
Marc:Did you make teachers cry?
Guest:I don't know if I made them cry.
Guest:I certainly made them angry.
Marc:I did that too.
Marc:Depending on the teacher.
Marc:By confronting them, by being funny, or by challenging them, usually?
Guest:Mostly challenging.
Guest:I was very frustrated by being a child.
Guest:And I felt everyone was patronizing me.
Guest:It's like, don't talk down to me.
Guest:And it made me angry.
Marc:So you went above her head and you contacted Michael Jackson's people?
Marc:I did.
Guest:My dad used to write the tours for the Jackson 5.
Guest:And later he wrote Motown 25 and all that stuff.
Guest:And, you know, he was in touch with them.
Guest:Throughout?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was like, can you do this?
Yeah.
Guest:What did your teacher say?
Guest:That was when I got switched out of the class.
Marc:You used your connections.
Marc:I did.
Marc:Oh, that's hilarious.
Marc:But other than having certain connections, you weren't going to the picnic.
Guest:Yeah, no.
Guest:Well, there was one.
Guest:My mom had two poker games every week.
Marc:Really?
Marc:So that's post-Majon, I guess.
Guest:I play Mahjong now.
Marc:You do?
Marc:Yes, I do.
Marc:Where did that come from?
Guest:Um, it's, it's, it's a crazy, it's sweeping the nation.
Guest:Is it really?
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I have two games that I go to every week.
Marc:Mahjong.
Guest:If I can make it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mahjong.
Guest:And it's so pleasing.
Guest:The sound and the clacking.
Marc:I used to hear it.
Marc:My grandmother played with a bunch of ladies in New Jersey.
Marc:Like there would be all the, one night my grandfather would play poker and the other night the women, like the, literally the wives of the poker players would play Mahjong.
Guest:Sometimes when I'm playing poker, when women's house, her husband's in the back house playing poker, um,
Marc:I don't know where that became kind of a new middle class Jewish tradition, but it was, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then she had her winnings, and it was always just a thing of change.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then every year there's a new card in American Mahjong, which is different from Chinese Mahjong.
Marc:So is it a hipster Jew thing or is it just a hipster thing?
Marc:I don't think it's a hipster.
Guest:I don't know if it's a hipster.
Guest:It's all the, you know, as a working mom, I was always looking for ways to sort of keep up on the gossip and play dates and all that stuff.
Guest:And so the sisterhood was teaching mahjong.
Guest:And I took lessons.
Guest:Like the Jewish sister.
Guest:Yeah, at the temple.
Guest:And I learned to play.
Guest:And then I had a really regular game.
Guest:But then two of the women in the game had a big fight.
Guest:And that fell apart.
Marc:At a Mahjong game?
Guest:Outside the Mahjong game.
Guest:But it affected the game.
Guest:It wasn't good.
Guest:But what I was saying before was my mom had this high stakes game on Saturday nights.
Guest:And sometimes if my brothers were out, they couldn't get a babysitter.
Guest:My dad would take me to this post house.
Guest:and put me in a soundproof booth to nap while he worked.
Guest:That was another one of my showbiz stories.
Guest:But the mahjong thing is amazing.
Guest:It's so pleasing.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just remember the tiles being impressive.
Guest:They're really impressive.
Guest:And exotic.
Guest:It's a really good balance of luck and skill.
Marc:I have no idea what it is.
Marc:It's not like dominoes.
Marc:It's more like cards.
Guest:It's a little like gin, rummikin, poker.
Guest:Like you're making hands.
Marc:I just remember there's a dragon tile.
Guest:Oh, there's three kinds of dragons.
Guest:There's white, red, and green.
Marc:Yeah, and I was fascinated with the tiles, but it didn't go much deeper than that.
Marc:It was always a mysterious game.
Guest:Did your mom have cards?
Marc:My grandma?
Guest:Oh, your grandma have cards?
Marc:I don't remember.
Marc:Yeah, I think there were cards.
Guest:Because that's the big difference between American and Chinese.
Guest:The Americans have short attention span, so every year a new card of new hands comes out.
Marc:Oh, no, I don't know that they had that.
Guest:And you play that card for the year, and the money goes to the Mahjong League.
Marc:Whatever it is, the Mahjong Association.
Guest:Yeah, but you can call them.
Guest:It's like these women in New York, well, hello.
Guest:And you can ask about rules or, you know.
Guest:It's the best.
Marc:I'm glad they're doing something.
Guest:And actually, you know, if this is going out over the airwaves, I'm always looking for a game when I'm in New York because I'm there shooting a lot and I don't have a game.
Marc:You don't have a Mahjong game?
Marc:I don't have a game set up in New York.
Marc:It's such a Jewish memory to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But you grew up pretty in that, right?
Guest:I mean, we grew up... I mean, not religious, but middle Jewy.
Guest:Jewish has a cultural identity, certainly.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Your grandparents, are they from the East Coast?
Guest:Yeah, everyone.
Guest:My mom's from Brooklyn.
Guest:My dad's from the Bronx.
Guest:My dad's side, I think they were born on the Lower East Side.
Guest:My mother's side came from that vague Russia, Poland.
Marc:Sure, yeah, I got that.
Marc:That's exactly what I got.
Marc:I'm going to find out.
Marc:Did you ever find out?
Marc:They do some genealogy show that they wanted me to be on, so I did the thing.
Guest:I did the 23andMe.
Marc:What'd you find?
Marc:Jew.
Marc:White Jew from Eastern Europe.
Marc:But that's all that doesn't track to, like I was hoping that it tracks literally to the house.
Marc:I didn't get that specific.
Guest:I don't know if they can find that much from saliva.
Marc:No, but was it Poland or did you see?
Guest:The hard thing is there was such, you know, the borders kept changing.
Marc:Hard to know.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:There was somewhere with pogroms where they didn't like Jews and it was cold.
Marc:And they left.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And they went to New York.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And there you go.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:Well, that's not very exciting.
Marc:I was hoping for more than that.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:So, okay, so you're a pain in the ass in school.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:And you pulled favor and you got Michael Jackson to...
Marc:But were you going to shows that your dad produced?
Marc:Was there something inspiring you?
Guest:Rarely.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I wasn't supposed to go into the business.
Guest:You weren't supposed to?
Guest:No.
Guest:I was either supposed to be a professional.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:Doctor, lawyer.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Or I was supposed to marry well.
Guest:And my mother once told me I should go to Caltech and sit on a bench and meet an engineer.
Guest:That was her big advice.
Marc:And your mother, was she an artist too?
Guest:She was a novelist.
Guest:She wrote three novels.
Marc:Were they popular?
Guest:I think they did well in the 70s.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So was she writing a lot or no?
Guest:She was writing mostly while we were at summer camp.
Guest:She'd ship us off for eight weeks and we'd come back and there'd be a book.
Marc:Isn't that funny?
Marc:My parents did that too.
Marc:It was really so they could have time.
Marc:I don't think it had anything to do with our happiness.
Marc:Maybe yours.
Marc:They're different.
Marc:I liked camp.
Marc:Well, I liked camp, but there was one summer I went to two camps.
Marc:It was like, we're going to send you this camp.
Marc:And I was terrified to be away.
Marc:I've done that with my kids.
Marc:You have?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But they like camp.
Guest:My daughter went to three one summer.
Guest:But it was things she wanted to do.
Guest:Everything's so specialized now.
Marc:What kind of camps did you go to?
Guest:Clapping camp.
Guest:You learn to clap rhythmically.
Guest:No, it was Jewish camp in Malibu.
Marc:Not too far.
Marc:So not overnight camp.
Guest:It really was a clapping camp?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:There was just a lot of singing with clapping combinations.
Marc:Yeah, and kind of like groovy counselors.
Guest:Yeah, pretty groovy.
Marc:I went to a Jewish day camp, and then I went to a cowboy camp.
Marc:Oh, and I shot guns and fished.
Guest:Well, my brothers, my brothers had gone to the same Jew camp and they were they didn't get into the leadership program because they were probably obnoxious.
Guest:So they went to a different camp where they slaughtered a pig and they did all these great.
Guest:It was it was the opposite.
Guest:Yeah, they loved it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you become part like at those camps.
Marc:There's always that one moment where someone finds out you're Jewish and they're like, oh, you're one of them.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:That definitely happened.
Marc:So when do you decide that you're not going to go sit on a bench and all that stuff?
Marc:You have two brothers?
Marc:I have two brothers.
Marc:They're twins.
Marc:And one of them's in show business?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My brother David created Will & Grace.
Marc:So he won an Emmy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you won a couple Emmys.
Guest:I have an Emmy.
Marc:And your dad has Emmys.
Guest:Lots of Emmys.
Guest:He's the big winner.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:But that's sort of amazing, isn't it?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Is he still around?
Guest:It's a dynasty.
Guest:Yeah, he is.
Marc:He must be very proud.
Guest:Oh, he is.
Marc:Does he like your shows?
Guest:There's an interesting thing about the pride thing.
Guest:He was standing on my brother's set.
Guest:He was watching a taping one night.
Guest:And there was a director who shall remain nameless next to him.
Guest:He created Will and Grace, your brother?
Guest:My brother did, yeah.
Marc:That was a big deal.
Marc:It was a big deal.
Marc:He's doing all right, that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're doing more now.
Marc:They are?
Marc:It's back?
Marc:Yeah, they're doing 10 more.
Marc:Isn't that odd that that happens?
Marc:I mean, it's nice, but it's sort of, I mean, are they starting now?
Marc:Yeah, they're ready.
Marc:But I mean, is it picking up where it left off?
Guest:I think they might.
Guest:I'm not sure.
Guest:I think there was talk of sort of forgetting how they wrapped up the show and going back or going beyond it and saying, look how life brings us back to the same spot.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But my dad was standing watching his show and he was next to a director who turned to him and said, this must be killing you.
Guest:And my father was appalled.
Guest:He's like, are you kidding?
Guest:This is what I dream of.
Guest:This is all I ever wanted in my life.
Guest:Why would this be killing me?
Guest:I want my kids to do better than I do.
Guest:And it was such a foreign notion to him that this guy would think that he'd be bitter about his son's success.
Marc:It said a lot about the director, I think.
Marc:And also maybe about what show business has become in a way.
Marc:Or maybe, I don't know, because that just choked me up for some reason.
Marc:Because that is like this traditional kind of
Marc:idea of like you want your parents to succeed better than you you know your children yeah right you want your children to do better and it's like and it's kind of I think it's everyone's idea but there was that idea of people who come from immigrants that that that kind of goes through you know the generations like you always want them to do better than you unless your parents are selfish assholes and
Marc:and feel threatened by your success.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:And again, that's why I think it was more about, but it was, it really, are you kidding?
Marc:That's so great.
Marc:That's so sweet.
Guest:And he's always, you know, emailing me articles, and you were mentioned here.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:He's very, very sweet about it.
Marc:Well, that's nice, because I don't think my father's listened to a podcast.
Guest:I don't think my mother has watched the show.
Marc:but part of she can't hear and she can't get the netflix to work in her room i i don't know what the problem is it's a big it's a big issue just the the shift in technology the the the the next step or two steps that they have to take to do anything just too much it is yeah i don't understand that but uh all right so what where do you what do you do in college
Guest:I wandered around New York.
Marc:Where'd you go?
Guest:I went to Columbia.
Marc:That's fancy.
Marc:That's not like a show business school.
Guest:Well, I transferred to Columbia.
Guest:I didn't get in at first.
Guest:I started at Brandeis, where I did not want to be.
Guest:Fine.
Fine.
Marc:I had to start at Curry College.
Marc:We had a very good program for dyslexics and they were very open to people whose parents had a little bread.
Marc:I wasn't dyslexic.
Marc:I was problematic.
Guest:Fair enough.
Marc:I think I was problematic.
Marc:But Brandeis is sort of your entry level.
Guest:So Brandeis was lovely in a lot of ways.
Guest:I met really interesting people, took good classes.
Guest:I could not deal with the isolation.
Guest:At all.
Guest:It was outside of Boston.
Guest:The train stopped running at 11.
Guest:I didn't have a car.
Marc:What was it in like?
Marc:Waltham.
Marc:Waltham, right, right, right.
Guest:Where an old watch factory had shut down.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I had always wanted to go to Columbia.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I basically harangued them into letting me in.
Marc:It's a sister school, right?
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, Barnard is Columbia's other school.
Marc:Right.
Guest:We were the sixth class of women, I think, to graduate from Columbia.
Yeah.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:But I just kept writing them every few weeks.
Guest:Like, look, I won a writing contest.
Guest:Have you changed your mind yet?
Guest:You want me.
Guest:You want me.
Guest:And I hacked them into taking me.
Marc:I haven't heard that word in a while.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:What's the rest of that saying?
Marc:My mother used to say it wrong.
Marc:Oh, something Chinic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Don't hack me a Chinic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So you talk Columbia in the writing program?
Yes.
Guest:No, I wasn't even an English major.
Guest:I was in English concentration because I wanted to take so many classes and I didn't want to do them all in English.
Guest:So you were allowed to graduate with a concentration.
Marc:And what other stuff was interesting to you?
Guest:I took an amazing shamanism class.
Marc:You don't have a shaman, do you?
Guest:I don't have a shaman, but my father had a guru for years, Miss Charlotte.
Marc:In the 70s?
Guest:70s 80s 90s she died at like 103 or something and he would go every friday and do yoga and she would walk on his back and then she would they would talk and if any of us were going to travel or do something it's like check in with miss charlotte you have to go check in with her oh he'd ask oh really he'd bring the messages was that an odd thing was your mother like are you going to the lady no
Guest:No, it was just part of it.
Guest:My dad was one of those guys.
Guest:You saw them on corners in the 70s, especially of these guys who moved from New York.
Guest:And they were now like all in white or in a track suit of some kind and waiting for the light.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Looking up to the sun to try to get more tan and just being so happy they were in L.A.
Guest:And my father loved it.
Guest:My mother never got over leaving New York.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So he bought right into the whole lifestyle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he'd meditate.
Guest:I remember there's a picture of me in his Lotus as a little girl lying while his eyes are up in his head and he's meditating.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But he was more at the beginning of the new agey kind of movement.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Not like a hippie.
Guest:No.
Marc:No, just part of the early California lifestyle.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He bought in.
Marc:He liked it.
Guest:So we always had to check with Ms.
Guest:Charlotte.
Marc:Did he have a convertible?
Guest:No.
Marc:It's not that important.
Marc:Ms.
Marc:Charlotte, huh?
Marc:Did you know her?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went to Ms.
Guest:Charlotte a few times because she was... What was her... She was German.
Guest:Charlotte Zutrowan.
Marc:What was her credentials?
Guest:She had been the heir apparent to Yogananda, but had decided she didn't want to take over the thing.
Guest:Went renegade?
Marc:I guess private practice.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:So you study shamanism and English and just well-rounded liberal arts education.
Guest:Really good liberal arts education.
Guest:Solid.
Marc:It means something, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's what I did, too.
Marc:You want to learn things.
Marc:You're curious, so you want to do things.
Guest:I have a kid who's starting in the fall, and it's like...
Guest:Just go to school.
Guest:How do you feel?
Guest:He's 18?
Guest:He's 17.
Guest:He'll be 18 soon.
Guest:How's he turning out?
Guest:He's awesome.
Guest:Which makes it even harder.
Guest:He didn't just.
Guest:He's always been an interesting kid.
Guest:He's the best company.
Guest:He's really funny.
Guest:He's really smart.
Guest:He's really in the world.
Guest:And he's leaving.
Guest:And he's one of my favorite people to hang out with.
Guest:And it's sort of heartbreaking.
Guest:Don't you have some other ones?
Guest:I have two more.
Guest:My daughter, though, is leaving in the fall for one semester.
Guest:She's doing this thing called the Mountain School where she's going to work on a farm and take classes.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:So I'm losing two at once.
Guest:I still have the little one.
Marc:So are you freaking out?
Guest:A little bit.
Marc:Oh, I can't imagine that.
Marc:I think it's one of the reasons I never had kids, aside from constant worry and dread.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The leaving thing.
Marc:It's built into it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And if you've done your job, they go on.
Guest:They live their lives.
Guest:But I like them so much.
Guest:I like them so much.
Guest:And I like being around them.
Marc:Do you like your husband?
Guest:I like my husband.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:So you guys will be good to know each other.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we still have the caboose.
Guest:And he's got a few years.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But my question is when you see, I think you're younger than me, but there was, I know you are, but there was this kind of compulsion when we were younger to learn about stuff.
Marc:The 60s were still not that far behind us and there was this interest in all these different things.
Marc:And I don't know anything about kids that age now because there's so much available at all times.
Guest:It's all available at your fingertips.
Guest:But schools haven't adapted to that yet.
Guest:And I guess there's benefit in memorization.
Marc:They're like our parents.
Guest:They haven't quite gotten to that.
Guest:And classic quote-unquote education is still the norm.
Guest:Some places are getting more progressive.
Guest:But...
Guest:They don't have to research the same way we did.
Guest:They don't have to seek things out.
Guest:It's all available.
Marc:What's he interested in?
Guest:Well, that's the great thing.
Guest:He used to be a real science-y kid, and then he worked in labs over the summer and realized it's not for him.
Guest:So he's wide open right now, which I think is really cool.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:I like everyone always talks so negatively about that generation.
Marc:And I like and I want to have hope and I want to feel like they're the generation after millennials.
Marc:So now they're awesome.
Marc:They're analog.
Marc:They're back.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, I think, Gen Z. Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how are they different, do you think?
Guest:I think they're left, theoretically, they're less self-centered.
Guest:They're workers.
Guest:They want to help and they want to get involved.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sensitive.
Marc:They've gone through the narcissistic tunnel and now we're back at, yeah.
Marc:Hopefully.
Marc:I hope so.
Marc:Jesus.
Marc:So, all right, so what happens, because, like, you know, I guess what I want to track a little is, you know, how one, you know, I've talked to other people in show business, but, you know, in terms of becoming a producer from a writer and stuff, where does that start?
Marc:When did you graduate and then what, you come back out here?
Guest:I came back out here.
Guest:I didn't mean to.
Guest:I drove across country with a friend and I thought, I'll get off somewhere and I'll waitress and I'll write a novel.
Marc:You did all the things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you wanted to write fiction.
Guest:Yeah, and I had had success writing fiction in college.
Guest:When I was out of money, I'd enter contests and get $200.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Like short stories?
Marc:Short stories.
Marc:Who are your favorite writers?
Guest:I mean, I love Cheever and I love...
Marc:Carver, and I love... Cheever.
Marc:Did you ever see that film, the adaptation, The Swimmer?
Guest:I didn't see the film.
Guest:How was it?
Marc:I love the story.
Marc:It's brutal.
Guest:I don't know, because I see the story so clearly in my head.
Guest:I don't know if I want to.
Marc:Well, it's Burt Lancaster, I think, playing this.
Marc:He's just like this weirdly empty, beaten kind of guy.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:Actually, I'm wrong.
Guest:I did see it.
Guest:Now that you said Burt Lancaster.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It's a very weird kind of movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you don't really put it all together that he's swimming through the wreckage of his life in some way.
Marc:And it's just kind of devastating.
Marc:It's a weird little movie.
Marc:It's amazing.
Marc:Cheever.
Marc:And who did you say?
Marc:Carver.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I liked I liked writing short stories.
Guest:I tried to play writing class.
Guest:I was told I was terrible.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And so you were going to your romantic vision was like, you know, I'll just, you know, I'll just get out and live an American life.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Amongst the people.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And write, you know, you know, heartfelt, earnest, dark stories.
Guest:I don't know necessarily earnest, but yeah.
Marc:Were you always comedic?
Guest:I think I'm better on the page than in person.
Guest:I think I think funny and I write funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because Carver makes sense to me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, heading into what you ultimately did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I read everything when I was younger, so I think there's influences from all over.
Marc:But not like you weren't like a Philip Roth thing.
Marc:Was that more of a guy thing?
No.
Guest:I read Philip Roth.
Guest:I read, you know, and Morgenstern is a great character.
Guest:And, you know, it's fun to hear about the other side and the masturbation.
Marc:What you guys do.
Guest:Yeah, what you guys do, which I've learned about a lot.
Guest:You've got a son now.
Guest:I have two sons.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They're very fond of their penises, yes.
Guest:But why not?
Marc:Why wouldn't you be?
Mm-hmm.
Marc:Okay, so you don't get off in middle America.
Guest:I don't get off.
Guest:I come back to L.A.
Guest:I'm working.
Marc:Back with your parents?
Guest:For like two weeks.
Guest:And then I take my bat mitzvah money and I get an apartment.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You put that you were able to do first, last, and security with the bat mitzvah money?
Guest:I don't think...
Guest:Yes, at that point.
Marc:I found some old Israeli, I found some old U.S.
Marc:Treasury bonds.
Guest:Bonds, yes.
Guest:They were worth nothing.
Marc:No.
Marc:And I had some Israeli bonds that I think I got when I was born or something that I found.
Marc:They're nothing.
Marc:They're nothing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You would think like, this has been 40 years.
Marc:No.
Marc:I'm going to be a millionaire.
Guest:It's $18 because it's high.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No, it's not.
Marc:It's very disappointing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so where'd you get the apartment?
Guest:I got an apartment in West Hollywood, which was a great little studio, but it was down the street from a strip club.
Guest:It was the one on Sunset.
Marc:Oh, yeah, near the comedy store, the one that has the nude?
Marc:Girls, girls, girls, 18, okay.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But the problem was I was working and I would come home late and the entire street was parked up and I'd be so exhausted and I'd be circling and crying.
Marc:That leads to stripping if you're not careful.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Circling and crying.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:But I can't do pole.
Marc:You can't, damn it.
Guest:I have almost all the elements.
Guest:So yeah, I was living there and I was working crappy jobs.
Marc:In show business?
Guest:No.
Guest:I wrote the restaurant blurbs, the LA Weekly for a little bit.
Guest:I worked at I Love Juicy, which was a vegan restaurant in Venice.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:You drove all the way down there.
Guest:Well, when I moved back, I wanted to know the city.
Guest:And also, at that time, my goal, I was going to be a spoken word performance artist.
Marc:What year is this?
Marc:80s?
Marc:91.
Marc:Oh yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that was when the slam poetry thing was there?
Guest:It wasn't so much slam poetry.
Guest:Like in New York, I was obsessed with Joe Frank in the dark, like the radio thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it was the time of Laurie Anderson and Eric Boghossian and Spalding Gray and all these people who could sit on a stage with a desk and capture an audience for two hours.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like Spaulding, I saw him do Swimming to Cambodia and Monster in a Box, I think.
Marc:He was astounding.
Guest:I went to everything.
Guest:And I worked in a performance art gallery in Tribeca called the Franklin Furnace.
Guest:I was the intern.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And so that was going to be my thing.
Guest:And it's such a bad idea because I'm really nasal.
Guest:I'm blinky.
Guest:I'm not comfortable on stage.
Guest:And I much rather hide behind fiction.
Guest:And it's so exposed.
Guest:But at that time, that was the big goal.
Guest:So I was working at a performance art magazine downtown called High Performance.
Marc:I remember that magazine.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then in the Valley was the reader.
Guest:And then in Venice was the juice place.
Guest:And I was running around.
Guest:And then eventually.
Marc:Did that really translate here?
Marc:I mean, were there people doing that in L.A.?
Marc:Like at that level?
Guest:Yeah, to some extent.
Guest:Chris Burden was out here, I think.
Marc:Because seeing Spaulding or Eric.
Guest:They would all come through town.
Guest:And certainly Joe Frank was based here.
Marc:I just started learning about him.
Marc:I learned about him through Ira Glass.
Guest:Oh, I was obsessed.
Marc:He was like the beginning of a certain type of radio.
Guest:And I lived in New York.
Guest:I didn't get housing senior year.
Guest:And I lived in a welfare hotel.
Guest:And it was just this not a happy place.
Guest:But I'd sit in my room where I had contact papered at the surface.
Guest:And I'd listen to Joe Frank through a station in New Jersey.
Guest:And I was in love.
Marc:Did you ever meet him?
Guest:No.
Marc:He's still around.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Someone just emailed me that I should interview him.
Marc:I got to get up to speed on him.
Marc:I'm very bad at getting.
Marc:I don't know where people find time to do anything.
Marc:If you don't do it when you're that age, like where things are planting, like now as we get older, it's like, who the fuck has the time to do anything?
Guest:But it's hard because you have to keep inputting.
Marc:Yeah, you do.
Guest:And I feel like there's a deficit right now.
Guest:I need to definitely input more because my output is...
Guest:You get tapped out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I get belligerent, too, as I get older, because everything seems like a pain in the ass.
Marc:Like, you know, you want to go to the museum?
Marc:What is this?
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And how do you force yourself?
Guest:Also, there's so much to watch on television.
Marc:I can't even, I don't even know how, like I do a bunch of material on it in my standup now about that, just being like the idea that people tell me, ask me if I've seen a show, and not only have I not heard of the show, when they tell me where it's on, I don't know what that is.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:I'm like, I'm not my parents, but there's another thing.
Marc:But I don't think everybody knows all that stuff.
Marc:Everyone picks their thing and they do it.
Guest:Well, that's how the... I mean, I know how my kids don't care what platform it's on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I know I want to watch this.
Guest:Where is it?
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I'll go wherever it is.
Guest:There's not necessarily brand loyalty on this.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So performance art, decide not to... Right, right.
Marc:Joe Frank.
Marc:So you got a brain full of... I love all this stuff.
Marc:But... But it's gritty stuff you like.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And just stories.
Guest:I mean, but stories are primal, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's...
Marc:Yeah, what do you mean?
Guest:I just think when my kids were babies, I remember I have an amazing nanny who was a master of distraction.
Guest:And they'd start to get fussy or moody and she'd say, did you hear about the puppy?
Guest:And start telling the story.
Guest:And it was the power of narrative.
Guest:And it's something so basic.
Guest:It's like, oh, I want to hear what happened with the puppy.
Guest:And we all love stories.
Guest:And I think that's the explosion in podcasts.
Guest:So many are just, you can sit and listen to stories.
Marc:I guess it's always been that way.
Marc:What else do you have?
Marc:It's like oral tradition.
Marc:Tell me a story.
Marc:Tell me a story.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:There was apparently, they found a campfire site from...
Guest:millions of years ago and they found popcorn kernels like people had been eating popcorn and sort of watching the fire show and telling stories which i love that idea popcorn is eternal so you realize that you know with storytelling that you were attracted by not not getting on stage no engaged i'm not a performer but right but engaged storytelling yes
Marc:I mean because Jesus like between Eric and Spaulding I mean that is some manic business yeah you know and later like Danny Hawk and there were a lot of people he did more characters I kind of like I didn't like well Eric did characters but he never got that far away from himself he was a storyteller and Spaulding was a genius storyteller and Laurie Anderson was like
Marc:out there ethereal it was kind of amazing and and karen finley was shoving potatoes up her ass you saw that i didn't see it she was a little earlier right yeah but she and she had been at the furnace and she'd been places right but i hadn't because like by the time you were there was already your the the original crew it's because i got to new york in the 80s and like you know you're on the lower east side you're like this is where it happens it's like well it happened right
Marc:Now there's just a repetition of people trying to hold on to the thing.
Guest:There were some interesting shows.
Marc:Oh, of course.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I saw some wild shit there.
Marc:So when do you start getting into show business?
Guest:when i you know the whole rebellion thing again when i'm told i can't right but like but you did you tap out on like you know chasing the poetry dream and that kind of stuff spoken word stuff i i just i wasn't sure what i was going to do and i was working these weird jobs and then i i was pa-ing on some things that's always the entry point the pa thing
Guest:And I PA'd for Jay Tarsus because I had been obsessed with The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was my favorite show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was just grumpy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just like, don't be your heroes.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:I was seeing someone at the time whose friend was having success in showbiz, his friend from summer camp.
Guest:And I said, oh, maybe I should try that.
Guest:I've always written, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And he told me, you have a better chance of being elected to Congress than getting on the staff of a TV show, which was all I needed.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, a fight.
Guest:Yeah, I left my job.
Guest:And I moved up to Santa Cruz for a little while.
Guest:One of my best friends was studying for her medical boards.
Guest:At UC Santa Cruz?
Guest:Yeah, she was trying to get into medical school.
Marc:That's such a trippy little town.
Guest:Yeah, and she had a little house, and we'd go to coffee shops, and I'd work on my scripts, because I'd taped things off TV and watched them.
Marc:So you're working on spec scripts.
Guest:I'm working on spec scripts and she's studying for her boards and now she's a doctor and I'm still, no, but.
Guest:You're both doing all right.
Guest:Yeah, we're doing okay.
Guest:And then we just have sort of hippie adventures in Santa Cruz, which was awesome.
Guest:And I came back with these specs.
Guest:Yeah, for what?
Guest:I had a Seinfeld and a Simpsons.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my ex-sister-in-law's father gave them to my first agent in an elevator.
Guest:They worked in the same building.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:Second use of connection.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Marc:Michael Jackson, defense, and this.
Guest:And my ex-sister-in-law's father.
Guest:And then he said, I can't do with the animated.
Guest:So then I wrote a Roseanne, and he sent me out, and I was on staff by spring.
Marc:For who?
Guest:The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
Marc:You were in the room.
Guest:That was my first job.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was a big show?
Guest:It was a big show, a happy stage, a miserable upstairs.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Which means the writer's room?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a rough room.
Marc:That's what it's called, the upstairs?
Guest:I guess.
Guest:I mean, in that configuration, the writer's upstairs.
Marc:But that's one of those stories where, because I got guys who wrote on Marin who were sort of veterans of rooms.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And there was a period there, and I imagine it still exists, but probably not to the degree it did, where the showrunners could be just fucking monsters.
Guest:The showrunner at the time was going through divorce, so he never wanted to go home.
Marc:So he made everybody stay.
Guest:We stayed forever.
Guest:He was a little bit of a drinker.
Guest:I don't know if he knew this, but someone on staff was peeing in his tequila and he kept getting the flu.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It was not pretty.
Marc:That is not a good writer's room.
Guest:No.
Guest:There was a lot of really messed up stuff.
Guest:And having had that experience, I felt like I need to write my own stuff.
Guest:Like, I'll write...
Guest:Right then I knew I wanted a side door or something.
Marc:But you knew, did you learn that first job the way it worked?
Marc:How people, because like it becomes very clear that like, well, the showrunner's the job, the creator's the job.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, you're not going to.
Guest:Be careful what you wish for.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But but like, you know, that's the career, you know, to be just a staffer, you know, for life is rough.
Guest:It is rough.
Guest:And and I knew I wanted to have kids.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it was not going to happen unless I could control the production.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what's the next job?
Guest:So I write a pilot about 20-somethings, and I get hired onto Friends.
Marc:You did?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:First season.
Guest:And I was literally put in the copy room and snack room at a little desk.
Guest:And I was the age of the characters, and the showrunners were older.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was full of enthusiasm, and I gave them everything I could, and I got fired.
Marc:Like within the first season?
Guest:Yeah, at the end, yeah.
Marc:Why, do you know?
Marc:And you didn't do a script.
Guest:I did do a script, and I should have taken it to arbitration because they took my name off it, and I'm really upset about it.
Guest:But look, you learn along the way.
Marc:It's like, that's the other thing about writing is that, you know, because even when you...
Marc:The way it works is the outline process, and then you break the story, the outline process, and then it's assigned.
Marc:And then it can be taken away.
Marc:It's very hard to credit people properly.
Guest:And I think people don't understand that just because someone's name is on a script,
Guest:I hear in Ryan Murphy's camp, they just take turns putting their names on scripts just to get paid that week.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That seems fair, but it's still a little weird.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:Because really, it's a collaborative effort all the way through.
Marc:Very much so.
Marc:I mean, you should just list all the writers on everything, but then people don't get the right insurance.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So you do the friends thing and that doesn't work?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it sort of soured me on the whole show business thing.
Guest:So I went to Nepal to trek.
Yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I had researched online, which was the very beginning of online.
Guest:And I was going to meet up with this group.
Guest:And I show up, and I'm like 23.
Guest:And everyone's in their 50s and 60s.
Guest:But they had a good pace.
Guest:And I would walk on my own and then meet up with people for dinner.
Guest:And I heard all about their grandkids.
Guest:And I realized that showbiz wasn't out of my system because I wrote a Frasier in Nepal.
Marc:In Nepal?
Yeah.
Marc:So you didn't get the spiritual enlightenment?
Guest:I loved the walking and it was pretty and it was exotic.
Guest:But I needed to continue my real life, I guess.
Marc:You wanted to win show business.
Guest:I wanted to win show business.
Yeah.
Guest:Did they make the Frasier?
Guest:They didn't.
Guest:The specs, they never made specs.
Guest:It was a legal thing.
Guest:Specs were to show that you knew how to copy the voice of the show at that time.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:I guess that, yeah, they wanted to see that you could write.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And what I started doing every year was writing pilots while staffing on shows.
Marc:Like a stack of pilots?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have, I think, 15 or 17 pilots in a drawer.
Guest:You got to keep buying your lottery tickets.
Guest:But when I got back, I got the best job from that same, I think, 20-something script of my life, which really taught me that rooms can be healthy and productive and creative.
Guest:And that was for Tracy Ullman on Tracy Takes On.
Guest:how'd you meet her um she read my stuff i got called in for an interview and i got the job you know as a writer yeah and it was a great staff a lot of veterans a lot of and truly funny and that was sort of an exciting show because she was this versatile performance artist really she was phenomenal yeah she and that was the thing she delivered everything you gave her even if it wasn't going to make it
Guest:She delivered.
Guest:And every Wednesday we'd read through the scripts out loud and read through the sketches.
Guest:And I was soon relegated to stage directions because I would tank everyone's jokes, including my own.
Guest:I'm not an actress.
Guest:But it was healthy and it was happy.
Guest:And it was, we work, work, work, and then you go home and you have your life.
Guest:And I was also obsessed with dominoes at the time.
Guest:So I was leaving work and going to Venice to play with the...
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:So you've got a thing for tile games.
Guest:Well, I learned on Fresh Prince how to play.
Guest:And I got really into it.
Guest:So I went down.
Guest:I was looking for a game.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I found one at the basketball courts in Venice.
Guest:And it became like this whole thing.
Guest:Because theoretically, if you keep score, they let you sit down next.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they kept taking my seat and not letting me sit down.
Guest:And then finally, I kept coming.
Guest:They let me sit down.
Guest:And I could actually play.
Guest:And I knew all the slang because I'd been taught on Fresh Prince.
Guest:And I was quiet fire.
Guest:Character.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:And I met amazing people.
Guest:And it was also during OJ and all that stuff.
Guest:It was a really interesting time.
Marc:To hear the reflections on the street.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:yeah and what yeah what what were their arguments um in that community it was it was can i swear i don't know yeah okay so you know we'd be sitting and they'd be talking about their little motherfuckers guilty blah blah and then cops would pass by and they'd yell no justice no peace it was just okay
Guest:And that game ended actually because they kept breaking tables because when you had a really good bone, you'd slam it sometimes.
Guest:And the rec department just stopped replacing the tables.
Marc:And that's when the game went away?
Marc:It sort of faded away.
Marc:So on Tracy, she was a good leader.
Guest:She was amazing.
Guest:She was amazing.
Guest:Everyone would talk for a long time and then we'd figure out our theme or whatever.
Guest:And everyone would go off and write.
Guest:And as I said, on Wednesdays, you come back and she perform all the sketches out loud with the writers as the other parts.
Guest:And there'd be wine with lunch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and she made everything come alive.
Marc:And and this is like really dealing.
Marc:But that that's a to to obviously like thematic or become something you're known for.
Marc:But that is a woman driving the show.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:With, you know, and dealing with issues.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:That are specifically, you know, women's issues and women's characters.
Guest:And being in front of the camera, which is amazing.
Marc:And being hilarious.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:All right, so you do three years with Tracy.
Marc:Are you still in touch with her?
Guest:Sometimes.
Marc:Is she all right?
Guest:She's great.
Guest:I mean, yeah, she's great.
Marc:Oh, good, good.
Marc:And what, so is that, do you do, are you a showrunner or just a writer?
Guest:Oh, I'm the baby in that room.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And, um.
Marc:So you get a producer's credit after a year?
Yeah.
Guest:No, there's a whole pecking order.
Guest:It's staff writer, story editor, co-producer, producer, supervising producer, co-exec, and exec.
Marc:A lot of those don't entail jobs.
Guest:No, a lot of them don't entail jobs.
Guest:It's just a money bump, and you're climbing the ladder.
Marc:So you were just a writer?
Guest:I was just a writer.
Guest:I might have gone up to a producer.
Guest:I think I did.
Marc:But your job?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You were a writer?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And then what happens after that?
Guest:I keep going back to Tracy, but I take other jobs in between.
Guest:And I did a short-lived WB show, which was another good lesson, sort of.
Guest:What was that?
Guest:First time out, I think.
Guest:Jackie Guerra.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:I think my friend Craig Anton was.
Guest:He was.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And that was actually...
Guest:A friendly room.
Guest:And the showrunner lived in Colorado and was going back and forth and trying to make it work.
Guest:So sometimes he wouldn't be there and the whole room would sort of take turns.
Marc:Running it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it was very hard to pull off as a quality show, but we all learned how to sort of...
Marc:Do the job?
Guest:Do the job, which was really nice.
Marc:Because the guy wanted to be in Colorado.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That worked out.
Guest:It's very pretty in Colorado.
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:So what was the job when you think about it at that moment?
Marc:Like it's your turn.
Guest:Yeah, you...
Guest:You are the head coach in the writer's room.
Guest:You were saying, we're going to work on this now.
Guest:This outline's missing stuff.
Guest:And it really was fairly democratic.
Guest:We took turns, and there were nice people in that room.
Guest:And I'd come out of other rooms that were not very nice.
Guest:So between Tracy and that, it was very healing, especially Tracy as a role model, incredible role model.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I did Mad About You.
Guest:I did A Year on Gilmore Girls.
Marc:That was a big show.
Marc:People loved that show.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did you love it?
Marc:Which?
Marc:Gilmore Girls?
Guest:Gilmore Girls was complicated because it's Amy's show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they forced her to have a staff.
Guest:And she really didn't want one.
Guest:And so she would never come in the room.
Guest:Or she'd come in and say, all right, give me some ideas.
Guest:And then she'd go.
Guest:And she wrote that show.
Guest:And I felt bad.
Guest:It was almost like why?
Guest:I understand that the studio wants insurance, but it should have been her...
Guest:her way.
Guest:It was her show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It did all right despite that, right?
Guest:It did great.
Guest:And she took help, but the first year, I don't think she knew how, and she was still raging because they sort of shoved the staff down her throat, so it was a little hard.
Marc:It's always amazing to me that there are people, when you hear about these guys, just the fight to keep these successful shows going and the ego is necessary.
Marc:It's like, I got an ego, but I don't have the commitment or the discipline to be that
Guest:But there's a lot of ways to do it.
Marc:Oh, I know.
Marc:You do it in a very nice way.
Guest:I mean, the third thing that showed me how to run a nice show was Peter Tolan.
Marc:He's like a genius, right?
Marc:That guy?
Guest:He's unbelievable, really kind, but an asshole to the right people.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like, Papa Hen, you know, he kept, he protected his staff.
Marc:What was his big thing that made him so... Oh, the Dennis Leary.
Marc:Well, no, before that.
Marc:He was a known guy, right?
Guest:Yes, he was.
Marc:I can't remember, because Dennis, he did Rescue Me, and he did the other one, too, I think.
Marc:He's worked with Dennis a lot, but he came from... Was it Cheers, maybe, or something?
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:I don't know, but he was...
Guest:What show was that that you were working on?
Guest:It was called, like, Wednesdays, 830, 930 Central or something like that.
Guest:It had a terrible title.
Guest:And it was basically a send-up of execs, so it was not going over well behind the scenes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But Peter was... It was the first time I got rewritten that was better.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Very often it's a lateral move or pissing in the corners.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Peter Tolan was a genius and kind and fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, wow, he made it better.
Guest:I understand why.
Guest:And it was enlightening.
Guest:And you didn't resent it because it's...
Marc:You couldn't argue with it.
Marc:No.
Marc:But the first moment was sort of like, well, what's this guy got?
Marc:And then you're like, oh, shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I remember I had written some line about someone's ass.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't even remember what my line is.
Guest:But he changed it to flat and wide like Kansas.
Guest:And sometimes he'd play the piano in the room.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He was just delightful.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you got lucky with a string of people.
Guest:I got lucky with some, and then there were other dysfunctionals.
Guest:The year I was mad about you was not a particularly functional year.
Marc:Was it towards the end?
Guest:Yeah, middle to end.
Guest:But every year while...
Guest:When I was staffing, I was also writing pilots and making script deals and writing more pilots.
Marc:So when was the first, your show?
Marc:When was the first Jenji Cohen show?
Guest:There was an ABC show we developed.
Guest:I can't remember if we shot it or not.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And then there was a CBS show that went for like six, which was a disaster.
Guest:What was that?
Guest:It was about children of adult parents who were divorcing and how it affected.
Marc:And you created it?
Marc:I did.
Marc:And you can't remember the name?
Guest:It was a terrible experience.
Guest:Who was in it?
Guest:An amazing cast.
Guest:It was Judith Light, Robert Klein.
Guest:One of the Judd Apatow gang was one of the kids.
Guest:And what happened was I wrote this pilot.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:The Stones.
Guest:Yes, that was it.
Marc:Jay Baruchel.
Guest:Yes, Jay Baruchel, who is really fun and has a maple leaf tattoo.
Guest:He's kind of interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, he's a, like, I like that guy.
Guest:And Lindsay Sloan, who we underserved.
Marc:And it just,
Guest:So what happened was this, and it was terrible.
Guest:It was a Warner Brothers show, and I had written the pilot, and they had bought it, and they felt I wasn't seasoned enough, and so they brought on my brother and Max to guide, his partner, to oversee.
Ugh.
Guest:And which was really galling because I had started writing television while David was still an assistant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he had this meteoric rise.
Guest:Your brother.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all of a sudden and I thought, all right, they'll let me do my thing.
Guest:And it did not work that way.
Guest:And one weekend they rewrote the pilot.
Marc:And so now this is causing family problems.
Guest:Huge.
Guest:And I realized I was intruding on a marriage.
Guest:You know, David and Max were this unit and it was very threatening to Max, certainly.
Guest:And it was a disaster.
Guest:And it was, looking back, I should have quit.
Guest:I should have left.
Guest:It was totally painful and it affected my relationship with my brother for a lot of years.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Who I was very close with.
Guest:Now we have breakfast every Friday now.
Guest:It's good again.
Guest:But it was sort of devastating.
Guest:And that's when I went to cable, and it was just, I traded money for freedom.
Marc:Yeah, and that's with Weeds.
Guest:That started with Weeds, yeah.
Marc:Now, how long did that sprint, was that one of the pilots that you had done?
Guest:No, I remember, when I would pitch, I had a scattershot method.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I would, how about this, how about this?
Guest:It was like one-liners.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Weeds was suburban widowed pot-dealing mom.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And go with it.
Marc:Where did that come from?
Marc:Do you know?
Marc:I mean, that's a very Carver-like story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not sure.
Guest:I was very attracted to, and still am, the gray areas.
Guest:I hated the idea of heroes and villains.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And, you know, I'd grown up in L.A.
Guest:I knew a lot of mom pot dealers.
Guest:Oh, you did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember going to a friend's house and opening the vegetable crispers and singing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one of my brothers tried to grow in his closet for a while.
Marc:Before hydroponics, before the lights and everything.
Marc:The good stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that took.
Guest:That took.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the first year that was rough because...
Guest:I went in saying, look, I've traded my network career.
Guest:I'm going to do this my way.
Guest:And there was a lot of friction with the network.
Guest:And not the network.
Marc:It was Showtime?
Marc:Who did it?
Marc:Yes, Showtime.
Guest:Actually, yes, with the network.
Guest:Friction with the network.
Guest:And some friction with Mary Louise.
Guest:But...
Guest:My attitude was, I'm not relinquishing control this time.
Guest:This is my business.
Marc:I mean, how does that friction happen?
Marc:I understand, like a first season, everyone's kind of like looking for their territory and looking for their peace and their control and their voice in it, right?
Marc:But I mean, obviously it leveled off.
Guest:Yes, in success, everything gets better.
Guest:But until they know, they're up your ass.
Guest:And so...
Marc:Because they want to trust you, but they don't.
Guest:Of course.
Marc:And in show business, there's no reason to necessarily unless someone's got an incredible pedigree of some kind.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And even then, everyone has a fluff at one point.
Guest:But I'd get notes from Showtime, and I'd write these long emails explaining...
Guest:note per note why I was not taking the note.
Guest:And I think it got very frustrating.
Guest:And at one point, I just got an email back that said, fine, do what you want.
Guest:And I think the intention of it was to say, no, I'm sorry, let's work together.
Guest:And I took it as a carte blanche.
Guest:Thank you, I will.
Guest:It's done.
Marc:Well, it could have been the other thing.
Marc:It's like, well, fuck her.
Marc:Let her fail.
Marc:And we wash our hands of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:We did what we could.
Marc:But you did.
Guest:You're like, yay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it was great.
Guest:And I had a great staff.
Marc:I think if you really think about historically in dealing with executives, if they wash their hands of you, it's usually not a good side.
Marc:But you just took it as like.
Guest:Oh, it was the best.
Guest:It was the best.
Marc:Now, okay, there's another question, like, you know, starting with Weeds, is that, and this is always a question I have because, you know, having the little experience I had at writing my own show, and also with doing Glow, which is really my first real acting job on a series, as not me, for the most part, is that, you know, because Weeds goes a lot of places.
Marc:Like, I mean, locations, you know, characters.
Marc:I mean, it's all, like, literally, you're crossing continents.
Right.
Marc:Now, do you know that at the beginning?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:But some people do, right?
Marc:Some people definitely do.
Marc:Some people have a Bible.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I always wonder who those people are.
Guest:First of all, I never want a Bible because it locks you into things and it should be more malleable.
Marc:And also you get to know the characters and, you know, as they evolve and become who they are in front of you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're like, well, now we know what we can do with this person.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Because like on Glow, I noticed that like once they got the hang of me as an actor and as a person and what I was doing with that guy, they could write for me because they were still writing.
Guest:Oh, we heard your voice in our heads.
Guest:You were crystal clear.
Guest:And the sound of you had now penetrated the cortex, which was awesome.
Guest:I do every show one year at a time.
Guest:I'm not thinking about the future.
Guest:I don't know what the future is.
Guest:Let's focus on this season, where we're going to end, and go from there.
Marc:And that went for eight seasons.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it was great.
Marc:It was lovely.
Marc:And you were happy with it?
Marc:You were happy with the way it ended and everything else?
Guest:Yeah, I was.
Guest:I was sad that it ended.
Marc:Because you built a real family, right?
Guest:I built a family.
Guest:I was running the production the way I wanted.
Guest:And I was experienced enough to know that this is as good as it gets.
Guest:I'd created an environment and a show where...
Guest:I had learned from mistakes of the past.
Guest:I had learned from shows what I didn't want to do, what I did want to do.
Guest:And even though it gets exhausting to keep writing the same show with same characters, I knew how good I had it.
Guest:And I was really nervous to let that go.
Marc:Did you let it go?
Marc:Did you stop it?
Guest:No, they did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Eight Years is a good run.
Marc:Yeah, definitely.
Guest:But everyone in the room was like, quick, quick, write another show.
Guest:Because when you don't have something on the air, you disappear.
Guest:You're back to zero.
Guest:And I was panicked.
Guest:And so while I was doing Weeds, I had gotten Orange.
Guest:And toward the end, when we were doing the finale, I was running up and downstairs to two different writers' rooms, starting Orange and finishing Weeds.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in a way, I feel like I didn't get to mourn.
Guest:I didn't have time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I kind of regret that because there's grief with the ending and spending eight years of your life.
Guest:And the whole point of Orange had been to bring the whole Weeds crew over.
Guest:And then we had to shoot in New York.
Guest:And it was really difficult.
Marc:How many went?
Guest:Very few, because you gotta hire local crews.
Guest:Carly and Steven came on in different years.
Marc:Carly, the co-creator of GLOVE.
Guest:And Steven Falk, who does You're the Worst, who's terrific.
Guest:Yeah, and it was sort of heartbreaking, but I couldn't deal with that because there was a new baby, and I had to take care of the new baby.
Guest:And then there was a little rivalry between the rooms.
Guest:You like them better.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:It's interesting.
Marc:Yeah, but so what was the seed for orange?
Guest:Orange, a friend of mine had sent me the book to read on vacation.
Guest:She lived in Brooklyn.
Guest:She knew Piper and Larry.
Guest:And I read it, and I loved the characters.
Guest:And I was always looking for these crossroads where people who would never ordinarily meet are forced to deal with one another.
Guest:Very often that happens in underground economies, like in Weeds, and that was completely the situation in Orange.
Marc:And what is compelling about that to you?
Guest:the confrontation with the other.
Guest:I love forcing that.
Guest:Because I think it's enlightening.
Guest:I think it's the only way you really make progress.
Marc:And also in these, in the outlaw territories, you don't have to hide much.
Guest:because you know everyone knows the truth to a certain degree not unlike an office situation like you're always meeting you know new people and having to deal with new people but you have to play by these set of rules right where the you know and honor the business just paths crossing i think we live more and more in a mosaic world and you don't go over your chip you know and this forces people to deal i remember getting some criticism on weeds because why do the black people have to be drug dealers i was like
Guest:The white people are drug dealers.
Guest:They're all drug dealers.
Guest:It's not specific.
Marc:How much criticism like that... I mean, I don't imagine you get it with Orange, but it's like... Isn't there a line with what is fundamentally progressive criticism that doesn't take into mind that some things are situational, counterproductive sometimes?
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Look, I'm not...
Guest:necessarily politically correct right and um i'm okay with that yeah and you know i want to invest in my shows and my characters and what i find funny and what the room likes and um are you getting are you getting uh critical emails from the prison population
Guest:Not particularly.
Guest:It was interesting because I was visiting a prison where, and I was meeting a bunch of people and they were being very cagey, sort of intimating that they'd seen the show, but they couldn't claim they'd seen it because then people would know they had an illegal cell phone.
Guest:So it was like, oh, I've heard about that, you know, and we really like it.
Marc:But then they couldn't, they'd blow their...
Marc:Have you gotten feedback from the prison industrial complex in any way?
Guest:I mean, you know, actually, interestingly enough, a lot of guards watch the show and like it.
Guest:People, when they get out, we hear things.
Guest:Yeah, like what?
Guest:Well, one of the scary things is I have stories.
Guest:Don't you want my stories?
Guest:It's like, no.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:It's a legal gray area.
Guest:But just you really captured it.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:You did well.
Guest:And other times, you know, everyone has a different experience.
Guest:And some people, that's not it at all.
Guest:Sorry.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That wasn't my experience.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It was a different prison I was in.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But also, like, you know, like, in terms of dealing with, I mean, I have to assume that you are being credited with this, like, you employ a lot of women.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:But just by virtue of the show, it doesn't feel like a mission.
Right.
Guest:No, it's what I think is the normalization of it.
Guest:It's not, and before your gender, it's about talent.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's the, and I'll take talent in any package.
Marc:Sure, but you wrote a lot of female characters.
Marc:Oh, absolutely.
Marc:So, yeah.
Guest:Well, also, I had this source material that was in a women's prison.
Marc:And also, I think you were the first to really deal aggressively and honestly and uniquely with trans issues.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was a big deal.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was more accessible than what Jill was doing later.
Marc:You know, like, it completely made sense.
Guest:But didn't Jill invent Chance?
Marc:No.
Marc:No, I'm kidding.
Marc:According to a small group.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I mean, the weird thing about Soloway's thing is, like, the story was so bizarre it had to be real.
Marc:And when you find out it's real, it's like, whoa.
Guest:Well, it was interesting because...
Guest:Like a year before Transparent, we'd gone to the desert for like an arts and crafts thing with our kids.
Marc:You and Jill?
Marc:Oh, you.
Guest:Jill was there and I was there and a bunch of people.
Marc:Oh, you guys are buddies?
Guest:Yeah, we've known each other for a long time.
Guest:And after the kids went to sleep, we played this game called Family Secrets.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where people write things and put them in a hat and you pull it out and you try to figure out whose it is and if you can't, you put it back, whatever.
Guest:Someone pulls out a slip of paper.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It said, my father is currently living as a woman named Carrie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're like, oh my God, who is this?
Guest:This is amazing.
Guest:And it turned out to be Jill.
Guest:And it was a great quote.
Guest:She said, look, as a child, oh my God.
Guest:As a writer, oh my God.
Guest:And it was fabulous because you could see the wheels were already turning.
Guest:And she had said she was always writing these pilots where
Guest:a sister was missing or a family member was missing and she said, maybe I internalized this and I knew on some level.
Marc:Oh, that there was a denial there.
Marc:That like it was a truth that couldn't be told.
Guest:I guess.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:But, all right, so the idea that it's not, the agenda is not like, I'm going to work with women.
Marc:This is a feminist idea.
Guest:In fact, I was actively discouraged because, I mean,
Guest:infamously you know i i did not have the best relationship with my uh lead in weeds although it got better yeah um and the whole room was like write a show about guys write all guys and it was the desperate housewives era and it was like you do not want that situation right um
Guest:But I'm glad I didn't believe it.
Marc:Well, I mean, that's a specifically male perception of that.
Marc:And it's situational, I imagine.
Marc:Because it seems that with Orange that you've got another real community there.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:You know, and alumni.
Guest:Yeah, we set it up that way.
Guest:I mean, it was very a lot of it was very deliberate in because it was such a huge cast.
Guest:There's a lot of women, a lot of people for whom it was their first TV job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we.
Guest:set a tone of like, this is a group, this is a family, you support each other, you compete for the work competitively in the scenes.
Guest:And it was sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Guest:And they bonded and they support each other's work outside the show and they make each other better in scenes.
Guest:It's amazing.
Marc:Well, I think that's the weird, bad rap.
Marc:These ideas that women are worse than men with fighting and this and that.
Marc:And I don't know any of that.
Marc:I didn't grow up with sisters.
Marc:My only experience with a lot of women is on GLOW.
Guest:How did it go for you?
Marc:It was great.
Marc:Because I'm not that... Right away, I realized I can't sit with them.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:No, not in a bad way.
Marc:But, like, there was an intensity, an energy to, you know, 12 to 14 women sitting, you know, between takes together, you know, talking.
Marc:Like, I was just like, I'm going to be exhausted.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:That's not untrue.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Right?
Marc:I mean, that was really, it was just, yeah, it was just a matter of me, like, I got to stay in the sky.
Marc:You know, I'm not, my boundaries aren't that great.
Marc:You know, holding the characters about all I can do.
Marc:And if I go over there, I'm just going to be, you know, emotionally shredded.
Guest:But that's also an actor thing.
Guest:There are some actors I find who thrive on that energy and others who have to.
Marc:But I also knew that I had to have a certain like that whatever control I thought I had over that situation as a character was pretty tenuous.
Marc:It would be undermined if you were in the middle.
Marc:Well, yeah, because it was already, you know, being undermined and I couldn't I couldn't admit it, you know, but I but, you know, I got to know everybody and it was very it was very moving to me to just because I, you know, I'm pretty emotional and that the you know, just to see like if I go to a musical.
Marc:You know, for no other reason than there are a lot of people singing, you know, I'm crying.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So like, you know, when they got in that ring, even for, you know, once the first scene, which is the, you know, the fight with Betty and Allison, that's a real fight.
Marc:I was like choked up because it's intense and it has an, the ring has an intensity.
Marc:Right.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So how did that, you know, what was the process of glow happening?
Right.
Guest:So I'd work with Carly on both Weeds and Orange, and I think she's wildly talented.
Guest:I'm a fan.
Guest:And she went to work on Nurse Jackie for one or two years and met Liz.
Guest:And they had watched the documentary.
Marc:But they knew each other before.
Marc:They're both playwrights.
Guest:Yeah, there's a whole playwriting community.
Guest:I've hired a lot of them.
Guest:They're great with voice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You would hope.
Guest:Yes, you would hope.
Guest:And they watched a documentary about Glo and fell in love.
Guest:And fell in love with the women, fell in love with the world, fell in love with the time period.
Guest:And I'd been hoping Carly would do a show for a long time and her level of enthusiasm with this.
Guest:And they wrote a script and I didn't love it.
Guest:And I gave my thoughts and they had their thoughts.
Guest:And they didn't necessarily take mine.
Guest:But the next script they did of it, it was like it all came together.
Marc:What was it that was the thing?
Guest:Honestly, I don't remember the specifics of it.
Marc:But you like the world.
Marc:You like the idea.
Guest:I love the world.
Guest:And I felt like that very first draft, I wasn't sure.
Guest:And then they kept coming back.
Guest:They're like, no, we have a vision.
Guest:This is it.
Guest:And they showed me.
Marc:um and and after that was like i'm on board i'm here yeah and that was that yeah yeah it's a weird like watching it is i only watched the first five i don't know why i didn't get to see the other ones but um because they weren't uh available yeah you know yeah right but uh like it's like i have to deal with watching me as an actor and then watching the show but it does kind of it's
Marc:the show within the show, the wrestling, and that journey for the women in that, and then the drama behind it, there's something, there's a balance there, because like you know from doing the other two shows you've done, that shit can get pretty dark.
Marc:And there's no reason, like some of this stuff in GLOW shouldn't be like, holy shit, menacingly dark, but the bigger agenda,
Marc:of the teamwork and the commitment to the craft of wrestling and becoming these other people, these superheroes, balances out in a very odd way.
Marc:It's good, but there was moments where I'm wondering, this should be more upsetting, but they're gonna wrestle.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:No, it's that balancing act always.
Guest:Because you have to have a dramatic spine always.
Guest:And then you sprinkle in moments.
Guest:And I'm a big fan of slamming comedy up against drama.
Marc:Yeah, you got to.
Marc:And Allison's genius.
Marc:Everybody's so good.
Guest:Everyone's so good.
Guest:And I'm actually impressed that you watch.
Guest:I know so many actors who can't watch themselves.
Marc:i've learned to do it you know like i've learned to do it with comedy because you know that's you know i'm confident in that finally like i can watch it objectively and i was gonna say it takes a certain level of self-confidence and a certain level of liking yourself it takes yeah and like and accepting yourself and like over the years like i can watch comedy and go like that could have been better this could have been better i can make choices i can watch myself do it and know where i'm at and not you know feel horrible but i used to but acting's different like it because like
Marc:When you watch yourself acting, you're in it right then.
Marc:You're like, why didn't I?
Marc:Why'd they cut it there?
Guest:I want to rewrite everything when I'm watching.
Marc:You do?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And why didn't we get this?
Guest:And the color's wrong.
Guest:I nitpick.
Guest:When we start every season, we do a marathon of the last season.
Guest:You do.
Guest:The writer's room.
Guest:So we go at 7.30 in the morning and we leave after dark and we watch the entire season in one go with breaks for lunch and dinner and breakfast, lunch, and dinner and beer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's amazing because it's the experience I think some people are having of just being watched in it.
Guest:And it really gets you prepped to say, OK, we see where we ended.
Guest:Where are we going to get back in it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I start watching and it's just like, oh, what was and you can't fix anything.
Guest:It was it was.
Marc:But the weird thing about that kind of stuff is like what I've learned from doing this show or from doing the podcast.
Marc:It's that, you know, after it's all done and you having those thoughts, all you can do is keep it to yourself because you're going to deprive someone else of experience.
Marc:You know, like whatever you decided on is what it is.
Marc:Like I've had people on here that I didn't think the conversation went well.
Marc:And I do the intros after.
Marc:And after one time saying like, well, I didn't think it went that well.
Marc:You know, people, they got mad at me for saying that, number one.
Marc:It diminished their ability to take in.
Marc:take the conversation in a non-judgmental way.
Marc:And a lot of times I'm completely wrong because how anyone else responds to something's got nothing to do with your dumb insecurities.
Guest:Also, people don't know what's not there.
Guest:You could be in love with a line that you cut and it's... They don't know.
Marc:And you don't want to give it to them.
Marc:That's why I used to have a real problem with releasing the songs that didn't make it or outtakes or whatever.
Marc:They're fun, but it's like...
Marc:Decision's been made.
Guest:Well, it becomes its own animal.
Guest:I think it's yours until it leaves the printer, and then it really becomes everybody's baby.
Marc:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:It takes a village.
Marc:It does.
Marc:So, like, you got this whole... Like, I haven't been down to... I only went to the one read-through.
Marc:I'm so surprised I wasn't more terrified and nervous.
Guest:No, everyone was... You were a cool customer.
Marc:Because, like, it's so weird.
Marc:I didn't expect it to happen.
Marc:Like, there's part of me that, like...
Marc:I had all these ideas of doing all these things when I was younger as a comic.
Marc:I didn't do a show.
Marc:And then somehow or another, everything worked out at a certain level in this day and age where I didn't have the pressure of being a megastar and I had a certain amount of freedom.
Marc:You can still go get a cup of coffee.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I did everything I wanted to do.
Marc:And one of the things I hadn't done was act in any real way in a series.
Marc:And it was a fluke.
Marc:So part of me was sort of like, okay, yeah, I'll put myself on tape.
Marc:But, like, it was a relief that, like, it's not on me.
Marc:You know, I just got to do my job the best I can do it.
Marc:And then, you know.
Guest:You were saying, it was interesting.
Guest:You were saying that when on the pilot, I remember, well, the first episode.
Guest:I remember you coming back to check the screen.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You were still sort of in producer head, like you had to do everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I may be speaking for you, but it seemed liberating for you when you finally were like, all I have to do is act in my scenes.
Guest:This is it.
Guest:I'm going to relax now.
Guest:It's lovely.
Guest:But I remember you feeling like you should have been checking takes.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It was weird because, like, you know, that's what you do when you're on a show.
Marc:And I was in the show that I was on, so I was always running back.
Marc:Did we get it?
Marc:Was it not...
Marc:But I think that because of that, it did develop a communication with the writers.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And I didn't have major fights with them.
Marc:And I was very... They weren't real fights.
Marc:They were suggestions.
Marc:And it was good.
Marc:It was good.
Guest:At a certain point, the actors really know their characters.
Guest:You know your character.
Guest:And the writers need to listen because that person's inhabiting this role.
Guest:And...
Guest:The actor's instincts about it have to be honored.
Marc:Yeah, there wasn't that many.
Marc:And they were great.
Marc:They were all great.
Marc:I enjoyed working with them.
Marc:Oh, but your office, that whole place back there, did you buy that building?
Marc:I did.
Guest:what was it it was the rita hayworth rita hayworth's dad yeah uh it was his building and there were um dance studios upstairs and uh at the time there was a tiki restaurant and a theater for the productions and um what kind of shape it was it took two years to renovate really yeah and it's like yeah and you shoot stuff there
Guest:No.
Marc:You don't?
Guest:We don't.
Guest:Although we're renovating the theater now.
Marc:As a screening facility?
Guest:Or live theater.
Guest:There's a guy from the improv who's interested in starting his own thing.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:We're talking to.
Marc:So you're going to make it available to kind of lease-ish?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Although...
Guest:I knew it because when I was a kid, it was the Vagabond Theater, and I used to go there and watch old double features.
Guest:And so part of me really wants to put in the infrastructure for screenings also.
Marc:You want to open a revival house?
Marc:Kind of, but I mean, it's not going to... Not like Quentin Tarantino in a grindhouse revival house, but like classic double features?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know what I'm going to do, but there's part of me that's like, I should honor this space and put the movies back.
Marc:So you're still doing press?
Yeah.
Guest:I don't do that much press.
Guest:I hate it.
Guest:And everyone wants to see the actors anyway.
Guest:It's fine.
Marc:That's the other beautiful thing about doing press for this.
Marc:I went out with, we did a junket in New York, me and Betty and Allison, and I'm like...
Marc:talk.
Marc:It's your show.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:It's just like I watched some footage because you just sit there with a lot of different outlets and like I watched two of them and it's just me looking at Allison talking.
Marc:She has a lot to say.
Guest:It's terrific.
Marc:It was great.
Guest:But you got to get in there.
Guest:You have a lot to say on that.
Marc:No, I do, but I have to fight the urge, because coming from what I come from, it's been years of just pick your moments and shut the fuck up if you can.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Because as a comic guy, you're just sort of like, and then you're like, I don't know, just hanging back a minute.
Marc:That's discipline.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But now, with this show, it seems to me that you only got to really know maybe five of us or four of us in the first season.
Marc:And there's so many.
Marc:It could go on forever.
Marc:And we don't even know what any of those characters can do or where they can go.
Guest:Yeah, you want to start this engine that can run for a long time.
Marc:Was casting amazing for GLOW?
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:First of all, I think Jen Houston is great at her job.
Marc:She does all this stuff.
Marc:I've known her since she was a kid.
Guest:And she loves...
Guest:Unusual people.
Guest:You don't get the same faces.
Guest:She advocates.
Guest:And then there's so much talent out there if you give people a chance.
Guest:But it was hard in that you're going to have to go into training.
Guest:It's going to be super physical.
Marc:It's so great to watch them all do it.
Guest:It's a show about bodies in a lot of ways.
Yeah.
Guest:I tend to think, having done so many pilots and having fought really hard for it, I've really learned that when the process is relatively easy, it's meant to be.
Guest:If you are pushing a rock uphill,
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think the universe conspires to make what should be.
Guest:Right.
Guest:More difficult.
Guest:And you've got to listen to that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I know people who are like, oh, it's too easy.
Guest:This is not good.
Guest:I don't trust it.
Guest:But I think that's when it's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it's supposed to be in the world.
Guest:That's very back to Miss Charlotte and woo-woo.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But if there's an ease to it, I guess people don't trust it because they think it could always like it's that compulsion that you seem to manage is that, you know, if you have that drive that's founded in being hard on yourself, you're always going to think it can be better or different.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But like that can pollute, you know, if you don't delegate.
Guest:Yeah, you have to delegate, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at a certain point, you have to let go.
Guest:You have to put your baby out.
Marc:I forgot the story I wanted to tell you.
Marc:I don't know if you know it.
Marc:Because Carly and Liz, they're kind of nerdy.
Marc:They're the best, yeah.
Marc:And I'm like an old monster on some level.
Marc:And I remember I made a couple of decisions about the character right at the beginning, like the glasses, and that the way he did coke was going to be out of a bindle with a key or with a pen.
Guest:I remember you being very specific.
Marc:But when I told them that, I said, he's not flashy.
Marc:He's a user.
Marc:It's all practical.
Marc:And I just went off on this rant, and they're both looking at me.
Marc:And I think it was Carly just goes, we're so glad you're here.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:They were always good girls.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's just I saw their face.
Guest:You gave them a little dirt in their sandwich.
Guest:I think it's good.
Guest:It's important.
Marc:Good, good.
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you.
Marc:How do you feel about it?
Guest:Lovely talking to you, too.
Guest:I feel good, right?
Guest:I want to rewrite the whole thing.
Marc:You do?
Marc:Like which parts?
Marc:No, I'm fine.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Thanks, Jenji.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Marc:What a smart, nice, decent person Jenji is.
Marc:I was happy to talk to her.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:There's a new poster up there from my buddy Chris up in... Where was that?
Marc:Yeah, the Portland poster, right?
Marc:Yeah, the Portland poster's up.
Marc:I like it.
Marc:I like it.
Marc:It's up there at WTFPod.com in the merch area or whatever it's called.
Marc:And get on the mailing list.
Marc:I will email some stuff.
Marc:Today, usually, it comes out.
Marc:I email every week.
Marc:I write you all a very nice letter.
Marc:I can play some guitar.
Marc:Why not?
Guest:Why the fuck not?
Guest:Wow Wow Wow Wow Wow Wow
Guest:Boomer lives!