Episode 836 - Mike MacDonald / Jon Ronson
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuckaholics?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I did it.
Marc:I did it.
Marc:Yesterday was my 18th sober birthday.
Marc:I can toot my own horn once a year.
Marc:Get my coin.
Marc:sarah the painter she gave me a coin it was nice got some nice congrats from people on the twitter and on uh in my family and friends 18 years without a cocktail a puff of weed a line of blow uh however you do meth
Marc:No, nothing.
Marc:Just this goddamn nicotine lozenges and this goddamn coffee, but nothing that makes my life unmanageable and destroys my health and world and ability to cope and do things.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I'll take it.
Marc:18 years yesterday sober.
Marc:I made it.
Marc:Today is just another day.
Marc:We're back to it.
Marc:We're back to a day at a time.
Marc:How are you people doing?
Marc:I still don't feel physically great.
Marc:And I do believe that it's going to come down to me.
Marc:I'm probably going to have to get off of these nicotine lozenges again and probably the coffee.
Marc:And some of you have been with me long enough to know what that's like.
Marc:We've been through this before.
Marc:But I'm surprised at the parts of the attic brain that I still have.
Marc:Let me tell you, I was working out with the lady that helps me work out today.
Marc:And she's like, you just got to do it.
Marc:You just got to go cold turkey.
Marc:You got to just get off the, you know, the nicotine, the caffeine.
Marc:And I defended it like a goddamn junkie.
Marc:I was like, no, I wouldn't.
Marc:She goes, do you want to?
Marc:I'm like, no, I don't.
Marc:I don't want to.
Marc:It was that tone.
Marc:She's like, don't you want to quit those?
Marc:And I'm like, no, I don't.
Marc:I don't I don't know how the hell I'll cope.
Marc:I don't know what the hell I'll do.
Marc:I don't know how I'll feel OK about life in the world.
Marc:It's already hard enough without without caffeine and and those nicotine suckers.
Marc:I don't know what the fuck.
Marc:I don't what the fuck am I going to do?
Marc:Don't know.
Marc:I do not.
Marc:Justified it.
Marc:justified my low-level self-medicating like a goddamn junkie i'm sober from the bad shit but this stuff is i don't know i think it's making me queasy something's making me queasy maybe it's just stress and fucking insanity in the goddamn world
Marc:Maybe the Trump reign of terror is starting to crush me on a neurological level.
Marc:That's the plan, right?
Marc:You get about a third of the country that loves you no matter what the fuck you do, no matter who the fuck you bomb or who you hate on or what chaos you unleash on the world, on the country.
Marc:And then you got about the other two thirds of people just terrified.
Marc:And that just makes that one third laugh and excited that maybe they'll one day get us all to leave or watch us die.
Marc:Yeah, that kind of stuff.
Marc:All this nuclear saber rattling.
Marc:Yeah, maybe that's making me queasy.
Marc:Does that sound like a reasonable reaction to that?
Marc:Let's not dwell.
Marc:I have 18 years sober, but that doesn't change the world.
Marc:It doesn't change anything.
Marc:It's just another day where I don't drink or use drugs and try to deal.
Marc:Oh, let me tell you who's on the show.
Marc:We got a little bit of a doubleheader going.
Marc:My old pal John Ronson is here.
Marc:The very intelligent, witty, and smart writer, John Ronson has a new audio series for Audible.
Marc:It's called The Butterfly Effect.
Marc:The entire series is available for free at audible.com slash butterfly effect.
Marc:And then after him, we've got Canadian Mike McDonald.
Marc:Old comic.
Marc:I don't want to call him too old.
Marc:He's probably about 10 years older than me, maybe a little less, but I do have to qualify him as Canadian Mike McDonald, not Mike McDonald the singer, not Mike McDonald the comic from Boston.
Marc:Mike McDonald.
Marc:Not that Mike McDonald.
Marc:I'm doing a bad impression of a guy that most of you don't know.
Marc:Mike McDonald.
Marc:No, it's Canadian Mike McDonald.
Marc:He's been through the war of the road, has some physical issues, a survivor, a real comedy life survivor who I met years ago, who has been around for a long time and he had some health problems and stuff.
Marc:And then he he's doing some sort of filming thing around here.
Marc:And I came over and we talked for about an hour and
Marc:He's a real comedy warrior, Mike McDonald.
Marc:So he's coming up.
Marc:But let's read a couple of pleasant emails.
Marc:This one, I don't mean it to be a plug, but you can certainly take it that way.
Marc:Waiting for the Punch is the subject line.
Marc:That's the name of the WTF book coming out that you can preorder now.
Marc:I really had no intention of doing a plug, but it is a nice email.
Marc:That's my other book.
Marc:had a huge impact on me and helped me through a tough divorce, and this new book comes at a time of transition for me as well and had a similar impact.
Marc:I just wanted to tell you your comedy and your books have gotten me through some really dark days, and I'm forever grateful for that.
Marc:Chris wrote that.
Marc:Well, good, Chris.
Marc:I'm glad you got a copy of that.
Marc:That seems to be the way people are responding to the book, and I'm glad to help out, and I'm glad you had that reaction to the book, which you can preorder at WTFPod.com.
Marc:Just click on that book thing.
Marc:Yeah, click on it.
Marc:Go get it.
Marc:Go get it before it comes.
Marc:This is an email that I never, never anticipated.
Marc:I didn't think this would happen.
Marc:I don't know what to do with it.
Marc:I don't know what to do with the feelings that this email brings out of me.
Marc:It says, meet baby Marin.
Marc:That subject line will grab you.
Marc:Like, I knew this was going to happen.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:How old is it?
Marc:He or she?
Marc:Where did this happen?
Marc:Where are you from?
Marc:How much do you want?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:Not that kind of email.
Marc:Hey, Mark, my name is Wally.
Marc:My wife, Chanel, and I are huge fans and truly love your work.
Marc:We live in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and we listen to the podcast.
Marc:We love your TV show and just recently saw you live for the first time at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto.
Marc:My wife is especially endeared to your no bullshit, brutally honest and vulnerable approach.
Marc:On to the point, though.
Marc:When thinking of unique names for our second child, one of the first things my wife thought of was Marin, and it stuck.
Marc:What?
Marc:It wasn't a pregnancy without its struggles, and baby Marin proved to be just as difficult to deal with as you portray yourself to be at times.
Marc:He wound up being nearly two weeks overdue, required a C-section to deliver, and at nine pounds, two ounces, I doubt she would have wanted to push the hulking beast out of herself anyway.
Marc:She's been through a lot,
Marc:And as currently as I write this still in hospital, we're covering both mama and baby are happy and healthy as I come home to get some sweet before having to go back to my day job as a welder in the morning.
Marc:It would mean the world to me if you could just give her a shout out on the air and give her a little extra boost of morale from her favorite cranky little man.
Marc:I write that lovingly.
Marc:All right, Chanel, good job.
Marc:I'm glad you, look, you had to get it out of you somehow.
Marc:And I'm glad the kid is out and he's doing all right.
Marc:Is it a boy?
Marc:Yes, it's a boy.
Marc:I'm glad little Marin is good.
Marc:I'm glad it's not mine, but only in namesake.
Marc:And I'd like to welcome little Marin into the world and best of luck with it.
Marc:And I'm glad you're okay.
Marc:And here he says, I've included photos of your infant namesake, and I dare say he may be just a touch cuter than you, Big Marin.
Marc:All the best, Wally.
Marc:Oh, look at that kid.
Marc:So that happened.
Marc:There's a kid out there with my name.
Marc:My last name is his first name.
Marc:And I hope it's easier for him coming up with that name.
Marc:It's very flattering and very... I can feel no other way other than honored and I'm glad that the kid's all right.
Marc:So let's move into it.
Marc:So this is...
Marc:Me talking to John Ronson about his new audio series called The Butterfly Effect.
Marc:It's on Audible and it's available for free at audible.com slash butterfly effect.
Marc:Enjoy.
Marc:So I haven't seen you in a while, and apparently you're doing things.
Guest:Yeah, since I saw you last.
Guest:The last time I saw you, I was in the midst of my public shaming.
Guest:Public shaming.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:How did that?
Marc:I imagine that book changed lives.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was a lot of pushback, though.
Guest:Like we were just talking about Randy Newman.
Guest:What was the whole name of the book again?
Guest:So you've been publicly shamed.
Marc:Yeah, I read that book.
Marc:I've read most of your books.
Marc:You're one of the guys that I read the books when I prepare.
Marc:I read them.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:You and Sam Quinones and Bruce Springsteen.
Guest:That's where I feel I belong.
Guest:Yeah, thank you.
Guest:Yeah, so that was the last time I saw you.
Marc:What was the pushback?
Guest:oh did they try to shame you was that weird the backlash of writing a book about public shaming is that you were going you were trolled and shamed yes really yes it was a pain in the fucking neck what happened well like because my book is like i'm it's it's against the sort of culture of shaming so obviously people who enjoy shaming people oh you fucked with their hobby yeah
Marc:I fucking did.
Marc:I fucking did.
Marc:You buzz killed the assholes, the troll army, the army of unfuckable hate nerds came after you?
Guest:And it was noisy.
Guest:Oh, I bet.
Guest:And it was relentless.
Guest:It was relentless noise for about a year.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:Like, what was the angle?
Guest:Oh, every angle you can possibly think of.
Guest:Because one of the people I was nice about in the book was this woman, Justine Sacker, who's like a white, who, you know, on the surface of things is like a kind of privileged white woman.
Marc:Oh, the one who, the South Africa thing?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I then became like, oh, Jonathan's only nice about privileged white people.
Marc:Oh, they were accusing you of virtue signaling?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, virtue signaling on the, well, both sides.
Marc:oh both sides oh you got it from all angles yeah i got it from all you got the righteous trolls and just the monster trolls yeah oh boy yeah i got the lot of them there's so you know there's so many unimaginative people that live to cause you know start shit that is their that's their creativity is is causing problems i was thinking a lot about consequences
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:From because of working on the shame book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I asked this guy one time who'd started this onslaught against this woman, like a Gawker journalist.
Guest:I said, how did it feel to have started the onslaught against her?
Guest:He said it felt delicious.
Marc:I hate the way they use that word.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he paused and said, but I'm sure but I'm sure she's fine now.
Guest:And I happen to know that, you know, she was depressed and she wasn't leaving her house.
Guest:You know, she was probably having suicidal thoughts.
Guest:But for cognitive dissonance reasons, you know, you have to think that they're fine.
Guest:You don't want to think there's consequences because, you know, you're a nice person, yet you've just destroyed somebody's life.
Guest:So to make that work inside your head, you have to pretend that they're fine.
Marc:Or you have enough kind of sociopathic detachment to think that it just happens online and that's it.
Marc:It's like a person who rages.
Marc:When they're done yelling, they're like, are we good?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So I was thinking about how for the internet to work, you have to sort of not think about the consequences of your actions.
Guest:And I thought, where else does that exist on the internet?
Guest:And the place where I thought it really existed is porn.
Guest:So a few things happened.
Guest:Could I tell you these things that happened?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:For my shamed book.
Guest:You went on a porn set.
Guest:Yeah, I went on a porn set.
Marc:Yeah, I remember.
Guest:Which was great.
Guest:I'm actually in a porn.
Guest:I'm briefly in a porn film called Public Disgrace because it was my first ever porn set and I wanted to see what was happening.
Guest:So I leaned, I kind of leaned in.
Guest:This was a woman was getting her genitals electrocuted and
Guest:For real?
Guest:For real, yeah, because in a break from the filming, everybody thought, well, this can't be real because it was set in a bar in the valley.
Guest:And the conceit was that Princess Donna, the porn star, was pulling in this woman called Joanie Taylor and would then electrocute her genitals in front of everybody in the bar.
Guest:So during a break... What kind of porn is this?
Guest:Well, it's weird porn.
Guest:It's humiliation porn.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And so everybody was, like, testing the electrocution machine during a break.
Guest:And it really was giving electric shocks.
Guest:It was real.
Guest:So I, like, kind of peered in.
Guest:So somewhere in a film called Public Disgrace, there's, like, a Tweedy gentleman holding a notepad, like...
Guest:here again like i'm just hoping that for somebody out there that's a that's a that's a nice nice promo for that film i remember my big memory of that night i have two memories of that night yeah one is that like it started late it started like 10 30 and i was still on new york time so kind of
Guest:Like hazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So like 1 a.m.
Guest:I was just thinking, please ejaculate so I can just go home.
Guest:And I thought, God, I'm like thousands of women before me.
Marc:Please ejaculate so I can go to sleep.
Marc:We just get closure on this.
Marc:Some messy closure on this situation.
Marc:I'm tired.
Guest:And my other memory was that when I was meeting Princess Donna, so I was staying that night at this fancy Los Angeles hotel, the Chateau Marmont.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was in my room and the guy, the receptionist phoned up and said, your guest is waiting for you downstairs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went downstairs and everybody else in the lobby was just exactly like I'm dressed now.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:James Purse.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Grey hoodies.
Marc:Celebrity hiding.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Like a celebrity burka, like a grey hoodie, which I just sort of hide underneath.
Guest:So it makes everybody go, is that, I don't know, is it?
Guest:Except for Princess Donna, who was dressed like this kind of great mad peacock.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:She looked like so otherworldly.
Marc:Hollywood.
Guest:Yeah, and I wore porn and I walked towards her.
Guest:Really interested in it.
Guest:She was interesting to me.
Guest:Peacocks are interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Especially in the context of grey sweatpants.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I looked around and I noticed the receptionist as I was walking towards her and the receptionist was looking at her.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And the look, he didn't realize anybody was looking at him looking at her.
Guest:And the look on his face was one of contempt, like disgust.
Guest:And it made me think, whoa, like she, it made me think that some people are only comfortable with porn people when they're on their computers and not in their vicinity.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And so I became curious, like after my little mini porn experience.
Marc:But do you think he knew she was a porn person?
Guest:I think he knew she was some kind of sex worker.
Marc:You know, even if... It's weird, though, because that street, you know, at a different era, was just like a parade of that.
Marc:When I was at the comedy store in the late 80s, it was all over the place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:Well, you know, I could have misread.
Guest:It's possible that I misread the situation.
Guest:He probably just was... He thought she was being a little bit much for the chateau.
Guest:And funnily enough, I brought this up with another porn star a couple of weeks later, and she took the side of the receptionist.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Fuck her.
Guest:Well, Benham basically said, well, she should have dressed more demurely.
Guest:But anyway, and I might have misread the situation, but it did make me curious about the lives of porn people.
Guest:And so I started reading their blogs and so on, and what were their concerns.
Guest:And
Guest:What I realized was that a lot of porn people were concerned about the very same, very specific thing.
Guest:And it was a man called Fabian.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I became really interested in Fabian.
Marc:What does that mean?
Guest:Fabian's a guy called Fabian Tillman.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he's a Brussels entrepreneur.
Guest:And when he was a teenager, he had an idea.
Guest:And the idea was basically to get rich and giving the world money.
Marc:free porn online oh so he didn't invent i am personally grateful right well you and 75 million other people every day the weird thing that just i know i'm getting ahead of you but that what it enables you to do is is not invest as much time now you know internet porn free porn enables you to use it as a drug which is what it is like you know it's like i got six minutes
Marc:Whatever.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:You have to invest in a story.
Marc:You don't really have to fast forward.
Marc:There's plenty available.
Marc:I'm not proud of it.
Marc:I'm not saying I'm compulsive about it, but it's nice knowing it's there, right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, it's certainly taken off in a big way.
Marc:The business itself...
Marc:whether it's free porn or not, must be a massive business still for somebody.
Marc:Because there is literally, not unlike troll culture or social networking, is that the globe, and America in particular, has become completely pornified and almost embraces it.
Marc:That coming out of the 80s, where there was a commission put together to fight it, that now it's sort of like, it's just matter of fact.
Marc:How does that happen?
Marc:And to me, it must be about money.
Guest:Yeah, well, I can answer all of those questions.
Guest:I'm now an expert at Pornhub economics.
Guest:So Fabian, by the way, got so rich from owning Pornhub and basically buying up the entire San Fernando Valley pretty much.
Guest:Like at one point in about 2012, 80% of everybody in the world who watched porn was watching it on one of Fabian's sites.
Marc:But then wasn't that, then doesn't the model become more of a YouTube model for performers?
Guest:Well, eventually it sort of turned into that.
Guest:But the foundation, I should explain, by the way, Mark, that all of this is, and I've just made this audio series called The Butterfly Effect.
Guest:And the flap of the butterfly's wings is Fabian giving the world free porn.
Guest:And the entire series is about the consequences.
Guest:And it goes out and out and out.
Guest:So to the strangest places.
Guest:Like our sort of challenge to ourselves is if you follow consequence through to consequence, like from Faye being given the World Freeport, where the fuck are you going to end up?
Guest:And you end up with a man in Norway having his expensive stamp collection destroyed by three women.
Guest:So that's like one of the places we end up by chasing this butterfly thing.
Marc:But let me tell you about... That's one of those weird things where it's a spoiler, but it's so compelling and you cannot figure out the story.
Guest:How the fuck to get from one to the other.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So Fabian bought Pornhub when it was like a fledgling company owned by these guys up in Montreal.
Guest:And he wanted to expand.
Guest:That wasn't enough for him.
Guest:So he got a bank loan to expand.
Guest:Now, one real irony.
Guest:The foundation of Pornhub was pirated porn.
Guest:They didn't upload pirated porn themselves, but they kind of allowed a space for users.
Marc:Pirated meaning not original?
Marc:No.
Marc:Stolen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, some company would make a porn film and then the day it's released on DVD, somebody would just upload it onto Pornhub and it would stay on Pornhub, but everybody would watch it for free.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So all the mom and pop porn production companies would have to close down.
Guest:Porn stars would have to go into like escorting to pay the rent.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And everybody was watching their porn for free on Pornhub, pirated.
Guest:Now, if anybody said to Pornhub, can you take down our, this porn belongs to us and it's illegally uploaded, they'd go, oh, sorry, we'll take it down.
Guest:And they'd take it down.
Guest:But by then, like, all the porn in the world was like on Pornhub for free.
Guest:So, you know, it was like trying to cut down a forest with a butter knife.
Marc:It's a lot like YouTube.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So Fabian wanted to bank loan to help him expand.
Guest:A band clone?
Guest:A bank loan.
Guest:Bank loan.
Guest:Yeah, like a loan for me.
Marc:I thought you were talking some tech term that I didn't know.
Marc:Bank loan.
Guest:Yeah, bank loan.
Guest:Got it.
Guest:Now, one irony in all of this is that if you're a woman in porn, if you're a porn performer and you go to a bank manager and ask for like a checking account, they might turn you down because it's like you're deemed disreputable.
Guest:But Fabian, he wasn't like a porn performer.
Guest:He was a tech entrepreneur.
Guest:So he got a $362 million loan to build an empire based in part on the handling of those women's stolen porn.
Guest:So with this loan, he bought up loads of porn production companies in L.A.,
Guest:And within a year, he was like, he owned like... All of it.
Guest:Yeah, he owned all of it.
Marc:I mean, not all of it, but he owned a... So it was no longer the quaint family business it once was.
Marc:No.
Marc:It's sort of like the transition from, you know, in Boogie Nights, that shift from, you know, the theaters to the videos.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And also, it was also documented a bit in the Tales from Times Square when it moved out of the theaters into the coin-operated booths.
Marc:There's been several different evolutions of it.
Marc:And I imagine David Simon's new series is going to talk about that.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That was like Times Square.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But what's happening now is, you know, the sort of porn DVD culture turned into like free porn on Pornhub.
Guest:And I was really interested in the consequences.
Guest:Like no one who worked up at Pornhub HQ ever went on a porn set.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But like initially you were interested in personal consequences.
Marc:It seems like this thing kind of came around the side for you, that it seemed like what you were looking for was something shame based.
Marc:And then it kind of became this other thing.
Marc:Well, consequence based consequence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like to eat the meat, you need to ignore the slaughterhouse.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I think nobody like everybody was watching porn for free on Pornhub and nobody was thinking about the consequences.
Guest:And I wasn't like I didn't know anything about I had no idea what impact it was having on people.
Guest:So I just became curious for that reason.
Guest:And so I discovered like you can imagine that some of the consequences are what you'd expect.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, poor women having to take up escorting, for instance.
Guest:But then as we dug and dug and dug, we found these other consequences.
Guest:consequences which are kind of mind-blowing.
Guest:Like?
Guest:Well, one of my favorites is, like, from the ashes of the old-style porn business, this new phoenix is rising.
Guest:And it's the world of bespoke porn.
Marc:Bespoke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, like, if you're... If you...
Guest:You have a porn film in mind that just doesn't exist anywhere in the world.
Guest:You can get like a team of professional porn people to make a porn film just for you.
Guest:But the bespoke porn world is unexpectedly... You like this one.
Marc:You like the creativity of it.
Guest:Well, it's like such an insight to people's inner lives because you wouldn't believe some of these bespoke porn films that are being made.
Marc:Of course I would.
Marc:I mean, you just told me one about a woman who gets her genitals or executed, and that was mainstream.
Guest:Yeah, that's mainstream.
Guest:This one is a company.
Guest:Okay, so one porn film that we found, one bespoke porn film was a man in Norway.
Guest:I alluded to this earlier.
Guest:A man in Norway.
Guest:Same guy?
Guest:Yeah, he spent his life amassing an incredibly valuable book of stamps.
Guest:And his bespoke porn film, just for him, was to pay porn performers in the San Fernando Valley to destroy his stamp collection.
Guest:And by throwing it into the fire while chanting, burn, burn.
Marc:So the sexual element is subverted somehow.
Marc:I mean, the guy's not quite submissive, but... He got sexual pleasure from seeing this stamp collection, which he clearly... A lifelong obsession.
Guest:Yeah, which he regretted.
Guest:I think he feels like he made a mistake.
Marc:Well, at least he's got the film of it.
Guest:Yeah, 10 films.
Guest:He's made 10.
Guest:He's commissioned 10.
Marc:How much does it cost to commission something like that?
Marc:To have some women, you know, naked women come over and burn my garage down.
Marc:What would that cost me?
Guest:Well, you'd need a fire marshal, so that's a little bit more.
Guest:But, you know, like $10,000, I reckon.
Marc:That's not bad.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I know some porn performers, and maybe they cut me a deal.
Guest:They'll give you a deal.
Guest:Not long ago, we had one bespoke porn producer tell us that a man had just emailed them and said he was requesting a video, and his video was for a porn performer to sit cross-legged on the floor, fully clothed, and saying to the camera, you are loved.
Guest:Things may be bad now, but they won't always be, and suicide is not the answer.
Marc:Like a known porn performer?
Guest:Well, I think in that particular case, like they got to choose their own.
Marc:That's pretty touching.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It kind of, it's almost worthy of museum work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Video.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's an art piece.
Guest:It is an art piece.
Guest:Well, they wrote back to him and said, like, this really moved them because obviously, well, it would.
Guest:And so they wrote back to him and said, well, we can shoot this really soon.
Yeah.
Marc:It was pressing.
Guest:Before you kill yourself.
Guest:And he didn't write back to them.
Guest:So then it was like, what do we do?
Guest:So they made it for him anyway.
Guest:They paid the porn performer and made it for him anyway and sent it to him.
Marc:And?
Guest:And they haven't heard back.
Guest:the video is basically this woman sitting on the floor in a house in the valley it's like this white mansion saying you know basically please don't kill yourself i mean i think the only it's a beautiful video the one error i could possibly say is that like they chose this kind of white mansion it looks like heaven from a movie so it's maybe not the best idea to make a bespoke porn film in which you're kind of convincing somebody to not kill themselves on a set that basically looks like
Guest:heaven from an 80s film but she's sort of um she's sitting cross-legged on the floor and she's saying you know lots of people love you i love you i have thought about dying myself in the past but you know i've pulled myself back from that and you know please don't do it you know please stick with us and then she blows a kiss at the camera and they sent the video to this guy and who knows well john i'm not disappointed in your reporting
Guest:What do you mean, who knows?
Guest:Well, I mean, I guess we could track the guy down.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What are you talking about?
Marc:You're not going to do follow up.
Guest:You're just going to end on the horrible, sad, existentially sort of provocative possibility that he's that he hasn't got back to them because he's dead or hasn't got back to them because actually he just wanted to get off on a video of a woman telling him.
Marc:But where's the follow through, Ronson?
Guest:I don't like it.
Guest:Isn't the not knowing in itself?
Marc:Yeah, there's poetry in that, but you're kind of half a reporter.
Marc:All right, I'll fucking find out.
Marc:That's right, you'll find out.
Marc:You better find out on the next bunch of butterfly effects, or is this it?
Marc:No, there might be more.
Marc:Before we get off that other topic, the thing is that if you did your due diligence as a reporter, either end of that story is not going to diminish what happened there.
Marc:You're just going to have to handle the worst of it.
Marc:But if it did pull him back or the guy does become interested, the worst that could happen is the dude is just sort of like, I just want to see if they do it.
Marc:That's the worst that can happen.
Marc:Any other thing, any other outcome is another good story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, even that story is a good story.
Marc:I got emotional and now I'm mad at you.
Guest:Well, that story is a good story because he massively moved these porn people.
Guest:As they were making the video for him, they were themselves crying because obviously it was kind of triggering stuff from their own lives.
Marc:A lot of them are very sensitive people.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The women that I know.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No question.
Guest:So even if this guy was just fucking with them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mark, have you got tears in your eyes?
Guest:I did before they went away.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah, the fact that you don't know the guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You don't know what happened.
Marc:No, we don't know what happened.
Marc:Yeah, I get choked up.
Marc:I get choked up a lot in here.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:What are you sorry about?
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I think it's a powerful bit of business.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now I got to listen to it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I should have done that before I talked to you, but it's better this way.
Marc:Sounds like a very compelling series there, John.
Guest:Oh, Mark, you wouldn't believe.
Marc:Well, I mean, I could talk about porn for a while.
Marc:I've got my own ideas.
Marc:The accessibility of it has, and the fact that porn addiction is a very real thing, that you are creating some sort of psychologically chemical change in your brain.
Guest:Oh, no question.
Marc:It is absolutely a compulsion.
Marc:I know guys that are lost in it, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, erectile dysfunction rates have, like, shot through the roof.
Marc:Of course, because a therapist of mine, like, put it, like, we were talking about, he's also been a guest on the show, that when you are a compulsive masturbator, your primary sexual partner is yourself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, you know, and you have a lot of control in that situation.
Guest:yeah you know um it's neutering a generation of men yeah my producer lena met a sex doll manufacturer at the avn you know the adult industry and he said like his business is going through the roof since free streaming porn because it's so much harder like if you watch porn constantly on you know tube sites it's much harder for you to have sex with an actual human but you don't get outside you don't know how to talk you don't know how to get there
Guest:So more and more people are buying sex dolls.
Marc:Right, so now it's like a pseudo-necrophilia culture.
Guest:Yeah, or just, you know, just compliance and perfection.
Marc:You're talking about, you know, like an emotionless doll that has a compelling vaginal feature and oral feature is perfection?
Guest:Or it looks like I met this guy...
Guest:In Louisiana, he's probably in his 50s now.
Guest:When he was in his late teens, he was desperately in love with this girl called Darlene.
Guest:And they were going to get married.
Guest:And he loved Darlene more than anything in the world.
Guest:And then one day, Darlene dumped him, just left him and refused to explain why.
Guest:And it broke his heart.
Guest:And cut to like 40 years later, a friend of his says, go on this website and he finds a sex doll that is identical looking to Darlene.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:So he buys her.
Marc:It's a love story.
Guest:He said that she's better than Darlene because like when he shared a bed with Darlene, he'd wake up on the other night and Darlene was like right the other side of the bed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which was like a clue to the fact that their relationship was going.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Whereas the sex doll, he wakes up on the other night and she's draped around him.
Marc:Yeah, or on the floor, and then he just pulls her back into the bed.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:It's very sweet.
Marc:Isn't it?
Marc:It sounds like a compelling bit of business that I'm not sure the arc of it is an indication of anything good.
Guest:No, it's not, right?
Guest:It's really not.
Guest:The arc of it is basically tech people taking over the world.
Guest:Going back to Fabian, one of Fabian's employees said to me, like, don't think of me as a porn person.
Guest:I'm not a piece of garbage, peddling smut.
Guest:I'm a tech person.
Marc:Well, this is the same type of detachment that enables a troll to not think they ruin someone's life.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Tech people taking over the world.
Guest:No one really cares because they're giving us what we want, which is free porn on the Internet.
Marc:It's all the revenge of the nerds.
Marc:We had no idea it would be apocalyptic.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's the heart of the story.
Guest:It's tech nerds taking over our lives.
Guest:We don't care.
Guest:And the consequences are boundless.
Marc:How does the economic model work now for like YouPorn or Pornhub or whatever the other ones are called?
Marc:How are they making the money?
Guest:Well, you know, you're right that there's like, you know, you can set up a page on Pornhub where you can like, you know, sell your own stuff.
Guest:But as Mike Quasar said to me, this old style director said to me the other day, like this incredibly famous porn actor called Janice Griffiths said to him the other day, you know, how can you be anti-Pornhub?
Guest:Like my Pornhub page on, you know, maybe like...
Guest:$3,000 last month.
Guest:And she's like one of the most successful porn stars.
Guest:And Mike said to her, like, 20 years ago, you'd have made like 30 grand.
Guest:So they don't know.
Guest:They don't know that they're part of this business that's just eating away at the kind of money that they used to make.
Marc:This is all very specific to to who you talk to and to, you know, this business model.
Marc:But I mean, if you go on to any of these sites, you're like, there's plenty of people making fuck movies.
Marc:There's no short to the point where I'm like, I don't know what my neighbor's doing right now.
Marc:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, by the way, is part of the problem because you've got this massive influx of women in the valley.
Guest:In the old days, in the 90s, there was a kind of, you know, if you wanted to get into porn, you were like Bonnie and Clyde.
Guest:You know, there was a kind of, there was a sort of outlaw status.
Marc:Sure, you needed a doctor to give you the pills for, you know, whenever you get manageable sexually transmitted diseases.
Marc:And it was just part of the liability of the work.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But now the valley is full of this kind of massive influx of 18-year-old girls who grew up on Pornhub think that looks like fun and an easy way of making money.
Marc:Well, that's an interesting sort of idea.
Marc:Wilhelm Reich had, when he kind of hot-rodded Freud's ideas about sexual repression and neuroticism, pictured a world where sexuality would be completely untethered.
Guest:Right, and de-stigmatized.
Marc:From its Victorian constraints and that it would make for a better world.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:That world is kind of starting to happen.
Guest:And that's the plus side, I would say.
Guest:I'm with Reich on this.
Guest:That's the upside of it.
Guest:The downside, though, is that thousands of young 18-year-old girls arrive in the valley without feeling any stigma about porn, which is obviously good.
Guest:And fucking for money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They work for like a month and then nobody needs to employ them anymore because there's another bunch of girls getting off the bus.
Marc:So the downside is that they got to enter the workforce with Pornhub videos on their resume.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yes.
Guest:And they come here with all those hopes and dreams and they get a month of work and then they're fucked.
Marc:Well, I mean, but do you really want to call them hopes and dreams?
Marc:I mean, like, you know, the thing is, is that it's still a very male-dominated business.
Marc:And, you know, there's a lot of these 18-year-old girls that I don't know, they necessarily really know what they're getting into.
Marc:And they get, you know, abused and fucked up and strung out.
Marc:And, like, I'm not, look, I mean, everyone's got free will.
Marc:But, I mean, we are talking 18 years.
Marc:You know, it's legal, but it's still young.
Guest:Well, we, my producer, you know, we embedded ourselves in the side of the porn industry in the Valley where, you know, there's much less exploitation, where, like, there's where the sets are kind of respectful and the women earn good money.
Guest:So, you know, we didn't want to go to, like, the sort of hot girls wanted sort of sleazy side of the industry.
Marc:Well, again, due diligence, Ronson.
Marc:I'm glad you got a balanced bit of a...
Guest:No, because I wanted our series to be about the tech takeover of the board industry.
Guest:I didn't want it to be about the little dark corners of the industry.
Guest:Well, now you've opened up a can of worms, though, man.
Guest:No, I stand by that because I never make stories about goodies and baddies.
Guest:But in this story, if anybody's a baddie, it's the faraway tech entrepreneurs who fucked everything up from afar.
Guest:So we just wanted to concentrate on that particular story.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I'm on board.
Guest:I think that's cool.
Marc:I mean, I'm sure there's going to be- I'm fine with it.
Marc:I just like it.
Marc:So it's a very, it is something that I don't know has really been like the evolution of porn and the nature of it in our own sort of
Marc:You know, kind of conflicted feelings about sex workers in general or how they're characterized.
Marc:Like, you know, I got an email recently that that, you know, that I sort of condescend, you know, in humor about, you know, the nature of strippers or hookers or how they're sort of characterized.
Marc:And I know sex workers and I'm certainly.
Marc:accept them and the work.
Marc:And I have a different... I still do jokes sometimes, but I don't... I understand the business and that there is respect involved there.
Marc:But it is still a fairly unexplored notion, the state of the contemporary porn industry.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:That's why I really wanted to make that decision to not...
Marc:follow in the footsteps of films like hot girls wanted which are about the sort of you know seedy aside no i think you're right it seems like you're writing a line i like it and i i like your work and i was just pushing back a little bit but but i should find out what happened to that guy i will thanks man
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Sounds like a compelling bit of business.
Marc:I always like talking to John Ronson.
Marc:So look, Mike McDonald here.
Marc:Like a lot of you may not know him, but I've known him and he's been around for a long time.
Marc:I remember seeing him on a very early...
Marc:I think it might have been a young comedian special.
Marc:I'll talk to him about that.
Marc:But he was one of these guys that, you know, was sort of on the periphery of American comedy a bit.
Marc:And he you know, he he ran with some of the hardcore dudes that that I looked up to and I got tangled up with.
Marc:And, you know, you get to a certain age in this business where.
Marc:If somebody survives and they're still at it, you know, you're like, good for you, man.
Marc:You're also, you know, if somebody survives and they got out, you're also like, oh, good for you.
Marc:What a fucking relief that would be if you can live with yourself.
Marc:But Mike's not one of those guys.
Marc:He's the other guy.
Marc:He's still in it.
Marc:He's still doing it.
Marc:He's persevered through some serious health issues.
Marc:And, you know, I'm glad I got to talk to him because I was afraid he was going to die.
Marc:And he didn't.
Marc:And he's doing all right.
Marc:This is me and Canadian Mike McDonald.
Marc:Now, am I wrong in remembering that you were once referred to as the doctor?
Marc:Was that you?
Marc:No, not the doctor.
Marc:Maybe I'm making it up.
Marc:I don't know why I would have, but at some point I remember talking about Sam, about Kenison, coming up to Canada.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And finding you.
Marc:Did Sam Kennison call you the doctor?
Guest:I believe on that night, yes.
Guest:Because I was, yeah, he had never shot heroin before.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:You were the guy?
Guest:I had everything ready and stuff.
Guest:And knowing that the first time you do it, and a lot of people for every time they do it, they get sick.
Guest:Throw up, right.
Guest:And then they get high.
Guest:So knowing that he was like that, as soon as I hit him up, I undid the band and when the sensation got up to about his neck, I grabbed him and I said, one more soul and I get mine back.
Yeah.
Guest:towards the ground he's going oh you bastard oh you son of a bitch mcdonald and then he went out yeah oh my god those are see we're laughing about that and i think the most heroin addiction ah funny most mortals would be like what the fuck are they laughing yeah exactly those monsters i'm i'm glad those days are over i think when i hit 30 i decided to quit everything
Marc:Was it 30?
Guest:Yeah, around there.
Marc:Yeah, I don't think I've seen it in a long time.
Marc:And you're not living in Canada, though, are you?
Guest:I had to virtually go back.
Guest:I was living in Glendale, and I was fine and everything was great, but then I got sick.
Marc:What was the sickness?
Guest:What is the sickness?
Guest:Liver disease.
Marc:And you're shooting a documentary now?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And is it my understanding, I don't know how to put it bluntly, that time is short?
Marc:Or you, I was pitched this as like, he could go any second.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, there's always a chance you can go any second.
Guest:But yeah, this is more of, I'm finally back to where I was before I got sick.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:So you're doing good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, thank God.
Guest:So I'm back on the road, back doing my actual time.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I'm so relieved, because what I had misunderstood the documentary to be was, like, he's got days, maybe weeks to live.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:Well, actually, they're hoping, because that would be the big finale to the documentary, and then he died.
Marc:He didn't make it.
Guest:They're counting on it.
Marc:Well, I mean, look, the thing about you is I don't know how many people know exactly who you are, but you've been doing comedy for as long as I can remember watching comedy because I remember the first time I saw you.
Marc:Like it was on like a Catch a Rising Star young comedian sing maybe?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at that time though.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But at that time you're like, these, the new wave come.
Marc:The punk comedian.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But like you were doing.
Guest:He's edgy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, you were doing weird bits.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like abstract bits.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was weird.
Marc:That was the angle at the time?
Guest:I just thought, wow, anything that's funny.
Guest:And yeah, there was a lot of drug fueled stuff.
Marc:But then I saw you years later.
Marc:I think I saw you at Catch a Rising Star when I was in Boston.
Marc:But then I saw you years later, and you were just this angry, sweaty mess.
Marc:I'm like, what happened to the new wave guy?
Marc:You're like, oh, fuck that.
Marc:Fuck this.
Marc:Right?
Marc:The evolution, the bitterness had taken hold.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was always my thing that attracted me to a lot of comedians when I was a kid.
Guest:It was the yelling and stuff because my father would yell and I always thought it was great that you could laugh at yelling as opposed to being afraid of it.
Marc:Devastated by it.
Marc:So where did you grow up though?
Guest:And a number of places because my dad was in the Air Force.
Guest:In the Canadian Air Force?
Guest:Yeah, every two, three years we moved somewhere else.
Marc:But tell me some places in Canada because I don't know about Canada.
Marc:I'm thinking about living there soon.
Guest:Yeah, Nova Scotia at one point, Greenland.
Guest:You were in Greenland?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you remember it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:My favorite posting, he was in Rammstein, Germany, which was NATO headquarters at the time, 1964 to 69, which was a great time to be there because of the music alone.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:You were like what?
Marc:And you were like 13?
Guest:I was nine, 1964, when I got there.
Guest:And I remember them taking me on vacation, and we were in Amsterdam, and there's a little coffee house, and it said, Jimi Hendrix, live tonight.
Guest:And I went, oh, my God.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And that's when I realized, oh, if I was 18, I'd be having the time of my life, but I'm 12, and I have to go with my parents to the ice capades.
Guest:You know, it's like, oh.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:I never forgave them for that.
Guest:I could have seen Hendrix.
Guest:You didn't.
Guest:I missed them.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:But you were into music like that at that age?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Do you have an older brother?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:I mean, a Jewish kid in my grade five class turned me on to Jimmy Hendrix.
Guest:Listen to this, Purple Haze.
Guest:And I went, oh, my God.
Guest:That's so different than the Beatles and everything else that we were listening to.
Marc:I flipped out on it.
Marc:So that was in Germany.
Marc:In Greenland.
Marc:Like, is it pretty?
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:And they have a base there?
Marc:That's not Canadian territory, though, is it?
Guest:No.
Guest:It's its own place?
Guest:Well, they used to have more stuff there in the past, but now they don't.
Guest:I don't think so.
Marc:So do you have brothers or sisters?
Guest:Two younger brothers, yeah.
Guest:How are they doing?
Guest:They're doing okay.
Guest:One's a lounge singer.
Guest:He goes by Johnny Vegas.
Guest:Which is weird.
Guest:Oh, I know him.
Marc:I saw him in London.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's your brother?
Guest:No, there's a bunch.
Guest:There's a Johnny Vegas in every country in the world.
Marc:I was going to say, that guy didn't look like him.
Guest:He's the Canadian one.
Guest:He's the Canadian Johnny Vegas?
Guest:Yeah, he's the Canadian Johnny.
Marc:So they do a kind of like disrupted, chaotic lounge act?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And what's the other one do?
Marc:The other one end up out of show business?
Marc:I'm not sure anymore.
Marc:You don't know what the other brother does?
Guest:Oh, I thought you meant the other Johnny Vegas, because I saw him a long time ago in Edinburgh, but I haven't seen him since.
Marc:That might have been where I saw you.
Marc:Was that like 2006 or something?
Guest:Yeah, it could have been around there.
Guest:What's the other brother do?
Guest:My other brother, he's a drummer in a band.
Marc:We all ended up in show business.
Marc:Yeah, it was weird.
Marc:Is he in a big band like Rush?
Marc:Is he Neil Peart?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:He'd be more like walking into Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, that kind of band.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But they're Canadian?
Guest:Yeah, basically.
Marc:Do they have an interesting, just short of a good name, Canadian band name?
Guest:Yeah, it's called the Awesome Brothers.
Guest:It's just like, oh, well.
Guest:Someone doesn't want to make money.
Guest:I don't think any of the three of us were any good at titles.
Guest:So what rank was your dad?
Guest:Was he like a big shot?
Guest:No, he was called a warrant officer.
Guest:It was like the one step before becoming an actual officer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, you know, like people would ask me, did he fly a plane?
Guest:No, he flew a desk.
Guest:But he's one of the best desk pilots.
Guest:He was nice and safe behind the desk.
Marc:In the Canadian Air Force.
Marc:And what did your mom do?
Marc:Just deal with you guys?
Guest:Yeah, she was a traditional stay-at-home mom and stuff for a long time.
Guest:And then she started working as a medical receptionist in a hospital.
Marc:So where did it start leveling off, though?
Marc:Because I have no sense.
Marc:Like, I think you're the first guy...
Marc:of your generation and you were like uh you know you were you were part of the you know i think the the that 80s stand-up boom yeah where everyone could make a buck yeah i mean it was amazing back in those days you could make uh you know four thousand dollars a week without having a sitcom it was amazing because there were so many clubs yeah it was it was great and you were sort of a known guy up in canada yeah right yeah to a point yeah well like what was the canadian scene though like when you grew up where'd you grow up mostly like once you got old enough to start giving a shit about things
Guest:Um, I started high school in Ottawa, which was my dad's last posting.
Guest:And we stayed there for a long time.
Guest:And that's where I started doing standup.
Guest:And then I moved to Toronto and then Toronto to LA.
Marc:What's the scene like though?
Marc:Like how old were you when he started?
Guest:Uh, I think it was 22, 22, 23.
Guest:Did you go to college?
Guest:No, no, no, no, no.
Guest:I barely made it through the 10 years in high school.
Guest:But yeah, no college.
Guest:I had a series of odd jobs before I decided to become a comedian.
Guest:I actually thought at one point it was going to be like I played the drums and I thought music was going to be the ticket.
Guest:But then when I realized that in comedy I didn't have to have four other people agreeing with everything I said, I could do it myself.
Guest:So the comedy sort of took over.
Marc:But at that time, what were the odd jobs?
Marc:Like, what were you?
Guest:Well, at one point, I was a dance instructor for Fred Astaire.
Guest:Stop it.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Dance studios.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:It was during the disco phase, and we'd dance all day, and then we'd dance all night.
Guest:And, you know, I was making like $5,000 a week.
Marc:So you knew the disco dances.
Guest:Yeah, it was weird.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was a weird time, you know.
Guest:And then when the comedy started, I actually started what turned into the punk club scene in Ottawa.
Guest:And boy, there was an audience that you learn the possibilities of good editing.
Guest:Because if they didn't like something, they'd let you know.
Guest:so like so we're talking like what year like you're 22 and what year uh it was 1978 so like these punk rock clubs were they real punk rock clubs or were they well there was only one and yeah it was definitely the punk scene and was uh you know groups like teenage head from can i don't know if you heard they were like our version of the ramones oh yeah
Guest:and and they were like really good i really enjoyed seeing a lot of the band i was really into the music still obviously but uh the comedy thing just took off like but but for you to choose that club over like you know why that place like were there coming you're in toronto at this point well no it was in ottawa still was there yuck yucks there yet or anything no uh yuck yucks would come in about two and a half years later so there was nothing
Guest:No, there was no official comedy club whatsoever.
Guest:Well, what compelled you?
Guest:Who did you see that makes you think that?
Guest:A friend of mine was recording local bands and stuff, and he called me in to do something comedy because he had heard this album called Derek and Clive Live.
Guest:It was Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, right.
Guest:And they got really drunk, and they turned on the tapes, and they got all this stuff.
Guest:And some of it was okay.
Guest:Like, I still remember the joke about, what's the worst job you've ever had?
Guest:Well, I used to pick lobsters out of Jane Mansfield's bum.
Guest:You know, stuff like that.
Guest:So my friend, you know.
Marc:That's the one that sticks.
Guest:So my friend who had the studio in his basement, and I'd been in the band with him before,
Guest:He said, well, why don't we do something with comedy too, but instead of alcohol, we'll get really high.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we recorded like 18 hours of tapes that if they heard them now even, I would have to leave on the next shuttle.
Guest:I couldn't stay on the planet.
Guest:I see what people are getting in trouble now, and I go, no, that's nothing compared to these tapes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:What were you guys done?
Guest:We went anywhere.
Guest:And on the top of it off, we had the engineer guy.
Guest:His name was Carl Schultz, and he was German, right?
Guest:And for me, the same way that Monty Python used to make fun of Belgians,
Guest:My go-to was Germans.
Guest:I used to just do the Nazi stuff to death.
Guest:We'd always make them frustrated.
Guest:Stop making jokes.
Guest:Well, you got to get some more Jews in the train.
Guest:It was like all that stuff.
Guest:We just hammering this guy.
Guest:For hours.
Guest:Yeah, for hours.
Guest:And it was just a bunch of stuff on tape that we should never release.
Marc:Oh, you should.
Marc:We just put a box set together.
Yeah.
Guest:so that so it was inspired by like uh like hearing records and yeah yeah and of course you know the uh the comedy albums i had when high school and stuff i remember the first one that really made a big impact was uh richard pryor's uh was it something i said yeah yeah i thought that was like a brilliant album and that's the album that my father came in and said what the hell are you listening to right because he heard the n-word really loud one day
Guest:And so it was like I had to hide his records.
Guest:And it was just like, you know, the little Richard Pat Boone thing where I had to hide the black records.
Guest:My dad couldn't hear them.
Marc:Was he a real conservative dude?
Guest:Yeah, a little bit on that.
Guest:You know, he just thought it was shocking that I would listen to anything.
Guest:Somebody saying the N-word over and over.
Guest:That was uncalled for.
Guest:Was he a nice guy?
Guest:Did he get along with that guy?
Guest:Well, actually, in his family, he was the one that broke the mold and left.
Guest:And some people in his family were racist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he was the one that had a more worldview.
Marc:Racist Canadians.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He didn't want to hear me listening to somebody yelling out the N-word loudly.
Marc:I have such a stilted or fucked up idea of what's up in Canada.
Marc:I mean, was it that diverse a culture?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:To where, you know, racism would be.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I think when we were stationed in Halifax, I noticed racism for the first time in Canada.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was like, you know, one black student in an entire school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he got into a lot of trouble and a lot of stuff.
Guest:The one guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the main thing at the time, you know, you're talking 1962, 63, it was mainly Catholics against Protestants.
Marc:Right, that's what I thought.
Marc:And French people against non-French people, right?
Guest:Well, yeah, that's always been there, yeah, too.
Marc:Catholic against Protestants.
Guest:That was weird.
Guest:Like, my mother would tell me to go to the local store to get some milk and stuff.
Guest:And I'd have to leave the base to go to the store.
Guest:And on the way to the store, people would grab me and go, what are you, Catholic?
Guest:And I'd try to guess right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:What were you, Catholic?
Guest:Protestant.
Guest:But I never liked religion to begin with.
Guest:But I always tried to say the right answer when they asked me.
Guest:I'd look, oh, the guy's got a cross.
Guest:Catholic.
Guest:All right, get some milk and get out of here.
Marc:So you're doing comedy in punk clubs.
Marc:And that's sort of where you begin to get that style, which was... Because for me, you presented yourself that way.
Marc:But I remember in that special, you were wearing a striped shirt, I think.
Marc:Is that possible?
Guest:Well, it was a multicolored shirt.
Guest:It was like the bit was the rock star bit with the tennis racket.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:So you did some mild prop usage.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But it was definitely sort of surreal.
Marc:You didn't get the sense of character that you have now.
Guest:Yeah, it was totally different.
Guest:I mean, I look back and I go, what the hell was I thinking?
Guest:And it was totally different back then.
Guest:But at the beginning, I think primarily the influence was Steve Martin at the beginning.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When Richard Pryor, the first concert film came out, I remember seeing that three, four times a day.
Guest:Was that like 79 or something?
Guest:Yeah, watching it and then going on at night, and that was a big influence.
Marc:So after you do the punk clubs, when do you start doing more venues that aren't comedy clubs?
Guest:Well, yeah, I started going all the local, like the folk bars, the heavy metal bars.
Guest:I played in all kinds of music venues.
Marc:Well, that makes sense.
Marc:So you had to grab them pretty quickly.
Marc:Yeah, you had to be.
Guest:But it was also the luxury back then, 1979 in Ottawa, most people had never seen live comedy at all.
Guest:So it was kind of a treat.
Guest:And I had tapes and music and all this stuff.
Guest:It was like more performance art without the attitude.
Guest:But they just thought it was thrilling to see it live anywhere.
Guest:And then finally, the people from Yuck Yucks, Toronto, they came down to visit because they want to see who's this kid making noise in Ottawa.
Guest:and uh i brought them to the punk club where i started was that breslin yeah breslin and another comic by the name of steve brender and i remember them sitting there watching the punk crowd you know bouncing around all this you know clash playing loud in the background and they turned to me and they said you do comedy here and i went oh yeah every week it's great they love me here
Guest:Okay.
Guest:This is different.
Guest:And did they book you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then it was a line in the sand because when I got to Toronto, there was a whole group of comedians.
Guest:Not a big group, like 30 comedians.
Guest:Who were they?
Guest:Howie Mandel came out.
Guest:Was he one of the guys?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He was like the biggest star at the time.
Guest:And then Jim Carrey jumped in later on.
Guest:But Howie was the first big breakthrough for anybody.
Marc:But who were the other core guys there, like when you were there, that you remember?
Guest:There was a bunch of people that you wouldn't recognize the names and stuff.
Marc:Well, let's give them some love.
Marc:Give a few of them some love.
Guest:Are they still at it?
Guest:Very few.
Guest:Most of them are behind the scenes now.
Guest:I think Steve Brender still does it, Evan Carter, and there's a couple of guys that still do stand-up.
Guest:But for the most part, most of them are either behind the scenes or they dropped out.
Guest:But it's also a thing, too, that the problem with Canada is they have that mentality of
Guest:You know, socialized medicine is okay, but socialized entertainment where they go to you, well, you've already had your turn.
Guest:What do you mean I've already had my turn?
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:What do you mean I can't do another special?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like I had three specials up there on CBC and three down here on Showtime.
Guest:And I thought if I was just in the States doing it for a network here, they would have a piece of paper that made me sign not to go anywhere else.
Guest:For a year anyway.
Guest:But for Canada, their attitude was like, okay, you've had three.
Marc:You've had your turn.
Marc:come back when your body changes wait a minute that's that's a crazy attitude and that's i wonder if it's still that way a little bit for a lot of us i mean it is certainly for me they they consider me of you know having had the turn so when you get down to toronto when you're doing yucks and you're part of the crew of guys and now did he open up all those clubs across canada at once
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I actually open up in the early days, I open up the majority of them.
Guest:I was the first act to play there.
Guest:And then after me, of course, you had people like Norm MacDonald and Jeremy Hotz and stuff.
Guest:So they brought up the second wave.
Marc:Do they all look at you as like one of the granddaddies of modern Canadian comedy?
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Like having an older brother, one grade ahead kind of deal.
Marc:So when does the drug start?
Guest:Immediately.
Guest:As soon as I got to Toronto, what's this?
Guest:And all of a sudden you get offered all these drugs and I couldn't believe it.
Guest:And yeah, Toronto was like, you know, Toronto always tried to be like New York.
Guest:So we had a little bit of introduction to all the debauchery.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, being able to come down to LA, like the only reason we got down to LA was Evening at the Improv was co-produced with a Canadian company.
Guest:And one of the stipulations was each show had to have one Canadian act.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:At the beginning?
Guest:So that was our reason to be in the States, and our first U.S.
Guest:television exposure was that.
Marc:What was that, in the early 80s, mid-80s?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Early, early.
Guest:Early, right?
Marc:Because I remember doing it in 89, and I think it was already about done when they were-
Marc:shooting them down at that westwood improv yeah like the huge one where they just they treated the tv show like just another night yeah like i was doing my first tv appearance and like i think spade was there and he's like nah i've done a few of these and like it was just like no big deal and to me it was like the biggest deal yeah it towards the end of the 80s it really got saturated on tv there was so many yeah stand-up shows that it had to die down a little bit yeah i did my first the first appearances were in 89
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was nice.
Guest:But coming out to, you know, L.A.
Guest:and meeting people like Sam Kinison and stuff, yeah, there was an introduction to do the debauchery down here, which was on a higher level, obviously, because he had more years to practice.
Marc:More years to practice and more, I would imagine.
Guest:Started in the 20s here, apparently.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you read some of the Fatty Arbuckle, what the hell happened?
Guest:Oh, it goes way back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Way back.
Marc:The documented debauchery.
Marc:We don't know about the undocumented debauchery except for the parties we were at.
Marc:But so you're a big act in Canada.
Guest:I'm known to a certain amount of people.
Guest:Like when people ask me if I tour, I go, Lady Gaga tours.
Guest:I just show up occasionally at certain places.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, like, at the time, like, when you got down here, because I guess I think I met you over the years, you know, at different places, and you were definitely, you seemed pretty good.
Marc:You looked pretty well.
Marc:You seemed relaxed.
Marc:But, like, there were times where, like, I was just happy to see a guy that seemed more angry than I was at the time because I was just a kid.
Marc:But also just sort of, like...
Marc:you know off stage there was like you were like just frenetic and just fucking like oh my god this guy's about to pop yeah there was that period you get on stage and right away it was like oh jesus oh yeah what's happening
Guest:And it was a lot of peer group pressure.
Guest:Like I'd read, John Belushi did what?
Guest:Well, I got to try a speedball.
Guest:You were that guy?
Guest:I got to, you know, like everything Pryor did.
Guest:Well, I got to try that because Richard Pryor.
Marc:You were that guy?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Kennison was like that too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This weird sort of like, you know, I'll show them.
Guest:Yeah, I got to try it.
Marc:I'll represent my group.
Marc:I think Kennison actually went up to the Chateau to do it.
Marc:Like that was where he was like that.
Guest:So did you get strung out?
Guest:I was a heroin addict for a couple of years, but then again, when other comedians would ask me how I quit, and I'd tell them.
Guest:I got on my knees.
Guest:I prayed, and I didn't even go through withdrawals.
Guest:It stopped.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Like the following week, I played at a club in Atlanta, which was notorious for paying us off in drugs.
Guest:And I just, no, thanks.
Guest:I quit.
Guest:And I was very lucky.
Guest:I don't know really how it happened.
Marc:Did you stop everything, or you just stopped that?
Guest:Yeah, everything.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that's been a long time?
Guest:It's been, what, 30 years almost with no hard drugs whatsoever.
Guest:I mean, after my liver transplant, I asked my doctors if it was okay to smoke pot.
Guest:And I was surprised that the head doctor at Toronto General Hospital, he said, we'd prefer you to eat it than smoke it.
Guest:So now occasionally I'll have a brownie or something.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:So was the liver thing, was that from...
Guest:Drugs or alcohol?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It seems like a long time back.
Marc:You must have really acted in.
Guest:I contracted Hep C, and then that caused the liver damage.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And when I went public with it, a whole bunch of people from that era, the punk scene in Ottawa, they contacted me and said, I have it, too.
Guest:I have it, too.
Guest:I have it, too.
Guest:But when I asked them how they got it, and they said, well, I never used needles.
Guest:And then I thought, well, how did we all get it from the same time period, and half of us didn't use needles?
Guest:It was from the saliva on the dollar bills that we passed when we snorted.
Guest:any drugs seriously yeah the blood you know the you know coke was cut with a bunch of stuff to make sure make profit and if you had a a a cut in your nose the saliva and the blood really would would you know and and as soon as you make contact with somebody else's blood welcome to the club yeah part of the hep c but i was surprised it lay dormant my body for almost 20 23 years
Guest:You had no idea you had it?
Guest:Yeah, I was just going along.
Guest:I thought I was getting tired of being on the road a lot, but my wife suggested I go for a checkup when I visited my father, who was in the hospital in Ottawa, and a Canadian doctor found out the real problem within one or two blood tests.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:LA doctors had totally, well, you're just tired from being on the road.
Guest:They didn't find out the reason.
Marc:And how long ago was that diagnosis?
Guest:I had my liver transplant in March 2013, so it was about two years before that when I was diagnosed with a hep C.
Marc:You just missed the cure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I literally had to stay in Canada.
Guest:When I was diagnosed, my father, who was still in the hospital, he said, you can't go back to the States because you'll die.
Guest:And I said, yeah, you're right.
Guest:So my wife had to endure doing renovations to sell her house in Glendale for a whole year by herself.
Guest:And then she rejoined me in Ottawa a year later.
Yeah.
Marc:So let's backtrack a bit because, like, so you had a house in Glendale, and, you know, you're one of these guys, not unlike, you know, Scheidner and some other cats that, you know, like, were really able to make a living during the 80s, but were there...
Marc:Once you moved down here, what year did you move down here?
Guest:I think it was 88, 89.
Marc:So kind of late after the boom.
Marc:So you were living in Canada but touring America, right?
Guest:Well, actually, even when I lived down here, the majority of my stand-up was done in Canada because I was just more well-known and it was easier to get gigs.
Marc:But was there opportunities that happened down here?
Marc:Did you get, like, deals and shit?
Guest:A little bit, but I have a whole history of the bad luck.
Guest:I mean, one year I was put on a holding deal with CBS, and I was given $60,000.
Guest:$60,000 for the holding deal, $60,000 to write a pilot.
Guest:Went through the whole rigmarine, and just before we shot the pilot, the CBS president says no.
Guest:And he says no to the independent producer who's been channeling me through.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the reason was this guy had been the president last year.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he had treated his right hand man poorly.
Guest:So now the right hand man who's the current president.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:This is all.
Guest:And so I'm sitting there going.
Guest:Collateral damage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Collateral damage for 120 grand.
Guest:And this is how Hollywood works.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:But you got the bread, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But I had a series of bad luck stuff like that.
Guest:Like I got a new agent and he said, okay, we're going to put you where you belong.
Guest:I got my two biggest clients, Steve Martin and John Candy, work for the next five years.
Guest:Let's concentrate on Mike now.
Guest:I go, oh, great.
Guest:We finally found somebody.
Guest:Three days later, he gets up in the middle of the night, has a drink of water, has a heart attack.
Guest:And I'm going, oh, my God.
Guest:He's dead?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so I have a series of three or four people that have died once they realized that I was good, that I would be good for them.
Guest:And so the joke after a while was, don't like me too much because if you want to live... Maybe you were being truthful with Sam.
Marc:Maybe the souls, you needed the souls so you could live.
Guest:Yeah, I had a string of bad luck.
Guest:I never understood.
Guest:And then, of course, there was the stuff that I used to hate was going on these auditions where the manager and agent would say...
Guest:oh uh yeah they asked for you yeah they saw your special they love you and i'd go there and there'd be 15 chinese guys and i'm going what the hell am i doing and then the casting guy would come out and you are yeah why you yeah it takes a long time to realize they're lying yeah i uh i i just couldn't handle that and then i was diagnosed in 1993 with uh bipolar manic depressive and that just flipped me out when the moment i realized i remember
Guest:that i remember running into you like that yeah yeah yeah when when i couldn't get on letterman to promote the third special and there i i was listening to my manager on the phone and their attitude was oh we don't care that it's this third special we don't need them on the show and that's when i realized oh my god comedy is not like sports no matter how good we are there's there's no guarantee that we'll be playing on a team
Guest:Oh, no, it's not a meritocracy.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It's just like, and that flipped me out.
Guest:It's the worst.
Guest:Yeah, I wanted to check out at that point.
Guest:I tried suicide a couple times.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah, and then fortunately, I had a good experience in a psych ward in Glendale at the Adventist Hospital that turned me around.
Guest:But I've been struggling with it ever since to keep in check.
Marc:So you think that...
Marc:All the drugs outside of wanting to match your hero's usage.
Guest:Well, I certainly believe in the theory that the drugs escalated the effect of the mental illness.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But do you believe that you're self-medicating?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For a lot of it.
Guest:Because were you always depressed?
Guest:Did you actually have mania?
Guest:Well, my cycle, I would get really, really angry.
Guest:I'd blow up.
Guest:That was your mania?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It wasn't like you didn't go buy shit?
Guest:And then I would get really depressed and want to kill myself.
Guest:For months on end?
Guest:Yeah, very simple cycle.
Guest:And I would just have these, what my wife would call episodes.
Guest:She'd stay with you through all this shit?
Guest:Yeah, that's the amazing thing.
Guest:I've been with the same woman for 30 years, and she's seen me at my worst and my best.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So when you say you tried to kill yourself, what do you mean?
Marc:You really tried to?
Guest:Well, you know, the thing in California, I had this thing where I would get mad and I would storm out of the house because I didn't want to, you know, lay it on my wife completely.
Marc:Well, that was like proactive.
Guest:Well, a little bit.
Guest:I mean, but it took a while before I just go, I better get out of here.
Guest:So I drive and I drive by the gun store in Glendale and I'd say, oh, my God, if I would have signed up for it last week, I'd have the gun now or I could kill it.
Guest:But it's that stupid seven day waiting rule that they have.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Which was, it's a very good law because most people calm down after seven days.
Guest:You know, they don't stay in that state.
Marc:Well, it's like that Jimmy Tingle joke where the guy goes in to get a gun.
Marc:It's like, I need a gun.
Marc:And he says, well, there's a waiting period.
Marc:And the guy goes, how long?
Marc:And he's like, seven days.
Marc:Well, the guy will be gone by then.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So finally, one time I was mad again.
Guest:I was having an episode and I said, okay, I'm going to go in there and sign up for the gun because I will get mad again.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Planning ahead.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when I went in there, Glendale's a Republican stronghold.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I realized that immediately when I walked into the gun store, there was a poster of the Clintons with crosshairs on their faces.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I went, ooh, Republican gun store.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I'm looking at the guns.
Guest:I'm really shy because I'm not a gun person.
Guest:Even though they're under glass, I got my hands behind my back and I'm like looking at them.
Guest:And the guy comes over, oh, you're looking for a gun?
Guest:For what purpose?
Guest:And I said, security, which is the safe word for those people.
Guest:Of course, security.
Guest:He pulls out this gun and he goes, don't be fooled by the size.
Guest:It has 14 in the clip and one in the chamber.
Guest:And I said, oh, in case there's two of them and nothing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:nothing from the guy he's just deadpan like all right let's look at this other guy and finally he pulls out this card and he says look i run a target range on the other side of town why don't you come you know buy some ammo rent some guns see which one you feel comfortable with and then and then that's when it hit me no seven day waiting period
Guest:if you'd kill yourself at the at the range at the target range so i thought oh this is the plan this is foolproof yeah and the only thing that saved me was that thing in the back of my brain that my mother don't get caught with dirty underwear so i had to go home and shower and change and stuff really and while i was doing all that my wife had left the house she knew i was like overboard she phones my manager and i'm just about to leave to go to the target range i wrote the note and everything
Guest:And it's my manager on the phone.
Guest:And fortunately, he also represented Dr. Drew Pinsky.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So we had Drew on the other line.
Guest:And they talked me into going to the hospital.
Guest:And my attitude was like, yeah, sure, I'll go to the hospital.
Guest:But I've got that card.
Guest:I can go anytime I want.
Guest:So yeah, yeah, I'll go through the motions for you guys.
Guest:And thankfully, it was a great experience at the psych ward that made me think, okay, maybe I'll give the medication a shot.
Marc:Pinsky stepped in?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a smart guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He convinced me to go to the hospital.
Guest:I went and I actually had a good stay.
Guest:I mean, I was supposed to be there for 72 hours, but at the end of the 72 hours when they wanted to release me, I said, I really like it here.
Guest:It's been great.
Guest:I participate in group therapy and I'll have to take a shower a day and fill out the food thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's fun.
Guest:These people are great.
Guest:And I've got everybody's butt, and I can make everybody laugh.
Guest:I felt like Jack Nicholson in Cuckoo's Nest.
Guest:I had everybody's butt, and there's this one kid.
Guest:All I had to go was, and he'd be laughing like crazy.
Guest:You were killing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And no one could phone me.
Guest:No one could visit me unless I said so.
Guest:So it was the first time I had complete control over anything like that.
Guest:In your life.
Guest:Yeah, and so at the end of 72 hours, they go, okay, well, really, they diagnosed me as bipolar, manic depressive.
Guest:They gave me a prescription.
Guest:I said, well, I really like you there.
Guest:Is there any way I can stay?
Guest:And the doctor goes, well, I can't answer that question morally, ethically.
Guest:And I went, oh, I understand.
Guest:I still want to kill myself.
Guest:Sign here.
Guest:I stayed for two weeks, 72 hours at a time, but two weeks, I still want to kill myself.
Marc:How long were you in there total?
Marc:Two weeks?
Marc:Two weeks, yeah.
Guest:Best vacation I ever had.
Guest:It was like, you know, some people like to go to the beach.
Guest:I like going to the psych ward.
Guest:So they checked you in for the observation thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's a mandatory suicide watch for 72 hours.
Guest:So you've gotten to the point where your manager knew, too, that you were.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, yeah.
Guest:When my wife told them all the stuff that was going on.
Guest:And, uh, I was very lucky that I couldn't manipulate them to get out earlier.
Guest:Cause that's what happened with Richard Jenny.
Guest:At one point he talked his way out of a 72 hour, you know, a mandatory suicide watch.
Guest:And, you know, and like later we all, when we found out, we went, well, how did, how did he, you know, they should have kept them in.
Guest:They shouldn't have let him walk out in the middle of a 72 hour thing.
Marc:He had the real manic episodes, right?
Marc:The paranoia and the,
Marc:yeah it was very unfortunate because here was another guy that uh your generation yeah that guy yeah you want to know something fucked up i was doing his weekend when he did it wow that he was in bad enough shape that he canceled it and it was just in one of these weird ass coincidences this saturday night we found out you know and like i didn't draw you know i guess they gave everyone the heads up but
Guest:But it's a crazy thing.
Guest:Like I say to my acting.
Guest:But he had a lot of guns.
Guest:You're lucky you didn't have any.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I didn't know other than going to the target range.
Guest:That was my big eureka plan.
Marc:That was your big plan.
Marc:It's like, I'll show them a target.
Guest:I'll show them what a good shot I am.
Guest:And it was weird because I debated whether or not to bring it out on stage because I didn't want to influence somebody to go do it.
Guest:But then 60 Minutes came out with a piece about it.
Guest:And there's apparently eight people a year do it in the United States.
Guest:At shooting ranges?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my first thought was only eight.
Guest:You know, I mean, I was surprised it was such a small number.
Marc:Was your other thought like, I thought that was my idea.
Guest:Wait a minute.
Guest:But I figured if they talked about it, it's okay to say it.
Guest:And I mentioned, you know, like, you know, don't kill yourself at the end.
Guest:So you did bits about it.
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:I mean, everything was fodder for the act.
Guest:Always.
Guest:Always.
Marc:Once you got rid of the tennis racket.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But, you know, I learned a long time ago.
Guest:I play the cards that I've been dealt.
Guest:So I was dealt the addiction card.
Guest:I was dealt the manic depressive.
Guest:And now I'm dealt the transplant thing.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:You're lucky, man.
Guest:Yeah, I was very lucky.
Marc:But on a lot of levels, you have this bad luck that you think you have in show business, but on the other side... Yeah, the marriage thing, I've been very lucky that way.
Guest:So yeah, I have my good luck and I've had my bad luck.
Marc:So when you got out of the psych ward, what year was that?
Guest:I think 93, something like that, yeah, 94.
Marc:And by that time, you're not using any drugs, so they got you on some sort of medication that worked?
Guest:uh for a while and then they said okay we have this new drug that you don't have to go through the same like on lithium originally i had to take a monthly blood test to make sure the levels were yeah so they had a new drug that came in that uh you didn't have to do all the blood tests and stuff so i said okay great i'll try that and then there was a couple others i tried one that um it really affected me doing the stand-up where i was in a corp gig in florida with a you know old people and
Guest:And I just went blank, white noise, and I couldn't remember a word of my act.
Guest:And I was so fortunate that after the gig, the guy who booked me, he's saying, what the hell?
Guest:You stopped five minutes into it.
Guest:You couldn't do the show.
Guest:What's wrong with you?
Guest:I'm on this new drug, Topical, or whatever it was called.
Guest:uh topamax i think it was and he said oh my wife's been on that she's been in bed for two years now she can't function oh okay you know what i mean oh yeah i was lucky again yeah the guy understood and said okay how old were the people in the audience did they know the show was short oh yeah
Guest:they were they were really uh angry that i had stopped and i i was saying to them as they were leaving disgruntled saying oh this is unprofessional but yeah and i said look if this is the worst thing that happens to you today god bless you but think about from my end i i don't know what's going on i i can't function now it's like i i think i have the worst of this and did what would they do to level you off you leveled off now
Guest:Yeah, they switched me off that drug to something else.
Guest:The whole drug thing, it's like a crapshoot.
Guest:Hopefully you can find something that has the least amount of side effects for you and it works.
Guest:But sometimes it takes trying three, four different medications before you find the one that works for you.
Marc:Did you always do a lot of corporate gigs?
Guest:To a point.
Guest:But I used to always think it was funny because I would tell people, I can clear this room without saying fuck.
Guest:Those swear words are not the ones you've got to worry about.
Guest:It's the ideas.
Guest:I can clear this room without swearing at all.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's a point of pride.
Marc:I can make everybody so sad and uncomfortable.
Guest:But it was funny, though, in Florida with the old people.
Guest:I used to always do the joke when I did the corp gig.
Guest:Yeah, the guy that booked me said, don't say the F word.
Guest:Don't say the F word.
Guest:Ah, what the hell?
Guest:I'm going to say it.
Guest:Funeral.
Guest:All right, boom.
Guest:And everybody's happy and everybody calms down and enjoys the show.
Guest:But, I mean, it's ridiculous when they go, ah, you know, like...
Guest:yeah a person who's 98 years old do you think they can't handle somebody saying fuck out loud well that's true yeah the old guy's been through the war yeah yeah a couple of them yeah did you know rodney uh i met him briefly through sam and i was one time i was in new york he was there and rodney was doing the headline set and sam goes yeah you want to meet him i go yeah you know of course you know it's rodney yeah
Guest:You know, we go in there and he doesn't even knock.
Guest:He just opens the door.
Guest:Rodney's in the bath, bathrobe with a towel around.
Guest:He's all sweaty.
Guest:And he's doing a line of coke, right?
Guest:He looks up.
Guest:He goes, hey, Sam.
Guest:He goes, hey, how you doing?
Guest:And then he looks at me and he goes to Sam like, oh, who's this guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Sam goes, no, he's cool.
Guest:He's cool.
Guest:And then I go, oh, hi, Mr. Daniel Phil.
Guest:It was a fantastic set.
Guest:Every bit worked.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:And there was a lot of it I had never heard before.
Guest:And then he turns to Sam and he goes, I thought you said he was cool.
Guest:And I think, all right.
Guest:I shouldn't say anything else for the rest of the night.
Guest:I overstepped.
Guest:I was a fan there for a minute.
Guest:A little too excited.
Guest:I thought you said he was cool.
Guest:That must have been great.
Guest:So you hung out with Sam a lot?
Guest:Occasionally.
Guest:I could get his attention by... A lot of people at the time, they would get his attention by imitating Dice, but they would always imitate the certain voice.
Guest:Dice had two voices, so I went to him and...
Guest:why is Sam so upset with me?
Guest:And that would make him turn around and go, oh, McDonald, oh, you bastard.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I think Sam was the quintessential.
Guest:Remember on the Ed Sullivan show they had these acts, the spinning plates?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They have the little band.
Guest:Sam was like that.
Guest:Sam would go into a party and he'd go, oh, how you doing?
Guest:Oh, Mark, how you doing, you son of a bitch?
Guest:Oh, McDonald.
Guest:He'd spin all the plates.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he was a charming motherfucker.
Guest:And then all of a sudden, people would realize he's not in the room anymore.
Guest:He's somewhere in the bathroom doing drugs.
Guest:And all the plates would fall.
Guest:Where's Sam?
Guest:What's going on?
Guest:I thought I was going to get some drugs.
Guest:I thought it was on the inside.
Marc:Everyone thought they were on the inside.
Marc:You know, I had to reckon with a lot of that shit.
Marc:Because look at that.
Marc:That's an old picture of me and Sam up there.
Marc:When I was way out of my mind.
Marc:But he really fucked with you, man.
Marc:He's a real brain fucker, that guy.
Guest:He was funny.
Guest:He was one of those guys that made me laugh out loud.
Guest:It was fun to be around him when he wasn't fucking attacking.
Marc:you or you know you know you weren't on his bad side but there's plenty of times now i wish that like bill hicks was still around i wish sam was still around because i'd like to hear their interpretation of what's going on now yeah absolutely and we need a couple more voices on our side talking about it right well everyone's talking about though and like big mainstream guys are talking about it and some of them are you know are holding the line pretty well i i was very surprised i'd be curious how sam would feel about this guy i don't know what side he would fall on to be honest with you
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, there could be a 50-50.
Guest:I could just see him at the inaugural ball.
Guest:Oh, you pussies that wouldn't perform.
Guest:Oh, you son of a bitch.
Guest:You could.
Guest:Springsteen, fuck you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You could.
Marc:I could see him doing that.
Marc:You could definitely.
Marc:I know what side Bill would be on, but Sam's a wild card.
Marc:I think that he and Trump are a lot alike in some way.
Guest:Sam would spin his plate really good, maybe.
Marc:Well, I think that he and Donald would love each other.
Marc:I really do.
Marc:Happy while.
Marc:But, yeah, I do miss that renegade force in stand-up that you don't see it much.
Marc:I mean, Doug, Stanhope's out there doing his thing, and I think he's definitely of that ilk and has real balls in that area.
Marc:But the weird thing is it was never a mainstream activity.
Marc:So Sam was the only guy that broke through because he had the gimmick.
Marc:yeah but you know and then he'd trick you because it's like oh shit he just tricked us into you know thinking that was funny holy shit am i fucked up but you know but bill was always outside of it you know so who are those guys now there's only a handful at a time but i don't know i don't know who they are you yeah well i i don't think there's anybody that matches the intensity of sam now no no no
Guest:And that was always the yellers.
Guest:That intensity of emotion was always attractive.
Guest:And he had those Sam was a natural.
Guest:Those preacher chops.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And the times that he would go into the preaching thing to show the audience that he used to do it.
Guest:I was like, oh, yeah.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:This guy could have been... He could have been Jimmy Swagger.
Guest:He could have made a ton of money that way, too.
Guest:That was the plan originally.
Guest:And the same debauchery would happen.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Sure, but not as public.
Marc:Yeah, just be low-key.
Marc:Yeah, which was not his specialty.
Marc:Low-key was not the trick.
Marc:That was not the deal.
Marc:So, now, let's...
Guest:let's talk about you're still performing now you're back at it yeah yeah full-time again yeah and where do you go usually uh usually just in canada you know there there's i i keep finding work yeah has breslin still run you uh to a point you know there's a certain amount of gigs that are yuck yucks but i have a thankfully i'm very lucky to have a couple of people at
Marc:somehow they find these gigs for me and they you know and i really appreciate it and i you know yeah and they open for me and stuff like that but uh yeah that's good it's nice to have people in your corner well walk me through uh i've never said this before but now and now i i want to know walk me through a liver transplant so like what yeah so you find out that your your your liver's rotten and and what what are the steps that have to happen
Guest:Well, it's a weird thing because there was a window of opportunity that you had to be sick enough to be moved up the list.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you also had to be well enough to survive the surgery.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there was a point there where they said you have about two, two and a half months to live without the transplant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's now or never.
Marc:I remember when it happened.
Marc:I remember you needed help.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Guest:I think I helped.
Guest:I was very surprised that they had a night at the Laugh Factory.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Jamie and everything, they put together this thing where they sent me a check that I survived on for like five months.
Guest:Yeah, I don't remember.
Marc:Was there a Kickstarter or somewhere to send money?
Guest:Something, you know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I got a check that was way bigger than any Canadian conglomerate kind of situation.
Marc:And it kept you going.
Guest:It's all right.
Marc:So you got two months to live with the liver you have.
Yeah.
Guest:And I got the call and said, hey, we got delivered.
Guest:So I had to drive to Toronto.
Guest:They said, you got eight hours to get here or else we have to give it to the next person.
Guest:So I looked at my wife.
Guest:My wife said, let's pack.
Guest:And she drove me to Toronto, which was like from where from Ottawa, which is like a six hour drive.
Guest:So you're up there because you were sick.
Marc:You had to be up there.
Guest:yeah i was living with my mother at the time and you know my wife joined me finally but uh yeah they uh they phoned and uh we had to zip to toronto in record time and we got there but i had no idea like the liver doesn't get the press the heart and the lungs do you know but the liver controls not only everything physical but everything mental
Guest:So although the transplant was a total success, my bipolarism was, you know, it hit the stratosphere with the reaction to all the drugs I had to take for the transplant.
Guest:So within three weeks of my initial release from the hospital, I was readmitted to the Toronto General Hospital psych ward.
Guest:So you got the liver.
Guest:Yeah, I was catatonic suicidal again.
Marc:You got the liver, and it's taking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everything was a success as far as the actual operation.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But then the mental health thing complicated everything.
Marc:And there you are, scarred and weak, and you got to go back to the psych ward?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Can a tonic.
Guest:You're back in the psych ward, and they couldn't do anything for me.
Marc:But they knew they were able to connect the fact that you had the new liver with...
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:There were still the procedures I had to follow for the new liver and stuff.
Guest:Like I had to take, you know, six to eight pills twice a day type of thing.
Marc:But who made the connection that the liver had some impact on the brain?
Guest:It was like immediately when I saw a psychiatrist.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:They said, oh, he's the liver.
Guest:Yeah, that's the reason.
Guest:We got to get him in here and we got to...
Guest:but they had no idea how to, uh, because I, I didn't want to participate in anything.
Guest:I didn't want to talk.
Guest:I said one or two words the whole day and they, they just freaked out.
Guest:They put me on Ritalin, you know, just to get me, uh, emotional about anything.
Guest:I was just sitting there going, I don't care.
Guest:I don't, you know, the doctor would come in and go, have you had any suicidal thoughts today?
Guest:And I go, not till you came in and he'd write that down.
Guest:Not till I came in.
Guest:And I go, if you don't know if that was a joke, you're not going to, ah, you people are idiots.
Yeah.
Guest:We have a great health care system in Canada, but we have room for improvement when it comes to mental health.
Guest:I think in general, the whole world needs to up its game with the mental health.
Marc:So how long are you in sort of like that zone of like, is this going to take?
Guest:It was a good six months before I even tried to make a joke or feel normal again.
Guest:And then it was like another year before I got comfortable on stage.
Marc:But in terms of it actually not rejecting, how long does that take?
Guest:Oh, well, there was never, I mean, that took right away.
Guest:But I also realized the importance of I had to take the anti-rejection drugs twice a day, every day.
Guest:For how long?
Guest:Still?
Guest:For the rest of my life.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Either you're in, you're out.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But I resigned myself a long time ago with the mental health thing that, yeah, if a pill works, I'm taking it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I'm not one of those people that have problems taking the pills.
Guest:With the edge?
Guest:You're going to lose your edge?
Guest:You had enough of your edge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the weird thing about after the transplant, I completely forgot everything I'd ever written.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I couldn't remember a word of my act.
Guest:And one night in the hospital, I came to in the middle of the night and I left the TV on, the little hospital bed TV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I looked at it, and it was me at Just for Laughs like 10 years ago.
Guest:One of those galas?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was watching, and I couldn't believe that I was saying all these things in a row, and I couldn't understand how, what am I doing?
Guest:And I thought, I had nightmares about having to get a day job, and what am I qualified for?
Guest:security guard that's about it right and that's you know it was uh so you had to re yeah i had to virtually start over and the only nice thing about it was when i went to these open mics every night they would uh they were thrilled that i was there
Marc:So you actually really started over.
Marc:So you got your psych meds leveled off.
Marc:You're on your anti-rejection drugs.
Marc:You know that you had an act at some point, but that was gone.
Marc:So you got to go to open mics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're feeling it out.
Guest:And the only thing I can remember was the jokes I wrote about the recovery.
Guest:And thankfully, most of them worked right away.
Guest:So I was lucky that way.
Guest:And then the people at the open mics, they would let me do as much time as I wanted because they were just thrilled that I was there.
Guest:I went to everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:the most out of the way like small little 30 people whatever i'd go and do and yeah i had to start over and this was like 2013 yeah no shit yeah i had to start over it took a good a good year to get anywhere near comfortable on stage again
Guest:what did you feel fear or was it just sort of like you know you didn't think you were funny like what what was it was just weird and you know like i i had to go back and watch tapes to learn to be myself again and the only nice thing was i would laugh out loud at something and then i'd realize oh wait a minute that's mine i can do it again oh great the greatest hits so i got the new stuff i got the greatest hits all right we're ready to headline again
Marc:So everybody got to watch.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You put it back together.
Guest:Yeah, and they were all amazed that I came back because I looked really deathly before I got the liver transplant.
Guest:There was plenty of exposure on the Canadian media and news shows.
Guest:They followed the story.
Marc:Were you orange?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I was I have I look at pictures now.
Guest:There was a point where three months in a row I took a picture of myself every day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I look at those pictures now and I go, oh, my God, I really was dead.
Guest:People thought I was going to die.
Guest:They were going to pick up the paper and read.
Marc:I remember I remember hearing that you were going to be dead.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's unbelievable.
Marc:People making bets on it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Stan Hope's death pool.
Marc:You beat it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, yeah, you look healthy.
Marc:You look, you know.
Marc:It's not bad.
Guest:Full of life.
Guest:Yeah, I'm hanging in there.
Guest:I'd like to lose a few pounds right now.
Guest:That'd be the only thing.
Guest:But yeah, for the most part, yeah.
Guest:And you're living back here?
Guest:No, I'm still living in Ottawa.
Guest:That's where I had to resettle and stuff.
Guest:But being here for the week, this is the first time I've been anywhere in the United States in five years.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And being back in L.A.
Guest:and stuff, there is that itch.
Guest:There is that thing like, oh, let's try it again.
Guest:Don't.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Don't do it to yourself.
Guest:Don't worry.
Guest:But I think I'm going to try the outside pitch.
Guest:I have a couple of scripts that if I can get one of those anywhere, then maybe I can stay outside of Hollywood and
Marc:Don't come here without a reason, without some money.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Some incentive.
Marc:But is it nice to be back in Ottawa?
Marc:I mean, I go to Canada now, and I'm like, whatever I used to think about it, I'm like, this is comfortable.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:It's a little... You just feel safer.
Guest:Everything is calmer.
Guest:And yet, we have everything, like what I call the best of the United States.
Guest:We have HBO.
Guest:We have all the movies and the games and everything.
Guest:But the murder rate...
Marc:you can keep that yeah now we all we only want a quarter of that yeah yeah it's well it's like it's like america without the constant anxiety without the panic yeah there's just an intensity here where like and i know like i used to think when i got to canada well this is odd you know why are these people sitting outside it's night time this guy's just riding his bike the fuck is happening it's 10 30 at night exactly
Marc:Doesn't he know there's trouble at every turn?
Marc:Somebody could kill this guy.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I was like, what is happening?
Marc:You're an easy target.
Marc:They're just walking at night.
Marc:You just open up your wallet.
Marc:You're outside.
Marc:What are you doing?
Marc:Right, exactly.
Marc:But now I go up there, I'm like, this is all right.
Marc:People are freaked out.
Marc:Everybody's hiding this freaked out.
Guest:It's just a little calmer.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And it's ironic when you see the statistics like per capita, more Canadians have guns than Americans.
Guest:Yeah, but they're not nuts.
Guest:But yeah, the shootings are, you know, the difference in the stats is amazing.
Guest:It's fucking fascinating.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I don't, do you know why that is?
Guest:Oh, they're just a little calmer.
Guest:Just a little laid back.
Guest:You know, like when you say somebody from Canada, you go, oh, Canada's a great country.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:We try.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:When you say America's the best, you're fucking right, it's the best.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Fucking love it or leave it, buddy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Okay, easy.
Marc:Yeah, but I still wonder, like, I assume, you know, that...
Marc:I imagine growing up generationally over the years with with with the knowledge that, you know, you will get health care, you know, whether it's good or bad or what you just know that it's part of your life that you know that that's not a question.
Marc:I think that means something.
Guest:Yeah, it's like the deal breaker in Canada is that people don't mind paying high taxes because they know it's going to go for things like health care.
Guest:And infrastructure.
Guest:Yeah, that's the thing that Americans, I think they forget.
Guest:It's a good thing to pay tax.
Guest:It's not something to admire, the fact that Trump didn't pay any taxes for X amount of years.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's more admirable to pay taxes because we all want people to live and have an education, this and that.
Guest:There's things that you pay for.
Guest:Not so much here.
Guest:The education and the living here, it's like, I got away with it.
Guest:I got away with it.
Guest:I got away with it.
Guest:It's not a thing to be admired that you got away with it.
Marc:I agree.
Marc:What do you think of your guy, that Trudeau fella?
Guest:Well, I've never been like a big political comedian.
Guest:But just live in there.
Guest:I mean, you know, is it all right or no?
Guest:You know, of course, there's people up there that swear that he's the worst thing ever.
Guest:And then the other go, oh, yeah, but the last guy was worse.
Guest:And this and that.
Guest:And it's always these arguments.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I think the thing I hate the most about social media now is people have this intense desire to let people know what they don't like.
Guest:I don't care what you don't like.
Guest:That's all of it.
Guest:Just tell us what you like.
Guest:Let me react to something in a negative way.
Guest:It's just, there's this intense desire.
Marc:But when you see that on a tweet or on Facebook, it's like, having a great day today.
Marc:Then everyone's like, ah, fuck you.
Guest:Who the fuck are you?
Guest:That's the response.
Guest:What are you trying to pull?
Marc:Well, I'm glad you're doing well, Mike.
Marc:It was nice to see you.
Marc:It was great talking to you, finally.
Marc:Great, man.
Guest:Thanks.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Some hardcore comedy show there.
Marc:That's what that is.
Marc:That's what this was.
Marc:So what do you want to do?
Marc:You go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:You can pre-order the book.
Marc:You can get on the mailing list.
Marc:Hopefully we'll all be alive.
Marc:Next week.
Marc:Tomorrow.
Marc:Whenever.
Marc:Maybe I'll play some guitar that probably sounds familiar.
Marc:Because I no longer know if I'm repeating myself.
Marc:But I only play three chords.
Marc:In some variation.
Marc:And occasionally add a chord.
Marc:I'm dealing with some new effects here.
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives!