Episode 852 - Waiting For The Punch
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast how are you
Marc:It's been a horrendous few days.
Marc:When I talked to you on Monday, I'd recorded that Sunday.
Marc:So I had not witnessed...
Marc:We had all had not witnessed all the horrors that happened over the next few days.
Marc:My heart goes out to everybody in Las Vegas, everybody had family, everybody in this country that had to watch another lunatic with a arsenal lose his fucking mind and kill people.
Marc:And then later that afternoon,
Marc:Tom Petty was taken to the hospital and kept on life support for a little while and then he died.
Marc:And a lot of people know who watched my special that I had sort of brought Tom Petty up as a guy whose music connects all people despite of political or affiliation or
Marc:differences and really represented what America can be when it's great he was great he was a great American singer and songwriter and great performer and it was just just gutted by the end of that day man next couple of days are bad there's no more good news it doesn't seem just no more good news
Marc:There may be stories that provide some relief for a little while, but there's just no more good news.
Marc:I don't know when that turns around.
Marc:But I'll tell you, Tom Petty was great, and his music is still here, all of it.
Marc:And I can tell you this, too.
Marc:I saw him on the 22nd.
Marc:at the Hollywood Bowl, the second to the last show that he did in his life.
Marc:And he was having a great fucking time.
Marc:And it couldn't have been an act.
Marc:I think all of them were just thrilled to, not only for the tour to be over, but to be together as long as they've been together, to have all those great songs, to perform for people that love them, the Heartbreakers.
Marc:But Tom looked like he was having a great fucking time.
Marc:I can tell you that.
Marc:I did witness that.
Marc:And I've been listening to his music for the last couple of days.
Marc:And that music will forever be here, even though Tom is no longer with us.
Marc:He should have been for longer, but he isn't.
Marc:And again, the disaster in Las Vegas, it just... We live in a country where any fucking idiot can get a gun or 50 guns.
Marc:And this happens.
Marc:It's a real fucking horror show.
Marc:And again, my heart goes out to everybody who lost people and the city, the country.
Marc:Man, just... When is there going to be some good news?
Marc:How about now?
Marc:This is a unique show today because we're going to be doing basically...
Marc:an audio book version of the first chapter of waiting for the punch words to live by from the WTF podcast.
Marc:It's a book that Brendan and myself have put together.
Marc:It comes out next Tuesday, October 10th.
Marc:So this is a special thing we're doing today.
Marc:This was the thing with the book.
Marc:We had some interest in possibly doing a book of interviews with a few different, uh,
Marc:book publishers and you know some of the ideas were to put to publish interviews as whole entities as the entire interview and then we didn't really like that we didn't see what the point of that was and then we sort of come upon this other idea where we would break the book into themes
Marc:that are often discussed on WTF, and then utilize our tremendous catalog of interviews to pull bits and pieces from conversations I've had with people that fit the theme.
Marc:There's about a dozen themes in the book, and I'll tell you, man,
Marc:when i read it over it i had a very profound experience because i don't remember everything i've said to everybody it's been over we're in between 800 900 episodes here and i was reading a lot of the bits and pieces i'm like i don't remember having this conversation i thought to myself and not only that it really hits you in the guts this fucking book like all of it is very when people talk it comes at you at a different intensity than when people write when you can craft a
Marc:a paragraph or a page and cut and paste and edit and grammatically correct everything.
Marc:It's different than when someone's when someone's just talking, talking to you.
Marc:It goes in a different way.
Marc:So the way this all sort of moves this book when you read it, it's just it's sort of a beautiful experience to read.
Marc:You have about 150, 160 different people's experience with these themes and you kind of move through them all through their personalities.
Marc:It's an amazing experience to read the book.
Marc:And the reason we're doing the episode like this today is because there is no audio version of the book.
Marc:It really is a unique experience as a book, and we want it to have a life on the page.
Marc:We made the book so it could be like its own thing.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Not just an extension of the podcast, but as a way to give everyone a taste of the book today, just so they can get an idea of what it's like, we put together the first chapter as an audio collection.
Marc:This is close to how the book is executed.
Marc:Not exact, but very close.
Marc:Chapter one is growing up.
Marc:The other chapters of the book are sexuality, identity, relationships, parenting, addiction, mental health, failure, success, mortality, and life lessons.
Marc:There are dozens of different people in each section, 158 total people.
Marc:And how I'm going to do this today, I'm going to identify the speakers in this chapter by announcing their name the first time you hear them.
Marc:But if they come up more than once, you'll only hear their name the first time.
Marc:That'll help it flow better, more like the way it does when you're reading it.
Marc:So I'll read my intro.
Marc:I do an intro to every chapter.
Marc:John Oliver did the intro to the book, the foreword to the book.
Marc:I wrote a little intro to the book.
Marc:Let's do it.
Marc:I'll read.
Marc:I'll start with the first chapter and I will read my intro and then you will be engaged in the flow of people talking about growing up.
Guest:Chapter 1.
Guest:Growing up.
Guest:The smaller place it came from.
Marc:I had my adventures and misadventures growing up, but it's the varying mixture of what I did or didn't get from my parents that really leaves a mark.
Marc:The relationship we have with our parents explains how we engage with the world and other people.
Marc:Sometimes bad experiences can lead us to a place of self-realization or, at the very least, give us a great story.
Marc:Sometimes our childhood experiences take a lifetime to process, if ever.
Marc:These stories define us, they haunt us, but they also can liberate us.
Marc:I am positive I did not grow up properly.
Marc:Does anyone really?
Marc:Something is definitely off.
Marc:There are obviously many reasons for whatever emotional flaws I have as an adult, and I can trace most of them to my parents.
Marc:I have grown into a place of gratitude rather than resentment toward them because it is essentially those flaws and my struggle with them that make me who I am.
Marc:It is not really sympathetic or attractive to be actively mad at your parents after a certain age.
Marc:You have to let it go at some point.
Marc:It was 50 for me.
Marc:My parents left me hanging in the providing the boundaries necessary for me to take chances and succeed and fail with the support and guidance necessary to define my character department.
Marc:I had to put my sense of self together from scratch.
Marc:I spent a good part of my life moving through the world like a kid lost at a mall, looking to other grownups as role models.
Marc:I learned which cigarettes to smoke from Keith Richards.
Marc:I dressed like Tom Waits for most of my junior year of high school.
Marc:I looked to Woody Allen to understand what it meant to be smart and funny.
Marc:My mother was a bit sarcastic and could be a little cutting.
Marc:She was funny.
Marc:She was always expressing herself in a creative way.
Marc:My father was unpredictable and explosive at times.
Marc:Sometimes that explosion would go in, sometimes out.
Marc:He thought he was funny, but he wasn't.
Marc:They both had a lot of energy.
Marc:These are the things in the plus column.
Marc:It's always good to learn about the struggles other people went through while they were growing up.
Marc:I like that Paul Scheer felt comfortable sharing with me the very difficult situation he found himself in after his parents' divorce.
Marc:Same with John Darneal from The Mountain Goats, who is still dealing with the pain his stepfather put him through.
Marc:I was able to laugh in disbelief at Molly Shannon's story of complete parental irresponsibility when she got on a plane without an adult and flew to New York City, accompanied only by another child.
Marc:I'm glad people still tell these stories about their childhoods.
Marc:It took years of me talking to people in my garage to finally get some perspective on things I went through as a kid and stop them from undermining me as an adult.
Marc:Well, that and a little therapy and some specific reading and age.
Guest:I think I was an anxious kid.
Guest:It's not glamorous.
Guest:I was not the class clown.
Guest:I was funny for my friends, but quiet in the classroom, and I worked really hard, and I was kind of grim, and I have to say, I didn't really enjoy my childhood.
Guest:Socially uncomfortable?
Guest:I was not socially uncomfortable, no, because I could make my friends laugh, but I just...
Guest:I was not easygoing.
Guest:From fourth grade till when?
Guest:Till like now.
Guest:Sir Ian McKellen.
Guest:The first three years of my life, I didn't sleep in a bed.
Guest:I slept on a mattress under a metal table in our downstairs room in case a bomb knocked the building over.
Guest:And blackout material so that the lights didn't attract any German bombers that were coming over.
Guest:Do you remember that?
Guest:Oh, clearly.
Guest:And not much to eat, but quite healthy eating.
Guest:Rationing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But of course you don't, when you're growing up, know that that's not the norm.
Guest:And I was well looked after.
Guest:A lot of love in my house.
Guest:Kevin Hart grew up Philadelphia, PA.
Marc:Like what kind of what kind of area?
Marc:What kind of neighborhood?
Guest:My neighborhood shit.
Guest:North Philadelphia, 15th area, you know, crime city.
Guest:You know, we right now that we third in the world of deaths, probably.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:New Year's.
Guest:We opened it up with five murders in my city.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Happy New Year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like it's you know, it's not the best place in the world, but I love it.
Guest:It's home for me.
Guest:Mel Brooks.
Guest:My mother, Kitty.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Kitty Kaminsky.
Marc:Kitty Kaminsky.
Guest:Yeah, Kitty Kaminsky.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Raised four boys.
Guest:You know, those days diapers.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:You had to wash them.
Marc:Yeah, they brought them and it was cloth.
Guest:I'll never forget.
Guest:One time I wanted to see...
Guest:a movie, and I didn't, you know, she gave me three deposit bottles.
Guest:Each one three cents a piece.
Guest:Milk bottles.
Guest:Milk bottles.
Guest:And so that was nine cents.
Guest:You needed a dime.
Guest:And she went to, this is true, she went next door to Mrs. Miller and borrowed a penny so I could make the dime.
Guest:But she was, you know,
Guest:I don't know if she was typical, but she was a wonderful, loving, caring, beautiful mother.
Guest:RuPaul Charles.
Guest:I was watching a kid the other day.
Guest:Must have been about four years old.
Guest:And he was so happy to be in a human body.
Guest:He was just jumping around and going up upside down.
Guest:And he was running over there.
Guest:And he came around and I was like, oh my God, it's great.
Guest:I'm a human.
Guest:Look at me.
Guest:Look, I can do this.
Guest:I can do it.
Guest:That's what I wanted.
Guest:For no reason.
Guest:For no reason.
Guest:Just to do it.
Marc:Just to move your hands, jump around, roll on the ground.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:With an exhausted parent going, yes, you can.
Marc:You can do that.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:But unfortunately, when I was a kid, my parents were in their own melodrama.
Guest:And I really couldn't...
Guest:you know, do that as much as possible.
Marc:Well, selfish parents make you, they don't provide a place where you can feel comfortable to be yourself even.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You just get steamrolled.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:They don't pay attention.
Marc:You don't get any reaffirmation or any affirmation at all.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, good for you, kid.
Marc:You know, that's great.
Marc:You just sort of
Guest:Luckily for me, though, my sister Renata, who's moving to Louisiana, who was my soul sister, whom I moved to Atlanta with and who got married at 17, her, she was my soul.
Guest:She was the one who said, you're great.
Guest:You should do this.
Guest:Why don't you do that?
Guest:I had that in my sister.
Guest:So that was great.
Guest:jim gaffigan four boys and two girls and i'm the youngest of six what was what how what's it how old's your oldest brother uh the oldest in my family is my sister kathy and she's i don't know she could be like a hundred and i wouldn't know um and then my brother mike is uh i i don't know 50s yeah somewhere it's all a blur you know it's like who cares well you kind of know
Guest:I mean, I kind of know that there's six kids over seven or eight years.
Guest:They're just old.
Guest:Now they're old.
Guest:They're older than me.
Marc:Yeah, but how old were you when you saw them all leave, I imagine?
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:I always wonder about that.
Marc:Was that difficult?
Guest:Do you remember?
Guest:Yeah, it was a little bit.
Guest:You're leaving me here with these people that are crazy.
Guest:Your parents.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, there's a little bit of, you know, the enthusiasm wanes, right?
Guest:Oh, you're still here.
Guest:Yeah, I'm still here.
Guest:So there was some of that, but there was also, and I, you know, when I started off, I used to, there's such an amount of distrust that develops in parents of that generation.
Guest:They had been lied to by so many teenagers.
Guest:By the time I got there, they were just like, you're guilty.
Guest:And I was like, I didn't do anything wrong.
Guest:And they're like, just go to your room.
Guest:And you're like, all right.
Guest:John Oliver.
Guest:When my dad first started taking me to games, I would wear it to Liverpool games.
Guest:I would make him let me wear my full Liverpool kit.
Guest:So this is me at eight, nine years old.
Guest:My full Liverpool kit underneath whatever I was wearing because there was a part of me as a child that felt if someone got injured on the field, they would just turn to the crowd and say, does anyone have a kit so that we can carry on?
Guest:And I would say, yes, my name is John.
Guest:I'm eight years old.
Guest:And clearly, somewhere in me, I think that this is going to turn out well.
Guest:That this eight-year-old is going to be able to physically compete with this 29-year-old super fit athlete.
Marc:But that's the dream.
Marc:That's touching.
Marc:I wish I had that.
Marc:I wore cleats.
Marc:I wore cleats to the game as well.
Marc:You're ready to go.
Guest:So you just hear this clip-clop of this eight-year-old kid going, let's do this.
Guest:Maria Bamford.
Guest:I used to play the violin.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Was very good at it because of a weird, you know, you start when you're three, so you're all of a sudden... You were playing violin at three?
Guest:Three, yeah, yeah, because my parents... Forced you?
Marc:Well... Did they take your hands to the strings?
Guest:It was forced in a way that I, you know, I was not... I was unconscious of what was happening.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Until I was around 11.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I said, oh, I think I'd like to quit.
Guest:And they said, no, oh, no, you cannot because we have...
Guest:put in a lot of time and money and wow you're freakishly good at it so why not continue so I was good at it but I did not enjoy it at all
Guest:paul sheer my mom took my weird al yankovic in 3d album and broke it over her knee because it was a song was on there it was called nature trail to hell and it was on one of the uh the devil worship lists that like the the church had given them like these if your children have any of these albums and one of them was a weird al album you must find this and destroy it she destroyed it in front of you yes and that and my ll cool j oh shit yeah and uh
Guest:It was terrible.
Guest:I was crying.
Guest:My Weird Al album.
Guest:Did you ever tell Weird Al that story?
Guest:I did, actually.
Guest:I got to tell Weird Al that story, which was awesome.
Guest:And a great full 360 there.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:How did he respond?
Guest:He just thought it was insane because the song is called Nature Trail to Hell in 3D about going to a drive-in to see a horror movie called Nature Trail to Hell in 3D.
Guest:There's nothing satanic about Weird Al Yankovic at all.
Guest:No.
Guest:greatest stretch of the imagination but like you know and i'd listen to in excess my mom's like that might be satan it might be you never know they're very cunning he's charming and that's it that was very funny yeah satan comes in hawaiian shirts yeah you know yeah yeah but my mom uh like took all my action figures away and gave me like ten commandments figures like i had like i had moses like literally got moses action figure and he had like two tablets in his hand like the ten commandments you're kidding me
Guest:Oh, no.
Marc:What did you do with those action figures?
Guest:I would play with them like I would play Batman or G.I.
Guest:Joe.
Guest:Flying Moses?
Guest:Yeah, I would.
Guest:I'd make Moses swing down a pole and get into a Batmobile.
Guest:My height's still the Batmobile, so Moses drive a Batmobile.
Guest:We were hardcore Catholic growing up.
Guest:Church every Sunday?
Guest:Yeah, my parents are, yeah, the whole nine yards.
Guest:It's in my bones.
Guest:I mean, as much as I've tried to evolve past it in certain ways, it's in my bones.
Guest:What are the liabilities of it, carrying it with you in your mind?
Guest:Body shame.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, just, you know, it's funny because- On what level?
Guest:I've been accused over the years of, oh, you're so, you know, you're self-deprecating and that's your act.
Guest:And I was like, you know, that really comes from
Guest:Finding myself, you know, very flawed.
Guest:I think that's at the root of Catholicism is we're just flawed.
Guest:There's nothing we can do about it.
Guest:And there's nothing we can do about it.
Guest:And so I grew up just, you know, having a very dark self-view.
Marc:You were too tall or too what?
Guest:Too skinny, too tall, you know, my dick's too big, you know, it's just going to hurt somebody.
Guest:Well, I hate to get that out there as a rumor, but do you know what I mean?
Guest:My dick is huge, and it's got a lot of birth.
Guest:You don't want to hurt people.
Guest:You don't want to hurt people.
Guest:Well, no, the thing is, and I was so worried for a long time, and I actually had doctors say, you're going to hurt someone with that.
Guest:And then it was only later in life that I found out that, you know, this is a great gift, but...
Guest:For years.
Guest:For years, but for years I lived with the shame of this, you know, my penis is too big, I hope no woman ever finds out.
Guest:Handicapped, horrible handicapped.
Guest:And so, you know, you live with these things and then you eventually learn to work with them.
Guest:I was not a hypochondriac, but I probably feigned illnesses to get my parents' attention.
Guest:But I don't think I was, I didn't believe I had the illness.
Guest:I just, you know, when you're one of six, you got to do anything to get some face time.
Guest:So I was not beyond trying to just, you know, have something.
Guest:I mean, I remember envying
Guest:I read Death Be Not Proud.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With the John Gunther Jr.
Guest:story.
Guest:The baseball player?
Guest:No, Death Be Not Proud is about the boy who's like 14 and he gets a brain tumor.
Guest:And it's really touching.
Guest:And everyone, you're supposed to read it when you're 13, 14 years old.
Guest:You're supposed to just feel so terrible for the boy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I read it and I thought, man, that guy's getting so much attention.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember envying a kid with a brain tumor and he dies at the end of the book.
Guest:And I remember thinking, man, the brain tumor, that's the way to go.
Marc:The presence he got.
Marc:Yeah, that's bad.
Guest:Norm MacDonald.
Guest:When I was very young, I was very, very, very shy and very afraid of everything.
Guest:I mean, people say they're shy when they're kids, but I was like,
Guest:it was a pathology aren't you still afraid of everything i am i mean i try to hide it and deal with it but on a day-to-day basis i i know i'm not afraid of everything i'm afraid of very few things like what uh illness death yeah yeah how'd you get it how'd you get peace of mind out of the other shit well when i was i um when i was very i this is a weird thing that happened to me when i was young yeah
Guest:I don't know if this means anything.
Guest:Let's try it.
Guest:I remember it, but it was a moment I had that wasn't religious or epinafic or anything, but it transformed me to some degree is that I was always fucking so afraid of everything.
Guest:And if I went to a store, I'd have to walk around forever before I could even face a person in the store to buy a pack of gum.
Guest:I don't know why the fuck I was like this.
Guest:But anyways, when I was nine, we lived in rural Ontario, and there was a blind person
Guest:Friend of my dad's yeah that I had to he said take him to the store I was like what the fuck like I have to take this blind fucker and I'm already shy and shit so I'm taking him to the store and then the fucker wants me to explain everything and
Guest:Describe everything to him.
Guest:So I'm like, there's some grass over here, and now there's a lamppost, and this guy's all happy.
Guest:What about the lamppost?
Guest:I mean, it's just a lamppost.
Guest:So it goes on and on, but something happened to me during, it sounds bizarre, but something happened to me where I was actually, instead of always looking inward, which I think I'd always done before that one time, I was looking outward anyways.
Guest:And while I was talking to him, I suddenly had a sort of a hysteria.
Guest:Like I was laughing.
Guest:I started laughing and stuff.
Guest:And I don't even know why I'm remembering this, but I started laughing about everything.
Guest:And everything seemed like...
Guest:Very, very funny to me.
Guest:And then a couple of weeks later, I saw a homeless guy and he was talking about, he was talking, he started talking to me.
Guest:And he was talking to me about John D. Rockefeller.
Guest:He's like, I was at John D. Rockefeller's funeral and all this shit.
Guest:And I was laughing at him and shit.
Guest:And then he started laughing.
Guest:And I was like, it's all fucking crazy shit.
Guest:Like something came to me where I started.
Guest:And so now I find everything funny except like death and shit.
Guest:Molly Shannon.
Guest:I was raised by my dad from the time I was really little.
Guest:We were in a really bad car accident when I was really little.
Guest:I was four and my dad was driving and my mom was killed and my little sister was three and my cousin.
Guest:So it was very hard on my dad.
Guest:He had to recover.
Guest:He was very badly injured.
Guest:So we went to live with my aunt.
Guest:So it was very complicated.
Guest:It was a lot of sadness from a very young age.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then also my dad was like a real survivor.
Guest:He drank when we were little, but then he got into recovery.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:I think it was that generation of, you know, he was very Catholic but repressed in a lot of ways, so there was some sadness with that.
Guest:But he was also really charismatic and fun and would do anything, and he was real wild.
Guest:Like what?
Marc:Oh, God.
Guest:that was such a great buildup like we're gonna go on the roller coaster with no seatbelts like we would do crazy stuff like we would go to the airport and we'd be like let's take a you know a mystery trip and we would have no you know no suitcases or anything and it was when they had those those airlines where you could pay right on the airplane do you remember that people's express you didn't have to even fly under your name in the old days yeah anybody's name so you
Guest:Yeah, it was completely different.
Guest:So we would go to the airport, pick a city, and just fly to the city, and then borrow clothes when we got there, or buy clothes.
Guest:Like, crazy stuff.
Guest:And my dad would call in sick for me to school.
Guest:Like, very extensive.
Marc:Crazy.
Marc:Sounds like a great father.
Yeah.
Marc:Come on, fuck school, we're going on an airplane.
Guest:He had depression, and I think he would also could be really, he'd go up and down.
Marc:Sure, that's exciting.
Guest:So I think he had fun.
Marc:I have one of those.
Marc:It's very exciting.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like you literally went to cities, and you just not, you didn't have clothes, so you'd buy clothes.
Guest:Yeah, I'd borrow a bathing suit from the woman that worked behind the counter, and you know, like crazy, crazy stuff like that.
Guest:And then...
Guest:I hopped a plane when I was 12.
Guest:We told my dad, me and my friend, and we're like, we're going to hop a plane to New York.
Guest:And he was like, he dared us.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:We were like 12.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:We went to the airport and we had ballet outfits on and we put our hair in buns and we wanted to look really innocent.
Guest:And this was, again, when flying was really easy, you didn't need your ticket to get through.
Marc:Apparently you didn't need an adult either.
Marc:Yeah, no.
Guest:And we told my dad and we were just like, we saw there were two flights.
Guest:We were either going to go to San Francisco or New York.
Guest:And we thought, oh, let's go to New York.
Guest:It's leaving early.
Guest:So we went.
Guest:We said to the stewardess, we just want to say goodbye to my sister.
Guest:Can we go on the plane?
Guest:And she was like, sure.
Guest:And then she let us on.
Guest:And it was a really empty flight because it was out of Cleveland, Ohio.
Guest:And we sat back there.
Guest:And then all of a sudden you just hear like, the plane takes off.
Guest:We were like, what?
Guest:And we had like little ballet outfits and buns.
Guest:And I was like, hail Mary, full of grace.
Guest:And then the stewardess that had given us permission to go say goodbye to my sister came by to ask if we wanted snacks or beverages.
Guest:And she was like, can I get you ladies something to eat?
Guest:She looked like she was like, oh, motherfucker.
Guest:Fuck her.
Guest:So we wondered if we were going to get in trouble, but she ended up not telling anyone.
Guest:And then when we landed in New York City, she was like, bye, ladies.
Guest:Have a nice trip.
Marc:It's such an exciting story, but the irresponsibility of all the adults in this story is somehow undermining my appreciation of it.
Marc:You were 12-year-old girls in fucking ballet outfits, and everybody's sort of like, have a good time.
Marc:What world was that?
Guest:It was a crazy world.
Marc:What did you do in New York?
Guest:And now you can say, we got drunk and we went to a... Well, again, because I had a crazy childhood, we called my dad.
Guest:We were like, we did it.
Guest:And he was like, oh, dad, Molly.
Guest:Oh, geez, we'll try to... So basically, he couldn't say... Try to what?
Guest:He didn't know what to do.
Guest:He said, try to see if you could stay... Go find a hotel that you could stay in.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Me and Mary, my sister, will come meet you.
Guest:We'll drive there.
Guest:So basically, we were like, all right, we'll try to find a hotel.
Guest:But he was kind of excited because he liked crazy stuff.
Guest:But basically, we didn't have that much.
Guest:We just had our ballet bags and a little bit of cash, so we went to a diner, and we dined in Dash, and we stole things.
Guest:We were like little con artists.
Marc:Wait, did you actually make it to the city?
Guest:We made it to the city.
Guest:We just asked people.
Guest:I was like, how do you get to Rockefeller Center?
Guest:Because I'd just seen TV.
Marc:And you're still in your ballet outfit.
Guest:Ballet outfit, yeah.
Marc:Nobody said, are you girls lost?
Marc:Nothing like that?
Guest:No, nothing.
Marc:They went to a bar and they got to drink up, ladies.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So we did try to go to hotels and my dad would call and ask, could they just stay there till we get there?
Guest:And none of the hotels wanted to be responsible.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:So he was like, he was like, oh, you got to come home.
Guest:And he was like, but I'm not paying for it.
Guest:So try to hop on one on the way back.
Guest:So we tried to hop on many planes, but the flights were all so crowded, so we ended up having to have him pay for it, and he made us pay it all back with our babysitting money.
Marc:So that was the big punishment?
Guest:Yeah, there was no punishment.
Guest:punishment no i know i mean clearly was there any sort of like oh you survived i was just testing you he loved that kind of stuff like i said he was wild he used to in his drinking days he would you know go to bars and if somebody didn't let him in he'd be like damn it you know he'd go go into the bar and knock all the glasses down he was like a kind of guy who could maybe get arrested like it was crazy
Marc:I love the sort of strange nostalgic excitement you have for this borderline child abuse.
Guest:Yeah, it was complicated.
Marc:Oh, now you're going to say that?
Marc:Yeah, there's just one story that's complicated.
Marc:Nothing yet, but.
Guest:But he was also a very loving parent.
Guest:I think it's complicated.
Guest:He was also really supportive and kind of made me feel like I could do anything.
Guest:And so in that way, it felt really free and wild.
Guest:But then in other ways, I had to learn the rules of like how regular people live.
Marc:From other people.
Guest:Yeah, from other people.
Guest:Like professionals.
Guest:Like people you pay.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Guest:John Darniel.
Guest:Okay, so I want you to think.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wherever you were when you were five, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where was it?
Guest:Wayne, New Jersey.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And with both parents?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do they still own this house?
Marc:Oh, no, no, no, no.
Marc:We lived there.
Marc:We left when I was about six, but it was a red brick apartment complex.
Marc:Cool.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That's where I first saw the harmony guitar.
Marc:That's where I first remember it being played.
Guest:Oh, that's an amazing memory.
Guest:But when you think of it, when you think of yourself standing in it, does it seem like you have room to run around and to be a kid?
Guest:No, not really.
Guest:Not really.
Guest:My place seemed big to me in my mind.
Guest:The hallway, I remember running all the way to the end of the hallway and running all the way back down and being exhausted.
Guest:Oh man, I'm running all the way to the heater at the end and back.
Guest:That's two steps, right?
Guest:Now that I've been in the house, it's two paces.
Guest:And I remember running down that hallway and the distance between my room and my parents' room, which I remember being a walk.
Guest:It's like if I have to go see dad to talk to him about something, I'm going to walk down the hall, I'm going to get a talking to, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:that's two steps so those memories were like of what three years old four years old four yeah four and those were the only things you really remembered i remember well the thing is like we had added a room while i was there and it was called the front room and i remembered it being a cavernous big room with very high ceiling it's a fucking garage really it's the tiniest it's where the students live now because now it's a rental unit there was a fucking poster of biggie and tupac in on the front door i was so stoked right and and i was like well these people won't mind if i knock out their door side did they know who you were
Guest:No, they had never heard of me.
Guest:I was glad.
Guest:That would have been really awkward.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:This is my old house.
Guest:Could I come in and feel sad about shit?
Guest:You don't mind if I come in and weep in the hallway, do you?
Guest:No, that was what I did.
Guest:I walked in, I looked around, and just went, whoa.
Guest:So this is a bedroom now, because this is the front room.
Guest:We had a piano in there and a stereo.
Guest:Were you telling this to whoever lived there?
Guest:A little bit, but for the most part, I was just, I mean, I didn't want to see it.
Guest:So you're sort of like the weird old guy that kind of came by.
Guest:No, the weird permanently young guy who came by.
Yeah.
Guest:But no, I wanted to keep it uninvasive.
Guest:I wanted to go, I know this is strange, but I lived here when I was a child and I am a musician.
Guest:I happen to be playing in town.
Guest:If I could just come in just to see the house I used to live in just for a second, that would be awesome.
Guest:And they let me right in.
Guest:I looked at the backyard and I looked at my old room and I nodded and said, thank you.
Guest:And then, you know, then told my therapist about it when I got home.
Guest:But it wasn't that traumatic.
Guest:It was interesting.
Guest:It was kind of sweet in a way.
Guest:It was good to see.
Guest:When you feel like you're okay with where your life is at, it's good to see the smaller place it came from.
Guest:Ahmed Ahmed.
Guest:Then my dad and my parents immigrated to the States.
Guest:I was a month old.
Guest:Yeah, I was like a Lion King.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, oh, we're going to America.
Guest:Ahmed Ahmed.
Guest:And then we ended up in Riverside, California, which is where I was raised and we were the only Arab family not only on the block, but in the whole Almost the whole city really all right.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Well, you know Latino we were it was interesting because we ended up in this little like cool little suburb outside of you know LA and Riverside and Close to the college campus UCR.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:It was very
Guest:middle class and a little bit lower middle class, mostly white families, but then our high school was really racially diverse.
Guest:We had black, Mexican, Asian, and we were sort of considered the thug high school.
Guest:Athletes would come and do really well there, but there was also some gang violence and that sort of thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When I was in high school, I blended in perfectly.
Guest:They were like, where are you from?
Guest:They didn't really understand.
Marc:You mean if you didn't say your name?
Guest:Even when I'd say my name and they'd hear Egypt, they were always sort of mystified by it.
Guest:And I'd get the little jokes like, did you come in on your flying carpet?
Guest:And did you climb a pyramid?
Guest:And do you have camels?
Guest:Those jokes have changed now.
Guest:Generic, yeah.
Guest:Now it's like, do you fly planes?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are you good in chemistry?
Guest:Do you use fertilizer every day?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How many wives do you have?
Guest:I remember growing up when I was a kid thinking, my family's weird.
Guest:We're just weird.
Guest:I don't know how to put my finger on it.
Guest:I grew up thinking we're not, and maybe everyone grows up that way, but I remember thinking we're kind of like an Irish Catholic Adams family.
Guest:There's something off with us.
Guest:So I very much grew up feeling where, my mother would be horrified.
Guest:She'd say, that's not true.
Guest:Oh dear.
Guest:My mother is Margaret Dumont in the Marx Brothers movies.
Guest:Well, I don't know why you would say that.
Guest:That's not true.
Guest:But that was the feeling that my brothers and sisters all had.
Guest:We're an odd family and we never quite knew what we were.
Guest:The kids would come over, you know, to my house and this is a joke I used to do because it's a true story.
Guest:One of my friends walked in and my parents were praying and he looked at me and he said, what are they looking for?
Guest:And I was like, I go, oh, well, they're praying.
Guest:And he's like, to who?
Guest:And I'm like, so I always had to explain what Islam was and talk about, you know, the belief of it all behind it.
Guest:We were like the Arab Munsters.
Guest:We were like the Arab Adam family.
Guest:Oh, we were.
Guest:We were like the weird family on the block, because my mom was always cooking stuff with spices that Americans weren't used to, like cumin and stuff like that, garlic, and all these weird fumes would be- And he'd bring friends over, and he'd have to explain- They're like, yeah, what are they?
Marc:What's your mom cooking?
Marc:Cow brains?
Guest:Or whatever.
Guest:And my dad, he was a night owl, so he'd sit up till 3, 4 in the morning watering the grass, smoking cigarettes.
Guest:by watering by hand.
Guest:So the neighbors were always like, what are you doing out there for?
Marc:So you were religiously odd and then actually odd.
Guest:And on top of that, because my parents only ate halal food or kosher food, they didn't sell it back then in the 70s at stores.
Guest:So my dad had to drive to Fontana, California
Guest:with our station wagon and load up he'd go to a farm and load up the station wagon with chickens and ducks and rabbits and do it himself and they'd bring it back we had a live meat locker basically in our backyard really and every day around five my mom or earlier my mom and dad would go out to the backyard and they'd pick out a chicken and my dad would hold it down and say the muslim
Guest:Prayer, please bless this soul and let our family have sustenance.
Guest:No.
Guest:And my mom would do the, there's a way you sacrifice, they say.
Marc:Cut the head off.
Guest:So the animal doesn't suffer.
Guest:And, you know, it's like Clash of the Titans.
Guest:She's holding up this head and she's got blood all over her.
Guest:I was like, oh.
Guest:And we were eating dinner by 9 p.m.
Guest:The funny thing was the kids would come over during the day from the neighborhood and play with the rabbits or the chickens or whatever, and they'd come back to find their favorite rabbit they're playing with, and it was gone.
Guest:They're like, what happened to Fluffy?
Guest:We ate him.
Guest:We're eating his sister tonight.
Guest:Dave Attell.
Guest:I do mostly my dad on stage.
Guest:I used to work for my dad.
Guest:What did he do?
Marc:Work where?
Guest:My parents had a bridal dress tuxedo rental shop.
Guest:And I worked there from the time I was like 16 until I was, I guess, 19.
Guest:Which is, I guess, slave, underage, whatever, right?
Guest:No, I guess not 16.
Guest:What was your job there?
Marc:Like getting the shoes?
Guest:I cleaned the store.
Guest:I was head of shipping and receiving.
Guest:I sold shoes.
Marc:You were head of shipping and receiving?
Guest:Yeah, it was me and my grandpa.
Guest:So I was his boss.
Guest:And my dad used to, the way he used to talk to me, I do that on stage as my control voice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which helps me.
Guest:What is that voice?
Guest:You know, the sarcastic, whatchamacallit, biting, cutting dude.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It works.
Guest:It definitely works.
Guest:Because I realized that's how men talk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My dad was a man, and that's how men talked.
Guest:And they didn't give, you know, they would do things.
Guest:Like, I one time saw my dad with diabetes, full-blown, you know, like diabetes, lift diabetes.
Guest:uh like 150 pound cash register like one of these old cash registers just by himself and i was the guy who was like working out you know back then i you know every kid in long island lifted weights and practiced karate i couldn't lift it and he like just fucking lifted it put it over there lit a cigar and said like okay what what next what do we have to do next i'm like only a man can do that because he knew it had to be done
Guest:Russell Peters.
Guest:My dad was a meat inspector.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He worked in a chicken plant.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So, you know, he just fucking- Did you ever go to work with him?
Guest:No.
Guest:He had to wear whites and rubber boots and a hard hat.
Guest:Horrendous.
Guest:And he would come out stinking every day.
Guest:Oh, that's horrendous.
Guest:And my mom worked in the cafeteria at Kmart.
Guest:No.
Guest:Remember those cafeterias they used to have in the back with the Salisbury steak?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a great day for us would be when there was Salisbury steak left over and my mom would bring it home.
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are you serious?
Guest:Or hot dogs.
Guest:I'm like-
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Special night.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So there was nothing.
Guest:There wasn't ever like the, you know, everyone always asks me, what about being a doctor or a lawyer?
Guest:I'm like, there's none in my family.
Guest:Joe Mandy.
Guest:Both of my parents were trial lawyers.
Guest:So I just, there was a few years where I just didn't talk to my parents because they would just, oh, man, between my sister and I, we would just get cross-examined on everything.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:That was just how we were raised.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So always looking for the lie?
Guest:They were always looking for the lie.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:And my parents are much better.
Guest:They never said that my client, my son... Basically.
Guest:We would be sitting at a dinner table and if they smelled anything fishy, they were back on the clock and just grilling us until they figured out what the issue was or whatever.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:And my sister and I both handled that in different ways.
Guest:Because I think from 7th to 10th grade, I just...
Guest:basically just pleaded the fifth on everything you know i mean i just didn't talk to them because i didn't want to incriminate myself so i really like there's a few years i hardly ever talked to my parents just out of fear of being uh grilled yeah and my sister on the other hand she uh she sort of just pled insanity my sister was just this like wall of noise she just like everything was just anytime my parents tried to confront her on it she'd just scream and slam her door and that was i kind of jell it actually that's a much better tactic i just internalized everything
Guest:ron funches i remember my first day of school my mom was just being like hey like some kids are gonna like you some kids are not gonna like you for who you are don't ever change who you are for them just like if kids like you cool if they don't fuck them that she said that god damn i wish i had your mom she made her own mistakes
Guest:Which is pretty awesome.
Guest:In high school, they thought I had the most severe case of IBS they'd ever seen.
Guest:They thought it was stomach cancer.
Guest:Because I literally, for about four years, woke up every morning with just explosive diarrhea.
Guest:Just every morning.
Guest:That was just part of my routine.
Marc:Have you got any good shitting in public stories in your pants?
Guest:There was one time... Actually, there was one time I was on a conclave.
Marc:Sorry, being insensitive.
Guest:No, it's fine.
Guest:It's my life, you know?
Guest:Shitting all the time.
Guest:I was at this thing for my Jewish youth group when I was like 15.
Marc:Jewish youth group stories.
Guest:Yeah, and we were on a bus in Wisconsin, and we had just gone to Taco Bell.
Guest:So, I mean, already, red flags.
Guest:Did you know when you were eating it that...
Guest:I mean, yeah, it's always like sort of Russian roulette with Mexican food, Mexican roulette.
Guest:And immediately I just knew I was, I had to go and it was like in a school bus.
Guest:So there was no bathroom and I had to go up to my rabbi, the front of the bus and say, you know, bad things are happening to me.
Guest:We really need to pull over the next rest stop.
Guest:And he was like, yeah, I'll make sure of it.
Guest:So we went back.
Guest:I went back to the back of the bus.
Guest:And, you know, the rest stop was five miles ahead.
Guest:And I'm just like, you know, pacing.
Guest:And then the bus driver just blew right past it.
Guest:And the next rest stop wasn't for like 45 miles.
Guest:And I didn't know my body was going to explode, you know.
Guest:And I...
Guest:And to this day, I can't listen to Tom Petty without thinking of, I put on the Wildflowers album, the only time I've ever successfully meditated.
Guest:But I meditated for those 45 minutes to the next rest stop and ran.
Guest:And my friend was in the bathroom and he said he's never heard a human body make
Guest:Those kinds of noises.
Guest:I was in there for, everyone on the bus is waiting for me.
Guest:I was in there for like 35 minutes just evacuating.
Marc:So that is an amazing testament to the power of meditation and complete fear of pure judgment.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I probably hurt my body in the long run, the way I was clenching every muscle.
Marc:Because that is a superhuman feat.
Guest:That is almost Nietzschean.
Guest:I still, to this day, I don't know how I did it because it was bad.
Guest:this is not my nose my nose was completely shattered no it was i was beaten up uh i ran into like yeah i'm not kidding i ran into a street gang who and i was wearing a t-shirt that had the irish flag on it and i they were italian uh and this was right near the aquarium in boston down by the water yeah i was with my friend at the time john madeiras and this is late high school so it's near the north end kind of yeah and they uh beat the shit out of me out of him too
Guest:No, left him alone, because I was a little bit of a wise guy.
Guest:They said they wanted 50 cents, and I said, no.
Guest:And they said, why not?
Guest:And I said, I don't feel like it.
Guest:And just as I finished that it, the T sound, I got hit so hard in the face.
Guest:Did you fight back?
Guest:I mean, I got hit a bunch of times so hard in the face that I don't think I did much.
Guest:I don't remember.
Guest:And I remember it was over pretty quickly.
Guest:And then I had to have my, I went to the emergency room and the doctor, I'll never forget his name, Dr. Constable.
Guest:He had a British accent and he looked kind of crazy.
Guest:He had crazy hair and he looked like the poet Ezra Pound.
Guest:And I said, and I says, my dough's broken.
Guest:And he said, broken?
Guest:Good God, man.
Guest:It's a bag of bones.
Guest:I'll never forget that.
Guest:That's a true story.
Guest:In ninth grade, I took Spanish in high school.
Guest:It was the only non-honors class I ever took.
Guest:And I showed up the first day, ninth grade, so I was very short and braces and sweater vests.
Guest:I don't know why I wore sweater vests.
Guest:What made you do that?
Guest:I thought it was cool.
Guest:And I got into Spanish the first day of class and it was just me and the JV basketball team.
Guest:That was the class basically.
Guest:And I was like, it'll be fine.
Guest:I listened to Outkast or whatever.
Guest:And I sit down and they were just ruthless.
Guest:They would make fun of me.
Guest:They would call me names.
Guest:They would choke me.
Guest:I got choked a lot, but it was never violent.
Guest:They just would come up from behind when I wasn't expecting it and like rap.
Guest:sometimes it was like piano wire i don't like they had piano wire they would like wrap wire around my neck and i would freak out obviously yeah and then they would let go and just crack up they'd be like ah ha ha you stupid yeah yeah you know he's like oh he's writing for the right reason right what an idiot right what an idiot i was like how stupid of me to freak out yeah um so it was just it was bad and they would throw like empty cans of soda at my head and stuff it was just
Guest:It sucked.
Marc:And the teacher just let this happen?
Guest:Yeah, our teacher.
Guest:That Spanish teacher was so broken.
Guest:She was so done with life that it was chaos.
Marc:She was an older public school teacher.
Guest:She looked like Newman from Seinfeld, so everyone called her Newman.
Guest:They would call her Miss Newman, and she would respond to it.
Guest:I mean, it was bad.
Guest:And then that December, our principal made this big announcement that no more gambling was allowed in the hallways.
Guest:Was there gambling?
Guest:Yeah, people played dice in the hallways and stuff.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:What kind of fucking hype was this?
Guest:It was crazy.
Marc:There were active dice games?
Guest:There were active dice games.
Guest:Like, come on, seven!
Guest:The Asian kids would have breakdance competitions in between classes.
Guest:In the hallway.
Guest:In the hallway.
Guest:And I actually started doing this thing.
Guest:I do it on stage sometimes, too.
Guest:I got really good at making it look like I was about to start breakdancing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:because actually i was just trying to get through the hallway right but i would get in the middle of this like big circle and it would be like my turn and i would start like moving around to the to the music and like you know pumping my shirt and making it look like i was about and i would just do it until they realized i was never gonna start break and i would go for like two minutes without actually doing any dancing before they like pushed me out of the circle but anyway but back to the the story so our our principal
Guest:She instituted this no gambling policy and I saw an opportunity and I went up to these kids in the back of my class and I was like, you know, I can teach you a gambling game that you'll never get in trouble for playing if you just stop choking me.
Guest:right it was that clear there was a negotiation yeah it was a clear negotiation and they thought about it and the next day i brought i taught them how to play dreidel for money stop it i swear and so for like a good month outside my spanish class you would walk by and just see these black kids and like avarex jackets huddled over a top yeah just like yo that's a w motherfucker pay up ali brosh
Guest:I was never a cool kid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They sort of made an attempt to maybe I could be in that group, but I was too scared.
Marc:They reached out.
Marc:They sent a representative.
Guest:Yeah, they reached out.
Guest:And I was too scared.
Guest:I was, no, I'm not going to do that.
Marc:Not cool.
Marc:Too much pressure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm going to have to keep up with music.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And figure out what people were wearing.
Marc:So you felt like an outsider?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I was always an awkward kid.
Guest:I just never – I was always behind, never knew what to do with myself or, like, how to be.
Guest:I feel like I got most of my – so my friend, my best friend is this kid named Joey.
Guest:He was a cool kid, and I never was.
Guest:And I always felt very intimidated by him, and much of my early life was –
Guest:was defined by trying to get him to think that I was cool.
Guest:And he would give me advice on how to dress.
Guest:So I spent my early preteen years wearing JNCO jeans and baggy shirts.
Guest:Just totally rocking the skater guy look.
Marc:And you never felt comfortable?
Guest:I mean, I didn't fit into anybody but him.
Guest:Like, he didn't know what he was doing either is the thing.
Guest:Like, he didn't know what he was doing.
Marc:So he was pulling it off.
Guest:To me, he looked like he knew what he was doing.
Marc:So he confided in you that, like, look, I don't know what's going on either.
Guest:He didn't confide in me.
Guest:It's just now that we're adults, I can clearly see them.
Marc:Oh, you're still friends with him?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Really?
Marc:So it lasted.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:And initially it wasn't a dating thing, it was just pals?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:You just felt like outsiders?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was like the tumor on his life.
Guest:He saw that I wasn't meshing with, like he found this group of cool friends and I wasn't meshing with the cool friends.
Marc:What do you mean we're meshing?
Marc:How does that happen?
Marc:Like what, what, what moment signifies that for you?
Marc:The unmeshing.
Guest:They could, they could just tell like they, cool kids have this sense where they can just know that you aren't one of them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they can see like, and okay.
Guest:So it also didn't help that about three months earlier, my friend Joey had dared me to shave my head.
Marc:Oh, you did that?
Guest:I did that because he dared me to and I didn't want to look like I was chicken.
Marc:People that don't know who they are can't shave their heads?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And I didn't know who I was.
Marc:I did that.
Guest:I hadn't worried about it up to that point, really.
Marc:And what happened?
Guest:Well, so this was, I was 13, I think, when I shaved my head.
Guest:And it was like, it was really bad timing.
Guest:It was about two weeks before I discovered that I'm interested in boys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had no like no view of self before this.
Guest:No, like no self-consciousness, nothing.
Guest:Then I shaved my head and I discovered, wow, I'm not pretty.
Marc:And it was pure.
Marc:Like this was unadulterated.
Marc:No distraction with hair.
Guest:Yeah, it was nothing.
Guest:And I had giant braces.
Guest:When you do something like that, when you do something that's so obviously, it just shows that you don't know how to do the things that show people you can be one of them.
Guest:They see you and they're like, there's something wrong here.
Guest:My dad sent me to a Dale Carnegie training course on how to win friends and influence people.
Guest:Really?
Guest:For 18 weeks, I went with some businessmen and women.
Guest:And it saved me.
Guest:It saved me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I was super depressed, was like sleeping all day through school and, and I was like, okay.
Guest:And I totally did all the things.
Guest:And suddenly, like I was able to have friendships, you know, like where just had to like a format of how to talk to people.
Guest:And because I had so much anxiety.
Guest:And so, you know, I would say, hi, Mark.
Guest:Mark, it's really great to see you.
Guest:You know, Mark, your set was so great last night, Mark.
Guest:I really I mean, so what do you and then you listen to people and then you tell the person back what they just said, but with a positive spin on it.
Guest:And and it was fantastic, I tell you, and like immediate results.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, and then it all crashed down.
Guest:I went to college, and people on the East Coast were like, why are you talking like that to me?
Guest:Why are you all... Just calm down.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:Where'd you go to college?
Guest:I was at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and I think there was an air of hysteria with my Dale Carnegie techniques in college because I was very afraid to...
Guest:So I'm sure they were telling me to calm down for good reason.
Guest:So you're smiling a lot and very wired.
Guest:You're like, oh, very nice.
Guest:Gillian Jacobs.
Guest:My interests were always very different than what other kids my age were into.
Guest:So I think that we didn't really have a lot to talk about.
Guest:And I think the more they didn't understand me, the louder I talked about what I was into.
Guest:So they just didn't know what to make of me.
Marc:Did you wear costumes and whatnot?
Guest:I didn't wear costumes at school, no, but my mom would only let me buy clothes that she approved of, so I wore a lot of sweater sets in high school because she liked sweater sets.
Marc:In high school still?
Marc:You couldn't fight that, didn't you?
Guest:No, I remember going to an outlet store and wanting to buy a skirt.
Guest:It was not a revealing skirt, it was a floor-length skirt, but my mom was like, I don't like it.
Guest:The material looks cheap, and she wouldn't let me buy it.
Marc:So you were stuck in sweater outfits?
Guest:I was stuck dressed like a middle-aged woman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Amazing Jonathan.
Guest:I used to be able to bend spoons.
Guest:I figured out how to bend a spoon using my mind, but it was just misdirection.
Guest:I would make them look away for a second.
Guest:I would bend it.
Guest:Is that what most?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I could do it really, really well.
Guest:And I did it for my physics teacher who I really admired.
Guest:And he said to me, is that real?
Guest:Are you really doing this or is it a trick?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was really unpopular in school.
Guest:I was like not standing out at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I lied and I said, yeah, I can really do it.
Guest:Thinking that that would be the end of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nah.
Guest:The next hour I'm sitting in class, I hear on the speaker, Jonathan, John Zellows, please come to the principal's office.
Guest:shit this has something to do with the spoon bending i know it does yeah i walk in there there's my mom and my dad who they call out of work it's a bunch of spoons on the desk and a local reporter from the macomb daily paper yeah i'm like fuck this is not good so the physics teacher set you up to this yeah he asked me if it was real and i lied to him and said yeah so he called he told and they got a reporter to come down they wanted me to demonstrate my powers my mom took me aside before this
Guest:I said, can you really do this or are you just lying?
Guest:And I looked it straight in the eye and I said, I can really do it.
Guest:It's like a snowball going down.
Guest:I said, I can really do it.
Guest:And so I proceeded to bend all the spoons and they freaked out.
Guest:And then I thought- You succeeded in the trick at all times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I bent everything and the reporters, he's chomping at the bit to do this great story about a psychic kid.
Guest:But I had to figure a way out of it because I figured that magicians, local magicians would bust me on it and make me a fraud.
Guest:But they can't give away the trick.
Guest:Why would they?
Guest:They would say, I'm lying.
Guest:This is what he's doing.
Guest:Like magicians do.
Guest:They bust Uri Geller for doing it.
Guest:They'll bust me, too.
Guest:If it's in the paper, you can bet someone's going to come forward and go, that's bullshit.
Guest:He's just tricky.
Guest:So I had to figure a way out of it, and this is how I got out of it.
Guest:I told my mom...
Guest:that i did want to be a normal kid i didn't want to be a freak into school i didn't i just wanted to be a normal kid i didn't want everyone looking at me like i was weird and she bought it they all bought it nobody did the story and but it leaked this is the good part it leaked out and yeah i i didn't get that that press which i didn't want but everyone thought i was this mysterious and i i got
Guest:mad pussy i got mad pussy my senior year i did yeah okay you're like that yeah i was like yeah man who fell to earth yeah yeah so and that's when he knew show business was the thing yeah yeah man if a chick thinks that you can read her mind or anything like that you're in
Guest:Did you try to do that with chicks?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:When they go to the bathroom, I'd go in through their purse, take their license out, get their birth date, know their zodiac sign.
Guest:I have all the details.
Guest:We could put it back real fast in their purse.
Guest:They'd come back, and we'd be doing lines.
Guest:Let me touch your forehead for a minute.
Guest:Boom, you're a Virgo.
Guest:John Glazer I remember my stepdad telling me about that when he and my mom told me they were getting married I was in high school and he said he was he said he was actually very impressed about how I handled it like they just told me they were getting married I remember those both of those moments when my mom and my stepdad got married I was probably 14 and he said I just sort of like sat there quietly yeah
Guest:You know, took it in, kind of just got up from the table, went upstairs, put on like shorts and t-shirt and my running shoes and just went jogging.
Guest:But it wasn't like I could go like running somewhere and then come back.
Guest:We lived in this apartment complex that sort of had a loop.
Guest:So like they told me they were getting married and then I just left and they watched me run laps.
Yeah.
Guest:Around the building?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he said he was... Well, it was like around five buildings.
Guest:It wasn't just like quick laps.
Guest:But he said he was like, oh, I'm very impressed how he's handling this and he's dealing with it.
Guest:But also when my dad... I remember when he told me he was getting remarried the first time, I was in sixth grade.
Guest:And I was taking violin lessons, doing I think the Suzuki.
Guest:And he picked me up and my mom always picked me up.
Guest:So right away I'm like, all right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:This is after their divorce, obviously.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:They live close by.
Guest:How old were you when they got divorced?
Guest:I was probably eight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so now sixth grade.
Guest:Was that devastating?
Guest:it was pretty weird i have vague memories of it but i remember being just crying and sitting on the steps and just being really upset yeah and yelling but i don't remember the moment right it's just all kind of vague but i do remember being upsetting but when he was getting remarried the first time i do remember yeah picking up me picking up from violin and uh that was that was already something i know something's up something's not right yeah and then hey i thought we'd you know go get a bite to eat you know anywhere you want to go i was like all right the fuck is going on yeah
Guest:And there was a sub shop, ironically enough, because I know I do all this sandwich humor stuff, which people are probably like, all right, we get it.
Guest:You like sandwiches.
Guest:But there was a place that I liked right across the street.
Guest:It was more about like, oh, well, let's just go there.
Guest:It wasn't like I was going to say, oh, great, let's go to this great place.
Guest:I just knew something was up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we went there, but it wasn't a sit down place.
Guest:So we get these sandwiches and just go sit in his car in the parking lot.
Guest:And it's like, it's facing the school across the street.
Guest:And I'm just sitting there kind of, you know, very kind of tight, you know, eating my sub and it's right next to me and, you know, tight to my chest.
Guest:And I just, I kind of felt like I knew what was coming.
Guest:I'm just trying to think about like what is going on.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, I think I know what's about to happen.
Guest:So we're sitting there and kind of quietly eating.
Guest:And he's like, hey, so, you know, I got some news for you and just wanted to let you know that, you know, Shelly and I decided to get married.
Guest:And I can just, you know, feel my body just... Crunching the sandwich.
Guest:Super tense and just...
Guest:not sure you just didn't know how to handle it but it was upsetting yeah and it shouldn't have been you know it should have been like oh great yeah you know you're great good for you did you like Shelly she was awesome yeah she was so cool but I was just like didn't know how to handle it and so I did I did not say a word just sat there just eating my sandwich probably not even eating it just but just kind of home
Guest:and we just sat there in silence and then he eventually started the car and drove me back to my mom's it was really fucking weird and i don't think we've ever even talked about it not because we're avoiding it i always just forget but i always just i want to i feel like i have to just what was he so just to know what he was thinking that moment how he felt yeah so weird amy schumer
Guest:Okay, so mom leaves dad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Has an affair with my best friend's dad.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Breaks up their family.
Marc:I'm in school.
Guest:We're trying to still be best friends.
Guest:Like, we were best friends.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:It was crazy.
Marc:It's weird, because it always happens in the community.
Marc:People forget that, like, you know, when you stick your dick into something that's, you know, nearby, the ripple effect is going to be fairly profound.
Guest:Yeah, like, that vagina's going to be at a PTA meeting with your wife next week.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's...
Marc:So the whole town was affected by it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so she was like, you know, she was.
Marc:She was.
Guest:And and maybe that's like sort of where it came from.
Guest:Like, I was like, well, I love my mom.
Marc:She's my family.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Fuck you guys.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then years later, I was like, Mom, how could you do that?
Guest:You know, but not till a while later.
Marc:Did you say that to her?
Guest:When I was 16, I got angry.
Guest:I was running away.
Guest:That's when I started really stealing a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, it was funny.
Guest:I played volleyball, like, pretty seriously.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was on this club team, and it was, like, preliminaries for the Junior Olympics.
Guest:And my mom was a chaperone.
Guest:We had to go to San Jose.
Guest:From New York to San Jose.
Guest:And I...
Guest:got caught stealing at this tournament.
Guest:So I was benched the whole tournament and she just like, so I'm standing there with my knee pads around my ankles and my mom's just like standing there for the whole weekend having to stare at me with hatred.
Guest:But I could always stare right back at her and be like, yeah, but you ruined my life.
Guest:My dad had a drug problem for a while, and then... Which drug?
Guest:I'm assuming a few, but mostly cocaine.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, so that's why your parents split up, because of the drugs?
Marc:So your mom was like, fuck this, I'm going to Chicago with the kids.
Marc:Well, if you get your shit together, give me a call.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And so he didn't call for several years.
Guest:Yeah, he wanted to really finish up whatever he was working on.
Guest:He had some business to it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But he started getting in touch a little bit later, and he was going to Portland to work in construction, and Chicago wasn't working out too well for me.
Guest:He's got his own things going on.
Guest:We don't really talk that much.
Guest:You don't?
Guest:No.
Guest:Why?
Why?
Guest:um it just was never a positive influence for me like anything that i wanted to do like he wasn't there to parent me but he still wants to you know then offer advice i'm like you don't he was like wants me to be a super christian like he wants me you know oh really he's one of those when did that come around after the drugs left yeah of course you gotta always replace one thing with another replace coke with jesus i think that's a slogan
Guest:And then out of the high school, just hanging out and working at canneries or Chuck E. Cheese.
Guest:Canneries?
Guest:What's canneries?
Guest:You know, we can groceries or can beans and broccoli and stuff at a factory.
Guest:You put it in cans?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:They have those in Portland?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, they had them in Oregon, yeah, in Salem.
Guest:I didn't know it was known for that.
Guest:They're known for being cannery places?
Guest:Yeah, they're like a Flavorite, any type of frozen peas place.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Marc:That's where they come from?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And did you operate machinery?
Guest:No, never.
Guest:I would just have to pick out stocks of broccoli and put them in a chute and avoid putting my fingers close to blades.
Guest:And then one day my job was to pick out rats and snakes out of the stuff.
Guest:Come on, man.
Guest:Yeah, that was the last day I went.
Guest:Come on man.
Guest:Out of the vegetables?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Dead ones?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, because they'd steam them?
Guest:Because they just kind of get rooted up.
Guest:They're not like plucked out by individual farmers, you know.
Guest:They're just put all together.
Guest:And so when they're originally dumped, they're just dirt and rocks and vegetables and dead rodents.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I let a lot of rats go through.
Guest:You did not.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, I'm not.
Guest:Do you think I look like a person that touched a lot of rats?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:Wyatt Cenac.
Guest:I was born in New York.
Guest:New York City.
Guest:New York City.
Guest:I was born in New York, and I lived there for a little while.
Guest:My mother and father lived there, and then they split up when I was about a year old.
Guest:Oh, really young.
Guest:Yeah, my mother remarried, and then maybe when I was about three, my mother, stepfather, and I moved to Texas, and we moved to Dallas, Texas.
Guest:What happened with the original old man?
Guest:uh he like where is he now yeah he was murdered when i was four but you had a relationship with him yeah i mean he was i i would still go visit my grandmother my maternal grandmother lived in new york so i would spend time with her and then i would spend time with him as well and his brother uh who lived in new york as well like
Guest:I would see them all, and my grandmother, even after he got killed, my grandmother did a good job of trying to- Keep you in the fold?
Guest:Well, at least keep talking about him, because once he died, my uncle left and moved back to Grenada, which is where my father was from.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He just got murdered?
Guest:Yeah, he was a New York City cab driver, and he took a fare up to Harlem, and then they robbed him and shot him.
Marc:God damn it.
Guest:Yeah, no, it's pretty it's pretty intense.
Guest:I just recently, like about a maybe two years ago, a friend of mine connected me to an NYPD detective who pulled up the file and I got to see everything.
Guest:they had pictures of the scene they didn't have pictures of the scene but there was i always knew where it happened but then this sort of laid it out in this way of oh well the car you know once he was shot he died on this you know instantly and then his foot was on the gas and it the car went across the like the median and crashed into some cars and
Guest:So and then there were some witness accounts and stuff like that.
Guest:It was really amazing.
Guest:And then through it by at the end of it all, there is the there's the guy like they caught the guy and I had his whole rap sheet.
Guest:And it's it was weird to just see that and to just get a fuller picture of that that guy.
Guest:And he lives in he lives in Brooklyn.
Guest:And there's like a whole kind of weirdness of just
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:This person like I've seen his whole life.
Guest:I see his rap sheet.
Guest:He's he didn't stay in jail after murder.
Guest:No, he did.
Guest:He got a really short sentence for it.
Guest:He was I think he was 16 when he did it.
Guest:And so even that, it's kind of amazing because I just think about, like, he was 16 and this thing, like, it just set him on a path.
Guest:Weirdly enough, was doing time in North Carolina at the same time I was in college in North Carolina.
Guest:Where'd you go?
Guest:I went to University of North Carolina.
Guest:But it's just strange, these little sort of intersections of life where it's like, oh yeah, we were both in North Carolina at the same time.
Guest:Different institution.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Different state-run institution.
Guest:Both not the best football teams.
Guest:Really underperforming football teams in both situations.
Marc:But wait, so now...
Marc:The dude who murdered your biological father lives in the same city as you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As a free man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you have any compulsion to meet his murderer?
Guest:Not really.
Guest:No.
Guest:And people have asked me that once I sort of discovered it and everything.
Guest:And I kind of, I was just like, I don't really have anything to say to the dude.
Guest:If anything, there is a part of me where I look at him and what he did and there's a sense of, you know, he is partially responsible for me being who I am.
Guest:In a good way.
Guest:Kind of, yeah.
Guest:I've actually joked about it on stage because it is this thing where it's like, I'm not going to send him a Father's Day card, but there is this element of like, oh no, this was a traumatic event that...
Guest:changed me in in the way i saw the world and you're the person that did that like you who knows who knows how differently my life would be i'm assuming it would probably i'd probably still be in the same place right but maybe my father would have been the deadbeat that uh he was to my sister to me and maybe i would have dealt with that or maybe i'd have
Guest:gone to new york and lived with him and it would have changed my impression of him in that way or something the whole trajectory yeah who knows you know like if you grew to favor him over your mother who the hell knows where that would have went yeah but it's but so in that way it is like oh yeah this one thing like that idea of the butterfly effect or something like that like oh this is that one instance of oh yeah here it is amy mann
Guest:You know, my childhood was pretty fragmented.
Guest:My mother left when I was three years old.
Guest:There was a lot of drama around that because she ran off with a guy and he was married and they took me and my father didn't know where I was.
Guest:And, you know, it was just like a lot of.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, it was a lot of drama.
Marc:How did that play out?
Guest:I was eventually found and brought back, but, you know, it was probably like nine months later.
Marc:So you were a three-year-old.
Marc:Your mom kidnapped you with this dude that she ran off with who was also married and took you to another state?
Guest:Out of the country.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Am I supposed to know this?
Guest:No.
Guest:You mean, like, should you not know it?
Marc:Well, no, no, no, no.
Marc:I mean, like, I don't know if we ever talked about it before.
Guest:I don't think so.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:This is from Virginia.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And where'd they take you?
Guest:I think we were we wound up in England, but we I think we spent some time in Germany.
Guest:I remember being in Amsterdam.
Guest:What was the plan?
Guest:I don't know what the plan was.
Guest:I think he was going to get a job.
Guest:The guy was just move.
Guest:Yeah, they were moving there.
Marc:Just overnight ish.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did they both get divorced before they did this?
Guest:I don't think so.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And he took his kids because he had kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So it's like, here's your new family.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was this a guy from the neighborhood?
Marc:Somebody that your father knew?
Guest:Somebody who worked for my father.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:There's a lot of drama.
Guest:There's a lot of drama.
Marc:So did someone have to go international to get you?
Guest:My father had hired a private detective, but I think he found out where I was by accident because, you know, he was in advertising.
Guest:He was in the same business.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think how I was found was that my father just, you know, in the course of doing business had run into a guy who said, oh, I saw that guy that used to work for you.
Guest:And it was him.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So does your father fly overseas and get you?
Guest:I don't you know, I don't know.
Guest:I think she flew back with me and then I and I was taken to my grandparents for a month, which is crazy.
Guest:Like, I mean, it's all fucking crazy.
Marc:Have you ever kind of like sat them down or him down and gotten the deets on this?
Guest:Yeah, he's told he told me most of this.
Guest:She obviously doesn't.
Guest:I know her now, but I didn't you know, I sort of didn't really see her until, you know, I got back in touch with her in my mid 20s.
Guest:But she obviously doesn't really want to talk about it.
Guest:so she was out of the picture that whole time yeah oh my god yeah and and it's bananas oh here's a here's another detail yeah um the uh i think we were all staying at a hotel or something and um he i was i was three years old playing out playing by myself in the parking lot and he hit me with a car and knocked me unconscious the other guy yeah the guy the boyfriend
Marc:On purpose?
Guest:Probably not.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Probably not.
Guest:But he did yell at me for causing an accident.
Marc:For being in the street in front of his car.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:So that is some... I've never heard of child abuse where the child was hit by an automobile.
Marc:You were not just hit, you were hit by an automobile and then blamed for that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, look, it was only a VW bug.
Marc:Oh, so, you know, you could have won.
Guest:I could have.
Guest:Tom Arnold.
Guest:When I was 10, he married the next-door neighbor, and she had a couple kids, and that was terrible.
Guest:It was terrible, because she'd come from a very corporal punishment background, and I was the oldest, and she was going to tame me.
Guest:And it made my life... It was not a pleasant experience.
Guest:I get along with her now, of course.
Guest:I know it was hard for her, because I was like, oh my God, you're taking my dad.
Guest:But he did ask me if he could marry her.
Guest:And I remember saying, well, yeah, because...
Guest:Of course.
Marc:But she beat everybody up?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, she had a chart on the fridge and check marks during the day for when my dad got home.
Guest:And this is how many whips you'd get.
Guest:And the saddest thing, and I just saw this recently because my son's born, was the times I was in bed.
Guest:Man, I was loaded up with the extra underwear, the padding, because I knew it was coming because there had been a lot of check marks next to my name.
Guest:And he would say, oh, come on, Ruth.
Guest:I don't want to...
Guest:She goes, God damn it, it's him or me.
Guest:And so you're 10, and you're hearing that, and you're like, oh my God, I don't want my dad to get divorced.
Guest:So you march on down there and say, let's do it.
Marc:Yeah, I want my dad to be happy.
Marc:I'll take the hit.
Guest:Bruce Springsteen.
Guest:How could you live in a house where there was so much kindness and great cruelty?
Guest:It was very, very difficult to understand those things, and it set you...
Guest:Very on edge.
Guest:You had your own little local minefield that you had to walk every single day, which caused a great deal of anxiety and neuroticism in me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You were always on edge.
Guest:You were always waiting for, you know, you had this one great thing, but then you were always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Guest:Made me a very nervous kid.
Guest:My mom got divorced three times when I was a kid growing up.
Guest:That was a little rough.
Guest:We lived a lot in small apartments and moved around Long Island.
Guest:Just weird stepdads?
Guest:Yeah, weird stepdads.
Guest:I remember I had one stepdad who refused to let me call him by his name.
Guest:His name was Cordell.
Guest:I could not call him Cordell.
Guest:He made me call him Daddy, which is, in retrospect, weird.
Guest:But, yeah, you know, the craziest thing.
Guest:I'll be embarrassed that my dad is probably going to listen to this.
Guest:But my dad got into a fistfight with my stepdad in front of me when I was a kid.
Guest:Which stepdad?
Guest:Stepdad 2.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was crazy.
Guest:As a kid to see, like, your real dad and your stepdad, like...
Guest:fight like fucking go for it i was young i was like i was like nine or what was that about it was like i remember seeing it like my dad and i come back from apple picking and back from apple picking sitting uh coming in seeing my stepdad who's in a bathrobe my stepdad was a truck driver for a supermarket you know and and my dad came in and he goes you don't say fucking hello to me bill
Guest:And my dad's like, I said hello to you.
Guest:It's your fucking fault if you didn't hear it.
Guest:Then all of a sudden, my stepdad picked up a coffee mug, fucking wailed it at, like my dad said, my dad duck, and it exploded on the wall.
Guest:No way.
Guest:And then all of a sudden, they just went at it like a grappling thing around my kitchen table.
Guest:My dad's the most nice...
Guest:you know well-adjusted guy and then all of a sudden apples are flying so like i'm throwing apples my dad is throwing apples like and they fight out until they like literally leave the house like outside the front door like that kind of fighting my dad's a pharmacist again like you know if my pharmacist fighting a truck driver it was like something like out of a clint eastwood movie it was like boom boom it was insane insane
Guest:How did that resolve itself?
Guest:It resolved itself very cheesily, which was hours later, I got on the phone, and Cordell was on the phone in my house, and my dad was on a pay phone, and they apologized to each other while I was in the middle.
Guest:For your benefit?
Guest:Yes, for my benefit to hear them apologize.
Guest:They all decided probably on your mom's instruction.
Guest:Yes, it wasn't a good thing for the kid to see.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So they had to like get together and apologize over me.
Guest:So that was that was a yeah, like that looking back on that, that was a pretty.
Guest:terrible do you remember being upset what was your reaction were you crying was it oh yeah i mean it's it was all just chaos it was chaos and also like crazy because it's like you're watching your dad get into a fight and did you like the guy i didn't like my uh my bill my dad loved uh my stepdad hated him it was like the abusive fuck of a dude like a terrible oh your dad is bill
Guest:My dad is Bill, yeah.
Guest:And your stepdad was?
Guest:Cordell.
Guest:Oh, that was Cordell?
Guest:That was Cordell.
Guest:And he was just an abusive, bad dude.
Guest:But yeah, he'd come home literally an arm in a cast because he got into a fight at work.
Guest:Did he beat you up?
Guest:Yeah, like, a little bit.
Guest:I mean, like, I say it very cavalierly, but, yeah, like, I mean, we would get into some fucking fights.
Marc:I can't even imagine that.
Guest:Like, I lived on a farm, and, like, we had horses and dogs and stuff, and, like, I would talk back a lot.
Guest:Like, that was my...
Guest:thing and that's what comics do yeah and so that's like how we find our voice yeah i got to a lot of i was talking to like uh people this weekend i was like i got into a ton of fights all until like eighth grade and i was like oh i gotta stop did you win yeah because i was fighting a 40 year old guy at home like that's why i was i was getting good at it out of all the people in the world i would never assume you were a scrapper oh god big time like i uh
Guest:Because you fight this big fucking 40-year-old dude, this fat dude who's strong and literally throwing a pitchfork at me and dodging a pitchfork.
Guest:Get the fuck out of here.
Guest:But because of that kind of style of fighting, I think I never realized how strong I was.
Guest:When I was in... Dodging pitchfork style?
Guest:Yeah, well, like, it was like, you know, you just learn to be, like, more of a grappler, you know?
Guest:It's like, you know, a lot of, like, just slaps and runs or punches in the stomachs and runs.
Guest:But when I was in sixth grade, I got into this fight with this kid, and he, like, gave me, like, a sixth grade punch, like, you know, a punch in the face.
Guest:I remember I... Oh, no, this is ninth grade.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:And I grabbed him by the neck, and we were by a car, and there was, like, a car fender there.
Guest:I was like...
Guest:whap, whap, like his face into a car fender.
Guest:We were both suspended from school.
Guest:And because he started it, I got to go back and he got kicked out.
Guest:But that kind of did not realize I was fighting for much.
Guest:You're going for the fucking money.
Marc:Did they have to pull you off him?
Guest:I remember that was the time where my knuckles were bloody from just punching.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:That was a rough.
Guest:Yeah, I was a bruiser as a kid.
Guest:I had no fucking idea.
Guest:Paul Scheer, badass.
Guest:But I stopped.
Guest:I stopped that.
Guest:You had to give it up?
Guest:I had to give it up.
Guest:Went to comedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just turned it into a different direction.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just couldn't.
Guest:I remember honestly just being like, I think at one fight when I was a kid, and this is like an early, like 10th or 11th grade, being like, I don't want to do this anymore.
Guest:I don't like...
Guest:Like I had fresh earrings when I was 14 or 15 and that pissed him off to no end.
Guest:I hadn't consulted anybody about it.
Guest:I think I got mom to sign off on it.
Guest:He just hated that because he was a left-wing political activist who beat his wife and child and was kind of homophobic, right?
Guest:And I was getting girly at 14 or 15.
Guest:I was growing my hair long.
Guest:I was trying to eyeshadow and rouge and stuff like that.
Guest:What was the influence there?
Guest:Who were the musicians?
Guest:David Bowie and Lou Reed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I was into it.
Guest:I was very into it.
Guest:So I remember the day that he knocked me hard enough to actually knock out an earring and the post dug into my neck.
Guest:And that was the day that I wound up getting thrown out of the house.
Guest:I had to go live with my dad dead.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:14 or 15.
Guest:So that was just a fucking mess.
Guest:It was a mess.
Guest:And the thing is about that period of time was that I had at that point a strong network of friends.
Guest:Like for the first time, I was close enough to grown up that my friends weren't just my friends.
Guest:There were meaningful people in my life who I talked to about my life and who I was constructing that amazing teenage life that you get with, right?
Guest:They know your struggle, you know?
Guest:And suddenly, there was this big blow-up day about which I remember only that he did that.
Guest:He was slapping me around the face hard enough to make the earring dig into my neck and make me bleed.
Guest:And I went back to my room and just sat there listening to music.
Guest:And my mom came down the hall to say it was time for dinner.
Guest:And I'd been sitting there for half an hour contemplating what I was going to do to express that I didn't deserve this and the extent of the rage.
Guest:So I punched my window.
Guest:I put my fist through the window.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It felt like a million bucks.
Guest:I bet.
Guest:I never felt so good in my whole life.
Guest:It was like, holy shit.
Guest:And the house melted down, right?
Guest:It was like, there was this immediate, you know, my stepfather screamed that he was going to beat everybody's ass even worse.
Guest:And my mother's, my sister's crying.
Guest:It was a whole terrible scene.
Guest:You're losing?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, bleeding all up the arm.
Guest:And I just felt like a million bucks.
Guest:I never, I mean, it was like, you know what?
Guest:I mean, it just felt so good to show them what it felt like inside.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, there was no way of getting it through their heads.
Guest:And also it's sort of a way of trumping the pain.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That they inflicted or that he inflicted.
Guest:Yeah, no, that's right.
Guest:It's like you.
Guest:You win in some weird way.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:No, that's right.
Guest:That was my victory.
Guest:But bar none, I think this is the beginning of the end for us was there was a loaded handgun in our house.
Guest:And I remember Cordell having my mom held like a hostage with a handgun and seeing that as a kid.
Guest:What, during a fight?
Guest:During a fight.
Guest:And that was like...
Guest:I remember like going, what is going like that?
Guest:You know, as a kid and as I can say it now and I go, wow, like even thinking about now, I'm like, wow, that was crazy dark.
Guest:Like that's insane.
Guest:But like as a kid, it doesn't register.
Guest:I don't think it's like what's going on.
Guest:You just probably sense that your mom's in danger.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And that was like, and I remember like, you must've just been crying all the fucking time.
Guest:And I remember saying to my mom, like, we got to get out of here.
Guest:Like, I mean, my mom's like, no, no, no, it's okay.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:I was like, we got to go.
Guest:We got to go.
Marc:Did he hit her too?
Guest:Um, yeah, he hit me, hit her.
Guest:I mean, I, but you know what?
Guest:Never to the point of like, we never were hurt.
Guest:So I think that was like my, like, that was always my kind of, uh, like line.
Guest:Like, oh, well we don't have broken arms or we don't have this or we don't have that.
Marc:Was there some party that felt bad for him?
Guest:Um, no.
Guest:No.
Marc:No, I thought of him.
Marc:He didn't cry and apologize and fucking, you know.
Guest:He would apologize, but he was like an older brother instead of a dad.
Guest:So it was like that kind of relationship.
Guest:So it was a lot of like, yeah, a lot of like, and a lot of like, you know, like I think he was like competitive for my mom's affection towards me, which is insane.
Guest:It's like, well, that's a mother and a son.
Guest:That's not your husband.
Guest:And, you know, so it would come out a lot in Indian burns, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like that kind of stuff, which would really hurt.
Guest:And, but I do remember calling like, but we, like we called Child Protective Services at one point and they came to the house and they interviewed our parents.
Guest:side by side and uh and they were like does this happen and my mom's like no cordell and your mom my mom and they're like no and they talked to me i was like yes they're like oh well the kid's lying that the parents are telling the truth and then they get beaten for that yeah oh yeah of course like my mom i think rebelled in the most crazy way because my dad's so nice and great and the man she's married to right now also wonderful and great so you're saying that that okay so cordell was like your mom's fuck you to your dad
Guest:Yeah, I think that she didn't.
Guest:She was like, I want something different.
Guest:And she got something insanely different.
Guest:You know, like, and then my mom kind of wised up at a certain point.
Guest:She's like, oh, we're out of here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And guys throwing a pitchfork.
Guest:Yeah, kid.
Guest:This guy has more guns than he has shirts, you know.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:How'd she shake him?
Guest:That sounds like it would have been hard to shake that guy.
Guest:This is it.
Guest:You want to hear how you shook him?
Guest:This is a crazy thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My mom created, she pretended that he won a trip, a hunting trip.
Guest:She created these envelopes and was like, Cordell, you won this trip.
Guest:She did the layout and everything?
Guest:She did everything, and she got him plane tickets, got him a hotel, and created this whole fantasy seven days away from him.
Guest:The minute he left the house, a moving truck pulled in, and we got all of our shit out of the house, and we took off.
Guest:You left Cordell's farm?
Guest:Yeah, we left Cordell's farm, and we moved into a small one-bedroom apartment or two-bedroom apartment, and just that was it.
Guest:My stepfather died.
Guest:He died, and my sister called in the middle of the night to say Mike's dead, and then I went on tour a month or two later, and stuff started to crack open.
Guest:It was really amazing.
Guest:I just started to feel free with my feelings.
Guest:In general?
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:just my my vision my my ability to think about that time and how and how far i'd come i lived in iowa at the time you think that some impact was that you know the abuser was dead yes oh absolutely i mean it's like i tell people i tell survivors when they come up to me in the merch line is like you know they'll say why it's about abuse has your abuser died yet and they will say
Guest:you know, no, I say, I want you to be ready because it is, I mean, I hate to say this because you don't wish death on anybody.
Guest:It's wonderful when your reviews or dies.
Guest:It's wonderful.
Guest:It's like nothing in the world.
Guest:It's like you are free.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, there's a feeling that you will never be free of what you were, you know, there's that, but there is this, you know, even though my stepfather was helpless at the end of his life, but to know that the person who used to hurt you no longer can, it's very, very, very deep.
Guest:It's, it's unbelievable.
Guest:You forgive him?
Guest:No.
Guest:Which I hate about myself, but I don't.
Guest:My biggest fear, and it was a fear that I had as a kid, because there would be times where, as a kid, my mother might show up somewhere, or she would have somebody spy on me and do shit like that.
Guest:It was a really paranoid house growing up, where I remember one time I was supposed to leave my car at a certain place,
Guest:And I was picking up this girl that I was seeing at the time.
Guest:We were going to go to Six Flags amusement park.
Guest:So I was supposed to leave my car on one side of town, Six Flags on another side of town, both far from where my folks live.
Guest:And so I go pick up the girl.
Guest:She's like, we should drive to Six Flags together.
Guest:It'd be romantic because we were supposed to ride with her sister.
Guest:And I was like, well, I don't know.
Guest:My mom says that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then she kind of like touched my leg and it was like, okay, let's do it.
Guest:We drive and I had to take the highway.
Guest:And I think that was like, my folks didn't want me on the highway.
Guest:Get there.
Guest:Fine.
Guest:Come back.
Guest:And my mother used to make me carry around this cell phone.
Guest:One of those big, big ass car phones, phones ringing nonstop.
Guest:The girl answers it.
Guest:And I, and I'm just like, I immediately hang it up and I'm like, what the
Guest:fuck are you doing yeah and then i eventually answer it my mother's like you know why didn't you pick up the phone i was like i don't know if you called the right number this is the first time it rang and i dropped the i dropped the girl off and i get home and as i'm pulling into the driveway i see my stepfather has been tailing me at some point
Guest:And his car is coming behind mine.
Guest:And so he somewhere picked me up on the road, followed me back to our house.
Guest:What I learned is that my mother sent somebody to go see if my car was where it was supposed to be.
Guest:And this is what she tells me later.
Guest:She goes and see if my car is where it's supposed to be when it's not.
Guest:She calls the police knowing I took it.
Guest:She calls the police thinking that the police will pick me up and I'll learn a lesson.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:I was probably 17.
Guest:and so so there was and so and then when i get home like she has sort of opened up all of like all my papers anything that i had like locked up and like i used to keep like a briefcase where i could kind of lock things up all that stuff is spread out on her bed and on the kitchen table and it was one of those things where it's almost like the police have come in and raided the place and they're just going through everything but it's like violating
Guest:violating in a way that was like, this doesn't even have anything to do with the crime at hand.
Guest:The crime was that I took a car on the highway.
Guest:You're now looking at this as like, well, let's go through... His diary.
Guest:Yeah, let's basically go through all this shit.
Guest:And so...
Guest:There was always that sense of violation.
Guest:And that's what I lived with was this constant sense of you never know who you never know who's your real friend.
Guest:Like there was there was a there was a girl I knew.
Guest:She's actually she's a girl I grew up with.
Guest:She at one point told me that my mother had asked her to befriend me just to keep an eye on you.
Guest:Yeah, and just to report information back.
Guest:But yeah.
Guest:And she did that to my roommate, one of my roommates when I lived out here.
Guest:And she was like, tell me, like, just keep me in the loop on stuff.
Guest:And it was just like this very strange, paranoid, distrustful house.
Guest:Halfway through my first semester, I remember I was failing out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they sent, they sent like, they would send like a midterm report to your house and
Guest:and so i'm in the shower and my roommate comes knocking on the on the door of the bathroom and he's like hey your folks are on the phone and i was like well i'm on the shower i'm in the shower i'll call him back and so then he goes back and a minute later he's like they're not getting off the phone they're saying get off the shower get out of the shower and so i'm just like oh shit like you know i'm thinking did somebody die like what the
Guest:I don't even have to put the phone next to my ear my mother and stepfather screaming so loud about my grades at that point and just like you're failing out of everything we will come down there and my roommate and his girlfriend can hear the whole thing and it's just this very strange it was like it was this thing of oh shit I have to get my act together because I don't want to go back there like that was I'm not going back
Guest:yeah and that was I mean that house like it was you know there was a lot there was a lot of distrust there was a lot of yelling there was a lot of that stuff so it was like oh right I don't want to go back but I'm also not this student that she wants me to be I have to figure out who I am and I've got to figure out like the classes I need to take to make this work so I never have to go back there
Marc:Leslie Jones.
Marc:Okay, so you left here, you got a scholarship to Fort Collins.
Marc:Now, Colorado is probably the whitest state in the world.
Guest:Absolutely, and probably still is the white.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I think that's what they need to change.
Guest:I'm not white enough for Colorado.
Guest:No, they would kick you the fuck out.
Guest:They'd be like, yeah, you got some engine or something in you, son.
Marc:They got some Jew in there.
Marc:There was some Jew in there.
Guest:What's going on?
Guest:You ain't pure.
Guest:You ain't pure.
Guest:No, it not only is the very whitest town, it's the very purest.
Guest:They have only the purest air there, too.
Guest:I think they check your lungs when you pass the border, that motherfucker.
Guest:When I went up there and was working out, that shit was killing me.
Marc:The air, because of too high altitude?
Guest:It was killing me, son.
Marc:Well, I mean, you get sick, you get tired, you can't breathe.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It was killing me.
Guest:And I still was the best basketball player on the team.
Guest:Were you the only black player?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I was the only black player, Mr.
Guest:Marin, yes, I was the only black player.
Guest:Well, there was a light-skinned girl, but she really didn't count.
Guest:And she didn't come to the next year.
Marc:But how did that make you feel?
Marc:How were you treated?
Guest:First of all, I hated every... I complained.
Guest:Literally, I got there and I didn't know that I was going to be the only black girl on the team.
Guest:Literally, I was like, I am fucking in...
Guest:I don't know how this is going to work out because I'm very militant too.
Guest:So I'm very outspoken.
Guest:So what did you – you know, I'm that.
Guest:And so it's like when I walked into basketball practice, I walked in with a radio.
Guest:So I'm the stereotype.
Guest:I walked in like I was going to the park to play ball because that's where I played is at the park.
Guest:So it was – you know, it was an adjustment for me, and I was very lonely.
Guest:I was in Colorado, and a lot of times I was like –
Guest:oh i was rebelling on all levels so my coach knew that i was like at the point where i was i wanted to go home because he came to my apartment i had my mattress in the living room because i just was like i just was like this was so new to me like i had my own place i was like this if i oh god if i could go back if i could go back with my mind now oh god i would have ran that place
Guest:I would have ran Colorado.
Guest:Do you understand me?
Guest:Why did you have your mattress in the living room?
Guest:Because I was scared.
Guest:I didn't want to sleep in the room.
Guest:There was nobody in the apartment with me.
Guest:You know, I was fucking alone.
Guest:I was scared.
Guest:So I'm a kid.
Guest:I was like 18.
Guest:So when he came to the apartment, he was like, oh, my God, you got to meet people.
Guest:You got to meet other black people.
Guest:So he found the BSU on campus, the Black Student Union.
Guest:Yes, there's a building full of black people on the campus.
Guest:And I'm sitting.
Guest:this is where we keep them and this and this if you was to talk to him today he would say that was the worst thing I ever did because I completely became a party animal my folks left me in 1969 which was a little unusual usually you leaving them but they left me in New Jersey in 1969 and went to California right
Guest:So that sort of left you on your own to continue parenting yourself as best as you could.
Guest:And, you know, your life was yours from that point on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that suited me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was...
Guest:It was just one of the things that for where I was at, I was independent already.
Guest:I had the band.
Guest:I had my own little community that I was a part of.
Guest:I was making a few bucks on the weekend so I could survive.
Guest:And I was happily independent.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Not making a lot of money.
Guest:No.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Of course, you're making $20.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But anybody that couldn't live on $20 or $40 in 1969, having no dependents, anybody could do that.
Marc:It was a different time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you ate for $3 a day, $4 a day was all you needed to eat.
Guest:So it was just enough money to get by and have a good time on.
Guest:Terry Gross.
Guest:Well, my parents, when I decided to hitchhike cross country, they were very, very upset about it.
Marc:I'm upset now.
Guest:Well, now that I'm the age that I am, I think like, my gosh, no wonder they were so upset.
Guest:But my attitude then was, you know, you're not telling me what to do.
Guest:Right, fuck you, right?
Guest:I'm an adult.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, you don't control me anymore.
Yeah.
Guest:Dan Harmon.
Guest:For those of us who are not prodigies, who are not blowing minds by 15, you know, I think it's better to grow up in a smaller town where you can just you have this sandbox where if you decide at 22 that you want to do stand up, you want to be a writer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In Milwaukee.
Guest:if you stood on a street corner and said, I'm a welder and you did that three days in a row, sooner or later, someone's going to give you a job welding.
Guest:Like it's just, it was, and that same went for writers.
Guest:I mean, you didn't get paid anything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But, but, but in the five years from when I declared myself a writer to when I was leaving for LA, I was like working for the mayor.
Guest:I was doing like radio shows.
Guest:It was like, like within Milwaukee, I was, I was given every opportunity that I, that I,
Guest:thought that I wanted you know what I mean you made it to the top if I wanted to write a play I could write a play if I wanted to if I wanted to do a radio commercial for Bacardi there was always you know some ad campaign would come through and they wanted a cheap writer yeah it was um it was a nice place to cut your teeth President Barack Obama I started keeping a journal when I was around 20 yeah and uh you know kept it up until I went to law school yeah so for about seven years sometimes I go back and I read this stuff and
Guest:I'm still the same guy, which is good.
Marc:Emotionally?
Marc:Obviously not emotionally, but there's moments where you can sort of lock in.
Marc:What parts of your journal are you like, oh.
Marc:Are there still struggles that you were having then that you have now?
Guest:Well, that's where stuff's changed in the sense that
Guest:stuff that was bugging you by the time you're 53, either you worked it out or you've just forgiven yourself and you've said, look, this is who I am.
Guest:Oh, I've got to write that down so I can just forgive myself?
Guest:Well, assuming that you're not hurting anybody.
Guest:No, but you know what I mean?
Guest:I think that you...
Guest:At that age, you're still trying to figure out who are you, how do I live, what's my code, what's important to me, what's not important to me.
Guest:And you're sorting through all kinds of contradictions.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, by the time you get into your 50s, hopefully a lot of those have been resolved.
Guest:You've come to terms and come to peace with some stuff.
Guest:And then some stuff you've just said, well, you know what, that's just who I am.
Guest:I've got some flaws, I've got some strengths, and that's okay.
Guest:I think I had a good escape back then, though, in a way.
Guest:Like, I feel like... I don't know.
Guest:Like, I love TV and movies, and I really got into comedy.
Guest:Moses and the Batmobile.
Guest:Yeah, Moses and the Batmobile.
Guest:But, like, I really got into movies and TV.
Guest:And the comedy was a real reprieve.
Guest:Comedy, yeah.
Guest:I listened to, like, Smothers Brothers albums.
Guest:Like, I had all my dad's old Smothers Brothers albums.
Guest:And it was just fun to kind of, like, sit and hear that.
Guest:And I remember, like...
Guest:Even reading an article, I think it was a Smothers Brothers article, where I think they had some messed up parents.
Guest:And I remember going like, oh, okay, well that's cool because maybe they had messed up parents, I had messed up parents.
Guest:It evens out.
Marc:If you upload your pre-order receipt.
Marc:If you're in New York City, come out to the Union Square Barnes & Noble on the day the book comes out, Tuesday, October 10th at 7 p.m.
Marc:Brendan and I will talk and do a Q&A and sign books.
Marc:You don't need a ticket, just get there early enough to get a seat.
Marc:We'll also be in San Francisco at the Alamo Drafthouse as part of Litquake.
Marc:That's Friday, October 13th at 9 p.m.
Marc:There are a few tickets left for that, so go to litquake.org to get your seats.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:All right.
Marc:Should I play some guitar?
Marc:Should I?
Marc:I can.
Marc:I don't have anything planned.
Marc:I can play a little.
.
.
.
.
Guest:Boomer lives!