Episode 899 - Nell Scovell

Episode 899 • Released March 18, 2018 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you what the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fucksters?

00:00:14Marc:What's happening?

00:00:14Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:15Marc:This is my podcast.

00:00:17Marc:WTF, welcome to it.

00:00:20Marc:How's it going?

00:00:20Marc:How's your Monday morning going?

00:00:23Marc:Are you okay?

00:00:25Marc:What's happening?

00:00:26Marc:I'm recording this Sunday.

00:00:27Marc:I don't know what's happened this morning.

00:00:30Marc:All right, have we turned into a bonafide authoritarian country?

00:00:35Marc:What's happening?

00:00:36Marc:I don't know what the big mystery is with some people.

00:00:40Marc:It's an agenda.

00:00:42Marc:That's what they want.

00:00:44Marc:Authoritarianism.

00:00:45Marc:So what do we do?

00:00:49Marc:I don't know.

00:00:49Marc:Hope the voting works.

00:00:52Marc:I guess if he gets rid of Mueller, we're going to have to at least get out in the streets and do what we can, right?

00:01:01Marc:Or are we just going to wear the hat?

00:01:03Marc:All right, what?

00:01:05Marc:I have to wear this hat now when?

00:01:07Marc:Just outside or?

00:01:09Marc:Oh, at work too?

00:01:11Marc:Oh, okay.

00:01:12Marc:And don't ask any questions.

00:01:13Marc:About anything?

00:01:15Marc:oh yeah you're right i know i know what you're talking about yeah yeah it's right so just honor the fear that's what you're saying okay but i can still it doesn't change my my internet right or anything car is the same credit card's all still good everything still works the same way all right okay so this hat is there a choice of colors uh sorry no okay this one's fine red's fine

00:01:40Marc:It's fine.

00:01:41Marc:I never was much for the slogan.

00:01:42Marc:You're right.

00:01:43Marc:See, I'm asking questions.

00:01:45Marc:Okay.

00:01:45Marc:What happened to those people down the street?

00:01:47Marc:Did they just... Oh, sorry.

00:01:49Marc:No, no, no.

00:01:50Marc:I'm good.

00:01:51Marc:No, I'm going to go work in my yard.

00:01:54Marc:So, look, people die every day.

00:02:01Marc:And you know some of them, and it's one of those things in life that I guess we're built to handle, and there's certainly no avoiding it.

00:02:11Marc:But some people, depending on the life we live, go sooner for reasons that may have something to do with how they lived.

00:02:21Marc:But in the racket I'm in, some people go hard for many years.

00:02:29Marc:And they may give it up, but they go hard.

00:02:31Marc:And Mike McDonald, Canadian Mike McDonald, the Canadian comic, was certainly one of those people.

00:02:37Marc:And he passed away over the weekend.

00:02:41Marc:And I had talked to him recently.

00:02:44Marc:And he was doing all right.

00:02:48Marc:I believe he had a new liver.

00:02:50Marc:And he certainly...

00:02:53Marc:He's certainly gone through it, and we talked a lot about that.

00:02:56Marc:It's still in the feed.

00:02:57Marc:You can go to wtfpod.com slash podcast and find it.

00:03:02Marc:It's still up live.

00:03:03Marc:We recorded it, or we posted it August 10th.

00:03:07Marc:And I always liked Mike, and over the years I would see him occasionally.

00:03:10Marc:I can't say that we were close, but not unlike many people in my business.

00:03:15Marc:We see each other here and there on the road, you know, run into him at clubs.

00:03:20Marc:But I always liked him.

00:03:22Marc:He was always a very back in the day, very disgruntled, aggravated, simmering, explosive, but but lovable guy.

00:03:32Marc:And and, you know, he he battled a lot of things and his health was not great.

00:03:38Marc:But when I talked to him, it was certainly better.

00:03:40Marc:And he seemed to have some peace in his life.

00:03:43Marc:And now he's passed away, and I just wanted to draw attention to that and let people know if you didn't know and also let you know that the episode, if you want to get to know Mike or you want to hear what I imagine was one of the last full conversations with him, it's there.

00:04:02Marc:It's there in the feed if you go to WTF pod slash podcast.

00:04:06Marc:And for some reason, when I was driving over here...

00:04:12Marc:This song came on in my shuffle in the car, and I don't know that I'd ever paid attention to the lyrics, and I was thinking about what I was going to say about Mike and about death and about choosing a way of life or having a way of life choose you that may not be the best...

00:04:29Marc:the best uh idea but sometimes because of uh troubles of the mind troubles of the heart uh or just a full-on fury of uh of uh misguided passion and

00:04:44Marc:You know, you get fucked up.

00:04:47Marc:And, you know, I was just listening and this song came up and I'm going to read it because it is by one of the great bards, one of the great American poets.

00:05:02Marc:And I read it over after listening to it and I thought it was appropriate.

00:05:07Marc:I thought it was appropriate for many of us.

00:05:09Marc:So this is like a soldier.

00:05:12Marc:by johnny cash with the twilight colors falling and the evening laying shadows hidden memories come stealing from my mind and i feel my own heart beating out the simple joy of living and i wonder how i ever was that kind but the wild road i was rambling was always out there calling and you said a hundred times i should have died then you reached down and touched me and lifted me up with you so i believe it was a road that i was meant to ride

00:05:39Marc:I'm like a soldier getting over the war.

00:05:42Marc:I'm like a young man getting over his crazy days.

00:05:45Marc:Like a bandit getting over his lawless ways.

00:05:48Marc:I don't have to do that anymore.

00:05:50Marc:I'm like a soldier getting over the war.

00:05:53Marc:There are nights I don't remember in pain it's been forgotten and a lot of things I choose not to recall.

00:05:59Marc:There are faces that come to me in my darkest secret memories.

00:06:03Marc:Faces that I wish would not come back at all.

00:06:06Marc:But in my dream's parade of lovers from the other times and places, there's not one that matters now no matter who.

00:06:12Marc:I'm just thankful for the journey and that I've survived the battles and that my spoils of victory is you.

00:06:18Marc:I'm like a soldier getting over the war.

00:06:21Marc:I'm like a young man getting over his crazy days.

00:06:24Marc:Like a bandit getting over his lawless ways.

00:06:28Marc:Every day gets better than the day before.

00:06:31Marc:I'm like a soldier getting over the war.

00:06:37Marc:Rest in peace, Mike McDonald.

00:06:44Marc:Today on the show, we've got a bit of a doubleheader.

00:06:46Marc:I got a nice long shorty with Bill Hader.

00:06:51Marc:And then after that, Nell Scovell is here.

00:06:54Marc:She is a comedy writer who has a new memoir out.

00:06:58Marc:She's written for a lot of shows you know.

00:07:01Marc:It's called Just the Funny Parts, and we'll talk to her in a little bit.

00:07:05Marc:Before I bring in Bill Hader here,

00:07:09Marc:I wanted to tell you that I'm going to be jamming with Jimmy Vivino, who's the band leader on Conan O'Brien, the guitar player.

00:07:16Marc:I sat in with him the other week.

00:07:19Marc:He's invited me to do a few more tunes with him, and I'm going to tell you about it.

00:07:23Marc:This is sort of a long tease, but if you're paying attention and you're listening, I'm going to be jamming a few songs with Jimmy Vivino and the West Coast Blues Soul Rockers Saturday, March 24th at Big Mama's Rib Shack in Pasadena, California at 8 p.m.

00:07:39Marc:So if you're in the neighborhood, you want to see Jimmy, who's an amazing guitar player, puts together a great combo and a lot of big guys come down and play guitar with him.

00:07:48Marc:It's really something to see if you're into that stuff, if you're into that music.

00:07:51Marc:And I'm very honored and flattered to be asked to do it.

00:07:55Marc:And I did OK last time.

00:07:56Marc:So so I guess I'm telling people I'm going to do it this time.

00:08:00Marc:So anyways, that's happening.

00:08:02Marc:Bill Hader, who I always like to talk to, has a new HBO series, Barry.

00:08:06Marc:It's premiering Sunday, March 25th, and he stopped by to chat.

00:08:09Marc:This is me and Bill.

00:08:17Marc:Are there any guys that you listen to on records, like comedy, that you ever go back and listen to?

00:08:24Guest:Dana Gold's album, Fun House.

00:08:27Guest:I listen to that sometimes.

00:08:28Guest:I remember when I was a PA and I was a runner for this HBO show called If These Walls Could Talk Part 2.

00:08:38Guest:Wow.

00:08:39Guest:And I had to drive film elements around all day.

00:08:42Guest:And I listened.

00:08:44Guest:I had that tape and I just wore it out.

00:08:46Guest:I just listened to it.

00:08:47Guest:Dana Gold?

00:08:48Guest:Yeah.

00:08:48Guest:And when I did Vincent Price on SNL, I didn't know how to do Vincent Price's

00:08:51Guest:So I told Dana, I'm doing your Vincent Price because I don't know how to do it because he had that whole bit about Vincent Price picking up women.

00:08:59Guest:Right.

00:09:00Guest:I couldn't have noticed you sitting up here.

00:09:02Guest:Why won't you look at me when I speak to you?

00:09:04Guest:Yeah, that whole stuff.

00:09:06Guest:And he made me.

00:09:08Guest:And I thought that was great.

00:09:10Guest:But yeah, I mean, I kind of grab little things here and there.

00:09:16Marc:In the shuffle?

00:09:17Guest:In my shuffle?

00:09:18Guest:Yeah, in the shuffle, like a Richard Pryor thing.

00:09:20Guest:Oh, that comes up on my shuffle.

00:09:21Marc:I had one of those today.

00:09:23Marc:Schimmel.

00:09:23Marc:I've been listening to Robert Schimmel.

00:09:25Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:09:25Guest:I haven't listened to much Robert Schimmel.

00:09:27Marc:Yeah, he's very funny.

00:09:29Marc:I mean, again, I don't know if it ages well or not, but it's still funny.

00:09:33Guest:yeah you also kind of like good music it takes you back to a specific time yeah some bill hicks stuff is like that for me where it's like if i have friends in the car they're like what the fuck are we listening to and i'm like i don't know man when i was a sophomore in high school this really made me laugh because i was really angry yeah you know oh they can't they can't lock in

00:09:53Guest:I think they equate him to people who copied him.

00:09:56Guest:Oh yeah?

00:09:56Guest:Sometimes.

00:09:57Guest:And I go, no, no, no.

00:09:58Guest:He had like this humility that those people don't have.

00:10:01Guest:Like he would always kind of call, you know, say I play birthday parties and stuff like, you know, kind of saying like, I know I'm a bit over the top and I'm a little angry and I'm like, there was an awareness there that I appreciate.

00:10:15Marc:Awareness that he could be interpreted as being preachy.

00:10:17Guest:preachy and like i know i get to the fart jokes yeah yeah you know that we're gonna land on uh dick joke island yeah yeah that's what we're working towards we're working towards dick dick joke that was yeah parachuting in i can't remember

00:10:35Guest:dick joke island i can't remember the imagery but it was like it was his explanation for how the show would yeah he's like don't worry we're building to dick joke island yeah he that thing where that woman goes you suck you've seen that right oh yeah i think so he goes you suck and he just fucking unleashes just holy hell on this woman oh you mean in a real thing a real thing in the audience yeah where he's like he's like he goes go to a madonna's concert go someplace good

00:11:03Guest:and then afterwards he just goes god i really dug myself into a hole here and the rest of the thing is just him going ah man what did i and people are still now the audience is shouting tons of shit out at him just to bait him and he's just going like ah what did i do yeah yeah and that's why i go that's the difference between him and some of the people who

00:11:25Marc:maybe copied his thing yeah yeah there was a certain type of comic at that time who would get stuck in a hicksy thing yeah like i i think i was uh guilty of it for a few minutes where you know you just kind of lock into that yeah and then you can't you can't carry it but there's nobody really pushing the envelope like i mean i think stanhope does but there there there's not that many people that can live in that world

00:11:50Guest:Yeah, I heard David Cross sometimes.

00:11:53Guest:Sometimes.

00:11:53Guest:That was Fred's bit, the Nicholas Fain thing he used to do on Update was a bit of that David Cross that, can you, I just, I mean, this happened today.

00:12:06Guest:Yeah.

00:12:07Guest:I mean, can you, can you, I mean, I can't do it the way he did it.

00:12:12Guest:He would do Nicholas Fain with no cue cards or anything.

00:12:15Guest:And I remember when I go, are you doing David Cross?

00:12:17Guest:And he just kind of gave, he goes, there's a bunch of people.

00:12:20Marc:I know, he said he wanted me in there once.

00:12:22Marc:The character.

00:12:23Yeah.

00:12:23Guest:I was flattered.

00:12:24Guest:Yeah, the angry guy.

00:12:25Marc:Yeah, angry comic guy.

00:12:27Guest:Angry comic guy.

00:12:27Marc:Yeah, I'm not as much anymore.

00:12:30Marc:It comes back sometimes.

00:12:31Marc:It's been coming back lately.

00:12:32Guest:You think that's an important thing, like the anger part in comedy?

00:12:36Marc:Now we get into the... I think that a lot of guys I know are cranky.

00:12:41Guest:Yeah.

00:12:41Marc:Some are angry.

00:12:42Marc:But like the nature, the angry comic, I don't know, like, you know...

00:12:47Guest:outwardly angry yeah no just like like for instance i remember talking to apatow about because i work at south park sometimes yeah he goes those guys are still good because they're still so angry yeah you know yeah and i was like i wonder yeah and then i go on there i'm like are you guys angry you guys seem pretty okay and then then we'll talk about something like oh no yeah i guess we're all still angry i don't know well i think that's it i think there's a clarity to it that keeps you focused yeah i mean if things still like whether whether it affects your life or not if you're driven to

00:13:17Guest:to be angry about injustice yeah it's probably a good thing you know whether it's really about injustice or not if you want to place your anger in that area yeah then yeah i think that's helpful yeah yeah are you you're not an angry guy though i guess not no i i i get yeah i mean i i'm like one of those people i would get angry about a thing that and then very quickly people go oh you really don't know what you're talking about and then i go oh okay yeah i should calm down and

00:13:44Guest:I'm just repeating shit that my really smart friends just said and they're calling me on it and I'm like, well, I don't know because I didn't ask that question to my friend.

00:13:54Guest:That's your defense?

00:13:56Guest:I'll get back to you.

00:13:58Guest:Let me ask him so I know what my opinion is.

00:14:00Guest:I was that way.

00:14:03Marc:My friend Nate said that if there are two guys that were really convincing about the flat earth thing, he'd go with it.

00:14:14Yeah.

00:14:14Guest:i know i would be very like if someone's really because my my i don't know i grew like my my dad was very much like a kind of a contrarian type person and so anybody like that i always just believe you know right i remember going to see the movie the abyss yeah

00:14:31Guest:And there was a part.

00:14:32Guest:The water movie?

00:14:33Guest:Yeah, the water movie.

00:14:34Guest:And there was a part where Ed Harris is having problems in his marriage and this metal door is about to shut.

00:14:41Guest:And if it shuts, he's going to drown.

00:14:43Marc:Yeah.

00:14:44Guest:And so he sticks his hand in the thing and it catches his hand.

00:14:47Guest:Oh God, his hand got caught.

00:14:48Guest:But no, his wedding ring stopped the door.

00:14:52Guest:So the water again, it saved his life.

00:14:55Guest:Yeah.

00:14:55Guest:And I'm nine years old watching this and my dad's in the theater and out loud my dad goes, oh, get it.

00:15:01Guest:for some reason that just switched the circuits in my brain of that's lame don't ever do that where everybody else was very emotionally moved by it i was just get it it was a weird moment where you go oh oh okay that's stupid don't do that

00:15:21Guest:He was like, I don't get it.

00:15:23Guest:That's just like on the nose, didactic storytelling.

00:15:27Marc:The abyss, that's where the room happens underwater and there's some sort of living.

00:15:32Guest:There's like aliens in the water.

00:15:33Marc:There's water arms and things.

00:15:35Guest:Yeah, there's a water face.

00:15:37Guest:It's a James Cameron movie.

00:15:39Guest:Actually, better than the movie is the making of The Abyss because, you know, Ed Harrison was drowned.

00:15:44Guest:He did?

00:15:45Guest:Yeah.

00:15:45Guest:There's a great making of like a two hour long making of The Abyss.

00:15:49Marc:Of The Abyss?

00:15:50Guest:It's kind of better than the movie.

00:15:51Guest:Yeah.

00:15:51Guest:Just like how hell it was making that movie.

00:15:53Marc:Did you see that Jim Carrey doc?

00:15:55Yeah.

00:15:55Guest:No, I haven't.

00:15:56Guest:You didn't watch it?

00:15:57Guest:No, I haven't.

00:15:58Guest:I don't know why I haven't watched it.

00:16:00Guest:I think anything having to do with show business or anything having to do with people I kind of know or comedy, I tend to go, I'll watch that a little later.

00:16:12Guest:I'm going to watch the part nine of the world at war because all these people are dead.

00:16:19Guest:I don't know any of these people.

00:16:21Guest:Do you know what I mean?

00:16:21Guest:A thing comes on and now it's like I watch a thing and I'm like, oh, that's what McBrayer's doing.

00:16:26Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:16:26Guest:Well, that's why he didn't get back to me.

00:16:28Guest:Oh, he's been in Vancouver.

00:16:30Yeah.

00:16:30Guest:You know where, oh, Rudd, he's doing that.

00:16:32Guest:Oh, he was in fucking Berlin.

00:16:33Guest:That's why he didn't give out.

00:16:35Marc:Oh, okay.

00:16:35Marc:Yeah.

00:16:36Marc:I just saw that movie, Mute.

00:16:38Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:16:39Guest:That was wild.

00:16:40Guest:Rudd's not so cute in that.

00:16:41Guest:Rudd is insane in that.

00:16:43Guest:Yeah, he starts out cute and then it's not... He starts out cute and not cute Rudd very quick in that movie.

00:16:47Guest:Yeah, it turns.

00:16:48Guest:I like it.

00:16:49Guest:I like watching Unhinged Rudd.

00:16:50Guest:He was in a play I saw called Grace that he was totally insane in with Michael Shannon.

00:16:55Guest:Oh, really?

00:16:56Guest:They were...

00:16:57Guest:yeah it was great he did it he pulled it off yeah just seeing him nuts was great yeah i guess he he doesn't do it as often as he should i like it i like watching him kind of play unhinged yeah i texted him that i said i watched mute i like seeing you unhinged he was like oh thanks like the cutest reply parts no he's just so he's like just the sweetest guy you know is he in real life yeah yeah i've never talked to him oh he's the nicest never had him in here i don't know why

00:17:24Guest:Oh, you should totally have him in here.

00:17:26Guest:He's the best.

00:17:27Guest:I don't know why it hasn't happened.

00:17:28Guest:He's one of my favorite people.

00:17:30Guest:He's such a good guy.

00:17:32Marc:So what have you been doing?

00:17:34Marc:You've been working on this Barry thing for the last year?

00:17:36Guest:Well, no, I've been working on this.

00:17:40Guest:When did we pitch it?

00:17:41Guest:We pitched it before I shot Trainwreck.

00:17:44Guest:So, yeah, 2014.

00:17:46Marc:Have you been in a movie recently?

00:17:48Guest:I don't know.

00:17:50Guest:I don't think so.

00:17:50Guest:It's not out yet?

00:17:51Guest:No, I did a movie called Noel with Anna Kendrick, but that's not going to come out for a while.

00:17:56Guest:How was that?

00:17:57Guest:It was fun.

00:17:58Guest:Yeah?

00:17:58Guest:Yeah, it was a big Christmas movie.

00:18:00Guest:Do you think it's going to come out around Christmas?

00:18:02Guest:Not weird if it didn't.

00:18:05Guest:That's why I shouldn't run a studio.

00:18:07Guest:I'm like, let's bring this out in the summer like an asshole.

00:18:14Guest:That's me in the meeting with a bunch of people.

00:18:16Guest:We're going to take it out in the summer like a bunch of dipshits.

00:18:20Guest:What do you think?

00:18:26Marc:Who'd you create Barry with?

00:18:28Guest:Alec Berg.

00:18:29Guest:How do I know that guy?

00:18:31Guest:He worked on Seinfeld forever.

00:18:32Guest:He did Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David.

00:18:35Guest:And then the past couple of years, he's done Silicon Valley.

00:18:39Guest:He's the big guy.

00:18:41Guest:He and Mike Judge do Silicon Valley.

00:18:42Guest:He's a showrunner guy.

00:18:43Yeah.

00:18:43Guest:Very smart guy.

00:18:45Marc:You guys came up with it together?

00:18:47Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:18:48Guest:We just sat in a, I got like a development deal with HBO and then they said, you know, turn something in.

00:18:55Guest:And so he and I, and we had the same agent.

00:18:58Marc:Yeah.

00:18:59Guest:And I go, I don't know anything about putting a show together.

00:19:01Guest:And they go, oh, we get together with Alec Berg.

00:19:03Guest:And so we sat at a diner and threw it.

00:19:06Guest:We talked about one idea for a month and a half.

00:19:09Guest:And then one day we came in and I just said, this is terrible.

00:19:12Guest:And he goes, yeah, I know.

00:19:13Marc:What was that idea?

00:19:14Guest:It was me playing a guy I went to high school with.

00:19:16Guest:And it was very like zero stakes.

00:19:19Guest:Yeah.

00:19:19Guest:It's a lot of like, it could be just an episode about him, you know, looking at his shoes or something.

00:19:25Guest:And that'll be fun.

00:19:26Marc:It's the no idea idea.

00:19:27Guest:The no idea idea.

00:19:28Guest:Exactly.

00:19:31Guest:We were putting a hat on a hat on a hat on a no ID idea.

00:19:34Guest:And so it just didn't, it went nowhere.

00:19:38Guest:And so, yeah.

00:19:39Guest:So then I, I kind of had a frustration was like, what if I played a hit man?

00:19:43Guest:And he went, Oh, I fucking hate, I hate hit men.

00:19:46Guest:Just the word hit man.

00:19:47Guest:It's so played out.

00:19:47Guest:I don't like that.

00:19:48Guest:Yeah.

00:19:49Guest:No, but it was like me, like me being, like me, like me, like dumb guy from Oklahoma.

00:19:56Guest:And then quickly we got the idea that maybe he went to an acting class.

00:20:02Guest:And then I was like, yeah, maybe like acting class is kind of like therapy stuff.

00:20:05Guest:but it's like if you if you took the hitman world and made it you know it's all uh high stakes but no drama and then he went to this kind of shitty acting class in the valley that's all you know no stakes and high drama you know and it was this funny world that he wanted to belong to this kind of waiting for guffman world but he came from this

00:20:30Guest:And if we can make the hit man world be very realistic, violence wise, like not cool.

00:20:36Guest:Right.

00:20:37Marc:You know, not cool.

00:20:39Guest:Like, not like, you know, like the slow motion, two guns throwing in the air and not, not make the, the, the deaths funny or not, not like in a glib way.

00:20:49Marc:Just sort of like raw violence.

00:20:51Guest:Raw violence in that it fucks him up.

00:20:53Guest:And then when we went into HBO, we were like, yeah, you know how an unforgiven Clint Eastwood, it's like he kills people and it really fucks him up and he has destroyed his soul.

00:21:04Guest:It'd be like if that guy took an acting class.

00:21:07Yeah.

00:21:08Marc:How was that room?

00:21:10Guest:They were like, okay.

00:21:11Guest:I mean, they were great, actually.

00:21:13Guest:They were like, no, we get it.

00:21:14Guest:No, we see it.

00:21:14Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:15Guest:No, you should do it that way.

00:21:16Guest:Like, they were kind of like, we just were very clear.

00:21:20Guest:Like, we want the violence to be very real.

00:21:23Marc:So violence that your character?

00:21:25Guest:Perpetrates.

00:21:26Guest:Like, when I shoot people or, you know, strangle people, don't make it funny.

00:21:30Marc:So you're not a sympathetic guy, really?

00:21:32Guest:No, I think he's a confused guy.

00:21:34Guest:He's like an ex-Marine who's kind of confused.

00:21:37Guest:And, you know, the way Alec always described it, he's like, it's like you did all this training in the Marines for something good.

00:21:44Guest:So it'd be like if there was like someone who trained in dance, like a ballerina or something, who then to make money on hard times decides to strip, you know?

00:21:53Guest:Right.

00:21:54Guest:So it's like on hard times to make money, you do contract killing, but you hate it and you want to get out of it, but you're really good at it.

00:22:02Marc:But you're a sociopath.

00:22:04Guest:Basically, he's figuring that out.

00:22:06Guest:He doesn't think he is.

00:22:08Guest:That's a big question of like, is he a good person or is he a bad person?

00:22:12Marc:Does he justify these?

00:22:13Marc:There are scenes where he justifies what he does because the person he's killing is bad?

00:22:17Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:22:19Guest:Steven Root plays my kind of hitman agent guy or whatever this guy I work with.

00:22:27Guest:Your manager?

00:22:27Guest:My manager.

00:22:28Guest:Yeah.

00:22:28Guest:and that's you know he's like no this guy's a bad guy and i go but i met him and he seems really nice and it's like no no no no no no no you don't don't meet these people like you just have to go do it you know and um and henry winkler's in it he plays my uh the acting coach so it's very funny like because henry have you met henry yeah great he's like the sweetest guy in the world yeah oh hello yeah

00:22:52Guest:I don't know you, but can I give you a hug?

00:22:55Guest:You know, he's that guy.

00:22:56Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:22:57Guest:He's so sweet.

00:22:58Guest:And then he plays, you know, the first scene he shot was him yelling at an actress played by Sarah Goldberg.

00:23:06Guest:She's amazing in the show.

00:23:08Guest:And we went, Henry, you got to really go at her, you know, take three or four.

00:23:15Guest:I was like, Henry, you got to really yell at her, you know.

00:23:18Guest:And he goes, oh.

00:23:19Yeah.

00:23:19Guest:let me get this straight so this man is an asshole i said yes henry and he went got it and then he fucking unleashed this thing at this poor woman where she really started crying and we all were like whoa i had no idea that guy was in there you know so he's he it's like rod and mute you know these nice guys get to

00:23:40Guest:he's got it in there he's got it in there we all have it in there someplace sure yeah he made her cry for real yeah well she was an amazing actress but he really went out yeah did you use that take yeah yeah yeah but she was i think you know she was in the scene i don't think she was like henry why are you making me cry right yeah she was sure she's this amazing actor that kind of in the scene and it was acted correctly yeah she was listening and reacting and character and it went great

00:24:06Marc:What has she been in?

00:24:07Guest:Sarah Goldberg was in a show called Hindsight, which was on VH1, but she's mostly known for... She was nominated for an Olivier Award for Clybourne Park, a lot of Broadway, a lot of things.

00:24:18Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:24:19Guest:But she's amazing.

00:24:20Guest:She was one of those people that came in and just auditioned, and we all were like, how are you not a massive movie star right now?

00:24:29Guest:Are we just the luckiest people on earth right now?

00:24:31Guest:You know, one of those things where...

00:24:33Guest:You know, the casting director is like, don't hire her in the room.

00:24:37Guest:And I'm like, but she can't leave because someone's going to see her and put her in something, you know.

00:24:42Guest:Oh, really?

00:24:42Guest:Yeah, she was that thing.

00:24:44Guest:Don't hire her in the room.

00:24:45Guest:Please don't hire her in the room.

00:24:47Guest:Yeah, it was that thing where she saw me get really excited because I just thought she was great.

00:24:51Guest:And she's like, Bill, you got to like, you know, let it sit for 24 hours.

00:24:54Guest:You can't just say you got the part after one read.

00:24:56Guest:And I'm like, but she's perfect.

00:24:57Guest:And you were right.

00:24:59Guest:I was right.

00:25:00Guest:And I directed the first three and then...

00:25:03Guest:Is that a first for you?

00:25:04Guest:Yeah, that was a thing I always wanted to do, actually, before comedy or any of that stuff was direct and write and stuff.

00:25:11Marc:Were you able to really sink into it directing yourself?

00:25:14Yeah.

00:25:14Guest:Yeah, it was a bit tough.

00:25:15Guest:Have you ever done anything like that?

00:25:16Marc:Yeah, I did a couple episodes of my show.

00:25:19Marc:It was hard because I don't know that I got the full experience.

00:25:22Guest:Yeah.

00:25:23Marc:Because you're running back to check.

00:25:25Marc:You're running back to watch.

00:25:27Marc:You're leaning on your DP a lot.

00:25:29Guest:Yeah.

00:25:30Guest:And you're also kind of, in my experience, it was like there was one day where I didn't have to act.

00:25:36Guest:And I felt like that was the day where I was really getting to direct.

00:25:39Marc:You can actually do the directing thing.

00:25:41Guest:Yeah.

00:25:41Guest:Sarah Goldberg told me where she said it was very hard because we'd be in a scene.

00:25:45Guest:And then she didn't know if I was reacting as a character, as a director, because I'd make a sour face.

00:25:50Guest:And she's like, oh, he hates what I'm doing.

00:25:51Guest:Or is that all right?

00:25:54Guest:You know, like it just put the other actors in their heads.

00:25:56Guest:Yeah.

00:25:57Guest:Right.

00:25:58Marc:And yeah, I found it tricky.

00:25:59Marc:But I mean, how did it feel for you?

00:26:02Guest:i liked it after i got used to it but it was tricky it was kind of like um and we photo boarded everything first so i kind of really did a ton of prep on it so i was able to kind of like really hand off everything like here are the shots everybody now i'm gonna act and kind of watch the actors and yeah and did you have the playback machine

00:26:25Guest:yeah but the nice thing is i had alec berg there and when he directed episodes i was there so it was this nice thing of me walking back to alec going was that all right that am i yeah playing because he's the only other person knows the show as well as i do right going for right so and he he's a he's great so he could go one time he was like me and steven root did a take and he goes that was barely human yeah

00:26:49Guest:And I was like, all right, let's go for another take.

00:26:53Marc:That's a bad thing?

00:26:54Guest:Yeah, he's like, I don't even think that was a conversation.

00:26:56Guest:It didn't even mimic human behavior.

00:26:58Guest:It was like two guys trying to remember lines.

00:27:00Guest:Oh, really?

00:27:01Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:27:03Guest:That was barely human.

00:27:03Guest:We were like, got it.

00:27:05Guest:All right, let's try this again.

00:27:07Marc:Oh, that's wild.

00:27:08Marc:Yeah, because you can get up in your head, right?

00:27:12Guest:Oh, my gosh.

00:27:13Guest:Totally.

00:27:13Guest:I totally get in my head.

00:27:15Guest:And then it's a lot of it's just having to memorize it and then just like throw it away, you know?

00:27:19Marc:Yeah.

00:27:20Marc:Well, that's like when you're in every scene when I was doing my show, like I had to cram my head full all the time.

00:27:26Marc:Yeah.

00:27:26Marc:And you can't, you know, you just you got to do it when you get there.

00:27:29Guest:no yeah you either can do it or you can't well my first day of directing i sat down for the pilot of the show and i realized i didn't even thought about how i was going to play barry i didn't even thought about how i was going to play the character right so i just i just sat there the whole there's a whole scene in the first episode where i barely say anything because i'm just nodding and listening because i was just cutting my dialogue because i was like i don't fucking know how to

00:27:53Guest:play the guy or is it this or it's that because i hadn't thought about it i've been so preoccupied with creating it yeah creating everything set up yeah does that guy have the right shirt on is this person you know all that stuff but you hadn't thought about how you were going to play it for the series for the series i i sat down and on the first day was like wait a minute

00:28:13Guest:how the fuck do I play this?

00:28:15Guest:You know?

00:28:16Guest:You gotta make the guy up.

00:28:17Guest:Yeah, I know.

00:28:18Guest:And then after a couple of takes, figured it out.

00:28:21Guest:I was like, okay, yeah, this seems right.

00:28:23Guest:Is it based on anybody?

00:28:24Guest:No, it's... No, and the character changes throughout, which is interesting, but it is, you know, the kind of...

00:28:38Guest:It's not based on anybody.

00:28:39Guest:Emotionally, it's kind of, I thought about when I first got Saturday Night Live, this idea of being at a community of people that you really wanted to be a part of.

00:28:51Guest:Yeah.

00:28:51Guest:A feeling of like, man, I don't want to get fired.

00:28:53Guest:Right, right.

00:28:53Guest:Yeah.

00:28:54Guest:I want these people to, I so badly want to hang with this group.

00:28:58Marc:Yeah.

00:28:58Guest:Yeah.

00:28:58Guest:and those feelings.

00:29:01Guest:He gets that when he meets his acting class, this, like, how do I fit in, and what do I wear, and I'll just shut up and not say much.

00:29:10Guest:Right.

00:29:11Guest:And that's totally how I felt when I got to the show, so it was a bit of that stuff.

00:29:17Marc:Oh, good.

00:29:18Marc:And you like how they came out?

00:29:20Guest:I love how they came out.

00:29:22Guest:The nice thing about it that people have said who saw it was that –

00:29:26Guest:And the things I've heard that made me happy were they go, that is not at all what I thought it was going to be.

00:29:31Guest:That is very dark and very kind of emotional and stuff.

00:29:37Guest:And also it has a real kind of...

00:29:41Guest:narrative propulsion to it where after each you know what I mean like after each episode you're like oh fuck you know what's gonna happen next which cliffhangers at the end of it yeah very cliffhanger-y type thing which I uh is Root funny or serious in this one he's really funny okay

00:29:59Guest:he's kind of like those guys from Tulsa that I grew up around.

00:30:02Guest:He reminds me of like, yeah, guys who used to work for my dad or something.

00:30:06Guest:He's just kind of like a guy who plays golf.

00:30:07Marc:He's a Florida guy, isn't he?

00:30:09Guest:Yeah, yeah, but he has such a Midwestern vibe about him.

00:30:13Guest:But he's one of the best actors I've ever worked with.

00:30:16Guest:He and Sarah Goldberg specifically were people that when I worked with them, I don't know if you've had this experience, you go, oh shit, I really got to be on my...

00:30:25Guest:are you kidding me I'm barely an actor I have that all the time I'm doing all my scenes are with Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin I'm like oh my god what am I doing yeah I had that on this where I'm like oh man you know Sarah Goldberg come over she goes I was working on this last night and I think and I go you're working on it what do you mean you're working on it last night like learning your lines she's like no I know the lines but I was thinking in this moment it was like what you did what

00:30:54Guest:uh okay whatever nerd like i was such a loser on that and then it was so when you're in scenes with these people who've done you know that kind of layered up shakespeare and ibsen and all this stuff i'm like oh jeez i gotta you can watch them acting

00:31:13Guest:Yeah, I know.

00:31:14Guest:I'm like, I need cue cards just to know what I'm supposed to say.

00:31:19Marc:It is something to watch really experienced trained actors do the thing.

00:31:26Marc:Oh, my God.

00:31:27Marc:But you're very good at getting into character and doing things.

00:31:31Guest:I like doing it.

00:31:31Marc:Maybe you're just being hard on yourself.

00:31:33Guest:I'm always hard on myself, but that's how I keep moving forward.

00:31:39Marc:I think it's just that you judge yourself against where they came from.

00:31:41Guest:Maybe.

00:31:42Guest:You know what I think it is, is that you go, I wish I had that discipline.

00:31:46Guest:Right.

00:31:48Guest:I've always been that way where I just go, anything.

00:31:50Guest:Yeah.

00:31:51Guest:I'll go...

00:31:52Guest:God, I wish I had the discipline to fucking sit down and write that.

00:31:56Guest:You know what I mean?

00:31:57Guest:And I think I get hard on myself in that way.

00:31:59Guest:I mean, that's school.

00:32:01Guest:That's everything.

00:32:02Marc:I mean, at some point, you have to accept that your process is working.

00:32:06Guest:Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:32:08Guest:Exactly.

00:32:09Guest:No, you sound like a millennial say that to me.

00:32:12Guest:John Mulaney, I'll be like, I don't know.

00:32:13Guest:He's like, Bill, you're doing fine.

00:32:15Guest:I don't really need to hear about this anymore.

00:32:20Yeah.

00:32:20Guest:Like, I just think, uh-huh.

00:32:23Guest:You're very responsible.

00:32:25Guest:Yeah.

00:32:25Guest:Just relax.

00:32:28Marc:It's weird that I have a brain like that, too, where it's just, and I mean, my success is what it is.

00:32:34Marc:It's usually a success.

00:32:35Marc:but however i got here it's how i got here it's not the easiest way to do it being you know what however you when you don't think you're working hard enough or you think there's your things uh that you're being irresponsible or that you should put more effort into but like a lot of times like waiting till the last minute yeah is that's how you get into the thing totally yeah it's exhausting it's exhausting and terrifying but that terror sometimes propels you to yeah do a good thing yeah and

00:33:03Guest:I always, yeah, I think it was always a feeling of just, you know, when I watched them act or them, you know, that preparation or whatever going like, oh, man, I got to really step up my game.

00:33:18Guest:And it's more of just a pressure on myself to like them because...

00:33:24Guest:not in any sort of competitive way, but in a good way.

00:33:26Guest:It was the same thing at SNL.

00:33:28Guest:They make you better.

00:33:29Guest:Yeah.

00:33:29Guest:It's like when Marty Short or Steve Martin would come and host SNL, you were just like, Oh Jesus.

00:33:35Guest:You know, I remember one time Marty Short, I tried to like, I think I tried to improvise something or we add a line and we hadn't told him yet, but it was this sketch.

00:33:45Yeah.

00:33:45Guest:where i was uh called broadway sizzle yeah and i was playing like this harvey firestein type host of this show and and and he had just sang a song and i go how old are you and he says i'm 16.

00:34:01Guest:And the line was, I don't know if I improvised it or if they gave it to me.

00:34:05Guest:They probably gave it to me without him knowing.

00:34:06Guest:I go, are you wearing makeup?

00:34:09Guest:And immediately Marty Short goes, just street stuff.

00:34:14Guest:And it was in such a like...

00:34:16Guest:oh right you're martin is short i need to just fucking check myself it was so fast i just went oh my god just street stuff just street stuff and i just went that's the funniest thing i'd ever heard and uh i mean out of nowhere out of nowhere just street stuff like like i haven't gotten i haven't put in the period on my the sentence yet and he was boom right back at me

00:34:41Guest:and you just go right okay that's why you just you just stay in your lane man don't fuck with this you felt like you'd lost the the the battle there no not with a battle but just you know you're trying to like mess around with them and then you're like they're like they're a bomb and you go oh fuck i need to just say the words

00:35:04Guest:and not get in the way in that moment you knew it oh i knew it i was like oh i'm gonna like really play around with yeah we're gonna riff it up we're gonna riff it up oh you're a genius i'm gonna stop i'm gonna stop that was all of it i i that was the only thing i had and clearly it wasn't very good and

00:35:24Guest:Yeah.

00:35:25Guest:Yeah.

00:35:27Marc:Did he, did you say anything after he just let it go?

00:35:29Guest:Oh, no, no.

00:35:30Guest:It was the greatest thing.

00:35:31Guest:I was laughing.

00:35:32Guest:I started laughing.

00:35:33Guest:I was like, Oh, I was like, that's the funniest.

00:35:35Guest:He's one of the greatest guys of all time.

00:35:37Marc:Yeah.

00:35:37Guest:The hardest I've ever laughed.

00:35:39Guest:He makes me laugh more than anybody.

00:35:41Guest:I'm friends with him.

00:35:42Guest:Just so quick, but just very sweet and very, uh, uh, yeah, just, he's another guy that hasn't been in here.

00:35:52Yeah.

00:35:52Guest:yeah oh my god i think we've tried one of the greatest guys in the world yeah i know he is oh we got to get who's the other one we were talking about oh paul rudd paul rudd martin short yeah martin short he's just he's so insanely funny he said to paul rudd you know remember kathy lee gifford did that awful thing with him where kathy gifford asked him about his wife and she goes you've been married three years and blah blah blah

00:36:16Marc:And what happened?

00:36:17Guest:Martin Short's wife had passed away.

00:36:19Guest:Oh.

00:36:20Guest:And she didn't know it or something.

00:36:23Guest:But to his credit, Martin Short didn't say anything to her.

00:36:26Guest:He went, oh, it's because I'm so cute.

00:36:28Guest:And then at commercial break, he went, hey, just so you know, my wife passed away three years ago and she felt terrible.

00:36:33Guest:And I think Rudd sent him an email.

00:36:35Guest:Hey, I'm so sorry about that Kathleen Gifford thing.

00:36:38Guest:And Martin Short wrote back, I think she thought it was a rerun.

00:36:42Yeah.

00:36:47Guest:I mean, it's just so funny.

00:36:50Guest:It's just so fast.

00:36:52Guest:Yeah, his book's amazing, I must say.

00:36:53Guest:It's such a great book.

00:36:54Guest:It's good?

00:36:55Guest:When did that come out?

00:36:56Guest:That came out a couple years ago.

00:36:57Guest:It's phenomenal.

00:36:58Guest:That's like one of my favorite biz autobiographies.

00:37:01Guest:Yeah.

00:37:02Guest:I've actually read it and I've listened to it.

00:37:04Guest:And you guys are friends in the world?

00:37:06Guest:We're friends in the world, yeah.

00:37:07Guest:He's just, he's like a great example of how you should be in this business, you know?

00:37:13Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:37:15Guest:He's just such a happy guy.

00:37:18Guest:Yeah.

00:37:18Guest:It's never lost on him of like, can you fucking believe we get to do this for a living?

00:37:22Guest:Right.

00:37:22Guest:You know what I mean?

00:37:23Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:37:24Marc:Oh, that's good.

00:37:25Guest:Yeah, he's very cool.

00:37:26Marc:I got to get more of that.

00:37:27Guest:Yeah, I know.

00:37:28Guest:That's why I hang out with him, where I'm like, oh, right.

00:37:30Guest:You should be like that.

00:37:31Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:37:32Marc:We should be grateful, and it's fun to entertain people.

00:37:35Guest:He has these Christmas parties, and I've been to a couple of them, and one time it was him and the whole SCTV, Catherine Orhara and Eugene Levy and Dave Thomas and everybody, Andrea Martin, and they put on the SCTV Christmas special, and they all just sat and watched it like, oh, my God, there's so-and-so and there's so-and-so.

00:37:53Guest:And me and, you know, other people, I mean, I was just like your idols.

00:37:59Guest:Yeah, right.

00:37:59Guest:Watching them, you know, and they were so normal.

00:38:01Guest:Younger selves.

00:38:02Guest:But they were just nice people.

00:38:05Guest:Yeah.

00:38:05Guest:You know, they're Canadian.

00:38:06Guest:Yeah.

00:38:07Guest:Canadians.

00:38:08Guest:Very pleasant.

00:38:09Guest:Very pleasant.

00:38:10Guest:Yeah.

00:38:10Marc:All right, buddy.

00:38:11Marc:Well, it was good seeing you.

00:38:12Marc:Good seeing you, man.

00:38:13Marc:Congrats on the new show.

00:38:14Marc:My girlfriend watched the trailer and she's excited about it.

00:38:18Guest:Oh, that's good.

00:38:18Marc:That's a good sign.

00:38:19Marc:That's a successful trailer.

00:38:20Guest:Oh, good.

00:38:21Guest:She's like, that looks funny.

00:38:22Guest:Oh, good.

00:38:23Guest:Yeah.

00:38:23Guest:Oh, good.

00:38:24Guest:Well, we'll see.

00:38:25Guest:All right.

00:38:25Guest:Thanks, buddy.

00:38:29Marc:That was Bill Hader.

00:38:30Marc:Bill Hader.

00:38:32Marc:He's so funny.

00:38:34Marc:Sweet guy.

00:38:34Marc:Decent dude.

00:38:36Marc:Barry, his new HBO show premieres Sunday, March 25th.

00:38:39Marc:So listen, folks.

00:38:42Marc:Before we get to Nell, I'm like, I'm a nutbag, man.

00:38:45Marc:I'm an obsessive, compulsive nut job.

00:38:48Marc:I was doing comedy last night.

00:38:50Marc:I did three sets at the Comedy Store.

00:38:51Marc:I wore one of my favorite shirts, my Filson shirt.

00:38:54Marc:sort of mustardy rust colored flannel shirt and I'm a guy who carries a notebook and pens so I stuck a pen in my pocket and I didn't close it so now there's a fucking ink spot that I can't get out I have many shirts that have the same markings but I didn't want it for this shirt I didn't want it for this shirt

00:39:11Marc:I wanted this shirt to stay pristine.

00:39:13Marc:I love this shirt.

00:39:14Marc:I rarely wear it, but it looks so fucking good, and I fucked it up with a goddamn pen, and I didn't know what to do.

00:39:19Marc:I dabbed it with alcohol.

00:39:20Marc:It was too late.

00:39:21Marc:I washed it.

00:39:22Marc:I used the oxy-whatever on it, and I washed it.

00:39:25Marc:Nothing.

00:39:25Marc:It didn't come out.

00:39:26Marc:It's just a spot.

00:39:27Marc:It's just a signifier of stupidity.

00:39:29Marc:I can't get a pocket protector, and I knew that I might do it, and I didn't know what to do, so I went to the internet and

00:39:36Marc:And I searched for that shirt, which has been out of circulation for many years because nobody really likes the color but me, I'm thinking.

00:39:43Marc:And that turned out to be true because I found one on eBay, brand new, for like half price with the tag still on.

00:39:50Marc:So that's where my obsession led me.

00:39:52Marc:I had to replace that shirt.

00:39:53Marc:So now I'll have two, but knowing me,

00:39:56Marc:The one with the ink spot, that will be disappeared as if it never happened.

00:40:00Marc:It will be goodwilled.

00:40:01Marc:It will be taken away.

00:40:04Marc:Taken away in a bag.

00:40:07Marc:That's what happens.

00:40:08Marc:That's revisionism.

00:40:10Marc:But then I'll have the new shirt.

00:40:14Marc:And I'll feel just as good.

00:40:16Marc:Nell Scovell has written for a lot of great shows.

00:40:18Marc:And she's been around a long time.

00:40:20Marc:And she's hammered through all the all-male writing rooms and sort of had quite a journey.

00:40:27Marc:And her new memoir sort of talks about it all.

00:40:29Marc:It's called Just the Funny Parts.

00:40:30Marc:It's available in stores tomorrow.

00:40:32Marc:You can pre-order it now.

00:40:33Marc:And this is me talking to Nell Scovell.

00:40:39Marc:Don't be nervous.

00:40:42Marc:I read your book.

00:40:43Marc:I met you at people's houses who I like.

00:40:47Marc:Larry, I didn't really know.

00:40:49Marc:But I know Drew Friedman, who I like a lot.

00:40:55Marc:And then there was people up there that I knew.

00:40:57Marc:I usually don't go to those things.

00:40:59Marc:And I wouldn't have never met you or known you.

00:41:01Marc:It was one of those weird things.

00:41:03Marc:And you just came right up to me.

00:41:04Guest:I know, but if you read the book, we have so many friends.

00:41:07Marc:I know.

00:41:08Guest:Isn't it weird we never met?

00:41:10Guest:But you're not so much a TV guy.

00:41:12Marc:I'm not a TV guy.

00:41:13Marc:I'm not really a writer guy.

00:41:15Marc:But I've done things with people you know.

00:41:20Marc:But the thing I like about the book, because I really don't...

00:41:22Marc:usually finish books, because I also don't like to do it.

00:41:25Guest:We're not taping yet.

00:41:26Marc:Yeah, we are.

00:41:28Marc:But don't worry about it.

00:41:29Marc:Relax, will you?

00:41:31Marc:The thing that I don't, the reason I don't usually read the books is because then I'll lead you into, you know, like, I'll know this stuff too well.

00:41:39Marc:And then the conversation becomes different.

00:41:41Marc:But I like the book so much, I just kept reading it, because it was my business.

00:41:45Marc:And, you know, I knew people, and I liked your story.

00:41:48Marc:And, you know, I like reading about show business.

00:41:52Marc:Yeah.

00:41:52Marc:but I had not read where this is going in terms of your plight and privilege and career as a woman in this game, in this horrible racket that we all have a love-hate relationship with.

00:42:07Marc:I thought it was very human and compelling, and also it was helpful.

00:42:12Marc:I mean, you go out of your way in this book to tell your story as a woman in show business, specifically writing and directing, but you do give pointers.

00:42:22Marc:Like along the way, you do say like, you know, you do lay things out for people who might want to get in show business for whatever fucking reason.

00:42:29Guest:Well, I didn't want it to be prescriptive.

00:42:32Guest:I didn't want it to be a how-to book.

00:42:35Guest:And I don't think there's one path to breaking in.

00:42:42Guest:You know, my big suggestion is just to write a lot if you want to be a writer.

00:42:47Marc:Sure.

00:42:48Marc:Sure.

00:42:48Guest:There's a quote from my friend Amy Hone.

00:42:51Guest:The only way to move forward creatively is to allow yourself to be judged.

00:42:57Marc:Yeah.

00:42:58Marc:Oh, that's interesting.

00:42:58Marc:Right.

00:42:59Guest:And because it's not what you start and it's not even what you finish.

00:43:03Guest:Right.

00:43:03Guest:It's what you put out there for the world to see.

00:43:06Guest:Right.

00:43:08Guest:Because what you have in your head might not be what you're relating to the audience.

00:43:12Guest:And you need the audience as a writer.

00:43:16Marc:Right.

00:43:17Marc:And certainly when you're doing specifically writing for audiences, it would help.

00:43:23Marc:But early on, I like that there was never a period in your life where it was, I don't care what anybody thinks of this.

00:43:31Marc:In the sense that, you know, some people who write fiction, you know, write, you know, they're purists and they're not writing for anybody but themselves or the art of it.

00:43:40Marc:Whereas a lot of the writing that you did, it seems, you know, had to hit home.

00:43:43Marc:It had to, you know, like when you were started out, when you were a sports writer, I mean, you had to grab people.

00:43:47Guest:Right.

00:43:48Guest:Well, there's that great quote that before you can be a writer, you have to notice something.

00:43:55Guest:Yeah.

00:43:55Guest:And so you figure out, well, what am I noticing that others are noticing?

00:44:00Guest:And what am I noticing that others aren't noticing?

00:44:03Marc:Right.

00:44:04Marc:Yeah.

00:44:04Marc:And that's the better part, the not noticing.

00:44:06Marc:Yeah.

00:44:07Guest:And I always I started as a journalist.

00:44:10Guest:And have kept doing that throughout my TV career, mostly because I always thought the TV career could go away at any moment.

00:44:19Marc:I can.

00:44:19Guest:Yeah, it did.

00:44:24Marc:Yeah, it's all sort of heartbreaking, this sort of, you know, the arc of it.

00:44:28Marc:But yeah, let's go back because it's interesting that you, like even back in college, I mean, where were you born?

00:44:36Yeah.

00:44:37Guest:In Newton, Massachusetts.

00:44:38Marc:You were born in Newton.

00:44:39Guest:Yeah.

00:44:39Marc:So you're always there.

00:44:40Marc:Your whole family ended up in Massachusetts.

00:44:43Guest:There and New Hampshire, which is sort of interesting because I used to spend three months a year in New Hampshire and that's where Sarah Silverman's from too.

00:44:52Guest:So maybe there's something in the water.

00:44:53Marc:And Sandler too?

00:44:55Guest:Sandler.

00:44:55Marc:Yeah.

00:44:56Marc:I mean, I know I've been to Sarah's house, her childhood house.

00:44:59Guest:Manchester.

00:45:00Marc:Yeah, Manchester.

00:45:01Marc:Yeah, because we did a gig together.

00:45:02Marc:I went over there.

00:45:03Guest:She played me on the Larry Sanders show.

00:45:05Guest:They did an episode where a female writer comes in, and it was written by a friend of mine, and she kind of based it on me.

00:45:14Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:45:15Marc:Yeah.

00:45:15Marc:So you've known her actively for a long time?

00:45:17Guest:I don't know her.

00:45:18Marc:Oh, you don't know her?

00:45:19Guest:No.

00:45:19Marc:You never met Sarah?

00:45:20Marc:You've met her?

00:45:21Guest:I've met her.

00:45:21Marc:But you don't know her?

00:45:22Guest:I do not know her.

00:45:23Marc:Huh.

00:45:24Marc:Isn't that odd?

00:45:25Marc:Why don't you know her?

00:45:26Yeah.

00:45:26Guest:Well, I don't know that many performers.

00:45:30Guest:Right.

00:45:32Guest:Writers.

00:45:34Guest:Yeah.

00:45:35Guest:I mean, everyone's working so hard, right?

00:45:37Guest:That's true.

00:45:37Guest:Unless you're working on a show with them.

00:45:39Marc:Yeah.

00:45:39Marc:And it's hard to maintain friendships or relationships in this business, really.

00:45:44Marc:I guess it's hard for anybody because you're busy and you only have a couple of good friends in any lifetime, really, right?

00:45:50Marc:Yeah.

00:45:50Guest:What's surprising to me is I thought the people I was friends with in my 30s, I would be friends with forever.

00:45:56Guest:And that didn't work out.

00:45:59Marc:None of them?

00:46:00Guest:No, some of them, but not all of them.

00:46:02Guest:And I would have thought by 30, you're kind of fully formed.

00:46:05Guest:But, you know, then they marry people or you marry someone.

00:46:09Marc:Right.

00:46:10Marc:And then they drift away.

00:46:11Marc:But so, like, growing up in Newton, like, I did time in the Boston area.

00:46:16Marc:Like, I know, you know, I know some of those.

00:46:18Marc:I know a lot of those areas.

00:46:19Marc:I started doing comedy in Boston.

00:46:21Marc:But so how many kids?

00:46:23Marc:There was a lot of kids in your family, right?

00:46:25Yeah.

00:46:25Guest:Right.

00:46:26Guest:So there are five.

00:46:27Marc:Yeah.

00:46:28Guest:And I'm the third girl and the middle child.

00:46:31Guest:So it's very, you know, I'm funny.

00:46:33Guest:Pay attention to me.

00:46:35Guest:Right.

00:46:35Guest:So my family was really bookish.

00:46:37Guest:Yeah.

00:46:38Guest:We didn't watch a lot of TV.

00:46:41Guest:You know, the expectation was you would be a doctor or a lawyer.

00:46:45Guest:There was no one in my family in the entertainment business.

00:46:49Guest:Sure.

00:46:50Guest:But everyone was funny.

00:46:51Guest:Right.

00:46:52Guest:And my dad's really funny.

00:46:53Guest:My aunts are hilarious.

00:46:55Guest:My...

00:46:58Guest:My sister was once on the couch reading Little Women, and my Aunt Pinky walked by her, tapped her on the shoulder, and said, don't get too attached to Beth.

00:47:08Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:09Marc:Clever.

00:47:10Guest:Very clever.

00:47:11Guest:And my Aunt Jane would tell dirty jokes, which was amazing when you're a kid.

00:47:16Guest:Yeah.

00:47:17Marc:Sure.

00:47:18Marc:It's great to have that one sort of slightly wrong aunt or uncle.

00:47:24Yeah.

00:47:24Guest:I mean, it's a role model.

00:47:27Guest:And she got really positive attention, too, for being funny.

00:47:32Guest:And I think that was really great for me to see.

00:47:35Guest:And then it was so I'm a couple of years older than you.

00:47:39Guest:I was born in 1960.

00:47:41Guest:Right.

00:47:43Guest:And.

00:47:44Guest:So I was just in this sweet spot.

00:47:46Guest:I get to high school and Saturday Night Live comes on and Monty Python starts airing.

00:47:52Marc:Right.

00:47:53Marc:I was a little younger.

00:47:53Guest:Right.

00:47:54Marc:Boston.

00:47:55Marc:Yeah.

00:47:55Marc:So you were more cognizant.

00:47:56Marc:I was in junior high.

00:47:58Marc:You know, I remember I watched the first season of SNL pretty religiously, but it must have been different, you know, as a high school student when those kind of feelings and thoughts are starting to happen.

00:48:06Yeah.

00:48:06Guest:Right, and everyone, you're memorizing the bits and saying them the next day.

00:48:11Guest:Oh, and another amazing thing that was just the luck of being born when I was born is if you were born after, let's say, 1975, you didn't have something that I did, which was I got to watch...

00:48:26Guest:A late night female TV host.

00:48:29Guest:Joan Rivers was guest hosting Carson for years.

00:48:33Guest:I always thought she was way funnier than Johnny.

00:48:37Guest:She talked a little like my aunt.

00:48:40Guest:And so that also was in my psyche.

00:48:43Marc:So what compels you to sort of pursue this?

00:48:48Marc:So you're watching all these things that we watched when we were kids.

00:48:50Guest:And the Marx Brothers.

00:48:52Marc:See, Marx Brothers must have been, you must have got that from your dad or from an aunt.

00:48:56Guest:Or channel 38 and channel 56.

00:48:59Marc:That's right, in the East Coast.

00:49:01Marc:And in Jersey, it was like channel 11.

00:49:04Marc:Yeah, I mean, I'd see that stuff when I was at my grandparents, but I don't remember getting it in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

00:49:09Marc:So in high school, did you write?

00:49:12Guest:Yes, but I was on the school newspaper and did... But what made you want to write?

00:49:19Marc:I mean, what was that moment when you decided that this was something you could do?

00:49:24Guest:Well, it was when I realized I couldn't do anything else.

00:49:28Guest:Come on.

00:49:28Guest:No, I went into college thinking I was pre-med.

00:49:33Guest:I'd always been good at math and sciences in high school.

00:49:36Guest:And I just kind of hit that conceptual wall of calculus and organic chemistry.

00:49:44Marc:And you couldn't get through that?

00:49:45Guest:Yeah.

00:49:46Marc:That was too hard?

00:49:46Guest:Oh, and then...

00:49:48Guest:When I was in college, there was this big push to major in East Asian Studies because China was the awakening giant.

00:49:58Guest:So I thought, all right, well, I'll be an East Asian Studies major.

00:50:01Guest:And I took Chinese, which was the hardest thing.

00:50:06Guest:It's tonal.

00:50:06Guest:And I'm good at languages.

00:50:08Guest:I know Spanish and French, and I've studied Russian.

00:50:11Guest:But Chinese took me down hard.

00:50:14Guest:And one day I come back.

00:50:16Marc:Because there's no structure to it, really, in the same way.

00:50:18Guest:Well, you have to hear the different tones.

00:50:20Guest:Right.

00:50:21Marc:That's not your bag.

00:50:21Marc:So what were you saying?

00:50:23Guest:I'm not a musician.

00:50:25Guest:So I come back and my roommate, who was an English major, was like reading Mill on the Floss.

00:50:33Guest:And I just have this freak out.

00:50:36Guest:Like, I speak English.

00:50:37Guest:I speak English very well.

00:50:39Guest:Why aren't I an English major?

00:50:40Guest:And so I switched.

00:50:43Marc:Oh, that was it.

00:50:43Guest:That was it.

00:50:44Marc:Now, you went to Harvard for your whole undergrad?

00:50:46Guest:Yes.

00:50:47Marc:Yeah.

00:50:47Marc:So that was, you didn't, it's obviously a great school, but you actually didn't have to leave town.

00:50:53Guest:I know.

00:50:54Marc:You just kind of went across the river.

00:50:55Guest:And I had three siblings there too.

00:50:58Marc:So you guys were all hardworking, good students.

00:51:00Guest:We were type A, thank you.

00:51:03Marc:Yeah, which must have made your family very happy.

00:51:06Guest:Yeah, like when... Did you see Conan O'Brien Can't Stop, the documentary?

00:51:12Guest:I think it's always funny when you take like a type A personality.

00:51:16Marc:Right.

00:51:17Guest:And instead of putting it in investment banking, you put it in comedy.

00:51:21Marc:It's a bit much, huh?

00:51:23Guest:Well, I mean, it's just...

00:51:25Marc:Well, that's what The Simpsons is.

00:51:27Marc:That's right.

00:51:28Marc:That is what that looks like in its purest form.

00:51:31Guest:I think that's fair.

00:51:33Marc:You know, I've been doing Conan's show for years, since the beginning.

00:51:37Marc:And it's just he definitely works twice as hard as someone with a more natural timing.

00:51:46Marc:It's a very funny thing to watch him.

00:51:48Marc:I don't know that this is an insult necessarily, but...

00:51:53Marc:But when he needs to save a beat, if you're tanking on the couch and he's got to step in, because to lift the segment, he's got to go on a roller coaster.

00:52:05Marc:It's always going to be like, whoa.

00:52:08Guest:Well, see, I agree he's working hard, but here's how I see it.

00:52:13Guest:So my very first job in TV was on a short-lived show on Fox called The Wilton North Report.

00:52:21Guest:Yeah.

00:52:23Guest:And to give you an idea of how bad this show was, when I was working on the book, we had to call and ask permission to use a photo from it.

00:52:31Marc:Yeah.

00:52:32Yeah.

00:52:32Guest:They have nothing in their data bags about the Wilton North Report.

00:52:37Guest:To Fox, the show never existed.

00:52:39Guest:They have wiped it from their corporate memory.

00:52:42Marc:No kidding.

00:52:42Guest:Yeah.

00:52:43Marc:I've been on a show like that.

00:52:44Marc:I hosted a game show once.

00:52:45Marc:There's no evidence of it anymore for VH1.

00:52:47Guest:Oh, that's funny.

00:52:48Marc:No, it's great.

00:52:50Guest:So, Wilton North Report, this terrible, terrible show.

00:52:53Guest:And the one good thing I got out of it was the two guys in the office next to me who became my...

00:53:01Guest:best friends out here were Greg Daniels and Conan O'Brien.

00:53:07Guest:And we just spent stupid amounts of time together like you do in your 20s.

00:53:13Guest:But one of my favorite Conan stories is...

00:53:17Guest:I had a friend visiting me, and she's really pretty.

00:53:21Guest:And you could see we were sitting in our office.

00:53:24Guest:We were right on the same hallway.

00:53:26Guest:And Conan starts walking down that day, and he's singing, Oh, I'm the greatest lover in the world.

00:53:33Guest:Oh, Lynn, Nell, sorry, didn't know you were in there.

00:53:39Guest:And what I love is Conan was Conan for an audience of two.

00:53:43Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:53:44Guest:He's always been that way.

00:53:45Guest:Yeah.

00:53:46Guest:I was at a birthday party once.

00:53:49Guest:It was someone's 30th birthday and Conan was there and they were opening everyone's packages and...

00:53:56Guest:He opens Conan's card and he laughs really hard.

00:54:00Guest:And of course, Conan's so funny, right?

00:54:02Guest:And everyone's like, what did he say?

00:54:03Guest:And he just passes it to the next person who opens it and laughs.

00:54:06Guest:And finally it gets to me and I open it and it says...

00:54:11Guest:Please throw back your head and laugh when you read this.

00:54:14Guest:Yes, I'm pathetic.

00:54:18Marc:Yeah, he's very funny.

00:54:20Marc:I liked seeing him sort of evolve and grow.

00:54:23Marc:I mean, I started doing his show when I was in 96, so a couple years in, and he was tangible.

00:54:30Marc:But he figured it out.

00:54:34Marc:I think that's what Harvard people do.

00:54:36Marc:They figure it out.

00:54:37Marc:They just keep blasting away.

00:54:39Marc:But you didn't start writing comedy.

00:54:41Marc:You weren't in The Lampoon.

00:54:43Guest:No, I was...

00:54:45Guest:terrified by the lampoon i went to one comp meeting and what does that mean the comp meeting well you because it's harvard you can't just sign up to do something like you should be able to do because you're interested you you've got to compete oh to get on the board so i went to this comp meeting and they talked about how many pieces you had to write i think it was eight pieces but

00:55:12Guest:The process was they would throw it on the ground and people would write comments on the back that others could read.

00:55:18Guest:It sounded like it had real humiliation potential.

00:55:22Marc:Right.

00:55:23Marc:It's sort of a baptism in fire thing, you know?

00:55:25Guest:Right.

00:55:26Guest:And I was happy writing sports for the Crimson.

00:55:28Marc:So that's what you ended up doing.

00:55:29Guest:Yeah.

00:55:30Marc:So you bail on humor.

00:55:32Marc:Now, was Conan there at the time?

00:55:33Marc:Did you know Conan in college?

00:55:35Guest:He was a freshman when I was a senior.

00:55:39Yeah.

00:55:39Marc:Okay, but you didn't know each other.

00:55:40Guest:No.

00:55:41Marc:So you decided to focus on writing for the paper.

00:55:46Guest:I did, and I was an associate sports editor, and the sports editor was Jeff Toobin.

00:55:55Guest:Oh, really?

00:55:56Guest:Yeah, and we all know as a CNN analyst.

00:55:57Guest:The lawyer, right?

00:55:59Marc:Isn't he a lawyer?

00:56:00Guest:Yeah, but, well, he went to law school, but he wrote the O.J.

00:56:02Guest:book.

00:56:03Marc:Right, yeah, I know, I know, he's on CNN all the time.

00:56:05Marc:But he was a sports guy.

00:56:06Guest:He was, and he's one of the most entertaining people on the planet.

00:56:09Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:56:10Guest:Yeah, he's great.

00:56:12Guest:And then, senior year, I went pro.

00:56:15Guest:I got hired by the Boston Globe to cover high school sports.

00:56:20Marc:That's right, that's when you were mentioning all these towns that I had found myself in performing one-nighters of comedy.

00:56:26Guest:Marblehead and Bourne.

00:56:28Marc:Sure.

00:56:29Marc:I don't know where Bourne is, but I know where Marblehead is.

00:56:31Marc:I know where Fall River is.

00:56:32Marc:I know where Lemonster is.

00:56:35Guest:And how to pronounce it.

00:56:37Marc:Sure.

00:56:37Marc:Yeah.

00:56:38Marc:Yeah, Saugus.

00:56:39Guest:Saugus.

00:56:40Guest:Saugus.

00:56:40Marc:Yeah, I used to work in Saugus.

00:56:42Marc:A few gigs out there on Route 1.

00:56:46Marc:I know that area.

00:56:47Marc:I know those places.

00:56:49Marc:I was all over that town.

00:56:50Marc:But so you were doing that.

00:56:51Marc:You were running around covering high school sports.

00:56:53Guest:High school football.

00:56:54Guest:And this was pre-climate change, so I was freezing my ass off.

00:57:00Guest:And I always liked working.

00:57:01Guest:I liked earning a paycheck.

00:57:04Guest:That gave me a sense of value and worth.

00:57:08Guest:And I could not get out of college fast enough and just start working.

00:57:13Marc:It's also fun to get out in the world and have that experience of driving places and covering things and seeing different towns and how different people sort of live.

00:57:21Marc:And New England is full of colorful characters.

00:57:25Guest:Yeah, but they don't play sports.

00:57:27Guest:So when you ask things like, you know, can you talk to me about the game?

00:57:32Guest:And they say, we said we were going to do it and we did it.

00:57:36Marc:And that's it.

00:57:37Marc:And that's it.

00:57:38Marc:Thank you for your comment.

00:57:39Guest:And I was used to like the Harvard coaches are all erudite and they would quote Thucydides.

00:57:44Guest:And so, you know, after after covering high school sports, I kind of thought maybe I don't want to do this forever.

00:57:53Marc:Well, sure.

00:57:53Marc:But what's the trick to it?

00:57:54Marc:I mean, what was the trick that you learned?

00:57:56Marc:I mean, covering sports, it's sort of you carried with you for your life as a writer.

00:58:00Marc:I mean, you know, there was, you know, you had to, there is a style to it.

00:58:03Marc:I'm not a sports guy.

00:58:05Marc:But like, there is something you've got to do.

00:58:07Guest:Right.

00:58:07Guest:I mean, it's finding the emotion and in the, so it's not just a numbers game.

00:58:14Guest:Right.

00:58:14Guest:And then it's finding the comedy.

00:58:15Guest:So this, you know, the sports lead is, is...

00:58:19Guest:You're allowed to make jokes in a way that you can't in a regular news story.

00:58:25Guest:I tell this story in just the funny parts about how I was covering Harvard men's track, and they were at a big regional tournament.

00:58:36Guest:And after the first day, they were tied for second.

00:58:40Guest:And I just thought, like, the comedy gods had given me this lead, which was, if a tie for first is like kissing your sister, then a tie for second is like French kissing her.

00:58:52Guest:And I turn it in, and the editor's like, we can't run this.

00:58:56Guest:This is offensive.

00:58:58Guest:And that's when I say that...

00:59:01Guest:you know if you're in comedy and you've never offended anyone then you haven't gone far enough and if you always offend people then you're an asshole or a professional comedian and and i moved to new york and i mean the big lucky break for me was spy magazine came along just as i was entering the the workforce

00:59:27Marc:Yeah, that changed the entire culture, I think, Spy Magazine.

00:59:31Marc:I mean, what year was that?

00:59:33Guest:86?

00:59:36Marc:Yeah.

00:59:37Marc:Like, I mean, that was like the cutting edge sort of post-lampoon satire magazine.

00:59:43Guest:Right.

00:59:43Guest:And it was really taking the air out of the puffed up balloons of the culture.

00:59:49Marc:It was a specific, you had an agenda to level the rich and snooty.

00:59:54Guest:Yeah, and our favorite short-fingered Bulgarian, I mean, that came from Spy.

01:00:02Marc:You guys picked on him pretty heavy back in the day.

01:00:05Guest:Very heavy.

01:00:05Guest:And by the way, he had other joke names.

01:00:08Guest:There was Queensborn Failed Casino Operator, but that didn't catch on.

01:00:14Marc:Too wordy.

01:00:16Guest:I always kind of liked that one, Failed Casino Operator.

01:00:19Guest:Sure.

01:00:21Guest:So Spy was great, and then...

01:00:25Marc:What did you do for Spy, exactly?

01:00:27Guest:I was the first reporter they hired, and I wrote a piece called Too Rich and Too Thin about these society women who were both.

01:00:39Guest:Right.

01:00:40Guest:One of my favorite pieces was I got this idea to stand in front of Lincoln Center at like quarter of eight and ask people, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?

01:00:51Guest:And then I took down how many gave me the punchline, how many gave me directions, how many gave me wrong directions, and one person who gave me the wrong punchline and said, study, study, study.

01:01:04Yeah.

01:01:04Marc:Right.

01:01:05Guest:So then I got hired away by Vanity Fair.

01:01:07Guest:Tina Brown called me, offered me more money than I ever thought I would ever make in my whole life.

01:01:15Guest:And so I was working at Vanity Fair and I was writing, she would call them Nelfings, which were mostly visual or short pieces with a visual component.

01:01:28Guest:And then one day I bumped into an old spy editor.

01:01:31Guest:Who said to me, I don't mean this as an insult, but I think you could write for TV.

01:01:37Guest:And that truly was the first time it ever occurred to me.

01:01:42Marc:Really?

01:01:42Marc:You never thought about SNL as a writer's show?

01:01:45Marc:You never thought about any of that, about TV as an occupation?

01:01:49Marc:No.

01:01:50Guest:No, I thought about like movie writing, screenwriting.

01:01:52Marc:Sure, you heard about that.

01:01:53Marc:Yeah.

01:01:54Marc:Yeah.

01:01:55Marc:But not TV writing.

01:01:55Guest:Not TV writing.

01:01:56Marc:I guess that makes sense.

01:01:58Marc:Like, you know, because the arc of the book is really in dealing, like, I guess the sort of boys club nature of things you did see in college and at the sports, writing for sports, I would imagine.

01:02:12Marc:But when did it start to, you know, really start to affect you?

01:02:15Marc:When did you start to be aware of it?

01:02:17Marc:in a way that you realize it was a liability or that you had to fight just being a woman.

01:02:26Guest:Well, I thought we had fixed equality when I got out of college in the early 80s.

01:02:33Guest:I really did.

01:02:34Guest:And I thought Gloria Steinem had led the fight.

01:02:37Marc:Everything was good.

01:02:38Guest:Everything was good.

01:02:39Guest:And I read the book Backlash and was like, okay, that's happening to some people.

01:02:45Guest:So I didn't go into it thinking my gender would either help or hurt me.

01:02:51Marc:Right.

01:02:52Marc:Into writing.

01:02:53Right.

01:02:53Guest:I do remember, though, on that first job at Wilton North Report, after it got canceled, I was sitting with Greg and Conan and these two other guys, and we were talking about, like, what should we do next and what shows.

01:03:08Guest:And one of the other guys, this guy Phil, said to me, well, you're lucky, Nell.

01:03:12Guest:And I said, why am I lucky?

01:03:14Guest:And he said, well, every show's looking for a woman.

01:03:17Guest:And I said, a woman and nine guys.

01:03:21Guest:How does that make me lucky?

01:03:22Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:03:23Guest:So even I guess back then I sort of understood that the odds were not in your favor.

01:03:29Marc:Yeah.

01:03:29Guest:If you are a female.

01:03:30Marc:Sure.

01:03:31Marc:So.

01:03:32Marc:So.

01:03:32Guest:And that, by the way, that's the perception from men is I was lucky.

01:03:36Marc:Yeah.

01:03:37Guest:There's a slot.

01:03:38Guest:So if I can get that slot.

01:03:40Guest:Right.

01:03:40Marc:It's like the affirmative action hire.

01:03:42Marc:Yeah.

01:03:42Guest:Yeah, the token.

01:03:43Marc:Yeah, the token.

01:03:44Guest:Yeah.

01:03:44Marc:Well, you know, I mean, I've been guilty of it.

01:03:48Marc:I mean, after reading, when I read the book, like, I know that I did a show on IFC for four years, and we didn't have a woman writer.

01:03:54Marc:And, you know, and I felt bad.

01:03:56Marc:I felt bad.

01:03:56Marc:I mean, we had one woman director, but my writing room was small, and I made excuses, like you said.

01:04:03Marc:But, you know, we learned, we evolved.

01:04:06Yeah.

01:04:07Guest:Your show might still be on the air if you had hired women.

01:04:09Marc:No, I can't.

01:04:11Marc:I stopped it.

01:04:11Marc:I was in full control of that.

01:04:13Marc:Okay.

01:04:14Marc:But now I'm on a show where I'm surrounded by women.

01:04:16Guest:Oh, it glows.

01:04:17Guest:Yeah, that's great.

01:04:18Marc:On the creative, on the technical, and in front of the camera.

01:04:23Marc:It's a lot of women.

01:04:25Guest:Yeah.

01:04:25Guest:And do you feel like it makes a difference?

01:04:27Yeah.

01:04:27Marc:sure i mean you know i i don't like i don't know that i noticed you know my my i guess in in the writer's room or whatever you get it there is a boys club nature to it i'm not really that kind of bro guy but you know there there is the fear that you won't be able to be you know the pigs that you are yeah if you have a woman but but that turns out to be a good thing it's maybe good that you don't be the pigs that you are

01:04:52Guest:Although I do love there are a couple of times where I've been in those situations where the guys forgot I was there and so they said the thing you shouldn't say.

01:05:05Guest:There's one super famous comedian whose name I would not mention who I'll never forget saying the best thing about being famous is you forget how tight teenage pussy is.

01:05:18Yeah.

01:05:18Marc:Yeah.

01:05:21Marc:And how'd you respond to that?

01:05:22Guest:Well, I just, I love being in those moments because I feel like that's the real thing.

01:05:29Marc:Well, yeah, but right.

01:05:31Marc:It's the real thing that needs to be corrected or it's a real thing of like, I'm glad I got to observe that.

01:05:36Marc:I think that's the tricky thing about, because then there's a sort of like hiring women who can hang with the guys, but it seems like that's not really what needs to happen either.

01:05:46Marc:Right.

01:05:46Marc:Because then it becomes a harassing atmosphere where you have to put up with this shit.

01:05:51Marc:Right.

01:05:51Marc:You know, a working space of respect where, you know... Right.

01:05:57Marc:Yeah.

01:05:57Marc:I mean, that's what the evolution is towards.

01:06:00Marc:You know, not sort of like, ah, she's one of us.

01:06:02Marc:She can take it.

01:06:03Marc:And then you go home and feel like shit.

01:06:04Guest:Yeah.

01:06:05Guest:No, that's true.

01:06:05Guest:I think a lot about David Foster Wallace's commencement speech, which is called This is Water.

01:06:12Guest:Yeah.

01:06:12Guest:And it starts with a joke about...

01:06:15Guest:Two young fish are swimming along, and an older fish swims by and says, how's the water, boys?

01:06:21Guest:And one fish turns to the other and says, what's water?

01:06:25Guest:And bias is all around us, and we're swimming in it.

01:06:29Guest:And I've been biased, and you've been biased.

01:06:33Guest:And the more we recognize that and acknowledge it and call it out...

01:06:38Guest:the more progress we can make.

01:06:40Marc:Yeah, progress.

01:06:40Marc:And also, it's sort of like, it's one of those things where you don't know in that joke, in that story.

01:06:48Marc:Like, you don't know.

01:06:49Marc:Yeah.

01:06:49Marc:You know, you're like, I guess that is that.

01:06:51Guest:Yeah.

01:06:51Marc:You know, you're so set in your ways or you're set in your habits or culturally you're, you know, it's always been the way you remember it.

01:07:00Guest:Right.

01:07:00Marc:And so a lot of times when something changes, your first reaction is be like, oh, fuck this.

01:07:05Marc:Yeah.

01:07:05Guest:Or you're lucky.

01:07:06Marc:Right.

01:07:07Guest:Right.

01:07:07Marc:Yeah.

01:07:08Marc:Right.

01:07:09Marc:There's that.

01:07:10Marc:But then I think as you start to be empathetic and see your own part in things that you're like, you know, this is the right thing to do, whatever that is, you know.

01:07:22Marc:But like when you started, so the guy from Spy says you should write TV.

01:07:26Marc:And then what do you do?

01:07:27Guest:Oh, so I write a spec script.

01:07:30Marc:Yeah, for?

01:07:31Guest:It's Gary Shandling's show.

01:07:32Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:07:33Guest:Because I should have written one for, you know, the Cosby show, which was the big show at the time.

01:07:40Guest:But my favorite show was It's Gary Shandling's show, which broke the fourth wall.

01:07:43Guest:I actually like that show better than Larry Sanders.

01:07:48Guest:Uh-huh, uh-huh.

01:07:49Guest:And...

01:07:51Guest:I got an agent off my spy articles.

01:07:54Guest:Yeah.

01:07:56Guest:And they sent, it was Gavin Pallone, who you might know, and Gavin also represented Al Jean and Mike Reese.

01:08:05Marc:And Conan?

01:08:06Guest:Yes, he does, yeah.

01:08:08Marc:So this is when Gavin was a manager at UTA?

01:08:11Guest:No, he's an agent at ICM, like maybe just barely not an assistant.

01:08:19Guest:And so he sends my spec script to Mike and Al, and they give it to Alan Zweibel.

01:08:26Guest:And then I get a call from Gavin saying they bought it, which it's like you're a rookie and you, in your first at-bat, hit a home run.

01:08:35Marc:Right.

01:08:37Guest:So they said, well, they want to fly you out.

01:08:39Guest:They'll give you notes on the script.

01:08:42Guest:And I said, wow, that's great.

01:08:44Guest:So like the next week...

01:08:47Guest:I think it was maybe Sunset Gower and I meet Gary who does like a double take when he sees me in Zweibel's office.

01:08:58Guest:Like, what is this girl doing here?

01:08:59Guest:And Alan said she wrote that spec script we liked about the party line.

01:09:06Guest:And Gary says to me, you write like a guy.

01:09:09Marc:Right.

01:09:11Guest:Which at the time was a huge compliment.

01:09:14Guest:Uh-huh.

01:09:15Guest:Right?

01:09:15Marc:Yeah.

01:09:16Yeah.

01:09:16Guest:And now I look back and kind of think,

01:09:20Guest:that's the problem.

01:09:22Marc:Right.

01:09:23Marc:Yeah.

01:09:23Marc:Now when you, when you, when you're putting this together and you, you know, you're having this awakening or these moments of awareness around this stuff, I mean, at the time, but how do you frame that in your head now?

01:09:34Marc:I mean, he was still giving you a compliment.

01:09:36Guest:Oh yeah.

01:09:37Guest:Yeah.

01:09:37Guest:No.

01:09:37Guest:And I love Gary and they, it's to finish the story.

01:09:40Guest:They end up, he didn't feel like giving notes that day.

01:09:43Guest:So we said, can we do this some other day?

01:09:45Guest:Um, and we ended up playing ping pong on the set.

01:09:50Marc:And you can play.

01:09:51Guest:I can play a little.

01:09:53Guest:And then I went home and they decided not to buy that script.

01:09:57Guest:And they asked me to do another script.

01:10:00Guest:The pitch was two words, haunted condo.

01:10:03Marc:Right.

01:10:04Guest:Pretty funny.

01:10:04Marc:Yeah.

01:10:05Guest:And so I wrote another script and they didn't make that one either, but they paid me.

01:10:11Marc:Right.

01:10:12Marc:So that was the first paid gig.

01:10:13Guest:Yeah, that was my first paid gig.

01:10:14Marc:And that got you what?

01:10:16Marc:That got you out here or did it, you know, not yet?

01:10:19Guest:Not yet.

01:10:20Guest:Wilton North got me out here.

01:10:22Guest:And then I kept going.

01:10:23Guest:And then when that was canceled, I go back to New York.

01:10:28Guest:And then I try to get on Letterman.

01:10:32Guest:That's really the holy grail, right?

01:10:36Marc:To write for David.

01:10:37Guest:To write for Dave.

01:10:39Guest:He's the funniest man on TV.

01:10:42Guest:And I send him my packet, and I don't hear anything from them, but the Smothers Brothers did a 20th anniversary special in 1988.

01:10:55Guest:And they brought back all the old writers like Steve Martin and Bob Einstein and Mason Williams.

01:11:01Marc:Wow.

01:11:02Guest:And the show did so well that CBS picked them up for another five, six episodes.

01:11:10Guest:So they couldn't get the same staff, like Steve Martin's not going to come do it.

01:11:16Sure.

01:11:16Guest:Again, I have no idea how it happened.

01:11:20Guest:They got my material.

01:11:21Guest:I mean, I know my agent sent it.

01:11:24Guest:And I get a call.

01:11:26Guest:Do you want to meet?

01:11:28Guest:The guy was in New York.

01:11:30Guest:So we meet, and there was a little misunderstanding.

01:11:32Guest:He had read my Letterman material.

01:11:35Guest:And he thought I wrote on the show.

01:11:37Guest:So I had to explain that, no, that was just a submission.

01:11:41Guest:But secretly I was thinking like, oh, he thought it was good enough to be on this show.

01:11:46Marc:Right.

01:11:46Marc:Did you find you got along with everybody?

01:11:48Marc:I mean, did you look up to them from before?

01:11:51Marc:You were probably, I was too young.

01:11:52Guest:I was too young.

01:11:52Marc:Yeah.

01:11:53Guest:And in fact, when they asked me if I knew about the Smothers Brothers, I said yes and then ran to the Museum of Broadcasting.

01:12:02Marc:Right.

01:12:03Marc:That's what you had to do.

01:12:04Marc:I remember when I went to watch Woody Allen's variety show, when he did a variety show on NBC or somewhere.

01:12:11Marc:There were certain bits of television.

01:12:13Marc:There was no YouTube.

01:12:14Marc:You had to go down to that museum.

01:12:16Marc:And you had to wait sometimes to get a booth.

01:12:18Marc:Yeah.

01:12:18Marc:And then they had to call up the stuff.

01:12:21Marc:You had to tell them what you wanted.

01:12:23Marc:Yeah.

01:12:23Marc:Jack Parr, I went to watch a Jack Parr show.

01:12:26Guest:Oh, that's great.

01:12:26Marc:Because I think I was auditioning for a hosting job.

01:12:30Marc:I wanted to see.

01:12:31Guest:Oh, that's smart.

01:12:32Marc:How, you know, the history of it.

01:12:34Marc:But that's so funny.

01:12:35Marc:You had to go do that.

01:12:36Guest:I did that.

01:12:37Guest:And they were, I was so relieved because they were really funny.

01:12:40Guest:Right.

01:12:41Guest:Like genuinely.

01:12:42Guest:And they, you know, it's such a smart way to do a sketch where you start with a song, you interrupt,

01:12:48Guest:You do your bit.

01:12:49Guest:Yeah.

01:12:50Guest:And bits never have good endings.

01:12:51Guest:They just go back to the song.

01:12:53Guest:Right.

01:12:53Guest:Big finish.

01:12:54Guest:Everyone applauds.

01:12:55Marc:Right.

01:12:56Guest:Brilliant.

01:12:56Marc:Yeah.

01:12:57Marc:And that was their thing.

01:12:58Guest:That was their thing.

01:12:59Guest:Yeah.

01:12:59Marc:And so like your brain, your type A brain was sort of like, I get how this works.

01:13:03Guest:Yes.

01:13:04Marc:I can write within this system, this context.

01:13:08Marc:So you get the gig.

01:13:09Marc:And what happens?

01:13:10Marc:Do you move to L.A.

01:13:10Marc:then or what?

01:13:12Marc:Not yet, not yet.

01:13:14Guest:Not yet.

01:13:14Guest:I don't even buy a car.

01:13:15Guest:I end up, my first night there, I'm having dinner with Tom Smothers and he says, well, I got a maid's room in this huge place that CBS rented for me.

01:13:26Guest:And it was pretty cool because it was in this apartment house right near the Chateau.

01:13:33Guest:Yeah.

01:13:33Guest:And Betty Davis lived there.

01:13:35Guest:Oh, wow.

01:13:35Guest:So like one of my first days working in Hollywood, I'm like waiting for the elevator with Betty Davis.

01:13:42Guest:Yeah.

01:13:42Marc:Come on.

01:13:42Guest:Yeah.

01:13:43Guest:And Chris Guest lived there, too.

01:13:45Marc:Oh, wow.

01:13:46Marc:That's great.

01:13:47Guest:Yeah.

01:13:47Marc:So you saw Betty Davis.

01:13:49Guest:I know.

01:13:49Marc:That means something.

01:13:50Marc:That's what's wild about Hollywood.

01:13:53Marc:If you do have the fascination or the bug when you come out here and you just see the history of it and people around, it's kind of heavy.

01:14:01Marc:It's kind of great.

01:14:02Guest:Yeah, this was just around the corner from where the Garden of Vala apartments were.

01:14:08Guest:And that's where like Dorothy Parker lived.

01:14:10Guest:And so it was pretty fun.

01:14:12Marc:So you moved into Tommy's Maid's quarters?

01:14:15Guest:Yeah, for a while.

01:14:15Guest:Once we went into production, I moved out.

01:14:17Marc:And also, in the book, you sort of, again, are looking at these events in your life through the lens of an enlightened woman now.

01:14:29Marc:So the way you read them now, to put in context, the maid's quarters, like, well, I was working for him.

01:14:38Marc:It did feel weird, but you did feel on some level that there was a subservience that was expected.

01:14:45Guest:Right.

01:14:45Guest:I think it's unique to Hollywood.

01:14:48Guest:There aren't the same rules.

01:14:51Marc:No, there's not.

01:14:52Marc:There's not real rules.

01:14:55Guest:Yeah.

01:14:55Marc:It's sort of the system was set up because you're making dreams out here.

01:15:01Marc:That's right.

01:15:03Marc:And you're making something that transcends reality.

01:15:07Marc:So what are you willing to do for that, to be part of that?

01:15:11Guest:Right.

01:15:11Guest:And yes, we we mess around with reality.

01:15:15Guest:I mean, it's one of the reasons I think, you know, a real estate guy like Donald Trump was attracted to coming into show business.

01:15:26Marc:Well, yeah, but he's like a hustler.

01:15:30Marc:He's like a snake oil salesman.

01:15:32Marc:He's always been a showman.

01:15:35Marc:That's always been part of it, but yeah.

01:15:37Guest:I mean, the sexual harassment of women is codified in Hollywood, and we even gave it that cute name, the casting couch.

01:15:46Marc:I've talked about that with people before.

01:15:47Marc:It's been this way since the beginning of this business.

01:15:52Marc:I mean, you know, it was they knew what they were.

01:15:55Marc:They were taking advantage of a lot of talented people.

01:15:59Marc:Beautiful people are vulnerable.

01:16:02Marc:They're insecure.

01:16:03Marc:Some of them are fucked up because of it.

01:16:05Marc:And there was always, I think, a lot of predatory nature to it.

01:16:10Guest:Yeah.

01:16:11Marc:To the sort of Faustian deal, you know, women had to make.

01:16:16Guest:Yeah.

01:16:16Marc:To to be part of this world.

01:16:19Guest:But do you think the casting couch would have been as acceptable if they called it the rape sofa?

01:16:24Marc:No, I don't think.

01:16:25Marc:I think that's not as cute.

01:16:27Guest:Not as cute.

01:16:29Guest:That didn't catch on.

01:16:30Guest:I tried to get that to go.

01:16:33Marc:But I thought that, you know, in handling your own story about that, your own Me Too story, you know, with Jim Stafford, of all people.

01:16:44Guest:I know.

01:16:44Guest:It's so cheesy.

01:16:46Guest:Oh, my God.

01:16:46Guest:Why couldn't it have been Glen Campbell?

01:16:48Ha, ha.

01:16:48Marc:I mean, but I but I thought the way you wrote it, I don't know how much I mean, I imagine you thought about it quite a bit that because it was one of those situations where the lines blurred and you would follow through with something that you didn't want to follow through with, but you were in the situation and you did.

01:17:06Marc:But but the way the one detail you put in there was pretty great.

01:17:11Guest:Yeah.

01:17:11Guest:I know.

01:17:14Guest:It's all real.

01:17:15Guest:It's just a fact.

01:17:16Marc:Yeah, but what you chose to not make it necessarily more sordid, but to make it pathetic was that- Or funny.

01:17:29Marc:same thing a lot of times yes that's true uh was that the the hairpiece moment which i thought was pretty pretty brilliant that was pretty good because it was awful yeah you felt awful for you you know he was kind of awful yeah you know he tells you what you need to know about him yeah um

01:17:49Guest:You know, I spoke with a lawyer, and they said, look, if this is truth, that's a defense.

01:17:54Guest:Just don't include any details that you're not 100% certain about.

01:17:59Guest:So this was a long time ago, and I'm not going to give everything away now, but I'll just say, because I want people to read the book.

01:18:10Guest:But I do find out that he's wearing a hairpiece.

01:18:14Guest:Yeah.

01:18:15Guest:So I started Googling, like, does he wear a hairpiece?

01:18:18Guest:Like, am I certain of that?

01:18:20Guest:And I did find this book written about rock stars.

01:18:25Guest:And there was a chapter about vanity.

01:18:28Guest:And he's in there listed under...

01:18:33Marc:uh musicians who wear hair pieces oh good so you found it so i've got backup i'll tell you if that's the only thing he's if he comes after you for that he's got bigger problems you know what i mean you know i mean like if that's if that's what he locks into it's like yeah the other part was true but fuck the hair the pair i i'm i i've had no contact with him and you know i'm gonna guess uh he doesn't remember it the same way

01:19:00Marc:Right, of course.

01:19:01Marc:But here's so... But, like, let's set that up a little bit.

01:19:04Marc:So, you know, you got the job in the Smothers Room, Smother Brothers Writing Room, and a series of events happened.

01:19:11Marc:There was a change, right, in staffing, and Jim Stafford, who you didn't sense liked you to begin with.

01:19:15Guest:No, he did not.

01:19:16Marc:That you were really the only woman in the room, and this was a bunch of, well, at least...

01:19:20Marc:under his guidance, was just sort of a boys' club.

01:19:25Guest:Yeah, no, Mason Williams was amazing.

01:19:27Guest:Mason was a mentor, and Jim was this guy who we'd be sent off to come up with cold opens over the weekend, and I'd walk in on Monday with my ideas, and he would say, oh, thanks, Nell, but some of the boys and I sat around the pool this weekend, and we worked it all out.

01:19:47Marc:Yeah.

01:19:47Guest:So you can't be good at your job if you're not even participating.

01:19:52Marc:Sure.

01:19:52Marc:And that was the way he had set it up.

01:19:55Marc:And he was a singer.

01:19:57Marc:He wasn't even really a writer, was he?

01:20:00Guest:No, it was a novelty act.

01:20:02Marc:Yeah.

01:20:02Marc:I mean, he had a hit that Spiders and Snakes.

01:20:04Marc:I remember that.

01:20:05Marc:I was in junior high, I think.

01:20:06Guest:Yeah, it was huge.

01:20:07Marc:I don't like Spiders and Snakes.

01:20:09Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:20:09Guest:Well, I really don't like Spiders and Snakes.

01:20:13Marc:But ultimately, what happened was that you still, despite knowing what was going on, you felt compelled to try to keep pleasing these people.

01:20:26Marc:Sure.

01:20:26Marc:Or him.

01:20:27Guest:Right, and that's part of...

01:20:28Guest:You know, that's type A and that's the subjectiveness of this business too, right?

01:20:33Guest:Like your jokes will be funnier if the people like you.

01:20:38Marc:Right.

01:20:39Marc:So then you just found yourself in an awkward situation.

01:20:42Right.

01:20:42Guest:Well, he manipulated me into an awkward situation at the rat party.

01:20:48Guest:It's weird.

01:20:49Guest:I've never really talked about it.

01:20:50Guest:Isn't that, you know, it was a long time ago.

01:20:53Guest:And so I always laugh when people say, well, why didn't they bring it up earlier?

01:20:57Guest:It's, you know, it's hard.

01:21:00Guest:It's just, and I'm privileged and had a lot of success.

01:21:05Guest:And even I couldn't do it because it's, well, for me, it's,

01:21:12Guest:I don't like admitting I was a victim in any way.

01:21:15Marc:Yeah.

01:21:17Marc:And it's hard because in those situations that, you know, whether you become paralyzed in the moment or you act against your own self-interest because you think you should, I imagine in your mind that it clouds things a little.

01:21:36Yeah.

01:21:37Guest:Well, I was really touched by your story about your philosophy, Professor.

01:21:41Guest:And by the way, one of the things about me, too, is I've had so many male friends open up and tell me stories that range from inappropriate touching from the swim instructor to full-on rape.

01:21:57Guest:And I think...

01:21:59Guest:I don't like the, this is a time for men to shut up and listen.

01:22:04Guest:I disagree completely.

01:22:06Guest:I think this is a time for everyone to speak up and to work together.

01:22:12Marc:Yeah, no, I agree.

01:22:13Marc:Yeah, and I think a lot of us have those stories.

01:22:16Marc:I mean, power dynamics, abusive power dynamics happen.

01:22:22Marc:Sexualized abusive power dynamics happen in both genders, either way.

01:22:27Guest:The definition of power is getting someone to do something that you want them to do.

01:22:32Guest:And I was thinking of... Is that the definition?

01:22:35Guest:Well, that's my definition.

01:22:36Guest:I like it.

01:22:37Guest:A definition.

01:22:38Marc:Yeah.

01:22:38Guest:So I don't know if this works.

01:22:41Guest:You'll tell me.

01:22:41Guest:I thought of this driving over as an example of what it's like to be coerced into something that you might not want to do and how...

01:22:55Guest:I would love the point to be made that consent is not the same as she did it.

01:23:02Guest:There are differences.

01:23:04Guest:So let's say you're at the bank because you're old and you don't do all your checking online.

01:23:12Guest:So you're actually in the bank when a bank robber comes in, armed, and he rounds everyone up and says, I'm going to put you in the vault.

01:23:24Guest:And he tells everyone to march over to the vault and to get in.

01:23:27Guest:Now, one person, let's say, is claustrophobic and really doesn't want to go into the vault.

01:23:36Guest:But let's say you're that person, what do you do?

01:23:39Guest:You go into the vault because the threat of harm is so great, that's going to take precedence over other fears.

01:23:48Right.

01:23:48Marc:Yeah, I think that's true.

01:23:50Marc:My first thought was like, I just make such a scene.

01:23:53Marc:They're like, I can't go in.

01:23:57Guest:Well, you might, but then other people might say, shh, just go along.

01:24:00Marc:No, I get that.

01:24:02Guest:So then...

01:24:04Guest:You're let out, and maybe nine out of those 10 people are fine with being marched into the vault.

01:24:12Guest:But one person was traumatized by that event.

01:24:16Guest:And if you went to the bank robber and said, you traumatized that person, and they said...

01:24:24Guest:Well, that's not how I remembered it.

01:24:26Guest:I just asked her nicely to go into the vault, and she walked in on a cord.

01:24:34Guest:Well, yeah, I had a gun, but I didn't point it at her.

01:24:36Marc:Sure.

01:24:37Guest:Do you think that's a good example?

01:24:40Marc:Kind of, except the banker would be like, look, I'm a fucking bank robber.

01:24:43Guest:That's true.

01:24:44Guest:Why are you asking me?

01:24:46Marc:What do you want me to do with him?

01:24:48Marc:She got upset?

01:24:49Marc:What do you want from me?

01:24:50Marc:I got to rub the bank.

01:24:51Guest:But you could think like she didn't fight back.

01:24:54Marc:Yeah.

01:24:54Guest:But the threat of harm to your career is real.

01:24:59Guest:And that's why you go along with things that you might not otherwise go along with.

01:25:04Marc:Yeah.

01:25:04Marc:And I and I also think, right, there's the wanting to to get ahead and be accepted and to try to be liked.

01:25:12Marc:But there's also like I think there's also a sometimes you comply in hoping that it will stop.

01:25:19Guest:Yes.

01:25:19Guest:Oh, absolutely.

01:25:20Marc:And I think the other side of that is like, okay, if I just let him do this, maybe we can put this to rest.

01:25:27Marc:But that doesn't happen.

01:25:29Marc:And then you've fucked yourself more because now you're uncomfortable about that.

01:25:34Marc:The relationship becomes weird.

01:25:37Marc:Yeah, there's no winning it.

01:25:38Marc:But throughout this book, which I don't think we're really talking about, is you do give sort of life lessons about...

01:25:45Marc:writing and show business and working with people and men you trust and women you trust and how hard writing for television and writing in general is.

01:25:55Marc:And it's hard for everyone.

01:25:58Marc:Sure.

01:25:59Marc:But beneath that, there is this other thing where I found it sort of disconcerting and horrible when that guy edited when you guys were writing with somebody.

01:26:12Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:26:13Guest:I charmed.

01:26:14Guest:And he rewrote every.

01:26:16Marc:But as a tactic, you know, like when when I like because I'm not that I'm rarely that political a thinker, you know, in terms of you know what I mean?

01:26:25Guest:I'm the worst.

01:26:26Guest:Yeah.

01:26:26Marc:You know, fucking somebody.

01:26:28Marc:Yeah.

01:26:28Marc:For you know, for the long haul, you know, like that that that guy, you know, what happened exactly?

01:26:34Guest:He and I were co-writing an episode.

01:26:38Guest:It was a sweeps episode for Charm.

01:26:40Marc:And you were a staff writer?

01:26:41Guest:No, I'm co-EP, and he's EP.

01:26:44Guest:And we turn it in.

01:26:46Guest:He loves my teaser act one and two, and he wrote three and four.

01:26:50Guest:Right.

01:26:51Guest:And then while we're waiting for it to go into production, I get a call from my agent.

01:26:56Guest:His contract's up.

01:26:59Guest:And they're curious if you'd be willing to step up if his contract doesn't make.

01:27:07Marc:So he's probably holding out for more money.

01:27:08Guest:Right.

01:27:09Marc:And they're asking to see if they probably lowball you into the job.

01:27:13Guest:Exactly.

01:27:14Marc:Right.

01:27:14Guest:But I'm not going to play this game because I know that helping your boss makes you valuable and threatening your boss does not.

01:27:26Guest:So I say, look, I'm not going to entertain any.

01:27:30Marc:Right.

01:27:30Guest:Talk until he decides what he wants to do.

01:27:36Guest:But I'm pretty sure he got wind of it because the day of our table read, and this is the draft has been in production for weeks.

01:27:43Guest:I sit down and he turns to me, I'm next to him, and he says, you know, I made a few changes last night.

01:27:49Guest:And I think, okay, no big deal.

01:27:52Guest:I open up the script and the way you know a change has been made is there's an asterisk on the margin.

01:27:59Mm-hmm.

01:28:00Guest:For my three acts, there are just all asterisks.

01:28:06Guest:I describe it like, you know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

01:28:11Guest:It's just like I'm riffling through the papers.

01:28:16Guest:And it was really humiliating because, you know, I think it would be very easy for him to have made it clear to the cast and all the executives who come to the table read that it looked like he had rewritten every line of mind when, in fact, he was adding commas.

01:28:37Guest:You know, he was changing also to two things.

01:28:41Marc:Yeah, yeah, right, right, so it was not major changes, but just enough to get the asterisk to make you look like stupid.

01:28:47Marc:Yeah.

01:28:48Marc:Yeah, that was just sort of mind-blowing to me.

01:28:50Guest:I know.

01:28:51Marc:But then there was the other sort of situation where it's more subtle, like what was the writing room where, what was the whole tampon riff?

01:29:01Marc:oh that was at letterman that was my first day um at late night with david letterman which was the mbc show and this is 1990 but this is like so you had you maybe we should go back you did have good experiences i mean you did yes you did you know you wrote for new hearts second show right and that was season and and were there women in the room there

01:29:25Guest:They didn't make it through the whole season, but there were when I got there.

01:29:29Marc:And you stayed through the whole season.

01:29:30Guest:I did.

01:29:31Guest:I hung on.

01:29:31Marc:But it's so funny to me that you didn't really get to know Bob or anything.

01:29:34Marc:Like, you know, like my writers, they were always around, you know, like when in terms of on set or when needed.

01:29:42Marc:But I think it was different than where you were.

01:29:44Marc:And I don't I never worked on.

01:29:45Guest:I was really I was.

01:29:47Guest:I was new.

01:29:48Guest:It was my first sitcom.

01:29:50Guest:And, you know, decades later, I watched this TED Talk that Sheryl Sandberg gave.

01:29:57Guest:Yeah.

01:29:57Guest:Where she talked, the first thing she spoke about is that women need to sit at the table.

01:30:02Guest:Right.

01:30:02Guest:And it resonated so strongly because I was the one who, instead of sitting at the table, would sit in the chairs around the periphery.

01:30:11Marc:Uh-huh.

01:30:12Marc:Right.

01:30:13Guest:So it's both literal and metaphorical, which is why I love it.

01:30:16Marc:Right, I get it.

01:30:17Marc:For you.

01:30:18Marc:But yeah, it does make sense.

01:30:20Marc:But see, I guess what the point I'm making is that by the time you took the job at Letterman, you had done a lot of stuff.

01:30:29Guest:Flew hard in the Simpsons and the Smothers Brothers.

01:30:32Marc:But not coach yet?

01:30:33Marc:No.

01:30:34Guest:No, that came after.

01:30:35Marc:But the Simpsons, let's talk a little bit about that because that seemed to be a room full of nerds that were respectful of women, no?

01:30:44Marc:No.

01:30:45No.

01:30:46Guest:Well, I got in on the ground floor because I watched the premiere and I called my agent and said, I want to write for the show.

01:30:57Guest:It was just so mean.

01:30:58Guest:I loved it.

01:31:00Guest:And so they brought me in for the second season and I wrote the Fugu episode, the Blowfish episode.

01:31:09Guest:Yeah.

01:31:10Guest:And it was a really good experience.

01:31:12Guest:And I don't tell this story in the book, but I'll tell it now that there were writers pushing for me to be hired on staff.

01:31:24Guest:And apparently Sam Simon said, I'm going through a divorce.

01:31:28Guest:I don't want any women in the room.

01:31:31Guest:And it was another five years, over 100 more episodes before another woman wrote an episode after mine.

01:31:39Guest:And mine went incredibly smoothly.

01:31:42Guest:It turned out to be a fine episode.

01:31:46Guest:So that was disappointing.

01:31:49Marc:But you seem to find room for kindness for Simon in writing about him in retrospect.

01:32:00Marc:But that was clearly...

01:32:03Guest:Well, it's called just the funny parts.

01:32:05Guest:I almost wrote just the angry and bitter parts, but it's like eight volumes.

01:32:11Marc:Right.

01:32:11Marc:I get it.

01:32:12Marc:I get it.

01:32:12Marc:But that's really a heinous story, that he would keep women out of that room for that long because of his personal feelings that were... But he was clear about it, at least.

01:32:28Marc:He wasn't pulling any punches.

01:32:31Guest:Right.

01:32:31Guest:I know, yeah, thank you for your clarity.

01:32:33Guest:But I get to Letterman and I did have a lot more experience.

01:32:37Guest:Most of the writers, it was their first TV job.

01:32:41Marc:Right, and I guess I'm just trying to, like, because it has been up and down, but the Wilton North Report, you know, you were friends with Conan and you met these guys.

01:32:49Marc:And that was a good experience.

01:32:52Marc:Some of those brothers, not good.

01:32:54Marc:No, good.

01:32:55Marc:Because of Tommy, but because of Stafford, it got weird and bad.

01:32:59Marc:And Newhart was good.

01:33:00Guest:Mostly.

01:33:01Guest:Yeah.

01:33:02Marc:Right.

01:33:03Guest:But you weren't feeling sexualized or isolated or... Well, one of the EPs walked by and was overheard in the office screaming, women cause nothing but pain.

01:33:16Guest:But I don't know.

01:33:17Marc:But we don't know if that was his personal life.

01:33:19Guest:We think it was personal.

01:33:20Guest:No, I made it to the end.

01:33:22Guest:So that was good.

01:33:22Guest:And...

01:33:23Guest:That show had this guy, Bob Benditson, who was total mentor to me and really believed in me and taught me a ton.

01:33:33Guest:So that was I mean, that's what you try to find that like that one good person and bad experience.

01:33:40Marc:Right.

01:33:40Marc:Of course.

01:33:40Marc:Yeah.

01:33:41Marc:I mean, yeah, there's always horrible experiences.

01:33:43Marc:And then, you know, right.

01:33:44Marc:Yeah.

01:33:44Marc:If you're in an ensemble or a group of people, there will be somebody that will provide a reprieve or some wisdom that you can hopefully latch on to.

01:33:53Guest:Well, I talk about when evaluating shows to work on, I talk about the three Ps, which is people, process, and product.

01:34:04Guest:And so, you know, the people are who are you spending all day with.

01:34:08Guest:The process is, well, how long are the days?

01:34:10Guest:Yeah.

01:34:11Guest:And the product is, is it something you're proud of?

01:34:15Guest:And is it something that's popular?

01:34:18Guest:And those are two different things.

01:34:20Guest:It is very rare to get three out of three.

01:34:24Guest:And it's really happened once in my entire career.

01:34:27Guest:Murphy Brown, which was a terrific experience.

01:34:31Guest:And then...

01:34:33Guest:You're lucky if you get two, if you like the people and you're making a good product, but yes, the hours are long, so that's sad, but that's okay.

01:34:45Guest:And then there are a lot of shows where it's just one, where it's like the process and the product are not good, but the people are.

01:34:54Marc:But it is sort of interesting, though, on the side that you are working in, which I never did and I wouldn't do as a TV writer, is that, you know, throughout the book, you talk about how you have to be somewhat cynical in a way because of the disappointment and the rejection.

01:35:11Marc:And, you know, your expectations are constantly tempered and that, you know, the things that seem great and are going wrong.

01:35:18Marc:don't go for dumb reasons or maybe reasons that you don't even know.

01:35:22Marc:It's a relentless, horrible, disappointing life.

01:35:26Marc:Yet at the end, you sort of frame it like a rat pushing a food pellet button.

01:35:33Marc:I don't know.

01:35:34Marc:I can only think about it for myself.

01:35:39Marc:That if two of the Ps out of the three Ps aren't happening, more than once for me, I'm not fucking doing that anymore.

01:35:48Marc:I'm not a type A personality, but it seemed that you sort of leveled off on wanting to direct and that even the experience.

01:35:57Marc:Well, let's talk about Letterman and then talk a little bit about Sabrina because I was curious about that.

01:36:02Marc:So the Letterman thing in that, I mentioned the tampon thing because you mentioned it.

01:36:08Marc:What happened that first day?

01:36:09Guest:Oh, well, I'm the only female writer.

01:36:12Guest:I'm the first one since Meryl Marco left the show a couple of years before I got there.

01:36:18Guest:And one writer stops by my office, and we have this really nice exchange.

01:36:23Guest:We have friends in common.

01:36:24Guest:And then at the very end, he pauses, and he pointed at me and said, before this is over, I'll see a tampon fall out of your purse and walks away.

01:36:35Guest:Yeah.

01:36:36Guest:So I thought, well, that's weird.

01:36:38Guest:Why would he have said that?

01:36:40Marc:It is weird.

01:36:40Marc:It's weird no matter how you slice it.

01:36:43Marc:Yeah.

01:36:44Guest:Yeah, and I come up with a theory in the book about why I think he did it.

01:36:48Guest:Because you could have also made it, you know, before this is over, I will hear you fart.

01:36:55Guest:Like if he just wanted to bring up some embarrassing bodily function, he didn't have to go to the one thing that singled me out from everyone else.

01:37:04Right.

01:37:04Marc:Right, and then that environment is notoriously undiversified.

01:37:11Marc:The Letterman Show was.

01:37:13Guest:Was.

01:37:14Marc:Yeah.

01:37:14Guest:Yeah.

01:37:15Marc:And ultimately you wrote a big piece on that.

01:37:21Guest:Right, 19 years later.

01:37:23Guest:In fact, I was working on Warehouse 13 at the time.

01:37:27Marc:The Sci-Fi Channel show.

01:37:28Guest:Which I loved.

01:37:29Guest:It's such a good show.

01:37:30Marc:Well, that's interesting, because you were such a sci-fi fan when you were a kid, and you spent all this time as a comedy writer, and then you get this opportunity to work on this great little show that turns out to be the best thing, satisfying thing.

01:37:45Guest:It was.

01:37:46Guest:And it was magic and comedy and mystery.

01:37:49Guest:It's everything I love.

01:37:51Guest:But someone would say, make a sexist comment and someone else would go, watch out.

01:37:57Guest:You know, Nell's going to write an article about you.

01:38:00Guest:I would go, yeah, 19 years from now, you're going to be so sorry.

01:38:04Marc:Right.

01:38:05Marc:What was that?

01:38:05Marc:What provoked the piece about Dave?

01:38:08Yeah.

01:38:09Guest:Well, Dave gets on the air because he's in this blackmail sex scandal.

01:38:14Guest:Sure.

01:38:15Guest:And he cops to doing his, quote, some creepy stuff.

01:38:20Guest:Right.

01:38:20Guest:And that is that he has had sex with women, plural, who worked on his show.

01:38:25Guest:Yeah.

01:38:28Yeah.

01:38:29Guest:And that was then the National Organization of Women comes out with a statement talking about how there's a power imbalance.

01:38:39Guest:And any time a boss has sex with an employee, it...

01:38:44Guest:um it's inappropriate and then the uh another one of the executive producers rob speaks up and and gives a statement about how he had worked on the show for over 20 years and it was completely fair and merit-based right and like i said my soul did a spit take yeah

01:39:08Guest:Because if you want to say, yeah, we fuck over women and we've never had a black person in 33 years work on the show.

01:39:16Guest:Late show and late night never had a single person of color in the writer's room.

01:39:22Guest:And if you want to say...

01:39:24Guest:Yeah, they just didn't fit in, or we didn't think they'd fit in.

01:39:28Guest:But if you say it's all merit-based, then I felt compelled to speak out.

01:39:36Marc:Yeah.

01:39:37Guest:And I really thought it might end my career.

01:39:39Marc:Yeah.

01:39:40Marc:What was the piece called?

01:39:40Guest:It was called Letterman and Me.

01:39:42Marc:Yeah.

01:39:43Marc:And it didn't end your career.

01:39:44Marc:No.

01:39:45Marc:And it did provoke a great conversation culturally.

01:39:50Guest:I hope so.

01:39:51Guest:That was in 2009.

01:39:52Guest:Yeah.

01:39:53Marc:Yeah.

01:39:54Marc:And I just like, you know, in the book when people read it, you can see like, because you always wondered if David read it and then you had an opportunity to see Dave.

01:40:00Guest:That was wild.

01:40:01Marc:And you still don't really know if he read it.

01:40:03Marc:I mean, I think you'd like to believe he didn't, but I don't know.

01:40:06Guest:I don't think he did.

01:40:07Marc:Really?

01:40:08Really.

01:40:08Guest:Like, because when he said, congratulations on your book.

01:40:12Marc:Right.

01:40:13Guest:And I said, you know, meaning Lean In, which had spent 16 weeks at number one on the best summer list.

01:40:18Marc:The Sheryl Sandberg and you wrote.

01:40:20Guest:Yeah.

01:40:21Guest:Yeah.

01:40:21Guest:And so Dave goes, congratulations on your book.

01:40:23Guest:And I go, Dave, you don't know about my book.

01:40:26Guest:And he said, yeah, the one you wrote with that woman.

01:40:29Marc:Yeah.

01:40:30Marc:Right.

01:40:30Marc:He's trying to be diplomatic.

01:40:32Guest:Someone told him I had written a book that did well.

01:40:34Marc:Yeah.

01:40:35Marc:So Murphy Brown, you had a great experience.

01:40:37Yeah.

01:40:38Guest:Murphy Brown was great.

01:40:40Guest:Yeah.

01:40:41Marc:And Sabrina, how did that work with Sabrina?

01:40:43Marc:Because did you create it?

01:40:44Marc:What did it mean to be the creator of that show?

01:40:46Guest:Well, it was a comic from the Archie universe.

01:40:51Marc:Yeah, right.

01:40:52Guest:But I created the TV show.

01:40:54Guest:Right.

01:40:56Guest:But there were certain rules.

01:40:58Guest:I had to use certain characters and...

01:41:01Marc:um sabrina and harvey salem the cat and the two ants yeah and we got you know i begged caroline ray to do the show i love her i we go way back she's funny in her bones yeah yeah she's great um but she only stayed there a year i did but after you leave because you're the creator you still you're always going to be a pursuit a producer right is that how it works or just not a producer just a creator you always get paid yeah so that was a good gig

01:41:28Guest:That was a great gig.

01:41:29Guest:Yeah.

01:41:30Marc:Yeah.

01:41:31Marc:That's what you hope for.

01:41:32Guest:Although I found out that there was a man was supposed to create the show and then fell out at the last second.

01:41:40Guest:Yeah.

01:41:40Guest:I learned that my deal was 25% of what his deal was.

01:41:45Mm-hmm.

01:41:46Guest:I'm like, 77%.

01:41:48Guest:That would have been awesome.

01:41:50Guest:Yeah.

01:41:50Guest:25%.

01:41:52Guest:Ugh.

01:41:53Guest:I know.

01:41:53Guest:We lived in a nice house in Santa Monica, but it was only one story.

01:41:58Guest:And I always used to tell people I'd have a second floor if I'd been a guy.

01:42:01Marc:You would have.

01:42:04Marc:And then you worked on Monk a bit, NCIS.

01:42:07Guest:Oh, I love Monk.

01:42:08Guest:Do you know Andy Breckman?

01:42:09Guest:He is one of the funniest people on the planet.

01:42:12Marc:Was Sharpling there when you were there?

01:42:13Guest:Yeah, he's great.

01:42:14Marc:I love Tom Sharpling.

01:42:15Guest:Yeah, that was such a fun room to be in.

01:42:17Marc:He's sweet and funny, that guy.

01:42:19Marc:I'm going to give him a call, actually.

01:42:20Marc:I haven't talked to him in a while.

01:42:22Marc:And then you were able to write for Obama a bit and Hillary a bit.

01:42:26Marc:This has really taken you to a lot of different places.

01:42:29Marc:You're doing this job.

01:42:31Guest:So he's so funny.

01:42:34Guest:And he's I was once talking about Obama's delivery with Albert Brooks.

01:42:40Guest:And Albert says he's like Carson.

01:42:42Marc:Yeah.

01:42:43Guest:He delivers jokes like Carson and he'll repeat a word that he likes.

01:42:48Marc:Didn't Albert give you some other advice at some point?

01:42:50Guest:Yeah, he's, I didn't, you know, we became friends, you know, in the past decade, but, you know, not forever.

01:42:56Guest:And he's, look, but he, especially with the gender stuff, he teamed up with Monica Johnson, you know, to write Lost in America.

01:43:05Guest:And I think that's why Julie Haggerty's character is so funny and flawed.

01:43:09Guest:Sure.

01:43:11Yeah.

01:43:12Marc:so he's i mean but he's special god he's the fun yeah and you know it was funny it's one of those things where you you appreciated yourself when you were younger and then you got to meet him later in life because just real life not even because right but he said something about humanity and about right a fairer a fairer sampling of humanity will always produce funnier material yeah

01:43:33Guest:And I believe that.

01:43:34Marc:That's touching to me.

01:43:35Guest:Yeah.

01:43:36Marc:That's why I was saying that the book is, it's not like an industry help book, but there's a lot of lessons that you've learned throughout, not just about being a woman, but just about being in this dumb business that I think are helpful in terms of framing how you approach things.

01:43:52Guest:Right, and how not to get pushed around, which is, I think, what we're all fighting against.

01:43:59Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:44:00Marc:And I think that it seems that the relationship with Sheryl Sandberg that gave you...

01:44:09Marc:a way of framing and more voice, you know, just by watching her before you worked with her to sort of look back over your life and then sort of create, you know, this like a retrospective feminist arc for yourself.

01:44:26Guest:Well, what Cheryl does better than anyone is she can get that 30,000-foot view and then zoom in to that data point.

01:44:35Guest:That proves it.

01:44:37Guest:And, you know, I tend to get stuck in my own life and...

01:44:42Guest:You know, I'm looking at all the data points and not taking that big view.

01:44:47Guest:And so she really taught me how to take that step back and see the patterns.

01:44:55Marc:Right.

01:44:56Guest:Right.

01:44:57Marc:So culturally and in your own life.

01:45:00Guest:Right.

01:45:00Guest:And, you know, some things I did instinctively.

01:45:03Guest:So I've had two kids and I tried to hide my pregnancy for as long as I could.

01:45:09Guest:When people ask me if I have kids on the first day of work, I always say, yeah, but I'm blanking on their names right now.

01:45:17Guest:Yeah.

01:45:18Guest:Because there's a motherhood penalty.

01:45:24Guest:And women take a hit the second they become mothers, even if it's adoption.

01:45:29Guest:So it's not even like, well, you need to sleep more.

01:45:33Guest:And men's pay actually gets higher.

01:45:38Marc:That's interesting because on some level, the idea is that you're not going to be committed to the job or you're going to be pulled away by your children.

01:45:46Marc:But on the flip side of that, outside of the pair of things, they completely expect men to abandon their families because that's the nature of work, of the way that the culture works is that they'll let the kid and the wife stay at home.

01:46:02Marc:You just do what we want you.

01:46:04Guest:Right.

01:46:04Guest:Your baby was born yesterday.

01:46:06Guest:You can take that day off, but we expect you in.

01:46:08Guest:That is changing, though, because in the rooms I've been in recently, there's a lot of men saying, I got to leave early and pick my kid up at school, which is fantastic.

01:46:22Guest:The only thing that's slightly annoying is, oh, he's such a good dad.

01:46:27Guest:And I know if I tried to do that, I'd be pulled aside and told, like, do you want this job?

01:46:32Marc:Yeah.

01:46:34Marc:Right.

01:46:35Marc:Right.

01:46:35Marc:Some of this stuff gets complicated.

01:46:37Marc:I think you handle it very well in terms of, you know, knowing men that were good and bad and knowing bad men that had good qualities.

01:46:44Marc:Right.

01:46:44Marc:And knowing, you know, good men that could be dicks, too.

01:46:47Marc:You know, I mean, I think that the movement, you know, that the stuff that...

01:46:51Marc:sort of uh came from your relationship with with with cheryl and also like the way you framed your life in this is that it's all it's not condemning it's it's it's it's sort of uh it opens up a dialogue it doesn't close one oh i hope so yeah i i i like the book i like i said i i enjoyed reading it and it was great talking to you you feel all right about everything

01:47:13Guest:I feel better because it's ending.

01:47:18Marc:Oh, really?

01:47:18Guest:No, I tell that story.

01:47:20Guest:I don't know if you remember about meeting Leno when I'm, I don't know, 26.

01:47:26Marc:You ought to be a comedian?

01:47:28Guest:So we needed a host for the Wilton North Report, the show so bad that it doesn't exist.

01:47:35Guest:And...

01:47:37Guest:Conan, Greg Daniels, and I were dispatched to, what would it have been on Melrose?

01:47:42Guest:What is that, the comedy store?

01:47:44Marc:Melrose, no, the improv.

01:47:46Guest:Okay, so we're dispatched to the improv.

01:47:49Guest:Now, bear in mind, Ellen DeGeneres has come in, auditioned.

01:47:54Guest:knocked it out of the park, and the executive producer was like, nah.

01:48:00Guest:So we need a host, and we're watching people, and we're taking a break in the lobby, and Jay Leno walks in.

01:48:06Guest:And he's like the biggest star any of us have ever seen.

01:48:10Guest:Yeah.

01:48:13Guest:He's really friendly.

01:48:14Guest:He comes over and we're chatting it up with Jay Leno and I make some rude comment and he looks at me and he goes, you're funny.

01:48:24Guest:You should do stand-up.

01:48:25Guest:Yeah.

01:48:26Guest:And I was like, what, me?

01:48:27Guest:And he said, yeah.

01:48:29Guest:And he gestured toward the showroom and said, don't you look at those people and think I could do better than that?

01:48:34Guest:And I said, no, I look at those people and think every one of them is brave.

01:48:39Guest:And he goes, eh, you shouldn't do stand-up.

01:48:41Guest:Yeah.

01:48:41Guest:That was it.

01:48:44Guest:So whatever super confidence you need to propel you on that stage, I mean, it's amazing that you can do that.

01:48:54Marc:But like I said, after a decade or two, I mean, you get nervous for different reasons, but not about getting on stage.

01:49:02Guest:Oh, that's right, because that one time I met you, you were about to go do a set.

01:49:06Marc:Sure, yeah.

01:49:06Guest:And you were just like, yeah, I got to do a set in 15 minutes.

01:49:09Guest:Yeah.

01:49:09Guest:And I was like, what?

01:49:11Marc:Yeah.

01:49:11Marc:No, no, I've been doing it a long time.

01:49:16Guest:I panicked for you.

01:49:17Marc:Yeah, I would hope I wouldn't be that, you know.

01:49:19Marc:I didn't know how long it would take for it to go away, but it eventually did.

01:49:22Marc:But like if I was 25 years in and still like, I would, I'd do that with other things in my mind.

01:49:30Marc:But thanks for talking to me and great job on the book.

01:49:32Guest:Thank you, Mark.

01:49:39Marc:All right, folks, that's it.

01:49:41Marc:That's it for this episode.

01:49:43Marc:I think I'll play some slow blues for our slow slide into autocracy.

01:49:56Autocracy.

01:50:15Guest:guitar solo

01:50:41Marc:Boomer lives.