Episode 903 - Neil Patrick Harris / Michael Imperioli
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:It's Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:This is my voice coming to you from the new garage.
Marc:It's an empty garage.
Marc:It might have a slight effect on the sound, but we're going to chip away it.
Marc:I got to get the books on the shelves.
Marc:I got to get the foam up.
Marc:I got to get some life into this place, but I'm here.
Marc:I'm here.
Marc:I'm tucked away in a corner of my new space, and it's spectacular.
Marc:It looks spectacular.
Marc:It feels good.
Marc:It's a little weird, though, folks.
Marc:It's a little weird.
Marc:I'm not going to lie to you.
Marc:I've been going through somewhat of a crisis.
Marc:I mean, after I got all that stuff out of the old garage, I mean, I was in there...
Marc:And I know this has been going on for a while, but I was in that garage for a long time.
Marc:I was in there for years.
Marc:It was a part of my body.
Marc:We had a symbiotic relationship.
Marc:We were one.
Marc:Me and that old garage were one.
Marc:And I got to tell you, when I emptied it out entirely, and it was just hollow, and it was just that linoleum floor that I had put in there with some big idea after I pulled the rug up, it was just those...
Marc:tiles there and nothing else in it it was kind of it was rough and then I left and I and I laid in bed and I was like oh man I felt like I had lost my Siamese twin I felt like it was removed but that's not even a good analogy I just felt like I was kind of a part of me was broken away and to detach from it was crazy but
Marc:But here I am.
Marc:I'm in the new space.
Marc:And it's roomy.
Marc:It's beautiful.
Marc:There's a bathroom right over there.
Marc:There's some windows.
Marc:And I just got to get the foam up.
Marc:I got to get the books out.
Marc:I got to get stuff going.
Marc:But it's probably ongoing.
Marc:I'm probably going to experience some grief.
Marc:And I don't know how it's going to manifest itself.
Marc:But...
Marc:I woke up in somewhat of a panic.
Marc:Before I get too far into this, I wanted to give a shout-out to my buddy Joe Mattarise.
Marc:He was on this show about a year ago, and now he's got his own podcast.
Marc:It's called Stand Up, Lie Down, and he hosts it with his friend Dr. Keith.
Marc:They're basically taking the whole stand-up is therapy thing to its logical conclusion.
Marc:On each episode, they talk to a different comic and use their stand-up act to get to the bottom of their issues.
Marc:You can get it on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Marc:It's weird to start here at ground at the ground level again, to be sitting in a room with boxes all over the floor and just stuff around that needs to be sorted out and put in its proper place.
Marc:It feels like the beginning of the podcast when I was just sitting in the middle of that old garage and was just basically a place to put shit.
Marc:But I'm back now.
Marc:I'm back in that.
Marc:but obviously it's a little different.
Marc:I've made a choice.
Marc:I've moved to a place that's more comfortable and interesting to me, and I've got a new garage, and this is where we're at.
Marc:Did I mention today is Neil Patrick Harris Day on the show?
Marc:These are a series of interviews still that were recorded in the old space.
Marc:Oh, man, don't freak out, I said to myself.
Marc:Don't freak out, I said to me.
Marc:It's going to be okay, folks.
Marc:It's going to be exciting.
Marc:Right now, this was exciting, actually.
Marc:Michael Imperioli reached out to me.
Marc:He wrote a novel.
Marc:And I don't always read everything that I'm supposed to read to do these interviews because I don't think it's relevant.
Marc:But Imperioli and I had a beautiful chat years ago.
Marc:And he wrote this novel and he wanted to talk about it.
Marc:So I thought I owed it to him and it's the right thing to do.
Marc:And out of respect for the work he did, I read the novel.
Marc:It's called The Perfume Burned His Eyes.
Marc:It's out now.
Marc:You can get it wherever you get books.
Marc:And it's a beautiful little coming of age story.
Marc:It's sort of a slightly dark coming of age story that he really put his heart into.
Marc:And it's...
Marc:It was a it was a great read.
Marc:I enjoyed it.
Marc:I really did.
Marc:And it was great for Michael to to come by and and talk about it.
Marc:I guess he's also got a new ABC show, Alex Inc.
Marc:But Imperial is a solid cat.
Marc:And this was really and I'm being honest here.
Marc:They will hear me hear me because I'm I'm I'm being honest.
Marc:This was a good read, and it was a heartfelt book, and it's a sweet book, and it takes place at a time in New York that I kind of remember, but it's a little gritty, but it's still a coming-of-age story about a 17-year-old kid, and Lou Reed is in it.
Marc:Lou Reed is a character in this coming-of-age story, which is spectacular.
Marc:So this is me and Michael Imperioli talking about his new book, The Perfume Burned His Eyes.
Yeah.
Marc:So this morning, I finished your book, and I loved it.
Marc:And I ended up this morning, it was not anticipated, but I ended up listening to Blue Mask and Street Hassle.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:Is it a great way to start the day?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But there's great records.
Marc:Great records.
Marc:And...
Marc:So this book, I love that it was that you wrote it from the point of view of a high school kid.
Marc:You know, I think that the tone of it was great and it's very engaged.
Marc:I found it very moving and exciting.
Marc:And it brought me back to I didn't grow up in the city, but I used to go to New York because I have family in Jersey and stuff in the 70s.
Marc:And it really made me feel what it was like then again.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was very... It had its very specific flavor and character.
Marc:It did, didn't it?
Marc:And I think you really got that pretty good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Were you going into the city then?
Guest:I mean... I was... You know, I was... In 76, I was 10, so we'd go to the city for like... To see the, you know, Statue of Liberty.
Marc:From where?
Marc:Where were you?
Marc:I grew up... Wait, Westchester?
Guest:Mount Vernon, yeah.
Guest:Right on the city border of the Bronx.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's very close to the city, but yet...
Guest:You know, we'd go to the baseball game, the circus.
Marc:Yeah, the Sir Rink Barnum & Bailey at Madison Square Garden.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Once in a while a play.
Guest:Right.
Guest:My parents, we went to see a couple of plays.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I didn't know the city at all.
Guest:No?
Guest:No, it was very abstract.
Guest:I was a little kid.
Marc:It's kind of weird to me, though.
Marc:But, well, I mean, a little kid and what.
Marc:So this kid, this takes most of the narrative of the book.
Marc:It's you writing.
Marc:See, this is the thing.
Marc:I had to picture you the whole way through.
Guest:It's not me, though.
Marc:I know that.
Marc:Definitely not.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But that's just what I do when people write books.
Marc:I understand that.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:You're playing the kid.
Guest:I'm playing the kid in the movie.
Guest:No, you're playing the kid in the book.
Guest:In the book, which is a movie in your head when you're reading.
Marc:Right, kind of.
Marc:But so that most of the action or most of the narrative takes place is a recollection in 1977.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So he's looking back at what year?
Guest:Well, most of the book is written from the point of view of a boy at 18, about to be 18 in a mental hospital.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Looking at what happened the last two years.
Guest:It's like a journal.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then the epilogue takes place.
Guest:Years later, 2013.
Guest:In 2013, which is 35 years later, I guess.
Guest:Three days after Lou Reed's death.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that is sort of in memoriam to Lou Reed.
Marc:But when you were writing this, I don't know when you wrote it, did you anticipate that happening or did you write this after he died?
Guest:Well, when I started the book, I wanted to write a coming of age story.
Guest:It's something that's always been very close to my heart from when I was a kid.
Marc:Which ones do you like?
Guest:catcher in the rye of course right i mean that's how could you not like that that's such a seminal piece of work but also candide which i read which is not necessarily coming age but in some ways it is but i read that as a teenager it made a huge impression on me yeah and i hadn't looked at candide again maybe since i was a teenager and i just picked it up a couple of months ago and i realized how much
Guest:That book, it may influence the writing of this, but just influenced me, I think, in general as an artist.
Guest:As a way to relate to the 16-year-old mind, because my son was turning 16, and he was going through what kids go through at that age, and I just wanted to relate to that state of mind.
Guest:So I started writing... Before Lou died or after?
Guest:Before Lou died.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Started writing the character, and...
Guest:There was an early version of this character in a script that I wrote of a pilot that I sold to HBO that didn't get made.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:Very different, but the character was- Matt.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then- What was it about this character?
Marc:If this guy's not you, because to me-
Marc:All the buttons were pushed for me reading the book because, I don't know, how old are you?
Guest:52 this month.
Marc:I'm 54, so just a couple years older than you, but it was all very familiar to me.
Marc:But I was a little older when I was down in Alphabet City.
Guest:So was I. I didn't get to the city until 1983 when I was 17.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:It's not that far away.
Marc:No, but also, so you were at the age of this kid, really.
Guest:I was a little older.
Guest:None of the events that happened to this kid ever happened to me.
Guest:I mean, except from being a teenager in this big city.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:You moved there when you were 17?
Guest:I started going to acting school.
Guest:I was kind of in and out.
Guest:I'd go back home.
Guest:I'd stay there.
Guest:And then I finally moved permanently, I guess, like 85.
Marc:So this kid, he stifles himself a lot because he's overwhelmed all the time.
Marc:And he's about to get sick half the time when he has feelings.
Guest:He's afraid.
Guest:The world's a big place to him.
Marc:Going from Queens to New York City, you really sort of brought that.
Marc:Because I don't think people realize that, even in Westchester.
Marc:The city's there, but it's just a big menacing place.
Marc:No one...
Guest:Especially then.
Guest:It was a little more of a, you know, today's world is a lot smaller in general because everybody's a lot more aware of what's going on all the time because of the way we communicate and stuff.
Guest:But especially then, you know, his journey from Jackson Heights to Manhattan was only a couple, maybe two miles or three miles, but it's light years apart in terms of.
Marc:Yeah, it's like people on the island who never go to the city.
Marc:They never go, maybe for a concert, but hardly that.
Guest:Or when relatives come to town and you take them to the Empire State Building.
Marc:Yeah, because you live in New York.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I underlined one sentence in the book for some reason because I liked it.
Marc:Oh, when you were in the magic store.
Marc:The occult.
Marc:The occult store.
Marc:It's a real store, right?
Marc:There was a real store down there.
Marc:I was trying to remember it.
Guest:There was a couple.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was one in the Flatiron District that I think lasted longer, but the one there, there was one in the East Village.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I can't even remember the name, which were always very, if you had ever gone to those places, they were very strange.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:You know, you got all the amulets.
Marc:You describe it very well, but the sentence I underlined was, air that had grown thick from years of desperate aspirations.
Marc:Some fulfilled, some fruitless, most of them malicious.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's, you could feel that in those places.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I think the real hook of this book, you know, for me and I think, you know, for you too, because we had talked about, the last time you were here, we talked about our love of Lou Reed, is that
Marc:The device in this book that is really sort of amazing is that this kid coincidentally moves into the building that Lou Reed lives in.
Marc:Your character, Matthew, moves in with his mother who leaves a life in Jackson Heights because of an inheritance and things had not gone right.
Marc:Your father's dead.
Marc:Your grandfather's dead.
Marc:But she takes up this place in the city in Midtown and Lou Reed lives in your building.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Not yours.
Marc:The character.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:I always do that with writers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He lives, yeah.
Guest:Well, in the 76, he did live in the east side of Manhattan in kind of a very... A neighborhood you wouldn't really think of him living in because he was always a downtown guy for most of the time.
Marc:In 76.
Marc:So that was... Because this is really Lou hitting bottom.
Guest:I think... He might have had a couple of bottoms, but he went... The album, Street Hassle, I think came from a very painful place.
Guest:There was a breakup and...
Guest:I mean, Street Hassle, which I think is the song, especially Street Hassle, is just such a brilliant piece of work.
Guest:But Lou is there to serve as a certain, because this kid loses the two major male role models in his life at this very critical point in his adolescence.
Marc:When he's, what, 17?
Guest:16.
Guest:And Lou emerges as this kind of quasi-father figure.
Guest:despite his own madness and not intentionally becoming a father figure.
Marc:And not really showing up as a father figure at all.
Guest:No.
Marc:Other than remembering your name finally.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, that's on the kind of literal level, but on another level, to me, he's a...
Guest:To me, the book is about the formation of an artist.
Marc:Well, I thought the interesting thing was, knowing what you know about Lou, and I figured you did some research on it, is that the kid didn't know who he was.
Marc:He didn't know who he was.
Marc:And that even all the way through the relationship,
Marc:You know, he knew he had a thing, he had a hit or he had a song he recognized, but that the attraction and the desire to be close to Lou was more based on just the uniqueness of his life and the intensity of his personality.
Guest:Exactly, exactly.
Marc:And I thought that was an interesting choice.
Marc:So you don't have any celebrity element in there.
Marc:You know, it was just this weird dude with the weird haircut who didn't look like anybody else.
Guest:And luckily he didn't belong in that neighborhood, in that area.
Guest:But there was something that, you know, this kid... Something in his aura and his energy struck a nerve with this kid.
Guest:And what I, in my mind, was saying that it's about...
Guest:A certain artistic vision and a certain artistic consciousness that this kid is drawn to.
Guest:And later in the book, in one of Lou's Desperate Moments, he takes this kid down to the village, to this theater, to see this play.
Guest:And later on, we see that this kid, when he's in the hospital, he writes a play.
Guest:He starts to write a play.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's the seeds of saying, well, this is how Lou is bestowing and influencing the artistic circle of life.
Marc:Well, I think that also what was exciting for me is that, and I struggle with this all the time, that Lou Reed as a presence and a phenomenon, everybody knows.
Marc:But to really love Lou Reed all the way through everything he did is a rare person.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:That whatever your sensitivity is, I have it as well.
Marc:And he's as troubling as he is compelling to me.
Guest:It's even during the course of his career.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Just even the music.
Marc:Some of it's a little too vulnerable for me, and some of it's a little too stupid for me, and some of it's affected.
Marc:But there's always one or two that keeps pushing me through.
Guest:But, I mean, you really have to take Lou's work from the whole scope, I think.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was always challenging himself as an artist from beginning to end.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, Lulu, what he did with Metallica.
Marc:Yeah, I got to give that another listen.
Marc:See, I didn't...
Guest:Ecstasy, which was an album that came out around 2000 or 1999-2000, is a very underrated, excellent album.
Guest:The song Rock Minuets on that record.
Guest:But I mean, he's making this in his now early 60s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's not a lot of artists that can maintain that.
Guest:You know, Neil Young is one who just sort of maintains that.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Level of still trying to discover, still trying to push themselves.
Guest:And, you know, there's successes and failures along the way, and there's better and worse along the way.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But there was always that underlying.
Marc:Well, I like the thing he did with John Cale.
Marc:What was that in the 80s or 90s?
Marc:Songs for Drill.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, no, and Magic and Lost you brought up in the book.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:New York is tremendous.
Guest:New York is great.
Guest:Tremendous, yeah.
Guest:That's where the title comes from.
Guest:From the song Romeo Had Juliet.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:He says, the perfume burned his eyes, holding tightly to her thighs.
Guest:Something flickered for a minute, then it vanished and was gone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which always stuck in my head forever.
Guest:And I always wanted to figure out a way to use that somehow.
Guest:This originally was called Anywhere You Like.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which was...
Guest:which is a line when he first goes in the diner, and the waiter looks like he's going to be mean, and then he says, anywhere you like.
Guest:And to the kid, that phrase was like, he just got to the city, and it's like, okay, people seem like they're kind of gruff and mean, but yet, actually, it's just because that's the way people are in the city.
Guest:But then, as I kept writing, it didn't really encompass what I wanted for the, because you don't know where the story's going to go when you're writing it.
Guest:I didn't know.
Guest:No?
Guest:No, I didn't really have a... I had kind of a little germ or seed.
Guest:I didn't know what the story was going to be.
Guest:Did you know he was going to meet Lou Reed?
Guest:Not at the very beginning, no.
Guest:What happened was, this is going back to where we started, started this coming-of-age story, and while I was into that, Lou died.
Guest:And it hit me very...
Guest:surprisingly hard in a couple of different ways you know and both because I knew him and I really liked him a lot you developed a relationship with him later in his life yeah it's around night 2000 yeah and he's just he was just a very generous to me and really kind and warm did you spend time with him
Guest:Yeah, we did.
Guest:I met him at a show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At one of his shows backstage.
Guest:And he came when I screened a movie that I directed.
Guest:He came.
Guest:I invited him and he came.
Guest:We hosted a couple of benefits together for Jazz Foundation and for the Tibet Fund.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I visited him in the rehearsal studio when he was revisiting Metal Machine in around 2010.
Guest:Revisiting it?
Guest:He went on tour and was playing kind of like reworked versions of Metal Machine music live.
Guest:This is in 2010 or 11.
Guest:See, this is another thing I remember about.
Guest:A couple of years before he died.
Marc:Yeah, he's doing that album, which is like just an obliteration of music.
Guest:Yeah, but he was kind of reworking it to make it, I think, I didn't see that show live, but yeah, he was revisiting Metal Machine music.
Marc:And did you spend time with the both of them, with Laurie?
Guest:I've met Laurie a few times.
Guest:We've been in touch.
Guest:Did she read it?
Guest:She did read it, yeah.
Guest:She liked it a lot, I think.
Guest:She didn't know Lou in 76, and that's a whole side of Lou that I didn't know him either, and she didn't know, but I think she was able to enjoy it as a story.
Marc:The speculation.
Marc:She enjoyed your fictional speculation of what that must have been like.
Marc:I think so, yeah.
Marc:And did you read stuff about Lou at that time?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I have for years, but there's a lot of...
Guest:There's a lot of specific references that you draw through.
Guest:Like for instance, you have him quoting, he quotes a little line from Paul Simon's song.
Marc:Yeah, from You Can Call Me Out?
Guest:50 Ways.
Marc:Oh, 50 Ways, that's right, yeah.
Guest:But, so why did I choose that?
Guest:Well, Lou was in the movie One Trick Pony.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which was Paul Simon's new play.
Guest:I remember that, yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, trying to, you know, if you use a reference.
Marc:So, he knew, you know he knew, you know he knew that record.
Guest:He knew Paul Simon.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:He knew the record.
Guest:And I was like, okay, so choose that.
Guest:Or the New York Boys.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So trying to take little details and weave them into the narrative.
Marc:Well, the thing that always was amazing about Lou to me is from when I read Please Kill Me, you know, and they start with, they have bits and pieces of Lou in that book, The Oral History of Punk.
Guest:Well, they put him on the cover of the first punk magazine, The Legs.
Guest:The Legs.
Marc:I just saw them the other night.
Marc:They were in town.
Marc:They're doing another book, Legs and Jillian.
Marc:But...
Marc:But there was something about his, whatever they were doing at the factory, Lou saw no difference.
Marc:In some respects, in his mind, he didn't see any difference in terms of skill set or anything else from what he was doing to what Jimi Hendrix was doing or anybody else.
Marc:He thought he was just as good a guitar player as anybody else, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:very underrated guitar player i think i think he's an underrated guitar player but i also the the it struck me that like in terms of rock and roll it's not about how well you do anything it's about how you get your art your ideas across is it a good can you write a good song yeah does it sound good i mean virtue you know virtuosity has its place of course especially in you know other forms of music but it has its place in rock but is it a good song can you write a good song
Marc:Well, there's also that great moment in the book where you talk about, you weren't even tripping, you weren't even on drugs, but that day where you're with her, with Veronica, and you all of a sudden- You mean the character in the book?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, the character in the book, Matt, where, I do that all the time, where that character starts to realize how his brain works.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like he's all wide open and he's taking in the day and like you can feel him forming his brain.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's endorphins coming from being in love.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that all-encompassing feeling of when you fall for someone, and I think it does alter your brain chemistry.
Guest:I mean, there's things, there's hormones that start to really go into your bloodstream, and it allows for a different... I mean, that happened when I met my wife.
Guest:It was like three days where it was like I was on a drug.
Guest:oh yeah i mean literally my brain was going in ways i'd never never experienced ever and it was going on and on and on and on oh yeah yeah and did that the three days that lasted well i mean that's that's the uh i don't think you can stay like that you think you'll die because you're yeah i didn't sleep yeah all right yeah i was right sure sure i mean that's a sign that there's something special happening here
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I like how you brought in, in the end, in the institution that, you know, Ginsburg was supposedly there.
Marc:Like, you know, like the sort of the legacy of institutionalized geniuses.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And they're allowed to reveal the fact that if they had died, then they could say, yes, they were here.
Marc:But if they're alive, it's kind of private.
Marc:Who were the other two?
Marc:Lenny Bruce and Judy Garland.
Marc:Judy Garland.
Marc:Well, look, man, it's good to see you.
Marc:And the book is great.
Marc:And also, I want to make sure people know that this isn't a book about Lou Reed.
Marc:Lou Reed is fairly, he's an important character in it.
Marc:But when you look at the breadth of the book, it's not like you're doing a book about Lou Reed.
Guest:No, it's a coming-of-age story.
Marc:Oh, no, absolutely.
Marc:He's just a guy in the building.
Marc:But more importantly, even the relationship with Veronica and then the relationship with the kid in his own mind.
Guest:That's probably the most important relationship is him through his own mind and trying to figure out what it means to be a human being and be an adult.
Guest:And I thought it ended well.
Guest:It's hard to end a book.
Guest:It's hard to end a book.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:It has to be organic and it has to kind of make sense.
Marc:But you did a great job.
Marc:It's your first novel, right?
Guest:First novel.
Marc:Good, man.
Marc:I think it's a great coming to Vase story and I think it's a great homage to Lou as well.
Guest:That's what I tried to do.
Guest:Both of those things.
Marc:Good.
Marc:Well, thanks for coming by, man.
Guest:Thank you for having me.
Guest:Always a pleasure.
Thank you.
Marc:I love that guy.
Marc:And I love the book.
Marc:I honestly do.
Marc:It's called The Perfume Burned His Eyes.
Marc:It's out now.
Marc:Get it wherever you get books.
Marc:And that was nice to talk to Michael.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:It's so bizarre being here.
Marc:It will get less bizarre.
Marc:I promise.
Marc:It will get less bizarre.
Marc:So, Neil Patrick Harris wanted to do the show.
Marc:He's a fan of the show, and we tried to get him a while back, and we couldn't, and it was a lovely chat.
Marc:He's on the new show, Genius Junior, Sunday nights on NBC.
Marc:He's also on the Netflix show, A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Marc:All episodes of season two are now available.
Guest:And this is me talking to Neil Patrick Harris.
Guest:You know what you're doing.
Guest:Look at that.
Guest:I pointed the microphone at my mouth.
Marc:You did.
Marc:I can't tell you how few people understand that mic.
Marc:When I tell them you can just move it in, they're just baffled that the mic is on this thing for a reason.
Marc:You have freedom.
Marc:I find that strange with actor people in general.
Marc:Yeah, especially if they do voiceovers.
Marc:They should know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I guess when you go into those booths.
Marc:ADR?
Marc:They don't do looping?
Marc:I know, but you know what?
Marc:It's already set up for you, and there's three guys in there, right?
Marc:So the mic's stationary, and they tell you where to stand.
Marc:This is a radio thing.
Guest:I wonder that with the award shows.
Guest:What about it?
Guest:With the actors.
Guest:Their job is to walk up to the thing and read the giant teleprompter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they still look so baffled by the process.
Marc:It's a unique skill.
Marc:Not everybody can do teleprompter.
Marc:It's just, I don't know why.
Marc:Why?
Marc:I don't know why.
Guest:You've gotten familiar with the text, assuming.
Marc:Maybe not.
Marc:Maybe not.
Marc:Yeah, maybe you're just.
Marc:Maybe you're like, well, I'm sure you read it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I don't know.
Marc:Some people just, they look like they're reading.
Marc:Other people look like they're just talking.
Guest:I think that they're just, I think that they're freaked out by the big room with all the people staring at them.
Guest:I don't know how you guys do it.
Guest:I feel like actors.
Guest:are much more comfortable in closed off.
Guest:Film actors.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:TV actors.
Guest:Yeah, more film actors, I guess, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, they don't do the big rooms.
Guest:Closed sets.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You know, they're protected.
Marc:They're insulated.
Marc:They can just be in their own little world and then surrounded by just a small group of people.
Guest:And fail, but no one knows.
Guest:And cameras.
Guest:Yeah, no one knows.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:With the award show, you get one shot at it, and if you fail, then everyone sees that.
Guest:Is that why you're out here?
Guest:Because you thought you were hosting?
Guest:Am I not hosting this show?
No.
Guest:Oh, I'm sorry.
Guest:The Oscars.
Guest:I thought that's why I was in the orange chair.
Marc:No.
Marc:Not this show.
Guest:The Oscars.
Guest:No, I wasn't.
Guest:I was in town.
Guest:We watched the Oscars in New York.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:What a beast that show is.
Guest:It's a beast.
Marc:But you somehow have, it's one of those things where, you know, you're, well, maybe we should start earlier.
Marc:You're one of the great song and dance men out of New Mexico.
Guest:Out of New Mexico, yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've never taken a dance lesson ever.
Guest:I've never studied dance, but apparently I'm a song and dance man.
Guest:Don't you think you are somewhat?
Guest:No, I'm very insecure when it comes to dancing, and I have to do a fair amount of it live.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And big one-offs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is probably the worst way to do it, because you don't have the opportunity to do it again, to screw up the thing, and you're surrounded by professional dancers who are fantastic.
Guest:Well, that's good.
Guest:Not really, because you're the one in the front.
Marc:right but you're the one who just knows a few moves and they're like spinning around that's what happens yeah of course they learn my skill set yeah and they make you look good i just sway left and right with my hands out classic song and dance that's the move yeah so new mexico like i don't meet many people that grew up there but i and i wasn't even born there and you were born there yeah in albuquerque what do you know of new mexico
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:I was there from third grade till I graduated high school.
Marc:My dad's still there.
Marc:Seriously?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I didn't know there was a New Mexico connection.
Marc:Oh, hell yeah, man.
Marc:I grew up.
Marc:I went to Highland High.
Marc:No way.
Guest:Graduated from Highland High.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:My father graduated from Highland High, I think.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I think it's a great place to have been raised.
Guest:I was born in Albuquerque.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My mother was from Portales, New Mexico.
Guest:My dad was from Albuquerque.
Guest:From Portales?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And they met in college.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:at you quintessential unm college sweethearts fraternity sorority the whole nine oh yeah he gave her his ring oh really well they said yeah something like that yeah that was old-timey was very old-timey and they are still together to this day you really still in love still happily adorably old
Marc:And you grew up in, are they in New Mexico?
Guest:In New Mexico still, they're in Albuquerque.
Guest:We moved to, well, they moved to Roswell, so we lived in Roswell for a couple years.
Guest:Were you in the sort of space alien business?
Guest:I was filled with all kinds of fluids, and I don't remember much of it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They're experimenting with me.
Guest:Lots of nightmares.
Guest:No, I barely remember that.
Guest:And then we moved to Ruedoso.
Guest:Ruedoso.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Have you been there?
Guest:Ski resort town in the winter.
Marc:And there's a track.
Guest:Horse racing in the summer.
Guest:Ruedoso Downs.
Guest:Ruedoso Downs.
Guest:All American Futurity.
Guest:Quarter horse racing.
Marc:Yeah, my dad wanted me to buy some property.
Marc:He had a friend down there.
Marc:My dad's got big ideas.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:And he knows a guy's got some land down there.
Marc:He wanted me to open a playhouse.
Marc:oh he thought like that would have been awesome like like imus like i could do the radio show from the from the playhouse and then do summer stock yeah do summer stock and ria doso i don't get you places i don't even know what's in ria doso i mean i grew up my entire life in in new mexico i don't i don't even know if i've driven through it where is it it's wet it's west it's southwest three hours of albuquerque
Marc:Well, you know, like Truth or Consequences has become sort of a thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like people were buying houses there, I heard.
Guest:Recently?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I used to go to Truth or Consequences when my father's father, when he was still alive, he would fly.
Guest:He had a private little plane, little tiny plane.
Guest:Oh, he owned a plane?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And not fancy-like, but- No, but just one of those planes.
Guest:And we would fly when I was a little kid to- Like a mid-sized car plane.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we'd go fishing.
Guest:He would fly?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you'd just get in the plane?
Guest:And my grandma was in the passenger seat, which she was co-piloting.
Guest:And you were in back?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In a plane?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we went and they had a motor home that was, and he taught me how to shoot a gun.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And fish.
Marc:You gotta learn that.
Marc:Yeah, I went to camp up in Pecos.
Marc:We shot guns.
Marc:We loaded shotgun shells.
Marc:We fished.
Marc:I'm incredibly appreciative of my New Mexico upbringing.
Marc:So you know how to shoot?
Marc:You know how to fish?
Marc:Did that come in handy?
No.
Guest:Yeah, in Harlem, where I live now, does it ever.
Guest:Do you ever go fishing, Neil?
Guest:No, you know what?
Guest:I do have a desire, though, to camp and fish and all that sort of Boy Scout stuff.
Guest:You do?
Guest:I love that stuff.
Guest:Why don't you?
Guest:I ponder that, because I'm filming a Netflix show right now in Vancouver.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:It's called A Series of Unfortunate Events, based on the Lemony Snicket books.
Marc:The Lemony Snicket books?
Marc:Yeah, I know that guy.
Marc:The guy who wrote the books.
Marc:I met him once.
Marc:Daniel Handler.
Marc:Yeah, he's an interesting guy.
Marc:Very interesting guy.
Marc:Hilarious.
Marc:Get the jackpot with those fucking books, huh?
Guest:Yeah, there were 13 of them, and we're making them into a series.
Guest:Dark children's tales.
Guest:Indeed.
Guest:Barry Sonnenfeld's the executive producer.
Guest:The Baudelaire family.
Guest:The Baudelaire's.
Guest:Klaus, Violet, and Simon.
Marc:You know it's like not gonna, like, you know, just the idea of naming a children's character the Baudelaire's and all that baggage that that name brings is kind of beautiful.
Marc:It's amazing.
Guest:And I play Count Olaf, the evil villain.
Guest:So you're like in all of them.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I have three hours of prosthetic makeup every morning.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, it's a big fun deal.
Guest:But while I'm there.
Guest:Yeah, fishing.
Guest:That sounded like a plug.
Guest:Camping.
Guest:It sounded like I was fishing for a plug.
Guest:No.
Guest:But there's so much hiking and camping in Whistler and BC is extraordinary.
Guest:And I keep wanting to go camping.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it hasn't happened yet.
Guest:This is year three that I've been there.
Marc:Well, I think at your level, you could probably just call somebody to set up everything you need.
Marc:But that's what you don't want to do, right?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:What are you going to buy a tent?
Guest:Because I grew up in tiny town, New Mexico, where there were, you could just, the great thing about living there is that it was one school and one town and you- In Rio de Janeiro.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you knew how to, I lived there my whole childhood up until I was 13.
Marc:And your grandparents had a mobile home, but a mobile home is different.
Guest:That was in Truth or Consequences.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:We had a nice house that my father actually built.
Guest:With his own two hands?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Was he a house builder?
Guest:No, he's an attorney.
Guest:But we knew how to then get from my house to a friend's house by going through the woods.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you knew, Hunger Games style, that this tree you turn this way and you could run full sprint and all of that.
Guest:So we would camp and fish and do all of those things.
Guest:Intense?
Guest:Intense, yeah, totally.
Guest:I thought you meant, was it intense?
Guest:It was very intense.
Guest:Intense.
Guest:Intense and tense.
Guest:Yeah, but tense are great.
Guest:And now that I have kids and they're seven, first grade, it seems like the appropriate time to be taking them out and doing that.
Guest:Get them out there.
Guest:Scare them with the camping.
Guest:Because I don't like the camping in California.
Guest:I've been camping where you just go to a camp site.
Guest:KOA.
Guest:And there's just 15 different...
Marc:campgrounds of america spots where people have built fires and it's already a fire ring and there's a and there's a public restroom with showers yeah that kind of place you're talking like you're it's not quite camping but it's not horrible it feels like you're tailgating well the thing is with kids you know like at a certain age like if it's a nice campground and they do have facilities it's you know it's a load off you know you want to but that's the whole point you want to go you want to hike out to a place where you're theoretically alone
Guest:And so if you're going to poop somewhere, you have to find the poop place, declare it, dig a hole, do the whole thing.
Guest:If you go to the can and it's this weird little thing.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I think I'm out.
Marc:Looking for the poop hole.
Marc:I'm okay with it.
Marc:But I think as a family, if the four of you go and you've got two kids, it's going to be quite an ordeal, the pooping.
Marc:That's what I'm thinking.
Marc:It's fine.
Marc:Just bring those little wet nap things.
Marc:Yeah, and then what are you going to do with those?
Marc:Oh, that's a good question.
Marc:You need a poop hole for the things.
Marc:Well, no, you're gonna need the bag.
Guest:You're gonna need a bag.
Marc:See, now you're carrying... Is it getting worse?
Marc:Yeah, there's extra baggage there.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Literally.
Marc:I think there's probably a good way there's a middle ground.
Marc:A middle campground.
Marc:I remember, yes.
Marc:I bought a tent and it was with my second wife and we were going to go camping.
Marc:I think we did it once.
Marc:And we ended up at a campground.
Marc:It wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible.
Guest:It wasn't comfortable.
Guest:Were there other people in other campsites right around you?
Guest:Because I feel like that is what I wouldn't like.
Marc:Well, yeah, that'd be bad because then people would recognize you and then you'd have to deal with that shit.
Guest:No, I don't think about that.
Guest:I just think I'd look at their tent and our tent and think, oh, is our tent, should I have put it better?
Marc:Yeah, you got to put the tent up either way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And with four people, you got to get a pretty big tent.
Marc:Yeah, scrambled eggs.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Enough, or should I have brought the fucking bacon like those guys did?
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'd rather just be by myself.
Guest:The cooler.
Guest:Being cool.
Guest:That's right, the food, man.
Guest:Just cool enough.
Guest:Then you got to buy the camping, cooking stuff.
Guest:It's a lot of stuff, but it's worth it, and I want to do it, and I'm vowing to you here and now.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:We're there until May.
Guest:The whole family's there?
Guest:No, I'm there.
Guest:They're going to come for a spell.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So why are you down here?
Guest:Do we cover that?
Guest:Why am I down here in LA?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm promoting multiple things.
Guest:Dude, I have a bunch of random things that are happening.
Guest:I'm promoting right now an NBC quiz show called Genius Junior that I'm doing.
Guest:So this is kids?
Guest:Producing and hosting.
Marc:The classic take on the old smart kid show.
Marc:And on sort of the college...
Guest:Oh, it's college.
Guest:No, it's kids.
Guest:It's eight to 14.
Guest:But that's kind of the idea.
Guest:Two teams of three kids, and I'm the host, and I do series of questions.
Marc:Kids, like the really smart kids.
Marc:Correct.
Marc:So the kids that, you know, they're impressive, but you kind of feel bad for them.
Marc:That was my worry, right?
Guest:They did a national search to get all these kids, and they wound up with actual people kids that actually are nice and have other hobbies.
Guest:There's a round where it's a spelling round, and they have to spell as many words as they can in 90 seconds or 60 seconds, and they have to spell them backwards.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I'll say spell omnidirectional backwards.
Guest:And as fast as you could spell it forwards, they spell it backwards.
Guest:Seriously?
Guest:And it is unbelievably exciting to watch.
Guest:It's jaw dropping.
Guest:And the kids are having a good time?
Guest:Super having a good time.
Guest:They were super supportive of each other.
Guest:That was my only concern as a human is that we bring these kids to a sound stage and lights and an audience.
Guest:And then their takeaway at the end is that it was not fun or bad.
Guest:I wanted to make sure that this unique weirdness was something that they enjoyed.
Marc:The only thing that comes to mind for me right now with that show or the idea of that show is that show in the movie Magnolia.
Marc:You remember the washed up TV actor father who brings his kid who's a genius and they don't let him pee?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No, we let them pee.
Marc:We gave them pee breaks.
Marc:I think that was a long way around me asking you.
Marc:Could the kids pee?
Marc:Do you torture the kids?
Guest:No, I was so aware, dude.
Guest:I was a little kid actor.
Guest:I mean, I wasn't that little when I started.
Guest:How did you survive that?
Guest:Well, I have really nice parents and I grew up in New Mexico.
Guest:So I didn't come from a line of parents who were in the business or who needed me to accomplish certain things.
Guest:This was this random circumstance that allowed me to start working.
Marc:Yeah, but let's talk about that.
Marc:So you're in Rio Doso?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you go, you went all the way through high school in Rio Doso?
Guest:I went through, I think in the beginning of my freshman year of high school, we moved back to Albuquerque.
Guest:What part of town?
Guest:My brother had graduated and then we moved to Albuquerque.
Guest:Just two of you?
Guest:Yep, older brother.
Guest:What part of town?
Guest:In Albuquerque?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Northeast Heights.
Guest:Now, how do you become Doogie Howser?
Guest:So I'm in, at that point, I'm still in elementary school.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:When you moved back?
Guest:No, I'm still in Ruidoso.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's a summer from eighth, I just graduated eighth grade.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there was a high school program in New Mexico State in Las Cruces for theater students, a theater camp.
Guest:Now, were you doing theater?
Guest:You weren't doing theater.
Guest:I was a sort of precocious little kid in Ruidoso.
Guest:So I was in the Episcopal Church adult choir at 10.
Guest:And I was the leader of the choir in the middle school.
Guest:I'd teach harmony parts.
Guest:I was a bit of, you know.
Guest:That guy.
Guest:That kid.
Guest:I liked to perform.
Guest:It was good to you.
Guest:In pep rallies and stuff.
Guest:It was good to you.
Guest:Yeah, right?
Marc:Yeah, good parents, and you have people at least got your back, huh?
Guest:So the church, the choir director and the band director thought that I should go to a performing arts high school, which we thought was just a shitty idea.
Guest:Who, you and your family?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What, to go to New York?
Guest:You'd have to go to New York.
Guest:I don't know, California, New York.
Guest:You're just entirely uprooted.
Guest:It felt like military school, just sending your child away for a whole other thing.
Marc:Yeah, with not as much discipline as military school, I think.
Guest:You think?
Guest:I think.
Guest:Probably so.
Yeah.
Guest:And so we ended up, I ended up going to this, I was one of the youngest kids in this drama camp in Mexico State.
Guest:So I got to stay in the dorms.
Guest:It was helmed by Mark Medoff, prolific playwright.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Wrote Children of a Lesser God.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Which is being revived on Broadway this coming season.
Guest:And he had written this movie called Clara's Heart, a Whoopi Goldberg movie that they were doing for Warner Brothers.
Guest:And the opposite lead was a kid, a waspy kid in Baltimore.
Guest:And the parents were getting divorced and she was their Jamaican maid.
Guest:And she sort of, it was based on a book.
Guest:So she helped him through the ups and downs of that.
Guest:And I happened to be at this camp and I happened to be in Mark's cold reading audition class.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I happened to leave an impression upon him and he thought, and he didn't say anything to me.
Guest:He told my parents at the end of the camp, hey, would your son be interested in auditioning for this film?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They thought he was joking because it turns out Star Search had come through Alamogordo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And had convinced us all that if we would go and give, I don't know, $350.
Guest:Alamogordo.
Guest:They scouted in Alamogordo.
Guest:Go to Alamogordo and do Star Search Regionals.
Guest:And if we won that, we'd go do Star Search State.
Guest:And if we got that, we'd go on the show.
Guest:So we went and did that.
Guest:Is that how that worked?
Guest:Star Search?
Guest:Apparently not because it was a complete sham.
Guest:It was not Star Search at all.
Guest:It was some jackass dude that just took everyone's money and left.
Guest:So we did the show in some weird place in Alamogordo and then left.
Guest:Introduction to show business.
Guest:It was.
Guest:And so then this guy, Mark Medoff, comes to my parents at the end of this camp and says, hey, I got this movie.
Guest:We're not falling for that.
Guest:that twice that's what they said they said no we're not interested yeah send us a script buddy and so sure enough they sent a script a fedex the script from warner brothers that's so funny to uh ruidoso your folks are already cynical and then it was real so then they had to sit me down and explain that that had all happened and and it was all very real i ended up getting that movie i was 12 turning 13 filmed that movie and then flew out to la uh flew to baltimore maryland baltimore st michael's maryland
Guest:Was it a big part?
Guest:Pretty big part?
Guest:That was the lead.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:It was the co-lead opposite Whoopi.
Guest:So it was a big- Was she nice to you?
Guest:Education.
Guest:She's awesome.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Has she ever been on the show?
Marc:No, I'd like to get hold of her.
Marc:I have to go to New York, I think.
Marc:She's hanging out in New York.
Guest:Yeah, she doesn't like to fly.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are you guys still friends?
Guest:She takes buses.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's sort of, she's very mentory.
Guest:When I first met her, I got to fly to Malibu to actually meet with her.
Guest:Another surreal experience.
Guest:She lived out there then?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico, going to Malibu on the coast, pulling up to a house, walking into this house, which is great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then down the stairs was fucking Whoopi Goldberg, getting long dreads put in.
Marc:Oh really?
Guest:Outdoors?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was it outdoors?
Guest:No, it was inside.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And, uh, and, and I got to sit and share the fat with her for a little bit and she was super nice.
Yeah.
Guest:What I'm very appreciative of is that she talks to me like a person, like a coworker person as opposed to a child.
Guest:And my parents did the same and I do the same to our kids.
Guest:I think it's important to have kids be treated as if they're people.
Marc:Can you give me the option?
Marc:What does it sound like when you're not treating them like people?
Guest:Maybe more... Well, it's probably how you're thinking, but more how you're speaking.
Guest:So instead of saying, well, I would prefer if you said...
Guest:hi, Tom, you're 11 years old.
Guest:Welcome to the set.
Guest:Here's where you're going to stand.
Guest:It's going to be a lot of pressure, but I believe that you're up for it and it's going to be good.
Guest:As opposed to, hi, so you're Tommy.
Guest:I'm Neil.
Guest:I'm going to be the host.
Guest:So here's what's going to happen.
Guest:There's going to be a lot of people and it might make you nervous, but don't be nervous, okay?
Guest:Can I see a smile right now?
Guest:That's what I want is a smile.
Guest:I'm going to stay like that shit.
Guest:I just find...
Marc:Yeah, it's horrible because they see you walk away and talk differently to everyone else.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You step away to one adult like, hey, this kid... Just be normal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was very careful of the kids in the Genius Junior to make sure that their takeaway was positive.
Marc:So you had that experience...
Marc:Throughout your career, people treated you, mostly people treated you like a grownup or with a certain amount of, they didn't treat you like a little child?
Guest:Yeah, like you were a commodity that had something to help with as opposed to an annoying kid that they just had to deal with.
Guest:But you were an annoying kid.
Guest:Well, I hope I wasn't.
Marc:No, you seem very well grounded.
Marc:It sounds like your parents were supportive and nice and decent people.
Guest:I've always loved the process of how things work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've never been super blinded by what comes from something.
Guest:I'm more interested in how things work.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:Meaning even coming here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm fascinated by the fact that it's literally just you here in your garage by yourself.
Marc:Did you think there were more?
Guest:I thought there'd be a couple more people that were managing the sound.
Guest:And I thought that there would be, I don't know.
Guest:Coffee snacks.
Guest:Videographer guy that was filming it.
Guest:I don't know what it was.
Guest:No, interesting.
Guest:So I like, and I like seeing while you're clicking on things on your computer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just watching the levels.
Guest:I would wonder what program you're using.
Marc:I'm using GarageBand, old school.
Marc:I wanted to get into the GarageBand.
Marc:I don't do anything with it other than record voices.
Marc:I go through an analog mixer for some reason.
Marc:I do a backup on a Zoom.
Marc:And then I watch the levels and I can manage those with the little knobbies here.
Marc:And then occasionally I just, you know, I poke at your... Hey, easy.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:And eventually I'll click, or occasionally I'll click on your filmography.
Marc:Oh, nice.
Guest:For a little research.
Marc:Yeah, we'll just see where we're at.
Guest:But then with GarageBand, do you go and put some cool beats underneath it?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Marc:It's going to be total hip-hop.
Marc:That's my producer.
Marc:I let him do whatever he wants.
Marc:If he wants to do a Neil Patrick Harris dance mix, it's going to happen.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:I'm into that.
Marc:Let me know when you feel like that's where it's needed.
Marc:Thumping bass.
Marc:So, okay.
Guest:So you do these movies and do you move out here?
Guest:So I did Clara's Heart.
Guest:Then I went back to my life.
Guest:And then I- In New Mexico.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And I was a child working at a Schlotzky sandwich shop.
Guest:Where?
Guest:In Albuquerque?
Guest:In Ruidoso.
Guest:Oh, in Ruidoso.
Guest:The only one.
Guest:The only one, I believe.
Guest:It's still there.
Marc:I was far too young.
Marc:I don't know how they paid me.
Marc:Schlotzky's was exciting when it first came on.
Marc:yeah they're great it was a big round bread the muffled a sandwich basically or yeah but i remember when it happened when we were probably i was probably early on in high school and it was exciting to have a new fast food place they're still delicious wendy's i remember when wendy's happened too before your time but i was super excited when a mcdonald's opened up in ruidoso that was a big deal really remember it a dairy queen town dairy queen we'd go get the ice cream cones that brazing brazier what is the name of the burger brazier brazen burger
Marc:Brazier, was it?
Marc:Brazier?
Marc:Brazier, right?
Marc:Something like that.
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:Yeah, I don't know, man.
Marc:Is that a guy's name?
Marc:No, I think it's like, I don't know.
Marc:Braising, a thing you do with meat?
Marc:I don't know, but I remember it was sort of, I think that was the name of the burger.
Marc:I don't remember eating it.
Marc:Oh, did they have Blake's Lotaburger?
Guest:Oh, yeah, Blake's Lotaburger.
Marc:No one knows about Blake's, but us.
Marc:They were big.
Marc:You get jalapenos on there, green chili.
Guest:Green chili cheeseburgers, the best.
Guest:Green chili cheeseburgers.
Guest:So then I was just there back in school doing my thing.
Guest:And then working at Schlotzky's.
Guest:I then had an agent from doing the movie.
Guest:Were you the singing Schlotzky's guy?
Guest:I did enjoy when I had the job to finish the sandwiches and call out people's names.
Guest:And I would make up rhymes.
Guest:I would Lin-Manuel Miranda myself.
Marc:You couldn't help yourself no matter where you were.
Marc:I got some stage time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm going to talk to the people.
Guest:You want a 12-foot sandwich that's less than two feet.
Guest:This sandwich is for a guy named Pete.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:And some guy grumbles up.
Marc:Shut the fuck up, kid.
Marc:Look, he's trying to eat on break.
Marc:So, all right, so you're, okay.
Guest:And then I went and I was asked randomly occasionally to go do other weird things.
Guest:So I went and did a movie called Purple People Eater.
Guest:What was that?
Guest:The Sheb Woolley song by the same name.
Guest:Purple People Eater.
Guest:Sheb Woolley was in the show, in the movie.
Guest:He was?
Guest:Yeah, as was.
Marc:Was that a big movie?
No.
Guest:No, it was a children's film.
Guest:It was one of my worst experiences.
Guest:But that we got to film in LA.
Marc:Why was it the worst experience?
Guest:It was just not good.
Guest:Really?
Guest:It was not well made and the director wasn't... No.
Guest:A tyrant woman.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And...
Guest:Who was in that?
Guest:What's her name?
Guest:Was it all kids?
Guest:Was it one of those all kids thing?
Guest:It was a kids movie, except the co-star was this giant puppet creature that was... The Purple People Eater?
Guest:Wouldn't you know?
Guest:A one-eyed... One-horned.
Guest:One-horned.
Guest:Ned Beatty?
Guest:Sure, Ned Beatty.
Guest:Was my grandpa.
Guest:And Shelly Winters was in it.
Guest:Oh, well, that's... That was the pitch, and I said, sure, because rather than working at Schlotzky's.
Guest:Ned Beatty's great.
Guest:Ned Beatty was great.
Guest:Was he?
Guest:Shelly Winters, a piece of work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, what?
Guest:What are we waiting for?
Guest:Oh, and...
Marc:she had a pillow my back my back is always oh my back is worried and she had this round pillow to protect her her butt and so she'd carry around this pillow and and that was i feel like that's an oscar winner you're talking about no that's worth a vhs trip i feel like she was like a methody person whether she was like one of the early like uh like you know people's theater like she but mark how method can you be in a movie called purple people eater
Marc:Did you see her in Poseidon Adventure?
Marc:She nailed it.
Marc:Nailed it.
Marc:Man, she did the swimming thing and then died right after.
Marc:Fewer puppets in that probably.
Guest:Then Doogie Howser came along, the audition for it.
Guest:I ended up booking that job.
Guest:And then we had moved to Albuquerque, I think by then.
Guest:So I do half the year in LA with a tutor.
Guest:And then since that was only a 30 minute single camera show, when the season was done, it was right at second semester of school.
Guest:I'd go back to Albuquerque.
Guest:And that was cool.
Marc:And you were a celebrity.
Marc:I guess so, yeah.
Guest:I mean, Doogie Howser was a popular show.
Guest:It was.
Guest:And you did, like, how many did you make?
Guest:Did that, like... That was four seasons.
Guest:I think they did 97 shows.
Guest:Enough for syndication.
Guest:Just barely, huh?
Guest:So that was it.
Marc:And then like you did that for like three or four years and then you get done with that and you're a grownup, but you're Doogie Howser for a lot of people.
Guest:That's very true.
Guest:And back then it was a very divided work ethic.
Guest:There were TV actors and there were film actors and they didn't intersect very often.
Guest:No, I know exactly.
Marc:But you know, in even like, even on TV,
Marc:You know, you still had to deal with this sort of like, oh, it's Doogie Howser's in this one.
Marc:Sure, yeah.
Marc:But he's not Doogie Howser.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Right?
Marc:That was quite the albatross.
Marc:For how long?
Marc:You probably still get it occasionally.
Guest:Yeah, it's not like a sore subject or an open wound or something.
Guest:No, because you look youthful and you still look.
Guest:I find people that say, hey, Doogie Howser, I love you on that other show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which is fine.
Marc:They don't know your real name.
Marc:You're just a point.
Marc:It's Doogie Howser.
Marc:And you did a bunch of other little parts and you actually appeared as Doogie Howser in some other shows.
Marc:I did on a very special Roseanne episode.
Guest:You were a punchline of jokes forever.
Guest:I was punchlines of jokes here and there.
Marc:Yeah, because it was a funny idea.
Guest:Any medical young.
Guest:Doogie Howser.
Guest:Medical plus youth equals a Doogie Howser punchline.
Guest:Doogie Howser punchline.
Guest:I go to the doctors.
Guest:Doogie Howser.
Guest:There's probably 75 people who are doctors who look kind of youngish come up to me begrudgingly saying, I just have to tell you.
Guest:and share their stories about how annoying it is that they're called doogie hauser and i i feel their pain but you know i i what i have learned in all of my 44 years is that you you i like to hope for longevity and multiple chapters in a book and not just hoping that the thing that you're doing is what's gonna happen
Guest:Of course, of course.
Guest:And so I had that perspective at the beginning of Doogie Howser.
Guest:And you worked, you kept working.
Guest:Steven Bochka was the producer of that show and he had done Hill Street Flues and LA Law and so he was- He did Doogie Howser?
Guest:Yeah, he was a one out and David Kelly.
Marc:So it was two really- David Kelly, so it was early on in both of their careers.
Marc:Correct.
Marc:He just has a big thing now.
Marc:What's his big thing now?
Marc:The Little Lies?
Marc:Big Little Lies?
Guest:Oh yeah, you're absolutely right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Good for him.
Marc:And he did the other one with Calista Flockhart.
Marc:What was that one?
Marc:Ally McBeal.
Marc:Ally McBeal.
Marc:This feels like a quiz show.
Marc:Married Michelle Pfeiffer to me.
Guest:He did.
Guest:And she's still just gorgeous.
Guest:And great acting.
Guest:Yep, yep.
Guest:She's a very good actress.
Guest:But Bochco said to me early on, listen, he sat me down and said, kid, listen.
Guest:This is going to be like surfing, that you're going to catch this wave.
Guest:We hope that it's good, that it lasts a long time.
Guest:The wave will crash, and you will have to decide whether you want to swim back out.
Guest:And in doing so, you're going to get nailed by other waves and have to right yourself.
Guest:And once you do, you're going to sit out there for a while waiting for another good wave to come.
Guest:And that was sort of his...
Guest:Metaphor.
Guest:His metaphor.
Guest:And I dug it and I still appreciated it.
Guest:So when I was stressed about the Doogie Howser-ness of it all, I appreciated at the same time that I just needed some time to pass between.
Guest:And that was during the TV movie years, the TV movie decade where I could do a TV movie a year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And where I- Was that enough though?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They paid good money for it.
Guest:Oh, they did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you'd go to Vancouver or Toronto and you'd- And were you living out here full time by then?
Marc:i was living here full-time by then yeah but you moved out in after doogie or when i graduated in 91 uh towards the end of doogie yeah i moved out here full-time with your folks nope no solo style and when did were you were you out then no no no not really but not but you weren't struggling with anything
Guest:Well, I think I was struggling more with figuring out who I was, how to be as a person.
Guest:Sexuality is certainly, I guess, a pivotal part of that.
Guest:But just how to stand tall and how to move my limbs.
Guest:Because when you're doing a show for four years, you're just meant to stand still so that the focus puller doesn't have to do much work.
Guest:Deliver the joke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I found that I didn't know how to really move.
Guest:As an actor or as a human?
Guest:As a human.
Yeah.
Guest:And then when I went out, people would sort of recognize me, and I kind of wanted anonymity, and I kind of wanted to just figure shit out and try to be an asshole or try to be goth.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Did you go through a goth thing?
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:But I didn't have the ability to do that.
Guest:Of course not.
Guest:People would have noticed.
Guest:They'd just make pictures all over the place.
Guest:Doogie Howser goes goth.
Guest:I guess so.
Guest:Well, thankfully it wasn't a TMZ world.
Guest:I mean, the internet was very, very new back then too.
Guest:So, so information still didn't pass so quickly, but I was just paranoid and I didn't feel like I was able to just exist as I wanted to.
Guest:I was still locked in this.
Guest:How do I exist to please other people?
Marc:And I think the judgment was different.
Marc:I mean, it still wasn't, you know, being out was not a huge, like everyone wasn't out yet.
Guest:For sure, it was a question that was taboo to ask.
Guest:It was sort of a shame on you for asking the question.
Guest:And then everybody's sort of like, we think he's... And I was also really, I didn't develop very quickly.
Guest:So even at 17 or 18, I just looked much younger.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So opportunity never really came my way.
Guest:I had desires, but there was no way in LA I was going to, at 20 years old with a fake ID, go to Rage on Santa Monica Boulevard and see what happens.
Guest:That wasn't how you were going to get started?
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I just sort of did this sort of young Hollywood thing and went to all those bars that they went to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And did you date though?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:I dated a fair amount.
Guest:So girls.
Guest:I didn't date guys for a long time.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Is that what you mean by dating?
Guest:Did I date guys?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No.
Guest:How would I meet them?
Guest:I thought, well, I mean, you know, like I would have-
Guest:I mean, give me an instance where that would happen.
Marc:Well, you're hanging out with other young people, and I imagine that there's other young people that were in the same boat that you were, and you just had to sort of happen upon them.
Guest:Yeah, that never really... Oh, it never really happened?
Guest:I could assert that some of the friends that I hung out with were in a similar situation, but that wouldn't be a conversation.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:We'd both be trying to act super tough and straight.
Guest:Cool, right, yeah.
Guest:Where are the chicks at?
Guest:Who you banging tonight, dude?
Yeah.
Guest:Smell my finger.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:That one, that classic.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:I use it a lot.
Guest:Oh, did you?
Guest:No, I never did, actually.
Marc:Well, were you taking, like, what was your training, though?
Marc:I mean, because, you know, you sort of came into...
Marc:The movement and the body and all that other stuff.
Marc:But you did you train as an actor at all?
Marc:No, no, no, I didn't.
Guest:I did for you.
Guest:I really just learned by being one of those guys set.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because the Bochco Doogie Howser work.
Guest:I mean, the name is ridiculous, but the work was good.
Guest:I mean, we were doing six, seven pages a day of single camera, hardcore medical jargon, walk and talks, long one shots.
Guest:I mean, we were having to work hard.
Guest:So I got a good education about how you make a film, even though it was a TV show.
Guest:It was single camera and it was work.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So when I was done with that, I went and started doing theater.
Guest:I went and did some Shakespeare.
Guest:I did Romeo and the Old Globe in San Diego.
Guest:How'd that go for you?
Guest:Really, really great.
Guest:You took to the language?
Guest:I took to the language.
Guest:I was terrified of it.
Guest:I felt like a super fish out of water.
Guest:No coach.
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, they gave me a guy named Dakin Matthews, who's still a prolific actor and works all the time, was living in San Diego.
Guest:And he sat with me for a full week before we started the first rehearsal.
Guest:And we went through all the text and he explained iambic pentameter and what it meant.
Guest:Because one of the feelings I hate to this day is feeling fraudulent, you know, is feeling like I don't belong.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so when you go to a Shakespeare company of people who have trained in the theater and Shakespeare and now you're the lead.
Guest:Because you're a child star.
Guest:TV yeah you're at this weird I thought a weird deficit of judgment right and so and I and there's no way to quickly inform yourself of the canon of Shakespeare so I just kind of had to go for it and acknowledge that it was uncomfortable for me and through that sweaty rehearsal feeling like shit yeah then you get better then you kind of and how are the how was the response
Guest:Great.
Guest:It was Dan Sullivan directed it.
Guest:He's a big giant prolific film theater director.
Guest:And Emily Bergle was my Juliet.
Guest:And it was set in the past.
Guest:So we were fighting with broad swords.
Guest:And it was a really great production.
Guest:And it was one of those things that once you wrap your head around Shakespeare and know why you're speaking, not just speaking the words to rhyme.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Then 45 minutes will rip by and you realize that you're lying there banging your head on the floor because you're wailing in the monologue.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you're really actually in it.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It sort of forced you to... It's magic.
Guest:Yeah, because you're not speaking in contemporary dialogue.
Guest:You're speaking within the world that you're in, and that's a pretty intense world.
Guest:I really, really enjoyed that.
Guest:I did Rent, the musical.
Guest:After that?
Guest:So you got the bug?
Guest:Yeah, I did theater for a while, and that's how I moved to New York to do more theater.
Marc:Was that because you wanted to or because the TV work was what?
Guest:I always loved the spectacle of the theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would go to New York once I was doing TV and had the money to do it.
Guest:I would go on hiatuses and see 14 shows in 11 days.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And just see everything that was there.
Guest:I just fucking loved it.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:I still love it.
Guest:I love that in the same theater you can sit and watch an amazing show with sets that move and performances.
Guest:You like the big stuff or all of it?
Guest:I tend to like the big stuff.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:My first big musical was Les Miserables that I saw.
Guest:I have a backstory with Les Mis, but it's kind of boring.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:Well, I didn't get Clara's heart eventually.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Originally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, the movie Whoopi?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They had a different director.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that time and they cast another kid so i went and did the audition with mark and all of that went really well and then i didn't get it and a kid named uh brayden danner did it and he was the original gavroche uh which was a character in les mis yeah on broadway yeah so i suddenly felt kinship to this kid uh because you saw him in les mis no because i just knew that's who he was so i bought the soundtrack to les mis yeah and i listened to it and listened to it and i just sort of felt
Guest:Like I had a brotherhood with him because I almost got this part and he got it.
Guest:And so Les Mis became and still is probably my favorite of all the sort of musicals.
Guest:But I thought you did get the part eventually.
Guest:Of the... In the movie.
Guest:Well, they ended up replacing the director and then replaced Brayden and then hired a new director.
Guest:Did you ever meet Brayden?
Guest:I've never met him, no.
No.
Guest:He probably doesn't feel the kinship and the brotherhood that I'd probably do towards him.
Guest:I'd give him a bear hug and he'd punch me in the nuts.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know where that guy is.
Marc:So then after all this stuff, you get this other huge show and you're on there forever.
Marc:But you do other stuff.
Marc:This is how I'm conversing.
Marc:I'm looking at all your stuff.
Guest:So I did a big chapter of theater and I did some Broadway stuff.
Guest:Which ones?
Guest:Rent's not Broadway.
Guest:I did Proof.
Guest:Oh, that's big.
Marc:Who did you play opposite of?
Marc:Ann H. Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Have you ever had her on the show?
Guest:No.
Guest:I haven't heard about her lately.
Guest:I wonder if she's doing all right.
Guest:She does shows series work here and there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:She's on a new series.
Guest:I did Cabaret as the emcee.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:But that was later, wasn't it?
Marc:Fairly recently?
Marc:I mean, that was before your mother?
Guest:Correct, yeah.
Guest:oh yeah so i did that so you're becoming a real theater guy and then they i was asked while i was doing cabaret to be in that harold and kumar movie okay harold and kumar uh and you played yourself you played doogie hauser they want no neil patrick harris and i was this like super horny drugged out oh that's right ecstasy guy and i steal harold and kumar's car yeah and i worked for a few days on that and uh and then playing against type very much against type uh-huh
Guest:uh but sort of owning the doogie stuff and sort of being that joke but in a fun way okay and i got a little bit of respect and then um carter bays and craig thomas who wrote uh how i met your mother and were the executives on that were fans of that okay so i ended up auditioning and getting and playing against type again barney stinson yeah nine nine years on that show
Guest:That was definitely doubly syndicated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's still on a lot of days, a lot of hours.
Guest:It's crazy.
Marc:I talked to Radnor years ago in here.
Marc:I mean, you guys really had, and I've talked to Jason.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But that was a huge show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think that erased some Doogie-ness.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Because he was nothing like Doogie in any way.
Guest:And he was just super straight guy, baller.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sharp-dressed.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Scotch-drinking.
Marc:Did you like doing that?
Guest:Loved.
Guest:I loved that gig.
Guest:That was a great, great gig.
Guest:Good people, right?
Guest:Great work environment, great people writing it, a great woman directed it, and I got to wear suits all the time.
Guest:I mean, he was a real character, but I think one of the fears that I had, and I assume other people have when they sign up for a sitcom, is that you wind up six, seven years later being...
Guest:Urkel, you know, being sort of the butt of the joke.
Guest:You beat that one.
Guest:The sight gag of the joke.
Guest:But you beat that one.
Guest:I don't mean as a person.
Guest:I think Jaleel White's a super nice guy.
Guest:I just mean you don't want to end up being the character on a sitcom where you walk in and everyone laughs at what you're wearing.
Guest:Gary Coleman.
Guest:You don't want to be the butt of the joke.
Guest:You don't know if that's going to happen when you sign up to do the pilot because you don't even know if the pilot's going to get picked up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In turn, Barney was the opposite of that.
Guest:He looked great, always had all these rules, delusionally awesome.
Marc:And also, but like you'd already sort of weathered that storm with Doogie Howser.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I guess a little bit.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I mean, and then like it seems that everybody in that show, you know, weren't hampered at all by the TV prison of it.
Marc:no i embraced it yeah i mean like you went on to do many other things is what i'm saying josh he makes his own movies he's around he does stuff but the other thing also i would imagine with something like that is that i i don't know how people make a shit ton of money really find it within themselves to keep working
Marc:that's interesting no i just mean like they're like i wonder about that i mean it seems like that everyone does usually you know i'm not in that club but it would seem that would buy you some reprieve or or maybe you would think you would have won and maybe you do other things that you really wanted to do or maybe you're doing exactly what you want to do i don't know i guess so i mean that the notion this the sentence getting a shit ton of money makes it sound like it all comes at once and i guess if you won the lottery or something right you'd be more inclined to
Guest:drop everything and then just change your life yeah but when you're when you're acting and you're aware of how much money you're not making yeah and then you get a job and you're making good money but it's still season one right and you're hoping that it gets to syndication and then you renegotiate and you're suddenly spending more because you're making more and it suddenly doesn't feel like you've got the windfall
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when it's done, then you're, I was thinking more of what do I do now to sort of maintain the ability to work?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What do I do now to maintain this building I bought?
Guest:I didn't have a building.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I wasn't a big building and cars guy.
Marc:I had a nice house in the Valley.
Marc:I don't like to buy anything.
Marc:I bought this, this other house and I'm freaking out about it.
Marc:And like, I'm surprised I did it, but I'm excited about it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was it more expensive than you wanted to pay for it?
Marc:Not really, because I'm in that situation where I don't have kids, I don't have a wife, and I made some money with the shows, and this does well, and I'm on GLOW on Netflix now.
Guest:You're so good on that show.
Guest:Oh, thanks, bro.
Guest:Can I just say?
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:It's so good, and you're so horrible on it in such a subtle way.
Guest:Like, your character is horrible, not you as an actor person.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Good.
Guest:Well, I appreciate that.
Guest:I've never done cocaine in my life, ever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so it seems very cokey.
Guest:So no drugs for you ever?
Guest:No.
Guest:I've smoked a fair amount of pot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's fun, right?
Guest:And I played with the acid-y thing.
Guest:I did mushrooms a few times every time convinced this time would be better than the last.
Guest:And I always wind up in my bathroom in front of the mirror, looking at myself going, you can do this, dude, pull your shit together.
Guest:You can just fucking just go, just let go, just pull your fucking shit together.
Guest:And then that's never works out.
Guest:A night of that.
Guest:Always.
Guest:Five times I've done that, and I decided I'm done with that.
Guest:Done with mushrooms.
Guest:But the cocaine never, ever has ever come my way.
Guest:I have never been at a party where there was, I don't know, a pile of it on a table.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I've never been.
Marc:That's pretty high-end party, specific type of party.
Guest:I went to a party at Jack Nicholson's house.
Yeah.
Guest:And I was talking to everyone.
Guest:We're super amped up and they were all so lovely.
Guest:And they kept going upstairs to the bathrooms upstairs.
Guest:And I only realized as I was getting in the car that that's probably what was going on.
Guest:But it's never been offered me.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:Why were you at Jack Nicholson's house?
Guest:That's a really good question.
Guest:Friend of a friend?
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:I guess so, yeah.
Guest:Did you talk to Jack?
Guest:I did say hello to him, yeah.
Guest:And that was about it?
Guest:That was about it, yeah.
Guest:His daughter?
Guest:Daughter?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Does he have a daughter?
Guest:I think so, yeah.
Guest:I think she was in her 20s or something like that, so it was more her party.
Marc:And was he wandering around like a bathrobe?
Guest:He had sunglasses on, but I don't think a bathrobe.
Marc:I wonder how he's doing out there.
Marc:I just wonder about him.
Marc:I miss seeing him at the Oscars and stuff, but he's old now, you know?
Marc:Does he not act anymore, really, ever?
Marc:I haven't seen him at all in anything, but he used to, at the very least, sit up front at the Oscars.
Guest:Yeah, and give the look.
Marc:Yeah, with his glasses on.
Marc:And he knew he was stoned.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I love that stuff.
Marc:He wasn't there when you hosted, was he?
Marc:I don't believe so.
Marc:No.
Guest:I don't remember when he stopped going.
Guest:So... It was Oprah was in the front row when I was there.
Guest:That was the big deal.
Guest:Oprah.
Marc:But what is it with the... Now, are you a practicing magician?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah, I guess so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm a collector.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I love magic.
Guest:The same way I love circus and juggling and sort of the variety arts.
Guest:How are you juggling?
Guest:Trapezing, trampolining.
Marc:Pretty good.
Marc:You do all those things?
Guest:I do, yeah.
Guest:You trapeze?
Marc:Yep, yep.
Marc:And you trampoline?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you do magic.
Marc:Close-up magic?
Marc:Or do you do big...
Guest:At your house, you have a tank.
Guest:I've been per a water torture cell.
Guest:Yeah, that's where the kids go when they misbehave.
Marc:Because I see all through your sort of information about you, there's a through line of magic.
Guest:I love live experiential entertainment.
Guest:And maybe that came from being in Ruidoso.
Guest:And once a year, the state fair would be in Albuquerque.
Guest:We'd drive up for three hours.
Guest:And at the state fair, there would be the Midway.
Guest:And you'd go back and there'd be the freak show.
Guest:Ronnie and Donnie.
Guest:You'd go and you'd see Popeye, the dude with his eyes that would open up.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:His eyes would bulge and stick out.
Marc:Did you see the guy with the biggest feet?
Marc:No.
Marc:Did you see Ronnie and Donnie, the Siamese twins?
Marc:They were touring for a while.
Marc:Really?
Guest:No, I never saw them.
Guest:It was mostly livestock.
Guest:It would be the world's biggest pig.
Guest:Oh, but you didn't see the little guy, the world's littlest man who was all like, he looked like a little basketball?
Guest:I think there might have been a little person, but probably not that dude.
Guest:Did you get the Indian fry bread?
Guest:Always.
Yeah.
Guest:But through that was a lot of magic tricks, right?
Guest:Because there'd also be the spider lady, which was just a magic trick.
Guest:It was a woman that looked like she was on a cobweb and her arms were spider arms, but it was just a mirror, a 45 degree mirror effect, right?
Guest:And so I was kind of fascinated by magic through performance.
Guest:The spider lady.
Guest:I loved all of that.
Guest:So I loved when circuses would come into town.
Guest:I saw every Cirque du Soleil show when it would go through Santa Monica.
Guest:And my love of magic just kind of grew.
Guest:I became a junior member of the Magic Castle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How did you become that?
Guest:Do you have to perform for people?
Guest:Yeah, I auditioned.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Did a little set.
Guest:You know Andrew Goldenhurst?
Guest:I do very well yeah lovely guy yeah he's a good guy super good he's a good magician right great magician yeah and he's a great magician he'll do all kinds of gigs yeah he'll do he can do fill a whole stage at the Magic Castle but he can also go and work a business party or something yeah work a line do equally good stuff yeah
Guest:And so we live in a technological society almost exclusively now.
Guest:A lot of people wait to see movies on Apple TV because their screen in their living room is gigantic.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So why not just wait and own it, right?
Guest:So I think there's reason to go see Broadway shows.
Guest:There's reason to go to Sleep No More and see immersive theater.
Guest:There's a reason to go to the Magic Castle.
Guest:Magic is one of those things that is much, much better when you're doing it live.
Guest:The human element.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, you're blown away when you see David Copperfield saw someone in two in front of you.
Guest:Less exciting as a TV special.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Still cool to see.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you assume there's trickery.
Guest:But when you're actually there watching this stuff actually happen.
Guest:Yeah, I'm pretty fascinated with it.
Guest:Do you see the Cirque du Soleil shows?
Marc:Nope.
Marc:I don't go to anything.
Marc:Why?
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:Don't you feel like- A missing life?
Marc:A little.
Marc:That kind of life.
Marc:I always get very moved.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I watch a lot of comedy.
Marc:I'll go see some music.
Marc:I'll go see shows sometimes.
Marc:Cabarets?
Marc:Well, not too much of that.
Marc:I don't do the cabaret thing.
Marc:But when I go to New York, the last few times I've been there, I've been set up with tickets because I interviewed Annie Baker, so I saw her stuff.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:I like musicals when I go, but I don't seek them out.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:There's some part of me that just doesn't want to have a good time, Neil.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:I always enjoy them.
Marc:So how are you with exercise?
Guest:Good.
Guest:Do you consider that a bad time?
Guest:Yeah, it's a bad time.
Guest:You know it's going to be a bad time, but you're going to do it anyway?
Guest:It's pretty bad.
Guest:I could use more cardio.
Guest:How are you with it?
Guest:Yeah, I work out a fair amount.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's hard for me to say go on a hike.
Guest:Once I'm on the hike, I'm loving it.
Guest:It's nice, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I feel that way about everything.
Yeah.
Guest:That exact feeling.
Guest:But there's not a part of you that says, I know that if I see a show like this.
Guest:It's harder in LA, though, because to get in a car and go to the Mark Taper Forum downtown and park to see a show and you don't know anything about it.
Marc:Oh, New York, you just go.
Marc:There are house seats available?
Guest:Can I get them?
Guest:Yeah, you get on the subway and you go see a show.
Guest:I always enjoy theater, even if it's shitty.
Guest:Well, the next time you're in New York, I'm producing a show, a one-man magic show by a guy named Derek DelGaudio.
Guest:It's called In and of Itself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's playing to August.
Guest:And it's unbelievable.
Guest:It's all magic.
Guest:It's a monologue that he tells...
Guest:it's about 80 minutes no intermission and throughout it there's five different effects that he does and none of them are pick a card any card or for my next trick kind of things it's all kind of ruminations about uh identity and and he speaks to the audience it's you would okay it's it's a truly special thing it's extended four times and and it's played almost for a year now it's great broken records there i saw the magic show when i was a child with doug henning yes no way i did
Marc:I heard it wasn't very good.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:My grandma brought me in.
Marc:I must have been like an eight or nine.
Marc:When was that?
Marc:Early 70s, right?
Marc:Mid.
Marc:Mid 70s.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:So I was like 13, something maybe.
Marc:Doug Henning.
Marc:He was great.
Marc:Canadian magician.
Marc:Saw that when I was a kid.
Marc:Saw the black Guys and Dolls when it first, the first black cast of Guys and Dolls because my aunt and uncle brought me to that.
Marc:I saw Beetlemania when I was a little kid.
Guest:I saw James Earl Jones in Fences here in LA.
Guest:And that was a real pivotal moment because I was very emotional watching Lynn Thigpen recite a monologue while she peeled potatoes about how difficult her life was.
Guest:It's a fantastic monologue.
Guest:And I was weeping.
Guest:And I was young.
Guest:It was right at the beginning of coming to LA ever.
Guest:And I was really moved by the fact that I knew nothing about Baltimore or this plight or this life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was so impacted by what it is they were saying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that theater has the opportunity to do that in a way that I probably wouldn't have been as moved if I was on my couch in the living room watching the same thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I would have distraction.
Marc:No, theater is great.
Marc:I mean, like in my life I've gone and I definitely like going.
Marc:Yeah, it's just a little bit hard, especially on the West Coast.
Guest:It's hard to do theater on the West Coast.
Marc:Well, who are your magicians?
Marc:Give me a lesson.
Marc:Historically, who should I know?
Marc:Who are the greats?
Guest:Well, probably I would go stage magicians more.
Guest:So Thurston, Howard Thurston, Harry Houdini, Dante, Servio Leroy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Those ones who invented and did the big giant tours and trains.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As far as mentalism, I think James Randi's super strong.
Guest:Mentalism, what's the difference?
Guest:What's mentalism?
Guest:Mentalism.
Guest:Is that close up?
Guest:No, it's I can predict something that you're thinking of.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And that's a trick.
Guest:Write something in its envelope.
Guest:They don't really do it.
Guest:I'll put this in an envelope.
Guest:Do you know the tricks?
Guest:Then I'll hold it up.
Guest:I know most of the tricks, yeah.
Guest:That doesn't bother you?
Guest:That I know the tricks?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, because again, I like knowledge.
Guest:So I like...
Guest:How do you know them?
Marc:Did they tell you?
Marc:Did somebody break the oath?
Marc:Or are you part of the brotherhood so you're allowed to know them?
Guest:Well, I think when you've studied enough, you can suppose how things are done.
Guest:Oh, you do?
Guest:Oh, there's moves.
Guest:You know multiple methods of how things are accomplished.
Guest:And I think what's fun is when someone like Derek and Derek DelGaudio will come up with a whole different way to do anything.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And then only a few people know how it's done at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then magicians that see it are blown away because they have no idea.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Andrew takes, I think, a chicken or a rabbit out of his hair.
Guest:He does.
Marc:That seems difficult.
Marc:He takes a chicken out of his hair at the end.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then he does the thing with the butterfly tattoo.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which he sold the Copperfield, but then I think he got it back.
Guest:Wasn't that an origami thing at first?
Guest:Didn't he take an origami and fold it up into something and it turned into a butterfly?
Guest:Oh, maybe.
Guest:Maybe.
Marc:Maybe it was an origami.
Marc:I thought that he actually made a butterfly tattoo turn into a butterfly.
Marc:Maybe I'm misremembering it.
Guest:Close-up magic can go, I mean, you can go way back with people and names of people from who wrote amazing books to.
Guest:You like Ricky Jay?
Guest:I mean, he's not really, what does he do?
Guest:He's a historian.
Guest:I find Ricky Jay a curmudgeon.
Guest:uh-huh and so it's it's from that is fun from all accounts i i hear that he's that that unless he takes a shine to you yeah he doesn't he he doesn't like things so that that disappoints me a bit but every show that i've seen him do i've uh absolutely loved he's good
Guest:Yeah, he's great.
Guest:He is a historian.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In fact, his last show, I think, there were a bunch of different numbers on a big giant screen behind them, and people would shout out a number, and whatever was behind the number, something would appear, and he would talk for 20 minutes about whatever that was.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:So theoretically, on any show, you could see anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He knows a lot about the histories of magic that I certainly don't.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's its own whole skill, is knowing the names of people.
Guest:I think he likes the dark side, too.
Guest:Where they're from.
Guest:The hustle of it.
Marc:He was a hustler.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like when magicians were doing it for, you know.
Marc:I loved him as an actor, too.
Marc:He's good.
Marc:He's in the Mammoth movies, usually.
Marc:And he was in Magnolia.
Marc:He was in Magnolia.
Marc:Boogie Nights, was he in that?
Marc:Have you ever talked to him?
Marc:Paul Thomas Anderson?
Marc:No, I just read a whole article about him.
Marc:He's a very goofy guy.
Marc:Really?
Marc:He grew up in the valley.
Marc:His dad was like a wacky, you know, TV host from Cleveland or somewhere.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And his dad and Tim Conway were best friends.
Marc:No way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like I thought he was some like dark genius.
Marc:He comes over here.
Marc:He's just a goofy dude from the valley.
Marc:And it's very entertaining to talk to him.
Marc:So what is a goofy dude like that?
Marc:Where does he get that stuff?
Marc:Why is he so fucking?
Marc:Maybe that's just his, you know, that's his public persona, but he's obviously an incredible filmmaker.
Marc:The phantom thread?
Marc:He's got real balls with the filmmaking.
Marc:Like, you know, like he's not afraid of what's going to come at him.
Marc:Director.
Marc:That's the job.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's where I'm headed.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:That's the plan.
Guest:What are you going to do?
Guest:Right now, I'm quiz show host producer.
Guest:I'm actor on Netflix.
Guest:I'm a children's book writer.
Guest:And when all of this calms down, it's going to be directing more.
Marc:Well, let's talk about hosting real quick, though.
Marc:How did you sort of get into that?
Marc:Because that's one of those jobs.
Marc:There's a few people that do it.
Marc:Not everybody do it, does it?
Marc:Some people get a shot at doing it, but you've done it a lot.
Marc:So like you're a host, you can host a big event.
Marc:The Oscars, the Tonys over and over again, the Emmys, you've hosted all of them.
Marc:How did you get into that?
Guest:What was the... I was on CBS.
Guest:And so the Tonys was on CBS.
Guest:And so they pull from their own talent pool because then they can sort of self-promote.
Guest:And so they asked me to host the Tonys one year, and it wasn't super heavy lifting.
Guest:I think they had asked a bunch of other people who had passed.
Guest:And so they asked me to do it.
Guest:It was just the big opening number that they had done with not the host, but a bunch of all of the Broadway shows.
Guest:But together, it's one where Bret Michaels got whacked in the head
Guest:from a set piece.
Guest:And that was a big controversy.
Guest:And then I came out and told some jokes and it went really well.
Guest:And so then they were pleased with my confidence.
Guest:And so I was still on the network when the Tonys came around the next year.
Guest:So I did that.
Guest:So once you've done it a couple of times, you're on the short list of people.
Guest:And then the Emmys, every four years, it switches networks every year.
Guest:So every four years it would go back to CBS.
Guest:So I did that.
Guest:because of it was being on CBS.
Marc:And you could do it.
Marc:You had the chops.
Marc:I guess so, yeah.
Marc:And the Oscars, that must be the most intimidating gig in the world.
Marc:Yeah, well.
Marc:Not really?
Guest:I just find it very, it's its own little machine that's eating its own tail.
Guest:It's a hard one to crack.
Marc:In what way?
Marc:I mean, you go out there, everyone in show business is there.
Marc:It's intimidating in my mind.
Marc:And, you know, I have to imagine that you have to sort of realize you're not going to get an amazing response.
Marc:Correct.
Marc:And you've got to just suck it up.
Guest:It's the last award of a long cycle now of award shows.
Guest:So by the time they're at the Oscars, everyone is exhausted from the gauntlets of the Golden Globes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:All of them.
Guest:SAG Awards.
Guest:There's so many now.
Guest:And Oscars is last.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you're dealing with actors who are promoting a show that they did a year and a half ago.
Guest:They've already completed another show and they're probably working on another movie.
Guest:For the movie, yeah.
Guest:So they're glazy because they're talking about something that's two chapters ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're pretty sure who's going to win.
Guest:Because by that time, you kind of know that this actor's won 11 of the last 12.
Guest:You still have to put on the thing and go around and do all the stuff.
Guest:And you're waiting a long queue of cars.
Guest:And then it's really intimidating and daunting, all the people screaming at you and the photographers.
Guest:And you're sort of...
Guest:interacting with other famous people that you don't know and that's a weird thing and then you sit down you can't eat you can't drink you're there for four hours it's run by the academy the motion picture academy so you have to honor sound design and you have to honor costume design and you have to honor a lot of things that the general public doesn't know anything about right so then it it can read boring right inside baseball too much because you need to let the sound designer thank all the people sure no one knows who he's talking about
Guest:The award show dynamic is tricky enough as it is.
Guest:And now I think the studios are releasing films to be Oscar contenders at a certain time to get into certain festivals.
Guest:They're small films that then no one has really seen.
Guest:They don't make a lot of money.
Guest:They just come out to be Oscar movies.
Guest:Yeah, that's true.
Guest:And then ratings drop and then everyone panics because how do we get more...
Guest:eyes on the show yeah and you're talking about whiplash which was a great movie yeah but the only people that sees it is people get screeners exactly kind of i get screeners and i don't end up seeing them all yeah so i think it's a i think it's just a difficult one it's a daunting beast it's it needs to be reshaped in some way because there's so many award shows that are like it but but in many ways better
Marc:i think jimmy did a great last year and this year i think he did real well but he was a little more biting last year he took some more shots in the monologue but this year there were so many controversial things that couldn't touch it that were hot button and they knew by you know they knew by you know after the golden globes they can watch how the other hosts handle things to see if anything's flying and then be like let's stay away from that but the me too movement the timeout movement very real and valuable and valid things right so you can't really mock them you can't really mock
Guest:You have to do a Harvey Weinstein joke, but if you go there too hard, it's a tricky line.
Guest:That's tricky.
Guest:But I just like he busted balls on the actors more.
Guest:Yeah, agreed.
Guest:He still busted balls.
Guest:I thought that that runner of the jet ski thing was brilliant.
Guest:Yeah, that was funny.
Marc:i thought it was so funny yeah because it was dumb but it was something that that you at home could still make your own jokes about that's what he does is that he's able to bring it to the regular people i love that he takes the piss out of the elevated nature sure of that thing when he brought those people in last year from outside that was one of the best things ever just those people like with their phones you know like
Guest:He was good.
Guest:He did a great, great job.
Guest:Both years, I think.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:I think Jimmy Kimmel is an outstanding representation of award show host.
Marc:Yeah, it's good.
Marc:And you're going to keep doing them, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So tell me- You get asked to do them.
Marc:You don't really- You don't put in for it?
Marc:Right.
Marc:I'm available.
Marc:So tell me about directing.
Marc:When does that start?
Marc:How much have you done?
Guest:I've done... I directed a How I Met Your Mother episode.
Guest:Just one out of 200?
Guest:Some theater stuff.
Guest:They wouldn't throw you another one?
Guest:Just the one.
Marc:How hard did you have to fight for that one out of 200?
Guest:Well, it's more difficult being on the show and then directing multiples.
Guest:It's an ensemble cast.
Guest:It's not a real great experience when you're on the show and directing because you have to go back and forth.
Guest:You're double dipping a little bit.
Guest:But I enjoyed it very much
Guest:Uh, again, I really like, I really like being on set and watching the crew work and honoring what they do.
Guest:And I, and I think that that all, that part of it's fun.
Guest:So it would be fun for me.
Guest:I want to direct, uh, I want to do, I, I, I'm thinking of trying to reinvent, reinvent kind of the improv comedy movie.
Guest:Give me an example of what that is.
Guest:The Guffman, Christopher Guest ideal of filming stuff with bullet points and getting great actors that may not be A-list, which is probably better due to scheduling, but that are super talented and funny.
Guest:You want to do one of those?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that that deserves to be done again.
Guest:And I think not only would that be fun to watch, but if done right, it would be really fun to execute.
Guest:Oh, it's great.
Guest:It would be really fun to do.
Guest:Have you done any of improv-y?
Marc:Yeah, I have.
Marc:I did Joe Swanberg's Easy, which is on Netflix.
Marc:I did two episodes of that each year.
Marc:It's a show that is an anthology show.
Marc:So it's 10 episodes that are their own thing based in Chicago with Chicago people.
Marc:And I played the, there was an episode first season with me as this guy and then we brought the guy back, but it's all improv.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:Or Curb Your Enthusiasm, I think, which was just great.
Guest:But I kind of want to do something that would be fun to do and therefore be fun to watch.
Marc:Yeah, no, it sounds great.
Marc:Would you be in it?
Marc:Probably not.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And you got people in mind?
Marc:Do you got an idea in mind?
Marc:Sounds like you got one.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I have an idea in mind.
Guest:All right.
Guest:When are you going to do it?
Guest:This fall would be my favorite choice, but we'll see if it can happen.
Guest:Shoot it for cheap?
Guest:That would be the idea.
Guest:Some micro budget, shoot it for super cheap and then own it outright and then try and sell it and hope that it does well.
Guest:How did you like doing Hedwig?
Guest:Oh, I loved it.
Guest:yeah i talked to him uh john cameron mitchell yeah yeah we did a pilot for something an interview thing but never got released but i spent like three hours with him and uh it's a really he's great i i it was another chapter of my life that is so unlike me yeah and yet i got to do it and it was it was well received and it was rock and roll and i was just not a punk rock and roll guy
Guest:And I had my own internal issues about how to carry myself and not be too effeminate.
Guest:And so I had to get over that very quickly and own femininity and then stomp around in a very David Bowie kind of way.
Guest:And shriek all of these songs to an audience of Upper East Side people who'd paid too much money.
Guest:And yet the show is very moving.
Guest:So they're initially kind of taken aback.
Guest:And then by the end of it, they were emotional and feeling empathy towards someone that was nothing like them.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:It was fascinating to be a woman for a while.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You loved it.
Guest:i don't know that i loved it it's a lot of work yeah tucking your testicles up into your way up higher than they're supposed to be and like oh yeah all of that stuff not so fun like getting into the stuff was a drag was tough oh dude like eyelashes and and
Marc:But it must have been like when you were done up, when it was finished and you looked at yourself, it really helps the transformation, right?
Marc:So, so much.
Marc:I mean, it's like so much of it.
Marc:Like even when I put on Sam's clothes for GLOW, I'm like, no, I'm this guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now I'm doing Olaf in Series of Unfortunate Events and I look nothing like myself.
Guest:And you can just go to town.
Guest:It's not really you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're a little less insecure.
Guest:Less self-conscious.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Well, it's great talking to you, man.
Guest:Thanks, buddy.
Guest:You feel good?
Guest:I feel great.
Guest:I'm a huge fan of the podcast and have always been nervous about how it would go.
Guest:really i thought it went great it was fun i didn't realize you'd even started have you pressed play yet oh fuck um but how's it your kids are good you're you're married kids are good my husband's great okay uh good we're working away kids are in seven years old they're in the first grade they couldn't be cooler they're in that sweet pocket where they want to be your friend and they want to learn stuff and
Guest:And they're healthy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everything's super, super swell.
Guest:Good, man.
Guest:I'm happy to hear it.
Guest:Thanks for having me on.
Guest:Yep.
Marc:That was Neil Patrick Harris.
Marc:As I said, Genius Junior.
Marc:His new show is Sunday Nights on NBC.
Marc:He's also on Netflix.
Marc:A series of unfortunate events.
Marc:All the episodes of Season 2 are up now.
Marc:And that's it.
Marc:This is my first dispatch from the new space.
Marc:If it sounds different, it might be a little different.
Marc:But we're going to chip away.
Marc:I'm going to make this the new home.
Marc:It's going to happen.
Marc:It's exciting.
Marc:And I'm...
Marc:i'm a little ungrounded folks i'm a little i'm a little nervous uh and a little i i feel i feel uh kind of kind of raw a little vulnerable without my old garage all right uh go to wtfpod.com slash tour to get venue and ticket information for my upcoming shows in london stockholm oslo amsterdam and dublin and uh
Marc:Yeah, I haven't set up my amps yet.
Marc:And I can't play guitar.
Marc:I know that's heartbreaking.
Marc:But I can do this.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Boomer lives!
you