Episode 92 - Paul Provenza

Episode 92 • Released July 21, 2010 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!

00:00:07Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:08Guest:Really?

00:00:08Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:09Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:10Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:12Guest:Pow!

00:00:12Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:14Guest:And it's also... Eh, what the fuck?

00:00:16Guest:What's wrong with me?

00:00:17Guest:It's time for WTF!

00:00:19Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:20Guest:With Mark Maron.

00:00:24Marc:Okay, let's do this.

00:00:25Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:26Marc:What the fuckineers?

00:00:27Marc:What the fucknicks?

00:00:28Marc:What the fuckannots might have made it into the cut.

00:00:31Marc:I hope everybody's okay.

00:00:32Marc:I am in New York City.

00:00:34Marc:It is very hot.

00:00:35Marc:It is muggy.

00:00:36Marc:It is humid.

00:00:37Marc:I don't know how many more ways I can say that.

00:00:39Marc:Everybody is sort of damp and tired and exhausted.

00:00:43Marc:Hair products aren't working.

00:00:44Marc:People look tired.

00:00:46Marc:Dogs look tired.

00:00:47Marc:On the train, they just feel like...

00:00:50Marc:like weird pressure cooking death tubes but i don't know i find it sexy i really do i find the exhaustion in people's eyes to be somewhat enchanting i don't know if you've ever been on a hot subway when it's muggy and people are really have just given up on themselves there's just no way they can muster up the energy to maintain any sort of appearances they're slightly cranky and for some reason to me that is just hot as fuck

00:01:14Marc:Is that wrong to think that an exhausted woman who doesn't even have the energy to resent me for looking at her in a lascivious way is sexy?

00:01:22Marc:Does that say something about me?

00:01:23Marc:Is that too much information?

00:01:25Marc:I'll tell you where I'm at.

00:01:26Marc:Right now, I am at the Chelsea Hotel, the infamous or the famous.

00:01:30Marc:I don't know what.

00:01:31Marc:I guess it would be infamous.

00:01:32Marc:Does infamous mean that something shitty happened here or it's known for something shitty like Sid Vicious killing his girlfriend?

00:01:39Marc:Does that make it infamous?

00:01:41Marc:Does it make it infamous because all the Ramones at one time or another, give or take a Joey, might have done dope here?

00:01:47Marc:It's the Chelsea Hotel.

00:01:49Marc:It was in the Leonard Cohen song.

00:01:53Marc:Brendan Behan wrote about it.

00:01:56Marc:Some people died here.

00:01:57Marc:It's a big, creepy, weird old place.

00:02:00Marc:It's well known as being a sleazy old hotel, but also beautiful in its romantic corruption.

00:02:08Guest:How's that?

00:02:09Marc:Not a great place.

00:02:11Marc:I have been here once before.

00:02:13Marc:Twice, actually.

00:02:15Marc:I have two Chelsea hotel stories, including the one that happened yesterday here with my friend Jessica, who flew out to spend some time with me at Chelsea.

00:02:24Marc:And she's never been to New York, so I figured, why not get the full treatment?

00:02:27Marc:Let's go to a really shitty but infamous hotel for the first three nights.

00:02:32Marc:The first story I have about the Chelsea Hotel happened to me many years ago before I even lived in New York.

00:02:37Marc:It must have been 1989 or even before that, maybe 88.

00:02:42Marc:I'd come down here to do comedy.

00:02:45Marc:I was living up in Boston and I would drive down here sometimes for the weekend to try to get in at the clubs.

00:02:50Marc:There were other comics around.

00:02:51Marc:All the guys were just starting out, Louis C.K.

00:02:55Marc:and Nick DiPaolo and a few of the New York guys that started out around that time.

00:02:59Marc:We'd just all run around and do stand-up, but I hadn't moved down here yet, and I was drunk and sweaty.

00:03:04Marc:There was this comedian named Leanne who was hanging around.

00:03:06Marc:We were both getting drunk, and we wanted to fool around.

00:03:10Marc:And we didn't know where to go.

00:03:11Marc:And I remember Louie had told me he had gone to the Chelsea Hotel to do some business of some kind.

00:03:16Marc:And of course, even at that time, I was competing with Louie in my mind.

00:03:20Marc:So I said, let's go to the Chelsea Hotel.

00:03:22Marc:That's where people go to do dirty things.

00:03:26Marc:And I remember getting a room at the Chelsea Hotel, coming up to a dirty room and doing some dirty things.

00:03:32Marc:And then I remember walking out the next morning to check out.

00:03:37Marc:And I had obviously no baggage.

00:03:39Marc:And we all looked, the two of us look pretty worse for wear.

00:03:42Marc:And the guy who I think still works here, he might not.

00:03:44Marc:His name was Stanley, I believe.

00:03:46Marc:The guy at the counter, as I was checking out, looks at both of us and then looks at me and says, do you want a receipt for what you did?

00:03:55Marc:I thought that was very clever to the point where it stayed with me some however long it's been, 20 years.

00:04:00Marc:The second time I came here was after I left my first wife.

00:04:05Marc:I decided I would live at the Chelsea Hotel.

00:04:07Marc:It was a very sad day.

00:04:08Marc:I thought they had monthly rates, which they don't really.

00:04:11Marc:So I came here.

00:04:12Marc:I remember I had a knife, a fork, a bowl, a plate, and a box of puffins.

00:04:17Marc:And I rented a room here at the Chelsea.

00:04:19Marc:And these rooms, depending on which ones you get, can be really sad.

00:04:23Marc:They're all some degree of sad, but they seem to have made an attempt to make it quaint in here by antiquing the walls.

00:04:31Marc:All the furniture looks like it was picked up off of the street.

00:04:34Marc:It's a small room.

00:04:35Marc:But the one that I was in that day was so depressing and dark.

00:04:41Marc:It looked like the suicide suite at the Chelsea.

00:04:45Marc:But now I kind of like the room today.

00:04:47Marc:And I was very excited to have Jessica come to the room.

00:04:50Marc:And then last night after the gig at Union Hall...

00:04:53Marc:I'm like, this is it.

00:04:54Marc:This is the Chelsea.

00:04:54Marc:And you walk through these halls, there's long corridors.

00:04:56Marc:They almost look industrial.

00:04:58Marc:45% of the people that are here are residents, apparently.

00:05:03Marc:They must have some deal with the city.

00:05:05Marc:There's paintings all over the wall from past artistic events.

00:05:08Marc:artistically inclined residents who used to give the paintings to the hotel as payment.

00:05:14Marc:There's a long history to this place.

00:05:17Marc:So I'm pretty excited to have her come in.

00:05:18Marc:And we walk in and I turn on the light.

00:05:21Marc:And I don't think I realized just how filthy the carpet was.

00:05:24Marc:But then like right there on the floor is one of them giant dead roaches, but not just a roach roach, not just sort of like the roach that travels in packs with a bunch of little roaches, but one of them water bug roaches, those mini dinosaur looking motherfuckers that are just huge and filled with white goo.

00:05:41Marc:One of them was on his back dead, just laying there in the middle of the floor.

00:05:46Marc:And it was like, welcome to the Chelsea Hotel.

00:05:49Marc:That should be the postcard for the Chelsea Hotel.

00:05:51Marc:It's just a giant, dead, stinky water bug on its back with its legs all up.

00:05:57Marc:Maybe I'll make that postcard had I not flushed the guy down the toilet.

00:06:01Marc:So I want you to enjoy my conversation with Paul Provenza.

00:06:04Marc:Paul Provenza, I have known for God, I don't know how long.

00:06:09Marc:It feels like forever.

00:06:10Marc:He used to do a show on Comedy Central when I was a child, just starting out in comedy.

00:06:15Marc:His new book, Satiristas, has gotten some popularity.

00:06:17Marc:I'm in that.

00:06:18Marc:I'm all over that book.

00:06:20Marc:And I finally got in the garage to talk.

00:06:22Marc:Thank you so much, you guys, for coming out to Union Hall to watch me try to work out my set for England.

00:06:29Marc:I'll be in London next week at the Soho Theater.

00:06:32Marc:And tomorrow, the 23rd of July, I will be at Great Scott's in Boston, in Alston, Massachusetts.

00:06:39Marc:I will be at Great Scott's.

00:06:41Marc:Great Scott's.

00:06:43Marc:Is it Great Scott or Great Scots?

00:06:45Marc:Whatever.

00:06:45Marc:Alston, Massachusetts, my friends.

00:06:49Marc:And again, thank you in advance because I'm recording this the day before.

00:06:53Marc:Thank you in advance for coming to WTF Live at Comics.

00:06:57Marc:See, I don't want to go overboard with the thanks and pretend like I'm recording this the day after when I'm actually recording this the day before because what if something really weird happens?

00:07:08Marc:Or what if it doesn't go right or well?

00:07:11Marc:I can't say like, wow, Jeff Garland was great because I don't know yet.

00:07:17Marc:Time travel.

00:07:17Marc:It's very difficult being a time traveler.

00:07:19Marc:It's very difficult for me to be in the future right now.

00:07:22Marc:But I am.

00:07:23Marc:I'm in Thursday.

00:07:24Marc:Today is Wednesday.

00:07:26Marc:Enjoy Paul Provenza.

00:07:39Marc:The guest in my garage here at the Cat Ranch overlooking the barrio of Highland Park is Paul Provenza.

00:07:46Marc:Paul Provenza, I don't know.

00:07:49Marc:Paul Provenza, I've known for probably 25 years.

00:07:53Marc:At least, yeah.

00:07:54Marc:Yeah, and he's just the kind of guy where you're like, he shows up places.

00:07:57Marc:You go to Europe.

00:07:57Marc:It's like, why is Paul in the bathroom in Europe?

00:08:00Marc:I'll be in the bathroom anywhere you go.

00:08:02Marc:There's Paul in the bathroom.

00:08:03Marc:But I don't know, going back, you know, I was thinking about you and about what I know of you.

00:08:09Marc:By the time I started doing comedy, probably 89, 90, 91, when I started doing the first TV appearances, you had Comics Only.

00:08:17Guest:Right.

00:08:18Marc:The talk show.

00:08:18Marc:Right.

00:08:19Marc:Where you only interviewed comics.

00:08:20Marc:Right.

00:08:21Marc:Which is similar to what I'm doing on some level.

00:08:23Marc:Yes.

00:08:23Guest:And it's also, it's sort of like the sophomoric junior high school version of what I'm doing now on Showtime.

00:08:29Right.

00:08:29Marc:Right, but it was... I don't remember it being that sophomoric.

00:08:33Marc:I remember it being you at a desk, and you did a few jokes, and you had two comics on per show.

00:08:37Marc:It was a half-hour talk show.

00:08:39Marc:Right.

00:08:39Guest:The reason I remember it... The reason I say it was a sophomoric version is because it was...

00:08:46Guest:that's easier to say than primitive but it was a primitive version of it you know I've always wanted to capture that feeling of just hanging out with comics and in that case it was a very formatted very structured kind of thing which is very different from what the green room show is but that but that thing's been burning in me for a long time

00:09:03Marc:The Green Room Show, which I'd like to say I opened.

00:09:06Guest:You did.

00:09:07Guest:You weren't even there.

00:09:08Guest:I wasn't there.

00:09:09Marc:And Paul did a joke of mine, which he credited to me and did very well.

00:09:14Marc:I would have put it as I quoted you.

00:09:18Marc:Oh, what did I say?

00:09:19Marc:Did my joke.

00:09:21Marc:Oh, I'm sorry.

00:09:21Marc:He quoted me.

00:09:22Guest:That's the difference between you and me.

00:09:23Marc:No, no, no.

00:09:24Marc:You're right.

00:09:24Marc:I wasn't taking any.

00:09:26Marc:But, you know, the reason I remember comics only is I did that show.

00:09:29Marc:Yeah.

00:09:29Marc:I was on that show.

00:09:30Marc:And I think it taped here.

00:09:32Marc:Yep.

00:09:33Marc:And I remember being there because when you tape them, you stripped them.

00:09:36Marc:So you did four shows or did what?

00:09:37Marc:Two in a day or four in a day?

00:09:38Marc:Three in a day.

00:09:39Marc:day and two so there's like nine guys waiting around and i remember i was waiting backstage with norm mcdonald's and bill hicks and i can't remember who else they weren't i don't remember who was on my show but i remember sitting there and the reason i remember it is because i was trying to quit smoking then and i had acupuncture tabs in my ears oh i vaguely remember that like they the acupuncturist had stuck these things into my ears staples

00:10:02Marc:Yeah, they were like staples or tacks or something.

00:10:04Marc:And I remember being there talking to Hicks about that, and he's going, does that work?

00:10:09Marc:And I'm like, I don't fucking know.

00:10:10Marc:I got them in my ears.

00:10:12Marc:Nothing works for me.

00:10:13Marc:I just remember him having that moment where it's like, I don't think I'd do that.

00:10:17Marc:I'm not going to quit smoking.

00:10:19Marc:Yeah, ironically.

00:10:20Marc:But now here you are, and a lot of people don't... I tried to put you in the context.

00:10:25Marc:Now you're doing the satiristas.

00:10:27Marc:You're sort of a P.T.

00:10:28Marc:Barnum of this...

00:10:31Marc:You're kind of running.

00:10:32Marc:You've got a lot of plates in the air, and you're championing.

00:10:35Guest:You know, I watched a lot of Ed Sullivan as a kid.

00:10:38Guest:Okay, okay.

00:10:39Guest:I'm turning into Ed Sullivan.

00:10:40Marc:You're championing, but you're championing aggressive, forward-thinking, political, and activated comedy, you know, original comedy.

00:10:49Marc:You seem to be championing that, you know, on TV and in the book form.

00:10:53Marc:The new book, Satiristas, Comedians, Contrarians, Raconteurs, and Vulgarians, which was put together by Paul and a photographer, Dan Dion.

00:11:01Marc:is out now and what I guess what I want to ask you is I remember seeing you by the time I you did comics only by the time I did comics only you weren't doing stand-up that much oh yeah I've there was only there was a period of time where I specifically stopped doing stand-up I've been doing stand-up since I was 17 years old virtually non-stop but you were of the generation a little younger than Seinfeld a little younger than riser but I mean those were your contemporaries right much yeah and

00:11:28Marc:And what I recall is you were sort of a cute, likable, observational comic.

00:11:35Marc:Yeah.

00:11:36Marc:And when you started.

00:11:37Marc:Right.

00:11:37Marc:And then you disappeared and you came back angry and full of the beans.

00:11:43Guest:Yeah.

00:11:43Guest:Was that an up statistic?

00:11:45Guest:Yeah, that was good.

00:11:46Guest:Thank you.

00:11:46Guest:Yeah.

00:11:47Guest:Yeah.

00:11:47Guest:No, I have always gone through massive transitions.

00:11:51Guest:And that's one of the reasons why I left the country, actually, why I started going overseas was because I was I had that's the period right before I left the country is when I took I planned on taking about a year and a half off.

00:12:03Guest:What year are we talking?

00:12:04Guest:Oh, we're talking about 10 years ago, maybe?

00:12:07Guest:Yeah.

00:12:08Guest:I wanted to take about a year and a half off.

00:12:11Guest:And that year and a half turned into about two and a half years.

00:12:14Guest:And then I wanted to go back into it.

00:12:15Guest:And in that two and a half years, by the way, I had done a lot of stuff that I'm really proud of.

00:12:19Guest:I did a series.

00:12:21Guest:Called Beggars and Choosers, which was little seen but really really excellent.

00:12:25Guest:Where was that show on Showtime?

00:12:26Guest:Okay, it was produced by Brandon Tartikoff's wife.

00:12:30Guest:It was basically based on Brandon Tartikoff's experience Running a network.

00:12:34Guest:It was a sort of a satire of his experience.

00:12:36Guest:It was a sitcom?

00:12:38Guest:Dramedy is one hour.

00:12:39Guest:Okay, really?

00:12:40Guest:Yeah, and you acted in that yeah, I actually played a character Modeled after a Jerry Seinfeld type character.

00:12:46Guest:I was the stand-up comic on this network and

00:12:48Guest:that I was nothing but trouble.

00:12:51Guest:This is where it diverges from Seinfeld himself, but I was the Seinfeld sitcom guy.

00:12:57Guest:I had this big hit sitcom and the network was in trouble, so they had to sort of, I had them over a barrel all the time.

00:13:04Guest:And I also happened to have gone to college with the guy who ran the network.

00:13:09Guest:I kind of remember this.

00:13:10Guest:Yeah, and so it was fun because I got to play a comic playing a character on a sitcom

00:13:16Guest:And being an asshole.

00:13:18Guest:It was really fun.

00:13:19Guest:So I had done that and I did Steve Martin's play in New York off Broadway for about a year.

00:13:25Guest:I had done a lot of nice work, work that I was happy to be doing.

00:13:28Guest:And it kind of filled the reason I stopped doing stand-up was because I felt like I'd lost my voice.

00:13:33Guest:I felt like, you know what that grind is.

00:13:35Guest:If you don't hit it.

00:13:36Guest:It becomes very limiting.

00:13:37Guest:Becomes very limiting.

00:13:38Guest:When you get to a point in your career where the majority of the audience is still not the crowd coming to see you.

00:13:45Guest:They're just coming to see, quote unquote, comedy.

00:13:47Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:13:48Marc:It's horrible.

00:13:49Marc:It's horrible.

00:13:50Marc:I mean, I'm there.

00:13:51Marc:I mean, I am there.

00:13:52Marc:Yeah, I know.

00:13:52Marc:I know exactly what you're talking about.

00:13:54Marc:Of course you do, yeah.

00:13:55Marc:25 years and you realize that you got a half a house of people that most of them don't know you.

00:14:01Guest:It's like having to lay down a foundation at every show.

00:14:04Guest:Which is fine.

00:14:05Guest:That means you're just doing the job.

00:14:07Guest:It is fine.

00:14:08Guest:But, you know, if you have... It gets tiring.

00:14:11Guest:It's discouraging.

00:14:12Guest:It's discouraging.

00:14:13Guest:I mean, doing the job is fine.

00:14:14Guest:It's frustrating.

00:14:15Guest:But that's mostly a pride thing, don't you think?

00:14:16Guest:No.

00:14:17Guest:No, it's not a pride thing.

00:14:18Guest:It's a work thing.

00:14:19Guest:Because in order... You know, when you get your own audience and your own audience sort of knows the way you think and knows what you're all about...

00:14:26Guest:then you can go to other levels.

00:14:27Guest:It's up to you whether or not you reach other levels, but you do at least have the opportunity.

00:14:33Guest:And I felt like I was always, no matter how much I tried to do that, a number of things were happening.

00:14:37Guest:First of all, I was constantly having to prove myself to the audience before I could go where I wanted to go.

00:14:44Guest:Had to answer to club owners, which is like- But that's not a horrible thing.

00:14:47Guest:No, but after that many years, it just gets tedious.

00:14:50Guest:That's all I'm saying.

00:14:51Guest:It just becomes, you know, I got into comedy because the last thing I wanted to do in life was have a desk job and have to answer to people.

00:14:58Guest:And at this point in my career, after all that much time, I felt like I was in a rut and I might as well have had a desk job and I had to answer to people I didn't want to answer to.

00:15:06Guest:It's not saying it's rational.

00:15:08Marc:I'm just no no, but I'm just saying I know exactly you're talking about but I think a lot of it It's just disappointing and it's discouraging because you get to the club and you like this is it Did you guys did you put did you put a poster up or did you advertise?

00:15:20Guest:Yeah, and just you know and it is not an ego thing at all It really wasn't because as a matter of fact the irony of it is that now that I have a profile again Yeah, I'm only doing stand-up when I want to right so it's not an ego thing

00:15:33Guest:I get it.

00:15:35Guest:But it was frustrating.

00:15:35Guest:And it's just like, you know, again, it's like doing a play.

00:15:38Guest:You could be a phenomenal actor.

00:15:40Guest:And after a year or two of the same part, you just want to do something else.

00:15:44Guest:You want a different dynamic.

00:15:46Guest:And that's what it was like for me.

00:15:47Guest:So I had taken this time off and done some great stuff.

00:15:51Guest:Acting in a play is great.

00:15:52Guest:Yeah.

00:15:52Marc:Doing a TV part.

00:15:53Guest:Yeah.

00:15:53Guest:So you kept working.

00:15:54Guest:Yeah.

00:15:55Guest:Yeah.

00:15:55Guest:And doing really cool stuff and spreading my wings a little bit.

00:15:58Guest:But then...

00:15:59Guest:I had sort of been addressing some of the personal issues that I was dealing with in that time where I needed some time off.

00:16:06Guest:You know, you reach that point in life and just start questioning everything.

00:16:09Guest:I mean, my creative... Like why live?

00:16:12Guest:Yeah.

00:16:14Guest:That started happening about my 20s.

00:16:17Guest:You know, you just reach... I felt like I was reaching glass walls across the board, both professionally, creatively.

00:16:24Marc:Is it that moment where you're like, you know, life is short, there's not that much left,

00:16:28Marc:What am I doing?

00:16:29Guest:It's more like life is short.

00:16:31Guest:There's not that much left, but it's enough to know that I don't want to keep doing this this way.

00:16:35Guest:Okay.

00:16:35Guest:And what else is it going to be?

00:16:37Guest:But so I had taken this time off.

00:16:38Guest:And then after about two and a half years, I decided that I wanted to go back in because I felt like my head had cleared.

00:16:43Guest:I felt like there were things I wanted to talk about.

00:16:44Guest:I could see myself on the other side of that glass wall.

00:16:48Guest:I just wanted to break through it.

00:16:49Guest:So I want to get back into standup.

00:16:50Guest:And then for about two and a half years, I had a pathological stage fright.

00:16:54Marc:Get out of here.

00:16:55Guest:Yeah, which is really, really difficult because I'd been doing it since I was 17.

00:16:59Guest:I had been like open micing at like 16, you know.

00:17:02Marc:But like how does that manifest itself and what was the first, when did it first happen?

00:17:06Guest:I don't know when it first happened because it was a little while until I realized that that's exactly what was going on.

00:17:12Guest:It started with sort of personal things like I would book gigs and then cancel a week or two ahead of time.

00:17:18Guest:I would always have excuses why this wasn't going to work out.

00:17:21Guest:And then it got to the point where I'd be on a plane and I'd get to the airport and turn around and go back home and say that, you know, I had Ebola.

00:17:31Guest:Oh, really?

00:17:32Guest:Ebola, how'd that go?

00:17:34Yeah.

00:17:34Guest:I just had to, you know, I just couldn't face it.

00:17:37Guest:And there was one day, the day that really, really nailed it home to me was I was in the airport, and this was long before 9-11, so it was a slightly different airport scenario.

00:17:48Guest:I was on the phone with my manager at the time, and I was doing like Joe Pesci in JFK, where he was just banging the phone on the thing going, you goddamn motherfucker, son of a bitch!

00:17:56Guest:I'm doing that in the middle of an airport, and they took me into a little room, and they said, look, you need to calm down because you're frightening the other passengers.

00:18:03Guest:And I said, okay, this is really out of control here.

00:18:06Guest:What were you doing?

00:18:07Guest:What were you yelling at him about?

00:18:08Guest:Who knows?

00:18:09Guest:Free-floating rage.

00:18:10Guest:I was yelling about anything and everything.

00:18:12Guest:That's my thing.

00:18:13Guest:When I'm fucked up, when I am really off balance, when I don't have my shit together, it always manifests itself as rage.

00:18:20Guest:Oh, me too.

00:18:20Guest:I know!

00:18:21Guest:Okay.

00:18:22Guest:Don't yell at me.

00:18:23Guest:Who are you telling?

00:18:24Guest:Fuck you.

00:18:24Guest:I don't eat the cake.

00:18:26Guest:I've been on the other end of that rage.

00:18:28Guest:This is my fucking garage.

00:18:30Guest:Really?

00:18:30Guest:I yelled at you?

00:18:31Guest:See, now that warms me.

00:18:33Marc:That's weird when you rage.

00:18:35Marc:When you're a rager and someone yells at you, you're like, oh, it's so sweet.

00:18:38Guest:It's so calming.

00:18:39Marc:It makes me feel like home.

00:18:40Marc:I didn't yell at you.

00:18:42Marc:Oh, you yelled at everybody.

00:18:43Marc:I did?

00:18:44Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:18:44Marc:All right, so you can't, did you get to the point where you were waiting to go on stage and they said Paul Provenza and you couldn't go on stage?

00:18:51Guest:Oh, I did, like before I left that, when I had gigs booked in town, just like showcase gigs or something, I would just end up vomiting before I even got to my car.

00:18:58Marc:Holy shit.

00:18:59Marc:I get, you know, I'm actually a little, I mean, I've been doing this essentially since I was 16.

00:19:02Marc:I know, I know, but I'm afraid of this because I've heard this happen to other people that, you know, mid-career, three quarters of the way in, wherever you are, 20 years in, that all of a sudden you just, you get this paralyzed with fear.

00:19:12Marc:You know what happened to Shucky Green?

00:19:14Marc:It happened to Shucky Green in like his 60s.

00:19:16Guest:I want to talk to him.

00:19:17Guest:Have you talked to him?

00:19:18Guest:I have not talked to him, no.

00:19:19Guest:You read about it.

00:19:20Guest:No.

00:19:21Guest:Max Alexander called me one day from the sound booth of like Caesar's Palace in the middle of the afternoon.

00:19:28Guest:And he goes, listen to this.

00:19:29Guest:And he puts his phone out into the open theater.

00:19:33Guest:And it was Shecky playing to an empty house, trying to get over his stage fright, trying to remember his act, trying to get, just trying to feel that muscle memory.

00:19:41Guest:How long ago is that?

00:19:42Guest:This was a while ago.

00:19:43Guest:This was before I, it was long before, maybe 15 years ago maybe.

00:19:46Guest:Because he's still working.

00:19:48Guest:He came back, but he had a really tough period.

00:19:51Guest:But he's got to be 75 years old.

00:19:52Guest:How old is he, 80 years old?

00:19:53Guest:That's right, dude.

00:19:54Guest:It's going to happen to you at some point.

00:19:55Guest:You've got to get used to that.

00:19:56Guest:No, getting old, I know I understand that.

00:19:57Guest:No, I mean stage fright.

00:19:59Marc:You're a classic candidate.

00:20:02Marc:But I feel like I just got over it.

00:20:05Marc:I feel like this is like for the first time in my life in the last few years, I'm literally unafraid, completely unafraid up there.

00:20:11Guest:Well, that's great.

00:20:12Guest:That's good for you.

00:20:13Guest:You may have avoided it.

00:20:16Guest:But what I had to do was, so when I committed to overcoming this stage fright, I said, I'm going to go back to New York.

00:20:24Guest:And I went to New York for about four months and just because, you know, I knew I could get way more stage time in New York and it would be easier and more comfortable.

00:20:34Guest:You going back to those clubs you started in with all those kids like the comic strip?

00:20:38Guest:No, the Comedy Cellar was really an oasis for me.

00:20:43Guest:So and, you know, great.

00:20:45Guest:great comics hanging out there all the time.

00:20:47Guest:Colin Quinn and Dave Attell and just terrific comics.

00:20:50Guest:And everybody knows you for years.

00:20:52Guest:Everybody knows me for years and everything.

00:20:53Guest:So I figured, well, this would be kind of a comfortable, homey kind of thing.

00:20:57Guest:And so the first week that I got there, I had like three or four prime time spots.

00:21:02Guest:And just it was a disaster.

00:21:04Guest:It was a nightmare.

00:21:04Guest:It's a hard room.

00:21:06Guest:Well, and I was far from ready for it.

00:21:08Guest:Right.

00:21:09Guest:And then after a couple of weeks of being overly generous, you know, they started cutting back on the spots and they were moving them later and later.

00:21:15Guest:Yeah.

00:21:16Guest:And this is a room that I used to just destroy.

00:21:18Guest:I mean, there was no way I would get on that stage without tearing it up.

00:21:21Guest:I would just machine gun the whole place, you know.

00:21:23Guest:And it was a nightmare, you know.

00:21:25Guest:So I said, this is running seriously deep.

00:21:28Guest:So I spent a few months in New York and I kind of realized what I think my own internal thing was about this was that I was having trouble silencing the voices that I'm imagining outside of my head.

00:21:44Guest:that are judging me.

00:21:46Guest:The audience thought you were making up an audience?

00:21:48Guest:Other comics.

00:21:49Guest:Oh.

00:21:49Guest:In the back of my head, I was imagining myself being a comic, watching somebody like myself trying to reinvent and sitting back and going, oh, what is this shit?

00:22:00Guest:You know, what is this?

00:22:01Guest:Come on.

00:22:02Guest:What was he trying to do?

00:22:03Guest:Stay young and hip and relevant and blah, blah, blah.

00:22:05Guest:Oh.

00:22:06Guest:And that's not what my motivation was, you know But I had seen David Brenner go through that I had seen David Brenner start wearing leathers and trying to play young clubs and trying to do all these things to try and get a younger audience back again and I could not shut those voices off about the way other people were seeing what I was going through and trying to do I used to kick comics out of the room when I started doing stand-up in New York and

00:22:30Marc:and Attell, and Mark Cohen, and all those guys would be in the room, I would get on stage, and I'd go, get out.

00:22:36Marc:I don't need the pressure.

00:22:39Guest:Okay.

00:22:40Guest:You owned it, and utilized it, and manifested it that way, and that was probably why you didn't go through what I went through, but I couldn't own it, and I was embarrassed by what I was feeling, because I felt like that's the only...

00:22:52Guest:It's the only part of my life where I feel that way.

00:22:54Guest:I don't give a shit what anybody thinks usually, but I couldn't let go of that.

00:23:00Guest:So I decided that I would leave the country because I said I could eliminate the one thing that who knows how long it would take for me to heal for myself, this idea of shutting those voices down, and I could just show up someplace

00:23:12Guest:fully unknown and decide and tell them right then and there who I was and what I was about.

00:23:18Guest:And it actually did work that way.

00:23:20Guest:That worked.

00:23:21Guest:Immensely.

00:23:21Guest:And I went to another level.

00:23:23Guest:I hadn't been able to write material for a couple of years at that point.

00:23:27Guest:And my first gig overseas was in Amsterdam, which is a fluke how I ended up in that gig.

00:23:31Guest:Yeah.

00:23:31Guest:But I was able to talk myself into it because I could actually sit back and go, well, I'm not working there now.

00:23:36Guest:So no matter how badly this goes, you know, I'll at least have a weekend in Amsterdam.

00:23:42Guest:And it broke on stage and like 45 minutes to an hour of stuff that I'd never said before that I had barely even thought about just came pouring out almost full blown.

00:23:52Guest:And it was at a level that I had never worked at before in my life.

00:23:55Guest:So that was the breakthrough.

00:23:56Marc:That was the breakthrough.

00:23:57Marc:When you were in New York, though, let me just ask you about that.

00:23:59Guest:By the way, within six months, I was headlining a room in Paris doing a 90 minute show solo.

00:24:05Marc:within six months of that well that's because all your craft was in place yeah i mean you know you've been doing it since you were 17 so i mean it was all there yeah it was just the mental emotional psychological well you just had to like you know pull that that cork out of your heart and you know whatever was going to flow through that's the weird thing that when you have technique in place and if it starts going you're just going to have a conversation well once again like everything else in my life i've been my worst obstacle

00:24:29Guest:What were you telling yourself, though?

00:24:31Marc:Did you think that your material wasn't good enough or it wasn't up to par or that it was just a matter of what?

00:24:38Guest:um you know because i understand the fear of other comics but the reason i took the time off to begin with was because i felt like i would i had outgrown myself that that your stuff from when you were coming up was was beneath you not that it was beneath me it just wasn't really me anymore and and it wasn't about anything that i really cared about whatever that whatever it was and you know as i said i'd gone through several transitions like when i look at my first tonight show and then my third tonight show and then my fifth tonight show and these are

00:25:07Guest:It's like three different comics.

00:25:09Guest:The early ones were, yeah.

00:25:10Guest:You know, it's like watching three different comics.

00:25:12Guest:I mean, I really have shifted and changed.

00:25:13Guest:My act has never been one thing, which is one of the reasons why it's always been hard for me to get an audience because it can't really pin me down.

00:25:19Marc:Well, that's, I mean, I feel the same way.

00:25:21Guest:Of course you do.

00:25:21Marc:But you haven't changed your haircut, at least.

00:25:23Marc:I mean, I've looked in the way.

00:25:25Marc:In the last 20 years.

00:25:26Marc:If you have the curly hair I have, you can't really choose your haircut.

00:25:29Marc:That's a benefit.

00:25:30Marc:At least people can recognize you.

00:25:31Marc:Oh, that's a guy who I didn't quite get a grasp of before.

00:25:34Marc:Right.

00:25:34Marc:Me, it's like, is that the same guy with the mustache?

00:25:37Marc:Uh-huh.

00:25:38Marc:Uh-huh.

00:25:38Marc:But I fall victim to the same thing in some respects.

00:25:41Marc:Is that if you don't have... I don't know what it is about our hearts or our minds, but if you don't have a very definable angle or hook...

00:25:49Marc:Whatever it is, even if it's a personality thing, even if it's a look thing, people can't latch on.

00:25:54Guest:Yeah.

00:25:55Guest:It's what they used to mean when the old school guys would say, well, you got to have a character.

00:26:00Guest:Right.

00:26:00Guest:People have to know who you are.

00:26:02Guest:Right.

00:26:02Guest:It's not so much a character like, oh, I'm going to wear funny glasses.

00:26:04Guest:They used to say that?

00:26:05Guest:How come no one said that to me?

00:26:06Guest:Because you're a character.

00:26:08Guest:I am?

00:26:08Marc:Yeah, definitely a character.

00:26:10Guest:Will someone outline it for me because someone just write it down the traits that I have that that I should exploit see you don't have the problem I don't know if you may have had it earlier in your career what but you don't have it now and I don't believe I have it now although I don't know actually but my problem as a comedian in terms of this very thing we're talking about I always likened myself to a light-skinned black after those after the Civil War

00:26:33Guest:I could pass for mainstream.

00:26:35Guest:Yeah.

00:26:35Guest:And so I would get the mainstream gigs.

00:26:38Guest:I would get the mainstream sitcoms.

00:26:40Guest:I would get all these kinds of things that were ultimately really unfulfilling to me.

00:26:43Guest:Right.

00:26:43Guest:You know, corporate dates, all that sort of stuff.

00:26:46Guest:But I, you know, I couldn't judge it.

00:26:49Guest:I just experienced.

00:26:50Guest:I was just experiencing things, you know.

00:26:51Guest:But the truth was that...

00:26:53Guest:You know, like Sam Kinison would never get a mainstream sitcom, would never get hired for a corporate gig unless it's a corporation of, you know.

00:27:00Guest:Had he lived, we do not know.

00:27:01Guest:Unless it's a chaos corporation.

00:27:02Guest:Had he lived.

00:27:03Guest:I'm talking about when he was alive.

00:27:05Guest:Okay.

00:27:05Guest:You know, because there was something very definitive.

00:27:07Guest:Yes.

00:27:07Guest:Okay.

00:27:08Guest:I'm using him as an extreme example.

00:27:09Guest:Sure.

00:27:10Guest:But I could pass and I could do, you know, clean, family-friendly stuff and, you know, and so I was kind of all over the map.

00:27:19Guest:And it was a while before I realized, you know what?

00:27:22Guest:I don't want to pass.

00:27:23Guest:I want to be a proud black man.

00:27:24Marc:This is the interesting thing is that you became a champion of you.

00:27:28Marc:The way I see it is you were a guy that was, you know, you weren't sure what you wanted, but you knew you were capable of doing this thing.

00:27:35Marc:And people were trying to sort of pigeonhole you into something that everybody could eat.

00:27:39Marc:You know, here's the news.

00:27:41Guest:Biggest the biggest damage in my career.

00:27:45Guest:Yeah parentheses.

00:27:47Guest:I mean air quotes Was done by agents and managers right because they thought they tried to wedge you into whatever they thought we it would fit right you didn't have because I could pass they would say

00:27:56Guest:me in there and i learned enough skills about how to audition yeah i had that too right but i but you didn't have the spine or the wherewithal to say i don't want to do that i didn't know because here's another interesting thing because at some point i had made the decision i didn't want to do sitcom anymore i said i'm not getting interesting sitcom and the only sitcom i end up in is this hacky stuff so i'm just not going to do it anymore but then after a couple of years of that i you know

00:28:21Guest:The self-doubt of well am I making that decision because I'm afraid of success am I making that decision because I I I'm not working at the level I could be to make something out of this hack I do the same whatever so I began to question whether or not that decision to not do stanco to not do Sitcom anymore was moving towards my fear confronting my fear or moving away from my fear but there's also that

00:28:44Guest:But there's also always the issue of like- So I tried it again.

00:28:46Guest:They want me?

00:28:48Guest:Was on a show.

00:28:49Guest:Yeah.

00:28:50Guest:I was on Empty Nest, and I walked off of it.

00:28:53Guest:And I went into the producer's office, and I said, listen, after a year, after a season, at the end of the season, I said, look, I can't do this anymore.

00:28:59Guest:Can you please write me out of the show?

00:29:01Guest:And they go, well, no, because we have plans.

00:29:03Guest:And I go, but look, it's not going to matter.

00:29:05Guest:This isn't a show for me.

00:29:07Guest:I'm not a show for you.

00:29:08Guest:I'm unhappy.

00:29:08Guest:You guys clearly don't really know what to do with me.

00:29:11Guest:So I'll make it easy for everybody I want to go.

00:29:12Guest:And they go, well, you can't.

00:29:13Guest:You have a contract.

00:29:14Guest:And I said, well, then sue me because I'm miserable.

00:29:17Guest:My TMJ was insane.

00:29:18Guest:I was chewing my skull up from the inside every day.

00:29:21Guest:And so I said...

00:29:23Guest:I said, I really want off.

00:29:24Guest:So, you know, sue me because I'm just not coming back.

00:29:26Guest:And they went, you see, you know, you should be lucky.

00:29:29Guest:You should be, you know how many actors in this town want this job?

00:29:32Guest:And I said, you see, that's the difference right there.

00:29:34Guest:It's not, to you, it's a job for me.

00:29:36Guest:For me, it's my life.

00:29:38Guest:And this is not what I want to do.

00:29:39Guest:Period.

00:29:40Guest:So you walked out the sitcom.

00:29:41Guest:So I, yeah.

00:29:43Marc:After a season.

00:29:43Marc:But I,

00:29:44Marc:That's noble and I'm proud of you and I'm glad you did that.

00:29:48Marc:I'm not saying it for any of those kinds of props.

00:29:49Marc:No, no, I know that.

00:29:50Guest:I'm saying it because I finally got that figured out.

00:29:53Marc:Right, because I think one of the other issues when you don't know really where you fit in and you want to fit in or you want to at least make a living in show business is that the idea that somebody wants you, it's like a parental thing.

00:30:03Marc:It's like, they like me.

00:30:05Marc:Right.

00:30:05Guest:There is that for sure.

00:30:07Marc:I mean, you know, when I was going out on auditions, like, I don't even know how to do those.

00:30:11Marc:I'm too raw.

00:30:12Marc:I can't even act like I'm on television.

00:30:15Marc:And I would go out for these things.

00:30:16Marc:And what hit me was that I'm reading jokes that are so shitty.

00:30:20Marc:Like, I've spent my life creating my shit.

00:30:23Marc:And then I go in there and I read, like, and then don't step on that because the thing will fall down.

00:30:29Marc:And you're like, what the fuck is that?

00:30:31Guest:Dude, I was doing Facts of Life one week and I ad-libbed something.

00:30:35Guest:You were on there?

00:30:35Guest:I was a semi-regular on that because I used to warm the show up.

00:30:39Guest:And then years later, after I hadn't seen them for seven, eight years, they called me out of the blue and said, you know, we've always been looking for something to use you on.

00:30:46Guest:And would you come in and do this?

00:30:47Guest:And that was a slightly different situation because I knew everybody.

00:30:52Guest:And I, well, this will be fun.

00:30:53Guest:It'll be fun to do the show.

00:30:54Guest:I know what it is going in.

00:30:55Guest:I can't get upset or angry at anybody.

00:30:58Guest:You know what?

00:30:58Guest:I'll make a little money.

00:30:59Guest:It was like, you know, I think it was like six out of 13 or something like that.

00:31:03Guest:So, you know, that's manageable.

00:31:04Guest:So I went and did that.

00:31:05Guest:And at one point I was, you know, ad-libbing something and they never used any ad-libs.

00:31:10Guest:But one was just really funny, really perfect.

00:31:12Guest:It was absolutely no... I mean, you could not say that this was inappropriate by any stretch of the imagination.

00:31:18Guest:And I just, you know, said to the head writer at that point, I just said, you know, really, come on.

00:31:22Guest:Can I just get one joke and...

00:31:25Guest:And he looked at me, I go, it's so funny.

00:31:27Guest:It's not hurting anybody.

00:31:28Guest:And he looked at me and said, this show's not about funny.

00:31:33What the fuck?

00:31:34Guest:And I just went, got it.

00:31:37Guest:I mean, it's very conscious.

00:31:38Guest:They are selling something that is, they know very clearly what its appeal is, what people love about it, and they don't want to veer from that, regardless of whether or not what they veer towards is funnier.

00:31:48Guest:They don't care about that.

00:31:49Guest:Holy shit.

00:31:50Guest:And it's also a control freak thing.

00:31:52Marc:Probably a lot of those things in there, you know It just seems to me that like when funny guys come up with shit that that they don't want they don't want to They don't want to set a precedent if that's not the relationship they have with you.

00:32:03Guest:You're not the writer That's probably not the funny guy probably part of it But in the bigger sense of the industry when I think back when you watch things like Gilligan's Island was not you know a huge icon of our childhoods, right?

00:32:13Guest:It was never actually funny, but you love the characters.

00:32:16Guest:You love the situation.

00:32:17Guest:There was something very you expected what you got every week.

00:32:20Guest:And that's what the show was about.

00:32:21Guest:It wasn't about quality comedy.

00:32:23Guest:Right.

00:32:24Guest:You know, so I get that.

00:32:25Guest:I kind of know that that's what the facts of life was about.

00:32:27Guest:Something endearing and charming and the girls that the teenage girls who watch the show could relate to and all that sort of stuff.

00:32:32Guest:And they didn't want to confuse the issue by being funny.

00:32:34Guest:Right.

00:32:35Guest:When I went to Europe, I started working like crazy.

00:32:40Guest:And most of the last 10 years, I've been outside of the country and working around the world, playing small money gigs, yeoman comic gigs, and loving it, and loving it.

00:32:53Guest:And playing to English-speaking expat audiences around the world.

00:32:58Guest:I became part of a community of comics over in the UK, did the Edinburgh Festival a bunch of times.

00:33:03Guest:put the Green Room on its feet in a different context at the Edinburgh Festival for a couple of years.

00:33:08Guest:Brought it to other festivals, developed two other projects that my partner Barbara Roman has moved forward that she instigated in those festivals and things.

00:33:18Guest:It was a tremendously creative project.

00:33:20Guest:Time and I never stopped doing stand-up I did way more stand-up in the period that everybody thought I stopped doing stand-up than I had ever done since like the early 80s Wow yeah, so that but that was where you were you were actually doing stand-up see I didn't know that cuz I'm not the guy as a matter of fact when I was doing the aristocrats I decided to do the aristocrats just around the time that I was going back to really

00:33:41Guest:spend some time because I had gone over to Europe for a couple of months realized what was what was possible there for me and committed to go back a lot more and had decided to do the aristocrats in between so I was out of the country doing stand-up hardcore and then coming back for periods of two or three months at a time just focusing on the aristocrats shooting it for a few years and then coming back and editing it that so I did nothing in this country other than work on that movie for five years right

00:34:09Marc:but everywhere else i was doing stand-up it's so weird to me because like i had no idea like i in my mind you were this guy that was you know that showed up in this movie and i was like that's that guy who from the 80s and and because i never traveled internationally and i thought like you know this is prevents it's trying to make a comeback you know uh uh as as being part of this thing but it was it wasn't true you were actually working all those years and doing stand-up internationally doing the best stand-up i'd ever done in my life

00:34:37Guest:And now do you feel bad that you can't, that is this, you don't do it here.

00:34:41Guest:Having been out of the club circuit for so long, almost nobody that was involved with any of those clubs before is still involved with them.

00:34:51Guest:It's mostly 25 year olds that you're dealing with.

00:34:54Guest:Don't know me from Adam.

00:34:55Guest:And it's like all of a sudden I couldn't get arrested in clubs that I helped establish.

00:34:59Guest:Yeah.

00:35:00Guest:Yeah.

00:35:00Guest:That happens.

00:35:01Guest:Yeah.

00:35:01Guest:So what am I going to do?

00:35:02Guest:Bang my head against that retarded wall?

00:35:04Guest:No.

00:35:05Guest:So I just do stand up now when I feel like it, because I've been able to spread my wings and do a lot of other things that keep me as creatively involved and interested.

00:35:14Guest:And the truth is that I can do stand up when I want to and when I feel like doing it.

00:35:19Guest:And there's almost a certain purity in that that I like.

00:35:23Marc:the thing that was interesting about the satiristas and the way that my, my perception was wrong about you is that like, I always saw you around.

00:35:29Marc:We always got along.

00:35:30Marc:I knew who you were.

00:35:31Marc:We've known each other for 25 years, but then all of a sudden I saw you like championing a type of comedy, you know, that I, you know, I guess I'm part of, but like, these are all peers of mine.

00:35:41Marc:These are people that we respect in this book and the satiristas.

00:35:44Marc:And, and, and also with the aristocrats, this was an embracing of the, there was something about the embracing of the community that you become this guy that,

00:35:52Marc:Not unlike what I'm doing here where you're giving back something to the community.

00:35:56Marc:You're making it clear that we have a community and that we have standards and that we're aware of the business we're in and that some of us are more creative than others.

00:36:05Marc:But we love each other on some level.

00:36:08Guest:Well, you know what we are?

00:36:09Guest:We're like Marines.

00:36:13Guest:You know, you could be on a business trip to Dayton, Ohio, and the guy that manages the restaurant you're eating in was a Marine, and you have a relationship with him.

00:36:23Guest:That's what we're like.

00:36:23Guest:We've both been in the trenches.

00:36:25Guest:We both know what it is to do stand-up, and if either one of us has been serious about it, there's a bond there, like it or hate it.

00:36:32Guest:But what is your position?

00:36:33Guest:What was your agenda with this book, essentially?

00:36:36Guest:Well, I'll tell you exactly how I can characterize them.

00:36:40Guest:By the way, it wasn't this clear when I went into it, but in retrospect, I realized it's exactly what it is.

00:36:45Guest:I was clear about this.

00:36:46Guest:At a certain point in my life, late 40s, mid 40s, whatever, you do that existential thing.

00:36:53Guest:You sit back and go, what's this all been about?

00:36:55Guest:And I just realized that my life is more than half over, if I'm lucky.

00:36:58Guest:And, you know, what am I going to do?

00:37:03Guest:I mean, that's very different.

00:37:05Guest:You know, I'm still following the path that I set out on when I was 20.

00:37:10Guest:And it's taken a million different, you know, twists and turns.

00:37:12Guest:And I just, well, what's the path I want to take now?

00:37:16Guest:You know, that ratio of potential and experience has shifted.

00:37:20Guest:And so I can't just...

00:37:22Guest:not question this.

00:37:24Guest:So I decided that I was going to try and do things, and again, using Directing 101, show, don't tell.

00:37:32Guest:Rather than try and tell people something that was all about what comedy meant to me, I wanted people to have the experience

00:37:40Guest:of something that would evoke some of what I felt.

00:37:44Guest:And it's happening.

00:37:45Guest:I mean, people read satiristas.

00:37:47Guest:So even seeing the aristocrats, they felt like there was something going on that they wanted to embrace.

00:37:51Guest:They wanted to become a part of something unstated.

00:37:54Guest:It's like watching great musicians jam.

00:37:56Guest:You just wish you were there.

00:37:57Guest:You wish you were at that concert.

00:37:58Guest:So that's my way of giving something back, for people to look at comedy.

00:38:02Guest:Because what most people know about comedy is...

00:38:05Guest:And they think they know comedy.

00:38:07Guest:That's like if you only listen to Top 40 Radio actually saying, I know everything you need to know about music.

00:38:14Guest:It's just ridiculous.

00:38:15Guest:And so it's why I bring a lot of people that aren't really well known into the picture.

00:38:20Guest:And I bring people from overseas into the picture.

00:38:22Guest:So maybe you can see the variety of expressions of comedy and how much real heart and soul there is in it by people who work artfully.

00:38:29Guest:It's all tempered with a very, very clear understanding that there's a lot of crap comedy out there and that a lot of people, you know, go to a comedy club thinking they're going to see comedy and they see the same racist, sexist, homophobic, two dimensional, obvious kind of pandering kind of comedy that's out there, too.

00:38:47Guest:So if anything, you know, at least I get a chance to to put out there some other stuff that illustrates something other than that.

00:38:53Marc:this book is is pretty amazing it's called satiristas and i mentioned it before but i mean the list of comics in this in the interest of full disclosure you're in it no i am in it but like you know it's it's a pretty broad range and there's a lot of people in it and the format is primarily it's you paul provenza in conversation with us maybe two of us like with me it was me and dana right just in here right uh and you uh talking about comedy talking about topics talking about things

00:39:18Guest:Yeah.

00:39:18Guest:And what I did was rather than ask specific questions, get back to that point about show, not tell, rather than ask specific questions, have you talk specifically about things that I've determined?

00:39:28Guest:We just had a conversation, right?

00:39:29Guest:It meandered, it wandered, it went wherever it went.

00:39:31Guest:I like reading.

00:39:32Guest:And, you know, I like reading those kind of conversations.

00:39:34Guest:And I just pulled out what I felt relative to everything around it reflected something unique in particular.

00:39:39Marc:And it's interesting.

00:39:40Marc:It's more interesting than reading an interview.

00:39:42Marc:Because you don't know where it's going to go.

00:39:43Marc:It's not direct line of thinking.

00:39:46Marc:Right, right.

00:39:47Marc:And when you're reading it, anything can change with any joke or whatever someone's thinking.

00:39:50Guest:But the people who are in here... And it also flows very particularly.

00:39:55Guest:I mean, it took an extra year.

00:39:56Guest:We missed our original pub date by a year because of the sequencing of it.

00:40:02Guest:Because I wanted things to unfold.

00:40:03Guest:I wanted these conversations to happen in a particular order so that certain things manifested in a particular way.

00:40:08Marc:Well, it's a beautiful book.

00:40:09Marc:And like, look, Dion's been taking pictures of comics for years.

00:40:12Guest:Yeah, his work.

00:40:12Guest:And by the way, that that aspect of the conversations as opposed to interviews is driven by Dan's photography.

00:40:18Guest:I wanted to do something that was evocative and sort of, you know, just kind of gave you thoughts and feelings rather than were specifically linear.

00:40:28Marc:You know what's interesting is you quoted me on your show in the premiere episode of The Green Room, and he quotes me in his photographer's preface.

00:40:36Marc:Yeah, Mark, I hate to say it, but you're kind of good.

00:40:41Guest:And really, there's nobody that hates to say it more than I do.

00:40:43Guest:Oh, shit.

00:40:44Marc:can we can we talk about all the times you've been a dick to me can we talk about that yeah yeah because i need to let me just push your book a little more before you get into that all right okay because it's really amazing because i mean the people who are in this book judd apatow lily tomlin conan o'brien attell the smothers brothers randy newman uh rick shapiro who's mad at me of course for whatever fucking thing he's making up in his head

00:41:06Marc:Depends on his meds.

00:41:07Marc:Yeah, Greg Proops, Geraldo, the kids in the hall, Richard Lewis, Eddie Brill, Patrice O'Neill, Bill Burr, Jamie Kilstein, Tom Lehrer, Robert Klein.

00:41:16Marc:I mean, this book is a fucking amazing book.

00:41:18Marc:It's called Satiristas.

00:41:20Guest:It actually is somewhat daunting.

00:41:25Guest:But I have to tell you, I learned this from the aristocrats.

00:41:27Guest:I learned that this is the kind of situation where you need everybody and nobody.

00:41:32Guest:There's no one person you need if you have everybody.

00:41:34Marc:Yeah, Krasner's in here.

00:41:36Guest:Yeah, Paul Krasner's piece is really riveting.

00:41:38Marc:Mooney, Bill Maher.

00:41:38Marc:Krasner, he said one of the funniest things I ever heard, and it was so simple.

00:41:43Marc:Even like Bill Hicks.

00:41:44Marc:Bill Hicks, as big as everyone makes him and whatever mythic presence he has.

00:41:49Marc:My favorite joke of Bill Hicks is, I've been dating this girl for a year and a half.

00:41:53Marc:I figured it was time to pop the big question.

00:41:57Marc:Why are we still going out?

00:41:59Marc:Paul Krasner did a thing.

00:42:00Marc:He said, a colonic is an enema with an ideology.

00:42:04Guest:well you know the interesting thing about krasner is he was writing comedy but he was actually i mean you know like the fbi was you know had him on a watcher he did the uh the uh what was it we worked with the yippies uh abby hoffman no but what was his fucking uh his man the realist the realist i wrote for like i remember when i wrote twice i wrote twice for the realist by the time i wrote for it it was like a newsletter but i was so excited

00:42:27Marc:to have written for the realist.

00:42:29Guest:Oh, that was a powerful piece of work, and the interesting thing about the realist is that it was, you couldn't tell when it was being satirical and when it was being real, because they would do real, true investigative journalism, and then they would do some, like, the parts left out of the Kennedy book, you know?

00:42:42Marc:What about the LBJ skull-fucking the corpse of Kennedy was what got him in trouble?

00:42:46Guest:Well, that was a big, big trouble-making thing.

00:42:49Guest:It wasn't what got him in trouble.

00:42:50Guest:What got him in trouble was his history.

00:42:52Guest:I mean, he was, you know, he was in the nexus of the guys that, you know,

00:42:57Guest:who were part of the Chicago sure there was the great the great Lords over the capitalistic religion were very threatened by the idea that these kids were gonna socialize the fucking world oh yeah there's actually there's a tapes of Nixon talking about Jerry Rubin Abbie Hoffman Paul Krassner a bunch of other people John Lennon talking about what they're all they're all but specifically these guys going going they're all Jews right yeah we got to shut them up you know stuff like oh yeah yeah yeah Nixon himself yeah Nixon was hilarious

00:43:26Guest:Let me tell you something.

00:43:28Marc:After George Bush, we owe Nixon a big fucking apology.

00:43:32Marc:Nixon's one of the great underrated comedians.

00:43:35Marc:It's really how you listen to that stuff.

00:43:37Marc:You know what I mean?

00:43:38Marc:Everyone's so judgmental.

00:43:39Marc:But...

00:43:43Marc:But all right, so how was I an asshole to you?

00:43:45Marc:Let's clear it up.

00:43:46Guest:I'll clear it up.

00:43:48Guest:You know you.

00:43:50Guest:But you see, I never got upset because you're you.

00:43:52Marc:Oh, fuck.

00:43:54Marc:I'm glad there's not specific incidents because if there were, then it would be.

00:43:58Guest:Well, we also have very close mutual friends, too.

00:44:00Guest:So I watched you run roughshod over their lives.

00:44:03Guest:Who?

00:44:04Guest:Well, Beth Bernstein was a close friend of both of ours at one point in time.

00:44:07Guest:She used to dress you for Comedy Central.

00:44:10Marc:Yeah, well, look at that.

00:44:11Marc:I mean, here I am.

00:44:12Marc:I'm being held hostage in a TV show.

00:44:15Marc:That was difficult.

00:44:16Marc:And, like, how was I mean to her?

00:44:18Marc:I mean, you know, it was crazy.

00:44:19Marc:That's it.

00:44:20Marc:All right.

00:44:21Marc:All right.

00:44:21Marc:How's she doing?

00:44:23Guest:She's doing good, I think.

00:44:24Guest:I haven't talked to her in a while.

00:44:25Guest:It was a problem.

00:44:26Guest:She's not talking to me because I'm still friends with you.

00:44:28Guest:No.

00:44:28Guest:No, I'm kidding.

00:44:29Guest:Come on.

00:44:29Guest:I'm kidding.

00:44:30Guest:I'm kidding.

00:44:31Guest:Yeah, I remember her.

00:44:34Guest:Well, because we were both in that weird place with MTV.

00:44:37Guest:We were both like doing, we were filling in for VJs and we were filling in for the host of Short Attentment Theater and all those things.

00:44:43Marc:Well, that's where I ended up hosting Short Attentment Theater in the last incarnation of it.

00:44:46Marc:And that's where she worked with her.

00:44:47Marc:Where she worked with me.

00:44:49Marc:I did that for a year.

00:44:50Marc:That was my first job on television.

00:44:51Marc:And I was horrendous in that job because I was the kind of comic.

00:44:56Marc:I started out the kind of comic you wanted to be.

00:44:59Marc:And then I was going broke because I couldn't get fucking work.

00:45:01Marc:And it's 1989.

00:45:03Marc:And I get offered this thing.

00:45:04Marc:And I'm not in a position to say no.

00:45:06Marc:Because I got no money.

00:45:07Marc:I got no work.

00:45:08Marc:I just moved to San Francisco.

00:45:10Marc:I had nothing except anger and an idea of who I wanted to be.

00:45:13Marc:Which is more than a lot of people when they start out.

00:45:15Marc:Right.

00:45:16Marc:So they offer me this job and I get there and they got this guy writing for me.

00:45:19Marc:He's not writing me jokes.

00:45:20Marc:He's writing these weird segues to, to clips of other comics and, and, and movies.

00:45:25Marc:And I'm, and I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding me.

00:45:28Guest:This was like what?

00:45:28Guest:25 years ago.

00:45:30Guest:1992 okay see how upset you are now imagine what you were like then that's right so that's why i gotta apologize to beth maybe you should tell her that i'm sorry she knows everybody knows you're mark maron you're legend oh christ but i do love this book and i appreciate you letting me be part of it uh i'm really thrilled that you're that you are part of is there a website to

00:45:51Guest:people can go to yes satiristas.com we're also posting interviews that got cut out of the book for length and various other things Drew Carey's interview is up there right now it's terrific actually you'll be very very surprised so satiristas.com and join the Facebook page and the Facebook green room page and the Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook

00:46:12Marc:And all of it to get on it.

00:46:14Marc:So have you heard anything about the future of Green Room?

00:46:17Guest:No, we won't know for a while because the president of the network, Bob Greenblatt, is leaving.

00:46:22Guest:Now his contract is up and he's been a Broadway producer of late.

00:46:26Guest:And they just said, you know what, we won't know for a while.

00:46:29Guest:They can't make it.

00:46:30Guest:You know, they can't.

00:46:31Guest:New guys coming in.

00:46:32Guest:They got to regroup, blah, blah, blah.

00:46:33Guest:It doesn't bode well or ill.

00:46:35Guest:It just means that we won't know for a while.

00:46:37Guest:So if anybody is a fan of The Green Room, please pop a short little email saying so to greenroom.showtime at gmail.com.

00:46:47Guest:Okay.

00:46:48Guest:And pick up this book.

00:46:48Guest:It's a great book.

00:46:49Guest:It's a beautiful book.

00:46:50Guest:Yeah, we're pretty proud of it.

00:46:52Guest:Dan's work in it is just beautiful.

00:46:54Marc:Well, the weird thing is when I first heard about it, and I'm like, another coffee table book with comedians in it.

00:47:00Marc:But you read these.

00:47:01Marc:I found myself, I opened it up, and I'm like, oh, shit.

00:47:05Marc:It's not that kind of book.

00:47:06Guest:No, it's not.

00:47:07Guest:It's actually, again, this is something I'm very proud of, by the way, that whatever it is that I'm doing, whether it's the aristocrats or satiristas or even the green room, whenever anybody tries to explain to somebody else what it is, I mean, I stand behind people on lines and things, and I would hear this kind of thing happen.

00:47:23Guest:It always ends up with, you just got to see it, or I can't explain it, you got to read it.

00:47:27Guest:And that, personally, creatively, is awesome.

00:47:31Guest:I love that.

00:47:31Guest:But we're back to that square one thing about, well, where do you put it?

00:47:35Guest:Right, right, right.

00:47:36Guest:What box, what pigeonhole do you fit in?

00:47:37Marc:Yeah, it doesn't have to have a box.

00:47:39Marc:This is something, this is one of those books, it's like Please Kill Me or any book, like if it gets a life of its own, you know, if people start to enjoy it and people tell other people about it, that's the kind of book it is.

00:47:47Marc:From your lips to Oprah's ears.

00:47:49Marc:Yes, sir.

00:47:51Marc:What was the best moments you had with comics and putting this together?

00:47:56Guest:I got to tell you, a phenomenal thing happened when I was talking to the Smothers Brothers.

00:48:01Guest:Because I started talking with Tommy and then Dickie came in about half an hour later.

00:48:06Guest:And unfortunately, their publicist insisted that I just do audio.

00:48:10Guest:So I couldn't videotape it.

00:48:12Guest:And they were furious when they found out afterwards.

00:48:14Guest:They were like, I can't believe you don't have that on tape.

00:48:16Guest:But anyway, so I had been talking with Tommy, and we got into some things about politics and about his own journey because, you know, after the show was canceled, he became really, really serious, lost his funny, was really in a difficult place, killed their career, A, the cancellation, B, the place that he was at.

00:48:32Guest:You know, they ended up having to do, like, dinner theaters and then, like, work themselves up from, like, back rooms and restaurants and stuff.

00:48:38Guest:I mean, they really, really did go from top to...

00:48:40Guest:real tragic for the level they were at circumstances.

00:48:46Guest:And they just worked their way up and got better and better and came back up on top.

00:48:51Guest:So we were talking about a lot of the politics and everything.

00:48:52Guest:And then Dickie came in.

00:48:54Guest:And so we had already established some things and Dick started jumping in on it.

00:48:57Guest:We were talking about how

00:48:58Guest:You know, because they're saying, where are the baby boomers?

00:49:01Guest:Where are the people that protested in the 60s?

00:49:03Guest:Where are they?

00:49:03Guest:Why aren't they out there protesting this war?

00:49:05Guest:Is it just because their own kids aren't being drafted now?

00:49:07Guest:What what is the deal?

00:49:08Guest:You know, and a lot of that kind of conversation.

00:49:11Guest:And Tommy turned to Dickie at one point and talked about how, you know, we really should.

00:49:16Guest:be more relevant.

00:49:17Guest:You know, why aren't we doing the stuff that we used to do?

00:49:20Guest:You know, and Dickie goes, well, our audience is older.

00:49:22Guest:They're not about that anymore, whatever.

00:49:23Guest:And Tom, he's like, well, what does that matter?

00:49:26Guest:Like, why aren't we doing it?

00:49:27Guest:And they got into this whole thing about a piece of material and a thing that they wanted to do, but they're afraid to do.

00:49:31Guest:And it was like, really,

00:49:33Guest:we almost sort of became flies on the wall.

00:49:36Guest:Right.

00:49:37Guest:And they were just having a little ideological conversation.

00:49:41Guest:And it turned into a writing session talking about like, remember that thing we do about this?

00:49:44Guest:We could rework that to say something about this and do that.

00:49:47Guest:And I was sitting there just like, I cannot believe I'm seeing them do this.

00:49:51Guest:I can't.

00:49:51Guest:I mean, I was like, that's like, imagine sitting in the room with Abbott and Costello watching them work out of routine only with balls.

00:49:57Guest:Right, right, right.

00:49:58Guest:Have you seen them work recently?

00:50:00Guest:Well, they retired.

00:50:01Guest:They retired shortly.

00:50:02Guest:I think right before the book came out, they decided they would retire.

00:50:05Guest:And the funny thing is, it's driven by that conversation.

00:50:09Guest:It is absolutely driven by that conversation.

00:50:11Guest:They couldn't figure out a way to be relevant.

00:50:13Guest:Well, Tommy felt like, you know, and he speaks very highly.

00:50:16Guest:He says, if I could do what Bill Maher does, I would do that as loudly as possible.

00:50:20Guest:He said, but I'm just not that bright, you know.

00:50:23Guest:And so he had been a little bit unsettled, you know.

00:50:25Guest:And I think that's a big core of their decision to retire.

00:50:31Guest:Because they could make money forever.

00:50:32Guest:Is that in the book?

00:50:33Guest:Back up on top.

00:50:35Guest:Kind of, sort of.

00:50:36Marc:Right.

00:50:36Marc:Kind of, sort of.

00:50:37Marc:What was the most surprising thing that happened?

00:50:39Marc:Were there moments where you were like, I didn't know this guy had it in him?

00:50:44Guest:You know what?

00:50:44Guest:I'm really a fan of Eddie Brill's piece in the book.

00:50:46Guest:Because Eddie Brill, regardless of any work of his that you've seen lately or in the past...

00:50:52Guest:His journey is really fascinating.

00:50:55Guest:He describes sort of realizing what a panderer he'd been for most of his life.

00:51:00Marc:Oh, yeah, he's the phone book.

00:51:01Marc:He's all upset about the phone.

00:51:05Marc:Men's apparel.

00:51:07Guest:I can't even remember that's the thing is I talked to him about that he hit that point yeah where he suddenly had a light switch go on and go wow talk about something yeah and and it's particularly interesting from him because he had been coaching other comics for years yeah you know so it was a huge and it is very very bold of him to be as open about it in the book as he is I particularly love that that piece

00:51:31Marc:Well, that's great because I mean, I did an episode with him where we went over my Letterman set.

00:51:35Marc:So like to sort of answer.

00:51:37Marc:Oh, that's great.

00:51:37Marc:I got to listen to that one.

00:51:38Marc:Well, you should because like a lot of young comics, they think there's some sort of weird key or that they're being ignored.

00:51:44Marc:But, you know, to sort of see how he thinks and how he thinks for the show and how many slots are actually open and what they're looking for.

00:51:51Marc:I mean, one of the most touching things that happened on this show is I got an email from a guy in Austin.

00:51:56Marc:They were doing a showcase.

00:51:57Marc:Eddie was flying out there and this guy had sent the link to Eddie's interview with me.

00:52:01Marc:to everyone on the showcase to help them prepare.

00:52:04Marc:It was very touching.

00:52:05Marc:Well, you're doing great stuff, Paul, and it's great to see you.

00:52:07Marc:I'm glad you came by.

00:52:08Guest:Thank you, Mark, and I'm glad you've been part of some of it, and I hope you're part of more of it.

00:52:11Marc:Yeah, and I'll try not to be a dick.

00:52:12Marc:You know what?

00:52:13Marc:I don't think you can anymore.

00:52:14Marc:What do you mean?

00:52:15Marc:I'm just going to be a dick?

00:52:15Marc:No, you just can't hurt me.

00:52:17Marc:Wait a minute.

00:52:18Marc:No, you're supposed to say you're not a dick, Mark.

00:52:20Marc:You've grown through that.

00:52:21Guest:Yeah, but you will be any day now.

00:52:24Guest:Paul Provenza.

00:52:37Marc:So this happens all the time, you know, we get to talking after we turn off the mics and like, you know, you're asking me about where I'm at and like where I'm at in my development up there.

00:52:49Marc:Like what you were saying just now about how, what were you saying about the first five years of Stanley?

00:52:54Guest:Well, you know, the first, I was talking about the different phases that we go through and we were sort of...

00:52:59Guest:comparing and contrasting but you know the first five six years that you're doing stand-up yeah you're just happy to be doing stand-up and you're learning how to kill you're learning how to be a good stand-up you're learning craft technique all that sort of stuff as well as writing material whatever but which is why the rule of thumb is that you know it's 10 years before any comedian has any real sense of an actual voice because for five six years you just have such a great time doing stand-up i guess and figuring it out yeah you know there's a lot of a lot of challenges that you don't have to go deeply it is figuring out how to kill right yeah

00:53:26Marc:You're basically figuring out how to do the job how to get that audience to laugh and enjoying the laughs Well, this what happened with me lately is that like with my stand-up like I don't know like I've moved away from politics and I've moved into my heart and my mind and I feel like Right now that

00:53:41Marc:If I can be as authentic as possible and put my heart out there and feel my heart actually being out there, that something is happening.

00:53:47Marc:I had this experience.

00:53:48Marc:I was in Aspen, Colorado.

00:53:50Marc:I did the closing night.

00:53:51Marc:I was the last act, and they gave me an hour in this theater.

00:53:55Marc:And I did this hour.

00:53:55Marc:I'm moving through stuff.

00:53:56Marc:I don't mind if people are uncomfortable with what I'm talking about.

00:54:00Marc:I'm not challenging them intellectually, but I'm challenging them to accept my emotions.

00:54:07Marc:And if that works, it's great if it doesn't.

00:54:10Marc:But then at the end, like you're saying, I just laid into this bit that like with that energy of like, I'm going to kill it.

00:54:16Marc:You know, this is the closer because I got to get out on this.

00:54:19Marc:And I made it huge.

00:54:20Marc:And I was interesting to know I could still do that.

00:54:22Marc:But what I was talking to you about out there just a moment ago was that.

00:54:27Marc:I don't know how to give and I don't know how to receive love with any sort of trust or technique.

00:54:34Marc:When did you become aware of that?

00:54:36Marc:Well, I became aware of it because my parents were very boundaryless people and they were very needy people.

00:54:41Marc:And I find that in my marriages, certainly, that it was very hard for me to just selflessly give to the woman that I love without feeling like I didn't exist, that it was going to erase me somehow.

00:54:53Marc:That somehow loving someone else minimized you in some way.

00:54:57Marc:diminished me uh-huh uh and and it's a sad emotional handicap to have and then when people love me i'm like i don't believe it because my parents were so exploitive with their love that like i'm like no you don't you don't so that's what i'm bringing up there on stage is that that dynamic like you know i see guys up there that just that just love being bathed in admiration being bathed in people's adulation right like when i get i'm like come on don't fuck with me yeah yeah yeah

00:55:24Marc:Or do you think less of the audience?

00:55:26Marc:How do you like me that much?

00:55:28Guest:Sit down.

00:55:29Guest:Sit down.

00:55:31Guest:Come on.

00:55:31Marc:So I can't give it.

00:55:32Marc:I can't take it.

00:55:33Marc:So what the fuck am I doing up there?

00:55:34Marc:And in my life, it's the same thing.

00:55:36Marc:Like I'm up there now and I'm in here now.

00:55:39Marc:I'm just trying to learn how to put my heart out there and trust that it's not going to be crushed.

00:55:44Marc:So the one thing you were talking about at the beginning of the show, the beginning of our interview, is that now that I have people that are coming out for me a bit, I can trust them.

00:55:54Marc:I did the Purple Onion for three nights.

00:55:55Marc:It was just my people.

00:55:57Marc:And to trust them, the people that listen to me on this, is like, okay, I'm going to do it now.

00:56:00Marc:I'm going to show you who I am.

00:56:02Guest:And that's what I meant before about when you reach your 40s and you're still having to...

00:56:07Guest:prove to you know 200 people in a strip mall it keeps me it keeps me locked locked in the prison exactly that was my that's the point i was making that when you when you know that an audience has already accepted who you are then you feel a little bit you trust you trust them and yourself enough to take some chances and really open up and go deeper and deeper and become more of a human being but here's the irony i'm not sure if that's entertainment though

00:56:30Guest:But it's good for me.

00:56:32Guest:But you know what?

00:56:32Guest:That's where your craft and technique comes.

00:56:34Guest:Just like you said, it's entertainment because you know how to make it entertainment.

00:56:38Guest:And you need to trust that, right?

00:56:40Guest:Now, what's the irony?

00:56:41Guest:Here's the thing that I learned about it is that the irony is that the more you do that,

00:56:46Guest:the less likely you are to have your heart and soul crushed.

00:56:50Guest:There are people out there that, haters is the new word for them, and I used to hate, I hate buzzwords like haters, but boy, I'm all for that one.

00:56:57Guest:There's some people who are just haters, that's it, that's all they do is they hate.

00:57:00Guest:And you read a lot of that on the internet, and that can really, really fuck somebody up.

00:57:05Guest:They're awful.

00:57:06Guest:But for me, it's liberating.

00:57:09Guest:Because it reconfirms to me, no matter what you do, you are not going to make everybody happy, and somebody's going to hate you.

00:57:17Guest:And this goes back to when I was 16 years old.

00:57:19Guest:My first girlfriend, I met her father, and I was so nervous.

00:57:22Guest:He was a really staunch, disciplinarian, very, you know, like everything was his way, you know, and a lovely guy, but that kind of a personality.

00:57:32Guest:And I wanted to make a good impression on him and everything.

00:57:35Guest:He asked me a few questions, and I just, you know...

00:57:37Guest:Very, you know, teenage boy with girlfriend's father.

00:57:40Guest:Yeah.

00:57:40Guest:Kind of motif there.

00:57:42Guest:And and at one point afterwards, when I left that night, he said he said he said, you know, if everybody likes you, you can't be really much of a person.

00:57:53Marc:I do a joke to that.

00:57:54Guest:And that was like, huh, interesting.

00:57:57Guest:And how interesting for him to have said that to me.

00:57:59Guest:What kind of spineless fuck are you if everybody likes you?

00:58:01Guest:If everybody likes you, yeah, what are you?

00:58:04Guest:You are lowest common denominator, bland, tasteless.

00:58:09Guest:You are you whatever you are borderline personality disorder.

00:58:12Guest:Yeah, I think you're right You know so and and that's that's what I get from reading the internet when I read all the haters And all that's it liberates me to just go.

00:58:20Guest:You know what?

00:58:20Guest:I don't give a fuck and that's one thing that I'm very proud of the book I'm proud of the green room series and I'm proud of the aristocrats about is that I don't care what anybody thinks of it I wouldn't have changed a thing and that is really really liberating fuck well I'm glad we're you know what dude.

00:58:36Guest:We're doing fine

00:58:37Guest:I'm doing better than most.

00:58:39Guest:Well, thank God.

00:58:40Guest:Never had a drug problem or an alcohol problem.

00:58:42Guest:Is that true?

00:58:43Guest:That's true.

00:58:44Guest:You just have TMJ?

00:58:45Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:58:46Guest:White and nose switches?

00:58:47Guest:Everything switches.

00:58:48Guest:No coke?

00:58:49Guest:Yeah.

00:58:49Guest:No coke?

00:58:50Guest:None at all.

00:58:50Guest:Never.

00:58:51Guest:And you know what?

00:58:52Guest:I had chronic rhinitis.

00:58:54Guest:So my nose never did cocaine in my life.

00:58:56Guest:Are you serious?

00:58:57Marc:Why would I lie?

00:58:58Marc:You know I'm not lying, right?

00:59:00Marc:All right, so I've been wrong.

00:59:01Marc:Everyone I told that Paul Provenza is all fucked up on coke, it was a lie, apparently.

00:59:06Guest:Well, you're laughing, but I was just about to tell you this, that I picked and picked and picked at the open wound of why can't I get on Letterman back in the late 80s, early 90s?

00:59:17Guest:Why can't I get back on Letterman?

00:59:18Guest:Why can't I get back on Letterman?

00:59:20Guest:Yeah.

00:59:20Guest:And...

00:59:22Guest:It was revealed to me that they think I was a coke head and undependable because I had chronic rhinitis.

00:59:28Guest:I was always sniffling and blowing my nose.

00:59:31Guest:I went to allergists three times a week for like four years.

00:59:34Guest:I did a whole diet thing and I had chronic rhinitis.

00:59:38Guest:I used to get sinus infections all the time.

00:59:39Guest:So I always had problems with my nose running and having to blow my nose and being stuffed up and everything.

00:59:44Guest:And I had this manic energy.

00:59:46Guest:You smoked pot though.

00:59:47Guest:First time in my life at 38.

00:59:50Marc:Okay, but now you smoke it pretty regularly.

00:59:52Marc:I'm trying to catch up.

00:59:56Guest:But no Coke, no booze, really?

00:59:57Guest:No, never.

00:59:59Guest:Never.

00:59:59Guest:I mean, you know, I'll have a couple of beers now.

01:00:01Guest:I fucking misjudged you.

01:00:02Guest:But I've never touched Coke in my life.

01:00:04Guest:That's amazing.

01:00:05Guest:I went through the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s.

01:00:07Marc:Oh, I thought you were such a fucking blow monkey, and I thought you were on it now.

01:00:10Marc:Never.

01:00:11Marc:Everybody thinks I am.

01:00:12Marc:Oh, my God.

01:00:13Marc:Let's fucking dispel that.

01:00:14Marc:Are you telling me the truth?

01:00:15Marc:I swear.

01:00:16Guest:I have no reason to lie about this.

01:00:17Guest:I'd be hanging out with so many more cooler people if I did Coke.

01:00:21Marc:Oh, not at this age, you wouldn't.

01:00:23Marc:I don't know if the kids know.

01:00:24Marc:Yeah, that's right.

01:00:25Marc:All right, Paul.

01:00:26Marc:No, never.

01:00:26Marc:Oh, good.

01:00:27Marc:Good to know.

01:00:35Marc:That's it.

01:00:35Marc:Paul Provenza and the Chelsea Hotel.

01:00:38Marc:I'm going to say farewell to both.

01:00:40Marc:And farewell to you guys.

01:00:42Marc:Thank you for listening.

01:00:43Marc:I hope you like that.

01:00:44Marc:It was great seeing Paul.

01:00:45Marc:I'm glad we cleared up that cocaine thing.

01:00:48Marc:Also, what have I got to tell you?

01:00:50Marc:JustCoffee.coop, of course, as always, at WTFPod.com.

01:00:55Marc:Please go to PunchWineMagazine.com and enjoy some comedic news.

01:00:59Marc:Thanks again for listening, and please go to WTFPod.com.

01:01:02Marc:Get on the mailing list.

01:01:04Marc:Send a little money, because I got to travel, and I just built a deck.

01:01:07Marc:Because I had to.

01:01:08Marc:This is not gratuitous.

01:01:10Marc:Is that the word I want?

01:01:10Marc:It's not extravagant.

01:01:12Marc:It's not over the top.

01:01:16Marc:People were falling through the deck.

01:01:18Marc:Did you want children to hurt themselves?

01:01:21Marc:Please donate to the show if you can.

01:01:22Marc:I appreciate all your support and be careful.

01:01:45Thank you.