The New Yorker Radio Hour - Episode 15: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Marc Maron, and the Broads of 'Broad City'

Episode Date: January 29, 2016

This week, stars of the stage, screen, and earbuds. Marc Maron tells Kelefa Sanneh why talking into a mic saved his life. The magazine’s TV critic, Emily Nussbaum, speaks with Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer about their raunchy and joyful TV comedy “Broad City.” And Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator and star of “Hamilton,” takes comfort in knowing that dirty politics are as old as America. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNMIC Studios and The New Yorker. He's very excited to be having a conversation with someone when they have that revelation right in mind. He's really smart. He's actually someone who's kind of savvy, you know, every parent. Maybe looking at this case, it could be an interesting process piece. Okay. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Without a doubt, one of the big sensations of 2015 was the musical Hamilton, which opened just about a year ago. I first heard about the show from my colleague Rebecca Mead a long time before that, who was writing a profile of its creator Lynn Manuel Miranda. You can sum up Hamilton by saying

it's a hip-hop musical based on the life of Alexander Hamilton in which all the founding fathers and mothers are played by actors of color rapping. But that might sound gimmicky and this show is anything but. It's got a real vision of America and it takes our history very seriously.

It actually takes as its inspiration, Ron Chernos, authoritative biography of Alexander Hamilton. Lynn Manuel Miranda wrote the music, the lyrics, and the book, and he stars as Hamilton. He spoke with Rebecca Mead at the New Yorker Festival this fall, and what you'll hear right at the top is a video of the cast doing the big number, My Shot. Here we go.

I'm past patiently waiting. I'm passionate to smash, every expectation, every action is an act that create. Oh, that looks good. It looks really good on a big screen. So the first time I saw any performance of Hamilton was in a workshop production in the spring of last year. That was a heavy, heavy, yeah.

It was the first time we'd staged Act 1, the first time we'd tried the costumes. When did you first see it? When did I first see the show? When did you first see the show? When was it... I first saw the show at the public. So how was that?

What did you see? I burst into tears at the end of the opening number. There are things you can't possibly see from on stage. And I always preface my notes to the creative team when we were working on the show. I said, these are notes from the lobster inside the boiling pot. I have no perspective at all. But what killed me was at the end of the opening number, Alexander Hamilton is the only one looking out

and everyone else has their heads bowed in prayer and it just killed me it's one it's telling you that they're all going to be narrating this story they're going to be shifting their roles as storytellers over the course of the night and they know the ending and Hamilton doesn't know yet so it's just moving on a very profound level

and then you know kept on crying from there When you're in it, do you have moments that are particular high points for you in performance? Does it change? Is that do you always... It changes. It changes every night. And now that we're settled into a long run, the audience is just as much a part of it for me. We have a front row of people who have won tickets for $10.

So their energy is amazing. And I can see faces 14 rows back. So I keep track of what you're feeling. I keep track of, you know, the lady in the third row who's asleep, but woke up in time for dear Theodosha. And you know what? I'll take a sleeping audience member over a texting audience member any day of the week. I don't know your life. I've fallen asleep at great shows.

This is the first time I sat down all day. But I'll keep track of her. I'll keep track of the two kids over here who I can tell got the cast. album because they're starting to sing along and that's starting to be a part of the process. But I'm keeping tabs on all of it. In terms of what's fun to perform, you know, I was a very, my parents worked a lot. I was a very self-entertained childhood. I think most artists grow up in the world of sort of benign neglect. You have to be left to your own devices enough to make it up. And when we were rehearsing take a break, which is a song and

to where Eliza and Angelic are trying to get Alexander to go upstate and stay at the Skylar mansion and take a break from all his political troubles. Tommy says to me in rehearsal, he said, I can just picture seven-year-old friendless Lynn being like, sorry, ladies, I can't make out with you, I work for the president, and I got to go have an affair with this hot lady over here. There's lots of moments like that where it's like I'm holding a sword and shooting a gun and it's seven-year-old Lynn wish-fulfillment on a very real scale.

And then there's the parts where I just kind of get to glory in the performances of my teammates. I mean, my rap battles with Davy Diggs are the most fun I have on stage because they're written and I win them. But also, he brings something new every time, even if it's physical or tiny, or he makes a comment. If I make a comment on something and someone makes a reaction,

the audience, he looks at them and kind of goes, oh, I saw that. I'm always on my toes. So the joy of these collaborators and this murderer's row of actors keeps it fresh pretty much every night. One of the things that is so, so striking about the show is, of course, the way that you've cast almost all of the principles, save King George III, are actors of color. and it has this tremendous theatrical effect of saying without explicitly saying,

this story is ours too. When did you decide that that was something you were going to do? Was that a decision you made early on before you'd even started casting in your head? Or was it something you just started casting, oh, there's Chris, this, and David is this, and then you realized what you were doing? I would love to tell you there was a bold political pronouncement

We're going to change. There wasn't. Honestly, it has its roots in the fact that I did conceive of this as a concept album first. So even in my first read-through of Ron's book, I was casting in terms of voices. I wasn't picturing the people on money when I was reading the book the first time through because reading it as Hamilton's story made me see it as a hip-hop story. And so when I read the name Hercules Mulligan, I just thought, well, Buster Rhymes plays Hercules Mulligan. that's the best rapper name I ever heard

that isn't actually a rapper name Hercules Mulligan and you know when I got to the part where the governor the corrupt governor of New York is named George Clinton and I thought oh there's going to be a P-Funk rap battle and on the cast album it will say introducing George Clinton as himself

these were all bold but these were all ideas in my head as I was reading the book for the first time. So it was never a question. It was, it was who were the best people to sing these songs, which are hip-hop and R&B songs. And Chris Jackson was really George Washington since in the Heights. I don't know of an actor, maybe James Earl Jones, who has more moral authority on stage. That's just what he has. So, you know, it's this mix of actors we knew about writing to their strengths and then writing to these characters. And the first Fun of this is determining what do our founding fathers sound like, and what do our founding

mothers sound like? In writing Angelica Schuyler, I decided she's actually the smartest character in the show. So she has the most complicated and intricate raps, but she also sings these arias because her brain just literally works faster than everybody else's. She meets Hamilton, who is this whirlwind and dynamo, and she reads him. She reads him in a second. She goes, I know what this guy's after. I can't give it to him.

I love him, my sister can be with him, and just reads the whole thing, and then slows down the action to explain her thought process to us. And when Renee, Elise Goldsbury, walked in the room, it was the first actress who, that's actually the speed at which she speaks. It was the first person where it wasn't, she didn't deliver the music like, look how hard I'm working. She delivered it as if this is just the speed at which I speak, and I trust you to catch up.

and it's really thrilling to watch. As I'm sure everybody here knows, Billboard magazine called it the best rap album of 2015. And I just like to say thank you for proving that the best rap album of the year can have a whole rap album and not have the word bitch in it. So thank you very much for that. You talked about having to cut a line here and there. You also had to cut entire bits in the process,

and not just from the public to Broadway, but earlier on, was there anything that you really hate that you had to cut, and you just... Oh, I don't think that I had to cut any of it, honestly, because, you know, it exists. It doesn't go, and it's not like I hit empty trash on my computer and it's gone forever.

It exists. there was a whole third rap battle about the issue of slavery that didn't make it into the final thing because frankly none of them did anything about slavery even Hamilton who was an abolitionist and got the importation of

slaves banned in New York through the Manning Mission Society he didn't put above his financial plan there was a moment where Quakers, two Quakers from Pennsylvania introduced a house motion to ban importation of slaves and it was on the house floor actually Joseph Ellis writes really eloquently about it

in either founding brothers or one of his other books and Madison let it be on the house for the day and they talked about slavery for three days and then he passed a motion because he was the majority and he made shit happen. They called him the scalpel. he passed a law saying we're not going to discuss this until 1808.

So they literally kicked the ball down the field for future generations. They said, we don't know what to do and we're not going to solve it. But I wrote a rap battle about this as if it were happening in Washington's private quarters. And it's Jefferson saying, you know, the Constitution clearly states that the states have to wait until 1808 to debate on whether the ban the slave trade. and whether you like it or not, that is the compromise we made. Wait. And, you know, Hamilton's trying to jump in. And they get into it. And he says, so let's say we cure prejudice. Like, do we send them back to Africa? Do we designate a state? Like, what's the solution? And then Hamilton throws Sally Hemings in his face. And then Madison was like, oh, are we talking about extra marital affairs? Do you want to have that conversation? And then Hamilton shuts up. then Washington says we're not going to say anything. And it was enormously cathartic to write it because this was something obviously you wrestle with when you write about these men who wrote great things and also had this other legacy, lived within this system that was horrible and abusive.

And it just brought the show to a screeching halt. It just, you know, and this is a show that really thrives on momentum because it's sung through. So we're going to put that out. We're making another mixtape and I'm going to put out the demo so that you can hear it but it didn't work within the context of the show so that one hurt because it was really cathartic to write and you know people miss the whiskey

rebellion. The whiskey rebellion existed at the public within Washington's farewell song and it's fun to see Washington go, Washington and Hamilton go from rebels to putting down a rebellion and it was them going you know you are outgunned

outmanned and Hamilton in the back going, pay your fucking taxes! It was a nice little moment. But it ultimately sort of muddied up the really audacious act, which is Washington stepping down after two terms and creating the precedent of a two-term

presidency. And we really wanted to focus on that. I know when you were rehearsing I was watching you and Chris rehearsing that scene of Washington's farewell address when you break into the words of Washington. I remember you're saying, can I just feel really patriotic after reading this. I mean,

has working on this show made you feel differently about America, made you feel differently connected to your country? Yes. My country, too, by the way. Yes. I'm an immigrant. We get a job. The job. Yeah, you do.

Aplause! Her writer. In fact, isn't it nice? Isn't it so much better than sitting alone? What good is sitting alone in your room? Yes, honestly, I think the secret sauce in the score of Hamilton is my enthusiasm in learning all of this for the first time. I knew the basic facts, but I did not know about the inner lives of these characters.

I did not know about their home lives. I had to learn all that stuff to write it. And the fact that you could take the rap battles of our show, put them in the mouths of different talking heads, and put them on MSNBC tomorrow, and they would be just as relevant. gives me hope. It's heartening to me to know that this was never a perfect union. It's always been striving for a more perfect union. And the beefs between Hamilton and Jefferson are the beefs we're always going to have. We're always going to push for too much government power and then we're going to push back against it. We're always going to go too far and helping another country

and then we're going to go, oh, we've got to take care of what's going on at home. Those are the rap battles that we have in our show. How much do we get involved in the affairs of other states? How much does our government have power? Does our government have over our lives? And how much are they allowed to tax us? And how much are they not? We're always going to be fighting about these things.

That gives me comfort. It doesn't. And frankly, the fact, because, you know, people say, this is the world. You know, go on TV. You know, they get ratings by telling you how apocalyptic the situation is. Yeah. Jefferson called John Adams a hermaphrodite in the election of 1800. John Adams countered by saying, Jefferson died. You should vote for me.

Counting on word traveling slow because it's 1800. Jefferson died. You should vote for me. By the time Jefferson, you know, makes sure that everyone knows he's alive, it'll be too late and they'll have voted for me. That's dirty politics. So, you know, don't tell me that it's worse than it's ever been because it was always bad. Here we are in another election cycle and the show is relevant on an entirely other level and even from

the public to Broadway there's a little change here that amplifies that the message about immigration and there's now the point where Hamilton's foes tell him to go on back home to where he came from. What do you think about

this rhetoric that's going on about immigration in this current. It's so old. It's so old. This isn't new. The one thing that writing the show has given me is real perspective. Pat Buchan was singing this song in 1996. He did, the Mexicans are coming to kill us all. That famous chorus. It is an old song and we've heard it. And there's always going to be a politician there to grab that fervor, whether it's when it's felt in public sentiment, and run with it and make a stab at it. That's about all I can say about it.

It's just, it's a part of our politics just like anything else's. Well, that's, I'm afraid all we have time for, but thank you, Lynn Manuel Miranda. And thank everybody for being here. Lynn Manuel Miranda, the creator and star of Hamilton, talking with the New Yorker's Rebecca Mead at the New Yorker Festival. Today we're hearing three of the highlights from that festival, including Mark Marin, and the comedy team that created one of the funniest and raunchy of the, comedies on television.

We're just two gals, cleaning in her underwear, for an hour. What gals? We? Us gals. I'm not doing that, dude. What? Why are you shushing me? Alana Glazer and Abby Jacobson of Broad City. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

I am extremely excited to introduce you to our guests here. Abby Jacobson and Alana Glazer. The two fabulous Jouasses who created Broad City on Comedy Central. I have to say as a television critic, I watch a lot of web series, and most of them are not good at all. But this was an extremely unusual example. It was smart from the beginning. That's television critic Emily Newspam, and she's a fan of Broad City.

Abby Jacobson and Alana Glazer, two struggling improv comedians created Broad City as a web series. and now it's going into its third season on TV with supposedly Hillary Clinton as a guest star. Jacobson and Glazer play characters much like themselves named Abby and Alana, and they're kind of a latter day, Laverne and Shirley. They've got lousy jobs, they screw around,

they get stoned all the time, and they love one another more than any of the various men that come through their lives. It's a brazen, but above all, joyful take on being young and heedless. So without further ado, four and three and two and one, Abby and Alana. I didn't know you were doing that, Emily.

I know. That was lovely. Thank you so much. I want to start with a little rudimentary backstory just about the show. I know you guys are from Philadelphia and Long Island. You came to New York. You met at UCB. Why did you decide to make a break and make a web series? And at that point, did you have any kind of master plan for what you were doing in your head? Or were you winging it? I think in the beginning, for the first,

season of the web series, I don't think we had a bigger picture. It was just about, we were still in that mode of, like, being so in love with, like, finding your voice. Like, did you have a general concept of who the characters were? I mean, the characters are named Abby and Alana, so there's... Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's us, but it's like, we didn't, like, see these, like, poles that we have now. It wasn't, um, it was more fluid. We were just, we were really just finding it. I, you know, you're obviously, you've been working with Amy Poehler, and she helped you bring the show in, and I read that she said that your job, was to be the policeman of your brand.

And obviously that's good advice. I was actually wondering what's the worst advice that you had on the show as you were trying to bring it in. So FX, I'm so happy things turned out the way they were. When they were giving us notes, they were great notes, but they ended up passing because they felt that the show was too girly. So even like the pass, why they passed was terrible advice, but also great advice because I think the show,

I hope that we don't ever go. away from female topics. And that was almost like, no, I think you're wrong. Did they specifically say that? Did they say it's too girly for our brand? Someone said that. Or like that point was conveyed, I guess.

Yeah, that was conveyed to us as like kind of why it didn't fit. And you know what? I'm like, great. That's fine. It's okay for a network to skew male. So I want to ask about the origins of some of the stuff on the show just as we're on a DVD commentary, just because I'm curious about the background.

Love it. Deals, deals, deals, I know was based on a job that you guys had. Yeah. Our last job before selling the script. Underwater massage? Yes. Yes, that sounds intense.

Great job. Killing it. Who's got more deals? Who else has a deal for me? Oh, Nicole. What's your deal? I'm kind of obsessed with these DIY the jazling seminars,

and I feel like they'd be a really great fit for us. That is what I'm talking about. Do you guys smell that? Come on, sniff the air. Oh, what's that odor? I think it's the scent of a deal. Who's got more deals from you? Ooh, in the back, Alana. Dope sweatshirt. What is your deal?

I've been kind of obsessed with getting paid, and I was wondering if that's happening today, so we could all be paid. Checks, unfortunately, delayed till Friday. Bomber, FML, right? Speaking of FML, went on a third date. That girl from Match.com and keep you guys updated. Third time went for the kiss, third time rejected, but I'll try it. I'll get it.

Let's get back to our desks. Deals don't make themselves. So Lucia Aniello, who's a writer and our main director on the show, wrote the copy for Deals, deals, deals, basically, also known as Life Booker. And she got us in jobs. It's a big New York company. It's huge now.

And they were great. We worked there and worked on the web series simultaneously. Have you gotten response from them to the portrayal on the show? I bet they love it I saw Dana in the street one of the founders and she was like it's hysterical she was so funny

there's a web episode called work and those that is like where we sat and we sat next to each other doing sales alana called salons and like waxing places in L.A and I called New York and then we would like G-chat and be

writing Broad City and like we were so lucky that the young people who were running the company were proud of us having a passion so they were really understanding it was crazy so we did this little festival at 92 My Tribeco

where we showed a couple web episodes and I don't know why they put our picture in the New York Times and we freaked the fuck out they were so supportive there was only like 10 people working when we worked there and we came in and we like both have the paper. That's so great.

It was absorbed. Have you seen it? Have you seen it? Have you seen it? It's like, stop, no sales today, no deals. We're in the paper. Oh, man. But they were like, this is so cool. They were so generous. They were really supportive. Have your conceptions of Abby and Alana changed over the course of the show? I feel like we more consciously separate from our characters. We think of them as a past,

version of ourselves, but it's bizarre, the, like, awareness. Because I was asking sort of how they had changed over the course of the show, but part of what you're talking about is that you've become different than they are. Because they are us. I mean, it's like, so, it's like futile to try to distinguish it, but... Well, how do you differ from? It's kind of me at 22, I feel like, even though I'm, even though it's, she's 26, and I'm 27. Now I'm 31. But yeah. But I like being in my 30s. It actually helps me feel like different from the character. But yeah, it's a constant thing of trying to figure out, oh, well, who was I and who am I now? And how would that character make a decision in that situation versus how I would.

I think we are much, the characters are much wilder than we are. Are the characters going to grow up over the course of the show or do the character stay static for you? Because they're different models of comedy. I think this season was the hardest for us to write because it does, it changes. Because we had to make that decision.

And we decided to, for them to like, slowly grow. Interesting. So I want to go to another clip, a dentist clip. You were doing an awesome job. You just keep clutching bingo Bronson that Mommy Lonnie got you. Me. I'm Mommy Lonnie. And that's it. Whole thing's gonna be painless.

You're gonna know, you're gonna be out, out, out. You're just chill. So riddle me this, Doc. The Mayanase Clinic claims that facial paralysis can be a thing. What? Care to comment? Release my head, woman. I got this. Abby's gonna be fine.

Look at these black blue hands. If I mess up this white girl's teeth, the black dentistry game is over forever. I'm gonna get these teeth. for my people I don't do anything for my people count backwards sometimes

I'm and if you don't wake up I'll still see you because I'm going to kill myself and meet you in heaven or whatever sometimes I just feel like running the whole episode I wanted to ask you about race in the show because there's a big

ongoing debate in the comedy world about race and about appropriation and all these kinds of things and your show is very diverse your characters are into hip hop. There's been things like a Spike Lee homage and I wonder whether you talk about this as a... I don't think we were talking at all about cultural appropriation

at all. Or race. I mean it was just like who's our favorite director. Yeah and we're like literally making a... Have you gotten criticism for that? Not for the Spike Lee thing but I feel like I feel like we've

like read here and there about you know these like white girls and their language and Alana's language and you know it's like a bummer but it's also like

yeah cultural appropriation is a bummer so but I think it's also you asked if the characters right it's like what are we going to like say like no it's cool it's honestly it's not cool you know so it's like it's okay to point it out and for it not to be cool in the

show. And something we talk about all the time is like these, it is also something like, well, they are different from us and we're, they're not perfect and they make mistakes. And I think that is part of Alana's growth and sort of the growth of the show where it is like, well, do I want to be doing those things? I at least want to make sure I'm aware. Like speaking as a character, like, oh, they're growing in not just in jobs, in actually. emotional beliefs and things. And the more the show is developed and the more distinct we become

from the characters, I guess the more they were writing them as a tool. One of the things I find so great about the show it has this completely joyful filthiness and this embrace of sexual adventure as the freeing and silly thing. And I wonder if you talk a little bit about the sexual philosophy of the show

and the sexuality of each of your characters, which is a bit different. I don't know. People are like, whof, you guys are filthy. And it's like, I don't know,

it doesn't feel that filthy to us. It's like, it certainly doesn't feel serious, you know? Like, just in you saying that, I'm like, oh, yeah, like sex usually isn't,

like, seen as silly or it's, like, so silly that it's not sexy, but it's like, sexiness is silly because the fact that it's a new, a new time, you know,

it's like, now it's a different time. Like, it's just, it's silly the way, It's set up, so it's very easy to make it silly. But I think the reason some people like it is because they do treat sex in that way,

and that's what people talk about with their friends and how they talk about it. So I think it's a very relatable thing. I don't know what you guys are. Yeah, and it's also like, I feel like in general, the show is like, even though everything is a big deal, it's also nothing is a big deal, like the weed. And I don't know, these like elements that feel.

feel natural. But I guess on most shows, it's like, sex is so part of this narrative of like getting the guy, where in this show it's just for the purpose of sex, which it is more in life. It's just pleasure. So it's less of a big deal, even though

it's so important to them. Yeah, they talk about it all the time. It's really like, it is a constant. Yeah. But it's not really central to the plot, I guess. It's just essential. setting in context or something.

We know that Alana is into Abby. Is Abby into Alana like, what's Abby sexuality and be Aalana? You can address this either as the characters or yourself, it's fine. I don't... No, I don't think so. And...

Me neither. No. Me neither. No. Me neither. No, I'm not... Well, I kind of like... I don't think she is. What do we mean here?

That's her number one. That's her number one. I love that it doesn't always have to be, like, it doesn't always have to be a sexual relationship. And like, and it's like, oh, these are just two best friends, even though it's sometimes hinted at with Alana. It's like a runner. And I also think Alana, it's like more based in romance than sex with Abby.

It's their primary partners, you know? And they're, again, it's that like fiery early 20s when like everything's romantic. Moving to the city is romantic. Even though it sounds like, it's like, and yet they're so romantic about it. Like, I think it's that same thing where there's just that fire that, oh, this away. You're making an amazing television show.

What are your, I mean, it's one of these things where I don't know how long the show will last. Do you have other plans? Yeah, we are. Are you working on a movie? Yeah, we just finished our first draft of this movie. Handed it in. And sent it to the studio. You know, thanks, you guys.

It's not. It's not, we're not in it. It's not like about us at all. It's like so boss. It's like with script pages. That's what we do. We hand it in like that. We're like,

one, two, three, four. They're numbered. Pick them up. Aquambray. Midpoint, baby. Lowest, darkest to the soul, whatever. And we have individual projects. Yeah, I was wondering, do you want to do solo stuff?

Yeah, it's fun to like talk about them with each other too, because it's like we're still honing that Broad City voice, but we also still, we're changing. So there's an individual voice to still be found, and those individual voices feed the combined voice in Broad City or otherwise. Thank you so much. That was fantastic. Abby Jacobson and Alana Glazer talking with the New Yorkers, Emily Newsbound. They spoke at the recent New Yorker Festival.

I'm David Remnick. Still to come, the New Yorker's Kelifessane speaks with Mark Marin. Stick around. I'm David Remnick and welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. Next week, I'll be talking with the filmmaker Laura Poitris, who chronicled Edward Snowden's revelations of illegal NSA spying. We'll also meet musicians that David Bowie plucked from a small jazz club to play on his final record, Black Star. I hope you'll join us. Today we're hearing three highlights from the New Yorker Festival, and now I'll turn things over to my colleague, Kelifasanae. So is this it?

We're doing this? Yeah, let's just do it. Let's do it. They gave me this thing to read. Are you going to welcome everybody? Yeah. I'm going to let you do your thing. Okay, I'm going to do my thing.

Okay. Hi. My name is Kelifacei. I'm a staff writer here at the New Yorker magazine. I'm here with Mark Merrin. Thank you. Just in case anyone does. He doesn't know. He's been doing stand-up since the 1980s. He's had two one-person shows,

one of which the New Yorker described as heartbreakingly funny, the other of which the New Yorker did not review. I don't even know which one that one was. He has Marin, a TV show that's done three seasons so far on IFC. He's written a book, and as a few of you might be aware, written two books, I'm sorry. It's okay. As a few of you might be aware, starting in 2009 and continuing to this moment and onward into the future, he has recorded 642 episodes of WTF. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes, that's all true. It's all true. I can validate all of that. 642 episodes. Yeah, it's crazy. Are you getting better? I think I am getting better because I don't. talk as much during it. I think I listen better. And I think I'm a lot more emotionally engaged.

I mean, I'm crying for almost no reason. Like, people come and I'm crying already. And they're like, this is an interesting way to start an interview. And I'll just say, well, this is how it's going to go now. There's this a story from one of, I can't remember. I think it might be in one of your books where you come off stage and someone says to you, why comedy? Yeah. Man, that guy, I was at that time, that was in the 80s, at some maybe 87, 88, and I was very aggressive. I was angry.

It was not, you know, it was not necessarily everyone's idea of a nice evening out. And I just done this set at Stitches. I remember it in Boston. And I'd just done this set, and I was pretty happy with it. And some dude just walked out to me, and he's like, why comedy? And I could not answer them. I don't think I could answer them now, really. I just thought that what I was doing was perfectly fine for comedy.

Laughs were an essential. It was impact. It was impact. But you've often talked about this, right? That you weren't necessarily driven by this desire to entertain. And somewhere along the way you realized, oh, wait, this is supposed to be part of the job description. Like, I'm supposed to entertain people or people expect me to entertain. entertain them. Yeah, I always

like kind of, I would always rationalize that by, if I'm not entertaining, I'll be compelling. I mean, I can be compelling. Like, if I'm on stage, you're not going to be like, this is boring. You know what I mean? Like, I'll be sweating. I'll be doing something. But

I don't think I got into it to be an entertainer. I got into it to be a comic. Like a stand-up comic to me, in my mind, it was just, it wasn't an entertainer's position. It was some sort of strange, noble, truth-telling place. I didn't think of it as an entertainer.

I thought they were important people that did important thinking. Did you think of, but was making people laugh? I mean, how does that figure in? I knew that was part of it. I'm not a moron. I mean, I wasn't like, I'm going to reinvent stand-up comedy, so it's not funny. That wasn't my agenda. But I just thought that in my mind, performing stand-up comedy,

was you could do whatever you want. If the context was comedy, so I knew I had to get laughs. I wanted to be funny. I believe I was funny. I think I'm funnier now. But I knew you could do whatever you wanted up there. And to me it was a place to figure out who I was, to figure out the parameters of the stage,

to figure out how far I could push people, to basically get the parenting I didn't get. I was going to drag people through my shi-childhood for as long as it took for them to accept me, and then I tell them to fuck off. One of the continuing narratives on your show is, and one of the things that I love, is when you get a young comedian on the podcast, who has achieved some success and hasn't gone through 10 years, 20 years of hell on the road and in these comedy clubs. And there's a special skepticism that you bring out when you talk to comedians like that. It's a nice way to put it.

Do you think it's important that comedians go through that same kind of suffering, of tough rooms? But outside of suffering, is it important for any creative person to pay their dues and figure out who they are before, you know, we're dragged through their success? So, wouldn't you say we're dragged through? You mean as fans? Whatever you want to call it. And back when I start, God, am I that guy now? Back in the day, you can only do comedy at a comedy club. So you'd have to wait around and you have to wait for their dumb open mic. Now anyone, anyone who's been on stage for seven minutes is like, I'm doing it. comedy. No, you're not. You're not. You're some guy that went on stage for five. Do I take it as an insult to what

I do as a comic? Fuck yes, I do. Do I have to shut my mouth about that, generally? Kind of. I'm happy if people are, you know, like, you know, taking improv classes so they can, you know, be around people better.

I'm happy if you know, experiment all you want. But it's like, you know, I'm a guy that committed to it. So if somebody's sitting before me and they don't treat it with the respect that a lifer has for it, then fuck them on some level. They can try to talk me out of it. And a lot of guys turn out to be, you know, geniuses and they're great and I love them. And sometimes what you're hearing is not so much skepticism about a lifestyle.

It's just old guy jealousy. So it's just like anything else, dude. You know, as a lifer, it's hard to hear someone disrespect it or take it for granted. Part of what goes on in comedy and has always gone on is that when someone achieves a certain amount of success in stand-up, there's an industry that wants to take them from stand-up and have them do something else. I've been fortunate to avoid that. Well, sort of. Of all the things, right, when you record that first episode, I think it's with Jeffrey Ross on the phone. of all the things that went through your head,

I can't imagine that one of them was this thing might become so successful that I become slightly jealous of my own podcast. Right? I mean, that's pretty insane. Yeah. What were, like...

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around that. Yeah. Yeah, it is insane. I think at the beginning, I had no idea what we were up to. I just knew I needed to keep doing, something and that I liked radio a lot and that for some reason whatever I did on those mics connected. I don't know what that was, but I knew it from when I did talk radio. Like I would go,

like there was this thing once. I remember the time that it happened where like we were doing political talk radio at six in the morning on Air America. And because we had to do news, I had to get up at like 2.30 or 3 of the morning because I don't, it takes a lot from me. me to wrap my brain around that, you know. So we just spent four hours, you know, trying to get this news together and, you know, focusing my anger on stuff. Right around the Republican National Convention in 2004, like the night before, I decided to trap five feral cats and bring them into my house. And it became so much more important than politics. And I was so relieved by it. So I started talking about the cats. And then I started talking about, like, one time I let

lentils cook too long. And it created this sort of weird tar like substance. And like, and I just was aggressively going through it because I would drink like two Dunkin' Donuts coffee and I eat all these M&Ms. And I just like rambled on for 15 minutes about lentil tar

and my cats. And I started getting these emails. Like, that was the most compelling shit I ever heard. I don't know what you were talking about, but man, I was in. I was in. And I'm like, whoa, whoa. Maybe I got something with this thing. So, so I, that was what was going on with that. Like, I didn't know what that show was, but I loved the medium. I liked audio, and it's a gift, you know, to be, to be good at something that you didn't expect. And even if, with all my speech impediments, my dumb stuttering,

you know, like, there's something that still comes through. I don't know why. But I loved it. And I didn't know what the show would be then. I certainly didn't know at that time. You know, I was desperate. I was desperate. But the format didn't change that much, right? I mean, it was, it kind of from the start was you talking a little bit into the microphone and then having a conversation with a person. Had people around. Had people around. Because when you do morning radio and you got a crew, there's nothing better than that. There's nothing more exciting than doing live morning radio with a bunch of people in the room. Like, you know, it's easy to condescend, and I've done it myself. But a good morning crew, there's, like, that's a, like, that's a

big job. You got a holding audience who don't want to be awake. And they're probably going someplace that they don't want to go to, and their life is not what they planned. And you're sitting there going, how's everybody doing out there? Here we go. It's a hell of a job. But I needed people around. I needed people to laugh. I needed to be able to look at somebody. The day I learned how to talk on a microphone alone was one of the best days of my life. You know who's the that? Rush Limbaugh. Now, I don't like to admit that. But,

you know, as a radio guy, you know, you listen to that guy paused, and I don't like listening to him, you know. I don't like it as much as any liberal who listens to Rush Limbaugh. You kind of like it because it makes you go, oh! So, I think 25% of his

listeners are liberals going, ah, fucker! So, that's a pretty compelling personality. But the day that I learned how to do that, just talking freely to nobody alone in my garage, and it was comfortable, I was like, this is it. I freed myself, and I became a broadcaster in my mind. And then it just became the conversations because, you know, I needed to talk. And when did you realize that people were coming to your stand-up because they liked WTF?

Well, that took a while. you know, I mean, we could see the numbers. You know, you can see how many people download your thing. You know, and I was aware that, you know, that if I talked to somebody who was a big celebrity, that, you know, we bring people to it, I'm not going to pretend like, who knew that Robin Williams would, you know, like, so there was, you know, there were definitely people that I struggled to get.

It was not easy to book necessarily, because no one knew what a podcast was. And a lot of people were like, no, I guess Maron's kind of hit the bottom. I always liked the guy. I'm going to go, I'll help him out. Like, I don't, I don't think Louis C.K. Had any idea that anyone was going to listen to that thing at all. Which is, I mean, which is part of what made that so intense.

We have a, should we play a little clip from you having a conversation with Louis C.K? It always hurts me a little, but yeah. I could have used you. I could have used you. I got divorced. I got a show canceled. You know, I had some tough times. I could have used a friend during those times.

Those times that were making you jealous. I was struggling. I was having a hard time. Doing the Louis show was really hard. Trying to keep my family together, it was hard. But the thing is, in the way our friendship always operated, it was not that I was kept up to date and the day-to-day things. It wasn't a day-to-day call that we had,

but it seemed that most of the time, the thing that made our friendship so deep and so strong was that when we did talk, we made each other feel better. No, it's true, but you shut me out. You shut me out because you were having a hard time. Okay. Well, I apologize again. Well, I apologize to you because then I did it to you probably out of resentment.

Ignored your emails because you ignored my phone calls back when there was no email. Well, can we get back on track or what? Yeah, I think we can. I think it's the first time I noticed he said that. They ignored my phone calls back before there was no email. When was that? The worst part about hearing that is he, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but. I just can't handle that.

But, let me just try and smooth this over. This can't be this bad. Well, but that's when, I mean, in theory, right, this is like two comics talking about comedy. In practice, this is nothing like that at all, right? This is the kind of conversation we never get to hear in any context. And even if you don't care at all about comedy, I think anyone would find that compelling. No, I agree. I never set out to do a, you know, making the sausage podcast.

I mean, that's just a way to get somewhere else. I have a great deal, like comics, like, all things. do is sit around and think all day. That's their job. There's very few things they can't speak to. Well, most of them are pretty intelligent people. Some of them are incredibly sensitive. Most of them, they're like, you know, they're philosophers. They're poets. They're people that live life in a way. They're not great, obviously, you know, emotionally and move through relationships all the time. But I never set out to make a sausage-making podcast. So it never struck me that Louis and I were going to talk about comedy. I just wanted, I thought I had a very personal take on Louis's career because I saw some of the stuff that I experienced with him as being defining.

And it was. And then it went this other direction. And we're good now. I mean, it was a very, it was a good conversation. We're very close now. Like, you know, he texts me a lot and we were talking a lot for a while. And now he's busy, I guess. I'm busy too, but like, I get texts. He'll be like, how you doing, pal? Be a pretty good buddy, you? I'm good. that's good love you man love you too buddy

we do that I could text him right now and he'd probably respond to me let's put that to the test was there a point where you started realizing that these conversations were having an effect on your life were shaping your life the conversations that you were having in your garage

yes are you kidding me oh I just wrote he pal all right let's see what happens I wonder if that's the right number Look, you know, I need to talk. It's the way I process things. Not good at processing without talking to people. And when I started the podcast, when I moved to Los Angeles, it was not good with me.

You know, I was darkly depressed. I was severely heartbroken. I was incredibly bitter. But I needed to talk to people to reintegrate myself with my friends, to reintegrate myself with the community of artists, which I'm wary to use that word. but the community of comedians, artists is a weird word to me. I don't know why. I don't know why.

I don't like calling myself an artist. I'm a comedian. So, whatever. See, like right now, who am I arguing with? Do you see what happens if I'm not talking to somebody else? Okay. So there's also something within recovery concept, actually. And I don't mind being public about that.

But, you know, when you talk to somebody else, you get out of your own head. and it engages your empathy, it engages your compassion, it also is entertaining. You know, I had a very, you know, a very charismatic, fairly, you know, emotionally dangerous father. And, but, like, he was very compelling. And I spent my life, you know, seeking out, you know, charismatic people to sort of, like, just use as a battery, you know what I mean? Like, like, I like to be entertained. I like when people are engaging.

I like to be engaged. And so I think like the first 100 or so podcasts were really just me inviting famous people over to help me with my problems. And to sort of glean some of that energy. And I just, I love it. One of the questions that you answered on the show this year is the question of who is harder to book, Lauren Michaels or the president of the United States? Turns out the president is easy.

Turns out the president is easier to book than Lauren Michaels. Let's roll the clip of Obama, and then we'll take some questions from the audience. Listen, I'm a big fan, and I love conversations like this, because if I thought to myself that when I was in college, that I'd be in a garage a couple miles away from where I was living, doing an interview as president. As president, with a comedian. I think that's a pretty hard scenario. couldn't imagine it it's not possible to imagine no it is not nobody couldn't imagine so so

yeah and i'm also like you know i you know i pay it i don't you know there was a period where i was a little more attentive politically where i you know i ran the country from my couch for a couple years uh a lot of people a lot of people do yeah i hear from them all the time you idiot why aren't you doing it this way yeah yeah i heard from them this morning i've got i got nothing but emails from people telling me what I got to say to you. Unbelievable. That's a big day. It's a true honor that was.

It's a true honor that was. I can't even quite wrap my brain around it. Because, you know, people, you know, a few people who interviewed me around that. They said, sir, are you going to be interviewing, you know, candidates? I'm like, no. I interviewed the president. Why would I interview those people? When they're president, I'll interview them.

President asked me to talk to him What an amazing day So if you've got a question Line up at the microphone And This guy's ready He's ready Hi Mark

My name is Roy How are you? Good man, what's up? A little more about President Obama Yeah You know, you didn't have a president A guy in a suit You had Obama

Yeah And love or like or not like his politics He's a bright guy He's the first black president in our country. When he left and the Secret Service left and they were all gone and it was just you in the studio, what was going through your head? It was me and Brendan, and I cried. I knew it.

Comedian and podcast impresario Mark Marin talking with the New Yorkers, Kellefassane. At New Yorker Radio.org, you can find that interview with Lauren Michaels, the legendary head of Saturday Night Live, Episode 653 of Marron's podcast, WTF. 653. This is episode 15 of the New Yorker Radio Hour, and I hope you've enjoyed it. If you listen to the show by podcasts,

please take a moment to rate it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. And you can drop us a line at new yorkeradio.org anytime. Next week, we'll meet the band who played with David Bowie on his final album, Black Star. And I'll talk with Laura Poitris, who made the film Citizen Four about Edward Snowden. I'm David Remnick. Have a great week. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.