The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Tommy Blacha

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

Tommy Blacha (Adult Swim, Late Night) joins Andy Richter to discuss his time as Andy's roommate in Chicago, working in the Late Night writer’s room, watching Andy get fake-murdered by John Wayne Gacy on television, and much more.

we're all shrinking hi everyone uh we're doing a podcast here starting like this right like that wow um no no no no That's all added later. And then I insist on 45 seconds of solid applause. And it kills the ratings of this podcast terribly. But no, we're starting right up because I'm talking to today. This is hilarious. I have like a page of research about you. I'm talking to Tommy Blacha.

Blacha. Blacha. Oh, do you insist on that now? No. I never knew how to pronounce it coming out of my mouth because it is Blacha. It means the metal tin. Yeah, yeah. But growing up, people said, oh, Mrs. Blacha.

So we're like Blacha. And then I would say Blacha. And people were like, whatever. Just don't put an N in it. Yeah, yeah. I always said Blacha because that's what I heard you say the most. But yeah, but it's also like. Just because I said it about my own name doesn't mean that's the way to do it.

I know, but it's like Polish through Detroit through Chicago. That's like the easiest way to find the ugliest way to say a word is to go through the Detroit-Chicago filter. Blatcha. Blacha. Blacha. Blacha. Well, you could insist on it now. I think I will. You have some gravitas.

I will. I'm talking to... I have un petit gravitas. I'm talking to Tame Blacha, who was, for people who know, or who are like older fans of the Conan show, he was the gaseous wiener. He came up with pimp bot although you weren't pimp bot that was mccann right yeah brian mccann was in the actual outfit and did

and i root because or did you do the voice uh i did it once but what i hate about not being doing the voice or being in it is because like gotta go be pimp bot and you pimp bot and you'd make an extra 130 dollars and then you'd go get to hang out for two hours in that work. Right, right. What the fuck? Why didn't I do that? Why didn't I put myself in that? But I was in plenty of stupid costumes and avoiding work.

And then you also, I mean, the thing I think people outside this know you mostly for is Death Clock Metalocalypse. Ooh. You were a co-creator of that don't you think that's probably the other thing i don't know you know today we live in the i call it the like the a la carte zeitgeist yeah so i don't know what people know what people know and then if you go to something related to it obviously like you know oh i went to a like death metal concert holy shit and then yeah i'm not then wrestling also so i don't know how it the actual numbers add up but you and i have no you and i were friends in college yep and uh i was on the

conan show first and then i uh got you a chance to submit material there and then that's how you got started on this yeah one of the most uh uh we were roommates yeah and that was great because you like uh you were one of the first people to get paid to do anything it was kind of fun remember we were i don't remember this i was just thinking about this was so funny so we're all like doing comedy improv and such and whatever and it is not to put a stupid word out there but it was really pure but i mean but people people in a sense didn't think then like i'm going to segue into working no and i remember we were just having fun just having fun and young and you if i remember correctly got hired to be a john wayne gacy victim yes and what was it like

what was some show it was hard cop hard it was when hard copy was on at least in chicago was on in the afternoon right and. Around four or five. Right. Yeah. And they mostly did reenactment segments. Right. Right. But then I think, wasn't like, what's his name?

The Fox guy. You know, we'll do it live. That guy. Oh, Bill O'Brien. Wasn't that hard copy? Or was that Action Journal? I remember Current Affair. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bill O'Reilly. That's right.

Yeah. It was hard to do. But I think he was hard copy. Could have been, yeah. Bill O'Reilly. That's right. Yeah, it was hard to do. But I think he was hard copy. So I think it was different things. But when I was on it, it was just Gacy reenactment. And they came to Chicago. And Joey Soloway was the production coordinator. Right.

And hired a bunch of improv actors because they need – because because first of all, they had a chilling Gacy. They found a lookalike like one town over from where Gacy lived and absolutely chilling. And then so I got to – I was one of many victims. I got to be the victim of the rope trick. Right. Well, do you – not to interrupt you. No, you'll interrupt.

To interrupt you. You started it. Well, so there's no way not to interrupt you. No, you'll interrupt. To interrupt you. You started it. Well, so there's no way to just like look it up on the internet, obviously, that point. But so somehow we knew it was going to be on. Yeah. And we all remember a bunch of us. It was Koechner and we went to that bar that used to do the, the idiotic German bar had the German, the Viking raid with the helmet. Oh, yeah.

And we'd all drink beer at some. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lachette's? No, that wasn't Lachette's. It wasn't Carl Lachette at. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lachette's? No, that wasn't Lachette's. It wasn't Carl Lachette's Inn. We had a good Carl Lachette's Inn. Somebody's beer stoop. Desi's beer stoop.

It was a beer stoop. So we went in there and it was going to be on the TV because we were local. So we dominated the place. All went in. And it was like an early just, you know, thing where, oh, you're getting paid to be an actor. Yeah. We're all so young. Like, whoa, that's, wow, that an actor. Yeah. We're all so young. Like, whoa, that's wow.

That's something. And then so it was exciting. And I'll never forget. There were some people like afternoon drinkers up at the bar because it was early. So when it came on and there's something so oddly thrilling when you have a friend who's an actor. I see where this is going. It's like you get garrotted from behind and they had this like cheesy, like negative effect. Yeah.

Yeah. So I just remember your face going like getting killed and murdered. It garrotted from behind, and they had this cheesy negative effect. Yeah, yeah. So I just remember your face going like, ah, ah. Getting choked. Gacy's killing you. And murdered. And just a bunch of us just, yeah, yeah. It was like so, my hair's standing up. I was like, yeah, Andy.

And these old afternoon day drinkers were turning around looking at, what the fuck is going on? It must be a pro-Gacy club. Yeah. Oh, Gacy's getting. Gacy boosters. around like looking at what what the fuck is pro gacy club yeah gacy boosters but it's odd because it was really it really still rings true today like oh there's a poignant moment and what is entertainment and whatever and i was i would have been at that gathering except there was a meeting of the people that worked on it like somewhere in like old town or something further downtown and

there were a few of i forget the town that dacy did all his murders in displeased there was a couple of don't don't come up with it in two seconds and then make that fake confusion i think it was and we heard we heard, yes, when you mentioned the rope trick. I think it was May 1977. Yeah, you're speaking of Victim 2? I think. Well, anyway, there's two Displains cops there. And it's like me and a few women.

And he's like, hey, you guys want to see something? Pulls out his wallet. Oh, no. He has John Wayne Gacy's Amex card. Just carries it in his wallet. And I mean, it wasn't like it was like in the pocket that is like the heavy traffic. You know, like for me, the car. Wife and kids now go behind Gacy Amex cards.

Gotta admit, kind of cool. Yeah. I mean, yeah, but I mean, it's still, it's a little, it's just kind of, it's just like if you, I don't know, I would take it from like a lab tech, but like from a, but I mean, of course I know the world. So it is like, I don't know, that's weird. Like you're saying, I stole evidence. It's really not so much the card. It's this thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then the eye contact as you look at it, and then he looks at you. That's the weirdness. Thank you, Officer Gould. What do you think of that? Yeah. Well, I remember reading the one Gacy book. Well, now we'll go one last left turn. One more Gacy.

It's what people come for, but whatever. But just remember reading one of the books, because we actually, Brian Blondell knew one of the last victims. Improviser Brian Blondell from Chicago. Right. And he didn't. He knew one of the books because uh we actually brian blondell knew one of the last victims and improv improviser brian blondell um chicago right and uh and he didn't knew one of the oh the last victims yeah oh wow anyways uh so i was reading the gacy different times yeah i don't have why why am i trying to uh you know qualify this i read a lot of serial killer books all right okay all right all right but i was reading is a rock by the way folks you can't way, folks. You can't see that. You can't hear that. You didn't hear the slide whistle.

But I always remember a horrible comic moment from one where they were, like, checking out Gacy and the guy, you know, one of the cops, like, okay, this kid's missing, whatever. And they're looking around and, like, all right, you know, stinks in here. He seems whatever, fine, whatever. Stinks in here. And then one, yeah, it had a musky smell. Oh, yeah, yeah. But the one cop just said, and the way it was written too, was like, all right, we'll probably take off.

And he looked and he just saw like big shit encrusted dildo. And it was like, hey, I better call the wife. Hey, Bill, better come back in here. Care to explain? Peek-a-boo. Yeah, peek-a-boo. That ain't no lava lamp. Yeah, that's when I put, get some z's and pick this up tomorrow

off to dreamland yeah all right would have been a good ending for an episode it would have yeah well it only has to be seven minutes yeah um well anyway yeah and i didn't you know i i would never have even thought of having you on here but my my producer, Sean, was – I talked about you one day to somebody. And he said, hey, we need live bodies. Exactly. Yeah. We need people. No, but I mean –

Your friend looks like he's got a pulse. Because, no, I mean, I would have asked Sean before, but I mean, it just – I don't know. It's just like I say, it's like I feel like I'm having a family member. Right, right. I mean, so I'm excited to have you here. I do want to start out by asking, why did you do 9-11? I think a lot of people, that's what people are going to want to do. Well, like I said before, every time you ask me that, time will tell.

All right, all right, we can wait. Okay, that just would have been a big scoop for me and really helped me out in the podcast world. Well, you're from Detroit. Right. Grew up there. Your dad, working class family, yeah? Yeah. World War II veteran, your dad?

Yeah. Battle of the Bulge. Battle of the Bulge. Yeah? Yeah. Wasn't he like an ambulance an ambulance that blew up or something he was uh he was a medic an ambulance driver oh wow and had no effect on his uh raising of children whatsoever no he was he was a he was a grand guy you know actually i joined

the army that's when the the stories came out it was kind of like oh when i got a great respect from me like oh you're in the Army. Oh, let me tell you about, I got there, I was green, and this guy had his legs blown off, and he kept, you know, oh, my legs are cold, so I gave him my coat. And, you know, the other guys looked at me and said, pfft, you know, rookie, green guy. He's like, yeah, you know, a couple, three more weeks,

I would have said, I'm keeping my coat. You don't have any legs. They can't be cold. Could you get a little hard? You know, stories like that, I'd be like, oh, dad more weeks, I would have said, I'm keeping my coat. You don't have any legs. They can't be cold. Could you get a little hard? Stories like that, I'd be like, oh, dad. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, better perspective on just everything.

So, yeah, he was an old school stoic guy that, you know, who had, it's funny because I think of this all the time now. Like, just had very little communication with my dad but one thing we did have because he was a he played uh like um pro baseball minor leagues right after and he was always our little league coach and grew up playing baseball so we just had this every day well let's go play some catch no matter what it was just like that you know throwing that ball back and forth not really talking but just like pop pop you know like yeah you always have like a 15 minute uh catch yeah yeah you know and let me throw me curveball and stuff but that was like i was like oh i did have it was just like the older i get i realize like you know sometimes i get into a uh py family if he should have gone to therapy and

all this and yeah i guess he should have but But at the same time, like, oh, depression era guy. Yeah, yeah. War, battle of the balls, all this stuff. And like, you know, in the final summation, he did really well. Yeah. And even that like weird thing was like, oh, that was, I have like kind of a more connection with him, I think, than other people in my family. But that was part of it. Just like, oh, he threw the ball back and forth 308,000 times. Yeah, yeah. threw the ball back and forth 308 000 times yeah yeah well no that is like that like i can totally see you know like non-emotional uh dad like being like i want to be with my boy yeah i don't want to

talk like let's go do that but the fact that you know he was expressing interest in a desire to be with you which you know there's a lot of fucking dads that they can't even muster that. Absolutely. And he was weird. He said something like, like, uh, funny every six months. Yeah. Yeah. He just like, and, but I always, one of our favorite, he had like a entertainment.

It was like Jonathan Winters, Johnny Cash. That was it. Really? Yeah. He would watch Hee Haw too, but didn't give a shit about anything else right right but uh what always got me even young because jonathan winters who i actually worked with and got to know a little bit it was fucking dark yeah dark dark guy right and he would go to those like areas every time my dad and i'm dark too you know so like jonathan winters would be

improvising as like the little kid at the barber. Then he'd like slice the barber's throat. And my dad, he'd like just get this kind of giggle. And so I really realized like, oh, he giggles at dark stuff. In fact, still being in comedy for years, whatever, to this day and probably will be forever, the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life was we were driving in winter. I was in the back seat. I was probably like eight years old. Mom and dad, our parish priest, like walking down the street, slipped on the ice, full ironing board, you know, just vertical in the air, wham, down on the hip and just like, oh. And I just like, ah. And then my mom

was like, oh, that's terrible. And then then i see my dad he's whimper laughing like trying not to you know and it was like 1970 or i don't know yeah and he's like and she's like alfred that's that's terrible and then she just kept feeding the flames by every 30 seconds as we're going down she would like i don't know what you think so it's funny and then just and i couldn't even tell the story for 15 years yeah getting through it cracking yeah just like that just made me love my dad too yeah and oh just one last one this is the best because of such perspective so growing up he is a Polack right yeah that you know and uh really impoverished depression era horrible like you know uh uh

alcoholic dad all this this terrible stuff so and, and when I was young, there was Polish jokes. Nothing like, oh, I'm so affected by it. But there was a point I went to a school. There were a lot more Polish jokes when I was a kid. Like, it was like jokes about stupid people, but it was Polish people. But it's not even, like, I don't even think, like, my kids would know what the fuck I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as my uncle would say, it's because they killed all the the smart poles in world war ii like all right take

it easy yeah but uh you are you are kind of copying yeah yeah and yeah and the grabowskis they do wear white socks and they're dumb but uh but anyways so i went to school and uh said oh blosher what kind of name is that and i was really enamored with being swedish and i was like blonde as a kid just because swedes vikings you know and like little kid you know like event memu movies yeah yeah sex the swedes are sexy of course yeah and uh so i said i'm swedish and the teacher like okay so we went to a parent teacher conference probably the only thing my dad ever went to yeah probably and had to be told where the school was sure yeah so and then we went and uh so that he said well i understand you're swedish the fucking teach right out of the gate and my mom had a lot of pride in being polish and whatever she was fuming like no we're polish

it's a polish name and it's this and that my dad said nothing and my mom was hot and i'm like oh boy my third or fourth grade yeah and my dad later it's so worldly because it wasn't till years later he goes well son he goes i know you want to be swedish but some of us gotta be polish so he didn't get mad you know what i mean he got it right and he was just like and my dad wasn't like that was like oh that's a pretty sophisticated take on a kid right right you know being like and a third or fourth grader too yeah yeah so it was like oh okay because that was like my mom was hot how did they all end up i'm because you're polish on both sides right yeah and how did they all end up in detroit was there just some sort of auto worker all my all my grandparents came uh to ellis island uh-huh uh so my dad uh they they

settled in dearborn in michigan and uh and then my uh my mom's side my grandfather became a coal miner in pennsylvania outside of pittsburgh and then just after the war large family they all came over one by one and my one uncle opened a butcher shop mother opened a bakery my mom came over at 17 just because the the coal it's a weird part of the coal was dying there yeah yeah so the whole family came to Detroit. And it was like this incredibly wonderful post-war thing. And then my dad, he had a shitty family, so he hooked up with them. And it was like, it was grand.

Yeah, because you had a huge extended family. Yeah, huge. All kinds of great stories about like your Uncle Wads. Yeah, Wadsworth. Just describe Uncle Wads. Uncle Wads. With the tattoo. Well, my grandfather had a tattoo of. Or is this your grandfather when i was real little so he had a tattoo of like a bust of a woman with

you know naked breasts but like really like i don't know it was in jail or something yeah yeah whatever probably on a ship yeah and he's like um yeah come over and i remember like his old leathery skin and you'd suck on the nipple of the breast oh fucking old men are weird but it was one of those yeah so it was one of those things that like you never thought was weird till like later like that's strange grandpa wanted me to suck the tit on his arm yeah but he was a he was a great old guy that uh hated Russians and uh Germans wow you know from all the stories are so epic and like yeah oh and then his brother he lived in the forest for six years with his wife till the germans shot up the barn and then she was killed and then he made his way yeah he made his way with

uncle and money and lost everything all this this crazy so all i had all my uncles were world war ii weirdos but uncle w Wads opened a bunch of bakeries, and he used to, like, gamble and was a legend. Didn't he have a tattoo on his back? Oh, no, that was my Uncle Hank. Oh, okay. He had a tattoo, kind of birds, and then he had two gremlins around.

I'm talking about on the back. The fox hunt. Oh, yeah, he had a fox hunt on his back right within the in the wiggle line uh the whole thing was being chased into his ass like horses and dogs yeah horses dogs and then out of the out of the crack of his ass was a was a wiggle line a little fox tail yeah with the fox tail coming out of his ass crack yeah i like that's the only tattoo i've ever wanted and i can't have it because somebody already has it. Well, yeah, it's fine.

They're all dead. I know. It's still. But anyway. Was that a lot? That was Hank. Oh, that was Hank, too. And that was like, I'm sure it was like, hey, I know how to draw this from when I was a kid.

And then just some World War II stuff. Yeah. And then I think they're in the South Pacific. Go for it. That's funny which are the foxes in my ass that was the uh best tattoo so have you ever been on the fox hunt what fuck what are you talking about yeah what about the yeah the equestrian i don't know but uh but anyway wads was the baker and i yeah you just told me once a story about

having to get wads out of the bar to finish a cake oh yeah so he uh so he was he he was amazing because he would drink and close the bar and then get up at like 3 30 to start baking which is like you can't be an alcoholic and a baker and he was and he lived all the way to his 80s yeah yeah and so there's two things that i've done in my life to delivered funeral flowers and wedding cakes two things you can't be late on, you know, completely. Right. But I remember, actually, this was a different cake. It was always like my Aunt Dolores would call and my brother was 10 years old and be like, oh, Wads is drunk and he needs to, you know, go over there.

Decorate some cakes, yeah. So he was, we're like holding him up and he was decorating like a congratulations cake. And he had this incredible gnarled like arthritic hands but he could make those roses yeah yeah maybe like making the rose petals and then i would like scoop the rose off the thing and you know because he was like could stand couldn't stand up and he was writing congratulations and he wrote perfect cursive writing because he's just like when he got out of the war, he just like worked these shifts and they just had perfect cursive writing. And then he wrote, congratulations.

And we're like, no, you got to scoop it off and clean it up. Yeah. But it was like just perfectly in the row. Yeah. Wow. I don't know the moral of that story. I don't either. You can be an alcoholic.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's always. I don't know the moral of that story. I don't either. You can be an alcoholic. Yeah, yeah, no. That's always, there's always those amazing stories of like why my grandfather was a horrible alcoholic and only ate liver and, you know, lived to 95.

He openly flirted with my girlfriend at my mom's funeral, which was pretty funny. Like having that big a family around, like did you find it like to end up being a plus or a minus? You know, like is it oppressive or is it cool to have that support structure? It was great. What's the old saying of like american families are either in a rise or decline yeah it became sad when it became in decline when i was a little kid so we had so many extended relatives and i had uncles a butcher and uncles a baker and you know we'd have these great christmas parties and and i had uncle that like you know my first

jobs were working in the bakery you know and on the east side there go, you know, sweep up and do stuff. So just this crazy support system of, you know, of uncles and aunts was like absolutely fabulous, you know, and then the incredible kielbasa. Here's how important kielbasa was in our family. So my uncle, by marriage, my Uncle Andy, he had a butcher shop. And he always made the kielbasa. And then my grandfather had a recipe. Which is a sausage. A sausage, right.

People don't know that. And so then every Christmas, they'd, you know, oh, everyone would get a bunch of kielbasa. You'd freeze it and what have you, just the extended family. So they're, you know, had it. You used it for barter. For barter. Yeah, yeah. My uncle had a little smokehouse in barter for barter yeah my uncle had

a little smoke house in his backyard and stuff so my uncle stopped making it so my other uncle took over who uh uh wasn't the butcher but you know they all had opinions about sure how you should make the kielbasa and they would occasionally get into like fist fights when i was really young about kielbasa well this one in particular was and i remember this exchange was that must have been a christmas party or something how's the kielbasa. Well, this one in particular was, and I remember this exchange was that, must have been a Christmas party or something. How's the kielbasa? And then my one uncle, and he just went like, too much caraway seed. Uncle A, too much caraway seed.

Uncle B, oh, fuck you. Swing. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Take it easy. Whoa, whoa, whoa. There is a lot of caraway seed. Yeah. So that's how important and really that could i was like kind of like i didn't think there was garlic and it was like pork beef caraway seeds

really pretty much yeah yeah the simplest yeah well as you got older i mean like you told me once i remember because i i mean my my upbringing was fairly safe, I guess, probably compared to yours. But you told me once like, and we were young when you told me this, like so many of your friends were either dead or in jail, you know, of the kids that you came up with. Yeah. You know, I grew up very interesting because I grew up very middle class. And in Detroit, there's a demarcation line. So I grew up working at like the Yacht Club, washing dishes. So I grew up near the Grosse Pointe cities.

Fabulously wealthy. You know what? I think Tim Meadows worked at the Yacht Club too. Oh, really? I think he did. The Detroit one or the Grosse Pointe one? Detroit. Oh, were you?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I worked at the Grosse Pointe one, washing dishes. But so, and I caddied at the detroit country club so i was like a mile from lakeshore drive fabulous yeah and then even three miles from henry ford house but then two miles the other way was like some of the first crack houses in the country there's like a demarcation line so i i went to school with a lot of kids went to a few different high schools because i was a troubled teen but uh so yeah i know but uh so you you get to like oh these these kids their parents are murderers or as a little kid i went over this kid's house and like

oh his dad's always drunk with his pants open on the couch you know and the lawn's this high and then we the kids said let's go break into the drive-in and then i remember he you know he took a shit in the urinal and like years later i'm like oh that's a deeply fucked up white trash family and then the other ones were like oh they're fucking rich you know and so i got a full spectrum of all that stuff but you know just late 70s early 80s detroit just cocaine like you know every every story like why doesn't this make sense should have a neon sign blinking above it cocaine cocaine you know so yeah i had you know, every story, like, why doesn't this make sense? It should have a neon sign blinking above it. Cocaine, cocaine, you know, so yeah. It's like movies of the time too. I always feel you're watching it and you're like, oh my God, there's so much cocaine in this movie when it's, you know, about.

Everything. Or watch on YouTube, Robin Williams on Johnny Carson. Oh, he shot out of a can. Oh. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, there was certainly hundreds of thousands of people, like, greatly affected.

And it almost seems like, and I was actually in the neighborhood of white boy Rick. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. And I grew up, like, by seven miles, you know. And it's almost like, don't want to make it seem dramatic because the stories are, you got to remember, back in the day, my brother was a cocaine dealer. And even to say that, it was like a cocaine dealer but like everyone did you know everyone like you know bought some to get some free or just like

you know and then he got into it heavier but even at the time he sold can't remember 1979 1980 he sold cocaine to like a major league baseball player who were named nameless but back then you could have called the local newspaper and like someone so bought a gram of cocaine and they'd be like great you know yeah there was no shit there was no stigma there was not like you know when i started working in film production in chicago they there were people that they would tell me stories about how every every tide commercial they'd have to hide cocaine in the in the budget so it'd be like they put it in the in the lighting package you know or in the edit suite time yeah hide places and it

was just and if you if you like you know jay walter thompson had a montgomery ward commercial and you were in charge of it and then they the Monk Rum Rewards and the J. Walter Thompson people showed up, and there's no cocaine, your career would be over. No. And it was really poisonous to me because my brother was 10 years older than he. So I did this when I was a ninth grader. I had a – and during the prom time, because even in prom time, even the high school quarterback would do a gram of cocaine.

Everyone would. Well, yeah, you got a splurge every now and then but i had a triple beam scale and made like you know almost two thousand dollars as a ninth grader staying in a suite that you know just like a little fucking kid and that just ruined me i think for like hard work yeah you know because i that was my like regrets of like, you know, even like not studying, you know, and, and, and,

and, and, and I always had like, you know, would read or have interest in movies and stuff, but just that is kind of like, you know, it's just this infantile neophyte,

like, suckers work. Like, all right. And then, you know, cut to, I have to join the army.

Not too far after. So, and do you think that, do you think that that was like like what's in your mind during this time because you're you know you're coming from you're coming from bakers and butchers you know and i mean i am i imagine is there the idea that you're going to be better than a baker or butcher are you going to be a baker or butcher or is there ever is it ever discussed well i'm always fascinated with the teenage mind because i think it's incredible how non-introspective i was about anything and then even having interest and even to the point of going to school when we hung out

and having these touchstone moments where like in class like writing something a teacher's going like oh that was very good and it is like oh i'm you know what i mean you're just even getting into things i'm like oh yeah i guess i have to make a career yeah i don't know because i was always you were influential to me because i would i think uh when you called me a contrarian once we were talking about like politics and things and i was like huh yeah maybe i am i thought i was a masterful divergent thinker but you know but maybe two things can be true at once but it really set me like yeah what's like what's really i never thought of it you know i mean that's and part of that's like good because i was very curious and

honest about anything i got into or even when i like you know oh i'm gonna get into the punk rock band because that punk rock was great because it was so anti you know everything but i never thought and then we're gonna put out you know just didn't think like that was just like this weird sanction madness and then like oh i don't know if i want to do that and then just flying by the seat of my pants till i i really like joined the army that was the first thing yeah i think i need to do something in this town. Do you think that absent of the easy money of coke that you would have – I mean, did it prevent you? Because you always had this like, oh, well, I can just make money, make a lot of money doing this thing that my brother's doing that seems fun. It was weird, but it was so chaotic and stupid when I was young that it really wasn't. And then when you kind of like did drugs, you'd be like,

oh, I don't have any money ever. You know what I mean? So I didn't really have ever a lot of money. And my brother's existence became very, like he bought a house young and stuff, but then, you know, he could never catch up with his ego and how that fucked up his life. And, you know, so it was, there was never that, I don't want to paint it like we had, so it, it was, there was never that. I don't want to paint it like we had, you know, it was a time of our lives. It was just,

you know, everything was like pretty fucked up, you know, and especially I had a young friend who, who, um, was dealing Coke. And then,

uh, he spilled some beer and then he sucked it all up and he had a heart attack at like age 18 or 19. That was, we went to his like, uh, you know, funeral and I was like, oh, that's weird. He's in the casket. But you still don't like – it's a big slap in the face. But I don't know.

That teenage mind is like so odd. Yeah. You know things. You're so bulletproof. Yeah. But yet it's just the two things are happening at once. It's kind of like – not to be strangely morbid, but when you talk about like the Columbine kids just planning this thing that got out of control and still planning to go to Arizona State, you know, simultaneously. Oh, were they?

Yeah, one of them was. You're kind of like, I don't know if they were competing at the time. What's a fantasy until it becomes real? You know, so there's some similarities of the strange mechanisms of the teenage mind. Yeah, yeah. real you know so there's some similarities of the strange mechanisms of the teenage mind yeah i think i had even into to to my 20s a little bit you know in in some ways you know but i was kind of but at the same time like even we you know hung out it was you were very influential because we weren't it wasn't like i had learned in the army too like don't pick your friends through aesthetics exactly like you know he doesn't have a mohawk but i

thought you were like so like oh that guy's cool and fucking smart and then oh he likes me and that's good enough for me right and then so all all of our existence and then we smooch then we smooch but we really just had like interests yeah yeah i mean and even going through whatever getting into comedy acting movies it wasn't like yeah I find – well, the cliche is in L.A. We're like, oh, can I parlay this into money or – you know what I mean? Everything is immediately art meeting commerce or all that. So it was very like – like I said, until the watershed moment of like, he's being choked by Gacy and getting paid.

This can happen. I heard bells. Yeah. Remember, wasn't you, a group of you also got hired by the local radio jackass, Jonathan Brandmeier? Yeah, yeah. But it was like something like, whoa, they got paid to be comedy writers. But someone heard him bragging like, I'm getting these guys for 30 bucks a week oh it was something like that yeah no there were like jonathan brandmeyer was a big shot i don't want to spend too much time with jonathan brand for people there were jonathan

brandmeyer i said jackass yeah he was he was a hugely popular morning dj and chicago radio was a big deal yeah and uh he got a syndicated talk show through fred silverman productions and then his producer who's like a radio producer which will tell you like what a top-notch guy he was because he was a radio producer um baba booey and baba booey is like the you know he's the albert einstein of those guys and i love baba buoy but uh but so he they went out and got hired researchers because they couldn't pay people as writers because that's a guild thing and there was like two spots there were two guys that already been hired and then there were two other spots and i was with an improv group and i was saying well let's go for it but let's keep the two spots because i was like i want to make enough money to stop like i don't want to wait tables anymore

right right and they're like no it'll be better if nine of us cycle into those two spots and i'm like no no they're getting nine brains for the price of two right you're allowing them to fuck us over and and i kept pushing and then there was like a point where they were i was i realized okay now i should just shut up this is the way it's going to be and it was you know it was awful and short-lived too and short yeah very short-lived it was a terrible terrible show and although we did very quickly learn and there's no internet then so we're going through like weird special interest magazines and ordering free crap from the back like we got like five blow dart guns they were like we're doing a bit with blow darts could you send us some blow dart guns which is and

i might have been mccann that there was a blow dart guns? I might have been McCann. There was a blow dart gun around the house, wasn't there? One of them ended up coming home. Those things are nasty. You get somebody in the neck. I think I remember shooting one into the railroad ties of the L from a high altitude somehow. That sounds right. Wow.

And then we also got the famous Sibian videotape. The Sibian is a sex device that's like basically a washing machine. It's like a half a barrel. Yeah, it's like a washing machine motor. It's the size of a small cooler, and you straddle it. Way to take the romance out of the Sibian. That's just a washing machine motor over a plastic housing.

Makes me feel good. a washing machine motor over a plastic housing. But it is, I mean, it's- Makes me feel good. I don't know. I don't know if they still exist. I know they had them on, you know, Howard Stern used to have them, but they are hilarious because it's like with a case for travel, but it's like a travel microwave, you know, like a microwave oven. It's like, you can put it in this case and carry it to your hotel room like yeah with a microwave oven you know take it to the airport well then

so you went to the army because you fucked up yeah yeah yeah and uh and didn't you have to like like hitchhike back from florida when you went and joined no basically i i i had the great idea of like i'm gonna you know detroit was you, bad back then, you know, jobs and stuff. So like, I'm going to go to Florida where everyone's moving. At the time, there's a big exodus. There used to be bumper stickers. Last one out of Michigan, turn the lights off and stuff like that nature. So went down, hooked up with some friends.

They were all really fucked up on cocaine and had a couch and cocaine. I'm like, that ain't going to work. So then I, it was pretty brutal i i was like man i'm running out of money and i went to uh mardi gras sure you know when you're running out of money you might as well go to mardi gras uh and you know things were how old are you like 19 yeah yeah 19 just turned 19 and i'm like wow bite the bullet. I got to call my dad and be like, you know, Western Union some money. Because I'm like, I'm in New Orleans with no money. Yeah.

None. And just, you know, don't know anyone. Just sounds romantic. Bad. Yeah. You know, underwear stinks. Yeah, yeah. But anyways, so for some reason I knew like i need money for a bus ticket to come back

i'll do the cheapest one the greyhound and i knew exactly what like the the cost yeah and so my dad said like all right and he sent exactly the price and i'm like huh not nothing to eat so it's like on a fuck yeah like why didn't I say? And then they would. Add 40 bucks or whatever. I know. And then they would pull into a Hardee's and everyone would get up or something and just, oh, just stay here. And just like, like literally like, oh, if they have a drinking fountain or going in the bathroom and like water, just, you know, awful.

Wow. So I got back and saw my dad there. Like it was early in the morning and just like exchanged, you know, whatever. And then he went and my mom ate a sandwich. And it was this easy. I was like, huh, I'm going to join the Army. Where's the recruiter? Phone book.

Walk to the recruiter. Uh-huh. Oh, you got to take this test. Okay, when's the fastest I could leave? Went through the testing and stuff. And like, oh, yeah, you can do everything. And it hadn't crossed your mind prior to that? No. Really? No. When's the fastest I could leave? You know, went through the testing and stuff and like, oh, yeah, you can do everything. And then like, so I became a. And it hadn't crossed your mind prior to that?

No. Really? No. Wow. No. It's like solution. Wow. Were you, I mean, is that like that kind of impulsivity?

Is that, have you done that other times or was that just like a weird. Decades. that just like a weird decades i did i was running a room with a bunch of youngsters uh talking about something like oh i like how this is set up and they're like oh that's spontaneous and i said like i've lived whole fucking decades of my life spontaneously so come talk to me later it's not oh it's cracked up to be i won't i won't take that one. You know, there's positives, but. Yeah. But sure, it was impulsivity, but also it was creative problem solving. Yeah, yeah.

It really was. Yeah. And, you know, just like, you know, back against the wall. And it did wipe the slate clean. You were all of a sudden in a brand new environment, you know, starting from scratch. It was spectacular. Yeah. And not to be uh not to be

not to be so uh or anti that even really but it was spectacular because very few things in especially then you know you're in an organization where like i don't think i can do it you have to do it okay you know like just the saturation learning and a lot of like fascinating things like that where like you know especially when you get into the entertainment business later like well hold on this isn't really a meritocracy around here is it you know yeah yeah you know and uh or uh actually uh i always remember what conan said about hollywood a hollywood where the cream doth not always rise to the top but uh but but no it was it was spectacular i went and i lived in germany i became a mp but more like a grunt not like a actual cop like physical security but everything was based on

like when can i leave the fastest yeah yeah yeah and just that so it's really fascinating like you know just like i guess i'm going here just something really fun to like plug into a a thing like that and also like the greatest drug treatment program at the time just like can't do it yeah you know and and just youth you know that can uh yeah yeah you can but sure yeah it does like free up any like you do like huge changes like that and they really do only work they work so much better when you're young oh yeah but it is like you you free yourself of like i you know anything like you know rent i don't have to worry about that anymore like what should i even down to like what should i wear sure oh yeah i don't even have to think

about that yeah which i'm sure is all part of it and even to boil it down further just new landscapes even with you know tragedy in your life and grief new lands you know help yeah yeah at all you know i'm always happy to be on a road i've never seen before no matter how mundane a little bit you know not always like yeah unless oh what are those oh it's a cartel oh fuck oops still romantic about this road well so i want to get i want you came back from the army and you end up in Chicago and you go here in film school and that's where you and I meet. Yep. I don't remember the actual time.

It was, I mean, you know, you ended up seeing everybody around, you know, because it's a downtown school in Chicago and you you're in basically at the time like three office buildings right whereas now it's like i don't know if you've been back there but it's like 30 yeah the whole south loop is all columbia college but it was what was really cool about the place was that it was very it was like a trade school for show business and a trade school for acting and it was very employ employment based like here's how you go out and get a job in this thing and they did teach you the basics of how to make movies and then you know and then i went and worked on you know tv commercials and learned 18 times the amount of stuff that i learned watching you know right of course man of air i remember getting a couple jobs like literally you know you

have the uh when we live together the uh answering machine and then someone like hey is andy there you know and it wasn't like cell phone stuff i'm like no oh yeah you know when he's i don't know he's doing this and then he's like what are you doing i remember a couple times like i went and got a job like like a day rate of painting a floor and doing stuff yeah i'm capable and right right you know i'll be a pa you know that was pretty pretty exciting yeah but that was i mean so that was i i actually where we met matt was i was a ta for that audio guy howard oh yeah who was. Who was like a kind of an audio scientist genius, like one of the like legit geniuses of the staff there. Right, because he had early.

But super crotchety. Yeah, he had early sampling. Like he had a wind instrument that was like digital and would sample. Yeah, yeah. And that was very early in a lot of things like that. And he used to, remember, he used to take his shoes off and smoke. Yes. And his ashtray would get so big and sometimes it would drop onto his socks yeah yeah and he also he wore lots

of quarter or three-piece suits i think yeah yeah he went to his house once near the studio in his house oh that's right yeah we had a field day but i was his ta and i was a very competent ta right and i told him at the beginning i was like i don't know shit about sound but you know what you know i can get your microphones you tell me what you need and i can hook up microphones but like i don't know anything about mixing or anything but i remember one time plug in the cable one time i did blow on a microphone to see if it was open and he shrieked at me you can't do that with a condenser my you know whatever yeah okay i didn't all right sorry uh oh funny he's like you tap it okay you know but so yeah we met there and then i also was friends with steve evans right

who was a student he's a uh a welshman uh yeah you can still i love how i became roommates with him and then you were roommates with him. And that's one thing I love. Hi, Steve, if you're out there. That when I first got to, because he and I were together in two classes. Right. And then had a meal break in between. So we ended up eating together. And he's, I mean, he was a great, hilarious guy.

Yeah. But he had a cast on his arm when I first met him. Yeah. And I found out. I lived with him with that. A year and a half later that, and he said like, oh yeah, I tripped on my book bag coming down the stairs and broke my arm. It was totally fake because he wouldn't do his editing project.

He put a cast on his own arm. Do you want to hear the whole thing? And I was friends with him through the whole cast, like asking him about it. And then, and then years later you mentioned it. And I was like, wait, that was all a lie. I was, he's like, yeah,

I'm sorry. I couldn't tell you. I was like, yes, you could. Oh my God. It's so funny. Cause we tortured him.

So we lived on, I can't remember. We had an upstairs apartment and in like a duplex. It was three. And Kurt was, it was, no, it was,

it was, I think it was, um, it was rich Higgins. Oh yeah. Yeah yeah him and me okay so he's like can't do my project so and he was always like sometimes i would have a car be like we're going in for that class steve oh he would sleep you know and i would we'd try to sign the thing for him and he just was like that but so he came and then he said he missed like the final. And I remember he goes, how does one make a cast, you know?

And so I remember him getting like, oh, it's like plaster of Paris and like gauze. And then he went. And then I remember came home and like, oh, there's a bowl with, he's making a cast. So I think all three of us helped make it. And so he had it right. And then he said he went to tell the teacher and it's like yeah i tripped over my book bag you can't tell anyone right so um he he went to the teacher and the teacher's like oh where'd you get it like done and he's like oh this hospital my wife works there i

think you know that's a weird who did it like the teacher kind of knew and i think didn't push it to a point like don't they have these different kinds of and then he just would crumble and he's like i imagine that could have been it so anyways he's like how long do you keep it on like six weeks day three this itches he figured a way to like take it off and put it on oh so he could take it up so uh and he didn't want anyone knowing and only his roommates knew and we would just torture him it was so stupid like why are you doing that so we would routinely when him. It was so stupid. Like, why are you doing that? So we would routinely, when he had the cast off, we'd hide the cast and then since we lived upstairs,

it would be like, oh, one of us would go downstairs and ring the doorbell. Oh, yeah, so and so, you know, Mike Armstrong, a bunch of people are coming over and then we'd go down

and ring the doorbell and see him frantically. Fuck, where's the cast? Because we had hid it somewhere and he's just scrambling around and then we'd come up and the door would open to be one of us and he's like oh you motherfucker i mean we did that half a dozen times fucking incredible oh yeah because you know it is all of that is a lot easier than just doing the editing project the editing project that oh that

would be terrible i hope he's out there because i believe i'm not speaking out of turn here and well i doubt his parents would be listening to this but I kind of think he told them he had graduated when he didn't. Oh, boy. Yeah, there's other stuff there. You should have him on. Well, so. God, that's funny. So then we go to college.

I end up doing performing stuff. You started doing improv and i remember you and i started taking classes together yeah which i gotta tell you i was a little bit like there was i mean because i love you and you're one of the funniest people i've ever known so and i'm starting out in this thing and it's like i was very happy that you wanted to be there but i was also a little threatened by really oh absolutely absolutely because you are you know well that's that's the most horrible thing sometimes that i didn't like about but i didn't it didn't stop me i never said like hey i don't want you doing this or right well comedy it's like the you know the competitive competitiveness of comedy is so odd and it's out

there you know it's in everything you know what i mean but specifically that sales you know yeah yeah no it's it is it's a weird thing to quantify and get competitive about but it's also it's a look at me contest right right so i mean there's an inherent competition in that you know it is and i i really hated it in some ways yeah to this day i a, just kind of like doing an early improv thing. It's almost like I got like a little psychologically damaged or something because, and they're just kind of figuring out like, like you said, when they made me think like, maybe I'm a contrarian or maybe, you know, I could always easily look, you know, I have a natural ability to look at the negative things. Yeah. I see them clear as day. Right, right.

I see ultraviolet. Yeah. I'm like one of that mantis shrimp with. Right. Right. I see ultraviolet. Yeah. I'm like one of that mantis shrimp with those weird eyes. I can see ultraviolet negativity and everything that other people can't. Yeah. But, uh, so it was like,

you know, that fucking piano that like someone always score thing. And it would be like, uh, and one of the things was called musical styles. Like, so you'd, you'd do a musical.

So you'd have a premise, someone like, and you'd be there or something. And then someone would yell out a musical style like blues and then that fucking piano player would go so horrible like little electric piano and then someone would have to start singing blues and then someone yelled so this was probably 19 i don't know 90 91 someone 91. Someone yelled, rap. And maybe it was even earlier. So at that time, if you remember, like there was the Super Bowl shuffle and a lot of like hip hop people like.

And then it got. My name is so-and-so and I'm here to say. Bingo. Yeah, yeah. So then it was like someone. And then the piano player, I remember going like, oh, what's a hip hop beat on that piano? And then going like. I'm going like, oh, what's a hip hop beat on that piano?

And then going like, and just like, and then waiting in a line. And like about 80% of my brain is going like, oh, you can't fucking do this. Just get out of here. This is awful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the crowd's liking it, you know, and it's, you know, and then going down the line, people are saying, and I think it literally was. And I'm here to say, my baby's the best, whatever today. Right, right. So a portion of my brain is like, well, you got to think of a rhyme because you got to join in.

But most of my brain is just kind of like going, don't do it. No, no, no. And then I got through it and somehow was like, but I just felt like almost like a weird flush, like, I don't like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And not even to be pretentious or just like, I don't like this yeah yeah yeah and and you know not even to be pretentious or just like i don't i don't like this it doesn't yeah and even it was almost like one of those weird things like years later you'd be driving things are going pretty good and then you have to pull over and oh that improv that the shame i felt shame of that rap

improv with that. I remember when you, because you and I were going to be on the same team. This is before we got on, because that was the way it worked. You started in classes. Yeah. And then this woman, Sharna Halpern, who was, Del Close ran the school. Sharna ran Del. It was the least intimidating pyramid scheme. No one close would have caught her.

But then Sharna would decide it was time for you to be on a team and she was going to put you and me on a team together and it was i think i was working on a production or something because i'm it was on the phone and you told me yeah i'm not going to do it uh and and i said why and you said because there's a little bit too yeah for me right and i was like okay yeah i see that i knew exactly what you meant and like and believe me because it's like you know i went on and did lots of improv uh and there was all kinds of times where i felt that shame and yeah you know and it just became like you know like somebody who like shows their ass for a living it's like come on in take a look fellas yeah you know and i would have done that i think but uh but also you have certain things like clean that toilet all right

you know yeah yeah it's not like but just something about it i know it's it's yeah you know and i don't want to be like i'm too cool for school because you know i saw the value of or something but you know no but it's also too i think there is i was always at my foot in two worlds too like no i'm goth with sasha and all the russians and then fucking those are friends no and then no it's like i'm not god i'm also with the comedy guys oh i tried to wear engineer boots with my jeans tuck in but i'm a little too big i remember us having having parties at that time where it would be like half improv, like guys in hockey jerseys named Matt. And then half, you know, like Russian art student with East German girlfriend. And the culture clashes.

They'd be like, I just remember one time when I would always be like, let's just aggressively drink until we can't see. But I just remember when somebody from my film school, our film school side of my life, just going, well, but why do they have to be so loud? And I was like, well, it's kind of this thing. Yeah. Just guys bellowing. And that's sort of what it is. Yeah. And then you'd look over and see like a red face Kecking. Yeah. And that's sort of what it is. Yeah. And then you'd look over and see like a red-faced Keckner.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, too, you know, it also, being red-faced guys bellowing in an apartment was like some of the biggest laughs I've had in my life. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was great, too. It was like, I see the value in both worlds. Yes, yes.

You know, completely. Yeah. No, it was. But then, so i ended up getting on the conan show and i think you submitted writing once yeah and and then you submitted again and they hired you and it wasn't and i you know it was you got hired based on the merits of the package and uh and the show had been on like a year and a half or something right something like that in fact it was the it was the greatest phone call I ever got.

Yeah. I think besides maybe the Vincent K. McMahon phone call. But because I was like struggling because everything was going great. And, you know, I was living with my girlfriend at the time and I was dealing weed. Yeah. But I had like stopped. It was kind of like running like a soccer team. And I bought marijuana from a defense attorney.

And I had, I'm not trying to romanticize. I guess I am. I think I will. You're selling me. It's a big deal. And also it was like Friday. I had a separate phone, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. You know, that place over by Damon and Lincoln there.

And I'm available those times. And, you know, I would make like 40 grand a year tax-free. I still look at my social security. One of these years was zero. So everything was great, you know. But I was like stagnating. I wasn't doing anything creatively or even going on that path. And it really like, and I'm like, oh, I can't.

I used to have like anxiety dreams that like oh the laws after because you know even though everything was all you know buttoned up and i'd buying like some lady i'm buying four quarters for my theater group you know and you know it was all that so it really like bothered me and i'm like i gotta like start doing some so then i saved up money and I was trying to make a film, which back then, now like everyone makes a film. But then it was kind of like a big deal. Yeah. And you had to do it on film. Yeah.

And it was going to be, but it's like, oh, with these, some of the Polacks and some of the Russians. And then it was about a stolen car ring that actually happened. And I was really getting into it with this other guy and stuff. And then it completely like fell apart. And I like oh that's just so brutal and i was really like at a crossroads and it was like really like i'm really down in the dumps because i stopped spelling weed purposely yeah yeah and then like okay and then what do i work and and then you called and like i want to hire you and i just remember like i never had a feeling like depression just. Just rushing out of your body.

Rushed out. It was like. Yeah, yeah. Literally like. And so that was, that was like fabulous, you know. And then even, it was funny. Oddly, I'll tell you, like, when the first submission, when we all like submitted, it was kind of like, I still was like, it's going to, you know, have those ideals of like, oh, it's going to be what I want to see on TV, everything weird. But also kind of cutting your teeth on like Monty Python. You're always like thinking of like, oh, I don't like things that are presentational.

Yeah. I like that nonstick, that kind of madness. Right. So that it came out, it's like, oh, it is just a show with a desk. I was kind of like, I don't want to say disappointed, but I was like, oh, that's not exactly what i thought my own fault like you know whatever i thought it was going to be the most fabulous off the wall thing for for 700 people you know the desk will be upside down right exactly yeah and then so when i i got that it was the greatest thing i was like oh of course so when i first went i was kind of like it's weird because you kind of like

everyone's congrats congrats and that's when the pressure starts yeah well here here's my desk could you close the door you know how do i do that especially knowing like oh i'm off the wall i always thought i could be like one of the more socially funny people i was thought like if there was a war i'd be like fucking funniest guy but you know to like uh submit these you know jokes but something has to be produced yeah and then it's just bullshitting yeah and then realizing you know that oh you know you're you're synthesizing things in prison you know and just and just all that kind of like knowing when you write something you know, when you put it on your feet with the rehearsal, like it's got to be half as long, you know, those kind of lessons. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it was kind of like at first, like really intimidating. And then I remember the first thing that really broke that was weird was the different directors do shows. And then you actually got like a belly shot. Yeah, yeah, I got shot. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because it was kind of like. With a squib. Yeah, so it's like, oh, we can do this weird kind of shit. do shows and then you actually got a like a belly shot yeah yeah i get shot yeah yeah yeah because it's kind of like with a squib yeah so it's like oh we can do this weird kind of shit and i don't think you know it's like yeah let's get an action movie and just have andy get shot with blood right and it really worked like great and was like people were that's dynamic and so like that was

kind of like oh how do i finagle weird off the wall stuff but still being uh presentational and right and and and work so that was like a huge moment like oh okay and the other thing that saved me was that the editing was so shitty sometimes back then that and having like a film uh background a little bit or something like well that that piece of footage is ruined and like why don't we just drop the sound out and leak the audio from the next shot over before it what you know it's like yeah got this guy to do the remote so just like you know things like that became a little forte because that well but to be fair those editors were used to editing like the today show yeah yeah they weren't filmic editors and they were

besides uh uh mark the guy from senate live like the old crusty guy. And they were, besides Mark, the guy from Saturday Night Live, like the old crusty guy, like, and they were old union guys. They're like, hey, I need to pull this up. Pull it up. I worked at KVAS in Kansas City. And we had a, Jesus. You know, the more you tell them you need something fast. It's like 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning, too.

Yeah. Shock. That was, I remember when, like, the more you say you need need something fast that's when you just see him from behind go yeah yeah speed is not yeah it was it was an exciting time and it was fun and it was and i was i was the same way as you i you were naturally likable yeah that is true not all of us have no but i got you know i was the first person there with conan and uh i was the first writer hired and then i was i don't know if i really felt like this is something anybody said or it was just what i decided the show was going to be that i was like it's going to be a talk sketch hybrid like we're going to have sketches almost every day yeah and

we even talked about me having like a repertory players. Like, you know, I think Steve Allen, you know, had like Tim Conway. Mighty Carson players. Although no one really remembers that. Yeah. Yeah. But, but like, you know, Carol Burnett and Tim Conway were, were sketch players from a talk show that I think was Steve Allen show. Right.

And so I was like, yeah're gonna do that because actually when robert talked to me about being sidekick i was like i don't know maybe i want to be one of the recurring guys and he came into my office and told me this and i've said this before like he left and the door closed went click close and i went like who am i kidding right yeah like hey do you want to be on tv every night? Or maybe, you know, some weeks, two nights, sometimes. I was like, I'm going to be the sidekick. Yeah. I remember when that happened. It was oddly just because there was something about you.

Someone said to me, it was Keckner. Someone was like, it just wasn't surprising. It was just oddly like, I don't know. I just wasn't even surprised. I said, like, you know, yeah, they're going to make him the sidekick. I'm like, yeah, of course they are. You know, I don't know. It just was like, yeah, that makes sense. And it's kind of like a good, you know, think yeah they're gonna make him the sidekick and like yeah of course they are you know i don't know just it was like yeah that makes sense and it's kind of like a good you know

a good foil yeah no it was uh it was you know i really think no one would have known it was really wise of him to choose me yes yes one of the best moves he ever made yep uh no i'm sure there's destructive effects on both of you irreparable but sure we basically ruined each other made each other both incapable of accepting love or certainly producing it

I just like to say psychological quagmires of doom a little easier yeah no we're podcasters now yeah by the way who do i invoice for this you uh so you were on the conan show for how long four years four years yeah a little more and it was yeah and it was a fun it was fantastic it was a really fun time oh there's like just

unbelievable shit that was so fun like Like, what did you do today? Oh, I sat under a hot bleacher and listened to Nipsey Russell with a tuba, like, joining me to do some bit. You know, and long rides with Nipsey Russell. Right, right. In a van. Or Abe Bogota. You know, spending the afternoon with Abe Bogota on Coney Island in the rain.

Some of the best things ever. Like, you know, like even as a little kid, real little kid, one of the first shows, George Plimpton had this show where he did other. It's kind of like what a summation of like all the books he was famous for. But it was a TV show. Yeah, he would do immersive things. Yeah, he'd be a goalie. He'd be this. And I always loved that as a real little kid.

And I remember just this weird thrill. I was in a restaurant and because we had just done a bit or something and then he's like you know like tap tap in line hey it's like what's george plimpton oh wow yeah you know just like those then there's plenty of people like there's so and so i don't give a shit yeah george plimpton absolutely in a line at a restaurant and just like, you know, just odd. So many, too many to count, you know, just like sometimes like I remember doing satellite TV and playing like the cupcake cowboy and just like there was something stressful happening. Like I got to go to Central Park and this like get up and like ride a horse into a deli, you know, just to get a cupcake. Yeah. Yeah.

So fun. deli you know just to get a cupcake yeah yeah so fun i remember the other side is like sometimes you'd get real honest to goodness horrible stress like waking up at 6 a.m like the red afro i didn't order the red afro very odd what so what when you decided to go what what was what happened well you know honestly i just think it is a burnout there is a burnout there you know it is it was one of the i think one of the smarter things in my mind i thought by being like you know i think now i can articulate like every relationship is like sacrifice and fulfillment as you perceive it you know and it's got to be pretty pretty even it's never going to be even so i couldn't in some ways i wish i was wired up different we'd be like everything's set i'll just

stay with this but i think i had like aspirations to do other things and sometimes i felt like you know through no fault of the show or whatever like uh is this being creatively institutionalized because everything has to be in this short of a form and just you know i'm just restless by nature and struggle with that so in my mind i'm like do i have the ability to just suppress it and feel like it's too much of a sacrifice or do i have to leave yeah and you know it's through no fault of and even then i thought like i'm gonna leave and i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna enjoy so i had that i said like i'm leaving in two months and just loved it it was the first time i was like i'm not gonna i and I'm going to do this and I'm going to enjoy it. So I had that. I said, like, I'm leaving in two months and just loved it. It was the first time I was like, I'm not going to.

I think sometimes people have to build into like, I have to make this shitty. So then when I leave. Yeah. And I didn't do that. And so oddly, I had plans to go to California like everyone at the time to like, I'm going to go out and sitcom Gold Rush or what have you. I'm going to go out and sitcom Gold Rush or what have you. And through the show, I met Vince McMahon, and I knew about wrestling because I had a little past. You chatted with him about it too, so he knew that you were.

Yeah. In fact, I did the dumbest thing. I boobed into it, and I'm like, you know what you need to do? Because now it's different because everyone's a mark and knows the language. My brother had, again, sold some drugs to pro wrestlers back yeah and we knew some you know and and so i kind of was like wisened up like knew some of the language like you know going over and popped and who's a mark and all this kind of stuff that everyone knows now so i would use that with vince like you know that guy's gonna be over just to be kind of a jerk because i produced the segment actually when he's on and And then he's like, and shout out to Frank Smiley because he's like,

this guy knows everything about wrestling. You got it. Yeah. He laid that on him. And then I fucking got a phone call from him. Hey. And I'm like, Vincent K. McMahon. And I'm like, what?

And I was like, I got a phone call from Vince McMahon. And then he's like, what, you know. And this is out of the blue, too. There's no warning like Vince is looking for it. Out of the blue. And then he's like, why don't you come on down to, I can't remember how it goes. Yeah, I went to Connecticut. And I went to, I said like, I said, hey, I got plans to go to this, but I just came to see your office.

And like, and he's like, why don't you come out for a couple shows and just consult, give you $1,000 a show. And I'm like okay and he had the big old book in his great office and just and uh he had all like the dates in it and he's where do you want to go and oh it's all handwritten it was then yeah he had a ledger book and it was like oh so awesome and then he goes um well we're in like chicago next week and i was like how about this i'd rather go like i think it it was Louisville and Birmingham. That seems to be more, you know, oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then his office.

And back then, so this was pre-9-11, he cut the first class airline tickets right in the office. They had like, either they own, somehow, somehow they cut it in the offices. So I left there with like a. First class ticket. Oh, my God. That's fantastic. Two checks. $2,000. I'm sure he had a travel business. Yeah, First class ticket. Oh, my God. That's fantastic. Two checks. $2,000. I'm sure he had a travel business.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. And then it was like – I'm like, what? You know, oh. That was just like, oh, that's good. Oh, my God. That makes me – that turns me on.

Oh, it was unbelievable. Can you imagine having that power? Like, hold on. Clickety-clack. First class. Yep. To Louisville. Yep.

There you go. So I went, first class to Louisville. Yep, there you go. So I went, and it was so odd. So there was a guy named Vince Russo running a lot of the background then. So I went, and it was very odd because it was so busy, right? You're going to the mountain, and you're kind of like either thrown to the wolves, like, what are you thinking? I'm like, I don't know. I'm hanging around.

Where do I stand? And also, I could go into, I mean, you go on the road, it's kind of like here's, you know, you get on the road, it's kind of like, here's, you know, you get all your paper caterings over here, whatever. Here's the signposts, you know, here's makeup, all this, and here's Vince's office. And people work there 20 years, don't just walk in Vince's office. So it's like, who's this guy? And I'm like, I don't know.

And there was a lot of this, like, what's weird? So I'm hanging around and, and they kind of like do that on purpose, Vince. Sure. You know, it's like, is that guy dating Stephanie? What's this? You know? So I went to a couple of shows and then it was like, okay, that was cool. But I don't think I'm going to like, you know, I don't think I'm going to do this. I don't know.

It didn't seem like something like here's the position, whatever. And then we were going to New York and he goes, and Vince Russo goes like, just go to TV in New York one more time. And he's like, because I was going to be like, I don't think I'm going to do this. And he's like, okay. And I'm like, yeah, that's where I live. So it was like, it was a Nassau Coliseum show on a Monday or Monday, Tuesday. Used to do Monday Night Raw and Tuesday was Smackdown to tape. Yeah. to tape yeah and then so i'm gonna go to madison square garden and he goes uh vince goes uh well uh

hey wcw like turner stole the whole couple creative staff guys away you know so we got no show which vince said i left him with a show whatever let's just write the shows on yellow pads of paper yeah and he's like let's figure this out you know so we we kind of like booked it all there and then in a weird power play vince was like would you like to run the show like because you have a production meeting you have like the folding table and then people who's this guy and he's like so i'm like okay segment one this will happen this will go over and people were like you know that looking there's like oh god there's michael ps hayes that's fucking sergeant slaughter like with and i'm like this is fucking you know talk about looking through the looking glass where will i be what the fuck yeah yeah you know and um so

i just kind of like cold cold here's what you're gonna do yeah yeah and then uh so it's kind of like wow that's crazy and then you know i called uh my girlfriend time i'm like yeah i'm i'm not coming back because i was just going to come back i just i think i just got a high profile position in professional wrestling you know which is and then my main thing was like which is guys like i can't be an old man and not do this not try because at the time like agent what are you doing and people still look down their nose at it yeah very much so it's so different from today like even like intellectuals would be like you know that's not real you know yeah i kind of when i was in third grade and they stomp it's not an effective way to you know but then you learn the nuances of what's what is real and what's a word and all these

other still hurts and yeah it's and there's murder and ruins your body yeah yeah so yeah and and beyond that but so then the next day i went to nasa and that was like a horrible like oh there was this guy who just passed away uh recently darren drosdoff who's a fabulous athlete and kind of like did a thing where uh he could throw up on command if you know if c beyond the mat he's in it and like hey let's do a thing so v, we'll handle it. So I'm like, kind of like, they were excited to be like, oh, the new guy's giving us a push and we're doing this and that. And then he had a mishap and he broke his neck and he became paralyzed for years. But like that, at that moment, and I came, you know, they're like, oh, I remember the doctor being there.

And then everyone's like, you know, we got to figure out how to edit this show you know even though everyone's grieving and all this and very a very apropos pro wrestling moment and then i remember i had a rental car and driving back and uh was meeting my girlfriend at the time and then kind of like uh i somehow wound up like in staten island like way like i was like oh you know where am i driving and just like in a weird mood and i felt like i felt it like it was a month i was like it was just oh yesterday i was kind of go to medicine square garden and say goodbye and come back for lunch and now what's happening yeah yeah so then i just went on the road for you know for a year and the thing kept growing and and it was a super super exciting time what a what an unbelievable business especially when there's nothing like very similar like uh just the work ethic and putting on a show the same day yeah all

that excitement and then then then going out to hollywood and like hold on buddy we gotta talk about this joke in the sitcom again and then replace it in the 11th hour with something inferior because we're panicked i don't like my family we're not going home before 10 p.m sorry you gotta talk about this yeah can't you tell my love's a crow uh i also to touch, because we've been talking a long time. I want to touch on Metalocalypse. I got to go? Yeah, yeah. It's enough. It's enough.

Metalocalypse. Yes. Just talk, because that, I don't know. Well, first of all, is it available anywhere? Are they like hoarding space? It's on Max. Okay. You know, it used to be HBO Max when we were kids.

I know. It's so much better now. Yeah. It's such a time saver. Yeah. Oh, and then HBO. It's so weird better now. It's such a time saver. Yeah. And then HBO. It's so weird to say. H and then B?

Yeah. I always called it Hubbo. Yeah. So, you know, I get in a lot of trouble. I think it is now. But I always hear like, oh, man, they're taking it off. And then there's a movie coming out on Max soon. And then.

Oh, there's a Death Clock movie? Yeah, on Max. Oh, wow. Yeah, wow yeah and did you work on it yes yeah yeah oh awesome so um so yeah just because it's it's the that show is so fucking funny oh and even you know thanks like it's too for those that don't know it i think the pitch the elevator pitch was it's a death metal group that is like the world's third largest economy there's that and and but speaking of that that good what did you call it the uh elevator elevator pitch it was one of the examples where we always went back to our phrase which was similar

to that book which was imagine a death metal band a thousand times bigger than the beatles yeah so more popular so whenever you're writing you're kind of like okay what would the world be like if something was that popular the government would have to either be ready to kill them or be on their side and it's a death you know so yeah we had a very succinct little just phrase that we could always go back to to problem solve everything yeah which was kind of like oh i wish a lot of things would like work like that or you do try to like you know to have that one word. And it actually worked.

But what a fun thing. Like we were talking about now. You did that with Brandon Small. Brandon Small, yeah. It was just a great time of, you know, there's always windows opening and closing. Like, Netflix, they're picking up everything. Oh, great.

Not anymore. They sucked. They're the worst. That's how I look at it like when you jump through that window before but uh so at the time there's this uh mercurial uh wonderful weirdo named mike lazzo used to run adult swim and they were they were often and so they would be kind of subsidized by family guy rerun so they had money and they'd be like and he'd be like man i can do you know make weird shit weird shit yeah so we we did this show at the steve allen theater called the dumb dildo show which was a live show

where we our claim which was true was like we sponsored by dumb dildos yeah we write it in the afternoon and then we put it up at night right and we have like you know and we have like two wigs and a smoke machine but i'm in yeah it was fun wait you didn't try hard and the production value is low right wow but we did this bit

where like because we both love death metal and Cannibal Corpse one of our favorite bands and you know

with great songs like Bent Backwards and Broken Fucked with a Knife you know but is that in parenthesis the Fucked with a Knife or is it all no that's a separate song oh I see I don't think they have any parenthetical songs you know, but, uh, in parentheses, the fuck to the knife. No,

that's a separate song. I don't think they have any parenthetical songs. Uh, hammer smashed face. Yeah, sure. Yeah. You know,

great stuff. Um, so anyways, you have a, you know, all that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.

And so we thought like, Oh, let's do a bit where, uh, Corp George corpse grinder Fisher from cannibal corpse is in glenn gary glenn ross so i just put a wig on and i had the microphone and and brendan would play the other like whatever one of like the alec bald or whatever we did a scene yeah yeah and it was weird and it's like oh people kind of know what death metal growling is so then it's time we're

like let's uh pitch a show to adult swim like oh how about about a death metal band and then we kind of said like oh we patterned it a little bit after the Monkees in the sense that like, it's a band, but they live together. So it's that kind of ridiculousness. In a crazy clubhouse. In a crazy clubhouse. And also you could have, you know, these are their video or there's a song every episode that's either thematic, which the Monkees used to do. Sometimes it was a, what's the word? Diegetic performance.

So sometimes it was just, you know, went into video, you know, but, um, so we went and pitched it and then like, uh, the wonderful Mike Lass. Oh, first of all, we did a, uh, uh, John Schnapp, a wonderful John Schnapp rest in peace. He, he designed the characters and we made a little, it wasn't animated. We just like push in on each of their faces and we made a theme song and it was it worked in the sense well a band you already know like i know what a band is and you know yeah and the pushing's like i'd like to see what these guys are up to it was like simple we just showed it and then uh lazzo said yeah man do 20 quarter hours and

we're off and running and it was that wonderful time and then yeah yeah also at the time brendan uh was so good he's a guitar virtuoso and went to berkeley school of music and just could whip out soundtrack stuff and then yeah and then even at the time like the the drum you know um programs and stuff were so great so he could just like at his house like make a new song yeah and just so that was like incredible so So that's helpful. Yeah. Beyond helpful. And, uh, so we, and we also like, Hey, let's do it all in one spot, which is now everyone does. But back then it was like flash animation. We record all our own, we do the voices. So it was very one-stop shopping, low budget. And, you know, and, and,

and we had the, the privilege of just like improvising and, you know, and, and also learning like that quarter hour, almost like improv, like we should just end there like improvising and you know and and also learning like that quarter hour almost like improv like we should just end there with some weird you know that's the high spot and we had a song so it was a good formula that worked like yeah and then we could make it thematic and stuff but it wasn't no we just it was a blast you know and and and doing the voices and learning how to do different voices by basically like it needs to sound different than the other guys because you're doing all the voices yeah yeah yeah okay and uh yeah and it was uh it was really wonderfully dumb and violent and and death oriented which the kids love especially

like the young nothing like the celebration of death for like especially young girls they're like i just love how he hates every you know yeah yeah nihilism and death yeah yeah yeah always fun yeah because it's like they're people die all the time all the time yeah this thing yeah yeah and there's just there's so many like well you played the great oh yeah what did i do it was actually one of my favorite episodes because we were running out of money so we're up against the clock so we had this one episode where fuck it we got to just use our assets so how about they star in a movie and the middle of the movie will just be this big trailer and then we just cut loose all our animators and people to be like make a trailer it can be none you know so it's like oh i'll use the security guard from episode four but i'll put murder face's head on him like he's a cop and then there's a there's a helicopter crashing then i'll put one of the guys touching a deer in the middle of a road and

i'll put the moon up and just all this like crazy imagery that was like from our asset books but it was like oh that's a movie trailers yeah and then we actually to cut up times we're like that's so great let's watch it again and then we had like like just drums and black and just so we ate up so much time and then you played a old seasoned actor who was on set and then like we had a little video thing so like and you were i can't remember but we named you after like a metal band like amar i think you were like jr amarth after uh you know we'd sneak those names in there and and i remember you especially in editing you improvised so good like yeah in my day movie making wasn't a joke this is all about they're so popular they could be in a movie but

you're the bitter old guy and then you go like we used to do something instead of just mincing around i remember you just made that up like oh it's so funny and then we had um they were fucking around in the background and they drove the forklift through the back of your neck. Yeah. And you're like, and then we just had you vamp. Keep dying. Oh, God. I die. More, more. You die.

And that was fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was so efficient. It was like, Andy's coming. Okay, you got it. Yeah, yeah. You're this guy. That's in the neighborhood.

Yeah. That's great. See you. Yeah. You're probably there like took pride in that. Like you were there 12 minutes. And it worked great. Yeah, no, it it was and it's such a funny show and i mean anybody that hasn't seen it you should really go come on who hasn't seen it that my mom judith light and my mom yeah yeah judith like my mom

if i got those two together oh just to watch metalocalypse uh well it's called dave rath now there's your show now there's your show um what do you uh what do you what are you doing now what are you doing what are you doing moving forward come on here's where we lose altitude um no everything's grand i got married recently to my my wonderful uh long uh time girlfriend alice to me you guys just kind of did it on the yeah we we just did it yeah yeah and we had been together forever and uh yeah she's just absolutely the what motivated was it just like an insurance thing because that always happens a little bit but also i think we were we're just kind of similar in that fact where you know our like devotion and everything just sensibly grew and we grew together.

And it said like, let's make our lives the lives we don't want to escape from, you know, and not put any predisposed things, you know, just naturally and kind of organically. And then at a certain point, it's like, well, I'm not leaving you, you know, like what for? Yeah, yeah. But it's completely wonderful. You like it, right? Yeah point it's like well i'm not leaving you you're not leaving like what for yeah you know but it was it's completely wonderful so you like it right yeah yeah it's great in a way nothing has changed other than i say my girl i mean my wife but uh yeah we bought a house uh together in texas and we still have our our place here that we're subletting so yeah my life has changed like wonderfully yeah you know and why texas uh she's from there she's uh moving to her parents uh you know the politics right it's a good place yeah um it's a good place yeah so we're uh and the place was cool we had some land there and uh we were going to build a house and that's insane just going through that but like we live by a wilderness preserve in a place called Lago Vista,

which is like 35 minutes northwest of Austin. So it's like I need to go 11 miles away for huge parking spaces and Lowe's as big as an arena and all that. But where we're at, there's a lot of like – you never saw more 80-year-old people with ponytails and tie-dyes and all that. Oh, wow. But there's still like a county road and tie-dyes and all that. Oh, wow. But there's still a county road and a goat farm, and then this is beautiful, and then it's cool. You have to come out.

I would love to. Yeah. No, I made the joke that being in Austin is like sitting next to a fun gay cousin at a Romney wedding. It's like you're surrounded by all this just Texas texas and then but it's like yeah but everybody around here is all hippie weirdos and you know some kind of queer yeah it's like no no that's just here you know what you can't i feel so weird for foreigners that go to austin and to think that that's texas it's it's weird yeah it's it's funny because i always remember too with the what was it dav David Rakoff, remember him?

Yeah, yeah. Obviously brilliant. We were hanging out with him. You guys were friends with him. We were hanging out with him a few times. He did something where he was hanging around with someone, someone either right wing or something. Like he had to write something, and he said something so brilliant.

Like, well, after 15 minutes, you just naturally start looking for something common. Maybe Jesse Helms or something yeah i don't know what it was because he used to interview different right rack off brilliant writer right and i just remember like you know yeah and so even you know i remember when i was driving out i stopped in this place called van horn you know uh and i would just my car was packed and alice and my wife was working atlanta and it was right in where the bezos um blue origin is like 30 miles from this town it's like just the middle of nowhere man so i was kind of like well i'm gonna stay in the there's a whatever hampton inn and i went to like the local steakhouse and was like sitting next to like the

weirdos and like oh oh, what's. And I was talking like, oh, because there's a Bezos mural in there, Jeff Bezos mural. And I'm like, oh, what's going on here? And I sat next to this one like local guy and he was like just dyed in the wool on his sleeve and his son. And, you know, it was like, you know, at the bar and he was like, oh, coming from California. He kind of was like, who's got the California plates? And I'm like, oh, I do. You know, whatever. And, you know, because that's a thing people sing.

What the fuck? Am I going to get shot? Sorry. I got it. So this guy was like, and I remember it was pretty funny. I don't want to paint myself like, oh, I'm the savvy part of this story. But I remember being old enough to just like, he's saying something about like, yeah, it's turning into California here or something with like, take the gun.

Like really typical and telling you where to pee. And I was like, and I knew, I said like, where to pee? about like yeah it's turning into california here or something with like taking the gun like really typical and telling you where to pee and i was like and i knew i said like where to pee what do you mean and he's like oh you know the bathroom thing in which i knew full well but i kept quizzing i don't know what you mean like they're taking the bathrooms but he didn't know what my politics were yeah yeah and he's like oh you know the thing in carolina and i'm like oh i said oh is there why is there a different bathroom here well no i just kind of kept making him right sometimes it's a good tactic nothing's happening yeah yeah and i'm like oh yeah that was like 10 years ago they stopped the all-star game what was that about yeah the bathrooms i'm like but what

happened is anyone think well it's always i love it when people you know like they've done there's been so many people gotten by like what does woke mean right right or or you know how is uh uh the whatever the the t whatever it is the teaching about slavery what's this uh oh yeah our crt right right uh you know like what is yeah what you know i'm against the CRT. What is it? Just. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, Mr. College Boy wants to know what it is. What it is. But then after it settles, I perceive that his son was liking to tease him. Like, I don't know. I'm thinking of moving to Portland. Portland. You know, like. And then after a while, like, just talking to him. Like, hey, what's this town about? Oh, a lot of these guys are welders. Then you find some, like, you know and then after a while like just talking to him like hey what's this town about

oh a lot of these guys are welders then you find some like you know it's like okay you know almost everyone's a loud mouth you know yeah but it's kind of like oh he's this is a good guy like if i had a kid that like if you're hurt go over to mr johnson's place right right go there right right he rambles on about peeing the bathroom you know so and that's not compromising yourself either it's just like you're like oh fucking you know take it easy it's you know especially you grew up in a small town you grew up with a lot of a lot of closed-minded people yeah you got to live with them yeah you can't be you know so it's like one of us specifically i was like some of your your background is heightened and it wasn't

your grandfather was a you had that fabulous picture what was he secretary of wildlife or something he was a uh conservation yeah but he was a he was director of conservation he was in the cabinet governor's right yeah yeah yeah yeah and there was that like it was like what is that a still from boardwalk empire yeah no that's my grandpa and all his Republican cronies. Yeah. Well. Oh, so what am I doing? Yeah, that.

I mean, I don't know. Just all kinds of stuff. I work on developing things. Oddly enough, it's more like. Is it easier to work from Texas now? I mean, do you find that the pandemic made it remote work? A little bit. And I've only been out there like so many months since March, and I've got like a couple things going on.

So, you know, it is. And oddly enough, like this fucking business, it's like most of the things I make better money on, you'll never hear. Or even like there's a lot of this. There's no show there, but there's a deal to be made. I'm working on this thing that will never be made. This is a passion. You know you know so there's all that so you know just kind of like i've come kind of a it's very similar to my wife or sort of jack of all trades she's like written some fashion books been a wardrobe designer and that's like fraught with weirdness and the salaries aren't good so she does every job within the wardrobe department sometimes and goes around

and, you know, has tons of opportunity. And same with us. So we just have been comfortable being uncomfortable working freelance. And, you know, and it's kind of like, you know, it's worked out because you just got to be like, have faith. Oh, that'll happen. Something will come up. So, and I do voiceovers.

So I do, you know, all kinds of garbage. But I haven't gone into like yard work or anything like that recently or anything. You don't want to. No. In Texas, it's too hot. Well, it's weird. I did come, I had a terrible moment where I tried to start a mixed martial arts promotion that was kind of like a work.

Sure. You know, like. Sure. Like a professional wrestling MMA. Yeah. way back in the day too so i did have like you know i think i had my finger on the pulse of the idiots that would like that and but i like i something was nefarious i lost all my money i've got irs things and court and just like horrible so there was a point where like man i've got no money and then it was like well what do you do and just like horrible. So there was a point where like, man, I've got no money. And then it was like,

well, what do you do? And then like to be in the position I am like, what's the most sensible thing? Oh, I got to start writing. You know what I mean? There's no like,

I'm go to Starbucks. Like, well, that's not cost effective to work at Starbucks. You lose your money, you know, to climb out of this quarter million dollar hole. Like I got to fucking start fucking.

Things are good. Good. life is grand yeah do you have a do you have a motto what advice should people or what sort of direction should people take away from all of this oh don't buy cheap butter don't buy cheap butter because you know it is awesome if you get like trash bags too yeah go ahead and buy brand name trash bag well especially butter you notice because you get that cheap butter that's white and you get good butter and you put them both in two pans and the white butter will go

because they infuse it with water that's how they get you that's my uncle used to say too he's right my uncle had a he was a shop owner the butcher shop every time that anyone mentioned anything like McDonald's and stuff, he would

just bristle and go like, you know what they get you? It's with the soda. It costs nothing. I was so pissed about it. They get like a Coke syrup and they put it in a, you know, just because he would always run the numbers and it would just like. And it would almost. It cost him three cents.

Yeah. Even when I was like little, like nine, I'm like, I'm going to mention to uncle Andrew who went to McDonald's and he'll say that it's how they get you at the Coke syrup. And like every time you'd see his face. Yeah. I think I had some advice. I kind of wrote down. Maybe not.

All right. Uh, the, uh, the Emmys and the Oscar are just a more successful multi level marketing scheme. Okay. Don't let it fool you. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, there is only life until there is not. That's a good old Russian one.

Seek professional advice. Oh, and also this, the snacks you gave me. Crave victoriously. Crave victoriously. No, that's good advice. Crave. When you come here as a guest, they will just give you bags. Like, you took a tin of almonds.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, we got to end this. Okay. Thank you for coming, Tommy. You know, another thing I like to do is always- Oh, my God. Put it on the phone or something like-

Just turn off the microphone. It's just like one more thing and people got to go. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Daugherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel. Executive produced by Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, with assistance from Maddie Ogden. Research by Alyssa Grahl. Don't forget to rate and review and subscribe to The Three Questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts.

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