Whiskey Ginger with Andrew Santino - Marc Maron

Episode Date: June 4, 2021

Santino sits down with Marc Maron to chat about failed T-shirt businesses, living in an attic and burning guitars, winging it on his special and how much he hates the lackeys in the business. ORDER SOME MERCH!!! https://www.andrewsantinostore.com Join our Patreon : https://www.patreon.com/whiskeygingerpodcast SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! SQUARESPACE - Help design your website today with amazing templates and the help of professionals https://squarespace.com/whiskey Use promo code WHISKEY for 10% off! Follow Santino on Insta and Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/cheetosantino/ https://twitter.com/CheetoSantino Whiskey Ginger Insta and Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/whiskeygingerpodcast/ & https://twitter.com/whiskeyginger_ Whiskey Ginger Clips: http://www.youtube.com/c/WhiskeyGingerPodcastClips EDITING AND PRODUCTION DESIGN BY Andres "Fancy B" Rosende Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What up, Whiskey Ginger fans? Welcome back to the show. Like I always say, welcome if it's your first time. If it ain't, hey, hey, we're here again. We're back, baby. Got a great episode today. My newfound pal, pal, buddy, whatever you want to call it. We're adults, so it's really weird to gauge how the friendship is. Mark Maron's on the show. He's incredible. I'm on tour. Let's go. We opened up tickets. COVID is done skis. I love it. I'm going to be in Houston. I'm going to be in Madison. Hey, Madison, we opened up the tickets. If you're in Madison, Wisconsin, come out and see your boy. I'm also going to be in Nashville. I'm going to be in Boston. We're putting up a bunch of dates as we

go. Go to andrewsantino.com for tickets, andrewsantino.com for them tickets. Let's go. If you want more Whiskey Ginger content, go to patreon.com slash whiskey ginger podcast. That's where I do the solo eps. That's where I do the Cheeto chats, Zooms with the top tier, discounts for Moich, all sorts of fun stuff. Speaking of merch, if you're on YouTube, look down below. There are the shirts, or go to andrewsantinostore.com. Either way, come see me live, andrewsantino.com. That's where you get them tickets. Enough rambling from me. Let's go to the episode. Like vampires, the ginger gene is a curse. Gingers are beautiful. You owe me $5 for the whiskey and $75 for the whore. Gingers are hell no. This whiskey is excellent.

Ginger. I like gingers. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Whiskey Ginger. My guest today is one of my favorite people on earth. I say that for all my guests, but I mean it once again today, Mark Maron. Mark, thank you so much for coming by. Yeah, welcome back. Have you already been here?

Are you rejoining? I'm rejoining, yeah. What happened before me? You know. You know exactly what happened before you. Did you just talk? A comedy whirlwind happened before you. Oh, my God.

Who am I following? I can't even tell you, man. It's insane. Oh, fuck, man. It's a big secret. Is it Amazing Jonathan again? Yeah, it is. God damn it.

Can I tell you something? Did he cut off his hand? He cut off his ear. He Van Gogh'd it live on my show. God damn it. Are these chairs okay for you because judd apatow complained the entire time about the chairs really did he complain as for as long a time as as his movies last so good to set you up for something i was like i'll just

slide this in and let him either pick up that card or just no i i know i'm gonna get in trouble i don't know why i've decided. Why? That's fine. It's a joke. He's a comedian. He should get it. I know, but I've done it before, kind of on Twitter.

I've brought it to his attention before, but I can't stop myself now. Well. Because like his movies are always like two movies in one. They're very long. It's like, hey, there's the end of that movie. What's this now?

I gave, hey, look, you know what? I didn't shy away. Yeah. My wife told me, don't not ask him what you wanted to ask him and i said to him i say i want to put you on the spot i've read for you four times like the table oh wow i said how come you never put me in anything wow so you live that life because like i've never read for him but i know him well yeah ish like he likes my podcast

and stuff and he knows i act he knows i'm okay he's seen you he knows by this point he knows i'm pretty funny nothing never anything not even a two-liner nothing so here's what here's the last thing i said i'm on when he came on the show i said i i would do table reads for him particularly if there were emergency table reads i get calls i would do them all the time and he knows that that. He was there. He called my phone. Okay. He would go, hey, can you come to Sony? Can you come to- Oh, so you're that guy then. And I would go.

Yeah, you're that guy then. But you know what I don't? What? I don't do it anymore. I said, I can't do those anymore. I said, I love you, but to everyone that asked me, I would do favors to people all the time. Really? Table reads are no good?

I don't like doing them because all they're asking you usually is, hey, we think you're very good at this thing. You can kind of chameleon in the room and you can play a bunch of different characters. Right, right. But so could you do this while we wait to see if the guy we want to do it is going to? Jesse Plemons, we're really egging for him. So if you could just fill in for JP, wow. I mean, that's really what it is.

And you can feel it in your bones, especially when they come up to you afterwards and they're like, so good. Oh my God, so good. And you're like, oh. Yeah, you really helped us out. Yeah, yeah. thanks for being there no problem you know thank you guys you made it sound like you know we didn't know if some of that stuff would work and you really yeah it really we think it'll work out of jesse plummet's mouth all right do you guys validate we say that out loud yeah no but it's just it's just a um yeah it's a vibe i got over i yeah but i'm okay the chair is first

of all fine they're fine with me good uh i don't need to complain about the chairs but i um but i'm okay the chair is first of all fine they're fine with me good uh i don't need to complain about the chairs but i um but i am breaking in i'm sure oh are you breaking in shoes too no these are these are my old these are old company you know what so these are i put the took these out of the garage these are my usually like doing shit outside shoes but now but i see these are breaking in these merrills no man i just got these in the mail from keen's for nothing so i get sent stuff. And I sent back some boots. And then they sent these.

These were not what I was expecting. I just want hiking, man. I just want hiking equipment. I wouldn't wear these in public. But I got them right before I came here. So I figured no one's going to see it. Yeah, but we have cameras outside. There's TMZs always outside of here.

Oh. But I hire them. I should take these off. No, man. Leave them on. Wait, why wouldn't you wear them in public what's wrong with those there's nothing wrong with them it's just not my thing you know it's these to me have a purpose yeah they're not like going to the comedy store

they're not doing a podcast that put them on i go up a mountain yeah you know the other boots more fashion oriented i don't wear sneakers really because i'm a grown person okay all right you know what you're one button too low and the attitude is hot right now. You're showing a lot of tit on my show. You know what though? I do know I've never seen you not wear boots so I should have known that

when I saw those on you. Yeah. Well, I mean, that would have been awkward. What's your most expensive pair of boots? Probably 500. That's a lie. No, it's true.

Mark, you have a lot of money. There's no chance you know but i don't spend it i only know what i bought yeah i don't really uh i drove i drive an avalon that i bought i like that that's my cash i like that car yeah that's a nice car um i bought it i could have leased it but leasing feels like renting to me i don't know what the point of it is correct yeah uh i have a nice stereo system i spent, I did spend six grand on an old guitar, but outside of that, not, I'm not a big spender. What do I have?

What are you doing with it then? I don't know. There's nothing. I know that I can eat anywhere I want to. Yeah. Once I got to that point in my life, I was very satisfied. Yeah. Once you go, I can eat and that doesn't matter.

You go buy groceries. I don't know. What does it pay? I have no idea. Sometimes you go like, what the fuck did I buy? Right. Oh, it's the vitamins. Right, right.

$100? You take those off. Yeah. Almonds? Are almonds that expensive? $90 for almonds? Put them back. Yeah, so I don't, I'm going to start spending money.

Thank you for reminding me. Like what? What should I do? Well, here's why. One of my dad's best friends is now he's getting to the point when his financial advisor said hey man you're not gonna last much longer he's in his late 70s what are you doing yeah dude what's going on yeah what are you gonna do with this money yeah your kids are set up your wife is happy you guys live spend them fucking money yeah dude this guy will still

fly coach and he has a fuckload of money. No, I know. But that's my thing is my dad was like, what's your deal? And he finally got around to like admitting to himself this fear from his father. And, you know. Well, you got to save it. It's like comics have it too. I have it too. Oh, I still have it.

Yeah. Where you're like, I don't know how long it's going to last. Right. This could run out today. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe there's going to be some weird meltdown with the infrastructure of the banks. A hack attack. I'm going to lose everything. So I don't want to have lease payments that I can't know. Maybe there's going to be some weird meltdown with the infrastructure of the banks. A hack attack.

I'm going to lose everything. So I don't want to have lease payments that I can't afford. I don't want to have things that- I don't carry any debt. Yeah, me neither. You don't? No, zero. Literally none.

Do you have a house? Yeah. That's the debt I have. I bought the house. See, I thought about that, but I was told not to buy it all. I know, but that's like, because money people think that. It's like, hey, man, if you buy it it all that means all that money that you could be making money with you dumped it into the house stupid whereas if you just get a good low mortgage rate

right and you're just chipping away at that then you have all this other money to make a lot of money with right so i should buy the house huh i should buy it out right i don't depends what kind of money guy are you a money guy do you care about that stuff are you on top of it do you have crypto do you understand the world i did not do crypto i don't know. It depends what kind of money guy. Are you a money guy? Do you care about that stuff? Are you on top of it? Do you have crypto? Do you understand the world? I did not do crypto. I don't know anything about it. Do you know why? Why?

Because it's so vague to me that I stay away from stuff I know nothing about. Well, you know how I deal with money? I got a guy that I trust because he's a family friend. It doesn't mean he won't bilk me. He will. No, he won't. His mother is my mom's best friend. I've heard this story a thousand times. Could you believe it? His mother is my mom's best friend i've heard this story a thousand times

could you believe it his mom was my mother's best friend yeah it's such an easy way for him to get you gone yeah gone they don't even know where he is the mark maron true story that's the clip they use oh now i'm in this trailer i'm in a trailer i was on set and i just told him i wanted to keep the trailer can we give mark the trailer he's going through a tough time he got time not even a good one half a trailer your money guy says what he says mark you're fine with money buy the house no no no i i mean i i had an accountant that i made my business manager that guy's been my accountant since i was like 20 okay and he used to handle a lot of us and i think he still has a few of us sure from new york and from i think he burrs with him and maybe uh maybe uh i got i know i i got

tom to call him he's been a comic guy for a long time hold on one second is his initials bl no okay no uh ha okay we can talk about harvey altman no i just threw out a name i just threw out letters so anyway so i got the money manager right and he's the guy that usually says well maybe you ought to do this maybe you don't do that maybe the guy who handles the money you know the guy who's got my what is it portfolio or whatever sure he just knows i'm conservative i don't want to take any big chances and you know just keep, just keep my money, making a little money. Little tiny bits of money. You don't do big risks ever, huh?

Not really. I mean, I could. Sometimes I think about it, but I'm always glad I don't because I don't think they would have worked out. Yeah, but also. Like, do you have another property? Do you have a rent? Do you have an own a second property?

I'm invested in two other things. Really? Yeah. Here? No. Elsewhere. So you're a partner in a rental property. And? Yeah. Here? No. Elsewhere? Mm-hmm. So you're a partner in a rental property

in where? In Colorado Springs. Hmm. Yeah. Are you from Colorado? No. So some guy just talked you into that.

It was a business manager. My business manager's a partner of his had this equity opportunity. See, this is another one of those stories. Yeah. That's the same story

that you were telling about me. I know. I know. Look, but if I lose that money, it wasn't that much where it's going to kill me. It's, this is another one of those stories this is that's the same story that you were telling about me i know i know look but if i lose that money it wasn't that much where it's gonna kill me it's i this is what if they show up and go like you know what you didn't realize is now you owe good i'm running then i'm running i'm getting the gun and i'm running i'm getting in the car and i'm did you hear what happened to santino that's my story i hate he was on the run for the rest are you a sucker in general no honestly no because i'm cheap i'm quite cheap so i can't you can't suck on me because i'm a cheap i'm a cheapo i'm

hyper vigilant because my dad's a sucker when the great sucker is my father like anybody could get your dad oh god it's embarrassing like you know when i was growing up someone talked him into a silk screening business how was that even a good idea dad silk screening business never gonna take off so i thought like well this is a good opportunity for me now i don't think i've ever told that story like he had this he was a he had big stake in this dumb silk screening business that some doctor's brother had dragged him into his buddy my dad's a doctor they're the worst he was the doctor the worst doctors the worst people well no they just see him coming uh because they don't know anything about money right they know about bones doctors right doctor stuff so he's got he's a partner in this fucking silk screen business i'm in boston like sweating away drinking myself into oblivion i think i don't

think i don't think i was in college anymore i can't remember but i'm like i got this great idea for a t-shirt so i'm like my dad's got a silk screening business. Perfect. So I designed this t-shirt that was basically, it was the slogan of Massachusetts. And it had, the parking tickets in Massachusetts were this orange color. And if you get a lot of them, they put a boot on your car. Oh, yeah. I've seen that. They were just all over the place, right? These orange parts.

So I just, this silk screen I did, it was like an orange parking ticket on an American flag with the logo of, or with the slogan of Massachusetts on it. It was like an orange parking ticket on an American flag with the slogan of Massachusetts on it. It was clever, I guess. Yeah, I like it. But it was the one shirt, right? And I went and got a permit to sell them on the street. And I thought, this is it, man. To be a millionaire.

Oh, yeah. I got boxes of these shirts. And I went out there and I stood on boston commons with my one shirt and my permit sold two hey hey and and the rejection was too much for me to handle so i had that box of shirts so you became a comedian instead sure i was already a comedian but it wasn't that i wasn't getting paid right but i had the box of shirts where are they now i got them you do no god i wish you did so bad later People hold on to shit that you wouldn't believe. That's something I'm going into.

I'm going to get rid of it. You got to get rid of stuff. You do? You got to get rid of stuff. Have you? Yes. I don't know. How old are you?

I have almost nothing. 37. How much could you have? A lot of bullshit in my garage. What did you get rid of? Everything. All old. I collected stuff from my college years.

I had old shit in a big bin from stuff that I was like, why would I even hold on to any of this stuff? It was just like, I also old notebooks. I finally threw away. Really? The evidence. Yeah.

I don't get evolution. All that stuff. What about the, the Santino library? What are they going to burn it? Burn it to the ground. What about the archives? Burn it.

The estate. Burn it. What's that artist? Why can't I think of him? Uh, John, I don't even know what. He burned his entire, he burned his entire art collection.

That was his thing? It started from scratch. Why can't I think of his name? It was like, what was happening was he was getting all this criticism from one of his agents or managers of why aren't you putting out some of this stuff?

Yeah. John Baldessari. John Baldessari. Oh, Baldessari, yeah. And Baldessari said, I don't fucking want to put it out why do you keep egging me about yeah yeah yeah and his agent was like well i i just really think there's some value in some of that stuff and he goes i don't like it or that's not

done yet yeah and so he said he had you know this impetus one night he was like oh fuck this you know what and he burned all of it well that's i like it but that's that's a statement from an artist you like you know i guess if you don't care about that shit, no one's going to care about it. I mean, I know. That's what I mean. My big fear. I used to do a bit about that.

Like you keep all this shit and what's going to happen to it is like my mother, if I die, my mother and my brother can be like, I don't know. Should we throw it out? Now we have to throw it. That's what my dad said. When he cleaned out my grandmother's house, he goes, throw. He goes, goes honestly just throw everything away don't keep any of our shit that's how i feel what am i gonna do with it but the weird

thing is over the pandemic you know i was um i'd gone through i was doing uh live igs instagrams and i found my old notebooks and not notebooks my old calendars from like the 90s that's cool well it's cool because like i don't remember you know your memory is limited but if you go through your calendar and you're like oh that gig oh shit that was terrible yeah like and i could do it like i could see where i was on weekends and there were clubs i've forgotten one-nighters and shit right and it all starts to come back to you did you remember the money too did you remember those some of it's written down it would oh you'd mark it be like 125 75 and you had to drive three hours to that one so you pretty much broke even every time you did those gigs nah i mean like i don't know

i it's hard for me to remember that stuff because it was when i started we were it was a one-nighter thing it was boston so it was regional one-nighters that's how it worked two-man shows drive in drive home half hour 45 for the closer so you have a two-man shows up when I was starting out so I avoided opening for the most part and went straight to a half hour you know kind of one-nighter trip where you just gorilla shit where you're walking into a you know place that doesn't do comedy right to do comedy yes set the stage put down your for. There's some comedians getting on stage. We turned the TV off. No?

No. No? All right, fellas, talk over the TVs. But, you know, I don't know. It wasn't a break-even thing. If you stacked up enough gigs and you were, yeah, we lived differently then, man. Well, it was also. I lived in an attic.

I paid rent. If I had $800 in the bank, I was like, thank God. You're a millionaire. I'm going to be okay. Right. I don't know if I ever thought I was a millionaire, but- Well, I thought I was rich the first time I made a couple of bucks off of a gig. I was like, well, if this is it, if I can make this for the rest of my life, I was okay with it. Yeah. I was like, if I could just make a couple of hundred bucks every gig- Oh, man. I would just gig. I could just do this as much as I can and I'd be okay. That's how I used to feel. I was so stupid. When I look back on the club stuff, like when I was featuring or even when I was headlining on the off weeks or whatever they were, I never drew as a headliner.

But I didn't know these motherfuckers. I couldn't understand, given what I was making as a feature, how headliners were making a good living. But they were all doing these door deals. Right. Because you do door deals now, you're like, holy fuck. Like if you work a weekend at like Comedy works in denver and you do a door deal and you sell out and they show you your check you're like is that are you sure okay you know and that's what they were doing in the

80s like a lot of those big guys this was the same money back then it close probably so with inflation it didn't much didn't change today they They were making that money now, which is- I never got it. And I was so thrilled to have an $800 feature week, Wednesday through Sunday. Right. I was like, I'm killing it. $800 for 12 shows? You're living the good life. Yeah.

Because you can't imagine, because you worked a lot of, didn't you work shitty regular guy jobs? A few. See, I worked enough of them over the years. I started when I was 15 and like McDonald's was the beginning. the beginning you started working when you were 15 yeah i did do i didn't stop working until i quit in 2010 i always had a job until in 2010 i could quit and do comedy full time i always yeah i always had jobs but they weren't they were shitty but they were kind of cool like my first job sorry my first job in high school i i i became like a shift manager of this

bagel joint right across from the university owned by this lunatic coke addict and he liked me and he gave me this job and it was cool college kids and i was i started as a counter guy doing short order shit and then i got you know and then he made me a shift manager so it wasn't mcdonald's and there's all these cool college girls see. See, mine was sad. It was embarrassing. I hated it. Well, it's pretty standard, yeah. It's McDonald's, but it was also like people would see you from high school that you knew

and you were like, fuck. I was worried. Yeah, I had that. That happened later. After I came out to LA that first time and got fucked up on drugs and went back to Boston where I started. And I got a job at a coffee place. It was pre-Starbucks and it was right in Harvard Square.

And I was just a barista at this place called The Coffee Connection that was literally upstairs from Catch a Rising Star. And I remember like Dave Cross and CK would come in. Louis used to tell a story about why he decided I was an okay guy. He doesn't like me now, but back then. He doesn't like you now. No then he doesn't like you now no maybe maybe he doesn't you just don't know no no he's very mad at me for i what am i gonna do you know what i mean i i was were we supposed to die on that hill all of us so but uh but he saw he thought

i was an asshole but then he saw me at one of those dishwashers you remember do you remember those dishwashers that you had to open up of course i did i did that yeah you had to rinse out yes right so i was doing that yeah in the coffee shop and he looked over that's like and he just saw miserable me spraying those glasses out and he's like he's okay that kid's not bad in here we pour whiskey hey everybody if you're looking to turn your cool idea into something tangible and legit, like a website or you want to sell stuff on the internet and you want to create a page to blog from, whatever you want to do, get your voice out there, whatever it is,

you got to use Squarespace. I use Squarespace, and I've told you this before. I'm not a smart person. So it was very, very easy. You can showcase all your work there, and they have such incredible templates for you to use. It, very easy. You can showcase all your work there and they have such incredible templates for you to use. It's so easy. Even a Dumbo like me can do it. They got 24 seven award winning customer support. They got free and secure hosting, nothing to patch or upgrade ever,

which is great because others do. And they've got built in search engine optimization. So they can tell you analytics from who's visiting your site to who's purchasing stuff or who's clicking on stuff or who's coming from where. Squarespace really does make it simple and easy to create beautiful stuff using their templates or just going at it on your own. So if you're looking to make a website, trust me, this is the answer to all of your problems. Go to squarespace.com slash whiskey, as it were, for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code whiskey to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. No matter what it is, domains, websites, online

stores, marketing tools, they got it all in one. Go to squarespace.com slash whiskey for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use the offer code whiskey for 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain ginger i like gingers that does give you a moment of humility when someone sees you working with your hands like especially like that i mean it's like dishwasher is like the job that it's the saddest job in the world it is you're all alone the punch line but at least now i saw the like i was talking to the dishwasher i just did addison improv and i said hi to him for a second i was by the kitchen and i was like you know i didn't want to pry too much at him but he said this big smile on his face and he had took out his headphones he's like uh he's like i think i'm gonna be able to see you the last the last show i

go oh right on man yeah and i was like how's it going back here and he's like it's great dude i put on some tunes or podcasts and i just fucking disappear and i was like i guess that's great because when i was doing dishwashing and busing and all that shit in the restaurants in college it was sad i was alone that you were tucked in a weird corner i couldn't there was nobody who had headphones and cell phones and podcasts and it didn't exist i sat there with no music just listening to my own sadness as i sprayed off of yeah yeah the shit off of these plates and it's just ringing your whole it's all your future it's all you hear i worked at the at the food services when i was in college like i worked behind i served food to college students to peers yeah at the yeah i worked at two of them my buddy lance who was my roommate he worked back there too in the kitchen

it was just a gig you could get yeah but so i made it sort of a performative thing you know i used to rename the dishes like to see if people like what like what well like they just have dumb like they would make these like uh like a greek casserole something and i'd add like things like the pride of kings or something like that then people would like ask for it seriously i'll have the pride of kings and i just said as you must as you must my lord i'd always rename shit and i'd fuck with people and i i used it as a performing space like i never i never thought they were looking down at me because i was just i was you never felt that way you never felt that way at a job where people saw you do something publicly and you're never like, oh, they're judging me and I can feel it. Yeah, comedy. Yeah, but that one you ask for.

I guess. We're asking for it. No, I mean- Like, did you ever have a gig where a girl who you liked saw you doing it and you were like, well, this is the worst feeling I've ever had in my fucking life. I feel like I have, but like, I was usually in restaurants, so it wasn't terrible.

That's not too bad yeah you know and i usually could give people free food like i had a little juice see i valeted and i valeted a girl and her a guy she was hanging out with his car that i had like kind of crushed on and it made me feel like i didn't exist in the world i've had i think i've had those feelings just in life yeah well you have more time job yeah but it's even worse because i'm doing a service for them oh yeah they get out of a car i have to drive his car yeah yeah what's up how are you and i'm like yeah fucking i want to disappear i could light myself on fire if i if i had it i have felt the opposite of that where

i've driven such a shitty car to events where i they got to park the car oh i felt like oh i sorry man do you want me to do it i'll park i kind of want another car that's a total piece of shit whenever i go to something nice and show up with that because that makes me feel i like that exchange that's better to be like yeah i used to drive up in this fucking shitty 2006 gray camry that i eventually sold to ryan singer for like nothing had to go like 150 000 miles i just in my mind i'm like what do i need a new car for and i would drive up to events at like the london and just be like in that car that's dope and then in my mind i'm like i gotta fucking change this i mean i can afford this right but you don't give a fuck about cars i don't but here's what i did i'm like you know i'm gonna get a brand new black camry moving up dude and i did

just you guys wait and see and i felt good about it because at least it was clean it was black it was a new car right still a camry but i didn't feel like but i guess those are the things like for me i've got little things that i will like i always had crushes on cars as a kid i was obsessed yeah and so like that's something i wanted i always kind of want to spend a little bit of money on like i just feel like those things are okay with me because I've wanted them for so long. I fuck things up so quickly. The obsession isn't worth it. Like right now for some reason I'm spinning out about everything.

Like I made it through lockdown. I stayed lean. I stayed sane. I had personal tragedy in my life. I got past that a bit. But I didn't lose my mind or get fat. But for some reason now we're coming out of it and i'm like i'm such a shoving bread into my face and i'm like freaking out about fucking

everything just ridiculous shit man yeah and what's plaguing you the most well everything happens at the same frequency for me like you know like i'm out of coffee filters shit i lost my foot you know like they're like there there's no difference in intensity right of of anything so it's all overwhelming like uh i threw away two entire watermelons last night and i was angry why because it's not quite watermelon season and i've got a system where i know how to pick a watermelon so i figured like and i've already had two duds and it made me mad so i bought uh i wanted some more melons i bought two i figured at one of these is going to be all right both of them suck so at 12 30 last night i was angrily throwing watermelon away that that's like a cartoon of an event that happened to me somebody's like how how do you

by the way i've never bought a watermelon in my life i like watermelon yeah but what did it what did it what an egregious lopsided thing to have to carry out of the grocery store how do you do that with bags what two bags and a watermelon either you put it in the bag or you put it in the cart on its own get them at the store when you eat it with a meal sliced you buy them sliced section i like cold watermelon i like to pick i thought i had it down yeah i'm gonna i don't think it's quite seasoned yet here's another thing that happened this is this is where i'm at i have this bottle this water bottle that i like right it's quite seasoned yet. Here's another thing that happened. This is where I'm at. I have this bottle, this water bottle that I like. Right. It's a certain brand, but it didn't matter.

It was a swag. It was free. It was from, it was like a 23andMe water bottle. I don't even know why, how I got it. Swell? Which one is it? No, Liberty. Liberty.

Do you know that? You do? With that top? Okay. They're good, right? They're very good. They're fucking great. Swell's terrible.

Yeah, Swell's shit. All right. So it's a Liberty. They're fucking great. Swell's terrible. Yeah, Swell's shit. All right. So it's a Liberty. This episode's sponsored by Swell. But like my fucking cat, I got a kitten now. And I don't know what happened to the top, but it's gone. The top is gone. I don't know if it's in the garbage.

I don't know if I'm going to find it somewhere eventually. But I've got my Liberty bottle that I like. I don't even care that it's 23andMe. No top. So I do some research. I find Liberty. I find the website. I buy five fucking bottles and two extra tops, all different colors, and an insulated bottle.

Like, I'm going to show me. Like, what is that? And I'm full of spite. I'm like, I'm going to have a bunch of these. You just wait, me. Yeah, exactly. You just wait. I'll show you you.

By the way, that will come and you'll have nothing to do with it. It won't exist anymore. I'm going to throw away all the swells. Yeah, way, that will come and you'll have nothing to do with it. It won't exist anymore. I'm going to throw away all the swells. I'll throw it. Yeah, well, that's what happens with everything. Eventually, like the car I got, I fuck them up, man. I can't, like, that's why I can't get a new. Everything I buy, I fuck up.

I got some new shoes, like, that I kind of liked. I dropped it, like, salad dressing on the leather. It's over for months. It's just the way I am. The Camry, i fucked up the door this car is i want to bring it in to get touched up are you prone to these things no it's just some i don't know if it's a karma thing or what i'm not really prone to it but for the most part within two or three weeks of me owning anything i'll fuck it up a little bit and live with it

do you think that's subconscious you kind of like to fuck it up because little bit and live with it do you think that subconscious you kind of like to fuck it up because if it's too shiny it's annoying no because like I because then I have to deal with the aggravation of that and then I have to wait it out there's a lesson there but I don't need to learn it every fucking time but I do but obviously the universe is saying that you do need to learn something

something like it's like maybe it's too much attachment to these things and that's why I don't spend money on things I try to get free things as much as possible. And now when things get fucked up, because it happens to me so much, I'm like, yeah, what am I going to do? What happened to you? I don't know.

Who cares? Yeah. Do you give stuff away a lot? Do you do that? Yeah. Because we get free shit. What do you get? At some point, just if sponsors send us stuff.

I got these boots. Well, those are nicer than the shit I get. I get it. But I just give stuff away. Yeah. What are you going to do with it chew do you chew uh um tobacco gum uh no you know like uh not orbit but i'll chew orbits no but gum with gum with nicotine in it i used to not anymore i've been almost two years off of nicotine oh really yeah you don't ever sneak it no man i was so fucking strung out dude i can't do anything because it's just all day.

We have too much time in our profession. Yeah, it's nothing but time. Are you kidding me? I mean, I'll drink two quarts of coffee a day until I'm like, I have to nap. It's crazy. That's like my grandmother would drink two pots of coffee. Yeah, because we have the same time. Yeah, you have nothing going on.

She has nothing to fucking do. No, but I was on nicotine. I would go to sleep with those lozenges in my mouth. I fucking loved them. I'd get up, I'd take one, and all day long, just half awake from nicotine lozenges. And sometimes, when I was doing snooze or dip or whatever, the packets, I'd fucking go to sleep with it in my mouth.

Shut up. For real. It wouldn't make you sick in the morning? No, dude. I was sort of like, oh, my head. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, Iosh it out and knock out again yeah yuck yuck dude that's like well that's like i knew people that fell asleep with cigarettes in bed like they would smoke in bed i never did that the old days of people smoking inside did you grow up with cigarettes indoors like mom and dad smoke inside no my parents didn't really smoke my mom

smoked a little bit but i smoked starting at like age 14 and i remember being on planes smoking in the it had the smoking section on airplanes so cool in the back two rows or bring that back why not bring it back can you even imagine that smell like what were we everyone was so accustomed to there's no way you can smoke on a plane and not have that whole plane smell like fucking cigarettes cloth seats too back then we were just smoking them filling up those ashtrays drinking back there yeah see i like that i think there should be one airline that still captivates the old that can still do the smoking yeah why not i just can't imagine you can't even if someone lit a cigarette inside now people be like what is happening

like pure panic oh totally yeah no that is true except for by the way i was in where were we it was a bar in texas and i was like are people smoking in here and they were like yeah no you can still smoke inside this fucking bar i was like holy shit i couldn't believe it the last time i saw someone at a bar smoking was college do you smoke i did for a while and then i stopped what you took it up later in life i did all through college and then later in college and then i quit probably seven eight years ago look but i will buy a pack once in a while and smoke secretly by myself i just had to shut that part of it yeah that part of my brain off somehow because i smoke cigars like

my problem is like i'm so addictive like see What always happens with me is I'll get off the lozenges, right? And I'll get clean from nicotine. And then one day, like six months later, I'll be like, I can't have a cigar. Just one. Yeah, fuck it. I'll smoke that one cigar. And then within like three weeks, I'm smoking two or three cigars a day. A day?

Yeah. I'm just sitting out there smoking them. Like an old Southern guy on a porch? Yeah. Oh, for sure and uh and then i gotta get back on the nicotine to get off the cigar to wean away again you never did cold turkey not not until this last time but um but i haven't smoked cigarettes in forever but uh but the lozenges and the cigar thing i just love it i love i love i guess my point was

is there you can go to cigar stores and smoke in there i know i like that and you can sit outside and there's like a community kind of it's the worst community i know i know it's the people you don't want to hang out with because i travel right and when you travel you got to find your shit like so i sometimes i bring cigars sometimes once i look up the fucking cigar place and like one of the roads, one of the gigs I was doing and go drive there. And there'd just be this community of fucking dudes, five dudes sitting there like they're king shit, smoking their middle of the road cigars.

Yeah, but I bet you those guys have stories. One idiot holding court. Sure they do. Yeah, I want to know. I want to know. I like getting those little weird nooks on my nose. The thing I love about those things is they give you the weird stink eye when you get there.

They're like, huh. Who the fuck is this guy? It's a stranger. What's going on? They're not inviting. No, no, no, no. They're not. No, you're in their house.

Yeah. What's up with this guy wearing hiking boots? Yeah, exactly. It's my mouth. I'm breaking these in. Yeah, come on. I wouldn't wear these out like this. Usually I wear like a white's boot or a red wing boot.

They're like, listen, listen boy you come in here with that attitude i just like tuck away by myself and like smoke a really strong cigar where's your favorite city to tour to disappear in like when you go there and you're like man i love this city because when i do the gig i can go do whatever i do xyz when i'm i like there's some cities i i've grown to like i like chicago a lot i like my hometown oh is it what do you do in chicago while you're there what's like meat yeah see i get my food like i'll do the food thing what else have i got constantly okay i'm not gonna be drinking beers or smoking cigars right you eat what whatever the food is of the place do you go to events or museums or any of that

kind of shit or sometimes sometimes yeah i look for that everywhere we go me and this guy chris o'connor who goes with me he'll he'll we'll be pretty adamant great new york comic great dude he's a philly kid but he lives in new york now but he was he out here who am i thinking of okay no no he's a he's a new york guy now he lives with shane gillis and you know shane yeah i kind of i know that name shane shane got hired and fired by SNL the same week. Oh, right. The guy who got in trouble for saying what? Say it. Go ahead and say it.

We'll put it in there. I don't remember which one he said. Yeah, I don't remember either. It's just scrolling above us. No, you know, but Chris always is like, hey, I found this museum. Do you want to go? And I'm always down because I do want to go. I try to get cultured.

I don't have a lot of culture. I didn't come from a... Yeah, you can't tell me anything about yourself because you're going to do my podcast tomorrow. Okay, shh. So it's tricky. It's a tricky situation. I won't say anything.

Well, no. I mean, you just said you're stupid. I am stupid. Okay. And I don't have any culture. Yeah. Did you grow up with culture? Yeah, I did.

You did? I did. Because your dad was a doctor. No, because my mother was an artist. My dad had to learn. Yeah, but I'm saying you had the money to fund the art. Well, no, but I mean, no, my mother was interested in art. Sure.

So she would take me places when she was like, we would go, most of my family was in New Jersey, right? So that's where my parents grew up, but we lived in New Mexico because that's where my father decided to start his life so we would go back and my mom would we'd go around these exhibits at like the museum of modern art and shit for the big picasso retrospective or the saison retrospective and she was just engaged with that so i got a lot of that mostly visual art what was she what was what was her art uh medium she was a painter and uh she also did photography and she did some silk screening she went back to get her master's um in college you know after i i think

i'd gone to college but she never finished it but she's always was always painting and doing shit does she have kind of a hero aspect in your life no no huh no but uh but because of her i think there was always uh my my parents were pretty hands-off and and relatively uh irresponsible and selfish but it was good i think it was better than getting my ass kicked by my parents yeah definitely but they were she was always very supportive of whatever and if i drew things or i did photography or whatever, it was, she was always impressed or excited about that. Sure. So I did that stuff. This, say I'm wrong, but you seem like,

because I'm this way, I was embarrassed to tell people I did comedy for a long time. Did you, when you first started, were you telling them that you did comedy or did you hide it? No, I told them, but like the worst part about telling anybody anything, they only know three comics.

So for however long it takes you to appear on something that their friends will see, you're not really doing anything. Yeah. They weren't like, you know, why are you wasting your life? But they were like, so is there any way I can see that?

I don't know. That's somewhat supportive. That's like, yeah, show it to us, I guess. No, they would come see me, you know? Oh, they would?

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, and now my dad comes. If my dad's in the audience, I will just tear him an asshole for half an hour.

And he loves it. He does? It's to the point that the audience is like, this is weird. And he's just back there crying. Losing it? Yeah.

Are you bringing up personal shit? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was, that was the sort of dynamic man you know my dad was a kind of a depressive so that was sort of the relationship after a certain point but they would come see me even when i sucked i think the hardest the hardest

hit i took family-wise was when i did my first hbo half, 95, and my grandma, Goldie, who was really a person who turned me on to comedy in a way. Because she would go to Vegas and see, like she loved Buddy Hackett and Don Rickles. And she would talk about them. My grandfather loved slapstick and shit. They dug that stuff. But she, I guess, sat down a bunch of her friends you have to watch my 95 hbo special and like i can feel it yeah and uh and like i never heard from her ever again no no no but when i finally talked to her she was like why is it so filthy what do you

you're not a filthy comic no but it was all the saying the fuck oh oh saying the word fuck yeah and it was just i overdid it yeah you know i don't because like when you do hbo for some reason you know i've done a million conans and everything when you have to do it clean you do it yeah but if you don't you don't yeah that's it that's the rule of comedy do i have to be clean no i'm not gonna but it's so weird you know these guys are like i can't do five minutes without saying fuck you're like really i'm sure you can yeah yeah but they're those that's those like that is the first indicator if there's some sort of like test for someone who's going to sabotage your entire life it's that right i can't do five minutes without saying fuck no you might as well quit right because

you're it's not gonna work this is gonna be a tough go-round dude if you if that's all you need but when you do hbo you think you you have you have the freedom to just say whatever you want well that thing that whole thing like i was flying by the seat of my pants that thing is this rare eventually you know i kind of honed it but i've done it this way before but i was when i did that hbo special in 95 i was sort of i was a club comic. I started in regular standup clubs, but at that time in 95, that's when that alt thing started in New York, right? Yes. So I would go do these, these, these alt things where I would just like improvise and it was all

bitter, weird, dark shit, but I would just, it was good for me because that's how I generate i don't write things down i don't know how you work but so i was in that mode so for some reason for that hbo half hour i was like i'm just gonna kind of wing it you wait for the fucking special yeah so like you know i had so like i had like an outline i had stuff i was doing but it wasn't tight you know i and it wasn't and it i did a thing that i didn't realize i was going to do a story thank god i did it it saved the whole goddamn special you didn't even know you were but you there was no plan to do that as a closer or anything no nothing no i think i can't even remember what i closed with but but there was this long story there's a great story about uh going a Jerry Garcia concert that people remember.

And it's a good story. But I literally, on the special, you see me go like, am I going to do that? Yeah, OK, I'll do it. And it was ridiculous. And it was such a wasted opportunity. And I've done that a couple of times. But I understood why my grandmother was upset. Because I went up there.

I'd smoked weed earlier in the day. And I was sort of like, I'm going to honor honor what i'm doing there's another one that's really bad it was at the aspen comedy festival it was it was a a show that they shot up there called kicking aspen boy did i tank oh my god so i'm in that same sensibility it's like i've got this long story and it's good there are beats in it i'm I'm going to go. I'm going to just do one story. Never done it before, by the way? No, I've done it before. Yeah, but not enough.

Not like that. No. Yeah. But like when you're in a story and it ain't working, you're stuck, dude. No, you have to tell the rest of the story. Oh, yeah. You can't just go, anyway, you guys, you know how it goes. No, no.

You have to just trudge all the way through. Oh, it's the worst. And nothing. Oh, bad. Do you have that tape?udge all the way through it's the worst and nothing bad do you have that tape no i don't think so see those are the tapes you need to keep a friend of mine said uh i saw that especially around dragging aspen did it hurt you did those things ever hurt you back then oh the terrible dude like no i just mean industry-wise did it ever clip you a little bit? Like, you know, this fear of like, oh, if I do a bad set, it's going to take me down a peg.

The industry did nothing for me ever. That's my thing. It's this fake fear, right, that everyone goes, if they see me do bad here, da-da-da, it doesn't matter. Most of the time, no one's really watching. And the only way, you know, you have to sort of accumulate that reputation. You have to do it a lot. you have to sort of accumulate that rep that reputation you have to do it a lot well it's just sort of like i i think by and large i was somebody people didn't know what to do with you know like i was angry you know clearly i was i was hanging in and holding on and had some

respect but i did you know 50 conans i still couldn't sell a fucking ticket do you know what i mean it's wild yeah i mean who knows when you're gonna congeal was that part of the reason that the podcast thing was birthed no i mean that was no but what i was gonna say was um oh did it did it hurt me when when i tanked yeah i like i thought personally like you know i didn't know i thought i thought they'd clip you in the business a little bit no it broke my fucking spirit no yes of course because like i remember like dude there have been nights like that you know that chevy chase roast was really one of the worst nights of my life why and well they sweetened the fuck out of it because i tanked and i you know i'm not good at i'm not good at insulting people unless i want to hurt them right like you know i'm not good at it either i don't like that if i'm if i'm insulting you unless I want to hurt them. Right. I'm not good at it either.

I don't like that. If I'm insulting you, it's because I'm defensive and it's preemptive. And I'm fucking mean. Yeah, I'm going to cut in there. It's not ha, ha, ha. It's I mean this. I'm going to say this. There's a way to do it.

I think I've gotten better at it as I've gotten less threatened. But it depends who it is. But I tanked so hard at that fucking roast, man. Everyone did until Lisa Lampanelli. That's how she became a big star. She was the only one that had a good set that night she crushed yeah so that night i was in that hotel at the hilton and there's like 2 000 people in that ballroom dude you know and and i'm and i tank and i'm up in my room with my friend sam lips like crying going like i'm not doing this anymore man

not doing in a tux i'm crying and sam was being supportive he was like it's okay man it wasn't that bad you know kind of he was kind of like it well it wasn't you know it's you know it's bad yes when your friend can't even muster up a spin on it yeah it's not that important no one who's gonna see it who the fuck cares yeah there's that who could who cares right who cares is an easy way to get out of your own way i have hurt myself in the career yes i've hurt myself in the business what do you think hurt you the most what did you do that hurt you the most what do you think uh i i and i've got confirmation on this man okay i um well there i i fucked a publicist that that's not great don't do that don't fuck publicists no no no yeah no because if they get mad at you consider what their job is

so that was a long time yeah i don't know what happened to her that didn't help that was that was bad but it didn't i wasn't really ready to go yet. But one night when Comedy Central used to be a joint venture by Viacom and HBO, and then it shifted totally to Viacom, and it had different owners. Not owners, but the people. They brought in Doug Herzog, who I think might still be there. I do. I think so. And, I mean, this is in, Jesus,esus early 90s i don't remember when it was

but they brought in doug herzog and eileen katz from mtv who i couldn't stand like when i was coming up in new york you know they would do these things where everyone was doing these you know mtv had two or three different showcase shows and you try to get on them and we all did them it was stand-up on mtv yeah yeah yeah like mtv uh half hour mtv whatever no i don't remember oh yeah yeah yeah they they did a bunch of different shows with you know eight ten minute sets sure whatever showcase shows there's a few of them that they had whatever so eileen katz always bothered me you know because i you'd meet with these people and they just i i always had a problem with the executives i never understood that you you had to respect them i did here's

what i didn't understand and i tell people is that like when you start out wherever you are like here in this community in the show business community there there are assistants for big managers that are starting with you there are are people in publicity. There are people in management. They're all at your level. You're a new comic. They're new at their jobs and they're all going to go up. Right. So if you're new at your job going like, fuck you.

Who the fuck are you? You work for that? Fuck you. Like they're all going to go up and you're going to be the fuck you guy. So you have to somehow figure out how not to be a team player, but not to be an asshole just because someone else is lackey. Right. Because that lackey is going to be running something. Sure.

It's true. Every single time. Like there's a guy that worked for my manager that I think is retarded. I'm sorry. But you think he is. No, I don't know. That word keeps creeping up on me too i feel bad about it but it is fun to say in that it kind of is because it means something yeah but it's not

but then you get into that little joke where you try to defend the word and it's not you know what you know why you know who it hurts not just uh uh intellectually challenged people but their parents and their relatives yeah my parents have never complained that they have a retarded son yes they don't care but but okay so this this young man is not was not your favorite well no it was just that they all end up like i mean that's one of the reasons why i i had to leave my management is because i had a manager who i'd been with for 20 years that's the other thing about show business is that they these relationships get stale but why i i had to leave my management is because i had a manager who i'd been with for 20 years that's the other thing about show business is that they these relationships get stale but they're not

going to get rid of you why should they what do they care yeah they're just still making money on you well no even if they're not they just have you hanging around he might pop right and if he does like then we'll jump in right that's right but he he pushed me over to the to the junior lackey and i was like gotta go yeah but here's what happened this was the great event was um so doug herzog and eileen katz from mtv took over comedy central and i was doing a show catch rising star in its second location over by fit when it was like it was not a great location but it was some sort of big event and it was all these people from comedy central who had come almost like a private party you know uh and uh and and it's just my tone sometimes

gets me into trouble sure like if anyone else would have said this i don't think it would have been problematic but i was on stage and i said i I'm really happy that Doug and Eileen have taken over Comedy Central because I think all of television should look like a round-the-clock pie-eating contest. And somehow – Did it kill? Well, yeah. It did well for sure. Sure. Yeah.

But it got back to them. It did well, for sure. Sure. Yeah. But it got back to him. And from what I heard from executives from the time, they had a corporate retreat the following weekend. And Herzog was so lit up about it that he was like, part of the fucking presentation was, don't give Marc Maron anything.

That's the opening statement? Basically. Guys, thanks for being here. Let's not give Marc Maron shit. Right. Moving it felt he said it was like that jesus yeah and but that's not even that exactly but also did you carry yourself that way around them was it a very like oh i have to meet you because i don't but i don't i don't fucking care i think i was misunderstood i think i'd like to frame it that way have you felt that way your whole life? Misunderstood? Yeah. No, I know when I'm being a dick. Right.

Were you doing that on purpose to cats and Herzog? When you would see them and say hi, would you project that thing? Like, look, I do it too, where they know I'm not happy about it. And my wife is always like, they can tell. Be a little bit nicer. I'm bad at faking that thing. At being like, it's hard and so i know when i do it you know when you did it and you know you probably did it and it so it layered the idea

that you know for sure for sure and i and i don't you know i don't i don't know what the hell i was thinking i didn't know that it was a business yeah really i mean i just wanted to be a comic yeah and i thought like you know i'm just going to really i mean i just wanted to be a comic yeah and i thought like you know i'm just gonna keep doing this work i want to be a comic and i want to be a great comic and i thought it all kind of fell into place you know after that but it doesn't especially if you have those kind of weird entitled expectations like i've been doing this fuck you i'm good at this go fuck yourself yeah we're done that's not gonna work there was another time where i but see the thing these people talk and i don't and i had no control there's one other thing i remember that

like i'm i'm still embarrassed about give it to me i went in on a like i got i got like a network callback like a studio it was like a final callback how recent is this it's a long time okay and i don't i don't like i i didn't understand i was not a character right what i was doing on stage the angry guy or whatever it was all real it was you right yeah so when people are sort of like we get him yeah no you don't there's no control here there's no valve i don't get me i'm fucking barely keeping it together so they're like you know you're the new cranky guy i'm like whatever i don't know cranky guy so so i i get this callback for this part of a guy who's like

an edgy guy the word was edgy this guy's got an edge to him cool for it was the show was something it was actually a behind the scenes show at a music network or something and i don't remember who was doing it or what but it was like all the brass was going to be there like it was my it was a big network thing there were real other actors people i recognized in television going in right and uh you know before i go in the casting agent you know it's one of those you know how those rooms are where you where you read or show for everybody it's the worst worst it's not but it's not just like the casting director and the producer and the writer this is like the network oh yeah it's like the final studio the network right producer yeah so she comes up to me she goes look man you know you can really cut

loose here you can really you know this guy's an angry guy so you do it and i'm like okay i can feel it i went in there dude i don't even know what happened but it was like my entire life worth of anger just blacked out blasted it blast i don't even think i hit the lines i was just yelling at the entire infrastructure of a network just screaming and i got done and i could just see on the looks that like like it was like it wasn't even like an audition it was just sort of like do we is this okay right okay a breakdown and like in the way the casting agent walked me out she's like okay okay you know at security come almost okay mark thank you thank you mark and that was so cathartic for me but like in retrospect it was must have been just like terrifying and weird and how did that gig go

well yeah i get it i didn't get it i know i mean this stuff is happening here's another like here is another this is another better example um this wasn't that long ago. It was probably, it was like shortly after my wife left me, maybe 2007. I had this, I couldn't fucking, before the podcast,

I had nothing. I was like almost done. So I had this weird booking agent. And this is another story about the manager, right? With his friend. The manager, the lackey. Yeah. So. The manager, the lackey.

Yeah. So now the lackey's my guy. And I got this gig through this weird booking agent. She's a nice lady, but she books, I don't know. She primarily deals with people that do one-man shows as historical characters. She's got a great Frank Lloyd Wright guy. guy oh yes set me up yeah so but she got me this night this book uh college you know that some on some one of their it was a co-headlining gig with tom papa and somehow i got booked into it by this woman you and tom papa yeah a co-headlining gig down in st louis obispo or somewhere i don't remember it was and for some reason man like you

know tom's like hey i gotta you know get home for a second can i can i go first i'm like i can't okay and now i'm freshly divorced i'm driving up there with my buddy uh uh uh fuck good friend he is a good friend i i'm losing my mind anyways yeah um and it's raining it never rains here pouring it's like torrential yeah and we get to this gig it's half filled and you know tom goes up there and does this clean kind of very so clean i was that's what i was gonna say i was like you two are not the same thing i get up there like i'm like processing being left and i'm like you know i did some really difficult you know uh joke up front about obama and about you know i can't remember what it was but it was challenging how you hated that he was black i've heard this yeah yeah well no but it was a racially charged joke but it was in the right it was in the correct direction but it could

be misunderstood just because people you know right when they do this thing they go before they even know what's he saying yeah yeah yeah so one of those jokes right and that just fucking hits the garbage just hits the floor nothing that's why papa's like yeah yeah yeah exactly getting getting out of here he's driving already he's driving and I've erased him with my fucking horrendous negativity. And I have this bad habit where if I'm fucking going to eat it, I'm going to eat it hard and I'm not going to get off. I like that. I'm going to go long.

Yeah. I'm going to sit down and we're going to lean into this. And just dig deep. Oh, yeah. You like that. I do. Being in this like just- No, I don't like it.

But I think the part of me is just like, well, if I in this like just no i don't like it but it i think the part of me is just like well if i'm gonna tank i don't want them to say that like i ran off right i'm gonna give them their money's worth sure i'm gonna keep trying and i'm gonna i'm gonna fight this out because you can leave and they can go that was interesting that was terrible but you know he kept trying he stayed up stayed up there look at him he stayed in the box give him credit so i did that i stayed in the box for like an hour and a half holy on a 40 on a 45 minute set that wasn't going well in a big half-filled arena did they walk at all rain did anybody walk oh i don't know yeah you don't you you were black you were just in your own zone and uh and i drive home with uh don it's done done and and it's

raining and it was another one of those scenes where it's like that wasn't that bad was it and he's like hey no man i mean you know you had you had some stuff to say i'm like oh god damn it and it's fucking awful just feel just feeling that thing oh for an hour and a half on the way home just dude it i knew it happened have you ever done those corporate gigs where it's to like i won't do those you never did them no so i i've had maybe one or two oh god would you do them today no if the money was good yeah no i won't do them i don't give the fuck the money um i can't do things for money because like you know because then like that kind of stuff we're stuffed there it's completely not something i should do it's like but the money it's sort of

like yeah but i'm gonna get there and i'm like there were gigs where i used to get fallout gigs you don't know they're fallout gigs until you get there yeah you know like anthony clark couldn't i'm like what you know like thanks for doing this for us yeah what do you mean yeah well the you know um we were supposed to have bill maher in them oh oh cool i thought you guys wanted me no no we're happy that you're here one time i took an event i walk in it's just like just husbands and wives at a thing and these men were not me men no no i'm i'm rare like there's not a lot of me men but these guys are definitely dudes.

And there's an ice sculpture. And there's a buffet. And there's a mic in the middle of a dance floor with no real different taste. There's no stage. And this woman's walking me out. And she's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, you know, AIDS. Sorry, HIV.

But mostly the transition into AIDS. that's kind of my stuff like yeah drugs you know she's like they like sports can you talk about sports i'm like cannot and i just sat up there quietly talking to myself on a microphone in front of an ice sculpture not one laugh nothing yeah so so i'm driving home from st louis obispo right and uh the next day the woman who booked me panickyicky, Panicky calls me up. She goes, what happened? I'm like, I don't know. I did a long set.

She goes, they said you did a late night set? What does that mean, a late night set? And I'm like, that's pretty astute. It was kind of an hour and a half late night set. She's like, they're not going to book my people anymore. I'm like, look, I'm sorry. Just say I'm not your people, lady. Yeah, yeah.

I felt bad for her. But then the fucking guy, the idiot at my management. The lackey. He has no idea about this gig because he didn't book it. And he's not even in touch with this woman. So he calls me up. He's like, how was the gig? I heard it went great.

I'm like, you did not hear that. Crushed. Did not hear that. And he's like, yeah, I heard it went great. I'm like, you did not hear that. Crushed. Did not hear that. And he's like, yeah, I heard it went great. I'm like, let's just do this now and maybe we can move forward with our relationship. Tell me you're lying. I've caught you in a lie.

There's no way in hell. The woman who booked it just called me and it was a disaster. You did not hear I did great. He's like, I did. I heard you did great. Just tell me you're lying. Stick to the lie.

Great. He stuck to it. Yeah, good for him. He's like, listen,. I heard you did great. Just tell me you're lying. Stick to the lie. Great. He stuck to it. Yeah, good for him. He's like, listen, Mark. That's his job. I heard what I heard. Yeah, exactly. All right.

I'm not going to tell you who or where or how, but that's how I heard it. You did great. Do you work with people now like that? Are you still, do you have a team or you're like, you have one agent and that's it? No, no. I got people. You have a whole squad of people still booking you? I feel like some guys get to a place and they dump all that shit.

No, I'm not that guy come on man i mean i'm still you know i i'm i do nice theater gigs nice theaters in some place i'm not an arena act i got i gotta want to be in arena no no they're what kind of what would i do they're a nightmare i gotta tell you they're i know i talked to you once yeah that's like i don't daunting but like you know i just remember like we don't have to be specific but i was like you know uh yeah we don't need to because no it's just it's we've talked about it you and i and i said and i said the same thing that i've always said which is it's cool to be able to do you're like whoa it's wild to do this it's beautiful and strange to be able to gather something you know be in a room with that many people but it feels so like not stand up it's but it's a rally yeah depending who you're working yeah it's a rally it's a rally you know like you gotta because you even think about like even like kevin hart is really a he's almost like a motivational speaker right totally so like it's a different thing like i

still believe like i it takes me a while to adjust to realize that even in a nice theater where it's sort of like this is built for performance because in my mind it's like ceilings too high ceilings are too high yeah yeah yeah yeah that's true when you walk into a club with too high ceilings you're like this is what are you guys doing where's the sound gonna how'd you guys do this yeah why is it like this right oh sound system is very important i'm very dope like i'm so fucking like happy when i'm in like, pow, whoa, this is good. I do love that. Right?

In a tight, small room. Oh, yeah. Like Denver, something underground like that. Well, Denver is almost cheating. You're sort of like, that wasn't that funny. You guys are going a little bit. But I do like it. That's good.

Yeah. It's definitely a booster. But because what it does is it reminds you, though, that like sometimes you deserve a little freebie in that world. You know what I mean? Like you've been through enough shit gigs where you're like, I don't give a fuck that it's a little cheating. I need this. No, no. I always go there.

I'm going to go there. Like I'm going to try to like coming back to stand up. I've only done like five shows. Like in town or road? No, I didn't do anything. I didn't do any outdoor town, outdoor shows. Why not? Fuck that.

Not to cars, but just on stage outdoors. I don't want to do it. I like it. I got to tell you, I've been doing the outdoor shows. Fucking love it. Really? It's felt so... Well, I did the cars once at the Magic Castle.

Burr was like, she wants your number. Do you want to go do it? And Bill was doing a fuckload of them and i said okay i'll go do one and i went and did one and i had that feeling that you used to have where you're like i could fuck quit i comedy's bullshit anyway fuck all this it's worthless this is what we've come to and then i was like i'm never gonna do a car show ever again so i never did another one and i just started doing the outdoor shows maybe a month or two i'm sure they're fine they're good for me like i i think i don't in my brain i wasn't really ready for like i did fucking oddball i've done

like 23 000 people outside that's see that's way worse it's no terrible yeah but i understand how that worked but for me there was some part of my brain that's like i don't need the stress of that i don't like i'm to wait until I'm home. Yeah. Like, like at the store or whatever. Cause like, I don't know what I've got. I don't know if I've got anything. I don't know if I need to do this anymore, but if I'm going to go back to it and figure

it out, I'm going to do it at a club because that's the context that honors what I do. Totally. I don't want to go out there and try to pretend like i have an act in the middle of this shit show you know for people you know wedged in between buildings socially distanced at a fake nightclub in a parking lot so specific oh it's so true you know but you've done the store now yeah and do you like it it's great okay because i hated when i did the main room and it was like a quarter cap. I didn't mind at all because like, you know what brain I was in is sort of like, I got to build shit, you know, and I've got to talk.

I've got, you know, this is where this happens. Right. And I used to do shows for five people. Sure. I came up in New York. Yeah. I used to do the Boston Comedy Club on a Tuesday when we had to drag three people in. There's nothing strange about performing for half a house at a comedy club.

Right. We came up that way. You just don't. But you're so used to not doing it anymore. That's why. I guess. But it's still not abnormal. No, you know what it feels like.

It's not a parking lot. Yeah, no, that's weird. Right? Yeah. So it's sort of like. But see, the thing is, it's like, yeah, you've got a late night audience, but they're there at the beginning and they're excited. Yeah, they want to be there.

Yeah, you know, you're aware of each pocket of laughter and stuff. But they're supportive because we're all trying to readjust. Right. So I was thrilled. And last night, I finally kind of really got into a place, you know. Well, see, I didn't mind the OR because that's a special thing to me. That's where I started. I said, don't put me in the main room yeah that's my thing see the main room that i did once and i said to we won't mention names but i said to the person that's their book and i said i don't

want to do the main room just give me the or guys the or just has such its own working vibe anyway the main room is just it's just it's still daunting when it's half filled or quarter filled you're like it feels so like it's a little weird i did it one night and it was it was okay i like the reciprocation of the or don't you oh no i love the or now it's like they're it's vaxxed capacity oh is that what it is yeah like they're filling it up see i you're right because initially this you had to bring a car or you have to have a card or a negative test but now has to have a card otherwise you can't get in that's good i love it fuck those people everyone who's anti-vax uh whatever i don't care it's like fuck you we get to have fun yeah now yeah we did it and it's private business so what are you going to do fuck the vaccination passports it's not private business they don't want you in that's

right bye yeah fuck you don't want to serve cakes to gay people. We're not going to let you in. This is how the world works. It is. It's so funny that these, like, fuck them. But it's like, it's good fodder. But no, the main room, but you know, the main room on a good night can be tricky. Oh, no. That place can be packed and suck. Truly.

And it's only because of the dancing of comics that went on before you, too. Maybe. Sometimes that place is just stale. I don't get it. I've been there at nights where no one's doing it. Right. No one can get them over the hump. Right.

And I don't know why. Well, it's something about the vibe that happens there. Sometimes it is the audience's fault. They are an organism. Once there's that many of them and they're tight, they're one brain. Yeah. And sometimes it's shitty. It's dull. i moved to here in 06 where were you were you here in 06 yeah i was while i was getting left by my wife and then i went to uh that's why

i came back to new york in 2007 because i yeah because i don't remember us really crossing over so i was away a lot uh from like 2006 to 2008 i knew of you i knew you and then i knew of you coming and going you were kind of one of those guys because the club back then wasn't what it became it was still in this weird kind of holy place and dull and empty all the time and guys didn't really talk to us oh really yeah it was just kind of like a young guys there were never really welcomed until i would say probably 2010 is when people would chat with younger comics it was a weird divide when i first showed up it was like a don't fucking go over there i just would hang out the improv yeah i never were you never an improv guy no because like fuck them i don't have why fuck them because they

you know they they never gave me anything. They never helped my career. They did nothing for me ever. They would- Did you showcase for Bud at any point or no? Sure, way back in the day. But then I was like, they didn't want me. You know, when I got back, once I established,

you know, one night I headlined there and Mencia came in and they let him bump me on my night. On your headlining night? Yeah. Holy fuck. Out of spite because he wanted to feed me my ass for some reason. Right.

So he got up there and he did 45 minutes and I left about 20 into it. Wow. And I'm like, you're going to let him do that? Fuck you. I'm not going to. Don't you think those days are over? Yeah. Yeah. But here's the other problem with the improv, ultimately.

Because the club itself is one thing, but it's the booking arm of it. Sure. I don't know who's in charge over there, but it used to be this woman, Erin. And she would always say, oh, we love you. We love you. I'd see her at festivals. Love you. We love you.

And they'd just give me fallout weeks you know in papered rooms and granted i couldn't draw but like they would give me like i was working in the schomburg room in chicago yeah well on the burbs like when it opened ish you know i picked up a week on the fly and uh when i got there it was um rich jen Jenny's week that he had canceled. And on the Saturday, he killed himself. Wow. You didn't think maybe you should do that? You were like, maybe I'm next. No, I died on stage.

There was no one there. They told all those people. They were like, Rich killed himself, guys. 15 people I'm drawing at the place that seats 500. That's huge. So I understood it to a degree but i i just did i don't like the way they run rooms they're they're they've never been nice the corporate element of it is daunting right i never sell tickets that well even at irvine so i it's not

my joint right it's just not your it's not your vibe yeah it's not my venue it's not my audience for some reason like my people like i remember one time i got booked at that mall of america room and like oh yeah and i have fans now that then they had to drive out there and go through that fucking rigmarole my people will go to a theater my people will go to acme my people will go to the comedy works or rock venues right yeah but i don't love those but yeah yeah yeah uh if i if i don't have an option i'd rather do a little theater but and my my people will go to independent comedy clubs so improvs are not they're just not my bag right right and i don't know who the hell goes to those but i guess and they always paper them so in my mind i was just sort of like

they did nothing for me i will make them no money i appreciate the honesty and like and i had an agent that i fired because he wouldn't stop trying to get me to do off nights at improv that's probably because he's getting a nice kickback from that whole political that's the other side of it that i don't really that bothers me so much as like i'm always like what do you have in with these people that you want me to do i said i'm not working improv yeah and then he'd be like what do you what do you think about this tuesday do a door deal i'm like what are we doing and then like he did it again i'm like i'm done with you yeah and i even have another agent in mind just fly free well that's because they but they all have connections and they have business look my dad always said to me everyone's trying to keep their fucking job and you learn it as you

get older that you're like oh yeah all these guys just want to keep their job. They have the right things to move to the thing to make sure that they're satisfying whatever partnerships that they've created. And we are just chess pieces that they go, ah, I've got a good piece. I hate that. I know that. Yeah. And also your favor. That was the worst thing about me is that, you know, I had powerful management, but i couldn't fucking give it away in tv or

movies or anything or even getting booked on stage but my management sort of hey do me a favor see if you can get married something so every once in a while i think i would have agents but i really didn't they were just favors to my powerful manager and they'd go nowhere to the point where like years like years ago like berkowitz took me on really yeah and his company you know because because my manager said you know try to get him some work and it was just clubs then and he was literally he literally said months later like i'm not gonna get you any work i can't sorry it's not gonna happen it's nothing personal i just i can't yeah honesty is good yeah and i'm like okay thanks

yeah exactly but years later he took me back on and said, you know, I felt bad about that. So now we're going to do it. And, you know, he was fine. But when, you know, his guy, Joe, went over to UTA or whatever, I went with Joe. Because Joe was always the guy who I was working with. Because, you know, Mike was doing arenas. Yeah. You know, Mike was, you know, doing international soccer stadiums.

Right. With my peers. The O2 Arena. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, you know mike was you know doing international soccer stadiums right with my peers the o2 arena yeah yeah and i'm like you know i get it but like you know this dude was you know on the ground with me so i'm gonna go ahead you shift it with him that's what i always say i go with the people the acronyms don't mean anything when they're like you're gonna go over this other place like yeah i don't fucking what i don't care it's a title yeah i like i like i don't know what they do sometimes i was i was at wme for years and i'm like i don't know and and i i just left you just like i'm taking off but then how do you but look and finally i have good people now i mean sometimes you know it really depends what you

want what you're willing to do yeah but i have like an i have a good guy you know over at uh uh icm and you know he's he's an old timer but he's not really an old timer but he's a he's a smart guy i like him and i like the team over there for what i'm doing my management is you know they're great he's a guy i've known forever i ended up there and he's uh he's been around for a long time and i like them over there and my booking guy is joe so like and i'm like, you know, I'm not desperate or crazy and I wouldn't, there's part of me would rather not do anything.

Yeah. Is next guest here? What's happening? That's male. That's how we get male. Do you squat here or is this something you pay for? I live here. I live here.

I have to do what I have to do, Mark. In there, in the corner? Yeah, in that little, this is my kitchen. I can't believe I'm getting so specific and I'm just names of agencies yeah who cares i don't know you didn't say anything bad about it no it's just like i you know it got to this point where you know most of my visibility i created myself on a fluke i didn't know you know the podcast like i i was at the end of my tether i was at the fucking at the end of my rope and then like things turned around and now i'm okay and i saved my money i didn't spend money and i can pull some people here and there i've got you know people who will come see me yeah and the podcast does

very well and you know i've done some tv and movies now and like but i'm not freaking out i don't need to be a bigger star i'm just trying to figure out how to if i want to act how to challenge myself to feel like it's something that is not just a weird pretendy thing, how to do a role that's not me. Did you like Glow? Yeah, yeah. You did? I did.

And then I just did a movie over COVID, which was crazy. But it was a guy that really wasn't like me. And I had to do an accent and shit. And the director seemed happy. But I was like, I got to do this to see if I can apply these skills. Sure. You know, because I can get away with it. If you give me a role that's kind of like me.

Yeah. I can listen. No, some guys are too self-conscious to function on camera. I'm not one of them. But a lot of comics, you can just see them like they can't get out of themselves. Right. Well, because they want to do the comic thing. A lot of guys want to go back to the stand-up thing.

I don't really know what it is. But some people just are awkward. It's stilted when they have to engage with other people. Right. Right. They become uncomfortable. I like the acting thing. Well, you're good at it.

Well, I'm all right. I think your second half of your career, in my personal opinion, will be way more acting than stand-up because I think you've kind of started to find a groove. I think you've found a lot of stuff that's really good on camera. And you've done some really great stuff. And I don't want to compliment you anymore because that's all I'm going to give you. That's it. That's all I'm going to give you.

Okay. I appreciate it. Yeah. I mean, I feel that because even after my last special, I was like, that's the best I can do. And there's enough comics around there's so much stand-up is like what what else do you want to achieve as a stand-up that you already haven't done i'd like to um well there's oddly you know my last two specials are the only ones that i really started to to sort of structure things

like i start to like structure hours and use callbacks and stuff. I mean, that started literally in the last two specials. I started to really like, I'm good at this now. Why not take the time to put things together and practice and see if you can do a through line, challenge myself that way. So there's some things I haven't done. I don't think I do enough voices. Mark, it's been an absolute pleasure. I can't wait to do your show. We end this show the same

way. Look in the camera, say one word or one phrase to end the episode. When I walk off camera, that's how we end it. One word, one phrase in the camera when I'm gone. I'm tired. I'm tired. In here, we pour whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey. You're that creature in the ginger beard. Sturdy and ginger. Like vampires, the ginger gene is a curse.

Gingers are beautiful. You owe me $5 for the whiskey, $75 for the horse. Gingers are hell no. This whiskey is excellent. Ginger. I like gingers.