WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1140 - Jim Carrey

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

Jim Carrey just wrote his first novel, a semi-autobiographical look at show business and an examination of persona. It makes sense because Jim has been playing with persona during his entire career in show business. Jim talks with Marc about his days doing stand-up in Canada, LA and Las Vegas, and the late night realization that forced him to change his act and create the public image that launched him to superstardom. They also talk about In Living Color, Ace Ventura, Rodney Dangerfield, Sam Kinison, and holding out hope for the future.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtfTF. Welcome to it. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. How are you? How's your walk going? How are you doing with the dishes there?

Is everything all right? Do you need help with that kid? Is that kid all right? Well, just take a minute and calm him down. Calm that kid down. How's it going with the drive? All right? Be careful. Wear your fucking mask wear your fucking mask wear your fucking mask hey google what is the definition of eschatology

here's the definition of eschatology the part of theology concerned with death judgment and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind the soul and of humankind she kind of swerved that she saw google swerved that a little bit didn't it hey google what's the definition of a conspiracy here's the definition of conspiracy a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. Oh, but that's not a conspiracy theory. That seems to be what dictates the behavior of stupid people. The secret plan of a group. Oh, those are the people that actually are generating the conspiracy theories for the stupid people. The creators of the stupid conspiracy theories are actually the conspiracy

to make people more stupid activate their anger and to vote against their fucking personal interests and the interests of humanity so we get to get on with this eschaton today by the way i talked to a jim carrey hey google who is jim carrey according to wikipedia james eugene carrey is a canadian american actor comedian writer producer author and artist known for his energetic slapstick performances carrey first gained recognition in 1990 after landing a recurring role in the american sketch comedy television series in Living Color. Holy shit. I thought we were going to have a full conversation.

Yeah, Jim Carrey is here, and it was not easy to get him on the show. I would have talked to him anytime, but it just never happened. And now sometimes it's a little easier to get guests on with this new format. He's got a book out. It's an odd book. It's an interesting book that he co-wrote with a guy um i'll tell you about that in a minute but the thing about jim jim carrey is that uh i don't know he's one of those guys where you know i've watched him over the years and i always get this i have you know i have a father who's prone towards depression and I have a sensitivity to it.

So when I when I see people, I talk to people who have that sensitivity to it. It kind of gets, you know, I have to have to put up some extra boundaries. And it was an interesting conversation because he reminded me of something that that, you know, I don't think about a lot, but but it's a real thing. You know, he's a comedy store guy. And there was this very conscious, for me, when you start doing stand-up, I guess that some people, I don't know how they really think about stand-up when they start it. I'm going to tell some jokes. I've written some jokes.

I'm going to tell them. But for some of us, the idea of getting up on that stage and figuring out who you are up there and what part of you lives up there and how are you going to be defined up there is a real journey and that is the the journey of the craft the journey of the art if you want to give it that and what was interesting to me in this interview if it doesn't pop as much as I think it should, because I found myself thinking about it afterwards, is that, you know, after Jim is already a very successful entertainer, he was an impressionist, and that's how he kind of got started. He goes back to the drawing board at the comedy store, and he decides he's not going to do impressions anymore so he

can figure out you know who he is up there and that's fucking bold man and that's what a lot of us did you know it's just like you keep going up there it's not so much to to figure out you know how to be funny but it's to figure out you know what are you on that stage who lives up there which part of you but by going up there with nothing and bombing and sometimes killing, but just having moments where you're not sure what's going to happen over and over again, he got to the character that really sort of defined him as a comedic actor. The I don't give a shit about anything guy. The I don't care guy, which you see in a lot of the work that he did later. And that happened on the standup stage. And I just found that guy, which you see in a lot of the work that he did later. And that happened on the standup stage. And I just found that, uh, I just found that fascinating, really, um, that that's how he

developed that. It's also odd that, you know, having not done standup in months now, I w I wasn't really missing it, but I think there's some other part of me that, that is, that is missing it. You know, I feel like there's part of me that feels you know certainly but this was happening before uh lynn passed away that like you know is there more to do is there do i have to do more stand-up work i feel like my last two specials um too real and uh end times fun sort of sum up that's the big work uh certainly for this period of history we're living in

and there was this this feeling i have is like am i done do i need to do any more and it's the same with acting it's like do i need to do more do i need to do more of other people's work have i challenged myself enough and now oh my potatoes are ready my potatoes are ready my potatoes are ready. Hey, Google, how long do you cook a baked potato? Bake one hour or until skin feels crisp, but flesh beneath feels soft.

Okay, all right. So what I was saying is that even before Lynn passed away, I was sort of blank slating a little bit, which is some equivalent of creative flatlining. And now I just don't know, you know? But I'm starting to feel that the part of me that lives on a stand-up stage is starved. And the other thing about being with Lynn

for the time we were together, she was a great audience, and I kept that muscle working because she loved to laugh, and I loved making her laugh. So it was always engaged audience and i kept that i kept that muscle working because she loved to laugh and i loved making her laugh so it was always engaged and i don't even know i'm not sure what that muscle is like right now i guess the point being is i do feel like i've done everything that i set out to do i would have liked to have won one award do you know what i mean just one award of some kind i know they don't mean anything but one you know not but like a big one you know like uh i would like to win a uh a grammy or a p body

or an emmy it doesn't really fucking matter it doesn't do anything but i don't know that'd be nice but i don't think i'm i don't think that's gonna happen i don't think that's gonna happen for me what's my big prize a new kitten here's a new kitten so listen people uh jim carrey jim carrey's a force you know him you all know him everybody knows him he was it he was all of it but he's co-wrote this interesting book it's called memoirs and misinformation a novel uh it is it's kind of a novel but it has bits and pieces of real stuff in it and and this guy dana vashon is a you can turn a phrase got some funny in him and jim's you know there's parts of jim's story and parts of it are fictionalized um but you can get that wherever you get your books.

Again, memoirs and misinformation and novel. And here's me and Jim coming right up. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations,

how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+.

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See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means.

I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. you know it's a day-to-day fight against sadness and anger but i'm fine yeah i could offer you some help actually i think i could actually well we'll lay it on you could talk about supplements we could talk about uh tyrosine we could talk tyrosine about uh yeah i don't know that one well tyrosine is the chemical in your brain that's responsible for enthusiasm oh tyrosine yeah tyrosine hydroxy tryptophan as well which is what people who do ecstasy take on uh sunday afternoon so they don't kill themselves on Tuesday. Oh, I see.

So I get it. Helps them ease out. That's right. Builds up the dopamine and serotonin again. So those are well-prepared drug users. It's a full-time job. Oh, no, there are. There are some people who are up and down,

medicating themselves through life completely. Oh, how about the microdosing people that don't realize they're just fucking tripping? Oh yeah. Tripping all the time. All the time. Or the people that are on Adderall, you know, they crush up the Adderall and sort it and stuff.

Yeah. That's how the doctor prescribes it. They get a ton of work done, but it's all bad. Yeah. Nothing good. Yeah. Nothing good. So these are the, so your supplements are, I'm on, I'm on a very small supplement intake

diet. I just take the liposomal vitamin C and a vitamin D right now. I'm, I'm anti-tumoric and I'm. You look good. I feel alright. I've heard your tumeric rant. It's wonderful. Yeah.

I like your bits also about the shortening the distance there, the time between. Fuck you and I'm sorry. Blowing up. Yeah. Fuck you and I'm sorry blowing up yeah fuck you and i'm sorry that's really funny then taking the walk winning the argument and then looping back to apologize it's beautiful yeah very real you know how that goes you know how that goes i do i do i have to apologize constantly let's start with i can we can start with the book and then

move backward from there it's like uh i mean i mean, I've read about a third of it. I'm trying. You know, I've got my own schedule, but I understand. There's a lot of words. I understand what's happening. No, it's got nothing to do with the book. It's just, you know, my brain's in a weird place, but I'm trying to do my homework. It's an incredible kind of thing that we're facing these days.

Everybody is multitasking and I never stop. It's just literally, I took 10 minutes to take a breath before I got on the air here. Well, yeah, but I'm just overwhelmed all the time. And, you know, really, my ability to compartmentalize is limited. Everything is changing so rapidly. It's unbelievable. We're in the midst of a convulsive historic moment. Yes.

In so many ways at once. Yes. That it's just mind boggling. Are any of them good, Jim? Yes. Honestly, I honestly believe that we are, you know, it's the crowning of a new age. It's the crowning of a, you know, we're going to get out. Yeah, it's a birth.

It's a painful labor. And I think, you know, it's going to be a great new world, you know, we're going to get out. Yeah. It's a birth. It's a, it's a painful labor. And, uh, and I think, uh, you know, it's, it's going to be a great new world, you know? Okay, good. Well, I'll hold onto that. So with the, with the partnership in the book now, did you have an idea before to write a book and, and you were like, I imagine people have been pestering you to write a memoir for probably three decades? I have no idea. I had no designs about it at all. It really all came from a moment in time where I stepped through the Truman door, you know, which I've done several times in my life and try to kind of grow another branch that I could bring back to the tree. You know, I was spending time in New York in the West village and becoming an artist, you know, and trying to breathe life back into the West village scene. Yeah. And, uh, and I rented myself a space there and it was so much fun.

And just, I was just, you know, big Bay door open and painting and going wild with music at four in the morning and dispatching drunks from the bar next door. And it was an incredible experience. And, uh, I was really deep into that and a really terrible winter. And, uh, I wanted someone to give me kind of a perspective or like an, maybe do an essay around the work I was doing. It was all fairly apocalyptic. The paintings of a popular, horrible people? No, not that. That came later. The cartoons came.

That was a symptom of the liar. Right. The cancer that we must remove. The malignant pig man. Yeah, the melanoma. Yeah. That belies a deeper sickness. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Not an unfamiliar sickness though, is it? No, it isn't, but it's reached epic proportions, you know, since Gordon Gekko said greed is good. Well, you know, it's interesting. I was trying to do a joke, Jim, about how he's the envy of all narcissists because he actually succeeded in making it all about him. Actually everything. Everything, everything. Well, yeah, there's a big danger there. So it's really tough not to concentrate on it. So this is a lot of energy into trying to get that out of there.

But, but before that I was trying to meet a writer and maybe talk about an essay around the paintings and Dana Vachon Who had no interest in that whatsoever? Sure. It was a really serious writer and didn't want to do essays about paintings. Yeah You know, he came in just Under that Under that guys to just meet me and say hello because he had been watching me online and some of the ridiculous things I was Doing were were appealing to him like something as simple as boing I just got up one day and I I uh tweeted out boing because I couldn't describe my joy in any other way

have you ever felt the boing man sure sure I I sometimes I glimpses glimpses of the boing I usually fight the boing I I innately fight the boing fight the boing that be yeah uh yeah well that's is that because you have uh a need to keep the well full the pain well for your art i i don't you know a lot of people believe that i i mean i've heard that but like i i've never had to uh to to work to keep that well full. No, it's an easy thing. Well, no, I just never, it never dawned on me that people would do that on purpose. You know, when people say that the rain gathers and the well gets full. Yeah.

I'm just a joy makes me nervous, Jim. That's all. It just makes me nervous to don't know what to do with it. I don't know how to behave around it. I ended up crying. I know, especially in this time, But in this time, it's almost like you're afraid to step out and be joyful. You're afraid to kind of affirm the positive and stuff. But I'm telling you, it's a big moment in our history. And it's a wonderful time to be barely alive. Yeah, I agree with you. It's an exciting time. And hitting five fingertips. And so, okay, so Dana says he doesn't want to write essays about your paintings, but he enjoys your single word joy tweets. And that's where the romance begins.

He came to meet me. He came to meet me, and we just struck up a friendship right away. And we kept talking. And we had kind of a, he's East Coast, I'm West Coast. We had this Skype friendship happening and and the conversations got so interesting I was doing a lot of viewing at a certain point I was kind of hiding out from the world I was going through a lot of deep currents in my life and surviving Oh like major

traumatic relationships and things like that that happened. So PTSD keeps me very selective at this point, and the atmosphere. Do you feel like that you actually had PTSD from it? Yeah, I definitely do. I've been through some things that made me jump at the slightest sound, absolutely. Or the slightest hint of a relationship. I get a little terrified. Have you tried that EMDR?

Yes. Yes. I've done a little of that. I did a little of that. Absolutely. It was interesting. It was interesting. It's a long process though.

Going through every detail of a traumatic situation, you know, it's like, it's very, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, but I, I recommend it. It's pretty interesting. Anything that lets you know yourself a little better, you know it's to find the hot spot yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's but i i recommend it it's pretty interesting anything that lets you know yourself a little better you know and i think that's working in there i think it's great yeah plus it's good material it's all good material yeah yeah it it can be so all right so you're you're you're in that kind of uh you're running from the the idea of idea of a relationship. I wanted to, and I think what happened is Dana and I had the same desire,

and that was to study persona, what we're doing, why we're building these scaffoldings of, you know, kind of, I'd call them, you know, abstract scaffoldings of who we are. You know, I'm a Canadian American, and I'm this and, you know, abstract scaffoldings of who we are. You know, I'm a Canadian American and I'm this and I'm that and I'm a Catholic and I'm that. And it's all abstract stuff. And when you drill down, there's no you left. You get rid of the abstract stuff. Sure.

So that's kind of what tripped us into the Advaita Advaita Vedanta, which is the, the ancient Hindu, uh, structure of, uh, believing there's no two things, you know? And, uh, and so I really seek freedom that way. And the book kind of hints at that as the, uh, the true identity is waiting for you when you claw your way out of the sarcophagus of the personality that you've created for yourself. I used to say that most personalities are just a reaction from someone telling you you couldn't do something early on. Yeah. Yeah. Or reactions to fear. Yeah. Reactions to the ego saying you're not going to have. It's like the book is about the fear of erasure, which we all have. Right. Of course. Right.

And our obsession with relevance, not relevance that just makes you do all right in your life, the kind of relevance that lasts beyond your death to the end of the program. But don't you think that this is something, you know, specifically relative to artists or people that with power that, you know specifically relative to um artists or people that with power that you know i don't think anymore i don't think anymore i think the internet the the social media everybody's begging a billion strangers to touch their subscribe button and open their notifications and they're all trying to you know get to that place which we got to and uh, uh, but when we got there, we realized, okay, this isn't actually going to make me happy. You know, the transcendence of this at moments,

I don't purport to be able to transcend this stuff and stay there. I don't believe anybody who, who does say that, like the, I'm just an enlightened being and I never feel anything but this enlightenment. Uh, you know, I get glimpses and man, I'm free when the grasping stops. But don't you find, haven't you found that, you know, blowing yourself through those walls, like, you know, even, you know, being able to become egoless or to rid yourself in whatever meditative state of all these manifestations of and a false self that, you know, you do land on something that is authentically you. I mean, you don't come to the bottom of that and you're, there's a bigger you, it's not an end of, it's not, it's not a relative you. Okay. It's not a

you that relates to other use. Right. Okay. Yeah. Freedom comes in. They're only being one you, yes. You know? know yeah and it includes the table and the computer and the and the ocean and the the trees and you try to breathe without them you know you can't that makes me a little tired to be that expansive i just i found that very exhausting to be carrying it in every once in a while yeah you know yeah it's uh for me it's just a moment of freedom whenever I remember it. Good. It's like, just to remember that you're this, you're the space in which all of this is happening is just, huh? Yeah. Right. Right. And, and, and ultimately you're just part of the

frequency and you can hang on to that for a minute. Yeah. And then, and then the, the, the illusion gets so compelling again and your individuality gets so compelling. Or else you just have to make coffee. I mean, it can be that simple, the illusion. Yeah. Like I got to eat something. Right. It's time to eat.

Time to feed the body and brain. Right. Exactly. But I feel like a fragment of myself. This body and brain, I honestly think is a fragment of myself. So I'm being affected by all this stuff socially with all the needs of people and the protests and all that stuff at the same time. It's weird how this book has been kind of prophetic in ways. It's turned out to kind of express some of the things that

are going on, including the toppling of statues. Only we did it in a silly way we went to to disney because it was the only place that we could topple a giant dwarf and that just appeals to me in so many ways yeah no i think the whole book reads very like from what the the part i'm in it and i'm and i do intend on finishing it it's been very funny and it's i like the i like a good fucking uh sat satire of of the business we're in and the culture we're in. Like I've read I've read other ones. I always enjoy them Carrey, is within it, I think, is an interesting added... I definitely have the inside look, for sure. Well, I mean, what was the writing process with you and Dana? I mean, did you pitch him chunks and then he wrote things?

Yeah, we did that. and then he wrote things? Yeah, we did that. We also, toward the last few years, we got in a room and just jammed 12 hours a day. And he's a magnificent prose writer. So I learned a lot about that. And we filled in each other's gaps. And it was wonderful.

So I love telling stories and making up things that don't exist. And I have a lot of experience to share and, and a well that's pretty deep. Did you ever live? You never lived in Hamilton. Did you? I lived in Burlington across the Bay.

Yeah. Before I came into comedy, I had put my applications in at Stelco and DeFasco. It's, I don't think it's, it's not running anymore. That mill is it? I don't think so. One of them went out of business. I believe it's the old thing, man. It's the old thing. Yeah. If the industry moves, you know, you're Detroit, you know, and you got a deal. Yeah. It was pretty,

it was Michigan. It was pretty heavy. So where, so Burlington's across the water from there. Burlington's right across the water, across the Bay Bridge. And that's where you grew up? That's right. That's where kind of my most mischievous years happened. It was like from 11 to maybe 14. Oh, really?

And then my father lost his job for the second time. And he was too old to get another job that was in a corporate structure. And he was too old to get another job that was in a corporate structure. We moved to Scarborough and we got a job as a family being security guards and janitors. So I got thrown into the middle of this factory, this steel truck rim making factory, huge factory floor that I had to clean with sweepers and stuff like that and the bathrooms. with sweepers and stuff like that and the bathrooms. So I was in the middle of a very interesting situation where I liked two factions of people that kind of didn't get along, and I was in the center of that.

And they used to defecate in the sinks and stuff like that. What? Which factions of people? Well, I don't want to say, but there was just like different religions clashing within the factory. No kidding. And daggers and all kinds of things going on. Wow. And I cleaned the place. And so, you know, you really, you know, haven't developed your character until you've had to clean urinals from factory

worker bag scratch. You know, when they go in after a real hard shift and they stand there urinating and like scratching their bags and in euphoria, you know, and I'm the one that had to, you know, take the skin samples and collect them. And the pubic hair. Yeah. That was my job. Master of pubic hair. But where did you start your early life?

I was born in Newmarket, Ontario, which is about, I don't know, 25 miles north of Toronto. And you were like, how many kids? How many were you? I had two sisters and a brother. Older? All older? Older? All older. Older, all older. So you were the last one.

I was the baby, and I was the gifted child, I guess you'd call it. And it really was an imitation of my father, who was this insanely, I don't know, joyful, incredibly funny, animated character that just didn't tell a story. He became the characters and he was like this. Everything I've done in my comedy career can be traced back to that origin. You love that guy. Love that guy. Love that guy so much. And I used to watch him as a little kid. And we used to watch Ed Sullivan together and Rodney Dangerfield on Ed Sullivan. I had no idea what the jokes meant. I was just laughing because my father was laughing. People were laughing in the studio,

and it was just magnificent, and I ended up being with Rodney later on. How great is Rodney? So wonderful, man. So wonderful, and I got a beautiful email from joan dangerfield about the book because rodney comes into the book and uh and i and he's treated in a kind of a really uh avant-garde way and we can get back to rodney but so you're growing up your dad's a guy that

you know gave you your faces and and his charisma and his and my mom was the artist so i got the artist from her. She was a painter? I got the best of – she was an artist. She used to get up in the middle of the night and make these beautiful murals and stuff for our rooms. Really? The only peaceful time she had.

So, yeah, she used to do that. So it's weird. The first 40 years of my life, I was mining the gold from the talent my father gave me, and then suddenly, like that, like overnight, I became an artist. Isn't that interesting? Like I was spending time with my mother suddenly. Isn't that wild how that stuff is carved into the neural pathway so young? It's incredible.

Yeah. So now you say your dad lost his job twice. So you had rough times a couple of times. Yeah. Yeah. We had rough times. And I went from being an A student to not being able to hear the teacher, Charlie Brown's teacher. Oh, really? Yeah. Like

that. And I was so angry. I blamed the world for messing with my father. So I was really kind of in a, you know, really angry state of mind. I just wanted to fight. Did it break him? It did. It broke his heart. Yeah, it definitely broke his heart. But then, you know, as I say in the book, at a certain point, you know, I made him laugh so hard one time that his dentures fell out of his mouth. And from then on, he started dreaming through me and for me you know so he gave up his dream you know he was such a funny guy everybody said you could have been and even rodney said rodney was in love with percy carey and he just like he would marvel at him and go who the fuck is this guy

you know where'd he come where the hell are you doing why Why aren't you in the Catskills, man? You know, kind of thing. And he was just joke funny, man. Joke funny. That's so funny because I started, that's my dad is a bipolar guy. And my mom used to say to me when I was in high school, she used to say, you know, why don't you go upstairs and make your father laugh? You're the only one who can. And I get up there. That was me with my mother.

Right. And I would get up there and my dad would be like, I don't want to live anymore. And I'm like, ooh crowd tough crowd run around the room and make it sound like a genocide yeah it's crazy yeah there's always a sick parent you know your mom was asked a lot of my mother was not well you know she and she was on a lot of prescription medications and in those days it was just like have some more candy yeah yeah you know what it was really funny one time my mother was smoking she smoked like a fiend and uh she had switched to uh menthol benson and hedges right and uh i said that smells weird mama what are you smoking and she was like

they're menthol the doctor said they're better for me when i have a cold what he probably did say that at that time said that she should smoke she should smoke menthol that is so fucking nuts that is so nuts the dark ages we haven't we're not long from the dark ages well we're not i think we're re-entering the actual middle ages. Oh, yeah. They're trying to drag us back in there. Oh, my God. You know, these like that sort of, I don't want, let's not digress into that.

But okay, so after the second kind of, when did you start doing the comedy, if you don't mind my asking? Well, again, that was my father's urging. ask him well again that was my father's urging he's he he you know i was ripping the house up every time company came over and i was known in school and everywhere else as the cut up and the guy who was just always doing outrageous stuff i used to do impressions of like paul lynn choking on a piece of meat and stuff like that they were all really out there things yeah but uh can you do that one certain uh pauline here discuss uh the center square to block oh you people are

i don't know i haven't done it for a while that's gotta get that one back up and running that was good um and uh yeah so I used to do that. And at a certain point, my father and I think we were just at the end of our ropes because we walked away from that factory job because it was affecting us in terrible negative ways. Sounds like it. I mean, there was a lot of like, you know, bigoted talk at the table, stuff like that. It was like we were just turning into people that we were not. Monsters.

Monsters, hateful monsters. And I was just trying to imagine how to fix people's breaks and stuff at night when I went to sleep. And I had a baseball bat on my cleaning cart that was ready to go. Oh, wow. It was ready to go. And at a certain point, we looked at each other and we just said, we ready to go. You know, I was ready to go. And, uh, and at a certain point we looked at each other and we just said, we got to go. Yeah. And we had nothing to go to. We literally went camping for about six months into the winter. And, uh, was that nice though? It was better than

the terrible job that was turning us into monsters. Okay. It literally was a step up to have nothing. What did you learn in the forest? Well, the guy that would become my brother-in-law taught me about sex. Oh, that's good. At night, he would talk to me about what to do to a lady and all of that. So the first time I ever had it,

I tried everything he talked about. Yeah. How'd that go? Yeah. It was good. Oh, Yeah. It was good. It was good. It was a surprise. It was a party, and I met somebody, and she lived upstairs, and I went up there.

And I remember trying everything in the world, and I'm not sure if she noticed that I was a neophyte, but I remember it very well. And Styx Grand Illusion album was playing. Oh, lady. It's a grand illusion. Deep inside, we're all the same. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. I'm sailing away. Set an open course for the emergency.

They were huge. Yeah. Yeah. Come to that. It's fantastic. Oh, great. Great. So you did good. Oh, I exploded. I'm sorry. Yes, I did all right. I. All right. But, but there was also just this thing. We got to a point where my father said, I just heard about these places called comedy clubs. Yeah. And, uh, would you like to go down to yuck yucks in Toronto? And my mother suggested I wear my best polyester suit. Nice.

And my dad and I was a white polyester suit. Nice. What color? Blue? My dad and I was a white polyester suit. I was way ahead of the Steve Martin curve. Nice. And I went down with my dad, and the big routine I did at that point was imitating the Carol Burnett show. I was doing all Tim Conway's characters. How funny was that guy?

Jesus. No, he was so fast on his feet, man. Right the last time I met him, he was getting up there. And man, the guy was quick still. Really quick. Very funny. So you're doing the Burnett riff. Yeah.

And at Yup Yucks, they had this thing where if somebody wasn't going over well or wasn't at that certain uh at that certain level of hipness yeah um they would start playing the theme to jesus christ superstar to get crucified him crucify him crucify him crucify him and mark breslin would get on this on the mic backstage and say totally boring oh my god totally boring that guy having that 15 years old I was 15 years old. Oh my God. And I didn't go back for two years. I left there that night and I didn't go back for two years. And then I went back and killed it. It was good for me.

And it's good. Those tanks you do are really good for you. I guess, but what'd you do for the two years? Prepared. Oh, so you were doing open mics elsewhere? No, I was just coming up with stuff no shit i was coming up with stuff and i watched the other comics and i and i watched the audience and what they're looking for and you know at first i guess you just uh try to fit in

try to fill that let me ask you something though around this stuff around like you know the new realizations versus the life that you lived before the realizations is that, you know, how do you frame, you know, what you may have once viewed as mental illness? You know, I'm assuming that currently you have a different take on it than you might have had a decade ago. And I guess the deeper question is, when you started doing comedy, like for those two years,

was your heart heavy? No. It was always, for me, I created out of a place of joy and out of a place of wanting to free people from concern like my mother. It really was born out of that. So, you know, I'd get up on her bed when she was in pain, I'd get up on her bed in my underwear and be the

praying mantis and drive her crazy until she was laughing hysterically and holding her belly and going, it hurts. And so at a certain point I realized, oh, I could actually do this for the world. I could actually do this for the world. I could actually do this for large groups of people. What point was that? Freedom from concern. Oh, right. Okay.

Okay. So that's really where it came from. It's a ministry. Yeah. Huh. So it was never self-medicating. I think it became partly that. You know, art always becomes a way to express those deeper feelings.

Sure. But I honestly think it's born and it still is born out of trying to free people from concern, even if it's taking them, you know, head on into the concern so that it dissipates the intensity of it. Yeah. So when you went back to Yuck Yucks and you killed, that was the beginning of the career then? Yeah. And then I became a featured player at Yuck Yucks, featured player in the theater of the absurd. And when did you come to LA? Came to LA, I met a guy named David Holoff, who was managing Howie Mandel. Canadian guy. Yeah, Canadian guy. and he was one of those few guys back

then that could see the next level that could see to the next stage yes and uh there were a lot of people that didn't really see the where things could go and uh you know now you can you can stay in Toronto and do just fine you But I mean, I get that. But I mean, some people can do all right. And that just means you get to do all the yuck yucks twice a year. Yeah, but I mean, there's SCTV. There's kids in the hall. There's some great stuff.

Oh, no, of course. But I mean, as a stand-up, though, like at the beginning, were you really thinking that like standup was the thing? I didn't know. I had a dream about being, being an artist that could do a lot of things, you know, and not having boundaries, you know, and I've always, I've always kind of believed that there's a, there's no limit to the areas I could kind of sneak into. Well, I mean, it's clear, like the style, I, the way that you sort of did what you do early on, you know, was sort of like, you definitely somehow push the envelope, even, you know, with familiar things, you know, even with impressions there, your approach to them was sort of, kind of got pretty out there. Yeah. I was the man of a thousand faces. Sure. I was the rubber face.

Yeah. But you're always able to, even when you did characters, create a different time zone for everybody. Sure. Yeah. Well, that's the key. It's the basis to one of my most serious beliefs and my strongest beliefs. And that involvement and immersion in someone else. Yes. And in fact, in your own work is heaven.

Yeah. You know, I mean, I was in my studio painting in New York one time and I walked, I took a walk for a couple of blocks and I found this wonderful little park where these guys were playing soccer. And I felt so free from the painting because it involves your heart, your head and your hands. It takes everything. Right. And I always wondered why I was so free and felt so good and euphoric doing it. And then I watched these guys play soccer. I watched this guy chasing the ball and I went, I watched these guys play soccer. I watched this guy chasing the ball. And I went, that's it. I could, I was compelled by that guy who was so involved with getting the ball. And that's why all, all sports work, you know, all art works on the same level. And that is presence. You know,

presence is addictive, man. And when someone is fully present, like Michael Jordan is in the zone, is fully present, like Michael Jordan is in the zone. It's like, it's addictive, man. You cannot, you know, Meisner, one of his, one of the tenets of his technique is that if you are actually interested in what you're doing, you'll be interesting to watch, you know? And that's why we watch babies because they discover things for the first time, you know? And that's why we watch art. That's why we watch everything. When you look at Da Vinci, you're seeing his presence on the canvas, you know, and it's addictive. You can't not be compelled by it. Yeah. And I think that's also something about that's part of the addiction to live performance as well. Yes. In the moment. Yes. When you have

the sense that somebody, I mean, we all have plans, you know, but when you have the sense that somebody i mean we all have plans you know but when you have the sense that somebody is like kind of discovering their own material as they speak that's the best i was just watching uh like you know i've been like i've been home you know and i and i can't go out and do the work you know so i've been watching you know guys i watched this documentary oddly on rodney the other night which was was great. But I turned on that first prior special last night. I haven't watched in a year or two, live in concert. It's so beautiful. Oh, did you ever notice that he comes out on stage?

It's a fantastic time capsule. Yeah, but he comes out on stage, and they're not even back from intermission yet. Like, he walks out on stage in Long Beach, and there's like 100 people looking for their seats. They don't even know he came out. And I'm like, what doesn't care about that?

He wasn't about showbiz. He wasn't about the glitz. He was about let's connect. Yeah. I'm going to connect. Yeah. I'm going to connect with myself. Right.

Right. I'm going to, I'm going to play these characters. Like they're just, they're happening in front of you right now. And the best actors do that. They have to rediscover the part every time they do it. If you do 10 takes, you have to rediscover it every time.

That's the job. In the moment. In a way. Yes, the job. So when do you come? So the guy who manages Howie says, I'm going to make you a star kid or what? He says, you know, we should go to L.A. and do that. our kid or what? He says, you know, we should go to LA and do that. And there, I had been to LA once, uh, with, uh, Demi Thompson and Ron Scribner were, were a couple of guys that were managing

me very early on. And, uh, and, uh, then I came back, uh, I had a bad experience in LA. I was supposed to do the tonight Show and they set up this huge showcase at the Improv one night. And it was two days before I was supposed to do the Tonight Show. And Jim McCauley was there. Everybody was very excited about this new kid from Canada that had been talked about. And I had a lukewarm night. There were too many industry people for it to be a good night i don't think that room was good i had some good times in that room yeah

but uh it's just one of those nights i get it yeah it was one of those nights where it was just a little flat and i walked away and i felt it all going away and everybody patted me on the back and said you did good you know ruth buzuzzy coming out and saying like, that was great. And I was like, oh God, it was the kindness. The kindness was killing me. The compliments, they erase themselves as they're coming out of their mouths. Oh, that was good. That was no good.

Wow, you really have something there. You got the makings. Yeah, that's the worst. You got the recipe. Just don't cook it so long. Wow. You really have something there. You got the makings. Yeah, that's the worst. You got the makings. You got the recipe. Just don't cook it so long. Right. As if they're answering you just saying like, did I suck?

Absolutely. Yeah. And sure enough, like a day later, I got the call that Jim McCauley didn't think I was ready for the Tonight Show and that I lost the Tonight Show. And, you know, I mean, that has created, you know, that's, that's caused suicide before. I mean, you know, people have killed themselves. Yeah. Wibikin didn't do it over that though.

No, you couldn't get spots. And, and, but it wasn't that he lost the tonight show. It was that without the comedy store, you couldn't get the tonight show. You couldn't go to the next level. When did you get to the store? I got there to stay. I went there in 1979, and I auditioned for Mitzi, and I stayed at the Saharan Motel, which is a character in the book. Yeah, I saw that, yeah.

Yeah, and I remember walking in and having a hooker come up to me and say, do you want a date? And I thought, wow, it's Sadie Hawkins day. I didn't know what was going on. And, uh, you know, and, uh, and I, I walked in there. I, I, uh, this, it looked like something from a cop show to me. And, uh, like I had walking up the stairs to the booth. I was in the Rockford files. I was in a Beretta or whatever. Yeah. It was a new world for me. and i was reading the late great planet earth by hal lindsey that it was purporting to uh to have absolute knowledge yeah and and surety that uh the world was going to end very soon uh-huh and there were biblical references and everything in there so i wanted to check them i went and asked the manager who was wearing a Stetson and smoking a stogie by the pool if he had any extra Bibles

because I wanted to check the Bible references in my book. Yeah. And he started howling with laughter and he threw his hat down and he said, boy, there ain't a Bible in all of Hollywood. And I knew where I was. And, uh, but I auditioned for Mitzi, uh, went on that trip and she, I never got to see her. I never got to, she was sitting at the back of the room. And I, again, had a kind of a weird night where the mic fell apart and in my hands.

Why can't they fucking get like, Oh, good. Goddamn, we need one thing to do our job. One thing. Yeah. And but I think it was just, it was just one of those nights where I wasn't in the right spot. So I didn't wait. I blew past her so fast and went back to Canada for two years. That's what I do. I screw up the first time, then I regroup. I came back in 81 to stay in Los Angeles. Yeah. And she let you in? And she, yeah, right away it was, it was on and I was a regular and it was a fantastic moment, man. What a, what a door to open. And Bud was always cool with me too, you know, spots at the improv. For some reason i never experienced that uh you're not supposed to play one club or the other i just it never happened for me that way well yeah by the 80s

though that you know that shit was you know if you were big enough they weren't burning each other's clubs down no anymore that those days were over but who were the who were your contemporaries at the store at the in that in that year robin robin uh you know it was uh me it was kinnison it was robin it was eddie murphy was coming in to try stuff out richard pryor was there all the time right richard pryor was going through a really weird period where i think he had done you know he had done the first thing and he had burnt up right you know yeah he was questioning his abilities because he was doing it straight and he went it went in you know yeah he was questioning his abilities because he was doing it straight and he went it went in and out i found myself in the parking lot one night uh you know

21 years old and uh standing everybody else left and suddenly i found myself standing with richard prior yeah uh which is enough to you know for any comic to just wet his pants you know uh and we passed a joint back and forth and uh he said be careful with this stuff and uh he said i don't remember 40 years of my life huh and i said what and i was dumbfounded i said what and he said I'm not sure it was me. And it was like a harpoon going through me, like the greatest of all time was having those kinds of doubts. Of course it was him. Of course it was everything he'd ever lived. But at that moment, he was having real, real serious doubts about whether it was him who was inspired to do it or it was the drugs. But you've had that feeling. Yeah, sure. I called my father a night after I

smoked a joint and I went on stage and I eviscerated the room and Kinison even was at the back of the room and he started messing with me just to see what I was made of. Right. And, uh, and I just annihilated him that night. And, and, and it was amazing. And, uh, I was, I was Lenny, man. It was just coming. It was just like, yeah, man. Yeah. I needed the rim shots. You know? And, uh, I was a comedy priest, man. It's good when you can nail the bully in the back of the room. Oh my God. But he was just, he was just testing, testing me. And, uh, and, uh, and I did fantastic. And I came off stage

and he came up and everybody came up and they said, Holy crap, man, you were just off the hook. You were, you were transcendent, man. And I went, I was high, you know, and I, I went home immediately and I called my father who was a jazz musician. And I said, cause I, I started thinking, well, maybe should I do it this way? Right. And I called him up and I said, you know, uh, you must've run in, you know, being in the jazz game, you must have run into a lot of musicians that were using and heroin stuff and things like that. And he said, yeah, I knew a lot of guys. I knew a lot of guys that were getting there that way. And, and I, I never did because I figured if I made it that way,

I could never own it. Right. Right. Right. And that's exactly in fact what Richard was going through. Right. Right. Whether he could wondering whether he could own this greatness that everybody interesting yeah gives to him so you chose against it i chose against it i can't do it if i can't take credit for it what the hell is it worth man you know what i mean that's but that's interesting that people would look up look at it like that i mean there were so many dudes like i certainly did my share of drugs yeah me too me too, man. I mean, I'm no choir boy, you know?

Right, right. But I never created and, you know, relied on it to create. Well, yeah, there were cats that couldn't get on stage without it. No, yeah. Like, you know, I knew a lot of those guys. Yeah, yeah.

Steve Kravitz used to walk around the halls at the comedy store going, was I on yet? Oh, that's great. So what's the Kennison story? Oh, well, you know, when we met, he was working the door and he had started doing late night spots about, you know, the last one, you know, 145 in the morning. Right. And that's all he could get at that time.

And he came up to me. And at that point I was already a regular and I was in playing in the main room and I was getting standing ovations every night. And he came up to me and he said, man, I'm just such a fan. I love what you do. And, uh, I, I go on really late at night. I go on the last spot in the original room. And would you hang out and watch me? And I said, yeah, sure. So I hung out that night and I watched him. Makes me cry to think about it. I sat at the back of the room, man,

and I watched the world change. Yeah. You know? And I was crying world change. Yeah. You know, and, uh, and I was crying with laughter and it's the first time I had ever seen somebody marry, you know, comics are usually intellectualizing things, you know, they, they, they go above the emotion to intellectualize something and say to the world, you know, here's how you deal with it without having to come apart. But he was the first one that was immersed in his emotions and his anger and expressing that at the same time as there were these brilliant routines that I

had never heard anything like. And I felt like I was watching bird. I was watching Charlie Parker. I was watching, you know, early Miles Davis. I was like, I was seeing something really extraordinary. And he came off stage and came up to me and said, what do you think? And I said, what I think, I think you're it. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

And good luck to you. Because that's going to be difficult. Yeah. Plus he picked, I knew that he had picked a character and uh persona as we speak about the book yeah and the personas we create that sometimes we can't live up to uh the beast he created a persona that he couldn't get out of basically every yeah every time he got sober people came up and screamed in his face and needed him to be the beast. So that was a very hard thing to get out of. We drove to Tulsa together and he was

going to train me how to preach and we were going to go on the road because he wasn't known yet. We were going to go on the road as Pentecostal preachers and he was going to call me Lightning Boy Jim and I was going to do the thing. We never got to do preachers. And he was going to call me lightning boy, Jim. And I was going to do the thing. We never got to do it, but I got to listen to him preach in the garage with brother Marnie and the family. Some energy, right? It was the energy. Incredible, incredible energy. And I, and it was, it was kind of wild to see because he hit so hard, you know, at a certain point that he got kind of carried away and frozen in the image of himself. And so you notice like the second album and the second or third Letterman isn't as tight and isn't as it's more about who he's become. Well, it's about what he had to say.

It became, you know know it became sort of like i can do this this up but it also became like a rock star he became a rock star and every rock star in the world was fawning all over him so it was tough it's a tough ego thing man when you're faced with that kind of you know reverence you know coming at you you know i didn't think he was able to handle it yeah but the guitar thing i you know my feelings at you, you know, I didn't think he was able to handle it. Yeah. But the guitar thing, I, you know, my feelings about him are complicated, you know, but, uh, but it just seemed to me that, you know, the clarity of that first record or the night you saw him or the night that

you were hanging out with him. Yeah. Yeah. And like, you know, a lot of people don't realize like when you walked into the room and he was doing that shit from that first record, the, the, you know, he changed this, you know, the energy in the fucking room it was crazy it was menacing dude it was like woe to those who became offended enough to leave because then he was ripping you apart it was the guy had his dick in her purse and i hope you find a lump and i mean my god he would go to places that people were just what did he say but you know you also were able to create a sort of different energy because of the intensity you brought to it.

And you became a star before him. So I'm imagining you're looking at him going through his paces. And I don't know how close you guys remained, you know, during that time or if you were at all, or he used to hide himself from you at that point. But I mean. or if you were at all, or he used to hide himself from you at that point. But I mean, there was a time when we got, when we got, when we split, you know, because he was going down that direction of the outlaw. Yeah.

And I, you know, I, I hung for a long time with him and we got in some scraps and together. And, you know, there was some, it got pretty hairy around Sam, you know, he was pretty hairy. You know, there was some, it got pretty hairy around Sam, you know, it was pretty hairy. So I just know myself and I know that I wasn't meant to be, I have a rebellious streak, but I'm not an outlaw, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And me too, me too. And I, there, there came a time where we had a sit down that did not turn out well, right. Uh, because he wanted me to come on the road with him. And I said, I just can't,

Sam, I'm sorry. You know, I just, I, I'd like to live. Yeah. I'm clinging to this thing called life. That was always the feeling I got. Someone's going to go down. It's probably going to be me. And it will be me. Yeah. Exactly. I'm the guy that catches what's meant for him. Exactly.

That's right. But, you know, it seems like Rodney was equally as important in his life as he was in yours. Rodney was important to so many young comics, man. He just opened a door for a ton of people. All these people that had personal experiences with Rodney. I mean, the first time he ever hired me, he looked at me and he started laughing. And he said, kid, have you ever been in love? And he just was tickled by the fact that I just had not had any human experience whatsoever.

It was just pure love coming at it. And we had just this wonderful magical relationship and i still quote him to young comics and people that i know you know uh there's a there's a bit of it in the book you know uh where uh you know he would say to me you know kid you gotta make the tank so strong no boneheaded motherfucker can fucking stop it you know no bonehead can get in your way because the tank's too strong yeah he was a real warrior comic that guy he was man and and a surgeon a surgeon yeah if you look at those old old shows of rodney dangerfield with johnny carson oh yeah i mean johnny was like oh yeah and what happened? Oh, that must have been fun.

He's just literally just marking the space between the jokes with sounds. The best thing that happens is when one of them doesn't work as well as he wanted. We should just stay out of my way, man. You know what I mean? But when a joke flops, I love when he's sort of like, oh, I should have tried that one again at the club or

whatever. He's got those moments where. You got to work on that one. You got to work at that one. You know what I mean? We're going to tell you. And we had such a beautiful relationship. And he was always my friend. And he loved my father.

And he stuck with me when I was experimenting. And the audience had no clue what I was doing. Whereas other people jumped ship. Which bits? I was in Vegas, you know, doing, I called it performance art because it just wasn't funny. You know, at that point, I was just exploring. I would spend like 15 minutes being a cockroach escaping from a vacuum cleaner. You know, and that would be the substance of it or i'd be the guy this snake the guy that wanted to deal right there on stage

or whatever uh and uh they just i i was an alien from another planet and rodney what did he say he said he's trying some stuff a kid like that and I go, yeah. And he go, that's good. That's good. Keep it fresh. Keep it fresh. You know, and, and yeah, and he was, with Rodney's favorite shirt and his pot pipe. So if you know Rodney, you know that that's pretty much the grail. Yeah. You know, the pot pipe. Yeah. Keeps me creative, man. You know what I mean?

Yeah. It was that beautiful link to the past that was so important. And then I got to meet Pryor and all these guys and Robin Williams, who was just, you know, the fastest gun in the West, just absolutely incredible, you know, so I just, I can't even tell you how lucky I feel. I don't know how you feel about your era. Did you feel that for your era at the comedy store? Yeah, I mean, I got to, when I was there, it was mostly Sam, and I got kind of caught up with that. And Dice was also breaking. But I saw Richard come in a couple of times, and he was beaten up again.

He was trying to get back on the horse again. He wasn't sick yet. Yeah, he would literally be at the microphone saying, I'm not funny. Yeah, yeah. And the audience would go, no, you are, you are. And he'd go, no, I'm you are and he don't know i'm really not i don't i don't feel funny right and in terms of like guys my generation who were there like when i was at the store it was it was a little dark period and not people didn't really

love to come around there like even industry people were a little wary of the place and you know but all those cats that you were there with were still around you know like joey came in saturday night live isn't it it's like it's like it goes through those phases where that's the yeah there's a kind of a down period where nothing well the sam period was very dark because he would bring in when he was running the place sam it was all the porn stars and the weirdos and the drug fiends and the satanists it was a crazy dark time and then you got people like Joey Kamen and Jan Haber doing sets and Karen Haber. Sticking tennis balls in his mouth. Exactly. You know, in the midst of this chaos and I was living up at Crest Hill and Sam would party

up there. Jugglers. Yeah. And Becker would say, Becker would call us the Manson family because we were up there just to go. Yeah, it was pretty decadent. It was. It was an important period in my life, but I had to run away being chased by things. Only I saw I got myself into a psychotic drug-induced state. Did you really?

Yeah, and I got into a fight with Sam, and I lost my mind on cocaine, and I had to go regroup, and it took a couple years. After you called your second grade teacher and said, why did we never get together? Yeah, yeah. What's happening? Are you available? How old are you? What are you doing tonight? Yeah. I went back to New Mexico and I kind of pulled my brain back together and restarted my career in Boston starting because it was always for you, man. I'm so happy for you, man. I honestly, I think you're great. And I really, I really love it because you're an honest guy and you share that in a really cool way. It's always been about the standup, you know, at the beginning. Yeah, it's great.

It's wonderful to watch. I enjoy standup so much watching it. You know, I don't know if I'll ever go back to do it. It could happen, but, but I, I love it.

Was there a point where you were like, I, you know, I've got to go a different route here. Like there's a mention in the book where you were like, it seemed like, you know, when you were in Vegas,

you kind of saw that life and it didn't seem like that was the life you wanted i could not die there no i don't but you knew it was a possibility i do not trust white tigers yeah and uh and i cannot you know no the whole atmosphere i can go to vegas for a night but you know the controlled atmospheres and the rooms and stuff like that. And they trying to whatever, there's nothing on the television. So that just compels you to go down and spend your money. Last time I was playing at the comedy store at the dunes, uh, I was with dice actually. Yeah. And, uh, he was in the room going, don't let me blow this last a hundred bucks, man. Yeah. Like that like that i'm going what do you mean he goes like i'm serious like i got a hundred bucks left i've lost everything and you can't let

me blow this last hundred bucks like that and i go okay i'll try to keep an eye on you like that and i went in the bathroom to go pee and i came out and he was gone yeah and the hundred bucks have gone yeah that was the dunes and i and she had the store there. She had the store there, right? I had the store there, and I was playing there. I was a feature player at the store. The techs were impossible. Can I have a stool? A stool?

Get a stool yourself, man. Two-bit comic, whatever. And they were just brutal. And I remember being in my room one night, and I was going through a phase where I was listening to positive affirmation tapes. Were you depressed? No,

I was just trying to motivate myself and move the universe. The secret before the secret ever existed. Right. I was always doing that. So I put those headphones on and I laid back on my bed and my tidy whiteys. And, on and I laid back on my bed and my, uh, uh, tidy whiteys and, uh, and I fell asleep while I was listening to you are a winner and everything comes easily to you. Cue the seagulls, you know? And,

uh, and I was listening to that and I fell asleep and I was blissed out sleeping. And suddenly I sensed something or heard something. And I kind of like slowly blinked my eyes open. I saw light coming in from the hallway and I went, oh, I must have left a light on. And then I looked to the other side of my bed right beside me at the nightstand. I saw something moving. And initially I thought, is that a cat on the table? And then the depth perception kicked in. And I realized I was staring at a human face about two feet away from mine. It was a woman with long hair going through my wallet on the nightstand. What?

Going through my wallet. And I leapt out of bed and grabbed her and she got up and she was about six foot four what and she kept saying she was acting like she was a prostitute saying uh they I thought you were Frank they sent me up for Frank like that yeah and I grabbed her and I threw her out into the hallway with the door was fully open. Yeah. And apparently I hadn't put the bolt on. Right. And she came with the, uh, with the, uh, do not disturb sign and just flicked it open. Get out of here. And, uh, yeah. And, uh, I, then she ran to the elevator where there was a guy holding the elevator for her. Uh, and I was so freaked out and I called down a security and I went down to the security office which was like you know the police station in Beverly

Hills Cop yeah it was huge this police station inside the casino and I looked at mugshots and I found her and they said, Oh yeah, her. Yeah. She's, she works all the hotels. Did you have your dead ball talk? Were you listening to motivational tapes? She saw you coming. Yeah. Yeah. She saw you coming buddy. So that was just bizarre. That was Vegas. You are a winner. Yeah. Nope.

So that was Vegas. And when I saw the dunes go down, when I saw the demolition of the dunes, which is in Casino, by the way, it marked a moment in my life that I was very happy about. I was glad to see that go. few movies and you're obviously a known quantity but when living color happens was there any part of you that was sort of like well i'm a stand-up i don't know if i'm gonna no i was always up for new uh directions and new experiences but damon you knew damon and uh keenan from damon was at the comedy store with me and we did earth girls are easy together how great was he to watch he was fantastic right so funny so edgy man so incredibly dark and he can riff dude unbelievable and and just courageous beyond belief yeah for sure beyond belief he had the sickest routine some of them i remember one in particular where i don't know if your your listeners aren't going to see this, but his sister got beat up by her boyfriend,

and he went to visit her in the hospital, and she was really messed up. And he said, why are you going out with that dude? What is it? What is it? Why are you doing that to yourself? Yeah. And she says, I don't know.

There's just something about him. That sounds like him. I fell out, man. i fell out yeah and uh he's the one that invited me to do and living to audition for in living color and uh god and wait but did you guys have any idea you know what that was going to be like i mean in in conception or was it just a sketch i mean what was the pitch because it was keenan because keenan was doing stand-up too a bit, right? Yeah, nobody had done the sketch stuff, really. I mean, you know, when I got on the show, Damon said to me,

you're going to have to come up with some characters. I'd never done characters before. Right. Oh, really? So I just kind of opened up my perception and started looking for people and characters. Yeah. And the first one was Vera DeMilo. She presented herself to me

at uh Gold's Gym in Santa Monica no kidding I was getting a a smoothie and she came up to the counter and said can I have a protein smoothie please you know and uh it was this wonderfully humongous woman and uh and I I went's one. Yeah. And then started evolving into characters. Fire Marshal Bill was born out of a sketch that Adam Smalls and Fax Barr and I created called the Death Wish Foundation. And it was a sketch about, you know, kids who are passing away and uh and their their posthumous wish is what we were uh concentrating on right so they would make posthumous wishes and my posthumous wish as this sick kid was to go to an amusement park after i die right and so it would be me on the rides you know flopping around in the seats on the

roller coaster and stuff like weekend at Bernie's. And that didn't get on, but the character stuck and the character became Fire Marshal Bill. Oh my God. That's a nice dark backstory. Crazy, right? That grouping of people, and I wrote a lot with Steve Odekirk, who was also responsible for a lot of my early success and just did incredible, incredible work. And when people went to see Ace Ventura, they were going because of Fire Marshal Bill. Right. Sure. They were going to see what this lunatic is going to do next, basically. And they were happy with what they saw. So it was really wonderful.

But Steve Odekirk and I wrote that late night after we'd written sketches for In Living Color. The first Ace Ventura? The first Ace Ventura. We rewrote the original script. And I didn't know if I was actually going to do the movie or not. I had a trap door. I didn't have to do it if I didn't like it but we got so pregnant with it that it was just we were just out of our minds with laughter over this thing and uh it was a freedom that

everybody should operate under the the idea that it's never going to get done so just go crazy but then it then it was like crazy because then like you basically defined the the movie comedy business you know for like years dude i mean that 94 is freedom man it's freedom it's the idea of freedom if you get out of the way of the zeitgeist man if you get out of the way of the of the inspiration you have the courage to do what's in your head and what you think is funny, you know, then, then you hit a nerve. Then you hit the back row. After Ace Ventura, you could do whatever you wanted. Yeah. I was very fortunate with the mask and Dumb and Dumber right after that. But each time I was going, okay, don't get safe. Don't get safe. Don't get safe.

Yeah. You know, so when the, when Dumb and Dumber came along and I got my first big payday, You know, so when the, when Dumb and Dumber came along and I got my first big payday, I knocked my billing out of my tooth or my bonding out of my tooth out of rebellion against a mammon. You know? Yeah. I didn't want to become a mammonite. I wanted to be an artist always. So you were, you were, you were against the greed monster.

So I showed up with the bowl cut in my tooth you know i was really knocked out yeah i have a bonding on okay so whenever i went back to do any dumb and dumb or anything i have to and the first time i just took a bick lighter and i went yeah and i knocked it off right you know and i showed up like that and pete just Pete and Bobby were oh yeah yeah yes oh lord hello lord you know and uh it was it was a reaction to becoming popular I I wanted to fly in the face of it and I all the way along like the stand-up into the in living color sketch stuff into the movies and now into the, to the book and into the art, the, the comics, the political cartoons. It's, I think I have this disease that will not allow me to become really entrenched in people's minds in one place.

Well, yeah. I mean, I think as, as time will tell you, you're, you're entrenched in people's minds in a lot of different ways. Everyone has got a different Jim Carrey in their mind, I would think most people. Yeah, but that's because I take the chance and I challenge my audience a lot. You know, I ask a lot from them, a lot of understanding from them. I'm going to go off now and not do anything that you like and I'm going to develop a a new thing, and then I'm going to bring it back and glue it onto the thing you like. Right. And also you take chances, and you talk about that in the book, that part of that, those chances are the battle of seeing yourself as a failure.

Yeah. Yeah. this idea that, you know, that, you know, when you do take a chance and it doesn't pay off, even though you're artistically were, were, were knew you were taking that chance, there still is, you know, the public's opinion of it or the critical opinion of it versus, you know, what you feel. And that's a hard place to be sometimes. Yeah. But you can't, you can't step in the direction of appeasing. You can't pander. Right. You know, you can't pander and create at the same time. It's just not conducive.

You know, it really isn't. You can hope that they will like it, that it will hit a nerve, but you can't pander because even if they don't know it on the surface, they know it inside. They instinctually know. What do you think was the biggest risk you ever took, really in in films

i mean there's so many things but but you know i philip morris i got a lot of resistance about yeah uh especially the uh the uh sex scene but fucking scene yeah yeah yeah i and my people went fucking mad and so did the film company and uh and they were just out of their minds over that thing and i said you know what you're the guys that would take the horse's head out of the godfather stop trying to file down the fucking edges and i fought and i fought and i fought and i threatened that not to promote and I did everything that an artist can do to say, you fuck with this, I'm gone.

You know? And that was an interesting day because that was that gentleman's first day as an actor. Really? Yes. It was a very precarious position to be in on your first day. But with these more serious movies, the ones that, you know, you really kind of, you know, you know, challenged,

I guess you would consider challenging your fans expectations by doing, you know, roles in, you know, I, I don't know, eternal sunshine. I think, you know, it was your greatest dramatic role really for me. Yeah. Didn't you? And Truman show, I think the, the magic of truman show was was that the concept was so original and prophetic yeah you know absolutely as it turns out everybody has their their bubble they're living in now you know everybody's truman now that's for sure you

know like i get asked a lot what what do you think happens to truman when he leaves the the stage and goes through the door and i say he has to watch everybody go back in to the stage and try to seek what he had right you know that fame yeah focus and uh so he's alone again yeah i always pictured you know like there are periods where i'd hear about you like you know we don't really have too many common friends. I guess I just made assumptions that, you know, I'd see you publicly go through these different relationships and have these hard times. And then I read an article about, you know, you had this. Scared straight. The Jim Carrey story.

Yeah. Yeah. The butler that I thought was fascinating. I just picture you and your butler there in the house. Just you sitting there. You really just can't call it a butler now it's like a house manager really yeah keeps the house from falling apart from becoming a you know uh great expectations like you sitting at a citizen cane size table eating dinner by yourself and right it was bud that's right but uh putting a putty with uh some beautiful woman putting a puzzle together

angrily yeah wishing she would go out feel feeling unrealized um but did you take we did you study acting at some point yeah i did i i went down you know when i quit the store and and doing stand-up. You actively quit stand-up? You just said, I'm done. I quit stand-up. No, I went, I can't do this. It's leading to Vegas, which is the Impressionist Act. So I knew I couldn't pursue that any longer. So I just walked away for a while.

And I studied Meisner and Stanislavski. And I did acting classes and started auditioning for acting roles. And then two years later, I got the bug again and I went, okay, now I think I can come back to it with a different perspective and actually create my own persona, you know? And that's what I was after. And I struggled, man, for a long time. People yelling at me to do Golden Pond and do the crowd-pleasing act again. And even Mitzi at one point in Vegas said to me,

you're the king of impressions. What are you doing? Like that. And I said, you know, they freaked out when Bob Dylan went electric. Yeah, yeah. What'd you say to that? I need a grace period. She went, okay, whatever.

Like that. And then she still supported me. She still supported me. And then I slowly started to develop. I did six months where I challenged myself by not allowing myself to repeat a word that I said the night before. Okay.

So I would go up unarmed completely and bleed in front of the crowd. And, uh, you know, whereas I saw Robin doing his thing and I knew he had bits and I knew he would branch off in the moment. I figured if I trained, it's like training with weights on, if I didn't have anything to go to. And I just either sank or, or swam. I would come out the other side, a stronger artist, you know? So I did that for six months, man. And I bled before I went on stage every night, like I was starting off and show this again. It was horrifying.

And Sam came up to me at a certain point and he said, man, I see what you're doing, man. You've got giant balls. You got giant balls. And everybody's watching, you know. And comics were back there. If you're not going to use that bit, man. Yeah, right. I heard what you're doing.

If you're not using that shit, I'm doing it. Right. You know, whatever. And a couple of, you know, entertainer type comics, you know, gobbled up my old Impressionist act and went to Vegas with it. Really? Yeah, I used to have people coming up to me and saying, like, your act is killing in Vegas.

Did you let them have it? Yeah. So you come out the other side? I came out the other side one night in my bed. I used to literally go to bed at night going, what do they need? What do night going, what do they need? What do they need? What do they need?

What is it? What's my thing, you know, going to be? And one night I just shot up in bed and said out loud, they need to be free from concern. It's the old thing I've been doing my whole life. They need to be free from concern. It's the old thing I've been doing my whole life. They need to be free from concern. And it was like a revelation that I would become the guy, my persona would be the guy that was free from concern. And in doing so, they would, through osmosis, get that feeling for themselves. And then the next night I went to the comedy store and I said, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. And how are you this evening?

Alrighty then. And they realized I don't give a damn how they are. And I'm not concerned. And I, you know, and I'm really not going to wait for an answer. And that created my stage show and my persona. It also created Ace Ventura, the attitude of Ace Ventura. Wild, man. Yeah. And the end of your standup.

But it comes always from the belief, and, you know, the book touches on this a lot, that fear of erasure thing, man, that causes everything from, you know, egoic tyrants to racists. Sure. You know? Yeah. tyrants to, uh, to racists, you know, people afraid to be replaced, you know, and it's, and it's the weakest thing that you could put out into the universe. I've always believed that, that I don't know how I'm going to find a place for myself, but, you know, the front door has been blocked, but I can go through the basement window. I know that there will be an opening. There will be something presenting itself. So I've had that undying belief my whole life.

Yeah, it's what drives you. So after this tremendous expansion, both ego-wise, fame-wise, money-wise, women-wise, and everything else, was there a point where you came up empty and that's where you crashed? Yeah. Yeah. There were many crashes. There's still crashes. But what do you attribute that to? How do you feel about your mental health? I attribute it to, uh, I, I believe that no one gets through this life. It's too challenging and there's too much stuff coming at us. We don't have the bandwidth to handle it. We have to find ways to escape it. We have to turn the gadgets off. We have to find moments in nature. Meditation is helpful, really helpful. Breathing techniques, you know, there's a lot of that. I get up and I walk and I do cold plunges and I, you know, I do give my body every chance it can, can get.

No more medicine? Be healthy. I have very little supplementation, you know, in my, in my life, you know, just a little, little handful of pills, supplements that I take, you know, with dinner and that's, that's about it. But no, I still get into spirals of thought and just eruptions of anger and disappointment in humanity, in the human species, in the narrowness of someone's perceptions. But no existential sadness? I don't think so. That's good. Good for you.

No, really not. It's not just a general depression anymore at all. Great. It's been at times, but no, I don't have that. I know when I'm not happy, I'm not in the place I should be. Right. Yeah. Or I'm indulging in what I call time travel.

Yeah. You know, the ego doesn't ever allow you to stay in this moment. It tries to ruin this moment. Yeah. You know, you and I are the only thing in the world to me right now. Right. You know? Yeah.

And the trees outside that are kind of, you know, tickling my senses. You know? There, as soon as you lose that, you're caught in ego. You're time traveling. You're going back to regret or you're going forward to fear. Yeah. Or, yeah, your brain's just making shit up for you to react to. Yeah.

Yeah. And half the time, it's stuff that has never happened. You're having a fight and then some kind of crazy oration with somebody that you've never even met. That's right, you're reacting to things. You're assuming that they're going to hate you. Yeah, they're not real.

It's not real. Not real. So much of what we go through is not real stuff. So much of who we are is not real stuff. get that that's what they're where the book takes you and you get in touch with me and let me know if it takes you there because that's what my intention was is to do to with through this absurdism you know and this auto fiction to get to a place where I can actually give people a glimpse or a feeling of freedom from grasping.

Well, I'm excited about it. I'm sorry that I didn't finish it before I talked to you. Oh, that's okay, man. But I will. I'm the slowest reader in the world. Yeah. And because I'm enjoying it and I didn't know if I would, but I like it and I'm going to finish it and I will, you know. Griffin Dunn called me yesterday and said that he had read it in two sittings and he's dyslexic. Yeah.

You guys are kind of, you guys have things in common, I feel. I think so. He's a heavy cat, you know? He's a heavy cat, man. An incredible family. What a family. Yeah, yeah. Just genius family.

So I'm reading, I'm reading Joan Didion right now. I just finished Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking. A Year of Magical Thinking. It's so heartbreakingly beautiful. Yeah,. A Year of Magical Thinking. Yes. It's so heartbreakingly beautiful. Yeah. It's incredible. Yeah.

Well, I love talking to you, Jim, and I'm glad we're- You too, man. And we'll do it again. We'll do it again. I'm sorry we haven't hung before this, man. It's a great opportunity to kind of connect with people I admire. I love it. Anytime when we're able to talk again, you can come over. Is it still your garage? It's a new garage. Yeah. New garage. I mean,

yeah, I'm in a new, you've gone Jay Leno. You have 20 cars. No, dude, it's like a hundred cars. No, but I had to make it into a little house. I got no, I got no, I got one car and this garage is now like a little house next to my house. I'm very lo-fi myself, man. Stuff does not turn me on. I don't, I don't. At one point I mercedes mclaren and i just got tired of getting flipped off by people yeah yeah yeah i got i got i i got what i thought was a nice car i got a toyota avalon i'm like this is a little too nice for me yeah but uh it's fantastic talking to you man really lovely great work with the book and let's talk again soon. Thank you.

Okay, buddy. That was interesting. I think I did all right. He called me after and we had a nice chat. Stand up guy. That Jim Carrey. And again, the book co-written by Dana Vashon with Jim is Memoirs of Misinformation, a novel. You can get that wherever you get your books.

And that's what's happening, man. That's what's happening. Okay. Congratulations, everybody. You did it. Another day. Here's some dirty blues guitar. so uh uh Boomer lives.