WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1209 - Laraine Newman

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

Laraine Newman titled her memoir May You Live in Interesting Times, a phrase many people believe to be a curse. But Laraine thinks it's an appropriate framework for her life and career. She tells Marc what it was like to be a part of culture-changing comedy institutions as a founding member of both The Groundlings and Saturday Night Live. They also talk about her prolific career as a voiceover artist in animation which also began on serendipitous terms. 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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Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global bestselling novel by James Clavel. 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 fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast my voice sounds strong today i can hear it in my head right now as I'm talking to you. I can hear it in my cans. Sounds strong. I don't know. Maybe I'm well rested. How are you doing? I want to feel like things are shifting, like things are changing, like we're moving in the right direction.

Perhaps we are, but not a lot has changed really. I think the vaccination news and the sort of momentum of all that has made me feel like things are heading in the right direction. It might be okay-ish at some point in the future. They might be okay-ish. Things might be okay-ish. But my fear is that it's not a real okay. It's not a real okay-ish. It's a mythic, a mythological, a delusional okay-ish. But I i don't know i'm feeling like a little better for for what though for what happens now what happens all after all this how you holding up you all right lorraine newman is on the show today she is uh as you know uh an original cast member of snl one of the in the first crew. But she's also, you may not know, one of the most prolific voice actors working for the past several decades.

And she's got a new memoir out in audio book form, only in audio book form. So I don't know what we're heading into. I just don't know. I'm trying to think of the lessons I learned. I've got to start thinking about what I'm thinking about, right? Which is antithetical to the meditation practice I've put into place. You don't want to think about what you're thinking about. You don't want to think at all. You just want to breathe. And now I want to think about what I'm thinking about. Getting it into context.

Corralling it. Making some shapes out of it. Twisting it into things. Itralling it. Making some shapes out of it. Twisting it into things. It's been a long fucking year. But I talked to the guy at the place. And we might be doing stand-up again at some point soon. Inside. Workshop.

Mode. I've been offered a lot of shows around town. Around here to do parking lots, spaces in between buildings, heated outdoor situations with chairs set up, a theater in the round in between buildings somewhere. And I won't do it. And it's not that it's not, well, I don't know. It might be that I'm not compelled. But if I know me, what am I going to bring to it? If people are going to pay for a show and it's outdoors and it's being presented as a show, I've been in this situation, this lockdown, this grief,

and this just sort of trying to maintain sanity mode. I'm just going to hop up on stage and have an act? I don't want to workshop in front of people that are desperate and paid to sit outside under heat lamps. I need to get back into the clubs. I need to get back into the filth. I need to get back into the dark. I need to get back into the low ceiling sort of tide pool of comedy and work out where I'm coming from. So I'm waiting for that. And if that doesn't work out, well, fuck, I'm over it.

Onward and upward. I'm not going to Turkey. I got some flack. I got some flack about asking questions of Hugh Grant about Turkey. A little bit of flack, but it was specifically, it was of a specific nature, and I'd like to address it. If you recall, and that Hugh Grant, man, people love that Hugh Grant. That interview's like a fucking comedy album. I think that's going to get several listens by people.

I guess I laughed a lot. Sometimes I don't remember until I'm reminded when people tweet about it or email me about it. They say I might have laughed more than I've ever laughed. I don't know. It caught me off guard. But as you know, I was asking him about Turkey. He was shooting in Turkey.

And I was surprised to hear that he vacationed in Turkey. Because Europeans and people from other parts of the world vacation in different parts of the world than we do here. Because they're closer. We've got this humongous like country for better for worse and we have proximity to a few places but i mean it's a lot easier to vacation in turkey from england than it is from here but nonetheless i want to address the criticism because i think there's some truth to it in that i just got a couple of emails people saying like

your attitude about turkey and your and your feelings about it somehow how implied that I was judging the people of Turkey. And I'm not. I just from what I understand and from not having traveled there ever in my life. But in recent years, what I've grown to understand is that it is under an authoritarian government. Erdogan, the the the guy in charge over there, is a little dictator, not a decent dude. And when I hear authoritarian, and when I hear authoritarian country, and I hear and see what happens there, and also the denial of the Armenian genocide and other things, what I'm judging is the government. I'm not judging the people. I'm apprehensive about going to an authoritarian country to visit. I'd like to go to Russia. I'm not judging the people. I'm apprehensive about going to an authoritarian country to visit. I'd like to go to Russia. I'm not going to go to Russia because it creeps me out.

But that's what I'm reacting to. I'm not reacting to the cultural difference. I'm not reacting to the food or the color of the people's skins or the rituals or the customs or the shops or the streets or how people greet each other or the nature of the humility and humanity of the Turkish people. I'm reacting to the fact that it's an authoritarian dictatorship in charge of the place. And that makes me uncomfortable. So, you know, don't judge me as some sort of American exceptionalist. I'm sorry. I don't want to go to an authoritarian country because it makes me nervous. I don't want to fucking go to Missouri

because of similar reasons. So I just wanted to clear that up. That it's not, it's sort of like, well, come on, you know, have a skewer. Yeah, but it's like, there's, it's authoritarian.

Yeah, but the people are nice. Yeah, but the guys, you're under the boot of dictatorship. Yeah, but it's nice here. Yeah, but the guys, you're under the boot of dictatorship. Yeah, but it's nice here. You go to the beach. Are there beaches there? Granted, I don't know some things.

But that's really what I was reacting to. I'm afraid to go to Arkansas, let alone Turkey. And it has nothing to do with it being a foreign country. It's right here. I barely want to go to Michigan. Now I'm just going overboard. There's good people everywhere. I dig it.

But it's the nature of the bad people and how emboldened they may be and what their reaction to me might be sometimes causes me some anxiety and some fear. Is it worth it to go to the shops and do the dances and eat the food if you're going to be singled out as an enemy of the people? Right? And God knows there's a lot of exotic dances in Michigan. Look, Lorraine Newman is, as I said earlier, an original cast member of SNL. Her new memoir is called May You Live in Interesting Times.

It's available exclusively on Audible as an audiobook. So go to audible.com or the Audible app to check it out. And this is me chatting with Lorraine Newman. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+.

We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. 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. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth

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in Rock City at torontorock.com. I can't remember where the title of this book comes from. May You Live in Interesting Times. Who said that originally? Well, it's supposedly a Chinese curse, but I looked it up and it actually isn't. Somebody kind of ascribed it as being one, but it actually is not. But I still feel that I've lived in interesting times. So I thought that would be a good title.

No, it's a good title, but it sounds like one of those things, like it could be a Jewish proverb. It could be a Chinese proverb, a curse. Yeah. May you live. It is. Yeah. Well, then we're all fucked.

Yeah. We're in trouble. The lot of us. Have we started? okay well i chose it because i felt that i was like in the front row for a lot of cultural events in our country yeah and so that qualified as interesting times there was just so many kind of six degrees of everything you can think of from when I was little to now. No, no doubt. I mean, yeah.

I mean, you're just, I think you're a little older than me. So you got to hit it all head on. You know, my generation just caught this sort of breaking of the wave. You guys were surfing the garbage back in the day. Why, thank you. Well, you know, it's, my sister was and still is a musician. She also became a comedy writer, but she was in the new Christie Minstrels. This is the fifties. Hold on a second. So so where where'd you grow up here I grew up in Westwood California your whole life and your folks are from here moved my my mom my dad's from here

my mom's from Ohio but um are you Jewish yeah I am Jewish and we moved um to Beverly Hills when my brother my twin brother and I were 11 So you have a twin brother and an older sister? And an older brother, yeah. And an older brother. Yeah. So the whole Jewish clan moves. Your mom's from Ohio. Your dad's from here.

Yeah. So what did he do, the old man? Well, the old man passed the bar in Arizona and then World War II happened. Yeah. So he was in Air Force Intelligence. Really? And came back, and my grandpa had started a quilting business in Los Angeles. A quilting business?

Yeah. What does that mean? Like a fabric? They manufactured, yeah, they manufactured bolts of quilted material that people would make bathrobes and bedspreads and jackets. What is it with shoes and fabric? The garb of a schmata. Right? Yes.

It's so wild. I know. I don't know what the history of that is, but like my mother's boyfriend's in fabrics. But, you know, schmatas are different. That's knockoff dresses. But like just to be like, we're going to make quilted. Everyone needs this. So we're going to make it.

Yeah, but they do. That's exactly. I mean, that was like, you know, to make quilted. Everyone needs this. So we're going to make it. Yeah, but they do. That's exactly. I mean, that was like, you know, the base ingredient for everything else. Sure. Quilted fabric. It is. You need it. And here's another interesting fact, Mark.

Yes, yes. My father then created a business called American Bonded Fiber, which was just a fiber fill for the quilts. Wait a minute. So he comes from from the war his father's got this thing going this quilt business got a factory where downtown somewhere exactly so they downtown they go he says come on kid you know you're part of it now this is my business now it's your business and your dad's like why don't we make the inside of it too so yeah exactly so he does does. That's absolutely right.

I mean, they were cattle ranchers. Come on. They were cattle merchants in Arizona. Your grandfather. My grandpa and, yeah. Cattle merchants, Jewish cattle merchants. That's right. Jewish cowboys.

Can we call them cowboys? Jewish cowboys? They were. I mean, my dad had his own horse. Okay, all right, that counts then. He told me about cattle drives that they used to cowboys they were i mean my dad had his own horse um he talks about he told me about cattle drives that they used to do when they were in los angeles they would do a cattle drive out to calabasas through the garment district this is who he was a kid yeah right yeah calabasas i was just out yeah and i was just thinking you know how funny a cattle drive to

where the weekend lives and kim kardashian is that weird though the calabasas i just drove through the other day we took a ride out to the beach for you and to blow off you know a little drive to where The Weeknd lives in Kardashian. Isn't that weird, though? The Calabasas. I just drove through the other day. We took a ride out to the beach to blow off a little COVID steam, some plague quarantine steam. We went down to Leo Carrillo Beach. Oh, that's such a beautiful beach. Yeah, it's nice. It's a little cute.

I love that one. It's one little chunk of the area where there's rocks and there's a tunnel. But it's like a quarter of a mile. It's clean. Yeah, right. That's true. The sand is really clean. There's a big starfish there. Big starfish on the rocks.

I did not know that. That's true. That's true, Johnny. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, my God. It's so good to be with someone like you. Oh, but Calabasas, right?

It's so pretty, but that's what it was. It was cattle farms? It must have been cattle farms. Calabasas, yeah. It was all rural. You know, you know that. Because you see, there's still horsies down there. People still have horsies.

Where do you live? I live in Century City now because I'm an old Jew. Century City in one of the big buildings? No, I'm in a very modest one, but it's but I'm located in kind of what I like to call the Holy Trinity because I've got Walgreens, the gas station, and Century City Chopping Mall. I'm like right there with you. I live in Glendale, and I'm like four blocks from the Walgreens, from the Trader Joe's, five minutes to Whole Foods, five minutes to Vaughn's.

I got a fish market, five minutes. And that's the most important. Yeah, most important thing. People are like, I've talked to people, I've thought about like, well, maybe I'll get a little cabin somewhere or maybe go back to New Mexico. I'm like, but I got Walgreens, it's right there.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I sold my house that was near where I am now when I got a divorce. And I thought I could afford you mean. I sold my house that was near where I am now when I got a divorce. And I thought I could afford a house. We were together 25 years. Chad Einbinder, one of the funniest people I've ever known. Great guy. Was he a professional funny guy?

He was for a while. But then he became a commercial director. Oh. But he, you know, we sold the house and split it and then i was thinking you know italy is gonna coming to century city i gotta stay in the area that's what kept you there because of italy i swear to god and now we can't even go i know you can order from there italy's the best it's disneyland i'm telling you i disney yeah it's disneyland for like you know heart disease but i uh okay what you were gonna say where we started

with this was we're talking about uh living in interesting times and where that sort of started for you and we were about talking we were talking about your sister's uh uh involvement in show business so yes basically you said she was in a group in the 50s how much older is she this was the 60s she's nine years older and uh she was in the new christy minstrels her boyfriend was barry mcguire barry mcguire it was folk yeah it's folk music it's it's like a mighty wind that's exactly what it was. Yeah, exactly. That was popular at some point. Yeah. I had a cousin. People loved it. My cousin Marcia and her husband Clark were Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara.

They were those people. Yeah. But, you know, we would have hootenannies. At the house? You heard me. Hootenannies at the house. Or at the farm. This was in Westwood.

Okay. And, you know, like Theodore Bickell and the Limelighters would come to these things. Theodore Bickell? Yes. I met that guy. Did you really? He used to date my first girlfriend's mother in Westport, Connecticut. Wow.

Yeah. Or I guess she was still living in Chappaqua. She was in theater. The mother was. I met him once at a dinner and they were dating. You know, he was, you you know he was a we had a large jewish presence he carried the weight of the people with him you knew he was capable of singing all the songs but the one thing i remember about him is that she had bought chicory because

he liked chicory in his coffee so that's that's a little something about theodore mckell i'm not sure you knew well i, I can't top that. Okay. But yeah, you can. He was at your house singing. He was at our house in our garage that was turned into a pool house. Because he was friends with your folks or with the sister? With my sister.

I mean, you know, the event of the Hootenanny itself attracted a lot of folk singers. And it was just, you know, and I was listening to the local soul station, KGFJ. And I didn't like folk music, but I really did appreciate the harmonies. Yeah. How old were you? I was like seven, eight, nine when this was going on.

This is the late mid-60s? What are we talking? Yeah, this is the early to mid. Just the beginning of the 60s. Yeah, because that's when that stuff was popular. 60s what are we talking yeah this is the mid early just beginning of the 60s yeah because that's when that stuff was popular that's before people woke up to the drug excitement exactly but you know again being in los angeles and the access to music yeah was also something that i felt i i had a front row seat for i mean i saw the beatles twice twice. You did? Where? Yes, at the Hollywood Bowl and then at Dodger Stadium.

When you were like 10? No, I was, let's see, 64. I would have been 12. So you saw the Beatles when you were 12? Do you remember it? Yes. And, you know, I was so determined not to scream and cry. So determined.

Yeah. Determined not to scream and cry. Yeah. So determined. Yeah. But I had these binoculars, and I was looking at these guys who seemed mythical. Yeah, they were mythical. And it was sweat pouring down their faces, and I absolutely lost it. And I was just part of the herd of screaming, crying chicks.

You could feel it. You were 12. Totally humiliating. No, you were 12. How is it humiliating when the entire audience is doing that it's not humiliating if you're not alone crying and screaming thank you mark thank you but then you know there was a club called the ash grove which is now the improv and the ash grove had i was very much into the blues and this was like when i was um 16. muddy waters howland wolf willie dixon chicago

all-stars t-bone walker i talked to taj mahal about that place did you really oh my god i was just like as you were saying that i remember talking to a guest about it like he was there a lot yes he was he was just you know it was thrilling to see him do you know taj i do not know him but i did a cartoon with him and also when i was pregnant with my first daughter i was hiking in tree people park and he was with i think um i think her name is i'm not going to get it wrong so i just won won't say it, but she was in music. She did music scores for movies. And they're walking the other way, this guy that looks like Taj Mahal, and I'm thinking, it's not possible. It's such a yuppie activity, hiking.

Yeah, sure. And in the book, I say it would be like seeing Eminem at a wine tasting in Napa. So I just dismissed it. And then as I was coming back, I saw them again. And then I said, you know, I'm sorry, but you look so much like Taj Mahal. You were that person. You said that to him. I did.

And he, you know, and my dog's name was Ry Cooter. I was with my dog. Oh, don't tell Ry that. So, yeah. But I did tell Taj Mahal that my dog's name was Rykuder, which he got a kick out of. So Taj Mahal hikes. That's what we learned from that. It's not just for yuppies.

Taj Mahal is a man of the world and a man of world music. He has hiked many a mile, Taj Mahal. He has indeed. Yeah. Oh, God. Deep well, that guy. Deep well. Yes, he is.

Yeah. All right. So you're wandering around. You're 12, 13, that guy. Deep well. Yes, he is. Yeah. So, all right. So you're wandering around. You're 12, 13, 14, hitting the rock scene. I'm going to see these bands, you know. Did you see The Doors? You saw The Doors, didn't you? The Doors played our high school.

Come on. And Three Dog Night played our high school. Well, that's not as impressive, but. Well. Three Dog Night were a great band. Yeah, the Doors played our high school. So wait, what high school was that? That was Beverly Hills High School. Of course.

Which I try to keep on the DL, but... What other celebrity children were you going to school with? Well, I don't know if people will know some of these people, but... They will. My audience is like us. Well, I don't know if people will know some of these people. They will. My audience is like us. Well, Louis Jourdan's son, Louis, went there. Little Louis.

Little Louis Louis. Mel Tolkien, who was one of the writers on your show of shows, his two sons, Michael and Stephen, went to Beverly. And I was friends with Stephen. But, you know, Michael, they both went on to be writers and directors. What about the Einstein kids? Were they there? They had graduated before me.

Albert Brooks. I missed them. Oh, you did? Yeah. Rob and Albert had graduated after I came. Rob Reiner? Rob Reiner. Okay. Yes.

But I did see Richard Dreyfuss in a high school production and never forgot him. It was like a summer production. It's exactly the same. You're like, who's that crazy Jew? What's he yelling about? He was good, man.

I tell you, he had it. Oh, I went to school with Monty Hall's kids. Richard was in my class and his sister, who is now Joanna Gleason. I interviewed Monty as an old man because his grandson, Joanna's son's a musician, who is a big fan of this show and was always on me to, you got to talk to my grandfather before it's too late. And I was like, okay, let's do it. That must have been so interesting. And yeah, I had to go over there and talk to him. And now I can't, like my brain is all weird.

I can't remember a time before doing Zooms. I kept, my memory has been boxed by Zoom. I'm picturing Monty Hall in the Zoom box, but I was there sitting in front of him. Uh-oh. It's weird. I was at his house. I gotta say my older kid, Spike, went to school with Jake Reiner and Tracy Ullman's son, Johnny.

And Jake got Spike into a stand-up class at the improv when they were 15. And Spike would not let me go to see them. So, you know, Carl and Rob and James L. Brooks would go see the shows that the kids put on. And my kid was great. I mean, I hate to say it, but they were really great. And I would not have encouraged them if they weren't. But, you know. Did he stick with it? Yeah, they both did. Both kids are on HBO shows shows right now spike's still doing stand-up yeah but spike's also on losa spookies what's his last name einbinder spike einbinder yeah and hannah

einbinder's on a hbo max show that hasn't come out yet that's your daughter everyone's in show business i know what the hell your sister's show business. So moving on through all this through high school here and the young Richard Dreyfuss, I just can imagine the intensity of a high school Richard Dreyfuss. Rabid. Yeah, that's what it is. Foaming at the mouth. Yeah, right? But, you know, then Tracy moved to New York and she was a folk singer and then Ed McMahon spotted her and became her manager and she got her own show in management i know i don't i don't quite get that but um she was on the tonight show and she was an

mc at places like the bitter end yeah and the improv and so one year when i was about 14 and i was in this brace that went from my chin to my pelvis. Yeah. Scoliosis. Exactly. Yeah. I hate that word. You hate that word, but I mean, that seemed to be more popular when with your generation, the scoliosis. I don't know. Do you still see that stuff anymore? Yeah. It's just that the brace is not as obtrusive as it was then. It was just a- I'm sorry to go through that. How long did you have to wear that? Two and a half years, but at least it was when I was a'm sorry to go through that. How long did you have to wear that? Two and a half years.

But at least it was when I was a teenager and had cystic acne. So that was better. Yeah. But, you know, she had us come to the... No, the Troubadour. Yeah. When I was 14 to see her friend Richard Pryor. Oh, over on Sunset? Where is it?

Santa Monica. Santa Monica Boulevard. Yeah, yeah on Sunset? Where is it? Santa Monica. On Santa Monica Boulevard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was friends with all the comics. And that's where they worked before the clubs. They worked at music clubs. Yeah, I mean, you know how intimate the troubadour is. Yeah, it's like nobody,

and he was opening for a music act or no? No, he was by himself. He was pretty, I mean, he had been on Ed Sullivan at this point, but he still didn't have, you know, he wouldn't have been playing the forum at that point. So was he the evolved Pryor or pre, you know, pre-Pryor? You know, he was not the Pryor that was trying to be Bill Cosby.

He was like coming into his own, talk about his grandmother who would wallop him with a board that had holes in it for the meat to go through and stuff like that. So he was himself. So you saw Pryor young. Yeah, and another thing, and another thing, Mark. Yes, I'm here.

I talk about the music that I was exposed to, but then when comedy started to have an explosion, I was there for that too. I was in this improv workshop that eventually became the Groundlings. So you were there. You were a Groundling pre-Groundling? Yeah. I mean.

Now, wait, were you dating? Were you? What were you doing? Were you dating musicians? Who were you? What's going on? I dated musicians later. Oh.

This was after SNL. I had a relationship with Warren Zevon and with Mark Mothersbaugh. Wow. You picked the interesting ones. I know. No boring musicians for you. No. And others, I just, I'm kind of shy to talk about that kind of stuff.

So I really kind of talk about the other stuff that went on, you know, like I took Warren to see the, uh, the first Pee Wee Herman show at the Groundlings. The, uh, the, the beginning of Pee Wee. The very beginning. Yeah. When he used to throw Tootsie Rolls at the audience. And how did, how did, uh, the, the cantankerous Warren Zevon respond? He loved it.

Oh, good. He absolutely loved it. And afterwards, we went back to my house and I made dinner. And there was something in Pee Wee's show about being a clean plate ranger where you had to clean your plate. And he ate everything that I made. And I said, gee, I'm glad you liked it. And he said, well, Pee Wee says to be a clean plate ranger. I'm glad you liked it. And he said, well, Pee Wee says to be a clean plate ranger. You know, he had a knife and fork holding him each. That's cute.

And the napkin tied around his neck. It was very sweet. So prior, but it was after you saw Prior where the comedy started to happen. Yeah, I went to Paris. I studied with Marcel Marceau. You did mime training? Yeah, I did it since I was 16. And then I also learned improv when I was 16.

You didn't do mime in the brace though, did you? No. Post brace. There's a picture. I never even thought about that. That would have been so good. The mobility. Still, I made all those groups and then had to go to London for the final Audition and was summarily rejected So I went to Paris to see if I could study with Marceau and I ended up there for a year Was he like he was great. He was um

He was Hamish mark. He was very Hamish It's so funny that movie that came out about him being a resistance fighter yeah I had no idea there was no inkling of that when he was there but he didn't teach that often frankly it was his hot Czechoslovakian wife that did a lot of the teaching at the time he just sat there silently making expressions how How did you know? But I came back from that and just was like, what the fuck am I going to do? A mime had turned into something that was so cutesy, which I hated.

That's a nice word for it. It was just, yeah, it didn't. It was whimsical. And I don't like whimsy. It's not for me. Yeah, it was like hackneyed boardwalk entertainment. Yeah. So I kind of abandoned that. A friend of mine asked me to be his audition partner for CalArts.

So I said, what the hell? And after that, they asked me to join. So I thought, well, I'm not doing anything else. You went to CalArts? I went to CalArts for three months, which is where I met Paul Rubens. Oh, really? Yeah. I met him there.

So many people have gone there. It's kind of crazy. I know. Where's that? Like out in Selmar or something? It's in Valencia. Valencia. Yeah. I mean, I've talked to so many people that have gone to Cal Arts. I can't even remember them all now. It was an amazing campus, but I realized then that I did not want to be an actor. And they were teaching, it was a theater program, and I didn't feel comfortable doing that. I felt more comfortable doing stuff that I was a theater program and i didn't feel comfortable doing that i i felt more comfortable doing stuff that i wrote yeah because i didn't feel like i had the range to do other stuff right yeah so you tried but you couldn't i just couldn't do it i didn't want uh i didn't want to reveal myself in that way which is pretty much the criteria for being an actor. Right. And it's also like it seems to have stuck with you with your weird habit to drop into

different voices, miss not reveal yourself. So it's glad that you found your own device of avoidance that has been helpful to you. All right. Confront me, Mark. That's what this is about, confront me mark that's what this is about isn't it uh so where was i but i digress uh-huh um anyway you know you're there for three months and you wanted to do your own writing yeah my sister was in this improv workshop she said why don't you come to this where was that at that was at the cellar theater on vermont which i'm sure isn't there anymore. But it was run by this guy named Gary Austin. And the people in it were like Jack Sue, Pat Morita, Valerie Curtin, Tim Matheson. Just, you know, people who were just interested in the craft. Of being funny.

Yeah. And we moved from there to the oxford theater and started doing shows and then we thought well we got to pick a name yeah so we picked the groundlings and how'd you pick that name it's a shakespearean term okay people who couldn't afford real seats i didn't know they had to sit on the ground i'm sure so many people are like come on mary you should have known so you were So you were a founding member. Yes. That's crazy.

I know. Well, that's why I say I lived in interesting times. I was there for the opening of the Comedy Store. In 72? Was it? Yeah. And did you read Cliff Nesteroff's book? Yeah.

I just talked to Cliff today. I love that guy. I loved his book so Yeah. I just talked to Cliff today. I love that guy. I loved his book so much. It's dedicated to me. It is? Yeah. I've got to go look at that again. I don't remember that.

At the very beginning. That's wonderful. For Mark M. I had him on this show early on. That's incredible. I was so into his writing. And he was up in Canada. And I kind of introduced him to the world down

here a little bit. He just texted me, he's got a new book out about Native American comics. So the opening of the Comedy Store? Yeah, so it was the opening of the Comedy Store and I was underage so I couldn't go in, but I watched everything from the doorway and I saw the Step Brothers, which was Craig T. Nelson, Barry Levinson, and I think Rudy DeLuca. Right. I saw Ed Begley Jr. dressed as a cop.

Yeah. And let's see, Freddie Prinze. I saw Jay Leno when he had long black hair, and he would pull it to the front, put it in a ponytail, and do Elvis. And it was a silent bit where he just did kind of the pose and the lip, and the ponytail would, like, flap like a metronome. It was so funny. And I saw Richard Pryor try out a lot of material that he didn't use. Yeah, he used to go on for hours there sometimes.

And someone, I think Ken Shapiro made Tunnel Vision, which I was in, and so was Chevy, and so were Franken and Davis, and this was before SNL. And that was out here? Some weird experimental indie movie? So The Groundlings, now what it's become,

I imagine that once you got left it, or once you named it, it didn't have all these tiers and classes and it wasn't some sort of, you know. No. When did it evolve into this, you know, training ground that was so high? Like, it's weird. I guess that was the business model. Who made it a business?

Tom Maxwell, who was a student when I was there. But he became a director and a really good one and a really funny guy. And you know, he became a showrunner. I think he did just shoot me. A lot of the people that were subsequent to me became showrunners on different shows. The smart ones. Yeah. I mean, it's fantastic. And I get to see a lot of the people developing and then going on to being on SNL, which is thrilling to me. I just love it. The showrunners, though, they're like, you know, oh, you guys know how to make this a real job. God damn it.

Yeah. When did your sister start writing comedy? How did that happen? It was after The Groundlings. She was a director there for many years and a teacher. Oh, really? So she stopped playing folk music? Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. When folk died, she got out? That's right.

My sister has really been like the instigator for a lot of the transitions that I've made because she was there first. She's always been on the cusp of something that's about to happen, hence the Groundlings. But she went on to write on Cheers and The Nanny, tons of shows. She was one of the four Emmy-winning writers on the Ellen DeGeneres Coming Out episode. Oh, wow. Did she become a showrunner?

Yeah. Which one did she run? Okay. She and her partner created According to Jim. Now, so my sister created a show for John's brother. Right.

Which I also love, the synchronicity of all that. No, she never met him. So years later she did that. Well, years after John's gone. Yeah. When do you go to New York? How does that happen?

Lorne Michaels was producing Lily Tomlin's special, and he came to the Groundlings, and they hired me for that show, and then Lorne came back, and I was doing new material and different characters, and he had me meet him at the Chateau Marmont to talk about this show that he was hired to do. So he comes out, you work on Lily's show?

I work on Lily's show. And then he comes to see me again and he hires me for SNL. So I didn't really audition. What characters were you doing at that point? Did any of them make it onto the first season? Yes. Sherry the stewardess, who's the valley girl,

that whole monologue in the Godfather group therapy sketch is a monologue that I wrote for the Groundlings. Wow. And there was another character that I, you know, talk about this a lot, how I wanted to dazzle people with my, with my, uh, how prolific I was with characters. And, you know, it's important to repeat characters.

Kids, if I tell you nothing else, it's important to repeat characters. But, um, Once you've built them, you mean? Use them as much as possible?

Yeah. So they're remembered. But, um, the only one I didn't do was this British groupie named Fiona. I never had occasion to do her. That's a character that you had and it never made it onto the show? No, I never saw a place for it.

And you've never used it for a voice for anything else? I have. We did a birthday party for Mindy Sterling. The Groundlings did a birthday party for her at the Roosevelt Hotel. And we did kind of a parody of American Idol so I played this kind of one of the judges you know who my fame was like you know I was inspiring a lot of musicians I was with you know basically it was a song written about me called chain of pearls And sometimes people call me the white man's burden.

I don't know why. But stuff like that, you know. Yeah. God. You got to use it. Yeah, I got to use it in various things. And also in animation. I've been so thrilled that British productions

hire me sometimes to do voices. It's like you're one of those people where, I mean, I see you around at festivals and we've run into each other and communicated here and there over the years, but it seems like you're constantly doing voices for animation. Yeah. And I just, you know, I don't know how corny this might sound, but I have always been passionate about comedy.

And so I've always stayed in it and wanting to see it, seeing new comedy. You know, I'm on the board at Sketch Fest. But I even, you know, when my kids were didn't need me to like ride them to do their homework. Right. I started going to places like Meltdown and, you know, seeing all these people. You just like it. I just like it. I just like it. So what was the first season?

In the first season, because I've talked to most people. That's not even true. I've not talked to hardly anybody. Who did I talk to? I've talked to Garrett. I've talked to Al. I've talked to Lorne. I talked to Dan.

Oh, that should have been interesting. Yeah, he's got a frequency he operates at. I love it. Yeah. I absolutely love it. We did an episode of According to Jim together, and we were doing a speed through right before starting taping. Uh-huh. And I think there was something where Danny was rattling something off about guns.

And Jim said, you really like that stuff, don't you? And Danny said, yeah, I have Asperger's. Yeah, yeah. And all of a sudden it was like, wow, that explains everything. Jeez, you know, you play it back in your mind. Of course he has Asperger's. That's wild when that happens, right? Oh my God. Yeah. But I always loved his mind so much. I loved his style. I mean, everybody, that was what was so thrilling about SNL was that everybody really had an original voice. And it was a great soup.

Did you feel that right away? Because I remember talking to Garrett, and Garrett was sort of like this outlier, he felt, in terms of where he came from and how and why he was cast. It seemed like it was a bit of a struggle to figure out how he fit in, but eventually he landed. Sure. Well, he was hired as a writer.

Right. But he was also as a writer. Right. But he was also like a straight actor. He was a legit, he was the only one who had like seriously legit, you know, credits. But when did things get like, like at the beginning, how long did it take?

Because I just watched that Belushi doc. Did you watch it? I loved it. It was good, right? I thought it was so good. And I thought the device of not having us see the people that were talking, just hearing them, and the animation was so effective. And you thought it rang true in terms of the parts that you were part of? Yeah.

And it also revealed a side of John that I had no idea existed. You know, the letters to Judy and his real knowledge of himself in the sense that he felt trapped by his addiction and didn't really know how to get out of it. That it was a sort of despair and helplessness. That's the worst.

Which broke my heart. That's the worst. That's the real sickness. But he didn't have it when you knew him. Oh, yeah. Oh, he did? It was always there, the appetite for it, he didn't have it when you knew him oh yeah oh he did it was always there that the appetite for it but he didn't seem did he seem lost when you know him though no it wasn't that i mean it was bad but it wasn't as bad as it got later right but he already you know this is the big misconception that i find when people trivialize people's lives and talk about how they couldn't handle the fame, man.

Yeah. And that's why they get looted. You know. Yeah. No. You're already an addict when you get there. Yes, that's true. So it was just accessibility and money.

That made it worse. Yeah. Which is part of fame, but it's not the psychological ramifications of fame. It's just sort of like you can now do whatever you want. Yeah. Charming. I know. He was a sweet guy.

He really was. He was. Did you date him? I can't remember. No. No. He was always with Judy. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. No, I didn't. I only dated Danny. I didn't date anybody else on the show. Oh, so that's funny. And briefed him. So the Asperger's thing, you're like, okay. Yeah.

I mean, I was always aware of a deep detachment on his part. So I never had much of an expectation of him. I just love spending time with him. And do you talk to anybody anymore? I probably talk to Alan Zweibel most talk to alan's why bell most frequently okay he's the sweetest guy he's so great and so funny yes and um you know every once in a while uh bill murray will text me out of the blue you know like i'm at this restaurant yeah and there's this music playing you know yeah. Yeah, yeah. One of those weird texts.

I have people that do that. Yeah. The big star text, you know, semi-annual big star text that's weird. Hey, what's that spice that you like that, you know, just something weird, yeah. But I also have, you know, through Sketch Fest and other things that I've done,

become friends with Fred Armisen. Oh, yeah. So we communicate every once in a while. But like Jane, nothing? No. I did write to her to ask questions because there was a day when the Stones were hosting and I went to her dressing room. I can't remember why. And I opened the door and she's there in a beautiful bathrobe. Her hair is in curlers. She's smoking a cigarette and she's there in a beautiful bathrobe. Her hair is in curlers. She's smoking a cigarette and she's alone with Mick.

Yeah, that's your memory. And that's not something I expected. And I said, what was going on there? She says, you know, in retrospect, I think he was hoping for a quickie. I just don't know, you know. And I also remember her audition really well. It's so funny because that's exactly how she would phrase it.

That's what she said to you? Yeah. Hoping for a quickie. Yeah. Boy, did he have the wrong number. But anyway. But they were really, they were shooting the breeze. They were there and hanging out.

But that happened a lot there, right, then? I mean, you got to hang out with everybody. Yeah, but Jane and Mick. Yeah. That's my point. Jane and Mick. Didn't make sense. No, but it was delightful. But you remember Jane's audition? Yeah, it was, Gilda and I were already hired and they were having these auditions at this place called NOLA, which was, and it was a big rehearsal space and smack dab in the middle was a table and chair, which is the most brutal atmosphere for anybody.

But he likes to do that, right? I mean, he still does things kind of like that, even though you're in the studio. It doesn't make it comfortable, does he? I don't like ascribing motives to anybody because I can't read minds. So I don't know. I think that that was just— Well, I mean, from experience in retrospect of dealing with Lorne in that first season, throughout it, is it possible that he sought to make you uncomfortable during your audition? Yeah, I think the inclusion-exclusion business, you know, was a divide-and-conquer tactic.

In terms of sketch in that in in writing in terms of the harder people would work in order to rise above you know to achieve and get ahead right so you created a competitive environment yeah it didn't have to be like that there's such a thing as a happy set yeah and it was happy just because we all loved doing sketch the work was fun yeah you know, the struggle for airtime was tough on everybody, you know, and I thought I was the only one, but everybody. You thought you were the only one during it? Yeah. And then you found out later that everybody was like, no.

Yeah. And I think, so I, Bell told me that Conan O'Brien said that his time there, he felt like every day was like getting beaten up on the playground. Bullies everywhere. Yeah, I guess. And what was Jane's audition like? Why do you remember it? Well, it was, she was hosting a disaster party. It was a town that had had every natural disaster imaginable. And they were getting ready for another one. And she just had like talking to a group of women and what they brought to eat and all this kind of stuff.

But it was so different. Did she come from comedy? Yeah, she came from The Proposition, which is a Boston improv group. No kidding. I don't even know that one. Yeah, we all came from improv. Yeah.

It's interesting. I don't remember that having talked to all the comedy people I've talked to. I don't remember the proposition ever coming up. Yeah. Who else was in that? Anyone we know? I don't know. Well, there you go. I just know that she came from there. Because there was another one on the West Coast called The Committee, right? I saw The Committee when I was a teenager. I'd go see them at the Tiffany Theater. I was a teenager. I'd go see them at the Tiffany Theater. So how did it end for you with SNL?

Well, we were all under a five-year contract, all of us. Yeah. And Lorne made it clear that he was leaving. And I didn't want to do it without him. How many seasons were you on? Five. The original cast did five seasons except for John and Danny who left after the fourth, I think. The network approached all of us to see if we would stay on um but I don't think anybody wanted to and I think we were all burnt out so what kind of shape were you in after the five years were you all fucked up

yeah I was really uh I was very eager to go home were What were you all fucked up on? What was the problem? I was a big coke addict. And I had intermittent times of sobriety that I can't even explain. But when I got home, I just wanted to hide. I just wanted to not be in the world because the world was too painful. But I was also doing stuff. There was a show at the Hollywood Roosevelt called the, oh my God, it was a political sketch review.

Chris Guest was in it, Ed Begley, I think Carl Gottlieb. I-huh. I was in that show. The Hollywood Primary, that's what it was called. And there was also, I was doing ADR, which at the time I should have like maybe pulled back and thought, you're coming off of a hit show and you're doing work off camera for scale. What does that mean? What's wrong with this? ADR. Additional Dialogue Replacement. Right. off camera for scale what's wrong with this adr additional dialogue replacement right oh so you

would oh because i know that i go in and do it for things that i was in but you there's a general looping this was looping this was uh whose voice were you doing it was filling in crowd stuff and individual lines at point but you know people there were like harry shearer yeah and renny santoni and uh ed bagley i mean so the improvising that went on which was totally unnecessary because it was all going to be mixed down but my god some of the stuff that went on was so funny everybody was trying to pick up a paycheck is that what was going on yeah because you get residuals for those adr is a great gig so you're doing adr and how did you have to go to get off the coke i you know i held out for a long time

i didn't get sober till i was 35 so i came back from snl i was 28 oh man so you were running around out here all jacked up yeah um but I was one of those introvert cope people. I would stay in my house and play solitaire and smoke. So it was like a work like Ritalin for you? It kind of did for me. It's exactly what it did. Leveled me off. Absolutely.

It calmed me down. It chilled me out. Made me think everything was okay. Exactly. And then like three hours later, I was sure I was dying. So it was a small window. Yeah, the crash was awful. Awful.

And I never drank alcohol. How'd you come down? Just I would read and eat. Oh. That's what I would do. Eating on Coke. You were a professional. Well, it had worn off.

Yeah, yeah. But that crash is so awful, so depressing. So looking back on it, I mean, do you, like people like Lorne, because the last time I talked to you, I was obsessed with my meeting with Lorne, but we were able to resolve it through a couple of interviews I did with him. He walked me through it and made me feel better. Guys, I heard that interview. It was terrific. You did a great job with him. He was very patient with me. He was nice to deal with my problem. I was very surprised, but he did. That'll be $90, please. Yeah. For lifting the obsession of me on that day.

But you had a good experience with him always? We were friends. We were friends after The Lily Show. And we were friends after SNL ended. Whenever he came to L.A., we'd get together. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I really, I love Lorne. I still care about him very much,

but I have absolutely no relationship with him. Yeah. But I will always care about him. It's weird how that happens, isn't it? Like you hold people in this place and then you don't talk to him for a decade, yet you still like have those same feelings from that place. Yeah. What happened? How come you guys don't talk?

Well, I just think that his life has gotten so big and he has only so much room for people. But what's interesting about Lorne that I found is that he's still wandering those same halls, doing that same fucking job, and he loves it. And it's what he does. He's a television producer. Yeah, he is. And I think that he really is inspired by the talent. I think he's genuinely inspired by it. Yeah. And think he's genuinely inspired by it. Yeah, and it's like it's hit or miss, but sometimes it's really funny. Sometimes he's got funny, he's still got a good eye, you know, in terms of talent. And some people are allowed to get their groove.

I've seen some performers on the show and like they do one amazing thing. Yeah. And then I think, well, that's all they can do. show and like they do one amazing thing and then i think well that's all they can do and then they've gotten a little more time and you see this incredible range of things that they can do and that takes um i don't even know how to describe what that takes but the ability to wait them out to allow them to grow or blossom and so weird it's like now you know keenan is like the old hand over there and he's he's like got such a great attitude now like he just seems to give zero fucks and he's like and it makes him

so much funnier than he he's evolved he's so good but did you ever see him when he was a kid on all that no oh yeah he was on a comedy show on on Nickelodeon when he was a kid. And I remember thinking, God, he is so goddamn funny. It would be so great if someday he did SNL. And he did. Absolutely. I told him. I remember thinking that when I saw him because he was always so funny. I like that Chloe Fineman. Is that her name? Yeah, she's a groundling. She's terrific. She's good. So, you know, when we talked last, which was like, when was that?

2000 and 13? It was at Sketch Fest, but I don't remember. Yeah, it was a long time ago. But you said that you were writing a book and it was in a drawer and you were never going to finish it. Exactly. Did you finish it? Why did you just do it on audio? Because you didn't finish it?

No, that was the business model for Audible. And I did finish it. Mark, I had so much material. And I wrote a lot of other stuff to avoid writing the book. And I wrote nine drafts of the book. And because I'm so disorganized, it was like, well, I know I have some good stuff in the seventh draft, but where is it? And I didn't have the patience to go through all of them. So I just kept getting disgusted each time and throwing it in a drawer.

Right. But then Audible approached me and their business model was to do quote unquote humorous, you know, memoirs. So it was serious. So, it was serious. And I had a fellow named Paul Slansky help me organize the ton of material I had. And he was like, he's very good with facts and dates and chronology, which is also a big weakness of mine. So, he helped me sort all that out. And he helped me basically with, oh, you don't need that. Yeah, right. Yeah, nobody needs to know that. Oh, yeah, like what?

Well, I mean, you don't need that because it's boring, probably. But honestly, I don't remember. Did you have to take stuff out because of like, was he concerned? It's like, if you say this about this person, you know that person. Yeah. Was there some of that? Well, you know, that person. Yeah. Was there some of that? Well, audible is pretty much covers that, you know, when you hand in the copy edited, there's, you know, and fact checked version, then it goes through legal.

Yeah. So I had to reword things like, you know, say I felt this or I believed this rather Yeah. So, Mark Mothersbaugh, we would go to the Larry Flint mansion for parties, which I soon got tired of because I thought it was kind of depressing. But I remember Larry Flint being obsessed with Madeline Murray O'Hare and the atheist movement. And he would talk about these conspiracies and he would send me and Mark home with these cassettes and videotapes to watch. You know. nobody likes homework but no the point is that you know uh there's just all sorts of things that i was exposed to that's not weird fucking isn't hollywood bizarre man yeah so you just like you're with mark mothersbaugh at larry flint's house and he's holding court from his wheelchair and going on about atheists and wants you to watch videos, and you've got to sit there.

Were there drugs involved? Because how did you sit through that? Not at that time, no. But it was such a Hollywood thing in my mind where you just end up at these houses with these people that can only hang out with each other because they can't go out into the real world. Yeah. So there's always weird pairings of people around.

That's exactly, that is a great way of putting it. So you're at these parties going like, why is Lance Armstrong and Ted Nugent here? You know, it's like, where else are they going to go? This is the only, one time I saw, like, it was like at the comedy store in Mitzi's booth. It was Rodney Dangerfield, Bruce Willis, and Ted Nugent sitting there watching the show. Out of here. I remember you talking about that. That's an amazing confluence of human beings.

Which is because they were there the same night. It was before Ted became whatever he represents now. He was always kind of a fucking monster, but he wasn't a political monster. But yeah, and then someone brought it to my attention with i think it was jeffrey uh jeff khan like he said he'd go to these parties at stiller's house and you just see these people together where you there was no reason for them to be together other than they're all at a level of celebrity to where they can't really socialize like normal people well i remember um alan burski do you remember him? He was like an 18-year-old stand-up. I know Berski.

I interviewed him. I talked to Berski. I knew him when he was 18. Oh, you did? Were you in high school? No, I'm a little older than him, actually. When his dad was parking cars in the lot of the comedy store when Sammy still had it? Yeah, when he was doing stand-up there, even though I was too young to get in. But for some reason, I saw him after SNL, and I was talking about how tough it was for me. And he said, well, I know a guy who's a manager. Maybe you should meet with him. So he takes me up to meet this guy. And we're driving.

And then we passed a street sign that says Cielo Drive. Yeah. And I'm thinking, God, this looks familiar. And Jesus, this house looks familiar. Yeah. And it was the scene of the Manson murders. Oh. It was the house.

And this guy still, Rudy Altabelli, unbelievably horrible human being, who sued Roman polanski because he couldn't sell his house because polanski too many took too many pictures of the house i mean just odious that was where the take killing was yes the meeting was at the house so it's always there's always a connection of some kind that That's true. In one way or another. It's like whoever I met, whoever I went to high school with, whoever I met at CalArts, Paul Rubens, whoever I met at the Groundlings, whoever I met on SNL,

whoever I met subsequent to that because of the relationships I had, then starting into animation, some people who had been actors but got into animation or people who were just the cream of the crop of animation actors. And again, there I was at the beginning of this explosion because animation is so huge now. But I was there when that just was starting. when that just was starting you know so i got to i was working on the pixar movies and i remember we were working on finding nemo and i can't remember it might have been it wasn't lassiter it was someone else but he was talking about the how they had just gotten the technology to animate the look

of particles just filtering through light coming through the ocean. Do you know what I mean? When you see a beam of light going into the ocean and all the krill, I think they're called, just filtering through that. They had just developed the technology to animate something like that. And of course, there are leaps and bounds from that now, but it was such a fascinating, it is such a fascinating medium.

And also, I think you can have a lot, like if you're dug in in that world, you can have a, you know, there's no end to your career, really, because it's just a matter of course. Well, I've been very lucky. I got to say, I thank my lucky stars every day because, you know, all during the pandemic, I've been able to work. What have you been working on? Well, let's see um there's a show i think it's been announced but it's going to be on netflix it's called ridley jones and it's kind of like uh night at the museum with a young girl and it's written by chris knee who created two other series that i worked on that are like Peabody Award winning shows. And you meet a lot of people

in animation. I mean, you know, the show I'm working on now, Rhea Sehorne is working on it. Oh, she's great. And Blythe Danner and just incredible people. It's so funny. I had this realization about animation. There was this comic that was just a, just like this monster. Like he was, you know, drugs and booze and weird and just fucking creepy. And his name is?

Chris Collins. He's dead. Oh, I don't know him. But years ago, I just remember that he had, you know, found some,

not, he was around doing comedy, but he was just too weird. And too, but he had found some success doing cartoons. And comedy but he was just too weird and too uh but he had found some success doing cartoons and i'm like i always thought like if only those parents knew oh my god who was talking for that animal well frank welker uh is really like the mel blank of his era i mean his his imdb is pages and pages. I mean, he's done everything you've ever seen as a child. And he used to do stand-up. And Steve Martin

told me about seeing Frank do sound effects of a mother duck crossing a stream. The sound of the ducklings, the sound of the duck, and the sound of the stream. Wow. I always liked those guys. These guys have incredible skills. Yeah. There was a weird comic named Barry Nykru. I don't know what happened to him. He used to do some very odd noises. What a great name. It's a great name. He was an interesting guy. He's a musician who didn't, I don't remember,

his brother was a concert pianist. There's always these weird stories. Where did you see these people? All at the comedy store? Chris Collins. Barry Nykru and Chris Collins were both Boston guys. I started doing comedy in Boston after college and during college. Did you know Dana Gould?

Yes. I was there when Dana left. I was there probably the year before. I saw Dana maybe right before he moved to San Francisco. So when he was pretty young. Wow. And I saw Bobcat. I was there. And Tom Kenny. Bob and Tom. You see Tom Cat and Bob Cat. Bob Cat had a garage sale at a comedy store, at a comedy club called Stitches before he moved to San Francisco

they all went to San Francisco. Paul Poundstone went to San Francisco. Kevin Meaney went to San Francisco. A lot of the Boston people that needed a more embracing environment before they came to L.A. went to San Francisco. God, Kevin Meaney. Yeah, he was a Boston guy. I remember seeing him.

What kind of person does that? It's so funny. You guy. I remember seeing him. What kind of person does that? Yeah. It's so funny. You can see the spirit of him. There's certain moments that Gaffigan has that are very Kevin Meade-like. Yes. Yeah. Oh, my God. I never put that together.

Where he's like, I don't know. Where he talks like. Well, when he does the audience, a woman in the audience. Yeah. The quiet, the other voice. I don't think that's very funny. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think that's very funny. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love that. That's very Kevin, right? Well, didn't Fran Solomita did a documentary on the Boston? I remember Fran. I used to see him when I was in college. I saw Fran. I saw Zito and Bean. I saw Ron Lynch.

Ron Lynch was in a team called Bob and ron when i first saw them what happened to bob god ask ask ron what happened to ron and he's around i think yeah he's still around is a lot of times on sketch fest but he's so funny yeah ron's great right ron was a big influence on a lot of people like they're like yeah i i mean ron was always there uh he was a boston guy there's yeah it's i mean you must do it too when you think back on all the people Yeah, I mean, Ron was always there. He was a Boston guy. I mean, you must do it too when you think back on all the people you knew. Oh, my God. And then some people you're like, what happened to that guy?

I remember going to see a friend of mine named Joey Arias, who was a very well-known drag queen. And he was a groundling. He was there in the very beginning. So I went to see him, I think, at the Catalina Club, and I saw Bruce Valanche. And I was in the midst of writing my book, and I remember seeing this wonderful Australian impressionist, a woman named Daphne Davis. And I thought, he'll know. Not only did he know her, he wrote for her. Wow. Valanche did. Valanche did, yeah. After you get to a certain point in your life, you live so many lives in so many different places. Exactly.

That's what it is. So many lives. Yeah, when people come up to you, they're like, hey, do you remember me? I'm like, you're going to have to give me a span of years and a city. Exactly. Do you remember Falstaff Wild? No.

You probably never saw him. He was the first openly gay comic I ever saw. And he was at the comedy store. And he would come see Groundlings shows all the time. God bless him. And when did you get married and have kids in the middle of all this? Did you were sober? Oh, yeah.

My kids have never known me high. Cokie? No. God bless them. Oh, my God. I just can't even imagine parenting and being. I'm so lucky. Yeah.

I have to say because I, you know, of all the things I've had to live down. Yeah. I don't have to live that down. Right. You know. You didn't do that. You didn't make that mistake. Yeah.

In 89, I got together with Chad. And, yeah, 25 years. Are you guys friends? Is this ending nicely? We're really good friends, yeah. And he's remarried, and his wife is incredible, and I love her. Yeah, very civilized. Me?

Me, oh, you see, Mark, the store is closed here. It's finished, is what I'm saying. Is it? It is. I can't even saying. Is it? It is. I can't even imagine. I can't imagine intimacy at this point. It's just horrifying, the thought. Well, it's weird, though, because, I mean, I understand what you're saying,

but the other thing about as you get older, though, is that, you know, there are certain things you just can't hide. So there's a lot of stuff that's already out of the bag. You know what I mean? So on some level, intimacy is already happening, whether you want it to or not, because we don't have control over, you know. I never thought of it that way. Do you know what I mean? I mean, really.

That's an interesting perspective. Because like on some level, it's sort of like, you know, you may not want to take an emotional risk, but most of who you are is sort of, you know, you're not hiding that much anymore. Who has that kind of energy? But it's really just a matter of attachment, you know. Well, I also think if you get older, you're not as invested in being anything other than you are. Right. Right. Because so much shit that used to feel important or used to seem like you needed to do to see who gives a

fuck yeah you better like me this is it yeah this is this is what we're dealing with i'm not worrying about best foot forward okay yeah and it's just sort of like do you like you know the the whole thing about like you know like you start to understand why people who've been together a long time sleep in separate rooms it's not a matter matter of, of like anything other than like, I just want to have some space, you know? Yeah. You make noises and you read and the light bothers me. Yeah. I, I just, you know, Jane Curtin has been married this whole time and her husband is fantastic. I really admire that. Where do they,? They live out here, too? They live in Connecticut. Of course. I've just been emailing with her, which has been really fun.

That's great. Bill Murray, you know, was honored at the Kennedy Center, and he flew me out there and put me up at the Four Seasons. And so I got to go, you know, and I met Sonia Sotomayor. And, you know, it was very exciting. And afterwards, it was very, very cold and Jane and. And she says, I don't do that. I don't do that. And it was like, please, Miss Curtin, please. We've been waiting out in the cold for so long. And she was like, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. You know? And I was like, my hat is off to you. My hat is off to you. You are my queen. Oh, God. I loved her for that. How long ago was that? That was a couple of years ago, maybe two, three years ago.

And how long has it been since Gilda's been gone? A long time, huh? Oh, God, 89. My mother died two months after Gilda. That's a bad year. Yeah, it was bad. Did you love her? Oh, yeah. She was a really great friend to me.

And very mothery, mothering to me. I often don't even understand why she was so good to me because I was so self-centered and self-involved. But she was so attentive and kind and loving. Yeah. Were you friends with Gene? No. I met him once, I think. He seems like a sweetheart, too. Maybe. I know nothing. They say nothing. Okay. Well, look, it was great seeing you. You too, man. I hope I can

see you again sometime. Out in the world. Sure. I'm not going on your end of town. That's too far. I don't go to your end of town either. Maybe I'll meet you somewhere in the middle at some point. Maybe I'll see you at a thing when we can have things again.

Yeah. Yeah, that would be fun. Maybe at Sketchfest. Yeah, I haven't been up there in a while. middle at some point okay maybe i'll see you at a thing when we can have things again yeah yeah that would be fun maybe in sketch fest yeah i haven't been up there in a while i haven't done sketch fest in a while i don't remember why i stopped doing i tend to not go to festivals because i'm like why why i'll just go if i want to go to san francisco and play san francisco i'll just go do it when there's not a million other acts up there but i go because i love seeing those i know that's what people, yeah, people are like, we get to see everybody.

I'm like, no, I don't know. But it also can sometimes end up in a collaboration. It's like Coachella. You know, a lot of times artists meet each other. Maybe I'm going to jam with Mike Birbiglia. That's right, man. Yeah, Michael Ian Black and I have this set we want to do. Exactly.

Yeah. I'm a solo act, baby. But maybe I'll go back up there. I like seeing you. I'm glad you're doing all right and glad that you got the book out and in the world. And it's only in audio. Yeah, it should be really entertaining. It should be very entertaining, I hope.

I'll bring it with me on my hike. Okay, that's the perfect spot. All right, Lorraine, take it easy. Okay, bye. Okay, Lorraine Newman and her voices and her nice disposition and her new book called May You Live in Interesting Times. It's available exclusively on Audible as an audiobook. So go to audible.com or the Audible app

to check it out. Damn, my voice is good today. It's a meditation. It's making me dream deeper. I think something's happening. All right? Something is happening. I mean, I'm levitating right now.

Is that normal? No. Watch. I'm just going to right now. Is that normal? No. Watch. I'm just going to float over here and pick up my guitar. Thank you. Boomer lives. La Fonda and Monkey. Cat Angels. Soaring into the forever. It's a night for the whole family. Be a of kids night when the toronto rock take on the colorado mammoth at a special 5 p.m start time on saturday march 9th at first ontario center in hamilton the first 5 000 fans in attendance will get a dan dawson bobblehead courtesy of

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