WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1333 - Marc Goes To Washington w/ Dr. Dwandalyn Reece and Lance Mion

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

This is an episode about history. Collective history and personal history. Marc finds himself in Washington, DC on the latest leg of his standup tour, a place imbued with symbolism, both for what we want it to be, but also what we really are. And it's where Marc's college roommate lives. First, Marc reckons with a history of injustice at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture with curator Dr. Dwandalyn Reece. Then Marc tries to piece together his own past with his old roommate, Lance Mion. 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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Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fucksters how's it going i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it if you haven't been here before, this is going to be an interesting episode. I think I've been doing stuff. I've been out in the world. Many of you know that I'm touring and I've been out on the road quite a bit. And on this little leg of the journey over the last weekend, I flew into DC and then I drove up to Jersey in Red Bank, the Count Basie Theater. As I'm recording this, I'll be doing Philadelphia tonight. But also, as many of you know, as I fly in and I drive around for hours and hours to these shows with no opener, just me in the car

thinking about things, thinking about my life, looking to the future, looking to the past, just trying to figure out how I'm situated in this world, in my body, in my mind, in my heart, asking the big questions of myself, and also thinking about the past and thinking about the nature of memory and what do we really remember about ourselves? What does memory serve? Why do we even have it? It's very, it's malleable. I don't know if malleable is the right word, but over time it shifts, it changes. You may not remember things quite right. You may not have been at that place or been in that house or actually did the things you think you did. It's a strange thing, memory, as you get older. And certainly, as I watched my father lose his,

he realized that, you know, what are you really left with? And what do you really have when it comes to memory? So this is sort of about kind of reckoning with personal history a little bit. And it turns out, like, it's also reckoning with a collective history. Because I was in D.C. And what do you do in D. what what what do i talk about a lot these days is where we're heading as a country and what i feel is important or not important culturally and how culture has been hijacked which is clearly true uh by by nefarious forces for the most part, some just blatantly capitalistic forces, but certainly some

nefarious forces when it comes to expression of, of, of history, of marginalized people's history. And I've just had sort of an interesting experience lately. That's sort of expanding my mind around this stuff. I just spent a week in Tulsa working on a television show created by, written by, produced by, acted by Native Americans, which is really a first in the history of this country. And it is a true form of American expression, of human expression that has been sort of denied us by the forces that have dictated what we take in culturally. I went to D.C. I didn't know what to do. You know, I've been going to a lot of museums of all different kinds. And I decided I would go to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture,

the Smithsonian. And I had a profound experience there, which one should have. But I also ended up, you know, touching base with my college roommate, Lance, Lance Mayan, who I lived with on and off. I lived with him for four years, two in student housing and two after the student housing. And then there was never any sort of problem or rift between us. But I missed almost all of his life. And I would touch base with him occasionally, maybe three or four times in the last 35 years but it's interesting what

I have found in in touching base with people from my past certain people is that there isn't that much distance uh between us as human beings or our experience of each other that there's some parts of us that remain the same it seems and. And there's some things that aren't quite, that I don't remember about myself and that he may not remember. So I ended up talking to him and putting some pieces together and having that experience of wondering who we were and how we got to where we are and just reconnecting like that. So there was sort of a personal history. And I also and also in New Jersey ended up spending time with the other two guys that Lance and I lived with for two years Anthony Calabrese and Brad Stonberg it was kind of a profound and fun experience to reconnect with these guys because they're

all very familiar to me even though it's been what 35 to 40 years since I've seen these guys. It was just very interesting to me. But moving back, the museum, I don't know if you've been there, all right, but the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is relatively new. It's new to me. It's right on the National Mall. It's right down the street from the Holocaust Museum. I mean, I would imagine that doubleheader would be profoundly overwhelming and heartbreaking and horrific.

But one thing I started to realize, sadly, you know, these are two museums that are monuments, memorials, and also archival collections. And to some degree, both are a reckoning these should act as as as sort of a sobering warning but also these should be both both the things that those two museums represent the worst type of murderous genocidal antisemitism and then the worst type of human bondage, slavery, and then the ongoing systemic racism that has been a problem in this country and continues to be one. Both of these should have been in the past. We should have evolved as a culture, as a civilization, as a country beyond what these two museums represent. But sadly, it seems that new exhibits will be added

in the years to come. And hopefully the point of view remains appropriate of both these museums. But we don't know ultimately how this country is going to go. But the fact is, this is an ongoing concern. The design of the museum itself is this sort of triptych. It's like got three levels. And it's based on a Nigerian piece of head of headgear from a sculpture from several sculptures. And I love the architecture that sort of infuses all of the things that it represents to the sort of steel work on the outside.

I guess it's steel lattice work is sort of based on some of the work of the blacksmiths that were were trained and were artisans in New Orleanslavery who had learned these crafts while they were slaves or working as indentured servants. And so just the aesthetic of the place. And there was a thoughtful kind of, there's a, I believe, a reflecting pool, but there's also something that represents a porch in the architecture as a communal meeting place and place where stories are told. So it's a fascinating

sort of design just on an architectural level. And as I talked to Dr. Dwandelin Reese, who is the curator of music and performing arts at the museum, and she's been there since 2009, that was before the physical museum wasn't even opened, which opened in 2016. But what is amazing about the reality of not only the subject matter of the museum, but that there was an effort to get this museum open for the past 100 years, a museum to represent the African-American contribution to this country, 100 years, and now it sits in proximity to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the White House, and the way she kind of talked about it

and the way it sort of made sense to me that it is in a silent conversation with all of these symbolic spaces. Like, I felt something about that. You know, like when I got, I've been to D.C. with different states of mind. When I was younger, when you get there and you see it for the first time, the monuments

are overwhelming and you realize this is supposed to be overwhelming. It's supposed to represent the sort of glory and the stature and the mythic importance of, of the U S democracy and what, what, what, what this country represents. But at different times, you know, I've been there during protests where you realize like you're just being dwarfed by the mythological importance of what this country is supposed to represent. And you're actively trying to be gutted and emptied and used for completely nefarious and corrupt purposes, which it has been since the beginning of U.S. government. And then when you go into this museum

and experience the history of slavery in a way that you will never experience it, you realize that it was completely supported at different points in time by this government. And then a blind eye was turned or legislation wasn't created to make things correct, to make things right. It was a slow, slow process that is backtracking.

It's falling back. And the way it's designed is you go, there are several floors downstairs, which sort of represent the history of African-American people in the 1600s where the entire sort of global history of slavery you know heading into the americas you know before it was even the united states of america but it was so specific and so in depth and i couldn't take it all in how do you really get it it's very hard to be truly empathetic it's hard to put yourself in someone else's shoes without knowing where they walked in from to truly understand the depth of it

and when you go to this museum you you understand the depth of it even if you you see the shackles you see the boats you you hear testimonies and read testimonies, you see the founding fathers and the history of early slavery in this country and the bloody, horrendous, inhumane treatment of human beings by other human beings, which really stood out to me as something. hard for me to understand but it's it's as consistent with world history as is civilization is this horrific violent completely demeaning treatment murderous treatment of human on human interaction enslaving what i found going through it is that i had a visceral and human experience. And that my empathy expanded into something human. And not just an idea. Or just a knowledge of. It expanded. Because of the museum and the process.

Because you go through those bottom floors. And you see the struggle. Moving from the 1600s all the way up through now. Through the Civil Rights Movement. Through the civil rights movement through the voting rights act through all the through everything and even without being able to put the amount of time necessary to take it all in i was my entire brain was sort of reconfigured in terms of the depth of empathy possible and an understanding and respect for that struggle. And the way I noticed it, oddly, because when you go upstairs,

the upstairs is really about the African-American contributions in music, fashion, literature, dance, theater, commerce, design, all of it. And it's beautiful. And you kind of really move through it but if you spend the correct amount of time in the darkness in the basement and you come up up into the world of accomplishment you you you are deeply informed and empathetic to where it all comes from

in terms of af-American expression. Like I went to have an amazing visual art exhibit at one of the galleries called Reckoning, I believe it's called, and it's painting and sculpture. And the aesthetic that like just even looking at modern art or paintings that represent African-American themes or by African-American artists, because I was downstairs and because something happened in my brain and in my heart, the depth of my empathy and my understanding of the aesthetic that informs all of the artwork, like it just expanded and gave me a sort of type of respect and type of empathy that i did not quite have before

i had a sort of like yeah it's terrible you know i feel bad you know it was a terrible thing but now it was living inactive and now like you know my perception of of the experience of black americans uh is is totally different you know this is a national museum and this functions as a museum. It is not ideological. It is a museum of history of the United States of America. And the fact that in almost half of the states that have Republican state legislatures that you're not going to be taught this history, it's fundamentally anti-american but is something worse than that it's a it is a whitewashing it is a step backwards so i recommend going to the museum but i was happy to talk to um dr reese she goes by duan uh and we talked a bit about uh

you know the museum and and and it was profound to me. What are you finding in terms of the visitor's experience? What's been the experience watching people come in here for the past few years? It is, you know, when we started, we ended up with the longest dwell time ever. People were staying here five, six hours, whole days. The typical average is maybe an hour and a half in a museum. So people are touched by the content what really i'll walk in the galleries from time to time i like i'm really heartened by the intergenerational

dialogues yeah that go on from yeah the younger people from kids to young adults who didn't know a lot of this stuff and are visibly moved to people who actually lived it, to people who never got the grasp and how they feel about this history and being witness to it in this way. It's a very powerful experience for people. I don't think anyone walks out of there untouched in some way or another. Right. And that's heartening because it's giving people a chance to deal with difficult history and difficult stories, but also to affirm that what happened happened to real people. That the transatlantic slave trade, we were dealing with people as commodities. Atlantic slave trade, we were dealing with people as commodities.

It's hard to not point out how horrific that system was. And then what happened when you see in the other exhibits is the legacy of it that we're still grappling with today. Yeah, that was what I realized was sort of horrifying when I was coming over here is that between this and some of the other monuments and even coming over here is that, you know, between this and, and some of the other monuments and even the Holocaust museum is that there's still an evolving history of, of this type of hatred and violence. That it's not finished yet. Like this isn't behind us. This isn't a memorial or, or, uh, you know,

it's very much we'd like to say or our new director, um, living history. Yeah. We're living at the moment. And I bet there's any moment that we're like to say, our new director, living history. Yeah. We're living it at the moment. And I bet there's any moment that we're dealing with right now that you could find someplace in the museum where you feel like it's history repeating itself. And also some of the stuff that I found to be, like, I don't think I ever had a full picture of, not just necessarily what slavery built or what it did to this country, but how much of skill sets and everything that they didn't – that weren't here until these people were kidnapped and brought here. I didn't know so much of that stuff.

And I don't know that I know it now, but I do know that I have a much broader understanding of what happened historically. Sure. I think even in school, you're not taught that. I don't remember hardly anything in school. There's kind of a basic, but there's a basic,

even, you know, I was in high school in the 80s. Yeah. It's kind of a basic narrative. All these intricate stories, whether you're dealing with African Americans, Native Americans, and the different point of view.

Nothing. That's never elevated to the point where you have a complicated but nuanced understanding of how our history played out. Right. I think that's why they have, I guess, entire majors in college that are based on that. I mean, it's hard to bring all that together, but I think they did it here to some degree, you know? I mean, it's all down there, but it's like you can only, I mean, I had no idea about the expansiveness of the global slave trade. Yes, yes. We've got a Center for the Study of Global Slavery. We're working with other collaborating partners. We'll be doing an exhibit about that in about two to three years,

because it's a global concern. It's an ongoing, still contemporary concern. Isn't that crazy? And we don't, we're not particularly attuned to that. We weren't taught that way. I mean, I think the concept when I was growing up, just American slavery, I never thought about the global nature and even i love the prehistory that we get before we get to the transatlantic slave trade yeah about just globalism and building societies and capitalism it just all plays out that's the thing that really comes through in the

in those in the lower galleries is that by all this sort of accounts of the experience of slavery or people writing about it who were there, all the way through now even, but I mean the lynchings and the assassinations and stuff, is that when I'm down there, I can't understand how another human being can do that to somebody else. And the fact that it exists makes me very frightened for the future in a sense that people are capable of of the worst possible things you can imagine and and i think it's hard to wrap your brain about

that all right you know it if you read it in history books but to go down there and see it like you guys have laid it out here you feel it and i don't know that that's always possible so let me ask you this question. The seeing versus the knowing. What was the difference for you in that gallery? Was it the knowledge, the exhibition, the objects? What made it real for you? I don't think it was. I think it was the way it was laid out and the thoroughness of the history.

And in terms of like when you really think about i think some of the the nuances around the idea of people being you know literally taken from their homes from their communities from their family and then on through families being separated in you know in slave auctions and whatnot and i knew it but seeing it written and then seeing some of the artifacts like yes certainly the shackles and you and I'd seen the pictures of the ships before. But there was something about the narratives and the immersive experience of being in there, the voices even, that all contributed to me having a more human sense of it. Yeah. A human interaction with it. Yeah.

And I think that's why it works. Yeah. Abstract to human beings. And I think that's why it works. Yeah. Abstract to human beings. And then you, in certain ways, when you start to hear these stories, you try to imagine what would it be if I were separated from my parents as a child, forcibly. I mean, you can imagine it.

You can imagine it. And the pain and the. Right. It's very hard to get in touch with the correct amount of empathy because it's almost devastating yeah you know there was something about not only the inhumanity of of how people were treated but the fact that they couldn't get this place built as a monument to african-americans contribution to american life and culture up until a few years ago. I mean, it's still not right. I mean, here you've got this entire rice business built in the Carolinas by African farmers

who knew how to do it, and they got nothing for it but misery and enslavement. And that concept, that idea of not giving credit where credit's due and not having a uh having a just society exists that why would this be a question to put this place up 10 years ago 20 years ago even i mean it's crazy you know things move slowly you know their things are happening today and it's like this should have not been an issue at this point i know and it's like i come out of there thinking like there is some serious part of the civil war that has not been resolved absolutely i mean it's it's just as we have not

reckoned with some of the negative aspects of the country i mean the discussion over race the the civil war i mean there's these images um and if you can't acknowledge something, it's really difficult to heal. Yeah, and I mean, I went to that museum in Alabama. You haven't been to that one yet. To the lynching museum with the hanging monoliths. Oh, my God. That was like, that leveled me. In the same way that, like, for some reason,

the art really connects with me. Even those bricks behind Jefferson downstairs. I mean, it's a similar kind of thing where where you have this representation these symbolic representations that put the numbers in in perspective you know uh so what how does this in terms of when you have conversations about how the museum evolves what are those conversations like are you going to, are you going to be constantly curating new exhibits? Like the painting exhibit and the art exhibit upstairs, the Reckoning, is that something that gallery, you know, is going to change quarterly or half every year?

It won't quarterly. That was a big redo when we opened that last year. So it was a revisioning of that gallery. It was a permanent gallery. I envision more incarnations of showing the artwork and engaging it with the rest of the subject matter of the museum we generally rotate objects on a yearly basis of course covid put that on hold um we have temporary exhibition gallery you know at some point we may think about about redoing the permanent exhibits, but that's still a ways off.

But we're also investigating new places to have more space to do more content. A lot of that's going to take place digitally because the possibilities, not only getting the content out of people, but what we can do with it. You know, even with an exhibition, you can only do so much. But even with an exhibition, you can only do so much. So we have something now that we just launched this fall, the Searchable Museum, which takes that slavery and freedom gallery but makes it a digital online component and helps establish some of the relationships and stories that you really couldn't do spaciously on exhibit floor. So you may want to check that out. So you can just sort of like do little bits and pieces of of of shifting up the exhibits a little bit i noticed some some pieces were missing but obviously you know some of the larger things are going to stay there because they're permanent but there's artifacts

that you can just move in and out oh absolutely i mean and that's our key purpose is to make the collection accessible to the public and so the exhibits are just one way the lot of the research that goes on publications um we have a partnership with smithsonian folkways we do recordings yeah we just did the hip-hop anthology last year with them yes that was a partnership oh yeah came out in august on vinyl i couldn't afford to do it on vinyl sorry, sorry. It was, you know, people ask that. It was a whole thing. Yeah. How many? We had 129 tracks. Oh, wow.

Nine CDs. And I know the CDs are obsolete, but it's a 300-page illustrated book with photographs, objects, and essays, but really putting a history around hip-hop. Yeah. And we did that kind of, it was kind of a ground-up project

where we really brought in, you know, the hip-hop community to select did that kind of it was got a ground-up project where we really brought in you know the hip-hop community to select the track oh yeah everything like that I gotta look for that it's so weird that that's the Jefferson Monument right there right yes you can just see it uh-huh and it's hard not to you know that that kind of yeah if you sit here yeah you think about that you saw that Jefferson statue and there it is right here. There's the monument. And these conversations, these spaces, they're instantly in dialogue with one another. So now, how do you feel about, in terms of the museum, like you're talking about this online presence, but we're now at this place in history where they might not allow that in half the schools in this country.

We're a resource. Yeah. We're a resource for the public. And we will keep providing this kind of content, engaging in a variety of issues. And that is part of our mission. We're the public's institution and this is the work we do. So we will always be doing that. Right.

And what separates it from a philosophical thing is that it's an archive. It's a historical museum. Yes. It's not, you know, it doesn't have an agenda other than to educate and to represent the history of the country. Educate, represent the history of the country from an African-American diasporic point of view. Thank you for talking to me. Sure. Thanks for visiting.

And you have to come back. Well, I'm going to have to come back well i'm gonna have to come back to finish so i i don't know really what to say about this other than i've been going to a lot of museums and i've been reflecting on a lot of things and just because of I don't know wherever my heart is or my mind is or whatever my age is you know I'm more available to be a little more you know empathetic open-hearted and and it's very heartbreaking and satisfying to to engage on this level uh and and I think it's important that we all engage with our shared history and not just you know know, rely on past memories or just, you know, chunks of information that informs our emotions that, you know, we can have control over. Because if you go to this museum, it's profoundly human and profoundly horrific and dug in deep into our collective experience. And moving on from that you know i yeah it just so happened that i'm in dc

and i'm kind of trying to put things together in terms of my sense of self and and who i am and what what did i come from and uh it just seems to be going it's ongoing thing and i'm pretty clear on who i am but i i'm kind of like i don't know who i am from other people's point of view and uh you know it was just interesting because i figured like well fuck it let's just talk to lance but I'm kind of like, I don't know who I am from other people's point of view. And it was just interesting because I figured like, well, fuck it, let's just talk to Lance. I mean, obviously there's a lot of people throughout my life I could talk to, even people in my current life,

but I just, I hadn't talked to Lance for a while and we were very close, but we lived together for four years and we worked together in places and we caught up and I recorded it. This is me talking to my old roommate, Lance Meyer. Are you self-employed? Don't think you need business insurance? Think again. Business insurance from Zensurance is a no-brainer for every business owner because it provides peace of mind. A lot can go wrong. A fire, cyber attack, stolen equipment, or an unhappy customer suing you.

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Hey, buddy. Good to see you, man. How are you? Good to see you. Come on. What's the matter with your life? Retirement can kill you. Is it? Yeah? Yeah. How long have you been retired?

Probably a month. I'm already half in the grave. I mean what is it well you start doing stupid things so like uh you know i i'm retired from being a chef because i don't want to run kitchens anymore but right i still want to work and a buddy of mine's a landscaper and it's pretty physical work and yeah you know i'm 59 going to 25 but feeling like i'm 59 yeah and climbing in and out of a truck and i fell into the bed of his truck. And then some fucking woman at the end is going, are you okay? And I wasn't.

And so I've been in pain for like four days. So this is your retirement. Yeah. This is how I enjoy myself. You did it. You did it. You finally made it. I'm finally there.

But wait, you're at my age, right? A little older. I'll be 60 this year okay so i'm gonna be 59 this year yeah so a year and uh and because like i think about retiring and i think because in my brain even though i don't live a life that's like that i think it's it feels like something that we're supposed to be working towards like to stop wasn't that why i worked in the first place yeah so you can retire that's an old idea yeah i mean i don't know if that's really the idea still but it's what we were kind of brought up i'm good with it trust me you know i've been working for over 40 years and man it does you

know and i've always been like you know the work ahead workaholic you know yeah i've got shit into my kids and yeah and now they're going but you don't want to work anymore like yeah i'm done and but but are you about face then why are you fucking in a truck well you know it's you're outside yeah but that's nice and oh wait i didn't tell you this so the first week yeah i punched my arm you can see what's left of it i punched my arm with a this cotter pin on the bottom of a wheelbarrow yeah loaded into the same freaking truck i fell in yeah and i had to get a tetanus shot so that was my first week and then this week i fell trying to swing my leg over the top of his bed and i fell right into it at a nursery and you know i don't think i can ask so this i mean do you feel like you deserve this what the pain yeah well i don't know somebody's somebody's getting the revenge on me

i don't sure but like here's the thing i don't i don't understand because i really feel like i could just do nothing because i feel like i do that most of the time only because i'm self-employed so it never it's not like i'm going to work right right so it's never felt like that for me but i work my ass off but i really feel like i could do nothing but now uh talking to you i don't know well don't do landscaping well no but that's the kind of fucking thing i would think i could do my father you know he retired for a while and he'd be tried to be a mailman oh that's that's not easy no i know it's actually hard with dogs or the bag is heavy right but what are you doing you're moving i don't know i'm thinking i'm young you know i go to the gym yeah it's not the same

no so i was trying to think like because what was the last time i saw you before how to be heavy uh before covet the last time I did this place yeah and we went out to dinner and we caught up it's so weird because when I hang out with you I don't I don't even though we never see each other I did it with Jimmy too Jim Loftus I saw him and Cliff you didn't know from my freshman year of college there's just that period in our life where you know I see you and it doesn't feel different no you don't feel that different to me you know i mean i know we've had entire lifetimes

but this frequency is the same am i the same yeah i think so i'm thinking like uh i think about today and right over here how long we've known each other i mean sophomore year had to be 1983 right yeah because i transferred yeah it's like 36 years yeah it's a long freaking time yeah and but but there's this whole chunk of it that you know i don't know you know i don't know where you i i remember i was thinking there's these bits and pieces after college i didn't see you that much but we ended up we lived together for sophomore junior senior the senior we had the apartment together on junior and senior there's a videotape of us playing air guitar and air drums to an entire side of pink boys animals

someone i'm sure we're you know there's some influence there but do you remember like i don't remember how well i remember what happened at that apartment is like you started seeing kathy and she moved in and there was i just came home once and you had sectioned off half of the living room with like a sheet. Well, my bedroom was the size of the bed. I know that, but it was really small. I just walked in there, just a curtain cutting the living room in half.

I'm not an architect. There was no discussion. It was just sort of like, all right. That was funny. Because your bedroom was a patio. It was, yeah, it was. It was a porch of like, all right. That was funny. Because your bedroom was like a patio. It was. Yeah, it was. It was tiny. It was a porch.

Yeah, a porch. Do you remember us meeting? Do you remember how we got? No, I do. I remember it was a park drive. Is that the street? Yeah, it was on Park Drive. Oh, yeah. I had already gotten there.

Yeah, my folks. Yeah, we got there. Vic and Patty, right? What's your mom's name? Patricia. Yeah. And then you showed up. You were the first guy i met right right

there's that weird awkwardness like what kind of guy are you what are we what are we doing here no we hit it off though i think uh i do remember this i remember records it was about records yep music yeah and uh do you remember going to uh remember they had an ra right we had an ra for the building right it was a girl yeah i don't know i don't remember her name so she had and i remember this is kathy you know now now my wife, but her first impression of us was we showed up at the RA meeting with everybody else from the apartment and you and I had bathrobes on and cowboy boots. And she just thought it wasn't a good look.

She wasn't impressed. What were we doing? I don't know. Just being ourselves. You know? No one else was there We certainly didn't care What people thought

You know Remember we used to go down To the duck pond And you know Take shrooms Yeah yeah And sit in the trees So we can talk freely now

You're not worried About your kids here They've already heard All this shit You had to come clean Yeah Yeah Actually due to your show

I know I remember What's the story of that How did that happen A buddy of mine Who listens to you regularly Yeah I guess you mentioned it was when you had, what the hell was his name? I'm sorry if it gets hot.

I just didn't want to sound too deep. Sure. Pauly Shore. Pauly Shore. You were interviewing him, and then you came up with some story. Well, it wasn't made up, but it actually happened. Oh, yeah. Where the two of us were, I think we dropped acid on Halloween, and we dressed like, well,

not intentionally, but gay rockabilly. We didn't know what to dress as we were pressured for a costume yeah we wanted to go to parties and we ended up just greasing our hair up and wearing like leather yeah and then uh and then we ended up in the basement of that apartment well we went to the apartment and somebody must have pulled the fire alarm like as soon as we got there oh yeah so everybody bailed and then you and i were like well we're still in the fucking apartment let's so we went we went down to the basement And started running around With heating ducts on our heads

Heating ducts on our heads Like laughing our asses off Yeah And then the fire department walked in With axes and shit And you're Looking out And literally said

Take me to your leader And we ran out laughing like idiots Why wouldn't we? Yeah I don't know Yeah there's that story But then what happened was Getting back to my kids Oh yeah yeah yeah A buddy't know yeah there's that story but then what happened was getting back to my kids a buddy of mine listened to that episode yeah and then realized you're talking about me because you mentioned my name yeah he goes hey you know mark maron i go yeah mark and

i you know i've known for a year we went to school together and so he made a copy of the cd he made a copy right and uh gave me a copy so yeah back here. Back before you knew how to use an iPod or anything. And then, of course, it got to some other friends of ours, which he gave a copy of it too. And my wife is going, you know, the kids are going to find out. I said, Nick, you know, they were younger, right? My son was 17 at the time. They don't know who Mark is.

They're not going to listen. They have no idea. Yeah. Well, I was at our pool and one of Nick's friends came up to me and said, Mr. Mayan, oh, no, my wife came up to me. She goes, you're busted. I go, what? She goes, Marc Maron.

I go, why? She goes, you know, Kevin's friend of my son's came up to me and said, Mrs. Mayan, was Mr. Mayan Marc Maron's roommate in college? And she knew right away. Yeah. Trouble. Yeah, she knew that. He must have heard that episode where you and i dressed as gay rockabilly zon

acid yeah so after that i couldn't say shit to my kids about anything i was like that was it i blew it yeah it's over yeah do what you want i but i wonder how i don't know i don't have kids but i guess that you really have to hide that shit in order to be disciplined there well yeah can't you still warn them and say like it wasn't good no all right yeah i know it sounded like fun way mark described the book it was terrible it was an awful experience and i only did it 10 more times yeah we did do it another time it's so weird because i i knew we spent so much fucking time together so you really do know people i was sort of trying to figure that out why because the guy cliff who

i was in freshman year with i saw him a couple weeks ago and like i knew that guy for a year but it's because it was that time in our lives we're just like it makes an imprint yeah and then those people get frozen like that and then you see him later and you're like is that the same guy how is it not going to be the same guy unless you have a brain injury or something but you're pretty much the same i am i am i think i remember dude i think i got you into the food business you did it was that uh You did? Was that Edibles? Yeah, was it Edibles? But then I started thinking, didn't we both work at the veggie cafeteria?

We worked at, was it ARA? Was that what it was? Right, right. That was the food company, but we were in the veggie one. I remember working for the cafeteria. Yeah, yeah. And then serving, that was what I, but you weren't cooking back then. We were just serving, right?

Probably. You don't remember anything? I don't remember anything. I i remember there was this i don't think i was cooking i don't ever remember i remember that dude that was the head cook there and i remember i was in the veggie cafeteria because i used to name we were just fucking joking around and the veggie cafeteria we weren't veggies but it was better food and i remember naming some of the items and i put it up on the board you have to name the items well like they would have like you know mozzarella casserole or something i put something on there like the pride of kings that explains it yeah people would come up and go i'll take the pride of kings and i just laughed and laughed at myself they could dance mozzarella

yeah do you remember you were in a musical? Yeah. And you had like one, I remember you had one scene where you did a noose thing. You're like, yep. Like this. Yeah. I cast him parts. Steve Brogdon got me into that.

He did. He told me to go try out for it. For the musical. For Chicago. Cause he thought you, cause you always were singing and. I'm a goof. Yeah.

Yeah. So I did it. Yeah. And you did Chicago. I remember like there was one night where, where the fuck were we? We were in Boston and we were getting fucked up somewhere, and I had that old, my brother's shitty Camaro.

And we were like, let's go to New York. Yeah, and we had no money. We had no money and no place to go, and it was like one in the morning, and we committed. It was so dumb. It was me, you, Brill, and I think Gaffney. I don't know if Gaffney was there, but I remember we'd just go to my aunt's house in New Jersey.

Remember getting pulled over by the cop? Kind of. And I thought he was like McCloud. He came up and goes, how long are you planning on staying in town? Like, who the fuck are you? I mean, who asked that question? This isn't a Hollywood movie. When we got into Jersey?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're just here to see his grandmother. So I don't know, a couple hours, sir? Is that enough? And then we crashed in our basement on the floor in that in that rug basement and then we're like well i guess we gotta go to the city yeah we went to soho yeah and then we did nothing we ate lunch and left i think brill paid for it i think he had he was the only one with a credit card oh really i think

so i think he bought us lunch and then you were like i gotta get to rehearsal so that's where the start is full circle yeah i had to go to work or something and drive back. Do you remember that? Yeah. Oh, my God. I remember not having any sleep. And we ran every toll. Yeah.

Oh, that's right. That was crazy. You couldn't pay for a toll. I know. It was just so dumb. It was so dumb. Yeah, because it was like 1 o'clock in the morning. We didn't know what to do.

Yeah. Like, well, let's go to New York. It's not that far. Do you remember when I wanted to do comedy? and you were doing um open mic nights so you know i'd go up to like i don't know if it was played against sam's but there's another one that was up there in all the areas yeah there was played against sam's was definitely up that really so that was during college yes when i first tried it yep and i may have been senior year but i do remember a couple of times yeah and. And it was brutal, right?

Well, you're better now. You've got to cut your teeth at some point, right? No, I know. But I kind of remember trying to do jokes. I was interested in doing it. Because I know that me and Brill did the team thing. But you saw me by myself. Because that was after he graduated. So it must have been that summer. But there was a night where i tried to do it for some college thing

and i just remember and i'll cop to it i had one of my own jokes and then i did one woody allen joke and i did like anything to get through it and then uh but like but i kind of remember always being interested in it and doing that other shit. It's wild. Well, I do remember going to a couple places with you in actual comedy clubs. Waiting around? Well, there was an open mic night. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you could just go up and you were able to do it. You did a couple minutes and it was rough, but I mean, you got better. But was I fucking out of my mind? Was I panicked? It takes balls. Yeah. Was I crazy and panicked?

I remember being panicked. I remember you rehearsed it to yourself prior to getting up there a lot of practice you know a lot of i can't i don't remember that part of myself i don't remember the rehearsing part yeah but i must have done it telling your jokes over and over in your head and yeah but you know when do we you did one where you kind of stacked up the chairs right i went to the museum of modern art is that what it was yeah yeah i put the mic stand on the top of the stool yes i think i hang something from the top and i'm like i was just at the museum of modern art and i just would sit there to get the first laugh and it kind of worked i remember i remember that joke i do remember that joke so did i that's pretty good that's sick see i remember i remember a

couple of jokes from that set i just remember being out back smoking we were both smoking you don't still smoke right no yeah i quit a long time ago i mean i haven't like i got told i was on nicotine lozenges forever oh really yeah i just i couldn't get off them but i've been off everything now for a few years i don't even like the smell yeah i don't it's like yeah i notice it i don't know if i don't like it but i don't know uh how long has it been since you smell oh um new year's eve 1999 have you had any major uh health things like what heart attack no nothing like that i've injured myself several times i do a lot of that i play softball and you think it's like there's this kind of a benign sport you know it's a nice bunch of older guys

getting together playing softball i've had surgery because of it i mean fractured my finger last year but everything else is all right yeah health-wise other than that other than your mom's still around yeah yeah she's still doing really well she'll be 88 in july 88 yep yep she loves you oh yeah she saw you in respect oh yeah she goes i don't like i didn't realize you had such a big role yeah i remember them well i remember vick hyper vick oh yes how'd he pass away uh als oh really garrix yeah oh they take yeah that was a tough person to get that because you know he was so opposite wired you know i mean yeah he was nuts and your your brother pat and then the other one farron yeah

farron the the giant no well pat was bigger but farron was the farron was the ex-marine that's very intense you remember that time i don't know why he stopped by the the place when we lived on the second floor and he had his guns with him because he goes everywhere with his guns gotta have your gun but do you remember like you know i hadn't met him before and he stopped by and you and i were in the kitchen and he was in your room which had that amazing bay window you had that corner yeah yeah we walk in and he's just sighting people oh he wasn't really gonna shoot anybody i know that but it was just that moment where we looked at each other he did shoot a pan once a pan yeah what do you mean uh yeah it's a an odd story and

he's probably the only person alive who's ever done it is he around still oh yeah yeah but he um he called me this is as i was you know i'm a chef at this point yeah and he called me up one day he goes hey lance i uh i bought a cast iron skillet. He goes, and I'm trying to season it so it becomes stick. Yeah, yeah, sure. It's a chef's question. Yeah, so it wanted to be nonstick, right? Yeah.

So he goes, how do you season it? He goes, you got directions. You can put oil in it, bake it. You can turn it on, let the oil get hot, do that sort of thing. And there's a few ways you can do it. And he goes, all right. So he does it. He calls me up a couple days later he goes god damn because i seasoned this pan i've done it like three freaking ways because the shit still sticks to it because i'm really

getting pissed i'm going okay try this try this try this and then i don't hear from him for a while and uh i don't know maybe a month or two goes by and he called me we're just talking hey by the way how's that you know your non-stick pan coming along he goes i shot it yeah what he goes yeah the fucking thing i got so mad one day i was putting i was cooking fish in it and i did all the things right and i keep sticking so i got pissed off i took out in the back put against the tree shot with my 44 oh my god wow okay you had neighbors for that thing uh no well it's brutal so it went right through oh yeah so i said uh well how are you cooking your fish he goes put the fish in the oil in the pan turn the heat on like wait a minute what do you do he goes i put the fish in the oil in the pan i turn

the heat on i go so you put it in a cold pan yeah he goes well it's gonna get out i go you can't cook shit in a cold pan it's gonna stick every fucking time yeah i'll be shot up an innocent pan because you're an idiot i mean you know by the way it doesn't make a teflon yeah it just no i know i do the cast iron thing yeah i mean you can't expect it to be like a non-stick and he truly bought it and believed that that's what it was gonna come just like a teflon pan and so that pan got what that guy ended up doing with his wife farron uh he went to work with my father and brother. They took over the company.

Do they still got it? They sold it two years ago. Oh, yeah? So they're both retired? Yep, two or three years ago. Yep. Yeah, they're older than me. Yeah.

So, yeah. And everyone's got kids? Yep. Yeah, two, two, and two. Wow. Yep. So let's catch up with that. So after college, like I went directly home and then you

went but you didn't go immediately to culinary school i remember it was no 10 years 10 years before you did i was 31 where and what were you where were you working i was a photographer for a minute oh that's right yeah what were you taking pictures of uh grip and grin stuff it was um i remember we had to do the boston marathon and the owner of this guy, he was a dick. You were like a stringer? I guess. Is that what you call it? So, I mean, we had different assignments. But we had our jackets, you know, for the marathon.

That was cool collateral. And I remember that year. So, this guy, Mark, who was the owner, we weren't in the places he wanted us to be yet. And then he literally told, like, the marshal or whoever of the marathon he goes you gotta you gotta hold the marathon from starting the guy's like who the fuck are you we're gonna stop the boston marathon so you can get your photographers in place he goes no you get you guys in place we're gonna go without you not or you know yeah so this guy had balls i mean he just like he thought he could actually dictate how the boston marathon was to be run marathon

and uh yeah they didn't listen to him of course so so you're a photographer and that craps out well i i ended up uh yeah sort of so i was doing stock photography but it takes too much work yeah so i sold some stuff i got you know i was in some magazines and i ended up going part-time at a at a camera store yeah and then they're like well after like a few months yeah underground cameras in cambridge square yeah and after a few months i said do you want to just go full-time i'm like yeah all right i'm not doing anything else so i did and then they asked me if i wanted to be a manager and then i was doing that for like eight years and that's what managed a camera store yeah for yeah for a while i have i have no fucking idea oh yeah i don't know what the fuck well where was i see we it's so weird i don't know but we have these like very specific college memories but then like there's all this this huge swath of time where you didn't talk to

each other at all i had no idea you're managing a fucking yeah before then those ritz camera bought them out and then i worked for ritz and then now they're out they're defunct they went out of business yeah because i remember staying at that apartment in the north end and you were trying to make aspic like you were in cooking school and you were sitting there trying no i couldn't have been at the north end you sure i wasn't in culinary school until i was here really yeah were you trying to be a cook then because i always did stuff i mean was i trying to make an aspic really yeah i just that's sort of what i remember i had gelatin and- Yeah. Yeah.

I remember it like you were working on it. I must've gotten that. I was probably doing some recipe. I was going to make some shit. Yeah. I don't know. I remember making a really bad, some kind of pie with dried thyme and it's supposed to be fresh thyme. Yeah.

It didn't work out. It was fucking horrible. My parents were coming over. I made this and I was like, you guys can't eat this. Oh my God. So luckily we lived in North End. There were a lot of restaurants. There were good restaurants. Yeah. horrible my parents are coming over i made this thing you guys can't eat this oh my god luckily we lived in north end there are a lot of restaurants there were good restaurants but so so you didn't when so when did you move here and why to dc i moved down here uh well we moved down

here because uh i got transferred for the camera store yeah to take on one of the bigger stores down here really yeah so that was in i don't know 90 something and then what did what makes you decide you think you're gonna be a chef well i've been doing the camera thing for like eight years and you know i was going yeah retail sucks yeah you know after a while i was like i don't fucking do this anymore so kathy who of course you tell her something and she next you know you have a book yeah she's great that way but uh so i just happened to message because i always like to cook you remember you and i cooked and yeah yeah i just liked it yeah man and uh all the fucking time i just said i said to her i said you know what i don't know i think i might want to go back

to culinary school oh i know what it was uh i went we went on vacation with my brother farron and his wife yeah and we went to saint martin's one of these fucking islands yeah and you know we're out on the beach it's a great restaurant you know it just looked very cool it's like man i really think i want to go back to culinary school and open up some freaking caribbean restaurant somewhere on a beach caribbean that was my well i don't know big dream yeah it was beach restaurant and a beach rest yeah so that was my um you know what got me thinking about it moment yes yeah and um you know it took a while but then i got we were back in uh down here and i just happened to say to her i was like you know i think i want to go to culinary school yeah so like i

said sure enough there's a book and we're looking through shit and there was a good french school very close yeah i you know wasn't like a four-year degree it wasn't like going to cia and doing all that kind of stuff i don't you know i've already got the degree so i just want to learn how to cook and that was a perfect school for me two years one year one year yep one year all you did was cook and you just went every day you learn new recipes and uh i got an externship yeah basically it was mainly french yeah but you had to do um i got an externship at a french restaurant and i ended up staying there for almost five years at the restaurant yeah as a sous chef or no you start off as a nothing you're 6 15 hour nothing with a x turn yeah i stayed four and a half years because i i worked my way through all those stations yeah

and i was the only one who ever did that restaurant you learned the business no i didn't i learned you know all the different positions all you know i was a saucier poissonier i did pastries and all that shit yeah and then uh you know i was there like four and a half years and then it kind of plateaued then me and the the sous chef just kept drinking every day too much i was, you know, I was there like four and a half years, and then it kind of plateaued. Then me and the sous chef just kept drinking every day too much. I was like, you know what? This is going nowhere. I can't keep doing this shit. I mean, I'm going until five o'clock.

You know, it's five o'clock. I'm buzzed. Were you drinking at the restaurant? For a Saturday night. Yeah. Yeah. The restaurant was called Le Femme. It's still there.

Yeah. Busy as shit. On a Saturday night, we could do 280 to 300 covers. Jeez. And it was me, and I was the the the saucier so i've had meats yeah and um the sous chef was the poissonier and then we just had a guy a chef tornant who would kind of help us plate stuff up and we had a girl garbanger do that kind of stuff yeah and we'd just get our asses handed to us i mean it was fucking brutal and uh i mean i'm like i

couldn't physically do that now right i try to just go back and be a cook somewhere no really but you can get on a fucking truck with a mower yeah oh yeah i'm a man but the cooking thing is was crazy yeah it's crazy that i'm just thinking about dupes that aren't stopping right now can make me panic when you just look up at that thing and there's nothing but tickets it's like what the fuck how's this ever gonna happen people want their pancakes but i imagine it's horrible to then the chef owner would be expediting he's calling all these fucking tickets and oh that guy on the wheel oh my god well we ours were up on you know they're up above us but um i mean we could have 30 35 tickets and they're just calling like you know but our stuff is like chateaubriand

and you know dover soul and all this kind of shit we're putting out and i had like you know all these different elements each plate and it's like oh my god and i fucked up a lot yeah yeah for a while i did i remember that just from working with you at edibles there was a moment where there were so many dupes and you just have this moment so i'm like i don't know if i can do this i don't know if we're gonna be able to do it yeah oh my god but um so you burned out no it didn't burn out there i mean i was just a got i kind of plateaued when did you have kids when i was there uh i was still in culinary school when nick was born oh yeah so he was born you got two i met one recently yeah not yet jill yeah she's gonna take after a old man problem how so you know i don't know she seems like a character she is

she's very funny too though she did get my sense of humor yeah um she's yeah she's actually very witty is she all right yeah oh yeah yeah yeah she uh she came with somebody i can't remember who her boyfriend at the time oh yeah yeah yeah and yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the girl, there was some girl she was supposed to bring to see you. Yeah. Who is a, you know, fledgling comedian. Yeah. Who ended up getting so drunk the night before she couldn't make it to your show. Too hungover.

Too hungover. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was one of the whole points of seeing you was to have you meet this girl. So she was partying with this friend of hers. Yep. And the girl's a lightweight. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, all right. So you have two you have nick and you're doing the cooking and i can't i don't know when you and kathy got married even i did uh 80 89 oh wow yeah we missed these big chunks so okay so when do you um take the the control of the kitchen in terms of like an actual manager like okay so i did the the french restaurant for four and a half years yeah uh then i took a sous chef position down here yeah at the jockey club which was that's my first chef's job so a sous chef is the right hand man right it literally means under chef right right so you are under the executive chef executive chef george mugger give us the last

name but he had a bit of a drinking problem uh-huh and um he would he and i were supposed to be working together yeah like you know and then he'd call me up and go i'm gonna go sit in the office and uh just need you to make sure lunch is on i'm like so basically i was doing the lunch and he was like all fucked up yeah sitting in the office restaurant business yeah sleeping it off yeah uh but unfortunately did catch up to him so they got rid of him and then this is like the millennial year right the the 2000 99 going to 2000 yeah and i was you know i mean i've been a cook and now a sous chef for like five months and they said you're the chef now so like uh okay and by the way you have you know we have the 2000 coming up the y2k bullshit

yeah and they had to do all these menus yeah so sink or swim yeah so um i i didn't get fired actually did a pretty good job got us through all that bullshit and then by april that year they brought an actual executive chef they brought from the company yeah to run the whole hotel because there's also a banquet side okay so it's too green yeah yeah but you were able to how long do you hold the restaurant i was four months yeah yeah from like uh november till april and then and then where'd you go well that was my uh foray into starwood that was what got me into starwood hotels i was with them for almost 17 years wow yeah so then i you know moved around as a chef yeah was at the weston uh for 13 of those years wow head. Head chef? Yeah, executive chef there.

Wow. An executive chef, you just run the whole kitchen? Yeah, you run. Well, if you're the executive chef at a hotel, runs all the culinary. So, because you have banquet side. You walk around tasting stuff? Oh, yeah.

I mean, I was cooking too, trust me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I did a lot of pastry. So, we did a lot of weddings. You make a good wedding cake? Well, good funny story about that too it wasn't my wedding cake but back in the rest the french restaurant i learned a lot of pastry from alan alan russell was the chef owner yeah right from france and uh we did a lot of weddings

on the weekends right so he he had just here's his menu this is what you get don't ask questions this is how you're gonna get it. So we provided these mousse cakes. We always made these mousse cakes for the weddings. Well, to make, I would always make the cake for him, right? Then he would dress it with the fondant and do all that shit. And you have to take acetate and you line the inside of the ring mold. Right. Because that's how you shape your layers, right?

Well, when you assemble the cake, you got to take the ring mold off and the acetate. Right. Because it's a strip of plastic. Well, he you assemble the cake, you got to take the ring mold off and the acetate. Right. Because it's a strip of plastic. Well, he didn't. So, it's the wedding and we're in the kitchen, which is downstairs. Also, we hear all this fucking commotion going on. On every pan, though? Say you do three layers.

Each one has to have this acetate so he can take the mold off. Yeah, but he didn't take it off of anybody. He totally forgot about it. So, the bride and groom, they're cutting the cake. Yeah. And they're cutting. They're sawing it. So the bride and groom, they're cutting the cake. Yeah. And they're cutting, they're sawing through the, they're like, what is this shit? There was fucking plastic in it.

So we had to take the whole cake back downstairs, take all the fondant off. And re-acetate? Remove the plastic, you know, the acetate. And yeah, he felt bad because it was his, you know, he did it, not me. I'm like, help, hands up. I didn't do it.

I just, I made it for you. Memorable wedding. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah yeah absolutely that video yeah the joke cake yeah well we also remember the sous chef scott was doing it's a very classic dish where you make a bisque or whatever yeah you have this lion's foot bowl yeah you put the bisque in it yeah and then you cover it with puff pastry and you bake it so you serve serve it. They break through the top. Yeah. Eat the soup, and they get this nice puff pastry.

Well, we were busy as shit for lunch, and he's knocking these things out, knocking these things out, right? And he had a, takes like 15 minutes from ordering. Finally, the waiter comes down, and he's got his tray, and there's this fucking bowl there with the puff pastry and a hole in it.

He goes, Chef, there's no soup in it. He totally, he baked the puff puff but didn't put soup in the bowl surprise nothing's coming out of this cake i mean the poor customer but i think the customer so he got all mad at himself but i was laughing because it was kind of funny at the time but you never thought like i'm gonna open a restaurant i have i've always thought about that never did it yeah because another guy went to culinary school. He's quite successful. Opened a restaurant in, I don't know, what am I, 59 now?

So this has got to be over 10 years ago. I stopped in. I stopped in his place. Hey, Damien. I said, you know, and he's, there is a Sunday. I'm like off from work, getting a haircut. He's sweating. He's fucking all, you know, he's like soaking wet.

Yeah. He's in his place working. Yeah. So he takes a break and he and I are just talking. And it was his first Sunday open for brunch and they're busy as shit. Right. He's in his place working. So he takes a break and he and I are just talking. And it was his first Sunday open for brunch and they were busy as shit. And he's cooking omelets and doing all that stuff. Man, I'm thinking to myself, God, I'm glad I'm not doing that.

And I was talking to him. I said, you know, I was thinking about opening a place. Because at this point, I think I was mid-40s. Yeah. And I said, you know, you did it successfully. What did it take for you to do that? He goes, well, for the first two years, I worked from 9 in the morning until 2 in the morning every day 7 days a week

I'm like count me out fuck that I'm not doing that I work from 9 in the morning until 11am take a break give me a break I'm not doing he pretty much talked me out of it I mean that's a rough business well you know then you're counting on people showing up for work.

And that doesn't happen a lot for all the time. That's right, dude. And that's, I mean, I didn't own the place. But I mean, I've been managing kitchens for years. And I mean, I'd get these fucking texts at like four in the morning. Chef, I can't come in. My breakfast cook. Yeah.

So I'm going in at 4.30 in the morning. I'm opening the kitchen, cooking breakfast. I'm like, why am i doing that but you were working for the government towards the end uh i was with uh nih as a senior executive chef there yeah at the end but like was it did you like it no no there i mean you know there's always takeaways right i mean there are i had people i liked i liked working with the you know a lot of the staff um i liked a lot what we did because i was able to actually um introduce things like you know because i have a different background from a lot of the chefs

that are in that kind of uh kitchen and uh so i was able to do things and they had never seen before so i was like you know that was fun to like teach people or yeah try something different with the clientele and they'd be like oh this is fucking awesome you know just so it's nice to do that but in the end it's still a job and you know nih was rough yeah because there's so many facets and the client can be difficult and it's the national institute of health yep yeah right in bethesda yeah and that was the last job that was my yeah right up until uh april 31st of this year yeah and who's where's your who got where'd you get your pension from from them oh i have no pension oh you don't no no i mean i've been a pretty grown yeah yeah yeah savvy investor so be the government you didn't work for them long enough to have no and i it wasn't um i didn't work for the government i was

a contractor right so we're a private company wow and now you're doing landscaping yep yep well wait now how old is your son 20 god he's gonna be what 27 and he's married no oh no oh and daughter's not married no god no no she's young though she better not be married she's not even she'll turn 23 he chose 27 that's right there's four years apart and it was challenging yeah big nod of the head yes you see that yeah but you seem okay yeah yeah i love her you know yeah but both of them the son he's like very different yeah i mean nick is wharton grad yeah super you know straight yeah straight but i mean in terms of

he's not straight actually he's not straight at all no but um how was that a gay kid for you yeah i don't i don't care never bothered me never no that's great didn't really phase me that but that did that surprise you that it that it didn't that it didn't bother me i don't know i mean you know different i'm upstate New York, white guy, you know, grew up with construction. You'd think it would,

right? You'd think, oh, you guys must be a bunch of fucking rednecks. But I don't care. You know, just never really,

was never an issue. Yeah, really good kid. Yep, swimming, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yep. And Kathy's doing good. Is she retired? No, I'm sure she wants to. Yeah? Yeah, no,

she works hard. She works her ass off. National Academy of Sciences. sciences so she's an editor and uh for she's kind of like learning this as she goes because it's yeah technical stuff which i don't know what the hell that is how'd she end up there uh it was a part-time gig she's been trying to do um you know juggle the kids for all these years and find jobs that kind of suited the balance yeah yeah yeah because clearly i couldn't yeah um so she had to unfortunately and uh you know she did but she sacrificed a lot yeah and uh she's been she was working two jobs for freaking ever

yeah and just killing herself so she left the one uh this year yeah yeah and now she's she took this one full time but it's still a lot of work wow yeah well she's not jumping into trucks right and taking out her hip but you know as she looks stressed and she you don't have to do that i guess not but it's an option do you still play a softball with the fugazi guy yeah yeah uh in yeah yeah a bunch of they're all all these old you know rockers the punk rockers from the from the dc scene you know ian fugazi and uh mike russell who's with uh shutter to think yeah um on kim kim coletta was a jawbox and she's actually still recording they're doing something now she's in the studio doing something yeah i wish i i can't remember like there's some things i don't remember about me people like duration of time well yeah

because like i remember i lived in in in somerville at dave cross's like at bill wilson's place when i came back but i was sleeping dave's bed when when he was at his girlfriend's and i sleep on the couch but i don't know how long that went on for so out of all the places you've lived at what place do you have the most endearment to well it's weird as time goes on like I just was in Boston and it's I I have I never go there but I remember it because I've I've separate sets of memories from Boston I have the memories of us you know in college and shortly after college then i have the horrible memories of going back there to start doing comedy and doing those rooms and you know doing coke and doing all that whole bit and i'm like it's traumatized when i go back there i'm like oh god this is where it happened you know there's that sidewalk exactly it's that kind of

shit but it's a weird city and san francisco like i was kind of buzzed a lot, and it sort of is surreal. I would say that New York was probably the best time. Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, once I kind of got grounded there and did all the stuff I did. I had a place out in Astoria with that woman who I married, and then I fucked that marriage up, and then 9-11 happened. So how many times have you been married?

Twice. Twice? Twice, no yeah. And then 9-11 happened. So how many times you've been married? Twice. Twice. Twice. No kids. I do joke about that. Takes a special kind of asshole. Yeah, of course. To have two wives and no kids.

Yeah, well. I've brought that joke back several times. I'm sure. It's so relevant. Yeah. I mean. But yeah, I think New York and L.A. has been good. I love my house in L. in la but it's everything's

gonna burn everything's gonna burn it's gonna burn yeah it's fire season it is there's no water and it's burning it's like you just sort of wait it's what but i love the fucking house would you like where you live here yeah i mean i we we have a great location because it's very close to downtown dc yeah you know you know 10 miles but uh everything is accessible yeah is it a house or a condo house yeah yeah and i've all the pricing went you know sky high so you're good oh fuck yeah yeah that's nice to know i mean we've you know i'm like i said i've always been cheap yeah uh definitely didn't live you're always kind of proud of it oh absolutely yeah yeah but um so we ended up buying yeah we've been in the house for as old as as long as nick is old so we he we moved in when

he was like three weeks old and he didn't take out money against it no oh no i i we ended up building on the back a little extending the kitchen knocking some walls out that kind of shit so we've done some work to it but oh it's good yeah i mean it's nice to have we've been there for 27 years and has it paid off oh yeah almost i got like you know some left not a lot but i mean at the time so we live in silver spring yeah and downtown silver spring back then was a look look at a fucking war zone yeah buildings boarded up yeah restaurants everything's closed yeah it was a dump oh yeah so it depressed the area. Well, so we got a good deal on a house, right?

Right. Because we didn't have any money. I was making $6.50 an hour at that French restaurant. Yeah. Like, not making shit. Yeah. And we needed a house. So we got a house for a very good price.

And within a few years, they started redeveloping downtown. Yeah. Now it looks like fucking Bethesda. Yeah. Now it's gone crazy. Yeah. So, of course course all the values have just gone oh wow like san francisco right it's like yeah well not not anymore san francisco took

a big hit during covid oh it did yeah because all that tech money everyone realized they didn't have to go to work so all you know everything that was holding that city together got pulled out from under it and it's a little scary it's a little weird um la is okay you know it's very spread out it's hard not to figure you know but but san francisco i don't know la my house is you know it goes up it all goes up i was looking in new mexico i was going to go get a place in new mexico but that's on fire so like that's go to town so is it nice up there it's beautiful it's beautiful but it's on fire like every even that area well i don't know what's on fire but a lot of new mexico is on fire and i just want to go someplace where there's on fire. You live in that area? Well, I don't know what's on fire, but a lot of New Mexico is on fire.

And I just want to go someplace where there's no fire. Well, I was just in Tulsa. And it's sort of like I got to decide whether, what do I want, fire and drought or tornadoes and winter? What's Tulsa? Tulsa, why would you want to go there? I was just there. I did a TV show. There's all these little cities.

I was just in pittsburgh too a lot of younger people are sort of coming back and building kind of creative communities and like kind of breathing life back into these kind of cool what is kind of cool i mean pittsburgh i was surprised it's fucking beautiful that city have you been to pittsburgh no it's beautiful and tulsa's i wouldn't say it's beautiful but it's it's it's its own thing but like uh you know all these little things are happening but like i might be i was just in cleveland too and i went to one restaurant i'm like oh my god cleveland's amazing but cleveland can be i've always you know i think that i always got a bad rap cleveland because of you know the river beyond fire that sort of thing but i mean so it's a nice enough i'm sure they have nice parts in cleveland i was just in detroit yeah

everything those were once glorious cities so that the infrastructure is still there there's just nobody living in it yeah and it's a little you know but uh but yeah i don't know man i don't know i just i can't wait till like all these red states that are just these fucking insane reds like eventually all the rich people on the west coast it's going to be unlivable so unless they put up borders they're all going to move there it's going to be unlivable. So unless they put up borders, they're all going to move there. It's going to change the dynamic of all the states. No one's going to want to go to California. They're all going to get the fuck out, right?

Oh, it's a little scary, dude. But look, it was good talking. No one's going to have to fall in the ocean just to put out the fire. I know, exactly. You just look at that ocean and sort of like, can't you make that water work for us? San Andreas Fault needs to go now. Yeah, just knock it off. I don't know what's gonna happen man it does get a little weird but i'm glad we're both healthy and uh it's good talking to you yeah absolutely

so that was me and lance and i told you earlier that i talked to uh t Brad and it was just, it was like, it's not really a full circle feeling, but it's sort of like part of you. It's almost like kind of reconnecting part of you. Like not quite a whole appendage, but some part of your heart gets reconnected and you're sort of like, oh oh yeah this is really a living part of of who i am and i think that not unlike you know my experience with museums and not unlike the the these these things the only the reason you engage or redefine or or check your memories or or activate your sense of history is that it is a part of all of us and it certainly on the American level on the global level and on a personal level I mean you have

to seek to find a place in what you in how you fit into your own humanity into the global humanity and to you know what where your heart's at sadly a lot of times conscience empathy you know doing the right thing are choices you have to make. They're not natural, and they're becoming less natural as people double down on horrific behavior. As tolerance diminishes, democracy will crumble. And the only bulwark we have against that is knowing who we are, where we come from, what's right and wrong,

and what we're supposed to represent here. Heavy shit. Heavy shit. I got no music. I got the music in me, but I got no music for you because I'm on the road. I hope you enjoyed this.

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