WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1341 - Kate Berlant

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Kate Berlant’s comedy defies easy categorization. That’s okay with Kate, who thinks people use a lot of empty terms to pin down comedy. Kate and Marc talk about how growing up in the art world helped Kate take a different approach when she got on the comedy stage as a teenager. They also talk about Kate’s sketch work with fellow comedian John Early, the inspiration she took from the late Brody Stevens, and why her Bo Burnham-directed comedy special remains in limbo. 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 fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast i'm broadcasting from a very awkward position i'm not in a hot air balloon or anything, but I'm at the edge of a sofa in a hotel room trying a different mic than I usually use on the road, which requires a little stand, and they don't have a desk in this room, just a sort of round side table at the edge of this small sofa. So I'm kind of leaning over the armrest and trying to get the angle right to speak into this mic correctly, which sits in its own little stand on the table in front of my computer, which seems far away to me. That's a

lot of information that's unnecessary, isn't it? Right? Who gives a fuck? As long as it sounds okay. That's what we're concerned about here. Okay sound on the road. Not amazing sound on the road. Okay sound. I think it sounds pretty good enough. I'm in Charleston right now. Charleston, South Carolina have not done the show in Charleston yet, but I have been eating. I have been out in the South, eating the food, doing the stuff, driving around the rural roads, enjoying the scenery. Today on the show, I talked to Kate Berlant. She's an actor and a comedian. Many of you may know her from Sorry to Bother You

or I Think You Should Leave and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. She has her own episode of the Netflix sketch series, The Characters, and she's done a lot of sketch comedy with John Early. They have a new Peacock special called Would It Kill You to Laugh, which I saw. She also worked with me on Easy. She played, I think, a book publicist. I had a lot of

scenes with her. She's an odd presence, but funny. And I didn't really know her. I was a little intimidated, a little nervous in terms of couldn't figure out where she was calibrated, what was her trip, where's she coming from? And so this was an exciting conversation we had. But more about the tour. Can we? Can I talk to you? So what did I do? I did Durham. I flew into Durham. Took a minute getting out, about an hour and a half, two hours late on American, not complaining. It happens. It was weather. There was weather.

And there was weather flying into Durham. There's like a thunderstorm. It was interesting because I could, it's weird when you can feel the pilot take control of the plane before he usually does. It's not just autopiloting in. It's not just, you know, flip down the landing gear. It's like, oh, he's got to maneuver around these converging storms to find the least heinous ride. And he warned us. He warned us. He said, you know, we're going to

get everyone seated a little early, going to get the flight attendants to close up shop about an hour early. We're going to come into a thing, two converging weather systems. We've got to sneak down the middle. The last time I heard that on a plane, it was terrifying. And it was going pretty well. And this is the same pilot that before we took off said something along the lines of, yeah, we're all ready to take off, but we've got to get the ground crew to come over and start one of the engines manually. The other one we started with the switch, but we got to get one started manually

and we should be on our way. What does that mean? Like, are they going to, you know, kickstart it? Is it like a little, is it like a lawnmower ripcord thing? What do you call those? Is it... Not a great thing to say without explanation.

We got to manually start one of the engines. So that's the same pilot that told us about the converging weather systems. And he maneuvered us into Raleigh-Durham Airport. A little late, but it was no problem. I was okay. I didn't have much to do, but it did right when we were about to land, right when he could see the finish line. I could see the ground and say like, we're close. Maybe we wouldn't get hurt if we fell from here. And it started to rock, man. Some big drops and sways. But I don't know. Sometimes I'm in moments like that and I realize like, or something in me says, you know, I'm not going to, this isn't going to be how it goes.

This isn't going to be how I die. So here we go. Anxiety. Can we talk a minute? This happened. This is a real life story. And then I'll bring Kate Berlant out. I'm going to bring her out.

She's waiting backstage right now. Some of you know I like pottery. The last time I was down here, I went to Seagrove. I bought a shit ton of pottery. I didn't get out to see Brian Jones, the guy who makes mugs for my guests. He's a big fan of Mark Hewitt, who apparently was one of the godfathers of the new wave of Seagrove Potters. And his place is out in Pittsburgh, and it's by appointment only, apparently. But Brian Jones thinks that Mark Hewitt's a genius and a great potter. And I

looked at some of the stuff. It looked great. And the last time I was in town, I made an attempt to go, but it was an appointment-only thing, and I I couldn't go so now I'm driving I guess I'm driving from Durham right to Charlotte and I'm like oh fuck it man am I gonna go look at Potts I don't have much room for Potts or maybe I'll go look at Potts and I texted Brian Jones I'm should I and he's like go see Mark Hewitt I'm like I gotta call so I like, go see Mark Hewitt. I'm like, I got a call. So I call the number on Mark Hewitt's website. And it's like, this is the home of Mark Hewitt. You know, if you want an appointment to see the work, you have to call Carol. So now I got a second number. So now I'm dialing another number. I'm writing numbers down in my car. I call this other number. A woman answers. I'm like, is this Carol? She's like, yes. Who's this? I said, it's Mark Maron.

number a woman answers i'm like is this carol she's like yes who's this i said it's mark maron dropping my name heavy just to maybe get in to see some you know some jars and mugs uh yeah i just want to see like an appointment with uh with with the gallery to see some of the work she's like oh you've called on a great day we had a kiln opening it's a kiln opening this only happens like twice a year and today's the day from 10 o'clock to five it's a kiln opening. This only happens like twice a year. And today's the day from 10 o'clock to five. It's a kiln opening. All the stuff that we just that just came out of the kiln is going to be open. It's going to be open studio from 10 to five or whatever. I look at the clock and it's like it's 1030 and I'm an hour away. I'm not going to get there to 1130. So I say, okay, okay, I'm coming. But I immediately went into like some sort of strange panic, like literally a spiral. I'm like, oh my God, I'm going

to get there. There's going to be nothing left. Is there going to be parking? Is there going to be a line for pots? I mean, how big is the parking lot? Is it out in a field? How many people, I mean, are there going to be bathrooms? Like are there porta potties there? I mean, are there going to be bathrooms like are there porta potties there i mean what's going to be the situation i'm freaking out that there's not going to be a mug or a jar for me to buy at mark hewitt's because i'm going to be like half hour to 40 minutes late for the kiln opening show like it's just going to be pandemonium some ceramic groupie clusterfuck out there like i'm picturing i'm gonna get there i'm gonna be on a long line to get into the studio people are gonna be walking by with just quality ceramics i'm gonna look at their pots and their jars i'm gonna be like fuck god damn it i knew i'd

i'd miss it i knew i'd miss it there's not gonna be any mugs or pitchers or jars for me. No cool glazes. I fucking blew it. I get there. Like 12 people there. Some nice ladies come to see the glazes. But I'll tell you, ma'am, stunning pottery. Stunning work. Huge wood-burning kiln. Like, there's several.

There's an old one. There's a new giant one. It's like the size of a truck. Like, it looks like a giant uh oven like made on the ground out of mud there's a gas kiln there too for other stuff but i got a tour of the kiln and i talked to mark it's on the it's on my instagram if you want to see it and i bought a bunch of beautiful stuff and he's going to ship it to me i don't even know where I'm going to put it but I had to have it because I got there ahead of the curve, man.

I got there in time. There was still stuff there. But it was interesting to talk to him. He's kind of a, he's the guy. He's the potter. He's the one of the region. There's a one of the region there's a lot of potters down there a lot of good ones i bought a lot of good work down there but a lot of these guys who

are down there started out with him i imagine some of them are getting pretty mad if they're listening to this there's got to be some guys there not unlike any other art they're just like ah fuck hewitt fuck that guy man look at the work i'm doing man this is way ahead of where he's at he's old school beautiful stuff it was beautiful stuff i'm excited to have it in my house nice guy too british real gentleman knows his shit so listen kate berlant uh she has a comedy special, a stand-up special, which it's not clear whether or not it's going to be on or not, but I watched it. But she's also got this other comedy special with John Early, and it's called Would It Kill You to Laugh? It premieres this Friday, June 24th on Peacock.

And this is me talking to Kate Berlant. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now.

Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. 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 27thth exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. So, wait, who tells you to not drink seltzer? I mean, who is the lady? What kind of person is that?

This, you know, kind of holistic woman. General? Or a general holistic woman that you know in passing? Or somebody that you go to? You know what I'm concealing? It was a colonicist. Oh, so you're hiding the colonic? I was hiding it because I knew.

Yeah. I was hiding it. Hiding the colonic?. Yeah. I was like, I was hiding it. Hiding the colonic? I know. I know. I went to a colonic guy in New York once. Yeah. That's where they really, huge community there apparently.

Really? The gravity colonic. No, I don't know what it was, but. Does the water appear? Well, no, it's like they, yeah, there's a machine. There's equipment. Gravity. Like here in LA, there's like the ones where they're sideways and those are supposed to

be too intense. Like the proper Ayurvedic way is like here in LA, there's like the ones where they're sideways. And those are supposed to be too intense. Like the proper Ayurvedic way is like you want it. It's called the gravity method. Is it good? I don't know if it's good. We just had one. I had two. So.

What's driving that? How much time do we even have? Because what is driving it? I don't know. Yeah. You know. Yeah. People abuse them i was just sort of curious and then of course it like made me like that gives you like a full body high it does it in sort of way yeah i like felt god oh really yeah at the colonic yeah a little bit i had a little bit

of um it kind of took it really takes you out of the everyday embodiment kind of status but but was the high just of the the sort of transgressive nature of having you know a tube in your butt yeah and water or probably the idea of feeling really clean yeah yeah well like because it's i kind of you know like alarms go off around like being like and i'm finally clean and emptied like it's like i don't want to like fall into that trap but there is something the eating disorder trap yeah yeah sure i've just like you know every four days i go in there and that yeah but it's it's there is like an eating disorder thing where again the way she was talking to me about seltzer being a treat yeah i was like we're not gonna connect like they're just automatically like i can't

i am like a hedonist absolutely and like i can't pretend is this an older lady no well by the way she looks amazing yeah like and she'll say you know her thing is like the beauty elements of colonic she's like i think she might be in her early 50s she she looks like really beautiful like a lot of liquid naturally kind of like of like, yeah, hydrated, like color in the face. But like stripped down bare, like no makeup. Do you think she's a colonic addict? Oh, I cannot imagine her bowels. Yeah. Yeah, she's stripped.

But isn't it, don't you disrupt your whole gut garden? Yeah, that's the thing. It can wash out the proper fauna. It's something I have to hide from my mother. Because if she heard, she'd be like, at one point, I mentioned, I was like, oh, I'm actually going to try a colonic. And it was like her face dropped,

and she was like, please talk to a doctor. Promise me you'll talk to a doctor. She completely, because doctors were definitely the religious figures in my house growing up. So it was like, you know, the fauna. Which one's the Jew? Yeah, well, the jury's out. My dad's full New York Jew.

My mom's family's from Spain, but they were, like, secret Jews. Oh, conversos? And so- Like, from way back? Well, her name is Mendez. Like, my name is actually Mendez Berlant. And Mendez, it's like having the name Cohen in Spain. Really?

And my grandparents were diamond dealers in the south of Spain, in, like, the Jewish ghetto. But were they Jews that like turned Catholic during the Inquisition kind of thing? That's kind of the idea. Oh, really? And then apparently my grandmother on her deathbed

was like, we're Jews and died. And so, and there's no, so I was, yeah, yeah. And so there are people in the family

who are kind of like, nah, but there isn't any, there's no darkness around that. It doesn't feel like intrinsically anti-Semitic. There's just sort of this, there was like no religion

outside of just kind of like, oh, you go to church, you dress up and whatever. Yeah. You grew up here? Yeah. Really? Yeah.

The whole time? I know. I ooze New York. Well, I mean, you spent time though in New York. I lived in New York for like eight years. Yeah.

But wait, what'd you do here as a kid? Did you go to that school in Santa Monica? No, I went to an all-girls school. What's that one called? Called Archer Crossroads. Yeah.

I was supposed to go to Crossroads because my dad's an artist. You know. That school. What's that one called? Called Archer Crossroads. Yeah. I was supposed to go to Crossroads because my dad's an artist. That's what I figured. I was supposed to go to Crossroads. I went for my half day. I got too scared. What do you mean? Because the kids were so cool

and I think I was scared. There were boys and there were these cool girls being like, have you given a blowjob yet? And I was like, I want to go to the girls' school. So I went to the girls' school.

Really? That was the first question yeah well i like distinct memory is like staring at their high heels and being like oh no how old when does that start oh my god i mean that was i was i was young for my grade so i think i may have been 12 and they were 13 what kind of artist is your dad he works in metal like they look like paintings but they're metal but he's like a real thing right yeah yeah he's a real thing like he's in the whitney yeah yeah i always want to be like i'm from la my parents aren't in entertainment but but my dad is an artist but like uh that was nurtured legit high level yeah but like not like dustin hoffman in that in that movie with adam

sandler and ben stiller right which one oh which i love yeah it's great what's it called the moskowitz story the something stories when i tell you i wept because they go deep into the into the archive at the witness and i was like well there i am i was like that will be me being like he was important damn it you know he's like known in certain like my dad's like known like certain groups but like sure but and i like of course now like relate to that more like yeah like like his friends they got like so huge yeah yeah and i'm like and yeah he's gonna go find his little piece absolutely who were his peers like what was he part of a of a thing so like the ferris gallery in la like his best friends um were ed moses and chris burden oh yeah who chris burden

now aren't alive but yeah chris he was like performance artist yeah yeah that was crazy shit yeah it was like way the fuck out there i yeah that was like one of my first jobs was working for him really yeah and he he was sort of the thing that people know him for is like he got shot yeah and actually what the performance piece was as a bullet was supposed to just graze his arm and cut him. Yeah. But he accidentally got shot. Right. But yeah, he was that guy.

He did all kinds of stuff though. Didn't he have like some sort of, wasn't he out in Topanga or something? Yeah, that's where I worked. Really? He had this beautiful, amazing studio in Topanga. But he did visual stuff, performance stuff, all of it. He was one of those guys. Full P.T. Barnum, art star. Absolutely, like, brilliant.

Like, loved his work so much, and then he was such a, like, completely kind, like, you always imagine, like, that guy had shot himself. He must have been crazy. He was, like, completely, like, just normal, sweet. What was some of the other work? I don't know all his work. So, he did, there definitely was a lot of body stuff, and kind of endurance pieces, him like

being shoved in a locker and like kind of like living in it for however long. And then he did. The anti-Houdini stuff where he can't get out and he doesn't want to. No, no. But then sculptures, like a piece that I worked on was he had an installation at Rockefeller Center. The piece was called What My Dad Gave Me and it was an erector set skyscraper oh okay so i was like in this kind of assembly line yeah making this like one little piece was like my job so it's like super gluing this little erector

piece how old were you all day 19 so when you're doing that are you are you sold 1920 are you like this is it it actually was so fun because you're in a room in Topanga with interesting people. You're just listening to music and talking all day. Yeah. So I had a blast. Yeah. But was it your future? No.

I mean, I had jobs working for artists, but at that point I was already doing stand-up, and that was what I wanted to do. Because you had jobs with artists because of your dad? Yeah. So your dad would be like, you want to work for, what's his name? He's got to make something out of foam. Yeah, totally. It's a great day job.

Like for Ed Moses, stretching canvases, destroying paintings. Destroying them? Yeah, he'd be like, I don't want that one. Rip it up. I'm like, okay, it's kind of fun. Oh my God. He's like a big like destroying paintings. Oh, destroying them? Yeah, he'd be like, I don't want that one. Like, rip it up. I'm like, okay, it's kind of fun. Oh, my God. Yeah, so. He's like a big guy, too.

Yeah, yeah. I kind of know his work, right? Yeah, mm-hmm. I think I feel like I've seen it recently. Yeah, he's a big, like, painter, like L.A. I mean, yeah, he also, you know, died a few years ago now. Ed Moses. Ed Moses, yeah.

I feel a little, I mean, I know more than, I know some things about art, but not enough for this particular specific conversation. Well, you knew Chris Byrne did some wild stuff. I did know that. That's true, yeah. He made an impact. There was a couple of guys that did sort of weird shit. There was a guy, I remember reading about a guy back in, I guess it must have been the 80s, who went to Mexico, had sex with a prostitute, and then had a vasectomy.

And that was his presentation. That was the piece. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Have fun. Everyone left their life changed that night. Yeah.

And said, what the fuck was that about? I love it. Yeah. I tend to like it myself. Yeah. Because it's the poetry of it. Even in telling the story, there's a sense to it where you're sort of like, a guy did that on purpose.

Like, he conceived of it. Yeah. And he decided he was going to spend his last load. I don't know. I wonder if it was, something tells me it might have been a corpse, not a prostitute. No way. Actually? Maybe.

Well, that changes the narrative a lot totally yeah that's a that reframes the whole piece it's a better piece yeah now there's something i can hold on to yeah so at the catholic school was that a nightmare it wasn't catholic oh i thought it was a secular all-girls school how does oh really yeah i loved it yeah was it just um like uh bougie uh kids from santa monica pretty much yeah i mean it was like very strangely i really liked middle school i think because it was it was a small it was a small school it kind of felt utopian because it was just like friends and there was kind of a purity and innocence to that time. Like I didn't feel.

Yeah. I was like just so hypercharged and was like clowning constantly and like climbing the lockers and like I just was. Clowning. Like you mean you were screwing around or you're actually consciously clowning as in you learned a clown thing. No, no. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Can you imagine?

Can you imagine? I don't know. I started to experience clown which really is um not to degrade clowning um but it is a dirty word in this industry uh no i was just like manically you know joking i was like and i felt like free and i was completely at that age too like my friends my closest friends were really kind of these like beautiful girls who were like already on birth control and i was kind of these like beautiful girls who were like already on birth control and i was like i want to go on it too like i went on birth control before

i'd ever been kissed i was like i want to be ready you know i just felt like that was in my future but it was so not in my present at all and i was your parents were okay with it oh yeah of course my mom's like ortho tricycling though here we come and uh but yeah it was just i mean i remember i i remember feeling like utterly desexualized because i was sort of the clown and like i wasn't getting that attention but there was something like liberating in that for me i don't i mean i was definitely like horny and like obsessed with sex but like that was just not in my realm of experience whatsoever but it's happening around you yeah yeah so i got to get every detail and like what was happening for you no but you were obsessed with it sure yeah yeah so you had

to be funny yeah oh well i have like there is this like origin story of myself from like oh yeah that was big which was i had this friend who was like she was truly a pack sun model like she was like a gorgeous which is like a you know bathing suit company oh yeah and like she was truly a pack son model like she was like a gorgeous which is like a you know bathing suit company oh yeah and so she was my friend and one day after school was like we're gonna go over to this guy's house and I was like great I'll be there you know and I went over to her house and I remember because we had uniforms we were going to trade we were going to change into cool clothes to go to this guy's house what kind of uniforms if it wasn't catholic just general khaki skirt like no you might look like a Catholic girl uniform maybe.

But yeah, so we like went to her house. None of her clothes fit me because she was so tall and lanky. I remember she put me in a Hard Rock Cafe shirt. Sure. And these like sweatpants that I rolled like six times. And we went over to this guy's house and there was another guy there. Maybe like, oh, one for you, one for me kind of a thing. But like, I think clearly it was apparent like that was not my energy and then um but i remember being in their room listening to

neil young's harvest he was really into music like he he was like in la he's like i was the first guy to know that pavement was cool you know right like and so he was like this indie kind of god and i remember being the kid was yeah the kid was i remember being in the room, like hanging out on the beds, and I was making them laugh, and he was laughing, and he was like, you should be careful though, because guys don't like girls who are funny,

because it reminds them too much of other guys, and it was like, he said it to me in this very matter of fact, just kind of like plain way, and I feel like I have four memories in my life, and that's one of them, that is just so concrete for me, and I was like, okay, this is going going in but you looked at it as a superpower I was kind of like

devastated but I already knew that was the truth it is the truth yeah and I mean in a certain regard I was like already obviously like realizing that that I wasn't right that something was um you weren't all uh you know you you weren't insecure and sexed up. Yeah. Yeah. I was just like, yeah, I took that and I was, it was confusing because it was him acknowledging that I was funny. Yeah.

But also acknowledging that I was like a desexualized clown. Yeah. Desexualized clown, I think is better than a sexualized clown. Right. In a way. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. You don't want to be is better than a sexualized clown. Right. In a way. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

You don't want to be Baby Jane, you know? Right, right. I mean, yeah. Sometimes when I'm around L.A. and I'm looking at women of a certain age, you're like, oh, my God, it's the whole Baby Jane spectrum. Just painted in the sand. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.

But some, you know, obviously do it better than others. It's an art form. I mean, my mother, I don't even know what her hair color is. That is, my mom is like, my mom is really beautiful. She's 78. She really doesn't seem it. She's incredibly youthful. But she hasn't done anything to her face.

She barely wears makeup. That's great. No, yeah. And she really is just like so youthful and gorgeous to me. But the one thing, like her hair is always died oh yeah so that's like the thing that that is like i've never seen her with gray hair i like gray hair yeah i think it's cool too like for myself i'm like oh yeah i'll go great you're gonna let it happen yeah hasn't hit me yet no it hasn't no what's your mom do so my was, my mom wanted to be an actor.

Something's like devastating about saying that. Like she wanted to be an actress, but she didn't like fully go for it exactly. But she was, did, she worked a lot with this performance, with this guy named Guy Dequante, who was a French Dadaist guy. And she was in his plays. Here? Yeah, in LA. And then also did some stuff in New York with him.

Oh, really? But yeah. What's his name? Guy Dequante. So. He was here? And then also did some stuff in New York with him. Oh, really? But yeah. What's his name? Guy de Quante. So it's like G-U-I. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was a far out guy who, there was a resurgence of interest in his work like 10 or so years ago.

So she actually went and did. With a few people? Yeah. About six people. But you'll be amazed what six people at the Pompidou in Paris can do. Yeah. So it was like, so she did, was like performing at like the Tate and at MoMA, like this kind Yeah, about six people. But you'll be amazed what six people at the Pompidou in Paris can do. Yeah. So it was like, so she did, was like performing at like the Tate and at MoMA, like this kind of, you know.

Right, yeah. And at this point she was in her late 50s, early 60s. And it's great. She was probably like, we got the old gang together. Completely. And like her, the women who were sort of his muses were like my aunts growing up, like the woman that really took care of me. So it was really fun to watch them perform these really beautiful, surreal plays

where he was French, but he learned English through watching commercials and daytime soap operas. So his plays are all in this language of melodrama, but they're completely absurd. So it's like a prop that's like a green cube is a telephone. And the sets are all made by this amazing artist bob wilhite um who's here in la but so you grew up around all this stuff yeah this was your world that was my world i like it man i like i like reading about that stuff i like i like going to

see things like that i don't do it enough it's not my life and as i get older i get cynical about it and i and i start to sort of not dismiss it, but like, who cares? Oh, sure. Well, you're American. It's an anti-intellectual society. Yeah, but I grew up loving it. And as I get older, like even the stuff that resonated with me, I appreciate. Like I just joined the Whitney again.

I'm still active about it. But there is part of me that believes that it should be relevant on a level that it's not and then i get angry about that it isn't and then i realize that they don't want it to be right because it's a special world and it's insulated and it's weird and they're not trying to solve any big problems no they're just they just want their friends to come and someone to write about it and a picture to be in art news yes yes oh my no it's hyper rarefied and very right there was a period where i think i'm disillusioned yes yes well i felt like because i was doing stand-up for a while like when i started i was like well what is this

is this performance art and i was i always bristled at that i was like it's not performance people were asking you or like what people were seeing what i was doing it. Sure. Oh, it's weird. Or it could be performance art, which I was like, I knew what they were saying. But again, I just didn't like it. Because to me, that was associated with this kind of impenetrable echelon of like, oh, it's impossible to understand. And I was like, I'm crossing my eyes. It's really, I'm like a ham.

I never understood that. And also, at the time, when did you start? Well, I started when I was 17. Here? Yeah. Well, the weird thing about that is that I remember when I started and I saw comics who were doing something that didn't like lock into what I thought standup was. And I thought, and it was somebody very, not mainstream, but it just struck me that

when I started, I didn't really understand how big the umbrella of stand-up really was yeah you know yeah but then when I went when I was coming up in New York you had that whole sort of um you know collective unconscious and and all those spaces down below Houston that were holding on to this legacy of performance art but it was really a cop-out it wasn't totally there there's really isn't hasn't been any real performance art since the 70s or 80s, I think. Maybe the mid-80s, right? I mean, really conscious Karen Finley. Yeah.

Or, you know, that place that was in that woman's loft where they all did that stuff in New York or the Worcester group or that. Whatever. Oh, yeah, Caroline Schneeman. Yeah, like that. But the rest of it is sort of either stand-up or not good stand-up. Right. Well, completely. Yeah.

Yeah. So when you started, where'd you go? So my first performance was at my high school. Really? As a stand-up? Who were you watching that made you want to do this? I was, it's, so truly like the first time I like sat down to write standup, I had just watched David Cross's, is it Let America Laugh?

Yeah. Like his like touring, like the, like I had like the DVD of him touring. And I, I just couldn't believe that you could like live like that. I was like, oh my God, touring the world and like interacting with these crazy people. And he just shows, it was like so romantic to me. I was like, that's incredible. So, but you know, I was very obsessed's incredible so um but you know i was very obsessed like i loved you know woody allen and steve martin and yeah i liked all that stuff and

you're a comedy kid yeah yeah totally and then i started um becoming obsessed with the alternative scene in new york like the invite them up right with eugene exactly like the invite them up bobby tisdale like the cd i like memorized that and loved all of those people. So that was already like done by the time you're getting in. Yeah, pretty much. I was scheduled to perform at Rafifi in the East Village the week it closed. So I was like late, but I was still there when I would see like, yeah, Eugene Merman and all those people. That's weird because those were like kids to me.

Yeah. Like I'm already one generation removed from that, but you're coming in and that's already like, wow, this all happened here. Yes, completely. And it's done. Yeah.

I feel some Shapiro. Did you know the Shapiro? Did you know Rick Shapiro? Did you ever see Rick Shapiro? Oh my God, yeah. Yeah, I'm feeling some of Shapiro energy. Oh my God, great.

Yeah, in the stand-up special. Yeah. Oh my God. Oh my God, you watched it. I did. God bless you why is it one of 15 people have seen it are you not going to release it i would love to release it i mean i shot it years ago no it's pre-covid yeah really but it might come out event it might come out now is that at ucb yeah and you put mirrors up yeah huh yeah yeah yeah put mirrors up? Yeah. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. Put mirrors up. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Well, I was trying to, I'm like, I know that space. There's only one space that, you know, you're on stage with most of the audience. Yeah, exactly. It's really small. And structurally, I know, it's the old UCB. Yeah. So, but yeah, but you saw Shapiro. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that you, I love that, that you said Rick Shapiro. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, you know, I've been doing this so long. Yeah. And I've known him forever. But I've known everybody forever.

And I know when things soak into people a little bit. Yeah. No one's going to accuse you of ripping off Rick Shapiro. Yeah. No, but I'm moved by that. You just get a taste of it. Yeah. You get a taste of the Shapiro.

When you were talking about also performance art, because I was like Brody Stevens. Sure. I love so much. I'm like, that's something that people would be like well that's performance art but he's at the comedy store you know what i mean like he's one of those people for me that when i saw him i was like so i felt like liberated because i thought he was so funny and what he was doing was like like just unmatched well here's the thing about like that thing just from my experience with it is like i don't think that people who

claim to we say performance art know what performance art is it's just something they don't quite understand and they think it's like a non-category yeah that doesn't belong here like you're too weird for here it's yeah there was really never anything too weird to be done stand up venues ever ever but i think the real thing with it it's whether or not you're doing it on purpose yeah do you know what i mean like you know sometimes there there are people that are carried by the form in the community of it who aren't really intentionally doing something but they're they're part of the family yeah do you know you know what I mean? Yeah. They can't do it any other way. And it's almost like people are protecting them from being laughed at for the wrong reasons.

Oh, my God. Yeah. So I've seen that a lot. Yeah. But Brody's persistence, it drove a lot of people. It uplifted people. Totally. Totally. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I think about him all the time. You do? Yeah. It's so sad. I know. But I really, like, I'm, yeah. What do you think? His, I mean, just, not that I knew him well, but I just know him in the way that you know

people for a million years to do in comedy. And his, like, sweetness, but also his, I love his insistence on like the push believe like like like that insistence to me was so like generous and real yeah and now we're in this world weird kind of this language of positivity has been like co-opted and like become this like other kind of vile gross thing that is like if it's like how about people you can do it like yeah how about people who say storytelling yeah it's like it's it's just but authenticity is another one that i really don't know what that word means never have never will don't buy it doesn't exist and i think in your in the in the stand-up especially you you you you i think you got the the most honest moment of uh what authenticity means really yeah when you're when

you're throwing up yeah oh my god oh yeah i haven't watched it in years it's like you're not really selling it it's great it's great folks and it'll be out i know but i know that's not really what you're out uh pushing no i'm thrilled that you're bringing it up because truly i did i did uh but you're talking about it like it's like everything's different now i'm not even that person oh no i am i'm still trapped on that stage because the special hasn't been out yeah i mean i I did, I did. But you're talking about it like it's like everything's different now. I'm not even that person anymore. No, I am. I'm still trapped on that stage because the special hasn't been out. Yeah.

I mean, I shot it before COVID. Fortunately for you, in a sense, you're not, you can be timeless. You're kind of timeless. Well, every, yeah, I wake up in a cold sweat. I'm like, my special's not out. And I'm like, well, good news. It's just you crossing your eyes, doll. So you're fine.

There's nothing topical in it. But no, Bo Burnham directed it. He's a beautiful filmmaker. Yeah, I think he's doing amazing. I think this whole movement to make everything seem relatively uneventful is really the new thing. Just a complete. Just like, hey, let's go in here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's just go in. Yeah, there's something going on. Get a camera on. Don't tell them we're taping go in here yeah yeah yeah let's just go in yeah there's something going on get a camera don't tell them we're taping yeah yeah yeah yeah it'll well folks it might i think it'll be out this year you do like what's the conversation around that nothing pretty much nothing no i think uh i i think it's gonna be out in the fall okay okay somewhere yes even if it's just you my like language i I'm like, I can't say it. Oh, you know. I shot it for FX.

I think I can say that, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. Sure, you can say it. So you'll see what happens. Sue me. Yeah. Take me for all I want. Now they're not going to put it up just to spite you.

Yeah, exactly. But what was the weird, so that's the final cut that I saw? Yeah, oh boy, yeah. No, we're going to, that's exactly what you want to hear. Yeah, I saw a version of it. No, no, we're going to go back in there and sweeten it up. Yeah. No, I don't mean that.

Oh, my God. Yeah, Mark. That was the final cut. No, because it cuts away to like... Because it was for commercials. Oh, okay. It had to be shortened for commercials. So that's all I mean. Ostensibly, it won't be shortened for commercial so that's all i mean

is like like oh so when you're going out to commercial you do those behind the scenes moments yeah okay because because without commercials it's just sort of like what was that yeah do they know that should we tell them that that's well that's that's what the experience is going to be now yeah yeah we're gonna we're gonna confuse just gonna leave it in there yeah fuck it you can't handle the abstraction i thought well that's the thing is that you set a tone where it's sort of like it's just a thing she's doing like i get it i get it yeah yeah it's it's behind it's in front it's a mirror yeah yeah yeah who am i who are you yeah what is this so all right so you graduate

from the girl school and you do comedy your first time in high school. Oh, so I did it. Oh, yeah, what did you do? Were you straight-up joked? Oh, my God. What do you remember? Well, I remember, and I have it on tape. Oh, thank God. Yeah, like on a Betamax? It's like, yeah, it's on a DVD now.

Well, good for you digitizing your stuff. I have to digitize it to something else now. But it was very, you know, now I rely so much on, improvising, but that was like hyper constructed one liners, really. But the one liners didn't really work or didn't quite make sense. Like they were still kind of veering into this absurd place. This is in high school? Yeah, when I was 17. But also I came out on stage in a wheelchair then stood up and that was like my first joke.

Oh, that big prop piece. Yeah, big old prop right up top. Crowd loved it. Yeah. Could old prop right up top. Crowdle loved it. Yeah. But then I- Could you get away with that now? Sure can. And so I did, and then I did the open mic at the Laugh Factory, which I still, I mean,

I just weep at the thought of it. I can't believe my strength. Lining up, I had a fake ID to do it. Lining up at five, I think it was 5.30 on Tuesday to do the open mic. Yeah. I don't know how we did what we did when we did it. I mean. When I look back at me, I'm like, that poor kid.

It's really, we have to be kind to those versions of ourselves. We do. What did we drag them through? It's like nothing but trauma. Unimaginable. For like a decade. Yeah. Yeah.

When I think about those open mics, I mean, it's just. I was driving around New England to pubs and bowling alleys doing one-nighters with, you know, with drunken headliners. Just going up cold in the middle of environments that weren't even for comedy. Oh, certainly not. Certainly not. I think unlike in New York, you know, I think about like the basement at Maui Taco, you know, where I'd be like, I got four minutes, baby. And I'd be like shaking from nerves, you know, I'd be like. All day.

Yeah, yeah. Like, okay. And then it's just. You know what's there but three other comics. Yeah. And someone'd be like shaking from nerves. All day? Yeah, yeah. Like, okay. And then it's just. No one's there but three other comics? Yeah. And someone who didn't know there was a show? Yes, completely. And of course, now I romanticize that time so intensely.

Do you? Yeah. You know, though. I know, but I do. I'm like, oh, I fought tooth and nail. I'm like, that doesn't exist anymore. Sure, sure. You know, I do have like a.

Well, I think that's true, too. I think that's true, too. sure you know i do have like a well i think that's true too i think that's true too but i just in terms of like you know whatever my psychopathology is whatever i was doing there i i have to look at it like that like i got through it and it worked out okay yeah but why i know and now and there was no other thing for me no like i was that's the weirdest thing about it it's like well i'm glad it happened and maybe i've resolved some of the problems that I may have had emotionally and mentally, but not many. No, no. We can't hope to resolve.

No? We can just change our behavior? Yeah. Just, you know, turn it over. Sure. Oh, I get it. Well, the cognitive thing. It's like, I'm going to.

No, I'm not. I'm not going to. Just recognize and then move through it. That's all you can do. Yeah. You can't push it down. Just let yourself feel move through it. That's all you can do. Yeah. You can't push it down. Just let yourself feel it. And you know what happens though that I can tell you for sure as an old guy, oldish, is

that eventually that becomes stronger. Like you do things that you wouldn't have done that are better for you. And the conversation's a lot, it's a lot shorter. Like even exercising. That's nice. It's like, I don't want it. And then all of a sudden I'm like, I'm doing it. Yeah. That doing it yeah that's good to hear okay great yeah i don't know how that happened all right so you do it at the laugh factory was it terrible yeah i mean because you're dealing with that then

you're like right in the mainstream pocket of people but sometimes at those open mics on sunset whether it's the store or the laugh factory you've got guys in chef hats and people wearing mittens and, you know, people with big ideas. I remember one time looking at the potluck, you know, crew out on the patio of the comic store and there was just a guy in a garbage bag. And I'm like, big night. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that time for me, I'm like, I remember it very distinctly. And I, yeah, I kind kind of i got some positive reactions like

thank god i don't think i would have kept going or like i like i was getting enough or something or people kind of go like that's crazy or something okay well i'll just be the crazy one or something so it's landing yeah yeah and then i i went to new york and i um we're for college yeah i went to bard for a year, upstate. Wow. And then I went to NYU. That's fancy smarty pants. Oh, yeah.

You're a fancy smarty pants? So what did you do at Bard? Why did you run away from Bard? So I went for a year, but then I transferred to NYU after a year because I wanted to be in the city and I was doing the open mics in the middle of the woods every night, or every Tuesday, rather. And I was like, I got to get out of here. In the middle of the woods?

Yeah, I mean, Bard is in the middle of the woods? yeah I mean Bard is in the middle of the woods I know but like what were the open mics? so it was like it was at the cafe it was like the cafeteria oh at the school

yeah at the school yeah so I was doing that I was doing that and then I was started going to the city a lot and like going to see shows

yeah and I was like I gotta get out of here I gotta go to New York what was the community at Bard though? like was it arty? I mean did you feel like you had a place there or was it just broey and they didn't know what you were doing no it was arty i was like no one will kiss me

this sucks like i was like feeling very like oh yeah kind of just like restless and um but then were you feeling dorky maybe yeah maybe but i i was like it's actually when i think about i was 18 i'm like remembering my dorm wall and it was like a photo of woody allen and like steve martin's like the book jacket to cruel shoes like taped up on the thing yeah i was like like white knuckle grip to like something so but then but then i did go but then i did transfer to NYU. And then I was like doing standup a lot. And then I, I mean, I went to grad school at NYU because I was like, I'll just be like a teacher if I have to.

But then I got out of that. Oh, that was the backup. Yeah. Yeah, I thought I used to. Still could. I mean, hey. Yeah, well, if you did the grad school. I have the master's.

You did it. Yeah. Yeah. It's always there for you. I used to keep that as an alternate thing, but I never went to grad school. So as you get older, you're 45 and nothing's going on. It's like, I think it's time to go back.

I would just vaguely go like, I could teach. Oh, yeah. But what would I teach? I have to teach a class about me. That's all I could teach. Yeah, you would have to teach. These are my favorite things. Let's all watch them.

They could create something for you. You would just be like. These are my favorite things. Yeah. Let's all watch them. They could create something for you. Yeah. It would just be like the word, you know, like word, the word or something. Yeah, yeah. You could like. I'll create like a thing. Yeah, like something like, which I. Where you read poems and watched two TV shows, a movie and some cartoons or something.

Yeah, absolutely. No, and more abstract the better. Yeah. I think, and I still kind of feel like teaching, like if I hadn't, like I always wanted to be an actor and a comedian, but if I hadn hadn't done that i think teaching is like what you have a captive audience it's still performance right it is like the closest thing sure kind of but but unfortunately the audience you know doesn't really see it see it in the same way that they paid to be there their expectations are minimal. Unless they're really engaged

with what you're doing. You can really get a cult going. Yeah, of two or three people. Which really would have, I think that almost would have fed me enough. What, the two do-gooders who just wanted you to like them?

Yeah, just having the teachers be like, God, you're brilliant. You know, like, come over for spaghetti sundaes at my house. Sure. You know, being like that teacher. Well, yeah.

I mean, you could live in that. That could have been my future. Well, it might be still. I know, we'll see. Honey, the special's not out yet. But Bart, so you go, but you know, you could live in that. That could have been my future. Well, it might be still. I know. We'll see. Honey, the special's not out yet. But Bart, so you go, but you know, you grew up in this like very specialized kind of upbringing and your understanding of the art world was, you know, like parents. So like it must have been a relief to get to New York City.

I mean, I don't know how much you engaged that part of you, how sort of lowbrow you got with the standup. Like, did you just sort of like erase your knowledge of working for uh chris burden like that was another me yeah now i'm just a nightclub comic i was just like oh my god yeah i mean i was still you know absolutely around like the the arty kids you know i was like the indie kid yeah for sure so that was like i couldn't erase that absolutely but i also had a desire to be you know dirty or just like not even but just i wanted to to i felt an urgency around being able to make people laugh who of course didn't give a shit about strangers about yeah yeah strangers yeah yeah well it's good that you keep the arty friends because i mean it's so much a part of

your ongoing kind of um conversation yeah and that i mean the language surrounding art and all of that is like i i was very in that and i was in this hyper academic environment of like the seminar and discussing these kinds of like impenetrable texts and like which ones well just you know you're reading like lacan and derrida and you're like you know and that would get me like did you read galician guitar yeah's Guitar? Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. I mean, as much as I can. What the fuck is that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is that stuff?

Schizophrenic capitalism and all that. Yeah, I have that book. Yeah, yeah. We all do. I mean, it's just impossible. We all do. We don't. Oh my God.

We don't all. We don't, we don't. And I would get like, to be clear, I would get like high on that. Sure. Like I would be like, and I did, I really did love school. Like I really did like that. But like I used to. Like Foucault and I would get high on that. Sure. I would be like, and I really did love school. I really did like that.

But I used to- Like Foucault, and I would get all jazzed up and walking in circles in my apartment being like, and that got me excited, genuinely. But in retrospect, because I get it, because you're a comic, and I used to do a joke about reading that stuff. Yeah. And the joke was really just that, like, you know, the great thing about reading this stuff is when you're reading it, it feels like you're thinking it. But I don't remember anything. Oh, it goes.

But I couldn't contextualize it. Like, I couldn't have an intellectual conversation and put any of that shit into context or what those guys were thinking well you can't read it alone that's impossible no i know that but in in retrospect yeah did you write papers on this yeah oh i find the papers and i go oh that's interesting i used to be smart like i found this like paper that i wrote on like fuko yeah and i was like it actually was like devastating I feel like this old self that I like because my

my attention span has been so you know destroyed by the phone and everything that I'm like oh wow I used to have the rigor

like I do think it's important to sit down and read like a challenging text but do you really think that but you really think that your attention span

has been ruined or you just haven't absolutely ruined might be too strong a word but I do think and it's like a constant thing in my life of trying to go back to that self

because it is. Well, you're also a student. So you had to do it because you were in school. Yeah. So like to really, but I always, like I was not good at math

and there's some part of me. Well, math. No, but there's some part of me that thinks like I'm older now, maybe I should take up algebra again. Yeah. And gonna get it now i'm not gonna get it no and i've tried to read some of those books again yeah the the deluse and the schizophrenia capitalism oh yeah i mean sitting down with the lose on in an afternoon you just i mean no and i underlined a lot but i didn't get nothing i don't know what they did i don't know who they were i

don't know what time you can't do anything with that stuff unless you know the context of the language of philosophy that it's referencing. You need help and it does assume a certain amount of like critical theory that you already have that I sort of once had. And there are these like remnants of it that I can kind of feel. You do it in your act and some of it is earnest.

It's just you present it as jokes because it's your way of controlling it now. Yeah no i'm seduced by that language i always have been and i think so just naturally like performing kind of expertise and knowledge yeah i saw people doing that and i was like oh that's like fun like that's sexy like yeah being smart but then of course and now we're in a world where it's just like everyone knows four words and they base their personality around that sure and no one is there to correct or actually probe it and be like, well, what do you mean? No one says that. So it's just like.

Authentic storytelling. Yeah. I mean, it's just this rhetoric around, you know, mobilizing change or, you know. Proactive. Yeah. Like, you know, doing the work, excavating oneself. Oh, yeah. Trying to unearth or reveal to, yeah, like all of that.

Yes. Which, and that is the dominant language. It's helping. Like if you just, I think if you just talked in that tone and just repeated like about 12 or 15 words in a cycle, you'd get a following. Peabody, like that. Yeah, good luck with the Peabody.

I'm going to get a Peabody as a joke. Yeah, that'd be nice. So when you're doing the stand-up, because I watch and I read some stuff, not by you, but about you. It's like it's stand-up. You do stand-up. You're a stand-up comedian.

Thank you. But what did you study in school oh man i mean so i went to gallatin at nyu which is like the individualized study program so i was so it's like an inner read it's like read at nyu oh yeah like yeah it could be read adjacent yeah it's like very um you know where i took classes on yeah you know perversion in japanese literature but also like, you know, where I took classes on, you know, perversion in Japanese literature. But also like, you know. Does that include anime or no? Yeah, that would be touched upon.

Sure, it would have to be. You can't erase that from the canon. But I would be like, you know, the history of the image. Oh, yes. Which I really like. Like there was this, you know, reading about like early essays on photography and people are kind of reckoning with like the double. I got very into like Benjamin and this idea of mass production mass production and yeah sure i tried to i tried to penetrate benyamin yeah uh now benyamin yeah you know and we're living it yeah we are oh yeah yeah like

which part well just like the i mean also you know like the um the reproduction of the image people hunting the animal like for the carcass and not and i'm sorry for the, um, the reproduction of the image, people hunting the animal, like for the carcass and not, and I'm sorry for the skin and not the carcass people. Like they talk about shedding the animal skin and like, that's kind of where we are now. It's of course like this, like image.

I'm so glad we, we have a handle on where we are now that you, you know, I'm here to firmly anchor us in the now and there is no authenticity and, um, it's just, it's pure, just carcass. Yeah. It's all car authenticity and um it's just it's pure just carcass yeah it's all carcass yeah or it's not carcass it's the skin yeah the carcass is the

thing that's there oh that's the we rip the skin off and we worship the skin just the rotting skin now yeah um all right so you're doing that so did you like i there are things that have made impacts on me like there was a book about the uh i i've not been able to source which book it was, but it was a book of photographs. And the argument it was making was a feminist author who was capturing the history of images that suggest the objectification of women. But it through the through the atomic lens, like, you know, the bikini islands. The bikini, it's hot. You know, but that's where they tested nuclear wars and that's what the bathing suit is.

Like, it was like the, you know, sort of pictures of the Mother Earth and minimizing that. It was all about the objectification through the lens of advertising. Yeah. And I don't know. All I know is I was asked to leave uh a reading of it oh my god

because it was at a woman's space and you you respectfully bowed and left i think i i think i might have stubbornly sat for a minute yeah and and then you know realized like they did they're like you know you're welcome to stay but but we don't love it yeah yeah but this is a woman's space and this was like this is like the 80s probably. Yeah. This was two weeks ago. Yeah. At Water Village. Yeah.

And I'm mad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you have a right to be. Yeah. I'm a white man who just wants to sit and listen to the lady talk. Talk about the objectification.

Women. Yeah. Her objectification. I'm part of the problem and I'd like to help myself. Yeah. But yeah. So that stuff that blows your mind at that age is important. Yeah.

I was into all of that. But what were you studying? What was the deal? Like, what did you put together for yourself? Well, I got really into, like, the ritual process and liminality, which is like Victor Turner talks about. It's just about, like, so the liminal, and, like, liminality and the liminal, it's like, oh, it's such an overused term now.

It's, like, embarrassing. I don't even know what it means. So liminal refers to, like,'s such like an overused term now it's like i don't even know what it means so liminal refers to like a space between spaces yeah it's like an un okay it's like a that um yeah it's between so it's like isn't here or there it's kind of defies category which is something that i always like liked that like oh yeah what about things that are between spaces yeah and also i think just because i felt like that's where i was living creatively i was like i did i was like i'm a stand-up comedian but i was performing in like kind of art spaces or in conventional stand-up spaces what i was doing was considered more art i was like kind of inhabiting these both places and now i realize like that illegibility is actually really exciting to me

like that's kind of the stuff i gravitate toward anyway is work that is kind of illegible or like define these categories so i was into that and then um you know uh richard scheckner was this nyu guy yeah writing all about um ritual and kind of the transformative nature of of ritual when language actually does things like the performativity of language meaning like when you're in a courthouse you know when someone says something like it carries extra weight than on the on they say it on the street but the way language actually oh yeah the way transform and can actually yeah yeah yeah and people talk about the law yeah like the performance of the law the way the law performs again so it's like this is all going in yeah so so i got all hopped up on that stuff and um was excited and then you know then of course

there also was like this kind of like feminist readings of, of, you know, women and like comedy and how like stand up or like comedy kind of was this like, like women classically

were either like hyper-sexualized or hyper-desexualized. Right, right, right. But really, I mean, I just wanted to do stand up.

And so I kind of like, I was considering going for like, okay, I could go deeper into this world which is really like gratifying to me and you meet like really smart people and you would end up teaching yeah and like there was um yeah like the head of the department was this writer jose muñoz who's super brilliant who like passed away shortly after i graduated but and i was like heartbroken so into his work yeah yeah but like very into his, and I was like, Heartbroken. So into his work. Yeah, but like very into his work.

And it was like, oh yeah, that's like a world that like really feeds me in a certain way. But I also was like, oh, but this is not what my, what my, what my life to look at. Right, you'd have to, it'd have to be your life. I would write a book about, you know. His work. The fragment. I mean, I was like, you know. The fragment.

Yeah, like I was like, I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna spend the next 30 years navigating the limits of the fragment. And yeah, that'll do it. And which, you know, God bless. Could I had could I had fun? Yeah. But do you what part of your brain do you think that speaks to you? Do you think that that is an obsessive thing? But I am diagnosed OCD. Are you? Who isn't? I don't know. I don't know if I am know if i am i'm not compulsive just obsessive but yeah what do you mean like me because the dichotomy of of of like you know i i you know i find that stuff exciting and you were in it it seems deeper than me but there's a part of the brain that it seems like you've got the best of it to do what you want to do whereas like if you would have stayed in it you would have sacrificed some self i think absolutely i mean it's like it's an it's

an it's a humorless endeavor in certain ways sure and like there's also nothing more embarrassing than when when when something is like implicitly intellectual and it tries to be funny as a way to like appeal to the base senses or something it's like it's the it's the let's get the regular people yeah oh so like that wasn't gonna work but um and it's also like it's like the ted talk thing of like no that's not like it's it's the person on the stage being like i know what you're thinking and it's like you absolutely don't and get off the stage like it's very very, it's that. Take your dumb headset off and walk away. Yeah.

Or just be, do that. Just do the kind of unfragmented intellectual thing. That's when they try to be funny. Oh yeah, it sounds complicated, but let me walk you through it. Yeah. Yeah. Just be complicated.

Okay, so you decide to walk away from that to be funny. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I get it yeah I mean I I also like I was kind of inherently unfocused then or like I I yeah I was doing stand up like every night so I was like in school but I was doing stand up and so so it's weird because that's where you you get that that tension that I think is you know a lot of your voice yeah is that completely that there's some part of you that resents the fact that you didn't have the wherewithal to stick with it.

Yeah, yeah. Well, smart enough. No, but I had... I don't know if that's true. Are any of them? Yeah. It just becomes... Once you get your context

and you find the limitations of it, you can talk the bullshit all day long. Oh, it's an aesthetic that really... It's not like it's expansive. Again, you have the certain of it, you can talk the bullshit all day long. Oh, it's an aesthetic that really works. It's not like it's expansive. Again, you have the certain words, you choose them, and then you're safe. You have it.

But I will say, I mean, I make this clear. I tried to go to acting school, Mark. I was rejected. I was rejected from Tish. So that's where it started? So I wanted to go out of high school to acting school.

Okay. And no one would have me. Wow. My Laramie Project monologue didn didn't they didn't take a shine to it i i i did that i auditioned at yale and it was terrible but truly i'm like thank god yeah i really think that if i had gone to acting school what do you think would have happened it would have i i don't know It would not have been good. I really don't think so. So that was the first thing. And then you were like, well, fuck you.

I'm going to work on the fragment. Yeah, exactly. I don't need your training. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I still like sometimes I'm like, God, I would have loved to have like received some kind of acting training or something. You still haven't?

No, it's impossible because you go to the classes and it's hell. Yeah, I don't even know. I thought about doing it as a grown up and I'm like, is that really going to get me anything? You learned, you know,

really by doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, yeah. It's better. You're supposed to do and scene part. Do you watch Barry? I have never seen it.

You didn't watch Barry? No. That woman in that show is pretty great. She plays like an actress, actress. Yeah. And I've never seen it done so painfully well. watch barry no that woman and that show is pretty great she plays like an actress actress oh yeah and and i've never seen it done so painfully well oh my god yeah i mean i love you know it's taken me a long time to say this but i love actors and i think um but and i have um some of them are real

fucking weirdos oh yeah completely you know it's so much touching and all of this well just some of them are like like they've not unlike artists, you know, it's about the life that they live with the freedom that they're afforded because of the choices they made. I mean, when you look at musicians or artists, it's like, you just want to sit around all day and fucking, you know, like smoke weed and talk to your friend or play guitar or look at your dog. Yeah. And you can. There you go. I know, it's outrageous. There's the artist's life.

Yeah. So is that what you really want, the acting? I acted with you. You and I did scenes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was good. We've been in front of the camera. Yeah, me and you. I played your editor.

Yeah. I think it was, weren't you a publicist? I was a, oh, that's what it was. I was their publicist. Yes. On Swanberg's Easy. A publicist for the book. Yeah, yeah, that's what it was. I was their publicist on Swanberg's Easy. A publicist for the book. Yeah, yeah, for the book.

Yes, I do like acting. I want to act, sure. But I mean, like, I kind of abandoned that. Like, when I was getting to stand-up, I was like, no, no, that's, you know, what it is. So you just did stand-up for a decade or two? How long has it been? Yeah, I just had my, if you're counting the first time i'm 34 so my it was like my 17 year anniversary it's a long time the first time i did it really yeah so what is this how'd you meet this other guy john yeah so john because i don't know about the whole youtube life is well me neither i mean we've put a couple sketches on there what i thought that was a big blow-up youtube no okay i mean i guess i associate youtube blow-up with like no i don't i wouldn't say it was youtube because i like cutie pie yeah whoever it would we like um john early who was trained formally at acting school we did

not meet in school um but this is who this is your partner in the special we're talking about that's going to be on something yeah so we shot a one hour sketch special for Peacock. Peacock. Peacock, NBC's streaming service. Now, was it always supposed to be a one-off? No. So it was, we were about to shoot a sketch comedy pilot right when COVID took over and it died.

Like just like kind of got swept off. Did they tell you that it happened, that it died? A lot of times you don't even know. Yeah were like oh that's not gonna happen we're like in pre-production you didn't hear it was like oh no sweetie that's gone yeah yeah which like we actually we fucking worst business we shot a pilot years ago for hulu there was a narrative yeah john and i that um that also like died and it was kind of like getting the text like it's not moving forward right and john was like holding the boxes that he had been told to like bring to la because he should move you know yeah and um anyway so we haven't had anything that actually has had been able to be seen in you

know some years so yeah this is a sketch show it's a sketch show sorry it's not a show it's a it's a special yeah i see like okay so like i watch this like honestly if i if i hadn't watched your stand-up i uh after it i don't know what i how i would have been able to put it into some sort of perspective yeah for myself hey i want you to like my stand-up more i do okay great great yes but uh because i don't always understand what's happening yeah yeah sure like i because i'm not i'm not great at uh understanding the kind of like um uh whether it's anti-comedy or or uh or like like i i like i can appreciate things but like a lot of times i'm like what am i watching and what is happening yeah am i missing? I hope it's not anti-comedy. Yeah, I mean,

John and I, we met in New York and we just like became like instant sort of best friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was like an uncanny kind of shared language. Yeah.

And like similar references. Yeah. And yeah, we just became very close and yeah, we made videos. Like I feel like we're kind of still like

clinging on to this era of comedy that we came up which was like the sketch, the short, the like six minute video. Yeah, sure. And also, but weird shit too. Yeah. I mean, like, cause like a lot of times, like if I think like Tim and Eric, I understand Tim and Eric and I understand Tim Robinson and he makes me laugh. I get Eric Andre.

I get a lot of things. Yeah. But sometimes like, I can't help but think like, are they making fun of me? Am I a fucking idiot? Oh, no. No. Yeah. I mean, these are like some sketches or playing different characters.

There's sort of a- It's framed around this idea that you were once a comedy team. There's a through line that we're like the most famous comedians who ever lived. And we suffered a very public breaking up. Yeah. And now we're coming back together for this televised event hosted by Meredith Vieira. Yeah, who you dragged into this. Yeah, God bless her for saying yes, still a shock. Convinced

we're going to have to just hire someone to play an anchor. Did she have fun? Yes, she was so lovely and great. Isn't she weirdly professional? And you just look at her and you're like, oh, there's a, you know, she lives on television. And she's so, but she's're like, oh, there's that. She lives on television. But she's so warm. She doesn't have the kind of grating personality.

She's exactly who she is. And when you meet her in person, you're like, I don't even know if I'm supposed to be meeting this real person. Yeah. I was blown away by her. And she just elevates the whole thing because it makes it seem like suddenly real. Legit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Completely.

So the concept was you just, that was the framework. Because you were once a comedy team and you're going to, you guys are reuniting on Meredith Vieira's show. Yeah. And then you kind of fold in these other pieces. And then we just have random sketches just as an excuse to do like whatever characters we want. Yeah. Yeah. And tell me about, this is going to sound like whatever characters we want yeah yeah and tell me about this is like

gonna sound like morning radio douchebag yeah tell me about the um you know the evolution of the idea of paying for things with caramel yeah so uh there's a there's another joke in it folks where john and i uh it's imagining a world where hot caramel is money. So that's truly just a joke that John and I for years have done. Because restaurants are like, you know, we spend a lot, we love restaurants and we're very obsessed with like kind of the social performance of like paying and who pays and all of that that goes into that. So we used to have a joke of like, we would, one time we were at a restaurant and like, I think John asked the waiter, like, do you guys take hot caramel? Yeah. And like the guy was like, you know, and we were like, restaurant and like, I think John asked the waiter, like, do you guys take hot caramel? Yeah. And like the guy was like, you know,

and we were like, that made us laugh so hard. We were imagining like, what if we just to pay the check, we just poured caramel onto the bill. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Very stupid. And sure. Should have just died there. But, um, so we, now it's a running joke. So we were like,

we just kind of insisted. We're like, we're going to have, so there are a few different sketches in the special where characters are paying for bills with hot caramel. Well, I like the whole, like the, uh, the, uh're going to have, so there are a few different sketches in the special where characters are paying for bills with hot caramel. Well, I like the whole, I like the idea that you have to bring your little hot plate. Your little hot plate with you, yeah. That's funny.

Yeah. Because you do, like, there's all these different ways to pay now, you know? Yeah, and of course now, in retrospect, you know, we're like, oh, could that be read as some kind of scathing criticism of crypto or something? But we're like, no, it was truly just karma. But of course money is inherently abstract or something. So you do this with everything? You think along those lines where you deconstruct it? Abstract it to the point of impenetrability?

Yeah. I hope not. You know? Like when you write things, do you think, you know, think about how it's going to be received or how it's going to be broken down? Do you break it down? Sure. I mean, I'm, I'm working on a new show right now that is like not, it's a stage show.

It's a live show. So I guess I'm, I'm, I'm preventing myself from saying one woman show, but it's not my standup, but it is me on stage alone. But it's like, it's, It's, oh God, yeah. How is it different? What are you gonna do? Are you gonna talk about yourself? Yeah, you'll see.

I mean, it's like, yeah, I mean, it's something that I'm taking to New York in the fall that. You're writing it now? Yeah, I've been working it out every, like a lot at the Elysian down here on Riverside. And. What is that, do you just rent the space? No, it's like a lot at the Elysian down here on Riverside. And, um. What is that? Do you just rent the space?

No, it's like a show. It's a show. So I've been doing like a million shows there trying to figure it out. And it has like changed a lot. It's been very useful. I mean, of course. Like doing what? In 15, 20 minute chunks or what?

Hour. Are you, oh, so you're just really working out. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it's much more constructed than, it really like isn't my standup. It's, um, it's more like-up. It's more actorly. It's kind of about me or this version of myself putting on this show, but the show's not really working. I'm realizing it's sort of about failure.

Help me. Yeah, it sounds so pretentious. It's kind of about the aesthetics of failure. The aesthetics of failure? Yeah, but it's also not that. I'm just using language to make it sound like something. Are you putting something together to protect yourself from the possibility of your own failure of actually being seen yeah i'm just trying to evade actually being revealed again oh yeah don't you dare look

is that the whole uh that's the whole thing i think that there is a thing in this show about um where i'm talking about how I'm going to reveal something and talking about something and kind of like setting the stages as to something new and more vulnerable. And then? Of course, I have no trauma to mine. And so, you know, I'm left with that.

I'm left with my degrees. Do you not have any trauma to mine? They're all lowercase t, which are still t's. What if you put them all together it's a big t yeah yeah absolutely the string of little t's the little ones can put you know they they're still weight there so do you oh so do you because i you mentioned that in the stand-up too that that you don't feel entitled to talk about your trauma in a way that defines you for reasons that you don't really like that

shit anyways but also your trauma is not big enough yeah i mean i think like i typically don't talk about myself in my stand-up like i never like autobiography like i'm in there it's me talking like i've always i always struggle with that it's like well it's me and I'm there so it's gonna be inherently about me but I didn't speak explicitly about my life or the details of my life and part of that also

but there's a lot of comics that do that of course of course like most of them yeah yeah yeah I mean general maybe this generation not so much

yeah it seems to be turning now I mean I was always sort of autobiographical but now it seems like it's such a righteous thing to do. And it's like, is it? Yeah. You feel like there's a turn back to autobiographies?

No, I don't think that it was ever that. Like, if there's a turn back to anything, it's a turn back to what was bad about the one-person show movement. Yeah, yeah. I don't know where we are now. No, I think there's a whole side where there's a very defined kind of, uh, uh,

you know, almost, um, sort of group think fascistic, uh, tribalized comedy that, that is, you know,

found its footing in a bad way in terms of what it represents culturally. And then on the other side of that, in a bad way in terms of what it represents culturally. And then on the other side of that, there's just a lot of people sort of like, there's no unified voice, there's no unified front against what is becoming the bullying of anything different. No, there's definitely, yeah, now the sort of goal seems to be like over-identification or to kind of like make yourself politically legible instantly.

So people can recognize like, I'm like you, or I'm not like you. And everyone's kind of, of course, divided into their little groups so they can be more easily marketed to on Instagram. So it's like,

there is this like death of the monoculture in this way, which I think also is sort of like John and I, like there is something like, I love working alone, but I love also is sort of like John and I, like there is something like I love working alone, but I love also having like a duo, like something about that thing for us is sort of romantic and harkens to this like other time. Yeah.

And this sort of fantasy of like, like universe, like this, this myth of like the universal culture or something that would be like universally adored or loved. Yeah. Like that's a fantasy that we kind of play with at the beginning of the special.

It used to be that way. Yeah. Like there's something like, and now, you know, that's unimaginable. It's weird. And it's happened very quickly, really. Oh, yeah. And everything is, I don't want to use the word fragmented because you already used it. I might not be using it.

Use it. I might not be using it correctly. correctly but it does seem that everybody finds their own pocket and that the idea of community or collective is is limited right oh yeah well it's like hyper individual yeah and it's it's odd because like what you do like as a stand-up it's stand-up it's like you know it's like sarah silverman sarah doesn't volunteer much about her life as a stand-up. It's jokes. Totally. And she's doing a thing. She has a character up there.

I mean, you were asking earlier things that I loved. It's like, well, Jesus' magic changed my life fundamentally. Because you can find a pocket like that where you don't have to hurt yourself to do comedy in a way. Yeah, it's really because even when i think about it makes me feel like instantly sort of like senile or something i'm like when i was starting like it's amazing just even in the last 10 years of course or i think about as we were talking about earlier like doing these horrifying open mics in the basement at maui taco it's like that is already like an antiquated history.

Like that is no longer how people are. There's no. Well, that's what that's what I'm kind of talking about is that the entire sort of infrastructure of alternative comedy collapsed. Yeah. And nothing came out of it. Yeah. Really? Yeah.

And, you know, like Kumail's wearing superhero outfits and, you know, and Jonah is doing MST 3000, you know, like but like there's on the other side there's a very sort of unified weird cultural phenomenon around bully comedy and anti woke bullshit yeah but over here in this world it's just a bunch of like strangely self-involved people wandering around uh and showing up on stages and then bo burnham says let's go in here with a camera yeah yeah I don't know. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, though. But what's interesting about you, though,

in the idea that you're not showing yourself, but in the same way that Shapiro, like whatever the fuck Shapiro was, he was honest. Yeah. And I don't think you're being dishonest. Thank you. And I think that think you're being dishonest. And whatever you get. And I think that, you know, despite your unwillingness to address authenticity or vulnerability, that the way your brain works and what you are in the moment of improvising in those moments that you actually have in real time, which you're kind of addicted to, you know, mean something.

And they are revealing. It's just it's a type of comedy. But I don't think it's, cause Rick, you know, Rick was out of his fucking mind. But on purpose. Yeah. Cause like, you know, when he turned it off, he's like, you know, he's just this, you know,

mumbling little Jewish guy. Yeah. But when he was broken open, you know, where all the possibilities could happen and all the voices could come, I mean, that's real shit. shit yeah so what i'm saying is you're being realer than you think thank you i'm i'm truly moved by the rick shapiro um comparison or that that that came up for you i love that i mean yes i would agree also that like i see i think performance or doing like there is an inherent vulnerability or attempt like of course so naked it's like i'm like please like you know it's it's so naked so of course i'm like utterly exposed in

a way or yeah and i want to feel yeah like i want to i would you know the performers i love like there's like a generosity or something like i always want people to be let in i don't want to shut anyone out yeah and you i think you leave room like i you know i write everything that i do on stage it all starts up there in conversation and improvising but there's something about that that like like you're not like whatever you repeat you know there's no order to it necessarily and you know they're just old things you know they're things that come up to spark other things but but i i think that that doing think that doing it that way, it's alive for us. And a lot of people don't really do it that way because it's sort of like, here's the act.

Yeah. But I feel that when you live in the present on stage and not just in a manipulative way, it is something unique. Does that make sense? I hope so, yes. I mean, I think that... How much of what you did with John is improvised? A lot. Like in the special, yeah, a lot.

I mean, we always have a plan or something, but a lot of it ends up staying or being our favorite things often. I like the sitcom stuff. Yeah, thanks, yeah. I like that stuff. I like the whole look of it and the weirdness of it. It's ridiculous. Yeah. I like that stuff. I like the whole look of it and the weirdness of it.

It's ridiculous. Yeah. But I love what you're saying about like it being, I think like this new show I'm working on is sort of like, I'm, I feel myself insisting on like the importance of like live performance or like being in the room. Like I'm still like, that really is like, sorry to use this word but sacred to me yeah in this way where there can be an anxiety that comes in of course of like you know should i be like making these videos or trying to reach more people or doing this like but that anxiety for me never

thank god fully takes hold like i didn't um because i know i i have to believe that it really is valuable to like make a make a show that's for an hour or entertain people for an hour in the room like i i think that is like important yeah it's theater and yeah it's performative yeah i mean i just had a conversation this morning where i i'm 58 and i'm like should do i need to be on tiktok oh my god yeah i've said that twice in three days what do they say to you yeah they're like i don't know it's for like 20 year olds but like for promotion like they would like me i'm a weird old man and they're you know i mean tiktok yeah like i i have people who i hear about tiktok through or something but then there are these things that make me optimistic like

apparently right now like portlandia is huge on tiktok these like 12 year olds and 13 year olds are discovering it because you can chop up the sketches into TikTok. So it's like, I do feel like things are persistent. Things will persist. Yeah. Like are funny. There's a life to it.

Yeah. But oh my God. Yeah. You can't bother yourself. I'm exhausted already. You don't need to. I'm not going to release. Yeah.

Release yourself. I do my Instagram live. Sometimes I'll do hour and a half long Instagram lives and people will watch them like full movies yeah i don't care oh my god i started doing it during the pandemic and i've built this weird following of aggravated middle-aged women who come to my shows just from sitting with me during the pandemic when i'm on my porch it's intimate i yeah some of the instagram lives i've done i did a few of those in pandemic as well how'd they go it's fun i mean it's it's it feels good it's like something it feels it was to help me connect and realize to be in audience brain yeah you know like

i'm doing a thing for people you know because in the pandemic that wasn't happening it was gone yeah so it helped me a lot and people but yeah people were very grateful for it totally all right so now during this talk uh did i uh was talk, did I offend you or insult you? Yeah, that was really hard. Which part? You really, really, yeah. Was I condescending and old-minded in any way? I'm going to need an incident report, and I'm going to file it with SAG, like, my initial reaction to, you know, to, like,

again, like, once I saw the stand-up, I'm like, oh, she's a stand-up. Yeah. And once I watched the sketch, I'm like, I'm not sure I understand what's happening. Yeah, yeah. But now I understand what's happening, and, you know, I didn't want to be rude or be old guy. No, that did not happen. Absolutely not.

I didn't want to old guy you in the comedian way. No, no, we talked about the lose and we talked about Rick Shapiro. It was nice talking to you. Very nice. Thank you for having me, Mark. Truly.

And colonics. We talked about that. Oh my God, I know. We really went far. We did. All right. Kate Berlant, that was a good talk. I enjoyed that.

I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what to make of her. And now I know. Okay, no music today. Okay? Just some sighs. Sighs. Sighs.

Boomer lives. Monkey Lafonda. size boomer lives monkey Lafonda cat angels everywhere Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category,

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