WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1366 - Bradley Whitford

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

Since the last time he was on WTF, Bradley Whitford spent a lot of time listening to the show while taking walks. So he’s primed and ready to take his ongoing one-sided conversation with Marc back to the garage and turn it into a dialogue. Bradley and Marc talk about aging, Quakerism, having grown children, their changing perceptions about acting, and Gene Hackman. Also, as the fifth season of The Handmaid’s Tale gets underway, they confront the ongoing threats to democracy that make the show’s narrative too close to reality. 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.

It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those, too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing.

With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. What the fuck, Knicks? What the fuck, buddies? What's happening? I'm Marc Maron. This is my podcast. How are you?

I should tell you that Bradley Whitford is on the show again. All right. He he was on back in 2018 on episode 909. And ever since then, we'd always heard that he wanted to come back on the show anytime we would have him. So turns out he's out there doing promotions for the new season of Handmaid's Tale on Hulu. And it seemed like a good time to do it. Like, what does he want? What did we leave unsaid? Me and Mr. Whitford.

As some of you can see and know from this show, we are doing second interviews sometimes now. We are having repeat guests more so now not for just shorties but for for for you know big talks if there's a conversation to continue having i'll have it also there's a new batch of handmade wtf cat mugs they go on sale today and it's the only time you can get them unless you're a guest on the show. These are hand-thrown mugs made by Brian Jones with artwork by our friend Dima and you can get them today starting at noon eastern at brianrjones.com slash shop. These I believe are the new Buster and Sammy mugs. I believe we've moved beyond the original crew.

These ones do not have my face on them. These are specifically Buster and Sammy Mugs. The old ones had Boomer and Monkey and La Fonda and me. And I think these are a little more colorful. And I believe they just have the two new guys. But now there's another new guy. I got another. Charlie Beans Roscoe, as some of you have been following along, is in the house.

And I got to be honest with you, he's a little fucker. This cat's about two months old, I'd say, and change. And just out of his mind. Sammy was a little, always seemed a bit nervous when he was a kitten. Sammy did. I had a look of profound worry on his face almost all the time. Yeah, I mean, he was a kitten, but he was, he very easily, like Buster just turned that guy out. Yeah, I don't know what Sammy could have been without Buster, but Buster definitely, they now have a fairly, I think, consensual and inappropriate gay BDSM relationship. I think that Sammy's definitely a submissive,

and Buster is dominant, and they're adult cats, and they do their thing. But I don't know how Sammy wouldissive and Buster is dominant and you know they're they're adult cats and they do their thing but I don't know how Sammy would have been without Buster but Sammy pretty much locked into the submissive role pretty quickly but Buster beat the shit out of him I mean not beat him up it would get him down like pin him with his mouth on his throat I mean it was terrible to watch but eventually you know Sammy just kind of took it, you know, kind of like, well, this is my lot in life. I'm going to be a submissive to this monster, buster monster. But, you know, Sammy's OK. I mean, he didn't turn out to be the most affectionate cat.

It's a weird thing with cats. I mean, he's a cat cat. He's not a people cat. He's nice. But I don't know what the fuck he wants. I don't know what Sammy wants. I don't know how he doesn't want to be held. doesn't want to be picked up okay i've had plenty of cats that don't like that that's fine he doesn't really like being pet that much i just don't know what he

wants and it's you don't know what you're gonna get with a cat and you hope for the best if you get a kitten you're like this is an amazing kitten what an amazing cat this cat's a genius it might even be an alien and then they get to be a year old and they're like just a fat boar this cat doesn't do much and i guess i'm i'm into it i'm locked in for 15 to 20 years on this with this cat that just apparently he's going to get kind of fat and i'm not going to know what he wants from me, if anything. So that's where Sam landed. I mean, look, I love the guy. In the morning, he'll sit on my chest and he'll purr a little bit and I'll pet him.

And then, you know, he'll just sit there and look at me. And I'll pet him and he'll, you know, get uncomfortable and leave. But that is the most, it only happens in the morning. And that's when the affection happens. Buster, on the other hand, has gotten more affectionate and they're both getting big. Because when I'm home all the time, I'll just let him eat all day. So Sammy's getting fat

and Buster's getting lean and just bulky, like tough. And Buster's a very congenial, weird cat, kind of a genius, remained a genius, still quirky, interesting, engaged, and not particularly, sometimes he'll surprise you. So these are my cats. These are my guys. And I've got the catio out there, which means I've got coyotes literally sleeping in my yard because they think it's the coyote a coyote the coyote version of a lobster tank they think that at some point they'll just be able to to pick which one they

want and i'll prepare it for them i'll just throw it out front here you go three cats again three cats so i'm heading to tucson tomorrow and I'm heading to Phoenix on Saturday. Looking forward to those shows. I like Arizona. I have history in Arizona. A lot of history in Arizona. My brother lived there for years. My first ex-wife is from there.

And I guess my old man's coming out my my my dad's wife is driving my father out to see the show in Phoenix and we'll see how much of that he retains we'll see if he knows who I am we'll see where we're at with that process but uh that'll be it'll be good to see him. Be good to see the old guy and watch me do material about him. Used to enjoy that. Hopefully that'll still be the case. And yeah, and I've got a bunch of other dates coming up, but that's what's going on. I don't know what's going on with Hertz. What the fuck is going on with Hertz car rental? How come I can never rent a car with Hertz anymore? Not that I care. I mean, I guess, but I was always a Hertz guy. It's the problem with corporate loyalty.

I just, every time I try to get a fucking Hertz, they don't have cars available for me. And I thought it was because like, I would usually pick them up one place, bring them another place. And I understand why that's not easy to do anymore because of supply chain issues and the inability to buy

new cars. But I don't know what happened to Hertz. And I take it personally. I mean, after a certain point, here's the fucked up thing about dumb loyalty to corporate entities is that you assume there's some sort of payoff that that loyalty will be rewarded. Sometimes it is frequent flyer miles that works out. Sometimes I need to fuck. I need to fuck i need to take a trip with those but this hurts is not helping me at all and i've been with them for years and years and i've used them consistently and now i can't i can barely get a car anywhere and i'm over a budget which for some reason feels like not as good but i don't i'm not even sure

anymore i think they're all the fucking same. All right, look. Bradley Whitford is an actor. He can do comedy. He can do drama. He's an oddball. I like him. The new season of The Handmaid's Tale is streaming on Hulu with two episodes up now and new episodes every Wednesday. And this is me talking to Bradley again.

We get into the Quaker thing. Here we go. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed,

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

FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart

is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun. A new original series streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. You do need to talk into the mic so you want to move that in front of your face you know how to do it don't you do it have you done animated uh yeah yeah yeah i've done some

of those like what god what are they i forget the name i know you don't even register it because you're like where do i gotta go bur go? Burbank? Where do I go? Three hours? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it again? It's a mouse? Okay. You do a lot of silly stuff.

Did you ever do voiceovers? For commercials? No, I don't. But I've done some big animated movies lately. Right. I was in Bad Guys. Oh. I was the snake.

Mr. Snake with Rockwell. Me and Rockwell were the leads. He's just doing Rockwell voice. I'm going, I'm going like this! You're doing a thing. He's just doing Sam. I love those people who can just be themselves.

That seems to be one way to do it. It seems that a lot of people get hired for that. Or do one sort of thing. You ever work with those real animated guys? Oh, yeah. They're incredible. They're amazing.

Yeah. And they're just odd, and they go right into it. But it's a weird, like, my wife, Amy Landecker, she did nothing but voiceovers in Chicago before she did- Oh, from Transparent? I just saw her in something else. Did I just see her in a movie? What did you see her in?

Power? Serious Man? No. I know. She was great in Serious Man, but I thought I just saw her in something else. Did I just see her in a movie? What did you see her in? Power? Serious Man? I know she was great in Serious Man, but I thought I just saw her in something new. But maybe it wasn't new. I hadn't seen Serious Man until recently. She's a neighbor. Oh, my God. She's a neighbor on the-

I am every Jewish dude's dream. Yeah. I'm married to her. Yeah. Well, she was great in that. But that's a great movie. Oh, it's a great movie. It's a great Jew movie, if you're a Jew.

But you're not a Jew. What are you? I'm Jew adjacent. What does that mean? You're an actor? No. I played Jews on TV. But what did you grow up with?

What did I grow up with? Yeah, like religion-wise. Oh, Quaker. What? Yeah. Really? Yeah. I'll love you till you change, man.

Quaker? Yeah. Do you make the furniture? No. No, those are shakers. Really? Yeah. I'll love you till you change, man. Quaker? Yeah. Do you make the furniture? No. No, those are shakers. Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not the Pennsylvania Dutch.

They're not Mennonites? No, no. It's a different thing. It's basically- Amish? It's not Amish? No, it's not Amish. It's not Amish.

I spent my life saying that. It's not Amish. I spent my life saying that. It's not Amish. You know why I make the association, weirdly? It's because of the Quaker Oats box. I'm like, that must be it. Right. That guy. Right.

Is it that guy? Is it the Quaker Oats guy? Is he the guy that started it? God, that makes me think of Wilford Brimley. Yes. Did you work with that guy? I did. Really?

I did. And what? Brimley. Yes. Did you work with that guy? I did. Really? I did.

In what? My fellow Americans. Was he good? He was one of the, I don't think I'm, he passed away. Yeah. He was tough. He was one of those guys, and he was like the Quaker Oats guy. So you're expecting, you know. Very earnest.

Yeah. He made you feel like, you know, he made me eat Quaker Oats. The idea that like, this is good for your heart, which is bullshit. Is it? Yeah. Oats aren't good for your heart? Not really. I mean, it's as good as any fiber and there's better fiber.

I mean, you know, oats is a carbohydrate. In the big picture, whatever causes causes inflammation not great for the heart he was so sweet and kind of cuddly in those ads and then man don't try and direct them doesn't take any shit huh uh yeah yeah what am i thinking of what he was in the firm yeah he was in the very great actor that was great in the firm great actor when's the last in The Firm. Great actor. When was the last time you watched that movie? It's a pretty good movie. Long time ago.

The Firm. Yeah, what year was that? I don't know. It was Tom Cruise. Everyone was in it, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gene Triplehorn. Gene Triplehorn.

The other guy from the Chicago crew, Terry, Terry Kenny, is that his name? Terry Kenny. Yeah, he's great. From Steppenwolf. Yeah, great actor. Yeah, Brimley's in it. I always make the joke. Hackman. Hackman. Hack. Yeah, great actor. Yeah, Brimley's in it. I always make the joke. Hackman.

Hackman. Hackman. Nobody's better. Nobody's better. Nobody's better. The greatest moment of my, one of the greatest moments, this is a name drop. Yeah. But we've already dropped it.

But I was doing a play in New York. Yeah. And I took a shower and there's a knock on the door and it's gene hackman yeah he wanted to get in the shower yeah he wanted to get in the shower with me and i said it's i think you're great this is totally awkward but wilford brimley i always use as a joke because i don't know if you feel this way but i feel like there's no segue between being like i feel like i was like a young actor starting out. Yeah.

And then now I'm Wilford fucking Brimley. Not quite. Getting there. Yeah. Could play him. Maybe. Older than he was in Cocoon. Really?

Yeah. By the way, you're always talking about, like, it's hard because I walk a lot and I listen to your show a lot. So you're in my ear. Is this a boomer problem? No. All right. Yeah. No, but you're always talking.

Like you're worried about aging and everything. And I just want to say on behalf of everyone who's older than you, it's depressing to hear someone younger than me, you know, bemoaning the aging process. Am I bemoaning the age am i bemoaning it i think i'm trying to accept it preemptively because i find that there's not a lot of grace in most people aging you know especially in this town oh yeah and and i grow up with a very vain mother who is now being uh you know just trampled by age and has nothing in place to to deal with it with any humility. And it humiliates her and freaks her out. Totally. Yeah.

So I think I'm just trying to get ahead of it in the sense that- Preemptively accept it, deal with it up front. I'm not afraid of it and I'm not bemoaning it and I don't feel old, but I don't- My big problem right now is I thought like, I don't, there wasn't, I thought we were trying to work towards not working. So there, there's part of me that, that thinks like, well, I'm good. I got enough money saved and stuff.

Maybe I should start thinking about like what I would do with some peace of mind in another country to enjoy what's left of this world. I think he'd go nuts. Yeah. That's what people say. But I don't know if that's true. I don't know. I know a lot of people say that, but I don't know many people have tried it. And I know some people who retired that the story is like he retired and then he died.

Right. But like we both live and have worked in professions where we have more free time than most people, sometimes for months. Right. I don't not enjoy it. During COVID, I was like, hey, I'm okay not working as long as everyone else is not working. Right, right. That's what reassured.

That's what finally calmed everyone down. It's like, actually, this is not bad if nobody else is. Yeah, as long as the race has been called off for for everyone pathetic it really is pathetic now i i think about this first of all the reassuring thing about aging is you know it always ends well it always ends yeah no but it's weird because I had a mom who the happiest time in her life, truly. Yeah. And you wouldn't have thought this would be the case with her if you met her when she was in her 40s. But the happiest time of her life was 65 on.

Yeah. Which was incredible until the last two years. Where was your dad? He was around for a big chunk of it. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Did he? Was there relief when my dad passed?

Yeah. Yeah, because his health had been failing and it was- Enough already? It was difficult. It was really funny because she was in her mid-80s, and my mom was born in 1914. She would be like 108. So she was in her 80s, and all these guys, like some guy who lived in the building, stuck his tongue down her throat.

All these old widowers. Where was this, Florida? No, in Philadelphia. You left her in Philly? Yeah. You monster. It was cruel. Sorry, my phone's ringing.

But all these- They're crazy. The old people, they're fucking, they're going nuts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the men of that generation, they wanted a wife. And she's like, I'm done. Why would you sign up for that? I barely understand why you signed up for it.

I've been married twice. I got no kids. And I don't understand the marriage thing. I understand it, but I don't feel like I need to do it. Well, then you shouldn't. You shouldn't. So wait, the quaker thing yes how'd you how do they handle death quakers well my parents like all my mom wanted in her obituary

was proud atheist uh being a quaker she didn't want some as she put it goddamn man in a costume telling me what to believe okay um the quaker oats guy yeah yeah yeah there's no minister there's no priest there's no rabbi in quaker in quaker meeting it's basically a meditation i kind of knew this um it's a very it's like a group meditation and quaking is standing up and uh talking and it was a place for progressives who didn't want a traditional organized religion. So is it Jesus based? It's Jesus based, but the Jesus stuff was not pushed on me. The sort of non-denominational fundamental values of Jesus was the point. So they put a premium on the wisdom and not the mythology.

You know, was Jesus a great guy? Yeah. Could we all aspire to that moral development? Yeah. Of course. Son of God? No more than a bush. Coming back? Coming back no no in fact my mom my mom would say

what pissed her off about organized religion uh uh were these uh she called them like spiritual party tricks uh like if like if you need like someone to do a magic trick yeah if you can't look at a flower or look into your cat's eyes and know there's a God that you'll never understand, there's no hope for you. Right. She worshipped the Reformed Jews. And we were in the Midwest at that point. I've heard you talk in the show about there was like one guy in my high school who was Jewish. 4,000 people in the high school. and what time i did in madison really and i didn't encounter like hearing someone

say something anti-semitic until i went to college in the east yeah um yeah it was it was interesting huh so wait so uh no anti-semites the one Jew. I guess they didn't feel threatened. Yeah, we had him cornered. There was an understanding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He understood that Fridays is the Jew bathing and, you know, there was no reason. But your mom worshipped Reform Judaism? In a way that would make your skin crawl, Jewish people were, you know, their families were strong and they were great storytellers. Yeah. Funny people, but a little stingy with money.

No, that never came up. It was right at the edge of stereotype. Right, right, right, right. It got right up there. Oh, I always scare people. Can I tell a Jewish joke? Yeah. I like jokes.

You may know this. Guy in the Jewish resistance, World War II, do you know this? He gets the information that Hitler's going to cross the bridge at 8 o'clock. So he wires up the – these two guys wire up the bridge. They get down in the bushes. 8 o'clock, no Hitler. 8.15 the bushes, 8 o'clock, no Hitler. Yeah. 8.15, no Hitler.

8.30, no Hitler. 8.45, one throws the other and goes, oh my God, I hope he's all right. It's a sweet joke. Yeah, it is. It is. I like it. I like it.

I like those Jewish jokes. The best one, the one I tell a lot, just because of my father, is the one about the guy goes to see the doctor. He has some good news and bad news. He wants the bad news and the good news first. He's like, well, give me the bad news. You have cancer. What's the good news? Did you see that receptionist up front?

I'm back. Oh, yeah. It's a solid joke. It's solid. So, well, then Quakerism is a good one. That's a good one to be brought up in. They're absolutely great people. There's a wonderful All Saints Church, which is a place that does a lot of progressive political stuff.

Yeah. Here? Yeah. And you're involved with it? In Pasadena. Pasadena. Yeah, I Yeah. Here? Yeah. And you're involved with it? In Pasadena. Pasadena. Yeah, I have been over the years. And you have kids, right?

I do. I have. In fact, this morning, I took my sweet, my baby, she had her wisdom teeth out. How old? She's 19. All of them? Four? All four.

Oh, my God. All four. No, she's all fucked up yeah yeah yeah yeah she's on the couch yeah yeah yeah bloody puppy yeah it's the worst all four yeah yeah oh my god yeah but she's good and then i have uh a son uh who's 22 and my daughter's uh 24 they're in uh school and out of school? Out of school. In life? Yeah.

Doing okay? Relationships? Yeah, they're good. How's that feel? The relationships? Well, first of all, they make me very, very happy. They're in these kind of long relationships. And I love all the people they're in these kind of long uh relationships um and i love all the people they're with as a parent you can't win because you're worried yeah if they're alone and you're worried if they're

with someone because horrible things happen but they're uh they're with really good but they made it but they made it uh through the i mean they're grown-ups now yeah i mean i imagine the real fear is when they're like 16 and they're going out with the 19-year-old who, you know, that kind of shit. Yeah, yeah. And they, you know, kind of wobble on the skates and, you know, they go through stupid shit. You went through all that? Did I? With them.

Oh. As a father? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, a little bit. Regular stuff? Yeah.

It was pretty. I guess it's something. I just don't have them, so I don't know, but I bit. Regular stuff? Yeah, it was pretty. I guess it's something, I just don't have them, so I don't know, but I imagine everybody goes through it. It was pretty regular. I was scared because a lot of weird, I went through a lot of weird shit. When you were in high school? Yeah. Like what kind? Wow, this is weird.

I went through, in retrospect, dude, I went through some weird shit that I don't know that I talk about you know with but like I didn't frame it that way you know with women that were way too old oh yeah in high school

like that where it was just I wasn't I was consenting but I was still young were they teaching they weren't teachers

at the school no but they they were teaching right I was trying to learn something you were trying to learn that I they were teaching right I was trying to learn something you were trying to that's why I was there I was trying to learn so I mean literally a teacher's pet yeah but but in in retrospect I don't know what I maybe yeah I wasn't 18 but like

I don't mind it I'm not critical of it right I thought it was it was fine for me it didn't go well you know it didn't it wasn't you know it wasn't like wow thank you for changing my life you know it didn't add anything good to my life but i don't i don't was it dangerous no no were they married maybe maybe hard to know yeah in between things i'm almost not married uh this is weird uh this is a weird thing to talk about um that happened to me yeah i've never talked about this to anybody oh no no anybody who knows me oh yeah yeah this oh the shrink knows it oh yeah um but i i had a really funny thought about this the other day. Can you block something out if I say that? Yeah.

That's the phone number. Yeah. Of my sixth grade teacher who... Molested you? Yeah. Fucked you. No, I wouldn't call it that. Yeah, did something? Yeah. Man, woman? Woman.

And it was always this kind of Sixth grade, that's young. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And this may sound weird but i um i've always like you've talked to mel i i was reading mel brooks yeah thing and yeah the book yeah and he was talking about how uh you know how lucky he feels that everybody in show business is kind of neurotic, comes from some dark, fucked up place. And that he came from this really loving family and that he just wanted to sort of continue the love. That's what propelled him into show business.

Sure. And I always felt that way because I feel very lucky in my family, which was very secure. I was the last kid. It was a very happy time. But I realized that I had a moment in seventh grade, which was after sixth grade, after I left this place where this very weird, dark thing happened. And I had gotten weirdly depressed in a way um i was not that kid but i became severely and from the event from the event it was one thing one time no it was an ongoing that's how you know the number uh what do you mean you knew her phone number oh yeah

so it was ongoing oh yeah it was ongoing there were letters, and it was very confusing. Wow. Very, very, very, very confusing. Anyway, I had a moment that was sort of an epiphany where I sort of fell in love with acting. Yeah. Which I always thought was kind of unsullied. Yeah. Like it was this uh and it was right

after that huh and i was been thinking about this lately because like i feel like oh fuck somebody pointed that out that it was like right after this thing and maybe it was this sort of just kind of shallow joy of of escape i always articulated it like i had a moment with acting where it felt like it was the only integrated activity like when i played sports i have to turn off my head and my heart when i uh when i'm reading a book i have to turn off my body and there's something I love about acting because it's like when it's working, which is rare, it feels completely sort of integrated. And just recently, I've been thinking about this, and I'm like, am I doing this for the right reason?

Well, I like how you framed it that, you know, that acting. You said that the reason could be because it was shallow. But the first thing I thought was like, it could be PTSD. Yeah, that's, well, that pisses me off. Trauma-based, not sort of like, well, did I just get into it because my teacher molested me? You're like, that's shallow. No, but it could be like the escape of the feelings or trying to be somebody else interesting like whatever you back good use of of whatever well

i think what's more interesting is that in you know as your personal narrative grew you know you know your your seventh grade epiphany was some sort of like you know cathartic kind of like this is what's going to integrate all my creativity. Yeah. And I was just like a fucked up kid who's like teacher grabbed his dick. Yeah. It's fucking off. It's just not as good a story.

It's not as inspiring. I think it's pretty good. You got to change your public narrative. Oh, my God. When you do your master class. How to be an actor. You really want to be an actor? No, but it really upsets me because I was telling this to somebody a long time ago, this story.

And they're like, oh, well that's like kind of exactly they said how did it make you feel and i said it it gave me like a weird awareness of connections people make that that cross boundaries it it gave me inappropriately yes it it gave me a kind of confidence because an adult was responding to me but there was this really fucked up mess underneath it yeah i mean this guy and this guy said well that's exactly what your acting is it's kind of confident with all this fucked up shit happening and i'm like it's reaffirming the new narrative yeah i'm like well fuck i thought i was good at this well you were you went you you you went to to juilliard to manage it to you know to polish it to polish it up to polish your polish my turd your trauma your trauma gym your trauma

turd professional trauma turd i uh it's not a drama turd no it's not it's trauma turd. Professional trauma turd. It's not a drama turd. No, it's not. It's a trauma turd. It's a trauma turd. No, but we're making light of something that is serious, and I don't want to be insensitive. You were sexually assaulted by an adult in sixth grade, and it doesn't matter what sex one is or what they are. It's still inappropriate, and It fucks your head up.

Yeah. It strikes you, you know, it kind of strikes you dumb. What happened? Was there, was there reprisals? There, it turned out this person had a problem and had a history of it. Oh yeah? a history of it. Oh, yeah?

I ended up going away. But it was very, very weird. You know, for a... You know, it was very confusing for my parents. You told them? Or how did that work? No, they could tell something was, you know, something was really weird, but it seems like. So you were like showing this signs and symptoms of somebody who had been molested and felt shame. Yeah.

And I didn't know what I remember. I was in, you know, I was in grade yeah and it was like i wasn't it was like spring break or something i wasn't going to see this person and i remember turning to my brother and going aren't you aren't you depressed like it was like depression with weather right all right it was like aren't we all depressed don't you don't you feel that? You know, and I was lovesick for this. Oh, so you were. I was aching for this person. I didn't know what it was.

You were in it emotionally, too. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was like a real thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, and apparently it's something that, you know, apparently sixth grade boys, you know. That's the time? Yeah, I guess.

That's when it happens? How old are you in sixth grade? 12, 13 that's the time yeah i guess that's when it happens how old are you in sixth grade uh 12 13 i don't know 12 yeah right when it's all happening freaky yeah wow dude so but but thank god yeah because now you have a great career because you work a lot yeah now i wear makeup for a living so it's great it's great it all worked well what happened to that lady i have no idea yeah you don't ever try to call the number you remembered um i feel like i'm still making jokes i apologize no no no no no it's okay she's probably gone oh yeah dead you think yeah hmm but she did get in trouble a little bit yeah you know that people don't know how to you know what's you know what is a big problem with this shit is you're aware as a kid

you can't articulate it but you're aware that you will that you live in a world controlled by adults and this any discussion of this will explode that world and that's why interesting it's such a you do know that sick yes and and you don't even have the words to talk about it doesn't matter if your parents are going are you okay what's going on um i understand like i understand why you know and this was not i i don't want to say like this was not ongoing you know um uh you know rape or anything anything like that but it but it kind of was yeah it was fucked up um i totally understand how people go through much worse versions of this and are unable to talk about it because then you know it's a whole that's true i never thought about that like now you're seeing now on top of getting fucked with you have to clean up the fucking mess.

Or start the fucking mess. Right, right. So it's not just shame. It's shattering your entire reality in a way. And also being seen completely differently as a victim. Yeah. And you can't talk. You cannot talk about it. You don And you can't talk. Like, you literally, you cannot talk.

Like, you can't talk about it. You don't know how to talk. Like, it was funny because I never, that particular thing I never really thought about. I was going to Juilliard, and I thought, I was going into this, it was the first time I ever talked to a shrink. And I thought I was going to talk about how my relationships were crazy. And I really wanted to a shrink and I thought I was going to talk about how my relationships were crazy and I really wanted to be a writer and instead I just this fucking thing came out of my mouth this thing that happened and I realized

that it was just sort of living under there yeah and do you feel in general that you've processed it now no no I'm just like hacking through the jungle with a dull machete like everybody else. Still? Yeah.

No, no, I'm fine. No, I get it. I'm fine. But it takes a while to like sort it out. And I also think as you get older, you know, and these, the one thing I've noticed about it, older you you know and these the one thing i've noticed about it you know having dealt with with some loss and also dealing with you know just this getting older thing is that these random sort of like moments or or even longer than moments of of emotion just happen yes and and you're just sitting in it it doesn't feel like

erratic or out of nowhere but there's a heavy there's almost like a well of sadness that has had enough it's like you're all filled up now some of this

comes squirting out occasionally and in those moments you have to be like what is this connected to and and and you find those things right you find these weird heartbreaking things or these traumatic things and you can put you can put you can put in you can put a name it helps to put a name on i think so yeah and and then and that's just part of it that's just part of the unloading. And by the way, everyone's dinged up. Oh, yeah.

Everyone's. Oh, yeah. Everyone's. So what happened when Gene Hackman? He said, I thought you were really good in the play. And I was like, well, you just made my life. Ah, good. Now you can get out of the shower.

And by the way, when I was in sixth grade. now you can get out of the shower. And by the way, when I was in sixth grade... Yeah, by the way, are you recording, Gene? Because I wanted to broadcast something really intimate. What made you want to start acting,

Gene? Because when I was in sixth grade... Hey, Gene, you're really good at acting. Is it because somebody fucked with you in the closet because it i think it's helping me what what what do you think what do you think gene hackman what what is it about that guy because there's only there's a rare guy with the act i'm going through a little bit of a i don't know i'm going through i don't know i'm just really realizing how sort of crazy act acting is yeah um i don't know if i'm just more aware of how crazy it is

or if i'm getting neurotic about it i don't think i'm getting neurotic about it i think i'm just realizing what a fucking insane thing it is there's some insane actors oh oh yeah but but i i was going through this thing where like like there's something about when acting is just off right like you want to fucking die right like because you can't answer why or you can't figure it out. When you're watching acting that doesn't work, when you're at a play that doesn't work, it's beyond just wrong. Yeah. It's like a sour note and you want to die. Yeah.

Now- When you're doing it or you're in front of someone else? Well, it's worse when you're doing it. Right, but like if you're working with somebody. Yeah, no, or you're in the audience and just watching a shitty thing. There's nothing worse. Yeah. Why is it so bad?

It's because when you're rehearsing a play or even just trying to be truthful on film, it can feel so elusive to like to get to that sort of truthful thing yeah and then you go outside it's like you're trying to be an opera singer or you're trying to be a like a comedian yeah and you walk out on the street and everyone passing you and the guy at the deli is richard fucking prior yeah they're totally truthful yeah there's not a fake moment there. Yeah, yeah. And then you try and do your stupid little thing, and you're just Fraudy McFuckfuck. Oh, so you finally realize what a fraudulent endeavor you're involved in? It just hit me. Not only that, I appear to be doing it for the wrong reasons.

I imagine that's not an unusual thing for actors to experience. And I noticed when I watch lately, I've gotten a little more in tune to, especially older actors, where you just start to see like, oh, he's just doing that thing he does. Well, we have to acknowledge the fact that arguably the greatest actor on the planet, Marlon Brando, did not give a flying fuck. Yeah. planet marlon brando yeah did not give a flying fuck yeah it just now now there's no op great opera singer who doesn't give a flying fuck there's no dancer you can get away with acting yeah you can get away oh oh absolutely and i think like the more i talk to there are some dudes that get into acting for the for the thing for the, and then there are just other dudes that just don't want to work. And hope they get lucky.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Sure. They're just sort of like, you know, it's like, because me, it's sort of like, what are you, fucking, you're in the trailer for 10 hours? Like, yeah. Oh, God. I know.

We talked about that last time. Fucking trailer. Jesus Christ. But no, but there are some dudes that like, it's like, look, I've got this thing I can do. I've got this con job I can run. I got this hustle. And if I do the hustle right, I can do whatever the fuck I want in my life. I can live in a trailer on Malibu Beach.

I can fucking, you know, like, you know, get a horse. I can drive. Like, when you see these actors like, you know, like William Holden, there's a generation like Steve McQueen. We're going to go drive race cars. That's why they act. It's because they're like, you know, like, holden you know there's a generation like steve mcqueen's like we're gonna go drive race cars that's why they act it's because they're like you know like i never wanted a real job and i've got this thing i can do and the people pay me to do it and i can go drive race cars it's true it's true although like hackman clearly gave a fuck. Totally. Totally. But he also had this kind of, and I heard he was, I heard he could be rough. I heard he could be like, you know, difficult on set, which I fucking hate. I hate those people who are difficult.

Well, I would just find difficult. I hate people that like will make an entire set of people wait because they're, you know, they're not done eating or they're cutting their toenails in their trailer that diva shit i can't deal with if someone's a nut job and is at it with the director i imagine i could handle that for a little while but but it's the people that are i just think like everybody's scared this is hard nobody knows what they're doing and i I find in my experience, the people who are most precious about,

about their own process are the most oblivious to everybody, you know, everybody else's. And it becomes like a family where all the, you know, all the attention goes to the, to the, to the nut, the first name on the call sheet.

Not always. No. If, you know, but I think Halk think calvin said something somebody i don't remember who it was but i always think about it about acting he says uh you know he said um in terms of preparation he goes i know how to fill myself up oh yeah yeah right it's a weird thing Because I do, I really love that. It still scares me. Yeah.

I love it, but it's weird for me to love something I'm not sure that I respect. Oh, is that what it is? Is that what's going on? You're having a crisis of respect? No. I'm not. No. There's no crisis. And you're not feeling like you're a fraud no no no you just think it's a ridiculous profession i i i think it i it's

pretty crazy yeah it's pretty crazy like it's like it's i mean i feel so lucky. I have like survivor's guilt given the opportunities. Well, you're good at it and you look good and you got an intensity to you. You got a thing. You got that Whitford thing. Yeah, that the teacher gave me. Fuck you. Trauma charm. No, but this is something that troubles me about acting it's much more interesting

to watch a fucking nut say pass the salt than it is to see somebody who is aware of their gas bill say pass the salt insane is fun is very interesting to watch that troubles me well well yeah but that's always the case. You know what I mean? Like, you just can't capture that lightning in a bottle. You know, like, if somebody's truly nuts, you know, you're just going to along for the ride, really. To go back, Hackman, I think part of the reason Hackman's good is he's got a little edge. He's got a little, like, content that kind of gives him confidence. I don't know where it comes from.

Yeah. Duvall's of that ilk. Yeah. There's a couple of those guys. Yeah. Yeah. And also, Hackman's just sort of like, I'm done. I'm going to Santa Fe.

Yeah. I'm going to ride my bike and paint pictures. Write books. Go fuck yourself. Yeah. Write some books. Uncle. I'm good.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing what you're dreaming of you're not going to do that though you like doing what you do i do understand what comes down to me dude is uh and i've enjoyed trying to do the acting um you know i think i i you know does it does it uh day on a set just bores you shitless well i just i don't like i you know i just sit around trying not to eat everything so like that you know that's you know it's sort of like what's

over there craft sir i'm gonna go to craft services and and then i'm in my like i could bring a book i guess and you're sitting there in someone else's clothes you can't be you know with yeah and you know i'm uncomfortable you think you might suck yeah whose robe is this why is there a better trailer than this one how come it's always a vinyl couch can't they just make a real couch in it like i mean but also it's like the i don't know if we talked about this specifically before the the excitement of it is 10 minutes you wait 12 hours to shoot you know your thing a few times i i want to enjoy the process but a lot of times i i don't think I'm going to suck,

but I think I need to be doing more than I'm doing. The last couple of times I've acted, I've done some preparation. I've thought about the character. And then by the time I get on set, they're like, no, you just do. You're good. You're good. And I'm like, but I didn't really do. No, you're good.

Well, you know what? One thing, I have spent a lot of my life in ongoing, you know, luckily sort of high-end dramas. Yeah. Right? Ongoing series. I think it's really interesting. We all know that our attention spans are shattered by our fucking phones, right? Yeah. But there is this weird cultural compensation this appetite for these

Dickensian sprawling stories yeah and when you see uh um Tony Soprano come in and bark at Carmela season five yeah like you've been through the whole marriage yeah yeah yeah and you've been in bed with them it's very very intimate. And I don't know about you, but any time I've ever done a movie, I have no fucking idea if it's going to work, no matter what movie it is. Yeah. And, you know, I envy fucking comedians

and songwriters and poets because you can work on something for a week and go, oh, oh wow that doesn't work at all like like if you're making a movie it's like three years and then you go to the screening and it's like it's a fucking turd like you can just chuck shit fuck you like like we have to go through the whole process and promote it and then we go and we're like oh jesus this just sucks like you really don't know if it works at all and if you get it's not all up to you that's what you're saying is that like you have no control no once you do your little thing like i'm the only guy

doing my little thing yes i just gotta answer to me but you put your heart into something then you're like okay i hope you don't make me look bad. Yeah. Like, imagine if somebody could magically, somebody who owned you could magically come in and fuck up your timing. Yeah. Yeah. It's awful. I know. I know.

If you're doing, like, West Wing or Handmaids. Oh, yeah. A long time. The show comes on, and not everybody likes it. You got your audience. Sure. And then acting becomes really interesting because you have this long relationship

with the character, long, you know, if you have, you know, good writing. If the show sucks, it's a fucking no. Well, I think, like, ultimately, the big lesson for me, ultimately,

with acting was to make choices. Like, you know, I can be present, but, like, you know, I can be present, but like, you know, I need to know how to say these words in this way and run it in my head a couple of times and then lose it. Right, right. See, I always, the longer I get to do this, I get, I bristle at the word, because everyone says, make a choice, make a choice, make a choice. Right? You got to make choices. Yeah.

And they also say storytelling. You got to drop that a lot. We're storytellers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you a storyteller? That sounds kind of, oh, well, this is a whole thing. I was thinking about this. Yeah.

Go ahead, choices. Finish your choices. Oh choices oh okay i'll finish the choices thing like it's like you got to make a choice like every acting school it's you know it's part it's part of learning learning how to act i actually the older i get yeah, I got to do a thing where I was just briefly in a scene with Meryl Streep. And I'm as far away as the mic from her while she's doing this thing. And I'm like, oh, she's playing five pianos. Five pianos. She is not making a choice she is getting played it's the difference between uh uh performing a scene and getting played like it's it's the difference between good acting and great acting like alice and jannie is someone who's the sensation she's in the movie with me oh

i love her yeah great love her love her um but but that distinction and there's another distinction that i that i feel between good acting and great acting is good acting is like really well done but it's like you're in school great acting is like fucking recess and there's often conflicting things uh uh uh going on there were there were 20 different things going on with meryl streep i just had an interesting thing because uh elizabeth moss who i absolutely adore i've never seen anybody as an actor take more initiative in the overall storytelling i just extraordinary and she's doing basically sophie's choice the series so i was direct you know it's very difficult emotionally i what the uh hand was merle in that no no no no no no but this is what you're in the

fifth season of this thing yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and I got to talk about Margaret Atwood. But I'm directing her. And as an actor, like, I have a really weird relationship, like, with directors. So, like. We talked about it. Fuck you. I suck.

Fuck you. I suck. Okay, what? Right. so like uh we talked about it uh fuck you i suck fuck your suck okay what right and and like there's all these things that i hate that like that directors do um like the worst thing is like they like they'll go cut and then they just kind of come up close to you. It's just like inarticulate disappointment. It's like, I'm not sure. God, what is it? But man, it just does not work. And I found myself doing that.

But yeah. And it's just because you're trying to be clear. I know. Shouldn't that be something you keep to yourself and just say, like, I haven't done that much acting. But, like, the one that always gets me but I think is the best is this sort of like, you want to do it again? I think we should. You want to do it again? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. You want to do it again? Yeah. Let's just do it again. But we have this really exciting take when I got to direct. And I think what I had said to Lizzie, like I was joking, but I just sort of screamed on the set. I said, pretend I just said something brilliant and do whatever the fuck you want. Yeah. And she, it was an extraordinary take with a lot of conflicting things going on.

How many episodes did you direct? Just one. Okay. Just one. But what was interesting to me is, and actors generally need direction, but if I had told her anything, she would have been playing my direction. Right. And it would have erased all the contradictory humanity that was in that. That was happening?

Well, this is a character she's been doing for years now, too. Yeah. So she knows that woman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man. Yes. And it's a very tough thing for directors that come in from the outside i remember these guys would like you know come in and try and direct alice and jannie

and like year four of what i i took one director behind a flat i was like she knows pumpkin pumpkin just let her go um uh what is it what is the vibe on what was the vibe on the set now what's the vibe on the set well i mean like since the well i guess you guys were already done by the time roe v wade got fucked no no no we were no we were doing it no it's fucking like it's, you know, it's, God, it's such a fucking. Nightmare. It's such a dark time. One thing I was going to say about Margaret Atwood. Yeah. Misogyny is at the reptilian brainstem of white nationalism.

You know, it always has been. So the show is unfortunately more and more relevant i think the basic sort of uh if you want to get academic about it the sort of theme of the show is how do you remain a human being in an inhumane world or you know can you margaret atwood uh was doing interviews and i heard her say this thing that just fucking shook me. She was talking about, A, you and I have grown up in a world where democracy is inevitable and inclusion, the expansion of inclusion, you know, is inevitable.

She's like, it's an aberration. It rarely happens. It doesn't stay on. It is the exception and you have to fight for it and protect it but she said and she said i you know i know this may offend some people i'm not saying saying it to offend them but i think it's something about human nature that we have to acknowledge she said and it's part of the reason that progressives are at a disadvantage when facing fascists and uh the fact is this it was fun to be a Nazi I mean you

know it's fun to get fuck you're you know sure oh yeah to be to be given to be given the license the license is a license to be a monster yeah to hate and hurt yeah and while progress while progressives are going we really need to be more just and you know we really need to take care of the take care look someone's crying right yeah right well well that but it's very you know it's very alive or someone's dead or whatever yeah yeah i mean i mean that but but getting back to what we're talking about in terms of stopping or me retiring like all i think about dude is that like you know in terms of like working in terms of being a stand-up it's like you know right now

i know that my job for a certain type of person is to provide some sort of relief i can't offer anybody hope i can't share the way i think of the world i can't create some sort of relief. I can't offer anybody hope. I can't share the way I think of the world. I can't create some sort of, you know, dark relief. I had an executive, it was very funny, where, you know, I wrote a show for FX

that we're trying to get them to make a series. And me and my partner, my co-writer, Sam Lipsight, who's a novelist, he's great. Yeah. So we're in notes with...

Dad was a sportsman. Robert Lipsight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're doing notes. And Nick Rad says, you know, we just give him the story for a second script.

And he's on Zoom and he's like, you know, I don't have any like specific notes, but if we could just get it from bleak to dark. And I'm like, that's what I do. So...

From hopeless to heartbreak. Right. But in a way, you know, first all most people are are are dumb and they're not dumb they're just they're ignorant and they're not paying attention is that you can't call this the gop anymore and until somebody starts talking about fascism for what it is in a real way in this country in a real way because they're acting that way it's a shameless uh uh uh combination of just flat out uh minority rule fuckers and a bunch of christian weirdos who are now you know grouped together for the same cause and it's it's it's a real problem and we might we'll probably might lose so in my mind do i want to spend my life as a an adult artist or whatever the fuck

i am doing what i do uh in the you know dealing with that question that you just said margaret atwood posed which is can we be a human can we still exist with a humanity uh within this system right yeah and and it's like it's going to be different how it manifests here. But so when I talk about retirement or whatever, I'm just trying to figure out like, look, I've earned my spot in the world. I've contributed what I contribute. You know, I don't know if I can facilitate change. I know I can make a certain type of overly sensitive, progressive, reactive person, you

know, feel less alone. Right. progressive reactive person you know feel less alone right right but i but like i'm i don't have a platform big enough to to you know i'm not leading people against the fascist i'm raising awareness well i this brings up an interesting thing that i think about all the time one of the reasons not only for the structural reasons but one of the reasons we are progressives are at a disadvantage is the right because they are basically pursuing business interests fueled by culture wars yeah that's basic it's a business agenda the right understands what is i think is actually the truth yeah which is that politics is the way you create your moral vision we think it's culture. And culture is very, very important.

But will and grace won't help you if you have a pre-existing condition or you want to get married and you're gay. And Handmaid's Tale won't help you if you want an abortion. That's right. That's right. I tried to experiment with this idea on stage the other day where it's like we're having a lot of success in diversifying fiction there's a lot of a lot of good stuff in terms of representation and progressive ideas in fiction right yeah so that's exactly what i'm saying but that's just a business and and whether or not that'll facilitate change in any way, I don't know. But the mythological landscape of storytelling on our TVs is starting to look a little more colorful. Right, right.

While politically it's whipsawing the other way. George Floyd dies. We watch this horror. this horror we justifiably even though we have seen a number of innocent black men and women killed this george floyd thing it gets us on the streets and we do the diagnosis which is absolutely necessary you have to do the diagnosis but it took took that. But we're not there. You got a Stacey Abrams, the treatment, which we are kind of too cool for school. We don't want to run for the school board. We don't. And they're using the levers of government. government you know carl rove in you know 2010 says to the coke brothers give me i don't know what it was 70 70 million which is not a lot yeah to them and i'll give you all the state houses it happened in wisconsin well now like now that yeah they've that was a long-term agenda but now this uh the state house is local government we don't have a long-term agenda we need like we need to

fall in love we need like barack obama to come along and we'll fall in love with well we need more civil servants and like you said no one wants to fucking do that but you're mostly craven idiots who want to facilitate power of some kind i don't know or people that really i mean some of these they really believe in this white nationalism thing. This is a full on like, you know, like, look, we get it. Yeah, we're outnumbered, but we're not fucking giving up the ship. Well, they also, they also, you know, we're like amazed at their lack of shame. They think this is a war. Yeah.

And you don't negotiate until the war is over. Right. And people forget that. Like, it's like there's part of our brains. It's sort of like, I don't understand these people. It's like you don't have to other than they believe it. Well, and they're going to do whatever is necessary. What's interesting to me, like one of the things we don't get is like, like Trump, like that fucker. Like, like Trump, like that fucker.

Like, imagine if I if if if I if I said, OK, you're recording. Good. This is what your audience needs to know about me. I'm incredibly rich. I'm phenomenally rich. And the reason I'm so rich is I'm the greatest actor who ever lived. I don't know if you saw my work in Revenge of the Nerd too colon nerds in paradise but i'm a genius like if i said that seriously my stupid jv whatever the fuck this is show business career would instantly justifiably be over yeah like how and that shamelessness um that that that capacity for it's hypnotic

for not having any shame it's like encountering someone he's a totally confident dick it's it's like encountering someone who is not at the mercy of anything of gravity yeah of of empathy conscience uh uh you know laws he just he just totally you know doesn't give a fuck oh my god but but anyway what i was trying to explain is that now i want to retire well that well that's the thing it's like it's not a matter of retiring it's like look however my life is gone you know i don't have children i've saved some money you know i i you know i have this gig you know i like talking to people and i think i add a lot to the world in what i do i like doing stand-up but you know a few years from now you know i i believe that you know living in california is going to become somewhat untenable

i i you know it was already you know when when trump first became president i was afraid to travel uh as a comic on the road because of my point of view in certain places because you go out into the world you're it's not like i travel with an entourage or anyone's protecting me i don't know who that guy at the front desk of the hotel is everybody's got a a fucking gun. Wait, who's at the hotel? Who's a shit liberal? That's right. But unfortunately, I'm not that on the radar.

You know what I mean? I'm really not, which is fine. And in my audience, I'm not running rallies. I have mostly middle-aged people, many of them women who were you know who just you know enjoy what i do and i'm grateful menopausal democrats sure same yeah yeah but my point is like i don't know as i get older you know what what have i got what do i owe you know so when i talk about retirement it's not because i want a life of leisure i'm just i just fucking i applied for permanent residency in canada i'm not fucking around i don't you know i i how enjoyable is it to go out and like i'm doing a whole bit about like

i don't give a fuck if the midwest balkanizes into some christian fascist shit show you know we have forced birth rape culture nightmare because i'm not going there i don't vacation in arkansas right but like but then here's the other side of that joke is like well if it does become a country and all these liberal jews have leave California to move east, we're going to be stopped at the border in Utah. They're going to be like, sorry, we've been turned away before. But my point is, I'm just trying to figure out what does the rest of my life look like? What is the fight for me? Do I need to fight? Am I fighting? Is there a fight to be won? You know, do we just be, are we all just going to buckle and take it?

No, I think there's, I think there's a fight to be won. And I think that we have never been in this. We have been, I guess I'm going to use the word privilege to be in a position where we've never been challenged like this. Yeah. where we've never been challenged like this yeah um uh a lot of very inspiring people uh basically everyone in the civil rights movement they were up against a lot fucking worse a lot they were but they were they were actually in the streets doing something i don't know if it was sure it was worse but i don't think it's been framed properly right now it's pretty bad right now i didn't understand when the roe v wade was

overturned why i was i was in canada and i was like isn't everybody on the streets like we were you know uh after after the election i mean i by the way i do i do i do have hope. You do? I do. Okay. I do. I know how fucking, you know, 70,000 votes, three stolen, two stolen Supreme Court seats, but a third of our Supreme Court was now appointed by what clearly seems to be a fucking not only asshole. But he didn't even make those decisions. Right.

Right. But it was very, they took advantage of. Yeah. Well, that's what they wanted. That's what they wanted. Our cynicism. I think people are waking up. I think people are waking up. I also think of my mom who lived through the first Spanish flu and her earliest memory was funerals and then the depression.

And then it looked like Hitler was going to win and my dad's fighting over there. And then the Red Scare. Right. Like the shit bubbles up and it needs to be put the fuck down yeah and i i understand man young people i you know i'm in this quaker house and my brother's a conscientious objector everybody we idolize was getting killed on tv in the 60s yeah but i from my parents uh internalized this unmistakable message that there was hope that the that the country was going to get better i feel

terrible because i don't think my kids have that i think they worry about fascism the planet's on fucking fire and um uh can't do drugs safely anymore yeah like you can't like you imagine if fentanyl was around when when we were fucking no hitting that shit i mean i mean i'm sober a long time but like one line of like what you think is coke it's over um you fucking don't you vomit at the mouth and it's over uh somebody my daughter knows young uh kid uh first year college in new york line of cocaine laced with fentanyl uh dead no yeah dead oh dead sweet soul gone um so yeah yeah but anyways i didn't mean to distract So you were concerned about this generation not having. Right. And, you know. I want them to know that that is exactly what fascists where fascists want you to be. They want you to believe that your vote doesn't matter. They want you to believe that the institutions don't can't hold up can't hold up and i i honestly do believe this is a winnable fight i really do good well i mean just framing it like that now that you've told me

but i think you should retire yeah like i'm a child i'm like you know me like oh that's what they want me to think well fuck them yeah i'm not gonna think fuck it i'm much more developed than you i'm i'm mr hope now yeah that's what the teacher saw in me it's called a callback i know very familiar with them it's not gonna cause nothing but trouble how are these guys making light of child molestation for an hour now no i'm not but um no but i i think i needed to hear that i mean it's like i i've had glimmers of it just the fact that i applied for this sort of green card type of residency, it gave me a peace of mind. Even if I don't use it, even if I don't get it, there's something about like, I just,

maybe it's a Jew thing. I don't know. But because some of this stuff is not going to be that organized. It's going to be random. They're already shooting Jews. They're already killing black people. You know, these are just, you know, they're these these christians well yeah but they're they may use right-wing jews but they yeah it's just yeah right like when does othering become kill your neighbor that that's and it's

happened before quick that's yeah yeah i don't yeah exactly you know i don't know you know who's going to broadcast that or when the general tone changes. Yeah. That type of lack of conscience and shamelessness. Because a lot of these Christian fanatics really think that Democrats just by name are satanic. Oh, somebody warned me. I'm on some QAnon like Jeffrey Epstein list. Oh, yeah? Did you go to the island? Yeah.

Oh, it was amazing. It was amazing. And you know who I ran into? The teacher? The teacher. Yeah. That's a good callback. I like that one.

Yeah, so how does that feel to be on that list? Special? Well, I thought it was... Like, it? Special? Well, I honestly have thought, I go back to, I do political stuff. Yeah. And you feel a little different. You go out and you're some Hollywood guy standing on the back of a pickup truck yeah yeah uh and they think you're a pederast yeah they even think everyone's pederast except for the guy who hung out with jeffrey epstein and ran they give that guy a pass dude yeah they all know can you imagine they give him a pass because he's like uh he's

like the ramrod he's like the you know he's the guy that's like pounding the path my daughter came home and said uh i'm dating this guy great guy yeah really rich yeah um he runs uh miss teen usa if she gave that yeah oh my god yeah it'd be yeah oh my god but uh all right let's not get into a hopeless zone. It was great talking to you. Great talking to you. I'm glad we did it. You seem good, by the way. I'm all right, yeah. You seem all right.

Oh, thank you. No, I can tell that, like, you're having, I was worried about you because, like, you're in my ear. Yeah. You know, I could relate that you were at a place at that moment of where you thought you found, even as cynical as you are, kind of a happy ending. Right, yeah. moment, just because you're in my ear, I really, I ached for you, but I can feel you as much as you want to retire. I can feel the joy you have. Work? Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I think about it a lot. work yeah yeah you know I think about it a lot you know her birthday was the other day and you know it's it's a it's it's a it's one of those things where there's no explanation for any of that shit and and it's in and it's not that unusual but you know living with it you got you make certain weird choices just out of the need to uh emotionally survive somehow you know yeah i i but i i don't it really when i think about it in those terms where like you said you know whoever the hell i was for as long as i've been it that i'd landed in this situation that looked like all right you know I'm gonna it's gonna this worked out right and then that goes like that it's like it's so

fucking devastating and so unexplainable you don't even know what to do with that and it's not like I sit around thinking like well I'm never gonna have that again or why me or any of that it's just part of my life yeah it's like the un i i my experience in that area is not as traumatic as that yeah but there is a miracle i was like miracle of birth miracle of death you're you're not here yeah yeah like like our brain can't um the saddest part about that is you just leave all your stuff it's like that's the worst part like and i think about that all the time like i gotta start unloading this shit you know like my stuff like you know someone's gonna have to deal with all this shit oh i know you know there was a play that kathy bates was in a long time ago and there was this i think kathy was in

and there was this moment where somebody i think somebody had died and they realized that the breath was in a balloon. Wow. Yeah. And it was, I forget what play it was. That was, is the end of the play they open the balloon? Yeah. You kind of see it coming, but it's good. Yeah, yeah.

You just. All right. Anyway. But I appreciate that. Okay. Those feelings. And I'm glad you're doing good. You too, man.

Well, that was interesting, right? Bradley Whitford. Hmm. I enjoyed that conversation. The Handmaid's Tale is streaming on Hulu with two episodes up now and new episodes every Wednesday. All right. So now I need you to just hang out for a second. Will you?

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and start customizing your furniture. Okay, up now for full Marin subscribers, we've posted another batch of producer cuts. This is stuff from recent episodes that got cut for time or other reasons, but now you can hear them and hear Brendan's reasons for cutting them. We've got stuff from the recent episodes with James Acaster, Brett Morgan, and Jerry Harrison. Go to the link in the episode description

to sign up for a WTF Plus subscription if you're not already a full Marin subscriber, or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF plus. And speaking of Jerry Harrison on Monday show, I talked to Adrian blue. Yeah. The guitar player, the amazing guitar player.

He and Jerry are out doing a live concert of talking heads remain in light, but we talked about a lot, a lot of stuff. I mean, Adrian goes back and he's there. No one plays guitar like that guy. And he was defining. And certain things defined him.

Zappa, Bowie. He was Crimson for years when Fripp pulled him in. And the Heads. I mean, like, it was great. It's a great conversation. Something to look forward to. Tomorrow night, I'm in Tucson, Arizona at the Rialto Theater. That's Friday, September 16th.

And then on Saturday, I'll be in Phoenix, Arizona at Stand Up Live on the 17th. Boulder, Colorado at the Boulder Theater on September 22nd. Fort Collins, Colorado at the Lincoln Center on September 23rd. In Toronto, Ontario at the Queen Elizabeth Theater on September 30th and October 1st. Then I'm in Livermore, California at the Bankhead Theater on October 6th. And Carmel-by-the-Sea, California at the Sunset Center on October 7th. I will be in London, England at the Bloomsbury Theater Saturday and Sunday, October 22nd and 23rd. And I'll be in Dublin, Ireland at Vicar Street Wednesday, October 26th.

I have dates in November and December in Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Eugene, Oregon, Bend, Oregon, Asheville, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee. And Long Beach. Get that Long Beach in there. And my HBO special taping at Town Hall in New York City is on Thursday, December 8th. Go to WTFpod.com slash tour for all dates and ticket info. Guitar now. Yeah? Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. Thank you. boomer lives monkey lafonda cat angels everywhere all right all right