WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 513 - Brian Frazer

Episode Date: July 9, 2014

Brian Frazer was known to Marc and his peers in the 1980s comedy scene as the bodybuilding comic. Turns out the layers of muscle mass obscured a fragile person dealing with a host of disorders. Brian tells Marc about his life-long struggles with control issues and rage, and how his true salvation came on four legs with a wagging tail. 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.

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. Calgary is a city built by innovators.

Innovation is in the city's DNA. And it's with this pedigree that bright minds and future-thinking problem solvers are tackling some of the world's greatest challenges from right here in Calgary. From cleaner energy, safe and secure food, efficient movement of goods and people, and better health solutions, Calgary's visionaries are turning heads around the globe, across all sectors, each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. All right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck? I can't even. I'm on a mountain. What the fuckadelics? Let's leave it at that.

I'm on a mountain. I just hiked two hours to the top of this mountain. I got very little water. I'm not saying that I'm going to die or anything, and I'm not going to be overdramatic about what's happening here. I came to Joshua Tree for two days to try to clear my mind, which proves to be a little more difficult than I assumed. Today on the show, Brian Frazier will be back in the garage. God forbid this is the last thing they find that I left.

Well, maybe it wouldn't be bad. We'll see how it goes. I came up here yesterday. Took a while to get out of the house. Just come up for a couple of days to try to do something, to try and be okay by myself, to try to, it's not like a long-term thing, but just to, even to just to go on a hike by yourself, just to go and like, all right, I'm going to hike up a mountain in 100 degree heat with a little bit of water by myself. Oh, there's a hawk. See, he would be eating me. If something went down right now, if my heart just stopped or I just decided not to ever leave this place and just waited out. I imagine someone would come find me.

The rangers would find my car. But would it be before that hawk ate my eyes? Do hawks even eat eyes? I don't even think they do. I think they like the thrill of the hunt. Probably some other horrible bird would eat my eyes. Hawk would be chasing lizards. It's got a little more pride than that. Maybe. Depends what the food sources are. Oh, all of a sudden I'm a scientist? Why the cynical, negative, kind of like existential darkness? Why does this? The cynical, negative, kind of like existential darkness. Why does this?

I'm going to lay some first-rate, top-notch navel-gazing on you. Because I am a top-notch, first-rate navel-gazer. This fucking rocks. I don't even know if there are snakes up here. Here's the point. So how did I start the day? What am I really looking for? I just want to clear my mind. It's very hard.

God damn it. People are like, you're going to do shrooms at Joshua Tree? Are you going to do shrooms? No, man. No. I'll tell you what I did. I made some melon balls before I left LA with my grandma Goldie's melon baller. So that connects me to that past. I got up this morning. I ate the melon balls and some blueberries with some yogurt and

some coffee. I got a map to this hike that I'm on right now and I did it. And I'm looking, it's fucking beautiful in Joshua Tree. I can't even imagine it. I could imagine it on mushrooms, I guess, but I think I'm past that. I think something else has to give, you know? I just want to be okay by myself and just be okay to sort of sit and be okay with myself. I mean, I know what it's like

to overdrive your synapses and make them like shoot electric waves that reach out past the collective mind into the big, the big old quiet way up there. I've been on the shrooms. I know what it's like. I know what it's like to, to just feel yourself hit the, the atmospheric cranium. So I say, that's where I drew the line. I sort of drew the line at space because I don't have what it takes to live out there. But what I'm telling you is I've jangled my way into a sort of vibrating enlightenment

of which I think some of it's stuck. That residue of profound awareness that you are nothing and everything and very little lasts, very little matters. Those are the Zen moments as you're sitting here. This is what I jotted down. These are the notes that I jotted down walking up the hill. It's just like I spend my life lingering on heartache and mundane to-dos, yes or no's, decisions, choices. It's all choices and panic and worry.

Good decisions, bad decisions, but that's it. That's it. Yes, no, maybe. Got to be careful of maybes, though. Maybes, maybes. gotta be careful of maybes though maybes maybes if a maybe is not a part of a negotiation or fueled by some passionate curiosity i believe it is the language of inert fear you're just landlocked or stranded within yourself it's posturing so these are the thoughts that i wrote down on my way up here, they still seem a little cynical,

even though I'm looking for space, and I'm surrounded by dinosaur plants, looking out at this awesome fucking terrain, this beautiful empty desert, there's not even cars man, I mean Joshua Tree National Park is spectacular, it's just a billion years of wear and tear from spinning around the sun and fissures and water and shifting plates and whatnot. Oh, fuck. There's a lizard. There's a lizard. What's up, buddy? What's up?

It's a lot of ants. A lot of ants up here, speaking of ants, speaking of bugs, I, um, I, um, I tried to save a bee, I watched this bee, I was sitting in the, the spa mineral water tub, naked by myself, in the middle of the day yesterday. Maybe it was the afternoon. It was the afternoon. Outdoors. And I saw this bee wandering around just outside the perimeter of the tub there, of the pool. He's just pops in to the hot water. And then I had those thoughts like, well, it's a bee. And then I was like, well, it's life, but it's a bee. These things happen.

He's not freaking out. This might be it for him. It's sort of, I don't know why, whatever. I don't know what was going on, but it was flittering and I'm like, fuck it. So I took my glasses off and I used my glasses as a spoon. And I took the bee and I put him back out. And I started seeing him wander off. And then I got back up.

I got back in the tub this morning when I woke up. And the bee was floating in the pool. I got back in the tub this morning when I woke up and the bee was floating in the pool. So I don't really know what's going on with climate change or atmospherically or anything else. But I mean, not only are bees dying, but they're killing themselves. If the bees are killing themselves, that's a much worse problem than them just dying. Because that gives them a lot more consciousness than we assumed. And maybe it's just

the collective mind. Maybe it's just a fragment. That's the end. That's the edge of the collective mind. See, this is the type of top-notch navel-gazing thoughts that I'm having

at the peak of this hill. Oh, that's a shiny rock. A lot of shiny rocks. I feel all right. I'm comfortable. I got things to do, you know. But this was good. Maybe I relaxed.

Who the fuck knows? All right, let's go to my conversation with Brian. 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,'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. Calgary is an opportunity-rich city, home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day. They embody Calgary's DNA. A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative.

And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com. Frasier. at calgary economic development.com frazier brian frazier i watched a um i watched a caroline's comedy hour from 1990 oh god why'd you do that to To remind me of the Brian I knew. To remind me of the Brian I met in Boston, Massachusetts in 1989, maybe? No, probably before that. Yeah, 87, 88. I was living in an alley next to an Indian restaurant.

Right, like downtown, right? Yeah, yeah. Marlboro and Mass Ave. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember we did a gig together, some horrible gig where you're standing on the floor with a sports jacket with big shoulders. And I don't remember that. I never felt like we got along really then.

I think, did you? I don't know that either of us got along with anybody else, really. I can. No, we were both, along with anybody else, really. I can... No, we were both, you know... Yeah, yeah. Difficult. Yeah, yeah. I was probably more difficult than you, but I didn't realize it yet.

You always kind of, I think, in your head, knew who you were. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, even though you had problems getting along with yourself. Yeah. But I didn't know who I was until about 10 or 12 years ago. Just recently? Yeah, yeah. Well, I remember that you were very intense.

You're very quick, awkward. Yes. And you always seemed very healthy. I always felt that you were some sort of beacon of judgment. That you lived a good life. You lived a controlled good life. And everyone else was crazy. I thought that everyone else was crazy. Not because You lived a controlled good life, and everyone else was crazy. I thought that everyone else was crazy, not because I lived a controlled good life, but because I was crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. I used to think that chaos followed me around, but then I realized, no, I'm the fucking chaos. And, you know, I can turn anybody, you know, I basically I can turn anybody, my chaos onto anybody. Really? How does that manifest itself? Like, what would you mean by that? I just felt that, well, I think to explain the past, I have to jump ahead a little bit because until I took, until I was prescribed Zoloft.

Yeah. By a dermatologist of all things. Yeah. My hands were itchy about a couple of months before my wedding. And dermatologist said, the problem isn't in your hands, it's in your head. He prescribed me Zoloft. I wasn't depressed. Like itchy how?

Like tingly? No. I was like literally scratching my, I was like one of your cats. I was like scratching my hands. So he prescribed Zoloft. And I said, I'm not going to take this shit. I'm not depressed. so he prescribed Zoloft and I said I'm not going to take this shit I'm not depressed and I decided to

you know take it and within like 48 hours I realized I was a dick. Really? Yeah I realized I was a dick it gave me this calm Did you try to pitch that as an ad campaign to Zoloft? I tried to get involved with promoting Zoloft. Really? Realize you're a dick.

Yeah. No, I realized I was a dick. I realized that, like, looking back, I mean, I always kind of had a girlfriend. Yeah. I always had friends. I remember your girlfriend. Wasn't she a waitress at the Comedy Connection? Yeah, Karen.

I'm still friends with her. She's married. Yeah, yeah. Karen Cummings. Yeah. Yeah. I just remember that you were very anal to me like you know everything was meticulous your hair was always in place you dressed well you seem to be exercising a lot

you're at your comedy i do like one thing i noticed in watching that clip from 1990 is that it was very abstract it wasn't very personal it was completely if it wasn't just you know cleverly joke driven it was completely absurd and you were sort of working that angle of like i'm just a guy telling jokes and no i'm really weird now and now i'm telling jokes again yeah well one of the problems is i started comedy at like 20 or i was making a living at like 21 or 22 in boston like in boston we're running around doing those one nights yes but so but you always had a perspective that's the thing thing. That's one of the reasons I like watching you. I never had a perspective and-

Point of view. Yeah, no point of view whatsoever because one of the reasons is I started too young and I didn't know myself. Yeah, but we all do. I mean, what did you come from? Where'd you grow up? Long Island. Yeah, it's weird because I can never, you're a Jewish guy.

Yeah. But I could never associate you with being a Jew. Like even when I saw your one-man show, I'm like, he's still not reading Jew to me. Even though everything is a place, everything he's told me indicates that he's a Jew. But I get hung up on that. No, both of my parents are Jews. In fact, Michael Lee called me Hitler's favorite Jew. Oh, really?

Yes. Michael Lee. How's that guy doing? I haven't talked to him in 12 years. Is he out here? I think so. I don't know. So where do you source the problem?

Do you have brothers and sisters? Yeah, I have a brother and two sisters, but I source the problem to my mother. Yeah. But I mean, so you claim that after being prescribed Zoloft for itchy hands because you were having a psychological stress reaction to the fact that you were getting married. Right. You realized that your problem was what then? My problem is lack of perspective.

I mean, my problem was probably a chemical problem in that. But was it anxiety? Was it panic? Was it, you know, how did it manifest itself? And when did you first start to feel that it was happening to you when you were a kid? Oh, when I was a kid, I had anxiety from probably my mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis around when I was about 12 or 13. So it probably started then because my mother was in pain all the time and always yelling

and throwing things and shouting. Yeah. And because of that, my father had to take care of my mother. And also because of my father taking care of my mother, I grew up, I literally grew up on fast food. My father would come home from work. He was a first grade teacher and say, pizza or McDonald's. Yeah. So literally seven days a week, I had shitty foods.

I ate Halloween candy like 300 days a year. Yeah. You know, there was no monitoring from my parents. They were too busy. And how was that? Like, you know there was no monitoring for my parents they were too busy and how is that like you know what was your responsibility and and how were your siblings older or younger uh uh older brother older sister and younger sister so how did that how did the household work around somebody who was because i imagine when she first got it she was still functioning correct yeah but my older sister and older brother were kind of out of the house oh really so you're like a weird younger kid?

No, I mean, I were like five or six years apart, but when I was 13 or 14, they were off in college, so they weren't exposed. And my younger sister was like eight. So everything affects you in different ways, depending on how old you were when it hit you. you know how old you were when it hit you uh-huh so there was like i grew up with stress um you know once my mother got ill and the shitty diet didn't do me any favors and the fact that i could eat candy and do whatever i wanted to well i know but but aside from that emotionally i mean what was i mean you you you your mother couldn't really parent or what she could or was there a system i

mean how um yeah no no, it was tough. Yeah. It was very tough for her to parent. She actually continued to teach for a few years, and then- She was a teacher as well? Yeah. At what grade? First or second grade. Uh-huh.

And then after a while, she was determined, and she taught on a couch in the classroom. Oh, my God. Yeah, and then after a while, it was too much. She was actually a great teacher i mean she really i can honestly say that both of my parents were great teachers and uh you know never raised their voices to to anybody and they were there yeah it was it was great and it it was good to have both of my parents as school teachers because they had steady income

and they were always home at you know 3 30 right so it was never like oh when's dad coming home it's like 9 30 so you felt like there was a functioning family unit it's just once the illness hit everything became yeah everything kind of collapsed yeah and and you were okay so you're eating shitty food every day you're eating a lot of candy your mom's yelling all the time because she's uncomfortable and in pain right your father's trying desperately to keep her comfortable, I imagine. Yeah. My father still is a saint. He really, at her beck and call, 24 hours a day. Did not get bitter? Not unless he may have been bitter internally, but nothing out loud.

Yeah. I like those stories. I need to hear those stories of loyalty and commitment and self-sacrifice yes, in fact not to bring a damper on the but today is the, I haven't seen you but my mother died a year ago today, which is ironic just a year ago today? A year ago today, yes

so she lasted a long time? Yeah, she was uh 78 i think oh my god and so she died of that illness she died of she was getting dementia she was it was really really really bad towards the end and were you there for that um i was in dallas i was trying to get there but um i'm glad i didn't i'm glad my plane didn't make it when she passed you mean yeah yeah but were you in touch with her and in going to uh see her where was she uh where was she living they moved to florida oh so they're in florida so you would go to florida yeah yeah and so they moved to florida when you were how old oh when i was an adult maybe 10 years ago oh but you spent time down there oh yeah yeah yeah yeah it's it's a horrible horrible place why do you say that? Oh, it's just, it's horrible.

It's like sometimes, you know, when my wife and I go down there, we have like a little game. It's like every time you pass a store that's not Bed Bath & Beyond or not a chain, you know, you give somebody a dollar. I mean, it's just ridiculous. It's ridiculous. What part? Fort Myers.

Uh-huh. Yeah. It's, I'm not even going to get into the stand your ground stuff, but. Yeah. Is your father still down there get into the stand your ground stuff. Yeah. Is your father still down there? Yeah. He's still down there. He has a girlfriend.

Mm-hmm. He met her on J-Date. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. He's the happiest person I've ever met, and I can't believe he's my father. Now or always? Now.

It's unbelievable. Well, I imagine that when you give your life to somebody and you stay with that, you don't run away, that sadly there's probably a little relief if someone's ill at the end of that. Yeah, and he said that he promised God that he would stay there till the end and get her through it and all this stuff. Really? Yeah, and he is, like I said, I wish I had a tenth of the happiness he has. And if he passed away tomorrow, I'd be like, oh, my God, he's had six months of pure bliss that I never even thought he'd have one day of bliss. So you became very sympathetic with your father's plight

because of how draining it was to deal. Oh, I've been, I was sympathetic for years. I could not believe he, if my spouse treated me like that, I'd be out of there. But like what? She was ill. Yeah, but she was ill, but she was vicious. She was violent. From the illness or just because she was bitter?

Probably both. Like it's not a symptom of the illness, but her lot in life had caused her to be angry. Yeah. I mean, my father would sometimes have to move her from, you know, she was in a wheelchair for the last 15 or 20 years. He would have to get her from her, like her hospital bed that, you know. In the house. In the house. Yeah. have to get her from her uh like her hospital bed that you know in the house in the house yeah to the wheelchair to the bathroom out of the wheelchair and onto the toilet and back sometimes

15 times a day and as my mother was being inactive her weight ballooned she probably weighed close to 200 pounds just because she wasn't moving at all and you know my father's not that big of a guy to transfer somebody like that you know that many times and she would scratch his arms and it was he'd have to wear like why because she was mad she's she was getting crazy and she was aggressive and and and violent oh my god and you saw this you witnesses or you heard about it? I heard about it, but I mean, I would see the scratches in my father's arms. That is insanely chaotic. But the tragic thing is that you can't just dismiss it as,

you know, like, well, that person was crazy. She was ill. I know. And so it's a hard balance to make emotionally to try to keep that in perspective. I know, but she was told by my niece and my brothers and sisters, it's like you got to treat dad a little bit better. I mean, this is really, and she would just yell at us for suggesting that.

Really? Yeah. And she would say, and again, it's all perspective because what Zoloft did for me, I see a lot. I know it would have helped my mother. And I tried to convince my mother to take Zoloft or to go on a pill like that because I think that there was a chemical imbalance in her as well that's kind of a control freak disposition, that sort of like perfectionism and that weird sort of like nobody knows how to do it right. I know better than everybody else. Why can't everything be the way I want it to be? having not probably more of that than I admit, but I know you struggle with the hypochondria. And that to me, in retrospect,

was really a way to simplify the world, you know, to turn down, like if you focus on one part of you, if you, it's selfish, but it's also, it's like an eating disorder. Like, you know, I'm dying, I'm dying. Right. I'm dying.

I have to, it's very, it's a way of control. I mean, did you ever think about that sure um i mean what were you diagnosed with ultimately i mean i i know you're you're you're praising zoloft and i appreciate that because i think it does turn down the noise and i can see a chemical imbalance but i mean you know were you ever say did anyone ever say look you have you have massive anxiety you have depression you're bipolar one two what did you get no no i got none of that but um one of the things which was uh in my book that i i still do is my and and that's why i brought up the halloween candy before and the and the and the bad food and the big max and the pizza um the when i have too much sugar or when i have the wrong foods for me that really

like it still triggers really horrible horrible feelings and horrible anxiety so I went to an Ayurvedist yeah which is one of the chapters in my book and basically they look at your tongue and they take your pulse and they give you a diet give you if you're either a Pitta or what is it Pitta Vata yeah and they give you a diet based on your energy levels and it sounds kind of new agey, but it's really not. No, it's been around a long time. It is a little new agey, but it's hundreds of years. But little things like, you know, I'd have a banana every morning for breakfast.

Horrible. Bananas are horrible for me. Yeah? Yeah. What happened? They're just bad. They spike my sugar, and it makes me me aggressive and it makes me a little crazy so a banana yep which you figure it's all natural how can a banana hurt me yeah all right let's go

back okay so when did you like when did things start getting you know out of hand for you in what form i mean with the i mean you said anxiety but when did you start sort of i when i met you i think you were still bodybuilding a little bit. No, a lot, actually. That's probably when I started to compete when I met you. Yeah, but before that, so you were a comic, but you were also, you had a gym in your living room, right?

Didn't you have like weights or something? No, no, that wasn't me. Maybe I'm adding it, but I know you were ripped, and that was a problem for me. Yeah. I was like, what the fuck is this guy doing? Well, it's weird to be a bodybuilding comic. I mean, I would always wear big shirts. That's why you wore them, because you didn't want people to know?

No, I didn't want anybody to know. And when I was at the gym, I would never tell a joke. I'd be totally stoic, and people at the gym didn't know I did stand-up, and people at stand-up didn't know I even went to a. But was the hypochondria before the bodybuilding? Um, the hypochondria probably happened around the same, around the same time. No, well, I mean, I was diagnosed with, uh, I got the Zoloft when I was probably 37 or 38 and I started bodybuilding when I was like 16. So when did the, when, when were you freaking out about your health constantly? I think I've always been freaking out about my health in that, you know, you see somebody that's not healthy in the adjacent bedroom.

And also, once I got to college, I was the only person that actually thought the food at the college cafeteria was great. To me, it was the greatest food ever because to go from McDonald's to up, it's basically like up a level. It's like, oh my God, this food is great and you can eat as much as you want. So once I got away, I started to realize that, wow, it was a good thing to go away to college. Yeah. But when did the panic start?

The panic started probably 14, 15. I had nervous tics, and that's one reason I never could really play in a band, because to even play guitar for three minutes without scratching my nose or scratching my shoulder. Yeah, I did a little bit of studio work, but I couldn't make it through even eight songs on a stage without having to stop. And it's just a compulsion. You have to do it.

Well, it's all based on the food I'm putting into my body. But wait, I know you keep going back there, but you were in an environment that was chaotic. It wasn't supportive. There was always a menace of anger and a little bit of chaos. I mean, your brain must have been doing, so it couldn't have just been food-based.

Well, the food really, if I was eating a healthier diet, then it would have been half the pain I was in. Well, what were some of the other things you went through that you know that you sought attention for? I was just into uh bodybuilding really I just loved lifting weights. Yeah. Um I think because it was just a solitary thing and I it felt like I could if I kept my body healthy because I didn't even really start to drink till I was like mid-20s. Yeah. Um if I could keep my body healthy because I didn't even really start to drink till I was like mid-20s. Yeah.

If I could keep my body healthy, then maybe I wouldn't have the same plight as my mother. Right. So that was the reaction. That and also because both of my parents are Jews and we had most of our family, especially on my father's side, wiped out during the Holocaust. So- You grew up with that? my father's side uh wiped out during the holocaust so you grew up with that i grew up with yeah my my father would wake up all the time having uh nightmares about nazis he was there no he wasn't there uh-huh but he lost his grandparents or no his grandparents were uh made it over before but

he lost a lot of relatives anyway so i i felt like if I could build my body up psychologically, then maybe I wouldn't get, the Nazis wouldn't get me. So that was your agenda was to sort of like become, you know, well fortified on all levels. On all levels, yes. Emotionally and physically. Now, what was, so how do you start competing as a bodybuilder? You're 18, 16, what? No, I started competing. And again, one of the reasons i did this is so i could document

like in case my health took a turn for the worst um and when i said bodybuilding i also did natural competition so drug drug free never took a steroid in my life never thought about taking a steroid so i thought that you know i could document that i was healthy in case at some point i didn't become healthy and it also gave me a goal to strive for. So this was all really, you know, like a complete panic response to your mother's degenerative illness in a way. Probably, yeah. So how did you start?

How did you start competing? I mean, were you completely myopic about it? Like it was all you did? I wanted to, like I said said I wanted to just have some kind of tangible result because the thing about like lifting weights if you lift

weights and you could lift weights for two hours a day or two and a half hours a day like I did for 25 years and then if you stop lifting weights for six months nobody even knows that you lifted weights so you're not building up really a skill is that true i mean you kind of it's just it turns into sort of well-defined fat yeah i mean there's muscle memory but for the most part it's not

like taking judo or or playing the violin or something that if you put two hours of into into almost anything per day you're gonna you, when you're 40 or 50 or 60 years old, even if you'd stop for a decade, you'd have something to show for it. Right. So you're lifting weights starting in your late teens, two hours a day, three hours a day. Two hours a day, six days a week, almost never missed a day. Yeah.

And when did you start competing? Probably, well, I won my first contest in 84. Were you proud of that yeah in hindsight you know you look at pictures and you're like i'm a fucking idiot what the it's crazy yeah yeah why because you thought it was a useless skill really yeah i like i said if my mother wasn't sick and it also i i like having a goal yeah and that's the thing about without the competitions it's like okay where does this end i'm just like i'm just a hamster on a wheel it just never it just never stops trying to hold maintain this body it's great that's why i don't that's why i don't lift anymore it's just the maintenance is the maintenance is insane but when did you snap i mean how high did you get were

you ranked how does it work um there's no rank. You just compete in different competitions. Iron Man magazine wanted to do a story on me, and I just thought it was weird, and I backed out of it. You had some shame around it when you started doing comedy. Yeah. You didn't want people. No, I mean, I won. I was Mr. Natural New England 1984. This is all from memory. I was Mr. Southern, runner up Mr. Southern Connecticut.

Uh-huh. I think 1991. Yeah. I think I finished second or third in another contest in 85, the New York Metropolitan. And when you're natural, do they test you and everything? They test you, yes. And you can sort of see in a body whether it's steroids or not, can't you? Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there were- It's a body fat thing, and the definition of the muscle is different. It almost looks like it's just filled with water. Yeah. Is it? There were quite a few people that failed the test, but because they brought a lot of people to the event, they let them slide, which is ridiculous.

But they didn't give them the winner. They didn't let them win. Yeah, they did let them win. They did? Yeah, yeah. So it's a corrupt system. Oh, it's ridiculous. But they didn't give him the winner. They didn't let him win. Yeah, they did let him win. They did? Yeah, yeah. So it's a corrupt system. Oh, it's ridiculous. Yeah.

All right. So, okay. So now you're Mr. Natural New England 1984, and you're doing comedy. Right. And you're doing this. You're leading the secret life of a guy that lifts weights. Right. Professionally.

So what was that transition like? When did you hit the wall with stand-up? Let's see. I was probably 31 or 32. I used to be booked like nine or ten months in advance, and then, you know, it's two or three months in advance, and it's two or three weeks in advance, and then it's just the gigs started to thin out.

But did you think that you missed your break or you weren't? What do you attribute this sort of you know you were good friends with louis back in the day right we were all friends we all knew each other i mean you were part of the crew you know when you weren't weightlifting it wasn't like you were partying with us or hanging out as much because you had this secret uh other lifestyle but uh but certainly i know from from being part of that and having my own disappointments in life after a certain point with stand-up you know you got to think of practical things and what do you think that what do you think wasn't connecting about you on on stage i mean yeah just in the career you chose oh it wasn't connecting because i i started i started too early i didn't know

myself now if i the the one-man show that i did i felt that was the first time even though i've been on stage 2 000 times i felt like my one-man show is the first time i ever connected with the audience and that was about a lot of the stuff we were talking about yeah it's based on my memoir so i i was coming from my perspective it was stuff that only i could actually say on stage and it was it was true it wasn't the you were an absurdist you know as a stand-up right so you were sort of hiding behind this other thing i don't know if i was hiding behind it i don't know if i was uh aware or that you knew necessarily how to make your life funny in that

way because the context of a comedy club is very specific right and it takes a lot of weird courage and balls to sort of shape you know your painful memories you know into something that you know other people would enjoy at a comedy club right right right because i saw you one minute show it was great oh thank you yeah so what was the most trying time then you know in terms of like you know there must have been you know after the bodybuilding wait so what did you realize with that? When did you put the weights down and why? I put the weights down a little bit after I put the standup down because I felt like they're very parallel in that I always need to have an end game. And with standup, I'm like,

okay, I'm 31 years old. I just gotten a job on Mad TV out here. Yeah. But I was filtering my way down, my way out of stand-up anyway, because I'm like, I'm getting tired of all the travel. You were writing for Mad TV? I was writing for Mad TV, the first season with Patton and Blaine and those guys. Yeah. And I just realized that I didn't want to, I couldn't see myself, the, in your twenties, standup is like the greatest job imaginable. In your thirties, it's still pretty good. But I was, I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm like, do I want to be 40, 50, 60 years old out on the road? I was getting

burnt out on traveling. Sometimes I was on the road for seven or eight weeks in a row. And, you know, same thing as bodybuilding. I'm like, do I really want to put two hours into even an hour into my body every day? And it's just where is this getting me? Yeah. And when did you meet your wife? I met my wife writing thought bubbles on the TV show Blind Date with Roger Lodge. So that was one of your writing jobs? Yeah.

Yeah. So your first writing job was at MADtv? My first writing job out here. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a pretty big break, really. Yeah. So your first writing job was at Mad TV? My first writing job out here. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a pretty big break, really. Yeah. It was a great break. It was great to come out here and make some money. And I wrote on the Tom Green show back in New York. And then I wrote on the Ultimate Fan League, like a sports show out here. And I zigzagged back and forth between here and New York, wherever there was, you know, a gig.

I kept, I keep myself, even though I have a house now, I keep myself really mobile and really light and, you know. In case you have to jump to write. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my wife just, she's a sitcom writer. She got a gig about six or seven years ago in Manhattan and we packed up and had no idea how long we'd be gone for. And,

uh, it was easy. It took me 15 minutes to pack. And when you met your wife, how she was, you were both writing on a thing. We were both writing thought bubbles on blind date and, um, we kept it a secret. Um, everybody's like, Oh, you should go out with Nancy. I'm like, I don't know. I just, I was just living with somebody for three and a half years. Nancy. I'm like, I don't know. I was just living with somebody for three and a half years. And in fact, we got fake email addresses. I was Paul7500 and she was ZZZZSue this way because we were in bullpens if people looked over our shoulders and saw that we were writing to each other all the time, they put it together. So not only did we keep it a secret,

but then we went to Brazil for three weeks and then we came back and then we bought a house. Together. Together, yes. The same house we're still living in. And then we went back for another season of Blind Date, and people still didn't know we were even seeing each other. Why did you keep it a secret? It's like 60-hour weeks, and I didn't need the extra pressure.

Uh-huh. Yeah. And then you don't have children? No kids. No, just you don't want kids no no were you afraid of i'm not afraid of anything i i don't want to uh i want to at least go down swinging and know that i did everything i could to do this creative shit i want to do i i don't i don't want to relive i don't want to do. I don't want to relive, I don't want to teach a kid how to spell or drive a kid around to guitar lessons. And I don't have the energy for that. Yeah. All right. So now let's go, you know, back up to the point where this moment where you realize you're a dick. Because, you know, when did this, tell me about your reparative process that, you know, he takes all off for itchy hands reluctantly.

Right. And, and then it gives you some space in your brain that you never had before to sort of, you know, see your life and yourself in a different way. You know, it kind of, you know, slows down, whatever it stops the, the, the spinning. Right. It slows down whatever. It stops the spinning. Right.

So what is the journey from that point on to sort of change everything? The journey from then was I wanted to, I knew that Zoloft had, I think the maximum dose is like 200 milligrams and I was on 50 milligrams. And then after I was on 50 for a while, you know, the 50 felt like I was on nothing. So I had to bump up to a hundred and 150. I needed to find some non-drug ways, some natural ways to kind of retain the Zoloft calmness because the Zoloft, you know. So before Zoloft, you were just freaking out all the time. I was freaking out. I was very, very angry. I mean, the amazing thing is I'm still angry, but I'm like 20% as angry as I used to be. How did that manifest itself?

So when you lift weights, I can see that that's a very effective way to treat anger. And I can also see how stand-up in its weird way. And I never really framed it that way when I think about you because I watched the sets. But I remember you were edgy. when I think about you, because I watched the sets, but I remember you, you know,

were edgy, but like, you know, even the standup there, there was a sort of, there was definitely a rage component under there. Now, did you have outbursts of anger that were,

you know, that made you feel shitty and horrible? Um, as far as, I mean, what do you, when you say you were an angry person, what were you angry at?

I, I couldn't tell you. I had no reason to be, I mean, but what, you were an angry person, what were you angry at? I couldn't tell you. I had no reason to be, I mean. But yeah, you could tell me. What pissed you off? I could say that, you know, maybe I was mad at God for dealing my mother bad cards. So you were pissed off at everything? What triggered you the most? Like in a day-to-day life if you're calling

yourself angry right right road road rage oh yeah yeah horrible road rage and uh i can't tell you how many i i don't even want to call them high speed chases because my car has uh you know is is an old volvo yeah so there's not really high speed speed. You would chase people? Yeah. Really? Yeah. And then what? I don't know. You would just chase them and would you stop and get out of the car? I have. And what'd you do? Nothing.

You just got out of the car? But yeah, it's like- And stood there? Yelled. Yeah? Yeah. Like what the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah, stuff like that.

And then you get back in your car. You terrify a person. Yeah, I mean, I... For doing what? Changing lanes in front of you, or... No, for... I mean, it's happened so many different times. I can't, you know... Well, tell me what the...

What was their transgression? What was their crime? Sure, okay. Cutting me off in traffic. Okay. Sure. You have one of those. Yeah, yeah.

And you follow that person. Yeah, look, I've been followed, too, as well. You don't have to justify it. No, no, I'm follow that person. Yeah. Look, I've been followed too as well. You don't have to justify it. No, no. I'm just telling you. It's not like, yeah. I've never been followed. Really?

Yeah. Wow. And as I get older, I'm actually getting more shitty as a driver. Shitty. What? Shittier. In what way? I don't pay attention as much.

I can't see in a parallel park as effectively as I used to. I don't know what's going on. Really? Yeah. I don't stop at stop signs. I don't go through them much. I can't see in a parallel park as effectively as I used to. I don't know what's going on. Really? Yeah, I don't stop at stop signs. I don't go through them, but I just slow down. I've gotten three tickets for stop sign and stoplight violations. I'm not blowing through them. I don't stop completely.

Okay, so you chase people in your car when they cut you off. These are what I'm looking for. That's one way the anger manifests. Okay. Like at a Starbucks. Is there any of that you know what the fuck no i don't really uh i try not to go into starbucks if i if i can help it but yeah no long lines in general drive me crazy okay so at the before this all off were you the guy going like oh my god yes yes i was yes so you're just teeming with rage all the time. This is something I understand.

Yeah. And the weird thing is that the Carolines or whatever clips of me that do exist from television shows I did, that is so toned down and so placid and so mellow because I knew that my rage did not translate into being on a TV show. So I would dial it way down. I'm familiar with that. But when I was in clubs, I mean, I was so aggressive sometimes. I can't tell you how many people in the audience I called cunts or just how many near fights with know with an audience member after or because he weren't getting over no because people are taught that's the thing that drove me crazy when people chat up front and you know you've done more shows yeah you know that nobody is hearing it except for you and maybe three people around there right and everybody else's thing thinks that you're overreacting because they can't hear anything.

So you and I were driving, you know, hundreds of miles sometimes into the New England wilderness to do one-nighters at shitholes. Right. And you were just teeming with rage the whole fucking time. Absolutely.

Now, you've chosen, it sounds to me that, okay, so you're less angry. Now, did you ever spend time in actual therapy? No, just for religion. I have a lot of religious issues. What does that mean? I cannot go to a church, a temple, or any house of worship and last for more than about 10 minutes. So if I'm going to a wedding or anything, I freak out. What do you do? What do you mean? You freak out and what i i freak out i have to physically leave and i have to like lay down on the bathroom floor what happens in your fucking body in your mind my mind is it it almost feels like uh i've never had a stroke but it feels like i'm about to go blind the room becomes pitch white

any type of house of worship yes i was the best man at my brother's wedding and i fainted because of that yeah you were at a temple uh no that was a it was a religious it was a interfaith ceremony and you can't okay so you're in therapy for that what is that track i was um what what do you find uh that i have an odd relationship with So really, so that's a spiritual problem you have. Yeah. But it's also connected to my mother and it's connected to Nazis and yeah. You believe in God. Um, sometimes I call myself an agnostic agnostic.

I'm not even sure if I'm not sure, but I'm not an atheist. I get it. I have the same position, but I mean, but, but you have, you know, a physical reaction. Yes. To houses of worship. Yes. Generally speaking. I have to. I mean, Nancy and I go to weddings all the time, and we sit in the back row.

In case you have to leave. Yes. But I'm trying to just get you to tell me, at what point does the feeling feeling happen is it when god's name is invoked is it when you see jesus up there or you look at a stained glass window or a star of david or what um it would depend on uh it would depend on the ceremony if if there's like biblical passages and if it's really you know if it's just like a just a kind of generic service by like a justice of the peace or something then that doesn't you know that doesn't trigger you no but uh i think another which i haven't uh my rabbi that bar mitzvahed me also be uh converted and became an episcopalian minister uh like two years after he bar mitzvahed

me or two weeks or two months something like that but shortly after right so that also put uh you know sent my brain into a crisis like what how why is he switching teams yeah not only did he switch teams but he came out with a book which i actually uh found on amazon called uh the answer to your question is jesus rabbi and by christ alive publications really yes i have i have a copy. It cost me like a- Were you angry at him? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So Jesus was not, you were on team Yahweh. Right.

And Jesus was this other thing. Exactly. The other people, there was a competition. You have a competitive spirit about that kind of thing. Right. And he jumped ship. Did you sit there and like, well, is my bar mitzvah valid? Exactly.

Well, not only that, but I hated Hebrew school, so to physically make it through Hebrew school and then have a rug pulled out from under you, I mean, that just devastated me. But you wanted to believe. I wanted to, yeah, yeah. I was going to give it a shot. But it's just interesting to me that you can't track those kind of feelings because

to me that doesn't strike me as you know a chemical issue you know that that is a sensory issue it's again like you're calling perspective or perception that something triggers you know a fairly profound psychological effect and physical affected you right when you're you're witnessing uh talk bible talk yeah and you don't know what it is i i think it's just uh ultimately gun to my head right now i'd have to say it's a fear of god ah it's a fear of god and that probably goes back to your mom too goes back to my mom it goes back to the relatives in the holocaust it's just... But did you think that your mother was being punished for something? Possibly. Yeah.

But possibly for being Jewish. I don't know. I don't know. So you had that thing, like, you know, why the Jews? Yeah. Why am I a Jew? Your self-hatred of your anti-Semitism towards yourself... Right.

...was deep. Did you... Were you ashamed of being jewish uh because i this is weird to me because i i could never i sort of you never fit into my yeah in my my jew abacus you're you're fighting your bead position well my my parents changed well my uh family changed their name twice so basically my pass no No, my, my, if, if nobody changed their name when they came over from Poland, my last name would have been Dom, but spelled D-A-M. So I would have been Brian Dom, which again, doesn't sound Jewish. So my grandparents came off the boat from Poland and they saw a guy selling fruit.

So they named their themselves Fructor. Fructor. So my father grew up with the name Samuel Fruchter. And then when he asked my mother to marry him, she's like, yeah, I'll marry you, but we got to do something about the name. So Frazier's completely made up. So right out of the gate, she's like, I'm not taking that. Yeah, I'm not taking the- Fruchter.

Yeah, Fruchter. It's horrible. Was your mother ashamed to be Jewish? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. And I think my father is, well, he's still alive. I think he's proud to be a Jew. So I don't think that I have any of those issues.

Does he practice? Yes. It's weird when they get older, huh? He goes. He's got a congregation. He goes once or twice a week, yeah. Torah studies and all that stuff, yeah. Have you ever dealt with the feeling

i mean i i know you're sort of you know kind of boxing this into a chemical imbalance but i mean anger you know is a a sort of kind of broad mask for a lot of other feelings sadness fear you know all that stuff do you do did you ever tap into that to try to sort of experience the grief of it all? I think sadness wouldn't be the right word. Everything goes back to fear. I think in life, most people's problems are fear anyway. Yeah. So I think fear-based would be more apropos.

That's the other thing about, because you had mentioned that lifting weights is a good way to get rid of anger but at the same time yeah you're when your muscles are tight and you're walking around like you know yeah that how can you feel that that's why i practice yoga four or five times a week now i don't lift weights but the yoga has helped like immensely really yeah because your your muscles are long instead of you know tightened yeah but what but what do you struggle with on a day-to-day now what are exactly your struggles that you need easing you know what i live in uh i live in a cul-de-sac that's uh where the houses are pretty close together so i i struggle with noise uh neighbors yeah and like nobody cleans up after their dog shit and and the weirdest thing is when we bought the house uh johnny knoxville was our next door neighbor and not only was he so

quiet it's great but he cleaned up after his dog every single time yeah no he's a good guy yeah no but i mean he was he was quiet polite he was great and now we have these these people with like three kids and i swear they've never said, the parents have never said, you know what, it's 6.30 in the morning. You can't just yell in the cul-de-sac. So I have a lot of noise issues. But you're still in a day-to-day struggle with control issues and rage. Absolutely. Yeah, I have a very, very, I don't have a wide range of, a wide margin of error in my life.

Now, I'm not an alcoholic or I don't have any other vices, but as far as rage goes, yeah. And the need to control. I think it is the need to control. You're right. I think it is the need to control you're right I started doing meditation and that's this new thing called headspace which I've been addicted to the last two months and that's helped also

and that's kind of what it says it's like you know when you're listening to noises what noises do you like what noises don't you like and why and yeah so control could probably also be that. So you have a hard time with the idea that, and I guess this would go back to the God thing,

that essentially the horrible realization about being alive is you have control over almost nothing. That's a good existential... Fact. Yeah, I know. It's a hard one to wrap your brain around. Yeah. You can control hard one to wrap your brain around. Yeah. You can control what you put in your mouth

and hopefully what you can do with your hands. And I imagine, and I don't usually get into this much speculating or analyzing, I imagine that to watch your mother slowly lose control of every part of herself without a choice had to be just fucking

brutal. Yes, but here's what and again this is going back to control i think she did have a choice um because not that she would have had a great life but she could have had a better life she didn't really care about physical therapy or doing experimental you know she gave up yeah but even simple things like acupuncture that aren't you know crazy things. But she could have had a much, much, much better life. She could have gone to physical therapy. She could have gone to mental therapy.

She could have had, you know, gone on some medication that would have helped her mind. She could have had acupuncture. There are a million other things that she could have tried. So you were mad at her. Yeah. For not doing that and just beating the shit out of your father and you mentally. Yeah. Hmm.

So, all right, take me through the path. Okay, so you tap out on Zoloft. Right. And so that's no longer an option or you were able to- No, no, I'm still on Zoloft. But you maxed out. No, I got up to 150 and then I went back down because I didn't want to- I went up to 150 milligrams, now back down to 100.

And it's still working? It's effective? You know what? I've tried to go back down to 50, and I feel myself slipping, so I go back up to 100. Slipping into? Yeah, just I don't want to go back into a rageful state. Did you ever rage out at your wife?

Never, never, never at a woman ever, even pre-zoloft. At the world, but not at a woman? Never at a woman, nope. People you didn't know? Yes. Yeah. And okay, so take me through the other things. So you went to the Ayurvedic doctor. Right. So you still honor that eating? I it as much as i can but it's it's it's pretty strict and even in a place like la which is you know the easiest place to shop and and find good foods um it was uh you know it's like anything else you really have to be you know when you go out to eat you know you have to either bring stuff you know i'm not going to bring stuff with me yeah so i do the best i can that's all i can say what other what

other sort of actions and and things have you involved yourself with to level off um i'd say the the things that help the most are meditation yoga which is not you know not like earth strap people are like wow really meditation and? Meditation and yoga help? Yeah. And the Ayurveda stuff. But what were the stuff that didn't work? How desperate did you get? I went to Kabbalah.

I went to two levels. I went to level one and level two. What did you learn? I learned that there's just enough for level one. I learned that level two is just like stretching as if as if the middle act is just like the headliner doesn't show up and somebody's just giving you the stretch sign there's nothing what were you going there for what did you think you would find god um no just some kind of other way to uh to look at life yeah you know i mean i wasn't doing it as a gimmick. Anything I do or did,

either for the book or for anything else, I really believe is going to help me. I really believe like the next thing is going to just help me. Sure,

that's the answer. Yeah. So you did Kabbalah, what else? I did Kabbalah, I did Reiki. What is that? It's...

I know, it's a massage, right? It's something like, no, they try and- It's a touching, touching. Pull bad energy out of you, put good energy back into you or something. How'd that go? It wasn't that good. I wouldn't recommend that.

I went to cranial sacral therapy, which actually helped. What is that? It's all these pressure points in your head. Yeah. But the problem is the guy's also, at the same time sticking his like fingers in your mouth. Yeah. And I actually had a gag reflex and threw up on him. You did?

Yes. I threw up on him. I mean, I saw him like, I didn't throw up on him the first time, but I mean, I probably went there 10 or 15 times. Really? Yeah. But it's interesting. There's not too many craniosacral therapists, but yeah, it definitely helps.

It's pressure points. It's pressure points. Pressure points on the inside of your mouth and on the inside of your head and then on the outside at the same time. Yeah. It's pretty fascinating. Uh-huh. Yeah. And in order for that to help, you got to go once a week or what? Once or twice a week, something like that. All right. So you threw up on that guy. Yeah. The Reiki did not succeed in pulling the energy out of you. No, no. The Kabbalah, did you learn anything pulling the energy out no no the kabbalah you know did you learn anything in kabbalah that changed the way you looked at things um yeah there's something

called the bread of shame yeah which uh i have some in my fridge i use it for sandwiches uh they have this thing called the bread of shame i think that's what it's called where basically um there's all you you can't expect things to be handed to you. That's the gist of it. You can't. You can't. You have to expect to get good things that there's going to be. If things are handed to you, then...

Right, so entitlement is out and sort of inviting good things into your life and working for what you get. Yeah, you got to earn it. Yeah. And there's some other things that were kind of interesting. Like you scan these letters, even though I don't read Hebrew anymore. You're just supposed to scan these letters and it relaxes you a little bit.

It's a big, I don't know, there's like 52 letters or something on a laminated board. And, you know, that helped maybe a little bit. Well, any sort of focusing thing. So Ayurvedic got a little help out of that. Kabbalah, we learned that don't be an entitled asshole. Reiki, nothing. Cranial sacral therapy was nice. Nice to be touched. Zoloft worked. What other ones? uh meditation yoga worked meditation didn't work for the meditation works now but back then it didn't work i was um i went to uh and a weekend buddhist uh meditation thing and i think it was eight hour saturday and eight

hour sunday yeah for like 70 bucks or something right and I made it for 19 minutes and I was just like and I left and then I went back in the kitchen and I stole my check back out of the thing I'm like sorry I'm not spending 70 to sit on my to sit down for fucking nine minutes so yeah so that was a combination of things you must have looked around at where you were at and the people you were with I I mean, it couldn't have just been this doesn't work. Well, it was so, I felt so constrained. And I'm not really claustrophobic, but I felt like, you know, I felt like there's no way I'm going to make it this whole.

And also, it's the people that were around you. Like, everybody has, like, a gray ponytail. And it was just, it was creeping me out. I had to get out. i had to get out i had to get out so you like this is a desperate journey yes for relief yeah for relief yeah the thing that uh probably helped me the most which was purely accidental is uh my dog yeah yeah he is uh nancy and i looked for probably two years for the proper dog a proper dog yeah well we didn't want to get a dog that was too big or too small and it had to have the right energy and the right temperament and she picked him out at a pound and i'm like i thought he was deaf he was so calm in the pound i'm like there's something wrong with this dog and like we would

clap in back of him and then he would like just turn very slow you know yeah he's the calmest dog and to this day if i i drive with him almost he's not with me today but i drive with him almost everywhere and before i can have any road rage he probably either smells something in me changing or he looks at my posture or he can just sense it he'll scratch me with his paw like a full cool off buddy yeah but a full like three or four seconds before the eruption occurs huh and i'm like he's a he's a dog i'm not gonna like disappoint him so he completely mellows me out really yeah? Yeah. Yeah. He gets very irritated at me if I get irritated. Would you consider it a service dog?

Yeah. No, honestly. He's been on 85 flights with me. Oh, he's registered? Yeah. As a service dog? Yeah. He sits on my lap.

For your anger problems? Yeah. Yeah. He sits on my lap and I'm completely calm. It's almost like, you know, you're with, you're with like a new girlfriend or something and you're on a first date and you don't want to like. You're able to love the dog unconditionally. Right. And you don't want to, you don't want to have him have a miserable time. So you. Completely codependent

with the dog. Yes. Yes. And it's healthy. I, it's, it's's working for me do you have fear about that dog passing every day how old is the dog he's uh he's 11 but he gets uh an hour of exercise uh at the park chasing a ball every seven days a week and then like another 45 minute walk in the afternoon like he's in great shape well how are how are you at sort of future projecting? I mean, do you panic about that? I only future project. You do? Yeah.

I tend not to live in the past. I tend to live completely in the future. And it's always bad. It's not great, but yeah, no, I look way too far into the future. I wish I could live in the present. Or even the past is sometimes better than to always be looking ahead in the future. Because your brain doesn't let you

visualize a good future necessarily. It's always crisis management? No, no, it's not really crisis management. It's just looking ahead and it's not taking advantage of the moment. Yeah. It's not like, oh, this is going to be bad. No, it's not necessarily like, I mean, my dog's ultimate outcome will be bad, but that's a proven formula. I think all of our outcome is some version of bad. Yes.

And do you think about that a lot? No, I'm not worried about- Mortality. No, I'm not worried about it at all. If somebody said, oh, you can live forever, sign here, I'd be like, take the piece of paper away from me, fucker. Yeah, yeah. That's too long. Way too long.

Way too long. I'm not interested in living forever. My wife wants to live forever, but I'm like, I don't want, no. Now, where does, what are you looking for? Where does happiness play into all this? I am looking to just, let's see, what am I looking? I'm looking to save some dogs lives and and just work with animals and and maybe make life a little bit better for some animals and I'm looking to be uh creatively

stimulated that's it that's all I give a shit about have you given up on people no not at all okay not at all you think there are good people around absolutely Absolutely. Oh, good. Yeah, yeah. I'm not always one of them, but yeah, no, absolutely there's good people around. Yeah. And you're in good shape? Yeah, I'm in okay shape, yeah. Your health is good? Yeah, everything's good. And I started doing, I don't know if you've seen the website I do with my father.

We've been doing a cartoon a day for about two years now oh really yeah you draw it no uh he draws he's a former uh artist uh-huh so i uh i send him the text and you know a description and he draws it what's it called it's called uh frazier's edge.com and the book is called what hypochondriac one man's quest to hurry up and calm down and we covered a lot of that yes and what's the new book about the new book is called uh over under and it's uh like a uh a logan's run type thing about ageism it's basically two different societies uh once you hit 40 you're in basically a different a different area of town so it's like segregation like segregation for over 40 and under 40. And what was the impetus or kernel of creativity that pushed that?

Hollywood? Yeah, probably Hollywood. Everybody's lying about their, you know, I'm not allowed to tell my wife's age, even our friends. It's just ridiculous. And I understand because she's in TV and, you know, but. No, it's not right no it's horrible i find myself almost emotionally crippled around the elderly you know because i'm

so scared you know but you know these are the people that know everything but like you know i get into a panic like are they okay are they going to be all right it's taking a long time and they can't should they be you know what i mean I get overly sort of like, I get nervous. Like in what situation do you get nervous? I talk to a lot of people in their 80s or 90s sometimes, you know, Carl Reiner, you know, Mel Brooks is very vital. I was recently with Harry Dean Stanton

and I was embarrassed because, you know, for some reason I talked to him for an hour and I was like, why isn't he talking to me? And because he's 87. And, you know, I was not able to adjust to his pace because I no longer, you know, in order to really have an experience with an older person, you have to either be close to your parents who maybe are, you know, hopefully are still alive and having that relationship. I don't live close to my parents.

I'm not in constant contact with them. I don't experience the elderly very often. You know, just like children. I don't have children children so i don't really quite know how to function properly i instinctively kind of do but but it's something we should all you know it shouldn't ever be a second thought there should never be like oh my god you know that person is really old i'm nervous i mean that shouldn't be the the the reaction and i think because of the sort of almost segregation of the elderly, you know, we are cut off from an amazing resource of wisdom and survival tales and practical knowledge about life. But our society doesn't encourage it. Right. No, I agree. And one of the reasons our society doesn't encourage it is because it's not a segment of the population that buys things so that's another problem yeah you know advertisers don't give a shit about them

and you know tv shows aren't going to put you know old people on unless it's just like one small role but yeah no i i i totally agree i think it's uh i think it's crazy and unless you're like a gymnast or a baseball player where your livelihood has an expiration date, like I'd rather have a 65-year-old accountant than a 25-year-old accountant. You've been doing it that long and you're not going to make as many mistakes. That's right. That's right. It's just, and you're ostracized once you hit a certain age. It's crazy. And it's not just in Hollywood though. That's the sad thing. No, it's everywhere. Yeah. There's perfectly capable people of a certain age that can't get work only because of that. Yep.

Because people are uncomfortable with it. Yeah. People are uncomfortable with seeing wrinkles and gray hair, and it's very sad. It is. So your book is really addressing that in a satirical way? In a satirical, yeah. Science fiction way? Yeah, Kurt Vonnegut-y.

Uh-huh. Yeah. So it's a novel. It's a novel, yeah which is uh much more challenging than a memoir obviously because i'm writing it in a third person and you know yeah that's real writer shit yeah so you you you're right you're you're working on that second book you don't do stand-up anymore at all don't ever crave it no i don't crave it at all. In fact, any time I see somebody, hey, I'm off to Santa Fe, I feel bad.

I've kind of been there, and I've been through it. Hey, it was my biggest fear in the world when I started this podcast, that I would be an irrelevant road comic, and I couldn't have done it. I don't know what I would have done. I don't know what I would have done, I don't know what I would have done.

But it was not the life I wanted to lead. How many weeks a year are you on the road now? Ten? I don't know. I mean, you know, having an audience and being able to sell a few tickets is new to me. You know, I think the first significant tour was last year. But, you know, I try to go out, you know, if I can, one night. And if I can't do that, just know, for, you know, if I can one night and that, you know, and if

that, if I can't do that just for a Friday, Saturday. So it's not that kind of like Wednesday through Sunday thing, you know, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I mean, fortunately, you know, between the TV show and the podcast and, you know, other things, you know, I do okay. You don't have to rely on that, but, you know, it's nice to go out and, you know, and, and, and perform for the people that, that like me, but I don't't know yeah probably maybe i don't know i i it's it's i don't have any i don't pay attention you know yeah to me my calendar is like oh shit i gotta leave tomorrow

you know i don't i'm not a big future thinker yeah and i wish i wasn't a big future thinker man it's horrible yeah i somehow or another i think between sobriety and age and also you know just having some success at this late in the game uh you know a lot of that stuff that panic has has gone away so what else are you doing with the with your you're making comics with your dad right you're trying not to write on reality shows i imagine yes and what else you got um i still write for esquire and other magazines but i, but I started a video game company called Time Suck Media. Really? Yeah.

And are you a video gamer? Not really, but I got a friend of mine from college liked the idea, and we raised some money in Silicon Valley and we have this great gamer who has like 30 years experience who used to work for Pixar. We've been working on it for about a year and it comes out in a few months. And it just hits the market for what? PlayStation and everything else?

Is that how it works or what? No, it's like Angry Birds for like iPhone and iPad. Oh, really? Android and all that stuff. People love that shit. Yeah, yeah. So you just enter the marketplace and see what stuff. People love that shit. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

So you just enter the marketplace and see what happens. You enter the marketplace and you hustle and you hope you get, you know, plugs on Boing Boing or other blogs. Well, it's like, that's one of those things

where it's like, if the kids dig it, it goes. Exactly. And you feel confident? Yeah, I feel really good about it. Do you want to talk about it or is it a secret? No, I can talk about it.

The first game that comes out is called, so it's Time Suck Management and the slogan is there's always time to suck. Yeah. And the first game is called You Suck. You Suck the Game. And it's just like this vacuum cleaner that sucks up, you know, sucks up all sorts of

stuff. You know, bugs, lobsters, and it has like a Looney Tunes feel to it. So it has some like comedy in the actual video game. Is it fun to look at? Yeah, yeah. It's really, it's, I think so. All right. Yeah, I mean, they've done a good job up north.

You were never diagnosed with hyperactivity, right? No. So you never were on Ritalin or anything like that? No, never on a drug until Zoloft. Do you feel like you should have been? No, I felt like somebody should have told me to stop eating all the candy, to be honest with you. The amount of, the number of grams of sugar in all the stuff I put into my body. And I don't think that, you know, if you're eating candy

as a teenager, I think it builds up in yourself and it's not quite so easy to get rid of. So the book really takes you through the journey of living living with your mother with with the ms and and then you know the relationship with your father and then the bodybuilding and then the comedy and then the hitting the wall and then the the sort of anger problem and all these different uh this almost this kind of uh picaresque journey through desperate attempts at finding peace. Right. And you end up at your dog. Pretty much, yeah.

Yeah, my dog, he saved my life in a lot of ways. He really has. Uh-huh. Yeah. If I hadn't, I don't want to say discovered Zoloft, because I certainly didn't. I think Tommy Zoloft discovered Zoloft. Is that his name?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Tommy Zoloft. What a guy. No, if I hadn't discovered Zoloft, Discover Zoloft. Is that his name? Yeah, sure. Tommy Zoloft. What a guy. No, if I hadn't discovered Zoloft, I probably would. There was a good chance I was heading down the road of being dead. And how did you picture that happening? Rage of somebody pulling out a gun and shooting me.

The bad end of a confrontation. Yeah, the bad end of a rage or a confrontation. Did you ever get into a physical fight? No, I have not been in a physical fight. Me neither. Isn't that weird? In some time. You're such an asshole.

Yeah. How is that possible that no one just punched you in the fucking face? Not since high school. How many fights? High school, probably three or four. Uh-huh. Yeah. When you were big?

Not that big. I mean, I'm still, I was never, you know. But you had that. You had that muscle and and emotional memory of fist fighting oh yeah yeah huh i don't even have that yeah i'm not asking you to kick my ass yeah i just i think we underestimate our charm and our diplomacy when it comes right down to it and just shit luck yeah well good luck it's all it's all luck. Yep, I agree. I mean, I also went from 5'3 to 5'10, which is about how tall I am now, in between 7th and 8th grade. So I was very tall from an early age, and I still have kind of an inflated opinion or an inflated vision of how large I am or was. And, you know, 5'10", I mean,

I think that's what the average height of an American male is now. It's like I'm certainly not big, but because I towered over people when I was like in high school, I think I'm a lot bigger than I am. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And, well, you have a big attitude.

Yeah. But what's weird about rage is that once you enter it, you're not making decisions based on anything other than that following the rage. Yep. That's a dangerous place to be. Yeah. You're completely, you may as well put on a blindfold because you don't know what is in front of you or there's no rational decision. And you feel it. You feel it coming up in you.

Yeah. It's bubbling like a lava lamp. It's horrible. But yeah, it's a very decisive moment. Well, I'm glad you got your dog, man. Oh, my dog is the best. Thanks for talking. Thanks. Alright, that's it, folks. I'm going to walk down the hill.

I hope you enjoyed that. Brian's a little tightly wrapped, but he sounds good. Brian and I have had an interesting relationship over the years, and I'm glad he's doing okay. It was an interesting story. I'm glad he stopped by. All right, so what are we going to do, man? Do you want to walk a little bit with this rig here?

You should probably drink some more water. Put things into perspective. I am not a mountain. All this stuff is going to be here when I'm gone. It's going to slowly change over another billion years. Maybe someone will be standing here saying, like, isn't it wild?

There's just an ocean of ice here. Boomer lives! 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.

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