WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 525 - Alec Sulkin

Episode Date: August 17, 2014

Comedy writer Alec Sulkin found success on Family Guy and the movie Ted. But as he explains to Marc, the road to good TV writing jobs is long and winding, filled with connections, coincidences, injustice and nepotism. Alec explains how he made it through the long slog, got past the disappointment of his own show getting canceled, found personal popularity on Twitter and subsequently got himself in hot water. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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hi i'm mark maron this is wtf alec sulkin is on the show today alec sulkin the comedy writer many of you know his work from the family guy he's a big family guy writer he also wrote the uh the film ted with seth mcfarland and also he wrote a million ways to die in the west funny guy but it's interesting about alex sulkin is i don't really know him i had not really met him but he has a very consistent twitter feed the sulk on twitter and i'm odd in the way that you know i saw his picture on twitter and i'd read his tweets and i built the whole personality for this guy i figured like i got a sense of this guy i know this guy he's a joke writer but i just i look at the picture i don't know how many of you do that

or how many of you have this uh fantastic ability i think i'm a latent control freak right under the chaos but i you know i want to i sort of want to box people i want to box people in there how how easy is it to box someone into an avatar pic they're already in a box and then to just assume that what they're writing and what pictures they have there or who their friends are it's like you can completely in your mind encapsulate a human being and this was a guy i'm like this guy's got some uh chutzpah this guy has got some funny in him this guy's interesting he's dark i relate to him i believe he's a kindred spirit to me that's what i thought when i started reading his twitter feed i knew he had dated sarah silverman i'd heard about him

but nothing pieces bits and pieces so finally you know we got it together and i had him on the show i had a great conversation with the guy he's written some funny shit i recently saw that movie ted and i didn't go see in the movies because i didn't think i'd like it but it's funny man and some people love family guy i'm not a freak for it but i enjoy it when i watch it he's a funny guy and uh we do have stuff in common and i did i did have a great talk with him so uh alex sulkin coming at you shortly here's what i'm learning by reading this book that i'm reading by uh firestone the fantasy bond it's clinical psychology book here's the deal okay it's very interesting to me that i have found my way in this world and that the vehicle has been this podcast because i'm a guy that a lot of people have called selfish

or self-involved or uh you know or or insensitive or navel gazing whatever the fuck it is there's some part of my personality that really rubs people the wrong way it's very defined what i'm saying is is that i've been known to be difficult intense uh complicated neurotic angry whatever sad who knows but defined definitely defined so counterintuitive to that is that that i found myself being known to be an interviewer of people i'm an interviewer of people and i don't ever think of it as interviews i think of these as talks as conversations so it's very interesting to me that on one side you've got this sad angry selfish neurotic navel-gazing pensive pseudo-intellectual loudmouth that uh has a defined personality yet i'm known to to to surrender obviously some of that in order to talk to people it's a i find it interesting

about me and i'm not blowing smoke up my own ass i think i'm being overly critical to be quite honest with you there are two sides to me i've just been recently thinking about why why does it work why does it work like that what is it with me so i'm reading this book the fantasy bond by this guy firestone now the premise is i sort of put it through to you a couple times before is that if you have parents that are giving you mixed messages emotionally because they're trying to act like parents as a young child, as young as two, you're absorbing that. How this woman, this man, these parents are telling me they love me, but they act like they don't know how to do that. They act like they're just saying that because they feel bad for not being able to. They act like that because they feel like they have to because the feelings that are coming through underneath that statement are not love they're confusing i'm confused two-year-old mark i'm confused so what

happens is you internalize the feelings of weirdness that come from honestly reading your parents emotions you think well these are good parents my parents are good parents so why the weird feelings i don't know that must be me that must be me i'm fucked up i don't feel good i don't like myself i you know i don't feel comfortable i'm paralyzed with anxiety i'm gonna die i got no cap on my personality and that's what you bring with you for the rest of your life. You have fantasy bond. The fantasy bond is essentially you project a fantasy, whatever that is, that you think will comfort you. And then it doesn't. You're incapable of being comforted because you live in a world of poor self-parenting. Whatever you've had to do, you've had to survive on your own whims and parent yourself with the shoddy tools you have because it can't be your parents' fault that you're like you are when you're that young. They're good parents.

You're just fucked up. So what do you do to make yourself comfortable? You eat. You do drugs. You jerk off. You do whatever it is to soothe yourself. How do I self-parent? I'll tell you.

This is the problem. How about some caffeine? How about some nicotine? How do I self-parent? I'll tell you, this is the problem. How about some caffeine? How about some nicotine? How about Twitter for two hours? What can I stuff into my face and feel bad about? Maybe I'll masturbate today and nap. How about some actual sex with an actual person? Well, lucky I have one.

She's not in this state, but we'll work it out. How about some music? How do I? I need an IV. I need a song. Give me something. You know what a great song does? A great song will jerk off your brain slowly until you finish. How do I get those juices going?

What do I got to do? Because sitting with me, I just feel that weird squirrely discomfort. Oh, God. I'm a newborn in a 50 year old body where's my mommy she's not helping so that's what i'm left with i'm left with this weirdly kind of like uncomfortable core self that has struggled for 50 years to take care of itself relatively badly the the point i'm trying to make is that just over the over the chasm

and sadly the chasm that i'm talking about is is i can step over it into a life of of freedom and self-acceptance. I can feel it. I just need to step over this chasm. I don't know why I don't think I can just step over it. It's literally not even a foot wide. Because I'm afraid. What's that guy look like on the other side of the chasm?

Don't know. I've gotten rid of some stuff but i mix it up i had 15 years sober on august 9th thank you 15 years sober and now i'm getting back into sober thinking so here's the point i have to temper out i have to temper some of this shit i have to get rid of this caffeine for a little while gotta get rid of this nicotine lozenge bullshit I gotta temper the twitter I gotta eat a regular food regimen I gotta exercise a little bit you know I gotta pull away from my dick I gotta really focus on on the healthy elements of a relationship I gotta get to fucking I gotta get back to the baseline. I got to get to ground zero of Marin to see how that fucking exists in the world.

All right. I'm probably going to eat another bowl of puffins and I might masturbate and I will get on Twitter later. Hey, I'll kick tomorrow. Right? Right? hey i'll kick tomorrow right right so the point i was making about the two sides of me the side of me that does this monologue right now and the side of me that will talk to alex sulkin pretty soon is it completely honors the nature of who i am what you're hearing in the first 10 or 15 minutes is the struggle for me to take care of myself and not be uncomfortable in the world and

what you're hearing in the second part of the show, when I talked to somebody else is me completely bonding with that person as if they have all the answers. I just want to connect. I just want to, I just want to connect emotionally and feel like I am soothed and excited by the life of somebody else. I want to feel their life because it makes me feel safe and happy. I guess that's interviewing. Let's talk to Alex. It's a night for the whole

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and it's like I don't know what to do when things don't start. Because I think I let my AAA lapse. You did? Yeah, I just, I'm never, you know, I get things in the mail and they fall through the cracks. So I don't know who to call. So I just called Uber. To fix the car? Yeah.

Could you just come over? I'll ride with you, but take a look at this job. Take a look at it. But are you one of those people that, like, are you that way with everything? I don't know what the fuck to do with anything. No. Yeah, I have no, I don't have a green thumb or a fix-it body or anything. Well, what's your house look like?

Did someone decorate it for you? Well, I live with my girlfriend. That. And so she takes care of everything. I know, but without that, you'd be living out of boxes, right? I'd fall apart. My teeth would be falling out of my head. It's true, right?

Yeah. What's wrong with us? We're Jewish. Is that it? Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. But some Jews seem to manage. We're a certain type of Jew. Those are like the orthodox, walking fast Jews.

What about the accountant Jews and the people that have lives? I don't know where this breed of Jew that just entered the world with a lot of anger and creativity, completely incapable of doing regular things. I know. Well, do you have a good relationship with your mother? Because I do. You do? Yeah.

She spoiled me. Oh. I didn't get that. I'm not sure what the relationship is. I mean, I was spoiled, but I didn't feel like it was about me necessarily. Okay. No, it was always about me, so I never had to do anything. So you've got that one.

And then here I am. Yeah. You've got the one that was there very supportive. You could do no wrong. Right. When I moved into college, she was there unpacking all my stuff. My roommate arrived, and I was napping on my bed, and she told him to be quiet. Always a good start to a roommate relationship.

Right, yeah, yeah. So, in other words, you have no, so women must be just a difficult. Yeah, they are. They don't, you know, they don't, there's always something wrong. Right. As you know. But not with us, right? No, it's them.

What's wrong with them? What do they want already enough i tell i it's weird the reason that i asked you to come on was i think i had this uh adverse relationship with your twitter feed for a couple years really yeah well i had this relationship like okay that's him that's his picture i never did any research on sure you're just uh the sulk yeah alex sulking that's his face with a mustache. These are his jokes. They're good jokes. And at some point, I decided that guy doesn't like me.

That guy, he's just this angry Jew comedy guy doing this thing. He's not even a real person. He's this one-dimensional, judgmental thing sitting in his house better than other people. Well, I mean, you're right in that that's the way I think about other people well you're i mean you're right in that that's what the way i think about other people as well so i i respect your right to feel that way about me but yeah no and i do feel that way about most people okay so yeah i wasn't off no you're mostly right there it's just you were not ever a target of that okay vision no and then there was one thing you wrote that like i can't get out of my head on on most days it was like one thing out of the whatever hundreds that you write what was it i have a bad case of

dad dick today oh yeah yeah it's awful just terrible just the couple of times that you saw it in the hallway or something and then to to see it again on yourself well it's the worst terrifying i mean we all deal with age in a certain way, but there's like, oh, my dick is old. Yeah. Guy's been through a lot. I know. And it's just not.

I've put him through a lot. Other people put him through a lot. I know. I know. And it's just not looking good today in any way. And it doesn't have, it's not 100% the dick. It's also the surrounding environs. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Sure, the paunch. Yeah, the paunch, the hair. Yeah. I'm not gray down there yet, but it's also the surrounding environs oh yeah yeah sure the paunch it's yeah the paunch the hair yeah yeah i'm not gray down there yet but it's a matter of time it's yeah that seems to be the last thing to get gray yeah your hair's a little gray your beard seems to be holding up already but like when you get the gray down there it's gonna be like oh yeah yeah everything needs help now but then you know you i'm 41 oh okay. So you're not that old. But we talked to our bald friends and they're like, you're so lucky. Yeah. Quick complaint.

I know. Yeah. Mine's holding up all right. Yeah, me too. Where'd you come from? Boston. Oh, really? Yeah.

Like in Boston, like Newton. Yeah. Weston, next to Newton. Uh-huh. Yeah. That's where you grew up? Yes. I went to school there.

Where'd you go? Boston University. Oh, nice. The Terry is. Yeah. I know nothing about sports. Yeah, well. You're wearing a Patriots hoodie.

I am, yeah. It was important to you. I do. I like sports. My mom, again, huge sports fan. Do you have a father? I do. I do. Does your mom like him?

Do you like him? Yeah, I'm getting to a place where I'm good with him. Yeah. They're divorced. Yeah. So my mom doesn't like him but i mean they're all right when did that happen when i was five oh so that you're you're understanding a lot more now so you have a chip on your shoulder i do yeah um fuck that guy right

yeah yeah kind of uh but now he feels like he's entitled to a lot in my life you know really needs money huh well it's actually not even that i wish it was that yeah like because then it would be simple you know write check send check yeah get phone call thank you you would do that i would but it's more like time uh-huh you know so he said that he did this thing uh just recently said i i want to come down there for the weekend he came down from wednesday to tuesday That was his weekend. Even my girlfriend was like tearing her hair out. Is he retired? From what?

But yes. The drifter dad. Yeah, that's right. You got that one. All right. He left and who knows what he's doing. Right. He is retired.

But to say what he had retired from is kind of a mystery so it's weird to me like uh like i guess we'll do i i don't mind a jewish theme i invite a jewish theme generally but when i was in boston the boston jewish thing is different than other jewish things it is like they have uh i don't know if you know this i'd like to get i'd like to have it substantiated but there are several different types of rye bread in Boston. I don't know if you know this. There's sizzle rye, there's light rye, there's dark rye, and there's pumpernickel rye. Now, I don't know what delis you went to as a child.

I went to a couple. You went to the B&H probably? I wasn't paying attention. I mean, I went to one called Provisors, which was in Newton, Wobbin. Oh, Wobbin. Yeah. That was very Jewish. Yeah.

I was in love with a girl from Wobbin for one summer, and I don't know what happened to her. I met her at the Grand Canyon. We made out. Nice. And then I went to Wobbin when I was in high school visiting- With High Hopes. With High Hopes, and I met her parents, and I think we made out, and that was it. Julie Janower, if you're out there-

It's now Julie- Do you remember? No, it's now Julie Miller. That's right. Julie Janower Miller. She're out there. It's now Julie. Do you remember? No, it's now Julie Miller. That's right. Julie Janower Miller. She's got three kids. Right. Has no recollection of what I'm talking about.

So were you guys religious? Not really. No, definitely the least religious. What is it? Reform? Oh, you were reformed? Yeah, I guess. Like the organ in the synagogue?

Right. Oh, yeah? Yeah, and just going to temple with eyes rolled two or three times a year. Right. And you have brothers and sisters? I have an older sister. Sister. Yeah.

Surrounded by women. Yes. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. What is she doing? Normal things? Yes.

She is a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Of what? Of international relations. Wow international relations yeah she's smart smarter than i am much but do you ever go there in your brain like that would that have been the thing i don't teach no no i don't think i could have i was never um i don't think i ever got good enough grades to teach so you're not a wizard kid no yeah not at all how'd you end up in fucking show business so you grow up your dad leaves when you're five yeah and what do you visit him i do i do he lives uh up north of seattle now but when you were a kid did you visit him i did contentious i did it wasn't actually it wasn't

for a while like it took me a while to realize that i was angry at him like until my late 20s even really yeah i was fine with him for a while. Cause I think I always acknowledged that it was better that he was not there, you know, knowing him and knowing my mom, I just couldn't picture being raised by the two of them. Why? What was he like? Well,

he's just, he's quick to anger, but not, you know, the Jewish anger, not like real anger where you're going to get whooped or anything. It's just emotionally abused. Yeah.

Just like his dad was kind of an asshole. Yeah. And so then he was, I think he tried his best, you know, and then, but I'm also totally impatient. He's completely impatient.

I think he didn't have a lot of patience for marriage and me being like five, you know, I think, I think when I became a person, he was more into me. You know, I became like someone with a personality. Yeah, and you don't know what he did? No, I do. I mean, he went from thing to thing.

For a while, he was a travel agent, which of course nobody is anymore. It's a tough racket. Right, yeah. I'm a travel agent now. Right, yeah. Then there was phone booth repair. No, I'm kidding.

But he was a travel agent and then he was a travel agent for like a big company uh-huh uh like single client right right right in-house in-house travel agent yeah and then uh it starts to get hazy i mean he was he did that for a while before that he really wanted to he owned and ran a nightclub in london when when after he got divorced from my mom i love those stories like the random sort of like that was his midlife crisis that was what he wanted to do run a nightclub in london because his dad was a big big into jazz and so he wanted to do that and he did that for about five years really as all clubs do it kind of went under he but he booked jazz? He did. Were you brought up with jazz?

I was, but I mean, you know, I was brought up with, they're big into swing band. Oh, yeah. So not like Coltrane. Yeah, like Dorsey and Stan Cannon. Yeah, Goodman and stuff like that. So that stuff I know a little bit, but the real jazz that people are like way into that's cool, like I don't know. The type that requires patience. Right.

Yeah. No, no. I like the ones you can snap your fingers to and tap your feet. Not the kind that makes you slightly anxious, but you feel like there's something happening. It might get there. Yeah. No, no, no.

Yeah. So, well, okay. So the anger thing. So you like it. This is all relevant to me. Sure. But you got a handle on it? Well, no.

I mean, sometimes, I don't know i mean i fly off the handle a lot i get angry at my girlfriend you know she's pretty much bears the brunt of it now unfortunately how long you been together a little over two years you think it's gonna hold up i think so so okay so he okay so you go you're visiting your dad but so he's a short-tempered guy not anymore but he was when i was growing up he's he's age has dulled him isn't that the gift yeah and also the curse i know it's like right when you're sort of like you know i think i'm ready to take him to task it's like he's you know he's having a hard time with his shoes yeah now yeah now right yeah now everyone meets him and goes, that guy? Yeah. Come on. What a sweetheart.

I have no idea. All your friends for years have been telling about the monster. Yeah. He's so funny. I know. Oh, if only they knew. I know. Did you ever unload on him?

A couple of times. Yeah, I did. And to his credit, you know, he kind of took it and just tried to process it in the way that he he could how old were you was a couple weeks ago when he was here coming off of it no it was um probably like less than about two years ago i i felt a mixture of bad afterwards but also like you know that was that was 50 years coming right i'm entitled to yell at an old broken man right right at the top of my lungs for an hour it was it was gloriously inappropriate right so so what okay so you grew up in weston right what you're a funny kid in school yes yeah disruptive yep yeah uh and i was like best friends with the bully oh yeah yeah yeah and uh diplomatic

great place to be sure sure yeah i'm cool with him right and then you had to be the you had to navigate between the bully and your other friends or the you had to be the diplomat in that well sometimes but often i would just watch the bully just like push their backpacks as hard as he could and just laugh i'll so you were that guy. Right. You were the good German. That's right. Yeah, I definitely would have been.

Yeah, path of least resistance. Yeah, those Jews. Yeah, I don't know, some of them. Yeah. So I guess you didn't have many friends, because at least everyone hates the bully, but that guy. Right, is loathed. That's the worst guy.

Yeah, but I was protected. Yeah. That was elementary school i think in high school i was able to kind of make more friends kind of cross between groups and when did the when the when did the comedy like when did the incentive to i mean you're involved with well family guy is like a huge institution right but it didn't i mean it didn't, I mean, it didn't start there. No. No. You know, I, it was always something in high school, even then, I would just write, you know, irreverent stuff for the school paper. You did do that.

And get kind of yelled at. You're like the Krasner of the. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But way, just not fully formed. It was always stuff about like 10 people the librarian looks like you know and then getting yelled at yeah but they'd publish it and they'd be like i don't know this is pretty hot right right i'd be like do it yeah yeah yeah okay man but we're not gonna take the hit you

don't have to and uh and so i was literally smacked uh across the head by our principal one time for for that thing about the librarian. He hit you. He hit me. It wasn't like a smack in the face, but it was a smack upside the head. Like one of those parental sort of like not punishing smacks. Like what were you thinking? I got hit by a math teacher.

I'm surprised that we share that story because it was wrong. They're not allowed to do that. They're not supposed to. I mean, this guy, it was out of disrespect. Like he pointed his finger at me and said something

and I pointed at him and he's an old military guy. He just popped me. He just popped me with the back of his hand. Yeah, that's not right. I know, but you know, it's like it's a victory. Right, right, yeah, you broke him. Yeah, it's one of those lessons in disrespect.

It's like, that's right, I can get through. I don't owe you anything, old man. I'm going to start looking at it that way. I think that part of having a comedic personality is knowing that you can push authoritative buttons yeah definitely it's like the greatest thing in the world like right afterwards you feel like stunned but then you're like right i can win this yes i won't have any friends or money right yeah but i got it yeah yeah yeah so anyway to high school irreverent stuff then college did nothing like no studying just smoke pot with friends where'd you go uh connecticut college what is that college it's

it used to be connecticut college for women oh yeah and now is that what drove you there yes no it's true visiting there it was like insane really so the school was 65, 35 women and our class was 75, 25 women. Yeah. So it was just like women fighting over you. Oh my God. So it was kind of a terrible, great lesson. A full buffet of women to practice your specific form of malcontent on. Exactly.

Right. To target the ones who are most susceptible to that thing. To your selfish Jewish hostility. That's right. That's right that's right yeah yeah um in the yearbook it says made the most girls cry right that's right so yeah and i found that that was usually either other jewish girls or asian girls who were quiet and would say nothing uh-huh so um so you dated jews good for you yeah does he end up is your girlfriend jewish

she is you stayed in i did stay in huh i know i know i that's well that's the one thing that you got from your mother that you just true yeah no she's very excited about that no they're always excited about it i could never my first wife was jewish but i think that was it really yeah and then i i was i actually was i think i had a policy against them for a while how long were you married were you married? I was married for three and a half years. I was with her for like eight years. Okay. There was some part of the Jewish middle class thing that I found.

And obviously I'm self-hating in that, but I'm just sort of like, it's so predictable. Yeah. It's like a language of its own. I have to transcend the language. And did you guys break up because you were fighting? I broke up because like i do a horrible joke about it um my first marriage was a disaster i made a mistake i married a jew and i just let it sit there and go i'm a jew i just found that if you're a jew

and you marry a jew that means that means everything you hated about going home is now in your house that's great that's awesome it's horrible like it only can hurt her right and yeah and every jew like has to think like this jewish couples have to sit there and go now look at each other yeah okay but but that but see i also sometimes say that well that's also what makes people do it anyway that familiarity yeah but you become you become uh an exaggeration of yourself you know very quickly when you when you're with a jew you all of a sudden you're speaking in that shorthand of like what yeah i know i know go to the place that has the thing i know the one you like totally true where's that where do they do the eggs like that okay every night yeah right and you're like how how is this happening i know uh it you know it's

and in some ways you know as you say it's familiar, but in other ways, just the repetition of the same things. I tweeted once, hey, are you single? No, I'm in an endless discussion about where to eat dinner, which is just what it is every time. It's like, what do you want? I don't know. What do you want? What are you craving? What do you want?

It's just like every night, it's the same thing go to the place which is okay right it's never been great but it's good enough and we we when we order in we act like there are a thousand places like what do you want tonight out of every restaurant in la it's like we order from one and a half places ever and but you still talk for half hour right no oh my god yeah i but see the weird thing is i'm so attached to certain elements of of being jewish like you know i do like a good deli sure i do i do i used to really romanticize and be fascinated with old i used to work in a deli when i was in college that's no longer there it was in west roxbury called gordon's deli okay at potterham circle i don't know i know

potterham yeah sure you know there's a and there used to be in that little mall right there where the chinese place yeah i eat at that chinese place right next to it used to be gordon's deli okay and it was just like i never knew that's where i learned all about you know boston jews right and i that's where i learned that jews could have jobs that were not necessarily that great right right Because they were all there congregating. Yeah, but yeah, because you remember the first time, you're like, a Jewish plumber? Right. How does that happen?

Right. What went wrong? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, see, so I have a real affinity for certain elements of the Jewish thing, but I guess I just couldn't see my, I guess it's that old Woody Allen joke, you know, where he's paraphrasing Groucho Marx. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the same thing, man. But you're in it.'re in it yep so okay so you go to college you smoke pot you learn how to use your dick right and then what happens then uh so my senior year in college a great thing happened where i was able to get an internship at saturday night live, really? Yes. So my senior year, just scheduled, made my schedule so I had classes Monday through Wednesday and then Thursday through Sunday

I would go down to New York on the train. You know, it was not far from Connecticut College and just go and stay in New York and work, be an intern

at Saturday Night Live. What season was that? That was the Saturday Night Dead season. The last season with like Mike Myers work be an intern at saturday night live what season was that that was the saturday night dead season the last season with like mike myers and david spade it was like 1994 or five and so the new york magazine article that came out said saturday night is dead and everyone freaked out and then after that i turned that i became a writer's assistant the next year which was the changeover to like will ferrell and daryl hammond and sherry o'terry okay but so what how like what compelled

you i mean at that so you're in college so i'm in college uh and during the summers i would go into new york city and work for my uncle who worked at a sports marketing company uh-huh so that was basically like putting together events for like, you know, their clients would be like Schick razors and they'd put together events for the NBA where it'd be like the Schick super hoops shoot around, you know, where they'd set up a parking lot. Publicity house. Right. So I worked there for a couple of summers and one of the guys who worked there, one of the executives who worked for my uncle used to be an executive at nbc and he said you know i was getting towards the end of college what did you want to do i said

well i want to get into comedy maybe writing whatever he knew this woman named evie murray yeah who was like a one of the lornettes you know kind of in that blonde, lorn, like dead eyed woman crowd. And so he got my resume or whatever the hell it was application at that time to like be an intern at SNL. And I guess he got it put like on the top of the pile somehow. So sure enough, I got it. And it was awesome. You know, it was so exciting. It was still the most exciting job I've ever had by far.

18 or 19. Yeah. Running around the the halls there like what was your job it was like getting people's food and like distributing uh you know script changes and and running videotapes here and there and it was it was great it was awesome and so you got to interact with the cast and totally and you know some were nice some were assholes and like you know it was it was a great experience like what was the first asshole moment um well it's funny most of the cast people were really nice yeah like i don't remember any of them particularly you know some of them may never have talked or looked at me right um but like what this guy and it's i feel bad now because he's like kind of still a big to

do in the world but like he's a fucking asshole and i'm just gonna say it on the thing uh this guy steve higgins i don't know i know higgins yeah he produces fallon show right he was a head writer he was a head writer there when i was a writer's assistant he was just a dick to me he was an asshole yeah and like i always felt like watching the writers there in the room like that was when they had like adam mckay and different people there and he's fucking inspired and hilarious and i just always thought that like higgins was just a dick like i mean i never i get it he had to like wrangle a lot of writers and do a lot of shit so maybe he didn't have time to do his own thing but i'm to my mind like his job was like to be a dick to me and like in retrospect

i realized that i also was not like a great employee right like i was not i've seen enough people now come through as as interns and writers assistants and seen the kind of people who you're like this guy's on it he's awesome i was and i was smoking pot i was there to have fun like i loved it there i love the scene i love being a part of it right so i realize also that like i'm i'm a little culpable in that sure so maybe he saw that and was like i'm gonna be a dick to this guy what i think is funny though is ultimately like when you do find some success for yourself and you look back and you know you decide like what what type of grown-up am i gonna be you know like um and it's it's weird that there are certain grudges or certain things that you know you know diplomatically and professionally it's sort of like everybody's okay you know we're a different time and all that

but there's some things where you're like nah that fucking guy was an asshole yeah yeah yeah right it's true and then like you know that maybe if he hears this he's gonna call you and you're like i don't understand would that happen i don't i doubt that he would he hears this, he's going to call you. And you're going to be like, I don't understand. Would that happen? I doubt that he would call me, no. And it's funny. I'm friendly with a lot of people that he's in the same world with. But yeah, he was always the guy that just rubbed me the wrong way.

He was there when I had that meeting with Warren that I talk about obsessively on this show with anybody who's been involved with SNL. Yeah. And I've seen Higgins since because I've i've done fallon i've seen him around right and uh but you know i don't i don't necessarily know how all that it's very hard for me to figure out and i'm still learning about the politics of how this shit works because even like i don't know if i've talked to somebody specifically about the process of writing because obviously you ended up on your freight and you locked in with seth and you guys did what you did. But, you know, this weird way in, like, you know, this is some guy knew a guy who knew the girl that did the thing.

Yeah. And then you're in there. Yes. Totally. Yeah. And then there's a, were you at that point absorbing the politics of the situation? Because there's nothing more heavily political in terms of jockeying for material, aligning, building relationships with performers and all that shit is SNL.

It's like, that's the school of how to. Absolutely. And I think that I obviously saw a lot of it. It was happening right in front of me, literally. But I was so out of that fray. Like, I didn't have to worry about that part of it. And you weren't writing. Right.

I wasn't writing. I was just there, know enjoying myself and so i kind of stayed out of that you know part of it right then i was fired from from being a writer's assistant and i was replaced by uh regis philbin's daughter see so there you go you just weren't you learned your lesson nepotism right you gotta know a better yes yeah and apparently what happened was and i heard about this after the fact was that she went on regis live you know it was a big show the daughter went on and and addressed the camera and asked for a saturday night live for a job and so you got trumped by privilege totally and and so i so i've never met her but i hate her

yeah and she's out here now and she like works on new girl and like you know i mean everyone says oh but she's so nice she's great i'm like well fuck her you don't know what she did to me yeah i didn't have i didn't have a platform she set me back so then what happened was who are you writing a system for uh yeah just but in the room just the whole all the writers well so yeah so it was McKay. Who were the other people? Like Tim Herlihy, Steve Luckner, Higgins. Yeah,

McKay was like the main guy. I looked up to him because he was, his stuff was so different and awesome. Yeah. And he was already. Steve Corrin,

Dave Mandel, a lot of those guys who made huge deals and then ruined Hollywood. Yeah. Which deals? Well, like Mandel and Koren made like giant multi-million dollar deals coming off of like Seinfeld's bad last season. Right.

And then they ruined it for everyone else. Like all the writers who wanted to come in afterwards, they're like, we're not doing that again. We're out of money. I know. Right. Yeah. We gave it to Dave Mandel. We tried that once.

Right. No bungalows available. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. It did Dave Mandel. We tried that once. Right. No bungalows available. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, it did get fucked up, didn't it? It did. With the expansion of outlets and a few bad deals. Right.

Well, it's the Friends guys and the Seinfeld guys at the end. Sure. Who came in and took all these giant deals. And decided that every writer deserved a garage full of Porsches. Right. Yeah. And then they didn't make shows that hit was the big thing. And so then everyone said, well, we're not making those deals anymore.

All right. So you get pushed out by the Philbin girl. Philbin. And then I did stand up in New York for, and that's where I saw you. I mean, you know, you wouldn't remember me, but you were a king already at that time. So like I would see, yeah, I would see you performing at different places. And Luna and stuff. Yeah.

I feel like I did. I would just try and get to as many places I could. I was doing all those open mics, you know, Gotham and, you know, all the things that you'd go during the day and there'd be a line from like four o'clock in the afternoon.

How was that for you? You know, I really liked it at the time. Um, and I, I, I knew always that I was not a great standup. Like I have no energy or personality on stage.

I feel like I'm a pretty good joke writer but I don't I have that thing where I'm like protecting myself where I'm the opposite I'm the opposite thing I'm the exact opposite what you I'm an okay joke writer but I have a lot of personality you do you do well you're a great joke writer you have a lot of great jokes when they come but but uh I was always doing that thing of like, I'm too cool. So I'm not going to really put energy into this personality. But that's a type. It was, especially at that time, it was a type. That was the beginning of the alt sort of like laid back.

Well, especially with like Janine Garofalo was huge then. And it's like, let's look at your notebook every five seconds. Yeah. So I was doing it then. I was totally enjoying it. And there were guys like who were still at the shitty clubs then who are now huge like gaffigan who i looked up to was awesome and and uh you know like dave attell was coming on at that time and he was big he was a monster joke writer todd berry was there ignoring every guy and talking to every girl yeah hey what's going on what's up

hey hey buddy um so it was you know it was a great time for stand-ups um but again i felt like i got in kind of a little too late because really yeah i mean it just and also again with the whole thing of like me not really putting a lot of energy it's a tough racket i mean like if you're just a stand-up which is what i was you know like i i never i never even thought about writing for somebody else that's all i thought about i could barely do it for myself like it was all life and death for me it's like you know i'm just trying to do this thing for me right all the dudes that i know that i started with that that got into right they were to me they were the smartest ones because they were like i got a knack for this this stand-up thing is crazy to hang your life on that shit i agree it does not end well for

most of them yep to have that foresight i'm very impressed with like chuck sklar john groff yes uh billy martin i mean all these dudes that they became kind of huge writers for a while anyway totally we're stand-ups yep we're with me yes yeah no i know they're and uh it it seemed like the only way to go for me so when uh i did stand up for three years and then they started up the late late show with craig kilbourne right 1999 that was that was early 99 the ladies the fergusons now ferguson is so this was after the daily show after his stint on the daily show and they gave him the late Show, and they were taking submissions for that, one of the guys who was a Weekend Update writer at SNL named Ross Abrash was a writer already hired on The Late Late Show in pre-production.

And he remembered you from your... He remembered me and a buddy of mine. A buddy of mine got hired first. And then my buddy said, hey, take a look at my... Who's that? His name's Wellesley Wild. Yeah. And he said, take a look at my friend Alex's stuff too.

And we both got hired like within a week of each other. Moved out to LA at the same time. Are you guys partners? We are. We actually... We are for like movie stuff we were for a while and they let us split up at family guy for financial reasons like they let us split up right so but we've we went to college together and at connecticut college yeah so he's your your pot

buddy he's my pot buddy and you guys like made it out we did and he made it in first he pulled you in absolutely yeah well i i pulled him into snl what did he do there he he was an intern when i was a writer's assistant okay so like i said hey you got to get in on this racket i hope regis doesn't have any more kids i know right for god's sakes so we you know we both definitely helped each other out and uh and i actually end up working with a bunch of people that i went to high school with and college with and really crazy out here yeah it just by coincidence you know john viner oh yeah i know And I actually ended up working with a bunch of people that I went to high school with and college with. Really?

It's crazy. Out here? Yeah. It's just by coincidence. You know John Viner? Oh, yeah. I know that guy. Yeah, of course you do. Yeah, I went to high school with him.

He's a big deal now. And he is. Well, we write a family guy together. I definitely know that guy. I remember him from doing stand-up in New York. Well, I'm sure he puts you on the Mount Rushmore of comedy like we all do. But someone told me, like he's like this massive guy.

So he's a family guy guy. He is. And you went to high school with him. I did. And you weren't friends then. No, we were. We were good friends in high school. And we used to write irreverent things

in the newspaper together. So, but you had no idea where he was at until you got out here? No, no, no. We did stand up. We got fired. I got fired from SNL

and he got fired from his normal job on the same day and we just said in three weeks we're going to start doing stand-up look let's write an act yeah he's a nice guy that guy and uh to give you a date like a lot of our first jokes were about the 96 olympics so that's that's when we that's when we started so you guys were writing together well i think we we didn't really write together but we we wrote separately and said three weeks from today we're not chickening out we're going up we went up at uh that place up by uh columbia that's downstairs

the west end yeah the west yeah yeah yeah yeah it was greer barnes used to run that show yeah right was it yeah i remember that and there was some idiot guy who ran it who like ran a comedy class and he was terrible. Really? Terrible. I just remember instantly, first day of comedy, bonding together with my buddy and being like, this guy's awful. I remember that guy. And that's weird now that someone brought him up.

All right, so okay, so you and Wesley are writing together, and you come out here for Kilbourne shows. It's your first time in Los Angeles. Right. Are you like, what's your attitude? Like, oh, we're going to take this town by force well i think we were just another jew it wasn't it wasn't quite we're gonna take this town by force but i think we were happy that we were coming out here with a job right seems to be an uncommon thing that's the only way to do it right with a deal or with a job either way it's a gamble yes so you were aware that you you were lucky and that uh

yeah you know you got to figure out what the lay of the land is totally so then we start working at kilbourne and right away i bond with kilbourne like i was the only other sports fan on staff so we bonded over what happened to that guy oh my god he made a huge mistake he talked about making a gamble i think he he got pissed when conan got a huge deal yeah he wanted his deal to be bigger than it was. And CBS said no. And so he walked off. He did a couple movies.

He did. And now he just disappeared into anonymity? Well, I think that he's trying to develop a TV show. My girlfriend works in TV and said that she had a meeting with him and that he's trying to develop a show. Yeah. What's he been doing? I don't know. It's a weird business, right? He was so nice to me. and said that she had a meeting with him and that he's trying to develop a show. Yeah. What's he been doing? I don't know.

It's a weird business, right? He was so nice to me. He's so loathed, though. I think initially he was loathed because comics thought that was a comedian's job. Right, and he's like a pretty boy sportscaster. Yeah, yeah. And the truth was, he was funny on the original Daily Show.

And they had great writers and everything, and so maybe that writers and everything. And so maybe that was our failing. Yeah. Like, then you got to shit writers out there. You get. Writers were too good. Yeah.

Well, you never wanted to do the Daily Show? That never came into play for you? Well, I mean, it's not. It was already after you. Yeah. I mean, I didn't have the option to. Right. I mean, like, I didn't, I would have loved to do it. Right.

You know, but they didn't offer, I didn't have the option to. Right, right. I would have loved to do it. Right. But they didn't offer. I didn't apply. I think I applied for letterman writing jobs a couple of times. But it was when you're in your early mid-20s, the shit you're writing just wasn't good enough. But you're always a joke guy. Yeah, I think so. I think so, yeah. And so you write for Kilborn until the end of him?

No. I got off before the ship uh sank i my writing partner and i wellesley uh decided we wanted to get into sitcoms and so we wrote a couple of spec scripts for what uh we what are the specs yeah we wrote a spec um everybody loves raymond where like the sopranos came like where it was like turned out that ray and tony went to elementary school together was that recommended to you or well we were it was it it wasn't recommended but at the time everyone's complaint about spec scripts where they were all the same everybody was reading the same you know scripts whatever it was at the time people who

were trying to write actual episodes that would be on the show right and everybody's like i don't want to read another frazier i don't want to read another this or that so we wanted to write something that was attention getting it was sort of the equivalent of the guy who writes his college application in crayon yeah you know yeah so we did that and it worked we got a job doesn't always work though it doesn't always work yeah but we got a job on this show called the pits. Yeah. That was for Fox that only aired five episodes. It was in 2002 maybe.

Yeah. Um, but it was run by this guy, Mike Scully, who ran the Simpsons and, uh, Seth McFarlane was on the show cause it was when a family guy was briefly canceled.

So it was just lucky timing that we met him on that show he we were the same age he liked us he said oh boy a family guy ever comes back i'll hire you guys new england guy too he is yeah yeah he's from connecticut um he said if the show ever comes back i'll hire you and so sure enough it did and that's it yeah that's how history is made now that thing is is is an institution and people who love it, love it. Right. It's like, it's not The Simpsons, but I feel like there's a war between the two or something. Yeah.

Well, I think that actually not anymore. But yes, there was. But I think that now it's interesting. We've so many of the- You're still there. Well, no, actually I'm not. I went off for one year to work on another sitcom. But the Family Guy thing seems to be solid.

It's like the format is solid, so you can just run writers through it. Yeah, no, it's actually in my contract with Fox that I have to go back to Family Guy. And you're not upset about that? No, it's fine. I mean with Fox that I have to go back to Family Guy. And you're not upset about that? No, it's fine. I mean, Family Guy is like a vacation. It's like there are 25 writers.

So you can basically buy a hammock and sit in the room all day. Just pitch jokes. Yeah. Or take a week off. You know? I mean, it's great. It's awesome. And Seth still runs it?

He doesn't. No. He's rarely there. He does all the voices still, but he is, you know, he's busy doing his other stuff, his movies and whatever. Well, walk me through how that works, though, because I'm trying to see if I've actually talked to Simpsons writers specifically about how that works. So there's 25 guys.

Yeah. And the thing just, it's a money, it makes money. Yes. So it's a machine. Right. And how does the machine work? Well, the machine works like the 25 writers, each one will go off separately and write an episode. Then it comes back into the room, everybody-

Put it up on the board? You put it up on the board, then it up on the board then one guy goes off and writes it right then comes back to the room everybody rewrites you break the story we break on the board and then you guy comes back with a script and you put that up on a screen and just roll through yep exactly right yeah and so and occasionally smaller rooms will break off to do the sort of jokes that family guys kind of known for those cutaway gags where like just all of a sudden goes to you know somewhere else completely right so you know a lot of the manpower is sort of like five people will be in another room and five people will be in a second room and then

you know 10 people will be in the main room and then a couple people will be off writing a script and a couple people will be off writing their outline and right so it's just it's like a conveyor belt you know it keeps going and it takes uh you know like 16 months i think from the time that it's written until it airs just with all the animation and all that stuff but how long does it take to from from breaking the story to get a full script uh from breaking the story to full script is the writer gets two weeks so it's a it's a dream gig i mean you know you could have one week and it could be done but what's the sitcom uh the show called dads which is universally reviled why uh people just are not into it is it your idea it was it was mine and wellesley's idea it was just

to write about our dads and does it hurt you know it didn't it doesn't hurt because we wanted you know we wanted it wasn't great that everyone hated it well but you were excited about this idea you wrote this with the guy that you did you write the movie ted with him as well yes it was a tough self a guy in a bear well it was tough except it was seth was selling it so it was easier but yeah so basically when we made a deal with fox you make a three-year deal and it's called a development deal you hear that term all the time so as part of a development deal we have to develop something for them so come the third year of course we put it off forever so you wanted you were one of those writers that ruined the business for everybody kind of except our development deal didn't have

the zeros yeah the other people had so we uh in the third year we put it off and we said okay what should we do and it was kind of like a last minute homework assignment we're like all right well let's do it about our dads and then the thing just got fast-tracked because it was after Ted. You know, we were Seth's guys. How did you come up with the teddy bear idea? That was Seth's idea. Oh, okay. He pitched out the story and you guys wrote it.

He pitched out the story and we just wrote it. So we came up with this idea about our dads and moving back in with us. And Fox was like, oh, we love it. You know, go do it, do it. So we did it. We did the podcast. Thank God, though, because, like, you know,

you don't want to be one of those people that's sitting on a deal and then, like, you get nothing. I know. And they got behind it. Right. And they like the show? No, they hate it. They hate it.

The studio, you know, it took me forever to learn the difference between the network and the studio. Sure. But the studio loves it because they're the ones who might make money off of it. Who's the studio? 20th. Okay. And the network, make money off of it. Who's the studio? 20th. Okay. And the network, 20th, hates it.

So they put it out. Then there was a lot of furor over the pilot that it was racist. They said the pilot is racist. There was a joke about we put a hot Asian girl in hot Asian schoolgirl clothing and everybody found that very offensive all of a sudden. Why? Just that idiot guy, Aoki, who runs that Asian defamation league. It's like it keeps him in business to get mad about stuff.

So then he got mad about this. It's so hard when somebody comes out and says something is racist to be on the other side of that and say, no, it isn't. something is racist to be on the other side of that and say no it isn't well you've been it's it's it's a delicate conversation no matter what because you how do you determine on some level what is a a a cultural meme yeah you know that that that is established though though it may be racist is not of your making right and and it doesn't necessarily mean that you're you're being racist i mean there i mean i guess you could call it sexist too it was way more sexist than racist and nobody said anything about that it was way more sexist than racist because she was super hot

yeah and like so it looked good this was the pilot the pilot they let you put on television so you didn't see it the network and the studio did not see it no and then this guy saw it yeah this guy saw it and then everybody started complaining oh it's racist it's you know and uh and so then when we went to the you know those sort of meetings where you meet the press and they talk about your show that was all anyone wanted to talk about and how'd you answer to it well i mean we just said you know listen we're sorry if you think it's racist we think that the problem is that it's probably just not funny enough you know we think that if it was it was it was funnier like nobody would really care um

and so then we just kind of that sort of put uh a nail in our tire right beginning of the season and it just slowly let air out the whole rest of the way are you happy with any of the shows i am yeah some of them were definitely funny and the cast are funny you know they're they did a great job um i'm just at the point where i feel like listen we tried to do that maybe we'll get them the next time um and then you just go back to family go back to family guy and uh know. But that doesn't sound necessarily satisfying. Satisfying creatively? Yeah.

Well, it is. I mean, you get to be funny. You know, anywhere you get to be funny is satisfying. So you get to tell jokes at Family Guy. But what would you want to do? What's a big... Well, what I want to do is retire. Yeah.

And never have to work again. Sort of the same way. I know. But I don't... But like when you... See, you're in a different racket in the sense that like look if you you know if you create a show right and you're on it a couple years after a certain point you're like well let it go live by itself and i'll just sit by and make money while i'm sleeping right

that's what i want or you know or just to you know we're writing a sequel to ted we're we're working on another movie after that and i want those to do well maybe i can make money off of those and say see you later yeah but that's a big goal just to be able to sit and yeah i i bought uh a couple years ago i bought a house on cape cod and all i want to town in a little village called katamit it's in between bourne and falmouth so it's way on the southern or Falmouth? Yeah, it's on the southern. It's like in the armpit of the Cape.

It's like right as you go over the Bourne Bridge. I used to do it when I was starting doing comedy. I did gigs all down the Cape. I love it there. Johnny Yee's in Yarmouth. Nice. I don't know that place. It's a huge Chinese restaurant with a Polynesian dance show.

Love it. Yeah, there was, Dennis was a nice town, right? And I remember Falmouth and where there was, Dennis was a nice town, right? And I remember Falmouth and where there was, yeah, I mean, I spent time. Orleans, Hyannis. Hyannis, Hyannisport.

Gets a little dicey in the middle in the summer. It's a little bit much. We're in Yarmouth, I think, where it's just like people walking on the highway all day long to the beaches. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's really crowded. You can go get a lobster roll or a clam or a lobster roll. Love it, love it. So I'm actually going back tonight. Really. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's really crowded. You can go get a lobster roll or a clam or a... Love it. Love it. So I'm actually going back tonight. Really? Yeah.

For how long? For the week, this week. Just the work week. So you just do that? Whenever I can. Yeah. And I could. Where do you fly into?

Boston. And then what, you rent a car? Or you have a car at the house? There's a... I do have a car there at the house, but I have like this car, the green shuttle. They're called Pick Me Up at the airport. Oh a i do have a car there at the house but i have like this car the green shuttle they're called pick me up at the airport oh okay all right so now i think you're probably one of uh six or seven of uh sarah silverman's exes yeah sat across right join the club right how long were you with her uh like about a little more than a year

yeah maybe yeah was that fun it was it was totally fun yeah it was totally nice and you ruined it i did i wrecked it no we just realized we were both two angry jews as well it just you know and she likes to keep hers under wraps i know i know you know i really brought it out in her she couldn't hide it anymore you found it yeah i found it your reward is we're done yeah okay yeah no it was um it was definitely like at a certain point we were just two like angry pot-smoking jews who you know angry at each other couldn't quite agree on a life course oh my god yeah that's fucking beautiful yeah that sounds like a really romantic bit of business it was and now so you're after everything arcs out you're successful right and your dad you know comes and stays for a week

right and you're okay with him yeah yeah more or less so you in you're okay with him. Yeah. Yeah. More or less. So you're okay with your relationship. Yeah. And so how do you handle the anger on a day-to-day basis? Do you have any tools that I can glean? Well, I mean, there's always prescription medication. Okay. That seems to help. It does?

Which one? Well, you know, there are different things. Okay. There's, you know, Vicodin is sort of a fun one. I can't do that. I can't, because I'm a recovery guy, so I can't do anything that will, you know, ride the line of recreational. Okay, well, then you're out. I'm fucked.

You're out. I'm fucked. You're angry. Yeah, I can't do anything. Well, do you smoke pot? No, not anymore. Okay. So you still got all those things operating?

Well, actually, I stopped smoking pot like almost a year ago. Did that change things? Were you like daily? I started drinking more. Yeah. I noticed that. It changed that. Oh, I was a daily pot smoker.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why'd you stop? Did you start to get detached? Well, actually, I stopped because my girlfriend and i were talking about like having kids you want pop balls right and like i and and like you know you read differing things is it damaging is it not but i mean try convincing your girlfriend that doesn't matter what the things are even if there's a possibility of being damaging so i i described uh my sperm at that time as like spicoli and his buddies pouring out of the van again you know in the parking lot at fast times like that's kind of the tumbling

out with which it was all coming out um but yeah so that was kind of the reason to still trying to have a kid uh yeah yeah we're i mean we just kind of started oh yeah yeah that's exciting yeah you think that'll do it that ought to solve everything right i have a new thing to be angry about oh you could be your dad tell me when the kid's 10 yeah exactly i'll be back oh my god so how did the the twitter thing blow up because you're one of those people they call a you know a twitter star well uh and that means nothing anymore but yes back in the day back in the day three years ago that meant something um well i think that it started just because like at the beginning just the right number of like sort of famous people noticed me

or started following me on twitter and like retweeting me or recommending me. So actually it was a funny thing. Like, uh, one of the writers on family guys, this guy named Gary Gennetti, he's hilarious and he's gay. And his partner is this guy, Brad Goreski, who was on a Bravo TV show. Like he was just a personality on a Bravo TV show. So he had a bunch of followers and he started following me and retweeting me and so then i got a bunch of his followers and then somehow i got on the twitter recommends page at the beginning at the beginning right uh and then then then that's just that's where you built yeah you don't even know how many people

are really even on twitter right there from the Right. But you were one of those guys, you only do jokes. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. I don't do like, hey, come see me at this or- Or hey, I'm manic or why is my foot like that? Right, right. Whatever.

It's mostly jokes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you got into a little trouble with some timing on some joke. Yeah. I think it's interesting too, even in relation to the schoolgirl schtick with the Asian girl. Right. Is that in a culture where we're our own big brother and where access and immediacy, it can all happen very quickly. Right.

You can be out of a life in a day or two. Yes. Depending on how the traction is handled of any very quickly. Right. You can be out of a life in a day or two. Yes. Depending on how the traction is handled of any particular thing. Absolutely. Where do you, when you made the joke about, what was it about the earthquake? The tsunami in Japan. Yeah. Like, you know, we're guys that are sitting at home barely listening to the news.

Yes. Exactly right. Like, what can I, what can I. What's the angle? Yeah. And like what can i what can i what's the angle yeah and then you can't help yourself right but but they i i think that in some in some cases it seems most of the time when when you get flack for this right that it really comes down to it's usually not even in in it's not even racist or necessarily sexist it's insensitive yes and i guess that that is close to ignorance but but you know most of the guys i know that get into hot water about this you know they're not they're

just comics which you know their their moral code is certainly different right than others because you know we're they're looking for the juice and we come by our ignorance honestly yeah i i mean we're not genuinely trying to hurt anybody no there there may be ignorance involved in terms of the cultural lexicon that's acceptable at any given moment right but but usually it's just insensitive yes and you're sort of like oh fuck right now i guess you can't use rape at all anymore i know i know that word is out you can't say retard at all no more retard i know uh and i talk about that on stage i did recently which i was surprised because i i try not to do it at all it's even even a joke anymore but there is some at some point i guess you have to honor the evolution of the language

well it i guess and you know the it's funny that with the thing with uh the the tweet about the after the tsunami yeah like that was the thing where when i wrote it uh and when i was thinking of it it the thing had just happened and like the death toll was very low yeah and so it wasn't yet this like crazy thing that was like thousands and thousands of people i think i probably would have thought about and you're thinking like i can get the jump on the yes exactly and it was coming off of the oscars where I just had such a good time like making jokes about things instantly. And like, doesn't that person look like an idiot? You wrote for Seth and the Oscars?

Oh, no. Well, I did, but I'm talking about the Oscars before just at home tweeting. Oh, yeah. You know, like just having like a lot of success tweeting about something as it happened. Sure, live tweeting. Right. So that, you know, then it became this huge thing, like, you know, and, and again, with a more, when people are, more people are dying, I'm at home going like, Oh God, stop dying.

You're like, get out of there. I know. Get away from the water. What's the matter with you? Jesus. This joke is getting unfunny with every death. I know. You're killing my joke.

It was terrible. But the, uh, so I, I get why people were enraged about that because I mean, when a certain number of people die, like you can't make a joke about it instantly. Like maybe in 10 years it'd be okay. But, um, the,

with the thing with rape and retarded, like that still bothers me a little bit. Like I, you know, I, I'm sensitive to, you know, people who have been raped or people that are retarded or have, you know, I'm sensitive to, you know, people who have been raped or people that are retarded or

have, you know, family relatives or friends who are retarded. I think it's, I'm not even sure what is mentally challenged. Mentally challenged. You can't say retarded anymore. You can't say the word. That's right. I thought you just couldn't say it in a joke or no, it's no longer the word. That's not the word. I asked an audience once, you know, what is the word? And someone said, intellectually challenged. And I thought that's a little broad i know right who among us is not those things kind of pissed me off a little bit because i just feel like that's again just a product of a total reactionary society that would say like yes of course you can't say that like i i don't know why but you can't well the the conversations i've had about it where like i tried to tell this story on

stage once and you know like um i think that the moment that i realized how how difficult it is is that like i used to think like like i i understand the argument about the word retard you know retard yeah and retarded okay fine but like i always was um like sort of enamored with people who were retarded and that they had sort of a purity of spirit sure and i was at bumper shoot and i was you know i just talked about the word retard on stage and saying that i want the word back i would never call a retarded person a retard you call someone who's acting like a retard a retard sure it's a different yes but that was my argument, but that was dicey. And then I go to this concert,

it was like Stone Temple Pilots or something. There was some guy behind me, I just heard the cadence like, ah, Stone Temple Pilots. Yeah, right. And, you know, and it was like, this is too, and I turn around

and there's this, you know, mentally challenged guy who's obviously not, he's not bad enough to not enjoy the concert or know where he's at, but he's there like doing you know his oh that's so good and behind him is clearly his father with just like a sort of

lifelong sort of grimace of of pain yeah of of having this this the you know to yeah i'm sure he loves the kid and everything else but it was at that moment i realized that's who that word's gonna hurt right yeah you know yeah yeah but that's true yeah and that's really what it comes down to right right yeah i mean racism's a similar but it's broader but like with retarded you know i kind of get it but god yeah we just grew up with retard i know retard was just always the thing like stop acting like a retard yeah exactly and and somewhere you know it's usually the people i think that not unlike fag yeah that like you know people who are mentally challenged have gotten retard yep you know and then like and i think that people in their families

you know it hurts them for that their kid or whatever yep so well john lennon used to act retarded on stage he did it was like one of his big things. Like he would just always do that. He would go to like a weird sort of like, you know, tongue in mouth and like stamping his feet thing. He did that all the time. Why? Like it was funny then. Right.

Like it was fine to do then. I guess times change, man. Are you concerned that we'll get to a point where the parameters of what we're sort of culturally allowed to do will be so refined that there'd be no edge to any of it? Well, I don't know, because I feel like there wasn't there a time like in the 90s when all that was happening aggressively? And then I feel like it kind of abated. It didn't just abate. I think people fought for it i think there was a a part of the you know usually identified with the right-wing culture that that the war against political correctness you know sort of yielded what it yielded but there were also comics who were not

necessarily right-wing they were just filthy right you know and they were like you know we we want the freedom to say whatever the fuck we want howard stern and people like that sure and you know the the dice i the dice disciples and those kind of people and even kennison to some degree were like you know if you you can't close a door on the darkness yes someone's got to be in there absolutely and i agree with that and i think that i mean listen with the way everything's so spread out now like just including television and and and social media like there there are always going to be areas, uh, for all this stuff.

So I think that it's not going to go away. Well, yeah. And also it's like, just go to the, where you want to go. Right. Right.

And that doesn't mean go to a neo-Nazi like hate site. It's just like, there's some, you're going to do that. So I'm not going to hang out with you. Right. It's disturbing. Right.

But, but you can. Yes. And I mean, I think there are just places where, you know, where, where comics can say fag and like, you know yes and i mean i think there are just places where you know where where comics can say fag and like you know and and and that used to be a word also that didn't denote homosexual too it's like right you'd say like just stop being a retard like stop being a fag

yeah like yes it's yeah and for us it doesn't mean that but to to a gay person they're like well what do you i guess the pushback is is valid in the sense that when it becomes a you know ethnic or or or gender identification things because i i've gotten in trouble for the word tranny i'm like really tranny i didn't think that was loaded i thought that was a technical term no it's not it's it's derogatory to transgender and transvestites they're they're you know tranny is like their fag oh Oh, interesting. They're getting there too. Everybody's getting on the boat. Well, yeah, but there's pushback in needs.

The need for the pushback is so that group can identify itself with pride. Got it. Good for them. I want everyone to have pride, but I just want everyone to be able to laugh too, themselves included. I mean, do you think, I don't get mad when people call me a kike. I don't hear a kike much but as a kike right you you can you know when the tone is like i know when someone when someone sort of says something that you know is not in the tone where you know right you fucking jew yeah okay you just said fucking jew but when somebody who

is clearly not a jew and is not your friend, you know, says, well, you know, he kind of Jewed me down. You're like, nah, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if I like that, but we're different. We're running things. We're the ones with the microphones. That's right. All right. It's good talking to you, man. You too. Awesome. Thank you. All right, folks, that's our show. I enjoyed that very much. I like Alex Holkin. I like the guy. I like him. He's all right, that guy.

You can go to WTFpod.com and check the calendar. Why don't I do that right now? Okay, yeah, I'm going to be in Red Rocks on September 7th doing the Oddball Festival. Me and Bono, man. September 12th, I'll be at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View California Red Rocks is

in Denver September 13th I'll be at the Irvine California Verizon Amphitheater with oddball September 19th I'll be at the Gexa or Jexa Energy Pavilion in Dallas September 20th Cynthia Cynthia oh my god Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in Houston September 20th, Cynthia... Oh, Cynthia... Oh, my God.

Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in Houston, Texas. September 21, I'll be at the Austin 360 Amphitheater in Austin. November 7th, I'll be at the New York Comedy Festival in New York. You might want to get tickets to that. Selling out. November 8th, I'll be doing Comics Come Home in Boston, Massachusetts. All this is at WTFpod.com. Ooh, Thursday, Ty Siegel.

I got an advanced copy of his new record, Manipulator. He's probably made nine records since then. Guy's prolific, but this is the fucking record, man. This is where he needed to be going, man. I mean, it's weird when you hear like nine or ten records by a kid, and the sound just evolves, and now the production has caught up with him, and it's weird when you hear nine or ten records by a kid and the sound just evolves and now the production has caught up with them and it's fucking great.

Double record. Ty Siegel will be here Thursday playing. Great. It's a fucking, just a kid, this kid. Love him, though. Look forward to that. Ooh.

Ooh. I can see it I can see over the chasm because it's right there it's like it's not it's not a canyon for Christ's sake what would you call it a ravine is it a

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