WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 549 - Dave Ross

Episode Date: November 9, 2014

Comedian Dave Ross and Marc got off on the wrong foot. Luckily, they were able to have this chat in the garage where they realized how much they have in common, like difficult dads, struggles in radio, heroin experimentation and crying. Plus, Pauly Shore stops by to catch Marc up on his life, which includes a new podcast and a new documentary. 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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Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucks the bulls what the fuck apheliacs uh who's on the show dave ross is on the show funny guy i used to do a sex nerd Sandra podcast, but you know, I've worked with him a few times. He used to run a show downtown and I was happy to talk to him. So that's coming up tomorrow night at the Trippany house. Tomorrow night is the 11th. It's a Tuesday. And then the following Tuesday is the 18th. I'm going to do a couple more shows. If you want to come, I think

there's probably tickets at trippanyhouse.org. I don't know. I ran the new hour. I ran it in New York. I ran it for the people. Thank you for coming to the Skirball Center, selling out two shows. It felt good. It felt great. I felt weird before. It's so bizarre to me how much preparation I can do and working through new material and trying to structure things and trying to put it together.

And then I get up there and I just want to make it real man i just want to get in the present i want to feel some awkward pauses i want to get some big laughs but i want there to be some weird lulls where i just know that i'm on stage alone breathing holding a cup of water perched on a stool sometimes i just want to feel that I don't know how that plays necessarily. It was good though. It was very nice. I really thank you for coming. And I had a good time. Chris Garcia opened for me. It was great. Let's walk through the New York experience because I had a couple of interesting moments. Some of you may have seen me on the Today Show. I'm sorry I didn't tell you previous. Sometimes I forget these things.

I don't prioritize it in my head that you should get up and watch the Today Show. I wasn't even sure why I was doing the Today Show, but it was odd. It was an interesting time. If you want to go do a little research, I'm sure you can find my segment on the Today Show from last Friday. I was a little out of sorts in New York because I've been waffling, man. I've been waffling in my sense of what the hell's going on. Sometimes I don't know whose life I'm living. Sometimes I'm just walking down the street and I'm like this guy in a 51-year-old body going like, how'd we get here, man? This is crazy. Look, you're a walking, talking, grown-ass man with ideas and thoughts who seems to be having a career of some kind.

How did that happen? Who is in charge of that? What? Where are we at? It's almost like this guy inside of me has been sleeping or he's just been in a box for the last 30 years. And he's like, wow, things have really changed since you locked me in that room. Who the hell knows when you locked that guy in that room? So that's how I was feeling. I was a little like of two selves and one self was sort of in reality.

The other one was like struggling to hold on to what I assume is my perception of things. And, and I knew I had to go do the today show, but I knew that it was only going to be four minutes. And I knew that there was three hosts, this woman, Tamron, this guy, Willie, Al Roker, who I've met before, once or twice. I knew I was going to enter that weird, amplified, it's not surreal, but it's sort of hyper real. It's definitely like, here we go. We're on the ride. I knew that was going to happen, man. I knew going in and I didn't know if I could adjust to it because I knew that they were all three going to be asking me questions.

I had four minutes. And if I wanted to get anything out that made any sense, I was just going to have to get into that moment and just kind of push it out there. And you get to the studio. It's all very by rote over there. They've got a machine going. over there they've got a machine going and you know you're just you know a temporary moving part into the uh the the kind of like frenetic machine that goes into keeping eyes on the tube in the morning heading to work i got out there they brought me out they sat me down there's al roker's head right next to mine there's hello al roker's head is what my brain is thinking

there's this guy willie who i just met. We had a little conversation and then there's this woman, Tamron. And then I just, you know, they introduced me and I just went, I just flew off the handle right out of the gate. Things got weird with me and that woman. And it was not a bad weird. It was an interesting, weird Al was laughing. That guy, Willie threw me a curve ball with some drug question. Didn't know quite know where to go with it. Didn't know how much we could do on the Today Show. Followed my heart. Followed my rage.

Followed my charm into a kind of a happy mess of a Today Show segment. I think Al Roker had a very good time. I think that there's a moment when you deal with TV personalities, you know, where you, you know, once the cameras go on, you got this one thing. And then when they're off, you got that one thing, but there's another thing trying to get out. There's another thing.

Like, I think that all people who are on television that have to operate at a certain frequency, just below that frequency is, is someone going like, please get, just, just get us out of here for a few minutes.

Please. Can you just get us out of here for a few minutes, please? We can't do it, but you can do it. And I feel like that was the energy was driving me. I feel like in somewhere in my heart and in my mind that Al and Willie and Tamron were like, please do something, make something happen. Could somebody make something happen here? Because I don't know if I'm alive right now. Maybe I'm projecting. But we all had a pretty good time. And my mother enjoyed the segment. And I got some good feedback.

It's nice when my mommy can enjoy something I do. And so that was that. I did that in the morning. I did Opie and Jim. It was good to see Jim. It was good to see Opie. That was fun. So what else happened?

Okay. So I do the two shows at Skirball. They were great. Had a good time. Ate a lot of food in New York. Too much food. Was at the Bowery Hotel. Was in an elevator with Jimmy Page.

I know I got a lot of elevator stories, but this was one of those ones that took me off. It was off guard. I was in the elevator. Some people walked in and then the door opened again. And another guy walks in with a gray ponytail and these people all know each other and i'm like holy fuck that's jimmy page that's jimmy page right there right there right there the guy that blows minds for eternity with his music forever those riffs will be as huge as they are so i just i didn't say nothing i just i looked at the side of his head i looked at his flat weird face i looked at his gray ponytail and i tried to mentally extract mentally extract some guitar wisdom from

that massive mind of jim. But you know what? He's pretty well protected mystically. I felt the wall. I sent my feelers out there. I let the little kid in the box hold the vessel together as I sort of slightly astral projected into Jimmy Page's ear to try to work some stuff out, to try to pull some stuff out of there. Not steal it, but just sort of take anything that's left over left over but he was very well protected could not glean it did not happen what what paulie

shore what are you doing here uh you told me to come by don't play along uh wait what are you in the neighborhood uh yeah i was i was i was down i was down uh down the street yeah and i saw and i saw uh i was down my chrystalia's yeah no he was at intelligentsia cafe oh over in silver lake yeah you moved to silver lake huh yeah i moved to silver lake oh man yeah i live in a fourplex really yeah what the fuck i live in what is a fourplex fourplex is a fourplex? Fourplex is one building, and it's got four apartments in it. Two girls live below me, and then a dude with a hairpiece lives next to me. Is that what you call him? He's an attorney, and he's got a hairpiece.

Every time I'm doing my laundry, I look over, and there's a styrofoam head, and it's got a hairpiece on it. It reminds me of my father because my dad wears a hairpiece there was a comic I can't remember his name he used to travel with like 3 or 4 different ones so he'd travel with 3 or 4 styrofoam heads and he'd ask you like which one do you think I should do

and you'd have to chime in it's one of those hairpieces that are so I mean it looks like a hairpiece when he but it's cool he's a sweet he's like an attorney guy i guess newly divorced and he's living in one of those newly divorced with a hair piece living in a fourplex next to polish yeah yeah that's uh that's a sad story he's he's yeah he's jammed up to me a lot though lately yeah like he's sweeter

like you know like at first he was looking at me kind of like stern. Yeah. Like, you know, like standoffish. Yeah. And now it's like sweet eyes. Like not gay sweet eyes. No, but like. It's like nice.

Like help me. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And then I have a girl that lives below me and she actually wrote me a letter. And this is true. This was like when I first moved into it. She wrote me a letter, and she left it on my door.

She goes, if you're going to have sex, please shut the windows and turn on the air conditioning because the walls are paper thin. And she says, if I have sex, I'll do the same for you. Really? Yeah. So whoever lived there before obviously set some sort of weird standard. Yeah. Just some screaming maniac who had no respect for the neighbors yeah so that's kind of interesting yeah did you write

back and say like no need to do it on your end yeah no i just i apologize i didn't i would say kind of embarrassing you know what i mean because sometimes you know you get girls that are like but was it after you did you feel like she had heard something yeah she did hear something because it was a night after i had sex with a girl oh yeah are you loud well i'm not loud but the girl was okay you know some girls are loud some girls are not loud you don't say anything you don't make any noises i mean yeah sometimes no when you're older you don't it's not as loud yeah it's like it's a little the orgasm is a little loud. I'm very loud.

And I don't even know that I'm doing it. But I'm like, God damn it. Right, right. I don't even know why. It just happens. I was hoping you'd say some like sort of signature, you know, Pauly thing when you came. Yeah. Oh.

That would be. But yeah, it's cool. It's cool living out there. You know, I never, you know, like this area is like, it's cool because I feel like an American now. I feel like. What does that mean? You're living in Hollywood. Well, that's what I mean.

Like my whole life I've lived in the city. So like most Americans. Silver Lake's the country. You're out here in the Midwest of Silver Lake, huh? No, but a lot of Americans, what they do is they work in the city, and then they drive home to the suburb. So you work at the store. You come in.

You do your show. You do your whatever. And then you come here. It's very peaceful. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, I feel like when I drive down Fountain, and I'm cruising 20 minutes. Nice, right? Yeah, it's great, dude.

I feel very peaceful. It's nice. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah. Because that's what America does. Sure. And when I first moved out here, I thought, oh my God, where the fuck do I live? But now I'm like, thank God.

No, it's nice. It's great because you can just shoot right down Fountain. And Silver Lake's nice, and over here is nice. But I listened to the podcast that you did with Dice. Oh, wow. And I don't know man it seems like you sort of you know locked into something now like it's a very interesting format uh you've got it probably probably sure is interested podcast is unlike any other podcast because i did it and when he told me to do it i was like this is a little fucking weird you're like i want you to talk about lenny bruce but i'm going to talk to Kitty Bruce,

who's Lenny's daughter. And then when you're talking about Lenny Bruce, I'll play you what she said, and you can react to that. So you're almost like facilitating a conversation between two people that can't really respond to each other. Right. But it has an interesting effect to it. How did you come up with that?

Well, it's, I just, you know, I mean, you've been so successful with this format and you've kind of, you know, been the first of it. And it's kind of like, we even talked about like, this is where the business is. I mean, everyone's got a podcast now. It's like, I just wanted to try to do something that was different. Yeah. You know what I mean? I wanted to try to come up with something that hadn't been done before. So I was talking to my agents and we're just, you know, I just riffing, you know, riffing and talking and, you know, coming up with it. And then we started talking about like interviewing someone and then someone commenting on it. And it's almost kind of like most of the people that I interview are knowledgeable about the

person that I'm interviewing. So that's why I like. So that was the idea. Yeah. Because like. Or at least about the person that you'm interviewing uh-huh so that's why i like so that was the idea yeah because like or at least about the person that you're interviewing that other person about because i mean you interviewed rodney dangerfield's wife yeah and then like dice was commenting on on rodney yeah but the thing that was cool about it was like dice was almost exclusively commenting on rodney so it wasn't weird kind of dice stuff it was like thoughtful and about something that you know both of them related to that i can relate to a lot of people a lot of on Rodney. So it wasn't weird kind of Dice stuff. It was like thoughtful and about something that both of them

related to, that I can relate to. A lot of people, a lot of people that are comedy fans, you go back, like a lot of people don't know Rodney Dangerfield

gave Andrew Dice Clay his start. Right, on the special. Yeah, on the Young Comedian special on HBO and Sam was on it

and there was a couple other guys on it, Dom and Bob Nelson, I guess, was on it. Yeah. And Roseanne. Yeah. And I just kind of wanted to bring people back to that time, you know? And Rodney is like, it's like, you know, he's, I don't want to say he's forgotten, but-

He doesn't get the respect. Right. Oddly. Yeah. No, but he's so fucking funny, dude. He's the greatest. He was like- The greatest.

Yeah, he, excuse me, his one-liners the greatest. He was like... The greatest. Yeah, he... Excuse me. His one-liners were just like... No, he was great. It is very ironic and weird that he does not get the respect that he deserves. I just... I don't understand why either. So who else have you had on and what was the pairings that are up now? Yeah, well, this week was...

This week was I interviewed Carrot Top and then Larry the Cable Guy comments. And what we find out is that they both started together in West Palm Beach, Florida in 86. Where'd you find Dan? Is he live out here? No, he was filming a Prilosec commercial in LA. And I told him that I,

because I asked Caratop, I'm like, who do you want me to comment on yours? And he gave me a couple people, a list of people. And he said, Larry the Cable Guy, I'm like, oh, I'm friends with him,

I'll reach out to him and I just happened to get him in town that week. So he was doing it. How's he doing? He's great. He's a sweet guy.

So it's Dan talking about Carrot Top in your cut with Carrot Top talking about Carrot Top. Yeah. And they started in the same place.

Yeah, they started in Palm Beach. I remember when Dan Whitney was Dan Whitney and he was working at the store. Yeah. And they started in the same place. Yeah, they started in Palm Beach. I remember when Dan Whitney was Dan Whitney and he was working at the store. Yeah. Don't you? I kind of... He didn't work much. It was like belly room. I don't know if he was even a regular. Yeah. He's done so well with that

whole redneck thing. I would say so. It's like, fuck dude. Yeah. And he's a sweet guy. Yeah. Who else you got up? I had one coming up. I have Kitty Bruce and Mark Marin. That's a sweet guy yeah who else i had um one coming up i have kitty bruce and mark marin that's a good comment that was so nice you sent me that email of the voicemail from yeah yeah i don't even remember how that went i remember i was being sort of sort of like i'm not a you know i don't know everything but you know you know it was cool because you know for for me like i always think of the the listener and and you know like Having you on was a big deal for me to have you on,

not just because we're friends in the store and stuff like that, but just because you know a lot of shit. And a lot of people don't know Lenny Bruce. Right. It's hard to put him in context. They just don't. You know what I mean? And the cool part about, I think, your interview with the Kitty Bruce

is it's not about you. Yeah. It's about Lenny Bruce. Yeah. your interview with the kitty bruce is it's not about you yeah it's about lenny bruce yeah and and and so i really got a big education about who lenny bruce was and i think your audience and my audience are going to learn that lenny bruce i mean you want to tell him who the fuck he was right well well it's hard to put him into context i mean that's the trickiest thing is everybody knows the name they know the idea they get a sort of a sense that he was important in the

sort of freedom of speech thing but to really kind of sit down and talk about you know those records and what they were at the time and and and why he was important and also the fact that like you know a lot of stuff he talked in yiddish sometimes and he had yeah it's he had a cadence yeah oh definitely but also like you you you watch a scorsese film or a Tarantino film, it's timeless. Those films are timeless. And Lenny Bruce is timeless. Some of it. Well, if you just watched him, he's just one of these guys.

So I just thought interviewing him and having you comment on that was really cool. And Kitty, I'm looking forward to hearing it because I'd like to hear Kitty talk. Yeah, because she wouldn't let me air it. Because at first, I got these photos of you guys. Yeah. I got images to put it on iTunes and stuff like that. Yeah. And I'm like, I want to put it on.

She's like, oh, let me hear it first. Oh, really? So yeah. So that voicemail you sent me was her signing off on it? Yeah, signing off on it. Oh, that's cool. So it was really, yeah. How many are up?

I have so far about, I'd have to say 10. We have the Robin Williams one is really good too. I like the Robin Williams one. That's up there? That's up there. That's where I interview

Rick Overton and Ed Begley Jr. comments, which is really cool because you learn a lot about Ed Begley Jr. because I know. It's great. He's so good, dude.

He's so great, man. Yeah, he's awesome. I've had him in here. It's crazy. He is so good. He's so great, man. Yeah, he's awesome. I've had him in here. It's crazy. He is so, I mean, who knew that he did? You would never imagine.

I didn't know he was doing heroin with John Belushi. I know, it's crazy. It's like Ed Begley Jr., Mr. Environmental Guy. Yeah, he ended up at the Manson House once.

Yeah. I got a lot of weird shit out there. And, you know, I have a lot of people. Cool, man. Now, tell me about this Showtime, the documentary, Pauly Shore Stands Alone.

Is this what I saw you working on, like, last year? Editing it, you mean? No, I don't know. You didn't see me film it. What was that song you were closing with for? Oh, no. Okay. That was, like, the political thing.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was probably political. No, this is just a straight documentary. This is something that I shot in the Midwest. It's kind of like this smaller tour. I'm playing these kind of obscure markets like Antigo, Wisconsin. Yeah. Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

I'm playing in the middle of the dead of winter. Yeah. And while I'm at the same time moving my mom out of her house of 40 years and trying to get her situated. She's in it? Well, just the real of me trying to, I mean, your parents, are they still around? Yeah.

So do you ever deal with, are they elderly? Yeah, but not that old yet. They both have significant others around too. Okay, but at some point, you're going to be called to do things. I hope that they don't call me. Yeah, but you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do.

So I'm just like, you know, you have to, you want to kind of do it right. You know, I had to move her out of the house and all that stuff. But is she in the doctor? I don't want to say. I don't want to say because I don't want people to, you know what I mean? I don't want to like, I'd rather have people see it. Okay. You know, because I don't want to, because it's something special that happens at the end.

Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, now I got to watch it. Yeah, yeah. How is she doing? She's got Parkinson's. And when you have Parkinson's and you have good health, you can live for a long time. So she'll be around for a long time.

Okay. I think. Yeah? Yeah. And do you still enjoy her company? It's tough. Yeah. It's tough.

Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, it's hard, you know? It's hard you know it's sad yeah dude i did a show in uh i did you're gonna love this i did a show in uh where was it a woodstock i was there um a couple weeks ago and danny stone came to my show oh no yeah dude how are you what's going on but he's in like disability lives up in woodstock is he all sweaty and weird i didn't see him he wouldn't hang out till i got off stage and then I'm like dude where the fuck did you go dude what happened was is before I go on stage you know when before you do a show everyone's like oh blah blah blah is here

you know what I mean you know so they said oh Danny Stone's here does you want him to come up and I'm like no Danny Stone used to date your mom back in like when I was there yeah so I said no I don't want to see him you know I don't want to see him. You know, I don't want to see him before my show. I just kind of, I don't like to see people. Yeah. So I'm about to go on. So then after I finish, the first person I want to see is who?

Danny Stone. Danny Stone. I want to see him, you know? And I asked the person, and they're like, he's gone. So he didn't hang out with me. And then he called me in my office, like, a week later. He's like, oh, I couldn't hang out. I had to get out of there.

Oh, really? I'm like, oh, that sucks. Well, he may be something triggered or something. He says there's too many people and he felt uncomfortable. He's got a cane and stuff. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, because he did so much coke, dude.

He's fucked up. Is that it? Yeah. I didn't know you could fuck up your legs on coke. Well, I don't know. He probably has something else wrong with him. He's got some stenosis. I don't know what could fuck up your legs on Coke. Well, I don't know. He probably has something else wrong with him. He's got some stenosis. I don't know what that is.

Oh, my God. All right, let's get back to this. So the documentary premieres December 4th at 8 p.m. on Showtime. We're going to run it a few times. I'm excited. So it'll come out good? Yeah, I'm liking it. I'm having a pretty cool, exciting.

It's going to be on. Also, we're doing an L.A LA premiere at the Comedy Store November 12th. Uh-huh. Oh, really? Yeah, so if you're around next Wednesday. Or Wednesday. I think I will be around. Yeah, we're doing it at 8.30. In the main room? In the main room. We already have like about 250 RSVPs. Oh, that's great, man.

So Gary Shanley said he's coming and a lot of people are going to come. Oh, that's cool, man. Well, you know what? I'm happy you're doing all this stuff, man. I'm rooting for you, Pauly. Well, you know, we root for each other at this point. It's kind of like the little engine that could, you know? Again. You just got to keep going.

Yeah. Yeah, I always like seeing you. Thanks for coming by. Right. Thanks, guys. Well, that was wild, right? Pauly Shore just stopping by surprised me. Surprised me.

Pauly Shore's Interested is available on iTunes and at PaulyShore.com. The episode with me, Mark Maron, on it is out this Wednesday, November 12th. And the new documentary, Pauly Shore Stands Alone, premieres on Showtime December 4th. I've grown to like that boy as time has gone on, you know. Before I was interrupted by Pauly, where was I? I was in New York. Took the train Saturday morning up to Boston, the Acela. And that night we did Comics Come Home at the Boston Garden.

Boston Garden, you fucking kidding me? It was amazing. The Cam Neely Foundation raised a bunch of money there was like 12 000 people there it's dennis leary sing and i didn't realize it but i did the first one and this was the 20th anniversary i was on the first one of these things this is my i did two early on and this was like my return but what a fucking bill man dennis looked great he had some good shit and lenny clack was there. I go back with Lenny. You know, I started in Boston.

So a lot of these cats, you know, I hadn't seen, but I've seen over the years. But there was one dude there, Joe Yannetti. Joe Yannetti is this comic from Boston who I literally did open mics with when I was in college. And I hadn't seen him in almost 30 years. And it was great. It was like I was blown away. I almost cried. He just kicked a throat cancer he looks great but and tony v was there adam roth was on guitar hadn't seen him in a while robert

kelly fucking killed bill burr closed it out he was amazing jimmy fallon showed up gaffigan was there it was so weird when you're around people that you knew when you were a kid you know how you sort of feel like a kid and you kind of act like a kid I mean fucking Lenny Clark his brother Mike Clark whose phone number I still remember because he used to book rooms oh my god and there yeah it was just great some of them have kids now I you know we're old guys and everybody's got something going on life doesn't get any easier necessarily as you get older but uh it was very moving it was a great time. And Cam Neely was great, and I hope they raise some money.

I met all the Boston Bruins, and I got to be honest with you. I don't know fucking anything about hockey, but I was excited to meet the Bruins. They all looked like they were 12. They were beat up 12. But they were like kids. It was mind-blowing. And Dennis had said to me, it was funny, because Dennis is a hockey fan.

He says, you know, I'm running up to these guys. And I'm like, oh, my God, you're the guy. I love it. And he's like, they're kids. I'm acting like some weird old man. Oh, man. All right, do I sound too happy? It was fun, right?

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

and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. 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 how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. Ross. So where the fuck did you come from, Dave Ross? I mean, what, you know, like I know you from... From Holy Fuck. No, from Holy Fuck, but also you used to be a sidekick on the Sex Nerd Sondra. Yeah, Sex Nerd Sondra. You were like the male balance.

You were the Adam Carolla of that situation. Sure, sure. The Adam Carolla and the... Yeah, you're right. That's exactly what I was. I was like the dumb, regular, funny guy. Dude. Right.

And now you've got your own podcast? Yes. That's true. Called Terrified. What's the angle? dumb regular funny guy right right and now you got your own podcast yes called terrified what's the angle i interview people about either what they're afraid of or what they don't like about themselves why is everyone doing my show everyone's doing their own version of my show you know that wasn't the intention no i'm kidding don't get nervous no that was the intention i know no i'm glad that the the doors are open and everyone's finding their portal into the heads of others. Oh, yeah. So how long have you been in L.A.?

I've been in L.A. a long time. There was a two-year gap at the beginning where I was in Fresno, but I moved here in 2000 when I was 17 to go to college. Oh. Yeah. From where? From New York, upstate New York. You're an upstate New York guy? Yeah, like an hour north, Orange County, New York's a lie there's no orange there is orange county choppers man that's

where they're from i don't even know what they are they're they make motors i don't fucking know oh they're a motorcycle that's the big business they had a show american made motorcycles yeah there was a show on the discovery channel called american chopper what those two family yeah oh with the the dude with the big mustache yeah and their company is called the orange county choppers and that's where i'm from i'm from right around there they're up there yeah i like those guys yeah they're funny yeah yeah there's always a problem between yeah between the father and son then there's the one simpler son yeah who just who just made stuff. What's the big city? Oh, there isn't really. Newburgh?

Newburgh. Do you know Newburgh? No. Newburgh and Middletown. You know, it's really close to New Paltz. Yeah. And I would go to a lot of shows, a lot of punk shows in Poughkeepsie.

Were you a musician? No, just a fan. Just a punk? Just a punk kid. Punk kid? Yeah. How old are you? I'm 31. Yeah? Yeah. Well, what? Just a punk kid. Punk kid? Yeah. How old are you? I'm 31.

Yeah? Yeah. Well, what kind of fucking life experience do you have? I fucking knew it, man. I knew you were going to ask me that. I knew I was going to come on your show, and you'd be like, who the fuck are you? Why are you even here? Yeah.

I knew it. So explain yourself. Well, you tell me. You fucking asked me to come. Oh, boy. Any attention right out of the gate? No, I think you were pitched to me by my former assistant, Sam. And I'm like, yeah, that guy's funny.

Let's figure out what he's about. Because you're like one of the funnier guys that's on the scene now. One of the funny young comedians here in Los Angeles. But I don't have much experience with you personally. Sure, yeah. But upstate New York, that sounds interesting. So what were you doing? Like, what kind of family you come from uh my dad you know actually it's funny i'm already backtracking i didn't i'm not even really from upstate new york yeah

my dad was in the navy my whole life really yeah so we moved i was born in hawaii then we moved every three years until he retired then we we moved to Orange County, New York, and my dad taught ROTC at a high school, and I was just there for eighth grade in high school. Oh, my God. So what was his highest rank in the Navy? He got to commander. What's that equivalent to in the regular?

It's right below captain. So I think it's like two below below admiral which is the same as general in the army right yeah so it would have been he would have been captain and then admiral and then two-star admiral so you grew up on bases no and uh it's actually like kind of uh you know they had the right thought, but I think that it was, in retrospect, bad for me.

They, I wasn't raised on bases. Everywhere that we moved, they, I would live, we would live off base and I would go to a regular public school because they wanted me to have a regular upbringing.

But looking back, I think that somebody else who had that same experience, really Wanda Sykes, no way. Her dad was a big shot and they never lived on bases and they, you know, for similar reasons.

So why was it a mistake? Well, like I'm glad that I went to public schools and stuff. So I know what it's like, but I, it was probably, probably would have been a little more beneficial to be on bases with other kids who moved around a lot. So I would have people to talk more beneficial to be on bases with other kids

who moved around a lot so i would have people to talk to that i could relate to about my life yeah instead of like i would just show up in a town and they'd be like who the fuck are you who's the new kid yeah i'm always the new kid yeah and i'm like afraid you know everywhere i go so you're isolated so how'd you end up making friends? Not, no, nope. Sad. Didn't really. Really? Do you have siblings?

No. You're an only child? Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah, man. That's a lot of pressure. It was a lot of pressure. I always think that, I don't know why,

I've asked every only child I've ever talked to, like, didn't it seem like a lot of pressure to not die? Yeah. Well, maybe you've gotten this from only children, too. A lot of only children I talk to have a distant relationship with their parents. Really? Yeah. And it's like a weird phenomenon that none of us understand.

I certainly don't. Well, what do you think it could be? I think like- Well, your dad's in the military. There's that. Yeah. My dad's a real dad, too. He's a real, how's the car? Here's your mother.

Yeah. My dad's a real dad, too. He's a real, how's the car? Here's your mother. Yeah. And I think the last time, not the last time I was home, but two times ago, I was there for the longest I'd been there for like a week. And normally I'm only there for a day or two. And on the fourth or fifth day, I was eating dinner with them.

And my mom was like, so David, how? She started asking me a question. Yeah. And my dad reached his hand over and like touched her arm and was like, Bretta. And she goes, oh, oh, oh. And I was like, what? What was that? Yeah.

And she goes, she's like, oh, well, I mean, he's stuck. He doesn't, I don't want to smother you. And I was like, what? What do you mean? She's like, I don't want to pry into your life. I can be too motherly, you know? And I was like, you don't want to pry into your life. I can be too motherly, you know? And I was like, you don't even call me on my birthday, which is true. And it's lucky you stayed the week. Right? Yeah. Cause it got to a boiling point.

Yeah. So you had this weird moment? Yeah. It was a weird moment in which I was like, you know, I tell you every year to call me more. I call you and they don't call me back. And it was like the first, I always thought. And you're their only child. My only child, yeah. I have a joke about this too. My mother had a series of miscarriages before I was born too. So I'm also like the one that made it, you know?

Yeah, yeah. So it's interesting to me. It boggles my mind. Well, what came of that moment? I was just like, no, smother me. Please, call me more. I would love to hear from you.

I don't talk to you enough. Yeah. We have an odd distance and I don't. And they're like, oh, okay, fine. And then it just continued as such. The distance?

Yeah. I don't know what to make of that. Me neither. And I have that joke about it. So every now and then I'll do that joke on stage and someone will come up to me after the show and be like, yeah, I'm an only child and I never talk to my parents and it bothers me to death. And thank you for talking about that because I feel it makes me feel awful.

But did that person tell you it was on their choice? Like they just don't call that person or you didn't get any more backstory? tell you it was on their choice like they just don't call that person or you don't you didn't get any more backstory uh no i mean i talked to someone in st louis actually uh at length maybe it was kansas city they were like yeah no i i'm an only child and i was with them every single day of my life until i was 18 and i moved out and they never call and i call them and they don't call me back and uh i feel the distance and so maybe I don't call them as much as I would, but they literally never call. And I see them once every two years.

Oh my God. And it's weird. So it's a real phenomenon. Yeah. And you haven't been able to figure it out. I mean, I certainly contribute. I don't want to sit here and say my parents are like awful parents or something.

No, I know. But it's like, I mean, obviously as we get older, their distance happens. But this seems to be like a real phenomenon that only children feel weird detachment. I wonder what the hell that is. I can't even fucking work the math on it. I think, yeah, the first real insight I had into it was when my mother said she didn't want to smother me. Yeah. Because then that makes me think maybe at every and she

has said a few things since just in passing like well i'm i'm always wondering about you and so i think maybe my mom is so neurotic and so like just so turned so inward at her own anxiety that she's afraid of calling me too much. And so she overcompensates for her worry of calling me too much by calling me not at all. Well, it seems like if you're an only child, there is the concern that you're going to be isolated. It's going to be hard for you to make friends or something. Yes. And they know that most of your life, they've been your primary, you don't't have a sibling so they've kind of worn the shoes of that too sure so i i think

there's a concern that there's a natural concern that you're going to be too attached sure as an only child maybe sure there's that and then you i think you combine that with the fact like what you just said is you have to make your own way socially you don't have other age mates in your family teaching you how to do things right so in school you're also you know a fish out of water freak yeah totally you're like uh and then you can buy if you're at all a thoughtful person you're like yelling at yourself that you're a loser all day uh-huh you know what i mean and so i don't know because you can't you're detached from everybody exactly i don't know what the stigma why is there a stigma to only child to other kids because i feel it but i wonder what it is you know i i didn't know it until i became a

comedian and comedians are very vocal about how they hate only children they are yeah like the comics i know and i've never heard a joke like that really huh like i don't know i haven't heard this new generation beating up on the only children respecting the only children well not on stage but i have had i've had a bunch of comics in particular tell me you're not like the other only children i'll say i'm an only child on stage and they come up to me after my set and be like wow i never would have guessed only children are assholes really and I think it's because like you, people talk to me about only children. They think you're spoiled? Yeah. Self-obsessed.

Everything's about you. Uh-huh. Everyone has to listen to you. That's comedians. I agree. Yeah. How are they able to decipher those symptoms from just their own bullshit? Yeah.

I guess that is true. That's the stigma. It's like you're precious. You know, you're treated like he's our only one. Right. Right. You get all the attention at Christmas. Yeah.

The birthday is all about you. Yeah. And no friends. Just you and your parents. Exactly. It is weird to think about. Also, moving. Mm-hmm.

Like, every three years, I would just be like, all right all right well it's just mom and dad and me again let's see what happens no brother to bounce off of or beat the shit out of no wow yeah so wait so you lived in hawaii very briefly for three months now is it what kind of what's uh the social background ross is that jewish no that's not jewish non-Jewish Ross. Non-Jewish Ross. Scottish. It's a Scottish clan and county in Scotland. It's like a clan of cowards. Oh, you looked it up?

Oh, yeah. No, I really don't know enough about my heritage. I'm really interested in it. I want to know. Probably because the name dies with me. Well, there's other Rosses. No, don't you have cousins? I do have cousins, but they're all mostly from...

The mother's side? My dad has two sisters and two brothers. And the cousins that are my age are from his sisters. Did you ever ask him why they only had one kid? I know because of the miscarriagesriages i didn't want to have that conversation that's true they obviously tried yeah yeah i actually think that i'm pretty sure that i was a mistake because i think the miscarriages were like years before me and they were like we're done and my parents when i look in their medicine cabinet in their house like you do uh they have

condoms yeah uh to grow up catholic oh no no i mean just military military and my parents still say grace and stuff but i didn't ever have to go to church did you know your grandparents and everything you're any of the like so your dad scottish background my dad was raised catholic and my mother was raised Lutheran, and I was actually baptized in both of those faiths, and neither grandmother was told about the other one, just to appease both grandmothers. So the whole thing was just to appease the grandparents. Yeah, totally. Well, what's the Scottish city of cowards? That sounds interesting.

Well, have you ever seen Braveheart? There's a line in Braveheart where they say something like, I can't believe that's what I'm referencing. One of the characters is like, ah, we'll run, hide the Highland way. And I looked it up and that's an actual trope. Like the history of Highland Scots is they ran up into the hills when they got attacked

and that's why they're still alive. And the Ross is a Highland clan. Wow. Yeah. You come from a tradition of cowards. Yeah. That's interesting. It is and it makes sense to me.

Have you been to Scotland? I have when I was a kid. Your folks went there? We lived in Italy from when I was three to when I was six. You remember that? That must have been nice. I remember it briefly. No, it wasn't really nice.

No? Well, I mean, yeah, it was tough. It was... Because you didn't speak the language. I spoke the language a tiny bit. Yeah. But I was raised in an English... Like, we lived in an English-speaking part of Italy.

So my dad worked on a U.S. Navy base that was attached to a NATO base. And he worked with NASA. Like, we hung out with a lot of astronauts. Really? Yeah. Like famous astronauts? Kathy Sullivan was one of them. She was a really good friend of my dad's.

She's a shuttle astronaut? She was the first woman to spacewalk. Free floating? Free floating, yeah. And yeah, I think a shuttle. I think she was a shuttle astronaut what do you what do you talk about with astronauts so space right yeah right yeah so that's gotta be crazy heavy man yeah how fast did you go in a rocket so like is that ice cream real yeah yeah in a bag

it's not real ice cream come on man really. Do you remember her? I do. She was really nice. But I was really young. Yeah. And I do remember I was allowed into the building my dad worked in, but my mother wasn't. You were no threat. That kid's not going to remember anything. I couldn't read.

That's why. And when I learned to read, I wasn't allowed in there. What building was that? The NATO, NASA? I don't know. That's why. And when I learned to read, I wasn't allowed in there. What building was that? The NATO, NASA? I don't know. Naval Matrix? Right? Yeah.

It's a little freaky. My dad, I haven't asked him, but he also hasn't told me what he did there. So I like to assume that it was aliens. You don't ask your dad about that? Like, you know, why can't you tell me? No, I never think of it. Well, how were you raised? I'm too busy wondering if he's mad at me.

Really? That's your life? What did I do wrong now? Yeah. Why is he mad at me? Well, what was the hope, man? What were you studying when you were like, what was your interest when you were in high school and shit? When I was in high school, I was- Other than punk rock. Yeah, well, I went to punk shows and I did theater. That's what I did. That was my life in high school. Really? Mm-hmm. So did your dad ever voice some concern? in high school. Really? Mm-hmm. So did your dad ever voice some concern? Yeah, they were pretty cool. They were into that I was an actor.

And I did really well in school. Yeah. So I also would say, like, maybe I'll go to engineering school. And then my dad had a recruiter come to the house once to see if I would join the Navy. Oh, how was that conversation? I mean, it was, I was like, dude. He had him come?

He had him come to the house, yeah. And I was like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna join the Navy. Oh, how was that conversation? I mean, it was, I was like, dude. He had him come? He had him come to the house, yeah. And I was like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna join the Navy. You're not gonna get me. Yeah. This ain't gonna go. And he was like, well, think about it. And I was like, all right. And he handed me some pamphlets.

And I was like, I'll think about it. You never thought of it. I didn't think about it a single time, yeah. Did you go, so you never had that confrontation with your father about what you wanted to do? He was that detached? Did he wear his uniform at dinner? No, but high school was really rough.

It was like, it wasn't, my relationship with my dad is, I love my dad, but it is a little contentious some of the time because he's irritable. And I don't think either of us really completely got over high school. Because it was, I was very completely got over high school because it was i was very like emotional in high school and he was not happy so there was a lot of screaming and pots banging and unfavorable situations in my house really oh you say emotional what does that mean i cried a lot you know screaming and crying what don't know. Like, I guess it's probably less than I remember it. But in my memory. Constantly?

Constantly. What? I don't fit in? I don't fit in. Yeah. Why did you guys bring me here? Yeah. It was mostly inward.

Mostly wondering why I felt so horrible. Like, no one liked me. And it was why I went to punk shows I hated my high school I felt like I didn't fit in at all and actually there's this album by this band The Bouncing Souls

called Maniacal Laughter and it's one of the reasons I do my podcast because I heard the album and the album is like a punk album it's fun and great but all the guy sings about is how much he hates himself and like being nervous around girls and then also like like smashing toilets and stuff and so like it was this revelation for me where i was like oh my god you can like be sad and not be a jockey douche and like not want to like fuck all the girls and stuff

but then also like have friends and have fun this is amazing it was like you can have other angry isolated slightly slightly hypersensitive friends exactly who don't know what to do with their feelings yeah totally and you can be accepted this isn't the entire world the entire world isn't these like these jocks and these tough guys and these these girls who make fun of you and like you know that was your experience yeah that's how i felt if i look back it wasn't everybody but that's that it i was i felt very starkly that that was the world and you were bullied i was bullied yeah for what i don't know you know just being a wuss being a wuss that's totally what it was it was

for being a wuss and in fairness i was a wuss man you shouldn't have to pay for being a wuss i agree i totally agree what takes a while to become a proud wuss yeah it sure does and i am a proud wuss proud i'm a wuss pride. Hell yeah. Wuss devil horns, dog. And I proudly admit that I cried a lot back then and that I cry a lot now. I don't care. Not at school, though. Hell no, not at school.

No, man. Just like now, I don't cry at school. I don't cry in front of my friends now. I cry in my car after the show. Do you cry after shows? Every now and then. Every now and then I have a show of my friends now. I cry in my car after the show. Do you cry after shows? Every now and then. Every now and then I have a show that really hits me. So how fucked up did it get with your dad?

Because he's like a military guy and you're this overly emotional wuss we've determined. But he's also a wuss, is the thing. Oh. Latent wuss. He is a wuss that is the product of a non-wuss generation. I very much understand my father now, I feel like. And I hope he listens to this because he is like an angry, he was angry when I was in high school. At what?

At what? And at his situation, he, I don't exactly know. He was angry that his son was so goddamn emotional, I think. Yeah. He was, I think, angry. At his rank? He retired and went to teach at a high school where he's going to hate that I'm talking about this, by the way. Yeah.

He will probably listen to this and I will get some shit. He might not listen to it. He also might not listen to it. Who knows? He's only going to listen to it if you tell him about it. That's true. So I'll just not do that. Right.

That's the way to go. I don't think you're being disrespectful. I think you're just trying to find a common ground. Yeah, and I think I have, too. Did you guys ever come to blows? No, it got weird a couple times, for sure. Like what, 9th, 10th, 11th? I tried to run away when i was

15 and you did and yeah and how long did you get away two hours and uh they were on it man they called all my friends they got me what'd you do tell me walk me through the day okay this will tell you how emotional i was in high school because it was a non issue. It was my mother saying something dramatic and then me reacting dramatically to that. And I was just I just wanted a fight. If I'm being honest, I just wanted to I just I just wanted to be someone. You know what? I just wanted to be a white kid who had more problems than he actually had. You know what I mean?

But also, like, if you actually do have detached parents for whatever reason mine were a little selfish sometimes the only way to get their attention is to engage them in you know anger like sometimes when they get mad at you it's part of you's like no you do care actually absolutely yeah absolutely and uh yeah also makes for great stories you know well you thinking that at the moment i don't know maybe i was i don't really you're right well what happened so i yeah it was like maybe i was 16 it was building up like i was a druggie i was not a druggie i did not do drugs in high school i went to shows i didn't skip school i was a good kid i get straight a's you know i did what my parents told me basically yeah it was just like okay so my dad is someone who very much values respect. He's one of those, like, don't disrespect me guys.

And to the extent that if a friend of mine was wearing a hat in my house, he would, like, yell at them to take their hat off because it's disrespectful to wear a hat inside a house. And that's, like, the level of intensity that it was at and uh he would scream take your hat off in my house it was very much and my friends would be oh my god i i didn't even know i'd be like ah i'm sorry it was really this was a tense household you know was he a boozer no nothing no Just pure anger? Just very frustrated, yeah. And so I had a day, and I don't even remember what happened, but I was angry. And it was a weekend because I was hanging out with my friends all day. And I think we did all the things you do in a town where there's nothing to do you know we like went to the arcade yeah we walked around the mall we went bowling we played mini golf we went to the pool hall you know what i mean big day yeah probably not all

those things but that's the list of things that we had available to us we were at a pool hall i remember in monroe new york and uh i uh I wasn't even smoking cigarettes yet at this point. I'm like, I was behind the times. No, you're a smart kid. Yeah, actually, yeah. So I was outside. I called my mom to ask if I could stay out an hour or two later with my friends. It was like 10 o'clock.

And she was like, no, come home. And I was like, mom, come on. I'm like 16. Yeah. Come on. Just let me stay out. Yeah, I'm calling. I'm not drinking.

Exactly. And she was like, no, come home. They were clearly mad at me. And I was like, give me a break. I said something like, what is this? Just let me. No profanity. I'm not going to kill anybody.

I'm sure maybe I cursed. Because then she gets pushed over the edge somehow. And she's like, David, if you don't come home in the next hour, don't come home at all. And I was like, well, fine. Fuck it. I'm not coming home at all. Which, like, you know, is two idiots being dramatic, you know? And so I don't come home and i go to one

friend's house my my parents start calling all my friends and uh you know where is he where is he where is he they they i realize i met my friend dan's house dan kerrigan who's now a stand-up oh really uh yeah and i realize his mother's on the phone with my mother, and I, like, bolt out the door with my friend Bobby. You're on the run. I'm on the run. Yeah, man. I go to Bobby's house, and then they find out I'm at Bobby's house.

Small town shit, man. Absolutely, man. Yeah. They were ahead of you. One step ahead of you. And my dad just, like, races over to Bobby's house. And I'm basically trapped there because he lives at the end of East Shore road and there's nowhere to go after that that's the big standoff yeah totally no choppers involved he's like walking up to the door and i'm like i'm just surrender you

know yeah and uh it didn't help that bobby's mom hated me hated me because turned you in immediately yeah she turned me in and i mean yes you should if you're a parent quite honestly yeah uh but she especially i think she took some joy in it because for two reasons one bobby and i got caught stealing a street sign for woodcock mountain road by the cops like three weeks before this that's gotta get stolen a lot yeah yeah it was plastic at this point it was a plastic street it wasn't even bolted in um and then like a week after that my friend lewis being hilarious was over at bobby's house yeah and bobby was bitch bobby's mom was bitching about how he got caught for the sign and lou was like oh that was all dave's idea you're the you're the criminal totally um so what happened did your dad beat you up

no but he did uh on the drive home i told him to fuck himself which you just don't do to your dad and you don't do to your military dad or really anybody but he and it's a tense situation and he he slams the brakes pulls the car over and he's like you want to fight me and he gets out of the car tries to get me to get out of the car and fight him. And he's like smacking his hand on the door. And I'm like crying, just crying my eyes out, you know? And I'm like,

why? Yeah. And he gets back in the car and takes me home in silence. And, uh, yeah. And, uh,

well, it's interesting that he didn't discipline you physically, but he was looking for a fight after a certain point. He's not going to throw the first punch. I don't think he would have fought me. Like, I think that it would have been, like, us looking at each other and him being like, is this what you wanted? Fucking fuck you or whatever.

I don't know. Did he cuss? No. Yeah. But, again, in that moment, actually, I'm 100% sure he would never have hit me for sure. Yeah. And I like, I wouldn't even want to dream of like people thinking that about my dad because he's, my dad is a really great guy.

He's like a very intensely good moralistic person. Right. Who has a temper and gets frustrated very easily. Right. In that moment, it's like, yeah, that was real rough for me to deal with for a long time, that happening. Yeah. I wonder if this crying thing is somehow attributed to the only child business. Maybe.

Why? You think I, did you not cry much when you were a kid? Well, not, like, I don't, like, remember it being part of it. I mean, I'll cry now. Like I, I, I'm, I don't think I'm that adverse to crying, but like, I, like I wouldn't cry after a show. Like it wasn't part of my, my rotation. Sure. Uh, you know, really? Yeah. As a, as a high school kid, you know, I, I'd only cry if I was you know pushed you know to the point of it by uh by my my dad or something but like it was not something i did regularly yeah well i don't mean to give the impression that it was so regular can't back out now cry baby you're just a cry baby

no turning that boat around that's true the whole world knows now the whole comedy scene is gonna be like oh look at this little bitch in this comedy show that's the thing i was back trying to explain myself because of that worry i'm still even though i'm confident that it's okay i like that i have a good cry sometimes i still am worried that people are gonna bully me i still have that thing in my head i'm 31 what. That's weird. What do you mean? Men have a weird time with that. It's not specific to you. It's like,

you know, because those same guys that made us cry to begin with, they seem to define the cultural mode. Isn't that interesting? Because there are, I've been thinking about this ever since I became aware of this horrific dynamic in the world. I've cried on this show.

Have you? Yeah. I mean, not, you know, sobbing, but, you know, I let my emotions happen. Like, you know, like I was in therapy today and I almost cried, but I stifled it. Why do I got, why am I stifling my crying in front of my therapist? That's ridiculous. Yeah. That's one place you should cry absolutely it's the place you go to cry i don't know i cried a couple times in my last relationship yeah yeah and i'll cry during the tv show i'm very sensitive like and i'll cry when i'm talking to people sometimes i won't they won't

see it but i'll know i'll feel it well i feel I'll feel it in my soul. And I was watching TV last night, and I actually got choked up at weird moments, too. Not the moments that you would think they would be. You know, that's a thing that's been happening to me. I have probably three, four good actual event emotional cries a year, but I cry from watching TV and movies all the time. Yeah, me too, and I don't mind that. I've always been that way, but crying properly and just letting yourself do it is the tricky thing.

I mean, you can get teared up and then you're like, I'm not going to, no. But to actually just open the dam, I don't do that too often. It's tough. And actually, my dad is a big reason why I'm like this about crying, why I do it a lot and why I'm okay with it. Because my mother says, at least, that when I was very young, I started crying. I don't know how old. Old enough to not be a baby.

And I was crying about something, and my mom was like, don't cry. And my dad stopped her and was like, no, let him cry. My father never let me cry. So that'll tell you what his upbringing was like. That's one of those weird kind of keys in. Yeah. Like one of those weird windows into keys in yeah like one of those weird

windows into when you hear someone like they're like oh yeah yeah there's another moment with my dad that was really interesting um where i because my i've ever since i was self-aware i've known that my trip like my baseline of self-loathing is that i think no one likes me for sure i obsess over it all day i can find evidence in any conversation to this day to this day i'm way better about it now yeah uh i especially with therapy i've like learned the patterns of it and i can get out of it like more easily but i've known that about myself for a while. And when I was like 21 or 22, I was staying at my grandmother's house for Christmas and my mom and dad were there. It was Christmas dinner.

Everyone had left except myself and my parents. And my grandmother loved to drink and was hilarious when she was drunk. She's my dad's mom. We called her nanny. She was great. She's my dad's mom. Dad's mom.

We called her nanny. She was great. And so my dad goes out to buy my mom cigarettes or something. And my drunk, my vodka drunk grandma says to my mother, what is Scotty's deal? He didn't call his sisters today. He didn't call his brothers. He doesn't call anybody. He doesn't call anyone. He doesn't let people know that he loves them what is wrong with him and uh my mom says not thinking i was in the

room well abby you know scotty has always sort of felt like no one likes him and i was like whoa no way dude um and uh my grandmother being adorable my dad gets home and uh and she walks right up to him drunk as a skunk and says scotty everyone likes you and he was like what he just rattled you know yeah and it's also like my grandfather um apparently he was always very nice and calm and quiet to me, but apparently hit my grandmother. And my father was at odds with him for a while. Like regularly or once? Regularly, apparently. God damn it.

It's so insane to be able to track the psychological reactions that define families. Absolutely. Because whatever the hell is going on there, whether she was loaded or what, that when you have an abusive relationship, a physically abusive relationship, and you grow up in that, I mean, then you're just going to, in my experience as a nonprofessional person. I'm not a therapist or anything. But when you grow up in that kind of chaos, you know, you're there's no way you're not going to come out of control freak or a fucking abuser.

Sure. There's only two ways to go. It sounds like your dad went to control freak. Absolutely. Well, and it's a major reason why I respect my father so much. It's like he didn't talk to my grandfather for a long time. And to come out of that as someone who's like, no, let him cry as irritable and like fighting you on the street as you could get. It's like impressive.

You know what I mean? Wow. So I bet you the military was a way for him to sort of, you know, have some like control and discipline in his life. Yeah. Also, I think he's probably a little bit of a masochist because he's like insanely liberal in the military you know yeah i can't imagine how that was uh like i'm like that raises the desire to control your life to a new level you know i would say sort of like you know shamelessly and and and supportingly uh letting your son cry is a that that in and of itself is a an amazingly progressive idea for a military man.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. He fucked with me, too, when I was young. I did something wrong when I was like 16 or 17, and he was like, get down and give me 20. And I was like, what? And he's like, do it.

And I was like, ah. And I did it, and he was like, ah. And he was like, you don't have to. He didn't even fall through with it yeah he was just trying that out yeah he's gonna try to be the great santini i think he was one action well that's the other thing my dad's like uh he's like a sass mouth you know when he's not screaming irritable but it wasn't competitive uh no that's good yeah because that's a dynamic between fathers and sons it stinks it's not competitive yeah it's more of like um our dynamic that was bad was that he well like me like i said in any conversation i can find any evidence that the person doesn't like me really

any any man like uh what did it happen here is it happening now no actually this is great okay yeah but i have had that with you before everybody has that with me i don't know why sometimes i know why but yeah yeah it's there's very few people i don't like but initially i'm generally annoyed or threatened so so my reaction to that is going to appear like i don't like somebody sure well i can tell you about when we first met and it was it was like that we don't have a beard right i did have a beard yeah we're having um so and this is why you remember at the beginning of this podcast which is what this recording i was like you had me on and you were like wow contentious right from the beginning because of this first interaction with you i've always been a little combative with you.

It was holy fuck. Yeah. And it was the first time you'd done it, and it was like the fifth or sixth one. It was the show you hosted at the movie theater. Yes. Yeah. And it got really good. Yeah. But at its inception, it was a stand-up show run by me, who'd been doing stand-up for like

six months. Right. In a theater that seats 250. Yeah. Cavernous, huge ceilings. Ter terrible idea to run a show there yeah it's it's always hard to do comedy in movie theaters absolutely and uh i was a huge fan of yours and you said yes and i was really i was really stoked yeah but then it also happened to be like the literally the first show we had because since i was young and stand up i hadn't

burned all my bridges with my friendships yet so i had like a shitload of my friends from jobs and school come to the first four or five shows yeah so good crowd right out of the gate your show was the first show i had with a shitty crowd and i was like no you gotta be kidding me man uh and it was raining too oh and uh and i'll never forget it too yeah i like uh you showed up and you were like hey you dave and i was like yeah uh what's up thanks for doing the show and you were like how's it looking in there and i was like that's kind of light and you're like i fucking knew it man and i was like oh god damn it fucking you gotta be kidding me man now. Now Merritt's gonna lose it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I went inside. People weren't showing up. And I came out. And I came up to you. Comics weren't showing up? Comics weren't showing up. And, no, the comics who were on the show were there. But audience was not coming.

I had, like, lost all my goodwill with my friends in the rain and we were just fucked there were like 10 people in a 200 seat theater you know um was it that small it was maybe a little more just that lower tier maybe yeah in the front yeah um and i came out to tell you something i was like hey uh so i just wanted to tell you and you were like i fucking knew it and i was like what you're with your girlfriend at the time and you were like, I fucking knew it. And I was like, what? You were with your girlfriend at the time, and you were like, I was telling her on the way over here that at some point the producer's going to come up to me, and he's going to be like, ah, normally we have more people here. And for some reason this time we don't have as many, and I fucking knew you were going to tell me that. And I literally said, no, I was just going to tell you that we're going to start around 930 instead of 9. And you were like, oh, all right.

Really? That's what I said. All right, too. Yeah. I must have been mad about something else. I was really. Yeah, I really. I was like, man, fuck.

I get I think I get in the weird zone where like you get asked to do so many shows, so many comic produced shows, which is fine. But at some point you realize like well it's good for them to have me on and like and i don't know like i know a lot of people like my comedy and stuff but it's also good promotion i know how that shit works sure yeah um but like a lot of times like and i don't mind performing for small crowds but it gets like at certain points i get tired like like i'm a little more picky about which small shows I do just because, you know, like if I know it's going to be what it's going to be, it's fine. But I think that was the first time.

And I think what had happened was everyone had told me what a great show it was. Yeah. And I think that's what that sounds like. And I was probably up the wall with her because I always was. Right. But I do think it was probably sort of like a lot of people like no it's great it's great it's great because it doesn't add up that i would go i knew it unless somebody had told me right that was a good show right like they were i knew they

were fucking with me something yeah like you know yeah right right right like it's like i okay i'm gonna go do this show at the movie theater like it was to me it was already like how good could it be right you know right it's just a show i never heard of this guy it's at yeah and it's at a movie theater you know i've been thinking about because i was coming over here to do this show i was thinking about it and like i think that there are you probably you didn't remember that interaction we had at all right right? I would imagine. Not completely, no. And I would imagine. But I don't remember last week. Sure.

Well, there's that too. I got a terrible memory. But I think that there's like, when a comedian is a really young comic. Yeah. And hasn't like found themselves as like a social presence in the comedy scene. Yeah. I think that there's a lot of weirdness that happens. And like I was pretty young,

and I'll bet you that I was pretty weird as a young comic. Like I remember Todd Glass yelling at me on the phone once when I was really young because I was so nervous around him. I looked up to him so much. And so I think I was, there are all these times that I don't remember of me being weird to big comics that I looked up to. But then also, then there are all these instances that I have with these big comedians that they don't remember because they didn't think anything of me at the time. You know what I mean?

Well, I remember registering that you were funny at some point. That's good. Which is not always easy for me to do. Sure. You know, because I just can't can't like it's hard to get through to me sometimes because a lot of times young comics they're just trying too hard or they're just not quite doing themselves yet they're just doing something it's like it's something that's familiar it's not to me it's not like i know who that guy is yeah these well there's the

familiar cadence of a fellow telling jokes he wrote. You know what I mean? Sure. Yeah. But I also think with us, you know, my generation, it's like this whole easy access, a thousand shows, guys have been doing it six months, calling themselves comedians. You know, it was sort of a big transition to make. Okay. And that, you know, at some point, the comedy scene that you grew up in was really built on comic run shows. Yeah.

The entire paradigm is different. Oh, interesting. So, like, you know, when we came up, we all know each other. There's different levels of clickiness. But, you know, we were all built around this old comedy club model. Yeah. So, like, all you guys, there's this huge community of comedians that have been doing it two weeks that have their own rooms right that have their you know and then at some point you know you you got tired i'm talking about your generation of just rotating uh you know a bunch of people who

are trying to develop you know through your rooms at some point, somebody started like, why don't we just call those big guys? Yeah. And then everyone realized how easy it was. And then you're like, that guy, he didn't even question anything. He just said, sure, he'll come down. So they got to be pretty easy to get. They're just sitting around doing nothing. And it turns out-

That was a cool realization that I had. Right. Yeah. It turns out it's generally true. Like if we're not working a night, you know, we always feel half guilty because most of us started out trying to do comedy every night. Yeah. At least one set.

So like, you know, we get older and it's sort of like it doesn't, it's not as imperative as it used to be, or we don't really know where to go or we don't, or we don't. So we get the call and it plays on our guilt. We're like, I probably should just go do a set. or we don't. So we get the call and it plays on our guilt. We're like, and I probably should just go do a set.

And then, then all of a sudden you've got all the, the biggest comics around, you know, you guys have access and it's, it's easy to get ahold of us. And I think that one of the things that registers with us is that if there's ever a moment where someone like Todd glass or myself gets mad, it's like,

it's, I think we have a deep need to be like, you know, you're me mean you aren't the same yeah really you know like you do know that we're at a different level here and let me tell you that we know yeah it's an ever-present thought i mean hence the combativeness you know it's like but i did the same thing i you know their, you know, you got to keep your cool. You know what I mean?

You don't want to be too gracious or too appreciative or even if it's that. And I also think that bottom line is we're all comics, but I think that you're going to get a, some of us are a little prickly at times. Sure. So where did you start? I started here. I mean, the first time I ever did stand up was in fresno california i don't even know what fresno is it's like this weird punch line yeah yeah exactly that's exactly what it is

and what is what is fresno it's like the alabama of california it is uh well as far as making jokes about locations it is right in the middle of california it's three hours north of la is it inland it's inland it's like in the middle from the east, the west, the north, and the south. Is it cowboy land? Yeah. Right. Farms. Right.

Desert. 118 degree summers. Yeah. And also frat boys and gangs. It is tough. Yeah. I lived there. I was a radio DJ there for two years after college.

Professional. Yes. That was your thing. That was going for DJ there for two years after college. Professional. Yes. That was your thing. That was what I was going for it, man. Music? Yeah. I was a DJ at 103.7 KRZR, The Wild Hare in Fresno, California. But H-A-R-E.

What'd you go to college for? I have a degree in psychology. Really? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know what the fuck was going on there was that was that uh uh were you engaged in that or was that just a sort of like uh psychology it was that it was uh my girlfriend's doing this right that's literally what it was and i was interested in it by the end i'm glad i did it it was was interesting. And I had a college. How does it serve you?

Well, for one, it makes me more self-obsessive. So that sucks. So you have a long list of reasons why you think people don't like you. Yeah, even more. Yeah, it's just been more maddening. Because a bachelor's in psychology is like going to psychology high school. There's no focus. You relearn a lot of the same information, and you're memorizing dates and names and stuff.

And you learn about what the diseases are, but not how to treat or learn about them. Right. Yeah, it just let me know about all these phenomena that I could obsess over. But you were looking for a career in radio. Yeah. Okay, so my senior year of college was weird. went like this i did i smoked a lot of heroin uh that's what that's real and uh when did you get you didn't do any drugs in high school and then i started doing drugs in college and uh and then i did every drug and then by the end i was smoking heroin like a couple times a week yeah tar That was around.

Yeah. Well, I had a friend that I think was shooting it up. Ugh. And he, I think, I don't know. So you're smoking off the foil with the straw? Yeah. Yeah. Have you done that?

Yeah. He like- Doesn't seem as bad that way. It doesn't seem as bad that way. And it started, he like put it on a bowl of weed and was like, you want to smoke some opium? Yeah. And I was like, yeah. And then we did it three times and he was like this is heroin and i was like you know just just like an after-school special you know and i was like

yeah totally i'm already in it's already great it already hasn't ruined my life so i'll do this three times a week for a year and a half well uh it's still not every day it wasn't every day i didn't get addicted or dope sick. I never went to rehab. I was so scared of getting addicted that I never. So three times a week was manageable for you. Yeah, totally. I'm only smoking heroin three times a week.

An adult's heroin addiction. At the same time every week. Exactly. Exactly, yeah. In the morning in order to get through the day. Exactly, yeah. In the morning, in order to get through the day. And so I was like finishing up my year of school and psychology, and then I had a radio show.

In college? Yeah, at the college radio station at KSCR, which is KXSC now. And you were playing what? Well, I was like, I would play punk music and reggae and some other weird shit that i liked but really i would just i would fuck around and i don't know i would like freestyle rap sometimes and just like do dumb bits like read so by college had you found a crew of people that you could hang out with you know yes and no like i don't hang out with a lot of the people i hung out with in college because but i mean as a kid who was isolated and and always in a strange land and a crying wuss by the time you got to college with usually that's a time where people can like there's a lot of

people you're like all right those are my people you did you have people actually by my senior year of high school i did i had a crew at my senior year of high school that I was really close to. And that was where I started being funny because they were really funny. Right. To this day, funniest people I've ever met in my life. And we would just sit around and drink beer and talk shit about each other. It's amazing once drugs and alcohol come into it how things loosen up a little bit. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. Yeah, you start being a little less afraid. Yeah. Crying a little less afraid yeah crying a little less yeah yeah yeah it's like a warm blanket you know yeah it is sure it is um yeah yeah and then i had a crew throughout college for sure and um and then college just ended i didn't even know what happened i was like oh crap you're on heroin yeah totally i uh it was so embarrassing oh man i i both hope and don't hope my parents listen to this uh i'm not gonna listen to it unless you tell them they will find it um do they look for it i don't know i actually don't know it'll be a while you can think it through

uh yeah it'll be some years you're not strung, and you're still a good kid. You still barely cuss. I'm fine. I also don't do drugs. And you're very diplomatic, and you're pleasant, and you have good manners. I mean, they have a lot to be proud of. Thank you, Mark. Yeah, just because you smoked heroin three times a week doesn't mean you were a drug addict. It was just three times a week consistently, but not addicted. That's true.

That's true. Not addicted, just regularly freebasing heroin off of tinfoil in my house. You're not freebasing. Don't call it that. Isn't that what freebasing is? No. Okay. You're smoking heroin.

You're smearing it on a piece of tinfoil and cooking it up. I was putting dots of black tar heroin onto ripped off pieces of tinfoil. I think it's called foiling or chasing the dragon. Chasing the dragon. Freebasing, I think, is actually breaking down Coke to its purest form and then smoking it. Oh. It's actually, I think freebasing is the word for the process of taking shitty Coke. Cooking it down.

Cooking it down. Okay. And then smoking the pure Coke. So that's why crack is called base? Right. Okay. Because that's based Coke. Okay. Because that's based coke. Okay.

Okay, cool. Learning. I'm learning. There you go. I can't believe I didn't know that. Maybe you should start freebasing.

I should. Now that you've been miscalling your heroin addiction freebasing, maybe it's time you learned about freebase. I've been lying all these years,

so I should just do the freebase so I'm not a liar. Right, exactly. See where that takes you at this point in your life. This has been a really productive afternoon. Helpful, I think.

So when I was an idiot and I was thinking about going to grad school, I sent out- For heroin? For heroin, yeah. Yeah, I wanted to get an MH. I sent out for my college transcripts. Yeah. I sent out for my college transcripts. Yeah.

I got them, and my GPA, my final GPA was a 2.99, which is unbelievable with the way that I acted in college, like that I even got that high. But it's so close to a 3.0. Your parents taught you well. Yeah. 3.0 is the highest, right? No, 4.0 is the highest.

Oh, yeah. Not great, then. 3.0 is the highest, right? No, 4.0 is the highest. Oh, yeah. Not great, then. 3.0 means that you did fine. You're a good student, kind of, at 2.99. And then I looked at my GBA, and then I remembered, oh, right. My senior year of college, second semester senior year, commencement's coming up. It's two weeks from graduation i dropped a class to do heroin i i dropped and i dropped it so late that it wasn't

like a withdrawal it a zero averaged in on my gpa right so had i not dropped this class i would have gotten over a 30 and the class i dropped see dropped. See where heroin took you? Yeah. It took you to 2.99. I know. God, I'm such a loser. Which is not jail or death. But don't ever tell that heroin story ever. Yeah, it got bad, man. I lost like a percentage, a tenth of a point.

No, but the class I dropped was soccer. I dropped soccer class. You can't play heroin on soccer. You can't play soccer on heroin. Heroin is clearly better than soccer. Either way that works. dropped soccer class can't play heroin on soccer i mean soccer on heroin heroin you can't play better than soccer either way that works i'm just saying like i mean it was like ridiculous the way that i was conducting myself like yeah yeah but as far as my life as far as what could have happened i guess yeah you're right you know it's uh it's good it's it's it's sort of um my rock bottom at

2.99 was not that bad you're absolutely right yeah it's like it's good. It's sort of... My rock bottom at 2.99 was not that bad. You're absolutely right. Yeah, it's like it's good for family listening. Your rock bottom is okay for families to listen to. Absolutely. I like that. So you finished it. Now you just drink and smoke weed or what?

I smoke weed every now and then, yeah. Yeah, but nothing too out of control? I was smoking it to sleep for a couple years, but I don't do that anymore either. So you start out djing yeah after college you like it you thought like you want career in radio and what happened uh so i did like it and i it's great to be on these kind of mics it is it's great oh man and being on the radio i always loved the radio i. I listened to the radio all the time. I loved it. Yeah. And the thing is that radio nowadays, it's dying, and there's no reason to have a DJ in there because you go into work.

I mean, I would go into work as a radio DJ, and my whole shift would be programmed in. All the songs are in there. I don't pick anything. Yeah, it's sad. It is sad. And there's a thing called voice tracking, which I'm sure you're familiar with no oh you're not okay so voice tracking i did only talk radio oh okay um you can let all those songs and commercial breaks and everything are programmed in and so you can go in before your shift and do the wraparounds do it all record it in and you're done and if you

do that you get paid an hour's worth of pay for six hours of airtime so now there are a lot of stations that are voice tracked almost completely and they have an entirely part-time staff that makes like 10 bucks an hour yeah and there's it's not personality driven anymore and it's and also like that world even then the mark how competitive that market is to to sort of hold listeners and to get on a station that oh yeah it's it's it's it's difficult i got friends that are incredible like hilarious radio djs who are struggling my friend rick rodham who i met there one of the funniest people ever've ever met he's a radio DJ and he's in some tiny town in Texas you know just struggling just struggling and uh no it's fucking hard yeah so sad because like we found podcasts thank god yeah and you know now that's there and you're gonna do

better than being on a small station that maybe you're pulling 25,000 people maybe your reach is just so much wider and if you get on even do you know how those XM guys do? Is that pretty big? No. No. There's a few big shows on XM, but you really just, you know, you're another guy in a studio in the hallway. Right.

And like, you know, the guy, a lot of the people on XM, I think, brought listeners to that, to XM. Yeah. Like they left jobs where they had built followings. I really don't know how, what the metrics are, but Stern does well and some of the music stations as well and the sports do well. But in terms of do they make money?

No, because it's not... I don't think it's advertising driven and I don't think their contract salary, depending on who they are, is that big. So I don't know what determines it. Oh yeah, it's subscription based, right? Yeah. So you go to Sirius in New York and it's just this big facility, and there's just studios everywhere. Right.

Everyone's doing their little show. Right, and, like, how do you – I'm sure they know exactly, exactly how many people are listening to every show. I think Ron and Fez do well, and I think, you know, Stern does well. I think Stern's channel, some of them do well. Bubba the Love Sponge probably does really well. I don't know how much he holds. I don't know that Sirius necessarily was a successful venture all around

because I think the idea that it would be in every car or that it would be appealing for people to have at home, I don't know if that panned out. Right. Well, because it's not in every car. No, it's certainly not in every home. Yeah. So you do it for a couple of years

and you get disenchanted? Absolutely. And it was weird how because i i i was you know doing i was the sidekick on the night show and i i just like became obsessed and was in there all the time and i ended up having my own weekend shifts and doing stunts on the afternoon show and like second chair on the night show yeah but i didn't have i always wanted to play what i wanted and then finally i like proposed a show and they gave it to me and I got this show like after I've been there for a year and a half, literally I opened it up to the listeners

to suggest names and the name I landed on. This is by the way, an active rock station. So we played like Pantera, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Disturbed, stuff like that. And the name of my show was the fight after church uh still one of the best named things i've ever done yeah um and uh it was great it was an hour 11 to midnight monday to friday and i played metal and punk rock and b-sides from bands that we play and when i started doing that i did it for like six months and doing that was so validating that it just canceled everything else I was doing doing a regular shift wasn't the same even though like

like it's all pre-programmed and because of that my program director this guy E. Curtis Johnson who I hope to thank from a podium someday he like really really helped push me forward into comedy like uh he he was like well since you're not programming the station, you've got to be funny. Give stuff away, do bits, play games, be funny, talk to callers, just be a personality. Even though I was doing that, by the end of running my own show where I played my own shit,

I just couldn't handle playing Linkin Park. I just couldn't take it anymore. And you combine that with the fact that the station was a clear channel station it always comes down to pride i can't play this shit yeah not on my watch yeah i remember too being in and there's like there was some some drama crap that happened at the hands of the major corporation i worked for but i was in there some like Sunday doing my noon to four shift and I look up at the program computer and the playlist was something like Lincoln Park oh also we had just realized in a new like um ratings book I don't even know. We sort of found out that the 18 to 34 or 24 demographic had shrunk immensely in Fresno. And 24 to 45 or 35 to 54 had gotten way bigger.

Yeah. So we were going to play stuff that appealed to them. And so I looked at this playlist. And the playlist was like Linkincoln park corn nirvana which i love and then dio and i saw it and i was like man what the fuck you gotta be kidding me now i'm playing lincoln park and dio i'm fucking out of here dude you got your principles but you were probably but also i've imagined the pressure of dealing with a queer channel outlet and they you know kind of trying to honor how they spin those

fucking arbitron ratings absolutely it's just like it's a fucking nightmare well and clear channel fucked us rick and me in particular and me twice they they were just doing dirty shit like it was a nine or ten station cluster they in or 91, had bought a smooth jazz station, and the two guys who had founded it worked there and were the DJs there. And then while I was there in 2004 or 2005, they flipped it to a country station and fired the guys who founded it.

And that's just cold, man. That's just dirty. They didn't even give them a chance. They didn't even give them another job. They're just like, fuck you. Get out of here. You get out of here you found the station thanks for that day they let him do their shift get the fuck out back your boxes yeah and um they were firing people that were like tenured had worked had kids had worked there for 20 years it was gross and so rick rodham and i um were working together a lot at this point i was doing stuff on his show and he had

been doing afternoons there for like five years. And he was like, you know what? It's time for me to move up to mornings. That's like the big dog at a radio station like that. Afternoons is like second best. And then morning is the big thing. Because you just talk. There's no music.

So we had our own morning show that had been there for like 15 or 20 years that people loved But they were kind of on their way out and Rick really felt that way So he made a proposal for his morning show and the morning show was gonna be him I was gonna sit second chair and then our intern our stunt guy would be this dude manhole. Yeah Who is still a DJ at this manhole. I think he's just Drew now. Okay, good. You don't want Manhole to stick for your whole life. No, exactly.

Well, maybe he does. So he puts this proposal forth. They accept it. Rick tells me, like, we haven't signed anything, but they told me for sure we're going to be the new morning show, and it's like three months from now. The day comes. I'm working my day job. He calls me at work, and it's like three months from now the day comes i'm working my day job he calls me at work and they're like yeah we just had a meeting they fired the

morning show and they're syndicating man cow out of chicago oh that guy yeah man yeah and by the way it panned in fresno it bombed so hard local morning show that was their big idea to syndicate morning shows and morning shows people want to hear about the neighborhood. Exactly. About the old Coke factory that blew up or whatever. And so Rick loses his mind. And Rick is like a very intense person when he's angry. Yeah.

I went over to his house that night. He was wasted. And he goes, he tells me, he's like, Dave, tomorrow we're going to do one of two things. Either I'm going to go into work and I'm going to quit, or you're going to go into work and you're going to operate the board while I do a live remote pissing on the general manager's dead wife's grave. And I was like, do the first one that second one is evil and uh he did the first one he quit and so there's this weird power vacuum where there's myself i'm part-time

they were keeping me at 30 hours a week so i couldn't get a raise or benefits yeah because clear channel is garbage um manhole who's also doing shifts big snacks another friend of mine yeah uh how's he doing big snacks he's doing great man good talked to him the other day yeah i think he's uh some sort of security manager in fresno he's he's good um uh coyote who ran the night Yeah. And we're all like vying, right? And I quit my day job because I figured, screw it, man. At least I could be the afternoon DJ for two months. And I was. Everyone else had a job, so I was just the afternoon DJ while they were looking for someone else.

Super fun. So fun. Manhole hears that I quit my day job, assumes that that means that I got the job, Quits in like a fury, live on the air. I don't even know what he said. He was like, I quit! Like runs, calls me to congratulate me. And I was like, dude, I didn't get the job. And on the phone, he was like, oh, no.

And so he's gone. And then so it's me and Coyote and Snacks and Ashton and someone else. And then so it's me and Coyote and Snacks and Ashton and someone else. And then after three, four months of that, they hire the afternoon guy from the other rock station in town and just fuck over everyone who works at the station, you know? And that was the end? And that was the end. And that was it. Like, I sort of, like, bided my time a little bit. And I was like, and yeah.

And then I wasn't feeling good about the music. And I was like, and yeah. And then I wasn't feeling good about the music. And literally my last break on air was me going on a socialist rant about how major corporations are ruining the country. But I was just leaving because I was pissed. Yeah. Yeah. Might as well make it big. Yeah, totally.

And then you came down here. And then I came back down here, moved in with some friends, got a job doing some like web bullshit And was drunk for a while Well okay so actually At the end of being a radio DJ I knew I was going to leave Rick and some other people had tried stand up I tried it I hated it

I mean I loved it but I hated it I was so afraid After my first set I had drank a whole bottle of Jack Daniels And I got in an argument with a woman about Jesus. It was at the end of a music open mic in Fresno, California. I bombed, got in an argument with a woman about Jesus. My friends tell me that apparently a guy heckled me, and I said back, oh, yeah, nice shirt. That's what I said.

Yeah. I was drunk. I cried after that set. Yeah. And I was like, fuck this. And then I did it a few more times in that year. You were hooked. I was hooked, but I was also afraid.

Yeah. I moved back to LA, did it like probably five times total in 2006. Too afraid. I would hate going up. I would shake on stage. For a month, you'd be thinking about it yeah totally like trying to write new jokes for every set and uh just like dread being at an open mic and dreading them calling my name you know what i mean yeah i do know what you mean

yeah and uh i've forgotten that but yeah i remember it's horrible you're on the list you're like i'm on the list get me off that list it's gonna it's gonna happen it's gonna horrible i don't want to happen i remember being at the comedy store open mic and uh and a dude coming up to me and be like hell yeah man hell yeah yeah can't wait and i was like i just want to get this shit over with yeah and he goes why are you doing it then and i think that was the last set i did uh because i was like he's right why Why am I doing this? I hate this. And I was afraid for three years, and then I started. And then you got better? You felt better about it? Well, you know, I had something help me start.

My friend Julie Cohen, who's still one of my best friends, when I tried it in 2006, she tried it and stuck with it. And she has since quit. It's not her her thing she wants to write and make movies but she uh she three years in was running an open mic fired her co-host yeah and this whole three years she had been bothering me every now and then to go to a mic with her and i would make up an excuse like oh i got stuff to do i was afraid and uh and uh so she basically just like called me a coward until i was like fine fine, I'll co-host your open mic with you. Yeah, you crying wuss. Yeah, you little bitch.

Everyone knows you're a little bitch, you little bitch. And so I, which that might have even been what she said. And I co-hosted the open mic with her. It started in March of 2009. And every Sunday until August of 2009, I co-hosted with her. Didn't do a set, didn't do jokes, just tried to be funny, bringing people on and off stage. And doing that, I was nervous and I would shake and stuff, but there wasn't the pressure of the laughter. Right.

So doing that sort of worked the demons out of me. Eased you in. Eased me into it. Yeah. And then around in August of 2009, Julie, without telling me, just booked me on a show and then told me I was on the show and that I had to do it.

And so I started going to Mike's. And this time, I went to Mike, I went to Vance Sanders and Robert Yasumura's Tuesday Mike at Westwood Bruco. I went up, I bombed, and it was awesome i was like this is awesome i had a i had like a much more positive outlook on it and i was like i'm doing this every day this is the fucking best and then i was like i was hooked i went up every day three four times a day if i could yeah it was great yeah that's how i and now like where's uh where's the career you're opening

for kyle you got the terrified podcast on the nerdist network or no i'm on nerdist yeah yeah things are going really well i'm really i'm really happy i just got back from a two-month tour which was the uh the first real tour i ever did uh it was so fun part of that was opening for kyle a lot of it was uh headlining small alt rooms and bar shows myself um or you know like you know weird uh showcases in new york and just all i did every type of show i got back i headlined the improv for the first time which was like incredible they asked me to do that and uh yeah i don't know i just feel great about stand-up it's well weird congratulations thank. It's been quite a journey for a 31-year-old man. Had you talked to me two months ago before I left for the tour, this would be a very

different conversation. Well, you were booked and we rescheduled it, so I'm glad we got it to this day. Me too, because I literally would have been like, Mark, I don't know what the fuck. I fucking don't know, man. You know what, buddy? You're going to feel that way again. Two days from now. Well, it was good talking to you.

Yeah, you too. You're going to feel that way again. Two days from now. Well, it was good talking to you. Yeah, you too. All right, that was good. I enjoyed talking to him. I was happy that Pauly stopped by.

I feel punchy and giddy. Go to WTFpod.com. Do some business there. I think we're going to restock the merch for Christmas. Things are happening. I think I do better when i'm tired Thank you. Fuck the edge. Thank you. Fuck. Boomer lives! 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

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