WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 622 - Wyatt Cenac

Episode Date: July 23, 2015

Wyatt Cenac and Marc go way back. But despite two WTF appearances, Wyatt never sat down with Marc for a full conversation in the garage until now. Wyatt talks about the loss of his father, the struggles with his mother, his pursuit of SNL that led him to the wrong side of the country, and his unexpected arrival at (and departure from) The Daily Show. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's winter, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too.

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

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

my show this is wtf welcome to it hope you're having a good day a good morning good afternoon whatever's happening uh i am currently out of town i'm going to be doing a very uh small bit in a large movie uh and maybe i'll stand out maybe it won't be just in. Maybe it won't be just in passing. Maybe it won't be just something I can use for the opening of my show. Lock the gates on these fuckheads! Remember that? That was my big... I don't think that the part is much bigger, but I'll be trying to be in it, man, to make it funny.

I'll tell you more about it another time. Let me tell you what's going on with my schedule. Today on the show, Wyatt Sinek, very funny comedian, also was a Daily Show correspondent, and we worked together years ago, before anyone knew who he was, doing some radio stuff, and always funny, I do a show in Brooklyn, he was out in LA for a few days. That's happening shortly,

but I've got some dates coming up tomorrow night. I will be in a Boulder at the Boulder theater. That's Friday, July. What is it? 24th perhaps. Is that what it is? This is the,

the coming to an end of the, the Marin tour. And then on Saturday, July 25th, I'll be in Denver at the Paramount. If you have not gotten tickets for that, you can go to WTFpod.com slash calendar. But listen to this.

Exciting news for people across the pond. I'll be in Dublin at Vicar Street the 2nd of September. Tickets will be available tomorrow for purchase at Ticketmaster.ie.

And then, then, in London, going from Ireland to Britain, I will be in London at South Bank Center the 3rd and the 4th of September. Tickets for that will be available today even, apparently, at ctickets.com and ticketmaster.co.uk. There you go. You got the info. It'll all be at wtfpod.com slash calendar. Hopefully today. What else is happening?

I do have to share some sad news I didn't get to share on Monday because I'd already recorded the show. Didn't get to share on Monday because I'd already recorded the show. But as we head into the last few episodes of Marin, tonight is a very funny episode called Steel Johnson that revolves around the character of my brother. But those of you who've been watching the show, and of course those of you who just know this man from his past work, on the first episode of Marin, which was called Stroke of Luck, I had the privilege of working with Mr. Alex Rocco, who passed away on Sunday. And I believe that our work together was his last role on television, I think in any medium. And it's very sad. He lived a full life. He was 79 years old. Most people know him as Mo Green from The Godfather. He was a great guy, and he was a funny guy,

and he was, in my experience with him over the few days that we worked together, we were just thrilled to be working and loved being an actor. It was a privilege to work with him, and Elliot Gould was also in that episode. It was just great. It was just great. He was a great guy, and in my limited experience of him and just a real pro man, I, you know, that part that we had laid out for him,

that scene, if you haven't seen the episode where, you know, he plays my, my new agent who was, you know, aging. And he,

right after I signed with him, he has a stroke. And the scene in the hospital was, you know, beyond, I mean, we could barely get through it and he loved doing it and he he uh i don't know man it was just uh it was just an honor and uh uh he will be missed so rest in peace alex rocco and it was a pleasure and uh privilege to And privileged to work with you. Sad stuff, man. You know, life does not last forever.

Jeez. I paused, but it just started fucking pouring. Can you hear that? Whoa. It's chaos here. Chaos. Holy shit, listen to that, man. Today on the show, Wyatt Sinek is here, and we had an interesting conversation about...

Like, he got me thinking about something. About people in our lives. You'll hear the conversation. We talk... We had this conversation about... He had a college teacher I believe it was, who was the first guy to sort of blow his mind. And this guy,

he was talking about the album Let's Get It On by Marvin Gaye, and he had just taken it for granted as a record, and this teacher, you'll hear the story, sort of explained to him that it was sort of a concept record uh about a guy who returns home from vietnam and and i know that feeling and

that and that that kind of forced him to look at everything in a different way that things were deeper than they may have seemed that you can't take anything for granted and there are these junctures in all of our lives where you're somebody somebody just does that to you. And I have a lot of those, and I share this with Wyatt, is that when you have a father who is either fully absent or emotionally absent or detached or that you could not connect with for whatever reason, you sort of spend your life looking for them for better or for worse in people that are, you know, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad.

But those are the people that end up blowing your minds because you're so hungry for this guidance. You're so hungry to learn. You're so hungry to sort of to kind of be guided somehow. And there's so many people like that in my life that i remember i i was always prone to idolizing people and and to to sort of glomming on to older dudes that you know like seemed like they had something to offer they led amazing lives like in uh in early on in high school there was the guys next door at the record store jim regan steve larue jim regan took me to his house

we spent an entire afternoon there recording the history of soul music. He had all of the soul records, and we put it all on a cassette tape. I had a blind spot on all this old R&B, and he took me under his wing and sort of guided me through that. When I was looking at colleges, like I went to the University of Indiana to look at that school when I was like 17 or 18. And every time I went out of town, then I just felt like this lost kid. And I'd wander around looking in stores by myself.

And I went into some antique store and there's this really pretty lady there. And I just kind of hung around this little teenage kid just hanging around talking about music. And I remember she said she turned me on to Brian Eno and Richard and Linda Thompson. I'm very grateful to her. Changed my fucking life. These people change your lives. Yeah, man. And then later,

when I was a little older in high school, Gus Blaisdell, the owner of the Living Batch bookstore, used to live there, man. Renegade intellectual, full tilt, fucking funny, man. That guy made me think about shit in a

humorous way i think that there's no one more responsible for my desire to be a comic and to be uh you know to sort of look for a certain amount of intelligence in it than gus blaisdell people changed my life sam kinnison that was that was the wrong horse to bet on but if i hadn't lost my fucking mind and done all that blow and spent all those hours with sam kennison i don't know if i'd be the man i am today sometimes shit happens there was a college professor i had professor orgel philosophy teacher didn't learn hardly any philosophy but he had dinner parties he was amazing cook and he inspired me to to realize that uh all you got to do is follow the directions to cook and you can make some

amazing shit. Just people that changed my life. It's funny, man. In lieu of a dad, in lieu of having that, I mean, my dad was around, but there was a distance there and he was a doctor and it was all about him. We're okay now. I love the guy. There's just these moments in life where your mind just gets blown.

Professor Green in college, we read The Crying of Lot 49, the pension book, which I could never wrap my brain around, but he put it in my head. Dr. Hayes in high school, the English teacher who told me to write poetry. We wrote poetry and he was an animated little guy that sort of changed my life and my idea of how you can go through life and how you can create because of this little man. He used to call himself the little brown man. And he'd dance around in an odd way. But he encouraged me. There's just been so many people in my life that have done that, that have guided me.

I mean, it certainly wasn't an easy journey by any means. But the people that blow your mind early on are the people that you guided me. I mean, it certainly wasn't an easy journey by any means, but the people that blow your mind early on are the people that you never forget. I guess really what's happening with me is I get more, it's not even nostalgic, man. It's just, you know, as less things bother me, there are new fears, but I sort of have to come to grips with who I am,

where I've gotten, how I got here, who are the people that helped me and fought me along the way to define who I am, and be grateful for that. Be grateful. Don't always know how to do that. It's not my default position. My default is, why the fuck didn't I, how come I'm this? Grateful.

Finally. Is that okay? If I have a little gratitude in my life? Jeez. It's pouring out there. It seems like it's let up. Seems like there was an outburst. There was an angry outburst from the sky.

Let's go to my conversation with Wyatt Sinek, the very funny Wyatt Sinek, who has a great show in Brooklyn. Night Train. Great space. But here he is now with me. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis

legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its 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. Thank you. We don't need to bust each other's balls. We can be open and have a nice conversation. That's what I love about talking to you. Yeah, we don't have to be contentious and create tension.

That's not what we're about, kind of. There's no false tension. No. That is the one thing that I think I always felt a little hurt by when people would always have, like, oh, a Marin did me wrong story. And it's like, you were always cool to me. Yeah, you were good. You were the first person that you put me on radio for the first time.

You were always cool to me. And then when I heard, like, the first person that you put me on radio for the first time like you were you were always cool to me and then when i heard like oh no marin has this reputation with other people it was like did i offend him in some way did you miss out yeah maybe you missed out did i offend him in some way that i earned his respect no we always got along and that well you know you're my you were my respect pretty quickly so now it's all coming back to me it's been a long time so you we got you i think who was it seth morris recommended you or somebody recommended you out of the ucb to do the characters yeah right yeah and you were doing that kind of stuff here and you did that great uh the the army guy i did an army recruiter the recruiter it was a fun time yeah so you're not living here though, right? No, no, no. I'm just here for a few days. I'm doing what? I'm doing Conan tomorrow.

Really? Yeah. New standup? No, I just, I'm just going to go do some panel. I don't know what we're going to do. I like panel. Yeah. It's fun.

His show is so much fun. Yeah. He's got nothing to lose over there. Really? That's I, there is like a freedom. I did it once before and it felt like he was so cool to me. And I remember Tenacious D were the musical guests and we were chatting before they came out. And I remember him leaning over to me and he was like, when they come over to the couch, don't let them get on the couch.

And at first I thought he was just sort of joking to kill time but he was serious and he didn't move i well they wound up grabbing me and andy and basically just like tackling us and moving us down and it turned into this big four-person group hug but just that invitation yeah from conan meant everything where it was so great that he was like, oh, no, let's play around and you can be in on the joke. Right. And that was I'd never I'd never felt that I've done other late night shows. And that and and that was such a weird thing where it was like everyone else seems so, you know, well, we have so much time for this segment and we've got so much time for that segment. And we have to keep this thing moving and he just kind of seemed like no don't move and let's just have a weird thing happen yeah i thank god someone's doing that on the tv shows but look let's go over it man all

right let's get into it let's get into it because i don't think we got into it like i like we've never gotten into it well since your uh departure from Daily Show, I've pictured you like in some sort of self-assigned exile. Like, I go to your show in Brooklyn, which is always good. And when I see you, you're like a singular man out there in Brooklyn. I always picture like, what's Wyatt doing? He's pulled himself out. He's regrouping. He's thinking.

I'm like David Carradine. Kung Fu, just wandering the streets. The desert of self. Wyatt is wandering the desert of self. But where do you come from? I was born in New York. New York City. New York City. I was born in New York, and I lived there for a little while.

My mother and father lived there, and then they split up when I was about a year old. Oh, really young. Yeah, my mother remarried, and then maybe when I was about three, my mother, stepfather, and I moved to Texas. And we moved to Dallas, Texas. What happened with the original old man? He, like where is he now yeah he was murdered when i was four but you had a relationship with him yeah i mean he was i i would still go visit my grandmother my maternal grandmother lived in new york so i would spend time with her and then i would spend time with him as well. And his brother, uh, who lived in New York as well.

Like I would see them all. And my grandmother, even after he got killed, like my grandmother did a good job of trying to keep you in the fold. Keep, well, at least keep talking about him. Cause once he, once he died, my uncle left and moved back to Grenada, which is where my father was from. Really? Yeah.

He just got murdered? Yeah. He was a New York City cab driver, and he took a fare up to Harlem, and then they robbed him and shot him. God damn it. Yeah. No, it's pretty intense. I just recently, like about maybe two years ago, a friend of mine connected me to an NYPD detective who pulled up the file and I got to see everything. They had pictures of the scene? They didn't have pictures of the scene, but there was, I always knew where it happened.

But then this sort of laid it out in this way of, oh, well, the car, you know, once he was shot, he died on this, you know, instantly. And then his foot was on the gas and the car went across the median and crashed into some cars. And then there were some witness accounts and stuff like that. It was really amazing. And then there were some witness accounts and stuff like that. It was really amazing. And then at the end of it all, there's the guy. They caught the guy, and I had his whole rap sheet. And it was weird to just see that and to just get a fuller picture of that guy.

And he lives in Brooklyn, and there's a whole kind of weirdness of just, oh, wow, this person, I've seen his whole life. I see his rap sheet. He didn't stay in jail after murder? No. He got a really short sentence for it. I think he was 16 when he did it. when he did it and so even that it's kind of amazing because i just think about like he was 16 and this thing like it just set him on a path and you look at his rap sheet and it's just i think he did i think he did six years on a 12-year stint for that because he was already locked up for something else and then i think they they were like oh you

did this too and they figured it out and so then he got he got six on a 12 got out then went in and out for other things weirdly enough was doing time in in North Carolina at the same time I was in college in North Carolina. Where'd you go? I went to a university in North Carolina. But it's just strange, these little sort of intersections of life where it's like, oh, yeah, we were both in North Carolina at the same time. Different institution. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Different state-run institution. Both not the best football teams. Really underperforming football teams in both situations. But wait, so now the dude who murdered your biological father lives in the same city as you. Yeah. As a free man. Yeah. As far as I know.

I don't know if he's gone back in for something but when did you go look all this shit up this was maybe like two years ago that i i got connected with this detective i'd always my mother never talked about him talked about my father so i never knew whether or not they had ever caught the guy and And so I would always do little research on my own, like I found his obituary and looking through old newspapers. And so I found that, and that meant something to me and gave me a little bit more of a picture. Were you curious about it?

I've always been curious about it. I mean, that's the thing. You know, to lose somebody at that age and especially a parent and in a way like that it's a weird it was always a strange thing that i never you know i don't know if i've ever totally reconciled with but it always it was always a thing that i i wanted information on i wanted to learn how could you not yeah and. And so I knew, like my father had other kids before he married my mother. And so I knew I had half siblings. Did you find them?

I did. I found, or they found me right before I got The Daily Show. I got interviewed on CNN for something. And my half sister's sister saw it. And maybe her mother, like her sister and her mother saw it. And because my father was Wyatt Cenac Sr. You kept the name. Yeah.

I didn't. When I was little, my mother and my stepfather changed it after my dad died. Yeah. But then I changed it back once I had to graduate college, and then I could change it back. So they sought you out? So they reached out via MySpace, and then, yeah, I wound up talking to my sister a little bit, and then I talked to a couple of my brothers. Wow.

Yeah, it was interesting. it was interesting it was also just interesting because did you feel it did you meet him did you see him no i felt it it always felt weird it always because we would talk on the phone and even talking to my sister my like as a four-year-old i had this very sort of heroic image of my father. Sure. And where... That's the trick they pull on us. Especially when they're murdered. Yeah, of course. That's their, like, oh, no, I want him to think of me in the best light.

I'll go get murdered. Mythic. Yeah. But, no, there really was this sort of mythic image I had of him. sort of mythic image I had of him and because my mother never talked about him I never I never I just had to fill in the blanks my grandmother would tell me things and then it was me filling in all the other blanks and he had this whole life in Grenada right he grew up there he grew up in Grenada but then he was in New York for a long time and so he had kids in Grenada he had kids in New York and I just remember when I was he had kids in Grenada. He had kids in New York.

And I just remember when I was talking to my sister who was a few years older than me. And her description of my father was that he was a deadbeat. And he wanted nothing to do with her. And so it was this very strange thing of. The myth chipping away. Yeah. And him becoming human in that, oh, he's, you know, he wasn't as great as. As I remember as a four-year-old. Yeah.

As I wanted, as four-year-old me wanted to believe him to be. And so, yeah, so we are family, our connection to each other, it's so different. But there was none of that. So you're doing pretty well for yourself. No. Oh, good. No. Yeah, no.

Because it was thankfully, I think, because they caught me right before I got The Daily Show, I think there was at least something about it where it was like, okay, I know this is pure. Yeah, right, right, genuine. It wasn't opportunistic. Yeah, it's not like, I saw you on CNN, so how about coming off some of that genie moose appearance cash? Yeah, yeah, where's the Wolf Blitzer money? Yeah.

All right, so do you have any compulsion to meet his murderer? Not really, no. And people have asked me that once I sort of discovered it and everything. And I kind of, I was just like, I don't really have anything to say to the dude. If anything, there is a part of me where I look at him and what he did, and there's a sense of he is partially responsible for me being who I am. In a good way. Kind of, yeah. I've actually joked about it on stage because it is this thing

where it's like i'm not gonna send him a father's day card but there is this element of like oh no this this was a traumatic event that changed me in in the way i saw the world and you're the person that did that like you who knows who knows how differently my life would be i'm assuming it would probably i'd probably still be in the same place right but maybe my father would have been the deadbeat that uh he was to my sister to me and maybe i would have dealt with that or maybe i'd have gone to new york and lived with him and I would have dealt with that. Or maybe I'd have gone to New York and lived with him. And it would have changed my impression of him in that way. A whole trajectory. Yeah. Who knows?

Like if you grew to favor him over your mother, who the hell knows where that would have went? Yeah. Wow. But so in that way, it is like, oh, yeah, this one thing, like that idea of the butterfly effect or something like that. Like, oh, this is that one instance of, oh, yeah, here it is. the butterfly effect or something like that. Oh, this is that one instance of, oh, yeah, here it is. That's, yeah. All right.

So your mom remarries a dude and he becomes your father for the most part? Yeah. Yeah. He was. So it was my mother, my stepfather. And then I had a cousin that moved in when he was 10. I was 13. So that became... The family?

Sort of the family, yeah. What'd he do? What'd he do to... Your stepfather. Oh, my stepfather. He was an accountant. He worked for American Airlines. And so he was a number cruncher.

I like American. I fly American. You? Sometimes. I tend to fly Delta. Ah. Yeah. Which i guess that could be seen as some sort of edible struggle yeah is he still around yeah are they still together yeah i don't know we don't talk you and your mom no i don't talk to either of them. Wow. Yeah. The fuck happened? It was not a good relationship.

Ever? I don't think it ever was, to be perfectly honest. No. I think it's as good of a relationship as an adult and a child can have where, yeah, a child is dependent on said adult for survival. But there was never a real closeness. Like she would try to get close and I was never into it. And I didn't really, there wasn't a lot of trust.

We didn't trust either, like either one of us. We didn't really trust each other. From age four or five? I don't know. I don't know at what age it started. But they took care of you. They did take care of me, yeah. They sent you to school.

They did, yeah. So they covered that stuff. They did, yeah. They did cover that stuff. How about your cousin? You talked to your cousin? I still talk to him. That's good.

Yeah, I still talk to him. He just got married. I think at some point there just became a moment where, especially my mother, like my stepfather and I weren't, it was always a weird relationship but then with my mother it kind of turned into a thing where I felt like, you know, if we weren't family, we probably

like that's the thing that is keeping us talking to each other is that, is this sense of obligation and we don't really get along and we get into arguments and my mother was very manipulative and would kind of try to control me and control the situation and i remember when i started working in television she i thought she was joking and she was like i want to be your manager and i was, you don't know anything about this.

You sell insurance. And she got really upset in a way that was like, oh, no, I've hurt her feelings. And that was something I grew up with, which was that my stepfather would always be like, give your mother her way. my stepfather would always like oh he'd be like you know give your mother her way like just she may be wrong but give her her way because the other side of it was if she was upset she wouldn't talk to me for like an extended period of time like for a week or something like that right so it was like it just let her do what she wants and then we can all live peacefully. Yeah, and at some point for me it was kind of like, I don't like being this person's sort of puppet. And so I want to, and at some point as I started to make my own life decisions, for me there was a thing where I was like, I need to break away.

I need the space to make my own mistakes. I need the space to make my own mistakes. I need the space to make my own decisions without having somebody trying to control my life and control it in a way where she would be in my life. Making choices for you. Trying to make choices. How long has it been since you talked to her? The last time I saw her, I was living here in L.A., and I'd done a show, and she showed up uninvited to the show. In L.A.?

In L.A. Where did she grow up? Where did she live? She lives in Texas. Huh. And so it was shortly after I'd said, like, we shouldn't speak anymore. Like, this hurts me. And so I did a show at the, it was the old Comedy Central stage. Yeah, the Hudson Theater.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so I did a show, I did like a showcase there. And it was like a one-person show. And so I do the show and then she came backstage and was sort of acting as though everything was cool. And wasn't acting like there was a problem at all. And this was what I felt like my life was, which was, youas and you like you just showed up like you like you showed up and you invaded the place where i feel the safest which is you know backstage after a show and i'm like

i'm more thinking about that and then this person who shows up uninvited after i've told them hey leave me alone like this is this isn't a good relationship. Like, let's not see each other. Yeah. And then walked backstage. Like, it wasn't even like somebody came and said, hey, there's somebody who wants to talk to you. Just rolled up backstage. And I remember we just started yelling at each other.

And I was doing most of the yelling. And I was just like, what are you doing here? Like, get out of here. This is what a stalker does no boundaries yeah and so then she was like you know she tried to be calm about it and was like let's just talk and i was like no go away and then i that was the last time we saw each other and i don't know what she i assumed she went to her rental car and you know was probably upset And then I don't know if she got a flight. So like seven years ago.

Oh, no, no. That was a long time ago. That was shit. I mean, I've been in New York for eight years. That was probably over a decade ago. Wow. Yeah, it was over a decade ago. And you're okay with it?

Yeah, I'm cool with it. Yeah. Because we've talked, we talked once on the phone a few years back, and that wasn't very cool. She kind of like, my aunt, I have an aunt who's in her 90s, and my aunt called me worried because they thought my mother was like, I don't know what. Like, they were just like, your mother was on the phone with one of your aunts and she got off suddenly and like she's acting really weird. Maybe she'll talk to you. And I called her and I was like, what's going on? And she was just like, oh, it's so great to talk to you.

And I was like, hold up a second. Why does everybody think you were like they. In trouble. Yeah, they thought you were in trouble. No, no, there's no trouble. But now that I'm talking to you, let's talk i was like no no this is you just tricked a 90 year old woman into having me call you oh and so then it was like we won't do this again but you feel like you know it's like it's so tricky with that shit you know because i have like strained

relationships but you know and i don't i never went that long but you you it's weird you're okay it's weird is you know what it's definitely weird because there's definitely moments in your life where you know i you you hear other people talk about their family and you hear you know people who have this weird this love for their parents well i have love look i have i have love there's love there but it's it's also one of those things where I know there's love there, but it's better separate. Right, right. It's self-protection in a way. Yeah.

And so there's definitely a sense where you see the relationships other people have with their families, and it's kind of like... A little sad. It's a little sad, but at the same time, it also feels like, well, this is the healthiest thing for me. sad but at the same time it also feels like well this is the healthiest thing for me i still have like an old email address and for a while my mother would send emails and i kept the address open basically because it felt like she needed she needed this outlet she needed something and maybe on some level i needed it too because at least it kept her at bay in a way that my biggest fear and it was a fear that i had as a kid because there would be times where as a kid my mother might show up somewhere or she would have

somebody like spy on me and do shit like that like it was a really paranoid house growing up where i remember one time i was supposed to i was supposed to leave my car at a certain place and i i was picking up this this girl that i was seeing at the time we're gonna go to six flags amusement park so i was supposed to leave my car on one side of town, Six Flags on another side of town, both far from where my folks live. And so I go pick up the girl. She's like, we should drive to Six Flags together. It would be romantic because we were supposed to ride with her sister. And I was like, well, I don't know.

My mom says. And then she kind of like touched my leg and it was like, okay, let's do it. We drive and I had to take the highway. And I think that was like, my folks didn't want me on the highway. Get there, fine. Come back. And my mother used to make me carry around this cell phone, one of those big, big ass car phones. Phones ringing nonstop.

The girl answers it and i and i'm just like i immediately hang it up and i'm like what the fuck are you doing yeah and then i eventually answer it my mother's like you know why didn't you pick up the phone i was like i don't know if you called the right number this is the first time it rang and i dropped the girl off and I get home. And as I'm pulling into the driveway, I see my stepfather has been tailing me at some point. And his car is coming behind mine. And so he somewhere picked me up on the road, followed me back to our house. back to our house what i learned is that my mother sent somebody to go see if my car was where it was supposed to be and this is what she tells me later she goes send see if my car is where it's supposed to be when it's not she calls the police knowing i took it she calls the police

thinking that the police will pick me up and i'll learn a lesson. How old were you? I was probably 17. And so there was – and so – and then when I get home, like, she has sort of opened up all of, like, all my papers, anything that I had, like, locked up. And, like, I used to keep, like, a briefcase where I could kind of lock things up. All that stuff is spread out on her bed and on the kitchen table, and it was one of those things where it's almost like the police have come in and raided the place, and they're just going through everything. It's like violating.

Violating in a way that was like, this doesn't even have anything to do with the crime at hand. The crime was that I took a car. I took a car on the highway. You're now looking at this as like, well, let's go through his diary. Yeah. Let's basically go through all this shit. And so there was always that sense of violation.

And so when she showed up that day at that show, it was kind of like it all came back. It all came back. It was kind of like it all came back. It all came back. And that's what I lived with was this constant sense of you never know who you never know who's your real friend. Like there was there was a there was a girl I knew. She's actually she's a girl I grew up with. She at one point told me that my mother had asked her to befriend me just to keep an eye on you. Yeah. And just to report information. But but yeah and she did that to my roommate one of my roommates when i lived out here and she was like

tell me like just keep me in the loop on stuff and it was just like this very strange paranoid distrustful house so in a weird way keep at least keeping that email account alive it was like okay at least i know she's fucking communicating through this. But you did nothing to warrant, like you weren't a bad kid. Nah, nah, nah. I think, you know, I don't know if I had to take a guess. It's like her father wasn't a part of her life. Like he, I think, out on on her and my grandmother

then her first husband who while she's not married to is murdered yeah and whether or not you find love again or whether you're not you're in another relationship like that still hits that still hits in a way i like there's somebody i like i was there was somebody that i loved and she died last year of cancer and she was somebody that like i would kind of like get in and out of a relationship with every now and again and we tried to make things work and it's truly been one of those things that it's like like we weren't married or anything like that. But that definitely has affected the way that I look at relationships now. So I think I look at all that stuff with my mother and it's like, you lost your father.

You lost your first husband and even just divorce. I mean, you lost that aspect of it, too. And even just divorce, I mean, you lost that aspect of it, too. It makes sense that you would be really controlling of the other man in your life, your child. The abandonment issue, the fear. Yeah. And so I think it became this overprotective thing of like, well, I don't want to lose this one. And then almost like a Greek tragedy, it's like everything you did in your attempt not to lose this one puts you away yeah well maybe someday you guys can hash it out i feel like we have like i

mean we've talked about it over like you know like she would always email and be like just tell me what i've done and And I told her. And it's just like, I've told you. I don't know why you're not hearing it. And so then, and it's funny because I wound up talking about some of this stuff on another podcast. And then there was an email that came through. And I was really nervous about talking about it because it was the first time I'd ever talked about it sort of publicly in that kind of a way. And I remember this email came through like and i was really nervous about talking about it because it was the first time i ever talked about it sort of publicly in that kind of a way and i remember this email came through that account and the email like the subject line was something like i can hear you now but it wasn't it wasn't even a sort of all right i get it'm going to respect your space. It was just kind of like, still, still the same, still the same song. Was she stubborn? Stubborn. But I also think like

there's, I think there's something, I think there's something, there's more there. Mentally ill. Possibly. Right. I think there's more there. So you managed to, uh, to get away and go to college. I did. Yeah. That was, I mean, college, honestly, that was escape. Like, that was, I, as a kid, I always dreamed of running away. Yeah. And was terrified of it. And then college, college was that attempt, was just like, oh, no, now this is running away. This is, I got offered a scholarship to go to school in state at the University of Texas.

And I wound up saying, how far can I go? That's not because I'd seen I'd seen how far their reach could go that like, oh, no, they will drive somewhere. If they're not happy, they drive to Texas. Yeah, they drive from Dallas to Austin. That's not that far. Right, right, right. Chapel Hill, North Carolina was like, all right, they're not going to get on an airplane and then drive 45 minutes from the airport to this college.

So it was like, oh, no, I'm going to get away. And then I went to college. And I just remember the first semester of college, I almost failed out just because the freedom was so much. And it wasn't even a freedom of like, I'm going to drink and I'm going to smoke. It was just I can wake up whenever I want. And I don't have to go to class if I don't want to. And when I first got in, like she had said, you know, you should take these classes. You should sign up for these classes.

And I hated those classes and I never went to those classes. And then at some point, halfway through my first semester, I remember I was failing out. Yeah. And then they sent like a midterm report to your house. they would send like a midterm report to your house. And so I'm in the shower and my roommate comes knocking on the door of the bathroom. And he's like, hey, your folks are on the phone. And I was like, well, I'm in the shower.

I'll call them back. And so he goes back and a minute later he's like, they're not getting off the phone. They're saying get out of the shower. And so I'm just like, oh, shit. I'm thinking, did somebody die? What the fuck is going on? Yeah. I go in, and I don't even have to put the phone next to my ear. My mother and stepfather are screaming so loud about my grades at that point.

And just like, you're failing out of everything we will come down there and my roommate and his girlfriend can hear the whole thing and it's just this very strange it was like it was this thing of oh shit i have to get my act together because i don't want to go back there like that was that was... That was, like, you know, I'm not going back. Yeah, and that was, I mean, that house, like, it was, you know, there was a lot of distrust. There was a lot of yelling. There was a lot of that stuff. So it was like, oh, right, I don't want to go back,

but I'm also not this student that she wants me to be. I have to figure out who I am, and I've got to figure out, like, the classes I need to take to make this work so I never have to go back there. And then and I've got to figure out the classes I need to take to make this work, so I never have to go back there. And then in the summers, I would never go back. I would stay in North Carolina. Nice place there.

So what did you end up studying? I was a communications major because they didn't have a TV film department, so they just wrapped it into communications. Yeah. And so I took some film and TV classes that I could take in there, and I took some performance classes. You were doing some sketch comedy or what? Or acting or what?

I did a little of everything. I remember I did this one class. It was a performance class, and we had to take the lyrics of a song and reinterpret them into a performance. And you just had to do the lyrics as written, but perform them in some way. And I did a song that I really loved, but never fully understood. What song?

It was Marvin Gaye's Flying High in a Friendly Sky. Yeah. What song? It was Marvin Gaye's Flying High in a Friendly Sky. Yeah. And it just spoke to me, just like the sadness of addiction. It's just a song. It's just a junkie song of how he's struggling. I know I shouldn't be doing this, but I can't help it.

This thing has a hold on me in this way that i can't i just can't let go of it and it's really sad and really beautiful and that whole album like the the what's going on album is a it's an amazing album because the whole thing there are no breaks in it yeah it's all crowd noise like party noise right like well there's one song that's like continuous. It's like crowd noise, like party noise, right? Well, there's one song that's like that, but the whole thing is made with no actual break. But there's two songs on there that they are the exact same instrumentation, but he's just flipped it. And so all the sounds you hear in the foreground become the background of the second song.

Wow. And vice versa. And it's an amazing album. I got to get that record. You should. I had an English professor, this professor Lee Green, and he was like my favorite person at Carolina and was kind of like this sort of, it went beyond English class

in this way of like I'd see him on campus and he'd kind of like this sort of, it went beyond English class in this way of like, I'd see him on campus and he'd kind of like, how you doing? You doing all right? And it was this kind of almost paternal-like thing. You need that guy. Yeah. And that's, I think I've always kind of sadly looked for those kind of people in my life. Like, oh yeah, here's somebody.

But he was that guy that was just like, even in class, like our class was English class, but he talked to us about art. Right, he taught you how to think. Yes. Yeah. And see things in that way. Yeah. Where you're like, holy shit, bigger world out there.

Yeah, and he was more than the academic idea of a professor. He was just a man that was talking to all of us like adults and just happened to be in a he just happened to be the one adult who knew more than us and he was excited yeah yeah yeah you need that guy man where you're like oh really i never thought that so you had that experience where the song just hits you like that were you like oh my god yeah and it was that's amazing moment to have with a piece of uh art yeah and it's a it's i mean from soup to nuts that whole album because the whole thing is like the whole the whole album is about a guy coming back from the war and then his whole life of just the the sort of depression that one goes into of coming back home

and what's going on is all about I just got back from war. What's happening? Like I've missed everything. And then it goes into the struggle of trying to get a job and like I can't get a job. I was promised that this country was going to take care of me and I'd have a job waiting for me when I got back. I got nothing, so I sink into the despair of sadness and drinking and drugs,

and that's flying high in a friendly sky is all about that. And then the sort of second half of the album is coming out of that, and it's the redemption of cleaning yourself up and seeing, like, okay, it's bigger than me, and I've got to do something for the children and i don't want children to have to go through the same thing that i went through wow and it's really it's it's a it's an amazing album and it was like some of it was influenced by his brother and his brother's experience coming back from war i believe and yes it's amazing like that understanding that album

was like a pivotal point in your life kind of yeah it was it was changed everything you're like shit is deep it really yeah yeah it was one of those where it's just like fuck thanks professor green like this this and I don't even know why we were talking about it we were supposed to be reading right you're telling me about this record now I gotta get the record yeah you do I got a lot of records I don't have that record that's that's one. I got a lot of records. I don't have that record. That's one. I've got that one.

I think I've got two versions. They did like a repressing, but then I think I have. The original? I think I have an original or at least like a second or third printing. So how do you get into show business? third printing. So how do you get into show business? I, again, in that sense of wanting to run away from home, I'd always wanted to be a performer. I'd always loved that, but I never thought it was something that I could do. And especially in Texas. But you graduated. I graduated, but it was actually before I graduated, I realized I could do it.

I graduated, but it was actually before I graduated I realized I could do it. And I'd been into it as a kid, but I never thought I could do it. And I'd actually taken one of those what color is your parachute tests when I was in high school. And it was to get into an internship program. I don't know what that is. They're one of those tests that you can take. You can find them online. And you take this long-ass test, and then it says, these are careers you might be best suited for. And so it's like, oh, you might be best suited to be a lawyer or something like that.

And so I took mine, and the first answer that came back was stuntman. That was actually on there? Yeah. And I got really excited. I remember I told my stepfather, and he was like, you can still be a doctor. Yeah. Don't let that misguide you. Yeah.

Yeah. But so there wasn't a sense that I think from family, you know, my grandmother probably, she was the one person who was like, I want you to do whatever you want to do. And she was the one who introduced me to comedy. And so, and I was always... How so? She, I would watch old I Love Lucy episodes with her. And then, I mean, when I was a kid, the Cosby show was huge.

And so she gave me Bill Cosby's fatherhood to read. And I just remember thinking that was the funniest thing. And for a long time, I would watch the Cosby show and I would think, oh, I want to be a doctor. And then I remember going and learning about what a doctor was. And I was like, oh, no, I want to be a comedian. He has a lot of work, the doctor part. But I had to keep this a secret.

And so even like I did like a high school play once and I was supposed to have like a serious part and I wound up making it funny. And I loved that feeling. But it all felt like a secret. And then when I was in college, I got an internship at Saturday Night Live. How did you get it? You just applied for it? No. So I was watching later with Bob Costas.

Yeah. And he was interviewing Rob Schneider. Right. And Rob Schneider, in the interview, said, like, Costas asked him, how'd you get on SNL? And he said something to the effect of, I sent a tape or I sent a letter or something like that. And so this show was on at, like, one in the morning. And I remember thinking, like, wait, that's it? That's all you got to do is send them something?

And I thought I must be getting this secret because I'm the only one who's up this late watching this show. And so I sent them a letter and I put some sketches in it. And I wrote this letter and I was like, I would really like to be a writer, cast on your show here are some sketches that i wrote and you thought that would work i thought it would work and they sent it back and they said they sent like a note a top note that said we're not allowed to read some submissions and me and kind of the stupidity of a 19 year old was like you can't read them or you won't read them and so i just sent it back and for about six months i kept sending them letters saying like i'd really like a job and the letters started to get more desperate where i was like look obviously i want to be a cast

member i'd love to be a writer i'll also take an internship yeah and so i think maybe to keep me from sending letters and maybe also because the guy felt bad for me there was one of i would send him to lauren's office because i didn't know where to send him and so one of lauren's assistants this guy named matt enstis he one day called me out of the blue and he was just like hey we keep getting your letters and I'm the person who has to read these. If you really want an internship, you need to reach out to this woman, Karen Nathanson. She's the person to talk to. And so I wrote her a letter.

And then they said, can you fly up and interview? And I just started college again i started my sophomore year yeah i flew up i met i had a meeting with karen nathanson i remember walking into 30 rock and just being in awe of all of it and then she was like yeah do you want to come back you know we're about to do the first show which was tom petty uh but i couldn't i i still want to come back? You know, we're about to do the first show, which was Tom Petty. But I couldn't, I still had to go back to school and pack up and all that stuff. And so I was like, yeah, I totally want to do this. And I remember I flew back to, I flew back to North Carolina. My mother and stepfather were, they were really upset. They

were against it. And they were just like, we don't want you to do it. And this was maybe that first moment of like, this is who I want to be. And you have to kind of respect that. And so eventually they relented and they were like, all right, fine. I went back to New York. I lived with my grandmother, got to spend a lot of time with her. And then because I wasn't in school, my internship, I would be there six days a week. And so I just saw and tried to soak up as much of SNL as I could. I never thought I was going to go back to school. I kind of thought, and even people at school never thought that I was coming back. People were like, oh, they're going to love you. You're going to go out there and they're going to love you.

Because the one thing I knew about SNL, I knew like Eddie Murphy had gotten SNL when he was like 18. Right. So I was like, okay, I'm 19. Like, I'm a year behind. Yeah, you picked that guy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I, so yeah, so I was there. And then I remember when it was over, it was kind of like, oh shit, I have to go back to school. I don't want to go back. That's not, that's not what i want to do but i'm eddie murphy yeah i'm gonna run way behind schedule yeah back to school yeah this is i'm now i'm this is taking me off track yeah but then i didn't have anything else to do so i went back to school i finished school and then they offered me a job snl they were very nice they offered me a job. SNL, they were very nice. They offered me a job as a receptionist when I graduated if I wanted a job.

And I remember thinking, nobody goes from receptionist to cast member. I don't think that's how it works. From what I learned in my time there. And so I politely declined and I said, I really appreciate it. And then I figured, you know what? I'll go to LA I'll make my bones there and then if I do well enough like the goal was to always go back to New York and it was to go to SNL so it was like if I make my bones there and I do well enough they'll see

it and I'll get a job like that and so then I went to LA and I was there for nine and a half years and I never got SNL. But you were doing sketch and you were doing writing and you were doing like what were some of the gigs you had? For a long time I was doing I started doing sketch first. I was doing like sketch and improv stuff when I first got out here. I'd done stand up in college after the SNL internship. I started trying to do stand up and then I got really petrified. The first time, I still have the tape, an audio tape of it. First time I did stand-up, they gave me three minutes.

Where? Charlie Goodnight. Oh, yeah, that room. Yeah, that can be hard. It wasn't even that the room was hard. It was just the fear of having never been on stage. Yeah, that's old-timey comedy club yeah i just went back for the first time oh you did it it's just good nights

now yeah so you worked a weekend i i did i just did a one-nighter there and it was so weird to be in the same space that i like 20 years later and it's sort of the same it looks exactly the same yeah and i think i tried to tell one of the jokes I told the first time. Did you set it up like that? Yeah, because it was not a good joke. Right. It was, yeah. How'd it go?

I think the joke was, because it was after I'd come back from SNL, so I was writing a lot of weekend update type jokes. Yeah. And I'd read some article about how in west virginia they just passed a law that allowed you to keep your roadkill and so the punchline was like so now food lion's biggest competitor is ford or dodge or some shit like that right it was just a stupid ass joke and i was like yeah surprisingly i kept doing this like it was well i had some heart in it and some social commentary well that was uh yeah it was topical yeah it was it was foreshadowing of things to

come that's great that you went back there yeah but yeah so when i came to la then i came out and i wasn't doing stand-up at first i was just doing improv and sketch because there was the safety of having other people on stage but then at some point I kind of, I missed standup and it was honestly, do you know Laura craft? She's a, she's a comedian. She's out,

she lives out here, but she's the one who kind of got me back in the standup because she used to do this show at improv Olympic called the extravaganza. And it was like this weird mishmash of an open mic where people do sketches they do characters they do music and it was a sunday night show and she was on the road she was going to chicago to open for jeff garland and so she asked me to host the show in her place and the way she would host it was that she would never have anything prepared she would just talk about her week and she would kind of start off by saying,

here's why my week is more interesting than yours. And then she would just talk about her week. And so she asked me to fill in for her for a few weeks while she was on the road. And I just was like, Oh shit, I miss this. Like this is,

I, and I wanted, I kind of want back in and so then that's what got me back back in was okay I'm not afraid to be up here by myself anymore and I'm not afraid of the silence and I'm not afraid of the eyeballs in the way that I was when I first started doing it in North Carolina and then I got a job at King of the Hill as a writer there, and I was a writer for four seasons. Were you writing with Jammin' and Glarem?

I was, yeah. Yeah, because when I did your show, that's, yeah. We had offices right next to each other. Yeah. And, yeah, those guys are great. Yeah. And, yeah, Sievert and Michael. And, yeah, it's weird to see just even the people that I worked with like

they're doing that and then there's a guy Eitan Cohen who he went on to uh he just directed that movie Get Hard and he wrote Tropic Thunder and he like he wrote a bunch of like really amazing screenplays and stuff man people keep in the business yeah and like uh Altruler and Krinsky who were like the showrunners when I was there they they created silicon valley with mike judge and so it was just it was a and that was a really just to as a job it was a really cool job but it was also a strange job because i was the youngest writer there and everyone else was like married with families and I was just like in my 20s and but you get the experience oh no the experience was great and I think what was great too about the experience was even in doing it it helped me get out of debt because I'd racked up a lot of debt but then

it also showed me so much about just television and also reminded me that, Oh, this is fun, but it's not the exact thing I want to do that. I like writing, but I also like performing. And the longer I do this job, the harder it gets to walk away from the money,

the health coverage, that lifestyle. Yeah. That it's like the longer you're a writer. And that's honestly why I left was the realization that oh yeah my agents they want me to take another writing job and they want me to keep writing and if i keep doing this i'm gonna get to a point where yeah i may have a mortgage and the notion that i'm like you know what i'm gonna take a year off and just focus on stand-up or just try to you know focus on being a performer that would be so much more difficult with if you had a mortgage if you

had a family if you had all these other things and so just a job yeah yeah i mean like it's hard to walk away from a job sometimes yeah but i, but it was walking away was this sense that, oh, no, I got to walk away. If I really want to try to build my own thing, I got to walk away. And then what happened? I had enough money saved up for maybe, like, to cover me for, like, a year or two. I blew through all that. to cover me for like a year or two i i blew through all that and over the course of like four years blew through all my money lost my apartment my car got repoed i had to move in with a friend of mine this comedian named laura swisher and i i had to i know her i had to i had to move in with her

her i had to i had to move in with her and i had nothing and it was like it was dark it was just kind of like fuck it felt like oh there is nothing for me here like this city is a is spitting me out like it's but your agent's probably like he didn't want to do nothing well no because even at some at one point you know you're talking four years of not working. There were times where it was just like, look, if there's something out there, I'll take it. And I even at one point, I think I even went back to my showrunners at King of the Hill after about two or three years. And I'd heard that there was an opening and I was like, if you if if you need a writer and they, and they said no, and I'm grateful that they did, but it was like, fuck, like there's like, I'm drowning. And it was, it was bad. And it was just like, oh shit, I don't know how I'm going to get out of this. And I'd kind of resigned myself. Like I was borrowing money from Laura and I had to borrow cash.

At one point, I met a woman. We were going to go on a date and I had to borrow cash. I had to borrow like $20 from Laura. I borrowed another $20 or maybe $40 from Marsha. And I had $60 plus maybe like another $20 to my name to take this woman out on a date she immediately ordered a bottle of wine and I had to come clean and just like yeah I got no money and and that and I and that was like that 80 was basically like yeah that's what I got right now and I've just got to figure out how I'm gonna get some money after this like after this date I will live off of Laura's kindness for as long as I can but I got to figure out a

thing and I wound up getting a gig doing some voiceover for a Nickelodeon cartoon it wasn't like serious money and I was just kind of like struggling and then I got a call to audition for the daily show and i didn't want to do it and my manager talked me into it why didn't you want to do it because i'd auditioned like three times before yeah and never gotten it and when i'd auditioned like i remember folks at comedy central like bart coleman was at comedy central at the time and he was he was a big like we think you'd be perfect for this. We're going to fight for you. Right.

And I'd auditioned three or four times, never gotten it. So I was kind of like, they've seen me. They don't want this. What I learned was that the Daily Show never watched those tapes. Right. But Comedy Central, there would always be these auditions. Right. So this time they let me write my own thing. And I wrote something.

And that was honestly what got me the job. They even told me, yeah, the thing you wrote, there was so much of your personality in it. But I didn't want to do it at first. And my manager talked me into it. And I went. I did it. me into it and I went I did it and then the same day that I was supposed to fly out to test for it I was also supposed to interview for this job on this show the chocolate news that David Allen Greer had yeah they took me to breakfast right before I got on the plane to go to to New York

and they offered me the job uh for chocolate. And then I got on the plane and I assumed like, well, I'm not going to get the daily show. I would love to get this show. I would love to get this opportunity because this is also full circle. Like the daily show didn't exist when I was, you know, looking at when I was like, i want to be on snl yeah but what i wanted to do on snl was i wanted to do weekend update and so now it was like oh here's this whole show that is kind of weekend update that didn't exist you know though all those years ago but i was like i'm not gonna get that i assumed i'll do this audition. I'll come back. I'll start working on the chocolate news. I met a guy who lived down the street from me who was going to sell me an

old pickup truck for like 500 bucks. And so I was like, okay, that'll, that'll be how I get to work. Like this will be my life. And I'd sort of resigned myself to that the day of the daily show audition I met with a friend to get lunch I wound up drinking at lunch and then halfway through like a seven and seven was like oh I probably shouldn't get drunk I have a job interview yeah and then I went in I did the audition and i remember afterwards john saying when can you start and i thought he was joking and so i was just like that's a shitty joke and i didn't say that to him but i was just like haha and then they sent me to another room and they were talking and then afterwards one of the eps was like hey do you want to take a tour and And I was kind of like, no, you haven't offered me a job. Like, why would you? But he starts taking me on a tour and people had people had been watching on the feed. Right. I was in the building. They'd seen my audition.

Right. And people were like, hey, that was really funny. And I'm just like, this is so weird because nobody's offered me a job. And now you're just showing me everything i'm not gonna have yeah and then i left uh after like it got uncomfortable and after about 20 minutes i was like i gotta get the fuck out of here like uh and laura craft my my friend uh who got me back in a stand-up was working at uh the colbert rapport and so i walked over to go see her and she was like, how'd it go? And all this stuff. And then I got a phone call and it was my manager and he was like, they offered you the job. And Laura and I were standing outside of the studios. And so Laura, I gave the phone to her. So she's the one who got the information and she's just screaming and

she's like, oh my God, congratulations, congratulations. And then I had to leave and they had a car that was going to pick me up at the Daily Show and take me back to take me back to the airport. And so as I'm going back to get that car, there's a line of people waiting to go in as the audience for the Colbert Report. And they all heard and saw this exchange between Kraft and I. And these people in line are like, hey, congratulations. For what? And I just got nervous and was like, you'll find out. And then sort of ran. But these are all the people that like those are the people i was

with when i got the daily show the audience for the colbert yeah it was just the audience for steven's show and and then yeah and then i got i got on a plane i flew back i wound up uh going to a bar uh this bar out here called our bar so i just took a super shuttle and i came in was like i got this job and everybody was really happy and i got drunk and passed out in the bar and then went to the went to a diner slept till three woke up to a bunch of voicemails that were like hey so they need you to start on monday and this was friday and they were like can you pack your things up in a weekend and I was like yeah I don't really have anything I I've already I lost my apartment yeah yeah I got nothing I just need to burn some CDs onto my computer and I'm good yeah so yeah I I moved in

a weekend and it was Memorial Day weekend I moved to New York. But it was that idea of full circle where it was I always thought L.A. was going to be this temporary stop to get me back to New York. And it was nine and a half years, but it got me back to New York. And how long were you on The Daily Show? Four and a half years, almost five. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. yeah yeah and you got along with john nah on and off you know he was a boss i think at the end of the day he was he was a boss like i

i think sadly that thing that you know that whatever that thing is that I have of, like, one paternal figure. Yeah. I think I assumed on some level, oh, this guy, like, this guy, he's the one who hired me. Like, he brought me here. And not just brought me here, but it was, like, to New York, the place for 10 years. I hated L.A. And I wanted back in New York so badly. And it's like this guy brought me back to New York, not just that, gave me the job I'd always wanted, was somebody that I think I probably put a lot, unbeknownst to both him and myself,

put a lot on him of just, this guy saved my life and and really on some level did because by the end in la i was really depressed like i was in a real shit way where i was just like i really was like i don't know what i don't know i don't know what the next year is gonna be if there's next year like it was just bad right and i think the people who knew me knew how how sad i was and so it was this just oh this guy took me out of all of that and i was so appreciative and i think i really wanted to connect with him in that sort of paternal way yeah you know like a professor green or like you know and that wasn't his thing like he just you know and and so that never we never had that closeness we never had that and i don't think he really you know he was a guy that just kind of kept a distance with people he wanted to keep a

distance with and so you know we'd have conversations that most people from your observation i think i let other people tell their stories but i think you know he was a guy that kind of he stayed in his office and it wasn't like he hung out and you know i mean i worked on that show for four and a half years we never really hung out outside the show honestly the longest conversation we ever had was the day i quit and that was like the most real conversation. And it was sad because I honestly thought in that conversation, I was like, I wish we'd I wish this. This was how I wished I had been able to talk to you for four and a half years. And maybe I wouldn't be leaving now if we had this kind of relationship where it just even felt like respect.

Like that's, you know, because you can be a boss and still respect your employees. It felt like he was a boss. especially by the end, where it was just like, oh, no, I don't feel like if something were to happen to me tomorrow, this guy would give a shit. And so it was – What happened? What happened – well, like I said, I don't think we ever – there was never like a major closeness. But then eventually by the end, we wound up having some blowups.

And eventually, by the end, we wound up having some blow-ups. And there was one where he wanted to do something on the show that I didn't necessarily agree with, and it kind of offended me. And I brought it up, and he... In what way? he had done something on the show where he had, he had done an impression of Herman Cain on the show and I was on a field shoot. And so I didn't actually, I wasn't there for the process of, of it, but I saw it. I watched it that night from my hotel and I remember the way he did the impression. It was a little weird it was kind of

like it reminded me of like a kingfish type of a thing and so it it i and i and i just remember like oh that's weird why did you do that racially insensitive it seemed yeah and it didn't seem intentional but it just seemed like it seemed like one of those things, like whenever Robin Williams would do a black voice, that, for as talented as Robin Williams was, I remember I once got to improvise with Robin Williams. And I walked out in a scene, and it was me and another black improviser named Thomas Fowler. And we walked out, and Robin Williams was immediately like hey bluzz what's happening and we both just shut him down and it was just like we just spoke and acted as ourselves and it was this thing where it was just like I know you think you're being funny but that really like

you've just reduced us to that's all we can be is just jive jive motherfuckers and so where was that at ucb that was at ucb and so with this with john it was that same sort of thing where it's like i don't think this is from a malicious place but i think this is from a sort of naive kind of ignorant place right that is like oh no you just did this and you weren't thinking about it. It's just the voice that came into your head. And so it bugged me. And other people heard it, like, you know, obviously it's on the show. And so some people on Fox News started attacking him and an opening and they just kept stabbing the knife in. So he wanted to respond. He wanted to do this thing where he was like, everything I do is racist. And he was like, all my impressions are racist. And he wanted to do that.

And so we had this email listserv that would go around. And so that was what came out of it was like john wants to respond that way and i remember i emailed back and i said i gotta be honest when i heard it it bothered me it it bugged me a little bit and one of the producers and i think the head writer both wrote back and they were like sorry yeah no we'll talk to him about it and you know we don't want that and i was the one black writer there and so it was this thing where it's like, you know, when you're the one you speak for, whether you want to or not, you wind up speaking for everybody. And you speak for all the black people you speak, but you also, at least for me, I always felt like I just speak for all the

minorities because there's nobody speaking for them necessarily if something seems questionable. And so with this, it was like, this is something that, yeah, just hit me. And it was like, yeah, this made me uncomfortable. Maybe we just let this one die. And I got to the writers meeting that morning and it was still full steam ahead with this idea. And so I was kind of like oh that's weird like and so i raised the concern i was like are you sure you want to do this like this feels like why should we do this like what exactly was you thought it was not it was not taking responsibility

necessarily and it was just uh obscuring the fact well also felt like it also felt like to call it out like you're just playing into their game in that it just felt like by getting overly defensive about it, to me, being overly defensive makes it seem like you recognize that to address the problem. Right. And you're just going to get defensive about it. Right. That that always feels like to me. And this is, I think, what I said in the meeting was like, this feels like one of those instances when somebody says, I have a lot of black friends. Right. And so I just it felt like, let's not like, why get into a battle with some people on Fox News over this? Just let it die. I mean, it'll die on the vine anyway if, you know, rather than deal with it. Or if you want to deal with it, deal with it.

But it just felt, yeah. And honestly, it was one of those things, too, where it's like when you all brought me to this show, you made it very clear that I was a writer and I was a correspondent and that you wanted my voice. But that also I wasn't just here because of the color of my skin. I was here because I was the funniest person and I was somebody that can contribute. And so just from the standpoint as a writer to like, he just kind of kept shutting me down where I was like, Hey, why are we, why are we doing this? And eventually I think I'd raised it a couple of times and it just kept moving ahead, moving ahead. And then

I think eventually I was like, look, I gotta be honest. And I just kind of spoke from my place. And I was just like, I got to be honest. When I heard it, I wasn't here when it all happened. I was in a hotel. And I cringed a little bit. It bothered me. And he got incredibly defensive. And I remember he was like, what are you trying to say there's a tone in your voice

and i was like there's no tone and i was like this just it bothered me and he was like i was like it sounded like kingfish and then he just kind of he got upset and he stood up and he was just like fuck off i'm done with you and he just started screaming that to me and he was just like, fuck off. I'm done with you. And he just started screaming at to me and he screamed it a few times and he was just like, fuck off. I'm done with you. And he stormed out. And then I didn't know if I'd been fired. And again, this is the guy who saved me. Yeah. And now he's multiple times to my face. I'm done with you. Fuck off. And I remember he went to his office. And so I just followed him because I was just like, I don't know if I got fired. And we got into the argument.

It continued there. And he yelled and he never saw my point. And I still never knew if I got fired. In the same way that I never knew I got hired. I never knew that I got fired. Was there a crowd of people waiting to get into Colbert? When you got the call? Yeah, and I didn't get fired. But he, I think, sadly, and I think that's the thing in a job like that,

because you're getting shots from so many sides, Because you're getting shots from so many sides, you sometimes need an outlet to explode on. And that outlet became me. And we wound up in this argument and it went for a long time. About racism. Basically, yeah. And he was kind of like, you know, you've never had a problem with any of the other voices i do and i was kind of like i don't what are you talking about and he was like you've never had a problem with my chuck schumer and i was like i don't know what the fuck you mean and

then he wound up doing a chuck schumer impression that's when you know an argument is happening between like comedians when it's just like he starts doing an impression like you've never bitched about that and it's just like and i remember being like well i'm not jewish like i like you're jewish so i trust that whatever whatever heat you're gonna take that heat is gonna fall back on you and something like this i represent my community and i represent my people and i try to represent them the best that I can. I got to be honest if something seems questionable because if not, then I don't want to be in a position where I am being untrue not just to myself but to my culture because that's exploitative and that's i'm just allowing i'm allowing something to continue if i if i'm just gonna go along with it and sadly i think that's you know that's the burden that i think a lot of people have to have to have when you are the one that you you represent something

bigger than yourself whether you want to or not and so we wound up in this argument and eventually the argument like one of the dogs we had dogs in the office and one of the dogs came in and kind of helped calm things down because she started pawing at me and then one of the producers came in and was like hey we got to do a show. And so. So it was bad. Like the entire staff was like, what is happening? Yeah. Well, and everyone could hear it. I was told later, like the dogs were shaking. Oh, my God.

Because they could hear everything. And everyone. And what was initially him yelling at me in front of the writers and producers was now the whole building could hear it. And so it was just this terrible thing. And it was. And I remember like, we got everybody back together. And John apologized to the room and said, you know, he forgot that he was the boss. And, you know, and I was a fucking wreck. And I wound up, I left, like, somebody was like, if you want to go home, that's cool. And I was like, no, but I'm going to go for a walk. And I went outside and there's like a baseball field across from our offices. And I just sat in the bleachers and I fucking, I just cried.

Like, it was just like, I was shaking and I just, and I just sat there by myself in the bleachers and fucking cried. And it was a sad thing where I was like, that's how I that's how i feel in this job i feel alone i feel you know that and that's not to say that i don't have a lot of people there that i love and a lot of people that i'm friends with but it was just like it felt so weird at this moment that like for everybody else you know you still have a show. You still have business as usual. Then for me, here I am in empty bleachers just by myself, fucking just jacked up on sadness and adrenaline. I eventually sort of put myself back together, and I went back into the job.

It was weird because everybody knew what happened, and we had to kind of go back to work and no one does that to him you're not in you in your four years there people challenge him I mean I think people challenge him all the time and that's I think that's what that is I think what has been good for his success at that job is that people people can challenge him and you know there can be debates there had in my experience never been an explosion like that and so that was something that you know he treated everybody with respect for the most part even if it was like well we don't like your idea there was some respect that happened and so for me it was like yeah i, we don't like your idea. There was some respect that happened. And so for me,

it was like, yeah, I've emailed about this. I've now brought it up twice and now I'm bringing it up a third time. And the third time I bring it up, I'm getting screamed at and that and screamed that in a way that wasn't, you know, there's a tactful way to be like, look, I see your objections, but we have to do this show. And this is the show I want to do, and I'm the boss. And there's a way to do it like that. And then there's a way that was just like, oh, no, you just exploded on me. And so, you know, I stayed for a year after that. But my contract was almost up after that, and I was kind of like, I'm done.

Like, I don't want to go back. And a couple people John Oliver uh was like please stay and a couple other people had asked me to stay and so it's kind of like okay I'll stay one more year and I stuck around one more year and it was just miserable and I feel like he and I there would be moments where I would hear through the grapevine, like, John's wondering about your attitude. And it was this thing where it's like, he would never come to me. Like, we would never talk. It was always like, John thinks you're unhappy.

And it's like, well, yeah, remember that fight we got into? Like, that still never got settled. And even, you know. Did they do the bit? He did the bit. got settled and even you know did they do the bit he did the bit and then after that i remember he did the bit on the show and i went into his office afterwards and i was just like at the end of the night i was kind of like i just want to make sure we're cool and he was like yeah we're cool i you know i still don't see your i i don't see your side of it but i shouldn't have yelled at you and that was kind of the

apology and so it never really we never had that talk and and it was just kind of like a strange thing of like yeah i just shouldn't yell at you like and so then we continued for a year and it was just i just i never felt i never felt comfortable and it always felt like there would be these little moments throughout where I would hear from other people, John thinks you're mad. And I'd be like, I'm not mad. And then they'd go report back to John. And, you know, we'd see each other in the halls, and it'd be like, hey, what's up, whatever.

But we never – It's horrible. It was just very tense and weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, it was just very it was very tense yeah yeah and so yeah it was just a strange thing and and so then when i left it really my deal was up again and i was kind of like i'm done like i i want to go and i stayed that one more year and that one more year i stayed i was just a i stayed and i was only a correspondent i wasn't a writer i left a room because i was just like, I stayed and I was only a correspondent. I wasn't a writer. I left the room because I was just like, I don't want to be in that room anymore. And also there was some money shit.

So it was just like, yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to, I'll just be a correspondent. And so that was miserable because at least when I was part of the staff as a writer as well, like the days are different. As a writer, I came in at nine and whether i was on the show or not i was contributing to some to the show and i loved that show and i love you know i loved what i could do with that show and so when i was just a correspondent i didn't it's like sitting on the bench right like yeah if you don't have anything to do you're just sitting there waiting for them to call you right it's like you're waiting to get the call like okay we need you tonight and so to have gone from basically working as a writer and helping to

produce things to then waiting for your name to get called and still my office was still with the writers so it's like i'd see them you know the writers would come into my office was still with the writers. So it's like, I'd see them, you know, the writers would come into my office because there was a, I shared my office with another writer and, you know, they'd have to work as a gang on something. And I'm just kind of like sitting there watching it.

And occasionally I'd throw something out there and, you know, they'd be like, Oh, that's good. And it's kind of like, yeah, I used to do that.

Yeah. I, I was one of you, remember? Oh, God. It's like torture. Yeah. And so the whole thing just felt like you're a ghost walking through the halls. And so I left, and I was happy to leave.

And, yeah, and then I went on my David Carradine journey. And now you have a show that I've done several times, a live show that's always good. Yeah, I do a live show in Brooklyn and uh i put out a special last year and then you know i got to figure out whatever the next thing is going to be that will actually be a consistent paycheck and uh you know and it's weird and even i should say for all that with john and i we recently have emailed like i don't i don't have his phone number or anything like that. Like that's, you know, it is like boss employee, like we, you know, and, but I had an email for him. And so I, uh, I emailed him, I emailed him initially because somebody, when they

were looking for hosts, my name, or first, I think I emailed him when I heard he was quitting. And so I said, congratulations. And I also still appreciative. And I still said, my name, or first I think I emailed him when I heard he was quitting. And so I said, congratulations. And I also, I'm still appreciative. And I still said, you know, thanks, man, for giving me an opportunity. And he wrote back. And it was, it seemed kind of like a little bit of a nice fence mending because we wound up just kind of just having a quick back and forth. And then I think we sort of tossed back and forth a joke about football.

And so it was like, all right, cool. And then I think somebody, when there was all the talk of like who would replace him, somebody had suggested my name to him and he suggested it to the network. And so I wrote him just to say thanks for that. And then just more recently, there's been, you know, he's got his last show. so somebody was like well do you want to go and i was kind of on the fence and you know because not everything was resolved between us right so so i emailed him recently and i was kind of like i i'd said i wasn't going and people kept trying to talk me into going and so then i emailed him recently to be like hey i just i gotta be honest i'm on the fence about doing something because I don't think we've ever had this conversation that, you know, the last year that I was at the show was miserable.

And a lot of that I put on that fight and I put on everything that happened as a result of that. And that, you know, we never communicated. that and that, you know, we never communicated. And I just talked and I just basically said, you know, this is everything. This is all the stuff I always wanted to say to you, but never did partly because I was afraid of another explosion like that last one. And so, and that explosion really fucked me up because I grew up in a house where people exploded on each other like that, and I don't like that. And also, I'm a guy who, you know, sadly, I think, looks for mentors and looks for paternal figures. And I put that on you and I shouldn't have, but I put that on you. And then to have you explode on me that way, it really like that shattered everything.

You know, it's like in the same way, in the same way here and like my my sister say my dad was a deadbeat. It's like. That's a you know, it's a sobering moment when you see that this person you've turned into a hero is just a a mortal and but also that they could do something you know with my dad it was a different thing but with this it was like yeah you treated me with so little respect and that hurt in such a huge, deep way. And it took me, you know, the last year of being at the show, trying to reconcile with it, where there'd be days I'd walk to the studio and I would just be angry. And I would just, I'd have to walk walk I'd have to take a lap around the block because as I got closer and closer those feelings of like just of like I should have punched him

like I should have like I like he like that was fucking bullshit and just fury and I would just have to walk around the block and calm down or sadness of just like this thing that i loved so much and it's like now like it's fucking bullshit and i would just wind up having to walk walk around and just calm myself to go in a building and so that last year was sort of that and then the first year away from the show was this sense of, okay, I'm free of this thing and now trying to reconcile with it and now trying to come to terms with it. And then... How do you respond?

So he was, you know... When he laid it all out. When I laid it all out, he didn't see it that way. He didn't think that that last year things were different between us he didn't he thought that fight we got into was just two people just having an argument and so the emotion of it he never really saw and uh you know but he was like he kind of said you know, sort of, in that job, it's a tough, you know, you realize when you're in charge that it's hard. It's, you know, it's a hard gig and not everybody's going to be sort of heard. And he kind of apologized, you know, as much as he could for, you know if i if i felt hurt and uh and he said you know i'd love for you to be at

the last show because you helped to build this thing and so i was like i appreciate that and you know i still don't know if i'm gonna show up but when is it august 6th so you should just go probably yeah i mean because like it's interesting to me how self-aware you are around the emotional components of the situation and at some point right you got to take responsibility for that and just suck it up in a way yeah no and that's well and honestly if anything i'm to me i feel like because because i wrote that email because we kind of talked about it i'm i'm more inclined to go simply because it's like okay yeah at least now going you know you know how i felt right you were honest about it you you you you kind of cleared

your side of the street yeah and he knows yeah and that is like if i'm gonna show up i don't want to show up with any false pretense that you know this i am grateful for that job and i love that job and i love so many people in that building right and i loved what i was able to do with that job but there was also a lot of pain there and so i think in that way. Right. And I loved what I was able to do with that job. But there was also a lot of pain there. And so I think in that way, it's kind of like, I don't know, I'm glad that I was able to at least, like you said, clean my side of the street and just say, this is what I felt. And if I show up, you know, it's not like we were probably, you know, it's not like we were going to toss a football around or something like that anyway. Well, that's the weird thing about having those childhood needs not met, is that you go through life with that, with those expectations,

and they'll never be met. The parent's not going to meet them because they're gone. Right. And no one else is really going to meet them fully because you've got a chip on your shoulder about the parent not meeting them. And at some point, in order to get any kind of closure, you just got to live with the pain and parent yourself. I mean, it's fucked up.

But, I mean, it's like there's a reconciliation within yourself that has to happen for you to have any peace around that shit. Yeah, and that's the thing I feel like, you know, for me, it wasn't even about, like, oh, I don't want to go. It was less about, I i think him and more just i've already said goodbye to the thing yeah and he and i already had the conversation we needed to have but on some level you know i think for other people they've said oh no you should go you should be a part of it because you were a part of it. Yeah.

For yourself. Well, and I guess it's that thing of like, oh, yeah, you have a claim to this. And in that same way of, you know, whatever isolation you felt on those bleachers, like, that's not, you don't have to go sit on those bleachers if you don't want to. Yeah, that's a good lesson yeah like that you don't have to you had you sat on those bleachers once but you don't have to keep going back out there that you can sure you can walk in that building and you can be a part of this thing because you were a part of it and on some level the fact that you're there is as much an acknowledgement of everything that you experience good and bad of your own accomplishments as well yeah yeah yeah and then but that it's also like

so i think i've had a tendency in life to just say like oh yeah i'm not i just won't deal with it and fuck it i'll just stay away right but you don't want to like you at some point you're martyring yourself or feeling sorry for yourself in those situations and isolating yourself is sort of a another way of making it more about you then yeah but i think by being a part of it it's like oh no you're a part of this thing you're there you have as much of a claim to this and also your experience while bad wasn't the whole of your experience and it wasn't the whole of this experience. And so you have just as much a claim to enjoy that and be a part of that. And also transcend something for yourself in a way. Maybe, yeah.

Maybe. Yeah, sure. We'll see. We'll see if you go. I don't know. I mean, yeah. But it's also one of those things where it's, I don't really get into the emotion of that stuff.

I don't, I don uh like i the pomp and circumstance doesn't really no i get you i get you but uh you know but do it for the people yeah that's uh yeah i suppose that's uh see i don't i don't have that connection to an audience the way that you do where it's like you know you're sending them books and doing all that stuff but you don't know you do but i mean to the people that love that show may have watched every day oh sure sure sure so you know whether you whether you think you have that connection or not they're gonna be like there's why it right right you know but i think it's just i'm such a i'm i'm such a sort of anti-mushy person that it's like even if like if somebody's like there's Wyatt I'm like oh

yeah but dude if I can learn how to take a little of the love in you you know and I was a tough nut to crack you can you can take a little of the love I guess yeah all right buddy that's closure that's wow look at that we've yeah you feel all right oh no I feel fine it's uh yeah how do you feel it's great seeing you. It's good to see you too. And you don't seem depressed? You'll figure it out? You're not in a dark place?

No. I mean, I think for all that stuff, it was such a great thing. Every one of those experiences, I don't regret any of them because I think they've all been things that have just made me see life and realize that, oh, no, life is bigger than this moment. All you have is this moment, but it's also bigger than this moment, too. Sure, because it's bigger than this moment because of the moments that are happening around you and also all the moments that got you to this place. Yeah.

Yeah. You're getting wisdom. Some. There's some gray hair showing up in the beard yeah all right well that's gonna happen to everybody all right buddy all right all right that was uh wyatt sinek the life of wyatt sinek a show business life for sure and not an easy one so go to wtTFpod.com and check out those dates. I'm going to be in Dublin at Vicar Street

the 2nd of September, London at the South Bank Center on the 3rd and 4th of September. I've also got shows this weekend, tomorrow night in Boulder Theater, at the Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colorado, and Saturday night, the 25th, in Denver at the Paramount.

And I've got the guitar hooked up. Let's see if I can find something for those of you who are still listening. Thank you. Boomer lives! Almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. Thank you. 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.