WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 661 - Adam Resnick

Episode Date: December 7, 2015

Adam Resnick’s career should be the envy of any living comedy writer. He’s written for Letterman, Get a Life, SNL, and The Larry Sanders Show. But as Adam tells Marc, he never really wanted to be in show business, a sentiment underscored by his devastating experience directing the movie Cabin Boy, an ordeal that left him questioning his place in the world. 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.

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. Calgary is a city built by innovators. Innovation is in the city's DNA. And it's with this pedigree that bright minds and future thinking problem solvers are tackling some of the world's greatest challenges from right here in Calgary.

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Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you folks? How are you what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fucking ears, what the fucksters? Welcome to the show. This is WTF. I am Mark Maron. How is everyone? Was it the first night of Hanukkah last night? Did I fuck that up again? Am I missing it? Could someone check for me, please?

Is today the second night of Hanukkah? Do I have to pull out my menorah and my leftover candles from the last 10 years of not finishing the Hanukkah rituals alone in my house. Do I have a yarmulke? Yes. Do I have a kippah? I do. Do I have what you Gentiles would call the hat that one wears, the little skull cap thingy, the disc, the embroidered cloth circle that Jews wear on their heads? Yes, I have one. I don't know if do any of you know the sort of cockfighting of kippahs that goes on in Jewish communities, the kippah talis cockfight that happens in synagogues across the country. Oh, look who went to Israel last year. Look at that fancy yarmulke.

Oh, where did he get that? Look at that colorful talus. I didn't even know you had options with colors. I thought they had to be just black and white fabric. That's got all kinds of colors and fancy embroidery. Ooh, nice keypad. Is that a Sephardic keypad? Look at all the colors.

Hey, look at that. Look at that Grateful Dead-themed yarmulke that guy's wearing. How many of you know that? I've still got yarmulkes from bar mitzvahs that I stole them from. That's how you know you're part of a Jewish family, is when you look on the inside of your yarmulke and it says, to honor the bar mitzvah, to honor the wedding, to honor the funeral of so and so Jewish person.

I have one. I did not light the candles last night. If it was indeed the first day of Hanukkah, I will try to light them. But it's a you know, it's emotional, man. It's emotional. Happy Hanukkah to you, Jewish people or those of you who are involved with Jews. Happy Hanukkah. I'll light them. I'll light them maybe at least once. At least once I'll write them. Today on the show, the wonderful Adam Resnick, he's got a book out. His book is pretty fucking funny, man. The book is called Will Not Attend, Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation. It's available now

wherever you get books. But more importantly, if you're tuning in and you're like, who the hell is Adam Resnick? He was a writer for Letterman. He wrote, you know, he was on Larry Sanders, Get a Life, Cabin Boy, Death to Smoochie. We'll talk about those things because I know some of you have the reaction of like, really?

Yeah, well, there are good stories behind that. And he's definitely a unique person. And I love talking to him. So that's going to happen shortly. Happy Chanukah. How do you spell it? Don't know. Don't, a lot of options.

A lot of options. Hey, whoever watched my special last night, or I'm sorry, on Friday night, thank you. Thank you for watching on Epix. I don't know where else you can watch it right now. I believe you can go to epix.com to find out how you can watch it there. I do know it will be on Hulu in 90 days. The people that have watched it, the feedback I got has been positive,

but I get the feeling a lot of you can't watch it, and I'm sorry. But you can look into getting Epix, or you can wait until it comes on Hulu, or I imagine eventually it'll show up somewhere. But thank you for watching it if you did. Okay. For those of you who live in Nila, northeastern Los Angeles, Highland Park, you might have seen me in a Bugatti kit car being driven down figueroa street between 62nd or 60th and 50th in the nila highland park christmas parade uh yolanda the woman who uh owns a building where hopefully i'm going to be getting

an office she asked me last year she runs this little parade and she asked me a couple years ago if i wanted to be the grand marshal and And I thought, like, I will not do that. You know, I am I'm I'm a carpetbagger here. You know, I don't feel like, you know, I came to this neighborhood. I love my neighborhood. I love my house. When I moved here in 2004, you cannot hang the gentrifying label on me. It was impulsive.

I had some money saved from a TV deal. I'd never bought a house before. I was driving around this neighborhood with a friend of mine looking to rent a place in Garvanza. And I saw this house for sale. And I talked to the woman who became my second wife. And I said, let's buy this house. I had no idea where I was. So now that Highland Park's become sort of this weird kind of hipster paradise and a lot of rock people

and our creative people and young families and people that have interesting facial hair configurations and shirt and pant choices have moved in. I don't have a problem with it, but I don't want to claim any sort of, you know, territory here. I feel like I'm imposing. So you're asking me to be the grand marshal of a parade in a primarily latino neighborhood i felt like you know what what it doesn't it's not going to look right it's not right but this year she uh she talked me into it and uh it was interesting i i rode in the bigot the bugatti thing and and i waved i was in front of a band i think from uh i don't remember which high school marching band and i would wave at people and every

couple of blocks they had announcers that would uh sort of say comedian mark maron lives in highland park and he talked to uh uh to president obama in his garage here in highland park it was like i wrote the goddamn copy and i was almost overcompensating. It's not because I was bragging, but I was like, why wouldn't people that have lived their entire lives here for generations look at me like, he's one of the people that have come here

to take over our neighborhood. So the only thing I could think of was like, you know, the president came by and, you know, he came by came by and you know he came by our neighborhood and i was excited about that because i love the neighborhood so i had a tremendous amount of insecurity and then as i drove by these they would tell the story in english and then they'd say in spanish and and all i would hit you know the only thing i would pick up was senor marron uh presidente obama i like mar I like it. I didn't maybe.

I think that would be very effective, you know, in an effort to to pledge my allegiance to the neighborhood that. That I only pronounce it that way, but it was it was lovely. And, you know, I got to eat a nice big plate of Mexican food and I met some local politicians and some people involved with the parade. And it was fun. I was glad to be part of it i don't know if i'm going to be parading uh as something i do regularly but it was a good experience to be one of the i don't know if i was the grand marshal or if there were many but on the side of the bugatti there was a little sign that said mark maron podcast artist i'll take it i'll take it and wave wave at those kids it was was nice, and I was happy Yolanda asked me to do it.

But again, I'm only available for that parade. I'm not available for any other waving jobs, just for Yolanda and just for Highland Park. And it was a good first experience for me. Thank you, Highland Park. Right now, my pleasure to bring up a guy possessed possessed by something he's definitely possessed by an intensity and a speed and an amazing sense of humor again adam resnick the book is will not attend lively stories of detachment and isolation you can get that book wherever you get books. He's written on Letterman, Get a Life, Larry Sanders, the movie Cabin Boy, Death the Smoochie,

among other things that we will talk about. This is me talking to Adam Resnick here in the garage. Happy Hanukkah. 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. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th

at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. mammoth at a special 5 p.m start time on saturday march 9th at first ontario center in hamilton the first 5 000 fans in attendance will get a dan dawson bobblehead courtesy of backley construction punch your ticket to kids night on saturday march 9th at 5 p.m in rock city at torontorock.com you know how it is so you're born wired a certain way and then on top of that then i had an awful environment so in my the way i was wired yeah uh the environment i lived in was the worst thing for my type of wiring right now uh you were like a kind of high a warrior yeah very much a warrior but not not in a typical way um you know i know from hearing you with certain things like for example like i worried about everything like i can remember being in kindergarten yeah and uh in harrisburg pennsylvania and hearing a siren in the distance yeah and i specifically remember because my mom had dropped me off uh and my little brothers my twin brothers

were i think in the back seat or something they were babies at the time and i heard the siren my mind immediately went to um she was in an accident she's dead i pictured her the station wagon flipped over in a creek in my mind you know a creek went right off the road so we're off the road in a creek partially submerged uh i can picture my brothers upside down my mother dead upside down yeah you know yeah that's how i and i always um that's just the way it was. I used to get, when my parents left town, I guess it was 1970. So I'm like seven, right? Uh-huh. Six or seven.

And they went away to the Orient, which you don't call it anymore. I guess Japan, China, Hong Kong. Yeah. They took a trip and they left me with this old Latino womanino woman who cleaned the house right and she she was hard she was okay but the problem was i got so sick and nauseous because i kept picturing the plane going into the ocean yeah so it was just pieces of a plane and i would just wait for the call that they didn't find the that is so me so me. I mean, and my parents rarely traveled. I got sick. Once in a blue moon.

Physically sick. Physically sick, yeah. But here's, that's the thing I think that, I'm a little different than some people. I think neurosis it is. It's like snowflakes or whatever. Like it's always slightly different. I was never, I never had a Woody Allen kind of neurosis.

My biggest- Never cute? It's never cute and not Jew-y really. I really didn't have that jewish angle because my family wasn't really like that you know although they're that's still in you it's it's in you kind of you know do you fight it no oh no i did i didn't i will tell you i did always lean towards like gentile kids the few friends i had because i wasn't a person who really sought out friends well i noticed that with your sister-in-law, like in the book, there was a reference to Christmas.

So I didn't know if your wife was not Jewish. She's not Jewish. And I could not have married a Jewish woman. It's my wife. I tried it. See, that would be my wife, her complete lack of neurosis. Here's my wife. Does she have the temperament of like an animal trainer?

In a way, I mean, yeah i think i'm i'm turning her into an animal i mean i it's just you know like no just in the sense that i i couldn't i'm breaking no day at the beach no day at the beach is you gonna i feel that but she's here's here's my wife's uh laurie's uh way she lives it is uh she doesn't think about the past she doesn't think about tomorrow the day that she's in is the day. And it's a good day. Always. Really? Yeah.

Very Gentile that way. And that kind of calms me down. And I'm fascinated. Although sometimes. How often do you fight it though? It's like, it's not good. Today. No, I, yeah, I have to try to make her say, you know, you got shit inside you that you

don't want to fucking learn about. You don't want to know about. Is that a daily thing? Uh, semi. I mean, look, I will say this you know any arguments we get and it's all it's always me being wrong i'm an ass so i'm just i look i think we're similar in a lot of ways because uh i fight uh i get angry a lot which is part of it i think that was part of the environment growing up i'm very uh because my dad was so high strung. And so I'm like always.

The book is really funny and really honest. But unlike memoirs, some memoirs, you know how to end a thing. Because sometimes you don't go for the joke. The jokes are earned. And there's a couple, there was a few moments where I was laughing out loud a lot. But sometimes with us, with funny people, when you get to the end, it's sort of, it always has a little bit of emotional resonance. You know how to end things. Well, that's what, you know, at times I would, if I was writing it, I would resist some of the fun.

If something was really funny that I thought, and I never thought about in terms of jokes. But you're a joke writer, so it's hard that you have the muscle. Yeah, even the joke. Yeah,'s hard that you have the muscle yeah i don't even the joy yeah i just think i had the muscle i have always been sort of i think looked at things humorously but nothing like a class clown and had no interest in comedy or anything but i was uh um the neuro but but so anyway the book there's times where i would actually think that's almost too funny and i would feel like it was uh you're hiding it's very much in my voice it's in my voice but i also knew oh well that will help sell it too but i i really didn't want it to be i don't like to think of it as a comedy

book or a or a humor book which i understand that's how people will um that's why people enjoy it they i read a lot you know that people find it very funny but to me it and i it's not that i don't realize i'm describing things that are funny and i describe them in a funny way but you know that stuff is um it was hard some of it was painful to think back on well you talked about your father and i don't want to cut you off because like late in the book there's this one bit of information that's dropped in a piece that's late into the book where you know your father's life or what he came from becomes very defined. And it was just this moment where his father or grandfather was a rabbi who came to this country. And because they were of a certain class of Jew, could not find a congregation or practice and was forced into working in a butcher shop.

Yes. And then he grew up in poverty, being the son of a first generation immigrant yeah who had who had status and prestige in the community and then you know the american experience with him was just you know fighting his way just to maintain himself and his identity and and it had nothing to do with being jewish necessarily but but what he comes from is pretty fucking jewish exactly in the worst way and it ruined my dad my dad you know is um had a lot you know he is a chip on his shoulder about they my my great character by the way thanks yeah well he is he's a great is he still alive yeah he is and how old is he he's like 91 right now that may be

he absolutely he's a tough yeah and and so but the the jewish i i my whole life even growing up was like those goddamn jews you know and and it's not he's not a self-loathing jew but he's what happened was he would say they ruined his life you know and his father we were very we're peasant stock you know they were not a big thing so he came in and you know and had that whole lower east side experience and in and getting in fights and learning how to fight and becoming, you know, really tough, you know. But he, and the fights were always about, you know, him being a Jew. You know, the kids were, everyone was starving then, as he describes. Everyone was pissed off, all the, in those slums, you know.

So he, his father, my grandfather, I vaguely remember, there was no love in the family from him or his mother. They didn't express love. They were dirt poor. He didn't have like a temple that he was a rabbi and they were little satellites the other orthodox jews would come to their tenement the little little but i'm talking about where they came from where they russia yeah russia yeah they came from russia and they would um my grandfather i think was also a hard guy to get along with but they made things like my dad had a but wait they had services it was like a hard guy to get along with, but they made things like my dad had a dog. But wait, they had services?

It was like a little, from what I understand, in his little rat hole in the tenement building where they had other, some of my other relatives living. Yeah, there'd be like maybe half a dozen or so Jews, other Russian Jews that would come and he would conduct, I guess, some kind of a service in there. I see. I come from Russian Jews on my father's side. I see I come from Russian Jews on my father's side and it's been interesting when we talk about this that you never hear about poverty you know especially those fucking you know that Lower East Side sweatshop all white immigrants really yeah a lot of them Jews and you don't even like think about it but at that time that I think you were going to get to it is that there was a class structure within Jews like German Jews. My My dad points that out. I think I mentioned the book. Yeah, exactly what you're saying, which I meant to say. Yeah, the German Jews are the worst. They look down on the Russian Jews.

My dad was the thing where, like, I think he might have went through a period where he was defensive about being a Jew, but the Jews were so bad to him. The stories he would tell about he had a dog that he loved when he was a little kid, and they would just tell his father, the rabbi, you know, rabbi should not own, have an animal in the house. So he had to get rid of his dog. My dad, you know, became pretty good at basketball.

This is when they moved away and stuff. Then it was about, he wasn't, or in football, he wasn't allowed to play in the Sabbath. He just said, you know, everything is, they drove my father nuts. They drove my grandfather nuts. They, you know, the grandfather, I think I mentioned in the book,

he would come in, they bring a live chicken back in the old days, I guess, and the Jew, and they bring it to the, I forget, there's a word, I don't know how to pronounce it for what that butcher was. So he used to kill it in that, you know, sort of traditional Jewish, all that shit. And so they bring the chicken in, and then they would drive him nuts, and he'd come back, you know, all right, so come back and get your chicken, I'll be ready to go around five o'clock. And they come in, my dad would be, and those fucking Jewss every time they walk in he bring the chicken out this is not my

chicken my chicken was much larger than this chicken they drove my poor grandfather nuts so this is the shit that my dad talks about your dad's like uh james khan style jew um yeah not as uh yeah i guess not i mean james Conn pretty wild. My dad was- No, but I mean tall. Oh, yeah. Muscular, tall. Yeah. Very handsome when he was, I mean, he was a good looking guy.

Your mother was a Jew too? Yes. But she was more of a very relaxed. They didn't have, I guess, reformed Jews then, but that kind of, her side of the family, they were almost Gentile in the sense of their disposition. But they were Jewish, and they, I guess, lightly practiced Judaism. My dad was forced to practice this crazy Orthodox Judaism that from what I understand when I talk to him,

that even his parents got no comfort in. They were born into it. It was going through what they had to do. It brought them no comfort. His mother apparently is a woman who never smiled. My dad was just a lone wolf. He had a brother and sister who didn't like him. No love from his father.

A little bit of not very demonstrative love from his mother. And he had to go out in the street and get taunted. And he learned to fight back. And as he said, if they came at me in a gang and they got me, I'd remember and I'd get them one at a time. I'd wait for a guy for one year. I'd wait for him and I'd have a fucking brick. me i'd remember and i'd get them one at a time you know i mean i'd wait for a guy for one year i'd wait for him and i'd have a fucking brick and i'd remember that and i would just go and so he was eventually run out like a social worship okay though the mothers used to come to my grandmother's tenement tenement doorstep with bloody shirts and stuff yeah look

what your son did so eventually like a social worker came and said he's either gonna end up in jail or in the electric chair you gotta get the fuck out so then they moved to anglewood new jersey it was an about the most awful jersey yeah i remember yeah that's where mine are from oh really yeah jerseys the jersey from uh morris county yeah compton lakes uh-huh i remember that shit do you where did you live in jersey no no harrisburg all harrisburg pennsylvania you ended up in harrisburg and your dad was in the insurance racket right yeah he ended up he got to harrisburg I guess when he was in like uh you know 10th or 11th grade. So he's actually a little older than my parents. How old are you? I'm 55. Really? I'm 52. All right so you're you're going through life with these like with what three older brothers? Two. Five no so no I

have uh three older one two younger ones. And the older ones were just it was just complete chaos in the house at all times. It was awful. The one about your brother, the one who steals, it's hilarious. That's constant. No, my heart was, I'm sure, you know, beating too fast through my entire childhood. I just could not wait to get out of there. But it totally, like I said,

I was, I know I, you know, you're born with a certain amount of damage and we'll never know that whole nature versus nurture thing. Never? But I was in the worst environment for what I was wired for. And my wiring was purely my father's side. Crazy inbred Eastern European Russian peasant stock. Anger. Anger and panic.

Anger and panic. I do the peasant stock too. See, people don't fucking really talk about this. But maybe it's such a Jew thing. I don't think, see, people don't fucking, you know, really talk about this or, but maybe it's such a Jew thing. Like, I believe there's, you're either like the professor composer Jew or you're the, you know, the guy who lifts things and can do sports kinda. No, I think about it all the time.

There's actually- We're like hybrids, you and I. Yeah. I, my dad's side, both sides, I think. There's no, especially my dad's side. There was nothing cultural, nothing. There was nothing artistic, I can tell, on my dad's side of anything. Because people forget that there were Jewish cops, Jewish butchers.

Yeah. I remember when I worked at a Jewish deli, Shelly, the guy who owned it, says, that's Bernie, the contractor. I'm like, when he builds things, he's like, no, he's in the mob, stupid. And then you realize, oh my God, a lot of the mob were Jews. Yeah, right. And I don't know why i'm saying this proudly we get around yeah right don't pigeonhole us that's right we've

killed people look at israelis but they're a whole different thing i don't know what even to deal with israelis but and it's amazing that's really i mean it's really yeah it's all frightening to me but uh but you and i seem like you know very similar in in what we come from and in similar in rage and similar in and your brain seems to be going a little faster than mine but it probably always did because i would immediately get into almost a coma like i'd get i'd get panicked and then i'd freak out and then i'd fall into myself and i and i just that's what i would do yeah exhaust myself are you good with see thing is but you turn here's you know again the way everyone that it's similar there's different thing different things when i'm in the height of a panic or worry or something like i can't work you seem through your because of doing stand-up

and everything you use that shit and throw it into your work now in my book yeah i put it into the you know it's in the book however i can't really work when I'm in that state. I shut down and I feel my imagination goes away. Everything goes away. I'm just depressed and fucked up. So I have to have a little bit of a – I have to be feeling kind of a little bit of good, which for me is a very low. And that's what the medicine does. What's it called again? No, it doesn't do it all the time.

There's something called – it's called Provigil. What it is is – and I take it every now and then. Like I said, I'm an anti-drug guy, anti-psychiatry guy i was never into that shit i didn't you know even you're anti-psychiatry well no here's the thing i um like when i how did you break that down though so you like like let me just because i have some more thoughts all right so you you look at psychology psychiatry philosophy religion all trying to answer the same questions none of them a science really right saying psychiatry sometimes you, religion, all trying to answer the same questions, none of them a science, really. Right. And psychiatry, sometimes, you know, in your mind,

you're like, well, maybe it's a science. And they're making more progress in understanding the brain on a cognitive level. But when you say psychiatry, you mean I'm not going to sit with a guy and tell him my problems. Because your father didn't like that. We wouldn't.

Look, I grew up in Harrisburg. I didn't know a single, I don't think there was any psychiatrist in town. I never knew a single person. You didn't do it. And in my family, my family, you would never do that.

My dad would see that as like, you know, first of all, it would never even come, you know, it would never even enter anyone's mind. I didn't, we didn't talk about psychiatrists and it would probably be seen as a very

weak thing to go to a psychiatrist. It's interesting because it's a class thing that, you know, that you were like, not unlike my grandfather, not my father. My father, you know, got out somehow and moved up. But my grandfather was a bookkeeper and there was a class of Jews. It was it was that first middle class.

It wasn't really that moneyed. And it wasn't until they really sort of moved out of New York into real suburbs. So so in that community, because in the community I grew up in, I think it's a generational thing. Because your dad's generation is really probably the tail end of my grandfather's generation. Right. My parents had kids later in life. So no psychiatry for you. No, I did eventually, though. That's what I'm saying.

I got to a point. I was doing this show for HBO. It only did eight episodes. What was that? it was called the high life it was very it was a mix it was i did it for uh letterman's company some of it was came out okay but i was um i'm not a real fast writer you know what i mean and i found myself in a situation where i didn't have enough support in general on the show and it was all on me and the dates were coming and the scripts were due and i wasn't happy and i had to write and i'm not a person who can just quickly rewrite shit yeah i can rewrite it

i can do it yeah but if i'm looking down the barrel of like hey we need those five episodes next wednesday then i i was in a blind panic and so i read i had a friend who i couldn't work it's also could not work panic attack and this is couldn't breathe cabin boy that no never you know it's weird. My panic attacks never get to that degree. They're just something that I can feel in my stomach, and I just feel, you know, my head shuts down, and I just realize, you know, I was over my head.

It was post-Cabin Boy 2 where I talked to a friend of mine who I knew saw a shrink. I said, you have a shrink because I have to talk to someone. You know, I really, because I have to get this fucking work done. So that's how I first started. You're in crisis. Yeah, crisis. It was the worst.

For me, it was – to me, it was really a frightening moment. And then so I eventually started seeing this guy who I liked. I saw him for many years and then stopped seeing him. But he got me on antidepressants, which took a long to start to work you know because you taper up slowly were you depressed uh well i think depression and depression and anxiety is what i have but also a i can't whatever it is where you can't stop thinking that's why meditation which i've tried it's like ridiculous i'm never going to be able to clear my head i believe some people can do it not me i. I can't focus just on my breathing. And so antidepressants have been helpful for me. They haven't cured me. But if I've had like,

you know, a wide amount of anxiety, it's now, you know, a little less than that. They've had no, I can tell that I don't think there's been any effect on my creativity. Maybe I'm a little slower in how fast things come to me but here's what happens to me is like i get to that point of paralysis or i get like overwhelmed and eventually some part of me some fighting part of me is like well you're just gonna have to dump this into the world in the form of anger yeah and and and and get into the present like last night i went into two sets at the comedy store i hadn't done comedy in a couple weeks and i was like thank fucking god i got it some of it out and i feel better today but i was about to yell at my girlfriend i was about to fucking you know i wanted to unload on somebody yeah i'm like i might i get you go right in with

it i had anger shit but it's not um i don't it's interesting because i've never never wanted to be uh i never saw myself as a performer i never thought i would do anything i wasn't interested in comedy how did it happen so you're in high school you're falling into yourself you're full of panic you got brothers it's a terror in the house it's unlivable you become an insurance uh salesman briefly in a very beautiful bit of a nice portrait of the end of a certain type of man and industry do you really i really think that you know that post-war feeling there was still a whiff of it right up until even the early to mid 80s and then things started to change rapidly when i started at letterman we were on typewriters when i left uh they were just wheeling

the computers in you know and then then you know isn't that weird that it's like that it's not that long ago and like it wasn't no that's the thing that's what that, it's not that long ago. It wasn't, no, that's the thing, that's what, for me especially, and I think for guys our age, but it affects me like I am, it fucks my head up that I was, lived in two distinct worlds, you know what I mean? It's weird now if you lose your phone, you don't even know who you are for. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the worst thing that can happen. And I had the first.

Yeah, isn't that weird? Yeah. I had the first Macintosh computer. I bought it in college. I was one of the first people to buy it and i really just bought it as a word processor it wasn't much good for anything else like it was a 127 something that one that big box that yeah yeah the thing that yeah right like i bought that came with a carrying case but it was a machine we're gonna carry yeah

where are you going with that it was a big idea yeah no one's seen it before and and i had one i remember i had one and i remember what it looked like when you typed in the, and I just used it to type and store things. Yeah. But the idea that you could choose your font was like, oh my God. Right, right. I know. It was, yeah.

And that was, that was like 1986, probably 85, right? See, I didn't get my first computer until probably 90. Well, they were useless. To get a life or something. There was no, I mean, you just needed a word processor. Well, that's what I don't get. Yeah, I bought, it was considered a laptop. It was a Toshiba. I got it out of here at this time. I had they were useless. I mean, you just needed a word processor. Yeah, I bought, it was considered a laptop. It was a Toshiba. I got it out of here at this time.

I had one of those. Remember the place called, it was the writer's computer store? Is that still here? The Toshiba tank? It was a gigantic gray thing, also with a carrying case. But here's what I find fascinating is, especially the early internet days, like when I first got my first AOL account, that probably was in the mid-90s,

you know, or something like that. Right, right. It was so fucking slow, and everything on the internet is slow, but we knew the concept of speed. Why weren't we saying, well, this is bullshit technology? How did we not understand or realize how slow it was and say, what's so great about doing this? It's just slow.

The sound of that dial-up. That dial-up, yeah, yeah. It would be incomprehensible to wait. But now it hasn't helped anything. It's just made everything move faster. We have adapted to it, so our expectations are equally as fast, and they usually get met,

and then you just go crazy. Well, the main thing is I agree. It started out the idea of word processing, so there's no more whiteout or that tape that I used to put on to write so it's like wow you can just do backspace so it did become I don't know how I could have written

moving really in a way long form stuff or even this book if I was putting a sheet of paper into a typewriter how did people do it? I don't know. They had more skills they weren't as sloppy. Robert Towne wrote Chinatown on paper. How else would I be revising it and fucking it up and everything? I'm sure there were revisions, but I'm sure there were assistants.

Yeah, he did them. He was able to do it. Right, and there were people that helped, and there were people that retyped, I have to assume. But you still had to have that basic skill, and you had to be pretty solid. I mean, me, it's like random. I don't have any typing. Like, I've gotten the way I do it, but it's very erratic. Right, yeah. And I'm always going to fuck up.

But the entire culture is not capable of editing properly anymore. Everything just falls through the cracks. No one gives a fuck. Even with computers, they can't spell my name properly and they misquote and things are sloppy. Because now, as opposed to not really knowing how to do it yourself, you just have an army of fucking 18-year-olds to 22-year-olds who are in low-paying or no-paying positions that they give the editorial work to. Right, right, right. It's a fucking disaster. Yeah, I know.

I'm telling you, we're circling the drain. There's nothing good. No doubt. I hate the time that I'm living in. The drain on this level. Yeah, but we're circling the drain in this weird sort of, it's a hyper-real place. The place where all the information runs around that makes us crazy that we act in relation to right that's all that can all be turned off yeah

yeah right and you can still go somewhere and sit and live a quiet life if you want but it's a paralyzing fear i don't i i like to think we're circling the drain but i think sometimes it's like hey if i just shut everything fucking off and really did it for like a month i'd be like oh we're not circling the drain. That thing circling the drain. Yeah. But you notice, I don't know about you. I can't.

You can't separate it. As much as I want to turn it off, I can't. I can't even try that, which, you know, people suggested to me that other thing in your computer where it limits your time on the Internet. So you have to work. You know, I try that once. I'm like, fuck this. I want to get back and, you know, procrastinate some more. How do I disable this fucking thing?

What it's done, all it's done is it's enabled everyone to sort of masturbate, literally masturbate for hours and hours, one way or the other. It's facilitated this mental and actual masturbatory freedom that no one ever thought they'd have. I can sit and waste my entire day filling my head with bullshit or looking at people fucking any way I want and just fucking burn a day. That's the big leap forward.

And buy a lot of shit that you don't want, which gives me temporary pleasure to have Amazon Prime a little. No, I'll end up procrastinating. Oh, Aguirre of the Wrath of God is now on Blu-ray? Shit, gotta get that, you know? So that's what you do as opposed to just masturbate all day?

I think so, yeah. Yeah, because then you're like, it's sort of the same thing. It's like, I just bought a thing, and it's going to come, like, should I pay the extra $5 to have it tomorrow? Yeah, right. Absolutely. I know, I know. That's exactly, it's totally, yeah, and it's shit that you don't need.

Like, I'm, yeah, it was, maybe, well, look at this. This is kind of cool. These little mini computer speakers for your laptop. I can just throw them in my bag. What do I need it for that you don't need. Like, yeah, it was like, maybe, well, look at this. This is kind of cool. These little mini computer speakers for your laptop. I can just throw them in my bag. What do I need it for? You don't. I feel like I'm going to have a fucking concert hall sound in my hotel room. It's not going to be that good a sound.

It's not even going to be that good. That's the hope. Yeah, right. It's like, these are the new things. You're like, no, no, no. It's not as good. It's just the same. But, okay, so let's go through how you got involved with writing.

So you're kind of nuts, and you wanted to get out of the house you did the insurance sales thing because this book really doesn't it sort of stops at that you know in a way uh you don't cover the career i i know it's interesting it was never uh or i said to myself i'm not going to do it i just never would i didn't want to talk at all about i there's nothing i hate more than talking about the business and i don't even this is the thing you know my family my parents everything it's always like they never know what i'm doing i don't like to talk about i don't want to talk about it get hurt by your book yeah there was some yeah i yeah there's some problems there's still some but you know something um brothers yeah yeah and also my sister-in-law which i

think thinks that that have cooled out uh that was the disney chapter that's a hilarious chapter but that didn't sound like it was good going in. No, but my wife, who's great, it was her sister. But did you let your wife read that shit? Yes, I absolutely did. And I said, she just loved it. She goes, no, you got to put it in. She'll be fine with it.

She has a good sense of humor. But there were some things I said, just mark anything you think is too much that maybe I should chop out. And then she, you know, brought it back to me with all this bleeding red. You can't say that. You can't say this, you know. So at the end of the day, I really didn't think.

I thought, oh, because my sister-in-law, she's not, you know, I thought, oh, she'll be cool about it. But then, you know, something, you justify the shit. Because then I thought, I said to Lori, my wife, you know, I said, you know something? If anyone did that to me, I would fucking kill them. You know what I mean? Just as it is. I have the thinnest skin imaginable. So in that sense, I'm a piece of shit.

You know what I mean? But I had, it's something I had to do. And not only that, it was real. It was true. It says a lot about who I am. And in most of those stories, and not all of them, I think I come off as the biggest asshole. I feel the same way. You read some reviews. There's people that reviews as people that don't just like what a fucking asshole you know and the

things he says about disney or the thing he you know does this and that or well i had the same issue where but see what i realized and it sounds like you learned a lesson as well somehow that you probably wouldn't do it again is that you know it's a weird lesson when you're self-involved and you're like this is my life these are people in my life i'm the underdog in this i look like horrible thing but you what you what you forget is that the people you're writing about especially in this culture and especially you know in the circle of people that you run they're just as self-centered as you are so so what they're going to do is they're going to see it and they're going to be like how embarrassing this whole book's about me basically you know and and now like you know everyone's going to read

this about me right they don't even look at it's like three pages doesn't matter yeah yeah yeah yeah so so their whole worldview and perception thinks it's all coming down on because most people I think um which is probably more healthy from a mental mental perspective that don't go there and think about what's fucked up about them and certainly they don't talk about them i think for people like us you know when i got to a point i didn't really talk about i didn't think of myself i came to that conclusion sort of as my late teens that that i am i'm just crazy and i thought you know something that's just who i am and it wasn't you

know i i suddenly i just realized i'm i really think i'm i'm crazy and i am crazy you know but i think when you know but i think when you realize that it doesn't necessarily should not give you a license to be an asshole but if you just are you at least have to point it out and i am the first to point out everything that's awful about me you're the same way you know what i mean and it takes time though you have to hurt people yeah and the thing is if i never saw a psychiatrist for the period that i saw psychiatrists or go on antidepressants then you know i did that also largely for my wife and my young daughter, because I really don't want to be, but then for me, I would say first and foremost for me, I could not

continue. I described, you know, when it was that awful moment where I just had all this work on my shoulders and I was panicking, but I'd felt like that in different degrees my entire life. And I realized to, to, to my life lived unmedicated and I didn't self-medicate because I didn't do drugs at all was it wasn't well a little bit of like

I did not give me a drug that made me feel so wonderful you know when I was 16 or 17 or pot did that for me which it didn't maybe but it's not my personality I'd be you know why because i judge others i'm these fucking people taking drugs and i hated kids so much in school so anything they were doing and stuff or my brothers were doing i did not want to be

like that but i also had a sense of i always felt that i was teetering on some sort of mental disaster or breakdown anyway i'm like yeah i don't think i'm gonna start fucking around with drugs and things there was no concept in my mind that they could help whether they were recreational drugs or of course back you know then they're like so they're no psychiatrists and also fun in general was completely alien to you yes that's absolutely true i did not have i did not i my my fun and if i had any amount of fun was the day that i could no longer that i was put into pre-k whatever the fuck it is you know and i was no longer you know in the in the passenger seat in the station wagon with my mother going to the to the grocery store which was that that was relaxing my brothers were in school it's just me and my mom and like for me like i what i've

realized is that like when people go like are you happy it's like for me it's never been about happiness it's been about relief yeah that like relief and happiness are the same to me in a way i'm learning a little more now about you know the idea of happiness but to me it's terrifying it really is yeah and i'm sure i don't know if you have like there's moments of maybe some manic happiness which dissipates very quickly i get, I get mania for like two or three days. Yeah, that's pretty long. Usually before I get a cold or just it just comes and I'm like, all right,

this is that thing that happens for a few days. But I don't get depressed. I get like, sometimes I feel like things are pointless. Yeah, it's, do you feel this, this is what I've recently,

I mean, not that recently, but I think I, in trying to pinpoint what it is, when I am at my most happy, it's when I felt I've done good work. I've written something that's this and that. And if I don't do that, I am fucked up. You know, like the book made me feel good. I had a good sense when I was of anything I've done.

It was the first time I felt that I had control of it. This was not going to be turned into anything else. I was just writing a book. It was something that I had to do because i felt that my writing was not um my name was on shitty movies that i really will say not my fun that's the lamest thing a writer can say so i know people they listen this is the oldest writer thing well you should have read my script in my case the cabin boys have all their story i don't know the strength to get into that right now anyway but anyway maybe in 10 minutes but it may be okay but but but then there's other stuff i've done i've and i also realized that the medium of television

and film um you know you're you're not gonna when writing this book is this the only thing that's going to be pure that you really are right because in radio that you don't yeah yeah radio and film you're basically like you're doing a job you're on a staff your your your work is your own only to the degree till it goes to the next guy. Yeah. And then they decide whether they're even going to use it or not and if they're going to change it or not. And then like the problem with the wonderful union protection, which is good, is like,

hey, don't worry about it. It's shit now, but you get the credit. Yeah, right. Thank you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah, lovely.

No, it just doesn't. What do you care? You got the Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I know. Lovely. No, it just doesn't. What do you care? You got the credit. Yeah. I know that's everything. I would rather be fucking poor and be able to hold my head up a little bit. Fucking credit. You'd have the credit.

So how do you get into the first job as a letterman? Yeah. How does that happen? Did you go to college? I went brief. I went to, you know, I, my grades were so bad coming out of high school. There's no, first of all, I had no intention of going to college. Me either.

Because I, school to me was, I mean, it's a lame cliche or comparison, but it really was prison to me without a doubt. It's the closest thing I could compare it to. And when I got out, it was like, I'm not going back to any of those situations. So I worked when I was 60. Well, first I was like, I worked for a landscaper, a guy who later got brutally murdered, which is another thing. That's another thing. When you think that everything bad is going to happen and then bad things do happen, it confirms.

I remember certain things in my childhood that made me real. When I was young and my dog was hit by a car by a car and killed I'm fucked up about that to this day but it also reinforced my natural biological you know mentally way of processing things that bad things are always going to happen my parents are going to die I never this is the

interesting thing I'm not a hypochondriac at all I don't have patience for that I know a little bit most people are. My thing is losing people around me that I care about. Look, I hope I live a long time and I hope I'm healthy, you know,

but I, so I don't, it's not like if I went to a doctor and he said, this is probably nothing, there's a lump here. You know, I would instantly be like, oh, fuck, you know, but I don't think about it.

I'm not always like touching myself and feeling for it. I don't, if I get, you know, I don't, I don't have about it i'm not always like touching myself and feeling for i don't if i get you know i i i don't i don't have that i worry about other people even death is not something that i obsess over just the people who are right not for myself yeah yeah so you got a fear of people leaving for good yeah it started with my you know my my parents my mother uh specifically i thought i always thought growing up every year when this is the year something's gonna happen she's gonna die is she alive yeah she is and uh um so i'm very you know i'm lucky that's a funny thing it turned out to be whatever and so so i wrong yeah wrong exactly but yet some

things turned out to be true the dog one was a big one right yeah but that's sort of like after a certain point you realize this is this is my belief system. Like, you know, this is how my brain works. And even if it's crazy, it's how it's how I comfort myself or it's how I define myself. Even if the panic about other people, that's somehow the repetition of that pattern, you know, keeps you in a place. Even if it's not a good place, it's something that's familiar to you yeah so like you know there's obviously ways to maybe get out of that place or or or or or sort of uh make it less menacing but but it it it's it's the way that like i'm learning that these negative patterns are really what we call home it's it's what we it's it's what we've done yeah it's what we come from right so you just repeat them and to change them like i just learned yesterday someone talked to me about neural pathways i mean it's possible yeah but but it's work you can't i don't think they're they're you can help i think uh the when i was seeing a psychiatrist and antidepressants maybe have helped maybe 13 i'll take that you know maybe a little bit but you've decided you can live with it obviously i think i can live with it and i think um i am i've realized that you know i think you

are what you are you can't you can change a little bit everyone can change a little bit but i can't um you know here's what i believe here's what i believe and it's like it's it's a little bit uh kind of sappy i think what you can change is and it usually will happen anyways with age as you get humbled and your pride diminishes yeah is that you know you can't open your heart more and become a a more a giving person even in the context of all your problems i agree with that absolutely and that's a pretty tremendous change. Yeah, that is. That is. Absolutely. Yep. And it's.

I imagine when you had a kid, you were. No, not. Not. Here's the thing is it did become that. It became that. I had. Well, I mentioned in the book, you know, the pregnancy worried me because I did not want a boy because of my brother. The brother experience.

I don't like boys in general. I'm telling you the first day of kindergarten yeah it was and i always love women i always felt i had also by the way early sexual strong heterosexual feel i don't know if you had that i remember being very young like yeah i remember my brother having playboys and stuff not knowing what sex is not knowing anything but seeing you know and being like but but but but in general though i always thought that girls and women are kinder they're less nuts they're just uh which is now of course we know that's not a blanket thing but i found the better so right away kindergarten that when i walked in and also all the men in your life were crazy yes yes mean abusive fucking volatile people but i don't know about you i didn't have this this thing where like like

when i saw the kids in in school when I first got there, the little other little kids and the boys, just them all with their fucking trucks and their toy guns and their G.I. Joes. I never liked that kind of stuff. And the girls were sweeter. They were nice. So I associate women with safety and intelligence and something that's more just, they're just emotionally smarter.

I know it's a blanket thing and there's plenty of whack jobs out there. You're both sexist, but still, I just, I have a thing against guys. And when you're a guy that doesn't like that, see, what I gravitated towards was older, like, and we grew up roughly in the same time, but you had brothers. So it was all in the house, the records, the hair pot but i didn't have that so because i didn't like trucks and stuff i immediately gravitated towards like the pictures of the hippies and you know like like that to me was like great like i didn't like trucks but i wanted to grow my hair out yeah i did that because my mother's yeah right yeah that would that absolutely no that was cool to me that that that stuff and Although I also liked really,

like I said, from a young age, really like this 1920s music. Well, someone put that in you somehow. Yeah, I know. And I described it in the book. It's true. There's something that matched it. It was comforting when they would show

these old cartoons from the 30s on TV that the background music was something that really worked for me. And then you start hearing that kind of... And then it took me many years to... I would hear that again and say, oh, that's that kind of sound of the music I like. And then in my teens, I started to get very... Learning a lot

about it. About 78. So how do you get this fucking job? You don't finish college. So yeah. I had no interest in... I just want to say, growing up, I had no aspirations to do anything. I just assumed I'd sell insurance. But I did start to. I was smart in the sense of like I really liked movies, like a lot of old movies on television. And then by, you know, the early 80s, really influenced by all those great movies from the 70s.

And that's when the first buzz of people started talking about going to film school. And I had to get out of Harrisburg at that point. But in order to go to NYU, I had to go to Harrisburg Area Community College in two years to get my grades up because I could not even get into a shithole I did the same thing I fucked off in high school in my my senior year I panicked because I wanted to leave and I got I applied myself and got like you know a minus average yeah yeah that's that's how I was community college I was yeah there suddenly I was because we know because I because I applied myself and I had a goal. I give a fuck about, you know, I never once thought at any point in school up to and including my senior year about going to college or being anything.

Never even, all I was just like, how do I get out of the house? I wanted to be an artist. How do I fucking survive? See, that's good. Yeah, see, that's. Of some kind. I just hadn't, there was no one in Harrisburg that would even make that that thing seem you just never heard about anyone right and i'm a person another one of my big problems is uh i perceive everything to be impossible so what's the what's the point of even trying

right how would i'll come out every different way that that couldn't happen yeah well i get well yeah impossible so that's it so we're living in caves if i was like the head yeah of course but that's the anxiety thing it's sort of like but then you got to go to the place and then what you got to hire people yeah yeah right yeah it's just like yeah it never happened yeah it's never happened yeah it's like well that's the difference between someone like us and like judd apatow yeah exactly no right yeah someone like that who you know knew early what he wanted to do was focused on that and can maintain the businesses yeah yeah like how does he even go out i mean i see him doing comedy again and and knew early what he wanted to do, was focused on that. And can maintain the businesses.

Yeah, yeah. Like, how does he even go out? I mean, I see him doing comedy again, and I'm like, you know, what about the empire? Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. Don't you have a family? You know, like, what happens is they trust people, they deliberate power, they outsource jobs,

and they're respected as a boss. They hold the leadership thing. It's interesting. Even if I was capable of achieving something like that, I i would not the big part of me just could not handle they could not push for that i wouldn't want to be that out there and that part of every i i don't know what it is i'm i wouldn't be comfortable i don't want to be part of a scene that's the thing and that's why i never the and or part of the which i know is interesting because comedians you stand up that's a really big thing but we're all the all comedians are like you and me a lot of them yeah that could be i mean i have a few yeah i guess and it's the great thing about the comedians is like it's like

there's a shorthand to it and it's good to be around brilliant funny people make you feel better well that's what made when i finally moved to new york and started and then uh so you got out of community college so i go to film school in new york and right away that that sucks and i'm already thinking my only goal at that point is how do i stay in the city because new york city fit me like a glove it was the first that was actually the first time i was truly happy yeah because you know why you can get lost you can be alone you could eat by yourself right you know and so anyway some i i didn't even know what an internship was some kid was telling me he got an internship at it for a producer reading scripts and i was

already worried like what am i gonna do when i graduate like i'm i'm not gonna be able to afford to stay here my family can't afford to came what you know this is all i'm gonna go back to harrisburg and so that made me think when he said i I was like, oh, an internship. I never heard that word before, which I had not. Yeah. And so what I was interested, I was never like this comedy geek. I liked smart comedy. I knew it when it like SCTV or this and that. And I liked that kind of stuff. But it wasn't any particular obsession with mine.

I liked, you know, a lot of old movies and stuff like that. So I was more into Scorsese. Yeah, sure. movies and stuff and stuff like that so i was more into scorsese yeah sure and um but what i was really into at that time was this let the letterman show which had been on for about two years and i was obsessed with that show first couple years were insanely but i was more obsessed with dave yeah dave was i could just tell that this guy was one of the it was the first guy that i think this is i think he we think sort of alike the way he let not not necessarily come you know he's a brilliant comedian and everything i mean

the way he's looking at things and his hatred for bullshit and phoniness and the way people learn he was the first guy to really you know sort of shit on show business and celebrities and he was like when those first couple years i I mean, he pushed it. He pushed it. And that was, and that really, you know, struck a chord with me in a way that, you know, Woody Allen,

a little bit, I said, oh, it's interesting. I recognize some of that neurosis. But like, he was, you know,

again, the hypochondria and all that kind of Jew-y. Had no real edge to it. That was not that. And then Albert Brooks, I thought,

now that's even closer. That's like something, that's more, because Albert Brooks, some of that, but without the um or no he did it without the jewish thing like what he outdid so i was like but letterman that was something that's like oh my god and so i was you know i just thought this guy is the good so i i it's now i know about these things called internships i went back to my dorm room i cold called the Letterman show and said, do you have any of these things called internships? And they said, actually, we have a – we just lost our writer's intern.

Can you come up and just meet someone for an interview? And I was like, yeah. I went straight up there. I met Steve O'Donnell. Great intern. He's a great guy. He's there forever. Yeah.

Just such a – yeah. He's the – I mean nothing i mean during when the show was really up and running at its greatest um he as the head writer is so responsible for the great you know like a lot of people obviously merrill created everything but steve's unbelievable so steve liked me and then he said we'll come back and i met some to meet have a couple other meetings and then i got it and i said to myself did you meet Dave? No, I didn't meet Dave. That's a funny story. I didn't meet Dave until probably about a few weeks into my internship,

maybe even less. Then it was a very small office. You always saw Dave. Yeah. And he wasn't the CBS Dave, but he was still the show was, you know, he was like Rolling Stone and stuff. I know that studio, the NBC. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So as soon as I got that internship was the first time i ever had a goal for anything and i said i knew that that place was right for me i knew i could write for that i knew the sensibility but i knew you know it wasn't going to be easy but i said to myself i'll i don't care if it takes 10 fucking years because i have no other way to enjoy my life or to do something that i think I could do and make a living at. This is it. And I was said to myself, you're, you know, I want to be a writer here. And I was very, I just say I was good in sort of like Steve, as the writer's assistant, I was really helpful. Steve liked me. Chris Elliott took me under his wing as well. Those guys really encouraged me,

told me, you know, you should, at that time, like Chris became a writer and maybe one or two other people, they were submitting jokes to Dave's assistant. He wouldn't use them, but he was, back then he would look at them. And I started, so on Chris's advice,

I started giving like five jokes a day to Dave's assistant. And then, you know, I don't know when it was, maybe a couple months later, I can still remember, she said,

hey, do you got a minute for Dave, Adam? I'm opening up viewer mail. I edited the viewer mail. Right, right. And I couldn't believe it. She said, hey, do you have a minute for Dave, Adam? I'm opening up viewer mail. I edited the viewer mail. And I couldn't believe it. I went in, and he's like, and they were in blue paper.

You were supposed to have that blue sheet. He's like, you know, I like these jokes. It was really good. Just keep doing it. Keep doing it. And I walked out of there, and it was like, seriously, that's the single greatest feeling

I've ever had in my life. And I knew at that point, Yeah, and I kept writing him. And he, for some reason, really took a shine to my jokes, which were not topical. They were weird stuff, and they didn't really get laughs. But it was more like, I think it was very much Pennsylvania, so Indiana, Midwestern type of kind of thing. And he liked that kind of weird stuff. So he always got a kick out of the jokes. The audience never did.

And eventually, i was hired and and so that was and that was if had i not made that this is why we know that you know luck plays so much you know when people ask you like how do you do it it's like there's no real first of all you have to be able whatever you're going to do whether it's stand-up an actor the thing it starts with you either have it or you don't you know what i mean you got to be able to do it and then it's just about luck because you just may never have that conversion that intersection that i was like if i had made that call a week later the next day they pray that they would have been filled i think about it all the time it's not you know it's not like i that you oh you would have ended up doing something no

because i wouldn't have pursued it i'm not that was the one time i had the eye the tiger when i made that call and when i worked my ass off of that show as an intern you know and later like it was a writer's so what was the first meeting with dave before the uh the he liked your jokes oh that was uh where i was opening i was in this it was in the conference room a little conference room then this before they expanded the offices and uh so i was at this sort of table and i would add my little uh my letter opener and just slicing open these man you know all the view amount and a box around and making a pile that i copy my letter opener and just slicing open these, you know, all the viewer mail and a box of mail and making a pile that I copy for the writers. And from those, they would, they would, you know,

they would write things for the viewer mail segment. And- Did you decide what was good or bad or you just opened them? No, I just, I added them. And that was also too, Steve O'Donnell was like, I remember the first time he looked at my folder of the ones that he goes, this is, you know,

one of the best batch we've had in a long time. Because you have to, you know, you have to sort of figure out, oh, this is a good, this one is good. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, but there's goes this is you know one of the best batch we've had in a long time because you have to you know you have to sort of figure out oh this is a good this one is good yeah but there's some that you know you can't you don't want to overwhelm them with too much you just and so i i was i got the show i mean i knew the show before i even got there and um but anyway so i'm sort of catty corner from dave's office there was his uh assistant's office and then there was another door that led into dave's. But every time Dave came out into the hallway, he sort of, he had to make eye contact with me if I looked up. And so he did that a few times. And then, uh, I was always

thinking, what's going to be like the first time I meet Dave, just don't make an asshole out of yourself. And he came in finally goes, I don't think we've met. I'm Dave. And you know, I said, I'm Adam. And then I said it for no five seconds. So I said, I'm Adam, a promising young intern. And he said, and after I said this, I was like, what the fuck? Why don't you just shut the fuck up? And so I said, yeah, hi, I'm Adam. I'm a promising young intern. And he said, I'm sure you are.

And then he turned off. But he was, I get to say, very quickly, this was a very, it was like a small staff. It was like a family. very quickly this is it was a very it was like a small staff it was like a family and um you know he got to know me and he liked i think i know he kind of liked my sense of humor just the way i talked i was never ever trying to be a funny guy you know and i wasn't a joke yet i think he saw i think he saw me for who i was you know what i mean like i think that this is sort of cynical beaten down but you know that's what i was and uh he has some of that. And I, there was a lot to Dave. I, uh, I really, I think we're similar in certain ways, not in the part where I have this amazing genius talent that I become, but, but we have a similar sense of humor,

a similar way of looking at things. And I think there was a little bit of a, a slight bonding over that. And you were, you were there for like, you know, what, seven years, eight years, five years five six years and did the relationship grow at all it did it did actually it was and to this day he's um and chris elliott will tell you the same thing i think you know some other people but for me dave is uh i gotta say the most probably the most important person you know people in my life he's just like he's like my older brother or father kind of thing i you know, people in my life, he's just like, he's like my older brother or father kind of thing. I, you know, when I wrote the book, when I write anything, like when I wrote the book, everything I wrote was thinking, you know, this has got to be, it pushed me at Dave. If Dave doesn't like this, I'm fucked. I wrote it for Davis. I mean, I wrote, he was the, if everyone

hated it, except for Dave, I would have been okay with that. And when I heard that he, and he told me too, he called me and he loved the book. That was, this book, it's interesting, did take a certain amount of weight off my shoulders that I think will stay off. Not completely, you know, because, you know, you get, finally you get used to it. But it's like, I think I did something that I feel good about. I don't say it's perfect. You know, I think I'll do better even the next time. But I feel good about the book. The fact that Dave was so nice about it, had me on the show, that was a big thing for me. Because before that, I had, because of the way the

business is, I just felt like, if anyone just saw what did this guy do, I didn't feel there was anything I could really be proud of. And a lot of, and some things that I was very embarrassed about. And I was also upset about the whole thing about things I, you know, money jobs, you got to do for money and, and, and, you know, and not for me to be rich, but just to live a middle-class life in New York city, which takes a lot of money. And, you know, my daughter's in private school, so it's still, you know, so but it's so, you know, I was full of shame for so many years since Cabin Boy. Then I had.

Well, what happened? So like. Supernatural bad luck with a couple of other movies. You left Dave to work with Chris. Yeah. On Get a Life. Yeah. And that and people love that show.

Yeah. No, I'm happy about that. And then you did a lot of episodes. I mean, you have what? Three seasons? No, a season and about that. And you did a lot of episodes. I mean, you have, what, three seasons? No, a season and a half. Really? Yeah.

Okay. So it didn't take, but you were proud of that. Yes and no. Chris and I did not have a good experience working on that show. Together or above you? Chris and I were in the foxhole together, but it was, yeah, there was some, it was an awful experience. And also coming from Dave, which was such a great experience, you know.

And you left to pursue this. You thought it was time. Here's what happened. This is where everyone's life is different, and no one, no one, what happened to me, I don't know if anyone has things like that. Of course, people do things that turn out badly. Right.

No, so Chris said to me, there's a, you know, fox wants to do a show with me. Do you want to write it with me? me there's a you know fox wants to a show with me do you want to do you want to write it with me and i said you know i'm you know i'd let him in i was like yeah sure i didn't think anything would happen i never was thinking i wanted to do sitcoms this is a time when a lot of writers were leaving to go to fox and do i had no interest in that so i don't i chris and i said we wrote this show and then i didn't think anything would happen then suddenly they want to make the pilot now i I'm getting a little nervous because I don't know what I want to do. I like it.

I love working with Chris. The pilot was a total sort of, it was a bait and switch a bit for the day. It was nothing that I think Chris and I were very proud of, you know, because it was very, we had to, we wanted, you know, to get picked up. Chris wanted it to get picked up, obviously, clearly. It was a big thing for him. And so it was a little compromise, the pilot. It gives me douche chills, the the pilot i can't look at that but it's so so uh um so it's in a way so

here's the thing is so just unnaturally i don't know how long i would have stayed at dave not my whole i mean i definitely wanted to do other things i wanted to write i think i was really wanted to write features but um but so i was sort of fell into that which is what it was and then when we're at get a life then suddenly suddenly Chris gets a call from Tim Burton. And then that turns into us doing Cabin Boy. So all these things just sort of happened to me. There were nothing that I planned for, was trying to do. And Cabin Boy destroyed my life and destroyed my mind, made me even a more weaker, worried human. How? Why? What happened?

Just the fallout, the embarrassment, and that I was... Oh, how's Tim? So Tim Burton, you guys had the script. Whose script was it? Tim wanted to do like a Pee Wee's Big Adventure thing. Okay. He was doing the big movies, and so he thought he wanted one with Chris. Chris, yeah. So we was, you know, for Chris's stuff,

he's the only guy I ever wrote with, and it was always just for Chris. Right. I never had another, I never had a writing partner for my own stuff. But so, you know chris and for chris's stuff he's the only guy i ever wrote with and it was always just for chris material i never had another i never had a writing partner for my own stuff but so um you know we chris had this idea maybe do a version of captain's courageous with chris playing like the freddie bartholomew character this this like snobby rich kid that ends up on a fishing boat you know and uh with these you know hard-nosed semen so it seemed like a natural yeah and uh and then tim was going to direct it and i thought well you know this would be good for me i have my name on a script that that tim burton's going to direct and you know he directs stuff that this will make it easier for me even though i don't want to do uh necessarily big hollywood i want to do cool

movies that was my thing you know yeah and you know whether I could pull it off or not I don't know but but uh so and then he said when when Tim dropped out they said Adam you should direct it and I was like well I don't really I've never really you know I directed and did things on letter little little segments and shit you know but they all convince you and your agent no no you'll have help with that but the main thing is this is the big lesson one never do anything just for the opportunity the reason I eventually gave in because like the agent said, you know, if you do this, do you know how easy it's going to be for you? And I was like, well, I wanted to do movies. But you'll be in the guild. But this is right.

Yeah, right. But this is something if I was going to write a movie by myself or if I was going to write one with Chris for Chris, Chris and I in a million years would never have fucking come up with Cabin Boy. This was something that was designed for Tim that Tim helped. know he shepherded it he loved the idea it was like Captain's Courageous meets Ray Harryhausen we told him it was meant for his sensibility so then when I was finally convinced to direct it you know I hated right off the bat I hated the experience of directing at least that I didn't like and it was not something that I would have done on my own I felt felt very odd must have been insane on the set with you. And it was not something that I would have done on my own. I felt very odd. It must have been insane on the set with you trying to.

It was, I mean, it just wasn't fun. And also, it's not my personality to be actually in a collaborative situation. I don't like being around a lot of people. I don't want to have meetings. I don't want these things. Well, what should the scale of the ice monster be? And plus, I had no, here's the thing, no passion for that project. I just wanted to get through it, and I assumed it would probably be okay. ice monster but i didn't and plus i had no here's the thing no passion for that project i just want

to get through it and i assumed it'll probably do okay you know you know a little concerned that it wasn't him but the fallout which i don't know if you remember was so this is the worst thing i'm a snob as i'm sure you're about anything about movies literature i try to be a little i try to be a little broader lately a little more i dimple and mad. I do, but I like what I like. Sure, sure. And it doesn't mean that, you know, I can't like something silly, but whatever. Right, right. Okay. So to be, this movie, when it came out, Cabin Boy, which was not, you know, was not good. I look at it now and go, you know, it's kind of this odd little thing.

It doesn't bother me. But at the time, it was seen as like beneath Pauly Shore movie. So I didn't even know what it was. I had no opinion about it at that point. All I know is that it tested off, you know, it was awful. So I now,

not only was I worried about money because no one, partially was, yeah, it was going to be hard to get any kind of job. So it was a joke.

It was a joke and I was now, I felt, and for a number of years too, that I was perceived as a hack and I'm thinking, you know something,

it's not like I have a big ego but I'm not a fucking hack. I'm a snob and i'm actually a pretty good writer who now cannot get a job because of that and it's seen and i am seen as someone that wrote the hackiest shittiest worst the polyshore it might as well be an orson welles movie compared to cabin boy a cabin boy for a while was like the but the word for a shitty movie would be compared to i would see it in articles. I remember there was some article. You could not escape.

That's the thing that people don't remember. Now, Chris and I, we go, there'll be screenings, you know, and we'll do Q&A sometimes. And there's a small, there's a family following. Not gigantic, but enough that there's people that really like it. Okay. And they don't like it because I've asked them in these things. I said, do you guys like it? Because it's one of those, it's so bad.

It's good things. I'm sure there's some people that like it because I've asked them in these things. I said, do you guys like it? Because it's one of those, it's so bad, it's good thing. I'm sure there's some people that like it for that reason. There's people that do see it as something that they just kind of like as this weird comedy. So it was the brunt of all jokes. Yeah, so it was the brunt of all jokes. I was literally, for a while, like it embarrassed me to walk out of my, to walk out of the house.

This is in the immediate aftermath. It got a lot of press. This was before presses before the internet days hard real press of people it did and i to this day and i'll go to my grave and so well chris i don't know where it's not that they people didn't like the movie critics and things it pissed them off and there was anger and it was on every cabin boy you could not escape some mention of cabin boy i remember there was an article and i think it was the LA Times, the New York Times, about the Laserdisc craze. And the article was about all these directors.

And I'm reading it, and I'm thinking, oh, this is an interesting article about Laserdisc. They're talking about all these director cuts. You know, now Aliens 2, James Cameron is adding extra footage. Is this really, do we want the idea of a director's cut? It was questioning whether that's a good idea. The movie should be the movie. I'm reading it, enjoying it, minding my own business.

The last line is, so what's in store for us in the future? A director's cut of Cabin Boy? And I'm like, Jesus, everywhere I turned, there was shit like that. You could not escape it. They would not give me a break or Chris. And so I was, it was the most creative paralysis and depression that I had had.

By the way, this is still pre-psychiatrist, pre-antidepressants for me. So just raw. I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I don't even take. And the world is crushing you. The world is crushing me. You walk out with, you're wearing glasses to protect yourself from this thing that you,

it probably isn't, it was bad, but I'm not, I'm sure there weren't people out in front of your house. This is how crazy it was. I literally used to think as I, at first I was embarrassed just to get from my apartment down to the lobby. I can still remember I thought maybe a woman's starting to come out of the door, a neighbor, and see me, and quickly stepping back in and shut the door. I would walk down Columbus Avenue. Like Peter Lorre in that movie M. That's right.

That was me. I might as well have done something like that. But he's, and when I was walking down Columbus, I would actually think sometimes that, and I'm not crazy this way. This is the depth of my craziness. I'm not this kind of crazy. I'd actually think that, you know,

I think people might avert their glance, you know, if they would look at me thinking, oh, that's the guy that did that. That fucking cabin boy. And like, if you just looked at the numbers of people that actually saw the movie, the ratio would not ever add up. No, no, no, yeah. And so, if you just looked at the numbers of people that actually saw the movie, the ratio would not ever add up. No, no, no, no.

And so, so right. No, no, but no, but it was written about. No, I get it. I get it. It wasn't for a period of time. Instead of saying Heaven's Gate, they would say Cabin Boy, which made no sense because this is a cheap little movie. It was when Disney was cranking out a shitty live action movies like, you know, Hocus Pocus

or The Air Up There or Captain Run. No offense to those movies. I haven't seen any of them, but Cabin Boy is just another shitty live action movies like, you know, Hocus Pocus or The Air Up There or Captain Ron. No offense to those movies. I haven't seen any of them. But Cap'n Moe is just another shitty live action that Touchstone was doing at the time. I think the real horrible sort of, the worst part about it is that in your mind, this was like a sentence worse than death. Something outside of your control had had had had had realized your

greatest fears so what is so smart that's right and and and what was happening is you know whether the people outside of the world were doing whatever they were doing the audience in your head that was judging you the the room full of little yous was like oh now you've done it no it's fucking over it's over and also it's it's sometimes with the the brother or two that i may be talking at a time i remember you know coming up with this phrase of which then they will occasionally refer to it i'll say the resonant curse i've always thought about a resonant curse this is what when i saw that coen brothers movie that starts a serious man it starts out like at a shuttle or whatever and there's that uh that dybbuk or whatever at the beginning

that i guess imply that yeah whatever that you know sort of maybe curse the generation of that family even i would this before i had any sense of that you know of that thinking of it that way i just thought there's some kind of a and and so the resnick curse had had finally you know the the chickens manifest yeah and and it was and here's where the fucked up thing was someone like mine centuries old i can imagine so many bad things that are not reality my wife if she said has said one thing to me one phrase the most over all the years we've been together it's this why would you think like that you know like it's always that and but the thing is here's where that and sometimes i can think you know maybe it is my brain that's thinking i'm out of the business i'm this or. But what happens when in the case of Cabin Boy, it was really, this is not my imagination.

No one did want to hear from me for a while. I remember, and I just, this comes back to you asking me when my child was born. My daughter, and I didn't want a boy, I was so happy it was a girl, was born about a month before Cabin Boy came out. And I already knew what was going to happen. I didn't actually know it would be as bad as it was but i knew that the movie was a bomb and i knew from the testing and i knew that i would not get work again easily and but now i had a daughter to support so when my daughter was born i remember being in there my first reaction to seeing her was just utter fear because i realized i have this new responsibility that i've never you know

and and i don't know what. Now, it's interesting. You fantasize and you think, well, so what's going to happen? You're never going to be homeless. You'll move to Harrisburg or a town like Harrisburg and you'll rent a little apartment. At least you won't be homeless. And that's what my safety net was.

You know what I mean? But in your mind. I'll be miserable. Right. In your mind, though, that safety net, and I did that too when everything went off the skids for me, is that that plan B or that safety net, it's vague and it's at its root horrendous. Yes. Yes. It is horrendous.

Yes. And it actually doesn't give you much comfort. It only makes you realize that your worst thing is like I have to live in a homeless shelter with my family. But I think, okay, well, at least I know I can take that off the table. But, you know, that makes you feel good for about a second. Then you realize that your worst thing is like, I have to live in a homeless shelter with my family. But I think, okay, well, at least I know I can take that off the table. But, you know, that makes you feel good for about a second. Then you realize, but what's the job? Right. What's that?

Right. Right. You know, like, it's like, okay, I come from a certain, like, I've done enough things. But what do you, but my problem was like at 45, 50, like, I'll just stop and like, and I'll get a job doing what? Right. No, that's the thing is that's what I'm also I'm feel that's you know occasionally you do feel lucky and I realize I make a living doing literally the only thing I can do that's all I can do but then what happened you you did

SNL for a while no that was one this is in the the dark years after cabin boy Chris went to SNL for probably what must have been one of the worst seasons ever. And it was, I didn't want to work there. I was still embarrassed about Cabin Boy. I didn't even want to be seen. This is, I think, about a year after. But Chris, somehow, I went up and met your buddy, Lorne. And I needed to make a little money, but I knew I did not want to work there. And I'm thinking the whole thing about, oh, they write overnight?

Yeah, I don't think so. I'm not going to fucking, you know. And the show was not good that season that's the the cast is really big the guys like farley and sandler were on the way out the door they were on weekends going to shoot movies and then coming back and it was a very depressing vibe but yeah he was trying to put together the following season is when i auditioned i think and he was you know lauren to his credit i mean they there's like don oldmeyer and littlefield they had him out the door. I mean, they were, and it was, you never would have thought at that time that Lorne would

survive. And it's amazing. He did, not only did he survive, look where he is now. That's it. I'd never, it was not in me to, I never, like I said, I'd never wanted to be in the business anyway. So I never chased anything for big money. I've always been, to me, it was always about the work.

You know, although sometimes you have to. I mean, especially this post-Cabin Boy years, I was taking money jobs because I had to do it. I don't think there's any shame in that. I've done that. You got it. I mean, it happens. And you just hope it doesn't work out in a way. Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah, right. Especially like that. I mean, the first job I got, by the way, was writing a script about a guy that turns into a dog. And he said, yeah, and there's scenes where he's drinking out of the toilet. That's the type of job I had to take. What was that? I forget the name of it. And by the way, the guy who gave me the job, the producer, God bless him.

Because it was in that year after Cabin Boy, we were doing nothing. Didn't you write Death to Smoochie? Yeah, that's one of the, again, the scripts that, you know, that and there's one I did called Numbers that Nora Ephron, they ended up, I mean, those movies did not come out the way that I pictured it. The writer is not, is king in television, but unless you're a writer director, you have to expect this. And when I sold those scripts, they were good sales.

You know what I mean? You give it, you got to expect this and when i sold those scripts they were good sales you know what i mean yeah you give it you gotta know you're losing control but you you're okay with that now in a way that you can handle it no but doing that it that way knowing that this is that no i don't think i'll do it that way i look here's all i want i want to make a comfortable living to and thing is i'm living in new york city though so that's not like you know you gotta bring in some money a comfortable living doing what i want with some little side steps into some money jobs or things like that that you know might be enjoyable to work on or something but but but mostly it all comes back to subsidizing myself to if i'm going to write another book or if maybe i'm going to write a screenplay a small movie and i'm you know uh talking to a producer that i like that there might be a shot there i might give that one more chance the the

movie thing because i love movies but it's harder than ever now when you think about yeah getting something really cool it's got to be a small movie but you're okay and what say i'm great i don't know i'm great no mark i'm i'm like uh i'm a million dollars i just uh everything's perfect now you You mean, okay, what? I mean, but you're making a living. Oh, yeah, no, no, no. I'm fine. I'm that way, but not, no, but it's always a,

I don't need a lot. It never did, but then there's other things you think, oh, wow, wouldn't it be nice to have a house at the beach? That's another thing, but part of me is like, you know, I, how many people own more than one fucking house i have a really good but see but like i think that too and it's a fantasy i have it's like who's gonna who's gonna take care of it when i'm not there and like what what where is there gonna be like is there gonna be problems with the house and that's what happened to me what if i don't go there i had a country house

that like sort of imploded they tell you like you know you realize you have the money for the house and everything what they what they don't tell you, you realize you have the money for the house and everything. What they don't tell you, and I remember checking out, so I'm going to get this country house, my accountant. Yeah, no, you can do it. That's fine. Sure. But then you don't, it's about upkeep. You can't walk away from that.

Some people just don't give a shit. People like us are just designed to self-generate and manage what we can manage. Because then if you hire people, then you're like, who's that guy? How's he going to fuck me? I don't know, man well i also like i mean you're probably the same way i mean i turned down the money and jobs that i've turned down over the years far exceeds you know like i i there's so many ways i could have made money there's so many ways things that i just couldn't do in fact when i when get a light i hated living out here because i you know after being at letterman after get a life was over yeah that's it for me in L.A., even though later I did a stint at Larry Sanders and there were some other jobs.

How was that? I'll tell you that in a second. But anyway, when I moved back to New York, I knew that was a choice, my agent said, you're going to cut your options down. And I was like, well, that's the tradeoff because I have to live in New York. options down and said and it was like well that's the trade-off because i have to live in new york and so um it's about you know like so i still turn down shit and and uh it's it's whatever it's yeah yeah it's about the work it's always been a bit but i don't want to be poor and if anyone wants to give me a shitload of money for something that i'm i'll be happy to take it larry sanders very well directed show that must have made up a little bit for cabin boy well that was here's I that like everyone else I love that show that's one of

the greatest shows ever so you came in after it was rolling it was rolling it's actually was the final season and um it was uh and I was happy to do I do you love Gary I would have preferred to stay a fan of the show rather than work uh you know i didn't never you know i actually i think gary and i are so you know dave to me is the guy that i it was so yeah it's so clicked you know our relationship gary's a completely different sort of guy right so there was not that i did not have a similar feeling he's a very different guy than david right and it's his show and he has a way of running it and it was not um you know i had some fun there but for the most part it was the right you know the fact that it was just whatever we did 10 or 11 episodes that was i that felt right to me i had my fill it was the end of the season but it was um

um yeah whatever what can i tell you i've had i've had better times other places but it was in retrospect i guess it wasn't so bad you can't't, you know, you can't, if you're not, if you feel like you can't really contribute at the level that you think you're capable of, it's not fun. And if some, if a place makes it a little difficult to do that, and, you know, Gary is the, you know, he's the guy. It's his show. He's been doing it. And so it was, I'd heard this, I knew, I had other friends who had worked there over the years, you know, so I sort of knew what I was getting into. But I'd met Gary a couple times. I know what Gary is.

He's another guy. I mean, he's not like me, but there's some, you know, some fucked up things about both of us. And I felt like for a while, like, you know, there was a point that, you know, I was getting along with him pretty good. And it was, but then once we got into the thick of things then everything changed and it felt like you know it was you know we were in battle and the battle was going very badly and it was and I think

it was maybe that's Gary's process I think he you know maybe things have to be made to be a little harder than they they're hard enough as it is but even harder for that's just his process the way it works you know to be a little harder than they, they're hard enough as it is, but even harder for, that's just his process, the way it works,

you know? And it was, you know, there's some, the way to thrive at a show like that, I think is to be like a creative consultant where you're just coming in maybe one or two days a week and you're not part of the actual militia. That's the tough part, you know?

So what are you working on now? Right now I'm going to write another book. There is another book there is a memoir script i want to no i think i'm done with that i might write some one-offs you know sure for magazines or something uh i i love the book uh real time yeah that's nice i really are you serious that you know if someone like you likes that makes me love it love it like they're in the laughs are surprising not not and not in the way that like i'm surprised you make me laugh but i'm surprised at what i'm laughing at like you know there are things that are really funny and i'll laugh at those but like for some reason there are weird beats in the book that just killed me that i don't know that you would i don't know

that you would look at them and go like that was the hilarious part but there's just something about your timing yeah i guess i relate to it so much, the strand bag bit. Like, I have things like that. They're usually, like, shoes. I just, like, I get it. And I don't think it's, like, an OCD thing. I am someone who very much likes a few things that I'm not apt to change. I dress the same way that I've dressed since, like, sixth grade. But that's, like, what magical objects are.

You invest them. They have something important in maintaining the continuity of your life yeah yeah no it's it's absolutely true and all and what you said it's true you can change a and and absolutely the thing about try to be a nicer person try to help people more that's what you can do but fundamentally i know at this stage of the game that, you know, the things that are wrong with me, and it is a mental illness, cannot be, they could, it could be helped a little bit, you know, but it can't, you can't really change who you are. My thing is, I've never been, I think for the most part, you know, I'm a pretty decent person when it comes to other people, although I can get pissed off. I hate when people fuck things up. I hate incompetence.

And I hate people who are just wrong or bad people, especially, I don't know if you ever had anyone like that. There's a couple people in my life too, of genuine narcissists. You know what I mean? Narcissists, almost borderline or possibly a sociopath that finally, you know, that all gets blurred. Those people are the worst. You know what I mean? Especially when they're successful. Yeah. But you know, the good thing about me is anyone that i know who's a who's a narcissist especially if it was a real narcissist a real narcissist i don't know about you when it comes to jealousy we're all jealous you know about jealousy especially when he comes of course look what the fuck are we talking about but here's how i am about other writers or anything like who i

might know who might be doing better i honestly am never jealous of success or money i am only jealous of the quality of the work and thankfully the the couple of people that i might have a problem with that maybe have done well or this that i have no respect for their work i don't think their work is is good so therefore i don't have jealousy if they did some amazing work that is my thing i don't have jealousy. If they did some amazing work, that is my thing. I don't give a shit how rich or powerful. So you're actually jealous for creative reasons. That's all that's ever mattered to me. But then are you able to enjoy it?

Like, you know, if they do amazing work and you're jealous of it? No, I'm not that guy. You mean if someone that did, would I be able to enjoy the good work that someone who I thought, oh, this narcissist ass, no. I'd be like crying.

I'd be awful. I don't even want to watch it. And the thing is, I'm honest. I would not even be able to convince myself that it's a piece of shit. It would be like, motherfucker. It's good.

So holy shit. So he's actually creatively better than me. That that's, I've not run into that by the way. So I'm only talking about people that I know who I think are not good people, people that I don't know. It's not like I feel that way about the Coen brothers. I don't know them. It's like who I think are not good people people that I don't know it's not like I feel that way about the Coen brothers I don't know them it's like I can love

their movies you know well here's what I have to say that I think I it's not from wisdom it's just from observation that you know this this idea that that fundamental wiring cannot change but you can take actions and open your heart now more and become a good person but all those things that you think will will not change fortunately with age and time will make you just a caricature of yourself. So no, no matter how menacing they may have been at one time, eventually you're just good. Other people are going to be like,

Oh, he's yeah. It's kind of silly now. Well, I do feel, as you said, I think a little bit mellowing, although there's times I feel not at all.

I'm absolutely better than i was than maybe in you know by i think i started to to feel a little bit better in my 40s you know i i and and and also this sounds awful i hope that i'm healthy i hope i live a long life i but one i have to die before anyone around me dies that's important. Maybe you should write that down somehow. Yeah. And I also am taking some comfort in the fact that I'm closer to the end than I was all those other... In a weird way, I don't have a death wish, anything like that. But I'm feeling if the human life span or expectancy is 80 some years now or something like that, I think that's just about right.

If they said, no, there's this pill, you can go to 125, I wouldn't take the pill. It's so much that. I think that's just about right. If they said, no, we can, there's this pill, you can go to 125, I wouldn't take the pill. I think it's, if I'm lucky enough and I hope I am healthy enough to live a normal life expectancy, I'm happy with the number of years, I'm good. Well, look, dude, I love you. It's a good talk

and it was a pleasure to talk to you and meet you. I'm glad you like the book. I love it. That means a lot to me. a lot thanks buddy powerful funny love that guy not the most comfortable guy in the world but definitely hilarious and brilliant uh as usual go to wtfpod.com for all your wtf pod needs get on the mailing list. Get some merch for some Christmas presents. We'll have new posters up there. The remixed music on today's show is done by DJ Copley. Our theme music is by John Montagna.

Again, Happy Hanukkah. Again, go to Epix.com. And if you need information on how to watch my special more later, it premiered on Friday. I don't know who watched it. A lot of people are asking if they caned on friday i don't know who watched it a lot of people are asking if they can watch it elsewhere i don't know i know that it will be on hulu in 90 days i know that i'm proud of it and uh i hope i hope it gets to people i know you can go to epics.com to check out where you can get it and how you can get it i know you you don't all have epics but

someday you will see it i I promise you will see it. And it will remain timeless. So, what? Guitar? I can play a little. Hanukkah guitar? Thank you. so Thank you. guitar solo Boomer lives! on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction.

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