WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 782 - Joe DeRosa / John Hodgman & Jesse Thorn

Episode Date: February 1, 2017

Marc had prejudged comedian Joe DeRosa. He thought he was a Philly tough guy who wouldn't want to have anything to do with a guy like Marc. Now that they're friends and realize how similar they are, they can commiserate about the insecurities and doubt that plagued both of their careers. Also, John Hodgman and Jesse Thorn stop by to compare facial hair. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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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. 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. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf how's it going i don't know what's going on why i probably know what's going on but i did not

am not reacting to it directly because i recorded this a few days ago before i left for a vacation so this is uh this might be i mean at least a little emotionally dated i have no idea what's happened uh in the last few days or i'm oh that's not true again i'm i probably have an idea but i'm not reacting to it either emotionally or literally because if i was i would be able to see the future and generally when i think i see the future it's not good well so maybe i could speculate then maybe i uh i could uh possibly paint a picture from my imagination that might sync right up with what happened since I recorded this on Saturday, last Saturday. But I'm not going to do that.

I'm going to say, what am I going to say? Like, I hope I'm having a good time. Well, you know what? Why not be optimistic? I'm having a great time. Maybe I'll pretend like it. You know, fuck another week. Oh, God, I don't know how we're going to get through this shit. What a fucking. Wow. Just try to keep your I don't know, man. It's just it's weird when everything you do that is your life and that might bring you some enjoyment just feels like you're uh holding off the inevitable or avoiding something that requires uh immediate and uh horrifying attention that's not that's not good well let's just stick with uh you know i i'm i'm on vacation i'm having

a nice time as nice as i can i hadn't had can. I haven't had a vacation in a long time. So I'm trying it out. Trying to get my head straight. Trying to breathe some air. Look at some pretty. Sleep some sleep. Write some things down. Fortify my heart and mind.

That kind of stuff. Okay? All right. So I don't know what's happened i know again i'm sorry i'm not responding to what's happened in the last few days because i i recorded this a while ago so i could go on vacation without recording out there i forgot to mention who's on the show what's happening there's uh several guests actually on the show today it's funny when i's several guests actually on the show today. It's funny when I read the Blue Apron copy, it reminds me of my character in the Mitch Hedberg movie, Los Enchiladas,

that apparently is not available anywhere to anyone. But I think you can probably see it somewhere. It's got to be out there. I played the menu writer. And it just, it's a little close. It's a little close when I read the Blue Apron copy there. It reminds me of that character. That's a long time ago, making Mitch Hedberg's movie.

I got that lovely box set recently, the Hedberg stuff on vinyl. It's great. Today on the show, a couple of guests. Right now I'm going to have John john hodgman and jesse thorn uh they are part of the very very funny day a one day podcasting festival in chicago on saturday february 11th with live performances of judge john hodgman jordan jesse go the flop house stop podcasting yourself and more you can go to maximumfund.org for tickets. And after John and Jesse, I talked to the aggravated Joe DeRosa, comedian I've known for a few years.

I've never just had the time to get him in here. It was good to talk to Joe. I feel like we're kind of kindred spirits. So that's a pretty loaded show for a vacation week. Let's go now. This is me talking to John Hodgman and Jesse Thorne here in the garage. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

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as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary is on the right path forward. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com. You would think I would have gotten a new situation, fellas. Right, Jesse? I mean, you helped me set up this situation. It's a nice situation, though. It's a nice situation. We're ensconced, particularly when the weather's cool. We're ensconced in your piles and piles of books.

Right, but I think about it myself sometimes. I'm like, do I have to have that headphone amp just dangling off the side of another piece of equipment that I rarely use? I like that you have this Radio Shack telephone handset here. Right. Sweet landline. That's my sweet landline. Exactly. It's a Radio Shack landline.

And that other thing under it is a Telos. Do you know those from your radio activity i got a telos you got one i was just on my telos earlier today but isn't like that's a that is a piece of rack radio equipment that you use to record phone calls with yeah now i have to assume that there is a technologically easier way but uh no one's told me one i mean is there another just use that Telos, baby. That's right. I have it.

I think we're transitioning to Telos. Yeah, we're switching over to Telos. We've been trying to do it technological ways. It never works right. Is that true? So we're back to phone lines. Is it both of you? Yeah, for Judge John Hodgman, because John records in Brooklyn and I record in LA.

We have guests in a studio somewhere. Oh. And so we're just sick of Skype failing. Right. The sound quality's not there, right? And you don't want to get an ISDN line, I'm guessing. You can't even get an ISDN line anymore. Is that true?

Yeah, they won't put one in for you anymore. I had one in here briefly that I never used years ago. So that shit is over yeah why because they're moving towards a new technology no just because it was mostly used for you know the theory was that it was a high-speed internet connection and so but it's not high speed relative to any other high-speed internet connection in this time and the number of people who want to use it for broadcasting is about 10 in each city. Oh, got it. I thought it was a satellite connection. What we need is some hipsters to start up an artisanal retro ISDN system.

Yeah, exactly. Well, then you need the whole other piece of equipment that delivers the ISDN. That's a whole other piece of equipment. You've got to get that duplexer. Yeah, that you've got to plug the ISDN outlet into and then run it into the mixer. Like that piece of equipment, which I had briefly, is actually confusing and difficult and then run it into the mixer like that that piece of equipment which i had briefly is actually confusing and difficult yeah it sure is it's got like a number pad on it you have to type in secret codes yeah i just want to i just want to say how much i appreciate mark

you're making eye contact with me during this portion of the conversation because i don't know anything yeah thanks for trying to keep me involved and presuming that i know i know very well as jesse will attest i thought my situation my situation, Jesse might have kitted out your situation. Yes. How does this compare to my situation, Jesse? Yours is a little rough. Yeah, right? We're working on it.

What's the problem with my situation? Well, John records his whole thing in his office, right? Right. But for some reason, John- I have a stark minimalist aesthetic. You'd think with the volume of books that John has, or just the volume of books that John has written, there would be book-lined walls and, you know,

you would imagine John's office like with Persian carpets on the ceiling. With club chairs. No, just four bare walls, one of which is literally a mirror he records into a window. With one of these mics, though? It sounds like it into a window yeah with one of these mics though it

sounds like it actually just got one of these yeah yeah it sounds and no matter what he does it sounds sort of like that that one uh reverb room under capital records oh you got to put some of this stuff up yeah i got to get some foamy foams yeah i got i just got some rugs i got a nice i got a nice uh cozy rug coming there you go. Now we're talking. Yeah, you can stick some of these panels around. The original panels. I lined all the walls with ceramic plates. Is that correct? I don't know.

Which book did you read that in? Like old vintage plates like you see in a diner sometimes. We should put in that kind of like those adjustable audio reflectors that change the tone from classical to jazz. There you go. Okay. I'll go with that so john and now both of you guys that i've known you for a few years and neither one of you had the amount of hair coming out of your faces jesse seems to have really committed that he's

transitioned from what i would think was sort of a somewhat of a dandy into a hill person i am wearing like a chore jacket right now and john i i don't know what you know what stage of evolving uh uh into what are you evolving from into you know i i grew a mustache about five years ago i remember and uh because i was jealous i'm like he's doing my thing i was i didn't i was inadvertently doing you i didn't mean to be copying you but once your soul patch comes into play that's you know well that's just me and zappa and leon redbone that's it that's right mustache without uh without soul patch though gets very quickly into um alcoholic cop oh yeah right so and i so the mustache was easy to explain because that was

just i grew that the same reason all 40-year-old weird dads grow their mustache. It's a signal to the biological mating community. I'm all done. Is it? Yeah. We've wrapped this up. Yeah, that's right. No thank you. I don't know.

Mustache rides priceless. I have put my genetic material out into the world. I am no longer required. I thought that was usually a weight gain thing. I find that the mustache may not be putting that message out into the world uh but i i'm not you but i i generally i thought that when you want to signal that you just forget that you can't eat everything well right exactly and then but then i decided to grow this beard yeah because i just felt compelled to see what would

come out of my face because i think everyone wants to know what kind of secret man lives inside of him. How much do I got? Yeah. And what I learned by the secret man who lives inside of me apparently is the part-time bookkeeper at the church of Satan. You're a little thin on the sides, but full on the chin.

Yeah. I got a lot. I'm a, I am a natural born neck beard. Yeah. Yeah. Natural born. This is,

this is all mine. I don't have any neck beard weaves in. Well, that does say I'm done. The neck beard. Thank born. This is all mine. I don't have any neckbeard weaves in. Well, that does say I'm done, the neckbeard. Thank you. Yes. But Jesse has been cultivating something. Jesse's got a magnificent. At first, even when I started seeing his new Twitter avatar, I was like, you know, he's in, and this is what he's doing now.

If someone goes, what's Jesse up to? I imagine he's working on his beard and mustache. Do you know what the honest truth is, Mark? I wanted to have a beard since I can remember. Yeah. But I presumed I couldn't do it. And by the time I figured out that I sort of could, and like my beard in terms of fullness.

This is a real goddamn Horatio Alger story. It's a B minus. It's not the greatest beard well no you don't have a full you don't have dense hair but you've you've grown it out yes and the essentially i figured by the time i got my beard it was on the downward trend yeah i was like seven out of ten with ten being it's so over you can't do it i figured if i'm gonna do it i better do it right oh yeah i can't half do it right no five o'clock shadows like i have to have a full-on crazy person's beard to show yes i know

what it is right i know where it is on the trend but i'm going to do it well but but knowing you and knowing that you know you have a you know probably a sock weave preference there there's a certain you know shoe products involved that perhaps i was just thinking that the products that you've researched and uh figured out what to do for yourself has got to be you know very exciting so what kind of products are you working into that fucking moss on your face you have to use mustache wax not because you want to like have a curly q mustache but because otherwise if if your mustache is longer than your lip you are constantly eating your mustache see i was just about to mention that what what there's almost an optical illusion going on because your beard your beard is thinner than it seems yes but the

mustache tricks you into thinking it is this full luxurious thing. Because I'm looking at you from the side profile here. And I'm noticing once again, and I've noticed before, that your mustache seems to grow like out at a 90 degree angle from your lip. Yeah. And is like reaching out like alien tendrils in Star Trek The Next Generation. That's the wax. You've got to keep it under control. Whereas my mustache, if I were to grow it as long as yours,

because those are long hairs under your nostrils, they would just immediately go directly into my mouth and then try to strangle me from within. Just grab my uvula and in an Ouroboros type of way consume myself. Yeah, you've got to train it. You've got to wax it and train it. That got very complicated and elaborate poetry. We had the Ouroboros reference.

For those who don't know, Ouroboros is the snake that eats its own tail. Yes. What I call a really dumb snake. Sure. And also a fine metaphor for the world we're living in. True enough. Yes. I think the Ouroboros was created as an alchemical symbol of some kind, wasn't it?

Or does it go further back? I thought that it was a reference to Jormungandr, the world snake that surrounded the Midgard in Norse mythology, the snake around the earth. I think it's one of those odd symbols that existed for some reason in many ancient cultures. It's very compelling, isn't it, to think that there's a snake out there that's so dumb it's going to eat its own tail. To think that there's a snake out there that's so dumb it's going to eat its own tail. Yeah. Well, but as far as when you look at the evolution of the thoughts around the idea of sinning and whatnot, on a very simplistic, primitive level, that could be every fucking mistake you make.

Yeah, that's right. It reminds us that we're all dumb, dumb snakes. Exactly. That are causing our own pain. Don't do this. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have a tail anymore.

I cut that off at birth. Right, yeah. Well, I don't know what I'm eating. Yeah. So what is it? I just want to promise your listeners, at some point I am going to cough and it is going to be disgusting.

You got the thing? I am under the weather, but I am naturally an aging, decrepit human being. And listeners to the Judge John Hodgman podcast will know if they ever heard me cough that everyone goes, oh, my God, are you all right? Well, that's like an old judge should have that. Yeah, exactly. Let's see what we have here in front of us today. As you dispense justice, you should hear that you are not long.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. Like, forgive my ignorance, but you just produced it or are you part of it? He's my bailiff. Okay. So I'm sort of the announcer. Yeah. You remember like the People's Court. Yeah.

Sure. Back or Judge Judy. They have a bailiff or night court. Aren't they still on? Yeah, of course. Night court. I just had John Larquette in here. Did you really?

Wonderful conversation. Sorry, I will continue to do that. That was the best slap face in network television. Yeah, a lot of people go to Seinfeld for that, but you're going to have to go back to Night Court. Oh, yeah. Night Court was there long before. And had a good run. Yeah, absolutely. Shout out to Mel Torme. Like nine years that thing was on. It's a good

show. So if I were Judge Harry in Night Court, Jesse would be my bailiff bull. Yeah, or Roz. I get how it works. Yeah. And that's the structure of the show and people are enjoying it. Yeah, so he brings, well, people call in with real disputes. Yeah.

And then Jesse swears them in. And then I walk them through their disputes, which are usually about things like, what, Jesse? I can never remember. Oh, my favorite one was a fight between two brothers who bought a house in rural Kansas. Yeah. Known forever as the Bat Brothers because the house that they bought. In rural Kansas, you can buy a house to save money. Yeah. And they bought this house together to save money,

but the problem with the house was bats kept getting into the house through one of the bathroom walls. Oh, my God. Due to the hole. Yeah. And so the dispute was, one of the brothers said,

we have to fix this hole, bats are getting in. Yeah. Then the other brother, who was like completely taciturn like a total kansas eeyore guy yeah uh he's like we bought this house to save money i'm not gonna spend 1500 fixing a bat hole and so his recommendation was his bat amelioration scheme yeah was to keep a dictionary by his bed and if he saw a bat, smash it with a dictionary.

It was a two-part system, John. I hate to correct you here. I apologize. But his two-part system was number one, there would always be a phone book next to the toilet so that if a bat got into the bathroom, you could smash it and they would always keep

the bathroom door closed so that the bathroom would be like a bat airlock. It would be a bat isolation chamber. And this is a real... It was 100% real. What do you do? One issue per show? Yes. Okay. So I'll hear both sides of the thing and then I'll say,

what you really gotta do is have a reality show. Right. In that case. Did they fix the hole? No, they sold the house, I think. No, I think they eventually sold the house, but they had to have a jar into which they put, it was like $10 or $20 every time a bat got into the house. And were that jar to fill, they were required to patch up the hole with the money. That was pretty wise of me.

You're a very wise man, John. The problem is that I forget my wisdom immediately as I move on to new justice. I've been using that case as an example of what happens on Judge John Hodgman for like five years because it's the only one I remember. Isn't there a big plan? Aren't you guys doing an Abbott and Costello shtick? Are you doing a- Well, we've been touring Judge John Hodgman, which is super fun.

Yeah. That's true. doing a well we've been touring judge john hodgman which is super fun yeah um uh it's fun for me because people like judge john hodgman unlike any of my other shows so they come they come to live shows and then uh you know it's fun because we get to yell at these people in real life so you pull them right up out of the audience you get people to fill out things people submit cases right just like they do for the podcast but we they submit them specifically to be heard on stage right in wherever we're going to do it and the next one we're doing is in chicago on february 11th yeah okay this is going to be like a 12 hour it's called very very fun day and it's going to be like a 12 hour maximum

fun podcast and some chicago podcasts extravaganza what then multiple rooms falia hall okay do you know that place i do i feel like i know an opera house yeah it was shuttered for years and years and years then some nice young men with beards came and turned it into an art space oh that's good i feel like i've been there the last couple times i've been there i play the vic oh yeah yeah which is it's a great theater yeah but i feel like did maybe that uh the one of the festivals use thalia hall that could be recently yeah that could be i feel that might be it so there's many it's been open for maybe a couple years many spaces within it yeah there's a main main theater space right which is gorgeous what are we talking 800 seater 25 000 seats that's big

i think probably something along that no i bet the bulls played there for the bulls played there for a while but there weren't enough luxury boxes yeah too old-fashioned yeah they all had red velvet curtains then they got like a restaurant in there and then they got a lounge in the basement where they play some smooth jazz yeah so like we've got this we got big podcast it's going to be uh us and the Flophouse, Jordan, Jesse Go, Oh No Ross and Carrie. That's two of you. That's two Jesse Thorne podcasts. Well, it's cheaper.

It's more efficient that way. Are you doing a bullseye there too? No, we're not doing bullseye there. Bullseye is your secret public radio treasure. Well, it's secret in the sense that no one listens to it, yes. What do you mean no one listens to Bullseye? It's the least successful show on national public radio, if that's what you mean by secret. He checks the rankings

every day. I remember when you, what was the old show on public radio? Sound of Young America. The Sound of Young America was one of those ones where, I think I've told you this story before, where, you know, I did that dumb thing with you in Santa Cruz when you were in college. Like, when he says dumb thing, John, I don't know if you know this, but one of the first

time, and maybe it was the second time I interviewed Mark, Jordan and I, who does Jordan has to go with me, we're still in college. Yeah. And it was a fundraising show and we were doing it from the base of the UC Santa Cruz campus where you have to drive past to get in. Yeah. In our underpants. Yeah.

Ah, okay. Mark was on the phone. Yeah. God bless him i but like i did it and then years later i'm in astoria queens you know making some coffee in my kitchen and i hear mpr at night and it's like uh live from my living room i'm jesse thorne jesse thorne i'm like is that that fucking kid yeah and it was in his underwear that like yeah he did all right for himself that guy i'm i met jesse as because i was a guest on the sound of young america too uh-huh and i remember being told i wasn't a guest i was on some radio college thing

right well this was when after you had graduated from college but i was still living in san francisco i mean we're looking at what it was 2004 or 5 it was 2005 because it was from a first book yeah the areas of my expertise and it was before you were a celebrity. That's right. It was on the eve of your celebrity. It was celebrity eve. And what happened? Well, my publicist said, do you have time for one more phoner? And I think it was near Christmas

and I was up in the woods of New England with my family. I'm like, well, okay. He said, this is a woman named Jessie Thorne. She has a podcast. And she has a podcast called The Sound of Young America that is also syndicated in Walla Walla, Washington and Hattiesburg, Mississippi on radio.

Shout out to WUSM. I said, okay. Sounds good. And if you've ever heard the voice of Jesse Thorne and you have been hearing it, it is a beautiful and compelling radio-licious voice. Yeah. But imagine if you

had been told this was a woman's voice oh it was a it it was a very it's posted by the great nina simone yeah it was a very confounding phone call to have but i was immediately struck by the uh the intelligence and preparation behind this strange woman with man woman voice with perfect radio diction who has only heard in hattiesburg and walla walla and and that was the beginning of a beautiful relationship yeah i mean i literally are now now look mark like i literally i booked john on the show on the basis of ah this is like a funny mcsweeney's guy, like I'd seen his McSweeney's things. Oh, yeah. Is that still around? Yeah, it's pretty funny. Yeah.

And I booked him on there, and he was so funny on the show. I mean, maybe still the funniest guest that had ever been on the show. And my wife and I went out to his book reading, it was like a week later in The Hate in San Francisco, and literally the crowd at his book reading, for which he had brought his and our friend, Jonathan Colton, dressed in buckskins. And a coonskin hat. Literal buckskins. Jonathan, who plays guitar,

is my, I'll say definitely one of my better friends. I refuse to say best friend because- Yeah, I've met him a couple of times. I'm from New England and I'm an emotionally stunted human. But yeah, I was scared to go on the road by myself so he came along with me and i the the gig was i was i would pretend that jonathan was my feral mountain man butler ah yeah he had a built-in shtick we so he's so john is trying to do his shtick with poor jonathan dressed up in this outfit and the crowd at this is the people that work at the bookstore.

Yes. Me, my wife, my now wife, then girlfriend, Teresa. Yes. A man who had driven John there. That guy. Oh, Frank Lauria. Yeah. Shout out to Frank.

Oh, wow. I forgot. And Dave Eggers and Dave Eggers' baby. Yeah. Good crowd. Good forgot. And Dave Eggers and Dave Eggers' baby. Yeah. Good crowd. Good crowd. And a buckskin man. Just Colton just walks out for his big entrance and his buckskins.

You just see him. He's the nicest man on earth and brilliantly talented and hilarious. And he just walks out and he's like, yeah. Yeah. I'm wearing the buckskins for these people. And Eggers' baby cries. There were one or two other people there, but that's basically correct. I mean, literally like one or two.

And the reason I say that is that I was reading a bit from my book describing the old street con, the three card Monty. Sure. Now, you know what the three card Monty is. Sure, sure. But it's disappeared because there is- What is it? Watch the red.

Yeah. It has not disappeared. I saw someone doing it the other day in downtown Los Angelescard mantra is. Sure, sure. But it's disappeared because there is- What is it? Watch the red. Yeah. It has not disappeared. I saw someone doing it the other day in downtown Los Angeles. Stop it. Good for you. And I also saw someone selling tiny turtles, which was like a staple of my mother's, another staple of my mother's childhood. Living tiny turtles?

Living. Living tiny turtles. Right. Are they doing retro street crime? No. Retro street scams? There's just, Los Angeles is so sprawling that there's just parts that have never advanced beyond 1963. They still haven't, didn't get around to it.

The three card, there's the guy with the cards and there's the guy pretending to bet money that's talking you into betting money. And there might be one other shill there. And then there's a couple of guys watching for cops. Exactly. And I wanted to give, when I saw the guy actually doing it, I wanted to give him five dollars in the same way that you would support someone who was keeping clogging alive yeah it's true it's true i lost art form good for you sir yeah but when my wife when we were this was a thing like in our 20s we would see in new york right and i fell for it when i did too yeah and my wife never see more quickly. My wife never fell for it, but she saw it one time and her friend said, oh, it's three

card Monty. And my wife was not my wife at the time. She goes, how do you know his name is Monty? So adorable. But he got that guy pressuring you. Like, you know, I think I lost like $20 or $50. Oh, yeah. Because he's like, come on, come on.

Come on. They're bullying you to put your money down. Right. And then you don't, a lot of times they'll kick the thing out and split because a cop or whatever right you know right when you you can't even get the opportunity not that you would win it back no don't mark you're not missing any opportunities there there's no winning no there's no winning god damn it but i've been taken so hard and so humiliatingly, humiliatingly, anyway, that I wrote a jokey bit about it in my book. And I'm reading it in San Francisco and I'm not getting any response.

Yeah, because they don't know what it is. I said, is it that you don't have three card Monte here or everyone in San Francisco is just so virtuous that they would never con one another? And someone in the audience said, that's what it is. Yeah, everyone. All right, listener, here it comes. How many books have you written, John? Three books. And I'm about to write a fourth book.

Really? What's this one about? So for the past couple of years since I wrote my last book of fake facts and bogus trivia and goofball absurdist humor. No one knows the difference anymore i know apparently well that's why i realized i couldn't peddle it anymore well i literally couldn't do you know i i stopped basically stopped being on the daily show because

the character i was doing the deranged millionaire yeah had been based on donald trump it had been based on 2011 when donald trump was going on cnn and fox and everything else peddling the birther conspiracy right and i was i said to the daily show that's what that's what we should have yeah you know like that guy just some a rich white guy who gets to be on the news because he decides to be right you know what i mean and so i said let's turn my character into that they're like okay let's do that and then once donald Trump became a reality, going into 2015, when Trevor Noah took over the show and we were talking about, would you like to stay on? I'd like to, but I need to think about what to do.

It's like, there's nothing I can do. I can't compete with the long form improv that that guy's doing. Like there's no, you know, everything that I've ever done comedically. The high risk dangerous improv yeah of the incoming administration right well at that time it was just it was just an absurd campaign yeah it was nowhere near yeah the horrible reality yeah in my opinion horrible right no i don't know where you guys stand i'll stand there with you i'm an npr journalist i have no opinion no he has no opinion yeah uh so yeah so i basically

said i i'm out you know because my my humor in that vein had always been like take this and then take it to the next level then it's logical conclusion and then take it to its illogical conclusion right and and it's absurdist conclusion but trump was already doing that and then going beyond that so for the past couple of years, instead, I've been traveling around doing Judge John Hodgman and then also doing my one man imitation stand up comedy show, which is just more or less straightforward storytelling from my actual life. Oh, good. 25,000 seats at Thalia Hall. Yeah, yeah. 100,000 seats. I hear you're playing 25,000 seats everywhere. Yeah, that's right. Everywhere. He's actually doing six in a row in Dublin. Oh.

Six 25,000. They love country music there, so he's very big. The O2 Arena in London. Yeah. That's a great town, Dublin. I just played there, too, not too long ago. I really liked it. I've never been to Dublin or Ireland.

Ireland is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Yeah. And like, I have no genetic connection to it, but I get there and I'm like, this is beautifully, I feel like I could be home. You get it right away. You just switch the O and the A in my name, you get Moran. Yeah, right. Be a quick switch.

Yep. And I fit right in. You're thinking about it, aren't you? I just, even when I went there, when I went to the Kilkenny Festival, I did not do well there. But I was so taken by the country itself and the landscape and the people. I just felt so beautiful there. Mark, you know what your natural home in Ireland is? What?

Belfast. Yeah. Get out of Dublin, get into Belfast. My stepmother is from Belfast. Yeah. Who I grew up with. Yeah. And that's your people, Mark.

Really? Belfast is a land of just profound bitterness and bitter hilarity. Well, okay. All right. The darkest, they will go to the darkest place in a half a second. Well, I find that a lot of Irish will do that, but I don't sense bitterness. I like the slightly defeated crankiness. Yeah.

Like, you know, like aggressive darkness. It's exhausting me now. I moved through the bitterness, and now I'm sort of like, where's some of the warm kind of like the cranky darkness, slightly defeated, that kind of ends existentially pleasant.

You know, like you're moving towards something and it's okay at the end. You have really dissected the Irish character. It's true. My Uncle John, my wife and I went and had lunch with him when I was in Belfast last, which was maybe five years ago.

And we met him in this nice cafe, this nice organic cafe, you know, like a real tofu and bean sprouts sandwich. And I'm looking around and I'm thinking like, man, there sure are a lot of pictures of like Yasser Arafat on the walls here at this organic cafe that my uncle has had us meet at. And apparently, he basically had us meet in this cafe that is like a socialist revolutionary cafe underneath Sinn Féin headquarters that used to be IRA headquarters. Because that's where he's most comfortable. My uncle is like a 60 year old like guy that runs the computers in an office uh-huh but like his comfort zone is there has to be wants to be in the radical social presence at any time of possible uh social murder and murderous violence yeah okay and that

to him is the fun like my stepmother funniest story that she'll ever tell you is, oh, yeah, one time, one time a police officer tried to sexually assault me and I kicked him in the nuts and then I kicked him in the face down a flight of stairs. That's the Thanksgiving story at the table. Listen up. Grandma's going to say it sounds like they are probably the best equipped people for the next four years that we know literally the thanksgiving story mark they only got meat once a week yeah and uh because my stepmother's uh father died when she was very young she grew up very poor in a big family and had to eat them and her sister yeah but only once a week they depart some out over many many weeks each kid got one rasher of bacon for Sunday dinner. One ration of rashers? One ration of rashers. Yeah.

And my stepmother's sister tried to steal her rasher of bacon. Yeah. And my stepmother, who's the youngest in the family, who was like eight or ten, stabbed her sister through the hand with a fork. Huh. For the bacon. For that one piece of bacon. To protect the the bacon. For that one piece of bacon. To protect that one piece of bacon.

See, these are Belfast Irish stories. They're a little too heavy for me. I thought you wanted to go to a place of... Where's the existentially uplifting darkness? You want to focus on like a potato famine. Something that's more of a hundred years in the past. Potato famine like, you know, well, you know, we get by. A dark imagining, but with a little affirmation at the past. Potato famine, like, you know, well, you know, we get by. A dark imagining, but with a little affirmation

at the end. I've still got the Max Fun patch up there pinned to the bulletin board. From the one time I was invited. The time that you said I was the benevolent colonel of the nerd plantation. And that was the best description I had ever had until I, have you ever had

Tom Arnold on your show? Yes. Tom Arnold's kind of an amazing guy. Yeah, you get two for one with him. Yeah. At the pace he goes. He came on Bullseye and said that I looked like the bouncer at a Hasidic strip club. Oh, there you go. That was the new.

That surpassed. I don't know if it surpasses in depth. For all of the... That's true. That's fair. All right, so we're promoting the Chicago thing. Yeah, we're going to have some tickets to the door. I mean, we're going to try and do it over the summer.

If you're not in Chicago, you can listen to the podcast. Yeah, for sure. Of course, but the big event at the Thalia, you got a lot of seats this time, 25,000. 25,000. I think there are about 24,000 left. Wow. Advanced tickets are sold out, but we're going to have some tickets to the door. Oh, is that true?

Yeah, totally. Well, then why the fuck am I here? Bye. Exactly. He's sick. You drag him out from Brooklyn to do this? So sorry. Well, thanks for talking, fellas.

Why? Thank you. Do you have a closing message? Ladies and gentlemen. You've been pleased to join. Have fun, you guys. Thank you so much, Mark. Thank you, Mark.

Thank you, Mark. Those fellas, huh? Right? Go to MaximumFun.org for tickets to the thing, the very, very fun day that they're involved with. And, you know, that's it. That's it for those dudes. All right, so I'm going to talk to Joe DeRosa now joe derosa i i met new york i used to see him around he's been on he was on the show years

ago on a live one you can go to joe derosa comedy.com for joe's specials and podcasts and all things joe this is me and the uh mildly self-involved and tormented Joe DeRosa. DeRosa. Buddy, it's been a while. Has been. The last time I think I saw you, we had a conversation about whether or not we were wearing shorts or capri pants. And who cut their fucking jeans properly. We were both very proud that we made our own cutoffs.

Yes. But mine went up a little higher than yours. And then I saw the flurry of insecurity in you as to whether or not I was right or you were right. And you decided, I think, in your heart or you were right and you decided i think in your heart that you'd make the right call by cutting yours off just above the knee see and i thought mine were too short and yours were even shorter well yours were not how were they too short yet one if yours were any longer they'd be capri pants i threw it no mine above the capris go you got like some space above the ankle with a capri.

Then you got, then there's clamp, remember clam diggers? That's not the same thing as capri pants. That's like a little higher than capri pants. Clam diggers, I don't know, maybe I missed that. Maybe I missed clam diggers. You weren't into shorts back in the day? Sure I was, but like I remember I did cargo shorts for a while just because they were easy and you bought them everywhere. Yeah.

Maybe many years ago I had a couple of pairs of tennis shorts when I might have played a little tennis. But cutoffs have always been sort of the thing I did. I've had longer shorts. I like a longer short. So I think I could have been a little longer without being at a capri pant. I threw those shorts away. Really?

I wore them that one day and I never wore them ever again. What happened? I just was too selfish. It didn't feel right to me. Really? Yours looked good. Even though they were a little shorter

than I would wear them, you wore them well. Right. And you had a great line, by the way. I said, I cut mine off this morning and you said a great line by the way i said i cut mine off this morning and you said so did i and i go uh i go how'd you do yours and you go i brought in a team because i was just like there were to me there was like this whole science to it like how do you when you're not living with somebody how do you cut your own short talk yeah well what

you know you talk you know you mentioned this right when we got in about uh not wanting to be alone what are you all right i guess so yeah i mean what do you mean living with somebody you mean like a woman yeah yeah we're just a dude you're like dude did these shorts can you come over and sometimes that would come in handy sure just to have a person there a person to to say that those are good joe yeah yeah i look at it good job joe it's it's a consultant no matter how it's a roommate wife am i okay you're okay joe yes can you come over and do that for me i uh i've been living alone for most of my adult life so i'm just i'm getting it i'm 39 i'm getting to the age where i'm like am i did i run out of time here did i for what i feel like i should have been in a significant relationship by now by 39

yeah my longest relationship was eight months and i'm like i it should have been longer than that by now yeah you know yeah are you panicking yeah especially when you go yeah yeah well i mean i i understand what you're saying i I've been in longer relationships. They don't usually end up successful. Right. So, you know, these are two sides of a coin here. You haven't had a long one you think you should have. I have had plenty that just ended up in the toilet.

But I would say that yours falls on the side of better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. falls on the side of better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all or better to have thought you have loved and left to wonder whether you're even capable of it and lost are you uh are you in a relationship now uh which is why you get to live out in this great neighborhood because that's what i was saying to you was well i mean you get to live out here either way yeah but i said to you when i first showed up yeah i love this neighborhood if i wasn't so terrified of being alone i would i would live out well yeah but i i had that thing how long you lived out here three a little over three years from new york yeah the first couple years i lived here i lived over by uh the old ucb up on you on franklin right so there's about two blocks of walking traffic right there's store fronts right

yeah i think that when you you come from new york there's a natural desire to be able to walk outside walk to a store walk to the you but you're by atwater village yeah you can walk by there maybe wave at the guy at the place right right you buy a pastry yeah right how you doing today fine exactly and then you know go try to think you're not alone for a little while. It is. It's an illusion. It's a holodeck. It's just a holodeck.

Well, it's an illusion in the sense that LA is fundamentally not that kind of city, and it is hard. It's a hard adjustment to make. But look, if having those four blocks of useless fucking stores and restaurants enables you to feel comfortable. It does. It does. It really does. I'm not going to take that away from you.

Thank you. I appreciate it. It's going to diminish. Yeah. Yeah. Let me have my little thing. Like, where do you go in the morning? Like, you get up and you're like, okay, here are my rounds.

Well, I have a dog. So I get up. I walk my dog. I try to do like an hour walk with the dog first thing. Really? Like a strenuous or? Not a strenuous, just it gets him exercise. It gets me out.

I'm walking around. It gets the juices going. You think you're right, whatever. Then I come back and I do a mile on the treadmill just to sweat it out. I have a gym in my building that I live in. You live in a building that has a gym? Yeah. In Atwater?

Uh-huh. So you have a full-service apartment situation. You're not renting a house or anything. No, no, no. I'm renting an apartment with all the amenities. Oh, so you did. That's another nice natural adjustment from New York. It is very nice.

If you rented a house like most people do, you'd be like, I can't. There's nothing. You'd be sleeping on the floor, wondering who fixes things when they break. I rented a house when I first got here, and I would call the landlord and be like, hey, so these filters are clogged and the air conditioners?

And they'd be like, yeah. And I was like, so come. And they were like, no, no, no, you go and you do it. And I go, so then I'll just take it out of the rent? And they were like, no, no, it's a house. You just... Try owning one. It's a disaster. You just. So I try owning one. It's a disaster because I'm the same way.

And because of that, things have to get pretty bad around here for me to make changes. What we were talking about, you're sad and alone. Sad and alone. We can go back. Let's circle back to that. I mean, I feel like that's a thing that you and I could talk about for a very, very long time. I haven't been alone a long time. for a very, very long time.

We'll blow through. I haven't been alone a long time and I don't know sometimes whether or not I stay in relationships or I'm in them because I'd rather not be alone. I wish I had that problem because I do the opposite. I'm terrified of being alone, yet I run. I don't know if I've ever shared this with anybody.

When I approach, when I start to approach a commitment. A commitment of any kind? I'd say an intimate romantic commitment, mostly. Because I don't have a problem making friends, you know, and all that stuff. But a lot of the time when I approach an intimate thing. Are they really your friends, though, Joe? I don't know.

I think it's more like this. Yeah, comic friends. It's comic friends. You all right? I'm all right. All right. Good to see you. It's comic friends. You all right? I'm all right. All right. Good to see you. That was funny.

I want to tell a quick story about you. You can go eat. You want to eat? What? The first time I saw you, this was years ago. Right. So you were not dating the person you're dating now. I don't know who you were dating.

It wasn't good. I saw you at the Improv. It was the first time I saw you after I moved to LA. And the last time I'd seen you was in New York. We did Opie and Anthony together. And as I was leaving, you said, hey man, if you ever need a place to stay, you call me, dude. You're a good guy.

I got your back. And I was like, that's really nice. And I knew I would never ask you for that favor. Me too. It meant a lot. It was comforting just to hear it so then i saw you at the improv yeah and i was i had a place to live and everything i just was feeling down and i wasn't really adapting to it and i walked up to you and i was like hey man how you doing uh just moved out here finally what's going on with you and you just went relationships are hard and

then you walked away that was it that was the whole conversation well at least i wasn't mean to you no you weren't mean it was just well no but i think you and i always got along i i you know i was always surprised i think initially i was surprised because you know you have an italian name joe de rosa you cut your hair kind of bro-y you're a little metro-y at first and like I always before I knew you I kind of lumped you in not with guys I didn't like or guys I didn't think were funny but guys who I

thought were the opposite of me so when I met you and actually hung out with you it was a revelation that somebody who looked like you could be as insecure and fucking nutty you know like you were like you were a portal into the reality that people who look like they're from Philly can be fucked up, insecure guys.

Yeah, yeah. No, I get that a lot from people. You do? I get it constantly. People are like, you have this, you give off this initial first impression that you're maybe a little like meathead-y or something.

Right. Or abrasive or whatever. And a lot of that's got to do with my comedy because my comedy is not very uplifting. But it's not mean and it's not like narrow-minded. It's introspective and kind of hard on yourself. Yeah. It's a lot of what the fuck is wrong with everybody. And me.

And me, and more everybody. Oh, yeah? But it's becoming more about everybody else. Maybe we're getting to the real thing now. Yeah, maybe we're getting here. Let's get to the real thing. Really? Yeah, but I'm serious.

I get this all the time. People go, you're like a nice, sensitive guy. You're really emotional. Yeah. I cry at stuff all the time what was the last time you cried at? I got a little teary watching the finale of Sherlock the other night

oh really? I didn't watch that I don't know where people find time or the shows what is that show? where is it on? it's on, I was catching it on the PBS app the new season was being released on Masterpiece Theater on the PBS app which is the only time I've ever watched Masterpiece Theater it was because I could get the new season was being released on masterpiece theater on the pbs app yeah which is the only time i've ever watched masterpiece theater right was because i could get the new season yeah right but

i love the show it's great but i get teary i'll cry out of um elation yeah you know like when i saw the force awakens the second to last star wars movie i cried when like han solo came back on the screen out of like nostalgia and elation sure no i get that i mean i i tear up pretty frequently i i've watched some movies lately where i teared up i can i tear up at uh certain points during an a a pitch during certain people's stories yeah i cry uh you know not i don't watch many commercials anymore because i'm not watching a lot of regular tv but uh i definitely get moved all right so but all definitely get moved. All right, so we cry. I get it.

Yeah, we cry. Okay. Age of innocence. But where'd you grow up? Are you a Philly guy? I was born in Philly. Yeah. And then I grew up outside of Philly in a small town called Collegeville, or Trap was

the other name of it, ironically. But I grew up in a suburban town that was very, you know, I have no ill will towards my hometown. It's where I grew up. I have a lot of love for it, but it was a very- What's it called, the town? Trap. How far out of Philly was it? Not far.

20 miles or something. Okay. So you're like, but Philly was your city. Yeah. Philly was my city. Norristown, Pennsylvania, King of Prussia. How old were you? 39.

Where'd you start doing comedy? philly philly i started in an all-black club called the laugh house in philadelphia i was one of two white comedians who was the other guy big jay uh jay had already moved on jay started there with kevin hart right and kurt metzger and they all moved out of philly about a year or two before i started right and then i started it was mike vecchione was the other white. And then there was another guy, Rocco Stowe. I remember I know Mike Vecchione. Yeah. And who? Rocco who? Rocco Stowe or Brian Stowe. He's at the store sometimes. You've probably met him

and run into him. Yeah. He's the guy you thought I was. Like he is. Oh yeah. I'm not saying that as a slight. I love the guy. But he is very Philly. He's very like, yeah, so what are we doing? Huh? What are we doing? You know? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's very much that guy. But he's a great dude. He's hilarious. Why are you not that guy? Cause I'm damaged and I'm broken. I was adopted. You were adopted? Yeah. I'm adopted. Wait,

now. Okay. So how many siblings do you have? None. My parents couldn't have kids. My mom wanted to have six kids. That was her dream. She couldn't conceive. She got pregnant once and had a miscarriage yeah and then they adopted me and the way they had and they're they're religious people and the way they adopted catholic mm-hmm yeah catholic roman catholic uh and the way they adopted me was by some people's interpretations would have had a miracle uh to it. So what happened was they- You have no parents? I have no parents.

You just appeared? Yeah, there was no father. Yeah, it was an immaculate conception. Wow. No, my parents were on two different adoption lists. They were on a secular list and a church list. And the church list called my parents and said, you have to remove yourself from all other lists if you want to remain on church list. And the church list called my parents and said, you have to remove yourself from all other lists

if you want to remain on our list. And my parents said, we're not doing that. And the church said, well, if you don't, then you're going to have to take yourself off our list. And they said, well, we're not removing ourselves from any other lists. And the next day, the secular list called them and they got me.

So my mom saw that as a miracle, that had they listened to the church at that moment, they wouldn't have gotten me. There's a miracle in the wrong direction. I know it is. It's yeah. Do you see where I'm fucked up now is they're telling you it's a miracle, but then it's not a miracle because it's a miracle against the church.

The church wanted you to turn your back on the possibility of Joe. Yeah. Yeah. So that was the beginning. Were you newborn? I was like nine days old. Really? And I never remember being told I was adopted. I always knew. So they told me from an early age, I mean. And what did your dad do? What was the family business? What did you grow up in?

My dad worked in computers and later became a deacon of the Catholic church. Really? That's what he does now. He's a deacon. Now, where is that in the hierarchy? It's one step below priest. One step below priest. Yeah. And he has told me if my mom dies, he would probably become a priest.

Wow. So a deacon, though, what did he make enough money in the computer racket to not worry about that or they get pretty good pay? No, no. They used him and chucked him out after 40 years or something like that they laid him off after 40 years with nothing he had to work at home depot until you know retirement whatever kicked in uh really yeah yeah yeah we were real paycheck to paycheck growing up we didn't have we didn't have a lot of money but my parents uh you know it was like

typical 80s typical 80s trap bullshit. They bought the house that was out of their price range out in the suburbs. Right. Got into all this credit card debt and their jobs let them down. What'd your mom do? Just administrative stuff. She was a secretary mostly here and there. But they really were into the church.

They still are. Yeah. They still are. My dad is particularly, he's very religious, but not in a bible thumper way like he would he has said in defense of me you need to find your own way this was my way it doesn't mean it's your way he's very righteous in that sense which is refreshing yeah uh he's a pretty you didn't get it you didn't get it laid on you the hell thing and i did in school and stuff but as i got older it that that that sentiment got a lot more reasonable do you remember the the the um the moment where you decided like

this isn't for me uh from the beginning i never it's like i talked to catholics and sometimes like some some people are are lapsed but other people are like early on they're like no no it never buying it yeah it never it never moved me i was terrified of it because i did believe because i was a kid so i believed in the supernatural idea of there's a pit of fire you'll burn in or whatever right uh but it never moved me i never enjoyed church i was always snap stomping my feet having to go to church and i was also depressed from a very young age. My neighborhood where I grew up, the environment I grew up in,

was very cookie cutter. It was very uninspiring. There was no diverse culture or anything there. And I knew from a very young age, I'm talking third grade, like I got to get the fuck out of this place. Really? Like I got to get the fuck out of this place.

You're ready to go? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like, and I just knew that it was going to be so long until I could do that. And that made me terribly, terribly depressed. Well, in yourself, in your introspection, what do you think the being adopted, what

does that imply to you? I mean, have you ever tried to find? No. No desire. No. No. No desire? No. No, no desire. No. I pretty much took the hint when they abandoned me.

Oh, see? You can hold on to that. That's an old bit. Yeah. No. No. To take you through it properly, it meant nothing to me in the beginning. I didn't think it didn't bother me. Being adopted. Yeah. I didn to me in the beginning. I didn't think it, it didn't bother me.

Being adopted. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't even think about it. I didn't care. Then when I was 12, my mom broke the news to me that I was not Italian. Right. By blood. I was actually, what I found out later, Middle Eastern. But she thought I was Egyptian because that's what the adoption people told her yeah one of my parents was egyptian uh-huh so i found out that i wasn't what i had

thought i was for 12 years italian yeah so you can pass i can pass yeah it's good enough so that was like a sort of a cage rattle at that point in my life and it kind of fucked me up a little bit it's kind of exotic though exciting exciting he might be like he might be half egyptian my mom's i love my mom dearly i don't say this to criticize her and i know she was trying to protect me but my mom said to me at that time don't tell anybody because we lived in a sort of there were a lot of racist people where we lived and she didn't want and she was so because of this thing where they wanted all these kids, they couldn't have the kids. Yeah. Then they had this miracle, in quotes, adoption.

Yeah. It becomes like a sort of a smothering situation. She was overprotective. She was so terrified she was going to lose me. To the point of giving me advice in hindsight, which wasn't great, which was don't tell people what you are ethnically. Because they might. After you found out at 12 yeah they might harm you or yeah right and i was also getting bullied a lot in school why i don't know i just was probably because i wasn't the uh guido meathead that you wanted me to be yeah you know like i i don't know like but how overprotective was your

mother uh overprotective in the sense that she said don't tell anybody But how overprotective was your mother? Overprotective in the sense that she said, don't tell anybody you're Egyptian because why add fuel to this fire? But not overprotective when I would cry and say, please switch me to another school. She said, no, you have to face your battles. You can't leave. Do you remember why you were bullied?

You had one of those guys? i had one of those faces you know i don't know were you bullied as a kid i don't know i don't i don't think so not really i i i think uh as a young kid no i probably tended towards the other side i i might have not been the main bully but i might have been one of the kids behind him going yeah fuck that guy congrats you're the first comedian i've ever met that was on that side of it every comedian's always on the other side of it i was always odd and always outside of things but i think that i had a certain amount of uh you know, like, I remember, like, I never quite felt like I fit my own skin or fit in anywhere. So I would attach myself to people, you know, and they weren't really bullies.

But I definitely always felt alone in the crowd. You know what I mean? Sure. But I was never really majorly bullied. you know what i mean sure but i was never really majorly bullied well i think we all i think we all not we all not we all meaning comedians because i hate that shit where it's like you know us comic but i think people that don't fit in all feel like that and uh obviously and then we all react in to survive and i would probably disagree with you You may not have met any comedians that were bullies, but I think there's a few out there.

Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, I was just being facetious. Right, right, yeah. Yeah, no, I could name a few. They're still doing it. It's a great point, actually. Now a lot have really come to mind. I retract the statement.

You know, I'm sure we all felt odd and uncomfortable or that we didn't fit in that's usually what i hear well i think people that feel odd and uncomfortable yeah uh take it out of the context of comics just people in general that feel like that i think you survive in your own way that's right and if and i think that it's true if you are are putting that out in the world uh you know you're vulnerable like you know some people can't hide their vulnerability and i guess that's what what you were saying yeah i i kind of steered into the curve and was like well why puff my chest out when i could just curl up in a ball over here you know what i mean and that that at a young age because in all fairness i was kind of a mama's boy

because i was raised with such fear. Yeah. She was afraid. Yes. You know, it's weird. Like a lot of times here's, I just thought of something. I was very sad. Like, here's how, here's how I was bullied. If, if I was bullied, it was this way.

And this is unique. And you might be able to relate to this because I think we have something in common. I'm not sure what, but a temperament. Yeah. But like, I would work really hard to become part of a group of friends like i would say like those those guys are cool so i would do everything i could to ingratiate myself or find a way in to hang out with them you know i was not naturally charming i was not the guy that everybody wanted to hang out with i was the guy kind of like i need to

be with those hang out with those people right so a couple of times like once i finally kind of like i need to be with those hang out with those people right so a couple of times like once i finally kind of pushed myself into the social situation they would treat me like an asshole really right like you know like when i finally made these friends like i i you know i really wanted to be friends with this guy dave and you know once we started to become friends you know we would make plans and he wouldn't show up that kind of shit okay well that's interesting because when i got into high school and my high school started in ninth grade yeah when i went i immediately became friends with all the baddest kids i could find like i became friends with all like the jail yard thinking yeah yeah yeah like i became friends and they were all like the hip-hop kids

like with the puffy starter jacket trench coats and all that stuff and i loved hip-hop so that was fine by me right uh but that's those are all the kids i hung out with and same thing at first it was great i got in and they really liked me whatever and then i became the run of the litter and then i was the guy that they fucked with all the time yeah i was sort of that guy too yeah that's interesting. And then what ultimately happened with me is I just found my own way. Like, you know, like that was high school. And then when I started hanging out down by the university,

I got a job down by the university and started to meet like people that were, you know, way above and beyond, you know, what was interesting to people in high school. And I started focusing on art and talking to the guy who worked at the bookstore. I realized there was another world out there, and I didn't have to be tethered to drinking and driving every Friday and Saturday with a bunch of wackos. See, I didn't fully discover the other world until college.

Yeah. I got out of – I did eventually make real friends in high school and i did eventually have a nice time what was your thing in high school uh music oh yeah yeah i played music what kind what'd you play well i started out playing uh drum well i played saxophone in grade school then i switched to drums in high school yeah and then i and then i started playing in bands i guess in 11th grade or something yeah so by the time i got to 12th grade i had a couple bands and people thought that was cool yeah one of them i drummed in when i sang it oh yeah you sing yeah well yeah i mean hot i wouldn't say i'm you know that implies being paid to do it but no like yeah i can sing like what like rock you

know indie rock oh yeah yeah that kind of stuff like what songs were you covering back then we weren't really covering songs you're writing your own music yeah we were doing you're writing songs yeah we were writing songs you wrote some songs i still write some songs really yeah i do like uh are they sad logic if you listen to the lyrics they are but on the surface they sound pretty fun so you're at home in atwater with your dog writing sad songs do you ever stop on the treadmill to write down a lyric yeah yeah i gotta hit pause on the workout that's we're all running but there's no end in sight where's the finish line the uh yeah wow it's really shaping up yeah a fine uh portrait of you i don't i haven't done it much lately but

with the songwriting yeah i just you know i still do it as a hobby i put the stuff out once in a while but it's nothing it's nothing that like i pursue but i did it one time i thought that's what i was going to do and the reason i started doing comedy yeah was because i got tired of i was always a fan of comedy yeah but i got tired of having to cooperate with three or four other guys and get everybody on the same page. The band. Exactly. And I wanted to express myself more easily.

Right. So I thought, I can go up on stage without lugging drums everywhere. But, all right, so you had your music guys in high school. You found your way into an indie rock band. Right. Yeah, or hardcore. It was hardcore music at the time.

Hardcore? Yeah, like a lot of screamy. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Like punk? Like post-punk, post-hardcore stuff. Okay. Like bands like Quicksand and Into Another.

So it's screamy and singy. It's a little bit of both. So you're screaming and singing. Screaming and singing, you know? Isn't you know isn't that much like now yeah that's the core of what you are so did your band were you popular did you no no we were no we were you know we yeah it was would you have four songs in a rehearsal space we had we had we had 10 songs we had enough to play like a half hour set, and we would go and do shows and nobody would show up. And then sometimes we'd get on a decent show at like some kind of punk house

in Philly somewhere, and there'd be a bunch of bands, and you'd meet some girls and drink some beers and whatever. But it was fun. But it was typical. When you're at that age, you're like, we got to make it, man. It's the band. It's the band. It's the band. And then all my band members quit.

And then I was like, oh, OK. I'm the only idiot thinking this has a chance. So then I joined another band. And then I started to back away from that band and get a lot of shit from those members. So then I was that guy. And that's when I started to be like, you know what? Fuck this, man. I just want to be alone.

And I don't know how to play guitar. So I better figure out another way to get on stage by myself. Really? That was it? fuck this man like i just want to be alone and i don't know how to play guitar right so i better figure out another way to get on stage by myself really that was it yeah like you had no real passion for the comedy necessarily i mean i did have passion for it you know comics had you seen live comedy i was an avid fan of comedy yeah avid fan and i had a huge passion for it but my passion was for uh the expression side of it it was, I never got off back then as a fan. I used to love laughing at it and I enjoyed that. But I never got off at the idea of getting on stage and making people laugh.

I got off on the idea of getting on stage and expressing yourself. It was Carlin that made me want to do it. When I was 12 years old, I saw Carlin. And that's what Planet this is. That's funny because that's another thing we have in common. Yeah. I never thought of myself as an entertainer. I thought, well, I'm going to get up there and, uh, you know, figure out who I am. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's the, I remember when I first started, my dad said, my dad pulled me aside and he goes, how's the comedy going? And I go, it's good. It's good. It's, you know, it's, it's hard,

but it's good. And he goes, are you it's it's hard but it's good and he goes are you getting something out of it therapeutically and i go yeah and he goes good and that was the whole conversation so he knew he was like you need some kind of yeah yeah well that's weird because if that you know then if we have that in common there was some sort of um some sort of like lack of sense of self in our uh well that was with me like like with me like i just i i had a hard time like i played some music and stuff but like i said i was the guy that was trying to be friends with the people you know i was the guy that felt outside of everything like i get it i have a feeling like you know and i've tracked it to how i was brought up but i mean i think as i entered life and got older you know i just didn't

have a cap on my personality right and i needed to sort of like you know own some space right right somehow well i've always had that problem yeah since i was a kid yeah it was an identity crisis my manager said to me very recently, because I slip into it still, she said to me recently, she goes, don't try to think of the thing you need to do that's going to make

everything okay. Think about the thing you just want to do. Because I'll still sometimes slip in and I go, well, what if we did this? And then that could lead to,

you know? And she's like, don't think like that. Well, I do. Here's how I phrase it. And I say this, I just got to figure out yeah yeah yeah well yeah my buddy jerry's always like yeah maybe you don't have to figure it out yeah exactly i gotta figure it out i think that's a i think that's a a common trait with guys like us is we think that they're it's a puzzle to figure

out which goes back to the i mean i'd like to think that I'm working on a puzzle, but really I just think that I'm, you know, like, I don't feel right, so I got to figure something out. You know? Yeah. It's like I don't have the foresight to see the puzzle. It's just like in a moment, I'm like, I got to fucking figure this shit out.

Then do you ever, like, does it ever, are there moments where you, where that works for you, that approach? I don't know, man. You know, it's like,

you know, a lot of things have worked out that I didn't think were going to work out. And, you know, there are some things that, you know, I'm not as worried about as I used to be. Right.

But, you know, I, I find a lot of it is just, it has to do with, with kind of like, you know, if if if you're if you're kind of trying to figure things out and always pushing and pushing and pushing i don't know if that i take enough time to be grateful i don't know if i take enough time to like i'm constantly

moving through bits like when i perform like i don't like to know exactly what i'm doing right you know i like to you know so there i still am i don't like to know exactly what i'm doing right you know i like to you know so there i still am i don't think i'm addicted to the adrenaline of that but i like it takes a lot for me to get out of my head and into the present and the things that i do innately to do that which is like improvise on stage or do what we're doing right now are very you know sustaining to me because they get me out of my head but once you know if i spend too much time in the head you know all bets are off and i gotta figure some shit out i'll make yeah i'll get way in my head and i'll make decisions where it's like what what were you thinking you know what i mean like i'll be running i'm trying to get this set ready to to hopefully do late a late

night show and i had to record it a bunch. Yeah. And I was recording it at a bunch of shows last night. And they were all pretty small shows. So I had good recordings of it, but they were small crowd recordings. Right. You could just hear that the jokes were working. Yeah.

And I finally end up at a show at the improv. It's packed. It's sold out. And I go, all right, this is the show where I'm really going to get it. You know what? I'm going to change the opener. Yeah. I'm going to change the first.

And I go up, I do the first, and it doesn't work. And I'm just like, you fucking idiot. Yeah. Why? Because I got it in my head. I was like, wait a minute. This is what I've been doing wrong all night. It's like, you weren't doing anything wrong.

Right. Did the rest of it work? I bailed out of it. I bailed out of it. You bailed out of the new set. Yeah. Because I was like, I'll just send one of the other recordings. That's it. I bailed out of it. I bailed out of it. You bailed out of the new set. Yeah, because I was like, I'll just send one of the other recordings.

That's it. Like, I bailed out of it. I told the audience I was trying to record a set. I'm not doing that anymore. I don't feel like doing this. So, like, let's just do jokes, other jokes. Yeah, see, why did you see, like, I've done that in my life, but what, you know, like,

what was the set for? I'm trying to get on to Conan to promote this special that i have coming out right yeah so well you know um so hopefully it works but they needed to hear the set as a set so i recorded it but i was recording it and i got a good recording of it but it was in front of video no they just wanted an audio to hear the the flow of it and i got a good recording in front of a small crowd but then i thought i can get a recording in front of a big crowd and then there's nothing to worry about again the puzzle if i just do this it'll be perfect and you bailed after the

first joke god got the first joke didn't hit and i was like well i can't send them a set where the first joke doesn't it's packed over there and it's also a different joke than i've been talking to them about right it's this joke they've never heard yeah because i got in my stupid head it's fucking nuts those four and a half minute sets. It's so hard, man. I got it down to 530. I don't know how to make it any shorter. Yeah. I'm just like, can you guys just cut?

Just tell me what to do, please. Well, they can. That's usually who you work with over there, JP? Yeah, but I've never done the show, so I'm hoping to do it for the first time. Oh, you got to do that show. Why not? I hope so.

I've never really done late night. Really? I did Pete's show when I was working over there, Pete Holmes' time. Oh, you got to do that show. Why not? I hope so. I've never really done late night. Really? I did Pete's show when I was working over there, Pete Holmes' show. Oh, yeah. I did Carson Daly years ago, but I've never done like proper...

Big credits. Fuck off. I have other credits that are good. I just don't have good late night credits. Yeah, I got to get a proper late night credit. I don't need to. I just would like to. It's fun to do Conan, I think. I a proper late-night credit. I don't need to. I just would like to. It's fun to do Conan, I think.

I've only done panel over there. I haven't done one of those four-and-a-half-minute jobs in a few years, quite a few years. I try to get into the panel situation as much as possible. See, I want to get how many years did it take before you got to do a panel? Because I said last night to somebody, I said, I feel like I'm cut more from the Jim Jeffries, Stan Hope, Marin. Sure. Thanks for throwing me in.

No, I'm just, the only reason I didn't is because I didn't want you to think I was comparing myself to any of you. And it was particularly embarrassing because I'm sitting across from you. Right, I get it. But I have a great respect for you. I appreciate that. You sound like you do. What do you want me because I'm sitting across from you. Right, I get it. But I have a great respect for you. I appreciate that. You sound like you do. What do you want me to say? I don't know.

Do you? Do you, Joe? Thank you. But I always related more to guys like you than the guys that write succinct, quick jokes. Don't you envy them, though? I do envy them. God damn it.

You guys all went right to panel. You guys did like sets i did sets when did you do sets i did four of those fucking sets on letterman over two decades right i did uh early on with conan conan's really where it started you know i did stand-up sets on evening at the improv john stewart show um i did stand-up sets on caroline's comic Improv, Jon Stewart's show. I did stand-up sets on Caroline's comic. Like, I did a lot of those. Well, I did a lot of those things. Yeah. But I just haven't done proper. Well, four and a half minutes.

Like, it's such a bad representation of me. And I, like, I done, there's a couple Letterman sets that I did. You know, they were very spaced out, but they were great. And they didn't fucking make any difference at all. Right. And it wasn't until, you know, I got one any difference at all. And it wasn't until, you know, I got one panel shot with him and it was like a highlight of my life.

I saw that. It was great. Yeah. And it was, you know, and it was just, I, with Conan,

like when he started in New York, I did the show probably the first or the second year in, I did two standup spots and I was in town and I, you know, and then I said to Frank Smiley, I'm like, can we do a panel spot and maybe do a bit on the panel? You know,

like I think one of my first times on panel, I did a stick, like we had a plan. I think it was the, might've been the John Lennon thing. Like where, where I, I would,

you know, we'd produce a bit where I'd, we'd go like, I, we'd throw to something, you know? And then I just became a panel guest. Cause it was just easier for me because it also

was situational in that i was in town and they knew i had i built a dynamic with him so if they had a fallout or someone could make it they'd be like well maybe marin has got something because a lot of the times on the conan's panels those bits aren't even finished but they were funny enough right you know to have a conversation with sure and that's the best way to do it i think it is but what's funny is in this happened to me later is like even my manager is like well maybe i ought to remind people you're a comic because when you're doing panel and people don't know you they still don't know you like you know most of the time when someone's doing panel they're the people are like oh that's the guy from the thing he's just talking sure sure but if you're a comic there's an argument to be made that you should establish yourself as that i uh i just it's it's that four and a half minutes is so

hard it's so hard as in straight stand-up i mean as you've already let me ask you about that though because with me with these joke things like i can write a joke and sometimes they happen naturally and i'm very aware when something i've written has has a you know is just what you're talking about guys who do jokes right I mean it's my joke but it is a joke and I can feel when they happen but like you know once I do them a few times I'm like all right I guess that one's done yeah yeah whereas as opposed to something that's part of a longer conversation or exploratory or has room in it well that's what happens to me is uh for some reason the only short jokes i ever write are horribly inappropriate for television ever i don't know why i can't think

of any one-liner or short thing that isn't offensive in some way so so that never happens and then what happens is when i try to do one of these put one of these sets together so jp and i went through sweeping sections of my special jp the booker over there yeah yeah we went through sweeping sections of my special and he was like okay maybe if you took this joke here and connected it to that joke over here and that's why he was like i gotta hear this to hear if it flows because we had a cherry pick so much well that's what you got to do when you long form and you do a short set yeah unless you want to unless you want to be ballsy and do one

bit i'd rather do that i've done that before i did that on the gotham tv show i went out and i did one story for eight minutes and it killed yeah everybody told me don't do it if you get stuck in it and they don't like it you're fucked and i was like i'm just doing it and i did it and it fucking killed and it was one of the best tv sets i've ever had in my life i did that on john oliver was the first time i committed to a like 11 minute bit right and it was great but i knew there were jokes in it that's when you start to identify what you do is that like you know if you're a long-form guy and this was i realized this recently that you have jokes within it sure that's what keeps it going yeah and they're solid you know and if you start to look at it as like well that piece that joke needs a little work or what i need

something there whatever absolutely then there's no reason not to have confidence in it if you got your beats right absolutely yeah i i think long form it's funny because correct me if I'm wrong, but I think guys like us would scoff at the joke book, comedy teaching book, whatever, textbook approach to comedy where they say, well, there should be a laugh every 30 seconds. You know, that's the kind of thing that would make a guy like you or me go, oh, fuck you. Well, I used to. It used to. But like lately, I'm sort of like, well, why can't I do that? Well, that's what I was going to get at is when you start to work in long form and really start to dissect it, you are doing that.

Right. Because then you go, well, I can't just go on a tirade about murder for 10 minutes. There has to be laughs every minute. Really? Not just a murder tirade? Yeah. Believe it or not, they don't want to hear that. People don't want to hear that.

You want to punch it up a little. Yeah. You want to punch up your murder bit. His famous murder bit. Well, I think that, like, I don't know that I had a lot of confidence as a joke writer because I didn't write like that. Like, guys who write jokes, I could tell. You know, he's like working on a never-ending, almost like physics equation of jokes.

Like, you know, when he's sitting there doing nothing he's writing jokes he just writes jokes that's how he that's what he does yeah and they're great yeah there's no one better than him at writing jokes right but i don't sit there and do that like i never had the discipline to be like now i'm gonna write my jokes i've never written down a joke in my life i write lists of things but but the thing is is i still envy the. But when you're a joke guy, if you're just doing jokes, right, that aren't long form jokes, you've got to lock into that thing. And that's got to be satisfying to you. Right. Like, you know, like to know that, like, I created this little laugh package.

Right. I will deliver it. That laugh package worked like one after another. You don't have to have a lot of personal investment other than delivering the joke. Right. That's got to be satisfying to you. Some guys are like, but then I had a revelation in the last couple years with Shanling. Because Shanling reveals a lot about himself in his little jokes.

And his timing is unlike anything else. And there's a vulnerability to it. And that sort of blew my mind recently. And there's a couple of jokes I'm doing now where I think about Shaning and think about you know the joke is it is enough it's it's as much as any piece of poetry yeah it can't yeah and it's funny because the last hour this last hour was all long form it was like four subjects yeah uh now i'm find myself writing much shorter things that have the point quickly, but it doesn't have to be this big global whatever politicized, applying to whatever, tirade.

But it's okay to just be entertaining. Yeah, and you could still have yourself in that. You know what I mean? You're probably going to be more yourself in that. When I finally just sort of let go of uh feeling like i had to make a point and just like talk about you know my thoughts about things non-aggressively i'm funnier because then you can be naturally funny right you know what i mean yeah yeah well you know you've been in that position i'm sure where you'll say something very honestly on stage and it gets a

laugh and you're like oh shit i didn't even i do that all the time and then you try to repeat it and it never works again what how do i get that moment back what was it yeah what the hell happened it's the hardest thing now do you find uh aside from the four and a half minute sets being tough i find also sometimes even the 12 minute sets are a little tough like if now you're in a different position than i am because you've made quite a name for yourself yeah i barely want to do anything anymore but like i find sometimes when i'm going on like at the improv or wherever and you only have 10 minutes i'm like i cannot waste seven minutes on this bit about whatever i gotta i, I got to, you know, what if they don't like it?

Then I'm going to be digging myself out of my own hole for seven minutes. Well, I think that eventually you have to get to a point where you don't give a fuck about the 12 minutes. And the thing is that, that the only thing that changed that for me was making the comedy store, my home club. I don't bother with the improv.

I don't bother. Like I don't give a fuck. If anybody in the business sees me and decides that I'm anything. Right. I don't care anymore. Right. So, if I... When did that happen, though?

I guess after I started to do... Once I built my audience, whatever they are. Well, there you go. And I'm going to these clubs really to use them to work out. I want to work out. So, I'm going to... It might not work. Sure. out. I want to work out. So it might not work. Sure. Like at some point you got to look at those sets.

Sure. As just either to try new jokes or to stay in shape, but to do it only for the audience on a 12-minute set on a showcase night. Yeah. No. And I think that's the beauty of having an because i still am in the zone where i'm like i need i still need this place like i can't i can't totally go well but what but what i'm saying is that eventually hopefully you find a comfort in the place to where you know it's not

like yeah i guess they could tell me i can't work there anymore yeah maybe they'd be doing me a favor but i usually when you're comfortable in a place and you're comfortable in yourself as a funny person, you know, you can be funny if you don't do nothing. This is my identity problem again. I am comfortable in the place. I've gone off stage there and been beating myself up and the booker's like, I loved that. That was great.

What do you do? Yeah, they're lying. They saw how upset you were and they're just trying to make you feel better. But they've been... That's my home. As far as I'm concerned in LA, that's my home. The improv is where I perform the most,

and they're really great to me. And I have no reason whatsoever to ever think they wouldn't continue to support me. But I still, every time I walk off stage, go, is that going to be the... It's terrible. It's a self-esteem thing. But you're still putting it on other people.

You're saying that's the one that's going to get me less spots. Right. What I do is, look, I know when something doesn't land. I know when I had to struggle. And I know when it's me and when it isn't. And when it is me, I it isn't right and when it when it is me um like i i just have to reckon with that but i had to literally train myself to say like dude it's one set so what you know sleep it off right as opposed to like spend weeks right wondering what the fuck happened

right or beating the shit out of myself yeah looking for a reason to beat the shit out of myself yeah i find other reasons now i don't have to yeah i keep that in my personal life i i've gotten much better at not you know throwing like a barrage of you know whatever at myself afterwards and i've gotten a lot better at going stop it it's one set uh i it's it's it's it's an evolutionary thing you know yeah it is how long you've been doing it 15 years yeah so not terribly long but not terribly short long joe you know i thought what do you that's that's your your uh you're in yeah you're a veteran it's not like well what's longer than that i don't know i saw i saw louis at a festival in scotland and he was like he goes how long you've been because i was Because I was like thinking about something.

I was like, should I do this or this with my career? And he goes, I was thinking about moving back to New York. And I was like, I don't know, maybe, maybe. And he's like, how long have you been doing it? And I go, 15 years. He goes, it's nothing. You're not, it's your baby. 20 years.

That's the, and that's like the Seinfeld thing where he's like, you've only been doing it. You're only as old. That's crazy. Whatever that thing is. You're an infant until, you know, your comedy age is your i guess i mean you know i guess i mean you know maybe career wise but i mean 15 years doing something is not nothing no it's not and i don't think he meant he didn't say condescendingly like you're nothing he just said like he's trying to make you feel better but but yeah i mean the thing

is you just got to keep you keep your yeah fuck it what did you what just happened i mean it's just like you know like you know you've been you've been you know hammering at it for 15 years are you a baby or you know what i mean it's like there are guys who've been doing it 15 years who were doing great right yes yeah you know like i've been doing it 10 years that are doing great yeah and it's just like i i think you get better yes you know what i mean but like let's figure out why the fuck are we so hard on ourselves i don't know uh i i think that every i don't know that this is the answer but my explanation for myself has always been that when you do this type of job when you do this type of job whether it's you're self-employed okay now look at this when i say this type of job

i mean it could be that you have a contracting landscape okay or whatever but when you say i'm putting it all on me i'm betting betting on myself, nothing on anybody else, and my hustle is what's going to put a roof over my head and feed a family one day, you start out organically with a slave mentality. The audacity that you would ever scoff at a job or not take a job or not swallow wretched, wretched abuse. Yeah. How dare you?

That's, it's a slave mentality, really. And I think as you progress through the business, you get better and better at shaking that off and saying, no, I've earned a certain place now for myself and I am allowed to call certain shots and have certain stipulations for myself. But it's hard, and it's a long journey. And as you know, I think anyone... We all know that... Well, we don't all know this, but I know this,

and I know you know this. Any one significant event is not going to make or break your career. We're aware of that. But that doesn't mean that anyone... Unless it's on Twitter. Yes, exactly. But that doesn't mean that any one significant event can't make you feel for a couple days

like you're back to square one. But the weird thing is, for me, I didn't make it as a comic first what do you mean sure you did yeah i was always around and doing tv and stuff but i didn't build a draw so like you know by the time i started this thing i'm like you know i was looking at a you know a life of you know headlining b rooms and you know maybe you know it wasn't good you know and it wasn't until people got to know me in a bigger way that they would come out because of the podcast and now the TV show or whatever. But it wasn't just my comedy.

It left to my own devices. I was not selling tickets. Sure, sure. I think a lot of that is just the climate that we're living in right now. It's a different world. It's a different world.'s it's a different world and i think you've done some writing i have done some writing and i do podcasts is that you have a podcast yeah i have two really yeah i have two one's about to launch with kurt brown and wearing

myself called emotional hangs on feral which is about two grown men exploring the vulnerability of an adult friendship uh and like letting the guard down and not doing macho stuff and and you know is he have is he married he's married now yeah you have a kid now about two oh yeah wives yeah i think they're doing like march or something that ought to add a little something to the dynamic that has absolutely yeah it spiced things up a bit sure uh yeah in a good way uh a lot of you going like i don't know what i'm gonna do no that's exactly what we're talking about like i've said to him on the podcast i'm a little jealous of your kid because you're like you're gonna have this kid and you're and i'm not gonna get to hang out with you as much you know but uh but i also get it and i'm happy for you but like

i'd be lying if i didn't say to you it's weird you're you know yeah something takes your friend away from you you know what i mean yeah uh And then I have a horror movie podcast called We'll See You in Hell that's already out now. Yeah. It's like a Siskel and Ebert except about horror. Well, how was the writing experience for you? Because that was something I just, I would never, I never even prepared myself at all to write for other people or hang out with other people in that way until I did my own show.

I found it satisfying. It's, it's, it's all these things were incremental steps in the greater goal. So it was good for a while. I'm glad I did it. I got a lot of experience out of it for about two, two and a half years. Writing for Pete. I wrote for Pete's show for both seasons. I wrote for Wet Hot American Summer, the Netflix series, not the movie.

Oh, yeah? I wrote for Jeff and Some Aliens, which just premiered on Comedy Central. I wrote for Moshe Kasher's pilot, which was picked up, but the show's not out yet. So I've written for things. You act, you were on Breaking Bad, right? Or Better Call Saul. Better Call Saul, yeah.

Are you coming back on that one? I don't know. It's all very secretive. Did you go to New Mexico to shoot? We did. Yeah, that's where I grew up. Where'd you eat? Oh, you did?

Over in Albuquerque. I had this place called Chipotle shoot? We did. Yeah, that's where I grew up. Where'd you eat? Oh, you did? Over in Albuquerque. I had this place called Chipotle. It was great. Oh, good for you. Really digging into the local cuisine. Well, let me tell you something. Every single time I've gone, I've said to somebody,

hotel, transport driver, guy at the record store, where can I get some Mexican food? Every time they go, there's a place called, Chipotle's right up there. Nobody has once ever said, you gotta go to this place. I don't know why are you talking to were they were they not from

there i was talking that the person was wearing a chipotle t-shirt maybe they were on break yeah maybe the uh no i don't know so but but i you know you're spreading it out you got a talent you're you're applying in other places you're earning some money doing that yeah i directed my special which was pretty cool that comedy let me do that this one coming out now yeah yeah yeah what's it called you let me down there you go yeah that's a spot on title do you ever find that that perhaps and this is just something i learned with myself that if you have these unresolved emotional problems and you you feel righteous about them and your sense is that everybody must feel these things uh i found that not everybody necessarily does absolutely and also

they they they not you're not necessarily entertaining them they might feel a little bad for you that does happen well when i bailed out of my my tv set last night the audio and i went guys i'm not doing this this isn't working right and they they all went oh no no come on joe that's like no it's fine everybody just let me just please i'm just we'll have fun let me me just, you know. So in your mind, given that you obviously seem to be having a bit of a career as a writer and doing these other things, can you surrender to that? Or is it still like, nah, stand-up's the thing?

No, I have learned. I've been learning that lesson, and it's been affecting the way i approach stand-up uh and which lesson the lesson you're saying about like maybe these problems maybe every one of your problems isn't relatable and sometimes it's a long journey up that hill but like i i have been open to that there was a time where i wasn't at all because i was young and naive and stupid uh and arrogant quite frankly but the older you get you know you go you know you don't have to open with depression you know what i mean yeah it's not the thing yeah one of the jokes i pitched to conan yeah and i was opening with this at an edinburgh and then i moved it to the middle and then it

started working when i moved it to the middle of the act yeah but i pitched this to kona thinking this is an appropriate joke for late night tv i go uh i go i'm 39 years old the greatest lesson the greatest realization i've had in 39 years is that it's really stupid when people go oh man if i only knew then what i know now right if i knew then what i know now i I would have fucking killed myself. This hasn't been worth the effort at all. And that one, how's that do? JP was like, this is two. What are you doing? This is two.

But it does well in my act. Right, right. But you got to bury it. He's like, you can't walk out and tell the audience you're going to kill yourself. Right. But then in my end, I'm like, no, but I'm joking. It's funny yeah and it's like and then you learn the lesson maybe everybody doesn't think that's funny to just throw around

and maybe we're doing it to to get some weird fucking we're defying them to emotionally engage with us i mean because like maybe that's the problem like i know there's a problem I have. In terms of relationships, I'm not great at being as loving as I might want to be. And a lot of times I don't trust when people like me or love me. So then I push them. Do you love me now still? You still love me? I think that may be a funny joke, but it also garners a certain amount of sympathy and that maybe this guy could use a little help. Maybe he needs to be taken care of somehow.

Maybe we're looking to the audience as opposed to looking for love. Like a lot of guys, they just love to perform for people. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But we're sort of like, you know, I dare you to love me. Yeah. No, I agree with you.

I think a lot of comics go on stage like, thank you for letting me perform for you. Yeah, yeah. And I think there are guys like us that go up there and it's more just like, can you just fucking listen for a second? Just, God damn it. I'm in trouble.

Give me a minute. Just hold on. Trying to get some shit together. I need you to ride this out i mean i can't i can't imagine i just got anxiety not a ton but i got a little bit of an anxiety flutter or whatever you want to call it when you just said the thing about do you still love me to the to the girl yeah because i just that scares the shit out of me in a relationship. What? That I get, that I would not be able to get more than six or eight months or a year in, whatever,

without constantly being like, am I going to fuck this up? Does she still love me? Right, right. Does she cheat on me? Is she going to, you know what I mean? Right. Right. And then if you keep talking about that it uh it does fuck it

up how long have you been in this one you're in now uh three and a half years oh jesus all right that's that's very substantial i know well why do you say it like that because like it because i'm like i i feel like a lot of times i'm spinning my wheels you know like i i still i'm not getting to that level where you know I'm open and everything's great you know what I mean so that's disappointment in yourself when you go I know right right okay yeah and and it's like in and I'm getting to an age where I don't know if I can fix it or if I want to fix it because the effort to you know to fix it becomes this whole other thing sure like i guess it's surrendering to to cynicism look you know i will say this margaret and this is not me

trying to give you some sort of a pass and i might be really wrong yeah but i might be right yeah i think sometimes all it comes down to is two people being compatible you know it's like if you were if you witnessed a relationship where the couple literally fist fought one another yeah and then you said that's not healthy and you went over to them and you were like hey guys and they were like get the fuck away with this is what we fucking do you'd be like hey guys I guess if that makes you happy like fist fight each other I don't know if that's what's working for you and you'll grow to be 95 years old together then hey god bless i don't know i guess but but then there's the issue of like you know what if they could get past those obstacles that would make that seem like love to

them and to where they wouldn't keep attracting you know people that would do that with them and they could experience something different but i'm saying what if they didn't need to no one needs to but well you don't nobody needs to right but i'm saying sometimes some that that i was just talking yesterday i know what you're saying life is short maybe this is what you got well it's like it's like the thing in annie hall where he walks up to the couple and he goes, I don't understand. How do you do it? How are you a happy couple?

We're both superficial. We don't ask a lot of questions. Hey, if that works for you, great. If Kanye and Kim Kardashian works for them, great. Enjoy yourselves. You know, I think we have a habit as people to always, and I'm not saying there's no such thing as bad behavior or toxic behavior or abusive behavior and that's not what i mean yeah uh but i do think as people we always think

it's almost an ego thing we've got to like get to this deeper thing to to to so that so it's more of an exploration and it's like sometimes it's just not that man sometimes it's just hey my wife and i don't talk but we love each other and she's fine with that and i'm fine with that that's okay our best friends they talk all the time good for them yeah we don't do that yeah you know yeah i guess it's okay if you're not if you're not sitting there every day going like why don't i talk well but here's the thing you're saying that but my point is is if you're not talking and that's sort of your natural thing and your lady isn't going why aren't you fucking talking yeah then there's no problem if she's like mark i don't care i love you you don't talk i don't yeah but sometimes like the dynamic that you find yourself

in for years is them going why aren't you talking well then that's that's that's not the dynamic i have but that's what i'm saying that's when it's a that's when it's a problem and that's when it's either i have to figure out how to change this or this person isn't right for me yeah then you find the person that goes i don't care that you don't talk never talk to me i love you you know what i mean and they mean it and you go you'll find something wrong with that huh you'll find something wrong with that i'll find something wrong with everything yeah i have a problem with what i'm saying right now so are you dating anyone? Probably not after this podcast. No, nobody serious. I'm trying to, I'm very actively trying to have less flingy situations in my life.

And I really do want to substantially, or date somebody and have a substantial thing. So it's not to say that i'm above anything lesser than that but i'm trying to do that i would i'd like to find somebody i can really spend some time with okay well um i i i don't have time or i would i would try but i just thank you yeah yeah but uh so when's the special premiere? February 3rd on Comedy Central at midnight. Second play is February 5th. 1 a.m. is the replay, and then those are both uncensored. And then the record where you can download the special, February 7th.

It'll start streaming, I think, on the 3rd. Okay, all right. You know what I mean. A lot of numbers. Yeah, I don't 3rd. Okay, all right. You know what I mean. A lot of numbers. Yeah, I don't know. You'll be all right. Thank you for having me. Nice seeing you.

This was really, really lovely. Thank you, buddy. I mean it. I'm glad we did it. I'm really glad we did it. I'd like to just start coming over here and just kind of... All right, well, you know, text me first. I'll just, you know, some days you open the garage door, I'm in here.

No, don't find me. I'm just going to sit over here. I know, I have coffee. I know, some days you open the garage door, I'm in here. No, don't find me. I'm just going to sit over here. I know, I have coffee. I know. I believe you. I promise I won't do that. All right, buddy. Thanks, Mark.

All right. That's it. That's me and Joe. I'll be talking in real time ish or at least the night before next week when i'm back i hope everyone's hanging in i think i will i'll play a little guitar uh just some hard rock probably redundant but i'll do it uh guitar solo Boomer lives! Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those.

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