WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 803 - Baron Vaughn / Moshe Kasher

Episode Date: April 16, 2017

Baron Vaughn knows that growing up without a father and sharing a bunk bed with grandma can ignite the comedy spark. He tells Marc about being a latchkey kid watching cable TV and drawing inspiration from the black comedians of the early '90s. With a successful comedy and acting career to his name, Baron was also able to document his search for the father he never knew. Plus, Moshe Kasher returns to the garage to explain why he wants to get to the bottom of the trickiest stuff in his new show Problematic. 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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Alright, let's do this. How are you what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast wtf welcome how are you everything okay did you get through the weekend how was your easter did you do candy

did you do eggs did you do pesach how was your pesach is everybody all right for those of you who are actual believers for those of you who are half believers for those of you who are just hanging on to the cultural traditions of whatever religion you may have practiced or cling to, kinda, as you get older, for family reasons and for the children. What's happening? Baron Vaughn is here. Baron Vaughn is a comedian, and also he is featured on the new show Grace and Frankie. Moshe Kasher stopped by.

He's been on the show before. He's got a new series coming out, Problematic, with Moshe Kasher stopped by. He's been on the show before. He's got a new series coming out, Problematic, with Moshe Kasher. That premieres Tuesday, April 18th on the Comedy Central. Those are the guests today. On my last show, Buster Kitten had pushed a screen out and gotten out. And it was upsetting. I like that guy. I like like buster i've been through a lot of cats and a lot of cat issues but uh i was starting to like him he's a crazy little fuck

he's a little demon i i actually assumed because of the timing that he showed up and also just because of his very nature that there was a good chance that he was an actual demon i i'm not convinced that he isn't uh but uh but nonetheless he got out i i went outside and i called and called and then he was under the deck and took a little cajoling but uh but i got him i grabbed him and i brought him in now here's the part of the story that i didn't want to tell you because I felt like an idiot so I I thought I nailed the screen in properly and the next day I took a nap and then I went out back and I noticed that the entire window was off and I was like you got to be fucking kidding me and then I walked around front and I knew Buster was out but then I saw Monkey bolt under the fence I'm like what are you fucking

serious the old guy's out too so then i went around back and monkey came around back i'm like what are you doing come in the house and he was like no and he went in the house which was rare but uh he came right back in but no buster and this time i thought well that's it i mean that's it he he wants to live outside then i guess he'll be an indoor outdoor cat i don't know if he's coming back he came from the outside maybe he's returning to the outside sort of like throwing a fish back but uh i didn't really want to accept that but i you just don't know what cats so for the whole day i was like well fuck him fuck it and i know some cat purists and some

you know big-hearted cat people are going to be like well you asshole you know you should have secured the screen well i thought i did you know and i it's not easy for me to admit this you know in the middle of a you know fearing uh nuclear holocaust you know i got to worry about buster the cat and also go out and do comedy and balance you know a lot of things in life two i, two main things this weekend was the missing cat and the terror of a nuclear war. And, you know, they kind of were, you know, up and down in, you know, taking up importance in my brain. So a whole night goes by and then a day and nothing. Then I drove up the driveway and Sarah and I in the car, we thought we saw him, we kind of did. And then we ran out and then we called for him we heard him meow so we knew he was still

alive so i put some food out and then i went and did comedy and then this morning which would be sunday morning i get up i go call him i was sitting outside last night you know trying to shaking mice throwing things doing everything putting food out by myself in the driveway there and this morning i go out and I call him and I hear him. Meow. He's got a very weird, almost high-pitched meow. And then I'm like, where are you? What's happening?

And then nothing. I don't hear him. I look around. I call and I go in the house and I come out back. And there he is just standing there. I walk out. I'm like, come on, let's go. And he runs off.

And I'm like, well, fuck. All right. This is how this is going to go. And then I step outside outside i'm going bust or bust or what the hell come on man with that tone i try not to get angry and then he just runs by me and goes under the house so now i know he's under the house but i don't know if i'm gonna get him in the house there's nothing you can do with cats this patience and and hope and i'm sitting there and i'm calling them and i'm shaking mice and i'm putting food out i'm on the ground and uh nothing and then right when i'm about to give up at least you know i i'm look i'm glad i knew where he was but uh

but i i you know i was like all right well this is just at least he's around and i'll just feed him out here right at the point of of up, he just walks out from under the house, covered in spider webs, and he comes up to me and just, I pet him and I go, you done? Is rumsling over? Are we good? Are you a grownup now or what's happening? And he rolled over on his back and I pet him and I took him in the house. And that's the buster saga so i was hoping that he i would have a closure like this because if i just came

back with the uh he got out again because i'm an idiot who didn't fix the fucking screen right i would have been embarrassed that you know i would have been embarrassed. I would have been embarrassed. But he's in the house for now. Oh, the other thing I wanted to share with you that I thought was interesting and exciting and kind of wild is, I don't know how regular a listener you are, but when Jeff Ross was on the 800th show, he talked about his family's catering business in New Jersey, you know, for years and years since the 40s or whatever. It was a place called Clinton Manor that his family had been in the catering business for

decades in New Jersey. And so the other day, like Friday or Saturday, I get a text from my mother. Hi, Mark. Listening to Jeff Ross interview. Great. Do you know I was married at the Clinton Manor? Guess his family was Decatur is funny, huh? Mom, my parents were married at Clinton Manor, which means I'd call Jeff immediately.

He's like, no fucking way. He said, my Uncle Murray probably made the fruit salad. The Murray that we talked about with the Mel Brooks story probably made the fruit salad for my parents' wedding. So now I'm trying to get hold of my parents' wedding album so Jeff can sort of reminisce about the place that he grew up in, working, and his family was involved with. The only problem is that my parents are no longer together

and the wedding album seems to be missing. I think my brother has it. Somebody has to have it. Big black and white pictures of my dad kissing my mom pre-nose job at the Clinton Manor. And Jeff's like, maybe my grandparents are somewhere in the background.

My Uncle Murray's somewhere. I'm going to try to find it. I thought that was an odd coincidence, but not so odd. New Jersey's New Jersey. So Moshe Kasher, I've had him on the show before. I tend to be antagonistic with him, but for no real reason. I think I project onto poor Moshe, but he's a bright guy, funny guy, and he's got this new series, Problematic with Moshe Kasher. As I said, premieres April 18th on Comedy Central. This is me and Moshe having a little chat.

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Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. Will I die here?

You'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. required. T's and C's apply. First of all, Moshe Kasher, I have not seen you in years, and I believe you, are you still

married? You got married? Yeah, I'm still married. Still married. That's holding up. To Natasha. It's not going well. We're having deep problems. Oh, really? No, we're good. I mean, sorry, that would have been a better interview. No, no, but I mean, maybe minor problems? No. I mean, you're both comedians.

I did that once. How long have you been married? About a year, a year and a half. All right. Well, let's see how you go at three. More to come. Yeah. Well, no, I love her.

I love you. I know you're touring together, which that's got to be great, huh? Wait, it feels sarcastic when you say it like that. Wait, you're... It was completely sarcastic. It is great. The road is so lonely. I know. And so if you take away the loneliness and substitute it with your lover, I mean, it's great. Well, I mean, that seems to be the good side of it. So you're saying there's no downsides to touring with your wife on a double bill?

I don't see what the issue is. What, a bruised ego when people are there to see her? Yeah. I mean, nah. But come on. Let's talk it out. I don't feel that way. You don't?

No, because I never felt in competition. I've never understood people that feel in competition with their female comedian partner because it's like, we're not going for the same role well you're kind of girly i mean on some sometimes but wait that actually reminds me of a story that does relate to you uh because i remember speaking of the comics ego and jealousy okay i heard about a uh i heard about a casting for glow and it was for a woman like obviously because you're the only aren't you like the only man yeah pretty much it Yeah, pretty much. It had nothing to do with it. There's one other guy. It was a woman that had been cast as a wrestler and I felt a pang of jealousy.

Oh, really? I was like, that role is not available to me. The woman's wrestling. Well, you know, they always do that thing where it's like, hey, they don't know what they're looking for. Uh-huh. Yeah, just go in for it. But it's like, the guy's supposed to be 90.

Yeah, it's a- And African American. Yeah, but they don't know. It's one of those parts. Can go either way. Which I guess is true sometimes yeah i i once got a i once got a role that was they were they were trying to go diverse and then they decided to go with me instead yeah that was a nice feeling to finally crush the person of color beneath my feet oh do you know it was you know it was a person of

color no i just know that they were like they want to go diverse and then they were like it turns out it was you that they wanted yeah so what what have you been doing for the last couple years i know that you like it was weird because you're one of those guys where i'm like what's he gonna do in show business that's a nice thing to say yeah i always wondered that about you too mark i was like where's this going believe me you were not the only one yeah yeah i was that was that was my question for 25 years i didn't think it would be in the garage no but but because like were you going to be like where you can do a sitcom or were you like in in stand-up when you get into it you're either going to find something to host or something to star in or you're going to write right i mean

that's it so like you know when i started hearing that you were doing more hosting stuff and then this thing evolved i was very happy that you found your path. Well, thanks, man. Yeah, I feel really good about this. I feel like I'm... I remember there was an announcement for a show that was a show about internet comments. Yeah. Some new show that was coming out.

Right. And speaking of jealousy, I didn't feel jealousy. I felt like, oh, I don't think I would want to do that show. Right. I don't think I would take that job. I feel like that's a big marker of evolution in a comic definitely saying no is a great marker of evolution in anybody like knowing that you're like no that's not for me yeah right i mean i didn't say no they didn't offer it to me oh maybe i would have subjugated that feeling this would be a different conversation had they offered it to me those fuckers right i would be

on here going dude here's the thing. Internet comments are wacky. And I'm here to talk about that wackiness. I mean, I remember once I got offered an audition. It was for a show that was described as it's like Tosh.0. But instead of funny videos, you're commenting on footage of people playing the video game Halo. That's pretty specific. Yeah.

And like. I don't even know what that is. It's like Tosh.0, except they took away the fun part that's it's pretty specific yeah and like i don't even know what that is it's like tosh.0 except they took away the fun part and it's just you commenting on stuff and what's that's just halo audience it's it's all that's pretty much it's a pretty niche audience but maybe everybody plays that except for me and i wanted it i wanted the job i remember i went in and i got called back and the casting the producer called me and he goes okay you're you're really close you know you know you're it's just you know it's down it's just it's on you and a couple other people yeah but we want you to be like like just a little cooler you know just like

be a little cooler and I'm thinking like don't be all yeah intense and like slightly aggressively neurotic I go I'm thinking myself like I myself, like, I'm the coolest dude. I'm the coolest dude around. I mean, I'm so cool. How cool, what kind of cool are you talking about? Look at my pants. And he literally said, you know, like, cool, like, like a kind of like a Greg Kinnear character. You know, Greg Kinnear cool.

The classic. Dickish and detached. King of cool, Greg Kinnear. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think he's maybe referring to like a cool character, not like hip cool i guess so it was just a funny thing that i was like oh i could be great kaneer you need great kaneer i've been described as a young great kaneer yeah well that was interesting though because in the talk zone in the talk format like he was uh he very early on you know was seemed like this cookie cutter kind of guy but a lot of dudes who like my friends

took a shine to him they liked him because he was you couldn't read him he was snarky and and seemingly seething under this exterior that was uh uh that seemed pretty you know mainstream you know middle of the road right so he you know so he like he really became this kind of weird uh uh force because i guess it's cool but it was more like this snarky detachment did he have a talk show yeah dude that's how he started i didn't know that that's why they're they were referring to it he hosted later and then i don't know which came first talk soup was um i guess that sort of made him a star but he started in that slot that was like after letterman yeah well anyway my show is called uh looking back on greg kinnear and it's an hour

long talk show where we just talk greg kinnear that's great not too specific everybody will enjoy it no it'll be cool talking greg it's it's it's on amc it's called talking greg and it's after talking dead great and we just talk Greg Kinnear. Yeah. And then like when you run out, you can talk Greg Proops. Yep. Greg can talk Greg. And then we'll have Greg Barrett and Greg Kin.

Oh, great. He'll bring the guitar. Just close with him. Wait on that. No, actually, he's not doing well. Apparently, his life is in jeopardy. Mark, it's been great being here. Thank you so much for having me.

And that's the kind of wit you're going to see on the new show. What's it called? It's called Problematic. And it's talk, but it's a little bit more substantive. What we're actually trying to do is somehow recreate daytime talk, but in a Comedy Central. Break it down for me. What are the segments? What is the structure of the show?

Pitch it. Okay. So the top is a conversation with an expert. Last week, we talked cultural appropriation with Kenya Barris, the creator of Black-ish. And then the second- Well, back up. Yes, sir. Can you, like, I'm sure I understand what you're saying, but I'd like to know the definition

of cultural appropriation, please. Okay, so cultural, the literal definition of cultural appropriation is- What you used to do on stage? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Got it. That's a literal definition, is what Moshe used to do on stage. You got to it that's a literal definition is what Moshe used

to do on stage you got to know a lot about me to know to get it Moshe was basically a uh a disgruntled uh white rapper I was happy and everything was good and I was happy to open for you and were you yeah why do my why do I think that maybe it's just because you were so intense that I mistake that for well you're such a mellow guy when you see someone intense you're like what is this no I'm very intense and when I see someone more intense than me I'm like that guy's got problems I did have problems I'm feeling really good no you look seem good so oh so that's it literally cultural appropriation is it goes either way it's the idea that like yes white people borrowing you know but it's specifically

white people no no no I would say that actually the theme of the idea that like, yes, white people borrowing, you know, but it's specifically white people. No, no, no. I would say that actually the theme of the episode that was interesting was that really what it comes down to is, and most people roll their eyes at, a lot of white people roll their eyes at the cultural appropriation conversation. Me included. Big time. I've had a real difficult time with it.

Where does it go? Why? Because it's absurd. It's absurdist areas are absurd right so when you go like you shouldn't uh you know dress like another culture you go well everybody's everybody's wearing jeans so that's right totally insane and we're not all minors yeah exactly should japan who is now the center of the denim creating uh world should they is that inappropriate yeah yeah i get that yes no no i say that that's

like that's that one's a little broad the issue is i i think that it's it it becomes painful for people when there's the the white power dynamic involved right uh and so that was really the theme of the of the night was it It becomes painful when Nazis are rapping? What I'm saying is basically, you know, like the automatic thing you can do is you could go, oh, well, what about that? This was actually the theme of the outro monologue. It's like, you see a black dude in khakis and go, look, that's cultural appropriation too.

But there's a differential because of power. Okay. And as I said, white power. Right. Which I never thought I'd get to say on TV. Right. Right. So, you know, that was the theme of the- Also called white privilege or are we separating? okay and as i said white power right i never thought i'd get to say on tv right right so you

know that was the theme of the also called white privilege are we separating i mean i'm not separating at all uh that seems to be a semantic uh semitic it's a semitic argument which all arguments are semitic when you think about it if they go on too long yeah if you if you argue if you are a non-jew and you argue for a long time that's actually cultural appropriation young people who who refuse to admit they're wrong or no it would be just sort of like vague arguing about bullshit about food if you argue about food for too long yeah that's a semitic argument i've heard about some people having allergies and i'm like that's ours that's our thing oh really it's actually inappropriate for don't have allergies or just being neurotic yeah okay so that seems like pretty heady shit

man it's heady shit and this week we're talking how the internet speaking of heads is how the internet is changing your brain we have nick carr coming on who wrote the book the shallows which is like a uh basically a deconstruction of how information technology and social media is changing the way our brains function and operate. I like this stuff. Yeah. I know that. Yeah.

Every week's a different topic. And this is where it's going to be on? Comedy Central. Wow. It sounds a little heady for Comedy Central. I hear you. I hear you. That's the big risk.

That's the roll of the dice. I haven't cashed out my 401k yet. Right. No, I think that Comedy Central, like everybody else, is realizing that people are thirsty for real conversation. I mean, you're a classic example of that. Podcasting, and you, I would say, as sort of maybe even the epicenter of it, is a prove-out that people care about big conversations. Sure. And I think TV is now going like, oh, we should catch up to that.

Well, no, I'm happy that you're doing that on a network that seems to, I don't really know what the audience is or what the identity of Comedy Central is. But if it is young people and you're having these conversations, it's provocative and hopefully it catches on. Well, speaking of that first, thank you, by the way. And speaking of that first realization that I didn't want to do the internet comment show. It's like I would rather fall on my sword to do a show like this than be successful doing a show that made me want to die every day. Yeah, no, I've done one of those. Have you?

Yeah, but it didn't catch on. I was lucky. So, but how do you keep it buoyed? I mean, like, why not HBO? You tried. They didn't offer. Right. Well, no, I mean, Comedy Central,

I didn't try comedy central came to me and was like i would like we'd like to do a show with you what do you have in mind and i me and uh this guy alex blagg who was one of the creators of at midnight yeah like trying to we came up with this idea and it's connected loosely to my podcast where we have the how and tall discussion series yeah where we have an expert on we kind of riff over that person sort of like a ted Talk meets mystery science theater. Right. A panel of comics do that.

So we kind of wanted to find an intellectual middle ground between At Midnight and The Daily Show. The Daily Show being hyper-political, At Midnight being hyper-fun, something that would occupy the space in the middle. And it might be teetering a little bit more towards the heady, but there is a lot of fun. We've had a lot of fun and a lot of really real silliness like ryan singer can come on after a conversation about cyber security and how you have to have two-factor authentication right you can talk about jerking off to a con artist in the philippines and

we can all have a good time yeah you gotta find that the funny real stuff yeah so okay so you set up you have the conversation then what's segment? So segment two has generally been some sort of prove out, right? So like some sort of real time. Okay. You know, like you go, you hit the streets or you find examples. No, an in-studio thing. Like for example, we did one of our test shows that we are going to do for the real thing is that we did the dark web and we have an expert come and sort of deconstruct what the

dark web is. And then in act two, we actually put the Tor browser up on the screen and show the viewer at home how you can log on to the dark web. The dark web is where all the black market business happens? Yeah, but a lot more than that. That's one of the interesting things about the dark web is that-

What is it exactly? Well, everybody thinks about the dark web like it is the place where you go for child pornography. And that's sort of its alpha and its omega, right? You go there to buy heroin or child pornography. but it's like way deeper than that right it all it really is is it is um an anonymized browser called tor yeah which is which is a system it's basically like google chrome except that no one can track you because your phone your computer has an ip address it says this is mark maron's place right uh this is who's scrolling through all of this stuff.

Right. Mark Maron is looking at boots. We know he likes boots. Right, right. But say you didn't want people to know your boot buying habits, you would go to download the Tor browser and you would look for boots there. Right? But that's not that important to you, Mark.

You're not a criminal or you don't live in an oppressive regime. So it's not for boots. It's for bad things. No, because suppose you lived in- Oh, right. China. In China. Right. And all you want to do is get on Facebook and say, the Chinese government has been repressing me. Right. Not for boots. It's for bad things. No, because suppose you lived in China.

And all you want to do is get on Facebook and say, the Chinese government has been repressing me. Well, you would go to the Facebook browser, the dark web Facebook browser. You would take Tor. The interesting thing about Tor is that the way that it works is your IP address is hidden. And you log on to a computer somewhere in some other country that a volunteer has set up, a server that some IP address far off in some other land has set up, which then pings to another IP address that another volunteer in another country has, ping, ping, ping all around the world so there's no way to find you. So, yes, it is used for nefarious fucked up things.

But also it's used for journalists to dump stories so that people can like government officials in the Trump administration or the Obama administration can dump stories in the Tor browser so that journalists can find them and one of the more it's good for whistleblowers you're saying it's great for whistleblowers it's great for people that live in repressive regimes yeah and it is great for people who want to buy heroin without leaving their house. In bulk. Yeah. In bulk with reviews.

There's reviews, Mark. It's so funny. It's really, it looks like Amazon. It does? It's straight up. It says, high quality China white heroin.

And then you go in and it's like, yummy product. The guy was real respectful, sent it to my house. Mm-mm, good. Really? Yes.

And that's, it's really funny because it's, everybody's anonymized right so there's no way to verify that the drug dealer you're buying the drugs from is legit so the only thing that you can go on are reviews right if this person has 100 reviews then he'll stay in business with his heroin selling business so what ends up happening is you can buy really good drugs right it's the best place to buy drugs in the world the problem is you have to have them shipped

to your home address i don't know why somebody would do maybe the po boxes that's a good time for a mailbox etc the etc is heroin exactly well that sounds pretty good so then you do that and then you close with a monologue close with some sort of like final oh but i forgot the most important panel there's a panel no the third act is Phil Donahue style. We're in the audience and people are asking questions on camera. So anybody that wants to come to a taping can come and be on camera and ask a question and get in. Of the guests or guests? Yeah, of the guests and just about the topic in general.

So like when we did cultural appropriation, we invited a bunch of people. We invited a local Native American community leader. And he spoke about what cultural appropri cultural appropriation how it affected native communities and then we had this guy who has a taco stand in downtown la called white boy tacos yeah and he talked about why white people sell tacos in los angeles of all places what's going on with are you still doing the podcast with brennan with neil no we stopped doing it about a year ago no and i mean look this is going to sound very weird but i really do think i know that we started i really feel like that podcast was important yeah and uh we i i think that we started a lot of people's podcasts a lot of our old guests

uh now have their own podcasts that are really successful and thriving yeah and i and i don't think it's not because of us well yeah well i mean well first of all i i'm glad you feel that way about yourself and your contribution sounds terrible i i know it's nice but like almost everyone has a podcast no i know and this is going to get into some weird territory but like probably not our podcast was as you know it was me and neil two white guys interviewing black celebrities right right and when we started it was years ago it's five five years ago and a lot of the guests had never been on a lot of our guests had never been on or even really we're really familiar with podcasting and at the other end of it a lot of them were like this is awesome we should start them and there's a lot one of our own and a lot of the podcasts right now that are really popular and new and exciting are former guests now i don't

know if we had no it's nice no of course well no i mean the fact that a lot of times people come and they're like oh i can do this do you know what i mean like there is a freedom to it and a simplicity to it and are you still doing the houndstooth is that what it is i'm doing yeah houndtall it's a bad noun what houndtall bad name i mean i'm just gonna hound tall like a tall dog like a tall i don't know what the fuck you were thinking it's a bad nothing it was a spoon it's a spoonerism which i found out a what it's spoonerism which is like a word that like hound tall town hall oh okay right yeah oh i get it i get it i didn't even remember earlier when it was obnoxious how proud i was of myself i'm the opposite of that of that when it comes to the name of this podcast.

But I actually asked the people, the listeners, like, should I change the name? Should I just call it Mojo Cashers Town Hall Series? And they all said that we've come to love this terrible name. All of them.

Okay. The ones that contacted me. Well, maybe it's memorable. Yeah, it's something. Yeah. But yeah, I still do that one monthly. And I love it. It's monthly?

Yeah, it's monthly. Okay. And that's why I started this that's monthly yeah it's monthly okay and that's why I uh started this this show is because I did this monthly podcast where I was guaranteed to have I'm sure you relate to this guaranteed to have a good conversation at least once once a month I have had quantum physicists on and I've had uh you know historians on and psychologists and and intellectuals and it's just really fun for me to have that kind of conversation, especially for my approach,

which is kind of like this sort of buffoon. Really? You think you're a buffoon? I think that the, it's like highbrow, lowbrow. Well, you're coming to it with curiosity and no real knowledge

of how to talk about it. That's exactly right. Yeah, I think that's just a person. Yeah, I think you're a buffoon. I guess this speaks to my relationship with humanity. That's exactly right. Yeah, I think that's just a person. Yeah, I think he's a person. I guess this speaks to my relationship to humanity. I don't know. Maybe, but I've had a few conversations in here and I like to do that occasionally

where it's not about personal stuff, but it's really about, like I had Sam Quinones in here to talk about heroin. He wrote that book, Dreamland. He's a journalist and it was spectacular. I love those kinds of conversations. Yeah, Reza Aslan came in and talked about faith and belief.

Reza did our show as well. Yeah. And that was a really awesome episode. Yeah. It had this intersection of real comedy and real emotionality. Yeah, he's good. Yeah, he's good. Yeah, he's great. Yeah, he's got a good story about his life and a real curiosity and scholarly approach to faith and belief and stuff. I think conversations are vital right now.

Vital and evolving and require sensitivity and vulnerability and tolerance. There's a tremendous lack of tolerance in a world where everyone has a platform to be a dick immediately well that's actually what that's actually what the internet changing our brains conversation has come to is like there is a reason that political discourse has gotten simultaneously so toxic and so shallow right it's because we what happens is because of the internet feeding us the information it knows we want in order to keep our brains and our eyes locked on our screen yeah it's not going to give us stuff that'll make us push the computer screen away and say i can't deal with it it slowly feeds or worse yet or uh this is boring

oh yeah exactly oh yeah and also you can respond immediately before the information you get is even processed there's no processing it gives you what you want and you're following after there's this very stark and dire quote uh that i saw recently i heard recently which is that if you're not paying for the product you are the product oh yeah that's like yeah yeah the product is you product is you and so when you're on facebook and you don't pay for facebook understand you are not the customer the customer is the it's like that joke i used to do oh what was it it was on my 95 hbo special it's not a tool you're a tool yeah exactly right and it's got i mean imagine how much more stark it's gotten since 1995 i know i was the guy that said it was a fad yeah wow wk melbell was a guy that said that there'll never be a president named barack hussein

obama yeah and then and then look what And then look what happened. Then look what happened. Yeah. And then look what happened. And then look what happened. I know. Which one is the anomaly? Right. Well, time will tell.

We're in anomalous times. Yes, that's for fucking sure. Yeah. I mean, it is so funny in a terrible, I'm weeping at the edge of the earth as the ice caps melt away, that we thought we had broken through to the ultimate new layer of tolerance and understanding with Barack Obama. And then it's just like, oh, okay, sorry. Here's your backlash.

Whoops. Welcome to America. Yeah, welcome to whatever this is. So, right, you're the tool. Good. Well, it sounds great, man. I'm happy for you. April 18th is our debut.

So it's a Tuesday? It's on Tuesday. Let's try this. I'm happy for you. April 18th is our debut. So it's a Tuesday? It's on Tuesday. Let's try this. I'm not sure when this goes up. Tomorrow night. Okay, sure. Or yesterday. Or two days ago.

Good talking to you. Thanks, Mark. Moshe Kasher, watch Problematic. Premiering Tuesday, April 18th on Comedy Central. I like Moshe Kasher, watch Problematic, premiering Tuesday, April 18th on Comedy Central. I like Moshe, and he seems to be doing well. It makes me happy, because I remember when these guys were kids. I remember when they were kids. So Baron Vaughn is about to enter your head.

I've known Baron a while. He's been around. I've been kind of half watching him here and there. We've talked about maybe him coming on the show. I had my issues with him initially, but who don't I have issues with initially? You can see Baron on Grace and Frankie, which is now in season three, and on the new Mystery Science Theater 3000. Both are streaming on Netflix right now. And also, I should mention,

Baron made a documentary for Fusion about finding his father called Fatherless. And we talk about that. You'll hear us talk about it right now. This is me and Baron Vaughn. Baron, this has been a long time coming kinda oh yeah i've held you back i've held you off i've kept you out of here kept me in third grade when i should be in sixth well i mean i had to wait for you to be in sixth i don't know if you should have been in sixth

perfect no i mean it was uh you know i'll cop to it i guess i was thinking about what you know what it was was when did i fucking first meet you? Canada? I felt like it was at a festival. It was at a not a great performing situation. I think like Dave... Was it Vancouver? Might have been. Dave Foley was around. Like I feel like there was a

bar. You were doing a show. Maybe it wasn't the first time I met you but it might have been the first time I noticed you. That you paid attention. The thing was it was this dumb oldtimey pet peeve I had. And you can either qualify it or not. Early on when I saw you, I thought you were good on stage. You did different voices. You had some characters.

You did a thing. I could people the stage. That's what, yeah, I know that line. Where'd you learn that line? From you. Where'd you, really? Yeah, you were talking about, you were talking about Cosby

back before we knew he was a monster. Right, I ripped that off though. I mean, I didn't make that up. That was in a critic, a critic said that about, you know, Bill. And I think it applies to like Lenny, it applies to a lot of people that prior era right exactly yeah i love that thing so when i watched you there was part of me

my initial thought was like this guy's an actor who wants to be a comic yeah this guy's an actor who's using comedy as a way in yes that's what a lot of comedians of your generation thought about me and wrote me off until they started to listen and being like oh he's actually saying some stuff up there no no no it wasn't you were funny he wasn't actually uh todd lynn may he rest in peace you know he said a similar thing to me of course me and todd lynn would be the guy out of all the fucking people in a fucking pod no i god i hope not but yeah i was like one of those weird people that todd liked and it was always sort of a curse so i guess you know why do you like me i really because

you know you know what's up and i'm like uh so he said that too he said that to me yeah because i mean look i i was an actor i am an actor i went to theater school and all that stuff ah but all of that in a way was a distraction from the fact that I always wanted to be a stand-up. Sure. Because I grew up watching stand-up. I was a comedy nerd. Right. So I guess that's what it is.

The chops come through. Yeah. You know, like, you know, acting chops come through. Because even somebody like Robert Klein, who went to Yale, you know, he's actory. Right. You know what I mean? And he's another guy that I have sort of a, it's not a wall, but like, you know, you're actory, you know what I mean? Like, and he's another guy that I have sort of a, it's not a wall, but like, you know, he's a,

you know, you're a comic, he's a comic, but you can see the chops. Okay. And that's, I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. You're here, we're hashing it out. Yeah, but that's always why I've always thought I was kind of like a perfect guest for you. I'm like custom made because you kind of see me and you go, I'm sure you're a thing.

That's, that's kind of always how I felt. No, but you definitely do a lot of different, there's also an envy there. You're able to go in and out of these characters and you've gotten funnier. But I think it is something generational where there's some sort of chip on the shoulder of older guys who saw, especially out here. of older guys who saw a sort of, especially out here, you know, like what you start to realize about standup is that, you know, if you're an actor, you know, it's hard to get seen unless you get called in. Yeah. But if you're a standup, you can get seen almost anytime you want.

Yeah. And that's, and then, so you have this influx. Of people who are taking up the stage time. Right. And then you get diehards like me who are like, you know, if you're an actor and you're, if you're a comedian, you're soul shit, you know, whatever. But, you know, but where did you,

where were you from? I was born in New Mexico. Me too, I lived there. I lived in New Mexico. I know. I know, I looked you up and it said Portales and I'm like, what the fuck? Yeah, Portales, New Mexico.

Why would you, like, that's nowhere near where I grew up, but it's over by Texas. Yeah, it's closer to Texas, kind of the eastern part of New Mexico why would you like that's nowhere near where I grew up but uh but it's it's over by Texas yeah it's closer to Texas kind of the eastern part of New Mexico um born in Portales uh my I was born 1980 my um my parents is a whole situation that's actually part of the reason I'm here because I made a documentary yeah about finding my father and all this stuff left before I was born you know my mom was 19 he was like 21 like must have been. Left before I was born. My mom was 19. He was like 21 or something like that. Must have been right before you were born. Yeah.

He did the thing, so there's only a nine-month window there where he can cut out. It was when it was revealed that my mother was pregnant. That's when he was like, not it. Really? As far as I know. Is that true? Yeah.

But why, and why would I doubt that, but why Portales? Well, there's a college there called Eastern New Mexico University. Yes. So that's where they were both attending. Oh, so they were students. Yes, they were students. And where were they from?

My mom was from, well, a littler, smaller town called Tucumcari. I know Tucumcari. Now, Tucumcari is the first place I remember. That's really where I grew up. Odd places in New Mexico. Yeah, yeah. Small town, probably population 5,000 something. Yeah.

I wonder what brought her family there. Well, prosperity, you know? Kind of looking back in the past, I'm learning a little bit more about my family's past. Yeah. Another one of the reasons I, these are things that have been interesting to me. Yeah. As I've gotten older. Right. As I'm working on things that have been interesting to me as I've gotten older, as I'm working on myself, going to therapy, finding out like, oh, we never talked about the past ever.

Right. Like I just didn't have any information, like where my mom was born. I didn't know simple things. Right. Did you find out? No. Is she still around? Yeah, she's still around.

She won't cop to it? She was born in, you know, see, I don't even remember. We don't talk about it that much, but I'll ask her. I think she was born in New Mexico. Wow. She thought she was born in Germany on a military base. Yeah. But she wasn't.

She was born in New Mexico. So there's military back there somewhere. Yes. My grandfather, her father, was in the military. So New Mexico. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's interesting because there's another element to it. It's like, I don't, you know, African Americans in Tucumcari.

Yeah. There's a lot. There were a lot. And there were a lot in Portales, too, I think. You know, it seems to be that the history of my family looks like we started in North Carolina. Right. Slowly kind of made our way west, you know, through Tennessee, then Oklahoma, Texas, then New Mexico.

I guess there was a movement west. Slow migration, yeah. Well, yeah, because Texas, there's a lot of black people in Texas. Well, in the south. Yeah. I don't know why, though. I don't know why there would be a lot of black people in the south. You didn't go that far back historically?

No, no, no. There's no history. No context of why there would be a lot of black people in the South. You didn't go that far back historically? No, no, no. There's no history. No context of why there would be a lot of black people in the South. You don't know where your mom is born, and you don't understand why there's all the black people in the South. No, just said, nah. You don't go too deep with it. You know what I mean?

It's not my problem. I don't need to know about it. No. Obviously. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I mean, like, Tucumcari is a small town. A real small town, yeah. Route 66 was the main street.

Yep. We were there. I was there a couple months ago A real small town, yeah. Route 66 was the main street. Yep. We were there. I was there a couple months ago. Really? Yeah, making this dock. So you're tracking the whole thing. You're going. Yeah. My mom took me to Portales, showed me around.

The place I was born, but I don't remember it at all. Right. You didn't live there? No. Small, small, small baby, but not where- Where'd you go after that? Tukankerry. Oh, so that was, okay.

So she went back there. Her folks were there. Well, well it was my mom was 19 everyone was mad at her for having this baby are you the only baby uh then i was i have two little sisters now but we're there's a 13 year age gap okay um my grandmother's super progressive was like get an abortion finish college yeah my great-grandparents were like you had sex sex outside of marriage, God is mad. Yeah, but you gotta have it. Yeah, well, yeah, I guess, but then they kind of all abandoned her a little bit. Yeah.

Just left her to her own devices. Yeah. And then two years after that, my great-grandparents- Holy shit. Came and got me. From where? From Tucumcari.

They came out to Portales, got me and raised me themselves. Great-grandparents. So my great-grandparents, I was raised by them in a little house in Tucumcari, New Mexico, until my mom got out of college about 85. And she took you back. She took me, and then we moved to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Oh my God. Yeah, and that's where I mostly grew up. I was in Vegas until I went to college at Boston University. Where I went. Where you went. So we already got to New Mexico, and we got to Boston University. Yeah, now it's weird. So now I know why you went so we already got to New Mexico and we got to Boston University yeah now it's weird so now like I know why you're here so your great-grandparents what were they like I mean that must I mean I imagine that's probably a good situation on some level yes and no I mean

they were they were hard people you know they're like classic black Southern Baptist people. Very strong church people. Church was literally in the backyard. I mean that. It was there. They were on the land that the church owned. So they built a house right there on the land. My great-grandfather built it with his own hands.

He worked in a lumber yard. He was a carpenter. He knew all the stuff. No kidding. Like a quote-unquote man's man. Is the house still there? Yeah. Really? Yes, it is. Was that a trip? Yes He knew all the stuff. No kidding. Like a quote unquote man's man. Is the house still there? Yeah.

Really? Yes, it is. Was that a trip? Yes. Yes, it was. And we went up to it and there's a family living in it that we actually knew. They lived across the street. So when my great grandparents passed away, my grandmother sold the house to them. So several generations now.

Yeah. A couple of generations. Well, we walked up and they saw my mom and they were like, oh my goodness. And then they saw me. They're like, what? You were five when we saw you last. No kidding. Yeah.

That's crazy. It's crazy stuff. And so you leave New Mexico when you're five? Yeah. About five or six. Your mom married another man or what? No, no. We just went to Vegas because-

I can't even, I can't even, the thought of going there now bothers me. Well, it's very different. First of all, my grandmother was already there, right? My mom had mostly grew up in Vegas, went to school in Vegas, and then spent the summers in New Mexico. Yeah. That was kind of her pattern, right? Right.

So we went there because at the time we moved, especially like the mid-80s to the early 90s, Vegas was the fastest growing city in the United States. Sure, jobs. Very low cost of living, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. Where did your mom work? My mom, when we got there, she had probably two or three jobs at different retail clothing stores. Yeah.

And then the Mirage opened. Yeah. And when a casino opens in Vegas, it's like, eh, now here's 5,000 jobs. Right. So she got a job there about 89, I want to say, something like that. At the Mirage. At the Mirage, yeah.

So did you grow up, like, because that's what I just don't, I don't have a sense of Vegas, you know, as a place where people live. Well, let me give you a sense, Mark. It's hot, I'll tell you that. I know that. But that's a big reason that it's hot i'll tell you that i know that it's but that that's a big reason that it's weird there because there's not a lot of outdoor stuff yeah to me it feels like when people

try to do outdoor stuff try to impersonate the suburbs yeah it's 125 degrees grass doesn't even want to grow this little league game everyone's going to be exhausted dehydrated dehydrated sunburned and it's it was so people just kind of stay inside in their air conditioned home run outside to their air conditioned car go to another yeah my brother lives in phoenix it's similar yeah phoenix is also yeah is as hot as vegas the only place that's hotter is death valley yeah i i kind of like it i like being out in that for a while because I don't do drugs anymore. And if you're out in that desert heat for about a half hour, you're fucked up. You start to see things.

Yeah, oh, hell yeah, yeah. Oh, the shaman's here. Yeah, oh, thank God. Take me to the CVS. I got some questions. So you're in Vegas. And what are you doing in high school? Do you go gamble?

Well, I mean, my mom worked at the Mirage. She didn't work in the casino part of it. She worked in the retail warehouse. All the merch comes there, right? But how do you get into trouble? You don't seem like a get-into-trouble kind of guy, but I'm sure you're hiding something horrible. You know it.

I do. Sorry, Danny. The secret comes out now. I was a latch hiding something horrible you know it i do sorry danny the secret comes out now yeah um i was a latchkey kid you know yeah so it's like it was me and my mom and she was at work and i'd usually have two or three hours at home by myself after school yeah um from third grade you know on to 12th and then my grandmother moved in with us at some point yeah so it was me my mom and my grandma yeah and uh then we moved to a different part of vegas and me my mom my grandma my grandma and i shared a room i slept on the floor she slept in the bed until she got a bunk bed then it was super cool you and

your grandma me and my grandma in a bunk bed she got the top bunk i got the top how dare you i would not make her climb those stairs very nice of you. We fought over it. Yeah. So yeah, bunk bed from eighth grade to 12th grade. With your grandmother. With my grandmother. Never invited anyone over. I wonder why. I didn't.

Yeah. It was a small place. It was. It was an apartment. Yeah. It was a two-bedroom apartment. So yeah, I mean, Vegas is, it's a strange place, you know, to grow up. I was out by myself with, you know, just kind of around the neighborhood.

The neighborhood we were in was kind of rough. Did you have friends? I did, yeah, from the apartment complex, definitely. So like you'd go out into the courtyard or whatever, the apartment, go to the parking lot. Yeah, basically. Throw a ball around, break some windows. Yes, and broke my arm. Broke my arm playing football with some friends in third grade um yeah like a swimming pool was usually there which was you know a disgusting

apartment complex swimming pool but it was ours yeah you know so it was uh it was it was not it was difficult living uh it was okay because it was like we were always keeping our head above water you know financially because your mom was working. My mom was working, but, you know. Were you working? No. Not yet. Were you young?

I was young. So when does the second man come in? Well, my stepfather probably came in about seventh, sixth, sixth, seventh grade, somewhere around there. Good dude? We didn't really get along that well. I don't think you're supposed to. That's part of the step process, right? From everything I've heard, it's a tough road.

Yeah, I mean, look, like we can hang out, you know, be in the same room with each other. But it wasn't abusive. Yeah. There's some abuse in my childhood, definitely. What, like physical? Physical, mental, childhood, definitely. What, like physical? Physical, mental, emotional. Right, from that guy?

Well, from my mom and him, yeah. After he showed up? No. No, your mom was always a little. She was, well, look, she had been probably abused herself as well. And in a church family, that's kind of like just pray on that right you know don't talk about it yeah yeah a lot of pent-up stuff which turned into some addiction later you know when i was a kid oh yeah kind of like you know elementary to middle school and some middle schools when it

started getting pretty like i noticed it yeah because i was getting older and i understood what was your thing uh what do you mean what what addiction to what um the drink oh yeah the drink yeah and so the legal stuff yeah that's uh you know it's at least it's a little more you can wrap your head around it it's dangerous but it's not sorted necessarily it's easy to get that's right you don't have to go down like horrible paths to get it right and yeah horrible people all the time um and she was also kind of did it on her own you know i'm sure she had some buddies that she went out with sure she would kind of there was a time where it was like she would come home from work self-medicating right yeah sit there you know in a in locked

room and she came out it was a different person yeah sort of that pattern not a fun person i guess not a fun person sometimes fun yeah it depends on the day for a little while right yeah but you know but i'm also a walking reminder of the fact that she was abandoned so that kind of you know is a kind of a kind of a concoction that turns a person to a comedian yeah but that's interesting is that something you you were able to identify later i imagine yeah in the last couple of years right yeah that's uh that's pretty deep right yeah because i apparently look like my father a lot did did was did they were they i guess they were so young it's hard to know what you know what you know how substantial that

relationship was other than and they see it differently as they would. But that is the most important piece of the puzzle to me is that they were young. They didn't know what the hell they were doing. Suddenly there was this reality that they couldn't deal with. Both of them were like, my parents are gonna freak. And their respective parents did.

And so they both dealt with it in their own ways. But, you know, because when i was telling people i was going to go meet him people were like are you mad how could he do this to you i'm like he didn't do it to me actually i wasn't even alive yeah this happened to my mom yeah you know i came later and and you know because of the circumstances that she was in that turned her into the person she was in it became a thing for me later you know but her and i we healed you know we we made peace in college and stuff like that. So I consider her one of my best friends now.

Oh, yeah? She's been sober for a really long time. All these great things. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a good relationship, but still it doesn't negate what happened. Sure. Because I'm still learning like,

oh, that's my mommy issue. Like stuff that still keeps showing up. Well, yeah, I would have to imagine that at some point the abandonment issues do play into your own story as well. You know, not having that, that father figure early on. Right. Absolutely.

And that has to do with my relationship to my maleness. You know, this is actually where comedy comes in because this is when I started to look to TV for models like how old were you you think um this is probably fifth sixth seventh grade and when you got all that time on your hand yeah like the merv griffin show and those after those well actually um back in new mexico i was a big fan of nick at, which would show not only all these old black and white sitcoms, but the original SNLs, the original Five Years, SCTV, Laugh-In, Carol Burnett,

and Flip Wilson Show. Flip Wilson, Caroline. So I'd be watching all that stuff, absorbing it. And then as I got older, moved to Vegas, it was sort of the time that Comedy Central was starting. As you remember, Comedy Channel and Ha! They combined. Short Attention Span Theater, watching it.

Mystery Science Theater 3000, watching it. Wienerville, taking it all in. Mark Wiener and his puppets. Taking it all in. So I started to see comedians, especially black comedians that I was kind of looking up to. People like Pryor, Eddie Murphy. And you're seeing all the young guys too at that point. Yeah.

Warren Hutcherson. Yes. Yes, Warren Hutcherson. Lance Crothers. Dave Chappelle, obviously. Chris Rock. All those people were kind of starting to come up. I was already looking up to Pryor and those people. Sure, those are the established ones. But at that time on Comedy Central, the great thing about the era that i was on which you know i didn't

appreciate but that there were just so many clips of young comics because they shot us all for different things and they'd repurpose it so there's just this never-ending stream of you know eight to twelve minute pieces yeah of all these young cats who are now like, I used to love Warren and he went on to be a big writer but his bits were great. I should talk to him.

Yeah, have him on the podcast. Do you know him around? Personally? No, I don't know him personally. So that's all soaking in. You're like, this is a way to deal with the world. Yeah, and actually we had HBO as well.

So I was watching Def Comedy Jam. I was watching HBO specials. I was watching the HBO comedy Half Hours. So I was absorbing all that. And then probably the most important thing for me. I love Hughley's Half Hour. D.L. Hughley's, his old one? That first one, that real old one where he's kind of angry.

It might actually be up on HBO Now and HBO Go. They put up a lot of those old specials, and I'm like, what? Like, it's pretty amazing to see. I just remember noticing this fury in his face but you know but he's doing pretty you know you know mainstream stuff oh but he was very intense oh I have to watch that again um probably the most important thing that I saw is Robert Townsend had a had a special called partners in crime yeah he did a couple of them yeah and it was like stand up and so you'd see like tommy davidson and like sinbad and some people but then he would do these short films which were sketches

right and it was sort of pre in living color because it would have all the wayneses it have paul mooney it have robin harris it have like you know lawanda page i think would show up in it so it's like harris oh yeah All these comics in one place. And it was sort of like two generations. And I, and then of course I followed in living color when that started. Cause I was like, Oh, I just saw those guys.

And he did that movie that he was like that. How to reshuffle. Yeah. The one who, you know, the first guy to get all that press for stringing along his credit cards at, you know, the independent self-made movie.

That was a good movie. And what was the black community like where you were growing up? Well, there is a black community in vegas we were in north las vegas which was kind of more of a black enclave yeah you could say um but then we moved when my mom got the the job at the mirage we moved closer to the strip so right so her commute wasn't insane like it was sure um i i didn't really have a sense personally of a black community around me well i mean i think that's what you get from those shows you know that's what i got from the shows yeah that there is one and there's a defined sort of uh i was just watching it in sitcoms right then i was outside yeah that's interesting though but it's also it's a little bit of now i know that my

mom was really paranoid because of the neighborhood we lived in. She was really paranoid about me being outside. Didn't want me to be outside with, because it was the early 90s and it was like every single news story was like, he's black, he's angry, he's coming. And we don't know why. It was at five. And I'm like, what? That's everyone I know, including me. Yeah.

So there was this fear of violence all of the time. Right. Which dissipated. And I didn't, because, you know, a big thing is that we didn't go to church once we moved back to Vegas. Like the kind of the relationship to church was over. Was it plowed into your head pretty strong? I mean, were you, you know, was it second nature to you? Were you a believer?

You know, what I believed in was performance. Like the preacher that i had was the first comedian that i liked because he was on stage entertaining an audience that's how it starts and that's that's where i got the bug for real was wanting i used to want to be a preacher you know but it was really that i wanted to be on stage talking to people i think a lot of them do too it's like you know it's a good racket you know it's a good racket for a lot of people true you can work the road a lot of work got to bring a tent with you you know? True. It's a good racket for a lot of people. True. You can work the road. A lot of work.

Got to bring a tent with you. You know, you got to go to your preacher open mics. Yeah. Yeah, I guess there are preacher open mics, but usually it's just you get a, what is it? I guess a lesser position. You're the associate pastor. Yeah. The associate.

There's people on Hollywood Boulevard right now with speakers going like, listen to me. That's the open mic to be a preacher. It's a tough gig. All right, so how do you find yourself going to Boston? How did that happen? Well, I was in middle school. Okay, so I've always been really educated. It was important to my grandmother, education.

Good student. Until I got made fun of. Until a teacher was like, everyone needs to be more like Baron. And then I got bullied. Then I'm like, all right, that's it. Nothing but Bs. When was that? This is elementary school.

Oh, you buckled. In the middle school. Yeah, man. I didn't want to stick out. My grandma taught me to write cursive when I was in kindergarten. I was knowing things that other kids didn't so I could read really well. Middle school-ish, I could read off the page without making any mistakes. So we'd have like English class and be like, Barron, read.

And then I would do voices and do all this stuff. You were ahead of the curve. I was ahead of the curve. So I was in eighth grade and the librarian at my middle school was the wife of the principal of the brand new performing arts high school in Las Vegas. Really? So they were like, you need to audition for that place. I went and talked to her, Mrs. Gary, and then got my application, learned a monologue, had

no idea what a monologue was, went and auditioned for this high school. And then I ended up going to high school there. At the Performing Arts High School in Vegas. Las Vegas Academy. That's a fucking gift. Yes, it was. Thank God for that, right? Especially because I had some kids that,

for the school I was supposed to go to, I had kids I knew, they're like, when you went to high school, I'm killing you. I'm like, okay, I need to not go here. So, and it was its first year, huh, that you got in there? I was probably around for like, maybe two or three years before I got there. So, it was exciting and probably well-funded and things were happening. Yeah, people were excited about it.

And it was one of the top high schools. I don't know how it is now. It probably still is. Just because it's an art school, so kids test well. Right. Because when you make learning fun guess what people retain knowledge but you had to learn other basics i imagine of course yeah we had regular high school classes right and we would have our major uh we'd have two of those classes

yeah and what was your major theater so you were doing the acting i was doing acting watching stand-up all the time did you sing sing? I did sing a little bit, yeah. Some musicals? You know I did it, Mark. I know. Of course. Which ones? You know, I never got cast in the, I want to say that the biggest part that I played in high school was Fagin and Oliver.

Oh, yeah? If you remember that at all. I do. And then I was kind of in some other stuff, Little Shop of Horrors and Fame. Uh-huh. And then I was kind of in some other stuff, Little Shop of Horrors and fame. And then I, in high school, probably about my junior year, when everyone started talking about college, I was like, oh, what am I going to do? And then I realized that you can actually study theater at college. You can actually study acting. So you looked around.

Because Boston University has one of the better theater programs. Yeah. It's not known for it, I don't think. Maybe it is now, but it was good. It is to actors. Yeah. You know, we were supposedly in the top three schools when I went there.

And that's one of the reasons I applied to like nine schools because I'm like, it's subjective. Someone's going to think I'm suck. Yeah. Someone's going to think I'm great. So- Where'd you apply? NYU, Juilliard.

Big ones. Carnegie Mellon. Yale? NYU, Juilliard. Big ones. Carnegie Mellon. Yale? No, not Yale. Yale doesn't have a discernible undergrad. That's right, that's right. Where else? Webster University.

Carnegie Mellon, NYU. Those are big Juilliard. SMU. Yeah. Like University of Evansville, Indiana. All these schools that I had researched. About the theater. About theater, yeah.

So Boston University, even though it was one of the more expensive schools, they luckily gave me a good little scholarship. Nice. So I ended up being able to afford to go to it, even though I'm still paying some loans off. And you did four years? Did four years of acting, yeah.

Oh, man. So I know where that is. I took an acting class or two up there did you but i was english major who did you take i was in stage troupe so i was in the non-acting major stage thing you know where we put on shows did you take any classes from the acting teachers just robert young and i don't know if he was there still okay when you were there there was a man named jim sproule yeah i remember him oh you do yeah he was very adamant about teaching acting to people who weren't there to study acting. He thought it's something that everyone should know.

I think he was the head of the school for a while, wasn't he, maybe? I don't know. I don't know if he ever was. I just talked to Mike Chiklis. He's a graduate from- Oh, yeah. From BU, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, cool. Yeah, they turned out a couple of people that you know. Yeah. Julianne Moore, Alfre Woodard. Some people that I liked. you know yeah julianne moore alfrey woodard um some people that i liked uh but yeah i went there and uh it was probably my junior it was a summer between my sophomore and my junior year i started doing stand-up in boston in boston no kidding dick doherty's comedy vault yeah sure the vault the vault right there on the boylston yeah and i was in and out of it Because it was like Theater school was so Demanding That I could only go to one

Show on Sunday Or Monday That I could go to To perform? To perform Yeah So I did stand up in Boston probably for about a year

Year and a half-ish Before I moved to New York When you graduated When I graduated When did you graduate? 2003 So you've been doing comedy For 14 years?

Well let me think I think it was the summer of 2001 so yeah about two years in boston um so coming up on 16 no kidding yeah all right you're totally surprised no it's not that i'm surprised like oh maybe you're not maybe you are comic after all yeah maybe maybe i'll change my uh how i have you framed in my head please but so you go to new york to do comedy i go to new york for various reasons i mean i graduated school and uh i ended up going to this thing called the williamstown theater festival right after school yeah in williamstown mass yeah um western mass and with what um there was a theater festival there and they were you performing

yeah i had like a little internship like an acting internship and uh i was able to audition for stuff in new york that people casting directors came there right okay i get it one of those things where it's like if you do this you'll get seen by them yes exactly yeah um and then ended up getting cast in this a small part in this play on Broadway. And that was my first job in New York. What theater? Manhattan Theater Club. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. Exciting. The Biltmore Theater. Oh, yeah? Which I think was new at the time. Hmm. It was cool because Alfre Woodard was in it, another BU alum. Wow.

Anthony Mackie, a couple different actors. Alfre Woodard's great. Yeah, she's fantastic. We keep in touch. You do? We do, yeah. Oh, that's cool woodard's great yeah she's fantastic we keep in touch you do we do yeah oh that's cool she's great um and i had a bit part in that and i moved to new york doing that and then it was over after like three months and then i was just in new york there you go without

a job another guy who's an actor my roommate being like um the rent though the rent where's that that was in when you were living in Astoria no that was the first place I lived was in Spanish Harlem oh yeah and it was like a three bedroom that four of us were living in I lived with a I had a roommate and literally we shared a room and I had an air mattress bunk bed no I had an air mattress I had an air mattress that someone had gave me and then one day someone stepped on it and it like undid the seam. Yeah. So then there was this huge hump in the middle of the air mattress that I just slept on for like another five months or something like that.

You couldn't afford an air mattress. Could not afford an air mattress. That's true. And then a friend gave me a bed. Tough times. A friend from Long Island gave me like an old trundle bed that they had. It's always nice when someone just gives you a bed. Yeah.

I gave my big futon bed to the guy across the hall from me when i left the lower east side oh nice i'm like here you go he was appreciative too wasn't he's a painter swept on the floor ah yeah i did i gave him a big old bed i had this uh studio apartment on avenue second street between a and b in the 80s and uh when it was scary it was still scary a little bit just at the end of that. But I'd bought this huge futon frame. It took up the entire thing. Like, it was on the floor. I'm like, I got a little money. I'm going to buy a frame.

And it took up the entire room, this frame. But it turned into a couch, right? No, no. It was like straight up. Like frame, like a bed frame. Oh, okay. Wooden frame. Pretty.

So it didn't move. No, no. It was just there. Yeah. Taking up space. The whole room. Ooh. Yeah, whatever. I gave it to the guy. Okay. So it didn't move. No, no. It was just there. Yeah. Taking up space. The whole room. Ooh. Yeah, whatever.

I gave it to the guy. Okay. Yeah, he was happy. I don't know if it changed his painting. Maybe it ruined him. I don't know. Maybe I was his downfall. He was painting from his pain.

Now he could get a good night's sleep. He was living this ascetic life, sleeping on the floor like a monk. And I gave him luxury and just toppled him. Just, that's it. I had no idea. You could see the comfort in all his brushstrokes. Yeah, yeah, it's over. That's it.

But, all right, so how long are you in New York before you get the first, what type of gig were you getting? How much time did you have as a comic at that point? Like 20, 25, what? Oh, man. I mean, I got to New York, I was doing bringer shows and open mics, and then- At what, like the Ha?

I was doing them at Stand Up New York yeah and the old Gotham right the one on 22nd Street yeah yeah and I like that room

it was just a perfect room yeah it always gets better than the new one beautiful yeah the new one's too big and the ceilings are high and it's a box

it's weird sounds weird but it's like that old one was like it was kind of good it's a jazz club now that's how good the acoustics are yeah it was kind of good so I was doing those. It was kind of good, yeah. It's a jazz club now. That's how good the acoustics are. Yeah, it was kind of good.

So I was doing those, and then I kind of started to meet a couple comics that were younger that were doing independent shows, and then I started doing more of those. Were you around for the Eugene Merman dominated scene? Eugene was just a little bit before me. Bring them up or whatever. Yeah, invite them up. Yeah. Yeah, the Rafifi and all that.

Yeah, yeah. The thing about your generation is you guys actually did stand-up in comedy clubs. Right. So, and then you started to do that stand-up in places that weren't clubs. Right. And then the generation behind you were just doing only the places that were the alternative venues. Right.

They weren't doing clubs. Yeah, but it's interesting when you really think about the, like, because like people like Hannibal and Holmes and Kumail, they did clubs. They're my generation. They're Chicago and Kinane. Those Chicago guys, I think, did clubs. Well, that's what happened is that the third gen, we came and the alt scene before us, the second wave, right, was more exclusive than the clubs. Right.

So then we were, we had a hand in both. We had a foot in both. Right. Because I would do Stand Up New York, like I said, in Gotham. And then I would do Ha here and there. when comics opened i became like their house mc for some reason uh that might have been where i met you yeah i might have opened for you there i think that's right um for you know that is right packing district yeah well that was a very that was a luxurious club that just didn't last didn't last everyone was always like how is this

place that is where you open for me i remember yeah because I opened for, I got to do a lot of shows there that I was really happy to do, you know, like I opened for you. I remember opening for Tompkins, Larry Miller. Yeah. It was really interesting. Yeah, it's too bad that club didn't fucking make it. Yeah, it was a nice little club. It was ambitious.

It was a tough market. Maybe too ambitious. Tough market. Yeah. Well, yeah, they were paying, it was almost like, I don't think you should be paying this much money. I mean, I came up in New York. I'm like, it's probably too much money. Well, and you know, because that's the other thing about New York is paid spots.

Yeah. So me showing up to a show, I'm literally taking money out of comics pockets. That's the older generation are like, you're taking a spot from me. That's my $50. What do you mean? When you do a guest spot or something? No, if I get passed into a club.

Yeah. It's like, I am now in the way. That's no way to look at it. I mean, I'm not saying that's how I looked at it. Oh, I'm saying that I think some of those guys looked at it that way.

I guess. I mean, you know, I don't, yeah. I mean, but that's more on the club. That ain't on you.

That doesn't mean I didn't internalize it. It doesn't mean I went like, Oh, I don't belong, don't belong you know right right because i didn't chase the alt scene you know i kind of i randomly met nick kroll and then we hit it off and i said hey you got a show over at the thing right yeah and he's like yeah come do it and then suddenly i was doing a lot of those shows right and then the generation came so you're in between yeah because i was you never locked into the mainstream scene yeah i never locked into the club scene but i did meet a lot of great comics that started to come over because i remember i was in new york already and doing shows when hannibal showed up yeah when eric andre showed up kumail um pete i met pete early

i remember when john mulaney started yeah so it's like I was already around and then Schumer showed up and all these different people right so it's like and Julian McCullough and just all these people sure you were of that crew of that crew yeah and are you getting acting parts are you going out for parts what are you doing

well at the time I think I was working at a law firm actually after the Broadway show ended I was working at a law firm for like two years. That before the colleges? Yes. Yeah. Because I was auditioning for commercials and stuff. Right.

You were doing the acting thing. I was doing the acting thing, got a commercial, was able to quit my job, booked a few other commercials. What commercial? It was like an AOL commercial, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Because remember when they had commercials or when they had AOL? Sure. And then I was able to support myself off of that, quit my day job, and was doing stand-up all night, auditioning during the day, doing stand-up all night.

And then slowly transitioned into doing colleges. And then colleges started to dry up about 08 and then started transitioning more into like actually booking acting roles did you get any good ones uh acting roles early on not any good ones you're in new york still yeah i had i was doing bit parts on shows here and there and like you know and of course there was the vh1 talking head shows and then like that was at the pinnacle like i love the 80s and best week ever we're like hot it was just like some sort of cultural bottom hitting well it was like everybody yeah they wouldn't pay they only paid certain people and it was like you're gonna get exposure and i'm like but no one cares who i know no one cares about me that's the biggest racket in the world it was a

hell of a money but boy you'd be on TV. But boy, people would be like, that five seconds, that guy was on TV. Let's get him. So you did all that shit. Yeah, I was doing all that stuff. And then probably 2009, I actually booked a pilot, like a role on a show. Yeah. The show didn't go.

Right. But it was a nice paycheck. What pilot was that? It was called Canned, was the name of it. It was like the, what's it called? The recession had taken hold. And so people were writing shows about people dealing with that. This show was about a bunch of investment bankers

who all got fired on the same day and had to kind of redefine their lives. It was an ABC multicam sitcom. You got a little experience, huh? Yeah. I mean, I had theater Right. It's an ABC multicam sitcom. Well, you got a little experience, huh? Yeah, I mean I had theater experience so I can do multicam, I can memorize lines quickly. Yeah, but be it in that machine of like doing the,

Exactly. Stopping and starting and, Yes. Rewriting and you know, working it. Rewriting five pages, here do it now. Yeah, yeah. In front of an audience. Yeah.

I'm like, oh, okay. And then the next year after that, I booked a pilot that ended up going to series. And I went to Vancouver to do that. Shoot it. Which one was that? It was called Fairly Legal. It was a USA show. Oh, yeah.

How long did that stay on? Two years. So you were working. I was working. So you did like, what, 22, 23 episodes? Yeah, maybe like 20 episodes. Uh-huh. Yeah, pretty good.

You're just above, your quotes were just above entry level yeah um it was great and horrible at the same time it was great to be employed but when i went to vancouver that's when i learned that i have some really intense depression and anxiety because i was sitting by myself in a city i knew no one in a lot and just like not getting out of bed for weeks eating cheerios like eating cheerios work yes basically i didn't know anyone i had no stage i didn't know any comics so i was like i can't go up fell into yourself you could have went out yeah but i also was like i don't want to like big dick my way on the shows like being like hey

people know me in the states I just didn't feel like that was classy see that might be where you're not quite a comic that might be

the one flaw that you have are you sure that the depression and the anxiety don't get me there they'll get you in okay perfect

but the idea that you wouldn't go some ways like where's my how do I get on I just you know it's like I knew that there was a scene in Vancouver it's humility it do i get on i just you know it's like i knew that there

was a scene in vancouver it's humility it's not a bad thing but right but because also like what if they hate me you know what if i like don't do well and like oh this guy said he was big in the states i guess no one's good there i guess i don't know how much of that i have but you sort of hope you know you go meet a couple comics and you know that without being you know swinging dick you know you just sort of they eventually will go like well you want to get on you know, swinging dick, you know, you just sort of, they eventually will go like, well, you want to get on? You know? Well, and the next year that I was there. In Vancouver.

In Vancouver, there was a guy on the crew who happened to know a lot of comics. He hooked me up with some people. And so the second year I was there, I ended up doing a lot of spots and then ended up doing that comedy festival in Vancouver as well. Right.

Which ended up being, that's another reason I probably got super depressed. I was not doing any, I didn't go on stage for like five, six months. Yeah, it's bad. And I'd never taken that long before. So how'd you handle the depression? What did you learn?

Did you, what happened? Well, I didn't know I was depressed. I just thought this is how I feel. Yeah, I'm like that too, yeah. Right, and then I was talking to a friend of mine who is much older than me, about 20 years older, a comic. And I was telling her like,

yeah, I just don't want to get out of bed and I've been sitting in bed for like two weeks and I've been showering with dishwasher soap and eating nothing but Cheerios. And she's like, I think you're depressed. And I'm like, oh, that's what, oh. I just thought the world was heavy okay okay i thought it was reasonable well you know because also like i was staying in this this apartment where if i

was in the back bedroom i could get internet i can get a good signal and i could be instant messaging yeah my friends all day yeah so what i started doing to solve this problem is I left my computer in the living room. Just to go to the living room? Yeah. Because it would be at the bed. Yeah. And I would open it up and sit in bed all day. Oh, my God.

But just getting out of bed to go check my computer. That was step one. It was step one. And I'm like, well, I'm up. I might as well take a shower. And then I take a shower. And I'm like, well, I took a shower. I might as well go outside.

No. You didn't go back to bed. But then I did. I would go outside. So you handled it. Maybe it wasn't clinical depression as much as it was just alienation yeah it's a little bit of all that stuff but also um yeah because i've never been diagnosed depressed like i don't know that i get on the medicine a chemical thing no i didn't yeah so you're just yeah yeah lonely and sad yes and i was lonely and sad and being like, oh man, I'm really lonely and sad.

This is how I feel when I'm with others. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. And then started kind of trying to handle that. And so you do that. They cancel the show, but you made some money. Cancel the show. I made some money.

Unfortunately, I had a business manager who stole it. Oh, shit. And that's how that story goes. Really? Yeah. At that level? Usually that happens at much more money level i'm still i was still green i didn't vet like someone was like oh this i know a guy

and then i take him to court or i filed my charges because there's like a statute of limitations like i'm still within my rights to file charges yeah but the dude's missing oh he's gone like he's just we can't keep track of him you know he we can't find him can't track him down so it's like and also like here's the other thing he spent the money yeah like it's not in a mattress waiting for me it's just it's gone get in touch with this shitty business manager a friend of mine put me in touch with him um the friend also was horn swaggled that's how easy it is yeah it's a but it's it's a pretty short con you got to get a couple guys and know your number and get out and that's what he did he did the short con he kind of played a bunch of

people took a lot of my money and then bounced sorry buddy well you know you live and live and learn is that when he moved to la uh yeah yeah i moved to la after i got that vancouver show and uh because i was like well it's the same in the West coast. It's a three hour flight. So I moved out here and then, um, yeah, got involved with that. And then after the show was canceled, I didn't work for like two, two and a half years. Just kicking around here doing comedy though. Doing comedy and doing the road, you know, and feeling like, uh, I came home one day and there was a summons on my front

door uh i had been sued by boston university for a defaulted student loan really oh yeah it wasn't even that much it was a lot to me but like for a university to sue me for this amount of money and then someone told me oh it's actually phenomenon. There's like a bunch of schools who if they gave you a government loan, the government is on them because it's still the recession. The government's like, where's our money, Boston U? And the Boston's like, oh, we lend it to this guy.

We'll sue him. And so I got sued and I was like, I do not have the money to pay this. So I remember falling to the ground and being like, that's it. I'm done. I'm done with comedy. I'm done with acting.

I'm going to move. I i'm gonna get out of here but i ended up like just kind of in that bottom if you will yeah quote unquote i sort of was like i i needed an attitude adjustment and so started kind of going toward the path i guess to mental health and like trying to have a better attitude trying to trying to figure out what is it that I want to happen what are you reading books you talking to a guru you going to therapy talking to what was mostly talking to a lot of my friends who were intelligent yeah but yeah reading books um going to therapy here and there and then you know more normally now that I can afford it that's the irony how'd you deal with that summons? Well, they sued me in Boston where I don't live. And so I didn't show up to court.

So they were awarded an amount that was twice the amount that I even owed in the first place. By who? By this creditor. Oh. They sold my credit. They sold my debt to this lawyer. So the lawyer in Boston sued me, took me to court.

I didn't show up. Yeah. And they were lawyer in Boston sued me, took me to court. I didn't show up. And they were like, oh, well, you automatically default win. So we're going to give you twice as much as the award. So I worked out a payment plan with them a little bit. But because the money was being stolen at the same time, like it kind of took a while to figure it out. Yeah. It was all that stuff was kind of happening at the same time.

I had been robbed. I was being sued. I didn't have a job. I was living by myself, you know. But you're crawling out of the wreckage. I crawled out of it, yeah.

Did you have a girl? I had a girlfriend at the time who was also very depressed. Great. And a huge pothead. So I started smoking weed a lot. Yeah, perfect.

But smoking weed from the depressed place isn't the healthiest. No. They could just send you further down that hole. No, everything slows down. Oh, yeah. So it's like, oh, I'm depressed, but now it's gonna last for a long time.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, man, turn on the television. Yeah, like I'm living inside a pillow. And that's what it was. So, and then I started to crawl my way out of that little by little and started to put some stuff together. And it's kind of like it took four-ish years. Luckily, being employed on the Netflix show Grace and Frankie helped get me out of the financial hole.

Yeah, and that must be amazing. You didn't land me, Lily, but you got you here. I have tried and tried. I know. We're trying, too. I don't quite understand it. But people get to a certain age, you're like to, I don't quite understand it, but I, you know,

the people get to a certain age. You're like, do I need to do that? You know, but also it's like, I think that she also like, she's just not as connected to phones and emails as we are. She's the generation working with them with Jane and Fonda and Lily Tomlin and Martin Sheen.

I mean, that must be like, this is really your first, in a sense, you know, although working with Alfre Wood your first, in a sense, you know, although working with Alfre Woodward when you were a kid is one thing, but now you're a regular

on a show with these legends. It's got to be kind of astounding. Yeah. For better and worse. Yeah, they're pretty amazing, you know, to be around. Lily is a hero of mine as well like i watched laughing when i was a young and a youngin one ringy dingy oh man she did that character i was telling her how much i

loved ernestine's name that character and then she like did the snort laugh and i almost cried yeah i was like oh that was really important to me she goes out and sort of uh still does one-woman shows yeah curates like a greatest hits type of thing, I think she does. Yeah, she's got shows coming up. Yeah, like, because she was at some theater that I was at,

you know, before me or coming up, and I think she does a mixture of film footage and live things. I get it, Mark. You play theaters, all right. No, no, no.

I was just like, I always wonder what they're doing. I'm just messing around. I know. You know, like, does she just do a straight stage show like she used to but i think she actually does sort of a retrospective yeah i haven't gotten to see it yet you know it's funny too because we had a talk once because i asked her about like kind of her path in hollywood and all that stuff and she was telling me when she got off laughing and she did a bunch of like specials on i think it was like abc and cbs yeah because it was like that's how you got yeah variety shows that's

how you got your own sketch show she did she did richard pryor's show her yes exactly and then she had richard pryor on her show as well um but she said that like a lot of the people that were in her generation like that were laughing they all had to go do hollywood squares yeah and the match game well that's what was available now we have our own versions of that exactly but she said that for her she could go on the road yeah so she didn't get oversaturated right so that was that was like her saving grace is that she could always go on the road and she did real acting too at some point like i think she did some altman movies didn't she yeah nashville right she got oscar nomination i think and she was also in uh the other one uh shortcuts she was great yes she oh love shortcuts with tom waits oh yeah tom waits

oh my god it's great stuff yeah and jane it's it's good to know that real pros i can hold my own sure with them but you can also see the history that they come from. It's interesting working with older actors who have done the big stuff. Yeah. And they carry that with them. There is a sort of respect and a weird quirkiness to them, I imagine. It's also that they were on sets before cell phones. So it's like now on a set when there's it's you're in between a

shot people will go look at their phone or look at their computer but they talk to each other right they still like like oh did you read the thing about the stuff and then they have a conversation it's like oh this is how you can be yeah you can actually have a conversation and get to know the people you're working with instead of like all right bye be a community what did twitter say yeah yeah oh that's well that's a good lesson to learn. Definitely, yeah. So that's going well for you. Yeah. And now you got cast in the remake of a show that you were a fan of as a child.

Yes. With Joel Hodgson's, when's that gonna go, the MST3000 reboot? April 14th it comes out. It's just pretty much like the old one, right? Yeah, yeah. It's me and Jonah Ray and Hampton Yunt. And I'm the voice of Tom Servo.

Hampton is Crow and Jonah's playing a version of himself, right? The guy who was imprisoned on the ship. And it's a tribute to the originals, but we've updated it, you know, kind of made it more modern. It looks completely different, obviously. And Joel's doing it? Yeah, and Joel's at the helm.

How's he doing? He's doing great, man. He's a really cool dude. He's super relaxed. He's very, very zen. Great to work with. He's great to riff with, yeah. He was a comic way back.

We actually were talking about you recently, too. I think he might come on. Yeah, that's why I think we were talking about you so but now let's get full circle here now when do you decide that you gotta you know seek your dad out i mean it's a combination of things man you know like like i said like working on myself going to therapy and stuff like that and seeing how much of my identity is grown out of not having a man around to show me what being a man is. Not that that will get you everything in the world, but that's the hole that I was always trying to fill in some sort of way. And also feeling like I can't feel it. I'm not manly or also internalizing the idea that this deep male shame I have about like,

well, men, what do men do? They hurt my mom. They hurt my grandma and they start all the wars. And I'm one and kind of believing deep down in some way that I can only disappoint. Well, that's interesting because some other people go different direction with that. There are some people that have absent fathers that go out and just overcompensate the shit out of everything. Right. And I undercompensatecompensate right right i guess it's the other the other direction yeah i went sort of the more internal hatred self-loathing direction and so that's the

kind of stuff that it doesn't serve me anymore it doesn't help me out so when you i started identifying all this stuff in therapy do you you think that you were going to get closure by meeting this man? Not necessarily because I don't know that there is a closure to have because the events surrounding it. You're already wired. Yeah, I'm already who I am. Yeah. And also whatever happened already happened.

Right. It's more that I've never known what happened i've never been told a version of the story and you kind of want to look him in the eye right yeah and i wanted to see not only hear it from my mom because this is the first time my mom ever told me what happened around the about the circumstances around my birth she doesn't talk about it because it's painful for her but luckily you know she's come a far away as well and sees that like, oh, I've healed a lot and let go of this stuff, so it was a really good experience for her.

And you can handle it now? And I can handle it like I'm not gonna go crazy. Right. And he's like a guy I know now. Who? My dad. So where do you go find him? How'd you find him?

Combination of things. I mean, making this documentary was the excuse I gave myself, because I probably wouldn't have done it even though i knew i needed to uh-huh but kind of making it a thing where i i had to answer to some people and there was an expectation and some deadlines sure sure yeah i like forced myself into a position yeah having to do it yeah i mean no idea how i was going to feel right and so um he uh is in albuquerque of course is he yeah he's from Albuquerque, of course.

Is he? Yeah. He's from Albuquerque. Your dad is? Yes. Uh-huh. So he lives in Albuquerque. That's where I met him.

So that's fortunate for the doc and budgetary reasons. Yes. The drive from Tucumcari to Albuquerque is not that big of a deal. We went Portales, Tucumcari, and Albuquerque. So what do you know about him before you meet him? Nothing. But you know where he before you meet him? Nothing. But you know where he works or where he... No. What was the first communication?

The first communication was a week before we met. I called him on the phone. Had a private investigator track him down. Okay. Because I had seen a picture of him when I was a kid. Didn't remember what he looked like. I remember what his name was. The private investigator found him pretty quickly.

I'm telling you like an hour after we talked, he's like, well, I found the guy and I called him and he said, he's aware of your existence and he would love to talk to you. I'm like, what? That's,

I wasn't expecting that. So we talked on the phone, you know, and, um, it was probably about a month. I called him and left the message and then he called me back. It was probably about a month after that, that I called him back where I was busy, busy,

quote unquote, but also- Freaking out. I was freaking out a little bit. And I also didn't know, I started asking myself like, what do I actually want out of this? Right, right. Yeah. What am I going to get? What's this going to be like?

Am I okay? Am I going to be okay? Yeah. And so called him. We talked briefly. he was a really relaxed guy he even told me some of the things that like i wasn't expecting to hear just about like who he was because that's i was more i'm more curious about who he is as a person yeah because look here's how i look at it mark um my mom and my father did the best they could

in the circumstances they found themselves in so i was curious about what are the circumstances what who raised you i guess who raised you to make this be the only decision that you can make in this moment okay i i mean i hear that i i would argue that it was not the best they could it's what they did but those other questions you're asking i think are valid and what they did is the best they could the best they could. It's what they did. But those other questions you're asking, I think, are valid. And what they did is the best they could. The best doesn't mean it's good. It just means that like that's as much as they can do.

That's as much as they can handle. Fine. Let's mince words. Let's get into it. No, but no, this is just my approach to that. Like, you know, because I think that's what we do to make, you know, to sort of like detach from it without it being too horrible for us to say they did the best they could. But they did what they did. Well, I'm saying they did the best they could.

No, I know. I've said it too, but I've redacted that. Yeah. Well, and that's fine. I guess semantics, but like I'm saying like, yeah, they did what they did. Nothing else happened. That's right. That's the only thing that happened.

They did what they knew they had. They did what they did what they did. Nothing else happened. That's right. That's the only thing that happened. They did what they knew they had to. They did what they could. Yeah, they did what they could. Yeah. With the background that they had, with the background that their parents had, whatever expectations were heaped on their shoulders. So you're getting around that. So what'd you find out about your old man?

Like, was he contrite? What do you mean contrite? I mean, was he, did he feel he feel remorse yeah he has some remorse you know he said like you know i missed out you know i made these mistakes i made these decisions it's what i did you know but like now we have an opportunity to you know to to to know each other was he financially present uh in my life yeah no nobody was right my mom was on her own so what was his story so you so you get on the phone with him you have this first conversation it's better than you thought yeah and when you sit down with him do you what happens uh apparently one of the first

things i asked was who he liked as a comedian was this on tape yeah it's on the dock it's okay okay so anybody wants to see it fatherless it's the name of the dock it's on okay so anybody wants to see it fatherless is the name of the dock is on itunes uh it'll be out in fusion okay um so yeah we sat down and again i was interested in in just kind of knowing what he's into you know and how he thinks yeah um and how he's absorbed this whole thing into his own life and what it makes him today who was his favorite comedian uh well he actually named prior and red fox and in mom's babley so i was like okay we can talk we can talk um did you cry no i didn't cry i'm not a i'm not a big crier why is that what are you what are you holding back yeah. I've been asking myself that exact thing. It's really hard for me to cry.

I think there's a self-consciousness about it. I also, I kind of shut down is where I more dissociate. So when the feelings start to get too overwhelming, I just kind of go, the whole thing kind of turns off. Oh, really? I yell. I know. I know. I know.

It can be scary. I'm fortunate to have never been on the other end of that, for real. I've been hitting it. I'm better now. That's true. No, I'm literally listening to you get better as a person listening to this podcast. But it's interesting, though. So, well, what answers did you get?

What'd you come away with? I know it's in the doc and people should watch it, but I mean, do you, did you find some peace? Yeah. Peace is, peace is the word, not closure. Right. But peace. Right.

Because I wanted to understand what happened. And what happened? It's that again, they're young, they were young and they were scared. It's as simple as that. I don't actually need to know all of it because people get scared and when people get scared, they do, they do dumb things.

They make bad decisions. They make fear decisions and they run or they shut down or they come up with all sorts of stories to justify what they're about to do. And that's fine. It sucks. You know, if, if you're caught in the middle of all that stuff but that's how people work you know we're all just trying to like get to the next thing and not feel too badly right do you have siblings you didn't know about yes how's that um i've only met one of them there's four of them um and he said he's slowly

telling the family about me uh i was in Albuquerque in December and I ended up meeting up with him and one of my little brothers had just heard about me two days before that and wanted to meet me. So he came to the lunch as well. How was that? It was fine.

That's wild. There's no other way to describe him except that he was a solid young man. Like he had just gotten out of college. He already had a job like less than a month out of school. What's your old man? Geez. He's retired.

It's a military guy. Oh yeah. It's an army guy. So now, now do you feel that this is going to be an ongoing relationship? Yeah. Oh good. It's still,

I don't call him dad. Right. To his face. Right. It's still weird. Sure. To say it. Right. Like my, like it's like i never

said it and can you do the my biological father my biological father yeah uh i do say father yeah a lot right but you don't call him dad yeah right not yet sure who knows right because it's like he's a guy i'm getting to know all As opposed to his feelings. What he thinks of me is really important. Like I didn't grow up with him. No anger? Not really. I don't see any use for it. The anger is gone.

The anger is already passed from a long time ago. Good for you. Thank God, right? I guess. Quite a trick. But you know what? A lot of people ask me that. Are you angry?

You know, like, do you, do you want to punch him in his face? I'm like, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do from that. Cause I, even when I talked to him, I was like, look, I think, you know, it might be, it might be easier to maintain anger, you know, when they're shitty, but in your life. Yeah. Like, you know, this was The transgression was that he left. Yeah. So you can only be angry about one thing in a way.

I was angry at the concept of men and being one at the same time. The concept of? Of men. Right. Of dads. Right. But for someone who has to live through their dad shit

year after year, day after day, that anger is probably always a little close to the surface it's a simmer but the absencing it's like you know you're mad because he wasn't there so like on some level you got spared a lot of the shit that could have been really bad exactly see that's a big point that i've made a lot of people are always like how could a man leave yeah and i'm like you know what a lot of dudes are right like some of them are like i can't handle this yeah and they leave and that's probably a good choice because they might have been shitty abusive people yeah who the hell knows you never know right it's a crap

shoot yeah well a lot of things going on buddy i'm doing it to it you made it out of the hole gotta all right good talking to you, Barron. Alright, well that's it. That's me and Barron and me and Moshe and that's our show for today. I don't think I've ever closed like that. Go to WTFpod.com for all your WTF Pod needs. I got a lot of posters still. A lot of Carnegie posters.

I got all kinds of posters and also my tour dates are there for the upcoming six or seven dates I have left on this tour so if any of that interests you get on the mailing list I'll mail you something every week I'm about to go write that now but maybe I should play some guitar first

I've been listening to a African music anthology of some kind I think it's leaked into my head. Thank you. Boomer lives! But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now.

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