WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 871 - Loudon Wainwright III / Judd Apatow

Episode Date: December 10, 2017

Singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III talks life, love and Roman numerals. The prolific musician tells Marc about the heyday of the folk music scene, the late-in-life acting career he didn't expect, and the burden of having talented singer-songwriter children who turn his transgressions into songs. Plus, writer-director-producer (and Loudon Wainwright fan) Judd Apatow stops by to talk about getting back on the standup stage for his Netflix special, Judd Apatow: The Return. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category.

And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the

fucking ears what the fucksters what the fuckadelics what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron wow did i just say my name weird i'm mark Maron. lately more listening than i'm generally known for usually i'm known for listening and interjecting and now now i'm just experimenting with just listening should all do some listening anyway there's actually a sign in my garage that says what people need is a good listening to someone sent that to me it was a gift i took it as a gift and as a not a passive aggressive thing super fan amy years ago i think sent that to me i think it was gift. I took it as a gift and as a not a passive aggressive thing. Superfan Amy years ago, I think, sent that to me. I think it was her. But yeah, so that's just up there.

And now I'm referring to it because at some point I'm going to have to dismantle this shrine of listening here at the garage. But not soon. Doesn't seem like it's going to be soon. I'm here now. I'm here in it. I'm doing the show today on the show. I'm going to talk to my old friend Judd Apatow.

He's got a special. And Loudon Wainwright, who also Judd has used in movies. They're not together. Two different talks. But that's what's ahead. That's what's ahead for you. But first, Europe. Hello, Europe. I'm coming to see you this spring, Europe. Monday, April 16th in London, England. Thursday, April 19th in

stockholm sweden sunday april 22nd in oslo norway monday april 23rd in amsterdam in the netherlands and thursday april 26th in dublin ireland it's uh it's my few parts of the world tour go to wtfpod.com and check out the tour page to get venue and ticket information all right i'm coming for a little while i don't that is the tour i planned i want to go see some places i want to see the world before it burns i'd like to see some parts of the world before they're gone i'd like to get out and enjoy my life now that i've worked so hard all these years before it goes away. See, I'm trying to be, that's those two tones.

That's the upbeat. And then I just undercut it with the terrified. Oh my God. It's terrified, but not running. Like, oh no, unbelievable. But yeah, so it's been an interesting week. I haven't talked to you since last week, but I think I recorded that before most of California was on fire and before I was nominated for a Critics' Choice Award.

See how it comes, the yin and the yang? Hey, is that fire going to consume my new house? I don't know. I don't know if it is. It's time to spend some time watching fire apps watching fire maps watching for when the fire comes i feel horrible for people who lost property lost pets lost homes not in that order necessarily uh whose lives were compromised by these fires but there are fires all over fucking california and it's terrifying because

the brain just seeks to make like i you know there's always been fires right not like this just like i don't know a fire might break out in the fucking garage in three minutes it's just like spontaneous fires but most of the people i know up north and uh and around uh people i come in contact with at work uh Their homes are okay. But again, I hope everything's okay out there for everyone. I feel bad for people that got compromised by these fires. But is this normal now? Like, I've always been kind of nervous about California in general.

I want to run, man. But then it's like nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. And I believe there are some places to run and there are a few places to hide. But I dug in, I dug in, I got a new place. And I guess if it's going to go down, it's going to go down. But I've actually done jokes about this, about these fires and about you years ago. It's just crazy. I went out, Sarah, the painter got some emergency kits. We got that. I guess I'm going to have to get a generator.

One way or the other, you better be preparing for the end of something. And I'm not saying that in a tone of terror or existential despair. It's a practical term. Prepare for the end. All right? On the other side of the fires,

I was nominated for a critic's choice award yeah i'm excited a critic's choice nomination i look folks for me i didn't anticipate being nominated for anything ever you know i thought the one shot we had was a p-body but they they didn't they they poo-pooed it the p-bodies poo-pooed us. The Peabody's poo-pooed us, I guess. I thought that was the one, that would have been the one possible, the one window of opportunity to get any accolades. I certainly didn't anticipate

getting any accolades for acting or for anything. For stand-up, I don't know. I'm not being falsely humble. It's just like looking at my life, it just was not part of any of the uh the possibilities but so so the critics choice award is a is a welcomed excitement and i am grateful

for it and i'm excited about it and glow the show got several alice and brie got one betty gilpin got a nomination i think that the show got a nomination so everybody on set was excited and we needed that excitement over the last few days because we were we were shooting the show up in Pomona on a set that God, I don't want to spoil anything. Would it spoil anything? I know what maybe it'll just provide it'll provide suspense. We were on a hospital set in Pomona for two days, 12-hour shoots running well into the evening, one or two in the morning. So it was nice to have the extra added excitement of knowing that the show is getting this recognition. It was fun times.

I'm trying, you know, on a day-to-day basis for whatever reason, I experience a great deal of dread and terror in my head. And I know many of you know this and I'm not experiencing it right now but I actually had a moment on set the other night where it's like look I wait around a long time to do three lines on Friday night we had shot all day I was there we were there from like 12 to 1 in the morning and we did I did one scene in the morning which was a fun scene no lines but it was a fun it was me and allison and betty and chris lowell and then uh pretty much i waited around like eight hours about eight hours and they did everyone's coverage all the women were there

you know all 13 14 of them and we covered everything except my point you know my coverage with where the camera is on me it was the last shot of the night of a 12 and a half hour night at one in the morning. And, uh, and, and for some reason, instead of,

um, feeling like, well, fuck man, what kind of gig is this? What, what is all this waiting around this acting business? I just locked in and I'm like,

make it a good few minutes, man. This is what you wait for. This is what acting is. Enjoy this minute and a half and just you know act this shit out of it i was doing a beat with the all of them that i had a beat with betty who's great great actress and we just had the moment and it felt very rewarding that's a step in the right direction it wasn't like man was that worth waiting for? I'm trying to tell you that I turned a corner

and I, I I've grown to appreciate, Hey, if this is the window, if this is the moment, if this is where I get to act on this episode, if these two lines are where it's at for the day, then lean in, man. And I guess that's pretty good advice for anybody. Like if you have those moments where you got to show up and do your job, you know, fully focused, you know, for even if it's only for a half an hour that it's expected out of you and you spend the other 12 hours, you know, looking at a computer or pretending to work, make the best out of that. Make the best out of that half hour. Make the best out of that five minutes, man, because it's all burning. Everything is on fire. Oh, my God.

So Judd came by because he's got a special. Judd Apatow, The Return, premieres tomorrow, December 12th on Netflix. And we got into it. It's always good to see Judd. It's always good to have a chat. And it always ends up longer than we think. And it always ends up pretty engaged because, you know, we do what we do.

So this is me hanging out with Judd Apatow. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost,

almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Thank you. highly regulated category and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. creative. Her bit. That's the thing about your special. Let's start there. Technique wise, you bold motherfucker used a wireless.

There was no aversion to using a fucking wireless. At least I didn't go with the Janet Jackson, you know, McDonald's wireless. No, you can't do that. No, no, no, of course not. But I don't go with the Janet Jackson, you know, McDonald's wireless. No, you can't do that. No, no, no. Of course not.

But I don't trust wireless mics. I'm like some weird old timey guy. Like if I don't know that it's connected to something and they always seem bulky and they don't slide in and out properly and you just went ahead and used it. Well, I have a different issue, which is I am not that professional as a comedian and i will constantly trip over the cord so you knew that you're like i prefer not to have more mess up here than necessary i i literally find myself at the comedy store tripping over the cord so often that when they said we have a cord i was like yes thank you did you think about it so i. So I watched you work on a lot of the material for months and months, and then I didn't know like a third of it. Where were you hiding that stuff?

Did you just pull it out that night? Well, what's interesting is when you do the improv in the comedy store, there's so much material that just doesn't work there. Uh-huh. You know, longer stories, things that take time when you need people to pay more attention. Right. You know, there was always larger hunks

that worked in theaters or places where people were paying more attention. Oh, so you were working that stuff out elsewhere. Yeah, certain bits where I thought, well, this is an 11-minute bit. The poem bit. Yes, the poem bit. I read a poem that I wrote when i was uh 14 when

my parents were getting divorced which i stumbled onto and it's so sad but makes me laugh so much i wrote poems in exactly the same cadence that there was a weird kind of naive social importance yes to what you're saying and the dr seuss rhyme scheme yeah but you had a little free verse there there was it was it wasn't all dr seussy what i found interesting about finding this poem one is that the poem is basically saying i'm an enormous amount of pain but maybe this pain will one day make me a good comedian and i wrote that when i was 14 that's basically what the poem is about you already knew but you know when i was a kid I had this sense that I was supposed to be good at certain things if I wanted to be in comedy. Yeah.

And I tried everything. I tried juggling pins. I tried to write sketches. I just took a quick pop at everything. What were the other ones? Guitar playing? Guitar playing I was terrible at. I like that you went with the juggling. Did you figure out how to get the balls in the air i

could juggle the pins then i bought the fire pins no light on fire and then never worked up the courage to light them and that's why it took you so long to make a special exactly i was so afraid and then one day i wrote a poem and it's interesting. It's a real window into how my brain works or worked at the time but I find the most interesting part is I never wrote a poem again. Right.

So I wrote this long poem and then in my head I must have thought, yeah, you're not good at this and stopped, which is a metaphor for my stand-up career. My brain wants to shut it down but oddly uh and i you know because i wrote poetry in college and i took it seriously at some point even after high school even after my big ginsbergian uh assault on uh on the the

world we live in at 14 um you know i i think that writing comedy is poems I think that jokes are poetic there's rhythm, there's a turn of phrase, there's a lot of things that are very poetic elements Yeah, I agree, every once in a while when something's worded perfectly it feels a little poetic, this is the one that

is so truthful but I was proud of this thought, and it's so simple but I talk about how my 15 year old just seems so unhappy to be in the house sometimes with me and my wife right and and i i say you know when uh you have four people it is a family when it is three it is a child observing a weird couple that's as close as i get to poetry it just says it all it's like a haiku yeah that's beautiful so i mean arguably i think that you committed your life to poetry that's the

way i'm gonna look at it i like it i mean i would have liked to have been a poet but where do you really go with that you know what i mean it's like maybe you got a couple books that nine people read and you teach somewhere that's the best that you could hope for yeah that always leads to the the debate how many people do you need to watch your stuff or like your stuff well you well i mean you know the answer to that i need it to work in china i need it to work in russia that's the funny thing the business now is everything about the business is like will things work overseas? And you get in these meetings where there's a subtle subtext, which is like, you know, is there anything you could chuck in it? Like an actress from another country that might bring in the Spanish crowd.

And then when you try it, it never works. You always bomb in the country of the foreigner you put in the movie. You've tried that? You've done that? Well, just in the sense that sometimes we work with people from other countries because we love them, not to do it for a marketing reason, but I've never felt a bump in that country

because I had the Russian guy in a few scenes. But they do want you to think that way, and they also are trying to reach people that don't understand verbal humor yeah so there's also this feeling generally yeah that you know movies work best when you're blowing up shit blowing up shit or just like very broad physical comedy or expressions yes it's and you and you think i don't know how to reach people in other countries and everyone's a movie blows up around the world yeah no idea why we made this movie um called begin again yeah

and it was a mark ruffalo uh movie that john carney the guy who made once made yeah and it did okay in the united states in in south korea yeah makes 25 million dollars that movie it's States in South Korea makes $25 million. That movie. It's gigantic. In one country on earth, South Korea loves Keira Knightley in a musical. And we don't know why. You can't try to appeal because you'll never figure it out. You can't manufacture lightning in a bottle.

It just happened. There was no part of the process where I thought, South Korea's going to love this. This is going to kill there. We got an ace in the hole in South Korea. So I like the special and your whole approach to stand-up, given your 20-year hiatus. Was it?

It was 22 years. A 22-year hiatus from when you did the young comedian special 19 what 92 92 and then you go on you make a billion dollars you make a lot of movies tv shows you write jokes for other comics and now finally you feel confident enough to get back to what you started out doing but the reason I bring it up is because I thought you were very humble and you had a lot of humility around the approach. You didn't come in swaggering. You were sort of like, I know where I'm at.

I'm a strong feature at this point. I always say that the only show since I started pursuing stand-up aggressively in 2014 where I really felt like I did badly and got nervous was one night at the Comedy Cellar when you walked in the room. Stop it. Come on. I got really self-conscious and I had just started. Maybe I had been doing it a few months again. And you walked in the room and on stage all i thought was marin knows this sucks and i didn't feel that way with

you know ray romano watching or wow anybody watching dice clay was watching me one night i just for some reason i i felt so connected to you that he the voice in my head that's telling me that i suck is also mark marion's voice so when i finally was doing well enough that you would indicate to me like it's going good you got some good stuff i really relaxed generally just recently just recently you'd be like stuff's looking good or i you know the best compliment is when you hear from someone else like marion said you got some good shit i'm like oh thank god all right you're like atel said you're funny now oh you got one of those oh that was a big one that's a huge one the atel like yeah that's what that's the one we all want exactly it's for him to say anything about you but i you know when

i started doing it again yeah it's so funny because I was so into stand-up from the time I was 17 to 24, but really from the time I was 10 to 24, that when I stopped, I was pretty burnt out at just doing seven days a week of nothing but thinking about jokes, writing jokes, watching comedians. So I didn't even look at comics for a decade and only maybe around 2010 11 did i go what's everybody doing i didn't even go to the improv for 15 years probably right really even to watch so i didn't even and then i started feeling like even as a comedy producer i shouldn't know what's happening yeah but that sounds like somebody who like you know quit something like that was hurting them, but they had no control. It was like an addiction.

I can never go back to where that's happening. I just lost interest in it. Really? It wasn't anger. I felt just bored of watching it, and then slowly, I'm trying to think, who was the- I think that's a grown-up thing. Who was the comedian that got me excited again? I know I started watching Hannibal a little bit and he was making me laugh.

I think watching, uh, you know, you know, there was a few people that I thought, wow, like Maria Bamford. I remember hearing her on your show.

Yeah. You, you drove somewhere with her. Right. Yeah. And I was really taken by that. Oh yeah. And you not seen her before that? No. Oh man man and then i started looking that up and then i then i realized

oh there's some amazing people right who are a lot better than the people when i started and different you know i mean yeah sure there was there's always some slouches around yes but you know there were some great guys then too when we started or like whenever that was 92 you said the young comedian special was yes and i so i started in 89 i think officially you know making money yeah probably 87 88 doing it but there were good people around but there was you know the remnants of the road of that first wave and there were a lot of those kind of you know uh mid-level headliners with you the wrap closers or somersaults. But there was always like, there were some people in the generation before us where you're like, well, that was really unique.

Those guys are really sort of doing something completely different. And there's a lot of them around now. I mean, back then it really was Hicks. You go see Bill Hicks. For that thing. He was singular in that. Stephen Wright was singular in that, in his thing. Goldthwait, when you would go see him in the late 80s.

And of course, Kinison, who to this day, I've never seen anyone more exciting to watch. Yeah, just menacing. Just to see Kinison before the crowd knew who he was was the most exciting comedy you've ever seen and it really can't be recaptured like people walk in a room not knowing this guy's coming and not knowing the joke the point of view and he starts screaming at them the place it would erupt half the place would walk out yeah and there's no one like that now an exciting panic you know what i mean well i i actually for some reason on uh on the random thing on my ipod in the car the the album went on i have

like that first album hotter than hell or louder than hell you can't it's not on cd so someone's got to rip it and someone ripped it at some point and gave it to me and i listened to the whole thing through and i've always been a guy that listens to that once a year and i had experiences with him. And then, like, this was the first time where I was sort of like, that was really kind of wrong-minded and shitty. Well, it's all so awful. Like, I remember laughing.

I mean, I knew it was, but, like, I felt a slight offense for the first time. So, like, you know, he was definitely a monster, but the intensity and the balls of it it all you don't see that much it felt like i guess looking back if you you were to try to define the sam kinnison character it would be the world has broken him yes and so in a way the world will pay and so you enjoyed it from that point of view yeah he was, it was a person in meltdown. So his opinions, which were so wrong at times, you never felt like the joke was he believes it. You felt like this is what happens when you get broken.

Cautionary tale. Yes. You just completely lose your mind and start screaming at starving people to go to the food. It doesn't make any sense at all. Punching way down. Yes. Punching as down as you can punch exactly he's so because i always took it like it's the frustration that life is unkind yeah that makes you go what are we gonna do i don't know go to the fucking food yeah yeah right but it doesn't make any sense at all that way he captures that

whole thing with where it's like you know you're sitting there eating what you pulled together like he he phrased it like he was just sitting in front of the television set with some shitty dinner that he pulled together for himself. And there's a starving guy on TV, a starving kid. And it just infuriated him. And isn't that just a cover for an inability to feel sadness? That you do feel so sad that you just start screaming nonsense because you can't go to that vulnerable place that just wants to cry about that kid yeah you're broke your heart broken now it's exploding yes all over everybody unless we're just totally wrong and he was just a

monster yeah yeah it was definitely there was some of that, but, but okay. But like what I was saying though, like I was impressed and I, I entered the, uh, the, the, the Apatow return, you know, seeing you around as, you know, like I was, uh, not that I needed to defend you, but I'm like, wait, people were surprised. I'm like, he was writing jokes for some of our favorite comics when he was a child. What do you think you're going to, what do you think he's going to have a hard time putting together an act you know i mean did you ever did you think as a joke writer

and you drew from your life you know very frankly that you were gonna have a hard time putting together an act it i think what it is is that i didn't think about it too much i just slowly slid into it yeah i think what helped me a lot in doing it again yeah one was i didn't need to do it to pay my rent right and i didn't need to beg for spot so i was very lucky that i had enough recognition that clubs would put put me up as a freak show anyway at least in the beginning you're not like steve-o i mean you're judd apatow but just there was something amusing about seeing me attempt to do it the other thing that helped me a lot is i didn't know who any of the comics were so when i started going up at the cellar yeah i didn't know almost anybody so i didn't have the fear of everybody because at the time i didn't understand how much better they were than

me or yeah where they stood in the hierarchy yes like you know i didn't know like oh that's how funny you know keith robinson is oh yeah i should i should be nervous around him because he's killed every single night yeah and all those guys that you know greer barnes and wow greer barnes all these people like were so funny, and then I would slowly watch them. But at the very beginning, I just hadn't watched comedy in a long time. So when I would go in

and I would sit at the table with all the comics, I didn't even know their acts to know who I was sitting with most of the time. And then by the time I figured out who everyone was, I had enough of my sea legs to not be too embarrassed. But I was embarrassed like though this is kind of weird that i'm uh attempting to do it but i've always felt like everyone realized that i love it so much but you but you were this but you were a comic yes i mean that's

the weird thing is like i would have thought that you know sitting down with them that that that you would have thought that they were projecting like what does this guy need to do this for why is he here i didn't i didn't get that from people well then i hit it well yeah i mean oh yeah but you know what maybe that was what people were thinking just just what is happening right now every once in a while i would see someone get quiet you know i'd sit at the comedian's table just someone very chatty would just stop talking. And I thought, God, I hope my presence here isn't making people self-conscious. But then slowly. You don't want them walking, you know, going home at 2.30 going like, I fucked up with appetite.

Which is not why I'm there at all. But everyone was so nice. I really fell in love with everyone there and you know esty uh and gnome they just were very inviting the club was excited to have me uh work there and then i worked my ass off i wrote you know jokes to try to i tried to be worthy of it i really respected all the the comedians and thought i gotta got to get good enough that I could think, I'm the same level of these people. I was watching the special and it was all loaded up with little one-line pieces that I'd never heard before.

And I didn't get it all the way to the end. Did you do the Cosby bit? I do, yeah, near the end. I love that bit and I love all the kid stuff. And to sort of admit, and you sort of had to because you weren't going to go up and and just do you know detached jokes yes but you do you know you present your life as it is you know i am a rich producer of film and television i live a very you know uh gilded life is that the word yes uh but you know you know problems remain

well that is the one thing that you notice and i I'm sure from your new perch and your new home you will notice as well. That once you can pay your bills, and I always say this, that people who have succeeded in what they've tried to do and have a little money, they spend their whole lives thinking when this happens, that happiness will arrive. And then when it happens, you realize, oh, I'm still unhappy. It's me. It's all me. But I don't know that I ever thought that happiness would arrive. But I do feel there are some things I don't have to worry about like I used to,

that used to consume me. Yes. But when you really think about how is that going to change you to have – but I don't know. I am getting a new house, and I walk around and i'm like it feels different like but you know i'm 54 you know you know like i you know i better do something to to to feel like that i've arrived somewhere it's hard to think that uh you deserve it you know that right that you've worked a long time and i'm allowed to have the room you know

with the big tv yeah and i'm gonna work hard on the sound yeah like you do think i don't deserve this you there is that you know why is that i don't fucking know why that is i mean i i feel that a little bit but i i guess for me it's more like you know like do i need it it's not even exactly it's not like deserve it's sort of like you know, do I need it? It's not like deserve. It's sort of like, you know, I'm okay here, but this house is falling the fuck apart, and I've not even fixed anything. And like when I empty it, it's going to be like,

they should just demo it. There's a point of pride in not being an asshole in the nice house. Yeah. And that's a difficult thing. I don't think I use much of it in the nice house yeah and that's a that's a difficult thing i i don't think i use much of it in in the special but i do talk a lot about people who always want more like if you're the coke brothers and you have 35 billion dollars and you are obsessed with getting all these congressmen to push for a tax cut so you could make two billion more of which you'll

never spend a penny what is going on in your mind what are your values at the cost of people's lives yes quality of life the country the globe at food stamps can we get can we get rid of food stamps so i can get a tax cut and i think that is what's driving all of us mad is that trump is a symbolic of very wealthy people and it's not enough yeah and as someone who doesn't have to feel terrible if i get a parking ticket i don't get it at all because other than sending my kids to school and having a place to live there's nothing to spend money on right all you really spend money on generally is you might go on a vacation yeah and you might get the extra appetizer and that's about it like why do you need like why does trump need to say i'm worth 10 billion if he was worth 900 million it's yeah what the fuck is the

difference well he he also has mental problems and he needs to win and he's a bully and there's yeah and and he seems to be at the beginning stages of some degenerative mental condition you think that's it people are beginning to say that openly like something's happening well apparently his father had it and his sister is it has it now uh is completely incapacitated with uh degenerative mental you know illness re mental illness. Reagan ran the country for several years. Just push him out there. I ran Contra

interviews he did. He had to do a deposition. Not good? It wasn't the best shining moment on a hill. So the special looked good. How many did you shoot? Nine? I shot two shows a night for two nights. Okay.

I shot four shows. Yeah. The night before the first show, in the same theater, I did a warm-up show to get used to the space. So you did five. Yeah. And I didn't tape that one. And it went so badly.

Okay. Good. And people told me that would happen. But when it happens, when you run the full set and you just can't get over the hump it felt like every joke was starting over and some jokes would work but every joke

it was like Canadian people who were so polite that their energy never lifted but I thought the thing looked great who directed it? Marcus Ramboy he is just a great comedy director who who did pete holmes special

and he does a lot of them and i thought i don't know how to do this and and he did a a beautiful yeah the suit was nice uh the suit was nice who makes that suit i i don't know but professionals were involved. It's my punch drunk love. It's a punch drunk love suit. No, but you look good in a suit. I don't think I could pull a suit off. I think my head's too large.

I don't know. I haven't worn a suit in a long time. I look okay in a suit. I look a little bit like an agent, but my body is so wrongly shaped. It's just, I get a little pear shaped so i decided a few years ago and my wife is not thrilled about this yeah that the only shirt i looked good in was a black james purse polo shirt i bought 25 of them oh i see you in that a lot yeah and i just decided i'm not even going to pretend i look good in other clothes you did wear that a lot and then i lost some weight so i'd look okay for the special.

And then the second we were done taping, just put another 10 back on. Did you? Yeah, just. Start eating again? Yeah, I just tossed it all out the window. I got my cholesterol down without statins. There's a big fight in my house. My wife is against the statins.

I know. I got against them, too, because I don't know really why, but no one wants to be on medicine. But I just cut meat and dairy out totally. That's what people say. It's all the meat. Yeah. That people think it's everything else,

but your cholesterol is very meat driven. I hate any discussion of having to be healthy. Yeah. I don't like that I have to do it. Well, now it's like there's less reason because it doesn't seem like things are going to go well. There's not a positive closure ahead. So you might as well live a little.

Sometimes when I'm watching the news and they say, hey, Trump decided to put all the dukes on B-1 bombers to be up in the air 24 hours a day, I will eat that pint of ice cream. And I'm kind of happy that the window got smaller.

Yeah. You know, I wish, I think that, you know, sadly it's true like you know it is right what when old people like who i respect die i'm like they got out they got out yeah i'm like um thank god they didn't have to see this shit yeah after what they lived through yes like let them go now as i get older and I feel closer to death, I get a feeling where I'm excited to die to just get out before the environment falls apart, before some other bad thing happens. I don't know if we're going to make it, dude. We might be around for it.

God damn it. I know. What the fuck? We really thought it was... I thought I was was gonna get out before the world ended but i don't know it used to be you know when i was a kid i would think they're gonna cure cancer yeah before i get it yeah and now i'm like they're not going to but they've done real good with some of them really depends which one you get and i can't slip out before the really

bad stuff happens yeah it becomes harder to create silly comedy in the face of this. It becomes harder to do anything. Yeah. That is pleasurable or not requiring. Because there's part of the things like we're in an urgent situation. Yes. And I should be doing something urgently. But you run out of there.

What? So then like with that kind of percolating and the news percolating when you just want to go like watch a movie or enjoy something or play some guitar it's there's part of you that's sort of like why why do this even exactly why not just sit like i remember you know being home yeah and uh you know kicking you know jokes around with the seth and evan for pineapple express yeah like oh it'd be funny if he tries to kick out the kicking jokes around with Seth and Evan for Pineapple Express. Like, oh, it'd be funny if he tries to kick out the windshield of the car and his foot just gets stuck. And then we would, you know, when they pitched it,

we would just giggle for 15 minutes. But I don't know if that kind of moment is possible right now where you're so lost in the silly fantasy land. And I was talking to someone about this for hours last night that as a Jew, I feel like we're supposed to pay attention right now. And I'm not even religious, but I have a feeling of like my whole life. I thought, why didn't they do something about all this, you know, during World War Two? And it feels like if I shut it all off and write silly jokes i'm abdicating some responsibility and then my my friend was saying no the way you change the world is through your art and that teaches people about love and connection and

compassion and everything you do to protest everything that's going on doesn't matter at all or anywhere near as much as the messages you slyly send through your comedy or your movies and how that's it with you you know you know what i think of i just think of trains of jews going into camps and i just think aren't i supposed to be like on the on the train tracks stopping it yeah and i think that's is that just a a nice notion that i'll write a movie now that comes out in three and a half years but how did that help people in puerto rico who have no water right and aren't we supposed to well what yeah but like what but what let's see the thing is is like would you be able to do the type of grunt work necessary to get your hands dirty and

help out in a practical way in an immediate way well the immediate way i do it is i just try to raise money right so i do you know i do an enormous amount of benefits what is the uh the uh aclu thing i i they i got an invitation should i go yeah i'm going to get uh some sort of a recognition of the aclu as soon as the trumping hit i said i gotta figure out what to do so i don't go crazy one of the main things is i'm going to raise money for the aclu yeah because so much of what's immediately sent them i immediately sent them money yeah you need lawyers and a lot of what has stopped the terrible things he's done the transgender ban in the military or travel bans, it's because the ACLU is suing them.

Right. And then I think, well, I still get to do comedy. Yeah. I could strong-arm friends into doing shows, and at least it's doing something. So that's one thing I try to do. Well, I think that's true. I think that's right, because I think that on the other side

where people are just thrilled at, you know, I realize that what's happened because of a tone of an email I got is that these people that had the that hated obama that hated uh progressive uh culturally progressive movements in on in all areas just became they were enraged and then they became exhausted by having being forced to tolerate things yeah and then then then once they didn't have to anymore the fury just came out the fury of intolerance so now their condescending position is like well now you guys have to tolerate you know this this horrendous intolerance and hostility and racism and hate we

had to put up with that with you guys with love love and open-hearted shit open-minded garbage now that you know so so like for me like i think what we have to do as a service to ourselves but also to the country is not fall into despair and let that become like just like it's i think that authoritarian regimes feed on hopelessness, despair, and the reality that people are not really able to do anything about it. And we're so confused at how much we're lied to. For instance, people already have forgotten about the Vegas shooting. Yeah. We're five insane things past that already and that was just weeks ago yeah everything like there's something about there's an old hicks joke you

remember the joke he did i can't i'm just paraphrasing it about watching the tv it's like death destruction war right and then you know you open the door it's like crickets like there's some profound idea about you know what you allow into head, what you allow it to do and what your reality is and what you can do. So the question becomes, can I stay positive? Can I think of constructive things to do while, you know, putting up my resistance and writing boner jokes? Yeah. Simultaneously. No, the boner jokes are important because if there's no humor, then there's just the hopelessness. And then, you know you know but yeah but let's talk about before we go like i watched the rough cut of the gary shandling doc and uh it's a beautiful a beautiful thing you're one of the few people who've seen it yeah it was very

touching i loved it and like i said to you and i think i've told you before and you knew him well and you put this stuff together from archive footage, from his notebooks, from all the things you had access to in his life. And it's a beautiful kind of memorial of a friend and mentor. But like that memorial service that I went to, the show, what would you call that? A memorial? Yeah, we did a memorial for Gary at the Wilshire E-Bell. Right. And a lot of people spoke.

And I cut together little documentary uh sequences about different parts of gary's life but just learning about him changed my life because i talked to him and i don't know that i appreciated his comedy with the depth necessary with the depth that was uh that was there that it deserved and and also his process and you know you turning me on to him and then having me go to that thing and then we did the the the green room together and i got to you know sort of i always liked him but i never knew on some weird level how much i had in common with him yeah i think that emotionally i think that's what most people uh are realizing is that they didn't know him as well as they wished they did

yeah although people don't people don't really have the courage to dig. You're in a unique position because you do get the moment with someone where you're allowed to ask the questions people will not ask in conversation. Yeah, sometimes I can do it. Yeah, so every once in a while you could just turn to someone like Gary Shandling and go, why are you like this? Yeah. And get answers.

But in life, even as his close friend, like this yeah and get answers but in life even as his close friend yeah uh i i wouldn't often dig for the psychological underpinnings of who he was but when i made the documentary and i started figuring out how he became this guy and what he was doing and what he was attempting throughout his life to be sane and to find happiness and peace. I realized it was, it's very powerful. I related to it as well. And it's sad that people didn't get to share that with him as much as they

could have while he was alive. Cause he had a very interesting journey, which is the same as us, which is we're young. We, we have some difficult childhood situation. Yeah. Comedy becomes some way to escape, a way to be seen.

Then we want to be successful so that we feel good about ourselves. And then at some point we realize, oh, that doesn't work. Yeah. What does work, which ultimately is love and connection and some higher purpose. And then we go for that, which is still difficult and, uh, you know,

very hard to attain. And then we, then we get killed in that North Korea bomb. No, right. As we're about to feel that piece. Yeah. Finally,

but Gary, uh, had a fascinating, you know, story. I mean, the one that I love is that when he's 20 years old

he went to a comedy not a comedy club, just like a bar club and saw George Carlin. Right. Oh yeah, yeah. And George Carlin is he's pretty new to being hippie George Carlin. Gary writes bits for him.

I found the bits. He wrote a fake commercial for legalized marijuana. Right. Gary writes bits for him. I found the bits. He wrote a fake commercial for legalized marijuana. Right. So he wrote, he literally wrote the bit. What if they legalized marijuana? What would the commercial be? And so he had about five pages of bits for Carlin. He walks up to him and says, Hey, I, I wrote you some jokes. Ballsy for 20. Yeah. And Carlin says, I don't usually buy jokes but i'll read them if you want to come back tomorrow i'll tell you what i thought gary comes back the next day they're laid out on the table with like he wrote on them he made notations and he says to young gary you know

what i don't buy jokes but there's one great joke on every page and i think think if you want to pursue this, you should. And Gary got in the car and just moved to California. And it changed his life. Yeah, yeah. He needed that. And you know, who knows if Carlin would have done that on any other day? Because you know what that's like, right? You know, who is this kid?

It's a mood thing. Like, I don't know Carlin for how often he did that, but he was probably in Arizona. What did what did he have to do yes right like you know what i mean and this little ballsy jewish kid is like i got these jokes and he's like i got nothing to do tomorrow right i'm gonna read these jokes instead of going to the mall right yeah something yeah and it's been a rough but i think carlin used to do that i I heard his daughter, Kelly Carlin, on the show. And she said he would bump into a comic. He would ask the comic for his number.

And then eight months later, he would just call the guy and go, how are you doing? How's the career going? And he would follow up in a really beautiful way with people. He knew that power that he had. way with people. He knew that power that he had. And then I found this letter, and this isn't in the documentary,

where 10 years later or seven years later, Gary's doing like Make Me Laugh. He's just beginning to get spots at the comedy store and he writes a letter to Carlin thanking him for telling him to be a comedian. And he says, more important than your comedy is the man you are and how he wants to be a man like George Carlin. Right.

Who, you know, speaks his truth. And it's wild. And I don't know if he sent it, because I found it. Right. It looked like the unsent thank you letter. Wow. But it was beautiful. It really, and he was like,

I wrote an episode of Welcome Back, Cotter. Like that was going to impress George Carlin. Maybe that's why the second thoughts came in. Yeah, I'm not going to send this. But that's going to be on in March. Great. And it's four hours. And I thought, you know what?

If OJ's worth seven, Gary's got to be worth four. All right, buddy. Well, the special's great. It's called The Return. December 12th on Netflix. This isn't going to go up for a while, because we're going to hold it to promote the thing. Yes.

So who knows what the fuck. The world could be so different when this runs in three or four weeks. Ivanka could be in prison by then. Who knows what... That's upbeat. That's an optimistic... That's the best case scenario. Okay, again, Judd Apatow,

The Return premieres tomorrow, December 12th on Netflixflix and it's good he's been a latent stand-up comic for a decade or so it's good to have him out have him back i did stand up the other night at the comedy store and um i was third up in the original room, 1045 spot, second show. And I got on stage and I'd just been free forming, doing the riffage, trying to find the beats, trying to find the path. Where is this going to go? What's this idea? How does it work?

Does it have legs? But I've just been kind of having fun riffing trying not to freak out or freaking out in a funny way and i get on stage and there's a guy front row stage left totally asleep totally asleep and i'm talking i'm on the mic and you can hear it it's loud and i'm talking about him being asleep and i'm asking him if he's awake if he's if he's enjoying his nap nothing he's not waking up i took a picture of the dude on stage from the stage and yeah obviously i was you know having fun and then the flash apparently woke him up and i gotta be honest with you i felt bad i woke him up i felt bad like i it was rude that he was sleeping but it was one of those

moments where i'm like i should have just let that guy sleep. You know what I mean? I don't know his life. You know, he's in a safe place. He's in a comedy club. He came for a few laughs. Maybe he hasn't slept in days and he was hoping that the comedy would make him feel better. And he just finally got a little shut eye.

He did, I think, end up going back to sleep. So Loudon Wainwright is he's a very prolific folk singer and his memoir, Liner Notes, came out in the fall and is available wherever you get books. So this is me and Loudon chatting. Do you do the boats? I have a sailboat. So you know how to sail? I know how to sail. Yeah. I mean, I started when I was 55, so I So you know how to sail? I know how to sail, yeah. I mean, I started when I was 55, so I kind of know how to sail. I've been doing it for 15 years. Oh, it wasn't something you grew up with?

No. God, I got a friend who sailed around the world. Are you that proficient? No. No, I once did a long sail for five days, and that cured me of that. So you can sweep in the boat? have there is a place to sleep on the boat i i've never slept there i had sex there once but we actually didn't sleep

oh yeah it was that were you moving were you out on the water or was it just the anchor was dropped as they say yeah we were anchored yeah well that was good it was that was that something that you needed to get out of your system or is that that like, let's fuck on a boat. It's time to fuck on a boat. Haven't done that. Let's do that. I don't know how much time I got left. Well, you know, you have a boat and there's a place to lie down.

It's actually a toilet, a head they call it. And I've used that. But I said, well, so we said we should at least have sex on the boat. This is with your wife? This is my much better half, my girlfriend. Oh, this is a girlfriend? Yeah, I got a girlfriend. The girlfriend, is this the mother of the last child?

No, no, this is somebody new. Oh, it's a new one. This is somebody who works at the New Yorker. In fact, I listened to your show with David Remnick, which I greatly enjoyed. But this is Susan Morrison, who's a big editor at the New Yorker. Oh, that's great. So that's nice. So you have someone to talk.

Have sex with on a boat. Have sex on a boat with and have high-minded conversations about things. Well, so tonight, you flew in today. You're going to go do a thing with Christopher Guest tonight. And you guys know each other a long time? About 45 years, yeah. Where did that start? How did you, like, you know?

Like, I've talked to McKean, you know, and you're friends with him, too? I went to college with McKean, so that's how I met Chris, actually. And Landers, too? David Lander. Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, acting school. So we're all studying to be actors. Oh, really? Yeah.

And then Michael and David got kicked out, and Michael went to NYU, and that's where he met Chris in the acting program. Uh-huh. So when I came to New York, I met Chris through Michael. Oh, so they were like youngsters. They met in college. That whole thing started in college. Yeah.

Like, what years are we talking there? Like, that would be what? 67? Yeah. So you were playing a bit or you weren't playing? I was beginning to play. I had played guitar and I began to write in 68. Uh-huh.

So the original idea was to be an actor. That was the original plan. Well, that's right. Because in the book, you talk about that feeling, that feeling of making people laugh on stage and just sort of like, this is where, this is it. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was really, you just knew you wanted to be on stage connecting. It started when I was in Santa Ana. When I was about seven, I sang a song a cappella for my mother and her twin sister. And these two beautiful, they were 27 or whatever they were, beaming down this love and approval of me. And that clinched the deal for me. That did it? I wanted to be a cowboy and an astronaut, but then I wanted to be a performer after that. But yeah, so your mom had twin sisters.

So I guess we should go all the way back because it's sort of interesting to me because you grew up in these kind of like two worlds in terms of who your parents were. Yes. very kind of like there's a fairly high, you know. Falutin? High falutin. Name. Powerful bloodline, you know, of America in a way. Yeah. Legacy.

Yeah, it's a big name, but your dad comes from a big family, right? From like an old family. Yeah. The Wainwrights have been around for years and we're relatives with the Stuyvesants, you know, Peter Stuyvesvesant the one-legged governor yeah so my dad grew up as a kind of uh in the what they call the gold coast of long island so the stuyvesant so that money or that family connection goes back to like pre-america new york to dutch new york does it go that yeah peter stuyvesant was the first governor of new amsterdam right right okay so way back. Way back.

Yeah, they had those, like that. I never understand how that money stays around. Do you? I don't know anything about money. I'm really bad. I know, you're a musician. But you grew up in that world, right? Westchester, New York.

Country clubs, mansions. Yeah. We were members of the Bedford Golf and Tennis Club. Uh-huh. But my mother was from the opposite end of the social scale. Yeah. She was this funky white trash chick from Tifton, Georgia. Uh-huh.

You know, really dirt poor. Her dad was an itinerant tobacco farmer. Uh-huh. And she talked like that? Loudy. Yeah? Loudy. Yeah. Loudy. That's so beautiful, Loudy.

Sing that again. That's sweet. I'm glad you had that, though. Yeah, no. She was my biggest supporter when I was trying to start out singing and playing and stuff. Well, there's a lot of kids, though. There's, what, four of you or three of you? I have four and a half siblings. My dad had a lot of kids, though. There's, what, four of you? Or three of you? I have four and a half

siblings. My dad had a daughter late in his life. And you guys are on the same life plan? Just go out there and fool around and see what happens. That's it? Yeah. So, how old is that one? That is Anna

and Anna is 33. That's your half-sister sister that's my half sister anna that's wild huh yeah yeah when did you start like you know what because like i listen to a lot of the music and you know you write very well and and and in the book and and there's something about and you seem like a pleasant man. It's early. I had a nap. But, I mean, there's something about, like, because I do comedy and I do very, you know, personal comedy. And it seems that you are sort of compelled to be as personal as possible as well.

Yes. And it seems that, you know, in my own life and I imagine in yours that in yours, that there's a price to pay for that. Some rough Thanksgiving dinners with the family. But how does that, we can evolve into that, but when did you start writing songs and what drove you initially? Well, first I learned how to play the guitar and when i you know i had a guitar when i was 13 and i never thought i'd write songs my dad was a writer and writing you know observing him be a writer but he was like a journalist he was a journalist he was a famous journalist he had a column in life magazine for for years and he was very well known in the 60s when i was growing so i guess that's some you know you had to look up to that you knew that your dad was famous right yeah i looked up to it but i also looked askance

at it because i didn't a i didn't want to be like him like most snotty nosed kids you don't want to be like your parents uh-huh and second of all he seemed to be an unhappy person trying to write and meet deadlines and write books but But was he unhappy in general? He was unhappy in general, yeah. He had a hard-ass father, Loudon Wainwright I, who died when my dad was only 17. And he never got to work any of their stuff out. So I think he was a... Hard-ass how?

Well, I never met him, but, you know, get your of their stuff out. So I think he was a... Hard as hell. Well, I never met him, but, you know, get your elbows off the table, and just a disciplinarian, and, you know... Not emotional. Not, yeah, cold. Other than angry. Cold. Angry or cold?

I've seen pictures of him, and I... In fact, there's a picture of him in the book. You can see that he's holding it in and not letting it in. Well, what I thought was interesting in the book, in the parts I read, was that, and I try to track this in my own life, is that you have enough self-awareness, you've done enough research on yourself, and there is to the degree that you have, but there's this legacy. There are these generations of either emotional detachment or coldness

that you're up against whether it's conditioned or genetic that you're propelled by these things yeah you're the deck is stacked genetically yeah yeah however the beat goes on you know there is a legacy of of uh of of depression and self-loathing but your dad seemed like your dad was was not i mean it seemed like you had a relationship with him we um you know we kind of toward the end of his life he died uh he was only 63 when he died yeah so uh we uh we kind of got a little closer toward the end, particularly after he got sick. Yeah. And in 1982, which was five years or six years before we died,

he and I took a trip to Australia together. I was playing there, and they threw in an extra plane ticket. My dad came with me. We were both guys then. We both had broken families and were in new relationships. Anna had just been born, so he was a new dad he was a 59 year old new dad that's wild though that must have been a bizarre so you're you're on a level playing field almost yeah we we really had probably the best time we ever had uh-huh then yeah you know kind of toward the end yeah because you do talk about a moment in the book where you

finally give it to him a little bit. I gave it to him at the very end when he was in the hospital actually dying. So he's hooked up to tubes and bags. And I've always had this thing where my name is Loudon Wainwright III, which is kind of a pretentious. It's my actual name. It's my actual name. So he said when my career started, he said, well, you should use the third because we don't want to have any confusion about which Loudon is which. Right. So I agreed to that.

Yeah. But then I realized soon after that that he didn't use junior. Yeah. So I said, and then I waited 20 years. But finally he's dying. I said, you know, Dad, I just got to say something. This Roman numeral thing, you did not use the junior thing, so you were just playing all loud and wane right. And then he said, you can have the name when I'm dead,

which shut me up pretty good. There's that poetry. See the poetry, that goes right through it too. So what were your choices like i i you know you chose to be a musician and you went to these private schools which must have been a nightmare but uh when did you choose like how was the the culture changing that made you want to do it well i went to carnegie which is where i met mKean. But it must have happened before, right? Well, the playing was, but I didn't think I was going to be an actual musician,

although I played in folk bands in boarding school and things. But I dropped out of college. I was a hippie in San Francisco for about two years. I got busted in 67 in Oklahoma. You were a hippie in which years? I was there in the Summer of Love. Donald Fagan and I lived in a crash pad along with some other people. Did you meet him in San Francisco?

Yeah. Fagan? That's where I met him. I had met him earlier. My girlfriend at that time had friends at Bard. So he was at Bard. And that summer they went out too. It's so weird.

I know that he's a great musician and a funny guy and a cynical writer, but I never locked into the Steely Dan thing. Really? Well, I mean, I can listen to it. I know the good songs. Uh-huh. But in terms of complete nerding out, which it seems like they're a band where there's just people who are full-on Steely Dan nerds.

I am a huge Steely Dan nerd. Sure. In fact, once I asked Donald, i i kind of know him and i know his wife libby titus and i i i asked him if he would produce one of my records for me yeah he said no kind of kind of crushed me so but i'm a huge fan i love those records but i know that a lot of people don't you know i'm i'm coming around coming around. I know the ones I grew up with. It's very controlled. Yes.

Maybe that's the problem. Yeah, I do like things messy. It's nailed down. Yeah, it's almost like sterilized. I don't know. I find the great stuff, and there's a lot of it, the songs are very sad. I mean, the writing.

And as a vocalist, I think think Fagan is one of the great singers No, I agree. I agree. So you guys you kept in touch a little bit a bit We see each other every every once in a while. Yeah, I don't I forgive him for not wanting to produce my record Well, you got Richard Thompson and do it. That's not nothing. That's right All right. So the summer of love like what was that like were you a Acid guy drug guy acid. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The good stuff. Owlsley. Yeah, it was pretty.

We would drop acid in the morning and then just kind of wander around Golden Gate Park. Talk to the bison at the Buffalo Pen there. Yeah. And, you know, saw free concerts with the Grateful Dead and the Big Brother and the Holder. Did you hang out with those guys at all? No, because I was just a lowly, you know. You weren't even a guy yet.

No, I wasn't a guy yet. Yeah. You know. You were just one of the hippie masses. Yeah, I was. I was. You know, I would go to the Haight-Ashbury free clinic to get broken glass taken out of my foot. I was one of those guys.

Yeah, yeah. Because you're walking around on drugs with no shoes a great idea in a major city but you were a kid right i mean how old were you well 67 i was yeah i wasn't a total kid i was 21 but that but you know like i i guess when i talked to guys who you know come of age as musicians at that time, I mean, you were there with this, like, cataclysmic shift, two or three of them, really, in music, right? Mm-hmm.

So, I mean, you grew up, and it was the end of, you know, what would have been sort of Big Bandy, I would imagine, when you were a kid, and then rock and roll starts and happens. Right. And then all of a sudden, it just completely shifts in the late 60s into folk and then whatever, you

know, acid and speed yielded. Right. Whatever the drugs that were being taken. Right. But the Beatles, like, I mean, you were like a very impressionable person when that shit went down. Yeah. No, I loved all the, you know, the Beatles and the Stones and, of course, Dylan.

I mean, when I started to play the guitar and sing, the folk boom was happening. Yeah. It didn't last very long. It didn't, though. It didn't really, did it? It lasted about two years. Yeah.

And the Newport Folk Festival was the grooviest thing. But then electric music, when Bob plugged in, reasserted its power. But that... Is that how you look at it? It's like you know we had a good thing going and then you know you had to bring electricity into it yeah yeah i mean it left a lot of a lot a lot of focus in the dust i mean i i loved when dylan went electric yeah it was very powerful and exciting and great like because like i read dylan's book you know the the strange autobiography.

The Chronicles. Yeah, which was great. I think some of the best stuff in it was his depiction of that scene. So I'm assuming you went to San Francisco, did your acid. Right. And did you run away from San Francisco? Well, I was arrested in Oklahoma on my way back. Yeah.

For what? For possession of marijuana. Yeah. And then I started to write songs. Yeah. And with an acoustic guitar, not with an electric guitar. Right. And with an acoustic guitar, not with an electric guitar.

And then I went and sang in these little hoots and open mic things in Cambridge and New York. But did you have to do jail time? I was in jail for five days and nights. Just for weed? Yeah, but they were very excited because they found out that my dad was the famous Life magazine writer. So they were talking about 10 years in Oklahoma City. But they wanted to, because of that, I thought they were going to give you a break.

No, and then my dad, he was living in London then, and so he had to take two long airplanes, one to New York and one down to Oklahoma City. And he got a lawyer, and he knew a one to New York and the other down to Oklahoma City. And he got a lawyer, and he knew a judge in New York. And basically, he used his influence and money to get my ass out of jail. And it was about to get jumped on my ass. Yeah. Because I was in a tank with, you know, it was a county jail in Oklahoma City. At night, we would sleep with a roommate, but in the day, it was 40 guys milling around. Really?

So it was a pretty kind of hard time for five days. For a preppy kid from northern Westchester, it scared the hell out of me. I still have nightmares about it. Do you really? Yeah. Because I was cute. Yeah. I was really cute when I was 12. Yeah, I saw those album covers, those early album covers.

Yeah, you're a looker, man. Right. Yeah. You weren't exuding alpha strength. No, they were going to jump on me. So my dad got me out, and then that kind of straightened me up. And then I started into music. So you say you were doing hoots.

Is that what they were called? Hoots, open nights. You'd go and play three songs for a lot of other singer-songwriters and some Japanese tourists. But you were going up to Cambridge, and you were in New York you went back to New York back and forth I went back and forth to Cambridge and and between Cambridge and New York so that was the folk scene Cambridge that was the folk scene and then because I know you talk about seeing Phil Von Ronk and those guys and like was this was this the the heart of it or were you

the the big folk stuff that had gone You know, Dylan had gone electric. So the early Bleeker Street, McDougal Street, you know, Dave Van Ronk. Dave, right, yeah. Phil Oakes, Dylan, Richard Farina. That was five years before my time. So the remnants of that was going on when I hit the Village. Who was the remnants? Well, you know, there was still Eric Anderson.

I don't know if you know who he was. He was a good singer-song. He was a good singer-song. John Hammond Jr. I love him. Well, John Hammond Jr., I did a lot of shows with him at the Gaslight. So you're, okay, so you're doing that folk thing, and then, you know, how does the second tier, the second

wave of the folk thing, and what happens? Well, what happens is I'm opening a show at the Village Gaslight on McDougal Street for John Hammond Jr. Yeah. And a guy called Brian Keating, who was writing for the Village Voice, wrote this ridiculously ecstatic review. You know, this guy is the next guy. Yeah. And that's what happens with comedians or musicians or actors.

They get pounced on, if they're good. Yeah, and when there was one or two papers that meant something, there was no other input. And within six months, I had a record deal at Atlantic Records. My struggle was so brief, it was ridiculous. I mean, I did not pay any dues. But in that song on, I think it's History, the Bob Dylan riff, the Talking Blues structured

song, you know, you talk about that there was a sort of a big rush to sign Dylan types. Yeah, because he was out of commission. For one thing, he had had his motorcycle accident. Right. So, male singer-songwriters were really,

you know, they were signing them left and right. So, you said that it was you, Prine, Springsteen? Yeah, I used to joke that we should start a new Bob Dylan club. Sure. And meet every year at Bruce's house. You should. And have burgers. He's got a nice house out there.

He's got a good house. Yeah, he does. Are you friends with him? I have never met Bruce Springsteen. I've seen him play a couple of times, but I've never met him. I saw him way at the beginning of his career. You guys are all workers, you know what I mean? I mean, that's the wild thing about the life you've led. And as a comic, I know that, that you go out there with your guitar and you're still out there with your guitar. And ultimately, at whatever level you're doing that at, that's what you're doing. Yeah. Right? Now, that's what you're doing yeah right now that's that's the last chapter in my book the 75 to 90

it's it's about the job of going and playing for 75 to 90 minutes in in mostly in my case a lot of the time in clubs you know and i've been doing it for almost 50 years so all right so you get signed all you guys you friends with prime i've talked to him i am i am friends with primes great you guys are like you write very uh you know beautiful and clever songs with a little bite to them a little humor a little jab in the heart were you a steve goodman fan i i you know i know about steve like you know i don't like some of this music is is familiar to me from my childhood and i know about the you know the couple of hits but i and somebody sent me a lot of that stuff and I know he was great and he and Prine were kind of yeah they were buddies yeah he did from the Chicago scene right right but so you get the record deal and what was the uh what was the

expectation well uh they they pretty much let me do what I wanted to do that would be Atlantic Records Nesui Erdogan signed me so my my first record is, I took seven months to make, and it's totally voice and guitar. Right, Loudon One. Loudon One is just straight ahead, just the songs. Got great reviews, and nobody bought it. So then it came time for the second album, which interestingly enough was called Album Two.

Yeah, good thought on that. Good creativity on the title. And that, again, there was a harmonica on that, and I did a duet with my wife, my then wife, Kate McGarrigle. But the rest of the record is all voice and guitar and one song on the piano. And great reviews, and nobody bought that one. Yeah.

So Atlantic dropped me. Columbia, Clive Davis signed me. And then I... He's a big guy. So it was Ahmet or his brother?ia clive davis signed me and then i i he's a big guy so it was ahmed or the other or his brother nesui signed me right okay uh and then clive signed me to uh another big guy columbia yeah and uh then i then the dead skunk thing happened they put me together with a rock rock band why are you laughing yeah i like that way i like the way you said it. Well, yeah.

Was it not meant to be funny? It was a thing. I mean, you know, it was a thing. It was number one in Little Rock, Arkansas for six weeks. There you go. Now you found your people. Man. Yeah.

I've always imagined Bill and Hillary kind of making out in a Rambler station wagon. Dead skunk on the radio. Yeah. But that was a freak thing, right? Well, it was freaking that it's been my only hit so far. Uh-huh. No, it was a big, big record. But then that problem was that then I was the skunk guy.

So where's the next Funny Animals song? So then you have the problem of... But was there pressure? Yeah, there was. From Clive and the brass yeah but then the next thing i did was i made a record with bob johnston you know who produced blonde on blonde and leonard cohen's records and all the some of the great dylan records in nashville we made a record in four days with all those guys and but it didn't have a funny animal

song on it but that but that's sort of, wasn't there a certain amount of like, because you're writing, you know, I mean, you're doing, you know, real kind of soulful folk music and you're writing clever songs that tell a certain truth about the human condition and now you've got this skunk song, but you're still like, how did you not get angry and start drinking? I did. Don't worry, I did. But how did you not get angry and start drinking? I did.

Don't worry. I did. I started to drink and philander, and my marriage broke up. This is the marriage to Kate? Kate, yeah. And that's Rufus's mom and Martha's mom. That's Rufus and Martha's mom. I've met them at different points in my life. So there you were.

You know, the skunk song didn't repeat itself, and now you're just a guy not selling records. Well, I had a career not selling records, but I still continued to work. And then Clive signed me again to Arista when he went to Arista. So in 78, I just stopped trying to... I was kind of half-heartedly trying to make what they called radio-friendly records.

Yeah. Records that were somewhat produced. Sure. Then I started again and just started to put out, you know, voicing guitar records. And I made those records with Richard Thompson, which were kind of stripped down. Yeah. So the production on the records served the songs. And I think generally I've managed to do that

for the last 30-something years. Well, when you look back on it, I notice in the book that you talk about philandering or the road or what have you, and that you have done or tried to do, and what that did to your family. I mean, I'm just trying to put my finger on it. When you do these things

in songs, you know, when you do songs, you know, about this kind of stuff, you know, about truth, about, about hitting your kid, about your relationship with your father or fathers in general about, you know, whatever the darker songs you have, the more touching songs that, you know, that song is that three or four minutes, you know, but you still have this, you know, a life where you, I imagine, you know but you still have this you know a life where you i imagine you know you have a full range of emotions and and and you're a decent fella but but it's it's just interesting when you're defined by your music because there i don't know whether i read it or or i'm just projecting it that how close do you feel to the protagonists of your songs in general?

Well, I feel, I wouldn't pretend that it's, I feel close. It's me. It is. It's a kind of crystallized, polished, I mean, although it talks about some of my less appealing traits sometimes. But it is me. It's the waterfront that I've covered. My life, my family, my kids, my parents, my sister. There's songs about all these people

because these are the people that mean a lot to me. And they're quite particular. And I don't really write generic love songs. I admire people that can do that. Yeah. Or even other people that have kind of cryptic things where you're not quite sure what they're writing about. Right.

Like Dylan. Or even Steely Dan for that matter. Sure. You're never quite sure what it's about. Yeah. But my tendency, and I don't know why, because it's just the way that I write. Everybody develops a style. But I write very straight ahead.

It's very descriptive. There's a beginning, a a middle and an end and a lot of it I mean I do write sometimes political songs and straight-ahead novelty songs but a lot of it are is about my family in my life well which is interesting because it's like you know a lot of prying songs are not he makes characters yeah I don't do that much so that you're right so there's those are the choices either you write cryptic songs that people can just you know kind of use as a template to feel whatever they're going to feel without having any kind of you know not knowing

what it means yeah yeah and then you have like songs about people you make up and then then there's guys who do the straight stuff you're like the straight guy you're the you go right to the heart of it you're doing the memoir song yeah yeah yeah baby the real deal that's it i'm the real deal i'm the real damn deal but like when you're writing as a kid you know when you wrote you know loud and one and stuff you know you must have had in your mind you were judging yourself against you or whatever, right? Yeah. And you're like, I got to nail this thing. Well, I had to figure out, again, like everybody else in show business, when you start, you've got to figure out what to look like

and how to separate yourself from the pack. How did you do with that? Well, I assumed, I took up the costume of my youth. I had short hair, if you look at that first album. Everybody else had long hair and bell-bottom pants. Right. I had kind of a Brooks Brothers blazer and gray flannel pants. Yeah.

And so right away, there was a different look. Right. And then I started to sing a lot about myself. So you're preppy-ish. Yeah, preppy psycho killer look. Right, not Kingston Trio. No, no, no, that would have, no, no, no. That's too, that's late 50s.

Right, but they were all pretty clean cut, seemed preppy-ish, right? Yeah, and yeah. But striped shirts, I think, as I recall. Yeah, no, I would never wear a striped shirt. Don't tell them what I'm wearing today. That's a nice plaid, a nice multicolored plaid. Thank you. It is striped. I thought there was, oh, it's not a plaid, That's a nice plaid. A nice multicolored plaid. Thank you.

It is striped. I thought there was... Oh, it's not a plaid. It's a striped shirt. Fashion on the radio is great, isn't it? Yeah, but it's not Kingston Trio.

No, no, no. That's a vertical stripe. They were short-sleeved shirts at the Kingston Trio. Oh, thank God. And they all matched. Exactly, yeah. That was the big mistake.

So, all right. So you're doing these records. The Skunk Song happens. You have this relationship with the label, with Clive Davis. What's happening around you in music at that point? What are you up against? Because you've really kept going. Yeah.

And at different times, music is changing around you constantly. But you're locked into Americana music, folk or country-ish band. I write the songs on an acoustic guitar. I usually record them with that. And it's the same five chords that I learned when I was 15. What happened was I just kept my head down and kept writing songs.

Right. But when did things get bad? Like, at what point did the family structure start to, the vessel start to kind of shake? You know, like, in terms of, you know, you put these records out, you're not selling records, you've got to be on the road. You're building a following however you're doing it.

Right. And at some point you said that you started drinking and that you did get bitter, and that made it into the music a bit, but it didn't seem to you no no i i you know i didn't have i have i've had a pretty good time actually yeah i mean i i i you know i've i've uh there's something like in like anybody's life there's collateral damage sure you know but i've i've really it hasn't been bad for me. I haven't been severely depressed or had a nervous, when my mother died in 97, I kind of fell apart, but that was appropriate. Sure, natural.

So by and large, I just kept my head down and did the job and I liked playing and that's still what I'm kind of doing and how and what is your how how is your how did your following evolve how did you find that you got the people the fan base what did they come for and how long have they been with you well a lot of them have been with me for the ride I mean sometimes I'm shocked when I see my my you know I drive up to the club and I see these old people I I think they're there for the bingo. I mean, but then it's dark and they're so beautiful and warm and they love me. But then other things happen.

We mentioned Judd. I mean, I was in this show that Judd Apatow did, Undeclared. So as a result of something like that, all of a sudden there were young people there. Or fans of my son and Rufus and Martha or something. So, you know, occasionally there's some young people there. Sure, but it must be wild. Because, you know, have you had that experience where... How old are you? 71.

So you're 71. And, you know, you've had a good go at it. You've lived your life. Do you have that moment had you've had a good go at it you've you've lived your life do you have that moment where you go back to places and a woman comes up to you and goes do you remember me yeah that's happened yes and invariably no I don't but I say of course I do and my line is through the mists of time here we are and no that just happened to me, actually. Yeah?

Yeah. Like with somebody your age? Yeah, somebody my age. It's wild, right? And a very nice person. And so I said hello and apologized, and we let it go at that. You apologized? I didn't apologize.

She apologized. Well, that's funny, though, because you're not like... I guess the assumption about how a performer lives on the road, you're not some sort of crazy party dude. You weren't like... Not anymore, no. You're not some dangerous, weird, junkier freak out there. You're a folk guy. Right.

And you're out there getting laid just like anybody else. Yeah. But they must be... I'm just picturing just pleasant ladies. By and large, they were very pleasant. As I recall, they were human beings. Sure. With hearts. Because they're not, like, you know, they're responding to something very, you know.

But I hasten to say, we're laughing about it, but it's important to point out, at least for me, is that a lot of it created guilt and bad feelings and feeling like an idiot and a jerk and an abuser of power. And again, in terms of my domestic life, I had the marriage with Kate, then I was with Suzy Roach for nine years, and we had a daughter. So those marriages were kind of smashed up because of my goofing around. On the road. A lot of it, yeah. But it wasn't like your dad, you weren't hiding seven-year relationships necessarily. I didn't do that. I would hide two-week relationships.

And again, a lot of times, we're talking about my proclivities a lot. But again, the nature of the job is you go to some town, it's not a relationship at all. It's someone to go home with. Right. So you don't have to face the television set. But also, it's surprising as somebody who performed. Well, doesn't that happen in your world? Sure.

Of course. I mean, I ruined my first marriage like that. But I don't have children. I never did that. I don't feel terrible about it. But yeah, I mean, there's something profoundly lonely about a hotel room. I don't know what it is. But, you know, when you're on the road, even if it's for a night, you're like, where am I?

And you've just made love to 300 or 3,000 people who have adored you. Right. I guess I don't factor that in all the time. Like you've done a thing. Right. So you kind of take a hostage back to the hotel. A love hostage. Yeah.

And they're excited. They are. They're into it. Yeah. You know. But you've talked, you you sing about this stuff and it it has there there has been like kind of a you know tension that you know i mean rufus came at you with a song and i think martha came at you with a song and there's you know there was like uh

and i imagine why wouldn't they you're their dad you do it right i mean you've been writing about them since they were infants yeah no it's all you know, you got to take it if you're going to dish it out. And Rufus and Martha, you know, have certainly taken shots. And I can take it. Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's, Martha wrote this song, you can swear on your radio show. So, bloody motherfucking Sure. So, Bloody Motherfucking Asshole. Right, yeah.

So, for a while, you know, she used to open shows for me in the beginning of her career. So, she would do this song, and I thought, I would think, boy. She was going out at the time with a singer called Dan Byrne. I don't know if you know who he is. A really talented singer, a bit older than her. And they had a tough, difficult relationship. So I thought,

well, that's a tough song about Dan, you bloody motherfucking asshole. So then we're in Paramus, New Jersey, and Martha goes out, and it's my audience in the room,

primarily because her career is still moving up. So she announces to my audience that this is a song about my dad and then sings bloody motherfucking asshole so that was a moment that i was let's bring up hello yes how was that when you got up on stage well i just made a joke i can't remember probably yeah i just got through it but why she. So she decided to lay that on you

and you had no idea what happened after that? Martha's very provocative. I'm sure she would agree with that. She likes to push the envelope. Sure. I think that's a good thing to do. Performers need to wake people up,

shake people up. Even if it's their dad. Even if it's their dad. Before he goes on in front of his audience. But it seemed like it was almost like a secret she was keeping for a while because she was playing it. And then at some point

she decided, well, I can't let him think that it's not about him. Right. No. Yeah. But there was never a point where you guys weren't talking to each other? No, we've been there. Are you kidding me? Let's see. Am I talking to R to rufus this week now i have another daughter who's an incredible musician that i want to talk about lucy lucy wainwright my daughter with suzzy yeah and she

has from the roaches yeah well lucy has not written a song attacking me yet and i really appreciate that but that's not her style anyway, but sometimes I think it's that first group of kids. Could happen, though. Sure. But I think it's the first group of kids that think they get the raw end of the stick the most. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

In general? Yeah. But Rufus is a spectacular performer and songwriter. And his song about you, I guess, is what? Dinner at Eight? Yeah. And that's a sad song. That's a beautiful song. It is. It really is what? Dinner at Eight? Yeah. And that's a sad song. That's a beautiful song.

It is. It really is. And it's sad. Yeah. But I think it's a great song. It's one of his great songs. Well, when you process this stuff, what do you think your best album is for you? What's the one that you're like, I really nailed it all the way through on that one?

Well, I've made 27 albums. I think some people, and I've made some duds, that's for sure, or albums that I don't really like. Yeah. I think there's an album called History that I made. It was right after my dad died. Yeah. And that event was such a cataclysmic thing.

These songs started to come out, and I think they're some of my best songs. Yeah, it's a great record. It's a great record. And then when my mother died, I made a record called Last Man on Earth and a lot of that unfortunately I only have two parents. But those are two very strong records

of mine. Yeah. History is beautiful. Didn't you do one of your father's songs yes my dad wrote a song um there was a guy that he my dad lived we lived in la for for a bit in the early 50s and dad was a friend with terry gilkison who was a a folk singer and but a pop folk singer he had a group that they sang backup on Dean Martin records, like Memories Are Made of This. Oh, they were that weird Hawaiian bunch? Well, it was folky.

They sang a song called The Wild Goose. Well, that song, Memories, has a weird little uke. It's got a uke thing. But Terry Gilkesson and my father were drinking buddies. And I think my dad took a shot at writing some songs, hanging out with him. And he wrote a great song about 1950. So he would have been 25.

He called it Man is Just a Handful of Dust. And that song is on history. I guess I'm sort of fascinated at your self-awareness and about, because I wrestle with some of the same things you do. Now, is there redemption after this? When you say that you look back or in the moment or whatever wreckage you've reaped on anybody, do you just have an acceptance around it that it eventually resolves itself if you don't make it worse?

Or do you still kind of like you just think you're propelled by that? Is there still guilt and self-hatred and that kind of stuff? Yeah, but there is redemption and forgiveness. I mean, my youngest daughter, whose name is Alexandra, she's 25, but I mean, Rufus is 44, and Martha's 40,

and Lucy's 35. And they all have kids? Rufus and Martha have kids. So, you know, but they're all grown-ups. They've been banged around in the world. And so there's some forgiveness floating around.

You're right. And that's what I've, you know, one of the things I did in my book was I included some of my father's writing. He was a beautiful, elegant writer. Some of his essays are in the book. And I love the, you know, he and I had kind of a crappy relationship.

But he died more than 25 years ago. So there's a forgiveness thing that's going on now between me and him, even though he's been dead. And if you can't forgive your parents, I'm talking to my kids now, if you can't forgive your parents, you can't forgive yourself. That's my theory at this point. But you learned that the hard way. You make a lot of mistakes, and I made plenty of mistakes. I mean, it wasn't, but it wasn't any more than anybody else.

I just wrote about it. I had a couple of broken marriages, and I screwed around. I mean, it wasn't, but it wasn't any more than anybody else. I just wrote about it. I had a couple of broken marriages and I screwed around. I mean, that's it. No, I know. I know. I know. Like, I used that one, too. Like, in the sense that, you know, there is a short menu to transgression.

Yeah. You know, and there's, of course, there's a big range. Yeah. But, you know, certainly there are ones that sort of, there's nothing unusual. I didn't drown any puppies no right yeah and you didn't uh you know bankrupt a country or kill anybody right right right you know you kind of like judge yourself on the the moral transgression chart and how familiar it is culturally yeah and you're like look you know people fuck up yeah right yeah yeah so so please forgive me kids i'm saying this on the radio but you also

right you seem to wrestle with the very idea of uh of love yeah love yeah like i do material that's similar to this and and i'm trying to like glean from you because i'm a little younger than you you know how you resolve some of that stuff. I mean, because I feel like I'm capable of love, of giving, but there's something that holds me back. And in terms of guilt and whatever. But how have you, I imagine having kids changes that. Well, I have a song called All in a Family. It's all in a family.

And that is about love you know love heals heartache and familial pain and what family is not insane you know so the i've been love has been working its way into the songs in the last 10 or 20 years with you feel with age and grandkids yeah i think grandkids yeah you know and you do realize that it's kind of corny, but the love thing is a big thing. Do you ever feel pointlessness? Is that a theme? Well, I mean, I wrote a song when I was 25

on my second album called The Suicide Song. Yeah. It's a long time ago. It was a long time ago, and I was kind of goofing around anyway. Right. I wasn't really... The worst I ever felt was after my mother died. I really went down hard on that.

How old were you? 50. Oh, right. I was 51 or something. So you'd already gone through a lot of your stuff, too. Yeah. A lot had happened to me, And my father had died earlier. And that was more of a release for me when he died.

But when my mother died, the bottom went out. And was the feeling just sort of like a void? Yeah. I couldn't get out of bed. I've been mildly depressed for my entire adult life. Sure. This was the real thing. Yeah.

You know, I was really, but with time. Yeah. And seeing a shrink. Yeah. And some, you know, lorazepam, I got back on my feet. Oh, good, good. So I want to talk a little bit before we wrap it up. I know you got to do stuff.

The acting and the sort of TV thing. I had no idea until I looked it up today that you were actually involved with the original David Letterman daytime show. Is that true? Yeah. I was the musician sidekick on the couch for the first week.

And that show didn't last that long? Is that what happened? No. Well, they did me for a week and then they thought, this isn't great. And then they tried some other guests. And then they shifted over to late night and brought Paul Schaefer in, I guess.

And what was some of your... Because you did act here and there. I mean, how did that... Who was bringing you into that? You knew Christopher Guest and McKean and those guys when they had the sketch of Spinal Tap, correct? Yeah, I was in Spinal Tap. In the movie? In the sketch.

In the sketch. It was in a Rob Reiner TV special called The TV Show. Martin Mull was in it, and Harry Shearer was in it. And they came up with this sketch about a heavy metal band i was the keyboard player you can see me on youtube oh yeah in a wig yeah yeah so so you always sort of were these were your close friends so you were sort of you know in proximity to comedy all the time yeah you're always kind of like around yeah and when you met when you met those guys, okay, you went to college with some of them, but you met, you saw, like, in the city, like, you were there pre-SNL, right? Yeah, when I met Chris when he was in this thing called Lemmings.

Oh, the National Lampoon Radio Hour thing? Right. So that was pre, you know, on Belushi and Chevy Chase, and this was two years before Saturday Night Live. And you saw that perform live? Yeah. Where'd they perform that? At the Village Vanguard.

Oh really? Which was on Bleeker Street. Yeah sure sure. It was great. It was amazing. It was incredible. That was like the dark festival

the rock festival. Yeah. That was the satirical answer to Woodstock. That's right. Where they all would just go off the edge of the cliff.

Right. So you saw Belushi as the young crazy Yeah. I think he did as Joe Cocker. Right. Of course. Right.

Of course. And Chris did incredible Dylan and a wonderful actress who's no longer alive. Alice Clayton was in it. Yeah. And Gary Goodrow and a lot of great, and Chevy, a lot of great people. And you did SNL early on too, right? I was in the first season. I was in the third show.

Robert Klein was the host. Yeah. And the other musical act early on too, right? I was in the first season. I was in the third show. Robert Klein was the host. Yeah. And the other musical act was ABBA. Really? And nobody knew who they were. They had just won the Eurovision Song Contest. And they were the only group, I'm told, that ever lip-sank on Saturday Night Live. That first time?

They did it then, and Lorne decided that would never happen again. Was there chaos at the show? Was everyone excited? Was there, like, I can't imagine that first season. Because it was more of a variety show. They had short films and more scenes. No, it was great. It was with all the original cast.

I remember the party after the show we did. Oh, yeah. Everybody was talking about things and going off to the bathroom every once in a while. Sure. Did you do Carson or any of those shows? I did Carson twice, once with Johnny and once with Doc Severinsen.

Guest hosting? Yeah. Yeah. And I did the Mike Douglas show. Are you old enough to remember that? Oh, yeah, sure. I used to watch it after school. They sit around in the half circle, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I did the Mike Douglas show. Are you old enough to remember that? Oh, yeah, sure. I used to watch it after school. They sit around in the half circle, right?

Yeah. I did a lot of Mike Douglas shows. Oh, yeah? I did Merv Griffin. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shows I have done.

Yeah. But sitting there with guys, to me, thinking back on those talents at that time, it just everything seemed to be more like a community yeah like everybody seemed to know each other is that was am i making that up or do you feel that too like you're sitting out there like on a on a like a merv griffin show and there'd be some comic there and some other guy there but yeah show business felt small to me i think it was a little looser maybe uh-huh you know and i don't think that people were... But there were egos flying around and crap and bullshit. Yeah, yeah.

But it was a long time ago. How'd you do MASH? How'd that happen? Larry Gelbhart saw me playing at the Troubadour in LA in 73 or something and said, Hey, how about an idea of a singing surgeon? And I did three episodes of MASH. That's fun. Yeah, it was fun.

And then all of a sudden you got Judd putting you in everything. Judd has been incredible. Yeah. What was the first thing he put you in? Undeclared. Yeah. When he was a 14-year-old kid growing up in Syosset, Long Island, he saw me on that Letterman show. Then he used to come into town and see me play at the Bottom Line.

When he was a kid? Yeah, well, probably. To a teenager? Well, then he was like 18 or 19. Oh, so he's been a fan a long time. He's been a fan a long time. And then I got this call about 12 years ago from, and I had no idea who he was. I had not seen Freaks and Geeks.

It was weird. Today, I got on a plane from this morning in New York, and Martin Starr was sitting next to me. He's a great guy. He talked about Judd and Freaks and Geeks. Martin Starr is an intense dude. He's a good guy. He slept most of the way. Oh, okay. I could tell he was intense.

Yeah, yeah. He's intense. Yeah. So he puts you on Undeclared, and then he... Yeah, and then, you know, he gave me some parts in some other movies, and then I wrote with Joe Henry, my friend Joe Henry. We wrote the music for Knocked Up, and good stuff from Judd. Yeah, and you did that cover of another friend's song, right, Daughter?

Peter Blagvad, yes, great song. Who's that guy? That guy is a really interesting guy. He's an expatriate. He's an American, but he's been living in London for almost 40 years. He was in a rock band in the 70s called Slap Happy. And they played a lot in Europe. He's a great songwriter.

He's also an amazing cartoonist and a writer and hardly anybody knows. It's a hell of a song. That's a hell of a song. If you Google me, the first thing that comes up is Daughter. Uh-huh. So I have to always tell people that I didn't write that.

Yeah. It's a pain in the ass, but it's a great song. At least the skunk thing's behind you. Yeah, man. It used to be skunk, now it's daughter. You can't get a fair shake on your good shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, man. Well, it's great talking to you the book is beautiful it's well written you know it's fun um and what what what happens now are you do you tour constantly i tour regularly i'd say you know um judd and chris are talking about maybe getting together i have this theater show called surviving twin which is my uh my songs mixed in with my dad's writing and i've been doing that and and so there's some talk that we might do a film of that so that's that's the next thing that hopefully will happen you really you really are emotionally uh burying the hatchet with your dad posthumously the more you forgive the better

you feel yeah that's that i just made that up just now. That's a bumper sticker, isn't it? Or a song. Yeah. Okay, I'll go back. You get cracking on that. Okay. Thanks, Wadden.

Very nice talking to you. Okay, that was that. The book, Liner Notes, is out. Get it. Get the book. It's good. A life, Liner Notes, is out. Get it. Get the book. It's good. A life in music. A life in entertainment.

Loud and Wainwright. Dig it. Can you dig it? Guitar? Guitar, anyone? Thank you. Boomer lives! Almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now.

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