WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 935 - Bo Burnham / David Sedaris

Episode Date: July 22, 2018

It’s a summertime double-header of returning guests. First, David Sedaris takes a break from his months-long 'Calypso' book tour to tell Marc about his visit to Buckingham Palace, how he's navigating life with his elderly conservative father, and why he got a bizarre phone call from Roseanne. Then Bo Burnham returns to explain why he decided to make the movie Eighth Grade after having panic attacks on stage. Bo also tells Marc about the special friendship he struck up with Garry Shandling. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck tuckians? What the fuckericans? What's happening?

Those are getting pretty specific. So you know who I'm talking to. Just those two groups specifically. The first couple are broad, and then we're kind of zooming in a little bit but uh how are you what's happening i'm mark maron this is my show are you okay what's been going on uh-huh oh shit really oh shit and really so did you talk to the guy? Oh, no kidding. Do you have to? What time are you going to go over there? Wow. Are you going to get any money for that?

I'm just trying random fragments. If any of these stick, we're having a conversation. If they don't, you're just eavesdropping on a strange one-sided conversation by me, which is not unusual. But there will be two-sided in a minute. Today I got a couple of guests. Both of the guests on today's show have been on previous shows. And the idea initially was to do what I do sometimes, which is have a short interview. But these are two.

They came out really good. So we just doubled them up and got two kind of medium interviews. But it's great checking in with these two guys. David Sedaris is here today. Bo Burnham is here today. His movie was very good. You know, I liked it. It's called Eighth Grade. And it triggered a lot of things.

Triggered can be a good word. Sometimes you're triggered and it's like, no. And other sometimes you're triggered and it's like no and other times you're triggered and you're like ouch no but uh look good show smart guys uh excited about it okay that's coming up i um was with my father should i tell you that should i tell you this story i i i'm going to be honest with you i had not seen him in a while he came out to the house him and his wife rosie and we had a nice time i was nervous at first i felt a little anxiety perhaps a little um kind of a residual anger from uh my childhood and then it just when i saw him something something was different this time

you know a couple of things happened but something was definitely different well he's old he's going to be 80 and at some point i i don't see him that much he we talk a bit uh there's no real tension between us but i don't see him and when you don't see your father when he's in this age range for a little while you know they you start to notice like i got older and then yeah like this time i was like holy fuck he's an old guy almost 80 years old my dad why wouldn't he be i'm 54 right i got it right this time i'm 54 and uh you know we try his wife is 10 years younger than him and she's in very good shape but we decided to go on a little hike not even a hike a walk up a minor incline and my father's just gotten to this point where apparently um he's very compulsive about his health in terms of being aware of what's healthy and what isn't and and taking care of that but apparently he's not moving much he just sits around and worries

about his health and you know makes her uh tense and miserable he's very he takes a lot of vitamins because he's miserable but he takes a lot of vitamins because he wants to he wants to be miserable for as long as possible um and you know i respect that i understand that but he went on this hike and he couldn't make it you know even uh he just like five minutes into it and he's just he's old and it's it's not sad it's natural but uh but i noticed it the other thing i i didn't really realize about my father it's the deal is when you you have the opportunity and i do see it as a sort of a nice thing obviously it's nice to check in uh with your parents if you can if you you have that option, if they're still alive.

It's good to check in so you can assess the current distance between apple and tree. And it's a little closer than I'd like, but it is what it is. But there was something I learned about my old man that I did not know. Is that, you know, he takes risks. You know, we all take risks in our own way. There's a thrill to risk taking. You know, it's good if they're safer risks or if they, you know, at least there's a context to them that enables you to do it with some safety. Obviously, nothing is 100% safe. You know, I don't bungee jump. I don't jump out of planes. I don't climb the walls, rock face walls i do

keep in good shape but i i take risks uh in other ways with my mind and whatever i just didn't see my father as as sort of a risk taker i knew he was a bit irresponsible occasionally which could seem like risk taking but it's not intentional right but i learned something about my dad man he pushes the fucking envelope my my almost 80-year-old dad. He'll fucking take it out there, man. Here's what happened. So I'm cooking breakfast for him and Rosie. She brought out some nice green chili sauce from New Mexico.

And I was going to make some eggs, slice up some avocado. And I'm cooking up the breakfast. My dad and Rosie are sitting sitting at the counter my dad's got his pills in front of him doesn't take many uh prescription medicine but as i said a lot of vitamins so i'm cooking and they're sitting there and then all of a sudden i just uh i just hear my dad choking like for real like like you know that it's a horrible sound when somebody cannot fucking breathe because their goddamn larynx and throat is clogged and it was scary in that moment just like what the fuck is happening i turn around and he had taken all his pills at the same time just a handful of fucking pills threw him in his mouth tried to knock him back didn't get him back and was

gasping for air like a man drowning on land and he was choking it was fucking horrifying and it's all happening very quickly my first thought was like really here this is going to happen you know i see you once a year maybe and you're going to die in my fucking kitchen not the not the most sensitive thought but but you know let's be honest it's good to keep in check with those thoughts that happen initially even though you know because of civilization and laws and and uh appropriateness you know you don't always say or act on them but it's nice to make note of them just so you you keep hold of who you are and you you're you you have a you have a point of reference so my next thought was like i don't even know the heimlich

i kind of know it maybe i should get in there because rosie had gotten in there and was patting him on the back but it didn't look like it was gonna be enough because he was really gasping for air i knew time was of the essence here whole handful of fucking vitamins my dad's gonna be the first guy to to die because of vitamins that way but so he's joking and i'm about to do the heimlich on him and then he just like okay okay okay i got okay so he and he starts breathing normally and i'm like what the fuck is wrong with you well you take the whole all the goddamn vitamins at the same time what do you want to die what do you want to choke to death and rosie just goes he

does this all the time all the time this this is him this is his this is his gamble this is his bungee jumping they're all going down jesus man we made it through that breakfast we made it through that breakfast. We made it through that breakfast barely, barely. So David Sedaris is obviously a very funny, brilliant writer and a very funny guy. I love talking to him through years back when he was here. And it's lovely to have him stop by again and to want to stop by. His most recent essay collection is called Calypso. And you can get that wherever you get books. This is me and David Sedaris chatting here in the new. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.

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

the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun. A new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Garage. How have you been? I started a tour. Yeah.

A lecture tour. Uh-huh. April 3rd. Yeah. That went until the 24th of May. Uh-huh. And then I had three days off and then I started my book tour. So I've been on my book tour ever since.

For Calypso. I've been on tour since April 3rd. And I had three days off, but I spent them all in England doing UK and Italian tours do you speak Italian? UK and Italian interviews do I speak Italian? yeah well you know what

I would have said when I walked in here what? I would have pointed to my chair and I would have said è libero questo posto is this chair taken?

that's some of my best Italian right there it was very effective. It's very good. I believed it all the way. But so you've been out in the road doing the stick. What's the difference between the lecture and the book? Lecture tour, you're in theaters, and the audience has comfortable chairs, and the lights go down.

It's a show. Yeah. And a book tour, you know, a lot of times people are standing up, and the sound system is bad. In a bookstore. And you can look at people, which I don't like looking at people. Really? You don't like their sort of desperate need for connection and help? No.

I feel like they have that look on their face that they have to look like they're enjoying themselves. They don't want to hurt your feelings. So if you meet their eyes, they have that, you know, that. But then you sign books longer on a book tour. It's the supportive smile that bothers me. I just feel bad for them. Like, you know, I'm not pressuring you to be entertained. Thank you for the support.

Yeah, that's what it's like. Yeah, yeah, I know that feeling. Because when I perform, I tend to, and I don't do it as much as I used to, but if I'm not doing as well as I'd like to be, I find myself looking intently at like one member of the audience. And they start to do that weird yawn. It's not a real yawn. It's just from gasping for air because I've got to strangle hold on them with my energy.

Another difference is the length of time it takes to sign books. Like in a theater, you might be three, four hours. I know. If you do the whole theater, I won't even do a meet and greet in the big theaters anymore because it's another 45 minutes to an hour, two hours, but sitting there signing and connecting, it's exhausting, right? I just see it as part of my job. Right.

But on a book tour, it's like the other night I signed books for 10 hours. Really? At one place? Yeah. For 10 hours? Uh-huh. Into the morning? Yeah.

I got there to the bookstore at quarter to four in the afternoon, and I left at quarter to three in the morning. Oh, my God. And people just waited in line? Yeah. So do you do pictures? No. Oh, see, because that's good. Because there's a lot of pictures of me exhausted everywhere,

standing with strangers looking tired. Well, I realized not long ago that after I signed books for a couple hours, my eyes cross. And so when people come up and say, oh, we had a picture taken last year, and I look at it and my eyes are completely crossed. So where are you spending most of your time when you're not running around? In England still? Yeah, in England, in West Sussex.

Now, I know a lot of this book is about the, you know, there's not so many miles to go before we sleep, and about mortality and about, you know, the sort of feelings of aging. I don't know. You know, to tell you the truth, I never, sometimes when somebody writes your jacket flap, that becomes what's said about the book. Or maybe it's a press release or something.

But I never sat down thinking that. No, but we are. But we are. I'm not judging it, but that's our point of view now. Right. I just sort of became that age where people call you sir. Right. I fell down.

Someone was in an elevator. Yeah. And it was that situation. You know when you're in a nice hotel. Yeah. It's like, after you. No, after you. After you.

After you. And it's like, somebody just get on. I don't know what the fuck. An elevator. It's just taking us forever. And so there's this Asian woman after you, after you after you and then finally i thought fine and i walked and somebody had spilled something and i slipped and stepped out of the elevator and i fell like i fell right on my back and someone said don't move him and i just felt so old and did you get

up yeah i got just to prove them wrong you know know, just to prove I was, and God did it hurt. Don't move them. Don't move them. Yeah. So, like, do you live in the country? I live in the country. Yeah? In the country.

But it's a perfect kind of country to me because England is kind of small, so there's really not that much. It's not like when you drive through North Dakota. Right. It's not even that big. In the country, but three and a half miles away, there's a larger village. It's got a grocery store, and it has a bank, and someone sells fabric.

Those are the three stores? They're like, there's an antique store. They're like 12. You know, guitar shop. It's a little village. But I like that there's a fabric store and a guitar shop in a little village. Yeah. Those are the businesses that remain.

Yeah. Yeah. So when you sit out in the country, because I have fantasies about about uh like i you know there was a while there when when you know when this administration took charge where you know i really felt this impending kind of like doom which is upon us but it you know it hasn't manifested exactly like i thought it would but i thought i would have to leave like i i just felt like you know why why why live here anymore with this discomfort even if i'm not feeling it immediately? Do you feel relief over there?

Well, because we have Brexit over in England, I don't think Americans realize it, but every day in England, the headlines of all the newspapers are, what the fuck are we going to do about Brexit? Right. Like, nobody knows what to do about it, and nothing's really been done about it. It's just everybody just wishing it didn't happen. It stalled. Yeah, because it's incredibly complicated. And the people who voted for it

were led to believe that it was going to be easy. Right. Right? Yeah. And, you know, when Kennedy announced that he was going to resign, meaning that Trump would get to point someone else to the Supreme Court.

I thought, okay, well, I'll just get my passport because I can get my British passport tomorrow if I want it. Yeah. But my, and this sounds queer to say, but like my heart is still in it here. Yeah. You know what I mean? I think that's it. Yeah.

Couldn't stop caring about it here. Right. Yeah. As much as you want to say like okay then fuck you idiots you know uh you know it's still the i'm still tied to well it's your home states yeah right i mean and and certainly the way you capture the united states no matter how uh cynical it still sort of humanizes it and even where you come from originally, like I go down south, and I'm always amazed at the sort of, you know, there's a graciousness and a humanity there. There's people that are good people.

And, you know, and I think in our minds, it's very easy to draw lines, but they're really, those lines aren't really real. Well, I was in Texas a few weeks ago when somebody asked me, you know, what do you think about Texas? Yeah. Because whenever you go, people like to know what you think about them. What town, yeah. I was in, I think I was in Houston at the time. But I talked about Odessa, Texas, where I had been a couple months earlier. Odessa, Texas in the middle of nowhere.

Right. where I had been a couple months earlier. Odessa, Texas, in the middle of nowhere. Right. So I go to my hotel, and there are the Ten Commandments, 12 feet high in marble in front of my hotel. In front of the hotel? Yeah.

Uh-huh. Was it a Christian-themed hotel? No, no, but the Ten Commandments are there. But then you go inside, and it's the biggest queen you ever saw behind the front desk. Uh-huh. And then there's a trans person at the hair salon slash coffee place in the lobby. Right. So to me, that's Texas to me.

Right. On the outside, it looks really unforgiving. Yeah, sure. But then when you walk inside, it's like, you know, they'll accept a lot more than you thought they would. Yeah. you know, they'll accept a lot more than you thought they would. Yeah, and when you get down to individual people,

they are their own little countries and living within this thing. And so much of what's happening is going on with isolated people online and a few more than I'd like to admit, you know, random whack jobs who are willing to go out into the world and be proud of it. But, you know, I want to have hope how's your hope factor uh you know it comes and goes i mean what what what really killed me with the amount the number of people who i met who didn't vote in the last election yeah and and i would say to them i would say did you vote and they said no and i said god i would lie about that if i were you i'd be so ashamed if i didn't vote i'd be so ashamed i would lie i would never i would never admit to not voting i mean i've never not voted yeah but if something happened and i didn't get

a chance to vote i'd lie about it right right yeah because you you want to be looked at with that blame. That's you. It's people like you. So when you're out there in the country, I mean, is it enough for you? I mean, when you're not writing, what do you just sit on the porch? What do you do? What do I do? Yeah. I mean, are you able to? What do you do? What do I do? Yeah, I mean, are you able to? I live in the country. I don't really know that.

Maybe I have one person who's like a friend. Yeah. And he and I go out and pick up garbage together sometimes. Yeah. But most days I just do it on my own. You pick up garbage? Yeah, like between four and eight hours a day. Do you pick up garbage?

I pick up garbage. On the streets? Where I live, it's really beautiful, but people throw everything out the car window. You know, done with that newspaper, throw it out the window. You're done with that coffee cup, throw it out the window. So I complained about it when I first moved there, and then I thought, okay, well, I'll just take care of it myself. So I spend between four and eight hours a day on the side of the road picking up trash. And that's, would you call that a pastime a hobby i guess it's a hobby yeah i mean i'm compelled to do it yeah but i've picked up tons and tons and tons i mean i got invited to buckingham palace

because i picked up so much trash that was the only reason it didn't have anything to do with writing i was invited to buckingham palace the Queen has a left tenant in every County and this left tenant what does that mean Oh a lieutenant yeah I think they say left tenant and she saw me on the roads picking up rash and she saw me month after month and then she nominated me and I was so I wasn't i was invited to buckingham palace were united no no the queen has a day where she invites do-gooders uh-huh and so i was just invited there as a do-gooder yeah and who were you with who were some of the other do-gooders they would you know they were with cancer research or they were with you know homeless people or they were

we were of different stripes uh-huh and they weren I don't know, I didn't meet anybody. I tried to strike up a few conversations. Everyone was wearing new shoes. And there was like a patch of soft grass. And people were going over there and taking their shoes and socks off. Oh, really? And their feet were like bleeding. I mean, my feet were, because I was wearing new shoes too.

Because if that's not a dress-up occasion, what is? But you notice that everyone else had done the same thing? That everyone had the new shoes? You could look down and you saw people hobbling. They were all wearing brand new shoes. For the queen? Yeah. Did you meet the queen then?

No, I stood about, I don't know, eight feet from her. And they said, don't bring cameras and don't bring phones. And so I didn't. And everyone else had a camera and a phone. And then there were these guys who were dressed like the guys on the B-Vita gin bottle who would say, oh, love, put that away. Today we'll just enjoy ourselves without pictures. And the second their back was turned,

people would raise their cameras back up and take pictures. Were you mad about that? Well, it was a rule. They asked you not to do it. So I thought, they about that? Well, it was a rule. Yeah. You know, they asked you not to do it. Yeah. So I thought, they asked you not to do it. Don't do it.

And when you saw the queen, was there an effect? Were you moved? No, I didn't feel. No, I wasn't moved in any way. No. She was tiny. Oh, really? Like, I bet she's 4'10".

Oh, she was probably taller. Maybe. But I mean, if she was taller, it was like five feet. Yeah. Oh, she's really that small? Yeah. Huh. I mean, I saw Barack Obama once.

I was invited to the White House. He's a tall guy. Yeah, but I saw him, and I was moved to see him. Right. But I didn't feel anything seeing the queen. Did you feel like the house was nice? It's okay yeah i mean did you get a plaque or a piece of paper nope nothing no it was kind of great and no picture nope no picture you just have the story just have the story and it was kind of i don't know i perfect

way to do it i don't know but when he saw barack you talked to him, right? No. No? He was... I was invited to talk to some speechwriters there, and I was invited to lunch there. Oh, because they wanted... How do we spice this up kind of thing? We just, you know... Can you punch this up a little bit? They had writing questions. Oh, yeah?

So I sat... Like what? Oh, gosh, about making things topical or about... I mean, they knew I wasn't a speechwriter. Right. Just kind of about structuring a story and... Did you tell them that he should probably do some smaller venues first

and test the stuff out? And he was with the Pakistani delegation. And then I was on my way out, and there he was. Yeah. And he waved. But I was with two other people, so I'm pretty sure he was waving at me, but they're probably sure he was waving at them, too. So you all got a good story.

But that was enough, too. Yeah. You know? Like, I mean, I was invited one other time because it was anniversary of Greek Independence Day. Uh-huh. But I think that's the kind of thing where you'd go and he would pop his head into the room and maybe shake a few hands. And I just feel sorry for people who have to do that, you know, because they have other things I'd rather be doing. But if I had to do over again, I kick myself for not going.

Yeah. Because my friend Andy, his daughter, I should have gone and brought her. Oh, yeah. It would have meant the world to her. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, he was an impressive guy. I talked to him on here, on this show. I heard that.

Yeah, it was, you know, and I felt something, but you know what you feel along with that something that you feel as an American, because, you know, you're talking to the president. I was talking to the president. It was that weird shock of like, he's just a guy. You know, at a distance, there's something almost mythic about them.

But it was very, it's both disappointing and highly exciting that they're just people. Disappointing in a good way. I didn't get the, gosh, but I think he'd have to be a special kind of person to recognize that. Because I don't know that I could. What, that he's just a guy? Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, you don't, because the idea of that job or the, you know, certainly, you know, once you see the kind of like recklessness that's going on today, this sort of tact that was necessary to balance that, it's a profound ability to sort of detach and remain grounded in in in the in the highest of stakes and then when you see the guy just sitting there and we're talking about comedy or his wife or something you're like what is

what is the magic because it is a magic it is a certain disposition that enables somebody to do that but he's you know fundamentally just a guy and a you know I guess disappointing was the wrong word. I mean, I was happy about it, but you sort of wonder what kind of constitution you have to have to do that, to be able to handle that. I've talked to people who hung out with Bill Clinton and talked to him. Yeah. But they gave the impression they were talked at more. Oh, right.

Sure. I have friends like that. Did you ever interview Roseanne? Yes. You did? Yeah. You know what? I kind of feel like with what happened to her.

You know, when I was 15, I worked in mental, I volunteered in a mental institution. Right. And when you walk into the wards of a mental institution, you hear all kinds of, you know, people screaming things at the orderlies and stuff. But I think more than being a racist, the person doing the screaming is crazy. No, I agree. Like that's the number one thing that they are. I agree.

And, you know, maybe with her, like the number one thing that she is, is just, you know, crazy. I think she's always been that way and i think that there's this sort of weird mixture of like i i tend to feel that that that like kanye rosanne and trump are are sort of in the same orbit there's a an an a sort of aggressive narcissism at the core of it and and and and when you have a platform and you're aggressively narcissistic not i mean pathologicallyistic, not narcissistic traits, but somebody whose brain doesn't have that ability to be aware in those moments, that they can do profound cultural damage and good. yeah i mean when i had rosanne on i i went out of my way to to sort of manage the conversation in in in the area of comedy which is you know what we talk about like i i i was not nervous but i didn't want it to go into that other stuff you know because i knew that that was you know it

was erratic you know it was not you know founded in you know some sort of agenda or consistency of ideas. So I tried to just keep her in comedy. And she was very charming and funny and was good. But on some level, no matter how mentally unstable, she's aware of where she's coming from sometimes. And I think that was a sort of weird oversight. I was minding my own business one night. It was like midnight, and I was in Paris.

It was 2000. Yeah. And the phone rang, and my boyfriend came and said, telephone. And he said, I think it's Roseanne. Yeah. It's Roseanne. And she called me. Yeah.

And she talked for an hour and a half. And she sang a couple times. She broke into song. Yeah. Was it a wrong number? No, she was going to be on this TV show. And she got my phone number from the host broke into song. Yeah. Was it a wrong number? No, she was going to be on this TV show and she got my phone number

from the host of the show. Right. And she was just lonely and couldn't sleep and so she called me. Was she a fan of yours? I don't know that she'd read everything but, you know,

it was more like it wasn't so much a conversation. Right. I mean, it was kind of being talked at. Yeah. But I was kind of surprised by how candid she was. Uh-huh. You know, and she would answer any question that I asked her. And when she called, I mean, how'd she preface it?

Hi, Roseanne. Yeah. Damon. In a hotel with big cushions and big curtains like big curtains make me feel rich and that was the beginning of it and you'd never met her before never met her and what do you what did you make of it while it was happening you know i was aware i never watched her show yeah but i was aware that you know i mean i don't know that many people. Yeah. When I was aware that, you know, it's flattered, I suppose. Yeah.

That she would call me. Right. And then after a while, I thought, well, gosh, who would do that? Right. You know, if you don't really. Yeah. Know somebody. To get through to you at a hotel.

It wasn't, or she was at a hotel. She was at a hotel. Yeah. But I mean, I don't know that, it's like if my boyfriend goes out of town and I get lonely. Yeah. And I think of calling a friend, I even hesitate because I think they're going to say, God damn it. You know, like, why did I ever give him this number?

Or I think that they're going to, that I'm going to be bothering them. Right. Yeah. And so someone I don't know to call them at midnight, this seems, that takes something. I don't have. And it was like an hour at least? An hour and a half. An hour and a half.

Yeah. Did you get a half. Yeah. Did you get any laughs? Yeah. I mean, she told me at one point that one time she had a next-door neighbor who knocked on her door and told her that from today forth there would be no dark. He had just heard that announced on the radio.

Uh-huh. He was crazy, and he tried to paint his house with melted butter. I mean, she had some pretty good stories, I thought. Well, do you think that's why she called you? She must have just read the book or an essay and thought, like, this guy gets it. Maybe.

You have no idea. Maybe. But again, I mean, maybe if you knew a lot of people. Yeah. You know, if you knew a lot of, like, you know a lot of people. So if somebody called you at midnight you might just yeah you know you wouldn't think of it the same way i do no no i i never know like but now yet with the cell phone you can see who's calling you i don't know that number oh that guy maybe not now you know that kind of thing oh he might be in trouble

she might be in trouble i better pick that up but uh you know generally i'm like you i don't like i have a lot of people's phone numbers but but I'm always hesitant to call them. You know what I mean? I'd rather just sit with my problems and stew. I guess nobody talks on the phone anymore, do they? I talked on the phone briefly today. Who'd you talk to? I called my friend Jack, and I speak to my girlfriend on the phone in real time.

But generally, no, you don't do it. But it's weird because now, even if you were averse to it to begin with, now I'm sort of scared. I'm going to call, they're going to answer, then what's going to happen then? There's business to be, you know what I mean? It's never about having a conversation.

It's always about like, what? When? Okay, I guess. All right. Are you going? All right. Okay. I'll text you later.

Right? It's a preface to a text and then to an eventual event. Yeah. How's your dad? He is 95. And he had a birthday party and he fell down. My sister went to get him for his birthday party. Which sister?

Lisa. And he was on the ground. Oh, boy. And he'd been on the ground for a while. So he, and he was disoriented. And no one had ever seen him like that before. So anyway, now he's in an assisted living place. And he just.

In Carolina? Yeah. And he just hates old people. He always did. Yeah. So apparently he's there and he just calls the people there losers because they're sitting in a room watching TV

and then he goes to his room and watches TV. But he's still got all his marbles? Yeah. But I mean, gee, you know, I got to hand it to him, you know, because, you know, when you're 95, everything has to hurt. Yeah. And he never talks about it. He doesn't talk about it.

No, never. And who's the primary family member over there dealing with him on a day to day basis? My sister, Lisa. Lisa? Yeah. And what's up with your brother, the rooster? He goes over i mean he's a you know he's a help yeah i'm the one who lives you know far away and so i don't um but it's one of the reasons i moved far away yeah you know right i just thought you know when the time comes i'm'm far away. Yeah. I think you talk about it in the most recent book about idealizing family time and having that diminished almost every time.

Well, I got this house on the coast. In South Carolina? In North Carolina. North Carolina. So it's where my family used to vacation when we were kids. Yeah. And it's been kind of great. Yeah.

Because we all get together there and we've been, know my dad comes when we're there and you know we just yeah he's there and everybody yeah but we don't have a tv right because my dad you know normally he just has a tv on and it's fox news all the time so oh he's that guy oh yeah he's that guy yeah yeah and so is he happy about what's happening uh i haven't talked to him about it because i don't want to turn you know i don't want to be that yeah last discussion we have to be a fight yeah but he's delighted yeah you know everything he doesn't see any my friend i had a friend who uh lived lived in Arizona, and he had an Obama bumper sticker on his car. And he lived in Phoenix.

Yeah. And whenever he went to the grocery store, he'd come out, there'd be somebody standing next to his car saying, how's that going for you, shithead? Really? And Ted would say, great. Actually, it's going great for me. Yeah. And that would be like if he said to my dad, how's this going for you?

He'd say, no complaints. Right. Perfectly happy. you he'd say no complaints right perfectly happy i it's my dad he can't like he'll watch fox news because he's gotten rid of all his you know only he only has basic cable but he he doesn't he i think he assumes it's the news that that there's no that generation unless they're sophisticated you know they just walk in and it looks like it's supposed to be the news it seems like it's the news and that's how he watches it. No critical thinking or comparative ideas. This is what's being reported. Well, my dad was always a financial

Republican. He just wanted to keep more of his money. And then Fox News started. They convinced him he wasn't conservative enough. So then he started rethinking his position. I remember North Carolina voted, this was, you know, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago,

to make gay marriage extra, unconstitutional. Right? And that passed. And then they voted again a couple years later to make it extra, extra,

extra, extra, extra unconstitutional. And he voted for that. Yeah. And it was weird because he told me about it. Yeah.

He told me he voted for it. And I said, you know, I would have just kept that to myself. Yeah. And if I weird because he told me about it. Yeah. He told me he voted for it. And I said, you know, I would have just kept that to myself. Yeah. And if I asked you about it, I would have changed the subject. Like, I wouldn't have. Why are you telling me this? Do you think it had some sort of deeper implications about how he felt about you? No.

He, you know, was listening to conservative radio. Yeah. And he said, you know, you got these girls in college and they don't know what they want. I said, are you talking about college lesbians? Yeah. I said, what does that have anything to do with gay marriage? Yeah. And he replied.

He was just confused by the whole. He couldn't keep it straight in his mind. Oh. He was in the early stages of brainwashing. Yeah. He said, it sends a wrong message. Oh, I see. He thought it was encouraging people that may be going through a phase to make some sort of commitment that they were probably not correct about. Yeah. How does he feel in general about your life?

feel in general about your life uh you know i my dad is uh i did a show and in paris one year at the embassy yeah in paris i was invited to do a reading at the embassy so i i said to my dad you want to come because it seemed like the kind of thing he'd like so i flew him over there and then i heard him saying after the reading i I heard him say, well, David's a better reader than he is a writer. That's all you got. Yeah. But how do you, like, do you find any sort of call to arms about what's going on? I mean, in terms of feeling that you're almost in your heart connected to America and to the South in a lot of ways, do you find that you are provoked to take action in any way? I think the biggest action somebody can take, I mean, I was with this woman recently in Atlanta.

Uh-huh. And she's in her 80s. Yeah. And she has spent her entire life fundraising for candidates and hosting benefits for them and organizing people. Yeah. And she has two people who work for her and neither of them voted. Hmm. And... And that's what she does for her life. Yeah. Yeah. And she has two people who work for her and neither of them voted. Hmm. And that's what she does

for her life. Yeah, yeah. And so that seems to me the call to arms. Yeah. To me is to get people to vote. Yeah, that's right.

I mean, even when Obama was on my show, he was like, I'm just here to get people, not even in a partisan way, engaged with the political process to think that it has some impact on their life and the life of the future. I don't know what the, I think the disconnect is people just are bored

or they weren't, you know, they don't feel or see that it has any immediate impact on their life and they're distracted with all kinds of other bullshit. Yeah, but, okay, everybody has other stuff going on. Yeah, no, I'm not. Like a presidential election seems to take precedent. I mean, to me, I would think that it would. So I don't know, but I don't know how, you know, I've done that at shows before. I've said, oh, we have people in the lobby and you can register to vote.

But I don't, it takes something more than that. I don't know what, public shaming would be. Yeah. But I don't, it takes something more than that. Yeah. I don't know what, public shaming would be. Good. Would be good. Just get the voter rolls and walk around. Yeah.

Put marks on their doors. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how they do it in Australia. You have to vote. I think it's a law.

And that would be interesting here to see what would. Yeah. Because it wouldn't make people have to, it wouldn't mean they have to care.

Yeah. Or they have to put thought into it. Right. It just means they have to push a button. But in terms of civic duty in general, have you done jury duty and whatnot? Yeah, I loved it. You did? Oh, God, yeah. I mean, I prayed that I would get a case.

And I have to say, I was really struck by how seriously everybody took their duty. Nobody was like, just let him off. But it was a case where this guy stabbed another guy. And if anyone ever needed to be stabbed, it was this guy who was stabbed. And he lifted his shirt, and he'd been stabbed by two other people. I mean, who gets stabbed?

But then I learned later that if you get hit by a car, chances are like 80% you're going to get hit by a car again. Really? And if you're stabbed, chances are high you're going to be stabbed again. And it's because you have bad judgment. Oh, it's not some mystical thing? No, no. It's just because you hang out with the wrong people or you don't pay attention to where you're going. You don't look around you.

Yeah. So, but everyone was very serious about it? Very. Yeah. And I was, I don't think I was supposed to be doing this, but like this guy said, his family had taken him out for Father's Day for barbecue at this restaurant.

Yeah. And so he couldn't possibly have been there to stab this person. So I went to the barbecue restaurant, and there was nobody in there that looked remotely like the guy who was on trial. And so I just thought, what are the chances that he was really here with his family? Yeah, right, yeah. And he looked so unlike everyone else in that restaurant that it seemed like he could have produced a waiter or waitress who would have said, yeah, that guy was, I remember. Right.

Because we'd never seen anyone like him in here before. And he couldn't produce anybody. No. I remember Amy got jury duty one time. She called and said, it's a rape case and he's, I hope I get it, he's really cute. She's got a new show, huh? Yeah. Do you like it?

Do you watch it? I do like it and I do watch it. It's weird when you watch somebody you know on television. Do a thing? You're seeing, I can't not see her in anything. I cannot. So in a way, I'm like one of the only people who can't see it yeah right it's like somebody made a movie based on something i wrote yeah and i went to it

but i'm the only one in the world who can't see it because i'm sitting in the audience thinking is that where my i think my refrigerator was on the other side of the room wasn't it but that looks like my trailer but my cat wasn't orange he was a little was my cat orange and so and then the next thing you know the credits are rolling yeah and you missed the whole movie yeah because i'm i'm the only one in the world who can't see it yeah and when like uh when you when you're sitting around and not picking up trash in england uh do you like you like, because whenever I picture somebody, you're an intelligent guy, you write beautiful things,

you're funny, you're living this expatriate, this expat life as a writer abroad. I think of, do you listen to classical music and read books? I, when I'm walking along, I listen to podcasts.

Oh, yeah. And I listen to audio books. Yeah. And sometimes I listen to music. But, I mean, I walk, when I'm at home, I walk between 18 and 22 miles a day. A day? A day. 18 miles a day?

Yeah. So that's what you do? Yeah. That's a lot of podcasts and a lot of audio books to listen to. Yeah. Have you heard any books lately that you liked? You had Ms. Pat on your show. Yeah.

And she was so entertaining. And I pounced on her book. Yeah. And I thought she did such a great job with that book. Sure. And she did such a great job. I really didn't understand why she wasn't nominated for like a Grammy

or an Audi Award. Yeah. God, that book was entertaining. And I recommended it to so many people. It's just such an amazingly dark story to elevate to humor.

I mean, it's like profound the way she presents it. And it's sort of horrible. But it's so funny. Well, when I heard her on your show, I thought at first, oh gosh,

those were a lot of the highlights, but a lot of the mundane details in the book are fantastic. Oh, that's great to hear. I'm sure she'd be thrilled to hear that. Now, what about like Greekness? Like, you know, do you like i go to greece a lot you know i go for book tours and i go for greeks are happy to embrace greeks yeah you

know yeah and i wish because my dad was greek but my mother wasn't yeah so i wish i was greekier yeah but you know i'll settle settle for as Greek as I am. Yeah. I just got back from Australia. Everyone's Greek. Really? They're all there? Yeah.

It just makes me so happy to meet a Greek. Yeah, doesn't it? Because they're what? They're open and warm people? They just have really long last names. Yeah. And that's enough half the time. And the food is so good, right?

So clean, seafood, salads, those cheeses, right? Wow. But do you ever go to San Francisco? Do you go there very often? Have you eaten at Kokari in San Francisco? No. I think it has to be the best Greek restaurant in the United States. Really?

And it's not Nouvelle Greek food. It's not fancy. It's just Greek food. But, man, is it good. And I went there twice last week. I just... I love it. It's just outstanding. It puts every other Greek place to shame.

What do you get, fish? I get fish. Like, the last time I was there, I got this lamb, but I've gotten fish and i've gotten chicken and and yeah it's not one of those places where they come out with the flaming cheese and say opah you know it's sophisticated yeah but uh god it's good i gotta go because they open like i like i lived in queens for years you know which is a very greek in astoria and there was a place called kaklides g Seafood in Astoria.

And it was just the best. And they open one in New York City, like right downtown by where I stay usually. I'll eat there two or three times just to get grilled octopus, you know, the greens, the weird overcooked greens. The beets, they just do beets with raw garlic. Like, and then they have that dessert,

that galaktapudika. Galak, galak. Galaktapudika. Yeah. That is the best. Do we talk about this before oh oh because when i was at kokara the other day the waitress came up and and i was ordering that yeah and she said if it's not inappropriate i once heard that referred to as galactic booty call i'd like that she i I was at the fitness center that I go to in the country.

Yeah. And I walked in and these two men were telling dirty jokes. Yeah. And the guy said, I am so sorry. He said,

I don't, we were here telling jokes. Yeah. I don't mean to offend. Yeah. But I, and I can stop right now. Right.

And I said, please continue. And it was just fascinating to me that, that they had, that they were apologizing. Right. In advance for. Right. You know. Yeah.

For just telling dirty jokes. Like, because you showed up? Are you like. Yeah. No, because I walked into the room. Yeah. I mean, I could see if a woman walked into the room. Sure.

And I would say, oh gosh, you caught me. Yeah. Right. Right. But if it's another guy, I'm just surprised by woman walked into the room, you would say, oh, gosh, you caught me. Yeah, right, right. But if it's another guy, I'm just surprised by that. Was it a good joke? Yeah, it wasn't so good that I remember it. Right. That dessert is so fucking good, isn't it? Yeah, it's filo dough and custard.

Yeah, and custard, but the custard is like made with, I think, semolina, and it's like not just regular custard. I mean, it's like, it's one of the best things I ever discovered or ever had in my life. And they give it to you. They used to give it to you just gratis at this restaurant, Kiklaides. Like it just came out. You didn't order it. It was part of the meal.

And when that happened, I thought it was the best thing in the world. But you can't find it too many places. I went to dinner. I was in New York at the start of my book tour. And we ordered dessert. You can't find it too many places. I went to dinner. I was in New York at the start of my book tour. And we ordered dessert. And after the dessert, the waiter came and put like a little bowl of Madeleines on the table. And he said, the story isn't over.

Oh, man. All right. So what happens now? Where are you going? It's so nice to see you. I always like seeing you. I had the postcard you sent me up on my bulletin board for a long time with musical, I think they were mice. I'm going to, I mean, I'm just in Los Angeles and then I go to San Diego and then I go back

to England and start my English book tour. And then do you sit down and you get, do you, are you, are you writing? Are you running out of things to write about? No. Okay. I mean, I have a list of things to write about. Yeah. And things come up.

Yeah. Sure. You know, I mean, all the time things come up that, you know. Yeah. Provoke the writing. Well, like somebody, I didn't realize this. Someone just told me this the other night that pugs apparently. Pugs.

The dogs. Yeah. Their eyes come out a lot. Mm-hmm. Because they're half out anyway. They pop out? Yeah, they pop out. And this woman, her dog had an operation on its eye and it had a cone around its neck. A pug.

And then it wouldn't shut off about the cone, so she took it off for some peace and quiet. And the pug scratched at his eye with his hind, and his eye popped out, and he ate it. And that led to all these stories about people digging their eyes out with spoons. What? In eating them. What? Yeah, I was in Albuquerque, and there was a guy at the- I grew up in Albuquerque.

Well, I was in Albuquerque, and someone told me that pug up in Albuquerque. Well I was in Albuquerque and I told that someone told me that pug story and then I told somebody else and somebody said well there was a guy at the county jail here and he dug his eyes out both his eyes out with a teaspoon and he ate the first one and then he couldn't find the second one.

He couldn't find it. And then somebody else told me, oh, we had a guy, and he thought there was a hidden camera beneath his eyes, so he took it out with a teaspoon. This is like, it's either meth-related or mental illness, right? Yeah. Yeah.

But apparently there's this whole, anyway, I thought, gosh, that's something to write about, just to talk about it. And when you talk about it in front of an audience, people come up and they'll tell you stories and just get further into it. Well, pugs are, I think they have a genetically problematic head. I think because they can't breathe right either. Right. And it's just a mess.

Well, then someone told me the actor Raul Julia, his eye popped out on a movie set one time. Was it a glass eye? No, it was a real eye. Apparently, apparently, he talked about it on a talk show one time. And he sneezed. And I don't know if he held his nose when he sneezed or what, but his eye popped out. Oh, my God. And all of a sudden, he was looking at

his cheek. Oh, my God. And he put it back in with his own hand. And they said, oh, don't ever do that. Let us do that. Who? The professionals? Yeah. Leave it to the professionals to put the eye back into the socket?

Yeah. So this is the next book. That's great. We got a little preview? Well, it's great seeing you. You too. And thank you for coming by. Thanks for having me.

Calypso, the new book. Get it wherever you get books. It was lovely talking to David Sedaris again. I do get a kick out of him. He's a very sweet and funny and dark man. Speaking of beautiful movies about real people, that might be good for some of you man babies is this movie, Eighth Grade, that Bo Burnham made.

It's just a beautiful human movie real story handled the you know nicely scripted nicely acted beautifully about eighth grade and it's interesting there are some things that are very different about eighth grade now but there are some things that are eternal and and will be eternal in your heart. And some of that for some of you is a lifelong commitment to comic book movies. And defending them and getting upset about it. But this movie runs a little deeper than that. Definitely runs a little deeper than that. So it was great to have Bo back.

Hadn't seen him in a while. So this is me talking to Bo Burnham about his new movie, Eighth Grade, which is now playing in select theaters. I'm turning into a weird old man. You? I'm turning into a weird old man. You? I'm all right. So, Bo, I don't think I've talked to you in public in years. Yeah. Well, I mean, the last time I talked to you in public was on the Green Room show.

Well, yeah, that's truly public, public, yes. And I took a pretty good shot at you. Got a big laugh. Yeah, it was fun. But I think you won. I mean, I think ultimately you transcended. Well, yeah, it's a weird environment to be in. Yeah, it is.

A circle of comedians in private is a weird environment, let alone publicly performing surrounded by cameras and an audience. And I was being so condescending, and you were the kid, the young guy. We played our part. The YouTube. Yeah, we did. But it was interesting because Gary Shandling was there. It was Ray Romano, Gary Shandling, Judd Apatow, you and me, right?

And Paul, yeah. And Paul Provenza. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of a sweet episode, actually. Yeah, it's nice. Because you got up and played. Yeah, it's very beautiful, too.

And Gary's there. And I got to have a little relationship with Garyary after that but it all sort of started from that really um yeah i would go over his house and just really yeah um and just just me and him and talk for a little bit and even this movie i just made he he read one of the first people to read the script no kidding so you just like you met him there and it was just, you just, you know, he reached out or how'd that go? Yeah. Yeah.

Just reached out after. I might've ran into him at Largo. Right. On one of Judd's shows and we just sort of connected there. And yeah, we, I think we felt like partly kindred spirits a little bit, just sensitive people. Yeah. So you'd go over there and just hang out?

Yeah. We'd just walk around and talk. I never did the basketball games or anything. Were they still going on at that point? Yeah, yeah, I think so. Are you a basketball player? I want to be. I have the silhouette. You're supposed to be. Exactly. You were designed to be by God. Yeah, I actually played basketball until I grew and then I stopped. So that, well, that's sort of interesting. So he would, just about life stuff? I mean, what was that, to have that kind of relationship with him, what was that like? Yeah, it was just like, it's similar with, well, not similar.

Gary is very special, but there's been a few people that have just been very, someone that's older that speaks to you like they're- Oh, no, definitely. I definitely relate to that. someone that's older that speaks to you like yeah oh no definitely i definitely relate to that uh well they speak to you like an like like a i don't know it wasn't it wasn't like the zen master even though i was projecting all of that onto him yeah it was much more friendly and down to earth and i think that in itself was like the the most masterful thing to do sure um because i would then go on to work with people younger than me and it was people like Gary that taught me to be like the best

thing you can do is to be treat them as your equal and right even if they're not which I certainly wasn't it's very important in life I mean what I was responding to is like I've had many sort of older mentors throughout my life yeah yeah that kind of fill a void whether it's a dad void or whatever the boy it is like you didn't you're getting information that you never got before Yeah, yeah. That kind of fill a void, whether it's a dad void or whatever the void is. You're getting information that you never got before. You're getting support that you didn't get before. You're getting validation.

There's a lot of things that come with that. It's a very exciting thing to be taken under somebody's wing, so to speak, in a way. Or just to be listened to by someone you respect. Yeah, and to feel like it's kind. And if it feels humble, it's just mind-blowing you know because you kind of bristle when it feels like hey kid like let me show you that you know you can kind of get like a little well that's not yeah that's right you don't know nothing i'm gonna school you yeah which can be fun and he saw he saw a script of eighth grade early on yeah yeah i sent him a script early on because he was how many

years ago was that going in the making probably three years ago yeah yeah um did he give you notes no he just he just was curious what i was um working on i sent it to him and he just sent a nice email back saying you know he hopes it gets made and oh yeah that's nice so you weren't really asking for notes no i mean not really um it was just it was more it was more of a casual thing him just being curious uh-huh it was always just a very curious person uh-huh it was much more yeah just curious about things rather than in control of them sure so that was three years i'm sure if you would have if you asked for input he might have given you some but you just wanted him to see it yeah yeah yeah i didn't feel like that's what our even our relationship was oh relationship was more just like I didn't feel like that's what even our relationship was.

Oh, right. Our relationship was more just like sharing things with each other. That's nice. Which was nice. How long did that go on for? Just, you know, probably a year, yeah. And you go to the funeral and stuff? I didn't know.

I didn't either. Did you go to that memorial? No. The show? Yeah. No. That was a lot. That only happened to the show business.

You go to the memorial. Oh, the stand-up show? Yeah.up show so you wrote this how long ago probably 2014 okay 2014 so where were you at in your career then you're running around playing piano i just finished yeah exactly um i literally am doing that on stage um i was uh i had just finished my, the special before the last special, which is called, my first Netflix special was called What? And I was not wanting to do it anymore. Oh, right. And this was Life?

Was that the other one? Make Happy was the recent one. Make Happy, right, right, right. I like that it seemed to be Life. Life. Because that's what we were going for. That's sort of a subliminal message. Very good.

But yeah, I had started to, I had my first panic attack of my life on stage and really wait so you're running your point you're doing the shows you know you're i mean i'm not being condescending no no no you've got a good following you're doing theater tours yeah and uh mostly younger people come i would imagine yeah um college age high school right right mostly girls women 60 40 yeah probably uh um so they have boyfriends right right that they they wish were you yeah yeah but uh so what what how does what precedes the panic attack like things going too well or um no i think it's been a lifelong thing that I never really had described or understood

until that point. Really? But you never had one before? Never had one, no. I had like acute stage fright that I didn't think was that. Never crescendoed into a panic attack.

But, you know, I was in and out of the hospital when I was in high school thinking I had stomach pains. And then it wasn't until, you know, I was 23 where I was like, oh, that was being nervous. I was shitting my until, you know, I was 23 where I was like, oh, that

was being nervous. I was shitting my brains out every day cause I was nervous. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, the last, last time I was on, when I was on this podcast, I was 19. I didn't know. I didn't, I hadn't said the word anxiety at that point. I had no idea what I was struggling with.

So it wasn't until I was in Edinburgh, you know, in front of 800 people and all of a sudden halfway through the show I got tunnel vision and my breath got short. And I was like, what the fuck is happening? Did you say that? No, I got through it. I powered through it. You played through? And then.

I'm going to play through. Exactly. And then, you know, over the course of this last tour, had, you know, 10 on stage, had to power through all of them. But not before you go on you didn't feel the you did you always have stage fright oh you did yeah and now like i well that's interesting just out of nowhere it starts actually happening on stage and you just powered through all of them and then what did you get seek help or i just something you live with uh i tried to seek i mean part of the help was quitting was stopping doing it You know, I really haven't done it in two years.

I do once a month at Largo. Really? Yeah, maybe once every couple months at Largo. I go up for 10 minutes. So you really sort of like, I'm pulling out for a while. I needed to for my health. How many dates a year were you doing? I was doing, I did 100, but I did them in, you know, 50 in 60 days.

Right. And like, what was really rough was this last tour. It's like the second show in, I had a panic attack on stage in Providence in front of 3,500 people. Next day had a panic attack in New York. Then two days after that, a panic attack in the train to DC for my next show. And I had like 45 shows coming up after. And that's when it felt like absolute oblivion.

That was like the darkest time of my life. So you were full of dread? Dread. Exactly. That's the word. It felt like an ax was, when I was on stage, it was like, and again, it's not that I couldn't enjoy myself on stage. I would.

And I'd really enjoy it. But there was always this thing hanging over my head that could drop at any moment. Like at any moment, I can freak moment but could you attach it to things because i have problems with anxiety and dread but you know for because like if you're in something and you're doing it you're like this is great but then like when you think of like oh but i gotta you know i gotta do it again tomorrow and i gotta you know like then that's when i start to but was that what was happening or was just a kind of vague existential dread? No, I'm sure it was grounded in some like awful sort of just young narcissistic need to be the greatest every night to everybody. But also like the surreal thing that would be happening is that like, you know, between shows, I'm literally on my laptop Googling like how to deal with stage fright.

laptop Googling like how to deal with stage fright. It's articles that are saying like, don't worry. Like no one really, like if you're going up to present in front of your class, no one actually cares what you're presenting. I'm like, no, it doesn't apply to me. Like these people paid $40 and they've been waiting three months to see me. It was actually reading about people like Adele and Barbara Streisand who struggle with that, that like actually really, really helped me. But yeah, it was, it was sort of on the road.

It's funny now in hindsight, but like, okay, like meditating before every show, like trying to learn this thing on its feet, which was, and I was like, do I take beta blockers? But that feels like, to introduce medication mid-tour felt very terrifying to me. Yeah. Yeah, some people use those. I mean, I tried them for anger once. I guess it does something. I don't know what it, I'm not exactly sure how they work,

but you just chose to stop for a while. Yeah, I just needed to stop. And probably part of it was feeling like every show was life and death for me, and I was proving my worth every time up there. I don't want to ground it too much in thoughts. You're hard on yourself. Because it's also also it is also just like chemical and neurological and like yeah my sister has anxiety my mother has anxiety so so there there also is just something that's just i'm predisposed to it so what you know so you're telling me that the the the sort of kernel

of creating the film or starting to think about the script came from you taking a break more just me wanting to write about my the script came from you taking a break? More just me wanting to write about my anxiety because I didn't take a break at that point because that was just the sort of lull before I started my next hour. And then when I finished Make Happy, which was 2016, then I took the official break. But I was trying to talk about my anxiety on stage.

I was trying to talk about feeling nervous through myself, through my own voice. And I found that all it was doing was burrowing me deeper in myself and not getting me anywhere so and then you thought like i'm an eighth grade girl yeah kind of kind of really it was it was watching kids online talk about themselves watching these girls make these videos trying to express themselves and being like i feel like them and not only, me doing my show on stage, you know, and I would talk about being nervous and feeling like performing was strange

and I felt like my problems were so specific to a, at the time, 24-year-old male comedian. And then I would have 14-year-old girls come up to me after the show and say, I feel exactly like you. I feel like I have to perform all the time and everyone's looking at me. And I go, what?

You know what I mean? So like, if there was a bridge that I had to cross to write the movie, it was built by them to me first. You know, I felt understood by them before I presumed to understand them. Well, that's sort of a big revelation about, you know, what you put out into the world in general and why it resonates with your audience. why it resonates with your audience and what because like even when i saw your work way back in the day that you are expressing a sort of like aggravated discomfort in some things right yeah that you transcend through you know what you're doing up there like it's empowering and and it's catchy and it's entertaining and but but i think what you're talking about is it seems to be at the core of a lot of the stuff you've done.

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. But I would have to filter it through things I was getting very tired of, which was being clever, overriding, being cynical, being satirical. Yeah, certainly, melodically. And I was interested in exploring it in a more granular, emotional. Detached way, like a different type of investment on your part yeah that not as a not you know you're not you don't have to show up every night yeah i don't have to perform the movie yeah and to say that these feelings are not unique to me i mean the

most powerful experiences i have watching any art are when I feel most personally connected to films that I don't demographically align with or like when I can see myself in someone that isn't me, that is really, really freeing to me because it's very lonely to think, oh, I'm only feeling what I'm feeling because I'm me and my circumstance. Right. Oh, yeah. To see. Well, that's usually selfish.

Unless you're doing something incredibly, uniquely peculiar, there's somebody else out there experiencing what you're experiencing and even me who i felt was doing something incredibly uniquely peculiar it wasn't unique to me it just wasn't right like um this pressure that i had felt to perform to deliver for an audience has been sort of is now social yeah so you know completely wide that's right that now with people's access to putting themselves out there like everybody can have that same an entertainer's fear yeah exactly that's what i say like the the shitty sort of like things you get when you're a d-list comedic celebrity are now have been democratized for everybody like everyone gets to be a shitty D-list celebrity like me.

It's funny. Cause yeah. The thing about the movie though, like, which I liked a lot. I really liked the movie and I'm glad that I did. Cause it's hard for me to talk to people if I don't like the movie. Oh,

that's cool. I would have canceled it. I told him, I was like, just ask him if he liked it. And then like, I just won't come in. I said that.

I said that. Cause I know you're honest. I was like, I just like, I don't need the plug if he doesn't like it. I don't want to deal with Mark beating around the bush. Well, I don't want to burden you with that. I wouldn't want to talk about something I didn't like. Well, no, but like, it's weird because I do talk to people who have made a lot of movies that may have made one that they're out promoting that I might not love.

Right, right, right, right. But like, there's still like- Yeah, there's other stuff to talk about, yeah. But what's interesting that you're saying to me is that what pulled you in were these YouTube videos. And to me, like I just saw the YouTube videos, you know, not as a device, but it's just something that, you know,

eighth graders deal with now, that that's part of their life, you know, like the cell phone and the YouTube video and Instagram or Snapchat or whatever. I can't remember which one was in the movie. But the core of who they are emotionally is sort of timeless. Yeah, definitely. Because you have this cast of characters,

and you've got great performances out of all the kids. And, you know, like it's not, you know, I can see them all from my junior high. I know all the characters are still the characters, and I think that's genuine. It's not some trope of teen movies. It's a trope of actual teen life. Yeah, life. Yeah, yeah, of course.

And I thought the casting was great. You really got a hell of a performance out of all your leads. Oh, I appreciate it. Yeah, they're special kids. So they were. So once you wrote the script, how much did you honor it? Yeah, I mean, structurally pretty honored.

But, you know, part of the thing was just trying to, I wanted to make a movie about kids that, you know, hopefully you feel nostalgia when you watch it. But it wasn't operating nostalgically. I didn't want it to be like a memory. I didn't want it to feel like the projection of my eighth grade experience right i didn't set up i didn't give a shit about my eighth grade experience you know um so i tried to defer to the kids and let the kids author as much as they could and right and let them feel like they were in power of the the thing so was there a learning process for you on set i mean were you did you find that when you wrote the script and then having the experience of working with the the actors that you made assumptions that might not have been true yeah

i mean i gave the script to the lead elsie fisher the first time and she read it and said all of her dms were on facebook and she read it and said no one uses facebook anymore right i then put into the script of some other girl saying and now it's all on instagram because she literally read the script and was like is this about my aunt? And I was like, oh God. So like, what was really nice, it was freeing for me too to have always felt like

I was this, always the little young buck and now I get to be the old out of touch guy, which is very fun, you know? Yeah, yeah. I get to look back at them

and go, what the fuck is happening? Right. And I do think the generation gaps are shrinking and it's much stranger and I feel as close to someone 20 years older than me as I do someone six years younger than me.

Because this stuff is just changing so rapidly. Technology, mostly. Yeah, and the sort of generational signifiers are now happening every six months instead of every eight or ten years. But back to when you asked about the videos like they are they are they definitely do end up being a device and the i hope the movie you know is really carried by her actual life but the thing that just drew me was that wasn't being negative no no yeah and and i hope they function as a as a device it was it was like what drew me to the videos was like failing to articulate yourself wanting to present your own narrative

and not being able to do it correctly. And that was just so compelling to me. When I watched these videos, I would see kids, it was vlogs that were kids are making about their life. You could see, you could see the references they had in their head for other speeches they'd heard in movies and culture. You could see them trying to do it. You could see them failing to live up to what they wanted to do. You could see them trying to close that gap. You could see them trying to do it. You could see them failing to live up to what they wanted to do. You could see them trying to close that gap. You could see them getting bored. You could see them adjusting.

And I was watching this going like, if this were a performance, it would be incredible. And it's so much more dynamic than the normal teen voiceover of, hey, so I'm going to teach you about how I went from being this to that. It's literally about them learning how to think. It's not just about them learning how to live.

And also this idea that they're putting something out in the world that that is helpful that you know will celebrate who they are but also like people will want to watch them yeah it kind of fills in for that because it was it's all her her what's the character's name kayla kayla's you know videos are heartbreaking ultimately yeah yeah just by virtue of the fact that no one's watching them yeah like and you don't really mention that too much. Yeah. But you do see the number where the number is supposed to be. Right. And it's just it's just it's going out into nowhere. It's almost an internal dialogue. Yeah. Yeah. But she's trying to to to sort of be helpful. And she's already out of her league. I mean, I you know, in terms of the advice she's offering, what does she really know? Yeah, of course. But what does anyone know about like being yourself and how to be confident? You know, at the end of the day, it's like we're all kind of. Right.

It feels a little like. But yeah, I was interested about talking about people on the Internet that weren't being seen. As someone that went viral on the Internet, it's the least interesting thing about being on the Internet. And it's the only thing we talk about. We tend to only talk about the people that get attention. thing about being on the internet and it's the only thing we talk about we tend to only talk about the people that get attention but the majority of the internet is people expressing themselves to nobody yeah into a black void it's almost like a weird form of prayer or something where they're hoping someone's listening but they don't know or not right and it never goes away like it's always out there exactly like the people that did three podcasts yeah yeah yeah exactly

what's the thing is like what is it going to be like when all of our presidential candidates have like their entire childhood documented and all the bad jokes they made? And, you know, we're going to have to do some sort of amnesty. Like, I just call it. Well, yeah, except people that people grow and they evolve and they shift and they change and they, you know. And that's sort of been the story of my life professionally and probably what the movie's trying to do maybe subconsciously for me is like i've had to forgive myself a lot and i've had to ask other people to forgive myself

because i had my you know the first three years of me writing as a 16 17 18 19 20 year old yeah stuff stuff i'm very embarrassed by but you know i wouldn't change a second of it because you know i i you know the butterfly effect i wouldn't be here and i'm so grateful to be here yeah and there's no erasing it yeah there's the practical issue of like yeah well there's nothing to be done so like at a certain point it was me trying to go back and go like yeah it's okay it's all right it's okay to grow and and and we just did it in public there's but you couldn't avoid it i mean it was the nature of when you became yeah uh successful or when you became known yeah there's what are you gonna do i mean i look at like i look

at stuff from you know fortunately for me a lot of that stuff when i was younger was on conan and you can't there's not you right like they like, you can't even see that shit anymore. I mean, I have it, but it's like, I don't know why I have it up there. There's some very embarrassing outfits and haircuts and, you know, approaches, you know. And I had stuff that was literally the equivalent of, like, your open mic set. Literally the first time I ever tried stuff. I thought, you know. It's up there.

Yeah. But I thought the movie was really great because, you know, emotionally, you know, someone like me who has, you know, some emotional kind of hobbling that I think that is still sort of suspended in the dynamics of approval that we experienced in junior high. That, you know, like it's all very it was very visceral. It's just not that far under the surface for, I imagine, a lot of people. Because those dynamics repeat themselves in life, in work, in college, in high school. It never really goes away. Yeah. What's established socially in that era.

Yeah, well, that means a lot. Or era, that period in one's life. No, but that's the hope. And thank you. Because like some people, you know, some people will be like, man, I'm so glad I'm not that awkward anymore. I'm like, you are like or like it's just the moment when our self-awareness is turned on and we have to look around and be like, oh, my God, I've been this the whole fucking time. And we have to scramble to, you know, fix it. How come no one said anything?

There's the, what's so beautiful about that age to me is that like the impulse to be and to take inventory of what you're doing and fix it and then present it. It's also transparent. The mechanism is so transparent of what you're doing and all that it does over the course of your life. And you don't think it is. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

And eventually it does, we do learn how to smooth out the edges and it looks like it's one functioning piece. But I still believe now we're just slicker versions of 13 year olds. We've just figured out how to. Probably. You know, process those things. But I'm saying you can kind of maybe look at behavior that you identify with now and hate in yourself now. Sure. And maybe forgive yourself because you're like, oh, right.

I really am just a scared kid that wants love and attention and all those things i think that's true and a little brat maybe too and and maybe even the bad annoying parts of myself are just little bratty annoying parts of myself that were always there yeah and also i think like you know as an old an adult watching this movie like there was part of me that thought like well he's really picked his market you know but you know it's like it is a movie it's one of the you know you could go with your kids, you know, and, and really, I imagine have a hell of a conversation afterwards. Yeah.

And it's an R rated movie called eighth grade. So if we picked a market, we picked a pretty bad one. Um, that, that, that was just a crazy thing that ended up happening. I don't, I don't know how. And also like eighth graders have no idea who I am. Yeah. Like I'm, I'm, they're way below me. So it's not made for eighth graders.

I hope they, I hope they can tell. But you can go with your kid. You can still bring your kid to an R movie, can't you? Yeah, for sure. And it was a bummer when the R rating came back for us. I don't understand why that would. It's, like, crazy. Like, you can't say nudes.

Like, they just reference nude photos and they can't do that. It's really, it's like. Because of their age in the movie? Yeah, I think so. It's's really it's like because of their age in the movie yeah i think so it's just it's like obvious but i mean i would i would encourage it because like they you know for for grown-ups to bring that their younger 13 year olds to the movie because it's one of those weird things where you after seeing a movie like that you could have a conversation that might not have happened organically because of that weird discomfort that that even she has in the movie with her father.

Yeah, yeah. Who, you know, turns out to be a pretty great guy. I mean, that was the other great thing about the movie. With all the situations that this girl finds herself in, there's a few where you take it right to the edge. And, you know, as somebody who watches, you know, movies, you expect like, is this gonna get fucking is this gonna get dark and fucked up now and they're like and i don't really like i'm not

a happy ending kind of guy but there's there's a scene there where i'm like uh yeah but yeah but it didn't yeah i know what you're talking about because because like i was just sort of like you know yeah the other thing could happen yeah it it does happen. Yeah, it does. A lot. But there's a lot of those moments that take it right to the edge of something that could be life-altering for the negative. And I think that fragility and vulnerability of people that age, when you see it work out, where she ends up at the end of the movie is very sweet. The whole movie is very heartbreaking in a positive way do you know what I mean yeah I hope so like you know like you feel the weight of it like the cause

of the vulnerability because of that age you know you just feel this sort of ache of that it's not like depressing heartbreaking it's not grief yeah yeah yeah but it's like it definitely is heavy in the sense of like oh yeah yeah this poor girl but not not sort of like this is tragic but like it's just high stakes for

her but it's very sweet you know it ends up in a very sweet place but i i think the point i'm trying to make is that given that you know bad things do happen to young people because they think they've got their shit together you know it's it's an interesting movie to see that get right up to the edge of that and but it doesn't happen yeah i think maybe part of it was trying to dignify the experiences of people of smaller of smaller events you know that it doesn't need to go there to be significant right that sometimes movies feel like about this age in order for it to be dramatic and worthy of a movie really dramatic shit has to happen to the kid but for me it's like every day feels like life and death to a kid yeah very very and that's what anxiety is very small things feel incredibly significant so well now that you talk about it

like that in relation to your own anxiety can definitely feel that's sort of also what i felt as an anxiety person that there's heartache but there's also this sort of like oh god it's like every day is kind of like are you gonna get through it in your mind you're like just entering the hallway yeah yeah we're like god forbid you get something on your pants yeah right right right you know what i mean like yeah like anything like just going to be a disaster for the fucking whole day. Yeah, it's like. And then you take weeks to get over it. And then people make fun of you for it.

It was very high stakes. Yeah, and that's what it. That's what it. And I think that is what life is for most people. I believe that people are so non-confrontational in real life. I believe that tiny things register so hugely for most people. They're like. Aren't like most of us like we raise our voice at someone in the line at grocery store and then our heart is pounding for an hour afterwards. Like have you ever seen like people

yell in public? It's insane. Like you have like, you're like, you get like an outer out of body experience. I've done it. Yeah. I've done it where you just feel that, you know, like, is this happening? It's coming out of my mouth. It's crazy. Like, and so, and I think movies tend to exist in a really higher form of expressed outward drama that I kind of wanted. We wanted to play against. We wanted to go like, can we have a movie that hopefully people leave going like, Oh,

that was intense. And then it's like, well, I guess she just went to a pool party and went to the mall and nothing really happens, you know, but everything happened to her. No, I think you feel that, you know, I, I think that like, it's not, it wasn't hard for me

is at my age of 54. Am I 54? I'm 54 now. Yeah. We're like, I, you know, you get right back into it. You definitely like the, the, the kids were so good at showing, you know, at being who they are in the acting that, you know, you, you, you feel it, you know, you definitely feel it. You know, you definitely feel it.

It's all very sweet and very, you know, heartbreaking and very vulnerable and also sort of it's provocative to realize that there are a lot of things that are different about growing up now, but there's something fundamentally the same about what you go through in this country with that age anyways you know yeah and filming this like you know we filmed it last summer or whatever and it really was like i don't know if there's gonna be a country when you're a sophomore in high school i don't you know it it all felt so because i was so certain when i wrote this script yeah oh i'm

making this for hillary's america right we're gonna have we're gonna get to have like sort of like a cool subtle conversation maybe about the culture have, we're going to get to have like, sort of like a cool, subtle conversation maybe about the culture. Yeah. Once we're all kind of happy about the, you know, whatever just happened. And instead it's like him being there.

And I remember walking into, I hate to veer the conversation of this, but walking into a classroom, scouting that school, schools and seeing like the printed, nothing, seeing the computer printed out picture of his face on like the strip of presidents above a chalkboard or a whiteboard is very, very

surreal. I mean, that, it felt institutionalized in a way that the inauguration didn't feel. To see it in a sixth grade classroom was very disturbing. And it was like, and the kids feel it. The kids know that. The kids know something is happening. So there is certainly an added level

of just urgency to, I think, being that age now. And there really are, you know, shooting drills. There really are gun drills. You know,

it's a weird time. It's a weird time. I don't know what it's going to be like for them. Well, you know, like, hopefully they're, that's the other, that's the scariest sort of, like, thing that hangs over it is, like, are they engaged, really, in anything other than, you know, this sort of compulsive, selfish pursuits? Yeah. I mean, that's, like, to me, that's the the tricky thing because that's also something that grown-ups that's something that's a sort of ageless now oh yeah and and actually worse to me the worst people on on social media are 30 year olds by by a factor of 10 like no one is

more nauseating than my friends around my age and a little older like they are the ones that like think they're being self-aware and ironic and are so transparently yeah disgusting and and talking to the kids the kids actually get it a little more and like they're it's so in their bones that it's it doesn't mean as much to them and they're maybe able to have like a slightly healthier relationship whereas we see it as like this thing in our lives so we've had to adapt to, and it's like this tool. We're going to use it. Yeah. But they're just second nature. Yeah. And they do have like a really incredible ability

to like emotionally multitask. And like, I think they have like a view of the world that no one's ever had. A sense of like. That's true. And I wonder where that goes.

You know, I don't know. Yeah, I'm not saying it's necessarily positive. Yeah, I don't know yet. You know, I don't know. Yeah, I'm not saying it's necessarily positive. Yeah, I don't know yet, you know. And also, like, that was very clever that the phone breaks. Like, you know, that she breaks her phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

Like, that was... And we got in trouble for Apple. Apple didn't want to get... was almost very upset about that because we showed that the phone broke. And I'm like, no, no, I'm going to have her hum it across the room. Like, she'll throw it very, very hard.

Right. But we were... It was a choice that we could get, we could get the laptops for free to use them or not. So we like had to use like the cruise laptops and phones because Apple wouldn't give it to us because we show that their phones get cracked. Really?

Yeah. Everyone knows their phones get cracked. Yeah, of course, of course. Well, look, but it was great seeing you and you did a great job. It was really a touching movie and I loved it. And I, you know, I didn't know what I was really a touching movie. And I loved it. I didn't know what I was getting into. I thought it was great. Real human.

It means a lot. It's good to talk to you in public again. Oh, thanks. Appreciate it. Bo Burnham did a great job with that movie. It was great talking to him. Go see 8th Grade. I recommend it. It'll choke you up and elevate you. Dig it. I put new strings on my guitar.

And I polished the fretboard. God, it was all dried out and sad. So I'll play some 2-Buzz music for you. Here. music for you here. Boomer Live! Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing.

With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly.

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