Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, coleeen Witt, and today we have a
Speaker 1: very special guest, comedian, actor, writer, producer, but the godfather
Speaker 1: of podcasting. As everyone has been like buzzing about, Mark
Speaker 1: Marin is in the building and I am I'm like nervous,
Speaker 1: which I never really get nervous. I'm excited. I've been excited.
Speaker 1: I've been emailing you. And just so you guys know
Speaker 1: a little backstory. I just walked up on him, did
Speaker 1: my elevator pitch, and he was really really nice.
Speaker 2: Guys, So if.
Speaker 1: You want to get a glimpse of who he is,
Speaker 1: like off camera, that's who he was. And I sent
Speaker 1: you an email.
Speaker 3: I know, I didn't know how it was gonna unfold, really,
Speaker 3: you know, I said okay, and then I didn't know if.
Speaker 4: You were going to email, and then emailed and then
Speaker 4: I was like maybe later. Yeah.
Speaker 5: He kept on me and okay, yeah, I did a
Speaker 5: little follow I'm driving out there.
Speaker 1: And then what I loved is that you were like,
Speaker 1: you know, you used to eat meat, right, yeah?
Speaker 2: And then you were like I'm vegan, now how do
Speaker 2: we do this?
Speaker 1: And we went back and forth about that a little bit,
Speaker 1: and guys, before he announces his dish, I just want
Speaker 1: to let you know that I was so excited. I
Speaker 1: got in the kitchen to a little bit on his
Speaker 1: meal and I helped make.
Speaker 2: One of the ingredients.
Speaker 4: I was surprised, that's pretty good.
Speaker 3: Well, I just figured that ingredient out, because when I
Speaker 3: was coming up early on, I don't even remember what
Speaker 3: I ate.
Speaker 4: I don't remember cooking.
Speaker 3: I don't because I was in New York City and
Speaker 3: there was really the kitchen was hardly a kitchen in
Speaker 3: the apartment. This is going back to the beginning of
Speaker 3: the career. I can cook now and I cook all
Speaker 3: the time, but that back then, I was like, what
Speaker 3: did I even eat? And then I started to think
Speaker 3: about it today and I still can't remember that well
Speaker 3: because I didn't really eat breakfast. I smoked, so it
Speaker 3: was like cigarettes and coffee for breakfast. I don't know
Speaker 3: what happened at lunch.
Speaker 4: Really. I know I didn't cook in New York.
Speaker 3: Back and I was there eighty nine like and in
Speaker 3: a small apartment on the Lower East Side. But I
Speaker 3: do remember trying to figure out how to eat cheaply
Speaker 3: and what me and the other comics would do. So
Speaker 3: I had to dig up this restaurant, which is the
Speaker 3: one I remember going to a lot and look at
Speaker 3: their menu and then figure out what it was that
Speaker 3: we used to eat there. And I figured it out.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't easy. I mean, it wasn't hard to
Speaker 3: make vegan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh no, no, it seems pretty simple.
Speaker 1: But why don't you tell our listeners what it is
Speaker 1: you're going to have me eating today?
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, the original dish was at a place called Dojo,
Speaker 3: which was this sort of kind of almost like hippie
Speaker 3: Asian place on St. Mark's and it was open late,
Speaker 3: so we would go. It was do you know Todd
Speaker 3: Berry is to comic like. There was a few guys
Speaker 3: that would hang out, but we would eat there a
Speaker 3: lot because it was cheap. And what we would get
Speaker 3: they had, like, you know, they had a lot of
Speaker 3: like noodles and stuff, but they had they had turkey burgers,
Speaker 3: and they had these kind.
Speaker 4: Of tofu burgers which were kind of weird.
Speaker 3: Because you'd think it was healthy but it was deep
Speaker 3: fried and it had like so we.
Speaker 4: Would get No.
Speaker 3: I don't know how they made it. I remember I
Speaker 3: had like seaweed strands in it somehow. But what we
Speaker 3: would get we get a turkey burger, but not a
Speaker 3: turkey burger sandwich. Get the turkey burger on brown rice.
Speaker 3: And then they had this this Japanese barbecue sauce, which
Speaker 3: wasn't that good, but I forgot to tell you about that,
Speaker 3: so I bought one.
Speaker 4: We'll see how that goes.
Speaker 3: And then they'd have either a side salad or side
Speaker 3: of steam vegetables. And they made this dressing. There's a
Speaker 3: few different versions of this dressing in New York. It's
Speaker 3: a I think it's a Japanese style dressing, kind of
Speaker 3: this carroat ginger thing. But I've tried to make make
Speaker 3: it another way, which is more complicated. And then before
Speaker 3: I was going to talk to you, I looked up
Speaker 3: that recipe because when I went to look at the
Speaker 3: dojo menu, it was a carrot ginger tahini recipe. So
Speaker 3: I found this and I tried it at home and
Speaker 3: I'm like, that's kind of it, and then you and
Speaker 3: I sent you the recipe.
Speaker 4: So ye did it?
Speaker 2: Did it? I actually did it?
Speaker 3: So basically what we're eating is brown rice with a
Speaker 3: patty on top, with the side of the steam vegetables
Speaker 3: with the dressing, and I'll put the barbecue sauce on
Speaker 3: the patty.
Speaker 2: So there are no buns.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was, well, you can, you can have a
Speaker 4: turkey burger on a bun.
Speaker 3: But we were I think we were kind of I
Speaker 3: don't know if I've always been health conscious, but it
Speaker 3: was just it was the way to do it, to
Speaker 3: get more of a full meal for the price. Right,
Speaker 3: you can get a burger, but like the rice and
Speaker 3: everything else, it was the way to go.
Speaker 4: It's like a platter versus just a burger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, because you know, you
Speaker 1: go out and you order a burger, You're like, what's
Speaker 1: going on the side of it?
Speaker 2: What can I fill up even more with?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 3: And a lot of time when you're starting out in
Speaker 3: comedy anyways, you kind of figure out, Like once I
Speaker 3: got into the comedy cellar, you could just eat there.
Speaker 3: You would figure out ways to eat for free at
Speaker 3: the club and that's not always healthy. But the comedy
Speaker 3: seller had great food, like great food, but I was
Speaker 3: trying to figure out what was I eating and we'd either.
Speaker 1: Go I'm surprised you didn't get like chopped cheese. But
Speaker 1: it sounds like you were more health conscious.
Speaker 3: Well it was health conscious, but also like I was
Speaker 3: never I don't feel like I was ever so conscious.
Speaker 3: Like I would spend money on food and the kitchen.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I didn't have anything in that kitchen.
Speaker 3: I remember one time I tried to, like, I gone
Speaker 3: out to eat at a Chinese place and they had
Speaker 3: this full, like steamed fish with ginger.
Speaker 4: It was like really good. I'm like, I'm gonna make
Speaker 4: one of those.
Speaker 3: So I went down to Chinatown and I bought a
Speaker 3: walk and some soy sauce and a whole fish. And
Speaker 3: I got back to my kitchen. I'm like, I can't
Speaker 3: even cut this.
Speaker 4: It was so sad. It was just me and this
Speaker 4: whole fish and.
Speaker 2: You didn't have knives or something.
Speaker 4: Well I did, but not much.
Speaker 3: I didn't know how to, you know, manage a kitchen.
Speaker 3: And I'd worked in restaurants my whole life. And that
Speaker 3: was the other thing about starting out too, back when
Speaker 3: I was in Boston before New York, because I worked
Speaker 3: at a restaurant, but it was a coffee place before Starbucks.
Speaker 3: It was a real high end coffee place at a
Speaker 3: small menu, but still I was just jacked up on
Speaker 3: coffee all the time, smoking cigarettes. So there wasn't a
Speaker 3: lot of eating going on that I remember. But I
Speaker 3: do remember when I lived in New York on the
Speaker 3: Lower East Side that like, if I was going to
Speaker 3: eat breakfast, it was one of those kind of wrapped
Speaker 3: you know that that coffee cake with the cinnamon brown
Speaker 3: sugar crumbles. Oh yeah, I love the best, but you
Speaker 3: know it's all suit Yeah. Yeah, So I remember eating
Speaker 3: those with coffee and smoking, and there was another place
Speaker 3: we used to go to. No, but I'm on the
Speaker 3: nicotine again. I had a nicotine lost a je I
Speaker 3: like nicotine.
Speaker 2: What is that like a patch or something.
Speaker 3: No, it's literally a candy and you just kind of
Speaker 3: put it in your mouth and suck on it for
Speaker 3: a minute until you feel the buzz and then you
Speaker 3: just kind of stick it in your lip.
Speaker 4: I have one in now. Oh wow, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I was off.
Speaker 3: I've gotten on on and off nicotine and forms over
Speaker 3: the years.
Speaker 2: I did you feel the buzz from the cigaret? I've
Speaker 2: never really got. I'm never well. I suck at smoking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like I've tried smoking weed. I tried smoking
Speaker 1: a cigarette once, I just don't think I know how
Speaker 1: to Yeah, well, I know how.
Speaker 4: To smoke anything. So you know, drugs are definitely part
Speaker 4: of this story.
Speaker 1: I every night, sure, I just do it, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I have the best sleep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't do that. I've been sober a long
Speaker 3: time twenty four years.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's amazing now. Where you sober back then?
Speaker 4: No, I you know that that whole thing.
Speaker 3: But the other place I can tell you about, the
Speaker 3: other place we used to eat was this Polish place
Speaker 3: called Kiev, And it was like there was a whole
Speaker 3: crew of comics that were around then. So it was me,
Speaker 3: Sarah Silverman, Jeff Ross, Louis, Nick Depolo, and Todd Berry
Speaker 3: where we'd hang out after these clubs.
Speaker 4: But Kiev used to be up.
Speaker 3: In twenty four hours, and I didn't want to try
Speaker 3: to get You want to try to figure out.
Speaker 4: How to make parogi's or borsh it's a process.
Speaker 3: But that was like the other cheap place we would
Speaker 3: eat drugs and alcohol. I think when I got to
Speaker 3: New York, I was out here. I graduated college and
Speaker 3: I wanted to do comedy. I came out here to
Speaker 3: La Yeah, and I didn't really know my a buddy
Speaker 3: of mine who I used to do like comedy skits
Speaker 3: with in college, was a year ahead of me, and
Speaker 3: he moved out here and we had written some stuff together.
Speaker 3: So I was going to write with him, and he
Speaker 3: lived in Culver City, so I moved to Culver City
Speaker 3: in with him. We wrote a script and it was
Speaker 3: a nightmare working with him. And I just want to
Speaker 3: do comedy. So I had auditioned at the comedy store
Speaker 3: and the improv or whatever, and then by coincidence, you know,
Speaker 3: I got a PA job on a shoot that Mitzi Shore,
Speaker 3: who owned the comedy store, was doing. And then I
Speaker 3: was like, do you remember me, I auditioned for you.
Speaker 3: She's like, yeah, you can be in paid regular.
Speaker 4: So then I got a job as a doorman.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's by the way.
Speaker 1: I think it's so weird that the comedy door makes
Speaker 1: or doesn't make their comics, but you know their comics
Speaker 1: are like dorman.
Speaker 4: Well, there was a system, yeah, and it was it
Speaker 4: was the way it worked.
Speaker 3: It was a singular thing, and all the doormen were comics.
Speaker 3: And back then it was before Bringer shows and any
Speaker 3: of that crap.
Speaker 4: Right, So so when you were a door guy, at
Speaker 4: the comedy store.
Speaker 3: You were in the system and you'd be and I
Speaker 3: loved the place, like and eventually I got pushed out
Speaker 3: of the place in Culver City and I moved up
Speaker 3: to uh Mitzi owned a house behind the comedy store
Speaker 3: that she rent out to comics. So I lived in Crestilla,
Speaker 3: And you know, at that time, the big acts or
Speaker 3: who was I watching as a door guy became I
Speaker 3: was the head door guy because no one wanted to
Speaker 3: do it. It was ridiculous because I was doing blow and
Speaker 3: I was like drinking. I was living the life, you know.
Speaker 3: And then like the big comics at the time, I
Speaker 3: was watching Damon in the main room, Cannison, Dice, who
Speaker 3: else was like? Who were the big acts around? Like Cannison,
Speaker 3: Sam Canison and Dice were of coming up at the
Speaker 3: same time and they kind of blew up at that time.
Speaker 3: But there were people I liked to watch. Belzer was there.
Speaker 3: I used to love watching Damon Wayams, Louis Anderson. But
Speaker 3: Damon would always be He'd take chances would be pretty weird, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: because he would go on, I mean, this is nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty seven, and he and I would be like, well,
Speaker 3: what kind of are you going to do your act?
Speaker 3: He's like, no, I think I'm gonna do a jazz
Speaker 3: set tonight. And he would just push it and do
Speaker 3: these characters and just push it.
Speaker 4: Way over the edge. But Kennison was like that too.
Speaker 3: But anyway, so I started hanging around with Cannison kinda
Speaker 3: and doing a lot of drugs with that guy. So
Speaker 3: the point being is when I left LA in eighty eight,
Speaker 3: I was out of my mind from cocaine psychosis and
Speaker 3: I was just crazy, like I was, you know, like
Speaker 3: hallucinating and like I thought, paranoid and I was way
Speaker 3: gone and things fell apart at the comedy.
Speaker 4: Store and I just left.
Speaker 2: When you say they fell apart at the comedy store, well.
Speaker 4: I mes a door guy. There wasn't much to fall apart.
Speaker 3: But I was using my mind from staying up too
Speaker 3: much and not sleeping and hanging out with these demons.
Speaker 4: These It was insane at that time. It was the
Speaker 4: late eighties.
Speaker 3: It was insane the people that were hanging around what
Speaker 3: was going on there, you know, because there was like
Speaker 3: this weird triangle between the roxy which was rock and
Speaker 3: roll so and Monday nights at the store back then,
Speaker 3: we're open. They were free, all the rooms were free,
Speaker 3: so all the freaks would come and that was like
Speaker 3: Kennison's big night. He'd show up at like Elevin. He
Speaker 3: give me a bunch of money to go set up,
Speaker 3: you know, a party at the house that would start
Speaker 3: on Monday and go to like Wednesday.
Speaker 2: It was just literally three days.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Crazy, So I lost my mind and I realized that,
Speaker 3: you know, I remember the moment I kind of had
Speaker 3: a meltdown in the parking lot because I was just
Speaker 3: out of my mind and I had a falling out
Speaker 3: with Sam over some weird shit, and I remember asking
Speaker 3: the drug dealer.
Speaker 6: I'm like, I don't know, man, I don't know what
Speaker 6: to do. It's like things are falling apart, you know,
Speaker 6: out of the group. And the drug dealer was like,
Speaker 6: you got to you gotta leave. You got to go
Speaker 6: do your own thing. So if the drug dealers telling
Speaker 6: you to leave, wow, it's time to leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, because yeah, So I went.
Speaker 4: Home to New Mexico.
Speaker 3: I got clean for the first time, went to rehab,
Speaker 3: and I went back to Boston.
Speaker 2: Wait when you said home to New Mexico.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I grew up in Albuqerque.
Speaker 2: So you went back there, you got clean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I checked in and if I if I can
Speaker 3: dry it out, and then I went back to Boston.
Speaker 2: And how old were you, if you don't mind me asking,
Speaker 2: around that time, that.
Speaker 3: First time, so that was probably eighty eight, So sixty three,
Speaker 3: seventy three, eighty three, I don't know, like twenty four
Speaker 3: or twenty five.
Speaker 2: You were young?
Speaker 4: You were, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I went out there to you know, be
Speaker 3: you know, a comedian right after college. But it's all
Speaker 3: I wanted to do. So I went back to Boston
Speaker 3: where you know, and I got clean, but I wasn't
Speaker 3: really doing the thing. So I went back to Boston
Speaker 3: and I auditioned for Barry Katz and I started, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of trying to do open mics in Boston because
Speaker 3: you know, I was I was, you know, I was
Speaker 3: a non paid break or at the comedy store, but
Speaker 3: you know, you didnt get a lot of stage time.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say I had chops, but I had experience.
Speaker 3: And I've been hanging out with some you know, big
Speaker 3: comics and I'd seen everybody. And I got a job
Speaker 3: at that coffee shop, and I was sober I was
Speaker 3: doing spots at catch Troizig Star, auditioned for this guy
Speaker 3: Barry Katz, who's still a manager. He had a bunch
Speaker 3: of rooms. And then like in eighty eight, and like
Speaker 3: I guess it was August of eighty eight. I was
Speaker 3: in a competition, but I was doing these.
Speaker 4: Horrible one nighters. By the way, like, well that was it.
Speaker 2: I mean like you were saying you're bombing when you
Speaker 2: say horrible.
Speaker 4: No, the way it worked, I mean, if you're interested.
Speaker 2: I am.
Speaker 3: So I get back to Boston and I'm just doing
Speaker 3: open mics and there's a few clubs. There's a scene
Speaker 3: in Boston. It's real.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of Boston comics and I'm doing open mics.
Speaker 3: And there was a competition in eighty eight called the
Speaker 3: WBC on Comedy Riot, and it was like a process
Speaker 3: of elimination, and I came in second.
Speaker 4: And from like then from.
Speaker 3: Eighty eight, late in eighty eight, because I came in
Speaker 3: second the competition.
Speaker 4: I started working as a comic in eighty eight.
Speaker 3: And the way the work worked in Boston is there
Speaker 3: were a few clubs, a few bookers that booked one
Speaker 3: night ers. So these were comedy shows that you know discos, hotel, ballrooms, hotel,
Speaker 3: you know, conference rooms, small bars like they would just
Speaker 3: satellite gigs that would be booked through these agencies and
Speaker 3: you'd drive anywhere from like a half hour to three
Speaker 3: hours to five hours anywhere in New England to do
Speaker 3: these one nighters and you'd go get a map and
Speaker 3: you'd usually open for a headliner who came in to
Speaker 3: do So that's how I started, is doing those one nighters.
Speaker 3: And it was only a matter of time before I
Speaker 3: started drinking and doing drugs again, about year and a half.
Speaker 4: I was kind of every year and a half or so,
Speaker 4: i'd get clean.
Speaker 3: I'd go about year and a half without really doing
Speaker 3: the work to stay sober, and then I'd ease back
Speaker 3: into it. And it kind of went like that throughout
Speaker 3: most of it.
Speaker 1: When you say doing the work, like not going to
Speaker 1: like the AA meetings or what have.
Speaker 3: You, well I went for a bit, but I never
Speaker 3: really got it. You know, if you're gonna do it
Speaker 3: that way, you're gonna get it or you're not gonna
Speaker 3: get it. The program, the way to use the program
Speaker 3: in order to not do the thing that's you know,
Speaker 3: making your life bad, Like you can go to meetings
Speaker 3: and listen and kind of you know.
Speaker 4: Absorb it.
Speaker 3: But until I think you start to understand the ideas
Speaker 3: for yourself, you don't really have any tools to not
Speaker 3: drink like you know you or do drugs. You got
Speaker 3: to sort of make phone calls to other people in
Speaker 3: the room.
Speaker 4: You got to go to the meetings and.
Speaker 3: Keep it fresh, and you'll figure out how when you're
Speaker 3: gonna use or you're gonna drink, to either go to
Speaker 3: a meeting or make a phone call instead of doing
Speaker 3: the drugs.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's tricky because you know you want to do
Speaker 3: the drugs.
Speaker 1: Like it's it's a definite pull. And by the way,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to start cooking for us. Did you
Speaker 1: eat breakfast yet today?
Speaker 2: No? I waited too. I'm starving.
Speaker 4: It's going to be good. There's no way it's not
Speaker 4: gonna be good.
Speaker 2: Well almost. You make it simple, just beyond burger. Do
Speaker 2: you need oil when you do it?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah? You want me to turn this off?
Speaker 2: Yep. I want to see you cook. Do you cook
Speaker 2: on electric or no?
Speaker 4: I got a guess of yeah, I have you do? Yeah.
Speaker 2: But here in the studio, everyone complains about this electric store.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't like electrics are sort of hard to control.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I cook all the time because I I don't well,
Speaker 3: not not just because I'm vegan. I've been cooking a
Speaker 3: long time anyways, ever since I had a kitchen that
Speaker 3: was functional. I cook because, like, if I go to
Speaker 3: a restaurant, you don't know what you're gonna get.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's not that good, and I can I have this.
Speaker 3: I'm able to cook and I can follow recipes, so
Speaker 3: if I can make it better, why not cook? But
Speaker 3: the only problem with that is you got to make
Speaker 3: room for restaurants because if you cook all the time,
Speaker 3: that means you got to clean up all the time.
Speaker 3: That means you gotta you know, you know, keep your
Speaker 3: kitchen full. There's good reasons.
Speaker 4: To go out.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I used to always say, like as a single person,
Speaker 1: I always else it was actually cheaper to eat out.
Speaker 4: More than That's why I.
Speaker 2: Even I think, what was it Thanksgiving? I think the
Speaker 2: other day I was like.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, especially now, the groceries are so expensive. Yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 1: is it worth it financially to cook the meal or
Speaker 1: to to get it out? I know for Thanksgiving, I
Speaker 1: just did a seafood platter I just went and got
Speaker 1: crab legs, yeah, lobster and some potatoes and called it
Speaker 1: a day. And it was you know, cooking seafood is
Speaker 1: like nothing, pretty easy. You just boil it and you're done.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: For Thanksgiving, I usually go to my mother's in Florida
Speaker 3: and cook for twenty people.
Speaker 2: You cook, I do the whole You do. Oh, I would.
Speaker 3: Love like I've got a system, man, Like I did
Speaker 3: it this time, this first time I've gone back. Is
Speaker 3: a vegan, so I had to figure out how to
Speaker 3: do that, you know, for myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but anyone else in the family vegan.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have a cousin.
Speaker 3: But it was pretty easy because all the sides can
Speaker 3: be vegan outside of the turkey and the stuffing and
Speaker 3: if you're gonna make turkey gravy. But I actually try
Speaker 3: to make a vegan gravy which worked out pretty well,
Speaker 3: and all the sides. So I made turkey stuffing, cranberry
Speaker 3: sauce that's vegan. I made mashed potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, garlic.
Speaker 3: I did stream beans, I did Brussels sprouts, I did yams.
Speaker 4: All that can make vegan.
Speaker 1: Now are you are you still comfortable touching me like
Speaker 1: when you had the model.
Speaker 3: Care like, I'm not like it wasn't really ethical. The
Speaker 3: reason I did. I ate a lot of meat like
Speaker 3: I had for years.
Speaker 4: I had this.
Speaker 3: Smoker that they gave me, and I was smoking briskets
Speaker 3: and you know, chickens and just you know, eating a
Speaker 3: lot of fish.
Speaker 4: And then I don't know, I got smoked the fish
Speaker 4: I try. I have smoked fish, Is it good?
Speaker 3: It was okay to do, like juice style fish because
Speaker 3: you know, I'm Jewish, I.
Speaker 4: Grew up with it.
Speaker 3: But you know, those smoke like you can smoke sable fish,
Speaker 3: which is a black cod. It takes time, and you
Speaker 3: know sometimes like there's certain types of food that are
Speaker 3: better made by people who know how to do it,
Speaker 3: like you know, like Indian food, you know you better
Speaker 3: I'll find in a good Indian place and trying to
Speaker 3: manage those spices. But I got a good recipe for
Speaker 3: china masala that I.
Speaker 1: Make now really, yeah, you call it china massa. I
Speaker 1: love te Tika masala.
Speaker 3: Tika masaut well, chaina is the chickpeas so tika is
Speaker 3: chicken right, or make it with meat?
Speaker 4: The chauina is uh, it's just chickpeas.
Speaker 2: Did you make it from scratch?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I like it. I'll cook for
Speaker 4: the week, man, I mean I like it.
Speaker 3: Like I got brown rice at home right now, and
Speaker 3: then like just have that for a base, I get
Speaker 3: ko kalifar or whatever. And then you know, for proteins,
Speaker 3: I've been air frying tempe which is great. Tempe is
Speaker 3: it's like a soy it's made from soy beans from
Speaker 3: men and toy beans or these are pretty good.
Speaker 4: I'll eat these.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'll do air fried tofu beans and rice some
Speaker 3: different kinds, and I'll do uh, you know, I'm kind
Speaker 3: of doing a macro thing. These be this restaurant in
Speaker 3: New York called Angelica Kitchen, which was really the sort
Speaker 3: of the.
Speaker 4: First kind of macro macro What does that mean.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a system of eating a vegan where you know,
Speaker 3: you get all these different things to balance your food.
Speaker 3: So usually there's a grain, a bean of some kind
Speaker 3: a protein, and then there's a vegetable and maybe some
Speaker 3: fermented stuff. And she used to, you know, do seaweed
Speaker 3: salad too, So like you make a bowl of that,
Speaker 3: so you get everything you need.
Speaker 2: And then when you say protein like you would just.
Speaker 3: Do like a usually for there it was Tempe or
Speaker 3: Tofu or something like. There's not a or Satan. There's
Speaker 3: not a ton of you know, vegan protein is you
Speaker 3: really get it from the vegetables. But you know, Tempe,
Speaker 3: Tofu and Satan.
Speaker 1: Left off with you being sober for a year and
Speaker 1: a half and then you took a nose dive back.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so I was in Boston right and you know,
Speaker 3: doing the one nighters and yeah, eventually I started drinking
Speaker 3: using drugs again, but then I was going then what happened?
Speaker 4: Is?
Speaker 2: I just have one question for you. Drinking and doing
Speaker 2: the drugs.
Speaker 1: Was it an every day pull or was it something
Speaker 1: bad happened and then you wanted to do it.
Speaker 3: No, it's just part of my life, you know, smoking
Speaker 3: weed every day, you know, drinking at night and doing
Speaker 3: you know blow occasionally. You know, I wasn't a daily blow, dude.
Speaker 4: That's a big expense.
Speaker 3: But you know, in Boston we used to be able
Speaker 3: to drink for free at Catcherizing Star. So you go
Speaker 3: do the one nighters and then you race back to
Speaker 3: Boston to get in on you know, the free blooze
Speaker 3: at night.
Speaker 4: So it was. It was pretty regular.
Speaker 3: But in eighty nine, you know, I was you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of the people I started with were starting
Speaker 3: to break, you know a little bit, and a lot
Speaker 3: of them moved to LA.
Speaker 4: Like Dave Cross and that crew.
Speaker 3: They were going to do sketch comedy and they came
Speaker 3: out here to make Mister Show eventually, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not a collaborative person on a comic.
Speaker 4: So I moved to New York in eighty nine, and yeah,
Speaker 4: I'd gotten sober again.
Speaker 3: And I got to New York and I was on
Speaker 3: the Lower East Side and I was trying to break
Speaker 3: into the clubs and doing, you know, wandering around New
Speaker 3: York a lot. And I lived right on a street
Speaker 3: I was just full of heroin junkies.
Speaker 4: Like it was before New York cleaned up.
Speaker 3: And there was a doorway like right next to my
Speaker 3: house where these junkies would line up like it was
Speaker 3: a movie theater to get dope in the morning. And
Speaker 3: it was so sad because I'd see them every day
Speaker 3: and I was sober, yeah, and you know, I would
Speaker 3: be like, man, that's horrible, what a horrible life. And
Speaker 3: that went on for about a year and a half
Speaker 3: and something turned in my head. I'm like, wow, I
Speaker 3: wonder what it's like. No, yeah, it's right next door,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: The heroin junkies in New York when I was a
Speaker 1: little kid in up here, and I'd be like, uh, well, no,
Speaker 1: if I go back now, I see them, but I
Speaker 1: could recognize them more. But when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: my parents would always be like, this what happens if
Speaker 1: you try to smoke cigarettes.
Speaker 2: This is where you end up.
Speaker 1: And you'd be like, okay, never do cigarettes. But they'd
Speaker 1: be like that was a doctor and he had a
Speaker 1: family and he lost his whole family.
Speaker 4: You'd be like wow, So we just think scared straight.
Speaker 2: Scared straight.
Speaker 1: I think my twin out of four kids, was the
Speaker 1: only want to try weed at like maybe seventeen. But
Speaker 1: the rest of us are pretty scared straight from those
Speaker 1: like this person had a whole life and lost it,
Speaker 1: you know, and you see them like kind of you know,
Speaker 1: a little balancing act, and you'd be like.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, there was a lot of the methadone that
Speaker 3: was like you'd see him wandering around, yes, well, well.
Speaker 4: Thank god, Like when I did it, like in eighty nine,
Speaker 4: or wait, what was it?
Speaker 2: Did you end up trying it or not?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I eventually did. Yeah, I wouldn't try it. I didn't.
Speaker 4: I didn't shoot or anything.
Speaker 3: But it was at that time that was so clean
Speaker 3: that a lot of people were snorting it. So I
Speaker 3: remember I went over there after a year and a
Speaker 3: half of watching these people.
Speaker 2: And were you one hundred percent sober at.
Speaker 4: The time or yeah, pretty sober?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's your first comeback kind of.
Speaker 3: I mean I might have been drinking a little bit,
Speaker 3: but I remember buying it and then going in my
Speaker 3: house and snorting it and not really know any like,
Speaker 3: and I just got sick and I was like sweaty,
Speaker 3: and I kind of passed out, fell asleep, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: this is not for me, thank.
Speaker 2: God, thank god it was.
Speaker 4: I was a go fast guy like coke and booze.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the sort of like nodding out thing was not
Speaker 3: my not my bag. So he got it didn't stick. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you ever think, like what would have happened had
Speaker 1: that like geez, your life would have been way different, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, there's there's certain I guess miracles or
Speaker 3: just you know, good luck.
Speaker 4: I always had a fairly healthy fear of drugs.
Speaker 3: But there were times in my life, you know, even
Speaker 3: when I was doing them, you know, I'd had some
Speaker 3: sort of idea because I grew up like idealizing, idolizing druggies,
Speaker 3: you know, like Keith Richards and William Burrows, many of
Speaker 3: these writers you can be kowski whoever, the beat necks.
Speaker 3: I thought that was like how you did it. That's
Speaker 3: what being an artist was about. I had romanticize cigarettes, drugs, booze.
Speaker 3: But I always was afraid that if I lost my mind,
Speaker 3: I would have to like pull out. And when I
Speaker 3: was in LA and I lost my mind, I kind
Speaker 3: of that was. That was as far out as.
Speaker 1: I really can you say you lost your mind, like
Speaker 1: you had a real meltdown, like where you're like, No.
Speaker 3: I had cocaine psychosis. It took like a year and
Speaker 3: a half to get rid of it.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't understand what that means.
Speaker 3: It just means you like either through lack of sleep
Speaker 3: or it's I think it was primarily lack of sleep.
Speaker 3: Like people who do meth now lose their mind pretty
Speaker 3: for real, pretty quickly with this meth. But with me,
Speaker 3: it was just because I was sleep deprived, and eventually
Speaker 3: you get a little psychotic, you know, you start you know,
Speaker 3: seeing like you know, I, well, I got very mystically.
Speaker 4: Paranoid, do you know what I mean? Like I used
Speaker 4: to do a joke about hearing voices in your head.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the joke was like, when you hear voices in
Speaker 3: your head, it's never one, it's always And he spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time trying to get them to pick
Speaker 3: a fucking leader.
Speaker 2: I had.
Speaker 1: I had a meltdown when I was thirty and I
Speaker 1: was like hallucinating, like and it was really just sleep deprivation, right,
Speaker 1: But they ended up putting me in a hospital and
Speaker 1: the doctors were like schizophrenic, bipolar PTSD, and I was like, uh,
Speaker 1: let's just try giving me some sleep.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it worked, and it worked.
Speaker 1: I did get better and I completely came back to reality.
Speaker 1: But of course, you know, I had to be strong
Speaker 1: enough to you know, tell doctors that no, I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not going to take whatever drugs you're assigning for
Speaker 1: a temporary.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, And the thing about that kind of manic
Speaker 3: break or psychotic break is that it does screw your
Speaker 3: head up. So like what I realized that I had
Speaker 3: created this evil sort of back you know, mystical backstory
Speaker 3: to the comedy store, and I thought, you know, people
Speaker 3: were like I had, like there was a big, big
Speaker 3: ideas in my head. And it took like really a
Speaker 3: couple of years to you know, get rid of those
Speaker 3: hallucinations or that way of thinking. Yeah, yeah, but you know,
Speaker 3: I eventually went back to the store. But anyway, so yeah,
Speaker 3: so I tried the heroin and then I realized, like,
Speaker 3: you know, I got to get out of here. And
Speaker 3: I'd been with a woman for a while and then
Speaker 3: we broke up and she moved to San Francisco. So
Speaker 3: I just like, not unlike when I left New York.
Speaker 4: I was just like, I got to get out of here.
Speaker 3: So I gave my bed to the guy across the
Speaker 3: hall who was sleeping on the floor, and I gave
Speaker 3: my a lot of my stuff to the homeless people
Speaker 3: that were selling things on the street down there, and
Speaker 3: I just got in.
Speaker 4: My car and I drove to San Francisco with no
Speaker 4: plan and.
Speaker 3: I had I remember, I was like, had a little
Speaker 3: bit of that heroin and I was smoking it with
Speaker 3: reef with weed. I drove like twenty two hours in
Speaker 3: one stretch and I just showed up on this woman's
Speaker 3: doorstep and I'm like, can.
Speaker 4: I hang out, you know, and she took me back in.
Speaker 3: And then I was in San Francisco and then I
Speaker 3: shove it up again, okay, and then you know, I
Speaker 3: started doing more comedy there.
Speaker 4: That was a big, big change. It was a good
Speaker 4: place to do comedy.
Speaker 3: They had a very open mind about what you could
Speaker 3: do on stage and how it worked.
Speaker 4: And then I did a contest there. I did it twice.
Speaker 4: I didn't think.
Speaker 3: The first one was maybe ninety two or ninety three,
Speaker 3: and I came I didn't farewell, and then again I
Speaker 3: came in second in like ninety four, and now you know,
Speaker 3: I was start in the middle. I started to headline
Speaker 3: a little bit, and then I got a job on
Speaker 3: television in New York, is all.
Speaker 1: And then I just have one other question, When did
Speaker 1: you realize that comedy was the path you were going
Speaker 1: to choose.
Speaker 4: I always wanted to be comic and I didn't see
Speaker 4: any other thing to.
Speaker 2: Do, Okay, since you like in high school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, since I was a kid really and I
Speaker 3: never really had a plan.
Speaker 4: B I never like, by the time I took that
Speaker 4: TV gig.
Speaker 3: I just I didn't want to do it because it
Speaker 3: was not the kind of comedy I was doing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I was kind of aggressive and you know, like shocking
Speaker 3: and trying to you know, be very angry.
Speaker 4: And then but I was broke, you know, so I
Speaker 4: got offered this TV job.
Speaker 2: How'd you get offered it?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 1: Because you're in San France? Did you have an agent
Speaker 1: at the time or something?
Speaker 4: Not yet? Really how did that gig happen? I'm trying
Speaker 4: to remember.
Speaker 3: It was like it was Comedy Central very early on,
Speaker 3: you know, and.
Speaker 4: It was just it was like a clip show. It
Speaker 4: was called Short Attention Spent Theater.
Speaker 3: It had been hosted in different forms by John Stewart
Speaker 3: and some other people.
Speaker 4: And this is sort of the last version of it.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember how the guy picked me, this
Speaker 3: guy Robert Small, But it was basically me in this
Speaker 3: fake vault where I was like supposedly showing clips of
Speaker 3: comics and comic movies, but it's really all driven by
Speaker 3: promotional stuff and they just wanted me.
Speaker 4: It's like a VJ job, which was it?
Speaker 3: Just I was devastated because it didn't serve my voice,
Speaker 3: but I didn't see that I had a choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was paying well.
Speaker 4: I'd never made that kind of money.
Speaker 3: So what I was doing for the first six months
Speaker 3: of it, I would stay in San Francisco living with
Speaker 3: that woman and that would go back to New York
Speaker 3: for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and strip the show.
Speaker 4: So you would do four shows.
Speaker 3: At a time, and I fled back to San Francisco
Speaker 3: for like five days and I fly back to New York.
Speaker 4: That went on for six months.
Speaker 3: They got me a subw at New York and then
Speaker 3: eventually I moved back to New York in like the
Speaker 3: mid nineties for the rest of that year, and I
Speaker 3: had to fight to get myself a writer. I had
Speaker 3: to fight for us to do comedy bits because they
Speaker 3: just wanted me to be a talking head. I was
Speaker 3: already mad that I was doing this job. I was
Speaker 3: a pain in the ass and like some people that
Speaker 3: I worked with, you know, I think they thought I
Speaker 3: was a complete asshole, and I probably was. I don't
Speaker 3: think I was. I don't remember the drugs being a
Speaker 3: deal then. But I learned how to re prompter, I
Speaker 3: learned how to be on TV. I got you know,
Speaker 3: I got into the Union. You know, I got insurance,
Speaker 3: I got all that stuff. But I hated it. I
Speaker 3: hated every minute of it. But I knew that there
Speaker 3: was a good thing to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but didn't.
Speaker 4: It didn't really take off. Its surfaced the network.
Speaker 3: And then after that was done, I was in New
Speaker 3: York and just leaning into comedy, and I started to
Speaker 3: so I was in ninety four ninety five. And the
Speaker 3: other thing about comedy at that time, if it's interesting
Speaker 3: to you, is that this looks pretty good, right, it
Speaker 3: looks really good.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 3: The other thing that was is that, like there was
Speaker 3: a lot of basic cable television, right, so we were
Speaker 3: all getting these gigs like Evening the Improv, Caroline's Comedy Hour,
Speaker 3: Comedy on the Road, MTV half Hours, Like there was
Speaker 3: all these little TV opportunities that ultimately didn't mean much,
Speaker 3: but they were something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So we were doing that stuff.
Speaker 3: MTV always had some sort of comedy showcasing, so we.
Speaker 4: Were kind of working towards that, trying to get on Letterman.
Speaker 3: You know, Conan started in ninety four, and but you know,
Speaker 3: I got back into the drugs and that go crazy.
Speaker 3: But yeah, like they that's when alternative comedy started, and
Speaker 3: you know, we were doing this Lower east Side thing,
Speaker 3: and you know, then it became like I started drinking again.
Speaker 2: I married that woman, the woman in Sanford.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I met her at my brother's wedding
Speaker 3: and she knew I was kind of a wild card.
Speaker 4: But we got married.
Speaker 3: We you know, we were living down on you know,
Speaker 3: Third Avenue and sixteenth and then the all comedy things
Speaker 3: started and I started, you know, using coke again and drinking,
Speaker 3: but I was trying to hide it and keep it
Speaker 3: under control. And we got married and we moved out
Speaker 3: to Queens and yeah, I don't know, like it was
Speaker 3: grim because I'd done the TV thing, I was doing comedy.
Speaker 3: Now married to this woman, she kind of wants to
Speaker 3: have kids and stuff and I and I was not sober,
Speaker 3: and I really sort of fell into a kind of
Speaker 3: bitterness and a kind of resignation, like, all right, well,
Speaker 3: I guess I'm not really going to make it in
Speaker 3: show business. Maybe I can get a job on a
Speaker 3: local TV show here I'd done some segments for and
Speaker 3: just write it out in New York as one of
Speaker 3: those people that kind of gets by.
Speaker 4: And it was pretty devastating.
Speaker 1: Well, like what drove that message to your mind? Was
Speaker 1: it like you you felt like you weren't booking enough
Speaker 1: comedy clubs or were you possibly bombing? Like what made
Speaker 1: you stay? Well, maybe this is.
Speaker 3: I wasn't bombing, but I was a specific type of
Speaker 3: act and I wasn't really getting much traction.
Speaker 4: Like everyone in you know, you know, like other comics
Speaker 4: respected me.
Speaker 3: People knew who I was, but you know, people thought
Speaker 3: that I was doing a character or what. But I
Speaker 3: was really angry and kind of like intense and it
Speaker 3: wasn't really a character. I don't think I got into
Speaker 3: comedy to entertain. I think it was like this is
Speaker 3: how I'm going to you know, engage my voice, is
Speaker 3: how I'm going to find myself.
Speaker 4: How I'm going to say what I want to say.
Speaker 3: Because for me, when I was growing up, comics I
Speaker 3: always were able to kind of you know, make you know,
Speaker 3: kind of make things understandable, disarm things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's year make you see things.
Speaker 3: A different way. Like I thought, that's an art, you know,
Speaker 3: so I want to do that. And the guys that
Speaker 3: I looked up to were kind of, you know, said things.
Speaker 3: So it was really like I don't think I ever
Speaker 3: thought in terms of entertaining people. I'm not sure I
Speaker 3: do now either. But so I wasn't trying to like,
Speaker 3: you know, sell arenas or anything. I just thought that eventually,
Speaker 3: because I was, you know, doing it my way, that
Speaker 3: it would come around. So at that time I wasn't
Speaker 3: coming around. And I started doing Conan like I did
Speaker 3: Conan like three or four times a year. I became
Speaker 3: a popular panel guess.
Speaker 2: But at that time you were doubting yourself.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, of course, because I just kept chipping away.
Speaker 3: But I couldn't really sell tickets, and you know, I
Speaker 3: would do you know, I do club work, but it
Speaker 3: was you know, I go do the clubs, but it
Speaker 3: would be you know, you weren't making a lot of money, yeah,
Speaker 3: because you were an unknown headliner really and unless you
Speaker 3: can draw people, which I never understood. I never I
Speaker 3: wasn't particularly pleasant to club owners.
Speaker 4: I never really thought about.
Speaker 3: Like, I got to come figure out a way to
Speaker 3: come back here.
Speaker 4: I got to build these networks.
Speaker 3: I was just sort of like, fuck you, I do
Speaker 3: it this way, and you know, eventually people get it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and they just they didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean that's you know, that's.
Speaker 3: The long and short of it. But I'm trying to
Speaker 3: think what eventually happened?
Speaker 2: Did you so? But whereas your marriage going fine at
Speaker 2: the time and all of that.
Speaker 3: Or what happened was, uh, I'm so sorry here you
Speaker 3: want to do that?
Speaker 2: I definitely want to do it.
Speaker 1: Sauce it so right now we're just for all the
Speaker 1: listeners in the Japanese barbecue sauce. Mark has plated our
Speaker 1: plates with brown rice vegetables. I just drowned my uh
Speaker 1: beyond burger in Japanese barbecue sauce.
Speaker 2: But I'm more excited about the tahini sauce because guys,
Speaker 2: guess what.
Speaker 1: I actually made a good job and I was nervous
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you put.
Speaker 4: It on the vegetables, That's what I did. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna make it.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna put them on.
Speaker 4: The side saucy.
Speaker 3: Sure sauces are fun. So the marriage. Yeah, So what
Speaker 3: happened was in the middle of this sweaty, bitter period
Speaker 3: where I'd given up and resigned myself to being you know,
Speaker 3: just an average you know, b room headliner and trying
Speaker 3: to make do in New York to service this marriage.
Speaker 3: I wasn't happy and woman came up to me at
Speaker 3: a comedy club and she's gorgeous and she's like, you know, hey.
Speaker 4: You're Mark Maren and I'm like yeah, and she goes,
Speaker 4: what happened to you? Like?
Speaker 3: And she was like a comic, she was a fan
Speaker 3: and I'm like, you know, what are you talking about.
Speaker 3: She's like, well, you would call fucked up and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I guess and she's like, well, I can help you
Speaker 3: gets over if you want to do it. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: what with aa or whatever? She's like yeah, and I'm
Speaker 3: like and she's so pretty. So I'm like I just
Speaker 3: wanted to do anything she wanted. So I started just
Speaker 3: following her around and you know, she started taking me
Speaker 3: to meetings and you know, we started having a thing,
Speaker 3: and yep, the marriage fell apart, you know, because you know,
Speaker 3: you know, I kind of wanted it to. But it
Speaker 3: was kind of dramatic because she, you know, my wife
Speaker 3: found out about her and I didn't know how it
Speaker 3: was all going to go down, but it went down
Speaker 3: pretty dramatically, like you know, changing the locks. I had
Speaker 3: to find another place to live, I had to stay
Speaker 3: sober through all that shit. There was the drama of
Speaker 3: like being with this other woman and being like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm all right, my marriage is coming on, glue.
Speaker 4: Are you are you in? Are you are we going
Speaker 4: to do this or what? And she reluctantly.
Speaker 3: She's younger than me, and she was like, I guess,
Speaker 3: and so I guess, well that's enough. So yeah, the
Speaker 3: marriage fell apart has sublet a place way downtown. It
Speaker 3: was like a really chaotic time. But I was going
Speaker 3: to meetings like a lot and I and that's when
Speaker 3: I kind of like, you know, I was going like
Speaker 3: every day at least once a day, and I locked
Speaker 3: in with a bunch of people that were just getting
Speaker 3: sober and we're going to meetings all over the on
Speaker 3: was taking me in meetings. We were going to meetings together.
Speaker 3: And that was like ninety nine, and that's when it's stuck,
Speaker 3: you know. So the first time I got sober was
Speaker 3: in eighty eight, right, and then when it stuck was
Speaker 3: ninety nine. So I was in and out for over
Speaker 3: ten years. Wow, And now I got twenty four. But
Speaker 3: for whatever happened with that marriage, because I ended up
Speaker 3: marrying that.
Speaker 2: Girl, Oh my god, this is delicious. Between the Tahiti,
Speaker 2: the Barbue, sauce even absolutely delicious.
Speaker 4: We do, I get sober.
Speaker 3: I'm with this woman who's stunning, and I'm just doing
Speaker 3: the comedy. I'm trying, you know. Then I got a deal.
Speaker 3: Like there's so many side stories. You know, I was
Speaker 3: doing the festivals to Montreal, and I've already been doing
Speaker 3: comedy at that point for you know, eighty eight. It
Speaker 3: was like ninety ninety nine. So I've been at it
Speaker 3: for ten years and I've had a lot of little.
Speaker 4: TV appearances and some opportunities.
Speaker 3: I got management and an agent because of that TV
Speaker 3: show in Comedy Central, and you know, a big manager
Speaker 3: and the agent that I was with was very good
Speaker 3: at getting people deals.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think with that. I had a few deals.
Speaker 2: But during this whole period, you're not taking any side jobs,
Speaker 2: any side hustles, not.
Speaker 3: Since all show business one way or the other. But
Speaker 3: it was lean for a long time. And then when
Speaker 3: I did that TV show, I was making some money.
Speaker 3: And then but then you know, I got divorced, so
Speaker 3: there goes all that money. I wrote a book, I
Speaker 3: did a one man show, you know, and I had
Speaker 3: but I was not able to save much money because
Speaker 3: it really it comes and goes in this game. I
Speaker 3: didn't get a big amount of money for the book deal,
Speaker 3: but I wrote a book on a one man show
Speaker 3: I did call Jerusalem Syndrome, and then that book came out.
Speaker 3: But it's like a thirty thousand dollars deal, you know,
Speaker 3: with the idea that if it sells, you make more money.
Speaker 3: But you know, it didn't really make any more money,
Speaker 3: and then taxes takes some and so. But the book
Speaker 3: comes out like within weeks or a month or so
Speaker 3: of nine to eleven. So we're I'm in New York,
Speaker 3: I'm nine to eleven. I was out in Queen's I
Speaker 3: remember seeing it on the computer on the AOL homepage,
Speaker 3: you know, and just one of the towers was down
Speaker 3: and I went up to the roof and it was
Speaker 3: like crazy, man, it was crazy. So you know, I saw,
Speaker 3: you know, there was it wasn't a sound in the world,
Speaker 3: just you know, I was on the roof. It was
Speaker 3: a clear fall day, no cars, no planes, no nothing,
Speaker 3: and you just saw the smoke coming off you know,
Speaker 3: downtown and then you know, the second tower went down.
Speaker 4: And it was it was like completely.
Speaker 3: I can't even explain it, you know, entire world change,
Speaker 3: and we had to deal with that horrendous attack and catastrophe.
Speaker 3: As a city, everything just sort of stopped, you know,
Speaker 3: and you couldn't go downtown and that hole was smoking.
Speaker 3: Then the signs were going up, you know, missing people everywhere,
Speaker 3: and the smell of the burning was in the city
Speaker 3: for like what seemed like months. We didn't know when
Speaker 3: we were going to start doing comedy again, but we
Speaker 3: started not long after down at the comedy cellar a
Speaker 3: few weeks, you know, trying to do it and people
Speaker 3: were complete shock and they didn't know what to do.
Speaker 3: Everyone was walking around totally you know, in trauma.
Speaker 4: And you know, we started doing comedy.
Speaker 3: It was pretty dicey because I was trying to be
Speaker 3: provocative and talk about the politics of things, and there
Speaker 3: was like almost got in a fight with a marine
Speaker 3: and the comedy club and it was just a crazy time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And the woman that I was with, she she that
Speaker 3: day was going to work at a job she had downtown.
Speaker 4: She got out downtown and it was raining.
Speaker 3: Ash and then she had to walk all the way
Speaker 3: up and I couldn't get touch with her all day.
Speaker 3: But she it just broke her and she was like
Speaker 3: she left New York and she left and went home
Speaker 3: to Seattle, and I was there kind of writing out
Speaker 3: the aftermath of nine to eleven. And then when she
Speaker 3: finally you know, kind of pulled herself together, She's like,
Speaker 3: I can't live in New York anymore and I want
Speaker 3: to go to La. So we moved to La and
Speaker 3: I had a deal at that time. I'd gotten a
Speaker 3: deal with Fox Studios at the Montreal Festival, which was
Speaker 3: a development deal. Gave me some money, gave me a cushion.
Speaker 3: We moved set up shop here and you know, I
Speaker 3: sort of had to start over again.
Speaker 4: The deal didn't really go anywhere.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I got set up with a writer, and.
Speaker 3: I've had a few of those deals where you write
Speaker 3: a pilot script and it doesn't go anywhere, but you
Speaker 3: make money on those.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you can bank some like serious cash and
Speaker 3: just like and I'm still weird about money, like I
Speaker 3: don't spend I did much.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, well I would imagine in this business, like
Speaker 1: I actually I am a firm believer.
Speaker 2: I'm living on a budget and I don't go over it.
Speaker 1: You know, if I made one hundred thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: a month, which I've never actually done so, you know,
Speaker 1: but you know, if I were, I would still live
Speaker 1: on my you know, five thousand dollars month budget, and
Speaker 1: I would just can the rest. I wouldn't even I
Speaker 1: would not even be in my sight like that's I'm
Speaker 1: strict with my budgets.
Speaker 4: I don't know what it is like. I don't know
Speaker 4: if I was ever in it for the money. I'm
Speaker 4: happy because there were times I.
Speaker 3: Could get up to where we are now, but throughout
Speaker 3: this time, Look, I'm doing comedy. You know, I had
Speaker 3: some deal money. And now I'm in La and I've
Speaker 3: got to re establish myself in La. I go back
Speaker 3: to the store, which I really haven't been at since
Speaker 3: I lost my mind.
Speaker 4: I get back in there primarily because.
Speaker 3: You know, there was a new booker there and I
Speaker 3: had sort of some sort of the mythic reputation because
Speaker 3: of the book I wrote. There's a chapter in Jerusalem
Speaker 3: Syndrome about the comedy store and about my experience with
Speaker 3: Sam and about the drugs and everything and the craziness,
Speaker 3: and some young comics had read it and put me
Speaker 3: into this zone of like, yeah, that's you know.
Speaker 2: Maren, When did podcast enter?
Speaker 3: Like I you know, I still wasn't able to sell
Speaker 3: tickets as a comic, you know, but I was a
Speaker 3: known guy.
Speaker 2: Do you say cel tickets like if they book you
Speaker 2: to a club, like no one's showing up.
Speaker 4: No one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know I'm not getting door deals, okay,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm getting flat rates to do headlining on
Speaker 3: weeks where they you know, don't have somebody there that's gonna.
Speaker 4: You know, sell tickets.
Speaker 3: And you know, after the comedy boom in the eighties,
Speaker 3: there were still a lot of the guys around that
Speaker 3: sold tickets. But I never understood how they made so
Speaker 3: much money until you know, I was able to sell
Speaker 3: tickets and get door deals.
Speaker 4: It was very naive about the business.
Speaker 2: Can you explain a door deal for everyone that doesn't
Speaker 2: know what it is?
Speaker 3: Well, door deals where you you know, you are confident
Speaker 3: that you'll sell out and you do a deal with
Speaker 3: the club where you get eighty percent of the door
Speaker 3: versus a bonus or whatever, and you know they can
Speaker 3: you sell drinks, but which is really the business they're in.
Speaker 3: So if you're doing four shows at a club that
Speaker 3: sell out, you know, for whatever amount of money the
Speaker 3: ticket is, and you're getting eighty percent. That's different than
Speaker 3: you know, getting twelve hundred for five shows.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So you know, once you get to a certain level,
Speaker 3: you can do these door deal structures and make real
Speaker 3: money in nightclubs if you sell out.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But I wasn't that guy.
Speaker 3: But I was doing comedy all the time, okay, And
Speaker 3: also like I did little parts and movies here and there.
Speaker 3: I did, you know, I was in almost famous for
Speaker 3: a minute, and you know I was trying.
Speaker 4: To do that work.
Speaker 3: But I never really had an agent for movies and TV.
Speaker 3: You know, I had you know, there were agents that
Speaker 3: did favors for my manager, but I never really committed
Speaker 3: to acting because it's like.
Speaker 4: Roland, I can't take that kind of rejection.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? It's sit in those audition rooms.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? There's no way that it just
Speaker 3: was not. I wanted to do it, but there's no
Speaker 3: way that I could handle all that.
Speaker 2: So when you get when I see you on TV, now,
Speaker 2: is it just like, hey.
Speaker 4: We want Mark to do sometimes? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Or do you ever auditioned now?
Speaker 4: Well? No, I auditioned for Glow.
Speaker 3: I sent the tape, I mean I did a video
Speaker 3: and they picked me, but like I have some profile,
Speaker 3: like people know, well, that's we'll get to that. So
Speaker 3: two thousand and four, you know, I'm not making a
Speaker 3: living really that well at comedy. You know, I don't,
Speaker 3: you know, I can't. It's just very tentative. I bought
Speaker 3: a house in Highland Park. I was with the woman,
Speaker 3: and then I get offered this radio job for Air
Speaker 3: America Radio, the lefty talk radio network.
Speaker 4: And this was, you know, in response to.
Speaker 3: You know, what was going to be the second term
Speaker 3: for you know, George Bush Junior w the you know,
Speaker 3: Al Frank and a bunch of people is Wednesday, and
Speaker 3: you know, they wanted me to be on this network
Speaker 3: out of New York and be on a morning show.
Speaker 4: And I'd never really done radio.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So this was really the sort of kind of cosmic
Speaker 3: choice that led to what became my future. And it
Speaker 3: was that I got offered this job and it would
Speaker 3: have been hard, Like I was in LA I would
Speaker 3: have to move to New York.
Speaker 4: I had kept the apartment there, which.
Speaker 2: Was good, oh the whole time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sublet it okay in Queens, and you know, I was,
Speaker 3: you know, I was with this woman, and it was
Speaker 3: a difficult relationship because you know, when you get sober.
Speaker 4: With somebody, you know, you're out of your mind.
Speaker 3: And you know, she was, you know, younger than me,
Speaker 3: and it was just a volatile, you know, relationship. But
Speaker 3: I didn't see any choice but to take the gig
Speaker 3: because the money was like solid, it was crazy. It
Speaker 3: was almost like TV money because they had a lot
Speaker 3: of money. So but it would be me going back
Speaker 3: to New York, you know, to do morning radio and
Speaker 3: it was political talk radio and we had a crunch
Speaker 3: a lot of news. It was like getting up at
Speaker 3: three in the morning to get to the studio to
Speaker 3: be on the air at six from six to nine
Speaker 3: every day. And I didn't really know what that would
Speaker 3: be like or whatever, but I did it. I flew back,
Speaker 3: and obviously we pushed strain on my marriage, but I
Speaker 3: was getting up and we were doing a lot of
Speaker 3: comedy bits.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It began with three of us, and then eventually one
Speaker 3: of the people kind of got pushed out. I ended
Speaker 3: up becoming the driver of the show as opposed to
Speaker 3: the comedic sidekick, you know.
Speaker 4: I was sort of the lead.
Speaker 3: And it was it was incredible because it's live, you're
Speaker 3: in it and you know, I was doing my thing,
Speaker 3: telling stories, throwing the com learned how to do radio
Speaker 3: and I did.
Speaker 4: That for like a year and a half and you
Speaker 4: loved it.
Speaker 3: I loved it, but you know, it became very difficult
Speaker 3: to do stand up because you're, you know, when you're
Speaker 3: getting up at three in the morning and doing I'm
Speaker 3: going to.
Speaker 1: Say, are you just sleeping during the day, and then
Speaker 1: doing your comedy going straight from comedy to radio.
Speaker 3: Well, I learned how to like get sleep at different times,
Speaker 3: Like you know, I try to get four or five
Speaker 3: hours at night and then go to work and then
Speaker 3: get a nap in during the day and try to
Speaker 3: do a set or two and I do sets on weekends.
Speaker 3: But you're always fucked up when you do morning radio.
Speaker 3: You like walking around like you've been in a pillow fight.
Speaker 3: You're just like it's fuzzy and like, you know, you
Speaker 3: can't quite you know, like reality it was.
Speaker 4: It was fucked up. It's like you feel kind of
Speaker 4: sick all the time.
Speaker 3: But I did it for a year and a half,
Speaker 3: and you know, it strained the marriage, and then I,
Speaker 3: you know, I got fired from Air America because they
Speaker 3: were going in a different direction. That's a whole other story.
Speaker 3: That network and what happened there. It's crazy. But they
Speaker 3: pushed us out and I came back to LA and
Speaker 3: they were going to you know, someone was going to
Speaker 3: try to get me an evening show, which they did
Speaker 3: for a while.
Speaker 4: But I get back and you know, my wife leaves me.
Speaker 3: Like I went out and did some shows on the
Speaker 3: road with Henry Rollins and Jenia Groothel. I came back
Speaker 3: with my wife, so like, you know, I want a
Speaker 3: trial separation, and I think she'd start up with another dude,
Speaker 3: and you know.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh no, you know, I couldn't even
Speaker 4: fathom it.
Speaker 3: So she leaves, and you know, trial separation is not
Speaker 3: really a trial separation. So I was doing everything I
Speaker 3: could to make myself better, to go to you know,
Speaker 3: anger management all this shit. But she was out and
Speaker 3: that fucking leveled me. That like talk about hitting a
Speaker 3: bottom in sobriety. So here I am, I'm off you know,
Speaker 3: the radio. She leaves me and just hires these lawyers.
Speaker 3: I don't even we don't even have kids, but she
Speaker 3: just thought that she deserved the house and it was
Speaker 3: in my name, and like she just like the lawyers
Speaker 3: just put me through hell and just basically almost bankrupted me.
Speaker 1: And and then the whole time you're stay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did stay sober, and you know, comedy was
Speaker 3: here and there, and.
Speaker 2: Like did you end up keeping the house?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: But I didn't really understand what divorce was when you
Speaker 3: have money because I'd made money with the radio thing,
Speaker 3: unshaved it and and she just.
Speaker 4: Was killing me there.
Speaker 3: You know, you have to do that whole thing where
Speaker 3: you what do you call it that process to disclosure process?
Speaker 2: Did you like disclose all your money that assets the homes?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: But it's a it's a racket because divorces don't end
Speaker 3: until somebody gives up unless it's like, you know, it's
Speaker 3: a state where you just split it, right, which California is.
Speaker 4: But there's all these whoopholes.
Speaker 3: And she hired a real animal to come after me,
Speaker 3: and I hired this little scrappy lawyer that a friend.
Speaker 4: Of mine, knude.
Speaker 3: But whoever, it's all right, whoever got the money, they're
Speaker 3: going to finance everything. You're going to pay for their lawyer,
Speaker 3: You're going to pay you know whatever, Like was.
Speaker 2: She making any money at the time or were you not?
Speaker 3: Really she's doing comedy and doing this and that, and
Speaker 3: she used to be a model, but like she wasn't
Speaker 3: really making any money, and that was fine.
Speaker 4: I didn't mind, you know, uh, you know, supporting the situation.
Speaker 3: I helped her produce a one person show and she
Speaker 3: eventually wrote a book. But the deal was is it
Speaker 3: got very heated and bad, and it really broke my spirit,
Speaker 3: like entirely, Like I was heartbroken, and I couldn't understand
Speaker 3: why we couldn't do it fairly. And you know, in retrospect,
Speaker 3: she just had her mind on the house. She thought
Speaker 3: that she deserved the house. She made it a house,
Speaker 3: and in retrospect, I think she was right, and I
Speaker 3: could if I had understood things better, because I thought, like,
Speaker 3: you get half, I get half.
Speaker 4: That should be enough, right.
Speaker 3: But her lawyer then there like I didn't know about
Speaker 3: spousal support. I didn't know about like you know, that
Speaker 3: whole thing. And then her lawyer was trying to get
Speaker 3: the spousal support number up to where it wasn't it
Speaker 3: usually is about the last year of marriage, what you made.
Speaker 3: But her lawyer was like, because of my job, they
Speaker 3: wanted to make it, you know, ark over five years,
Speaker 3: you know, including their America years, which would have mean
Speaker 3: I would have been into her for like like eight
Speaker 3: nine thousand a month, which I didn't have, and we
Speaker 3: ended up in court for no reason.
Speaker 4: And that's it was a nightmare.
Speaker 3: But so I'm broke and I'm about to lose the
Speaker 3: house because I'm trying to, you know, win this divorce
Speaker 3: or at least make it fair.
Speaker 4: But you know, all my money's paying for a lawyer.
Speaker 4: It's paying for her lawyer. It's all my money.
Speaker 3: And then like what happened was air America kind of
Speaker 3: resurfaced and there was somebody within a America that was like,
Speaker 3: you know, we want to try a streaming video show,
Speaker 3: which is before streaming. It was like before anybody the
Speaker 3: technology wasn't there. And I'm like, I don't care what
Speaker 3: it is. If you can give me what I was
Speaker 3: making before and give me like sixty K upfront so
Speaker 3: I can give it to this woman and stop this shit,
Speaker 3: I'll take the job. And they were like okay, So
Speaker 3: they gave me sixty K and I gave it to
Speaker 3: her and I'm like we done, and she's like okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: we're done. And then I got back on my feet
Speaker 3: and that streaming job that nobody watched break Room Live
Speaker 3: that last year, and I was barely able to function
Speaker 3: because I was so shattered from the divorce. But you know,
Speaker 3: it got me back on my feet. And then I
Speaker 3: got back to LA and this was two thousand and
Speaker 3: what eight, and I'm like, you know, just barely solvent,
Speaker 3: and I didn't know how to Like I still wasn't
Speaker 3: a big comic, and I didn't know what I was
Speaker 3: going to do, and I was pretty depressed, and I
Speaker 3: didn't I had no idea, you know, what we're going
Speaker 3: to do. But I actually had happened a little before that,
Speaker 3: like when they fired us at Air America, they didn't
Speaker 3: kick us out of the building because I had three
Speaker 3: months on my contract. So me and my producer were like,
Speaker 3: there were people doing podcasts, basically just Corolla and like
Speaker 3: Doug maybe Doug Benson and a few others, but it
Speaker 3: wasn't a thing I said, can we figure this out?
Speaker 3: So at the beginning, you know, we were just like
Speaker 3: going into the studio at Air America after hours because
Speaker 3: we knew the tech, we'd let guests and you know,
Speaker 3: on the freight elevator. And so we did the first
Speaker 3: dozen or so like that wow in secret and we
Speaker 3: you know, Apple was looking for people who had some
Speaker 3: kind of profile and they got behind it. So there
Speaker 3: was some banners, and you know, I had to figure
Speaker 3: out how to get more Twitter followers and like this
Speaker 3: was all happening. That's why we were there at the beginning.
Speaker 3: So I had to figure out how to get Twitter
Speaker 3: followers and how to get attention.
Speaker 4: So I was booking.
Speaker 3: You know, it wasn't the show that it is now,
Speaker 3: but guests would come on and some of them would
Speaker 3: get press, and then it started to sort of build
Speaker 3: like that. And then I got back out to LA
Speaker 3: and I'm like, well, what are we going to do?
Speaker 3: I got to figure out how to do it here.
Speaker 3: So I reached out to Jesse Thorn, who was a
Speaker 3: pretty early adapter to podcasting. He was a radio gut too,
Speaker 3: and he told me which MIC's to get and how
Speaker 3: to hook him up. And I stole a mixer from
Speaker 3: Air America, like this little blue mixer, you know, and
Speaker 3: I set that up in my garage and I was
Speaker 3: running the mics through the mixer right into my laptop
Speaker 3: and I just had and the garage wasn't even a thing,
Speaker 3: which is literally garbage in there and a table, and
Speaker 3: I started talking to comics. So the whole beginning of
Speaker 3: the show is me basically bringing people in, you know,
Speaker 3: to you know, apologize for being an asshole.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So the entire style of what I do is based
Speaker 3: on me having people over to talk about me. And
Speaker 3: at first there was like a third act but me
Speaker 3: and my producer Brenda McDonald, who is a brilliant guy
Speaker 3: and still with me, and he had to do the
Speaker 3: show on the SI for years because he had another
Speaker 3: job where he made money. We couldn't make money at
Speaker 3: the beginning. We had we had to put together like
Speaker 3: a donor thing. This is before Patreon. There was no Patreon,
Speaker 3: There was no Patreon, So we had to set up like,
Speaker 3: you know, if people like our show, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: if you give us this monthly payment of like ten five,
Speaker 3: twenty five, we'll send you some T shirts or whatever.
Speaker 4: So I was in my house with five hundred envelopes.
Speaker 3: I had a roommate at the time because I couldn't
Speaker 3: really at my own house. We're stuff in envelopes and
Speaker 3: we're trying to get this thing, trying to get like
Speaker 3: some income coming in and it was all pretty crazy.
Speaker 3: Then we started doing live ones. We created a pay site.
Speaker 3: We thought, well maybe if we do live ones and
Speaker 3: then offer them for sale, So we were doing that.
Speaker 3: There was no way to make money in podcasts. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if you wanted to keep building your audience. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: if you put a paywall up, then that's a real gamble.
Speaker 2: How are you going to get new peoplewall?
Speaker 4: Well you could do, you know, in order to listen
Speaker 4: to the whole show.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, but there was only a handful of podcasters.
Speaker 3: So what happens is, you know, I'm doing in my garage,
Speaker 3: and there used to be a third act, which was
Speaker 3: a comedy act, and then it became just me talking
Speaker 3: up front and then doing guests.
Speaker 4: We had one or two sponsors.
Speaker 3: It was like, you know, Adam and Eve Sex Toys
Speaker 3: and this coffee sponsor out of Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: And how did you get the sponsors?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know at that time, I don't remember
Speaker 3: how we got those first two. The coffee sponsor was
Speaker 3: somebody who sponsored were the only sponsors for my streaming
Speaker 3: show that nobody watched, So I just carried them over
Speaker 3: as a favor. They weren't paying me hardly anything. But
Speaker 3: they were sending me free coffee. Then Adam and Eve
Speaker 3: had done a few podcasts. They were also I think
Speaker 3: a radio advertiser. There was a time at the beginning
Speaker 3: where when it started to happen podcasts, like radio ad
Speaker 3: consultants were selling the podcasts. So we had audible sex toys,
Speaker 3: Adam and Eve. We had the coffee sponsor. But that
Speaker 3: was really it, and it wasn't enough to make it real,
Speaker 3: you know, kitting and the numbers were what they were,
Speaker 3: and no one knew about podcasts.
Speaker 4: So there was just a small crew of us, and
Speaker 4: we were all sort of in touch, you know.
Speaker 3: Rogan came a little after me, the nerdous Chris hardwickers
Speaker 3: around Corolla. Jay Moore had a show, Jimmy Pardo, Kevin
Speaker 3: Smith had his network at the time, Jimmy Dore. There
Speaker 3: was like a handful of cats who were like, you know,
Speaker 3: chipping away at it. And then it kind of like,
Speaker 3: you know, I started to get more press for the podcast,
Speaker 3: and you know, because of guests and a lot of
Speaker 3: the kind of entertain.
Speaker 4: Journalism, I was doing their job for them.
Speaker 3: So they'd always refer to what Guess would say on
Speaker 3: my show, and you know, and articles about it, and
Speaker 3: then the profile of the guests started to get bigger.
Speaker 3: Robin Williams, you know, Ben Stiller, Conan, these people were
Speaker 3: coming to my house.
Speaker 1: But that's what I was gonna I wanted to know, like,
Speaker 1: these people are coming to your house, like yeah, and
Speaker 1: you were just like, this is it like Barack Obama
Speaker 1: sitting in your garage?
Speaker 4: Like by that time, the garage was pretty cool, you.
Speaker 2: Know, like it was like I want to see it
Speaker 2: so bad.
Speaker 4: Okay, well that one that garage is gone. I'm in
Speaker 4: a new place, okay.
Speaker 3: But it was full of my whole life books, you know,
Speaker 3: art things, guitar like it was this beautiful like, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of like it was. I wouldn't call it a
Speaker 3: man cave, but it looked more like like a library
Speaker 3: in a museum. It was crazy by that point. But
Speaker 3: at the beginning, Brendan and I our only commitment was,
Speaker 3: you know, we're going to do a new show every
Speaker 3: Monday and Thursday, no matter what. And we've done that
Speaker 3: since two thousand and nine. Wow, and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: it's been crazy. So it started to build up steam,
Speaker 3: and then podcasts started to get more attention, and then
Speaker 3: more people started getting into it, and then you know,
Speaker 3: networks were starting, and then a guy Jeff Ulrich created
Speaker 3: a a advertising interface that would link advertisers with podcasts.
Speaker 3: So some of the you know, and then the radio
Speaker 3: people who were kind of glimbing on podcasts, they kind
Speaker 3: of fell back a little bit.
Speaker 4: And then all of a sudden, you know, there was
Speaker 4: a real game to it, you know, and then there.
Speaker 3: Was became a little higher profile, and we all were
Speaker 3: kind of a community at the beginning, and then it
Speaker 3: just kind of now, look at it.
Speaker 4: You know, we were there. You know, people say like,
Speaker 4: look what you did. I'm like, it's good and bad.
Speaker 2: I guess you know, why did you say bad?
Speaker 4: Well, it became like this thing. It became sort of
Speaker 4: like anything else.
Speaker 3: So like everybody thought, you know, I really think that
Speaker 3: I enabled people to think like, oh that guy could
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 4: I could do it. Yeah, you know, and and then
Speaker 4: it came it.
Speaker 3: Became very glutted and everybody who was trying them and
Speaker 3: then you know, people would last a week or two weeks,
Speaker 3: and then then there was like you know, kind of
Speaker 3: predatory uh kind of what do you trade shows where
Speaker 3: they you know, they asked me to speak at one.
Speaker 4: I didn't really wasn't realize what it was.
Speaker 3: But it was a radio consultant who realized that podcasting
Speaker 3: was a racket and they could convince a bunch of
Speaker 3: people that they could sell him the equipment, they could
Speaker 3: show me how to do that. So like they kind
Speaker 3: of bring people in in almost like a motivational speaker way,
Speaker 3: like anybody can.
Speaker 4: Do this, get in it, you know, and it kind
Speaker 4: of it kind of blew up. I mean no, in
Speaker 4: a bad way in that like eventually.
Speaker 3: Brendan and I, because of what we do and how
Speaker 3: we do it, are very kind of you know, we're workaholics,
Speaker 3: and he's very sort of specific about how he does audio.
Speaker 3: He's an audio producer and we're still only audio and
Speaker 3: that was what we set out to do. And he
Speaker 3: spends a lot of time doing what he does.
Speaker 4: I do what I do.
Speaker 3: But as the businessess kind of grew, it's only a
Speaker 3: bad thing in that, you know, everyone has a podcast.
Speaker 2: It's like a joke.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, and then the bigger enterprises.
Speaker 3: Got involved and now you know there's yeah, you know, Amazon,
Speaker 3: you know, Spotify, all these It just became this huge
Speaker 3: business where before it was just, you know, pretty scrappy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think people, you know, yeah, people really
Speaker 1: like this, even if you look at social media, like
Speaker 1: I've talked to influencers, like, I think people or the
Speaker 1: audience really liked the scrappy underground versus the commercialized. And
Speaker 1: I could see what you're saying with podcasts becoming so commercialized.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But even also like when you see someone like yourself
Speaker 1: of me being a new podcaster, it's like I have
Speaker 1: to be reminded continually all the time, like do you
Speaker 1: know how long this person has been doing this? Like
Speaker 1: I was with the president of iHeart Radio and he
Speaker 1: was like, my number one podcast has been around for
Speaker 1: like thirty years, Colleen, And I'm like what He's like,
Speaker 1: remember this always it's gonna take a long time. And
Speaker 1: I like that you talk about it because in our
Speaker 1: ages like, oh, you could become a famous person, you
Speaker 1: could have a lot of money overnight, and it's really
Speaker 1: just a marketing gimmick.
Speaker 2: But the reality is it took work.
Speaker 4: And also it was never like that for me. I
Speaker 4: don't know how these people do it now.
Speaker 3: I can't live in that world. In terms of being
Speaker 3: a content provider looking for clips you know, and playing
Speaker 3: that game where you're just like these guys who are
Speaker 3: just dumping stuff three four times a day, trying to build,
Speaker 3: you know, an empire based on you know, whatever it
Speaker 3: is their racket is.
Speaker 4: You know, I get all that, but we're kind of
Speaker 4: at school and that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've been doing it a long time, but we
Speaker 3: were fortunate in that my cosmic timing and my particular
Speaker 3: skill set, you know, enabled me to seize this moment
Speaker 3: without having any real plan in place.
Speaker 4: There was no way to make money at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this just wasn't It seems like all of your
Speaker 1: choices though never from what I understand outside of the
Speaker 1: divorce situation, never really Money wasn't really a driving motivator
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: It seems like you're no, like it was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it was, but it was a
Speaker 3: sort of persistence and passion to do stand ups. So like,
Speaker 3: and I've had to deal with that too, Like I
Speaker 3: was an established stand up when I started the podcast,
Speaker 3: and now this podcast blows up and nobody really knows
Speaker 3: me as a stand up, And so we get people
Speaker 3: coming to the shows like we're here to support you.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I know how to do this. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm glad you're here exactly right, right. So I had
Speaker 4: a real hard.
Speaker 3: Time with that being known as an interviewer versus a
Speaker 3: stand up, because I always want to be a stand up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that was like a dicey.
Speaker 3: It was hard for me in my brain to realize
Speaker 3: that I was becoming this interview guy or this conversation guy,
Speaker 3: which was great because you know, no one really does
Speaker 3: it like me, and I was developing something and now
Speaker 3: it's kind of established. But at the beginning, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm a comic. I'm just doing this, you know, because
Speaker 3: this is what you know. It's working out, you know,
Speaker 3: but I love it. I mean, I you know, it's
Speaker 3: also good for recovery in a way, you know, like
Speaker 3: the whole premise of of AA was one alcoholic talking
Speaker 3: to another to get you out of your head. So, like,
Speaker 3: you know, interviewing people is a big part of my
Speaker 3: social life is having these conversations. Yeah, with these people
Speaker 3: who I don't know, and they're fairly intimate and kind
Speaker 3: of very focused, and you know, I'm kind of all
Speaker 3: in and I'm just as nervous and anxious about doing
Speaker 3: them as I always was you know, this is like whatever,
Speaker 3: thirteen years in or however long.
Speaker 4: But I think that the timing of it was fortuitous
Speaker 4: and that you know, the business grew around us.
Speaker 3: There was a core community of podcasters and we all
Speaker 3: evolved together and we took you know, we you know,
Speaker 3: there was an issue with a patent troll that was
Speaker 3: a very complicated thing, that was a threat to podcasting,
Speaker 3: and we you know, I remember, we had a big
Speaker 3: meeting about how to deal with it. So once the
Speaker 3: business started to expand and everyone found their footing, it
Speaker 3: all happened simultaneously. You know, I was there at the
Speaker 3: beginning of I guess what would be modern podcasting. There
Speaker 3: were a few before it was kind of a thing,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't you know, a cultural phenomenon.
Speaker 4: So I came up with it.
Speaker 3: It built it, you know, I was one of the
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know if OG is you know,
Speaker 3: I don't want to take any real credit, but I
Speaker 3: found the the conversation space at that time. In the
Speaker 3: way I did it was unique, so and it became
Speaker 3: kind of one of the pillars of modern podcasting. And
Speaker 3: I don't mind saying that, but it was all coincidental,
Speaker 3: but the quality remains, and you know, it really becomes
Speaker 3: about like, well when are we going to stop?
Speaker 4: Dude?
Speaker 2: You know, like, oh yeah, keep going. But I do
Speaker 2: have one question.
Speaker 1: Were there any moments where there was just like almost
Speaker 1: like an aha, or I can't believe that I you know,
Speaker 1: like I like, there are certain interviews where.
Speaker 2: I would be like, holy sh I can't believe this
Speaker 2: is me. You know what were those moments?
Speaker 4: Well, a sitting president was pretty bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say, how did you land that?
Speaker 3: But even before that, you know, because of my business,
Speaker 3: you know, talking to people like you know, Robin Williams
Speaker 3: and people like you know, big actors like and people
Speaker 3: would come to my house and be like, where the
Speaker 3: fuck am I kind of like here, I don't know
Speaker 3: where I am. I don't know how you found the studio.
Speaker 3: But but there were a lot of big performers. I
Speaker 3: was talking to some old guys. Sometimes I'd go to
Speaker 3: people's houses and do it.
Speaker 4: I was like, I'm all in.
Speaker 3: So I talked to a lot of people that I
Speaker 3: thought were pretty impressive. But when when the president became.
Speaker 4: A thing that was crazy.
Speaker 1: I just want to know, like what that day was
Speaker 1: like it was like like I just I want you
Speaker 1: to paint me that picture of even also getting the
Speaker 1: interview that.
Speaker 4: Was like seven years in.
Speaker 3: Well, ultimately what happened was, you know, there was conversation
Speaker 3: earlier on this was it was in his last term,
Speaker 3: and there was some conversation in in the beginning of
Speaker 3: that term that maybe as vice president that Biden might
Speaker 3: want to do it.
Speaker 4: And you know, but we weren't really a political show.
Speaker 4: That's one thing.
Speaker 3: Coming out of political radio, which both me and my
Speaker 3: producer did, we were like, no politics, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to do it. So we detached from it completely and
Speaker 3: became this other show. You know, I've talked politics since
Speaker 3: then because when Trump was president, I'm was profoundly concerned
Speaker 3: and I'm still concerned, but it's difficult. It's primarily not
Speaker 3: that kind of dialogue. But someone in the president's office,
Speaker 3: someone in Obama's crew, thought it would be a good
Speaker 3: thing for him to do the podcast because it was
Speaker 3: his last term.
Speaker 4: It was the last year.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't want to be a lame duck.
Speaker 3: You know, he wanted to be relevant, and you know,
Speaker 3: they reached out and said let's do it, and you know,
Speaker 3: my producer, who's like, you know, a straight shooter, decent guy,
Speaker 3: real political dude. Like it's funny because the date they
Speaker 3: had wanted him to come, I was supposed to be
Speaker 3: on vacation. So I literally told my producer, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, man, I don't know if if I
Speaker 3: can do it. I'm supposed to be on vacation, freaking.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: And then it turns out, like you know, it was
Speaker 3: booked like for the day that I got back, or
Speaker 3: the day or two days after I got back, and.
Speaker 4: I and I remember my producers are telling me, it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2: Have let you go, yeah, yeah, out of here. But
Speaker 2: you know, you talk to.
Speaker 3: Famous people enough, and I granted it's the President, but
Speaker 3: you know, people were just people, and you get a
Speaker 3: sense of people. I mean, I've done fifteen hundred of
Speaker 3: these things.
Speaker 2: Yeah have you really?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're coming up on fifteen hundreds, and you know,
Speaker 3: I've talked to a lot of different kinds of people,
Speaker 3: but the President was a big deal.
Speaker 4: But the trick of it was, look, a lot of things.
Speaker 3: Had to happen for it to happen, but we were
Speaker 3: fairly specific that that It wasn't going to be political
Speaker 3: in the sense that, you know, this is going to
Speaker 3: be what we do. It's going to be a conversation
Speaker 3: about life.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I was down in Hawaii.
Speaker 3: I read his book, and I wasn't really as nervous
Speaker 3: as you would think, you know. But but this my
Speaker 3: producer was brilliant in it all because, you know, he
Speaker 3: had to go out to my house. He lives in Brooklyn,
Speaker 3: So he flew out to the house so the Secret
Speaker 3: Service could do a sweet They had to figure out
Speaker 3: they had to come and figure out how to set
Speaker 3: up a parameter, how to get the president of the
Speaker 3: United States into this little neighborhood, into Highland Park, and.
Speaker 4: How to do it safely.
Speaker 3: So Brendan was there for that, and they were trying
Speaker 3: to figure out where they could put snipers and you know,
Speaker 3: how to make a perimeter, and and you know, the
Speaker 3: roof of the garage was not strong enough to.
Speaker 4: Hold the snipers.
Speaker 3: So we had to ask my neighbor Dennis, if we
Speaker 3: could put snipers on his roof.
Speaker 4: And he was thrilled.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's retired, he's excited. And then they you know,
Speaker 3: they built they tented my driveway, so the motorcake park
Speaker 3: and they could come up, you know, without any sight
Speaker 3: lines and then walk into the back and come into
Speaker 3: the garage. And they'd set up this like like about
Speaker 3: a week before, they put this box in my spare bedroom,
Speaker 3: which was like hooked up to a special phone line,
Speaker 3: like in case all communications went down, they'd have communications.
Speaker 4: So that thing humming along was that was the most
Speaker 4: menacing part of the whole thing.
Speaker 3: And you know, so day of we'd set up a
Speaker 3: bunch of listening stations on the deck for people, like
Speaker 3: for his people to be out there.
Speaker 4: He didn't. He didn't he didn't uh need a pre interview.
Speaker 4: He didn't. He let us do whatever questions we wanted.
Speaker 4: He didn't.
Speaker 2: He didn't do like restrictions or anything.
Speaker 4: No what's the word I want? There was no screening
Speaker 4: of what we of the question?
Speaker 2: Do you ever let people do that?
Speaker 3: But it's the president, you know, but we we were
Speaker 3: kind of held on line. But like he was a
Speaker 3: intellectual guy.
Speaker 4: He carried himself. He wasn't like, you know, some whack job.
Speaker 3: You know those guys the presidents are pretty well managed,
Speaker 3: especially with press, but you know, Obama was like, you
Speaker 3: know whatever, and it was kind.
Speaker 4: Of intense, you know, because there was a lot of
Speaker 4: people around.
Speaker 3: You know, we're waiting for the president and like, look
Speaker 3: man like he had gone to school at Occidental briefly,
Speaker 3: so there was that connection. But there was also news
Speaker 3: that had broken, like literally within the last within that week,
Speaker 3: that guy shot all those people at that church, all
Speaker 3: those black people got shot by that little lunatic, racist
Speaker 3: white kid, and that was big, big thing. So we
Speaker 3: didn't even know if he was going to come, which
Speaker 3: we would have understood, yeah, but he was going to come.
Speaker 3: So we had to figure out how to talk about that.
Speaker 3: There was some you know, Supreme Court stuff coming down.
Speaker 3: There was a little bit of business that was unfolding
Speaker 3: that we needed to address politically and culturally, but the
Speaker 3: rest was going to be personal. And we had a
Speaker 3: strict we had an hour, so Brendan, you know, he
Speaker 3: had to like we had to figure it out. Usually
Speaker 3: I do, like you you know, I kind of wing it,
Speaker 3: but we had we had a tight hour and there
Speaker 3: was shit we need to get to. So he we
Speaker 3: made a structure so we would get to it. And
Speaker 3: we're all waiting around and you know, me and Brendan,
Speaker 3: I'm in the house.
Speaker 4: You know. Secret Service was funny because they came.
Speaker 3: By earlier with the dogs, the bomb dogs, and I
Speaker 3: got three cats, and I was like, look, man, you
Speaker 3: know I got these cats and they're in the bedroom.
Speaker 4: Is there any way you know, can you trust me
Speaker 4: on the bedroom because I want to die. I want
Speaker 4: the bomb dogs fuck with the cats. Did they Yeah?
Speaker 4: They did. So we're all waiting Secret Services.
Speaker 3: There's like fifteen people about and they're around, and they're
Speaker 3: on the perimeter. The snipers there watching the snipers walk up.
Speaker 3: They had closed off the streets. All the cars were.
Speaker 4: Off the streets.
Speaker 2: Streets well just but you know, they but just my.
Speaker 3: Street, the neighborhood. There couldn't be any park cars on
Speaker 3: the street. It's a little street on a little hill
Speaker 3: in Highland Park. But to his benefit, he didn't he
Speaker 3: was staying in Beverly Hills and he didn't take the
Speaker 3: motorcade through the city, which would have like fucked everything up. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but he was going to fly in on the helicopter,
Speaker 3: like on the Air Force two or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm standing around, We're all standing around,
Speaker 3: and you know.
Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, let me know when he's close.
Speaker 3: And they're like, yeah, well, you know when he's twenty
Speaker 3: minutes out. And then we saw the helicopter, like the
Speaker 3: presidential helicopter with the Ospreys in front of it, and
Speaker 3: they were going to land at the Rose Bowl, which
Speaker 3: is like ten minutes away, and we saw him in
Speaker 3: the air.
Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, so he's he's close, you know.
Speaker 4: And then it was just nuts. Man.
Speaker 3: It was like, you know, the motorcades coming up and
Speaker 3: they come up my street, they park, and there's all
Speaker 3: these people coming up that like that tented thing, you know,
Speaker 3: his entourage, and I don't even see him and they're
Speaker 3: coming up to driving and now I just see all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, I see handle Mark and it's.
Speaker 4: Like Obama and I'm like, hey, mister president.
Speaker 2: And you know, that hadn't been a surreal moment totally.
Speaker 4: And my my, my, my producer.
Speaker 3: He's in a well, he's in a suit, and we're
Speaker 3: you know, it's just we're just hanging out waiting for
Speaker 3: the president and and uh, you know, I shake his hand,
Speaker 3: I say, I say, he goes to we We're gonna
Speaker 3: have a good time, I hope, so, you know.
Speaker 4: And we go in there and it was like it
Speaker 4: was intense. Man.
Speaker 3: You know, I had one Secret Service guy in there
Speaker 3: and he was behind me, so I didn't see him
Speaker 3: as Obama was there.
Speaker 4: I remember I asked him to nervous about this, and
Speaker 4: he said, if I was nervous about this, we'd all
Speaker 4: be in trouble.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: Bombay has like a cool sense of humor.
Speaker 1: But I love his poise, Like I love the way
Speaker 1: and I feel like he really processes his answers.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, very deliberate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's almost like you've got to like I had
Speaker 3: to keep it moving because he can, you know, get
Speaker 3: he can talk, you know, and you gotta be careful,
Speaker 3: you on getting the weeds with politics because he can
Speaker 3: very deliberate.
Speaker 4: But he'll he'll go on for a while.
Speaker 3: And we only had an hour, so I keep it going,
Speaker 3: you know, and then we got you know, we got
Speaker 3: into the stuff that we needed to talk about. We
Speaker 3: talked about his life and you know, it got it
Speaker 3: was kind of blew up, not just because he was president,
Speaker 3: but because he used the N word, know, and like
Speaker 3: he made an example on.
Speaker 4: The podcast, like you know, racism.
Speaker 3: Racism isn't over just because people don't use the N word,
Speaker 3: but he said it and it was like, well, I
Speaker 3: didn't really notice it because you know, it's like as
Speaker 3: a comic, you hear a lot of things, but it
Speaker 3: didn't register to me.
Speaker 4: It's like, oh, this is going to be a huge deal.
Speaker 3: But my producer was like, this is going to be
Speaker 3: a huge like this is going to be crazy, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 4: And you know, we only did a.
Speaker 3: Couple of interviews afterwards, my producer who was working for
Speaker 3: Chris Hayes on MSNBC at the time as well. We
Speaker 3: did an interview with Chris and I did Terry Gross
Speaker 3: on MPR. Those were the only two interviews because once
Speaker 3: we released it with that word in there, it blew up,
Speaker 3: like it was like global news, Like they were parked
Speaker 3: in front of my house, you know, how do you
Speaker 3: feel about you know, they want to know how I
Speaker 3: felt about it.
Speaker 4: It just became news. The right was like why does
Speaker 4: he get to use it? You know, all the shit.
Speaker 3: It was crazy, but my he managed it, like God
Speaker 3: damn Champ. He did the two interviews and no one
Speaker 3: else got near us, and that was it. They were
Speaker 3: in my driveway and I didn't deal with them.
Speaker 2: Wow, the news people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, wow.
Speaker 1: When you when you look back at your we're about
Speaker 1: to close up unfortunately, but when you look back at
Speaker 1: your life story, what would you say was your Well,
Speaker 1: I think you covered it, but what was that one
Speaker 1: milestone where you were like, I don't know if I.
Speaker 2: Could go on.
Speaker 4: I think we covered it, but just it happened all
Speaker 4: the time.
Speaker 2: It happened all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because with comedy I saw my friends getting successful
Speaker 3: and I wasn't you know what am I doing? But
Speaker 3: it got to a certain point where you know, you
Speaker 3: don't really have a plan B, Like I never had
Speaker 3: a plan B.
Speaker 4: And it gets further and further away.
Speaker 3: You think you have a plan B, but what is it?
Speaker 3: What Am I going to go back to cocon at
Speaker 3: a restaurant? What am I going to teach? Am I
Speaker 3: going to go back to school?
Speaker 4: You know, the further way that shit gets and what
Speaker 4: am I qualified to do? Like you know, I used
Speaker 4: to do a joke about it.
Speaker 3: It's like you get to a certain point where things
Speaker 3: aren't working out but you know there's no plan being place.
Speaker 3: Then your brain sort of goes like, hey, well I
Speaker 3: don't have to do this because I could always oh shit,
Speaker 3: there used to be something.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: Well, sometimes when I get really stressed, I'll make a
Speaker 1: joke and I'm like, sometimes I just think about moving
Speaker 1: to a small town and working.
Speaker 2: At Walmart and sure like disappearing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like disappearing and working a regular job and
Speaker 1: living a regular life where I'm not competing against my
Speaker 1: invisible self, because sometimes I feel like I have, you know,
Speaker 1: these things that I'm aspiring to be. But when stress
Speaker 1: levels get too high, I'm like, I can totally work
Speaker 1: at Walmart. And then in my brain it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: how long do you think you can last? Like you know,
Speaker 1: like I don't know what that'd be my that's literally
Speaker 1: my plan B is like I moved to a small town.
Speaker 1: I live in a little house, and I like, you know,
Speaker 1: a register at a deli or something.
Speaker 4: You know, if you go can.
Speaker 3: Handle that, that's it's a nice place to go in
Speaker 3: your brain, if that makes you feel better, Like I,
Speaker 3: you know, I would.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just kept pressing along, you know, and I kept
Speaker 3: pushing and pushing, and you know, I could you know,
Speaker 3: I was still in the game in a way, you know,
Speaker 3: like I would do cone and I do TV, I
Speaker 3: do radio. Like, you know, there was always I'd get
Speaker 3: a deal here and there, so there was always something
Speaker 3: which isn't always great.
Speaker 4: That was you know, encouraging me to keep going.
Speaker 3: And you know I wasn't again selling tickets as a comic,
Speaker 3: but you know, I knew people who knew me, and
Speaker 3: I could you know, I would go.
Speaker 4: Do the job and I could get on stage and everything.
Speaker 3: But there were just like sometimes you get indulged or
Speaker 3: you get you keep getting little paychecks here and there,
Speaker 3: and you probably you might you should quit.
Speaker 4: There's I've seen you know, I've been.
Speaker 3: In this game a long time, right, so almost almost
Speaker 3: forty years. You know, people come and go, some people disappear.
Speaker 3: You don't know how people survive. You know, you have
Speaker 3: no idea what people are up to. You see comics,
Speaker 3: you know, you know, see him for ten years, You're like, well,
Speaker 3: you've been doing. Some guys get out altogether. Some guys
Speaker 3: go into writing, they go into radio, they go into
Speaker 3: you know, producing whatever it is, or they get out.
Speaker 3: But but there's something when you're the one in charge
Speaker 3: of deciding when you're done, you know, delusion could certainly
Speaker 3: feed into that, and you kind of have to be
Speaker 3: delusional to make it go with this game, you have
Speaker 3: to be. But and also, like I've grown to realize that,
Speaker 3: like there were people in the past where I'd seen
Speaker 3: them like, what's this guy thinking, this guy's never gonna
Speaker 3: do it, and they do it.
Speaker 4: They figure it out, they.
Speaker 3: Figure out something, so I don't really judge. And also delusion,
Speaker 3: being a delusional to a certain degree is necessary to
Speaker 3: do this. Yeah, but you do it innately because you
Speaker 3: want to do this. You don't plan on being delusional,
Speaker 3: but you have to.
Speaker 4: You are to be.
Speaker 1: Of course, I think any time you're pursuing your dreams,
Speaker 1: especially like you know, there's no resume to get to
Speaker 1: like I didn't work a million places to.
Speaker 2: Get to this point. I just had a vision.
Speaker 1: Or you have a vision and you're like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: kind of like what I was saying, I was, I
Speaker 1: had a vision and then just I take one step
Speaker 1: at a time.
Speaker 3: And I actually think that kind of works if you
Speaker 3: don't talk about your vision too much and you don't
Speaker 3: smoke too much weed. But but yeah, there's been definitely
Speaker 3: pivotal points.
Speaker 7: Why do you think if you talk about it too much,
Speaker 7: it's because you just you know, it's like if you like,
Speaker 7: there's some things I want to do, and I stick
Speaker 7: them in my brain, and you know, I don't sit
Speaker 7: there and meditate on them, but like, I know I
Speaker 7: want to do it.
Speaker 3: There's there's not there's a small menu of things I
Speaker 3: want to do. So I put in my brain that
Speaker 3: I want to do it, and then at some point,
Speaker 3: you know, the opportunity reveals itself and I do it.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if it's magic or what. But
Speaker 3: the thing about how it happened for me in that
Speaker 3: you know that the podcast happened and my timing was right,
Speaker 3: is that the one thing I knew is that a
Speaker 3: lot of opportunities came from the podcast, you know, book opportunities,
Speaker 3: acting opportunities. I did my own show and I have
Speaker 3: c stand up became a real business for me. I
Speaker 3: got following, but that all came out of the podcast.
Speaker 3: But the one thing I knew when I did that
Speaker 3: podcast was that, you know, I was ready to do whatever.
Speaker 3: You know, I'd been in the game, like that was
Speaker 3: in my forties, right. So the podcast starts two thousand
Speaker 3: and nine, sixty three, seventy three, eighty three, ninety three,
Speaker 3: two thousand and three, so I'm forty five man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so when you started Yeah, so look you.
Speaker 4: Know or was that it? Yeah, something like that, not older.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when I started the podcast, but I've been doing
Speaker 3: comedy since eighty eight.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I had chops.
Speaker 3: I had radio chops that had stand up chops, and
Speaker 3: I had some acting chops, and I you know, I
Speaker 3: definitely had put my you know, ten thousand hours in right,
Speaker 3: so by the time the other opportunities happened, you know,
Speaker 3: it was gravy man, like, yeah, I'll try that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't give a shit. Yeah, you know, even without money.
Speaker 3: It's like, here come the opportunities. When I was younger,
Speaker 3: I get opportunities. I wasn't ready, but I was so
Speaker 3: hungry for them. I'd take them anyways, and then they
Speaker 3: don't work out because it's hard to know when you're ready.
Speaker 3: It's one thing to be delusional and committed and persistent
Speaker 3: to doing something, but if you get an opportunity that
Speaker 3: you may not make yourself, you better be ready to
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 4: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like, because what I'm saying like, yeah, the podcast, I
Speaker 3: made that myself, acting and you know, doing stand up
Speaker 3: and movie options like if I get a deal, if
Speaker 3: someone goes, we want you to do this for our networker. Ready,
Speaker 3: Like back in the day, I'd be like, yeah, of
Speaker 3: course I wouldn't ready. But now, like I knew after
Speaker 3: the podcast after a few years, like I can do anything.
Speaker 4: I put the work in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can show up for that gig with full confidence,
Speaker 3: in a full, self actualized way.
Speaker 2: And did you ever this will be my last? Did
Speaker 2: you ever focus on your age too? Because when I was.
Speaker 1: Young, I would be like, by the time I'm twenty four,
Speaker 1: I want to be a millionaire. But I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's because I came from being poor, you know,
Speaker 1: where money was like always a issue, you know.
Speaker 4: I guess I did a little little bit, but I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't remember, like I always thought, like, well I
Speaker 4: used to.
Speaker 3: There's to be this idea that you know, as you
Speaker 3: get older, the heroes that you wanted to emulate or
Speaker 3: be like they, you know, the age goes up, you know,
Speaker 3: like at first, like I want to be like you know,
Speaker 3: Richard pry or whatever. Yeah, but then like you know,
Speaker 3: you pass a certain line of agent. It's like, well,
Speaker 3: Rodney Dangerfield didn't.
Speaker 4: Make it really till it was like sixty, like that's
Speaker 4: the new guy.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That was the thing I always try to remind
Speaker 1: myself of the founder of KFC. Did you hear his
Speaker 1: story about how he like he was like living in
Speaker 1: his car he was trying to sell his recipe off
Speaker 1: and he didn't make it till he was like it
Speaker 1: is sixties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 2: I get those, and I'm always like, yo, does he
Speaker 2: make it? So he was like, sixty, you got time?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know that helps you yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: But like it ultimately, whether you backloaded or not, it
Speaker 3: is a process, and you don't you don't really know
Speaker 3: how it's going to work out in this business. Like
Speaker 3: I had no anticipation. And by the time I or
Speaker 3: the podcast, I was pretty bleak, pretty depressed. I was
Speaker 3: looking at, you know, a lifetime of you know, being
Speaker 3: like a b headliner in a way, you know, or
Speaker 3: just kind of hammering it out, and you know, it's
Speaker 3: almost suicidal, really, and because I didn't know what else
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 1: But at least you were, but you were you were
Speaker 1: almost suicidal, but you did not cave in sobriety.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't drink.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's it.
Speaker 3: Like, well, if you work that first step, man, you
Speaker 3: know you do know, you know that if you understand
Speaker 3: what powerless means, you know, like if if the idea
Speaker 3: is like you were powerless over whatever, and your life
Speaker 3: has become unmanageable, you realize that what that means is
Speaker 3: that I have no ability to control my drinking or
Speaker 3: drug use. And that's I've proven that to myself again
Speaker 3: and again that I can't control it. So if you
Speaker 3: get that in your head deep enough, you know that
Speaker 3: taking a drug or taking a drink is only going
Speaker 3: to lead to more drugs and more drinks is not
Speaker 3: going to give you anything but that. Okay, So once
Speaker 3: you understand that, like because like as an attic person,
Speaker 3: it's like, if you're honest with yourself, you don't the
Speaker 3: idea is like I can drink regular.
Speaker 4: It's like, no, you can't. You never did. So you
Speaker 4: got to get into your mind that like, if I'm
Speaker 4: gonna drink, that's what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna be every day, and it's
Speaker 3: gonna be for real. Yeah, Like there's all this legal
Speaker 3: weed around. I used to love weed, but I know that,
Speaker 3: like if I start doing a gummy or smoking a
Speaker 3: little weed.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be every day. It'd be every day within
Speaker 4: two weeks. Wow, it's to the nature of the game.
Speaker 2: But the first step is to recognize that you're powerless.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's the heavy one.
Speaker 2: I think save that for myself.
Speaker 4: Well, you're well, the weird.
Speaker 3: Thing is powerlessness as a position. You realize that, if
Speaker 3: you really think about it, you're powerless over most things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been starting I had a tough year this year,
Speaker 2: and so I've been starting to realize that. Slowly.
Speaker 1: It took me like hit in my head. You know,
Speaker 1: you repeat the same actions, you just the same results,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know what, you gotta admit this
Speaker 1: one right here. This is you have lit hit insanity.
Speaker 1: And I think in that you realize that you're powerless.
Speaker 4: Well that's yeah, that's the equation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I just want to say it's a pleasure
Speaker 2: having you. Your meal was a ten out of a ten.
Speaker 1: Okay, and uh, the last couple of episodes, my guess
Speaker 1: we'll know. I've been like it will never happen again.
Speaker 1: I for sure will go home. I'm keeping the tahini sauce.
Speaker 2: Did you want it? Okay, sa the I won't even
Speaker 2: have that? I will? Are you sure I was gonna say?
Speaker 1: I'm definitely gonna get shout outs to the Japanese barbecue
Speaker 1: sauce and the tin sauce. Yeah yeah, let me just
Speaker 1: tell you, guys, that sauce rice the beyond burger.
Speaker 2: I think the beyond burger's texture and flavor than you thought.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, well, I've had Beyond burgers. I do have
Speaker 1: one question. How do you cook a beyond burger and
Speaker 1: know it's cooked?
Speaker 3: Brown it on both sides. I don't think there's anything
Speaker 3: in there like raw meat. I think it's all plant stuff. Anyways, Okay,
Speaker 3: we just cook it like a burger, but you don't
Speaker 3: you know, you know, you know, don't dry it out,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: I definitely one hundred percent will make this meal at
Speaker 1: home for me and my minion. But yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for taking time out of your schedule. How
Speaker 1: can fans keep up with you? It's oh, you know,
Speaker 1: you guys know how to keep up with Mark Merret
Speaker 1: Come on.
Speaker 3: Wtfpod dot com is the website for the podcast at
Speaker 3: Mark Maren on Instagram.
Speaker 2: And do you still have a Patreon and all that.
Speaker 4: I never had a Patreon, Oh, you know, because.
Speaker 2: You were before it ever. A lot of podcasts that
Speaker 2: I know are doing it and know.
Speaker 4: What it is. I'm not really that tech savvy. You know.
Speaker 3: I've got a TikTok too, but I'm not that. I
Speaker 3: have a guy that just puts stuff up there Instagram. Occasionally,
Speaker 3: if you follow me on Instagram, I'll do a live
Speaker 3: and they'll be long, and they usually happen the day
Speaker 3: that I have to record for the podcast the next day,
Speaker 3: every Sunday and third and Wednesday. You know, I've got
Speaker 3: to do the ads and the intros for the for
Speaker 3: the interview. And sometimes before I do that, I'll go
Speaker 3: on Instagram live for like hour an hour and a
Speaker 3: half and just walk.
Speaker 4: Through my life, talk to my cats, play guitar. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I did it.
Speaker 3: I started doing it during the pandemic, just to stay
Speaker 3: staying and stay connected to an audience.
Speaker 4: And I would do almost like a morning show.
Speaker 2: You went through a lot during the pandemic, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah I did. My girlfriend passed away and.
Speaker 1: And you again, you stayed strong, like sobriety if.
Speaker 4: I stay strong. I went through a lot of pain,
Speaker 4: but I did not. Yeah, yeah you didn't stay it's sober.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you stayed sober.
Speaker 1: The only reason why I say that is because typically
Speaker 1: from the little bit that I know about addiction is
Speaker 1: like when those things happen, you find those ways to cope.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you'll But what.
Speaker 3: You know when you get enough sobriety is that you
Speaker 3: adding drugs or drink that this ain't gonna help nothing,
Speaker 3: and you know it could just lead to more drugs
Speaker 3: and drink, because you know, coping is one thing, but
Speaker 3: you know you're built to cope no matter what. You
Speaker 3: just have to feel the feelings, like because drugs and
Speaker 3: drink is not really coping. Self medicating is not really coping,
Speaker 3: especially if you have a problem, because then that becomes
Speaker 3: the problem.
Speaker 4: The thing is is like you know, you have the
Speaker 4: feelings and you know eventually it'll get better, you know.
Speaker 1: I was had a conversation with my little brother the
Speaker 1: other day and he said something that I felt was
Speaker 1: so remarkable. On a group text with our family. He
Speaker 1: said something like he was depressed, and I'm like, I've
Speaker 1: never heard my brother use this term. So I reached
Speaker 1: out to him, like, what's going on He's like, don't
Speaker 1: worry about it.
Speaker 2: I was like, why he.
Speaker 1: Goes depression is like a cold. He's like, eventually, you know,
Speaker 1: in a couple of days, it's going to ease up.
Speaker 2: You just go through it.
Speaker 1: And I never thought of it like that, but just
Speaker 1: the thought of thinking of, Okay, I'm in this sad state.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a moment in time and then
Speaker 1: I'm going to come through it, and you know, shout
Speaker 1: out to my little brother. But I thought that was
Speaker 1: one of the most unique ways of dealing with pain.
Speaker 1: It's just like in a couple of days, in a week,
Speaker 1: I'll be fine.
Speaker 2: It's a cold.
Speaker 3: Well that's the Yeah, Like that's a there's a little
Speaker 3: saying that called feelings aren't facts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, like you know eventually though, yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 4: be careful with the depression. If you got it, you know,
Speaker 4: if you really got it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Sadness is sadness.
Speaker 2: This is sadness. But thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed our meal, and thanks for sharing your story
Speaker 1: and being very transparent with me.
Speaker 4: You're welcome, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, all right, peace out guys for more
Speaker 2: eating while broke from iHeart radio and the Black Effect.
Speaker 1: Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.