Episode 1674 - Tim Heidecker

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All right, okay.

Yeah, let's do it.

Lock the gate!

All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fuck, Nicks?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron.

This is my podcast.

Welcome to it.

How are you doing?

The first episode of WTF

was posted 16 years ago today.

16 years ago today.

16

years.

And I remember at the beginning of this show, when we were doing it in the old garage, when I'd moved it to

Island Park, and it was still just a garage, there was just clutter in there and a table and my MacBook and these big clunky microphones.

I have measured my life

through Sure SM7 and SM58 microphones.

That is really the truth.

You know, T.S.

Eliot may have done it with coffee spoons, but for me, it's been

SM7s,

SM58s, on stage and in my garage.

But there at the beginning, it was totally new.

I remember at the beginning, where I thought ads would diminish what we were doing.

I don't really ever call myself punk rock, and I don't see myself as punk rock, but I do remember it was a big adjustment for me to actually

start doing ads on the show.

That

it was never,

I guess, my intention to make money.

I just wanted to do this thing that not many people were doing, and it was all new.

And I thought ads would clutter it up.

And I made an exception for just coffee and I made an exception for Adam and Eve because they seemed like scrappy companies.

But obviously over time, it became clear that not unlike other broadcasts that, you know, ads were going to generate revenue.

We tried a lot of different ways to generate revenue.

But I do remember not only was it a big concession for me personally, on some level to do ads, but also that I did not want to be seen as an interviewer.

I wanted to make sure people knew I was a comic.

And it was my, the first few years of this show were fraught with me realizing that the show's kind of impact was about me having conversations with people.

And it was just, I just was like, but I'm a comic.

And that's really where the monologues came from.

I knew they didn't have to be funny.

But at the beginning, I was going to try to be funny every time.

But then I realized it's a much broader kind of outlet or medium for me to explore who I am.

I have measured my life

through this microphone and through the microphones I use on stage in a very real way.

It's all there.

Some days I think I should check back in with it.

I mean, when I think about those early episodes, when I think that we have done however many we have done, 1,600, oh my God, where are we at now?

1,600 and what?

What is it?

Episode 1,673 last week.

So this is 1674.

And to look at the fucking guest list is, I can't believe it.

Because

my memories are just relative to those moments.

And just like anybody else, 16 years ago.

And to think that I've gone through, you know, three cats have passed.

One was taken away by an ex.

One was taken away by coyotes.

I had to put down a stray cat that was sick.

Another feral cat died under my old house.

Another one was hit by a car.

Another feral was hit by a car out in front of the house.

The deaf black cat, who many of you remember from the old days,

he was taken away by coyotes.

You know, I've gone through several different relationships.

I've gone through people passing.

I've gone through guests passing.

I've gone through my own turmoil.

professionally and personally.

And it's crazy.

It's crazy.

When I look at this.

It's in alphabetical order on the, on the, uh, on the site under WTF people.

I mean, it's fucking nuts.

I got to be honest with you, some of these people I don't, I don't remember talking to, and that's sort of sad because Brendan's the guy, Brendan McDonald, he, he remembers a lot of them because he spends a lot more time with them.

I listen to the only time I hear these episodes is when I'm doing them.

And it's crazy.

I mean, mean, I'm just looking at just strange ones.

I mean,

I'm looking at this list.

I can't even reel off names because there are just so many.

I'm looking at Alan Alda.

Oh, yeah.

Alan Ruck, Alan Bursky, Albert Brooks,

The Daniels, Danny Boyle.

God.

What?

Jed Mayhew from

the Zigzags.

Jeff Baina, rest in peace, Jeff Bridges, Mark Rebo, the guitar player, Margot Price, who I still kind of follow on Instagram.

Oh, Rosie Perez,

Roy Wood Jr., Sally Kellerman, rest in peace.

Sally Struthers, wow, Sam Elliott.

Well, that didn't go well.

Mary Mack, what's Mary Mack up to?

Oh my God.

Matt McCarthy.

I can't believe this.

Jim Short, rest in peace.

Oh boy.

Jimmy Walker, crazy.

I just, Michael Chiklis, Michael Douglas.

I cannot believe this list of people, people.

I cannot.

Drew Carey, Duff,

Dylan Moran.

Ed Krasnick.

I just saw him in the Sopranos.

I wonder what he's up to.

I can't.

It's all, it hasn't flown by, but it is kind of crazy.

You know, my commitment to this thing

with such an urgency, with such a focus,

that I think a lot of what I have is it must be some sort of, you know, PTSD.

Because that's 673, 74 episodes, every one of which I experienced some sort of mild to deep panic going into them.

And I was fully engaged in all of them.

I've never been able to autopilot.

And I have to assume that that's not trauma, but it is a lot of energy and a lot of output.

And I remember when we moved out of the old house and moved into this place, just the panic of getting the sound right in this place.

And now people come over and they're like, is this where Obama was?

I have to say no, but that is the chair he sat in.

And sometimes I'll take people upstairs into the office in my house, which is really where all of the

original artifacts and books and everything that cluttered the old garage reside now.

And I have to be honest with you, that room, which I don't spend enough time in,

is a magic room in my house.

There's a piece there that I don't know if it's because of the house or because of the history or if I'm going to get mystical because of whatever may have happened in that room.

But I've grown to believe that it's probably because everything that really is the history of that show, the original bookshelves, the books, the tchotchkes, the bits and pieces of ephemera that were cluttering in a fairly organized way, the old garage are all up there.

And I guess when I want to feel

the weight and depth

and kind of

beauty of the history of this show, it's up there now.

And sometimes I sit in there and

it's almost meditative.

It's almost like a kind of

peace comes over me of something

that was important to me and very deep to me, but also very deep to everybody else who listened to it.

It's kind of crazy because time is garbage now and attention is garbage now.

And our sense of time has been completely fractured by the gift of technology.

that we hold in our hands or sit in front of all day.

I really think it's kind of fucked with it.

But I do find that in these moments of quiet, that

time is, the past is, is hard to reckon with because all you have, you know, are bits and pieces of

memories and moments that get rearranged and reinterpreted and embellished in your mind.

But again, I do know that if need be, if I need to check in with me,

I can go back 16 years and start there and just listen to the life I've measured through

Shure SM7 microphones here in front of these sound waves

and across from 1670 some odd people

over the period of 16 years.

It's all there.

It's all in sequence.

Not in my mind, but in the world.

Yeah,

heavy business.

Today, Tim Heidecker is on the show.

He's been on a couple times, once by himself, once with Eric Werheim.

And he's softened.

I found him very kind of intimidating in some weird way because I never knew whether or not he was fucking with me.

But he's sort of settled into himself.

He's a nicer guy.

He has a weekly streaming show called Office Hours, as well as the On Cinema show he does with Greg Turkington.

My next show at Largo with the band is on Wednesday, September 10th.

Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for tickets.

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Think about all the people you turn to for advice or to work through some problems.

Your hairdresser, someone working on your house, a cab driver, people across from me on the microphone.

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So, Tim Heidecker is here.

You can go to official officehours.com to check out all the ways to watch and listen to Office Hours Live and go to Timheideker.com for links to everything else he does.

He's an interesting guy.

And as I said before, he's a nicer guy.

This is me talking to Tim Heidegger.

You're going to knock down all the water.

I don't know.

I'm very claustrophobic.

Are you honest with you?

Well, it's all movable.

You're really not that locked in.

I'm okay.

If you needed to scream running out of here,

you could knock all the water.

Now, you know what I'm nervous about is

my ice and my coffee.

that's going to be a Brendan problem.

And, you know, he'll probably be annoyed by it.

If this is going to be the last one, I'd hate it to be so much.

Well, between us, not the very last one, but maybe between us.

Really?

Well, I mean, in terms of you being on here?

Well, yes, it'll be my last of this.

It's the third time, probably.

Yeah, once with Eric.

Ronzi, you remember Eric.

Here we go.

I forgot to bring my...

Your shield?

Yeah.

You remember Eric.

Yeah, once with him and then once for that odd movie that you were in.

Yeah.

Do you remember that one?

Do I remember the comedy?

Yeah.

What was it called again?

The comedy.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

It was a disturbing movie.

Yeah.

It was good.

A lot of good ones are.

Yeah.

Yeah, I haven't watched it in a while, but I'm this.

Are you able to watch yourself?

I don't get as much.

I don't really enjoy it when I'm not in control of it.

Oh, in terms of watching yourself?

Yeah.

Like, if it's our stuff, it's fun.

Yeah.

Because you guys know what you're going for.

Yeah.

With other people, they just use you how they will.

Yeah.

Cut out the good moments.

Yeah.

And I mean, you maybe feel this way.

You get older and you start seeing yourself as an older person.

And you see that you see it.

But you're looking good.

I mean, do you have that?

That's what I was fishing for.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, what?

You're not that old.

I mean, I'm fucking old.

I'm 27.

Oh, so you are getting older.

I'm going to be 50 in February.

Yeah.

It's kind of weird to me.

You lost weight, you leaned up, you look healthy.

Thank you.

I mean, I'm going to be 62.

And even

if I'm lean and I'm healthy, there's some things you can't stop.

Yes.

You're not really there yet.

Like, I can see you without teeth.

That's a definite possibility.

My gums are not great.

I did see a look at a picture of me with you from when I was in here

12 years ago.

It was hard, right?

We both looked at it.

Well, I look very noticeably puffier.

Pudgy.

Were you drunky?

No, I wasn't drunky.

Just eating.

Yeah.

And

I lost weight.

It's coming back.

I don't know what to do.

The weight's coming back?

Oh, yeah.

Well, there's a lot of options for celebrities like you.

You know what, Mark?

When I got, I lost weight.

Yeah.

And that's all anyone say.

Yeah.

And it just, I'm here to say

I wasn't using any of that stuff.

I wouldn't have.

But you weren't that heavy to where you would need to.

I feel like people who do that are heavy, heavy.

I guess.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I never got the credit for doing the hard work.

Oh, we'll give it to you now.

Yeah, thank you.

Let's celebrate Tim's work

on

doing his weight loss organically.

Yeah.

Why is it coming back?

You drifting?

You're not working out?

Are you eating shitty?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I got to change something.

I think I got

you plateau, don't you?

Is that the thing?

You plateau?

And then I did give up on the thing a little bit.

I guess you plateau.

I don't know.

I stopped doing the shot.

I mean, not the shot.

What do you say?

Yeah.

If I just out of the

shot.

I was going to joke that I was going to be able to do that.

Oh, yeah.

No.

But it's all a lie.

You've been shooting up

since it first came out.

Yeah, I've been using needles, but noticed.

Just ask straight heroin.

Straight heroin.

So a couple things I'm curious about, I guess.

What are you going to do on this side?

I guess.

If I have to be.

By the way, let me say, yesterday you wrote me to ask to come in, and

I don't believe in spiritual stuff, but that morning I was watching, my friend made a documentary about Gallagher.

Oh, God.

And so I was watching this documentary.

Yeah, you are.

I hope you use the footage.

He used the audio.

Yeah, that's all there is.

Yeah.

I hope

I'm sure they're going through the proper channels.

I don't know.

I haven't heard from them.

It's all right.

We just went to the bottom.

It's great documentary.

I mean, yeah.

But, anyways, it was.

Does it show him in a good light?

It's a full picture.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's the whole story.

And so some of it is, yes.

I tried to do that, but it just went sideways.

I know right away.

Went sideways immediately.

Who doesn't want to play state fairs?

It was great.

And the best line maybe in podcast history is.

Gallagher.

Yeah, not who recently.

What is it?

Come on.

Come on, Gallagher.

Come on, Gallagher.

Now,

now I know what you're trying to do.

Yeah, it's a legendary moment.

Sorry to interrupt.

No, it's okay, so somewhat curious.

Are you

going to start building a new set?

I saw an advantage.

Workshopping moments.

Oh, my God.

I really stepped in it.

I just said, well, this is dumb, but I,

yeah, I was going to try to do some new things at the Elysian, and they said, what do you want to call it?

And I just said, I don't know, like, I'm working it out.

That's kind of a fake expression.

That's okay, yeah.

But that's

Berbiglia's podcast.

Oh, it's called Working It Out.

Yeah, I called my last tour all in, and and that's Chris Hayes' show.

Oh, that's right.

So you can't copyright these things.

No, no.

I'm having them change it to Working On It.

Yeah, which I'm sure is somebody else's podcast.

Working on it.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

But what are you going to do?

I don't know.

I've been going out and doing things.

I go out and I have some jokes.

I have some PowerPoint presentation kind of thing.

Do you PowerPoint?

Some keynote-you, yeah, I guess I use keynote, but it's PowerPoint.

But do you actually do keynotes?

Yeah.

You do?

Yeah.

Like you're asked to, would you come speak?

Oh, no, not like that.

No, no.

I just use the tool as like to show to like kind of walk through some things.

In a funny way.

In a funny way.

Yeah.

But what I've been doing, one of the things I do is I collect YouTube comments.

Yeah.

And I find, I dig, go down deep into the bowels of

your show.

Well, no, not just,

like, you know, if you find like a...

Simon and Garfunkel video.

Right.

And just the conversations that happen in the bowels of those comments are fascinating.

Why?

Because

they become personal.

People get argumentative

about the nature of I am a rock.

Yeah, exactly.

What is it really about?

What was the one that I loved, which was

an interview with Paul Simon?

Do you talk to Paul Simon?

No, I never did.

He was talking to Howard Stern, and they had clipped out one of the videos, and it was like

why they broke up.

And it's a great story if you don't know it.

It's just like a very

hard time for him.

And there's a lot of dimensions to it.

And someone underneath said, LOL, because no one cared anymore.

Well, that's not

like that's just.

But those are just.

I always wonder.

Like, I still can't really tell the difference between what a bot is and what a bot means.

Right.

You know,

does a bot just turn out a variety of AI-generated yukucks?

Right.

Yeah, I don't know what the

game is.

Like what the

benefits are.

But just general faceless, you know, kind of trolling.

I always try to picture what kind of fuck would you sit there and decide to be like, I'm going to do this.

Yeah.

I'm going to say this.

Well, I want to gather, I want to get them together in a convention and just check in with them.

Sure.

Are you guys doing all right?

Let them do it out loud.

Yeah.

You know, say something and then just pick on somebody.

Yeah.

You, random guy, number seven.

Yeah.

Or like if I announced a show, somebody would put like the snore emoji.

All right, well, what?

What's the problem?

But it's such a

kind of expression of

what.

Like, I still don't know.

I feel like I understand people to some degree.

Yeah.

And that, you know, I act in pretty good faith.

And I do, some part of me still believes that people are inherently decent, but that, I don't know that that's true anymore.

Yeah.

But I really don't know how somebody surrenders their identity completely for

a hateful

position.

Yeah.

And it happens to people

that you know, kind of.

Sure.

And it's just like these people are just out there just spewing garbage that's hurtful constantly.

And I also love the ignorance, I don't get it.

I don't understand this.

Oh, yeah.

I don't know.

Who are you?

Yeah, no one cares.

Yeah, I like that one.

No one.

I'm speaking for everybody.

For everybody, yeah.

Yeah, no one cares.

But why does it bother us?

Does it bother you?

Well, I sound bitter if I say it bothers me.

Well, I think you just sound sensitive.

Well, I am sensitive, and I think it's interesting, like you say, it's interesting to look at the human condition.

Well, it's just shitty that we've had to adapt.

We've had to build this callus.

Because if you're going to engage with that shit, and whether you're doing it compulsively or not, if you're just going to browse through the comments,

someone's going to say something hurtful.

It does hurt for a second.

And then you just have to be like, well, that's just part of life.

I'm not going to respond.

But it's a new part of life.

I feel like we're not trained or conditioned for it because you and I, or everybody I know in the arts, because a lot of people are very disciplined about not caring or not even looking at that stuff.

But

this is kind of a version of what we grew up wanting to do.

Yeah.

Is to entertain or to amuse and to perform for people.

And now there's a way, a mechanism to see what people think of you.

Yeah.

And we want to see, it's fun to see that.

Yeah, but you got to sort it out.

Yes.

And then once you become labeled as something,

an enemy of certain people,

then it's a whole other game.

Of course.

And I've become an enemy for a long time.

I've been an enemy for a lot of people for a long time.

When did it shift, though?

Like, was there, because it feels like Tim and Eric was a specific thing for a specific audience, and whatever pushback you got for whatever reason had to be pretty ridiculous.

Sure, yeah.

I mean, it was ignored, or it was, you know, back in those days, the

adult swim audience definitely had what you would then recognize as sort of a 4chan-y kind of

word for it.

Yeah,

well, it was toxic.

But it was just personal-based, it was politically based.

Yeah, I mean, before Pepe the Frog?

Yeah, a little, yes.

Before Pepe the Frog.

I remember

seeing the initial reactions to our first show, and it was full of just these F-words, these guys,

I hope they die of AIDS.

Really?

Yeah, like right away.

So that was the language used

around us

from the beginning.

So that was gamer nerd anger.

Yeah, I guess so.

And I imagine

a lot of your fans lived in that world.

I guess so, yeah.

And we also made,

I think the other thing was I think we did, eventually those people also became fans of ours

or sort of the nihilistic

troll type folks.

But nihilism, they probably liked you.

That's what I mean.

Yeah, they did.

And I felt that way.

There's times where I feel that way too, you know.

But

when I became, I guess when I became kind of more politically outspoken, I think those people saw me as like a betrayal of

but also that was their new game.

You know, they were radicalized.

I heard you say that.

The gamification of this stuff

is very real.

Yeah, right.

They were kind of radicalized by that guy with the Greek-sounding name.

Mayo?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's it?

Mayo.

Milo.

Milo.

Yeah, by him and Bannon.

And then they just began to approach political speak as a troll game.

Yes, and I saw it coming a little bit.

And then that summer of 2016.

Was that post-Tim and Eric?

Well, 2016 would have been a little post-Tim and Eric.

But yeah, I think,

I mean, Eric and I have always kind of done stuff,

but

we were past our prime a little bit in 2016.

How's he doing?

He's good.

Yeah.

He's like a food guy.

Well, now he's like a plant guy.

Oh, he's a plant

and and food and everything.

But at first, I didn't understand.

You're doing a business.

Come on, you're doing a business.

Yeah, yeah.

What is this now?

But he's an artist.

He really is.

And it's like when you see what he's actually doing with it.

With plants?

With plants.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

I mean, they're just like, you know,

what would you call it?

Landscape design

thing.

Really?

So he's out there doing that

for people?

In a way you could not believe.

Really?

What I can understand.

But we're still, yeah, like, like,

he gets hired to do.

I think he's building a business to

do landscaping, to do

plant design,

whatever it's called.

As far as I can tell.

Nick Krollsreuy works with plants.

There you go.

But that's specifically for art, it seems.

Yeah.

No, you know,

it seems,

again, I thought, like, okay, what is this?

And then I could see, I went over to see what he's doing, and I'm like, again, he's just, he's got an artist's eye.

yeah and he's i think um

antsy yeah so he moves from one thing to another a little bit and this is a thing that he's doing and it's uh i'm impressed by it it's innocuous and organic you know no one's going to be like you hack yeah exactly nice work with the bushes yeah and he he always like knows what he's talking about too so he's talking telling me about these australian

elms that he's got you know and it's just like wow you're really passionate about it and i have to respect that but when can we meet for lunch to talk about a movie you know you know where people are throwing up and there's a lot of food and stuff.

So

we still have the

flame to do that.

What would you do if you did a new Tim Meneric movie?

Oh, well, we have a couple of ideas.

Yeah.

But

probably something in the

horror-y.

Seems like horror is the new place for real artists to work.

They get funded, you know,

kind of like go in the back door.

I mean, I think like David Lynch kind of played in that too, yeah, because you're like, well, this is actually a horror mystery, but I'm also going to make it, I'm just going to play around, do whatever you want if you hit certain beats that they think they can sell to that audience.

And that happens all the time.

All these great young directors are doing horror because they have total freedom.

And we did a show 10 years ago now called Bedtime Stories, which was like

horror movies in short form.

So I think that would be what we would do.

That's exciting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, okay, so let's talk about this.

You know, because I have been embarking on a bit of music.

Yes.

And I do okay with it.

Yeah.

But you seem, huh?

You got guitars and amps.

Well, no, but it took me a lot to play out.

And to yeah, you know, I finally found a group of musicians that have time to rehearse.

Yeah.

So I'm getting a little more confidence with that.

Yeah.

But I would never think about touring or

you're doing it very earnestly.

It's a hard shift to make for a funny guy.

Yeah, it is.

It's an embarrassing.

Has it been embarrassing?

Well, sometimes it is, but I've been doing it for a while, and

I don't know.

I like writing songs.

I like writing music.

How do you do it?

I sit at the piano or the

stand at the guitar.

Yeah.

And you do melodies.

I do it all.

I don't know.

Sometimes it'll start with a lyric or a word or a phrase or a subject matter.

Yeah.

And then bang it out.

I think I'm pretty good at that part of it.

Was it hard to be earnest about songs?

Like get up there and be like Tim Heidecker and like, here's a great song I wrote.

Yeah, a little bit.

I think it started because I have

you know I got a

I got married and got have a kid.

I have two kids now.

And I think I got to an age that I felt like I could talk about stuff that isn't ironic.

Yeah.

For to see how that goes.

You are a

bona fide

member of the snark generation.

I know.

I know.

But we've talked about this.

I think it's interesting to see what you are outside of that, right?

Outside of all of it.

Yeah.

That's why I've got the Krishna Merte book on my port.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm trying to.

Yeah.

And still be like, I don't, I think there's, I can be funny in my music and I'm funny in my music.

It's not novelty music.

But not novelty, but not coming from a place of a character.

Right.

Which is a different thing.

Yeah.

But I mean, Randy has done it.

Randy Newman, of course,

he's a one-namer, right?

Yeah, sure.

I'll do it.

We're playing a cover of his.

Guilty.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I just love it.

I love music.

And I found this, like you're talking about having a band.

I have a band that I just get along with so good.

How often do you rehearse?

Well, we just, they're so good.

You just get together the day before a gig.

Yeah, see, see, I can't do that because I want to learn how to play in a real way with other people.

Right.

And learn how to kind of be in

time with everything.

You know, because

I tend to choke both as a guitar player and as a singer a bit.

And then, like, I don't know if I'm really.

I think the thing that, I hear you.

I think the thing that changed for me was we did the tour.

Yeah, right.

And the tour has now locked it in that,

the dynamics of that and the muscle memory of playing to the point where, yeah,

you could turn it off and on.

How many dates did you do?

Well,

we did like 30 dates the first summer.

Yeah.

And then 30 dates the second summer.

Yeah.

And I did it with my stand-up character, you know.

Yeah.

I did the first half of the show is my leather jacket guy.

That guy.

Making fun of all these stand-up comedians out there.

Yeah, I do that.

Not you, but other people.

Seems like I do that for real now.

And then the second half of the show is the band.

Yeah.

People liked it?

Yes, I think so.

I think they did.

I could, you know, but certain people don't.

You know, and certain people don't think that's that's not what they want from me.

Yeah.

How do you deal with that?

You know, you want everything.

Yeah.

So this is all of me.

This is still me.

Are you interviewing me?

I mean, do you feel like you're talking to yourself?

Is that what you're saying?

Well, no, because.

I understand that framing, but I mean, I had to understand that framing when, you know, I started doing a podcast.

Right.

Like, I had to reassert myself.

Like, I do comedy, I'm a comedian.

Yeah, but the podcast enabled me to speak in a way freely that wasn't hinge of funny necessarily.

So that was freeing.

And I, I don't, like, the way I do the music is I'll do a show where we'll play a couple songs, I'll bring a comic on, do a couple more songs, bring a comic on, do a couple more, and then I'll do a set and close out.

So we're doing, you know, seven songs, covers, with the comedy performances in between.

Yes.

So it's not, you know,

I still don't have have confidence to say like, you know, I'm just going to do a music show.

Right.

Well, I've worked out a place where I can be funny within the music set.

I can talk and do bits.

And you do intersong, in-between song banter?

I do the best.

It doesn't get better than my intersong banter.

Yeah.

I have a little piano set where I play some funnier songs.

Yeah.

And make a couple, I have a couple of musical style routines, whatever.

I mean, it sounds sounds so dumb to talk about it, Mark, but

I use words like routines.

Bits.

But bits, little sketches, little skits.

Yeah.

And

every time we do it, we feel great leaving the stage.

We get, you know, we have fun.

I do these, I see these songs of mine that are all about drinking piss.

This record called The Yellow.

That's a relatable thing.

Yeah, I mean, nowadays, right?

Maybe it's supposed to be good for you or something.

It's a whole album about it.

Yeah.

It's called The Yellow.

You'd love it because

it's done in the style of like, you know, Leonard Skynyrd or something.

Oh, yeah.

And it's very well done.

Yeah.

Like the music is very purely done very well.

I'm going to do an ACDC song.

Of course I am.

Now

you can get up there and you can do the vocals.

Yeah, but I do them like me.

Speaking of ACDC, Greg Turkington, who's, you know, now my

most prolific collaborator these days because I've just done so much of on cinema with him.

Also known as Neil Hamburger, does an ACDC thing when he sings, when he does karaoke.

That's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Oh, yeah.

Seen because he gets real close to the mic and he sings like Brian Johnson, but very quietly.

Yo, fuck me up.

I think that's...

Yeah, but I think that's how they do it.

Even Bon Scott, they're not belting.

Right.

You got to get up in here.

Right.

And it's easier to do it when you like Chris Cornell.

Chris Cornell, like that mic was barely, it was cranked because he was singing so softly.

Right.

And you feel like he's belting it.

That's the key.

Yeah.

How do you feel about your voice generally?

I'm self-conscious about it.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

The vulnerability of singing and playing is just, it's fucking overwhelming.

And I did a Taylor Swift cover the other night.

I saw.

I saw that.

It was great.

The special was great, by the way.

Oh, thank you very much.

Well, yeah, but that was funny because we did that.

We didn't time it out right.

We did the Taylor Swift cover at Largo.

And now you've got the engagement.

I know.

I was kind of excited about it.

You know,

John C.

Riley, Fred Armison, and I did a show a few years ago called Moonbase 8, and our guest star in the first episode was Travis Kelsey.

Yeah.

Before anyone, before he was a household name.

I just saw the news this morning.

I was surprised.

I was like, oh, that's good.

They seem good together.

Yeah.

That's a nice.

The country needs it.

We're feeling.

Yeah.

But after I did the Taylor Swift song, and then I had to do my comedy set, and it made me cry.

And then I'm like, all right.

But I made the transition.

You know why?

Because I'm a pro.

You're a master.

I'm a fucking pro.

You're one of the masters.

I just locked into the bits and fucking did it.

I would love to, I think if I, I did cry once on stage during the music.

It's so vulnerable to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just feel like, and I, and I think that,

I think that doing the music and

sort of moving through that fear, it's going to help my stand-up in a way.

Cause I'm just tired of the patter.

I'm tired of, like, I wrote my notebook.

I just wrote limit swagger

and your stand-up, just in general, in general, yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, there is something about like

when wondering what I'm so clear about why I'm doing it for myself, yeah, but I don't know, I don't know how close I am to understanding what I'm doing, what if I'm doing it for the right reasons for my audience,

yeah,

that's the trick, isn't it?

Yeah, but how much of that lives in our head anyways?

And, you know, like, and in the comments, so I don't know.

Like, I'd worry about that too.

Like, oh, let's indulge Mark with his little music dream.

And certainly growing up, seeing comics that do music, I'm like, oh, fuck.

What is he doing?

You know,

it didn't go well for Kennison.

Right.

You know, he was pretty serious about it.

Any comic that is music seriously.

I know.

It's very hard to watch,

to frame it correctly, even if they're amazing.

Right.

You know?

Yeah.

And it's a shame because I think we all come from like growing up wanting to just do stuff and not thinking about the genre and how it's going to be classified at Blockbuster Video or whatever.

I guess, but like when Eddie Murphy did My Girl Wants to Park.

Oh, that's terrible.

I think.

I'll agree with that.

Yeah.

But

it all comes down to if you're not doing it to sell records

and you're doing it earnestly to express yourself.

Yeah.

Then it's legit.

I think that's where I'm coming from is I have things I want to say that don't belong in my comedy.

Yeah, I haven't figured out how to write a song yet.

Yeah.

I think I've probably written some, but I have to find them.

That makes sense?

Yeah, I mean, either

John Lennon says, like, keep it short and make it rhyme.

Did he?

Yeah, I think so.

But he also has all those chords.

You have the Beatles chords.

Yeah, I don't.

I'm still strictly a 145.

No, those are good, too.

With an occasional...

Those are the catchy ones.

With an occasional two.

Two minor.

Yeah, two minor.

Right, exactly.

To make it pop.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just to

special the Easter.

You wearing all the Beatles cords?

I don't know.

No, I'm also a 1-4-5-2

guy.

Yeah.

6.

Yeah, sure.

Throw 6 in there.

What the fuck?

Why not?

So you made a record about P, though?

Yes, that's the Yellow River Boys.

Yeah.

And that goes back 10 years.

But,

you know, if you don't want the heavy stuff.

All right, so now.

Switching gears.

All right, so the listen to me acting like a real interviewer.

The film podcast, what do you do on there?

The film podcast

is

Greg Turkington and I, and it is a 10-year-long soap opera that is the patina of,

or the sort of stage in which we perform on, is this movie review show.

But it's really a psychodrama about

our two characters.

Okay.

Mark, it's the greatest thing ever.

Okay.

I mean, I'm not kidding you.

Based on like Sisko and Ebert or something?

Well, that's the format that we play in.

Yeah.

But it is these two lunatics.

Right.

They hate each other.

Yeah.

And they're miserable and they're failures.

And

that's what's going on.

That's the subtext of this.

And you do that over at the house?

No, we do.

We go down to Tom's place.

We go to a studio.

Over at Forever Dog?

Well, no, no,

this is not a

per-TV show.

It's a production.

It's

It's a LOBA.

It's on television?

It's on our own network,

the High Network, which people pay for.

Yeah.

And supports.

How many shows you got on there?

We have 200 episodes or so of

15 seasons.

Of that.

What's some other shows on there?

High network, Tyler.

Oh, that's it?

H-E-I.

Well, that's it.

I mean, that's.

You're not producing other shows?

No.

You're not a,

what do you call it?

An impresario?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Empresario.

Entrepreneur, mogul.

We'd like to.

I mean, the show's been running for a long time.

And

it's brilliant.

It's,

you know, we have

15,000 or 20,000 people that subscribe to, that pay to watch the show,

which funds the season, and we do an Oscar special every year.

We made a movie called Mr.

America

that

was in the movie theaters.

You know, it's a cult thing, but I swear, Mark, if you got into it,

I would love it.

I'll check it out.

Because it goes to the darkest places.

How much does it cost to?

I'll get you a,

give me a break.

I'll get you in.

I'll get you in the back door.

Yeah, yeah, I can just jump onto high TV.

Performers don't pay for things.

It's wild, though, because like you, like out of all the people really that I talked to,

the things that you've done have always been a cult audience.

Sure, yeah.

In terms of like, but you know, Tim and Eric had a huge impact on a lot of people, a lot of creative people.

It created a tone that I was pretty fascinated with.

You know, I think that without you, there's, you know, Eric Andre might not know what he's doing.

Uh-huh.

Without you and Tom Green.

Yeah.

But

the culture.

Jackass.

Yeah, jackass.

I mean, no, I'm saying without you.

With a jackass.

Oh, sure.

Jackass.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

Boy, that first jackass movie.

Holy shit.

Terrific.

Fuck.

Like, I've got to watch that every few years.

You can't watch it more than that, or it's not going to be funny.

Right.

Yeah, right.

You got to savor it.

But what are you saying?

Well, I'm saying that, like, you know, when

there's this other idea that's happened,

and I think this will get us into some of the other stuff I want to talk about, was that

this idea that your success is hinged on likes and your

relevance.

Yeah, your following,

you know, that it's all about

the clicks and the Benjamins.

Yeah.

And, you know, I've never been a greedy fuck or,

you know, gunning for the money.

I maybe would have done it differently, but I think at some point I realized there's no other way I can do it.

Yeah.

So for me to, you know, assess that as being the way show business works, even on the level of independent show business, that it really becomes like how many followers, like how many people are subscribed, all this other shit.

That, you know, quality or in integrity of the thing or even creativity is, is second or third or fourth in the concern.

But I guess where I was going at the beginning of this is that when you're always sort of, you have to realize like, you know, I have this audience.

You know, they're my audience.

Yeah.

You know, I don't want to push them away most days.

Yeah.

But I do push the limit.

But, you know, why can't I be happy with that?

And I think some part of the answer, given that what you and I do sometimes, is that it feels insulated.

You know, like if you want to do work that has a politically, you know, satirical

target and intention, if it's just to make your audience laugh, who gives a shit?

Yeah, yeah.

And I find that frustrating sometimes.

Well, yeah,

in the case of on cinema, I think it is,

it's a very specific kind of dry comedy that takes quite a bit of maybe investment.

But I say that and I sound like it sounds like bullshit because everything requires a bit of investment.

If you're going to start watching mad men,

you're going to not maybe, you're going to try to not understand, you don't know who everything is, what everything is about.

So

for whatever reason,

our stuff appeals to not as many people.

But they stay with us for years.

But

I'm not trying to alienate anybody.

Right, no, no, no, it's in our thing.

Right, but I'm talking about political stuff.

Yes.

Well,

I mean, I certainly am political,

but not on cinema.

So if you're talking outside of on cinema.

I'm just talking in the general sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That you're still playing to an audience.

Right.

And like, because I've just had this experience over the last few weeks

of shooting my mouth off in a format that.

Yes, and I mean,

we're all loving it.

Oh, good.

But like, because we don't do video, and that's very intentional.

Right.

You know, because we do a certain thing, and it was a decision.

It wasn't like, you know, why don't you make the jump?

It was not what we do to create the intimacy we want to create and to create the experience we want to have and what I want to have with who I'm talking to.

But all of a sudden, I go out and you know, Brendan's not editing me.

And I'm just, I'm kind of gone.

I'm annoyed from like you, from you sitting down already.

Well, there's that, but there's also like all the stuff I'm talking about, you know, I've talked about before.

Sure.

But because it's on video and because

it's shareable,

and because there were moments where

I took people on,

all of a sudden it's got all this fucking traction.

And I'm all of a sudden in this conversation or a one-sided conversation with people who hate what I say or

people who like what I say, that you start to realize that,

Okay, well, that's all well and good.

And I feel like, like you said, I think it makes a difference.

I mean, I'm primarily speaking for our community.

Absolutely.

You know, comics and creatives who are in the face of authoritarianism and the sort of momentum of that to make ourselves scared to talk or to, you know, or to feel like what we're doing is being pushed aside.

Yeah.

You know, and then that for me, you know, well, I'm also, when you say community, forget, I mean, yes, absolutely.

Some comedians and artists and creatives and people that we work with and people that are in my family and people that are friends of mine, I feel an obligation to speak on their behalf.

If people are going to ask me about things, or if I'm going to do my office hours podcast,

which is a live call and show, that I generally talk about what's going on with me.

And

so I heard today, like, you know, this fucking guy, Patrick Bett David?

You know, these guys?

Oh, they're like, they're in the roguish fear.

They're not comedians.

They're just these biz bros, you know, real estate fuckers.

Bad guys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

100%.

And they were playing this clip of, you see this clip of Snoop Dogg going to theater.

The problem that he didn't explain it to his grandkids or something.

Yeah.

Like, and they go on about it for 10 minutes.

Well, this is what's wrong with Disney.

And it's finally people are waking up.

And if it's so woke for Snoop Dogg, then maybe people, I'm like, what the fuck are you guys talking about?

Yeah.

A cartoon with two moms that have an adopted kid?

Yeah.

That should be the...

And they're talking about grooming and how this is a

disgraceful.

And I get so mad about it

because fuck you if you don't have a friend or a cousin or a family member, somebody who's like done a very, in my opinion, normal thing

of falling in love with somebody and adopting a kid.

Like that should be the most fucking whitebread, wonderbred bullshit now.

Well, they, well, they don't.

But they're treating it like it's the, you know, guys fucking each other

in the middle of a Pixar movie.

Yeah.

Well,

they don't come from love.

The idea of love being enough between two people doesn't factor into their judgment.

But we have, I'm glad you're talking, and I feel like I need to talk because those guys are sucking up so much of the opposite.

That's what I mean, yeah.

It's the same audience that is watching Rogan, and everyone's getting validated by this Cretanist backwards 20th century thinking about

the world we're living in.

Yeah,

and we're one of the last countries

to sort of just be okay with this shit.

But I've said it before that once intolerance is removed from the equation,

democracy becomes nearly impossible.

Yeah.

You know,

there was this thing, I think John sent it to me about this thing about the stepbrothers, the stepbrothers.

Great,

fucking funny movie.

And there's this sort of

quality to it that feels like you can be a little, you can play with race jokes, you can play with certain kind of jokes because at the time everyone felt like this has all been settled science.

You know what I mean?

Like we are not, we don't have,

we can play now because we've figured it all out.

And it feels like it's not the case right now.

It's all coming back.

Yeah.

And these ideas of, you know, white supremacy or homophobia or

this trans scare.

It's like, it's all coming back and

we have to just be loud about it.

Well, yeah, because it has real world consequences because

the authoritarian administration and the fascist cultural apparatus through the Christians is, you know, they're making policy built on the back of this anti-woke thing.

And that was, you know, all these comics who were like, you know, it was really about language and their own victimization that they saw,

which wasn't real.

It wasn't real.

And now like, you know, they are tethered to political policies that are really killing people and

damaging lives and infringing on the freedom of people and their rights.

And none of it was ever funny.

Like

these podcasts that these guys sit around and talk about the old days in the store.

And there's a way to talk about it that's funny.

Sure.

But to see Rogan get teared up about it, it's sort of

it's it's a it's a little rough, you know, but but also the fact that they're, you know, they've they've elevated to this level of influencer where you know people are going to them for this information.

And arguably some of them were never funny.

And, you know, if I've got, you know, I don't even like mentioning names because I want to give them any juice.

Right.

But it's like, you know, the job of comedian, you know, it's a broad spectrum.

And it's weird about limiting swagger because like your character that you do is the

definition of empty swagger right yeah right yeah yeah and I don't know where I saw that I don't know what I picked up on to that where I just like oh that's what those guys do when you don't have the material it's all just about attitude yeah

but yeah I mean that's what I was making fun of right but but I don't like because I thought that thing you did

that you didn't do as Rogan you know you you did with those other two guys yeah Jeremy how the fuck did you construct that it did you write it or was there was there an intention did you say to these guys, I never commit to anything that might be against what I'm saying and never say anything?

Well, the story, yeah,

sort of, yeah, we had a Google Doc, which had like some names and books, like fake book names and

subjects.

And

just, those guys are such really funny, and they knew the world.

Who are those guys?

Rajat Suresh is one of the guys, and Jeremy Levick is the other.

And

they do their own stuff.

And

they were on Mulany's show this year as writers and stuff.

They're very talented.

We knew the world well enough that we could improvise around certain ideas and memes.

But the best thing that happened to us, because they're in New York, and we shot it, we did it remotely.

So I shot my side in our studio, and we had a little crew set up in New York.

And we just did it kind of over Zoom, but filmed it, you know.

And we got the footage back, and their audio was terrible.

It was like unusable.

And they tried to fix it and everything and I thought it was so great.

I said, we just have to redo this.

Yeah.

And it was a rare thing.

I've never really never had to do that before.

We have to completely reshoot something.

But it was good because we had this rehearsal day.

Yeah.

Where we just figured out, I was able to like say, that was really funny.

Let's try to do that again.

Or maybe we don't need to go down that.

It's probably better.

Yeah.

It was a great happy accident.

But, you know, it was something where we shot for two hours and got an hour out of it.

Yeah.

So it was a lot of laughing.

Yeah.

And did you post that as part of that?

Just on office hours, yeah.

Yeah.

So I don't know how you find it anymore.

But didn't it go viral a bit?

Yeah, people got it right away.

And it would hit at the right time where people were,

I like to think that

there's something annoying about his show that you can't put your finger on.

Yeah.

And we put our finger on it, you know, and said, this is what's annoying about it.

And it wasn't even political.

It was just like how boring it is.

And

how

going in circles you end up going.

There's just a bunch of guys.

It has this tone of like what I remember from like the college rec center at three in the morning, which I don't want to go back and have those conversations again.

You're skirting around an issue that you don't understand with information that

you don't understand either.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, I just, it always bothered me.

I always think the the premise of that joke was that these guys talk in these, in loops and don't really get to anywhere.

You never walk away getting like any answers.

Yeah.

And you just get more confused.

And I've never made it to the end of one of those shows.

I've never watched one.

You know, like, I see clips.

Yeah, I see clips occasionally.

Right.

But, like, I find that I'm really out of the loop because after, you know, whatever happened the other day on Pod Save America,

you know, that sort of landed.

And I got to ask my producer, I'm like, are you seeing it out there?

Because I guess I'm out of the loop.

And it's everywhere in those fucking worlds.

And I don't know.

Tony Hinchcliffe, I saw him talking about you.

That's terrific.

It's all good for you, Mark.

I hope you understand.

Well, I'm trying to understand.

Because there's still part of me,

and it's a real part of me, that believes on some level we're all comics.

But I know that that doesn't matter anymore.

And what Tony was saying outside of,

with me and you, he was just hanging himself.

Like, you you know, like these guys, they show up every couple years.

Right.

Yeah, because we're building an act.

Yeah.

I know.

We're doing the work.

And he's like, I'm out there every day delivering comedy.

And the whole premise, whether, you know, it's.

He's making model T's.

Well, but it's like he's couching it in this idea of wrestling where, you know,

the essence of the show is like a guy who's not a good comic, you know, has, you know, hungry amateur comics out there

to shit on him.

Yeah.

That's very cruel.

cruel i mean that's the show yeah i i i it's very hard to watch and we did a parody of that too but it was almost not uh it's too it's too gross to even make fun of well he plays it like he's the heel yeah you know in that there is a spectacle element of it but but for me it's like stand-up you know there is a a craft to it and it and it is uh

comedy is a place where you can you know challenge things right uh as opposed to just create garbage

to titillate fucking

fury

and intolerance.

So there's a counter to it.

Yeah, I don't relate to any of it because I'm not a stand-up and I don't,

I mean, I do it, but like the world I come from is not competitive

in the way we work together.

It is collaborative.

It is joyful

and silly for the most most part.

And

the broy locker room vibe isn't there.

Well, that's also like for me, I've never been able to lock in with that.

I don't lock in with that many people, really.

Like, if I think of myself in high school, I knew those guys, but I'd kind of, you know, subvert

insults with, yeah, I would kind of move between groups, but I never, you know, I never sit there.

I was never able to just kind of like, you know, like, I'm going to go hang out with the dudes.

You know, I mean, I do it with comics now yeah but i was never that guy i was always too uncomfortable yeah i don't know i was never a nerd either sorry i was just a guy such

i'm not i'm not freaked out about it

but i don't uh so it's not really where i come from but where i come from is just as valid yeah i don't know man well i i mean what are we gonna do i don't know because i People look at, people think I'm obsessed with this world or that because I talk about it a lot or I talk about politics.

I think from the beginning, we've just been people, whether it was the Tim and Eric stuff or whatever I do, I'm just looking at the world and it's filtering through and coming back out as what I think is funny or

and this seems to be the thing that's in the middle of the room right now, you know, from our perspective.

Maybe it's not for everybody else, sure.

But for me, it's fascinating watching this PBD show.

I'll send you clips of these guys, and you'll just go, Yeah, of course you're watching this every day.

Yeah, because it's fascinating

that these people are sucking up oxygen and getting eyeballs

and breaking brains and normalizing and reinforcing some

fucked up shit.

Yeah, and it often comes back out of me.

It regurgitates into something that is amusing to people or it's funny or creatively satisfying to me.

But it's hard to ignore the situation.

But how do you like,

you know, like I talked to a guy last week, Peter Conheim, who was with Negative Land.

Okay, yeah.

And, you know, back in the day, there was this idea of culture jamming, you know, where you would put something into the machine that would kind of like, you know, fuck it up.

Right.

You know, whether it be a satirical brand.

I think that probably one of the great culture jams was the Illuminate conspiracy was invented by a couple of hippies.

Right.

Robert Anton Wilson.

He was part of it and the other guy.

Right.

But it was in reaction to the John Birch Society.

Right.

That, you know, they were, they were, they were trying to figure out a way across all avenues of information at that time to put this in the world

as a means to create this incredible prank that

these forces were all part of it.

And now it's established as something that people believe in.

So I think it's an effective prank, but it kind of backfired on itself over time.

But do you ever think about

as an intention,

you know, how do you know we or you

start fucking with what you're saying,

this sucking up air business?

I mean, there's a lot of amateurs that do it, and they do their little reels, and they're like, you know, they do their little sketches and stuff.

Right.

But a real way to cause some, you know, some shit, because I think there's a vulnerability to it all now.

Yeah.

The thing you're up against is that

all these communities are so siloed and they don't engage with each other.

No.

So somehow you've got to create a self-detonating bomb.

Yeah.

I mean,

I want to explore more the numbers that these people

have.

It just feels wrong.

You know, really,

are they really tuning in for all this?

Like 100 million people?

Yeah.

I mean, Hinchcliffe is doing Madison Square Garden.

I guess we're going to chat, you know?

But so is Segura.

And Segura is like, you know, for whether you like them or not, is a real comic.

But a lot of them lean pretty heavily into their audience because they can churn out hours all the time now because everybody's up to speed.

Right.

And you can just finish stories

as your show.

Right.

Like, you guys remember when I did the well, here's what happened.

Inside joke.

It's back to the cult thing, but their numbers are bigger.

But it's right.

It's the inside joke thing, but it's their audience.

I get it.

You know, people are up to speed.

Right.

But like, there are guys in that world that I don't have any issue with.

Right.

You know, Segura, Bert.

I don't, you know, it's fine.

You know, they're doing doing the comedy.

It's the ideologues and the people that have this position about what comedy should be

that are frightening to me.

Yeah.

But, like, yeah, maybe the place to start is the numbers, but I just feel like there's got to be a way to somehow, with some consistency, create, you know,

malignant cells of information.

Yeah, it feels like it's starting.

I mean, that Elephant Graveyard video is so great.

It's the best.

The new one?

Yeah, the new one.

And that gets a lot of views, too.

And you've got to think that there's people that are getting a little tired of the talk,

the endless conversation that isn't going anywhere.

You're not getting anything back from it.

You would think, I mean, that's the bigger question.

Is it getting exhausted?

Or is it still reinforcing everything?

I mean, I know that Joe's kind of changing his tune now.

Right.

How convenient, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, but the thing is, like, you know, he did what he did.

Right.

Oh, it's so, yeah, there's no like,

you're an adult and there are consequences for getting that involved to the point where you had the guy on the show and support him and endorsed him explicitly to your audience.

So, I also think there's this framework where, and I think I talked about it on that Politic America, where it's like these people are fundamentally anti-democratic.

So, like, there's no two-party solution

to people that, you know, shamelessly and

forcefully believe that liberal democracy is bullshit.

Right.

And so, what do you do up against that?

Well,

they might win as part of the- No, they are winning.

You know, I mean,

the real

very fundamental things could start going away.

Well, that's happening.

I mean, you're right, you're right.

That's my argument with them.

It's like, okay, you guys started this anti-woke shit, and everybody was upset about pronouns and not being able to say retard.

But, you know, now they have policy built around this, and there's

real-world consequences for everybody.

And

aside aside from just the smaller world consequences, is once you free those words, you're freeing kids to be disrespectful.

Right.

Because they think it's cool again, or they think it's fun.

Yeah, I mean, no, by the way, let me take back.

It is happening.

Fully happening.

But, you know, the big things, like, well, again,

you're right.

I keep thinking about it.

I'm like, well, no, that is actually happening.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah.

The troops on the streets.

Yeah.

You know, like how much clearer.

I mean, handed, I mean, again, these people are coming, they're flip-flopping.

We can call them flip-floppers now.

Finally, like Tim Dylan saying,

this is all what Alex Jones was worried about happening.

He said that the other day.

Oh, did he?

Yeah.

But it's like, you had J.D.

Vance on your show.

Yeah.

You did fundraisers for RFK Jr.

Yeah.

Yeah, so how do you, yeah.

But, I mean, I guess we should be glad that they're saying something.

No, I guess so, because that's where you come back to.

So you comics are landing back in it.

it yeah you know you got your little rise to power but you know now you're on the hook but the the powers that be don't care because they got what they they're in now so we gotta i i just want to uh i want to figure out like uh i i guess what i think is missing and what i think that you know

i i do in my own way with stand-up and or with just you know blabbing

is some sort of you know functional impactful creative resistance

Yeah.

Not just like, you know, like, well, we're going to do this thing.

It's an Eagle Rock.

Fundraiser.

Yeah, a fundraiser.

Or like, we're all doing a show.

You know, it's two drag queens and this trans guy.

Yeah.

But they're all really funny.

It's a dynasty.

And we're going to put all the proceeds.

You're like, look, that's all great.

Sure.

But, you know, how do we fucking blow it up from the inside, dude?

It has to be done through the information platforms.

Right.

It has to be done.

I'm going to get on it.

I'm going to get.

You will?

Yeah.

I'll get my team.

And And I mean, listen,

for us, we just will keep goofing on it.

That's all I know how to do.

But that's probably not enough, right?

Well, the goof has to have, you know, the problem is that if there's a revelation in the goof, and you know, ultimately what you've got to accept is that it's not going to change your target at all.

Right.

You know, it's not going to impact the target, but it kind of is with like these comics who are sort of like, whoa, whoa.

All of a sudden, you're like, hey, you know, you owe us a favor.

Yeah.

I think there's a fair amount of them that, not to boast, but we're probably fans of ours that are uncomfortable with me.

Yeah.

And that is interesting.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah, I don't know.

I do know that I landed something somewhere because we were talking about it.

Sure, sure.

And I think your resonance is impactful and giving some cover for other people to be more.

Well, that's all we can hope for, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just, I just, I wish that there was some.

the problem is everything's decentralized.

There's no, you know, common language.

There's no, you know, a

full community of people that are making choices as a community.

It's, everyone's just sort of shut in with and insulated within their bubbles of what they take in.

Yeah.

You know, and how do we unlock the brains?

But I mean, look,

I've got no solutions, but there is something.

And also when you land one of these things, even like Elephant Graveyard, it's like, are those just like-minded people watching it?

But even that's fine if it raises an awareness to what conversations can happen.

Well, yeah, and it like, again, back to my little parody I did, it's like,

it scratches an itch about what was bothering you about something, and it fills in some of the holes.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We need more hole fillers.

Yeah.

But

so why do you think it's

you?

How are you?

Like, because with me, the negative attention, you know, there's a couple of ways to look at it that was brought to my attention by my producers.

I don't like negative attention, and it hurts me, and it scares me, but I don't like being a coward either.

And I don't like not feeling like I can speak freely.

Right.

So you got to make a choice with that.

You can be only as diplomatic as you can be before you're like, fuck this.

Right.

And I've always been more fuck this, but you know what I'm saying?

Because these guys love negative attention.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

But that's because they see it as like they pissed off the people they hate.

Right.

So, you know, on some level,

you've got to reframe the negative tension as like, oh, good.

I'm glad I pissed these guys off.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.:

There's a little bit of that.

I mean, there's some stuff that is just too funny to stop, to not talk about and too crazy to not talk about.

You know, if you saw any of that thing that Trump, him in the Oval Office with the hat on, that Trump was right about and everything, and he looks like shit.

Like,

he is dying.

Yeah.

Right.

And I think it's funny to talk about him dying.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

And I want to goof around about that.

And like, what is what are we going to do with the body and how long is it going to take to burn it?

Yeah.

And, you know, what's it going to smell like?

Yeah.

Well, also, there's this idea that, like,

once people get past the fact, it's like, you know, calling them out on double standards, it means nothing.

I know.

Well, of course.

Yeah.

Like, no, I will, I'm, I have the capacity to get very crude and dark.

Yeah.

And I like going into that place.

yeah because it's it transcends all that yeah yeah and it's also it like a lot of my comedy i think comes from a like a place of meaninglessness yeah

well like we're all gonna fucking end up in the dirt yeah you know so let's goof around about it yeah a little bit yeah at least sure acknowledge it and i try to um every morning yeah

so what what is happening right now with you what are we what are you doing um we're gonna do those shows going to do those And I don't have, I'm, you know, low stakes there.

I'm just going to try some shows.

So let's not focus.

This is an international audience.

That's a small room.

Don't fly in for the Elysium.

I do have one thing to plug, which is a little hard to explain, but Greg Turkington, Mark Proach, and I, Mark, people will know from what we do in the shadows,

and the K-Strass yo-yo guy who's on the office.

He's

him, Mark and Greg, and I have had a text thread for, and I'm sure you do too, with certain funny people, but we've had one for 12, 13 years that's like legitimately the funniest thing that I experience on a regular basis.

It is cry-laughing material.

That is me and Greg beating up on Mark, trying to get him to do shit, trying to get him to.

And it got really,

we all love it.

And

we invest a lot of time in it.

Like we do it all the time.

And we've started to edit them and compile them and we're putting them out as a weekly, like weekly serialized installments of short stories, basically.

Oh, really?

And it's called, it's at Marion's, Marion's Wish.com, M-A-R-I-O-N-S wish.com.

Yeah.

And you sign up for it and you get this every week.

You get this little piece.

And it's, it's, we have, you know, a couple thousand pages of material to go through.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's very crude and it's very disgusting and

it was meant for just the three of us.

And now we're picking the bones of our private

perverse comedy.

We put out like a small chunk in 2020 called Marion's Wish and

we put it out as an free e-book.

Yeah.

And people loved it.

And we're just trying to figure out how to do more and we're going to try it this way.

That's fun.

What about that movie you made in New Mexico when I ran into you out there?

That's called Him.

And by the way, that was a great time with you.

We had fun.

Appreciate that.

Ended up having dinner with.

That's public, right?

We can talk to you.

Sure, Aubrey Plaza and Margaret Qualey.

Yeah, because they were staying down the street.

But I don't know if you remember or if you've said this, but

you're very nice.

We ran into each other at the Burbank Airport.

Yeah, yeah.

And I was thinking about this this morning that when

you run into like a friend or somebody you know, both going on Southwest, you're just going to sit next to each other.

Yeah, you can do that.

Yeah.

Well, you have to do that.

Yeah, yeah.

It would be weird, I think, to not.

You go find yourself.

Yeah, see you, Cape.

But anyway, yeah, you took me out to Los Poblanos.

Yes, yeah.

And

we get there and you say to the hostess,

Are there any famous people here tonight?

As like a joke, kind of.

Yeah.

But also like, you know, hey, just plain, I think you knew her or something.

Yeah, yeah, I did, yeah.

But just like, you know, hey, it's me.

Yeah, yeah.

Who are the famous people?

Yeah, we're.

They all stay there, yeah.

Yeah.

And you were right, because there was Aubrey and Margaret, and we know them.

Or I knew Aubrey very well.

Yeah.

And I didn't know who I didn't know who Margaret quite was.

Yeah, yeah.

I had seen her in movies, I guess, but I didn't put it together.

Yeah, she's pretty great.

She was great.

That was fun.

And we had a great time.

Yeah, and then we went to that weird little stand-up thing.

And then you did stand-up, and I just want to say it was just like a local thing.

You know, it was local.

A little alt comedy.

Some of the people weren't going to go far in this business.

But you came out, and I was just moved by just how much better you were than everybody else.

Thank God.

Just like, well, yeah, but just to watch somebody kind of just try a couple things.

I just, I'm always impressed with people that are very good at what they do.

Well, thanks, man.

I appreciate that.

It was fun.

And that was a good thing.

That movie's called Him.

Is that the football movie?

It is a football horror movie.

Yeah, yeah.

It looks pretty intense.

It's really, really, I haven't seen it, but it's.

I didn't see you in the trailer.

No, I didn't make the trailer.

And I think,

I mean, I know I'm in it.

Yeah.

I think there's an element to my character that you might not want to put in the trailer, if that makes sense.

Okay.

I guess.

That's a good pitch.

That's a good pitch.

I'm good in it.

You know, thank God Jordan Peel and his company

think of me for things.

Yeah, yeah.

This is the second movie I'm doing with them.

And Marlon's great, right?

Yeah.

I always have fun with Marlon.

Well, I wasn't in anything with him, but apparently he's great.

Yeah,

he's a good actor, but he's a funny guy.

He's a guy that he likes to laugh.

So if you get him going, it's pretty fun.

It's so nerve-wracking doing that stuff.

I don't know how you feel about it.

I think it's just like

a lot of waiting.

Yeah.

And do you have this thing?

I have this thing where first day I never sleep the night before.

I'm so nervous.

And then that fucks you so badly.

Because then not only are you still nervous, but you're also sleep deprived.

Yeah.

Just that first couple of scenes where you're supposed to say the things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't care how many times I've gone over it and worked on it.

Yeah.

It comes out like,

let me just do it.

Can I go back and do that again?

Shit.

And then you feel like,

what am I doing?

I've got three lines.

How did I get in this position?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a taxing undertaking, all that, for a lot of reasons.

But it leveled off okay.

Yeah, and then I get everyone's nice, everyone's cool, everyone, you know, there.

I find my

pace, yeah, and it's also a collaborative thing.

It's not all, you know, you weren't the lead or anything.

No, I was not the lead.

Yeah,

it'll be fun.

It's fun to be in those big movies because those are the things that everyone sees, and then people see it.

Hey, there he was.

Yeah, yeah, hey man, that was cool.

I saw you that day in that thing.

All right, man.

Well,

I'm glad to talk to you.

Yeah, it was fun.

Congratulations.

Thanks, man.

There you go.

Timheideker.com to sign up for alerts about his tour dates and to check out all the various shows he does.

Funny guy, smart guy, interesting guy.

Hang out for a minute.

Hey, people.

On Thursday, I talked to one of our great American film directors, Mr.

Spike Lee.

Joins me in the garage.

And I also like the two comedy things because I'm a comic.

The original Kings of Comedy,

which is great.

Thank you.

I remember

I was at the, what year was that?

I was at the comedy festival in Aspen, Colorado, probably in the mid-90s.

And they had flown Bernie out there.

And it's the middle of the snow, Bernie.

And there's only white people in Aspen.

And it was one of the best things I ever fucking saw in my life.

Yeah, because, you know, he's bringing a world just by nature of who he is.

It's just that there's a raw world that has not been made, you know,

in any way sort of like something that white people can necessarily understand.

And to see it in Aspen, Colorado.

They dug it, though, right?

Well,

when they got past the fear.

Had to get past that first, right?

Yeah, sometimes it's hard, you know.

I understood.

I understand.

That's Thursday's show.

And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST.

I think I've done this song before, but I don't think I've done it on acoustic.

Just trying to do this jigsaw puzzle.

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