Episode 1651 - Mike Birbiglia

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Lock the gates!

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 Marin.

This is my podcast, WTF.

Welcome to it.

If you're just getting on board here, welcome.

I know some people are curious.

They've been reading about it.

It's sort of still amazing to me, but not really, just how we all create our own little bubbles.

And I know for a fact that most people don't know who I am.

Most people in the world.

But that's okay.

It's really okay.

I'd rather be a little below the radar.

I'd like to just cruise at my own altitude.

And, you know, I don't want to be something everybody looks up in the sky and says, oh shit,

look at that thing.

No, I just kind of want to zip by in my own lane, my own frequency, and my own

altitude and live the life.

But if you are just checking in

for the first time, welcome.

You've got a lot of catching up to do.

It's only about 1,600

and change episodes, but they're all pretty good.

I can vouch for them because I was there when they happened.

I hope you're well.

I hope that thing cleared up, and I hope that

everything was okay with that meeting you had.

And I also hope that you don't hurt yourself because

you're not paying attention to the road right now.

Wake up.

Hey, hey, don't ride the brake.

I was in a car the other day, and the guy was riding the brake.

There is nothing I cannot stand more than that.

It makes me furious.

I'm sure there's deeper issues that are probably being brought up, but the riding the brake thing,

I can't take it.

I don't know how to ride the brake in anything.

Well, that's not true.

Maybe not ride the brake, but

I'll hang out in a lower gear sometimes.

So look, you guys, I know a lot of you are watching and reading and hearing and freaking out about

what is really martial law here in some parts of the Los Angeles area.

This is an authoritarian shit show

of a political theater put on by our sociopathic huckster clown king to kind of flex his dick and show us what the future holds.

But it is happening.

But I do want you to know that even people that know better, that when it's sort of,

you know, presented as the state of California is burning.

The state of California is in chaos.

The state of California is crumbling.

Just know that the state of California is fucking huge.

I mean, is it, what is it?

Is it the biggest state?

Or is Texas?

Is it the second biggest state?

I mean, there is shit going down and it's horrible shit.

There are peaceful protests that have been instigated into something maybe more than that by the Marine presence, by the National Guard presence.

The cops here were doing fine, but I'm telling you, this is a flex.

And this is the country we're living in now.

And anybody who watches this shit, that watches this horrible reality of innocent people being ripped out of their homes with no due process and taken away and watches clips of that and thinks, yeah, this is the way America should be, you're a shitty person.

You're just a shitty person.

And there's a lot more shitty people than I ever imagined.

You know, I used to think people were...

fundamentally or innately decent or cared about other people, but something's broken the brains of many.

There's a mania.

There's a doubling down.

There's

honoring one's worst and most primitive instincts in relation to other human beings.

There's a loss of decency, a loss of tolerance, a loss of basic love and respect.

And it's just being fanned.

These flames are being fanned.

And this is the shit show we live in.

I'm grateful to the people that stood up and got out there and tried to have a peaceful protest like we're allowed to do to speak our minds and show what we believe in as Americans.

And it takes a tremendous amount of courage to do that.

But I just want you to know that not unlike most other states, probably all other states, California is a huge place.

with lots of different kinds of people in it, lots of good people, lots of iffy people, lots of shitty people, lots of people that are struggling, but it's massive.

And this idea that this state is crumbling, because that's how how it's being contextualized or presented to you on your phone or in the clips you're watching is not true.

There are people standing up.

There are people out in the streets.

There are people

engaging in their democratic right to a peaceful protest.

There are people like me talking on microphones.

And there are people just kind of, you know, herding horses and, you know, doing some farming and trying to have a life.

But

I don't think you should be blind to it, but just know

that this is political theater on behalf of an authoritarian government in what's becoming more and more a fascist culture in order to terrify and frighten the average person.

And it's probably working.

That said,

so I got Mike Berbiglia on the show.

And look, I go way back with this guy, and

I've talked about our history together on episode 94.

Then he was on again for episode 300 when he was the interviewer of me.

I was in his film Sleepwalk With Me.

He's also the director of Don't Think Twice.

He's had four Netflix specials, including his latest called The Good Life.

And silly problems between me and him, they're not even problems.

They're just feelings, persist mostly in me.

And look, I know it's me, and it's one of these weird kind of things I have to deconstruct and live in and figure out why these feelings exist and what I need to act on, probably none.

And, you know, why I have this thing with him.

I don't know.

But he keeps coming back, folks.

He keeps coming back because, you know,

I think on some level, we like each other.

On another level, he's got a special coming out.

So

when we get to it,

we get on it.

You know what I mean?

We get into it a bit.

But it's, I would say it's better than it has been in the past.

The documentary, Are We Good, is screening at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

Come see it this Saturday, June 14th at 5 p.m.

That's at the OKX Theater on Chambers Street.

I'll be doing a QA with Tracy Letts after the screening.

Then Sunday, June 15th at 5:30 p.m., it's a screening at the Village East on 2nd Avenue and 12th Street.

Also, there are now four episodes of Stick on Apple TV Plus.

New episodes premiere every Wednesday.

I got to watch that new one.

I'm watching them as they happen with you.

It's a good show.

Me and Owen are, I think, we're doing a good job.

Everyone in the cast is doing a great job.

A great job.

So, look, I do want to bring to your attention something

to an article that came out.

Sort of, it's an epic article.

It's on

defector.com.

And the article is called There Will Never Be Another WTF with Mark Maron.

It's by a woman named Diana Moskowitz.

And it's a beautiful, beautiful article.

And look, I'm not tuning my own horn.

But, you know, when you read about yourself and your achievements and what you do, like me and Brendan.

And, you know, there is insights there that I couldn't have because I barely know, you know, how many people listen to this.

I don't check numbers.

I don't know.

I just do these talks and I'll look at social media sometimes, but I'm never, it's been years and years since I've worried about who's taking it in or what they think about it necessarily.

But this woman has had a long relationship with this show, and she's a great writer, and her assessment of it and her experience with it was just beautiful.

I got choked up at the end, and she really got something.

And it's something, there's a whole section in this piece that I wouldn't have never really thought of about whatever it is I do in my monologues, my particular tone, my particular sense of myself.

But more than that,

my particular position or emotional disposition as a man in a society where

men are thought of in a certain way.

And much of that is toxic and much of it is predictable.

But she was able to really kind of,

you know, oddly compare my emotional output and how I handle my tone on this show as, you know, fundamentally the domain of women writers and presenters in terms of what I talk about and how open I am about my particular problems or vulnerabilities or cats or whatever.

And I was very moved by that.

Not

insulted or

felt it was off.

It made perfect sense.

Yes,

I do all I can to be a good woman.

I got a serious yin and yang thing going on there, but both the yin and the yang is,

in terms of male-female, are pretty well represented.

But she also took in

the way she framed her favorite interviews, which were outliers or ones that I don't hear much with Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart and why she liked them and how they represented the show.

And also just sort of assessing my relationship with Brendan, who has been my

production partner and business partner from day one in a very equal relationship, 50-50 all the way down the line.

And it's always been our game.

It's always been our thing.

We've never sold it out.

You know, we've done ads, but we've always maintained control and this is the only thing we do.

And the way she framed it as being not unlike a punk rock band who you love, but you know eventually will not be a band anymore was kind of beautiful and very touching.

I recommend that you read this thing, not because, again, that I'm tooting my own horn, but I thought it was a kind of brilliant and deep and personal and honest and on-the-money assessment of what Brendan and I have done here over the last 16 years.

Okay, so look.

Yeah, again, as we move through these last few months, not a eulogy, an appreciation of you, an appreciation of the appreciation, and also just my life.

Cats are okay,

a little nervous.

They seem to know too much when I'm preparing to travel.

So look, Mike Berbigli is here.

I think we had a relatively pleasant interaction.

We got past whatever dumb stuff I have maintained in terms of tension between us and got to talk about jokes and his new special and about life and death.

It was good.

His new Netflix special, The Good Life is Streaming Now, and this is me talking to Mike.

Yeah,

the notion of having to be aware of a bit and how it can be disassembled

and re-

Yeah, you were considering

cutting a bit from your special your shooting.

Well, yeah, it wasn't supposed to be in there.

I'd made the decision not to do it because it was always provocative and it's a difficult situation.

And what ultimately,

and then we shot it after the second show just to have it.

And, you know, I talked to Brendan, I talked to my director, and I talked to my girlfriend just about the,

it's not so much, there's no cowardice in not doing it.

All that I'm saving myself from is the bit being cut up and then me being trolled for the rest of my life.

No, that that's that's whenever people ask me, can you not say anything anymore?

Which is a real trope now.

Yeah.

It's like you can't say anymore.

Okay.

You have to have an answer for that.

You can accept people can cut it up into a 10-second version, a three-second version, a 60-second version.

And so then it's completely out of your hands.

That's right.

Then, like you're saying, people can use it against you for the rest of the time.

So then when you're releasing a comedy special, you got to go like, okay, how could they use this?

But like, do you, like, you, like, I know exactly what my concern is because it's political, but like for you, what would, what would an example of?

Well, I have that, I have that joke in the special, you know,

basically eight-year-olds are insufferable.

Oh, yeah.

When I spend time with my daughter,

I really think like this makes me really not understand pedophilia.

Right.

That's a tricky joke.

It's a tricky joke, but it's like a good joke.

Sure.

You know what I mean?

I'm like, no, no, I stand behind this joke.

This is

a provocative, insane joke, but I'm on the right side of it.

Sure.

Well, that's the thing is that, you know, if you...

Especially if you've been doing it as long as we have, and you work on these jokes, and you know when you're doing the jokes that like,

this is a button pusher in a way.

It's not even a button pusher.

What it is, it's a take on something that puts you in the center of it.

And then people have to, you know, kind of go through the shocking element of it.

Yeah.

And that was, and that's actually the fun of the special

special.

Right.

It's like, I like, I have a joke about my dad.

I go,

the stroke, my dad had a stroke.

It's been devastating, but I will say it has calmed him down.

And it's like.

Yeah, I used to do stuff about my dad, his memonic depression and dementia.

Like, he's not depressed anymore.

Right.

No, no, it's crazy.

I mean, I just heard you on the phone with your dad.

Yeah.

It's actually very sweet.

Like, you say, I love you.

I've never had that.

Oh, really?

We don't say, I love you.

We say, take care.

Yeah, yeah.

No, you know, they get, they soften up.

And my dad was always,

they would say, I love you, but I didn't believe it.

Right.

So,

but, uh, but in terms of those jokes, is that that is the great thrill of doing a dark joke, is that like you manage to transcend the darkness.

I mean, that is the trick of the whole thing, is you have this horrendous thing at the core of it, and then you can lift it up to

and it's not even shed light on it, but to disarm it through comedy, right?

That's the thing, yeah, and that's the thing I was like, we should talk about that because Bleak to Dark does that and that's it.

But it takes work to do.

Yeah, it takes work.

It's a lot of work.

Because

you have to find the tone.

It's so hard.

It's through repetition and getting comfortable with it yourself.

And then like, it really, it's different.

It's interesting because, you know, you craft jokes.

You know, I think we're similar in how we go about putting stuff together.

I think you were actually the person that made me do callbacks and it was driven by resentment.

Perfect.

Because

it's true, though.

I don't know.

I never told you that.

Like I was, I watched one of your older specials.

It was probably before, it was probably before more or later or something.

And I saw the way you structured them.

And at that point, I wasn't really looking for through lines.

And there wasn't really a thread connecting them together.

And then I watched you and I'm like, oh, it's a trick.

It's callbacks.

I can fucking do that.

And out of spite,

you move move me forward creatively.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, it's like, I don't think of it as callbacks.

I think of it as

for momentum.

So in other words, like instead of and then, and then, and then, it's so then, so then, so then.

So that you have to, sometimes you have to remind people, oh yeah,

that was my girlfriend in college.

You know what I mean?

So it's a callback technically in stand-up comedy terms, but actually you're reminding them of the story that you're in.

Yeah, but the thing that it, the illusion it creates is a story that threads the whole thing together.

But this, your special, your new one,

is basically a story.

It's a story, yeah.

Yeah.

But like when you don't necessarily have a through line for the whole set, if you can drop a reference to an earlier bit later on, there's a connection that kind of holds the whole thing together.

Yeah.

It's an illusion, though, because it's not a story, but it's just sort of like, no, I remember that from the other joke.

Sure.

Yeah.

And I try to find them all the time now.

That's cool.

But the thrill.

I'm glad I've taught you about comedy.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

Well, I mean, I've never denied your abilities.

That's nice.

I've never denied your abilities.

Yeah.

You can use that as a blurb.

I'm really good at blurbs.

I tried to be so diplomatic with Nick Crowell about his new movie that he kept saying that's a good

tag.

What is it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And they were all kind of horrible.

Like, it feels complete.

Oh, my God.

That kind of stuff.

Wow.

But yeah, it's interesting.

Like, yeah, the thing we're talking about

of like turning something sad like you did with Lynn

into something funny.

I think that's the job.

I actually think that's the job of being a comic is you make people laugh.

Making people laugh is baseline, right?

Yeah.

Making people laugh at something they're sad about,

that's the real stuff.

Well, it's essential or angry about or whatever.

Like, I think on one, for me, comedy will work to look at things differently.

I think that's another thing.

I agree.

Outside the sadness is to sort of like turn the lens.

Like I never thought about it like that.

But the elevation to actually provide some sort of humanity and relief to things that are really not discussed.

Like I think the whole, like, you know, approaching grief, which is something everybody deals with.

Nobody likes to talk about it and nobody wants it in their life.

But it's a, it's an inevitable, right?

It's, it's going to happen.

Sure.

So to get into that zone and to disarm it and to open up a conversation about it, I think is definitely proactive.

And it's good.

And it should be a purpose of comedy.

I think that

Pryor used to do that, like in the sense of

talking about volunteering your insane life

and struggle

to put it out for the world.

Because whatever he did about race, his personal upbringing was fucking nuts.

Are horrible.

Yeah, but like, but he grew up in a brothel.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Peorio.

But you know, but all the things he got out of it were amazing.

It's the determination of the human spirit.

It's important.

Agree.

Agree.

But the whole not being able to say anything,

it's interesting because I feel that

like

what I talked about on some interview with politics is that people are going to self-center, that the power of terror and propaganda

makes people afraid to talk.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

So I think that's the bigger concern of a certain type of

thinking that is more dangerous.

And like, you can't say that.

If you're saying that to yourself, that to me is the real threat.

Yeah, and that's out there.

Turtle, totally.

Yeah, yeah.

With your fucking neighbors, people at work.

So, you know, they can't even talk about the world because they don't know if it's like they're going to open up some fucking shitbox of

anger on someone in their life.

But

with this special,

and to like, I was going to tell you, I had this realization about, you know, some of our attention that's all driven by me.

It's that for me, because I have it with a couple other people, is that like, I think I'm a pretty decent guy with people, but if somebody like annoys me for whatever reason, it's not their problem.

Eventually

I get stuck in something and then I'll get, you know, I'll say some shitty stuff.

But I realized, and I was talking, because I want to make a joke out of it, that if you're that kind of person where you kind of blow up at somebody or say something hurtful, as soon as you do that with me, I'm like, oh, fuck, what I, right, what'd I do that?

Right.

And then for me, it's over.

But whatever you've done to the other person, who knows how long that'll go on.

Oh, of course.

So there's that idea that like, you know, I'm a pretty good guy, but sometimes I blow up, but, but right after, I'm fine.

You know what I mean?

You know, as long as I hurt your feelings for a second, and then I'm good.

That's like my dad.

But I think that's like, you're a little bit like my dad.

But isn't that rageaholic behavior?

I used to rage it, and it's more precise than that.

I think, you know, what happens is, for me, is I feel like that I have a justified problem with somebody.

So I guess it's rageaholic in the sense that like, well, yeah, but you can choose not to, you know, you know, act on it or don't deal with that person.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's not your job to dump your problems with, like, what are they going to do?

Like, let me fix that for you.

Right.

You know, that's an unreasonable expectation.

That's right.

I think

it has to do with anger and insecurity, but rage is rage.

Yeah, it's funny.

Like,

you know,

like my last special, the old man in the pool,

the ending of it is this thing where I talk a lot about how my dad and I never said, I love you.

Yeah.

And I've never said I love you.

I think, never, I think, actually.

And that's crazy.

At the end of the end of the special, I go, because the special is all about death and all this, thematically about death.

And at the end of it, I go, what I want to say to my parents, and then it cuts to black,

which is what happens.

We don't choose that our life is in the first act or the second act or the third act.

It just ends when it ends.

And like, I feel like that was true, you know, with Lynn Shelton, where it's like, where it's like, she died.

I love Lynn Shelton.

You know, I considered her a friend and she I was in one of her movies she loved you she was one of the great people yeah and and like

you don't you don't think she's gonna fuck what the fuck like when I heard she died like you can't believe it and it's like and then you think back like oh what was my last interaction with her my last interaction was was she did we did a movie with you she asked me to host the Q ⁇ A and you said

Mark doesn't like me I don't want to do it

I would do anything for you, Lynn, but Mark doesn't like me.

I don't want, it just feels toxic.

In hindsight i should have just gone lynn wants this i love lynn i'm gonna put this behind i love ways i know how to deal with mark

yeah so anyway but that that's the thing is like you know when you whenever

whenever you know you've expressed resentment towards me or for whatever reason that It doesn't really make sense to me, but but it's but I want to put it to rest and I try to put it to rest and I've spent my whole life in relationship with you,

trying to put it to rest.

And when we do hang out, it's perfectly fine.

We're both

real comics and we talk about real stuff and everything is good.

I really think it's really just petty,

it started in petty jealousy and then it just becomes, there's just, there's certain people that,

you know, I completely think you're a great comic and I think you're a nice guy, but there's just certain things about, like, I can name all three of the people.

Well, I know you know it was Jon Stewart.

Well, that's different.

Oh, okay.

No, it would be, it's probably you and Pete.

Pete Holmes, who I love.

Right.

And probably, you know, Edelman's on the list.

So he's a new entry.

He's too, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, well, see, like, I could argue.

But what my vibe, what my feelings are because I'm sort of a volatile, like emotional,

you know, I'd be.

A rageaholic.

I'm not a rageaholic.

I'm not.

You're dispelling that?

No, only because I know what that looks like with me.

I have been an abusive, angry person.

Yeah.

I think with...

Do you feel like that's behind you?

The abusive and raging part, yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

And one of the ways that I do that is if

I can't manage those kind of emotions, I will detach from the person.

I know it's my problem,

but I don't have to have the certain people in my life.

I don't think I rage at you.

I don't rage at my girlfriend.

I don't really rage anymore.

You know, it's just there's certain things that trigger a certain resentment in me.

And I'll get mean for a few minutes, but I'm not, you know, I'm not going to, like, I used to scream.

Oh, wow.

So there's no, there's none of that.

Yeah.

So

if you're putting me on the spectrum of rageaholic, I'm very, like, I'm way just at the

low-end.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I get that.

But in terms of like, you know, stepping up and doing things and doing things with Lynn and making those moments,

having regrets about

it actually harkened to like something, I don't know, I've been working on myself in the last 10 years, which is like, you know, just realizing like, oh, yeah, it could just go away.

Yeah.

Like, you can just die at any moment.

How old are you?

46.

Yeah, like I'm 61.

Yeah.

I think about it all the time.

Yeah.

And then there's the other thing that I conflict with is it could go at any time.

And then there's the other part of it, which is maybe at my hand.

Oh my God.

That's a funny joke you have in here.

Blink to dark or that you're not going to kill yourself with a bat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It took so long to

orchestrate that bit.

Yeah.

To figure out the physicality of it.

Yeah.

And how many times I should hit myself in the head.

That was one of the proudest.

That was one of the great moments.

You know, when a joke comes to you and you're like, oh, my God.

Oh, yeah.

That line,

you're not going to look at a bat and think, I'm going to kill myself.

Totally.

I had that with, it's funny, with this special, people have said that to me about my urban air bit.

Oh, yeah, because I wish I knew more about that place.

Oh, okay.

Like trampoline parks and how they're so fucking dangerous and crazy.

And

I've had a bunch of comics be like, I can't believe you got to that first.

Yeah.

Like, you know what I mean?

You hit something and you just go, like, wait, no one's done this?

Great.

No one's touched trampoline parks for kids.

You did research?

Oh, yeah, I did research.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I'd been to so many of these fucking birthday parties.

So I'd been there multiple times.

Well, you realize that the pool of comics is going to be dads who talk about their kids.

That's right.

So that limits it.

Yeah, that limits it.

Yeah.

No, I can't stand that.

I had an issue with,

I told him I wouldn't talk about it.

But

now that we're talking about anger, I got angry yesterday at someone we both know for a very specific reason.

And the...

The issue with jokes being out there forever on your Instagram and everywhere else is that there there are people that don't know that they've glommed it right sure and it's just out there and now there's a whole generation of comics that watched me when they were kids yeah and so all of a sudden i see one of my jokes surface yeah partially or or all of it and i have to be like well you know you own yeah that's your joke but you haven't done it in 15 years right and now this guy's doing it so what what do i do what do you do you know if i had someone come up to me at the seller recently and they're like, oh, I'm a huge fan.

They're a comic.

Yeah.

Yeah, I came up on your stuff or whatever.

And then I looked on their Instagram and I saw like one of my jokes.

Yeah.

It was like one of my chips, like one of my early jokes.

And it was almost word for word.

And I said to, I said to my wife, Jenny, I go like.

That's the flow of this whole thing.

At a certain point, you become the

person who people came up on.

And even, I don't, I'm not saying that guy stole a joke, but it's it's in there.

It's in the brain.

But that's it.

But like, so like, how do you, it's not even the act of forgiving that.

And we understand it because I've seen it over and over again.

Yeah, of course.

And there are some, there are some areas of observation that are pretty commonplace.

Yeah.

And it's like, but if you have a unique twist on it that you know is yours.

Yeah.

But some jokes are like, you know, there are some things you talk about, and that's one of the reasons why I decided to talk about myself exclusively, is that no one can take that.

Like if you're you're looking at the world then you're at risk that's what lucian hold that's what lucian hold my you know who used to run the comic strip taught me oh really he was one of the first people i was like you know probably in my early 20s and he i was talking doing observational comedy about the teletubbies yeah yeah mr t and a team also all the big topics and then he goes uh he goes if you talk about yourself no one can steal your jokes yeah and i started talking about myself and that's good it's a great piece of advice The best.

Yeah.

You don't really have.

But then you know what happens when you get older and you do a few specials, though.

You tap yourself out.

You're like,

well, all of a sudden the well's all filled up.

Well, Sedera said that on my podcast.

He goes,

you go.

You, you, at, when you're starting writing, you have the most stories because you have your whole life, but you're not that good at telling stories.

Right.

So then as you go, as your life goes on, you have less stories, but you're way better at telling the stories.

Sure.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah.

But do you find, like, how'd you handle that, that guy doing your joke?

I was actually fine with it.

It was so weird.

I didn't do nothing.

I didn't do nothing.

No, I didn't do anything.

No, I don't,

to me, it's like, I don't think of it as

things are for things for me,

I'm like, this is great.

I'm doing great.

Okay.

Not in life, in comedy.

Yeah.

I mean, like, I have the struggles that everyone has of being alive.

Your stories.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I, but my comedy, it's like, I, I write these shows.

They're really specific.

Yeah.

And people show up live to see them.

And then I'm able to make comedy specials from them.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Like, what else could you want?

You're grateful.

I'm grateful.

That's good.

So I don't, when I see someone crib a joke, or maybe they don't realize they crib a joke, I go, yeah.

Well, I get, here's what happened in the two cases for me

is someone brought it it to my attention that there was this kid doing a joke I did literally in 1989.

That's really funny.

And, you know, it's out there.

You know, and this kid, you know, maybe he could have seen it when he was a kid.

I don't know.

And it was the same setup.

And I, you know, someone sent me a clip of him doing it from Instagram.

So I DMed him.

I said, look,

I did that joke.

but I don't care, but I'm just telling you because it might be brought to your attention.

So like if someone's going to be like, yeah, it's a Mark Maron joke or whatever, that might happen, but I'm okay with it.

Yeah.

That's nice.

Yeah.

So I think I handled that well.

Yeah.

But the other thing yesterday I did not handle well.

And it was sort of the same thing.

But, you know, if somebody has a pattern of taking jokes from different people, that becomes a more difficult situation.

It's funny.

Like, I remember when you had Robin Williams on years ago.

Yeah.

And And that was a great conversation.

Yeah.

And you talked to him about it.

Yeah.

And it was very clear that he had not, in my opinion, that he had not intended to lift jokes, but that he, in some ways, was a sponge of conversation.

I saw it how it happened.

Yeah.

Because I did it.

He saw me at the Throckmorton once, and I did this bit.

It was a big bit about the demon, you know, the sober demon bit.

It was like, you know, it used to be like, yeah, let's go out and get some blows, some whip pussy and some booze.

And then it's like, how about some ice cream?

And he,

you know, he came up to me after the show.

He goes, ooh, that demon.

And he starts riffing

on my friend.

I'm on the Roman Williams version.

Yeah, and he's riffing on it.

I'm like, that's how it happens.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

That's like one step away from, you know, it's mine.

No, I get it.

Yeah, I mean, I guess there's nothing we can do about it.

Yeah, I remember one time Mulaney, when he was writing on SNL,

texted me, hey, did you ever do the polar polar bear drinking Coca-Cola as a bit on an album?

Yeah.

It was a tag he had written for me on tour with me like years before.

Oh, interesting.

I was like, yeah, it's on To Drink Mike and it's on this special, whatever.

He's like, all right, won't do it.

But he had written it.

He had written it, right?

So, like, I said to him, you can use it if you want.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't care.

But, like, I do think there is a degree where

we're doing all these brain exercises as comedians and trying to put out more and more and more stuff to figure to figure out what's funny to us.

And you do come across the same ideas.

Of course.

Parallel thinking is real.

And like when I did this special, I had this one joke.

It's pretty much a one-liner, but I had a sense that not that I took it from somebody, but that someone else was doing it in my life.

Yeah, out there.

Yeah.

So I was like, fuck it.

And I didn't do it.

Yeah.

And

then

it's funny because

Rock gave me a tag for a joke that really worked well.

And then I ended up, it was part of the joke that I took out of the special.

So that's gone.

Mulaney had a great tag in my special to Good Life, which is,

my wife is a poet.

I'm a comedian.

Together, we're a sculptor.

Such a simple joke.

That's a good joke.

Isn't it great?

It kills.

And doesn't it like when someone gives you a tag and it really works well, don't you ever get that moment where you're like, fuck, why didn't I?

Totally.

How is he just so good at that?

Totally.

Yeah.

But that's what,

next time you're in New York, you got to come on Working It Out.

My podcast, we just work out jokes.

But I think you'd like it because I think you love jokes.

Well, I do.

You work out jokes in real time.

Yeah, I do.

But they become jokes.

I know.

I get it.

Like

when I did this special, I had a really simple, everyone can love joke.

It's a cat joke.

And

I had a tag, but it wasn't quite right, and I knew it.

It worked good enough.

It basically has two punch lines.

There's the turn, and that gets the laugh, but then there was another beat there that was required to kind of close it up.

And the thing I had there was okay.

But literally three days before the special, I was on stage and it was delivered to me.

And that's how, that's the, the way I work.

That's what makes it interesting.

That's nice.

I don't know where it comes from.

It's from the gods.

Yeah.

Most of my stuff is.

That's like the Bob Dylan

documentary Scorsese did years ago where he goes, I didn't write these songs.

God wrote these songs.

And it's like, it's kind of nuts through a certain lens, but through another lens, you're like, yeah.

I get it.

Where does it come from?

I know it specifically with me because I work through talking.

I don't write it.

So, and I believe that it's like, if you're a funny person and you put yourself in a position where you have to be funny,

which is a comic's job, but literally corner yourself.

Like, I've got a funny enough idea that'll get a few laughs, but I'm hoping that by doing it, it'll evolve.

And where the hell does that come from?

Yeah, you're, yeah.

That's right.

I mean, it comes from your brain in a moment, but it didn't come from your brain sitting there going hmm well it's fight or flight meets jokes that's right yeah yeah so we're doing your podcast now

do you come to new york a lot i'm gonna be there i saw you there at the cellar i was there to shoot the special oh is that what it was no oh you were there a couple weeks ago yeah i saw you and then before that i saw you at the cellar yeah and uh i'll be there for tribe up

in a couple weeks oh that's cool you're in a movie yeah there's a documentary about me oh that's cool yeah that's all right i mean it's good It's a little much from, it's a lot of me.

It's a lot of you.

It's almost too much me for me.

But it

talks about the Lynn and the COVID and building an act after that.

And then it became more expansive.

Yeah.

You can come see it

if you want.

I'll come see it.

If you can do it.

What do you mean if I can do it?

Well, I don't know how much you are that interested in me.

I am interested in you.

So the one thing I didn't know about watching this special, and I don't know know why I didn't know it, I probably knew it because you've done this show like more than anybody for a guy that doesn't get along with me or I don't get along with.

But like we grew up with doctor dads.

Yeah.

And it's a very specific, weird thing.

Oh, it's a very specific type of dad.

Yeah.

But my dad was similar to yours, really.

And Conan did too.

What kind of doctor was his dad?

You know,

I'm not sure.

My dad's

a retired neurologist.

Yeah.

That's a big one.

It's no pun intended.

It's a heady profession.

It really is.

It's a smart group of people.

Oh, yeah.

My dad was more of the

kind of, I guess, the working class doctor in a way.

He was an orthopedic surgeon.

So it's like hammers and saws.

Screws.

Yeah, yeah.

Cutting people open, chopping away.

Totally.

Yeah.

It's weird, like only as I get older, and I feel like you've probably had this with your dad, although I did hear you say, I love you to your dad a second ago.

So that's nice.

But I do feel like there is a degree of the emotional withholding is not unrelated to the job where he's compartmentalizing what is really extreme.

I mean, he's dealing at work, my dad,

people with Parkinson's,

people with

SMS.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Really, brain disorders is a fucking hell.

Yeah.

And so then he comes home and he's just trying to sit there and read his war novels.

And meanwhile, like I'm projecting on him that he's this mythological creature of perfection in my life.

And it's like,

he's just a guy.

Yeah.

He's saving lives and being a good debt and being a good doctor.

And like, you know, it's funny, people would come up to me when I was a kid.

They go, your dad's a great doctor.

And I go, oh, thanks.

And then he'd be like, no, for real.

Like, I've gone to a lot of doctors.

He's a really special, you know, and it's like, I just didn't see that side of my dad.

Like, it's just not what I saw.

Right.

And like, I had a lot of anger about that for a lot of years.

And it's, I talk about this in the special, but it was really only in the last few years where I got to understand, like, like, you got to ask questions.

You got to be open to that these people are flawed, that your parents are flawed, and just ask questions.

And also, you don't know them.

Right.

You

just don't know them.

I do a bit in my special about that.

About like, you don't know these people.

Yeah, totally.

I mean, they had whole lives before you.

They had lives outside of you.

That's right.

And they have people in their lives.

You don't fucking know them.

Yeah.

Well, my joke about dementia, which is pretty funny,

I say like, you know, if you can let go of who they were and just sort of deal with what is, there's a lot to be gained.

And I say,

like, you know, the filter goes away eventually.

And the statute of limitations on what they should and shouldn't tell their kid, that's gone.

So that's very funny.

So if you have unresolved issues or questions, just reach into that bingo cage of memories and

see if you can pull out the missing piece that'll make you a whole person.

That's right.

That's a great, that's a great one.

You know, I talked to my mom and dad yesterday because they haven't seen the special.

Special dropped

on Monday.

He's in rough shape.

I mean,

he's like a tank.

His constitution

is 84.

Yeah, my dad's 86.

Yeah.

It's up there.

And it's like, he had a stroke, you know, 15 months ago.

It was really extreme.

He's almost died about six or seven times, you know, where we took him.

Like, he was at the hospital last week, wasn't eating,

was throwing up and all this stuff.

I mean, awful stuff.

Awful.

And so I was talking to them yesterday, and they haven't seen the special, you know.

But then their neighbors started telling them, Oh, we saw Mike's special and it's beautiful and it's a love letter, Vince, to you.

And but they're like, but it's also challenging.

You know what I mean?

Like, so they kind of have to.

Have a good doctor.

Right, right, right.

They had a, they had a, my parents had a vibe of what the special was yesterday when I was on the phone.

And I go, um,

I go, Vince, I call my comparents Vince and MJ.

You do?

Yeah.

I go, Vince, I think you would,

I think you'll like it, but it is challenging, you know, and it's about your, some of it's about your stroke.

And my dad on speakerphone goes, I don't like the personal stuff.

Yeah.

And I go, Vince, don't watch it.

I go, you can't, you can't choose what your child's gift is.

Oh, that's interesting.

And he goes, that's true.

And he laughed.

And I was like, for me, that was peace.

Yeah.

Oh, that's good.

Because my dad, you know, when I wrote about him in my book, now he gets a kick out of it.

But I went to the mats with my dad.

Like, I pushed him.

Same.

I pushed him as far as he could go.

Yeah.

And, you know, I saw what was at the core of him,

which oddly is fuck you.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

There's hostility.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just something.

And so I think that's at the core of every narcissistic personality.

Sure.

Because they can't totally reveal themselves to themselves.

Right.

So you're going to get the fuck you.

But that's a correlation, though.

They can't reveal themselves to themselves.

Well, because I think they're not open to themselves about who they are at or which the narcissist is.

If you push them to go there,

they're going to hold out.

Right.

All the way to the end.

It's going to come at you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, you know, look, you know,

I, you know, I, as people get older, and I think you, I don't know if you're seeing it because it's not necessarily in the special, is that, you know, they, they are half your brain.

Yes.

And, you know, whatever their shortcomings or flaws were, you know, that wired you.

Yeah.

Half of it at least.

For sure.

So at some point, you have to reckon with the good parts and the bad parts about your dad that you possess.

Right.

And then you have to say, like, all right, well, this, you know, these are good things.

from him.

Yeah.

And these are the bad things.

And a lot of times those bad things will kind of be a struggle and they'll take you down and they're built to fuck you.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know if you had that same experience.

Oh, but anyway, my dad, when I wrote about it in my book, he was furious and it was graphic.

And it was, you know, and, you know, he was like

very angry.

And

I didn't do the same thing you did, which was more,

it was a better way to phrase it.

I said, well, look, it's my story, too.

This is my story.

Yeah.

That like I own this story, my side of it, as much as you do.

And you're part of my story.

Now, you can choose.

and I'm not sure if I'm, if I was as

you know, uh, careful as I could have been out of respect, yeah, but fundamentally, I didn't respect him at that point.

So, we had this fight on the phone, and I said, you know, well, he was worried that like some of the stuff I said would have implications for him professionally, yeah, and that you know, you know, his family was mad and this or that.

I'm like, what do you want?

You want money,

sure, yeah, and he goes, Yeah, and I go, How much?

He goes, $100,000.

And I said, I'll give you five.

That's good.

Have you done that on stage?

Probably.

That's funny.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a good bit.

Yeah.

Mulaney saw me do some shit about my mother that never made a special, you know.

But as they get older, you know, and he's softened and the love you thing.

Like when I told my mom, and they're not together, that I think, you know, dad's got the beginning of dementia, she said, how can you tell?

That's funny.

Because he was always.

He's the same.

Well, he's detached.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, that was always the joke.

I get that.

That's what I was thinking.

Like, he'd be at dinner, but he wouldn't be there.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and I don't know what that was.

It was a joke at the table.

Like, we'd be talking, and he'd be like off in space.

Yeah.

My feeling about my dad was always,

I was the youngest of four.

Oh, yeah.

And so, and I was the oops baby.

And so I don't think he wanted to be a dad much anymore.

Like the way my sisters describe it is like they would go on trips to Boston and they'd buy raincoats.

and

they'd have a night, a day out on the town.

It's like, I didn't get shit.

I got nothing.

Like I was just alone.

I was off, you know, what they call now like a free-range kid.

Like I was just out with my friends.

Yeah.

Like it's kind of, I don't know.

Like I was done.

But at the same time, like as I get older, I just go like,

you know, oh, my dad was a tough dad, but also like compared to what?

Yeah.

He didn't beat the shit out of me.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Like, there's people who have a real heart.

Yeah, sure, But detachment and emotional neglect is

not as traumatizing in events as physical abuse, but in the big picture is pretty mind-fucking.

True.

You know, like, I think that the, you know, comparing trauma and the effects of it, you know, some trauma is easily identified.

The other stuff is a little more insidious.

I know what you mean.

I just feel like it was never.

Sure, you had money.

You had good, you you know, you had good, you had everything.

You valued education.

Yes.

Yes.

There were things like that where, you know, my dad doesn't have, you know, he'll die when he dies today, tomorrow, in a year.

He's like, he'll die with no money.

He spent all his money on educating his kids.

Really?

Yeah, for real.

Like, he always.

That's funny because my dad's broke, too.

Yeah,

he really valued that.

Because he grew up in Bushwick in an Italian neighborhood in the 40s.

Yeah.

And he had nothing.

And then he got a scholarship to a Catholic school, Xavier in high school in Manhattan.

That's the same with my dad, yeah.

Really?

Well, he grew up with, you know, his mom was a teacher.

Yeah.

His dad was like a bookkeeper.

Yeah.

And he was a valedictorian.

And

my dad's dad worked in the subway tunnels.

Yeah.

He was an electrician.

He'd go into those dark tunnels after they dynamite the tunnels.

And then he'd rig wires in the darkness.

Yeah.

Wow.

It was crazy.

Yeah.

And so the idea that my my dad ended up being like a doctor and had a law degree and all this stuff, it's bananas.

And so I don't, I weirdly, like at this age, I don't begrudge him any of that stuff because he wasn't, when my dad would rage, it would be like I say, you know, in the show, he'd be like, where are my goddamn keys?

You know?

And it'd be like, we got to find dad's keys.

Yeah, I know that one.

Yeah.

He gave me that, like, I was on edge.

The whole, the whole family has to snap into it.

Yeah.

Where's that ski hat?

Oh, here we go.

Yeah.

And so, but it wasn't at me.

It was like, it wasn't like, god damn you, Mike.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

It wasn't at me.

So I don't know.

But it definitely scrambled the family into action.

Big time.

And then you never knew what you were going to be dealing with when he got home.

Oh, yeah.

It's like dealing with somebody with anger issues or

self-centered, kind of the megalomaniacal thing of a doctor in general, is that, you know, it's as erratic as an alcoholic.

Yeah, you're right.

You know what I mean?

And my dad was, you know, like bipolar, I guess, but you just didn't know and you barely saw him.

So you wanted to engage one way or the other.

And it was always like before family trips or something.

Where the fuck, you know?

Yeah, sure.

So you always enter these family experiences just afraid.

Well, it's funny.

Like, I, you know, I think the way I started writing this special two years ago was like, what can I teach my daughter?

My daughter's eight.

She's starting to ask questions that are hard.

That's the way I started.

That's right.

Yeah.

You know, and about a year into it, dad had a stroke.

I was like, okay, now it's about how do I relate to my dad?

How do I relate to my daughter?

Yeah.

But in, but, you know,

in some ways, the irony of it is this way that I look at my dad as like this mythological, all-knowing creature.

That's me now, right?

Yeah.

For her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's like, I hope.

Well, no, but you know, you know that that's you are

at least for a period of time.

And then, and so I had to explain jokes to her the other day because I was like, this special is going to come out.

Millions of people are going to see it.

And I talk about you and mom and grandma and grandpa.

And like, so the way that I write jokes is like, there's something real that's true, and then there's something silly, and then something real, and then something silly.

So I explained to her like the ballet joke.

I'm like, we went to your ballet recital, and mom and I are crying and crying because she doesn't have it, you know.

And then I was like, no, we're crying and we're hugging her.

And I go, you were so fantastic.

And then you said, Dad, you would say I was fantastic, even if I wasn't fantastic.

And I was like, you are so much better at logic than you are at ballet.

And I go, like, so that's, so it's a joke.

Did she see it?

I showed her some clips.

So I was like,

she took it pretty well.

She took it pretty well.

She goes, I like the true, true jokes better.

And I go, well, the good thing is the special ends on true.

Yeah.

And I go, it's, it's silly, true, silly, true, but it ends on true.

Yeah.

And I think that that's the important part.

And I think the audience knows which parts are silly and which parts are true.

Right.

And so I'm hoping that that reads.

She's 10.

It's like, I'm hoping that reads, but I'm also like, you know, I'm concerned.

Well, concerned in the sense that like

at this age, when you showed her that joke,

did it hurt her feelings?

Yeah,

I think she didn't love it, but I also think like she loves the joke where, for example, she goes, someone comes up to me on the street when I'm with her and goes, you're a great, your dad's a great comedian.

She's like, all right.

And then I go, Una, what do you think when people say stuff like that?

And she goes, it's a waste of my time.

And I go, that's the meanest thing anyone's ever said to me.

And I know Bill Burr.

She's like, she loves that.

Yeah.

Because she's like, because she gets the joke.

She

She tells the joke.

It's a waste of my time.

She gets to do a shot at you.

She takes a shot at me.

And like,

she, and Ern, you know, truly, she really does love that and gets why

what's funny about that.

Well, I guess the question is that, does it, is there the possibility that implants in her that like I am not good enough?

Well, that's the concern.

But I think fortunately, I wouldn't have done it about, like, for example, like, she's really good at swimming.

Yeah.

And like.

So she gave up Ballet.

Without ballet yeah that's like yeah I don't even think she remembers it barely oh that's good you know what I mean like it's like it's like she was seven like it doesn't really feel present sure sure like I wouldn't have done it about a thing that she doesn't really cares about now she didn't do anything about swimming or whatever good and but I'm I'm leave I'm not doing anything about her for her teenage years I'm literally and I told her that I go, I'm not talking about you for the next 10 years because you have your own journey and growth.

And like, this is your story to tell.

Well, that's the tricky thing.

And that's the lesson with my dad and also the lessons that I've done jokes about women I've been involved with.

Yeah.

Is that when they say to you like, could you maybe go lazy on this?

Yeah, yeah.

And then you, you know, depending on what's more important to you, which is a real question, you know, comedy or this.

Yeah, sure.

You know, you kind of navigate that.

But, you know, to what, and also I had a girlfriend who I wrote about, and she said her thing was, it's like, well, I don't get a public rebuttal.

That's right.

So that's another thing you got to take into consideration.

That taught me a lot.

Oh, completely.

And because we want, you know, we're selfish.

We're like, but this is my story.

You're in it, but it's my story.

And they're like, yeah, but I don't agree with it.

Right, sure.

So then what?

Yeah.

Which is why I'm taking some time off from autobiographical storytelling.

Are you?

Because it is loaded.

Yeah, no, I'm taking a few years off from it.

And I'm writing, right, the thing I'm writing right now is my next movie that I'm going to direct.

It'll be another small indie.

Yeah.

Like Sleepwalk With Me or Don't Think Think Twice.

It's actually a lot like Don't Think Twice.

It's about a group of friends.

Oh, okay.

And it's at a wedding and it's just that kind of

thing.

So

you can live in other people.

That's right.

A little bit.

That's right.

Yeah.

And

no one's one for one.

So like Don't Think Twice, for example.

A lot of times people will be like, this is about Mike doing improv.

I was like, no, it's not.

I wasn't really an improviser.

I did it in college or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But like, it was funny because, yeah, did you ever see Don't Think Twice?

About the sketch group.

Yeah, Yeah.

The improv group.

Yeah.

Keegan Michael Key and Gillian Jacobs.

Yeah, I think so.

I thought you would like it because it is about jealousy.

It's about like what happens when someone gets, you know, in this case, like a fake Sarah Live.

Yeah.

Keegan Michael Key got and then everyone else doesn't.

It's about like what happens in life when we realize it's not fair.

Yeah.

It's actually one of the best things my mom told me when I was a kid.

I remember saying to my mom, it's not fair.

Someone got something.

She goes, nothing's fair.

Life isn't fair.

I think that's one of the best things you can teach a kid.

Oh, totally.

Nothing's fair.

Yeah.

But also, the other side of it is,

is that we feel that because we feel we deserve something, but we don't really know if we're right for the job or what they're looking for.

You're talking about like the SNL scenario

or any scenario.

It's like, yeah, like somebody guy gets elevated because of you, and you think like you deserve that, but perhaps the person that was giving that job to somebody had a reason.

Oh, 100%.

You You know, and then you could say like, well, that's fucked up.

It's like, yeah, but it doesn't matter.

So that's the unfairness, but it's not a meritocracy issue.

Not at all.

It's funny, like doing that movie cured me of jealousy because I fucking wrote this movie for two years, three years.

I directed it.

I edited it.

Like it just was, and then at a certain point, I was like.

These characters are fucking insufferable.

Well, they need to get over themselves.

This has nothing because the same thing you're saying.

It has nothing to do with them in a certain way.

Who gets what has kind of nothing to do with you.

And everybody, the jealousy is driven by your own insecurities and what you think you're entitled to based on your sense of

justice or self-righteousness.

That could be, you might be talentless.

Yeah.

You might not deserve that job at all.

You can't see that.

Yeah.

So like, and it's hard to learn that lesson.

Yeah.

You know, like to just go like, well, it wasn't for me.

Totally.

Yeah.

It wasn't my opportunity to get.

Yeah.

It's, And

that takes some real humility.

Because

if you're ambitious and you want something and you believe you deserve it, how can you, when someone else gets it, go like, well, he's probably the better choice.

Totally.

And it's interesting.

I was watching, I was on a show the other day with this guy, Arthur Brooks.

He's like a Harvard professor who wrote this book on like a number one bestseller on happiness.

Oh, good.

And he has this really basic, super smart guy.

Yeah.

Really basic thing that I'm like, I'm going to teach my daughter this, which is when something challenging happens write down two things and one of them is write down

what happened and how it made you feel and the second thing is write down what you learned and then go back to it six months later and usually the first thing you actually don't care about and the second thing you learned yeah Oh, interesting.

Well, that kind of happens when you get older where you think like, well, how did I give so much of a fuck about that?

It's crazy.

It consumed me for years.

Oh, for for sure, and then it's like not even there anymore.

It's not even that it was stupid, it's just like it was kind of like nothing, right?

Well, you know, it's funny, but

that

you know, you're 61, yeah.

Yeah,

Chris Rock said to me recently, he goes, you get to 60 because he's 60 also.

I think he goes, you get to 60.

It's like, there's not many of us comics left, like who are doing it.

Yes, you know, and who aren't huge, like the the guys who like can, you know, go out just on a whim and make $50 million, they seem to never go away.

But

the guys who like, you know, like, what happened to that guy?

I don't know.

No, there's a lot of that.

Totally.

There's a lot of that even now in my 40s.

You know, where

that guy just gone.

I don't know.

Yeah.

It's a weird field in that way.

And a lot of people die.

I mean, that's the thing that's painful is like Giraldo died.

Hedberg died.

I mean, like.

In their prime.

Yeah, Patrice died.

I mean, like, so many people die.

Well, yeah, but like, that's not different than any other world.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I've grown to argue this sort of like, well, comics are all fucked up or there's more drugs and alcohol.

And they're like, really?

More than cops?

More than firemen?

Yeah.

More than plumbers.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

Show me the numbers.

Yeah, yeah.

I do want to see the numbers.

And also show me the ratio of comics versus how many working comics there are versus the ones that died young.

I think tragically is something.

But that happens too.

But yeah, but yeah, people go.

And then there are those comics where you're like, whatever happened to that guy.

And then out of nowhere, you'll be like, oh, he's working down the street.

Yeah, totally.

That's insane.

Also, sometimes people get really good later.

Oh, yeah.

Like you're, like, you're, well, you're a good example.

Yeah.

You were good in the 90s.

You're great now.

I'm better now.

I think you're better now.

Well, I wasn't formed.

I was just angry.

I was a rageaholic.

Yeah, you're a rageaholic.

And I used to think like, well, this is what everybody wants.

But, you know, true rage versus funny rage, different thing.

You know, like.

True rage versus funny rage.

Okay, sure.

Yeah, if you're really an angry person and you don't have control of it,

that's not great.

You know, like, you know, even if you watch old Hicks stuff, I mean, his anger was, you know, utterly alienating, totally justified, but not entertaining for most people.

Right, right, right.

Whereas somebody like Burr is a cranky, angry fuck, but you know, he's got a populist slant on it, and he's got a slant on the dynamic between him and his wife.

And he's softening up a little bit.

But

the funny, cranky guy or the funny, angry guy is a rare bird.

Yeah.

And the ones that are good at it, it's great.

That's right.

Yeah.

But yeah, but honest rage, not great.

It's a little disconcerting.

Yeah, I get that.

But no, I feel like I am better now.

I think you're better now.

Thanks.

I think you've become less of a caricature of yourself.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And I think like one of the things that annoyed me early on was that you were kind of leaning on this character that was a part of you.

Our characters are always part of us.

But

it didn't have a lot of depth necessarily.

Yeah, I think like when we're starting out, we're emulating the people we admire.

I mean, I remember even talking to Geraldo one time I was opening for him, and he goes, he goes, dude, he goes, when I was starting out, he was.

He was a tell.

yeah he goes i was doing a tell totally he goes i have tv spots where i'm doing a tell and it pains me so much yeah you know because he admit he admired a tell there's a fucking generation of people who admired a tell there's a lot of itls around there's a lot of it else running around and then even now i would say that

the people who are influenced by him but i would say sam morrell is definitely an attel mattel yeah sure yeah and then like and then there was tons of headbergs for a while how much headbergs that was a little more specific and it was always annoying.

Because Atello, what you learn from Atello is incredible joke structure.

Oh, amazing.

And by the way, talk about someone who's better.

When I see him at the cellar, he's on fire.

He's always been on fire.

I mean, it's just nice.

He's got one nice

brain.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like an abacus.

It's like

an abacus that's on fire in his brain all the time.

A joke abacus.

That's right.

It's constantly putting it together.

That's what it is.

But Hedberg was a disposition.

So when people took Hedberg, they had to do his

kind of.

An escalator can never be broken.

It can only become stairs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But, but yeah, no, but see, I think you've, in the last few specials, okay, I guess probably since Sweepwalk with me, you kind of came into yourself more.

Thanks, man.

Yeah.

I think it's like, I think everyone's doing that though, right?

I think the thing that I have in common with Geraldo is that it was filmed early.

You know what I mean?

Like I got a few things on TV and then so people can see me as a collection of my influences before I find myself.

Yeah.

Or I found myself.

Yeah, I wonder if that's, I find that I'm more aware of my influences now.

And when I watch old stuff of mine, it's weird because it's not, I never, I'm always kind of myself,

except when in my first year or two.

Yeah.

Then I was, I had an attitude that wasn't really mine.

Yeah.

But like most of the time, I'm like, well, you know, you're not there yet, but I can see me in it.

And I don't really know exactly who my influences are

because

they happen in moments.

I know if I do, like there have been beats where I'm like, oh, it's just like a Gaffigan beat.

Oh, interesting.

Or there's like a way.

I've become more clear about my homages or where, like, I track where they come from when I see them.

Like that bit at the end of End Times Fun, which was this

operatic bit where, you know, Mike Pence is blowing Jesus.

I knew in my mind, like, this is to honor Hicks.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, sure.

Because it's structurally not exactly what I do anymore, but there was a time where that kind of

anger flow.

Yeah.

And I'm like, this is for him.

That's nice.

Only I know it.

Yeah.

But why?

Who do you think your influence were?

Well, early it was Hedberg.

Yeah.

I had the like

boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Yeah.

Where does it like?

Because I talked to this guy and

I put it together before.

But where does Andy Blitz factor in?

With me?

Yeah.

Oh, I never saw Andy Blitz.

Oh, because other than like every now and then.

Luna Lounge, I'd run into him.

But I know I didn't, we just look like.

No, there's like he does a thing.

It's a lot slower than you.

But I think that like, you know, the kind of like, well, you know, like, there's a, there was a thing, but you never in any other thing.

No, I think he's funny, but I don't know his work at all.

Oh, you didn't absorb it?

No, no.

He was a writer at Conan.

I was an intern, maybe.

Yeah.

Like, I think we crossed over.

Yeah.

I think we have a similar talking style.

That's Matt's funny.

And we have a similar hairline.

We kind of look similar.

But yeah, no, no.

So it was Hedberg mostly?

Hedberg, I would say it was my biggest influence.

Stephen Wright was a huge influence.

Really?

That was the first one.

So Stephen Wright was I saw when I was 16 at the Cape Cod Melody tent.

My brother Joe took me, and it changed my life.

But that's not, neither of those are really the style of jokes you do.

No.

And so then, and then what happened was I did the moth 2003.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

And I was like, and it was, it was interesting.

You talk about like finding yourself.

It's like, at the moth, you have to be yourself.

Yeah, that's what Luna was for me.

Yeah.

And then the podcast.

There's no version of the moth where you see someone's story and it's not them.

Yeah.

Like they direct you, they dramaturg it.

It was the first time where like I truly had like Catherine Burns was my director and she kind of taught me how to teach tell an eight minute story.

And it was so that they introduced you to long form.

Yeah.

And that and then I did that and then I and that introduced me to Ira Glass, this American Life.

And then he did a bunch of stories with me and he really taught me how to tell a story.

Like and then how to, you know, find the Bob and Tom stuff too, right?

Yeah, Bob and Tom was huge because they let me do my Secretariat journal, which was like this piece I wrote, which is like a travelogue.

And I would call in.

And so, yeah,

there were a lot of people that moved you towards long form.

Long form, yeah.

And also, like, when I was in college, I wanted to be a screenwriter.

I just want to write movies and plays.

I didn't even want to be a comic.

I just wanted that.

And then I got out of college.

I was like, oh, that's no one wants that job.

No one has that job.

No one's offering that job.

It's a weird thing when you realize from your college naivete that

no one's waiting for you.

Oh, yeah.

No, if you decide this world, it's all on on you

to push it out there.

So let me ask you, like earlier on, we talked about

the parts of your father that you're infected with.

You don't really address that in the show.

It's interesting.

It's sort of...

And I'm not sure I do either.

Yeah.

Because it's this whole other zone.

of possibility.

Yeah,

sometimes my brother Joe calls me Vince Jr.

Really?

Yeah.

In what situations?

I think because of my intensity.

Yeah.

You know,

I think that the thing that's confusing to people sometimes when they know me versus they see me on stage is that on stage I seem relaxed and off stage I'm pretty intense.

I'm not mean, but I'm intense.

Yeah, I think maybe that was one of the reasons I sort of was resentful.

Yeah.

I'm like, this guy's not being honest.

But I can explain why.

Okay.

It actually makes sense.

Because I've thought about it a lot.

Ira Glass brought it up on my podcast recently where he's like, he's like, in real life, you're super intense and on stage, you're really relaxed.

And I go, Ira,

it's because on stage I'm relaxed.

And I was like, it's actually because it makes sense.

I'm in charge.

Right.

You have completed complete control.

So in my life, I'm like fucking flipping out of control.

And I'm like, I got to hold on to something.

And then I'm intense.

On stage, it's just me talking.

If there's a heckler, I have a line.

I make a can handle it.

I've been doing this a long time.

So it's like on stage, I fucking, I'm pretty happy.

Yeah, because you decide.

Yeah,

I find this sometimes like at parties, you go, people go like, oh, comedians, like I met this comedian at party.

He wasn't that funny or whatever.

Yeah, but we suck at parties.

Yeah.

Comedians suck at parties because it's a bunch of people talking to each other.

Yeah.

And I'm like, no, no, shut the fuck up.

I have the best story.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's not about me enough.

Yeah.

But not even that.

It's like, it's like, it's not about,

you know, someone be like, you've been.

You amateurs.

Yeah, you amateurs.

It's like, it's like, oh,

one time I sleepwalked through a second story window, and they're like, oh, let me tell you my sleepwalk.

Sorry, no, no, no, mine's better.

No, it's going to be better.

I've worked on it for years.

Yeah, exactly.

No, that's interesting.

So, because I feel that too, but it wasn't always that way.

I mean, I think I got comfortable on stage where you have that moment where you realize, like, oh, I live up here.

Yeah, yeah, I live up here.

And, you know, when you're about to go on stage,

at some point, you're like, I'm not nervous at all.

That's why I always tell young comics, I go, like, get on stage anywhere anyone will let you be on stage.

I, I, you know, you were in sleepwalk with me.

You played like the mentor comic in sleepwalk with me, but it's like, it's like I performed, I hosted a lip sync contest at a college.

I did open mics.

I did coffee houses.

I would show up at bars when I was in college in DC where it was an open mic where they didn't want comedy.

Yeah.

And I would sign up and then I'd fucking go up.

Yeah.

People are like, what?

Yeah.

Like, that's how you get okay.

Overcoming those fears.

Yeah, and like but God at the beginning You're just like for weeks You're like I gotta do five minutes.

Oh, yeah, for weeks.

Oh, yeah freaking out, but what what so intensity, but are you an angry guy?

I don't think so

Okay, I don't know you didn't get that from your dad you don't boil you don't blast off I don't know no that was the thing that when I was a kid I was like I'm never gonna do that.

I remember my dad flying off the handle.

I was like I'm never gonna do that.

I never yell you ask like, you know, all the people who work on the producers of my podcast and my wife and my daughter.

Like, I do not yell.

It is baked into me.

It's possible it's all staying inside and feeding into a tumor that's forming in real time, but, but it doesn't come out.

Yeah, I used to do.

I used to do a bit about that.

Like, you know, like.

Like when you stifle anger, where you're like, God damn it.

And then it just, it goes inside you and it creates tumors with your parents' faces on them.

Oh my God, that's fucking funny.

It's funny because I had a joke about my anger going inside and then forming into tumors until I die.

And Ira was like, take that joke out.

And I go, why?

And he goes, I don't think it's true.

I think it's like an old wives' tale.

Like, I think it's like, it's like.

Oh, he had a problem with the science of the joke?

Yeah, with the science of the joke.

I was like, all right.

I did take it out, though.

It's funny how similar that joke.

That's a good parallel development example.

Sure.

You and I basically have the same joke.

So yours is funnier.

The pictures of your family.

I took it one step into joke land.

Well, no, mine had a joke too.

I just forget what it was.

But it was like, yeah, you had a funny one years ago that I loved, which was the chain reaction of anger.

Oh, this guy cuts you off and this and this.

And it all somehow ends up in the Middle East.

People remember that joke.

That joke's great.

That joke.

That's a classic.

That's like one of my first jokes.

That's a classic joke.

Yeah, yeah.

It's good.

Why are you going, uh, yeah, yeah.

Just take it as a compliment.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you.

You're welcome.

No, I like the joke, but like, it's funny that there are people to this day remember that joke.

Because I did it on May ⁇ I don't know if I even did it on Letterman or maybe I did on Conan.

Maybe I did on my first Letterman.

Well, you were like a stand-up comic when

stand-up comedy was in mono, before it was in stereo.

Sure.

You know, like you like when there was 10 comics.

Yeah, yeah.

And then

there was 10 comics at the top and then 20 in the middle and then 50 at the bottom.

And I was somewhere in the lower tiers, but yeah, I was around.

I don't think you could find it.

There was still only 100 guys.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Now there's like a thousand.

I don't even know how many.

Yeah, it's a lot.

Yeah.

So do you, do you find yourself...

What about your mom?

What did you get from her?

Well, like I said, like my mom was like, nothing's fair.

Oh, that, yeah.

She had this.

A real Catholic.

Very Catholic.

Yeah.

So she, and, and when I, you know, I talk in the special about I went to see the Pope last year.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

A bunch of comedians.

Yeah.

It was like Rock and Colbert and Cohen.

That was kind of weird, wasn't it?

It was interesting.

But like, how'd that group get chosen?

Pope Francis.

I think.

think i wasn't expecting to be on that list i have no resentment about that oh good good good um the i think that it was some version of colbert

and the the vatican yeah like emailing back and forth a group of people's names that's how i understand because he's a very out catholic he's a very out catholic yeah yeah and uh so the pope says that guy he's on board yeah but my mom yeah my mom was very catholic i you know i was very catholic i talk about in the special as an altar boy i was i was just

full in.

And my mom, I think the biggest thing I learned from my mom is to laugh at yourself.

My mom is

always willing to

lean into the character of herself.

Yeah.

You know,

and

I just love that.

I just think that's a good attitude.

Well, I guess if you lean into, you know, if you're a believer and you know you're flawed and you're imperfect and you use Jesus to relieve you of that, that there must be some acceptance of who you are if you have that relationship with Jesus.

Yeah,

that's an optimistic take.

I hope that's you don't want to overuse Jesus.

No, you don't overuse Jesus.

Continue being bad.

But my mom is one of these people.

I think, in some way, I see this in my daughter sometimes.

It's like,

you know, like, my mom

will be friends with anyone who wants friends.

You know what I mean?

She's of service.

She's of service.

It's astonishing.

That's real churchy shit.

Yeah.

She'd be like, my friend Ellen was saying, blah, blah, blah.

I was like, Ellen, who?

Like, oh, this person I met at the grocery store.

You met someone at the grocery store?

But like, that's what my mom is like.

And I'd like to think I picked up a little bit of that from her.

She's kind.

Oh, that's nice.

You know, and that's what the end of the special ends on is all we have is these small acts of kindness.

Yeah, I think that's

probably true.

I try to be kind.

Sometimes it's a little late.

Like now, this conversation?

We do fine.

Yeah, we're fine.

We are.

I don't have any, you know, like whenever we do it, I have to reckon with the fact, like, you know, like, hey, Marco, what are you so hard on this guy for?

What the fuck is it really?

But, you know,

I find that

like my struggle in relation to other people or how I see it, it's just sort of the same thing as

nothing's fair.

That there was a time where literally you were doing

one of the shows at the at the bleeker theater.

Right.

And you were in the basement.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And to me, that was like, what the fuck?

Yeah, yeah.

How does, like, how, you know, you're younger than me.

Well, I knew how it happened.

I'm out of my mind.

Yeah, yeah.

And you weren't.

And if you were.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah.

But, but it was, you know, all based on this sort of like, you know, like, you know, he's this, you know,

palatable person

that's able to, you know, wrangle this thing into these shows and get all this attention.

And I'm down there, you know, yelling.

Yeah.

Yeah, I get it.

So it was really all rooted in that.

Yeah, I get that.

But

I'm letting it go.

I let it go every time we hang out.

Every time we talk.

You keep coming here.

True.

It's been a while, though.

Yeah.

Well, I think we went through, well, I mean, there was was that thing with Lynn and that was kind of upsetting to me.

And I don't know why I hold on to things, really.

But

I'm always good with you.

Yeah.

You're all right?

Yeah, I'm good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like, yeah, I'm good.

What?

No, I got nothing.

I got nothing.

There's nothing to process?

No, I just feel like whenever

you

talk about me on the show.

Yeah.

Like people texted me last week and you talked about me during the Nick Crow episode.

Did I?

Yeah,

you're like, I have a thing with him, or whatever.

Yeah, you were like, Do you guys all hang out with each other?

Yeah, you know, that kind of thing.

Jealousy, yeah.

I got all this text messages being like, Mark's talking about you again, the show.

And then we talk on the phone, and it's nice.

And then it's like, there's a premium episode where it called Mike Berbiglia called me, and then we talk for 45 minutes about a 20-minute phone call we had.

Yeah, but I felt bad.

And the phone call was nice.

But no, but I felt bad because the whole thrust of that was like, I'm mad.

And then like I say a thing, I don't feel great about it.

And then you text me.

And I'm like, oh, fuck.

Now I got to really deal with it.

And by the time that happens, I feel bad about what I've done.

Right.

And that's that.

It's just this dumb thing that I got from my father is like you focus, you get angry, you say some shit, and then like it's out of you.

But the component of it that's missing is that, well, you hurt someone's feelings.

And

that was the arc of that.

So now you're fine, but it also puts me in a position to where, like, yeah, dude, I'm sorry, like to defy you to accept me.

And now, and I think that was my whole dynamic with my old man.

Yeah.

And that, you know, I used to do that joke on stage.

You know, like, I do this little thing where I push the audience away, push them away, and then pull them back and pull them back.

Then I push them away, just see if I can pull them back.

It's a little dynamic I call dad.

Well, my version of that, actually, and this circles back to your question, are you angry?

Is like, I have this joke from Old Man in the Pool.

Not a joke, it's a piece of writing from Old Man in the Pool where I go, I write my journal every few nights because I find if you write down what you're saddest about or angriest about,

you can,

I forget what the line is, like, if you're saddest about, you're angriest about,

oh, you can start to see your own life as a story.

Yeah.

And at a certain point,

hopefully you can encourage the main character to make better decisions.

Yeah.

And like, that is why I journal.

Like, the the things in my journal are fucking wild.

Yeah.

Like they're fucking angry.

They're, they're spun out.

Yeah.

But I don't.

You don't have to live in it.

I don't, I don't, well, no, I live in it.

No, I do live in it.

But it becomes a story once you write it.

Yeah, it becomes a story.

So like a lot of like

a few years ago, I did a special called The New One, and it was all about how I never wanted to have a child and then all the reasons you should never have a child and then how I had a child and how I was right and then how I was wrong.

And that's kind of the emotional landing point of the show.

And it's a lot, like a lot of that show is me fucking writing in my journal for all those years of feeling like I'm completely left out of the like mother-daughter relationship.

I'm the fucking third person who no one gives a shit about.

I'm not really part of this thing.

And like a lot of that stuff ended up being really good jokes.

Yeah.

But at the time,

I was angry.

I was like, it's furious.

Well, yeah.

So like, well, even with, with the dynamic, and Nick's another guy.

Dude, I had to stop following him on Instagram.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, like...

Nick Roll?

Yeah.

Wow.

Because I, and I've tell, but, you know,

he's different.

I think he's got a thicker skin than you, really.

Oh, okay.

I don't know about that, but sure.

Yeah.

Well, maybe it's a funnier, thicker skin.

Nick is funny.

Yeah, I've known Nick since he's 20 years old.

I know, he told me.

And he was so fucking, he was always funny.

Yeah.

That's the thing about him.

No, he's like, he's funny as bones.

Totally gifted comedian guy.

Yeah, yeah.

So I had to stop following him on Instagram because I got tired of looking at his gilded childhood.

It's so funny.

Like, you know, it's just like so much love around him.

He really does have a lovely love.

I know.

And it just kept coming up.

I'm like, I just can't fucking take this anymore.

This guy's got everything.

And I think if I can be honest with you, in terms of like why I, it's all me, dude.

You know, whatever this thing is with me and you, it's all me, and I know that.

But I have a total inability to see my place in the world.

And I'm not very good at gratitude.

So the phantom limb that I live with is that I feel that people are doing better than me or they're being treated better than me.

They're being received better than me.

It's fundamental insecurity, but we're sitting in my house.

I'm doing okay.

I'm doing good.

I'm doing everything we should be doing.

I'm doing a special.

I'm acting a movie.

But there's still part of me that's sort of like, well, fuck Berbiglia and the show.

Yeah.

That one-man show.

I'm like, I don't even know what that is, but it's not real.

And I'm sorry that I act on it.

I appreciate that.

And

I won't talk shit about it.

It's always like, and I know it doesn't make me look good.

And I know it's just, it doesn't read as anything other than what it is.

Mark is at times a resentful, insecure, jealous cunt.

And I don't know why he is that because he's doing fine.

And it doesn't serve me.

I get it.

Maybe this will be the episode that finally buries it.

Yeah, because

it's my own fucking problem.

You know what was the, you know, it cured me from jealousy when I wrote Don't Think Twice was realizing, I started to analyze jealousy.

And I was like, I had this realization, you can't be jealous

of something someone has.

Or that's not you.

You can only be jealous of,

you can only truly be jealous if you would trade your life one for one with that person.

And if you think about the person you're jealous of, you're like, no, I would never fucking do that.

I'd never trade my life one for one with that person.

That's interesting.

Yeah, I find that like a lot of times I'm jealous of things that I wouldn't even be ripe for or They have nothing to do with me.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's really a fundamental insecurity that I guess I wrestle with a lot.

Still, I don't talk about it as much.

But yeah, it's not attractive.

How's your sister, Gina?

Gina's good.

Patty's good.

Joe's good.

I've been very blessed with like.

hashtag bless um siblings that are cool yeah and like taught me a lot about life yeah art and comedy gina it's so funny because like i knew gina when she was nina rosenstein's assistant yeah in the 90s right and i was at doing i was at comedy central doing short attention theater and i this this whole arc of nina is the person

that she's my person at hbo she's the one that pushed through my last two specials she's really cool but like i knew her when i was a kid yeah and there's been this whole life and all of a sudden i land back with her and it's so amazing and so good i love doing the special at HBO because when I was coming up, that was what you, that's all there was.

That's all there was.

Yeah, that was the big thing.

And also, it's like a curated place.

You know, you, you know, you're not gonna, your special is not gonna drop, and then three days later, you're like, I can't find it.

Is it on the homepage still?

Totally.

Yeah, yeah.

I feel like I've been given

the, the, I feel like the media universe has been evolved in the period of time where my

comedy went from not having a home, like it never quite fit with HBO because HBO was more edgy.

Yeah.

And it never quite fit with Comedy Central because what I do is more theatrical.

And grown up.

Right.

Yeah.

And so I never really had a home until Netflix came along.

And now I'm just like, oh, this is perfect.

Yeah.

Because there's no commercials.

Thank God.

And it reaches everybody.

And the people who need to find it find it.

Right.

And then those people are fucking super fans because it's like, so what I'm doing is really specific.

Right.

Yeah.

yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I find that too.

Specific different differently.

But yeah.

And then when you start to, it's interesting when you start to build a fan base and you see them out there.

And like I look at them and I'm like, how are you people?

The people like, because you're going to manifest what you honestly are.

Yeah, of course.

And mine are all, they're all grown-up people.

They're good people.

But some of them look much more well-adjusted than me.

But I'm glad I entertained them.

Yeah, I always have that when people come up to me in Brooklyn.

Whenever someone comes up, it's always like this pear-shaped middle-aged ogre who's just like, I totally relate to everything you're saying.

I'm like, oh, great.

I look like that guy.

Yeah.

Inside.

Inside.

All right, good talking to you, man.

Thanks, man.

This is good.

Thanks for having me.

There you go.

We did okay, me and Mike.

Again, his special, The Good Life is Now on Netflix.

Hang out for a minute, folks.

Hey, people, for Father's Day, we posted a new WTF collection for Full Marin listeners.

This one featuring dads.

It's got stories about fatherhood from Matt Damon, Bill Burr, Jack Gallagher, John Glazer, Hank Azaria, Ron Funches, and a recent visit with Barry Marin.

Do you remember this dog?

Yep.

You do?

Penny.

When did you have that dog?

Oh,

don't know.

But I remember him.

Penny, penny, penny.

Look at this.

Eleanor.

That's your mom, right?

Yep.

How about this one?

That's grandma.

Ida.

Do you remember her?

Yeah.

Was she a nice lady?

Yeah.

Did she talk much?

I don't remember her talking.

Was Barney her husband?

Yeah.

Was he a character?

I didn't know him.

You didn't?

He was dead already?

I don't know.

I don't remember him.

I love this picture.

That's Ben.

Your dad?

My dad.

He looks good in that pic, huh?

Yeah.

You remember him talking much?

Yeah, more or less.

Look at this picture.

That was when you were a lifeguard?

Kepo Park, probably.

You're doing pretty good with this quiz of your life.

This is a dementia test.

That's the little dog.

Penny?

No, another one.

Inky.

Inky.

To get that collection and new bonus episodes twice a week, sign up for the full Marin.

To sign up, go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus.

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

And now I will

do a little guitar that's a little clunky.

But uh again, uh, I love you, John Lennon.

Boomer lives, monkey and Lavanda, cat angels everywhere.