Episode 1677 - Tom Scharpling

All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies, what the fuck, Nick's? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron.
This is my podcast. How are you doing?

How can I help? What can I do to what what do you need?

Is there, are you okay? I, oh my God.

What a time we're living in. What a time we are living in.
It makes me want to,

you know, I think, you know, sometimes

there was a time where poetry had a tremendous impact. And I guess there's an argument to be made that a lot of things are poetry, you know, music,

some writing,

ad copy.

But there was a time, I think, and there probably are still poets that do this, where

you're trying to crunch the big equations, the existential, the philosophical, the mystical,

the personal. There was a time where poetry was sort of the mathematics of eternity and trying to wrap your brain around it.
And sometimes I think,

you know, maybe that's what we need, is a little poetry, just to

frame things in a way we can understand.

So now

I will read to you The Second Coming by William Butler Yates

Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer.

Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand.
Surely the second coming is at hand. The second coming.

Hardly are those words out when a vast image of spiritus mundi troubles my sight.

Somewhere in the sands of the desert, a shape with a lion body and the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, is moving its slow thighs, while all about it.

it reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again.
But now I know that 20 centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.

Yeah,

that's a nice. I hope you're having coffee.
I think that's a nice way to start the day. I do want to say this

in terms of

the center not holding: is that violence,

never the answer. Violence begets violence.
And

man, just untethered times. And yeah, I hope you're doing okay.
Today, I talked to my friend Tom Sharpling.

He's the host of the best show and someone who's deeply connected to the history of this show.

He's been on eight times before, and we did six separate bonus episodes with him called The Mark and Tom Show.

He's celebrating the 25th anniversary of doing the best show, and he'll be on the road doing some live shows to commemorate the milestone. Always good to talk to Tom.

Good friends. I've had some weird

revelations and experiences about the past and about friendship lately. I'll try to get into it.
Maybe. Maybe I'll get into it.
But I do want to say this. I want to thank a couple of people.

Actually, well, I want to thank Dr. Bronners, Dr.
Bronner's soap, all in one soap, because I, you know, I talked to the Bronner that's in charge now, the grandson, and I love the company.

And this isn't a paid plug, and I have a lot of their soap, and they've always been supportive of the show, and I think they're a very decent and

well-sourced company that are always trying to be proactive and progressive and do the right thing. And I was reminded of this because

I have been using that soap since I was in college. And I realized, you know, I reached out to the guy over there who's in charge of their kind of public relations.

And I just wanted to thank him because I realized maybe like five or six years ago,

if not more, they sent me a big box of those soaps. And I've been using them like I haven't had to buy soap.
And I've been using Brauners, I feel like, my whole life.

And it's just towards the end of the show here, I just wanted to thank, thank them for keeping me clean.

The documentary about me, Are We Good, opens on October 3rd in New York and Los Angeles with special screenings around the country on October 5th and October 8th.

Go to arewegoodmarin.com to see where it's playing and get tickets. And hopefully, look, that'll, if people go,

it'll be in more theaters.

And you can still get in on the Kickstarter pre-sale for our graphic novel, WTF is a podcast, written and illustrated by Box Brown. You can go to z2comics.com slash WTF for that.

And look, you know, I am, it's, I've been a little aggravated. I am starting to realize, as I've said before,

that there's something at the core of me. Or maybe I didn't tell you this.

I think I actually said it at a meeting. I've been going back to

the secret meetings a bit just to make sure I stay in dialogue with

what is at my core now that I have time to sit with it.

And a couple of things have happened, and some of it you'll hear in

this conversation with Tom in terms of how far back we go and his experience meeting me and his experience

watching me, which we have talked about before.

But I realized that

when you're untethered, intense,

insecure,

if you have a sort of wobbly sense of self or self-loathing,

there's a profound selfishness to it.

It's not an entitlement, but there's, because you're so insulated in your own thoughts about who you are and what you're going through, It's rare to really understand

or hear or engage with other people's perception of you. Because what you're thinking about yourself, if you're insecure,

resentful, jealous, self-pitying, I mean, what you're just trying to

get by, but you're full of this horrendous negative self-talk and feelings about who you are.

And that becomes sort of the external personality is you

trying to manage those feelings within yourself to engage with the world.

But there is this thing happening now, again, with some of the time I'm having and the big transition I'm in and the age I'm at,

where it's kind of like, wow, this is still fucking here. You know, this core part of me is still fucking here.
I mean, it's crazy.

And I had a conversation with somebody from my past that really kind of

shed light on something that

I didn't, I don't know, I just didn't realize it you know i had lunch with an old friend of mine a buddy of mine from college we were pretty close we were very close we were kind of best friends for a few years and and he was just sort of reflecting on his life and reflecting on whatever that time was uh back then back in the day and his sense of of who who i was how he felt about who I was was completely fucking surprising to me.

And I realized, like, I don't know, I had a couple of realizations, mostly that, you know, how in my own fucking head am I at all times?

But I mean, again, I was 20, 22, you know, 19, and I was scrambling. All I was doing was trying to figure out who the fuck I was.

I was trying to,

you know, be

unique or different. I was, I was, I was trying to wrap my brain around, you know, art and film and poetry and writing.

And I was trying to sort of dress in a way that I thought kind of had something unique about it. Stuff you do in your 20s.
But I was at the core totally insecure and not confident in a lot of ways.

But I was persistent in this quest to find myself.

you know, not find God, you know, not find some spiritual answer, but just to, you know, fill my head with stuff to make me smarter smarter and understand things and

to express myself and just to figure out

who the fuck am I? Who the fuck am I? And now at this age, at the core, I realize I'm this aggravated,

still sort of resentful kind of

insecure guy that somehow, despite all that,

pulled enough together. And I'm not saying that this is an unusual disposition for a creative person to have, but my perception of him was back then was that this guy's got his shit together.

He knows how to move through the world. He gets things done.
He's a creative guy. He writes.
You know, we both like film.

But I thought he, you know, totally had it together and knew where he was going and what he wanted to do and where he was, you know, what the plan was and what he was interested in.

Me, I was just like all over the fucking place trying to build a me.

So we're talking and he says, look, man, I thought you were cool, that, you know, you were creative, that you dressed cool, that you liked all the right music.

And I just felt kind of not intimidated by that, but I was sort of in awe of you. This is this guy for my entire life, I was, in my mind, kind of competing with and desperately trying to be like.

And after 40 years, he tells me that. His sense of me was something completely different than what I thought.
And I was also a draining fucking guy. And I imagine I still am on some level.

I mean, I'm one of these people. When I locked into a friend, you had to be all in.

You were my only friend. I was demanding.
I was needy. I was competitive.
But, you know, if we were friends, you know, you were it.

I know all this stuff about myself deep down, and I've, I've learned how to manage it.

But just the idea that someone's perception of me was so different than what I was experiencing even back then was kind of devastating and uplifting at the same time.

Because you just realize if you are, and look, I speak my mind a lot. I do on stage here, whatever, I try a lot of things.

And that quest for landing in myself or finding myself is pretty close to done, thank God, at almost 62 years old.

But I do realize that there is no way to know

unless somebody tells you and I'm talking about people who are close to you or respect you and obviously

love you

how you are in their eyes unless they unless they tell you look I get a lot of shit from people sometimes if I say things online or wherever I get good shit from people who watch my work and they understand that but the people that are close to you

have an entire different you in your head than you have in yours.

And I guess what bridges that gap is is trust, you know, once you reveal as much as yourself as possible or you feel comfortable with and sort of share that vulnerability.

But you still just don't really,

you're unable to see yourself as

others see you in your life.

And because my sense of myself or my perception of myself is so compromised by my motor brain and my fear and my insecurity, I assume that people think the same way about me and it keeps getting proven wrong.

And it's good because

I might start believing it.

Anyway, I'm sorry. I just guess I had to dump, as they say, in the recovery racket.

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All right, so look, Tom Sharpling is here. He'll be doing live stage shows with John Worcester to celebrate 25 years of the best show.

You can see these anniversary shows in Brooklyn, Philly, Los Angeles, and Chicago throughout October. Go to thebestshow.net to find out more.
And this is me talking to my dear friend, Tom Sharpling.

I had no idea that, you know, I had sort of landed a bomb.

Because I just don't see it.

Like, I thought, like, I'm barely getting any pushback at all this is amazing it's because my algorithm is designed for my brain for yeah and and uh you know I saw you know Henchcliffe made some comment yeah and it's it's weird about the the pushback from those it doesn't it doesn't matter but like what bothers me is that he was lying

Henchcliffe yeah oh yeah no it's a total it's just like he was doing that blustery yeah Howard Stern

I did kill Tony once because he wouldn't stop pestering me and it was when it was in the belly room at the comedy store and I didn't like it then. Yeah, it was not like I'm a regular guest.
Yeah.

And then he insinuated that

when he's in town, I avoid the comedy store. I was like, why would I do that? Yeah.
For that guy? Yeah. Why would I avoid that guy? Oh, that's.

The way it was positioned where it was. First of all, he used the word, the phrase comedy content that he...
Right, right.

These guys show up every two years yeah doing real specials he said they crawl come out of their hole or whatever like and they have what an hour-long special right that they worked on for a long time i'm churning out garbage every day yeah kidding but just the idea like we do comedy content it's like why would you refer to what you make as content like content that's like that's like being advertising it's totally that i mean i you know i I've been talking about that a bit on stage about the idea of when we were younger, and certainly you, because in the world of music it's like sellout that meant something and it was bad yeah it actually was a yeah you were it was a label that you could not get off yeah and and and you certainly didn't want it on you no i mean i remember like the del fuegos got drilled for a beer commercial

imagine now they still talk about it yeah i mean i'm not actively but i talked to both of the fuegos i talked to both of the zanes brothers ago but it was i wrote i was in boston when that happened and it was like what and then all of of a sudden, I remember even when he started to hear like classic hits on commercials by bands you respected.

It's like, how much fucking money could they need? I know.

And then all of a sudden it just morphed into, that's the goal. Is selling it.
It's only shifted. It really is strange when you think of like,

there used to be this phenomenon where, oh, well, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brad Pitt don't do commercials in America. They do them in Japan.

Like in in Japan, they'll do a commercial for a soda or something because it never comes over here. It's like imagine that concept now.

It's just like the Super Bowl is nothing but a parade of the most famous celebrities

shilling for something. Totally.
And it just, and also to speak to

content, is that

the goal is to create a brand that is you.

You are the brand.

And then other brands will, you you know, you'll run other brands through you. Yes.
And it's, it's synergy because you've sacrificed any sense of,

you know, humanity or autonomy to be this brand. Like when people started saying things like, well, that's on brand, I'm like, what are you fucking talking about? I wish I knew my brand.

People were trying to put me in a box for decades. And now I've sort of landed on something, but I never see it as a brand.
Yeah. I think you and you were told what your brand was

to design it. No, and it it never fit.

But also, like, I remember when I started this show, the idea of doing advertising was

annoying. I didn't, I thought it would ruin it.

Yeah. Like when we started WTF, I'm like, well, there's no way to make money.
And what do we got to fucking advertise for? This is, we're doing a real thing here. Yeah.
We don't need ads.

And then when we started getting the sex toy ads, we're like, well, that's kind of cool. Yeah.

You know, and then the justcoffee.co-op, oh, I just shit my pants. we we own that yeah but that's the limit man yeah and then the audible creaked in i'm like no no no

that's sometimes like i really my my podcast consumption is almost zero

i never listen to any i just i don't it's it's hard enough for me to hear the one i do when i do it do you listen to ears why do you add no i mean when i do it i just even being there for it i almost wish i could ai my way out of doing my own show

like i Give it a year. I know.
I'll just be like. But I mean, like when you started

on the radio, so none of us knew this would ever happen. Oh my God.
There was no sense of any of that happening. And there was a freedom that you found.

And

when you had to adapt, I mean, what were the first things that were problematic for you when you realized, like, well, radio's not good anymore?

Well, I was always, me being on

a non-commercial station,

it was just understood that the pact was you will never make a nickel doing this because you're here to raise money to keep the station operating.

So

I did this show and it was called the best show on WFMU, which was

it was a true, that was me taunting the other DJs on the station because I was so unpopular there. It was like, and then this, this jerk just calls his show the best show on W, like, who are you?

Right. But I did it.
And then, but it's almost like you start the discussion then when you do a thing like that, when you say, well, it's the best show on W.

People would be like, well, it's not the best show on WFMU. It's great.
But people, I think it is the best show.

Like, you, but if I call it, like, if you, if you do, it's like the way the clash were just like the only band that matters. And now people are like,

well, they're not the only band that matters. Like, you're actually discussing them at the highest possible level

because you framed where the discussion is going to take place.

But I was doing that.

The show grew

the first two years, nobody cared. Everybody, the listeners would actually play records, stop talking.

But then it just found its audience and it popped. Once podcasting, 2005 is when that, it just exponentially found people, but there, and the show grew and grew and grew.

2005? 2005 is when we started podcasting. Really? Yeah.

Because, like, I, well, that, so you were doing that with the first group. Because what if we started in 2009? So there was nobody podcasting.

No, there was, look, for that, up until like 2010, it was still just like this weird waste. It's like the kind of thing where you drop a bag of flour from a plane to say, this is my property now.

You know, like when they're claiming stuff in Florida. But it was for the fans.
Like you knew enough to like to make it available

in a way that wasn't beholden to a time slot. That's exactly it.
It suddenly freed the thing up to be

because Brendan was listening forever.

And, you know, when I finally started, you know, hearing about you from Brendan, I just saw it like, you know, well, this is, I'm excluded from whatever this world is. That's this is like

I'm either the one being excluded or the one excluding or somebody thinking I'm excluding them or I'm actually getting excluded.

Well, I didn't know that like, you know, I had built this, and I talked to you about this before, but I had built this idea of you, the mythic Sharpling who had his own little alt comedy universe.

I was not of that ilk.

But Brendan been listening to it forever, and he always says that, you know, you provided him a template through which to understand how podcasting could free us.

How the my goal was

I found my people. Yeah.

And you're doing the 10,000 people. I'm just going to go.

Yeah, I'm just going to do it. I didn't even know what the numbers were.
The only way I could gauge listeners or anything like that was through the fundraising.

And I could just see how the show was growing every year. We did the

station fundraising things every March. I could just see, oh, we made, you know, 30,000 more than we did last year.
So it's just like, I could see the growth with that. Right.

I just was like,

these people, I have people, they like, they seem to like what I'm doing. Yeah.
But it honestly boiled down to like, I would think of like three people doing the show.

Like if they're, if I can make these three friends of mine laugh,

I just have to assume the rest of it's going to take care of itself. Yeah.
It just, and it, it did.

But it was this thing where I was just like, I'm, I'm putting everything into this show

that didn't even have the possibility of making money. And,

But there was such a purity to it then. That's how I felt when I started.
Because it was like, I'm truly doing this for like the love of the game, the way people talk about it.

But also, you could do it, you dictate the whole thing. Yeah.
And there's nobody, you know, there's no guy going, hey, we think you should turn down the,

it's just, it's all on you and you're all in it.

Because I remember at the beginning in the garage, like in 2009, it was like, we didn't know what we were doing, but we knew that like it was something. Yeah.

And that no one was telling us what to do. But I just think it's very funny that, because I've been thinking about that a lot lately, where it was really a moral crisis for me as to whether we do ads.

And then it was like, then it became, for me, it was sort of like,

do we need to talk to actors?

I remember it felt.

seismic when you would expand the range of who was a guest on your show. It actually felt like, oh, that's a shift.
I remember when you first started having musicians on. Yeah.

And it was suddenly like, who's like, like, Wayne Coyne would have been one of the first ones, right? Maybe.

Or I remember, I remember, like, because you've been a listener and you've been supportive, and you've been on the show fucking eight times. And we did like six Mark and Tom shows.

We don't even know what we talked about anymore. There is, but there is

an area that I want to talk to you about that, you know, is not historical, but nonetheless, you know, you've been part of the show since the beginning, as a listener and as a guest.

And I don't know, was it Wayne? I feel like, I feel like I got very like for me, because like I always thought you were like the cool guy and that, you know, that your world was cool.

You know, because like for me, I'm like, you know, always,

you know, late to the party with everything. You know, like I started listening to Black Sabbath in my 40s.
So

like, I knew they existed, but, but it was, I just assumed it wasn't for me. So it's like there are certain elements of

me that

are stunted.

But I just remember like, you know, when I had to have Ty Siegel on, like, I remember like, just like, you know, I wonder if I can get Michael Cronin. Yeah.
They think you can get him over here.

That's like.

Well, the thing is, even like, you have Michael Crony, you have Ty Sig of John Dwyer, all these, like.

You realize they're here. You realize almost everybody at the Strata, they're just hanging out.
I know. It's just like, hey, what are you doing on Wednesday? Yeah.

They're down the street. They're not doing anything.
Seekle used to work at a fucking record store once a week. Yeah.
Yeah. And but I thought these were mythic people with big things.

But it even goes way up the life. Like there's like famous people.
It's still Wednesday for them. And if they don't have anything to do,

they're not on set. They're just sitting around making their assistant miserable.
But

why didn't you get the good lettuce?

But yeah,

but you're right. When I started talking to musicians, that was a big deal.
And then we were recording them, you know, in our very raw way.

But really,

I didn't know how to evolve the show. And it was all very nerve-wracking, you know, because I'm like, you know, by and large, I assume that actors not great interviews.

And then eventually it's like, well, dude, you're going to have to talk to some of these people. And then like they, you know, you figure out a way to do it.
Sure. Did you feel like at a point

because the thing just grew and the access to people saying yes yeah became a lot easier as like it's just it's a kind of just like sure it it kind of is like a snowball going down the hill and suddenly it's like like at its worst were you worried that it's like i'm just like Byron Allen here on like one stop, one of the many stops on the

tour. It's always my worry.
Yeah. To the point where I don't know if people even, you know, would remember me.
Like I still have that.

like I because I know from doing these things when I see people have been on the show I'm like they probably you know, they were probably just moving through stuff but but also from the beginning there was that horrendous anger that like you know, I didn't set out to be a fucking talk show host.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And then my insistence on doing 15 minutes of loose rambling was just to make sure that I planted my little flag. Yeah.
And not just like, hey, I'm like.

Yeah, yeah, today on the show, I'm talking to you. And then all those emails of people are sort of like let the guests talk i'm like no no i will not i will interrupt freely

absolutely because it's not an interview it's a conversation it's the most basic

the most basic delineation is that you've you've you do conversations here you don't do interviews yeah

i grew to accept all that now who gives a

well it's well because the thing that happened is suddenly every one of those people was just like well i think i'll do a show now

but but like going back to like what okay so when you did because i want to talk about the evolution of this thing that we we we've become involved with so you you started doing the podcast and then but that was just it was just a radio show and the podcast until you moved really right or you started it was pretty much it was the the show was live on tuesdays and then stream we would it would stream you could listen to it on the terrestrial radio

no video and um

then we would just edit out the music and put it up as a podcast the next day because music's this, you know,

pay for end licensing. I'm not going to do that.
So

it was just available in a few different ways. You could listen live.
You could listen on your computer. You could download it as a podcast.
And it was that way for a very long time.

The way he started like 25 years ago, right? Yeah, this is the 25th anniversary of me doing the best show. Talking.

It's

talking. Sometimes

I think about if

somebody had sat me down and said, put a contract in front of me. This is a 25-year contract.

You're going to do one of these every week for 25 years. Yeah.

And

for the first 15, it's going to be for free. Yeah.

I would just be like. This is the worst deal I've ever heard in my life.
So the first two-thirds of it, I'm doing for free. And

it's just like, but it was one week at a time yeah and then suddenly I'm like oh my god yeah we're in oh my this far in this and it's just it has become I am like one and the same with the show now the show just

there's a point like the show is just happening in my head yeah and then just once a week I go and I kind of just say it to people you just you you have the conversation going and it's like then you sit in the mic and that's the part of the conversation that's exactly

for three hours It's like, all right,

let's get all this out because that's what I do with this information. I say it at the end of it's ready to say.

And then I just drive home and it's already, the process has already been.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that like I find that for me because it's all

self-generated, but it's me in my little spiral of me.

Like if I don't add things in, like you seem to be a better consumer than me and you're reflecting, you have things that you're looking outside of yourself at and passing judgment on.

I don't seem to be in any sort of consistent loop of putting new stuff into my head.

So it's just me kind of like, like when I look at all the last three specials, I'm like, all right, well, I've, I've done three specials and I, I think I've evolved the ideas that are always ruminating in my head

as far as they can go. So I don't know if you have the experience where like I get on these mics sometimes and there's part of me that's sort of like, I got nothing to say at all.

And now I have to dig down

and find it.

And then, you know, I got to get worked up about something.

But then when I get done with that kind of stuff, I start to realize, like, I don't know if you're really that worked up about that, you know. And, you know, and, you know, maybe, maybe

you don't have to.

Like,

Michael Jordan would do this thing because he was like the most competitive human ever.

He would,

and in an nba season the regular season is 82 games that's a long time to get up for every game so he would

manufacture slights and insults he if somebody said anything he would just be like oh yeah well i'm gonna fucking torch you tonight yeah like and they're just like no no no no i didn't it was not this is i didn't insult you like he's just like and he would destroy these seem to be like you think guys, I'm sucking.

I never said you suck.

He would just, but he had to like play these games with his head to keep it get up for every game. Otherwise, he would just, he would, the motivation is what he needed.

So he had to literally create problems. False fights.
False fights. Yeah.
Yeah. But for me, the problem is that I'm creating false fights with myself.
Uh-huh.

Well, there's a concept like I'm just literally like, you fuck.

How do you live with your stuff? You piece of garbage. When you talk like that, it's like, I think

on my show, like a month or so ago, I was trying to talk, ask the audience, like, what are the things when you talk to yourself? Like, what do you say?

And people, because like the things I say to myself, it's just like,

what are we going to do?

Every day, it's like, what are we going to do? What am I going to say to this guy? I was just like, but I'm talking to myself. I'm like, you dumb bitch.
What are you going to do today?

And I'm like, this is how I talk to myself.

like like but i'm just and nobody had like people like i don't talk that way to my i thought i thought it was like well everybody talks to themselves that way and it's like they don't they really don't i started to realize i'm alone with a lot of the like well what we're we're we're inner michael jordaning ourselves we're ramping up yeah we're ramping up yeah and then i'm like you fucks i'm gonna show you all it's like who am i arguing with i'm gonna show you all what am i like who is it's like i'm oh you think i'm gonna do that You think I'm going to do that?

Yeah.

Well, but

I don't know if I feel that with the way you talk, but that's the inner monologue. That gets me

morning, gets me going. Well, yeah, I mean, that was half of my incentive was

the arc of realizing that whatever beefs I thought I had with people were totally in my head.

That was a long and hard lesson to learn. So ironically, now, though, they're not in your head.

Yeah, that's the big fear of not having Brendan

stop me from saying shit.

Like, you know, he'll just take shit out. And now, like, I don't know.

I think if it were earlier in the podcast, me running around talking, you know, I just think Brendan's like, oh my God, what is he?

He can't be allowed to just go out there and talk freely on other shows. It's going to start trouble.
No, it's been. I look, I've been,

I can just say, watching you on this last,

this last

run here has been,

it's like, I've been like ecstatic with it. It's been just like Luna Mark is back.
I'm just like, like, Howie Mandel. Howie Mandel.
It's like, all right, who's next? He's going to go. Who's he going?

Okay, Hinchcliffe. He's getting him.
Bill Maher. He got Bill Maher now.
Like, I'm just like, this is like, it's like, yeah, he's getting them all. He's getting them all.
The checklist.

It's like, he's clearing the decks on this thing on the way out to where it's like, I said everything. Yeah, exactly.
I needed to say goodbye.

It feels like you're building through just like, I've established I hate you, I don't respect you, you were never funny, and this is the best special I've ever done, and it's all in there.

Yeah, and it's just like,

see you when I see you.

That sort of seems to be what's happening. Yeah, and I think it's great because what, when,

when did it feel like you needed to address these things so directly?

I think because the special, and I and I knew this,

that like it, and I said this about the last one, you know, and maybe even the last two, but the last three specials, I'm like, this is this is the best work I'm gonna do.

And in this one, I was relaxed, I was focused, I was able to articulate my politics with also, you know, taking the task, you know, like-minded people.

But once I was able to sort of make the connection that this idea of anti-wokeness, which was the pet peeve of the comedy community,

once that became the umbrella through which the administration was going to create policy to totally undermine democracy, I'm like, they're part of it. Yeah.
And they can't be separated from it.

And whether they know, and I knew it was coming. Sure.

So it seemed to me that I could speak for my community, about my community, and about politics simultaneously.

But also just that I think what bothered me the most was that with this hijacking of pop culture and the hijacking of cultural entertainment in general that's gone on with the sort of tribalization and the push from right-wing propagandists and

the Austin group is that they, and Rogan did this years ago, that he put himself in the place to sort of be the guy who judges what is good comedy and what isn't. That guy.
He's the gatekeeper.

That guy. Well, now he's a gatekeeper, but he wasn't then

a comedy cop. It was a comedy cop.
He was like Serpico, and he's like,

he's busting this one and he's busting that one, like going up on stage with Mencia. Well, canceling Mencia, yeah.
But, you know, sure, there was

inter-comic problems around stealing. Yeah.
But once, you know, because of the

army that he established that were not essentially comedy fans, who they were feeding this idea of what real comedy is. Well, they're OMA fans.
Right. But it's not, you know, they

do not deserve the right to dictate what comedy is. And because of the way culture works now and

media and bubbles of media, I felt that there was a whole bunch of us

who are not being represented, real comics who

do interesting stuff that aren't just looking to charge up a bunch of morons.

And it's always been that way. Like, I got an email the other day

from somebody who said I was wrong about Henchcliffe.

I saw a guy on there who had

very autistic or something

on the Kill Tony show. And he went back at Donnell and he won.
And those guys don't get their shot in elitist show business. So Tony's providing this stage for

these people that wouldn't necessarily get their shot. It's like, first of all, that's not true.
Comedy, if anything, there was always people that, you know, I remember

people in wheelchairs, people with one arm, you know, people.

Like one of the earliest memories is like Jerry Jewell doing stand-up and being like,

oh, she's doing stand-up.

Comedy was always very forgiving.

But that just speaks to the fact that mainstream show business has kind of collapsed.

But to answer your question,

I realized that with the special, because I was more grounded and made a lot of decisions in that special that were very deliberate and studied and took me a long time to sort of balance, that like this, I'm saying my piece here clearly.

Yeah. You know, in terms of what I'm saying.
No, there was no, it was not blind items. It was not, you're not being cute and dancing around.

And that's what made it work for me at least is just that it was like, oh, no, no, you're like

sink or swim, you're just going to say it. Yeah.
And just you'll, you'll, you'll accept.

Unlike a lot of these comedians, they don't want to, they think the idea of constant, they think the idea of somebody not liking what they do is canceling or and having a problem.

It's like, no, you have an opinion, so I can have an opinion. Like we all have opinions.
But the idea that like.

you weren't ducking it or trying to have it both ways with it. It's just like, you know, whatever's going to happen is going to happen, but you're going to say it out loud.
Yeah, because it's like

it just, I've been saying it here for a long time.

And I didn't, like, honestly, when I did those other shows, when I did like, you know, Soder and I did Bobby and Andrew and then Andrew's show and then, you know, Howie's or whatever, and Ryan Sickler's or whatever, I just wanted to do comedy podcasts to get my special out there.

Yeah. But this happens every time after a special.
I can't see my way through yet to what would actually become another hour or

like

the idea of freeing me up from the podcast and also having the special done and having this time, I would like to see where my creativity can go, you know, untethered to me, which is why I'm going to focus on getting the movie made from Sam's book and try other stuff.

You know, I just, I'm a comic by

nature and by, you know, profession, but it's, there is a part of me that feels like I said it. Yeah.
Well, you're a, you're a jealous comic

because you're a complete failure.

So, of course, you're looking up at all these great men who have accomplished all these things. And you've just been

in the sucking shadows.

No one's wanted anything you've ever done.

Yeah, that's the point of view of

the other side. Yeah,

I just keep. That's the best part of that.

We've talked about Elephant Graveyard off Mike.

Like, I've watched it as if I'm

just watching a movie. It's like I'm gonna watch that movie again yeah yeah yeah and

the suey eyes were just like

rest in peace

but when he pointed out their defense is always we were just jealous oh you're just jealous of what it's like this assumption that like we're not making a living or something no I owe all I ever wanted my goal in this was to make things and participate in things that I would have want I would want to see yeah or hear.

And

if I can pay my bills and actually call this my job, it's like that's that was all I ever wanted. I never wanted anything more than that.
And I've got that. Yeah.
I don't even know what to do.

Like, you know, I do fine. I do great, but I don't like, I don't think in terms of like, finally, I can buy the what.
Yeah, it's like, I don't care what.

Like, you know, I buy a belt and I'm like, this is nice. But it's like, like, man, these guys with the watches, that's the one I care.
That's the thing I care about.

I got talked into this one by dean of course you know this is a speed master and it's fine but i was like i was just wearing you know seios and stuff what do i care about it it's a nice watch but you gotta wind it but when they're just like oh yeah this is the whole thing this is all of it yeah yeah but i i also think there's a a sense that balance has to be try we got to try to regain balance you know because we're in a world of shut the fuck up and you know it's like comedy is a very sort of diverse and nuanced and interesting and it's a stage where you know you can do whatever the fuck you want.

And, and just the fact that, like, that's why I always, you know, refer to Maria Bamford and stuff, that the fact that these apes

are dictating the idea that or presenting the idea that this is what we know what comedy is. It's like, you don't, you're all saying the same fucking thing.

There isn't a goddamn, you know, interesting.

All I know is like, there was clearly, and you said this before, that, you know, all these things have an arc, but there was clearly a vulnerability because whatever happened, you know, between Elephant Elephant Gravedyard and me and

Joe realizing that he was on the hook,

it's buckling a little bit.

And it's just, there's got to be a pleasure in it. It just can't.
I really just feel like it can't sustain.

And if you look at the history of these things, people who are younger might not realize that like in like 1988, 89, it felt like Andrew Dice Clay owned

comedy.

Sam Kinnison and Andrew Dice Clay were the bosses of comedy. That's when I was a door guy.
I remember it well. But

it didn't feel like it was going to stop. Yeah.
It felt like this is the way it's going to be now. Yeah.
And then it stopped. It all.
But now it's different, which is why Howie was wrong.

It's like, I think you're giving comics too much credit. They're not doing comedy.
Yeah. No, they're not.

They're not doing, they're yammering on about this and that. And now, you know, they are their influencers.
Yeah.

And they're being, you know, then they're deciding that they're political spokesmen because the right has enabled them to create

distraction and division. And

they eat it. It's bait.

How the fuck can you be a free thinker if you're all talking about the same three things? I know. It's just that thing where it's like

trans, Czech. Yeah.
Spoke, Czech. Yeah.

Immigrants, done. Czech.

Thanks, everybody.

And let me talk about BetterHelp.

It really feels like

what's going to happen now is right now

it's like the first part of 2001. Yeah.
And we're waiting for the monolith to show up so that these apes.

They're always just like, ooh,

one would touch it so they can finally stop being apes and evolve.

But like

we're still in that part where the apes are just jumping around they're just jumping around one guy found a thing to hit the other guy with yeah and we're in that part

yeah

i think the monolith is late spotify like the spotify monolith comes down but here's my question though in terms of like also along with what we're doing because i don't know that i talked to you really i mean we did a talk about the book right yeah and then but we talked about you got married and everything else and you left jersey yeah i've been re-watching the soprano so i'm in deep jersey right now now oh yeah it's the

so good right

it i can't there's still lines on the sopranos i think about that are like the like when tony was sad and then poly walnuts is just like uh

he's like tone you want me to send the kid to go get some baja fresh

Like to try to cheer him up.

It's like, that's the most well-crafted, funniest line I've ever heard to have come out of this guy's mouth. You want me to send send the kid to get some baja? Like, he doesn't know Baja.

Like, I didn't realize until watching it this time, which isn't, this is my third time through, I think,

that, you know, Paulie is like

so dumb. Yeah.
Like, you know, he's like, he can't read, really. He can't, you know, he dropped out of high school in ninth grade.
He's a little boy. Yeah.

And it's just like there are certain things that I'm noticing. And truly, not unlike Breaking Bad.
Like, I don't think I fully realized just how quickly the empathy for Tony went away.

I mean, it's gone by the middle of season two. Yeah, but you're still watching it.
He's a monster. Yeah.
And it's just like you're,

yeah, it's such a tricky thing. It's just like you're rooting for him, but are you rooting for him? No, I don't know.
Not really. Yeah.
Yeah.

But what I want to talk about, because this is like my concern,

is that

now that sort of

mainstream show business in terms of

having a big public reach for interesting things, both on television and in movies, and that most of the people are getting their entertainment from YouTube or podcasts, that I think what's happening, and it goes in line with this sort of anti-elite, anti-intellectual, anti-education, anti-science thing, is that just by virtue of people adapting to what's readily available, that the bar is being lowered probably permanently

that that people will no longer be able to to realize what is brilliant and amazing

yeah well I mean people are definitely getting rewired now to like the way

people can what they can handle it's the it's like shockingly lower it's just like I'm not reading that yeah I mean one par one long paragraph

somebody puts a thing up as a paragraph I'm not reading that.

It's like, what? You can't take 40 seconds to read this thing.

And like when the Elephant Graveyard runs, like, I look at the comments, people just, I'm not watching an hour and a half. It's like, first of all, it's a masterpiece.
Yeah.

It's like, and it was boring. I thought it was boring.
It's like, how boring? Like, what do you need? What's the stimulus?

But those are boring people saying.

I mean, I talked to Heidegger, and that was like, that was the interesting takeaway was that, you know, most of this stuff

is

boring as fuck? Yeah.

It's just like it goes nowhere.

And the people that are like fucked up, it's like they're, you know, and they're the people that are dictating culture, the most boring people in the world that don't even have

the sort of

willingness or basic open-mindedness to take in something interesting because it's too threatening to them. Yeah.

And they're, and they're the ones that all the major entertainment companies are trying to appropriate. Yeah.
It's like, well, we don't want to turn them off to this thing. It's just like, why not?

Yeah. Like, let's force them to

evolve or go away. Yeah.
Go back to wherever they came from on some level. It's just this weird place where the dummies are in charge.
And it's like, we don't want to rock the boat. On all levels.

Yeah. Yeah.
I, uh, and whatever. You know, like, again, I've said my piece.

Maybe I should say more of it. Yeah, there's people that are hanging this sort of like Carlin-like expectations on my philosophical point of view, but I'm like, that's going to take a lot of work

to keep turning that out. Yeah.
And you can't. The thing is, like, he got to such a dark place that it just like, I never saw you as being

anywhere near that. Like, that's just like, you're not a nihilist.
No, a couple. I have a couple lines.
I wish I was more of a nihilist.

But I like animals. It's easier.
Yeah, it would definitely be easier. Yeah.
I'm close. I ride the edge.

You see it, and it's just like,

it's like, I can't live there. I can visit.
Yeah. But I can't stay there.
I like people too much. Yeah.

But when you went to video, were you apprehensive? Oh, yeah, I still am. I still am.

I don't know if I'll ever be truly comfortable with it. It's just it's

the pandemic changed podcasting with all this video creme. It's just everything.
Everyone should get the fuck off Zoom. You know, the plague is over.
Put your pants on. Go talk to people.

Drive in your car and

go get a bottle of water.

Yeah, where it smells different. You can see them.
Yeah, where you can actually vibe. Yeah, when you can actually feel the room there in.

Not just like, what's that on the shelf?

That's exactly. It's like, oh, well, they got a.

I love those people that put their own books on the shelf. Oh, my God.
And when you feel...

how much thought goes into like their shot and they're just like if i put this painting on here yeah yeah yeah yeah it'll show that i'm it makes you appreciate the public access nature of people that don't really fucking fuck with their room where animals show up or kids yeah it no it really i i

the video thing is um

just a part of what it's like in 2025 to

be to be doing this and it's just like

I'll always prefer just the audio part of it.

That was what I fell in love with as a kid was radio.

And I didn't know what DJs looked like.

I didn't know what a

like the first time I saw that like DJs are basically in a phone booth. Like they're here with two turntables and carts, and they're just, but they're just like, they're they can't even move.
Yeah.

It was like when you're when you're listening to it, you think it's this

huge. And they're

amazingly large personality people. Yeah.
I told a story about Bobby Box,

the KQEO, KQEO

was a station that I was on in junior high, playing hits. And Bobby Box was the guy, Bobby Box, spinning the hits.

And he came to host a dance at our school, and he was like this, almost a dwarf, and he was wearing this plaid suit, and he had this horrible haircut. And everybody was like,

that's him? Oh, no.

Yeah.

I remember.

John Worcester is one of the funniest things. Like

he was obsessed with rock radio also. and one of the stations in Philadelphia changed formats and it was trying to be like like like uh like new wave and yeah

and he's listening and he hears this DJ on there and he's just like hey this is Mo Hawk and I'm doing a thing and he's just John's is like I think this is a guy just changed his name to Mo Hawk on the station like same old guy yeah like yeah so he calls he's like hey are you mohawk are you with the other guy he's like yeah i'm gonna quit next week

they they changed formats i'm getting out of here mohawk with mohawk the best he could come up with yeah just some old guy just like i'm just trying to do radio when he comes in it's like hey we're changing formats uh you better play some psychedelic furs and yeah he's just like what is this

he's just like sure i'm mohawk but what what is the business model now Like, what are you doing over there? Are you doing all right?

With my show? Yeah, but don't you have like spin-offs and everything? Well, we do stuff for the Patreon, like bonus things for Patreon, and it's fun to do things. I don't even know the Patreon world.

So that's like, you know, special stuff they pay for? You just do extra stuff that's like,

I always looked at it as like

my show will never, I will never charge for the show. It's never going to, like, people have floated things.
It's like, well, what if the first half is free and the other half is behind a paywall?

It's just like, I got into this for the thing to be available to anyone who ever wants to hear it

100% for free.

And that was like an, that was like a non-negotiable point for me.

But things beyond that, it's like, well, if people want more, we can do more. It's like, but holy moly, you get three hours a week for most people.
That is probably enough.

Plenty, yeah. It's just.

You can get as much as you want. And

you say when you're full. But doesn't Julia have a show? Yeah, we do a thing where we talk to people called Outgrown and we just ask them about stuff.
Is that a Patreon show? Yeah, we do.

But we put it, it's Patreon for a little bit, and then it's just on YouTube for everybody to hear. Like with this

little windows of exclusivity. How's that doing? It's fun.
It's just like we, it's nice to just

look, to be with somebody who I actually respect from like an artistic standpoint is mind-blowingly exciting. And you and Klausner still do the thing? Yeah.
Yeah, we do a show together, Double Threat.

That That's good. Yeah, it's all fine.

But again, it's like we were talking about,

we have our people.

They're into it.

We try to uphold the quality to make them happy. We're not trying to just get everybody.
It's like at a point,

everybody's doing a niche thing at a point. And you just know your lane.

And it's not like you don't want it to be redundant or boring, but you definitely,

you don't have to keep cracking the thing open and trying to reinvent it. It's just like, no, this is, this works.
We'll do this. Yeah, that's what we did.
Yeah. It's what it's what you do.

I don't know. Like, I don't think I'm disillusioned.
I, I think I am

just, you know, adapting to where we are.

And I think on a certain level, that can feel like disillusionment.

Yeah. I mean, when you, when it, when things are so in flux

and

uncertain,

it feels like when you're just trying to say, like, hey, I'm just talking about how it is right now. It's just like, well, why are you so negative?

It's like, well, I didn't come up with where we're at. I'm reacting to it.
This is a reaction to things. I'm not starting the discussion.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Yeah, it's hard.

And they're like, for me to have done this show for 25 years,

it's really,

it just is now. I don't even know what that it's like, I still really do like doing it.
Yeah. And I just like, and i try to find new things that keep me engaged like right now

just you know trying to have different guests on and stuff and like going out of my comfort zone a little bit with with that stuff yeah like i had uh

adam freedland on the other day and i mean that's somebody people are just like Why is he having this come town guy on the show? Like, what? Really? Yeah, because it's like that's out of the

bubble. That's the old Adam, right?

I like it. I think he's very...

He was so,

when I told him you said

what his problem with me is he was like legitimately, he's like, I love him.

And I was like, I was like, Mark's cool with all this. Don't worry.
The fucking thing is, is like, you know, I am a lot more out of the loop than most people know.

So like all I hear is like, you know, they're talking shit about me over on Come Town. I'm like, what the fuck is Come Town?

I backed into that one in a way where I was just like, I heard the name and I was just like, well, I don't think that's going to be for me.

I was like, you can't judge a book by its cover. Yeah.
Because look, I think, I think those guys are all funny. I think Stavi is really funny.
I love Stavi. I had him on.

And then after I had him on, people were like, you know, they were talking shit about you for a year or two. And I'm like,

I don't know.

Just like, but you know, like, why not? That's what they were supposed to do.

They're in their 20s. Yeah, I know.
Or early 30s. It's like,

I did it.

I'm just not doing it anymore because

I just did it last month. Yeah, you've been on it.
Yeah, exactly. You're on a royal tear here.

I was just like, when we were doing that stuff, I'm just like, oh, boy, I hope Mark still likes me.

Hope my number's not coming up soon.

But it's just like,

you're supposed to throw rocks at

the person who's a little older than you. It's just what

I've done it and I just will probably do it forever. And I just like

but it's to some degree I'll do it forever, but it's just like they're just they're just excited kids.

Yeah, the weird thing about throwing rocks, this is the big hurdle for me in that whole thing was that this idea of like, why you, why are you slagging other comics?

And I had to deal with this years ago. It's like when somebody is part of the culture in a way that transcends comedy per se, they're a phenomenon of one kind or another, they're fair fair game.
Yeah.

They have to be. You know, it's not like, you know, why, you know, you shouldn't make fun of that comic just because he killed somebody.

But it's also not like, it's like, it's comedy. It's not like you're like,

boy, you really shouldn't go after the other people who knit like this. It's like, comedy is based on making fun of people and like just blasting people.
It's like, that's what it is.

Knitting is a passive

non-confrontational thing.

Somebody is confrontational. Yeah, and I made sure it was all funny.

Literally last night, I showed the Elephant Graveyard one of the taking on Joe's special to somebody. I was just like, because they were like...
The copes.

They were like, I don't know, I don't know elephants. I was like, oh, my God.

We need to watch it right now.

And it's just like

the, it's just like, this guy is like a surgeon. Yeah.
He is. When he just does these things.
And like, I've tried, I've like DM'd with him over on Patreon.

I was just like, oh, I'm such a big fan, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And

then suddenly, because he was getting like 10,000 views a video, like 10,000, 20,000 views. And then just the first one a year ago, the Rogan one, just 2 million views.
Just suddenly he popped.

And then it was like, and now he's like

the guy. Yeah.
But

he's... He just seems like he's just a, he wouldn't, I don't know who he is.
Me neither. I've emailed with him.
Yeah, he keeps it deliberately vague, and he should. It's fine.

Who cares who he is? You know what? Oh, his name's Glenn. Okay, well, now we know.
It's like when Glenn, what kind of name is that? I remember when, like, that's a cuck name.

Yeah. When Kiss were just like, Kiss, they're going to take their makeup off now.
And it's like, oh, we're going to see what Kiss really looked like. And then they just show it to us.

Oh, they're just guys with faces. Yeah.
It's like, what did we think was going to be under there?

I do remember it was a bit of disappointing. But it it was just like,

there's no version of it where you'd be like, oh, my God, that's who they are. It's like, they're just guys.
I wish these guys would take their fucking masks off.

Take the makeup off. When he did that thing about, like, he's about the 250 comedians.
Yeah. And he's saying it to Cat Williams.
Yeah. And Cat Williams is just looking at him like,

I don't respect you. Like, Cat Williams could not have more contempt for him in that moment.
He's just like, because you know, there's only like 250 of us and we, you know, who can really do this?

And Cat Williams is like, mm-hmm.

Like, oh, so you're one of the 250? Hey, yeah. This guy who just like is a

like Cat Williams is just like, like, Godzilla in a way. Like, he could just, when he.
He's actually one of the funniest guys alive. That's what I mean.

He can, like, but when he's doing the thing, it's like you, no one can stop him. He's great.
Oh, my God. No, he's.

yeah, he's like the, he's like, in there's like, there are these people that they're only one of. There's one, it's like he's one of one.
Yeah. And that's yeah, it's when he's gone, that's gone.
Yeah.

The thing with like Adam Friedland and some of these guys is like, look, you know, I'm an old man. You know, I'm two generations away from them.

And I think there are moments where I'm like, I, I, this guy is somehow like me.

Oh, I look, I

watching that, his show, yeah,

it,

he's just like, you're watching him,

like, not that he's figuring it out, but he's, he's in it for the first time. Like, he's going into uncharted places for himself.
Yeah.

And you can watch it, like, the, the one, the Richie Torres thing he did. Did you see that?

Oh, my God. It's, it's like, because he's talking to this New York

congressman

who's like a guy who's like a big

AIPAC guy just takes tons of money from APAC.

And to see him like Adam Freeland, he gets like so vulnerable with this guy and just talks about what it's like to be Jewish in America in 2025 and that I feel more

people like Jews less because of situations that have not like he just he lays it out. He's like, it hurts me to for my identity to have this conflict.
It was the most sincere thing.

thing yeah it's really pretty uh pretty powerful oh good and seeing him do that i was like oh this guy is like he's ready to go somewhere with what he's doing yeah trying to get real yeah and it's like good for you you're you're not just gonna be yeah snarky and and just do that

i think that whatever he had coming at me was just the snark it's a it's like

you've you we've all worn that hat at a point like now he's got the hat on like

you know know you've worn the hat I wear the hat everybody wears the hat

yeah yeah and now you got to deal with the blowback yeah like I would think now

I think I get I don't attack people on my show or goof on people on my show for no reason like I would think I'm just selective about it yeah and that's I think that comes with maturity you're just kind of like you realize who the actual targets should be well there's certain people you have that vibe with I do you know anybody that can indulge my my uh my charming bully, I'll do it.

But there's just like a moment where I was just like, you know, Kevin Smith's not hurting anybody with these. He just makes movies I don't like.

And I just finally like, I'm going to put that one down.

I'm going to set that sword down. Right, right.

I'm just like, why am I fighting a guy who makes things I, why am I turning him into like public enemy number one just because he makes movies that I don't like. Well, that's pretty much sure.

Oh, well, I think I'm just running out of energy, honestly, Mark. Well, I think it's really running out of fucks to give kind of you know

you gotta you gotta deepen the conversation at some point do you miss jersey

um

not not really i went back a couple times and

it was kind of rough because

the things i things changed so much like in five six years just things were gone yeah favorite record store gone yeah i love going to that diner Gone.

All those places that were like my, they were like the backbone. Yeah.

Because I had the one thing I had in New Jersey that I still don't entirely have here is

I knew where to go and what to do if I was like

like

feeling like if I was just in a bad place. Yeah.
I knew where I could go to kind of get myself.

I would go to either go to Princeton and kind of walk around the town and the campus, or I'd go down to like

Asbury Park. Yeah.
Just like, I would just, there were places I could go that I knew were just like, I'll go hang out there for a few hours.

It's good for me. And I can kind of get my feet back on the ground.
I still don't have that fear yet. Like, I don't know where.

Well, that stuff's so deep in you. Yeah.
Well, that's the thing is like it was, it was like, those are like

neural pathways that are carved. I don't, and I don't have those here.

But going back, a lot of the things had changed and

it felt like we drove, we did a trip,

me and my wife Julia, we drove from LA to New Jersey in May. We drove like three and a half, three and a half weeks on the road.
We just took our time, stopped at all different places. For America?

Kind of, almost. Yeah, we were looking for things that were going to be gone in five years.
Like

some places I thought were absolutely,

I was like, so impressed by like Utah. The stuff in Utah.
First of all, Utah was so beautiful. I couldn't believe how beautiful it was.

I find Salt Lake City oddly comforting. Yeah.
I liked Salt Lake City.

I loved just being in the middle of nowhere there. We went in this like

hot spring that was like in a crater. It was like, there was just so many, like

unexpected. Yeah, it was a little bit of everybody.
Like it was like,

it was just like, it was like,

it was better. It was so much better.
They were actually bathing in in it. Nobody was actually bathing.
We had a bar of soap floating in.

That was great.

And,

but then other things when we just like,

we kind of went down because I love Tennessee so much. Beautiful.
And like Nashville, Memphis, those are my favorite cities.

Nashville's changed a lot, but it's great. Yeah.
It's like, well, Nashville, like seeing that.

part of like the downtown in Nashville it was like 930 in the morning we're just like walking around and it's like 9:30 in the morning, and then like those pedal bikes go by where it's like eight

drunk guys and women pedaling and pounding. It's like it's 9:30, guys.
It's Thursday, yeah, 9:30 on a Thursday. You guys are hammered, yeah.

And every one of the bars along the main drag, they pull like the garage door thing, so and there's music coming from everywhere, so it's really alive and it's exciting. But

yeah, it was just like we stayed at the Peabody in Memphis.

It was very

had a big night at the Peabody. They still got the ducks.
Yeah. That's why I wanted to show

Julia the ducks. And it was so much fun

because they do this thing where the ducks live in the hotel. They walk them into the fountain in the middle of the lobby.
And

then there's like this guy, the duck master. He's the one who tells you about the history of the hotel.
So I just wanted to say to him afterwards, like, hey, that was amazing, your presentation.

You You know, you're holding everyone's attention. It's really impressive.

And we're like waiting.

For the ducks? We're waiting for this guy. He's talking to somebody else.
And then

there's a guy behind us and he's wearing a t-shirt that just says Gulf of America. And you're just like,

can you turn it off for one? Yeah. Like, like, look, have your dumb fucking views.
I don't like, what am I going to do about that? But can you like,

can you just like enjoy that you're somewhere nice right now? You have to like come into it ready to fight with your stupid t-shirt.

And it was like stuff like that, where you're just like,

you're like, this is just like a cheap way to have an identity. It's a cheap way to be interesting.

And you're just, because you're just boring.

You clearly have nothing else to talk about. And this was like a ready-made.

I think that's a good point. I think interesting is a diplomatic word.

But it was just like, it was such a, and there was so much of that. Affronting.
And I was just like, it was, it started like we were away for, by that point, we were a couple of weeks away.

And I'm, you know, you start to get a little squirrely being on the road that much. And you're just like.

Where else did you drive through?

We went Arizona up to Utah, Colorado, then.

you know, all the way to Wisconsin and then down south and then kind of South Carolina, swoop up to New Jersey.

And finally getting to New Jersey, it really had the feeling of

after seeing all of these towns, when you're driving on highways and then you pull off and it's just like Chili's, Applebee's,

is that Walmart. And all these things.
And I'm just like, well,

I was like, look at all Bucky's. Yeah, like looking at all these places.

But then like I got to New Jersey and it was the same place. It was the same thing.
I was like, oh my God, I lived in one of these.

I was just like, well, I don't live.

look at like look at these saps with their yeah with their their strip malls and all things that and then like i saw new jersey as like a tourist yeah and i was like it's it was literally no different than anywhere else we pulled off to just sleep at a hampton inn yeah i was like i lived in one of those spots for other people i could it just was it was a it's probably the most obvious thing to but it took me forever to realize well i mean you go well i mean i like i imagine looking for the things that were going to to be gone, that if you get off the interstate, there was this idea.

I remember like AAA triptychs, you know,

but like all of those smaller towns are just probably decimated, really.

I mean, all the places that were smaller cities and smaller towns that had their own sort of economies and personality just got drained out.

I mean, I mean, where do you even, you know, where do you even pull off to go see?

There was a place in Wisconsin, House on the Rock. Do you know what that is? Oh, yeah, I think Kit talks about it.
It's like, it's one of the

one of the takeaways was that there were these maniacs in America who built huge,

stupid things that no one asked them to do.

And they saw their vision through to the finish line.

Like House on the Rock, this guy in the rural Wisconsin, just on the side of a mountain, he's just like, oh, I want to build a cool house.

And like Frank Lloyd Wright told him, it's just like, I wouldn't hire you to design a dog house.

Frank Lloyd Wright told me. He saw a chip on his shoulder.
So he builds this house in the side of a mountain. So you're touring it.
And it's really impressive.

And the guy's just like, in the 50s, he was like, well,

I could charge people to tour it. I'd need to have a little bit more for it

to show them. So he builds this museum

down on like at the bottom of the mountain that is like, it's like, just imagine, well, what's the museum heaven? Everything.

You want to see a carousel, the world's biggest carousel you've ever seen? Here it is.

And you're just like, oh my God, this carousel is amazing. Well, there's two more carousels.
Like, it's like he didn't know when to stop with things.

You don't need three. Like, you want to tell the guy, it's like one carousel

is better than three carousels. You go like, well, what about a room full of organs and pianos? He's just like, yeah, I'll do that.
It's a room, there's 300 organs and pianos.

And it's like you're touring through the things like, hey,

you like dollhouses? It's like, well, here's 300 dollhouses.

And you're just walking through.

We were.

Three hours, we were moving fast through it at a point. We're just like, we got to, we'll be here like,

they'll lock us in.

But just that in and of itself is something. It was three hours and we're just, we're like hauling gas for this thing.
And it was three hours. Yeah.
And you're just like, this is,

this is like what you can do in America if you're a crazy person who doesn't take no for an answer. Yeah.

And in its weird way, it's like, that's, that's kind of where I've lived in terms of just like, I was not, I didn't get a

a job that was like, yeah, with any stability or anything, anybody giving me any sort of like guidance as a boss that this is what you do and everything was just like yeah I'm on my own here because I'm figuring it out and if if something's not working then I don't eat yeah now right like yeah I know I'm the same way and I guess it is similar in spirit that you know that and I think that I guess still holds up in some weird way that here you can kind of do whatever you set your mind to it might not work it might might not work fail, but you can certainly give it a go.

Absolutely. And the crazy thing is like we went to like,

was it Nebraska? I forget where it was. It was like

there was this museum. This guy had the warp.
It's called the like the warp family

museum in the middle of nowhere.

And

he just collected,

like you walk in, it's just like, oh, there's a Model T.

And there's like, there's like the planes that didn't fly that people tried to like you know like you see from old the old footage the old footage and it's every kind of car it's every kind of everything suddenly it's like here's cell phones throughout history it's like a car phone from the 70s yeah like it's just like

they go from being like there's a point if you collect stuff yeah it's almost like that dip it's like the low point is you're an insane person with too much stuff and if like if you just punch through, then you can be a museum owner.

Like, like, then you're, then you're just like, oh, it's valid. Right, right.

Like, people are like, stop collecting this stuff. What are you doing with all these microwave ovens? Yeah.

Like, what are you doing? Why are you collecting this stuff? And this guy just keeps going. He's like, hey, now I'm a museum owner.
Yeah, yeah.

It's a curated hoarding. It really is hoarding, masquerading as history.
Where are all your records, dude?

They're here, still some in New jersey i gotta get it i gotta get them uh that squared away they're at the house yeah it's fine it's like i have so many records that it's just like do you ever think about like i gotta get rid of them no

i can't they're my friends

they tell me who i am like yeah like when i do you ever go through it and go like oh i forgot it was this guy um yeah there's times where you're just like wow i really was trying to like that for a while i have nine records i see it and I'm just like,

if I was more confident,

I would have one of them. Yes.
But I was just like, I don't get it yet. Yeah.
I know I'm going to chase. I'm going to keep chasing this thing.
I get them all at once.

If I hear one song, I'm like, I got to know more about this guy. And then they have nine of their records.
And then I start getting like,

well, I need to listen to them in order. I need to follow their artistic journey.
And still nothing. Yeah, still just like, I don't get it.

And then I'm just like, I think I'll I'll just listen to Loaded again for the $9 billion. Which bands do you not get?

Yeah, that's a good question. Who, like, that I don't get? Well, I mean, because I know, like, you know, I've gone back and forth with you on Destroyer, and I'm going to try again soon.

Okay, yeah, look. I talked to Nico Case, and by all indications, that guy, what's his name? Dan.
You talked to him? Yeah, Dan Maehar. Yeah, he's a nice guy.
He's a thing. Yes.

And I just can't lock in. In a different era, he would be

Neil Young or Bob Dylan.

If a different kind of music was popular, he would be huge. Yeah.
Because he's just,

it just pours out of the guy. The funny thing is, is when people like you like him and there's certain people that I respect who like somebody and I can't wrap my brain around it or get it,

I end up resenting them.

Oh, I understand that feeling too. I resent everybody.
It's like, what do you think? You're so good, you get it?

So not you, but him. It's sort of like, you're not getting through to me.
So what does that mean for you? Yeah.

Oh, you think you're

all that?

I don't get it.

Well, I don't understand what you're doing. The one thing I wish.
And I'm a pretty smart guy. Yeah.
Like, I'm smart and I don't care. Yeah.

I really wish I could, that like jazz, that I could

with like that I could love it with all of my heart. Yeah.
Like I don't have like a pure both hands on it connection to jazz. Well, you're lucky.

That's another 10,000 records. Well, I know that.
And I just like, as somebody who likes buying things, I would just be like, why am I being denied this

stuff? Never-ending jazz hole. And yeah, I just like,

I like it. I like what I listen to, and I like the right people with it.
But in terms of just like that thing where it's just like, it's, it's like

feeling me. Yeah, right.

I don't get that deep

with it.

I think I could, but like, I think I have enough.

You know, and some of it,

you know, I, I, I kind of, I think your brain has to lock into a meditative state with it.

Like, you know, like, you can sit there and listen to all the nuances, but, like, jazz kind of can just be, and it has an effect. Yeah.
Yeah. And one of the things I...

that I wish I could like prove, but I think so much of what made like John Coltrane work,

like people, like you read accounts, like people would go see him at like the village underground and stuff. Yeah, and they were like, it was the loudest thing I had ever heard.

Like the, like, the force of it gets lost in with time. Yeah.

That, oh, we only have this album of it. Yeah.
But when people were in the club with it, it was like an assault on them. Yeah, yeah.
Like we were only getting like a fraction of the power of him.

Right. I think that's probably true with a lot of bands.
I like, you know, I've had recent kind of

catharsis with Alice Coltrane. Oh, yeah.
I mean, I can listen to that stuff and be like, what is it's otherworldly? No, I love Alice Coltrane. There was a, did you go to that exhibit?

There was an exhibit last year of just like her archives. Oh, really? Yeah.
Yeah, she's something. Really? Like a real,

what an amazing. Like, isn't it amazing that there can be a John Coltrane

and then there's an Alice Coltrane. And like that these

of nature

bond. Yeah.
And like, how is that even possible for these things to be like you're you're like

you're like a sun and you're a sun and you're like you're you're the everything's orbiting around both of you, but you're like

unite somehow. It's like it's like that's like

Earth changing. Does that still happen?

You mean suns joining?

I mean, would we know it? I don't know if we'd know it.

I think maybe time has to pass when you also

to realize what was actually happening.

I just like I've gotten kind of like interested in like the group theater, you know, where it's like, it seems like during the 30s that there were these groups of like, you know, intellectuals and artists that would all hang out together.

Yeah. And they changed the course of understanding.
Philosophers. Yeah.
I don't know if that happens anymore. Maybe it happens on those.

Somebody needs to move to Austin.

You're right. I didn't think about it.
I just sit at the Algonquin roundtable down there at the mothership. Mothership in the in the second green room.
Yeah. Yeah.

But it also feels like just people have had enough of that. Oh, okay.
And it really just does feel like people are feeling like they have a voice to just go like, yeah, you know what? I'm tired.

You guys had a good run. Yeah, yes.
But I'm tired of it.

I was hoping that voice would be louder. And I think it's what compelled me to be part of it.
To be part of it. And then that just gives people permission to join in on it.

I just wanted comics to relax for Christ's sake. Well, the thing is, it's just like none of this would be happening if they just said, well, my number one priority is to be funny.

None of this would happen.

Anytime comedy gets off target, it's because somebody's trying to be cool or they're trying to be smart.

They're not trying to be funny. Like they've lost the mission statement.
Or you can try to do both.

But you have to major in being funny. Like you can

be cool. It's like, look, Anthony Jeslin, I think, is cool.
Yeah. But he's there to be funny.
He's not there to be cool first, funny second. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's the thing. It's like, how did they lose? I don't know.
It was like, it's a very basic agreement about funny. Yeah, which is like, you're here to be funny.

I'm blessed with the ability to never think I'm cool.

And then, you know, and then I try really hard and I've failed a lot of times. But I think in the last special, I might have been a little cool.

Your journey has well documented.

But you're the one documenting it. Like you've not, you're not hiding from

like you were searching for a thing.

When your thing clicked, it clicked. Yeah.
And it's like, it actually, I feel like

people can look at these stories and realize you don't get to say when it clicks, but if you keep trying,

maybe it will make it. Maybe it will.

And you, sir.

We're a big part of it. Oh.
Both on an inspirational level, on a guest level, on a friendship level. And I always appreciate seeing you and your input and hanging out like this.
No, it's really been.

It's been great to have you as a friend for as long as we've been friends. And it started in such a

I can remember because I would go see you with Laura O'Bell talked about this new loud yeah but then like

the moment it was at Yola Tango doing their Hanukkah shows at Maxwell's in Hoboken I can literally picture by the payphone between dividing the restaurant and the club yeah and

in the hallway and you are performing and I'm finally like marks here yeah we're kind of circling each other now this let's get let's see what this is going to be. It's like, hey, how's it going?

It's like, uh-huh, yeah, yeah. It was just like this, like, uh-huh, okay, yeah.

And finally, it's like, I think I'm all right with that guy. Like, a game where it's like, okay, that went well.
And then, and then it just kind of grew from there.

But there was that initial, like, kind of like sizing up, like, huh? Okay. Yeah.
What are you? Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. So that's you and I'm me.
And I'm

like, where are we going with this? Yeah. I was probably just freaking out about performing at that fucking thing.
No, that, but really it's you know i

the thing that i've always felt separated you from a lot of the stuff that i related to was you talked into microphones on the radio and that just it just puts you in a whole different mindset for any of this yeah like there's a certain

you talk a different way after you've done after you log hours on the radio yeah you just approach yeah this differently yeah and there's only a few people who came into this radio first.

And that's why I think I always had

an affinity and a respect for that. That's like you put the hours in on Air America and all that stuff and the break room and you're just grinding it out when no one was like asking for it.

Nobody knew what these things were. I know if we did break room now,

I mean, they might even have an audience.

Me and Cedar, but we should just that would be the greatest. If you two got, it should be like the sunshine, boys.
We should do this. You should do the sunshine, boys.
You and Sam Cedar.

That would be the, that would, that's the culmination of all of it.

Mark Maron, Sam Cedar,

it's such a funny but real tension to him and I. No, it's like, that's the whole thing.
It is like,

it seemed like he really didn't know what to do when you started to succeed.

Like, this was not supposed to happen. It's like, this is like a glitch in the matrix.
Mark's getting popular?

No.

Like, why? Like, this isn't supposed to. He was supposed to go.
I was supposed to go up and he was supposed to go down. It's made our dynamic kind of more funny.
Yeah.

Because it's almost like on the verge of crying somehow. Because

he can't get the same, you know,

edge on me. Yeah.
Yeah. He just, yeah, like he lost.

It's like he lost the ability to like

the knockout blow. Like you just can't, it's just that you're just punching each other, but nobody ever loses the fight.
You're just constantly punching each other. Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.

No, but really it has been like just getting to be a part of the thing. And, you know, I always looked at my thing as being like, I just want to be on the continuum with it.
It's just like,

I was obviously was influenced by, you know, a hundred people before it. And if anybody took inspiration or whatever from what I did, that's just that's the gift.

Like when people are like, you stole that, it's like, well, I fucking stole stuff from people. Somebody could accuse me of stealing stuff from people before me.

I was, you know, you're just on the continuum. Yeah, that's right.
And that's right, that's everything I've ever asked for.

When you look at the timeline of all of it, I'm like a dot on the timeline.

We're on the continuum. Yeah.
And that's like. The funny thing about me is that I did not,

like in doing radio, I had no heroes.

I did not, you know, I did, and I don't, I don't really listen to much now. Obviously, we have comedy heroes, but for me on these mics,

it was all, it's better because I didn't know how to do it.

And you don't know why you're compelling on these mics. There were things I learned along the way, but it was not based on anybody.
I never listened to Stern. Yeah.

I never listened to Ira that much or Ira's hero. What's that guy's name? Joe Frank or Joe Frank.
Yeah, I didn't really listen.

You know, I didn't have

a source. Yeah.
And I think it helped me. Yeah, I agree.
Like, I did listen to Howard Stern when I was in high school, and it just was like, it was an influence at a point.

But as soon as he got like, when he leveled up, I immediately lost interest in it. Like, I liked him as this underdog who was like, why doesn't people respect me?

Why don't the like, that's the stuff I ate up? But then, as soon as he was like, Oh, he is number one, I was just like, Well, I, this has no, this does not fit what I want from anything.

Yeah, I don't, I don't want to hear like winners talk about winning, yeah, like I don't care about I want to hear somebody talk about the struggle.

I think the thing I learned from you, and also oddly, Rush Limbaugh, you know, who I'd listened to in bits and pieces, when people told me about the idea of holding silence. That's yeah, and that

is that was the biggest lesson I learned.

That was,

I can even tell you where I was influenced by that. It's funny because that actually is one of the things that scares people the most.
Like when I'll just be like telling something

and then I just like, I'm not scared of that moment. And you realize it's actually your friend because you're in control of the thing now.
Yeah.

It was. Dave Eggers wrote in that memoir, he did heartbreaking

something of something, something.

he just talked about i think and i i only read it once so i'm just how his father and i'm probably getting it really wrong

just encouraged to get the uhs and the ums and the likes out of your vocabulary just like just slow down rather than go uh

yeah

Just be quiet for a second.

It's the same thing, but it sounds a lot better. Sam's really, Caesar's great at the uhs.
He's a big uh.

Well, when you do the uh, what you're doing is you're not allowing the other person to talk. You're, you're saying like, I'm still going, I'm still going.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you.

I do, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I, yeah.

I hear myself go, uh-huh.

Like when I did it, I probably did it 12 times. I know, I do it too.
You're talking thing, go, huh? Yeah. Just so, like, I'm still here.
Yeah. Yeah.
Just so I'm supporting it.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm still not great at that stuff. I go up and down with it, but like knowing that you do hold the space, especially with somebody else, it's a big deal.
And I'm not great at it, but

I can do it.

Yeah, and that's

you just grow into it. And it's just like you're not scared of the stuff.
And

yeah, do you think you're going to miss? What part of this do you think you'll miss?

Well, just like, you know, before you came over, I was like, this is not a good day.

And my fear is that's that's going to be a lot of days.

And there's not anyone coming up for it.

See, guys, it's the new WTA.

We're back.

Brendan's not here, but I want to meet Keith,

my new guy.

I just don't think I could do it.

I think that,

but most of that is ego.

That,

you know, it's really come down to, you know, who else can we talk to? And obviously you can keep talking. And I imagine I could keep keep talking in some form or another.

And a month or so ago, I was more sort of like, yeah, I'll probably show up somewhere just for the people who can hear me talk.

And that's starting to fade a little bit. But I don't really know.

I mean, what I'll miss is

that excitement and dread and, you know, anxiety of, you know, meeting new people, coming over and locking into this, because it does get me out of myself and it does, you know, kind of provide me a social life.

You know, but everything that my experience, all my experience with this thing are these conversations, because after I do it, it's out of my hands. Yeah.

So it's all very kind of real life shit for me. And that's going to be a big change.

I mean, even now that we only have a few slots left and we don't have to do a backlog, I've had a lot of free time in the last couple of weeks. And I'm like, I'm watching the sopranos again.

And I'm eating and I'm practicing guitar. And

I'm sort of like, is this it? Is this it? But I spent half my life like that. But that's exactly.
And also,

you have a, there's a certain creativity in you, an energy for that. And you do have the, not the luxury, you've earned it.
There are multiple places you can put that. Yeah, I think so.

I'm curious to see what that is and where that goes. I think that's exciting.
I'll probably end up over there with you at Forever Dog.

Marin's come in, I think, this week. He doesn't really have a plan.
Yeah, Marin's got the studio from four to seven. But he just has no literal women there.

He's just, he's

the lights on. He's waiting for something to happen.
He's sitting in there in the dark. He's pretending.
He's doing an interview, but there's nobody else in there. We're just going to let him do it.

No one had it booked. He thinks he's talking to.

He said Brad Pitt was coming. He's not.
He's not Brad Pitt. Yeah.
I hope I don't become that guy. No, that's not.
It's just going to be a battle against whatever my brain does alone,

you know, which has always been difficult.

but maybe you know, it's time to sit in it after all I've done. Yeah.
Now, one, one other final thing is like,

I feel like for some people, the introduction of podcasting into the comedy world

has been a huge, hugely bad for their

like it has diminished the idea of like the value of what you say. And also of anonymity, of like surprise.
Yes. Yeah.
You know everybody too well. Yeah.

And

the idea, it used to be every two years, here's one hour of me talking every two years. Yeah.

And suddenly now it's like

in one week, here's 10 hours of me talking.

And you're just like, well, the value of talking for that person is just, it's, it's just plummeted. Yeah.

Like,

what do you think not podcasting is going to do for you as a stand-up? Yeah, I don't change that.

Well, my fear is that, like, you know, will I still, you know, have the crowd while I still have the audience? But, you know, I can stay engaged with Instagram to a certain degree.

But I don't know, man, because a lot of times in the beginning of the show, like, I'm. I'm just improvising and things come up and they end up things I work on in my stand-up.

And, and, you know, there was

an evolution of material that happened in in those intros

so i don't know i i mean i i'm gonna have to stay engaged with you and lip sight and jerry like i i i do need an audience but yeah i i i don't know i guess it'll be like it used to be where you know i have to nervously go on stage with with stuff that i thought of over the last week and just you know find the balls to uh to get it out there i think something good will come out of it okay and the other thing is you just do a different thing.

If you really miss

this,

there's different forms that you can take. Yeah, I'll be all right.
I'll be all right. I'll let you know if I'm not.
No, well, I'm sure I'll know before you say you're

really.

Yeah, Mark, let me know he's not doing well. It's like,

he's going to be on the show again. Just be nice to him.
Exactly.

I'll be showing up on your show once or twice a month. Hey, man.
What's up?

Let's just talk about something.

Yeah. Yeah, we're kind of busy this week, Mark.

No, no, no, no. Oh, no, fine.

Yeah, Mark's been waiting outside in his car for two hours. Yeah, he's calling in now.

I can do characters like John. Yeah, hey, we got Mark from Los Angeles.
What do you got? All right, buddy. Well, I love you, man.
I love you too. And this is great.
And

thank you for, you've always been very generous with the platform, and I appreciate it. I appreciate you.
Now, that's it. That's the last word from either of us.
Yes.

Yes, me and Tom.

Last talk on

this show. Touching.

It's all heavy.

Again, the Best Show 25th anniversary shows are coming to Brooklyn, Philly, Chicago, and LA in October. Go to thebestshow.net for dates and tickets.
Hang out for a minute, folks.

People, 10 years ago this week, I had a long chat with the very funny Fred Armison. It's episode 636, and it's available for free on whatever podcast app you're using.
Just search WTF Fred Armison.

They bring me into audition, and

I went to UCB, went up and did my

original used to be with the shitty, the weird seats? Yes. But you walked in and you kind of had to walk by the stage.
Like when you walked in, the stage was on the right, and you had to make it.

That's the one. Yeah.
Okay. So who else is on the night? So, this is where your audition is going to be, yeah.
And everyone else who auditioned was um groups, like improv groups, interesting.

And then I went up and I did that, and then a while later, maybe a month later, two months later, they asked me to come back and do it at the studio. Oh, right, camera audition, yeah.

They flew me to, and I was already like in heaven. I was like, I can't believe this is happening.
It was just for Marcy at UCB or Lauren came. Oh, Lauren came, Tina Faye came too.

She was the head writer, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, and then

she was headwriter. There was a couple headwriters, I think, at the time.
And then when I met Lauren,

I was like,

you knew George Harrison.

You said that to him at UCB? Yeah.

And then I asked him, and then this is a very typical Lauren thing to say. But I asked, I was like, just this conversation, so are you seeing a lot of people, meaning, you know, auditioners?

And he answered, no.

Which is a very honest, like, you know, you would think the the answer would be like, oh, yeah. But he was very like, no, we are not.

So when you said you knew George Harrison, you sort of approached him with an intensity and then sort of left field question because it was what was compelling to you.

How did he respond to that? Yeah.

I mean, can you imagine someone who knew George Harrison?

That's episode 636 with Fred Armison, available now for free wherever you're listening to this show. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST.

Here's a little George Jones without the singing.

Boomer lives, monkey and lafonda, cat angels everywhere.