0:00

What the fuck miss?

0:02

Or your what-the-fuckers?

0:05

What-the-fuck buddies? What-the-fuck-buddies?

0:07

What-the-fuck-buddies? All

0:09

right, let's do this. How are you, what

0:11

the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies? What

0:14

the fuck, Yeah? What-it-h-h-huh? Yeah? I

0:16

hope it all went fuck yesterday-well

0:18

the fuck, I hope that No?

0:20

Yeah? some What it,

0:22

huh? Yeah? I hope it

0:24

all went well yesterday. I

0:26

hope that you're feeling some sort of... gratitude

0:30

or relief that it's over

0:32

gratitude for your life or

0:34

some sort of some spirit

0:36

business I hope

0:38

you had a good season. I hope as

0:40

we go into the new year, we

0:42

can sort of get our brains together we

0:44

figure out how get our brains and

0:46

get through. figure out how to

0:48

are my and resolutions. This year.

0:51

are my new year's I'm

0:53

going to focus on dealing

0:55

and getting through. on dealing

0:57

and getting through. So today

0:59

we're doing the thing we we seem to

1:01

be doing every Christmas for

1:03

the last bit of time, for

1:05

the last few Christmases. is a This

1:07

is a compilation of a series

1:09

that we actually did for full maren

1:12

called WTO And this is me

1:14

this is my Me and and

1:16

my producer and business partner for

1:18

many years now, many years. even, like you

1:20

I don't even, some line with the years where

1:22

with the years oh you're like, been that

1:24

long. While It's been that long. While you're in it,

1:26

you don't feel it. feel it. But we

1:28

we talked about the things that were were

1:31

important in the creation of WTF

1:33

of well as the early days.

1:35

days of the podcast. I want to

1:37

I want to believe. some level, some level,

1:39

not just for my ego, that

1:41

we are historical figures and that

1:43

and is a historic podcast, which

1:45

it is. which it on some

1:47

days I wonder, I wonder, did I

1:50

unleash this fucking thing thing on

1:52

the world. Or would it have happened it have

1:54

happened without me, certainly it would

1:56

would have. and as things move

1:58

on and move past. past. You know

2:00

you do reflect and I guess

2:02

sometimes when we do shows like

2:05

this it's good for me to

2:07

listen to it to to know

2:09

that we did something you know

2:11

everything gets plowed under so quickly

2:13

and it just seems to go

2:16

into not the rear view but

2:18

onto the pile of stuff available

2:20

that people can find and and

2:22

you know kind of all of

2:25

a sudden engage with which is

2:27

good but it does feel like

2:29

you know history and stuff just

2:31

flies by so quickly. And we've

2:34

done a lot of these fucking

2:36

things and I've talked to a

2:38

lot of people and a lot

2:40

of those talks were kind of

2:43

amazing and enlightening and touching and

2:45

informative and, you know, creatively speaking,

2:47

you know, were my my lifeline

2:49

to humanity in a lot of

2:51

ways. And on this episode, we

2:54

talk a bit about the Luna

2:56

Lounge days, where the kind of

2:58

alt-comity thing took hold in New

3:00

York City. We talk about the

3:03

Mark Marin show, which was a

3:05

show that Brendan produced with me

3:07

out here in Los Angeles after

3:09

we were pushed out of Air

3:12

America. And then we talk a

3:14

bit about Breakroom Live, which was

3:16

something that we did when they

3:18

pulled me back in. And then

3:20

we kind of finished with a

3:23

discussion. about, you know, WTF and

3:25

how that came out of all

3:27

those things, but also out of

3:29

my experience and Brendan's experience and

3:32

how we kind of worked together

3:34

on this thing. But it is

3:36

nice to look back just to

3:38

make sure because my brain is

3:41

addled and fucked up from the

3:43

pace of technology and from engaging

3:45

with it and from age and

3:47

from, you know, just time. kind

3:49

of flying by, but this is

3:52

a nice thing. And I hope

3:54

if you haven't heard this stuff

3:56

that you find it entertaining and

3:58

informative and interesting. Because it has

4:00

been that. that for me, and

4:03

I believe for I would

4:05

like to say this to say all part of

4:07

this year's bonus material on the full

4:09

Marin. And people can subscribe

4:11

to that feed by going to the

4:13

link in the episode description. feed So

4:15

by you had the bonus feed, you

4:17

haven't heard this stuff. description. So unless you had

4:19

I hope you enjoy it. feed, you

4:21

haven't heard this stuff. But again,

4:24

I hope you enjoy it. We'll

4:32

see what I can remember and how I

4:34

how I remember it. That's always the

4:36

interesting thing about old is how your old kind

4:38

of your brain just kind of feel

4:40

things. done that well do you feel like

4:42

you've done that with other things? life

4:44

Like there are other times in

4:46

your life where you've come up with

4:48

a narrative on them and then

4:50

all of a sudden find yourself

4:53

being told that's not how it was. was?

4:55

Yes, but I mean usually not a full

4:57

narrative. Right, right. But also some people you

4:59

know you're at the whims of other

5:01

people's at the whims of other things to me.

5:03

memories of, where they said it was me, and there's

5:05

just no way. There's just no way. they said it just

5:07

put me in there. got an email yesterday from

5:09

some guys like, you know, we've been repeating this joke

5:11

of yours. put me in in my family

5:14

for years and I'm like, I don't know what that

5:16

is. guys, like, have no idea what you're talking

5:18

about. repeating this joke of it

5:20

was a line that was like for good.

5:22

And I'm like, what is that? is that?

5:24

Beans? Yeah, and I'm like, I'm like, what is

5:26

that from? I don't know what that's from. what

5:28

Is there a joke? Is I thought I

5:30

heard it on thought I like, it on you know,

5:32

I like, remember some of my jokes but I

5:34

remember the impact of that line. impact of that

5:36

was part of was part of It might

5:38

have been something might have been Rift, I don't

5:40

know. riffed. I think this is

5:42

good I think the whole reason I the

5:44

to talk to you today was

5:46

after watching you on Dave you on

5:48

you on show. new show. which is called

5:51

senses working overtime. And I I was it

5:53

it on YouTube. You You guys

5:55

are very fun together as always,

5:57

always. But you talking about, you know,

5:59

you know. the New York days, the Boston

6:01

days, the New York days, all

6:03

the stuff in your past stuff you

6:06

guys had a lot of common

6:08

ground. a lot And I realized that

6:10

in talking about in talking it's this

6:12

thing that comes up a lot

6:14

on the show, especially with people

6:16

in your, you know, cohort. people

6:18

And I'm not really sure really sure that

6:20

I could, if somebody asked me, like,

6:22

what's a deal with with Luna Lounge? I wouldn't be

6:24

able to tell them very much because I

6:27

just haven't heard enough detail. I could tell

6:29

lots of people the story of lots of the has

6:31

been told on our show over and over

6:33

again. I could tell lots of stories about

6:35

over again. I could as a of stories as somebody who's

6:37

just heard about it. as But I couldn't

6:39

do that with Luna Lounge. And so I

6:42

thought it would be a good idea to

6:44

ask you some of those questions ask you some of

6:46

get the story from someone who was there.

6:48

So, who was there. What's the deal, Lunar

6:50

Lounge, anybody else else, wondering what

6:52

we're talking about was a club

6:54

in the Lower East a Yes in the

6:57

Lower It was on yes? It it's

6:59

now a hotel. Street. It's now a hotel.

7:01

The building has had been, has been,

7:03

uh, level. It's gone. It was like down

7:06

there. was like a few doors

7:08

down from cats' down from Katz's, on

7:10

Ludlow, and and it was primarily a music

7:12

club. a music club. I mean,

7:14

you know, we could get could get

7:16

the guy who owned the

7:18

place who owned in here, to shine in

7:20

became a phenomenon because it was

7:23

really the heart of what

7:25

became was really York's of comedy

7:27

scene. New York's in

7:29

my recollection of it So

7:31

in my the comedy show.

7:34

it, the comedy show ended

7:36

up there. there started

7:38

started elsewhere. know, that was that

7:40

was sort of the final home of

7:42

it, of it. The first attempt to

7:44

do an an alt-show was not

7:46

at Luna Lounge. And the lounge

7:49

one I was the first one i

7:51

remember the the first to was done

7:53

small bar that a small a small

7:55

it was put on it was

7:57

it was kind of created and and...

8:00

curated and booked by Michael O 'Brien,

8:02

the publicist, and Dave Becky, the manager.

8:04

Oh, wow, Michael O 'Brien, no kidding.

8:06

Yeah, and he was part of

8:09

it, him and Becky. Right, and both

8:11

of these guys continued to be,

8:13

you know, names in with top comedy

8:15

people for the next several decades.

8:17

Yeah, Dave Becky became like the, really

8:19

the biggest manager in comedy. Yeah,

8:21

but I also remember like, in our

8:23

first, you know, five, 10 years,

8:25

we were always getting guests from Michael

8:27

O 'Brien. Well, Michael always 'Brien getting and

8:29

Dave came up together. You know, Michael

8:32

O 'Brien was just a guy, he

8:34

had very few clients in the

8:36

beginning, running his own shop, I think

8:38

he still does, and Becky, you

8:40

know, walked into him, and Becky was,

8:42

that's how it works, that side

8:44

of the business. They came up together.

8:46

last time I got an email

8:48

from Michael O 'Brien was still from

8:50

an AOL address, I'm not kidding. Wow.

8:52

So they booked this one, and

8:54

on the show is me and Jeff

8:57

Ross, and maybe Todd. Wait, they you

8:59

booked remember where it was? It was

9:01

upstairs at some place, I don't

9:03

even know if it was a functioning

9:05

club, it was a small room,

9:07

but then it moved almost immediately to

9:09

a place called Rebar, and that

9:11

was the show. Rebar, was Rebar in

9:13

Brooklyn? Nope, it was this weird

9:15

bar, I don't know how they found

9:17

it, it was on the west

9:20

side, it was not conducive to what

9:22

we were doing, but

9:24

that became the first alt comedy venue. It

9:26

was a bar that was very weirdly kind

9:28

of, know, it was one of those places,

9:31

like it's just owned by the Russian mob,

9:33

what comedy kind of, what is the style

9:35

here? It was kind of modern, but kind

9:37

of weird, and then they had a back

9:39

area, and eventually they put a curtain there, and

9:42

there was no seats, people were sitting

9:45

on the fucking floor, and there was

9:47

no real stool, it had some weird

9:49

kind of weird, kind of welded modern

9:51

bar stool they pulled in there, and

9:53

it was just not, and there was

9:55

no mic. Well, so why do you

9:57

think they were doing it? What was

9:59

Did they just recognize we have this

10:02

talent and we need them to have

10:04

a space to play? to have a

10:06

space to I think it was a

10:08

reaction to the alternative space, that

10:10

that was something happening happening and like you

10:12

know, Becky Becky looking to showcase

10:14

people, I'm sure, sure, and to have have

10:16

a place where, you know, they had

10:18

some control over that, that wasn't

10:20

a comedy club. a And this

10:22

is when, And this is know, you know, this is

10:24

when, like, during the the moved to

10:26

New York Right. set up shop

10:28

before they had a theater a

10:30

they were coming down there. down

10:33

there. it moved to when it moved changed hands

10:35

at some point, but at some not to

10:37

comics. not when you say it changed hands,

10:39

what do you mean it was booking it? what

10:41

do you I mean at some point

10:43

you know it? Yeah, I mean, at some point, you

10:45

it became from lounge and the

10:47

show Luna Got a name. the show

10:50

got a name, it. it. Okay, you had

10:52

me me Jeff Ross you know

10:54

you know, Louis and and Janine

10:56

Zach You know the full Colin Quinn know,

10:58

the full Colin people made their

11:00

way made their way because

11:02

Singer made it appealing. know,

11:05

at the beginning Colin and Patrice and like, and

11:07

stuff you you know, well, you guys

11:09

just doing comedy for nothing. know, You know,

11:11

they made it seem like it was

11:13

amateur hour. It was an open an open

11:15

And I always treated it as a

11:17

place to work out. out in a way that I

11:19

I could not work out in the

11:21

comedy clubs. And I think eventually that became

11:23

sort of a thing. I a I don't

11:25

know know I don't know if know was adverse

11:27

to it at the beginning, but he

11:30

ended up coming around. And then like the

11:32

up guys, I think like the state guys, I think started

11:34

at probably started at Luna Lounge. some

11:36

of them were doing

11:38

solo stand -up. doing solo Some of

11:40

the Some of the, people were doing

11:43

solo performances. solo So it became

11:45

this huge scene. huge scene. And it

11:47

was sort of sort of the

11:49

of a comedy thing between

11:51

performance art, sketch, art, and stand

11:53

and that actually actually got a hip

11:55

kind of of. to it. It to

11:57

it. was like there go there on money.

12:00

days there was a line out the

12:02

door and I was just this cranky

12:04

fuck and I hated everybody that was

12:06

coming in for some reason and I'd

12:09

get up there and do my little

12:11

thing and but I was like you

12:13

know why are all these people here

12:16

and I remember Will Farrell came down

12:18

celebrities would start coming down. And it

12:20

became a thing. And they put couches

12:22

in the back. It was a weird

12:25

seating situation. But there was a stage

12:27

back there and all these couches and

12:29

people would sit on the floor and

12:32

stand around the room. All the comics

12:34

of my generation, most of them eventually

12:36

performed there at least once or twice.

12:38

Chappelle would go down there. But that

12:41

was later, early on, it was a

12:43

little more raw and a little more

12:45

weird. But then it got pretty mainstreamish.

12:48

And so it just seems like that

12:50

the initial show that happened at Rebar

12:52

and that moves over to Luna is

12:55

a really like hospitable gym for you

12:57

at that time. For me, it was

12:59

all I thought about. When anyone would

13:01

talk about alternative comedy, like I didn't

13:04

really care because I didn't come out

13:06

of that. You know, like, I mean,

13:08

I started, I was already, like, I'm

13:11

older than all these fucking people now

13:13

anyways. You know, so I started even

13:15

before, Louis, like, Nick DiPala is more

13:18

like my generation, New York comic, Davidel,

13:20

you know, I started in comedy clubs,

13:22

you know, I started in the late

13:24

80s, you know, in Boston, then came

13:27

to New York, and, you know, it

13:29

was kicking around, It was really just

13:31

a place to work out in a

13:34

way that I wasn't beholden to anybody.

13:36

And you know, and the idea of

13:38

it was you can, you couldn't do

13:41

new material. So that was the challenge.

13:43

Oh, so wait, hang on, that was

13:45

like a philosophical idea behind the show.

13:47

Initially, you got to go up there

13:50

with something new every week. Talk about

13:52

your day, whatever. Wasn't a place to

13:54

do your act. Right. And I'm like,

13:57

great. Yeah, that's new. That's Like what

13:59

you're doing now. Yeah, yeah, and sometimes

14:01

it really wouldn't work. I mean, sometimes

14:03

it was just, but it did kind

14:06

of train me to do this thing,

14:08

where you just get up there and

14:10

drive and drive and drive until you

14:13

find something. And if you don't find

14:15

anything, it's so sad. Yeah, sharpling talks

14:17

about that all the time about, you

14:20

know, he was a regular, he used

14:22

to go every Monday and he talks

14:24

about how it would be this amazing

14:26

thing where just some nights you were

14:29

just. on fire and it was like

14:31

it was this inspired lunacy just coming

14:33

out of it and then some nights

14:36

you're just tanking so hard like yeah

14:38

like in a way you'd never see

14:40

anybody else yeah yeah it was so

14:43

painful it's terrible but I kind of

14:45

I can get right there now like

14:47

I'd get up there with the wrong

14:49

attitude and be mad at the audience

14:52

And it was, yeah, there was some

14:54

serious tanking sometimes. And I have to

14:56

go into that front bar and just

14:59

be like, I gotta get out of

15:01

here. Was the music seen already jumping

15:03

by the time you guys started doing

15:06

it? You know, dude, I missed all

15:08

of it. You know, what do you

15:10

mean by you missed it? You just

15:12

didn't care? No, I spent my life

15:15

in comedy. You know, like I missed

15:17

that, I mean, what music scene? So

15:19

what is happening in 95? I mean,

15:22

that weird, that amazing, you know, Meet

15:24

Me in the Bathroom thing, that was

15:26

the early odds. Right, but a lot

15:29

of those bands got their start at

15:31

Luna. Right the strokes Interpol yeah, yeah,

15:33

yes the national yeah, they were around

15:35

I guess I didn't know him Yeah,

15:38

it just wasn't my thing I don't

15:40

know what I was doing at your

15:42

time like mid like 1995 the person

15:45

who became the biggest After starting at

15:47

Luna was Elliot Smith was he around

15:49

He may have been I don't remember

15:51

him. They weren't on the shows with

15:54

us right right, but maybe he was

15:56

around you know I don't like I

15:58

really was so detached from music in

16:01

general then I just didn't. I didn't

16:03

go to any of it. I don't,

16:05

I missed all. But it wasn't like

16:08

the world's crossed over. It wasn't like.

16:10

Well, I think probably with some of

16:12

the performers it did, but not me.

16:14

You know, like I think that, like,

16:17

I was always sort of an outsider,

16:19

but I think around the, you know,

16:21

like cross was out in LA. He

16:24

really wasn't around New York yet, but

16:26

like, I imagine with some of the

16:28

state guys and with some of the,

16:31

with Garofalo, I'm sure there was crossover,

16:33

But I didn't hang out with people.

16:35

Right. So I didn't see it. But

16:37

you know, at some point, you know,

16:40

there was a lot going on. The

16:42

pianos down there, right, with Todd, Todd,

16:44

and David Cross came in New York.

16:47

Yeah, Tinkle, yeah. Tinkle, the pianos, and

16:49

that was a venue that had comedy,

16:51

alt comedy. There's a lot of those

16:54

kind of shows coming up. I do

16:56

know it waneded. I remember it kind

16:58

of wanedmed, you know. And it became

17:00

less vital. Like what at the beginning

17:03

was very vital to me. Well, but

17:05

did he do you think it became

17:07

less vital because it became more mainstream?

17:10

Like was it? Yeah, but you know

17:12

that he came off it. I mean,

17:14

dude, it was crazy down there. Yeah,

17:17

you know, like like when something pops

17:19

in New York, it's like this lines

17:21

around the block. And then like I

17:23

remember at some point, it's like nobody's

17:26

waiting anymore. Well, that then is a.

17:28

place where I think the page turned

17:30

for you and it's probably what led

17:33

to ultimately radio being an option because

17:35

you know you talk about all the

17:37

things you had with in development that

17:39

didn't wind up happening and having already

17:42

done the like comedy exploration thing you're

17:44

now faced with am I just going

17:46

back to being a you know feature

17:49

somewhere or do I take this new

17:51

gig which is probably why At that

17:53

time in your life, taking the radio

17:56

gig made sense. Oh my god, dude.

17:58

Like, I was quite... spiraling. by

18:00

the late 90s, you know, I late up you

18:02

know, I had not sobered up yet. I

18:04

was in a marriage I was unhappy with.

18:07

I was living in Queens. about having know, she

18:09

was thinking about having kids and I was

18:11

like, I was just wanted to die. on a And

18:13

I was doing segments on a local TV

18:15

network. You remember that? The desk segments for TV.

18:17

And in my mind, I in my mind, I was

18:19

like, well, maybe this will work out for

18:21

me. I'll just find a local gig. Cause

18:24

everything had crapped out. had crapped out. You

18:26

know, I You I you know, I did not build

18:28

relationships on the road like you were supposed to.

18:30

the wasn't doing the type of. to. I

18:32

wasn't doing the type of anybody wanted wanted. You know,

18:34

know I could work in San

18:36

Francisco I could work in Boston

18:38

there were there were and there

18:40

were places I would go places

18:42

you know I wasn't a known

18:44

quantity know, I wasn't a known quantity. And when, so, you know,

18:46

then the marriage breaks up in breaks

18:48

up in 99. So I put all my my

18:50

fucking, into the sober basket and I'm

18:52

just basket, that. just like doing

18:54

comedy. and doing meetings. doing

18:57

out with hanging out a divorce. getting

19:00

out of my apartment, locked out changed, locks

19:03

changed, down in Delancey way

19:05

down on Delancey Street. And

19:07

I don't know, man, know once that all

19:09

fucking came to pass. to pass, I was I

19:11

was able to go back to the apartment in Queens. in

19:14

which I kept. which I kept. And then

19:16

I split and I sublet the

19:18

apartment in Queens to some fucking in

19:20

Queens, guitar player, never paid me.

19:22

Friends of paid me. Friends of the, you know, Jody and

19:25

When I got to LA, was like

19:27

I had to start all over. LA, it

19:29

had a fight to get involved all over. I

19:31

had to my dues in the and, there. my,

19:33

you know, pay my when I got my name on

19:35

the wall at the comedy store I got my name on

19:37

the wall at the 2003.

19:39

finally. I felt like I felt like

19:41

I just If it wasn't wasn't because...

19:44

I was I was sort of some

19:46

mythic guy. at the comedy store. I don't I

19:48

don't know how it would have went for

19:50

me for me, really, I didn't like doing all

19:52

the doing all the all-shows. I don't know, dude. But

19:54

But what happened was ultimately

19:56

by the time time the Arab

19:58

came. opportunity came, was for... to me and

20:00

I was sitting around and you know

20:03

I didn't have a pot to piss

20:05

him really and I couldn't I couldn't

20:07

turn it down like there was no

20:10

way I could you know I had

20:12

the apartment still in New York and

20:14

you know I was political enough so

20:17

it was really again a sort of

20:19

I could see a way around it.

20:21

You know, this kind of brings us

20:24

back to what we documented last year

20:26

with our Morning's Edition series. And so

20:28

if people are listening to this and

20:30

they haven't heard that, you can go

20:33

back to last year, we did a

20:35

series of several episodes on the Full

20:37

Maron here about... Morning's Edition called Good

20:40

Morning Geniuses. That was our radio show

20:42

and you can listen to that with

20:44

some clips that we played from the

20:47

show and from our time there, which

20:49

was like basically the next two years

20:51

of your life. I think all of

20:54

this stuff, including back to Luna Lounge,

20:56

is stuff that were it not for

20:58

these things in your life, you would

21:01

not have gotten to the podcast. So,

21:03

they're all very important and a good

21:05

part of your origin story. Oh my

21:07

God, even just talking about these these

21:10

turns like, you know, I don't generally

21:12

put the memories together like that. Yeah,

21:14

you know, to where Luna Lounge happened

21:17

and then, you know, I start fucking

21:19

around with sobriety and fucking around with

21:21

a woman and, you know, I'm married,

21:24

you know, two or like three years

21:26

and I'm already blowing it and then

21:28

that whole marriage blows up because, you

21:31

know, I make I just remember, dude,

21:33

it was 99 or 2000. where I'm

21:35

like, you know, I'm just like in

21:38

a room sweating and a year sober

21:40

with me, you know, like, are we

21:42

doing this man? Because I'm going to

21:44

leave my wife. She goes, I guess

21:47

so. I'm like, good enough. You know,

21:49

and that's always a good trigger puller.

21:51

I guess so. I'm in. Oh my

21:54

God. Just a whole fucking thing blew

21:56

up. And then, you know, conversely, she

21:58

blew mine up again. Yeah, but those

22:01

those trauma points of Chaos, relationship, chaos,

22:03

and yeah, sobriety, all that stuff. Yeah,

22:05

it does haze things a bit. So

22:08

I told you to tap into whatever

22:10

trauma you had around this topic, and

22:12

the topic is the Mark Maren show.

22:15

Did you do any tapping? Yeah, well

22:17

I'm doing it now. I mean I

22:19

did it today. You told me this

22:22

morning, you know to get in in

22:24

the zone and KTLK. I remember KTLK.

22:26

I remember KTLK. I remember you moving

22:28

out here, you know, and you just

22:31

had a baby and you were living

22:33

in this... No, no, I didn't have

22:35

the baby yet. I had just gotten

22:38

married. Oh, that was it. Just got

22:40

married, literally just got married. And you

22:42

just bolt and you're living in these

22:45

furnished apartments. Yeah, I found that charming.

22:47

Were they called the Oak, were you

22:49

in the Oakwoods or? No, it was

22:52

just called like Burbank Community Living or

22:54

something like that. Burbank Long-Term Living, it

22:56

was like, you would live there if

22:59

you were like, had like a three

23:01

month stint on a Disney show or

23:03

something. Right, yeah, it's like those other

23:05

ones, I think they're called the Oakwoods

23:08

that some people lived in. But I

23:10

just remember that. you know coming out

23:12

of the morning show coming out of

23:15

morning's edition this weird panic on the

23:17

executive level when the the shake-up at

23:19

Air America happened and we had some

23:22

clandestine group of consultants and marginal characters

23:24

from the brass who wanted to keep

23:26

us in the fold as the new

23:29

CEO failed. And the idea was that,

23:31

you know, Scott Elberg, I don't even

23:33

remember his position, president. He was a

23:36

vice president. There was like a couple

23:38

of vice president. And then Scott Krantz.

23:40

Gary Krantz. I know his brother. They

23:43

had some sort of, you know, finagled

23:45

something out here in LA because we

23:47

got fired off the morning show and

23:49

we wanted to keep in the game

23:52

and they finagled something with KTLK. Stephanie

23:54

Miller had the morning show there. So

23:56

that was part of the condition of

23:59

us getting anything was I had to

24:01

make nice with Stephanie Miller. But the

24:03

one thing we did have by that

24:06

point were chops and fans and fans.

24:08

there was a devoted hardcore and I

24:10

mean that's that I think is the

24:13

reason why we wound up doing the

24:15

show in LA because people like there

24:17

was there were petitions back when that

24:20

mattered you know and and and the

24:22

the petitions kept coming into the air

24:24

America offices, keep Mark and Mark on

24:26

the air, blah blah, morning's edition. And

24:29

that meant something. And that's what I

24:31

guess my question is, I'm wondering, because

24:33

I remember it all kind of going

24:36

down, but I was outside of it,

24:38

you being in it, like what were

24:40

you hearing? Were you hearing from those

24:43

people who were doing those like back

24:45

channel deals to try to get you

24:47

on in LA? Basically, I remember, and

24:50

I don't know where it came within

24:52

the arc of things. But I remember,

24:54

you know, I packed up, I went

24:57

back to Los Angeles, and Elberg came

24:59

out there and took me to Dantanas

25:01

and said, look, this is just a

25:03

placeholder. You know, we're going to get

25:06

you back on the air in the

25:08

mornings, but, you know, this will keep

25:10

you in the mix to do this

25:13

morning show or this. whatever that show

25:15

was. I don't even know what you

25:17

call that show we did. A late

25:20

night show? I envisioned it as the

25:22

late night talk show, variety show, Allah

25:24

what was on the networks, but just

25:27

on the radio. That was my goal

25:29

for it. Right. So, you know, that

25:31

was encouraging. But by this point, though,

25:34

like, I don't know how you felt,

25:36

but I'm like, there was enough fuck

25:38

you and me to be like, I

25:41

can just go back to my life

25:43

here, whatever the fuck this is. I

25:45

do remember that.

25:47

I remember that it

25:50

was weird that

25:52

it was like, it was

25:54

was a was a moment.

25:57

No, dude, you know

25:59

what I remember?

26:01

I remember that once

26:04

you had moved

26:06

everything back out there,

26:08

there, they were like,

26:11

a chance to a chance to

26:13

keep the show. show. Do you

26:15

remember that? Yes. That they were, they like suddenly

26:17

like, they realized the error of their

26:20

ways. Everyone browbeat Danny Goldberg. Yeah. And was like,

26:22

like. his his mind now you

26:24

want him to. you were like like. you already

26:26

moved me back home Like I'm already out either. Yeah,

26:28

there's a lot of fucking around going

26:30

on going on. Yeah, like, you you know, just

26:32

sort of of like, but it wasn't a

26:34

guarantee. That's do remember that and I do

26:36

remember saying do didn't sound like a sure

26:38

deal didn't sound why would you deal though. confident about

26:40

anything they were doing at that time?

26:43

Yeah, because I even understand, you know, at

26:45

what these different groups were. even

26:47

understand, there was, you know,

26:49

trouble in, groups were, know, like, at the castle, like

26:51

the castle, I mean, like, mean, was

26:53

Elber, what were were and doing? What

26:55

were all those suits doing?

26:57

doing? I mean, I know I those guys

26:59

thought guys were going to going

27:02

they were going to take,

27:04

they were going to to

27:06

America away from the progressive

27:08

activism. activism. and really just make it

27:10

really just make it

27:12

radio, right? Elberg's background

27:15

was, Gary Krantz's background, where

27:17

these were where were guys

27:19

and they guys. And know, to

27:21

Scott's credit, he saw you as

27:23

a as a good. person to bet on as

27:25

a a radio host. In any any event,

27:27

you wind up coming back to this

27:29

thing we know that this thing is

27:31

gonna get I, up. me directly, will you me

27:33

directly, will you come out here

27:36

and produce this for me? you know, I got

27:38

to get this off the ground like

27:40

like morning's And I agreed that I

27:42

would come out until the end of

27:44

March that if we could do it

27:46

for like a ramp up of

27:48

like three months, which winds up biting

27:50

us because the time got crunched. I

27:52

I said, even even though. I just got

27:54

married. I'm trying to start a life here

27:57

in Brooklyn. in I will come out. out. Well,

27:59

for me, there was no. I wasn't going to do

28:01

it without you. I'm not like, I

28:03

wasn't that kind of radio guy. I

28:05

didn't, I didn't care enough about, you

28:08

know, working in radio to be set

28:10

up with some producer I didn't trust

28:12

or some lackey or some, you know,

28:15

tired old timer. Yeah, well, that meant

28:17

a lot to me. Like that was

28:19

a key motivator to doing it was

28:21

you, you did. exactly say that. You

28:24

said, I wouldn't, I won't do this

28:26

if you don't want to come out

28:28

and do it. And I was like,

28:30

this guy's known me for less than

28:33

two years, you know, it's, you know,

28:35

we've worked together for whatever it's been,

28:37

18 months or so. And if he

28:39

trusts me with this and, you know,

28:42

I'm 26 at that point, like, I

28:44

felt like that was enough of a

28:46

sign that I should go do this.

28:48

Yeah. And so we just had to

28:51

build this thing. from scratch. I came

28:53

out there. And it was a two-hour

28:55

show, right? It was supposed to be

28:58

two hours late night, starting at 10

29:00

p.m. on the West Coast. So if

29:02

you're trying to listen on the, like,

29:04

live stream on the East Coast, it

29:07

was one in the morning. And the

29:09

promise was, this is gonna be syndicated.

29:11

So, you know, we would wind up

29:13

doing it at, you know, so that

29:16

people in New York could wind up

29:18

listening to it maybe the next day

29:20

or the next morning or the next

29:22

morning or whatever. That was a lie.

29:25

Oh, well, that becomes the key lie

29:27

that ends the whole thing ultimately. But

29:29

we went out there with this idea.

29:32

I remember going over to your house

29:34

in Highland Park and just sitting at

29:36

your kitchen table and basically going through

29:38

everything we did on Morning's Edition to

29:41

see what kind of thing would still

29:43

work. My thought about it was, well,

29:45

let's just do like what fucking Conan

29:47

does. We'll do Conan, but for radio.

29:50

Like, you know, you'll be the Conan.

29:52

And like, this is late night, but

29:54

on the radio with Mark. And, you

29:56

know, we then incorporated some of the.

29:59

characters, that was the other thing. The

30:01

guys who used to be writing for

30:03

us at Air America who still had

30:05

their jobs at Air America, they now

30:08

had no work. They were like writing

30:10

for random roads, but it was like

30:12

nothing, you know. But so we were

30:15

able to use these people to do

30:17

our old bits. And then I just

30:19

kind of like. I thought of like

30:21

what the sound of the show would

30:24

be and I started you know going

30:26

through all this whole big band music

30:28

and like thinking like again like the

30:30

idea of like this should be like

30:33

almost a joke on Carson like if

30:35

our last show was like a sly

30:37

elbow to the ribs of morning radio,

30:39

this would be the same for like

30:42

late night. And you know, I thought

30:44

we had a great theme song. I

30:46

was very happy with everything. That's a

30:49

band called Real Big Fish and the

30:51

song is called Cell Out. And it's

30:53

real like energy, propulsive, horns, just works

30:55

really well. The best part of that

30:58

show was using all the improv guys

31:00

out here. And that was your connection

31:02

with people at the UCB theater at

31:04

the time. I think Seth Morris was

31:07

the real door in to that. We

31:09

went and had, what was that place

31:11

that's closed now, but that diner like

31:13

right by the Hollywood sign? It's like

31:16

in a hotel, like you go out

31:18

like the 101. The 101 diner, right.

31:20

Yeah. I remember having lunch or something

31:22

there breakfast with Seth Morris, who was,

31:25

you know, a big. You know, he

31:27

was one of the teachers at UCB

31:29

at the time. Yeah, I think he

31:32

was, he might have been running the

31:34

place. I think he was, so he

31:36

was like way into it when we

31:38

had, we met with him. He got

31:41

it right away that we, we just

31:43

like, feed us a pipeline of hungry

31:45

improv people that like wanna do this

31:47

stuff. Yeah. And James Adomian was one

31:50

of them. Paul Rust, remember that guy?

31:52

You actually interviewed him on the show

31:54

and he reminded you, hey I used

31:56

to do a thing on your old

31:59

radio. Yeah. And do we use, well,

32:01

we used Wyatt. Wyatt was the big

32:03

one and Wyatt Senak was the big,

32:06

like, he created a character that worked

32:08

the most perfectly with you, because it

32:10

was the one that like understood the

32:12

dynamic of, you know, call in to

32:15

a radio host with a regular recurring

32:17

bit that you could use an army

32:19

guy, right? he was a recruiter, right?

32:21

And it was, you know, he's recruiting

32:24

for the surge, because this is 2006.

32:26

So it's like the worst time, the

32:28

public opinion is completely turned on the

32:30

Iraq war. And his thing was like,

32:33

he's coming around to like, places you're

32:35

not used to recruiting. So like liberal

32:37

talk radio, he's gonna make the pitch

32:39

to recruit. Oh, Eris Bar, she was,

32:42

she would come on as a Russian

32:44

prostitute. That's right. Spettlana, the movie reviewers,

32:46

Spettlana, yeah. Craig Anton, you used a

32:49

couple of times, just he was just

32:51

your buddy who would come in and

32:53

do some characters. And then we did,

32:55

this was another thing I remember, we

32:58

went to the Figaro, the cat, the

33:00

cat, the other cafe, I remember all

33:02

the locations that we wound up doing

33:04

these things at. So we went to

33:07

the Figaro and. met with Kevin Kataoka,

33:09

Ray James, and Steve Rosenfield. That's right

33:11

to talk about writing? Yeah, they wrote

33:13

just monologue jokes for us every day.

33:16

And it was great. It was like

33:18

this, I can't believe more people don't

33:20

think to do this or didn't at

33:23

the time, which is like, get a

33:25

bunch of funny comedy writers and get

33:27

them to send you jokes and we'd

33:29

pay them $10. a joke and you'd

33:32

have jokes every night. But heads and

33:34

tails of the show were jokes, were

33:36

like, you know, basically monologues. Straight up

33:38

monologue jokes. Yeah. Doing them on the

33:41

radio. But it was fun. It was

33:43

a lot of fun. It was a

33:45

lot of fun. It was even just

33:47

to pick them. Like you get these

33:50

daily... of of jokes

33:52

from these guys, and

33:54

then just select

33:57

the ones until we're

33:59

good. he thought but were

34:01

just became, I

34:03

don't know how quickly.

34:06

I don't know how it became just. just

34:08

a nightmare. Well, it it was as quickly as

34:10

that meeting that we had to have we

34:13

had to we on the air yet? Were we on

34:15

the area? No, we had to prove ourselves

34:17

to get on the air. the So what

34:19

winds up happening up I go out there

34:21

with you, we start building this show. this

34:23

show, Gary comes out and says we have

34:25

to go have this meeting. have this meeting

34:27

at clear channel. Which was you

34:29

know, a giant radio hub out

34:32

there. It wasn't just this one

34:34

station. It was this entire clear clear

34:36

channel of stations. But so

34:38

we go in there to there to When we

34:40

think like. This is like This is the

34:42

thing where we have to apologize thing

34:44

where we have to apologize right for the for?

34:46

Shitting on Stephanie as her

34:48

lead and this goes this goes back

34:51

to when we were on mornings

34:53

you were always making a stink

34:55

over us not being live

34:57

in it wasn't even that we even that We

34:59

were live. We were we were live.

35:01

used to. were live three to we were

35:03

the to six in the morning, they then

35:05

they run us again. was, it was,

35:07

and they did that at the beginning,

35:09

but then they they in in the live

35:11

thing. And they defended that that. Because why wouldn't

35:13

you want to have live radio in

35:16

the market the the radio station the in?

35:18

I mean, I got it, but it

35:20

it, but me because then there was really

35:22

no presence really no presence in you were up

35:24

at three in the morning. three in the

35:26

And it just bothered me. So So that

35:28

Stephanie was in the studio about to

35:30

start her show, her show. I would sometimes my

35:33

show in a snide setting her up

35:35

in know, setting her up in

35:37

must have And it must have

35:39

just pissed her off to no

35:41

end. Oh I mean, I don't I

35:43

mean. think pissed don't even

35:45

think the right the right word. They

35:47

were vengeful. And we didn't know didn't, we

35:49

didn't know it. We thought it

35:51

was, oh, they got slightly pissed

35:53

off at that. So we go

35:55

in there and this dude, dude, he's

35:57

a he's a a big strapping dude.

35:59

player, dude. Exactly. He's biting his lip, comes

36:01

over to his stiff lip, like

36:03

reaches out, shakes your hand, how

36:05

are you? Shakes your hand, goes

36:07

back and sits down, and this

36:09

guy, this giant hammock that we

36:11

just met, is the one in

36:13

charge, and we have to like

36:15

figure this out within this moment.

36:17

Yeah, it was all a hope.

36:19

Yeah. There was no prep to

36:22

it. There was nothing. There was

36:24

no, no groundwork had been laid.

36:26

Like, but we represented that it

36:28

was sort of a guarantee we're

36:30

a shoe in. I was why

36:32

I was out there. I wouldn't

36:34

have been out there if they

36:36

said, well, we don't know if

36:38

this is going to happen. Basically,

36:40

it comes down to, can you

36:42

unpiss off this giant Texan? Which

36:44

we wound up doing amazingly. But

36:46

at that moment, like he, you

36:48

know, finally like, like, like, like,

36:50

like, like, like, like, like, like,

36:52

like, like, like, like, like, like,

36:54

like, after staring daggers at us,

36:56

he's like, you know, you offended

36:58

me greatly. And, you know, it

37:00

was like, it was like what

37:02

you would do to like a

37:04

drug dealer. Yeah, this ends now.

37:06

Like, yeah, guns on the table.

37:08

And he made us go downstairs,

37:10

like, at that moment, Stephanie Miller

37:12

was like coming off the air.

37:14

I couldn't believe, like, how awful

37:16

the whole situation was and how

37:18

minimally we were prepped for how

37:20

bad it was. That's the thing

37:22

I couldn't believe. Yeah, I don't

37:24

remember what our feeling was. How

37:26

did it end up? But I

37:28

do, because like years later I

37:30

did Stephanie's podcast and she seemed

37:33

like she didn't even remember it.

37:35

No, I think I think she,

37:37

I think she, you know, felt

37:39

like you did the right thing

37:41

and you apologize and was coming

37:43

from a genuine place and you

37:45

said the whole time you're like,

37:47

I was, you're, this was, I

37:49

think, an honest reaction. You weren't

37:51

just making an excuse. You were

37:53

like, I was new to radio

37:55

and I was told one of

37:57

the best things you could do

37:59

is create rivalries, like, make, make

38:01

your audience think you're better than

38:03

the others. like a lesson people

38:05

had imparted to you. Like, oh,

38:07

John Manzo or some guy like

38:09

that. I was like, yeah, you

38:11

gotta get your, and Randy Rhodes,

38:13

who was on air America, would

38:15

do that stuff all the time,

38:17

did herself against Franken, you know,

38:19

like people on our air. So,

38:21

and you said that to her,

38:23

and I think she believed you,

38:25

which was true, you weren't lying.

38:27

I was also mad though. I

38:29

mean, the reality of it is,

38:31

whether I thought that or not

38:33

or not, viable presence in Los

38:35

Angeles. Right, right, exactly. And it

38:37

wasn't even her fault, but I,

38:39

yeah, you know, look man, I,

38:42

you know, I was, my mouth

38:44

gets me in trouble. All right,

38:46

well, so we get the show,

38:48

we're finally on, we're finally building

38:50

to get on the air, we've

38:52

got these comics in place, we've

38:54

got, you know, people doing bits

38:56

for us, we're lining up guests,

38:58

and we're ready to launch on

39:00

February 27th, And then we find

39:02

out we will not be launching

39:04

on that day because there is

39:06

a LA Clippers game. Yeah. And

39:08

that becomes the persistent story of

39:10

the entire run at the Mark

39:12

Mann Show. The station before it

39:14

was a progressive station had a

39:16

contract with the Clippers to run

39:18

live game coverage. Mm-hmm. And those

39:20

games, I guess they probably started

39:22

at eight or something. and you

39:24

were all we could do was

39:26

hope that they'd be over because

39:28

we had a 10 o'clock start

39:30

time live and then during the

39:32

fucking basketball season it would go

39:34

to 1020 1030 1045 and we

39:36

were just sitting there yeah waiting

39:38

to launch art waiting to do

39:40

our show and initially what we

39:42

would do is we so we

39:44

launched the next day which was

39:46

February 28th that was a Tuesday

39:48

and and and then I think

39:51

immediately the next day was another

39:53

clippers game the Wednesday and we

39:55

had we had the reason they

39:57

would be late is that like

39:59

if if clippers were

40:01

in L .A. the

40:03

West or on the would almost they

40:05

would almost always us us yeah the

40:07

games would start at seven or

40:09

eight o 'clock o'clock and and then they'd

40:11

had to take a post to right?

40:13

post And so. so if they were on they

40:15

were on the or central or something,

40:17

we'd get lucky, right Or they had

40:19

no game that night, we'd be

40:21

fine. be fine but you know, an

40:23

East Coast game is starting at,

40:25

you know, four 'clock LA time. And so

40:27

they'd be be the clear by

40:30

then. by But then then basketball season, they

40:32

also had an arena

40:34

football contract that we'd

40:36

get preempted for. for and

40:39

UCLA basketball as well. well.

40:41

So it was a major

40:43

sports fuck that we we would, you

40:45

know, rarely avoid. first, what they

40:47

first, what they had us

40:49

doing was whenever the Clippers game

40:52

ends and go for two

40:54

hours. two hours. And we, so could

40:56

have meant have game ends at

40:58

11 game ends at 1115. we

41:00

would go go till, you know, one

41:02

15 in the 15 in the

41:04

morning or whatever it was We put

41:06

our foot down on that. We're

41:09

like we're not not going that late.

41:11

Who was paying us paying us? Air

41:13

New York. That was good. Yeah good.

41:15

Yeah. And so eventually they made us

41:17

we said what we'll do is we're

41:19

just gonna start whenever the Clippers

41:22

game ends and we end at

41:24

we end at 12. But the problem with

41:26

that became, that lose guests. We'd

41:28

get crunched down to 45

41:30

minutes of a show. 45 It

41:32

was just of a show, it total mess

41:34

all away. And mess right away. It

41:36

was like a nightmare. was yeah. a

41:38

nightmare. Oh yeah, and you just And up

41:40

there. Sitting up there, was

41:42

a real lesson. was a real know, God

41:44

knows I'd done comedy long enough, but just

41:47

did not have comedy long enough, but

41:49

just did not have any way

41:51

to job. your to

41:53

have a say in your

41:55

future a a way just just

41:57

have to. you know play by these.

42:00

rules. But I will say, there

42:02

were a couple of nights, I

42:04

can remember, like so now once

42:06

we launched, you know, I only

42:08

had about a month there until

42:10

I was set to go back

42:12

to New York. And so we

42:14

were really trying to make this

42:16

work. And I do remember like

42:18

several shows. Like at the end

42:20

of that show, I remember I

42:22

had the instant replay machine, like

42:24

which I wound up leaving out

42:26

there with you. And I would

42:28

take it in and out of

42:30

the studio so that it didn't

42:32

stay there and get stolen by

42:34

anybody. Yeah. And I remember like

42:36

walking to my car after the

42:38

show one night and like looking

42:40

down at like, you know, remember

42:42

how you used to have like

42:44

a little overlay where you could

42:46

wait? Yeah. What was there? And

42:48

I'm just like walking with this

42:50

thing. It's like. fart, de Cheney,

42:52

shit, or whatever. On each button.

42:54

And I was just like, man,

42:56

this is fun. Like, I know

42:58

this is stressful. And I know,

43:00

like, we go through a lot

43:02

to do this, but like, I

43:04

like that this is my job.

43:06

I like that this is my

43:08

life. And it was very typical

43:10

for us that it would be

43:12

like that next to like some

43:14

sound bite of Bush, right? Yeah,

43:16

yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so,

43:18

you know, I was definitely committed,

43:20

even though I was going back

43:22

to New York, I was committed

43:24

to like, I want this to

43:26

work. I want there to be

43:28

an outlet where like I can

43:30

be working in radio and it's

43:32

funny. We're doing comedy and you

43:34

wanted to build it so it

43:36

would stay. Yeah, well and it

43:38

didn't it didn't last that long.

43:40

So February 28th was our first

43:42

show and then July 14th. That

43:44

was your last day. I believe

43:46

if I'm looking at the info

43:48

I had and matching everything up,

43:50

I think on the show the

43:52

on the air on like July

43:54

5th, you announced that you couldn't

43:56

come to an agreement with them

43:58

about syndicating you had an escape.

44:00

in your contract, I don't know

44:02

if that was true, but that

44:04

was how you announced it on

44:06

the show that said, if they

44:08

couldn't syndicate the show, you didn't

44:10

have to do it. Well, that's

44:12

probably a nice way of putting

44:14

it, but they were sort of

44:17

like, do whatever you want, it's

44:19

over. Right, right. I can't believe

44:21

we owed anybody anything. Yeah. And

44:23

so July 14th, 2006, that was

44:25

your last show. It also, coincidentally,

44:27

was Janine Garofalo's last day at

44:29

Air America. She quit at that

44:31

same, on that same exact day,

44:33

unrelated, from the majority report show

44:35

in New York. And that was

44:37

it. That was the short four

44:39

and a half month run of

44:41

the Mark Maren show, right? Not

44:43

even legendary. Not even appreciated by

44:45

anybody. It's not underappreciated. It's non-appreciated.

44:47

Yeah. It happened in a vacuum

44:49

and no one was the wiser.

44:51

Right. But it does lead to,

44:53

I mean, it's going to lead

44:55

to other things we'll talk about

44:57

on future episodes how, you know,

44:59

we did break room live stemming

45:01

from, you know, a lot of

45:03

this stuff. But, you know, a

45:05

lot of the things we were

45:07

doing were helpful in setting up

45:09

this podcast, right? Sure. First of

45:11

all, stuff we don't do anymore,

45:13

like using improv comics to do

45:15

kind of comedy bang bang-bang style

45:17

things that, you know, kind of

45:19

an early version of that on

45:21

this show. That was basically the

45:23

next two years for me, was

45:25

trying and failing to make this

45:27

happen somewhere else. Right. And were

45:29

you at serious yet? That's right.

45:31

I was trying to get it

45:33

on there and it just wasn't,

45:35

I don't know, probably many reasons,

45:37

but it wasn't anything anyone was

45:39

willing to spend money on. You

45:41

were sending them tapes? I was

45:43

sending them lots of reals, like

45:45

different kinds, different kinds, different kinds

45:47

of different places. I'd go to,

45:49

I'd have meetings with people, places

45:51

where I was doing work, so

45:53

that I could be like, hey,

45:55

you know what I do, and

45:57

I could bring this here, and

45:59

there are always reasons. Nah, we

46:01

can't do that, it's not saleable,

46:03

whatever. Non-appreciate. Yeah. That was the

46:05

beginning of the fucking end in

46:07

terms of my hope for having

46:09

a career in show business really,

46:11

because then, you know, my wife

46:13

leaves me not long after that

46:15

and I'm thrown into the sort

46:17

of chaos of, of, you know,

46:19

a divorce and, you know, just

46:21

spending hours and days, you know,

46:23

photocopying bank receipts, like, you know,

46:25

disclosure stuff just being beaten down.

46:27

It was, it was a lot.

46:35

So yeah, it was just a

46:37

spiraling shit show where I was going

46:39

broke. You know, no one could

46:41

really lend me money. My dad wouldn't

46:43

lend me money. I think my mom

46:46

gave me a little money to keep

46:48

me afloat, but I was spiraling the

46:50

fucking drain, dude. Well, what was your,

46:53

you had, did you mentally? have any

46:55

like career prospects or like career

46:57

goals or ambitions at this point or

47:00

were you totally swamped? No I just

47:02

knew that like you know I was

47:04

doing what I could I was doing

47:07

what I always did the again I

47:09

mean this was not a time where

47:11

I could sell tickets so whatever

47:13

club work I was taking was just

47:16

you know that kind of like a

47:18

you know kind of unknown headline or

47:20

club work I was probably doing a

47:23

few TV appearances here or there but

47:25

just when anybody thinks. to be honest

47:27

with you. Like I looked up

47:29

your, like maybe a Conan here

47:31

or there when you'd be in New

47:34

York, because Conan was still in

47:36

New York. So you're out in LA.

47:38

I don't know what TV appearance is

47:40

you could have done in LA at

47:43

that time. So I was journaling and

47:45

I was talking to friends every day.

47:47

I was very depressed and I was

47:50

just, you know, trying to keep

47:52

it together. Yeah, and I do remember

47:54

you taking a lot of fill-in gigs

47:56

anytime there was like a gap with

47:59

a host on Air America. You would

48:01

do like a fill-in for if they

48:03

were like they they were they lost

48:06

somebody and they didn't have them

48:08

for like I remember you would do

48:10

guest spots for Randy Roads and then

48:12

they fired Randy Rhodes, so there was

48:15

a period of time where you and

48:17

Sam and Ron Cooby, you were all

48:19

like filling in. Right, right. Yeah, I

48:22

kind of remember that. Was I

48:24

doing it out here? I must have

48:26

been, I do remember, right? You would

48:28

do it out there and then any

48:31

time you were in New York, you

48:33

would go into the studio, you'd do

48:35

fill-in spots for Rachel Maddo, you would

48:38

do fill-ins, you would do fill-ins. You

48:40

would just do, you were, you

48:42

were, you were like trying to, I

48:44

think it was always Scott Elberg who

48:47

was there at Air America. thought, you

48:49

know, Mark Marin is a good guy

48:51

to keep around and we'll, you know,

48:54

try to do something with him. Right.

48:56

Also, you and Sam, on your

48:58

own, started doing a video thing, very

49:00

primitive kind of like Skype interface, that

49:03

you guys called Marin v. Ceter, and

49:05

you would do it like every Friday,

49:08

you know, and I think you were,

49:10

he was utilizing like his Air America.

49:12

email list to have a group

49:14

of fans who still wanted to watch

49:17

him. And you guys would do this

49:19

video chat, essentially, where you talked about

49:21

things. I think you probably, you know,

49:24

were there just to go back and

49:26

forth with Sam. He was doing like

49:28

politics on it and you were just

49:31

kind of reacting. Yeah, well, that's

49:33

the dynamic. Yeah, I vaguely remember that.

49:35

And I remember, I don't remember when

49:37

we got that Merrin v. Cedar was

49:40

actually... I think that kind of bled

49:42

over him was the initial title for

49:44

Breakroom Live, I think. That's exactly right.

49:47

Not only the initial title, it

49:49

was what we did for the first

49:51

four months. So from my records here,

49:53

what wound up happening was Carl Ginsburg,

49:56

who had been at Air America from

49:58

the start. He left, then he came

50:00

back, and he got in touch with

50:03

you because there was new money,

50:05

right? There's new money there at... Charlie.

50:07

Yeah, Charlie Karaker was a wealthy guy

50:09

who he was a businessman. He had

50:12

some money and he was a lefty

50:14

and he wanted to get into progressive

50:16

politics. Right. And Carl, not unlike me,

50:19

and I've given Carl the credit for

50:21

this before, that it's like he

50:23

got what your appeal was and how

50:25

you could be like a viable. a

50:28

host of something, presenter of something. And,

50:30

you know, that was his goal, was

50:32

to get the money to basically set

50:35

Mark Marin up on the path to

50:37

getting a TV deal somewhere. Right,

50:39

he thought we could do the Daily

50:41

Show over there. Basically, and I think,

50:44

but I think his end goal was,

50:46

yes, we would use the Air America

50:48

infrastructure to do a daily show type

50:51

thing. but ultimately this would be getting

50:53

Mark Marin a gig as the

50:55

new John Stewart somewhere and you know

50:57

he would be the producer of it

51:00

or whatever. It was not a bad

51:02

idea in terms of what could work

51:04

it was a bad idea in terms

51:07

of the infrastructure at Air America was

51:09

totally not suitable for doing this,

51:11

nor was the kind of presence online

51:13

at the time for streaming video. And

51:16

across the board, it didn't exist. Right,

51:18

exactly. And despite Carl's, you know, very

51:21

passionate resistance to having Sam on, you

51:23

know, he complied and we got the

51:25

money for Sam too. And that turned

51:28

out to be kind of a

51:30

monster that we couldn't really hold back.

51:32

And it created the tension that kind

51:34

of was what Breakroom was, because Sam

51:37

had a very specific agenda. I just

51:39

needed somebody to talk to, but there

51:41

was no way I wasn't going to

51:44

get steamrolled by him. Well, ultimately,

51:46

you guys came into it with two

51:48

different styles of presenting. His style of

51:50

presenting was much more akin to what

51:53

he's... been doing ever

51:55

since on his show,

51:57

The Majority Report,

52:00

right? Right. Like, and so

52:02

he wasn't wasn't wrong

52:04

in his idea of

52:06

what he thought

52:09

worked. wrong in what you thought you

52:11

were good at what you thought you

52:13

were good at and what you weren't going to

52:15

be able to do in terms of the,

52:17

you know, the lift of a daily politics show.

52:19

Right, he just didn't want to be funny. funny.

52:21

And I it's, mean, whether he wanted

52:23

to or not, I think he

52:25

thought, this is is the audience I can

52:27

engage, which engage. to his credit is

52:30

the audience he's engaged he's since that

52:32

on his own gig. on his own gig.

52:34

But it's so so weird, I've

52:36

never, the even the original Air

52:38

America. I've never never been

52:40

a part of something other than

52:42

this, other than Breakroom where it

52:45

was doomed to failure from

52:47

the start. Like it was ill -conceived

52:49

from the get get-go. Because the

52:51

technology wasn't there there. The technology

52:53

wasn't there the personnel personnel a

52:55

problem It was a was a know

52:57

Carl should have said absolutely have

52:59

said Sam, right? no if he right?

53:02

he wanted the thing that

53:04

he ultimately wanted ultimately wanted, and I

53:06

then went and made as

53:08

a podcast went and made would have

53:10

been better But the the dichotomy

53:12

between you and Sam you and

53:14

allowed for the thing to gel

53:16

ever ever. You know, know, I guess

53:18

I felt bad about that, but

53:20

I also didn't have confidence enough in

53:23

myself myself you know, we had no

53:25

writing staff staff. there was there was no, there

53:27

was no set. there was no like, like,

53:29

there was no context. You know, he, Carl had know,

53:31

Carl had no idea about nothing.

53:33

And by the time you got in,

53:35

mean, we we we ended up building

53:38

segments that would serve both Sam

53:40

and I. But the bottom line was

53:42

is we were working with you know,

53:44

new technology that wasn't really We,

53:47

they spent like spent like a hundred

53:49

thousand dollars on a website, you

53:51

know to do everything we wanted to

53:53

do But there was nothing going on.

53:55

There was no streaming there was no

53:57

streaming. Yeah, no, and it was

53:59

this. that would come in the middle of

54:02

the day. You know, a lot of

54:04

websites at around that time, mid-2000s, they

54:06

had, you know, verticals on their site

54:08

that would support like a tech window.

54:10

That was the idea here, was you'd

54:12

have a, this would help build Air

54:14

America as a digital media brand that

54:16

it would rival like the Huffington Post.

54:18

That was the goal. And... If this

54:20

is the type of show we're doing

54:22

this live streaming thing, it's either got

54:24

to be like absolutely nothing, like just

54:26

production-wise, two people talking and set up

54:28

with an agenda and then go back

54:30

and forth, and that wasn't working because

54:32

of you and Sam, or we need

54:34

to put some personality into this thing.

54:36

We need to make it. a show

54:38

with characters with like a vibe, right?

54:41

And that was where the idea of

54:43

doing it in the break room started.

54:45

The idea for break room, I don't

54:47

know who came up with. I know

54:49

exactly how it happened. We had a

54:51

day where we couldn't use that studio.

54:53

Right. And we said, well, let's just

54:55

shoot today show in the kitchen, right?

54:57

Let's go in there. And that one

54:59

day. was better than any of the

55:01

other days we had done, because you

55:03

were interacting with staff members as they

55:05

came in to make their lunch and

55:07

so we just, we knew it when

55:09

the day was done. We were like,

55:11

that's the show. Like the dynamic that

55:13

went on in there today, that's the

55:15

show. So we went and pitched that.

55:17

we should do this in the break

55:19

room. And it required a complete overhaul.

55:21

We had to redo the website. We

55:24

had to change everything that we had

55:26

structured promotionally for this thing being called

55:28

Marin v. Cedar now is called Breakroom

55:30

Live. But it was actually probably easier

55:32

as a technical undertaking because all they

55:34

had to do is run some cables

55:36

from next door to the break room.

55:38

That was it. We picked up and

55:40

packed out every day. I thought it

55:42

was like, I thought it was a

55:44

brilliant idea. And the funny thing is,

55:46

is that this show would be just

55:48

par for the course now. We could

55:50

do it in the middle of the

55:52

day and would do fine. It would

55:54

get good numbers. Yeah. Nowadays, lots of

55:56

people do these things on YouTube every

55:58

single day. Yeah. And like with me

56:00

and Sam, some of the stuff that

56:02

we really worked on kind of worked

56:04

well when he would, you know, sort

56:07

of like, let me play a part

56:09

in stuff. But you know like we

56:11

get in the weeds so much and

56:13

I just could never understand like you

56:15

know why are we talking about this

56:17

for the third day in a row

56:19

this fucking bullshit Abramoff was just always

56:21

that stuff you know you pick these

56:23

narratives that ultimately were nothing, but they

56:25

were something, but who gives a fuck?

56:27

Right, no, to me, the only things

56:29

that actually had any kind of stickiness

56:31

and longevity were the pre-tapes we did.

56:33

With Matthew. We would do a lot

56:35

of pre-tapes with, well, Matthew did some,

56:37

but the real MVP of the show,

56:39

period, was this guy named Bill Buckendorf,

56:41

the editor. Oh yeah. And he came

56:43

to us through John Benjamin. John Benjamin

56:45

recommended him because he had done like

56:47

some video, you know, comedy videos for

56:50

John. And this guy Bill could do,

56:52

he could whip anything up that we

56:54

asked him. Like if we went to

56:56

him and we're like, we have this

56:58

idea for a thing, we'll give you

57:00

some footage and can you make it?

57:02

He would make it in a day.

57:04

I'm still pretty proud of the McCain

57:06

commercial. Yeah, that, like that, John McCain,

57:08

like, you know, any time we had

57:10

a little germ of an idea based

57:12

on the news, and then we could

57:14

construct something around it, like that guy

57:16

could execute it. And he did, he

57:18

just sat there in his old cubicle,

57:20

he did it every day, he never

57:22

really talked much. I think he was

57:24

then also wound up being the one

57:26

in the break room filming. Yeah, and,

57:28

and, and, and, and. Like those things

57:30

are all the things that are still

57:32

up on YouTube from Breakroom Live and

57:35

Marin v. Cedar and some of them

57:37

are really great. Like, you know,

57:39

you would go on

57:41

field pieces to

57:43

shoot things. stuff did

57:45

stuff at your house,

57:47

chef. chef. things that were

57:49

the things that

57:51

got popular. was there

57:53

was anything in the

57:55

show that was

57:57

popular. But that's the

57:59

stuff that people

58:01

would talk about. would

58:03

I would talk your Oh,

58:05

chef videos, those things.

58:07

Which was always

58:09

our instinct, our you

58:11

and me. you We

58:13

always thought the things

58:15

that people connect

58:18

with are connect with, like bullshit,

58:20

things that people

58:22

do on a daily

58:24

basis. a daily basis. Yeah, and

58:26

and you know that know,

58:28

that stuff was fun

58:30

to fun to do. You

58:32

know, but just like the tension between Sam

58:34

and I tension between Sam

58:36

and I was real worse

58:38

and We always had a pretty

58:40

good time in the office before

58:43

we go on always had a pretty good time in the

58:45

office before we go on the air because

58:47

that's when he would let himself be funny, but then he'd

58:49

just start you know, some

58:51

esoteric. lefty garbage and

58:53

would go would go on for

58:55

hours it felt like well you

58:57

guys well you guys are like

58:59

there live sitting there live on

59:01

camera with like you agendas,

59:04

like you had diametrically opposed

59:06

agendas of how to get through

59:08

that hour. And I just

59:10

kept poking at him. Well, it

59:12

we did a thing where we split

59:14

it, we decided to, to make

59:16

the first half first be, would be

59:18

the show the show structurally and we

59:20

wanted. then the second half

59:23

hour would be with a live

59:25

chat. on the with people who our on

59:27

the stream. to separate it was our idea

59:29

of trying to separate it hour will be so

59:31

this first half hour will be like

59:33

of these where we do a lot of

59:35

these produced pieces, field pieces, desk pieces,

59:37

half then the second half will let

59:39

Sam just do his thing, where he

59:41

wants to talk. to talk extemporaneously

59:45

take you know instant messages from

59:47

listeners and things like that

59:49

the live chat the live chat right I

59:51

think that just made made it it made

59:53

angry that you would then

59:55

have to sit there sit there through that

59:57

half and you'd just be like.

59:59

be like Like

1:00:02

just sighing and shaking your head

1:00:04

like these things would just waiting

1:00:06

for him to stop talking Exactly,

1:00:08

but uh, but yeah, but then

1:00:10

I remember there was a big

1:00:12

sort of like when just coffee

1:00:14

got on board Boy, that was

1:00:16

a big day. All we thought

1:00:18

was like, we're getting free coffee.

1:00:21

I remember we went to town.

1:00:23

We couldn't get any advertisers. Why

1:00:25

would we? Mike Moon, it's just

1:00:27

coffee. And Madison, Wisconsin was an

1:00:29

Air America fan. I think a

1:00:31

Cedar fan. But he liked the

1:00:33

whole thing. And we said we'd

1:00:35

let them advertise for free coffee.

1:00:37

Yeah. And then we posted, we

1:00:39

like had this bulletin board. The

1:00:41

bulletin board, that was a big,

1:00:43

I thought that was a great

1:00:45

idea, that every day's show, whatever

1:00:47

we were going to be talking

1:00:49

about, we kind of put on

1:00:51

the bulletin board behind us. It

1:00:53

was a real bulletin board. And

1:00:55

then at some point just became

1:00:57

covered with just coffee stuff and

1:00:59

we were pitching the just coffee,

1:01:01

getting free coffee for everybody. Boy,

1:01:03

that was good times. Yeah, that

1:01:05

was our only sponsor. Yeah. And

1:01:08

it was everywhere. Yeah, and then

1:01:10

we brought we brought them along

1:01:12

to the podcast and they didn't

1:01:14

love moon was like we don't

1:01:16

love the catchphrase but it's doing

1:01:18

something wow I just shit my

1:01:20

pants just coffee dot co-op he's

1:01:22

like we're not coffee mug made

1:01:24

of it we had all kinds

1:01:26

of shit going I don't know

1:01:28

man it's so weird how much

1:01:30

that anxiety that caused me because

1:01:32

I could never like I could

1:01:34

never be interested enough in politics

1:01:36

to make it my life. Yeah,

1:01:38

but that was the thing. It's

1:01:40

so funny because you were hung

1:01:42

up on that as a, you

1:01:44

know, almost like a barrier for

1:01:46

you to get this done. And

1:01:48

I was the one being like,

1:01:50

no, get rid of that stuff.

1:01:52

Like the thing that's gonna work

1:01:55

as you. Right. We finally did

1:01:57

that with WTO. That finally really

1:01:59

landed. That I had this weird,

1:02:01

you know, kind of like, I

1:02:03

had this pressure I put on

1:02:05

myself from. the inside from the

1:02:07

very beginning of our America. Like

1:02:09

I didn't, I didn't really realize

1:02:11

what my specific talent was. So

1:02:13

I just kept trying to keep

1:02:15

up with all this stuff. And

1:02:17

there were times where I was

1:02:19

on it. There were certain narratives

1:02:21

that I could wrap my brain

1:02:23

around. Tom DeLay, Carl Rove, Jack

1:02:25

Abramoff, you know, the 9-11 stuff.

1:02:27

I mean, there were things. That

1:02:29

would you know give me a

1:02:31

a a kind of narrative, but

1:02:33

I just a day-to-day stuff used

1:02:35

to drive me fucking nuts Well,

1:02:37

and but it was it was

1:02:39

it was a thing that it

1:02:42

really took an effort for you

1:02:44

to shake because if you go

1:02:46

back to even the first episode

1:02:48

of this podcast The very first

1:02:50

thing you do after introducing the

1:02:52

show and saying hi to the

1:02:54

audience is a rant about Whole

1:02:56

Foods, which I think a lot

1:02:58

of people remember that rant they

1:03:00

remember that shit forever right and

1:03:02

it went into your book you

1:03:04

put it in attempting normal and

1:03:06

that but that was predicated on

1:03:08

you reading an article about health

1:03:10

care like so you were still

1:03:12

in the mindset of like if

1:03:14

I have something I'm gonna talk

1:03:16

about I have to hinge it

1:03:18

to this kind of political context

1:03:20

because you thought that's what the

1:03:22

audience was you thought like the

1:03:24

only reason they stick around is

1:03:26

because I'm doing politics for them

1:03:29

And it took some time for

1:03:31

you to shake that. But it

1:03:33

was like 1,500 people. We knew

1:03:35

400 of them. Right. That's right.

1:03:37

Well, and that was the goal

1:03:39

when we started WTOF was, okay,

1:03:41

we knew that at any given

1:03:43

time, we had like maybe 400,

1:03:45

500 people watching Breakroom Live. We

1:03:47

knew that based on the like.

1:03:49

YouTube views and everything, we could

1:03:51

get a regular audience maybe up

1:03:53

into like the 1,000 range, 1,500.

1:03:55

And that was our goal with

1:03:57

WTOF was that, like that number.

1:03:59

that's what we should have, and

1:04:01

it was by episode three, I've

1:04:03

told this before, by episode three,

1:04:05

we had 30,000 downloads for WTO,

1:04:07

and that was what made us

1:04:09

make the decision of like, okay,

1:04:11

we can't pay all this, we

1:04:13

can't, you know, make this exclusive

1:04:15

just for that niche audience, this

1:04:18

somehow, you know, broke free. It,

1:04:20

we jailbaked this. idea that we

1:04:22

had thought was going to be

1:04:24

for a mailing list and now

1:04:26

it's out in the world and

1:04:28

the people are discovering it mostly

1:04:30

thanks to you know the placement

1:04:32

on iTunes at the time yeah

1:04:34

that and the artwork but it

1:04:36

had an audience so that was

1:04:38

why we kept that but the

1:04:40

definite goal was just to you

1:04:42

know basically deliver the show for

1:04:44

the breakroom live people but also

1:04:46

we got to talk about You

1:04:48

know, we all knew that Breakroom

1:04:50

Live was not going to be

1:04:52

renewed. We had a year-long contract

1:04:54

and it was just sort of

1:04:56

counting the days at some point.

1:04:58

And then it was that was

1:05:00

the great thing. They fired us

1:05:02

and didn't make us leave. That

1:05:05

was the best thing that ever

1:05:07

happened to us. Yeah. They said,

1:05:09

well, I mean, technically you were

1:05:11

still under contract. Right. Yeah. But

1:05:13

I mean any other media outlet

1:05:15

would have been like pack your

1:05:17

bags get away from the mics

1:05:19

Yeah, you're out send checks to

1:05:21

your house, but you're not coming

1:05:23

by the building anymore I just

1:05:25

remember sitting in that office and

1:05:27

where you know we You know,

1:05:29

I don't remember how soon it

1:05:31

was after we got fired, but

1:05:33

it was like what are we

1:05:35

gonna do? You definitely brought it

1:05:37

up to me before everything was

1:05:39

done like you were saying the

1:05:41

writing was on the wall So

1:05:43

we knew that that things were

1:05:45

coming to a head And so

1:05:47

yeah, we had to like, you

1:05:49

know, make decisions. Right. And we

1:05:52

were like, well, I know guys

1:05:54

that are doing this thing. It

1:05:56

seems doable. And then we worked

1:05:58

out a way we. Like

1:06:00

was excited about. Anybody

1:06:02

with a name? to get behind

1:06:04

it? Oh behind it? so we were

1:06:06

doing those shows in the so we were doing

1:06:09

those shows in the old studios at Air America,

1:06:11

and that was all because of Break room. Christ, if

1:06:13

they'd kicked us out of the building. us

1:06:15

out the fuck knows? who the do

1:06:17

think that think know, in doing

1:06:19

know, in doing the compromised way that

1:06:21

we did for a year, for

1:06:24

almost a year. a year. It gave

1:06:26

gave us the ability to know that

1:06:28

like like doing a podcast. You know we

1:06:30

You know, we had already been through the the

1:06:32

ringer. We already knew knew like we did that

1:06:34

in that year of Break of was all like

1:06:36

our own thing. our And we had to

1:06:38

just, you know, you know scrap it

1:06:40

together and so the podcast seemed much

1:06:43

easier and then we knew the

1:06:45

production stuff that could go into it

1:06:47

You had radio chops So all

1:06:49

these things that we've been talking about

1:06:51

over the last several episodes of

1:06:53

this about over the last sense and led up

1:06:56

to the The right moment. made Oh

1:06:58

my up to the right moment. Oh my

1:07:00

God. You

1:07:04

know, know we've been doing this this origin

1:07:07

series here and the about the things

1:07:09

that led up to doing and it

1:07:11

it almost seems like we were done

1:07:13

were the last thing we talked about

1:07:15

was you know getting fired from

1:07:17

Break fired from that was where we started

1:07:19

the podcast. was where we started

1:07:21

the one of the things we

1:07:24

kind of the over. kind of In those

1:07:26

first, I'd say say, months to a

1:07:28

year. we We didn't really know what

1:07:30

the heck this was gonna be. to

1:07:32

so And were thinking, and I know

1:07:34

you were probably thinking, thinking, my next

1:07:36

move? move? great, I've got this podcast,

1:07:39

we're rolling this out, but what

1:07:41

is that going to turn into? And

1:07:43

there were to turn And there were ideas

1:07:45

and things that would be monetized be

1:07:47

the idea of this, we could

1:07:49

try to monetize this somehow and make

1:07:52

this something other than a thing

1:07:54

we're doing on the side, right? And

1:07:56

just the hobby. to promote me. trying

1:07:58

to. trying to then... get yourself

1:08:00

out there as a draw. I'm also

1:08:02

wondering where were you standing personally on

1:08:05

like doing TV movies like were you

1:08:07

were you in your mind being like

1:08:09

I got to start getting more gigs

1:08:12

I start I got to start being

1:08:14

in more things. Well I think I

1:08:16

was you know it's that part of

1:08:19

me has always been the same and

1:08:21

I it became clear I think to

1:08:23

me that the podcast wasn't wasn't going

1:08:26

to get me acting roles or anything

1:08:28

so yeah I just you know I

1:08:30

kind of surrendered to that but I

1:08:33

had to sort of like I had

1:08:35

to reckon with the idea that they

1:08:37

knew me better than me having the

1:08:39

mystique of just a guy who just

1:08:42

stand up many of them knew my

1:08:44

life because of how I do the

1:08:46

podcast so I really had to straddle

1:08:49

that but But ultimately because of that

1:08:51

it afforded me a comfort level that

1:08:53

I don't know if it did if

1:08:56

it's the best thing for me in

1:08:58

terms of you know being a comedic

1:09:00

act but it certainly facilitated over time

1:09:03

my ability to just sort of expand

1:09:05

on you know myself and do comedy

1:09:07

in a pretty true way to me.

1:09:10

You know I have a complete freedom

1:09:12

of mind up there now. and I'm

1:09:14

pretty fearless and I'm still writing good

1:09:16

shit, but I think that the evolution

1:09:19

of having these crowds who knew too

1:09:21

much about me created an intimacy and

1:09:23

a connection with them that I think

1:09:26

is probably a little different than what

1:09:28

would have happened just as a comic.

1:09:30

And I think that's, you know, with

1:09:33

all podcasting people, even the ones that

1:09:35

do big, you know, big draws, but

1:09:37

a lot of guys who do this

1:09:40

are not showing themselves the way I

1:09:42

am. You know a lot of guys

1:09:44

have a persona and I think I

1:09:47

do have one, but it's pretty close

1:09:49

to you know who I am So

1:09:51

and because of that it's it's at

1:09:53

once you know exciting, but also Exhausting

1:09:56

because I have to show up I

1:09:58

can't can't autopilot any of this shit.

1:10:00

And I think, you know, professional entertainers,

1:10:03

most of them can autopilot. I mean,

1:10:05

I can do the same jokes over

1:10:07

and over again, but that's a comic

1:10:10

thing. So do you remember any time

1:10:12

where you wound up feeling like the

1:10:14

way you were able to be on

1:10:17

stage was really peaking for you? Like,

1:10:19

did you have any sense? Like, you

1:10:21

know, especially if you could kind of

1:10:23

draw some... circles around the type of

1:10:26

specials you were doing, right? So in

1:10:28

2011, that's when you did, this has

1:10:30

to be funny at the Union Hall

1:10:33

in Brooklyn. That was your Comedy Central

1:10:35

record taping. That was the week and

1:10:37

we did the interview with Salstein. Dan

1:10:40

Salstein for the New York Times. That's

1:10:42

the thing that made us in a

1:10:44

lot of ways. Yeah. And it was

1:10:47

a big deal for podcasting. It was

1:10:49

a huge... cover spread in the art

1:10:51

section of the Sunday Times with pictures.

1:10:54

It was, you know, looking back on

1:10:56

it, one of the biggest things that

1:10:58

ever happened to me and to us,

1:11:00

I think. Yeah. But I don't even

1:11:03

remember if you were able to be

1:11:05

mentioned then. I was, yes, I was

1:11:07

quoted in it as, you know, nobody,

1:11:10

they didn't talk about me contemporaneously. They

1:11:12

talked about me as the person who

1:11:14

helped start it up with you. Yeah,

1:11:17

and I always upset me, always upset

1:11:19

me, that like I had to have

1:11:21

this mysterious, mysterious producer. I couldn't mention.

1:11:24

Yeah. Well, I mean, but that's the

1:11:26

funny thing is that like, yeah, meanwhile,

1:11:28

I'm in the midst of, you know,

1:11:31

producing your comedy album as well as

1:11:33

the podcast. Like, we were doing a

1:11:35

full-fledged operation. I know, but didn't that

1:11:37

bother you? No. No. I was like,

1:11:40

I got to give Brendan all this

1:11:42

credit, which I always do. You know,

1:11:44

because we're partners in this, but I

1:11:47

just couldn't say it for years. It

1:11:49

was like, yeah, no, I mean, like,

1:11:51

I appreciate the impulse is producing my

1:11:54

podcast. Look, I mean, here's the other

1:11:56

thing, it's like, it's part, it comes

1:11:58

with the territory of doing this, it's

1:12:01

like, I can do my best work,

1:12:03

I can do them, I could, and

1:12:05

in those days, I needed to do

1:12:08

everything need to be the best, right?

1:12:10

You need to get the, be optimized

1:12:12

in what we were doing, you know,

1:12:14

in order to succeed, because we were,

1:12:17

we were going from the bottom up,

1:12:19

right, everything was ground floor, right, It

1:12:21

was best if I had no interference.

1:12:24

I didn't want to be handling anything

1:12:26

from a public-facing point of view with

1:12:28

the show. And I also knew that

1:12:31

a large element of the success of

1:12:33

the show was that the show just

1:12:35

sounded like a thing you accidentally turned

1:12:38

the microphones on for, you alone, right?

1:12:40

So, and all of this, you know,

1:12:42

none of us having any kind of

1:12:45

reflection or discussion about it was ever

1:12:47

important until... you know we got a

1:12:49

thousand episodes in or whatever or when

1:12:51

we had the president on right like

1:12:54

this was not the show well this

1:12:56

has to be funny I knew like

1:12:58

it was probably around then why I

1:13:01

knew like well okay I've got an

1:13:03

audience they know yeah that that's where

1:13:05

I was going with this is that

1:13:08

I remember I felt that like I

1:13:10

remember being at that show you know

1:13:12

you and the funny thing about that

1:13:15

is Union Hall fits what 200 people

1:13:17

maybe yes yeah and we you know

1:13:19

you had two shows there over it

1:13:21

was December 9th and 10th of 2010

1:13:24

yeah and it was you know I

1:13:26

remember being there and being like oh

1:13:28

good he's fine this mark finally has

1:13:31

the audience that I thought for the

1:13:33

last you know six years of working

1:13:35

with him yeah that he could have

1:13:38

and it wasn't a huge audience no

1:13:40

but it was your audience like that's

1:13:42

like they came to to be part

1:13:45

of your CD taping and they were

1:13:47

like there for it. To the point

1:13:49

where that's where the title of the

1:13:52

album comes from, which is that like

1:13:54

you made that comment. comment you've made

1:13:56

many times since about your mom saying

1:13:58

she didn't know how to love you.

1:14:01

Yeah. And a woman in the crowd

1:14:03

went, oh, like a concerned sound. And

1:14:05

I go, no, this has to be

1:14:08

funny. Exactly. That was it. It was

1:14:10

actually, Ira Glass, who was in attendance,

1:14:12

said that should be the title of

1:14:15

the album. And he was absolutely right.

1:14:17

Because that was the best moment. But

1:14:19

it was also the most indicative of

1:14:22

what it took to go from the

1:14:24

guy who, you know. just was scrambling

1:14:26

in terms of leaving a manager, taking

1:14:29

a new manager, thought, okay, the way

1:14:31

to capitalize on this, go do a

1:14:33

pilot presentation for Comedy Central or whatever.

1:14:35

to go from that to know the

1:14:38

way to capitalize on this and have

1:14:40

something that makes it viable going forward

1:14:42

is to just connect with the audience

1:14:45

and it was at that point where

1:14:47

i remember sitting there going like he's

1:14:49

got him he's got these people and

1:14:52

it was like yeah it was 200

1:14:54

a night for two nights you know

1:14:56

that's not a ton but that felt

1:14:59

big to me well i mean i

1:15:01

still do that i still know that

1:15:03

i am a On stage now I

1:15:06

say I'm an artisanal act and I

1:15:08

say I'm the I am the farm

1:15:10

you are the table and In relation

1:15:12

to you know my appeal and I

1:15:15

say that a lot when I go

1:15:17

on the road like if I'm at

1:15:19

in Detroit and I've sold whatever 850

1:15:22

tickets, you know, I just barely fill

1:15:24

up the place. I'm like this is

1:15:26

the ceiling. This is everyone in Michigan

1:15:29

who likes me. They're here. This is

1:15:31

all of you and that's good But

1:15:33

it is, yeah, this is it. Yeah.

1:15:36

And that's okay. You know, I've wrestled

1:15:38

with that being okay. You know, I

1:15:40

don't know what I expect or what

1:15:42

I want. And I also know that

1:15:45

when I see my audience before a

1:15:47

show or I'm in the town and

1:15:49

they're walking up to me, I'm like,

1:15:52

you're coming? Like these decent looking couples

1:15:54

and stuff, like how did this happen?

1:15:56

Because you know, from my gritty, grown-up

1:15:59

grown -up, decent people.

1:16:01

you know I didn't know who I You know,

1:16:03

I didn't know who I would attract, you know something

1:16:05

but attract, in that thing I that thing I always say I

1:16:07

don't have a have a demographic, a I

1:16:09

have a disposition, which I which I think

1:16:11

is true. think when this But I think be funny

1:16:13

but that has to be funny, but that

1:16:16

was also the thing is like, the

1:16:18

in the New York York building talking to Saltstein,

1:16:20

in and he's writing the article that's

1:16:22

gonna change. forever and I'm lives forever from I'm getting

1:16:24

texts from a woman I just broke up

1:16:26

with who is hiding under the deck in my

1:16:28

house. house. And she's like, I, you know, can

1:16:30

I go back in the house? I'm like,

1:16:33

you can't. She's like, I'm under the deck right

1:16:35

now and I had to call her dad right

1:16:37

the police had It was a her dad and the

1:16:39

police were there. a lot of plates in there, Brandon. I

1:16:41

Some of them. got a lot plates

1:16:43

in there, Brendan. Some of that's not good.

1:16:45

thing is that it's the

1:16:47

funny think it's like, that probably a

1:16:50

lot of your ability. your

1:16:52

to really see the trajectory of this

1:16:54

and how it how it was... you know,

1:16:56

it was, it did not come without,

1:16:58

you know, you know tremendous tremendous diligence

1:17:00

and and the right moves right

1:17:03

moves being made. you know a

1:17:05

lot of a lot You know, a lot of, a lot

1:17:07

of of of your thought on this, I

1:17:09

think of it of it as wave that you got

1:17:11

that you got swept up in

1:17:13

as doing the podcast. It led to

1:17:15

all this stuff this you have these

1:17:17

moments this is a a pivotal moment in

1:17:19

your in your career doing this this show at this Hall

1:17:22

and having Hall and having this New

1:17:24

York Times interview. And yet still still

1:17:26

all tied up in whatever was going

1:17:28

on with you personally. That felt

1:17:30

just as intense as all those other

1:17:32

things. other things. always knew that we

1:17:34

worked and I always think that, you

1:17:36

know, you certainly know certainly with your of

1:17:38

of work ethic your practicality that

1:17:40

the balance of our personalities

1:17:43

works works symbiotic, but I rely, but

1:17:45

I you know, I'm gonna follow

1:17:47

your lead. And I think think

1:17:49

from knowing you you since you

1:17:51

know, America, that, you know, I

1:17:54

know I I learned how to

1:17:56

put that stuff aside, even if

1:17:58

it was, you know, like if

1:18:00

it was on fire in my brain,

1:18:02

you know, we always worked and you

1:18:04

know, you don't, you know, I don't

1:18:06

get into your personal life too much

1:18:09

and you get into mine as much

1:18:11

as, you know, I talk about on

1:18:13

the podcast and sometimes if I'm in

1:18:15

real trouble, I'll call you. But the

1:18:17

idea was because of our work ethic

1:18:19

is that this is the job, dude,

1:18:21

we're gonna do the job. So I

1:18:23

was always aware that we were working.

1:18:25

I mean, look, I was in my

1:18:28

house, you know, surrounded by 1, envelopes

1:18:30

putting stickers in them and sometimes t-shirts.

1:18:32

So like that going back to the

1:18:34

beginning of what you were saying about

1:18:36

you know the life or death stakes

1:18:38

of getting intros recorded. Sure, sure. It's

1:18:40

like your your But part of the

1:18:42

kind of almost like monomaniacal way you

1:18:44

focus on something was to the benefit

1:18:47

of this show when we were starting,

1:18:49

even if in the back of your

1:18:51

head or in management's head or in

1:18:53

anyone else's head, there was some thought

1:18:55

that like, oh, it's going to lead

1:18:57

to something else. Like, sure, maybe so,

1:18:59

but what mattered was this became the

1:19:01

thing you focused on and then therefore

1:19:03

that allowed it to be the most

1:19:06

successful it could be. stand-up you know

1:19:08

the stand-up sort of began to evolve

1:19:10

you know alongside of it in in

1:19:12

a way where I'm like well both

1:19:14

of these things are working like you

1:19:16

know I'm doing this show you know

1:19:18

I'm good at it I'm respected for

1:19:20

it and the comedy is is right

1:19:22

there on the same level you know

1:19:25

they're both they're they're both relative and

1:19:27

I think they're relative in their appeal

1:19:29

like I got what I got what

1:19:31

I worked for and any sort of

1:19:33

when you get frustrated with me in

1:19:35

talking or comparing myself to others who

1:19:37

are huge or this or that, I

1:19:39

think sometimes it frustrates you that, you

1:19:41

know, my gratitude is not in place.

1:19:44

And I don't always acknowledge that, you

1:19:46

know, we did it because I still

1:19:48

have that part of my brain, whether

1:19:50

it's an addict or, or something's missing,

1:19:52

that, you know, I'm always like, well,

1:19:54

what about that guy? How come I'm

1:19:56

not in? And that's, you know, I

1:19:58

know that's a, it's pathological, so like,

1:20:00

like, the effort is to balance out.

1:20:03

to stifle those voices, not unlike exercise

1:20:05

or anything else. I don't like to

1:20:07

exercise, but over time, when I wake

1:20:09

up and I don't want to do

1:20:11

it, you know, some other part of

1:20:13

me is walking to the gym. So,

1:20:15

yeah. So, you know, it was, it

1:20:17

was learning how to override my own

1:20:19

insecurity and, you know, self sabotaging. ways

1:20:21

to sort of do the job. But

1:20:24

I think, you know, looking back on

1:20:26

it, we were both operating at that

1:20:28

same level. It was of utmost importance.

1:20:30

Like when I was doing, you know,

1:20:32

recording those intros, you know, back then

1:20:34

when I was like, I think I

1:20:36

can get a, I'm gonna run to

1:20:38

a conference room in the, in the

1:20:40

American lounge. You weren't saying like, no,

1:20:43

don't, don't, right, right. No, because I

1:20:45

think for the both of us, we

1:20:47

saw this as a thing that we

1:20:49

were plowing this field. And the other

1:20:51

people who were plowing the same field,

1:20:53

they had no edge on us. We

1:20:55

were all doing it at best and

1:20:57

equal level. And in some cases, I

1:20:59

felt we were edging ahead. And that's

1:21:02

an interesting thing. I have never thought

1:21:04

about this until just now. But you're

1:21:06

saying, you know, it's like so much

1:21:08

of your brain gets wrapped up in

1:21:10

the comparison to other people. there were

1:21:12

that we were winning like we were

1:21:14

the ones that we were getting people

1:21:16

were comparing to us right you were

1:21:18

in some ways doing a benchmark thing

1:21:21

with this show what took a while

1:21:23

to learn that I was doing it

1:21:25

differently and yeah but then like in

1:21:27

this part of like you know in

1:21:29

sort of dealing with where we're at

1:21:31

now you know we are you know

1:21:33

once everybody made the jump to video

1:21:35

and once you know the thing opened

1:21:37

up and contracted and opened up again

1:21:40

it was like we do this so

1:21:42

like so Now, you know, we've done

1:21:44

what we do and we do what

1:21:46

we do, but we don't feel the

1:21:48

desperation to adapt in another way to,

1:21:50

because you have a sense of how

1:21:52

the business works and it's also not.

1:21:54

how we do the show and I

1:21:56

agree with that because the product we

1:21:59

do is so tight and it's specific

1:22:01

but it's hard to be a pioneer

1:22:03

and then to watch the world move

1:22:05

on without you. Well I guess so

1:22:07

but then you also have to think

1:22:09

that very few things stay the way

1:22:11

they are. No I get that yeah.

1:22:13

And so you you know to me

1:22:15

in any sense I think of it

1:22:18

it's like This is a legacy podcast.

1:22:20

There are a bunch of legacy podcast.

1:22:22

We're not alone in that level and

1:22:24

in a way to me It's comforting

1:22:26

that we just get to exist in

1:22:28

this space and we don't have the

1:22:30

kind of pressures on us That you

1:22:32

know somebody who maybe started three years

1:22:34

ago and had a really popular show

1:22:37

three years ago. Yeah, but is now

1:22:39

having a hard time keeping up with

1:22:41

the content demands, like we don't have

1:22:43

those pressures because we've built this thing

1:22:45

that's just now a 15-year-old machine. Yeah,

1:22:47

and it's audio. And yeah. But yeah,

1:22:49

well that was always a thing with

1:22:51

us and with me, you know, and

1:22:53

I think we both knew that if

1:22:56

we started to, you know, kind of

1:22:58

lose our audience or something that we'd,

1:23:00

you know, bow out before it got

1:23:02

sad, but it just never happened. Yeah,

1:23:04

yeah, we always said that we you

1:23:06

know if we you know we saw

1:23:08

it going south we would stop and

1:23:10

we'd never had to do that Well,

1:23:12

we we do have control over is

1:23:15

deciding when we've done enough of this

1:23:17

looking back at the history of the

1:23:19

show and I think we've I mean

1:23:21

obviously there's plenty of stuff that we

1:23:23

can unearth some time to time. But

1:23:25

I think over the course of doing

1:23:27

these origin shows, we've pretty much gotten

1:23:29

the trajectory of how we got from

1:23:31

there to here. And I think the

1:23:34

interesting thing about all of it is

1:23:36

every step of the way, like we

1:23:38

were, whether it was me with you

1:23:40

or even before we met and you

1:23:42

were, you know, doing the alternative comedy

1:23:44

rooms in New York and that. We

1:23:46

were driving driving toward

1:23:48

this. not a mistake is

1:23:50

not a mistake something

1:23:53

off Like something different. is

1:23:55

the actually, that is

1:23:57

the satisfying part

1:23:59

of it. my least

1:24:01

in my participation in

1:24:03

it, which now

1:24:05

goes back 20 years

1:24:07

with you. you And

1:24:09

then, you know,

1:24:12

obviously the stuff you

1:24:14

were doing on

1:24:16

your own before that,

1:24:18

that, like. We We were making the

1:24:20

right right call. Like the the impulses were

1:24:22

correct and it landed in a

1:24:24

place that that sense sense for

1:24:26

those impulse right But that

1:24:28

was mostly you because I mean

1:24:30

for whatever reason whatever as a

1:24:32

radio guy You know my

1:24:34

talent in the medium early on

1:24:36

early I think the real the

1:24:39

real point was when when, you know, we

1:24:41

got you enough money to

1:24:43

leave serious because you believed in what

1:24:45

we could do. do. And even

1:24:47

if if that show didn't

1:24:49

pan out. I think that

1:24:51

was the beginning of of... Breakroom. Yeah.

1:24:53

Of you of we had knowing that

1:24:55

we had something known I might

1:24:57

not have known you had as

1:25:00

much as you did. asked

1:25:02

me that on the me that on the

1:25:04

Friday show. We were talking about

1:25:06

that Breakroom live stuff. And he was

1:25:08

like, like... So wait, you're you are at

1:25:10

this serious, that's and that's a stable

1:25:12

company, and they were paying you

1:25:15

well. What in the world would

1:25:17

make you think to go back

1:25:19

to Air America, which you knew

1:25:21

was a disaster? Yeah. And I

1:25:23

was oh, I was oh, I was pretty sure it would

1:25:25

be a - but but the

1:25:27

was the way back the thing you

1:25:30

doing the thing do. and I

1:25:32

could... Like if no one, if nothing was going to nothing

1:25:34

was going to come of it. play for

1:25:36

us to play around and figure

1:25:38

out exactly the way to do

1:25:40

this this? we didn't even know

1:25:42

it would be a podcast know it

1:25:44

just some way for us to

1:25:46

get that thing going and that

1:25:49

made sense to me That

1:25:51

was the best investment I could

1:25:53

make to wasn't was the best investment I could well

1:25:55

the shift from it of upper

1:25:57

Yeah. Well, the shift from know of upper management to, you

1:25:59

know, independent. you know, kind of a creative

1:26:01

business owner. That was a big shift

1:26:04

for you. That was good. Oh, yeah.

1:26:06

Yeah. I mean, it's still kind of

1:26:08

weird that we do it this way.

1:26:11

But, you know, honestly, like, obviously, it's

1:26:13

like the kind of culmination of my

1:26:15

work and it has, you know, provided

1:26:17

me a living and a. you know,

1:26:20

life that I like. But you know,

1:26:22

for you, where you have all these

1:26:24

other things, you can go off and

1:26:27

make a TV show now, you have

1:26:29

your stand up, and you have, you

1:26:31

know, a vast body of work in

1:26:33

your life that you've been building for

1:26:36

40 years. I've been on The Simpsons.

1:26:38

Right. But like all of this stuff.

1:26:40

Like, the idea that the podcast was

1:26:43

still the thing that, you know, going

1:26:45

back to what you were saying about,

1:26:47

you didn't have to pay a man,

1:26:49

you didn't have to give a manager

1:26:52

a percentage of this podcast. It was

1:26:54

yours. Yeah. And that I think is

1:26:56

the probably the gonna wind up ultimately

1:26:59

being the biggest legacy of it for

1:27:01

you. Oh, yeah. The thing that I

1:27:03

made yeah, that's the important thing. Yeah,

1:27:06

but also that you know how it's

1:27:08

changed me as a person and how

1:27:10

it is essential part of my creativity

1:27:12

and my humanity and You know in

1:27:15

terms of being with other people it's

1:27:17

it really does function in a lot

1:27:19

of ways that are much deeper than

1:27:22

you know just creating the the podcast,

1:27:24

you know Yeah, well I think we

1:27:26

can always have some room to look

1:27:28

back on stuff like this. We won't

1:27:31

do this straight up series anymore and

1:27:33

you know, but I don't know, I

1:27:35

never like the idea that this is,

1:27:38

this kind of stuff is naval gazing

1:27:40

or whatever. Most of the most important

1:27:42

nostalgic. Yeah, navels are interesting. You want

1:27:45

to look at them? They're kind of,

1:27:47

they're either weird and gross or, you

1:27:49

know, it's pretty fast and span with

1:27:51

this operation. Alright man. So,

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information. information. So

1:30:05

that was interesting, right? It

1:30:07

was to me, to I forget

1:30:09

almost everything. almost is it

1:30:11

happening? is it This whole show

1:30:13

came from the full marin on WTF

1:30:15

Plus. We We put out two

1:30:17

bonus episodes every week, and

1:30:19

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1:30:27

go to wtfpod.com go to click

1:30:29

on and click on WTO We'll be

1:30:31

back on Monday with Ron Livingston

1:30:33

and was fun. I like

1:30:35

that guy now now you

1:30:37

could you could find some

1:30:39

Christmas music I might

1:30:41

have rift at some point

1:30:44

end just end with the

1:30:46

from the vault I'm I'm

1:30:48

exhausted from doing the guitar

1:30:50

from the last episode. episode.

1:32:05

Boomer lives,

1:32:08

monkey and

1:32:11

the fonda.

1:32:14

Cat angels

1:32:18

everywhere man.

1:32:21

Cat angels.

1:32:24

Happy holidays.