Lock the gate. All right, let's do this, how are you? What the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fuck stirs? What's happening, eh? Marc Maron. This is my podcast. My voice sounds strong day. I can hear it in my head right now as I'm talking to you. I can hear it in my hands. Sound strong. I don't know. Maybe I'm well rested. How are you doing? I want to feel like things are shifting.

Like things are changing. Like we're moving in the right direction. Perhaps we are, but not a lot has changed, really. I think the vaccination news in the sort of momentum of all that has made me feel like things are heading in the right direction. It might be OK at some point in the future. They might be OK. Things might be OK ish. But my fear is that it's not a real OK, it's not a real OK, it's a it's a mythic, a mythological or a delusional OK ish.

But I don't know, I'm feeling like a little better from for Watto, for what happens now. What happens after all this?

How you holding up, Yarrie? Laraine Newman is on the show today.

She is, as you know, an original cast member of SNL, one of the in the first crew.

But she's also, you may not know, one of the most prolific voice actors working for the past several decades.

And she's got a new memoir out in audio book form, only an audio book form. So I don't know what we're heading into.

I just don't know. I'm trying to think of the lessons I learned. I've got to start thinking about what I'm thinking about. Right. Which is antithetical to the meditation practice I've put into place. You don't want to think about what you're thinking about. You don't want to think at all. You just want to breathe. And now I want to think about what I'm thinking about, getting it into context, corralling it take making some shapes out of it, twisting it into things.

It's been a long fucking year, but I talked to the guy at the place and we might be doing stand up again at some point soon. Inside workshop mode.

I've been offered a lot of shows around town around here to do parking lots, spaces in between buildings, heated outdoor situations with chairs, set up a theater in the round in between buildings somewhere.

And I won't do it.

And it's not that it's not. Well, I don't know.

It might be that I'm not compelled. But if I know me, what am I going to bring to it?

If people are going to pay for a show and it's outdoors and it's being presented as a show, I've been in this situation, this lockdown, this grief and this just sort of trying to maintain sanity mode.

I'm just going to hop up on stage and have an act. I don't want to workshop in front of people that are desperate and paid to sit outside under heat lamps. I need to get back into the clubs. I need to get back into the filth. I need to get back into the dark. I need to get back into the low ceiling sort of tide pool of comedy and work out where I'm coming from. So I'm waiting for that. And if that doesn't work out, well, fuck, I'm over it.

Onward and upward, I'm not going to Turkey. I got some flak, I got some flak about asking questions, a few grand about Turkey, a little bit of flak.

But it was specifically it was of a specific nature. And I'd like to address it and I will address it after I tell you about my anxiety. You know, I'm anxious.

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All right. OK, so, yeah, look, I asked if you recall and that you grant man people love that you grant that interview is like a fucking comedy album.

I think that's going to get several listens by people. I guess I laughed a lot. Sometimes I don't remember. And I'm reminded when people tweet about it or email me about it, they say I might have laughed more than I've ever laughed. I don't know if it caught me off guard. But as you know, I was asking him about Turkey, he was shooting in Turkey and I was like and I was surprised to hear that he vacationed in Turkey because Europeans and people from other parts of the world vacation in different parts of the world than we do here because they're closer.

We've got this humongous country for better, for worse, and we have proximity to a few places, but I mean, it's a lot easier to vacation in Turkey from England than it is from here. But nonetheless, I want to address the criticism because I think there's some truth to it in that I just got a couple of e-mails, people saying, like your attitude about Turkey and your and your feelings about it somehow implied that I was judging the people of Turkey.

And I'm not I just from what I understand and from not having traveled there ever in my life, but in recent years, what I've grown to understand is that it is under an authoritarian government.

Erdogan, the the the guy in charge over there is a little dictator, not a decent dude.

And when I hear authoritarian and when I hear authoritarian country and I hear and see what happens there and also, you know, the denial of the Armenian genocide and other things, what I'm judging is the government I'm not judging the people. I'm apprehensive about going to an authoritarian country to visit. I'd like to go to Russia. I'm not going to go to Russia because it creeps me out. But that's what I'm reacting to.

I'm not reacting to the cultural difference.

I'm not reacting to the food or the color of the people's skins or the rituals or the customs or the shops or the streets or how people greet each other or the nature of the humility and humanity of the Turkish people.

I'm reacting to the fact that it's an authoritarian dictatorship in charge of the place, and that makes me uncomfortable.

So, you know, don't judge me as some sort of American exceptionalism. I'm sorry. I don't want to go to an authoritarian country because it makes me nervous. I don't want to fucking go to Missouri because there are similar reasons.

So I just wanted to clear that up, that it's it's sort of like, well, come on, you don't have to have a skewer yet, but it's like there's it's a authoritarian idea.

But people are nice.

Yeah, but the guys you're under the boot of of dictatorship. Yeah, but it's nice. Here you go to the beach and ah the beaches.

They're granted, I don't know some things but but that's really what I was reacting to. If you're a business owner who's hiring, you probably face a lot of challenges when it comes to finding the right person for your role. You might get people without the right skills or experience or you might get too many resumes to sort through or takes too long from start to finish. And sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you do is hope the right person comes along, which is why you should try zipp recruiter for free at Zipp recruiter dotcom slash Meran.

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What.

I'm afraid to go to Arkansas, let alone Turkey, and it's not a it's not has nothing to do with it being a foreign country, it's right here.

I barely want to go to Michigan, might be it now I'm just going overboard. There's good people everywhere, I dig it, but it's the nature of the bad people and how emboldened they may be and what their reaction to me might be. It sometimes causes me some anxiety and some fear. Is it worth it to go to the shops and do the dances and eat the food if you're going to be singled out as an enemy of the people?

Right.

And God knows there's a lot of exotic dancers in Michigan.

Look, Laraine Newman is, as I said earlier, an original cast member of SNL. Her new memoir is called May You Live in Interesting Times.

It's available exclusively on Audible as an audio book. So go to audible dot com or the audible app to check it out. And this is me chatting with Lorraine Neuman.

I can't remember where the title of this book comes from, may you live in interesting times. Who said that originally?

Well, it's supposedly a Chinese curse, but I looked it up and it actually isn't. Somebody kind of described it as being one that it actually is not. But I still feel that I've lived in interesting times, so I thought that would be a good title.

No, it's a good title, but it sounds like one of those things, like it could be a Jewish proverb. It could be a Chinese proverb. A curse.

Yeah, maybe curse. It is. Yeah. Well, then we're all fucked. Yeah, we're in trouble. The lot of us have we started. Sure.

OK, well I chose it because I felt that I was like in the front row for a lot of cultural events in our country. And so that qualified as interesting times. There was just so many kind of six degrees of everything you can think of from when I was little to now.

No, no doubt. I mean, yeah, I mean, you're just you I think you're a little older than me. So you got you got you got to hit it all head on. You know, we my generation just caught this sort of breaking of the wave. You guys were surfing the garbage back in the day.

Why, thank you. Well, you know, it's my sister was and still is a musician. She also became a comedy writer, but she was in the New Christy Minstrels. This is the 50s. Hold on a second.

So where where did you grow up here?

I grew up in Westwood, California, your whole life.

And your folks have removed my my my my dad's from here. My mom's from Ohio. But are you Jewish? Yeah, I am Jewish. And we moved to Beverly Hills when my brother, my twin brother and I were 11.

So you have a twin brother and an older sister and an older brother and an older brother.

So the whole Jewish clan moves your debt. Your mom's from Ohio. Your dad's from here. Yeah. So what did he do, the old man?

Well, the old man passed the bar in Arizona and then World War Two happened. Yeah. So he was in Air Force intelligence really and came back and my grandpa had started a quilting business in Los Angeles. Quilting business.

What does it mean? Like they manufactured. Yeah, they manufactured bolts of quilted material that people would make bathrobes and bedspreads.

And what is it with jackets and fabric of a schmetzer. Right. I know. It's so wild.

You know, I don't know what the history of that is, but like my mother's boyfriends in fabrics. But, you know, Schmitz's are different. That's knockoff dresses. Like just to be like we're going to make quilted. Everyone needs this. So we're going to make what they do.

That's exactly. I mean, that was like, you know, the base ingredient for everything else.

Sure. Quilted fabric it is. You got you need it. And here's another interesting fact. What my father then created a business called American Bonded Fiber, which was just the fiber fill for the coils.

Wait a minute. So he comes home from the war. His father's got this thing going. This quilt business got a factory work downtown somewhere.

Exactly. So that's downtown they go. He says, come on, kid. You know, you're part of it now. This is my business. Now it's your business. And your dad's like, why don't we make the inside of it, too.

So. Exactly. So here, that's that's absolutely right. I mean, they were cattle ranchers coming.

Our cattle merchants in Arizona, your your grandfather, my grandpa and cattle merchants. Jewish cattle merchants. That's right. Jewish cowboys. Can we call them cowboys? Jewish cowboys?

They were I mean, my dad had his own horse that talks about he told me about cattle drives that they used to do when they were in Los Angeles. They would do a cattle drive out to calabaza garment district.

This is this is where you as a kid. Yeah, right. Yeah. Calabasas. I was just down. Yeah.

And I was just thinking, you know, how funny a cattle drive to where the weekend lives.

And I think it's weird though that Calabasas I just drove through the other day, we took a ride out to the beach to blow off a little covid steam. Some play quarantine's steam. We went down to Leo Correo Beach. Oh, that's such a beautiful beach.

Yeah, it's nice.

Well, it's where you love that one little chunk of area where it's like there's rocks and there's a tunnel, but it's like a quarter of a mile in.

Yeah it's the sand is really clean.

There's big starfish there, big starfish on the rise. Did not know that. That's true.

That's true Johnny. So thank you. Thank you. Oh my God. It's so good to be with someone like you so.

Oh but Calabasas. Right. It's so pretty. But that's what it was. It was cattle farms.

It. Most have been cattle farms, Calabasas. Yes, all rural, you know, you know, you see still horses down there, people, horses. Where do you live?

I live in Century City now because I'm an old Jew century city and one of the big buildings.

No, I'm in a very modest one, but it's I'm located in kind of what I like to call the Holy Trinity, because I've got Walgreens, the gas station and Century City Shopping Mall.

Yeah, I'm I'm like right there with you. I live in Glendale and I'm like four blocks from the Walgreens, from the Trader Joe's. Five minutes to Whole Foods, five minutes to Von's. I got a fish market, five minutes. And that that's the most beautiful. Yeah. Most important thing. People I've talked to, people I've thought about like well maybe I'll get a little cabin somewhere, maybe go back to New Mexico and I got Walgreens is right there.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I, I sold my house that was near where I am now when I got a divorce and how I thought I could afford a house.

We were together 25 years. Sharon Binder, one of the funniest people I've ever known. A great guy, professional, funny guy.

He was for a while, but then he became a commercial director. Oh, but he you know, we sold the house, split it.

And then I was thinking, you know, Italy is going to be coming to Century City. I got to stay in the area.

That's what kept you. There would be Italy, I swear to God.

And now we can go. I know you can order from there. Italy's the best. It's Disneyland, I'm telling you.

Yeah. It's Disneyland for, like, heart disease. But I like what you were going to say.

Where we started with this was we're talking about living in interesting times and we're that sort of started for you.

And we were about talking we were talking about your sister's involvement in show business.

So, yes, basically, you said she was in a group in the fifties. How much older?

She this was the sixties. She's nine years older and she was in the New Christy Minstrels. Her boyfriend was Barry McGuire. Jerry Maguire.

It was folk. Yes. Music. It's it's like a mighty wind.

It's exactly that way. That was popular at some point. Yeah.

I had a because of my cousin Marsha and her husband Clark were Eugene Levy and Catherine Maehara. They were those people.

Yeah.

But, you know, we would have hootenannies at the hootenannies at the farms where this was in Westwood.

OK, and you know, like Theodore Bikel on the line lighter's would come to the cow. Yes, exactly.

Did you really?

He used to date my first girlfriend's mother in Westport, Connecticut. Wow. Yeah. Or I guess she was still living in Chappaqua. She was in theater.

The mother was I met him once at a dinner and they were dating.

And, you know, he was you know, he was we had a large Jewish presence. He carried the weight of the people with him. You knew he was capable of singing all the songs.

But the one thing I remember about him is that she had bought Chickory because he liked Chickory in his coffee.

So that's a little something about Theodore Brickle. I'm not sure you knew.

Well, I can't top that. OK, but yeah, you can't. He was at your house sing.

He was at our house in our our garage that was turned into a pool house because he was friends with your folks or with the sister.

With my sister. I mean, you know, the event of the hootenanny itself attracted a lot of folk singers. And it was just, you know, and I was listening to the local soul station CFG and I didn't like folk music, but I really did appreciate the harmonies. Yeah. How old were you? I was like seven, eight, nine.

And this is going on this the mid 60s. What are we talking. Yeah, this is the mid, early to just the beginning of the 60s. Yeah.

Because that's when that stuff was popular. That's before people woke up to the drug excitement. Exactly.

But you know, again, being in Los Angeles and the access to music was also something that I felt I had a front row seat for.

I mean, I saw the Beatles twice where. Yes, at the Hollywood Bowl and then at Dodger Stadium when you were like ten. No, I was let's see. Sixty four would have been twelve. So you saw the Beatles when you were twelve was do you remember?

Yes. And you know, I was so determined not to scream and cry. Yeah. I so determined.

Yeah.

And I had these, you know, binoculars and I was looking at these guys who seemed mythical. Yeah. They were mythical, you know, with sweat pouring down their faces. And I absolutely lost it. And I was just part of the herd crowd scream and cry chicks.

You can feel it waiting. No, you were twelve. How humiliating. When the entire audience is doing that, it's not humiliating if you're not. Alone, crying and screaming, thank you, Mark, thank you.

But then, you know, there was a club called the Ashgrove, which is now the Improv and the Ashgrove had I was very much into the blues and this was like when I was 16.

Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Willie Dixon, Chicago, All Stars, T Bone, Walker.

I talked to Taj Mahal about that place. Did you really. Oh, my God. I was just like you were saying that I remember talking to a guest about it like he was there a lot.

Yes, he was. He was just, you know, it was thrilling to see him. Do you know Taj? I do not know him, but I did a cartoon with him.

And also when I was pregnant with my first daughter, I was hiking in Tree People Park. And he was with I think I think her name is. I'm not going to get it wrong, so I just won't say it, but she's a music, she did music scores for movies and I'm there walking the other way. This guy that looks like Taj Mahal and I'm thinking how it's it's not possible.

It's such a yuppie activity, making sure, you know, and in the book I say it would be like seeing Eminem at a wine tasting in Napa. So I just dismissed it. And then as I was coming back, I saw them again. And then I said, you know, I'm sorry, but you look so much like Taj Mahal or that person.

You said that to him. I did. And he said, you know, and my dog's name was Ry Cooder.

I was with my dog that way. So.

Yeah, but I did tell Taj Mahal that my dog's name was Ryukyu, which he got a kick out of Second Mile hike.

That's what we learned from that. It's not it's not true for yuppies. Taj Mahal is a man of the world and a man of world music. He has hiked many a mile. Taj Mahal.

He has indeed. Yeah.

And oh, God, I know that deep. Well, yes, he is. Yeah. So, all right.

So you're wandering around. You're twelve, thirteen, fourteen hitting the rock.

So I just see these bands, you know, and see the doors. You saw the doors.

The Doors played our high school and three dog night played our high school.

Well that is impressive but but well but the doors played our high school. So wait, what high school was that. That was Beverly Hills High School of course. And we try to keep on the deal.

But oh, what have the celebrity children where you going to school with?

Well, I don't know if people will know some of these people, but will my audiences like us?

Well, Louis Jordan's son Louis. Yeah. Went there.

And little Louie, little Louie, Louie, Mel Tolkin, who was one of the writers on your show of shows, his two sons, Michael and Steven, went to Beverly. And I was friends with Steven.

But, you know, Michael, they both went on to be writers and directors.

What about the what about the Einstein kids? Were they there?

They had graduated before me. I have a Brooks. I missed them.

Oh, yeah. Robin Albert had graduated after I came. Rob Reiner. Rob Reiner. Yes.

But I did see Richard Dreyfus in high school production and never forgot him. He was like a summer production is exactly the same year.

Like who is that crazy Jew. What's he talking about.

He was good man and he had a big oh, I went to school with Monty Hall's kids, which was in my class, and his sister, who is now Joanna Gleason.

I interviewed Monty as an old man because his grandson, Joanna's son's, a musician who is a big fan of this show and was always on me to you got to talk to my grandfather, you know, before it's too late. And I was like, OK, let's do it.

That must have been so interesting. And yeah, I had to go over there and talk to him and now I like my brain is all weird. I can't remember a time before doing Zoom's I kept my memory has been boxed by Zoome. I'm picturing Monty Hall and the Zoom Box but I was there sitting in front of him. Oh it's weird. I was at his house.

I got to say my older kid Spike went to school with Jake Reiner and Tracey Ullman. Son Johnny and Jake got Spike into a stand up class at the Improv when they were fifteen and Spike would not let me go to see them. So, you know, Carl and Rob and James L. Brooks would go see the shows that the kids put on. And my kid was great. I mean, I, I hate to say it, but they were really great and I would not have encouraged them if they weren't.

But the.

Yeah, they both did, both kids are on HBO shows right now, Spike still doing standup. Yeah, but Spike's also on Losa Spookies.

What's his last name? I'm Binder. Spike, I'm Binder. Yeah. And Hannah. I'm binders on HBO. Max show. That hasn't come out yet.

That's your daughter. Everyone's in show business. I know. What the hell. You're sisters in show business.

So moving on through all this, through high school here and the young Richard Dreyfuss, I just can imagine the intensity of a high school dreifus rabid.

Yeah, that's right. Foaming at the mouth.

Right. But, you know, then Tracy moved to New York and she was a folk singer, and then Ed McMahon spotted her and became her manager when she was in management.

I know. I know.

I don't quite get that. But she was on The Tonight Show and she was an emcee at places like The Bitter End. Yeah. And The Improv. And so one year when I was about 14 and I was in this brace that went from my chin to my pelvis, we had scoliosis.

Exactly. Yeah. We had outlawed. You hate that word.

But I mean, that seemed to be more popular when with your generation, the scoliosis definitely still see that stuff anymore.

Yeah. It's just that the brace is not as obtrusive as it was then.

It was just a I'm sorry to go through that. How long do you have to wear that?

A two and a half years. But at least it was when I was a teenager and had cystic acne.

So that was better.

Yeah, but, you know, she had us come to the the a.. The Troubadour. Yeah. When I was 14 to see her friend Richard Pryor over on Sunset.

Where is it on Santa Monica Boulevard.

She was friends with all the comics when that's where they worked before the clubs. They worked. Yeah. I mean, you know how intimate the Troubadour is.

Yeah. It's like nobody he and he was opening for a music actor.

No, no. He was by himself. He was pretty. I mean, he had been on Ed Sullivan at this point, but he still didn't have you know, he wouldn't have been playing the forum at that point.

So was he was he the evolved prior or pre, you know, pre, you know, er he was not the prior that was trying to be Bill Cosby.

He was like coming into his own talk about his grandmother, who would wallop him with a keyboard that had holes in it for the meat to go through and stuff like that. So he was himself.

He saw Pryor Young. Yeah. And another thing and another thing, Mark. Yes, I'm here.

I talk about, you know, the music that I was exposed to.

But then when comedy started to be have an explosion, I was there for that, too. You know, I was in this improv workshop that eventually became the Groundlings. So you were there.

You were at Grambling. Pre Grambling. Yeah.

I mean, were you dating. We were you what were you doing? Were you dating musicians? Who were you?

What's going on? I dated musicians later. Oh, this was after SNL. I had a relationship with Warren Zevon and with Mark Mothersbaugh.

And you pick the interesting ones. No, I do not know boring musicians for, you know, and others.

I just I'm kind of shy to talk about that kind of stuff.

So I really kind of talk about the other stuff that went on, you know, like I took more in to see the first Peewee Herman show at the Groundlings, the beginning of Pewee.

The very beginning. Yeah. When I used to throw Tootsie Rolls at the audience.

And how did how did the the cantankerous Warren Zevon respond?

He loved it. Oh, he absolutely loved it. And afterwards we went back to my house and I made dinner and there was something in the NPR show about being a clean plate ranger where you had to clean your plate. And he ate everything that I made.

And I said, gee, I'm glad you liked it. And he said, well, he says to be a clean plate ranger.

You know, he had a knife and fork holding him each and it's the napkin tied around his neck. It was it was very sweet.

So after you saw so prior. But that was it was after you saw Pryor, were the comedy started to happen?

Yeah. I went to Paris. I studied with Marcel Marceau.

You did my training?

Yeah, I did it since I was 16. And then I also learned improv when I was sixteen.

You didn't do mime in the break, did you know?

I had I think there's a picture. Yeah. I never even thought about that. That would have been so good.

The mobility still. Yeah.

I learned improv and mime and so I auditioned for all the British theater schools and I made the preliminary order. And like out of 300 people, they take 80 and I made all those groups and then had to go to London for the final audition and was summarily rejected.

So I went to Paris to see if I could study with Marceau and I ended up there for a year. What was he like? He was great. He was.

He was hey, Micmac. He was very hamermesh. It's so funny.

That movie that came out about him being a resistance fighter. Yeah, I had no idea. There was no inkling of that when he was there, but he didn't teach that often. Frankly, it was his hot Czechoslovakian wife that did a lot of the teaching at the time.

And he just sat there silently making expressions. How did you know?

But I came back from that and this was like, what the fuck am I going to do if my time had turned into something that was so cutesy, which I hated?

That's a nice word. It was just. Yeah, it didn't.

It was whimsical. And I don't like whimsy. It's not for me. Yeah. It was like it was like hackneyed boardwalk entertainment.

Yeah. So I kind of abandoned that. I a friend of mine asked me to be his audition partner for Cal Arts. So I said, what the hell. And after that they asked me to join. So I thought, well, I'm not doing anything else. You went to class. I went to class for three months, which is where I met Paul Reubens. Oh really? Yeah, I met him there.

So many people have gone there. It's kind of crazy. I said, was that like out in summer or something worse in Valencia? Valencia? Yeah. I mean, I've talked to so many people that have gone to Cal Arts. I can't remember them all now.

It was an amazing campus. But I realized then that I did not want to be an actor and they were teaching. It was a theater program and I didn't feel comfortable doing that. I, I felt more comfortable doing stuff that I wrote. Yeah. Because I didn't feel like I had the range to do stuff.

Right. So you tried, but you couldn't. I just couldn't do it.

I didn't want I didn't want to reveal myself in that way, which is pretty much the criteria for being an actor.

Right. And so and it's also like it seems to have stuck with you, with your weird habit to drop in to different voices must not reveal yourself. So it's glad that you found your own device of avoidance has been OK to you.

All right. Confront me, Mark. That's what this is about, isn't it?

So where was I? But I digress anyway, for three months. And you wanted to do your own writing.

Yeah, I my sister was in this improv workshop and she said, why don't you come to this? What was that? That was at the Cellar Theater on Vermont, which I'm sure isn't there anymore. But it was run by this guy named Gary Austin.

And the people in it were like Jack Sue, Pat Morita, Valerie Curtain. Wow. Tim Matheson.

Just, you know, people who were just interested in the craft and of being funny.

Yeah. And we moved from there to the Oxford Theater and started doing shows.

And then we thought, well, we got to pick a name. Yeah. So we picked the Groundlings.

And how would you pick that name? It's a Shakespearian term for people who couldn't afford real seats. I didn't get to sit on the ground.

I'm sure so many people are like, come on, man, you should have known you were not you were a founding member.

Yes. Yeah. Crazy.

I know. Well, that's why I say I lived in interesting times. I was there for the opening of the Comedy Store in seventy two.

Was it. Yeah.

And did you Redcliff Nesterov sawbuck. Yeah. I just talked to Quiff today. I love that guy. I loved his book so much. It's dedicated to me.

It is. Yeah. I got to go look at that again.

I don't remember that at the very beginning. Wonderful for Maqam.

I had him on the show early on. That's incredible. So into his writing and he was up in Canada and and I kind of introduced him to the world down here a little bit. He just texted me. He's got a new book out about Native American comics. So nineteen. So the opening. Yeah.

So it was the opening of the Comedy Store and I was underage so I couldn't go in, but I watched everything from the doorway and I, you know, saw the stepbrother's, which was Craig Nelson. Yeah. Barry Levinson. Yeah. And I think Rudy DeLucca. Right. I saw Ed Begley Jr. dressed as a cop.

Yeah. And let's see Freddie Prinze. I saw Jay Leno when he had long black hair and he would pull it to the front, put it in a ponytail and do Elvis.

And it was a silent bit where he just did kind of the pose and the lip and the ponytail would like flap like a metronome.

It was so funny. And and I saw Richard Pryor try out a lot of.

That he didn't use. Yeah, he used to go on for hours there sometimes, and someone I think Ken Shapiro made tunnel vision, which I was in, and so was Chevy. And so were Franken and Davis. And this was before SNL.

And that was out here. Some weird here. Yeah. Experimental indie movie. So the Groundlings.

Now what it's become like. I like I imagine that once you got elected or once you named it, it didn't have all these tiers and classes and it wasn't some sort of, you know, when did evolve into this, you know, training ground that was so high.

Like, it's weird. I guess that was the business model who made it a business.

Tom Maxwell, who was a student when I was there and became a director and a really good one and a really funny guy. And, you know, he became a show runner. I think he he did just shoot me.

A lot of the people that were subsequent to me became show runners on different shows, the smart ones.

I yeah. I mean, it's it's fantastic.

And I get to see a lot of the people developing and then going on to being on SNL, which is thrilling to me. I just love it.

The show runners, though, they're like, oh, you guys know how to make this a real job, goddammit. Yeah.

When did your sister start writing comedy? How did that happen?

It was after the Groundlings. She was a director there for many years. And a teacher. Oh, really?

So she stopped playing folk music. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah.

She when folk died, she got out. That's right.

My sister has really been like the instigator for a lot of the transitions that I've made because she was their first. She's always been on the cusp of something that's about to happen, you know, hence the Groundlings. But she went on to write on Cheers and the Nanny, tons of shows. She was one of the four Emmy winning writers on the Ellen DeGeneres coming out episode.

Oh, wow. Did you become a showrunner? Yeah. Which she OK she and her partner created, according to Jim now. So my sister created a show for Jon's brother. Right. Which I also love the know synchronicity of all that.

No, I never met him three years later she did that well, years after John's gone. Yeah. When do you go to New York? When did how does that happen?

Lorne Michaels was producing Lily Tomlin special, and he came to the Groundlings and they hired me for that show. And then Lorne came back and I was doing new material and different characters. And he had me meet him at the Chateau Marmont to talk about this show that he was hired to do.

So he comes out, you work on really show? I work on the show, and then he comes to see me again and he hires me for SNL. So I didn't really audition what characters were doing at that point.

Did any of them make it onto the first season? Yes, Sherri, the stewardess was the Valley girl was that whole monologue in The Godfather group therapy sketches is a monologue that I wrote for the Groundlings. Wow.

And there was another character that I, you know, talk about this a lot, how I wanted to dazzle people with my with my how prolific I was with characters.

And, you know, it's important to repeat characters, kids, if I tell you nothing else, it's important to repeat characters. But you built them.

You mean use them as much as possible? Yeah. So they're remembered. But I'm the only one I didn't do was this British groupie named Fiona. I never had occasion to do her.

That's a character that you had. And it never it never made it onto the show. No, I never saw a place for it. And you've never used it for a voice for anything else?

I have. We did a birthday party for Mindy Sterling, the Groundlings at a birthday party for her at the Roosevelt Hotel. And we did kind of a parody of American Idol. So I played this kind of. One of the judges, you know, who all my phone was like, you know, I was inspiring a lot of musicians. I was with, you know, basically a song written about me called Chain of Pearls. And sometimes people called me the white man's burden.

I don't know why, but stuff like that, you know. Yeah. Oh, my God.

You got to use it.

Yeah, I got to use it in various things. And also an animation.

I've I've been so thrilled that British productions hire me sometimes to divorce, just like you're one of those people where I mean, I see you around at festivals and, you know, we've run into each other and communicated here and there over the years. But it seems like you're constantly doing voices for for animation.

Yeah. And I, I just you know, I don't know how corny this might sound, but I have always been passionate about comedy, and so I've always stayed in it and wanting to see it, seeing new comedy.

You know, I'm on the board of Sketch Fest, but I even you know, when my kids were didn't need me to, like, ride them to do their homework, I started going to places like Meltdown and. Right. That's yeah.

Seeing all these people. You're just like this. I just like it.

So what was the first season in the first season? Because I've talked I've talked to most people I don't who have.

That's not even true. I've not talked to hardly anybody who I talked to. I've talked to Garrett. I've talked to Al. I've talked to Lorne. I talked to Dan.

Oh, that should have been interesting. Yeah. He's you know, he's he's got a frequency. He operates at. I love it.

Yeah. I absolutely love it. When we did an episode of According to Jim together and we were doing a speed through right before starting taping. And I think there was something where Danny was rattling something off about guns. And Jim said, You really like that stuff, don't you? And Danny said, Yeah, I have Asperger's.

Yeah. Yeah. And all of a sudden it was like. Wow, that that explains everything she's you know, you play it back in your mind, of course he has Asperger's. That's wild when that happens, right? Oh my God. Yeah.

But I always loved his mind so much. I loved his style. I mean, everybody that was what was so thrilling about SNL was that everybody really had an original voice. Yeah. And it was a great soup.

Did you feel that right away? Because I remember talking to Garrett and Garrett was sort of like this outlier he felt in terms of where he came from and how and why he was cast. It seemed like it was a bit of a struggle to figure out how he fit in. But eventually he landed. Well, he was hired as a writer.

Right. But he was also like a straight actor.

He was he was the only one who had, like, seriously legit, you know, credits.

But when did things get like like at the beginning? How long did it take? Because I just watch Abboushi Doc. Did you watch it.

I loved it. It was good. Right. I thought it was so good and I, I thought the device of not having us see the people that were talking, just hearing them and the animation was so effective and a breakthrough in terms of the parts that you were part of.

Yeah. And it also revealed a side of John that I had no idea existed. You know, the letters to Judy and his real knowledge of himself in the sense that he felt trapped by his addiction and didn't really know how to get out of it, that it was a sort of despair and helplessness.

That's the worst. Which broke my heart. That's the worst. That's the real sickness.

We didn't have it when you knew him. Oh, yeah. Oh, he did.

He was always there that the appetite for it. But he didn't seem. Did he seem lost when you know him?

No, it wasn't that. I mean it was bad, but it wasn't as bad as it got later. Right.

But he already you know, this is the big misconception that I find when people trivialize people's lives and talk about how they couldn't handle the fame man.

Yeah. And that's why they get loaded, you know. You know, you're already an addict when you get there. That's true.

So it was just accessibility and money that made it worse.

Yeah, it was. Which is part of fame. But it's not the psychological ramifications of fame. It's just sort of like you can now do whatever you want.

Yeah, that's me. I know it was a sweet guy. He really was.

He was. Did you date him? I can remember. No, no. It was it was always with Judy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I didn't. I only dated Danny. I didn't date anybody else on the show. So that's.

And so the Asperger's thing, you're like, OK, yeah.

I mean, there was I was always aware of a deep detachment on his part, so I never had much of an expectation of him. I just love spending time with him.

And do you talk to anybody anymore? I probably talked to Alan Zweibel most frequently. He's the sweetest guy. He's so great and so funny.

Yes. And, you know, every once in a while, Bill Murray will text me out of the blue and I'm like, I'm at this restaurant. Yeah. And there's this music playing, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

We have people that do that. Yeah. The big star text, you know, semiannual big star text. It's weird.

Hey, what's it spice that you like that, you know, just but I also have, you know, through sketch fest and other things that I've done, become friends with Fred Armisen. Oh yeah. So we, we communicate every once in a while, like Jane.

Nothing. No, you know, I, I did write to her to ask questions because there was a day when the Stones were hosting and I, I went to her dressing room. I can't remember why. And I opened the door and she's there in a beautiful bathrobe. Her hair is in curlers. She's smoking a cigaret and she's alone with Mick.

Yeah, that's your memory. And that's that's not something I expected. And I said what was going on there? She says, you know, in retrospect, I think he was hoping for a quickie.

I just don't know. You know, and I also remember her audition really well.

It's so funny because that's exactly how she would phrase it. That's what I'm hoping for. A quickie. Yeah.

Boy, did he have the wrong number. But anyway, but they were really they were shooting the breeze. They were there and hanging out.

But they happened a lot there. Right then. I mean, you got to. Yeah. Jane and Mick. Yeah, that's my point. Jane and Mick didn't make sense now, but it was delightful.

But you remember Jane's audition. Yeah, it was. Gilda and I were already hired and they were having. These are. At this place called NOLA, which was and it was a big rehearsal space and smack dab in the middle was a table and chair, which is the most brutal atmosphere for anybody. But I should do that.

Right. I mean, it still does things kind of like that, even though you're in the city. It doesn't make it comfortable, does it?

I don't like ascribing motives to anybody because I can't read minds. So I don't know.

I think that that was my experience in retrospect of dealing with Lorne in that first season throughout it. Is it possible that he sought to make you uncomfortable, Eurocracy?

Yeah, I think the inclusion exclusion business, you know, was a divide and conquer tactic in terms of sketch in that and in terms of the harder people would work in order to rise above, you know, to achieve and get ahead.

Right. So you create a competitive environment. Yeah, it didn't have to be like that.

There's such a thing as a happy set. Yeah. And it was happy just because we all love doing sketch work was fun.

Yeah. But, you know, the struggle for air time was tough on everybody, you know, and I thought I was the only one. But everybody.

You thought you're the only one during it. Yeah. And then you found out later that everybody was like now. Yeah.

And I think so I built told me that Conan O'Brien said that his time there, he felt like every day was like getting beaten up on the playground.

Bullies everywhere.

Yeah, I guess. And what was James auditioning like?

Why do you remember it? Well, it was she was hosting a disaster party. It was a town that it had every natural disaster imaginable and they were getting ready for another one. And she just had like talking to a group of women and what they brought to eat and all this kind of stuff. But it was so different.

Did she come from comedy? Yeah, she came from the Proposition, which is a Boston improv group. No kidding. I don't even know that one. Yeah, we all came from improv. Yeah. It's interesting.

I don't remember that. I've talked to all the comedy people I've talked to. I don't remember the proposition ever coming up.

Yeah, well, it was in that anyone we know, I don't know. Well, there you go.

I just know that she came from there because there is another one in the West Coast called the committee. Right.

I saw the committee when I was a teenager. I'd go see them at the Tiffany Theater.

So how did it end for you with SNL? Well, we are all under five year contract, all of us. Yeah. And Lorne made it clear that he was leaving and I, you know, didn't want to do it without him.

How many shots were you on? Five. All the original cast at five seasons except for John and Danny who left after the fourth. I think the network approached all of us to see if we would stay on.

But I don't think anybody wanted to, and I think we're all burnt out. So what kind of shape were you in after the five years? Were you all fucked up?

Yeah, I was really I was very eager to go home and we all fucked up on what was the problem.

I was big coke addict and I had intermittent times of sobriety that I can't even explain.

But when I got home, I was just I just wanted to hide. I just wanted to not be in the world because the world was too painful. But I was also doing stuff.

Yeah, it was there was a show at the Hollywood Roosevelt called the. Oh, my God. Yes. It was a political sketch review. Chris guest was in it. Ed Begley. I think Carl Gottlieb, uh, I was in that show.

The Hollywood primary, that's what it was called, and there was also I was doing ADR, which at the time I should have like maybe pulled back and thought, you're coming off of the hit show and you're doing work off camera for scale.

What does that mean with this ADR additional dialog replacement?

Right. Oh, so you because I know that I go in and do it for things that I was in.

But yes, this was looping. This was looping. This was his voice. Were you doing it was filling in crowd stuff and individual lines at point.

But, you know, people there were like Harry Shearer. Yeah. And Renney Santoni and Ed Begley. I mean, so the improvising that went on, which was totally unnecessary because it was all going to be mixed down. But my God, some of the stuff that went on was so funny.

Everybody's trying to pick up a paycheck. Is that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because you get residuals for those. ADR is a great gig.

So you do an ADR and did you have to go get off the Coke?

I you know, I held out for a long time. I didn't get sober till I was 35. So I came back from SNL, I was 28. Oh, man, so you were running around out here all jacked up. Yeah, but I was one of those introvert Koepp people, you know, I would stay in my house and play solitaire and smoke. So that's what I did work like Ritalin for you kind of did for me.

Like it's exactly what it did.

Leveled me off. Absolutely. It calmed me down me made me think everything was OK. And then three hours later, I was sure I was dying. So it was a small window.

Yeah, the crash was awful. Awful. And I never drank alcohol.

So how do you think I would reread and eat so that we did eating on coke?

You're a professional. Well, it had come you know, it worn off. Yeah.

You know, but that crash is so awful, so depressing.

So looking back on it, I mean, do you like people like Lauren? Because I was the last time I talked to you, I was, you know, obsessed with my meeting with Lauren, but we were able to resolve it through a couple of interviews I did with him.

He walked me through it and made me feel like I heard that interview was terrific.

You did a great job with him. He was very patient with me. He was nice to, like, deal with my problem. I was very surprised, but he didn't.

That'll be nine dollars, please. Yeah.

For lifting the obsession of me and on that day. But you had a good experience with him always.

We were friends. Yeah, we were friends after the Lilly Show and we were friends after SNL ended. Oh yeah. Whenever he came to L.A. we'd get together.

Oh yeah. I really I love Lorne. I still care about him very much, but I have absolutely no relationship with him. Yeah but I will always care about him.

Weird how that happens isn't it. Like you hold well in this place and then. Yeah. You don't talk to him for a decade yet you still have those same feelings from that place. Yeah. What happened. Why, how come you guys don't talk to people.

Well, I just think that his life has gotten so big and he has only so much room for people.

But what's interesting about Lauren that I found is that he still wandering those same halls, doing that same fucking job. And he loves it. And it's what he does. He's a television producer.

Yeah, he is. And I think that he really is inspired by the talent I think is genuinely inspired by it.

Yeah. And it's like it's hit or miss, but sometimes it's really funny. Sometimes he's got funny, still got a good eye, you know, talent and some people are allowed to get their groove.

And I've seen some performers on the show and like they do one amazing thing. And I think, well, that's all they can do. And then they've gotten a little more time and you see this incredible range of things that they can do. And that takes I don't even know how to describe what that takes, but the ability to wait them out, to allow them to grow or blossom.

And so weird. It's like now, you know, Quiñonez like the old hand over there. And he he's like, got such a great attitude now, like you just seems to give zero fucks and it's like and it makes him so much funnier than he has evolved. He's so good.

But did you ever see him when he was a kid on all that.

No. Oh yeah.

He was on a comedy show on Nickelodeon when he was a kid. And I remember thinking, God, he is so goddamn funny. It would be so great if someday he did SNL and he did.

Absolutely.

I told him I remember thinking that when I saw him because he was always so funny.

I like that. Chloe Fineman. Is that her name? Yeah, she's Groundling. She's terrific. She's good.

So, you know, when we talked last, which was like when was that? 2002.

It was a sketch artist.

But I don't that was a long time ago. But you said that you were you know, you were writing a book and it was in a drawer and you were never going to finish it. Exactly.

Did you finish it? Why did you just do it on audio? Because you didn't finish it?

No, that was the business model for Audible. And I did finish it. I had Marc I had so much material and I wrote a lot of other stuff to avoid writing the book. And I wrote nine drafts of the book. And because I'm so disorganized, it was like, well, I know I have some good stuff in the seventh draft, but where is it?

And I didn't have the patience to go through all of them. So I just kept getting disgusted each time and throwing it in a drawer. Right.

But then Audible approached me and their business model was to do quote unquote, humorous, you know, memoirs.

So it was serious. And I had a fellow named Paul Slansky helped me organize the ton of material I had.

And he was like, he's very. Good with facts and dates and chronology, which is also a big weakness of mine. So help me sort all that out. And he helped me basically with you don't need that. Yeah, right. Yeah, that nobody needs to know that.

Oh, yeah. Like what. Oh well I mean, you don't need that because it's boring probably.

But honestly I don't remember.

Did you have to take stuff out because of where he was.

He concerned is like if you say this about this person, you know, that liability. Yeah.

It was just some of that. Well, Audible is pretty much covers that, you know, when you hand in the copy edited, there's, you know, and fact checked version, then it goes through legal.

Yeah.

So I had to reword things like, you know, say I felt this or I believed this rather than saying that something was an empirical fact. But I mean, again, interesting times when I was, you know, with Mark, we used to go Mark Mothersbaugh. We would go to the Larry Flynt mansion for parties, which I soon got tired of because I thought it was kind of depressing. But I remember Larry Flynt being obsessed with Madalyn Murray O'Hair and the atheist movement, and he would talk about these conspiracies and he would send me and Mark home with these cassettes and videotapes to watch, you know.

Right. Nobody likes homework.

But no, the point is that, you know, there's just all sorts of things that I was exposed to this not weird fucking isn't Hollywood bizarre, man?

Yeah.

So you were the Mark Mothersbaugh and Larry Flynt s and he's holding court from his wheelchair and going on about atheists and wants you to watch videos and you've got to sit there. Were there drugs involved because how did you sit through that?

Not at that time, no.

But it was such a Hollywood thing in my mind, where you just end up at these houses with these people that can only hang out with each other because they can't go out into the real world.

Yeah, so there's always weird pairings of people.

Yes, that's exactly that's a great way of putting it.

You're at these parties going like, why is Lance Armstrong and Ted Nugent here? You know, it's like, where else are they going to go? This is the only one time I saw like it was like at the Comedy Store in Mitzi's booth. It was Rodney Dangerfield, Bruce Willis and Ted Nugent sitting there watching the show out of here.

I remember you talking about that.

That's an amazing confluence of humor because they were there the same night it was before Ted became whatever he represents now, he was always kind of a fucking monster, but he wasn't a political monster.

But but yeah.

And then someone brought it to my attention because I think it was Jeffrey Jeff Kahn, like he said, he go to these parties, it's Stiller's house, and you just see these people together. There was no reason for them to be together other than they're all at a level of celebrity to where they can't really socialize like normal people.

Well, I remember Alan Brzeski. Do you remember him? He was like an eighteen year old. Stand up.

I don't Bursk. I interviewed him. I talked to Bursk. I knew him when he was eighteen. OK, you did.

When you got where you were in high school and how I was a little little I'm a little older than him, actually. When his dad was parking cars in the lot of the Comedy Store, when Sammy still had it or when he was doing standup there, as you know, even though I was too young to get in.

But I, I for some reason, he I saw him after SNL and I was, you know, talking about how tough it was for me. And he said, well, I know a friend.

I know a guy who's a manager. Yeah. Maybe you should meet with him.

So he takes me up to meet this guy and we're were driving. And then we passed a street sign that says Cielo Drive. Yeah.

And I'm thinking, God, this looks familiar. And Jesus, this house looks familiar. Yeah. And it was the scene of the Manson murders. Oh, it's the house.

And this guy still Rudy Altobelli, unbelievably horrible human being who sued Roman Polanski because he couldn't sell his house because Polanski, too many took too many pictures of the house. I mean, just where the take killing was.

Yes, the meeting was at the house. So it's always there's always a connection of some kind.

That's one way or another. It's like whoever I met, whoever I went to high school with, whoever I met at Cal Arts, Paul Reubens, whoever I met at the Groundlings, whoever met on SNL, whoever made subsequent to that because of the relationships I had then starting into animation, some people who had been actors but were got into animation or people who were just the cream of the crop of animation actors, you know. And again, there I was at.

Beginning of this explosion, because animation is so huge now. Yeah, but I was there when that just was starting. You know, so I got to I was working on the Pixar movies and I remember we were working on Finding Nemo and I can't remember it might have been it wasn't Lasseter, it was someone else. But he was talking about the how they had just gotten the technology to animate the look of particles just filtering through light coming through the ocean.

Do you know what I mean?

When you see a beam of light going into the ocean and all the krill, I think they're called. Yeah, just filtering through that. They had just developed the technology to animate something like that. Right. And of course, you know, they're leaps and bounds from that now. But it just it was such a fascinating it is such a fascinating medium.

And I see I think you can have a lot like if you're dug in in that world, you can have a you know, there's no end to your career, really, because it's just a matter.

Well, I've been very lucky. I got to say, I I thank my lucky stars every day because, you know, all during the pandemic, I've been able to work what you've been working on.

Well, let's see. There's a show, I think it's been announced, but it's going to be on Netflix. It's called Riddley Jones. And it's kind of like night at the museum with a young girl. And it's written by Chris WNY, who created two other series that I worked on that are like Peabody Award winning shows. And you meet a lot of people in animation.

I mean, you know, the show I'm working on now, Reishi Horn is working on it and Blayse, Downer and just incredible people.

It's so funny. And I had this realization about animation. There was this comic that was just a. Just like this monster he was he had drugs and booze, weird and just fucking creepy, and his name is Chris Collins.

He's dead. I don't know him. But years ago, I just remember that he had found some not he was around doing comedy, but he was just too weird and too.

But he had found some success doing cartoons in him, like I always thought, like if only those parents knew it.

Well, I got talking for that animal.

Well, Frank Welker is really like the Mel Blanc of his era. I mean, his his IMDB page is pages and pages. I mean, he's done everything you've ever seen as a child. And he used to do stand up. And Steve Martin told me about seeing Frank do sound effects of a mother duck crossing a stream, the sound of the ducklings, the sound of the duck and the sound of the stream.

Wow. You know, these guys have incredible skills. Yeah.

There is a weird comic named Barry Niekro. I don't know what happened to him that he used to do like some very odd noise with a great name. It's a great name. He was an interesting guy. He's a musician who didn't don't remember. His brother was a concert pianist. There's always these weird stories, if you know.

Where did you see these people all the time? You saw Chris Collins does very Niekro and Chris Collins were both Boston guys. I started doing comedy in Boston after after college and during college. So did you know Dana Gould?

Yes, I was there. And Dana left. I was there probably the year before. I saw Dana maybe like right before he moved to San Francisco.

So when he was pretty. Wow.

And I saw Bobcat, he I was there. Bobtown, Kenny Robinson.

I see you see Tomcat and Bobcat. Bobcat had a garage sale at a comedy store at a comedy club called Stitches, where before he moved to San Francisco, they all went to San Francisco. Paula Poundstone in San Francisco, Kevin Meaney went to San Francisco. A lot of the Boston people that needed a more embracing environment before they came to L.A., went to San Francisco, got Kevin Meaney.

Yeah, he was a Boston guy I remember seeing. What kind of person does that? Yeah, it's so funny. You can see the spirit of him. And there's certain moments in that Gaffigan has that are very Kevin Martin. Yes. Yeah. Oh, my God.

I never put that together where he's like, I don't know where he talks.

Like, well, when he does the on someone a woman in the audience.

Yeah. The the quiet the the other voice. I don't think that's very funny. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. That's very well.

Didn't Franscell Amita did a Yeah. I think you hear me now. Documentary on the Boston.

I remember Fran back. I used to see him when I was in college. I saw Fran as a zero and being I saw Ron Lynch, Ron Lynch, Lynch, Ron Lynch was in a team called Bob and Ron when I first saw them.

What happened to Bob got ask Ron what happened to Ron.

He's I think your story is a lot of times a sketch first, but he's so funny.

Yeah, Ron's great, right. Ron was a big influence on a lot of people. Like, they're like, yeah. I mean, Ron was always there. He was a Boston guy. Yeah. I mean, you must do it, too, when you think back on all the people you knew.

My gosh. And then some people, you're like, what happened to that guy?

I remember going to see a friend of mine named Joey Arius, who was a very well known drag queen, and he was a Groundling. He was there on the very beginning. So I went to see him, I think, at the Katalina Club and I saw Bruce Vilanch. And I was, you know, in the midst of writing my book. And I remember seeing this wonderful Australian impressionist, a woman named Daphne Davis. And I thought, hell no.

Not only did he know her, he wrote for her. Wow. Yeah, well, did Vlach did. Yeah.

After you get to a certain point in your life, you lived so many lives in so many different places.

Exactly. That's what it is. So many lives. Yeah.

When people come up to you, they're like, hey, do you remember me? I'm like, you're going to have to give me a span of years in a city.

That's exactly.

Do you remember Falstaff? Wilde No. You probably never saw him. He was the first openly gay comic I ever saw, and he was at the Comedy Store and he would come see Groundlings shows all the time. God bless him.

And like, when did you get married and have kids in the middle of all this? Did you were sober? Oh, yeah. My kids have never known me, you know, God bless them. My God. I just can't even imagine parenting and being. I'm so lucky.

Yeah, I have to say, because I, you know, of law, all the things I've had to live down, I don't have to live that down. Right.

You know, you didn't do that. You make that mistake. Yeah. In eighty nine I got together with Chad and. Yeah. Twenty five years.

Are you guys friends. Is this ending nice? We're really good friends. Yeah, and he's remarried and his wife is incredible and I love her and yeah.

And very civilized. Me, me.

Oh you see, Marc, the store is closed.

She finished is what I'm saying is it is I can't even imagine I can't imagine intimacy at this point. It's just horrifying the thought.

Well, it's weird, though, because I mean, I understand what you're saying. But the other thing about as you get older, though, is that, you know, there are certain things you just can't hide. So there's a lot of stuff that's already out of the bag, you know what I mean? So on some level, intimacy is already happening whether you want it to or not, because we don't have control over, you know, I never thought of it that way.

Do you know what I mean?

I mean, really, it's an interesting perspective because like on some level, it's sort of like, you know, you may not want to take an emotional risk, but most of who you are is sort of, you know, you're not hiding that much anymore who has that kind of energy. But it really just a matter of attachment, you know?

Well, I also think if you get older, you're not as invested in being anything other than you are. Right.

Right. Because so many so much shit they used to feel important or used to seem like you needed to. Do you know who gives a fuck.

Yeah. You better like me. This is it. Yeah. This is what we're dealing with. I'm not worrying about best foot forward. Okay.

Yeah. And it's just sort of like this, like, you know the whole thing about like know like you start to understand why people have been together a long time, sleep in separate rooms. It's not a matter of of like anything I'm doing. I just want to have some space, you know.

Yeah. You make noises and you read and the light bothers me.

Yeah. I just you know, Jane Curtin has been married this whole time and her husband is fantastic. Yeah. I really admire that.

Where do they live out here too. They live in Connecticut. Of course.

I've just been emailing with her, which has been really fun. That's great.

We we Bill Murray, you know, was honored at the Kennedy Center and he flew me out there and put me up at the Four Seasons. And so I got to go, you know, and I met Sonia Sotomayor and, you know, it was very exciting.

And the afterwards, it was very, very cold.

And Jane and I were going from the venue to the party tent and there were these fans that wanted a picture with her, an autograph. And she says, I don't do that. I don't do that.

And I was like, please, Miss Curtain, please. We've been waiting out in the cold for so long. And she was like, I don't care.

I don't care. I don't care, you know?

And I like my hat is off to you. My hat is off to you. You are my queen.

Oh, God, I loved her for that. How long ago was that?

That was a couple of years ago, maybe two, three years ago.

And how long has it been since killed? Has been gone a long time.

Oh, God, 89. My mother died two months after Gilda. That's a bad year.

Yeah, that was bad. Did you ever. Oh yeah. She was a really great friend to me and very motherly mothering to me.

I often don't even understand why she was so good to me because I was so self-centered and self-involved. Mm.

But she was so attentive and kind and loving.

Yeah. Were you friends with Gene? No, I met him once, I think he seems like a sweetheart to. Maybe I know nothing, I see nothing.

OK, well, look, it was great seeing you, you great.

And you, I hope I can see you again sometime. I'm around out in the world. Sure you mean I'm not I'm not going on your end of town.

Yeah, I guess that's too far. I don't go. You're in town either. Maybe I'll meet you somewhere in the middle at some point. OK, maybe I'll see you to thing when we can have things again. Yeah.

Yeah, that would be fun. Maybe in shitfaced. Yeah.

I've been up there in a while. I haven't done for in a while. I don't remember why I stopped doing. I tend to not go to festivals because I'm like why. Why. I'll just go if I want to go to San Francisco and play some this guy just go do it when there's not a million other acts up there.

And then I go because I love seeing those. So I know that's what people. Yeah. People will get to see everybody. I'm like, thank you.

But it also can sometimes end up in a collaboration. It's like Coachella, you know, a lot of times artists out there.

Maybe I'm going to jam with Mike Birbiglia.

Right, man? Yeah.

Luckily in black and I have this set we want to do. Exactly.

Yeah, I'm a solo act baby right now, but maybe I'll go back up there.

I mean I but I, you know, I like seeing you. I'm glad you're doing all right and glad that you got the book out in the world and it's only really entertaining.

It should be very entertaining. I hope I'll bring it with me on my hike. OK, that's the perfect spot. All right. Take it easy. OK, bye.

OK, Lorraine Neumann and her voices and her nice disposition and her new book called May You Live in Interesting Times, it's available exclusively on Audible is an audio book. So go to audible dot com or the audible app to check it out. And don't forget, if you're struggling right now, check out Better Help. It's a secure, affordable online service providing professional counselors who can listen and help you just fill out a questionnaire to help assess your specific needs and better help will match you with your own licensed professional therapist.

WTF with Marc Maron is sponsored by Better Help, and our listeners get 10 percent off their first month of online therapy when they visit. Better help dot com slash WTF visit, better dot com slash WTF and join the over one million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced, better health professional. Damn, my voice is good today. It's meditation. It's making me dream deeper. I think something's happening. All right.

Something is happening. I mean, I'm levitating right now. Is that normal? No, watch. I'm just going to float over here to pick up my guitar.

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Walker Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

Boomer lives. The fondant monkey. Cat Angels'. Soaring into the forever. And.