Are you leaving?
I you wanna way back home?
Either way, we want to be there, doesn't matter how much baggage you claim and give us time and a terminol and gay.
We want to send you off in style.
Do you wanna welcome you back home?
Tell us all about it?
We scared her? Was it fine?
Malborn?
Do you need to ride?
Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride?
Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride?
Do you need to ride?
Ride with Karen and Chris? Welcome to Do you need a ride? This is Chris Fairbanks.
And this is Karen Kilgaroff.
Karen, I you almost did that hilarious thing. I love when comedians do it where I introduced myself, except I say your name and then you follow suit and say my name. It's not fun when comics do that.
It is so hilarious, and it it really kicks you off.
Yeah, it let people know, yeah, that they're entering some backwards world.
Get ready open your mind, because this is what this is.
I'm kidding, of course, I don't like that. I also don't like when someone's doing a selfie video and then they turn and go, oh, hello, I didn't see you there. That's still very popular.
And you and you say no, thank you?
Yeah, I and I say it, no, I don't see you there, And I slam my computer shut and and shoot loose papers off of my desk. Nice that I only keep stacked on the desk for that purpose.
For a station. Yeah, in your inbox.
Ye, yeah, No one's even watching. Yeah, it's like that's Stephen J. Connell opening to eighties shows.
Yes, when it goes fly.
And then it reel paper typewriter paper to flying cartoon paper.
Into a logo. And I'm going to say, that's not the first time I've referenced that.
No, you love that.
I'm all out of and we're gonna our guest today. You're not going to believe the story that I told on his podcast. I'll give you one guess what it was about.
Was it about feline aids for God, God, damn it.
That's what I did on Eugene's podcast. I talked about that damn cat. The episode even is called this Darn Cat. He knew preemptively that I would overtell that story for years to come, because that was a long time ago.
Yeah, but we love it.
We've got them all set up we're doing it over zoom. Back then, when I did his podcast, we had to recruit a local recording station in Missoula, Montana. There was like all these people involved. It was very professional. But that's we didn't want to do that to Eugene today, so we kept it very unprofessional.
He's one of the great professionals of our time.
I know. That's why I thought I'd mix it up for him, remind him what it used to be like before. He was a consummate professional.
He plays clubs and colleges in this great country.
Yeah, if you watch Bob's Burgers, you will recognize his voice and you're going to be very excited.
Yes, for our guest today, it is, in fact Eugene Merman.
Hello, he did he said it. You promised to say hello when we announced your name and you and you followed through with that promise.
Yes. I thought it was the right thing to do.
Yeah, not lie.
Yeah Yeah, follow your gut, Yeah exactly.
And let them know that I'm here.
Yeah, it's real.
Yeah.
How are you, Eugene doing okay?
Doing okay?
Are you a person Eugene that lives in Los Angeles or do you live in New York?
City, great choices. I yeah, live in not neither. I am a person who lives in Massachusetts.
Boston or Salem.
I live underneath one thousand meters underneath the pbdy Essex Museum in Salem. I live in the Boston area.
And you are from there. You moved there as a child, correct?
I moved there. Yes, I moved to Lexington, Massachusetts a child from the former Soviet Union. We fled, and then I lived in New York for a very long time, and a few years ago moved back to the Boston area.
How old were you when you left us?
I was four.
Do you remember? This might sound like a dumb question, but I have one distinct memory from where I was born in Monterey. I'm not bragging. It's a nice town and I was only there till I was two. But I do have one vivid memory. Do you have any memories.
I essentially don't have any memories. I think I remember like the smell of black current. I think that's the only thing that like it, like had this weird familiarity. And then it turns out there were like bushes that were near like a little place we had on a pond.
Oh wow, Yeah, And have you ever been back.
I have not. I've been curious. But then as over the decades as it became more and more authoritarian, sure it became less scarier prospect because.
Yeah, yeah, I understand that fully.
I got to go to.
And I don't know what the correct term would be, because I went there in nineteen eighty seven in high school on like this it was called it was called Moscow, Poland and the West. It was like a tour that we got to go on like first school, and so we actually it was behind the Iron curtain technically, it was like right before the wall came down and everything, and it was unbelieved. It was like one of my favorite things of my life. And it was so fascinating.
And the thing I've always talked about, which is so me is my favorite thing about it was people had card tables set up on the sidewalk with little glasses that would look like a small orange juice if you ordered it in a rest, and it was they were like half filled with coke, and so you'd go up and pay a couple of roubles and you stand there and drink your coke and give them the glass back. And that was basically you know, that was one of the many things you could do on some of.
Country, surviving off of basically lemonade stands entirely.
And then there were actually automated vodka dispensers that you could go up and do the same thing and then you just the same glass stayed in it and you paid.
You put it in like a.
You know, soda machine whatever, but it would just pour out a certain amount of vodka. Did there, take your shot, put it back and it would do like a rinse of like aizing rose.
It sounds like like like the germs only came to the Soviet Union in the mid nineties.
They were all collected on one glass.
Yeah, and then no, but it was but then we also stayed in places that were clearly at one time these unbelievable gorgeous hotels and now we all just got to be and there was like our rooms were like you know, there were thirty foot ceilings and these arched windows, and it was it was really amazing.
Well, yeah, I liked it.
So when you you and your parents fled, I assume you have fled with your parents.
Yeah, yeah, it was it was really their idea. Yeah, I knew so little of the world at that time. But yes, my parents and my brother and I all left together.
And was Massachusetts, So it's just an arbitrary choice or what was the process?
Like, No, I think that the process was. I think that we might have had friends in this area and there was like maybe jobs in tech. This was in you know, nineteen seventy nine, so I think it was just where like and maybe there was even like Jewish organizations helping us relocate, and for whatever reason it was this area. I think it had to do with the potential of work.
Wow, that's great.
Is that what your dad did or your mom did?
Like? Yeah? And math, Yeah, it's one of the staples of Russian refugees.
Are you how about you? Are you good at math? Because I am not.
I would describe myself as not great at math, not like like meaning I'm fine, but I'm not like I can't do math to like solve problems. Like yeah, if I, like my dad could tell you if like a bridge could hold a car and I can't do that. I could tell you if like you have like eighty apples and you added forty apples.
Yeah yeah, oh I can't do yeah.
Yeah, So I'm like more in the like I can like calculate almost unlimited numbers of apples, but not like ten of like the strength of various materials, Like I'm out.
These guys working on this bridge, they're going to get hungry and want apples, yeah, exactly.
And if they're like, we have eighty, and then another guy's like I have forty, Like oh, it sounds like you guys have one hundred and twenty apples. So and then the real you are fine, enjoy your lunch, yeah exactly.
And then the bridge collapses because they weren't paying attention.
To that math exactly.
It's your dad funny because I always thought it's maybe two different brains that are.
I think of comedy as a verb. I do think actually comedy and math are sort of very related because I think of, like, you know, comedy is figuring out sort of like this little problem and then like tweaking it in a way where you make a joke. So it is in a certain sense like kind of formulas but not but not math formulas. Yeah yeah, maybe it's no formulas.
Yeah yeah, those don't intimidate me like numbers do.
Yeah.
Maybe I am good at a form of numberless math.
Yeah, called comedy. Comedy trial and error, like science, You get on stage, you try stuff. Yeah that's not as good a punchline as this other thing.
You edits by adding or subtracting words.
Yeah, math at a particular velocity and speed.
All on a train leaving somewhere exactly.
So how did you get into stand up?
I loved stand up as a kid, like listening to like Emo Phillips and Bobcat Goldthway and watching Robin Williams is like at night at the met and now like in Heinstein, I'm like, oh, I got like thirty percent of it, but you know, I loved it. And then I think at some point in high school I was like, oh my god, that's a type of job, like not everyone like works with computers. There's all sorts of things, and you know, started doing more like theater and video
and stuff. And then you know, at the end of high school, essentrally, like the summer before college, tried stand up and it like went deceptively well. And then like my second time, as I think a lot of people like you feah really hard, You're like, oh, this is a very long process. Yeah, so but but I was still like it was it seemed so fun and so then you know, I like, I basically listened to so much stand up growing up and then started doing it
and then really loved it. Yeah, yeah, and comedy in general, like writing funny things and doing silly stuff.
And I don't know, yeah, I've always thought that you do much more than stand up in.
My now now in hindsight, yes, at eighteen, I don't know.
Well, I feel like I feel like I may have met you before. Could this be right?
I feel like I may have met you before, either before you started stand up or right when you started.
It's not pop, I mean well meaning I started when I was eighteen, So I find like, like I think, like that's not likely, like meaning, I think we met probably in New York though, so depending on when, Like, you know, I moved to New York in two thousand, and I did it throughout you know, I did stand up throughout college, and you know, then for a few years in Boston before moving to New York. We probably met in the early ish two thousands.
Yes, And maybe it was Maybe it was, And maybe that was just an assumption because I feel like when I first met you, you didn't say anything.
But then looking back, it's like.
If I was with David Cross, or I was with somebody that was your hero, right that maybe you just had that kind of like maybe you were the person that was running the room or do you know.
An, Yeah, you actually been quiet. I did do a show. Oh I did a show and invite them up at raffifi and starting in the early two thousands, and like I easily like I had met David through Brendan Small in Boston, and so it's very possible that like, I mean, it's likely that I met you with David and yes that I was quiet or or something, and yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, I think I had an idea of what New York comics were like in my mind, and then I just remember being I just remember you being very quiet, and then and kind of like almost like keep your eye on that guy. I don't know what that guy's doing. And so then I over the years watching your career has been very delightful to me because I was like and I'm sure I was also rude because that was it was always my approach.
Don't know that that don't think that was the case, but who does. I was probably like quiet and uncomfortable in the world. Sure, that's very likely.
I think I was rude and uncomfortable in the world. But it was that thing of like going from you know, nobody, especially at the time out of respect for LA comics, like you didn't want to be in LA comic, so going to going sorry, going to New York. I had that kind of thing of like this is the place
where you have to have good sets. And I was having absolutely terrible sets everywhere I went because I was truly a LA comic way where nothing was nothing was very punchy, it was all very self referential and you know, and I guess kind of sucked in a lot of ways. So so I think I just had like that defense up of like I'm not bad, you're bad, right, right, And I also.
Who knows, like depending on the night or what it was like, sometimes you'd try stuff that would be great and then sometimes it'd be like that's very strange and confusing, you know. So I feel like I you know, I mean, when I was in you know, there was like some people who went through like a world and stand up where you like are an opener and then you're a middler and then you're a headliner and maybe you're hosting
stuff that's like a lot of tourists. But I always found it much easier to sort of start my own show with friends and have like and sort of build an audience for the thing that like I'm trying to do.
And so I think as a result, like you would have these rooms where like you could actually then try sort of odd stuff, and the stuff that worked would then work in wherever across the country, and the stuff that and you just it wasn't so bad, like you could you could kind of bomb with grace, but as a result try a lot of different stuff.
Yes, as opposed to if you were carolines at ten o'clock at night and then you're just like, I shouldn't be a comedian, this is right.
Well you also, yeah, then have to be probably like I mean, and I think there was probably a world of very aggressive euro comics and then a world of sort of like nerdy gentle cop ofy like weird and absurd, and like again you're like figuring stuff out and then eventually like a lot of stuff blurs together and it's like all the things that were like sort of that world of you know, are now TV shows and people with movies and stuff.
Totally.
Yes, Yeah, I'm someone that I started in Austin and there was a pretty quickly you got work featuring at different clubs run by like Rich Miller and I. And when I moved to La I you were one of the first comics I saw where clearly you had built your own following and had your own thing going on, and to me that the going name for it was alternative comedy back then. Yeah, but I was like, Okay, this is what I want to do. I'm glad that I moved here because I felt uneasy and probably also
was very quiet around everyone. But what a relief to me to see that you were doing that and you didn't have to just go and feature on the road and struggle in front of flyover audiences, you know, right.
And also I think a lot of it was that, like it was also just a more like it was a for me, it was the better way to become a professional comedian. Like it wasn't like I was killing, as you know, a feature in random places and then did Like it was more that this was the way to build an actual following and like you know, I you know, put out an album in the very early two thousands, where other people in my position maybe wouldn't, but it was like that, that's what I had access to.
Like you can't put yourself on television but without without a threat, but you can like release a record and now it's probably you know, that much easier though, that much more saturated.
Yeah, when I met you, you had a following, grassroots following that you created, and especially from my perspective, people knew you in the audience. That just blew my mind. And we were young, we were children. Yeah, yeah, so good job. From the beginning.
I just wanted to get you here to say good job on that in the early two thousand.
Yeah, thank you so much, thank you, thank you. It was look you did.
It correctly, and I saw the early signs that you were doing it correctly. So again, congratulations to you twenty years ago.
Thank you, Thank you very very much.
And what are you doing these days, Eugene, what's what's.
Your deal now?
I'm I am uh me and my friend Julie Smith who who we did our comedy festival together, and a bunch of stuff we're working on, starting like a small comedy label. And I have a five year old son. So yeah, so a lot of time is spent, uh you know with him.
Sure good.
Yeah, like and he I feed him and I pat him on the head and I said, great job. Yesterday I got him a booster uh COVID booster shot. So all that sort of stuff. So I'm up to yeah exactly. It's a mix of dad stuff and Bob's and then recording random stuff and sort of slowly getting back into stand up as the pandemic is here forever. So so like at first I was like, oh, when things get better, and now it's like, well I had COVID in January. It was asymptomatic, but uh it was that was that
was fine, I guess for me. Yeah. So like I'm now slowly starting to do stand up, I guess yeah.
Yeah. I'm looking at it as just go on the road to celebrate these little vacations between variants. Yeah yeah, and that'll that'll be a nice I mean, that'll be okay, right, that'll be I think.
I think this is the new I think it's like you yeah, like I did like a benefit, you know, I don't know, like a thing where I just like did a small thing a month or two ago and I had a mask on most of the time, and a bunch of people there got COVID, but I had had it and didn't happen to get it. So it's like go to stuff, but maybe stay masked and not
near too many people. But I don't know, I think that's you know, but yeah, I think here in Massachusetts also a lot of people are you know, vaccinated, And sure right now most of the people I know having COVID. It's not like great, but it's not the like terror that it was.
Right, Yeah, so scary.
At did you did you travel here for the Bobs Burger's movie?
I did, I was. I was there, yeah, last week for the premiere. It was it was my first premiere. It was really fun. Yes, I mean like on that scale, like I've gone the guy in a documentary and went to the premiere of that, but like in terms of like a street is blocked off and there's a red carpet and a ton of press and like you know, photographers and all this stuff like.
People call it yelling Jean at you.
Yes, that I experience occasionally, but yeah, it was it was pretty It was fun and it was also really great to see everybody and yeah, the premiere was fun.
So you haven't seen any of these you've been recording then there at your house?
Yeah? I record, uh yeah at home mostly. We about a month and a half ago had gone out for wander Con, and so I saw for the first time some of the people and then some of the cast that's like here or Lauren Bouchard who comes to Massachusetts because he's from here. So like some some of the people I've seen, but then others I hadn't seen, you know, in a few years. So it was really really nice.
And people are loving that movie, right, I see people on Twitter.
I think people are enjoying it. Well, we'll find it.
I like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen clips that I like.
Yes, yes, I think it's I think it's very funny. I think it's very sweet, you know. I feel like Lauren and Norah and everybody like do such a good job of like these kind of very sweet, funny, quirky stories.
Yeah, it's it's I'm a huge fan of the show, so there's I feel like the movie is and also of the songs, Like the songs are just so brilliant, they really are. Yeah, it's so good. When you said Julie Smith. Though it reminded me. I just realized. The last time I actually saw you in real life was when I did your comedy festival at at the Bellhouse. I remember watching the lineup was insane, the audience was great, and I was just like I had that voice in my head that was just.
Like, and Ye're getting get out there and eat it, and I'm like, no, I'm not good. It was like that thing of like, don't just don't eat it, just don't do it.
It's important to have that voice always in your head. I know I have it. Yeah, I don't need it.
Yeah, Yeah, that's.
Even Sometimes the voice will say I wonder what it would feel like to stop doing well right now and consciously eat it, and then I do it, and then I do it. It terrible. I forgot terrible.
I forgot that.
It always feels needed.
The reminder that sucks.
I will do it. My brain is a terrible thing that I can't control. Yeah. The Belhouse is synonymous with your name. Actually I know nothing of it except you at a show there.
Yeah. We did our festival there and then A showed Union Hall for a long time. Yeah, it's a wonderful relief on venue, and I think, like now, like there's lots of shows, people have recorded specials there, and you know, it's a great space.
Yep, I forget about all them. That's Merman's House. And it's one of those dad movies or movies that my dad made me watch over and over. No, I loved it. Fletch, the first Fletch and like Catty Shack. But you're do you know much about this Fletch that's coming out or when it comes out?
I mean in the sense that I'm in it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I's like I don't know the details of like when it comes out or anything, but I know that I filmed it last summer, and I know that it's coming out and that you know, it'll be funny, and I think it'll be. Yeah, I'm very excited to see it.
Are you a character that was maybe based on one from the original movie?
I don't know. No, I don't, I don't. It's not I think that the tone of it is much more like the tone of the novels as I understand that from the seventies, So it's not a remake of the movies. It's like actually like an adaptation of the original books.
I'm always someone, yeah, that either doesn't know or forgets about the existence of books and how they brought me.
I think a lot of books, and I believe it is based on the book Confess Fletch.
I am going to go ahead and admit that I didn't know there was a series of Fletch books. Yeah, that's just.
I mean, I found out when I was doing them. I don't think like a lot of people are finding out right now that in the seventies there was a series of Fletchboesah.
Yeah, I don't think anyone like read them in high school. It doesn't seem to be well. Although I have to say, Fletch was a movie that came out right when I think I was twelve when it came out or so, so it was one of those movies that we had memorized and said the lines to each other constantly or whatever. And I do remember seeing that in the credits it was like based on the book by the author I
can't remember, Okay. So that's the only reason I knew is because I just loved that every frame of that movie.
I think it's great. And also it's starring John Hamm right.
Yeahs, yes, it is a comedy. He is funny in it though.
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yes, it's not a gritty reboot.
It's like the New Batman. It's like it's just it's just him, Like every scene he just murders someone. Yeah, in self defense. No, it's it's like a it's a it's a I mean it's yeah, it's it's very funny. It's directed by the Greg who did Super Bad, so it's this very funny Yeah.
I'm very excited to see that. Was it really fun to be in that movie?
It was really fun, you know, I like, uh, you know, I haven't done a ton of movies, and that was sort of it. And it was really fun and they were really nice and it was fun on set.
And yeah, you're gonna dust off your mirror suit.
Yes exactly, I'll have to.
Yes, ready for another carpet. Get used to it.
Yes, the new me.
Uh you get really big lips and lip injection.
Yeah, I will.
I will get like butt implants and shoulder spikes or whatever people do. I'll figure it out.
Give the shoulder spike implants.
I'll consult with the you know, the sty in the Boston area.
There was the Velvet Room, the place I started at in Austin. Next door was a burger place called Casino El Camino, and a lot of the employees there were from the Jim Rose circus side show thing, and there was a guy there with it. It was the first time I'd seen implants under like, I guess these little horns yes, yeah, yeah, embedded, I guess, screwed into the
bone of his skull. Yeah, And I couldn't. The skin was stretched over it like tot and I'm like, I, if you ever bump your horns getting out of your car, what is it? Horrified me just because I kept thinking of the accidents or bumping them that tight skin. I mean, this is a very clinical, disgusting thing for me to talk about. But I was obsessed with how dangerous it seems to have spiky implants. So do not get them in your shoulders. I will joke, yeah.
If you do. I didn't mean like I guess, yeah, I guess. It sounded like I was going to do surgical implants, right.
I assume you go through surgery and then get it all removed the day after the premiere. Yeah, the butt implants and everything, yeahs.
Over yeah, I'm not going to do that. I think I saw that guy there because I've seen that in my life around twice, and I feel like it's either there, Yeah, because I remember that place.
I wonder if that's you know, like people get their tattoos removed after a while. I wonder if, like you get two horns implanted in your head and then like thirteen years later, you're kind of like, I don't know if I'm really this person anymore.
Probably right around the same time you're passing the bar.
Yeah, yeah, you're so.
You're a talented lawyer.
You're like a very good lawyer. You just at twenty were like, I'm a scary little monster in the Yeah. Yeah.
Why is he always wearing a fedora to court?
Yeah, exactly to hide his horse or a very large wig, like a top.
Like one of those British Yeah exactly, British barristers.
It's just upon bringing his own powdered wig to court.
Hey, look, I want to do this the right way, he says, hiding his horn.
I really want there to be a modern day lawyer that, without explaining it to people, just wears a wig like that. I want it to be true. Just for you know, geez, yeah, just for litigation, just for for a hit and run accident. Anything powdered wig. You know what, I'm going to start wearing one, do it?
Yeah? I think I came.
Here for support.
Wait for winter, though, because there it will warm you up really good. I think summers summer's not great.
Well that's the purpose of the powder. Sure you're sweaty and disgusting under that wig, but the powder keeps you fresh because it's medicated.
Yeah.
Wait, can we go back to Fletch for one?
Yeah, let's do let's get out of this whole wig thing.
I'm sorry were back in so Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, so Greg Mantola directed it, who did super Bad, And it's a very funny and Ham as great as Fletch.
Did you ever do any like did anything ever happen on set? Like did you forget your lines?
Or wait?
Did you have to shoot?
So originally I was worried that I would have to do a Boston accent, and but I had like as written, there were only like two lines or so, and I was like, do I have to do that? Because it's originally I think was cast as that because really John Hammond and Greg had asked me if I wanted to do like they were like, here's the world, do you want to do this? We're shooting in Boston, and it
sounded fun and so I agreed. And then when I saw it, I was like, Oh, I wonder if I have to do this Boston accent for these two lines out there. No, I'm a security guard.
I would assume if any jo.
I think they had enough. So like when I got there, they were like, we have plenty of people who are local who have an actual Boston accent, so you don't have to like pretend, which is great because it's like one thing to try to get like one or two lines, but to improvise in an accent that I don't really do would be its own level of effort.
Which is funny because you're actually from Massachusetts.
Yeah, yeah, it's not like I can't probably say a word or two, but like to have a conversation is different. So it's like a lot of improv and it was it was pretty fun. I haven't seen it yet, but but I've but somebody I saw somebody last week who said they saw it that it was funny, and yeah, so I'm excited to see it.
I am so too. Have you guys seen not to change the subject to something that involves none of us but the new kids in the hall.
No, I really want to see it.
It is. I texted your Karen today, like you didn't have better things to do? Hey, one pm, watch all of kids in the hall and be sure to just be in your underpants like me. They really went for it. I'll just say that I was so and I thought maybe they wouldn't get away with certain things. But it's so well done and they are so good that it is. I highly recommend it. It's great.
No.
I watched it with the second that I heard that it was on, and I was just like, this can't be real.
And then I just binge the entire thing. I was thrilled.
They are funnier than ever. And I don't know what if they've been practicing with acting, they're so good.
Well they've all been a didn't Yeah, I think so?
Yeah?
Yeah, I think they've all stayed in practice.
Yeah, kept it warm.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I can't wait to watch it.
I hosted some music festival and I do want to ask you about that, Eugene, because I know you've opened for a lot of bands, but uh, one of the we went to Calgary. It was like a folk music festival and you just had to talk in between these acts as as they were setting up. It was actually and no one was listening, but it was me and another comic, Derek Sigin, I think. And then Kevin McDonald was there, and he was so nervous. He acted like he just had moved to Saskatchewan and gotten married and
he didn't do showbiz stuff anymore. That's why I was so happy to see how funny he was. Because he's so funny. I was worried that he would get on stage and no one would know him. And the minute he got on stage, the whole crowd freaked out. I mean either yeah, and he's like, oh, what a relief, And I'm like, are you kidding me? Yes, Yeah. He was so humble and it's like he didn't even know. I was just staring at him, so excited to have
met him. They were just really important to me in the in the early nineties, watching them over and over and over. Yeah.
So anyway, he actually was one of the people the Odd Bloc festival that they used to do and I believe Winnipeg. Yeah, and their first night, they had a kind of like all the comics can go and hang out in the lobby of the main theater that they have it in, and he was there and I was freaking out. It was like it might as well have been fucking Rob lower At.
That's the only other slow you can think of.
But I like, yeah, I problem too.
Those are the two that matter to me most. But I think I was with like Michelle Buteau or something, or they're like, go say hi, and I'm like no, no, no, no, Like I was acting so weird. But it was that thing to me of like those guys were I loved that show. And it was at this time where I'd like flummed out of college. There was nothing going on. I hadn't started stand up and yeah, it was it truly was like the idea that he would think people wouldn't recognize him in Canada is hilarious.
Yeah, right, and then they it was just to see thirteen thousand people on this outdoor this island. It was the middle of the day. It was a terrible gig and that's why he was nervous.
Yeah, yeah, it was right to be like this is a good thing. Right. The part where he was wrong is that people adore him and he's very funny.
And the part where he's right, he's like, I'm supposed to do stand up. I don't do that. Yeah.
I think like as I've done sort of things that music stuff, I have shrunk like like now I'm like, oh you like I think after the first time that someone was like and you can go as they're setting stuff up, and then it turns out like you can't. You can't possibly perform as stuff is being set up, so you have to say like, no, I can do a set beforehand or after, but I can't do it during.
It's not it's just genuinely not possible, Like you can't tell a joke and someone is like trust like trying the sound of the symbol and then like of a kick drum and then there's a guitar, Like it's not feasible. But it takes having terrible experiences to go like, oh, these are the things that I that you should and they don't know. They're like, it'll be fun, yeah, and the answer is it will not be fun.
Yeah. It's always you're always tricked into it by because that's this festival. There was of course a comedy tent with twelve people sitting in the grass right then later oh and then there's just this other thing where you kill time as Roady's drape cable over your shoulder right.
Right, And I think you have to like now I know that if someone asks the thing, I'm like, yeah, I'll totally do like this version of it. But na, like I'll do a set before a band, But there can't be like someone tuning up instruments. And you also can't do like a really a half hour like you have to in a row, like it has to be, you know, unless I guess it's like you're both like draws or something like that, like if you're splitting the bill as opposed to like opening for some huge band.
Do you have any do you have any nightmare stories from doing gigs like that?
I mean, you know what's funny is like it's all it's like, well, no, it's like more like the stories where it's like and it went shockingly well, is like the part that like is in a sense amazing, Like I certainly have, Like I did a tour in Florida with Modest Mouse where I did maybe twelve shows, and you could imagine that some like work very hard, but the fun your part is almost like a few work great.
Like yeah, but it's true that there was one maybe in Miami that was like it was like so hot and people couldn't hear me, and there was a woman in the front like I don't know, or a kid like I forget, like somewhere between, probably like around eighteen or twenty, and she was like kind of get my attention, and like it was so distracting and everyone was yelling, and then I was like and then finally it became clear that like people didn't realize that there's like a schedule,
so like if I get off stage, it h the band doesn't go on any faster. And then she also tried to convey sort of basically and I I'm Randy and philosophy of self interest that I was like, are you describing on Rand She's like, I've never heard of her. She's just I just like act in a self interested, selfish way.
It's as while you were on stage, yes, it was.
Like this is what I mean. It was like people distracting you with complicated, tedious concepts. Oh, and the problem is also like you can't even like make fun of like it's not like like it's the whole thing. It was just also just noise and chaos. But on the other hand, there were shows in like I think it was Saint Augustine that were really fun in Jacksonville were really really great. One of the way that it all
sort of that like doing stuff with bands. I did stuff with Gila Tango because they would have comics on shows and stuff. But when I started working with this agent who was wonderful and booked me on the Modest Mouse Tour and then some other stuff. She when the Shins were blowing up, so like I don't know, around two thousand and two plus or minus, like they had three shows at Bowery and she was like, do you
want to open for the Shins? And I was like, yes, I would love to open for the Shins, and you know, and then I learned like from that experience, like let people know they'll be a comedian. Yeah, So like there's two other bands, and then I think at eleven o'clock or ten or whatever it was that when the Shins were supposed to go on instead, I came out to do ten minutes of stand up comedy and there's people going
like shin shin shit said. Then I'm like hello, and I think I had like also some video because I knew it could be hard, Like nobody really yells at
video because they know it can't stop. But there was a point in which like I'm sort of trying to talk or whatever, and then I made some joke of how I can't believe I'm being heckled by people who could get beat up by Belle and Sebastian, and then that kind of like turned and everyone's like, oh, this is let's give this person six minutes of our attention. So then people were kind of nice. So it was like but yeah, and then I did, you know, various shows, and now since then have like done a lot of
music comedy things with friends, you know. But also it's that's at a time where it's like if there's an opportunity to like reach an audience and like have to figure out how to make it work, you know, it's totally worth that. So like, yeah, you know, that's like if there's a way to like make two hundred dollars in a night and pay your rent, and maybe it's a little hard, you still you know, do it and also reach people and probably you know, find fans in the end.
Yeah.
I did that Yola Tango show one time. I really love those guys. They're so nice and there's they had. They have so many friends that are comics and stuff, and I've felt so honored to do it. And at one point I was finishing a joke and I was so I was so shaky about like I just kind of I'm sure it came out, but it's like I didn't believe in myself as a stand up doing stand up in New York City. I was like, I just don't have the hard jokes to be doing this, and
I think it like showed. But there was one joke that I was doing and it was about a taco bell commercial and the punchline was like bitches ruined food and the second the last word was out of my mouth.
This guy in the back goes and rock shows.
And then people kind of like booed the guy, which then felt horrible because then it was like, oh, this audience pities me. Like it's kind of thing where the whole thing turned, and it is absolutely the thing I think of because I'm so furious myself for not giving it a beat and then going like, and this is of course the comeback I've written hundreds of years later, it doesn't matter.
Yeah, I was like, oh, bitches ruined rock shows.
Let's not we better not tell Georgia the fucking drummer of Yo Latango.
But instead I was just like, I can't remember what I did. It was like, uh, this that's not the spirit of Hanukkah whatever, and.
Then yeah.
Holidays, Yes, yeah, those shows were really fun. I mean they're you know, they also like but but they were also a thing where like people knew to expect a surprise band and a surprise comic for those shows. So it was, you know that that was It was really when you'd be on a show and people are well for the Shins, one was like, why is there? Why
is this person not the Shins? And then the Monastus shows, I think I'd like, I was like, because nobody would have known me, so I was like, please build me as comedian Ugee Burbot just so people know it's comedy. And then I think, similarly, I am seed that this tour for Cake, the Unlimited Sunshine Tour with Cake, Teagan and Sarah and Gogle Bordello and that I was like,
you know that. Also, like the opening set was great, it was really easy, and then I could do a sort of shorter set after the first band, and then like when it was time for Cake, like cause I think they were like and you'll do like a few minutes, but then you would walk out and basically it was, you know whatever, three thousand people chanting Cake and there's
no like version where you're like, hold on. I'd love to tell you about a time at a mall that was a little silly, like nobody wants to hear it. They're just like Cake, so like, but then you just once you do it, like with bands, you're just like, here's what will work. I'm happy to do that. If like you want a different thing, like it doesn't it's not a good idea.
Yeah, like for sure it's proven out.
And you don't want me to do forty five minutes, Like you don't want forty five minutes, you want like twenty twenty five. Yeah maybe Brodags.
Yeah, I'll never forget watching Tool asked David Cross to open for them and were this was like in it was in southern California, but it was outside of La somewhere, I want to say, it was in either Ventura or something, and we all drove out to watch it because we're like, oh yeah.
We'll get you know, Tool tickets or whatever.
And then David's performing and he literally got introduced. He walked on stage and everyone just started throwing bottles and bottle caps and shit at him.
Oh no, and he didn't.
He got to the microphone, he tried to fight against it for like thirty seconds and then they just left. It's like Tools, audience doesn't want fi fucking comedy, and it's Maynard Keenan who was like, I love comedy, they'll love comedy.
It's like it does not work that way at all.
Yes, I think it's like depending like I did a tour with Andrew Byrd and his audience was incredible. They are like the lovely NPR people, and I did. I think that show was actually probably like half hour opening sets, like you know, but it was like, you know, a very pleasant show in theaters for you know, a lovely audience. Yeah, but Tool sounds impossible, yes, so like yeah.
But you know what was just as bad. And I was too new green and new to stand up to have done well, but because it was a half hour in front of Selene or Cindy Laupper, so I always want to call her Celine Dion. But they threw stuff and yelled get off stage too, and it was Cydey Lauper, and the woman that asked me to do it got fired because of how badly I did. It was the worst. I cried afterwards. I had trouble getting paid. I was fired, yeah right there.
And how long? How much time were you supposed to do?
This was like two thousand and five and it was in Houston, Texas at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Way and the girl, I think she worked for Verizon, and she was like, oh, I know a comedian that could open for Chris or for Cindy And I was just not ready and there was no announcement. They people cheered when I walked out, thinking it was going to be Cindy Lauper and it was just a guy and they had
just immediately were booing. But I was like, I gotta do my thirty minutes of what was then like wordplay and puns now it and someone peeked down and I was fired and I never got my free meal. Everything was bad, and they were.
Right to the Verizon Center.
Well I thought it was going to be they said yeah, and there's a whole tour after that. And my friend Tommy was a regular opener for Share and he had bought a house from that gig. Granted he was also a family friendly like magician. He had a lot of plan bees to go to other than jokes, right.
Right, Yes, I once had very early in whatever I think in the early two thousands, I was almost with some agency and they booked some room in Vegas. So I went to like La to like to like meet with them and maybe come back and meet like have another meeting or whatever. And they were like, you could go and do this, you know, off the beaten path Vegas room where you would I think just do ten minute sets or something like something not and I like,
I was supposed to do eight shows. I think in the first night I did too, and it was just such a mismatch where it was like also it was like an audience of people like on ventilators and or like respirator not ventilators anyway, like oxygen machines and very like elderly and this was you know what it was. This was actually after nine to eleven because the guy who headlined killed with like it was something like forty
five minutes of stuff about bush Gore. But it felt like it was it was like November ish or Actroum November after nine to eleven. So it was this weird thing where like the world had changed and it was like I get doing topical stuff, but it was like not exactly topical, but to that audience it was quite topical.
And I remember saying something about the Internet, you know, because this is what two thousand and one, and then I like meaning the Internet, like like it was like offhanded, like I signed up for something on the Internet, and I could see in the eyes of the audience that they like they didn't use the Internet, Like it was not like I was like it was like I brought up the telephone before most households had a telephone.
Yeah, and if you're on a ventilator thing, you yeah, I really know you're going to the Internet.
But it was like I was like, oh, I can't. I don't have like I thought, like this is broad stuff that will relate and then I forget like the poor ms like so the MC trying to help me, like like he was genuinely trying to help me. And he was like, do you have any fart jokes or anything about being Jewish? And I was like I had like one thing, like I didn't, but I tried what I and it was like this is not a good match.
And then the the place was like, you know what, you can stay at the hotel the next three days, but why don't you do none of the shows? And I was like, this is great, this is a great deal. I do not need this six more times.
Yeah, you got treated much better than I was. Just locked out of the Verizon Wireless Amphi theater. Yeah, pushed out by a rody guy.
Don't come back.
Well.
You know that's funny is that the early days or the old days of the Largo when it on Fairfax, they used to always try to have comedy openers for music nights, and I would do it all the time because I like that was the level that I was at of kind of like hosting and MCing and stuff.
They music audiences at that time did not want It's like they got trained into accepting comedy going with music, but in the beginning it they didn't like it, and it is a totally different vibe, yeah, than any kind of a comedy audience, Like when they're there to get sung to and you know, like see their favorite musician in an intimate setting. They don't want to hear anything out of my mouth for sure, And it'd just be like I would totally do it for the money and
the dinner that you would get. I'd be like, I don't care, fine, I have to pay my attend you played a spaghetti Yeah.
Yeah. But also like as it happened more and more often, people like like meaning I now do it with musicians where like it seems like it could be a fun match or it would go well, or it's like someone I like and we're kind of doing it together, you know, totally. But it's yes, it's true that like if no, like yeah, if it's like a raucous crowd who don't really know there's gonna be comedy, it is not. It is a little uphill.
It's not great.
Also, if you I think, if you're going out in front of a crowd like that, you have to know you have like the killer material that's going to land kind of no matter what. And I was on a comic that would always be like I'm gonna try this thing. It's like, no, dummy, no, get the get all of your closers and put them all together, you know.
Right right front you like, yeah, fifteen minutes of closer basically help yourself.
Yeah yeah, yeah, and that is jokes.
Yeah, if you, if you, if Yeah. Now now I can show them so many bobs episodes like enjoy this far. Here's another fart coming at you, oldie.
One of the great historical farts of all time.
Exactly. Yeah. Now you know, two decades later, I have the fart jokes I needed.
Yeah. Yeah, it just is not well, yeah, you gotta craft them that some some of those fart jokes just need time to be molded.
Eugene, do you still do your podcast?
No? I did it for I mean it was really like audible hit, like was like do you want to do this thing? And they had basically all all these stories that they that they had recorded, and so I would talk to the person and they would so so it was it was really really fun. But I think that they were like we're now doing like I think they moved to do like larger long form sort of like almost like radio plays and stuff, and so I
forget how many years ago that stopped. But I really enjoyed it, and I would totally do a podcast like I love like I did like college radio, you know in college, and I love radio. So podcast is very like, you know, it's really fun. So would totally do something like that again. But don't do it right.
I forgot. That's how I because we didn't know each other very well, and that is how I was. They had it recorded from me.
They already had it, yes, yeah, they had recordings, and so I would talk to you know, interview the people, and we would pause it and like go like wait, like tell me a little more about that.
It's just so funny because they set me up to record in Missoula, and the place I recorded was a place where they teach kids how to play guitar, and then they had a little recording area so little kids could So I was just in a little room with little kid guitars. It's just in Yeah, it was. It was really an interesting experience. It was pre zoom, you know.
Yeah, do you have anything else you want to plug? Bob's Burger's movie.
Yeah, The Bob's Burgers movie is coming out I don't know when this comes out, but the Bob's Murgers movie comes out on May twenty seventh, so either go to it or go right when you hear this. Yeah, there can go the evening after or if it's September, go rent it, rent it.
No, you're fishing for a day that this will come out, but we we just go, oh no, I.
See this comes out. This comes out six twenty seven. So so so I've done a perfect job promoting. So I hope you saw Bob's Burgers, the mono Fletch. Go see Fletch. If that's been an ass so that's check that out.
I'm very excited, Yes, both excited.
Yeah, yeah, well awesome. Thank you so much for doing this one.
Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun. Thank you guys.
Well, Eugene, you look good with that beard. I've been meaning to say, thank you, thank you. I know that's a visual reference, not good for podcasting, but that's a nice beard.
Thank you.
Ejeene has a beard. It's really it goes down to his belt.
And yeah it's yes, I'm working my way into his eazy top.
Yes, he has a guitar that spins from a belt buckle, yeah, exactly. And he's got legs and he knows how to use them. I'm going to stop now, I'm going to stop with this easy top.
Rep stop and wrap it up.
Yeah it. Thank you for being on e Jene you've been listening to Do You Need a Ride?
D y n a R.
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Artwork by Chris Fairbanks.
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