MARC MARON -The Maronated Burger

Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke. I'm your host, coleeen Witt, and today we have a very special guest, comedian, actor, writer, producer, but the godfather of podcasting. As everyone has been like buzzing about, Mark Marin is in the building and I am I'm like nervous, which I never really get nervous. I'm excited. I've been excited. I've been emailing you. And just so you guys know

Guys, So if.

You want to get a glimpse of who he is, like off camera, that's who he was. And I sent you an email.

I know, I didn't know how it was gonna unfold, really, you know, I said okay, and then I didn't know if.

You were going to email, and then emailed and then I was like maybe later. Yeah.

He kept on me and okay, yeah, I did a little follow I'm driving out there.

And then what I loved is that you were like, you know, you used to eat meat, right, yeah?

And then you were like I'm vegan, now how do we do this?

And we went back and forth about that a little bit, and guys, before he announces his dish, I just want to let you know that I was so excited. I got in the kitchen to a little bit on his meal and I helped make.

One of the ingredients.

I was surprised, that's pretty good.

Well, I just figured that ingredient out, because when I was coming up early on, I don't even remember what I ate.

I don't remember cooking.

I don't because I was in New York City and there was really the kitchen was hardly a kitchen in the apartment. This is going back to the beginning of the career. I can cook now and I cook all the time, but that back then, I was like, what did I even eat? And then I started to think about it today and I still can't remember that well because I didn't really eat breakfast. I smoked, so it was like cigarettes and coffee for breakfast. I don't know what happened at lunch.

Really. I know I didn't cook in New York.

Back and I was there eighty nine like and in a small apartment on the Lower East Side. But I do remember trying to figure out how to eat cheaply and what me and the other comics would do. So I had to dig up this restaurant, which is the one I remember going to a lot and look at their menu and then figure out what it was that we used to eat there. And I figured it out. And it wasn't easy. I mean, it wasn't hard to make vegan.

Yeah, oh no, no, it seems pretty simple.

But why don't you tell our listeners what it is you're going to have me eating today?

Okay, Well, the original dish was at a place called Dojo, which was this sort of kind of almost like hippie Asian place on St. Mark's and it was open late, so we would go. It was do you know Todd Berry is to comic like. There was a few guys that would hang out, but we would eat there a lot because it was cheap. And what we would get they had, like, you know, they had a lot of like noodles and stuff, but they had they had turkey burgers, and they had these kind.

Of tofu burgers which were kind of weird.

Because you'd think it was healthy but it was deep fried and it had like so we.

Would get No.

I don't know how they made it. I remember I had like seaweed strands in it somehow. But what we would get we get a turkey burger, but not a turkey burger sandwich. Get the turkey burger on brown rice. And then they had this this Japanese barbecue sauce, which wasn't that good, but I forgot to tell you about that, so I bought one.

We'll see how that goes.

And then they'd have either a side salad or side of steam vegetables. And they made this dressing. There's a few different versions of this dressing in New York. It's a I think it's a Japanese style dressing, kind of this carroat ginger thing. But I've tried to make make it another way, which is more complicated. And then before I was going to talk to you, I looked up that recipe because when I went to look at the

So ye did it?

Did it? I actually did it?

So basically what we're eating is brown rice with a patty on top, with the side of the steam vegetables with the dressing, and I'll put the barbecue sauce on the patty.

So there are no buns.

Yeah, I was, well, you can, you can have a turkey burger on a bun.

But we were I think we were kind of I don't know if I've always been health conscious, but it was just it was the way to do it, to get more of a full meal for the price. Right, you can get a burger, but like the rice and everything else, it was the way to go.

It's like a platter versus just a burger.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, because you know, you go out and you order a burger, You're like, what's going on the side of it?

What can I fill up even more with?

Sure?

And a lot of time when you're starting out in comedy anyways, you kind of figure out, Like once I got into the comedy cellar, you could just eat there. You would figure out ways to eat for free at the club and that's not always healthy. But the comedy seller had great food, like great food, but I was trying to figure out what was I eating and we'd either.

Go I'm surprised you didn't get like chopped cheese. But it sounds like you were more health conscious.

Well it was health conscious, but also like I was never I don't feel like I was ever so conscious. Like I would spend money on food and the kitchen. Like I said, I didn't have anything in that kitchen. I remember one time I tried to, like, I gone out to eat at a Chinese place and they had this full, like steamed fish with ginger.

It was like really good. I'm like, I'm gonna make one of those.

So I went down to Chinatown and I bought a walk and some soy sauce and a whole fish. And I got back to my kitchen. I'm like, I can't even cut this.

It was so sad. It was just me and this whole fish and.

You didn't have knives or something.

Well I did, but not much.

I didn't know how to, you know, manage a kitchen. And I'd worked in restaurants my whole life. And that was the other thing about starting out too, back when I was in Boston before New York, because I worked at a restaurant, but it was a coffee place before Starbucks. It was a real high end coffee place at a small menu, but still I was just jacked up on coffee all the time, smoking cigarettes. So there wasn't a

What is that like a patch or something.

No, it's literally a candy and you just kind of put it in your mouth and suck on it for a minute until you feel the buzz and then you just kind of stick it in your lip.

I have one in now. Oh wow, I don't know. I was off.

I've gotten on on and off nicotine and forms over the years.

I did you feel the buzz from the cigaret? I've never really got. I'm never well. I suck at smoking.

Yeah, yeah, like I've tried smoking weed. I tried smoking a cigarette once, I just don't think I know how to Yeah, well, I know how.

To smoke anything. So you know, drugs are definitely part of this story.

I every night, sure, I just do it, and I'm like, I have the best sleep.

Yeah, I can't do that. I've been sober a long time twenty four years.

Wow, that's amazing now. Where you sober back then?

No, I you know that that whole thing.

But the other place I can tell you about, the other place we used to eat was this Polish place called Kiev, And it was like there was a whole crew of comics that were around then. So it was me, Sarah Silverman, Jeff Ross, Louis, Nick Depolo, and Todd Berry where we'd hang out after these clubs.

But Kiev used to be up.

In twenty four hours, and I didn't want to try to get You want to try to figure out.

How to make parogi's or borsh it's a process.

But that was like the other cheap place we would eat drugs and alcohol. I think when I got to New York, I was out here. I graduated college and I wanted to do comedy. I came out here to La Yeah, and I didn't really know my a buddy of mine who I used to do like comedy skits with in college, was a year ahead of me, and he moved out here and we had written some stuff together. So I was going to write with him, and he lived in Culver City, so I moved to Culver City

So then I got a job as a doorman.

Okay, that's by the way.

I think it's so weird that the comedy door makes or doesn't make their comics, but you know their comics are like dorman.

Well, there was a system, yeah, and it was it was the way it worked.

It was a singular thing, and all the doormen were comics. And back then it was before Bringer shows and any of that crap.

Right, So so when you were a door guy, at the comedy store.

You were in the system and you'd be and I loved the place, like and eventually I got pushed out of the place in Culver City and I moved up to uh Mitzi owned a house behind the comedy store that she rent out to comics. So I lived in Crestilla, And you know, at that time, the big acts or who was I watching as a door guy became I was the head door guy because no one wanted to do it. It was ridiculous because I was doing blow and I was like drinking. I was living the life, you know.

Way over the edge. But Kennison was like that too.

But anyway, so I started hanging around with Cannison kinda and doing a lot of drugs with that guy. So the point being is when I left LA in eighty eight, I was out of my mind from cocaine psychosis and I was just crazy, like I was, you know, like hallucinating and like I thought, paranoid and I was way gone and things fell apart at the comedy.

Store and I just left.

When you say they fell apart at the comedy store, well.

I mes a door guy. There wasn't much to fall apart.

But I was using my mind from staying up too much and not sleeping and hanging out with these demons.

These It was insane at that time. It was the late eighties.

It was insane the people that were hanging around what was going on there, you know, because there was like this weird triangle between the roxy which was rock and roll so and Monday nights at the store back then, we're open. They were free, all the rooms were free, so all the freaks would come and that was like Kennison's big night. He'd show up at like Elevin. He give me a bunch of money to go set up, you know, a party at the house that would start on Monday and go to like Wednesday.

It was just literally three days.

Yeah.

Crazy, So I lost my mind and I realized that, you know, I remember the moment I kind of had a meltdown in the parking lot because I was just out of my mind and I had a falling out with Sam over some weird shit, and I remember asking the drug dealer.

I'm like, I don't know, man, I don't know what to do. It's like things are falling apart, you know, out of the group. And the drug dealer was like, you got to you gotta leave. You got to go do your own thing. So if the drug dealers telling you to leave, wow, it's time to leave.

Yeah. So yeah, because yeah, So I went.

Home to New Mexico.

I got clean for the first time, went to rehab, and I went back to Boston.

Wait when you said home to New Mexico.

Yeah, I grew up in Albuqerque.

So you went back there, you got clean.

Yeah, I checked in and if I if I can dry it out, and then I went back to Boston.

And how old were you, if you don't mind me asking, around that time, that.

First time, so that was probably eighty eight, So sixty three, seventy three, eighty three, I don't know, like twenty four or twenty five.

You were young?

You were, Yeah.

I mean I went out there to you know, be you know, a comedian right after college. But it's all I wanted to do. So I went back to Boston where you know, and I got clean, but I wasn't really doing the thing. So I went back to Boston and I auditioned for Barry Katz and I started, you know, kind of trying to do open mics in Boston because you know, I was I was, you know, I was a non paid break or at the comedy store, but you know, you didnt get a lot of stage time.

Horrible one nighters. By the way, like, well that was it.

I mean like you were saying you're bombing when you say horrible.

No, the way it worked, I mean, if you're interested.

I am.

So I get back to Boston and I'm just doing open mics and there's a few clubs. There's a scene in Boston. It's real.

There's a lot of Boston comics and I'm doing open mics.

And there was a competition in eighty eight called the WBC on Comedy Riot, and it was like a process of elimination, and I came in second.

And from like then from.

Eighty eight, late in eighty eight, because I came in second the competition.

I started working as a comic in eighty eight.

And the way the work worked in Boston is there were a few clubs, a few bookers that booked one

I was kind of every year and a half or so, i'd get clean.

I'd go about year and a half without really doing the work to stay sober, and then I'd ease back into it. And it kind of went like that throughout most of it.

When you say doing the work, like not going to like the AA meetings or what have.

You, well I went for a bit, but I never really got it. You know, if you're gonna do it that way, you're gonna get it or you're not gonna get it. The program, the way to use the program in order to not do the thing that's you know, making your life bad, Like you can go to meetings and listen and kind of you know.

Absorb it.

But until I think you start to understand the ideas for yourself, you don't really have any tools to not drink like you know you or do drugs. You got to sort of make phone calls to other people in the room.

You got to go to the meetings and.

Keep it fresh, and you'll figure out how when you're gonna use or you're gonna drink, to either go to a meeting or make a phone call instead of doing the drugs.

Yeah.

So that's tricky because you know you want to do the drugs.

Like it's it's a definite pull. And by the way, you're gonna have to start cooking for us. Did you eat breakfast yet today?

No? I waited too. I'm starving.

It's going to be good. There's no way it's not gonna be good.

Well almost. You make it simple, just beyond burger. Do you need oil when you do it?

Yeah? Yeah? You want me to turn this off?

Yep. I want to see you cook. Do you cook on electric or no?

I got a guess of yeah, I have you do? Yeah.

But here in the studio, everyone complains about this electric store.

Yeah, I don't like electrics are sort of hard to control.

Yeah, I cook all the time because I I don't well, not not just because I'm vegan. I've been cooking a long time anyways, ever since I had a kitchen that was functional. I cook because, like, if I go to a restaurant, you don't know what you're gonna get.

Sometimes it's not that good, and I can I have this.

I'm able to cook and I can follow recipes, so if I can make it better, why not cook? But the only problem with that is you got to make room for restaurants because if you cook all the time, that means you got to clean up all the time. That means you gotta you know, you know, keep your kitchen full. There's good reasons.

To go out.

Yeah.

I used to always say, like as a single person, I always else it was actually cheaper to eat out.

More than That's why I.

Even I think, what was it Thanksgiving? I think the other day I was like.

Sometimes, especially now, the groceries are so expensive. Yeah, I'm like, is it worth it financially to cook the meal or to to get it out? I know for Thanksgiving, I just did a seafood platter I just went and got crab legs, yeah, lobster and some potatoes and called it a day. And it was you know, cooking seafood is like nothing, pretty easy. You just boil it and you're done.

Yeah.

For Thanksgiving, I usually go to my mother's in Florida and cook for twenty people.

You cook, I do the whole You do. Oh, I would.

Love like I've got a system, man, Like I did it this time, this first time I've gone back. Is a vegan, so I had to figure out how to do that, you know, for myself.

Yeah, but anyone else in the family vegan.

Yeah, I have a cousin.

But it was pretty easy because all the sides can be vegan outside of the turkey and the stuffing and if you're gonna make turkey gravy. But I actually try to make a vegan gravy which worked out pretty well, and all the sides. So I made turkey stuffing, cranberry sauce that's vegan. I made mashed potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, garlic. I did stream beans, I did Brussels sprouts, I did yams.

All that can make vegan.

Now are you are you still comfortable touching me like when you had the model.

Care like, I'm not like it wasn't really ethical. The reason I did. I ate a lot of meat like I had for years.

I had this.

Smoker that they gave me, and I was smoking briskets and you know, chickens and just you know, eating a lot of fish.

And then I don't know, I got smoked the fish I try. I have smoked fish, Is it good?

It was okay to do, like juice style fish because you know, I'm Jewish, I.

Grew up with it.

But you know, those smoke like you can smoke sable fish, which is a black cod. It takes time, and you know sometimes like there's certain types of food that are better made by people who know how to do it, like you know, like Indian food, you know you better I'll find in a good Indian place and trying to manage those spices. But I got a good recipe for china masala that I.

Make now really, yeah, you call it china massa. I love te Tika masala.

Tika masaut well, chaina is the chickpeas so tika is chicken right, or make it with meat?

The chauina is uh, it's just chickpeas.

Did you make it from scratch?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I like it. I'll cook for the week, man, I mean I like it.

Like I got brown rice at home right now, and then like just have that for a base, I get ko kalifar or whatever. And then you know, for proteins, I've been air frying tempe which is great. Tempe is it's like a soy it's made from soy beans from men and toy beans or these are pretty good.

I'll eat these.

Sometimes I'll do air fried tofu beans and rice some different kinds, and I'll do uh, you know, I'm kind of doing a macro thing. These be this restaurant in New York called Angelica Kitchen, which was really the sort of the.

First kind of macro macro What does that mean.

Well, it's a system of eating a vegan where you know, you get all these different things to balance your food. So usually there's a grain, a bean of some kind a protein, and then there's a vegetable and maybe some fermented stuff. And she used to, you know, do seaweed salad too, So like you make a bowl of that, so you get everything you need.

And then when you say protein like you would just.

Do like a usually for there it was Tempe or Tofu or something like. There's not a or Satan. There's not a ton of you know, vegan protein is you really get it from the vegetables. But you know, Tempe, Tofu and Satan.

Left off with you being sober for a year and a half and then you took a nose dive back.

Oh yeah, so I was in Boston right and you know, doing the one nighters and yeah, eventually I started drinking using drugs again, but then I was going then what happened?

Is?

I just have one question for you. Drinking and doing the drugs.

Was it an every day pull or was it something bad happened and then you wanted to do it.

No, it's just part of my life, you know, smoking weed every day, you know, drinking at night and doing you know blow occasionally. You know, I wasn't a daily blow, dude.

That's a big expense.

But you know, in Boston we used to be able to drink for free at Catcherizing Star. So you go do the one nighters and then you race back to Boston to get in on you know, the free blooze at night.

So it was. It was pretty regular.

But in eighty nine, you know, I was you know, a lot of the people I started with were starting to break, you know a little bit, and a lot of them moved to LA.

Like Dave Cross and that crew.

They were going to do sketch comedy and they came out here to make Mister Show eventually, and I was like, I'm not I'm not a collaborative person on a comic.

So I moved to New York in eighty nine, and yeah, I'd gotten sober again.

And I got to New York and I was on the Lower East Side and I was trying to break into the clubs and doing, you know, wandering around New York a lot. And I lived right on a street I was just full of heroin junkies.

Like it was before New York cleaned up.

And there was a doorway like right next to my house where these junkies would line up like it was a movie theater to get dope in the morning. And it was so sad because I'd see them every day and I was sober, yeah, and you know, I would be like, man, that's horrible, what a horrible life. And that went on for about a year and a half and something turned in my head. I'm like, wow, I wonder what it's like. No, yeah, it's right next door, you know what I mean.

The heroin junkies in New York when I was a little kid in up here, and I'd be like, uh, well, no, if I go back now, I see them, but I could recognize them more. But when I was a kid, my parents would always be like, this what happens if you try to smoke cigarettes.

This is where you end up.

And you'd be like, okay, never do cigarettes. But they'd be like that was a doctor and he had a family and he lost his whole family.

You'd be like wow, So we just think scared straight.

Scared straight.

I think my twin out of four kids, was the only want to try weed at like maybe seventeen. But the rest of us are pretty scared straight from those like this person had a whole life and lost it, you know, and you see them like kind of you know, a little balancing act, and you'd be like.

Oh, yeah, there was a lot of the methadone that was like you'd see him wandering around, yes, well, well.

Thank god, Like when I did it, like in eighty nine, or wait, what was it?

Did you end up trying it or not?

Yeah, I eventually did. Yeah, I wouldn't try it. I didn't. I didn't shoot or anything.

But it was at that time that was so clean that a lot of people were snorting it. So I remember I went over there after a year and a half of watching these people.

And were you one hundred percent sober at.

The time or yeah, pretty sober?

Yeah, and that's your first comeback kind of.

I mean I might have been drinking a little bit, but I remember buying it and then going in my house and snorting it and not really know any like, and I just got sick and I was like sweaty, and I kind of passed out, fell asleep, and I'm like, this is not for me, thank.

God, thank god it was.

I was a go fast guy like coke and booze.

Yeah.

Yeah, the sort of like nodding out thing was not my not my bag. So he got it didn't stick. Yeah.

Do you ever think, like what would have happened had that like geez, your life would have been way different, right.

Yeah, you know, there's there's certain I guess miracles or just you know, good luck.

I always had a fairly healthy fear of drugs.

But there were times in my life, you know, even when I was doing them, you know, I'd had some sort of idea because I grew up like idealizing, idolizing druggies, you know, like Keith Richards and William Burrows, many of these writers you can be kowski whoever, the beat necks. I thought that was like how you did it. That's what being an artist was about. I had romanticize cigarettes, drugs, booze. But I always was afraid that if I lost my mind,

I really can you say you lost your mind, like you had a real meltdown, like where you're like, No.

I had cocaine psychosis. It took like a year and a half to get rid of it.

Okay, I don't understand what that means.

It just means you like either through lack of sleep or it's I think it was primarily lack of sleep. Like people who do meth now lose their mind pretty for real, pretty quickly with this meth. But with me, it was just because I was sleep deprived, and eventually you get a little psychotic, you know, you start you know, seeing like you know, I, well, I got very mystically.

Paranoid, do you know what I mean? Like I used to do a joke about hearing voices in your head.

Yeah, the joke was like, when you hear voices in your head, it's never one, it's always And he spent a lot of time trying to get them to pick a fucking leader.

I had.

I had a meltdown when I was thirty and I was like hallucinating, like and it was really just sleep deprivation, right, But they ended up putting me in a hospital and the doctors were like schizophrenic, bipolar PTSD, and I was like, uh, let's just try giving me some sleep.

Yeah, And it worked, and it worked.

I did get better and I completely came back to reality. But of course, you know, I had to be strong enough to you know, tell doctors that no, I'm not I'm not going to take whatever drugs you're assigning for a temporary.

Well yeah, And the thing about that kind of manic break or psychotic break is that it does screw your head up. So like what I realized that I had created this evil sort of back you know, mystical backstory to the comedy store, and I thought, you know, people were like I had, like there was a big, big ideas in my head. And it took like really a couple of years to you know, get rid of those hallucinations or that way of thinking. Yeah, yeah, but you know,

I was just like, I got to get out of here.

So I gave my bed to the guy across the hall who was sleeping on the floor, and I gave my a lot of my stuff to the homeless people that were selling things on the street down there, and I just got in.

My car and I drove to San Francisco with no plan and.

I had I remember, I was like, had a little bit of that heroin and I was smoking it with reef with weed. I drove like twenty two hours in one stretch and I just showed up on this woman's doorstep and I'm like, can.

I hang out, you know, and she took me back in.

And then I was in San Francisco and then I shove it up again, okay, and then you know, I started doing more comedy there.

That was a big, big change. It was a good place to do comedy.

They had a very open mind about what you could do on stage and how it worked.

And then I did a contest there. I did it twice. I didn't think.

The first one was maybe ninety two or ninety three, and I came I didn't farewell, and then again I came in second in like ninety four, and now you know, I was start in the middle. I started to headline a little bit, and then I got a job on television in New York, is all.

And then I just have one other question, When did you realize that comedy was the path you were going to choose.

I always wanted to be comic and I didn't see any other thing to.

Do, Okay, since you like in high school.

Yeah, yeah, since I was a kid really and I never really had a plan.

B I never like, by the time I took that TV gig.

I just I didn't want to do it because it was not the kind of comedy I was doing.

You know.

I was kind of aggressive and you know, like shocking and trying to you know, be very angry.

And then but I was broke, you know, so I got offered this TV job.

How'd you get offered it?

Like?

What happened?

Because you're in San France? Did you have an agent at the time or something?

Not yet? Really how did that gig happen? I'm trying to remember.

It was like it was Comedy Central very early on, you know, and.

It was just it was like a clip show. It was called Short Attention Spent Theater.

It had been hosted in different forms by John Stewart and some other people.

And this is sort of the last version of it.

I'm trying to remember how the guy picked me, this guy Robert Small, But it was basically me in this fake vault where I was like supposedly showing clips of comics and comic movies, but it's really all driven by promotional stuff and they just wanted me.

It's like a VJ job, which was it?

Just I was devastated because it didn't serve my voice, but I didn't see that I had a choice.

Yeah, but it was paying well.

I'd never made that kind of money.

So what I was doing for the first six months of it, I would stay in San Francisco living with that woman and that would go back to New York for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and strip the show.

So you would do four shows.

At a time, and I fled back to San Francisco for like five days and I fly back to New York.

That went on for six months.

They got me a subw at New York and then eventually I moved back to New York in like the mid nineties for the rest of that year, and I had to fight to get myself a writer. I had to fight for us to do comedy bits because they just wanted me to be a talking head. I was already mad that I was doing this job. I was a pain in the ass and like some people that I worked with, you know, I think they thought I was a complete asshole, and I probably was. I don't

Yeah, but didn't.

It didn't really take off. Its surfaced the network.

And then after that was done, I was in New York and just leaning into comedy, and I started to so I was in ninety four ninety five. And the other thing about comedy at that time, if it's interesting to you, is that this looks pretty good, right, it looks really good.

Sure.

The other thing that was is that, like there was a lot of basic cable television, right, so we were all getting these gigs like Evening the Improv, Caroline's Comedy Hour, Comedy on the Road, MTV half Hours, Like there was all these little TV opportunities that ultimately didn't mean much, but they were something.

Yeah, So we were doing that stuff.

MTV always had some sort of comedy showcasing, so we.

Were kind of working towards that, trying to get on Letterman.

You know, Conan started in ninety four, and but you know, I got back into the drugs and that go crazy. But yeah, like they that's when alternative comedy started, and you know, we were doing this Lower east Side thing, and you know, then it became like I started drinking again.

I married that woman, the woman in Sanford.

Yeah, you know, I met her at my brother's wedding and she knew I was kind of a wild card.

But we got married.

We you know, we were living down on you know, Third Avenue and sixteenth and then the all comedy things started and I started, you know, using coke again and drinking, but I was trying to hide it and keep it under control. And we got married and we moved out to Queens and yeah, I don't know, like it was grim because I'd done the TV thing, I was doing comedy.

And it was pretty devastating.

Well, like what drove that message to your mind? Was it like you you felt like you weren't booking enough comedy clubs or were you possibly bombing? Like what made you stay? Well, maybe this is.

I wasn't bombing, but I was a specific type of act and I wasn't really getting much traction.

Like everyone in you know, you know, like other comics respected me.

People knew who I was, but you know, people thought that I was doing a character or what. But I was really angry and kind of like intense and it wasn't really a character. I don't think I got into comedy to entertain. I think it was like this is how I'm going to you know, engage my voice, is how I'm going to find myself.

How I'm going to say what I want to say.

Because for me, when I was growing up, comics I always were able to kind of you know, make you know, kind of make things understandable, disarm things.

Yeah, he's year make you see things.

A different way. Like I thought, that's an art, you know, so I want to do that. And the guys that I looked up to were kind of, you know, said things. So it was really like I don't think I ever thought in terms of entertaining people. I'm not sure I do now either. But so I wasn't trying to like, you know, sell arenas or anything. I just thought that eventually, because I was, you know, doing it my way, that it would come around. So at that time I wasn't

But at that time you were doubting yourself.

Well, yeah, of course, because I just kept chipping away. But I couldn't really sell tickets, and you know, I would do you know, I do club work, but it was you know, I go do the clubs, but it would be you know, you weren't making a lot of money, yeah, because you were an unknown headliner really and unless you can draw people, which I never understood. I never I wasn't particularly pleasant to club owners.

I never really thought about.

Like, I got to come figure out a way to come back here.

I got to build these networks.

I was just sort of like, fuck you, I do it this way, and you know, eventually people get it.

Yeah, yeah, and they just they didn't.

Yeah.

I mean that's you know, that's.

The long and short of it. But I'm trying to think what eventually happened?

Did you so? But whereas your marriage going fine at the time and all of that.

Or what happened was, uh, I'm so sorry here you want to do that?

I definitely want to do it.

Sauce it so right now we're just for all the listeners in the Japanese barbecue sauce. Mark has plated our plates with brown rice vegetables. I just drowned my uh beyond burger in Japanese barbecue sauce.

But I'm more excited about the tahini sauce because guys, guess what.

I actually made a good job and I was nervous about it.

Yeah, so you put.

It on the vegetables, That's what I did. Yeah, I'm gonna make it.

I'm gonna put them on.

The side saucy.

Sure sauces are fun. So the marriage. Yeah, So what happened was in the middle of this sweaty, bitter period where I'd given up and resigned myself to being you know, just an average you know, b room headliner and trying to make do in New York to service this marriage. I wasn't happy and woman came up to me at a comedy club and she's gorgeous and she's like, you know, hey.

You're Mark Maren and I'm like yeah, and she goes, what happened to you? Like?

And she was like a comic, she was a fan and I'm like, you know, what are you talking about. She's like, well, you would call fucked up and I'm like, I guess and she's like, well, I can help you gets over if you want to do it. And I'm like, what with aa or whatever? She's like yeah, and I'm like and she's so pretty. So I'm like I just

Are you are you in? Are you are we going to do this or what? And she reluctantly.

She's younger than me, and she was like, I guess, and so I guess, well that's enough. So yeah, the marriage fell apart has sublet a place way downtown. It was like a really chaotic time. But I was going to meetings like a lot and I and that's when I kind of like, you know, I was going like every day at least once a day, and I locked in with a bunch of people that were just getting sober and we're going to meetings all over the on was taking me in meetings. We were going to meetings together.

Girl, Oh my god, this is delicious. Between the Tahiti, the Barbue, sauce even absolutely delicious.

We do, I get sober.

I'm with this woman who's stunning, and I'm just doing the comedy. I'm trying, you know. Then I got a deal. Like there's so many side stories. You know, I was doing the festivals to Montreal, and I've already been doing comedy at that point for you know, eighty eight. It was like ninety ninety nine. So I've been at it for ten years and I've had a lot of little.

TV appearances and some opportunities.

I got management and an agent because of that TV show in Comedy Central, and you know, a big manager and the agent that I was with was very good at getting people deals.

I'm trying to think with that. I had a few deals.

But during this whole period, you're not taking any side jobs, any side hustles, not.

Since all show business one way or the other. But it was lean for a long time. And then when I did that TV show, I was making some money. And then but then you know, I got divorced, so there goes all that money. I wrote a book, I did a one man show, you know, and I had but I was not able to save much money because

And it was it was like completely.

I can't even explain it, you know, entire world change, and we had to deal with that horrendous attack and catastrophe. As a city, everything just sort of stopped, you know, and you couldn't go downtown and that hole was smoking. Then the signs were going up, you know, missing people everywhere, and the smell of the burning was in the city

And you know, we started doing comedy.

It was pretty dicey because I was trying to be provocative and talk about the politics of things, and there was like almost got in a fight with a marine and the comedy club and it was just a crazy time.

Yeah.

And the woman that I was with, she she that day was going to work at a job she had downtown.

She got out downtown and it was raining.

Ash and then she had to walk all the way up and I couldn't get touch with her all day. But she it just broke her and she was like she left New York and she left and went home to Seattle, and I was there kind of writing out the aftermath of nine to eleven. And then when she finally you know, kind of pulled herself together, She's like, I can't live in New York anymore and I want to go to La. So we moved to La and

The deal didn't really go anywhere.

You know.

I got set up with a writer, and.

I've had a few of those deals where you write a pilot script and it doesn't go anywhere, but you make money on those.

Yeah.

Yeah, so you can bank some like serious cash and just like and I'm still weird about money, like I don't spend I did much.

Well, yeah, well I would imagine in this business, like I actually I am a firm believer.

I'm living on a budget and I don't go over it.

You know, if I made one hundred thousand dollars in a month, which I've never actually done so, you know, but you know, if I were, I would still live on my you know, five thousand dollars month budget, and I would just can the rest. I wouldn't even I would not even be in my sight like that's I'm strict with my budgets.

I don't know what it is like. I don't know if I was ever in it for the money. I'm happy because there were times I.

Could get up to where we are now, but throughout this time, Look, I'm doing comedy. You know, I had some deal money. And now I'm in La and I've got to re establish myself in La. I go back to the store, which I really haven't been at since I lost my mind.

I get back in there primarily because.

You know, there was a new booker there and I had sort of some sort of the mythic reputation because of the book I wrote. There's a chapter in Jerusalem Syndrome about the comedy store and about my experience with Sam and about the drugs and everything and the craziness, and some young comics had read it and put me into this zone of like, yeah, that's you know.

Maren, When did podcast enter?

Like I you know, I still wasn't able to sell tickets as a comic, you know, but I was a known guy.

Do you say cel tickets like if they book you to a club, like no one's showing up.

No one.

Yeah, but you know I'm not getting door deals, okay, you know, I'm getting flat rates to do headlining on weeks where they you know, don't have somebody there that's gonna.

You know, sell tickets.

And you know, after the comedy boom in the eighties, there were still a lot of the guys around that sold tickets. But I never understood how they made so much money until you know, I was able to sell tickets and get door deals.

It was very naive about the business.

Can you explain a door deal for everyone that doesn't know what it is?

Well, door deals where you you know, you are confident that you'll sell out and you do a deal with the club where you get eighty percent of the door versus a bonus or whatever, and you know they can you sell drinks, but which is really the business they're in. So if you're doing four shows at a club that sell out, you know, for whatever amount of money the ticket is, and you're getting eighty percent. That's different than you know, getting twelve hundred for five shows.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you know, once you get to a certain level, you can do these door deal structures and make real money in nightclubs if you sell out.

Yeah. But I wasn't that guy.

But I was doing comedy all the time, okay, And also like I did little parts and movies here and there. I did, you know, I was in almost famous for a minute, and you know I was trying.

To do that work.

But I never really had an agent for movies and TV. You know, I had you know, there were agents that did favors for my manager, but I never really committed to acting because it's like.

Roland, I can't take that kind of rejection.

Are you kidding me? It's sit in those audition rooms. Are you kidding me? There's no way that it just was not. I wanted to do it, but there's no way that I could handle all that.

So when you get when I see you on TV, now, is it just like, hey.

We want Mark to do sometimes? Yeah?

Or do you ever auditioned now?

Well? No, I auditioned for Glow.

I sent the tape, I mean I did a video and they picked me, but like I have some profile, like people know, well, that's we'll get to that. So two thousand and four, you know, I'm not making a living really that well at comedy. You know, I don't, you know, I can't. It's just very tentative. I bought a house in Highland Park. I was with the woman, and then I get offered this radio job for Air America Radio, the lefty talk radio network.

And this was, you know, in response to.

You know, what was going to be the second term for you know, George Bush Junior w the you know, Al Frank and a bunch of people is Wednesday, and you know, they wanted me to be on this network out of New York and be on a morning show.

And I'd never really done radio.

Yeah.

So this was really the sort of kind of cosmic choice that led to what became my future. And it was that I got offered this job and it would have been hard, Like I was in LA I would have to move to New York.

I had kept the apartment there, which.

Was good, oh the whole time.

Yeah, sublet it okay in Queens, and you know, I was, you know, I was with this woman, and it was a difficult relationship because you know, when you get sober.

With somebody, you know, you're out of your mind.

And you know, she was, you know, younger than me, and it was just a volatile, you know, relationship. But I didn't see any choice but to take the gig because the money was like solid, it was crazy. It was almost like TV money because they had a lot of money. So but it would be me going back to New York, you know, to do morning radio and it was political talk radio and we had a crunch

You know.

It began with three of us, and then eventually one of the people kind of got pushed out. I ended up becoming the driver of the show as opposed to the comedic sidekick, you know.

I was sort of the lead.

And it was it was incredible because it's live, you're in it and you know, I was doing my thing, telling stories, throwing the com learned how to do radio and I did.

That for like a year and a half and you loved it.

I loved it, but you know, it became very difficult to do stand up because you're, you know, when you're getting up at three in the morning and doing I'm going to.

Say, are you just sleeping during the day, and then doing your comedy going straight from comedy to radio.

Well, I learned how to like get sleep at different times, Like you know, I try to get four or five hours at night and then go to work and then get a nap in during the day and try to do a set or two and I do sets on weekends. But you're always fucked up when you do morning radio. You like walking around like you've been in a pillow fight. You're just like it's fuzzy and like, you know, you can't quite you know, like reality it was.

It was fucked up. It's like you feel kind of sick all the time.

But I did it for a year and a half, and you know, it strained the marriage, and then I, you know, I got fired from Air America because they were going in a different direction. That's a whole other story. That network and what happened there. It's crazy. But they pushed us out and I came back to LA and they were going to you know, someone was going to try to get me an evening show, which they did for a while.

But I get back and you know, my wife leaves me.

Like I went out and did some shows on the road with Henry Rollins and Jenia Groothel. I came back with my wife, so like, you know, I want a trial separation, and I think she'd start up with another dude, and you know.

I was like, oh no, you know, I couldn't even fathom it.

So she leaves, and you know, trial separation is not really a trial separation. So I was doing everything I could to make myself better, to go to you know, anger management all this shit. But she was out and that fucking leveled me. That like talk about hitting a bottom in sobriety. So here I am, I'm off you know, the radio. She leaves me and just hires these lawyers.

And and then the whole time you're stay.

Yeah, I did stay sober, and you know, comedy was here and there, and.

Like did you end up keeping the house?

Yeah?

But I didn't really understand what divorce was when you have money because I'd made money with the radio thing, unshaved it and and she just.

Was killing me there.

You know, you have to do that whole thing where you what do you call it that process to disclosure process?

Did you like disclose all your money that assets the homes?

Right?

But it's a it's a racket because divorces don't end until somebody gives up unless it's like, you know, it's a state where you just split it, right, which California is.

But there's all these whoopholes.

And she hired a real animal to come after me, and I hired this little scrappy lawyer that a friend.

Of mine, knude.

But whoever, it's all right, whoever got the money, they're going to finance everything. You're going to pay for their lawyer, You're going to pay you know whatever, Like was.

She making any money at the time or were you not?

Really she's doing comedy and doing this and that, and she used to be a model, but like she wasn't really making any money, and that was fine.

I didn't mind, you know, uh, you know, supporting the situation.

I helped her produce a one person show and she eventually wrote a book. But the deal was is it got very heated and bad, and it really broke my spirit, like entirely, Like I was heartbroken, and I couldn't understand why we couldn't do it fairly. And you know, in retrospect, she just had her mind on the house. She thought

That should be enough, right.

But her lawyer then there like I didn't know about spousal support. I didn't know about like you know, that whole thing. And then her lawyer was trying to get the spousal support number up to where it wasn't it usually is about the last year of marriage, what you made.

And that's it was a nightmare.

But so I'm broke and I'm about to lose the house because I'm trying to, you know, win this divorce or at least make it fair.

But you know, all my money's paying for a lawyer. It's paying for her lawyer. It's all my money.

And then like what happened was air America kind of resurfaced and there was somebody within a America that was like, you know, we want to try a streaming video show, which is before streaming. It was like before anybody the technology wasn't there. And I'm like, I don't care what it is. If you can give me what I was making before and give me like sixty K upfront so I can give it to this woman and stop this shit,

So I was booking.

You know, it wasn't the show that it is now, but guests would come on and some of them would get press, and then it started to sort of build like that. And then I got back out to LA and I'm like, well, what are we going to do? I got to figure out how to do it here. So I reached out to Jesse Thorn, who was a pretty early adapter to podcasting. He was a radio gut too, and he told me which MIC's to get and how

Wow.

So the entire style of what I do is based on me having people over to talk about me. And at first there was like a third act but me and my producer Brenda McDonald, who is a brilliant guy and still with me, and he had to do the show on the SI for years because he had another job where he made money. We couldn't make money at the beginning. We had we had to put together like

So I was in my house with five hundred envelopes.

I had a roommate at the time because I couldn't really at my own house. We're stuff in envelopes and we're trying to get this thing, trying to get like some income coming in and it was all pretty crazy. Then we started doing live ones. We created a pay site. We thought, well maybe if we do live ones and then offer them for sale, So we were doing that. There was no way to make money in podcasts. Yeah,

How are you going to get new peoplewall?

Well you could do, you know, in order to listen to the whole show.

Okay, yeah, but there was only a handful of podcasters. So what happens is, you know, I'm doing in my garage, and there used to be a third act, which was a comedy act, and then it became just me talking up front and then doing guests.

We had one or two sponsors.

It was like, you know, Adam and Eve Sex Toys and this coffee sponsor out of Wisconsin.

And how did you get the sponsors?

Well, I don't know at that time, I don't remember how we got those first two. The coffee sponsor was somebody who sponsored were the only sponsors for my streaming show that nobody watched, So I just carried them over as a favor. They weren't paying me hardly anything. But they were sending me free coffee. Then Adam and Eve had done a few podcasts. They were also I think a radio advertiser. There was a time at the beginning where when it started to happen podcasts, like radio ad

So there was just a small crew of us, and we were all sort of in touch, you know.

Rogan came a little after me, the nerdous Chris hardwickers around Corolla. Jay Moore had a show, Jimmy Pardo, Kevin Smith had his network at the time, Jimmy Dore. There was like a handful of cats who were like, you know, chipping away at it. And then it kind of like, you know, I started to get more press for the podcast, and you know, because of guests and a lot of the kind of entertain.

Journalism, I was doing their job for them.

So they'd always refer to what Guess would say on my show, and you know, and articles about it, and then the profile of the guests started to get bigger. Robin Williams, you know, Ben Stiller, Conan, these people were coming to my house.

But that's what I was gonna I wanted to know, like, these people are coming to your house, like yeah, and you were just like, this is it like Barack Obama sitting in your garage?

Like by that time, the garage was pretty cool, you.

Know, like it was like I want to see it so bad.

Okay, well that one that garage is gone. I'm in a new place, okay.

But it was full of my whole life books, you know, art things, guitar like it was this beautiful like, you know, kind of like it was. I wouldn't call it a man cave, but it looked more like like a library in a museum. It was crazy by that point. But at the beginning, Brendan and I our only commitment was, you know, we're going to do a new show every Monday and Thursday, no matter what. And we've done that since two thousand and nine. Wow, and uh, you know,

And then all of a sudden, you know, there was a real game to it, you know, and then there.

Was became a little higher profile, and we all were kind of a community at the beginning, and then it just kind of now, look at it.

You know, we were there. You know, people say like, look what you did. I'm like, it's good and bad.

I guess you know, why did you say bad?

Well, it became like this thing. It became sort of like anything else.

So like everybody thought, you know, I really think that I enabled people to think like, oh that guy could do it.

I could do it. Yeah, you know, and and then it came it.

Became very glutted and everybody who was trying them and then you know, people would last a week or two weeks, and then then there was like you know, kind of predatory uh kind of what do you trade shows where they you know, they asked me to speak at one.

I didn't really wasn't realize what it was.

But it was a radio consultant who realized that podcasting was a racket and they could convince a bunch of people that they could sell him the equipment, they could show me how to do that. So like they kind of bring people in in almost like a motivational speaker way, like anybody can.

Do this, get in it, you know, and it kind of it kind of blew up. I mean no, in a bad way in that like eventually.

Brendan and I, because of what we do and how we do it, are very kind of you know, we're workaholics, and he's very sort of specific about how he does audio. He's an audio producer and we're still only audio and that was what we set out to do. And he spends a lot of time doing what he does.

I do what I do.

But as the businessess kind of grew, it's only a bad thing in that, you know, everyone has a podcast.

It's like a joke.

Yeah, and you know, and then the bigger enterprises.

Got involved and now you know there's yeah, you know, Amazon, you know, Spotify, all these It just became this huge business where before it was just, you know, pretty scrappy.

Yeah, and I think people, you know, yeah, people really like this, even if you look at social media, like I've talked to influencers, like, I think people or the audience really liked the scrappy underground versus the commercialized. And I could see what you're saying with podcasts becoming so commercialized.

Yeah.

But even also like when you see someone like yourself of me being a new podcaster, it's like I have to be reminded continually all the time, like do you know how long this person has been doing this? Like I was with the president of iHeart Radio and he was like, my number one podcast has been around for like thirty years, Colleen, And I'm like what He's like,

But the reality is it took work.

And also it was never like that for me. I don't know how these people do it now.

I can't live in that world. In terms of being a content provider looking for clips you know, and playing that game where you're just like these guys who are just dumping stuff three four times a day, trying to build, you know, an empire based on you know, whatever it is their racket is.

You know, I get all that, but we're kind of at school and that.

Yeah, we've been doing it a long time, but we were fortunate in that my cosmic timing and my particular skill set, you know, enabled me to seize this moment without having any real plan in place.

There was no way to make money at the beginning.

Yeah, this just wasn't It seems like all of your choices though never from what I understand outside of the divorce situation, never really Money wasn't really a driving motivator for you.

It seems like you're no, like it was.

Yeah, it was.

I don't know what it was, but it was a sort of persistence and passion to do stand ups. So like, and I've had to deal with that too, Like I was an established stand up when I started the podcast, and now this podcast blows up and nobody really knows me as a stand up, And so we get people coming to the shows like we're here to support you.

And I'm like, I know how to do this. You know, I'm glad you're here exactly right, right. So I had a real hard.

Time with that being known as an interviewer versus a stand up, because I always want to be a stand up.

Yeah, so that was like a dicey.

It was hard for me in my brain to realize that I was becoming this interview guy or this conversation guy, which was great because you know, no one really does it like me, and I was developing something and now it's kind of established. But at the beginning, I'm like, I'm a comic. I'm just doing this, you know, because this is what you know. It's working out, you know,

But I think that the timing of it was fortuitous and that you know, the business grew around us.

There was a core community of podcasters and we all evolved together and we took you know, we you know, there was an issue with a patent troll that was a very complicated thing, that was a threat to podcasting, and we you know, I remember, we had a big meeting about how to deal with it. So once the business started to expand and everyone found their footing, it all happened simultaneously. You know, I was there at the

So I came up with it.

It built it, you know, I was one of the you know, I don't know if OG is you know, I don't want to take any real credit, but I found the the conversation space at that time. In the way I did it was unique, so and it became kind of one of the pillars of modern podcasting. And I don't mind saying that, but it was all coincidental, but the quality remains, and you know, it really becomes about like, well when are we going to stop?

Dude?

You know, like, oh yeah, keep going. But I do have one question.

Were there any moments where there was just like almost like an aha, or I can't believe that I you know, like I like, there are certain interviews where.

I would be like, holy sh I can't believe this is me. You know what were those moments?

Well, a sitting president was pretty bad.

Yeah, I was going to say, how did you land that?

But even before that, you know, because of my business, you know, talking to people like you know, Robin Williams and people like you know, big actors like and people would come to my house and be like, where the fuck am I kind of like here, I don't know where I am. I don't know how you found the studio. But but there were a lot of big performers. I was talking to some old guys. Sometimes I'd go to people's houses and do it.

I was like, I'm all in.

So I talked to a lot of people that I thought were pretty impressive. But when when the president became.

A thing that was crazy.

I just want to know, like what that day was like it was like like I just I want you to paint me that picture of even also getting the interview that.

Was like seven years in.

Well, ultimately what happened was, you know, there was conversation earlier on this was it was in his last term, and there was some conversation in in the beginning of that term that maybe as vice president that Biden might want to do it.

And you know, but we weren't really a political show. That's one thing.

Coming out of political radio, which both me and my producer did, we were like, no politics, I'm not going to do it. So we detached from it completely and became this other show. You know, I've talked politics since then because when Trump was president, I'm was profoundly concerned and I'm still concerned, but it's difficult. It's primarily not

It was the last year.

You know, you don't want to be a lame duck. You know, he wanted to be relevant, and you know, they reached out and said let's do it, and you know, my producer, who's like, you know, a straight shooter, decent guy, real political dude. Like it's funny because the date they had wanted him to come, I was supposed to be on vacation. So I literally told my producer, I'm like, I don't know, man, I don't know if if I can do it. I'm supposed to be on vacation, freaking.

Right.

And then it turns out, like you know, it was booked like for the day that I got back, or the day or two days after I got back, and.

I and I remember my producers are telling me, it's like, you know, I wouldn't.

Have let you go, yeah, yeah, out of here. But you know, you talk to.

Famous people enough, and I granted it's the President, but you know, people were just people, and you get a sense of people. I mean, I've done fifteen hundred of these things.

Yeah have you really?

Yeah, we're coming up on fifteen hundreds, and you know, I've talked to a lot of different kinds of people, but the President was a big deal.

But the trick of it was, look, a lot of things.

Had to happen for it to happen, but we were fairly specific that that It wasn't going to be political in the sense that, you know, this is going to be what we do. It's going to be a conversation about life.

Yeah.

So I was down in Hawaii.

I read his book, and I wasn't really as nervous as you would think, you know. But but this my producer was brilliant in it all because, you know, he had to go out to my house. He lives in Brooklyn, So he flew out to the house so the Secret Service could do a sweet They had to figure out they had to come and figure out how to set up a parameter, how to get the president of the United States into this little neighborhood, into Highland Park, and.

How to do it safely.

So Brendan was there for that, and they were trying to figure out where they could put snipers and you know, how to make a perimeter, and and you know, the roof of the garage was not strong enough to.

Hold the snipers.

So we had to ask my neighbor Dennis, if we could put snipers on his roof.

And he was thrilled.

Yeah, he's retired, he's excited. And then they you know, they built they tented my driveway, so the motorcake park and they could come up, you know, without any sight lines and then walk into the back and come into the garage. And they'd set up this like like about a week before, they put this box in my spare bedroom, which was like hooked up to a special phone line, like in case all communications went down, they'd have communications.

So that thing humming along was that was the most menacing part of the whole thing.

And you know, so day of we'd set up a bunch of listening stations on the deck for people, like for his people to be out there.

He didn't. He didn't he didn't uh need a pre interview. He didn't. He let us do whatever questions we wanted. He didn't.

He didn't do like restrictions or anything.

No what's the word I want? There was no screening of what we of the question?

Do you ever let people do that?

But it's the president, you know, but we we were kind of held on line. But like he was a intellectual guy.

He carried himself. He wasn't like, you know, some whack job.

You know those guys the presidents are pretty well managed, especially with press, but you know, Obama was like, you know whatever, and it was kind.

Of intense, you know, because there was a lot of people around.

You know, we're waiting for the president and like, look man like he had gone to school at Occidental briefly, so there was that connection. But there was also news that had broken, like literally within the last within that week, that guy shot all those people at that church, all those black people got shot by that little lunatic, racist white kid, and that was big, big thing. So we didn't even know if he was going to come, which we would have understood, yeah, but he was going to come.

You know. Secret Service was funny because they came.

By earlier with the dogs, the bomb dogs, and I got three cats, and I was like, look, man, you know I got these cats and they're in the bedroom.

Is there any way you know, can you trust me on the bedroom because I want to die. I want the bomb dogs fuck with the cats. Did they Yeah? They did. So we're all waiting Secret Services.

There's like fifteen people about and they're around, and they're on the perimeter. The snipers there watching the snipers walk up. They had closed off the streets. All the cars were.

Off the streets.

Streets well just but you know, they but just my.

Street, the neighborhood. There couldn't be any park cars on the street. It's a little street on a little hill in Highland Park. But to his benefit, he didn't he was staying in Beverly Hills and he didn't take the motorcade through the city, which would have like fucked everything up. Yeah, but he was going to fly in on the helicopter, like on the Air Force two or whatever it is. And you know, I'm standing around, We're all standing around, and you know.

I'm like, you know, let me know when he's close.

And they're like, yeah, well, you know when he's twenty minutes out. And then we saw the helicopter, like the presidential helicopter with the Ospreys in front of it, and they were going to land at the Rose Bowl, which is like ten minutes away, and we saw him in the air.

I'm like, all right, so he's he's close, you know. And then it was just nuts. Man.

It was like, you know, the motorcades coming up and they come up my street, they park, and there's all these people coming up that like that tented thing, you know, his entourage, and I don't even see him and they're coming up to driving and now I just see all of a sudden, I see handle Mark and it's.

Like Obama and I'm like, hey, mister president.

And you know, that hadn't been a surreal moment totally.

And my my, my, my producer.

He's in a well, he's in a suit, and we're you know, it's just we're just hanging out waiting for the president and and uh, you know, I shake his hand, I say, I say, he goes to we We're gonna have a good time, I hope, so, you know.

And we go in there and it was like it was intense. Man.

You know, I had one Secret Service guy in there and he was behind me, so I didn't see him as Obama was there.

I remember I asked him to nervous about this, and he said, if I was nervous about this, we'd all be in trouble.

Oh.

Bombay has like a cool sense of humor.

But I love his poise, Like I love the way and I feel like he really processes his answers.

Oh yeah, very deliberate.

Yeah, it's almost like you've got to like I had to keep it moving because he can, you know, get he can talk, you know, and you gotta be careful, you on getting the weeds with politics because he can very deliberate.

But he'll he'll go on for a while.

And we only had an hour, so I keep it going, you know, and then we got you know, we got into the stuff that we needed to talk about. We talked about his life and you know, it got it was kind of blew up, not just because he was president, but because he used the N word, know, and like he made an example on.

The podcast, like you know, racism.

Racism isn't over just because people don't use the N word, but he said it and it was like, well, I didn't really notice it because you know, it's like as a comic, you hear a lot of things, but it didn't register to me.

It's like, oh, this is going to be a huge deal.

But my producer was like, this is going to be a huge like this is going to be crazy, and I'm like, what are you talking about?

And you know, we only did a.

Couple of interviews afterwards, my producer who was working for Chris Hayes on MSNBC at the time as well. We did an interview with Chris and I did Terry Gross on MPR. Those were the only two interviews because once we released it with that word in there, it blew up, like it was like global news, Like they were parked in front of my house, you know, how do you feel about you know, they want to know how I felt about it.

It just became news. The right was like why does he get to use it? You know, all the shit.

It was crazy, but my he managed it, like God damn Champ. He did the two interviews and no one else got near us, and that was it. They were in my driveway and I didn't deal with them.

Wow, the news people.

Yeah, wow.

When you when you look back at your we're about to close up unfortunately, but when you look back at your life story, what would you say was your Well, I think you covered it, but what was that one milestone where you were like, I don't know if I.

Could go on.

I think we covered it, but just it happened all the time.

It happened all the time.

Yeah, because with comedy I saw my friends getting successful and I wasn't you know what am I doing? But it got to a certain point where you know, you don't really have a plan B, Like I never had a plan B.

And it gets further and further away.

You think you have a plan B, but what is it? What Am I going to go back to cocon at a restaurant? What am I going to teach? Am I going to go back to school?

You know, the further way that shit gets and what am I qualified to do? Like you know, I used to do a joke about it.

It's like you get to a certain point where things aren't working out but you know there's no plan being place. Then your brain sort of goes like, hey, well I don't have to do this because I could always oh shit, there used to be something.

You know.

Well, sometimes when I get really stressed, I'll make a joke and I'm like, sometimes I just think about moving to a small town and working.

At Walmart and sure like disappearing.

Yeah, just like disappearing and working a regular job and living a regular life where I'm not competing against my invisible self, because sometimes I feel like I have, you know, these things that I'm aspiring to be. But when stress levels get too high, I'm like, I can totally work at Walmart. And then in my brain it's like, yeah, how long do you think you can last? Like you know, like I don't know what that'd be my that's literally my plan B is like I moved to a small town.

You know, if you go can.

Handle that, that's it's a nice place to go in your brain, if that makes you feel better, Like I, you know, I would.

I don't know.

I just kept pressing along, you know, and I kept pushing and pushing, and you know, I could you know, I was still in the game in a way, you know, like I would do cone and I do TV, I do radio. Like, you know, there was always I'd get a deal here and there, so there was always something which isn't always great.

That was you know, encouraging me to keep going.

And you know I wasn't again selling tickets as a comic, but you know, I knew people who knew me, and I could you know, I would go.

Do the job and I could get on stage and everything.

But there were just like sometimes you get indulged or you get you keep getting little paychecks here and there, and you probably you might you should quit.

There's I've seen you know, I've been.

In this game a long time, right, so almost almost forty years. You know, people come and go, some people disappear. You don't know how people survive. You know, you have no idea what people are up to. You see comics, you know, you know, see him for ten years, You're like, well, you've been doing. Some guys get out altogether. Some guys go into writing, they go into radio, they go into you know, producing whatever it is, or they get out.

They figure it out, they.

Figure out something, so I don't really judge. And also delusion, being a delusional to a certain degree is necessary to do this. Yeah, but you do it innately because you want to do this. You don't plan on being delusional, but you have to.

You are to be.

Of course, I think any time you're pursuing your dreams, especially like you know, there's no resume to get to like I didn't work a million places to.

Get to this point. I just had a vision.

Or you have a vision and you're like, I'm gonna kind of like what I was saying, I was, I had a vision and then just I take one step at a time.

And I actually think that kind of works if you don't talk about your vision too much and you don't smoke too much weed. But but yeah, there's been definitely pivotal points.

Why do you think if you talk about it too much, it's because you just you know, it's like if you like, there's some things I want to do, and I stick them in my brain, and you know, I don't sit there and meditate on them, but like, I know I want to do it.

There's there's not there's a small menu of things I want to do. So I put in my brain that I want to do it, and then at some point, you know, the opportunity reveals itself and I do it. And I don't know if it's magic or what. But the thing about how it happened for me in that you know that the podcast happened and my timing was right, is that the one thing I knew is that a lot of opportunities came from the podcast, you know, book opportunities, acting opportunities. I did my own show and I have

Yeah, so when you started Yeah, so look you.

Know or was that it? Yeah, something like that, not older.

Yeah, when I started the podcast, but I've been doing comedy since eighty eight.

Yeah. So I had chops.

I had radio chops that had stand up chops, and I had some acting chops, and I you know, I definitely had put my you know, ten thousand hours in right, so by the time the other opportunities happened, you know, it was gravy man, like, yeah, I'll try that. Yeah, I don't give a shit. Yeah, you know, even without money. It's like, here come the opportunities. When I was younger, I get opportunities. I wasn't ready, but I was so

Do you know what I mean?

Like, because what I'm saying like, yeah, the podcast, I made that myself, acting and you know, doing stand up and movie options like if I get a deal, if someone goes, we want you to do this for our networker. Ready, Like back in the day, I'd be like, yeah, of course I wouldn't ready. But now, like I knew after the podcast after a few years, like I can do anything.

I put the work in.

Yeah, I can show up for that gig with full confidence, in a full, self actualized way.

And did you ever this will be my last? Did you ever focus on your age too? Because when I was.

Young, I would be like, by the time I'm twenty four, I want to be a millionaire. But I don't know if it's because I came from being poor, you know, where money was like always a issue, you know.

I guess I did a little little bit, but I don't. I don't remember, like I always thought, like, well I used to.

There's to be this idea that you know, as you get older, the heroes that you wanted to emulate or be like they, you know, the age goes up, you know, like at first, like I want to be like you know, Richard pry or whatever. Yeah, but then like you know, you pass a certain line of agent. It's like, well, Rodney Dangerfield didn't.

Make it really till it was like sixty, like that's the new guy.

Yeah.

Yeah. That was the thing I always try to remind myself of the founder of KFC. Did you hear his story about how he like he was like living in his car he was trying to sell his recipe off and he didn't make it till he was like it is sixties.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.

I get those, and I'm always like, yo, does he make it? So he was like, sixty, you got time?

Yeah, you know that helps you yeah, yeah, yeah.

But like it ultimately, whether you backloaded or not, it is a process, and you don't you don't really know how it's going to work out in this business. Like I had no anticipation. And by the time I or the podcast, I was pretty bleak, pretty depressed. I was looking at, you know, a lifetime of you know, being like a b headliner in a way, you know, or just kind of hammering it out, and you know, it's almost suicidal, really, and because I didn't know what else to do.

But at least you were, but you were you were almost suicidal, but you did not cave in sobriety.

No, I didn't drink.

Yeah, that's amazing.

Yeah, well that's it.

Like, well, if you work that first step, man, you know you do know, you know that if you understand what powerless means, you know, like if if the idea is like you were powerless over whatever, and your life has become unmanageable, you realize that what that means is that I have no ability to control my drinking or drug use. And that's I've proven that to myself again

It's like, no, you can't. You never did. So you got to get into your mind that like, if I'm gonna drink, that's what I'm gonna do.

Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna be every day, and it's gonna be for real. Yeah, Like there's all this legal weed around. I used to love weed, but I know that, like if I start doing a gummy or smoking a little weed.

It's gonna be every day. It'd be every day within two weeks. Wow, it's to the nature of the game.

But the first step is to recognize that you're powerless.

Yeah.

Wow, that's the heavy one.

I think save that for myself.

Well, you're well, the weird.

Thing is powerlessness as a position. You realize that, if you really think about it, you're powerless over most things.

Yeah, I've been starting I had a tough year this year, and so I've been starting to realize that. Slowly.

It took me like hit in my head. You know, you repeat the same actions, you just the same results, and I'm like, you know what, you gotta admit this one right here. This is you have lit hit insanity. And I think in that you realize that you're powerless.

Well that's yeah, that's the equation.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah, Well, I just want to say it's a pleasure having you. Your meal was a ten out of a ten.

Okay, and uh, the last couple of episodes, my guess we'll know. I've been like it will never happen again. I for sure will go home. I'm keeping the tahini sauce.

Did you want it? Okay, sa the I won't even have that? I will? Are you sure I was gonna say?

I'm definitely gonna get shout outs to the Japanese barbecue sauce and the tin sauce. Yeah yeah, let me just tell you, guys, that sauce rice the beyond burger.

I think the beyond burger's texture and flavor than you thought.

Right, Yeah, well, I've had Beyond burgers. I do have one question. How do you cook a beyond burger and know it's cooked?

Brown it on both sides. I don't think there's anything in there like raw meat. I think it's all plant stuff. Anyways, Okay, we just cook it like a burger, but you don't you know, you know, you know, don't dry it out, you know.

I definitely one hundred percent will make this meal at home for me and my minion. But yeah, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule. How can fans keep up with you? It's oh, you know, you guys know how to keep up with Mark Merret Come on.

Wtfpod dot com is the website for the podcast at Mark Maren on Instagram.

And do you still have a Patreon and all that.

I never had a Patreon, Oh, you know, because.

You were before it ever. A lot of podcasts that I know are doing it and know.

What it is. I'm not really that tech savvy. You know.

I've got a TikTok too, but I'm not that. I have a guy that just puts stuff up there Instagram. Occasionally, if you follow me on Instagram, I'll do a live and they'll be long, and they usually happen the day that I have to record for the podcast the next day, every Sunday and third and Wednesday. You know, I've got to do the ads and the intros for the for the interview. And sometimes before I do that, I'll go on Instagram live for like hour an hour and a half and just walk.

Through my life, talk to my cats, play guitar. Yeah, I did it.

I started doing it during the pandemic, just to stay staying and stay connected to an audience.

And I would do almost like a morning show.

You went through a lot during the pandemic, Yeah.

Yes, yeah I did. My girlfriend passed away and.

And you again, you stayed strong, like sobriety if.

I stay strong. I went through a lot of pain, but I did not. Yeah, yeah you didn't stay it's sober.

Yeah, you stayed sober.

The only reason why I say that is because typically from the little bit that I know about addiction is like when those things happen, you find those ways to cope.

Yeah, but you'll But what.

You know when you get enough sobriety is that you adding drugs or drink that this ain't gonna help nothing, and you know it could just lead to more drugs and drink, because you know, coping is one thing, but you know you're built to cope no matter what. You just have to feel the feelings, like because drugs and drink is not really coping. Self medicating is not really coping, especially if you have a problem, because then that becomes the problem.

The thing is is like you know, you have the feelings and you know eventually it'll get better, you know.

I was had a conversation with my little brother the other day and he said something that I felt was so remarkable. On a group text with our family. He said something like he was depressed, and I'm like, I've never heard my brother use this term. So I reached out to him, like, what's going on He's like, don't worry about it.

I was like, why he.

Goes depression is like a cold. He's like, eventually, you know, in a couple of days, it's going to ease up.

You just go through it.

And I never thought of it like that, but just the thought of thinking of, Okay, I'm in this sad state. It's going to be a moment in time and then I'm going to come through it, and you know, shout out to my little brother. But I thought that was one of the most unique ways of dealing with pain. It's just like in a couple of days, in a week, I'll be fine.

It's a cold.

Well that's the Yeah, Like that's a there's a little saying that called feelings aren't facts.

Yeah, you know, like you know eventually though, yeah, but yeah, be careful with the depression. If you got it, you know, if you really got it.

Yeah.

Yeah. Sadness is sadness.

This is sadness. But thank you so much.

I enjoyed our meal, and thanks for sharing your story and being very transparent with me.

You're welcome, Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thank you, all right, peace out guys for more eating while broke from iHeart radio and the Black Effect.

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