Episode 661 - Adam Resnick

All right, let's do this. How are you, folks? How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies?

What the fucking ears? What the fucksters? Welcome to the show. This is WTF.

I am Mark Maron. How is everyone? Was it the first night of Hanukkah last night? Did I fuck that up again?

Am I missing it? Can someone check for me, please? Is today the second night of Hanukkah? Do I have to pull out my menorah and my leftover candles from the last ten years of not finishing the Hanukkah rituals alone in my house?

Do I have a yarmulke? Yes. Do I have a kippah? I do.

Do I have what the Gentiles would call the hat that one wears, the little skullcap thingy, the disc, the embroidered cloth circle that Jews wear on their heads? Yes, I have one. I don't know. Do any of you know the sort of cockfighting of kippahs that goes on in Jewish communities?

The kippah talis cockfight that happens in synagogues across the country? Oh, look who went to Israel last year. Look at that fancy yarmulke. Oh, where did he get that?

Look at that colorful talis. I didn't even know you had options with colors. I thought that'd be just black and white fabric. That's got all kinds of colors and fancy embroidery.

Ooh, nice kippah. Is that a Sephardic kippah? Look at all the colors. Hey, look at that.

Look at that grateful dead fiend yarmulke that guy's wearing. How many of you know that? I've still got yarmulkes from bar mitzvahs that I stole them from. That's how you know you're part of a Jewish family, is when you look on the inside of your yarmulke and it says, to honor the bar mitzv Jewish person.

I have one. I did not light the candles last night if it was indeed the first day of Hanukkah. I will try to light them, but it's a, you know, it's emotional, man. It's emotional.

Happy Hanukkah to you Jewish people or those of you who are involved with Jews. Happy Hanukkah. I'll light them. I'll light them at least once.

At least once I'll light them. Today on the show, the wonderful Adam Resnick. He's got a book out. His book is pretty fucking funny, man.

The book is called Will Not Attend, Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation. It's available now wherever you get books, but more importantly, if you're tuning in, you're like, who the hell's Adam Resnick? He was a writer for Letterman. He wrote, you know, he was on Larry Sanders, Get a Life, Cabin Boy, Death to Smoochie.

We'll talk about those things because I know some of you have the reaction of like, really? Yeah, well, there are good stories behind that, and he's definitely a unique person, and I love talking to him, so that's going to happen shortly. Happy Hanukkah. How do you spell it?

Don't know. A lot of options. A lot of options. Hey, whoever watched my special last night, or I'm sorry, on Friday night, thank you.

Thank you for watching on Epix. I don't know where else you can watch it right now. I believe you can go to Epix.com to find out how you can watch it there. I do know it will be on Hulu in 90 days.

The people that have watched it, the feedback I got has been positive, but I get the feeling a lot of you can't watch it, and I'm sorry. But you can look into getting Epix, or you can wait until it comes on Hulu, or I imagine eventually it'll show up somewhere. But thank you for watching it if you did, okay? For those of you who live in Nila, Northeastern Los Angeles, Highland Park, you might have seen me in a Bugatti kit car being driven down Figueroa Street between 62nd or 60th and 50th in the Nila Highland Park Christmas Parade.

Yolanda, the woman who knows the building where hopefully I'm going to be getting an office, she asked me last year, she runs this little parade, and she asked me a couple years ago if I wanted to be the Grand Marshal, and I thought, like, I will not do that. You know, I am, I'm a carpetbagger here. I don't feel like, you know, I came to this neighborhood. I love my neighborhood.

I love my house. When I moved here in 2004, you cannot hang the gentrifying label on me. It was impulsive. I had some money saved from a TV deal.

I'd never bought a house before. I was driving around this neighborhood with a friend of mine looking to rent a place in Garvanza. And I saw this house for sale. And I talked to the woman who became my second wife.

And so I went by this house. I had no idea where I was. So now that Highland Park's become sort of this weird kind of hipster paradise, and a lot of rock people and creative people and young families and people that have interesting facial hair configurations and shirt and pant choices have moved in. I don't have a problem with it.

But I don't want to claim any sort of, you know, territory here. I feel like I'm imposing. So you're asking me to be the Grand Marshal of a parade in a primarily Latino neighborhood. I felt like, you know, what, it doesn't, it's not going to look right.

It's not right. But this year, she talked me into it. And it was interesting. I rode the Bugatti thing.

And I waved. I was in front of a band, I think, from a, I don't remember which high school, marching band. And I would wave at people. And every couple of blocks, they had announcers that would sort of say, comedian Mark Maron lives in Highland Park, and he talked to President Obama in his garage here in Highland Park.

He was like, I wrote the goddamn copy, and I was almost overcompensating. Not because I was bragging, but I was like, why wouldn't people that have lived their entire lives here for generations look at me like, he's one of the people that have come here to take over our neighborhood. So the only thing I could think of was like, you know, like, the president came by, and, you know, he came by our neighborhood, and I was excited about that, because I love the neighborhood. So I had a tremendous amount of insecurity.

And then as I drove by these, they would tell the story in English, and then they'd say in Spanish, and all I would hit, you know, the only thing I would pick up was, Senor Maron, Presidente Obama. I like Maron. I like it. I to pledge my allegiance to the neighborhood that I only pronounce it that way.

But it was lovely, and, you know, I got to eat a nice big place of Mexican food, and met some local politicians, and some people involved with the parade, and it was fun. I was glad to be part of it. I don't know if I'm going to be parading as something I do regularly, but it was a good experience to be one of the, I don't know if I was the Grand Marshal, or if there were many, but on the side of the Bugatti, there was a little sign that said, Mark Maron, podcast artist. I'll take it.

I'll take it and wave. Wave at those kids. It was nice, and I was happy Yolanda asked me to do it. But again, I'm only available for that parade.

I'm not available for any other waving jobs just for Yolanda and just for Highland Park, and it was a good first experience for me. Thank you, Highland Park. Right now, my pleasure to bring up a guy possessed, possessed by something. He's definitely possessed by an intensity and a speed and an amazing sense of humor.

Again, Adam Resnick, the book is Will Not Attend, Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation. You can get that book wherever you get books. He's written on Letterman, Get a Life, Larry Sanders, the movie Cabin Boy, Death, The Smoochie, among other things that we will talk about. This is me, talking to Adam Resnick, here in the garage.

Happy Hanukkah. You know, you're born wired a certain way, and on top of that, then I had an awful environment. So the way I was wired, the environment I lived in, was the worst thing for my title. You were like a kind of high...

A warrior. A warrior, but not in a typical way. You know, I know from hearing you certain things. For example, I worry about everything.

I can remember being in kindergarten in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and hearing a siren in the distance. And I specifically remember when my mom had dropped me off, and my little brothers, my twin brothers were in the backseat or something. They were babies at the time. And I heard the siren, and my mind immediately went to.

She was in an accident. She's dead. I pictured her, the station wagon flipped over in a creek in my mind. A creek.

Right off the road. So off the road, in a creek, partially submerged. I could picture my brothers upside down, my mother dead upside down. You know, that's how I, and I always, that's just the way it was.

I used to get, when my, like, when my parents left town, I guess it was 1970. So I'm like seven, right? Six or seven. And they went away to the Orient, which you don't call it anymore.

I guess Japan, China, Hong Kong. They took a trip, and they left me with this old Latino woman who cleaned the house. Right. And she was horrible.

She was okay. But the problem was, I got so sick and nauseous, because I kept picturing a plane going into the ocean. Yeah. So it was just pieces of a plane.

And I would just wait for the call that they didn't find the plane. That was so me. I mean, and my parents rarely traveled. Like, sick.

Yeah. But here's, that's the thing. I think that I'm a little different than some people. I think neurosis is like snowflakes or whatever.

Like, it's always slightly different. I was never, I never had a Woody Allen kind of neurosis. My, it was cute. It was never cute, and not Jewy, really.

I really didn't have that Jewish angle, because my family wasn't really like that, you know. Although, that's still in you. It's in you, kind of, you know. Did you fight it?

No, I didn't. I will tell you, I did always lean towards, like, Gentile kids, the few friends I had, because I wasn't a person who really sought out friends. Well, I noticed that with your sister-in-law, like, in the book, there was, you know, a reference to Christmas. So I didn't know if your wife was not Jewish or not.

She's not Jewish. And I could not have married a Jewish woman. I tried it. I tried it.

My wife, her complete lack of neurosis. Here's my wife. Does she have the temperament of, like, an animal trainer? In a way, I mean, yeah.

Although, I think I'm turning her into an animal. Oh, really? No, just in the sense that I couldn't, I'm no day at the beach. No day at the beach.

I feel that. But here's my wife, Laurie, the way she lives. It is, she doesn't think about the past, she doesn't think about tomorrow. The day that she's in is the day, and it's a good day.

Really? It's very Gentile that way. And that kind of calms me down. I'm fascinated.

How often do you fight, though? It's not good. No, I have to try to make her say, you know, you got shit inside you that you don't want to fucking learn about. You don't want to know about.

Is that a daily thing? I mean, look, I will say this, you know, any arguments we get in, it's always me being wrong. I'm an asshole. I'm just, look, I think we're similar in a lot of ways, because I fight, I get angry a lot.

I think that was part of the environment growing up. I'm very, because my dad was so high, strong, and so I'm always, you know. The book is really funny and really honest, but like, unlike some memoirs, you know how to end a thing. You know, because sometimes you don't go for the joke.

The jokes are earned, and there's a couple, like, there's a few moments where I was laughing out loud a lot. But, like, sometimes with us, with funny people, when you get to the end, it sort of, it always has a little bit of emotional resonance. You know how to end things. Well, you know, at times, if I was writing it, I would resist some of the funny things.

If something was really funny, I never thought about it in terms of jokes. But you're a joke writer, so it's hard that you have the muscle. Yeah, even the joke, I just think I have the muscle. I've always been sort of, I think, looking at things humorously, but nothing like a class clown.

I had no interest in comedy or anything. But I was, but so anyway, the book, there's times where I would actually think that's almost too funny, and I would feel like it was, it's my voice, but I also know, oh, well, that will help sell it, too. But I really didn't want it to be, I don't want to think of it as a comedy book or a humor book, which I understand that's how people will, that's why people enjoy it. I read a lot, you know, that people find it very funny, but to me, and it's not that I don't realize I'm describing things that are funny, I just try it in a funny way, but, you know, that stuff is, it was painful to take back on.

We talked about your father, and I don't want to cut you off on a movie, because, like, late in the book, there's this one bit of information that's dropped in a piece that's laid into the book, where, you know, your father's life, or where he came from, becomes very defined. And it was just this moment where, you know, his father or grandfather was a rabbi who came to this country, and because they were of a certain class of Jew, could not find a congregation or practice, and was forced into working in a butcher shop. And then he grew up in poverty, being a son of a first-generation immigrant who had status and prestige in the community, and then the American experience with him was just, you know, fighting his way just to maintain himself and his identity, and it had nothing to do with being Jewish necessarily, but where he comes from is pretty fucking Jewish. Exactly, in the worst way, and it ruined my dad.

My dad, you know, is, um, had a lot, you know, he has a chip on his shoulder about, my family. Great character, by the way. Thanks, he is. He's a great character.

Yeah, he is. How old is he? He's, like, 91 right now. He's a fighter, right?

Yeah, absolutely, he's a tough, yeah, and so, but the Jew, my whole life, even growing up, I was like, those goddamn Jews, you know, and he's not a self-loathing Jew, but what happened was, he would say they ruined his life, you know, and his father, we were very, we're peasant stock, you know, they were not, so he came in, you know, and had a whole Lower East Side experience, and getting in fights, and learning how to fight, and becoming, you know, really tough, you know, but the fights were always about, you know, him being a Jew. You know, the kids were, everyone was starving then, as he described, everyone was pissed off, all in those slums, you know, so, um, he, uh, his father, my grandfather, I vaguely remember, there was no love in the family from him or his mother, they didn't express love, they were dirt poor, he didn't have, like, a temple that he was around in, they were little satellites, the other Orthodox Jews would come to their tenement, the little, little, where they came from, where they came from, where they, Russia? Yeah, Russia, yeah, they came from Russia, and they would, um, and my grandfather, I think, was also a hard guy to get along with, but they made things like that at a time. Like they had services?

It was, like, from what I understand, in his little rat hole in the tenement building, where I had other, some of my other relatives living, yeah, there'd be, like, maybe half a dozen or so Jews, other Russian Jews that would come, and he would conduct, I guess, some kind of a service in there. I see, I come from Russian Jews on my father's side, and it's been interesting when we talk about this, that you never hear about poverty, you know, especially those, fucking, you know, that Lower East Side sweatshop, all white immigrants, really, a lot of them Jews, and you don't even, like, think about it, but at that time, I think you're gonna get to it, is that there was a class structure within Jews, like German Jews. My dad points that out, and I think it's in the book, yeah, exactly what you're saying, what I'm about to say. Yeah, the German Jews are the worst.

They looked down, they looked down on the Russian Jews. My dad was the thing where, like, I think he might have went through a period where he was offensive about being a Jew, but the Jews were so bad to him, the stories he would tell about, he had a dog that he loved when he was a little kid, and they would just tell his father, the rabbi, you know, a rabbi should not have an animal in the house, so he had to get rid of his dog. My dad, you know, became pretty good at basketball, this is when they moved away, and stuff, then it was like, he wasn't, and football, he wasn't allowed to play on the Sabbath. He just said, you know, everything is, they drove my father nuts, they drove my grandfather nuts, they, you know, the grandfather, I think I mentioned, he would come in, they would bring a live chicken back in the old days, I guess, and the Jew, and they bring it to the, I forget how to pronounce it for what that butcher was.

So they used to be killed in that, you know, sort of, you know, sort of, you know, and all that shit. And, so they bring the chicken in, and they would drive the nuts, and he'd come back, you know, already, so come back, get your chicken, it'll be ready to go around 5 o'clock. And they come in, my dad, and those fucking Jews, every time they walk in, he'd bring the chicken up, this is not my chicken, my chicken was much larger than this chicken. They drove my poor grandfather nuts, this is the shit that my dad talks about.

They were relaxed, they didn't have, I guess, reformed Jews, but that kind of, her side of the family, they were almost Gentile in the sense of their disposition, but they were, you know, Jewish, you know, and they, I guess, lightly practiced Judaism. My dad was forced to practice this crazy Orthodox Judaism that, from what I understand, when I talk about, even his parents got no comfort in it, they were born into it, it was going through what they had to do. It brought them no comfort in it, my mother apparently was a woman who never smiled. My dad was just a lone wolf, his brother and sister who didn't like him, no love from his father, a little bit of not very demonstrative love from his mother, and he had to go on the street and get taunted, and he learned, you know, to fight back.

And he, as he said, you know, they came at me in a gang, and they got me, I remember, and I'd get them one at a time. You know, I mean, I'd wait for a guy for one year, I'd wait for him, and I'd have a fucking brick, and I'd remember that. And so, he was eventually run out, like a social worker. The mothers used to come to my grandmother's tentative doorstep with bloody shirts and stuff, which your son did.

So eventually, like a social worker came and said, he's either going to end up in jail or in the electric chair, you know, get the fuck out. Yeah, so then they moved to Anglewood, New Jersey. It was about the most awful child in New Jersey. Yeah, I remember, yeah, that's where mine are from.

Oh, really, yeah. The Jersey's, yeah, from Morse County. Yeah. Compton Lakes.

Uh-huh. I remember that shit. Did you live in Jersey? No, no, no, Harrisburg.

Oh, Harrisburg. You ended up in Harrisburg, and your dad was in the insurance racket. Yeah, yeah, he ended up, he got to Harrisburg, I guess, when he was in, like, you know, 10th or 11th grade. So he's actually a little older than my parents.

How old are you? I'm 55. Really? I'm 52.

All right, so you're going through life with these, like, what, three older brothers? Two. No, I have three older ones and two younger ones. And the older ones were just, it was just complete chaos in the house at all times.

It was awful. The one about your brother, the one who steals, it's hilarious. That's constant. No, my heart was, I'm sure.

You know, beating too fast Through my entire childhood I just could not wait To get out of there But it totally, like I said I know you're born With a certain amount of damage And we'll never know That whole nature versus nurture thing But I was in the worst environment For what I was wired for And my wiring Was purely my father's side Crazy inbred Eastern European Russian Peasant stock Anger, anger and pan Anger and pan People don't fucking Really talk about this But maybe it's such a Jew thing Like I believe You're either Like the professor composer Jew Or you're the guy Who lifts things And can do sports kind of No, I think about it all the time We're like hybrids Yeah, my dad's side Both sides I think Because I was on my dad's side There was nothing cultural Nothing There was nothing artistic I could tell on my dad's side Because people forget That there were Jewish cops Jewish butchers Like I remember When I worked at the Jewish deli Shelly, the guy who owned it Says, you know, that's Bernie The contractor I'm like, well, he builds things He's like, no, he's in the mob, stupid And then you realize Oh my God, a lot of the mob were Jews Yeah, right, yeah And I don't know why I'm saying this proudly We get around Don't pigeonhole us That's right We've killed people Look at Israelis But they're a whole different thing I don't know what to deal with Israelis But it's amazing in Israelis Yeah, it's all frightening to me But you and I seem very similar In what we come from And similar in rage And similar in Your brain seems to be going A little faster than mine But it probably always did Because I would immediately Get into almost a coma Like I'd get panicked And I'd freak out And then I'd fall into myself And I'd just exhaust myself Are you good with The thing is, but you turn Here's, you know, again The way everyone is similar There's different things When I'm in the height of panic Or worry or something I can't work You seem through your You use that shit And throw it into your work Now in my book, yeah I put it into the You know, it's in the book However, I can't really work When I'm in that state I shut down And I feel my imagination Goes away My everything goes away I'm just depressed And fucked up So I have a little bit of a I have to be feeling Kind of a little bit of good Which for me is You know, a very And that's what the medicine does Is that what they call it again? No, it doesn't do it all the time It's called provigil What it is And I take it every now and then Like I said, I'm an anti-drug guy Anti-psychiatry guy I was never into that shit I didn't even look You're anti-psychiatry? Well, no, here's the thing How do you break that down? So you look at psychiatry Philosophy, religion All trying to answer the same questions None of them a science really Psychiatry sometimes In your mind You're like, well, maybe it's a science They're making more progress And understanding the brain On a cognitive level But when you say psychiatry You mean I'm not going to sit with a guy And tell my problem Because your father didn't like it Look, I grew up in Harrisburg I didn't know a single I don't think there was any psychiatrists In town I never knew a single And in my family My family would never do that My dad would see that as First of all, it would never even come You know, it would never enter anyone's mind We didn't talk about psychiatrists It would probably be seen as a very weak thing To go to a psychiatrist It's interesting because it's a class thing That you were like Not unlike my grandfather Not my father My dad's generation is really probably The tail end of my grandfather's generation My parents had kids later in life So no psychiatry for you I did eventually though That's what I'm saying I got to a point I was doing this show for HBO That I only did eight episodes It was called The High Life I did it for Letterman's Company Some of it was in okay But I was I'm not a real fast writer You know what I mean I found myself in a situation Where I didn't have enough support In general on the show And it was all on me And the dates were coming And the scripts were doing I wasn't happy And I'm not a person Who can just quickly rewrite shit I can rewrite it I can do it But if I'm looking down the barrel Like, hey, we need those five episodes The scripts never get that to that degree They're just something That I can feel in my stomach And I just feel You know, my head shuts down And I just realized You know, I was over my head It was post-Habbing Boy 2 Where I talked to a friend of mine Who I knew so I shrank Because he was shrank Because I have to talk to somebody You know, I really Because I have to die I have to get this fucking work done So you're in crisis Yeah, crisis It was the worst For me, it was You know, it was to me It was really a frightening moment And then so I eventually started seeing this guy Who I liked I saw him for many years And then stopped seeing him But he got me on antidepressants Which took a long time To start to work You know, because you taper up slowly Were you depressed?

Well, I think depression Depression and anxiety Is what I have And also, I can't Whatever it is Where you can't stop thinking That's why meditation Which I try to say Ridiculous, I'm never going to be able To clear my head I believe some people can do it Not me I can't focus just on my breathing And so antidepressants Have been helpful for me They haven't cured me But if I've had like A wide amount of anxiety It's now a little less than that They've had no I can tell That I don't think there's Any effect on my creativity Maybe I'm a little slower In how fast things come to me Here's what happens to me It's like I get to that point of paralysis Where I get like overwhelmed And eventually some part of me Some fighting part of me Is like Well, you're just going to have to Dump this into the world In the form of anger And get into the present Like last night I went into two sets of the comedy So I hadn't done comedy In a couple weeks And I was like Thank fucking God I got some of it out And I feel better today But I was about to yell at my girlfriend I was about to fucking I wanted to unload on somebody I'm like You go right in with it I had anger shit But it's not It's interesting Because I've never wanted to be I never saw myself this before I never thought I'd do anything I wasn't interested in comedy How did it happen? So you're in high school You're falling into yourself You're full of panic You've got brothers It's a terror in the house It's unlivable You become an insurance salesman Briefly in a very beautiful bit of a It's a nice portrait of the end Of a certain type of man in industry I really think that That post-war feeling There was still a whiff of it Right up until even The early to mid-80s And then things started to change rapidly When I started at Letterman We were on typewriters When I left They were just wheeling the computers in You know Isn't that weird? It's like that It's not that long ago For me especially I think for guys our age But it affects me It fucks my head up That I lived in two distinct worlds You know what I mean? It's weird if it was your phone You don't even know who you are for It's like the worst thing that can happen And I had the first Macintosh computer I bought in college It was one of the first people to buy it And I really just bought it as a word processor It wasn't much good for anything else It was a 127 something That big box Yeah right I bought that It came in a carrying case But it was a machine It was a big idea No one's seen it before And I had one I remember I had one And I remember what it looked like When you typed in And I just used it to type and store things But the idea that you could choose your font Was like oh my god Right right That was like 1986 I was going to get my first computer Until probably 90 Well they were useless I mean you just needed a word processor I bought what was considered a laptop It was a Toshiba I got it out of here We were in a place called The Writers Computer Store It was a gigantic gray thing Also a carrying case But here's what I find fascinating Is especially the early internet days Like my first Got my first AOL account That probably was in the mid 90s You know something like that Right right It was so fucking slow And everything on the internet is slow But we knew the concept of speed Why weren't we saying Well this is bullshit technology How did we not understand We were waiting for something amazing To realize how slow it was And say this is fucking What's so great about doing this It's just slow It would be incomprehensible To wait But now it hasn't helped anything It's just made everything move faster We've adapted to it So our expectations are equally as fast And they usually get met And then you just go crazy Well the main thing is I agree For the idea of word processing So there's no more whiteout Or that tape that I used to put on So that's just like You can just do backspace It did become I don't know how I could have written Moving really in a way Long form stuff Even in this book If I was putting a sheet of paper Into a typewriter How do people do it?

I don't know They have more skills They weren't sloppy Robert Town wrote Chinatown On paper I'm sure there were revisions But I'm sure there were assistance And there were people that helped And there were people that re-typed I have to assume But you still have that basic skill And you have to be pretty solid I mean me it's like random I don't need typing I've gotten away I do it But it's very erratic And I'm always going to fuck up But the entire culture Is not capable of editing properly anymore Everything just falls to the cracks No one gives a fuck Even with computers They can't spell my name properly And they misquote And things are sloppy Because now as opposed to Not really knowing how to do it yourself You just have an army of fucking 18 year olds To 22 year olds Who are in like low paying Or no paying position That they give the editorial work to It's fucking disaster I'm telling you We're circling the drain We're circling the drain In this weird sort of It's a hyper real place The place where all the information runs around That's crazy that we act in relation to That can all be turned off And you can still go somewhere And sit and live a quiet life if you want But it's a paralyzing fear I'd like to think we're circling the drain But I think sometimes it's like Hey if I just shut everything fucking off And really did it For like a month I'd be like Oh we're not circling the drain That thing's circling the drain But notice I don't know about you I can't I can't even try that Which people suggested to me That everything on your computer Where it limits your time on the internet So you have to work I try that once Fuck this I'm going to get back You know masturbate Literally masturbate For hours and hours One way or the other That's all it's facilitated This like mental And actual masturbatory You know freedom That no one ever thought they'd have I can sit and waste my entire day Filling my head with bullshit Or looking at people fucking Any way I want And just fucking burn a day That's the big leap forward And buy a lot of shit That you don't want Which is a temporary pleasure To have Amazon Prime No I'll end up Oh you're in the wrath of God She's on Blu-ray shit I'll get that So that's what you do As opposed to just masturbate all day I think so It's sort of the same thing It's like I just bought a thing And I'm like Should I pay the extra $5 Tomorrow Yeah right Absolutely I know I know That's exactly It's totally Yeah and it's shit That you don't Hey look at this This is kind of cool These little mini computer speakers For your laptop I can just throw them in my bag What do I need it for You don't I'm going to have a fucking concert hall Sound in my hotel room It's not going to be that good It's not even going to be that good That's the hope These are the new things It's just the same But okay So let's go through How you got involved with writing So you're kind of nuts And you want to get out of the house You did the insurance sales Because this book really doesn't It sort of stops In a way You don't cover the career And no it's interesting It was never I said to myself I'm not going to do it I just never would I didn't want to talk at all There's nothing I hate more Than talking about the business I don't think this is the thing My family and my parents It's always like They never want to do it I don't like to talk about it I don't want to talk about it Did anyone get hurt by your book? Yeah there's some problems There's still some But you know something What brothers? Yeah and also My sister-in-law I think things that have pulled out That was the Disney chapter That's hilarious chapter That didn't sound like it was good going in No but my wife Who's great It was her sister But did you let your wife read that? Yes I absolutely did And I said She just loved it She said no you gotta put it in She'll be fine She has a good sense of humor But there were some things I said just mark anything You think is too much That maybe I should chop out And then she brought it back To me and thought I was bleeding red You can't say that You can't say this So at the end I really didn't think I thought oh My sister-in-law She said you know I should be cool about it But then you know something You justify the shit Because then I thought I said to Lori You know something If anyone did that to me I would fucking kill them You know what I mean Just as it is I have the thinnest skin imaginable So in that sense I'm a piece of shit You know what I mean But I had It's something I had to do And not only that It was real It was true It says a lot about who I am And in most of those stories And not all of them I think I come off As the biggest asshole I feel the same Reviews as people That are just like What a fucking asshole And the things he says about Disney Or the things he does this and that I have the same issue But see what I realized It sounds like you learned a lesson as well Somehow That you probably wouldn't do it again Is that it's a weird lesson When you're self-involved And you're like This is my life These are people in my life I'm the underdog in this I look like a horrible thing But what you forget is that The people you're writing about Especially in this culture Especially in the circle of people you run They're just as self-centered as you are So what they're going to do Is they're going to see it And they're going to be like How embarrassing This whole book's about me Basically And now everyone's going to read this about me They don't even look at it It's like three pages It doesn't matter So their whole world view And perception Thinks it's all coming down Because most people I think Which is probably more healthy From a mental perspective Don't go there and think about What's fucked up about them And certainly don't talk about them I think for people like us When I got to a point Sort of as my late teens That I am I'm just crazy And I thought you know something That's just who I am And it wasn't You know I suddenly I just realized I really think I'm crazy And I am crazy But I think when you realize that It doesn't necessarily Should not give you a license To be an asshole But you at least have to point it out And I am the first to point out Everything that's awful about me You're the same way You know what I mean And I time them You have to hurt people And the thing is If I never saw a psychiatrist For the period that I saw a psychiatrist I got on antidepressants Then I did that also largely For my wife and my young daughter I really don't want to be But then for me I would say first and foremost For me I could not continue I described you know When it was an awful moment Where I had all this work On my shoulders And I was panicking But I felt like that In different degrees My entire life And I realized To my life live unmedicated And I didn't self-medicate Because I didn't do drugs at all Was how beautiful It wasn't Well a little bit of like I did not Who knows It's only giving me a drug That made me feel so wonderful You know when I was 16 or 17 Or if pot did that for me Which it didn't Maybe But it's not my personality You know because I judge others I'm these fucking people Taking drugs I hated kids so much in school So anything they were doing And stuff that my brothers were doing I did not want to be like that But I also had a sense of I always felt that I was Teetering on some sort of Mental disaster or breakdown anyway I'm like yeah I don't think I'm going to start fucking around With drugs and things There was no concept in my mind That they could help Whether they were recreational drugs Or of course back then And also fun in general Was completely alien to you Yes that's absolutely true I did not have I did not My fun ended If I had any amount of fun Was the day that I could No longer That I was put into pre-K Whatever the fuck it is You know And I was no longer In the passenger seat In the station with my mother Going to the grocery store Which was that My brothers were in school Just me and my mom Like for me What I've realized Is that when people go Are you happy For me it's never been About happiness It's been about relief Like relief and happiness Are the same to me in a way I'm learning a little more now About the idea of happiness But to me it's terrifying It is I'm sure you have There's moments of Maybe some manic happiness Which dissipates very quickly I get mania for like Two or three days Usually before I get a cold Or it just comes And I'm like Alright this is that thing That happens for a few days I don't get depressed Sometimes I feel like Things are pointless Do you feel this This is what I've recently I mean not that recently But I think I'm trying to pinpoint What it is When I'm at my most happy It's when I felt I've done good work I've written something And if I don't do that I am fucked up You know like a book Made me feel good I had a good sense Of anything I've done It was the first time I felt that I had control of it This was not going to be Turned into anything else I was just writing a book It was something that I had to do Because I felt that my writing Was not my name Was on shitty movies That I really will say Not my fault That's the lamest thing A writer can say So I know people They listen to this It's the oldest writer Well you should have read my script In my case Captain Boy's a whole other story I don't know the strength You're into that right now But anyway Maybe in 10 minutes But maybe But there's other stuff I've done And I also realize That the medium of television and film You know you're not going to When writing a script Is this the only thing That's going to be pure That you really are the Right because in writing a film You're basically like You're doing a job You're on staff Your work is your own Only to the degree Until it goes to the next guy And then they decide Whether they're even going to use it or not And if they're going to change it or not And then like the problem With the wonderful union protection Which is good Is like hey don't worry about it It's shit now But you get the credit Thank you No it just doesn't What do you care You got the credit I would rather be fucking poor to be able to hold my head up a little bit.

Fucking credit, you got the credit. So wait, how do you get into the first job as letterman? Yeah. How does that happen?

Did you go to college? I went briefly. You know, my grades were so bad coming out of high school. First of all, I had no intention of going to college.

Me either. Because school to me was, I mean, it's a lame cliche or comparison. It really was prison to me, without a doubt. It's the closest thing I could compare to.

And when I got out, it was like, I'm not going back to any of those situations. So I worked, when I was 60, well, first I was like, I worked for a landscaper. A guy who later got brutally murdered. Which is another thing.

That's another thing. When you think that everything bad is going to happen and then bad things do happen, it confirmed. I remember, you know, things in my childhood that made me real. When I was young and my dog was killed and hit by a car and killed, I'm fucked up about that to this day.

But it also reinforced my natural, biological, you know, mentally way of processing things that bad things are always going to happen. My parents are going to die. I never, this is the interesting thing. I'm not a hypochondriac at all.

I don't have patients. I know a little bit. Most people, I, my thing is losing people around me that I care about. I look, I hope I live a long time and I hope I'm healthy.

You know, but I, so I don't, it's not like if I went to a doctor and he said, and it's probably not a little lump here. You know, I would instantly be like, oh fuck, you know, but I don't think about it. I'm not always like touching myself. I don't, I don't, I don't have that.

I worry about other people. Even death is not something that I obsess over. People are running out for myself. Yeah, yeah.

So you got a fear of people leaving for good. Yeah, it started with my, you know, my parents, my mother specifically. I thought, I always thought growing up every year when this is the year something's going to happen, she's going to die. Is she alive?

Yeah, she is. And so I'm very, you know, I'm lucky. That's a funny thing. It turned out to be whatever.

So, so I, yeah, wrong. Exactly. But yeah, some things turned out to be true. The dog was a big one.

Right, but that's sort of like, after some point you realize this is, this is my belief system. Like, you know, this is how my brain works. And even if it's crazy, it's how, it's how I comfort myself or it's how I define myself. Even if the panic about other people, that's somehow the repetition of that pattern, you know, keeps you in a place.

Even if it's not a good place, it's something that's familiar to you. Yeah. So like, you know, there's obviously ways to maybe get out of that place or, or, or, or, or sort of make it less menacing. But, but it's, it's the way that, like I'm learning that these negative patterns are really what we call home.

It's, it's what we, it's, it's what we've done. Yeah. It's what we come from. So you just repeat them and to change them.

Like I just learned yesterday, someone talked about neural pathways. I mean, it's possible. Yeah. But, but it's work.

You can't, I don't think they're, they're, you can help. I think the, when I've seen a psychiatrist and antidepressants maybe have helped maybe 13%. I'll take that. But you decide you can live with it.

I think I can live with it. And I think I am, I've realized that, you know, I think you are what you are. You can't, you can change a little bit. Everyone can change a little bit, but I can't, you know.

Here's what I believe. Here's what I believe. And it's like, it's, it's a little bit, uh, uh, uh, kind of sappy. I think what you can change is, and it usually will happen anyways with age as you get humbled and your pride diminishes.

Yeah. Is that, you know, you can't open your heart more and become a more, a giving person even in the context of all your problems. I agree with that. Absolutely.

And that's a pretty tremendous change. Yeah, that is, that is, absolutely. Yeah. And it's, um, imagine when you had a kid, you were, whoa.

No, not, not, here's the thing. It did become that. It became that. I had, well, I mentioned in the book, you know, uh, the pregnancy worried me because I did not want a boy because of my brother, the brother experience.

I don't like boys in general. I don't get it. The first day of kindergarten, it was, and I always loved women. I always also had, also, by the way, early sexual, strong heterosexual feel.

I know if you guys have been very young. Oh yeah, I remember seeing girls. Like my brother, my brother having playboys and stuff. Not knowing the sexes, not knowing anything, but seeing, you know, and being like, but, but, but, but, but in general though, I always thought that girls and women are kinder.

They're less nuts. They're just, uh, which is not, of course, we know that's not a blanket thing, but I found it better. So right away at kindergarten, when I walked in, and all the men in your life were crazy. Yes, yes.

But I don't know about you, I didn't have this thing where like when I saw the kids in school when I first got there, the little, other little kids, and the boys, just them all with their fucking trucks and their toy guns and their GI shows. I never liked that kind of stuff, you know, and the girls were sweeter. They were nice. So I, I associate women with safety and intelligence and, and, um, something that's more just, they're just emotionally smarter.

I know the blanket thing, and there's plenty of black and black chops out there. You're both sexes, but still, I just, I, I, I, I, and when you're a guy that doesn't like that, see, what I gravitated towards was older, like, and we grew up roughly at the same time, but you had brothers, so it was all in the house, the records, the hair, the cigarette spot, and, um, yeah, right, yeah, absolutely, that was cool to me, that, that, that stuff, and although I also, like, really, I sent in from a young age, really like, you know, 1920s music. Well, let's, someone put that in you somehow. Yeah, I, I, I, no, I don't, like, I, I, I described the book, it's true, there's something it was comforting, when they would show these old cartoons from the 30s on TV, that, that, that background music was something that really worked for me, and then you start hearing that kind of, and then it took me, you know, many years to hear that again, and say, oh, that's that kind of sound of the music I like, and then, in my teens, I started to get very, you know, learning a lot.

about 78. So how do you get this fucking job? I had no aspirations to do anything. I just assumed I'd sell insurance.

But I did start. I was smart and sensitive. I really liked movies, like a lot of old movies on television. And by the early 80s, really influenced by all those great movies from the 70s.

And that's when the first buzz of people started talking about going to film school. And I had to get out of Harrisburg at that point. So in order to go to NYU, I had to go to Harrisburg Area Community College in tears to get my grades up because I could not even get into a shit hole. I did the same thing.

I fucked off in high school. My senior year, I panicked because I wanted to leave. And I applied myself and got like A minus average. That's how I was in community college.

I was, yeah, there suddenly I was a study because I applied myself and I had a goal. I never once thought at any point in school up to, including my senior year, about going to college or being anything. Never even, oh, I was just like, I want to be an artist. See, that's, yeah, see, that's, um, I just had, there was no one in Harrisburg that would even make that thing seem, you've just never heard about anyone.

And I'm a person, another one of my big problems is, uh, I perceive everything to be impossible. So what's the point of even trying? I'll come out every different way that that couldn't happen. Yeah, well, yeah, impossible.

So that's, yeah, but that's the anxiety thing. It's sort of like, but then you gotta go to the place and then what, you gotta hire people? Yeah, right. It's just like, yeah, never happened.

That's the difference between someone like us and like Judd Apatow. Yeah, I know. Right. Yeah, someone like that who, you know, knew early what he wanted to do, was focused on that.

And can maintain the businesses. Yeah. Like, how does he even go out? I mean, I see him doing comedy again and I'm like, you know, don't, what about the empire?

Yeah, right, yeah. Don't you have a family? You know, like, what happens is they trust people, they deliberate power, they outsource jobs and they, you know, they respect it as a boss, they hold the leadership. It's interesting.

Even if I was capable of achieving something like that, I would not, that big part of me just could not handle it, could not push for that. I wouldn't want to be comfortable. I don't want to be part of a scene. That's the thing.

And that's why I never, the, or part of the, which I know is interesting because comedians, you know, stand-up, that's a really big thing. But we're all the, all comedians are like you and me. Yeah, I mean, I have a few, yeah, I guess. The great thing about comedians is like, it's like there's a shorthand to it and it's good to be around brilliant, funny people.

It makes you feel better. Well, that's what made me when I finally moved to New York and started then. So you got to, so I got to film school in New York and right away that, that sucks and I'm already thinking. And I want to go at that point is how do I stay in the city?

Because New York City fit me like a glove. It was the first, that was actually the first time I was truly happy. Because you know why? You can get lost, you can be alone, you can eat by yourself.

Right. You know, and so anyway, I didn't even know what an internship was. Some kid was telling me he got an internship for a producer reading scripts. And I was already like, what am I going to do when I graduated?

Like, I'm not going to be able to afford to stay here. My family can afford to, you know, this is all, I'm going to go back to Harrisburg. And so that made me think, I was like, oh, an internship. I never heard that word before, which I had not.

And so what I was interested, I was never like this comedy geek. I liked smart comedy. I knew it when I liked SCTV or this and I liked that kind of stuff. It wasn't any particular obsession with mine.

I liked, you know, a lot of old movies and stuff like that. So I was more into smart space. Yeah, sure. And, um, but what I was really into at that time was this The Letterman Show, which had been on for about two years.

And I was obsessed with that show. First couple of years were insanely good. Well, I was more obsessed with Dave. Yeah.

Dave was, I could just tell that this guy was one of the, it was the first guy that I think, this is, I think he, we think sort of alike the way he, not necessarily, he's a brilliant comedian. Right. I mean, the way he's looking at things and his hatred for bullshit and phoniness and the way people are, he was the first guy to really, you know, sort of shit on show business and celebrity. And he was like, in those first couple of years, I mean, he pushed it.

He pushed it. And that was, and that really, you know, struck a chord with me in a way that, you know, Woody Allen a little bit, I said, oh, I, I recognize some of that neurosis, but like he was, you know, like in the hypochondria and all that kind of Jewy. Had no relationship. And then Albert Brooks, I thought, nah, I'm just even closer.

That's like something that, that's more because Albert Brooks, some of that, but without the, um, or no, he did it without the Jewish thing, like Woody Allen. Right. But Letterman, that was something that's like, oh my God. And so I was, you know, I just thought this guy is, so I, I, it's now I know about these things called internships.

I went back to my dorm room. I cold called the Letterman show and said, do you have any of these things called internships? And they said, uh, you actually, we have a, uh, we just lost our writer's intern. Can you come up and just meet someone for an interview?

And I said, yeah, I went straight up there. Steve O'Donnell is a great guy. He's the mind. I mean, I mean, during when the show was really up and running at its greatest, um, he as the head writer is so responsible for the great, you know, like a lot of people, obviously Meryl created everything, but Steve, unbelievable.

So Steve liked me and then he said, come back and I met some, to meet, have a couple other meetings. And then I got it. And I said to myself, um, no, I didn't meet Dave. That's a funny story.

I didn't meet Dave for probably about a few weeks into my internship, maybe even less. Then it was a very small office. You always saw Dave. He wasn't like, and it was, you know, he wasn't the CBS Dave, but he was still on the show.

He was, you know, he was on the show and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, so I guess, as soon as I got that internship was the first time I ever had a goal for anything. I said, I knew that that place was right for me.

I knew I could write for that. I knew the sensibility, but I knew, you know, it wasn't going to be easy. But I said to myself, I don't care if it takes 10 fucking years because I have no other way to enjoy my life or to do something that I think I could do and make a living at. And I was, you know, I'm going to be a writer here.

And I was very, I'd say I was good in sort of like Steve, as the writer's assistant, I was really helpful. Steve liked me, Chris Elliott took me under his wing as well. Those guys really encouraged me, told me, you know, at that time, like Chris became a writer and maybe one or two other people, they were submitting jokes to Dave's assistant. He wouldn't use them, but he was back then he would look at them.

And I started, so on Chris's advice, I started giving like five jokes a day to Dave's assistant. And then, you know, I don't know, when it was maybe a couple months later, she said, hey, do you have a name for Dave, Adam? I'm opening up viewer mail, I edited the viewer mail. And I couldn't believe I went in.

And he has my, they were in blue paper. She said, you know, I like these jokes. It was really good. Just keep doing it.

Keep doing it. And I walked out of there and it was like, seriously, that's the greatest, that's the single greatest feeling I've ever had in my life. I knew at that point. Yeah.

And I kept writing. And he, for some reason, really took a shine to my jokes, which were not like topical. They were weird stuff and didn't really get laughed. It was more like, I think it was very much Pennsylvania, so Indiana, Midwestern type of kind of thing.

And he liked that kind of thing. So he always got a kick out of the jokes. The audience never did. And eventually, I was hired.

And so that was, and had I not made that, this is why we know that, you know, luck plays so much, you know, people ask you, like, how do you do it? It's like, there's no real, first of all, you have to be able, whatever you're going to do, whether it's stand up and act. The thing that starts with this, you either have it or you don't. You know what I mean?

You got to be able to do it. And then it's just about luck, because you just may never have that conversion, that intersection that I was like, if I made that call, the next day, it wouldn't fill it all the time. It's not, you know, it's not like, oh, you end up doing something. No, because I wouldn't pursue it.

I'm not. That was the one time I had the tiger when I made that call, and when I worked my ass off at that show as an intern, you know, and later, like, it was a writer's show. So what was the first meeting with Dave before the, you like your joke? Oh, that was, where I was opening, I was in the conference room, a little conference room, and this was before they expanded the offices, and so I was at the sort of table, and I would add my little, my letter opener, just slicing an opening, you know, you know, and making a pile that I copied for the writers, and from those, they would, you know, just write things for the viewer mail segment.

Did you decide what was good or bad, you just opened it? No, I added it, and that was also too, Steve McDonnell was like, I remember the first time he looked at my folder, otherwise, I guess this is, you know, one of the best batch we've had in a long time, because you have to, you know, you have to sort of figure out, oh, this is a good, this one is good, yeah, but there's some that, you know, you don't overwhelm them too much, you just, and so I was, I got the show, I mean, I knew the show, and, but anyways, I'm sort of catty-cornered from Dave's office, there was his assistant's office, and then there was another door, the legend, Dave's office, but every time Dave came out into the hallway, he sort of, he had to make eye contact with me if I looked up, and so he did that a few I really, I think we're similar in certain ways, not in the part where I have this amazing genius talent, but we have a similar side of humor, a similar way of looking at things, and I think there's a little bit of a slight bonding over that. And you were there for, like, you know, what, seven years, eight years? Five, six years, yeah.

And did the relationship grow at all? It did, it did, actually, and to this day, he's, and Chris Elliott will say the same thing, I think, but for me, Dave is, I gotta say, the most prominent, most important person in my life, he's just like, he's like my older brother or father kind of thing, I, you know, when I wrote the book, when I write anything, like when I wrote the book, everything I wrote was thinking, you know, this has got to be, it pushed me, if Dave doesn't like this, that was, this book, it's interesting, did take a certain amount of weight off my shoulders that I think will stay off. Not completely, you know, because, you know, you get, finally, you get used to it, but it's like, I think I did something that I feel good about, I don't say it's perfect, you know, I think I'll do better even, you know, the next time, but, you know, I feel good about the fact that Dave was so nice about it, had me on the show, that was, that was a great, a big thing for me, because before that, I had to do this, you know, the way the business is, I just felt like, you know, if anyone just saw what this guy do, I didn't feel like I could really be proud of, and a lot of, and some things I was very embarrassed about, and I was also upset about the whole thing about things, you know, money jobs you gotta do for money, and, you know, and it's, so, you know, I was full of shame for so many years since Cabin Boy, then I had a supernatural bad luck with a couple of other movies, you left Dave to work with Chris, yeah, on Get a Life, yeah, and that, and people love that show, yeah, no, I'm happy about that, and then you did a lot of episodes, I mean, you did what, three seasons? No, a season and a half, really?

Yeah, okay, so it didn't take, but you were proud of that? Yes and no, Chris and I did not have an experience working on that show, together or above you? We were, Chris and I were like, together, we were in the Foxhole together, but it was, yeah, there was some, it was, it was an awful experience, also coming from Dave, which was such a great experience, you know, and you left to pursue this, you know, you thought it was time, here's what happened, this is where everyone's life is different, and no one, no one, what happened to me, I don't know if anyone has things like that, of course people do things that turn out badly, right, no, so Chris said to me, there's a, you know, Foxhole show with me, do you want to write it with me, and I said, you know, you know, I was like, yeah, sure, I didn't think anything would happen, I never was thinking I wanted to do sitcoms. I had no interest in that.

So Chris and I said we wrote the show, and then I didn't think anything would happen. Then suddenly they want to make the pilot, and I'm getting a little nervous because I don't know what I want to do. I like it. I love working with Chris.

The pilot was a total, sort of, it was a bait-and-switch a bit for the day. It was nothing that I think Chris and I were very proud of, you know, because it was very, we wanted, you know, to get picked up. Chris wanted to get picked up, but obviously, clearly it was a big thing for him. And so it was a little compromise, the pilot.

It gives me these chills, the pilot. Like, you know, look at that. I don't know how long I would have stayed at Dave, not my whole, I mean, I definitely wanted to do other things. I wanted to write.

I think I really wanted to write features. But so I sort of fell into that, which is what it was, and then when we were at Get A Life, then suddenly Chris gets a call from Tim Burton, and then that turns into us doing Cabin Boy. So all these things just sort of happened to me. There were nothing that I planned for, was trying to do it, and Cabin Boy destroyed my life and destroyed my mind, made me even a more weaker, worried human being.

How? Why? What happened? Just the fallout, the embarrassment.

So Tim Burton, you guys had the script. Who script was it? Tim wanted to do like a Pee-wee's Big Adventure thing. Okay.

He was doing the big movies, and so he wanted one with Chris. So we was, you know, for Chris's stuff, he's the only guy I ever wrote with, and it was always just for Chris. Right. I never had a writing book for my own stuff.

But so, you know, Chris had this idea of a version of Captain's Courageous with Chris playing like a Freddy Pertholomew character, this little snobby rich kid that ends up on a fishing boat, you know, with these, you know, hard-nosed semen. It seemed like a natural. And then Tim was going to direct it, and I thought, well, you know, this would be good for me. I have my name on a script that Tim Burton's going to direct, and you know, he directs stuff that this will make it easier for me, even though I don't want to do necessarily big Hollywood.

But they all convince you, and you're like, no, no, you'll have help with that. But the main thing, this is a big lesson. One, never do anything just for the opportunity. The reason I actually gave in is because, like, the agent said, you know, if you do this, do you know how easy it's going to be for you?

And I was like, well, I want to do movies. But you'll be in the guild. But this is, yeah, right. But this is something, if I was going to write a movie by myself, or if I was going to write one with Chris, for Chris, Chris and I in a million years would never have fucking come up with Cabin Boy.

This was something that was designed for Tim, that Tim helped, you know, he shepherded it. He loved the idea. It was like, Captain's Courageous meets Ray Harryhausen. We told him, it was meant for his sensibility.

So then when I saw him as a director, you know, I hated, right off the bat, I hated the experience of directing. At least that I didn't like. And it was not something that I would have done. I felt very odd.

It was insane on the set with you trying to... It was, I mean, it just wasn't, it wasn't fun. And also, it's not my personality to be actually in a collaborative situation. I don't like being around a lot of people.

I don't want to have meetings. I don't think, well, what should the scale of the ice monster be? And plus, I had no, here's the thing, no passion for that project. I just want to get through it.

And I assume, we'll probably be okay. You know, I'm a little concerned that it wasn't to him. But the fallout, which I don't know if you remember, was so... This is the worst thing.

I'm a snob. I'm sure you're about anything. About movies, literature... I try to be a little broader lately.

I do, but I like what I like. And it doesn't mean that, you know, I can't like something silly, but whatever. So to be, this movie when it came out, Cabin Boy, which was not, you know, it was not good. I look at it now, it's kind of this odd little thing.

It doesn't bother me. But at the time, it was seen as like beneath Pauly Shore movies. So I didn't even know what it was. I had no opinion about it at that point.

All I know is that it tested off, you know, it was awful. So I now, not only was I worried about money, because no one... Partially, yeah, it wasn't going to be hard to get through. It was a joke.

It was a joke that I was now, I felt, and for a number of years too, that I was perceived as a hack. And I'm thinking, you know something? It's not like a big ego, but I'm not a fucking hack. I'm a snob, and I'm actually a pretty good writer, who now can not get a job because of that.

And it's seen, and I am seen as someone that wrote the hackiest, shittiest, worst of Pauly Shore. Or it might as well be an Orson Welles movie compared to Cabin Boy. Cabin Boy, for a while, was like the word for a shitty movie. It would be compared to...

I would speak in articles. I remember, there was some article... You cannot escape. That's the thing that people don't remember.

Now, Chris and I, we go, there'll be screenings, you know, and we'll do Q&A sometimes, and there's this small... Not gigantic, but enough that there's people that really like it, okay? And they don't like it. Because I've asked him in these things, I said, do you guys like it because it's so bad, it's a good thing?

I'm sure there's some people that like it for that reason. There's people that do see it as something that they just kind of like, it's this weird comedy. You walk out, you're wearing glasses, we're trying to get them off. And there was anger, and it was on Cabin Boy.

You cannot escape some mention of Cabin Boy. I remember there was an article, I think it was the LA Times and New York Times, about the Laserdisc craze. And the article was about all these director cuts, you know, now Aliens 2, James Cameron is adding extra footage. Is this really...

The idea of a director's cut? It was questioning. That's a good idea. The movie should be the movie.

I'm reading it and enjoying it. Mind my own business. The last line is, yep, so what's the store for us in the future? A director's cut of Cabin Boy?

Question mark. And I'm like, Jesus, everywhere I turned there was shit like that. You could not escape it. They would not give me a break or a Christmas.

And so I was... It was the most creative paralysis and depression that I had. By the way, this is still pre-psychiatrist, pre-antidepressants for me. So just raw.

I don't drink, I don't do drugs, I don't even take... And the world is crushing you. You walk out, you're wearing glasses to protect yourself from this thing that you... It probably isn't...

It was bad, but I'm not sure there weren't people in front of your house. It's crazy. I literally used to think... I was embarrassed just from my apartment down to the lobby.

I can still remember I thought maybe a woman started to come out of the door, a neighbor and see me and quickly stepping back in and shut the door. I was... I was... That was me.

I might as well have done something like that. But he's... And when I was walking out Columbus, I would actually think sometimes that... And I'm not crazy this way.

This is definitely crazy. I'm not this kind of crazy. I actually think that, you know, people might avert their glance. You know, if they would look at me thinking...

And like if you just looked at the numbers of people that actually saw the movie, the ratio would not ever happen. No, no, no. But no, but it was written about... It wasn't for a period of time.

Heaven's Gate was a cabin, which made no sense because this is a cheap little movie. It was when Disney was cranking out of shitty live action movies like, you know, Hocus Pocus or The Air up there or Captain Run. No offense to those movies. I haven't seen any of them.

I think the real horrible sort of... The worst part about it is that in your mind, this was like a sentence worse than death. Something outside of your control had realized your greatest fears. So...

So smart. That's right. And what was happening is whether the people outside of the world were doing whatever they were doing, the audience in your head that was judging you, the room full of will you, was like, oh, now you've done it. No, it's fucking over.

It's over. And also, sometimes with a brother or two that I may be talking to, I remember, you know, coming up with this phrase, which then they will occasionally refer to it. I was like, the resume curse. When I saw that Cullen Brothers movie that starts, a serious man that starts out like a shuttle or whatever, and there's that, uh, that dip or whatever, that, you know, sort of maybe cursed the generation of that family.

I would just, before I had any sense of, you know, of that, of thinking of it that way, I just thought there's some kind of, and so the resume curse had finally, you know, the, the chicken. Manifest of course, yeah. And it was, and here's where the fucked up thing was on my mind. Centuries old.

I can imagine so many bad things that are not reality. My wife, she said, and said one thing to me, one phrase the most over all the years we've been together, it's this. Why would you think like that? But the thing is, here's where that, and sometimes I think, you know, maybe it is my brain that's thinking, I'm out of the business, I'm this or that.

But what happens when in the case of Cabin Boy, it was really, this is not my imagination. I, no one did want to hear from me for a while. I remember, and I just, this comes back to me when my child was born. My daughter, I didn't want a boy, I was so happy it was a girl, was born about a month before Cabin Boy came out, and I already knew what was going to happen.

I didn't actually know it would be as bad as it was, but I knew that the movie was a bomb, and I knew from the testing, and I knew that I would not get work again easily, but now I had a daughter to support. So when my daughter was born, I weren't being in there, my first reaction to seeing her was just utter fear, because I realized, I have this new responsibility that I've never, you know, and I don't know what. Now it's interesting, you fantasize and you think, well, so what's going to happen? You're never going to be homeless, you'll move to Harrisburg or a town like Harrisburg, and you'll rent a little apartment, and at least you won't be homeless, and that's what my safety net was, you know what I mean?

Right, in your mind though, that safety net, and I did that too, when everything went off the skids for me, is that plan B, that safety net, it's vague, and it's, you know, at its root, horrendous. Yes, yes, it is horrendous, yes, and it actually doesn't give you much comfort, it makes you realize that, the worst thing is like, I have to live in a homeless shelter with my family, but I think, okay, well, at least I can take it off the table, but you know, that makes me feel good for about a second, then you realize, but... What's the job? Right, right, right.

You know, like, it's like, okay, I've done enough things, but my problem is like, at 45, 50, I'll just stop and I'll get a job doing what? Right, no, that's the thing is, that's also, I'm still, you know, occasionally you do feel lucky, and I realize I make a living doing literally the only thing I can do. That's all I can do is nothing else. But then what happened?

You did SNL for a while? No, that was one, this is the dark years after Cabin Boy. Chris went to SNL for probably, one of the worst seasons ever. And it was, I didn't want to work there, I'm so embarrassed about Cabin Boy, I didn't want to be seen this, I think about a year after.

But Chris, somehow, I went up and met your buddy Lorne, and I needed to make a little money, but I knew I did not want to work there. And I'm thinking that whole thing about, oh, they write overnight? Yeah, I don't think so. I'm not gonna fucking, the show was not good that season.

The cast was really big, the guys like Farley and Sandler were on the way out the door, they were on weekends going to shoot movies and then coming back, and it was a very depressing vibe. Yeah, he was trying to put together the following season when I auditioned, I think. And he was, you know, Lorne, to his credit, I mean, there was like Donald Meyer and Littlefield, they had him out the door. I mean, they were, and it was, you never thought at that time that Lorne would survive, and it's amazing.

Not only he survived, look where he is now. That's it, I never, it was not in me to, I never, like I said, I never wanted to be in the business anyway. So I never chased anything for big money. I've always been, was writing a script about a guy that turns into a dog, and he said, yeah, he was drinking out of the toilet, that's the type of job I had.

What was that? By the way, the guy who gave me the job, the producer, God bless him, because, you know, it was, in that year after Cabin Boy was doing nothing, he always wanted to talk to me. Yeah, that's one of the scripts that, you know, that, and there's one I did called Numbers, that Nora Ephron ended up, I mean, those movies did not come out the way that I pictured it. The writer is not, is king of television, but unless you're a writer-director, you have to expect this.

And when I saw those scripts, they were good sales, you know what I mean? I'm comfortable living, doing what I want, with some little sidesteps into some money jobs, or things like that, that, you know, might be enjoyable to work on, or something, but mostly it all comes back to subsidizing myself, to if I'm gonna write another book, or if maybe I'm gonna write a screenplay, a small movie, and I'm talking to a producer that I like, that there might be a shot there. I might get that one more chance, the movie thing, because I love movies, but it's harder than ever now, when you think about getting something really cool, it's gotta be a small movie. But you're okay?

I'm great. No, Mark, I'm like, I'm a million dollars, I just, everything's perfect now. I mean, okay, what? I mean, but you're making a living?

Oh, yeah, no, no, no, I'm fine, I'm that way, but it's always a, I don't need a lot, it never did, but then there's another thing, you think, oh wow, would it be nice to have a house at the beach, that's another thing about the party, but part of me is like, you know, I, and it's a fantasy I have, it's like, who's gonna take everyone out there, and where is there gonna be, like, is there gonna be problems with the house, and what if I don't go there? I had a country house that sort of imploded, they tell you, like, and you realize you have the money for the house and everything, what they don't tell you, I'm gonna get this country house and my accountant, yeah, no, you can do it, that's fine, sure, but then you don't, it's upkeep, you can't walk away from that, people like us are just designed to self-generate, and manage what we can manage, and because then if you hire people, then you're like, who's that guy, how's he gonna fuck me, I don't know, man. Well, I also look at it probably the same way, I mean, I turned down, the money and jobs that I've turned down over the years, far exceeds, you know, I, there's so many ways I could make money, there's so many ways of things that I just couldn't do, in fact, when I, I hated living out here, because I, you know, after being a letterman, I forget life was over, that's it for me in LA, even though later I did like a stand on Larry Sanders, and I did some other jobs, but I never, but I never, you know, I moved back to New York, and that was a choice, an agent said, you know, you're gonna cut your options down, and I was like, well that's the trade-off, because I have to live in New York, and so, it's about, you know, like, so I still turned down shit, and it's, it's, whatever, it's about the work, it's always been spent, but I don't want to be poor, and if anyone wants to give me a shitload of money for something, then I'll be happy to take it. Larry Sanders is a very well-spreaded show, that must have made up a little bit for Cabin Boy.

Well, that was, here's, like everyone else, I love that show, that's one of the greatest shows ever. So you came in after it was rolling. It was rolling, it was actually the final season, and it was, and I was happy to, I would have preferred to stay a fan of the show, rather than, you know, I didn't never, you know, actually I think Gary and I are so, you know, Dave to me is the guy that I, it was so, it's so clicked in our relationship, Gary's a completely different sort of guy, so there was not that, I did not have a similar feeling, he's a very different guy than David, and it's his show, and he has a way of running it, and it was not, you know, I had some fun there, but for the most part, it was the right, you know, the fact that it was just whatever, we did 10 or 11 episodes, that was, that felt right to me, I had my fill, it was the end of the season, but it was, yeah, whatever, what can I tell you? I've had better times other places, but it was, in retrospect, I guess it wasn't so bad.

You can't, you know, you can't, if you're not, if you feel like you can't really contribute at the level that you're capable of, it's not fun, and if a place makes it a little difficult to do that, and you know, Gary is the, you know, he's the guy, it's his show, he's been doing it, and so it was, I heard this, I had other friends who worked there over the years, you know, so I sort of knew what I was getting into, but I met Gary a couple times, and I know Gary is another guy, he's not like me, but there's some, you know, some fucked up things about both of us, I'm sure, and I felt like for a while, like, you know, there was a point that, you know, I got along with him pretty good, and it was, but then once we got into the thick of things, then everything changed, and it felt like, you know, it was, you know, we were in battle, and the battle was going very badly, and it was, and I think it was, I don't know, maybe Gary's process, I think he, you know, maybe things have to be made to be a little harder, and they're hard enough as it is, but even harder for, that's just the process, the way it works, you know, and it was, you know, the way to thrive in a show like that, I think, is to be like a creative consultant, where you're just coming in maybe one or two days a week, and you're not part of the actual militia, that's the tough part, you know. So what are you working on now? Right now, I'm going to write another book, there is a... A memoir?

No, I think I'm done with that, I might write some one-offs, you know, for magazines or something. I love the book. Love it, love it, love it. And the laughs are surprising.

Not in the way that, like, I'm surprised you make me laugh, but I'm surprised at what I'm laughing at. Like, you know, there are things that are really funny, and I'll laugh at those, but like, for some reason there are weird beats in the book that just killed me. I don't know that you would look at them and go like, that was the hilarious part, but there's just something about your timing, I guess I relate to it so much, the strand bag bit, like, I have things like that. They're usually like shoes, I just like, I get it.

I don't think it's like an OCD thing, I'm someone who very much likes a few things I'm not apt to pay. I dress the same way that I've dressed in sixth grade. Me too, but that's like what magical objects are. You invest them, they have something important in maintaining the continuity of your life.

Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. And what you said, it's true, you can change, and absolutely, the thing about trying to be a nicer person, trying to help people more, that's what you can do, but fundamentally, I know at this stage of the game that, you know, that the things that are wrong with me, and it is a mental illness, cannot be, they can be helped a little bit, you know, but you can't really change who you are. My thing is, I've never been, I think for the most part, you know, I'm a pretty decent person when it comes to other people, although I can get pissed off, I hate when people fuck things up, I hate incompetence, and I hate people who are just wrong or bad people, especially, I don't know if you've ever had anyone, like, there's a couple people in my life, of genuine narcissists, you know what I mean, narcissists, almost borderline, or possibly a sociopath, that all gets blurred, those people are the worst, you know what I mean? Especially when they're successful.