Fuck it again! He's written a new thriller You know, I'll tell you about Binder He just wrote a book He wrote a thriller called Keep Calm It's available everywhere tomorrow February 2nd A thriller But this guy was a comic And he's one of the reasons why I Actually, not that I started doing comedy But I love comedy I'll try to explain that in a minute Let me see if I can get some other business out of the way Well, as some of you know Louis C.K. did an amazing thing He did something There's a few amazing things about what he's done With his new piece of work Horace and Pete's This is a downloadable piece of What would you even call it? It's definitely not a television show Because he has brought a new definition To what is possible Through self-producing And through internet distribution Well, here's what happened A couple weeks ago Louis was in town He was here for the Television Critics Association thing Out in Pasadena He was here with Zach And he came over We didn't get on the mic We just went out We had something to eat We sat in here and talked For about two hours About this thing he was doing That I had to be sworn to secrecy about You can go to louisc.net And download Horace and Pete And it all takes place on one or two sets It's in a bar But here's the beautiful thing about it Everybody was running around Going, what's Louis going to do Now that he's not doing the show What's he going to do?
Well, he sort of compulsively created This very dark but beautiful series That when you watch it It reads like a stage play It stars Alan Alda Steve Buscemi Edie Falco Jessica Lange Stephen Wright Kurt Metzger is fucking genius in it Fucking Kurt Nick DiPaolo's there But he told me about this whole thing Where he just self-financed This project He got all these amazing talents To work for whatever they're working for He reached out to a bunch of people He found out Paul Simon was a fan of his And he met with Paul Simon Paul Simon agreed to do the song for it It was so beautiful He's sitting here He's playing me the theme song Of Horace and Pete He's like, who is that? I'm like, oh fuck, I know that voice And it's fucking Paul Simon But anyway, we talked for like an hour Over an hour about this thing About how it all came together Off mic And then the fucker would get up He's like, oh we really should have recorded that Yes we should have Because the story of how Louis self-produced And kept it secret An incredibly dark sort of undefinable project I mean it's almost like an O'Neill play It's like theater It's shot on a sound stage And there's no audience And it's full of dramatic pauses It's not necessarily funny all the time Alan Alda's doing something That I've never seen him do And it's all written by Lou And it's just Louis executing the Louis vision In a completely unfiltered way But in a completely structured way Like I've never seen him do before And you know, it's weird When you have a friend And we are friends Who is possessed by a certain genius And gets things done So that's the difference between People who accomplish things And people who get upset About people who accomplish things Or who chip away At people who accomplish things That's what they put their energy into Is people who accomplish things Accomplish things They set their mind to something And they do it They harness their creativity They harness their passion They harness their instincts And they understand their limitations And work within them to create things And then there are people There are people out there That don't do that But still demand attention Demand to have a voice What was amazing to me Was that Louis Just completely Just fucked Twitter Fuck it Got off Because he understood The vortex of it He understood his own compulsion around it As I do But I can't get out of it just yet Because I'll kick tomorrow But it takes You really have to make a choice Not to be a maggot among maggots Ferociously feeding on the corpse of culture Just the fucking monsters out there I guess my point is Louis is a fucking doer And he's inspired And he's a fucking genius And it's always amazing to see a genius Do what they do on their own terms And I think if you go watch this Horace and Pete Then you'll be like What the fuck is it Doesn't matter It's beautiful on a lot of levels It's something completely unto itself And it's released Completely in its own world It's something that He's solely responsible for And nobody else Got involved with it And it involves an amazing Ensemble of talent And an amazing ensemble of what seems to be Lighting and camera operators And art deck But it's like It's like nothing you've ever seen before And it's just Louis once again Kind of breaking the mold Shifting the paradigm Showing people what they can do If they just let their creativity Fucking just let it roll So This is not a paid plug This is a friend plug Because I got so fucking excited When I was talking to him Like I was beside myself That he had done this amazing thing And then I couldn't say anything about it Which isn't that big a problem I don't talk to many people But I couldn't wait for it to be released Because how often does somebody do something That nobody knows anything about With that amount of talent And that amount of production It was just fucking spectacular Anyways I loved it It's powerful It's dark It's moving It's multi-level It's theater It's fucking theater Louis C.K. now can add playwright As far as I'm concerned To his long resume So check that out Again Not a sponsored plug Friend plug I wish we would have fucking recorded The stories he told me In making that thing But anyway Check that out Horse in peace Go to louisck.net Mike Binder Mike Binder's coming This is one of those people That many of you might not know But I was fucking dying to talk to him When I was a kid And I watched the stand-up shows Mike Binder was this young guy Almost looked like a kid He had his hair combed over He's blonde hair He looked like he was like 20 And he was hilarious He was a hilarious comedy I still remember the bits You know a day at Disneyland And also like I remember one thing I saw He grabbed a camera From someone in the audience Took a picture of his garage And he said Explain that to the guy At the drug store And he made me want to do comedy Mike Binder And then when I got to the comedy store He was this mythic guy there Like he hadn't been there in years But he was like the golden boy He was like the He was Mitzi Shore's pick To be the next big comedy star He was at the comedy store When he was 20 I don't know how old he was Maybe in his teens 22 Way back when the original crew was there He got all fucked up on drugs And pulled out But you know He went on to make Pretty amazing movies Coop de Vil Crossing the Bridge Indian Summer Blank Man The Mind of the Married Man On HBO was his creation The Upside of Anger was his movie Rain Over Me was his movie But he was one of those guys That during the beginning Of the independent movie thing He was a guy writing And making his own movies And now he's writing thrillers But to me He was this young guy Who was hilarious So to get the whole story from Mike Was really a treat for me So let's go now To my conversation with Mike Binder I wanted to have you on for a long time Because I think If I'm really remembering I think you were one of the first guys I saw to do stand up on television Is that possible? Probably yeah I started really young I was on television When I was 18 years old So what year would that have been?
Jesus No, 77 77 So I would have been like 14 Yeah, so I was 18 You're only a few years older than me Yeah, but I was 18 When I was on The Tonight Show And Merv Griffin Right, I feel like it was Merv Griffin Yeah, I was on that I was on that about 7 or 8 times A day in Disneyland That's right, yeah And I know that you When I talked to you on the phone That you were nervous That I would get hung up on the stand up Because it's so long ago Well no, it's not that It's just that The people that are into the comedy store And the comedy store scene Are so into it And for me It's such a small part of my life Right Because I got there when I was 18 And I was gone when I was 26 You know Right Out of stand up Yeah, so it was like It was an extended college for me You know what I mean? And no, I wasn't completely out I was out of the comedy store When I was about 26 And I was out of stand up Probably when I was about 28 or 29 You know It became one of those things Where, you know How many things can you do? Right But let me just track it So where'd you grow up? Detroit In the city In the city of Detroit Seven Mile in Lebanon, yeah And what was that?
I lived a block from Baker's Keyboard Lounge Which was the world's oldest jazz club This was probably 63, 64 So I was only five years old Right, yeah Six years old And I said What is a comic Lenny Bruce? Yeah He said that means comic Yeah And this guy's name is Lenny Bruce I go, what is a comic? He said it's a guy who stands on stage And tells funny jokes Yeah And I went, oh, I want to do that That was it? Yeah, no, my dad told me that story He goes, okay, that's what I want to do Uh-huh And then But Detroit was a great place to grow up What was your dad's business?
My dad was a builder Yeah He was a builder And he was a home builder And he ended up doing very well You know He was from a poor Russian family And he ended up, you know Working through the generations of Detroit And did very well Your grandparents were Russian immigrants, actually? Yeah Jewish? Yeah Everybody? Yeah Oh, yeah So, yeah, I mean, that's I don't know why I assumed that But I always assumed that Yeah With comedians Yeah And, you know, I mean, nobody in my world Or my family was in show business Right But my parents liked it I'll tell you There was a thing called The Children's Orthogenic School Which was, like, for underprivileged kids Who had mental deficiencies Right, yeah, yeah I mean, and my parents became the fundraisers And they would put on a big show every year For the Children's Orthogenic School At Fort Artorium And they would bring in the guests Yeah So this was 69, 70, 68 Yeah And this was in another era of show business Because, like, one year Sonny and Cher were the headliners Really?
Yeah And they were They had their own shit network show Right, show And my mom and my dad and I Picked them up at the airport I mean, this wasn't limos and all that And I don't know if that was just Detroit Right But they didn't seem You're picking us up, you know Right So we pick them up And Sonny was from Detroit So he was really excited to be there And we dropped Cher at the Pontiacan Hotel And my mom and her go up Because my mom wants to see all her wigs And my dad and Sonny and I Go to a place called Detroit Coney Lafayette Coney Island Downtown Detroit Sonny has to have a Coney Which any Detroiter understands It's a hot dog? Yeah, it's a chili dog With mustard chili onions And Sonny looks out the window There's construction in the middle of the street Downtown Detroit And he gets out And a guy comes out of the sewer And Sonny yells Uncle baby! And Sonny goes in the middle of the street And hugs this guy That just came out of the sewer It's his uncle And so, I mean, so I was And we brought in Steve Lawrence and Edie Gormay With their opening act It was Richard Pryor Really? And who bombed horribly And did all these retarded kid jokes Oh, really?
Oh, no, he got himself in a lot of trouble You saw that? Oh, yeah, I was there I went to the airport I was probably 11 at that time So he wasn't quite the Richard Pryor No, he was full unknown It was an opening act for Steve Lawrence And Edie Gormay And he felt horrible And he bombed And I remember driving in the car with him But so, early on I kind of sensed that people in show business Were different and unique And I liked how important they were to my parents Right And how many kids in your family? There were four boys Yeah? Four boys And then my dad remarried And I had two stepsisters So they got divorced?
Yeah, my parents got divorced when I was young, yeah Oh, really? Yeah And did you stay in touch with everybody? Or do you have a good relationship? I get him on the phone right now, I swear It will not be a problem All my brothers and sisters You got the phone for me, no I'm the second In a larger family, I'm the third But between my brothers and I, I'm the second So when did you decide to do comedy, if you started that young?
Oh, I was doing stand-up in high school And I would go up to Ann Arbor and play clubs Called the Pretzel Bell And there was a place called the Delta Lady in Ferndale, Michigan No comedy clubs yet at this time? No, there were no comedy clubs In fact, the first comedy club The first real comedy club was in Detroit At Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle I'm sure you know of I don't know it No, it's been there forever That was the first No, listen In the big cities, there were the showcases Right You know, Catch and the Comedy Store and the Improv And up in San Francisco, you can go up and get on at the Holy City Zoo But there hadn't been places that put through a headline comic And really made a night of comedy Right And we were all, all of us Shandling Gallagher and Bruce Baum We were all on a show called Make Me Laugh Right Which came out at the perfect time It was a syndicated show And it was It came out at 11 p.m. at a time when everyone was tired of the news Yeah It was right before the Iranian hostage situation Yeah And nobody watched the news for about a year It was just people So there was this 11 o'clock strip show And it was a big hit Bobby Vance, right Bobby Vance, Bobby Vance Bobby Vance, Bobby Vance And so Mark Ridley, this guy in Detroit, had the idea He called me, he said Look, why don't I do a club You know, you come in And then I'll have a couple Two locals open for you And it'll be a comedy club Just like the Comedy Store Right Not without 15 guys in a night Yeah You know And then there was one in Cleveland A guy named Dino Vance And a couple guys Dino Vince and a couple guys Opened the Cleveland Comedy Club And then it started to take off You know, there was Columbus and Pittsburgh The Pittsburgh Comedy Club Which was managed by a guy named Jimmy Miller Who ended up becoming Sure Dennis' brother Dennis' brother And Dennis used to open for me in Columbus In Cleveland At the Cleveland Comedy Club Which, in fact, that was Dennis' first road gig When was it a prop act? It was a huge prop act We used to tease him about it You know, it would take 30 minutes To set that damn act up You know, and then he does it for 15 minutes And, um But his first road act was opening for me And then he opened for Clie for a week, you know So when you started doing it When you were like 16 or whatever Were you doing dinner clubs?
Were you opening for musical acts? No, when I first started I was going to jazz clubs Because that's what I read That Lenny Bruce used to do So who were your heroes at that time? Woody Allen I wanted to be Woody Allen You had that record I did too when I was younger I loved it, the stand-up music The stand-up record is amazing I shot a moose I shot a moose And the moose ate the Berkowitz Yeah, yeah, yeah And so we, uh We would go in I would take a friend of mine We would go to a jazz club We'd say, I'm a comedian And this was There were no comedians at this time This was in between This was right before Steve Martin Took off nationally And it was in between Klein and Carlin and Cosby And stand-up comedy had died Right It just, there was There was a rumbling of it I didn't know of Oh, I became aware of in New York With the Catch Rising star Richard Lewis And the Ed Bluestones And the David Brenner in that Ed Bluestone, I haven't heard that name in a while Yeah, yeah Yeah, and the improv was there too So I would say, can I go on And they'd say, yeah Comedian, what the hell is that? And the audience didn't know how to react to me You know, and some nights I'd get them And some nights I wouldn't You were like 17 I was 17 They must have been like What's this kid doing up here?
Yeah, yeah, no, it was fun And sometimes they'd heckle me One guy would say You're about as funny as my middle leg You know, just middle leg You know, it was like And then I'd be downtown Detroit That's when I really started to get funny Yeah Was when I'd be downtown Detroit Playing to all black audiences And I'd go, you know Okay, a little white boy here It's time for a little white boy To teach you guys what funny it is Right Record scratch, you know Yeah But it was was good you know i ended up getting i would always go on stage to these all black audiences and they'd be like you know we're gonna eat you alive right it's hard i'd always end up getting a huge applause at the end because they go he got us you know he worked his ass off that's amazing yeah it's it's a different type of uh room you better show up you better do the job oh yeah yeah and i was able to really just you know i was disarm them it was so different and i did a lot of jokes about being downtown detroit from the suburbs yeah yeah and uh you know but it was fun and then uh at a certain point i just as soon as i graduated high school i left i drove out to california you know yeah and uh and uh you know i ended up at the comedy store you know and i spent what year was that must have just been what 77 oh okay so she'd been at it for about four years yeah three or four years but it was still the original crew yeah they were the old guys you know i was like a i was like the the freshman when when robin williams or robin mcclorum you know when i first saw him really and he was also from my hometown so robin was yeah birmingham michigan you know so we had a lot in common and he hadn't he didn't always go by robin no first it was robin mcclorum that was his real name yeah i never knew that yeah and uh and david letterman was around he was a big bearded guy and uh and george miller and and uh tom dreason and elaine boozler and ed bluestone yeah that was the crew well yeah but i would go at the time when i first got out here wasn't quite a comedian yet he was just ollie prater yeah and he was a doorman and he wasn't funny and one day he put a cowboy hat on and became ollie joe prater and got funny you know he was the door guy he was just a door guy and i was a door guy that was my job i was a door guy for a year yeah there was a system in place my favorite story i'm sitting standing in front of the westwood comedy store one night we had just booked a sat the saturday show it was packed yeah and a little car pulls up a little bum one guy gets out of the passenger seat he says there's a table for neil israel his name is at the door and he's drunk out of his mind he's just saying what he was told to say excuse me there's a table for neil israel and his name is at the door and i realized it's ringo star and he's drunk out of his mind right so we see them and he way at the back this table with him and neil israel and their wives and he starts to heckle the shit out of david letterman the young david letterman yeah and letterman just chews the guy up chews the guy up and the audience doesn't know that he's ring it's ringo star david no but he finally ringo tells him davis ringo and he goes ringo who ringo star really it's ringo star so you're gonna fuck my career up like you fucked yours up you know and uh but uh it was a it was a great time you know again i was 18 years old and uh what do they call you they call you a kid comedy kid comedy one night i'm there and norman lear comes up to me afterwards didn't even know he was there yeah and he said hey i want you to call me tomorrow and it was norman lear at the time was huge you know i mean was jimmy walker around then yeah jimmy walker was around he was he was the one guy that was the only guy that was a star out of out of that yeah he was so when he would come in it was oh my god richard then richard started coming around again he'd been gone for a few years but after i was there about two years he started coming back that must have been amazing yeah that was great that was great that was really special did you ever tell me so when you were a kid yeah yeah yeah and he knew the whole story and he remembered it oh really he didn't remember me being in the car but he remembered the whole night and and then years later i i i was on this dinner with steve lawrence and edie gourmet and they remembered it exactly they were like we were so mad at richie we were so mad we had we had taken him everywhere and he just he was horrible that night they remember oh she remembered it you know so what happened with norman lear uh he had me do a pilot i did a pilot for him called apple pie it was my first and i'd only been out in town less than a year and it was a network show that was very short-lived and um but it was with dick libertini and rue mcclanahan and jack guilford and dabney coleman wow it was an incredible and you were like 19 i was probably not 19 yet you know so you're out here in hollywood and the comedy store is like in its uh most exciting time probably jay leno's around too i imagine yeah jay leno became like my older brother he's one of my best friends really after about and you were a little out of control right yeah and that was the problem jay was really really really great guy to me but we had a parting of the ways and um but i used to go to his house with him every night after the show and we'd watch the tonight show and whoever was on we'd play risk and they'd get up in the morning calm and come over we'd hang out all day right you know and i got sick i got very sick as a kid um i was doing a lot of drugs and i was eating a lot of garbage and i was away from home and i got a form of colitis and leno took me to the hospital late one night and called my dad you know i was in the hospital for about three weeks and he really took care of me because my father couldn't come out at the time yeah and they ended up becoming friends your dad and jay yeah and my dad loved old cars and had some old cars so whenever he would come to detroit my dad would let jay drive around these vintage cars around his gigs you know yeah but and they stayed friends to the day my dad died you know that's sweet yeah but you didn't stay friends with him yeah i did i just we had a phone out of the ways you know over the strike you know you were there for that yeah i was there for the strike and i just didn't really understand it you know because you were like 18 yeah just it didn't make sense to me it felt like everybody was just really mean to mitzi and they were playing buds club and he wasn't paying anything either right you know so i was like i was there all day shooting a movie the other thing is i got this role in a cbs movie to play alan bersky in the freddy prince story yeah i know that's always mad about it but uh but i made a mistake you know i mean i really jay was such a good friend of mine and tom treason i just one night i just went on i went this is stupid mitzi talked me into it i went on and i remember going outside and i could just see when i was so upset because they said you went on but i know you wouldn't do it i went no i did i went on i just think the whole thing's stupid you didn't quite understand it i made a mistake yeah i mean it was done it was probably the word that stupidest thing i ever did in my whole career was it was it was being a scab yeah it didn't hurt my career in any way because that wasn't really show business right that's what people found out either right away or never found out that the comedy store was not show it had nothing to do with show business i remember years later i was sitting on the set of a movie and someone from the comedy store called me and i just realized they're not they're not in the business this is the world you know but it was stupid of me how many people and i also think you know at the time you gotta understand my father you know was this kind of entrepreneurial detroit guy who built himself up from nothing who didn't have any sense of the unions you know and he was not a union guy yeah at the time in his mind the unions were destroying detroit you know and so he was like i'd call him and i'd say dad there's this thing and jay and elaine boozer they're starting a union and they don't want me it's been good to you i go i know i don't know what to do and i'm shooting the movie they go just fuck these guys fuck these guys yeah you know and it was you know he was a mistake because he didn't know what he was talking about and i should listen to jay and jay was like really good to me yeah he was really really good to me as a young guy you know yeah and um i mean we stayed friends and i would go on the tonight show when he was on and you know we never we never fought but you could just see in his eyes he was never as warm to me again you know it's interesting because like that that's a lot of people don't know about that strike and i talk about the book a lot you know the nodal saver book you know i'm dying up here i never saw it but you know it's funny i know that there were i mean people have told me what's in it i thought it was a pretty good book i was uh what have you heard i don't know i i just it's all about that i was in london shooting upside of anger and i shot like for 18 days and i promised him i'd do this interview and i was sitting in hyde park for maybe two hours talking about a world that i didn't even remember you know yeah and i i remember thinking i remember talking about just the way i'm talking to you about it like at the time it was a big deal but it was only a big deal to us nobody wasn't like comedy was shut down this week you know day 114 in the comedy shot that no one cared well it was just guys trying to get paid and missy was insisting that it was a workshop and didn't want to pay yeah and in her defense what it really was and this is the truth although i do say that it was stupid to cross the picket line of your peers i wouldn't do that today yeah but it was also fueled on by a lot by the guy all the people that didn't get spots right you know other people that it was in her mind it was a real meritocracy and the best comedians got the best spots right there were a lot of people that weren't getting good spots and said this is bullshit we got to bring her down and they came to hate her you know and you know she said i'll pay you guys 35 bucks a spot and that wasn't good enough you know they want and but they were striking from bud's club and bud wasn't paying anything either it was just the way it was and you know it never bothered me that we weren't getting paid because i felt like it was just high school or just college and we were getting paid we were learning and we were gonna get paid up the road right and i felt most of the guys you know when let when the strike started i spoke to letterman about it he's like i think it's stupid i don't think anyone should get paid this is a showcase right and and you know and leno was one of the few guys leno and treason and elaine boosler elaine boosler wanted to be norma ray you know she it was like she was very passionate about it but her those three were the only real working comics they wanted to strike they yes they wanted to do what was right but they really a lot of them just wanted to tear her down a lot of them she was a very divisive character she was she had her favorites and if you weren't one of them you know you were she was evil you know which i understand you know listen again like i say my thing was it was a great you know it was a great place to have gone through but you stay there after a while it means you failed it doesn't mean you're succeeding yeah it was dark yeah it was dark but jay used to say that to me so you know do you understand the goal is not to get in to the comedy store and be a regular and stay there the role is the goal is to get the hell out of the comedy you know and a lot of these guys didn't see it that way and i was really lucky i was very lucky in the sense that number one make me laugh took me on the road yeah playing the comedy clubs and also opening for big names and comics and musicians yeah yeah never for comics opening but i would open for kenny loggins and that was the gig wasn't it yeah yeah yeah there's no comedy clubs you get on the road you know i went on the road with andy williams one summer really yeah you know i think mitzi used to live in his old house no she lived down the street from her two houses away but uh were you like part of the family though i mean mitzi really took a liking to you yeah yeah who was she dating like steve landisberg at the time yeah that's right and i also took care of paulie and peter during the day it was one of my first jobs to babysit yeah but again when you run into any of the shores when you run into they talk about the strike as if it was you know i had this guy i don't have to say his name but he came over to my office and he had wanted to show me old photos and books yeah we changed history we were at the apex you realize i just no we didn't we didn't honestly i'm sorry but but the strike us that time period no it was it was the pinnacle of american comic i don't know no you know i mean you know the one thing is is that the door deal in the store in the main room still holds so on a good night you can make a couple hundred bucks yeah yeah that's right it was great and now actually she had agreed to do that but they still wanted to strike i mean did you know yeah sure and he was like he was a an unstable guy anyways huh i never saw it like that i never saw it like that but obviously when you jump off a hotel building you're unstable you know stable guys actually just check into the hotel and go to sleep you know the unstable ones jump off the roof i mean especially yeah especially when you're jumping off because you're not getting spots at the comedy store a problem all right you know i mean they wanted to turn lebekian into a living legend or a but the fact is i'm sorry you know you you know when when you know your homeland is taken over maybe then you light yourself on fire and you know but when you don't get spots at a local comedy club it's you know that jumping off a building is a decision you made to end your life and i'm not going to turn you into any great hero you know because you are you're a little unstable right and but it was a great guy i mean i mean i didn't know him well but he's always nice to me but i never saw it as i saw it as like why would you do that over the strike you know i've always felt that you know whenever listen i've had some suicide in my family you know and and the best line when there's a great a line you kill yourself you fight down five years you kill the wrong guy you kill yourself in the first five years of variety you're killing the wrong well steve obetkin if you had lived four days you would realize he killed the wrong guy right you know that was not that that was not a good reason you know unless there was other stuff going on right which we never know you know when someone kills himself god bless them because you just don't know but but in terms of people were saying he did it to shine a light on the injustice at the comedy store and i was like that's the wrong light yeah yeah you know well yeah it haunted that place forever so you're doing the comedy you make me laugh thing happens now you get in work you're making a living in show business yeah can you just substantiate some story was there a story where you were on the roof of the comedy store and you pulled a billboard down yeah what was that that was funny that was a there was a guy right across the street from the comedy store when it was in a different era i don't think he could do this but he bought an ad it was an actor and he bought a he bought the billboard of himself you know dan davis yeah actor yeah and it was him and he was in his head stuck above the billboard and we went out in the middle of the night we tied a rope around his head and we saw the head off just enough so that a good tuggy would come off yeah had the rope across the street and and you know had the audience door of the window and we all pulled the rope and just pulled the guy's head right off it was the billboard just was driving me crazy i was doing like 10 minutes a night on the fact that a guy look at this guy you could see it out of the window you know and everybody waiting in line saw it coming in so they knew dan davis it was great piece and it just built to the point where harris pete and i rigged this thing up and we pulled this guy's from across the street yeah and harris blake clark and i we climbed up during the day and you know thank god one of us didn't fall you know it was crazy but but it was a fun time that's a good performance piece yeah it was great so when did you like because your career is so varied and and you know you've had a long one and you've done a lot of amazing things so when what is that moment like where did the cleaning up go inside with not stopping with stopping comedy yeah i was playing the clubs and traveling and i was about 25 i really i was doing a lot of drugs and alcohol and and did you know a comedian named jesse aragon i maybe his picture like i knew harris because i was a doorman in 87 like i got there like late so like your generation was already like a mythology you know like you guys established the mythology of the place but it still sort of operated that way harris was sort of still around and blake was still around but they were you know in the 40s yeah well we uh jesse aragon jesse got was the first guy that got sober in a.a. and and i was in town and i needed some pot or something yeah i'm sober how'd you do that and he took me to an a.a. meeting and i didn't like it and uh some guys followed me out and said what's the problem you know i said well first of all i'm a jew when you have your meetings in churches right so we'll start from there second of all i'm not really sure i don't want to smoke pot i just don't want to drink anymore do blow yeah i don't know but the fact is it started to work for me yeah i went started going to these uncle john's men's pancake house luncheons on the west side yeah guys were funny and i got sober and you know i just went off the road and uh i was it was all the other side thing that took me away from comedy was the fact that i was getting acting work and i also wrote uh i had done a special for hbo which really cut my ties completely with the comedy store i did a special i did a concert in Detroit with me dave collier paul rodriguez and howie mandel there's a comedy special it was called the detroit comedy jam but it was First it was just a live series of concerts we did Which did very well And you produced it? I produced it, I put it all together and hosted it Yeah And Chris Albrecht was my agent at the time at ICM Chris Albrecht who actually started as a doorman at the Improv That's right In New York In New York Went on to head HBO Yeah but first he went on to become an agent at ICM And handle a lot of comedians And I brought him back to show him this big show we did And he said let's do this as a special And we It was an HBO special called the Detroit Comedy Jam And Mitzi was like I am You're doing That's my shit you're doing I go what Guys with a microphone I don't understand What part is yours It's in Detroit It's in a concert hall Yeah Well you shouldn't be a producer You should just be a comedian And let me produce that Oh well okay So apparently she hated me for that for a long time Oh really That was it Yeah that was it That's interesting So I did this thing called the Detroit Comedy Jam And then I did The guy that bought the specials from HBO at the time And took them to colleges Was a guy I'm bumming I'm bumming I'm breaking his name Because he's such a great guy But he also He ran Columbia TriStar Home Video And he would make little independent movies And he made Sex, Lies and Videotape And Drugstore Cowboy I'm going to His name is going to come back I'm just blanking It was one of those brain farts But anyway He had sold my special to HBO I wrote a script called The Bridge Yeah Which was me and my friends Growing up in Detroit in LA In Detroit in the early 70s Getting into some trouble It was a real coming of age piece And Bobby took it to this guy And he said If you want to make it for $3 million I'll let you make this movie And he gave me $3 million Through Bobby Neumeier The guy who did Sex, Lies and Videotape Yeah And we went to Minneapolis And we kind of recreated my childhood Yeah And you wrote the script I wrote the script and directed the movie It was a little $3 million movie And Josh Charles was the star He played me And Stephen Baldwin was in it And it became Crossing the Bridge And Touchstone bought it Disney bought it Yeah And that kind of changed my life In the sense that It was a little movie It didn't make any money It got great reviews Right But it got me going You know Jeffrey Katzenberg said What do you want to do next And I said I want to do this piece about My childhood at camp Up in Canada Katzenberg and Eisner Watched my movie late one night At Eisner's house And said This is our childhood You know Let's buy this Oh right And they bought it And then I went into a meeting with them And said What do you want to do next I said I want to do this thing Called Indian Summer And that was a big movie for you I mean that was a big movie That was an amazing cast And those did well It was like the number two or three movie For two weeks in a row Which at the time was a big deal It was at a time when Touchdown was trying for a lot of singles and doubles And we weren't doing big movies Right It was a program that they quickly discarded Yeah But again I made the movie for nine million It made like maybe thirty million or something How did you get on your feet with all that stuff Around your directing and producing I mean you just took to it Or did you hire good ADs No no I had written this movie Called Coupe de Ville I skipped that So I was cleaned up Stopped doing stand up Did you miss it?
No At first I did Yeah At first I did But I didn't want to be in the clubs Until I felt Right Stable But I was writing From day one I was always writing screenplays I wrote so many of them And I wrote this script Based on a true story in my family About my dad and his two brothers Taking a Cadillac down to Florida And Larry Bresner Who was Robin's manager Who I knew through Robin Read it and helped me get it made And he really godfathered my whole career He really became my mentor And he really He got the movie made You know A guy named Joe Roth directed it Who ended up becoming A big head of the studios That was Coupe de Ville That was Coupe de Ville So I had to produce screenplay Right And then I wrote this other one Which was another three guys in the car With Stephen Baldwin, Jason Gedrick And Josh Charles And growing up in Detroit And it was really an era And I got it made And like I said Katzenberg and Eisner liked it So they gave me a big deal at Disney Which that And you directed that one though I directed the second one It became Crossing the Bridge And how did you learn how to direct? You don't You're just bullshit You're just bullshit You know You get a good AD I was on the set of Coupe de Ville And I watched Joe Roth And I thought If this guy can do it I can do it And I got a good AD And Bobby was a good producer He had worked with First time directors And he got me a really great I mean my DP The director of photography Was a guy named Tom Siegel Who ended up He became Thomas Newton Siegel And he became a big time DP He is a big time DP Well those are the guys That really like as a director I don't know why I was saying AD But the DP He's the guy where you go Well this is what I want He's like We can do it from here And we'll do that So the truth is You can direct if you admit You don't know what you're doing And that's what Bobby and Sharon Bialy My first casting director Who's still casting every movie I've ever done They said don't pretend You know what you're doing Just ask for help So I did And I just made the movie And then this Indian summer We went back up to my old summer camp And Sam Raimi Who was a kid in my cabin Played with one of the stars of the movie And it was really Again I spent the first few years Just recreating my life Short sequence Is that Sam Raimi Was a childhood friend to yours? No yeah Sam and I were friends Since we were little kids We still are to this day He's one of my best friends He's a good director Yeah he's a good director Do you guys talk about that stuff? About what's directing?
Yeah we talk about How much more successful he is than I am How much more money he has But you're still friends That's good Yeah yeah He was great in the movie He played this weirdo Maintenance guy That we kind of knew He was aping a guy we knew He was brilliant Him and Alan Arkin Did these incredible physical scenes together That must have been amazing Working with Arkin You know just second time out directing Well I worked with He was in my first movie that I wrote He's in Coop de Vil And he was in Indian Summer He's hilarious He's hilarious He's an incredible guy And so anyway by that point I had to say okay You know what happened was I got another HBO special Out of my special A one night stand They wanted me to do You know and I got A gig opening for I believe the Pointer Sisters At Caesars Palace And at the same time I was prepping this movie You know and I did the one night stand And I did Caesars Palace But there was It's funny And the one night stand I shot it in In Chicago They would do two one night stands So Ellen DeGeneres did a half hour And I did a half hour And I just Between then Then I had to go back to Vegas And then I had to go And prep this movie And it was too much I was stressed out And again I didn't want to drink You know So I had to go So the last stand up I ever really did Other than a benefit With Jay for Charlie Hill The last stand up I ever did in my life Was Caesars Palace You know I played Caesars Palace With the Pointer Sisters And it was good And I did that one hour That half hour HBO thing And I just said okay You know I'm not that good at it You know I mean I'm basically doing the same act I always was And if I go with the movies I think I have a chance To really you know Be creative Be creative And do a new thing every year And I made a conscious decision And I was probably 28 or 29 years old at the time And I just I never did again You know And it was such a big part of my life That I thought it was going to be hard to quit You know Because it becomes a drug That I need to get up every night You get up Can I get up And to the point of Years later I'd go into comedy clubs And I'd be sitting in the back And someone would come up And someone would go The only one's You want to get up No I'd say You know You want to get up And I just I was like no I really When you get far enough away from it It's alien again To get on stage And probably terrifying Well the other thing That really became great was I would go to see comedy shows Even in that quick time After I quit And go yeah he's funny Oh yeah that's a good joke But after a couple years I'd be there laughing my ass off With the crowd And I forgot how great it was To love comedy You get cynical Because you know I remember some of the magician friends I had They'd just watch it And look at how the trick's done And that's what happens And I got back into this thing Where I'm a great audience member I laugh my ass off At a funny comedian And I got that back Not a gift So Again So by the time I was 30 I was making a movie every year I was doing things And I didn't miss it at all And it was also I guess really the only stand up That I stayed really good friends with Was Tim Allen and Dave Gouillier Because they were Detroit guys How's Tim doing? Tim's doing really good We just went down to the opening Of the Broad together How was that place? Beautiful? It's beautiful yeah Eli Broad is my godfather He is?
Yeah he's from Detroit too He was my dad's best friend Growing up all his whole life And so I know him very well And he's still around? He's still around And this is his collection? Is that the idea? He basically gave a billion dollar gift To the city of Los Angeles Did he live out here?
He lived out here for many years He still does And he was friends With your father growing up? Yeah And so he's got this So you knew a lot of the art From his house? Oh yeah I know them very well I've traveled with them And they're part of a family And you have kids? Yeah I do How many?
I have a 21 year old son And a 22 year old daughter Wow Are you married to the same mom? Yeah same mom I've been married to the same woman For 28 years That's amazing Well congratulations on that Thanks yeah it's great I've been sober 31 years That's incredible man And I met her at the bank Where the comedy store Writes the checks on And I'd come in all messed up To cash the check? Cash the check Can I see the manager? Bullshit What are you bouncing my checks for?
And this 20 year old blonde manager Would come over She was so hot But she was such a bitch And I used to call her The bitch at the bank And I actually moved to another branch Because this woman Was so hard on me And I just had this Total crush on her But I was a screw up I was a screw up I mean all my checks Worked for $90 to the same person Figure that out And Domino's Pizza That was it And she would look through And she'd go You've got to keep money In your account If you're writing these checks And she could just see She knew And I got sober And I ran into her In an AA meeting And she had been sober A few years longer than me And she just knew me As a deadbeat at the bank But she was like I am so glad you got sober And we started dating And I married the bitch at the bank That's sweet Yeah it's great But like the number of movies You made is pretty astounding to me I mean you made a lot of movies And a couple of them are good No no that's the thing I mean I really had to flounder Because I didn't have any training I didn't really All I knew was Woody Allen And those guys you know But you know It's been a really great experience Making movies Because it's like Doing an hour And then you get it And you get it done And then you start over With nothing again every year Right But like the directors I've talked to And like the process of it You're all in for a couple years Yeah yeah You know Listen some of them Take five six years to get made And some of them I write a lot of scripts And a lot of them But by the time you know You're going to make it You're all in for a year That's a year Now when you do You wrote Blankman? No I didn't Blankman was an aberration It's the only movie I've ever done that I didn't write You just directed it? Yeah and Damon and I Were friends from the comedy store And he used to be so good Didn't he? He still is He still is man He's a great When I was a doorman He would come in And just do this freeform shit No he wasn't brilliant And what happened was After Indian Summer I had gotten Disney wanted me to do another movie And it was That weekend I ran into Damon at the theater He was there watching the movie And I said You want to do this Blankman?
And it was like a Batman parody I loved Batman growing up And Sam had just done Darkman Right You know So I said yeah And my agent Jim Burk at the time Said this is going to kill your career And I said it's not my movie I'm producing a friend's It's like producing a friend's album Yeah How could Why am I going to If it doesn't do well It's his fault Right And I said We're going to make it funny as hell He said it's going to kill you And Jeff Katzenberg He had Jeff Katzenberg call me And said don't do this And I said look I want to work with Damon I gave him a year in my life It was the best year Comedy we got He, David, Alan Greer and I We laughed our ass off We made a movie that Tested through the roof That Sony thought was going to be a huge hit And Damon was really funny in it And it was a really good Version of that thing And a Batman spoof And it bombed And I couldn't get a movie made for three years It killed my career And my agent told you so Did he stay your agent? Yeah And then you come back With one of your own movies or no? Yeah no Then I made a little small little movie I had to kind of reinvent myself I made this little movie called Sex Monster With myself as the star And Meryl Hemingway I made it for $600,000 Yeah And that kind of got me going again Did anyone go see it? I don't know if anyone saw it But I don't even think it was released I think HBO bought it It went up to the Aspen Yeah, the Canadian Arts Festival Right And it won Best Picture And I won Best Actor And Chris Albrecht said You gotta do a show for us Which became Mind of the Married Man Yeah, I like that show So they bought that movie And they bought the show And so that's what it It never really was in theaters But it helped me a lot And it changed my It kind of moved me to another direction And I worked on the show Which to me was just little movies You know Yeah And they had total creative control What happened to that?
How many of you did what? Two seasons, yeah With Bobby Slayton? Bobby Slayton was great He was great in it Yeah He still wishes it was going Slayton, he sent me the funniest thing When the show got canceled He wrote me a note Binder, thanks for having me on your show In retrospect, a little more of me A little less of you We'd still be on the air, Slayton What happened with that show? I don't know, you know I mean the show was a little snake bit From the get-go, you know I mean we aired Tuesday September 11th, 2001 Okay I was on the air We were in New York We had a premiere party September 10th in New York City And the morning I got up On September 11th And I go out I'm sitting with Diane Sawyer On the air Showing clips from the show That airs tonight And she's in the middle of my interview She says, excuse me But we're going to break away To a news thing now And the news is Charles Gibson Saying that a small plane Is at the World Trade Center You were on the air On a show Before they knew what was happening Yeah, yeah And they actually still show That interview on the anniversaries Of ABC Good Morning America Where they take you back And Diane Sawyer You know, so the show came out And you know It was one of those things That was supposed to be Male sex in the city And it was very real But a lot of women Had problems with it And a lot of guys Had problems with it Like, what are you talking about?
Yeah, there was that One wife talking about And this ain't Or the other group Was this ain't That ain't me This is puerile This is in juvenile And you know It's like What I learned from that show Because we did good work It was really good actors And Bruce Paltrow directed it And we did good A married man White man's sexuality Is the third rail Of American comedy In fact, any married man Yeah You know, Chris Rock did this thing I think I love my wife I went, you're dead I ran into a premiere One of the movies Told me that was the title I said, change that title And that movie's not going to work Because women don't want to see A movie about a married guy That wants to fuck someone Other than their wife Right And they don't want You can't go You don't go in packs With your friends to see that And the wives don't go Oh, he just wanted to go see that movie Where the guys all fucked masseuses Yeah They don't Whereas we Guys go Okay, sex in the city movie You guys all went and had fun And the girls all got laid by studs That's fine Just come home on time You know We don't care. But guys would tell me, I have to pretend I'm asleep when my wife walks in the room when mine and the Mary's on or else we're going to get a fight talking about, do you think that way? No shit, so it couldn't go either way. Yeah, so it's just not a, just in general, any time you've tried to do that, anyone who does that kind of horny men thing, you know?
So we were, you know, listen, our ratings were really good, you know, and some people liked us and some people hated us, you know, and it was also, it was a time at HBO that they really started getting into star-fucking. They bought some really expensive shows, so they didn't have the money to do a third season, but they hired me to write it and I went off and did Upside of Anger. Was that the one with Kevin Costner? Yeah.
That did all right, right? Yeah, I did very well. And you were in it? Yeah, yeah.
Did you play a sleazy guy? Yeah, I played a sleazy guy. He had a mustache? Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, that's right. And, you know, when I came back, Chris was like, okay, maybe we should do a third season and he hemmed and hawed and I started this movie with Ben Affleck called Man About Town and by the time that was done, you know, they take a year, it just, it was too far away, you know, a lot of the actors had series and so that's what happened, you know, it just, it was one of those shows that either you loved or you hated it and the people that hated it were really loud about hating it. Men and women. Yeah, a lot of our biggest problems were men and viewers.
Why don't you get to keep your mouth shut? It wasn't that. There were a few of those but there were a lot of these guys that just, you know, they don't have that camaraderie with other guys and they don't sit around and talk about pussy. Guys don't talk like that.
This is just his, you know, these are sick guys, you know, and the truth is a lot of guys, I would be out running and I'd see a guy park a car and he'd pull me over and he'd run alongside me and go, dude, you're giving away all the secrets, you know, and I had more guys, you know, tell me that and I also found it to be a good Rorschach test. The people, when I went into a married couple and they watched it and liked it and there were a lot of them, I always knew they had a good marriage, you know, because my wife, she didn't understand, she'd go, what, why do women get so upset? You think I don't know that he thinks like this? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You think I don't know the way these guys behave when we're not around? Yeah. You know? So, anyway, it was, you know, listen, it should have gone longer but it was perfect for me because it was time for me to move on again, you know, it was, like I said, Upside of Anger really helped me out a lot and then I made this movie with Ben Affleck and then I made Rain Over Me with Adam Sandler.
That was a 9-11 movie. That was more or less a 9-11 movie. Aftermath. It was like about the story of what happened three years later and it had to do with the fact that I was there that night on the streets with people covered with Dustin and they were just mumbling.
I lived in Astoria then. It was devastating. The weeks after with the pictures everywhere. It was devastating.
So about a year and a half later I was there and I thought, I wonder, there are probably some people still wandering these streets that that night never ended for and I just wrote this piece and I wasn't going to do it with Tom Cruise and Javier Bardem and Tom wanted to do it and Javier wanted to do it and whatever happened it ended up Adam Sandler and Don Chito which was fine and we had a great time making it. It was a very tough movie and we showed it to the surviving families and the groups and they loved it and Adam was really quite good in it. You know, with anyone else in it it would have been people would say it did really good. It made $24, $25 million.
I make my movies small but Adam's $24, $25 million Adam Sandler movie is a bomb. It was a different type of movie for him. Yeah, and he knew that but he took it so personally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was just talking to this about somebody because I think he was really good in all those kind of movies he did but because none of them were big box office bombs he kind of turned back to his Jack and Jill and Zardoz and I think he just said fuck it, I'm safe here and this is what my fans want and I think he could really have been like Tom Hanks. I think that's how talented that guy is. Yeah. You know, he really didn't want to go that direction and by the time he did he tried a few other things that just didn't work.
Yeah. And that movie did alright. It was a little heavy. I remember I didn't see it because I thought it was heavy.
It did alright. It did alright but the interesting thing about all these movies I'm sure not just my movies but they have these incredible afterlives now. Yeah. So it's almost like a book and the theatrical release is just a way to get the publicity out.
I mean, I just did this movie Black or White with Kevin Costner which I think between Canada and America did $25 million at the box office and made it for seven but it's doing so well on Netflix and iTunes and Amazon people are coming up to me all the time talking about that movie and it'll be around forever. I got a text last night from some guy said I watched the movie and then we went and ran it up out of anger. So in the old days you didn't have that. If the movie didn't work the movie didn't work and maybe it would play on HBO late at night but now the movie comes out and within a month it's going everywhere around the world and people can watch it on their big screens at home and I mean we've made a lot more money on Black or White than we made at the box office already in television.
Isn't that amazing? Yeah. So the whole paradigm is shifting because again when I made that movie for $9 million Louisiana gave us $2 million back Kevin put out most of the money Kevin and I own that movie he obviously owns a lot more than I do but we own the movie forever and it's just a new as you say a paradigm and believe me within a blink within the most two years movies will come out same date same place everywhere in the world everywhere you can buy a movie just like an album Beyonce puts out an album you can buy it anywhere in the world online but a movie there's still this antiquated distribution where it doesn't come to Canton, Ohio for six months and it doesn't go to Belgrade and Belfast for three years sometimes and the internet has made the world so small but you're not hung up on the theater experience I'm not at all not one bit I mean people I like the idea that eventually a movie will come out in the theater and you can go that opening weekend or for the opening weekend you can pay a premium and watch it on iTunes for $49 with the family cheaper and then eventually that price will come down and it'll come out of the theaters but it'll open in the whole world and you can watch it on your iPad or your phone anywhere anytime and that's what we're getting to and for me I have no honestly I can tell you that I've had great experiences in my sitting room with my wife and kids watching movies that are just as good as going out to the theater and then I like to go to the theater sometime but it really has nothing to do with the size of the movie or how it really is you know sometimes what's your work ethic man because like you you know I talk to writers and I got my own problems with writing but it seems like you can't help yourself I mean I didn't know what we were going to talk about and I knew we were going to talk about movies and comedy but then you sent me a book you write a novel I have a novel coming out the way first is that your first novel? yes my first novel you just can't stop working no it's really sad well no it's not it's a pretty good compulsion to have it's really funny I went to Aspen this weekend for this Charlie Rose weekend that he has and I was lucky enough to fly in a private plane on the way back with these people and after about 20 minutes I said I'm going to go back and write and the guy who's a builder said you did that on the way out here I said yeah are you under some heavy deadline I went no I'm a neurotic you know I have to write every day yeah you do that's a fucking gift it's a gift I've really you know it's been a great gift for me first of all I mean it's a God given gift I really don't take it for granted and then I always have an idea oh I've never run out of ideas that's why I put the album I've always had I have so many scripts in the drawer that I finished and I'll do another rewrite and I write every day and you like it I do I love it I love it I write every day it's a little bit of a torture because it's like sometimes it's like a shit that won't come out you know you just got to squeeze you know and you got to really work it you know and sometimes they come out like just you know like black or white I had that idea in my head for eight years it was based on a true story that tangentially affected my life and the fact that my wife had this nephew a biracial guy kid named Sean who we just loved and his mother died and he had us up in Santa Monica his family up there and the family down in South Central and I always thought that'd be a great story to tell a little kid and do a custody battle which we didn't have and it rolled around in my head for years and when I went to write it it took three weeks and Costner just went okay we're doing it this summer you know and sometimes they come out like that and sometimes it's a struggle but I always have an idea I always and I get up every morning you know I get up and I have some quiet time and some prayer and meditation and I get it together you know and I I spend three to four hours writing and it's new you know and then I'm done you know and then I you know I put some serious time into masturbation sure which makes sense you gotta keep that those two things that's what keeps you young I'm gonna have the whole day basically in business unless I'm shooting I don't write when I'm shooting do you have a movie in the works now?
I do I'm actually I have two movies in the works but I have this novel coming out I'll keep calling and it's a thriller it's a thriller and I'm making a movie with New Line with Chuck Roan and Alex Gartner at Atlas are producing it and these are the guys that did The Dark Knight and who's that we got signed up for stars well we're just putting it together now so I don't want to say it sounds like a big movie it is a big movie it's like a 60 million dollar action film holy shit so it's different for me that's the biggest movie you've done yeah but it's also the book is a real departure for me the book is it's an American who's at number 10 Downing Street and a bomb goes off and he's framed for it and he realizes right away once it goes off that's why I was invited because he's got a pass they're gonna make him a suspect they're gonna wake up on me and now before tonight by the end of the night they're gonna kill me and then they're just gonna be this guy this nut did it and so it's him trying to figure out how to stay alive while a young inspector in SO-16 which is the anti-terror this young girl is chasing him across England because she knows he didn't do it and she knows there's something behind it so you can get a real action guy I've already got all three stories it's a newborn identity yeah and the girl so the guy's gonna run for three no no no he doesn't run for three years he gets to sit down for a minute okay but yeah so I'm working on that and you know I'm just really lucky like you say I've always got the next thing coming out and I just wrote a script for Reese Witherspoon based on a book that she loved called Napkin Notes now she reached out to you I think she did yeah it's amazing to me because the reason I like to talk about about comedy and just about your place in my mind is that you know you walk people in and I think that's sort of the fear of staying in comedy on one level and also how you perceive and you know I talked to a lot of guys that you know started in comedy but it's rare you're rare that you don't want to do all these amazing things and I don't think I think you have to attach some of it to the introduction in the show business through comedy that's right you know it's very interesting how everyone's gonna do their career and how they're gonna make the break you know I think so you know I mean by the same token I just I've just it's been an evolving journey for me that I would like to now I actually I really like writing novels you know I'd like to create some television shows I'm working on Ray Donovan now you know as what as a writer and I'd like to get into that world you'll still do staff writing are you doing you know you're on staff over there yeah wow yeah I've never done it but I'm doing it yeah and I did it for about eight weeks on one of Chuck Lorre's sitcoms and realized that I had to get the hell out real fast which one mom yeah I mean the writers were brilliant but you know that whole Chuck Lorre world is a piece of work well do you like writing comedy no right no I didn't like I didn't like that but they were geniuses they were incredible and so when they called me about Ray Donovan I was like I already tried this but I love the show and I thought okay this is a little bit more and the type of show I would create if I did a show right but you know so I just see it as evolving to the books and more movies and you know eventually you know I just I don't want to stay at one place and it might have I probably would have been more successful if I just did one thing over and over again with one kind of movie or whatever but by the same token you know it's really hard for me to do something unless I love it yeah you know I'm sure you understand that it's a horrible thing to be part of to be have to do something that's not why we signed up for this also and when I'm looking at you you know you've created this whole world for yourself you've created your show and you do your stand up and you just do your own shit and for me I'm better off just doing my own shit and so it just makes sense but I can't do it unless it's like okay yeah I'm really into this I'm really into this but do you ever get to that point where you've gotten yourself into something and you're just overwhelmed it sounded to me like when you had to let go of comedy there's that time where you just stretch too thin and you just gotta pick it there's only so much bandwidth I don't care who you are and that's why I think guys like Woody Allen have been really smart you know it's funny I'm friends with Albert Brooks he's never coming on the show but we go for walks so I'm no offense but he just he doesn't like to talk about himself yeah you know we go for walks in the neighborhood he's very smart you know I say why don't you do another Albert Brooks movie and Netflix and everyone would let you make a movie I'm concentrating on the acting you know he understands he's only got so much bandwidth and I've come to those places in my life and one of the things that I've been good at is when I get a green light and I start a movie that's all I work on for the duration of the movie you know when I get back and I'm in the editing room I'm writing something else but while I'm making the movie while I'm shooting it while I'm casting it that's what I do so you have to you have to really put blinders on well you make a good living in show business yeah I mean I'm lucky I'm lucky I mean I will tell you also that I had almost five years where I didn't make a dollar in show business in the middle of my after Blankman? no no I had three years then and then I got on a roll but after Rain Over Me I didn't make a movie for five years what'd you do? wrote? did you think about going back to comedy?
I did a lot? no I opened up a hot dog joint on Sunset Boulevard you did? I did that that was fun did it stay open? no it was open for a couple years Detroit style?
yeah next to the Whiskey A Go-Go it was called Coney Dog oh yeah but then I realized that this is just me hiding so it was voluntary you didn't do the movie? no no it was a combination of every time I would get a movie together the finances would fall apart the world changed the strike came so I used to make a lot of money writing scripts for other people I wrote a movie for Julia Roberts and I wrote for Bob Zemeckis and that went away and the kind of movies that I made, dramedies there was no market for them for a while whereas they're still hard but at least now you make a movie for 7 to 10 million dollars with a movie star and you know that Netflix or Amazon or HBO or Showtime or someone is going to buy that thing you're never going to lose money it's like a buffer but there was 4 or 5 years where that buffer wasn't there the DVD went away right you know when I did Upside of Anger that movie might have made 25 million dollars at the box office but it probably made 70 million in dvd right because every guy or woman you know joan allen kevin costner yeah i saw that movie i could buy it for 19 and watch it forever or have it in my living room right and it was at every store and everything it sold like crazy yeah but that went away right so until the netflix and the amazon and itunes came picked up again there was no second right market for my kind of movies so did you get depressed oh yeah get depressed that was a very dark period of my life but you know without you know no without you know i mean i was lucky because i'm sober and i really have a very strong faith in god very strong faith and and you know i thought this is a time in my life and i was 50 years old yeah i thought this is either gonna kill me now i'm gonna start having an affair or i'm gonna start drinking again i'm gonna gain 40 pounds or i'm gonna go somewhere and run away yeah or i'm gonna just stay here and figure it out and keep writing every day and kind of turn inward and really find out who i am not to say it was just some brave you know i wasn't you know but you really find out who you are during tough times and i remember a couple of young guys or younger guys that i work with in a they say man i don't know what i would have done if i couldn't if i went broke because i lost i built a mansion i lost it i mean i lost so much uh property white physical yes but i gained so much because i really learned that i was okay with nothing as long as i was writing as long as i was a really good guy and i got my family together you know i picked up a lot of a commitments i had a meeting that i ran and i was the doorman or the greeter or the guy so i had to be at a meeting every day and i really kind of i'd spent a life where where my career and how successful i was was the most important thing and i was forced to for five years just how good a guy i was each day that became the most important thing wow and i had a sense that it was going to swing back for me i really did i really had a sense that it would swing back and i'd have an even more successful period of my life if i didn't melt down during this period you know yeah and it was really hard five years a long time yeah especially when from the time i was 18 i always did something i always had a show a movie of this or that going every year yeah you know i wasn't as successful as woody allen but i had the same life as him i was constantly casting shooting editing going and then it just went away you know but i look at it now as i really it was what i needed more than anything because i think the work not that the work is deeper because i think that's a cliche but the work is clearer right you know if i'm writing a thriller i know exactly what i'm writing and i kind of my a lot of the reviews and the stuff that i could take some constructive criticism was that some of my movies didn't know what they wanted to be you know and now you're clear on that i bet you're clear on who your friends are too that's so true that's really true i mean you know my best friends are one's a dentist and one's a home builder yeah i mean you really realize that the guys in the business that they can't help but be affected by the price of your stock and you don't want them to be what they are you know yeah the funny thing is like i said at the beginning you know i thought you were fucking hilarious and it was like you know i can still remember you had such a as a stand-up you had such a confidence and such a like there was something you know completely uh fresh and like you know it was just yeah that's what i had i had i had a poise that my talent didn't quite get to know you know i mean i just was i was comfortable on stage yeah because i wanted to be on there so bad as a young guy yeah and um and especially when i was sober i i really i looked like a 50 year old in a 18 year old's body doing a real polished act but it wasn't it wasn't fresh it wasn't there was no there was no unique point of view to it it was just me doing jokes you know and and as soon as i realized that i said okay it's time to miss but just in terms of my personal life i think that you were one of the guys i saw and i'm like you know people do this you can do this that's right yeah that's right and i appreciate that well i remember when i started and my dad would say you're really gonna be a comedian and i said look dad let me just tell you something and i showed him like uh billy braver on the tonight show okay i mean i said this guy you've never heard of him but he's making a living and then i showed him tom greeson yeah this guy goes out there are hundreds and hundreds of guys around this country that are making doing great as comedians well it's you you think because you don't know them that i'm going into this horrible business but you're wrong yeah you know did he finally believe you he did yeah yeah my dad came to love comedians he opened up a comedy club in fort myers florida he did yeah called the bsu comedy club and he really he doesn't know when he was retired you know he he financed it put it this way you know and all the guys seinfeld and tim allen and so many guys came and played and he was a great respect for you no no it was a good gig yeah it was a good gig it was in fort myers florida and my dad would take them boating my dad had a fishing boat and he would call me i'm here with tim allen mike i'm here with jerry seinfeld you know and um and they liked him and he loved he you know through his friendship with leno you know and and through me he really learned to love comedians you know my dad he died young he had an accident you know at 72 he had a bad fall and it was dead eight days later you know but he was a great guy and he really through me learned to understand you know even long after i was out of comedy yeah he was friends with comedians and he loved comedians and he really understood what not only what a tough life it is but what a unique skill set it is you know and and he would call me and you've got to see this kid you know bill hicks yeah i said yeah i know bill hicks yeah you know did he ever bother you to get back in it no no he knew he knew that i was making movies and he liked that too he liked to come on the sets and you know he liked to uh pal around with kevin costner and and you know i had this movie donald southern was in one of my movies and that made my dad happy you know that's sweet man that's sweet and you work with your brother yeah yeah my brother not anymore we're doing our own things now he's my brother's actually producing the biography of deon warwick's life wow but you got a good relationship with him yeah great relationship it just you know you can only work with for your big brother so many years you know what i mean yeah yeah i'm a big brother i don't know it's not easy being a little brother yeah yeah and at a certain point yeah plus it was very conveniently timed to the time when i stopped getting work and he's like hey man what's your next movie because if not i'm on my own you know and he's gone he's done very well actually and so have you man i really appreciate you talking to me i'm really glad i came it was great thanks mike that was pretty cool that was it that was me and mike binder this is a very exciting talk to mike got a lot of respect for that guy for a lot of reasons go to wtfpod.com for all your wtfpod needs check out the merch check out the posters check out you know the you get on the mailing list you can comment there through facebook because i know we are you're not just a maggot among maggots yeah i won't be one of those people cyber maggots internet's full of them boomer lives