THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.41 - MARC MARON

Episode Date: April 27, 2017

Adam talks to Marc Maron, stand up comedian, actor, writer and host of one of the very best interview podcasts out there: WTF! As usual, it’s not a career overview but a meandering chat that takes in podcast hosting and stand up, getting hustled, Marc’s new acting role in the Netflix show GLOW and we discover what’s on Marc’s running playlist. Adam also concludes the podcast by paying wobbly voiced tribute to the late, great director Jonathan Demme. Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support, Matt Lamont for convo editing and to Acast for hosting this podcast. Download their app and check out their many other excellent shows. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton. I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here. Delighted to be with you again, with Rosie, my beautiful dog. But it's really cold. What the? Like a few weeks ago I was saying, oh, it's nearly summer. I'm wearing shorts. I'm going to have a pina colada. I should put on some sunscreen or I'll get burnt. And now I'm wearing my special ski jacket. It's nice to wear in these parts when it's really bitter in the winter months.

But I did not think I would be deploying the ski jacket as we are about to enter May, as Boris Johnson has no doubt said. What? That doesn't even make any sense. All right, listen. Welcome to podcast number 41, which features today a conversation with stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and podcasting behemoth, Mark Maron, host of the phenomenally successful WTF podcast, currently on episode 806, having started back in September 2009, when I believe Mark was suffering a kind of period of career ennui and decided that giving the podcasting world a go would be a good thing to do. I'm shivering. I am shivering. Don't blow wind at me.

I'm going to put my gloves on. So Mark Maron, though, Mark's conversations with comedian friends and acquaintances in the early days of WTF quickly brought the podcast a great deal of popularity, and it wasn't long before WTF was being talked about in American broadsheets and helping the whole concept of podcasting enter the mainstream consciousness. It actually took me a little while to get used to WTF.

At that point, when I started listening a few years ago, I hadn't heard too many interview shows in which the personality of the host was as big or sometimes bigger than the people they were interviewing. I suppose I'd normally prefer a more BBC approach to presenting. Something fairly neutral, not to say bland. But within the first few seconds of a WTF episode, you are hit by the full force of Mark Maron's personality. He calls his listeners, what the fuckers? How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck, Nick's? What the fuck, buddies? I remember thinking remember thinking oh this might be a little

too much for me pow just coffee i just shat my pants that's one of mark's sponsor slogans for example but as a fan of american comedy it was impossible to resist some of the guests that he's managed to secure over the years norm mcdonald, Sarah Silverman, Louis C.K., Kristen Schaal, Judd Apatow, Sandra Bernhardt, David Sedaris, Tim and Eric. The list goes on. I mean, he's talked to pretty much everyone in the world of American comedy.

Marin always manages to get something interesting out of the people he talks to. And after a while, I began to investigate episodes featuring people I didn't know much about or never thought I'd be interested in. People like Bobcat Goldthwait. I knew who he was. He was the guy with the weird voice in the Police Academy films. But who knew he'd be so interesting or would have done so much interesting work until I listened to him talking on WTF. And it was also my introduction to people like Eddie Pepitone and Ron White.

And then there are the actors and the directors and the musicians that Marin has spoken to. And in 2015, Mark sat in his garage in Highland Park, Los Angeles, where he records WTF. And he talked to President Obama, another watershed moment in podcasting history. Now, there have been periods when I felt over-marinated. Sometimes I have to take a marron break and just deal with my own insecurities and personality flaws and talk about them on my podcast.

Perhaps because I have that peculiar podcast feeling of knowing Mark Maron so well, it was hard not to feel that I was being judged as unworthy when my attempts to get in contact with him were met with total silence over the last few years. But I guess since doing my own podcast, I've realized how hard it is to respond to every attempt people make to reach out. And of course, I've come to realize that it wasn't personal with Mark. He was just busy. In the end, it was my friend Louis Theroux who got Mark's attention for me a few

months ago. So thank you very much, Louis. In person, Marin was far more straightforwardly polite and easygoing than I'd expected, but no less intelligent and charismatic. Unsurprisingly, we talked a fair bit about podcasting, but we also covered farting in bed you're welcome uh getting hustled in marrakesh which i should point out is a very lovely place with wonderful people not just um tourist hustlers we talk about stand-up comedy mark's new acting role in the netflix show glow in which he stars with alice and br, and we get an insight into Mark's musical tastes via some of the songs he puts on his playlists. All that is coming your way now. Here we go. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat

Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat Yes, yes, yes La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la So this is my first kombucha. I can't drink those because they taste boozy. Oh, really? Yeah. Like, as a guy that used to drink, I can taste a little... You feel a little alcohol bite in there?

Maybe. Yeah, something slightly fermented. Yeah. It's not that nice. No, I don't know. I think they're... I don't know. Oh, it's got a horrible aftertaste.

That's your first kombucha? Yeah. Like, it seems to have a purpose, or people believe that it does something. Is it a probiotic? I'm not even sure what it is. It's a bubbly probiotic tea. Yeah. I get my probiotics from kimchi or sauerkraut but i don't know what the credibility i don't know the validity of all that i've never been that fucked up yeah to where i'm like oh my god what's wrong

with my guts i remember you talking about your um wind issues once fart Farting? A few years ago. And I feel as if I'm going through a similar thing at the moment. Wind? Wind issues. Building up in the night so that it becomes uncomfortable and you wake up and I think it puts pressure on your, this is a good way to start a conversation, isn't it? It puts pressure on the bladder. Oh yeah, it's horrible. It makes you feel as if you need to go to the toilet.

Right. Well, you probably have to go to the toilet too. Yeah, yeah. I mean, how old are you? 47. Yeah, it's going it makes you feel as if you need to go to the toilet right well you probably have to go to the toilet too yeah i mean how old are you 47 yeah it's gonna start happening sure you know uh but the uh the wind issues um you have to let it out is there an issue at home you can't freely wind yourself no no no it's all good if my girlfriend is awake it startles her so much it's like a spider is in the bed yeah it's ridiculous every time why because of the noise yeah and it sort of you know bounces off the springs in the mattress a little so there's it but she's literally like oh like it can't be that terrifying yeah every time and then it gets kind of funny and then you're uh you're actually

too close to that person yes the relationship is over you need some mystery yeah so i'm gonna set the scene a little bit i'm here in uh what what part of la is this this is highland park we are in highland park in a building it houses a coffee shop a small bookstore a record uh label of sorts downstairs. And up here, there's a few random businesses. There's a music attorney down the hall, real estate operation next door. Some guys who do something on computers, I don't know what, but it's towards the hipster side and not towards the, that looks devious side. And then down the hall, there's a door that has many locks on it that says high voltage. Don't enter a very scary door because there's an antenna, an AT&T.

Or no, I should know because I had a fight with them. On the roof, there's a cellular tower on the roof. Oh, and you were getting interference. Yeah. Like buzzing. On the roof. Oh, and you were getting interference. Yeah.

Like buzzing and... Me and my dumb luxury problems, my dumb hipster problems. Yeah, my old Marantz receiver was picking up like Wi-Fi noise. Yeah. And I was furious because I really had this fantasy about this office being sort of a meditative place. A place where I could come and listen to records and work. And the fact that I was couldn't get rid of that noise I was obsessed with it yeah of course but I you know I apparently made some noise that went pretty far up over there and you got a result that's really very satisfying yeah

I mean it's it's an odd position to be in that you know if you have a presence and I'm not that big a star I'm not that big a celebrity but i'm annoying and i have a few twitter followers and i do have a live platform and you know having something to complain about for me is is good entertainment for others and it sort of went on that way but then like you know they'd send teams of people over here to try to resolve it like three or four you know you know with machines going in and out of there and up on the roof. And one team came in and said, like, you know, I don't know who you are, but this one pretty high up. Good. It's good, but I wish it was for, you know, a more important reason.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, yes, you think, God, if I can harness this kind of power, then I should be solving hunger. Well, at least, you know like you know using it well even politically now you you know there's a level to it that you know unfortunately they're they're everything's so insulated into bubbles that you know you can preach to your own choir and hip people to what's happening but you know usually they know or they understand or they're like yeah right on brother but then on the other side of that you have people from the other bubble whose sole job in life is to attack people with the alternate viewpoint and it's just you know how much of your day do you want to spend tweet

fighting with nazis i don't know i i got i got other things to do and i never thought that you know we'd be living in a time where that's an issue like yeah these nazis are annoying but yeah i mean you when you realize you have a platform there there is a moment where you're like, can I use it for something other than complaining to airlines and getting the buzz out of my receiver that's outdated? But the funny conclusion of that story was that these two young guys came and they were really, these two kind of nerdy hipster dudes were like, yeah, we're going to figure it out. And they really wanted to solve the problem they like so i like that they like their job they weren't just guys with tool belts and

they went up there and they laid down a copper mesh you know which is how you insulate that kind of noise you make sort of a faraday cage or partial one but they got some high-end copper mesh and laid it down up there and solved the problem. Yeah. I was very, very happy about that. So you didn't have to end up like Michael McKean in Better Call Saul wrapped in silver foil. Well, you go down that rabbit hole, you know, because there's always schools of thought and people who are sensitive to things like aspartame, vibrations, frequencies. I'm sure that exists.

I think there is a hypersensitivity but i don't think i'm one of those people generally speaking but you start doing a little research you're like i gotta i gotta put copper all around the off the whole office got to be done you should never do research well it's it gets a little scary the rabbit holes available yeah are many but i did get some stuff to make a faraday cage because i thought it was ridiculous because i thought like because there are these survivalist websites where if you want to put your phones in a box where they are completely untraceable you got to build sort of this cage a box that's you know copper insulated and then there's another insulation i got all the equipment

to do that because i was going to fashion a a top a box that i could put over my receiver right but around the same time that that was happening i was having the uh the counter feeling of uh what the fuck am i doing what am i doing i mean this is too difficult yeah but i and then people were like well you can live with it i'm like i can't i'm not gonna be able to have the office because the obsession will prove to be overwhelming it'll make me it'll serve the opposite purpose it'll be i'll dread going there because i can't play the records that people send me that i usually rarely like yes that's great that you got guys that were into solving the problem that's you would think that that would be the way most people approach their

jobs like that's the most enjoyable way to work isn't it to actually take an interest in an active pleasure you think that i would never think that sadly i i think that you know most people take what they can get and live through it and hope they can make ends meet yeah i suppose that's true but it is surprising to find a job like that which would seem like a mundane job where people are sort of like well we're gonna troubleshoot this thing yeah it's nice to see people engaged. I just remember that when I was doing menial jobs, working in restaurants, I was a busboy and things like that.

The way to make it more fun was to engage with the process of trying to be good at it. You know what I mean? And work out little systems and routines to... Right, to be the best damn busboy on your ship. Exactly, yeah. And it made life a lot more fun. And that's not to say that I was the best busboy.

You know what makes busboy fun, too? Weed. Back in the day when I was working the grill at restaurants, it was always good to get a little buzz on. Yeah. Cigarettes were nice, too. You're working towards the cigarette break. The rewards are far and few, so I guess you do have to make them for yourself.

You could work while you were stoned. Sure, yeah. A bit. and few so i guess you do have to make them for yourself you could work while you were stoned sure yeah uh a bit it was hit or miss but it was a sort of a slightly uh hippy dippy restaurant that one of them was that i worked at for a couple years the other one i i don't know if i got that stone but there was a period there where yeah you could get a little edge on you know and uh and make sandwiches would you go on stage quite wasted? I've been on stage on most drugs. Right. And you can focus.

You're not a total disaster. I don't know if focus is the word. Function, I think. You know, I never was. I couldn't do it that drunk. Yeah. But I would do it at different phases of sweep deprivation from doing coke. And I'd go on stage kind of coked up

but you know i watched tapes of it it wasn't good right okay you know there was a mania to it but being stoned on weed was okay except it kind of uh amplifies a weird part of your charm you know like the the thing that happened with me on weed is that, you know, you sort of act so entertained by yourself that people are like, well, he seems to be having a good time. Maybe we should get on board. But I was not a guy that had to get high or drunk before I went on ever. I've known plenty of guys like that, but I was not that guy. It was usually like, I guess I'm still fucked up or I'm tired. I haven't slept all night.

I'm going to need to do a little something before. It's been a long time now. It's all getting very far behind me. so you were with louis week, my friend Louis Theroux. Yeah, yeah. I thought that was a good time. It was really good. You liked it and you're his friend. You always get stuff out of people that I don't hear anywhere else.

And there was things Louis was talking about. I've known him since I was, you know, 10 or something. Oh, really? But I didn't know an awful lot of what he was talking about really yeah because you're if you're friends from that far back you don't really talk about certain things it doesn't occur to you yeah you just sort of take each other as you are and yeah why would you get some background exactly if you have that much background you don't really figure you got enough yeah i've never asked him about what he studied at university right and it was fascinating to hear him talk

about Galileo and uh like I knew he did history I found that what ultimately happened with that interview is it was interesting because I did something that I don't often do occasionally I'll do it but it always leaves me vulnerable to a particular type of uh of trolling that isn't necessarily vindictive or hostile. But heading into that, I felt like I knew him because I had talked to him like this for a long time. That's right. He interviewed you for a possible documentary. But I felt like we spent time together.

And he gave me a book. So I felt like I knew him a little bit or I got a sense of him. I didn't really know his work. I don't have a tremendous amount of time. I watched the new movie. I read about some of his other movies. It's not that I'm not a fan. I did not make the time.

You can't backload or fake fandom. You can do research because what happens is when i say like when he asked me do i know his stuff and i said not really you know but i i feel like i know you and and that for me is a better situation but it was an immediate place for people to go like oh man you should have done your homework you really blew it and i'm like i don't think so because you know the work is there and if you are someone who listens to my show which i assume these people weren't you know that that rarely is a way to go the the sort of uh you know album by album movie by movie thing i've done it with some

people who have been around for 30 or 40 years where you have a massive timeline to a history but with louis you know outside of you know taking the piss out of him a little bit and that we it very quickly became because i think he's funny and he pretends like he's not so like i had this natural weird we became this comedy team very quickly yeah and i think he was in on it but he was pretending he wasn't oh definitely and as you say i think anyone who's listened to more than a couple of episodes understands that there are times when it's more of a career overview, and there are other times when it's just a conversation with an interesting person. Rarely can you talk about someone's work, especially if it's outside of them,

like if they're a filmmaker or a musician. Most of them don't really want to do that that's the thing isn't it and it's and the more established people are and the more well-known they don't the last thing they want to do is reel through because they've said it all before they've said it all before you know in different variations of press junkets and whatnot so it was just a you know i didn't react to any of this because i i knew i left myself vulnerable to that and i know i was prickly but i wasn't prickly in a in a. You know, I like him a lot and I get a kick out of him. So, you know, sometimes a little, you know, antagonism with somebody who can take it and give it back is

a good time. I loved it. Yeah, no, it was very enjoyable because I remember him telling me the first time he met you, Louis was the person that got me into your stuff oh yeah yeah he's he's one of those people uh what would gladwell call them um mavens connectors i don't know who who is good at um pointing out good stuff and hooking you up with interesting things he got me into radiohead he got me into oh that's a good one yeah and i remember years ago him saying oh you should listen to this guy mark maron he's got a really interesting thing going this podcast is unusual then when he met you to do that filming he said yeah you took the mick out of him a little bit and he was a little bit like rattled when you said um you know are you famous in the uk because no one knows who the fuck you are here and i remember him telling me that and it was funny hearing you talking about it.

Well, it's weird with me, and for me to understand, I'm a hyper-emotional person in a lot of ways and pretty wide open. And that is not the British way. No. You know, it is sort of opposite. So, like, occasionally it's been kind of an obstacle for me in appreciating, you know, British comedy, British, you know, stuff because like, you know, I need to feel the person. You know, it's just something I need. And it's culturally a difference, you know, but with him, there's a sensitivity to him.

Sometimes I think I sound a little ignorant of a lot of comedy from the UK and stuff like that just because it just wasn't my stuff. Even Monty Python, as much as I appreciate it, is not my go-to thing. No. But as I talk to people, Irish guys are a little different because they seem to wear their heart on their sleeve a little more like uh you know when i've talked to brent moran and uh dylan dylan moran um and you know like i get their thing and i've talked to a couple of those guys but then i talked to stewart lee who i like but i had to sort of like dig in you know i had to really begin to understand what makes him so special and what makes him uh provocative and and far above and beyond you know regular comics but he's a very bright guy yeah but he is he is quite reserved and it's

interesting when you when you do come up against especially those brits and i'm always interested like how's he gonna deal with this one tom york especially who's someone i know a little bit i get that was a good one yeah and you did really well with him but it was funny hearing at certain points you would hit a wall with him like uh when you talked about his parents i think for example yeah it's definitely there clang the shutters come down and it's like nope you're not gonna but it was but i at least he talked you know like if if you if we hadn't had politics to talk about at the beginning i really don't know how that would have went yeah it was fortuitous in a way because i was supposed to the deal was i would interview him and flea together all right and flea was ill so i'm

there with tom and i did yeah they were doing their atoms for peace thing right and i didn't know what to expect but like i'm personally disarmed usually and not really looking to have them know what the question is going to be or answer questions that they've answered be field questions that are familiar to them i just don't do it so the idea that we sort of got off on politics really kind of was like a great icebreaker i'm glad we didn't stay there for the whole hour yeah but louie's different and i think tom's a little different but yeah stewart was you know high-minded you know like he had thought about things which was fine like i don't have to do that kind of interview i don't need my emotional needs met all the time but a lot of times i don't know a lot about the person i'm talking to

and i've kind of kept it that way i like to have an overview you know in my mind to work against like i like if i have to interview neil young you know i gotta you want to fill your head up with the music but ultimately it doesn't serve anything and if you don't if you're not a fan like a guy who's like oh you know i love everything you've ever done which i think is a liability sometimes oh yeah because like i think it was a liability with keith richards you know which was really a fan's conversation but with someone like louis it's good because then you just sort of like you're not burdened by this relationship you know with their work that's going to stop you from you know engaging with the person yes exactly louis good as well because he is, he's not bothered by confrontation or. He loves it.

He's very funny in confrontation. And he, you know, that's his bread and butter really when he's doing his things. He's very rarely visibly rattled. I think that's the funny part of him. And I think that maybe that's why I wanted to be confrontational the whole time. Because I think he's very funny when he's uh ignoring confrontation that's happening yeah in the moment i'm the opposite i can't deal with any kind of confrontation at all without it showing very clearly yeah and i think there's a lot of

british people who are probably like that oh yeah uh yeah know, the voice kind of goes a little bit wobbly, and her breathing goes because your heart is pounding so much, so you're trying to be forceful. But it's pretty clear to the other person that you are in trouble. And the face starts twitching and all that. I guess, like, I don't know if I'm innately good at it, but having done comedy for more than half my life, I can, you know, I know how to shut things off. I wish I did. Because, I mean, I've been on stage, not as much as you, but for, you know, 20 years or so.

I saw it all as a confrontation. Right. From the beginning. Like, I was not going out there to loving people who i'm going to entertain i'm like from the very beginning i'm like it's gonna be a fight that's probably the best way to go about it how long you've been doing comedy 20 years 25 years or so i mean initially on tv making a kind of um wayne's world but real homemade show oh yeah yeah you're one of those guys who did the the weird thing for yourself that became

popular yeah it was like youtube before youtube and then made a very conscious decision around about 2005 that i would go on stage because i was surrounded by people in the comedy world who who were proper stand-ups kind of thing i thought i should i should do a little bit of that so now i do more but it's not straight ahead stand up what I do and and it's certainly not about conflict but I heard you talking to Martha Plimpton oh that's stage fright yeah yeah and her technique which I found very interesting was to have total contempt or at least to cultivate some version of contempt for the audience it wasn't necessarily real but she was telling herself like right these people are worthless yeah even though she it helped her yeah it calmed her i guess that's what what did it for me i think

for me it was more of like i think i fought against my own emotional needs that i needed to create a confrontation to trust people or at least make a boundary you know and i think a lot of my early stand-up was like that. It was just sort of provocative, or not provocative, provoking. It was not light entertainment, you know? It was offensive on some level and very intense, and, you know, I had big things on my mind. But I also think that was my way of just not showing myself.

And, like, I do it all the time. I'm the kind of guy, I think if I'm walking down the street and I'm looking at somebody, I expect a relationship there, even if it's for a second, like a connection. And a lot of times, if you're that kind of person, you're kind of an emotional mark. I'm the kind of guy, or I used to more you know if there's a lunatic on the street or a hustler they're innately gonna be like that's my guy i can get some money or i'm gonna tell him my theory yeah and you know like now i i've had to consciously learn to not hold eye contact walking down the street to not show that emotional vulnerability

or need to you know figure out a nice hard stare that to you know to sort of like you know no not getting through have you ever been to marrakesh no mate you would have a hard time boy that's i'm gonna go because i feel i'm a little bit the same as you and you want to, yeah, it's all about making connections with people. It's why you're so good at doing your show, you know, because you're able to forge a connection with pretty much most of the people you meet in a very short space of time and it unfolds very entertainingly thereafter. But you go to Marrakesh, I'd never been before, me and my wife went recently for a weekend. I'd been told, you know, oh, it's overwhelming, it's amazing, it's a culture shock, etc.

It's all of those things, but it's all about the local people there kind of getting what they can from you. You're supposed to just roll with it. The haggling and whatnot? The haggling and... See, I would pay to not do that. Yeah, same here. Let's just... how much? No, I don't want to do the thing.

As soon as we stepped out of our hotel on the first night, we'd been in Morocco less than an hour. And we go and we say, like, where's the way to the big square with all the stuff going on and the music playing and all the stalls? We're told by the people in the hotel, oh, it's out and around to the right, so we head out there. But as soon as we step out, this guy comes up and goes, Oh, no, you can't go down there.

Prayers have begun. I'll show you the way. I'll show you the way. Now you've got a guide. And immediately, like the night before, we'd been watching a thing about the shootings in Tunisia, horrible shootings that happened. And my wife was like, We're going to Morocco?

That's pretty high on the terror alert list, isn't it? And sure, you know, it's a yeah, high terror threat over in Morocco, but it's all relative. I was like, don't worry, it's fine. So we're being led down this literally dark alley by this guy, five minutes out of our hotel. My wife's looking worried and thinking, oh, no, we're going to get kidnapped. Anyway, he shows us where the square is.

It's all fine very smiley the whole process took a minute two minutes and then he holds out his hand and he's like some money please some money it's like okay fine yeah fair enough so i give it i reach in my bag i haven't got much small change i give him about two dollars worth of money right in a coin quite good for just showing someone directions for less than a couple of minutes he's not happy with it and he's pointing no no this is not very much please more more more so i give him another one so he's got like two four dollars four quid basically it's more or less the same these days he's like no this is not much money no no no please give me more i was like mate that's a lot of money, even in the UK.

Yeah. Especially for showing someone just where the thing is. He said that? Yeah. Yeah. But he wasn't there. He's like, no, no, no, paper. Give me paper money. Oh.

How much are you in for? I gave him like six pounds worth, six dollars worth, thereabouts. Was he happy with that? No. He was not happy with it. And he just looked pissed off. He gave me a look like, you fucking people, you know. I was gutted, you know, because I.

You thought you were doing the right thing. I thought I was doing the right thing. I want to be, I'm in a foreign country. I want to be respectful and friendly and do the, you know. Yeah, and you know, the thing is, is like you can't win because now you walk away feeling like that. And if you had given him 10 or 20 quid you would have walked away going like i'm an idiot i mean i felt like that exact already it was like god i'm at six you felt like yeah i did i mean if someone i know it's totally different um but if someone in the

street asked me to do something for them like i don't know i would i would bend over backwards within reason to help another human being, I feel, I hope. As long as you're not being hustled. It's a tough, it's tricky because, like, you know, if someone needs help, you really have to gauge it in that moment. Like, you don't want to spend a day with somebody, you know, running errands or whatever. That's the contract, though, isn't it? And when people take the piss like that it really pulls the rug from under you well yeah i think some people i know some people have a policy

you know a personal policy you know if anyone asked me for money i'm gonna give them a dollar whatever it is and you just you know hold the hold the line yeah without the sort of like what are you going to use it for you know what's it uh and then some people they don't engage with the hustle i mean there used to be a hustle in new york there was anything that you know, what's your, and then some people, they don't engage with the hustle. I mean, there used to be a hustle in New York. There was, you know, anything that, you know, when you're approached and it involves, you know, usually a bus station or, you know, I need this amount of money to get, just to get the thing out of the shop or to, you know, like there's. My mom's in hospital.

A lot of times you can like, okay know this show and you know then you have to decide there was another there was a speaker hustle for a while here and i almost got my ass kicked calling a guy out he's usually two dudes and the hustle was like hey man you need speakers you know i i work at delivery i deliver you know high-end stereo speakers and i got a couple in the truck that i you know that aren't accounted for you know for a couple hundred bucks and you know you wouldn't be able to look at them or nothing and you know you pay him a couple hundred bucks and you have these shit speakers that you know they made they were probably speakers but they were like you know garbage yeah but it was they were around it was a hustle and i remember after not doing it once or twice because you just say

can i look at them what kind are? And they can't answer any questions. But then there was a time where I got hit with it again. And I'm like, I know what you guys are doing. And the guy was like, oh yeah, do you? You want to do something about it?

I'm like, nope. I'm just going to walk away. Good luck with your speakers. Thank you. you for a while hosted a an american version of never mind the buzzcocks that's a show that i've been on several times in the uk and had uh good times and bad times on but you always whenever you mention it it's with a kind of uh withering well i didn't i didn't like it's i'm not the guy for a game show i have a i didn't even understand the game really i kind of understood it you know there were no real stakes it was more of a improvisational it was all sort of setups yeah for riffing.

Right, riffing on the subject of music, which they presumably thought you'd be well-suited to because you're a big music fan. I guess, you know. Yeah, but it wasn't that. It was more pop music, and it was through VH1s. They wanted to run their kind of classic hits format at that time through there.

And, you know, I was in a pretty desperate situation. You know, I was going through a divorce. My first one, I didn't have any money. I was really broke. And they liked my attitude. You know, for years before I really settled into myself, you know, which happened relatively recently, you know, I just had a certain intensity, a certain edge, but it wasn't really intentional. So you'd get these people that are like, we get Mark, he's the guy for this. He's like the cranky guy or he's got that edge. But like, it was really me just being me. So it was not controlled in any way. So they thought my tone would be good for that show. And there was a tremendous amount of

shame involved in the idea of me hosting a game show of any kind even if it was a comedic show for me personally but uh but like we shot i guess a dozen of them maybe all at once and i i was violently ill during the shooting like i had the runs i lost like 10 pounds and i was like emaciated and sick the entire shoot oh no that was just a coincidental bout of food poisoning or something or no i think it was directly relative to my lack of desire is your body telling you yeah out yeah and uh but i did get a lot of good suits i still probably have a couple of them from that show uh and no one watched it no one saw it it was as if it didn't happen there's no evidence of it anywhere there might be i think there's a picture but i don't know if you looked online you couldn't find an episode uh-huh was

the idea in your head always to try and be on tv is that considered the optimum career path for a i don't think so i don't think it was my idea it was my idea as a comic and you know as time goes on you realize well their jobs comics do you know they they host things game show host is is a job a comic can do you know if you're not doing stand-up you either write or you host or you have a show built around you or you know eventually if you write maybe you become a producer whatever but you know these are the ways that people that start in stand-up find their way in show business. You know, if they can't cut it or decide smartly to not put all their eggs in the one basket of stand-up, which is, you know, a fairly brutal life that I think...

It's the brutal basket. It is. It's the brutal basket. But, you know, the people that do it the people that do it, I have a lot of personality liabilities that don't really enable me to function in the regular world or to even think about writing for somebody else or producing a show or acting because I was so ungrounded as a human that stand-up was the only place where I could do could do something and it was very immediate and it was terrifying and like insanity making but completely consuming you know i would write things down and i'd go up there and do it it defined me like you know i'm doing this and i know exactly how to do this i

write things down here or i think of a thing and then i get up there so at the beginning it's a sort of like how do i get up there as much as possible? But the plan was to be a great comic. The plan was to find my point of view and to say what I wanted to say at different points of my life, to own that space. And it was a completely selfish endeavor, which suited me. Because publicly, I was sort of a cocky, aggravated person that was difficult. And inside, I was just trying to figure out how to be whole or to complete to my personality whatever was lacking to find myself. To put it in more new agey terms.

To figure out who I was. And I chose that. I mean, that's something I've retrofitted onto my journey, but I think it is what it is. And one of the things that Louis was interested in when he originally interviewed you was the kind of problems that surely must come along when you are talking about your life in such a revelatory way, when you're talking about your life in such a revelatory way when you're talking about your relationships and things like that and it is something that i still think about when i listen to wtf like have there been significant problems thrown up by some of the things you say in in

public as it were yeah well silverman put it well you you know i don't remember exact quote but a lot of times it's if it's going to come down to, you know, the relationship or the joke, the joke is probably going to win out. And there've been times in my life where I would do jokes out of town that I would, you know, be like, you don't, don't say anything about this. Like, you know, this is between us, me and this 300 people, 500 people, you know, in another town. Don't tweet this. Right. I do. I'd say that. But, you know, I've become a little bit more diplomatic and a little more self-aware about why I'm doing things. Why am I doing it? You know, there were times where I would process things on stage about

relationships and stuff. And the times that there have been trouble have really been around jokes, you know, more so than talking candidly. Like if I was dating someone or married to somebody, I did a joke about sex that, you know, does not necessarily reflect our sex lives. But maybe the kernel of the joke happened in the relationship. There would be sort of like if a wife says, you know, could you not talk about ass play? Yeah. You know, like, okay, maybe I can make that concession. It's not necessary, even though we don't do it that often.

My wife's always asking me that. You know, it's not my thing, but like it was like if it happened once or twice or whatever, you know, something that's transgressive for you personally at a moment, you know, is loaded up comedically too, you know. But yeah, there've been issues. My second ex-wife just, you know, won't even, you know, sit down and have coffee with me to get some closure. I mean, obviously there's closure.

I haven't seen her in almost a decade and, you know, she wants nothing to do with me. And that's largely because she felt betrayed by you talking about certain things in your relationship. That's not why we broke up. No. But, you know, after the fact, you know, when I was when I was devastated, I wouldn't shut up about it. And that's the only way I could process something. And I think it was helpful. I don't know if it was funny. I don't know if it was entertaining. It was engaging. But those jokes are cynical. That becomes sort of the

real issue about those kind of jokes, is that where am I at personally now? You know, how cynical am I and how much of that cynicism is genuine or how much of it is, you know, me just hiding my emotions? Is there a way to talk about the issues in relationship with other people that isn't inherently dismissive or cynical or trivializing, you know, in a shocking way? dismissive or cynical or trivializing, you know, in a shocking way. And then is it strange for you to feel that people around you that you don't know feel as if they know you very well and they know things about you that generally only friends know about each other, you know? Does that make you feel uncomfortable? Do you feel as if...

I feel okay about it. You know, it's been a long time since I choose to do this the way I do it. So yeah, they know me talking about me me but do they know me living with me you know whatever their idea is it's still based on me talking about me with few pauses in a tone that that i use to talk publicly uh do they know me you know sitting with my cat or playing guitar or wondering about a rash? They feel as if they do. Well, they hear me talk about it. But would they be there for me if I was doing that? I don't know.

And I think that really is the difference between intimacy and telling the story of a thing that happened. Yes. There's a funny moment, one of many funny moments in your tv series when you thought you had cancer in your lip oh yeah and uh it turned out to be what we call an ulcer what you guys call a canker sore yeah that you had blackened with licorice oh yeah yeah yeah and you get it diagnosed on stage eventually yeah by saying is there a doctor here because you're freaking out you think you got cancer yeah that's is that in any way based on um an incident yeah yeah the the mouth thing was really yeah i don't know that i got diagnosed on stage yeah i think that was uh that was the fictionalization

but yeah the root of that was yeah that happened i just went to the doctor for a thing the other day i don't do it a lot but when i do do it it's pretty dire you know in that moment yeah of course but then you know whatever you know you get older it's like something's gonna catch yeah how do you like getting older i'm okay with it are you yeah pretty good so far uh it's hard to accept um certain things it's just hard to you just sort of like the the transition from life to death i think is tricky for most people isn't it though um When I think about it. Right, but do you find yourself thinking about it more?

You and Louis were, you mentioned the book, Denial of Death. Right. Which you said was an important book for you. I've been talking about it more lately. This, you know, because it sort of explains, you know, populist momentum, but it also, it's really about an almost innate bordering on genetic need for people to feel part of something bigger than themselves to give their life meaning.

And if you don't have that, and it can be as simple as a sports team, a band, religion, whatever it is, something tribal, a community. But it makes sense because the existential terror of realizing profoundly without any specific thing to hang your hope on that you're going to die is a lot to take. So I just found that idea, the concept of that, which was rooted in exploration of Freud's theory of transference. It's rooted in fairly classical psychology, I guess. And I'm no intellectual or I'm no scholar. But for me to understand that was a big piece of the puzzle.

But I also go the other direction, which is if something large is happening and I feel it threatening, I make myself the center of it all. And that needs to be tempered. Like, I need to wrangle that in. That's natural, though, isn't it? I mean, everyone feels that. I guess, yeah.

But, like, you know, you should move from that and go, like, well, other people need help and there's other people in more situations. And then the next thought shouldn't be, like, yeah, but I'm in trouble. And then you have to realize, you know, what is your brain doing? Yeah. How do you survive with that, with that sense of panic? Panic is an issue. The worry is that if you focus on it too much, then you won't be able to get it out of your head at all.

And I suppose part of what maybe constitutes a midlife crisis is when that ability to deny the fact that you are going to die one day suddenly becomes compromised well yeah my my producer uh we pointed that out to me that my reaction to what's happening although it is terrifying sort of coinciding with um you know i was already going like what's it what's the point of everything like there was a midlife element yeah to my tone even though everything was going fairly well uh it wasn't quite enough and it didn't satisfy these uh deeper needs of meaning uh and then like you know this thing happened politically and i'm like see we are fucked yeah yeah it kind of took it off of me a little bit but

the feelings were already starting to surface. Yeah. But getting back to what we were talking about before, you know, my incentive for doing stand-up was really, like, I wanted, I thought that it was important. I thought that stand-up was a way to express your ideas and to facilitate having this stage, this platform, this craft to blow people's minds and to do new things and to make people see things differently and to connect and

to explore your own ideas in a very immediate, very pure way. It's just you talking. So that was my intent, was to be a great stand-up, to be an important stand-up. And later, as you get into the game and you start working a little bit, you do your TV appearances, the first few TV appearances, and you're like, you know, well, you should have your own show. You want to get a sitcom. So that was always kind of a way to make money. Like, you know, if you could get that deal. So then you start thinking about yourself in terms of being a character. And, you know, I thought, well, I could do that, you know, but I didn't really know who my character was for a long time. And I had a couple of deals here and there. And then, you

know, you hear other people and you see what network television does to people and, you know, how it compromises the deal and it kind of minimizes and boxes you in. So that never really happened for me. So by the time I did the IFC show, and this is the show Marin went to. Right. I was approached by a production company, by Jim Serpico at Apostle. And he said, I love the podcast. Is there something we can do with it? Is there an idea? I'm like, I'm doing the podcast.

But is there like, and I'm like, yeah, how about a show about a guy who's failing and does a podcast? And he's like, that sounds great. So we shot a pilot presentation and brought it around and IFC responded. So I did four seasons of a show, you know, completely in my control. Are you not doing more? No. But I didn't see the point. There was not enough incentive to keep repeating it

because it's very hard to not repeat. You know, once you build the world, just stay in it, you know, and jump the shark and jump it again. And, you know, as long as everyone's, you know, getting flush on it. And that wasn't the situation so we did the show and i was happy with it and i thought it was great and you know in the

last season we really took some chances and i was like this is it there's no reason to do more of these you're doing another show now um glow yeah glow what is it what's the acronym stand for gorgeous ladies of wrestling yeah what's that all about and that comes out later this year right in june yeah on netflix yeah that was an acting job which is something i want to do i wanted to try to act and not be me which you know i'm gonna probably be some variation of me but no but like it was just i got done with my show i wasn't looking for anything yeah i there's really a part of me that's sort of like i just want out of all of it oh really i've heard you say that before i'm always curious how serious am i how serious you are and and what your life would be like then who knows but you know i'm one of these

people that are like oh you could never do nothing i'm like i'm not sure you know like i you know what would you do would you travel probably not so i think i probably just need a nice chunk of time really off. We've been feeding that podcast twice a week, a new show every week for almost 10 years now. It's fairly intensive. I've got to show up for that. So no matter what happens, no matter how much time I have off of Marin or stand-up or anything else, the job, my base job and my base love or passion is the podcast and that there's never been a break which is fine but i wonder what it would be like

to have nothing to do i probably go nuts i probably nap too much jerk off too much and eat too much and wander around in a needy way and you know end up a mark again you know yeah on the streets but uh the question oh glow i you know i i just gotten done i was sort of like looking to take some time off and then i got this someone in the management office found this project that was going on i didn't know any of it before i got this i got the sides i got these three or four pages of this script and you know it was sent through my agent and i wasn't looking for anything but i just read him i'm like i could do this guy I knew nothing about the show but I just read the lines and I'm like this is there's something about this I could do this and I put it on tape right here because

they weren't doing live auditions they didn't ask for me it was just out in the world and they hadn't cast it yet so I put on a Lacoste shirt and I went down to the women who own the eyeglasses place and I found some aviator frames that I thought were 80s-ish because it's mid-80s, late 80s. And I sat here with my personal trainer, the woman, who's also an actress. And my part-time assistant held an iPhone. And I did three versions of the audition. And I sent them off and I got the part. Good one.

Yeah, I was completely surprised yeah but i just i i rarely happens where i'm like i this this material is good yeah but it's based on a short-lived it was a tv show the it was a real thing it was a women's wrestling league that was sort of put together on the coattails of the popularity of the first wave of professional wrestling. Right. Or it would have been probably the second or third wave. But the modernization of professional wrestling with Hulk Hogan and those guys in the 80s, someone had the idea, let's make a TV show with women wrestlers.

And it was a real thing. And it lasted a few years. And this is based on that. All they really got the rights to was the name not any of the real characters or you know there's a documentary about the real glow and the women are still around one of them just reached out to me last night she does a podcast but i i did no research because there is i think my character is sort of a composite character but i just went by the script and you know by my understanding of who he was this was a guy who knew nothing

about wrestling he was sort of a b movie director that had some success but it was floundering and you know his own worst enemy to a certain degree had some addiction issues and was kind of a character and he was brought in by somebody a a rich kid, who was an heir to some money, to do this project. This rich kid said, I want to do a wrestling TV show. Will you do it? Will you direct it and put it together? And if you do, I'll fund your next movie. So it's really, that was the incentive for this character.

Like, I'm going to make my next horror movie if I just do this show for this kid. So I'm saddled with this job of creating a wrestling show, knowing nothing about wrestling. Is it a drama then or a comedy thing? It rides that line. It's that indefinable space. But they're very meticulous about the time and about the outfits. Alison Brie is your co-star.

She's great. Yeah, fantastic. It's a nuanced character her character and it's it's a hard thing to do to play ambition and desperation simultaneously yeah um and it was really great i've always very moved by it all watching other people act and watching the physicality of wrestling and being around these women is very there were times where i was like you know choked up by it by just the engagement of it all. I got you a present.

You may already have this. How familiar are you with Philip Larkin? I don't know him. I know the name, but I don't know his poems. He's someone that... Wait, is he the guy that did Parents Fuck You Up? There you go. They fuck you up, your mom and dad.

Yeah, yeah, I love that poem. They may not mean to, but they do. Yeah. They fill you with the faults they had and add some extra just for you. Yeah, yeah. This be the verse. It's great. He's a complicated character, Philip Larkin, but his poems are amazing.

I mean, he, like few other people that I can think of, came with really pithy quite bleak lines about what it is to be alive this one line in a poem called dockery and son life is first boredom then fear and that's his distillation of the whole business of being alive oh yeah i recently wrote something i've been doing on stage the the the space between despair and orgasm is hard to fill in the long run. Not comparing myself, but it struck me as familiar. But I thought you might enjoy some of that stuff. Thank you very much. Very thoughtful.

I appreciate it. I also got you some cinnamon toothpicks. Oh, yeah. Have you ever had these? They're quite strong. Yeah, I like these. There was always a story. Several kids had them when they used to have these toothpicks. forget what they call fire sticks or something when we were kids that were

just drenched in cinnamon oil and i've talked to more than one or two people that have when they were kids they had them and then touched their dicks and right yeah and it got fiery yeah yeah yeah well i've given them to a couple of people i've done the podcast with and they get addicted to them as a lame gift i don't know if. And they get addicted to them? As a lame gift. I don't know if anyone's ever got addicted to them. I like them. I got semi-addicted after I'd been introduced to them. And it was partly because the person who gave them to me said,

oh, this is what Bowie used to give up smoking. I love Bowie. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. I used to do that all the time. Yeah. That's why I started smoking Marlboros because of Keith. And I started drinking Jack Daniels because of Keith.

Right. Obviously, you are a massive music fan. Music's an important part of your life. I'm curious to know what the albums are that you keep going back to when the chips are down. If you need a pick-me-up, if you need something comfortingly familiar that you know backwards and forwards, what are some of the records you go back to?

Throughout my life yeah like the ones who that have just been the solid bedrock of your appreciation it's weird they actually change like lately i've been listening to a lot of lee morgan which is a new thing for me but i i'm putting it on a lot i don't know lee morgan he's a trumpet player uh-huh like a jazz trumpet player that his life ended tragically. He was pretty young. His wife shot him, but I didn't know much about him. But other records, like sometimes I go back to Eno. Oh, I just talked to him for this podcast. Oh my God. I'd like to talk to him. How was that? It was initially tricky because we were talking earlier on about people who've had a large body of work that's been

often discussed he made it quite clear to me before we met that he wasn't really up for going and the history digging up the past and i think he probably was well he was aware that i was a bowie nut because i'd done a sketch about bowie that's on youtube and he'd seen it and liked it i'm glad to say but I think he was wary of just me asking non-stop questions about what was it like doing this and that album with Bowie or whatever how'd it go well we had two sessions because he's very strict about only allotting an hour to each person that he meets and he meets them in his studio in West London I didn't realize that I thought we were going to talk for I don't know how you do it,

but, um, however long, sometimes people have time limits. Yes, of course. And you, and you respect them and you observe them.

But, um, I was able to get another session with him a few months later and that was a lot better. And actually by then we were able to circuitously go back and revisit some of his earliest stuff. My life in the bush of ghosts. Yeah. You got kind of with David Byrne. You stuff, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Yeah, you got to kind of, with David Byrne,

you got to kind of trick him into it. Yeah. Because I talked to David. He's like that too. That's right. But if you go around it, if you talk about whatever they want to talk about, the new stuff, and then you go,

well, that's kind of like, and like if there are, you can trick him into it. Yeah, exactly right. But yeah, I go back to you know for uh for comfort and transportation taking tiger mountain oh that's a good one isn't it yeah but i find a lot of comfort in his music and i also like his you know the weird way that he interpreted the velvet underground who's another one of the bands that i'll go to specifically live in 69 um and i'll go to bowie sometimes you know i you know for for that grounding which bits of bowie i'll listen to the song heroes in and of itself a lot

and then um boy there's so much isn't there yeah hunky dory i like hunky dory i'll listen to that it's so solid yeah it's like moon you know I've been listening to is that live the BBC box set oh yeah it's astounding how tight that fucking band was without any production just like in a radio studio well that he did a great version of round and round Chuck Berry yeah yeah yeah yeah God rest him I just got that recently and then um there's like some newer ones like I you know like I I kind of mix it up. I've recently gotten into Jason Molina a little bit from Songs Ohio and the Magnolia Electric Company. He died from alcohol fairly young.

And not many people know. There's a couple of his songs. I do like that place where you're transported. And I like that Eno's interpretation of velvet underground in terms of the layers of sound like you know how like i think relatively unintentionally you know lou and maureen and doug and i guess john at times you know had this weird very specific layers of rhythm that you can actually hear how you know interpreted it into way he layered sound like you know his understanding of the velvet underground, I don't think Lou could have known. But what made him attractive

and also what compelled Bowie about them. I like that world of music when I need to be transported. If I need to rock out, there's Zeppelin and there's Stones. But I've been really mixing it up because I've got a lot of records now and a lot of new stuff. So lately, I'm definitely listening to a lot of new stuff. Do you make a lot of playlists?

I don't make a lot, but I seem to evolve the running playlist. If I am running, like Evolving Run. Like right now, Fly Away by Lenny Kravitz. Farewell Transmission by that guy, Jason Molina, Songs Ohio. She's the One by Springsteen. Cherie by Suicide. Walking with Jesus by Spaceman 3. Born to Run by Springsteen.

I integrated Springsteen because I was going to talk to him. You put Born to Run on your running playlist. Yeah. Well, you know, when I read his book, it made me appreciate it more. Yeah. But then I got Beyond Belief by Elvis Costello. Oh, God, that's good. Candy's Room by Springsteen.

I got Somebody, first Aerosmith record. I've got Shine a Light by Spiritualized. I like that Spaceman guy. Yeah, yeah. Have you had him on WTF? No, I don't know anything about him. He's had quite an interesting life. Yeah, he's a very pro-drug.

Yeah. I'm fascinated by your playlist. Go on, quote me some more. Well, I have a pre-show playlist when I used to play, you know, before I went on stage. Let's see if I still have one. Stuart Lee was always very careful

with his pre-show playlists and always felt that it was an important part of getting the audience in the right headspace. Well, yeah, like this one has Dolly Dagger by Jimi Hendrix, Big Sky by The Kinks, I'm Bored by Iggy. Oh, here's another pre-show. Cherie, Walking With Jesus, Live Wire by ACDC,

Tears of a Clown by English Beat, though. Oh, okay. I love their version. Ah, Tears of a Clown. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Going down and down. I love that one.

Yeah. Showbiz Blues by Fleetwood Mac. Beyond Belief again. I'm Jealous by Ike and Tina Turner. Chinese Rocks by Johnny Thunders. Waves of Fear by Lou Reed. Not a good choice for pre-show music. I don't even know that song.

It's off the Blue Mask. Oh, I haven't got the Blue Mask. I've got three copies of it. Is it really good? Oh my God. It's great. It's dark as hell. Good one.

Reasons to Be Beautiful by Hole. The Wanton Song by Zeppelin. Down payment blues by ACDC, which used to be the opening theme for WTF. Right. Don't tell anybody. We pulled it all. I only realized recently that the Lock the Gates is you in Almost Famous. Yeah.

Playing an angry promoter. Yeah. I was playing a lot of angry parts. And what are the songs that you can't listen to without crying or feeling like you're going to cry? Oh, yeah. Well, I know just one really. Yeah. Heroes almost get me there.

But time has told me by Nick Drake. Yeah. Yeah. Thinking about it gets Drake. Yeah, yeah. Thinking about it gets me choked. Yeah, I know. It's weird, isn't it, with music? You can literally just think about it. Time Has Told Me.

Wait, this is an advert for Squarespace. Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. I love browsing your videos and pics, and I don't want to stop. your videos and pics and I don't want to stop and I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop these are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with

Squarespace just visit Squarespace comm slash buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code BUXTON to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Rosie, Rosie, don't just stand there. No, we're not going the long route today. I'm it's too freezing all right you take your time i'm going this way no good looking at me like that i feel like c-3po in the desert well there we go that was uh my conversation with mark maron great pleasure Great pleasure to meet him and to find him so personable. Thanks once again to Louis Theroux for putting us in contact and indeed to Mark himself for giving up his time while I was in Los Angeles.

Much appreciated. Jonathan Demme died. Damn it. I love Jonathan Demme's films. So many of them have been, like, pivotal moments in my cultural life and remind me of happy times in my childhood. Perhaps you don't know that much about Jonathan Demme and his films. I mean, he was such an unusual director because he made films in almost every conceivable genre,

and they were always totally different from each other, except for the fact that they had very memorable and likable characters in them. Even when the characters themselves were mean and scary, like Ray Liotta's character in Something Wild, they were still charming in some way and very memorable. I mean, it doesn't hurt that he worked with so many brilliant actors and got the best out of them every time. Ray Liotta's so good in Something Wild, as is Jeff Daniels, as is Melanie Griffiths. She's maybe as good as she's ever been, although I did like her in Working Girl.

But she's great in Something Wild. And of course, the other thing that was so important to Jonathan Demme was music. And a lot of the same sort of music that I really like. There's a little bit of The Fall playing in a scene in Silence of the Lambs, I think towards the end of that film, where Clarice is about to confront Buffalo Bill. And you can hear Hip Priest playing in the background. And in Something Wild, there's a great reunion scene. They go back to a school reunion. And the band playing in the hall are the Feelys, a great kind of new wave band that I got into after seeing that film and then of course there was Jonathan Demme's long-standing relationship with Robin Hitchcock he did a concert film called

Storefront Hitchcock in 1998 just a very intimate record of a performance of um robin playing his lovely songs and doing his kind of stream of consciousness chats in between and robin hitchcock plays a small part in the remake that jonathan demi did of the uh manchurian candidate i was about to say the mancunian candidate that would be a very different film. They operated on my fucking brain to make me mad for it. And now I just fucking, sometimes they can just fucking trigger it and I'm mad for it all over the fucking place. That is very reductive and racist. Sorry. What else would I direct you to of Jonathan Demme's I mean they're all pretty good Swimming to Cambodia that was a good one a film of Spalding Gray's one-man show about his experience

playing a small part in the film The Killing Fields Spalding Gray also no longer with us sadly but he was someone who I really got into for a while. Not totally dissimilar from someone like David Sedaris, I suppose. A brilliant and entertaining monologist, guy who does monologues. And of course, the film that Jonathan Demme is perhaps best known for. Well, no, I suppose that would be Philadelphia or Silence of the Lambs. But as far as I'm concerned, it was all about stop making sense. The talking heads. Oh my God, I'm going to cry. Sorry, listeners. It's pathetic, isn't it? I'm getting to that age where it doesn't take much to set me off.

I apologize. It just reminds me of my... of when we were... If someone presses the sentimental button, you better watch out, because's gonna get awkward stop making sense i mean you know i don't have to say too much such a a great record of an extraordinary band uh 1983 i think those concerts were filmed Byrne, they're just all on top of their game, you know. And that band, that expanded band with Alex Weir and Bernie Worrell and Lynn Mabry, Steve Scales and Chris and Tina doing their Tom Tom Club section. And oh, my goodness, so many talented people.

David Byrne himself looking so magnificent in the square suit. I really did my best to imitate that look for a while. I wore one of my dad's suits that was too big for me, obviously, as a young teen. And I would do my top button up and convince myself that I was like David Byrne, albeit David Byrne in the wrong aspect ratio. But it was fun, though. Yeah, you know, and I haven't even seen Melvin and Howard. That's shameful, isn't it?

But I bought it today. I ordered it online, along with a copy of Swimming to Cambodia, which I haven't seen for years. And I look forward to revisiting those films again. So thanks, Jonathan Demme. And until next time listeners take care I love you Bye!

Bye! God it's cold subscribe Thank you. ស្រូវាប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ Thank you.