The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Greg Behrendt

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Comedian and writer Greg Behrendt joins Andy Richter to discuss the 90’s alt-comedy scene, co-writing "He's Just Not That Into You,” the X-rated writer’s room question that led to his consulting job on on “Sex and the City,” his life-changing appearance on “Oprah,” taking his dog’s medication, his battles with addiction and cancer, and his new book on the Everand platform.Hey there! Do you want to talk to Andy live on SiriusXM’s Conan O’Brien Radio? Leave a voicemail at 855-266-2604 or fill out this Google Form!

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to The Three Questions. I'm your host, Andy Richter, and this week I'm talking to writer and comedian Greg Barrett. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller, He's Just Not That Into You, and he worked as a consultant on Sex and the City. And he's been performing stand-up comedy since the early days of the 90s alternative comedy scene. His new book, which is a doozy, See You on the Way Down, Catch You on the Way Back Up, is available now on the EverRand platform. We had a great conversation. This man has had quite the life. Here's my talk with Greg Barrett. can't you tell my love well greg uh it's been a long time since we've seen each other yeah yeah yeah and uh i just i just read your book see you on the way down it's a digital book and it's on the ever and platform yes and i read it wow, you have been through a lot. Yeah.

You have been through a lot since the last time I saw you. Yeah. Well, my manager was taking a meeting with this particular book company. And they were talking about other people. And for some reason, they got on the topic of failure. And he said, oh, my God, if you want failure, this story will blow. What a pal. This story will blow your mind. Oh, yeah you want failure, this story will blow. What a pal. This story will blow your mind.

Oh, yeah. Cancer twice, opiates twice. He had his hip replaced. He's just a disaster. He was once very famous and then not famous at all. This is a great story for you. Yeah, yeah. So then he pitched it, and then I was like, yeah, I guess if you want,

and I'll write about the last 10 or so years of my life. Yeah, yeah. So that was it. Yeah. There was no sort of, well, I should say, was there like embarrassment that you had to get over? Or is it now just like you feel like you got nothing to be ashamed of and so let it all hang out?

I've always been pretty open about my life and my foibles and my failures and that kind of thing so it but but that was when my girls were young yeah and weren't paying any attention now they're in college yeah and this stuff is embarrassing yeah to a certain degree and so i found it very hard yeah you know i had to run things by them and, you know, and I think ultimately they were supportive. But I remember I had a stand-up bit about my taking dog pills. And it was like my, it got the most. You had an elderly dog that was prescribed opiates, I guess.

Yeah, hydrocodone. Yeah, pain pills. And you started to take the dog's pain pills And you started to take the dog's pain pills. I started to take the dog's pain pills. Yeah, yeah. Much to the chagrin of the dog. Yeah. So I talked about that on this Comedy Central show.

And one of my daughters wanted to have her last name, my last name taken off of her. She was so embarrassed. She was like, I want to be emancipated. Wow. From him. Like, it was bad. You know what I mean? And I always feel like those things are helpful because, like, you know, I get lots of people writing me saying, I saw that.

I was on pills, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing. So it's a double-edged sword, you know? I mean, your kids want you to be a winner, you know, to a certain degree. But that hasn't been that hasn't been your trajectory that hasn't been my complete story yeah yeah yeah yeah well did you were you able to kind of talk her down from that or yes yeah yeah and they're fine with it now we're great the girls are both in college and and and we're great but it was just an adjustment and you know they also had to live through it so it's not funny to them.

Yeah. It's funny to say I took the dog's pills. Right. Right. But to live with a guy on dog pills, not as fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's the kind of story that is completely dependent upon the telling. It could be like, I took my dog's pills, you know, and then it's like, oh, that's pathetic.

Or, hey, I took my dog's pills. And it's and then it's like, oh, that's pathetic. Or, hey, I took my dog's pills and it's funny. You know, I mean, exactly. So, but I mean, that's, there's so much comedy that's like that, you know, there's, it's pathos just told by the smartest attitude, basically. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And the way that I came up in comedy, you know, in the early 90s and here in L.A. in the, you know, Uncabaret.

Yeah. Largo. Kind of the alternative, you know. Yeah, it was very much that kind of comedy. Yeah. There was a lot of self-exploring. Yes. And a lot of storytelling.

Yeah. And a lot of, like, honesty. Yeah. Open honesty. Yeah. And so that's just how i that's how i do stand up yeah and that and i think yeah and that also that was rewarded uh you know that that kind of like the more sort of naked you can make yourself on stage yeah uh the better it almost

became i think in some ways like there was a machismo to it you know like a kind of like you know who's gonna who's gonna make themselves look worse oh man yeah yeah and kathy griffin won um she boy yeah she came up with a story about somebody peeing on her and you're like wait a minute i quit what's my story i had a couple of drinks and i fell the fuck down who cares kathy wins yeah well now you're uh let's start at the beginning you're from uh san francisco you're from from the bay area yeah and you grew up there uh in relatively your folks uh worked in the tv business yes that's right in the bay area and you were and it was a relatively normal house alcoholism you know which yeah i mean can is pretty normal in the suburbs you know

yeah i think um i think in the book i said you know see mad men like yeah it was festive yeah everybody was doing it so my parents didn't seem different than other parents yeah um but they were fun smart interesting people yeah we i had it was a you know far as i'm concerned it was a fine childhood yeah you know it was it was more often fun than not yeah yeah you know and uh but people were hard drinkers back then. People just drank hard. You're just a few years older than me, just a few years older than me. And my parents, you know, they didn't have like beer parties. They like drink when they were drinking Manhattans and stuff in high school, you know, and then and that just continued. You know, it was always everything involved cocktails.

You know, I was five years old and I invited all the other neighborhood kids over to my house, and I poured everybody a high ball of water and expected them to sit down and have a conversation the way my parents would. Sure. And, of course, everybody was baffled, and nobody wanted to do it, but I wanted to throw. They're all light up their Paul Mauls.

Exactly, but I wanted to throw a cocktail party at five yeah you know I wanted I I loved what that was like my parents we lived right by keys our stadium which was the 49er stadium um and my dad had season tickets for 41 years or whatever but football was it was big but not big like it is now where the stars are millions of miles away from you after games sometimes football players would come to our house. Oh, really? Just to drink. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, wow. And I had like a second uncle or something that played for the Bears, Riley Mattson. And so there'd be people over. So it was a very exciting time. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like where ballplayers are having drinks on a Sunday night at our house after the game, that kind of thing. Because your dad was the manager of the TV station. The NBC affiliate. So you kind of had a little touch with show business and with. Absolutely. Yeah, sports, you know, is kind of show business too. It is kind of show business. Yeah.

It is kind of show business. And yeah, so he was the, he had worked his way up from cameraman to station manager and um and i would go down there i even went down i was a scab during a strike oh wow i went down to practice we never actually i never actually worked but i went down and drilled and it and at 13 years old i ran a camera for the news the news? For the news. Yeah, yeah. Which you didn't, all you had to do was hold the thing. Sure, of course. That was it.

Yeah. You know, if I realized I was a scab, I wouldn't have done it. Right. But my politics weren't in place then. No, your politics are do what your parents tell you to. Yeah, that was exactly. And it was fun. We got up at like, we got to do it at two o'clock in the morning and it was, you know,

it was all secretive and it was fun. That's great. I mean, at some point you realize, you know, you have a facility for being funny and that people like to laugh at you. And are you going off to college? Are you thinking I'm going to be a comedian? No, no, no. I was deluded that I was somehow going to be playing sports of some kind. Oh, really? Yeah. What were your sports? Football and rugby. Okay. And here's how bad I was at football. My senior year, I was the second string fullback.

The first string fullback was having a shitty game. The coach gets us in the locker room, and this is what he says. The guy's name was Ken Flax, the other fullback. He goes, we got a guy out here, number 44, Ken Flax, running like a goddamn pussy. And we got guys like Greg Barron here who work hard all week who will never see the field. Thanks, coach. Yeah.

And, of course, at first I yelled because I heard my name. And then I was like, oh, shit. And so, but I had success at rugby. And in high school, we won the national championships and then i went to oregon university of oregon and i was playing rugby there and i didn't i i had to switch positions from the position i was originally playing and it broke my hand and i didn't like the hitting anymore and i'd gotten really deeply into music and i just was like no and then a friend of mine said you know you need an arts credit so I took an acting class and that was it okay that was it that was when I decided I

didn't want to be a comedian I wanted to be an actor yeah you know or something I wanted to be in entertainment yeah and I wanted to be in bands and so I played in bands all through college and uh and was in the theater department and got my degree in theater yeah communications after you're done there do you head right back down to la i go to san francisco okay i live with my parents for like six months and then i get enough money to move out i'm trying to find work as an actor it is not going well and i don't have great there's not a lot in san francisco really there isn't yeah there isn't and i don't have great acting chops like i i just you know did you have a suspicion of that at the time or yeah yeah yeah yeah but it's rough

my mom who was always looking for my mom who had who had since i was a kid tried to get me to do comedy uh oh really that's that's interesting yeah yeah they were my parents i was born in 63 which makes me i think i'm like the last year of being a boomer my parents were really into jazz and stand-up comedy so they lived in san francisco so they went and saw they saw everybody they saw lenny they saw phyllis diller they saw new heart they saw cosby a number of times like they really loved comedy. Yeah. And they had all the comedy records.

So my mom was always sort of pushing for that. And I was like, Mom, I'm not going to prostitute myself for my comedy. That's just who I am as a person. I'm not a comedian. And then I got in an improv group. My mom saw an audition for an improv group. I got in this improv group. And lo and behold, who's in the improv group?

Margaret Cho. Oh, wow. And Margaret had been doing stand-up for about a month. And after a week or two in the group, she's like, you have to do stand-up. Yeah. That's what you have to do. And so I put together a set, and I went to the Holy City Zoo, and I was on 35th. And the guy before me had a panic attack and ran off stage.

And I went up, and I screamed about wrestling my grandma or something like that. Yeah. And it went well. And then I was like, oh, that was it. Yeah. I was done. And how much longer do you stay in San Francisco? Five years.

Okay. Okay. I stayed five years. I worked myself up to being a feature act uh-huh uh in san francisco and then sort of the advent of everybody moved to san francisco at one point and was living there marin was living there and and dana gould i know is ruled this from ruled this from their patent yeah blaine uh posain mitch hedberg was living there at the time like everybody was there and then the ben stiller show happened and we had become friends with cross and ruffalo and benson and people from all around the

world when they would go up there when they would come up there and they would come and stay with us and we we all partied like we'd won emmys and uh and when they moved to do the ben stiller show all of us said let's fucking let's go to la yeah so we all we all moved down there around the same time yeah because there was a real thing happening here i mean because it was about the same time that the conan show was starting and i would come out here and i had a couple of friends that i sort of knew from that world and then but i'd come out here and it would just there would seem to be a show every night and you'd see and all these people that you named, you know, I kind of would get to know them. And, you know, from going to these shows and being a part of it.

And it really did feel for me and my taste, too. I was like, because stand up never the stand up comedy that I knew. I didn't relate to it you know it was still kind of very 80s kind of feel sort of more you know like jokes and observational humor yeah and and not a lot of personal sort of stake in it you know it's sort of it seemed almost like a um like an intellectual exercise with a transactional nature yes you know what i mean like let you know like jerry seinfeld is fucking hilarious jerry seinfeld is a genius but jerry seinfeld creates math problems with words yeah you know what i mean like it's and and he does sort of touch

on things that are sort of universal emotional feelings but he doesn't get up there you don't learn a lot about jerry seinfeld no not at all about his psyche not at all whereas these stories and these people performing this way it seemed much much more and and to my you know young eyes at the time young artistic you know i mean it was just a direct reaction to the end of the comedy boom yeah and we just couldn't get work either so that's where all the alternative the alternative really comes from alternative venues because we were doing laundromats and restaurants and all that kind of right um but somebody pointed out to me the other day when that group of comics came up there somebody would go on stage and for 37 seconds talk without a laugh as opposed to boom

boom boom laugh boom boom laugh yep and you'd be going uh-oh whereas you know cross was one of the greatest cross would be on stage for three minutes without letting you know what he was gonna do yeah and then he would get a laugh and so it was just different approaches to doing essentially the same still comedy we're still trying to you're still trying to make people laugh yeah you know and all of us would have been happy to work in comedy clubs they just weren't hiring yeah you know everybody wanted a career it's just that this was what we were doing where we were doing it yeah no i i mean i i you know i came from improv in chicago which you know it's it's there's strict rules to it but it's still about getting laughs and and i mean and there's a lot

of a lot of improv is very much meant to be popular you're not it's not meant to be that challenging yeah there is you know there's a Del Close was one, you know, was my probably main teacher. And he does like, likes to challenge people with like this referential, like, you know, making references to ancient Greeks and stuff like that, which I was never that into. But I still, like when I went to New York and started doing the Conan show, there was an alternative scene there kind of centered around the Luna Lounge. And I was, I thought, oh my God, these, this is sophisticated New Yorkers. Like these people are, you know, they're doing stuff that I, it's going to be very artistic. I'm not going to, and then I went to see it and I was like, oh, it's just about being funny.

Oh, they're just trying to get laughs. Oh, okay. You know, it's, oh, it's not, you know, it's not that different. And it's like you say, these, you're still trying to get a laugh. You're just doing it in a way that, well, it's just a preference. It's just a preference of how you want to do your business on stage. Absolutely. And it also has swung back and forth.

And look, at the same time, you know, during that, one of the biggest comics was Mitch Hedberg, who was nothing but a joke writer. Yeah, yeah. He was joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke. So, you know, I think it was also like alternative music at the same time. I think people just wanted something new. They were tired of what they had. They were tired of the cable shows. They were tired of seeing just the white guy, which was really pretty much all a stand-up.

A lot of voices weren't represented. And they wanted something different. They wanted, as we are always doing, we always want something different. We always want someone to show us something new, make us something new, show us a world we haven't seen before. But the cool thing about that scene was

is that I think it blew comedy wide open. I think out of that wide open I think I think you know out of that you get an arrested development not directly not Mitch Hurwitz no I understand but like people are open to him trying that on network television yeah you know people are open to the office people are open to other you know ways of doing a three camera sitcom or whatever yeah and I think there is between the audience and the performers they're teaching each other how to speak in a different kind of way because it's like you said david cross gets on stage for three minutes in the audience who's used to a

particular type of comedy is there to see a different type of comedy but they have to be taught like oh no this is you know they're taught a patience and they're taught a kind of you know a different way to kind of listen to things and and look at things can't you tell my loves it grow there was a a club called on cabaret that you were a part of. Yeah, yeah. And another person that was there at the time was Michael Patrick King. Yes. And you hit it off with him. Yes. And that changed the trajectory of your life.

Changed the trajectory of my life. So I did a set, and then Michael, who I didn't know, got up on stage and said, Greg is who I was pretending to be when I was pretending to be straight. And it was because you just you basically wrote a love letter to a toaster. Yes. Right. That was it.

I had a bit about a toaster that I was in love with. So then I came up to him and we said we should work on something together. And then I got a deal at HBO to do a to do a largo like set uh-huh about the toaster for hbo and uh and they asked michael to direct it and which was one of the best experiences of my life you know because i just had a bunch of jokes i didn't have a one-man show sure and we crafted this thing and it went great and then they hired and then they liked michael so much they gave him the job at sex in the city oh wow yeah i mean i don't think it was because of me but but but it might as well say it helped he probably won't do this yeah yeah and so he

starts that show that thing takes off right from the beginning is this huge right from the beginning yeah and then tell everybody how like how you got involved with sex in the city so michael and i there was this thing called comedy world do you remember comedy world i don't think you probably even did it was the very first internet streaming radio all comedy radio network okay so think podcasts yeah yeah it was just podcasts yeah and they they bought a big building in marina del rey and they put a bunch of different trailers in there you know and they were made them into studios and so there'd be like six shows going at once wow and uh i was i had my own show. Beth Lapidus had her own show, blah, blah, blah. And Michael was a guest on Beth's show, and we ran into each other, and he said, hey, I was thinking about you.

Look, the staff of Sex and the City is seven women and two gay men, and we could really use somebody to come over and tell us what pussy tastes like, because nobody here seems to know. The girls remember vaguely from college but not enough to really not enough to really you know honestly they're it's they each have one you know i mean you know yeah at some point but at work you know like if work well i don't want to get into the spiritual but it's like if work was wondering what an armpit tasted like i think i might just go well hold on i'll be right back so they so then and then i went there to then i got asked to work in the first day that we that was the question that was you were just there as a pussy taste specialist that was

what my job was was and i was like i don't know it's like wine i suppose you know it's all different and every once in a while you take the cork out and you can't put it back in. And that's what you're stuck with. So, yeah. So, that was it. But then I worked on it. And then it got into it. There was an episode, right?

Because it wasn't like somebody. Samantha was having a girlfriend. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. And, of course, she needs to discuss with her friends, with her girlfriends. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was all about, there was a scene about having it on your face and all this stuff.

I mean, they would, you know, they really tried to plummet the depths. Right. That's the specialty of that show. Yeah. Going a little further than one would think. Yeah, exactly. And especially at the time, was very you know like wow yeah you know they were really they were really out there but yeah that got you in the door there

and you were a consultant then yeah which was amazing because at the end of the show when they used to show credits i had my own title card yeah and that raised my profile around town you know like oh who's greg baron what's greg baron doing there you know that yeah yeah and then of course you know that leads to an innocent conversation with one of the writers on the last season who was seeing a guy and she'd been out with him like six times and she had invited him up the night before to have sex and he said no and she asked me if that was bad and i said well it's not good yeah and uh i said uh he's just not that into you and i don't even remember saying it but the girl who's the co-author of the book liz tochillo heard it and she grabbed

onto it and then we took it in the writer's room and we talked about it and then we made an episode of that exact story yeah and then it aired and they were talking about it on the view the next day and that's when liz came to me and said i think we should write a book yeah and i was like a pamphlet maybe yeah and that at a bar like i don't know that it's a whole book right but she convinced me and i told my wife about it and she was like yeah yeah yeah you should do it and so we wrote this for fun you know really silly you know yeah intending it to be comedy we thought it was going to be in the humor section yeah you know like we thought what's from the writers of it's two people from the writing staff it's from sex in the city it's not from dr phil right so it's it's uh but

the thing that's so crazy about it is when we turned it into turned in the manuscript to our agent she split up with her fiance and then when the book from reading the story from reading the book wow from reading the book which is just that don't doesn't that like feel like oh i didn't mean you to do that yeah i was just fucking around i got a knot in my stomach and then it went to the publishing, and two women broke up with their boyfriends. Yeah, so it was already having an effect before it was even published. Yeah. And Liz was like, this is going to be huge.

And I was like, I hope it gets in her Urban Outfitters. Like, my goals were lower. An impulse buy, a point of purchase book. Exactly. That's exactly it. And then we got the call that we were, we would be welcome guests on Oprah. Wow. And that was like, and Oprah was at the height, you know, the week before I went on was the week she gave away all the cars.

Yeah. So people were, she was at peak power. Yeah, yeah. And we went on the show and I was on for an hour telling girls their boyfriends didn't like them. It was insane. It was insane. And Oprah was loving it. She fucking loved it.

She'd pat me on the knee and in the breaks tell me how many books we were going to sell and came backstage to see me afterwards, which I was told she never does. Yeah. And it was like a wild moment. You know what I mean? Like, I had no concept of what was going to happen. Yeah, yeah. And at that point, I'd done stand-up for 15 years.

Yeah. I'd shot two specials. I shot an HBO special and a Comedy Central special. And I wasn't famous, you know, but I was making my way. And then that just that one afternoon changed my entire life yeah that's what i was gonna say that i mean because i'm sitting here hearing this and i'm thinking oh but what about comedy you know that was my i remember going back to the hotel room and thinking what have i just done to my comedy career yeah you

know because it wasn't like now where with all the social media you can explain yourself and you can be sure you can be five things yeah yeah you can be more things but back then you were you know people's attention was either here it was here it was here you know what people that come to you because you've written this dating book will also then see you be funny too whereas in this you're you know you go back on oprah a number of times and they're not saying like tell us your funny observations about modern life they're like more dating shit exactly yeah and do you feel because i just did a show uh recently and at the end Mae Martin was a guest in it and Mae

asked me and Andy Daly about like when you were in college and you hit on girls and I was like it's hilarious that you think I have any idea how to hit on girls like you know the notion that I have some sort of methodology

to you know whereas it was always just kind of like, I don't know, just, you know, wait around till it's painfully obvious that this person likes me. Yes. And so that I wouldn't if somebody if I like wrote some sort of lighthearted article about dating advice because it seems like fun and my friends encouraged me to do it. And then they say well you should do a book and then i'd be like i don't know what the fuck i'm talking about and i mean did you have that feeling about dating or did you feel like you had some sort of perspective that that that warranted all this attention and all this sort of seeking out your advice i thought well i'm a critical thinker yeah and uh and i and i problem

solve but i'd always say to someone before i talk to him please understand you're getting your advice now from a clown yeah like yeah you know i'm i i was trying to write on television you know what i know about dating is just practical it's just it to me it doesn't even apply to dating. It applies to life in general. When somebody isn't showing up for you, you know, if they're not calling you back, you didn't get the audition. Like, it's not happening. Yeah. But people think that you have more, like, they believe you have more advice. And then I thought, maybe I do have more advice.

I didn't really know. Yeah. You know? But it became, the money thing became so crazy. Yeah. Because the book did so well. And then we sold the rights to a book for the movie for a movie and we were also paid to write a script which they didn't use but right it was still yeah i didn't care you know uh like and then there was a second book and then there was this there was all this stuff you know and then eventually along came the talk show which i turned down four or five times.

Yeah. But then I realized nobody else in show business was offering me work. Like I wasn't being offered comedy stuff. Right. And so I thought, well, I guess I'll do a daytime talk show. Yeah. You know, I mean, maybe I can make that kind of cool or maybe I can make that kind of funny or I can, you know what I mean?

And that is, you know, so so many people say they'll say like why did that person do that showbiz thing and it's like you don't get to necessarily you know very few people get to pick and choose exactly what path they get to take exactly you know you you you you know you're you you'd open a bakery and and you know you think you're gonna sell bread and all of a sudden oh no i guess it's brownies okay here's you know we're i wore a brownie bit you know you don't know you don't know you don't know and you don't know what you can or can't do and and you think you can be funny in the middle of any of it yes yeah you know yeah and uh and i'd had you Yeah. And I had young kids and there was all that. Yeah, they'll make you fucking do anything.

Yeah. Jesus Christ. Whatever. Yeah. Is there a check? Okay, yes. Yeah, there's so much school coming and all that kind of stuff. And I was taking care of my sister at the time.

So I was like, yeah, all right, we'll give this a shot. But the thing is, as you know, once you've had a talk show, there's not much more they can offer you. They've given you the biggest piece of property you can own, which is an hour of your own. With your name on it. With your name on it every day. There's no bigger thing than that.

And we did well enough to do it for a year, but it was canceled. And then it turns out that we had the same numbers as everybody got the next year. We could have stayed on, but we didn't. They didn't keep us on. And then I tried to go back to stand-up, which was very hard because most of the people

that came out to see me had wanted to hear about the book. Right. You know, and wanted, and I shot a special, I shot an hour that was on Comedy Central, but it didn't, it wasn't bigger than the book. The book was just too big. It was too big that he's just not that into you. And so it sort of swallowed me up.

Yeah. And then eventually I flipped out on stage and quit standup for a while. I had a panic attack at a club in New York. It swallowed me up. Yeah. And then eventually I flipped out on stage and quit stand-up for a while. Oh, yeah. I had a panic attack at a club in New York. And I was doing a set, and this woman kept talking. It was a bachelor party. Oh, boy.

Yeah. And she kept talking, and I was trying to get her to be quiet. And eventually I said, hey, do you like my books? And she said, I do. And I said, have you read my new book? Please shut the fuck up so I can do the rest of my set. Because it's doing really well. Yeah.

And the crowd laughed a little. And then she got quiet for a minute. And then I was doing this big bit about magic, which is a very performative bit. And I go into the crowd. And it's about how I hate magic. And I finish it it and she just goes boo and i turned and i just went yeah just let loose on her i let loose on her i said she was the worst person i never met and i and i said she ruined the show for everybody everybody in the

club should have burned their money in the parking lot. You're an awful human being. And I hate you. And then she started crying. And then she reached down and she pulled the book out and she held it up. And she was like, you were supposed to talk about this. My boyfriend left me. I'm all alone. I'm by myself. And fortunately, well, sort of fortunately, a guy across the room goes, well, no wonder nobody will fuck you.

Boy. Oh, those stand-up crowds and then another guy goes hey i'll fuck her and i said thank you thank you good night and i left and i called my manager and i said i got to get off the road i can't do this i don't want to fight with people about what i want to do you know yeah it was too much and the movie was coming out so there was tons of press about it and it just wouldn't leave me alone you know as much as i'm grateful for it i also i spent so long trying to create a stand-up career yeah and you know all my peers as we've already talked about we're all doing fantastically in comedy yeah you know yeah it's one of those things where if you were given the choice 10 times you you would have made the same choice 10 times. Absolutely.

Because you can't go, well, this isn't exactly what I want to do. But yeah, but it gets you lots of attention and it pays for the family that you're starting. You know, you're like, you don't have a choice and it and at a certain point it's irresponsible to those kids that you decided to have to to turn down to turn down something lucrative because it's it's it's beneath my artistic pretensions yeah right right so yeah yeah no and over time i've made my peace with it and and uh and I'm grateful for it and even proud of it. And look, women would come up to me. I was in Chicago and I was going to do early morning press with the club owner. And a woman ran across the street and said, hey, I read your book and I was in this abusive relationship and now I'm not. And I couldn't have done it without that. You saved my life. Thank you.

You know, whatever. And she's crying and, you know, I gave her a hug and she went away. And the guy said, man, I've been with, shit, I know every comic that's ever been. I've never, no one's ever come up to a comic and said, you saved my life. You saved my life. Yeah. And then I said, I just wanted her to say I was funny. Yeah, well, you don't get to choose.

No. And so I am grateful that I put something in the universe that was ultimately helpful to people. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, yeah. That feels good. And I did something that, you know, it became a thing. It was a moment. Right, right. And a lot of people forget to have that. Yeah. You know, and people work hard. And people in the field of self-help don't get what I got.

Yeah. You know, so I have gratitude. Yeah, yeah. Can't you tell my love's a girl? I mean, your story, there's addiction in your story and even i i mean before all of this big stuff happened before sex in the city for all of that you had all you were already a recovering alcoholic you already you'd already been in recovery for alcoholism because you just found it was holding you back yeah it was it was too much, and I was starting to get sick.

And I was living with Cross. David Cross. David Cross. I was living with David Cross. And I would get up around 1 o'clock or 2, and David had his own television show. Yeah. And I thought, there's a problem here. Yeah, yeah.

You know, David's actually a little younger than me, and he is working on his own television show. Yeah. And I thought, there's a problem here. Yeah, yeah. You know, David's actually young, a little younger than me and he is working on his own show and I've gotten, I'm just celebrating with everybody every night

but I'm not doing anything. Right. Celebrating what? Exactly. What am I celebrating? Yeah. So I went to a meet, I, you know,

I looked in the phone book and I found AA and I called and I went to a meeting and I just put it down. And to be fair, I haven't had a drink since 96. And then I just, I got a job working in a catering truck. And, you know, like, Dave would let me live a couple months rent free.

Yeah. I told my dad to stop giving me money because they were not helping. Yeah. And got my life together, you know? Yeah. And it was great. Yeah. It was really, really, really great.

Yeah. Yeah. But 15 years into it, I was having that mental health problems, and I didn't know what was wrong. And so, stupidly, I took the dog pills. Yeah. Do you think that that was exacerbated by this sort of roller coaster ride? Yeah. A hundred percent.

The mental health issues. You think that if you'd had more stable life that maybe you could. Yeah. And my solution at that point was to start a ska band. And I say in the book, if your husband comes to you at 50 and says he's starting a SCA band, just walk him straight to rehab. Just take him straight to rehab. There's no reason. Because this is after you've already sort of slipped into the pill addiction.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, could you get that many prescriptions for your dog or did you have to sort of start? Yes. The dog pills would come every month in the mail. Wow. And they were these giant jars.

They were massive. Wow. I think this is before everybody got really hip to opiates. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But eventually it spun out of control. I put myself in rehab. And then I was fine. And then four years later, I got cancer.

I had non-Hodgkin's b-cell lymphoma and what happened was i was on the road in australia and i'd had these stomach aches before i left and i'd gone to the doctor and they they said you've got some gas it's like gas problem you know it's you're fine right i was like okay and then the pain got so bad that I couldn't walk. And I had somebody take me to the emergency room in Australia. And they put me out. And then they did an MRI or whatever and woke me up and said, you've got a cluster of tumors in your intestine. Wow. that is just kind of so fascinating and so like perfect to me is that you're in Australia doing a show

that's based on you, on a completely fabricated notion of you being a Japanese, like an Anglo-Japanese star, pop star. You have a blue mohawk. You had fake songs made up. You have a blue mohawk. Yep. You had fake songs made up. You had fake products made up.

Yeah. You know, like a pomade or something. Yeah, pomade. Yeah. And so, I mean, this is like, you know, you weren't just down there telling stories about. No. You know, you were out on a limb. I was swinging for the fences, man.

Yeah. You were out on a limb. I was swinging for the fences, man. Yeah. I was, I was, the thing was, when you go to Australia, you go there and you do an hour. Yeah. And when you come back, you can't. And it's part of a festival. Part of a festival.

Yeah, yeah. And when you come back, you can't do the same hour. Yeah. So I've been asked back the next year, and I'm like, I don't have an hour's worth of stand-up. Yeah. You know, but I do have this story that I think is pretty interesting. And I have these songs I think might be kind of fun. And I always wonder what it would be like to just pretend I'd been a pop star in Japan in the early 80s and had my own hair products and then get kicked out of the country by the emperor.

So it was really crazy. Yeah. by the emperor yeah so it was really crazy yeah and uh and people come up to me after the show and ask me about japan where i've never been yeah yeah and this is all bullshit yeah yeah yeah and we've gotten a pretty good review you know i wasn't like selling out or anything but there was that we've gotten a pretty good review but for a big swing that's all you really you know just like the people are liking it just not turning out and leaving before it's all you really you know just like the people are liking it just not turning out and leaving before it's done that's you know a victory yeah totally totally totally and uh and i loved all of it because i got to you know i had a pink plaid suit and i had two different flying v's that i had painted and fixed up and painted and you know i made all this stuff the music too and the music it's everything

it's everything i like in one hour you know and you're sober at this time right sober yeah yeah totally sober and uh which is a testament to what can happen when you're sober yeah and then i get the i get the diagnosis and and and i said the guy, he said, you've got tumors in your intestines. And I said, well, shit. I've had a pretty good life. And he goes, well, we're not picking out tombstones yet, mate. Yeah. But you've got to fly home and get this taken care of.

Get back to L.A., yeah. Yeah. taken care of back to LA yeah yeah but I was surprised at how I was 50 years old and I was like you know I've accomplished a lot I've done a lot I'm okay if I if I have to go now I have two beautiful children I have a loving wife who's going to take great care of them they'll be fine without me I did more in my career than I ever expected to wow you know considering in high school they told me I wouldn't be able to get into college. Yeah. You know, like, I had a good life, you know, and I'm not afraid.

If this is going to be it, this is going to be it. But fortunately, I got home and they said, this is a cancer you can beat and we'll give you six rounds of chemo. But the bad part of that was they cut me open to pull out my appendix so that it wouldn't jump onto my appendix. And then they showed me back up, and then I immediately started chemo, which means that the wound wouldn't heal. Doesn't heal, yeah. Right.

So they put me on OxyContin. Yeah. And I was on OxyContin for six months. And then they gave me 30 Norco to get off of it. And that didn't work. And I was in a club in St. Louis trying to get ready to do a show. And I was withdrawing. I was starting to get the shakes and feel sick.

And so I asked somebody at the club, I asked one of the waiters, I'm like, if you can find anyone with an opiate. And so they got me an opiate. And then I just couldn't get off them. Yeah. You know, for like a year. I mean, it really is something. I mean, and I don't think the medical community has cracked.

Opiate user, abuser, in rehab, in recovery, gets cancer. How do you manage the pain like what pain management does medical science offer to somebody that already has had an addiction to painkillers right and the strange thing is is that you still feel the pain yeah you just don't care wow it's a very bizarre feeling that sucks the pain doesn't yeah it sucks. The pain doesn't go away. Yeah. That really sucks. The pain doesn't go away, but you feel magnificent. Yeah, yeah. So it's like a pain distractor, not even a pain killer. Yeah.

Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I should have been put through a proper detox. Yeah. You know, they should have detoxed me. And that's what they should do to everybody that they do that to. Did you, I mean, at the time, did you just want to get back to work too do you think that was part of it you're just did you not you didn't give yourself the opportunity to really you know have to get back on this beast and then

wrestle yourself off of it you kind of just wanted to get back was it was it like a denial like kind of like i just want to get back to life you know yes yes very much very much and i just and i and i also was afraid you know what's going to happen in my career what am i doing well you know we need to make money i need to work yeah yeah you know i need to stand up it's the only thing i have i gotta get back out there you know it's been too long and uh and then you know then i started to get less and less work and then COVID hit. Yeah. And then there was no work. And were you still in the throes of addiction when COVID hit?

No, I was done. You were done. I was done. Did you go back to another rehab? No, I detoxed. No, I did this, which I wouldn't advise. I detoxed at home on a drug called Suboxoneone which is like a methadone for opiates oh wow and it was very hard and uh and i was erratic and difficult and yeah you know my kids

were afraid of me and you know it was a bad it was a bad scene and i imagine it doesn't leave a lot of room for anything other than wrestling with that your days are pretty much taken up yeah pretty probably being erratic yeah yeah yeah yeah up and down and and uh the sweats and it like and uh you're still a little paranoid and yeah it's it's all awful yeah so when lockdown hits i mean what do you do that i mean were you were you scared were you like oh shit this is gonna or were you happy to be sort of locked down like the rest of the world? I had. So eight months before lockdown, my oldest daughter said, you have to live somewhere else.

Wow. I can't get. Because you were just so all over the map. Yeah. She's like, I can't. And how old is she at this time? 16. 16.

And she's like, I can't get through school. And 16-year-old daughters, they do not mince map. Yeah. She's like, I can't, I can't. And how old is she at this time? 16. 16. And she's like, I can't get through school. Yeah, and 16-year-old daughters, they do not mince words. No. So I moved out and then I lived outside for eight months. And then when COVID hit, they said, come back and live with us. And, and. Is that where they worried about you? Do you think that they didn't want you to be isolated that badly?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I was clean at that point. Yeah. But then I got prostate cancer. Ugh. I know. It's such a drag.

Yeah, yeah. I'm like, the next thing I do has to be really fun. Can I get a fun cancer, please? Something, man. Yeah. Can I get something? But anyway, that was really pretty simple. It was like, well, we'll just take your prostate out.

Okay. I mean, it's not a simple procedure, but. But prostate cancer is one of the more overcomable ones these days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They,

especially if they catch it early. Um, but it can also be a nightmare if you don't get it. Right. So anyway, so then they just took out my prostate, uh, and I moved back home and,

um, and then no chemo. You didn't, it was your chemo radiation, anything like that. Oh, okay. Nothing.

Yeah. Yeah. They were like, let's not even fool with that let's just you know you know and it's you know you like your prostate you don't want to lose it but yeah but living's a little better yeah but being alive is is better yeah and it and you were able to kind of heal with the family heal with the family yeah. And then both my girls went off to college. Yeah. And so now we're empty nesters. And I'm working.

I'm doing both. I'm working all over. I work in clubs still. I still work clubs. But I also started doing cruise ships. Oh, wow. Which was a total mind fuck because I was like, oh, cruise ship people are the worst. I was like, oh, cruise ship people are the worst.

But I got this opportunity to work on this big, beautiful boat called the Allure of the Seas, which is a Royal Caribbean boat. And they have a comedy club. And it seats 200 people. You can do whatever you want. They don't care. It's just a comedy club. Yeah, yeah. You don't have to change your act.

I mean, it's okay if you have a few jokes about the boat and the day like that. Sure, sure. But I could just work. Yeah. And it was more money than I was making in the clubs, and I don't have to sell tickets. I'm not, they're not waiting, they're not banking on you. Right, right. You know, and so everybody shows up,

and then they have a theater that seats about 2,000. So then you do the last show of the night is in the theater, and it's all adult comedy. And I was like, well, this isn't bad. Yeah. Yeah. It's not bad. It's kind of like,

it's kind of fantastic. It's kind of, cause I know for, for a lot of people and myself included, you get to, you get to, you do this, there's all kinds of exciting things that happen,

but then it just gets to be like, I just want to do the thing. I just want to do it. You know, like I, and I don't need, I don't need a lot it. Yeah. And I don't need a lot of bells and whistles, and I don't need a lot of somebody slapping me on the back or putting awards in my hand. I just want to do the thing.

And you're getting to kind of do that in a way where – and also nobody's fucking with you. That's the other thing. You don't want somebody to be like micromanaging the thing that you're trying to do. Right. You know. Right, right, right, right.

And, you know, I just want to earn a living. Yeah. Doing the thing that I do. Yeah, yeah. That doesn't mean I don't have other plans or schemes or things that I want to do. But I very much enjoy just working. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I enjoy, you know, going out, going on ships, seeing the world. And there's a gym in there, and I can work out for a couple hours. And how long are you gone for a time? Usually, I go out for about a month. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'll do two ships back to back, something like that. Wow, nice. Yeah.

Nice. Yeah, but then I'm home for a couple of weeks. Yeah. And so it's good. something like that nice yeah nice yeah but then i'm home for a couple of weeks yeah you know and so it's good and it's and my wife writes and so she likes it quiet in the house so you know well and i imagine you guys have been through a lot and the fact that you're still together is a real testament yeah to the bond i mean i imagine you know yeah she's the greatest she is she is the greatest and she's put up with a lot and i'm trying to make the last half of her life decent.

Yeah. So I imagine you're pretty grateful to, you know. Super grateful. Yeah, yeah. Super grateful. Yeah. Yeah. But what I want to do, my goal now is to, I thought about, maybe I'll do an oral history

of the alternative comedy scene. You know, because I write and and because I know everybody knew all those people yeah and we just did a show like a month ago at the El Rey and it was uh the Mr. Show People and Zach and Sarah and Marilyn Ricegub and Posein and Benson and Gould and and me and and it was sold out and people loved it. Wow. I thought, well, there still is an interest in this. And then I thought, well, if I'm going to take the time to enter.

Was everybody just doing sets or was it sort of like reminiscence kind of? No. Oh, wow. It was just a, oh, wow. Just comedy. That's great. Yeah, just comedy. And it was supposed to be reminiscent of a show that we used to do called

tantrum at the at the diamond club and uh and then i thought well if i'm going to spend the time and talk to these people i might as well maybe i'll just put it on film yeah maybe i'll make a documentary about it you know because i think it's an interesting part time in comedy yeah you know definitely was a scene yeah i and there's interest. I mean, I've heard other people talking about that particular. I think there might have been an LA Times article about Uncabaret maybe. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think people would be interested in it enough.

I mean, there's enough. There's all kinds of books about. I mean, I love reading as told to books by punk scenes all over the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that stuff. I love rock biographies and i think god it would be really fun to and everybody gratefully thankfully still alive and working and yeah you know doing good stuff yeah so that yeah that's i mean you've got you know you

are there other things like that you have in in mind that you want to you want to try and do uh or is that is that kind of right before you in there that's want to you want to try and do uh or is that is that kind of right before you in there that's kind of what i'm that's kind of what i'm focused on yeah it's doing that i maybe i'd like to do another hour do another special at some point yeah you know i have the one cool thing about the ship is you can write material all the time so you know i have a whole i'm i'm coming up on having a whole another hour and i'd like to do that yeah who knows where wherever right you know however you know we a whole nother hour and I'd like to do that. Yeah. Who knows where, wherever. Right. You know, however.

You know, we've been talking an hour and that's a lot. There's a lot going on in that life. And I wonder like if there's like, if you have a point to it, you know, like if you've come up with some idea of what the point of it all is or what, you know, what, what's the thing that you take away from your own story? Like, what's the thing that you take away from your own story? Like what's the moral of your own story? Well, I mean, I could have died a number of times in a variety of ways, but I didn't. But you just, you're not even good at that. I can't even really get that to work. Can't even fucking die right.

I mean, two cancers. Come on, man. What are you fucking thinking? Addicted to opiates. You know how many people are just snorting fentanyl and dropping off? You didn't snort fentanyl? Amir said, if you had been a kid now, you wouldn't have made it past 15. Yeah.

And I'm like, you know, that's probably right. You're probably right. Yeah. But I think the two things, one thing I stress in the book is that a lot of my success is because I've, I've sought professional help. Yeah. I believe in psychiatrists and I believe in therapists and I believe in, and I believe in medication. Yeah. You know, it's really helped me. I've seen it help other people. I really think if you're really feeling lost and alone, like just reach out. Yeah. There's people who are chomping at the bit to help i don't

understand why there's shame in it right it's crazy it's great no but i mean but it exists you know it's like yeah of course you know i mean i've i you know part of why i do this podcast is because i've been in therapy a million years and i like to talk in those ways it's a kind of its own language yeah of course and i like to talk to people who understand that language. And I have talked about it in public forums in different ways. And I'm not one to go like, I share my struggle so others can learn. You know, that always feels so like masturbatory when a lot of people say that. But I've talked about, I've had depression. I've had struggles with mental health no shame in seeking out help for it or being honest about it or being unashamed of it and i

had so many people say how meaningful that was yes and i mean you know and that's pretty undeniable it's pretty undeniable that to just simply say that thing and have that mean something to people you know and i'm you know like i just i always remember a guy in the warner brothers commissary i was there and getting coffee before going to the gym and working out and this guy came up to me and said he had like a kind of a southern accent and he said like i've been struggling with stuff for years and i just was always i felt like my parents wouldn't approve and just hearing you talk and was on another podcast hearing you talk about it made me go and get help and i i just want to thank you because it's made all the difference in the world and i may not have done it otherwise which is wonderful to hear but also i'm like

jesus christ really me that i did that you know so it it does matter to say it you know it does i i you know because i was renowned for helping people advice guy yeah i thought well i don't need help yeah i mean for a while i mean otherwise i wouldn't have taken dog pills yeah you know i was making my own decisions because I thought, well, I don't need to talk to anybody. I'm a problem solver. I'll solve my own problems. Which was the biggest mistake ever, you know. And, you know, I know that, like, when I first got sober from alcohol and stuff, I probably

wouldn't have done it if the guys in Aerosmith hadn't done it, tried to do it. Yeah, yeah. I don't know how they're doing it today. Right, right. Sure're doing today sure yeah but they were well they're still around so that's something yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but that was like because i loved them and i thought well shit these guys were really fucked up and if they could do it maybe i could do it yeah yeah yeah well that's that's a good message to give and um and the book i mean the book ultimately is kind of a hopeful story uh see you on the way down at on the everant platform uh it's a you know it's a fun read but it's harrowing because you know you like i say you know you have it's been a roller coaster ride

yeah definitely definitely and and it does feel like i've come through a lot and there's a lot of good to a lot of good to come you know what i mean like i am excited about the future good you know well greg baron thank you so much uh folks look for him uh doing stand up near you uh is there a website where people can get if you just go to my Instagram, that's all you'll need. And my Instagram is itsgreggers. It's Greggers. It's Greggers. Okay. Alright, well, thanks Greg. Thank you, buddy. And thank all of you

out there for listening, and I'll be back next week with more of The Three Questions. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Dougherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel. Executive produced by Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross.

Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, with assistance from Maddy Ogden. Research by Alyssa Grahl. Don't forget to rate and review and subscribe to the three questions with Andy Richter, wherever you get your podcasts. And do you have a favorite question you always like to ask people? Let us know in the review section. Can't you tell my love's growing? Can't you feel it ain't showing?

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