The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Marc Maron

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

Comedian and podcaster Marc Maron talks with Andy Richter about growing up Jewish in Albuquerque, hosting Short Attention Span Theater, and dealing with high-stakes podcast patent trolls. Plus, Marc reflects on what matters most to him right now. Check out Marc’s new special End Times Fun on Netflix here.

Hey everybody, it's the three questions with Andy Richter. I'm talking to Mark Maron. I don't know when they're going to start this thing, but we've started. Oh, do you have, we've started, but oh, so there's a, like you have a theme. Yeah, yeah. But they just dropped that in at the beginning. Yeah, yeah. I do. So the theme is three questions? Well, yeah. I mean, that's the gist of it. It's three questions, which are, where do you come from?

Where are you going? And what have you learned? Why are you here? Yeah, yeah. What's your fucking deal? Why are you the way you are? The gimmick of this thing is just really just a reason to have a conversation. I mean, it's not dissimilar to your podcast, which is like an interview about, like, you know, what's your deal?

It's good to see you, too. Yeah, we've known each other for a gazillion years. It's good to see you too. Yeah. We've known each other for a gazillion years. It's crazy really. When you think about, you know, sometimes I, I, I, I get thrown a, a clip on Twitter of me on Conan and like 90, 94, 95. Yep. And it's crazy.

Yep. Yeah. That we're children and we're sitting there. You're in a suit. I know. No, I don't. Conan's in a suit. I know. Conan's in a suit. I don't.

Yeah. And I don't feel like. I mean, obviously, something's changed, but I don't feel any fucking different except for when I then I look at those things and I think like, oh, yeah, I I was 12 years old. And I know there's that part of it. I didn't even really know how to be on television. You know, not that I, you know. Well well anyway uh let's start at the beginning your beginning okay um you're you were born in the east coast right somewhere yes i was born in jersey city new jersey i do not have any recollection of that day

um you know i i assume i was crying i was bloody and messy uh i was a cesarean because uh that was what they did then i was told two things by my mother cesarean was preferable and breastfeeding was not good for me not good for you in what sense they just didn't do it it was not a popular thing the ladies didn't do the breastfeeding it was not good for her yeah yeah i don't know she did you know she uh she recently said to me andy a few years back The ladies didn't do the breastfeeding. It was not good for her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. She recently said to me, Andy, a few years back, after years of trying to figure out what was wrong with me, just casually as I was prepping a Thanksgiving dish, my mother just said, you know, Mark, when you were a baby, I didn't really know how to love you. And I'm like, wow, okay.

Well, that solves it then. I'm so that was there we go you know there's some there's some honesty between a parent and a child that isn't necessary dude it but as they get older they don't know that anymore uh you know there's the statute of limitations runs out you know i got my dad going like you remember mom's friend and i'm like yeah i don't need to hear about it. You know what I did? So you mean like, like, remember mom's friend? I nailed mom's friend, that kind of thing. Yeah, that kind of stuff.

And I'm sort of like, you know, keep that to yourself. They're not together anymore, but still it's like, I talked to her and I don't need to. You just, you can die with that secret. My father one time told me and and my father, who is out and gay, and that was the reason that they split up, once told me about his and my mother's frequent simultaneous orgasms. Oh, that's great. And this wasn't even like, this was not late onset. This was like when I was 17.

And it's like, honestly honestly, I don't, I don't need to know that. I mean, that's great. You're struggling, struggling with understanding one orgasm. Yeah. Now thanks dad.

Yeah. Yeah. They, they do that. There's too much information happening as to get older. Yeah. So Jersey born there. And then I lived there for the first six or so years of my life in,

uh, Pompton Lake or where Wayne, New Jersey, Wayne or so years of my life in Pompton Lake. We're in Wayne, New Jersey. Wayne. And my grandmother was in Pompton Lakes. My grandparents. All the families from Jersey. That's where everybody was from. Yeah.

We go from pretty much Russia to Jersey. And then, you know, Galicia in the Ukraine, which I learned from uh doing the show uh finding your roots with the oh nice you got to do that that's fun yeah i did i did yeah they were very excited because they somehow were able to track my paternal uh line further back than they then then they've ever gotten with the eastern european jews and i'm like well great yeah so there's so um uh sort of an excessive self-awareness has been a hallmark of your family for many, many years. Apparently they were tailors. But they needed people to know, you know?

Yeah. I know. It's like I think the bigger problem is, is like, you know, which group of anti-Semitic monsters, you know, got rid of the records and the people. That's really what happens. Yeah. But anyways, yes. And then my dad enlisted or was drafted, I'm not clear, into the Air Force where he was a doctor.

So he did his internship at Metropolitan Hospital in New York. And I think he did his residency through the Air Force. He entered the Air Force as a major and we moved to Alaska for two years. Now, did he, he, he was drafted into the air force as a doctor? Was this during Vietnam or something? Yeah. I don't know how it happened. Uh, I, I, I don't, I think he was drafted, but because he was in, you know, it was, this was 69. I don't know why he didn't go to Vietnam, but he was stationed in Anchorage, Alaska. And he was still, I guess it was because he wasn't a full doctor yet, I believe. But we were there for two years.

And I do remember, you know, I've talked about it before, but I won't say that on your podcast because I hate when people say it on my podcast because I just think like you know my producer's just going to cut it out um not that you've talked not that what you're about to say but that we won't we won't cut it out here because it just i mean why not it's okay but uh but no i we used to fly back east to visit our family you know my my my grandparents and aunts and uncles and whatnot and my dad used to be able to hop onto like a cargo plane, right. Uh, through the air. Wow. So you could, you know, how you can just sort of jump on the plane, but it was not a passenger plane.

And I remember there was, it's a very significant, two things happened. There was, we flew back to Jersey with caskets, right. That came through Alaska for some reason reason and they were heading to the east coast from vietnam and so that happened and i remember a few other memories along with that on that plane you know i i knew there were boxes of bodies but it was also we were all given a box lunch and it was the first time i had vhs and and the the pilot let me in the cockpit, so I was able to see all the stuff in the cockpit and stuff. So kind of dark, but kind of okay. Kind of cool, yeah.

So yeah, so we were in Alaska for two years, which I remember vaguely, but sort of succinctly. Do you remember the winters? Do you remember wicked winters there? Well, I just remember it was weird because Anchorage, we lived off base, but it was a small house. And I remember the neighbor was this woman, Esther, who I thought was like 100 years old and she smoked and she had all kinds of mystical jewelry and things. And she gave us silver dollars and would talk to us. And she was married to an Inuit man who was very quiet and wore mostly a one-piece a one piece outfit a lot. And I remember, um, we were near the inlet, uh, like a jumpsuit or like some sort of, yeah, that was his. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and he didn't talk much and she was a character, but I remember we lived near an inlet. So this was 1969 through 71 and they'd had that massive earthquake there in 63 right so there was still just like you know just all this rubble that we would walk out like you know half a mile towards

where the water was and there was just like houses and bricks and all kinds of shit to go through and uh so that was kind of wow and that was where i experienced the first sort of earthquake oh wow a little bit. That tremor. I just remember that we were told for some reason my dad said we need to stand in the doorway, which I think is still a thing to do, but it never makes sense to me. My impulse when the earth is shaking is to run away from the structure. Can't you tell my love's a-growing? mexico is where my dad went after alaska he got out of

the service had a friend that had gone down there and set up a practice it was sort of a one of those kind of boom cities like it was growing albuquerque is it yeah yeah and this is 1971 72 so he just went down there and set up a practice there and uh you know that's where i grew up albuquerque yeah and how i i that always surprised me knowing you because you just seemed well i think just because i knew you in new york city i just i always had the connection yeah like i was always in cultured uh east coast because I would you know I had my all my family was my grandparents were there so I would you know New York was very important to me I'd go back to New York I'd visit I'd go into the city you know

I liked you know stuff that was related to New York and even once I started to grow up in Albuquerque when I was 14 or 15 you You know, you can drive when you're 15 there. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. You get your license, learner's permit, 14, nine months. And, uh, you know, I got a job across from the college and I started to sort of like get into art and music and college kids. And so I was always a little kind of forward thinking and, you know, aspiring intellectually, which I think made me a little more New York-ish as opposed to, uh, to townie foundation, but I've got a pretty solid townie foundation, but I'm also a Jew. So, you know, it's, it's a mix. Were there many Jews in Albuquerque? There were some that got away, you know, that, that, that ran, uh, you know,

from the East coast. I thought you meant from albuquerque you know there's a there was no not yet there's a there was not a real indigenous jew uh culture but there had been some that had been there a few generations yeah yeah import export business you know selling the blankets is your is your jewish identity something that was that just existed is it something that you were aware of? Is it something that, that kids in Albuquerque made you more aware of? You know, like. I don't know, you know, it was sort of, uh, I was always sort of, you know, because of my grandparents, nobody was that religious, you know, but it was pretty clear from like what my

grandparents liked and how we were brought up and, you know, you, you, you know, that the Jewish identity was, was there, was not avoided. Yeah. And, you know, the sort of like the stuff my grandmother cooked, the, the way they talked, you know, the, the comics they like. Holidays and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and observing religious holidays, right. My mom was sort of lean towards, she liked Christmas decorations. I think there was a couple of Hanukkahs there and Christmases where we, we had a tree and it was kind of confusing, but she liked Christmas. Uh, and my brother, like, uh, I don't know, I just locked onto it cause I thought it was pretty great. Cause I liked comedians early on and most of them were Jewish. And I, and I liked the whole banter of of it You know, Woody Allen movies and everything else

And some of those guys that I knew in Hebrew school In Albuquerque, I just talked to my friend David Kleinfeld last night And I don't talk to him a lot But he called to see how I was doing But I've known him since second grade Since Hebrew school And, you know, we're still friends

Yeah, yeah Yeah, it's wild Yeah, it's, no, because it's just it's it's the kind of thing that i like i remember like i don't know what i don't know any i don't have any idea what it's like to be an other you know i just because i was born born white and protestant in an area where everybody was white and Protestant. In fact, I don't even think until we moved, because we lived with my grandparents after my folks divorced up until third grade. And then my mom remarried and we moved to a neighboring town. And there was a kid in my class that was jewish and aside from my pediatrician that was the second

jew i had come across in my entire life you know right and i had no idea what it even meant like right you know i was that guy for some people yeah the first the first jew yeah um but i i don't remember like you kind of know if you're locked into the community. I mean, you know, we went I went to Hebrew school and I was bar mitzvahed. So, you know, I was going to Sunday school and Wednesday, you know, afternoon Hebrew school. And but you're going to both Sunday school and or Sunday school. Is that a Hebrew school thing? It's a Hebrew school. Yeah. You know. But I remember it being two times a week. I mean, you'd go Wednesday after regular school and then Sunday.

I see. But so that community, I remember everybody in it. I remember my class. I remember the people in it. So we had this life. Like all of us had the regular schools we went to, but then we went to this and that I think that I don't know, you know, it was there was two lives there in a way. But we went all the way through it together, you know, through bar mitzvahs. But I didn't get confirmed.

I sort of got out of it. I got distance from it, you know, when I was like 14 or 15. I didn't you know, I'd go to the temple on holidays and stuff. Yeah. holidays and stuff yeah but i remember you know i only really remember one real anti-semitic uh attack on me when i was in high school and it was kind of ridiculous and i kind of know who it was yeah uh but somebody had taken arby's sauce you know the horsey sauce and the arby's red sauce from harvey's and just loaded up my windshield wipers and then put Nazi signs and Jewish stars on my windshield in Arby's sauce.

And then when I went in to clean it and I moved the wipers, it just smeared it even more. And I, you know, it wasn't hostile, I guess, because it was Arby's products, but it is, it is the known medium of the anti-Semite. Horsey sauce. Yeah, but I kind of know who it was. And, you know, it kind of tracks. You know, but most of my friends who I was with in high school, some of the Jews were there. But my friends, most of them were not Jewish.

Yeah. But I had the Jewish guys that I always felt a little closer to, you know, for all my life. It's weird. And do you have, you have a, you have a brother, right? Little brother. Yeah. Yeah. And is it, is it like a fairly happy home growing up or is it, is it? I guess. No, like, uh, my brother, my brother actually went to a Catholic high school, uh, cause it was a good high school. My brother went to St. Pius, but I don't know, you know, my dad was a surgeon. He was away a lot. He was a bit temperamental, a little erratic. Um, when he was around, he was either detached or over-engaged. You know, my mother was kind of, uh, an artist kind of person that they were both sort of into their own trips and, and kind of like not much discipline sort of reactive their own trips and kind of like not much discipline, sort of reactive.

I kind of what I like to say is that I don't see my parents as parents. They were just these people I grew up with that had problems of their own. Yeah. And, you know, so there was it was a very fairly permissive. You know, there was nothing we weren't really in. There was no wanting of anything. My dad made money and stuff, but, uh, there wasn't any sort of nurturing connection. They weren't cold. It was just sort of, uh, I think they were, my mother, most of the attention was not loving. It was more concern or worry, like, you know, call us if you're going to be out too late.

I really think they were primarily concerned with what they would have to go through if one of us got fucked up somehow. Yeah. But then my brother, my brother ended up sort of committing his life to tennis and went to like Nick Boletari's Tennis Institute in Florida for a few years. And we sort of lived different lives for a long time. Wow. I was busy smoking cigarettes and drinking and he seemed to be out to play tennis pro. Yeah. And is he is he still in the tennis industry is that oh for a while after college he did it he

started a school and this that and the other thing he's been through a lot of stuff yeah it's it's not completely clear what he's doing now it is some sort of sales oriented thing in the health industry and he's now just recently moved to uh to georgia uh-huh but he's okay yeah um so what what gets you out of albuquerque stand up do you start doing stand up there or you know no i went to i went to you know i left uh you know i kind of panicked i was not that uh on top of it in high school and not a great student because yeah i couldn't pay attention and, you know, I don't know, but, uh, I panicked and I wasn't going to go to college. And my senior year of high school, I panicked. I'm like, I gotta get out of here. And somehow applied myself

and pulled my grades around to some degree to where I could get into some small kind of, you know, liberal arts college outside of Boston. And I went there for a year and I transferred to BU and I, I went to Boston university for another four years. I did a little standup in college and I did a lot of different stuff. I why Boston? Cause I just thought that was where people go to college. Oh, okay.

And, uh, you're not wrong. You're yeah. It is like, yeah. Every, every third person is going to college when you go to

Yeah. And I had the opportunity and I kind of, uh, I, I don't think I squandered it really. I, you know, I tried to do stuff. I, you know, I wrote for the paper, I did theater, I did, you know, photography, you know, I did, uh, edited the literary journal, you know, kind of, you know, I got a English degree in a film studies minor and then like i immediately left and went to hollywood and after i graduated college and was i did plenty of coke in college but then i got really did graduate level cocaine use when i moved to hollywood and got a job as a yeah i got

a job as a doorman at the comedy store and oh yeah right after college and got pretty fucked up in that first year, hanging around there with the Kennison and those crew and coked myself into psychosis, got clean the first time, went back to Boston to start over again. And that's sort of where, you know, I kind of, uh, met again, like Dave cross and, you know, and Janine and those people, this was like 1988, 87, 88. And that's when I, you know, I came in second in a big contest in, uh, in Boston and 88. And that's when I, that's when I, I could stop working at the coffee shop. And that was when I started working as a comic 1988. And I haven't had a day job since. Wow. That way or the other one way or the other that's

really something you know and how old are you in 88 it's 25 25 that's it wasn't a great living but you know i know no but listen that's the thing is that you gotta you gotta you gotta look at things in relative terms and that's a big success that you from the age 25 on have major living doing this shit is it that's you know how many people don't do that set out to do that and don't do that you're like in a very you know it's one way or the other living yeah one way it was always about stand-up too i was never a. I never wanted to be a writer for other people. I never was an improv guy. You know, it was like, it was doing gigs. You know, I was, it was doing one nighters and doing gigs. And I, you know, I moved to New York in 89 and I was

driving up to Boston to do the gigs. It was definitely hand to mouth and I was barely making it. And then like, I kind of started using drugs again i moved to san francisco to try and regroup and then then i got a job on television you know that i didn't want because i wasn't that kind of comic but i was at that that hosting job yeah short attention span theater yeah yeah and that was like 92 and that got me into that world taught me how to read prompter uh you know i did okay with it just be on camera they're like yeah i hated it i hated i hated the job yeah how come what what didn't you like it just wasn't suited to you i was sort of i sort of saw myself as kind of a rebellious outlawish kind of comic you know and this seemed jive it yet did you know and you know especially at the beginning i had to have the writer fired

and i brought in john groff who ended up being all right head writer i gave john his first writing job to make my show something that i at least could be proud of as a comic so he yeah came in and we wrote jokes and sketches and monologues and pieces because the show was really just hosting building a show out of promotional materials like yeah clips and shit it was you know where you'd run it and you'd have a theme but a lot of it would be like the tonight show theme but it was all because we got promotional material around like johnny carson's greatest hits being released on video we could use it right you know it was it was kind of a a scam but but like i said you know john came in and like and wrote for me and and i

learned some some skills that was around the time that conan started too yep you guys started in 94 right yep in fact i remember when jonathan came over that was oh he's been working on short attention span theater yeah with me yeah did john stewart host that for a minute he hosted the original version of it on on the original comedy channel with patty rosper okay right so so i i ended that thing you know it went from john stewart to like joe bolster to i think patty rossborough hosted on her own for a while marcus allen hosted it like it went through yeah there were two shows that were coming out of marcus allen the football player no the the radio personality oh okay i think he's sacramento guy he's still around okay um

what wasn't a comic bolster was a comic but i sort of hosted the last incarnation of it yeah and um like there were two shows coming out of hbo downtown it was stand-up stand-up and short attention and politically incorrect started down there too like hbo downtown had a piece of the original comedy channel it was was half it was like a quarter hbo downtown and then viacom yeah and then you know then the viacom pushed hbo downtown out when it became comedy central or at some point and then it became all viacom right but i wasn't exit 57 they were in that thing yeah yeah yeah I was hosting short attention fan when that's when I met Jody and Stoli and Mitch and uh and uh Paul and yeah all those guys this was like the pre strangers with candy yeah Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert right yeah Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris. And Amy Sedaris, yeah. And Jody. Yeah. My neighbor. Yeah. And what's it, Nick Napier? Nick Napier. Nick Napier was around.

Yeah. And who was the guy that produced that? What was his name? Joe Forrestal. Joe Forrestal. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where I met all of them.

And I was so embarrassed because they were doing such cutting edge, interesting stuff. And I'm reading fan mail from 12 year olds, you know, who want and I'm sending them my short attention span theater postcards. I know it's all a living, though. I mean, I could when I was looking at it like that, I just fucking I was in prison, but I was making I had health coverage. I was able to afford to move to New Yorkork i was commuting from san francisco every other week yeah to do for six months wow you know we do we rehearsed on tuesday or like monday read through and then tuesday shoot four shows then i fly back to san francisco and then fly back on sunday it was ridiculous why why didn't you just live in new york were you i wouldn't commit to it uh i see and i was with a woman who wanted to live in San Francisco. Yeah. But then we moved back,

uh, the second half of the first year. You're also, that's when you're younger, that's the kind of thing where that, like I'm doing this thing I don't believe in, like that can really bug you. Whereas you get older and especially like once you have kids,

like, yeah, but I never did that. I'm always kind of weird about it, about like, you know, doing that kind of stuff. And I did a lot of it because I didn't know what else to do that. Like I did like jobs in, you know, in these dumb roles and I just couldn't get any traction as a comic. I remember hosting some bits for, for VH1 that were ridiculous, trying to move me into a host kind of thing. What was the word, like, what was your greatest fear about doing those kinds of things? Like, what was it that bugged you the most? Like that some, your friends would see it and think it was

bogus that you were embarrassed to be on it. You know, just that whatever I knew about my sense of my persona or my personality or, or what I set out to do was that there were jobs where there's like, there's no way I can be me here like this. You know, this is a scripted thing, you know, and they're like, you know, you can put a little, you know, spice it up a little with your thing. And I'm like, I'm not like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's all or nothing, man. Yeah. That's my thing yeah so being you know neutered like that was just like so constricting and so horrible like i remember like there was a bit that

we did like when i finally like really crumbled the first time where i got sober and shit is that you know i was living in new New York in Queens with my wife. I was doing, you know, I was hiding my drug and alcohol use. I was like literally dying inside. I was hosting a thing for the Metro channel. That was something that I actually first did on Conan was the talk show on the street thing where I put a desk on the street. Oh yeah. So I pitched that as a segment for the Metro channel, which was a local New York cable channel. And they were like, you know, yeah, let's do it. And we did a bunch of episodes of me in different parts of New York. And I'm like, well, I guess this is, this is how I'm going to be. I'm going to be married and I'm going to be

struggling and I'm going to be doing a bit on the Metro channel that, you know, and I, you know, and I'm fucked up on drugs. I just wanted to die. And then I met a woman who, you know, who saw, who was a fan of mine, who, you know, got me into AA, got me sober. We started having an affair. I left my first wife and, um, and you know, it got us out. She, I don't know, I got sober because of her. And I think we ended up coming to LA because of her. I got a deal out of Montreal, uh, in a, you know, fucking 2002. And I moved out on that and she didn't want to live in New York anymore after nine 11. And I ended up marrying her, but that's all, you know, that's whatever. whatever. And now that's over, you know, but, but that's the course of it, you know, is that, so to answer your question, it was, I knew that I wasn't where I wanted to be. And I knew that, you know, I wanted to fully realize whatever it is, my potential was, or my talents were. And whenever I was in a situation where it was clear, I couldn't do that. And there was nothing

I could do about it. Uh, it was never about money for me. It was really about fuck this. And I never had kids, you know, and I don't regret it. I just think I was too panicky and too selfish to really sort of focus in on it. And I'm okay with it. Yeah, it's either something that... I think... I think... Either kind of like

Because for me it was always a natural Like I'm going to have kids Like I just Yeah But it's like or you just don't And I you know And there's certainly All kinds of reasons to

To bolster either side Of that issue, you know, like, oh yeah, yeah, no, I don't, I don't have any beef with it, you know, but you know, I've been doing material about it now, which is pretty funny about not having them, like not having anything against them. But one of the reasons I'm happy, I don't have them is because I'm, I'm in my fifties now. And, you know, when I see guys, I haven't seen in a while. And if you ask a guy in his fifties, you know, how his kids are it's never a great story you know it's always it's always like half a great story it's like well the one's doing okay but the other one kind of got away from us i don't know what yeah yeah

yeah that's yeah well it's that's you know they're you start with these cute little fucking things and then they just turn into people yeah you know and then you're like and then what a fucking crapshoot that is when you know exactly yeah they're their own thing can't control it yeah oh well there they are we did what we could now they're this can't you tell my loves are growing so when the what what it's like how did you start to think like i'm gonna do a podcast like what how did podcast even enter it was sort of a desperation thing in a way you know i had uh you know getting through that second divorce was difficult because she really went after me and i was going broke and there was no end to it. And you're in LA.

Yeah. I'm in LA, you know, I'm, I'm, I don't have a gig. I just got back, you know,

it was just, you know, I'm doing standup, but you know, I'm not, you know, I'm not a big name or nothing. Yeah.

And I'd done plenty of, I'd done a year. Sorry. I'd done a couple of years on radio and I enjoyed it. And I think I was good at it. But, uh, but once the divorce really started to hit and, and the, you know, and her lawyers were putting the screws to me cause she wanted the house and there was no legal way for her to get it. They were just trying to bankrupt me into giving it to her. And, uh, it was, you know, it was bad dude and yeah what happened was somehow or another you know

after air america had collapsed and i'd been fired you know before you know a couple of times from air america and you know somebody else got in there the new ceo and there was some faction of the old guard there and they wanted to do a thing with me and do a streaming show and streaming wasn't really a thing yet. And, you know, I was like, well, I'll do it if you pay me, you know, what I used to get there. But more importantly, if you give me enough money upfront to pay this woman off so I can stop this thing, I'll do it. So they gave me enough money upfront to give to my ex-wife and stop the hemorrhaging and finalize the divorce. Wow. And so I went back to New York and I did a streaming show and I was so emotionally

shattered and fucked up. I had to take the gig to just get out of the divorce process because I was going broke and I was going to lose everything. So, but I was not in any emotional condition to do a show, especially a daily show, a streaming show. Yeah. So I had them pull in Sam Cedar, which the guy who was producing the show did not want to do because he didn't trust Sam and he didn't like Sam. And, you know, he didn't really want to do a strictly political show and Sam was going to make it that way. But I was like, I don't give a fuck. I can't cover politics. I don't know how funny I can be. And I didn't tell him this, but, and I pulled in Brendan McDonald, who used to be a producer on my original show, who was at that point at Sirius producing, I think Rosie O'Donnell show and on sort of a career track, uh, managerially and production wise at Sirius. And I got him enough money to make it worth his while. And we pulled him in because I trusted him. And we did this streaming show for a year that nobody watched because it wasn't a thing yet. And we put a lot of money.

Was it weekdays? Yeah, break room live. Oh, wow. And, you know, and the writing was on the wall. We did everything we could to make it great. And we really were doing things. We're doing external things. We're making short films.

I mean, we put a lot into that. Yeah. And we did everything we could. and it was funny and it was weird and it was you know it's just it was i don't want to say ahead of its time but streaming wasn't accessible right it just wasn't it was it was 2000 and uh what year was that i guess seven or eight you know and it just wasn't the technology wasn't there so they fire us but they don't kick us out of the building and i'm talking to brendan and i see that people they don't kick us out of the building what does that mean look dude when you do radio like you know they want you away from the mics so that's why you always hear those stories it's like i got done with my

show and they said you know know, pack your shit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's usually the way it goes. Right. Right. But we were still under contract for a month and they didn't bother. Oh, I see.

I see. So we still had offices there. Yeah. I told Brendan, I'm like, you know, Corolla is doing this thing. You know, Pardo's doing it. You know, uh, uh, uh, Jimmy door was doing. I saw a few, Kevin Smith. Not a lot of people. Yeah.

But there were people doing it. I think Benson might have been at it. And I'm like, look, I'm good on these mics. I mean, is there any way we can figure this shit out? Yeah. Can we do a podcast? Whatever the fuck that is. And he's like, look, I'll look into it.

You know, and he reached out to, you know, Apple. And they were like, you know, we're just a, you're, we're a template, you know, we're not a, a server, but we'll put, you know, we want people who know what they're doing to do these things. Cause you know, we're trying to pull people into our technology. It was, it was always just an advertisement for pods, iPods for Apple, but they were willing to help promote and shit. So, you know, he, Brandon figured it out. You know, we shit. So, you know, he, Brendan figured it out. You know, we got a server, you know, he figured out how to post it, you know, Apple was supportive and, you know, and, and we started it, we started it at Air America after hours,

we knew the night tech. So we would go back, we had our security cards and, you know, we committed to just all we committed to was a new show every Monday and Thursday. We didn't commit to a format. We got in there. Brendan got on the board. And we started bringing guests up the freight elevator and doing phoners and having segments. And we just knew that WTF would be an umbrella idea for a lot of different segments. And that's the way we did it for like the first six to ten episodes was kind of like at night at air america under the radar kind of stealing studio time that's right which is yeah that's right yeah and then you know eventually i was like how do we do this at home how am i

going to do this so i got to move back to la you know i can't stay here forever and uh because i had a house here and um you know and i i and I, I talked to Jesse Thorne and, you know, who, who I knew did, uh, uh, a sort of a podcast who was savvy around equipment. He told me what mics to use. And, you know, I set up in my garage with, it was a functioning garage. It was just a bunch of crap in there. I remember. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You were there, but I think by the time you came, might did i have mic booms yet i don't even know but i think you did i think you did but initially i was i had those dumb little kind of like those mics that you set on a table yeah those stands with these sm7 mics

right but i was putting these mics which are designed for booms on the sure sure yeah yeah and uh and i was going at it and you're running it right into a macbook through that dumb little mixer so that was really the birth of it and it was sort of desperation and and uh having something to do there was no way to make money at it yeah so you know there was we all kind of figured that out in our own time together all the original podcasters like do you you create a uh a membership thing where they have to pay to to get the thing and we you know that was you would how do you build an audience so we really kind of at the beginning we're offering we went we created a site where people could donate and get swag like npr like if you gave us a one-time donation of 10 bucks, we'd

send you a sticker, a t-shirt you could get. It was like five or 10, you know, but we, we, what we were trying to get people would do was monthly. If you would donate five or $10 or $20 monthly, we had a one-time donation of two 50. Yeah. We can't send you a bunch of shit, but a lot of people signed up and a lot of people came over from air America, even though I wasn't doing politics anymore, but we had enough people, you know, sign up for the monthly nut thing. You know, I had a whole house full of envelopes of swag to mail out. It was crazy. I was running to the Valley to get t-shirts. I was having some punk girl make, you know, it was crazy.

And you were doing it yourself. You were your own shipping department. Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah. It was crazy. And I had a roommate at my house cause I wasn't making enough money. And she had was staying at the house when I was in New York still.

Then she, I'd met her in New York and she was living with me for a while. And then I had my friend Don, you know, move in with me. Like it was, it was all crazy. And after the divorce and yeah, so that was the beginning of it, but we got enough people to sign up to where we're making a little money monthly. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I was doing all my own books. Getting out, getting out from under, yeah. You know, and I, I'd saved a little money Because of the job But that's how it started

And it took time For all of us to evolve a way of making money We were doing the Adam and Eve ads And Audible ads There was only a few And coffee They had come on During the streaming show

They were the only sponsor we had on our streaming show and we did it for coffee they'd send us coffee uh you know just coffee.coop who i still they still send me coffee and um yeah we kept them on but then you know the business evolves you know uh you know ad platforms came terrestrial advertisers from radio we used to deal with their metal men uh you know ad platforms came terrestrial advertisers from radio we used to deal with their metal men uh you know terrestrial advertisers we deal with them directly deal with a but then mid-roll and airwolf and the network it just grew into this thing where everybody has a podcast now but but it's what's interesting is the sort of the adversity that many of us kind of you know came through to figure out how to make this a job or how to make

it, uh, something that, you know, you could, you could make money at it as the medium grew, we all grew. And there was this sort of a camaraderie around it too, because many of us had to confront the, the, the patent troll, which was, uh, that whole chapter of podcasting, which a lot of people don't know about, was crazy and scary. And a lot of people really didn't know how dire it was. And a lot of people came together. What is it that you're talking about? It was basically, you know, patent trolling is, you know, there are inventors or people that buy patents that try to sort of backload them into current technology and claim that they own the patent on it and then either get paid out by the technology

or whoever owns it or or you know create a licensing situation and a guy had showed up saying that he had invented podcasting with some sort of uh uh sort of cassette timing machine that was created in the 80s and that sort of backloaded the patent to fit the foundation of what podcasting meant, which is basically delivering a podcast in a timely fashion through a publishing kind of app. It was relatively confusing, but the truth was is that the way these patent trolls work is they they fucking lean on you and they they sue you and they went

after corolla and a few other podcasts and all the patent trolls work out of they set up a a phony front business of their corporation or whatever in texas and they have a judiciary uh there that's sensitive and uh and on the dole for patent rules it was a whole sort of infrastructure to it but the idea was he was going to come after podcasters and you know demand money for infringing on his patent. And, and, or else create a licensing situation where we would all have to give that guy a note. Yeah. You know, anybody who did a podcast.

Yeah. If the patent was proven to be valid and no one quite understood, you know, what the fuck was going on. And all of us got educated around, you know, some of us, we,

there were a handful of us that were sent letters saying, look, you owe us money, a licensing money for using our pay and we were like what's this this garbage right and cedar was like this is real man this is real and i'm like what do you mean it's real it's real he can sue us all and he can fucking put us out of business so the broader podcasting community was like yeah you know you know, whatever. But, you know, we had this weird meeting at Corolla's house, me and someone from Kevin Smith's operation from Jay Moore's operation were like, how are we going to address this? Cause Kevin was actually going to

court. Oh, really? Yeah. So we tried to get him money to defend him. And I think he ended up paying out a little bit to these guys, but ultimately what happened that the miracle of it was is that the eff the electronic frontier foundation is a non-profit that deals with technology judicial technology stuff and i had we had a relationship with them you know over you know kind of helping them you know bring people to them to to fund them to to to fight for you know both um uh against censorship but also about internet safety and about issues that deal you know primarily with legalities within electronic media you know and it's a non-profit so we had done some fundraising for them and i've been in touch with them around the patent troll thing, you know, like just asking for information. But ultimately what happened was, you know,

at some point I said, look, this seems like something that you guys do. Yeah. You know, this is an issue that you guys can take up. And somehow or another, it sort of came to pass that they did. And they had a bunch of pro bono lawyers and you know think tank people and people that did the work for them at harvard and stuff to kind of take on this troll in court which they did yeah and and you know it's all based on finding prior art they call it which proves that the technology or the root of it pre-existed their patent yeah and but it's a whole process. But they invalidated the patent.

They were able to fight it and win. And that guy, and so it cost that guy a bunch of money, so he ended up getting at least a little bit of pain inflicted for doing that? Don't know. And we don't, no one really talks about it anymore. And, you know, it's sort of off the radar. I don't know. There was an appeal, but I don't think it went through you know but you know it was like a real thing and it was

a real panic and it could have it could have fucking really you know fuck the whole game up because most of the time these patent trolls work with tech uh uh big tech yeah you know microsoft or whatever if microsoft has an app that's got a thing that you know someone can prove they have the patent for their their game is like we'll take you to court. But most of these bigger, rich companies, you know, pay them off. Yeah. Yeah. They sue them and they're like, here's a million bucks. That's how they, that's their business model. But they put a lot of smaller companies out of business. What a fun way to live. What a great way to live. What a good way to feel good about yourself. now i want to go because

for me when i first became aware of wtf uh one thing that struck me was and i mean in hearing you explain about where you were in your life but it was a very it was kind of a you were working in a somewhat different way in terms of like being a lot more revelatory and being a lot more sort of confessional i think than you had been previously i mean you always had kind of talked about yourself but not like in kind of personal nuts and bolts things and a lot of those interviews were very specifically about your relationship with the person that you were talking to right right well that's how it started right well that i mean that was the that was the foundation of it and i think it was because i've been so bitter and i've been through so much and i've been kind of humbled by life

that you know what i usually say about it is i think if you listen to those early interviews of the first hundred or so it's me inviting over you know celebrities to talk about my problems you know like but there was a thing that you know, celebrities to talk about my problems, you know, like, but there was a thing that, you know, all of it was like, who do I know? And who do I know that knows people, you know, that was how I booked it. But there was a lot of, um, amends to make. There was a lot of sort of, you know, curiosity I had there. And I really sort of needed to reintegrate into my, you know, to, to sort of reach out to my community to kind of like help me, you know, get my head together and get my life together and get my heart together.

So, yeah, there was a lot of that. And I think that was the foundation of the way I approach, uh, whatever I do, if you want to call them interviews, you know? So it was confessional in that. Yeah. That was all I had to go on in, in my comedy had always been that way, but I wasn't not, I was not beholden to being funny on the podcast. So, and I knew that and I, and I embraced that, you know, immediately. Did you have any, so that was there any hesitance about like, I'm spilling too much? Um, you know? Yeah, of course. I mean, I got myself into hot water

with women I was with or with people I talked about? Yeah, of course. I mean, I got myself into hot water with women I was with or with people I talked about, but, but it was also like, I found that people gravitated towards it. It was not, I think it was unique to me, but I think there have been people that work in that format before, but I was really, you know, I was really going through things and, and no, I don't have any regrets about it, but I learned over time that like, I shouldn't, I should be a little more respectful of other people in my life before I drag them into my story. Because, you know, you go through relationships, you go through heartbreak, you go through problems with people. And if you talk about it all publicly, it was brought to my attention by a girlfriend that like they, they can't, you know, offer their side. Yeah.

You know, whether it's whatever it is. can't you know offer their side yeah you know whether it's whatever it is so you know i i became a little more careful about maintaining some privacy and also you know how much i include uh about the people in my life was it so was it uh was it just purely a sort of like a Was it just purely a sort of like a urge, a personal urge, or did you also think like this will be good listening? Like, was there, was there a professional aspect to thinking to making the show that way? Or was it just simply something you had to do at that time? I just wanted it to be me. You know, I knew like, you know, and also I knew that I had a talent for this type of microphone.

You know, it's not, not everybody can do these things. Yeah. And I, I just knew that like, I, I like this type of, uh, medium for, for expressing myself. And, uh, and I somehow or another, my ego or my personality works well in this format um so i was more about kind of like just building a relationship with an audience but just being myself and i you know like and it was weird at first because i still saw myself as a comic doing a thing but then i became very known for being an interviewer and it was a tough transition to make when people are like you're a great interviewer.

I'm like, yeah, but you like my comedy, right? And there was this weird sort of thing where people were, you know, didn't really know my comedy. So I had a big fan base with the podcast and I do comedy. And they're like, we should go out and support Mark because I don't know how good he is at the comedy. I'm like, this is what I do. is what I do. So kind of creating a, you know, that world where, you know, now I come from a lot of different places where, you know, like I'm doing acting and I'm doing, I do the standup and do the podcast and, you know, so people know me in a lot of different ways, but I I've kind of found peace with it. And I, and I'm glad I've, I, that the whole thing has afforded me the

opportunities to do all these things that I'd really go of i mean that was the thing about starting the podcast was i really let go of shit yeah like i was down for the cat yeah and i knew like you know whatever dream i had to be a relevant comic or even a working comic in any big way that's over you know whatever acting ideas whatever ideas i'd had about myself and how my career and show business was going to go is done. Was it really over, over? Or were you thinking like,

maybe I can make this be the thing that starts that up? No, it was over, over. No, I didn't do what I just need to keep busy. You know, and there was no indication that,

you know, these things yielded. Yeah. You know, it was just a skillset I knew I had, but I didn't think that because of this, I was going to get a TV show. You're going to finally get your sitcom or get a bigger TV audience or whatever. I just thought, I thought what I was looking at was being, you know, uh, you know, a known act, a respected guy, an odd act, but you know, a guy who did B rooms or did fallouts or, you know,

you know, kind of, you know, scrambled to put a life together through doing standup, which was a horror to me. I really didn't have no recollection of knowing what it would yield, but I knew that in my heart that I had some, you know, kind of closure around letting this stuff go. Yeah. And there was a freedom to that. It's sad. And I was definitely sad. And, uh, but you know, I was plowing on and I wasn't committing suicide and, you know, I was going to, you know, plow ahead and, and then, you know, this shit started to happen, but I stayed sober and I stayed focused and I stayed active and I kept doing standup and I, and I kept doing this thing and, and, and Brendan and I were into it. We worked our asses off and we still kind of work

our asses off in our own ways and, you know, put our whole life into this thing, which we did. Yeah. And, and, and we paid off. And now I don't know that people, you know, I think I was there at the, I wasn't the beginning of podcasting, but I was certainly popularized the medium. Oh, certainly. And I think, and i think that some people respect yeah uh you were the first person to get a president on you know i mean that's kind of a big deal yeah and you know and and now everybody does them and it's like it's it's a little weird and it's everybody does yeah i mean look at me here i am you know nah but like it's just like it's a little weird. Everybody does them. Yeah. I mean, look at me. Here I am, you know. No, but like, it's just like it's been this sort of like weird, technologically accessible means of expression for people with the big idea that they're going to do something.

And, you know, I don't begrudge anybody any of it or diminish anyone's attempts at doing it but you know it is a little odd the whole thing's a little odd to have been here through the whole evolution of this business yeah well where is it what's next that's the second question is where are you going like are you just well look man you know right now you know we're i'm doing this thing you know we're still doing the podcast i've got interviews backed up through I think mid April maybe we can start getting people back over here at some point a couple people have come you know Glow

I got one more season of Glow to shoot that was sort of Do you like acting? I do I do I'm starting to like it more because I'm starting to engage in the idea that I'm an actor and that like I can make sort of choices and do those things. Yeah, yeah.

You know, like I just did a movie with Jennifer Hudson, the Aretha Franklin movie, where I had kind of a big part playing a real guy. Yeah. So kind of doing that research and kind of figuring that stuff out. You know, I'm starting to get the hang of, you know, the idea of making choices and, you know, living in that moment. And, you know, yeah, I mean, I, I always wanted to do it and I, you know, sometimes I find it tedious, but other times like, well, maybe I should engage in it. And I found that I, that I like it. So at some point, hopefully we'll pick up the season of glow and finish that. And like, I just did this special, which I'm very proud of. And I, I don't know,

you know, I don't know. We'll see what happens if and when we all get through this and, and that's, you know, that's sort of where I'm at. What's what's the point of it all? Like what, I mean, I mean, I know sobriety has got a big, has had a, I imagine is, would you say that's like one of the biggest components of your growth and where you are now? You know, I think that, you know, it just, it helped me, you know, rewire my brain properly. Yeah.

You know, because I did do quite a bit of program. I think that helped me through processing a lot of the things that character traits that all addicts and alcoholics kind of share. And between that and sort of doing some rigorous self-examination and whatnot, it was very important. And I think not using is a better life. Yeah. Yeah. For me. Um, and definitely had, you know, it definitely, uh, I, I'm very grateful for it and I do think it changed my life for the better and continues. And what, what's it all mean or what's it all? I don't, I don't really, do you have anything to teach anyone? Well, yeah, I mean, I, I guess I do, you know, when I talk on my podcast, I don't know in a general sense. Right now, I'm just trying to find some sort of window in between, you know, the fear that we're going through and really understanding what I have control over and what I don't.

anything in my life properly. You know, I think I was looking for relief more than sort of really enjoying things. I was looking for answers and looking for relief. And now I'm just sort of, I'm trying to have some sort of, um, you know, sense of like a lot of things just don't fucking matter anymore. Andy is, as I get older, a lot of the things that were so pressing and dire and important and caused me so much stress and aggravation and self-flagellation just really don't fucking matter anymore and so i'd like in between now and you know getting whatever kills me uh yeah i'd like to experience some sort of peace of mind and joy if i'm capable of it what matters most to you now I think being true to myself and being a decent people person to other people and not causing other people, you know, grief and pain and, and also trying to be helpful to other people, but also like, you know, not being too hard on myself. Yeah. Well, uh, thank you so much for doing this. Uh, this is, you know, you're one of my favorite

people and, uh, and I've always, yeah, no. And I it's, I've always, um, I've always very much enjoyed your brain and your heart and, uh, and I, as, as well me with you, my friend, I'm always happy to see. And, uh. And thanks for doing this. And thanks for, you know, paving the way for Johnny Come Latelys like me. For all the fucking dilettantes like me. Oh, come on. You're welcome. You're a professional broadcaster.

You have every right to do what you're doing. And I wish you the best of luck. Thank you so much. And anyways, yeah, your special again, it's on netflix and it's called yes end times and times fun i'm going to check it out and glow and glow is glow the three seasons yeah yeah i you know there's three seasons of glow up i'm i also have a small part in the new mark walberg movie on net called Spencer Confidential. Oh, cool. I'm very proud of the work I did in the show Easy, which is also a Netflix show.

I'm in three seasons of that. That's an anthology show out of Chicago created by Joe Swanberg. Oh, cool. All right. Well, Mark Barron, thank you so much. Thank you, buddy. Take care of yourself. I will see you around campus. When we can go outside again.

Yes, exactly. All right. And thank you all for listening to another episode of The Three Questions. And we will check in with you next time. I've got a big, big love for you. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco and Earwolf production. It's produced by me, Kevin Bartelt, executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco,

and Chris Bannon and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, associate produced by Jen Samples and Galit Zahayek, and engineered by Will Becton. And if you haven't already, make sure to rate and review the three questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts. Tell my loves are growing. This has been a Team Coco production

in association with Earwolf.