WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1115 - Sam Morril
Episode Date: April 16, 2020The other half of a quarantined comedy couple, Sam Morril joins Marc in the garage at a six-foot distance to talk about the circumstances keeping him away from his home in New York and living with Tay...lor Tomlinson. Sam explains how he navigates scenarios without a playbook, whether it’s his relationship, getting started in comedy, or finally meeting his biological father. Marc and Sam also commiserate over missing standup and how they both bombed spectacularly during Friar’s Club roasts. This episode is sponsored by Pataday Once Daily Relief and Nationwide Pet Insurance. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Lock the gate! soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance, mind your business. All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the
fucksters? What's happening? It's Mark Maron. maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it
is everybody just hanging out hanging out at home is that what's up you just hanging out
i've been up and down in the last half hour in the last hour the every hour up and down
In the last hour, every hour up and down, there's been some quieter moments.
But man, I tell you, I'm craving, craving a general sense of connection with people.
Look, I know I can Zoom, I can talk.
I got Lynn over here at the house.
I'm just saying in general, just the kind of passive nature of being alive in the world.
Hey, what's up?
Excuse me.
Could you step over there?
Just give me a little room here on the train.
Just the regular stuff.
I miss having people come over.
But today, Sam Morrell, he came over.
I've had a few comics.
Comics have been bold about it.
I offer them the option.
If I talk to them personally, I say, look, you can come over.
I got, it's clean.
We'll sit six feet apart.
We don't need to touch.
I just want to look at you and talk to you.
So Sam came over.
Very funny guy.
He featured for me, I believe, back in in the day we're going to talk about that
um so how are you holding up man i uh like i said it's up and down from a day on a day-to-day basis
but i was doing the instagram live thing and i got it just even saying it bothers me I think people enjoy it I think it
keeps me connected in some sort of immediate way live like a live show a live audience I like
riffing and it's okay but I don't want to feel like I have to do it at some point like everybody's
doing a thing look I'm doing a thing of me doing nothing or trying to figure out what to do at this time.
What was weird was I was sitting on my back deck and there was a guy.
My neighbor is in his backyard and I hear him on the cell phone.
I don't know the guy.
He's got an accent that I don't know where from.
It's pretty heavy.
I'm having a hard time understanding.
But the conversation is heated.
He's talking to somebody.
There are amounts being dropped.
There's like 50,000, 200,000.
Someone is mad at somebody.
And I keep trying to listen harder to figure out what's going on.
And they're mad about those numbers.
I don't know what those numbers indicate.
I know nothing.
But then he mentions the name Gary, that Gary somehow is involved in these numbers.
And the negativity around the numbers was pretty strong.
So I start to figure just over here in this guy that, you know, Gary's in a little trouble.
I mean, he's into about 50 to 200,000 somethings in trouble. I started to get concerned about Gary and the way they're talking,
I couldn't quite make it out, but I don't know who Gary is or where he is, but I think Gary's
in trouble. So that's what happens on my back deck. I get half invested in a conversation that
I can't even really make out other than numbers and the name Gary. And I decided someone's going down. Gary is going down.
And it was just my sort of craving to be part of a community, you know, a live living sort of like,
hey, there's a guy over there. He's talking. I used to just talk to people here and there,
but now just listen in.
And now I got to spend the rest of the day wondering like 200,000 what?
And how is Gary going to be all right?
You know, I can only watch so much TV before I'm being just grateful to overhear a conversation,
even though Gary might not be with us anymore.
I mean, that's where I'm at. That's the level I'm operating at. And I'm jacked up on anymore. I mean, that's where I'm at.
That's the level I'm operating at.
And I'm jacked up on coffee.
I mean, come on.
Is that even necessary?
Speaking of allergies,
I'm pretty sure this nut allergy is real.
And I'm starting to think that maybe I'm not as anxious and freaked out as I think I am.
Maybe I'm just mildly allergic to nuts.
Today, no nuts.
No nuts day.
And I don't want to brag, but I eat a lot of nuts.
And I'd stayed off the cashews and the almonds because I had food sensitivity,
but I was just pounding walnuts.
But then I started to eat some peanut butter.
And then I'm like, well, why not a little almond butter?
Then I'm just eating handfuls of all the different kinds of nuts.
And my throat itches. And I can't breathe at night. And I'm having a well, why not a little almond butter? Then I'm just eating handfuls of all the different kinds of nuts. And my throat itches.
And I can't breathe at night.
And I'm having a hard time swallowing.
But not coronavirus.
I think I'm just pushing my luck with the nut allergy.
Because today I'm like, whew, that was a nice breath.
I feel great.
No nuts.
What do I got to do to myself?
Is that how bored I am?
That I got to hurt myself to feel like I'm alive?
I mean, come on.
That is no way to live.
I can't breathe.
I must be frightened.
Or I shouldn't eat a fucking mound of almonds and a mound of cashews and some peanut butter.
For a lot of reasons.
Mainly because I can't breathe right when I do it.
Exciting times.
Pow, I just shit my pants.
Just coffee.coop.
Also, if you're in the LA area, I want to do this because these guys are always good to me.
But Matt over there, Cafe de Leche, they got a couple locations one in altadena
and one in uh highland park i was there when he opened the place uh he's roasting his own coffee
over there you can go to cafe de leche.net good coffee he's doing a good job matt's matt is on
the machine himself he's manning the machine but i'm trying to help him out i'm trying to help
the small businesses in my life out got some records in the mail from dan over a gimme gimme
raquel jack just sold me a painting very crass dirty little painting that i'm keeping her in
business just trying to help out man help out where can. But everybody's okay over here.
Lynn's okay.
But have you found, you know, what have you been doing?
I don't know how alone you are.
Like, I'm here with somebody, obviously.
I'm here.
Lynn's over there in the house.
But, like, with all this quiet and the air quality is so good and the kind of space that we have around noise, around pollution, around, you know, feeling pressure.
around noise around pollution around you know feeling pressure you know it's great about not doing things or having nothing to do because of this is that no one really has anything to do
and maybe i've said this before but there's no competition going on really well it's a little
bit like you know with instagram lives but but whatever but what i'm saying is there's a piece
to all this as horrifying as it is and as chaotic as it all is because we're in a spiraling
fucking tailspin as a country with a guy in the cockpit that wants nothing more to get out and
save himself but given all that with the peace of mind do you find yourself reflecting about your
life about you know sort of like did you get everything you needed to get done?
Done? Are you okay? Are you just living? Are there things going on in your mind where you're like,
when, when, and if we get out of this, I'm going to do this now. I, are you thinking along those
lines? I kind of am. Unfortunately, every time I go down that route, when, when, and if we get
out of this, I'm out, I'm done.'m done it's over man it's i'm having a
hard time figuring out what matters now you know does it matter that i talked to sam morel today
does that matter to you i mean i think it does matter i think on some level it matters more than
ever because who's talking to anybody i just wish more people would just come over
just mask up just mask up and come on over let's do this we got to keep these conversations alive
i mean this is what i do i talk to people about life
i'm not going to start doing a news show. I'm not going to interview virologists.
This is what I do.
How are we getting by?
So what do I do?
What matters?
Well, I focus on my life and I try to focus on how I can help a little bit.
Do what I can.
But I'll tell you what I did do.
I said a few things on, maybe it was Monday.
I got some email. I got two emails I want to share. This one says, thank you from a vet.
Hi, Mark. As a veterinarian, I want to say thank you so much for your shout out to the veterinary community during this COVID-19 crisis. We in the veterinary
community are faced with unique challenges during this time. We normally use masks and gloves and
gowns every day, and we are all trying to balance continuing to care for pets and by extension,
the people who love them with conserving these now valuable resources. So our colleagues in
the human health field can have what they need. I know many veterinary organizations
have been donating PPE and even ventilators to human hospitals. We believe in One Health,
which recognizes the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared
environment. I was touched to hear your appreciation for your veterinarian and staff.
When I'm nervous about going into work and being around other people, it helps me to remember that.
Like you said,
sometimes a pet is the only thing a person has that is keeping them sane.
And it is such a privilege to be able to care for that pet and help make
someone's life a little bit better during these trying times.
Love the show.
All my best to monkey and your other sweet kitties,
Kim in Nashville.
Thank you,
Kim.
Fucking love the animals, they remind us peace peace here's another one thanks from a vet same subject line
dear mark i'm a veterinarian in chicago and i always listen to your cat stories with a lot of
interest i'm still working 40 hours a
week during this pandemic, and there have been many days when I have struggled to see myself
as an essential worker. When humans are dying by the thousands, hospitals are overrun with
critical patients, and families are separated from their loved ones for fear of becoming
infected themselves, it is hard to justify going to work to trim a cat's nails or give a rabies vaccine to
a dog. I worry every day that one of my staff members or clients is going to contract this
horrible disease on the way to my clinic. I have racked my brain trying to figure out what my place
is in this crisis, wanting so badly to be useful. Hearing your story about monkey today reminded me
that pets are paramount to many people's
happiness and being stuck at home with a sick pet is heartbreaking
i'm glad your vet was able to help you and monkey and i hope that i'm doing the same for the people
and pets of my city your words of admiration for your vet and the staff have made me feel like I do have a part to play during this crazy time.
Thank you.
Continuing to do your job.
My morning commute would be a lot less enjoyable if I didn't have WTF.
Sincerely, Cara.
Man, that got me all.
So I guess I guess a lot of us are trying to figure out, you know, are we being useful?
You know, does it matter?
Because I think some part of, you know, I think a lot of us are still in denial about the extent of this thing and how long it's going to last.
I mean, has it affected our lives?
You know, are we checking in with our local hospitals
and stuff like that but like i think there's a little denial going on then there's this idea
that the way to do it is just to pretend like we're just you know living our life which we are
but it's scary and it can be lonely and it can be you know frustrating and aggravating it just feels to me like nothing's ever going to be the same
and it makes me wonder you know i mean culturally like even think about it right now
like most people there's no what is the cultural through line right now it's just we're all
sort of like what's going on when is this going to be normal am i sick am i not sick is anyone i
know sick what if i get sick you know what's the information is there something being done on a on
a large scale to help us through this it's all news and it's odd what's happening in terms of
entertainment if people are doing it there's no cultural momentum to anything.
People are their own curators.
They're their own networks.
They're just picking their own little bits of information
and entertainment from the millions of possibilities.
It's a fucking new world out there.
It's very interesting.
There's a relief from the kind of inundation
of advertising and publicity and promotion
that we usually get just with the nature of inundation of advertising and publicity and promotion that we usually get
just with the nature of how TV was before this happened. Now everything's a lot more human.
It's a lot more raw. It's a lot more lo-fi. I mean, I'm not saying I don't miss production
values, but what I don't miss is the constant hammering of publicity bell, you know, in your brains and, and trying with everything it
has, the corporate momentum to sort of guide culture towards the same thing, the same options
seems to have quieted down. That din has seems to have quieted down a bit. And because of that,
people are just sort of like, I don't know, know man i'm just trying to get by i'm just
making choices in the on the fly here's the other thing i'm trying not to do during this time is so
i get not nostalgic but melancholic about decisions i've made in my life i've got something in my
heart and in my mind that just wants me to feel like I've done something wrong.
I have fucked up.
I am not good enough. And when I get enough time to think, I can bury myself in a fucking pile of self-generated psychic shit.
I'll tell you, man.
Sam Morrell is here.
His Comedy Central stand-up special, I Got This, is available for free on standup.com slash Sam Morrell
or you can get it as an album
wherever you get albums
I like this guy
I really didn't know this guy
but apparently we did have some conversations
when I worked with him years ago
when he was sort of like a kid
and he's very funny
and he's a good guy
and he actually has been staying
his girlfriend is Taylor Tomlinson who was on the show on Monday.
But I just don't know people.
And I like when I can talk to comics because we know how to be open with each other.
And he's had an interesting life.
And I like this guy.
Sam Morrell and I will talk now.
Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Sam Morrell and I will talk now. to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big
corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category,
and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising.
Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly.
This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.
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I got an Xbox delivered and we've been playing Halo, and she loves it.
And it's been big.
Really?
Yeah.
And she had never played it before?
No, we went to an arcade in Sherman Oaks once, and we played Halo, and she loved it.
So I was like, this will kill hours.
This will be big.
And has it been?
Yeah, huge.
What is the basis of that game?
How does it work?
Halo, you just shoot aliens.
Oh, that's it?
It's pretty fun.
I'm not even into those games, but it's like a bonding activity.
It's healed fights.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Well, this is like, that's sort of crazy, man.
First of all, that you're stuck here and you're a New York guy.
It's rough.
I can't even imagine it.
It's already isolating when you're not from here to begin with.
Yeah.
And none of us can do fucking stand-up. I know. And we're like, well, who are we? It's like, you're not from here to begin with. Yeah. And none of us can do fucking stand-up.
I know.
And we're like, well, who are we?
It's like, you're lucky.
I mean, I've got my girlfriend here too,
but can you imagine if you were stuck out here by yourself?
Yeah.
I feel like I don't exist in a way.
Don't you feel insignificant right now?
Because stand-up is so much of our purpose
that I just, I feel like,
this is like doing,
it feels like doing a road gig without the stand-up.
Yeah, which is horrible. Just it feels like doing a road gig without the standup. Yeah. Which is horrible.
Just wandering around like an alien landscape.
Like, but now you can't even go walk around a fucking mall.
So you can't, it's not even like a road.
I miss malls.
I never thought I would miss a mall, but I like, I'm like, holy shit.
I could use like a Cinnabon or something right now.
I realized like when, uh, when you were coming over here, like I haven't talked, like Taylor
did one of these in the quarantine.
One other guy did one.
I sprayed down the thing.
Oh, cool.
I got alcohol and I got all kinds of shit here.
Hand sanitizers.
Yeah, we've been taking this seriously.
Yeah, you got to.
I mean, it's scary, man.
I hate people that aren't.
I feel for New Yorkers the most right now
because they have to stay in longer
because of the rest of the country because they're getting hit first.
So I just like talk to my folks.
I'm talking to David Tells called me a couple of times.
Has he?
Yeah.
Is he all right?
Yeah, he's all right.
I think he's another one where we just miss a stand up a ton.
I mean, yeah, for sure.
But I mean, like, do you know anybody who's sick?
I knew a comedian, Noah Savage, who was sick.
I knew that Michael Yeo was sick.
Did they get through it?
They're both, I think, okay now.
Yeah?
And Jimmy from Gotham.
I don't know if you ever work at Gotham, but he's a great guy.
Yeah.
He was a big guy, the nicest, and yeah,
he was in the hospital for like 17 days, COVID pneumonia,
and he was connected to a ventilator.
The guy next to him died.
He basically, like, can you imagine being in a hospital alone
and the guy in your room dies? he's he just wrote this long facebook post thinking he was
next i yeah is he all right now he's okay he made it through yeah this is real no i know this is
crazy yeah this i mean i'm saying it to me not to you like i'm like i can't believe how real this is
i know because there's that part of your brain where you're sort of like well you know it's like
you know it's you know it's not like a flu but know because there's that part of your brain where you're sort of like, well, you know, it's like, you know, it's, you know,
it's not like a flu, but for some reason,
there's part of your brain that's sort of like,
I'm not gonna get it.
Yeah.
You know, like, why would I get it?
Yeah, it's like Janis Joplin, I'm a survivor.
Right.
It's not gonna happen to me.
Right.
And look what happened.
But so that guy from Jimmy,
he had no other underlying health issues or anything?
No.
Oh, shit.
Michael Yeo, you know Michael Yeo.
He's a healthy guy.
Yeah.
He's a college football player.
But he's all right.
He's all right.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, it's scaring the fuck out of me.
Like, you know, I got these masks we just ordered.
Yeah.
Now I'm like, do we need to rethink this?
Did you hear what they said?
Now they're saying, like, they said for a while the masks don't do anything.
And now they're like, no, they do help.
And it's like, do they just say that so we'd stop buying them so that hospitals could get them well no i'm not even getting those kind you know
i got you you know it's really a matter of like do you can you put anything over your face obviously
a hospital grade mask would be one thing but you but like you can't even get those so it really
comes down to like if i wrap a bandana whatever it is does anything help but then you're touching
your face more to adjust it and i i at least, so I don't know.
I know.
Well, there's companies making these.
We just got, someone just sent me some company
that usually makes like kitchen fabric, aprons and stuff.
So they're making a mask that you can insert a piece of,
they recommended and sent with some, like a vacuum bag,
like a HEPA filter vacuum bag.
You cut out a piece that you can slide into the thing so you got like they it's like a designer mask almost wow
yeah so that's the story on that but you guys are going out to shop a little bit or what we went to
the grocery store twice and we've been and we when we can deliver it we do it but it's like dude it
feels like it feels like robbing a bank because we're in the car together.
And we're like, we got masks on.
We got gloves on.
We're like, be quick.
Hurry up.
Get in there.
It feels so.
We get in, get out.
I'll leave it running.
Yeah.
When I see you come out, I'll start rolling.
You throw the shit in the back.
Oh, it's crazy, man.
It's intense.
And then sometimes people in the stores don't respect your space.
You're like, come on, guys.
We got to look out for each other.
And she's vegan, so anything I cook is amazing to her.
She is the lowest bar for taste.
Oh, really?
So if she thinks I'm a good cook, I'm not.
You're not?
I'm okay.
But you're not vegan, are you?
No.
Yeah.
So you're honoring that, though?
What is she eating?
What is she eating for protein during this time?
We've had a lot of pasta.
I don't know if we've been eating protein.
I think we're just carving it up.
We're having beans.
There's a lot of beans in there.
It's pretty weird.
Are you writing?
We've been doing our own thing.
Like I miss standup so much.
I started just like FaceTiming my mom and be like,
can I just do jokes for you?
And then I started recording and just putting it online.
Because my mom's pretty, she's pretty cool and she's pretty fair.
Like if a bit's bad, she'll stone face me.
Oh, really?
And I think that's pretty cool.
You're bouncing stuff off your mother.
Well, I miss an audience so much.
I just like, I miss stand-up.
Well, it's nice that you get along with your mother that well.
Yeah, my mom's cool.
And then Taylor and I have been making videos.
And I miss just pure stand-up, though, because I just released something,
and I was kind of touring with my new stuff, and I was excited honing that.
I was excited to have a new hour sooner rather than whenever this will be.
So you and Taylor are doing like what, an Instagram thing?
What is it, YouTube?
I don't want to sound like an old man, but I know you were.
You nailed it.
That was it. There's one or the other, YouTube? I don't want to sound like an old man, but I know you were- You nailed it. That was it.
There's one or the other, right?
Yeah.
It's mostly Instagram, but we put a couple on YouTube.
Yeah.
And it's just you two dealing with the quarantine situation?
Yeah, because when I was there the first day, she just said, how are we going to stay creative?
Because I think we just realized, we just lost a couple months of work in a day.
So she said, what are we going to do? Money aside, what are we going to do to stay creative because I think we just realized we just lost like you know a couple months of work in a day so she said what are we going to do you know money aside what are we going to do to stay
creative right and just not lose you know the vitality the edge yeah and and she said we should
do a series a web series about us being a new couple and now forced to live together and I was
like cool let's do it right now and we just started doing it oh yeah that's great it was fun yeah yeah
and how often are you doing it we've done like 16 of them really yeah where are they they're
on instagram yeah under who's uh we both post them it turned into a reality show because our
agents sent us thing where they were like there's there's reality uh companies interested and we're
like what do you mean they're like for you guys to do an actual reality show we're like we're not
fucking doing that that sounds awful like you'd send a camera crew? We both are like, no, so quickly,
and it just turned into a whole thing.
So then we just turned our web series
into a fake reality show.
Right.
And we got a really good editor,
so it looks like a Real Housewives type show now.
But you guys had a good time making that thing?
Yeah, it's fun, and I'm still trying to do,
I miss standup the most, and so does she.
It's crazy, it's crazy.
Well, it's like, yeah, after a certain point,
you know, I don't know, I've been doing it like more than half my life now.
Wow.
But to really think like, you know, how long have you really taken off ever?
This is, I mean, after a week, it's the most ever.
Right.
Exactly.
So now it's been almost a month.
Especially when you're in New York because you just go do it.
That's all there is to do.
Right.
It's crazy.
Once the NBA season canceled, I was like, oh my God, this is insane.
I've never seen anything like this.
Now what are we going to do?
And then the comedy cellar closed and I was like, holy shit.
They never closed.
Right.
I remember, I think it was Hurricane Irene.
Right.
I remember they had like 60 people in there, a generator powering it.
Right.
Nowhere around there was open except the
cellar and i remember just watching like tom papa just like working a room to like yeah 40 people
or something it was crazy they were one of the first places to open after 9-11 man i mean i
remember doing comedy like we didn't know when we could and it was definitely too weird and too raw
i can't remember how many weeks it was before they opened, but it was, it wasn't that long. Cause you can still smell that smell down there. And people were kind of
like, you know, PTSD everywhere. Just people in New York were just like, what the fuck is happening?
And, you know, we're doing shows and it was volatile because, you know, you had to speak
to the reality of it. And that's, that's where that whole tough crowd table thing started.
Yeah.
Was around 9-11.
That's amazing.
Was like all of a sudden you started to see who people really were.
Everyone's true feelings around New York and around politics and around racism, it all came out.
And that was where it had the source of it.
How is racism in New York, though?
It's such a melting pot.
That was where it had the source of it.
How is racism in New York, though?
It's such a melting pot.
Well, no, it was just about who were the people that were immediately sort of like, we should get rid of all of them.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Why just complete profiling?
There was definitely a school of thought there.
Yeah.
But no, I think you're right. But you hear it now.
You see it online with just shit about Chinese people right now.
It's ridiculous.
Yeah.
But the people that do that are fucking morons yeah of course yeah but there but
also there's people doing it just around new yorkers yeah people like oh yeah it went from
the chinese virus to the new york virus that's what that's what uh what's his name in florida
de santos yeah he called it i think he referred to it as a new york virus which i'm like fuck you
dude florida sucks don't fucking shit on new york not only does Florida suck, but it's all New Yorkers.
I know.
What is he, a fucking moron?
Everyone from New York ends up in Florida.
And this idiot's got, that guy's got a real fucking,
he's a fucking moron, that guy.
He is.
Unbelievable.
So you grew, where'd you grow up, though?
I grew up originally in Chelsea
and then uptown in Manhattan.
Oh, really?
So you're a real, like, New York kid.
Yeah.
How the hell did that happen?
What did your parents do?
My mom's an artist, and my dad,
I have a complicated family thing a little bit.
My dad is, I was, my dad, who's technically my stepdad,
but has been around since I was like three.
So I call him dad, and he's been my dad forever.
He's a lawyer.
He is?
So it's complicated.
Well, I don't.
Is his name Morel?
Yeah, I took his name.
I was originally Greenberg, Sam Greenberg.
Really?
That's my mom's name.
So until a three-
But that was your original dad?
The biological father's name was Greenberg?
His last name is Elgort.
Elgort.
Yeah.
Are these all Jews?
Yeah, all Jews.
So you have a complicated, fucked up Jewish thing.
Yeah.
You don't hear about Jewish dads walking out as much.
It's a much rarer-
It happens, though.
It happens.
I'm living proof.
Yeah, and you know, it's weird.
There's a, because I'm a Jew, too, and there's this weird-
Oh, I know.
Do you remember our conversation about this?
Well, I kind of do, because I remember working with you.
Yeah.
Up in Menlo Park, or where was it?
In Sunnyvale.
Yeah.
Right?
I don't know if I remember the conversation.
I don't know where my head was at or how long ago that was.
Close to a decade.
Is it 10 years ago?
About, yeah.
I just remember you were young and you were excited.
You were writing tight jokes.
You were a great joke writer.
I was excited to be working with you.
Oh, that's nice.
I was featuring for
the most part back then, and you don't really get to choose who you work with. Right, right. So I
get lucky and get a comic like you every once in a while, but there's a lot of people who are kind
of phoning it in. So when I work with someone like you, I was like, oh, this is a big deal.
I basically broke even on that weekend. Oh, good. I wanted to just work with you. Oh, that's nice.
Yeah. I remember we had a good time. I'm not sure I remember the specific conversation about Jews.
Well, here's what happened.
Okay.
You said at one, you were really nice all weekend.
And we got, I remember we got Vietnamese sandwiches every day.
Oh, bomb me sandwiches.
First time I saw you, I will never forget this because you were wearing a fedora, sunglasses, and smoking a cigar by the pool.
And it felt like iconic to me.
I was like, holy shit, this is like old Hollywood right here.
This is kind of badass.
And I went up to you and you were really friendly.
And at one point you turned to me and you said, you're a hide the Jew Jew.
And I was like, what does that mean?
And you said, you don't talk about being Jewish enough on stage.
And I said, oh, wow, maybe you're right.
I started thinking about it.
And then I didn't see you for years.
I saw you, I think like maybe three or four years later
in Montreal.
Right.
And you said, where did we work together?
And I said, Sunnyvale.
And you said, yeah, how was that?
And I said, you called me a hide the Jew Jew on stage.
And tonight I opened with a Jew joke.
And you said, I got to you.
That's so wild, you know, because i was a hide the juju
well maybe that's maybe that's what you're trying to help or something maybe you saw
a little bit of me and you well well yeah but i mean you and me i mean well it's just weird
because like even now like on the new special like it's it's a weird time for jews and it's
a weird time for for you others in general. And obviously we're not
at a, you know, in the social structure, Jews are a little more well integrated than other people
that are minorities that are getting a, you know, we're not Mexicans, you know, we're not, you know,
it's not like we're persecuted in the way where we can't stay in our country or anything, but
there is sort of more antisemitism. And I and i now and i have this weird ass impulse i
don't know if it's self-destructive or or it's pride or it's fuck you but like on my last special
i'm all about like you know i'm a fucking jew and we're better than you you know like like you know
because i i believe i don't know what it is but when i started i just didn't know how to do the jew thing without
being like i'm a jew and you know being a stereotype right so it wasn't until it kind of
evolved i evolved into my own whatever kind of jew i am that i started talking about it more
yeah i you kind of pushed me to do it a little more and then i remember did it feel good yeah
it does it just feels like it's who you are. You own it a little bit, right? I'm not religious, but culturally, being a New York Jew is very much, you realize it's
very much a part of who you are.
Right.
And I remember Gary Goldman once said to me, he saw me doing like, maybe it was a late
night set where I did a Jew joke, and he was like, I like that you do that, because not
enough comics say they're a Jew on stage.
Now I feel like everyone says they're a Jew on stage.
It's time.
We've got to stand up and be counted here.
I mean, it feels like
well that's I guess
what I was trying to say
is like
you would think the impulse is
just like
just keep it cool
you know what I mean
you don't have to run around
saying you're a Jew
you can make yourself a target
but then there's
if you're like really
kind of like
like an angry Jew
you're like fuck that
I'm no fucking Jew
go fuck yourself
yeah
and also it's like
I don't like that
we have to be a stereotype
like I like that
there's different types
I like that there's like
a Louis Black angry Jew and like an Elliot Gould cool Jew. And like, there's different types of Jews you could be. You know, it's not.
There are Jews that look completely, that are black almost.
Yeah.
There's a whole museum in Israel dedicated to you, to showing you that you don't, there is no stereotypical Jew.
Yeah. Amari Stoudemire.
Yeah. Who's that?
Played for the stereotypical Jew. Yeah. Amari Stoudemire. Yeah. Who's that? Played for the Knicks.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
Well, you go to this thing and they just have this exhibit where they're just pictures.
Pictures are like people almost look Latino and all these different kinds of people.
And it's like the idea is like all Jews.
Yeah.
So it's not just about you and your dumb middle class Eastern European Ashkenaz bullshit.
There's hundreds of different kinds of Jews.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what happened with the family?
Well, you know, my mom, I don't ask too many questions,
but, because I can, some of it, she was very supportive.
So I didn't meet my biological father until I was 18 or 19.
I was dating a girl who was a psych major
and both her parents were shrinks.
And every time I'd have dinner with them,
they just would analyze the shit out of me.
It was pretty brutal.
Yeah, and I remember she'd always accuse,
anytime I'd get angry in a fight,
and it wasn't even that angry,
she would be like, who are you really yelling at?
Oh really?
How long did that relationship last?
Too long.
So I thought, you know what?
Fuck it.
I should probably just meet him just to get some closure, you know?
Well, let me get the picture.
So you're growing up in Chelsea.
Your mom, what kind of-
No, then Upper East Side.
Upper East Side.
Originally Chelsea.
Okay.
That's where I was born.
Oh, okay.
And your mom was a painter or what?
She's a painter.
Yeah?
She's really good.
I'll show you her stuff after this.
Yeah?
She like sell?
Is she big?
Gallery and everything?
Not anymore.
But she was in galleries when she was younger.
Marilyn Greenberg.
Abstract?
Yeah.
Nice.
It's good Jewish stuff here.
So you had like Danish modern furniture
and like that whole kind of like groovy artist kind of place?
No, not really, no.
All right.
But all right, so you're growing up
and you know you've got a dad that's,
you've got a stepdad, but you know this other guy's gone.
But he was such a good dad that I had no urge to meet.
That's what's hard about talking this on stage,
is, like, I have a lot of jokes I love about it,
but then people go, like, aww, and I'm like,
no, I had a great, I have to, like, address,
no, I had a good, I had a great dad.
Right, right.
And I had a brother and sister
who's a stepbrother and stepsister,
but I just call my brother and sister.
Yeah, he had kids from a previous marriage.
And you grew up with that guy since you were three?
Well, they met when I was three and they got married when I was seven.
So, okay.
Like your whole life.
Yeah.
So you didn't really know the other guy.
No, I never met him until I was older.
So it's one of the...
But then what's fucked up, I meet him.
He looks exactly like me.
And he's got...
You know what's weird is he's got the same mannerisms as me.
Yeah. Yeah, of course. I mean, what are you know what's weird is he's got the same mannerisms as me yeah yeah of
course i mean what are you gonna do it's like biological like it's some of it's wired in you're
not you don't learn everything one of my first jokes ever was he uh about it was he said my
friend said is your biological father a good person i said if he were i probably wouldn't
refer to him as my biological father so all right so what so what brings it like what what do you know before you
meet him like what does your mother tell you about the situation she told me some stories that were
not uh didn't make him sound great was it in which area was it in uh philandering or or abusive he
wasn't abusive i think uh he just kind of dipped. His previous wife had died of cancer
and he wasn't ready to have another family.
He had a son already who lives out here who I haven't met.
That's your actual half-brother?
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
And then I met him at some restaurant in Midtown.
The half-brother or the father?
Father, biological father.
So all you know is really is that he had a wife
that had cancer.
He's got another kid, and he just split. And he left me a note in a safety deposit box, and I read it.
He did?
Yeah.
That your mother had the key to?
Yeah.
But she had not read it?
No.
When did you read it?
How old were you?
Probably 19.
Wow.
What was that?
What was that?
He was like an ad man.
It was pretty well written, But I don't know.
He was an ad man?
Yeah.
But like, was it an apology?
Yeah, he said, I just couldn't do it, he kinda said.
It's weird, because when you're 18, 19,
and you're a guy, I think you just have anger
towards anything.
Sure.
So it's hard to trace what it was exactly to,
but I felt meeting him would probably just be helpful for me and and my dad was so cool about it he was
kind of like so not threatened he was like yeah i fucking killed it as a dad i'm not go meet him
well yeah well it seems like you're pretty well grounded and you had good love in the house
yeah right so so like you know i i guess the void i i guess i were able to track the anger
would assume like you know that most of that kind of anger would be like, did it
have something to do with me?
I think it was like probably I was getting fucked up all the time back then, just getting
hammered.
So I think a lot of it was just like, you don't want to think about some of this stuff.
So you're just kind of bottling it up.
And yeah, I think it was probably a lot to take in because I think some of it probably made my mom upset to talk about, so I felt bad bringing it up.
Right.
But she, to her credit, would talk about most of it.
Yeah.
But yeah, she told a story that I guess they ran into each other on the street when I was two or something.
And maybe I was younger and I was in a carriage and she said, this is Sam, this is your son.
And he just said, looks like you and walked away
Really? Yeah, so he there's a niceness there for sure Wow, so like she so she got pregnant and he split. Yeah
Yeah, so here's another weird one. So he lives now like nine blocks from me just by chance
Oh, so I he's old
He's in his 80s now and I saw him at and I saw him a few months ago before all this,
I saw him at the, maybe it was more than that,
probably like six or seven months ago,
I saw him at the rec center,
because I go to exercise there,
because they have a pool and stuff,
and he goes there for physical therapy,
so I just ran into him there,
and it was just one of those hey, and I was like hey.
That was it?
I said hi, I don't know.
That's so weird, but do you feel pain or weirdness?
No, I feel kind of closure.
I mean, there's weirdness because there's no playbook for this.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
There's no, I feel like I have my family.
And I've met his, his nephews are nice kids.
His brother, like I know them.
One of them's a really successful actor.
Your biological cousins
yeah yeah isn't that a weird term yeah it's kind of weird well the well yeah what do you got to put
some distance on it yeah I think you do you didn't have any relationship with one of them's an actor
out here yeah no he's I mean he's fucking huge he's the kid Ansel Elgort oh yeah he's in Baby
Driver and stuff and oh okay okay and another one's named Warren and he and I and there's a
girl Sophie who I haven't met.
And then I have my, but I'm like, it's hard.
Like, how many people can you meet?
Like, you know, like you got your circle.
I guess so, I guess so.
You got your circle.
I got a girlfriend.
I got my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister.
You got the, yeah, yeah.
I'm on the road all the time.
How many people can I really?
No, I get that.
I got a niece and two nephews.
Right, from?
From my sister.
Oh, okay, right. So, right, absolutely. But it really just becomes about puzzle pieces. no i get that i got a niece and two nephews right from for my sister oh okay right so right no
absolutely but it really just becomes about puzzle pieces do you know what i mean it's not
like the meeting is like what kind of relationship do you have you don't have to have one but like
when i meet family i didn't know like if someone comes up to me he's like i'm maron too and i'm
like who now how are you like it happened to me, and I was playing the Paramount out on the island. Austin?
No, out on Long Island, Huntington.
Oh, right.
Yeah, I was there.
Beautiful.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, it's great, yeah. But, like, one of the cousins who was, like, it was, like, my grandfather on my father's sides, his father's brother.
Yeah.
So it would be my father's grandfather's brother's kid,
that kind of shit.
So it would be my grandfather's cousin shows up.
It's a lot.
And I'm like, and then you look at him,
you're like, I can see me in there.
But what else are you going to do?
You're not going to keep in touch,
but it is kind of bizarre.
It's kind of cool.
It is, right?
Yeah, and I don't know.
It's just hard to keep it all
in track and like you know his wife too i so i met him later in life and uh i kind of dealt with it i
was in uh tulane in new orleans so you're 20 maybe 19 when you met your father i think 19 oh yeah we
like we didn't even depict that how that so you so i met him at a cafe and it was nice it was new
york yeah it was like a nice little meeting
where he kind of, we both were kind of laughing.
We're like, holy shit.
Like I've never, aside from my grandfather,
I've never looked at a man that looks exactly like me.
So it was kind of strange, you know?
So you laughed, did you cry?
No.
No crying?
No, but it was emotional for sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And yeah, and I remember talking to a therapist
in New Orleans about it.
When you were in college?
Yeah, and it was right after.
Before or after?
After. Okay.
And before. Yeah.
And he was in, it looked, it was crazy.
It was in the ninth ward, his hospital was.
It was right after Katrina, so it was abandoned.
So it looked like I was seeing a shrink
in like Shutter Island, it was crazy. You just found a shrink down there no my mom set it
up she said i think you should talk to someone about this in particular yeah she was very
supportive about it and then um he was funny because he was so smart and so kind and he looked
like santa but he could just turn into a dick like on a dime at one point he said to me goes you and mommy against the world and i was
like dude come on this is like it's like a like roasty i don't i just want to talk oh wait so
surprise you you got that in you don't you yeah yeah it made me it made me laugh but uh so yeah
so i met him and we just we kind of kept in touch and i think she was just nervous for you know
it's funny it's like it's like my mom handled it like a relationship
I was in she's like I just don't want to see him get burned
you know you yeah by
him because she was she's protective
you know so
yeah there was that
your expectations must have been
minimal they were pretty minimal
on some level I mean you know I mean
you were grown up enough not to have
any kind of like like, you know,
any emotional expectations.
It was like sort of a curiosity thing, right?
A closure thing, right?
Yeah.
It wasn't like you were expecting him to be your dad again.
I didn't know what I expected, though.
Oh, really?
No, I didn't expect him to be my dad.
I have a dad, but I mean, yeah, it was a weird thing.
It's like, one thing that annoyed me about it on stage,
like, because you get, you feel good when you can make a good joke out of it. It just, it was a weird thing. It's like the one thing that annoyed me about it on stage, like, because you get,
you feel good when you can make a good joke out of it.
It just, it gives you something.
It gives you something to relate to an audience with.
Right, right.
And it was hard to make jokes about it
because like, it just felt like a weird thing to get into.
Like, well, I had this other day.
It felt, especially now it's easier.
But when I was a younger comic, it was harder.
Also because you have a 15 minute set.
Now when I'm doing an hour on the road it's different,
but when you're doing 15 minutes you're like,
so here's this dad, and here's this dad.
And they'd be like, get to it, get to the jokes.
And also you're kind of, back when I knew you,
or like yeah, you still do it, I mean you're a joke guy.
Yeah.
So like you're not gonna do a long form emotional piece.
I'll do like one story per hour.
I'll do like one longer story per hour.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, it was important to me to stay funny.
Yeah, right.
It's like I'm a comedian.
It's weird.
We're in like the era of like- That's a difference between me and you.
No, that's not what I'm saying.
But like there is like this kind of type of comedy now
that is, it's fine.
It's just a different type of standup
where it's more one man showy different type of stand up where it's
you know
more one man showy
and I grew up
you know
I remember
I listened to your albums
a bunch
Tickets Still Available
and like
and Attell's albums
and Louie's albums
and Chris Rock
and stuff
I loved Hard Jokes
and all you guys had that
so
yeah I think you're right
that was important to me
to stay
Attell always
would always say like whenever I'd say something to him, he'd always say, get funnier.
And I was like, that's the most simple truth there is.
That's all you need to know.
Isn't it great when that weird kind of one-sided relationship with Atel starts to happen?
when that weird kind of one-sided relationship with Attell starts to happen.
Where he just like, he's comfortable enough
just to say shit with you that just cuts right to the bone
and then walks away, what?
And you're like, I don't know, man.
I need it though and it always comes from a good place.
Oh no, yeah, he's a sweetheart.
So yeah, staying funny is important.
So you couldn't really address it on stage?
It was hard, I'd have simple jokes on it,
like that one I told you, but it would be pretty basic,
and there's bigger stuff I thought would be,
at some point, interesting to get into.
Well you did, but what ultimately happened?
You had the meeting with him, you saw the similarities,
but you never felt like investigating anymore.
Like the one meeting was enough.
No, I'd stay in touch for a while.
Oh, you did?
It stopped recently,
because it started to feel one-sided.
Oh, on your part?
No, on his part, I thought.
Like every note he would write me just would be like,
I, me, and I'd be like, all right,
this just feels like your thing now, you know?
I remember showing it to a therapist
I was seeing at the time.
Yeah. Narcissistic guy? yeah yeah yeah i'm sure i'm sure i got a little of it
from him you know yeah but like in the in the i me part like in the sense that he was sort of using
you or i don't say using me but i think uh i don't know i think maybe my expectations started to build
once I started to-
Built a relationship, right.
Once we started to stay in touch.
And his wife, I think, has problems with him.
Oh, yeah?
I think it's tough for her.
Yeah, she's a good person.
You met the wife.
Yeah.
He's difficult for her.
He's not a good husband.
Or father.
Or father.
So what you learned over time is that and it kind of confirms it is that he's kind of shitty yeah and and but you know you do see yourself in him
and uh hopefully not the shitty parts i'm working on it you know it's what can you do but work on
but is that weird though isn't that wild because you always wonder about that like my brother's got kids and they're all adopted right yeah so you really wonder like
the challenge of that like you know how much of who we are is really just already in there
yeah and and you see a lot i think you're right yeah you're right and uh i mean it bummed me out
that i i think i'm i'm pretty happy i'm a pretty happy guy as far as it goes.
We've all got our stuff and I'm irritable.
So when you're on the road all the time,
sometimes take certain things for granted.
Sure.
There are bits that I always were like bummed didn't work
because I think they made the audience too sad.
Yeah, I got a few.
Like what's one?
Okay, one I always liked and this never hit once,
not once, but but i said so when
you're legally adopted you're uh what happens is your dad who wants to adopt you needs to get the
biological father's signature yeah so it's like the opposite of a ups package you know he's like
here's my signature and uh i don't want this right never hit one i thought it was like a funny line
but it might be there's a lot there there's a lot to unpack for this simple package joke.
That's fair.
You know what I mean?
I used to do a bit about my mother was anorexic.
And I really think for the first nine years of my life,
she just saw me as her fat.
Like if she just ate less, maybe the needy kid would just like and it's abstract
but like it kind of worked but there's those kind of jokes people are like ah like it's not a real
laugh it's just like that's sad and i'll acknowledge it with a noise yeah something
sometimes sometimes when they groan though i think it's because they care about you i used to get
really annoyed and i was that a groaner that you did?
Oh, they go, oh.
Oh, yeah.
I think sometimes they're assholes, but then sometimes they're just like, oh, we feel bad for you.
We like you and we feel bad for you.
I know.
That used to happen to me, and I would go like, don't do that.
That was the whole title of that album I did in 2009, This Has to Be Funny.
It was because of that.
You had the joke, remember,
about the guy who lives in your head?
Yeah, yeah, how'd that go?
It was about how you saw a guy
just sitting in the front row of your show
and he didn't smile once.
Right, right, and I just, right.
And then you went up to him, like, what's your problem?
And he said, no, I love the show.
And you said, that means that guy lives in my head.
Right, right, right, that means the guy
that was sitting there going, you suck, is in my head all the time i just put him on other people
yeah oh yeah yeah i relate to that joke a lot for sure i definitely like project that i that's
important thing to learn like you know these are people that come in from their life you don't know
what the fuck they're thinking about exactly yeah like i got like i might have gotten fired earlier
in the day and he just needed a break right like i Like I did a very Attell-ish kind of thing where I'm like, yeah, I don't like, I can't
project.
I don't know what you really think.
I'm just making you up.
You could be sitting there going like, where did I bury the body properly?
You know, like that kind of thing.
Yeah.
But that, but it's, it's freeing to, to have that, to, to be comfortable with that.
That the idea that like, they've all got their own shit.
I've been to shows.
I've been to movies.
You know, there's going to be moments where people are just thinking about their own shit.
Yeah.
And yeah, that happens to me every time you look at somebody.
My girlfriend will say it to me all the time.
She'll go, she'll just see me stare and she goes, where did you go?
And I was like, oh shit, that's people do that at shows sometimes.
You can sit two jokes out and I got to just chill. gotta learn that that's right like you know who was I talking
to Stuart Lee is a British comic and he yeah he actually quit because he you know it became too
much for him the anger of it wow uh and then like I think and I'm paraphrasing maybe the entire
experience but what he grew to realize was that, you know,
it's not,
there's just a misunderstanding.
It's like,
I'm not,
you made a bad choice for the evening.
It's not my fault that I'm me.
I'm going to be me,
but we're not going to meet where we need to meet on this.
And,
you know, I'm sorry for that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've become,
I also though,
when you're starting out,
you're just playing shittier rooms.
Oh yeah.
And I think it made me a worse comic for a couple years
because there's a difference between like club-
Projecting, you mean, onto the audience?
Absolutely, but not just that.
I think in club crowds,
you expect a certain type of reaction
as opposed to those kind of alt-y rooms
where if they're just listening, that's almost enough.
I can't stand that shit.
I hate it.
I want to be a club guy,
but here's the problem with the club stuff.
You're going to be punchier,
but you're also going to turn on crowds so much more quickly
because the second a joke doesn't hit you,
you're like, where the fuck did you guys go?
What's up?
You know, like, yeah.
Well, that's a good point, man,
because you came up in sort of a different time than me.
You know, by the time I was doing what became alternative comedy,
I was just a bitter club guy. You know, I was doing whatever I was doing what they what became alternative comedy i was just a bitter club guy you know i was
doing whatever i was doing in new york and then the this venue open where we could do we could
just improvise and just fuck off so i looked at it as sort of a writing stage like you know all my
shit happens on stage so it was good for me every week to go to lunar or whatever and just spew
to see what happened you know to get new things new ideas but
you actually grew up came up in a time where there were just whole there's a whole other
business like there were all these bringer shows you had brooklyn you had all that shit none of
that was there you know weird it's like you like there was no hannibal burris's room in brooklyn
you know there was no you know wyatt Wyatt Sinak Knight or whoever out there.
There was none of that.
And, you know, I wonder how that kind of played out.
Because when did you, what year did you start?
Did you do comedy at Tulane?
I did.
You know, what's crazy is I kind of worked my way in
at Tulane where I was only there for a year and a half.
And then, so I, when I was there,
I asked, like, is there any way i can do comedy here
and katrina just hit they're like fuck off kid like leave us alone you know but then they were
bringing down this comic dat fan and i said can i open for him can i just get on the show and
they were like ah like let's see so i had a tape from a bringer show and they looked at it and
they were like oh you can open for me it went super went so well i mean they were horrible
jokes but you know.
Where did you do the Bringer Show, though?
Like, where did you start?
In New York City, yeah.
So I did, it was probably comic strip.
Comic strip?
D.F. Sweetler's class I took.
Do you know D.F. Sweetler?
Of course.
He was great.
So that's what happened.
So you graduated high school in New York.
Yeah.
And that summer you take a class?
I did, yeah.
With D.F. Sweetler at the comic strip. And Joe Mackey, who's still one of my best friends,
was in the class with me.
Oh, okay. Just by chance.
You would love Joe's comedy.
Yeah, I'll check him out.
He's like my arch nemesis, but also my best friend.
That's nice. We fight constantly,
but he's, he's, Oh, that's nice.
He is like the best at topical jokes I've ever heard.
It's insane. Oh, check him out.
Yeah, so D.F., he taught the class, and I would come in just too dirty every week, check him out. Yeah, so DF, he taught the class
and I would come in like just too dirty every week
and he'd be like, just clean it up.
Because he'd say, all your favorite comics
who you think are dirty can write clean too.
Who were you watching?
Who were you guys at that time?
At that time, I mean, I remember Rock's album,
Roll With The New kind of blew me away
because it was just so,
I remember I was listening to it once as a kid.
I probably didn't even get all the jokes but my mom saw me laughing she looked the hell is he
listening so she grabbed the headphones and put it on and i just saw her face like she turned white
she could not believe and then but then 30 seconds later i watched her laugh and i was like oh that's
fucking powerful right that he can say something off-putting and then rope her back in right that
she was worried concerned about you hearing this stuff but she couldn't hide the laughter that came from the actual joke.
And I love that.
Right.
I love Dangerfield because they were just classic jokes.
Yeah, I could see that.
I remember Lily Tomlin's special Search for Signs of Intelligent Life.
Yeah.
That kind of blew me away.
Yeah.
It was just so cool and different.
Dangerfield doesn't get, it's weird about Dangerfield is that in death, he still doesn't
get the respect he deserves.
Crazy.
I made Taylor watch Back to School the other night. Oh really?
It's just pure, it's like pure escapist joy.
Kenison, the teacher who was in Vietnam?
Oh my God, it's amazing.
Yeah, yeah.
It's so good.
Yeah, there's just how twitchy,
like Dangerfield was the full operation, man.
Yeah.
He was going all the time.
Everything about him was funny.
I loved him.
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean.
So those were your guys.
Yeah, and then i mean
shit and then like then i got a little older probably like around 18 i was listening to like
you and louis and natal yeah and giraldo and stuff giraldo i miss that guy man what a fucking
giraldo and patrice out of all the fucking guys i can't be here two guys you want to hear yeah
right everything those are like the only two guys I want to hear about talk about Trump left. Right, right, right.
That's it.
Yeah, gone.
So many great comics
and so, yeah.
You took the class.
I took the class.
Joe Mackey was,
he was great.
But he was just in the class with you.
But he was already funny
and then, you know,
then I went back to school
and I was barking for a few years
and stuff like that. You went back to Tulane? Yeah, and I went back to school and I was barking for a few years and stuff like that.
You went back to Tulane?
Yeah, and I was barking in summers and stuff.
Oh, down at Boston or whatever?
No, Boston wasn't there anymore, I don't think.
Oh, like Ha?
Like, where were you barking?
Fuck, thank God I avoided Ha.
I remember, like, that was...
No, I did Underground Lounge,
Broadway Comedy Clubs a little bit.
Al Martin's places?
Was Broadway Al Martin?
No. Yeah, only that one
for a summer though.
That's a rough room.
I got spat on once there during a set
and I was like, I should just phone in here a little less.
But yeah, handing out flyers was for me the best
because I remember comics would say,
why don't you just do more open mics?
And I was like, well, I get real people.
You're still waiting to go on for two hours at the mic,
and it's not like you're watching good comedy.
I may as well just be miserable here
and then actually perform for eight real people
and hone some jokes.
Yeah, oh that's a good call.
And then I started doing all right,
I started doing well in festivals and competitions,
and that's what kind of made me a working act.
All right, so you opened for Dat Fan at college.
Oh yeah, I opened for Dat Fan, then. Oh yeah, so then. You do well.
I opened for Dat Fan, then they said,
you can have a word on who we bring down.
So then.
This is the Student Activities Committee?
Yeah, they said, you can help us
and just tell us who to bring down.
So I remember Ted Alexandro, I was like,
you should book this guy, he's really funny.
Yeah.
So I opened for Ted, he was awesome.
He's couldn't have been nicer.
Did you know him from New York?
You never met him before.
I just thought he was a good comic.
Oh yeah, he's great.
And then, yeah, I love his stuff.
And then, so then, I kind of became friendly
with him a little bit afterwards.
Not like we talked, but like, I knew Ted now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bill Burr came down and Bill was really, really cool too.
Before he was huge.
Yeah, and then like 10 years to the day,
I think I was on Conan with him, which is so weird.
He said, like, where do I know you from?
And I was like, you don't remember.
Did he remember? No, no.
I think he just saw my face somewhere else or something.
You were part of bringing him to Tulane.
Yeah, man.
It was hilarious because it was like a 1,200-seater
and like 100 kids showed up.
They didn't realize how lucky they were to get a comic like Bill down there.
It'd be surprising he didn't remember that.
He did once I talked about it, but I don't think he really remembered i think he was just being nice you know but uh i i i can
remember nights where you know you got the 1200 seater and 100 show up i mean they were spaced
out it wasn't like a right i did one of those in iowa terror it was i'll never forget it they're
rough fucking nightmare and he was so good man he like, I remember a lot of the jokes still
because it was such a funny set.
All right, so you leave Tulane to transfer to NYU.
Why?
Because you just want to be in New York.
I want to be in New York.
I got a taste of the comedy scene.
You want to be close to it.
I would do one mic a week in New Orleans
because that's all they had.
So I was writing a lot,
but I wasn't really getting on stage.
Right.
So that's why you went back.
And you went to NYU?
Yeah.
And what was the major?
It was like a made up comedy major.
I kinda just was like, let me just focus on comedy
any way I can.
But you were able to graduate and shit?
Yeah.
That's good.
Yeah, so then there was that.
And then I started doing like clubs more and more,
but then what really like put it over,
and it's so lame that this is what put it over,
but like they do these competitions
called march madness in the city like college basketball bracket style who runs carolines and
comics which used to be in the city comics that that room that overpaid and put you up nice hotels
down in the meatpacking district i wouldn't know about that back then but that sounds right yeah
but man when they opened that place i just right away like i can't remember what year that was but
i remember i was flying in so i must not have been living there uh but they were like you know they
were paying good and they would put you up right there at that gansford hotel and i'm like there's
no way this is gonna isn't that sad though that how the fuck is this gonna stay open and the room
was perfect it was beautiful but isn't that sad that every time i same things happen with me when
like anytime a gig treats me really well i'm'm like, I give it three months. Right.
There's no way.
It's just like I don't even know why they were doing it, though.
I know the rent must have been expensive.
So why were they overdoing it? Because they were trying to compete with Carolines and whoever to do that kind of room.
And their way of doing it was just throw money at it, which wasn't the right way.
No.
But the food was pretty good.
I remember that tortellini. Right? But the food was pretty good. I remember that tortellini.
Right?
But good food.
Nice room.
I miss it.
But they did March Madness,
and I did pretty well in those things
because it was like,
so you do one minute versus one minute in round one.
So one comedian has to sit on the stage
while the other one goes,
and then back and forth.
That's crazy.
Awful.
I hated it,
but it was like,
how else am I going to get booked?
Do you remember who you were up against yeah of course uh of course i remember like the
first year i did it joe list beat me and joe is like a freaking killer act so like he was already
he's like already a pro and yeah god damn it this guy's so good then the next year i went i i lost
no i won at comics i won the whole thing. It was me and Mike Lawrence in the finals.
Every comic in it was killer.
It was like Shang Wang was in it,
all these like killer acts.
Mike used to open for me.
He's funny.
Mike's a great writer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then Dan Soder beat me at Caroline's in the finals.
Oh, yeah.
So it was crazy.
You're just watching.
So you have to sit there in the finals.
And it's all about a minute?
No, the first round's a minute.
The second round's two minutes.
The third round's four.
And then it was like eight.
And then it was like 15.
Really?
So then in the last round,
I remember it was me versus Dan Soder.
And you're just sitting behind him
watching him work a room.
And like, holy shit,
I have like a whole new respect for all these guys.
Because you're like physically,
you're almost in their body.
Right, right.
So yeah, it was cool.
And so even though I didn't win that one,
Caroline started working me
and comics started working me.
As a feature or opener?
Yeah, yeah.
Opener, yeah.
But then they book you a lot.
Yeah.
So it was pretty cool.
And then the other club started booking me
and I won this festival called Laughing Skull in Atlanta.
I know that place.
Yeah, it's a cool club.
Marshall's, he runs a festival.
I go down, I used to go down there to work shit out, like a little 80 seater. It's great. Good hamburgers at that place. Yeah, it's a cool club. Marshall's, he runs a festival. I go down, I used to go down there to work shit out,
like a little 80-seater.
It's great.
Good hamburgers at that place.
I mean, it's like, you feel ill after eating.
They're amazing, but you're like, this is crazy.
I can't be eating this before I perform.
Not every night.
And we're like low-energy guys.
Think about being like a Dane Cook or something.
Pull you right down.
And they have tater tots there.
I was just down there shooting a movie.
I think I did one set there, but I did have the hamburger.
So good.
Yeah.
So you won that one?
I won that, and that was like, the prize was like better than any other prize
because it was like, I think it was like six to 12 months of road work.
So that's how I ended up working with you, I think.
And a lot of the clubs headline me, lower rate headliners,
and if they liked me, they'd have me back and pay me a regular pay.
So it was pretty cool.
They just got me working.
And then I remember I worked this club called Magoobies with Gary Goldman.
Yeah.
Where the hell's Magoobies?
It's just a funny sentence.
Where the hell's Magoobies?
Timonium, Maryland.
So I still play that club, it's a good club,
but Gary, so this is a crazy weekend,
I'm working with Gary who, I knew of Gary,
I respected his comedy a lot,
and I'm working with him, I'm featuring,
and it just felt weird,
because the owner's dad had died.
So it was a weird vibe in the club,
where he's a really nice guy,
but there was a weird vibe.
So I remember the late show one night,
he gets on the mic and he just said,
all right, guys, quiet down.
He's on the God mic in the back.
The owner.
Yeah, the crowd's loud and drunk.
He's like, guys, you got to quiet down.
Then he goes, guys, shut the fuck up.
Shut your fucking mouth.
I go, I'm sorry, my dad died.
Come into the stage,
just starts the show in one motion
and uh it's one of those weird weekends but then like and i think it was like the first night gary
even said like at the end of the night he was like i really like your stuff and you're going
to be the first comic i wreck at the comedy cellar and i didn't think anything of it i just kind of
was like well that's nice i don't i don't believe any of that if you if you if he wants to that's
great been there no i the seller no
so you were just starting out really no i i'd been doing it for a while but i just kind of
had a reverence for the seller and i just didn't want to go there really yeah i thought it was like
kind of like a special place like it was mount olympus or something i'd see yeah a little bit
i just kind of thought it was like but you didn't want to do the like did you have too much pride to
do the hangout thing yeah right it made me uncomfortable i did too. I did too. I don't even, it was like pride.
I think it was just like, I just thought I'd get uncomfortable.
I just fucking, I hate, like.
I don't want to be known, I want to be known as a dude like, oh, this guy's working here.
I don't want to be known as, oh, it's that dude again.
Well, that's exactly it.
Like, I remember back when I started, you know, Lewis from Carolines was the booker.
I know Lewis.
I know.
Yeah.
He was the guy that booked Catch a Rising Star.
Sure.
The original one.
And, you know, the deal was, like, when I started, like, I guess it was probably in the late 80s,
or you'd go up there and you'd just hang around.
Yeah.
And I knew guys would go up there and just sit there all fucking night waiting for that guy to go,
yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I'll get you on later you know like and it was like that was a good impression
like you know and i was like what the fuck how's that guy's gonna have power over my life i just
couldn't it hurts but that's why i gotta spread it out like some of the best i didn't go i wouldn't
do it but some of the best advice i got was from comics who were like hanging on by a thread
because they were the ones who just were you know they maybe they weren't the best advice I got was from comics who were like hanging on by a thread because they were the ones who just were, you know, they maybe they weren't the best comics, but they were like, never get comfortable one club because they stop working.
You, you know, you're fucked.
So I just couldn't like I couldn't do any of it.
And Esty did not book me until I had an HBO half hour.
Like until I had an HBO half hour.
Then she decided.
And I it's like I still have a weird fucking resentment towards the whole goddamn
operation i get it man i get it i mean like they've been so good to me i've been i've been
fortunate there but uh you know uh i yeah i felt weird hanging out there i hung at the strip also
so i don't want to be known as like a guy who hangs everywhere i didn't do the strip i hardly
ever did i was the thing was is when i started the original improv was barely hanging on.
And Silver Friedman ran the place.
And it was just beat up.
No one went there anymore.
And it was like, I could work there.
And I was like, this is history.
I'm going to work here.
And Boston.
And that was that.
I miss that.
Because I knew Barry.
And then, you know, the strip I could work at in stand-up New York, like Kerry Hoffman once said to me, you know,
you know, comedy's not about what you do anymore.
What the fuck is that?
You know, whatever.
I don't even know what that means.
Yeah, who does?
But, yeah, but, like, I should be more diplomatic.
Know him and Esty have been very nice to me over the years.
I love him so much.
Of course, I knew the old man.
You probably did.
You knew the old man.
I didn't know Manny, no.
You didn't?
Oh, really?
So you really—
He passed before my time.
Wow.
Okay. Well, there was a lot of uh yelling you know and sure like like i was yeah i got into a fight with manny and you know i couldn't and he kicked me out and i
had to go you know it was one of those things where there had to be a brokered kind of like
i'm sorry and whatever so it's like the mob you have like a sit down he has sit down yeah yeah so i
could do my two spots a week um but anyway so so gary says he's gonna wreck you and he did and it
was it was went well and uh yeah so i that was pretty big uh you know i i didn't i couldn't
ever ask someone to do that for me right so so the fact that he did that for me was pretty big
oh that's nice so forever he's to be the guy that did that.
I love Gary.
He's still a close friend.
Great guy.
I love his comedy too.
He's doing all right?
Yeah, I think so.
He texted me the other day.
I'm going to call him this week.
All right.
And so you work at the cellar
and then you're just out on the road headlining, huh?
Yeah, it kind of slowly happened a little more and more.
And then it just feels like it takes forever
to get that first thing.
But then once you get that first thing, it becomes-
What was the first thing?
Conan, probably.
But then once I got it, it was like there was, it's almost like, fuck, all right, I
got to keep writing to keep up the spots.
Do those five minute sets.
Yeah.
Figure out those four and a half minute sets.
Stressful.
It's the worst.
And the first one, I didn't get the response I wanted.
So that was really upsetting.
Yeah.
I did well, but I thought like, I was like, fuck,
the first one didn't get
what I wanted it to
and that really hurt.
Like I was like,
I know I'm not gonna like
this crowd that much.
Who was your producer?
Was it Frank or was it JP?
JP.
Hmm.
But I mean,
I like the jokes still
as much as you can like
an older show.
What do you think happened though
when you like look at it?
I just think sometimes
it's a fucking 5 p.m.
Burbank crowd.
I guess that's true.
What can you do?
It's not a crowd we're accustomed to, and I think the jokes were dark-ish.
So I think it's weird like that.
That's an L.A. thing.
Because out here, it's not a big deal to go to these fucking things.
Yeah.
And if they have a problem getting people in the seats, they just pay people.
The audience is here.
It's no good.
Because some of them just do it,
that's what their life is.
They go sit in audiences.
Like when you used to do it like in New York,
it was a big deal.
Like they do Letterman in New York, it's a big deal.
That audience is lit.
Yeah.
You know, they're like, let's go.
Yeah.
Now there's so many late night shows
and there's so many ways people consume stuff
that it's harder.
I think back when you're talking about like Letterman back in the day like yeah you're right
that was a hot ticket well yeah and it was like that was what you were working towards it took
me forever to get on there i didn't get on to letterman fuck until i was you know well into it
wow but i ended up doing a few but like there is a there is a way of doing those four and a half
minute sets and a lot of times it depends on who's producing for you like when i used to do conan all the time it was frank
smiley but i was a sit-down guy yeah but we he would spend a fucking hour on the phone with me
like going over shit like and i tell him everything i got but it was good for me to do panel because
i could go up with half-baked shit didn't need to be Yeah. It could be funny enough and it was going to be in conversation.
And you can riff if it doesn't hit.
Right.
You can kind of riff on it.
Right, you dick around, yeah.
You can't really be like, you can't say something after a joke doesn't get what you want.
No, not when it's a tight four and a half.
It's tough.
It's the fucking worst.
I hated, I did Conan like a month ago and I hated the crowd.
Yeah.
I hated them.
They just weren't my crowd.
It's a terrible feeling. Yeah. I hated them. They just weren't my crowd. It's a terrible feeling.
And I won't,
like I did Corden recently.
And I don't even,
I'm not even doing standup.
I'm just sitting there
and I'm like,
why am I doing this?
Like I don't even know
what they're doing over here.
They're doing tricks
and just dancing.
What am I sitting here for?
Like it was one of those moments
where I'm like,
I don't have to do this shit anymore.
Yeah, it's kind of freeing when you realize that.
When it's sad because it doesn't, like, pop your career like it did back in the day, I guess.
Nothing does.
Yes, but then it's like, it's fun to do still.
It's still fun to do it.
But, you know, it's great.
Oddly, you know, the guys who were good at it, if we ever get back to normal, you know, you feel like you're in good hands.
I got buried by Cory Booker on Fallon.
He fucking buried me.
I can't follow hope.
It was, like,'t follow hope it was like
too upbeat it was like what are you talking about he was like really oh then they're like all right
we're gonna come back with uh Sam Morrell yeah and everyone's like what the fuck is this guy he's
talking about getting arrested you know but it didn't land it did all right my family was I'm
always in my head when my family comes and then of course Cory Booker's just schmoozing he was in
the green room for like 30 minutes.
I couldn't believe it.
Campaigning.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And my mom, like, loves him.
So it was like, you know.
Oh, really?
Oh, yeah.
But, yeah, you can't have your family go to those until you're real solid, dude.
I know.
Like, I can't.
Like, for years, it was just like, what are you trying to do?
You're just going to, whatever you have in your head, you're just going to disappoint yourself.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I'm also not fun to be with.
After those, if they don't go how I want them to go.
Dude, the worst.
Yeah.
The fuck.
After the Chevy Chase roast, I swear to God,
I was in my hotel room with my friend Sam
on the verge of tears.
But the way they cut it made you look really good.
They look great.
I remember one of your jokes,
the one about how
we're all nobodies
and you said,
yeah, we're nobodies
at the beginning of our career.
Right.
Like they cut it great,
they sweetened it,
I should have learned.
But like in the room,
it was a fucking nightmare.
That's what I heard.
A nightmare.
Yeah.
And just the feeling
of after doing that,
you know,
and then having fucking
Freddie Roman say like,
I don't know what these comics
did to acknowledge their failure while they're doing.
Just do the job.
And if it doesn't go well, that's just a bad night.
Don't say you're bombing.
He said that in The Observer.
And I was like, fuck it.
It just never stopped being terrible.
That is so funny.
It's like, yeah, Freddie, you're like a legend, but it's a different type of comedy.
Yeah, man.
No one fucking knows you.
I know.
You know, like, Freddie's a legend
for being the guy who never got as big as his friends.
Right.
Listen to me shitting on an old man.
Like, I got to put my anger in the right place.
Well, I bombed in front of him.
I did a Friars Club roast when I was 21 of Omarosa.
Dude, I couldn't have bombed harder.
It was the worst.
That was, like, the night I was like,
maybe I can't do this.
That's the same with me. It was Paul Mooneyoney was roast master and his the way he introed me i
still remember i had nothing oh so he just he didn't he said yep horribly horribly you know
he's but he set up everyone horribly yeah he's a monster and and i look back and so the friars
club so he intros me this next comic is a fan of Bill Hicks, Rodney Dangerfield, George Carlin, Richard Pryor.
I knew all of them.
All dead.
Sam Morrell, everybody.
That's how he intro'd me.
And it cuts to my face looking like,
what the fuck, dude?
And I bombed so hard.
Maybe Carlin wasn't dead.
Maybe it was someone else.
It was televised?
No, it was just for the internet.
But it was the first thing that came up for me
on every YouTube search.
Oh, because it was your first gig that was available?
So clubs would be like Sam Morrell tonight
and they'd post it and it had more hits
than anything I'd done, so I remember I went to them one day,
I had a manager at the time who was like,
bring them a bottle of wine, and I was like,
to pull it down, she's like, yeah, bribe them
with some wine, and I was like,
it's like a rich organization, I found out later
they weren't, that they were going under, but it was like a-
Did they pull it down?
It took forever.
I was begging them for like months.
They finally pulled it down.
I remember kids I went to high school with
were like posting it on Facebook,
like, look at this guy bombing.
I'm like, come on, man. Oh my God.
It hurt.
That's so weird that it happened.
Like, cause what I realized about me though,
just in general, is I'm not a roast guy.
Yeah.
Like, there is something.
I think you could be, though.
I think you kind of, I mean.
I'm a little better.
But, like, I have to know the person.
You know what I mean?
Feel comfortable.
That's how it should be.
Right.
But I always tend to go a little too, like, I'm defensive.
Like, it's not my nature.
Like, I guess I bust balls a little bit.
But only if it's okay. You know? But, like, the Chevy thing, it was not okay. Yeah i guess i bust balls a little bit but only if i'm you know if it's okay
you know but like we're like the chevy thing it was not okay it was not he wasn't having fun
he didn't give a fuck he was mad and it was like and i liked him when i was a kid yeah and you know
and i i you know i remember i wrote some of those jokes with my ex-wife and she never
forgave me for not giving her a job as a writer when i could have and you know damn yeah
yeah that's tough well it's tough going out with a comic dude good luck you know um yeah but
nonetheless i just i'm not cut out like i always felt like it i could probably do it now you're
right yeah but like it's it's it's i just remember that night just seeing everyone on that dais
and just thinking i failed and that they were all looking at me like i failed but no one gives a fuck there's a
type of comic though who is like just made for that and i know you mean like it's not our specialty i
don't think but i i i think i could do it pretty well now too i think i was too young and i didn't
have any confidence behind the jokes like i remember when i i auditioned to get it and i
killed in the audition room so i was like i could i was like, it was bad for me to kill that hard.
Well, it's just weird when you're standing there, and they're right there.
Like, Ross is great.
Geraldo was great.
Oh, man.
There's a lot of people that are great.
Geraldo was, like, perfect.
Yeah, and he could go real dark and real deep and really get away with it.
And now there's really who anyone does them, and they just have a group of guys writing for them.
It's almost like you're casted more now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Geraldo felt, felt like so real with it and yeah jeff is like
that's what he does yeah he's like yeah it's his style you know but i was i don't know boss rich
boss had such a fucking funny burn on me after i bombed because he went on and he started bombing
and then he goes you guys better laugh or i'm bringing sam back up and it killed right and i
fucking is it the only thing that killed them?
It wasn't a good crowd.
He had a few.
He's so good at that type of stuff too, though, that like he kind of adapted. But like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was, it wasn't a good show.
It's so funny that we both had those existential crisis, but I was like older.
I was already in it.
I just wanted it to go well.
I thought it like you assume this confidence when you do it.
That's where you have to assume it. But if you don't really have it that's where it's gonna fuck you
yeah especially in that situation because there's no recourse for it you're just sort of like i'm
selling these shitty things about this person and they're not working and now i'm just a fucking
you know guy saying shitty things that you know people are like not funny yeah it's the word like
when you're just you doing your stand-up at least you can figure out a way out of it.
Yeah.
Also, you're usually shitting on yourself in your standup.
Right.
So it's like when you're shitting on someone else and it's failing, you're just a dick.
Yeah.
There's no cushion there.
But ultimately, you ended up, oh, The Tonight Show and all that stuff.
But the specials, you got two of them now?
I did a half hour for Comedy Central.
Yeah.
I did an hour that Amy Schumer produced
and I wouldn't have gotten it without her
so I'm grateful to her for sure.
And then, so I was opening for her a bit on the road
and then. Yeah.
Was that a good crowd?
That must have been good for you.
Unbelievable, oh, goodness.
It was insane.
It was, I mean, it was so cool
to get an experience like that.
Yeah, yeah.
How's she doing?
You talk to her?
Yeah, I play basketball with her husband a lot.
And then she's awesome.
Good.
Yeah, I love her.
And then, yeah, I did a new one.
I self-produced this one, and then I ended up, you know, the last one kind of hurt because
it didn't make a big dent on the road.
It's hard, dude.
Because, you know, I really fought to get it.
What's that one called?
It's called Positive Influence.
That was the first one?
Was it an hour?
Yeah, it was the first hour one.
And then it's called Positive Influence.
And it looks great.
I mean, it's really well produced and stuff.
But, you know, the way they put it on, they said it would be on Amazon and streaming.
And it just kind of wasn't.
It was, but there's an ad every three minutes.
So no one's going to actually sit through it.
So this was the second one?
Yeah.
Oh, this is the one you just did?
No, the third one is the one I just did.
Oh.
I guess I count the half hour, but it's not really a special, I guess.
What's that one called?
That was just a half hour special.
Oh, yeah, those are usually good.
Yeah, it was.
Comedy Central half hour?
Yeah, it was fun.
Yeah, and then you did, okay, then you did the-
Positive Influence with Amy, and then the new one I did, it's called I Got This.
And that was the one you self-produced?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because I just, I'm so glad I put it out now
with all this shit happening
because I just needed it out.
I needed it done.
And now people will fucking watch it.
I hope.
No, we'll get this up.
Give it a good push.
I think, you know, that's my best special.
I'm proud of that one.
What's it called?
It's called I Got This.
Okay.
And it's just on YouTube, no ads.
That was like really the only-
How do you make money with it?
You tell me.
Touring, which I won't be doing now.
But no, Comedy Central paid me for it for the ownership.
It wasn't a big.
Oh, so it's on Comedy Central's YouTube channel.
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
That was the plan and they.
You break even?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Oh good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I broke even before I even made the deal with them.
Okay. Because I charged the door
and I made an audio deal.
So I did, I already broke even there.
So yeah yeah they were
they were great because you know no one even gave me the time of day I I got a kind of a bite from
HBO and then they kind of pulled back yeah and then you know a lot of people won't even watch it
so uh I'm proud of it's almost two million hits already you know it's only been up a little over
a month so that's great uh I'm proud of it. Comics shared the shit out of it, which is like all you can hope for,
and it was like, it's a scary business sometimes, man.
You know, like, you never think, you're like,
fuck, I'm gonna have to do this myself.
I'm the least organized human being on the planet.
And I really just asked someone,
hey, would you ever shoot a special of mine?
And of course Liz at the Comedy Cellar,
who's the best person ever, was like,
yeah, let's do this at the Cellar,
let's, and you know.
That's great.
In the Village Underground.
Oh, you did it at the Underground?
Oh, so it's a nice club set.
Yeah, it looks cool.
I gotta watch it, sorry I didn't watch it.
Yeah, it's all right. Feel bad.
I should've done my homework.
I should've watched yours already,
I haven't watched your new one yet.
I've been depressed to watch standup, to be honest,
because I miss it so much.
Yeah, I don't, I'm pretty selective,
but I try to watch everybody,
I watched Taylor's before she came over.
Yeah, she's great.
Yeah, did you know her when she was putting that together?
Were you guys together yet?
I met her, I met her like September-ish.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, so I mean, I knew she was.
We'd message a couple times just like,
you know, I liked her comedy,
so I was just encouraging.
If I saw her do like a Fallon's,
I'd be like, oh, this was really good.
Oh yeah, wow.
So, and how are you guys holding up?
Are you all right?
I think we're good.
I think it's going well.
I really like hanging out with her.
This is a decider, dude.
I know.
And you can't go home because it's crazy there.
It might have saved your fucking life coming out here.
It definitely saved my relationship
because I was thinking about going back to New York.
That's what she said.
And I live in a studio.
It's like, how depressing would that have been?
You could have gotten sick easier.
Yeah.
It's all over the place.
I think she's happy I'm staying.
I'm happy I'm staying.
We're in that new couple phase now where we're watching so many movies.
We're doing a movie podcast now where movies that are important to me
versus that are important to her, so we're going back and forth.
It's pretty fun.
So this whole theme of the beginning relationship thing you can do, it's got all these different subcategories.
Kind of, yeah.
There's the movie one.
I think we're just trying to-
Then the food one.
I think we're just trying to make shit.
I think we're just like, let's not,
every time we don't do stuff, we get more depressed,
so let's just try to, you know,
I got like, I'm doing everything I can do to not,
I bought kettlebells, I bought a mat.
I'm like-
Where'd you get those?
I just ordered them on Amazon.
Before they got stockpiled?
I guess, yeah.
I was pretty good at the beginning.
I'm like, I need everything here if I'm gonna do stuff.
So I'm like, I'll exercise, I got an Xbox, I got this.
I'm like, let's just.
I've been running.
You've been running?
Yeah.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah, I mean, I usually hike, but they close the trails.
I can't, I get too bored.
I hate it, but I need to do the cardio.
Do you listen to music?
Yeah, yeah.
Like pump-up stuff?
I'm like, yesterday I listened to Nine Inch Nails.
That's good.
That's pretty pump-up.
Yeah.
But like I've got the TXC thing,
like one of those things on the door
that you can do that business.
Yeah.
I haven't really locked into it yet.
Yeah.
Yeah, I just, I don't know, man.
I miss basketball so much.
Yeah, I don't know.
Not just playing, but I just like,
I like playing it. It's exercise that's fun. I just miss it. I don't know, man. I miss basketball so much. Not just playing, but I just like, I like playing it.
So it's exercise that's fun.
I just miss it.
I'm starting to feel that.
Like there's a part of this thing that I'm familiar with,
like starting out as a comic, I did a lot of nothing.
So like, I'm not that freaked out
about just hanging out and thinking.
But now it's like, it's starting to kind of,
you know, fuck with my head.
I don't watch sports, but I imagine people who do sort of count on sports as part of their life.
This has got to be a fucking nightmare on some level.
I just miss basketball.
That's the one I'm pretty obsessed with.
I just love the game so much.
And now you can't play it and you can't do anything.
But, yeah, I think, you know, it really it's an important time to like I'll go to a negative place so easily.
So I have to fight it all day.
Yeah, I think there's I think we're all learning a lot about ourselves
during this time.
Well, it's good talking to you, Sam.
This was great, man, thanks for having me.
It was great, and I think we're gonna put you
and Taylor up on the same week.
Wow.
So wait, before you go though,
like your folks are both still around?
They're both in New York City, yeah.
Are they, they're okay?
They're doing, I think they're doing pretty well.
They're really, I mean, they're cautious New York Jews.
They're staying indoors.
Are they happy with your career choice?
I think it took a minute.
I think they were scared that I just was doing this
so I could get drunk for free a lot.
And then, you know, they saw me open for Jim Jefferies
in Times Square at this massive venue once.
And I think that was like the first night they were like,
oh my God, he's opening for this big comic.
Right.
You know what?
Also, they get really happy whenever I get a New York Times mention,
even if it's not positive.
It's big to them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Even if it's like Sam Morrell was like off his game tonight,
they're like, the Times.
I'm like, yeah, that was bad.
But anytime it's, yeah, I think now they're happy, I think.
Good.
All right, buddy.
Well, stay safe
it's good talking to you
I'll get out of your way
as you move out of my garage
I think
and then I'll spray everything
cool man
that was Sam Morrell
six feet apart
his Comedy Central
stand up special
I Got This
is available for free
on standup.com
slash Sam Morrell or you can get it as an album wherever you get your albums here I'll play some Comedy Central Stand-Up Special, I Got This, is available for free on standup.com slash samorell.
Or you can get it as an album wherever you get your albums.
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