WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 778 - Martha Kelly / Bruce Talk with Dan Pashman

Episode Date: January 18, 2017

Comedian Martha Kelly told Zach Galifianakis she cannot act. That didn't stop Zach from casting her as one of the leads on his show Baskets, but Martha's insecurity plagued her throughout life and, as she tells Marc, probably had something to do with her alcoholism, depression, eating disorder, and suicidal thoughts. Plus, Marc's buddy Dan Pashman stops by to talk about Bruce Springsteen. 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.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die.

We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required.

T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fuck, Knicks? What's happening?

Before I get too caught up, my guest today is Martha Kelly, comedian, and also a regular on the show, Baskets, with G nick and nick atopalus is that gallop and knack and noodle appetis zach galifianakis yes martha kelly will be here today i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf we've been going strong for how long now a lot of episodes when did we start this how far back was it was it 2009 wow that's a long time man it's been going i gotta be honest with you everything changes tomorrow for everybody in this country in a significant way and i will say this that uh my life changed dramatically and for the better during the obama administration it wasn't um because of obama but i feel like we

both had uh an incredible arc during those years i was privileged enough to speak to the president here in the garage. That was a definite high point. But tomorrow, the tone of culture officially changes. A few of you may be thrilled and excited. I imagine just as many are uh terrified and feeling uh hopeless and then i imagine uh there's a few people that are uh all right i i did what uh i thought i had to do i i hope you uh i hope this works out but uh the one thing i knew about obama was not lot, but, you know, that he was just there doing his job. I didn't he didn't have to bother me every day.

I didn't have to hear from him every day. He didn't have to, you know, check in with the world in a way that would make everybody wonder if everything's OK today. So that's going to be a little taxing. Personally, my brain over the last several years has gotten a little spoiled in that things were okay. I thought that the country was being managed okay, and I was feeling okay. But what I'm learning now is I have a natural disposition towards, you know, somehow I could keep my own personal anxiety and panic at bay because all evidence was indicating that things were okay. But boy, my brain just is like, you know, when there is something that I see is

terrifying or hopeless or unresolvable or depressing and it's real and it's big and it's right in front of me my brain is just sort of like ah well that looks like home now finally a reason to to be miserable and anxious and hopeless but this is a here's an upbeat thing quickly for those of you have been following last week's show when i told you about that letter i got from that kid i knew ted and i told you about how he punched me in the stomach after i sang a song for his girlfriend as a kid and he wrote back uh subject line sorry i punched you hey mark oh my god listen to yesterday's podcast. The song seriously blocked memory. What can I say?

I would like to make it up to you if possible. Let's talk sometime. Come visit New Mexico early to mid-April before your Boulder show. If you can, I'll buy you dinner and we can catch up on life. I know the power of the grudge. Best Ted. Yeah, the power of the grudge. Yeah, that might be a theme next few years so uh go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all my upcoming tour dates i will be in tallahassee on tuesday

night i will be doing some sort of uh uh i think it's part of a festival there. I've never been there. I'm excited. I think we've sold about 700 some odd tickets. But come, I think there's more seats for you. I believe it might be even a 1,200 seat situation. 700 is fine with me. That's January 24th.

That is Tuesday. Next week, Tallahassee at the ruby diamond concert hall got a surprise for you today uh dan pashman i've had him on the show a few times he has a podcast called the sporkful he was with me back in the day when i started broadcasting on radio uh we go back we have a a nice al dente dynamic but not really he's a he's a a softy and a bright guy and and i i've always enjoyed his laugh but i also like busting his balls but uh to tell you why he's here really he was in town doing some other stuff but he was he's the biggest Springsteen fan I know, alright? Like, he's

Jersey, full-on, all-in Springsteen guy. And I could have asked for counsel before I talked to the boss, but I did not. I could have reached out to Dan, but I didn't want to get into the mire of the Springsteen fan

head. But I did want to do some talk about it after. So I had Dan over when he was in town for a bit, and we talked about that among other stuff. So this is me and Pashman breaking down my Springsteen experience from his point of view, me and Pashman. Here we go. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything.

Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5pm startm. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction.

Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Here we go. I watched that four-hour-long Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers doc. Great. That sounds great. Two and a half hours too long. No, it's great.

I was crying at parts. Really? Yeah. Oh, just listening to the songs. Like, he's my Springsteen. Really? A little bit. I guess because he's the California guy.

No, no. I mean, I love Bruce. But like, in terms of listening to music, I think that their place in American culture on some level is a little similar. I don't think Tom Petty's really dark, you know, or that exploratory. But I think that as American songwriters and bands, the Heartbreakers and the E Street Band, they had common trajectories. I guess. But I think what you said is right.

I just felt like there's not a whole lot of emotional depth to his music. It sort of feels like he decided 40 years ago that he was going to play rock and roll. And I get that there's some nobility to just being like, I'm going to get really good at doing this one thing. I'm going to do it forever. And that's cool. He's made some great songs. You know, see, like, there's a slight condescension.

There's a couple of things you said quickly with a sort of chipper confidence that, you know, they didn't fall into the right slots in my brain. Like, if I'm not wrong, you're basically implying that Tom Petty's been doing the same thing for 40 years, and he's just got this thing he does, and it doesn't change much, and I'm glad that he found his thing. Do you disagree with that?

Yes. He does work within popular music he likes to write pop songs and he likes to write well-constructed songs but his band the heartbreakers is one of the best bands that's ever played rock and roll really um you know i was just watching the new version uh the new blu-ray of the last waltz last night with the band right how do you feel about the band i like the band okay well you know waltz last night with the band. Right. How do you feel about the band? I like the band. Okay.

But I also think that if the band had been around for 40 years, I think that they would have run out of creative steam. I think part of the reason why the band holds up for so long is because they stopped. But also because of the space they were able to create between the instruments and the sort of time they gave the music and also whatever their muses were sourcing in terms of american music and folk tradition uh they were they were just a great band and they they weren't you know overworking it there was an ease to it

all but um but when i view you know petty through that i think a lot of his songs are about yearning i think there is darkness in his songs i think that a lot of them are are about yearning. I think there is darkness in his songs. I think that a lot of them are about love, and a lot of them are about not really knowing. I understand that there was a few albums there you might not have liked, but very comforting and provocative music to me, Mr. Petty. And I'm always happy that he's around. That's that. What, are you trying to get him on the show now?

No, I'm not. I'm not using you. Why would I? You think, like, great dance not. This is I'm not using you. Why would I think like great dance here? Finally, I can do a subtle plea to get Tom Petty on. But I, you know, I almost called you as I was heading to New Jersey because. Look, do not misunderstand me. I love Bruce Springsteen. I know I listened to his records over and over, but I was I'm not a fanatic Bruce Springsteen. I know. I listened to his records over and over, but I'm not a fanatic Bruce Springsteen guy.

And I had to go through a sort of complete re-evaluation of his stuff and re-listen to a lot of it before I talked to him. It's really better that I wasn't like you. And I didn't say that with any stink to it going into the interview. Well, I feel the same way in the other direction, Mark. Yeah. No, but I mean, could you imagine yourself with, you know, what if Bruce came on the Sporkful?

I mean, you wouldn't be able to talk. Yeah, I would need a few minutes to collect myself. But my point being, and I'm not insecure about it, but I was going to call you and then I realized, like, why am I going to call Bruce Springsteen fanatic before I go talk to him? I know how I want to talk to him. I had an hour. You listened to it. Yeah.

And? I thought you did a great job. Good. I thought your interview was excellent. I thought you guys really connected. That's important. Absolutely. That's a huge part of what your show's about.

And I thought it felt like, even though some of the topics that you talked about, he's talked about in other interviews, there was a different tone to it because of the style of interview that you do that felt more like a conversation, less like a one-way street of I ask a question and then you provide an answer. Yeah. So that gave it sort of a different air to it. Right. There was about 25 minutes in where it just clicked into something else.

Yeah. It became a personal thing. I could feel it. What I liked most about it, I mean, I felt, look, I'm sure that you have, you know, when clicked into something else yeah it became a personal thing like i could feel it what i liked most about it i mean i felt look i'm sure that you have you know when the story of wtf is written like you'll have other shows the obama show whatever that will have gotten more listens and people i'm sure people have many different opinions about their personal favorite wtf yeah guest ever sure who that is but I think that this was the quintessential WTF episode.

Really? Yes. Because at its core, as I hear, what this show is about is exploring a person's background and journey and then connecting that to their art. The central question of this show is like, what happened to you? What did you experience in your life personally and professionally that led you not only to be the person that you are, but to create the art that you create? Okay. And to make, and to draw connections between personal experience and artistic expression. And my experience.

Right. Right. Please see me while i but i mean because you you're like part of what brings that out is your connection with your guests yeah and you're often you are often talking especially in your open monologue opening monologues about your own uh issues and making that same connection but it was funny with bruce because i was like you know i gotta i gotta like my outside of listening to all the music knowing that i wasn't really going to talk about it and thank god i read enough of the book to sort of get a sense of him personally

because i don't always realize going into these things that you know how much he's talked publicly or how much his fans know but there is a definite sort of group of springsteen fans that are like i've listened to everything i've seen everything've read everything. Like he's got those people. And I knew that. And I always know that going into a big artist, but like, I really needed to see if I could, you know, talk to him as a person. And it took a little while. It took like 20 minutes for me. Like I knew when I started talking to him, I didn't waste any time, you know, getting into the meat of things. Right. And I don't know that he was expecting it but i felt right away because i'm genetically new jersey and i

brought that up yeah but just right away for some reason when i said there's a lot going on in the house because it grist me because correct i was like i'm in in a way yeah like that's not like that correct yeah it was hilarious to me what was it about his demeanor that switched at a certain point that sent you the signal like we've crossed over from like interview conversation? Well, there was a couple of moments when I related to him as a performer, that was one thing. And then that moment where I'm like, I basically say like, yeah, it's like off, it's like, you know, offstage in my emotional life, you know, I have a hard time trusting anyone. He goes, of course you do. Right. That moment I was like, okay, we're talking like a couple of guys now. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, he was just so damn eloquent. Yeah. And thoughtful. Yeah. And the reason why he's the quintessential WTF guest, in my mind,

is that he drew connections between personal struggle and artistic expression more explicitly than any other guest. I thought when he talked about, you know, these things happen to you growing up, and it burns and burns, but if you can take that fire and point it in the right direction, it becomes a powerful weapon. Yeah.

He said that? Yeah. That's pretty good. Right. I got to listen to this thing. And the other part that he said was, you know, I'm paraphrasing, but something to the effect of you don't become a rock and roll star if you had a nice placid upbringing.

Right. You know, you need chaos and tumult yeah that single sentiment is the underlying assumption of this entire show and of your right your whole approach to your own creative evolution yeah and in art in general i mean i i don't want to say that's always the case because you know people get upset you know like i feel okay and i'm trying to draw you know i don't but you know i don't want to alienate those people but i yeah i'm sure that didn't come across as condescending to them at all go on no but i mean like i think that's true i i think there's something about you know the the kind of like lifelong broken heart or the sort of fragmentation of your emotional being from an age before you had any control over that, that does lead to finding relief and expression.

I mean, I don't know if I've ever thought about it that way, and it's obviously more complicated, but I appreciate the validation from a true bruce springsteen fan no you did a great job how many times have you seen him live uh i i haven't i'm not the kind i'm not so hardcore that i have an exact count like 100 no no no i would say like 20 yeah 20 times first time ever was on the born in the usa tour in Giant Stadium in New Jersey when I was eight years old. No kidding. Your dad took you? My parents took me.

All four of us went. My brother was five. We didn't stay until the end, which I was very upset about. You didn't want to get past the traffic. Yeah. Let's go. We can get out. But the last time I was here with you, I was a little bit, I guess a little down on Bruce because I had seen him and it wasn't a great concert experience.

And I sort of talked about how I felt like maybe he, he was creatively spinning his wheels and you defended him very well. And then subsequent to that conversation we had, I saw him again in Brooklyn and it was a fantastic show. And I was like riding the high of that show for days. You know, a job is a job sometimes. Well, I don't even know to what degree it was his fault that the first earlier show wasn't as good. It was shorter and the set list just didn't happen to connect with me quite as well.

But it was also partly like I didn't have great seats. The people around me weren't that into it. And it happened to be a night that like I was very distracted with work. The friend I was with had just had a death in her family, and she wasn't exactly ready to party. And you were going to lay that on Bruce. You walk out of that situation without doing the math and working the angles. Wow, Bruce didn't pull me out of this shit situation I'm in.

I know. It must be his fault. He must have lost a step. Yeah. We expect a lot out of these people. Yeah. But there's one thing that you said in the setup to your interview with bruce that i want to double back on because you said something when

you were describing kind of coming into the studio before bruce came yeah and then you glossed right over it and this to me i was this was like a record scratch moment for me oh oh you want me you need some gaps filled in did you you say that Bruce had cronuts? Yeah, there were some cronuts. But they were... Wait, go back. Let me, I'll give you... Well, here was the situation.

So we get there and there's, you know, the guy who let us in, the publicist was there waiting and she was nice. And, you know, the guy who let us in, the publicist was there waiting and she was nice. And, you know, it's on his property. And a carpenter let us in and helped us plug in and set up. And we were just there in the studio for a while. And she said, well, you know, you're free to make a coffee. There was a kitchen in the studio building, you know, with a coffee maker.

And there were Cronuts there. And when she brought up the Cronuts, I was like, I never had one. But to be honest with you, they were in a box. They were individually wrapped. So it looked like the kind of thing you get as a gift. Do you know what I mean?

Like in plastic bags? Right, right. Like mass produced? Perhaps. what i mean like in plastic bags right like mass produced perhaps uh they may be from a a a valid cronut maker but it was definitely a gift box type of thing i said was there like a brand name or a bakery or anything written on the box probably what do you want from me i had other things on my mind i i i had interviewed bruce springsteen in 10 minutes. I wasn't going to be like, I'm going to make note that I didn't love this cronut. And if this is the best they can be, I'm not on board.

I'm just very curious to know what kind of cronuts Bruce has in his studio. I don't think that Bruce put them there personally. And my belief is that they got them up at the house as a gift, a Christmas gift box. Right, right. And they- And he said, get these out of here. They're going to make me fat. Probably.

Right. Like he seems to be a little weight conscious. Yeah. They were like, what should I do with him? It's like, well, we've got people coming. There's a guy. Let's just put him down there. Maybe they'll eat him.

Right. There's a place here that can't keep the cronuts in stock. Like there's a new bakery open down the street, very expensive. And they're known for the cronuts in stock. Like there's a new bakery open down the street, very expensive, and they're known for the cronuts, I believe. But I've never had one because they're never there. Right. Now, I imagine you've probably done

one or two shows on the cronut. I did interview... It was a month-long series. On the Sporkful, folks. Look up cronut one, two, and three. Yeah. What did you do? We're going cronut one, two, and three. Yeah. What? What did you do?

We're going to submit it for a Peabody. Good. You'll probably get it. I can't get one. I talked to the fucking president. But your cronut one will probably burst through. Right, right. I did interview Dominique Ancel, who's the sort of famous fancy baker who invented the cronut.

So technically speaking, he is the only quote unquoteunquote real cronut is at his bakery. Yeah, where is that? In Manhattan. He's very precious about it. I had an interview scheduled with him, and he still wouldn't let me have a cronut. Like the bakery could just put one aside for me in the morning and I could pick it up.

You went to the bakery to interview him? It was a location interview? I interviewed him at a live show, but I said before I interview him, I'd like to eat a cronut so I can talk about the experience. You do live shows in front of people? Yeah. How do they go? They go really well.

Where do you do them? Some at the WNYC Performance Space called the Green Space. I did one at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Yeah? Going to do some new ones. Sell that out? Yeah. Good for you.

Yeah, the Bell House. We had John Hodgman came to the Bell House. That helped because i'm sure more people come to see him than me but yeah the lot i mean like i would love to do more live shows uh i it's like i can't you know it gives me like the tiniest taste i mean i can't imagine like what it must be like for you to like because i'm sure you're so much better at it and i know that you are and like going on the road. I'm glad you added that. Dedicating half my life to doing live performance. I'm glad you conceded that.

That maybe I might be a little more adept at it than you. You are. But it has given me a tiny insight into or like a different appreciation for what you do. Yeah. Because I do find that when I'm up on stage, I'm interviewing someone. I'm so highly attuned to the vibe I'm getting from the crowd, which I think is mostly probably a strength because I- But do you feel like you want to get laughs or you just feel the crowd?

I do feel, I do always perceive that the audience is getting impatient. Right. That's it. Yeah. Often before that's it. Often before they really are. How do you know it all? Maybe I don't. Maybe I'm wrong half the time.

I mean, they're there to see a guy talk about food with people. I mean, what do you think? Like, God, get to the payoff. Just like if we end up on a certain topic for too long or an answer goes on for too long. So you're actually getting like, I'm actually getting tired of this. Right, right, right. They must be. And sometimes after the fact, I'll talk to people and they'll be like, oh, that part was so interesting.

And I'm like, my first question for people when I finish is like, did that go on too long? But I think it probably makes for better live shows because I always leave them wanting more. Sure. No, no, I think that's true. And we don't know what people are thinking a lot of times they're just listening and they're having experience and they're you're not expected to be doing a rock show or a comedy show and they know that the fans of the sporkful are there because they know the show and they you know they're there to listen right yeah right anyway on stage i interviewed the creator of the crona and he

would not give me a cronut ahead of time to eat to prepare for the interview. He told me I had to go wait in line with all the tourists at 6 o'clock in the morning. Really? Yes. Now, see that? And he told you that in front of people? No, his people told me that ahead of time. Really?

And you didn't bring that up? I did. Yeah. I didn't do it in an especially aggressive or accusatory way, but what I did is I had a friend of mine who's a pastry chef take the modified cronut recipe in his cookbook and make them, and then I presented those to him on stage. Oh, good. You like that? Yeah. And was like, okay, I can't get a cronut from you.

I guess this is what I'm going to experience. This is my cronut experience. Yeah, and what did he say? He ate it, and he said, that's a little doughy, but it's pretty good. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Fuck that guy.

You know what? It's like, I'm not going to give that guy a cronut. I'm going to do his radio show and talk about my cronuts, but basically he was saying like, I don't need him. Right.

He was very nice to me personally. Give me the lowdown on the cronut because I find that I barely give a shit. Yeah, honestly, it's a block from my office if i cared that much i could go to but it's what it's a croissant pressed into a donut it's a it's a hybrid croissant donut you take a you take croissant dough which is like lighter and so it's all flaky and buttery right but it's it's layered it's rolled very thin and folded many times. You get many, many very thin, delicate layers. Yeah, I get it. And then they add a cream filling inside.

But to me, oh, there's a cream filling involved? And a frosting on top. Yeah, maybe that's why I didn't like the ones I had over there. Because for me, a lot of times the really thin, flaky business, that texture to me, it just means like, well, there's a lot of air here where shit could have been. To me, it just means like, well, there's a lot of air here where shit could have been. There's a lot of space that could have been filled with some doughy good stuff. Well, you know what you can do in that case?

Just take your hand and flatten it. Yeah, that might be better. But I sort of like, I have that like with phyllo dough stuff. I'm like, yeah, it's an interesting texture, but it could be a little more, you know, it's not as satisfying as I might want it to be. Have you considered putting another cronut inside the holes of this cronut yeah there you go you're you're it would be a a croducken like a you and your fucking ideas of cramming other shit into other shit but i'm just saying like a lot of times simple food is is the best yeah well like uh you know like tom petty nice and simple, you brought it all around. Are you closing this?

Are you wrapping? Is that a wrap? Yeah, it's fun. It's nice to see you. It was fun. Are you going to go eat? Yeah, I think I am going to go eat. Really?

I was thinking of getting some sushi, maybe. Oh, really? Yeah. All right, well, we'll talk about it. See you later. Later, buddy. Really? Yeah.

Huh. All right. Well, we'll talk about it. Yeah. See you later. Later, buddy. Always nice to see Mr.

Pashman. We go back at this point. It's funny. Yeah. As like, you know, I have a couple of go backs, like,

you know, back in the day with Dan. And then there's another, there's back, back in the day. I've got like three back in the days. Now there's back in the day, back,

back in the day, back, back, back in the day. Got to start gotta start uh making sure i make that clear uh you know look if politics has you down folks you can listen to dan's latest episode of the sporkful which is about an election but it's a workplace election to pick a new office coffee i guarantee it will make you a lot less angry than the last election. So that's Dan. Go check out the sporkful. Before I talk to Martha Kelly, I would like to say that I met Martha a while back. Martha is on baskets with Zach Galifianoodles, which is coming back tonight.

But it was, you know, it's there so many people on this show that I really didn't know at all. And I have assumptions about her. I think I know things I don't. Martha was one of those. And it was lovely to talk to her. As I said before, she's tonight. You can see her on baskets. She's a regular on that show with zach gallif and nicolopoulos um it's on fx tonight at 10 p.m and it's a new episodes

every thursday night this is me and martha kelly Your demeanor is partially unconscious. Yeah, it's just my, how I talk. Yeah, but what's going on inside? What's going on inside, Martha? I mean, like I know. One thing is antidepressants are going on inside. How long has that been going on for? For a few years.

For a few years. I mean, I took them a couple times for a short-term period in my early 20s. And then I didn't want to. And then I started drinking a lot. Booze? Yeah. And you're not supposed to drink on them. And I chose booze.

Yeah. Which I still think was the right choice at the time. So you said this medicine that they're prescribing me that I can't feel tangibly, not working. Not worth giving up the love of my life beer at the time. Beer. Yeah. So you're beer drunk? Yeah, just because with beer,

you can kind of gauge where you are drunk wise and i hated the spins and throwing up so i would you know for for a good amount of time i could you know stop before that happened just get drunk enough to not yeah and with beer you can kind of make a day of it yes and you can make a meal of it because that's what I do at the end is not eat dinner and just drink beer to save money and calories. Right. Because it has a lot of calories. Sure. It sounds like you had a really good plan going.

I really, for a while, it seemed like a great plan. Yeah, but then when I quit drinking, it was a few years before I was willing to consider antidepressants again. I just didn't want to need something to make me feel normal. But after a few really severe periods of wanting to kill myself and feeling like I just barely hung on. It's like this isn't really living. Right. Well, it seems like we've now got a good outline for the conversation. I'm sure. Or a good indicator that people are going to turn off their computer before.

No, that is not true. But the funny thing is that I remember meeting you decades ago. I can't even remember where we first met, but I mean, I feel like... So you grew up in Torrance, which is outside of Los Angeles, correct? Is that that one? Yeah, it's about 22 miles south of LA. I know that Marky Mark's character in Boogie Nights is from Torrance. It's not my favorite city.

I'll put it that way. Do you have brothers and sisters? I have a twin sister and an older brother. Twin sister? Yeah. Fraternal, not identical. Oh, so you don't look exactly like each other, but you know each other pretty well. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, we shared a room until we were 20 when we both went off to different universities. And what was your dad doing and your family doing in Torrance? My dad was an elementary school principal and my mom was an elementary school teacher. The same school? No, different schools. Oh, they don't let that happen, I guess. Maybe they do. So you grew up with elementary school educators as parents. Yeah. And a twin sister. Now,

because when did you start doing comedy? How old were you? I was right before my 30th birthday. So you waited a while. I tried an open mic at the laugh factory about once a year starting when i was 25 but i the very first time i did it it went well and i went back the next week thinking i have to do all new material and i did and it was terrible and then it took me a year to recover and i did that once a year bombing once bombing once or twice a year, and then it'd take a long time to go back. So, all right, so between the ages, so you go to junior college, and what's the plan?

Were you feeling depression? Were you getting shit-faced then? I wasn't drinking a lot. I was smoking pot whenever I could. Yeah. And I was an English major. I still haven't graduated. I need like eight units to get my bachelor's degree.

Is that something you're thinking about doing? Yeah, just because I went in 2013, I went back to my school for one quarter and that was when I wasn't on antidepressants and so it took a bad turn. But before it took a bad turn, it was so fun to be back in school. I loved it.

So this was three years ago? Yeah. After a, you know, what, 15, 20-year hiatus? Yeah, it was over 20 years since I had left. It's just more fun to go to school when you're an old lady because you don't have any of the pressure to figure out what you're going to do with your life. You already know that.

Most of it's done already. Yeah, your life is, a lot of it is behind you. And you also know that there isn't one. I think I felt in my 20s, I think some people feel this way, where like there's one right door for you to pick for your career and for what you do with your life and you have to pick it soon.

And if you make the wrong choice, you'll ruin your whole life. And that's not actually what happens. It's not true though, right? No. Not at all. Not for me. I didn't know there were, all I saw was a lot of doors, a lot of hallways. Like I couldn't get out of the hallway.

Right. It was very exhausting door the potential door possibilities right so you were studying english in junior college was that in torrance yeah el camino college nice i loved it i hated high school but i loved junior college because there was none of the social the forced social um right because it's a commuter campus right yeah yeah it's just people that want to learn whatever and really good teachers yeah yeah because at the junior college level they don't have to do research to keep their job so it's just people who love teaching and they're really good at it really yeah it was really fun did you ever think about teaching

at it really yeah it was really fun did you ever think about teaching um i'm too self-conscious and not and don't have enough alpha to lead a class of young people i taught defensive driving like three times when i lived in austin and was really bad at it and um that yeah defensive driving yeah comedy they call it comedy oh that's right when you got uh when you got uh a ticket yeah the improv used to do that yeah right and on paper for for especially for an alcoholic comedian it sounds like a good deal because you just you think i'll just work a couple days a week yeah make enough money to just pay my rent and get by, and then do comedy the rest of the time. But I was so bad at it.

Were you hungover? Hungover, late, really shy and uncomfortable. And people were just like, get me, fuck, get me out of here. But I always wondered about that because I knew that comics did this. But for some reason, I'm picturing you in the actual car doing it. But that's not what it was. You had like there was a course layout. Yeah.

And the idea was like, it's not going to be able to be a little more painless. Yeah. With funny people teaching. Yeah. That's what that's what they say. And then you also get free pizza. That was a big for me in my 30s, free pizza was a huge selling point for anything. So you get a little bit of money and free pizza.

Yeah. As a comic to teach defensive driving. Was it for the improv? No, it was for Cap City in Austin. Yeah, I know that club. Yeah. Warehouse size club. But before we get there, I want to know what happened.

What was the disaster in junior college? How did you not finish? Where did you go? Well, it wasn't that I didn't finish junior college. I took two years and then transferred to a four-year school to UC Davis. Oh, I've been there. That's sort of in the middle of this it's up there yeah it's like half an hour outside of sacramento but like the whole town

is the college right right yeah um and uh when i went it was one of the easier uc schools to get into that's why i picked it partly because it was far away from home and partly because it was it was way harder to get into like Berkeley or UCLA. Right. But now Davis is much harder to get into, but they have a really cool thing where if you went there when you were young and you left on good terms, you can go back anytime under the same requirements as when you left. under the same requirements as when you left. So my graduation requirements are much easier than what people who are getting a bachelor's in English at Davis have to do now. Right.

But I can still go back and just finish under the old requirements. No matter what. And just automatically get back in because I left without having killed anyone or having any trouble. Except I had bad grades. I get, I got kicked out twice for bad grades and went back to summer school and then got back in. And it's, I was very depressed and I wouldn't, um, didn't know it, didn't know that's what was wrong. What was the feeling? You just couldn't engage? You want to get out of bed you didn't yeah not yeah not not uh

friends no friends i had friends uh in the dorms the first year i went to davis and and i just that's i drank a good amount a great and it was a great time uh the drinking and smoking pot but um i just had like depression and then some um issues with social like friendships were sort of approaching the area of people with borderline personality disorder where it was hard for me to there'd be a honeymoon period with people and then i would just be if someone hurt my feelings or disappointed me, I'd be like, I never should have been friends with them in the first place. Just kind of real extreme back and forth with people.

Do you think you had borderline? I think that I had. Because that can go away, I hear. Like if you, like, it's one of those things that's very hard to treat, but it can adjust its way sort of into a uh manageable zone i've i definitely feel like i had um tendencies towards that yeah i don't think i was all the way into having a full-on personality disorder because um i probably wouldn't have been able to stick with my therapist so long if i if I had been too far into it.

Right, right. Because you would have been like manipulating them or onto them or fighting them. Or just ending the relationship if something happened that hurt my feelings, you know. But like when I first started, I've been seeing the same person off and on since I was like 23. Still? Yes. Yeah. off and on um since i was like 23 still yes yeah when i when i've moved away i haven't um seen her like when i lived in texas because she's here yeah um and coincidentally that's when

i my drinking went from weekends to every day so i wasn't in therapy when i was in texas yeah and drinking alcoholically so you knew like so you were having trouble in school, you got kicked out, and you knew, you didn't know at that time that you had borderline tendencies. You just thought you were. It's like such a hard, I guess it's not that, like, nebulous. I mean, there are definitely characteristics of it, but I would think, because I know I had similar things,

but, like like i had attachment issues though like i'd get very attached to people like one friend yeah and then if they would you know i get very upset if uh they didn't want to hang out or they that kind of stuff but i am i'm had some of that too but um partly doing comedy helped because when you start doing stand-up, if you're not, you can even be kind of an asshole. If you're not a total asshole, you just very quickly have a bunch of friends that are really fun to hang out with. Yeah, because they're all gypsies and rogues and mentally fucked up. Yeah, and a lot of people who enjoy drinking, which I did. So it was fun and easy to all of a sudden have a lot of people who enjoy drinking which i did so it was fun and easy to

all of a sudden have a lot of friends you know but why why did you do like because i i all right so so this so the davis situation so then you go back home after you get kicked out of school right torrence and you just flounder around for a few years for well i went back and moved in with my parents and um do you get along with them um at that time i wasn't very close to them yeah and um but they kind of they definitely helped save my life because i had a i don't know what it would be called but in a period of depression, I was working in a medical office as an operator and just taking phone calls from people who weren't getting the benefits they needed, who were super sick and having to transfer them to someone who I knew was going to tell them pretty much tough luck. And it was a little windowless room. And just that with my already existing depression one day, I just started crying. Nothing had happened. I just started

crying and I went home and I never went back. I didn't call him or anything. I just went home and I cried that whole night until I fell asleep. And then the whole next day, and I didn't know why. And I didn't know what was happening. No no trigger i don't remember anything unusual happening and then my parents were very scared i was living with them and my mom asked i just remember going out to the kitchen and get a glass of water or something and my mom's saying what's wrong because i I was crying. And I said, I don't know. And then the next day they were like, you have to go see a therapist immediately. My mom's older sister had committed suicide when she was, um,

an adult. And I think that she was scared. And so that's when I met my therapist. It was like their insistence that I go. And I met this great woman who's changed my life. You know, you have to work at it too. It's both together working, but she's like a great person. I'm really lucky that I met her. So mostly like after college,

you were just sort of home trying to get your shit together yeah and then when i started going to therapy there was a period where i became very angry at my parents and it was very visible and they were like well you should probably get your own place um and then it was just a few years of working like waitressing, pizza delivery, office jobs. In L.A. or in Torrance? In L.A. Yeah. Yeah.

My twin had moved up to L.A. and so I moved near her. Was she in show business? No. Did she like you moving near her? Yeah, we were pretty, we fought a lot, but we were also very attached. Yeah. You know, so I lived a few blocks from where she lived. And then in that neighborhood was this place called Pedersen's, which was a coffee shop.

And they had Vance Sanders had a, every Tuesday night had a comedy open mic. And that's where I started going right before I turned 30. And I met Zach and Tig and Maria Bamford, Jackie Cation, like a bunch of people that. Before you went to Austin? Yes. Yeah. That was two years before I went to Austin is when I started that. What year?

So that's like. 98 was when I started going to stand up. So it seems like Zach would have just gotten out here-ish. Right? Yeah. And Tig, I don't really know her history. Who was the other one? Oh, Bamford.

Bamford. She must not have been out. Well, maybe she was out here for a while. But that was just post-alt comedy kind of. That was the beginning of it. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

And that's really the first time after you'd gone up once or twice a year at the Laugh Factory that you came upon this place. Yeah, because my sister worked there. And so I would visit her sometimes at work and I noticed like they're having comedy on Tuesday nights. So I started going just to watch. And was very excited by how many funny people were there and intimidated too yeah but like they just were um different they weren't in comedy clubs sometimes it seemed like at least at the laugh factor it seemed like the audience responds much more to your confidence than your material. I mean, they want good material too, but you have to... Right, there's not a lot of...

They don't indulge you that much. You better deliver something. Yeah, and when the whole audience is mostly comedians, they want material that's different from anything they've heard before, more than attitude. Right. And that's a great place to start because it makes you work hard on writing stuff that's unique to you so you started doing it yeah

and i started drinking before i went that was the other key i didn't do that at laugh factory but i figured out at petterson's i'll drink before i go up. And then my stage fright was mostly gone. It worked. Yeah. And you're highly structured with your jokes. You don't riff a lot. Yeah, sometimes I will think maybe I could. And then every time, like, nope, don't riff. Not riff not good at it i'm really really bad at it

it's painful but i remember like so this is 98 and you started doing it uh you know at least weekly getting getting a little buzz on and doing your jokes you know in front of a room full of of uh you know a new generation of comics that thought differently about comics. Right. You had a little peer group there. Yeah. But I remember you did, see, I had this idea, I don't know why.

Did you do Letterman? No. You did Conan. I did Conan. At NBC, though, right? Yes. Right. And then, yeah.

The year before the year that letterman announced he was retiring yeah um the comedy booker emailed me asking if i would want to submit a set and i was at a really bad place that was 2013 and or 14 but i was like 50 pounds overweight out of control eating disorder really just barely holding on to sobriety really depressed it was like letterman was the biggest deal to me i would have that would have been i he's my one of my idols but like i can't even attempt to go on TV when I feel like Jabba the Hutt. So it was like I waited a year before I even tried to get a set and then he had announced he was retiring

and there was- And that was hard to get a set. No, I'm not saying I would have even if he hadn't been but just that I, but I, yeah, it just, but I love him. I love him.

I did too, yeah. He's not dead, he's just out. But no, for some reason I had it in my head that the mythology of Martha Kelly was that you'd done comedy, you did Conan, and then for some reason I decided that you disappeared entirely. entirely well I kind of did when I quit drinking for a couple years I didn't do stand-up at all oh that must be it so let's go

so when do you decide and why do you decide to move to Austin from here well it's a little embarrassing of a rationale but a lot of it was drinking i just didn't know it but um after doing stand-up for almost two years here at petterson here in my kind of entitled opinion i wasn't progressing as much as i thought i should be here and i couldn't get any auditions for like Aspen or Montreal. You didn't have any representation. No. And I just now like knowing at two years of doing standup, that's really very, very short amount of time to be doing standup.

But I just felt like, hey, this is good. I've been doing this for a while now. I should get to go to festivals or get stuff. And you couldn't get showcases here without a manager. Right. But in other cities, Aspen was holding these open call auditions. Yeah. I was like, oh, I'll just get in the back door.

I'll go fly to one of those cities. And Austin was having one and my friend laura house sure i know her she lived used to live there and so i asked her what she thought she was like yeah and i she was she was going to be there that same week for the austin film festival yeah and then she had a couple friends that she was going to stay with. And she asked them if I could stay with them. And we all, it was two guys, Ray Pruitt and Colby Turner, who I still love to death. But we stayed with them. Like, they let me stay with them.

I was a complete stranger. Yeah. And they were really welcoming. Comics? No. Ray was like, did some sketch and improv stuff and acting but he wasn't a stand-up and colby worked in computers yeah but they had gone to college together and um we just drank and had a great time and the audition was the process was fun i didn't make it to aspen but

i had a lot of fun and was really excited by the austin community the comedians that i met and everyone drank for real like to me what felt like out here and i still think this might be true when performers go to parties yeah in la and drank they still try to keep a uh professional like no one's just like fuck it let's get wasted because you don't know if someone you might want to work with is at the party right um but in texas people are it's about having as good of a time as you can not gonna run any into anybody that you might want to work with in Texas necessarily. Yeah, there's no industry there and there's plenty of booze. Plenty of booze. So this is like 2001? This was the end of 99.

So I started doing stand-up at Pedersen's in January of 98 and then October the end of almost two years later October of 99 I went to Austin I loved it I also had a crush on Colby I was like a lot of alcoholics were like hey I should just move to this place because I had a good weekend there and I did and uh how'd it go um for overall i'm really glad i did it because um some really fun things happened with comedy there and i think that i my drinking accelerated at such a rapid pace that i ended up getting sober earlier than i might have if i had been able to control it longer. Did I run into you in Austin ever? I know we had met before, but I saw you once when you did this show, this podcast live during South by Southwest

a few years ago. Didn't you do it? Yeah. Yeah, you were on the podcast. Yeah, with Lucas. Yeah, I always knew you were sort of around, but were you living in Austin when we did that podcast? No. Yes. So I moved there in the sort of around, but were you living in Austin when we did that podcast? No.

Yes. So I moved there in the beginning of 2000. Yeah. Moved back here at the very end of 2003. Why? Because my life was going down the toilet because of my drinking. Like I was months behind in rent.

I was hardly doing standup. What were you drinking? What was your drink? Just beer? Miller Lite. Really? Yeah. So that was so,

if you're like a serious beer drunk, your apartment probably was pretty ugly. Yeah. A lot of bottles. I had four cats and a dog. Yeah. And just, I was just living not functioning really.

Like a case a day? No, because I have a low tolerance for alcohol so I could get very drunk on six beers. Six pack a day. Yeah, and then towards the end, like between six and eight. Unless you're drinking natural light beer, in which case you can drink it all night and not get too drunk. But mostly Miller Lite.

And then my parents, I kept borrowing money from them. I got fired. I lost weeks at comedy clubs on the road because they had heard that I was shitty because I would get drunk before I performed and um I mean that's not the only reason I also would bomb a lot of times on the road even if I wasn't drunk yeah um we have a very specific thing you know your energy is what it is it's not going to shift right not even if there's an emergency it's still pretty much the same did you were you working what were you working as a feature yeah and that started to crumble yeah and so my parents finally uncharacteristically said we will if you move back to california we and and if you agree to go to counseling with us because of your money problems

they didn't know I had a drinking problem and I didn't wasn't aware of my drink you're in your 30s yeah I was um 35 so this is not it's embarrassing yeah yeah um but also just being in denial like I drink um you know several light beers night. I don't drink during the day. I've never had a DUI. All the reasons alcoholics. Yeah. Well, you'll find whatever evidence you need. Sure. You know, so they said they'd give me three months. They'd help me move into a place of my own out here and pay for three months of rent and groceries if I would go to counseling with them. And you weren't feeling depressed.

I was, but I just thought it was because life was really unfair. I didn't connect it. I thought I should drink less, but I thought I'm not an alcoholic, so my options are really I have to be the one to control it. Yeah. And then moving out here thinking, well, I'll go back to drinking like I did in 99 when I left. Which was what, three beers? Yeah, I mean, I would go out and I would drink two to three beers as fast as I could and not eat dinner. Yeah. drink two to three beers as fast as I could and not eat dinner yeah have a great buzz and then within a couple hours it wears off enough to kind of safely drive home yeah and that's mostly what

I was doing yeah you're a good planner yeah I'm very afraid to let go and you don't control and you don't have alcoholism in your family yeah i do yeah okay and um you grew up with it yes and um so you're here three months and within two and a half months of being back i was my drink my drinking accelerated again so quickly and was so much worse even than when i left austin that that's when december 20th of 2003 is when I was like I can't drink anymore I still didn't know if I was an alcoholic I thought I probably wasn't an alcoholic but I just it hit me like for years I either don't drink at all or I get drunk every night I've not been able to be moderate.

But you grew up with it. Right. You knew what it looked like. Yeah, and my twin sister had been in rehab. But my idea of people with a problem was people whose behavior, while under the influence, hurt other people. And when I drank,

I wasn't that different from how I am right now. As I said earlier, I had some relationship problems that were similar to people with borderline. And so I did hurt people, but it wasn't while drunk. It was just in life. Sure. Well, who was alcoholic in your house uh my dad yeah so your your model for it was like if i'm not being emotionally abusive right or if i'm not having blackouts and yelling at people right if i don't have a dui if no one in my life is telling me you need to slow slow down. It's not a problem. But if you have similar personality to borderline, then you don't have anyone close enough to tell you your drinking bothers them.

So that was sort of a facilitator. Sure. You know, and all the friends I had that I wasn't super close to, they all drank too. Right. You know. And when you're drinking with other people drinking, no one thinks they're an alcoholic until one falls off. Right. And you're like, man, I didn't think it was that bad.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people told me, oh, you didn't drink that much. Yeah. I was like, I'm just a low functioning alcoholic. And with the depression.

Yeah. It made it even harder to function but the good thing is the depression probably helped me get sober sooner so so once you got back here and your folks are helping you out and they're drinking escalates and you just hit that wall then that's when you got sober yes and you stayed sober uh yeah, I've been, I just, celebrate is a strong term, but I just marked 13 years of sobriety in December. Congratulations. Thanks.

Yeah. It's the only, it's my only alternative if I want to have any kind of life. So I'm really happy, even though I don't sound happy, I am happy to be sober. It was hard in the beginning. I didn't like it at all. Yeah, I have 17 years. And yeah, the first five years are, you know, it's crazy. Yeah.

And you don't know what to do with yourself. Yeah, it's so uncomfortable to be around people. Even people in the secret meetings. In the secret meetings. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's the worst at the beginning. I used to yell and scream, and I'm very dramatic, and I just made my life complete chaos.

Yeah. You don't seem like the type for that. Not, no, but my life remained in the toilet for a while into sobriety, partly because I had the untreated depression. So I still, even though I wasn't hungover, I still was barely working. I was an internet copywriter, a search engine optimization is what they called it, copywriter, where you just write 100 pages using the same keywords over and over to try and boost web traffic. using the same keywords over and over to try and boost web traffic. The search engines have gotten so sophisticated that that job doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah. But back in the early 2000s. But I was so depressed I was hardly working. And I moved back in with my parents at almost a year sober. Yeah. But that ended up being good too because that's where i met the group of people that became the group that helped me come to life again secret secret meetings yeah you know sure you found one and then a couple years later my um niece and nephew were born and my parents who i was living with became their daycare when their mom went back to work.

Your sister? No, my brother. And the couple years when they were babies and I was seeing them every day all day were like some of the sweetest, most fun. I didn't think it would be. I wasn't happy to find out there's going to be a baby in the house every day. Right, yeah.

And then really quickly was like, oh, my God, I had no idea how fun babies are. And probably because of the age I was, I think it just activated that biological instinct that not all women have, and some men have it, or a lot of men have it, but I definitely have it. I just didn't know until i was forced to be with a baby and i was like this is the best this is like what this is really literally what

i was made for i mean just so now you're the cool aunt huh i don't think they think i'm cool but i am taking them to disneyland next weekend so i'm working on it but they definitely even after how old are they um they just turned nine and ten the girl is ten the boy is nine and um yeah even that I hardly told anybody about baskets because I am self-conscious and afraid I was going to be terrible so i didn't go around telling my friends and family hey this show's coming out yeah but i did tell my niece and nephew because i wanted to impress them and they couldn't give less of a shit that's who you chose to tell yeah and they don't care at all they've seen the show which i told my brother don't let them watch it anymore it's not a kid's show yeah um because when i when i came back to visit after one of the times after the whole season had ended and they'd seen it my

nephew the first thing he said to me was did you really have sex with that guy in the van why are you letting them watch this isn't appropriate but so all right but then okay so you didn't you didn't think it was panning out quite right so you go back to austin and then you enter another different type of addictive hell then my eating disorder was that new uh other than not eating and just drinking beer um no in early sobriety i just i gained a lot of weight and then i joined that's not unusual though right but for me it takes over everything yeah so uh yeah there are people who drank more than i do whose whose lives are not in the toilet and who eat more and way more but they're not their whole life doesn't revolve around when can I get rid of all these,

you know, my parents go to bed or leave my friends and go home and eat in secret. Yeah. And I joined a secret group that was very rigid and I was really hungry all the time because you hardly eat anything. Yeah. And lost a bunch of weight,

but was even more crazy about- Great scale? Similar. Yeah, yeah. In that family. Yeah. anything yeah and lost a bunch of weight but was even more crazy great scale uh similar yeah yeah in that family yeah and then um and then left it and then i moved to austin was like i bet i can eat sugar again in a different state i can control it i'm sure and then like 50 pounds later wow finally went back came back here um went off my antidepressants for a while because i read wait when did you get on those we didn't cover that how long in sobriety um i'd been a little over i think four years sober and they started taking them because because again my parents kind of did a bit of an intervention because I was living with them and they had seen me. I thought if I lose weight, that'll make me happy.

And it didn't. And I just was like not really living and didn't realize it. And my mom, who just a heads up, passed away about three weeks ago. Sorry. Thanks. But she, so she about three weeks ago. Sorry. Thanks. So she's on my mind a lot, of course. And that was another time where she was the one who was like, you need to go and get help. You're not living.

And so I did. But then a few years later after just becoming like an all-night binger, sleep all day in Austin. Food. Yeah. How does one binge all night on food? You go to a convenience store. Hopefully you go to different ones every day

so the clerks don't know how much you're eating. And then get a bunch of candy and cookies and chips and a video from Redbox. That's what I would do. Go back to your apartment and just kind of surround yourself with the food and eat and watch a video. Until the sun came up a lot of times. Just once it got into a cycle that kind of started with my dog dying um of a really aggressive cancer yeah and then my mom almost dying these are both in 2012 yeah she went in the hospital

and that started this anxiety and insomnia that i'd never had before and that merged with the um binging on sugar and stuff and i just said i'd gotten to a cycle where i would just stay up all night eating and watching videos and then sleep all day and then get up and do it again and couldn't stop and didn't know what was wrong with me you know and he just kept putting on weight yeah because um candy and cookies and pizza and hamburgers are packed with calories. Right. Yeah. So, okay, so that's what that looks like.

So when you went off your antidepressants, that's what happened. That's how you medicated yourself. Well, I was still on antidepressants for 2012 and then got evicted and my car got repossessed because again i wasn't working i had an online job where you set your own hours so i just didn't work and got kicked out of my apartment moved back in with my parents out here 50 pounds heavier yeah well maybe around 40 and then once i started going to a more what i think is a more practical secret group for compulsive eaters. For a while, I continued to gain weight after going there. So in the end, it was probably like when Zach called me about the pilot for baskets, I was like 50 pounds overweight and was like, there's no way I can do this, you know?

But when he called you, so we're up to like what, 2015? He called me January of 2014. Out of nowhere? Out of nowhere. I'd seen him, I moved back here in January of 2013. And I'd seen him twice, I think, that year. Once at Largo, once when he was doing the Oscar between two ferns edition. And then I hadn't seen him. And then he just left me a message in January

of 2014 saying, I'm going to do this show. Want to see if you want to be a part on it. You probably don't want to do it, but just call me if you do. And yeah. And you called him and said, I can't? I said, I can't act. And he said, you don't have to. You just say the lines the way you would if it were you in real life. And I still thought I'm just going to freeze and get fired. But I also, because Zach was so, he's like, even though he's a couple years younger than me, he is like a big brother in our relationship where he made me feel like I could try it. And at worst, if he had to fire me, I knew he would do it as nicely as he could.

And he wouldn't make me feel like I'd let him down, even though I thought that's what's going to happen. Right. You know? Yeah. But you said initially that you couldn't do it because you felt like you were too heavy? Well, I didn't. I thought, he called me in January.

He said we'd shoot the pilot in May. And so I thought that's enough time to lose 50 pounds, which it wasn't. I didn't even become abstinent from compulsive eating in this other group until like a month before we started shooting but because i had started that i knew like i'm on my way to getting back to a normal weight and and i'm able to participate in what's going on instead of thinking when can i sneak off to craft services and who's noticing how much I'm eating,

that kind of stuff. So it was really grounding for you, sadly. Yeah, and it was really fun. And then when I saw it and saw how big I was, I was not happy, but I was like, you know, if it gets a full season, I'll be farther along by that time. And I'll just keep working towards it. And TV shows are not the most important thing in life.

Like being a healthy, fairly happy person is what, what matters. So now, you know, but so, but the food, how,

cause you know, I, I have weird issues around body image and food because my mother had eating disorder still does it but you know she manages she's but she goes the other way you know but she's a compulsive eater but like what i meant was like you know when you're on set and stuff there's something exciting about craft services yeah very exciting and like you know it's like a free convenience store and you know it's there yeah and you try to manage you know but like it's it it almost becomes like there were times where i was on set both for my show and the

show i shot before where where i was like you know like like as soon as you hear like there's pizza there or something that moment where you're like come on let, like as soon as you hear like there's pizza there, that moment where you're like, come on, let's just get the scene done. So we can have pizza or what's out there. I always have this thing where I'm afraid the food's gonna run out. Do you ever get that?

Yes. It's the worst. I have that and there's no, it's not going to. There's no. But yeah, if I wasn't in recovery and not just I don't eat sugar and flour at all

if I wasn't doing that I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on anything because there's an actual truck full of delicious junk food every all day every day yeah and then they get snacks on top of that and meals on top

of that yeah and like yeah so it would have been full meals yeah it would have been i couldn't have i would have been probably fired if i had been in the food as they call it because i that's all i would have cared about yeah it's so powerful and people don't realize it yeah I mean but again like there are people who eat pizza all the time and are by doctor's standards may be overweight but they're happy and their lives don't revolve around the pizza they just like to eat it and don't care that you know people that don't have compulsive problems around things like like i envy them and like but there's nothing you know what are we going to do well make them feel bad i feel like um because you kind of have to have some kind of faith of some kind to be in any kind of recovery.

You can be atheist or agnostic and just put your faith in the group. But you have to have some kind of faith in something outside yourself. That improves my quality of life. That alone, not thinking everything's up to me, makes me a lot happier. To get rid of some of that control. Yeah. Or the idea of control. I don't know if I ever would have gotten that if I didn't have addiction.

Sure. So that's one positive thing about it. Yeah, there's a lot of positive things about it. And so the second season is starting now? Or is it the third? The second season starts on the 19th. So you shot it all? We shot it all.

And it's all in the can? It's all almost in the can. Oh, really? They're still doing editing on some of the later episodes. Because we wrapped November 30th. Okay, so now, so you do the first season, and you're, are you in every episode? A little bit in every episode and then

more in it and some of them yeah and the second one too yeah and you're funny i don't know it's i watch i don't see what anyone else sees if they like it i really don't i understand what you're saying but but people do like it's an interesting show it's odd you uh you show up for yourself very well you know did you get more comfortable you know as time went on or i mean do you like doing it i love doing it um i love being spending all day with zach and jonathan kreisel and the and louis and the the crew like like you get to spend all day with really nice people. And if you're one of the actors, everyone treats you like you're precious.

Yeah. So it's hard not to enjoy everyone treating you like they think you're terrific. Even though you know that's part of what they have to do because some actors are dicks and if you have to pretend to like them, no matter what, I think,

yeah, I guess I've never been on another show, but, um, but by the end of the first season, I felt like we'd all had time to really get to know each other. So Louie's producing, Zach created it and is doing so a lot of the writing

um zach is goes is part of the writer's room but um it's him jonathan kreisel who's a who's the director of showrunner and then they had i think three or four other writers yeah who I love. And Louis Anderson is amazing. He was here. He won an Emmy. Yeah, and he's amazing. He's really great. He's a sweetheart, right? Yeah, he has a good heart.

And from the very first time I met him on the pilot, he just treated me like a co-worker. I was very intimidated to work with him because he also improvs a lot and he's great at it yeah and i freeze when when they go off script and he never made me feel like a dummy even though i was and still am a dummy a lot of times, but he's always been really nice. You've known for a long time you're not a riffer. Yeah, I'm not. I can't. On the pilot, one of the times that Louie,

I'd never done anything like this before. Louie started riffing. He asked me, in character, asked me a question, and I couldn't think of anything to say. So there was just a long pause and then I yelled cut. And then they laughed, but they were also like, you can't yell cut. Only the director can say cut. But I just panicked. It's so. But it seems like Zach knew exactly what you were going to do with this part and that it is it is you so whatever you're bringing to it

and your discomfort is is working for the show i think the writers and jonathan um like make it they they make it work really they make they make it seem like i'm doing something when really i really i i meant to do more this season because for season one all i could think to do is just always know my lines when i show up so i'm not bumming anyone out by making a longer day and then be nice to everybody yeah and then do whatever they asked me to do right um and then it occurred to me because of a few times getting direction about like you're supposed to be feeling something like okay season two i'm gonna think about the scenes and what i'm supposed to be feeling but this is not um to be a bummer but the first day we filmed my mom had just gone back into

the hospital and that's when i found out she was dying for season two yeah so um i didn't do anything more than just learn my lines again and try to be nice to everybody and do whatever they asked me to do and but that's why i feel like really um it's the people i work with that made it seem like anything like i was doing anything i wouldn't know what to do i i wouldn't know what to do without them of course but i i mean i i think you're you don't give yourself enough credit you're a little hard on yourself and you know you are very specific and you do have something that you do naturally that is working in the show i i i'm glad that they i'm really glad that they have me on it but i honestly like i'm coming from a history of periods of feeling entitled for no reason entitled to stuff entitled to now it's like you're working yeah but i don't want to go back into

thinking oh i'm i'm doing this i'm the reason this is happening because when i do that i will very shortly go into well where's my fucking everything else i want everything you know i kind of still right you got to find a middle i'm much much happier feeling like i found like one time i found 20 on the sidewalk and it made me way happier than any i've ever earned i've had 20 an hour jobs i never felt that happy but when you so feeling like i know that Zach has never made me feel like he's doing me a favor. He always makes it seem like I'm doing him a favor because he's a dear person, you know? But I'm way happier feeling like I stumbled into a lottery, you know? And it's made my life better for a lot of reasons not just professionally but

it is the sole reason i have anything going on right now with stand-up or anything yeah i didn't i wouldn't know my manager if it wasn't for baskets and she helps me a lot but i would never have even met her you know yeah so i understand so you feel like you got lucky i'm super lucky but i'm lucky like i was lucky when i met my therapist in my 20s when i found my home group of the secret meetings and i'm a very lucky person well yeah and but you know you've you, you've had a rough go at life and somehow or another, you know, you did choose comedy. You know, it's not some freak thing that, you know, it's lucky to a certain degree. But, you know, somewhere in the midst of all this darkness and, you know, beer and food, you decided that your salvation was comedy somehow. That's not nothing to choose to do comedy.

I mean, I know a lot of us are neurotic or compulsive or depressive or whatever, angry. But we do choose this ridiculous profession to go up there in front of strangers and make ourselves vulnerable, even though we may not think we're doing that. We're all alone up there in front of strangers and and you know make ourselves vulnerable even though we may not think we're doing that you know we're all alone up there it's a very terrifying thing to most mortals yeah and you do it you chose that do you ever think back as to why why did you choose that given your particular demeanor and and and brain i I remember, I think, well, really quick, I do want to say about depression. I'm on a new and better and super cheap because it's a really old one. And it's changed my life. I just want to say that because sometimes people have depression and they get the wrong antidepressant and then they feel like there's no hope. Right. But it took me a while, but there is hope. I just want to say that for anyone listening who has depression.

But when I was at Davis, close to getting kicked out and feeling like I don't want to do anything, I don't care about anything, not knowing that was depression. But you were suicidal? Yeah, I would periodically feel suicidal. And I just one day was thinking like what would i do if i could do anything i wanted not thinking i can do it but what would i want to do and just remembering in high school senior year being in the school play that was a comedy and having a hugely fun time also because the after parties had beer and pot

and but but just that was the only good time i had in high school was doing that and i realized like i loved that feeling so um that's what i want to do and i don't know how i'm going to do it but i'll try to get that way back to that. Yeah. The feeling of, well, community has been something, but the feeling of making people laugh.

It's so unlike anything else in the world to do stand up when it goes well. And when it doesn't go well, it's also not like anything. It's the pain. Unlike any. Yeah. It's all on you yeah yeah and they and you can you can some people are really good at being like oh this crowd i'm just not their cup of tea no big deal it's just another show but i always feel like these people hate me because i'm garbage and it sucks you know but the when goes well, it's so feels so good that it's worth

that risk, you know, you still don't know how anything's going to be received or if there's going to be another season or if when baskets ends, it's totally possible in this industry that everything could dry up all at once and I could have to get another $20 an hour day job. But I feel like... Or you could just walk around hoping you find $20. Walk around however far it takes to find that... Magic 20. That magical 20.

But yeah, just... I probably, when that happens, we'll move back to Austin just because it's a little cheaper. And I and I love that. Well, let's not make plans about when everything falls apart. I just always feel like it's everything probably will fall apart. That just is my assumption. And whatever.

I'm much happier when I'm not living in an obsessive compulsive spiral. Sure. Of one kind or another. I'd rather be free no matter what effort I have to put into it. And it still is relatively little effort. It's not like you have to, it's not like going to the gym every day to be in recovery. It's just not that much. It's not that hard if you do it consistently. That's true. That's true. That's true.

You go in the gym? No, but I'm working up the nerve to try Bikram yoga again because it's the only, what do you call it? It's the only, not extreme, but strenuous exercise I ever really liked. Yeah. So I'm working up the nerve to try it again. Because it's kind of unpleasant at first because it's really hot. Right, that's the whole idea.

Yeah. Maybe you should do a couple of regular yoga classes and then go to the... I just feel like regular yoga is a waste of time because it doesn't hurt. Yeah, and I agree. I always kind of hurt myself. That's what I'm a little afraid of because I'm 48. And when I did it before, I was like early 40s. Yeah.

But I am going to continue to age until I die. So I may as well start somewhere. Yeah, I think that's probably a good reason to do anything. Yeah. Proactive anyways. somewhere yeah i think that's probably a good reason to do anything yeah proactive anyways just yeah because the more you take care of yourself while you still can the less bed bound you are in old age i think sure and this is a fun way to end i can tell we're getting close to. Yeah, it's nice. It was a very uplifting, practical end. And now I'll try to gossip with you off mic. Yeah, I love Hollywood gossip.

I don't have a lot. I don't have any. I'm out of the loop. Whatever you have will be more than what I have. I'm out of the loop. But I will tell you what I know. Okay, that sounds great. Thanks, Martha.

Thanks, Mark. All right, that was Martha. Watch Baskets tonight, every Thursday night. And now I'm going to play guitar and give you a little something else with that. People ask me, what's the thing you've learned most as president? Right. And I tell them, I don't know that this is something I learned, but it is something that has been confirmed. The American people are overwhelmingly good, decent, generous people.

And I can say that because I meet a lot of people. You see folks from all walks of life. You don't just talk to your supporters. You meet people who don't like you, didn't vote for you. And everybody that I meet believes in a lot of the same things. They believe in honesty and family and community and looking out for one another. So the issue is not the American people. That's where my faith is. The question is, how do we build institutions and connections that allow the goodness, decency, common sense of ordinary folks to express itself in the decisions that are made about how the country moves forward? You know, when you wake up every day, you say to yourself, are things a little bit better?

And if you take that long view, then you're less nervous or stressed about the day-to-day ups and downs. And you kind of just start blocking that stuff out because you're staying focused on your ultimate destination. You can just block it out, obviously. You have to. I have learned not to worry about the day-to-day and to stay focused on what I need to do for the American people long-term. And now, look, some of it's temperament. I always say part of this is just being born in Hawaii.

It's really nice. I was just there in In Kauai. Yeah, you feel better. Yeah. So I feel like that fortified me so that I just, you know, there's a certain element of chill. You've got a Hawaii in the mind. You've got a little Hawaii in the mind. I guess the last thing is you lose fear. Part of that fearlessness is because you've screwed up enough times.

Sure. That you know that. It's all happened. It's all happened. I've been through this. Right. I've screwed up. Right. I've screwed up. Right. I've been in the barrel, tumbling down Niagara Falls.

Yeah. And I emerged and I lived. And that's always a, that's such a liberating feeling. Absolutely. Right? Yeah. It's one of the benefits of age. It almost compensates for the fact that I can't play basketball anymore.

Well, good. Oh. Boomer lives! legalization. It's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want 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. Calgary is a city built by innovators. Innovation is in the city's DNA.

And it's with this pedigree that bright minds and future-thinking problem solvers are tackling some of the world's greatest challenges from right here in Calgary. From cleaner energy, safe and secure food, efficient movement of goods and people, and better health solutions, Calgary's visionaries are turning heads around the globe, across all sectors, each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com.