Transcript
Marc Maron (0:01)
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Anthony Jeselnik (2:07)
Lock the gate.
Marc Maron (2:17)
All right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies? What the fucking ears. What's happening? I'm Mark Marin. This is my podcast, broadcasting from a fairly bouncy room. I'm in. I'm in an old Adobe in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and it's interesting to be in a classic mud House. But the walls are what they are. And this is sometimes what it sounds like when I'm out in the world doing the stuff I came out here. As many of you know, I grew up here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'll keep saying Albuquerque, New Mexico. I've gotten into the habit of buying a cheap tourist shirt every time I leave Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm developing quite a collection of Albuquerque shirts. I don't know, I've been. I'm kind of born again Berkey out here. There were years where I just didn't know what, you know, you'd come home, I'd see whoever I still had here, which is primarily my dad. And then, you know, you get this thing where, well, maybe I want to get out of here as quick as possible. Some sort of indicator, some sort of site of the traumatic incidents, arc of adolescence, childhood. It's funny when you sort of transcend somehow or another. I guess it's just part of getting older, where whatever you resented or feared or did not want to revisit in your young life becomes a thing that you desperately want to visit and revisit and recalibrate. Because I don't know, man, there's something, you know, home is home in terms of, you know, what. What created your neural pathways. Environmentally, it's with you forever. It's part of your heart that's. So that's really where I'm at with this. With this battered up, you know, interesting little city that I grew up in. It's weird, I know a lot of you, like, I thought you were east coast guy. Genetically Jersey, as I always say. Genetically Jersey. I'm here to see my dad, and I have a few old friends here who I saw last night. And I know I kind of do this thing every time I come back here, but I don't. It's something to check in with as you get older. Who do you got left, man? What is your life? Who do you got left? Who do you have today? Anthony Jeselnik is back. He was on episode 206. That's more than 13 years ago. Jesus fuck. We've been doing this a long time. But as many of you noticed, I do have people back because the arc of this show, there's the word arc again. The arc of this show, there's literally people that had nothing going on when I first talked to them. And they've had entire careers, entire childhoods have been lived listening to me. I have people that can now say that they were listening to me when they were in High school and now they're 30. It's crazy. So he was on a long time ago. Many of you know him. He's a writer, comedian, actor. He's got a new special out on Netflix starting tomorrow. But Jeselnik is an interesting character in terms of comedy. There is something about a jokesmith. There's something about a guy whose entire Persona and his entire stage presence and delivery and everything else is really built around delivering these beautiful, well structured, dark kind of mind blowing jokes. And that's what he does. You know, I've known him for years, we don't hang out. I feel that he's changed a bit since I first talked to him. But he's one of those guys that what it's all about for him are these jokes and that's, you know, that's a writer's mentality but also a standoff's mentality. And there's no, no, nobody quite like him. And there hasn't been. People have tried. He's, you know, he is, he. He does carve out his own path and it was good to, to catch up with him again. I'm back in Los Angeles at Largo on Friday, December 13th. That will be a music and comedy show. I'm going to get the band together, but it's interesting. So, okay, so in Los Angeles the other night I went to see the Brutalist. I went to a screening of the Brutalist, which is a kind of mind blowing movie. Big. It's like. I don't even know how to describe it. There's people that are able to make these thoughtful, poetic, huge movies, you know, some challenging stuff, but the scope of it was huge. I mean, I guess I would compare it probably to There Will Be Blood in terms of what it speaks to about America, about old money, about immigration, about Jews, about benefactors, about architecture, about art, about the. It's one of these movies that it's three and a half hours long. But anyway, so I get out of the theater in Los Angeles, it's at the Vista Theater. And I just had this moment where. And I don't know if this is an age thing, it was just this moment where it wasn't even a deja vu feeling. It's just a feeling like I've been in LA a long time, on and off a long time. And pretty much, you know, I've had a place there since what, 2002, one way or the other. So I just walk out of the cedar and I'm just on a corner, I'm on a Corner in, I guess it would be Los Feliz on Sunset and Hollywood. Around there. Somewhere around there. And in my mind, all these moments that I've been in that area throughout the entire time I've been in LA just kind of congealed into this feeling of like, what happened all that time? What happened to all that time? I mean, you know, I'm talking what, 20 some odd years of experiences. And when you have experiences in your life with people and with places, and if you don't see those people a lot or you don't go to those places very often, you kind of hold those memories in a place where they're not actively alive. But when they do come alive, like being at that theater, the Vista Theater, it was closed for years. I remember when it was kind of crappy and then they redid it and then, you know, Covid happened. It was closed. I think Tarantino bought it. But whatever the case was, I had this history with that theater and with people who I've been with over the years and seen movies there. And just this moment where you're like, that was just. It feels like last week. It feels like fucking last week. And I don't really know how to explain that. I'm not really a guy. Like, you know, it goes by so fast. It never feels like it's going by fast to me, but I guess it is. It does pick up speed as you get older. But it's just interesting how you hold your life and moments in your life, they're in some part of your brain where if there are active memories and you pull them back up, you're like, yeah, I remember that like it was yesterday. Yet there's this 20 some odd year gap there. And it's just. It's a very odd feeling. It's a very present feeling to be sitting there or standing on a street and just be like, holy fuck. All that time is behind me. All those people are behind me. All those memories are only memories. And in my brain, if they settle right in a moment, I have no idea where all that time went. I can't even put it into a linear form. It just. It just all of a sudden feels like you've landed on Earth and more than half of your life is gone. And you have a sort of a strange collection of images that represent that life. But it's like time, right, man, And I don't even smoke weed. But I don't guess it's not a nostalgia feeling. It's just like, holy shit, dude. You know, this is now you better, you know, dig in and fucking deal with your life and live it, for fuck's sake. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. And one thing we know about Squarespace, after using them to power our website for more than a decade, is that they never stop improving things. When you sign up at Squarespace, you'll always get the best platform to create your online presence. That hasn't changed. 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That's squarespace.com WTF offer code WTF yeah, I guess it's just the getting old thing, but thinking about your life, and this is another thing I'm trying to kind of factor into the era we're about to enter in terms of what's the difference between the life of your mind and whatever you're dumping into it and whatever you're letting you know pull you around in terms of how you think, what's the difference between that and your actual life? And I think that most people's lives are very simple, you know, I mean, if you just kind of make a list of the things you do on any given day, almost all days, you know, whatever you, however you vary it on weekends or whatever. But if you just make a list, it's probably pretty small, pretty simple, and probably relatively manageable. And if you include in that list the times you turn on your computer or you're looking on your phone, it would be kind of interesting. It's an experiment I'm going to do, just because once you do that, any kind of screen, you know, you're entering this other world that seems expansive, endless and full of possibilities to jack your brain into either garbage or denial or avoidance or anxiety or emotions or whatever that is. But I think on some level we have to really believe that that's not the real world and that the world we live in and who we inhabit it with and who we encounter On a day to day basis, that is life. And I don't know how we get back to this idea because I don't know, you know, how often you're afforded the opportunity to do something in passing. You're just a nice thing for some other person. Like it shouldn't be as moving as it is. But I think because, you know, we're so disconnected because of our devices and what we allow our brains to do and engage in that the actual human experience, you know, whether it's with an animal or with a kid, your kid or your family, or, you know, just with people in passing, just even minor moments of politeness or can I help you out or sure, you know, I think I can tell you where that is, or whatever it is for me anyways, they kind of possess a pretty big emotional wallop. And, you know, I have to think that was sort of the way it was, that there was a sort of norm of decency among people. And somehow or another we've let our brains be hijacked by a bunch of garbage and information, whether it's divisive or isolating or whatever, that somehow or another has trumped. Yeah, I'll use that word, our ability to be reflexively decent or seek out community or other people. And I don't think there's any other way out of whatever we're experiencing now until we somehow detach from the things that are occupying and guiding our brains because the brain's fragile mush. And whatever your principles are, or whatever your beliefs are, or whatever you think is reality can be, you know, just exploded, pummeled, reshaped almost instantly as soon as you engage with the infinite possibilities of bullshit that we expose our brains to every day. Again, I don't even smoke weed. I ran into some guy on the plane coming out here who was part of a crew of people that hung around my old mentor here in Albuquerque, Gus Blaisdell, a playwright named Grub, Jim Grabner. And I barely recognize him, but I was surprised that I did. And it's just kind of interesting, talking about memory, that he told me about this gig that he booked me on when I was first in la and it was some weird kind of filmmaking festival that he ran and he offered to fly me out and get me a car. And he told me this whole story about taking me to some rent a wreck lot that a friend of his owned and set me up with a car that, you know, didn't work and almost broke down between here and Santa Fe, which is where the event was. And I. I did some live event and he was telling me this, and it. It's almost like your brain is sort of like, you know, I had a hint of a memory, but not a full memory. And I had to excavate it as much as I could. You know, after I ran into him, we had a long conversation about, you know, theater and film and stuff on the plane. It was great, but I had to kind of like dig into the brain to kind of get the feeling or the sense of that memory. And it's just in bits and pieces. And I was sort of upset. I was like, am I losing it? But this is like 22 years ago. And I'm like, why can't I put all that memory together? And I realized afterwards that the one vibe that was sort of overtaking the rest was like, it was. I was full of anxiety. It was not a great gig. The play, the thing was a fucking circus. The live event that I had to do was outdoors. And I really think that I just like some reaction to trauma of just dealing with a hellish situation that I'd gotten myself into and getting through it. That my brain was just sort of like, yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna just put this in a deep file of things that you kind of remember, but the reason you don't is because. Not a great memory. So Anthony Jeselnik came by and we had a nice talk about comedy and the stuff. His new comedy special, Bones and all, premieres tomorrow, November 26th on Netflix. And this is me and Anthony back in the. In the garage. Life is busy, people. And if you're like me, no matter how busy you get, you've got to get your fitness in. Peloton has a variety of challenging classes and programs that fit into your schedule. Whether you're a new parent or traveling for the holiday or training for something big or just busy like everyone else. From four week strength building classes to running, cycling, and everything in between, Peloton can adapt to any goal and need during your busiest times. Find your push, find your power. With peloton@1peloton.com well, I. Why are we staying in LA then? Tell me.