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- [00:01]
Marc Maron
Now's a good time to start thinking about goals, people. A new year is coming up and really a whole new world. Maybe you want to start traveling more. Maybe you just want to focus on creating a new you. A great way to do this is by learning a new language, and Rosetta Stone is the most trusted language learning program there is. I always thought the time to learn a new language had passed me by, but with Rosetta Stone available on desktop or as an app, I can learn a new language anywhere I go without it being a crunch on my time. For 30 years, Rosetta Stone has been teaching millions of users 25 languages, including French, Italian, German, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Arabic, Polish, and more. Don't put off learning that language. There's no better time than right now to get started. For a short time, WTF listeners can get Rosetta Stone's Lifetime Membership Holiday Special. This offer will not last long. Visit rosettastone.com WTF that's unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your Holiday offer@RosettaStone.com WTFToday for yourself or as a gift that keep giving. Hey people, I just got rid of all the hair on my face. But that was a choice. For a lot of men, losing the hair on top of their head is no choice at all. But even though no one wants to lose their hair, it's actually very common. And now with hims, the solution is simple. Try HIMS Hair Loss Solutions and you'll be joining hundreds of thousands of subscribers who got their flow back. HIMS makes treating hair loss simple with options that are clinically proven and trusted by doctors. Just answer a few questions and a medical provider will determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed, your treatment is sent directly to your door. Start your free online Visit today@hisss.com WTF that's hims.com WTF for your personal hair loss treatment options. Hisss.com WTF results vary based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride. Prescription products require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply. See website for full details and important safety information.
- [02:08]
Steve Fury
Lock the gate.
- [02:17]
Marc Maron
All right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies? What the fucking ears? What's happening? What is happening? Happy Thanksgiving. Are you listening on Thanksgiving Day? Is this your Thanksgiving pep talk? Is this your way out? Have you pulled yourself away from the chaos in the kitchen or the chaos of the family drama, whatever that may Be. Are you looking for respite? Well, maybe I can help you. I don't know. You know, I'm not doing my regular Thanksgiving thing because the situation is different, but I just didn't get it together. I'm going to be home for Thanksgiving, and I think it seems that I will be watching several different screens because Kit wants to watch the dog show, the parade, and a game of some kind. Thinking about making some chili, laying low. I've been busy, and I just didn't get it together to go to Florida because my mom's not at her house anymore and, well, there's no reason for it. I just. I just didn't get it together. They're all going to be eating at my cousin's, but I'm not. I'm not going to be there. But that doesn't mean I'm not there in spirit or I can't empathize for your particular situation, but I have some thoughts. I don't know if you. If you want my thoughts or maybe you do. Maybe that's why you're listening. I'll get to them. Let me just say this. If you want to get your holiday shopping started with a Brian Jones cap mug, there's a new batch on sale tomorrow, Black Friday at noon Eastern. These are the mugs that I give my guests. They're handmade by Brian Jones. He's made some more of the black and gold ones, so get yours starting tomorrow at wtfmugs.co. they're nice things, and they're nice gifts. And if somebody, you know, likes this show or you like it for yourself, go ahead. They're unique. They're all. Every one of them is unique, like a cat. Steve Fury is on the show. He's a regular at the Comedy Store, and he's toured with Burt Kreischer. But he's one of these guys that, you know, I used to see all the time. I've appeared on his shows sometimes, and it was one of these things where, like, you know, I finally at some point sat down and watched him, and I'm like, holy shit, this guy's a funny fuck. He's the real deal. I wonder what his story is. So I asked him to be on the show. Turns out his mom's a big fan. I get that a lot. I get that a lot now. Yeah, my mom loves you. I'm like, oh, how old are you? But I just wanted to get to know him. So I had him on because I think he's a funny fucker. So look you guys, I've been thinking. I've spent a few days here in New Mexico, my hometown. I spent a lot of time with my dad this time. And I don't know, you know, it's difficult, man. It's difficult when they're old and they're kind of losing it. But I found some interesting things about me and my father at this stage of where he's at is that I feel like I have the same approach to him that he had to me in my life. Like, you know, there were times where I was hobbled or I thought I was sick or I broke my bones. He was the orthopedic surgeon. He set my leg twice, and it's still. I don't walk right. And that's an indicator of the type of attention that one might get from a father as opposed to a doctor. I have no memory of doing physical therapy when I had a spiral fracture of my tibia because he set my ski bindings too tight and I fell and twisted it up. I have no recollection of physical therapy after he ran over my foot while I was trying to get out of a car. But I was fortunate in those moments that he did know how to set a legacy and set an ankle. But there wasn't much follow through. And it was always sort of a. Not necessarily tough love, slightly detached. And I found myself today when I was helping him out of the car because he's not totally disoriented. But walking seems to be a challenge and memories are fading. And I don't know, I have a certain amount of humor about it, but I do find myself going, come on. You good? You out? Can you get out? You need help? What do you want? It's not that I don't care, but it's like, it's a very practical approach. It's not very emotionally loaded. I'm not necessarily being caring. I'm just sort of like, what do you need? Are we getting out of the car? Are we walking? Are we going? Are you good? And I realized today that that's exactly sort of the way he handled me. But he was responsible for both times I broke my fucking leg. I'm not responsible. His fucking, you know, his dementia or whatever the fuck is going on, but it doesn't matter. I was both amazed that I was sort of approaching him with the same kind of caring, aggravated detachment that he did me, but also, you know, happy to be there, happy to help out, happy to spend time with him. And, I don't know, I've had some Sort of weird shift about this thing, about the predicament of being a reasonable person in the face of an unreasonable election outcome and the sort of divisiveness that exists all the way down to the familial playing field or the familial relationships that are strained by this thing, you know, and I know we're in it again, and you're in it again, and I don't know, maybe I could share a story that happened that. I don't know if it's enlightening or what. You know, my father and I don't think we're on different sides politically, but he's not a very political person. He just. And he's also, like, he's not all there. So, you know, he just reacts emotionally and he's like, you know, yeah, I think that Trump's a good guy. And I'm like, all right, you know, what am I going to do? Yell at my dad with dementia? I know his wife doesn't think the same way I do politically for religious reasons and other reasons. But it was funny because I was driving over there and was like, all right, just, you know, nothing has changed other than everything on some level, but these are people, they're your family. You go in. So I walk into their house and, you know, my dad's wife is listening to. Rosie's listening to something on her computer. And it sounded like talk radio to me. It was just that broadcasting voice sound of people going at it or engaged in that patter that is talk radio. And I'm just walking down the hallway, my dad's, I don't know, polishing his shoes or something, and she's walking around with a computer listening to this, and I'm like, here we go. What the fuck is she listening to? And I couldn't really make out the voices. It just sounded like radio to me. But eventually, you know, I just. Within 40 seconds, 30 seconds, I said, what are you listening to? With a slight, you know, there was, you know, I was ready to kind of get into this judgmental zone of like, oh, yeah, Hewitt, whatever, Hannity. What do you. What is it? What do you. Which. Which one of those idiots are we listening to today? And I go, what are you listening to? She goes, you. I'm like, what? I'm like, which one? She's like, the one that came out yesterday. And I'm like, oh. She's like, we always listen. And I'm like, oh, my God. Just, you know, is a humbling moment that I couldn't even identify My own voice, because I don't ever listen to the playback. It just sounded like, you know, talk radio to me, which is sort of what this is. But it just kind of diffused something in my brain. And I don't know what is my point as we enter this zone and as I deal with my aging and fragile father, is that I think there was a time where these political sides and division wasn't as defined and horrible and toxic, and everybody is sort of informed with their own version of what they think justifies their ideology or their. Or their anger or whatever. You know, it was obviously different. You know, there was, I believe, a time where, you know, people just voted. And you may know that they are different politically than you are, but, you know, they. They are still, you know, your family. And I think in the past, you know, I've had this idea that, like, you know, it's going to be tough and, you know, I mean, I hope you get through your meal. You know, I hope it doesn't get too heated, but on the side of where I come from, and I can get heated or whatever, and I don't like it. I don't like engaging in those arguments, because all of a sudden you enter this tenor, this tone. Even if you think you're being rational and reasonable and you just want to talk this out, you can actually get beside yourself into this tone that. That has no real empathy to it. It's just sort of anger. Anger and disbelief and this desire to speak your mind, even though you know it's not going to go anywhere. And I guess the moment I had with my dad, and just in general is that, you know, political affiliation or thought, it's just, you know, it's one component of a person. Even if they're all caught up, I mean, even if they're frothing at the mouth, even if they are gloating and families are fraught with other issues. And oddly, I think the discourse politically, especially if you're on a different side than certain family members that you have to spend time with, a lot of the posturing and anger and kind of arrogance to it, it may be masking a lot of other stuff. I think that seems to be what we do sometimes, you know, in relationship and families, is that if you can lock into something that, you know is decisive and you believe it in a moment, but has nothing to do with the general disposition or your emotional experience with your family, you know, you lean into it. And I guess what I would say, only because I just experienced it for myself, is Try to see what the other components are. I mean, if you have love for these people, you know, try and get to that place because, you know, they're not going to be around forever and you might go to your grave disagreeing with them, and they might not ever see your way of thinking. But, you know, if there is love there and there is history there, find that place and try to sit in that a little bit and rise above it. These people aren't around forever, and some of the stuff that lies beneath whatever political views they may have may be traumatizing or difficult as well. But. But I don't know, just to save your own sanity, I would try to engage with what you come from and the good parts of that and perhaps the times which you were connected to these people in a way that defines you. And some of the good things about yourself and the good things about them, I think that you should try to do that. It doesn't mean you can't take a break. But, you know, try not to lose your shit. And, you know, it's not your job to stop other people from losing their shit. But again, this kind of goes along with the theme of, you know, keep hold of yourself, you know, stay in. You, you know, kind of hold on to who you are in the face of all this stuff. But. And that I think is important on a family level, you know, because, like, the one thing I did notice about me and my father is that I'm not like him. There are things I have of him that, you know, are, you know, somewhat liabilities. And I'm not thrilled about it, but for the most part, some of the stuff that, you know, you know, he's one of these guys where everything's bullshit, you know, what's the point? Who gives a shit? But. But even that's posturing. You know, these are all. Everybody's fragile. They can't hide their humanness. I'm not even going to say humanity, because I'm not disregarding the idea that there are monsters out there. But I don't know, for your own sanity and maybe for something that could be somewhat cathartic and maybe enriching on some level in terms of where you are with your family in these holidays, you know, I would try to. I would try to find that. Because whatever happens at your dinner table is not going to change the world. And whatever's happening in the world, you know, is out of our control on some level, at least on this day and in that room that you're in or you're going to be in and, you know, whatever goes on there, it's not going to make anything necessarily better in the world or provide you with solace or, you know, it could make you more angry. But the bottom line is, is that if you're with family and it's strained, you do have a little bit of control over that. And you do have an ability to act differently or think differently or take contrary actions to what your emotions are telling you to do. You know, find the love, folks. Find the love. Because everyone's going to die and we're all in this shit show together. Some people are more responsible for it than others. Look at how you're different. Look at how you saved your own fucking life in the midst of growing up in a certain way. Kind of fortify yourself with that and then try to see the good things. Because if you're showing up for dinner, you don't have to do that, but you're doing it. Why? There's got to be something in that bag that defines who you are and who you are emotionally. And those might come from the good parts of whatever shit show you might have found yourself growing up in. If you've been listening to me for a while, you know, I'm fairly preoccupied with my health. I exercise, I try to eat right, and I've a regular vitamin routine, which is why AG1 seemed like a great sponsor for this show. And right now, AG1 is running a special Black Friday offer for all of November. AG1 is a Daily health drink packed with nutrients to help alleviate bloating, support sustained energy and whole body health. But another great thing about AG1, especially at this time of year, is you can give it as a gift and start someone in your life on the path to a healthier routine every day. I gave some AG1 to Kit and then Brendan got in on it too. And now they're getting the benefits of AG1 to have more energy and better gut health. Brendan was telling me it's the first thing he does in the morning now just mixes that AG1 with cold water and a little ice and that kickstarts his day. So this holiday season, try AG1 for yourself or even gift it to someone special. It's the perfect time to focus on supporting your body with an easy and surprisingly delicious daily health drink. And that's why it's great to be partnering with them. Every week of November, AG1 will be running a special Black Friday offer for a free gift with your first subscription. In addition to the welcome kit with vitamin D3 and K2. So make sure to check out drinkag1.com WTF to see what gift you can get this week. That's drinkag1.com WTF to start your holiday season off on a healthier note while supplies last. So again, you know, try to hold on to yourself and don't get triggered by someone with you in your family event. If it's just about politics, because it's probably about something else. And if you can let it go by you and just have a little empathy because you know these people, save yourself the aggravation. Impossible fucking spiral. You know, you know what to do. All right, open your heart. Come on. I can only do it for a few minutes at a time, but maybe you have better success rate with it. So look, Steve Fury is here. He'll be at the Punchline in San Francisco next month. To see everything he's doing, check out Steve Furey.com or his social media pages. Very funny guy. Love talking to him. So this is. And so now you can hear me talking to him. 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 are you on drugs?
- [20:37]
Steve Fury
Not right now. Yeah?
- [20:38]
Marc Maron
How's that, how's that going?
- [20:40]
Steve Fury
About three months. Off of what? Well, you know, the alcohol goes into the cocaine. So. So I'm off a lot of things.
- [20:49]
Marc Maron
You can't. You can't have one without the other.
- [20:51]
Steve Fury
No, it's. Something happens, you know, once you start doing it.
- [20:54]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [20:54]
Steve Fury
When you hit your fourth beer.
- [20:56]
Marc Maron
Yeah. You start thinking, yeah.
- [20:57]
Steve Fury
You're like, yeah, I could.
- [20:58]
Marc Maron
I'm gonna stay up a little while. Yeah.
- [20:59]
Steve Fury
I could keep having fun.
- [21:01]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Keep having beers.
- [21:02]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
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Marc Maron
Oh my God, dude, it's been so long since I thought about that. I mean, I think about it because, like, I've been sober, what, like real sober, 25 years change. But I remember just sitting there like. And there's nothing going on. No, you're just drinking. Nothing going on.
- [21:22]
Steve Fury
It's just to help you drink longer by yourself too, at the end.
- [21:25]
Marc Maron
Yeah, I think that's what it comes down to. But like, initially, like, if you're at the store or something or out at a bar and you're drinking and it's like 11:30 and that you start thinking, like, it's going to turn around.
- [21:36]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [21:38]
Marc Maron
I'm going to call the guy, get this party started.
- [21:41]
Steve Fury
Then the guy doesn't come for an hour. Now it's 12:30. Everyone else left. And now you're at home till 6am by yourself. Like, I don't think this was what I wanted to do, but I guess I could watch more YouTube videos.
- [21:51]
Marc Maron
Sure. I still got some left. Oh, and you just know your day is going to be fucked up.
- [21:56]
Steve Fury
Yeah. And now it stopped being like a day up. It started being like three days. Yeah. And how old are you? 35.
- [22:03]
Marc Maron
Oh. Yeah. I guess it starts wearing you down.
- [22:06]
Steve Fury
Yeah. There I feel. 35 was the first time I've ever felt old.
- [22:10]
Marc Maron
Yeah. You just never quite get right.
- [22:13]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [22:15]
Marc Maron
Oh, my God. Now I'm just like. I'm tasting it. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about you not missing much when you lay in bed and you're like, I can do it. I think I'm sleeping. I think I'm sleeping.
- [22:26]
Steve Fury
We're totally sleeping. We're sleeping right now. Everything's gonna be okay. And then you hear the.
- [22:30]
Marc Maron
Oh, it's the worst, man.
- [22:31]
Steve Fury
You hear a guy going to work.
- [22:33]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Door slamming outside, you know, car doors.
- [22:38]
Steve Fury
I love you.
- [22:38]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [22:39]
Steve Fury
No one loves me.
- [22:40]
Marc Maron
Look at me. Fuck. Now I gotta figure out. And then you get up and you just sort of. I'm just gonna write it out as long as I can until you totally pass out. Yeah, but I get that thing where you think you're sleeping, but you're not. Like, you know, like, I wouldn't be thinking this if I was awake. This is not an awake thing.
- [22:57]
Steve Fury
I like tricking yourself into it. We're sleep right now. Everything's fine, dude.
- [23:00]
Marc Maron
We're happy.
- [23:00]
Steve Fury
It's as great as your heart.
- [23:01]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing we were able to pull it off.
- [23:06]
Steve Fury
They thought we couldn't do it. I didn't think we could do it.
- [23:08]
Marc Maron
We did it. We did it, bro. We're sleeping. Totally. So, like, here's what. I don't know. Like, I don't know when I first met you. Do you?
- [23:18]
Steve Fury
Probably when I was a door guy.
- [23:19]
Marc Maron
Okay, so it was a door guy.
- [23:21]
Steve Fury
Close to 10 years ago.
- [23:22]
Marc Maron
Really?
- [23:23]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [23:23]
Marc Maron
It's like, I'm embarrassed, like, you know, because I've always seen you around and I Kind of knew you, but, like, I don't know what the hell I'm thinking, you know, it's not. It's not out of arrogance or anything else, but there always comes this moment where guys I've seen for years, you know, and then I'm just sitting in the OR one night, I'm like, holy fuck, this guy's got something. He's a funny guy. Like, 10, nine years later.
- [23:44]
Steve Fury
Well, it's. You know, there's so many people pass through the Comedy Store.
- [23:48]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [23:48]
Steve Fury
You know, I'm now getting to the point, too, where, like, in the beginning, I'm like, I gotta be friends with this guy. This guy. And then I'm like, you'll kind of sift out like gold to the time that I need to meet you. You know, it'll be like a couple of years. It's not going to be me meeting every guy opening and then he leaves. No, no, no. You'll sift through. There's layers.
- [24:05]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Well, when did you start there?
- [24:08]
Steve Fury
I started. I moved there when I was 20. I started there. I was 27, so eight years ago. And I started going two years before that.
- [24:15]
Marc Maron
A door guy?
- [24:16]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [24:17]
Marc Maron
And how long were you a door guy?
- [24:19]
Steve Fury
Two and a half years. Adaming it past me, which was pretty quick. Back in the day, it was a.
- [24:22]
Marc Maron
Lot harder to get past Adam Egan.
- [24:24]
Steve Fury
Yeah, it was.
- [24:25]
Marc Maron
It was harder to get past.
- [24:26]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [24:27]
Marc Maron
And I feel like it was harder with Adam.
- [24:29]
Steve Fury
Yes, Adam was very hard.
- [24:30]
Marc Maron
But where did you come from? Where'd you start?
- [24:33]
Steve Fury
I started in Sacramento, California.
- [24:36]
Marc Maron
So you're like a California guy?
- [24:38]
Steve Fury
Through and through. Yeah, I went to Sacramento. I got passed by those clubs in, like, two years. I started featuring. Then I went to San Francisco, Went through the punch.
- [24:45]
Marc Maron
Grew up in sack.
- [24:46]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [24:47]
Marc Maron
What the fuck was that? Like, I talked to, like, nine people in my life. Four people. Yeah. Five. I don't know. Sacramento. I've always had a weird vibe about Sacramento.
- [24:55]
Steve Fury
You know what, man? I mean, obviously, I'm pretty gung ho, but I love it because, one, it's one of the most diverse cities in America.
- [25:01]
Marc Maron
Yeah. But like. But you knew that growing up. You were like, I'm so happy to be here. There's such a sense of diversity. I mean, I did.
- [25:08]
Steve Fury
I always felt that because I looked around my. I looked around my group of friends, and I never noticed it.
- [25:13]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [25:14]
Steve Fury
You know, like, when you grow up with something like that, I don't notice that I'm hanging out with a Hmong guy, a Vietnamese guy, a Hmong guy. A Russian?
- [25:19]
Marc Maron
Sure.
- [25:20]
Steve Fury
You know, these are just my friends.
- [25:21]
Marc Maron
But then, like, you hired him.
- [25:22]
Steve Fury
Yeah. No, they were. They're cheap, too. That's a great thing.
- [25:24]
Marc Maron
The Russian guy. The Russian guy and the Hmong guy.
- [25:27]
Steve Fury
Yeah, Russia. I bought a faulty car or two from a Russian.
- [25:31]
Marc Maron
Oh, yeah? How'd that go? You couldn't give it back, could you?
- [25:33]
Steve Fury
No. He's like, I thought that was your house. I thought I went to your house. That guy's like, no, he doesn't live here. I'm like, what do you mean he doesn't live here? I just bought a car from him.
- [25:42]
Marc Maron
This is the address.
- [25:43]
Steve Fury
This is address. Look at the thing.
- [25:44]
Marc Maron
Did the people even know him?
- [25:45]
Steve Fury
I don't know. No, he was just standing out front of their house, and I think they were gone, and he parked it in their driveway. So I go to this house. Like, this is a nice house.
- [25:52]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [25:52]
Steve Fury
10 cars in the driveway. I'm like, oh, he kind of, like, fixes them up.
- [25:55]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [25:55]
Steve Fury
Bought the car two days later, transmission went up. Went to the house. They're like, no, I was out of town for three days. What do you mean, you bought a car from here?
- [26:03]
Marc Maron
So never saw that Russian again.
- [26:05]
Steve Fury
Never to know he's in the wind.
- [26:06]
Marc Maron
But there was a big Russian community there inside. Yeah, but where'd you, like. So what, you just went to. Didn't go to college or nothing?
- [26:14]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I went to college. I graduated. Call. I mean, took me a long time. I was like the guy who did, like, four years at a community college and then. Oh, yeah, three years at actual college. So it took me like, seven. Like a little Van Wilder.
- [26:24]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [26:24]
Steve Fury
I went to Sac State and I just did that just so my dad, you know, they'd get off my back.
- [26:29]
Marc Maron
What did you, like, what was your dad doing?
- [26:31]
Steve Fury
My dad is. He's like. He's very smart, but he's like a. Like a handyman. Wouldn't be the nice thing to say about him. Yeah, he's incredibly talented. Can make anything. Can fix anything from car to your house to build rooms. He can do like that. So he would do that stuff like that.
- [26:48]
Marc Maron
He had a contracting.
- [26:49]
Steve Fury
Yeah, like a contractor, kind of. He was a. Definitely. He's a. He's a master plumber.
- [26:53]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [26:54]
Steve Fury
And so.
- [26:54]
Marc Maron
So he can do anything.
- [26:55]
Steve Fury
He just do anything. So I would. I would. A lot of times I was going to be. Probably be a plumber if this really didn't work out.
- [27:00]
Marc Maron
Yeah, the plumber.
- [27:01]
Steve Fury
I just didn't want to go in our houses.
- [27:03]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Go under him yeah.
- [27:05]
Steve Fury
That's the worst part.
- [27:05]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [27:06]
Steve Fury
Because all your plumbing is down there.
- [27:07]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [27:07]
Steve Fury
And you're in there, dude. And it's like, you would go out with your dad. Yeah. And I would either have to go in there. I wouldn't last long because I don't like spiders. Yeah, yeah, you'd be. You'd be. It's terrifying down there. It's like the bottom of the ocean. There's creatures that haven't been discovered yet. There's dead animals. There's a carcass. I'm like, what's eating this?
- [27:24]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [27:26]
Steve Fury
And then.
- [27:26]
Marc Maron
And you're just crawling and I'm crawling.
- [27:28]
Steve Fury
And the light goes away.
- [27:29]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [27:29]
Steve Fury
There's like, a light.
- [27:30]
Marc Maron
And you just got a flashlight. Yeah.
- [27:31]
Steve Fury
You just got.
- [27:31]
Marc Maron
And you're just waiting for corpses of some kind.
- [27:33]
Steve Fury
Yeah. And my dad to Huck. Yeah.
- [27:35]
Marc Maron
All right.
- [27:35]
Steve Fury
The pipe's gonna go on the right side of the house. I'm like, I have no idea where I am. I don't know where. It's north. I don't know where north is. Dad, I'm. There's a dead rat next to me, terrified. Yeah. So that made me go, I'm not doing this. So, like, what's the exact opposite of this? Let's go.
- [27:54]
Marc Maron
I had that happen here the. A couple weeks ago. Oh. I was. I hadn't been home for. You know, because I was shooting that show, and I just haven't been in the basement, and I went down there, and, dude, there was more rat than I ever seen in my life. Ever seen in my life.
- [28:07]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [28:08]
Marc Maron
And there was. Because I smelled. I was about to leave, and I smelled like that there's a dead animal, and there was one rat down there dead. And I figured there's a lot more, but there wasn't. I put two traps out. I don't know how he died. He just crapped out. But apparently, one rat, you know, if they. If they get comfortable and you don't with them, they can 50 times a day.
- [28:28]
Steve Fury
I mean, I would say, what. What are your cats doing? I would say that's kind of their thing.
- [28:31]
Marc Maron
Yeah, I know, but I don't let them down there.
- [28:33]
Steve Fury
Oh, yeah.
- [28:33]
Marc Maron
You know what I mean? They don't go down there. I got. It's almost a basement. It's a large crawl space. So when you're coming up in high school, you got brothers and sisters. No, you're it. Man. That's a lot of pressure. I always think it's a lot of pressure, but I've never Talked to an only child. That feels that way.
- [28:48]
Steve Fury
No one really ever expected much from me. I don't think was the thing. No, there was never like, you gotta do this. You gotta marry into a nice family. You got. No, it was just like, we got through it. We did it. You. Because they brought. They divorced real early, so it's kind of a. More of a way.
- [29:02]
Marc Maron
And how old were you?
- [29:03]
Steve Fury
Like, I was in the second or third grade.
- [29:05]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [29:05]
Steve Fury
And then they're both. They live like two miles away from each other.
- [29:08]
Marc Maron
Oh, so you just kind of went.
- [29:09]
Steve Fury
Back week on, week off. So it's more like the relationship between them was both. We're just trying to. We're both just trying to get through this.
- [29:14]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [29:15]
Steve Fury
You know what I mean? So we have a very good relationship.
- [29:18]
Marc Maron
And they're friends.
- [29:19]
Steve Fury
I wouldn't say friends.
- [29:20]
Marc Maron
They're both still around, though.
- [29:22]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [29:22]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [29:23]
Steve Fury
I wouldn't say friends. But they. They're. They're good to be around each other.
- [29:26]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Because of you.
- [29:27]
Steve Fury
Yeah. They never talk to each other again.
- [29:30]
Marc Maron
Right. Oh, okay. So you held them together in that way. But was it like one of those things where it's like, fuck you, I'm going to live with dad?
- [29:37]
Steve Fury
It'd be a little bit like that sometimes.
- [29:40]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [29:41]
Steve Fury
Like, you know, I'm. Fuck you. I'm going live with my dad. I'm just like a block down the street. So they'd see me. I was like, don't look at me. I'm mad at you still. I can see you from the other room. But yeah, so they were good.
- [29:52]
Marc Maron
Yeah. And what. So when you're in high school, you're not. What are you doing? Just a fuck up?
- [29:58]
Steve Fury
I was.
- [29:59]
Marc Maron
What kind of cars you have?
- [30:01]
Steve Fury
I had a 72 Chevy truck, short bed.
- [30:05]
Marc Maron
That was your first car? Yeah, my dad got it.
- [30:08]
Steve Fury
My dad hooked me up. It was pretty beater. We put a paint job on it. Edelbrock intake and mufflers and stuff. It was.
- [30:14]
Marc Maron
Can you do car work?
- [30:16]
Steve Fury
I mean, I could do minimal. I'm not taking out. I'm not doing a transmission or I'm not doing your thing, but I can do brakes or. Yeah, some stuff. But, you know, newer cars are a lot harder to do because it's all computerized.
- [30:27]
Marc Maron
Fucking crazy.
- [30:28]
Steve Fury
Well, they did it because they don't want you to be able to work on it, I think.
- [30:31]
Marc Maron
Well, yeah, and then you have to, you know, you have to go to them. Yeah. All those dudes like your dad, they're out on the street. Unless you pull up in, like, an old fucking car. Yeah.
- [30:40]
Steve Fury
He's like, I need electronic key for this. Like, what? I don't even understand. What does that mean? So. Yeah, so I was like a football guy, and then I started selling drugs pretty early.
- [30:51]
Marc Maron
Football?
- [30:52]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [30:52]
Marc Maron
What position that I was?
- [30:54]
Steve Fury
Defensive end and fullback. I was a lot bigger and meaner in high school.
- [30:57]
Marc Maron
And so you were a jock?
- [30:59]
Steve Fury
I was a jock bad guy.
- [31:03]
Marc Maron
Oh, you're like. You were on the cusp. Yeah. You were the jock that could hang out with the yucks.
- [31:08]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I was definitely.
- [31:09]
Marc Maron
So the real jocks were so. I don't know about Furies.
- [31:12]
Steve Fury
Well, our football team was absolutely dog shit. So, like, playing on it was almost like. Like I said that my area I grew up was so diverse, But a good football team doesn't have three mom kids on it, you know? I mean, like, I'm just. I'm just. There's nothing wrong with. They deserve to play, but they're little people.
- [31:31]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [31:31]
Steve Fury
So they're not like. So our team would get smashed. So, like, the jocks wasn't really a thing.
- [31:36]
Marc Maron
So it's more of a kind of like a. Like, you know, just. Just some guys.
- [31:41]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [31:41]
Marc Maron
With something to do.
- [31:42]
Steve Fury
Yeah. It was definitely like. Like, we just need to do something and we need some friends. So we did that one. And then I started selling drugs for, like, the next while.
- [31:54]
Marc Maron
In high school?
- [31:55]
Steve Fury
Yeah. So I pretty much, like, did football from, like, fifth grade till the end of high school. And then towards the end of high school, I realized I wasn't very good at this. So then I was like, well, let's try selling drugs for a little while. So. Weed and perk. Weed. Norcos.
- [32:08]
Marc Maron
Really? Norcos?
- [32:09]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [32:10]
Marc Maron
What are those?
- [32:10]
Steve Fury
They're in between a Viking and a perkset.
- [32:12]
Marc Maron
Where'd you get those? Russians.
- [32:15]
Steve Fury
So in the beginning, I would go. I had this guy I would buy them from. It all went small. You know, when I was a kid, I would just, like. Like when I was 14 or 15, I just want to smoke weed.
- [32:24]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [32:24]
Steve Fury
No money, but I knew one guy that I could buy, like, two bags for 10.
- [32:27]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [32:28]
Steve Fury
So one bag for 10.
- [32:29]
Marc Maron
Just to keep your own supply.
- [32:30]
Steve Fury
Yeah. Keep my own supply.
- [32:31]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [32:32]
Steve Fury
And then that went bigger and bigger till, like, dude, I used to take drugs over the border all the time.
- [32:37]
Marc Maron
To Mexico? Yeah.
- [32:38]
Steve Fury
Well, not to Mexico. That'd be crazy.
- [32:40]
Marc Maron
From.
- [32:40]
Steve Fury
From Mexico? Yeah.
- [32:41]
Marc Maron
So you go down to the pharmacy.
- [32:42]
Steve Fury
Yep.
- [32:43]
Marc Maron
Buy them.
- [32:43]
Steve Fury
Buy them? Yeah.
- [32:44]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Holy shit. I don't think you can manage that anymore.
- [32:47]
Steve Fury
No, it's A lot scarier now. Back then, it was like a party, you know.
- [32:50]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [32:50]
Steve Fury
You'd go there and.
- [32:51]
Marc Maron
With a couple guys.
- [32:52]
Steve Fury
Yeah, you go there with a couple guys. You hit a strip club.
- [32:54]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [32:55]
Steve Fury
And then I remember the day it was not a party anymore, but, like.
- [32:58]
Marc Maron
So you could go. Where'd you go? To a Mexican doctor and get a script.
- [33:03]
Steve Fury
So, like, when I first started going down, I would go down, I'd get like a thousand pills and then I would sell those for, like, Norcos. Norcos, yeah. So I'd sell those for, like, you know, two months during the summer. And that's how I'd make my living in the summer. So you go down and. You know, going into Mexico is not hard. No, it's just like a rotating thing. It's like a fair. You just go in.
- [33:22]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [33:22]
Steve Fury
And then you'll see the first round. You know, there's like, people like, selling. You know, there's the guy with a donkey painted like a zebra.
- [33:29]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [33:29]
Steve Fury
There's. There's the guys just painting pictures of Bob Marley on the ground. They sell.
- [33:33]
Marc Maron
And then, like, there's a Chiclets guy.
- [33:35]
Steve Fury
The Chiclets kids, you know, you throw them a couple quarters to get them away from you.
- [33:38]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [33:40]
Steve Fury
You look like fucking mother.
- [33:41]
Marc Maron
You drive in, or you'd walk over, park and walk.
- [33:44]
Steve Fury
I would always walk.
- [33:44]
Marc Maron
So to Juarez?
- [33:46]
Steve Fury
No, I walked Tijuana.
- [33:47]
Marc Maron
Tijuana. Oh, yes, that's tj. Juarez is down by Texas. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [33:52]
Steve Fury
So you would go down then, you know, the front layer of places. Because the pharmacies back then, you could just go in and ask for anything you wanted.
- [33:59]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:00]
Steve Fury
And it was still real. Now they'll still sell your fake pills.
- [34:02]
Marc Maron
And down there, everything's fentanyl.
- [34:04]
Steve Fury
Everything's Fentanyl down there. That's. I got out right when that stuff started happening because.
- [34:07]
Marc Maron
So you just walk in and just be like, thousand. Take that.
- [34:10]
Steve Fury
Yep. And there's a doctor on one end and he'd write your prescription. Then you'd go to the. The other end of the pharmacy, the guy. You'd fill it up for you, and you'd have this thing.
- [34:16]
Marc Maron
That's it.
- [34:17]
Steve Fury
And then you'd walk across and you're 18. I was 17. 18. So I was like, 22. I did that.
- [34:22]
Marc Maron
Holy. I knew a guy, old comic, he's dead now. He used to have to go down there to get his. He liked those Tylenols with codeine.
- [34:30]
Steve Fury
Oh, yeah, those are fun. Those are actually legal in Canada still.
- [34:33]
Marc Maron
Oh, really? You can just get them tunnel threes.
- [34:35]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [34:35]
Marc Maron
Yeah. I stay away from it all.
- [34:37]
Steve Fury
Yeah. I don't do it anymore.
- [34:39]
Marc Maron
No. But. So you go down there and then you just come back up and then. When did you. When did it. When did you know it was going bad?
- [34:45]
Steve Fury
Oh, man. The last time I went, everything was different because like. Like, the colleges used to, like, San Diego State University of San Diego would have buses on the weekends that you could take into Tijuana, go get drunk, and you get back on the bus, you go back to normal.
- [34:57]
Marc Maron
Is that to. Because they knew you were going to do it anyways, and they. They just were trying to help the kids not get drunk and.
- [35:02]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I think it was more of a fun place at the time.
- [35:04]
Marc Maron
Tijuana.
- [35:05]
Steve Fury
Tijuana was.
- [35:06]
Marc Maron
Yeah, I know, but it was. It was never, like, good. It was never clean fun.
- [35:10]
Steve Fury
No, it was like. There was definitely. You were in the wilderness. You could do whatever you want there. But it was like, more acceptable to where I haven't been in a while. But when I. The last time I went.
- [35:20]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [35:21]
Steve Fury
Was. That's when the cartel had really taken over and really was. You know, the pharmacies, they're taking over everything. So the whole vibe really is fucked up. The last time I ever went up there. Dude.
- [35:31]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [35:31]
Steve Fury
So I go in there, I go over the bridge and. Come on. And I swear to God, I was the only white dude in Tijuana. The place was empty.
- [35:38]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [35:39]
Steve Fury
So everyone's looking at me, right? Almost like I'm not supposed to be there.
- [35:41]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [35:41]
Steve Fury
You got the guy painting the Bob Marley pictures on the little felt black thing. He's looking at me weird.
- [35:46]
Marc Maron
What are you doing?
- [35:47]
Steve Fury
They're like, what the. Going on?
- [35:48]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [35:49]
Steve Fury
And I don't really know what's happening, so I. My head. I'm scared, but I'm like, okay. I got kind of the guy I always go to. I go to my guy, he's gone.
- [35:57]
Marc Maron
He's gone.
- [35:57]
Steve Fury
And so now I'm there. And this is the most money I ever had when I went down there.
- [36:00]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [36:01]
Steve Fury
I'd like 3, 500 bucks in cash.
- [36:03]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [36:03]
Steve Fury
Pocket.
- [36:03]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [36:04]
Steve Fury
And I used to dress, like. Try to be inconspicuous, so I'd have, like, seven jeans with, like, rainbow flip flops and a pink polo to try and be like. Look like.
- [36:12]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [36:12]
Steve Fury
Like what, a frat kid?
- [36:14]
Marc Maron
Oh, okay. Yeah.
- [36:15]
Steve Fury
Just down there partying.
- [36:16]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [36:16]
Steve Fury
So I'm walking around, then this dude comes up to me. He goes, hey, you want. You looking for. I was like, no, no, no. I'm looking for drugs. And he goes, okay, I got one. And then he says, follow me. And this dude has LA tattooed across his face.
- [36:27]
Marc Maron
Oh, yeah, gang.
- [36:29]
Steve Fury
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm like, I'm here, might as well dance.
- [36:34]
Marc Maron
Okay.
- [36:34]
Steve Fury
Where are we going, bro? Yeah, you seem cool. You're from at least la. I'm guessing we're kind of like a California thing. Yeah, don't kill me.
- [36:42]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [36:43]
Steve Fury
So he goes, follow me, man.
- [36:44]
Marc Maron
Oh, God damn it.
- [36:45]
Steve Fury
And he followed and he goes. And he takes a turn down this little alley.
- [36:48]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [36:49]
Steve Fury
And this alley is pretty scary.
- [36:51]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [36:52]
Steve Fury
And I'm walking down.
- [36:53]
Marc Maron
I see your pink shirt.
- [36:54]
Steve Fury
I'm in a pink shirt. Like the. The bell bottom, seven jeans. Like just a mark, like someone who needed to get robbed.
- [37:01]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [37:02]
Steve Fury
So I go down there. I'm walking by this place and there's like these weird gambling dens. And then we get to this door.
- [37:07]
Marc Maron
Oh, my God. It's like Deer Hunter.
- [37:09]
Steve Fury
Yeah, it's like deer. It's like a Mexican Deer Hunter.
- [37:11]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [37:12]
Steve Fury
We get to this door and it's blacked out. And he goes, it's upstairs. Yeah, he stands right behind me.
- [37:17]
Marc Maron
Yeah. It's never good.
- [37:19]
Steve Fury
And I'm.
- [37:20]
Marc Maron
Do you knew you were gonna get robbed?
- [37:22]
Steve Fury
Well, I didn't know what was gonna happen. I knew something wasn't good. When I'm looking up this thing, I'm like, I'm in Tijuana. We got LA face behind me. No one knows I'm here because I'm dealing drugs. I don't want anyone to know here. Yeah, this might be it. I'm gonna die here. And I go, fuck it.
- [37:38]
Marc Maron
That was when it sunk in.
- [37:40]
Steve Fury
Not so.
- [37:40]
Marc Maron
But like, I imagine in the process of, like, once. He's like, we just gotta go down here. You were like.
- [37:46]
Steve Fury
I was excited. Cause I was like, oh, my guy's not there. We got my guy. Then he's taking me down this alley. And then right where I look up, I look around and no one's like, everyone's averting their eyes.
- [37:54]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [37:54]
Steve Fury
I'm like, oh, this is it.
- [37:55]
Marc Maron
Because of that guy.
- [37:56]
Steve Fury
Yeah. I'm like, this is it. So I go up there and it turns out to be a very small, shady strip club.
- [38:02]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [38:02]
Steve Fury
But like, you ever been to, like, a Texas roadhouse where they eat peanuts and they throw them on the ground?
- [38:06]
Marc Maron
Well, yeah, I've been into peanut places. Yeah. Yeah. With the shells are everywhere.
- [38:10]
Steve Fury
The shells are. So this is a strip club that was like barn themed or something.
- [38:14]
Marc Maron
Oh, okay. So there was like Mexican barn themed.
- [38:17]
Steve Fury
Like a Mexican barn. So there's peanuts on the ground. There's a woman dancing in a pin.
- [38:23]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [38:23]
Steve Fury
She. A pen.
- [38:25]
Marc Maron
Like, that's part of the barn thing. Like, she's an animal.
- [38:28]
Steve Fury
I don't know if they wanted it to be that way or they were just. That was the only way to keep these creeps off of her.
- [38:33]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah. Right?
- [38:34]
Steve Fury
Like a honky tonk in, like, Texas, you know?
- [38:37]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [38:37]
Steve Fury
So then he goes, sit down right here. And he puts these two dudes next to me. And they're like. They sit right next to me. And he goes, give me your money. And then he brings me a six pack of tiny Coronas.
- [38:48]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [38:49]
Steve Fury
He puts them at my feet. And he goes to this girl. This girl gets on this pool table in front of me. And this chick is haggard, man.
- [38:55]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [38:56]
Steve Fury
And she's, like, dancing naked in front of me. I got two Mexican dudes on a tiny couch right next to me.
- [39:00]
Marc Maron
Little Coronas.
- [39:01]
Steve Fury
Mini Coronas.
- [39:02]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [39:02]
Steve Fury
And the guy goes, give me the money. I give him the money.
- [39:06]
Marc Maron
$3,500.
- [39:07]
Steve Fury
$3,500 back in like, 09. So a lot more than even now. He leaves, and then I'm there. And it's like 10 minutes.
- [39:17]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [39:18]
Steve Fury
20 minutes. 35 minutes.
- [39:20]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [39:21]
Steve Fury
Hour and a half. This one's dancing. I have no money. I just gave them all my money. The six mini Coronas did not last, you know? That's like three beers and a half.
- [39:28]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [39:28]
Steve Fury
I'm sweating. These dudes are sitting next to me.
- [39:30]
Marc Maron
They're still sitting there.
- [39:31]
Steve Fury
They're sitting there. And then the dude comes back.
- [39:32]
Marc Maron
Get out of here.
- [39:33]
Steve Fury
He comes back with a bag of pills this big.
- [39:37]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [39:38]
Steve Fury
And so he goes, here you go. And he kicks me out, and I'm in Tijuana with a bag of pills the size of a basketball. And so I'm like, what I do with this?
- [39:47]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [39:47]
Steve Fury
I can't, like, put this in my pockets, right? So I do is, like, sit on it, try to make it flat.
- [39:52]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [39:53]
Steve Fury
And I put it on my back.
- [39:55]
Marc Maron
You can make a belt out of ash.
- [39:57]
Steve Fury
I'm gonna try and see what we can do here. And get across.
- [40:00]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [40:00]
Steve Fury
So I got the thing on my back.
- [40:02]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [40:03]
Steve Fury
I'm walking across. And I go. I'm like, this is. I. It's a little too suspicious. So then I see that little dude painting the Bob Marley pictures. I go, okay, I'm gonna get two Bob Marley pictures and I'll hold them on both of my sides.
- [40:15]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [40:16]
Steve Fury
So you can't really see the back?
- [40:17]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [40:18]
Steve Fury
And then I'll go across the thing.
- [40:20]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [40:20]
Steve Fury
So I buy two of them. And if you've ever walked across Mexico back then, you kind of take this loop and then you get around. There's a line of like 250 people, all Mexican.
- [40:32]
Marc Maron
Mexican, waiting to get across, waiting to cross.
- [40:34]
Steve Fury
So I'm like a foot and a half taller than everybody in a pink polo with two Bob Marley things next to like, everyone is like five, two straight from Mexico. You know, they're. They're probably working a day labor job over there.
- [40:46]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [40:46]
Steve Fury
Or vacationing, whatever. So I'm going. I'm right. When I'm out, I'm about 50 people up. I'm seeing the border agents and they're pointing at me and they're whispering.
- [40:55]
Marc Maron
So you're sweating.
- [40:56]
Steve Fury
Oh, my God. Well, because it was like, do I sprint into Tijuana with flip flops on or do I. Am I going to prison in Mexico?
- [41:05]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [41:06]
Steve Fury
Then the guy pointed at me and goes, come up here. And I'm walking up.
- [41:10]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [41:11]
Steve Fury
And he goes, why are you here? I was like, I was partying. I wanted to party. He goes, by yourself? And I go, well, I also just moved and I wanted some art. And he goes, so you bought the same Bob Marley picture twice. I go, I have two bathrooms. I swear to God. That's true. He goes, okay. He looked me up and down and he let me through.
- [41:30]
Marc Maron
Oh, my God.
- [41:31]
Steve Fury
And that was the last time I ever did that.
- [41:33]
Marc Maron
But what were the pills?
- [41:34]
Steve Fury
Norcos.
- [41:35]
Marc Maron
They really were.
- [41:36]
Steve Fury
They're all real. The guy actually hooked me up pretty good.
- [41:38]
Marc Maron
Nobody. Nobody dropped dead.
- [41:39]
Steve Fury
No. Well, this was before that.
- [41:41]
Marc Maron
Before Fentanyl?
- [41:42]
Steve Fury
Yeah. I got out before that.
- [41:44]
Marc Maron
Yeah. That's crazy.
- [41:47]
Steve Fury
Yeah, that was crazy. And I never did that again. And then slowly, once, like, once I realized I wasn't great at football, I sell drugs. And then once I realized I wasn't great at selling drugs, I was better at stand up. I stopped doing that.
- [41:57]
Marc Maron
But was that the scariest drug situation?
- [42:00]
Steve Fury
No, I did a bunch. I got robbed at gunpoint one time. I had this one. Dude, I had this one thing that set off a thing of events in my life. So my buddy works at La Cordon Bleu.
- [42:12]
Marc Maron
Okay, what's that?
- [42:13]
Steve Fury
It's like how you learn to be in a restaurant.
- [42:15]
Marc Maron
Oh, it's not even a cooking school.
- [42:17]
Steve Fury
It's a cooking school.
- [42:17]
Marc Maron
Okay. And that's in sack one of them.
- [42:19]
Steve Fury
Yeah, they're all over.
- [42:20]
Marc Maron
That's a good one, right?
- [42:21]
Steve Fury
Yeah. Well, you know you get into that, then you get like a small job and you can move your way up.
- [42:24]
Marc Maron
Yeah. And then you get. And then you manage the restaurant in a hotel.
- [42:28]
Steve Fury
Yeah. Or you just fucking do blow and flip pancakes and try and bang the hostess. You kind of got two ways on that one.
- [42:36]
Marc Maron
I'm not sure which way it's all on. It's up to you and your ambition after you get out, how far you.
- [42:43]
Steve Fury
Want to take this Buddy with the easy path, man.
- [42:46]
Marc Maron
When I worked in restaurants, restaurant managers, oh my God, it's like comedy club owners. You just up against us. God, the guys who did blow at the restaurant. Oh my God.
- [42:55]
Steve Fury
It was always the cooks. When I would.
- [42:56]
Marc Maron
Oh, cooks are nuts.
- [42:57]
Steve Fury
Yeah, they're the craziest.
- [42:59]
Marc Maron
Yeah. I had one manager when I worked at it when I was a grow cook at a place, you know, I don't know, it's after college or like, I don't know, in college for five years. But it was just like, you know, just that doing, you know, like when you work at a restaurant and you gotta do a breakfast shift and you fucking do blow the night before and you get there and you know, you're just hoping that the fucking manager's gonna give you something to get through the water.
- [43:23]
Steve Fury
It's not water back here. It's a hot.
- [43:26]
Marc Maron
The rush. The rush of eggs.
- [43:28]
Steve Fury
Eggs.
- [43:29]
Marc Maron
Oh, did you ever do that?
- [43:30]
Steve Fury
No, I never worked in a restaurant.
- [43:32]
Marc Maron
All right, so what happened? So this guy from lacourdon Bleu.
- [43:35]
Steve Fury
Oh yeah, my. But he was like my best friend at the time. He goes, hey, I got a buddy of mine who wants to buy three pounds of weed.
- [43:40]
Marc Maron
Okay?
- [43:40]
Steve Fury
I go, okay, because I had the guy.
- [43:42]
Marc Maron
You had a real guy?
- [43:43]
Steve Fury
I had a real guy.
- [43:44]
Marc Maron
A three pound guy. That's a. That's bordering on dangerous.
- [43:48]
Steve Fury
No, he was dangerous. It wasn't a border. He was a dangerous guy. But he was my friend.
- [43:51]
Marc Maron
The guy with the weed.
- [43:52]
Steve Fury
With the weed, yeah. And so I go, okay, I'm gonna need this fronted to me though.
- [43:56]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [43:56]
Steve Fury
Which means someone gives you it and you pay them. Sure.
- [43:58]
Marc Maron
I get. I know what that means. No, I wasn't.
- [44:00]
Steve Fury
Well, I don't know.
- [44:01]
Marc Maron
Born last night. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [44:03]
Steve Fury
A couple people listening.
- [44:04]
Marc Maron
Fronting means they give it to you with and you owe them the money.
- [44:07]
Steve Fury
Yeah. And it gets. Yeah. So I go, okay, yeah, no problem. At this time I was doing a lot of stuff like that.
- [44:11]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [44:12]
Steve Fury
So go, yes, we get it.
- [44:13]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [44:13]
Steve Fury
And then we go, we're gonna have to go to Stockton first. Red flag. Stockton, California.
- [44:17]
Marc Maron
That's why Cowboy town, right? What is Stockton? I remember there was a gig there when I lived in San Francisco.
- [44:23]
Steve Fury
Yeah, there's a couple gigs there. I mean, Stockton, the city went bankrupt. The mayor got caught selling guns to gangs. So it's kind of a rough place, but it's. I like, you know, you don't want to tell drugs there for sure.
- [44:35]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [44:35]
Steve Fury
So we go down and my buddy's talking. The guy, the guy's saying, you know, I'll be right out. I'm babysitting right now.
- [44:41]
Marc Maron
Which buddy? The Cordon Cordon Blue. You're going to.
- [44:44]
Steve Fury
I'm going down to Stockton with Lacordon Bleu.
- [44:47]
Marc Maron
You've got the weed.
- [44:47]
Steve Fury
I've got the weed Accord on. Bleu has the guy we're going to sell it to.
- [44:50]
Marc Maron
Right, right.
- [44:50]
Steve Fury
We're pretty good friend. We're friends for like 10 years. So I wasn't. He wasn't going to rob me.
- [44:54]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [44:55]
Steve Fury
So he goes, okay, we're going to Stockton. The guys seems good. He's texting his hand, Bart babysitting. I'm gonna run out real quick, buy it and get it. We go, okay. So we pull up to this dead end.
- [45:03]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [45:03]
Steve Fury
Two bushes on each side. And there's kind of a hill. And the guy's on top of the hill. So we go, okay. And we go, okay. We didn't think, why is he on top of a hill?
- [45:13]
Marc Maron
Oh God, it's like a western.
- [45:15]
Steve Fury
Yeah, yeah. So we unlock it. And the second we unlock it, I get a gun to the side of my head and my buddy does too.
- [45:22]
Marc Maron
The car unlock the car?
- [45:24]
Steve Fury
Yeah, we unlock the car, we open the doors. The two bushes guys are hanging out in the bushes. So we had two pistols the side of our head.
- [45:30]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [45:30]
Steve Fury
And the guy all they all they only, all they say is, you know what time it is. And I was like, I know exactly what time it is, sir. You can have anything you would like. It's a free for all, sir. It's whatever you want.
- [45:40]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah. Take the car.
- [45:41]
Steve Fury
Take the car. Yeah. You can have my buddy if you want. La Cordon Bleu. He cooks pretty well. You want some eggs?
- [45:46]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [45:46]
Steve Fury
Let him work after 10, he'll be fine. So then we had to give him the weed.
- [45:51]
Marc Maron
Yeah. And with that situation, there's no recourse. It's not like you're not going to go back and get him.
- [45:57]
Steve Fury
The guy got rid of his phone. The phone was a burner. There's nothing I could have done so.
- [46:02]
Marc Maron
So they take the weed and we're.
- [46:04]
Steve Fury
Driving back and we're like, this is a bummer.
- [46:06]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [46:07]
Steve Fury
And then I get the call from.
- [46:09]
Marc Maron
The guy I fronted. Oh, all right.
- [46:11]
Steve Fury
The guy that fronted.
- [46:12]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [46:12]
Steve Fury
Where's this? So you guys come back to my house.
- [46:14]
Marc Maron
How much is it?
- [46:16]
Steve Fury
It was like at this time, he was selling pretty big. So. Yeah, 15 a pound. So it was like four, 500 bucks.
- [46:23]
Marc Maron
Really?
- [46:23]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [46:24]
Marc Maron
So you're behind the eight ball.
- [46:26]
Steve Fury
Yeah. A few drug money. Yeah. For 4,500 on this guy. And then he goes, okay.
- [46:33]
Marc Maron
He goes, you told him I haven't.
- [46:35]
Steve Fury
Yeah. He goes, okay. And he hangs up on me.
- [46:37]
Marc Maron
No.
- [46:37]
Steve Fury
All you know, he said, okay, I don't believe you. And then he hung up.
- [46:40]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [46:40]
Steve Fury
And this guy knows everything about me. Knows where my parents live and knows everything. So, like starting to freak out.
- [46:48]
Marc Maron
That's when it happened.
- [46:49]
Steve Fury
Yeah. This because the one in thing, I was like, oh, at least we got out of that. And then it was like, I should have got shot. It would have been better to get shot in the head at that time.
- [46:55]
Marc Maron
Because I don't know how this.
- [46:56]
Steve Fury
I don't know how I'm gonna get $4,500.
- [46:58]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [47:00]
Steve Fury
And so we go back, I gotta meet him. And it's pretty scary. He was a pretty scary. His name was Box. He passed away. He was. He wasn't. He was cool if you knew him.
- [47:08]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [47:08]
Steve Fury
But he's pretty terrifying. He's like six, eight dude.
- [47:10]
Marc Maron
Yeah. But he was independent. He wasn't.
- [47:12]
Steve Fury
Yeah, he wasn't there. He had his own group of guys.
- [47:15]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [47:15]
Steve Fury
That did a lot of robbing drug dealers.
- [47:17]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [47:18]
Steve Fury
So I go, okay. He gets there, he goes, I don't. I go, we talked for long enough. And he goes. I believe he goes, well, you owe me a lot of money, so you're gonna have to work a lot for me.
- [47:26]
Marc Maron
Oh.
- [47:27]
Steve Fury
So then I had to start doing these crazy jobs.
- [47:30]
Marc Maron
Dude, do you make. Did you. What you kill a couple guys?
- [47:33]
Steve Fury
No, I would. Had to. I shocked a dude with a thing and pass out.
- [47:40]
Marc Maron
So what, you. He. He brought you in as a heavy.
- [47:43]
Steve Fury
He brought me. I had to do two big ass. Well, I had to find some drug dealers for him to rob. And then I had. Keep in mind this is statute of limitations long ago. It's a very long time ago. I haven't done any of this stuff for 10, 10 plus years.
- [47:55]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [47:56]
Steve Fury
So I had to find some drug dealers for him to rob.
- [47:58]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [47:59]
Steve Fury
I had to drive him to those places. And then I had to do two jobs for him. And one of them was, he goes, this guy's going to walk past. It was an outdoor.
- [48:10]
Marc Maron
I can't.
- [48:11]
Steve Fury
I can't remember. I did all this. Such a different human being.
- [48:14]
Marc Maron
I'm sorry to bring it up.
- [48:15]
Steve Fury
No, it's cool. I haven't really thought about it in a long time. So my. So he goes, he goes, you owe me this money. You got to do this one job. He goes, this guy, it's a set you, you know, like an outdoor apartment. You know, there's no roofs and stuff and kind of got. It's like a park almost a little bit.
- [48:28]
Marc Maron
Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. Like. Yeah, there's balcony balconies and stuff like that.
- [48:32]
Steve Fury
And there's like a stairs that go down. Like, so I'm at the stairs that go down. He goes, sit on these stairs and there'll be a T of a sidewalk. He goes, there's a guy who's going to walk past you with a duffel bag. It'll look like a Louis Vuitton duffel bag. He goes, take this thing. And he gives me a police grade stun gun.
- [48:48]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [48:48]
Steve Fury
It's like. Yeah, he's doing that right next to me, right? Yeah. And he goes, when the guy walks past, you just tag him and run straight. That's all I got with the bag. No, you don't have to get the bag. When he goes back, tag him in the back and beeline, because it's a T. Straight. And we'll pick you up.
- [49:05]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [49:06]
Steve Fury
And it goes. We'll knock a thousand bucks off.
- [49:09]
Marc Maron
Was it just teaching a guy a lesson?
- [49:11]
Steve Fury
So this is what happens. So the guy's walking by with the bag.
- [49:14]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [49:15]
Steve Fury
He walks by. I get him and I freeze. He falls to the ground. Then he had another guy running.
- [49:22]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [49:22]
Steve Fury
And I go, this guy's going to kill me. This was his bodyguard.
- [49:24]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [49:24]
Steve Fury
My buddy had another guy working for him who picked up the bag and ran that way.
- [49:29]
Marc Maron
Okay.
- [49:29]
Steve Fury
And then I ran first, straight.
- [49:31]
Marc Maron
So the other guy was your guys?
- [49:33]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I guess he was on our guy. I just had no idea. Yeah, so then he did that one. And then I had to do one more job where I take this weed to Kansas University, drove to Kansas. He was going to drive. He was going to send it. Because you can mail it kind of easily.
- [49:46]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [49:47]
Steve Fury
And then I would sell it to a guy. This was the craziest one. This one was.
- [49:49]
Marc Maron
Wait, so you had to go to Kansas?
- [49:51]
Steve Fury
I went to Kansas. I knew a girl out there. Went to University of Kansas.
- [49:54]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [49:55]
Steve Fury
So I was like, you know. I was like, okay, this kind of works. I'll go out there, try to bang that girl from high school, sell some weed in Kansas. This is going to be pretty fun.
- [50:04]
Marc Maron
You had the adventurous spirit. Yeah.
- [50:06]
Steve Fury
I was like, this is like teens. Like late teens, early 20s.
- [50:09]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [50:10]
Steve Fury
So I'm like, okay, let's do this. So I go out there.
- [50:13]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [50:14]
Steve Fury
And the guy goes, okay, the weed's coming. And goes. He goes, meet the drug dealer. So I go, meet. This one was crazy. So that. Meet the drug dealer. He's like this real crunchy hippie kind of guy.
- [50:24]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [50:25]
Steve Fury
And he shows me this pad of paper. He goes, come over tomorrow. He's talking real slow. Yeah, let's come over tomorrow. And I got. He pulled this pad of paper, and it says, like, stinky 07, 50. Chucky goes with this. He goes, I'm gonna get all money tonight. He's like, going real slow. He's like, and then tomorrow, I'll buy it all from you. And I'm like, okay, it's cool. You know, there's no. This guy's not scary. He's probably not gonna have a gun on me. I'm gonna be able to do this thing. He goes, okay, I'm gonna go to sleep. I'm like, okay. He's like, you can hang out and party if you want.
- [50:51]
Marc Maron
You're at his house.
- [50:52]
Steve Fury
I'm at his house. Shitty little apartment. So I see him. He gets up, he walks to the bed, and he falls face fat on his bed.
- [50:59]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [50:59]
Steve Fury
I was asleep on the bed. I'm like, okay. I'm like, I don't want to be here with these weird people.
- [51:02]
Marc Maron
Yeah. So there was more than one?
- [51:04]
Steve Fury
Yeah. There's like, a party of, like, gross hippies.
- [51:07]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [51:07]
Steve Fury
The type of druggie hippie guy.
- [51:08]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [51:09]
Steve Fury
Criminal hippies. It's like, okay, I'm gonna go home. I try. I go to that girl's house. That night's fun. I wake up and I have all these missing texts. That dude OD on OxyContin that night and died. So now the weed comes. I'm stuck in Kansas.
- [51:28]
Marc Maron
So wait, you. How'd you find out he died?
- [51:30]
Steve Fury
Because I was supposed to meet him that day, and I was a friend of a friend to get me him, and I had all these missing texts and calls from her. This girl was waking us up. She goes, hey, OD to Oscar last night.
- [51:40]
Marc Maron
He's dead then. That's. So when he fell on the bed, that was It.
- [51:44]
Steve Fury
That was. I was like the last one last year, and then now I was stuck in Kansas.
- [51:49]
Marc Maron
With the weed.
- [51:50]
Steve Fury
With the weed.
- [51:50]
Marc Maron
And you drove out there?
- [51:51]
Steve Fury
No, he sent it in a box.
- [51:55]
Marc Maron
Okay.
- [51:56]
Steve Fury
So then now I'm behind eight ball again. That one was gnarly because being in a little town like that, there's not that many drug dealers down Lawrence.
- [52:04]
Marc Maron
Oh, okay.
- [52:05]
Steve Fury
This the college.
- [52:05]
Marc Maron
Yeah, I know that. I know that college. Yeah.
- [52:09]
Steve Fury
But I was able to get out of it.
- [52:11]
Marc Maron
But. So what'd you do with the weed?
- [52:13]
Steve Fury
The problem was all the drug dealers all knew each other and they knew I couldn't. I'm not gonna fly home with three pounds of weed.
- [52:18]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [52:18]
Steve Fury
So the amount of money I was getting before got cut by like 3/4.
- [52:23]
Marc Maron
Oh, so you just had to divvy it up?
- [52:25]
Steve Fury
I had to fire sale it.
- [52:26]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [52:27]
Steve Fury
But then I'm already fire selling stuff that I'm fire selling because I owed the scary guy stuff.
- [52:31]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [52:32]
Steve Fury
So.
- [52:33]
Marc Maron
So what happened? How did it resolve itself ultimately? Did you work off the 45?
- [52:38]
Steve Fury
I worked off the 45. I had to leave Kansas and then he went out there to go deal with it all.
- [52:42]
Marc Maron
The guy?
- [52:43]
Steve Fury
Yeah. Box. Yeah. He went out there, dealt with all. Then I got out of it. And then I was like, I don't think this is for me anymore.
- [52:51]
Marc Maron
But isn't there that moment, like, even I never. I never dealt drugs. But there. There is a moment where. And you clearly had a couple of them where you're living that life and you realize, like, it's not. It doesn't have to be drugs that kill you.
- [53:03]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [53:04]
Marc Maron
Somebody else. You're going to be in a situation where you're going to go down.
- [53:08]
Steve Fury
Well, it's also just like at. To the end of that one, I had started doing stand up where I. And I was like, yeah, in Sacramento.
- [53:16]
Marc Maron
What made you do that?
- [53:17]
Steve Fury
That's all I ever wanted to do since I was a child.
- [53:19]
Marc Maron
But, like, what made you realize you.
- [53:21]
Steve Fury
Could 21 was the open mic. You had to be 21 to get.
- [53:25]
Marc Maron
Into the club at sack.
- [53:28]
Steve Fury
The punchline one was really hard to get on at the time.
- [53:31]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [53:31]
Steve Fury
I remember when I first started, I was like, if I could just do the open mic at Punchline Sack. It's all I ever want.
- [53:35]
Marc Maron
And it was up next to the mattress store.
- [53:37]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [53:37]
Marc Maron
In the mall.
- [53:38]
Steve Fury
So I did that once and I started to get okay enough to where I'm hosting the local clubs in California. And then I go, it's, you know, drug one. I don't want to be known as drug dealer anymore.
- [53:49]
Marc Maron
Do people know in comedy that you were drug dealer?
- [53:51]
Steve Fury
A little bit. It definitely faded out. Yeah, but you know, I was never like a guy selling drugs on the street.
- [53:56]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [53:56]
Steve Fury
Like that I had like clientele.
- [53:57]
Marc Maron
But were you hooking up comics?
- [53:59]
Steve Fury
Yeah, in the beginning.
- [53:59]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [54:00]
Steve Fury
Because my weed out I sold. I bought so much I could get it for so cheap.
- [54:03]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [54:04]
Steve Fury
And then the pills started getting fake and I was just like, I don't want to do this anymore. And then kind of just did stand up non stop for the next in sack. Sack for like.
- [54:12]
Marc Maron
So who were the, were there, are there guys I know that were part of that scene?
- [54:16]
Steve Fury
Well, I mean, there's some pretty good guys. There's a guy named Anthony de Guzman Jr. Or Junior de Guzman. He does theaters. He's like a Filipino comic. Music comedy. We have a guy named KYRIE Shabbat actually. NBC's stand up for diversity. It's like a thing they do across the country. Yeah, for diverse comics.
- [54:31]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [54:31]
Steve Fury
We had four winners in a year. And sack from Sacramento, we had Mikey Winfield, Jr. De Guzman, Kyrie Shabazz and one more guy, I forgot his name.
- [54:42]
Marc Maron
So none of them made it down here. Were you doing road gigs yet?
- [54:44]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I did these things called triple runs.
- [54:46]
Marc Maron
Triple runs? Yeah. See, I missed the triple run.
- [54:48]
Steve Fury
Oh yeah, that was the real sad headline. Real sad road dog.
- [54:52]
Marc Maron
So when you got like what, 40 minutes?
- [54:55]
Steve Fury
Yeah, 40 minutes. You're going like, okay, we're gonna gotta do an hour.
- [54:58]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [54:59]
Steve Fury
Oh, dude, I got 20 minutes. I'm supposed to do an hour.
- [55:01]
Marc Maron
And where were the tribble runs?
- [55:03]
Steve Fury
Oh, that was the worst part. It was like, you'll go to like Eugene, Oregon, Then you're gonna go to Idaho, then you're gonna go to Nebraska, you're gonna come down to Nevada and then you'll go back. So by the time you went through the rental car, the gas, you're coming home with like 300 bucks.
- [55:17]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [55:18]
Steve Fury
The most insane thing you've ever done.
- [55:19]
Marc Maron
And is triple still around?
- [55:22]
Steve Fury
I, I don't know, but he, I know his gigs. I don't know if his gigs are. I, I, I did it like twice. And I was like, this is not for me.
- [55:29]
Marc Maron
Like, so what? So you'd fly into where like you drive, dog.
- [55:33]
Steve Fury
The money wasn't flyable.
- [55:34]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [55:34]
Steve Fury
There's no flying. So you drive from Sack to Oregon to Idaho.
- [55:38]
Marc Maron
And what were the rooms, like a biker bar? Yeah.
- [55:42]
Steve Fury
So he was making like 1500 and he'd give you like 300 bucks.
- [55:45]
Marc Maron
Oh, my God. I mean, I used to do that in Boston.
- [55:48]
Steve Fury
Wow.
- [55:49]
Marc Maron
Yeah, it's exactly like that stuff, you know, just like, you know, you just don't know where you're going. And then you show up and you're like, where's. Where's the. Where do I stand?
- [55:57]
Steve Fury
Yeah, like, in the corner. Well, in the corner.
- [56:00]
Marc Maron
Oh, and it's just you.
- [56:01]
Steve Fury
No light. Yeah, you got the. In the. And then sometimes he would send you with the equipment, so you. So there's no stage. You're in the corner.
- [56:10]
Marc Maron
You got a guitar amp.
- [56:11]
Steve Fury
You got a guitar. You got, like, the. Just the one thing with the microphone to it bombing. Because you're terrible.
- [56:17]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [56:18]
Steve Fury
Oh, that was scarier than the drug show, to be honest.
- [56:21]
Marc Maron
But you. But there was not two guys on the show.
- [56:23]
Steve Fury
Yeah, you would bring your own host or feature and you'd cut. And that was the kind of level of comedy where you would just screw over your host and feature, you know?
- [56:29]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [56:30]
Steve Fury
Like, yeah, we'll get you 50 bucks a show, but we have to drive your car and we'll split gas. So the guy would come home with nothing, and he quits comedy a week later because he realizes a racket. And then.
- [56:43]
Marc Maron
But that's where you cut your teeth.
- [56:45]
Steve Fury
Yeah. Yeah.
- [56:46]
Marc Maron
Two triple runs. And that was it.
- [56:47]
Steve Fury
And I was done. I was like, I'll. I've been a guy who's always kind of like, okay, I'll do my own thing. I'll find a way to do my own thing.
- [56:53]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [56:54]
Steve Fury
And so I was just. I was like, okay, I'll just run my own shows, and I'll just. I'll just be a club guy. So then I worked on getting in the SF punch line.
- [57:02]
Marc Maron
How far I came out. What's that drive hour, 45, hour and a half.
- [57:06]
Steve Fury
Because.
- [57:07]
Marc Maron
Yeah, I remember, like. So you were going up to San Fran to do that shit. What was left there was.
- [57:11]
Steve Fury
Who was it?
- [57:12]
Marc Maron
Molly at the punch line.
- [57:13]
Steve Fury
Molly. Yep. Yeah, Molly was there. She passed me a couple times.
- [57:18]
Marc Maron
Oh, that's good, man.
- [57:19]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I get.
- [57:19]
Marc Maron
I mean, that room, like, it's so weird in San Francisco. Like, the vibe in San Francisco is so weird. But I guess it was still a community then. What's that, 10 years ago?
- [57:28]
Steve Fury
Yeah, this closing in 13, 14 years ago. It was. It was still okay. It was still okay.
- [57:34]
Marc Maron
Like, Moshe Casher was around.
- [57:36]
Steve Fury
Moshe just left. Ali Wong wasn't there. That generation of guys had left.
- [57:40]
Marc Maron
She. Yeah, she featured for me at the Punchline. I thought she was hilarious.
- [57:43]
Steve Fury
Yeah, she was great.
- [57:44]
Marc Maron
She used to like. Like, even back then, man, she had this fucking edge, you know, she's like, go fuck yourself.
- [57:50]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [57:51]
Marc Maron
You know, Good stories.
- [57:52]
Steve Fury
Yeah, she was always good.
- [57:53]
Marc Maron
Who else was up there, man?
- [57:55]
Steve Fury
I don't know. It kind of was like a drought when I got there. There was an opening for, like, the next people.
- [58:00]
Marc Maron
I know. That's what happened when I got there. Yeah. What year? It was me. Like, me, Patton, Blaine, we all showed up after that whole generation left for la like that. The originals and maybe the ones that. What year was that, dude?
- [58:14]
Steve Fury
Like Harvey and them.
- [58:15]
Marc Maron
93. Yeah, they were long gone, but there was another generation of com, like Proops and Dana Gould and, like, people who had kind of were the second round, but it was just everyone had gone and we showed up and they were like, oh, my God, new blood.
- [58:30]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [58:31]
Marc Maron
Did you do that competition?
- [58:34]
Steve Fury
No, I did not. Because at that time, the people who are winning it, I didn't really need to be associated with, you know, like, it went to a place where it was like Stan Hope and dane and ellen degeneres and sinbad.
- [58:48]
Marc Maron
Yeah. I came in second in 90. Fuck. Two.
- [58:53]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [58:53]
Marc Maron
Something like that. 93.
- [58:54]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [58:55]
Marc Maron
Carlos salzaraki came in first. I did it twice because I was out there for a couple years and then I was going back and forth to New York, but it still felt like a thing. Like there was like 40 dudes.
- [59:04]
Steve Fury
Yes.
- [59:05]
Marc Maron
And there was all these venues.
- [59:06]
Steve Fury
Yeah. Would you have to drive around all of Northern California?
- [59:10]
Marc Maron
Yeah, because, like, you know, you were working up to this, you know, the finals or whatever, and you never understood the scoring, but, you know, there was. You did all the punch lines. You did Roosters. There was a winery gig. You know, then there was some. You know, it was like. It was crazy. Yeah.
- [59:25]
Steve Fury
The gigs were not that good. See, they went down. So you would. They. You would do. You would do like a bar.
- [59:30]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [59:31]
Steve Fury
In, like, Sunnyvale.
- [59:32]
Marc Maron
Yeah, I remember that.
- [59:33]
Steve Fury
Then you go to Chico, into an.
- [59:34]
Marc Maron
Old people's home, something saloon.
- [59:36]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [59:36]
Marc Maron
In Sunnyvale.
- [59:37]
Steve Fury
One of them. I don't know. I don't think that was. It was.
- [59:39]
Marc Maron
Oh, no, no. Roosters was in Sunnyvale.
- [59:40]
Steve Fury
Yeah, Roosters, I like. Oh, well, Rooster's good. Yeah.
- [59:43]
Marc Maron
Good sound system, I think. Yeah, I think they got a good one. They saw it set up well. Yeah, they got the back patio.
- [59:48]
Steve Fury
Just the name. Yeah.
- [59:49]
Marc Maron
Rooster Teeth. And that guy who owned it. I don't think he owns it anymore.
- [59:52]
Steve Fury
No.
- [59:53]
Marc Maron
Tony.
- [59:53]
Steve Fury
A woman named Heather.
- [59:54]
Marc Maron
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I haven't been up there a long time. That was if you work punch.
- [59:57]
Steve Fury
I don't know if you can work that one.
- [59:59]
Marc Maron
Well, I don't know. Like, I haven't done the punch in forever either. But it was so important, man. Then the original cobs, or it was so important, the second cobs down the cannery. That was great.
- [60:09]
Steve Fury
I never did the first one. That was before me. I'm the one. The one that's still in now has been the one.
- [60:14]
Marc Maron
I've been in the big one.
- [60:14]
Steve Fury
The big.
- [60:15]
Marc Maron
The worst.
- [60:17]
Steve Fury
It's not great if there's not 300 people there.
- [60:19]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [60:20]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [60:20]
Marc Maron
But the original one was a sweet little room right down the cannery. It was sweet, and then it burned down. And Tom Sawyer, the guy who ran it, he was kind of nuts.
- [60:28]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I hear stories about that. It was dope, but I was.
- [60:30]
Marc Maron
Yeah, but that was the second one.
- [60:32]
Steve Fury
Oh, the first one was even better.
- [60:34]
Marc Maron
Well, I don't know. Who the fuck knows? It was already gone. Oh, I was there when the. To see the Holy City Zoo go away. You saw.
- [60:41]
Steve Fury
You got to see that place.
- [60:41]
Marc Maron
I worked there. Yeah. Times it was still around, it seemed to, like, four people.
- [60:46]
Steve Fury
Oh, really?
- [60:46]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [60:46]
Steve Fury
Just got romanticized to be something a little bit more.
- [60:48]
Marc Maron
I think it was like, a great little place, but it was tiny as fuck. And, yeah, by the time I got there was just. Everything was on fumes, man. And the first year I did the festival, Johnny Steele won. I don't even know what that guy does.
- [61:02]
Steve Fury
They're still up there. You ever do the Throckmorton?
- [61:04]
Marc Maron
Yeah, when I was at the Throckmorton, it was like Mort Saul was hanging out in the dressing room. He never liked me. I don't even know why. He just knew. He didn't like me. Robin was around.
- [61:14]
Steve Fury
Robin Williams would come. Dana Carvey would come. It was pretty cool.
- [61:17]
Marc Maron
I remember one night I was working there, and I got up there and I had the wrong weekend. Like, you know, I thought I was headlining, but they had booked some other guy. And now that guy's mad at me, and I'm headlining up there, and Robin's there one night, and I'm doing all right. But every time a joke, he's up in the balcony. No one knows he's there. And every time a joke bombed, I just hear him go, ooh, yeah, you could do it.
- [61:40]
Steve Fury
Cause they'd be right up at the top, because that normally wouldn't sell off that much. Yeah.
- [61:44]
Marc Maron
And. And, like, I just knew that if I addressed him, he would be on stage within 40 seconds, and then I'd Be in some sort of improv spiral with Robin and my whole set would be garbage.
- [61:55]
Steve Fury
But they always paid good, though.
- [61:57]
Marc Maron
No, it was. It was a nice gig.
- [61:59]
Steve Fury
Yeah, it was a good gig. Still a good gig.
- [62:00]
Marc Maron
It is still.
- [62:01]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [62:01]
Marc Maron
You can go up there still.
- [62:03]
Steve Fury
Oh, yeah. I think they do Tuesday nights at the Throckmorton.
- [62:05]
Marc Maron
So when do you move down here?
- [62:07]
Steve Fury
I moved. I had a crazy story to move down here. I was dating a girl.
- [62:11]
Marc Maron
But you move. You got an hour, right?
- [62:14]
Steve Fury
Did I have an hour when I moved here?
- [62:15]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [62:15]
Steve Fury
No, I was like a feature.
- [62:17]
Marc Maron
Oh, so you moved before you. You moved down here and you were still going back up there to work?
- [62:21]
Steve Fury
Yes. All the time. That's right. Which was a nice thing here because, like, I could never imagine starting comedy in Los Angeles.
- [62:26]
Marc Maron
Well, that's what I did when I moved to New York. Every weekend I have to go do the one nighters.
- [62:30]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [62:31]
Marc Maron
To make the living.
- [62:32]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [62:32]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [62:33]
Steve Fury
Get a spot. That wasn't some terrible open mic.
- [62:35]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [62:35]
Steve Fury
So when I came down, I came down, I was dating a girl down here and she was kind of in. At the Comedy Store.
- [62:41]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [62:42]
Steve Fury
So then I came.
- [62:42]
Marc Maron
She's still around?
- [62:44]
Steve Fury
Yeah, she's doing some stuff. I don't see her anymore.
- [62:46]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [62:46]
Steve Fury
Kind of went our own ways.
- [62:48]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [62:48]
Steve Fury
Wish her the best. Went to the Comedy Store and I'd never been there, so I was freaking out and I was able to get on potluck.
- [62:56]
Marc Maron
It's kind of a wild thing to come upon that place the first time.
- [63:00]
Steve Fury
And you just.
- [63:00]
Marc Maron
You know what's amazing about it now from when I got there, like when I got there in the 80s, you know, it was crazy. It was crazy because it was like, it was the time of Dice and Sam. So both of those guys broke around, you know, within a year of each other. So when I was at Doorman at the store, you know, it was. Sam was rising, Kenison was rising, and he owned that place. That place is very susceptible to big egos.
- [63:24]
Steve Fury
Yes.
- [63:25]
Marc Maron
But it was still like the biggest comics.
- [63:27]
Steve Fury
It's almost like a pyramid scheme. The biggest comics personality will feed her down the whole level of.
- [63:32]
Marc Maron
And that's what's so good about it. Now there aren't any.
- [63:34]
Steve Fury
Anybody. Yeah, this. It's. It's definitely the nicest, most welcoming the place has ever been.
- [63:39]
Marc Maron
Emily's great.
- [63:41]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I think so, too.
- [63:42]
Marc Maron
And like, all of a sudden you got acts that aren't like, you know, weirdos. Like, you get, like, the diversity of acts now is better than I've ever seen it. Since Mitzi ran the place. And it's like. And it's all sort of. What's the word I want? Egalitarian. Like, you know, all these people that were sort of had the goods but were just marginalized are all now the guys and they can do the job.
- [64:03]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [64:04]
Marc Maron
Anyway, but when I got there, it was crazy because Monday night was like no cover night. I think it was that.
- [64:10]
Steve Fury
That it was the same that until the pandemic was still free.
- [64:13]
Marc Maron
It was nuts because Kenison, that was his night. So every. All the fucking. The entire world of Hollywood, rock and roll, drugs and porn would just converge on the place.
- [64:24]
Steve Fury
I heard at like midnight too. Like the normal people would come, everyone would leave. Kinison would do that late night spot and then it fill up with.
- [64:31]
Marc Maron
It was cr.
- [64:32]
Steve Fury
Crazy.
- [64:32]
Marc Maron
And I was living up in Crest Hill crazy. But I told those stories before. So you.
- [64:37]
Steve Fury
Those stories are the. Are a large reason I came to the Comedy Store. When you're. When your podcast first started going, you and Joe. Yeah. And you both romanticize the Comedy Store.
- [64:47]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [64:48]
Steve Fury
To an end of where I was like, this is all I want to do.
- [64:50]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [64:51]
Steve Fury
And being a door guy, you both loved being a door guy. You were Joe a door guy.
- [64:54]
Marc Maron
He was never.
- [64:54]
Steve Fury
No, he was a door guy. But he. He definitely treated door guys really well.
- [64:57]
Marc Maron
No. Yeah. A lot of people say good things about Joe and you know, and I. And I. The most recent manifestation of Joe is harder for me to deal with. But as a guy who loved the place and certainly, you know, built it up, he's definitely part of it, of mythologizing it because like everyone thought that when all those guys fucking left to Austin to build their own Hollywood, they thought it would suck the juice out of the place. But the place in and of itself now is a destination.
- [65:27]
Steve Fury
Yes.
- [65:28]
Marc Maron
Because people, they don't know who they're going to see.
- [65:30]
Steve Fury
Yes.
- [65:30]
Marc Maron
Welcome. And it's. And it's still pretty exciting because, you know, Burrow come by. Spade will come by. You don't know the fuck's gonna show up. Rock. It's still. It's back on top.
- [65:39]
Steve Fury
Yeah. It's definitely the best club in LA by far. And I still love the improv and stuff like that too, but I hardly ever worked there.
- [65:44]
Marc Maron
But it's the best. I think it's really the. The most. It's the only one that's. It's. It's an original place and it's still like it was.
- [65:51]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [65:52]
Marc Maron
All they did was fix things that really needed to be fixed.
- [65:54]
Steve Fury
Yeah. Like plumbing and plumbing. Bathroom.
- [65:56]
Marc Maron
Having the bathroom. Like those two single occupancy bathrooms with the pay phone in the middle. Like when you did blow. Those were the fucking. That was the best.
- [66:04]
Steve Fury
But the problem is the guy would. You'd see a guy go in there with a girl and then the door would be locked for 25 minutes.
- [66:09]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah.
- [66:10]
Steve Fury
And that was the only place you go to the bathroom?
- [66:11]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was no other. You could go upstairs?
- [66:14]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [66:14]
Marc Maron
By the office.
- [66:15]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [66:16]
Marc Maron
But that's all locked up now.
- [66:18]
Steve Fury
The one by the office you can still get through through the belly room. And that's the only one. If I have to poop, that's the one I'll poop in.
- [66:22]
Marc Maron
Wait, the one. But the one in the belly room, because that one's terrible. Right, but you can't get into the office now because there's a door there. Is that?
- [66:29]
Steve Fury
Yeah. You can go up the stairs over the backstairs.
- [66:31]
Marc Maron
Oh, okay.
- [66:32]
Steve Fury
It's where the managers play. Go to the bathroom.
- [66:34]
Marc Maron
Yeah. That's where they can poop.
- [66:35]
Steve Fury
Yeah. And you can kind of go up there. Yeah, that's the pooping one.
- [66:38]
Marc Maron
If I gotta go, I'll poop in the hallway one.
- [66:41]
Steve Fury
Oh, that one's crazy. I'll do the one in the main room. The handicap one in the main room. Yeah, that one's all right. Or back in the day when it was those two little ones. Just go to Ondaz on those fancy.
- [66:51]
Marc Maron
Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I've done that before. Sure. If you really got to go.
- [66:53]
Steve Fury
Yeah, really. You got some time on your hands. Like Argus is going to do 45 minutes. He's opening with 45.
- [67:00]
Marc Maron
I don't know how this shit's going to go, so I don't want to be stuck in that.
- [67:03]
Steve Fury
I need to stretch out. I need a high quality toilet paper. I'm going to be on us and.
- [67:07]
Marc Maron
The main room bathroom. You don't even want to go in piss in there.
- [67:10]
Steve Fury
But you know, that one gets turfed by like.
- [67:12]
Marc Maron
I don't know how that happens.
- [67:13]
Steve Fury
People just start pissing everywhere. It's like the wildest thing.
- [67:16]
Marc Maron
I don't know what's. I don't know why people behave the way they do. I mean, you know, you get maybe a couple drops, but yeah. Jesus Christ.
- [67:22]
Steve Fury
Towards the end, I'm like, are you even in the bathroom when you're pissing?
- [67:25]
Marc Maron
I get that thing on planes, too. It's like, why do people become animals on planes? It's like, what the is happening? Who's doing this?
- [67:33]
Steve Fury
Well, let's just show. Yeah. It just shows you that one person will. No matter what happens and how much we want to be like, you know, we're all here for each other. One guy will it up for everybody.
- [67:41]
Marc Maron
Oh, yeah. Always. So, okay, so what happens? So you get down there the first night you see it, and you're like.
- [67:46]
Steve Fury
First night I'm there, and then I go. I get up at the potluck, but I'm like, you know, the potluck one? If you're like the first two or three guys.
- [67:55]
Marc Maron
I just remember when I was working there, like, you know that line, dude, there'd be a guy like, you know, dressed in a garbage bag, their chef hat, you know, guys with, you know, juggling balls. You're like, what the fuck?
- [68:07]
Steve Fury
What is this, like, wrestling thing? Well, a lot of those guys went with the Kill Tony people into Austin for sure, because the line's a little less weird now. But. So I get up, I'm first or second.
- [68:17]
Marc Maron
Thank God they're working, you know.
- [68:18]
Steve Fury
They deserve it, those guys.
- [68:19]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Yeah.
- [68:20]
Steve Fury
Now they sell tickets and I can't. So that's great. But. So I get there, I do that spot. No one watched me. And then my. The girl I was dating put my name in the bucket for Kill Tony.
- [68:31]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [68:31]
Steve Fury
When it was still small. And I went up there and I walked. The second I walk in the room, they call my name.
- [68:37]
Marc Maron
In the belly room.
- [68:37]
Steve Fury
In the belly. I had no idea what the belly room was. And Kill Tony.
- [68:41]
Marc Maron
This is the punching bag spot.
- [68:42]
Steve Fury
Yeah, this is. I'm going up Kill Tony for a minute theory from people just to rip me apart.
- [68:47]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [68:48]
Steve Fury
I go up. It was Dom, my rare, and Greg Fish Simmons. And I did one on the panel.
- [68:54]
Marc Maron
On the panel, Tony. Yeah.
- [68:55]
Steve Fury
And Tony. So at this time, too, I'm like, holy Greg Simmons and don't want me.
- [68:59]
Marc Maron
But they're nice guys.
- [69:00]
Steve Fury
Yeah. They're actually pretty cool still to this day.
- [69:02]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [69:02]
Steve Fury
I. Greg's fucking tight.
- [69:04]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [69:04]
Steve Fury
So I go up there, I do one joke. It did well. I did great.
- [69:08]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [69:09]
Steve Fury
I come downstairs, Adam was there, and the girls dating introduced me, and he goes, hey, I heard you were the guy who did good on Kill Tony.
- [69:16]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [69:17]
Steve Fury
I go, yeah. He goes, do you live in la? And this way, I didn't.
- [69:20]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [69:20]
Steve Fury
I go, yes. He goes, come back every week. So then for, like, the next three months, I would drive down every week from Monday potluck, and you would drive down from Sack.
- [69:34]
Marc Maron
What's that?
- [69:34]
Steve Fury
Four, eight to five. To eight hours, depends how bad it is.
- [69:40]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [69:40]
Steve Fury
So I'll do it every. And then after a while, he go that. He goes, okay, you're gonna get kind of in development. And I was like, okay, I'm moving.
- [69:48]
Marc Maron
Yeah. And that was it.
- [69:49]
Steve Fury
That was it.
- [69:50]
Marc Maron
It's, you know, it's so wild that when. And the difference is, it's weird, you know, because even the experience I've had, because I've done your shows, you've booked me on all of your shows, which is always fun, and I've watched you. But there was something about. There's something about, you know, just seeing somebody, you know, from sitting in the back of the or.
- [70:09]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [70:10]
Marc Maron
The OR is different in that, like, you know, you can really see somebody who's the real guy, you know, who's. Who's got chops. And there's nothing else that guy's going to be doing.
- [70:21]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [70:21]
Marc Maron
There's no other thing.
- [70:22]
Steve Fury
This person. That's why I'm like. I'm like, the business is dying, but I'm going to die with the business. I see my own demise is happening.
- [70:31]
Marc Maron
But it's just such a weird thing. And I don't like. And that's why when I noticed, because the or, in a moment in the or, there is an honesty available that it only can happen in that.
- [70:45]
Steve Fury
Yes. Where you can't do that in the main room.
- [70:47]
Marc Maron
No. Because, like, you just. You feel the weight of it for some reason. I mean, you can do it occasionally in the main room, but in the or, when all the fucks go away.
- [70:55]
Steve Fury
Yes.
- [70:56]
Marc Maron
All of a sudden you're like. You're in this zone where it's just you pure. Right. And there's not everybody can do that. Some people are freaked out by that room, and some people just can't get past their acts. But there are guys.
- [71:07]
Steve Fury
Can't get past your act is the biggest thing. Because if you're going up past 11:30 and you're like, well, today I went to the supermarket.
- [71:13]
Marc Maron
Bam.
- [71:13]
Steve Fury
It's like, that's not really what's going to happen.
- [71:15]
Marc Maron
That must have been why I was hanging out late and I was just watching people because I need some laughs and I'm watching you and I'm like, oh, this guy is like, you know, this is. This is the real deal. This guy's not doing anything else.
- [71:25]
Steve Fury
No, this is all. It's all I ever want to do, and that's it.
- [71:29]
Marc Maron
But it's crazy if you think about it, man. You know, like doing a triple run. I'M just. These are just moments I have with myself because I can't. I don't know who that guy was that did what I did when I started comedy, but I didn't think of anything else. And I would do that thing. It's like, oh, yeah, I'll drive to Maine for eight hours. For 75 hours, and I got to drive. Who, the hypnotist. That's okay.
- [71:49]
Steve Fury
That's okay. I can open for you. I'll sell your merch, too. But you want me to go up after you're done for 10 more minutes so you can set up your merch booth? Okay, I can do that one.
- [71:57]
Marc Maron
No one had merch back then. Really? It was pretty. It was pre merch, dude.
- [72:02]
Steve Fury
I opened for some guys that were like, you know, road hacks, but, you know, road hacks. Fucking murder. So this guy, I would open for him, who I'm not going to.
- [72:10]
Marc Maron
Now that you've said hack. You can't say his name.
- [72:11]
Steve Fury
Yeah. If I wouldn't have said their name, I would have been, like, one of my favorite comics of all time, this guy, Punky Speed bottom. Yeah. So he would go up murder, and then he goes. Can you go up and do 10 minutes after me while I set up my booth?
- [72:22]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [72:23]
Steve Fury
So I'm going up, host, bombing my dick off at the shore. It's already great.
- [72:28]
Marc Maron
After his big clothes.
- [72:28]
Steve Fury
After his big clothes, dirty thing, callbacks. I'm getting buried.
- [72:32]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [72:33]
Steve Fury
And then I have to stand next to him and sell the.
- [72:38]
Marc Maron
And they barely look at you.
- [72:40]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [72:40]
Marc Maron
It's like they say to him, like, wow, that was really fun. They look at you and they're like, hey.
- [72:44]
Steve Fury
Hey, you.
- [72:44]
Marc Maron
There's.
- [72:45]
Steve Fury
You had fun up there, didn't you, bud? To be honest, no, I did not. It was fun until the last 10 minutes.
- [72:51]
Marc Maron
So what do you, like? So what do you do? You go out as a headliner?
- [72:55]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I'm doing, like, punchlines. Luckily, came up through the punch lines. La Jolla House of Comedies, you know, I'm doing the one where I'm. The clubs liked me because I featured for years for all these big guys and stuff, and so.
- [73:07]
Marc Maron
And he kept a nice rapport with them.
- [73:10]
Steve Fury
Keep. But the problem is I just don't sell tickets.
- [73:13]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [73:13]
Steve Fury
So it's like. I know.
- [73:14]
Marc Maron
I was like that for years. It's a fucking nightmare. And I was doing, like, TV and everything, and I couldn't fucking sell tickets. I hated it. When I started the podcast, I was like, you know, I had no anticipation of anything, but I knew that, you know, looking down the barrel at, you know, being like a. Like an unknown headliner. It's rough, dude.
- [73:35]
Steve Fury
I remember the. I remember when you started the podcast, you were. It was so funny. The beginning would just be, like, so depressed. The first, like, year and a half with the podcast, another fucking day, they're doing this. Take that cat, the cat I'm not selling to. And then it took off again, and it was just cool.
- [73:52]
Marc Maron
Then I got all these people that come to the podcast, and they're like, you know, we should go support him doing comedy. I'm like, that's what I do. Yeah, that's what. That's who I am, you know? I don't know. I'm still kind of like that with that. You know what I mean? It's like, I feel like I got a bunch of very nice people that come to see me, you know, but, like, you know, when I see my audience, I'm like, do you know who I am? You're like, I'm a monster. And they're like, no, you're not.
- [74:14]
Steve Fury
No, you just.
- [74:15]
Marc Maron
Have you.
- [74:15]
Steve Fury
Well, I've always said, you know, working there, I was like, there's definitely a few sides of you, but the two marks that I've grown to know is kind of the normal Mark, little curmudgeonie, and then there's cigar Mark.
- [74:25]
Marc Maron
Right. You're the guy who came up with that.
- [74:27]
Steve Fury
If you see Mark with a cigar, you just met one of the nicest people you'll ever meet in your life, and he's going to tell you about Kinison. He will tell you about Kinison. Let me tell him.
- [74:36]
Marc Maron
That's right. You said, like, Cigar Mark. Like to tell stories.
- [74:39]
Steve Fury
Stories, yeah. You want to sit down and listen to the story? I used to love it. I'm like, oh, he's got a cigar. Guys. Get around the back door. Get around the park.
- [74:45]
Marc Maron
He's got cigars.
- [74:46]
Steve Fury
Get around the.
- [74:47]
Marc Maron
He's going to spin some yarns, tell.
- [74:49]
Steve Fury
You some cool stuff.
- [74:50]
Marc Maron
Oh, that's hilarious.
- [74:52]
Steve Fury
So, yeah, it was always cool. You're always pretty nice, man. I mean, you the biggest thing for me. I mean, I haven't been a door guy there since before the pandemic.
- [74:59]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [75:01]
Steve Fury
Being a lot guy. The people that don't tip. You always tipped. Could just never understand that.
- [75:07]
Marc Maron
Yeah, I know. I always got $2. Not. Not only do I always tip, but I assume, like, you know, how much is Whitney giving you? Yeah. You know, I always think, like, am I tipping enough?
- [75:16]
Steve Fury
Oh, there's Some guys who gave nothing that were number one on Forbes and you'd be like, really? They're not gonna give a dollar.
- [75:21]
Marc Maron
I never even think to not tip. If I don't, I feel terrible. Yeah, Two bucks. Yeah. Well, I, I'm generally a fiver.
- [75:28]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [75:28]
Marc Maron
Yeah, five guy. And if I forget to go to the back bar to break a 10.
- [75:31]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [75:32]
Marc Maron
Some guys get a 10.
- [75:33]
Steve Fury
Yeah. That's a big day for a guy.
- [75:36]
Marc Maron
It is. What, so how often are you out on the road?
- [75:42]
Steve Fury
I just did my summer tour, which was okay. I mean, it was great. I did all the house comedies. Was cool. Starting to go to Canada a lot.
- [75:49]
Marc Maron
And were you working up there?
- [75:51]
Steve Fury
I'm doing the house of comedy. So Vancouver Bronson. Yeah. I deal with his wife a little.
- [75:56]
Marc Maron
More than him, but. What, the one in Edmonton?
- [75:59]
Steve Fury
Yeah, Edmonton one's good.
- [76:01]
Marc Maron
It's in a mall, right?
- [76:02]
Steve Fury
Yeah, the Vancouver one. You were up in Vancouver, right?
- [76:04]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Is there a house comedy there?
- [76:05]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [76:05]
Marc Maron
Oh, that's right. It's a little outside of Vancouver.
- [76:07]
Steve Fury
Yeah. I had no idea. Vancouver's a weird place because you're like, it's outside of Vancouver. I'm like, but what? Out there's like six downtowns. I don't even understand that.
- [76:13]
Marc Maron
Well, Vancouver, like I was just there for months and there's no club in town anymore. So you know, I was doing the better the comic produced rooms. Some of them were. One of them was good, two of them. And I just needed to work out a little bit. But it's not the same. I. I just didn't go out to the house of comedy. I didn't know. I don't know why. They said, come on out. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know.
- [76:32]
Steve Fury
It's good. I like it. It's in the middle of nowhere. Vancouver's so weird because you're like. It seems like a Chinese realtor pyramid scheme.
- [76:42]
Marc Maron
Totally. It's all just like monuments to money laundering.
- [76:45]
Steve Fury
Yeah, yeah, exactly. They're these giant buildings. No one lives there.
- [76:48]
Marc Maron
Yeah. It's crazy. It happens in. It happens in Florida too. And in New York. They're just like, they're just planting their money there and they don't give a fuck. It's crazy. I don't understand the, the projection of that. So if you're going to build this thing and you put all this money into it, but you're not going to rent it and you can't sell it.
- [77:05]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [77:05]
Marc Maron
What the fuck is the point?
- [77:08]
Steve Fury
I guess making money off Laundering, maybe. I guess I don't cost more than they do. I don't, I don't have no idea.
- [77:13]
Marc Maron
What happens those buildings if no one's going to manage them and rent them. How we. How is that even a good investment?
- [77:18]
Steve Fury
Well, you can look in Vancouver, there's like four downtowns. I know each one's like slowly degrading as they build a new downtown.
- [77:24]
Marc Maron
Yeah, these high rises. But I like, I just don't know what the end game is because you can't sell.
- [77:30]
Steve Fury
I think it's a get in, get out kind of thing.
- [77:32]
Marc Maron
Oh, oh, so they're making money on the money somehow. Yeah, I don't, I don't understand. But anyway, so how do you put yourself out in the world? How do people, like, know you?
- [77:41]
Steve Fury
How do people know me?
- [77:42]
Marc Maron
I mean, like, how they do know. What's the big plan on building the drawing? I don't know how to plan. I'm not putting you on the spot here, but. Yeah, what's the social media presence like?
- [77:52]
Steve Fury
Mid. Yeah, you know, I don't think I have a look that people want to stare at for more than five to 10 seconds. So the videos don't really work that great. And I got, I'm like working out, being like, maybe a kid will watch this.
- [78:05]
Marc Maron
Didn't you break something?
- [78:06]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I have terrible knees. I've torn up my ACL, McLaren from football. Football, basketball. I got no it. They're super fucked up. So right now I'm just, I just run my shows. I got this new show I'm trying to do.
- [78:19]
Marc Maron
Show always seems popular.
- [78:21]
Steve Fury
Cronies.
- [78:21]
Marc Maron
The one.
- [78:21]
Steve Fury
Yeah, yeah, that one's sick. That one's by book. Sick ass comics every month and it works out.
- [78:26]
Marc Maron
How do you promote that?
- [78:27]
Steve Fury
Just by paying good comics good money and putting them on a flyer.
- [78:31]
Marc Maron
Oh, that's it.
- [78:31]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [78:32]
Marc Maron
Well, you're funny, dude.
- [78:34]
Steve Fury
Well, I appreciate it, man.
- [78:35]
Marc Maron
And you seem like you're relatively healthy right now.
- [78:38]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I'm great, man. My life is fantastic. I'm engaged. The. The work's coming.
- [78:43]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [78:44]
Steve Fury
I'm putting out clips. I'm doing all the you're supposed to do. I'm just kind of. I can tell. Well, the sad part is I could tell that this is going to be a highlight of my life. You know, I'm gonna go back in 10 years and be like did when I was 35. I think that was the best it got.
- [78:56]
Marc Maron
Come on. Do you open for guys?
- [78:58]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I opened. I used to open for. I opened for Burt Kreischer. For three years.
- [79:02]
Marc Maron
Oh, you did?
- [79:02]
Steve Fury
I did the pandemic run with them.
- [79:04]
Marc Maron
He's a nice guy.
- [79:05]
Steve Fury
Yeah, man. I love the guy. I don't do it. I don't do anymore.
- [79:09]
Marc Maron
How come?
- [79:10]
Steve Fury
I think at some point, we both were like, it's time for you to do your own thing now.
- [79:14]
Marc Maron
Yeah. It's. It's. It's a weird decision, but, like, I learned that, you know, I got lucky. You don't want to be part of someone else's thing.
- [79:21]
Steve Fury
After a while, I got. And I. I'm so grateful for Bert. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met. He got me on. I did stadiums. I did. I went on private jets.
- [79:30]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [79:30]
Steve Fury
But after, you know, when I'm, like, almost getting into close to 40, I don't want my only credit to be. I opened for another guy.
- [79:37]
Marc Maron
Well, that's the weird thing is, is you would think. And I've just noticed this from other people. Like, I don't. Like, I. If. If I. Even if I have friends who get huge, I pull back. You know what I mean? Like. Because I saw it happen, like with Candace and when I was a door guy. You just see these guys, they all have these crews, and, you know, for the most part, they don't go anywhere.
- [80:00]
Steve Fury
Yes.
- [80:00]
Marc Maron
And you. The idea would be that, like. Well, you know, you're being exposed to this huge audience, so they'll come see you the next time. But they don't remember.
- [80:08]
Steve Fury
No.
- [80:08]
Marc Maron
They don't give a. Yeah.
- [80:10]
Steve Fury
I mean, I got a small thing from it. But you're. I mean, like, shit, I'll get a couple hundred people from a stadium or something.
- [80:16]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [80:16]
Steve Fury
And I still open for, you know, Bobby Santino, anybody. I can. But I kind of decide to focus on myself.
- [80:23]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [80:23]
Steve Fury
And try and build myself, because that's. If that fails, at least can blame myself.
- [80:27]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [80:28]
Steve Fury
Which is a lot easier to sleep with.
- [80:30]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Sure. I do it all the time, I can tell you.
- [80:34]
Steve Fury
Apostropedic really helps that way.
- [80:35]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Yeah. I'm just a. And even if I just. If I got a free. Some spare time.
- [80:40]
Steve Fury
Yeah.
- [80:40]
Marc Maron
I'll just blame myself for something. Why the fuck am I not that guy? It's all bullshit. It's all just the way my brain works. Like, at some point, it's sort of like, you know, like, you better accept you're okay soon. You did all right. You won.
- [80:55]
Steve Fury
Yeah. I definitely say you won.
- [80:56]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Yeah. But there's part of me that's sort of like, yeah, but how much I didn't win the big one.
- [81:01]
Steve Fury
You know what? By going with. I would consider Burt one of the winning the big ones. The guy's doing arena. I. I don't. I don't wanna. It doesn't look that fun.
- [81:09]
Marc Maron
He's working.
- [81:10]
Steve Fury
He's always working.
- [81:11]
Marc Maron
Yeah, always.
- [81:12]
Steve Fury
And not even like just he's on his phone.
- [81:14]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [81:14]
Steve Fury
Like making videos. I don't want that.
- [81:18]
Marc Maron
Me neither.
- [81:19]
Steve Fury
That's too hard, dude. That's why he's so impressive to me.
- [81:21]
Marc Maron
Well, that's all those guys have to feed the monster. Like all the monster, dude. Yeah. And like I don't know what I would do with. If I had that many people that liked me. I'd be like this. There's something wrong with. With them me. I don't know what happened. You know what I mean?
- [81:34]
Steve Fury
You must not know actually me if there's so much you like me.
- [81:37]
Marc Maron
Well, yeah, but. But it's also the fact that the responsibility of it and also the level of, you know, work or whatever. I don't. I don't understand it all, but I do. Like when in. In my quieter moments. Like I do realize I don't want that. But there's another part of me, the ego part of me that's sort of like why the fuck should be given.
- [81:55]
Steve Fury
To me or something.
- [81:56]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah. But like I don't want it. I put the work in to be exactly who I am. And I wouldn't even know how to construct an act that those people would want or those people whatever. Or the huge audience. I don't know what do.
- [82:07]
Steve Fury
I was like. I always picture burst like Jimmy Buffett.
- [82:10]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [82:11]
Steve Fury
You know? Yes, it's exactly lifestyle thing. When you go to a show, they're out four hours before the show in the parking lot with their shirts off. With their shirts off drinking beers. They fill up the back of their trucks with water.
- [82:21]
Marc Maron
So. Yeah.
- [82:22]
Steve Fury
Like a pool.
- [82:22]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [82:23]
Steve Fury
It's like a Jimmy Buffett parrot headed.
- [82:24]
Marc Maron
It is. Right.
- [82:25]
Steve Fury
It's just awesome. But it's just a. To just. It takes so much work to be that guy.
- [82:31]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [82:31]
Steve Fury
And it. Yeah, it's fun because he's built to do it. But I'm not built to do that.
- [82:35]
Marc Maron
Well, I mean, it's also like, you know, I mean it's. It's a whole new thing of comedy now. Like, you know, we just wanted to kind of, you know, make a living.
- [82:44]
Steve Fury
Yeah. I want to sell out. Let me sell club dates.
- [82:46]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [82:46]
Steve Fury
I want to do. I make a good living. I get to meet some fans I'm not. I can walk out and people don't stop me.
- [82:52]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah.
- [82:53]
Steve Fury
Bert, we'd be at dinner with. And he would be. I'm talking fine dining.
- [82:58]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [82:59]
Steve Fury
And someone would come up to him and ask him to take off his shirt and take a picture. I mean, I'm talking. These steaks are 200 bucks.
- [83:05]
Marc Maron
And hold on. He'd do it.
- [83:06]
Steve Fury
Yeah. He's the best.
- [83:07]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [83:08]
Steve Fury
Nice fucking guy in the world.
- [83:09]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [83:10]
Steve Fury
And he'd take off his shirt picture with this person. He enjoys it, but that's how I know. I would have been like, get the out of my face. I'm eating steak right now. What are you doing? But he would do it.
- [83:21]
Marc Maron
Everyone, man.
- [83:22]
Steve Fury
I'm like, you're in a suit and I have to take my shirt off.
- [83:24]
Marc Maron
Yeah. He is a good guy. But it was good talking to you. Yeah.
- [83:28]
Steve Fury
Thank you very much. Can I say one thing?
- [83:30]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [83:30]
Steve Fury
This is always the thing. My. My mom, when I moved here, she's like, you got to do it. So I want to give a shout out to my mom. What up, mom? I did a dog.
- [83:37]
Marc Maron
He did it. She listens.
- [83:38]
Steve Fury
Oh, she's a huge fan of yours. This was a big thing for her. So. So thank you.
- [83:42]
Marc Maron
See, your mom's my audience.
- [83:43]
Steve Fury
Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. Yeah. Slightly older, good looking woman.
- [83:47]
Marc Maron
Oh, good. All right. Well, that's good to know. All right, well, what's her name?
- [83:52]
Steve Fury
Sandra.
- [83:53]
Marc Maron
Sandra. He did great.
- [83:54]
Steve Fury
Thank you, bud.
- [84:00]
Marc Maron
Well, there you go. That's Steve Fury. You can go see what he's up to@steve fury.com and at his social pages. And a special hello to Steve Fury's mom. My fans. Hang out for a minute. Hey, folks. You can get the latest Ask Mark anything bonus episode with your full Marin subscription. I took some time here in Albuquerque to answer the latest round of your questions. How often do you get recognized in public? I would imagine it happens almost anytime. You go out shopping at Whole Foods and other routine outings. Is this something you have to mentally think about before you go out, or is it just routine at this point? I'm fortunate in that most of my fans are very decent people. They're good people. Many of them see me and they don't feel the need to talk to me. And others come up and just. They're nice. It's not all the time. I'm still a very kind of. I'm not. I'm not a huge star. I'm still sort of an acquired taste. And there are people that know me but most of the time I don't. I'm not mobbed or anything. And as I said that, most of my fans are polite people, but they say hi and I'm okay with it. I like it. I'll have a conversation. They ask me personal things because if you listen to my podcast, you know me pretty personal and I don't mind it at all. It's pretty routine, but it's not unmanageable. Subscribe to the full Marin to get bonus episodes twice a week, even during the holidays. Just go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus. And a reminder before we go this podcast is hosted by Acastic. Here's some old riffs from back in the day. Boomer Lives Monkey and lafonda Cat Angels Everywhere.