Episode 1599 - Andy Blitz

Summary

WTF with Marc Maron – Episode 1599: Andy Blitz

Release Date: December 12, 2024

In Episode 1599 of the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, host Marc Maron engages in a heartfelt and comprehensive conversation with long-time friend and esteemed comedian, writer, and actor Andy Blitz. This episode delves deep into Blitz's multifaceted career, personal life, and his enduring impact on the comedy landscape.

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1. Reconnecting with Andy Blitz

Marc Maron begins the episode by reminiscing about his longstanding acquaintance with Andy Blitz, recalling their days at the iconic Luna Lounge in mid-90s New York City. Blitz, known for his distinctive demeanor and prolific contributions to the comedy scene, had become somewhat of a mysterious figure to Marc over the years. Marc's desire to reconnect leads to an insightful dialogue about Blitz's journey in the entertainment industry.

Notable Quote:

Marc Maron [15:08]: "Andy Blitz, as I said, he's a writer, he's a comic. I've known him many years from back in the Luna Lounge days."

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2. Family Heritage and Early Life

Andy Blitz shares his rich cultural background, highlighting his Jewish heritage and his unique upbringing in New York City and New Jersey. Born in NYC, Blitz’s mother hailed from Argentina, bringing a blend of Eastern European and Latin American influences to his upbringing.

Notable Quote:

Andy Blitz [23:26]: "My mom is from Argentina and they're both Jewish."

Blitz discusses his family's move from Roosevelt Island, where his parents met while working in a hospital, to Bergen County, New Jersey. This multicultural environment played a significant role in shaping his worldview and comedic sensibilities.

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3. Foray into Comedy: High School and College

Blitz recounts his early forays into comedy during his high school years in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Collaborating with high school friends like Andy Daly, Blitz honed his craft through sketch performances and public access television projects. These formative experiences laid the groundwork for his future in stand-up and television writing.

Notable Quote:

Andy Blitz [40:07]: "We had an hour or something like that. And so daily. And I did sketches together in high school that we wrote and performed and shot."

His time at Columbia University brought both creative challenges and opportunities, including struggles with depression, which he candidly discusses with Marc.

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4. Stand-Up Comedy and Luna Lounge

Transitioning from college, Blitz delves into the vibrant New York comedy scene, particularly his involvement with the Luna Lounge. He shares anecdotes about performing alongside notable comedians like Sarah Silverman and Mike Portnoy, navigating the dynamics of open mic nights, and the evolution of Luna Lounge into a hub for both established and emerging comedic talent.

Notable Quote:

Andy Blitz [53:35]: "Every time we drove by, my grandma would go, I could smell the cookies."

Blitz reflects on the camaraderie and challenges of performing in such a competitive environment, highlighting the importance of supportive and intelligent audiences.

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5. Television Writing Career

Andy Blitz's transition from stand-up to television writing marks a significant pivot in his career. Beginning with writing for Conan O'Brien's show, Blitz discusses the intricacies of comedic writing, collaborating with esteemed writers like John Glaser, and the impact of his work on shows such as Review and Master of None.

Notable Quote:

Andy Blitz [56:23]: "I wrote for Review again. I reunited with Andy Daly. Yeah, that was on Comedy Central. And my brother Jeff was writing and directing those."

Blitz also touches upon his upcoming project, Late Nights starring Jason Kelce on ESPN, where he continues to shape late-night comedy with his unique voice and storytelling prowess.

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6. Personal Life and Family Dynamics

A poignant segment of the conversation revolves around Blitz's personal life, particularly his parents' struggles with hoarding and the impact on his family. He describes the emotional toll of helping his parents downsize and the logistical challenges involved, offering a glimpse into the personal sacrifices behind his professional success.

Notable Quote:

Andy Blitz [71:27]: "They stopped driving. And they were at that point in the city. They were back in the city. And I would drive him basically, like, every day for four months from New York to New Jersey to go through the garbage."

Blitz's dedication to his family underscores the balance he maintains between his demanding career and personal responsibilities.

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7. Mental Health and ADHD Awareness

Marc Maron initiates a candid discussion about mental health, specifically focusing on ADHD. He shares his personal struggles and Blitz responds with empathy, discussing his own experiences with anxiety and panic attacks. This segment highlights the importance of mental health awareness in high-pressure environments like comedy and television.

Notable Quote:

Andy Blitz [35:18]: "I might do the whatever, the fluoxetine. I've talked to a doctor."

Blitz emphasizes the significance of seeking professional help and the challenges of self-medication, offering valuable insights into coping mechanisms for mental health issues.

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8. Industry Insights and Future Projects

The conversation shifts to the broader comedy and entertainment industry. Blitz shares his perspectives on the rise of podcasting, the saturation of content creators, and the evolution of comedy in the digital age. He expresses optimism about his future projects, including pitching new shows that aim to "knock America's socks off."

Notable Quote:

Andy Blitz [66:54]: "I've got pitches that I think are gonna knock America's socks off."

Blitz's forward-thinking approach underscores his commitment to innovation and excellence in comedy writing and performance.

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9. Closing Reflections

As the episode draws to a close, Marc and Andy reflect on their journey, the changes in the comedy landscape, and the enduring bond between them. They reminisce about shared experiences, mutual respect, and the importance of maintaining genuine connections amidst the chaos of the entertainment industry.

Notable Quote:

Andy Blitz [77:35]: "Yeah. Take care. All right, take care. Thanks, Mark."

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Conclusion

Episode 1599 of WTF with Marc Maron offers an intimate look into Andy Blitz's life and career, showcasing his resilience, creativity, and dedication to his craft. From his early days in New Jersey to his impactful work in television, Blitz emerges as a respected figure in comedy, continuously striving to innovate and inspire. This episode is a testament to the enduring power of friendship and the relentless pursuit of artistic excellence.

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For those interested in Andy Blitz's work, follow him on Instagram @rndblitz and stay tuned for his upcoming projects, including Late Nights starring Jason Kelce and potential new comedy shows that promise to entertain and challenge audiences alike.

Transcript

[Marc Maron]

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Blitz is a guy I have known for a long time. He was, he was a regular at the Luna Lounge back in the day. I kind of used to see him around. He has a very specific tone, a very specific speed, a very specific personality. But he was definitely present during that time in the mid-90s in New York City. And you know, sometimes I like to reflect and reconnect and I had seen Andy around occasionally, but he's kind of a mysterious character. But I thought, well, hell, let's get him in here after all these years and have a conversation. So he was working at Conan for years as a writer and he was in a lot of sketches. He's written for television a lot since then. He told me he's, he's going to be working on this new late night show, they call it Late Nights starring Jason Kelce, that's going to be on Friday nights in January on espn. He's also writing for Ted on Peacock and he's connected into the fabric of the great comedy blanket that I'm knitting. I'm at Largo in LA tomorrow night, Friday, December 13, for a comedy and music show. For those of you. I don't even know if there's tickets for that, but I can give you the song list. I can tell you what me and my late boomer slash Gen X Cusp band are doing. I don't even know how old most of them are. I don't know how old anybody is. But the song list for tomorrow, I think we're gonna Do Stepping out, the Blues breakers version so me and Jason can play guitar. Cool. And then we're gonna do what Goes on by the Velvet Underground, which is a favorite of mine. And I just played it in New York, so it's still in my head. We're going to do Going, Going, Gone, the Bob Dylan song, which I find is very relevant to my place in life. Now I think we're going to do Carmelita, the Warren Zevon song, because we enjoyed playing that before. Then we might step out on a limb and try to do Lust For Life by Iggy Pop, which sounds easy, but it's very hard for me to keep that beat going while I'm singing. We'll see. It's either that or Call Me the Breeze, the Lynyrd Skynyrd version of the JJ Cale song. Then I believe we're going to do New Speedway Boogie. That's a Grateful Dead song. How many is that? That seems like most of them, doesn't it? That seems like a good selection of tunes. Well, I feel like there's one other one. God damn it. But, yeah. So we're gonna. That's what we're doing Friday night. And I'm gonna do comedy. Fahim Anwar is gonna do comedy. I'm not sure who the other comic will be. We'll find out in the new year. I'm in Sacramento, California, at the Crest theater on Friday, January 10th. I'll be in Napa, California, at the Uptown theater on Saturday, January 11th. I'm in Fort Collins, Colorado, at the Lincoln Center Performance hall on Friday, January 17th. Then Boulder, Colorado, at the Boulder Theater on Saturday, January 18th. I'll be in Santa Barbara, California, at the Lobaro theater on Thursday, January 30th. Then San Luis Obispo, California, at the Fremont center on Friday, January 31st. And Monterey, California, at the Golden State theater on Saturday, February 1st. Go to wtfpod.com tour for all my dates and links to tickets. Yes. Yes, that's all happening. I gotta get that hour back together. I don't know if you know this, but we have a HBO special taping on the books for May in New York City. If all goes as planned. I'll let you know when tickets are available for that. There's also a lot of dates in other places. Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina. Yeah, we'll get it in shape, maybe. If my brain continues to work. All right. I drove a truck the other day. I rented a pickup. Had to move Kit how to move her stuff into another place. And I'M driving the truck and, you know, I really believe that there's a part of me that is, that, is that possible? Is there a part of me that's a guy who drives a truck? Sure, why not? I can do it. I'm not afraid of trucks, not afraid of tools. I'm not afraid of lifting stuff. I'm telling you, man, all this is leading to me in my retirement seeking a job in the sort of construction sector. Is that possible? I'm sure there's a lot of opportunities for guys in their early 60s to drive trucks and move things. I don't know. Keeps me focused, which gets us back to the ADHD business. I look getting a lot of input. I'm getting a lot of input from people. It's the most hectic time of the year, folks. Holiday season means there's a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. That goes double if you rely on mailing and shipping things for the holidays. So do what we've been doing here on WTF for more than a decade. Use stamps.com you can print postage online to free up more time for all your other holiday needs. From small businesses to multi location organizations to your personal home office. Stamps.com handles all your mailing and shipping needs. Wherever, whenever, take care of everything from your home computer or do it all on the go with the Stamps.com mobile app. Just use your Stamps.com account, a printer and the free digital scale they send you and you'll be able to print all your labels, schedule package pickups, find the cheapest and fastest shipping options and more. More holiday, less hustle. Free up some time with stamps.com Sign up at stamps.com and enter code WTF for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a free digital scale. No l term commitments or contracts that stamps.com code WTF. I'm in the zone, man. I'm in the zone. Yeah. You know what zone I'm always in? I gotta quit doing this. I gotta quit doing this. Whatever it is now I gotta, you know, get off the zins. I just hit a wall with everything. Food, nicotine, coffee, booze, drugs. That's behind me. Gambling, Never my bag. I just, it just gets to a point where I'm like, what am I doing? What do I look like on the baseline? Why am I doing this all the time? Why do I circle around and I get to the point where I get terrified of something and then I'm like, I gotta stop all this shit. And I And I've done it before, but now with this whole idea, with the ADHD idea, I guess I just gotta go get broke down. I gotta go get it broken down for me. I gotta go get, what is it evaluated. Because I've gotten a lot of emails about the ADHD business and a psychotherapist, a psychologist, she said, basically she said, quote, the fact that you are taking as many zins as you are sort of negates the question of if you would benefit from stimulant medication. As in you're already self medicating with a high level of stimulants. If they are working for you and don't cause cancer. You're probably getting the same help with focus and helping your brain feel more settled. People with ADHD tend to need a lot of stimulation. It's not like I recommend nicotine, but I get that it scratches the itch. Is that what it is? Is that what it's always been? I mean, I feel like I've thought along these lines before. Do you know how much coffee I drink a day? Yeah. So many of you have been up and down this goddamn tree with me so many times, it's stupid. Why, why don't I just go get medicine? Why? Because. I'll tell you why. There's a couple reasons. There's the age old idea that like, well, I don't want to lose my edge. I don't want to lose my personality. I don't want to, you know, feel, know different in a way that I'm uncomfortable with. I'd rather stay with the thing that makes me uncomfortable all the time. But I know it. I, I, I live it. It is mine. It has always been mine. I don't need a new discomfort, even if it means I get rid of the old discomfort. That's one angle. The other angle is if I have adhd, what's the medication like? Adderall. I mean, look, I'll be honest with you. I've been sober a long fucking time. And I think no matter how old I am or what, you know, how strong my sobriety is, if I got an Adderall prescription, that would be tough. That would be tough because I like the go fast. I like it. And I guess that's part of the condition. Why wouldn't I like to go fast? Back when I did blow, I used to do blow and I'd be like, this makes me feel normal. I mean a little intensely normal, a little like sweaty normal. But in terms of how I thought my brain should feel, like Cocaine. Yeah. I would get high, but there was a point where I'm like, oh, everything just quiets down. I definitely noticed that back in the day. I definitely knew that. Why? That was my thing. And then just the balance of it, the balance of booze and blow. So I don't know. I know there's probably. I don't know anything about the medications available and I imagine an anti anxiety might, you know, also be part of the package. But the idea of Adderall. Look, I'll be honest with you. I'll call myself out when I have a cold. I'm pretty excited to take those, you know, those Sudafeds that you got to get from the pharmacist with the pheno pseudo veteran in there. I don't overdo it and I'm not even sure I can feel it, but I'm pretty excited because I think it gives me a little zing, giving me a little zip. Makes me think, you know what? Fuck it, man. Enough of this. Enough of it. I'm 61 years old. I don't know what's going to. Yeah, what can I fix still? But I don't know, maybe I'm going to go get evaluated and keep you in the loop on that. All right, Because I know you're just wondering. And I appreciate the support and the outreach and I appreciate that there may be treatment for this, but I also appreciate that there's a whole spectrum of psychological profiles that, you know, weren't around when I was younger. And there's also that part of me that's sort of like, you know, just deal with it, man. I used to do jokes about that, you know, this is a reasonable response to what's going on in the world. Yeah, that might be true, but I don't have to personalize it all the time. I mean, what is going on in the world is, yes, it is happening to me, but I'm not alone in that. So what about that part of it? The personalization, the grandiosity of that, the self centeredness of that? Could I use some relief from that? For me, the only relief that I find in my head is the relief of someday stopping everything that I'm doing and just disappearing and living a quiet life. Maybe driving a truck. I don't really want a truck, actually. Maybe a Subaru Outback wilderness. Is that weird? Speaking of problems, this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. The seasons are changing and some of us don't do great with that. There's less daylight. It gets colder in parts of the country. And not everyone feels warm and fuzzy around the holidays. In fact, it can be the hardest time of the year for some people. Therapy is one way for you to bring yourself some comfort that never goes away, even when the season changes. At home, you have your favorite comfort items to keep you feeling warm and protected, like an old blanket or a pet or your easy chair. I'm comforted by my cats and my guitars and plenty of other stuff. But I also know I can get some comfort by going to my therapist when I'm feeling out of sorts. If you're looking to get mentally comfy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online and it's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. Find comfort this December with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com WTF today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelphlp.com WTF so, Andy Blitz, as I said, he's a writer, he's a comic. I've known him many years from back in the Luna Lounge days. He. He's got some stuff coming up, but it's not exactly clear what it is. There is this. They call it Late Night starring Jason Kelsey. Is it Kelsey or Kels? I should know. That's going to be on ESPN on Friday nights in January. And he might be doing some stand up around town, but I've known him a long time and now his time has come to talk. This is me and Andy Blitz. So this beard project, how long have you been working on that?

[Andy Blitz]

This is, I think, a few months.

[Marc Maron]

Wow.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You're. You're one of those guys.

[Andy Blitz]

I had one that got, I think about this big and then I shaved it New Year's Day.

[Marc Maron]

So it's been a year almost.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I guess so. And then I was going to. I was going to shave it and then I decided to keep it as like a lucky thing for.

[Marc Maron]

For what?

[Andy Blitz]

For Kamala.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Well, first you wanted to be one.

[Marc Maron]

Of the few men who aren't bears that looks like that that voted for Kamala.

[Andy Blitz]

I do feel that people silently assume I'm a what, A trumpy when I walk around.

[Marc Maron]

A trumpy or a, you know, psycho libertarian making cooking outdoors videos.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Here I am in the Antarctic and I've got a fire going.

[Andy Blitz]

I would love to infiltrate that community.

[Marc Maron]

But just be like, why couldn't you?

[Andy Blitz]

I could, I guess, at this Point.

[Marc Maron]

What would you do? What's the plan of infiltration? How does it work? Are you an assassin or you just want to get to know them a little bit?

[Andy Blitz]

I just want to. I just want to counter the propaganda they're getting. Just push.

[Marc Maron]

But personally, you just want to go out and go like, hey, guys, I don't know.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Yeah. I just want to be like, look at my phone.

[Marc Maron]

I have some facts. Yeah, that'll work.

[Andy Blitz]

This climate change thing might be for real cold, Right.

[Marc Maron]

Weather seems weird. Yeah. I think that's a good plan.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Now I feel like we're okay, right? Me and you?

[Andy Blitz]

I think so.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Andy Blitz]

Do you have any problem?

[Marc Maron]

I don't. I. I feel. I. I do feel like I. I might have been a dick at some point to you, you know, maybe in the Luna days, but I. I don't think it was ongoing.

[Andy Blitz]

I. It was fine. It didn't bother me. It was. I'd been warned about you.

[Marc Maron]

What? Seriously?

[Andy Blitz]

No, no. You were. You were grumpy, but never.

[Marc Maron]

Never took it personally.

[Andy Blitz]

I didn't take it personally. I was. I didn't understand. I thought. I thought show business was all great.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. At that time.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

So I didn't understand.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I think there was, like, there was a period there where you first started where I wasn't sure whether or not you were mentally challenged or that was a stylistic choice.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Take your time. There's no reason to rush to a.

[Marc Maron]

Conclusion or a punchline.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. I remember when I started doing the five minute sets on late night tv and I was just like, oh, I can't possibly finish a joke. Five minutes.

[Marc Maron]

I know. Yeah. Impossible. Yeah. We're gonna have to stretch it out a little bit.

[Andy Blitz]

We'll bring him back to finish the gym. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But I was trying to think because, like, the last time I think I ran into you was in New York at. At that place that used to be. Was it. Did it used to be Max Fish? It's a coffee shop, right?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

On Ludlow Street. Right. Like right across the street from what was Luna Lounge.

[Andy Blitz]

It was either formerly Max Fish or Pink Pony or something like that. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Really? I think. I feel like.

[Andy Blitz]

Or maybe it was Max Fish.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I think one of them isn't one of them. Oh, no. Pianos, I think might still be there. Do you remember that place?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, That's a block down.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Or something like that. Or. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I feel like I missed most of the. I think I was in New York for the original Alternative Explosion, which was sort of focused on one Place Luna.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And then there was some other thing going on at Surf Reality that seemed to be. I wouldn't say a different tier, but a different approach. And Luna was sort of integrating mainstream comedy acts with kind of aspiring performance artists, and there was a bit of tension at times.

[Andy Blitz]

I felt you would have liked. Right at Luna. You might have Reverend Jen.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Andy Blitz]

Followed by Roseanne or something like that.

[Marc Maron]

Pre Insane Roseanne.

[Andy Blitz]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Or latent Insane Roseanne. Did she ever come there? Do you feel like she did?

[Andy Blitz]

At least she did one set there. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I feel like everyone kind of did one set there because they felt like it was something to do. It's kind of like this podcast. It feels like everyone's got to do it once. But now that everyone has a podcast and everyone is yammering, there's no end. All of a sudden. It's the biggest boon to Clickbait Industries is that every idiot has a podcast, and now every celebrity on every tier just never shuts up.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. And do you feel like. I'm not really. I don't know a lot about the podcasting world, but when these podcasts pop up, is it similar to how you would feel when new comics would show up at Luna?

[Marc Maron]

It used to be, but not anymore. Now I just feel like I've done something horribly irresponsible, that I championed something early on. I opened a portal, me and a couple other people. But we keep it. We keep it real. We keep it audio.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So, you know, people don't feel pressed to dress up or show up with people. And I think there is a. It's a different way one takes in audio than watching.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

I think it's more intimate.

[Andy Blitz]

They can imagine what we look like.

[Marc Maron]

All right, so let's. Let's go back. Let's, let's. I've decided that it's become my job on some level. I did it with the Comedy Store, but now as history and memory and everything is so easily revised and erased in people's minds. And I think it's important to talk about Luna Lounge and what we did there, Andy. What we did there. But, like, where did you grow up?

[Andy Blitz]

I grew up mostly in New Jersey. I was born in New York City.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And then lived in the East Village as a kid.

[Marc Maron]

You did?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Where?

[Andy Blitz]

Fourth street and Avenue A.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

As a kid?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What would that have been in the 80s?

[Andy Blitz]

70S?

[Marc Maron]

Oh. So it was like.

[Andy Blitz]

It was rough. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Why were. Why was your family there?

[Andy Blitz]

My dad is from New York. He's from Brooklyn.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Andy Blitz]

And my mom is from Argentina.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Huh.

[Andy Blitz]

She is.

[Marc Maron]

She's Argentinian.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. And she's a doctor, and she came up to New York for, like, a fellowship of something.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, so is that where they met or.

[Andy Blitz]

They met on Roosevelt Island?

[Marc Maron]

What, before they put the tram in?

[Andy Blitz]

I think. When is that? They met in the 60s.

[Marc Maron]

So what the hell were they doing on Roosevelt Island? Were people living there?

[Andy Blitz]

There were people that. They were working in a hospital there.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, so that's what was there.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Hospital.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. My dad was a research psychologist, so he had a lab there because I.

[Marc Maron]

Don'T feel like the housing was there. I feel like it. Like maybe there was just a hospital there because I don't know. I feel like that the tram to Roosevelt island was put in when they built condos out there.

[Andy Blitz]

Maybe it was just a single scene.

[Marc Maron]

Where people would go around the hospital.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You just one bar in a hospital?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Yeah. That's where you go there.

[Marc Maron]

So they met there.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So your mom's, like, Argentinian?

[Andy Blitz]

Yep, yep.

[Marc Maron]

You speak the language poorly. Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Muscle menos. Well, I. Her mother did not speak English.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Andy Blitz]

My grandmother. And so she would speak to us in Spanish, but that was it. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't. I kind of. It was in my brain a little bit, but then we didn't really. She. Oh, she spoke to us in English, which is not how you do it if you want to be fully bilingual.

[Marc Maron]

And your dad's Jewish?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, they're both Jewish.

[Marc Maron]

Your mom's Argentinian Jew?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

How'd that happen?

[Andy Blitz]

Argentina let allowed Jews in. They had, like, a liberal Jewish immigration.

[Marc Maron]

But wait, like, in recently or like, are you talking about after the Inquisition type of thing?

[Andy Blitz]

This would have been, like, started in the late 1800s.

[Marc Maron]

Right, okay. Right.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. My mom is from a town with the subtly Jewish name of Mosesville.

[Marc Maron]

Mosesville?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

In Argentina.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. It was like a Jewish colony.

[Marc Maron]

Oh. So they just wanted to make clear where the Jews lived for when they indulged all those Nazis residency.

[Andy Blitz]

Sure.

[Marc Maron]

So they could walk around the perimeters of Mosesville, nostalgic for killing.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That's crazy. So your mom was like. Came from Eastern Europe.

[Andy Blitz]

Well, she was born in Argentina. Her parents. Yeah. Were from, like, Poland and Ukraine.

[Marc Maron]

Okay, I see.

[Andy Blitz]

And then they. Yeah, I think my grandmother went there in the 20s and my grandfather, who I never knew, he went. He went there as, like, a kid.

[Marc Maron]

But not to run away from Hitler's.

[Andy Blitz]

He was like fleeing a pogrom. It was like Fiddler on the roof style.

[Marc Maron]

Oh. In pale of settlement or like, Belarus or Ukraine.

[Andy Blitz]

Ukraine. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yep, that's it. Wow.

[Andy Blitz]

And then. Yeah. So she and her sister grew up in Argentina, and.

[Marc Maron]

And your grandmother just was in. Totally encultured Argentinian, but they were not Latino. Is it called Latin America still?

[Andy Blitz]

Latin America? Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Yes.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. I mean, they're. They were. Their roots were. They were Jewish immigrants to Latin America. But then I guess. Yeah. My mother is third generation already, probably.

[Marc Maron]

Or. No, second.

[Andy Blitz]

She was the first generation Argentinian, so her parents immigrated. Immigrated from. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Wild.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And they spoke Argentinian.

[Andy Blitz]

They. They all spoke. You know, they spoke a minimum of 10 languages. My. My grandfather was. I mean, he died when My mother was 12, so I never knew him, but I think he spoke many languages.

[Marc Maron]

Isn't that wild?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What the is wrong with us? I can't. I can barely get through English.

[Andy Blitz]

I know. And the world all speaks English, so.

[Marc Maron]

If you travel, like, sometimes you have to go slower.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Which wouldn't be a problem for you.

[Andy Blitz]

So rude of them to not practice their English so that we.

[Marc Maron]

I wish I knew other language.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I got. I got pretty. You know, I. I studied Spanish in school, and then I. I went to Argentina during the writer strike before this one.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, you did? Recently, A couple years ago.

[Andy Blitz]

No, no.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, like, in 2000.

[Andy Blitz]

Started in 2007.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

I went down there. I mean, I was on the picket line, and then it was getting cold. That one started in November.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And then I just said, I'm gonna flee. I mean, as long as I observed the strike, I felt fine about it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. You're gonna flee the writer strike.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So.

[Andy Blitz]

And then I went down there and I. The strike was resolved. You know, there was like. There was a lot of, like, posturing, and I think, like, Gavin Palone, that guy wrote like, a thing like, the studios are prepared for this to go on for a year or whatever, which. I don't know if that was true. Something like that. And so I thought it would go on for a long time. And then I went down there, and then it was resolved fairly quick a month after I got there, but I just decided to stay.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, you were there a while?

[Andy Blitz]

I was there for five months.

[Marc Maron]

How was that?

[Andy Blitz]

I loved it. I loved it. I mean, I thought about. I fantasized about just, like, staying down there. And then people would say, like, whatever happened to that guy?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I think he went to Argentina.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That's crazy. Well, I think. Didn't they. Isn't there, like, Not a good political situation there.

[Andy Blitz]

Now they've elected a right wing kind of nut.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Who calls himself the Argentinian Trump.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I kind of remember him. Wasn't he a show business personality as well? Like he does a lot of big. Like he's like almost a wrestler or something.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I mean, we're not ones to point fingers at this point with ever again anywhere.

[Marc Maron]

My brother was down there for a while.

[Andy Blitz]

Oh, he was?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

What was he doing? Was he like living down there?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Oh, wow.

[Marc Maron]

He was living there for. But it was like, it was nothing too romantic. I think he was in like some sort of frozen food business.

[Andy Blitz]

Oh, yeah?

[Marc Maron]

I'm not sure.

[Andy Blitz]

You gotta go though. You gotta go to Buenos Aires.

[Marc Maron]

That's where he lived. Yeah, I think he was working for that one company, I don't know, bringing in pizzas or something.

[Andy Blitz]

Okay.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So when do you get. So when. Okay, so you grow up on the Lower east side, Right. But still Avenue A and fourth, hell of a choice. Was a big place.

[Andy Blitz]

I had two older brothers. So they still around? Yeah. That's good. I saw one of them yesterday for Thanksgiving.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, he's out here, right?

[Andy Blitz]

Yep. Yeah, he's in the. He's in the business. He's a director.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And the other one's in Oklahoma and I'll see him next month.

[Marc Maron]

Oklahoma?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, he's a law professor at the college. He's at Oklahoma City University.

[Marc Maron]

Wow.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What's his. How's he feeling about Oklahoma? Do you ever get calls like, oh, my God, I love it here?

[Andy Blitz]

He's fine. He's settled in there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I go out there in Oklahoma City.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I perform there. He lives in, I think in a neighborhood where there's a lot of academics.

[Marc Maron]

Moses Land.

[Andy Blitz]

Moses land, yeah. Academics, quote, unquote. You know what I'm getting at? Sure.

[Marc Maron]

Mosesville.

[Andy Blitz]

People who love to talk. You know what I mean?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, sure, sure. Every time I perform at a place like that, it's like I don't draw huge, maybe four or five hundred people, but they're very grateful that.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. You've gone out there. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's like. There are like minded people everywhere. Everywhere. Sure.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. It's like the margin of difference was less than 2%. So there's a good 76, 77 million of people that are like minded versus the 78 million that aren't, and then the other 100 million that didn't vote. But yeah, I do find a certain amount of solace in that.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I try to.

[Marc Maron]

How Are you rationalizing it?

[Andy Blitz]

Yes. Similarly, I think of the glass as half, not. Fucking idiot. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What are you gonna do?

[Andy Blitz]

What are you gonna do? Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So. So you're. You. When do you move to Jersey?

[Andy Blitz]

I was 6.

[Marc Maron]

What part of Jersey?

[Andy Blitz]

So, Bergen County. This town called Ridgewood.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. My family. Pompton Lakes.

[Andy Blitz]

Okay. That's not far from there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Did you spend time out there?

[Marc Maron]

I always go to my grandma's. I was born in Jersey.

[Andy Blitz]

Oh, you were?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. We lived in Wayne for a couple years when I was very young.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And my grandparents lived in Pompton Lakes through most of my life before they went to Florida.

[Andy Blitz]

Okay.

[Marc Maron]

So. Yeah, I know Pompton. Yeah, I know the Willowbrook Mall.

[Andy Blitz]

Sure. There's. It's nothing but malls there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Paramus Park. I was. I was around when that opened, buddy.

[Andy Blitz]

Oh, wow.

[Marc Maron]

It's a big deal. We went out to. My grandma was excited because I think it. It had one of the first food courts, and I guess it was promoted as. I remember when they'd opened, my grandma. My grandma was like, we're going to this new mall, and they have food from around the world.

[Andy Blitz]

You don't have to go to Greece.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. To get souvlaki.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Or Euros.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, sure.

[Marc Maron]

There was actually a place called. That was the first time I had Greek food.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Was at the food court in Paramus Park.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Now, Willowbrook just had a fountain. Like, they were. Like. They got lost.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

They got upstaged. Do you remember the Alexander sign? The Alexander Department Store? That giant painting?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That's crazy. Yeah, that's gone. I remember driving by it. There's an Abisco factory, too.

[Andy Blitz]

Oh, yes. That was in Farewell somewhere.

[Marc Maron]

It was. Was it off 23 or something? I don't remember what the highways are.

[Andy Blitz]

I think that's the. I think there was.

[Marc Maron]

But every time we drove by, my grandma would go, I could smell the cookies. And you sit there, like. And you just kind of smell the. I remember when Secacus smelled terrible. Before the stadiums were built. My grandmother always used to say it was all pig farms. Oh, I didn't know that. My grandma. My grandfather's family's from Elizabeth.

[Andy Blitz]

Okay.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Dad's from Jersey City. Full Jersey.

[Andy Blitz]

You're full Jersey. Yeah, Paisano Jersey.

[Marc Maron]

So what are you. What are you wandering around New Jersey when you decide to do comedy?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I was.

[Marc Maron]

Did you go to college?

[Andy Blitz]

I went to college. I went to Colombia, so I went back.

[Marc Maron]

That's fancy.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Smarty pants. What'd you study There.

[Andy Blitz]

Ah. Getting out of Columbia, that was my focus.

[Marc Maron]

My buddy teaches at Columbia.

[Andy Blitz]

Oh, really?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Teaches what?

[Marc Maron]

Writing.

[Andy Blitz]

Okay.

[Marc Maron]

Sam Whipsite, the genius.

[Andy Blitz]

Nice.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Is he enjoying it?

[Marc Maron]

I don't know. Yeah, I think he likes teaching. I. I think that when you choose that path as a writer because you want to be true to yourself and you end up in academia, that it's very hard not to get sort of enmeshed in the politics of academia.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

So that takes up a lot of your mental space.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, Yeah, I got. I was. I struggled, you know, with depression and stuff and college.

[Marc Maron]

You did?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

How bad?

[Andy Blitz]

It was bad, I guess.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know if I'm depressed.

[Andy Blitz]

No. Good.

[Marc Maron]

No, that's.

[Andy Blitz]

That's good. I mean, I'm not. I'm not now, but I was then.

[Marc Maron]

Some days I think is. Is. Am I. Are all these things that I'm thinking because of depression, like, am I so acclimated to depression that I wouldn't know if I have it? Oh, is that. That seems crazy, though, because when you're depressed, you kind of know. Right. You lose your will to do.

[Andy Blitz]

I think you feel defeated a lot. But I do think that it's. I think. I think that one of the. It sort of is, like, it messes with your whole perception of reality and it's.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

You know, I think that you.

[Marc Maron]

Were you incapacitated?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, well, I was. I was never, like. I never had to do a. I was never an inpatient and anything like that, so I was just. I did therapy and meds, but I was just, like, struggling at school.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

On account of it.

[Marc Maron]

Did you have friends?

[Andy Blitz]

I had friends and. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that's good.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So you weren't so depressed. You were just the depressed one of a group?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I was. Everyone's got their role. You need someone to.

[Marc Maron]

And you got on the medicine.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that helped.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But now, no medicine.

[Andy Blitz]

I'm not on it now, but I might. I have. I've had some anxiety stuff. I've had. I had a panic attack at a baseball game, and so I think I need to.

[Marc Maron]

Well, you're really invested with baseball. That must have gone on the whole game because a lot of waiting involved.

[Andy Blitz]

I'm a Mets fan, so there's. So how is this going to go wrong?

[Marc Maron]

You know how that manifests itself? Was a panic? You can breathe, or.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, it was. I was there with. Are you. Did I just trigger one for you now?

[Marc Maron]

I'm telling you, man, I'm always in half a panic. Attack.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Like always.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But I've got so acclimated to it that I do contrary action and do as. Act as if thinking, oh, great. It's cognitive.

[Andy Blitz]

Yes, Cognitive stuff is very helpful.

[Marc Maron]

It's just like, it's. I think it's one. And eventually you just do it because I don't want to do anything. And then you realize, like, just do it.

[Andy Blitz]

Right. Yeah, I think that's. I think acting and. And doing stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Is good. And.

[Marc Maron]

So, wait, what was the panic attack?

[Andy Blitz]

I haven't. Periodically. I mean, that one was like. I thought I was having a health emergency.

[Marc Maron]

Which one?

[Andy Blitz]

Which. What did I think I was having? I wasn't quite sure. I thought I had, like, a heart palpitation, and I felt lightheaded and. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

I could have used you there laughing about it. It would have given me some.

[Marc Maron]

But she's like, that's every other day for me. And, like, when I hear people talk about it as an event, I'm like, am I living life wrong? Because, like, I never. My hands are always tingling. I. You know, I. Sometimes I can breathe, sometimes I can't. Palpitations. Fuck. Like, I don't even pay attention to those anymore.

[Andy Blitz]

Right. I mean, maybe it's kind of. Maybe that's. You have to have enough of them till you're just like, oh, I'm just having a panic attack.

[Marc Maron]

I don't even identify as that. I'm like, well, I don't know what that is.

[Andy Blitz]

It's just life.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

The waves of life.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I mean, like, I used to have these things in my chest, like. Like, these fucking things. I'm like. And then my buddy started asking me about, like, he's like. He started getting those, like, where your heart just goes. And then you. And he's like, I. I went to the. I went to two doctors. I'm like, dude, it's. It just happens.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. It's just nothing.

[Marc Maron]

Are you. Are you thinking about taking something for the anxiety?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What. What? Did you talk to somebody?

[Andy Blitz]

I mean, I might do the. Whatever, the fluoxetine. I've talked to a doctor. Oh.

[Marc Maron]

Not just other panicky people.

[Andy Blitz]

It's just as good.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. No, I mean, there's somebody that just, you know, ride it out approach.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But you might want to talk to another panicky person who's actually medicated to see how they're doing.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. I also had one when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. That triggered one.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

For me. Yeah. And I. I took, like, Ativan or something at that point.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I can't do that because that would be daily.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Why wouldn't you? And.

[Andy Blitz]

And then I was just like, I'm just gonna go to bed.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And then there was. I was in la and there was an earthquake. Oh, so.

[Marc Maron]

So no sweep for you?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Just take another Ativan.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. No, no, at that point, I was just like, you. I'm just, like. Just gonna ride it out. It's gonna be fine.

[Marc Maron]

How was the earthquake for you? Good.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. You get used to them. They're kind of fun, right?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Sometimes you don't even know they happen.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

All right. So in the midst of all this panic, did you start doing comedy in college?

[Andy Blitz]

I started in high school in Jersey. In New Jersey. I. You know, I got into. I would see, like, the. Oh, what's his name? Just Jim Abrahams.

[Marc Maron]

Jim who?

[Andy Blitz]

The airplane.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

I mean, I love that he just.

[Marc Maron]

Died the other day.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

He's part of the team, Right. There was a couple of them.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Zuckers.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I met the Zucker guy.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Naked Gun. Like, I love that stuff.

[Marc Maron]

You liked it?

[Andy Blitz]

I did, yeah. That was really funny.

[Marc Maron]

All jokes.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Still, I don't, like, love the Letterman stuff, but then I. I met Andy. Daly and I are our high school friends.

[Marc Maron]

Does he live by me? I didn't know. No.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Not far.

[Marc Maron]

He does, right?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Yeah, we were just sort of. We had access to equipment. We had, like, a education on shooting and editing.

[Marc Maron]

At your high school?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So you had the big. The big clunky VHS cameras or Beta M. Betamax cameras.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

They had some sort of a TV studio there.

[Andy Blitz]

Exactly, yeah. And we even had public access, so we.

[Marc Maron]

The school had a show on public access.

[Andy Blitz]

We had like an hour or something like that. And so daily. And I did sketches together in high school that we wrote and performed and shot.

[Marc Maron]

Do you have those digitized?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, we do.

[Marc Maron]

Gotta get those out there.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. I think we did it to destroy them. No, they're. Some of them hold up for being 17, right. You know?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Like, when I watched it, I was expecting to cringe more and I was.

[Marc Maron]

Like, okay, like, that's me.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Or like, I. We screwed this up, but this is still funny.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

I played Bob Ross, the painter. Yeah, yeah, I think I. I did.

[Marc Maron]

Before wig or did you have hair with big furrow then?

[Andy Blitz]

No, I had a. I got a wig and. A wig and a fake beard.

[Marc Maron]

I think that Bob Ross wouldn't be a stretch for you.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I feel like you're doing a little Bob Ross now.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I think so.

[Marc Maron]

And get those trees going.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it was the.

[Marc Maron]

And what was the trajectory? What was the arc of the bit?

[Andy Blitz]

Of that bit?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Did he mess up the painting?

[Andy Blitz]

He did.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And then you just had to roll with it, and it was like, messed it up too bad.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

So he just, like, decided to. It became like a surreal painting. Like, oh, yeah. It was too big a fuck up. So he just decided to put a giant wrench over a landscape.

[Marc Maron]

That's pretty funny.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. You know, for teenagers in New Jersey.

[Marc Maron]

So how do you start doing standup? Did you do stand up with him?

[Andy Blitz]

With Bob Ross? Yeah, I started doing stand up. So I think you weren't you performing at the show that became Luna Lounge when it was at Rebar. Rebar. And how long was it? For a year or something like that?

[Marc Maron]

Dude, I don't. I'm losing time. Yeah. Dates.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

But it was at Rebar for a while. And the only thing I remember about Rebar was that there were no chairs and everyone sat on the floor, I believe. And the stool that they had on stage was this metallic kind of like someone's big idea of a modern thing. Like, there was a some sort of angle to Rebar. And the stools were just ridiculous. You could barely move them.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And I'm a sitter, so I just remember it was a real hassle. And I remember being kind of angry because you go in and there was the front bar and then there was, like, that curtain, and then there was the back room where the thing was.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And I think it started becoming a scene at Rebar a bit. And I remember I had some sort of ridiculous on stage. Robert Klein kind of cornered me into a improv.

[Andy Blitz]

Okay.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And I badmouthed him the next week. And it got some press because, like, the fact that Robert Klein was there, you know, people like some reporter went, yeah. And then. And then I ran into Rory Rose Garden, his manager at, like, Penn Station or something. He's like, yeah, Robert had a good time. I don't understand why, you know, he thinks you don't like him. You don't like him. I'm like, I don't know. I was just trying to do the thing. And then old man got up and started doing an improv with me. And it's not really my bag.

[Andy Blitz]

The least he could have done is warn Roseanne not to go.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, well, she's.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know. People would show up there. It was always kind of interesting, but it became a.

[Andy Blitz]

When it moved to Luna Lounge. They. They were. They kept doing a open mic at Rebar.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really?

[Andy Blitz]

And then I went in one one day.

[Marc Maron]

This is the first time up.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. And do you know who. Chris Regan. I don't even know if he is aware of this. Chris Regan is a very funny TV writer. He writes for, like, Family Guy. And he just kind of saw me. I can't remember if we knew each other. We might have known each other through. Through friends, but I'm not sure. But I think he saw me just kind of lurking.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

He's like, just go up, like, who cares?

[Marc Maron]

That's a good one. Who cares? Yeah, me. Me. I'm terrified.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

I mean, maybe he was. Maybe he was. Thought I would. Would bomb. So maybe he was just trying that.

[Marc Maron]

We don't have to assume that. So he said, who cares? And you're like, yeah, you're right.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And that worked for what, a minute?

[Andy Blitz]

It. I had a very short set, but I wasn't really prepared. I didn't have a lot of. I had thought about, like, oh, this is what I'll ever say if I do stand up. And then I did it and it went well. I don't think I'm one of these people who. If I had, like. I mean, it's very common, I guess, to bomb the first time doing it. I feel like I maybe would have just been discouraged.

[Marc Maron]

And if you bombed.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But you did all right.

[Andy Blitz]

I did all right. Yeah. And so I. I immediately decided, I think I might be able to do this. Yeah. And then I did a lot of that. The Lowry side shows, the surf reality.

[Marc Maron]

Face boy, Face boy.

[Andy Blitz]

Church had the open mic on Sundays. And so.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And as you're saying, it would be like you would go up and then somebody would come up and read, like, a very sincere poem.

[Marc Maron]

But. So you. But you're still in high school when you do this?

[Andy Blitz]

No, no, I went to college, so I did the sketches with daily in New Jersey. Then I went to Columbia. And I mean, I think I was. It was part of my. Not all of it, but part of, like, I had been able to do comedy in high school and then went to Columbia and then just like, I don't know how to do it now.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And that was part of what was depressing me because, like, this thing I had was gone this outlet. And then I. But then by my senior year, I wrote for this thing called the Varsity Show. It's like, well, School tradition. Like, it goes back to, like, Rogers and Hammerstein.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Andy Blitz]

So. Oh. And I did that. And, you know, it's like a musical. It's a musical review.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

I thought the best. Like, I wrote some sketches for that, but I thought the best part of it was the music. I thought, like, the music composer, I thought was brilliant because I thought, like, these songs to me, are as good as anything I hear that's out now on Broadway.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And so I just assumed that the composer would become, like, a going. And then I. Then I heard, like, he was studying political science.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And I was just like, ugh. It's too.

[Marc Maron]

It's too bad we lost a good one.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. And so that was Eric Garcetti, who was the mayor of LA for 10 years.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Andy Blitz]

It's. Yes. He's a great songwriter.

[Marc Maron]

Wow.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. But he's also, like, ambassador to India now.

[Marc Maron]

Your friends still.

[Andy Blitz]

No, I'm not. I'm not really in touch with him.

[Marc Maron]

I maybe should hit him up and say, like, why don't we just kick around some ideas for some music stuff.

[Andy Blitz]

Sure. He's in India now, and I do.

[Marc Maron]

He'll be back.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Probably at the beginning of the year. He's not gonna have anything to do. Maybe it's time to get him going again.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. No, he's a great guy.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, good. But, yeah, but it was the first sort of turn of disillusionment like that people don't honor their talent because for whatever reason, it didn't seem like the thing to do, no matter how good you might have thought they were.

[Andy Blitz]

Well, I think for me, I was just like. I'm like, do you guys. I. I wasn't consciously feeling this, but I probably went there. Like, I. I just did this funny stuff in high school.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Like, why aren't you guys. I should be recruited, like a. An athlete or something to. Where's. Like, where's the comedy program?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And they're like, oh, we don't know what you're talking about.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. You know, so you start doing all those open mics.

[Andy Blitz]

I started doing that after college. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And then where were you living? I was. I was. I was moving around a bit. Sublet to sublet. Sort of. But I was also in the. My parents were in New Jersey, but then I had an aunt who had an apartment there that I would.

[Marc Maron]

In New York.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. And so I would, like, first, it started out that she would. She would. She was a snowbird. So I would, like.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah. A few months.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. And then sometimes we would be like roommates.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, so you're chasing the comedy dream. Yeah, but the weird thing is, maybe I'm wrong. I mean, it didn't seem. Did you always feel like you were going to write? Because it didn't seem like you were a lifer. Like comedy was all it was ever going to be.

[Andy Blitz]

What do you mean?

[Marc Maron]

Stand up?

[Andy Blitz]

I think I always. Yeah, I knew that I wanted to. To write. I mean, I wasn't making any money from comedy when I was performing at Luna at that point, you know, I was like, new. Yeah, yeah, one. One night at Luna. I mean, because I lived close to there. I would just, like, sometimes hang out.

[Marc Maron]

Wasn't the show on Monday nights or something?

[Andy Blitz]

It was. Yeah. It was like, I kind of. That was my first aspiration was just to, like. Just to do that show.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. You know, to do Luna Lounge.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, it was cool.

[Marc Maron]

And so weird when I think it was Mondays because, like, I'd get coked up a lot, and that was like, after the weekend. So I would, you know, just because of Monday nights, I would fuck up most of my week because.

[Andy Blitz]

Oh, you would do that for the show right after.

[Marc Maron]

Whatever that was just like, when the party began, was Monday.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Not a great night for the, you know, for parties to begin.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Most people just beginning their week.

[Andy Blitz]

Right, right.

[Marc Maron]

But do you remember at the beginning, do you remember, like, what was going on there? Like, do you remember what the shows were?

[Andy Blitz]

Well, you were on a lot. I did not. I did not know that you were doing any drugs.

[Marc Maron]

It wasn't all the time.

[Andy Blitz]

Well, Sarah Silverman would do a bunch.

[Marc Maron]

Do you remember the weird ones? Like Portnoy.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, Portnoy. I. Yeah, he would. He would perform there. And then when he did that soy bomb thing on the.

[Marc Maron]

Bob Dylan at the Grammys.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I was. He was. That was a Sunday night. And then Luna Lounge was Monday.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And I was in the. I stopped into the public library for some reason, and I was just like, I think that's Bob Dylan in the public library.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And I had this idea that I was going to get him to. I knew Portnoy was booked on Luna. I wanted Bob Dylan to interrupt Mike Portnoy the next night as, like a revenge. Like, how does it feel?

[Marc Maron]

He just might take his shirt off and put fuck you on it.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Or you would have let him write it, but yeah. Did you approach Bob?

[Andy Blitz]

I did. And I started with the wrong question, which was, are you Bob Dylan?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And of course, the answer was no. And.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, that was the end of it.

[Andy Blitz]

I just feel like they're there for you. Like, if you were not Bob Dylan and I asked you that, you would just laugh and be like, come on.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Andy Blitz]

No. You know, but just kind of. What? It was kind of like, no, I want to talk to you. But I'm not. I'm not 100 sure that it was him.

[Marc Maron]

But you didn't follow through with the idea.

[Andy Blitz]

I think I jumped on stage in my. I took out my. I repurposed my Bob Ross wig as a Bob Dylan wig.

[Marc Maron]

You did?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. But it was like no one cared. Yeah, it was just like, it should have been Bob Dylan. If I had to do. If I had to recast that bit, I would just. The real Bob Dylan.

[Marc Maron]

Good luck getting Bob for that.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I was just.

[Marc Maron]

I was annoyed with Portnoy because whatever the poetry of Soy bomb was, it didn't add up if you're gonna disrupt. And, you know, I think he went full Dada as opposed to, like, have something. At least. I guess it was memorable. But what did it mean? Because then he got stuck in that situation where people were like, what does that mean? And he's like, I don't know.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think. I mean, I don't think Dylan would. I think Dylan hated being interrupted and. No, of course, felt like a huge violation. And actually, like, if you look at the. You can find the performance on YouTube and they've. They've edited Portnoy out, you know.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Which is. Which is not surprising. It's just like.

[Marc Maron]

No, it's terrible.

[Andy Blitz]

Fuck that guy.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. And I think. I don't know how he feels about it now, but you should not do that to somebody else's performance.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I mean, there were definitely people around at Luna at that time where it was like. I have no idea what became of them or what his mental state was. The thing I remember him doing that I thought was great was he took his bottle of his little pill thing of Prozac out and dumped it and then stuck his dick in it. And I thought that was relatively inspired.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And now Andy Blitz.

[Andy Blitz]

Right. Have to follow that.

[Marc Maron]

Todd Berry, of course, a regular.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, Todd Barry.

[Marc Maron]

The guys from the state started coming around, which annoyed me. And then the UCB guys, I got very like. Because I was a standup, and I was sort of a. What do you call it? Dyed in the wool. Is that what the phrase. I was like a standup comic that when sketch people came, I'm like, what the fuck is this? What's happening here?

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

What are they doing? Or when one of them would try to do stand up, I'm like, what the fuck is this? They're a gang. They're a group. Can't just have Michael Ian Black up here solo. What's Matt Besser doing alone on stage? Talking.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I had these stupid principles, but it helped.

[Andy Blitz]

It helped bring an audience to the show.

[Marc Maron]

I think that it got real popular for a minute. Like, it got some press and it was like there were lines out the door and I would show up cranky because it would make me nervous because I was trying to honor the idea of it. Like, new stuff every time. What happened to you that day? Shit. And then it. Very quickly, once singer took it over, became kind of a. More of a professional showcase. But I still wanted to adhere to the. Just sort of like angrily talking about my life at the moment. And it was very helpful to me, but I walked away from it feeling very embarrassed a lot.

[Andy Blitz]

Well, it was. You were supposed to do new material, right? That was the. Yeah, yeah. But I. I think that didn't take. Right. Like, people would.

[Marc Maron]

That was the idea of it. But no. But then just became a professional show.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And then there were regulars and it was kind of. It was kind of a thing for a minute.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But what happened with you and your. How did you. Did you ever do regular clubs?

[Andy Blitz]

Some. Sometimes I would do clubs, but I just preferred the audiences that. I mean, I felt like a lot of these people are hilarious people and like, you get to see them. Well, I'll tell you what my thought was. I don't. I don't feel proud of. But I would just feel like the crowd at Luna is the crowd that's smart enough to figure out that you don't have to pay all this money to see these comedians, you know, so it was. I mean, it was.

[Marc Maron]

But also they were forgiving.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, more than anything else.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Is that, you know, the requirement of doing a regular club. There was a context there and a lot of people that were used to doing alt shows.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

The transition into doing the job.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Was different.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But I did, I did. I enjoyed, you know, I would do some clubs in town.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And then once in a while on the road.

[Marc Maron]

So you got. You've got your late night shots. What, on Conan? Yeah, From Luna.

[Andy Blitz]

I sort of. I was hired to write on that show before I ever did stand.

[Marc Maron]

Was that. Was that your first gig?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Who hired you?

[Andy Blitz]

Robert Groff. John Groff, the writer?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, John Groff. I gave him his first writing job.

[Andy Blitz]

You did?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Oh, wow.

[Marc Maron]

On Short Attention Span Theater on Comedy Central.

[Andy Blitz]

Right. He's great.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So he took the gig after Smigel left.

[Andy Blitz]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Or Mike Sweeney. Mike Sweeney's after Grof.

[Andy Blitz]

There was a guy, Marsh McCall, who is not around anymore, who did it for a few months.

[Marc Maron]

So that was your first writing job?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I was out at Luna Lounge and I ran into a couple of Coen writers who I'd recognized from the show.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Tommy Boccha was one of them. Started chatting with Tommy and Brian McCann.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And I didn't know them at that point. And Tommy said he was about to leave Conan.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

So that's how I hear. I mean, that's how.

[Marc Maron]

And you put a package together.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. But that's sort of like. It is. Looking back on it, it's weird that I had to find out that way that Conan was hiring.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Just run into someone whose job I want who is leaving that job.

[Marc Maron]

Just how it happens sometimes.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. So I. Right. I wrote a packet and then they hired me. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Who was on the staff then?

[Andy Blitz]

So Mike Sweeney was on the staff then. You know Brian Stack and John Glaser.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

When I started Brian McCann.

[Marc Maron]

John Glaser's funny.

[Andy Blitz]

John Glazer's really funny. I'm working with him now, actually, so.

[Marc Maron]

I had him for me. I think he's never going to forgive me for misspelling his name in our book. Oh, I think he's a Jon. Right.

[Andy Blitz]

He's Jon. Did you put an H in there?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it was either an H in the N or Glazer was with. As he spells it with an S. Yeah. Yeah. Might have been a Z. One of the names was wrong.

[Andy Blitz]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And I remember he said, who's that? Who's John Glazer? When he saw it in the book. And my producer, who's very meticulous about that, we just. It got by us. And I. And I. I felt like correcting all the books by hand.

[Andy Blitz]

His. His, like, Instagram handle.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Is a. Is like a phonetic. How would you say it? Like the pronunciation.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Of his name.

[Andy Blitz]

And it seems closer to what you put in there. I don't know if he's not over it.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, you think it might be directed at me, maybe? No. Boy, ask him. What are you working on with him?

[Andy Blitz]

Do you know who Jason Kelce is?

[Marc Maron]

No.

[Andy Blitz]

Do you know who Travis Kelce is?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. So Jason Kelce is Travis Kelsey's brother.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah, they're both football.

[Andy Blitz]

They're both football players. Jason Kelsey is retired.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And ESPN is doing a. Like a kind of a late night show, but it's all around football, so that's something.

[Marc Maron]

And he's hosting it.

[Andy Blitz]

Jason Kelce is hosting it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

I mean, it's not going to be like. It's not going to be like he's going to come out and do a monologue or anything like that. I think it'll be like.

[Marc Maron]

So you guys are working on sketch ideas.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Huh? Yeah, that'll be funny.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I think so. We're having fun so far.

[Marc Maron]

So once you start writing a Conan, that puts you in the writer's loop and stand up becomes kind of secondary.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I think that's.

[Marc Maron]

Well, you got your Conan shots from writing there.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I. I think I would have gotten booked there eventually. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. But then I still had to like, audition for the show.

[Marc Maron]

Who was booking it then?

[Andy Blitz]

Frank Smiley.

[Marc Maron]

Frank. And he come out and see you?

[Andy Blitz]

He would come out and see me.

[Marc Maron]

And then he talked to you after? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think that one's going to work. That one's funny.

[Andy Blitz]

I. One of the worst times I ever bombed was running my set, my first set ever for Conan, the night before at the Cellar. Oh. And it just like.

[Marc Maron]

And you didn't work there usually, Frank, he got you on.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, he got me on just to run the set and it just bombed. And then. Okay, well, hard. Good luck.

[Marc Maron]

That's what he said.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Then it killed. It went fine.

[Marc Maron]

Vikon.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

The. Frank goes. Frank just said, we'll get you out. So.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I want some. Do you remember peanut Butter? I did a character, Peanut Butter, who was like a deeply mentally ill comedian. And what were some of his jokes? I did it. I can't remember. They didn't make any sense. None of the jokes made sense.

[Marc Maron]

It. Was it insensitive. Do you think. Do you think you could do peanut butter now?

[Andy Blitz]

I do think so. Yeah. I don't think there was anything that. I mean, just by luck, but I auditioned once for the. I don't know how I arranged it. Like they did like a showcase.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

The club booked like all these comics on and I'd been working at Conan for like five years.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And then I snuck onto the lineup. I had them booked me as peanut butter and I did it for Frank. And Paula Davis as well was there and they loved it. And I wanted to. I wanted them to book me and just have Conan not Know, it was me, like, just. I go out there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And do a set of peanut butter.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And have Conan figure it out while I was out there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

But I think they thought, no, we're not gonna prank our boss.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So you never did peanut butter publicly on the show?

[Andy Blitz]

No, I never did. I. I mean, this is. I sort of had. I have a self sabotage streak, unfortunately. But I. Comedy Central offered me a special as peanut butter. No. And I said, I'll do it if I can do it as peanut butter. And they're like, well, not the whole show. And I go, well, then, thank you anyway.

[Marc Maron]

Really.

[Andy Blitz]

And I. That was a mistake.

[Marc Maron]

But like, what, a half hour?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So you fucked that up.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. I mean, among other things.

[Marc Maron]

But like, what else?

[Andy Blitz]

What else did I fuck up?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Coming off of Conan, I was pitching a show from. I was on Conan a lot. You know, I was. I got to be on camera and I got to do, I think, a lot of funny stuff on the show. So my. I was. My managers were like, let's go out and pitch a show for you. So I did. And I sort of. I don't know, I didn't really. I think I'm better now. I wasn't much of a salesman in the room.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

So one of the networks was like, well, it was gonna be like a sort of a sketch show for me.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And they'd be like, well, Chappelle's show was about race. What's your show about?

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Andy Blitz]

I was like, nothing. It's just a shit. It's just funny.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And I go, well, no, thanks. But MTV was interested, actually.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

So I. And then I was kind of. I was trying to. I wrote a bunch of. They wanted. I don't know, they wanted it as cheap as possible, I guess, but I wrote a bunch of sketches and I was trying to have a common thread. And I was like a conspiracy theorist. That was one character who thought that Gerald Ford was still alive. There's no way Ford really died. He faked his own death. And they were like, our audience does not know who Bill Clinton is.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And we're not going to, like, rest this much weight on Gerald Ford. And I was like, you have to like, they'll learn. They'll learn. They'll look it up.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And that was the line you drew.

[Andy Blitz]

Well, then the strike hit. But I. I think I was. I should have. I should have played ball a little more.

[Marc Maron]

Looking back, what other writing jobs did you have?

[Andy Blitz]

I wrote for review again. I reunited with Andy Daly Yeah, that was on Comedy Central. And my brother Jeff was. Was writing and directing those.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. How many did that run?

[Andy Blitz]

We did, like, three seasons of that.

[Marc Maron]

Wow.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, so that was. That was really fun.

[Marc Maron]

What was the angle on that show? I don't remember it. I didn't watch a lot of tv.

[Andy Blitz]

It was. Is it adapted from an Australian show? It was like Andy Daley played a wife reviewer named Forrest McNeil who would get, like. People would want him to have life experiences and then rate them from, like, zero to five stars.

[Marc Maron]

That's pretty broad.

[Andy Blitz]

So it would be like addiction. So he would be. He would play, like, kind of a buttoned up guy who you have to get. Become an addict just so he could review the experience from. From. Or half a star. I think was the lowest half a star to five stars.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And then he had to get divorced from his wife because somebody was just like, you know, I have a happy marriage. What's it like if I didn't. So he had to divorce his wife for no reason, just for the purposes of the show. Yeah, that's pretty funny. It's a show that is beloved by. I would say it's beloved by everyone who has seen it, who is made up entirely of people who are professional comedy writers. Whenever I like meet a layperson who finds out that I work in tv, they don't recognize that show, but I always tell them to watch it because I'm very proud of it.

[Marc Maron]

Okay, and what other ones?

[Andy Blitz]

Master of None.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah. I worked on that all the seasons.

[Andy Blitz]

I worked on the first two seasons.

[Marc Maron]

Did you know Aziz?

[Andy Blitz]

I knew Aziz. Yeah. So I knew Aziz from New York. From comedy.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And then I wrote a little bit on that human giant.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

MTV show.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Was it him and Kroll and.

[Andy Blitz]

No, it was him and Rob Hubel and Paul Scheer.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, Paul Scheer. That's right.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. And then, yeah, they wanted to bring me onto that show, but I was working on review, and then I ended up joining in the middle of the first season.

[Marc Maron]

How do you make a living now?

[Andy Blitz]

I'm hoping Jason Kelsey will pay me. No, just. Yeah, I'm working in tv.

[Marc Maron]

Pick up writing gigs.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, that's what it is. I worked on with for Seth McFarland. Oh, yeah, yeah. But that's. It's been like, show. The show.

[Marc Maron]

Have you pitched any of your own shows outside of the ones that you fucked up earlier?

[Andy Blitz]

A couple. A couple of them, yeah. But I've got ones that I think are. I think they're gonna knock America's socks off. Yeah. I've got pitches that I think are.

[Marc Maron]

When are you gonna pitch them?

[Andy Blitz]

I don't know. Maybe New Year.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

How about that?

[Marc Maron]

You've been working.

[Andy Blitz]

I'll set them.

[Marc Maron]

Working on it, yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, I've been preparing the pitches. That's good. Yeah, it's weird. The industry is weird now.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

You know.

[Marc Maron]

Well, it's very small.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Everyone seems to be doing their own thing. And if you're not willing to get out there and do your own thing, get your own presence going, be your own publicist, be your own brand, be your own producer. Seems to be hard to get things done and even harder to get people to fucking watch them.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, it just. It feels like there's It's a bit of a, I don't know, unsettling moment.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know in the world.

[Andy Blitz]

Well, that too. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It's all connected.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

I mean, I do think, right, there is something to, like the. There's an appetite for garbage, I guess. Sure. Maybe.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. There's a championing of garbage.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I think that what's happened is that people become so enamored with garbage. The mundane and the amateur nature of people being sort of earnest as opposed to talented. You know, I think that a lot of the great stuff gets forgotten.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Or people don't have patience for it anymore.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But I think it's always been sort of a mixed bag in the sense that, you know, if you do a certain type of comedy or even in writing, I mean, it was always a limited audience. I mean, I guess it depends what you're gunning for. And how do you get them?

[Andy Blitz]

I don't know. I mean, I had a conversation with my manager at some point after the strike.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And he seemed to feel that, I.

[Marc Maron]

Don'T know, panicked run where you've been doing stand up.

[Andy Blitz]

I am going to do. I don't have a specific, but I'm working on a show. I'm kind of writing a. I mean, that's sort of. Right. I'm writing like a long show, an hour.

[Marc Maron]

Solo show.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

I hope to find a place for that.

[Marc Maron]

Dynasty.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, Dynasty or Lesion or something like that.

[Marc Maron]

We get it. Get it up on its feet.

[Andy Blitz]

Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

What's that? What's it about?

[Andy Blitz]

So my parents sold a house in Jersey. In Jersey. You know, my dad's like a real hoarder and I.

[Marc Maron]

For real.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Any good stuff?

[Andy Blitz]

Well, that's the thing. There is some good stuff. And that's why, like, I was Encouraging him to throw out a lot. And then he would, like, show me things, and I'd be like, just throw it out. Throw it out.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And then if he showed me something I thought was cool, I would have to mask my feelings about, like. Hold on to that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Because it would just encourage him.

[Marc Maron]

Hold on to everything.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Like, there are. There is. I mean, there was some cool stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Is your mom still around?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, they're both. They're both around.

[Marc Maron]

They're together.

[Andy Blitz]

They just celebrated 60 years.

[Marc Maron]

So how she handled the hoarding. She's a doctor.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. She's a retired physician. Pediatrician.

[Marc Maron]

And he's just. What, a hoarder.

[Andy Blitz]

He's just a hoarder. He's not retired.

[Marc Maron]

And she. She lives with it.

[Andy Blitz]

No, we are. We're. We're gonna, like, set them. Oh. I mean, they've. They're staying with my brother right now, and we're. We're gonna, like. We're looking for a living situation for them, but. But it's not. I don't quite know. We're in the process of.

[Marc Maron]

So they sold the house, and it was full of stuff.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And dad wanted it all moved.

[Andy Blitz]

Exactly. And they are. The deal. They were tearing down the house, and they were just like, you can leave whatever you want.

[Marc Maron]

The new people.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. They're just going to throw it in the dumpster.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Andy Blitz]

And my dad's like, absolutely not. So. And he. They're in their 90s now, so he stopped driving.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

And they were at that point in the city. They were back in the city. And I would drive him basically, like, every day for four months from New York to New Jersey.

[Marc Maron]

To go through the garbage.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Did you record it?

[Andy Blitz]

I have some footage of it, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And this is the show.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Well, it'll. It's. It's part of. It's partly about that. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Would you call what he was experiencing mental illness or nostalgic?

[Andy Blitz]

A common mental illness. I mean, it's like, it's understandable to not, I think, to want to hold onto things, but it was at the level of illness. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But, like, are we talking, like, this plate? I can't throw out this plate.

[Andy Blitz]

I can't throw out anything. It was. Yeah. It was crazy. And it was sort of like, when I got in, I was sort of trying to focus on what might be valuable. Like, let's get that moved to storage.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But, like, the weird thing about valuable things, it's like I just went through my closet.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And I had, like, my entire wardrobe for My show, Marin, it was very specific. Shirts like that, Western shirts, stuff that, you know, you would see at vintage stores. So I'm like, sort of like, well, maybe I can find a place and do a trade thing. And I'm like, no, I don't want. Yeah, I don't need the money. I don't need more clothes, really. So then, like, there becomes. The issue is, like, if I just throw it into the Goodwill, then it, like, it's a real find for somebody.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But then I'm thinking, like, who do I think is going to find this and be like, holy shit, a western shirt. I don't even know if those people are around anymore. Most of them are my age, Right.

[Andy Blitz]

They've got their own boxes of clothes that they're bringing.

[Marc Maron]

What am I, like, what extension of the ego does it represent? Like, when you do a show about this, I mean, like, there's a very interesting thing about nostalgia and what things represent and why they mean something to somebody. Seems like it could be a deep show, and then at the end, you just bring peanut butter back.

[Andy Blitz]

It's Conan doing the character in disguise. I mean, already, even before now, that, like. I mean, it's. Storage spaces in New Jersey is where the stuff is now.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, so to placate him.

[Andy Blitz]

Yep.

[Marc Maron]

You put it in a storage unit.

[Andy Blitz]

Yep. And. But. But my parents are now out. Yeah. Here.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So it's just sitting there.

[Andy Blitz]

Yep.

[Marc Maron]

And he knows it's there, and that makes him feel better.

[Andy Blitz]

No, I think he realizes, like, well, that was a mistake to put all that in storage. Like, it's.

[Marc Maron]

Why isn't it here?

[Andy Blitz]

Well, just like, we're. You know, the expensive storage is not worth it.

[Marc Maron]

So now he's ready to throw it away.

[Andy Blitz]

I mean, he says that, but, like, if we start going through it, you know.

[Marc Maron]

But you could just go do it and not tell him he's never going back there, Right?

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. I think hopefully he's not listening. Hopefully he fell asleep already. I mean, my brother and I were talking about, like, you know, we know, like, a lot of good actors. Why don't we just, like, hire someone to pretend to play a guy who's really interested in buying all this stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Andy Blitz]

And then we'll just, like, we'll give him the money, and then. So would it.

[Marc Maron]

Would that placate him? Would that satisfy?

[Andy Blitz]

I think so. Yeah. Because then it, like, it wasn't wasted or something.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that's interesting. So you got to shoot that.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Some guy like, hey, your son's told me about this amazing collection of stuff.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. I'll just say we.

[Marc Maron]

And we were. We went to New Jersey. I went through it and I want to buy most of it.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. This is amazing.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. What. What's in there, dude?

[Andy Blitz]

You know, there's some like. There's a lot of books.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

There's a lot of his old clothes.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yes.

[Andy Blitz]

You know, not going to wear again.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

There was records. So there is. I mean, there's a lot of unlabeled VHS tapes.

[Marc Maron]

Those go for a lot of money.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Mike Conan stuff. Maybe they recorded Bob Ross sketch boxes.

[Marc Maron]

Of unlabeled VHS tapes.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Man, you could put that right up on ebay.

[Andy Blitz]

Oh, my God. Yeah. But we just. We did walk. We ended up walking away from Mike. I mean, there was. There was furniture too. And then when it came time, I'm like, all right, I think we got everything. He's like, what about this, like rowing machine from 1986?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

So that's. That's closet. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that'll. Yeah. That's only going to gain in value.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Increase in value as time goes on.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Well, that's. All right. Well, that'll. That'll be interesting.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah. Do you think. I was thinking. I was trying to. I'll just say it now if anybody wants to do this show. Okay.

[Marc Maron]

You pitching one now.

[Andy Blitz]

But just. This would just be a one off to be like to compete with. Because I don't want to watch the Trump and. All right. I feel like a lot of people feel that way.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Just to do like a comedy show that's opposite it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

On the same time broadcast.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Andy Blitz]

Just so people have something else to watch.

[Marc Maron]

On what network are we thinking?

[Andy Blitz]

Wherever. If Comedy Central still exists?

[Marc Maron]

I think so.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know.

[Andy Blitz]

Otherwise, peacock. Let's be real.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. What's the show?

[Andy Blitz]

I mean, we would just be like a live stand up show. It would just be nothing. But it would just be like. So people cannot watch the inauguration.

[Marc Maron]

All right, well, I think that that's. I guess anything you're in comp. You're in competition with anything that's not the inauguration snapping.

[Andy Blitz]

Maybe that should be the pitch.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I don't know where you'd put something like that. It doesn't sound. You don't have a hook for it.

[Andy Blitz]

No. I mean, this is what it was like when I came off. Conan was pitching my show.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, maybe you should have a parallel universe inauguration. Maybe get common.

[Andy Blitz]

Why not?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Anything she says now, people are just going to get mad at her.

[Andy Blitz]

It would be a good excuse for her to skip the real inauguration.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Andy Blitz]

She's like, I already committed to this one on pizza.

[Marc Maron]

Seems everyone's very hung up on where she spent all that money.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You could just have. Maybe that's. Maybe that's the show. It's starring Kamala Harris. It's called where's the Money?

[Andy Blitz]

Huh.

[Marc Maron]

And she just does a breakdown of.

[Andy Blitz]

Where things got spent.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know if that would help us.

[Andy Blitz]

I don't know what would have helped.

[Marc Maron]

No, no. I. I'm just. I'm just thinking about the show.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Deconstruct the.

[Andy Blitz]

Don't worry. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Well, Andy, it was good talking to you, buddy.

[Andy Blitz]

Likewise.

[Marc Maron]

You feel all right?

[Andy Blitz]

I feel good. Yeah. I feel well.

[Marc Maron]

Let me know if. What. What those records are.

[Andy Blitz]

Oh, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That your dad has.

[Andy Blitz]

I'll give you first crack.

[Marc Maron]

What are we. What are we talking, 100, 200? A thousand?

[Andy Blitz]

I think maybe 200 is.

[Marc Maron]

That's not much.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Probably a lot of garbage in there. It's probably not in good shape and.

[Andy Blitz]

No, some of them are. There was a leak, so. There was.

[Marc Maron]

Those records are useless. Yeah, those are garbage.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What were the records?

[Andy Blitz]

I remember be like a Harry Belafonte.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

Record. Tom Lehrer.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Both of those records.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah, probably.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Andy Blitz]

They're. I think they're stuck together because of the leak. So that I'm only going to do as a two for one deal. I'll give you for the price of one and a half.

[Marc Maron]

Right. Stuck together.

[Andy Blitz]

Tom. Wayne. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. That's all going to be garbage.

[Andy Blitz]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That's the name of the show. Everything ends up garbage.

[Andy Blitz]

It does.

[Marc Maron]

All right, buddy.

[Andy Blitz]

Take care. All right, take care. Thanks, Mark.

[Marc Maron]

There you go. Andy Blitz. If you want to find him, he's on Instagram, RND Blitz. Hang out for a minute, folks. We're getting ready to turn the page on 2024. And you know the old saying, new Year, new you, but I bet there's some guys listening who would love to hear this New year, new hair look. Hair loss is very common, but with him's hair growth is very simple. And you can start seeing your hair grow back in as little as three to six months. HIMS gives you a range of hair loss solutions with clinically proven ingredients and treatments that are 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 [e-mail] WTF that's hims.com WTF for your personalized hair loss treatment options. Hims.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. Hey, people, we're coming up on the end of the year, and Fulmarin subscribers can hear my year in review. Comments on the latest bonus episode where I talk with Brendan about the past year of W Bobby Lee and you have a very comforting, like, vibe together, and I think you both enjoy each other. Yeah. Yeah. He's so funny because he. He's like, he has an idea of me that is real to him, and I'm sure it's real, but, like, you know, anytime I see him, he's like, what's the matter with you? Everything's good. Everything's good. You. You know, And I'm like, what are you yelling at me? Like, he wants you to. He's trying to encourage you to be happier. Is that what it is? Yeah. Yeah, kind of. Or. Or to give myself credit, I see for. For, like, because every time I see him, he's like, dude, I would not have the job I have without you. Like, he's one of the only guys I know that consistently thanks me for what I brought to the medium. Oh, that's fun. That's nice. Because. Because he's like, you know, you did it. You did it. None of us would have jobs without you. Oh, that is very nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To get bonus episodes twice a week, sign up for the full Marin. Just go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus. Once again, this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You're curled up on the couch. It's cold outside, but you're cozy and ready for a perfect night in therapy. Can feel a bit like that. It's your comfort place where you replenish your energy with BetterHelp. Get matched with a therapist based on your needs and do it entirely online. It's designed to be convenient and suited to your schedule. Find comfort this season with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com, learn more and save 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L P.com and a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by Acast. I don't know if any of you noticed, but I used a click track for Last Guitar time. And this time too. But I only screwed it up once. But only I know that. But you can. Doesn't matter. Here we go. Sa Boomer lives. Monkey and the fonda cat. Angels everywhere.