Transcript
Marc Maron (0:01)
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Mo Welch (1:22)
All.
Marc Maron (1:23)
Right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck, Nicks? What's happening? How's it going where you are? What's happening out there? Are you okay? Is everything okay by you? As we head into this final week or so of what is America and into whatever America will become, that's a layer of stress, at least for me and probably half of the people in the country. But I hope you're okay and maybe even being happy. I don't know. I don't know from all that. Today on the show I talked to Mo Welch. She's a comic and cartoonist. Last year she released the special dad Jokes, which is part stand up set, part documentary about meeting her estranged father for the first time in 20 years. The special is now on Hulu. She also co hosts the podcast Sweethearts along with Beth Stelling. And we talk a bit about the experience that we're living through. But I do know that out here it's very trying and still quite awful and harrowing in not only the possibility of more fires, but just the horrendous loss of so many people here. It's almost unfathomable. I've talked to a lot of people, a lot of people that know people that lost everything, a few people that have lost everything. Try to help where I can. Will continue to do that. And I'm grateful. I'm lucky, I'm okay, I'm safe. My house is fine. It's still scary, but I'm okay. And my heart goes out to everybody that has experienced tremendous loss here because this affects everyone. You know, obviously the people that lost everything, it's profoundly affected and destroyed their lives. But for everybody else here, it's a very interesting thing about. What do you want? What do you want to call it? Catastrophe? Overwhelming environmental disaster? Just anything where there's massive loss and a massive collective feeling of powerlessness in the face of what caused that loss. It's just fucking crazy. And look, I was in New York on 9 11. I remember that day very clearly. How could you ever forget it? I woke up that morning, I turned on my AOL homepage, showed one tower standing, and I didn't know what to make of it. I thought, is this a joke? Is this a gag? Then I went up to my roof and I saw the smoke at the end of Manhattan. It was a crisp, clear day. Nothing was going on anywhere. Everything had been grounded. No cars in the street, no planes in the air. And I went back down to my house and I turned on the TV and saw the second tower fall. And then I went back on the roof and I was like, oh, my fucking God. And in that moment where your brain is trying to understand or comprehend or wrap your perception around what is happening, that is when the massive trauma kind of sets in. That moment of realization of, like, nothing will ever be the same again. All those lives lost. Manhattan just incapacitated, was fucking horrendous. And I stayed. And my girlfriend at the time, who had been getting off the train downtown a few blocks from the towers, got out of the subway and was in a storm of Ash, walked 40 blocks uptown, packed her bags and left New York, only came back to leave again. That's what got us out here. That's what got me to LA in the first place. I stayed for quite a bit longer, for months, maybe even close to a year. And she just left because she couldn't. She was totally incapacitated by the trauma of it. But I stayed and I. We performed a few weeks after, and New York was just. Everywhere was plastered with the faces of missing people. People were walking in a. In a state that was almost like an emotional zombie state. All, you know is to sort of try to get back to your routines, but nobody was normal for years. And you could smell it for. For months and months. And, you know, emotions were high and I felt some of that same energy here over the last few days, kind of PTSD that happens almost immediately, the trauma happens. And then you're walking in this zone of, of disbelief and, and sort of a kind of temporary emotional annihilation amidst all this destruction out here. And people who aren't affected by it directly, you know, they try to, you go on with your life, but it was menacing. See, I talked about what was going on on Monday and my feelings of concern and sadness and fear and just the kind of emotional reaction is such tremendous loss on behalf of so many people. And my thought is a natural thought, was like, you know, it's, it's time to get out. And it's interesting why, you know, what you're going to do in your mind, if you're lucky enough to at this point anyways, remain, you know, untouched physically or property wise, is to, you know, fight or flight. And, you know, all the logic in terms of, sure, you know, I love Los Angeles as much as the next guy. I didn't grow up here, but I've certainly spent a lot of time here and I love my house and there's a lot of great things about Southern California. But I got some, a couple of odd, not odd responses, but just from people who were like, you know, how could you just say you're gonna leave? I mean, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta rebuild better than ever. We gotta fight for our city. You gotta stay and fight the fight against what? Against what? What are you gonna fight? The wind? You're gonna fight the erratic wind? You're gonna, you know, kind of like set a timeline for every year that these things might happen? How are you gonna fight the wind? How are you gonna fight the drought if nobody's gonna get collectively hip to the fact that we might be past the point of no return with climate change? And so then it's just a matter of adapting so you know, this isn't gonna get better. Better. And so how many times a year do you see the weather app on your phone? It says gusts of wind. Are you going to be like, fuck, I got to get back on the fire app? I'm still on the fire app. There's no way to get off it now. The last few days have been just horrible. And they were forecasting 60 to 75 mile an hour winds. So then you just sit there and see if it gets close again and get ready, get the cat boxes open, get your go bags together, make sure your kids know what's up. Just this tentative vibe of it's coming it's coming. And these firefighters out here are fucking astounding, amazing, fucking real goddamn heroes. These guys and gals, men and women, all of them from all around the world coming together to try to manage this thing. And neither one of these fires are even half contained. Fight or flight, man. You know, what's the fight? How do you win or how do you survive? I'm in Fort Collins, Colorado tomorrow at Lincoln Center Performance Hall. Then Boulder, Colorado at the Boulder Theater on the next day, Saturday the 18th. I'll be in Santa Barbara, California at the Libero Theater on Thursday, January 30th. Then San Luis Obispo, California at Fremont center on Friday, January 31st. Monterey, California at the Golden State Theater on Saturday, February 1st. Iowa City at the Englert Theater on Thursday, February 13th. Des Moines, Iowa at the Hoyt Sherman place on Friday, February 14th. In Kansas City, Missouri at the Midland Theater on Saturday, February 15th. Then I'm in North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Texas, South Carolina, Illinois, Michigan. Go to wtfpod.com tour for all my dates and links to tickets. There will be more shows coming up. I'm planning on shooting a HBO special in New York City that'll be coming up. I think I'm gonna be putting getting some dates on the calendar in Vermont, Toronto, New Hampshire, heading into that special, getting this stuff together, you know. Look, it's clear that I've got a lot on my mind right now, but I'm sure wherever you live, there's a lot on your mind too. But something you can do to make sure there's one less thing on your mind is get protection for your house using the home security experts we trust at SimpliSafe. We've been using SimpliSafe for almost a decade and they always provide the best, most up to date methods for protecting your home. For example, SimpliSafe's Active Guard outdoor Protection can help prevent break ins before they happen. They use state of the art AI powered cameras with live professional monitoring agents watching your property to detect suspicious activity. They can also activate spotlights, contact the police, even talk directly to people on your property. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Put that crowbar away you. Huh? And this is before anyone has the chance to get inside your home. Plans start at just a dollar a day with no long term contracts or cancellation fees. Right now head to SimpliSafe.com WTF to get the best value. And in home security, WTF listeners can get 50% off their new SimpliSafe system with professional monitoring and their first month free@simplisafe.com WTF? That's SimpliSafe.com. wTF for 50% off? Look, it's hard to be rational in something so catastrophic and seemingly so irrational. But, yeah, I can't imagine, you know, the kind of menace of fear when you have children. I mean, I've got cats. I mean, and I think on some level, children are probably easier than cats. I mean, they'll do what you want them to do. They may cry, they may freak out, but they'll do what you want them to do. Cats are like, they don't give a fuck. They don't know what you're worked up about. And these poor cats in the last few days, because I was on the edge and we thought these winds were coming, and I was just, you know, waiting for a fire to, you know, hit close enough to where I got to go. I got to go again. I can't wait for the zone to change. And then, like, I just start to think. You know, you sit there and you think, like, well, look, okay, why don't. Why don't you just go out to the desert for a few days until something levels off, you know, so you can feel better, at least feel safe. And then I start to think like, well, then I gotta. It's gonna distress the cats. They gotta box them up, put them in the car, sit in a hotel. They're gonna be freaked out. No, just stay here and wait it out. And that's not. Sit here and wait and fight. You know, I'm not gonna, you know, don a firefighter's outfit and get out there, but there's some part of me that's willing to put my safety at risk so my cats won't be uncomfortable. Yeah, that's. That's a little crazy. Yeah, I gotta get that in perspective. So sensitive to the animals. But they're okay. And for some reason, when I got up today, Sammy was sleeping in one of the crates, the one that I could barely get him into, actually. He was easy. I threw him in the hamper. But today, he's like. I don't know, maybe he wants to go. Maybe I'm. Maybe I should see that as a sign. I need help. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Sometimes it feels like we don't have much control over what's going on in the world. And that's true. There are a lot of things that are out of our hands. But there's also plenty you can do to write your own story. And a therapist can be a good editor, helping you get from one chapter to another. Right now I'm pretty overwhelmed. Yes. By what's going on in the world. Yes. But I also know that there are certain things I can take care of and certain things I can't. That's a good thing to talk to a therapist about, someone who can help give you a clearer picture of things. And if you need that kind of attention from a therapist, BetterHelp is a great place to start. It's fully online, affordable, and convenient. More than 5 million people worldwide have taken advantage of the benefits of therapy. Through BetterHelp, you get access to a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. And it's easy to switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. Write your story with better help. Visit betterhelp.com WTF to get 10% off your first month. That's better help. H E L p.com WTF okay. All right, do that. All right, look, I, I'd heard of Mo Welch and I, you know, I've. And we have common friends. I've interviewed her friends. I watched her special. I thought it was kind of awesome to kind of track, you know, she's always had this propensity to do dad jokes, but she didn't really have a relationship with her dad for like 30 years. She decided, she decided to, to go find him. And the special is half that, half stand up. It's called dad jokes. It's streaming on Hulu, and this is me talking to Mo Welch. Did you split?