Transcript
Marc Maron (0:00)
Lock the gate. All right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the Buddies? What the Nicks? What's happening? I'm Marc Maron. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. How are you? What's going on? I. What? You know what. What is going on? I have been immersed. I've been immersed for what seems to be a year and a half. I have been immersed in heading towards this special taping. I've got no more dates to announce. I've got nothing. I've got nothing but this and you and some promotions to do, you know, for a lot of things, I've got things happening, but, I mean, what am I going to do comedically? I just did it. I did it and it went well. You know, I could be a little self conscious and a little diminishing and a little dismissive of myself, but I think it went very well. It's weird. It almost happens in a dream. I've tried to tell you about it. I will try to tell you about it. Today on the show, I talked to Bridget Everett. She's the star and executive producer of the HBO series Somebody Somewhere. She got her start in the New York cabaret scene. And I'll be honest with you, when I got the opportunity to interview Bridget, I didn't really know her. I didn't know the show, but I knew she was a thing. I knew the show was a thing for some people. So I was like, okay, sure. You know, Brendan told me she got started in, you know, cabaret. And I was like, all right, well, that's close to comedy. All right, fine. And then I started watching the show Somebody Somewhere, and what a great show. What a great show. Look, I don't know if it's for everybody. I'm not even sure why it's for me, but I started watching it and I was locked in. I loved her. I loved her character. I loved the comedy of it. I loved the other characters. I was crying, I was laughing. I was invested emotionally. I watched it, like, nonstop all the way through all three seasons. She just got me, man. I mean, I just couldn't. I couldn't pull away from it. I just thought it was so beautiful and human and interesting and, you know, eclectic and diverse. And there's something about her character that I obviously identified with emotionally. And, man, did we have a conversation. I can't explain it. Sometimes I just feel so connected to somebody's character. But she's a lot like the character. It's basically her. But, you know, we got into some other stuff, but I was just so surprised and excited to be so emotionally torn up and entertained by that show. It's a big talk and it was really great for me. I think it was for her. I think we kind of ended kind of amazed at ourselves. So New York City, I just got back and look, we made it through this long run, you know, from a week ago Friday through, you know, Toronto and Vermont, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. That show went great. And then like, I, I drove down, we had to rent a car, me and Kathy Ladman, who was opening for me. She did great on the special and on all the shows. We drove down from Portsmouth to Boston, flew to New York. We made it. I didn't lose anything else. I got home, my computer was back, which was nice, and my cats hadn't shit anywhere. And there was limited cat drama. I don't know how it worked out. You know, the woman who watches my cats, she bought them a bunch of toys. She exhausted them. Every night she was giving them the zilkeen or Charlie and some probiotic calming stuff. It seems like him and Buster are kind of at it again. But no shit. I mean, no shit. Which was really nice to come home to. Now I gotta, you know, wait for three days for them all to calm the fuck down and realize I'm. I'm back in charge. I've got it. I'm the king. I'm the alpha of you three little. Fuck Sammy. I'm not even sure Sammy knows me. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. 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We're all better with help. Visit betterhelp.com WTF to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L P.com WTF so I gotta tell you, man, the special looks stunning. The. The. All the people at the Bam Harvey were just great. And that theater is such a special place. I can't even explain it to you. You'll see it on the special, but it was built in, like, the early. Early 1900s, and instead of renovating it, they. They kind of preserved it in its decay. So it has a sort of personality that you don't see much in theaters that old, because most of the time, they get flipped, they get renovated many places, renovate them appropriately to the time, or restore the stuff that was there. But this place, the Harvey, is completely unique in that it has kind of broken down a bit. It's almost a bit of a ruin in a way. So they just let that be, and they just kind of maintain it. They didn't, you know, restore it, per se. They honor what it is, and it's got an incredible personality. And when I first went to the place and I saw the back wall of the theater that I believe still had paint on it from somewhere back in the 1900s, early 1900s, and the whole back of the theater, as I might have said before, looked like a piece of art to me, like a Rothko painting or something, kind of. It was chipped away. It had different colors, different tones. And I'm like, we're using that wall. We're using that wall. And my production designer, Mark Janowitz, it was like he got it right away. And he started talking to me. I don't know if I told you guys this, but he started talking to me about. I think it's called kensugi. It's a Japanese art. They take old ceramics, bowls and pieces, vases, and they repair them meticulously, using gold to bond it back together. So it's a completely new thing. And there was something that Mark saw in the theater where he was like, ken Sugi. And I'm like, what is that? And he says, it's this Japanese art form. You know, they put ceramics back together with gold, and I'm like, okay, do it. Run with it, dude. I love collaborating with people. So he had this whole concept, and I didn't know necessarily how it fit into the special, but it certainly felt it fit into the vibe of the room. So he kind of based his vision for the. For the production design around this kintsugi, and he created lights and little. What are they called? Gobos, maybe, where, you know, the. The kintsugi patterns were sort of around and the carpet on the stage. We put, we put a stage in and the lighting was warm and it just, it really made the Bam Harvey shine. What a beautiful theater. But, you know, with the lights and everything, it was just stunning. It was almost like, why ruin it with my comedy? And so I got there on Friday, we're taping on Saturday. And you know, I watched him, you know, put a lot of the stuff up and start to get the vibe. And then I went back over there on Saturday to do sound checks and feel the room and, you know, be present in it. And it was just fucking beautiful. The whole thing was fucking beautiful. The set and the production design just melded perfectly with the, with the sort of theater, with the vibe of the theater, with the spirit of the structure. And it was like. I was like, this is, this is almost too good for me that we're going beyond what anyone is even gonna read into a comedy show. So I've been working this set for a long time and there's something that happens when you do a special where it's almost a. It's a hyper, it's heightened. It's not a regular show. You know, I'm in a room. Steve Finarts, my director, had, you know, put together like nine cameras. I've got the audience of about 700 some odd people. And it's just heightened because everybody knows why we're there. And I've been running this set so much and you get out there and the sad thing about shooting these specials, it's almost an out of body experience. Cause you're thinking about so many things. I just wanted the sequence of the material to work. And I was doing two shows and I wanted it to time out properly so we didn't have to cut too much. And I was given 70 minutes. And I've been working on this thing and whatever it is a testament to whoever I am or how I work. And I was dealing with an hour and a half, half hour and 45 minutes of material up until a couple weeks ago. And I. We shot the first. I composed some rock music with some band that I put together with my help, with help from my friend Paige Stark. And we laid out this kind of rock riff to open the thing. I did that with the last special too. And then a longer version of at the End. So we got the music, Kathy Ladman opened, we got the music going, the lights were going, everybody was ready. I went out there and all of a sudden it's like, I'm just Locked into this mode. There's nothing comfortable about it, but it's not uncomfortable. You're just. There's an intensity to the focus of it. And I nailed it pretty good the first show. But of course I, you know, I wasn't happy. I stumbled on this word, you know, I didn't do this thing right? This was that. But the bottom line is I came in at 70 minutes on the fucking dot. And that's crazy. There's so much stuff in this special, I couldn't believe it. I amazed myself. I've got this inner clock. But the show went good and the audience was great. But second show, you know, I had my buddy Sam Lipsyth in the dressing room. I had Brendan in the dressing room. Brendan McDonald. This woman Katie did a great job with hair and makeup and. But, you know, I got notes. I got notes from Brendan, I got notes from Sam, I got notes from Steve, my director. And I made some trims. And second show was kind of on fire. I kind of up the sequence and I kind of dropped a joke out. And you know. But, you know, it's a taping. But the sad thing is, is when I realized it and then I tried to do it again and I it up again, you know, I had to stop, not stop the show. The cameras are still running. But I had to tell the audience, like, all right, so we're gonna go back and do that. You know, I kind of this up and then all of a sudden it's not like the fourth wall is broken. But then, you know, something more relaxed happens. And it might have helped for the rest of the set on the second show. The second show is probably the one we're gonna use for the most part. Cause it was like kind of on fire. But I think a lot of it had had to do with. I kind of broke, you know, I broke out of the routine, which is something I do in my live shows all the time, because it's all fluid. But when you're doing one of these specials, you wanna hit all your bits and you don't wanna fuck around too much. So when natural fucking around came because I fucked it up, you know, something was lifted and then I re locked in with a different energy. I got to remember if I ever do a special again or if I'm ever allowed to do one again or offered the opportunity to. Not the kind of guy that's going to put one up on YouTube, but I got to remember that. And I kind of do remember that. But there's a looseness that Gets lost sometimes. But it sort of came back because of. Because of this little fuck up I did, and it made me kind of go, all right. But I hit all the material I wanted to hit. Some of it's pretty challenging, and some of it's pretty interesting. And I just wanted to make sure that between the two shows, we could have stuff to work with, and I think we do. I think it went great. I want to thank all the people that came out to the Bam Harvey and saw the shows. I really appreciate it. After the second show, we had to redo the opening a bit, and then I ended up doing just a half hour, a little bit of material I didn't do, a little bit of Q and A. And then all of a sudden you realize, hey, buddy, you got union guys working. We're running out of time. And that's. That's the weird comedown. So I finished the show. I'm packing up my stuff. We got to get out of the theater. And I was maybe downstairs getting my shit together for a half hour, 40 minutes. My brother came with his partner and some of his step kids. And, you know, there was people. But, you know, as I'm walking out through the top of the room, they'd already kind of like, broke down the stage. And then this, like, this fucking sadness comes over you. You know, like, that was it. I hope we got it. You know, I was. I worked on that thing for a year and a half or more, and that was it. That was what I was working towards. And now, like, the rug for the stage is already gone. The lights are already down. Everything's going away. There's a crew of people tearing it down. And then I'm just kind of like, did I do it? Was it good? And then I get back to the hotel, and it's just this horrendous, horrendous empty sadness that happens when you finish something like that and all your whole life just comes screaming back at you. It's almost like you land back in your life with all the things that were causing you anxiety or problems or all the things you were kind of pushing aside, or. I'm talking about me, you know, leading up to this thing, at least the last week, just to keep the focus, and there's a sadness to it. I feel good about it, but, you know, just now I've got to retire this set. But again, great experience, great theater, great crew, great audiences. I appreciate all of you. You hear me? Do you hear me? This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. And we've come a long way with our website thanks to Squarespace. 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That's squarespace.com WTF offer code WTF all right, so, you know, strap in. This is a pretty. This is a pretty beautiful conversation and interesting, but it kind of goes a place and I don't think either of us were anticipating it. This is with Bridget Everett, who I mentioned earlier. All three seasons of Somebody Somewhere are streaming on Max. You can go to Bridget Everett.net to see where she'll be touring this summer. And this is me and Bridget meeting for the first time and talking. I thought I smelled a dead rat. So I was just down in the basement with that. Like, there's something more frightening about finding a dead one than there is about finding a living one. It's just the worst.