MARC MARON Talks Trump, Cocaine, and the Death of Podcasting

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:30Adam Friedland?

  Who took like the nastiest shit when they at your house?

• 1:33Speaker 02

  Glenn Howerton.

• 1:33Adam Friedland?

  How bad?

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Well, he just like couldn't hold it.

• 1:35Adam Friedland?

  He fucked your shit up?

• 1:36Speaker 02

  Well, he, he, he told me he was gonna do it.

• 1:38Adam Friedland?

  In the middle of the episode?

• 1:39Speaker 02

  No, he got to the house and he was like, I'm sorry.

• 1:41Adam Friedland?

  I got crap real bad. Did you ever, did you ever have sex?

• 1:44Speaker 02

  There's only one bathroom at the house.

• 1:45Adam Friedland?

  Did you ever have sex with someone right after you did a WTF with them?

• 2:26Adam Friedland?

  Ladies and gentlemen, the legend, Mark Maron, everyone. Give it up.

• 2:34Adam Friedland?

  Wow.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Hey, man, I'm running.

• 2:36Adam Friedland?

  He's done this way. He's done this, you've done this 40 times on the Conan.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  I ran out.

• 2:42Adam Friedland?

  You ran out?

• 2:43Speaker 02

  I've never, never done that with any, none of them. Never ran.

• 2:47Adam Friedland?

  How many times, 40 on Conan?

• 2:48Speaker 02

  40 or 50 Conans.

• 2:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Couple Letterman's, Fallon's. I don't think I've ever run out like that.

• 2:53Adam Friedland?

  Who's your favorite one?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  To talk to?

• 2:55Adam Friedland?

  Of the late night guys?

• 2:57Speaker 02

  You know, I, it's weird because I don't get pushback, but people are surprised when I say it. The most fun.

• 3:03Adam Friedland?

  Lano.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Who, no. It's Fallon really, because he's a good audience.

• 3:07Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Like he literally, you get the feeling when you go out there that he wants you to make him laugh. Like he's kind of like, are you gonna do it?

• 3:15Adam Friedland?

  It was kind of sad when they made him like have to talk about Trump. And he's like, had to learn who Trump was and like, yeah.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  I don't know, like, you know what, like, I don't want your shows.

• 3:24Adam Friedland?

  He used to be the silly guy, yeah.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, but he is sort of the silly guy. I don't think he's not really, was never really a monologue guy. And they, and they kind of, kind of pressed those guys into that mold to do those jokes.

• 3:36Adam Friedland?

  I think there was like a, like a shock in 2016. And he also had Trump on the show.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, because like he, he humanized him.

• 3:42Adam Friedland?

  Do you regret having Trump on your show?

• 3:45Speaker 02

  I, I, I don't. He was really one of the most entertaining guests I've ever had.

• 3:49Adam Friedland?

  But you, you called it a full throated endorsement. Do you regret? I mean, a lot of people like Theo Von, Joe Rogan, you know?

• 3:56Speaker 02

  Half endorsed.

• 3:56Adam Friedland?

  You know, and they were waiting for you to do it first. And then they were like, okay, now, now we can do it.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  No, I just thought like, this guy's gonna be fun. You know, he's generally funny and he doesn't know it. It'll be interesting to sit across from him.

• 4:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  With that, you know, with the whole Trump thing.

• 4:10Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  And very entertaining. Everything was, yeah, it really worked out well. It's so funny because people would ask me, because I had Obama on in 2016, a sitting president. And they would ask me and my producer, would you have Trump on? And we would always say like, yeah, if he did it on Obama's terms, which was.

• 4:28Adam Friedland?

  Which is what?

• 4:29Speaker 02

  No pre, no pre-interview and no control over the final product. Like we had, you know, we would put it out.

• 4:36Adam Friedland?

  You told the president that?

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 4:37Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  That, you know, but Obama's like, you know, he can handle himself and is interesting. And at least has a way of presenting himself that, you know, is engaging and makes sense.

• 4:49Adam Friedland?

  Well, he's not as good looking, of course, Obama.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  I don't know, I think he's a pretty attractive guy.

• 4:53Adam Friedland?

  Trump is, Trump is an Adonis, this guy.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, with the, he's an Adonis, like, you know, like Hulk Hogan.

• 5:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Like gorgeous George, like a great wrestling heel.

• 5:04Adam Friedland?

  Grab him by the pussy.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, he does a lot of that.

• 5:06Adam Friedland?

  Do you ever remember the, what he said right before? He said, I came at her like a bitch and I grabbed her by the pussy. But like a bitch was a peculiar thing to say.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  He's a peculiar man.

• 5:18Adam Friedland?

  But what does he mean, like a bitch? Like he's a bitch or like, or that she's the bitch? I came at her like a bitch.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  This is the first time I'm really hearing this though. Like I'd really have to think about it more. I, I'm not sure.

• 5:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  What that means. But like he is outside of being, you know, instinctively evil and horrendous. He's a peculiar man.

• 5:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I think that.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Like he's sexually peculiar, he's physically peculiar.

• 5:46Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  He's psychologically peculiar, has no taste. Like there, there are so many things going on every day because of him and inside of him that every day it's sort of like, it's surprising just how fucked up and weird it's going to keep getting as we kind of drive this empire into the ground.

• 6:06Adam Friedland?

  And as he goes more, more, I'm not gonna say it, the arslur.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 6:11Adam Friedland?

  As he goes more arslur.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  They say he's going like he's got dementia, he's got, he's brain addled.

• 6:16Adam Friedland?

  He rants at children about like the Biden had needed a machine.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  I know, I, I know, but like, I don't, I think that's what he looks like just on, not autopilot, but it's just like this weird stream of consciousness that keeps getting weirder. And maybe, maybe he's addled, maybe he has some sort of dementia. I think his sister and his father both died of it.

• 6:38Adam Friedland?

  Really? I didn't know that they'd pass.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. His sister was a federal judge.

• 6:42Adam Friedland?

  Well, the, I think people don't discuss him enough as a, like.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Human?

• 6:47Adam Friedland?

  How that happened.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:48Adam Friedland?

  And yeah, I think that there's a pain there. I think it was the brother. I think.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Oh, you mean the brokenness? When did that happen?

• 6:55Adam Friedland?

  Fred, I think Fred, like he shed his last, like vestiges of humanity with like Fred. Fred was the namesake and that, and he killed himself with drugs and alcohol. And, and Trump is a teetotaler too. He's afraid of alcohol.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  He's afraid of stairs.

• 7:10Adam Friedland?

  He's, yeah. Well, he's afraid of, well, he's also tremendously lonely. He strikes me as lonely too. Like, that's why he likes the rallies. I think when he's at the rallies, he feels like people like him and.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  I think a lot of people throw around the word narcissism and narcissist pretty casually. And they don't, I don't think people really know what a true narcissist is.

• 7:32Adam Friedland?

  What is it?

• 7:33Speaker 02

  It's Trump.

• 7:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Like a true narcissist with no real conscience, no capacity for, for self-reflection or self-awareness. A little, a little gay?

• 7:42Adam Friedland?

  Well, he's kind of acts like.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  I think so, that's why I'm saying it, it's kind of peculiar.

• 7:46Adam Friedland?

  He acts like a Jewish woman.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  A little bit.

• 7:48Adam Friedland?

  No one likes me.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, a lot of that.

• 7:50Adam Friedland?

  Oh, you'd be happy if I was dead.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:53Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  And, and I think that, I think that all narcissists everywhere are sort of impressed with Trump because he succeeded in the goal of a narcissist. He actually succeeded in making everything about him, like everything globally. The shtick of Trump, you know, the cruel shtick of Trump.

• 8:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Is so, it's also instinctual, it's disturbing.

• 8:17Adam Friedland?

  He's the most fascinating person of my lifetime. I genuinely think that.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  And I would argue probably one of the most truly American presidents we've ever created.

• 8:25Adam Friedland?

  He's a mirror too.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 8:26Adam Friedland?

  Why do I talk that way?

• 8:27Speaker 02

  What did you do?

• 8:29Adam Friedland?

  A mirror? I don't know, I just, I'm trying to sound smarter around you.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  What do you mean, you're smarter, he's smarter than me.

• 8:34Adam Friedland?

  No, no, you're smart, you're smart. You read like books and stuff.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Not really. You read, it sounds like you read more books than me.

• 8:39Adam Friedland?

  No, no, I listen, I listen sometimes to books.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  You listen? I never do that.

• 8:43Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  I did read a fairly complicated book recently.

• 8:47Adam Friedland?

  Do you ever read a book about like fucking?

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Fucking?

• 8:50Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you seem like a guy, you seem like a tremendous lover. I feel like you're, you're good at fucking.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  I do all right with it, yeah.

• 8:56Adam Friedland?

  I mean, like. You always have girlfriends.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  Once I get going, you know what I mean? I gotta get going.

• 9:01Adam Friedland?

  What does that mean?

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Like, you know, we gotta start the engine up, you know, get it, you know.

• 9:04Adam Friedland?

  Get an erection.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, get the, you know, get that going and then get the groove going. Yeah, I, I do all right. You have to ask them.

• 9:12Adam Friedland?

  You strike me as a person that just knows like, like cool, like cool styles. Like interesting styles of sex.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Of sex?

• 9:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  No, I'm not really a fetishy guy. I like, I just like fairly standard stuff.

• 9:25Adam Friedland?

  Me too.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  But very connected, it needs to be connected. I don't want any distance.

• 9:28Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  I want, I want like a symbiotic kind of thing going on.

• 9:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, like, yeah.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Like connected.

• 9:35Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:36Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, we fuck.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  We fuck the same way?

• 9:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, probably. I think so. I, I, at this point, I barely, missionary style?

• 9:44Speaker 02

  That's fine.

• 9:45Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:46Adam Friedland?

  And deep eye contact.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Sure, you keep the eyes open?

• 9:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, of course.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Me too, I always wonder.

• 9:51Adam Friedland?

  And if she looks away, I say, look, look at me. Look at me again. Where are you looking? Yeah. Look at me!

• 9:57Speaker 02

  A lot of times, I notice it's the closed eyes. And then like, you know, I wonder because my eyes are just naturally open, because it's part of it, I like seeing the whole thing happening.

• 10:05Adam Friedland?

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Um, that when they're like, if their eyes are closed and I open them and I'm just staring, like, is it jarring? I don't know. I'm gonna ask next time.

• 10:12Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, at this, at this point, I like just making dinner and, and we fall asleep watching a, like, a girl's show that she wants to watch. That's love to me.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Is it?

• 10:22Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it's romantic. Yeah, so, you know, we just fall asleep on the couch and we just like, we just made a nice dinner and then we like, she puts on some crap. And I complain about it. I, I wanna watch something else.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  That's where you're at, huh?

• 10:33Adam Friedland?

  But I really actually wanna watch the crap. Thirty-nine.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 10:36Adam Friedland?

  We're the same age, we're the same guy.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  So you're, that's where you're at?

• 10:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Just sitting on the couch and like, you have, like, I'll cook dinner and I'll eat a little something.

• 10:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  And, and I like cooking for them. And then we'll watch a movie or something.

• 10:48Adam Friedland?

  Uh-huh.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  You know?

• 10:48Adam Friedland?

  Oh, I love it. Oh, it's so sweet.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's nice.

• 10:50Adam Friedland?

  And then she wants to do face masks sometimes. I love it.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Like facial masks?

• 10:54Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, like, uh, like a charcoal face mask.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Oh, you do that too?

• 10:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, we're like, oh, hello, my ma'am.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, you do a little, sure, sure.

• 11:01Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, cuz it's the one way you can do blackface.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  You don't record that, you post it.

• 11:05Adam Friedland?

  Would you ever go to a party where everyone like puts their phones in a bucket and just everyone just knows, just experiences what it's like to, to wear, uh, blackface?

• 11:15Speaker 02

  I thought, I didn't know what, I thought you were, I thought you were gonna do.

• 11:18Adam Friedland?

  No pictures. It just says that we've all wondered and that, no, um.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  I don't know if I've wondered really. I think I made a terrible mistake in, in high school.

• 11:27Adam Friedland?

  You did blackface?

• 11:28Speaker 02

  It wasn't blackface, but it was brownface.

• 11:31Adam Friedland?

  Well, how, what's the difference? You went on vacation to Mexico?

• 11:34Speaker 02

  No. What the difference was, like, you know, I grew up in Albuquerque.

• 11:37Adam Friedland?

  Uh-huh.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  And, um, uh, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

• 11:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I'm from the southwest as well. I'm from Vegas, yeah.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  It's not really southwest.

• 11:45Adam Friedland?

  No, it's similar. I think it's the same. It's the mountain west. We're both, we're both gentlemen in the mountain west, yeah.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  It's, it's desert-y, but it's, it's definitely not Mexico.

• 11:53Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Jersey, yeah, cool.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  So I went to, uh, yeah, you know, yeah, long before that.

• 11:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, that show's kind of way over it. It's kind of a drag.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  That's not true. That's not true.

• 12:03Adam Friedland?

  The pilot is perfect.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  If you really take in the comedy dynamic of those two, it's totally a great show.

• 12:12Adam Friedland?

  But I don't think it's supposed to be funny. I think it's supposed to be.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  It's supposed to be hilarious.

• 12:15Adam Friedland?

  I think he's supposed to, oh, and I'm like.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  It's hilarious. Those two together, hilarious.

• 12:20Adam Friedland?

  Heiselberg, and he puts the hat for door.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  It's all hilarious.

• 12:22Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  The hat's a fucking Charlie Chaplin hat.

• 12:24Adam Friedland?

  The wife is just, the wife is just like.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  It's a Charlie Chaplin hat.

• 12:27Adam Friedland?

  The wife's character is, is written by a fucking, a guy who hates women. The wife character is just a dumb bitch. I'm sorry.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  I don't think she's dumb. I think, you know, they have a hard time. They have a special needs kid and like, I, but getting back to the brownface.

• 12:42Adam Friedland?

  Okay, yeah, your brownface, yeah.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  Uh, so in high school for Halloween, like, there were these, you know, when I grew up, it was probably seventy percent Latino in Albuquerque.

• 12:51Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I grew up.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  And there were these cool guys in high school, these Latino dudes. It was pre, pre-cholo, so these are still like disco Latino dudes.

• 12:59Adam Friedland?

  Zoot suit, right?

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Not, not zoot suits, but like waist, leather, you know, sort of waist leather coats, like bell bottoms, platform shoes. There's a lot of that going on.

• 13:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  And there was this guy named, I think his name was Vince, Vince Baca. And I just thought he looked so fucking cool.

• 13:14Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  So I dressed up like him on Halloween.

• 13:17Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 13:17Speaker 02

  But, and I did like brownface, like, to look Latino.

• 13:21Adam Friedland?

  Wow, you're really.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  And I wore, I wore the, the coat and the, and the shoes, but like, it was, it was an homage. Like, I wasn't.

• 13:28Adam Friedland?

  To the Austin comedy scene.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Well, that was one. No, but it was like, I thought it looked, I was trying to be cool.

• 13:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  To look like him.

• 13:35Adam Friedland?

  Was he cool with it?

• 13:37Speaker 02

  He was cool. No, I don't know. I didn't see him.

• 13:38Adam Friedland?

  If, oh, Vince Baca was a guy at your school or he was a famous guy?

• 13:42Speaker 02

  No, he's a guy at my school.

• 13:43Adam Friedland?

  So wa- was he like, that's awesome?

• 13:45Speaker 02

  No, he didn't see me in it. But like.

• 13:47Adam Friedland?

  So you're making fun of this, uh, Mexican kid, Eddie?

• 13:50Speaker 02

  I guess I was making.

• 13:51Adam Friedland?

  Behind his back?

• 13:52Speaker 02

  I guess I was making fun of it. We went to a party and, and we, oddly, like, I, I, I kinda passed as a Latino.

• 14:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you were La Raza.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Well, people, people were like, whoa, you know, they didn't know who I was.

• 14:04Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  But like, you know, looking back on it, it was horrendously inappropriate.

• 14:07Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  And, uh, hold on, it's my buddy Jerry. Hold on.

• 14:09Adam Friedland?

  Can I say hi?

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Sure. You know Jerry Stahl?

• 14:12Adam Friedland?

  No.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  You don't know Jerry Stahl, the writer of Permanent Midnight?

• 14:15Adam Friedland?

  No. Can I say hi?

• 14:17Speaker 02

  I, it just hung up on him, but I feel like I, I need to.

• 14:20Adam Friedland?

  What's his vibe? What's he like?

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Hey, Jerry!

• 14:21Adam Friedland?

  No, that's not him. That's the voice. Wait, so you, so, so you were at the party?

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, but like afterwards, I had a moment.

• 14:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  There was a moment.

• 14:30Adam Friedland?

  No, it was like, I'm gonna, that's, that's, uh, that's, you wrong for that?

• 14:36Speaker 02

  I was, I felt bad, but the moment was that like, we were going out and there was, I, I can't remember why they were at my buddy's house. We were at my buddy Dave's house. He's, he's passed. And, uh, it's okay. And there was some Latino people there, like, friends of theirs. And they were looking at us like, what are you doing?

• 14:52Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  And.

• 14:53Adam Friedland?

  You should be allowed, yeah, go ahead.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Didn't register, but looking back on it, I think I may, I need to make an amends to, to the Latino people out there.

• 15:04Adam Friedland?

  You wanna say sorry right now?

• 15:05Speaker 02

  I'm sorry.

• 15:06Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  I, it was insensitive. I really thought, you know.

• 15:08Adam Friedland?

  You're a kid.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  I was a kid. I was in high school. I was probably fifteen. But like, I thought, I thought I was doing something fun. I didn't feel, I didn't, I didn't feel like I was making fun of them. I thought it was cool, cuz I definitely thought that Vince was cooler than me.

• 15:22Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. Wait, so, so he, he was a popular kid at school. It wasn't like a loser?

• 15:27Speaker 02

  Not a loser at all.

• 15:28Adam Friedland?

  So, okay. So you were trying to suck up to him or you were trying to?

• 15:31Speaker 02

  I didn't know the guy really.

• 15:32Adam Friedland?

  You were taking shots at him?

• 15:33Speaker 02

  No. It like, I, my high school was thirty-four hundred people. So like, it wasn't like, you know, we all knew each other.

• 15:39Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  It's just like the, the Latino dudes, they hung out in their little section, you know, and, and we did our thing. And there was a lot of different groups. It's a big fucking school.

• 15:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  And he was just one of the dudes who I'd see, you know, walking into school. We, we weren't friends. And I, you know.

• 15:53Adam Friedland?

  Did you smoke weed?

• 15:54Speaker 02

  In high school, a bit, yeah.

• 15:56Adam Friedland?

  I used to smoke weed, uh, uh, cuz I like mota. They, they liked me.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know. I, I don't, I, I didn't smoke weed with them. We used to, we did school a lot. I, I think we did school and went to Village Inn Pancake House and had huevos rancheros, which they served in a giant.

• 16:12Adam Friedland?

  Green chili, New Mexico.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Flower tortilla. Yeah, green chili.

• 16:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, what does Vegas have? Not much.

• 16:17Adam Friedland?

  Vegas, uh.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 16:19Adam Friedland?

  It's a pretty, pretty, it's an ecological disaster shouldn't exist.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  Oh, so that all happened. San Fernando happened before you were born?

• 16:26Adam Friedland?

  Uh, no, no. While I was a little kid, it was like ninety-one, ninety-two.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 16:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Um, so, yeah, my, my, my parents, uh, my dad's an architect, so, uh.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 16:34Adam Friedland?

  And then they had to.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Like a good one?

• 16:36Adam Friedland?

  Uh, I, I, I think so, yeah. He went to like a really, he went to the best architecture school in the world. Um, he, he, he doesn't practice anymore.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Doesn't practice architecture?

• 16:46Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  But when you look at his, like, would you say like, while we're in town, we should really go see the building my dad designed?

• 16:52Adam Friedland?

  Uh, no, no.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  You wouldn't say that?

• 16:54Adam Friedland?

  He kind of, uh, he finished second in his class behind Zaha Hadid, who became the most famous female architect ever.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  Uh-huh.

• 17:01Adam Friedland?

  She was like his best friend.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Why'd he gotta qualify it?

• 17:03Adam Friedland?

  Um, because he went to the.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Why, why you say female?

• 17:06Adam Friedland?

  He went to the Architectural Association.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 17:08Adam Friedland?

  He, he lived in London.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Is he alive?

• 17:10Adam Friedland?

  He's alive, yeah. My mother passed away, but, uh, yeah. They had to move here cuz they called him up to the civil war in Angola. And so then, my dad was a coward. He didn't wanna go with the apartheid military, but, so he kinda, so they came to, they went to LA. I was born there. And so, uh.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  I guess it takes some sort of balls to go to LA, right?

• 17:29Adam Friedland?

  Well, they left because the, their families were annoying also. You know, there was the apartheid.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  The Cape Town families?

• 17:34Adam Friedland?

  My dad was on an enemies list, but also we had annoying Jewish families.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  In South Africa.

• 17:39Adam Friedland?

  And they all followed us here.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  Huh.

• 17:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. Um.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  But like, in terms of like what he created.

• 17:46Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, my dad, he did university buildings, you know, he like.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  You don't, you don't, you don't, you don't go and look at him?

• 17:51Adam Friedland?

  I.

• 18:16Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, the, the, yeah, it's just, it, uh.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  It's an exciting family.

• 18:20Adam Friedland?

  It's not really exciting. It's kind of, uh, but it's like, what it.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  There's a lot of great stories there, Adam. And my question was.

• 18:27Adam Friedland?

  You're looking at me like it's boring, but like, uh.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  No, no, I, I'm not, I'm not.

• 18:30Adam Friedland?

  I'm getting nervous. I'm getting nervous.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Listen to me.

• 18:32Adam Friedland?

  Listen, can I tell you something?

• 18:33Speaker 02

  Let me just tell you something.

• 18:33Adam Friedland?

  Would you be willing to do one last episode of WTF?

• 18:36Speaker 02

  I think I'm doing it.

• 18:37Adam Friedland?

  Where I could, thank you. Because that's.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  I think this is it.

• 18:39Adam Friedland?

  Because when I was a young comic, I thought if I do well, I could be on WTF.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  We just did half of it.

• 18:44Adam Friedland?

  Well, no, none of that is going on the show.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  What are you talking about?

• 18:48Adam Friedland?

  No, because I, I was doing a bad job at WTF.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  No, you were doing a good job.

• 18:51Adam Friedland?

  Was I crushing?

• 18:52Speaker 02

  It was great.

• 18:53Adam Friedland?

  Was it Robin Williams level?

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Well, it was better in a way.

• 18:57Adam Friedland?

  That was the, I listened to it yesterday.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  You did?

• 19:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, the Robin Williams episode.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  Oh, it's so brutal.

• 19:03Adam Friedland?

  It's so fucked.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  That is fucked, man. But it was a good time. I had a good, that was an exciting day. Driving to Robin's house.

• 19:13Adam Friedland?

  I don't think we'd ever seen him like that.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  I don't think you get it. That's why that interview was used a lot. After, in the media after he died, because I don't think that one exists like that, because.

• 19:24Adam Friedland?

  We never saw him as a person.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  It was just him and I, though. Like, what I usually say is that, like, if there's more than one person, he's going to perform.

• 19:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  But the fact was, it was just me.

• 19:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  And I was a comic. And I was approaching him in a different way.

• 19:37Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  So you got that, that kind of amazing, that amazing interview.

• 19:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  And I was really doing, it was weird, the reason I, I was compelled to do it.

• 19:46Adam Friedland?

  How did you get it out of him? What do you think?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  What? Get what out of him?

• 19:48Adam Friedland?

  Like, just the real guy that we never saw ever, I mean.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  I don't know, how did it start? It's usually the answer to that is in the first five minutes.

• 19:57Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. I think he was, I think he was ready to kind of also, there was something about it. It was like a perfect moment.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  I got tired of hearing young comics, or people in general dismissing him, like, as a joke thief or whatever. You know, like, it just, it rang inauthentic and untrue, where you have young people trying to make a show, but this, and this guy did everything.

• 20:21Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  TV, movies, stand-up.

• 20:24Adam Friedland?

  Unbelievable.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  You know, he had a problem with stealing some jokes, but in, in the big arc of things, he's a monumental talent. So, like, my reason to go do it was, like, to, to show, it's like, this guy's not, you can't just write him off as some joke thief.

• 20:39Adam Friedland?

  Well, when you're a young comic, you're a hater.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  No, I get it.

• 20:41Adam Friedland?

  And you want to sound like you're a real comic to be like, oh, he's a fraud.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Well, sure, and like, I'm sure when I was younger, I said that too. I mean, but, he was a, you know, kind of a beautiful guy.

• 20:50Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 20:50Speaker 02

  And I think he was, he just wanted to talk candidly, and I think the fact that, you know, I was a comic, made the, a shorthand.

• 20:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  You know, and that we were approaching it in sort of a serious way, but he did a few little rips. He did, he was kind of funny.

• 21:03Adam Friedland?

  The one about the last time he thought about killing himself, where he's with the hooker, and then he says it was two years ago. He says it was two years ago, and I was like, I didn't realize his life was like that, like.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Up and down.

• 21:16Adam Friedland?

  I would have assumed this was in the eighties after doing coke.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Like, he had a relapse later in life.

• 21:21Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Like, he, he kind of, it got a little dicey. It probably, it was probably difficult when he was diagnosed with that Lewy body dementia.

• 21:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Body dysmorphia.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  Huh?

• 21:34Adam Friedland?

  No.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  No, that's, that's not as bad.

• 21:36Adam Friedland?

  That's not as bad.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  I have body dysmorphia.

• 21:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you do.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  He had Lewy's body dementia, I think it's called.

• 21:42Adam Friedland?

  Whoa.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  He had a, like, it's a bad disease.

• 21:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it's terrible.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  I hope I don't have that. I'm having some tingling. I'm having, I'm having some tingling.

• 21:48Adam Friedland?

  This is a little bit of a Tuesdays with Maury situation.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Is it?

• 21:51Adam Friedland?

  Me and a dying man are sharing wisdoms about the world.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Isn't that with everybody, though?

• 21:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it's so sad that you die, isn't it? Okay. Wait, keep going, keep, but, Robin, yeah.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  But, like, I imagine that whenever he got that diagnosis, he probably fucked his, you know, how's that not going to fuck your head up? I don't know what the relationship between being diagnosed and him relapsing was, you know, we didn't really get into that. We didn't talk about the Lewy's body dementia at all, because, you know, I don't know if he knew about it then.

• 22:17Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  You know, but clearly, the suicide that he committed was not in the same spectrum of the suicide he was talking about, being fucked up on drugs.

• 22:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Like, it seems that he checked out, you know, as opposed to live with this disabling disease.

• 22:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Or maybe it enabled, like, he's like, I want to, I want out, and he would think that all the time, and he's like, alright, now I got it.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  This is my excuse. Finally, I got a ticket.

• 22:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:42Adam Friedland?

  Speaking of a disease, I also listened back to the, I was like, I kind of re, because as a, before I even started stand-up, I listened to WTF, and it was kind of. Yeah, for me, it was like, I loved comedy growing up, and it was like, I just was like, hearing about, hearing the guys that I loved.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:00Adam Friedland?

  At, who they were as people.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  I liked doing that, too.

• 23:02Adam Friedland?

  And I was like, uh, I was like, why don't I just fucking, I've always wanted to, like, why don't you stop being a pussy, and you're, you definitely want some sort of excuse not to go to law school.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:12Adam Friedland?

  And so, yeah, and then I had to tell my parents, this is my destiny, and so, it's the most.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  How'd that land?

• 23:17Adam Friedland?

  They, I got shingles, it was so stressful.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  Really?

• 23:21Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Did you get the vaccine?

• 23:23Adam Friedland?

  As a young person. Anthony Fauci, yeah, I got it, I got it, yeah.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:27Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I got the good one.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  You just pre-associate.

• 23:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, like, Robin Williams, Robin Williams, yeah, yeah.

• 23:34Adam Friedland?

  Wait, so, um, but I listened to the Norm episode, and, um.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  The gambling.

• 23:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I, I, you're, you're a person much like myself, where it's like, if I feel a certain way, I, I can't imagine not saying it, right?

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I can't, I think what a man is supposed to do is bury it deep down, and I've never been able to do that ever in my life, and like.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  I try, I bury it about halfway, shallow grave.

• 23:57Adam Friedland?

  I can't, no, no, it has, if someone's like, what's up, I'm like, fuck you, like, terrible, yeah, yeah.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  I've learned how to.

• 24:03Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  Keep it.

• 24:04Adam Friedland?

  Uh, it's, it's really.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  It's to act, it's to behave properly.

• 24:07Adam Friedland?

  It's, it's hard. It's really hard not to just be like, uh, yeah.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  I burned a lot of bridges.

• 24:13Adam Friedland?

  In a relationship where they say, can we talk later? I'm like, can you just fucking tell me now?

• 24:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 24:18Adam Friedland?

  I'm going to be thinking about it all day.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Let's ruin it now.

• 24:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Let's destroy the day now.

• 24:22Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I'm going to, what, am I going to be on death row all day?

• 24:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Let's just fuck it up. I'll fuck your day up, my day's already fucked up, let's do it, and then later we'll make up, maybe.

• 24:31Adam Friedland?

  It's rude of them to be like, you have 10 hours to feel agony, and it's going to be awful at the end of it. I have, you have a nightmare scheduled in.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  There's an outside chance that it might fade.

• 24:40Adam Friedland?

  It's, okay, but.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  It could dissipate by the end of the day, buddy.

• 24:43Adam Friedland?

  But then I, I listened to the Norm episode, which is also really special. I was like revisiting a lot of these episodes that I loved, and. I, just imagining a man that is so noble, as to like, if I had terminal cancer, I would be in line at Trader Joe's and be like. Sorry, this is bad for my cancer. I would like, I wouldn't be able to shut the fuck up about my cancer.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Can I go ahead of you?

• 25:03Adam Friedland?

  It is just like.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  I'm dying.

• 25:05Adam Friedland?

  It is the most masculine, like, incredible.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Can I cut in line, look at my lab work?

• 25:09Adam Friedland?

  Like, uh, just, if I, it's horrible, like, like, and he didn't, like, uh, he was like a, a captain of a ship, like, he was like a. It's so noble and, like, a version of masculinity that I will, that I can only, I will.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  What, him not talking about the cancer?

• 25:26Adam Friedland?

  Just like, be like, I'm not, yeah, him not, not telling anyone.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:30Adam Friedland?

  I would want, I would want the sympathy.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:34Adam Friedland?

  No, I mean, it's just, um, yeah, and also just hearing him so sensitive and sincere.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was an ama, that was also an amazing interview.

• 25:42Adam Friedland?

  It's just amazing, yeah.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Those two are with guys that were pretty, you know, well insulated in their personas.

• 25:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  And, yeah, somehow, like, something happened. I mean, like, I didn't know Norm that well, and I was very surprised by that. That, that's another kind of interesting, singular interview with a guy that didn't talk like that much.

• 26:00Adam Friedland?

  I speculated that maybe it's, that Kidson was his favorite comic, and the fact that you had a connection, well, Kidson ruined your life, but the fact that, and I would love to hear more about those days.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  It definitely fucked me up for a while.

• 26:13Adam Friedland?

  You were his slave, his boy, his man.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  No, not quite.

• 26:17Adam Friedland?

  You were his house, house drug boy, his mule.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Not quite, not quite.

• 26:19Adam Friedland?

  Wait, but like, no, but the fact that you had a relationship with him and then Norm.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:23Adam Friedland?

  Uh, revered him.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Is that, I don't remember the interview, yeah?

• 26:26Adam Friedland?

  That's what I was like, thinking throughout. I was like, I was like, that there was like some sort of connection, but that was me speculating as.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  I'd like to try to reframe your, uh.

• 26:37Adam Friedland?

  Your, your.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Idea about my relationship with Kidson.

• 26:40Adam Friedland?

  You were, yeah.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  I don't think he molested me.

• 26:42Adam Friedland?

  No, no.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  Some, I think maybe a babysitter.

• 26:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Early on.

• 26:45Adam Friedland?

  But whatever, life goes on, shit happens, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Who hasn't, you know?

• 26:48Adam Friedland?

  I mean, he's a legend, first of all, yeah, yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  So, no, no, the thing with Sam was, it was just a lot of coke, and it wasn't like that I was, you know, when you do coke, if someone has coke.

• 26:57Adam Friedland?

  It's so cool.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  It's great to, you know, do their coke.

• 27:00Adam Friedland?

  I, I started.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  It's one of the great things. It's like, oh, you've got a lot of coke? I like to do coke.

• 27:05Adam Friedland?

  Wow, comedy used to be so cool.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  I'm going to do your coke.

• 27:08Adam Friedland?

  Comedy now, when I would start a comedy, everyone was a nerd. You got to be there where you were like, uh.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  Drug addict?

• 27:15Adam Friedland?

  Well, yeah, that's all.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  There's still drug addicts around.

• 27:17Adam Friedland?

  But you were getting to be a drug addict with the.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  With a monster?

• 27:20Adam Friedland?

  One of the best.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Drug addict?

• 27:22Adam Friedland?

  One of the.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  He's one of the great drug addicts.

• 27:23Adam Friedland?

  One of the great, yeah, I mean, I don't know, to me.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  I'm telling you, he gets short shrift, dude. Like, you know, like, in the big picture of people.

• 27:31Adam Friedland?

  He's a god.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  He was wrong-minded in a lot of ways.

• 27:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  But the way he delivered jokes, and, and a couple of his jokes were just fucking spectacular.

• 27:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  There, the, the joke about the Manson family is one of my favorite jokes.

• 27:45Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  And I don't like his jokes about, like, it's sand, move, or, you know, lick the alphabet, I don't, all the women's stuff.

• 27:51Adam Friedland?

  Speaking ill of the dead, okay.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  But some of the Jesus stuff.

• 27:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  I liked, because.

• 27:56Adam Friedland?

  But that was his background, too, right?

• 27:57Speaker 02

  It, it was real to him.

• 27:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  And the Manson joke, I think, was the best, the best joke.

• 28:04Adam Friedland?

  It was just like, he was a guy that was emulated.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  Not really.

• 28:09Adam Friedland?

  There were pissed off guys, the pissed off.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  He was kind of this singular fucking weirdo dude, and. When I got to the store and got the job.

• 28:17Adam Friedland?

  Do you think Bill Hicks happens without Kidson?

• 28:19Speaker 02

  I think Bill Hicks happens simultaneous.

• 28:21Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you think it's, it's just at the same time?

• 28:24Speaker 02

  No, they were friends.

• 28:25Adam Friedland?

  They were friends.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Like, he, you know, Bill Hicks was a kid.

• 28:27Adam Friedland?

  I always connect them.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Bill Hicks was the first, like, if you're going to start talking about people who.

• 28:31Adam Friedland?

  You think Tom Myers happens if, if Kidson?

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Who got fucked up by Sam, Bill comes out to LA with Sam the first time, he's got to be like 17.

• 28:40Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  You know, and the, with the outlaws, with the guys, the, I don't know the exact history of it was, but they came out, Bill was a kid, Sam came out, and he lost his mind, Sam did, and, and Bill got spit out, and went back to Houston. But there's, you know, they were simultaneous, you know, did, did Bill, Bill's screaming and yelling is very different than Sam's.

• 29:01Adam Friedland?

  Well, I'm not, it put me on game, educated.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, Bill's process of delivering, you know, is very lyrical, and, and, and there was a momentum to it.

• 29:12Adam Friedland?

  Sam was visceral.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  It was visceral, but also the language of Bill was evolved.

• 29:17Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, correct.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  And, and, and how he's dropping, you know, landing a point.

• 29:21Adam Friedland?

  It's very written.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  With his thing.

• 29:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  But him doing this and talking like that.

• 29:27Adam Friedland?

  Maybe they're just wearing dusters.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. And Sam was a preacher and delivered like a preacher. Like, and there's tapes of Sam preaching, some guy just wrote a big piece about him.

• 29:37Adam Friedland?

  I've seen on YouTube some of them, yeah.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  And, and he delivers like a preacher, and, and then the.

• 29:43Adam Friedland?

  It was very Pentecostal.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 29:45Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  But his, but the, like, Steve Pearl, a genius from San Francisco, Jewish genius from San Francisco.

• 29:50Adam Friedland?

  Oh, God.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Who Robin took his style from, you know, but Pearl used to say, like, oh, let's go listen to the genius, two short screams followed by a long scream, oh, genius, so. To break it down, like, there's two short screens followed by a long screen. That, it was like a gimmick. Like, Sam, you know, manifested as a clown. Like, he's wearing this fucking dumb hat, he's got his little trench coat on.

• 30:17Adam Friedland?

  Well, they're both southern guys in trench coats, maybe that's why I associate them.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  I don't know that Bill always wore a trench, no, you associate them because they're Texan. And, and they, you know, they, but Bill had a worldview that was, you know, nuanced and aggressive. He was a, is sort of a conscious, intellectual misanthrope. Sam was just a fuck you guy. And, but, here's what I'll tell you about Sam. Me and Sam, like, I got to LA and I was, you know, a doorman and then he was on the road. I didn't really like him from what I'd seen on TV. And then when he got back from the road, he's like, I used to be a doorman, Marin. And I was living in the house that Mitzi owned, so Sam just sort of glommed on in that he knew he could party up there. So he would just like, you know, he'd, Monday night was like no cover night.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  So he, we'd, we'd be waiting for him to show up and it'd be a big fucking thing and all of Hollywood, like, all the fucking weirdos from the metal crew and the porn people, it was just a, like a sordid shit show.

• 31:13Adam Friedland?

  It was like that for us, too.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:14Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  But he would be like, you know, Marin, you wanna go get the house ready? I'm like, yeah, sure, man, he'd give me money and I'd go sell, get a bunch of booze and shit. And then we'd just go hang out. So it wasn't like a bitch situation, it was just sort of like...

• 31:25Adam Friedland?

  I'm not saying you're actually a bitch, but it was like, what, you were a younger guy.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  Twenty-two.

• 31:29Adam Friedland?

  That was with, that was with the gods.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  It broke my brain.

• 31:32Adam Friedland?

  And then you were having a wild time.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  It broke my brain, I couldn't handle it.

• 31:35Adam Friedland?

  You were having a wild time.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  He ultimately tried to ruin my, the beginning of my career after I left, because he got mad at me. And I can't tell that whole story.

• 31:42Adam Friedland?

  That's a drug thing.

• 31:46Adam Friedland?

  Or is it codependent?

• 31:47Speaker 02

  It, it, the whole thing was a drug thing. It involved a Satanist and his guitars and me fucking with him. You know, like, I used to fuck with Sam because I knew where, I knew when he'd lose his mind. And I'd like to sort of encourage it. But the thing that I'll tell you that I think is the best Sam story is, um,

• 32:08Speaker 02

  he, you know, I've asked, like, when Dennis Miller was big, right?

• 32:13Adam Friedland?

  I miss it. I miss that.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I was in a car with Janine Garofalo and Dennis's brother Jimmy in Boston. Jimmy had come to Boston to scout something, he's, he's a manager. And I, you know, I wasn't anybody yet. And I was worked up and I was mad. And I was going on about like, how do you find your voice, man? And Jimmy's in the back of the car, got Janine in there. And I'm like, your brother did it, how did he figure it out? How did he figure out what his voice was? And Jimmy Miller goes, he's doing Belzer. So, it's fucking funny. Yeah, babe. You know, it's all Belzer.

• 32:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, that makes total sense.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Not the intelligence of it, but the delivery system.

• 32:50Adam Friedland?

  And his brother just flamed his ass.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, babe.

• 32:53Adam Friedland?

  Cha-chi.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:55Adam Friedland?

  It's like Hannibal crossing the Alps. It's all, it's all like, uh...

• 32:59Speaker 02

  But the babe thing, yeah, babe.

• 33:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, babe.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that's Belzer.

• 33:02Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  So, Sam, did I tell you this? I don't know if I did.

• 33:06Adam Friedland?

  I don't know.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  I said to Sam one night, you know, Sam would, he had a couple weird impressions that he would do. Uh, but, I said to Sam, like, same thing, like, early on, because one of the first nights I met Sam, we just went one-on-one with an eight ball and, you know, it was like, vrrrrrr. And I remember at some point, I asked him, like, you know, how'd you figure it out? How'd you, how'd you find your, your voice? And he says, uh, he says, Gene Wilder.

• 33:33Adam Friedland?

  He said that?

• 33:34Speaker 02

  But listen to it. If you listen to Gene Wilder, when he builds comedically like in Young Frankenstein.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  Yes, he builds.

• 33:45Adam Friedland?

  Wow. You guys don't care, do you care? No. That's amazing.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  It's amazing.

• 33:50Adam Friedland?

  That is amazing. Oh my god.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  And then at the end of it.

• 33:54Adam Friedland?

  It's so crazy.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  At the end of the Gene Wilder build, you know, Kennethson goes, oh, oh, oh! But the build, it's fucking all Wilder.

• 34:05Adam Friedland?

  Wow.

• 34:08Adam Friedland?

  This episode is brought to you by eBay Live. Here's how it goes. First, you're just watching eBay Live, seeing some rare finds, not even bidding, just lurking. And then you see a rare rookie card. Go for an absolute steal. A nineties handbag comes up and you have to jump in. Maybe put that, uh, put that rookie card in the handbag. Maybe you lose your first auction. You bid again and win. And that winning feeling, it's such a rush because, you know, everyone else wanted it too. Meanwhile, on eBay Live, you don't just watch the action, you're in it. Download the eBay app to stream and shop live. eBay Live, things people love.

• 34:47Adam Friedland?

  I mean, it's, yeah, I, we were with guys that were like, uh, so the Hulk says, uh, you wouldn't like to see me when I'm angry. Like, who would you like to see when they're angry? That's, that's what we were, the guys with zip, like a front zip American Apparel. You, and then we heard about you guys, and you guys were like, uh, worshiping Satan and, uh...

• 35:06Speaker 02

  I just started at a weird time.

• 35:08Adam Friedland?

  You had guns and like, yeah.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  I didn't have a gun. Did Sammy have a, were there guns around? I, I missed the guns at the store.

• 35:14Adam Friedland?

  Comedy, comedy for us was just, uh, just, uh, depressing.

• 35:18Speaker 02

  Well, you kind of realize, like, you know, what was left of the road when I started working professionally in 1988, right?

• 35:25Adam Friedland?

  Oh, it was right before the crash, right?

• 35:26Speaker 02

  Well, it was like after the crash, whatever that was, but, you know, like, the world of road comedy, and it still exists to a certain degree, it was just full of, you know, guys, you know, on the run from this or that, you know, barely making a living, trying to stay away from taxes, alimony. I used to work with a guy named Frankie Bastille, you know, who, who moved to Boston when I was there. And I, in the Lloyd Boston work, he did, it was a one-nighter thing. That's how I paid my dues. But he comes in from out of town and he didn't want his name in the paper, didn't want his name on the marquee, didn't want anyone to know where he was working because he owed back taxes and he owed alimony.

• 36:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  So you're, you're dealing with these fucking criminals. There were so many fucking criminals.

• 36:07Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. I mean, that's, it's just, it's an entirely different thing. I think that, you like, um, I, I think like, I mean, like, we'll get to WTF, but like, we touched on it already. But like, you've existed in so many different iterations of the world of comedy.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  That is true. That is true.

• 36:23Adam Friedland?

  And it's like, uh, it must be like, it must be, do you, is it insane to see what, what's happened to it? I mean, do, do you think it sucks now? Is it good with like?

• 36:34Speaker 02

  I feel like my, my point of...

• 36:35Adam Friedland?

  Are you focused on yourself?

• 36:36Speaker 02

  No, my point of view is evolving, you know, I'm still like, kind of a slightly, kind of, like, now that I'd, like, I have freedom to kind of think and do the, just be a comic again, you know, it's been 16 years since that podcast, right? So, um, just sort of be done with that and then kind of living, for the most part, the life of a comic again. You're just wandering around thinking, like, you know, I find that I'm still resentful and I still have like insecurity and stuff. But I feel like my, my point of view on what's happening in comedy now is different. Like, I, I think I'm more sympathetic than I was initially.

• 37:11Adam Friedland?

  I think it's, comedians are too big a deal now. I mean, people are listening to them about like...

• 37:16Speaker 02

  Well, that's true.

• 37:17Adam Friedland?

  Politics and stuff.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Like, it's hard to track how the live performance is.

• 37:20Adam Friedland?

  People think that comedians are way more important than they, they are.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  But even just, like, outside of like, you know, people going like, I need to know what's going on in China, let's listen to Tim Dillon. You know, like, I don't know when that happened or why.

• 37:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, he's, he's pretty good. He does it solo.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  No, I know, like, he's a smart guy.

• 37:34Adam Friedland?

  That's a tough thing.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  But, uh, but like, it's, you know, you're speculating, everyone's speculating because no one knows shit. You know, you're only drawing from the facts that you get, which may or may not be real. And then you're, you're drawing from sources of facts that you, you know, align yourself with, which may or may not be real. And you're speaking to people that are like-minded, so what the fuck difference does it make? Like, the question is like, when did comics become a source of, of information that guided people's lives? I don't know, it's not great. And I've been critical of that to some degree. But it was more of a political problem with people using their voice to align themselves with fascists. And, you know, that's a problem.

• 38:10Adam Friedland?

  In this most recent election, yeah.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  Sure. So, and a lot of them, like, even that, they, they didn't, the thing is, is that people, most people don't think it through. Most people don't have a fucking worldview. They just don't. They're like, well, this sucks, so fuck, I'm gonna do this. Like, how do you, like, just, most people don't have a worldview, dude. They don't. But the thing, the other thing about comedy, though, I feel bad for young comics because if I had to do the work that they have to do for content creation, you know, just to get, you know, and, uh, try to figure out a way in. I mean, I come from the time of the gatekeepers, and the gatekeepers were club owners and studio executives.

• 38:53Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  You know?

• 38:54Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  That was it. And a club owner could fuck you forever. And that, and that's, like, there is a freedom to that not being the thing anymore. But the idea that in order to just sort of get your, like, toe in the fucking door, you gotta generate all this content every day that most of your job is fucking editing and generating content? Because there is no gatekeepers and there's no publicity apparatus and there's no hierarchy. So it's just the fucking, you know, Wild West. It's like the primordial soup of comedic chaos.

• 39:25Adam Friedland?

  But the, the, you, I think the rise of WTF probably coincided with the gatekeepers going away. You could access an audience directly, right?

• 39:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, but like, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing and I didn't, it was never a...

• 39:38Adam Friedland?

  We started our podcast, we didn't know that you could make money from it, right?

• 39:41Speaker 02

  When I started it, you couldn't.

• 39:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  There was no infrastructure to make money.

• 39:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  And so, when I started, I didn't know what the fuck we were doing. I just knew that I didn't want to disappear. So, you know, and I just got out of a shitty divorce, I was broke. And, you know, and I...

• 39:58Adam Friedland?

  And Air America, too.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Well, Air America, like, yeah, that, that ended. Uh, but, but the, the second iteration, correct? But the point I'm making is that... We were audio only, and a lot of guys were audio only at the beginning.

• 40:12Adam Friedland?

  You was primarily all audio only, yeah.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  But there was no way to make money. So at the beginning, we were pulling, you know, radio people, like, radio ad consultants were the middlemen. So we were doing some form of radio advertising, which I guess it all is anyways, but there was no, there was no, you know, platform, there was no advertising platform. There was no, like, there just was no, no one knew what a podcast was.

• 40:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  So we're doing Adam and Eve ads. And, you know, and then we pulled that Just Coffee, you know, sponsor from our streaming show that nobody watched, because no one could stream yet. And they were with me forever. And, and, and like audible, but we were selling sex toys at the beginning. And then sometimes Sherry's Berry's, it's a shitty, you know, like, you know, radio advertisements.

• 40:58Adam Friedland?

  I mean, I'm still selling like boners stuff and...

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Do you?

• 41:02Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. I did, I had Zor- I had... Zor- Zorron was on the show and...

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Zorron?

• 41:07Adam Friedland?

  One of the ads was boners.

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Boners?

• 41:09Adam Friedland?

  The mayor, yeah, our mayor.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 41:12Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  And like, but...

• 41:13Adam Friedland?

  I mean, it's just like, that's, I don't care, it's...

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Like him's, like, what's the...

• 41:17Adam Friedland?

  Well, I don't know, but, yeah, some, some shit. Like, we used to have BlueChew and, I don't know.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  BlueChew, right, that's a, by average gum?

• 41:24Adam Friedland?

  We had BlueChew for a very long time, but then, we just kind of, um, yeah, we, I had no idea that podcasting would become my career at all. I'm sure you didn't either. But, but because you bounced around the industry, you were like, um, at a stage of your career where you had a divorce and that, you know, had left Air America, like, the industry, you weren't relying on them anymore. And, right, like, and, and actually, like, do you, would you consider that you became a cultural fixture, like, uh, as a result? I mean, you didn't, it wasn't calculated, uh...

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 41:56Adam Friedland?

  But, like, uh, it, what it resulted in is you talked to Obama twice.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  I get what you're saying, and like, it, I, none of us knew, like, my producer is a genius. A true genius guy. Brendan McDonald, you know, he's like, politically, like, he's like, uh, was a great producer, but, and, and, and a real worker, but like, a very smart guy. And I just said to him, I said, "Do you think, you think we can figure this out?" We were still in the Air America studios down on Sixth Avenue. And I was like, "Look, you know, Corolla's doing this, Jimmy, you know, Jimmy Pardo's doing it, you know, Benson, there was only a few people doing it." I'm like, "Do you think we could figure this out?" So we figured it out. So we had no, uh, we weren't expecting anything. And it wasn't even an interview show. We just made the commitment to do a new show every Monday and Thursday, that's it. And we didn't know where it would go.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  And, you know, eventually, we were doing it in the studio, then I, I came back home, and there was a third act. It didn't turn into an interview show for a little while. We had this com- a comedy, uh, bit at the end where we'd use improvisers to do fake guests, like, you know, Kaufman-esque, like, "Is this real, is it not real?" And that started to drift, but what you're saying is true, that once, there was a, like, a, uh,

• 43:15Speaker 02

  not a perfect storm, but like, you know, podcasting grew up with all of us. There was a core group of us.

• 43:20Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  And eventually, someone created a, a platform where advertisers could, you know, reach out to podcasts, Midroll, and, and then video started, but we were all kind of, it's still, really, it's still mostly, for the most part, drive time radio is the model for most podcasts.

• 43:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  But, but what you're saying is true. Over time, you know, the, the entertainment press started to glom on, because, you know, they were, it had a deficit of reporters, so they would pick up, Vulture would pick up our stuff. If I'd get big guests, the press would pick it up. You know, the Twitter following got bigger. The, the interviews became news in a certain way. So it started to build out. But my entire career, when I started it, I was at best a B-room headliner that all the comics knew. It wasn't that I had no respect, but I couldn't sell a ticket.

• 44:14Adam Friedland?

  And probably you started a podcast to sell tickets, that's what, that's what we were saying.

• 44:17Speaker 02

  No, I started a podcast because I was, you know, it was either that or like, put a gun in my fucking mouth.

• 44:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  It wasn't, I, I had no idea to still sell tickets. No, I just knew that I wanted to be engaged, that I knew that I had a skill on those mics, on radio mics. I don't know why, but I did. I was good at it.

• 44:39Adam Friedland?

  You've done it for a while, too.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  But not even that long, a few years, yeah. But it was, like, it connected. So I just wanted to do that. And I knew, once we untethered from politics, that I'm just gonna talk. And I didn't, the thing is, like, I didn't want it to be, I didn't, I didn't want it to necessarily be funny. You know, I wanted to explore what I was thinking, and then have these conversations. It was never about being funny all the time. So the ticket thing, and the TV show, and, you know, building up an audience, it just happened somewhat organically, but there was no intention. We tried to make money. We were, we were, before Patreon, we were like, did tiered donations. I was like, my house, my little thousand-square-foot house was filled with fucking envelopes with stickers and T-shirts in it that I was sending to people,

• 45:25Speaker 02

  that were sending us money. I had some weird punk girl out in the valley making T-shirts.

• 45:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 45:31Speaker 02

  It was crazy.

• 45:31Adam Friedland?

  Did you fuck her?

• 45:32Speaker 02

  No.

• 45:33Adam Friedland?

  No, okay.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  Not that girl.

• 45:34Adam Friedland?

  Not that one, yeah. Yeah, but, but I feel like, as a result, you, regardless of intention, became a cultural fixture, and the show became

• 45:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:44Adam Friedland?

  a massive hit.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:46Adam Friedland?

  That, I mean, specifically, you know, like, everyone, like, the Robin Williams episode, I think is how I heard about the show. And then, of course, like, the Louis episode was massive too.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  The episode with Lou?

• 45:56Adam Friedland?

  But what if, what, you, I guess, by virtue of the show and, and your stand-up as well, it's, it's very confessional, right?

• 46:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:02Adam Friedland?

  Um, you've, people, people, you've found people directly, and, uh, people, you know...

• 46:08Speaker 02

  You mean guests?

• 46:09Adam Friedland?

  No, you found an audience, so you've had, like, people were listening, and then, and like, I know about that, that there was a girl that was trying to stalk you, and then you fucked her, like, you know?

• 46:18Speaker 02

  Jessica?

• 46:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, right, like, I know all about you, because there's this, uh, do you, like, have you, the concept of parasocial...

• 46:26Speaker 02

  I didn't fuck her, we were together for years.

• 46:28Adam Friedland?

  You dated her, of course, yeah.

• 46:30Speaker 02

  We were together for a long time.

• 46:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I know...

• 46:32Speaker 02

  That's crazy, Tom.

• 46:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, um...

• 46:34Speaker 02

  But, she's okay.

• 46:35Adam Friedland?

  You know, but like, people, like, uh, because of a parasocial relationship that I had to your show, and that, you know, similar to the parasocial relationship people had to my show, I, um, there's an intimacy in the, in the medium.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 46:47Adam Friedland?

  And, um, you know, like, you, you are, at this point, a cultural fixture. The show was kind of, uh, like, where do you see the, the show existing, like, uh, as a cultural product? Like, it's kind of a lame question, but like, you know, what, like, with space from it.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  When we decided, here's worth that, really, right now.

• 47:06Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Like, I don't know

• 47:10Speaker 02

  how people, you know, who the hell knows what anyone's doing?

• 47:14Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  You know, there was a period of time, you know, we had a lot of listeners, we had good rate sheet, you know, that we made, you know, we did, you know, we did all right with the show.

• 47:24Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  You know, we did a deal with a platform for three years, made some money. But we did, you know, we worked hard, and it was just two of us. And, you know, when it came down to it, to, um, you know, my producer and I having the discussion about continuing or not, is that there was never a desire to do video. You know, he's an audio guy. You know, I think audio is a more interesting medium in terms of how it connects with people. Uh, you know, then there was periods where a lot of people were pirating the show on YouTube, and just putting pictures up and stuff. And we didn't even shut those down, we just added the numbers.

• 48:00Adam Friedland?

  We never did.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  We just added the numbers to the rate sheet.

• 48:02Adam Friedland?

  But also, it's, it's PR, it's like, it also gets the show out there more.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  And I think, you know, framing the decision to end the show, uh, was really about, like, if, if you keep plodding along, and you're not into it anymore, and, you know, you're servicing,

• 48:23Speaker 02

  the industry, you know, you're just getting guests that you may not even be that interested in.

• 48:28Adam Friedland?

  That sucks.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, but that's gonna happen.

• 48:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Is, is it like, why continue it if, if it's just a job you don't like, when you have complete control over it? As opposed to go like, "We did it, we did it," and now you have a body of work. You're not the guy who's sort of like, "Oh, is he still doing it?" No, we have a body of work. What anyone's gonna do with that body of work, that almost seventeen hundred episodes, you know, as a resource or as entertainment, I don't know.

• 48:53Adam Friedland?

  You can still listen to them also.

• 48:55Speaker 02

  All of them, yeah. And, you know, there was talk of like, "Well, maybe we should figure out a way to make it visual, and, you know, do a deal," and I'm like, yeah, and, and also just me, like, you know, "What am I gonna do after the podcast? I gotta get out there." All of that just went away. I'm like, "Look, it's out there, and I don't need to be out there every time."

• 49:11Adam Friedland?

  But where do you think it exists, like, culturally, like, what, like, do you conceive of what kind of, uh, what space it occupies?

• 49:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think that I and the show occupy some part of the history of modern media. I just, it just is.

• 49:25Adam Friedland?

  You kind of were the first, like...

• 49:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I, I think that...

• 49:28Adam Friedland?

  Like, big podcast that I was aware of.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  I think so, yeah. And, you know, look, I appreciate that, you know, and some people know that. And now, there's no mystery, there's no mystique, there's nothing interesting about podcasting in general.

• 49:39Adam Friedland?

  Well, it just sucks.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  It's, I don't know if it sucks, but like...

• 49:41Adam Friedland?

  It sucks.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  There was a time where, you know, people would come to my house and be like, "Where, where am I? What is this?"

• 49:46Adam Friedland?

  Who took like, the nastiest shit when they, at your house?

• 49:48Speaker 02

  Glenn Howerton.

• 49:49Adam Friedland?

  He, it was disgusting, from, from, uh, It's Always Sunny.

• 49:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:53Adam Friedland?

  How bad?

• 49:54Speaker 02

  Well, he just, like, couldn't hold it.

• 49:55Adam Friedland?

  He fucked your shit up?

• 49:56Speaker 02

  Well, he, he, he told me he was gonna do it.

• 49:58Adam Friedland?

  In the middle of the episode?

• 49:59Speaker 02

  No, he got to the house, and he was like, "I'm sorry."

• 50:01Adam Friedland?

  I got crap real bad. Did you ever, did you ever have sex...

• 50:04Speaker 02

  There's only one bathroom at the house.

• 50:05Adam Friedland?

  Did you ever have sex with someone right after you did a WTF with them?

• 50:08Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't think so.

• 50:10Adam Friedland?

  Oh, that's a yes, okay, um, what, I mean, there was, like, there is something, like, I, I relate to a lot of what you're saying right now, because like, we, I, I did this, the old show with Nick and Stoppin, like, um, granted, I was like, they were, you know, I was like, kind of, at, at times, like, uh, you know, the third, right?

• 50:30Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 50:31Adam Friedland?

  And then part of this show is like, the joke, that, that the least popular guy's gonna become a Dick Cavett-style public intellectual.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 50:37Adam Friedland?

  And then it kind of, the joke became real in some bizarre way. None of it was calculated, but like, um, what, it, it sucked. We, it sucked podcasting for that long. It was, it's the easiest job in the world, but we were just like, sick of it. And like, uh, and you don't, I'm not even like, you ending the show, it's like, that makes total sense. You did it too much, probably.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  We did a lot, you know, and like, also, like, we talked to a lot of people, but I, I do think that there, before the medium was inundated...

• 51:07Speaker 02

  There was a quality of engagement to the show that I think stands alone. Like, I still think that some of my interviews, like you're talking about Robin, I think they stand alone. You know, and there was a way that I did it, I don't know how or why, that I think it doesn't... A lot of people ripped off, almost directly, my show.

• 51:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 51:30Speaker 02

  You know, like, you know, Pete Holmes did a version of it.

• 51:33Adam Friedland?

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  And that kid, Rosenfeld, I forget his name. But like, which is fine, I didn't invent interviews.

• 51:40Adam Friedland?

  Pretty much only those guys, though.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I don't know. It depends, like, I mean, I think I sort of inspired... Oh, no, not you, but there was...

• 51:49Adam Friedland?

  No, but I am like, definitely, when I started this show, I didn't know how to interview people. I literally went to Wikipedia for journalism, and then I was like, who's...

• 51:58Speaker 02

  Who, what, when, where, why?

• 51:59Adam Friedland?

  And I was like, who's good at interviews, and I listened to Joe Rogan, and like, he kind of agrees. Lots of the guests feels like they're crushing.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 52:06Adam Friedland?

  So he's like, kind of like, so he gets a lot out of them, right?

• 52:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:09Adam Friedland?

  And then you, like...

• 52:10Speaker 02

  He gets a lot out of them, because if they didn't talk, it'd be silent.

• 52:15Adam Friedland?

  Well, no, but like, if I was on Rogan, I'd be like, I'm being the most convincing guy in the world right now. Like, that's why, like, he'll have Bernie, he'll be like, that's awesome, and then he'll have, he'll have like, a guy that says the Holocaust was not...

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 52:26Adam Friedland?

  You know, come on, who are we kidding with the, you know?

• 52:30Speaker 02

  With the Holocaust being real?

• 52:31Adam Friedland?

  And then he'll be like, that's trippy, right? He'll say it both times, right?

• 52:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:34Adam Friedland?

  But, and that, but that disarms guests, but like, if, with my stupid Jewish voice...

• 52:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:40Adam Friedland?

  I sound like I'm being sarcastic, I can't emulate that, and that's just not true to who I am. But then I listened to your show, and I was like, you're sufficiently honest about yourself, where it like, kind of prompts the guests to feel like they can be honest about themselves.

• 52:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:52Adam Friedland?

  And, and then I was like, and then I, and then I dawned on me, I grew up listening to Stern, right?

• 52:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:58Adam Friedland?

  And what Stern was able to do was, he was, in the first 90 seconds, become your best friend.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:03Adam Friedland?

  Right? And it was like magic.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:04Adam Friedland?

  Did you get better? Like, like, did it come natural to you?

• 53:08Speaker 02

  Do I feel better?

• 53:09Adam Friedland?

  No, no, like...

• 53:10Speaker 02

  After talking to so many people?

• 53:11Adam Friedland?

  Did you get better at like, a craft? Like, did you feel like you were developing a skill?

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:15Adam Friedland?

  And then do you feel like you miss using that skill now? Like, or...

• 53:19Speaker 02

  No, I'm not doing it anymore. I don't think I ever misused a skill, but there was definitely, I definitely had a few...

• 53:26Adam Friedland?

  No, not misused, like, you miss using it.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  Oh, I miss using the skill. Well, yeah, I miss talking to people in an engaged way for a long period of time, like we're doing. Like, but there was also sort of like, like, I had a few things that I would, tools that I would use, that, that I grew to know. But ultimately, I had never had any idea how the conversation would go, ever, ever. And that was always sort of part of, that was always part of what drove me to keep doing it. Is I would get nervous between every interview, because I didn't have an iPad in front of me.

• 54:00Adam Friedland?

  I haven't looked at it once, I was just looking into your eyes.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  I'm not judging you.

• 54:03Adam Friedland?

  I can't believe I'm on WTF.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  I would make sketches of, you know, a few things, but they became smaller and smaller.

• 54:10Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  I do random, you know, research, you know, if people had big careers, I'd want to make sure to honor that over having a personal interview. Like, if I, you know, if I'm talking to William Friedkin, you know, or these guys that have monster sort of filmographies, you know, I'm not going to do the same kind of interview that I would with somebody that doesn't.

• 54:31Adam Friedland?

  You're going to honor it, yeah.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  I want, I want to make sure I give them the respect they deserve, so... But there was definitely methods, but the thing that really kept me going was that, like, I really didn't know. I didn't know if somebody would lock in, I didn't know, you know, what their, you know, boundaries were. Ben Kingsley.

• 54:47Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 54:47Speaker 02

  The worst.

• 54:48Adam Friedland?

  What happened?

• 54:48Speaker 02

  The worst. He's just a fucking asshole.

• 54:51Adam Friedland?

  Really? Gandhi?

• 54:53Speaker 02

  Gandhi's an asshole.

• 54:53Adam Friedland?

  He's an asshole?

• 54:54Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 54:55Adam Friedland?

  What was he like? He's British, I guess. Is he proper?

• 54:58Speaker 02

  He's British and he's knighted. Bad combo.

• 55:01Adam Friedland?

  They do it for everyone.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  But he, no, it was just like...

• 55:05Adam Friedland?

  He just thought he was better than you.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Not only that, like, he was going, you know, he wasn't going to have a conversation with me. Like, there, there was a mode that he operates in.

• 55:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  And I didn't know it. You know, I never know it, my producer would tell me some things, but we didn't know this. I didn't know Neil Young was notoriously prickly with, with reporters, but I ended up having a great time with Neil Young. But, but Kingsley, like, you know, I don't think he knew what he was doing. You know, the movie he was promoting was kind of garbage, it was okay, he played Salvador Dali.

• 55:38Adam Friedland?

  Oh.

• 55:38Speaker 02

  Uh, but he, he came in already with an attitude, a bit, like, what are we doing, where are we going, you know? And we go outside, and he commented on my lavender plants, whatever.

• 55:49Adam Friedland?

  In a bad way?

• 55:50Speaker 02

  No, no, and then we get into the room, he goes, may I have a, you know, a glass of water? And I'm like, sure, I don't have glasses, and I just have a mug. So like, I feel like that, like, I don't know if he felt disrespected or what, but I tried to sort of like, engage with him around, like, Jessica Chastain had mentioned to me on an interview that, you know, he had helped her out before she went to India, gave her some advice. So I started with, like, you know, I recently talked to Jessica Chastain, she said you guys had talked before she took a trip there, and he was like, no, I don't, no.

• 56:21Adam Friedland?

  Oh, he's fucking with you?

• 56:23Speaker 02

  He just shut down.

• 56:23Adam Friedland?

  Why did he go?

• 56:25Speaker 02

  That, well, that was the, the question, is that, like, I don't give a fuck.

• 56:28Adam Friedland?

  Maybe he's on a press tour, and he's like, I'm exhausted.

• 56:31Speaker 02

  No, it wasn't exhausting, he was a cunt. So, you know, he decided that he was not going to engage with me.

• 56:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  That he was going to dictate what he was going to say.

• 56:41Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  That there was not going to be a back and forth, that he was not interested in that. And, and, and I could have, I could have said, you know, 10 minutes in, like, look dude, we don't fucking need to do this. I don't care. I don't care. You can go the fuck, go on with your business.

• 56:58Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  But instead, I remained gracious, and I followed his lead.

• 57:04Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 57:05Speaker 02

  Like, I didn't care, we could have dumped that episode, differences are made.

• 57:08Adam Friedland?

  How many did you dump?

• 57:09Speaker 02

  To, in, because of that kind of shit?

• 57:11Adam Friedland?

  No, yeah, in total. I was, I, I know about a story, but you may not have shared from someone that knows you.

• 57:18Speaker 02

  Well, David Fincher?

• 57:20Adam Friedland?

  You shelved it.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  He wanted it shelved. He, I talked to him for two hours, he's like, I don't know. I'm like, all right, what are we going to do?

• 57:27Adam Friedland?

  He's meticulous.

• 57:28Speaker 02

  Neil Brennan?

• 57:28Adam Friedland?

  Well, he does like 50 takes, right?

• 57:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, but not with the podcast.

• 57:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, well, he wanted to do 50.

• 57:33Speaker 02

  Neil Brennan wouldn't let us run the interview I did with him originally, because he didn't feel like I respected him properly.

• 57:38Adam Friedland?

  Oh, okay.

• 57:39Speaker 02

  And he, he's right, but it wasn't that bad.

• 57:42Adam Friedland?

  What about, um...

• 57:44Speaker 02

  Who?

• 57:45Adam Friedland?

  Gavin Mcginnis.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  Oh, Gavin Mcginnis, that was like, yeah, but we...

• 57:49Adam Friedland?

  It's a good story.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  I don't even know, it was like, it was oddly to protect him.

• 57:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, but it's the most, I've, I've been told by someone that knows you about what happened, and it's, it's insane.

• 58:02Speaker 02

  Well, tell me what happened, because it's a long time ago.

• 58:03Adam Friedland?

  What I've been told is that he showed up to your house with a six-pack, and he's like, do you want some alcohol? And you're like, I go to comedy clubs every night, it's...

• 58:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, what are you doing?

• 58:12Adam Friedland?

  I'm not going to relap, like...

• 58:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, he was fucking with me, but like...

• 58:15Adam Friedland?

  But it's just like the worst prank ever. It's like, it doesn't even make any sense.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  No, but he's, but he's a dick. So, but that's what he does, that's what, that was before he became some sort of like, right-wing leader. He was just a dick, on purpose dick.

• 58:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, with a six-pack of beer.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  But the weird thing is, I've had alcoholics in there that needed to drink during the show.

• 58:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  I've had, you know, weed heads that needed to smoke during the show. I don't give a shit, but...

• 58:38Adam Friedland?

  Against the law.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 58:40Adam Friedland?

  At the time, it was, yeah.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  Whatever, like, you know, I don't, like, I understand drugs.

• 58:43Adam Friedland?

  Would you let an underage person drink alcohol at WTF?

• 58:47Speaker 02

  No.

• 58:47Adam Friedland?

  I wouldn't either.

• 58:48Speaker 02

  It's so weird, because I was talking about the other day, like, in New Mexico, you get your driver's license at 15. And we'd just drive around, and we'd go to liquor stores and get grown-ups. We'd be like, dude, get us a six and fucking Bud.

• 59:00Adam Friedland?

  Would you do a brown face?

• 59:02Speaker 02

  No, no, brown face. I would never do blackface, it was always a brown face.

• 59:06Adam Friedland?

  Did you do brown?

• 59:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course, of course. Anytime we were trying to get, buy booze.

• 59:09Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, they're like, pardon me, sir.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, but, uh, no, but like, looking back on it, like, what kind of fucking grown-ups were like, sure, kid? But I know exactly what kind it's like, I, I know what it's like to be 15 and not be able to drink, I'll help you out.

• 59:23Adam Friedland?

  Did you have a reservation near where you grew up?

• 59:26Speaker 02

  Not too far.

• 59:27Adam Friedland?

  We, did you used to buy illegal fireworks?

• 59:29Speaker 02

  No.

• 59:30Adam Friedland?

  We used to buy illegal fireworks at the reservation?

• 59:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, so anyways, with Gavin, he was there promoting...

• 59:37Speaker 02

  Like a bad movie he was in, about a comic. It was really a press junket.

• 59:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  And, you know, and there were moments there when, you know, he kind of, you know, he got kind of real with me. We talked about, you know, the advertising, we talked about his career, because I didn't know him to be like, you know, the, it was pre Proud Boy thing, right?

• 59:56Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, he just missed out on like forty billion dollars by, with the Vice.

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  With Vice, yeah. But then he started his own agency, and then he made this movie where he played a comic, and that was like, that was why he was there. And ultimately what happened is, we had a conversation, and I thought he was pretty, you know, relatively vulnerable about his life and his family. Like, it wasn't a bad interview for WTF. But then like, before we released it, he got into all kinds of fucking trouble with a transvestite situation. I don't remember what the trouble was.

• 1:00:27Adam Friedland?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  But there was a public problem with him.

• 1:00:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  And what happens when that happens is that, you know, we're gonna put out a podcast where, because it was, you know, in the can, you know, which is not unusual. That, like, how are we gonna release it with all this shit going on without addressing it?

• 1:00:46Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  So it really became, the issue was like, unless we have him back, or whatever, that like, it'd be weird to, like, to release this with all this shit going down.

• 1:00:57Adam Friedland?

  It wasn't that he was like, "Look at this beer."

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  No!

• 1:01:00Adam Friedland?

  What was his expectation that you were like, "Can I suck your penis, please, for one of those beers?"

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  No, he was just fucking with me, which is fine.

• 1:01:06Adam Friedland?

  Oh, he was doing it as a bit?

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  I don't know if it was a bit.

• 1:01:08Adam Friedland?

  Okay, so I got bad info.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  No, it's not bad info, that happened.

• 1:01:12Adam Friedland?

  I mean, it's peculiar.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  But, but it didn't have any effect on me.

• 1:01:15Adam Friedland?

  I'm sure, I'm sure it did.

• 1:01:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:01:17Adam Friedland?

  What are you, yeah.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  But he did do that.

• 1:01:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:19Speaker 02

  Like, and I didn't really realize it until after.

• 1:01:22Adam Friedland?

  What about?

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  He was bringing the beer to fuck with me, like, like my sobriety was that fragile.

• 1:01:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, they were like, "Ah."

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  No, the reason we didn't air it was like, so mundane. It was really just because, you know, we did not address what was now a public, you know, issue, or a scandal. I don't remember what he did, but I remember that's why. It wasn't like, "We don't, we don't wanna give this guy air."

• 1:01:45Adam Friedland?

  Is it true that?

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  It was a pretty, like, run-of-the-mill WTF.

• 1:01:48Adam Friedland?

  Louis wanted to come back on and address his stuff?

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  No, not that I know of.

• 1:01:53Adam Friedland?

  He never reached out, my understanding was that he reached out to you to come back on after the stuff?

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  No, he, I, no, he didn't, not that I know of, he was just mad, he was mad at me. Like, he didn't talk to me for a long time.

• 1:02:07Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, could, for like, you spoke out, I guess, you said that he lied to you?

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  I don't know if I spoke out. Well, he did, kinda, you know, I mean, like, I didn't know the extent of the issue, and then, you know, we, we were connected.

• 1:02:21Adam Friedland?

  By that episode?

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, two episodes, and, you know, we'd been friends a long time, and, you know, when the shit hit the fan, you know, we had to say something. It was a Sunday, the Time thing came out, and people were like, you know, on Twitter, coming at me, and I'm like, "Look, we'll address this on the show." And, you know, and me and Brendan, we talked about it, and basically I said, "Look, he's my friend." Like, I didn't know the extent of this, and there was, you know, he did lie to a degree, and, and, you know, but I'm still his friend. So like, you know, if he wants to, you know, that was it.

• 1:02:58Adam Friedland?

  And that upset him?

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't know if he listened to how I framed it, you know, which I thought was respectable.

• 1:03:05Adam Friedland?

  He probably saw an article where you were.

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  Just a quick bait, even.

• 1:03:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  But like, I felt that it was as diplomatic as possible, given the situation, and that like, what, did he expect us all to die on that hill, for what?

• 1:03:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:19Speaker 02

  But.

• 1:03:20Adam Friedland?

  Well, ladies and gentlemen, Louis CK.

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  Okay, I know, we're okay now, like, I.

• 1:03:23Adam Friedland?

  You guys talk now?

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, cool.

• 1:03:25Speaker 02

  But not privately, I mean, when I see him, he's nice to me.

• 1:03:28Adam Friedland?

  I know so much about your relationship with this guy, because of your podcast.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Like, he wouldn't, like, talk to me at all.

• 1:03:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  You know, if I'd see him, he'd be very weird, but lately, he's been all right.

• 1:03:37Adam Friedland?

  Has he told you what he was hurt by? I mean, I'm gossip, you deal with it with your friend, I don't know.

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:03:42Adam Friedland?

  All right.

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  I'll tell you.

• 1:03:46Adam Friedland?

  Did he want you to reach out? Because that's what happened in the first episode.

• 1:03:49Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:03:50Adam Friedland?

  This is perverse, voyeuristic that I know all this crap.

• 1:03:54Speaker 02

  But, no, it's like, you know, this is more sterny than, you know, than me.

• 1:03:58Adam Friedland?

  I know, I'm proud of, I'm proud.

• 1:04:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, the, well, no, it wasn't like, it just was weird, and then he had reached out years after, you know, everything went down with, um, he had watched one of my late girlfriend's movies.

• 1:04:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  And, um, he reached out and he said, "Look, I, you know, I watched one of Lynn's movies, and it was really beautiful." And, you know, he framed it really weird, like, about our relationship, I wonder what it was like to be, you know, love somebody like that, or whatever. But it was the first time I'd heard it from him in a long time.

• 1:04:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, that sounds nice, though.

• 1:04:34Speaker 02

  And, and I basically said, I said, "Look, you know, um, we've both been through a lot, you know, you've been through a lot, you know, my, you know." My girlfriend died, and whatever, and like, you know, so I acknowledge that, you know? And, um, you know, and he, he got back again relatively insensitively, he said, you know, he was willing to talk to me. And I said, "I'll talk to you, but I'm not going to re, yeah, I'm not, I'm not gonna, like, talk about how I handled your problem."

• 1:05:10Adam Friedland?

  Oh, maybe that's what I misunderstood as what was supposed to be on the podcast, that it was supposed to be a podcast episode, but you said just in hanging out.

• 1:05:17Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 1:05:18Adam Friedland?

  Okay, so I misunderstood, yeah.

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, I'm just like, I'm not gonna re, we're not gonna go over that.

• 1:05:24Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  And he said, "Well, you know, I kind of would have to do that," and I'm like, "No."

• 1:05:27Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  Well, maybe he was trying to be on the podcast, I didn't even think of it.

• 1:05:31Adam Friedland?

  I don't know, maybe I misunderstood.

• 1:05:33Speaker 02

  It didn't come off that way.

• 1:05:33Adam Friedland?

  Um, that episode is so singular, I mean, it was, in an odd way, it was like, great for the show, you know, but it's also just like.

• 1:05:42Speaker 02

  It defined the podcast.

• 1:05:44Adam Friedland?

  But it's also you getting accused of being a bad friend by someone, you know, it's just like, it's rough.

• 1:05:49Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't know in retrospect, like, you, you know, I.

• 1:05:54Adam Friedland?

  He was cool with it being posted, right, obviously?

• 1:05:56Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I, and I took that from him.

• 1:05:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 02

  You know, uh, you know, I, I do, like, I will defend, you know, my own position around falling back when friends of mine get very successful.

• 1:06:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it's hard.

• 1:06:14Speaker 02

  It's self-protective.

• 1:06:16Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  And like, and I understand what he was saying, but it's very hard, if you're still coming up or trying to be something on your own, to sort of not become part of somebody else's thing. And not to feel, like, it was, it's, it's not petty, but it's, it's jealousy, and it's, you know, it's insecurity. Um, but I think that those two episodes, you know, I think really helped define the possibility.

• 1:06:40Adam Friedland?

  It's very common in comedy for that to happen.

• 1:06:42Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:06:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, but like, you know.

• 1:06:44Adam Friedland?

  With friends, yeah.

• 1:06:46Speaker 02

  Well, Joe Rogan, like, attacked me for that, too, like, I stopped being friends with any of my friends to become famous, and sort of like, "Yeah, because I'm not famous."

• 1:06:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Speaker 02

  You know, like.

• 1:06:56Adam Friedland?

  He attacked you like jujitsu?

• 1:06:58Speaker 02

  But we're not that, it's not like we're, you know, our friendships, you know, because we're in the same community and we have an understanding of each other. There's a very, there's very much a shorthand, both emotionally and psychologically, and, and in conversation. But like, rarely are we inseparable friends. So like, a lot of times, you're just, you know, you work together, you have respect for each other, and then someone goes their way. The one thing I learned with Kennison is like, you can't tie yourself to somebody, you can't be part of someone's fucking, you know, entourage. You can't be part of somebody's bus tour, you know, because like, how are you gonna surface from that? You're just gonna be the guy who, you know.

• 1:07:34Adam Friedland?

  You gotta be a man at a certain point.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  Well, you gotta do your own shit, I mean, I would never even open for headliners. When I, once I became a headliner, I wouldn't open for anybody.

• 1:07:42Adam Friedland?

  Sure.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  But it's just my own pride.

• 1:07:44Adam Friedland?

  No, but that's like, you should, career-wise, you shouldn't be.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  I guess, my career was like, I lucked out, dude, you know.

• 1:07:50Adam Friedland?

  I think that you made something that was a pretty, pretty beloved.

• 1:07:54Speaker 02

  But I think that the Louis episode sort of defined the possibility of podcasting, you know, and it got a big, a lot of attention on Slate and everywhere. That, you know, there, there was a type of intimacy that was rare and not necessarily heard that often, and it became sort of, you know, the way I did it.

• 1:08:12Adam Friedland?

  I think, I think, um, I can relate a lot to, with, I did a show with two guys, and we'd see each other every week for like, eight years, and then we're middle-aged at a certain point, and, uh, yeah.

• 1:08:23Speaker 02

  Almost.

• 1:08:24Adam Friedland?

  I, I think so. Thirty-nine sucks. It does suck, because it's like, this guy's about to be forty. If I'm forty, they're like, "This guy doesn't give a fuck." Yeah, they're like, "This guy's just living life." Thirty-nine is like, he should, he stinks.

• 1:08:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, he stinks.

• 1:08:40Adam Friedland?

  Whatever, we, we're, you're handsome, you're, you look great.

• 1:08:44Speaker 02

  Thanks, buddy.

• 1:08:44Adam Friedland?

  Um, it, thinking about the Louis episode, um, how you communicate to an audience, like, me feeling like I'm a Come Town fan right now, genuinely. Like, I know so much about you from how open you were.

• 1:08:56Speaker 02

  Never watched one episode of that.

• 1:08:57Adam Friedland?

  Has it, it's fine, it's audio.

• 1:09:00Speaker 02

  I heard years later that you guys talk shit about me, like, years later.

• 1:09:04Adam Friedland?

  I listened back to it before, but Mark and I had a beef, by the way, that I, that we were, that we squashed, when we realized that the Jack Boots of Austin are on the march. You know, and it's, the two of us are the vanguard of, democracy needs us, okay? We can't be fighting with each other in our community.

• 1:09:23Speaker 02

  The new public intellectual.

• 1:09:25Adam Friedland?

  No, but in reality, in reality, like, um, I, I would imagine, like, from my experience of like, people having this kind of relationship with me. One time I had a breakup, right, and I would leave the house, and people would like.

• 1:09:38Speaker 02

  You all right?

• 1:09:39Adam Friedland?

  Bring it up to me, and I was, you know, and I would imagine, like, um, have you seen Deconstructing Harry?

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:44Adam Friedland?

  You know how like, Woody's this writer that writes about everyone in his life and everyone hates him?

• 1:09:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:48Adam Friedland?

  You know, do you think?

• 1:09:49Speaker 02

  That the parasocial relationship of candor is.

• 1:09:51Adam Friedland?

  Well, do you think being so open about your own life has hurt people that are actually in your life?

• 1:09:55Speaker 02

  Well, I, well, I had to learn, I had to make decisions around that.

• 1:09:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:00Speaker 02

  And, and, you know, weigh them out, but I always used to have to do it with comedy, too. Like, you know, when you're talking about your wife, or you're talking about your girlfriend, and you're talking about intimate details, you know, at some point, they gotta sign off on that shit.

• 1:10:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:15Speaker 02

  Or else you're willing to risk the relationship for the comedy, which happens as well, and has happened. But, but I think the most succinctly it was put to me was, I was with a woman, and, you know, and we had issues, or we broke up.

• 1:10:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  And I talked about it, and she goes, "Well, I don't, I don't get to respond, where, I don't get to tell my side of it, so why do you get to do that?"

• 1:10:39Adam Friedland?

  That feels bad. Did you feel bad?

• 1:10:40Speaker 02

  Well, I think it was right.

• 1:10:42Adam Friedland?

  She's right.

• 1:10:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like, I tried to, and also because of my nature, you know, I stopped talking specifically about relationships, especially about my last one, because like, for sixteen years, I've been through several, so my listeners get invested in this arc, and then eventually it's gotta break up, and then like, you know what I mean?

• 1:11:02Adam Friedland?

  So you're getting pussy these days?

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  I do alright, generally, but, but the, you know, but the arc of it, well, you know, then Lynn died, and that was fucking nuts.

• 1:11:12Adam Friedland?

  You went through that, also a huge personal tragedy publicly.

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  Publicly, the fucking two days after, like, why would I do that? It felt to me that that was the thing to do.

• 1:11:23Adam Friedland?

  It's all you could do.

• 1:11:24Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I didn't have to do that, but I felt that it would be of service to somebody, you know, not to me, to get on the mics two days after my girlfriend dies, crying, and, and, and experiencing that publicly. I don't, I didn't do that for me, like, I felt like, look, we do a show every Monday, and this is where I'm at, and this may, you know, help people. Grief is a fuck, it's a fuck, and, you know, how people deal with it, I don't know, but it's not something a lot of people talk about, it's not something people do publicly, you know, sometimes you feel like you can't do it.

• 1:11:59Adam Friedland?

  And I'm sure it helped people.

• 1:12:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, well, that was my thought.

• 1:12:02Adam Friedland?

  I'm sure it did.

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think all of it did, the comedy I did on it, you know, but it was terrible, that whole thing was terrible, but that special, I think I did alright with.

• 1:12:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I think it was, you really, you did what you could do, which is to, I mean, you weren't gonna go up there and talk about Tinder, right?

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  I've never, I've never been on Tinder.

• 1:12:26Adam Friedland?

  You never have?

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:12:27Adam Friedland?

  What do you, so what, how do you, what's your, what's your system, like?

• 1:12:30Speaker 02

  I don't know, like, usually if somebody kinda knows me, or they're persistent.

• 1:12:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:12:36Speaker 02

  You know, they might win me for a few years.

• 1:12:38Adam Friedland?

  Then they're gonna think that you're better than you are, if they're like, if they're a fan of yours.

• 1:12:41Speaker 02

  You eventually disappoint them.

• 1:12:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, then...

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  Dating fans is a sure way to lose fans.

• 1:12:45Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  Eventually.

• 1:12:46Adam Friedland?

  Can I, can I ask you something?

• 1:12:48Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:48Adam Friedland?

  Does this feel like the last episode of WTF? I mean, genuinely, when I was a young comic, I was like, one day I could maybe go to the Cat Ranch, and maybe, and maybe, would you regard this as Barack Obama's the penultimate?

• 1:13:04Speaker 02

  And you were number one?

• 1:13:06Adam Friedland?

  I'm the, not number one, I'm the number last, I'm the last number.

• 1:13:09Speaker 02

  So you're saying that this, in some way...

• 1:13:10Adam Friedland?

  Does this, because I never got to do it, and you let Stav do it, and you know, I never got to do it, and it's not fair, and...

• 1:13:17Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, what, were you doing anything by the time I ended?

• 1:13:22Adam Friedland?

  No, I was doing nothing with my life until three years ago, I tried for the first time, yeah.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  But I mean, like, like, this show didn't exist when I ended it?

• 1:13:30Adam Friedland?

  It did exist, it did exist, you're a huge fan, you know that, dude.

• 1:13:32Speaker 02

  Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I see clips, the clips come up occasionally.

• 1:13:36Adam Friedland?

  But this is a very different episode of the show, because I think that there's a lot more of a commonality, I think.

• 1:13:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I can relate to it. I didn't exactly know where you were coming from, and my assumption with certain people is that they're gonna fuck with me, and, or that they, you know, they're aligned with somebody who doesn't like me.

• 1:13:52Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Joe Rogan, oh, yeah.

• 1:13:56Speaker 02

  But I've known that guy for like, my entire life.

• 1:13:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you're Boston guys.

• 1:14:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, but, just outside of Austin, you know, that, whatever, I've known Joe since he started, you know, in Boston, so like, it's not, he's just like, that's some surprise out of nowhere, but it's weird when you have this history collectively with all these people, and then things get weird, but, no, my point was, like, I'm not totally sure why we didn't have you on towards the end.

• 1:14:23Adam Friedland?

  No, you don't have to apologize, because this is even better. This is even better than...

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  I wasn't sure where you were coming from.

• 1:14:28Adam Friedland?

  Well, you like, you thought Stav was coming from a good place?

• 1:14:30Speaker 02

  Well, he's a, he's a funny guy.

• 1:14:32Adam Friedland?

  Because he's so fat.

• 1:14:32Speaker 02

  He's like, like...

• 1:14:33Adam Friedland?

  Because he's a disabled fat, he's the fat, body...

• 1:14:37Speaker 02

  No, like, he's got a, like, he's got a...

• 1:14:39Adam Friedland?

  You didn't like my body, you didn't like, I reminded you too much of a plucky-eyed kid from New Mexico.

• 1:14:45Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, Stav was...

• 1:14:47Adam Friedland?

  No, Stav's the best.

• 1:14:48Speaker 02

  I didn't, I didn't know him, but I, I thought he had sort of a interesting chipper disposition.

• 1:14:53Adam Friedland?

  I think we were just saying how I shit my pants and stuff, I think that people gave, people gave you bad intel.

• 1:14:59Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 1:15:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, and also, we were kids, too, we were probably, we hated everything.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  We buried this hatchet a long time ago, we're good.

• 1:15:05Adam Friedland?

  No, but I wanna do it publicly, like, you and Louis, so I can live my fantasy.

• 1:15:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:15:09Adam Friedland?

  Wait, where...

• 1:15:10Speaker 02

  I forgive you, for talking shit about me on Come Town.

• 1:15:13Adam Friedland?

  Marc Maron is a charlatan, where the hell is...

• 1:15:16Speaker 02

  Where did that come up?

• 1:15:17Adam Friedland?

  Uh, no, I wanna find, I have a question for you, that's a very special question. I wanna know about the gig on Cape Cod, where the couple, you forced an innocent husband and wife to be incarcerated.

• 1:15:35Adam Friedland?

  I wanna know, is that right?

• 1:15:37Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:15:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, so Tony V, Tony V said that you, you had hecklers, you had trolls. Johnny E's on Cape Cod, who, they're, they're coming at your ass, yeah, let's hear it.

• 1:15:52Speaker 02

  I don't know if he's remembering something that didn't happen.

• 1:15:55Adam Friedland?

  You were too goofed up on this, on the drugs.

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  I know Johnny E's, but, but Tony said...

• 1:16:00Adam Friedland?

  Tony V said you were a Johnny E, okay?

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  And that, like, I got a drunk couple arrested?

• 1:16:06Adam Friedland?

  You had him sent to the slammer, Guantanamo Bay.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  If that happened, I had no idea that that happened, like, I do...

• 1:16:13Adam Friedland?

  Call Tony V.

• 1:16:15Speaker 02

  Like, it's not outside of the possibility that Tony's fucking with you, but, but, like, I remember Johnny E's, and I remember doing Johnny E's, but, like, what he's saying is that, like, there were a couple that was drunk and heckling, and I had the cops come?

• 1:16:30Adam Friedland?

  You had the police, you said, you were a Karen, you took a cellphone out, you were like, shaking, you said, "Police."

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  There was no cellphones then.

• 1:16:36Adam Friedland?

  You were gonna tell us this amazing story, and this was gonna be our big closer, and I, that's why I was looking on the iPad.

• 1:16:42Speaker 02

  I think he's fucking with you.

• 1:16:43Adam Friedland?

  This was gonna be the finale of the episode.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  The last time I did Johnny E's, I don't even think there were...

• 1:16:48Adam Friedland?

  It's Tony V's story about you had Johnny E's on Cape Cod.

• 1:16:50Speaker 02

  I know, but I don't even think there were cellphones, I do not...

• 1:16:53Adam Friedland?

  The police were involved, you don't know how high the corruption went, it's straight to the top, the commissioner.

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  I'll tell you this right now, it did not happen to me.

• 1:17:00Adam Friedland?

  You...

• 1:17:00Speaker 02

  I'm not saying Tony's memory is wrong, but you get older, and he might have put me into a memory, but that didn't happen, I would certainly tell you that.

• 1:17:08Adam Friedland?

  So you're saying he is senile?

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  I'm saying...

• 1:17:10Adam Friedland?

  Boston comedy legend, Tony V, is a senile old prick.

• 1:17:14Speaker 02

  What I'm telling you is that either he's fucking with you, or he's misremembering something, or, wait, or the third, the third possibility is that I didn't know that went on, so like...

• 1:17:26Adam Friedland?

  Mark, it's the question everyone has wanted me to ask for you.

• 1:17:30Speaker 02

  Was it?

• 1:17:32Adam Friedland?

  Maybe, should I, will he pick up and tell him it's a Las Vegas number?

• 1:17:35Speaker 02

  Hold on, like, I...

• 1:17:36Adam Friedland?

  You know Tony V...

• 1:17:38Speaker 02

  Maybe, I think I might have his number, hold on.

• 1:17:39Adam Friedland?

  He's a, he's a Boston legend.

• 1:17:41Speaker 02

  I know Tony.

• 1:17:42Adam Friedland?

  You should just tell the audience.

• 1:17:43Speaker 02

  Oh, here...

• 1:17:44Adam Friedland?

  Everyone knows him.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  Let's see if there's still his number, hold on, I got it, I got it.

• 1:17:55Speaker 02

  Huh?

• 1:17:58Adam Friedland?

  Now he's gonna think you're mad at him. We've started beef.

• 1:18:03Speaker 03

  Hello?

• 1:18:04Speaker 02

  Hey, Tony!

• 1:18:05Adam Friedland?

  Turn it, turn it, turn it up the volume.

• 1:18:06Speaker 03

  Hey, Marc Maron, how are you?

• 1:18:08Speaker 02

  I'm fine, buddy.

• 1:18:09Adam Friedland?

  Up the volume a little bit.

• 1:18:10Speaker 03

  I bet you I can guess what this call is about.

• 1:18:13Adam Friedland?

  Oh, yes, you can guess.

• 1:18:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm with Adam, and like, I don't...

• 1:18:17Adam Friedland?

  By the way, by the way...

• 1:18:18Speaker 02

  Shut up a minute.

• 1:18:19Adam Friedland?

  Sorry, okay, sorry.

• 1:18:21Speaker 02

  I don't remember, I don't remember this story, in all honesty.

• 1:18:25Speaker 03

  Do you remember this story, at Johnny E's?

• 1:18:28Speaker 02

  I remember Johnny E's.

• 1:18:29Speaker 03

  Someone was in the audience, yes, it was you, me, and I think Chris Zito.

• 1:18:35Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:18:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:18:37Speaker 02

  Okay, and, and what happened?

• 1:18:40Speaker 03

  And there was a drunk woman heckling, uh, throughout the, the night.

• 1:18:49Speaker 02

  And I was hosting?

• 1:18:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:18:51Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:18:52Speaker 03

  And, and it kept going, and then finally, the audience turned on the woman.

• 1:18:59Speaker 02

  Good.

• 1:19:00Speaker 03

  And the cop came in, who I happen to know.

• 1:19:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:19:06Speaker 03

  And then, they took her out of the room, and then the husband, uh, got involved, and they both got arrested.

• 1:19:16Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  It was their wedding day, it was their wedding day.

• 1:19:23Speaker 02

  Oh, that's great, because, because like, no, but the way...

• 1:19:31Speaker 02

  But the way that the, the Jew was framing it...

• 1:19:34Adam Friedland?

  They got married that day, Mark, and this Karen had them arrested.

• 1:19:38Speaker 02

  Adam was framing it, and he's shaking in his boots, in his way that, like, I somehow facilitated all that.

• 1:19:44Adam Friedland?

  Because you're against free speech, and that woman was doing...

• 1:19:47Speaker 03

  No, no, no, you didn't facilitate all that, it just happened throughout the evening.

• 1:19:51Adam Friedland?

  Oh, I'm sure, his father called, or...

• 1:19:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, thanks for clearing that up, Tony, you doing alright?

• 1:19:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:56Speaker 02

  Love you, man.

• 1:19:57Speaker 03

  I'm doing fine.

• 1:19:58Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 1:19:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, you too, alright.

• 1:20:00Adam Friedland?

  Much respect, Tony, they got married that day, Marc, wait, wait, wait, what? That is, that was magic, they got married that day.

• 1:20:52Speaker 04

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