Bob, thank you for talking to me again.

I appreciate Happy to do it, David.

Thanks for the interest. I appreciate it.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, something I I was was curious about is, you know, we we talked a a little about um sort of the beginnings of of your career in the '9s with kind of what people called the alternative comedy scene. And and back then, I think it was pretty clear to people what alt comedy was alternative to.

Yeah, it was it was alternative to a kind of like slick show-bizzy style of comedy that was uh sort of the dominant form of comedy at the time. And I wonder do you think there as far as you can tell I is there any sort of alternative comedy now? Like what what is the comedy that that someone would be rebelling against right now?

Um the well this is going to sound weird. Uh, but probably what do they call it?

The bro the like manosphere stuff.

Manosphere comedy was was cuz I think we're starting to put it in the past already, which is great, but I think the manosphere comedy was the reactionary comedy movement of the last five years. And um, I don't think it has a lot of depth to it. So, it's kind of running past pretty quickly.

It's it's uh dissipating. Um but, uh it was a powerful movement, it seems to me, of the last 5 years. Uh what's next, I don't know. But you're not wrong. the what I call the alternative comedy scene and what I came up in after working at Saturday Night Live and you know in this world of Janine GOP, Margaret Cho, Kathy Griffin, Pat Oswald, Greg Barren, uh David Cross, uh you know um and then that became and then Mark Maron and that kind of infiltrated comedy slowly over about five years and and then it it kept proliferating and then it became podcasts, but then it just became all of comedy and I think the format of podcast um really lent itself to a lot of what we were doing which was more uh impromptu uh genuine personal uh sharing and uh and then now it's everywhere. Why do you not find the what we're going to call manosphere comedy to be particularly interesting or funny?

Oh, well, um, it's definitely about low-hanging fruit big time. It's like literally on the ground. It's fruit that's on the ground rotting.

Pick that [ __ ] up and eat it. Throw it at people. I I don't have a lot of opinions on those guys. It's more of a um it's a movement that I I'm happy to see transforming into something else and disappearing or dissipating, you could say.

Why do you think it's dissipating?

That's that's not necessarily the sense I get. Yeah. Cuz there's a It's cuz it's a dead end.

It's just going to be boring after a while. It's like what? Let's Let's use the stage to be as crude as we can be and as clumsy and offish as we can be.

And that's kind of funny always. That's funny to hear that voice. I think it's funny to hear that voice, but not from everybody. I think anything you do on a stage is a performance. That sounds obvious, but in other words, if you want to say something honest, then you should get off a comedy stage.

If you know a lot of com comedians get credited for being honest or uh or they get lambasted for the things they say in their act and and are asked to explain that or justify it or pilloried for it. And the bottom line to me is if you're on that comedy stage that's a show. You are not you. You are pretending to be a person named you.

Everything you say is of of construct.

Everything. If you don't like that and you want to tell an audience something genuine, earnest and honest, then get off that stage cuz that stage is only a show. It is not real and it is not genuine and it is not direct no matter how much you act like it is. And so I just I just think we h we have to I, I wish everyone saw it that way. Then if you if you know that if you know that when you watch anyone do a play or um any kind of performance then you then you can safely watch almost anything and talk about it afterwards and let it um whatever that does for you. Whether it's uh cathartic and lets that voice out of your head or whether you can point to that voice now and argue about it.

whatever that is, it can offer it can have a lot of benefits. But the problem we got into there was comedians uh and maybe the alt comedy scene led us to it with a degree of, you know, self-revelation that was being done. A sense that whatever said on that stage is incredibly genuine and uh a direct uh look thing is the internet has hurt us. I'm going to ramble here for a second. Yeah, keep keep going. One of the reasons the internet has hurt is you can tape somebody at 2 a.m. in a comedy club and put them on TV and you're watching them at 10:00 a.m. at your breakfast table.

Yeah, that's not right. Cuz that thing was said at 2 a.m. in the, you know, in New York with a bunch of drunk, rowdy people after you talked for 45 minutes already.

So, whatever. Did I help you clarify anything?

But I think the um the distinction you're making uh about sort of if if a comedian or performer is saying something in in sort of a performance context that should change how we uh receive the thing they're saying.

Presumably that applies to uh podcasts also, right? So like a a Joe Rogan or or an Andrew Schultz. But but see I'm, I'm not sure it applies to that but why not like those are those are performance podcast at some point you have to give people a place to speak honestly and directly like you and I are doing right here you know this is not uh me doing a character and I I don't I I think it I don't know I I I don't know how to delineate the line, but there has to be a line. This is something I feel strongly about and um I'm never going to get everyone to agree.

Yeah. Know, it's I I'm even trying to understand exactly like how those distinctions make a difference. like you know I I don't know what say I'm just going to pick a comedian who I think uh thinks of of what he does as expressing honesty and truth is you know if you talk to someone like a if you were to ask someone like a Dave Chappelle are are you talking honestly to your audience I think he would say well yeah, that that's what I do and that's what comedians do not you don't think he would I don't no I think he'd say I'm performing

I really do I mean we should ask him but you know my friend Dave, David Cross gets on stage and he says crazy stuff and he doesn't believe everything he says. He just knows it's a point of view that is funny to express and that to some extent people need to hear or be surprised by to get some perspective on their own point of view. And uh yeah, so I I just I I I'm just thinking everybody has to understand what that line is. it got blurred uh in a way that I think was very damaging to what we can do as artists.

We we need to be able to do and say crazy [ __ ] Well, but it's also interesting because I I think you're saying that sort of the flip side or sort of one of the negative repercussions of the legacy of the alternative comedy was that its emphasis on authenticity or seeming authenticity led people to almost give too much credence to what comedians were saying in a way that led to this line blurring and and led to some uh sort of like censoriousness in a way It's damaging to comedy. That's interesting.

But and I'm also saying that it goes two ways. It's the audience has to chill out and and watch it as a performance, but the performer, if they really have something to say, should not be doing it there or should not. It's not that they shouldn't do it there. It's that if they really want people to understand it directly, they should get off that comedy stage and and say it somewhere else where it's me talking genuinely me and not for laughs, not for the sake of laughs, you know. Can I I there's there's sort of like a holistic observation uh I want to make about the conversation so far. And it's one that kind of before uh the camera started uh rolling or before we hit record, you yourself actually kind of alluded to. I think you said, you know, sorry if I was being negative or something in earlier, but um you know, if I sort of thinking back to what we talked about previously, you know, you talked about how uh you know, sort of the the best times uh in your life were when your kids were little. Yeah.

You know, those times are over. The the uh you know, the the the art form you love the most, sketch comedy, that's a young man's game. That's over. uh um you know the the uh I I asked you sort of like a life philosophy question and you you sort of like ah you know it's all kind of a farce uh and now you know it's I know maybe middle age is a is a time of sort of uh a certain degree of like resignation or or uh acceptance. Yeah.

But are is there anything that you're you know that that in in your life or work now that you think like uniquely well this this is great or or or uh you know I'm looking forward to this thing that might come or is it kind of just like a managed decline. Uh god I'm sorry to be a bummer. I I feel like it's real.

Yeah. Um um h I have a I have a new avenue opened up in front of me with a dramatic acting. Um, this was something that I moved into slowly, starting with uh barely doing some of it in Breaking Bad and then numerous other projects and then Better Call Saul was like this big, you know, jump off a cliff and then um you could argue that action film making is um conceptualizing that dramatic intensity uh sometimes to a pretty humorous this extent like but I and then Glen Gary Glenn Ross was a really exciting uh discovery and challenge and I feel like I've found a new avenue here to work in that I'm excited by that is something that um at least attempts to uh address life in a more sensitive and way with some deeper resonance than sketch comedy can do. But yeah, I if if you want to hear something positive, here's my positive. If we got to keep trying in the face of what I consider the limitations of being a person, which are strict and and seem immutable and uh there's no way around. Uh so what? We got to keep trying. Um, I don't know what the future is if we don't hope to try to be uh better than we are right now. And so, yeah. So, I I do have um I do have some I do have some wind beneath my wings. All right. Good. Good. A little bit.

Just a draft. There's a breeze beneath my wings.

Um, you know, but you you just uh uh alluded to uh with Glen Gary, Glenn Ross, and maybe with some other work uh doing doing stuff that has some more uh resonance than the silly stuff. But, you know, when we spoke before, you said you you thought that like sketch comedy was the most the the the best v vessel for I know, David, and I and and I've I've thought about what I've said a lot and I think it's true.

And I'm sorry to say that. I still think it's true. But within that, we got to keep trying.

I I'm not giving up. Is all I'm saying is I'm not giving up. But I'm afraid to say uh you know look my hope lies in um some kind of uh I'm evolutionary growth for the human creature. Uh but without that or until that happens and I don't know how that happens, we all have to um take some we we all need more vaccines to change our DNA. Well, who thinks that's a bad thing? Have you met a human being? Whatever it takes to change our DNA or RNA or whatever, any NA, let's start changing it cuz it doesn't work the way it is. That's a good thing.

Everybody get more vaccines. If that's what they do, if they change our DNA or our RNA or however those two are associated, let's take lots of them and make this creature a better creature because uh where we're at, I I do stand by what I said. I think a comedy in the end, all the philosophy in the world, all the theories in the world, all the hope in the world, all the grand uh pronounce, the greatest poets to ever live, all the great poetry, existential, you know, thinking, Franklin's voice.

Yeah. all of Abraham Lincoln's speeches and uh it all boils down to uh uh uh Shakespeare's uh uh sound and fury, you know, uh signifying nothing. And you might as well laugh at it. I mean, I do think in the end that's what we're going to have to do until until we change. Wait, Bob, if if what you're saying is true and sketch comedy is best able to encapsulate the human condition.

Yeah. What is what is the most profound sketch you've ever seen?

Talk show at sea. It's a it's a Jerry Springer show. We did it on Mr. Show and they're on a lifeboat and they're dying.

They have no food or water and they're still arguing about who is in love with who and who got who pregnant and um that's it. That that to me that that sketch that's humanity. You're dying. You are going to die. You we have no fresh water. We have no food. And they're uh going he cheated with her.

I love him and it's really really awesome and it it to me I I don't know what else to say.

That's that's the world that I see. You know, I really enjoyed speaking with you and I I appreciate you taking all the time and and I hope that the uh sort of pitiful little fart-like draft beneath your wings is able to carry you far into the future.

It will. Don't forget I also have, you know, my kids are so wonderful and so, you know, there's lots to look forward to. I I uh Yeah, there's lots to look forward to.