Episode 1224 - Mark Normand

**Marc Maron** (0:00)
Hey folks, it's your chance to discover what's now playing in Los Angeles. LA is home to the best food in the country, from taco trucks to Michelin stars. You'll find your new favorite dish in LA. Go take in some art or some music or live comedy. I bet you didn't know Los Angeles has more museums and theaters than New York, for real. There are world famous attractions just waiting for you, from the Hollywood Walk of Fame to the Santa Monica Pier to my home away from home, the Comedy Store. Your favorite day in LA is waiting for you. Start here at discoverla.com.
Hey, look, I'm sure you take a lot of vitamins. Maybe you take a daily multivitamin. Maybe you take ones to boost your immunity or ones to help with alertness. What about your cells? Are you giving your cells the full nutrition they need, especially as we age? I am thanks to Solgar. Solgar is part of my daily routine thanks to their cellular nutrition line. Give yourself a daily collection of nutrients designed to help fight cellular decline and promote cell health. Visit cellularnutrition.solgar.com to learn more and use promo code MarcMaron, all one word to get 20% off.
All right, let's do this. How are you, WTFers, WTF buddies, WTFineers, WTFsters, what's happening? I'm Mark Maron, this is my podcast. Welcome to it. How's it going? Mark Normand is here, comedian.
He's one of the guys. I've interviewed some of his contemporaries. Like, he's of the generation of Joe List, Sam Morell. He used to open for Schumer. He's appeared in all the places comics appear, and he has three one-hour specials. And I was a little reluctant to book him, not because I had anything against him. He's very proficient, very funny. He's a good comic, old school, writing the jokes. But it was one of those things where I talked to his friends. I know his friends, and I know he's sort of part of that triumvirate of Morell and List and him. He's a New York guy, came up in New York, reminds me of a lot of the guys I came up with. He reminds me of a guy who came up in New York. But I didn't know who he was. I'd watch his stand up, and I was wondering like, is this who he is? Is this how he talks? Is this where he's coming from? What's in there? I just wasn't sure. But good joke writer, funny guy, watched a special, and I said, all right, it's time.
It's time to have him on. And we had a nice talk, and it was good. It was a comedy talk. It was like the old days, back in the day talk. So I made it back from Florida, and it was a bit harrowing but a bit relaxing. First trip out. I got to be honest with you, man.
You know, since I was vaccinated, thank God, get vaccinated, get peace of mind. But I took a plane. I was in cars. I was around people. I was eating inside restaurants. And I was down in Florida, and I was surprised. I was surprised, man. I mean, for the rap that Florida gets, almost everybody indoors, for the most part that I could tell was following the rules, still wearing their masks. I mean, it is a clusterfuck of humanity for both better and worse, but most people were following the rules.
It's weird, man. I'm starting to just, I'll tell you, the mask thing.
What I've learned over this last year is that if you just see people's eyes, they usually 99% of the time look terrified or pissed off. That's what eyes look like. If the windows of the soul are the eyes, looking in, most of them pissed off and terrified, which is probably true. But my point is in civilization, in day to day life, you need the other half of the face to balance out the terror and the anger so people can kind of move through the world without other people getting nervous. The mass thing was all part of a necessity, but it was a kind of ongoing trauma in a way. We were all living in this PTSD of pandemic and plague and necessity, but I've grown to believe that you got to see the whole face to get the balance. Most people are terrified or angry, but if you got a smile or smirk or just something to do, some dimples or just the rest of your face to balance out the terror in the eyes, it's a subtle mechanism. All of that working together, all of that working in concert with each other, the eyes, the mouth, the nose, the expression, the full range of it, just the windows of the soul, looking in, a lot of fear, a lot of anger. Makes sense, some sadness. Get the mouth going and the nose in there, and you'd be like, well, that guy's all right. He's all right, just the eyes, oh, fuck, is he all right? Are you okay? Rest of the face, hey, he's going to be all right. That guy's all right.