Episode 1594 - Anthony Jeselnik

**Marc Maron** (0:09)
All right, let's do this. How are you, WTFers, WTF buddies, WTFineers, what's happening? I'm Marc Maron, this is my podcast, broadcasting from a fairly bouncy room.
I'm in an old adobe in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and it's interesting to be in a classic mud house. But the walls are what they are, and this is sometimes what it sounds like when I'm out in the world doing the stuff. I came out here, as many of you know, I grew up here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'll keep saying Albuquerque, New Mexico. I've gotten into the habit of buying a cheap tourist shirt every time I leave Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm developing quite a collection of Albuquerque shirts. I don't know, I've been, I'm kind of born again, Berkey out here. There were years where I just didn't know what, you know, you'd come home, I'd see whoever I still had here, which is primarily my dad. And then you get this thing where, well, maybe I want to get out of here as quick as possible. Some sort of indicator, some sort of a site of the traumatic incidents arc of adolescence, childhood. It's funny when you sort of transcend somehow or another, I guess it's just part of getting older, where whatever you resented or feared or did not want to revisit in your young life becomes a thing that you desperately want to visit and revisit and recalibrate. Because I don't know, man, there's something, you know, home is home in terms of, you know, what created your neural pathways environmentally, it's with you forever, it's part of your heart. So that's really where I'm at with this battered up, you know, interesting little city that I grew up in. It's weird, I know, a lot of you, like I thought you were East Coast guy. Genetically Jersey, as I always say, genetically Jersey. I'm here to see my dad and I have a few old friends here who I saw last night and I know I kind of do this thing every time I come back here, but it's something to check in with as you get older. Who do you got left, man? What is your life? Who do you got left? Who do you have? Today, Anthony Jeselnik is back. He was on episode 206 That's more than 13 years ago. Jesus fuck. We've been doing this a long time. But as many of you noticed, I do have people back because the arc of this show, there's the word arc again, the arc of this show, there's literally people that had nothing going on when I first talked to them, and they've had entire careers, entire childhoods have been lived listening to me. I have people that can now say that they were listening to me when they were in high school, and now they're 30 It's crazy. So he was on a long time ago. Many of you know him. He's a writer, comedian, actor. He's got a new special out on Netflix starting tomorrow. But Jeselnik is an interesting character in terms of comedy. There is something about a joke smith. There's something about a guy whose entire persona and his entire stage presence and delivery and everything else is really built around delivering these beautiful, well-structured, dark, kind of mind-blowing jokes. And that's what he does. You know, I've known him for years. We don't hang out. I feel that he's changed a bit since I first talked to him. But he's one of those guys that what it's all about for him are these jokes. And that's, you know, that's a writer's mentality, but also a stand-up mentality. And there's no way nobody quite like him. And there hasn't been people have tried. He's, you know, he is he does carve out his own path. And it was good to to catch up with him again. I'm back in Los Angeles at Largo on Friday, December 13th. That will be a music and comedy show. I'm going to get the band together. But it's interesting. So, OK, so in Los Angeles, the other night, I went to see The Brutalist. I went to a screening of The Brutalist, which is a kind of mind-blowing movie. Big. It's like I don't even know how to describe it. There's people that are able to make these thoughtful, poetic, huge movies. You know, some challenging stuff, but the scope of it was huge. I mean, I guess I would compare it probably to there will be blood in terms of what it speaks to about America, about old money, about immigration, about Jews, about benefactors, about architecture, about art. It's one of these movies that it's three and a half hours long. But anyway, so I get out of the theater in Los Angeles, it's at the Vista Theater, and I just had this moment where, and I don't know if this is an age thing. It was just this moment where I had, it wasn't even a deja vu feeling. It's just a feeling like I've been in LA a long time, on and off a long time. Pretty much, you know, I've had a place there since, what, 2002, one way or the other. So I just walk out of the theater, and I'm just on a corner. I'm on a corner in, I guess it would be, Los Feliz on Sunset, and Hollywood around there, somewhere around there. And in this, in my mind, all these moments that I've been in that area throughout the entire time I've been in LA, just kind of congealed into this, into this feeling of like, what happened to all that time? What happened to all that time? I mean, you know, I'm talking, what, 20 some odd years of experiences. And when you have experiences in your life with people and with places, and if you don't see those people a lot, or you don't go to those places very often, you kind of hold those memories in a place where they're not actively alive, but when they do come alive, like being at that theater, the Vista Theater, it was closed for years. I remember when it was kind of crappy and then they redid it, and then COVID happened and it was closed. I think Tarantino bought it, but whatever the case was, I had this history with that theater and with people who I've been with over the years and seen movies there, and just this moment where you're like, that was just, it feels like last week. It feels like fucking last week. And I don't really know how to explain that. I'm not really a guy like, you know, it goes by so fast. It never feels like it's going by fast to me, but I guess it is. It does pick up speed as you get older, but it's just interesting how you hold your life and moments in your life, they're in some part of your brain, where if they're active memories and you pull them back up, you're like, I remember that like it was yesterday. Yet there's this 20 some odd year gap there. And it's just, it's a very odd feeling. It's a very present feeling to be sitting there or standing on a street and just be like, holy fuck, all that time is behind me. All those people are behind me. All those memories are only memories. And in my brain, if they settle right in a moment, I have no idea where all that time went. I can't even put it into a linear form. It just all of a sudden feels like you've landed on earth and more than half of your life is gone. And you have a sort of a strange collection of images that represent that life, but it's like time, right, man? And I don't even smoke weed, but I don't guess it's not a nostalgia feeling. It's just like, holy shit, dude. You know, this is now, you better dig in and fucking deal with your life and live it for fuck's sake. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. And one thing we know about Squarespace after using them to power our website for more than a decade is that they never stop improving things. When you sign up at Squarespace, you'll always get the best platform to create your online presence. That hasn't changed, but now Squarespace is using cutting edge AI technology to make building your site even easier with better results. Design intelligence from Squarespace helps you design a more personalized website. Tailored to your unique needs. Of course, you still get the best features as part of the full Squarespace design package, the video studio, the email campaign, Squarespace analytics, and now even better ways to get you paid. Squarespace payments lets you manage all of your payments in one place. Get started in just a few clicks and give your customers easy ways to pay you. Go to squarespace.com/wtf for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code WTF to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com/wtf, offer code WTF. Yeah, I guess it's just the getting old thing, but thinking about your life, and this is another thing I'm trying to kind of factor in to the era we're about to enter in terms of what's the difference between the life of your mind and whatever you're dumping into it and whatever you're letting pull you around. And in terms of how you think, what's the difference between that and your actual life?