Waiting for the Punch

by Marc Maron

  I was about to go to my computer and e-mail and cancel, and the administrative person, she ended up beating me to the punch, was like, “Hey, we’re just checking to see if you’re still all set for next week. The inmates are really excited, we can’t wait.”

  I put it on my Myspace page, because I thought that would be really funny. The administration contacted me, and were like, “Hey, why do you have this on your Myspace page? You know people can’t just come to this show.” I was like, “Yeah, I know, I just wanted to have it on my page.” They’re like, “All right.” I was like, “Shit, I guess I got to go now, they’re expecting me.”

  I had sent a photo, they wanted to make a flyer to hang around the prison, and I intentionally sent literally the gayest-looking photo I had of myself, because I thought that would be really funny. To have this photo of me around prison, I was like, “Oh my God.”

  I said to them, “I want it to go well, I think I know what to expect a little bit, but can you give me some information?” She’s like, “Yeah, so far about two hundred and fifty inmates have signed up to attend your show. They’re all maximum security, violent felons, and they really like jokes about being in jail, and their favorite comedians are, like, the Wayans Brothers, Cedric the Entertainer.” Basically, she’s like, “They will no doubt be your toughest crowd.” She put that in quotes, and then put a smiley face emoticon, just to, like, fuck with me or something. I was like, “Oh, man.” I was just really dreading this.

  I’d never done this before, really written a set specifically for an audience. I just usually go out and do the thing, and hope people like it, but this I was like, “I’m going to make an exception.”

  I read up on prison, and learned some lingo, and wrote like a fifteen-minute stand-up set, all based on prison jokes. I ended up bringing two other comedians, Laura Krafft and Carl Arnheiter, and my friend Clark.

  I wanted the inmates to respect me right away. I came out guns blazing.

  “I heard a good thing to do is just beat the shit out of somebody as soon as you get there, so everyone respects you. As soon as I pulled in here today, I punched my friend Carl in the face.” They got a big kick out of that. It’s not the greatest joke, but they were thrilled. Because they were like, “This is the biggest pussy we’ve seen in twenty years.”

  I found this out after the show, my friend Carl was in the back, and a guard came over to him. On the way in, they had warned us, they’re just like, “Look, if anything happens, the superintendent”—now they call the warden the superintendent—“he told me to tell you that we’re here to help you out, not bail you out. You’re on your own, whatever happens.”

  I’m like, “Whatever happens? If I get attacked, you’re not…?”

  They’re like, “We’re not calming them down, if they heckle you.”

  Then apparently before the show, this guard comes over to Carl, and is like, “Hey, just to give you the heads-up, these guys can be really harsh. He better come on really strong, because if they’re not into it, he’s going to know right away.”

  So I came out with my guitar, and just started playing guitar solos first thing, like heavy metal guitar solos really loud. Like at an area rock concert, and I was baiting them to clap for me and stuff, and Carl said the guard walked over to him, and he was like, “He’s got them. I know these guys, they like him. He’s got them already.” I did that, and then I told my fifteen minutes of prison jokes, most of which were all like based on whether or not I would be a prison bitch. They loved it. It was just hacky, like, “I had my first cavity search today, and blah, blah, blah.”

  There’s a thing called a fifi, which is an artificial pussy they make out of a garbage bag, or a rubber glove, whatever. It’s fairly elaborate. It’s a thing you make and keep under your pillow or whatever.

  Before the show, I was able to hang out with a few inmates, and I asked them for lingo that I could pepper my set with. Then I said, “Can I ask you something? Is there a thing called a fifi, is that a thing?”

  They’re like, “What the fuck did you just say?”

  I was like, “Oh, man. A fifi. I’m sorry.”

  They’re like, “Yeah, but how the fuck do you know that?”

  “It’s on the Internet.”

  The guy’s like, “You guys, get over here, you’re not going to believe what he just said.”

  They’re like, “What?”

  “He’s asking me about a fifi, and he says it’s all on the Internet.”

  I was like, “If I talk about that, will these guys think it’s funny?”

  They’re like, “Oh my God, they’ll love that.”

  I talked about that stuff a lot.

  I had a blast, man. I got a standing ovation, and we walked out, like through the cell blocks, and they were all screaming, “Dave! Dave!” Clapping. And we got outside, and they were all hanging out the bars, like the end of Shawshank Redemption or something.

  I was just basking in it. I was like, taking all this time. And one of the guards was like, “These guys really respect you if they say anything to you. They just usually ignore people when they walk out of here. You’ve made friends here today.” I was really psyched.

  This is the twist I wasn’t expecting: Afterward, I noticed my anxiety level had dropped significantly. Not because I thought I was a badass all of a sudden, or like I’d done a good deed or something. I think my buildup of being so freaked out to do this, and then having a really great time, I knocked something loose.

  BERT KREISCHER—COMEDIAN, ACTOR, TELEVISION HOST

  This Will Smith deal came out of nowhere.

  I was right out of college. I was this number one party animal. I would just go up onstage and fucking tell jokes about eating acid, and drinking and smoking weed, doing coke, real party shit. These kids would love it.

  This one kid knew a guy that worked at Time Out New York, and he told him, “You’ve got to write an article about this guy. He’s the number one party animal in the county. He’s becoming a comedian. He’s getting big!” This guy wrote an article, it came out Monday.

  Barry Katz called me on Tuesday and he says, “I understand you’re working the door at my club? Do you have any scripts or anything?” I give him a script I’d written, and I go up and do eight minutes. He didn’t watch a second of it. I knew it because it was a small club and you could see.

  He says, “I think you’re very talented. Keep working here.” Then left. I’m working out at the gym on Friday morning and he goes, “How would you like to go up in front of David Tochterman tonight?” He’s a casting director and a development guy. He discovered everyone. He discovered Brett Butler, Roseanne. He was working with Will Smith at the time. Barry said, “He read the article and he’s really interested.”

  I murder this Friday night. David Tochterman approaches me in the bathroom and says “I think you’re amazing. I want to do a deal.” Then Saturday he calls and he’s like, “Hey, you want to go hang out with Will today?”

  “What?”

  “Will wants to meet you. We’re going to do a television deal.”

  “Fuck!”

  He gives me an address and it’s the Beat Factory or the Hit Factory up on the Upper West Side. Recording studio. He’s recording Willenium.

  Katz goes up there with me. I walk in, and it’s a huge dance studio, like a ballerina studio with mirrors everywhere, and there’s two folding chairs in the center of the room. The person walking in says, “It’s just him, he just wants to talk to him.”

  So Barry leaves. “I’ll be out in the lobby.”

  He goes out in the lobby and I sit down in the fucking folding chair and all of the sudden Will walks in. Like, Will Smith. He’s a big guy, like six two, he’s in great shape. Doing movies, getting ready for Ali. Sits down on a folding chair right across from me and he’s like, “Tell me about yourself.”

  I just fucking, like, start spewing like a crack head, just “heyheyhey you’re from Philly, my family grew up in Philly, th
ey grew up in the Main Line.”

  We’re laughing and we’re talking, and then all of a sudden he says, “Hey, what are you doing tonight?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Well, come into the studio, let’s meet the guys. Then why don’t you and me just go see a movie?”

  “Okay.”

  After I leave, I call my dad. I had just gotten a cell phone.

  He asks, “How did it go?”

  “Good.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, we’re going to the movies tonight.”

  “Who?”

  “Me and Will Smith.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where?”

  “At Planet Hollywood. That’s where Will said we’d go to the movies.”

  He says, “What the fuck?” Then he says, “Oh, buddy. I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  He says, “He’s gonna queer ya.”

  “What?!?”

  “He’s a Mo Dicker, he’s a Mo Dicker, he’s gonna queer ya.”

  “What?!?!?”

  “This is how Hollywood works. He wants to fuck you.”

  I said “Dad, he doesn’t want to fuck me.”

  “What’s more likely: that he wants to do a television deal with a guy that works the door at a comedy club and wants to go see a movie with you? Or he just wants to fuck you?”

  I’m like, “Aw, man, I’m getting fucked tonight.”

  I remember going back to my house, thinking, “How do I get out of this?” Like now I don’t want to go to the movies. I don’t want to do any of this.

  Then I think, “Fuck it. I guess I’m going to go up and play my cards, up until we go all in and see how it all works.” Maybe I can show him some of my flaws that he’s not interested in. Turn him off in some way.

  I go up to Planet Hollywood. I walk into the front to the lady. I say, “Is Will Smith here?”

  She’s like, “Excuse me?”

  “Will Smith?”

  “Oh, in the back.”

  I walk to the back and it’s the fucking mannequin of Men in Black. It’s like a mannequin of Will Smith, it’s not real Will Smith.

  I come back. I go, “No, I’m looking for the man Will Smith.” I remember her looking at me like, “You think celebrities come to Planet Hollywood in New York to have dinner?”

  “He told me to meet him here.”

  She says, “Well, he’s not here right now, maybe he’s showing up later.”

  I just sit.

  I’m sitting in the waiting area at the front door and all of a sudden up these stairs comes a six-seven 350-pound black guy named Charlie Mack and he just looks around and says, “You Bert?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Downstairs.”

  “Okay.”

  Now I’m like, “Great, I’ve got to fuck this guy too. Fucking six-seven Charlie Mack.” I walk downstairs, there’s nine other black guys. It’s got a table in it, with nothing on it and a curtain and it’s nine black guys and Charlie Mack.

  “Great. Now I’ve gotta fuck these nine, Charlie Mack, Will Smith. I’m sure Jazzy Jeff’s showing up. I’m fucking Jazzy Jeff too.”

  I just stand and no one talks to me. No one makes eye contact with me. No one engages me. I’m just standing against this curtain, thinking, “This is how it goes down.” Like that’s all that’s going through my head. Panicking. Started as a TV deal, and now these guys are going to play leaky submarine with me all night. All of a sudden Will comes down with Jazzy Jeff and I’m like, “Okay. This is how it goes down.”

  He says, “This is the guy.” Everyone is like, “Oh, okay.”

  He says, “Bert, are you ready?”

  I say, “Yeah, I guess.” Like, let’s do this.

  The curtain opens behind me and there’s a private theater behind me. Like there is a real private theater in Planet Hollywood behind me with huge couches. They all start walking and I see them and I’m like, “What the? There’s a fucking movie theater?”

  Will was like, “What did you think was happening?”

  I was like, “Nothing at all.”

  We sit, we watch American Pie, and then I start recognizing all the guys in the room. It’s Kool Moe Dee, it’s Biz Markie, Big Daddy Kane. I’m thinking “I could have fucked Kool Moe Dee? I could have fucked Biz Markie? My list of gay interactions would have been through the roof!”

  We watched American Pie. We were drinking and having a great time and Will was like, “What did you think of the movie?”

  “It was awesome!”

  He was like, “What was the best part?”

  “The part where I didn’t fuck twelve black guys!”

  That was the best day of my life.

  ANNA KENDRICK—ACTOR, SINGER

  When I got cast in Up in the Air, I thought it was a mistake. My agents said, “We think you’re going to get an offer on Monday.” I said, “Guys, you were not in that room with me, it did not go well.” I thought they didn’t like me. I was like, “Okay, great.” Driving home from Santa Monica like, “That’s solved.”

  Marc

  The long ride after the bad audition.

  Anna

  Exactly, so brutal. Doing it again in your head like, “Oh God, why didn’t I play it like this?”

  My agents told me on a Friday, “We think you’re going to get an offer on Monday.” I was like, “I don’t think you’re correct.” Then they called me again and said, “Yeah, it’s happening.”

  The first week I was just like, “What am I doing? This is crazy.” I didn’t meet George Clooney until we were on set together. The first thing that we shot together, we were doing kind of a walk and talk, and we were standing waiting to go and he says, “Do you get nervous? I get nervous.” I was like, “Oh my God!” That was the smallest thing but just opened up my whole world.

  He probably does that for everybody when he can tell they’re thinking, “What am I doing here? I don’t belong here.” Just a couple of words from him and you’re like, “Oh my God, he’s a person, and I’m a person, we’re the same.”

  Looking back on it, there were times he could tell that I was in my head, overthinking. There was a day when I was really in my head about a scene and he was throwing Nerf footballs around, like intentionally kind of hitting me and stuff. I was genuinely like, “Bro, I’m trying to get in the scene and stuff.” But he knows you need to snap out of it a little bit.

  There was a day when we were shooting the scene where I’m sitting across from the computer screen and I’m firing a guy over the computer screen for the first time. It’s an older guy. George was sitting next to me and he sat there next to me all day because I couldn’t move, I was stuck. It was such a complicated, heavy scene. They were moving camera equipment and stuff and I was sitting there and he sat next to me.

  I remember asking, “Can you run lines with me?” He immediately did the scene with me and I didn’t realize until later: he’s a fucking movie star, he could have just fucked off and called his agent, whatever. Let alone run a scene with me that he’s not even in. He’s there but he ran the other guy’s lines with me. That kind of generosity, somehow I think about all the time. If he can be that generous, everybody should be able to do that.

  JONAH HILL—ACTOR, WRITER, PRODUCER

  The day I shot my scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, it was probably I would say the most important day of my life. Definitely one of them.

  I was friendly with Seth Rogen and met Judd Apatow in the audition for that movie. I met Seth in a movie theater before then. I just sat behind him, and Jason Schwartzman was a mutual friend of ours, so we talked about Jason and how great of a guy he is, which he is. So we were friendly and then I got that part and it was one line. And the whole bit was about an eBay store with Catherine Keener and it didn’t make sense because I want to buy a skateboard and she said you can’t, I’m like, I don’t get it, and that was the whole scene.

  Now, it was pouring rain that day whe
n I got there. This sounds like I’m trying to be overly cinematic or something. But it was pouring rain and they couldn’t shoot the scene they were trying to shoot outside, so we had a whole day to shoot this one fucking line scene and so Judd was just like, “Start.” I noticed everyone was improvising, so I just was like this is an opportunity to show someone who I think is really, really amazing and look up to so much that maybe I could improvise with these other people here. And I got to improvise that scene for a whole day. We found those random goldfish boots and it turned into me talking shit to Keener, Catherine Keener, who by the way is the greatest person in the world. Seth and Judd would call me over the months that they were test-screening the movie for audiences and say, “There’s no logical reason for this scene to even be in the movie. Like, all we want to do is cut it out, but it keeps getting really big laughs.”

  So that was a moment for me that really, I think—you would have to ask them—but I think it made Judd want to continue working with me. I am really grateful to him in every way.

  JASON SCHWARTZMAN—ACTOR, WRITER, MUSICIAN

  When I was seventeen years old, I was in the middle of making a record, I was going into my senior year of high school and my grandfather, Carmine, who had passed away, had written a score for a movie. My uncle, to celebrate it, was going to have the score played live in Napa. He was inviting lots of people from San Francisco. It was a charity type of event, I believe. Not totally sure. I wasn’t supposed to go. Anyway my mom was going and last minute she’s like, you’ve got to come, it was my father’s music. You’ve got to hear my father’s music.

  I rented a tuxedo and we went up and at this party there was a woman named Davia there who was a local casting director in San Francisco. Because she’s from San Francisco, she knew my cousins. They were friends and they were talking at this party and my cousin said, “What are you up to?” and she said, “I’m the San Francisco wing of the casting for this movie Rushmore.” My cousin said, “What’s it about?” She said it’s about an eccentric fifteen-year-old who writes plays and has a crush on an older woman. She said, “That’s funny, it sounds kind of like my cousin Jason. He’s right over there.”