Patton Oswalt
Appearances
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
So he's like, well, now I'm in charge of this. So I'm going to make him blah, blah, blah. And he would go back to the Pope and go, well, he's painting Jesus without a beard. And Pope's like, well, you got to go tell him, you know, and just, you know, in other words, it was his way of going, I, it's Michelangelo and I are doing this painting, even though he's a fucking loser.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
So Michelangelo finally had it and he painted the guy, Biagio de Cesna?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
He put him in it? They painted him as this horrifying demon, pot belly, and it's so clearly his face, donkey ears. And then he went back to the Pope and was like, he's painted me as a demon in hell. And at that point, the Pope had had enough of this. He goes, I have no jurisdiction over hell. and just basically told him, you're fucked for eternity.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Everyone's gonna see this painting forever, and you're this pot-bellied, donkey-eared demon with a snake around your belly. But again, that's a beautiful aspect of a beautiful piece of art that was absolutely done out of vengeance. I mean, Dante's Inferno is all vengeance. It's all petty revenge on people that fucked him over.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And so is Joyce's Ulysses was all settling scores with local people in Dublin.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
There have been times when I've lived an enemy. There's times that I've done... bits or jokes that without saying it, it's in response to a bit or a joke that I thought was lame or like, why the fuck would you? That's so stupid. So I would go the other or, you know, what did Chris Rock say? Don't get mad, get funnier. So sometimes getting funnier is a form of vengeance. You know, just be funnier.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
No, but there's way you can become better at whatever it is you are. And that's how you and also then the I mean, if we're just going to stay with vengeance, the ultimate vengeance is actually becoming happy with what it is you're doing. And you're just ignoring the other people. You know, the way to the way to truly dismantle a narcissist is just to go. I don't I don't care. That's fine.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Yeah, but I'm doing this. Great. Not what I want to do. I mean, that's the thing that I've always thought about, like, in the movie Animal House at the end, except for... Otter punching Greg Marmalard. Remember, he punches him. But that's the only actual physical revenge.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
All the other, at the end of it, the Delches just leave the college and go live their lives successfully, and then all the Omegas go and live their lives, and it all goes to shit. And sometimes that's how you win, is just going, I'm fucking leaving and going doing something cooler and more fun. I don't need to do all this shit.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Well, I'm confident in that being on stage is one of the few places I feel confident. So yeah, that confidence is going to come through. But I'm also confident in accepting the fact that whatever turbulence comes my way, because I've come out the other side of so much
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
They were all doing fine, but it was like, if I lost this job, I wouldn't care. And then I went and did a couple open mics in D.C., and I just loved the hang and the world and the people, the fact that I was upstream of all the humor. I was at its source and seeing where it was coming out. I just loved it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
genuine pain and loss and turbulence that some things now that people take as life-ending, some massive onage on the internet or people attacking them, I'm like, that's just electrons. I just want to do what I think is right and what I feel is the right decision. And if people are either happy with it or not, but if they're not, it's just electrons. It doesn't matter.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
The thing that I'm telling you right now, this perspective is maybe a week old. And a week later, there'll be an even better perspective. I'm at that stage now where there aren't gigantic epiphanies. There are awarenesses. And then there are the... Oh, I can choose to react to this awareness, but all this other stuff about me is never going to totally go away. You just have to learn to manage it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You just have to learn to manage it. One of the most important movies that I think that came out in 1999 and for a long time is the movie The Sixth Sense because – At the end of the movie, the kid is not cured of seeing dead people. What he learns is, this is never going away. This will be here. How can you manage it?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Bruce Willis' character says, what do you think these people are trying to say to you? And the kid is like, maybe this has nothing to do with me. Maybe it has to do with them and I can actually help them and I can actually go live a life. So he's still, he's living a better life at the end. He's still seeing these people. I feel like I'm living a better life. I still get resentful.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I still get jealous. I still get wracked with self-doubt. That stuff will continue to happen, but it won't own me. It'll be a thing that's there. I'm like, oh, there you are again. Okay, what's going on? All right, we're going to do this then.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
It took me so, so long to separate myself from, oh, my God, if I have this thought, then that must be who I am. No, you're allowed any thought. You know, that's the thing. And again, so many great works. Do you think Thomas Harris created one of the most horrifying serial killers ever, fake, but still horrifying, Hannibal Lecter. But when he thought of him, was he like, do I want to kill people?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
No, but your mind is allowed to imagine horrible things without it being you. I mean, that's the basis of all creativity. But so many people, and I think we've been so poisoned with social media, which is like everything that you tweet, that's who you are. Or if you retweet it, that's who you are. People forget at the very beginning of especially Twitter,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You could retweet somebody saying something ridiculous. And it was understood that you're just holding this up like, can you fucking believe this? You weren't endorsing it. And then somewhere along the line, it shifted. And people are like, you are obviously, that's how you feel.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
So, and I got in some trouble with that because there was a guy, I think his name is like Steve Saylor, total white supremacist dude. And he said something about like... something like political correctness is a war on noticing. Like something, it was so ridiculous. And I just tweeted that, but it was, I was still in the mind of like, look at this fucking idiot.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And then people were like, oh, so I guess you, you know, so like, oh. something shifted and I didn't realize I was too slow to see that, you know, you can't do, we were, look, we were way too slow to see that the pointing out racism by being ironically racist or being like, that doesn't work anymore. There's no, there's no abstract thought left in anybody.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
So you have to actually either point out that something sucks, but you can't personify it the way that like a Ricky Gervais or an Albert Brooks used to do, or even a Don Rickles used
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
you know i think the people when people forget about don rickles it was so brilliant about him and he never explained it because he didn't have to was he's a jewish guy in showbiz he has seen racism you can't even imagine so he would always personify the worst of these people that he saw, but he didn't bother to add that, and you know this is terrible.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And like watching them sit around and kind of volley back and forth, a vague idea that would then keep getting refined and bounce around until it turned into a bit. It was like, oh, people create stuff out of thin air. There's no they. There's no them that's separate from us because these guys would come in and,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
He would just say that with the assumption that, you know this, I'm saying the dumbest shit imaginable, and also this guy never wins. He always loses. He always gets the, people get the better of me. That's what I'm making fun of here.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You know, but and then things again, we lost abstract thought and then near the end of their lives, people like Joan Rivers, who laid across the fucking barbed wire for people to cross and get to do dangerous comedy, started attacking her. It's like she did that. She's the one did. Anyway, sorry. Man, we went way off topic. We were talking about dolphin fishing. What are we talking about?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Yeah, 720 films in cinemas.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
It was a kid who was... always loved movies growing up, but lived in, had very limited access to them or had them only on videotape. There weren't a lot of rep theaters in Northern Virginia. There were in D.C., but it was hard to get into D.C.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I couldn't, I had to like, you know, sometimes I would, a couple times I did skip school, I would fake an illness and then sneak into the city and go to the Janus or the Biograph and, you know, if it was like a Kuro Kurosawa film. But that wasn't, but now I'm in L.A. and there are, at the time, in the 95, it was
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
rep theaters everywhere, you know, Tales Cafe, New Beverly, it was just, it was all over the place, and I could just go and consume these movies, and not just watch movies, but I could watch them with an audience, that's what was the important thing, was watching what still landed with people, and what didn't anymore, and that was something I had never really gotten
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
to experience the way that I wanted to. And I just got really, really addicted to that thrill, to being wired into that mind. And this was before the internet, where that's where you went to really be wired into the zeitgeist. And I couldn't get enough of it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Yeah, I mean, one of the ways it really, really affected me creatively was there were always moments in... films where they would cut off and I'm like, no, show the show that part. Why aren't you showing that part? That should be the start of a movie. And then that kind of became how I wrote a lot of my comedy was about these weird I was also very much influenced by Brian Regan.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Brian Regan is the king of looking at those moments in life where you're like, this is an absolute waste of time. This is something that you block out because it's something you got to do so I can get to the creative stuff. And he realizes, no, there's actual real life happening right here, like ordering a dozen donuts. There's kind of cosmic significance to this. And he would explore that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
So I, because I'd watched so many movies and see so many movies would follow the same rhythm and the ones that didn't and the ones that went other places made me so,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
happy that i would remember those moments and then try to put those moments into my writing into my comedy now i do comic books and a lot of those are about because i read a lot of comic books and there's a lot of superhero comics that look at part i'm like show the parts that you're not showing that would be so much more fascinating how does this person like live with these powers and what would that be like so i always want what is going on in the margins or what is
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
They'd bitch about a parking ticket they'd gotten or, oh, my fridge broke and half my food is spoiled. And then they would sit and write jokes. Like it was – that wasn't their whole – some people that I knew, it was like their life and the hassles of it was their life. And these were like, I still have those same hassles and then I create stuff on top of it. And there was something really –
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
How does real life actually... There's a great movie called The Matador. Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear and, oh my God, Hope. She was in Ghost World. I'm blanking on her name. This is so embarrassing.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
This was also said, 20 minutes from now, I will come up with her name. Well, you'll do it during this.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I want to come up with it. Anyway.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
There's a great moment where the first half of the film, Greg Kinnear's on vacation. He meets Pierce Brosnan, who's a hitman, who's kind of like losing his mind and on his last job. And then they hang out together and Pierce Brosnan... kind of takes him on a hit, doesn't kill somebody with him, but shows him, here's how you would kill somebody. And literally walks him through this sequence.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
It's so well done. And that's the first half. And then Greg Kinnear goes back to his suburban life in like Ohio somewhere. And then Pierce Brosnan is in some kind of trouble. He either botches a job or something. I forget what that part of it. And he goes and finds Greg Kinnear to go hide out with him. And...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
comes in the house and Greg Kinnear's like, oh, this is the guy that I was telling you about. And you see Pierce Bros' character like, I better think of some, like, you can see him almost about to go, I am a carpet salesman, you know? And then Hope goes, oh, this is the hit man you hung out with. And like a lesser movie would make it like, yeah, he's a carpet.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And then they got to do all this bullshit. No, you would go home and go, I was in Mexico on this business trip. And this guy, he was a hit man. And he showed me how to, I didn't kill anybody. But he like, that's what he does. It was really weird. And you would just go back to your life. And like, no, obviously, neither of you are going to report it. I don't want to be killed.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
But it was just a weird thing. And then she goes, oh, yeah, that's that hit man you were with. And then the movie proceeds from there. it goes in such a totally different direction. And it just made me so happy. Like moments like that, where you're like, oh, or there's an issue of Animal Man where a villain comes to Animal Man's house and he's wrecking the place.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And then he's about to kill Animal Man. He goes, oh, because Animal Man, the guy is in his boxer briefs. And he goes, go put your costume on. I'm not going to shoot you in your underwear. That's stupid. And then the wife comes in and goes, what are you doing? What, did you wreck someone's house? Get out of here. And the villain goes, oh, frick this. And he just leaves.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
He's just like, this is real. And that's kind of how that would go. Like, you're in my house in this stupid costume. You're breaking things? Leave. I'll call the cops. And he's, all right, fine. And he just leaves. Like, that was so...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
More moments like that, I think we keep being pushed toward, oh, you gotta have the big moments, the big epiphanies, the big, dramatic, Instagrammable stuff, but the real growth and the real, real deep memory stuff happens in the uncinematic, clumsy moments. That's where you actually, if you can slow down
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And look at how both you and other people around you are acting in the boring moments, in line at a bank, stuck in traffic. You learn so much more about yourself in those moments if you're able to slow down and pick that up and not go, dude, we're wasting time. I should be having experiences. You are having experience.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
There's like something even more human about that, that in the face of every other hassle that every other person is facing, I'm going to also think of something funny and try to make money off of it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
whether it's comic books or movies were you escaping something in childhood or were you just enjoying creativity dreaming imagination i didn't have a bad childhood i had a fun shot i had a really fun childhood friends my parents were great um we would we would go on adventures and do weird stuff but it was just like i get to have this fun reality and then there's all this then there's augmented reality there's also like
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
If I'm sitting here, I can read a book and it's a whole other world or I can watch a movie. And like, why would you not add to that? I mean, if you wanted to, you could eat. Raw starch, raw protein, some citrus and fluid and saline and lib. But you're like, no, you can also have this and this and this. And some of it's bad for you, but it still tastes good and you'll recover from it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Like there's shitty TV. There's terrible movies. There's awful concerts to go to. There's bad people you're going to encounter. You can recover from that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And also just people create stuff. I get to read it. This is great. We get to, as people, we get to do this. This is a great thing that humans do. All animals do is run around and try to survive. Every second they're just trying to survive. And we can sit and just, I'm on another planet right now. And all I got to do is open this book.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And you open a book and sounds and smells and sensations flood your brain. I don't think people realize. how miraculous opening a book is, what it does to you. You're literally just, you're micro-dosing on just symbols on paper. That's fucking insane that we get to do that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I mean, I wanted to be a writer, and I was always writing through high school. But I didn't know, like, how am I going to make it pay or something? And I just – it was just that – I was having those lost years, and I'm being kind of protective of my daughter right now, of her, because she's in ninth grade, and she goes, yeah, but this thing will look good for college.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I'm like, you have some lost years. You can just mess around. Not everything has to be for college, for the CV, for the gram. Just have moments, just do things. They don't have to mean anything right now.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Actually, yeah, I can't judge it that much because I was very driven and ambitious from a very young age. Once I realized comedy was what I wanted to do, I was driven. But it just seems to me that we are now living in the vengeance of people who just were grinding from an early age and never... Because yes, I was grinding, but I was also experiencing stuff.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I was traveling, having wasted nights with friends, just doing stuff. And now you're... But now we seem to be... at the mercy of all these tech bros and crypto bros and people that, and there's nothing wrong with like, I want to make as much money as possible. If that's what turns you on, absolutely do that. But they're now hitting their 40s and they're realizing, I don't really have any memories.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I don't really have any interests. And I think that they suspect the people that hang out with me are hanging out with me because I have a house full of toys and a cool yacht, but they wouldn't be doing this. They wouldn't come over to my shitty apartment and play video games with me. Because there's no me here.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
So then they're trying to – they're insisting on coolness as if the world owes me this. I have the most money I should be thought of as cool. I don't even need to name names. You know who I'm talking about right now.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
It reminds me of the kids in school that would be like, I have perfect attendance. If you don't have straight A's, you shouldn't brag about having perfect attendance because it means nothing. It just means that you... showed up every day like a rat hitting a lever. But it also means you didn't learn anything. I don't know why people brag about perfect attendance if you don't have straight A's.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I skipped school and I have better grades than you. And when I skipped school, I would either, I'd stay home all day and watch movies or I'd sneak into the city or my friends and I would go, I didn't skip school all the time. I wasn't a bad kid, but it was just like, go have a, it was really telling that, It was really telling when that footage leaked.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
They called it a leak of AOC in college on that rooftop with her friends dancing and being a goofball. And they were like, that's the end of her political career. This is it. It's like... And anyone else watching would be like, that's what you do in college. You hang out with your friends. And you realize these people never did that. They never did that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And it wasn't that they were ever excluded or ostracized. They got invited to parties, but they're like, I got to grind. I got to grind because then I'll show these people and then they'll all think I'm cool. And then they get to that point where they're like, they have all the money, but there's nothing to talk about.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
They own a $100,000 rare sound system, and then you look at their LP collection, and it's the best of U2, best of Blondie. Are there any actual albums or groups that you like that the album itself means something to you? But I have the best of all their stuff, and I'm playing it on the most expensive thing. It's like, but you're not getting any pleasure from this, you know, and nobody wants to.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
So we're going to have to live through that vengeance right now. We're going to have to live through. And again, I hope a lot of the, I'm not, I'm not hoping, wishing ill will on any of them, except for the ones that are like actively damaging people out of vengeance because they're angry about their horrible behavior.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And again, it wasn't that they were, it wasn't that they had horrible childhoods. They chose horrible childhoods, thinking there was some kind of reward at the end of it. It's like, no, the reward is doing all your crazy shit when you're young and 15 and have the ability to recover. And that's when you get to have your crazy adventures.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Hell yeah. All right. By the way, I'm swinging kettlebells while we do this. If you're just listening, there are kettlebells being swung and I'm eating a giant stack of pancakes because I got to go top trees up in Coos Bay. Yeah, I'm always, but I'm not, I wish I could, I don't have that ability to sit down with a notebook and just write jokes.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You can't wait till you're in your 60s and then demand some kid be your blood bag so then you can have your 20s and your 70s. That doesn't make any fucking sense.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
When I was really young, that show was such a, really shaped how I approached just creativity and life. Because when you think about that show... Oh, fuck. Okay, that show actually mirrors our current situation because think about that show. There's two billionaire evil scientists, Dr. Forrester and then Frank, his sidekick.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And they own everything and they're gonna take over the world and they're fucking miserable. They hate each other. They don't know how to have fun. They've trapped this guy on a satellite and they're sending him shitty movies to break his spirit. And then they're watching him and the robots having fun and making jokes in their horrible situation. And it drives them like...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
We should be the ones who are happy. I think it's the same thing like when rich, weird, rich white billionaires look at a little DIY punk show or some little hip hop show in a small space or people just doing, and they're like, how the fuck are these people happy? It's like, because they have a thing that they actually love doing.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Nothing makes them angrier than watching a little independently owned bicycle store. Like, that's all you do is fix bikes and you have just enough money to live in a shitty apartment and eat shitty food? Yeah, and they look at their face and go, that guy is so fucking, how the fuck is he happy? I have the most expensive Wagyu beef in my house. I have this painting.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
It's a piece of shit, but I paid 10 million and that should be respected. You know, this motherfucker, like they, it drives them crazy because they don't, they never learned how to access joy. And that's what, if you watch Mystery Science Theater, that is the tension of that show. It's these two guys who are in, they're the jailers, but all they have is, They have more liberty than Joel.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
They don't have more freedom than Joel, and it's driving them insane.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I mean, I just always wanted to do stuff that I thought was interesting. A lot of my metrics are, well, if I'm going to be really honest, my two metrics are I'm in this for the money and the anecdotes. I want really cool stories and I'd like to make some money. But I also love the I love getting a project where you're like, how are they going to pull this off? I have to say yes to this.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
This, you know, so when like Boots Riley sends me, you know, sorry to bother you, I'm like, there's horse mutants and there's, I'm someone's white, how the, I have to do it. You know, you have to do that. Or when there was a group called Five Second Films and they did this amazing movie. It's called Dude Bro Party Massacre, the part three. And it's been one of those, it's like this love story
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
and hate letter to all these 80s slasher movies. I can't even describe how brilliant this thing is. And it had this tiny release and it's slowly one of those things that everyone that sees it is like, oh my God, this thing is brilliant. And I had to like, yeah. Always say yes to the weird, interesting thing Because, again, it just gives you better memories, too. You know?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Also, say yes to the thing that's going to be a really cool adventure. Like, obviously, I would love to work with a Scorsese or a Tarantino or a Catherine Bigelow. But I'd also kind of like to work with...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
um ue bowl just because you know that's going to be an insane you know or harmony corrine just for the for the uh the stories like something truly brilliant is going to happen but you also embrace weird in a way that most people don't well because i weird isn't weird to me that the weird people The weird people to me are the people that are trying to act so normal.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I, as you said, I drive around and deal with my day and while I'm walking around and dealing with my morning or my afternoon, I'm thinking of things. And so it's very, very conversational. However I'm talking to you offstage, I kind of go onstage and I'm still talking that same way. I just try to make it funny. So, I mean, it's just the way I think about the world.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Those are the ones that always make me put my spidey senses up, like you're being a little too normal. It's the people that, and the quote-unquote weird, they never think that they're weird. Someone like Maria Bamford or John Waters said, They think they're the normal one. I'm actually reacting to this world in a, based on what the world is, this is a sane reaction to it. This is not weird at all.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
So that kind of, I'm so much more attracted to that kind of living, that kind of living design.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I am all – This is gonna sound weird. I am all for restrictions. I don't understand everyone that's like, you should be able to say anything. It's like, guys, no. The restrictions are there for you to find clever, diabolical ways around it and then get to say it. If everything is allowed, then there's no danger or fun to it. You've gotta have, I want that outlaw element
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You know, and all this about cancel culture, who the fuck has been canceled? Now, everyone that they talk about has been canceled is filling arenas. The only people that have been canceled, the ones who've actually committed like sex crimes. They're not, but they haven't been shut down because of what they said. Those are fucking rapists. So, you know, Lenny Bruce wasn't raping people.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
He found a way around getting shit, you know, saying what he wanted to say until he was unfortunately crushed. But there's ways... I'm not making a good point here, but like have some of the, it drives me crazy when people say like, you couldn't make Blazing Saddles today. Okay, that is such an insult to Mel Brooks.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
He couldn't make Blazing Saddles then and he found a way to make it and he'd find a way to make it now because he's fucking Mel Brooks.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Even with that, those restrictions, those frustrations, a lot of people turn away from acting because they're like, I've got to sit there for eight fucking hours? Well, you can find a way to make that creative for yourself and find a way to bring something interesting to every single scene that you do. Despite the sitting and, okay, now I've got to do it this way, now I've got to do it this way.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You've got to, you know... I mean, I can't – I've really enjoyed everything that I've ever done, even when it wasn't – even when the thing itself wasn't great. I've enjoyed being there and watching people. I'm with creative people that are doing their goddamn best. Even bad movies I've been in, people broke their ass to try to make it work. I just love being around people who care about something.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
So – but, I mean, if you're talking about the ones that gave me the most satisfaction doing them, I mean, the run that I did on –
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
uh uh justified was fantastic that was just getting to work with timothy oliphant and all those cast members was was incredible um there was a show that i did two shows that i did that both got canceled prematurely one for sci-fi called happy with chris maloney um one of the best um shows I've ever done. So amazing.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Brian Taylor, director, just an absolute visual genius and one of the most free and unrestricted imaginations I've ever encountered as far as writing is concerned. And then another show for Showtime called United States with Tara. Not only because I liked my role, but like getting to work with people like Rosemary DeWitt and especially Toni Collette.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I don't even, you know, it isn't even a defense mechanism at this point. It's a comfort zone that I have to be in. Because if I get to, I was thinking this this morning, by the way. The fact that I really have realized I hate the phrase that comedians are the truth tellers and the philosophers.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And watching them like at table reads, Toni Collette like cold reading the script and going into eight alternate personalities at the drop of a hat. And the whole table just like, the fuck are we seeing right now? those experiences to me really, really meant a lot.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
It makes you feel like you don't belong, but it also makes you make the decision, all right, I got to step up or I got to fade away. You know, when I did Young Adult, I was working with Charlize Theron, who's one of the best actors alive. And it's like, you had better show the fuck up or just accept the fact that you're going to be a blur on the edge of the screen with this actress, you know.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And not just with her, with Colette Wolfe, plays my sister. She has one of the best scenes in the movie, I think, is between Colette Wolfe and Charlize.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Charlize Theron it's incredible so I always play with people that I'm never the funniest person in my group and I don't want to be I want to be around people that are funnier than me because then I up my game that can't be true it can't be true that you're never the funniest person in your group I've never felt that way and I'm not saying that out of I don't believe in false modesty I'm a funny motherfucker but I'm as funny as I am because I have I always have this chorus of people in my head that are like oh what
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
What's the different angle I could go here? It makes it fun for me. It doesn't mean that I can just go, oh, here's the obvious joke. And I just love that. I love that those are the people that I've surrounded myself with.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Oh, yeah, my dad loved comedy. My mom, we would always watch Carol Burnett. And then when I got a little older, I would watch SNL. And then I discovered SCTV that my dad also liked. And my dad loved Letterman and Monty Python, all that stuff. And my dad would always have comedy albums. He loved comedy.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I mean, the only military was if my dad got restationed somewhere and we had to move. Or there was one year he got assigned to Japan and we didn't go with him. So for a year he was gone, which was a bummer. But he tried to keep the military out of it. He was like, the military was my way out of my situation, but I want to make it so that these guys don't have to do that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Was there a lot of... It was just like, you know, don't be an asshole. Like, you know, do your... But also, I wasn't this crazy, rebellious kid. I mean, I would, except for a few times playing hooky, I wanted to do well in school so I could go to college and, you know, have a life. I liked reading.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I liked, you know, there were certain things I wasn't good at math and science, very good at reading and history. So I'm like, okay, that's what I'm going to focus on.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Once I got there, I was in the back room of this place called Garvin's in Washington, D.C., and we— watching comedians, like watching them form a bit. There's a moment like that, and I'm so glad this got captured on camera, in the Seinfeld documentary, Comedian.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
It's a good documentary, and it's also a really valuable documentary, and this is why, because there's a sequence where he's working on a bit about think tanks, and and he shows himself on stage with the early version of the bit and it's not working he hasn't found it but you can tell from his energy he knows something's there but he hasn't found it Then we cut to, he's at a table.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
It's like, shouldn't we be comedians and our politicians and philosophers and journalists should be the truth tellers standing up for people so that the audiences I perform for, I can say silly shit that I made up that amuses them in this better world they're living in. We shouldn't be in a world where, well, hopefully, because that means we're living in medieval times.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I think he's at the Olive Tree. George Wallace is there, Colin Quinn. And they're just batting. He's like, I got this thing about a think tank and how do you get fired from a think tank? And they're batting it around. And then George Wallace goes, you know, Frank, sometimes you don't think. And you just see the light go on for Seinfeld.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And I just had so many nights like that where I'm like, I'd go up and the bit wasn't working. And then someone would go, what about this? I'm like... That's where, yes, that's where it is. So like you add, and having that resource is always amazing, you know, with other comedians, hanging out with them and batting jokes around.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
A lot of them are comedians, also other writers, other people in show biz. It's not that I'm only exclusive, but people tend to be friends with people who share their interests and share their mindset, so those are my friends.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
No, I imagined a career in writing. Then I stumbled into comedy and was like, this. And then comedy just led to acting. That's when people ask me like, Give me some advice. I can give people advice on how to act. I can't give them advice on how to get into acting because that just kind of happened without me realizing it. It just happened.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I mean, I was in the movie Magnolia because I came off stage at the Largo one night and went back into the kitchen and Paul Thomas Anderson was standing there. He was like, hey, you want to be in a movie? I'm like, yeah. And then, I mean, I knew who he was. He was hanging around at the Largo.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Yeah, I was just like, hey, you want to be in a movie? I'm like, fuck yeah, I want to be in a movie. So, you know. I mean, that movie, his movie... which I know he wanted to be called Sidney. I've seen that movie like 10 times. I think that is just, I mean, out of the gate that guy knew exactly what he wanted to do.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I was, I mean, I don't know. I feel like it was his first time on stage, but he says it wasn't. But the first night I went on stage at Garvin's in the summer of 88, Dave Chappelle went up that night. He was 14, I was 19. And he was one of those guys that I remember from the get, his, like, oh, this guy's gonna be huge. Like he had that energy like he'd been doing it for 30 years, just killed.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Like, oh, this guy's gonna be huge. And sometimes you just know.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Not only was there constant doubt, but then there were those rug pulling moments where I thought I'd gotten over the doubt and then ran into something that made me have to rethink everything. And the biggest one for me was started in 88, moved to San Francisco in 92. In those four years, I'd learned to become a very, very good road comic.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I was starting to feature, but it was just, I was doing stuff that I was pre-thinking audiences would already like. There was nothing of me in that. And then I remember I went, moved to San Francisco and did a show at the Holy City Zoo. And I was there and it was like,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
these amazing comedians going up, Jeremy Kramer and Greg Barron, Lankan Earl, Laura Milligan, Margaret Cho, like just doing stuff I'd never seen, like stuff they really, really, that they liked, whether or not the audience liked it, like that's what they like to do. And it was so, and I went up and did my killer road stuff and it, It's not that it ate it, but it was mostly comedians.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
That means the king is just sitting there going, well, I just passed a law where I get to sleep with all your daughters, and I know that feels terrible, but here comes a corncob, the farting dwarf, and he's gonna say that I'm fat, and that'll balance it all out. That's not how, no, there should be people setting that stuff right so that I can do jokes
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
They were just like, well, yeah, that stuff, that works. And I just realized it was this weird, like... fuck, I gotta up my game. And I had to scrap my whole act and start from zero again. And having that happen and having it not be the end of the world the next day gave me a lot of courage. But that courage came from facing some genuine fear and failure.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
At that same time, I still do some theaters, but this past year and a half, I've rediscovered comedy clubs, getting into a sitting on a Thursday, doing one show Thursday, two Friday, two Saturday. And I'm getting so much writing done. And in these smaller rooms, because you're so much more wired to the audience, you're so much more present. I just shot my newest special in a tiny comedy club in...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Madison, Wisconsin, this place called Comedy on State, because I did it last year, and it was like, I had not had sets like that. I mean, when you're in theaters, you have good sets in theaters, but there's a moat of darkness, and in a comedy club, you're right there. It feels so immediate, and now I kind of crave that. So in between the theater gigs I have coming up,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You know, I'm doing the Union Chapel in London in May. I'm doing the Elm in Montana. But then after I do the Elm in Montana, I'm going to the Rialto in Casper, Wyoming. Two shows Friday, two shows Saturday. Little club wired in. You know, I'm going to go back to the Comedy Works. I'm going to go back to the Acme. Like now I can go do these comedy clubs and I get so much more writing done in those.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I think it's the same thing of I am searching for what is truly, deeply funny, and you can't do that by yourself. You always have to do it with an audience. It's like the truly great teachers are the ones who – I hate that phrase, well, those who can, can, and those who can't teach. No, some people teach because they truly love a subject, a book, a writer, a discipline, a science, something.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
But the only way for them to get deeper into it, they've learned everything they can learn about it, is to learn. talk about it in front of fresh minds and see what perspectives come their way. And that becomes a search and there's something really beautiful and fulfilling in that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You don't want the responsibility because I understand wanting to be- It's not that I don't want the responsibility, but why is it all on, how is it switched so badly that it's the comedians that are pointing out the truth more than, yeah, I mean, by the way, there were people, you know, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were also pointing out
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And I don't know why that gets so vilified and attacked where when you see a truly great teacher, you're seeing a person who is on a deep, deep journey and they'll do it till the day they die. Comedy is one of those things where you, I mean, the thing about sports, and it's something also very beautiful about sports, is there is so much risk going on by these athletes.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
They're basically going, I am betting my life on this body not breaking down and getting a few, profitable years out of this before, I mean, and hopefully I can do things after this, but they are really putting everything on the line. Like a true athlete, there is something amazing about watching somebody push a body to its limit, not just doing it for the cars and the money.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Obviously they should get all that, but I think it's the same thing, but you can't do that forever. Whereas with comedy, I saw the Seinfeld documentary with Maria Bamford. We saw it together and we came out. She was like, that's right, you can do this forever. And I was like, that's right. I can do this forever.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Because if I just keep being honest about whatever my point of view is, I was very honest when I was in my 20s. I'm never getting married. I was very honest when I was in my 30s. I'm married. We're never having kids. I was very honest about I have this daughter. She's awesome. If you're just honest with whatever is going on right then, you can always reach people. And you get to do it forever.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
were you or did you know that you were built for parenthood did you think you were built for never thought that i don't think anyone truly thinks that they were built for parenthood i mean we're innately wired for it because otherwise the species would die out but um all of the the more esoteric existential about parenting i don't think anyone's ready for that but you go into it 70 or 80% ready.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And if you're willing to learn along the way and also tell your kids, ah, you know what? Good point. I fucked that one up. You'll be okay.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
absolutely you're changed by everything you do or don't do you're changed by everything so to say that i don't know why people put such a big emphasis on oh your parenting really changes you everything changes you everything changes you big or small and small changes are just as crucial in the long run as big massive ones so everything changes you but how did this change you like how did you become less selfish for example
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
It's not that I became less selfish. I mean, in some ways I became even more selfish because I got to provide for my kid. I got to make things easier for her. I want to make sure. And also I get very selfish of like, I know I don't want to go do this shit. I want to hang out with her. Like I want, you know, I've turned, I turned down.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Turned on a very specific movie in a very specific TV show because they both would have required me being away For like nine months and it was during that time when she was like a year and a half old when she like every day She was growing and I'm like, I didn't I can't miss that chunk.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
the truth, but they were doing it in a world where then you know that that was the setup for, and then the press and government will also step in and hopefully try to right these wrongs. And that's completely reversed now.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
very much wanted to do, but the cost would have been missing this amazing chunk in her. And I'm not, it wasn't like it was an agonizing decision. I'm not making myself like, oh my God, I mean, no, it was just like, I'm not missing this. I'm not missing this.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You know, so, and the people who got those roles were so good that it was one of those things too where it's like, maybe that would have sucked if I'd been in it. Maybe it was good that I turned that down. So that's not, there's no regret there. But
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Stuff that I used to think, there were certain things I used to think were very important, especially about status and stuff like that, that I'm like, that doesn't fucking matter. What matters is just showing up every single day. Some days, as a parent, the day sucks. You make a shitty breakfast. Let's go do this activity. The activity doesn't quite work out. You come back. Oh, shit, the car.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
But the kid is like, I got to spend time with you. And you still showed up. And they saw you trying. And that's what matters. Just show up and try. Because some people just absolutely go, I'm not going to try. I'm not bothering you.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I met people and had experiences that changed my mind. You know, everything that you say, oh, my God, so resolutely. But you're going to meet stuff that changes your mind whether you want it to or not. And just roll with that. Yeah, I used to think that way. Now I don't think that way.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I mean, all I did was shepherd that. I mean, I handed that book over to an investigator and a journalist and go, please help me do this because I was still so wrecked. and they helped see it through. But she definitely, it was very funny, we all had a lot of laughs watching at the press conference, because she came up with the name, the Golden State Killer.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
The government just openly, people in power just openly bragging about, oh, we're absolutely breaking the laws. Do a funny joke about it to make these people feel better while we do it to them. I feel like I'm abetting them screwing people over by giving people a temporary laugh. But it's like I'm not equipped to affect policy and make change.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Before that he didn't, and this is gonna sound really sick, but another cop, this guy Paul Holes, was like, yeah, he was never given a cool name, and that does hamper investigations. If there isn't a name that lands with the public, Zodiac, Night Stalker, then sometimes these cases fade away.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
So when she came up with Golden State Killer, something very evocative and weird and creepy about that name that she came up with, that did help reopen the case. Now, obviously, yes, other investigators brought that case home. She also did suggest using familial DNA, which they ended up doing, but whatever. But it was very funny to watch them at these press conferences.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Someone was like, what about the work of Michelle McNamara? And he was like, Michelle McNamara's work had nothing to do with us catching the Golden State Killer. And we're all like... You literally just used the name that helped. Anyway, but yeah. But that was like satisfying for us to watch.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Yeah, I just, the thing that I... The thing that I wish was more, that she really wanted to be more focused on, and I'm seeing it in a lot of these, but not in all of them, is what she wanted the focus to be on was the investigators and was the victims, rather than making these serial killers have to be these dark anti-heroes. Serial killers are zilches.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
The reason that they're killing people is because they're a zilch in life. They're not contributing anything, so I'll take something. So the fact that she was able to do something to put the focus on the people that are trying to bring justice to the powerless, or the voiceless, in this case the dead, or the people that survived,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
or, you know, survive to testify and still put themselves at risk with these, because a lot of these, if you relook at the Ted Bundy case, like the way that he was treated, like, oh my God, it's so tragic, this bright young guy with a, Could have been a lawyer. He was a fucking idiot.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
He flunked out of every... But he's a good-looking white guy, and everyone's like, oh, my God, we got... And when the judge sentenced him, he's like, I feel terrible. You just took a wrong path, buddy, but I would have loved to have had you in my court. Can you imagine being one of the survivors going, what the fuck is going on here? This guy is getting all the...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You know, and his final statement was like, this is like a Greek tragedy, you know, like the wrong guy. You're like, what fucking world are we living in?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I know how to tell really good jokes, and that should be where my responsibility begins and ends. It's still a responsibility, but we've become so skewed. I don't know. I was thinking about that this morning while I was getting ready to come here. I was just like, why are we the truth? Somebody, I think they wrote on Blue Sky, like, the comedians are the last truth tellers.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I mean, one of the reasons I think we love mysteries is because at least the ones who have a solution and we can see, oh, there was a form of justice was served here because right now in our world, very blatantly and very in our face and very flagrantly, justice is not being served and evil, opportunistic, just weak justice villains are being rewarded day after day after day.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And no one seems to be willing to do anything about it. So yes, I'll take a fictional world where yes, even though evil's done, evil gets punished. People need that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I mean, I had a lot of help from other people that had gone through this, the grief group that I went to, and they just said, this is going to sound really weird, but Right now, all you feel is despair, and that's all you feel like you can feel. And then you're gonna get to a point where you go, well, I can function, and thankfully, you will be thankful for the fact that you can't feel anything.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
That will feel like a relief. And you'll go, this is how I'll exist. I can exist at this point, and that's how I was. I'm like, I'm just gonna take care of my daughter, and I don't need to feel anything. And then they said, and despite all of that, you will feel joy and hope and love again. You don't know when it's gonna happen, but when it happens, run at it. Go run at it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
It's there for a reason. There were people in my group that are like, I remarried six months after my spouse died and everyone judged me for it. And there's people going, I remarried eight years after my spouse died and everyone judged me for it. So get all that shit out of your head. It doesn't matter. You're not grieving to make them comfortable.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You're not recovering to make them feel comfortable. You have to live whatever life is being put in front of you. And I met this person. genuinely extraordinary woman that I don't think I would have realized is as extraordinary as she is if I hadn't been in love with and spent all those years with Michelle to really show me what extraordinary in a person means, you know?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
So there was almost like that was the gift from her. That was the one gift was losing her, having that torn away from me so horribly. But in a way, the tearing away burned the memory of what a truly amazing person looks and feels and acts like. And I was able to recognize it when it came around again.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I felt numb for like half a year, just nothing. And before that were a couple of months of just, you know, April, April, May, most, some of June was just, it's not pain, it's, C.S. Lewis put this so well, grief feels like terror. I was in terror 24 hours a day. I was terrified of everything. Terror. And then, so that's why I was so happy to hit numbness. And I was like, I'll live here forever.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I'll take numbness over terror. And then it just turned into meeting someone who I was not, again, I wasn't, it was just, it was a weird, we had friends in common. I didn't know who she was, but we have a friend in common, this actress, Martha Plimpton. And my wife, Meredith Salander, they've been friends since they were teenagers, you know, like acting. They were both child actors.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I'm like, we should be the first truth tellers and then eight other truth tellers pick up the, take the ball from us and run it into the end zone. And that's not happening anymore.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And so Martha would do these dinners where she would gather various people, different people just to bring them together and just have a salon. Everyone just talks and meets. And so I was invited to one and I didn't, I was traveling or something. And then Meredith like posted or she messaged me and said, you know, that was, you missed the best fucking lasagna, dude.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And then I just said, ah, story of my life. Maybe we'll go to Arby's or something. Like, just joking. And then we would just, this is all on Facebook, just messaging back and forth for like three months. Just, we never spoke on the phone, never met in person. It was just somebody at the end of the day that I could talk to in the dark, lying in bed, which is what I would do with Michelle.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
We'd just lie there and just talk in the dark and go about our day. And go over our day and go over the world. And it was just... And then that, without it becoming romantic or anything, it then became romantic. Just having someone to talk to and then it turned into... And then we finally... God, I don't, we didn't meet face to face till May 20th.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And we started talking, texting on Facebook at the end of February. And it was just, and there was a time where like, maybe we just should never meet. Let's just talk like this. And then we was like, oh no, we should meet. And then that's just how it went.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Yeah, you hide the terror in front of your kid. Your kid can't see you crying and having panic attacks. So it was very much like a performance of getting up, making sure her breakfast is made, lay out her clothes the night before, get her to school. She immediately wanted to go back to school because she wanted normalcy. I understand that. And my counselor was like,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Whatever she wants, let her lead the way. If she doesn't want to go back to school for three months, she just shouldn't go back to school. If she wants to go back Monday morning, take her back to school. So it was very much like me. And then I would drop her off at her school and then I would park on the street outside the school and just sit there until three o'clock.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
just sitting there crying or just freaking out or just listening to music and just being in terror. But like, well, this is mitigating the terror because I'm within arm's reach of her and if anything happens, they can run right in. Like for like a month, that's what I did. That was my day. I would just park and just sit.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
That the whole world was death now, that everyone I loved was going to die. that everyone I loved was gonna die, that she was gonna die, that my parents were gonna die, that my friends were gonna die.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
It just felt like if this person who was so extraordinary and so much brighter and so much more in the world than anyone else I had encountered in the world, if they could be taken away, then nobody was safe. Everything was... just teetering on a precipice, and I was powerless to stop anyone from being taken away. So that's what the terror felt like to me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
But how comforted would I have been if I believed in a loving and beneficent God and then this thing had happened? Would I have been in even more terror? Would I have been in even more existential shock and doubt? Maybe the atheism saved me. Because also, you know, Michelle's whole thing was she hated the phrase, everything happens for a reason.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
But in his defense, he kept screaming at the top of his lungs, you should not be getting your news from me. You should be watching whatever news you can, however good it is, however bad it is. It was never great. And then I should be Eric Severide who comes on after Walter Cronkite and go, here's what all this means. But I shouldn't be your source of news.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Now, she had studied and researched crime long enough to go, things happen for no frigging reason. And it was her phrase, and I said it in my special, it's chaos, be kind. And there's days where I fail at that, but try to keep reminding yourself of that and try your best to be kind in the chaos.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
A lot of my drive and, like, multi-pronged ambition went away. It was more about let's focus on just a few things that really matter to you. So I really want to get into, like, making films. I'll always do stand-up. I'm just not always the guy that's like, oh, I'll eventually stop.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And then if I'm lucky enough to get to keep acting in things, interesting things, I'll act when that comes along, but it won't be anything that I'm going to, like – pursue in that crazy way. I just like doing interesting little films. The film industry seems to be going through a very weird spasm right now, which I think is a good spasm.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I think the people that are gonna be left making truly good films are the people that actually care about it. The same thing that happened with When the boom ended in the early 90s and it was just the people that actually cared about doing comedy. So, yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I just did the Comedy Attic in Bloomington. It's one of the four best shows I've done in a long time. Loved it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Is there any way to edit that out during this? Because my God. I want to put more of them in here. It's like my interview with Doc Holliday.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
But yeah, it became the source of news and the news had to become entertaining and funny.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
yeah there's days i'm completely hopeless but and and i instead of it hopelessness is like a day that you cheat on your diet you can't throw it all away because you had one bad day like okay i had a bad day i sank there i'll show up again tomorrow with something um you it's weird you mentioned mark because i text him all the time about the state of comedy and i'm way more wound up and angry about it and he's like you just sit and
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
stew about this and make yourself get angry. He's hit this level. I wouldn't say it's despair, but it's like this, I know what I can do in the world, and I also know what I can't do in the absence make me throw the whole thing out the window. I show up and do what I can.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
What was the thing that Cory Booker, I'm sure he was paraphrasing somebody, but he said, just because you can't do everything shouldn't mean that you don't do anything. Do something. Obviously, no one can do everything. but show up, just in terms of it being a life force of like, I'm still alive and I'm still here.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
He did. An insane World War II general.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And yeah, some days I feel like Steve McQueen floating on the coconut at the end of Papillon, just, I'm still alive, you bastards. But sometimes just being alive is a victory.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I think he actually gave us longer. I think when I was in Miami, especially, that was two months after the election. I think I said, when society does collapse, and let's be honest, February, I think I gave it like two months. I mean, I had no hope at that point. He still has. I think the reason he's saying seven to eight years is because I think he wants to give himself time to,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
buy property up in Canada and get out of here, you know? Where I'm just like, I think it's just too late. We're all going to be stuck at the border trying to get out.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you want some hope, listen to Maren. Because my timeline is way harsher.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You know, he's the opposite because he, my dad was a Marine. He did three tours in Vietnam. And he, I remember him saying, I never, ever want you or your brother going to war or joining the military forces. It is. So he was, when I veered into comedy, he was very happy. He's like, you're doing good. And like, he, cause he always loved, I mean, he loved Jonathan Winters and the
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I enjoy the fact that I know, again, you can't, how do I put this? I think a lot of people in this business destroy themselves because they're like, why aren't I at this level or why aren't I this person? Why aren't I filling this arena? And they forget the fact that if you are making a living just by telling jokes, you have won. You have absolutely won life's lottery.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And so you see these people that go insane, or like, I was going to be a movie star, like I was leading a movie and it tanked. It's like, okay, then go be a character actor. Getting character actor and sidekick roles in movies is fantastic. Still 99% of people don't get to do that. So I don't know why you are eating yourself alive. Like you still get to
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You get to live a creative life that, I mean, when, again, I'm only saying this now because when I was younger, I was absolutely wound up. I was going to say, it's interesting that I would burn myself down because of that. And now I'm like 56 years old. I get to, I was, I got to do an episode of star Trek. I get to go on the road and do shows.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
My friends are all comedians or writers or creative people. My life is books and movies and cups of tea. I'm happy. I don't know why, you know, like I'm trying to be as happy as I can and then also try to give a little bit back to like, This society, this whatever you want to call it, this country has been very good to me. Why not give a little bit back because I've got something good here.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
You wake up in the morning and you open up that phone screen It's like, let me invite chaos and despair into my morning. I haven't even had, I haven't bitten a single strawberry, but I have consumed 8,000 megabytes of chaos. What kind of morning is that?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Yeah, I mean, I think that especially to younger comedians, if you are going, if you're comparing and despairing and getting on the, I kind of, and I know this is going to sound kind of mean, I think you actually have to go through that. I think you have to, like, go through the drink too much, smoke too much, realize how bad it is so that you can come out to the other side. Right.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I don't think you can fast forward wisdom. You also, and when you get older, you shouldn't white knuckle your youth. You should also accept the fact that, okay, I'm older now. I'm not the hip person. I'm maybe not, you know, no, maybe I don't have anything to, or... Yes, I have something to say to 20-year-olds, but they don't want to hear that right now. They want to be allowed.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
There's something so frustrating, especially about boomers and to a lesser extent Gen X, where we always want to go, but I'm trying to prevent you from making the mistakes. I I want to make those mistakes and I should be allowed to. So don't try to, you know, when someone is in their 50s and you're in your 20s, you're like, well, let me tell you. It's like, let me go find out for myself.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Even if I totally screwed up, can't I just go find, because you did and you're alive.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Sometimes, no. There are times when I go, would you just please, I'm telling you. But I do try to approach it from the, listen, I know exactly why you want to do this because you have to, and you're probably going to experience it anyway, even though I really, really don't want you to. But I, and I don't, I don't. But spoiler alert, this is where it'll end.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
His mother's brothers and David Letterman, all that stuff. So the fact that I went into comedy, I think, made him very, very happy.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
And I'm just telling you this is where it'll end. And I'm only saying this because I had it totally mapped out. I saw the mistakes people before me made. I'm not going to make those mistakes. And you're still going to make them. So maybe you should go make them. But I'm just letting you know, when you come out the other side of this, I'm not going to be there going, I told you so.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I'm going to be there going, welcome. Welcome to no man's land, I'm here.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Again, there's not a permanent shift. There are still days when I see something that someone is doing and I get, goddammit, and where the fuck is that guy? That will never totally go away, but my reaction to it is now different. What I used to have was just being angry and resentful and living an enemy-centered life.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Now, I still have the initial angry and resentful reaction, but I have more options of how to process it that I'm older. And I can wink and laugh at that. Oh, you could totally go down this road. There actually is some benefits to living vengefully sometimes. Especially if you're like, I'm gonna lose 30 pounds, you motherfuckers.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
Look, there have been some genuinely great things done out of vengeance. There just have been. I'm sorry. There have been great things done out of vengeance. Great art has come out of vengeance. Michelangelo's last judgment has this amazing, there's this amazing demonic figure painted with fat donkey ears and a snake around his belly.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
I went in in the summer of 88. It was, I'm sure you've experienced, everyone's experienced this, a version of this, the summer between freshman and sophomore year of college when you start to realize, oh, I need to figure my life out. I better figure out what I'm gonna do with myself. And I just started doing a bunch of different jobs. And none of them were clicking.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Patton Oswalt
He's in the lower right-hand corner of the painting, and he was, that was a guy, he was the Pope's Master of Ceremonies, and I cannot remember his name right now. Cesare or Cesuri? Anyway, he was tormenting Michelangelo while he was painting that, the Last Judgment, because he was a failed painter and a failed sculptor and very, very jealous of, Michelangelo.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
HTDE: Heckling, Yawning, and Imitating, with James Austin Johnson and Patton Oswalt
Oh, okay. Well, let's hear these.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
HTDE: Heckling, Yawning, and Imitating, with James Austin Johnson and Patton Oswalt
Okay, that could be a case of them phrasing it badly and you guys being oversensitive. Okay. That could be a guy just saying, oh, let's show by example. It almost has the tone of an elementary school teacher. But because entertainers like us are basically broken children at heart, we're super sensitive. and we lash out. I don't think that that's heckling. That doesn't feel like heckling. Okay.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
HTDE: Heckling, Yawning, and Imitating, with James Austin Johnson and Patton Oswalt
Okay.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
HTDE: Heckling, Yawning, and Imitating, with James Austin Johnson and Patton Oswalt
Okay. Yeah, that is absolutely phrased as a heckle. But let me just tell you something. A lot of people... They want to be your friend. Like, they want to already fast forward to the negging stage where friends kind of rib each other.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
HTDE: Heckling, Yawning, and Imitating, with James Austin Johnson and Patton Oswalt
So that could be somebody desperate for friendship by going, like, you guys have a clue. Come on, we're good, right? Yeah. That almost has a feeling of loneliness to me. You know, we break each other's balls. That's what we do. Come on. So... Treat them with ball-busting kindness, if that makes sense, if that's achievable.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
HTDE: Heckling, Yawning, and Imitating, with James Austin Johnson and Patton Oswalt
Oh, yeah, well, I... It's at the beginning of, I think, my third or second-to-last special. I opened with a story about how I was heckled, and the guy won. And he was absolutely right. Like, he was absolutely friggin' right, and it was, like, right near the beginning of my career. And... Here's what you have to do in those situations, okay?
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
HTDE: Heckling, Yawning, and Imitating, with James Austin Johnson and Patton Oswalt
There are going to be nights where the audience wins or the heckler wins, especially when you're starting. And the most important thing to do is to wake up the next day and go, oh, world didn't end. It didn't affect anything. I have another chance to do it tonight. You can keep trying. You can keep doing it.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
HTDE: Heckling, Yawning, and Imitating, with James Austin Johnson and Patton Oswalt
I think that's my strength and my weakness. I can end up seeing my haters point. Yeah. Also, I tell people, your hatred of me is no match for my self-loathing. Don't even try. I don't think you know what you're going up against right now.