Comedian Liza Treyger is frequently mystified by human behavior. Why are people so mean when leaving internet comments? Why do adults continuously repeat the patterns of children? Why are friendships so hard to maintain later in life? She asks these questions as a sociology major but also as a comic, and was recently able to explore these ideas in her first Netflix special. Liza and Marc talk about these issues, as well as Liza’s path to comedy, which included many crash courses she didn’t anticipate. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What insights does Liza Treyger share about human behavior?
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And then when you're ready to go live, use offer code WTF to save 10% off today. Yes, Squarespace. Let's do the show. Fuck! So great. I've met her a long time ago. I didn't really register her for a long time, but I knew she was around. And then I just saw her. It's one of these things that happens to me with young comics.
I watched some of her specials and I was like, holy fuck, why am I not talking to this person? She's hilarious. She has a special on Netflix called Lisa Traeger, Night Owl. She's also on the Netflix series Survival of the Thickest. But it's funny, I've done a couple of these interviews lately with these kind of bombastic Jewish female comedians and they just kill me.
Actually, Jessica Curzon will be on Thursday's show. So it's a big week. Untertitelung des ZDF, 2020 I'm at the Vermont Comedy Club for two shows on Monday, May 5th, and one show on Tuesday, May 6th. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I'll be at the Music Hall on Wednesday, May 7th, and then I'm in Brooklyn for my HBO special taping at the Bam Harvey Theater on May 10th. Two shows there.
Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all my dates and links to tickets. Had something odd happen to me the other day, kind of. Odd and retro at the same time. You know, we do this bonus material and we did an Ask Mark Anything and you know, people send in questions and I answer them. And somebody asked me, what are my favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd deep cuts? Someone's been listening.
I have this weird thing where I guess I have a fairly broad personality in some ways. I mean, you can pigeonhole me. Cranky guy or neurotic guy or angry guy. Whatever box you want to put me in, you can put me in there. But those of you who listen to this know that it's a pretty big fucking box. And there's not much of a lid on it. And, you know, there were periods in my life that were kind of...
Do I want the word anachronistic? But I don't think they're unlike some other people. You know, because of my proximity to the college when I was growing up and working at a restaurant across from the college and because of my fundamentally kind of New Mexico towny upbringing, you know, I've got many worlds in me. You know, I've got Leonard Skinner and I've got Brian Eno.
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Chapter 2: Why are friendships challenging as we grow older?
Someone asked me also about my favorite poem. I should have thrown this one in there. I chose... William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow. Because that one's succinct. That's the one I go back to in my head. But Song of Myself. Come on, Whitman. Here's the line. Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes. That's right, man. I can do it.
Skinner and Eno. Equal space. Equal space. But anyway, my point was being that we had another one of these horrendous school shootings and actually a fan of mine's daughter was there and I got a DM through Instagram and it's fucking horrendous that they continue to happen and the only reaction from the political forces in control ist, dass diese Dinge passieren.
Menschen töten Menschen, nicht Waffen. Und die Logik davon ist verrückt und zerstörernd. But this argument's been going on. It shouldn't even be an argument, but this position has been going on forever, no matter how many kids die. And it's fucking heinous. And it's like a perfect example of the disease that is killing America.
But the odd thing is, so I'm listening to, someone sent me a song list of the Skinner songs. that I chose, and one of them was Saturday Night Special. And it's on the album Nothing Fancy. And it's about a 38 Special. It's about a gun. And it's really... An Anti-Gun-Song. It's about a handgun, the 38th Special. And there's several stories within it about people getting shot with them.
And the chorus is Mr. Saturday Night Special got a barrel that's blue and cold. That ain't good for nothing but putting men six feet in a hole. So good lyric. But I would consider that an anti-gun position. by one of the seminal southern rock bands. And you kind of associate the south with, you know, the sort of cold dead hands thing. Can't take my gun away.
So I was having this moment where everything came together for me and I hadn't listened to the song in a while. Even when I chose it, I didn't think of it as an anti-gun anthem. But I listened to it again and I'm like, holy shit, this is an anti-gun song by some real rebel southern rock guys. And I was kind of like, wow, that was ballsy. Back then maybe, right?
You would think so, that these guys of that ilk would do an anti-gun anthem. But what's very interesting is that at the end of the song, it kind of, so the last couple of verses, handguns are made for killing. They ain't no good for nothing else. And if you like to drink your whiskey, you might even shoot yourself. Heavy, right? But true.
And then the last verse is, before the chorus is, so why don't we dump them, people? Oh, oh, wow, I misread it. Oh, good. Well, that makes me feel better. Oh, my God. I had this big point and it doesn't even matter. The last verse is, so why don't we dump them, people, to the bottom of the sea before some old fool come around here and want to shoot either you or me.
It's anti-gun all the way through. But I thought the last verse was, why don't we dump all people to the bottom of the sea? And I was like, holy shit, that's how deep that amendment runs. Is that the solution on the level of this band, of these representatives of the American South, is that why don't we get rid of all the people so the guns can live free of us? But I misread it. I don't know.
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Chapter 3: How does Liza Treyger navigate her experiences in comedy?
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You must be an active subscriber to receive the free dessert. You hear me? All right, well, that was a tremendously funny misread of a anti-gun anthem, which turns out it was. Here I thought it was, but there was a caveat. That at the end, you don't mess with the Constitution, you just get rid of all humans. My brain worked with that for a while.
I thought it was very telling, but it was also very wrong, having read the lyrics right here in front of you. Alright, so I'll give you an update on Charles. You know, I think it also should be noted, if you'd like to note it, I noted it, that one of the things that made me... realized that I was okay at this, at being on these kind of microphones, was at Air America. I was put together to try to
Stop, a second Bush II term, a second W term. And the politics of that time were dire as well. Not as dire as now, but seemingly they were, because they were as dire as they could have gotten. But we didn't anticipate they'd get more dire. But that's besides the point. But the truth is, is that during that time, We were doing political comedy and we were doing political news and political talk.
But I was also sort of developing my own voice on these microphones. And so much of it was built on cats. So much of it was built on cats. I rescued five feral cats, kittens, from my back alley in Queens. And the narrative of that is what really kind of gave me a voice. These fucking cats. And also it was a nice reprieve for people. During that time, the story of these cats.
So here we are with another episode of where's Charlie at? What's Charlie doing? What the fuck is wrong with Charlie? Well, I can't answer that question. But the struggle for me around medicating Charlie has sort of resolved itself. He's been off the Prozac now for almost a week. And he's back to himself and I couldn't be happier.
Yes, he's still running around beating up on Buster and sometimes on Sammy, but I will accept that. It's the behavior that I'm worried about when I'm away, but I'm going to try something different with that. Something less... permanent, you know, maybe some Gabapentin or this other stuff. You know, some people recommend, you know, CBD. Other people recommend Felway Aromatizers.
I got them all over the house, the Felways. And despite how they work for your cats, they don't work for mine. I didn't think they would. But I've had them on for, you know, over a week, two weeks here. And CBD, I don't know. I might go Gabapentin. But the point is, what a relief in my heart and mind, and for Charlie as well, that I took him off this Prozac.
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Chapter 4: What are Liza's thoughts on internet comments?
And it was making me sad. So... I took him off and he's back. He's just the same guy he was. Very engaged, very excited, very intrusive, a little bit crazy, maybe a lot crazy. But he's not even three yet. That was the other factor. Like, what am I doing to this guy? So I'm thrilled to have him back. And I try to get in the way of him fucking with the other cats.
And I've decided to get him more enrichments. More enrichment. I didn't know that word, enrichments, until I went to the North Carolina Tiger Rescue. They have enrichments for the tigers in the form of tires. I didn't get Charlie a tire hanging from a rope. It's not quite big enough for that. But I'm looking at cat trees, people.
You know, people who have a nice house or enjoy the decoration or the decor of their house, eventually, if you have cats, you let go of a couch, you let go of some chairs, you'll put up with some stink, you'll put up with some things, some vomit, you know, you'll sacrifice furniture, you'll make exceptions.
But the step to cat tree is a big one, because then you're just giving your house to the cats. They have it anyway, but if it's a big enough house or there's enough space, you can spread it out a little bit. But once you dump one of those big, ugly cat trees, and there may be nice looking ones, but let's be honest, it is what it is.
Once you dump one of those giant cat trees into a room, not your house anymore, pal. Nope, you've given in and it's their house. And that's where I'm at. I'm on the precipice of buying a hideous Cat Tree because maybe Charlie with a little more enrichment will settle the fuck down and stop beating up on Buster. But that might just go on for a while. Anyway, that is what's going on.
That is what's going on right now. Looking at Cat Trees, Charlie's Charlie again. Guess I should give you the update of my parents. They're both hanging in. Thought I'd give you an update. Talked to my dad. Still knows who I am. We have conversations that are limited to the several hours of memory that he has. Or a memory of the several hours before I talked to him. But it's okay. My mom's okay.
Okay, yeah. Yeah, the conversations with my mom are like, how you doing, mom? All right, how are you? I'm good, what's going on? Well, nothing. What about you, Mark? Well, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. Okay. Yeah, so nothing, you're not doing anything fun? I don't know. Not really. Okay, well, I guess that's it. I love you. But that's fine. Maybe I should call her after I do this.
Just to have that conversation again this week. Alright, so look. Lisa Trager, this was great. It was a great comic talk. It was a great funny talk. I love her. Her Netflix series, Survival of the Thickest, is now streaming. She's got a special on Netflix called Night Owl. This is me talking to Lisa Trager.
Hi, Backmarket hier. Die mit der erneuerten Technik, die dich weniger kostet. Wie dieses Handy. Es kann alles, was Handys halt können. Nicht nur diesen nervigen Spam-Anruf ignorieren. Es kann texten, anrufen, chatten, snoozen, liken, entliken. Einfach alles, was ein brandneues Handy kann. Aber das hier ist deutlich günstiger. Denn es ist nicht neu. Es ist von Profis auf Herz und Nieren geprüft.
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Chapter 5: How does Liza's upbringing influence her comedy?
Deine Katze ist 17. Ja. Ja, das ist ungefähr die Zeit, wo sie startet zu sterben.
Ja, sie hat eine gute Leben.
Ja? Hast du sie seit der Kindheit?
Zwei, seit sie zwei war.
Oh, wirklich? Ja.
In New York?
Nein, in Chicago, in den Städten, in Skokie.
Ich war nur in Skokie. Ich weiß, Ali hat mich getextet, aber ihr seid in der Stadt geblieben. Ich habe ihr alle meine Racks gesendet, aber warum würdest du in Skokie bleiben?
Ja. Ja. Ja.
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Chapter 6: What does Liza say about mental health and therapy?
I knew that.
And then when I was a kid, the KKK would come.
Oh, really?
And then there was also a hate crime killer.
Was there a family outing when the KKK came?
No, but we talked about it a lot in school. And like, you know, freedom of speech. We had to talk about it all the time because the KKK would come. Just because of the Jews. Yeah, but it was also really diverse, like a lot of Pacific Islanders, Indian people, Assyrians, like it was really a diverse place, but I'm assuming it was still for the Jews.
I wonder, like, because when you go into a place for a night, I had no sense of anything there.
Yeah, because it's just like a suburb.
Yeah, is it just a suburb? Well, it's the biggest village in the world. The biggest village.
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Chapter 7: How does Liza balance her comedic style and personal experiences?
Aber deine Eltern sind nicht von hierher?
Nein, ich wurde in der ehemaligen Sowjetunion geboren, in der heutigen Ukraine. Und dann kamen wir, als ich drei war.
Ja, also waren sie Teil davon, wie die Juden gehen? Wie die Eltern von Eugene Mermin aus?
Also, ich war einmal im Hyatt-Lobby von JFL. Und wir hatten Mutuals, also waren wir im selben kleinen Lounge-Bereich. Und ich war so, oh mein Gott, weißt du, ich weiß über... Und er sagt, oh, wir werden das nicht jetzt machen. Und ich war sicher, sicher, mein Schmerz. Und so hat er nicht gehofft.
He didn't want to connect on the Jewish expulsion from Russia to parents? No, he didn't. But how did that work? Do you know how it worked?
Yeah, it was like the Jewish United Fund and the government. Because in Fran Lebowitz's documentary, Public Speaking, she talks about how there was like a giant meet, like protests in Washington and everyone talking and people like bring us here. And so I'm not, I don't know, but we had like a volunteer family in Chicago and they would teach us how to be American, got my mom a job. Really?
As a Jew? Really? Die Konflikte sind jetzt mit Russland und der Ukraine passiert. Wir haben darüber gesprochen, weil ich nur Russisch spreche. Ich bin für die Ukraine, aber die Ukrainer wollen nicht mehr Russisch sprechen, was fair ist.
Ist es eine ukrainische Sprache?
Ja, das war wie geforstet, weil das war das ganze Ding, wie jeder Russisch sprechen musste.
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Chapter 8: What does Liza think about societal expectations for women?
Es ist seine eigene Sache, aber sie klingen alle ähnlich. Aber ich verstehe nicht ukrainisch oder so etwas. Aber ich hatte einen ukrainischen Tattoo-Artist, der sagte, ich werde nie mehr Russisch sprechen. Es gab einen russischsprachigen Arzt. Sie sagt, viele meiner Patienten wollen nicht mehr Russisch sprechen.
Können sie Englisch sprechen?
Ja, es ist verrückt. My dad was 50 when I was born.
That's crazy. Do you have other siblings?
My sister is 10 years older than me.
Oh, so he's 40, which is no youngster. No. Yeah. And do they still speak Russian? Only.
Yeah, my dad's, it's broken English. And then my mom, when she worked, was in an office. But now they like.
They just speak Russian?
Yeah, they go to Costco. They'll like, they can talk, they can go to HomeGoods.
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