So, alright, so, are we alright, me and you?

Ah, well, you know, we were under development, I think.

Don't know what the fuck is wrong with me.

Well, I mean you're the way I You're 1 of the old people have known longer than most any most anybody

I know I was thinking about it and I get real emotional about it because I come I you know I realize I've been pestering you and of course you you know me like because you didn't do the interview yeah there was some process in my mind that eventually became all right if he's not gonna fucking answer my emails you know this I understand what he's doing to me.

So I've got to sit down and say, wait, he's more busy than anybody I know.

Well, there's a couple of things going on when I don't answer your emails.

I don't answer a lot of emails if I don't have something constructive to say.

Because I am busy, I got the kids and work and stuff, and also my mind is just clouded.

So there's a lot of emails I just ignore because I don't have a really good answer

You don't want to get into a dialogue of maybe.

I also have a weird thing that I've noticed recently that if somebody emails me I don't want to answer them right away because I don't want to start talking to them.

Yeah, so you know that if you answer right away, they know you just got it and they know you're alive.

I'll answer this guy in a couple hours and then I forget.

But also, our friendship faded away at some point, and I had time when I was writing you emails to connect with you personally, And you ignored me.

And I would write emails that said, I'm not sure why you're not writing me back, but I'm gonna persist, because our friendship goes back far enough.

I I caught you on the phone and you said that You felt like when we talk it's just about me and I don't really listen to you that I'm very self-centered right, and I took that to heart, but I also thought well I Felt like it was unfair and so when I try and I and after that I tried still to pursue you, you didn't wanna talk to me.

So in this round, when you were trying to get me to be on your podcast,

trying to connect with me, part of me was going, fuck him, I don't, if he doesn't wanna be my friend, I'm not gonna.

Yeah, but it didn't make us start connecting.

No, but What happens to me is that my friendship with you, like for some reason over the years, despite however much distance or whether or not we see each other, whatever our lives have happened, I feel very close to you as a friend.

I remember, we don't talk that much, but for some reason we connect as friends pretty deeply.

And then when you were having trouble and your marriage was coming apart, there was this point where when I finally sort of said, well, what's going on?

I had this whole idea of how your life had transpired and what was going on in your life and I hadn't really been in touch with you at all.

And then when he told me what was really going on, I was like, holy shit, how did I miss your entire life?

And then I started to realize, because this happens a lot on the podcast, that we all know each other in a very sort of intimate, deep way because of what we do, and because we are of the common ilk of comic is a comic.

And there is a weird emotional understanding that we all have.

But we don't know each other's fucking life.

And then I got very saddened by the fact that I'd been out of your life and there was no way for us to keep in touch and then I don't know something resentment happened who the fuck knows yeah but I think that it's sometimes when we're you know when you just when you don't see someone a lot you just sort of hold them to who they were when you did know them really well like yeah that guy must be the same guy

Yeah I think that's true and I mean that we started out together so.

We did in some in a weird way because I was thinking the first time I ever saw you period I was in Boston probably 1986.

I was living in Los Angeles and doing all those drugs and I was sitting at Play It Again Sam's with Kevin Knox.

You just had all your hair and it was red and you were skinny.

And I said to Kevin, I said, who's that guy?

really, but no, the first time I saw you was at Catch and...

But like, you didn't know me, I didn't know you then, but I remember...

I didn't know you And I didn't like you on stage the first time I saw you.

And you were also very, you were in a lot of turmoil.

I think you were just coming out of all this sort of Sam Kinison Coke business.

So you were very, You exuded a huge amount of insecurity and craziness.

And then I met you and then David Cross I think said, I'm going to hang out with this guy.

You want to come with me?" And he told me it was you.

So then we went to the Coffee Connection.

You were working, which is now Starbucks.

It was a pile of fucking cups and saucers and you're washing them with a big hangover the sink spigot

You were really working hard and it was a very humbling moment in your life.

And you're like, oh, I got a break in a few minutes.

And I immediately liked you because of that moment.

That humbling moment made me like you a lot.

And it was interesting to watch you go from being this kind of LA, long hair, kinesin pack, coked up guy.

I watched you break that down and I watched you start talking about who you were instead of doing your bits as that guy.

I started watching you humiliate yourself more on stage, which is a good, I mean, in a good way.

You had a huge humility wave that started coming in and I've always, that's, I think that's always been your progress has been like, taking away more and more layers, taking away more of your defenses away from yourself?

I think when I first met you, the first time I knew who you were, here's what I remember.

When I'm sitting there trying to think about how am I going to talk to you without getting emotional and also cover the great things you're doing now without getting emotional or resentful or crazy?

The first time I had any idea of really who you were, I went to pick up Grant Taylor at the house you were living in with him.

And I went to pick him up to go to a one-nighter.

I walked into the house and he's getting ready to go and there's a room and the door is open and there's just a light, There's a mattress on the floor and there's just food and clothing and piles everywhere.

That's Louie and you sort of remained that guy for a while no matter how nice the apartment was.

That was the amazing, there are certain things I remember very definitely.

Like I remember the apartment, it all revolves around the apartments, I remember the apartment over the Village Gate in the atrium.

And like going over to that apartment at some point I think you had torn a hole in the wall.

I used a wall of my apartment as a phone book.

Like I wrote all my phone numbers and stuff and dates.

And then again, there were the clothes all over.

No, and also I remember there was 1 detail of that apartment on Bleaker Street was that I dropped a bottle of hot sauce 1 day, like a bottle of Tabasco, and it shattered on the floor.

was just an area of my apartment I didn't go near after a while

But this sort of it's something there's something weird about that whole thing that defined you.

Even when you got the nicer apartment in Chelsea.

Right, there was a couple of, I think, defining moments outside of, and you had that Murphy bed in Bleaker Street.

I just remember that you were this guy that came from where you did, you didn't go to college, you're from Newton, and you started out really young, and you were like building your brain.

Like you had this weird, I remember everything, you don't know that I was with you in a couple of severely life changing moments.

I was with you when we went to fucking Blockbuster and you got that copy of Putney Slope.

That's really funny that you tell me that because I remember it.

Yeah, because I just bought a VCR for the first time.

Right, and we were just going to rent a movie.

I can't rent movies because I didn't have a credit card at the time.

I bought them, it was the only thing that was for sale that wasn't like a Barney video or something.

And I remember you didn't know what it was.

it changed your entire perception of movie making.

It just made me think you can do anything you want even if it doesn't make any sense.

What I didn't understand was that just because Putney Swope existed in a shrink-wrap box, it doesn't mean that you can go do that.

I just thought any movie that was got made and that has a package is like a lamp in the distance.

No, but I'm really glad that was my first big inspiration.

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Marc Maron's WTF Podcast with Louis CK