After evacuating her home and consoling family members who lost their house in the LA fires, comedian Mo Welch acknowledges that she’s visiting Marc’s garage while still somewhere on the trauma spectrum. But she’s not a stranger to that spectrum, nor to processing it, having just made a standup special that’s also a documentary about meeting her estranged father. Mo and Marc talk about her childhood instability and the comedy path that was her salvation. 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 trauma did Mo Welch experience during the LA fires?
Lock the gate!
Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fuck nicks, what's happening? How's it going where you are? What's happening out there? Are you okay? Is everything okay by you as we head into this
final week or so of what is America and into whatever America will become that's a layer of stress at least for me and probably half of the people in the country but I hope you're okay and maybe even being happy I don't know I don't know from all that today on the show I talked to Mo Welch. She's a comic and cartoonist.
Last year she released the special Dad Jokes, which is part stand-up set, part documentary about meeting her estranged father for the first time in 20 years. The special is now on Hulu. She also co-hosts the podcast Sweethearts along with Beth Stelling. We talk a bit about the experience that we're living through, but I do know that out here it's very trying and still quite awful.
Ich habe mit einigen Leuten gesprochen, die wissen, dass sie alles verloren haben. Einige Leute, die alles verloren haben, versuchen, mir helfen zu helfen. Wir werden das weiterhin tun. And I'm grateful. I'm lucky. I'm okay. I'm safe. My house is fine. It's still scary. But I'm okay. And my heart goes out to everybody that has experienced tremendous loss here. Because this affects everyone.
Obviously the people that lost everything. It's profoundly affected and destroyed their lives. But For everybody else here, it's a very interesting thing about, what do you want to call it? Catastrophe? Overwhelming environmental disaster? Just anything where there's massive loss and a massive collective feeling of powerlessness in the face of what caused that loss. It's just fucking crazy.
Look, I was in New York Ja. Dann ging ich auf meinen Ruf und sah den Schmuck am Ende von Manhattan. Es war ein krisper, klarer Tag. Nichts war irgendwo los. Alles war auf dem Boden. Keine Autos auf der Straße, keine Flugzeuge im Luftraum. Dann ging ich zurück in mein Haus und schlug die TV an und sah den zweiten Tower fallen. Dann ging ich zurück auf den Ruf und ich war so, oh mein Gott. Und...
In that moment where your brain is trying to understand or comprehend or wrap your perception around what is happening, that is when the massive trauma kind of sets in. That moment of realization of like, fuck, nothing will ever be the same again. All those lives lost. Manhattan just incapacitated. It was fucking horrendous.
And I stayed, and my girlfriend at the time, who had been getting off the train downtown, a few blocks from the towers, got out of the subway and was in a storm of ash. Walked 40 blocks uptown, packed her bags and left New York. Only came back to leave again. That's what got us out here. That's what got me to L.A. in the first place. I stayed for quite a bit longer, for months, maybe even a...
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Chapter 2: What is the story behind Mo Welch's stand-up special, 'Dad Jokes'?
How are they doing?
Terrible. I mean, it was their dream house. Obviously, they're not, you know, they're from like Texas and Rhode Island.
Yeah, that's interesting pairing.
Yeah.
Rhode Island. Yeah. My car got stolen once in Rhode Island.
Yeah, I just performed there. And you know when you stay in cities and you're on the road and you're staying in the downtown and everyone's like, don't stay downtown. You don't want to stay downtown. You're like, this is where we're performing.
Yeah, I can walk to the venue.
So like half of the cities in America, I'm like, these are scary.
Ja, oder sie haben versucht, etwas zu machen. Und dann ist es einfach nicht so. Und jetzt, nach Covid, ist es einfach so, dass all diese neuen Unternehmen, die sie dachten, sie würden downtown retten, weg sind. Ich war nur am Freitag in Sacramento. Und es ist ein bisschen, da unten ist es ein bisschen seltsam. Und dann bin ich nach Napa gegangen und das ist alles seltsam.
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Chapter 3: How did Mo Welch's childhood shape her comedic career?
Oh, wirklich? Ja. Du kennst sie nicht? Ich meine, ich habe sie kennengelernt. Dein Wunsch führte dich nicht dazu, einen breiteren Dokumentarfilm zu machen?
Es wird der nächste sein. Ja. Über deine Vaters Familie? Es wird einfach so sein, als ob ein paar Leute Oberhauern auf ihrem Tisch sitzen.
My mom always said...
Sorry, kids. My mom said when he would leave and when he would come back, it would be harder for her. It was easier when he was gone in a lot of ways. And so it's like she had to take care of another person.
So he would come back and, but you weren't old enough to really know. There must have been like fighting, like where the fuck were you? Was he staying in touch for the two years?
I feel like my mom was like very, you know, she's like super, she was super Catholic.
Yeah.
And very like afraid of conflict. Right. And I think she was more quiet than anything. Like I don't think she was like instigating any sort of fights.
She just leaned into the suffering? Yeah. So there wasn't a lot of fighting.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Mo Welch face growing up in a chaotic family?
Ja.
Im Krankenhaus? Sie war so, oh nein. Sie war so, er war im Gefängnis, Michaela. Und ich war so, okay, also nein. Und er war trank, als du geboren wurdest. Und ich war so, okay. Und du hattest gesagt, dieser Typ, wir müssen mehr Kinder mit diesem Typ haben.
Ja, wie hat sie diese Fragen beantwortet?
23, 24.
Und dann war sie so, ich dachte nur, er würde kommen. Und ich war so, okay, das ist auf dich.
Es ist seltsam, wenn du dazu kommst, weil ich in Situationen bin, in denen du denkst, dass Leute kommen werden. Ich meine, es ist offensichtlich nicht so schlecht, aber wenn du diese Persönlichkeit hast, wo man nicht mit der Natur der Verbindlichkeit und der Tatsache ist, dass man Menschen wirklich nicht verändern kann, ohne dass sie sich verändern wollen.
Ich meine, du bist für eine Reise, solange es dauert, um dich darüber wach zu machen.
Right. Sometimes I feel like I'm waiting around on myself to change.
Yeah, no, I know. Because you feel like you go through these periods where you're like, I think I grew out of that. And then something happens, you're like, oh no, I'm the exact same. Exactly. But you can choose not to act on it. This is the best you can do. Like, I know what this is. I'm not going to fucking do it.
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Chapter 5: How does Mo Welch process her relationship with her estranged father?
No, because they have, I mean, they had like a great program.
Oh, okay.
And so we had to apply for it first.
For people that flee?
Yeah.
Okay.
And then nobody like, you can't, the building's like unmarked, obviously. It's just like a brick apartment building.
Like a hiding place.
Yeah.
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Chapter 6: What insights does Mo Welch share about resilience and trauma?
Oh yeah? Yeah. But they were 8th graders.
Yeah.
So they weren't that threatening.
Yeah, they still weren't allowed, but we were just rebels like that.
And you stayed there for 18 months? Yeah. See, isn't it interesting when social services works and people are actually taken care of?
Und wir mussten... Ich meine, wir mussten zur Behandlung gehen, also mussten wir als Kind jede Woche zur Behandlung gehen.
Und hast du... Erinnerst du dich an Freunde mit den anderen Kindern, die traumatisiert wurden?
Ich meine, es war... Zuerst war ich in der Kindergruppe, weil ich zwölf war. Ja. Und dann wurde ich gezwungen, mich bitte in die Teenage-Gruppe zu bringen. Und die Mädchen hatten es. Die Geschichten, es war wie ein ganzes Erwachsenen für mich. Weil, ich meine, sie hatten viel Trauma, aber sie waren auch schon, weißt du, sie waren sexuell. Und ich war so, wow, das ist zu viel für mich.
Genau, um 13.
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Chapter 7: How does Mo Welch find humor in her life experiences?
Right, right.
And so he was nervous.
Oh, so he's got to deal with that, right.
He was like, what's happening? Right.
So you didn't tell him when he was coming to meet you that you were going to be recording it?
Nein, er wusste es. Weil ich ein paar Freunde hatte, die das Projekt mit mir gemacht haben, die auch mit ihm in Kontakt waren. Und wir sagten, okay, wir werden dich mit dem Mikrofon aufnehmen. Und dann kommt er rein und sagt, ihr habt alle ein Bier. Und sie sind so, wir haben 7-Up.
Ich brauche den Rand für das.
Ich dachte, ich wünschte mir, dass ich einen hätte. Und dann war ich so nervös. Wir sagen, das ist die erste Frage, die ich ihm frage. Ich dachte immer, es wäre lustig, eine lustige Lüge zu mir selbst zu machen, all diese Arbeit und ihm eine dumme Frage zu fragen am Ende. Und so habe ich das gemacht. Und dann sind wir später abends in eine Bar gegangen.
Mit ihm? Ja. Okay. But you asked him the favorite color and stuff. I thought that was kind of funny.
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