Standup Comedy "Your Host and MC"

Mack Dryden Comedy Writer Show #158

May 21, 2023 Scott Edwards Season 4 Episode 158
Standup Comedy "Your Host and MC"
Mack Dryden Comedy Writer Show #158
Standup Comedy "Your Host and MC" + "Bonus" Shows
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Show Notes Transcript

On this show we chat with comic Mack Dryden, who used to be part of the very successful comedy team of "Mack & Jamie". In this conversation, Mack shares his history as a writer and what it has meant to his professional life. From newspaper columnist and reporter and standup comedy to book author and speech writer, mack shares all his secrets and a couple funny stories!

Hosted by R. Scott Edwards

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Announcer:

This is another episode of stand up comedy, your host and emcee, celebrating 40 plus years on the fringe of show business stories, interviews and comedy sets from the famous and not so famous. Here's your host and MC. Scott at words,

Scott Edwards:

ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the podcast. And you know, we've been trying to explore some of the different areas that lead up to and included in stand up comedy. And one of those is comedy writing one of the most important aspects of being a comic entertainer. And today on the podcast, we have somebody that's just brilliant when it comes to writing. He went from columnists to comedy, which included television, and author to public speaker, ladies and gentlemen, my good friend, Mack Dryden.

Mack Dryden:

Thank you, Scott. Oh, thank you for that. Oh, I'm humbled by that applause. Thank you.

Scott Edwards:

Well, you're in the heart of Kentucky, and you are a very successful author. You're a public speaker, you spent a much of your career as a comedy performer on the comedy team of Mack and Jamie. And if you guys get a chance, go back and listen to some of the early interviews with Mack Azuz with his partner Jamie, our craft, but you got your start as a columnist. Can you share with the audience how you kind of became a writer in in? How did that start off? We just good in English class?

Unknown:

Well, I yeah, I was always drawn to it. And I was always kind of a funny guy. I had a very funny dad. And he just it just rubbed off off on the three boys he had. And from the start in school, you know, I was kind of, and I would write funny stuff for the the school paper and funny poems and all that it was just in my blood. I don't know. Yeah.

Scott Edwards:

So you were writing that early on? Are we talking High School?

Unknown:

We're talking earlier than that, like, celebrate seventh grade?

Scott Edwards:

Yeah. I mean, a lot of people are still learning how to write and you're already putting together articles that people could comprehend. That's amazing.

Unknown:

Well, yeah, I was a little bit of an outlier, because I was in school in Mississippi, which is not known for his scholastic achievement. Though, even though we have some of the greatest writers in history, William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, and all that the joke is that more Mississippians right than read. But anyway, so I,

Scott Edwards:

I hadn't heard that. But that's interesting.

Mack Dryden:

Yeah, yeah. Whole bunch of Mary Hannah. I mean, I could go on. But Willie Morris, but yeah, I always had an interest in writing. And it just tickled me to death when I could take a lot of people to death just by looking at something on a sheet of paper that I had written that was just kind of a magical superpower to me. The first job I actually had, as a writer, I was able to meet Piper reporter van in Biloxi for a couple of years. And, but of course, I had to keep my hand in it. So I also drew the occasional cartoon to accompany a feature story. And I would sometimes write a humorous column. And that was, I was able to scratch that itch that comedy is because I didn't know back then I was in my early 20s, mid 20s, that you could make a living in comedy because I was from Mississippi, we didn't have comedy clubs. I moved to Key West and met Jamie, we put on some shows down there that were very successful. And I, you know, it's just the fact that I was the writer of the to Jamie was an outstanding improv performer, impressionist and all these kinds of things, but he, he just, it wasn't in him to sit down with a blank sheet of paper and put words on it, you know, and that's, that was how I kind of Excel. And in fact, he had to basically drag me kicking and screaming on the stage. We're not ready. We're having all it'll be fine. He was that kind of performer. You probably remember that.

Scott Edwards:

Yeah, he's a very strong personality, always upbeat. But I think if you don't mind me saying, Mac, I think you jumped ahead a little bit. I wanted to dive into a little bit more. It sounds like your foundation as a writer came from those early days of high school and being a columnist. What, how did you pick the topics? I mean, I didn't know you did cartooning as well, because then you have to also be a bit of a graphic artist. But was it were you already at an early stage? He's writing about what was funny in your school or what was funny in your neighborhood or town? Or were you already seeing kind of the funny in life? Do you remember how that came along?

Unknown:

Yeah, it was not that early, you know, I didn't have that many outlets to actually do anything with my comedy writing. It was, you know, I did reporting a lot for school paper and all that other stuff. I would sneak in a comedy column every once in a while. I remember in high school writing one about the table manners in our cafeteria. And that got to hoop title, what was it chump, slurp Bert, I believe was the title of

Scott Edwards:

slurp and verb for that. Yeah, sounds like Hi. So cafeteria. So I

Mack Dryden:

got, I got into college, I went to Ole Miss, and then University of Southern Mississippi. And, and I actually did have a fairly regular column in the school paper there. And it was strictly comedy. And I just loved it and got, you know, I got some feedback that kind of gave me that, that rush you get, but I wasn't performing yet.

Scott Edwards:

Right. And we're getting a little reinforcement, a little support. Where are you? I think maybe I was a little too vague on the question. Were you writing about? What was funny in life? Or was it? Did people bring you topics? How did you find your subject matter? For this kind of early stage comedy writing?

Unknown:

Well, it's the same thing as I do now, which is to find the shared experience. And it must Point High School, we all ate in the cafeteria. And so I wrote about things that everybody who would be reading the paper could relate to, you know, I wasn't going to go off and some talk about Brazilian lizards or something I was going to talk about what people related to and, and I would throw in, you know, I couldn't name names, if I embarrassed people. But I could talk about individual teachers, if I teased them gently. And it was not an embarrassment, things like that. Then, well, I am going to move forward because I moved to Key West after I was a newspaper reporter in Mississippi. And that's where I met Jamie, where we put on the shows. And again, it was shared experience. I put on a I wrote a basically a Saturday Night Live sketch show based on the weirdness of Keywest. And you've been down there haven't just got

Scott Edwards:

no, oh, you haven't Well, had family have lived there and told me some of the unique aspects of Key West. So you have this foundation of writing and writing about your immediate atmosphere that you're living in, in the in, like you said, the shared experience of the people around you. And that carried you through high school and college. And when you get to Key West, and you meet Jamie, you're already thinking about you're in this new environment. It's a whole new subject matter. And you're off and running, writing about that already.

Unknown:

Absolutely. Because, well, first, the first thing I did to make some money down there, I drew a Yeah, I was I did graphics, I drew cartoons mostly. And I created a cartoon calendar. And it was, you know, satirizing the Keywest experience, which was easy to do, all you had to do was walk down the street and see the characters. And it was quite a mixture. It was the Cubans, the hippies, the art people, the gays, the drug dealers, I mean, it was just it was a wash with character pirates.

Scott Edwards:

And when there's some people that have money down there, I mean, it's not a cheap place to live. So no, absolutely. So you got a mixture of different types of people. And you were able to see and then express through your writing, the the lifestyles all being mixed in that kind of gumbo of life.

Unknown:

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, and of course, everybody who was going to see this show on we put on shows in the theater, everybody was from Key West. I mean, it's only five miles long and free now five, and that 20,000 People back then anyway, and so I was speaking directly to them. They walked off the street park their bikes locked him up and walked inside and then saw Keywest reflected to them in an exaggerated and satirical way. For example, there they've got what tako Palmetto bugs which are these huge roaches, tropical roaches that are bad I don't know how does that as long as matchbook, you know the big thing. And I had a saint's there's make me a costume and I've been became a man sighs, Palmetto bug, and infested Jamie's apartment. And, you know, stuff like that.

Scott Edwards:

So are you. I'm just interjecting NASA question. Were you. You were already with Jamie at this point. Was this a you said you were doing some theater? Was it a kind of a play? You were writing the whole script for both for multiple characters. You transition from being a columnist to being a script writer at this point?

Mack Dryden:

Yeah, sketch writer, I would call it. But yeah, I cast it. And, you know, told people who are going to have auditions and we had a cast of about, I would guess, maybe 10 people, 12 people who played multiple characters, just like on Saturday night, live, of course, and make costumes and all that. Jamie was a was a stand up comic, in Key West at that time, and that's why I hooked up with him. And he was the best stand up comedian in Key West being the only stand up comedian and keyword. But that's not to take away from his not not to diminish his talent happened to be the truth.

Scott Edwards:

Proud crown to wear. That's interesting. Great.

Unknown:

So actually, we weren't a comedy team. We were just we were just working together because he was the he was the I left him wasn't noticed the station. But he was on a radio station part time. And I think we told you this story. And I wanted to do this show. And I left him a note and said, You're one of the funniest man in Key West. I'm the other one. Let's get together. And we did. And the rest is history. But we did three shows, I think, in the theater and Key West before we started putting the act together and started driving twice a week of Fort Lauderdale to appear on the comics at the comic strip. And that's where the Act came from. But

Scott Edwards:

was it anyway, interesting, though, because one of the reasons I wanted to chat with you, Mack is that you are such a prolific writer. But even I, as your friend wasn't aware of this transition from columnists to skit writing to you know, and you start working with on these theater pieces. And then you you guys kind of formed a comedy team. And you said, the rest is history. But just to make sure the audience understands Mack and Jamie has to be one of the premier comedy teams of the 80s 90s. And into the 2000s. You guys started off as pretty quickly moving into headlining gigs, toured all over the world doing as one of the top comedy teams, and actually ended up with their own TV show called comedy break. But the transition from being a calmness to being a skit writer to going into stand up comedy. You mentioned that Jamie had to kind of drag you on stage, as I know, because we're friends, you're kind of more of an actor and you were a writer and then you kind of started acting was a stand up comedy a tough transition, or did it comes pretty easy for you.

Mack Dryden:

Oh, no, no, it was hard. I had been able to hide behind roles. The I did some acting and other plays in Key West. I was I was Ernst Ludwig in Cabaret, among others, but I was able to hide behind that script that somebody famous wrote, and then when it got to me, but what hooked me on going for stand up, I think was that when we did these sketch shows satirizing Keywest, the first time I went on stage, and perform something I had written and heard other people perform something that I had written and getting howls of laughter. That was like a drug. To me. It was like, oh, boy, I want to do a lot of this. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life that somebody will pay me for it. And you know, as it happened, I was able to, to improve and to turn that into a lifetime career. I've been doing it for over 40 years now.

Scott Edwards:

And I just think it's so great that you went from being a columnist where you kind of heard that people enjoyed your your comedy writing to what every comic entertainer will tell you is that addictive feeling of adrenaline and joy when you're on stage and you get that immediate reaction to something you're doing. It really is a special feeling, isn't it?

Unknown:

Oh, it absolutely yes. No. mean, immediate satisfaction and reward. And you know, when you're doing well, and you know, when you're not immediately to, you know, you've thrown those bricks before that you think it's gonna be so funny and, and flops with pop out of your, you know far ahead and it's like, oh my gosh, but you learn. And you know, our batting average, got better with every performance the first time we'd put, you know, six new little pieces on stage, two of them would work. The next time we put six faces on stage three out would work, and we got better and better. And then we finally got to be like nine out of 10, you know, get back just experienced, you know how that goes. You've been on stage enough to know that.

Scott Edwards:

Right? Right. And it's so true that you have to be consistent and prolific in your writing. Now you were you made it clear that Jamie is more of an actor more of a, he took naturally to improv and comedy that way. Now you're doing most of the writing, I'm sure that Jamie and you would sit down and rehearse and he would help find the funny in moments. But is this something you're doing every day, what I wanted to share with the audience is that I'm always stressing the importance of writing, and how it's the backbone of that makes stand up comedy really work. And some people have you have shared that they had to write every day. Jerry Seinfeld, Ed Solomon, there's a few people that are really good writers, but they really work at it. I feel like you're that way.

Unknown:

Well, if I'm not actually writing, I'm gathering ideas of practically always, since my reporter days, have kept a little notebook and a pen on my person at all times. Because something will occur to me and I think, oh, man, that'd be a great premise for a bit. Let me write that down. Because if I don't, and I'll just say, Oh, I'll remember that I won't, I'll forget what was that? I was walking through the mall, and I passed the shoe store. And oh, that was funny. But and so if you don't write it down, so that that is a major part of the creative process, for me, anyway, is, is just recognizing things out there in the world, that everybody, you know, everybody goes to the mall, everybody stops at the gas station, everybody stays in a hotel. I mean, it's just, it's those shared experiences that, you know, Seinfeld is just a master at I mean, he can make a five minute bet on losing a sock and a washing machine, you know, it takes work.

Scott Edwards:

I think it's interesting that you use the term reporting. And I think that's exactly what it is, I think stand up comics in a way, are reporting to the audience, about life around us. And in the fact that you took your skills as a writer and a reporter for or, you know, columnist, and mix that with comedy. You know, I mean, you took that process that you learned is a younger writer. And when you came into comedy, that really made it easier because you both of us know stand up comics that really struggled to write that they love to perform, but it's difficult for them to sit down with a pen and paper and figure out what they're going to say. And a lot of them like Robin Williams would would prefer to just wing it and use that Rolodex in their head. But most stand up comics need to learn to write and it's it's a challenge. And for you, it felt very natural. And you had a process you developed that process, being like a reporter, noting the funny in life. Anyway, to expand on that is it? Is it what makes something funny?

Mack Dryden:

Oh, boy, I forgotten. Maybe you can think you're in the we're in the comedy business so long. There was some comedian and I'm sorry, I forgotten who it was who said that? comedians have a third eye. They see that funny and thing. And I think that, that it's true. People have asked me many times can you teach somebody to be funny? I think the short answer to that is no. You can't teach them to be funny. He can coach them how to develop habits and one of them is like you're talking about keep those antenna up and if you see something that you think People will relate to. And you know, we there's the, that, that moment when you, I mean I've got a bit in my Acworth alphabet and I'm in hotels a lot because of the corporate thing and say Oh, I love my room that knew it was fancy place when I walked in my room and saw that $7 bottle of water in there for my convenience. Thank you that must be a real hassle for them to keeping up with the accounting and everything so for their convenience, I drank mine and filled it back up in the sink. And people get a good you know, yeah 70 bucks for a beverage if I don't get a buzz, I ain't paying you know, and it's that kind of thing where everybody has gone into that not everybody but most people have gone into that hotel and they got water for sale sale and you're in your room and it just it kind of rankles you know I want to drink a water I don't want to pay somebody but and and so you keep your those that antenna up all the time and take that note because boy, for me anyway and evaporates as soon as I walk through the door if I don't write it down. In talking about reporting, by the way, I actually used I combined my journalistic skills with my comedy skills. And I used to write a ton of satirical news stories. And I did that on a couple of shows on Comedy break. For one thing we have a little news breakdown, but we couldn't do much topical stuff but I just ran across one from way back I got it in front of me. Soviet leader Boris Yeltsin has called for a higher tax on vodka to try to do something about Russia was drinking problem. He said he decided to do something about it when the last big military parade and Red Square turned into a conga line. A jury awarded the Food Lion supermarket chain five and a half million dollars in that lawsuit against ABC saying the network use the illegal means to videotape rattling off cheese and unsafe food handling. So ABC was forced to eat a little crow, which at Food Lion is marked Cornish in. So anyway.

Scott Edwards:

So that's it a lot of reading.

Mack Dryden:

Thank you. And as you can see, I've got the journalistic thing down, I wrote, you know, hundreds of news stories. So and I got a I got a degree in Journalism at Ole Miss. Oh, cool.

Scott Edwards:

Well, yeah. Now, of course, most comics don't have a degree in journalism. And it really is, you have to put out the effort and dedication to write each and every day. Now, Mack and Jamie was an incredibly successful comedy team, we've picked up that you did most of the writing. And Jamie was able to augment and make bring it together on stage and really make it work. After that you became an author, you've written a couple books, and you're a public speaker, which is a different kind of writing when can you explain the difference between comedy writing and writing as as a speaker

Unknown:

tell you there's not much difference in my case, because I'm I have basically made our living for the last 15 years as a humorous, motivational speaker. For those of you who don't know my background, I'm a two time cancer survivor and I get a ton of laughs with that would you believe I spent a little time in a Moroccan prison. I survived a near fatal marriage and the the sharks of showbiz and all that and I pull all of that together, it's best left to the top hilarious guide to achieving your goals because I've done a lot of I've achieved a lot of different goals in my life particularly for a kid who grew up in a paper mill family in a town a small town in Mississippi went to the tonight show had my own show on television performed all over the world and and so I made a seven step guide to achieving your goals. But I just make made it as funny as possible and it changes all the time of course I'm but I've got this basic outline. And I use PowerPoint funny pictures and all that kind of stuff. But it is very much like just straight comedy writing because I do so much humor within it.

Scott Edwards:

But you take that comedy and you bring you make it poignant to the to the situation where you're able to share that you went through by the way your book on your time in a prison is amazing. And some of the other stuff you've you've helped me A write and perform with. But it's interesting because on the one point you spent most of your life writing to purely entertain people for that moment to get that immediate reaction. That's the real joy of stand up comedy. Now you're taking that comedy. And you're, you're adding some important information, you're sharing a path, you're sharing a process that helps people, by using your life's history is the basis of the foundation, making it funny, and getting across important points that could be advantageous to people. I mean, you make it sound like it was really easy, and maybe it was for you. It's not for everybody else. So I just, I just think it's fascinating that you've been able to do that. And I know you've been a huge success as a public speaker, what are the important impacts that you feel sharing really touch people? How do you take it from comedy to really, you know, a strong impression on somebody?

Mack Dryden:

Let me just clarify one thing maybe correct your little you said it was might be easy, easy for you, but not for everybody. It was not hate and it was a it was grunting it out. Boy, I mean, I work hours and hours and hours trying to trying to make that transition trying to make a point of that point. And yet, keep the keep the comedy rolling. Or keep keep the laughs rolling. And I'll just give you an example here one of the I get booked at cancer survival celebrations a lot. And it hospitals and bases, various places because I'm a bill myself as the funniest two time cancer survivor in the US. And so people, you know, that piques their interest if they're in that field, and then they go online, and they see some, some video of me doing exactly that. And I just I inspire people and put it in perspective for them, how to face their fears and all that. I'll just give you a quick little excerpt here from my speech essay when I so I felt the lump in my body where it doesn't belong. And I went to the doctor got bad news. Mr. Dryden, you have cancer and I got my breath back and said, How are we going? What are we going to do about this? He says, you're going to go into the hospital, you're going to lose the testicles, you're going to undergo 17 weeks of radiation treatment. And you're gonna pray to God. I said, wait, go back to step one. Lose what? Hold on, let's not rush into this. Because you know, you just get more personally attached to some organs than others. Like, I don't even know what my spleen feels like. I have certainly never scratched it, I can assure you that. So I did. I make jokes about my whole experience I got I got laughs from my radiation mistress. You know, I'm lying, but make it on this Glass Lab. She's drawing these Navajo rug designs on my body in my nether parts and then aiming this thermal nuclear device at me telling me it's perfectly safe. And then of course, he puts on a big lead vest and disappears into the fallout shelter. So you get the idea. I make the experience something to laugh about, even though it's, you know, there's some poignancy in there too. I talked about trying to take care of my caregivers, but I get laughs on that too. One day, I had my head in the bucket and the nurse came by and said How you doing Mr. Drive? And I said, Well, I've picked up about everything but I found my class ring. And just listening to her laugh at that made me I was taking care of her. I turned turn the tables on her she you know, she has been taking care of me well, now I'm taking care of her and making her feel better. So it's an you know, I've been doing variations on this speech for almost 20 years. So I just polish and polish and make it better all the time I tried to is it has ultimately become not as much of a public public speaking, which people have won. It's a performance just without making an analogy I perform from from the moment they say so please welcome back Dryden to thank you very much. You've been wonderful. I know where every line i mean i improv sometimes but very rarely because I want to keep that magic going. I do not want to stop that roll on and got them up. So it's it's very similar to a stand up performance since I'm performing the whole time physically, verbally I use every tool I've got every instrument that I can play up there. I did.

Scott Edwards:

Well, I think it certainly was. Yeah, it's an interesting correlation that you've just expressed that a lot of public speakers are using a PowerPoint or the reading something they wrote, and they can be kind of dry they can be. We've all heard boring speeches, and presentations, I think what's interesting is that you make it clear that much like a one man comedy show, you know, like, aka Bob Dewback, or some of the others that are out there, doing one man theater pieces, you're performing your, you've made a presentation or performance out of your speaking topic of cancer. And what that does is helps you share the information, but in a much more entertaining and engaging way. And it's been said many times by me that the key to entertainment is engaging with the audience. And you have found that magic combination of mixing the humor in life with the tragedy in life, and sharing it in such a way that it's entertaining and poignant. And I think that that's a real gift, Max. So congratulations on that. I wanted to touch on briefly that you've also in your later years, were able to take your talents, and share them. You've done some punch up work for me. I know that you've helped some other speakers with their topics and with their their talks, do you find that challenging to write for somebody else's voice?

Unknown:

Well, certainly challenging in many ways, but in another way, Scott, it's, it's so it's been a surprise to me how much I enjoy it. Like when I was working with you, I couldn't wait to get back to it, you know, I put two or three hours into something and take a break. And then one of the whole year up, I know what I could do. For whatever reason, I never before I started doing this only a couple of years ago, actively seeking out people who would like me to punch up their speeches to get some more laughs out of I had thought that I'm gonna, you know, I'm not gonna write for somebody else and let them get the laughs Jay, I want I want to get the last. But it's such a joy to, to share that and and just add my little skill that I have that that most other people just don't have. I have worked recently. I mean, you know about comedy, and you can tell a joke, and you can you can deliver a line on stage and get a laugh with it. So you're a little bit different. So for many of my other clients, although I think you'll admit that I brought some good stuff to the eye that we haven't talked about that I wanted to talk to you about what worked and what didn't. And now it's not the time,

Scott Edwards:

right. But you're right that I had a little bit of a foundation on performance. But when you're fighting for a doctor that has to give a speech at a convention, and you're just trying to help him punch up his talk, and they don't have that foundation of performance entertainment. It is a bit of a challenge, right?

Mack Dryden:

Well, it's a big challenge, because you can't really all know I have, specifically doctors, as matter of fact, I have made videos of myself delivering the line like I would do it to tell them that, you know, you cannot just do the line like this. You have to give it a little inflection a little bit of emphasis.

Scott Edwards:

Oh, that's interesting, though, man. You don't just do the writing, you can also share the performance aspect of it. I think that's yeah, I think that's brilliant. I'm sure they find that really helpful.

Unknown:

Well, I yeah, they have said that they do that they appreciate me going to the trouble setting up my little camera. But it's also in self defense. Because those words laying on that paper in front of them. Probably don't speak to them, like they speak to me. And I can see it and I can say Oh, that's great line. I know exactly how I would say that. But they look at it and say well that, you know, I didn't learn that in med school. So I don't know how to do that. But they can, you know, I can give them an idea of how even you know, I mean, it's kind of it's it's cliche, how come complex comedy is and I think you probably saw, I think, Seinfeld, it spent a couple of years getting an 11 word joke just right, it changes so many times. But it's a very delicate thing. If you don't, if you don't pause just before you say that last word that happens to be the punch word of that line or whatever. If you just run it together, it won't work. You gotta give him a moment to catch up anyway, it's things you can hardly, you just can't explain on paper, you have to show them. And that's what I did. But I must say, I've gotten really good response from people I have. Well, I, you I mean, I wrote some stuff for you, and you were pleased with it. I hope some of that work. And I've gotten good response from a woman named Melissa, she teaches scientists how to present to everyday people without putting him to sleep. And one of the lines that I did for her she, she warns them against focusing on themselves to focus on the audience and what interests them. So I gave her this, when this is her lines, and then my line. It's easy to allow our focus to be on ourselves as speakers. And we spent a lot of time thinking about what we want to accomplish, what will make us feel comfortable. For example, I know for a fact that my hair cut is awesome. Jerome is amazing. But I would never bring it up during the presentation. When it's most important to anyway, so she when she's talking about keeping the focus on the audience, and then she's bragging about her hair cut right away. Right. Got a good laugh. So yeah, it's hard to explain this part of it because everybody's different. And everybody has a different voice. But I just looked at their, I just did a, I looked at an hour keynote speech, taking notes from an agricultural economist,

Scott Edwards:

and grilling stuff.

Unknown:

Got off the bat, dry, man. But I managed to put some stuff in there to add some stuff that he was, quite frankly, thrilled with. And, and it was, I must admit that it was kind of easy to thrill him because he did not have a single laugh in that hour. He wanted some laughs and he was a good performer. I mean, a good presenter, you know, he was energetic he was he would walk around, he would use his hands. He could do all that. But it was my God, who cares about porque futures and Brazil, you know, it's hard to make that funny. But, but I managed to do it, I managed to get five or six designers in there, and he was tickled to death. So it's very satisfying, I must say, to grow, that I can stay at home and do it.

Scott Edwards:

Yeah. Well, Max, I gotta tell you, you have had such an amazing career, and the talents that you have brought to the entertainment world into television, and through the comedy team of makin, Jamie, it's interesting. And I'm sure you realize, at least in the back of your head, you've come full circle. Because you explain that in your early days, you wrote for your elementary school in high school and your college papers, and you were writing. And you would have to kind of wait for that feedback and kind of wait for things. You went through the comedy years and the TV years where you had that immediate reaction. And now you're back to writing. But for other people where you have to kind of you write something, and then you cross your fingers and hope that it's presented correctly. And you're getting feedback. Third party, right. So that is your, your career's kind of gotten full circle. And but it's been such a successful career. mention the name of your book, because I think people might want to get that.

Mack Dryden:

Well, it's called fluffing the concrete, making the most of foreign prison or anything else. And it's, and I also have a book of humor called does this book, make my head look fat? And they're both available on my website, which is simply Mac drive.com. And go to the store.

Scott Edwards:

And if somebody's interested, though, in maybe having you punch up a speech or have you as a public speaker, if they go to Mac dryden.com, they can reach you.

Unknown:

That's it, just go to the contact page, and they can reach right out by phone or email, and I'd love to hear from you.

Scott Edwards:

Hey, I just appreciate you taking the time to share kind of the process of writing and how it enhanced you as a stand up comic how it brought success to you, in the comedy team of Mack and Jamie and how, even in your later years, it's supporting you. And not only from the financial side that you can write for other people or put your book out there or do some public speaking. But also on the personal side, it allows you a vehicle, creative way to express yourself that that itch that you mentioned in the very beginning, it doesn't go away. We still as creative people want to keep that going. Right? Wouldn't you agree?

Unknown:

Oh, absolutely. No doubt about it. It's like any I mean, I consider myself an artist. I don't think artists ever retire it if they lose interest, because of whatever reasons, that's one thing. But if they still have that fire in the belly and want to create, you know, that's why George Burns, almost made, made it to a show on his 100th birthday. Not quite, but he was still doing stand up in his 90s. And I aspire to that. But writing is something of course that you can do forever. As long as you got your wits about you and I I'm trying to stay fit enough and healthy enough to keep mine about me for a while. But I I will always write I think I enjoy writing. Even if it's a funny letter to a friend, you know, I guess my cakes doing that as well. But

Scott Edwards:

it's been a real gift to society to have you be a part of everything and from the television, from the stage performances to your books, and the writing that you've helped in other people's speeches. There's a lot of Mac drydene out there and for me, and you've been very beneficial to me. Thank you. And thank you for sharing all this on the podcast. Mac. You're a good friend. And I think what you share about comedy writing is so important. And I hope our listeners have gotten something from everything you shared today. Thank you so much.

Mack Dryden:

Thank you, Scott, really appreciate good talking to you, buddy.

Scott Edwards:

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for sharing this moment and this interview with Mack Dryden talking about comedy writing. We'll be back next week with another great show. Thanks for listening, be sure to tell your family and friends and we'll see you next week. Bye.

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