Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson's Fancy Rascal Tour continues in November twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. For the full list of dates, please go
Speaker 1: to the Craig Ferguson Show dot Com slash tour website.
Speaker 1: My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast
Speaker 1: is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what
Speaker 1: brings them happiness. Here is Lewis Black, one of America's
Speaker 1: crankiest and best comedians. Thank you for coming, man, and
Speaker 1: we'll see you next time. Perfect. How are you peal?
Speaker 2: Every day? Just bigger and better and brighter world, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I battle a little depression. I do
Speaker 1: do do you really? Do you really actually have impression?
Speaker 2: This first time in my life during the pandemic, And
Speaker 2: during the pandemic it came on and after it's kind
Speaker 2: of lingered. It kind of went away a bit, and
Speaker 2: it's lingered, and then you don't know if it's grief
Speaker 2: because my mother passed away six months ago.
Speaker 1: I was so sorry to hear your mother was She
Speaker 1: left to be over one hundred years old, under and
Speaker 1: four Wow. I mean it's funny, like I don't know
Speaker 1: if this happened to you. But if I have like people,
Speaker 1: I love it. You love really a long time. People
Speaker 1: feel like they you don't get as much grief as
Speaker 1: you would be allowed if they were younger. It's like
Speaker 1: you run out of grief. Is anyone you with that?
Speaker 1: Or am I just being an asshole?
Speaker 2: No? That's what you think, right. But the thing is
Speaker 2: is they've been there so long it becomes something else.
Speaker 2: It's a different type of thing. Yeah, because when you,
Speaker 2: as I say in the Act, but when you're arguing
Speaker 2: with your mother about when to take Social Security, we've
Speaker 2: the Statute of Limitations has been passed, but one hundred
Speaker 2: and four and just to give you, because it's to
Speaker 2: give you a sense of it, what that age means
Speaker 2: is my mother. I got a call from the funeral
Speaker 2: home and they said that they had discontinued. My mother
Speaker 2: wanted to be cremated. They discontinue or earn. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: she outlived me. Model get another word realized that isn't
Speaker 2: that the first off that they make that many that
Speaker 2: they're coming up with new earns because people going, oh
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 1: A better it's a better earn. It's that's it's you
Speaker 1: know it's it's yeah, it's funny though because you were
Speaker 1: very close to your mom though, right, yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I I don't know if you would agree with this,
Speaker 1: but my wife says that all good stand up comedians
Speaker 1: have kind of the same mom.
Speaker 2: Is that's a better and more interesting than that thing
Speaker 2: of you know, some sort of a bitter life or
Speaker 2: no Catholicish, Italian and Irish.
Speaker 1: No, you can. You can have all of that. You
Speaker 1: can have a better life and be Catholic, Jewish, Italian
Speaker 1: and iarye. But I don't think you can be all
Speaker 1: these things at the same time. But maybe you can.
Speaker 1: It's America.
Speaker 2: It's spectacular.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but she says, because she, you know, knew my
Speaker 1: mom and she was right. But my mom, she said,
Speaker 1: I love my mom. My mom loved me, but she
Speaker 1: was kind of a cold woman and she had poor
Speaker 1: boundaries and she and my wife says, that's kind of
Speaker 1: like a stand.
Speaker 2: Up How did you find some You found a woman
Speaker 2: that that's smart and married you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, she's got a real bla book.
Speaker 2: But she said that sometimes interesting because my mother was cold, right,
Speaker 2: But to me, yeah, you know, but it's not cold.
Speaker 2: But emotionally, not that you know, withdraw. You know, we're
Speaker 2: not going to talk about you know, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I get it. You know. I mean to give you
Speaker 2: something I haven't really shared with a lot of people,
Speaker 2: like except my close friends. But and you're a good friend.
Speaker 2: When I went to say goodbye, that is literally one
Speaker 2: of the few times I can remember my life when
Speaker 2: we look at each other in the eye.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand that. I know that one. I was
Speaker 1: exactly a lot with my parents. I was exactly a lot.
Speaker 1: But I think I wonder if that was a generational
Speaker 1: thing as well with those guys, because they my father
Speaker 1: and mother were both kids during the Second World War
Speaker 1: and Glasgow was bombed really heavily, and they saw dance
Speaker 1: when they were young, and they I think it maybe
Speaker 1: they weren't frosty in the sense that they were emotionally distant,
Speaker 1: but they were very careful about using words like I
Speaker 1: love you, you know, all that kind of stuff. No
Speaker 1: one I did all of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my father was warmer, much warmer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my dad too, I think, much quieter. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wonder if if it is that, you know, here's here's
Speaker 1: the example of it. I go, I want an Amy,
Speaker 1: and I said to my mom, I want an Amy.
Speaker 1: It was still alive and she went daytime, Emmy, yeah,
Speaker 1: well that is that's my mother. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind
Speaker 1: of that thing, right, because if you're a stand up
Speaker 1: and you've done that, every stand up is good and
Speaker 1: you're really good, right, Any stand up is good because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of studs, especially now, everybody's a stand up.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's like there's a stand ups who
Speaker 1: are proper stand ups, you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: There's you, there's like a tael there's like, you know,
Speaker 1: guys who really are it. And you've gone up on
Speaker 1: a stage at some point in your life and you've
Speaker 1: died horribly on that stage, probably in the first maybe
Speaker 1: six months of your career, oh easily, and you went
Speaker 1: back and did it again. Yeah see that and you
Speaker 1: smile when when and that's that's like I did that too.
Speaker 1: And my wife says, why why would a person do that?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I don't know, you just kind
Speaker 1: of want to again.
Speaker 2: Well. The thing is is, I think is that this
Speaker 2: like with theater, and this has to do maybe with
Speaker 2: the mother. Yeah, boy, they're going to use this and
Speaker 2: seyological sociological textbooks this discussion. Yes, no, no, they're gonna steal
Speaker 2: from us.
Speaker 1: Say, well, yeah, because because academics always steal from comedians.
Speaker 2: Certainly do when there's insight, because they have none but
Speaker 2: the But what, No, I probably forgot what I'm gonna
Speaker 2: say because I wanted to make a joke.
Speaker 1: But I know that happens to me all the time
Speaker 1: now nowadays, though I'm recently point in my life where
Speaker 1: I forget what I'm going to say, and I don't
Speaker 1: make a joke. I don't forget.
Speaker 2: I steer in this space.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me give you an example of this. May
Speaker 1: jog your memory. So I'm talking you know Leno, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, So Jay Leno I'm talking to. And Jay's
Speaker 1: mother was Scottish, and I was trying out my theory
Speaker 1: about all stand ups or my wife's theory about all
Speaker 1: stand ups having the same mom, all good stand ups
Speaker 1: having the same mom, and Jay, whatever you're thinking about Jay,
Speaker 1: Jay is a great stand up.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: And he said his mom when he got on the
Speaker 1: cover of Time magazine when he was doing the Tonight Show.
Speaker 1: He said to his mom, mom my mon cover of
Speaker 1: Time magazine. Oh yes, it's probably just the local edition
Speaker 1: time magazine. Mom, there is there is no local edition
Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah, it's perfect. It's never enough. It's never enough.
Speaker 1: And I think that that that part of getting on stage,
Speaker 1: getting back on stage, even when you've died, there's something
Speaker 1: in you the death. Death is the first off.
Speaker 2: It's you choose because of your mother and set in
Speaker 2: part that you're we're comfortable with that dying. It's theater
Speaker 2: and stand up are the two places you learn from failure, right,
Speaker 2: You learn. You don't learn by being successful, because when
Speaker 2: it works, you're like, especially early on, you go, what
Speaker 2: the what the fuck? Did I just know?
Speaker 1: I have to be able to do it again. I
Speaker 1: don't know what happened to the first.
Speaker 2: Place, but if you bail, you kind of go I
Speaker 2: could try this, I could do this.
Speaker 1: I can do that.
Speaker 2: They've changed the line to delivery da da da da.
Speaker 2: I started too high with the audience to start, my
Speaker 2: energy was too low. That all of that, all of
Speaker 2: that comes into play. And so I think it's that
Speaker 2: that we get from our our mothers, Like you know,
Speaker 2: Jay's mom saying that that sense of like we're comfortable
Speaker 2: with the fact that we've been in front of a
Speaker 2: major primary relationship that we take as our backboard is like,
Speaker 2: this is our judgment, and it's constantly going, oh, forget it,
Speaker 2: you have failed again, and so failing.
Speaker 1: I know how to do that. And also failing can
Speaker 1: look like love, yeah, because because you just go like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I failed, My mom loves me, and she's
Speaker 1: over saying mean things.
Speaker 2: So and there's and the other thing is is that
Speaker 2: that I've said about it, which is I believe it.
Speaker 2: But what separates those who go on and stand up
Speaker 2: is there's a certain kind of a joy we get
Speaker 2: out of dying.
Speaker 1: I totally do.
Speaker 2: And the stupidity of that joy is, oh, you think
Speaker 2: you got me in a corner. Yeah, you guys, forget it,
Speaker 2: because I have something coming up now, even though nothing
Speaker 2: has worked for ten minutes, but this one, I say,
Speaker 2: this one, I can't believe what I'm gonna do to you.
Speaker 2: And then you pull that out and bump and it's
Speaker 2: worse and you're just digging your grave.
Speaker 1: Well, what's interesting. The reason I started this conversation talking
Speaker 1: about that is because before I ever met you, I
Speaker 1: saw you perform doing exactly that in front of one
Speaker 1: of the worst audiences I'd seen in my life where
Speaker 1: and I've seen some really bad ones, usually when I'm
Speaker 1: in front of them. It was at the Latent Live
Speaker 1: gig ed at Edinburgh Festival years and years and years ago.
Speaker 1: You saw that I was there and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, they're gonna kill them and you just
Speaker 1: wouldn't back down. And I saw them turn, which was amazing,
Speaker 1: and I thought, Jesus Christ, I don't know how a
Speaker 1: guy can who.
Speaker 2: Were there, because that's a that's for me. It was
Speaker 2: a historic moment. It destroyed. I had gone over the yeah,
Speaker 2: in hopes of then this is my way to get
Speaker 2: into England and Scotland, and that killed it really. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I never got I think they all. You know, it
Speaker 2: did because the thing that it kicked it off was
Speaker 2: that I did a joke about golf club stolen from
Speaker 2: a car that I had a rental car in Florida,
Speaker 2: and that the policeman who say who came was Jamaican
Speaker 2: and when I didn't there was something at the time.
Speaker 2: I don't remember the joke because it's almost as if
Speaker 2: that night traumatized me with the joke. So I said
Speaker 2: that and it was just a true story, but I
Speaker 2: didn't know what he was saying. And that's when the audience,
Speaker 2: you racist, paced up shite and it started to pour out,
Speaker 2: and I was like, and that's why I put my
Speaker 2: foot down. You fucking really, you guys are gonna call
Speaker 2: me racist.
Speaker 1: That's why I remember, which was awesome because it was
Speaker 1: fantastic towards and there's a very audio recording of Bill
Speaker 1: Bird doing pretty much the same thing. Do you remember
Speaker 1: that we'll let the audience or what they want to
Speaker 1: kill him and he's like, I don't care, I'm doing
Speaker 1: my time, you guys, and you know, like, and he
Speaker 1: just and he went at them and they're they're trying
Speaker 1: to drown him out at one point and he won't
Speaker 1: give in. I remember those nights. They don't happen often now.
Speaker 1: In fact, I haven't had one for a long time. No,
Speaker 1: it'd be bad if you had them when you're in
Speaker 1: your sixties, but when you're a kid start Now, that's
Speaker 1: why I wonder, you know, kids coming up now, everybody
Speaker 1: does things differently, and they're they're doing their comedy on
Speaker 1: YouTube and stuff like that, and that's great. I would
Speaker 1: do it if I was that age too. You know,
Speaker 1: but they don't get put in front of the adversity.
Speaker 1: They get it in a different way. They get negative
Speaker 1: comments on their thing and people saying mean things to
Speaker 1: them online, but they don't get the immediate, fresh in
Speaker 1: your face hatred, which I think does you so much good.
Speaker 2: Well it doesn't. It also is how you learn. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I think for some of them
Speaker 2: it works is like, uh, it works as kind of
Speaker 2: like okay, it's like sending out an audition tape to
Speaker 2: the people you really want to audition for. So that
Speaker 2: way there's an upside. I just did my uh special
Speaker 2: my specialties on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was going to ask you about that
Speaker 1: because I'm going I'm getting to the point and you
Speaker 1: know where every couple of years when you have an
Speaker 1: act and you're think, Okay, I'm gonna have to burn
Speaker 1: this stuff because I can't keep doing it and keep
Speaker 1: saying yeah, yeah, I can't keep saying it every night
Speaker 1: and pretending it's the first time I said it, so
Speaker 1: we have to I'm gonna have to burn this. So
Speaker 1: I'm coming up to doing a special and actually somebody
Speaker 1: had told me that you had put your straight up
Speaker 1: on YouTube, and I went, you know what, I think
Speaker 1: that because Luit did that as well, doesn't he just
Speaker 1: like puts it up on YouTube and it is what
Speaker 1: it is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, because a lot of it was, and it was,
Speaker 2: and I wasn't happy about it because I'm going, well,
Speaker 2: you know, who's you know?
Speaker 1: This is for kids?
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, but it apparently is where a
Speaker 2: ton of people are watching their stuff.
Speaker 1: The industry is changing, and it's changing so fast that
Speaker 1: you know, like the writers strike and all that. I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody's like, you know what's going to happen. But I
Speaker 1: think in terms of stand up comedy, the idea of
Speaker 1: having any executive have any input on material is over. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm concerned. I just wouldn't be a thing that I
Speaker 1: would listen to. Now.
Speaker 2: No, it's really absurd, But it also is. The Amazon
Speaker 2: Prime has a thing a part of their deal. Now
Speaker 2: I'm going to just tell you. We'll talk about it later,
Speaker 2: but you would find it unacceptable. Netflix basically, I don't
Speaker 2: know if that's a club. Well, they dismissed us because
Speaker 2: we were already creating this.
Speaker 1: I did a couple of stand up specials from Netflix.
Speaker 1: Did you really I did? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Back Prick I did not get one.
Speaker 1: On No I did. I think I did that. You
Speaker 1: got I just one of the first ones I did.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the first one, but it was like in
Speaker 1: the I was all they could get a couple for them.
Speaker 2: Forty million dollars you got the No.
Speaker 1: No, I didn't get anything like that. No, I got
Speaker 1: like a free subscription when I when I did the
Speaker 1: Netflix vision, I think it was it was they were
Speaker 1: definitely streaming, but it was you know, it wasn't just.
Speaker 2: The Yeah that was way back. Yeah, it was. It
Speaker 2: was before they went in the money psychosis, but when
Speaker 2: they started toss some money around for comics, and I
Speaker 2: was still in that kind of sweet spot of like, okay,
Speaker 2: you know I should be one, and no got blocked
Speaker 2: and then now forget it. We basically checked in. You know,
Speaker 2: the guys pitched yo, well what about Lewis, and well
Speaker 2: we have twelve people for every slot right now, and
Speaker 2: I don't get it. But as a result, you know,
Speaker 2: bumped out of that. And then HBO was kind of
Speaker 2: gone its way, right, you know, show time make a.
Speaker 1: Bit more Game of Throne? Can you be on fire?
Speaker 1: Is there a dragon? And it can have a dragon
Speaker 1: in it is there some blood, maybe test blood, and
Speaker 1: a dragon incests. Well, actually, now as you mentioned it,
Speaker 1: I think that is my sal I think that's what
Speaker 1: I'll call it. Tit's blood and incest. Okay, so attention
Speaker 1: and so somebody.
Speaker 2: They'll be turning, They'll be turning on YouTube a lot,
Speaker 2: boy boy.
Speaker 1: But I think what's interesting as.
Speaker 2: Well, it's coming. I'm serious. I may even use that.
Speaker 1: I think that putting it on the egalitarian nature of
Speaker 1: just throwing it out there and then anybody wants to
Speaker 1: watch it watching it. I don't think the streamers have
Speaker 1: quite understood. I don't think that the executives are executives,
Speaker 1: whether they were working for CBS nineteen fifties or Netflix now,
Speaker 1: just the same fucking middle management pricks that they wear
Speaker 1: back then. And so what they do is they don't
Speaker 1: see when change is coming. They didn't fucking see that,
Speaker 1: and they think, like all humans, they think that they're
Speaker 1: the end of the evolutionary cycle. And you go, you
Speaker 1: fuckers don't understand Netflix, You're going to be done. You're
Speaker 1: going to be done because people don't need to pay
Speaker 1: for stuff anymore. It's it's like for music, what'll happened
Speaker 1: to the musicians. People just grab the ship from wherever
Speaker 1: they want, and now musicians have to go out like
Speaker 1: that's why all these eighties bands right on tour again,
Speaker 1: Nick oh God and playing casinos and stuff with the
Speaker 1: knights and wordsheaded.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, but that's the and it's in part
Speaker 2: the one thing about what YouTube does, because where the
Speaker 2: money is going to come, you know now as much
Speaker 2: like with rock and rolls coming from the gig. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you gotta do you live so so that YouTube, you know,
Speaker 2: brings in more, more diverse, in a different audience for U. Right,
Speaker 2: Well that's what they tell me. But we'll see.
Speaker 1: I know that's working. That's happened to me. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know. I noticed my audience is getting younger.
Speaker 1: I even had to say them one night, you fuckers
Speaker 1: better bear to be here. Ironically, I don't. I'm not
Speaker 1: Rick Astley. You don't be here like never gonna give
Speaker 1: me old chicken bungkein. Hello everybody, This is Craig Ferguson
Speaker 1: letting you know that my Fancy Rascal Tour continues throughout
Speaker 1: the fall of twenty twenty three. For a full list
Speaker 1: of dates and tickets, please go to my website, The
Speaker 1: Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour. Do you think
Speaker 1: that the thing with stand up because we were talking
Speaker 1: earlier about the immediate failure of live stuff and what
Speaker 1: happens is maybe it's changing for us too. Maybe live
Speaker 1: stuff is kind of like like the kids that are
Speaker 1: coming up, they start out on YouTube, they start out
Speaker 1: on free content. But if you start out in free
Speaker 1: content and you don't have an hour and a half
Speaker 1: to do once you get to the theater, it's going
Speaker 1: to work against you a little.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I think when they started doing you know,
Speaker 2: when you had the five minutes, people were working on
Speaker 2: their seven minutes except for Carson stuff. They you know,
Speaker 2: they would go and that that's what they had, and
Speaker 2: they didn't have the even the thirty minutes to be
Speaker 2: a middle act. Yeah, you know, yeah, And it's crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean and now I mean, now it's really but
Speaker 2: I'm crazy because now I actually people go to you
Speaker 2: go to clubs to work out your material. Go, No,
Speaker 2: I just go into a theater and work that what
Speaker 2: you do, right.
Speaker 1: I kind of mix it up a little bit, especially
Speaker 1: because the mechanics are touring, because I know you tour
Speaker 1: a lot too, and we're dinosaurs, man. We tour like
Speaker 1: fucking old rock bands and get on a fucking bus
Speaker 1: and you've got the big foreign guy with the tattoos
Speaker 1: doing the sound check and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and that's the kind of old model. But I do it.
Speaker 1: So if there's a you know, if you book a
Speaker 1: theater on a Thursday and you don't have another theater
Speaker 1: until a Sunday because because Lewis Black's and the fucking
Speaker 1: theater that night, so you can't have it.
Speaker 2: Or you can't or there's not a city in between.
Speaker 1: Right, So I'll do a club. I'll do it, and
Speaker 1: I'll do a run of clubs. There are clubs that
Speaker 1: I really like. Which one is the Comedy Works in Danver,
Speaker 1: both great clubs. The one in Charlotte, North Carolina. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really good. It was the name of that one
Speaker 1: in Charlotte. I like the the Comedy Zone.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The Comedies, which is weird, used to be a
Speaker 2: really weird because they had about a hundred of them
Speaker 2: and they were.
Speaker 1: No, it's just one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's kind of There's still a few
Speaker 2: of them around, but they're not That one is if
Speaker 2: it's a particularly good one, that's.
Speaker 1: That would be one's a fine No, no, it's good.
Speaker 1: It was the Comedy Zone in Charlotte. And there's there's
Speaker 1: a couple of really nice ones, like there's some mprovs
Speaker 1: that really nice. There's one in San Jose and there's.
Speaker 2: One great one theater. Yeah, I love that one, and the.
Speaker 1: One in Librea in California. So they're they're there.
Speaker 2: I like, did you ever play hilarities?
Speaker 1: No, where's that?
Speaker 2: That's Cleveland. That's another great one.
Speaker 1: I saw John Love It's there one night.
Speaker 2: Nick is the guy who owns It's great and importantly
Speaker 2: and sadly to say, really great food, really great food,
Speaker 2: and not to you wouldn't appreciate this, and a really
Speaker 2: good wine list.
Speaker 1: Well I think that's okay. I mean, look, I just
Speaker 1: because I don't drink wine. As you know, I used
Speaker 1: to drink a lot of wine.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't have a thing with that, or you've
Speaker 1: never had a problem. I probably did.
Speaker 2: But what I had was I was functioning right, really well.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a I would basically it kind of
Speaker 2: you know. It was like, so let me get this straight.
Speaker 2: I got a job where I can drink when I'm
Speaker 2: done with the job until six in the morning, let's say, yeah,
Speaker 2: and then I still have I can sleep for twelve hours, yeah,
Speaker 2: and then wake up. I don't have to be on
Speaker 2: stage till nine. So I don't see how I.
Speaker 1: Could possibly see that's a very healthy attitude, I think,
Speaker 1: because the way I was doing it is that I
Speaker 1: would like, so I have a job that I have
Speaker 1: to stop drinking for it. That seems like a lot.
Speaker 1: So I had a different approach to it. That was
Speaker 1: a long We've both seen people who screw.
Speaker 2: Up, I mean, and from that to drugs, I mean
Speaker 2: where you where they call you and they say so
Speaker 2: and so passed and you knew it, you know, just
Speaker 2: when was it going to happen? The great moment that
Speaker 2: the thing when this just this is a little off
Speaker 2: to the side, but it's really one of the stories
Speaker 2: I repeat in terms of drinking was you and I.
Speaker 2: And also it's about drinking, but more importantly it's about
Speaker 2: why it's important you just talk to somebody who I
Speaker 2: really loved being on your show. I loved it. I
Speaker 2: thought the great thing about it is we just you
Speaker 2: ripped up the cards and just.
Speaker 1: Just talk grab. I'm glad you and I love having
Speaker 1: you on the show.
Speaker 2: Oh, and it was terrific because I was completely comfortable
Speaker 2: and we were enjoyed, and I knew if I had nothing,
Speaker 2: you had it. You knew if you had nothing, I
Speaker 2: had it. It was like a great ping pong match
Speaker 2: and nobody was trying to win, right but you and I.
Speaker 2: And this was and it's what made Pars show and
Speaker 2: why I watched it, you know, aging me or not,
Speaker 2: But those early shows like Alan and Steve Allen, that
Speaker 2: what made them great was the fact that they were
Speaker 2: in a conversation. They weren't trying to promote anything. And
Speaker 2: how is it to work with Licky Dick? Ohick, my dick?
Speaker 2: You know that stuff, And so it really gave We
Speaker 2: discovered while talking that we lived in the same neighborhood.
Speaker 2: We didn't know that that's right in the East village.
Speaker 2: Right that we discussed which bar did you go to?
Speaker 2: We went to the same same bar you and we
Speaker 2: both sat there and it was like, literally we went
Speaker 2: through a progression of understanding that we've been fucking around
Speaker 2: each other. We were both drinking that we never knowed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at the same times as the Pyramid on seventh five,
Speaker 1: and you know there was the last resort on sorry
Speaker 1: c W DBO or whatever, the one right on seventh right, so,
Speaker 1: and the Pyramid Club was on Avenue B or something
Speaker 1: Avenue AI Avenue, that's right, it's Avenue next to the
Speaker 1: Odessa Russian Restaurant, a really good borch that you could
Speaker 1: get the man. Now, Yeah, of course it's a fucking
Speaker 1: YouTube or something. It's it's a Netflix screen or something.
Speaker 1: But it was like all of that time when I
Speaker 1: look at because I was tooling around as you were
Speaker 1: tolling around New York in the eighties and the East Village.
Speaker 1: They make movies about shit like that. Now they make
Speaker 1: movies about you know, like Bascacht and this. I remember Baskach,
Speaker 1: you know, hanging out at the Pyramid Club and it
Speaker 1: saved the robots. And you don't think anyone's going to
Speaker 1: make a movie of these things, you know, but I
Speaker 1: guess that, you know, you get old enough and you
Speaker 1: don't die, and they start making you know, bag of
Speaker 1: the old and in the before time, So when you
Speaker 1: were doing it that you were doing stand up then, right,
Speaker 1: but only off and on I was doing I really
Speaker 1: was theater.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wanted to be in theater.
Speaker 1: What drew you more in a stand up man? Or
Speaker 1: do you still want to do theory because we can?
Speaker 2: I mean, I still would like to do more theater,
Speaker 2: but I just you know, the stand up kind of
Speaker 2: fulfills the writing. It builds everything writing and acting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2: And I've never been a director, but I'm directing and
Speaker 2: it doesn't take much. I mean, no, you're directing your
Speaker 2: stand up. Yeah, I mean it's the thing when I
Speaker 2: talk to young actors, I go, do it. Do it,
Speaker 2: just to do it because you're learning directing, writing and
Speaker 2: acting simultaneously.
Speaker 1: It was the reason I started doing it as well,
Speaker 1: because in Britain you had to in order to be
Speaker 1: an actor who working a theory, you had to have
Speaker 1: an equity card. You have a union actors union card.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it's like now, but back then,
Speaker 1: and you had in order to get the union card,
Speaker 1: you had to do three shows in a union theater.
Speaker 1: But in order to get a show in a fucking
Speaker 1: union theory you needed to have a union card, Like
Speaker 1: what the fuck? But there was one loophole, which is
Speaker 1: if you did stand up, they would put you on
Speaker 1: to do stand up and give you a union contract.
Speaker 1: So I did three and by the third one I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I don't think. I think I might
Speaker 1: have found something that I enjoy or at least I
Speaker 1: could do sufficiently to get by. So when did you start? Uh,
Speaker 1: during John's show, because that was like, that was like
Speaker 1: a real gear change for you, wasn't it when you
Speaker 1: started doing the Daily Show?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a big gear change. But that when
Speaker 2: I was doing. But I'd already kind of transitioned into
Speaker 2: the stand up and.
Speaker 1: I was, oh, yeah, I knew that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I was doing I was doing it when
Speaker 2: Kilbourne was. I was there from the very very beginning.
Speaker 1: How did you get I never met much. I talked
Speaker 1: to him. I did his show that I ended up
Speaker 1: hosting the late night show, and he was always really
Speaker 1: nice to me. I didn't really connect with him. I
Speaker 1: didn't I didn't really know him.
Speaker 2: I don't think it was much to connect. Yeah. I
Speaker 2: was with him and it.
Speaker 1: Was Yeah, he was kind of a shut, quiet guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he kind of kipt himself to himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think he went from sports to that and
Speaker 2: I think he was a little bit of a fish
Speaker 2: out of water there because a lot of the times,
Speaker 2: I mean, he didn't know what the joke was, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean the idea was we weren't.
Speaker 1: Like that woman in the in the Marx Brothers movies.
Speaker 1: What was her name?
Speaker 2: I can't remember, but yeah, is it Dumont?
Speaker 1: Mary Margaret Dumont?
Speaker 2: Right, I get fifty points in the rights to come
Speaker 2: back next week? Do you know?
Speaker 1: It's a great, a great grouch of marks quote about
Speaker 1: someone gave her a job. He said, Oh great, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you gave her a job. She hasn't worked since
Speaker 1: the last Marx Brothers movie. What am I saying? I
Speaker 1: haven't marked since?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, the the Daily Show.
Speaker 2: The Daily Show was I mean I was on like
Speaker 2: the first of the second week, right, and have been
Speaker 2: on ever since.
Speaker 1: And then when I became of the gear change, like
Speaker 1: I knew you were. I'd seen you in Edin, Bryan
Speaker 1: knew you the stand up. I knew you were the
Speaker 1: stand up that you are. I knew what you what
Speaker 1: I was dealing with when I saw you, and and
Speaker 1: how good you were at it. But I became aware
Speaker 1: of the gear change for you on that show, and
Speaker 1: it was round about it was after Clinton was after
Speaker 1: Clinton was a George was a Bush. Bush.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was that kicked it in, all right, That's
Speaker 2: where I believed, began to believe and when I talked
Speaker 2: to people that it was part of what success has
Speaker 2: to do with in our business is timing, and it's
Speaker 2: got nothing to do with reality. No, this was George
Speaker 2: Bush came to power. It was right in my sweet spot.
Speaker 2: The show was on. There was finally you know, they
Speaker 2: began to you know that the audience, which I already knew,
Speaker 2: was paying attention to this stuff. Their knowledge and interest increased,
Speaker 2: let's see, even ten percent. And I had George Bush
Speaker 2: and it really cracked things wide open.
Speaker 1: And it's an interesting thing though, that that show, because
Speaker 1: the phenomena of that show kicked off a law both
Speaker 1: for I mean, obviously for John it changed his career.
Speaker 1: But the idea of the fake news, which was a
Speaker 1: great joke and now it's kind of it's a kind
Speaker 1: of it's fucking real. Then nobody, and I don't care
Speaker 1: if you're on the far right Hitler or the far
Speaker 1: left of Trutsky. Nobody believes anybody anybody. You don't know
Speaker 1: where to go for your any news. And people used
Speaker 1: to trust the Daily Show for news, which was the
Speaker 1: fake news show. This is strange, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then what it evolved into was news shows.
Speaker 2: I think it evolved into MSNBC and Fox because then
Speaker 2: if we have news, but what we're going to do
Speaker 2: is comment on the news, and that came from the
Speaker 2: Daily Show.
Speaker 1: Yes, and that, of course is a Frankens Thing's monster
Speaker 1: because now it's not even news, it's just we're going
Speaker 1: to comment on everything all the time.
Speaker 2: And it's really reached a point. I keep screaming it
Speaker 2: on stage four years ago. I was saying it five
Speaker 2: years ago, before the shit hit the van. I was going,
Speaker 2: we don't have two party system of ideas. It's two
Speaker 2: separate realities people they are living, we are literally, I
Speaker 2: mean in this country is living in two separate realities,
Speaker 2: if not four, but two solids with realities that they've
Speaker 2: bached it on. And I see it when I sent
Speaker 2: out the special, the YouTube special, you know, some of
Speaker 2: the comments are like, well, you know, yadi y, you
Speaker 2: didn't do that. You know your take on this and that,
Speaker 2: what are you talking? I'm talking about me, schmuck, this
Speaker 2: is yah. You've decided that was your reality. I'm telling
Speaker 2: you what my reality was.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, because everything now has a polemic,
Speaker 1: everything has a polemic, that even to not have to
Speaker 1: not be political is to be political. And it's it's
Speaker 1: so funny. It's such a weird twist. It's like, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to do politics. Oh so you're a Trumpet.
Speaker 1: Where I'm not going to do politics. Did not say that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of Oh so you're not a Trumper?
Speaker 1: Fuck you? Trump's great. It's like, what's happening is that?
Speaker 1: I think is my theory about it. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you agree that people love to feel smart, and
Speaker 1: the thing about politics is it's a really great way,
Speaker 1: particularly for politicians. It's a really great way for focks
Speaker 1: to feel like they're clever. Like they say stuff and
Speaker 1: they get to wear a suit and walk around in
Speaker 1: big buildings and say, oh, very important and there. I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but the politicians have made all
Speaker 1: the way up to presidents. I'm like, I can't believe
Speaker 1: I'm fucking stupid. This guy is like, they're fucking stupid.
Speaker 1: But then I get it because who else would be
Speaker 1: a politician? What a fucking idiot? This is crazy, right,
Speaker 1: because you was half the audience right there.
Speaker 2: Well, there are also nerds. Yeah, and they used to
Speaker 2: be better at being nerds, which was like not try
Speaker 2: to get beyond their nerdishness and just I'm going to
Speaker 2: go there. What they wanted to do was go in
Speaker 2: that room and work, right. I didn't want to go out.
Speaker 2: And then then they found out you could make more money.
Speaker 2: You know. It's kind of when Hollywood and DC. I'm
Speaker 2: from d C, right around that area, from Silver Spring, Maryland,
Speaker 2: and literally, you know, when I was young, there was
Speaker 2: no Hollywood was here, and then and then once Reagan
Speaker 2: came in, there was the and then it's the we're
Speaker 2: going to present you with this.
Speaker 1: And did you ever do the Hollywood they what do
Speaker 1: you call it? White House correspondence? No?
Speaker 2: I did the Congressional correspondence.
Speaker 1: All right, okay, is that is that like the Illuminati
Speaker 1: one or something?
Speaker 2: No, that was. It was had its own. It was
Speaker 2: the same. But you know, I never got I never
Speaker 2: got that high. Was that's my career. It's like, did
Speaker 2: you do that?
Speaker 1: No? What I did? This? It's fun. I did the
Speaker 1: White House corresponds the last year of Bush.
Speaker 2: I remember you, Oh my god, that's so it's such
Speaker 2: a weird guy because you know, when you do a
Speaker 2: corporate gig and you.
Speaker 1: Like, you know it's gonna suck, because like they're like
Speaker 1: everyone like you can smell the warm lobster before you
Speaker 1: start talking. But those better gigs, well sometimes it's warm.
Speaker 1: What's I used to do this? I had this thing
Speaker 1: was going with them. I did this thing was where
Speaker 1: I used to just bet in the act about Tom Cruise,
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't particularly nice about Tom Cruise. It was
Speaker 1: about like, you know, his take on depression and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and it was just about I mean,
Speaker 1: wasn't particularly nasty about him. But it was a thing,
Speaker 1: and I did it. I used to kill every night.
Speaker 1: I used to kill every night. And one night I
Speaker 1: do a corporate gig, total silence, and then I come
Speaker 1: off stage and somebody says, you know, this is Tom
Speaker 1: Cruise's law firm, Like, oh my god, are they gonna
Speaker 1: sue me? Like no, but I don't think they'll have
Speaker 1: you back. God, God, it's great. Do you do a
Speaker 1: lot of corporate gigs you No, no, no, they do
Speaker 1: not even come near me. I don't know they came.
Speaker 1: They they kind of dried up during the COVID. I
Speaker 1: think be gonna come, but.
Speaker 2: They have stopped before the COVID, they stopped there. I
Speaker 2: had some and some really worked well. And then but
Speaker 2: also they you know, there was this thing that they
Speaker 2: didn't realize. I could you know, oh, that he's gonna
Speaker 2: come here, He's gonna say fuck a lot.
Speaker 1: No, you're idiot. Yeah you you pay X.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say fuck. I'm not here to save fuck.
Speaker 1: It's funny how people will say that. It's like, please
Speaker 1: don't say fuck. Like I'm capable of that. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to. I remember it's in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Just
Speaker 1: before I walk on stage, the guy says to me,
Speaker 1: please don't say fuck. And I'm like, I knew it, right,
Speaker 1: I mean I knew it. It's when I say the
Speaker 1: contract says, you know, PG. Thirteen or something. But but
Speaker 1: I walked on stage and I said to the audience,
Speaker 1: I've just been told that I'm not allowed to say
Speaker 1: the app I've just heard this minute, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to. I'm just we're just gonna have to make
Speaker 1: up another word. And I actually played pretty good. But
Speaker 1: I think that the whole world because of social media
Speaker 1: has become hr like everybody is like, you gotta be
Speaker 1: You've got to not offend this, You've got to not
Speaker 1: do that, And you're like, what, But offending people is
Speaker 1: a byproduct of doing what we do. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be an asshole or a bully. But you you
Speaker 1: are going to offend someone, You're gonna you're gonna say
Speaker 1: something that you don't So I think when I see you,
Speaker 1: I think you're so good at this. You will say
Speaker 1: a thing that you patently don't believe in order to
Speaker 1: make a joke. But if I write down lud Black
Speaker 1: said this, it's going to look like you do believe that,
Speaker 1: because they remove your skill from what you just did.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and it's gotten out of hand. And also for me,
Speaker 2: a part of it is I'll find myself on stage,
Speaker 2: I'll say something like I'll say it's something you know,
Speaker 2: and the guys will will understand, and then I go, oh, fuck, okay, look,
Speaker 2: by guys, I said, I did not mean to exclude
Speaker 2: every woman on the planet. Do you understand this? And
Speaker 2: the fact that I even have to fucking stand here
Speaker 2: and make sure that before you leave this theater that
Speaker 2: you understand that this had to do with everybody, And
Speaker 2: I didn't say everybody and that somehow I slipped that
Speaker 2: word in and you kind of go and they get it.
Speaker 2: Of course they've been dragged through this because it's both
Speaker 2: sides have created this man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's not. I don't think it belongs to
Speaker 1: any particular No.
Speaker 2: No, because it works. You know, I said, just recently
Speaker 2: I was talking about I brought up George Santos.
Speaker 1: That's oh yeah, on stage he's a trip. Oh god.
Speaker 2: So I bring him up because I started it as
Speaker 2: a joke about I used to say herschel Walker, right,
Speaker 2: and that's all I gotta say. And the audience when
Speaker 2: I said his name, the audience would be like, how,
Speaker 2: just how, I said, that's where we're at. Do you
Speaker 2: understand I don't need you, don't need me anymore.
Speaker 1: The name, but just out.
Speaker 2: So I tried it with Santos. He doesn't do as well.
Speaker 2: So but I met, you know, I started to talk
Speaker 2: a little about it. I said he was a liar,
Speaker 2: and on one side of the stage.
Speaker 1: Well, Joe Biden's a liar, and.
Speaker 2: I okay, look all right, do you understand the difference
Speaker 2: between the types of lies I'm talking, and then the
Speaker 2: guy and the other guys at the stage goes, you know,
Speaker 2: Biden wouldn't be where he was if he was I
Speaker 2: said what, I said, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: And I go stage.
Speaker 2: Now, all I've said is George Santos, yeah, and that
Speaker 2: he makes shit, you know that he was lying. And
Speaker 2: I started to get into, you know, the two jokes,
Speaker 2: and then I tell the audience you can make a joke, right,
Speaker 2: just pick anything that you think he might not have
Speaker 2: ever done, and you're gonna get a laugh. And so
Speaker 2: so the guy says, and this shocked me and actually
Speaker 2: stopped me because I you know that moment where you
Speaker 2: go I can't believe this is fucking coming out of
Speaker 2: this person's mouth and this is happening. He says, well,
Speaker 2: you know, if Joe Biden's wife and son weren't killed
Speaker 2: in that accident, Joe Biden would be a used car salesman, okay.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what the fuck did that have
Speaker 1: to do with what?
Speaker 2: And I was like, I said, you know, I got
Speaker 2: to stand here now and explain to you the difference
Speaker 2: between these two people that I have to reprimand you
Speaker 2: for the fact that this is not the type of
Speaker 2: thing you say. You want to say this home, you
Speaker 2: say to No, that's fine, right around the dinner table
Speaker 2: with your family. Fine, I don't care, but you don't
Speaker 2: come into a public space and say something that nasty
Speaker 2: about anybody.
Speaker 1: No, that's what home is for. That's what Thanksgiving dinner
Speaker 1: is for, exactly. It's like that thing when you know,
Speaker 1: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry said someone in their royal
Speaker 1: family is racist, and I'm like, yeah, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a family, so there, yeah, someone in the families. If
Speaker 1: you don't know who the racist is in your family
Speaker 1: is because it's you, it's a family. It's like Thanksgiving dinner.
Speaker 1: Grandpa would like to say a few words. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's not you're not saying anything. It seems to me
Speaker 1: that I don't know, being offended is some kind of
Speaker 1: badge of honor, and I don't understand it. I get offended,
Speaker 1: but so what you know, Rickie, you should raise his good,
Speaker 1: very nice little phrase about it. Just because you're friends.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean you're right, you're just offended.
Speaker 2: But this was astonishing. I mean I just hadn't yeah,
Speaker 2: because I hadn't heard that in so long that kind
Speaker 2: of mean spirited. I just won't. I don't bide it.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what we get to do, and the
Speaker 2: reason we get to do it is we try to
Speaker 2: put it, take it, encapsulate it, and put it into.
Speaker 1: A joke and make it ridiculous. So if you take
Speaker 1: a if you take a sentence which is mean, or
Speaker 1: you take a sentiment which is me, and you hold
Speaker 1: it up for being foolish or stupid or reprehensible. But
Speaker 1: I think that you know the nuance. It's I think
Speaker 1: it's a little I don't want to be like cranky
Speaker 1: about social media, but at the same time, it's hard
Speaker 1: not to be because it's kind of really just a
Speaker 1: bathroom wall. You know, you're just right. You know, Craig
Speaker 1: Ferguson is shit and shit, so therefore it's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and you were never funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're just you're not funny, which I don't really
Speaker 1: understand because you don't see the musician. You're not music.
Speaker 1: Go yeah, yeah, fucking am people are dancing. Like if
Speaker 1: all these people are laughing and you're not laughing, maybe
Speaker 1: I am funny. Maybe you're just an asked funny.
Speaker 2: It's like, what was I think, you know, did I
Speaker 2: if I just you know, there's nobody laughing and I'm
Speaker 2: hearing it. That's what the level of psychosis I'm not. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they're really unbelievable in terms of the fact that
Speaker 2: they it's high school.
Speaker 1: Yeah a little. It feels about like that.
Speaker 2: Well, that was the thing I've been I've been thinking
Speaker 2: about this is that social media is all the things
Speaker 2: that people hated in high school and it brought back.
Speaker 2: So you're walking down the hall hall and somebody found out,
Speaker 2: you know, you were missing in the ural. You miss
Speaker 2: the urinal, and you're walking down the hall you missed
Speaker 2: the urinal, you know, and so you.
Speaker 1: Get sixty of those and eighty of these.
Speaker 2: And part of the problem was, and it's happening now
Speaker 2: with AI, is they just said, okay, here's Facebook, go
Speaker 2: do it. And it was like when it happened, I
Speaker 2: was like, this is bullshit. Never in the history of
Speaker 2: anything did you become involved with something and they don't
Speaker 2: give you any instructions, right, you know, just play with it. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, just playing with it created real problems.
Speaker 1: Fuck nut. It's interesting, though, I have a slightly different
Speaker 1: feeling about AI. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel probably
Speaker 1: you are probably wrong, You're totally wrong. Goddamn it. I
Speaker 1: can't believe I've got to sit here.
Speaker 2: He shit, I wrote an in shit, so it must
Speaker 2: be true. I said, we're not gonna talk about it.
Speaker 2: AI A.
Speaker 1: I think finally devalues it completely, like it completely devalues it,
Speaker 1: like I saw are values devalues all social media because
Speaker 1: it's all it's all garbage all the time, which is
Speaker 1: you know, obviously one of my favorite performers of all
Speaker 1: time saying all garbage all the time, but it is,
Speaker 1: it is, it's all garbage all the time. And I
Speaker 1: think the AI makes it so worthless as a see.
Speaker 1: I think the failure of journalism in the sense that
Speaker 1: they got so lazy they used social media as a
Speaker 1: source that they gave it some credence and some validity
Speaker 1: that it doesn't actually have. Is that true, right?
Speaker 2: So it started with it was started before him, but
Speaker 2: it was really blew up in the Trump era.
Speaker 1: But he used it very effectively though, I mean, because
Speaker 1: he just used the noise. But the big.
Speaker 2: Tragedy there, I used to say, was is that when
Speaker 2: they started putting his tweets and stuff on TV I got.
Speaker 2: You don't get to do that. That's our job. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: your job is to discuss the political. These tweets are
Speaker 2: the pathological. That's our bread and budding.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I would go out there and I said, you know,
Speaker 2: I would read these tweets to you, but you've already
Speaker 2: heard him three hundred times and you shouldn't have hurt
Speaker 2: him at all. And I said, and that's why my
Speaker 2: act will be sure tonight. Yeah, because they've taken away
Speaker 2: taking away all your stuff.
Speaker 1: The third of what I mean it was unbelievable, as
Speaker 1: I know, I thaying that you can say. But that's
Speaker 1: why I think AI is actually gonna save the human
Speaker 1: rights because you can't believe a fucking word of it,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have to grow up. You can't. It's
Speaker 1: not like while I get my news, so it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter where you get your If you get your news
Speaker 1: from an electronic device, you're fucked. You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: go and see for yourself. So if something happens in
Speaker 1: Ukraine and you think what's going on in Ukraine, get
Speaker 1: on a fucking plane and go and find out, because
Speaker 1: that's the only way you're gonna fucking know. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: advise it because I suspect it might be dangerous. But
Speaker 1: if you really want to know what's going on, go
Speaker 1: and fucking see.
Speaker 2: Now that you can do the mean which AI is.
Speaker 2: You know that you can. It came out before the
Speaker 2: thing is is too with AI IS. It's really literal.
Speaker 2: We're talking about this, And this is probably four weeks
Speaker 2: after they announced really AI.
Speaker 1: Right where they told the world, Hey, look what we got.
Speaker 2: We're gonna fuck with everything. Now you thought we were
Speaker 2: fucking with you, but now we got something we're really
Speaker 2: gonna be un Yeah, we're gonna shove something right up
Speaker 2: your eyes.
Speaker 1: Boy, oh boy, get ready for this.
Speaker 2: But it is that thing now too, which they kind
Speaker 2: of just before AI they said, oh, you know, we
Speaker 2: can put fake people into these things, right, and they
Speaker 2: look just like you.
Speaker 1: What I want to be in porn without having to
Speaker 1: do it? Yeah, Like so, I like you use my
Speaker 1: face and then give me on this huge penis and
Speaker 1: make me make me great at porn. Uh, And I'm
Speaker 1: fine with it. Go right ahead, Uh, just don't focus
Speaker 1: on me going like that. But I don't know I
Speaker 1: think that because look, the human race is evolving if
Speaker 1: evolution doesn't stop, everybody thinks, well that's it now, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like, well we got the wheel that said no,
Speaker 1: well we got fire. That's it. Now what that's fire?
Speaker 1: It's like snoglig is gonna fucking stop? Well, streaming, that's
Speaker 1: the way of the future. No, it's fucking not. It's
Speaker 1: the way of the now, the future.
Speaker 2: You know what's coming The AI too, is I think
Speaker 2: is they say you have a world filled with people
Speaker 2: who have no intelligence, tons of us, and from out
Speaker 2: of that group of people who have no intelligence, a
Speaker 2: number of people who have a little more of no
Speaker 2: intelligence than those people without intelligence, just to touch more
Speaker 2: are going to create intelligence.
Speaker 1: Fuck you.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I saw a robot when I was in La. I
Speaker 1: was Ala with my son about a couple of months ago.
Speaker 1: I saw a delivery robot and it was a robot
Speaker 1: on its own, going down the road delivering a thing.
Speaker 1: And I was like, it wasn't a commercial, No, no,
Speaker 1: it's real robot. They have delivery robots, I know they do,
Speaker 1: but I've never seen one. Yeah, well I saw one.
Speaker 1: That was the only one I saw it. I was thinking,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't care how well you've made
Speaker 1: that robot. If I want what that robot's got, I'll
Speaker 1: fucking take it. And I don't need a gun. I
Speaker 1: just need to unplug that motherfucker. I know where his
Speaker 1: batteries are. The whole idea of it. I refuse to
Speaker 1: be frightened of it. People are are who they are,
Speaker 1: you know. I just I refuse to say, oh, the
Speaker 1: AI is going to gas fuck them.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think it's going to get them, but
Speaker 2: I think it's going to undermine education for a while.
Speaker 1: Well not as much as the fucking failure of the
Speaker 1: education system is undermined the education.
Speaker 2: Well that's true too, but that's got to do with
Speaker 2: another problem. But I mean, when you for those who
Speaker 2: are kind of passed, you know, in college, once you
Speaker 2: get to college and you kind of go, fuck, I
Speaker 2: got three papers this week. Oh that's true, that critical
Speaker 2: thinking thing goes out the window. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like when they said, you know, you don't have
Speaker 2: to this was an amazing one that I did on
Speaker 2: is talk about stupid. Okay, this is how dumb I am.
Speaker 2: I said, I'm just gonna tell you this. This is
Speaker 2: not funny, it's not anything. It's just information you should
Speaker 2: have when you go to a PTA meeting. They've stopped
Speaker 2: teaching cursive writing. Really here lot of places in the time, God,
Speaker 2: can you imagine? Yeah? And do you write stuff down?
Speaker 2: You write it right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? You do? Or do you tie? I did both?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And so I said, you know, I had
Speaker 2: I had written plays and for a long time. And
Speaker 2: then you know, when the word processor and all that
Speaker 2: came out, I started to try to write plays. Oh,
Speaker 2: now I'll be able to keep up with my brain.
Speaker 2: And I try to do that, and I kept doing
Speaker 2: I wasn't writing as well, and I realized then I
Speaker 2: went back to writing in Longhand course, and I went, fuck,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking different. Yeah, it's a completely different way of thinking.
Speaker 1: Oh, well, do you how much do you read versus
Speaker 1: before or after smartphones? Like what I mean? I used
Speaker 1: to read. I always had a book in my hand.
Speaker 1: I always read, and now I read, but I read
Speaker 1: like garbage on and this fucking little little toilet funnel
Speaker 1: in my hand.
Speaker 2: I read less, much less. And I also think the
Speaker 2: pandemic did it me too, Yeah, because I sit down
Speaker 2: and it was like there was still like, oh, I
Speaker 2: got plenty of time I'll read this, and then the
Speaker 2: next day I'll read this. Then the next day I'll
Speaker 2: read this, and it was really almost true. I would
Speaker 2: start to read something and in my head is it
Speaker 2: would be. I'd get about three paragraphs and then my
Speaker 2: brain would stick, going, you stop, drop the book, You're
Speaker 2: gonna die. Did you get COVID? No, you got it?
Speaker 1: I had it twice. Well, and I've had all the
Speaker 1: shots and I'm like, I'm like a COVID petri dish.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've had a couple of times. I think you're doing.
Speaker 1: The second person I've ever met that's no had it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I know a few who didn't. And I had
Speaker 2: this kind of spray that I don't know if that's
Speaker 2: what did it? Yeah, that they claimed worked.
Speaker 1: Would you spray other people to keep them away from you?
Speaker 2: That would be a different spray. Wow twice? Did you
Speaker 2: did knock you out?
Speaker 1: First time? First time a dead? Second time? I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's no big deal. But the first time, I think
Speaker 1: what was worse with the pandemic wasn't the COVID was awful,
Speaker 1: of course it was, but no, were you there or
Speaker 1: here when I was in Scotland?
Speaker 2: When you got ith. Yeah, but you've never been a
Speaker 2: clean people.
Speaker 1: No, no, we're not. We're damp and we do a
Speaker 1: lot of breathing on each other and touching, touching things,
Speaker 1: so we are washing our hands. That's for the English.
Speaker 1: So the thing about it was the fear that they
Speaker 1: put into Do you remember in the nineteen eighties when
Speaker 1: they were trying to terrify everybody when AIDS first started,
Speaker 1: and that the fear campaign. Rather than saying look here's
Speaker 1: what we know so far, which would have been helpful,
Speaker 1: I think to a lot of people who subsequently got sick,
Speaker 1: they just tried to make it about shame based sexual contact.
Speaker 1: It had echoes of that in it. It's like the
Speaker 1: main thing you have to focus on here is your fear.
Speaker 1: It seems kind of sinister to me. Anything that comes
Speaker 1: is like nobody kind of wants to help. Well, at
Speaker 1: least that's the kind of vibe I go from it.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't think you guys want to help,
Speaker 1: you're just loving us. I mean the media.
Speaker 2: You know, it was very weird because you know, it
Speaker 2: was that thing. It was my whole life. I thought
Speaker 2: if we were invaded by uh, you know and other aliens,
Speaker 2: aliens that the world because of all the books, you know,
Speaker 2: and all the science fiction, would come together to defend
Speaker 2: themselves and here is an invasion by an alien nothing,
Speaker 2: not even close, not even in the ballpark.
Speaker 1: No, what are you doing? Don't tell them?
Speaker 2: Don't tell Yeah, I mean it was like, what fucking
Speaker 2: are you? People? This crazy? And here too it was
Speaker 2: you know, and my special has his stuff in it
Speaker 2: about what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah about it.
Speaker 2: And the response some people is is that you know,
Speaker 2: well you're you know, and it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: they had their own take on it, and I said,
Speaker 2: the problem, and to me, the problem always was is
Speaker 2: that what you had to have happened here was the
Speaker 2: whether whether it worked or not. They're people who are
Speaker 2: going to ignore it. But the Democrats and the Republicans
Speaker 2: had to get together, Yeah, and they had to sit
Speaker 2: down as one and with him with the perfect storm,
Speaker 2: you know, with Trump, and kind of present a united
Speaker 2: front and say here's what we're going to do. And
Speaker 2: they never did it. They never did you could do this,
Speaker 2: or you could do that, or you know. I was
Speaker 2: fucking I mean, seriously, I was. And it wasn't a joke.
Speaker 2: I'm watching shit with clorox. I could have killed myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's it's like and Brenton, the Prime Minister,
Speaker 1: was making the rules for the COVID lockdown, and at
Speaker 1: the same time that's why he kicked him out. He's
Speaker 1: having like parties number ten down the street and he's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to see your grandmas. She's dying out.
Speaker 1: I was like what. But it was an odd, a
Speaker 1: weird I don't remember Anthony like it in my lifetime
Speaker 1: when things got that strange for that little period, that
Speaker 1: first six months of COVID, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was bizarre, really weird, really weird.
Speaker 2: And then really, uh, you know, boy, you know this
Speaker 2: whole thing about you know, I'm not going to take
Speaker 2: the vaccine, and then that became a political How does that?
Speaker 1: It's not how does it get political?
Speaker 2: And it's not a political Okay, it's either you you
Speaker 2: trust that science or you know or you don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2: I mean if by taking it, I am not striking
Speaker 2: out at you, and if you and if I don't
Speaker 2: want to see you because you didn't take it, it's
Speaker 2: because I'm going to go see my mother and I
Speaker 2: can't fucking afford I'm not even worried about me as
Speaker 2: much as I am getting something because I see my mother.
Speaker 1: Every two weeks. Yeah, and that must have been a
Speaker 1: thing because your mom was what like one hundred and
Speaker 1: two time at the time, ever got COVID geez in
Speaker 1: a nursing home where they were dropping Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: happened in Scotland as well. They put a bunch of
Speaker 1: people from the hospitals that had him back into the
Speaker 1: nursing homes and oh it was a mess. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy. It was a mess.
Speaker 2: But and then they and then people blame people for that,
Speaker 2: you know, blame the do It's like nobody knew.
Speaker 1: Anybody knew what was going on. Yeah, remember because right
Speaker 1: at the beginning we thought you could get it from
Speaker 1: not having enough toilet paper. That was not the world's
Speaker 1: greatest moment where I was panic buying the fucking toilet.
Speaker 2: Paper and then I would get things on my Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, there's comments because I talk about, you know
Speaker 2: that I.
Speaker 1: Had food delivered. Okay, yeah, well, you son of a.
Speaker 2: Bitch, you made those people come out and fucking you know,
Speaker 2: deliver food, deliver food to you. I said, well, you know, no,
Speaker 2: I didn't really do that.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I was trying to you know, I paid for it.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like I put a shit.
Speaker 1: This is Lewis Black. But if you do not deliver
Speaker 1: food to me, I will have you gone.
Speaker 2: Let's you know, So what's my choice? You know they're
Speaker 2: going to deliver the food or do I just not
Speaker 2: eat again?
Speaker 1: It's uh, I don't know anyway, everybody is enough beat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a bit of joy. We're kind of done.
Speaker 2: We can't end on that.
Speaker 1: Oh I've enjoyed myself, Immen's.
Speaker 2: So we can't end on this.
Speaker 1: What do you want to end on me? You work
Speaker 1: with this guy?
Speaker 2: We trying to sell a product here, No, trying.
Speaker 1: To sell a product idea. See the whole idea I
Speaker 1: like about this podcast thing is that because I used
Speaker 1: to think, do you have a podcast?
Speaker 2: I have a rant cast? A ran cast and I'm
Speaker 2: going to go home after this and ran above this
Speaker 2: and say I sat with that son of a bitch
Speaker 2: and it was so depressing. I hadn't seen him in years.
Speaker 2: And he ended with this thing about about COVID starting
Speaker 2: with age, started with age.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to be good to go.
Speaker 2: Back in the because we lived in that neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Was like the worlds. Yeah, remember I thought I had it?
Speaker 1: Did you think you had it?
Speaker 2: No? I was barely poking.
Speaker 1: No. Well, and I say you got it? But no,
Speaker 1: I thought wow a couple of times. Do you know
Speaker 1: he is the truth? Do you remember it very beginning? Well, no,
Speaker 1: it was a little bit into the ages. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was as late as the nineties. I think it was
Speaker 1: in the nineties the first because I never wanted to
Speaker 1: get a test, an AIDS test, but then they came
Speaker 1: out with the mail in AIDS test. So what you
Speaker 1: did was it was like I think the movie phone
Speaker 1: guy was involved. And what you did is like the
Speaker 1: You got a card from a drug store and you
Speaker 1: picked your finger with it, and you put your little
Speaker 1: bit of sample of blood on the card and you
Speaker 1: send it away and you waited a week and then
Speaker 1: it gave you a number of dial and you dialed
Speaker 1: in the number. I swear to God, you dialed into
Speaker 1: the number, and then you had a number on your card.
Speaker 1: So you said, punch in the number if you want
Speaker 1: to know if you have ages, and so I'd like,
Speaker 1: you know, eight, three, three, four or five six or something,
Speaker 1: and I said, h three three, four fives, you do
Speaker 1: not have age. If you if you want to hear
Speaker 1: this message again, press one. So of course what you
Speaker 1: do is you go, boom, I want to hear it again.
Speaker 1: You pressed one, he goes you do not have AIDS.
Speaker 1: Do you want to hear this message? If you want
Speaker 1: to hear this number of pressed once? They pressed again
Speaker 1: and go you have exceeded the amount of times you
Speaker 1: can hear this. You must reapply. And you had to
Speaker 1: reapply for the thing? Did you ask the one? I did? Wow?
Speaker 1: That was it was scary.
Speaker 2: I had a friend talked about the only one of
Speaker 2: my friends got the thing where it just you know,
Speaker 2: it took the test. You know, we went, you know,
Speaker 2: and he took the test and they said, oh you
Speaker 2: have age. Now he's like been, you know, he's close
Speaker 2: to getting married. And so I got age and then
Speaker 2: like the next stake, nah, only getting I mean it
Speaker 2: was literally like you got false positive positive.
Speaker 1: See the thing was as well right back then if
Speaker 1: you go AIDS, you're going to die.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 1: It was done. Yeah, And I mean I've got friends
Speaker 1: who have had AIDS for years or no is HIV
Speaker 1: positive figures and they haven't valientines. So let's end on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's something up well really a believable but they're fine.
Speaker 2: I am really glad.
Speaker 1: I have a buddy who's in a car accident. But
Speaker 1: please do it. Okay?
Speaker 2: No, is this what you're doing now? Is this it?
Speaker 1: No? No, this is just like a sight hustle. Everybody
Speaker 1: says to you, you have to have a party. It's like,
Speaker 1: who made you have a Twitter account? Kathleen.
Speaker 2: Kathleen really said you gotta because you have to keep
Speaker 2: your name out right.
Speaker 1: That's so. And I tell people where I was going
Speaker 1: to bring and I bet you the rant cast is
Speaker 1: the podcast is the same.
Speaker 2: The ran cast was when I was stuck inside and
Speaker 2: I and I didn't. I wasn't one of those people
Speaker 2: I need an audience to do stand up right. I
Speaker 2: can do it with you, you know. I mean the
Speaker 2: people that I can bag your back and forth with
Speaker 2: them and stuff like that. But basically, like I'm going
Speaker 2: to go home and sit by myself and talk about
Speaker 2: the writer's strike is gotten. I got one rant that
Speaker 2: came in, but I had all of these rants that
Speaker 2: people had already sent it. I've been doing it for
Speaker 2: years where I read these rants on stage live and
Speaker 2: they went throughout the world. And what was great about
Speaker 2: it is some of them, respect I mean so fucking good.
Speaker 2: In the last year they were really remarkable. And my
Speaker 2: tour manager said this would be a great thing to
Speaker 2: put and I thought great because people didn't you know,
Speaker 2: if you didn't see it that night, you know it.
Speaker 2: And so I was able to get those out there
Speaker 2: and and then I do an intro of what happened
Speaker 2: that week. And then I started reading rants that were
Speaker 2: coming to me.
Speaker 1: And so people write down the rants and you read
Speaker 1: them out for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I'll be reading the rant of one
Speaker 2: of the writers today that was.
Speaker 1: Now technically if that writer or wrote I rant for you,
Speaker 1: read out, didn't that right? Or then write for you?
Speaker 2: Oh no, No, I didn't write it for me. I
Speaker 2: just wrote, just wrote it, wrote a thing saying this
Speaker 2: is talking about it and sending it to some friends,
Speaker 2: all right then, and they're not you know.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to get in trouble. That's why
Speaker 1: I'm not.
Speaker 2: Getting in trouble for this, because it's really about getting
Speaker 2: it out to the public as to why this is
Speaker 2: bullshit and why why we need to go and strike?
Speaker 1: I want to strike, Yeah, I want to strike. None
Speaker 1: of this was written down excellent. Yeah, and you're a
Speaker 1: w g A member, right yeah, yeah, me too, So
Speaker 1: we're on strike.
Speaker 2: We are in strike.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But you know, did they did you ever get anything
Speaker 2: asking you for your vote?
Speaker 1: Now? Did you?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I think I think you had to go and vote
Speaker 1: in the auditorium.
Speaker 2: No, there's no auditorium. And the fact that you even
Speaker 2: use that word means that this this this podcast has
Speaker 2: dropped ten percent. What's an auditorium?
Speaker 1: That'sh people go to get COVID. All right, let's everybody,
Speaker 1: good night
Speaker 2: Of the fo