Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
Speaker 1: It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
Speaker 1: it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
Speaker 1: on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
Speaker 1: buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
Speaker 1: see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
Speaker 1: I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
Speaker 1: you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
Speaker 1: The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
Speaker 1: end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
Speaker 1: the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They're available
Speaker 1: at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour or
Speaker 1: at your local outlet in your region. My name is
Speaker 1: Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I
Speaker 1: talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
Speaker 1: On the podcast today is an artist who I can
Speaker 1: consider one of the best and most interesting that I've
Speaker 1: ever met. He was, of course the personality, the boys
Speaker 1: and the talent of Jeff.
Speaker 2: Peterson on the Old Lately Show, but it's so much
Speaker 2: more than that.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the world with my friend Josh Robert Compston enjoy.
Speaker 1: First of all, let me apologize to you because I
Speaker 1: was meant to do your podcast, You're Spielberg podcast.
Speaker 2: I have done it yet, that's all right? Are you
Speaker 2: still doing it?
Speaker 4: We're doing it right after this, doing it at noon?
Speaker 4: Come on, hop on?
Speaker 2: Do you know what I have to say?
Speaker 1: By the way, as you get older, because I've seen
Speaker 1: you for a little while, you look more and more
Speaker 1: like John Cassavei's do you know that? I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I've never heard that. I've never heard that except from you.
Speaker 1: Really, yeah, no, you you do. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: like you know, you broke my heart?
Speaker 2: You do. I knew it was you, Josh.
Speaker 5: So listen your podcast is uh are doing spiel Well,
Speaker 5: that's you have to do that symbol.
Speaker 4: That's not Elon musk man I'm trying to do. Come on, man,
Speaker 4: do you know I drink my own pea? You know
Speaker 4: that's that's good. It's actually good for you.
Speaker 2: It says natural Skotti Shapple juice.
Speaker 4: You can only drink your own piss. That's the thing.
Speaker 4: You can't drink someone else's piss. I guess that's the
Speaker 4: why would you get a disease?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I just did a I did a whole Well, i'll
Speaker 4: tell you about it. I did talk about urine recently. Okay,
Speaker 4: what happened. It's a lot going on over here, man,
Speaker 4: But we'll figure out the spiel thing.
Speaker 2: Don't worry about it. We're just we book. You know.
Speaker 2: There's so much shit going on. Man. Well, I figured
Speaker 2: here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Because your podcast is about doing your favorite Bielberg movie,
Speaker 1: I thought what we could do and my podcast is
Speaker 1: we could talk about a favorite movie that wasn't a
Speaker 1: Spielberg movie.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, all right, So yours is obviously Ghostwriter. Yes, ghostwriter.
Speaker 5: I know the yours ghost Writer. I thought you were
Speaker 5: a big ghost Writer fan.
Speaker 2: I can't you know, I can't tell you something about Ghostwriter.
Speaker 2: So I was.
Speaker 1: I did a show, and then afterwards, at the meet
Speaker 1: and greet, this nice older lady was at the mean
Speaker 1: and greet, and she said, do you.
Speaker 2: Know my son.
Speaker 1: He's a he's an actor. He was in a movie
Speaker 1: called Ghostwriter. And I looked at I looked at her.
Speaker 1: She had a very specific with this woman, and I said,
Speaker 1: us Bentley's mom, and she.
Speaker 2: Said, yeah, yes, I am. You know my son, and
Speaker 2: your son's a giant fucking movie star. He's like on Yellowstone.
Speaker 2: He's the devil in the Ghostwriter movies. And she was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I didn't know you knew him. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: with a mother like that, I'm surprised he's not a
Speaker 2: stand up comedian. Did you share your love of ghost rip?
Speaker 4: I mean you were You were really the one that
Speaker 4: was pushing ghost Rider for years, you know, I think.
Speaker 1: I was pretty much the only one. Although they didn't
Speaker 1: make ghost Rider too uh so they must have been
Speaker 1: the market for it. I don't think did Nicholas Cage
Speaker 1: come back for that one? Did you see that one?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think that was the post I bought too many castles.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, you got to pay
Speaker 4: off all the iguanas, the the Kimodo dragon.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: My agent looked at h maybe he was thinking about
Speaker 1: buying his house in La and she told me that
Speaker 1: the candle sconces were plastic casts of his arm holding legs.
Speaker 2: This is my arm over here, that's my arm. Uh.
Speaker 2: It's pretty cool. Yeah, you should get that man, I
Speaker 2: should like your arm.
Speaker 1: I'd like your arm imparison ate and Nicholas Cage's arm.
Speaker 4: You'll tell people, Wiscons, here is Josh Robert Tomon's arm,
Speaker 4: impersonating Nicholas Cage's arm.
Speaker 2: Oh, I meant to tell you by the way.
Speaker 1: You know how when we were doing Jeff Peterson on
Speaker 1: the Late Night Show, there were two Jeffs, traveling Jeff
Speaker 1: and regular studio Jeff.
Speaker 2: I have both Jeffs. I have both Jeffs. Oh, it
Speaker 2: was a mystery.
Speaker 4: Well, this is interesting you bring this up because this
Speaker 4: has been a source of great mystery for the last decade.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, the show went off the air again. It's
Speaker 2: been a decade.
Speaker 4: I knew you had the Jeff, you had the in
Speaker 4: studio Jeff, but the mystery was where is the other Jeff?
Speaker 4: Is he in storage? Is he traveling the world? But
Speaker 4: you you this whole time, you've had both of them.
Speaker 2: I've had both Jeffs.
Speaker 1: But I would like to offer you the gift of
Speaker 1: the Jeff of your choice, traveling Jeff that I will
Speaker 1: have a shipped to you.
Speaker 4: So, so what you're saying is you would send me
Speaker 4: I can choose whichever Jeff. I want traveling Jeff and
Speaker 4: then you will ship. That should be somehow as long
Speaker 4: as it's one of the two Jeffs.
Speaker 1: Traveling Jeff, traveling Jeff, Yeah, yeah, but I feel like
Speaker 1: it should. First of all, you're famous for your Halloween
Speaker 1: parade that you have in your house as a big pager.
Speaker 2: Yeah put it, Yeah, big show. You're a major figure
Speaker 2: in the gay community in Los Angeles and a lot
Speaker 2: of people come to so good. Have you seen his Halloween?
Speaker 2: It's fantastic. You've got to come by and see it.
Speaker 2: Your Halloween is very good.
Speaker 4: Though. You're saying Jeff Peterson could be the centerpiece of
Speaker 4: the newest Halloween display, is what you're thinking.
Speaker 1: Well, you're famous for your Halloween display in Lost Science List.
Speaker 1: I don't look whether or not it's the centerpiece of
Speaker 1: the display.
Speaker 2: I don't know. That's up to you.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just I'm just supplying what you do with
Speaker 1: the traveling Jeff once you get him.
Speaker 2: There, that's up to you.
Speaker 4: By the way, you can have either Jeff okay, but
Speaker 4: preferably traveling.
Speaker 2: Jeff, but definitely traveling.
Speaker 4: What you're saying is I could do a sad, lonely
Speaker 4: like puppet show. Just on the front lawn at Halloween.
Speaker 4: You want me to hide behind a bush and have
Speaker 4: the remote control and hey, hey there retreat.
Speaker 1: Actually actually I wasn't suggested, not but as you bring
Speaker 1: it up, that sounds pretty good.
Speaker 2: It sounds like it's a little it's a little sad.
Speaker 2: But you know, isn't that Josh Robert Thompson.
Speaker 4: Hey, remember me TV's Jeff Peterson, help yourself to some candy?
Speaker 2: Go ahead. I don't know. It could be TikTok gold.
Speaker 4: I think it may be tikto Yeah, you know what
Speaker 4: I now from from the show?
Speaker 2: I have something.
Speaker 4: Uh, they at one point made a puppet head beautifully
Speaker 4: crafted of you. So I have a Craig Ferguson puppet head.
Speaker 4: It's you and puppet form.
Speaker 2: Is it creepy? It's a little creepy.
Speaker 4: But what I'm thinking is I could puppeteer your head
Speaker 4: while I'm puppeteering Jeff.
Speaker 2: And then on the front lawn at Halloween. Hey, Josh,
Speaker 2: Hey Jeff, it's Halloween. Oh chiky monkey, Oh, chiky monkey, Josh?
Speaker 2: Or what's that? Do you know?
Speaker 1: I will see this though, But I mean, it is
Speaker 1: a decade since the show went off the air, but
Speaker 1: because of the way things are now, people still think
Speaker 1: it's on the air.
Speaker 2: There are people who genuinely believe it's still on the air.
Speaker 2: They do, and it might as well be.
Speaker 4: I mean, there are people that have made, even recently,
Speaker 4: very thorough compilations of the entirety of the show, and
Speaker 4: in most cases, because of I guess they use AIS
Speaker 4: somehow they've upgraded the quality. It looks better than it
Speaker 4: ever looked when it was on television. But yes, there
Speaker 4: are people out there that have archives of our material,
Speaker 4: do you know.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this the AI though, because we
Speaker 1: did so much Jeff Peterson and TV's Craig Ferguson together,
Speaker 1: I think AI could probably start making new episodes of
Speaker 1: you and Me, and you and Me don't even have
Speaker 1: to be involved.
Speaker 4: You know what, some guy just did that I don't
Speaker 4: remember his name, but he built a Jeff Peterson. He's
Speaker 4: some kind of a inventor or roboticist. I'm not sure
Speaker 4: what he does, but he built a working Jeff Peterson
Speaker 4: and sent me the video of it, and it looked amazing.
Speaker 4: And in the video Jeff starts talking and it's clearly
Speaker 4: my voice as Jeff Peterson. But Jeff is saying all
Speaker 4: kinds of things, not offensive things, but he's saying a
Speaker 4: lot of stuff that I never said. And the guy
Speaker 4: used AI to replicate Jeff's voice, and I wasn't sure
Speaker 4: how I felt about it. I was very complimented that
Speaker 4: he built this robot, but it was an odd thing
Speaker 4: to present to me.
Speaker 2: I think, I don't know, it seemed a little strange.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if I think about it. You know,
Speaker 1: if that is the state the AI is it now?
Speaker 1: So if anybody digs up any ship from the show
Speaker 1: and says, I can't believe they said that, and they
Speaker 1: try and cancel you, you can just say I say
Speaker 1: that I was a somebody.
Speaker 4: I would never say that. No, that's that's not that's
Speaker 4: not Craig. That's a deep fake. No, that's somebody else.
Speaker 2: It's a fake. No, no, no, no, that's.
Speaker 1: Joyce and Robert Thompson with his puppet head. He used
Speaker 1: to do in the puppet head and then use the AIS.
Speaker 4: That's Josh you know his big Halloween display. Yeah, he
Speaker 4: does this sad one man puppet show where he does
Speaker 4: Craig's puppet head. And by the way, uh, I just
Speaker 4: you know, I wanted to say this to you this
Speaker 4: Over the years, there have been so many people that
Speaker 4: have messaged me xt me, I don't know anyway TwixT
Speaker 4: TwixT TwixT yeah, about James Cordon, you know, wanting me
Speaker 4: saying the worst things about James Cordon, and I just
Speaker 4: ever engaged in it. I always thought it was really
Speaker 4: fascinating when when the version of the show that you
Speaker 4: did ended, I don't know why people assumed that either
Speaker 4: one of us would jump on the board with that
Speaker 4: I got.
Speaker 2: I got the same thing.
Speaker 1: The people would say, hey, you know, they would say
Speaker 1: mean things about James, who, in my limited interaction with him,
Speaker 1: this is a perfectly sweet.
Speaker 2: Very nice man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and they would always try and get say
Speaker 1: mean things about him to me, like I like I
Speaker 1: somehow didn't like him or was It's weird, isn't.
Speaker 4: It like you were going to join in and go
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, you're right, you know what. Let me
Speaker 4: let me say because I went to a taping I
Speaker 4: went to I think the last week of the show.
Speaker 4: Very strange to go back to uh CBS studios, by
Speaker 4: the way, I mean, it was the same stage where
Speaker 4: we did our show.
Speaker 2: Are they going to knock it? No? Are they? Or
Speaker 2: are they? I think so?
Speaker 4: Are they turning it into a mall? Is that the
Speaker 4: legacy of Uh? Yeah, I think that might be it,
Speaker 4: which is fine right me.
Speaker 2: But it was great. I mean, there was a great show.
Speaker 2: The writing was great.
Speaker 4: I thought was very funny, and yeah, I just anyway,
Speaker 4: I just never understood it. I just never participated in
Speaker 4: that no reason too. It's very strange.
Speaker 1: I think the kind of place I've come to with it,
Speaker 1: the show that we did in Late Night, I feel
Speaker 1: we're kind of like like Fish or The Grateful Dead.
Speaker 1: We're not for everybody, but for the people that we
Speaker 1: were for, we were really for them, you know, and
Speaker 1: I think that they get immensely loyal.
Speaker 2: And for the people that don't get it, they're like,
Speaker 2: I don't get it. I'm like, that's all right, you
Speaker 2: don't have to get it. We have enough people who
Speaker 2: really really get it.
Speaker 1: And whatever the hell we were doing back then, I
Speaker 1: still don't really understand, other than in fact it was
Speaker 1: it's a piece of magical improv this chemistry. That's what
Speaker 1: it is, and actually is the argument I use against
Speaker 1: AI when I'm discussing it's like, oh, okay, make me and George,
Speaker 1: Robert Thompson and AI and maybe they can't.
Speaker 4: No, they can replicate the voices. But I was just
Speaker 4: thinking about this yesterday. The interactions that you and I
Speaker 4: had on that show is not something that you can
Speaker 4: plan for. And I only have that with a few people.
Speaker 4: You know, you're at the top of the list. There's
Speaker 4: a very small short list of people that I have
Speaker 4: that with. The other guy is a guy named Jeff
Speaker 4: Richards who is an astonishing comedian and impressionist, and he
Speaker 4: has a show called The Jeff Richards Show where he's
Speaker 4: never on his show. He can never make it to
Speaker 4: his own show, so he plays a celebrity filling in
Speaker 4: and a lot of times I'll go on as George Lucas. Oh,
Speaker 4: this is George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, and he'll
Speaker 4: be Dustin Hoffman. And the idea of Dustin Hoffman and
Speaker 4: George Lucas having a conversation for an hour is so
Speaker 4: appealing to me, and I think and I think it's
Speaker 4: that weirder, off center sense of humor that you and
Speaker 4: I both share, as well a little darker. We were
Speaker 4: doing stuff on the Late Late Show that I can't
Speaker 4: believe we were doing on television.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, we would never get away with now because you know,
Speaker 1: people would see it. Like when we were doing it,
Speaker 1: it was going on late at night and then and
Speaker 1: then that was it. But now it's replicated on the internet,
Speaker 1: people would see it. Go ah, you can say that,
Speaker 1: people like, right, Oh, it wasn't as it was Ai.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you this though, Well, when you're telling
Speaker 1: me about what's the name of the guy you show
Speaker 1: Jeff Richards, Jeff Jeff Richards.
Speaker 2: When I heard that, I got it, I'm a little jealous.
Speaker 2: I feel like a little jealous.
Speaker 4: No, man, you're number one. You're the first you see,
Speaker 4: You're you know, it's kind of like.
Speaker 2: You hear that your ex is dating like a firefighter.
Speaker 2: I knew you were gonna. I was like, you know,
Speaker 2: should I even bring this up? I'm gonna. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: mention this. No, I'm a little jealous. It's good to you.
Speaker 4: It's you, Jeffritch. I mean, there's a couple other guys
Speaker 4: if you want to say their names as well.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, let's just tell me. Give me your whole
Speaker 2: list by don't you then? Who are they?
Speaker 4: Well, listen, you know what you know, what you know,
Speaker 4: what's very special about what we did is that you
Speaker 4: couldn't see me. We talked about this before I came
Speaker 4: on the show before, but that's the magic trick.
Speaker 2: Man, like you were improvising to nothing.
Speaker 4: I mean, I was there, but you know you were
Speaker 4: looking at this skeleton robot thing, and so that's an
Speaker 4: even more difficult form of improv. That's a that's a
Speaker 4: real magic trick. And the fact that it worked with that,
Speaker 4: with that is is incredible to me.
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, I mean, I hate to,
Speaker 1: you know, knock it back, but I think that's more
Speaker 1: about you than as about me. I think that the
Speaker 1: you kept throwing stuff to me that I couldn't resist,
Speaker 1: you know, like you would open the robots mouth and
Speaker 1: have a.
Speaker 2: Harmonica sound come out. Sure, yeah, the mouth.
Speaker 1: I mean things that there are things now even like
Speaker 1: you know, I'll be in the sh shower or something
Speaker 1: and I'll think about stuff that we did.
Speaker 2: I'll step laughing again.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that when we were doing that whole
Speaker 1: thing where you and the horse were going to get
Speaker 1: in a fight with each other and I had to
Speaker 1: take it up and yeah, yeah, yes, I mean, all
Speaker 1: done with body language and shouting.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, it's really, it's true.
Speaker 4: It's true because because Joe Bolter, who was at the
Speaker 4: front of the horse, had nothing. All he could do
Speaker 4: was say yes or no really with secretariat, and the
Speaker 4: mileage he got out of those two expressions was just gold.
Speaker 4: And then I would say, kick his ass, kick his
Speaker 4: ass man, and Jeff obviously couldn't move from the lectern.
Speaker 4: So I think we were having a good time. I
Speaker 4: think we were. It was like an in joke. Half
Speaker 4: the show was just in jokes. I felt it was
Speaker 4: just trying to make you laugh because I think towards
Speaker 4: the end, certainly the last year, you were just you know,
Speaker 4: it's enough already.
Speaker 1: I think now, looking at the way that the business
Speaker 1: is now, I don't even know anyone really who works
Speaker 1: in that arena anymore. And you know, in kind of
Speaker 1: broadcast television and those kind of big corporate environments, it
Speaker 1: seems to be that.
Speaker 2: Everything is like what we're doing now.
Speaker 1: It seems like where comedy exists in that environment. You know,
Speaker 1: the talk shows, I mean are there. I guess they're
Speaker 1: still late night shows.
Speaker 2: I never watched. They're still there. I guess.
Speaker 1: But for me, they exist on the phone, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean that's where I see maybe thirty seconds of
Speaker 1: a late night show.
Speaker 2: That's all I ever see, right, I would never watch
Speaker 2: one that started towards the end of our run. I
Speaker 2: mean that that. Yeah, I guess Allan. Allan was embracing
Speaker 2: YouTube and all that stuff. He he got on it
Speaker 2: right away. He got on a member of what it.
Speaker 1: Was called Twitter before it was twigs and it was
Speaker 1: he got into playing the hashtag game.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I tried to play that hashtag game one so on
Speaker 1: Jimmy Filon's thing because the hashtag was my co worker
Speaker 1: is weird? And I put and he's a fucking robot skeleton.
Speaker 2: But they never used it.
Speaker 1: I thought it would have been good, but they were like, what,
Speaker 1: who what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Who's a robot skeleton? That doesn't make sense? Andrew swore,
Speaker 2: So it doesn't make sense, you know, man.
Speaker 4: It's it's amazing how many people are finding the show now,
Speaker 4: which we talked about, you know, a little bit ago,
Speaker 4: but it's I mean, there's so many people just now
Speaker 4: finding it just now.
Speaker 2: So it just goes on and on, man.
Speaker 4: And that's ten years after it went off the air,
Speaker 4: so that I know that's really something special.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think.
Speaker 1: What's kind of interesting to me about it as well
Speaker 1: as I don't know about you, I think you went
Speaker 1: through this as well. For the first couple of years
Speaker 1: after we were done with it.
Speaker 2: I kind of I didn't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: I was kind of like I was, you know, I
Speaker 1: was respectful to it, but I didn't really want to
Speaker 1: talk about it.
Speaker 2: I didn't embrace it. I know.
Speaker 1: I feel the complete opposite of that. I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of it. I'm so proud of what
Speaker 1: we did. I'm happy we did. Doesn't mean I want
Speaker 1: to do it again, but I'm very connected to it
Speaker 1: in a way that I wasn't for a little while.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I had the same thing.
Speaker 4: I mean, I was a little I was a little
Speaker 4: uh angrier about things. But you know the thing. The
Speaker 4: thing about that is anger isn't sexy. That doesn't sell
Speaker 4: very well. It's not like if I if I had
Speaker 4: done cocaine or you know, if I had gone off
Speaker 4: on a bender and then came back. I think people
Speaker 4: would be like, oh, good for him, Josh is doing well.
Speaker 4: But if you go well, Josh isn't angry anymore. People go, yeah,
Speaker 4: so so what join the club? You know what I mean,
Speaker 4: it's not sexy, it doesn't sell, Craig, it's not a
Speaker 4: good promotion.
Speaker 2: It's a good pop.
Speaker 1: But I think that I think that if you don't
Speaker 1: get if you don't get angry, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: feel like, if you don't get angry, you can't do comedy.
Speaker 1: I mean the or comedy that I am interested in.
Speaker 1: I mean what I always loved about your comedy. No,
Speaker 1: it's just Jeff, but the other you know, the characters
Speaker 1: that you did on the show and the stuff they're
Speaker 1: they're filled with such an existential rage.
Speaker 2: That I that I love that.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking the same rage that fuels you know,
Speaker 1: South Park, the same rage. Have you seen a British
Speaker 1: comedian called Stuart Lee.
Speaker 2: No, No, not familiar.
Speaker 1: I have to see this guy the rage and this.
Speaker 2: Is so awesome.
Speaker 1: Like he would be angry at me being complimentary about
Speaker 1: his stand up Cad. I'm sure he would. It be
Speaker 1: like he'd be like fuck, you know, it would be awful,
Speaker 1: but it is. It's amazing stuff, and I think converting
Speaker 1: that kind of uh, it's almost despair. I think into
Speaker 1: comedy is what a lot of people they don't understand
Speaker 1: about it. I think comedians maybe understand it, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of behind the carton.
Speaker 2: But audiences, I think, think, oh, that's funny. He's a
Speaker 2: funny guy.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, he's a funny guy.
Speaker 4: But you know, you can't get people the The audience
Speaker 4: just wants you to entertain them and be funny or
Speaker 4: whatever it is that you do that is your particular talent.
Speaker 4: They're not really interested in how you get there. And
Speaker 4: that's what I found out, you know, And I think
Speaker 4: the big thing I learned was it's not about me.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I used to get really angry about look at these YouTubers.
Speaker 2: This is years ago.
Speaker 4: Look at look at the you know, Chewbacca mom or
Speaker 4: somebody going viral and getting all this stuff, and you know,
Speaker 4: I'm over here making this TV pilot that I spend
Speaker 4: hundreds of thousands of dollars on it, you know, and
Speaker 4: one day it just clicks and you realize it's not
Speaker 4: about me. It's not about me always sounded like such
Speaker 4: a hostile phrase whenever I heard people say, you know,
Speaker 4: it's not about you. John it's not about you. But
Speaker 4: it's actually very helpful to remember that because it frees
Speaker 4: you from that that upset, that anger. It's it's not
Speaker 4: about it has nothing to do with me. Someone else's
Speaker 4: success has zero too. I mean, you can be jealous,
Speaker 4: that's a normal thing. We've talked about that before. But sure,
Speaker 4: I just don't. It doesn't have anything to do with you.
Speaker 4: It's it's it's what a lovely idea, what a great thought.
Speaker 1: I think, well, I think the the idea also is
Speaker 1: the Really, when it comes down to it, the only
Speaker 1: thing you've got control over is your attitude towards anything.
Speaker 2: Really, I mean it.
Speaker 1: You don't really have any control over the OtherSide world
Speaker 1: beyond a sand amount. You don't know how somebody's going
Speaker 1: to react, You don't. I love when right As would
Speaker 1: say to me, this joke is gonna kill and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you don't know that, You're just you just want me
Speaker 1: to try it.
Speaker 2: You know, But I don't know. You don't know. I
Speaker 2: mean you can guess. Have you been doing any stand up? No?
Speaker 4: No, recently, not at all, not at all. I made
Speaker 4: it decision that that's not the format for me. That's
Speaker 4: not where I need to be where a stand up Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's not I did it with you for for a
Speaker 4: number of years and uh yeah, and then that cured
Speaker 4: me of ever wanting to do it again, is what
Speaker 4: I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I feel like I feel like
Speaker 1: I yeah, you know, Joshi, I do you know? I
Speaker 1: love you and I and I feel like I feel
Speaker 1: like it is that you have great lakes of despair
Speaker 1: inside you that I think can be mined for gold in.
Speaker 2: The world of stand up. Yeah.
Speaker 4: But you know what, the stuff that excites me the
Speaker 4: most is the improv character stuff like like I don't
Speaker 4: We've talked about this before, but I think I've finally
Speaker 4: figured it out. Like like with impressions, I enjoy doing impressions.
Speaker 4: I don't consider myself an impressionist.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't get up in the morning and think, like,
Speaker 4: what voice am I I'll learn today? And there are
Speaker 4: guys that are really good at that and that's what
Speaker 4: they live for. However, if I'm in the right company
Speaker 4: such as yourself, and I won't name the list of
Speaker 4: the five other guys, but no, I'm saying, you know,
Speaker 4: but if I'm around those guys, I mean in the
Speaker 4: right frame of mind, in the right company. I'll do
Speaker 4: it if it's if it's organic. But I don't like
Speaker 4: the you get up there and you you be fun.
Speaker 4: I just I don't know. My stuff is more.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't want to say performance art, but I like
Speaker 4: the improv aspect of things.
Speaker 2: I like just being I get it.
Speaker 1: I mean I for a long time, the hardest thing
Speaker 1: I've found was to start the show.
Speaker 2: I always wanted, how do you go.
Speaker 1: Up there and say good evening ladies and gentlemen. I'm
Speaker 1: going to know, try and say some things and hopefully
Speaker 1: it will make you laugh. And it took me a
Speaker 1: long time to know I can get up there and
Speaker 1: stay good evening ladies and gentlemen. I Am going to
Speaker 1: say some things and hopefully it will make you laugh.
Speaker 1: And that's that's all you really have to say. But
Speaker 1: right there was a sense of I don't know, I
Speaker 1: feel like you may have this. I kind of know
Speaker 1: you do. There's some kind of weird sense of shame
Speaker 1: or embarrassment or something that lives inside you as a performer. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you kind of you have to wrestle with a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's because when I see some people go up and
Speaker 1: just talk about how great they are.
Speaker 2: I am in all of that level of confidence. I
Speaker 2: don't have it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, no, I Well we're seeing something interesting happening though, too.
Speaker 4: Where a lot of these comedians that have podcasts, I
Speaker 4: find that their podcasts is more entertaining and interesting than
Speaker 4: their stand up and yeah, and they're very good at
Speaker 4: stand up, but I find that the longer format of
Speaker 4: a podcast gives some people the room to find those
Speaker 4: beats and present themselves in a different kind of way
Speaker 4: that I find more appealing. You know, there's there's a
Speaker 4: number there's a bunch of big comics that do their
Speaker 4: podcasts and then they use that as the platform to
Speaker 4: get you to go see obviously, go see the show.
Speaker 4: But I think you know that somehow that's more appealing
Speaker 4: to me listening to their to their podcast, it's just
Speaker 4: a different animals.
Speaker 2: Do you like Joe Rogan and people like that? Is
Speaker 2: that who you listen to?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Joe Rogan I think is interesting. You know, I
Speaker 4: find it entertaining, sometimes educational, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I don't, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't swear by it, But like THEO Von I
Speaker 4: think is THEO Von is is a guy who is
Speaker 4: so unique in his voice. He's so I've watched him
Speaker 4: become more confident as a host, as a as a person,
Speaker 4: as a human being.
Speaker 2: So we're you know, that's the other thing. You're you're
Speaker 2: watching people.
Speaker 4: You're spending time with these people on a podcast in
Speaker 4: a way that you don't get to necessarily in stand
Speaker 4: up And I think, like with THEO Vaughn, it's been
Speaker 4: really nice to watch him grow over the years, and
Speaker 4: I think I think he's a fantastic host.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm less familiar with Theo Vonne's work, Yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously aware of Joe Rogan, who kind of almost created it.
Speaker 2: He created this thing.
Speaker 1: It is like he created a new type of discussion,
Speaker 1: a new type of a way of dealing with things,
Speaker 1: which just fascinating to me. And I think he adopted
Speaker 1: it early and he investigated it and he went at it,
Speaker 1: and he he found and created a thing. It's so
Speaker 1: unusual and rare to see a person do that. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I like I like that he talks to
Speaker 2: you know, I just like that he talks to anybody.
Speaker 4: That's that's h I mean, it's It's not as silly
Speaker 4: as when I used to watch the Morton Downy Junior Show.
Speaker 4: You know, in the eighties we had Heraldo and Morton
Speaker 4: Downey Junior Show.
Speaker 2: A lot of that.
Speaker 4: Stuff was staged, but but it it retains some of
Speaker 4: the essence of that in the sense that it takes chances.
Speaker 2: You know, Joe can do whatever he wants.
Speaker 4: It's his own format, and it speaks to what broadcasting
Speaker 4: used to be, you know, the USA coming from the
Speaker 4: public access local TV world as I do, which is
Speaker 4: what you're saying, right, and that's what our show was
Speaker 4: a we you joked about that the show was broadcast
Speaker 4: from CBS's basement, but we were essentially doing public access
Speaker 4: TV on network television, and I think the show was
Speaker 4: better for it. That's that's the free We had such
Speaker 4: freedom that we would never have now. I don't think
Speaker 4: we would ever have that freedom now.
Speaker 2: I just don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's weird because there are so many
Speaker 1: whenever I rub up against the the executive world.
Speaker 2: It used to be.
Speaker 1: When you talk to executives and show business in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: they were people who were fans of show business.
Speaker 2: They had things that they liked they had.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel that there's less and less and
Speaker 1: less of that when I talk to executives now. There
Speaker 1: are people who worry about redsheets and algorithms and two
Speaker 1: screen interaction and all these things that they say now,
Speaker 1: and they worry about the business of being successful rather
Speaker 1: than being excited about what they're making.
Speaker 2: Now. I think there's always been an element of that.
Speaker 1: But I think it's kind of like tipped into this
Speaker 1: weird mintioning machine that.
Speaker 2: I mean, there were always the factory. You know.
Speaker 1: My mother of the car type show is that you
Speaker 1: just wrong through right there and try anything. But they
Speaker 1: don't try anything.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: It's like when I see something new, I'm genuinely shocked.
Speaker 1: You know, I can tell you that even like you know,
Speaker 1: procedural like crime dramas you go and that's him, you know,
Speaker 1: that's who did it, that's you know, that's the guy
Speaker 1: and this is the thing, and all you're meant to
Speaker 1: think of this guy.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm just getting old.
Speaker 1: There is that possibility I've seen too many things and
Speaker 1: it's time to stop it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't it get to that.
Speaker 4: I think it does get to that point where, yeah,
Speaker 4: all the themes you recognize, all the themes. There's only
Speaker 4: a few basic themes and plots and variations, variations, variations,
Speaker 4: you know. But but that's what that's why someone like
Speaker 4: Joe Rogan is important. You may not agree with what
Speaker 4: Joe Rogan is doing. You may, you know, you don't
Speaker 4: have to. That's not the point. That's that's impossible. That's
Speaker 4: a silly thing to strive for. You're never going to
Speaker 4: agree with what everything that somebody says. But it has
Speaker 4: to exist. The fact that Joe's show exists is important,
Speaker 4: and we don't need networks for that. I mean, then again,
Speaker 4: he made a you know, multi billion dollar deal with
Speaker 4: big network, but still.
Speaker 1: Fair great to him though, I mean I would have to.
Speaker 1: I mean, absolutely the right thing to do.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like what people say, uh, you know, when amb
Speaker 1: is ever accused of sailing out, I'm thinking, have.
Speaker 2: You ever met a performer in your life? Is the goal?
Speaker 1: That's what you want to see on that on the
Speaker 1: poster is sold out?
Speaker 2: You know, that's that's what you want sold out? Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, By the way, I will do impressions if it's
Speaker 4: with friends that I enjoy working with, or if they're
Speaker 4: paying me money. That's you see that's the thing. If
Speaker 4: I'm being paid, I'll do it. You know, if it's
Speaker 4: good money, i'll do it.
Speaker 1: You see all these posh English actors who come from
Speaker 1: you know, very wealthy family saying, well, I wanted to
Speaker 1: see if the pop was something that.
Speaker 2: I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: This is how I know I want to do it.
Speaker 4: It's like you how many that I'll do it? How
Speaker 4: many zeros are there? Yeah, I'll do it.
Speaker 1: I mean even it's like, was it Michael Caine when
Speaker 1: they said have you seen without Jaws?
Speaker 2: Thing that he did? Is? Have you ever even seen it?
Speaker 1: He's like, no, but I've seen the house that it
Speaker 1: built and that's enough, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's true.
Speaker 4: That's why Nicholas Cage has a sconces of his own arms,
Speaker 4: his own arms, his.
Speaker 7: Bills, got to pay off the bills.
Speaker 4: He did, He go by, he booked too many. He's
Speaker 4: probably gone bankrupt. You know, five or six times he
Speaker 4: seems like he's doing okay.
Speaker 2: He seems like he'd be all right. He's having a resurgence.
Speaker 2: He is, but like it's it's all good stuff.
Speaker 4: I don't know, it's it's a more sanitized I like
Speaker 4: like when Nicholas Cage did the sequel to Bad Lieutenant.
Speaker 4: You remember Bad Lieutenant with Harvey Kite.
Speaker 1: I remember a sequel Bad Lieutenant as a sequel, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did a he did Bad Lieutenant. Uh.
Speaker 4: Port of Call, Port of Call, New Orleans. It's it's amazing.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, it's worth I haven't seen it. I know
Speaker 2: the one you're talking about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because the first one was Harvey Kitel. Harvey Kittel
Speaker 4: was nude through most of the movie. You walking around
Speaker 4: dancing naked and doing all kinds of it's a it's
Speaker 4: a it's a fun two hours to spend.
Speaker 2: With the family. You're going to really enjoy that one.
Speaker 2: But that's idea.
Speaker 4: That's the film I miss I'm like Abel Ferrara directed that.
Speaker 4: I missed that early nineties. You know a lot of
Speaker 4: these films now, like A twenty four, they're fine, but
Speaker 4: they say they're taking these big swings and they're doing
Speaker 4: all these controversial things. Don't I don't get. Maybe it's
Speaker 4: because it's not shot on film anymore.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't get that.
Speaker 4: I missed that early nineties, late eighties, the seediness of film.
Speaker 2: You know, those kind of movies that were taking chances.
Speaker 2: Did you see salt Burn? I did see Saltburn.
Speaker 1: It's funny because no like spoiler, but you know when
Speaker 1: the guy with the big penis wins the day and
Speaker 1: gets the big castle. Yeah, as speaking of someone who's
Speaker 1: owned the castle, and like, you wait till the first
Speaker 1: heating bill comes in and we'll see how good you
Speaker 1: feel about that.
Speaker 4: Mister big penis. I want to see the sequel to that.
Speaker 4: Mister big Penis pays his bills. Yeah's a mortgage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mister big Penis gets the heating bill, and then
Speaker 1: you know the roof has to be redone because it
Speaker 1: hasn't been done since fifteen twenty eight and all that.
Speaker 2: It all gets old pretty.
Speaker 4: Fast, coming soon from a twenty before the sequel to Saltburn,
Speaker 4: Mister big Penis pays the bills.
Speaker 1: And in it he pays the bills, and he has
Speaker 1: to pay the bills by selling his big penis in installments.
Speaker 2: He sells his big penis. I thought, okay, I thought,
Speaker 2: I mean he sells. Maybe he sells he rents out.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying is becomes a prostitute.
Speaker 4: He becomes a maybe shoot, okay, that's good, but maybe
Speaker 4: the Sconces in his castle are castle Penis.
Speaker 2: The Wisconsors are my penis or my penis?
Speaker 1: Would you ever have a body part as a scone
Speaker 1: foot part of your body part could be a sconce?
Speaker 2: I don't think. No, you don't think you're paying penis. No.
Speaker 1: I think my penis could maybe be a candle holder Wollscones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I.
Speaker 1: Think my Wollscones days are behind me. I think that
Speaker 1: i'd be more maybe a light, maybe a reading.
Speaker 4: Light, yeah, a little little reading lad at the sight
Speaker 4: of the bad book. Maybe a book, a book light,
Speaker 4: maybe a small book light that you clamped to the
Speaker 4: to the back of the book. You clamp because look, man,
Speaker 4: I'm getting into my penis scance years. I'm about to
Speaker 4: turn fifty. I'm about to be the age that you were.
Speaker 4: You were maybe a year older than me when the
Speaker 4: show ended.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I am fifty two, maybe some of that.
Speaker 4: So I'm I'm going to turn fifty. So it's penis
Speaker 4: sconce time. This is my penis scnce era.
Speaker 1: Man, are you worried about turn fifty? I hated turn fifty.
Speaker 1: It freaked me out.
Speaker 4: I was now why why were why were you so Upseide.
Speaker 4: I just thought, oh my god, this is off.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, the day after I turned fifty, I
Speaker 1: was like, fucking ridiculous, doesn't matter at all. But on
Speaker 1: the lead up to my fiftieth birthday, I was getting
Speaker 1: very tense. But I wouldn't let the kids talk about it,
Speaker 1: or answered like I don't want to talk about it,
Speaker 1: and they're like, yeah, we weare to get your present.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, get back to work because the nobody
Speaker 1: mentioned a fucking thing.
Speaker 6: I'm turning, get the fuck out away, the boating light,
Speaker 6: the penis. But I I feel like I wanted to.
Speaker 4: But do you wantry you about? You wave again? Odu
Speaker 4: no man I. I I love it because I and
Speaker 4: I wish. I wish I had felt this way while
Speaker 4: we were doing the show. I wish I had this
Speaker 4: perspective ten years ago. But isn't that always the way?
Speaker 4: The way that I feel now is I don't want
Speaker 4: to say zen, but I I can't remember why any
Speaker 4: of the stuff that I thought was such a big
Speaker 4: fucking deal. I know it was a big I can't
Speaker 4: even figure it out, uh, I know. And it's a
Speaker 4: very peaceful place to be because I just make stuff
Speaker 4: for myself and if people like it, fine, If they don't,
Speaker 4: I really don't care. I don't mean that in a
Speaker 4: derogatory negative way. I just it's fine. Man, Like I
Speaker 4: don't know, you just sort of come into your own
Speaker 4: and as you get older, you you also like, what
Speaker 4: am I going to spend my time with. I used
Speaker 4: to say yes to everything because there was that desperation.
Speaker 4: I mean, the late after the show ended, I didn't
Speaker 4: have a lot of money. I was like, oh shit,
Speaker 4: I guess this is it for me. I guess it's over.
Speaker 4: So I'm gonna say yes to everything. And I have
Speaker 4: to say yes to everything. But now I don't because
Speaker 4: you know, you've only got so much time. Man, we
Speaker 4: got to be selective.
Speaker 1: If you told me about the end of the show
Speaker 1: that that was one of the things that I had
Speaker 1: to come to terms with because I was the age
Speaker 1: you are now, which was when I was fifty years old.
Speaker 1: They were coming to me and saying, well, we can
Speaker 1: do another years and another set of numbers of money,
Speaker 1: and I realized that I was negotiating with a commodity
Speaker 1: that I didn't really have, which was time.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I was you know, well, it's only another year. It's
Speaker 1: only another two years, it's only another five years or
Speaker 1: whatever it was, and you go, but I but I
Speaker 1: don't know if I have that it would be And
Speaker 1: I felt like, you know, looking back on it now,
Speaker 1: I clearly I did have that time, but I didn't know,
Speaker 1: you know, and I and I didn't want to keep
Speaker 1: I didn't want to hate the show. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to get to a point where I hated it. You know,
Speaker 1: there were nice I think there are nice in any
Speaker 1: job where you think, oh, fuck this shit, I can't
Speaker 1: do this again.
Speaker 2: But I didn't.
Speaker 1: I really, I was so fucking rare that that I
Speaker 1: ever felt that when we were doing Late Night, but
Speaker 1: in the like maybe about a year or maybe eighteen
Speaker 1: months before we actually finished, that's when I was getting
Speaker 1: the closest to it, when I was like again with
Speaker 1: this again, And the only thing that made me laugh
Speaker 1: actually was the ship that we were doing, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and that was the only thing. And I feel like,
Speaker 1: now if i'd have known then, why, I know not
Speaker 1: they said, well, let's just cut everything and we'll just
Speaker 1: do you know, the Jaff and Craig Covidy art and
Speaker 1: that's what we'll do, right, you know, yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: what we should have done. You know, I think is
Speaker 1: just let me just do that, just do what we want.
Speaker 1: But they would have fired us.
Speaker 4: You understand that, Well, yeah, sure we probably would have
Speaker 4: gone another's couple of months. At least you could have
Speaker 4: you could have squeezed a few more months out of
Speaker 4: that show. Yeah, but you know, you know when you know,
Speaker 4: like I, But I have also, as I've gotten older,
Speaker 4: realized that two things can be true. Like I used
Speaker 4: to have this attitude of I'm sick of doing impressions
Speaker 4: and that's it. I want to write. I want to
Speaker 4: be a writer, and I'm a filmmaker. That's what I do,
Speaker 4: so so I have to just fuck doing impressions and
Speaker 4: I'm done being a voice actor. But now it's like, no, dude,
Speaker 4: you can do both things. And by the way, what
Speaker 4: an credible job I have. I am so grateful. It's
Speaker 4: like my commute is twelve feet from the bedroom down
Speaker 4: to my studio, which is in my home, and everything
Speaker 4: I do is from home. So it's like I get
Speaker 4: up early in the morning and I write and I
Speaker 4: work on you know, some of these other projects that
Speaker 4: are really near and dear to my heart, the stuff
Speaker 4: that really gets me up in the morning and keeps
Speaker 4: me excited about creating, and then I do the other stuff.
Speaker 4: The other stuff's fine. It's not my first love. But
Speaker 4: I just don't say that publicly. I just you know,
Speaker 4: people enjoy that stuff, and that's great. They enjoy the
Speaker 4: silly things, and that's the right attitude.
Speaker 2: I think that is right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that sometimes I would do a
Speaker 1: show and something would come back stays afterwards and I
Speaker 1: didn't feel it was a good show, and they'd enjoy
Speaker 1: the show and they say I love the show, and
Speaker 1: you go, oh, I wasn't a.
Speaker 2: Good one, and I felt like, you're robinam of that thing.
Speaker 1: So now, no matter what, I'm like great, because I'm
Speaker 1: not the best judge of either.
Speaker 2: I'm not the best.
Speaker 1: Judge of of what I do, and and sometimes I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I know you pretty well over the years.
Speaker 2: You're kind of like that too.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not the best judge of how it
Speaker 1: played out.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like so true.
Speaker 1: It's like true, man, you throw your thing out there
Speaker 1: and then stay out of the result. It's like you're
Speaker 1: you're not you know, being asked to judge it. You're
Speaker 1: being asked to judge it before it happens, after it happens.
Speaker 2: It's somebody else's joke. It's true. Years ago, I did
Speaker 2: an indie film.
Speaker 4: I was the star of a romantic comedy that a
Speaker 4: then friend of mine made, and you know, when when
Speaker 4: the film came out, I got I just I'm thinking
Speaker 4: about this now and I'm just getting douche chills.
Speaker 2: Man, I feel like I just I can't.
Speaker 4: I want to call the guy right after this and
Speaker 4: just go, hey, man, I was so.
Speaker 2: Publicly rude about that film.
Speaker 4: Now I think now about how much it takes to
Speaker 4: make a film and what an accomplishment it was, and
Speaker 4: just you know, yeah, and I just so cavalierly was
Speaker 4: like nad.
Speaker 2: And you like that movie. That movie sucked as a
Speaker 2: piece of shit movie.
Speaker 4: I just could not conceive of speaking that way now,
Speaker 4: And it's you know I did.
Speaker 1: I've done exactly the same thing. I did exactly the
Speaker 1: same thing about a movie that I wrote and I
Speaker 1: directed and I started and I've bad messed that film
Speaker 1: for the last twenty years. And you know, and then
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is it's an okay film.
Speaker 1: It's an okay film, and if you enjoy that film,
Speaker 1: that's great. I'm really glad you enjoy it. And I
Speaker 1: deeply regret exactly as you say, like like I'm such
Speaker 1: a I'm so great, I shouldn't have made that film.
Speaker 2: What a dick, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like I that's the film I made,
Speaker 1: and there is I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2: See you next time. Yeah, you got it. You gotta
Speaker 2: do it. You gotta do it like George Lucas does it.
Speaker 2: You just have to.
Speaker 4: You just quietly recut your film and then you go
Speaker 4: all right, No, this is the this is the film.
Speaker 4: I'm destroying all the other films and this is the
Speaker 4: only one that exists, which I which I admire. But yeah, dude,
Speaker 4: I mean it's a big accomplishment. I mean, you you
Speaker 4: made a film. I think it's a great film. But
Speaker 4: you were in a different who you were at that
Speaker 4: time when you made it, when you wrote it, when you.
Speaker 2: Were talking about it. That's it's a whole different it's
Speaker 2: a whole different world from where you are now.
Speaker 1: It is I and I think the idea, the kind
Speaker 1: of it is that thing you're talking about about the
Speaker 1: agent process.
Speaker 2: But you just kind of go, why would I care?
Speaker 2: Why would I care about it? So I was talking
Speaker 2: to you know, the film critic Ao Scott.
Speaker 1: And and he's given me some pretty tough reviews over
Speaker 1: three years. But I had him on this podcast and
Speaker 1: I was talking about that, and we were kind of laughing,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't matter. And also he had said when
Speaker 1: he was younger, when he saw a bad film or
Speaker 1: a film he didn't like, he would take it as
Speaker 1: a personal front, like he'd get angry. And he doesn't
Speaker 1: get that way anymore. Is there an earthquake you're happening?
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, man, my camera's got a mind of its own.
Speaker 2: I apologize it went. Is there a scary picture next
Speaker 2: to you?
Speaker 4: No, no, don't don't worry about that, Craig. That's uh,
Speaker 4: that's the penis wall Scance. I really didn't want you
Speaker 4: to see that. Yeah, it's back there. But you were
Speaker 4: talking to Ao Scott. I'm so sorry. The camera was
Speaker 4: going great.
Speaker 1: Well, just the fact that he was saying, when he's
Speaker 1: so a movie that he didn't like when he was young,
Speaker 1: he would consider it a personal affront.
Speaker 2: And he can't understand why he felt that way. Now
Speaker 2: it seems so odd. Oh it's so true.
Speaker 4: I when I worked at Blockbuster Video, I was a
Speaker 4: I was a manager at Blockbuster Video, and man, the
Speaker 4: ship that I it was like that movie High Fidelity,
Speaker 4: one of my favorite films with John Cusack. It's a
Speaker 4: brilliant film. I think the Nick Hornby novel. Yeah, it's
Speaker 4: a fantastic it's a it's a great, great film, folks.
Speaker 4: If you're listening, if you haven't seen it, please check
Speaker 4: it out. But I felt like that guy. I felt
Speaker 4: like Rob in that movie working at Blockbuster Video because
Speaker 4: I was just anybody's movie choice.
Speaker 2: Any movie that they brought up to the front.
Speaker 4: Desk, I would just go, oh, really, you're gonna You're
Speaker 4: gonna watch Armageddon?
Speaker 2: You know, Armageddon's a piece of shit.
Speaker 4: Oh the shit that I would talk on Michael Bay, who,
Speaker 4: by the way, I absolutely have so much admiration for.
Speaker 4: I think I own most of Michael Bay's films. There's
Speaker 4: no way I could do what Michael Bay does. Michael
Speaker 4: Bay is so fucking good at what he does. He
Speaker 4: is incredible. I would love to meet him. I'd love
Speaker 4: to hang out and watch him work. But at the time,
Speaker 4: when you're twenty twenty one and you're full of pisson vinegar.
Speaker 4: You know that's what you did. But now you get
Speaker 4: a YouTube channel and you do that instead. I guess
Speaker 4: that's how that works well.
Speaker 1: And you know what, it makes me feel bad for
Speaker 1: the younger a little bit because there's documentary evidence of
Speaker 1: everything that. So if you go like like twenty five
Speaker 1: year old thirty five year old Craig Fergus and the
Speaker 1: bullshit that he's speaking.
Speaker 2: It'd be pretty hard to find.
Speaker 1: But there's some out there, I'm sure, But most of
Speaker 1: it wasn't recorded, you know, I wasn't speaking it into
Speaker 1: the ether that is going to live forever in digital form,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm so glad I wasn't, you know,
Speaker 1: recording my stand up when.
Speaker 2: I was twenty four, twenty five years old. God knows
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. Oh God, nothing is going to endear
Speaker 2: me to people, know, you know, I mean.
Speaker 4: That's I was sure I was going to ask you that,
Speaker 4: because yeah, imagine if you if you had, if you
Speaker 4: were live streaming while you were drunkenly wandering the streets of.
Speaker 2: Scott can you imagine?
Speaker 4: Because I did, I'm saying it because I did, because
Speaker 4: I did, And you know, it was kind of a
Speaker 4: weird performance art.
Speaker 2: Some of it was bullshit, a lot of it was real.
Speaker 4: But and I think in a weird way for this
Speaker 4: new audience, in this new era of social media, in
Speaker 4: a very strange way, it endeared me to a lot
Speaker 4: of people.
Speaker 2: It actually made me more vulnerable and real.
Speaker 4: To a lot of people. But it's also something I
Speaker 4: would never do again. It also did fuck me up
Speaker 4: for quite a number of years. And you know, but
Speaker 4: you're right, it's forever. Someone out there still has those things.
Speaker 4: I'm sure, just waiting for the right moment. And you
Speaker 4: know what my response would be, Ah, what am I
Speaker 4: going to do? That was then I was an idiot?
Speaker 2: What can I do?
Speaker 4: Spend the rest of my life atoning for just being
Speaker 4: who I was?
Speaker 2: I mean, look at you. It's to a zeveral of
Speaker 2: us though.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I've written books and I've gone
Speaker 1: back and I look what I wrote in the book and.
Speaker 2: Go, Jesus Christ, right, like it's there now, it's in
Speaker 2: a book.
Speaker 1: So you know, if someone reads that one hundred, one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years from that, I'll think, well, that's
Speaker 1: what he thought.
Speaker 2: Well I thought it at the time.
Speaker 1: I wrote the book, you know, six months later I
Speaker 1: didn't like that, you know, and then I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's wrong, but it was out.
Speaker 4: There's nothing I could do but see that. That's interesting.
Speaker 4: That's interesting because my obsession years ago was to make
Speaker 4: sure that every single person that had that feeling about
Speaker 4: my work, every single person that took anything I said
Speaker 4: out of context, I was going to go ahead and
Speaker 4: reply to them and email them and message them and
Speaker 4: try to turn them back around to my And you
Speaker 4: will go fucking insane if you did.
Speaker 1: You will. Yeah, you can't interact with people that way.
Speaker 1: I just don't think you can. I don't think it worked. No,
Speaker 1: And I think also, particularly if you're talking about like
Speaker 1: comments or things that people post on online, a.
Speaker 2: Lot of that it's not really even about you.
Speaker 1: It's about you know, I hate my life. I think
Speaker 1: his life is better than my life.
Speaker 2: I'm annoyed at that.
Speaker 1: Or I feel that his point of view is doesn't
Speaker 1: line up with my politics, and so I'm annoyed at that.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like, I don't think that it really works.
Speaker 1: It's not like being in a room with someone. It's
Speaker 1: kind of the way I feel about this podcast. Actually
Speaker 1: which is I feel like in the world of like
Speaker 1: talking to people for eleven or performative conversations, I think
Speaker 1: I'm as good as anyone who does it. But I
Speaker 1: think when it's done online like this, I'm as good
Speaker 1: as anyone who does it online like this, which is
Speaker 1: not as good as I can do it in the room.
Speaker 2: I'd rather be like, I'd rather be in the room
Speaker 2: with you right now, talk always yeah, right, And.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's something that's kind of lost a
Speaker 1: little bit on a lot of people. But the conversation
Speaker 1: that exists online even between we know each other pretty well,
Speaker 1: but even this conversation would be different if we were
Speaker 1: in the room.
Speaker 2: It would be Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 4: I have that same problem with the not a problem,
Speaker 4: but it's with the podcast that I'm doing now, the
Speaker 4: Spielberg Podcast, where we where we when we record the show,
Speaker 4: My co host Eric Vespy is in Austin, and uh
Speaker 4: we we do it obviously online, but there's no visual element,
Speaker 4: So not only do we not we don't see each other,
Speaker 4: So it's like talking out into the ether and I
Speaker 4: never have any visual cue of when someone's going to start.
Speaker 4: Then you add a guest in there and I often
Speaker 4: on the show still feel kind of lost, and it's
Speaker 4: and but but I don't beat myself up about it,
Speaker 4: which is what I would have done years ago. I
Speaker 4: just kind of go, yeah, this is just the format.
Speaker 4: It's like what you're saying, this is it. This is
Speaker 4: just the nature of this beast. If we were all
Speaker 4: together in a studio, be different, be completely different.
Speaker 2: So I'm not gonna sweat it. I'm not gonna worry
Speaker 2: about It's like doing a talk show.
Speaker 4: I do the Kelly Clarkson Show pretty I did it
Speaker 4: just this morning, and that's an amazing show to do.
Speaker 2: It's so much fun. It's very easy.
Speaker 4: I do her game show segments as the voice of God,
Speaker 4: who sounds a lot like Morgan Freeman.
Speaker 2: Hey, Kelly, what's going on down there? Girl?
Speaker 4: But they're in New York now. They move the show
Speaker 4: from LA to New York. Thankfully, I still get to
Speaker 4: do the show from here remotely. Again, the twelve foot commute,
Speaker 4: twelve foot from an outlet, you see.
Speaker 2: But I just go right into my booth and do
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 4: It's just kind of a thing where if a show
Speaker 4: doesn't go well, I only have five minutes to do it.
Speaker 4: I only have five We had an entire show, an episode,
Speaker 4: an hour. I only have five minutes within the context
Speaker 4: of someone else's talk show where they've got a lot
Speaker 4: of other things to get to and this is my
Speaker 4: moment to shine. But it's not about me, because sometimes
Speaker 4: you'll get a guest on who plays one of the
Speaker 4: games and it's about them. They're really cooking, they're really funny.
Speaker 4: And I know, now just to back off. That's from
Speaker 4: all the years, you know, doing the show that we
Speaker 4: did together. I just know intrinsically how to do that.
Speaker 4: I go, all right, I'm gonna let them have this.
Speaker 4: But I used to really beat myself up and go, fuck, man,
Speaker 4: I should have done this. I should have done that.
Speaker 4: I should have said that line. Fuck, it doesn't matter
Speaker 4: because there's another show tomorrow. That's what you that's what
Speaker 4: you said. I remember you saying it doesn't matter. There's
Speaker 4: another show tomorrow. No one's going to remember it doesn't
Speaker 4: matter onto the next, onder, the next That's really.
Speaker 1: The adest and I still kind of feel that way
Speaker 1: as well, that there are people in my life and
Speaker 1: you are definitely one of them. Those five other guys.
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to tell you who they.
Speaker 2: Are, Son of the therapy. Oh my god. But there
Speaker 2: are people in my life.
Speaker 1: No matter what you do next, I'm interested. I'm interested
Speaker 1: and I want to see it because I know that
Speaker 1: it will be it will be unusual. And I'm not
Speaker 1: a big sports fan, but I used to watch Kenny
Speaker 1: dell Gleish when he played for Celtic for Scotland in
Speaker 1: when he played football or soccer, and he's one of
Speaker 1: those players that whenever he was in thirty feet or
Speaker 1: thirty yards from the goal, you would score every time.
Speaker 1: But something really exciting happened every time. And that's what
Speaker 1: I think it's about. It's like it's not always going
Speaker 1: to be a goal, but it's always going to be
Speaker 1: worth seeing. Yeah, And that I think is that's the
Speaker 1: mark of an artist. That's all right. You look at
Speaker 1: every Pocasso and go, oh they're all great. Come on,
Speaker 1: a lot of them are shit, but you know he
Speaker 1: gets there.
Speaker 2: In the end. That's you think. You know what? Man?
Speaker 4: I go even I go one step further with my
Speaker 4: photography and my music. You know, I like to do
Speaker 4: a lot of ambient electronic music.
Speaker 2: Guys.
Speaker 4: I grew up listening to Steve Roach Vangelis, Robert Rich
Speaker 4: Tangerine Dream.
Speaker 2: But I do this stuff and I put it out
Speaker 2: into the world, but nobody knows some people will find it.
Speaker 2: I've built a tiny little audience of people on my Instagram,
Speaker 2: my other instagram, which is my music and my photography,
Speaker 2: and it's about one hundred followers. And this is not
Speaker 2: to downplay the many other thousands of followers I have
Speaker 2: for the other stuff. But somehow it means even more
Speaker 2: to me because it's like this secret, safe place I
Speaker 2: go to to do the stuff I really like to do,
Speaker 2: and it's not I don't even care if anybody sees it.
Speaker 2: And because I've been doing it now for the last
Speaker 2: couple of years, it's really gotten me into that headspace
Speaker 2: where now I'm ready to do some bigger things and.
Speaker 4: I just really need that. I have to have that
Speaker 4: place to go to. It's very very important to me,
Speaker 4: keeps me kind of centered. You know, I would like
Speaker 4: to see that.
Speaker 2: I will send it to you. Are you keeping it
Speaker 2: secret or can just just say it to me? Not? Well,
Speaker 2: I'll say it to you, know, yeah, well, or you
Speaker 2: don't want it to me, No, I'll say it to you.
Speaker 4: The name of my band It's Just Me is called
Speaker 4: a Distant Sound of Trains, and the name of my
Speaker 4: Instagram is Distant Sound of Trains. My favorite noise as
Speaker 4: a little boy growing up was the distant.
Speaker 2: Sound of trains. I know the exact Yeah, love it.
Speaker 2: You know the night and whistle at night. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: know exactly what you mean. It's the great The.
Speaker 4: Sound travels, you know, the the error is different at night,
Speaker 4: and the sound travels further. And there was something haunting
Speaker 4: and the idea of like, there's somebody there in that train,
Speaker 4: you know, somebody manning that train. There's somebody, there's some
Speaker 4: person inside that in the distance.
Speaker 2: I have a great story for you. You just reminded.
Speaker 1: And I swore I was going to tell you and
Speaker 1: I forgot, and you just reminded me. So about like
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, I was doing these live
Speaker 1: shows and I do these meet and greets after the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and these two guys come up after the show, very
Speaker 1: well dressed. I don't know if there were a couple
Speaker 1: of they were just buddies who were just like but
Speaker 1: they were both very handsome and very kind of like
Speaker 1: put together guys.
Speaker 2: And they said, hey, we want to tell you about ourselves.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, I said, we're both amtracked.
Speaker 1: And whenever we drive past each other on Amtrak, we
Speaker 1: do this, we do the Jeff.
Speaker 2: Peterson no way.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was like that so awesome. Wow, isn't that great?
Speaker 2: That's amazing, man, I know that's amazing. That's really that's
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 4: That's I mean that, that's the shit that I love that.
Speaker 4: That's and you know, you were, man, that's great. You
Speaker 4: were talking about right after the show ended, where you
Speaker 4: didn't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to talk about it totally normal.
Speaker 4: I was like, Jeff Peterson, f U, I could have
Speaker 4: probably handled it a bit better. Sorry again, my apologies
Speaker 4: to those of you. But you know, anyway, there's a
Speaker 4: guy named Bob Runkle. It's a great name. Bob Runkle.
Speaker 4: Hey doing I'm Bob Runkle DJ Bob. He has a podcast.
Speaker 4: He's been doing it for close to twenty years. Bob
Speaker 4: is a lovely, lovely human being. He has cerebral palsy
Speaker 4: and he wanted to be a broadcaster his entire life
Speaker 4: and he's been he's been doing it. I've been fortunate
Speaker 4: enough to go on his show, and Bob was the
Speaker 4: one who turned me around on all of this. I mean,
Speaker 4: I appreciated that people loved the show and Jeff, but
Speaker 4: the way that Bob talked about it, it just affected
Speaker 4: me so deeply, and I realized, my god, there's all
Speaker 4: these people that got through terrible situations in their lives.
Speaker 2: Break up your job line?
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, like I and you go, oh, I Like,
Speaker 4: I was so focused on the two or three people
Speaker 4: that were criticizing me, and I realize, now, what a
Speaker 4: what a horrible insult that was really to all of
Speaker 4: these other people that were like, hey over here, dummy,
Speaker 4: we we we love what you do. But to hear
Speaker 4: that people do the Jeff Peterson you know, hand motion
Speaker 4: or say here come the play is and I mean
Speaker 4: all people, even careful Icarus used to bug this shit
Speaker 4: out of me because it was like it was like, no,
Speaker 4: don't you guys understand this was a very painful thing
Speaker 4: for me. And now I'm like, it's amazing. Some dude
Speaker 4: tweeted that to me that guy should be given royalties.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's like it's on T shirts. I have
Speaker 4: my own T shirts as well. I don't know if
Speaker 4: you guys. But it's a careful Icarus and balls and
Speaker 4: in your pants and all the stuff that we did
Speaker 4: here come the Players is like the greatest one though,
Speaker 4: Like I don't even I don't even know where this
Speaker 4: stuff came from, but it connected with people, and I
Speaker 4: think that's the thing that I always have to remember about. Yeah,
Speaker 4: what we did, that's the most important thing.
Speaker 2: That's it. Yeah, I think that. I think that.
Speaker 1: And we'll continue to do separating together shit that does that?
Speaker 1: Will we'll still be the Players.
Speaker 4: Well, we'll sell our own respective T shirts. I mean,
Speaker 4: you can buy Craigs, you can buy mine. I mean
Speaker 4: you know, you know it's.
Speaker 2: Them, and wear them different occasion. Yeah, just whatever you get.
Speaker 4: Like, if you buy one of Craig shirts, don't like
Speaker 4: tag me in it and go, hey, I got your shirt,
Speaker 4: because you know, come on, man, that's not my shirt,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And vice versa. If you buy one of my shirts here.
Speaker 1: Say buy Joseph's shirts. They're the originals and they're they're
Speaker 1: the real one.
Speaker 4: Listen, Yeah, thank you, thank you. Two guys on Amtrak
Speaker 4: trains in the night waving their arms on each other.
Speaker 2: I just fucking loved that. Story though. It's the great.
Speaker 2: It says it all, man, that's very poetic. It does.
Speaker 2: And we've said it all. We're done, we're out of time.
Speaker 2: Get out of said man. I'll see you when I'm
Speaker 2: next to La. Did you survive all right? Did you
Speaker 2: get smoke inhalations into it? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I had a lot of that, but thankfully, you know,
Speaker 4: in an area where not really affected Silverlake, not really
Speaker 4: in any danger over here from anger from a lot
Speaker 4: of other things. But yeah, it's a horrible thing, man,
Speaker 4: I have I don't know if you have any friends
Speaker 4: the oh yeah, lost their.
Speaker 2: Houses and stuff. Yeah, yeah, more than one. I mean back.
Speaker 4: Man, you know, it's just California's It's it's always something.
Speaker 4: There's always fires, there's always earthquakes, but this particular, but
Speaker 4: this particular one, the wrong right set of terrible circumstances.
Speaker 4: So yeah, man, but thankfully, I'm glad you're you're in
Speaker 4: Scotland though, right you were?
Speaker 2: Were you not? Right now? I am?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in Scotland right now. I'm actually in the
Speaker 1: very furthest north you can go before it becomes Santa's House.
Speaker 8: Oh right, that's right, very far north right, Now, tell
Speaker 8: them I said, Hi, I will do Evil Center and
Speaker 8: the next time I'm in LA, I'll get to see you.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd love to man all right, and let's do
Speaker 4: that Hollywood. We're having a Hollywood moment here, folks. If
Speaker 4: you're listening right in the Hollywood moment.
Speaker 2: We're having Hollywood.
Speaker 1: But I will come and do the The spiel Podcast.
Speaker 4: Please, we'd love to have you on THEE. I'd love
Speaker 4: to do it. I'd love to do it. Ask my
Speaker 4: name all Spielberg all the time.
Speaker 1: Does Polar Guist count because he didn't direct Poor guyst
Speaker 1: I don't think, but does it does count?
Speaker 4: I maintained that he did direct it? All due respect
Speaker 4: to Toby Hooper, we can get into that. I know
Speaker 4: you've you've met Spielberg. We don't have to talk about
Speaker 4: it now.
Speaker 7: I can't talk about it, but you know, and sometimes
Speaker 7: I'll do my Steven Spielberger impression. I just put my
Speaker 7: fingers like this, and Craig is fantastic. I just think
Speaker 7: you're wonderful and everything you do is wonderful with your friend.
Speaker 7: Why don't we let's let's hang out, let's do lunch.
Speaker 7: Why not great?
Speaker 2: Everything's great? Do you know when when he called me.
Speaker 2: You know when you'd that thing you wait.
Speaker 1: When you're when you go to Hollywood and you think
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to one day, Steven Spielberg is
Speaker 1: going to call me. I was in my car and
Speaker 1: I put on the voicemail and it was Steven Spielberg
Speaker 1: and it was I can't do the thing. But he said, Hi, Craig,
Speaker 1: is Steven Spielberg. I just want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about something. Can you give me a call back? And
Speaker 1: he left the number and I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And I kept that voice for years. I would I
Speaker 1: kept that voice thing. I was like, this is that.
Speaker 2: I think that's what I went to Hollywood for.
Speaker 1: Just from the moment, yeah, you go, all right, I'm done.
Speaker 2: Spielberg.
Speaker 7: I got a great idea for a movie that's about
Speaker 7: penis shaped sponsors that come to life. I think it'd
Speaker 7: be great.
Speaker 1: So weirdly that's what it was. But even he couldn't
Speaker 1: get that made.
Speaker 7: Even I just I just can't figure out how to
Speaker 7: get the emotional connection. I mean, everything's there, it's not
Speaker 7: gonna work, Rag, It's just not for me.
Speaker 4: It was Carol Burnett, my Spielberg was meeting Carol Burnette at.
Speaker 2: The Late Late Show.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: Those are the moments you live for, buddy, Sure really
Speaker 1: are had so many of them. All right, pal, I'll
Speaker 1: see you in a melia. Thanks for coming on the
Speaker 1: podcast and yet again convincing me of your dark, brooding,
Speaker 1: hilarious and offset or genius.
Speaker 2: Thank you, buddy.
Speaker 4: I promise you're still at the top of the list,
Speaker 4: and come by and participate in the Halloween pageant anytime
Speaker 4: you like.
Speaker 2: I should.
Speaker 1: We should do a live late late show on your
Speaker 1: lawn and so over.
Speaker 4: Let's see, Let's see how many people show up.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 1: I feel like we could probably make that a little flashmoby.
Speaker 2: I think we could get something going, funny dat. Let's
Speaker 2: let's talk about it. Let's folks are not promising anything.
Speaker 2: Calm down, we'll talk about it. Okay, we'll do it.
Speaker 1: We'll do it, all right, all right, get out of here,
Speaker 1: all right, man,