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: My guest today is Paul f Tonk, and I suppose
Speaker 1: at some point in the conversation I should ask him
Speaker 1: what the F stands for, But my guy says, I'll
Speaker 1: forget because He was the voice of mister Peanut Butter
Speaker 1: and BoJack Horsemen, the greatest cartoon ever made. Fight me
Speaker 1: if you don't believe me anyway, enjoy all F.
Speaker 2: Tompkins. Hey, Paul, thank you for joining us. I know
Speaker 2: that we had a little bit of.
Speaker 1: Technical problems as beginning there, and I was informed by
Speaker 1: you and their producer that you are using maximum quality
Speaker 1: on your computer.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I see in the quick time drop
Speaker 4: down menu it gives you the CHP between high and maximum,
Speaker 4: and you know what, I feel like this is a
Speaker 4: special occasion, and so I went with maximum quality.
Speaker 1: When you were you know, and you're well dope, you
Speaker 1: minted crazy drug years did you did you go high
Speaker 1: or maximum most of the time?
Speaker 4: Well, unfortunately, I went maximum most of the time, and
Speaker 4: that's why I can't do those drugs anymore.
Speaker 2: Really, is that true?
Speaker 1: I was speak facetious, but you actually did have a
Speaker 1: high maximum drug time.
Speaker 3: I did not have a high maximum drug time.
Speaker 4: This is probably my high maximum drug time with the
Speaker 4: advent of legal weed. Probably having an edible every once
Speaker 4: in a while is my maximum drug use.
Speaker 2: That seems very civilized.
Speaker 1: I don't know that if there might be legal weed
Speaker 1: when I was doing drugs.
Speaker 2: I don't think it would have made any difference to me.
Speaker 2: But I tell you this. I tell you this.
Speaker 1: Had I known about prescription lens sunglasses, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I would ever go sober.
Speaker 3: Really mm mm hmm. Now why is that?
Speaker 1: Because when you put on prescription lens sunglasses, I am maddened.
Speaker 1: I've never done it because I didn't find out about
Speaker 1: them until after I stopped drinking. But I feel like
Speaker 1: if you put them on and you had a hangover,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, it's all right, it's all right. I
Speaker 1: can see pretty well. No one can see my eyes,
Speaker 1: and everything's darkened down.
Speaker 2: A little bit.
Speaker 1: I think I think it would have certainly prolonged my
Speaker 1: drinking and maybe have maybe killed me.
Speaker 4: Maybe I've killed I have a theory correct, Okay that
Speaker 4: in a hangover state, being able to see more clearly
Speaker 4: is a disadvantage.
Speaker 1: You know, you make a point, but having it through
Speaker 1: the lens of darkness, it can still be like, well,
Speaker 1: I have a hangover, but that's perfectly appropriate because it's
Speaker 1: nighttime and I can start drinking again.
Speaker 2: That's probably what I was looking for. I'm not an
Speaker 2: alcoholic drinking the morning. Yeah, because it's nighttime. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: there you go.
Speaker 1: Can I say, by the way, you are part of
Speaker 1: an elite gang of people and extremely ill elite guy
Speaker 1: of people, which is probably what elite means. But you
Speaker 1: are a cast member of the great BoJack Horseman series.
Speaker 3: That is correct, That is correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were mister Peanut barn right, correct, yes, right,
Speaker 1: which I think, to my mind, is the greatest show
Speaker 1: ever made about Los Angeles ever, in the history of
Speaker 1: the most accurate ones there.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, yeah, I think that I was. I was such
Speaker 4: a fan of that show, you know, being on it
Speaker 4: is it's strange to be I don't know, I get.
Speaker 4: I guess you should be a fan of your own projects.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, but I you know. The way I came
Speaker 4: to that show was I was just asked by the creator,
Speaker 4: Raphael Bob Blacksburg to to do a guest role in
Speaker 4: the pilot, which was mister Peanut Butter. And I didn't
Speaker 4: know anything about the show. I did not know that
Speaker 4: it was. I just knew like, oh, this is a
Speaker 4: cartoon for grown ups.
Speaker 3: I get it.
Speaker 4: I think it was like the third episode where, uh,
Speaker 4: it ends on a very down note and I realized, oh,
Speaker 4: this is something different than what I thought, and that
Speaker 4: I was even more thrilled that I was a part
Speaker 4: of it. And I would not read the scripts in advance.
Speaker 4: I would only read them at the table reads, so
Speaker 4: I could kind of be surprised along with as the
Speaker 4: audience would be surprised. And it was such a such
Speaker 4: an exciting thing to be a part of and to
Speaker 4: really get invested in these in these stories and to
Speaker 4: have some of those some of the lines in those
Speaker 4: scripts were like real gut punches and real, you know,
Speaker 4: serious life stuff that I you know, a lot of it.
Speaker 4: I related to a lot of it. I knew people
Speaker 4: who had experiences like that, and yeah, it was it
Speaker 4: was quite a ride. That was quite a ride doing it.
Speaker 1: It was It's it's a video and school. Because if
Speaker 1: the thing for me the rest, if you've never been
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles or never worked in the entertainment business
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, if you combine BoJack Horseman, Modern Family,
Speaker 1: and Ray Donovan, you have an completely exact picture of
Speaker 1: what Los Angeles is like to live and work.
Speaker 2: And I feel like that's it, That's exactly what it's like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, are you are you a native Los Angelino.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: I was born in Philadelphia, and I moved to LA
Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: That's when I moved to LA. Really well. I went
Speaker 2: there and then I had to come home for a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Then I went back, So it was ninety five technically,
Speaker 1: I guess, but that's when.
Speaker 3: I Okay, So you lie, I did.
Speaker 2: I did believe you.
Speaker 1: But that's something I learned in LA.
Speaker 2: Now, listen, how did the fire thing work? Before?
Speaker 1: You?
Speaker 2: Are you okay?
Speaker 4: So far, so good. We've been extremely lucky. We have
Speaker 4: just been here at home with suitcases by the door.
Speaker 4: We are in the pink zone, which sounds like it's
Speaker 4: a marker on the Kinsey scale, but we are so
Speaker 4: far we have not so we're like, sort of the
Speaker 4: danger is at a distance, but could get closer. So
Speaker 4: we're just ready to go at any time.
Speaker 1: But it's been I feel like that that happened a
Speaker 1: few times when I mean, nothing likes going on right now.
Speaker 2: But I don't live in LA anymore.
Speaker 1: But when I left there, there was a few times
Speaker 1: where we had were doing exactly that, suitcasing by the door,
Speaker 1: kids in pajamas, sleepy in the car and all that.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was.
Speaker 1: It's a scary thing. But I think with this fire,
Speaker 1: this one, it feels like a real kind of game changer.
Speaker 1: This one, though, doesn't it. I mean, these fires, it's
Speaker 1: a really different thing.
Speaker 4: I would like to believe that it is a game changer,
Speaker 4: but my my sort of demoralized feeling is that it
Speaker 4: won't be a game changer. It should be and you know,
Speaker 4: it should be a big wake up call to a lot,
Speaker 4: you know what, not even a wake up call, but
Speaker 4: it should be a signal that we need to talk
Speaker 4: about what is going on with our environment and what
Speaker 4: we're doing about it. And you know, it's it's a
Speaker 4: little distressing to see the the press conferences and just
Speaker 4: no mention of climate change at all. And that is
Speaker 4: I mean, there's no way around that. That's a huge factor.
Speaker 4: And like we are, we are an area that has
Speaker 4: a fire season, you know, and the fact that it's
Speaker 4: getting worse and worse and to this point, combined the
Speaker 4: fire combined with the winds is you know, it's uh,
Speaker 4: it's bad and getting worse.
Speaker 3: And I don't think.
Speaker 1: That there's some deniable about climate change. I don't think
Speaker 1: any serious person would deny that the climate change is
Speaker 1: something that would face the I think though, what I
Speaker 1: meant as well, for in the terms of game changer,
Speaker 1: because like you, I'm kind of ethically will be you know,
Speaker 1: a game changer around a global or even a national scale.
Speaker 1: But I think in terms of Los Angeles itself, it
Speaker 1: feels like a real gut punch. I mean, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, first the pandemic, and then the actors strike
Speaker 1: and the writer strike and the labor disputes, and then this,
Speaker 1: I mean, and then the advent of streaming and the
Speaker 1: way the industry is changing. Anyway, it really seems like
Speaker 1: I have no map for this. I don't know where
Speaker 1: it goes now.
Speaker 4: It's too many things at the same Yeah, it's too
Speaker 4: many things. And you know, I think I think we're
Speaker 4: going to see a lot of people leaving LA, which
Speaker 4: happens every once in a while on the wake of
Speaker 4: these big disasters. There's people that just decide I can't,
Speaker 4: I can't be here anymore. It's just too scary. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And you know, in terms of the business itself, I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't know what's going to happen because nothing shoots
Speaker 4: here anymore.
Speaker 3: And that would.
Speaker 4: Be a huge revitalization of the town. But I just, yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I know, it doesn't in the thing
Speaker 4: I was just gonna say, it seems like there's not
Speaker 4: enough people that are interested in fixing those things because
Speaker 4: it is cheaper for them not to fix them.
Speaker 1: I think that's true of like the corporate overlords, and
Speaker 1: I think it's true of the what I kind of
Speaker 1: think is And I think, like you, you and I
Speaker 1: have were apart from me lying about nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: we worked in LA about the same amount.
Speaker 3: Of time, about the same amount of time.
Speaker 2: And of course you.
Speaker 1: Don't always interact with big stars. You're talking to you know,
Speaker 1: proups guys and the carpenters and grips and lighten people
Speaker 1: and people who it's a middle class just it's a
Speaker 1: kind of working jojobs, not a jojob, but it professional people.
Speaker 2: But there are super healthy you know, it's just.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just a qualified job, like working in
Speaker 1: any other kind of factory. Yeah, And I think these
Speaker 1: are the people that are going to like, what the
Speaker 1: hell do you do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, when they change it like that.
Speaker 3: I know, and people think that.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people outside of LA think
Speaker 4: that everybody here is just the people that you see
Speaker 4: on the covers of magazines, you know, and it's not
Speaker 4: what it is. There's a lot of people that have
Speaker 4: you know, been here for generations, that you know, bought
Speaker 4: their houses when they were you know, very cheap years
Speaker 4: and years ago, and you know, now that's not there anymore,
Speaker 4: and the work's not there anymore.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've.
Speaker 4: I've worked on things that shot in Atlanta or Vancouver
Speaker 4: or whatever, and you have people from la that crew,
Speaker 4: people that moved there to these places because there was more.
Speaker 3: Work there than where they lived.
Speaker 4: And the thing that really sucks is that the people
Speaker 4: that are involved in in these that are overseeing the networks,
Speaker 4: the studios and everything. It's it's not the days of
Speaker 4: you know, the the Xanac brothers and the Warner brothers anymore.
Speaker 4: You don't have people that sort of take a pride
Speaker 4: in that business. And they were businessmen, but it was
Speaker 4: their business and so they there was still room for artistry.
Speaker 4: There was no algorithm they they like. It wasn't a
Speaker 4: bottom line thing. It was this is our business of
Speaker 4: making these things. We are trying to guess what people like,
Speaker 4: what people you know, what is quality. Put it out there,
Speaker 4: and now it really is these these dudes that come
Speaker 4: in from you know, different businesses that are looking at
Speaker 4: it like, well we'll cut this, this, this, and this,
Speaker 4: and it's like that's the whole and that's that's what
Speaker 4: makes it good. You all the things that you're getting
Speaker 4: rid of is what makes it good.
Speaker 1: I think though that you know, if I look at
Speaker 1: the generations of young artists that are coming up now,
Speaker 1: I don't think that Hollywood is aspirational for them in
Speaker 1: the way that it was perhaps for my generation. That
Speaker 1: you know, I would see the black and white photographs
Speaker 1: of movie stars that we have been airbrushed to perfection
Speaker 1: and this, you know that the this swindle and the
Speaker 1: myth that was sold by Hollywood, which I which I liked,
Speaker 1: which I wanted, you know, I liked the artifice of it.
Speaker 1: And then when I got there, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you had the same experience when I got there, and
Speaker 1: it was demystified, slowly, it was demistified because I even
Speaker 1: to this day, I haven't done it for a few years.
Speaker 1: But when you drive on a law and the bar
Speaker 1: goes up, and you drive on a movie law and
Speaker 1: you see the spaceman and the you know cowboy and
Speaker 1: the shoe girrels and that, you know, and it's like, ah,
Speaker 1: this is awesome. I think all of that goes away now.
Speaker 1: I think that it's and it's I think. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have young children or your kids a little I
Speaker 1: have zero children. Oh you have zero children? Well then
Speaker 1: then will you leave?
Speaker 2: You can leave that.
Speaker 3: I could, but this is this is our home, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we we love it here, my wife and I
Speaker 4: and we've we've lived here for a long time, and
Speaker 4: you know, it's it. You realize in the wake of
Speaker 4: these things, what a what a real community that exists
Speaker 4: in Los Angeles, and that it's not it's not even.
Speaker 3: What we pretend that it is a lot of the time, it.
Speaker 4: Really is like it's it's a city like anywhere else,
Speaker 4: and people care about each other and people are helping out.
Speaker 4: And as many as many horror stories you hear about landlords,
Speaker 4: you know, raising rental prices eight thousand percent, and you know,
Speaker 4: looters and stuff like that, most of what you see
Speaker 4: is people coming together and helping each other out, donating
Speaker 4: you know, stuff and money and time, and and you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's a really heartwarming thing to see.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny that you should mention that.
Speaker 1: I was watching coverage of it on the BBC last
Speaker 1: night and the reporter was out in the field and
Speaker 1: bumped into someone who was working the line handed out
Speaker 1: water people and it was will Arnette bo Jack Horseman
Speaker 1: himself and you go, And it was I just I
Speaker 1: heard the voice. I was like, whoa, and it's it's
Speaker 1: as you say, because I remember when I moved to
Speaker 1: la in the nineties, it kind of had a it
Speaker 1: seems weird to say it, because it was still a
Speaker 1: huge city then, but it had a kind of sleepy
Speaker 1: feel about it. It had a kind of oh, I
Speaker 1: remember it very well. I think it went away when
Speaker 1: when they invented iPhones or something. But I like it
Speaker 1: changed when people could, you know, drive as close as
Speaker 1: they could to the Hollywood Sign, or when the maps
Speaker 1: of the stars homes were on your phone instead of
Speaker 1: being sold to you by some dodgy customer at the
Speaker 1: side of the road waving a map and stuff. And
Speaker 1: I kinda miss all of that, but you know, things
Speaker 1: do change.
Speaker 2: What what is it done for you business wise?
Speaker 1: Do you I mean, do you still follow the model
Speaker 1: of you know, developing taking an idea too. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you where I'm going with this. If I have an idea, now,
Speaker 1: I don't go to anyone who works in show business.
Speaker 1: I go to someone who will give me money, right,
Speaker 1: and then I just do it myself. Yeah. I The
Speaker 1: last vestige of corporate shittiness in my life at the
Speaker 1: moment is doing this podcast, and and my contracts up
Speaker 1: for that in six months and then and then these
Speaker 1: guys can kiss my ass and I continue to do
Speaker 1: the podcast. But I don't need them. I have a computer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's exactly.
Speaker 2: What about you? I mean, are you gonna.
Speaker 4: It's it's a mixture of uh, still trying to go
Speaker 4: through the old channels, but also figuring out how to
Speaker 4: do stuff by yourself. And the double edged sort of
Speaker 4: that is that on the one hand, it's never been
Speaker 4: easier to do stuff by yourself in terms of the
Speaker 4: technology right like, which is fantastic. And one of the
Speaker 4: things that I that I really love about the time
Speaker 4: that we're living in is that people can make their thing,
Speaker 4: whether it's a movie, TV show, podcast, whatever, people can
Speaker 4: figure out a way to make it. Getting it out
Speaker 4: to people is easier than it used to be, But
Speaker 4: there's so much noise that it's a scary prospect to
Speaker 4: sink like your life savings into your passion project and
Speaker 4: then have nothing happen, have nobody find it, you know.
Speaker 4: So for me and the people that I know at
Speaker 4: the sort of showbiz level that I'm at, there is
Speaker 4: still like a pressure to go try to go through
Speaker 4: the old channels and see what happens. But it's harder
Speaker 4: than ever because even though it's the curse of there's
Speaker 4: so many outlets now, but because there's so many outlets now,
Speaker 4: to try to stand out, to try to get to
Speaker 4: cut through all that noise is harder than ever because
Speaker 4: there's so much shit. It's so much and now when
Speaker 4: you're it used to be you could pitch an idea
Speaker 4: and they either liked it or it didn't. Now, before
Speaker 4: you even pitched the idea, it's like you have to
Speaker 4: attach these people, you have to attach this guy, you
Speaker 4: have to touch and it's like this is not even
Speaker 4: a thing yet, it's not even a thing yet.
Speaker 3: We're attaching all these people on a on a wish
Speaker 3: and a.
Speaker 4: Prayer and you know who moves a needle, You know,
Speaker 4: all this shit and it's like, look and a funny idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the It's the weirdest thing about it though,
Speaker 1: because there's a story the friend of mine who's a
Speaker 1: big old timey you know, he's doing fail Hammer. He
Speaker 1: started in Run's Langsgate, right, and fail Hammer is a
Speaker 1: friend of mine in and he was telling me about
Speaker 1: back in the day when the we're selling MGM.
Speaker 2: To Sony I think it was Sony, is that right.
Speaker 1: I had to go to Japan and everything was done
Speaker 1: through you know, board level meetings, through interpreters and stuff,
Speaker 1: and they were talking to some high powered Japanese executives
Speaker 1: through an interpreter and they were asking about the film
Speaker 1: business and the Japanese executive said, tell us, you know,
Speaker 1: basically the product in a year.
Speaker 2: He said, well, look, you know, as you do like.
Speaker 1: MGM, we'll make maybe forty movies in a year, and
Speaker 1: you know, twenty will do okay, you know, maybe five
Speaker 1: of them will be hits and the rest will be
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, well, we tried and we
Speaker 1: fell and they were kind of does. And it went
Speaker 1: through the interpreter, and the interpreater came back after some
Speaker 1: and he said, my colleague says, could you possibly just
Speaker 1: make the hits?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That would be great if we could just make that
Speaker 2: terrific idea.
Speaker 1: I know it's a great look, but I think that
Speaker 1: that kind of because unless you're in show business whatever.
Speaker 1: Look John Felheimer is a great executive, but he's still
Speaker 1: show business.
Speaker 2: He's still you know, he's he's still that guy.
Speaker 1: And and I think that, you know, the these kind
Speaker 1: of guys are going away, and like you say, people
Speaker 1: are coming in.
Speaker 2: Who are who are?
Speaker 1: Like, I don't know what your qualifications are for this
Speaker 1: other than you.
Speaker 2: Went to school.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's School's not a great place for
Speaker 1: artists a lot of the time.
Speaker 3: Very true.
Speaker 1: It can slow them down, you know what idea of yours?
Speaker 1: I love this when you do that podcast when you
Speaker 1: were H. G. Wells, Oh the Dead Authors podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Dead Author's podcast when you were H. G. Wells and
Speaker 1: going through time interviewing dead authors. See I love that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Now did you in that podcast? Did you ever have HG.
Speaker 1: Wells talk to and C. S.
Speaker 3: Lewis. I don't think we ever had C. S. Lewis. Interesting,
Speaker 3: Yeah we had. I think Tolkien was as close as
Speaker 3: we got. C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis and C. S. Lewis were friends, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. Because what I think is interesting is that
Speaker 1: I believe I could be wrong with this, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: Nobody checks any shit anyway.
Speaker 1: But so let's just say this is one hundred percent
Speaker 1: true and we don't need to check.
Speaker 2: But HG.
Speaker 1: Wells and C. S. Lewis were certainly collegiate. They were friendly,
Speaker 1: and I've always been fascinated by that because HG. Wells,
Speaker 1: of course was a committed atheist and a bit of
Speaker 1: a communist I think even so, yeah, and C. S. Lewis,
Speaker 1: of course was absolute Anglican baby Jesus, all the bells
Speaker 1: was the smoke and the Angels. And both terrific writers,
Speaker 1: by the way as well, which I think is fascinating
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: I've read both of them at great length.
Speaker 1: I love them both. Are you a big reader? Is
Speaker 1: that what you started the pot? Why you started it?
Speaker 3: Well, you know the I am a big reader.
Speaker 4: The podcast came out of there's a literacy program called
Speaker 4: A two six that is in various places in the
Speaker 4: country and for the LA chapter, uh, they were doing this.
Speaker 4: The Dead Author's thing was something they had done every
Speaker 4: once in a while. There was not a dedicated host
Speaker 4: for it, but it was an event they would do
Speaker 4: every once in a while and I was approached to
Speaker 4: host one and thought, oh, it would be funny to
Speaker 4: be HD Wells and then interview people from two different
Speaker 4: time periods. And I enjoyed the experience so much that
Speaker 4: I asked them, Hey, could I do a podcast with
Speaker 4: this and we'll we'll do a live show and that
Speaker 4: all the proceeds will go to A two six. And
Speaker 4: it was a really enjoyable project because I got to
Speaker 4: it made me learn about other authors that I did
Speaker 4: not know much about, like about their personal lives and
Speaker 4: careers and things like that. And it also it tested
Speaker 4: my interview skills because I had to. It was a
Speaker 4: very specific thing where I had to, you know, be
Speaker 4: the host, keep it moving, but I also had to
Speaker 4: set the people up so they could be funny. So
Speaker 4: the questions were all I would tell people, you don't
Speaker 4: have to do any research about your author. It is
Speaker 4: just I'm going to ask you a question and because
Speaker 4: it's improv you respond however you want. You're welcome to
Speaker 4: do research if you want, you don't have to, and
Speaker 4: some people did extensive research and some people did nothing
Speaker 4: at all. And the idea was I would ask a
Speaker 4: question that did not have to be tied to facts.
Speaker 4: I could state the fact in you know, eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 4: you said this or whatever, and then they could be
Speaker 4: funny respond however they wanted. So it was a combination
Speaker 4: of getting the the real information out via my questions
Speaker 4: and then the comedy coming from what they have to say,
Speaker 4: and then our subsequent interaction about that.
Speaker 1: Who was both author and guest who kind of like
Speaker 1: really kind of lit it up for you?
Speaker 2: Who you think you were more successful with.
Speaker 4: The one that that comes back to me the most
Speaker 4: is in terms of being a very special experience, was
Speaker 4: Lennon Parham played.
Speaker 3: Oh why am I blanking on the name?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 2: Shit with the book book?
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think of that. I can't think of
Speaker 4: the book I'm blanking. It was a Southern author h Harper,
Speaker 4: Lee Murder Mitchell.
Speaker 2: Mitchell.
Speaker 3: Can I cheat and look it up? Yeah? Of course,
Speaker 3: all right. I hate to do this. People complain.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I'll put the podcast on hold. Music
Speaker 1: it's generic and music I'm doing right now.
Speaker 3: Flannery O connor.
Speaker 2: Okay, Flannery o connor.
Speaker 3: And her her uh.
Speaker 4: Nothing about Flannery O'Connor, by the way, nothing nor did
Speaker 4: I nor did I. And her performance was it was
Speaker 4: really I felt like I was sitting with a real person.
Speaker 3: She made it.
Speaker 4: She played it so perfectly like and didn't she didn't
Speaker 4: know anything about Flannery O'Connor either, but she she played
Speaker 4: it so comfortably that I felt like, this is becoming real,
Speaker 4: Like this is this is stopped becoming goof around and
Speaker 4: this is becoming real. She did such an incredible job.
Speaker 4: Like the thing I remember the most is she at
Speaker 4: one point said she was talking about these specific birds.
Speaker 4: I think it might have been peacocks where she lived,
Speaker 4: and she was like, and they had a very specific call,
Speaker 4: and then she did the peacock call and it was
Speaker 4: like it it really I get chills thinking about it
Speaker 4: because it really she just embodied this person so well.
Speaker 3: It was It was a really wonderful.
Speaker 1: It's like close up magic that when you when you
Speaker 1: see something like that.
Speaker 2: Oh I had on the Late night show. Barry Humphries
Speaker 2: came on as day Ed and I am, oh wow wow.
Speaker 1: And that was weird because I knew Barry from not
Speaker 1: being day made from all of stage. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: when he came on, I thought, well, you know, this
Speaker 1: will be a note and a wink and funny and
Speaker 1: and it will be Barry wearing her dress.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't.
Speaker 1: And it was really strange, and I kind of it
Speaker 1: was like he's possessed or something.
Speaker 4: Absolutely is really a wonderful thing those character people that
Speaker 4: that that's their thing. It is astonishing how the thing
Speaker 4: that I always get that always gets me is how
Speaker 4: well they remember the rules of their own character, that
Speaker 4: this is what makes this person this person and not
Speaker 4: just me, Like you know, there's no there's not there's
Speaker 4: not a ton of winking. It's like I'm being funny
Speaker 4: being this person. I'm not like, you know, Barry Humphries
Speaker 4: is not saying like it's isn't it funny? It's me
Speaker 4: to addressed, you know, it's it's it's totally you feel
Speaker 4: like this is a three dimensional person that stuff like
Speaker 4: marvel at that stuff.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: I think that the Medea movies that are a bit
Speaker 1: like that as well, you know, like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that was a dude for ages.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1: It's it's like when you find out like something you
Speaker 1: really like in the shoe is actually uh British, that
Speaker 1: happens the law.
Speaker 2: Absolutely did you what did you watch Yellowstone?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah Beth Dutton, I'm like, yeah, wait, Beth Dutton's
Speaker 1: from England.
Speaker 2: That's the thing.
Speaker 1: Any say, so, I don't wan to me the accent
Speaker 1: the actress, I mean, it's amazing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, because it's it's especially when you're doing an
Speaker 4: accent like that, it's not about just making the sounds right.
Speaker 4: There is a certain you have to really there's a
Speaker 4: physicality to it. There is a uh, there's a timing
Speaker 4: to it that's more than just I pronounce ours this way.
Speaker 3: You know, you really have to. You really have to.
Speaker 1: If I'm doing it, it's just I pronounce ours'. That's
Speaker 1: what you're gonna get. Maybe I wear a hat, maybe
Speaker 1: I don't wear I might, okay, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be working out or anything like that.
Speaker 2: That's not going to happen. I saw.
Speaker 1: I mean the way like Tyler Perry does it, the
Speaker 1: way By does, or even like the guys who do
Speaker 1: the Marvel movies, like I heard I think it was
Speaker 1: on Graham Norton's talk show Henry Cavill talking about but
Speaker 1: he had some Superman scenes. He had to not drink
Speaker 1: water for a few days because it would make his
Speaker 1: veins pop.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, fuck me, man, get up, it's acting.
Speaker 2: It's get someone to draw it on you.
Speaker 3: Come on so like you're already shredded. You know what
Speaker 3: I mean, You're already there.
Speaker 5: I know who's who it's sod veins. Yeah. Although I
Speaker 5: have to say I'm very intrigued by the idea of ozambic.
Speaker 5: I haven't gone there yet, but I.
Speaker 1: Worry about my weight and I think, is that is
Speaker 1: that a way to go? But having struggled so much
Speaker 1: to get away from drugs that that things for me,
Speaker 1: I'm not that huge hardy to go. I know it
Speaker 1: will happen at some point, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: At some point I'm gonna have to take something. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to rush into. Would you ever do that?
Speaker 2: What about plastic surgery? You gotta do that?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't think I ever would.
Speaker 2: I I.
Speaker 3: Mean no, no, shame on people who do. It's like,
Speaker 3: do what you what you feel you need to do.
Speaker 4: But I feel like I've And it's not like I'm
Speaker 4: thrilled with every aspect of my body and face, but
Speaker 4: there is a certain there's a certain piece that you
Speaker 4: an uneasy piece that you make with you know, the
Speaker 4: aspects of yourself that you're not thrilled with that.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: It just feels I never got braces, you know. I
Speaker 4: feel like it's this is, this is who I am, And.
Speaker 2: I will get my testicles done. I might get my
Speaker 2: test I might.
Speaker 3: Make you start smooth them out.
Speaker 2: Smooth them out?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, see what because because even if if
Speaker 1: they like if they if they may, you know, if
Speaker 1: they bought you, if it becomes a terrible job, it's
Speaker 1: still your tasticle. I mean they're they're kind of weird
Speaker 1: and creepy looking anyway, at least mine are. So I
Speaker 1: don't think it's going to be a huge change. It's
Speaker 1: more thing myself into it. Maybe I should try and
Speaker 1: get zembic and mathesticals.
Speaker 3: Well, you can see, you can just do steroids. Is
Speaker 3: that what happens?
Speaker 1: But I see, I like the idea of steroids. If
Speaker 1: they give you muscles, but I have they make you
Speaker 1: very angry. I don't need to be any angrier than
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 3: I feel that I'm I'm my max level of rage
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 2: I all the time.
Speaker 1: And it's what people don't understand about comedy. It's like
Speaker 1: when I hear a choke. Sometimes I'll hear a joke
Speaker 1: or my wife hears a joke and go, oh the rage,
Speaker 1: and that joke is so funny, it's so and you
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about absolutely, yes, yes, yes. And
Speaker 1: it's because the absolute darkest motherfuckers I ever met in
Speaker 1: Bollywood are the people who write or construct or perform
Speaker 1: romantic comedies.
Speaker 2: Those are the those people are and the people who
Speaker 2: make horror movies are.
Speaker 3: Adore They're adorable.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the romantic comedy the idea that people are essentially saying, like,
Speaker 4: isn't it funny that people think this could happen?
Speaker 3: That you could that you could fall in love, you.
Speaker 1: Could find somebody, I'd go to the empire that a
Speaker 1: layer building.
Speaker 2: Run through the airport. Who the fuck's running through the
Speaker 2: air You could run through the airport. That's ridiculous. Run
Speaker 2: through the airport. Stop in the plane. You forget, You
Speaker 2: get tased if you try and stop in a plane.
Speaker 2: It's ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Could you imagine being on a plane that somebody stopped
Speaker 4: because of love.
Speaker 2: I don't care how much in love you are. I
Speaker 2: want to get to dan V. I have a connection.
Speaker 3: This is miserable. You're making it longer, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Think about that. You know, obviously, I'm sure you do
Speaker 1: the same. I travel a lot for work, getting you're
Speaker 1: constantly on airplanes. It's rare to see bad behavior on
Speaker 1: planes that for as far as I can see, But
Speaker 1: I see a lot documented.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I've never.
Speaker 4: Been on a plane where, in all my years of
Speaker 4: travel where something crazy has happened, where someone had to
Speaker 4: be escorted off the plane, where people had their phones out.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't know why I've you know, not
Speaker 4: gone not happen yet, but but yeah, it is. I'm
Speaker 4: sort of surprised that it doesn't happen more because it's
Speaker 4: such a it's such a stressful environment. Being on a
Speaker 4: plane is such a stressful environment. But I think I
Speaker 4: have noticed that I did more touring the last year
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty four than I have in years, maybe ever.
Speaker 4: And I was on the road a lot, and I
Speaker 4: was really embracing it. After you know, quarantine and everything,
Speaker 4: and it just happened. There were a bunch of gigs.
Speaker 4: I had my own tour, I had another person's tour
Speaker 4: that I was part of, another tour that I did
Speaker 4: with musicians at the end of the year, and it
Speaker 4: was the year that I realized I have been telling
Speaker 4: myself that I don't enjoy traveling around and doing all
Speaker 4: this stuff, but I realized that I actually do, even
Speaker 4: though being on a plane is miserable. I love the
Speaker 4: fucking vaudeville.
Speaker 3: Love it. I love going to a different place every day.
Speaker 3: I fucking love it.
Speaker 4: And I think I tried to tell myself that I didn't,
Speaker 4: but god damn, I realized at a certain point.
Speaker 3: When I was a kid, this was all I wanted
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: This was all I wanted to do.
Speaker 4: Like the idea of this going from this place to
Speaker 4: this place and doing a show and then packing up
Speaker 4: and leaving. Mike's awesome.
Speaker 3: I fucking love it, man, I.
Speaker 2: Fucking love it. Early on in my life when I
Speaker 2: started performing.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was the same for you,
Speaker 1: but I would get very nervous before performance, like immediately terrified, terrifying,
Speaker 1: And now before I go on stage, if I'm in
Speaker 1: a theater that hopefully I've never played it before, but
Speaker 1: even if I have played it before, there's so many
Speaker 1: of them. And you're back stage and you hear the
Speaker 1: higher the crowd and you can hear the noise and
Speaker 1: you can kind of get a vibe and the lights
Speaker 1: are coming down and this show is about to happen,
Speaker 1: and that them I've been playing the same warm up
Speaker 1: music for years, so that you know, the woke in
Speaker 1: music is the same, and I know what it's going
Speaker 1: to be is the sense.
Speaker 2: Of peace that I get.
Speaker 1: And every night when I woke on, like in the audience,
Speaker 1: hopefully they applaud And just as I watched my hand
Speaker 1: go to reach for the microphone, just as it was across.
Speaker 2: That moment there, I fucking lived for that moment. It's
Speaker 2: the craziest thing.
Speaker 4: It took me a while to to kind of be
Speaker 4: to interpret the different types of feelings that I would
Speaker 4: have before a show, because there were when I was younger,
Speaker 4: there were shows that when you know that you are
Speaker 4: not the right person for this show and that you're
Speaker 4: gonna go out there and it's not going to be good,
Speaker 4: And that's at movies like that.
Speaker 2: Oh and I and I directed the movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then there's.
Speaker 4: That feeling of and I realized it on the on
Speaker 4: the days that I had my own show that I
Speaker 4: was doing, that I was putting on and that day
Speaker 4: of show is a certain feeling, and I it took
Speaker 4: me a while to realize the feeling is I just
Speaker 4: wanted to start.
Speaker 3: I just want to be out there. I just want
Speaker 3: to be doing it.
Speaker 4: I'm I don't want to be anticipating this all day.
Speaker 4: Let me just go. And now realizing that that feeling
Speaker 4: I have is ninety nine percent the feeling that I
Speaker 4: have before I go on stage, that that feeling in
Speaker 4: my stomach is, oh yeah, I just want to get
Speaker 4: out there. I just want to get out there and
Speaker 4: do it. It's not it's not that I'm afraid. It's
Speaker 4: not that I'm I don't know how it's going to go.
Speaker 4: It's that I am embracing I love being out there,
Speaker 4: and I also am embracing I don't know what's.
Speaker 3: Going to happen. I don't know how it's going to go,
Speaker 3: and that's exciting.
Speaker 4: It's it's a really it's a once I once I
Speaker 4: kind of dialed into that that that's what it was
Speaker 4: then I loved it, loved that feeling.
Speaker 3: I loved that into.
Speaker 2: When it goes wrong, do you get a kick out
Speaker 2: of that?
Speaker 4: I finally finally have gotten to that point. And it
Speaker 4: took seeing somebody else bombing and knowing, oh, he thinks
Speaker 4: this is funny. Like it was a friend of mine
Speaker 4: that was trying out this character on the show. He
Speaker 4: was just fucking eating it and.
Speaker 3: But he you never you never would have known it.
Speaker 4: And I realized, knowing the guy that he is, like,
Speaker 4: oh this is funny to him, how badly this is going.
Speaker 4: He didn't want it to go badly, but he's enjoying
Speaker 4: how much he is bombing. And then I realized, oh
Speaker 4: that can be a thing too, that could.
Speaker 1: Be Oh definitely definitely for me, that right, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: for me, that was when late night became something I
Speaker 1: started to love because I would go there espasically at
Speaker 1: the beginning, I'd be writing jokes and I wasn't writing
Speaker 1: the jokes that you know, some guys would be writing
Speaker 1: in late night for years and raise the jokes that
Speaker 1: guys say, Hey, you guys see the playoffs and I'm like,
Speaker 1: know what a playoff is? I'm like, hey, you was
Speaker 1: a playoffs about those tigers and stuff, and I as
Speaker 1: I could not connect to the joke and therefore could
Speaker 1: not connect to the audience. You know, I was bombing,
Speaker 1: and I found a strange thrilling it because especially because
Speaker 1: it was somebody else's joke that was bombing.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yes, great, And then I.
Speaker 1: Just thought, then it became more interesting to bomb than
Speaker 1: for it to work.
Speaker 2: And that became the show.
Speaker 1: The show became we're making a piece of crap show
Speaker 1: in a basement. It doesn't really work, and here's my
Speaker 1: discount robot with my buddy doing the voice, and and
Speaker 1: you know, and that was what the show was.
Speaker 2: The show was the failure.
Speaker 1: And I think that I think when I see particularly
Speaker 1: young performers. Now there's some very good ones around, but
Speaker 1: they everything they do is documented, you know, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And I think that means your failures are up there
Speaker 1: all the time, and some things, your failures are much more.
Speaker 2: Useful that you can keep them a little more private.
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't envy people that are that are coming up now,
Speaker 4: although I mean it's the same for most of us
Speaker 4: now that you know, having and you can appreciate this
Speaker 4: having been doing this for such a long time. Everything
Speaker 4: has changed in such a short amount of time from
Speaker 4: what we thought showbiz was when we got into it,
Speaker 4: and now it's like, I feel like I'm playing catch
Speaker 4: up with a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 3: But younger people have to have to follow so many things.
Speaker 4: I'm lucky enough that I got somewhat established before a
Speaker 4: lot of this shit started becoming the norm, But for
Speaker 4: somebody that's starting out now, it has to be second
Speaker 4: nature to to be engaged with all these social media things.
Speaker 4: There's a certain tone that you have to strike. Where
Speaker 4: I've seen it fluctuate from you're not supposed to look
Speaker 4: like you're trying, no one wants to. You're not supposed
Speaker 4: to You're not supposed to make an effort because that's
Speaker 4: not cool.
Speaker 3: And now I feel like it's more.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's it's it's acceptable to look like you care
Speaker 4: about what you're doing. But you still have to strike
Speaker 4: strike a certain tone, you know. I feel like figuring
Speaker 4: out your voice is maybe I could be wrong, but
Speaker 4: might be harder today for for younger performers.
Speaker 1: I think it's a different language for sure. I think
Speaker 1: that also what I doing, I doing envy them. There
Speaker 1: was a certain amount of cool in being underground. I
Speaker 1: think when sadly, when I was young, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like you didn't really want too many people to know
Speaker 1: what you were doing. You only wanted cool people to
Speaker 1: know what you were doing. Yeah, I mean listen. I
Speaker 1: so the minute somebody came along and said, will you
Speaker 1: do a Liptus tea commercial of like, but it's not Uh,
Speaker 1: it felt like it belonged, at least for a short
Speaker 1: time that it belonged to us. That I wonder if
Speaker 1: if they get that now, I mean maybe they do, maybe,
Speaker 1: And maybe the thing is the young people who are
Speaker 1: doing that kind of thing, I don't know who they
Speaker 1: are because I'm not a young person. Then they don't
Speaker 1: want me to think they're cool, so they're not interested
Speaker 1: in engaging with me.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: There is kind of a belief in that sense to
Speaker 4: be out of that conversation. It's like when you get
Speaker 4: to a certain point where you're watching young people do
Speaker 4: the thing, like, hey, man, fucking do it.
Speaker 3: Do your thing. You don't need to hear from me.
Speaker 3: You absolutely don't need to hear from me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I have no opinion on it. And I used
Speaker 1: to pretend I didn't have an opinion on it so
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't get yelled at.
Speaker 2: But no, I just really don't. It's like I don't
Speaker 2: give a fuck.
Speaker 3: Fake it till you make it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's so funny as well, but because the whole
Speaker 1: I you know, when people bang on about oh you
Speaker 1: can't say that because of the woke generation and stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm like that, I've been hearing that my whole fucking life.
Speaker 2: There's nothing to you, you fucking war. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think when comedy, the state of comedy right now
Speaker 4: started to erode, when people thought people started to think
Speaker 4: comedy was tough or like a tough guy thing, and
Speaker 4: it's like, no, it's not.
Speaker 2: The idea is you're supposed to be.
Speaker 4: We got into this because we're misfits or whatever, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, Like it was not to I
Speaker 4: don't know, I could. I could just talk about that forever,
Speaker 4: but nobody wants to hear that complaining.
Speaker 3: But it's a really well you.
Speaker 1: Know, it's funny that like comedians now that look like
Speaker 1: you know, models, you know, and I'm like, male and female,
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, you guys look great, Like where's the
Speaker 1: fat guy with one eye bigger than the other eye
Speaker 1: because he's the guy I want to say, and I
Speaker 1: suppose I don't know. I mean, it's it is an
Speaker 1: interesting thing I think along the way. See, I the
Speaker 1: reason I came to comedy is because I really it
Speaker 1: was accepting of me.
Speaker 2: It accepted me that I couldn't fit in anywhere else.
Speaker 1: But when I hear people now, the young people you know,
Speaker 1: discuss it as you know, I it's my dream to
Speaker 1: have a career in comedy, I'm like, fuck no, it
Speaker 1: was my dream to do pretty much anything else.
Speaker 2: But you know.
Speaker 3: How people go.
Speaker 1: But but then you start tasting it and you realize
Speaker 1: how awesome it is and how great it is, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad I wouldn't do anything else. But it is
Speaker 1: an odd thing that it became so incorporated. I blame
Speaker 1: Netflix a bit for it, actually, and I've made and
Speaker 1: I've made a couple of specials for them, but they are.
Speaker 2: The fucking devil.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's there're a big you know,
Speaker 1: like make all one thing.
Speaker 2: And you fuck no, it's all.
Speaker 1: Although if they ever me twenty million for us space,
Speaker 1: I'll be like, oh, we better go back and find
Speaker 1: that podcast with Paul F. Conkin and cut that out
Speaker 1: when I said they were the fucking deal, but they
Speaker 1: fucking out of the devil fuck them. I have no problem,
Speaker 1: you know, like they I'll tell you how much sense
Speaker 1: the fucking algorithm thing is. I was looking for an
Speaker 1: airline ticket today, Right, it's done the same way as
Speaker 1: fucking you know, modern streaming techniques. So you first look
Speaker 1: at it, and then the ticket price was twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: It's a complicated trip, twelve thousand dollars. And through I
Speaker 1: was mean that it it was tamaster did it, but
Speaker 1: just you know, going in going a different way, do
Speaker 1: the different thing and putting end one layover, which is
Speaker 1: not that big a deal.
Speaker 2: It went down to six thousand dollars. See, and actually
Speaker 2: the class went up.
Speaker 5: That's how smart fucking AI like, you're not a smart
Speaker 5: I just don't buy it.
Speaker 4: No, the whole a thing that the idea that it's
Speaker 4: uh not doing anything other than just like scraping ship.
Speaker 3: It's not. It's not. There's not.
Speaker 4: It's not as sophisticated as as I think that we
Speaker 4: are told it is, and as we are afraid it's
Speaker 4: going to be. The problem is people using it. It's
Speaker 4: not really the itself. It's that this is making shit worse,
Speaker 4: Like you can't you can't use Google anymore because it's
Speaker 4: so shitty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know you talk about you talk about fucking green,
Speaker 1: the green effect as well.
Speaker 2: You talk about planet, amount of power of that ship needs.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, AI.
Speaker 1: Companies are talking about building their own nuclear reactors so
Speaker 1: they can fuel these things.
Speaker 2: I mean it's insane.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then the eye.
Speaker 1: But the idea of the a I you know what
Speaker 1: people have these. I think it's like you remember back
Speaker 1: in the day in the back of comic books, you
Speaker 1: would see that thing. It was the X ray specs,
Speaker 1: and you can I think they're x ray specs.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like, oh, shut up. I tried to
Speaker 1: get shot. GPT write me a some stand up.
Speaker 3: Oh I did that too.
Speaker 4: I tried to chat GPT write some sketches and I
Speaker 4: would give the premise and everything, and then a funny
Speaker 4: and I performed on stage. The thing that was so
Speaker 4: interesting to me was all the sketches resolved with the
Speaker 4: people being friends. Like that was that was the ending.
Speaker 4: Was somehow through their differences they found a common understanding and.
Speaker 2: It's like, fuck, not robot. Not funny robotten about COVID.
Speaker 3: That's not funny robot.
Speaker 6: I love that, though I said to it, hey, chat,
Speaker 6: GPT write me a short Craig fergus stand comedy routine.
Speaker 6: It wrote some bullshit about hey, aren't giraffes funny looking
Speaker 6: when they drink water and stuff?
Speaker 1: And I'm so angry at it. I was like, this
Speaker 1: is bullshit, and then I thought, you know, there might
Speaker 1: be something this though, but it's going to need a
Speaker 1: major rewrite. It's gonna need a I mean, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need to get the robot.
Speaker 2: You're fired. But we're keeping the idea of.
Speaker 1: The giraffe thing and maybe it's something that maybe there's not,
Speaker 1: but it isn't no business. I'm fascinated though, because I
Speaker 1: think it will change. I think the AI will change
Speaker 1: and expand, and I think it will at a certain point
Speaker 1: because I remember when I started as a drummer, and
Speaker 1: I was like, drum machines will never replace drummers, right, it's.
Speaker 2: The first fucking thing to go. And I don't know much.
Speaker 4: Drumming is so much. You have so much ship that
Speaker 4: you have to that you have to be simple. And
Speaker 4: I remember being on being on tour this year, and
Speaker 4: you know, I tour with a I do a riety
Speaker 4: showing I have a band.
Speaker 3: And early on, you know, I.
Speaker 4: Everybody was packing up the ship after the show and
Speaker 4: our drummer Darla. I turned away musical director and said,
Speaker 4: should we help Darla with that stuff? And he said
Speaker 4: she made her choice.
Speaker 3: That's everybody else in the band looks at drummers.
Speaker 2: It is a bite. I used to hate it when
Speaker 2: you find.
Speaker 1: Everyone would be like going to the bar and meeting
Speaker 1: all the kids that were in the club and I'd
Speaker 1: be like.
Speaker 2: Putting symbols in the big case.
Speaker 3: And it's horrible.
Speaker 1: But I also but the thing is the great thing
Speaker 1: of being a comedian is you you just leave?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you just leave. It's true.
Speaker 2: I get this.
Speaker 1: I get into this for a while that I would
Speaker 1: leave before the audience. So I'd be like, good night everybody,
Speaker 1: and I would have the uh stays door open as
Speaker 1: he's front street, end.
Speaker 3: Of the crowd. Absolutely, mister Ferguson has left the building.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: But nowadays part of the thing, I don't know. If
Speaker 2: you're doing this, you do the meet and greets, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll do them. Yeah, And actually I love it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a really I love it.
Speaker 4: It's such a here's the thing I dreaded every time,
Speaker 4: and then after it's over, I think that was absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly how I feel.
Speaker 1: You meet people, and you know, sometimes you hear some
Speaker 1: stories that are really hard to hear, but absolutely it's
Speaker 1: a level of connection with the audience I was surprised about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it's a it's a really wonderful thing
Speaker 4: to to. It's very humbling to hear somebody say, you know,
Speaker 4: what you do has helped me in some way, has
Speaker 4: helped me through a bad time, or something like that.
Speaker 4: But it's also there's there's a there's a connection there
Speaker 4: in terms of what what.
Speaker 3: You both find funny, the way that you look at
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 4: Like you're you're you're meeting people who came to you
Speaker 4: for a reason and you just have that moment of
Speaker 4: communion with them that maybe only lasts a few minutes,
Speaker 4: but it's a really wonderful thing to just because it
Speaker 4: makes us both more human to each other.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: And the mistake that I made early on with it,
Speaker 1: as well as that people would say things like when
Speaker 1: you were a late night I was very sick, or
Speaker 1: my parent was ill or something, and then they would
Speaker 1: say it helped me out, and I would and I
Speaker 1: regret it now. I would say, oh, no, it wasn't me,
Speaker 1: you did it, or it's not to do with me.
Speaker 1: But now I feel that that's unfair because it kind
Speaker 1: of diminishes it for them. And so if somebody says
Speaker 1: that to me, now, I'm like, I'm really glad that happened.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad that somehow. Obviously I wasn't aware your
Speaker 1: mom was sick or you were sick, but I'm glad
Speaker 1: you had a laugh. I'm glad you had to laugh tonight,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. That's that's what it's about.
Speaker 4: And thank you for sharing that with me, you know,
Speaker 4: because it yeah very because you know what it feels like,
Speaker 4: you've been in a dark time where a piece of
Speaker 4: art helped you cope, you know, just helped you, just
Speaker 4: gave you a moment where you're like, Okay, I can
Speaker 4: I can do this another day?
Speaker 3: I can?
Speaker 4: You know, I there's there is brightness out there somewhere.
Speaker 4: I just have to I just have to trust that
Speaker 4: I'm going to get to it, like, you know, that
Speaker 4: feeling and to be that for somebody else and to
Speaker 4: have them tell you is such a privilege.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 1: It is and it's and it's kind of it's one
Speaker 1: of the great things about I mean, I'm not happy
Speaker 1: about all the barriers.
Speaker 2: Breaking down between the perform and the audience.
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, I kind of used to
Speaker 1: like the idea that there was a kind of artist's entrance, But.
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the really good parts of it.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, I mean the bad part is that
Speaker 1: everybody's a fucking expert now, you know it. Some fucking
Speaker 1: guy he's saying in a chat room saying, that's no comedy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like, what do you fuck?
Speaker 2: You?
Speaker 1: And I and I kind of that kind of annoys
Speaker 1: me a little bit. But I think I might just
Speaker 1: be getting older and crankier. That may just be simplest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you find yourself get a little crank here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely absolutely. And I get it now. I get
Speaker 4: old people. I get it now. It's like you've lived
Speaker 4: a long time, a lot of this ship you've heard before,
Speaker 4: you're sort of you get you get less patient with
Speaker 4: certain things, you get more patient with other things, though,
Speaker 4: which is really one.
Speaker 2: Story that is true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I made that decision about the aging
Speaker 1: process this very day.
Speaker 2: Actually is that I've decided.
Speaker 1: I made it because that's it's been I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Have been moreting this podcast. I'm sure it's sick of
Speaker 2: hearing me talking about I'm getting older and thinking about things.
Speaker 1: But now I've I've reached a complete new feeling about it,
Speaker 1: which is this fucking ignoring it.
Speaker 2: I'm ignoring it.
Speaker 1: Until it makes its presence failt until that type it's
Speaker 1: none of my fucking business.
Speaker 2: I'm older, so is everybody else. Everybody else is older too.
Speaker 2: What am I going to do about it? You know,
Speaker 2: So until my hip starts hurting or my ears get
Speaker 2: super big or.
Speaker 4: Whatever is, you know, you take it as it comes.
Speaker 3: You take it as it comes.
Speaker 4: One thing I do I do appreciate in a way
Speaker 4: that I and it's it's funny to me is when
Speaker 4: I was younger and I would hear older people talking
Speaker 4: about the weather, and I would think, what the fuck,
Speaker 4: why this boring conversation that you're having about what a
Speaker 4: nice day it is? And now I get it because
Speaker 4: it's like I've I'm here another day, I'm i'm my,
Speaker 4: I'm appreciating things in a way that I couldn't appreciate
Speaker 4: them before and seeing.
Speaker 3: How beautiful life is. And part of that is it's
Speaker 3: a nice day today, you know, And.
Speaker 4: It's it's I get how enjoyable it is now to
Speaker 4: discuss that with somebody else.
Speaker 1: I also I also think that you know, if it's
Speaker 1: a nice day, you're much less slightly to slip.
Speaker 2: And fall and hurt your head.
Speaker 3: Very true.
Speaker 2: So it's like it's it's a nice day outside.
Speaker 4: Do you know a thing, A thing that I think
Speaker 4: about a lot, is I probably think about this once
Speaker 4: a day. When is the next time I'm going to fall? Like,
Speaker 4: when's the next time I'm going to trip and just
Speaker 4: eat shit, just go right down? When's the next time
Speaker 4: I'm going to like scrape the ship out of my
Speaker 4: knee on the sidewalk. Because it's going to happen at
Speaker 4: some point, But when is it going to be?
Speaker 2: Well? Do you ski?
Speaker 3: I do not ski.
Speaker 2: If you put a ski in there, you'll be like
Speaker 2: ramp it up.
Speaker 4: I think I avoid most activities that require falling as
Speaker 4: a as a part of the learning process.
Speaker 3: So we'll see I do it.
Speaker 1: I never skied until I was in my mid forties,
Speaker 1: but I married into a family of skiers, and now
Speaker 1: my children's ski and wow, and I have to go
Speaker 1: on there like like with really tiny little kids on
Speaker 1: that conveyor belt, like toddlers. So then there's me, like,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of giant creeper with you know, it's gonna
Speaker 1: have to go up the thing and do pizza French
Speaker 1: fries and ski is.
Speaker 2: Very very humiliate. Wait what pizza French fries? What? Well,
Speaker 2: that's how you learn to ski. You do pizza, It's
Speaker 2: how you slow down.
Speaker 1: And then french fries is when you're when you're going fast,
Speaker 1: when to slow down?
Speaker 2: Pizza, go fast French fries. That's so they tell it
Speaker 2: the little kids.
Speaker 1: Normally, if anyone who's on a ski slope and they're
Speaker 1: sixty fucking two, they either.
Speaker 2: Know what they're doing or they're drunk, you know, or
Speaker 2: sometimes both true. But that's what it is. I well, look,
Speaker 2: it's been a delight talking to you. I wish we
Speaker 2: could go longer, but I'm getting too old for this ship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, understood, this is this is one of those times
Speaker 4: where you feel it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: I feel it in my hip and my water. So
Speaker 1: it's such a nice day I want to go outside
Speaker 1: to join it.
Speaker 3: We get done exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: Listen, stay well in Los Angeles, Paul. I continue success
Speaker 1: and and thank you. I thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being on the podcast. You are indeed a joy. You
Speaker 1: bring so much to others and certainly to me. I
Speaker 1: remain a fan of mister peanut Butter. But you know
Speaker 1: that's a component part of my regard for you, is
Speaker 1: that absolutely so much.
Speaker 2: We're done, get the hell out of here.