Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets,
Speaker 1: go to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour.
Speaker 1: See you out there, the Greig Ferguson Show dot com
Speaker 1: slash Tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of
Speaker 1: this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people
Speaker 1: about what brings them happiness. Matt Williams has written or
Speaker 1: created or both some of the biggest sitcoms in American history,
Speaker 1: some of the most controversial sitcoms in American history. And
Speaker 1: now he's well, he's kind of looking for God. Matt Williams,
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about your book in
Speaker 1: a little bit because it is a book of First
Speaker 1: of all, I've read it, now that's full disclosure. I've
Speaker 1: read the blurb for it, and now I will read
Speaker 1: it because I do read, and I want you to
Speaker 1: understand that I will read it. And when I was
Speaker 1: doing Late Night people used to say, well, you got
Speaker 1: to read the book before you know the celebrity is
Speaker 1: on the show. You are the celebrity at this point,
Speaker 1: and I'd say, no, I'm not going to read the
Speaker 1: book or watch the movie or see the TV show,
Speaker 1: because then we're both talking about something we already know about.
Speaker 1: Oh see, there you go. And I had this conversation
Speaker 1: with Leno, Who's like, no, that's totally wrong. You're so rude.
Speaker 1: That is so rude. I said, all right, well, I'll
Speaker 1: skim through the movie. But a book's a commitment. A
Speaker 1: book is a commitment you've got to. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's a few days, you know. And if I'm talking
Speaker 1: to authors every day, that's my whole life. My whole
Speaker 1: life is reading books, which is not a terrible life.
Speaker 1: I guess when you because your book is a spiritual book.
Speaker 2: It is a memoir told through humorous essays and what
Speaker 2: I call spiritual musings, there is a spiritual thread.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems to me, like like the blurb by
Speaker 1: Red that is about something there. Look you tell me what.
Speaker 1: The God is very much a part of it, right,
Speaker 1: So God's apart? Are you a religious person?
Speaker 2: I am? Okay, what stripe is where my stripe early
Speaker 2: on was Lutheran and very strict Lutheran. And then that's
Speaker 2: one of the story threads is my evolution from God
Speaker 2: being a pissed off, bearded guy sitting on a cloud. Yeah, Santa, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, the petulant parent waiting to throw you into hell.
Speaker 2: And then as I Maturita went, wait a minute, why
Speaker 2: do you want to spend time worshiping that God? And
Speaker 2: then as I started exploring other religions and going, if
Speaker 2: God is love and there's a divine mind, a spirit,
Speaker 2: a holy mystery, whatever, the ultimate creator, I want to
Speaker 2: lean into that rather than the pissed off parent. And
Speaker 2: so that's part of the journey, is that spiritual journey
Speaker 2: is tracked in the book. I hope with humor and humility,
Speaker 2: I would imagine.
Speaker 1: So I mean giving you a writing credits so far
Speaker 1: were again that it seems like you are capable of
Speaker 1: writing the occasional humorous music, Yeah, the occasional joke. Where
Speaker 1: did you Did you end up in a particular organized
Speaker 1: religion or did you just a wonder of Lutheranism into
Speaker 1: a kind of soft rainbow colored informal.
Speaker 2: I call it. I call it. I don't use the
Speaker 2: term Christian because that has all this baggage. So as
Speaker 2: you say Christian Bible thumping, hairsprayed, evangelist, calcified Christianity, my
Speaker 2: way or the highway, misogynistic, judgmental, blah blah blah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: none of that christ I don't. So I say instead,
Speaker 2: I'm a follower of Christ. So I am a Christian
Speaker 2: in that sense because whether you can wrap your head
Speaker 2: around the historic Jesus being God incarnate or not, at
Speaker 2: least look at what the man was preaching and teaching,
Speaker 2: be kind, be compassionate, take care of the poor, feed
Speaker 2: help others. Yeah, who can argue with that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think that my feeling, my personal feeling about
Speaker 1: Christianity because I I'm I think I'm want a similar
Speaker 1: kind of streat, you know, kind of search as you are.
Speaker 1: I'm looking for something that kind of makes sense in
Speaker 1: a God sense. And you know, I was raised in
Speaker 1: Presbyterian Scotland, which is not a million miles away from Lutheranism.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the same. It's like it's got all
Speaker 1: that predestination and you know, you know, you can try
Speaker 1: being good, but it's already been decided and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and you're kind of screwed. And let's
Speaker 1: not have any pictures up anyway, like like you suck
Speaker 1: and you're not even allowed to have art fun. But
Speaker 1: I became fascinated in recent times. I'm sure you have
Speaker 1: read C. S. Lewis and GK. Chesterton and the Christian Apologies.
Speaker 1: Right through reading them, I was fascinated by, particularly C. S. Lewis,
Speaker 1: who seems to be able to put it into bite
Speaker 1: sized chunks and kind of entertainment style language that I
Speaker 1: can read and understand and digest pretty easily. I ended
Speaker 1: up at the Desert Fathers. Have you come across those
Speaker 1: guys you're talking Thomas Merton or you talk to I'm
Speaker 1: talking Origin of Alexandria. If agrees of Pondos Anthony st. Hildegarde,
Speaker 1: Julian Hildegard is awesome, Yeah, yeah, yeah. What really drove
Speaker 1: me back to Christianity was studying the Christian mystics, because
Speaker 1: they're dealing with panantheism. They're dealing with God living in
Speaker 1: all things, God being alive in all of us, as
Speaker 1: opposed to that floating figure out there, that calvin mentality
Speaker 1: of Oh I've got to beat myself up and crawled
Speaker 1: and broken glass for God to love me. And I thought,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, Hildegarde, Meister Eckhart they talk about the
Speaker 1: divine spark that lives in all of us. Well, that
Speaker 1: was Origin of Alexandria as well. That was like second
Speaker 1: century Christian mystics. So I'm fascinated by that because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that. Lutheranism though a lot of that.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if you're a Luther, if you're Lutheran
Speaker 1: and this is pissing you off, well, let's be honest,
Speaker 1: you were pissed off before have we started anyway. But
Speaker 1: I think that all of that kind of punitive form
Speaker 1: of religion is a product of the very necessary reformation
Speaker 1: after you know, during the I mean because even the
Speaker 1: internal reformation that the Church had, Catholic Church had at
Speaker 1: the time, they were trying to find a way. But
Speaker 1: Origin of Alexandria was excommunicated five hundred years after he
Speaker 1: died because he said, there can be no physical representation
Speaker 1: of God. That's insane. God is If God is everywhere,
Speaker 1: then how can you draw a picture of it? That's silly.
Speaker 1: And he was excommunicated five hundred years after he died.
Speaker 1: Because I feel like, if your business is selling art
Speaker 1: and pictures and bones and relics, candles and candles and
Speaker 1: little gig in Chashkaz. Then it's going to be tricky
Speaker 1: if you say, well, there can be no physical representation
Speaker 1: of God. You can't have a drawing of the sapphire
Speaker 1: pavements of heaven. You're going to have to just go
Speaker 1: there in your head. And of course he even went like,
Speaker 1: you can't do it in your head either. It's that's
Speaker 1: not a Some people are very strict. Are you very strict?
Speaker 1: And what do you feel you've arrived at a belief system?
Speaker 1: Are you still kind of stay? Oh, I'm always evolving.
Speaker 2: I think that's the older you get, the more you read,
Speaker 2: the more you travel the world, you keep evolving. I
Speaker 2: think that's one of the problems with organized religion is
Speaker 2: it's it gets locked in. Like I said, calcified, it's
Speaker 2: this way, it must be this way. It's dualistic thinking.
Speaker 2: There's right and wrong, there's God and the devil and
Speaker 2: nothing else, ones and zeros and want and I go,
Speaker 2: I don't believe that if God truly and I do
Speaker 2: believe God lives in all things right and animates all life,
Speaker 2: and right now is expanding the universe. Were sitting inside right, Well,
Speaker 2: then and I better start changing my concept of God.
Speaker 2: And I'm still evolving. I'm still trying to learn.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I read as much as I can about other religions,
Speaker 2: and you know, when you start to break them down,
Speaker 2: really break them down, they're kind of all saying the
Speaker 2: same thing pretty much. Just don't be an Asshole'll be kind, Yeah,
Speaker 2: don't be a dick, and don't be and take care
Speaker 2: of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of that nice.
Speaker 2: Be nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know it's it's kind of interesting. But your
Speaker 1: period of your writing career in Hollywood, I mean, so
Speaker 1: you started. The reason why I'm going to this is
Speaker 1: because it's not a period which is renowned or an
Speaker 1: area which is renowned for spirituality of any kind. Really,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of yoga, but but and
Speaker 1: yoga's great, but you know it's like, but yoga and
Speaker 1: juice aren't. That's not where it ends. So you were
Speaker 1: working You've started on I guess be The Cosby.
Speaker 2: Show, right, very first television show that was your first
Speaker 2: job as a writer, as a writer, it was The
Speaker 2: Cosby Show, which was in La would be in New York, in.
Speaker 1: New York in the eighties. Was in the eighties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was in the eighties, and it was It
Speaker 2: started in Brooklyn Avenue M and Brooklyn at studios a
Speaker 2: way out there, and then eventually moved to Astoria in
Speaker 2: Queens and Queens. So the Cosby Show and then with
Speaker 2: two other writers did the spin off. I created the
Speaker 2: spinoff Different World, Right, And then after three and a
Speaker 2: half years on The Cosby Show, I left created Roseanne right,
Speaker 2: that made a deal at Disney, and then created a
Speaker 2: couple of other shows, and then eventually created Home Improvement
Speaker 2: with David and Carmen, my two partners.
Speaker 1: Right. So you you have worked on some of the
Speaker 1: most successful shows. Man, you must be so rich. It's
Speaker 1: the eye of the needle having thing. I'm just mentioning it.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty blessed. Well, those were the good times, man,
Speaker 1: those were there. I mean that's when in sitcoms made money. Yes,
Speaker 1: so you're working. You weren't like I had writer on Cosby, Right,
Speaker 1: you were in the room. Yeah, So A Different World
Speaker 1: was your first, Like you're running it.
Speaker 2: No, we just did the pilot a man named John
Speaker 2: Marcus and Carmen Finestra, who later became my partner at
Speaker 2: wind Dancer. The three of us took Bill's idea. I
Speaker 2: think Bill got the created by credit because it was
Speaker 2: his idea and we had to develop by credit or something.
Speaker 2: And but we wrote the pilot, produced the pilot with
Speaker 2: Tom and Marcy. The show was launched. Then we went
Speaker 2: back to the Cosby Show and continued right because we
Speaker 2: were the staff was small, five maybe six writers and.
Speaker 1: Yeah at that time that's tiny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so when you have three of them, peel
Speaker 2: off to create a pilot. So then we came back
Speaker 2: to the show. And then while working on Cosby, Tom
Speaker 2: Order and Marcy Carci said do you have any ideas
Speaker 2: you want to pursue?
Speaker 1: And then that then you you went into Roseanne Roseanne.
Speaker 1: Now you've worked with both Cosby and was that for
Speaker 1: widely different reasons. Their legacies are tarnished pretty pretty badly,
Speaker 1: cause me very obviously. So are you still in touch?
Speaker 2: No, I've not talked to Bill in Uh. He actually
Speaker 2: shot a video when New York Station Film honored my
Speaker 2: wife and I many years ago, and he did a
Speaker 2: video and I talked to him then, but that was
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's funny though, because I it's people people won't
Speaker 1: say I never met BeO Cosby, but people saying, did
Speaker 1: you hear anything, And I was like, actually no, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't in that world. I wasn't anywhere near it.
Speaker 1: Did you hear anything, but there was no vibe about
Speaker 1: it or anything.
Speaker 2: Well you heard things about maybe women being around, but
Speaker 2: being a serial rapist. No, no, concept. I was shocked.
Speaker 1: Well, you mean that he had a lot of women around,
Speaker 1: but you didn't know that he was using women?
Speaker 2: Yeah at all? And so and what was tough was
Speaker 2: he was kind of my mentor I learned comedy. You
Speaker 2: hear the tapping?
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that that's Bill's it?
Speaker 2: That's Bill? It's somebody with a hammer above us? Shut
Speaker 2: the hell up.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the Lutheran God.
Speaker 2: You're right, yeah, yeah, I got the lightning bolt.
Speaker 1: Guys, So you weren't aware of any of that going, No, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not it's a professional environment. I guess it's it's
Speaker 1: a strange, strange thing. It's kind of very upset. So
Speaker 1: you moved from Cosby into Roseanne, right, Norrazanne? That show
Speaker 1: was based on Harstando. Right, that's how you guys built
Speaker 1: around it? Is that or was inspired by it or something?
Speaker 1: It was a combination of two things. I went to
Speaker 1: Tom and Marcy and said I want to do a
Speaker 1: show about three women who work in a factory in
Speaker 1: the Midwest where I grew up, because a friend of
Speaker 1: my wife's has said, you know, we have a real
Speaker 1: support system. These women who work in the factory, this
Speaker 1: was in Detroit. All support each other and baby sit
Speaker 1: each other's kids, and if one of them get sick,
Speaker 1: they buy groceries. And I went, isn't that in And
Speaker 1: so the original concept was three women, one married with
Speaker 1: a husband and children, one divorced with a child, one single.
Speaker 1: These three women so and they said, we like this idea.
Speaker 1: We love the idea of female driven you know, sitcom.
Speaker 1: And then they said, we have someone we think should
Speaker 1: play the married female on the show. Look at her
Speaker 1: stand up. Well, of course it's Roseanne. She's got a
Speaker 1: very strong feminist point of view. So we started developing
Speaker 1: this and that became the point of view of the show.
Speaker 1: And I will give her credit because she brought that
Speaker 1: whole feminist point of viewstrong voice, a very strong voice.
Speaker 1: But the real key to the success of that show
Speaker 1: was John Goodman. Yeah, because when John at his quote audition,
Speaker 1: he was more of a chemistry test. When he walked
Speaker 1: into the room with her yeah, and within seconds he
Speaker 1: told her to move over. She told him to shut up,
Speaker 1: and they started and Tom and Marcy turned to me
Speaker 1: and said, there's your shot. It's the show.
Speaker 2: That's the core of your show. They're both spectacular specific yeah,
Speaker 2: and John Goodman is one of my favorite actors of
Speaker 2: all time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Yeah, he's amazing and it's just going bear
Speaker 1: and bear as he like he he went through a
Speaker 1: journey personally as well, and uh, didn't we all? Yeah,
Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascals stand up to her continues
Speaker 1: throughout the United States in twenty twenty four. For a
Speaker 1: full list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig
Speaker 1: fergusonshow dot com slash tour See you have there? Did
Speaker 1: that ever get in your wait? Did you ever hit
Speaker 1: the wall with booze and drugs and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff?
Speaker 2: No, no, not booze and drugs. I think the I know.
Speaker 2: I was never addictive in that sense. I was very
Speaker 2: tough on myself. Perfectionist and part of what uh, and
Speaker 2: it's over compensating for childhood crap, and so I would
Speaker 2: really beat myself up for not being perfect because going
Speaker 2: back to that God. If you weren't perfect, you couldn't
Speaker 2: be loved. And I addressed this in the book. In fact,
Speaker 2: one of the chapters is called knee Slapper, where at
Speaker 2: my earliest memory was making my mother laugh doing impersonations
Speaker 2: and pratfalls because I equated her.
Speaker 1: Laughter with love, love and approva good. That's why you
Speaker 1: work in comedy.
Speaker 2: And I go, of course, it doesn't take a boatload
Speaker 2: of psychiatrist to figure out why you end up being
Speaker 2: a comedy writer.
Speaker 1: How did it manifest itself in the perfectionism though? How
Speaker 1: was it negative in your life?
Speaker 2: There's never any satisfaction or joy because it's never good enough,
Speaker 2: even if it's number one, having two number one shows
Speaker 2: almost back to back, and going it's not enough. There's
Speaker 2: got to be more. And I've said this in other
Speaker 2: interviews that anytime I created something and it was inspired
Speaker 2: by love and guided by spirit, it's seeded a big time.
Speaker 2: Anytime it was inspired by competition and driven by ego,
Speaker 2: it usually crashed and burned. Because you're out here in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: the hamster wheel Hollywood. You start running faster and faster,
Speaker 2: and you look over your shoulder and go, well, he's
Speaker 2: got two top ten shows. I should have a third tops,
Speaker 2: I need a fourth. Time that movie opened, then my
Speaker 2: movie's going to open bigger and you go put on
Speaker 2: the brakes. Wow, you've lost perspective here.
Speaker 1: Well you see that in like in the billionaire race,
Speaker 1: and you know, oh yeah, ridiculous billionaires with the super
Speaker 1: odds and the oh my god. And I think was
Speaker 1: kind of strange about it. And what I feel very
Speaker 1: grateful for was I feel exactly the same, and I
Speaker 1: think probably my motivations are extremely similar to you. But
Speaker 1: what happened to me is when I got to do
Speaker 1: Late Night and every night you meet, I was meeting
Speaker 1: some of the most successful people in show business. They're
Speaker 1: coming through and I realized that the mensh to douchebag
Speaker 1: ratio is exactly the same as it is in the
Speaker 1: average bar, in the average city anywhere in the worlds.
Speaker 1: Some people are nice, some people are douchebags, and most
Speaker 1: people are kind of you know, travel between both, trying
Speaker 1: to stay on the bench as much as possible. And
Speaker 1: what I was intrigued by was that more success oftentimes
Speaker 1: me looked to me anyway to bring more personal unhappiness.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's there's almost a religious a parable
Speaker 1: in that. I think like that, you know, as success,
Speaker 1: because I've always felt like as a as someone who's sober.
Speaker 1: I've been sober for thirty two years. In the thirty
Speaker 1: two years i've been sober, and of course there are
Speaker 1: times when you think when it gets dangerous and you
Speaker 1: might get drunk. The times when it's been dangerous in
Speaker 1: my sobriety have not been times of adversity. There have
Speaker 1: been times of you know, I'm doing good, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I maybe deserve a little respector and that's
Speaker 1: when I lose a sense of perspective. Now you wear
Speaker 1: and are extremely successful writer. So at what point in
Speaker 1: the perfectionism or did you did it break for you?
Speaker 1: Was there a moment? Was there like a bottoming out
Speaker 1: or a talking out moment where you go, there's never
Speaker 1: going to be any good in this.
Speaker 2: I think what happened was I kept pushing. And you know,
Speaker 2: every career is like a wave. It has its peak,
Speaker 2: and you know, and I hit that. But I stayed
Speaker 2: in the business longer than I should have. I kept pushing.
Speaker 2: I kept pushing, And I touch on this in the book,
Speaker 2: is when you stop creating from passion, and you start
Speaker 2: generating product, right, they even call it product. They even
Speaker 2: call it product, And you got to you gotta be careful.
Speaker 2: And then I was at a pitch meeting at a
Speaker 2: studio after having created some very successful shows, and I
Speaker 2: was pitching a ten episode arc for a new series.
Speaker 2: And in that I said, the lead actor and the
Speaker 2: female love interest next door have their first kiss in
Speaker 2: episode ten. And someone in the room stood up, This
Speaker 2: is not a creative it's not the president of the network.
Speaker 2: It was a salesman who sells shows set into syndication.
Speaker 2: And he jumped up and went, no, no, no, they
Speaker 2: can't kiss. And I went, excuse me. He goes, they
Speaker 2: can't kiss, and then he started quoting data new girl,
Speaker 2: when this character kissed this character, they dropped exponentially in
Speaker 2: this key demographic and started And when that happened, my
Speaker 2: brain exploded and splattered all over the wall, and I went,
Speaker 2: what the fuck I doing. I literally got in the car,
Speaker 2: drove back to the wind Dancer offices. Yeah, and told
Speaker 2: my partner at wind Dancer. I told David, I said,
Speaker 2: I'm closing up shop. I'm done, I said, because now
Speaker 2: it's not the tail of the dog, the flea on
Speaker 2: the tail is wagging the dolls.
Speaker 1: Sure, totally. But what's interesting is is I because obviously
Speaker 1: there are young creative, artistic people coming up, Oh of course,
Speaker 1: but they're not They're not here. They're not coming up here.
Speaker 1: They're coming up through the internet. They're coming up their
Speaker 1: own way. They're finding ways through because they will. But
Speaker 1: you're right, the idea, particularly after COVID, when people pitch
Speaker 1: shows now they do on zoom call. How the fuck
Speaker 1: are you going to know if the energy is a
Speaker 1: thing is going to work on a fucking zoom call?
Speaker 1: And so people say, Ei, there's five hundred channels and
Speaker 1: nothing to watch. I'll tell you why there's nothing to
Speaker 1: works because the people in charge of it hate you
Speaker 1: and don't fucking care. All they want is you. They
Speaker 1: don't they don't give a shit about it. If the
Speaker 1: shoe is good or not, they don't fucking care. Nobody
Speaker 1: fucking cares. That's not our brand. It's like your brand.
Speaker 1: Which the fuck are you talking about your brand? You know?
Speaker 1: But that's why one of the reasons I laughed, I thought, well, wow,
Speaker 1: I'm better now, I'm I'm fine with U said, I
Speaker 1: think I sent the ament of bitterness. And show business
Speaker 1: is good. It means you are participating. But I think
Speaker 1: if you, if you go too far, then it closed.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to come. I didn't want to become
Speaker 2: synecal I honestly I closed up shop. I moved back
Speaker 2: to our farm in New York, and I told my
Speaker 2: wife I'd literally turned to her one day and I said,
Speaker 2: I don't want to die with all these stories still
Speaker 2: living inside me.
Speaker 1: Ah, so now you start writing, to find another.
Speaker 2: Way to write these stories that were stirring around, and
Speaker 2: almost as a cathartic exercise, I started writing what had
Speaker 2: been bubbling in my unconscious and deep in my heart,
Speaker 2: and it just started kind of pouring out. And then
Speaker 2: I felt liberated because I didn't have network meetings, I
Speaker 2: didn't have studio meetings. I wasn't being noted to death
Speaker 2: by twenty executives. Yeah, and so these essays, these humorous
Speaker 2: essays and these musings started pulling pouring out, and I went,
Speaker 2: my gosh, this is the best I have felt in years,
Speaker 2: because I'm back to creating as opposed to grinding out product.
Speaker 2: I'm creating something from my heart. And it really felt
Speaker 2: good and it evolved into the book. Well, I think
Speaker 2: that it's I think it's healthy in it. I mean
Speaker 2: it's also it's a natural progress of an artists as
Speaker 2: perhaps you enter a different age period in your life.
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't you know. It's got a funny thing.
Speaker 1: I was talked to, you know, Jay Leno only in passing.
Speaker 1: All right, Lanta and I are friends, and he's a
Speaker 1: terrific guy, and we were talking about a comedian. We
Speaker 1: both know you probably know this guy, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to mention him because I was saying, you know,
Speaker 1: we were just talking a little bit about his act
Speaker 1: and how it was so much better now than it
Speaker 1: had been at the peak of his success, that he
Speaker 1: was actually much better now. And Jay said, this lovely
Speaker 1: thing about him, because Ja, all J cares about is
Speaker 1: the is the comedy, like and the cars obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, and Mavis and that's it. That's that's the
Speaker 1: three things he cares for. Everyone else he doesn't really care.
Speaker 1: And he said, he said, yeah, but very interesting about
Speaker 1: him if he's grown into an active act before with
Speaker 1: the kind of but now he's older, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's really interesting guy. I really, I really enjoy comedy now.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's true of many artists. And
Speaker 1: what because Hollywood deifies the young. Artists who are good
Speaker 1: when they're young are not necessarily always going to be good,
Speaker 1: you know, true? And you know, anything else of any
Speaker 1: value I've done was well after forty yes before that,
Speaker 1: like well, I think what happens is you get simpler.
Speaker 2: You know, the title this podcast is joy, and you
Speaker 2: really start appreciating simple joy. That it's not accolades, it's
Speaker 2: not approbation or approval, it's not the red carpet. Simple
Speaker 2: that's awful, awful, and that's what people see on their
Speaker 2: screens and aspire to be a part of that. And
Speaker 2: you go, the greatest joy is usually pretty simple, having
Speaker 2: breakfast with your kids, or you know, cuddling with your wife,
Speaker 2: or it can be so simple.
Speaker 1: It's health. I think it's a mental health and physical health,
Speaker 1: and as spiritual health as well.
Speaker 2: Probably I was just going to say that goes back
Speaker 2: to the spiritual aspect. But you're looking for your validation
Speaker 2: as a human being out there. You can't win enough
Speaker 2: awards to ever feel satisfied and love yourself as soon
Speaker 2: as it good to get Oh well, it's nice. It's
Speaker 2: very nice. But or I would like I should probably yeah,
Speaker 2: I would too. I don't want any.
Speaker 1: You want you want a lot of green Dead presidents.
Speaker 1: I think you're fine.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll buy some of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, by your own Yeah, by the Emmys. You'll
Speaker 1: be fine. But you're right, it doesn't. It's an inside job.
Speaker 1: But I think in order for the business to survive,
Speaker 1: certain areas of show business to survive, it has to
Speaker 1: be presented as an outside. It has to be aspirational,
Speaker 1: particularly in the in the current wave of you know,
Speaker 1: selling real lifestyle as an entertainment, right, you know. So,
Speaker 1: like I hate to single out the Kardashians. They're not
Speaker 1: bad people, they but they created a genre which is
Speaker 1: it's kind of empty. You know. It's like you can
Speaker 1: be like me, Well you actually can't, and anyway do
Speaker 1: you want to be? I mean, it's like, I don't
Speaker 1: get it. It's like you're watching Roseanne. Nobody watched Roseanne
Speaker 1: and said I really want to be like Rosanne. You
Speaker 1: watch Roseanne and you go, fuck, we really like the Corners,
Speaker 1: aren't we. I mean that's what That's what happens is
Speaker 1: that it's a completely different approach to it.
Speaker 2: Where are you with that, Razanna? I don't know, no content,
Speaker 2: no contact. I wish her well. I don't have any
Speaker 2: idea where she did.
Speaker 1: You guys have a I'm not talking about her specifically,
Speaker 1: but that that show was that because I was hugely successful,
Speaker 1: it was did that? Would that? Did that make life
Speaker 1: difficult on a day to day basis? Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but it it It ended with me leaving
Speaker 2: the show and making a deal at Disney and creating
Speaker 2: Home Improvement, So it worked out pretty well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a pretty easy guy to be around. And yeah,
Speaker 1: any run ends I've had with him, he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: how you doing, buddy, And.
Speaker 2: Like Tim as a gentleman, I loved him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I always kind of impressed with him as well.
Speaker 1: He sticks to his guns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and he's been sober for how many years?
Speaker 2: And yeah, and functioning and enjoying life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he's one of those guys that I think is
Speaker 1: when he I mean, you know, by his own messed.
Speaker 1: He sober and desober for a long time. And I
Speaker 1: look at him and I go, yeah, you're not faking this,
Speaker 1: you really wear you were pretty bad back then. I
Speaker 1: worried well, there's evidence of it. We got the mugshots.
Speaker 1: But he he's a guy that turned his life around.
Speaker 2: And even when he was living that pretty bad period,
Speaker 2: he was still a good guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Inside, he's a good man. I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, I mean, over the time i've and sober.
Speaker 1: You see guys that their behavior would tell the world
Speaker 1: one thing, you know, like fighting and disappointing people and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and you know, maybe making bad choices
Speaker 1: about business decisions, which I think was Tim's problem, getting
Speaker 1: into the wrong business perhaps, But then the way that
Speaker 1: you see people turn that around, I think it's something
Speaker 1: to do with I can't live with being like that,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean. It's like, but if
Speaker 1: you you talk about perfectionism, which was I think, Ime, No,
Speaker 1: I don't want to put words in your mouth, but
Speaker 1: it kind of says like when I said it wasn't
Speaker 1: drugs and alcohol, you said no, but it was perfectionism.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of your I always thought perfectionism. I
Speaker 1: heard a guy talking about this. It's fascinating that he
Speaker 1: said perfectionism is narcissism in reverse. It's it's narcissists looking
Speaker 1: in the water and despising everything he sees it is.
Speaker 1: It's as equally out to lunch as an idea. But
Speaker 1: perfectionism in society is still kind of People will say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a perfectionist. Nobody will say, oh, I'm a narcissist,
Speaker 1: because they wouldn't say that because there's a negative connotation.
Speaker 1: But people will say, well, you know, I guess I'm
Speaker 1: just a perfectionist. Well stop stop doing that. That's that's bad.
Speaker 2: What you're talking about is really deep seated trauma as
Speaker 2: a kid, I think so probably, and coming from a
Speaker 2: tumultuous household and divorce and all kinds of craziness, which
Speaker 2: I write about in the book.
Speaker 1: Was there was there alcohol problems? I always go to
Speaker 1: that because.
Speaker 2: One part of its alcohol. Yeah, my mother.
Speaker 1: Was an alcohol oh yeah, and career in Covedy Bacon's
Speaker 1: and the family and the again, as the oldest child,
Speaker 1: you feel responsible for your siblings and everyone, and as
Speaker 1: the oldest child you get caught in the middle.
Speaker 2: And I remember Greg, I was a sophomore in high
Speaker 2: school when the family blew apart, right, and I won't
Speaker 2: go into all the details, but it was as ugly
Speaker 2: as he gets. I consciously sat down and said, I
Speaker 2: am going to be so perfect. I will be beyond reproach.
Speaker 2: And I went from being a B C student to
Speaker 2: a straight A student, captain of the football team, king
Speaker 2: the prom lead in all the plays. My high school
Speaker 2: yearbook is pages of accolades and awards, and I consciously
Speaker 2: said I will be so successful, I will be beyond
Speaker 2: repro coach. Now, forty years later and thirty two years
Speaker 2: of therapy, I kind of worked through there and go,
Speaker 2: that's bullshit. I don't need to do that anymore, right,
Speaker 2: And then finally somewhere in my late fifties, I went,
Speaker 2: I kind of liked me. I I'm okay.
Speaker 1: But was that result of being so successful? I mean,
Speaker 1: did that plan? No?
Speaker 2: Sure, no, because as we've started this conversation that Hamster wheel,
Speaker 2: I've only had two number one shows. I need three
Speaker 2: number one shows because how many does Chuck LORI have? Okay,
Speaker 2: I need it, and you're going, wow, this.
Speaker 1: Is the thing. It. Chuck's really a happy guy. Though
Speaker 1: if he was here, he'd been like, no, I'm good,
Speaker 1: I'm good. But it's as an interesting thing though that
Speaker 1: you know, without the success, would you have reached the
Speaker 1: you know who was it said this Kipling, maybe the
Speaker 1: road to the road of access leads to the Palace
Speaker 1: of wisdom or something like that. It does the rule
Speaker 1: of success to you, like you get what you were
Speaker 1: looking for, you find it doesn't work, and then you
Speaker 1: start dealing with it because like what I'm trying to get,
Speaker 1: had you know of being successful, would.
Speaker 2: I would have been successful in other ways. I would
Speaker 2: have been a really good high school English teacher and
Speaker 2: a football coach, and I would have been a winning
Speaker 2: coach because I'm a leader. I'm a natural born leader.
Speaker 2: I'm really good at inspiring people and out here, if
Speaker 2: you're going to be a leader, whether you're a CEO
Speaker 2: or a room runner or a show runner, you lead
Speaker 2: either by inspiration or intimidation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, these days it's going to be insane.
Speaker 2: And to me, it was always inspiration and setting example.
Speaker 2: So I would have been successful. There's no question. If
Speaker 2: I had stayed in Evansville, Indiana, where I grew up
Speaker 2: and become a bricklayer, I would have been a very
Speaker 2: successful bricklayer because I was driven and I held myself
Speaker 2: to that standard. And even when I was working as
Speaker 2: a hot carrier in my teen years for my uncle.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be the best hotcare you know, can
Speaker 2: you still?
Speaker 1: Can you live? I can lay bricks. See that is
Speaker 1: actually a skill I can expect. I can lay the
Speaker 1: bricks and home improvement stuff join a like. Now these
Speaker 1: are skills that I value. Sing people say, oh, I
Speaker 1: you know I can play the enormodome. I'm like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that's I know a lot of people that can do that.
Speaker 1: How are you with shelving?
Speaker 2: You know, I mean I'm not great with shelving, but
Speaker 2: bricks I can do. And I even tell my students,
Speaker 2: I go, you know, I I'd learned how to make
Speaker 2: movies and TV shows on the construction site, because it's
Speaker 2: not that different. You got a foreman, like you have
Speaker 2: a director. You have a blueprint, which is your script
Speaker 2: or the blueprint. You have a team, you have equipment.
Speaker 2: Everyone's got to be communicating. You have to know where
Speaker 2: to put the scaffolding, and then to take that even further.
Speaker 2: As a writer, it's the same as bricklaying. You have
Speaker 2: to put one brick at a time, one word at
Speaker 2: a time, line them up into sentences, stack those sentences
Speaker 2: on top of each other until they become a paragraph.
Speaker 2: And so the mentality behind the work, And so I
Speaker 2: get frustrated with artsy fartsy people who go, oh, I
Speaker 2: just I couldn't write today because a butterfly landed on
Speaker 2: my shoulder, and I just and I go, bullshit. You
Speaker 2: show up every day, you're right, and you're right. You've
Speaker 2: written three four books. You know. You show up, you write,
Speaker 2: you lay the bricks, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: you go that wall didn't exist, that three pages didn't exist.
Speaker 2: At seven this morning, they do. Now I can go
Speaker 2: kick back, Okay, I'll do it again tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I've I was kind of friends of a friends with
Speaker 1: may Have Benchi the Irish, and may Have used to
Speaker 1: write two thousand words a day. She's get she'd get
Speaker 1: a tub of sangria big jaris agria, and she would
Speaker 1: write two thousand words a day. And at two thousand
Speaker 1: words she stopped, like even if it was going right,
Speaker 1: now that's fine, two thousand words finished the sangra. I
Speaker 1: have to do something else, probably more sangria. But it's
Speaker 1: it is about, you know, inspiration, perspiration, It's that whole
Speaker 1: thing about it. It's about work and you really have
Speaker 1: to do it, and it's quite interest in that because
Speaker 1: I I wonder, because so much work can be done
Speaker 1: for you know, useful tools AIS, and you know, like
Speaker 1: I remember when Final Draft came in as a writing program, people,
Speaker 1: I was not probably writing if you're not writing on
Speaker 1: a typewriter, you know, isn't it though, I mean I
Speaker 1: think it is. I tried. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever tried this. I put into AI, write me fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes of Craig Ferguson's stand up Matereal.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just wrote me some like it changed some
Speaker 1: gags that I had done, like changed the words now,
Speaker 1: like that's not the choice I would have made. And
Speaker 1: so I mean, maybe maybe it can do it. At
Speaker 1: one point, I don't think so, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting now I wonder if it could do first drafts,
Speaker 1: like like maybe an AI could do for straft the
Speaker 1: story for you.
Speaker 2: My daughter was kicking around an idea for a story
Speaker 2: that was said in Patagonia, and she sent me the first.
Speaker 1: Chapter the store or the country the country right, okay, god.
Speaker 2: Not the park up And she sent me the first
Speaker 2: chapter and she said, what do you think? And I said,
Speaker 2: this is really quite good. It's a little impersonal in
Speaker 2: spots and I gave she said, this was completely written
Speaker 2: by Ai. Wow, she said. I gave them the machine,
Speaker 2: the facts and said write it in the voice of
Speaker 2: magical realism. And it came back in that And I
Speaker 2: had no idea, but I did sense some coldness, emptiness
Speaker 2: in some of the parts. And I think that is
Speaker 2: that spiritual element, because the difference between craft and art,
Speaker 2: at least in my mind, craft can be duplicated by
Speaker 2: many people. Art is when you pour a piece of
Speaker 2: your spirit into something. If you see an original van Goal, right,
Speaker 2: you feel, oh, yeah, it's like live photograph of Vang
Speaker 2: versus Vango. It's a live starry night vibrates it does.
Speaker 1: I went to see it in the met recently actually,
Speaker 1: and the starry night is on a tour in the
Speaker 1: mat and look, it has its own light sources luminescence. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's crazy. Yes, I've seen photographs, so I know the image.
Speaker 1: But when you see the thing.
Speaker 2: Go to Rome and go and see a Bernini sculpture
Speaker 2: and you look at this and you go there's light
Speaker 2: coming out of that marble. It's alive, it's vibrating, And
Speaker 2: I believe that is the spirit of the artist being
Speaker 2: poured into the object.
Speaker 1: I love that idea. I think it's you know what
Speaker 1: I didn't notice when I went to Italy was like
Speaker 1: all these like amazing statues in Florence and Rome and
Speaker 1: you know, and sec and stuff. But if you go
Speaker 1: out and the really produnk rural churches, the religious art
Speaker 1: is crap. I mean, it's just that. I was like,
Speaker 1: is that is that Jesus? Or is that is that
Speaker 1: bear claiming of fans? What is that? It's like, this
Speaker 1: is our Lord on the crucifixion. I'm like, no, that's
Speaker 1: a bear claiming of fans. I don't see that at all,
Speaker 1: and I kind of loved it even more.
Speaker 2: Well, circle back to your your saints or the excommunicated guy. See,
Speaker 2: you shouldn't be creating art. Yeah, there you go. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a law of religions. They don't like that.
Speaker 1: They don't like I think in Islam they don't like
Speaker 1: imagery either. No imagery. Don't be doing that. You can
Speaker 1: write things, you can have calligraphy, which is very nice,
Speaker 1: but no imagery. Right, I don't know, how do you
Speaker 1: feel about that? Well, you don't have rules about it,
Speaker 1: I guess, right.
Speaker 2: You know, how can you you know, when people refer
Speaker 2: to God as him, I go, wait a minute, how
Speaker 2: can you take something that is incomprehensible, unfathomable, right, the
Speaker 2: greatest mystery and reduce it to human form. One of
Speaker 2: the essays I wrote that didn't make it into the
Speaker 2: book was called mister potato Head, right, remember the old
Speaker 2: I said, Okay, so if God is this ineffable, eternal,
Speaker 2: creative energy, what we do with each religion is we
Speaker 2: grab our little parts and we create a mister potato
Speaker 2: head so that image looks like us. And when you
Speaker 2: think about that, it is true. You know that we change.
Speaker 2: If you go from indigenous people with the you know,
Speaker 2: the sky dancer or the bison had wonka tanka the
Speaker 2: Great Spirit to is God white bearded on a cloud?
Speaker 2: Is God mocha colored with dark brown eyes? I love?
Speaker 2: I've said this before. James McBride wrote a memoir called
Speaker 2: the Color of Water because his mother was Jewish, his
Speaker 2: father was African American, and when he was a small child,
Speaker 2: he asked his mother, said what color is God? And
Speaker 2: she said God is the color of water. Okay, And
Speaker 2: I went, that's brilliant, that's and that's that's the title
Speaker 2: of his memoir.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: It's very cool.
Speaker 1: Do you look at different religions that you fascinated by
Speaker 1: other belief systems.
Speaker 2: I'm not a scholar, bidyman, but I read, I study
Speaker 2: as much as my small brain can comprehend. I really
Speaker 2: do try and connect the dots between all religions.
Speaker 1: I so I do that too, and I became fascinated
Speaker 1: for a while with Akinatin. You know, Akinatin. Akinatin was
Speaker 1: Tutin Kammon's father in ancient Egypt. Okay, so for a
Speaker 1: couple of thousand years in ancient Egypt, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you get the guy with a doghead, he's this guy,
Speaker 1: and you got all the different gods. You know, there's
Speaker 1: the you know, there's the Sphinxy guy that's in charge
Speaker 1: of like the lady that's part you know, giraffe and
Speaker 1: all that, and all these different gods. So Akinaton comes along.
Speaker 1: The first, I believe, the first documented monotheist who says no,
Speaker 1: there is His name was Amenhotep. The third I think
Speaker 1: he was the Pharaoh and he said no, all of
Speaker 1: these gods, that's not true. There's one god. His name
Speaker 1: is Aten. Or its name is Aten, and it is
Speaker 1: the Sun, and they worshiped the Sun God. So all
Speaker 1: of this thousands of year old religious infrastructure that's set
Speaker 1: up in ancient Egypt, now much longer than from the
Speaker 1: time of Christ to now right, there's all been going
Speaker 1: on is now dismantled. And they move the capital of
Speaker 1: the city forty miles into the desert and they worship
Speaker 1: at in the Sun God, and they upset a lot
Speaker 1: of people, as you can imagine.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: And then when he died, Tutin Katan, who was his son, said,
Speaker 1: for safety reasons, says, you know what, let's go back
Speaker 1: to the old gods, and I'll go back to Tutin
Speaker 1: Camun instead of Tutin Khatten, because I am the son
Speaker 1: of a Munrad, not the And they took it all back.
Speaker 1: But I was fascinated because it was the first time
Speaker 1: I've come across the idea that the image of God
Speaker 1: was no humanoid or anthropomorphic in any way. It was
Speaker 1: the Sun. Now he did that thing, I could ask
Speaker 1: you anyway. You could talk to him through me, which
Speaker 1: is a common you know, a piece of grift, and like,
Speaker 1: oh no, you have to speak the special language. You
Speaker 1: got to talk to me. That'll be forty bucks.
Speaker 2: Well, in recent years I've been reading there's a Rabbi
Speaker 2: David Cooper wrote a book called God Is a Verb. Okay,
Speaker 2: and Buckminster Fuller and others believe God is a verb.
Speaker 2: And that opened up my mind. Rather than this anthropomorphic being,
Speaker 2: this noun, what if God is the creative energy that
Speaker 2: lives in all things? So and I'm not I'm way
Speaker 2: in open my head here. But if only five percent
Speaker 2: of matter is what we see in can touch and feel,
Speaker 2: five percent, twenty five percent is dark man right, right,
Speaker 2: seventy is dark energy and no one knows what it is, right,
Speaker 2: but it exists, and it is what is pushing the
Speaker 2: whole universe out and why we keep expanding as a universe. See.
Speaker 1: I think this is an extrapolation of Rennie Decart. I
Speaker 1: think this is Decartean. So the Cartian Renne Descart when
Speaker 1: he said so, and oys everybody obviously when he does it.
Speaker 1: But it says I'm going to rather than God, be
Speaker 1: a revelation like you know, a burning bush or an
Speaker 1: angel coming from heaven, or a sudden dream or stuff
Speaker 1: like that. I will prove the existence of God through reason,
Speaker 1: which I've said the church a lot. But he was
Speaker 1: clever about it. But he said, how do I how
Speaker 1: do I go about it? I thought it was fantastic. Look,
Speaker 1: maybe if I'm telling you something, you're ready to forget it.
Speaker 1: I'm just the idea of what he said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to doubt everything. This is where I'm going to start
Speaker 1: complete doubt. Right, So he said, I doubt, you know,
Speaker 1: the universe, I doubt God, I doubt I even doubt myself.
Speaker 1: There's only one thing I cannot I cannot not doubt,
Speaker 1: and that's I can't doubt that I'm doubting. I am dubting.
Speaker 1: It is an absolute you're lockedown. You can't doubt if
Speaker 1: you're doubt. So if I'm doubting, I've got to be thinking.
Speaker 1: It's just I have to be thinking if I'm doubting.
Speaker 1: And if I'm thinking, then I am cognito ergo sum
Speaker 1: I think therefore I am I exist. And I thought
Speaker 1: that's fantastic, And he uses extrapolates the reading. I loved
Speaker 1: Carl like, Look, I'm not the first one to say that,
Speaker 1: but I'm fascinated by the idea of the revelation versus reason.
Speaker 1: And I think what I see in a lot of
Speaker 1: spirituality for myself, and I think with you correct me
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong. Is that looking for reason doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: make you an atheist. No, it just makes you look
Speaker 1: for it, doesn't make you even lack faith. You're just
Speaker 1: like I'm interested exactly. This goes back to calcified, which
Speaker 1: is unchanging. This is what I believe, This is what
Speaker 1: I was told as a child. And if I think differently,
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. God gave us free will, gave us a brain.
Speaker 1: You know, we have creative energy. I believe we co
Speaker 1: create our life with God, with the Ultimate Creator. I
Speaker 1: think we're in a constant, creative, symbiotic relationship with the
Speaker 1: Ultimate Creator, and we can create. But because we have
Speaker 1: free will, we can create. We can split the atom,
Speaker 1: right and bring electricity to millions of people, or we
Speaker 1: can split the atom and blow up a town. All right.
Speaker 1: You can take a knife and make a salad or
Speaker 1: kill someone.
Speaker 2: We have that free will. We're not ambus just responding
Speaker 2: to stimulus.
Speaker 1: All right. This is good in a personal sense, But
Speaker 1: let's look at the problem of evil, like when the
Speaker 1: innocents are whoever that is right where you know when
Speaker 1: something awful happens to a child or so doesn't deserve it, right,
Speaker 1: how do you? Because this is a stumbling blow for
Speaker 1: me every single time. It's a stumbling block for everyone.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that the universe is benign when this
Speaker 1: can happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but maybe the universe isn't benign, you know, Does
Speaker 2: God just create us and let us bounce into each
Speaker 2: other and see what we do? Like a game show?
Speaker 2: You know, are they going to destroy or create or whatever?
Speaker 2: But it depends on your belief if you believe in reincarnation,
Speaker 2: which I'm not saying I do, but I am exploring
Speaker 2: that if you believe in reincarnation, to fully understand the
Speaker 2: mind of God, I have to experience what it is
Speaker 2: to be the victim as well as the perpetrator. I
Speaker 2: have to understand every aspect of human life. And I
Speaker 2: can't do that unless I triumph and suffer, starve and
Speaker 2: excel and through many lifetimes. Then I become like the
Speaker 2: mind of God. Now I'm not saying I believe that,
Speaker 2: but that's that's one answer to why evil exists. And
Speaker 2: I can't even begin to answer that question. And that's
Speaker 2: why they go I don't believe in God because he
Speaker 2: allows innocent people to die. But I go, God's not
Speaker 2: swooping down with the sword and killing these innocent people.
Speaker 2: Man is humankind is? So what is motivating? And then
Speaker 2: that gets back to dualistic thinking, which is, oh, it's
Speaker 2: the devil and which used to drive me crazy. Anything bad,
Speaker 2: the devil did it? Well, then you abdicate all responsibilities
Speaker 2: for your life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, other guys came and did it and then ran away.
Speaker 1: It wasn't me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: Hey, listen, it's a subject which is small, it's a
Speaker 1: pretty big subject. But I tell you one thing has
Speaker 1: proved my theory that comedians and comedic minds are the
Speaker 1: modern school of philosophy, and a thousand years from no,
Speaker 1: they will discuss people like us the way they discuss Aristotle,
Speaker 1: Plato and uh, you know, like carrot Top will be
Speaker 1: you know, Archimedes. It's lovely to talk to you. I
Speaker 1: could talk to you all day. Let's do it again, all right,
Speaker 1: all cood, luck.
Speaker 2: With the thank you?
Speaker 1: All right, thanks man,