Speaker 1: This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come
Speaker 1: and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually
Speaker 1: it's about an hour and a half and I don't
Speaker 1: have an opener because these guys cost money. But what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway,
Speaker 1: come and see me live on the Pants on Fire
Speaker 1: Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now, and
Speaker 1: we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five and beyond. For a full list of dates,
Speaker 1: go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com. See you
Speaker 1: on the road, My DearS. My name is Craig Ferguson.
Speaker 1: The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to
Speaker 1: interest in people about what brings them happiness. My guest
Speaker 1: today everyone is a gentleman who is outspoken. He knows
Speaker 1: what he thinks, and he's not afraid to tell you
Speaker 1: what he thinks. He's going to tell you right now.
Speaker 1: He is the singular Corolla Enjoy all right. So we
Speaker 1: very briefly were talking about the right age to complain.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm sixty two. I'm going to be
Speaker 1: sixty three very soon. And I think that's now I
Speaker 1: can really start to complain. I can get people off
Speaker 1: my lawn. I can say that young people are rooting
Speaker 1: the world, and my hip harps and all three of
Speaker 1: those things are maybe true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But the problem is is we've now enacted as
Speaker 2: sort of demographic for complaint, which is, if you're heterosexual,
Speaker 2: male and you have money, and you're over six foot
Speaker 2: and you're white, then who are you to complain? Which
Speaker 2: is I feel like I don't want that taken away
Speaker 2: from me just because of the color of my skin
Speaker 2: or just because of my bank account. I feel like
Speaker 2: complaining is you know, maybe not uniquely American, but maybe
Speaker 2: we've we've perfected the art of it. And I like
Speaker 2: the notion of having all these things going for me
Speaker 2: and still complaining, Like I feel like it should give
Speaker 2: hope to other people that even with all the privilege
Speaker 2: and all the money and all the luxury, I still
Speaker 2: can't complain.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that it's not. First of all, I
Speaker 1: take I take issue with the fact there's a uniquely
Speaker 1: American skill.
Speaker 3: No, I agree.
Speaker 2: Now, I say, I think we've perfected it, but I don't.
Speaker 2: It's not it's it's worldwide but we may have put
Speaker 2: you know, like cinema. You know, everyone's got it, but
Speaker 2: we just we just perfected it.
Speaker 1: Well, I see even then, I don't know, Adam. I mean,
Speaker 1: what about the Italians. You're you're Italian people. The Italians
Speaker 1: do some pretty good Let's be honest. It's just what
Speaker 1: you're talking about is that you're aware of it because
Speaker 1: you're in America. But if you were in Italy, you'd
Speaker 1: be like, hey, what's the coming a go? I we
Speaker 1: got some pretty good cinema.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think this is a this is an
Speaker 2: argument where you go, well, what about this great film?
Speaker 3: What about Fellini? Or what about this great film out
Speaker 3: of Paris?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: That all true, but but volume wise, I think I
Speaker 2: think we're the heavyweight champion.
Speaker 1: I think here's where the where the agreement is that
Speaker 1: we in America have made a business of complaining that
Speaker 1: cannot be matched for sheared size and money and uh
Speaker 1: just the volume and scope of complaints. It makes everyone
Speaker 1: else just look like specialists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: All right, that's fair enough. So listen, I was looking
Speaker 1: at uh, you know that thing when you have someone
Speaker 1: on the show and you haven't told to them for
Speaker 1: a while, so you google them. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you still do that.
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 1: I googled you just before I come on, and I
Speaker 1: and what I didn't know. And I've been aware of
Speaker 1: you for a very long time. You and I have
Speaker 1: bumped into each other on campus a few times over
Speaker 1: the years. But I had no idea. And maybe this
Speaker 1: is no true, maybe this is internet. You were a
Speaker 1: boxer and a pretty good one too.
Speaker 2: I was a trainer and a boxer, and a pretty
Speaker 2: good one from a technician standpoint. But I wasn't ever
Speaker 2: ranked or anything anything like that. I was just an
Speaker 2: amateur guy. But I did. I did do it for
Speaker 2: a lip. I did teach it as a as a
Speaker 2: trainer for a living for a period of time.
Speaker 1: Did you teach these Hollywood women with the mets? Did
Speaker 1: you go like Beverly Hills housewives and just let them
Speaker 1: head the mets and tell them how powerfully were Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well I what I did technically is I ran class
Speaker 2: is for the Hollywood women and their you know, lawyer
Speaker 2: husbands or producer husbands. And then I had some private
Speaker 2: students where I ran the myths for them as well.
Speaker 3: And I worked in.
Speaker 2: A place called Bodies in Motion, which had a couple
Speaker 2: of locations around Los Angeles in the day, and I
Speaker 2: worked at the one in Old Town Pasadena, which I
Speaker 2: built actually because the guy told me, if I built
Speaker 2: the place, then I built it out. It was already
Speaker 2: a structure, you know, then I could teach there. So
Speaker 2: I wanted to teach there because I was a carpenter.
Speaker 1: That I think that's very booch that you're a carpenter
Speaker 1: and a books. I've never in my whenever, I like,
Speaker 1: I've never full but I did books and training to
Speaker 1: stay in shape, probably like lawyers and Hollywood ladies, and
Speaker 1: I've never been in the kind of shape them in
Speaker 1: when I was spa in and heading the bag and
Speaker 1: running every day. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It's a it's a good workout. It's
Speaker 2: kind of a sport mixed with the workout. And you
Speaker 2: can you can. It's kind of nice about it is
Speaker 2: you can skip rope for ten minutes and that's its
Speaker 2: own thing. And then you could go shadow box in
Speaker 2: front of the mirror for ten minutes and that's its
Speaker 2: own thing. And then you could hit the heavy bag
Speaker 2: for ten minutes and that's its own thing, and then
Speaker 2: you could spa for ten minutes and that's and you
Speaker 2: could hit the focus paths, you know, so you can
Speaker 2: kind of move around versus sit on a rowing machine
Speaker 2: for an hour, yeah, or a treadmill for half an
Speaker 2: hour or whatever. That's super repetitive part of working out,
Speaker 2: which gets really taxing. You can you know, when you're
Speaker 2: skipping rope and you're being miserable, you go, oh, in
Speaker 2: another four minutes, I'll be able to put the gloves
Speaker 2: on and hit the heavy bag and that'll be better,
Speaker 2: and you can keep going from station to station. Still
Speaker 2: do that, well, My hands are so screwed up from
Speaker 2: so much boxing and so much carpentry that it's it's
Speaker 2: really difficult. But what I do almost on a daily
Speaker 2: basis is a shadow box, and shadow boxing is actually
Speaker 2: probably better than hitting the heavy bag in terms of
Speaker 2: technique because you're forced to kind of work your technique.
Speaker 3: Sometimes when people get.
Speaker 2: On a heavy bag that just kind of wail on it, yeah,
Speaker 2: which isn't really technique. It's just kind of you getting
Speaker 2: out aggression or trying to thump it as hard as
Speaker 2: you can. I would I would say that most people
Speaker 2: who wanted to get better at boxing. If they just
Speaker 2: really worked on skipping rope and really worked on shadow boxing,
Speaker 2: they would get much better versus you know, sparring and
Speaker 2: hitting the heavy bag.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's too late for me now. I
Speaker 1: think it's sixty two. I should just like maybe go
Speaker 1: for a walk and have a coffee.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you one thing I discovered recently, you know,
Speaker 2: semi recently about I'm with you going for a walk.
Speaker 2: I got, I got a weighted vest I got. I
Speaker 2: did that, dude, Oh you did that, dude. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: it's amazing. You go for a walk, and especially if
Speaker 2: there's an incline. Man, if there's a hill by your
Speaker 2: house or something, put that twenty five pound vest on
Speaker 2: hike up the hill. It'll be a walk and a workout.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 1: I was doing a show once, like a comedy show,
Speaker 1: and I had to wear a fat suit, like a
Speaker 1: really heavy fat suit for this like bet and the show.
Speaker 1: And because of the way it was, I was wearing
Speaker 1: the fat suit all day. And I thought this would
Speaker 1: be a great like workout thing for somebody because not
Speaker 1: only is it is it like really a lot to
Speaker 1: carry around, but when you take it off, the day.
Speaker 1: It's like you're before and after picture. You get used
Speaker 1: to yourself being really heavy. Then you just take it
Speaker 1: off and so it motivates you and sweats the ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I think. The the weighted vest is a
Speaker 1: bit like but maybe it should be dressed up a
Speaker 1: little bit so you look more portly.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe they'll make a weighted vest with stretch marks.
Speaker 1: I think. I think that might be the way to go.
Speaker 3: That's my idea in case anyone wants to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that I own it now because it's
Speaker 1: this is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well you suggested it.
Speaker 1: I suggested it, so now I own it. So I'll
Speaker 1: take it on Shark tank or something.
Speaker 3: How did you.
Speaker 1: Get into doing boxing? Was it because you went You
Speaker 1: went to school in Hollywood? Right? Was it tough? It
Speaker 1: was that? What it was was it self defense.
Speaker 2: No, I went to school in North Holly, which is
Speaker 2: like not Hollywood at all. It's just North Hollywood, you know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of the valley like Yeah, yeah, No, I wasn't.
Speaker 2: I was kind of the captain of the football team,
Speaker 2: so I wasn't really picked on or anything. I was
Speaker 2: picked on by my own jock friends and we picked
Speaker 2: on each other. But we didn't really get picked on
Speaker 2: outside of our friendship.
Speaker 3: We just had I had very aggressive.
Speaker 2: Friends who just did horrible things to me physically, but
Speaker 2: but there were friends, you know. So No, it wasn't
Speaker 2: out of a sense of self defense. It was more
Speaker 2: like I did. I played football for a long time,
Speaker 2: and then at some point I couldn't play football anymore,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to do something that had some physicality
Speaker 2: to it, you know, a contact sport so to speak.
Speaker 2: You know, because football it was a lot of fun,
Speaker 2: hitting people and getting into it with people and just
Speaker 2: the physicality of football. I liked it, but I couldn't
Speaker 2: really play football at that level anymore. So boxing seemed
Speaker 2: like a physical thing to do that was like sort
Speaker 2: of a contact sport.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of when I took it up.
Speaker 1: Are you still the fun of it? Do you follow it?
Speaker 1: Do you watch the fighters coming up?
Speaker 3: And yeah, I watch it.
Speaker 2: I mean, a UFC is probably a little more exciting
Speaker 2: than boxing, but I enjoy boxing as well.
Speaker 3: And it's nice to see the UFC guys really coming
Speaker 3: to their own in terms of technique with their hands,
Speaker 3: because at the beginning they were kind of sloppy and
Speaker 3: now they're getting pretty tight. And it just over the
Speaker 3: last decade they've really cleaned up their form. You know,
Speaker 3: in the in the hands world.
Speaker 1: I've never really watched the UFC fight. Now I'm aware
Speaker 1: of a biolays. I was always a bit of a
Speaker 1: snob about it because I just liked the fight that.
Speaker 1: You know, that box is all technique and to watch
Speaker 1: guys who are so gifted and so fast that but
Speaker 1: you know what, I should watch UFC a little bit.
Speaker 1: It seems like it's a whole circus now as well.
Speaker 1: It's huge. It's kind of like, did you get into
Speaker 1: it early on? Yeah, I mean I liked boxing. I
Speaker 1: liked the combat sports. You know, I was working in
Speaker 1: that world a little bit. I mean I was working,
Speaker 1: you know, I was always training and then working as
Speaker 1: a trainer and stuff. So I was always kind of
Speaker 1: you know, in that world, if there is going to
Speaker 1: be a fight, someone will invite you over.
Speaker 3: Hey, we're going to watch the fight. You know.
Speaker 2: It's a kind of a it's a little fraternity of
Speaker 2: you know, you work with guys that are trainers. You're
Speaker 2: training guys who like boxing. A fight comes up, inevitably,
Speaker 2: they say, I'm having people over come over Friday, we'll
Speaker 2: watch the fight, you know, so you get sort of,
Speaker 2: you know, kissed into it a little bit.
Speaker 3: Because that's who you're working with, you know what.
Speaker 1: About in the world of sports radio and radio and
Speaker 1: like podcast and I think of you as being one
Speaker 1: of the real kind of oujis of this game, like
Speaker 1: you kind of is one of the guys that started
Speaker 1: the podcast world, weren't you.
Speaker 2: I was one of the earlier podcasters. There were others,
Speaker 2: but there were very few back then.
Speaker 3: I kind of what I will.
Speaker 2: Take credit for is not for podcasting, but for sort
Speaker 2: of starting the business model of podcasting, of getting advertisers
Speaker 2: and kind of formatting it in a way which isn't
Speaker 2: really anything new. It's just the old radio format. But
Speaker 2: sort of taking podcasting and kind of turning it into
Speaker 2: a business is something I'll take some credit for. And
Speaker 2: also the live podcast. I started doing a live or
Speaker 2: doing live podcasting fifteen years ago, more than fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2: And now everyone does a live podcast. But when I
Speaker 2: did it, no one knew what it was. They didn't
Speaker 2: the people in the audience didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1: It's such an odd thing because it's kind of the
Speaker 1: dominant strain of of for people like you and I
Speaker 1: do know, isn't it. It's kind of like it used
Speaker 1: to be, kind of like a sight hustle, and no,
Speaker 1: it's it's the main thing I can't imagine. I mean,
Speaker 1: this podcast is you know I do with iHeartRadio, but
Speaker 1: I can't see me, you know, doing that forever. It
Speaker 1: doesn't seeven make any sense. You could just put it
Speaker 1: up on YouTube and you're done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know YouTube.
Speaker 2: And the visual component of podcasting is turned into something
Speaker 2: that wasn't anything when I start. Nobody really needed to
Speaker 2: see you podcasts. They just need to hear you podcasts.
Speaker 2: I still am a little confused as to why they
Speaker 2: need to see you podcast but for some reason it's
Speaker 2: turned into a large aspect of podcasting, which to me
Speaker 2: I'm a little sad about because I really like the
Speaker 2: notion of speaking and you putting earbuds in and going
Speaker 2: for a hike and just listening to what I'm saying
Speaker 2: versus you know, sitting on your phone waiting at an
Speaker 2: airport watching what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Well, I think also as well, because it is the
Speaker 1: funes that do it. I think that it's it's weirdly
Speaker 1: less intimate, because I always thought like radio is really
Speaker 1: kind of an intimate thing as a listener. It really
Speaker 1: feels like, you know, you're you're much more involved in
Speaker 1: it somehow, which is weird because you've not seeing it.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is I think now, is
Speaker 1: that and I know this has happened to you that, uh,
Speaker 1: there's such a hunger in the in the zeitgeis that
Speaker 1: in the media for any kind of controversy or clickbait
Speaker 1: or or something that will spike somebody else's a little
Speaker 1: little headline that they'll take a tiny piece of what
Speaker 1: you're saying and make it sound different to what you
Speaker 1: were actually saying in order to create a problem. And
Speaker 1: I think it. Do you think it's kind of you're
Speaker 1: kind of more of a setting duck than you used
Speaker 1: to be. Does that bother you at all?
Speaker 2: It doesn't bother me. But I have a unique gene
Speaker 2: of not being that concerned about what people say about
Speaker 2: me or think about me, even as long as I
Speaker 2: feel like I know what I feel about me. I
Speaker 2: don't mean some bullshit about in my heart. I just
Speaker 2: mean like, there are things I will say that are
Speaker 2: that are deeply unpopular and get the ire of a
Speaker 2: lot of people. But if if it's the truth, then
Speaker 2: it's the truth, you know. So I look at myself
Speaker 2: as a doctor and I'm just telling you you have
Speaker 2: cancer and you don't want to hear that, and I've
Speaker 2: ruined your day and now you're weeping, and maybe you're
Speaker 2: angry at me. And my feeling is is I am
Speaker 2: sorry to present you with this information, but that's my
Speaker 2: job and that's my field of expertise and you should
Speaker 2: know about it. And now at some point you're angry
Speaker 2: at me, and I don't know what I I don't
Speaker 2: have anything to do with that. I'm just presenting you
Speaker 2: with what happens to be the truth. And I've I've
Speaker 2: done it, you know, on the air, and I've done it.
Speaker 2: I've had it happen socially as well, where you know,
Speaker 2: I had a whole table of friends turn on me
Speaker 2: while eating brunch, about ten people because I just told
Speaker 2: them the truth about a certain topic, a subject we're
Speaker 2: talking about, and they all started, you know, yelling at me,
Speaker 2: and they got they got angry at me, and I
Speaker 2: just told them, look, I'm sorry if you guys can't
Speaker 2: handle whatever this thing is that I happen to know about.
Speaker 2: But I'm just telling you and that's your business, and
Speaker 2: yes I will be. I will ruin this brunch and
Speaker 2: I will be the least popular person at this table,
Speaker 2: but that's not going to prevent me from telling you
Speaker 2: the truth and what I know about it.
Speaker 1: Hello, this is Greig Ferguson, and I want to let
Speaker 1: you know I have a brand new stand up company, Spatial,
Speaker 1: out now on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy, and
Speaker 1: I would be so happy if you checked it out
Speaker 1: to what's just basically just go to my YouTube channel
Speaker 1: at the Greig Vergison Show and is this right there?
Speaker 1: Just click it and play it and it's free.
Speaker 3: I can't look.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to come round your husband and show
Speaker 1: you how to do it. If you can't do it,
Speaker 1: then you can't have it. But if you can figure
Speaker 1: it out, it's yours. Do you ever get angry if
Speaker 1: someone tells you something and you profoundly disagree with it?
Speaker 1: Does that ever make you meant? I?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's for me. It's a kind of
Speaker 2: a yes. I'll answer that.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: When Governor Gavin Newsom was sitting in here years ago,
Speaker 2: over a decade ago, and I was telling him that
Speaker 2: homeless people were basically drug addicts and or people with
Speaker 2: huge psychological disorders or both, and that's who was sleeping
Speaker 2: on the street, and that's what we need to focus on.
Speaker 2: And he told me the real picture of homelessness was
Speaker 2: a mother who was divorced, who had a full time job,
Speaker 2: who's got kicked out of her house because she got
Speaker 2: divorced or something, and had two kids and worked full
Speaker 2: time minimum wage.
Speaker 3: I said, that's that's not it at all.
Speaker 2: It's what I'm talking about, and then I got angry
Speaker 2: at him because he's made the problem worse by not
Speaker 2: listening to what the truth was about homeless So, yes,
Speaker 2: I will get angry at these people because they're exacerbating
Speaker 2: problems and they're actually they're making the problems worse, you know,
Speaker 2: So yeah, I guess I'll be that way. I've always
Speaker 2: been pragmatic and just told people, here's what you need
Speaker 2: to do, and but you know a sort of micro macro,
Speaker 2: like I used to be a carpenter and I went
Speaker 2: to my mom's very tiny house years and years ago,
Speaker 2: and she said she was going to remodel the bathroom,
Speaker 2: and I said, uh, all right, and I went and
Speaker 2: kind of looked at the space, and I said, you
Speaker 2: need to make sure you frame in a pocket door,
Speaker 2: sliding pocket door here when you're framing this out, because
Speaker 2: if you open the door, it's just going to cut
Speaker 2: off the hallway, and if the door swings in, it's
Speaker 2: just going to hit the sink that's on the inside
Speaker 2: the bathroom.
Speaker 3: So make sure you get a pocket door.
Speaker 2: She said, all right, And then I came back like
Speaker 2: six months later, and I looked at it and she
Speaker 2: didn't have a pocket door. And I opened the door
Speaker 2: and it opened and smacked my stepdad in the ass,
Speaker 2: who was standing at the sink. And I just thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: why didn't you listen to me? Why didn't you do
Speaker 2: what I told you to do? By the way, not
Speaker 2: for me, for you, this would have been so much better.
Speaker 2: But most people don't. Most people don't. But here's what I.
Speaker 1: Think that the head lane of that particular morality tailors do.
Speaker 1: You didn't see your mom for six months, there's your problem.
Speaker 1: If you had been there as the construction work was
Speaker 1: going on, you could have said, way, wait, we have
Speaker 1: to put a polka door in but because you neglected
Speaker 1: your mother for six months, so really you're to blame.
Speaker 2: You know what, I got to find a mirror to
Speaker 2: be fair, could have been three months. And also I
Speaker 2: could have met her for brunch two times in that
Speaker 2: that hero play that showed up at her house.
Speaker 1: Brunch is a meal that comes up for you quite
Speaker 1: a lot, which is interesting because I think of you
Speaker 1: as a very kind of butch, straight down the lang guy,
Speaker 1: and brunch, let's be honest, is America's only openly gay meal.
Speaker 1: So I find that it's it's an interesting mix for you.
Speaker 2: I don't subscribe to that statement that you just made
Speaker 2: about openly gay brunch. And I'll tell you why. You're
Speaker 2: old enough to remember a book, a very popular best seller,
Speaker 2: uh from the seventies called men Don't Eat Keishe?
Speaker 3: There?
Speaker 2: Yeah that real men, Real men don't eat keishe? I
Speaker 2: will file that under brunch, which is hell Yeah, I
Speaker 2: eat keish. It's eggs, it's ham, it's in a pastry shell.
Speaker 2: It's delightful. What does that mean? Real men don't eat keishe?
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. It's there's bacon, cheese, eggs,
Speaker 2: and it's in a pis shell what I love a pie.
Speaker 2: I love bacon, I love cheese, and I love eggs.
Speaker 3: So we're even come off with real men don't.
Speaker 2: Eat keiche I love. I would eat keishe during brunch happily.
Speaker 1: Wait, so so you eat keys at lunchtime brunch, I'm saying.
Speaker 2: We eat keiche I would eat the I would eat
Speaker 2: the food that real men don't eat at the only
Speaker 2: openly gay meal of the day.
Speaker 1: Did you just come out to me?
Speaker 3: Is that what happen? Not intentionally, but yeah, practically.
Speaker 4: Under nineteen seventies rules, you just that's what you just
Speaker 4: It's funny because it really is is an odd thing
Speaker 4: because I mean, I don't want to kind of bang
Speaker 4: on about cancel culture and the way things have.
Speaker 1: Changed a lot, because I feel like, you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like I talked about it too much. But it
Speaker 1: does seem interesting to me that you and I will
Speaker 1: laugh at hardships. So not just you and I, people
Speaker 1: will laugh at a hardships and stuff that offends me.
Speaker 1: I find it quite funny stuff that offends me. I
Speaker 1: kind of seek out comedy that offends me. But that's
Speaker 1: very that's kind of very different. Now it's a different taste.
Speaker 1: I think, well, I gotta wonder.
Speaker 2: I think there's I think it depends how you feel
Speaker 2: about yourself in that. I feel secure about myself in that.
Speaker 2: I think there's a couple of things going on. And
Speaker 2: it was weird. So I think it was yesterday somebody
Speaker 2: wrote me a tweet and all paraphrase, but it said, like,
Speaker 2: when did you become some sort of diarrhea tampon that
Speaker 2: just absorbs all the diarrhea around you and sucking up
Speaker 2: to your billionaire friends who make fun of you behind
Speaker 2: your back?
Speaker 3: When did you become this? And I just wrote two
Speaker 3: thousand and nine? But it was funny to me.
Speaker 2: It was funny to me, And then I thought to myself,
Speaker 2: this guy just wrote the most vile thing he could
Speaker 2: think of he could summon about me, and I thought
Speaker 2: it was funny. Now why did I think it was funny.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying, oh, I'm so secure, nothing affects me.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying I found it amusing, and so I wrote,
Speaker 2: I just wrote back, two thousand and nine is when
Speaker 2: I began becoming that diarrhea absorbing diarrhea, right, And so
Speaker 2: I wasn't bothered by it at all I kind of
Speaker 2: I kind of like it, and people will say to
Speaker 2: me things, so you won't do this, or you're that,
Speaker 2: or you just you know, you're only famous because you've
Speaker 2: sucked off Jimmy Kimmel or whatever. But I know what
Speaker 2: I did, I understand what I do. Or some retis
Speaker 2: people go, you know, you're the least funny person on
Speaker 2: the planet. I'm like, have you met my stepdad John,
Speaker 2: I can't be the least you know, so I mean second,
Speaker 2: top five maybe unfunniest people in planet. So it doesn't
Speaker 2: really work. But then I also realize a lot of
Speaker 2: this I think is born of some sort of insecurity.
Speaker 2: And I'm not a boastful person, but I'm I'm horribly secure.
Speaker 2: I am very secure. But it's only because I have
Speaker 2: a sort of track record of achievement and I do
Speaker 2: a lot of things, and I achieve in many different
Speaker 2: departments of life, and I understand it. It's like, I
Speaker 2: really think part of what we're missing is a skill set.
Speaker 2: I really do believe the base of my sanity is
Speaker 2: having a trade like being a carpenter actually physically tangibly
Speaker 2: knowing how to build a house. There's something about that
Speaker 2: that gives you a security, like a base, like I
Speaker 2: totally understand a skill, you have a field of expertise.
Speaker 1: I think that's totally right. I mean I don't have that,
Speaker 1: and I kind of wish I did, but I but
Speaker 1: I understand it from a point of view is I'll
Speaker 1: tell you something I did very similar that when I
Speaker 1: started in Late Night in two thousand and five. That
Speaker 1: because of it, because I had I had to sign
Speaker 1: a very punitive deal with CBS and and so I
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to do anything at all on television unless
Speaker 1: I got their permission. So they kind of owned me
Speaker 1: for everything, like can do a movie, can do a
Speaker 1: radio show, can do a commercial, can do anything unless
Speaker 1: I got their permission to do it. The only one
Speaker 1: thing they allowed me to do was live stand up.
Speaker 1: Live stand up. They weren't interested in and it didn't
Speaker 1: bother them, and I could go and do that. And
Speaker 1: I had done that, you know, as a kid, and
Speaker 1: I had done that start now, so that was the
Speaker 1: closest thing I had to a trade. And as time
Speaker 1: went on in Late Night, I always stayed going and
Speaker 1: doing stand up because I felt like it was the
Speaker 1: thing I could fall back on. You know the way
Speaker 1: you're describing having a trade that it was my autonomy
Speaker 1: if you like it, you know what I mean. It's like,
Speaker 1: if everything does, I can do this.
Speaker 2: A trade isn't necessarily plumber or carpenter. You know, stand
Speaker 2: up is a trade. Being a pilot is a trade.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Being a certified accountant is a trade. You know, there's
Speaker 2: you know, I'm saying, a field of expertise, yes, which
Speaker 2: could be I think could be sculptor really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you know, I think that's a very difficult game.
Speaker 1: Aaron eleven on this, I'll just sculpt a couple of
Speaker 1: things to the end of the month and maybe a little.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not talking about a financial I'm not approaching
Speaker 2: it from a financial Oh askact. I'm saying there are
Speaker 2: a lot of people that are certified pilots, right, but
Speaker 2: they don't get paid as a professional airline pilot. They
Speaker 2: fly private planes on the weekends or whatever. But they're pilots.
Speaker 2: They can operate a helicopter or something like that.
Speaker 1: I'm one of them.
Speaker 3: I can fly an airplane. Oh you can't, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I have a license. Yep.
Speaker 2: That's a field of expertise that you have that other
Speaker 2: people don't have, and it gives you a kind of
Speaker 2: a base, you know, Like I'm calling it a confidence,
Speaker 2: for lack of a better term, but it's sort of steady.
Speaker 3: Understand.
Speaker 2: I don't know, speaking a second language, playing the stand
Speaker 2: up base, you know what I mean, just things you
Speaker 2: can do.
Speaker 3: And I think the.
Speaker 2: More that you have, the more secure you are, because
Speaker 2: if you think about the people that are sort of
Speaker 2: melting down at town hall meetings and screaming as loud
Speaker 2: as they can and sort of going out of their mind,
Speaker 2: you couldn't imagine them having a pilot's license, could you.
Speaker 3: And you couldn't.
Speaker 2: Imagine them being a skilled electrician like a journeyman electrician
Speaker 2: or something like you really can't or sitting down at
Speaker 2: the piano and playing chopine, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I mean like having.
Speaker 2: These base sort of skills I do think is a
Speaker 2: foundation for sanity.
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right, And you know what, it's
Speaker 1: kind of it occurs to me as you say, run
Speaker 1: about twenty sixteen and the election cycle in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: I made a decision that I was never again in
Speaker 1: stand up going to discuss any politics. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do any politics at.
Speaker 3: All, none, And.
Speaker 1: It was an experiment, first of all to see if
Speaker 1: I could do it, and then secondly to give myself
Speaker 1: a break. And I think what it does is that
Speaker 1: it allows you to go into a thought process that
Speaker 1: is not part of the noise that's going all the time.
Speaker 1: And I think what you're describing is right, Like if
Speaker 1: you're flying an airplane or building a house, or applying
Speaker 1: yourself to the area of expertise you're talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking about all the things that make you mind, you're
Speaker 1: concentrating on something else. And I think I think that
Speaker 1: that's what it is. I think you're I think you're right.
Speaker 1: It's it's an odd thing too. Do you think that's
Speaker 1: what the noise is? That you know, the kind of
Speaker 1: hyperbolic nature of everybody talking to each other on social
Speaker 1: media and everyone getting you know, on fire with everything
Speaker 1: all the time, is because that's all they think about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, absolutely absolutely know that. When you are well,
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's tied to this sort of lack
Speaker 2: of physical.
Speaker 3: Existence that we've gone into.
Speaker 2: That you used to work on a farm and you
Speaker 2: used to chop wood, you'd be in a logging camp
Speaker 2: you know, you just have to get up and go
Speaker 2: do something thing physical men and women. You know, women
Speaker 2: would go milk the cow, collect the eggs, you know,
Speaker 2: start the fire and you know, cook the whatever like whatever.
Speaker 3: They did everything.
Speaker 2: Everyone sort of had a task, you know, and people
Speaker 2: were you know, that's how they got paid. And then
Speaker 2: at some point everyone moved indoors and start getting in
Speaker 2: the cubicles and lots of air conditioning, and they start
Speaker 2: staring at the computer screen and they become very sedentary.
Speaker 2: And while they did a task, the task was sort
Speaker 2: of endless and never had a beginning, a middle, and
Speaker 2: an end.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's this kind of data entry, you know, just the
Speaker 2: next piece of data to enter. You know, when you
Speaker 2: build a when you build a barn, at some point
Speaker 2: you step back and you look at that barn and
Speaker 2: you think to yourself, I built that barn, and it's
Speaker 2: done now, and then you move on. But we removed
Speaker 2: that from about ninety percent of the populace, and people's
Speaker 2: minds started turning on themselves.
Speaker 3: They don't really do that.
Speaker 2: I worked with blue collar guys always and they never
Speaker 2: They just think in a pragmatic way.
Speaker 3: And also.
Speaker 2: They don't have any issues with things, like they don't
Speaker 2: have dietary restrictions. I would just go I'm going on
Speaker 2: a lunch run, and they'd go, all right, boss, And
Speaker 2: then I wouldn't even tell them where I was going,
Speaker 2: you know, and I would just come back with, you know,
Speaker 2: ten hamburgers and ten fries or ten burritos and ten tacos,
Speaker 2: you know, or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: None of them had any.
Speaker 2: Issues with gluten or allergies or something upset their stomach,
Speaker 2: or there was nothing.
Speaker 3: They just just ate whatever it ate.
Speaker 2: And then you just got back up and you went
Speaker 2: to work, and no one said a word, and there
Speaker 2: were no rules, and there's no restrictions.
Speaker 1: I think, and I think there's also the idea that
Speaker 1: everyone wants to appear smart and and if if you're indignant,
Speaker 1: it can make you feel like you're smart. I always
Speaker 1: thought that about comedy comes in for that, even if
Speaker 1: you just look at the way comedy is treated like
Speaker 1: it's a very rare thing for a comedy, a comedy
Speaker 1: thing that when an oscar or a golden globe or
Speaker 1: any of that, because because comedy, it's not kind of
Speaker 1: the thought is done by the person who's performing it.
Speaker 1: But not necessarily the perfon that's absorbing it. And I
Speaker 1: think that you know, if you make people laugh, they
Speaker 1: don't feel clever. But if you make them think, you know,
Speaker 1: if you kind of like massage them or make them
Speaker 1: kind of being angry as well. You know, anger is
Speaker 1: I think, or being indignant or being outraged feels like
Speaker 1: I'm clever. I notice things that other people don't know,
Speaker 1: so therefore I'm better. And to kind of boost your
Speaker 1: confidence because you don't have your carpentry or pilot's license
Speaker 1: or whatever the hell, has something else to kind of
Speaker 1: bolster you. So the indignance is the kind of the
Speaker 1: airst's skill, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I it's also I think there's a lot of
Speaker 2: virtue signaling too, which is they care more than you care.
Speaker 2: You don't, right, okay, going with the indigenous people or
Speaker 2: the climate or whatever's going on, and they care, you know.
Speaker 2: So Trump is an existential threat and he's going to
Speaker 2: attack democracy and they're going to fight Trump, whereas you're going.
Speaker 3: To sit back and watch SportsCenter.
Speaker 2: So if you sort of went back historically and you want,
Speaker 2: you know, Hitler was rising to power and one group
Speaker 2: of people were going to fight Hitler and the other
Speaker 2: group were going to a pub to have a beer.
Speaker 2: You'd go, well, who was the more noble person, And
Speaker 2: that's equation. You need to go, well, a person who
Speaker 2: obviously was going to go fight Hitler. That's that's who
Speaker 2: the real hero would have been in this equation. So
Speaker 2: I think there's some of that because they announce here's
Speaker 2: what's going on. You know, there's an existential threat against
Speaker 2: humanity and it's known as climate change, and they're going
Speaker 2: to fight it, you know, or whatever it is, that
Speaker 2: whatever the subject is, they're going to fight about it,
Speaker 2: and sort of de facto, if you're not fighting about
Speaker 2: it or fighting for it, then you're sort of complicit
Speaker 2: in this thing. Whether it's climate or Hitler or whatever,
Speaker 2: whatever the subject is. You're sort of on the side
Speaker 2: of the evil or or the Big Company or Monsanto
Speaker 2: or Trump or Hitler or whatever it is, and so
Speaker 2: you're sort of de facto for it and they are
Speaker 2: against it, which makes them the hero in this equation.
Speaker 2: But the problem with this equation is I haven't signed
Speaker 2: off on the premise, you know what I'm saying, I
Speaker 2: if I, if I do think this person is Hitler,
Speaker 2: then I'm going to help you fight against them. But
Speaker 2: that's where the that's where the rift is, I think,
Speaker 2: which is what they're doing versus what what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Like Newsom declared that it was the noble mother of
Speaker 2: iie that was homeless, and he's going to do something
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: But I think it's junkies.
Speaker 2: So he is more noble than I if that's what
Speaker 2: he's going to go do something about. But my problem
Speaker 2: is is that I know that's not what the problem is,
Speaker 2: and he's not going to fix anything, and thus he
Speaker 2: hasn't because he hasn't identified the problem.
Speaker 3: So that's where the chasm is.
Speaker 1: You have a toy of the idea of going into
Speaker 1: politics yourself, get into a proper no.
Speaker 2: I mean, my problem is is I have a lot
Speaker 2: of pragmatic ideas and I'll give you. I'll give you
Speaker 2: for instance, and this part of the politics I would do.
Speaker 2: Like I was at a party at Mark Geragus, the
Speaker 2: attorney's house, who knows a lot of politicians and judges
Speaker 2: and those kind of people. And I think Mark introduced
Speaker 2: me to some guy who said he was, you know,
Speaker 2: a district selectman or something in this area, and I
Speaker 2: said to him, you know where I work on the
Speaker 2: street behind me, there's lots of people dumping garbage, dumping
Speaker 2: construction materials, busted out stucco and drywalls, stuff like that.
Speaker 2: He said, yeah, I know, I know that's a problem.
Speaker 2: We have to go in there and clean it up
Speaker 2: all the time. It's people dump it back there. I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: do you know why they dump it? He said not
Speaker 2: really no. I said, well, the dump cost one hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty bucks. That's why they dump it there. And
Speaker 2: he goes yeah, okay, And I go, who's doing the dumping?
Speaker 2: He goes, eh, I don't really know. I said, poor
Speaker 2: Mexicans who do all the construction work out here. They're
Speaker 2: going to pay one hundred and eighty bucks to go
Speaker 2: to dispose of it the right way because they're on
Speaker 2: a real tight budget. And they can come here for
Speaker 2: free on a Sunday night and just dump it in
Speaker 2: two minutes and leave. He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, because
Speaker 2: you know, these are poor Mexicans who do all the
Speaker 2: construction work out here. So I go, there's a home
Speaker 2: depot literally up the street.
Speaker 3: He goes, yeah. I go, why don't you have a
Speaker 3: guy handing out.
Speaker 2: Leaflets in English and in Spanish that say you can
Speaker 2: dump for free at the dump that's you know down
Speaker 2: the street.
Speaker 3: This is a coupon you don't have.
Speaker 2: They're not going to charge you one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: bucks and when you go over there to dump it,
Speaker 2: they'll give you a twelve pack at Takati. And he goes, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's a good idea. That's a good idea. And
Speaker 2: then about a half hour later at the party, the
Speaker 2: guy circled back to me and he said, what was
Speaker 2: that idea you had again about the dumping? And I said,
Speaker 2: oh man, this is why we're at where we're at.
Speaker 2: Just let's figure out what's motivating people and let's fix it.
Speaker 2: You don't have to judge, you just fix it. Who
Speaker 2: is doing the dumping construction guys, how do we know
Speaker 2: it's all stucco and drywall and bust it out, demo
Speaker 2: out stuff. Who's doing it? The super poor guys should
Speaker 2: do the demo work. They do the hauling, you know,
Speaker 2: the haul garbage. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 2: How much is the dump? It's too expensive for these
Speaker 2: guys because they give a bid. The bid is like,
Speaker 2: I'll do it all for a thousand bucks. All right,
Speaker 2: they want to peel off two hundred more bucks out
Speaker 2: of that and hand it to the city.
Speaker 3: Why isn't it dump free?
Speaker 2: Make it free if you don't want them to dump
Speaker 2: everything on the side of mulhalland then make the dump free.
Speaker 3: How do we get the word out?
Speaker 2: Go to the home depot and have it on a
Speaker 2: sign in Spanish, hand out flyers at the home depot.
Speaker 3: That's where they shop.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to argue with that as a solution
Speaker 1: because I'm trying to find some way to kind of
Speaker 1: be responsible and kind of say, but wait a minute,
Speaker 1: but I kind of can you know, it's like it?
Speaker 1: It does make sense. I think the thing with government
Speaker 1: and why probably you don't go into it is you
Speaker 1: describe it. It's just the frustration of getting anything done
Speaker 1: because it's not really what they I don't know that
Speaker 1: they fucking care about getting anything.
Speaker 2: Now their process In certain places they do, but in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles they're all just process people. They want to
Speaker 2: have a meeting. We would have a meeting about this point.
Speaker 2: I'd be called culturally insensitive. At some point it would
Speaker 2: be explained to me why it's not gonna work, we
Speaker 2: take a vote, I would lose the vote, and then
Speaker 2: I would get angry, and then I'd yell, all right,
Speaker 2: fuck you clean up your garbage in the street for
Speaker 2: the rest of your life.
Speaker 3: I don't give a fuck, and then I would.
Speaker 1: Leave that it seems a place any to to let
Speaker 1: it go. I think you're right. I think it's just
Speaker 1: it's a long job. I don't under I don't know
Speaker 1: how anyone could go into politics. I just don't fucking
Speaker 1: know what anyone could do it.
Speaker 2: Well, you could, I'll tell you what you could do.
Speaker 2: And I've been because I've been really drilling down on
Speaker 2: this a lot lately, and I talked to doctor Drew
Speaker 2: about it a lot. There are people who want to
Speaker 2: do things and then they're process people. And I know
Speaker 2: it because my mom was a process person, my dad
Speaker 2: was a process person. They wanted to sit and talk
Speaker 2: about things, but they never really wanted to get up
Speaker 2: and go make a run and buy materials and start
Speaker 2: the project. They wanted to discuss the project, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. And there's a lot of people that
Speaker 2: all process people, probably percentage wise more women than men,
Speaker 2: but there's plenty of men that are processed people as well.
Speaker 2: And so if you inhabit the La City Council or
Speaker 2: whatever the city council is, if you fill it with process.
Speaker 3: People, then you're gonna get a lot. And we're gonna
Speaker 3: need to.
Speaker 2: Do a report on and we have a we have
Speaker 2: a committee that's going to discuss this and we're gonna
Speaker 2: make Meanwhile, five years goes by and we have twice
Speaker 2: as many homeless as we had when you started the
Speaker 2: first meeting, and nothing ever really happens, but it's a
Speaker 2: long discussion about it. Those are processed people, and they
Speaker 2: get attracted to politics. Now there are nonprocessed people. Like
Speaker 2: we had a mayoral race a few years ago. We
Speaker 2: had Rick Caruso. He's a commercial builder. So commercial builders
Speaker 2: are like, hurry, what's going on? Hurry, hurry, hurry. You know,
Speaker 2: like when Trump spoke to Karen Bass, he was like,
Speaker 2: let's go clean up those fires. Now, people need to
Speaker 2: do it themselves. They want to start tonight.
Speaker 3: Tonight.
Speaker 2: He's yelling and she's going whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down,
Speaker 2: safety safety. So that's a commercial builder talking to a
Speaker 2: process person. So we elected a process person, not a
Speaker 2: commercial builder who's like all the commercial builder goes, is,
Speaker 2: we aren't the foundation guys done informing's done. Where's the concrete.
Speaker 2: Where's the concrete guys? We got to start framing. We
Speaker 2: got to get to pour in before we start framing.
Speaker 2: It's everything is hurry, hurry, what's next. But we we
Speaker 2: like process people here where we sit and have a
Speaker 2: discussion about things.
Speaker 3: And my mom would have liked it that way. She
Speaker 3: liked the.
Speaker 2: Process and the processes people are good because they give
Speaker 2: very soothing speeches and discussions. But the problem is is
Speaker 2: at some point you got to fix the potholes and
Speaker 2: fill the reservoirs and that kind of stuff. And that's
Speaker 2: not the work of a process person. That's the work
Speaker 2: of the commercial builder person. And then so what happens
Speaker 2: is is the commercial builder person becomes an annoyance to
Speaker 2: the process person because because they come in and they go,
Speaker 2: what's going on? And here, come on, let's go, let's go,
Speaker 2: and the process perd goes slow down, slow down, we
Speaker 2: want to keep it safe. Now, the process person doesn't
Speaker 2: say I'm a process person, I'm never going to do anything.
Speaker 2: They go, I want to get it done as bad
Speaker 2: as you do. But we got to take our time,
Speaker 2: do this safely. We've got to make sure get the
Speaker 2: right permits, do the testing, check the soil, slow it down.
Speaker 2: And then five years goes by and nothing's happened. And
Speaker 2: that's kind of la is kind of a process person thing.
Speaker 2: That's that's what we do. We talk about things, but
Speaker 2: we don't really do that that much.
Speaker 1: You know. It's the truth. It's like it's in show business.
Speaker 1: It's in the television business, is in the movie business.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a lot of even when they do
Speaker 1: do something, they want to check before they pull the
Speaker 1: trigger on what they've done. You have to get a
Speaker 1: focus group on a movie you've already made. You have
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 2: They have so many meetings, I know, and it never
Speaker 2: comes out the other end, and they always it's funny.
Speaker 3: They always go, could we just get together?
Speaker 2: And I go, I already told you whatever this or that,
Speaker 2: it's we're done, you know, yeah, but we want to
Speaker 2: get together one more time.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's always funny they'll do. They'll even do stuff, you know,
Speaker 2: from shooting stuff. We're all gonna meet in the lobby
Speaker 2: at six thirty in the morning and the van is
Speaker 2: picking us up at seven and I go, well, why
Speaker 2: don't I just be down there at seven? Well, we
Speaker 2: all want to get down the lobby at six thirty
Speaker 2: and make sure we're all there.
Speaker 3: I'll go. When's the van showing up? Seven?
Speaker 2: All right, I'll be down at seven. We're meeting at
Speaker 2: six thirty. Okay, I don't know what you're doing. I'll
Speaker 2: be there at seven. We're getting into the van, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: where's the van ting? The van's taking us to the set. Okay,
Speaker 2: So i'll be down at seven. I won't be down
Speaker 2: at six. We're all meeting at six thirty.
Speaker 1: You guys get done there at six thirty. Get me
Speaker 1: a kiche that my keiche be hoo, and I'll eat
Speaker 1: it in the van on.
Speaker 2: The way to the zet Ana Mimosa.
Speaker 1: All Right, we gotta go because we'll be completed about
Speaker 1: people talking too much and I've been talking too much.
Speaker 1: But it's lovely to catch up with you again, Adam.
Speaker 1: You're always a breath of fresh air. Continue success in.
Speaker 1: It's good to check in with you. Let's do it
Speaker 1: again soon.
Speaker 3: I hope. So my friend, take care, Thanks buddy, Thanks
Speaker 3: ding you too.
Speaker 1: Bye