Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: When David Letterman started Late Night in The New York
Speaker 1: Times said he was quote more of an acquired taste
Speaker 1: than most comedians unquote. Now it's time, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: for a segment of this program, and we like to
Speaker 1: call stupid petricks. We grew up on Johnny, a true
Speaker 1: gentleman who could deliver a smooth set up and punchline,
Speaker 1: occasionally helped by a wink. But suddenly with Late Night,
Speaker 1: the ultimate punchline was the fact that some gap toothed,
Speaker 1: unknown smartass even had a show. His pet tricks were
Speaker 1: stupid on purpose, and so was he. Tune in and
Speaker 1: you might catch him lowering himself into a water tank
Speaker 1: wearing a suit made from three thousand, four hundred Alka
Speaker 1: Seltzer temples. We have the oxygen here, and I have
Speaker 1: been asked about twelve times by various members of the
Speaker 1: staff to remind you don't try this at home. I
Speaker 1: know you have the nine gallon tank, I know you
Speaker 1: have the oxygen. I know you have the suit of
Speaker 1: ox a Selzer and a staff of a hundred people.
Speaker 1: Dave seized every opportunity to remind us that his big
Speaker 1: network show was a ridiculous waste of time. But if
Speaker 1: you were in on the joke, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people were, it was also a stroke of genius. There's
Speaker 1: a little something the boys at Late Night R and
Speaker 1: D have been fooling around with. We call it sky bowling. Today,
Speaker 1: David Letterman is an institution and has forever changed American comedy.
Speaker 1: Before let him in, the extended drum roll was sincere.
Speaker 1: After let Himan, it would never be without at least
Speaker 1: a hint of irony. His show changed America, and after
Speaker 1: thirty years, Dave's changed as well. I do a lot
Speaker 1: less work than I used to do. I just got
Speaker 1: to a point where I have no patience for meetings,
Speaker 1: so I don't go to any meetings. I can't make
Speaker 1: decisions anymore. I don't like making decisions. You know, we
Speaker 1: have a dozen producers. They can have the meetings and
Speaker 1: they can make the decisions, and I'll just come down
Speaker 1: and somebody tell me what to do and we go.
Speaker 1: And it was different before. Yeah, I used to be
Speaker 1: involved in everything big and large. I don't think that
Speaker 1: was necessarily good, but at the time I thought it
Speaker 1: was what was required when you had your own show.
Speaker 1: You had to had to have everything you know in
Speaker 1: your view and certainly influence each little choice the guests
Speaker 1: that are on the show. Do you still help select
Speaker 1: the guests? Throw or someone else takes the people who
Speaker 1: select them? Occasionally I will think of, Oh I heard
Speaker 1: about somebody that did so and so. Could we look
Speaker 1: into that and this and that? Very little, very little,
Speaker 1: I mean, these people do that. We've have the good
Speaker 1: luck of these people who haven't been together for a long, long,
Speaker 1: long long time. They all know what the expectation is.
Speaker 1: Of course, when you're in that situation, the bad version
Speaker 1: of it is, oh god, it's the same thing. It's
Speaker 1: the assembly line. We're just building the same car over
Speaker 1: and over and over again. You feel that way sometimes
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm the biggest defender of that. I'm sixty five.
Speaker 1: I don't have the energy I had when I was
Speaker 1: thirty five. There are certain things I like about the
Speaker 1: show now that I like more than before work, such
Speaker 1: as I like talking to people and the opportunity to
Speaker 1: learn something, or if I have a natural curiosity about somebody,
Speaker 1: I really look forward to that, or if I have
Speaker 1: something that I know is going to be silly and stupid,
Speaker 1: and I want my authorship out there on this something
Speaker 1: silly and stupid. Then I get eager about that. But
Speaker 1: in the old days, we just were going twenty hours
Speaker 1: a day. We'd be out on the streets, we'd be
Speaker 1: going to New Jersey, we'd be up all night shooting,
Speaker 1: and there would be contests, And I can't do that
Speaker 1: show anymore. The more successful the show has become, and
Speaker 1: the more successful you would become, do you find that
Speaker 1: in terms of programming the show you have to rely
Speaker 1: more on stars. Is there a kind of person It's
Speaker 1: it's completely different. In the beginning, when we started the
Speaker 1: late night show at NBC, we had a liaison between
Speaker 1: Johnny Carson and ourselves named Dave Tabot. He had worked
Speaker 1: at NBC and then had become close with Johnny, and
Speaker 1: so Johnny hired him. And he was a guy who,
Speaker 1: honest to God, talked like this. Dave came in to
Speaker 1: make sure there were no conflicts between our show and
Speaker 1: the tonight show. He says, for example, let's just say
Speaker 1: that Bob Hope is arrested for using drugs and we
Speaker 1: just all just just like, really, in what universe? Is
Speaker 1: that all likelihood? And he says you can't then do
Speaker 1: jokes about Bob Hope. I said, okay, all right, we've
Speaker 1: got that. We were not allowed to use do a monologue,
Speaker 1: and we were not allowed to have an orchestra. And
Speaker 1: we also felt that a way to distinguish ourselves, since
Speaker 1: Johnny had the big stars that people really wanted, we
Speaker 1: would then kind of have fringe people. That's exactly right,
Speaker 1: and so we we sort of mind that vain as
Speaker 1: much as we could. It was sort of a fortunate
Speaker 1: coincidence that we were prohibited in that sense because we
Speaker 1: weren't really interested in having mainstream people on two. Again.
Speaker 1: I don't know how effective it was in in terms
Speaker 1: of programming. I don't know if people noticed the difference
Speaker 1: and appreciated it or just thought, oh, they can't get
Speaker 1: very good guests, and oh it's completely different. It's you know,
Speaker 1: Broadway cavalcade of stars. And that's fine. I have no
Speaker 1: problem with that. We're always fighting the Internet and they
Speaker 1: seem to be winning in terms of the small guests,
Speaker 1: the kid that swims out into the East River and
Speaker 1: saves the cat, or but we're always so far down
Speaker 1: the stream from that story. By the time it's all
Speaker 1: over the internet that there's no point and put it
Speaker 1: on you start. You started in radio. Yeah, my first
Speaker 1: job was at a radio station. You went to college,
Speaker 1: You went to All State University has studied radio on TV?
Speaker 1: Why did you study radio and TV academically? Um? You know,
Speaker 1: I went to Ball State in those days, graduated with
Speaker 1: I think it's a bachelor of Bachelor of Arts or
Speaker 1: Bachelor of Science. I don't think science probably back then.
Speaker 1: But no language requirement and no math requirement. I mean
Speaker 1: it really saved me because I was academically, I was
Speaker 1: not very good early on. I was very lucky that
Speaker 1: I knew how to save myself. Sophomore in high school
Speaker 1: and I had signed up for a public speaking course
Speaker 1: and the first day you were supposed to get up
Speaker 1: and extemporaneously speak for five minutes. You know, everybody's twitchy
Speaker 1: and sweaty and worried about this, as was I. And
Speaker 1: then I got up there, the nervousness and the twitchiness
Speaker 1: and everything dissipated. I loved it, and I thought, oh
Speaker 1: my god, maybe this is a way I can distinguish myself.
Speaker 1: And I did you know, but had you been the
Speaker 1: entertainer as a child in your house, in the household, yeah,
Speaker 1: sure to what except and then my parents wouldn't put
Speaker 1: up with it much. There was a fine line between being, oh,
Speaker 1: isn't the amusing and being just and being a wise ass,
Speaker 1: and we don't like that. I can remember my father
Speaker 1: was big and loud and noisy and always had stuff
Speaker 1: going on, and my mother completely nondemonstrative. And I can
Speaker 1: remember every Sunday night after dinner, my dad would make
Speaker 1: popcorn and we would sit in front of the TV
Speaker 1: and watch Ed Sullivan and Ed used to have this
Speaker 1: habit of all, come on, now, let's really hear it
Speaker 1: for him, and my mom used to say, I don't
Speaker 1: like the way Ed begs the audience for applause us.
Speaker 1: So she was just completely standoffish by the notion she
Speaker 1: was a connoisseur of television house and then she was
Speaker 1: not a connoisseur. She resented the fact that somebody had
Speaker 1: to be encouraged to support what they had just said.
Speaker 1: They Sellivan was whoring himself and that's exactly right, that's great.
Speaker 1: So you go to ball Statum, you get this degree
Speaker 1: Bachelor of whatever. We don't know and what do you
Speaker 1: do after that? Well, through a friend of mine at
Speaker 1: a the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis where I lived, which
Speaker 1: was sixty miles away from where I went to school
Speaker 1: and still is just about sixty miles, I heard that
Speaker 1: they were auditioning for the one of the summer announcer.
Speaker 1: So I went down there an audition, never having been
Speaker 1: in a television studio in my life, and got the job.
Speaker 1: I mean it was a fixed fight because I had
Speaker 1: no business getting the job. I wasn't very good, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what I was doing, I had no experience,
Speaker 1: and they gave me the job. And suddenly the bulb
Speaker 1: that was turned on my sophomore year in high school
Speaker 1: now is burning? Why top, because it's are you kid me?
Speaker 1: I'm nineteen and I'm gonna be on TV? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's preposterous. That was the booth announcer. So I can't
Speaker 1: believe you said that back when they had booth announcers
Speaker 1: on something. That's right, That's what it is. These guys
Speaker 1: defined my childhood by the way. These were the guys. Uh.
Speaker 1: The principal responsibility was to keep the program log. There
Speaker 1: used to be a lot of technical glitches in television
Speaker 1: who had booth announcers who would pick up the slack
Speaker 1: when something went wrong with tape to tape. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Station break was a huge process because you had a
Speaker 1: control room, you had a director, you had two or
Speaker 1: three sixteen millimeter projectors, you had a slide chain, and
Speaker 1: you had the big two and a half inch Ampex tape.
Speaker 1: Let's say you had four commercials in a station break,
Speaker 1: then you'd have to roll the tape. Then you'd have
Speaker 1: to count down and roll the film. Then you'd have
Speaker 1: to go live to the booth to read copy over
Speaker 1: a slide and then back to the film, and it
Speaker 1: was an enormous thing. Periodically, the FCC would come in
Speaker 1: and check your your log. So it was a big deal.
Speaker 1: At a summer job in in nineteen six, He's sixty
Speaker 1: and I was making a hundred fifty bucks a week.
Speaker 1: I got to be the weekend weather man. I've never
Speaker 1: done that before. I got to read the news on
Speaker 1: on the morning kiddie show. And none of this would
Speaker 1: happen today. You know, people are qualified to do that
Speaker 1: job now, much earlier than I certainly was. You know,
Speaker 1: like this was Ryan Seacrest university put him in any
Speaker 1: job when he was nine or ten, he could have
Speaker 1: done a better job than I'm doing now. But for me,
Speaker 1: it was like holy cow. So I go back to
Speaker 1: school now, to my radio and TV studies, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it's he there's duck Lips. We've seen
Speaker 1: him on TV, and oh my god, what a progression
Speaker 1: that was for me. Now that was what year I
Speaker 1: think I started there in sixty eight and I stayed.
Speaker 1: And you avoid drafts, and you avoid in those days,
Speaker 1: you get the student deferment. And ball S was prinsipally
Speaker 1: a teacher's college in those days, and so wanted teachers.
Speaker 1: It was chock full of guys who wanted that student
Speaker 1: deferment and also the teaching deferment. I was not studying teaching.
Speaker 1: So the minute I graduated, I was reclassified. One A
Speaker 1: went from my pre draft physical in April and they said, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll call you. And then in the meantime before I
Speaker 1: was called, Nixon announced the National Lottery. They were going
Speaker 1: to end the draft. They were trying to step down
Speaker 1: the Vietnamese War. My birthday was three forty two or
Speaker 1: something like that. Out of three hundred fifty six. So
Speaker 1: that meant even though I was one A and had
Speaker 1: my pre induction physical and was ready to go, it
Speaker 1: was over for me. At the time, I didn't know
Speaker 1: how lucky I was. I felt guilty because I had
Speaker 1: friends who had gone, and I had friends who had
Speaker 1: been in the Marine Corps, and I just felt like, well,
Speaker 1: why met these guys went, Why shouldn't I go? And
Speaker 1: then it dawned on me pretty quickly. I had been
Speaker 1: among the really really lucky. Yeah, what was the political
Speaker 1: landscape like a Boston when you went there? Well, it
Speaker 1: was just starting to uh. I I used to make
Speaker 1: jokes that they would have student protests, but it was
Speaker 1: to get the cafeteria cooks to wear hairnets. But it was.
Speaker 1: It was creeping in. It was not a hot bed.
Speaker 1: It was not Madison, Wisconsin. It was Muncie, Indiana. But
Speaker 1: it was starting and there were sit ins and demonstrations,
Speaker 1: and you know, Bobby Kennedy had spoken on campus, so
Speaker 1: it was starting, but I wouldn't say it was. It
Speaker 1: wasn't quite lit up the way it might have been
Speaker 1: in other regions. You mentioned booth announcers, and I remember
Speaker 1: I did a YouTube search. I wanted to find this
Speaker 1: guy that was literally the voice of my childhood. W
Speaker 1: r Andy come on and say, you know, uh, next
Speaker 1: on Million Dollar Movie, Barbara stan mctells Gary Cooper where
Speaker 1: he Can Go? And Ball of Fire and he just
Speaker 1: said this voice, it was just it just haunted me. Well,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. You mentioned that guy I had the little
Speaker 1: kid voice from Indiana. I wasn't that guy, but I
Speaker 1: still had to do the job. And I can't impress
Speaker 1: upon you enough how tedious it is to sit there
Speaker 1: for eight hours watching programming and logging everything that happens.
Speaker 1: If you lose audio, you have to log that. If
Speaker 1: you lose video, you have to log that. You have
Speaker 1: to log sign on, sign off, every commercial, every station break.
Speaker 1: And at first I was scared silly, but then, like
Speaker 1: everything else, you get accustomed to it and you become blase.
Speaker 1: And so I would just start wandering the building. You know,
Speaker 1: it was so embarrassing. They would will the booth announcer
Speaker 1: please report to the announced booth, and oh my god,
Speaker 1: I've missed the so and so. The main announcer was
Speaker 1: a guy named Rob Stone, tremendous voice and hopeless alcoholic,
Speaker 1: I mean a real alcoholic. Go hand in hand, aren't yeah?
Speaker 1: Kind of certainly in those days it was not uncommon.
Speaker 1: He would come in and he would bring a point
Speaker 1: with him. And so in the spirit of this, we
Speaker 1: who were working the sign off shift, we would always
Speaker 1: send somebody out for beer, and we would be at
Speaker 1: the station late at night signing off, and myself and
Speaker 1: the director and whomever else was there, we'd be drinking beer.
Speaker 1: Oh my, with this fun. In those days, you would
Speaker 1: do a five minute new summary before sign off nightcap news,
Speaker 1: and then you would do the the broadcast statement. You'd
Speaker 1: read that over the slide of the station, and then
Speaker 1: they would go to the national anthem with the waving flag.
Speaker 1: One night, a guy in the props department, so I
Speaker 1: can reconstruct exactly the station has pictured on the slide.
Speaker 1: We can make it blow up, so as you're as
Speaker 1: you're reading the thank you and good night and why
Speaker 1: not tune in w LW overnight and blah blah this
Speaker 1: and so until tomorrow, good night and good luck, I
Speaker 1: have the thing. And so we did. Oh god, we
Speaker 1: were proud of ourselves. You know, we really thought we
Speaker 1: had done something. Geez, nobody ever said anything. No, it
Speaker 1: was bizarre nobody got fired. Nobody asked a question about it.
Speaker 1: You know. It was this cult of four or five
Speaker 1: guys who had pulled this off, and we just thought, well,
Speaker 1: this is one. It was fun, but to you wanted
Speaker 1: but no nobody nobody said anything. But but what's interesting
Speaker 1: is from school and then doing the job and so
Speaker 1: forth in the booth thing the comedy gland is secreting
Speaker 1: through the entire time. What are you doing for that?
Speaker 1: Meaning other than blowing up the studio and in the
Speaker 1: sign off or yes, I was looking for any outlet
Speaker 1: and it came for me doing the weather. I knew
Speaker 1: nothing about whether you'd go downstairs night have the ap
Speaker 1: machine and the map would come over, the national map,
Speaker 1: and you would go to the big magnetic board in
Speaker 1: the studio and you put the low system, and you
Speaker 1: put the high system, and you put the occluded front,
Speaker 1: and you put the rain showers, and so it told
Speaker 1: you everything any time, but all that I could monkey
Speaker 1: with that. I was very happy. I can remember two episodes.
Speaker 1: One I was had forecast sunny and dryet and we
Speaker 1: we go off the air and blah blah and I
Speaker 1: go outside this this is horrible thundershower. The rain is
Speaker 1: coming down in sheets, and I was just twenty ft away,
Speaker 1: just oblivious of this. This uh dangerous yes coming through,
Speaker 1: this one of these violent Midwestern summer thunderstorms coming through
Speaker 1: attacking the station. I got to be well known because
Speaker 1: this Sunday Night show was on after the ABC Sunday
Speaker 1: Night Movie, and in those days that was big programming.
Speaker 1: We got a bunch of complaints, and this was when
Speaker 1: people were wearing a bell bottom pants. I don't think
Speaker 1: he could buy regular pants. Got a lot of calls
Speaker 1: about he's either not wearing underpants or he needs to
Speaker 1: wear underpants. That's how I distinguished myself. Do you want
Speaker 1: to clear that up now? Were you wearing underpants? Of
Speaker 1: course I was wearing inderpendent. It was Indianapolis, and we did.
Speaker 1: We're not talked too without It's whatever problem was perceived
Speaker 1: was not mine, I assure you. And then where do
Speaker 1: you go from there in terms of underpants, and well,
Speaker 1: if you wish. I got tired of sitting in the
Speaker 1: booth and tired of working weekends. And also they didn't
Speaker 1: they didn't want me there. They would keep bringing in
Speaker 1: auditions for my job. That really hurt my feelings. But
Speaker 1: I couldn't argue with them because I didn't know what
Speaker 1: I was doing, but the cumulative effect of being on
Speaker 1: TV a lot there, we get this memo once from
Speaker 1: the search department, and of all of the people, the
Speaker 1: the anchor team and whoever else, I had the highest
Speaker 1: queue rating of anybody there, and it was only by accident. Really,
Speaker 1: So I started looking for a job, couldn't get hired
Speaker 1: out of the market. Some people I knew were coming
Speaker 1: in to start up a talk radio station, so I
Speaker 1: went to work at the new talk radio station. Format.
Speaker 1: It was News Talks Force w NTS. When I resigned
Speaker 1: to quit give my notice to the general manage, the
Speaker 1: guy sad and it chilled me at the time. He said, really,
Speaker 1: you're leaving this TV station to go work for a
Speaker 1: brand new radio station. And I said yeah, and he
Speaker 1: said you will never be heard of again. So I
Speaker 1: went to the station, worked there for a year, realized
Speaker 1: that I had to make a move. Nobody would would listen.
Speaker 1: It was a daytime station. This was tremendous. They had
Speaker 1: a daytime license, which meant the radio station come on
Speaker 1: when the sun came up and went off when the
Speaker 1: sun went down. Literally Yeah. And then winter. We were
Speaker 1: off at three in the afternoon and I had the
Speaker 1: midday shift. I come in at noon and two hours
Speaker 1: later I'd be going home. It was it was afternoon,
Speaker 1: and then in the summer. Conversely, you were on the
Speaker 1: like nine thirty or ten. It was awful. It was Watergate,
Speaker 1: and and people assumed, well, the guy's got a talk
Speaker 1: show on the radio, but he knows everything there is
Speaker 1: to know about Watergate, and I knew nothing, and people
Speaker 1: wouldn't call in, and I'd have to read endless pages
Speaker 1: of wire copy. I remember eating a sorry about Gordon
Speaker 1: Stratching str A c H A N. His name kept
Speaker 1: coming up, a special counsel, so and so, Gordon Stratch
Speaker 1: and adviser of the White House, Gordon Stratch. And finally
Speaker 1: the phones light up, and I, thank god, did I
Speaker 1: say yes? He says, it's not Stratching, it's Strang. You're
Speaker 1: mispronouncing the guy's name. I said, okay, thanks to everything.
Speaker 1: No click buzz, So there you go. Were you ambitious
Speaker 1: during this time? Did you have an ambition? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: wanted to. I really thought, um, I really thought I
Speaker 1: could write half hours situation comedies. I thought I could.
Speaker 1: What did you watch well? In my childhood it was
Speaker 1: completely different. It would have been stuff like Saturday Morning Nonsense.
Speaker 1: Then as I grew older, you'd get Mayberry, The Andy
Speaker 1: Griffs Show, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, the Nelson's and that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And then later on and in those days,
Speaker 1: it was all the Mary Tyler More things, the Bob
Speaker 1: Newhart Show, on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. And I
Speaker 1: really thought, oh, I can write one of those Mary
Speaker 1: Tyler Moore shows, and it turned out I couldn't. As
Speaker 1: you know, there's a template for writing those things. They
Speaker 1: use the template because it's successful. And if you don't
Speaker 1: know the template and you think you can make a
Speaker 1: better version of it, it's a very foreign object to them.
Speaker 1: To you, you think, look, I've improved on the template,
Speaker 1: but they don't want them. They want something to Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right. I mean we're talking about Mary Tyler Moore.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good stuff. Smart And you're in l A
Speaker 1: at that time. No, I'm still in Indianapolis, and I
Speaker 1: would be sending scripts and looking for an agent. Finally
Speaker 1: a guy said, yeah, if you come to Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: he said, I'll be your agent. So with that encouragement,
Speaker 1: I just left, and I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: you know your friends say, okay, here you can meet
Speaker 1: with so and so, and and you can meet mel
Speaker 1: Blank's son, you can meet with him and and I
Speaker 1: know this one, and I know that one, and so
Speaker 1: you go out there with high hopes. I guess it's
Speaker 1: like the Pioneers and the kind of stoga wagon and
Speaker 1: they run out of beans. You know, they're in Salt
Speaker 1: Lake and they've got nothing neat. So within the first
Speaker 1: week you run through all of your appointments and then
Speaker 1: you've got nothing. Then your Shanghai that's right on the
Speaker 1: shoulders there. I'm in Or when I went to l A.
Speaker 1: I did a soap opera at thirty Rock. The show
Speaker 1: was about to go off the air, and I'll never
Speaker 1: forget this guy that was the producer. Here we're in
Speaker 1: the hallway and they asked me to extend my contract
Speaker 1: for a few months. And he says that line to me.
Speaker 1: He says, what do you think you're gonna do? Go
Speaker 1: out the Hollywood, become a star in the movies. I'm
Speaker 1: walking down the homeies doing do listen to me? Come
Speaker 1: back here? You you don't walk away from me? And
Speaker 1: I walk away from the guy and I go to
Speaker 1: l A. Now, were you ever haunted by that? Did you? Honestly?
Speaker 1: Did you? Did you? Because of my case I thought
Speaker 1: the guy was I said, oh yeah, I haven't considered that.
Speaker 1: Of course you do. Did you ever think you were
Speaker 1: going to be? I mean, I don't want to get
Speaker 1: you know, crass about it, but you live a very
Speaker 1: very good life. You've been an enormously successful man. Did
Speaker 1: you ever dream you would be as successful as you are? No?
Speaker 1: Never know? And I'll tell you the same for you,
Speaker 1: same for most people in this uh in show business.
Speaker 1: You're just lucky enough to get to do exactly what
Speaker 1: you want to do all your life. So that's the success,
Speaker 1: you know. I always thought there was some commission that
Speaker 1: was going to come to my door of my apartment
Speaker 1: was living in and West Hollywoin and there were knock
Speaker 1: with h they're going anywhere, the Motion Picture Acting commission,
Speaker 1: and we've got the reports and Mr Bob, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take it to the airport by the way back to me.
Speaker 1: I think you're not gonna get into I know the
Speaker 1: origin of this is is your personal fear, But I
Speaker 1: think that commission is not a bad idea and long overdue.
Speaker 1: Honest to God, can we get that up and on
Speaker 1: its feet? Can we get a bill? I remember there
Speaker 1: was a guy, a writer for the Old Tonight Show,
Speaker 1: somebody calling his His listing in the white Pages was
Speaker 1: say it's Marty Cohen. It was Marty Cohon, Marty Cohen,
Speaker 1: President of show Business. Just oh, that's lovely. So were
Speaker 1: you Were you doing stand up every in Indiana? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: never did. In fact, one of the things that I
Speaker 1: didn't like doing was when I was at the radio station.
Speaker 1: Part of the deal was we just sold a thing
Speaker 1: to Kroger grocery stores. But part of the deal is
Speaker 1: we want you to go out there and m see
Speaker 1: the song song so and I hated it, and I
Speaker 1: finally told the guy, said I can't do this. So
Speaker 1: one of my big built in fears was up in
Speaker 1: front of people that I didn't know on trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, hold their attention. Let alone be funny. But
Speaker 1: for me, the road map to pursue was handed to
Speaker 1: you via Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show. They would
Speaker 1: have comics on. It would be David Brenner and they
Speaker 1: would say, and there will be appearing at the Comedy Store,
Speaker 1: and it seemed to be that the connection between the
Speaker 1: Comedy Store and the Tonight Show was pretty close. So
Speaker 1: even though in mind that facility that particularly it was
Speaker 1: the farm system for the Comedy Store, and great guys
Speaker 1: were coming out and getting on and Steve Landisberg and
Speaker 1: on and on. I say on and on because I
Speaker 1: can't remember the name, so I just yeah, even though
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a writer, because I didn't have
Speaker 1: the courage to tell my family and friends that what
Speaker 1: I really want to do is, you know, somehow get
Speaker 1: famous and beyond TV. So when when I went out
Speaker 1: there the first monday I was in California when I
Speaker 1: moved in, I wrote down some stuff and went to
Speaker 1: the Comedy Store and got on stage. It was it
Speaker 1: was awful. I've never been in a dark and room
Speaker 1: with the spotlight and it was just like a train
Speaker 1: coming at me. So I did my little five minutes
Speaker 1: from route left and then uh, the owner of the place, yeah,
Speaker 1: you should come back and do some more. So I thought,
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? And she's no, you can m ce.
Speaker 1: So I came back and I was the yeah Derek.
Speaker 1: So that seventy eight three years later I was on
Speaker 1: the Tonight Show. That worked so much better than it
Speaker 1: should have. I think it must be harder now. It
Speaker 1: wasn't three years of just work in that room and
Speaker 1: work in the mic and working stand up, but it was.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was fun because every night you go
Speaker 1: there and you were hanging around guys Jay Leno and
Speaker 1: Robin Williams and George Miller and Tom Greeson and Jeff
Speaker 1: Aultman and anybody now who's you're aware of you would
Speaker 1: see every night. And it was great fun. I mean,
Speaker 1: my god, it was great fun and didn't make any
Speaker 1: difference what you did during the day. You knew that
Speaker 1: when it got dark, you'd be on Sunset Boulevard. The
Speaker 1: place would be packed. And in those days, the only
Speaker 1: room she had was this tiny, little original room and
Speaker 1: it was next door to Art Labelle's. He would have
Speaker 1: a fifties dance party in the next room on the weekends,
Speaker 1: and you would get a lot of gang guys going
Speaker 1: to Art Labelle's. Guys. No, what was then brio? Um?
Speaker 1: Is that all right? Yeah? Low riders? Yeah? And uh.
Speaker 1: One one night a friend of mine, Johnny Dark, is
Speaker 1: on stage and a guy comes up and he's got
Speaker 1: a gun and he's standing next to Johnny while Johnny
Speaker 1: is doing his little singing impressions of whomever, and and
Speaker 1: he had to quietly, you know, talk his way out
Speaker 1: of the guy using the gun. And it was exciting.
Speaker 1: V And Richard Pryor would come in, and Freddie Prince
Speaker 1: would come in, so you say, yeah, night after night.
Speaker 1: But still in all how could that not be fun?
Speaker 1: So did Carson find you there? Well, they had a guy,
Speaker 1: you know, they had a team of guys when I
Speaker 1: was there that would m in. Uh. And in the
Speaker 1: meantime I got on this Mary Tyler Moore show, UH
Speaker 1: to write and perform and that was it was me
Speaker 1: and Michael Keaton, Jim Hampton and Dick Shawn and Susie
Speaker 1: Kurtz and uh, Julie con Judy con Judy con thank
Speaker 1: you very much. So from that show, uh, they said, oh,
Speaker 1: well we'll put you on because you're on that show.
Speaker 1: You can come out and do stand up and then
Speaker 1: you go sit down and talk to Johnny. And without
Speaker 1: that you never know what the formula is. You could
Speaker 1: be on nine times and never get sit on with Johnny.
Speaker 1: You could be on for six years and every or
Speaker 1: you could be bumped forty times never but because of this,
Speaker 1: Oh and he's appearing on the so and so Show,
Speaker 1: the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I got to sit down
Speaker 1: with Johnny and and that was again, that was craziness.
Speaker 1: That was That was another one of those you know what,
Speaker 1: it's Oh yeah, it's such a jolt. The material is
Speaker 1: so committed. You don't have to think about anything, You
Speaker 1: just have to start talking and it all comes out.
Speaker 1: The adrenaline take days to burn out of you. Holy God,
Speaker 1: you're sitting next to Johnny Carson. I mean, you just
Speaker 1: can't believe it. I mean to me, and I think
Speaker 1: most guys my age who were out there doing that one.
Speaker 1: The fact that it worked. You know, really, I drove
Speaker 1: in a pickup truck with my wife to l A
Speaker 1: and three years later, I'm sitting next to Johnny Carson.
Speaker 1: That's not supposed to happen, you know, It's just not
Speaker 1: supposed to happen. But it did. Do you think that
Speaker 1: Carson was someone who do you think he saw himself?
Speaker 1: And you do you think he saw the Midwestern boy?
Speaker 1: I don't know, Jean, I don't know. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was so easy for other people to make that comparison. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that seemed to be the formula. But I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you felt that way or not. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't. I can't answer that. And then what happened
Speaker 1: after that, Well, your life changed immediately. Suddenly you weren't
Speaker 1: just a guy who was at the comedy store. You
Speaker 1: were the guy that had been on with Carson. And
Speaker 1: then I was on I think two or three more times,
Speaker 1: and then I started hosting the show, and again that
Speaker 1: was another you know, you just feel like it's like
Speaker 1: it's like winning the World Series or your rookie season.
Speaker 1: What's the gap of time between when you first sat
Speaker 1: down with him when you started hosting. The first time
Speaker 1: I was on was November of seventy eight, and I
Speaker 1: think I hosted. Uh, it was Monday night opposite the
Speaker 1: Academy Awards, so it was the Good Spring, Yeah, in April.
Speaker 1: I should have been April of March, April, yeah, and
Speaker 1: it was I was just frozen. I was as fro
Speaker 1: as I can remember. Peter Losalle coming up to me
Speaker 1: during the commercial break and he said, you've got to
Speaker 1: loosen up. You've got to loosen up. They get that
Speaker 1: thanks to that tip page. I remember the first night
Speaker 1: I was saw on the Tonight Show and I'm I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, four guys at the comedy store, this was it.
Speaker 1: This was like people lining up to squeeze through a funnel,
Speaker 1: you know. This was it. The Tonight Show. Fighting in
Speaker 1: competition and backstabbing and bad mouthing to get to the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show is going to make or break you if
Speaker 1: if you don't do well, you'll never be heard of again.
Speaker 1: There's there's no such thing as a guy bombings first
Speaker 1: time on the Tonight Show and then having a delight
Speaker 1: full career that just doesn't happen. You're gone. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. So I I am getting ready
Speaker 1: to go out there just behind the curtain. And my
Speaker 1: manager at the time, Buddy Mora, who was with Jack
Speaker 1: Rollins and uh Charles Joffey. They handled Robin Williams and
Speaker 1: Woody Allen and Dick Cabint and some other guys. So
Speaker 1: that was a big deal for me to be with
Speaker 1: these people and Buddy and I nice enough guy, but
Speaker 1: we never I never saw I'd eye on much, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it was my immaturity about
Speaker 1: show business or just ignorance, not immaturity. I you know,
Speaker 1: I had no time to be immature. I was ignorant.
Speaker 1: So we're standing there and Johnny saying, our next guest
Speaker 1: as a young blah blah blah blah, and Buddy says
Speaker 1: to me, and Buddy always whispered. Everything was a whisper.
Speaker 1: But he says, Robin got popeye, And I said, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? His final words to me, as
Speaker 1: I'm going on the tonight show from the first time,
Speaker 1: telling me about a booking for one of his other clients,
Speaker 1: you know, And I just never got over that. This
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing
Speaker 1: more in a minute. This is Alec Baldwin and I'm
Speaker 1: talking with David Letterman. You know, you're a lot mellower
Speaker 1: an al than you were, absolutely, and you'd say that
Speaker 1: when you did the show, no matter how crazy or
Speaker 1: how wired you and the whole experience was of the
Speaker 1: early show, and you said running around and doing all
Speaker 1: the taking and all the other bits and stuff forth
Speaker 1: in contests and everything, but I mean, just your own
Speaker 1: nature seems like there was a kind of an edge
Speaker 1: to it that that you've lost but you seem like
Speaker 1: you really just become like so much more. What's the
Speaker 1: word charming? Well, I don't know that's rule, but I
Speaker 1: know exactly what you're talking about. And the fact that
Speaker 1: it's noticeable by others is an indication that maybe I'm
Speaker 1: on the right track. Because to to the exclusion of
Speaker 1: every other thing in my life, it was the success
Speaker 1: of this show. As a result, I waited to have
Speaker 1: a child twenty years too long. I just didn't do
Speaker 1: anything else. It was the show and it had to
Speaker 1: be the show. And if it wasn't the show, then
Speaker 1: find out a way to make it the show. And
Speaker 1: did you come from that world? Like Lauren, for example,
Speaker 1: says to me, he's he lives the life where his
Speaker 1: creative was. Work is playing. Like we have s interesting jobs.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't stop working, That's part of it.
Speaker 1: And uh, that is one of the great residuals of
Speaker 1: of you know, you're around all these funny people and
Speaker 1: you have silly ideas and you have silly conversations a
Speaker 1: life yourself sick. But for me it was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god. Uh, you know, if if I fail at this,
Speaker 1: it's all going away. You know, if you fail at
Speaker 1: this you get to get at the end of the line,
Speaker 1: and the line keeps getting longer, so to the exclusion
Speaker 1: of other important things, other aspects of life. I pursued
Speaker 1: the show and then that changed. It only changed. Did
Speaker 1: you want it to change? No? At the time, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know there was another way to live your life.
Speaker 1: I thought you had to keep banging your head and
Speaker 1: banging your head and banging your head. And I kept
Speaker 1: saying to myself, this is what they say. It's like
Speaker 1: pushing a rock up hill. It's like pushing a rock
Speaker 1: up hill, and one day everything will change, everything will
Speaker 1: be great, you'll succeed, and everything will well. It never
Speaker 1: it never quite worked that way for me. I think, well,
Speaker 1: not too difficult to assume that. This is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I had the quintuple bypass surgery. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then my doctor he said, you know, he says, you
Speaker 1: don't have to be this way yourself. Yeah, he said,
Speaker 1: you can, yeah, or you you can. He says, there
Speaker 1: are they made pharmaceutical advancements here, you can help yourself.
Speaker 1: And I said, no, no, no, no, I can't because
Speaker 1: that would ruin this, and that would ruin that, and uh.
Speaker 1: And then Regina got we were able to get pregnant.
Speaker 1: I went into this stark, raving anxious depression which you
Speaker 1: got pregnant. Why, well, I was fine with it. I thought,
Speaker 1: if not now when you know, and she had wanted
Speaker 1: to have kids, like I said, fifteen twenty years earlier,
Speaker 1: and so I, uh, this is a very complicated, uninteresting story,
Speaker 1: and it has it has to do with being on
Speaker 1: the shingle, having shingles, and being on exotic pain medication
Speaker 1: for the shingles and getting fed up with the exotic
Speaker 1: pain medication and saying to the pain doctor I'm done.
Speaker 1: I'm not taking it anymore. And he said, well, you
Speaker 1: know a lot of those things you can't just I said,
Speaker 1: forget it. Click and I stopped taking these things, and
Speaker 1: within a couple of days I just turned into this
Speaker 1: twitching unit cell altered states. Yeah. It was very odd. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the guy said, well, you're in an anxious depression
Speaker 1: and lucid, you know there are things we can do
Speaker 1: here to help you out. And I said, I'll try
Speaker 1: anything because I can't go on like this. And so
Speaker 1: as a small dose of an s s R, I
Speaker 1: suddenly I realized I can have myself. My personality of
Speaker 1: the person that I've known and then lose, was detracting
Speaker 1: what was hurting, what was actually an impediment, groom out
Speaker 1: the things that you wanted to groom out. And when
Speaker 1: I came to this show business, and I was in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles sleeping, and I was like Gomer Pyle, I mean,
Speaker 1: I swear to God. I came to work and they really,
Speaker 1: I have trouble that you were really but I don't
Speaker 1: mean in terms of of lacking any sophistication, but they
Speaker 1: would give me. I'll never forget the first job I got.
Speaker 1: I go to an audition. I've done that the soap
Speaker 1: in New York and they paid you, you know, a
Speaker 1: very small amount of money. And I thought I was
Speaker 1: Rockefell and they paid you four and fifty bucks a day.
Speaker 1: I was. I was the richest member of my family.
Speaker 1: My dad was a school teacher with six kids. He
Speaker 1: didn't make any money. And I go out to l
Speaker 1: a and I'll never forget. But I go to the
Speaker 1: old Laura Mar which is now Sony and I go
Speaker 1: to the gate at Laura Mar. I say, Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, uh, here's your map you're parking
Speaker 1: and building sixty seven ninth floor slot read twelve and
Speaker 1: they and they sent me to like, you know, the Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I gotta go all the way and and I go, now,
Speaker 1: where's the office? I'm going going too for the me
Speaker 1: and he goes right over there, right next to me.
Speaker 1: So I go, I parked the car, trot all the
Speaker 1: way down, do an audition for the show, nots landing.
Speaker 1: I get done, you know, I leave the thing and
Speaker 1: no cell phones. Then this is three and so I
Speaker 1: pull up to a phone booth. I called my agent.
Speaker 1: It's late in the afternoon. They're still in the office.
Speaker 1: He goes, how did it go? I go, how did
Speaker 1: it go? I think it went pretty well, pretty well,
Speaker 1: you moron. They want to hire you. And I go,
Speaker 1: you're kidding me, he goes. He goes, yeah, of course
Speaker 1: he was. We're making a deal right now, or closing
Speaker 1: the deal way now. You're gonna get twenty five for
Speaker 1: the pilot and twelve five an episode. And I swear
Speaker 1: to God coming from my background, and went go, wait,
Speaker 1: y'all won't pay me for the pilot and twelve hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars per episode every week and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: you morow. They're gonna pay you twenty five thousand for
Speaker 1: the pilot and twelve thousand, five hundred an episode. And
Speaker 1: I literally urinated on my trousers. And I'm standing at
Speaker 1: a phone booth on the corner of like you know,
Speaker 1: Walker and Washington and Culver City, and the guy tells
Speaker 1: me this, and that's when my life changed for me.
Speaker 1: It was always you were competing against yourself. We didn't
Speaker 1: go out and do a lot of reading. You know.
Speaker 1: Some sometimes I remember there was a the Jackson five
Speaker 1: had a summer show, so they would say, we need comics,
Speaker 1: and so they'd call the comedy store, and you know,
Speaker 1: if Mitzi liked you'd get to go beyond the Jackson
Speaker 1: five show. So it was never so much of one
Speaker 1: guy over another or there there would be shows like
Speaker 1: the Midnight special er Don Kirshner's Rock Concert that they
Speaker 1: would routinely use comics. So there was plenty of work.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't I think as in acting as you
Speaker 1: describe guys elbowing each other out and and higher ups
Speaker 1: wanting to step on their hands and hurt their feelings.
Speaker 1: But when you when you've done the show back from
Speaker 1: the NBC days and now through the many years at CBS.
Speaker 1: It's a very hermetic situation for you and nobody bothers you,
Speaker 1: and there's different questions about your budget and there's differ questions,
Speaker 1: but nobody calls. You don't have to deal with them,
Speaker 1: or do you have to fight with the network about
Speaker 1: things like other shows us and never a fight. It's
Speaker 1: a negotiation. But we don't have the fight. You know.
Speaker 1: If if we want to do something, we can pretty
Speaker 1: much do it. And again, what we want to do
Speaker 1: now is for a different level and go opened we
Speaker 1: wanted to do when we were because when we came
Speaker 1: into this show, myself and Maryland, the writers, we just thought, oh,
Speaker 1: Americas has been waiting for us. We're going to change
Speaker 1: the face of television for America. And boy, didn't happen
Speaker 1: that way, you know, it just didn't happen that way
Speaker 1: at all. We did a sketch on the old Late
Speaker 1: Night Show and it was with one of the writer's
Speaker 1: Tom Gamble, and it was Dale the Psychotic Page. We
Speaker 1: had to set up nine holes of a miniature golf course.
Speaker 1: He would come in with an NBC page blazer and
Speaker 1: he would play miniature golf, and with each failing attempt
Speaker 1: on the whole he would become more and more psychotic.
Speaker 1: There's your comedy, America. This is what you've been waiting for,
Speaker 1: aren't you glad we're here? Breath? I love on your show.
Speaker 1: I haven't done this in a while. I miss it
Speaker 1: when because because everything, I guess they can't do this
Speaker 1: stuff all the time, and maybe this bit is a
Speaker 1: victim of global warming. But I get there one time
Speaker 1: and they want me to ride the snowmobile on the
Speaker 1: roof of the building. Years ago. They're all very droll,
Speaker 1: you know, and Iff always calls me Alex that you're
Speaker 1: on the roof and snowing and we're on the roof
Speaker 1: of your building. A like, okay, now, Alex, you're gonna
Speaker 1: ride the snowmobile around the roof a few times. And
Speaker 1: I mean, man, I never coining it to catch you,
Speaker 1: to keep you from going over the side. Is that
Speaker 1: all right? All right? Alex? Yeah, I'm like, great, let
Speaker 1: me go danger you know elements Well, I was thinking
Speaker 1: about a year ago. I was looking around the Selloman Theater.
Speaker 1: What a tremendous stroke of luck that was. I used
Speaker 1: to love working in the studio. And I remember one
Speaker 1: day running into Lorne Michaels. He said to me, how
Speaker 1: long did it take you to get used to doing
Speaker 1: a TV show in the theater? And I knew exactly
Speaker 1: what he was saying, because to him, TV comes out
Speaker 1: of a studio and I always felt that way myself.
Speaker 1: And but I've really grown fond of the theater. It's
Speaker 1: CBS the ed Sullomon Theater for reasons like that and
Speaker 1: many more. It's comfortable, it's fun, it's smells of decades
Speaker 1: and decades and decades of show business there. There's tunnels
Speaker 1: and and alleys and rats. But it's fantastic. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just so versatile and so great. And also the
Speaker 1: way House set it up in the beginning, it's fairly intimate.
Speaker 1: I mean you can have a pretty reasonable conversation there
Speaker 1: in this five seat room, and so I think it
Speaker 1: works fine as a as a TV studio. Now, what's
Speaker 1: a good show for you? Now? Uh? Well, it defines
Speaker 1: a good show for like, you know, the I think
Speaker 1: the last time you were on I say this, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, suck up good idea. It was a very pleasant,
Speaker 1: easy give and take an exchange. I love it when
Speaker 1: a good, smart, funny guy just comes right back at me,
Speaker 1: you know, in the beginning, when he's so mean, why
Speaker 1: does he mean to everybody? And I never thought I
Speaker 1: was being mean. I just thought I was, you know,
Speaker 1: goofing around. Yeah, so when you were coming on and
Speaker 1: you were going after me, that was delightful. I love
Speaker 1: that for those segment producers who you work with him.
Speaker 1: And it took me a while to be able to.
Speaker 1: I mean I would do the show with you a
Speaker 1: number of times and the segment producers would they would
Speaker 1: say that to you. They'd say to you know, no,
Speaker 1: give it back to you. He loved that. So many people,
Speaker 1: I think that runs against their nature. Other people are
Speaker 1: ill equipped to do that, but there are a few
Speaker 1: like yourself, And to me, that's you know that. We
Speaker 1: had to go on a couple of weeks ago Shawn Hayes,
Speaker 1: and I hadn't seen him in years. He had been
Speaker 1: across the street during uh um, here we go high
Speaker 1: who Promises or whatever that show was Promises and the
Speaker 1: kid comes out and god, he was funny. I mean
Speaker 1: just from the jump he was funny, and I just thought,
Speaker 1: this is fantastic. This is just great. You know, if
Speaker 1: you can't be entertained by your own show, you got
Speaker 1: the wrong you know, you get the wrong part of
Speaker 1: the channel. So that was good. You live a pretty
Speaker 1: under the radar lifestyle. Do you do that by choice? Well,
Speaker 1: very quiet private life. First of all, I don't get
Speaker 1: invited many places. Secondly, I just would you know, you
Speaker 1: do the show and all of that comes to you
Speaker 1: during the day. You know, you have the same people
Speaker 1: at the gala of the same people at the opening,
Speaker 1: the same people benefit will be there with that expression
Speaker 1: of all for it. So I don't feel the need
Speaker 1: to go seek that. And secondly, like so many people,
Speaker 1: I'm uncomfortable with large groups of strangers. I mean I
Speaker 1: think people are And what is your downtime? Like, now,
Speaker 1: what do you like to do? Well, sleep is as
Speaker 1: a precious commodity. There's virtually no sleep between my eight
Speaker 1: year old son and my two year old dog and
Speaker 1: my wife. My wife, honest to god, has not slept
Speaker 1: eight hours in eight years. I mean she she'll go
Speaker 1: to bed at midnight, get up at six, so that's
Speaker 1: six hours. You can do that once or twice, you know,
Speaker 1: like when you're eighteen and you're in the Marines. I
Speaker 1: have I have a terminal and that's now explained to me.
Speaker 1: When you were in the audience back at six A
Speaker 1: and you raise your hand and had a question what
Speaker 1: what was that and how did that happen? When you
Speaker 1: do the NBC show. Yeah, there was a woman and
Speaker 1: she was a writer and she was an associate producer
Speaker 1: on our show. She was friends with Ackroyd and Blush
Speaker 1: and all that original Saturday Night Live crowd. And this
Speaker 1: woman's name was surely something and she was so she's
Speaker 1: she's going to reach out to us now when she
Speaker 1: hears this podcast. We have to broadcast this section of
Speaker 1: it so we can get a hold of her. And
Speaker 1: she was the one that gut came to me and
Speaker 1: through some connections that they want you to come on
Speaker 1: let him and do that thing. And do you remember
Speaker 1: what the bit was? I have no idea, but you
Speaker 1: were objecting to something. Uh, something had rubbed you the
Speaker 1: wrong way, and the register complaints was to complain about
Speaker 1: you and your your taste. That's exactly right. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was tremendous. That was just great. So when you're not
Speaker 1: fighting insomnia, what is do you like to travel? Travel? Well,
Speaker 1: you do things when you have an eight year old.
Speaker 1: As you know, when you have a child, you do
Speaker 1: things you never thought you would do, and it's fun.
Speaker 1: We went to Alaska a few weeks ago because it
Speaker 1: was my birthday, and I was talking to my son
Speaker 1: and and I said, well, you know what we're thinking
Speaker 1: about maybe going up to Alaska. This guy tells me
Speaker 1: there's a place to ski up there. Let's go to Alaska.
Speaker 1: And so I said, well, you know, we're still thinking
Speaker 1: about it and still thinking about it. And then I
Speaker 1: hear from Regina that now Harry is going to school
Speaker 1: and told everybody that you and me and mom we're
Speaker 1: going to Alaska. And I thought, holy kids were going
Speaker 1: to Alaska. So a lot of that stuff is kid driven.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm all for no tennis, no golf,
Speaker 1: No no tennis, no golf. Movies. I see plenty of movies,
Speaker 1: see all the oh no, not at home so much.
Speaker 1: It's all it's all with the kid. Do you find
Speaker 1: that your son, because this is a very common He
Speaker 1: pulls you into the world, into his world, and you
Speaker 1: have to show up at things and show up in places.
Speaker 1: Everybody treats you very respectfully. People are there as a dad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the last time anything untoward happened was a Christmas party.
Speaker 1: My wife has his friends with a very famous couple,
Speaker 1: and I have great admiration for the couple their family.
Speaker 1: Just I think more people should be like these people.
Speaker 1: I just and and and as a result, I'm afraid
Speaker 1: to be around them because you know, I'm I'm duck lips. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: I make myself. Look back, I went to a Christmas
Speaker 1: party and it was so packed that you couldn't move.
Speaker 1: It was all vertical. Nothing happened to her sonally, and
Speaker 1: as people kind of from their positions about the apartment
Speaker 1: spotted me, it was it was as though there was
Speaker 1: methane gas leaking in the apartment. It was, oh no,
Speaker 1: and it's the holidays, and why is he? No? Yeah,
Speaker 1: come on, true story. People love you. People don't love
Speaker 1: people love people love you? No, no, no, no no people people.
Speaker 1: But the thing is that that that you you get
Speaker 1: a lot of that qution on the job, and then
Speaker 1: when the job's over, you want to go home. Yeah
Speaker 1: that's right, that's exactly right. And and especially now with
Speaker 1: with the eight year old, because you know, and I
Speaker 1: feel stupid talking about it because I'm like the person
Speaker 1: who have a child, So I have I have no
Speaker 1: I have no insights. He might claim he has no insights.
Speaker 1: But if David Letterman ever writes a book on parenting,
Speaker 1: it's guaranteed to be a bestseller. I want to thank
Speaker 1: you for doing this. Are we done? I don't want
Speaker 1: to be done? Now? Where would a person hear this?
Speaker 1: If a person wanted to hear this, this might be
Speaker 1: a good time to tell you that you can hear
Speaker 1: other conversations at Here's the Thing dot org. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing