Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets,
Speaker 1: go to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour.
Speaker 1: See you out there, the Greig Ferguson show dot Com
Speaker 1: slash Tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of
Speaker 1: this podcast is Joy. I talked to interest in people
Speaker 1: about what brings them happiness. Welcome to my conversation with
Speaker 1: Tom Straw. Now, I'll be honest with you. It's not
Speaker 1: my first conversation with Tom. He was a writer on
Speaker 1: my old late night show and I've known him for
Speaker 1: many years. He's a very clever, intelligent and funny man.
Speaker 1: As you're about to find out, Ed Begley was on
Speaker 1: the Ed Begley Junior Because I've never met Ed Begley Senior,
Speaker 1: but Ed Begley Jr. Was on the podcast and he
Speaker 1: told me, Has Parkinson's you've worked.
Speaker 2: With Ed with Ed. I had the great pleasure of
Speaker 2: working with Ed on a pilot. When I see the
Speaker 2: nicest guy into a business, it is terribly nice. I'm
Speaker 2: or Henry Winkler. It was either Ed Bagley, Joel or Henry.
Speaker 2: We did some stuff with Henry Winkler on the Late
Speaker 2: Late Show. Yeah, but Ed was in a pilot that
Speaker 2: I did at Castle Rock when I was there back
Speaker 2: in the Castle Rook. Yeah, that was the Rob Reiner's company.
Speaker 2: And yeah, they made a little show called Seinfeld. You
Speaker 2: may have heard of. Nah, No, I didn't get it.
Speaker 2: Is that still on side? Felt relentlessly? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You of course are you do you don't have any
Speaker 1: of that sweet sign field money?
Speaker 2: No, No, I have a story of somebody who lost
Speaker 2: a lot of it. But help me. Yeah, I can't
Speaker 2: mention names, all right, I'll put the names in, Okay. Later.
Speaker 2: There was a guy I knew very well and he
Speaker 2: had points. You know how points work, right it?
Speaker 1: Points are a percentage of the of the game, the mood,
Speaker 1: the profits, right right.
Speaker 2: He had fifteen points in Seinfeld. He's a writer or
Speaker 2: a producer. You've got to be at fifteen points. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And again no names, I'll try to avoid too much context.
Speaker 2: But he had fifteen percent of the bank vault, right,
Speaker 2: that's huge. As you may know, Seinfeld was on the
Speaker 2: bubble when it started. It wasn't it almost yeah, make it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right. Yeah, And he ran into some financial needs,
Speaker 2: family loss, and so he went back into the boss
Speaker 2: at Castle Rock and I said, I'd like to sell
Speaker 2: my points back. And the boss, who's still a friend
Speaker 2: of mine, great guy, he said, never give your points back.
Speaker 2: And he said, I really need to get a new
Speaker 2: house and because my family's expanding and all that. So
Speaker 2: he sold it for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Man,
Speaker 2: because it's got to be that'd be worth like one
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars. Yeah, I mean that's the big few money. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They think about few money though that I've known as
Speaker 1: I got a little bit of it myself, Bacon.
Speaker 2: Yes, it really can. You people don't know that about
Speaker 2: a few money. It can.
Speaker 1: It's like when people win the lottery, you know, and
Speaker 1: they say and then suddenly within five years there you know,
Speaker 1: their lives are trashed in there.
Speaker 2: You know it's a double It's the worst good news
Speaker 2: you can get, Isn't it weird?
Speaker 1: I mean, because because you think money is going to
Speaker 1: solve all your problems, it doesn't bring joy. It does
Speaker 1: not bring joy that you tie the end of the
Speaker 1: podcast home, Well, I'm going to do that because I
Speaker 1: you know, yes, and I'm a big fan of this podcast.
Speaker 2: I noticed you're sponsored by Bacon. Bacon, Bacon. The ads
Speaker 2: are great, sponsored by Bacon sponsors, just Bacon. I love bacon.
Speaker 2: And I said, I've got to see Craig today. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so here I am, because you're sponsored by Bacon.
Speaker 1: No, no Francis Bacon, No, no, just no bacon.
Speaker 2: Even Kevin Bacon. There's not even six degrees a separation.
Speaker 2: It's just bacon. And you're It's all over you. I mean,
Speaker 2: every break, the yank dank dank dank dunk comes and
Speaker 2: then there's some guy talking about bacon, wow, and how
Speaker 2: good it is. You know, I don't eat bacon. I
Speaker 2: didn't know that, but I don't eat that. Oh really No,
Speaker 2: I don't need Can I finish yours? Then? Yeah, you
Speaker 2: could have my bacon.
Speaker 1: The giant play of bacon that's in front of so
Speaker 1: provided by our sponsor, Bacon.
Speaker 2: He doesn't eat it, but he's wearing a bacon suit.
Speaker 2: I do wear bacon. I do wear a lot of bacon.
Speaker 2: That is true.
Speaker 1: Now, listen, you and I worked together. I first became
Speaker 1: aware of you when somebody said, Tom Straw will come
Speaker 1: and work on your show. And I'm like, Tom Straw,
Speaker 1: the writer from of sitcoms, will come and work on
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Now. You came and worked on the late night show
Speaker 2: because you wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: Right, I did. You're the only guy. I didn't even
Speaker 1: want to do it. I just did it because I
Speaker 1: needed a job that kept me in town. You were
Speaker 1: the only guy that wanted to be on the old
Speaker 1: late night show.
Speaker 2: I was a huge fan of the show when you
Speaker 2: took it over, and it was like it was a
Speaker 2: late night staple for my wife and we would stay
Speaker 2: so cool and and the phrase that she would always
Speaker 2: use is, you know that Craig Ferguson's really coming into
Speaker 2: his own and so that kind of became our code.
Speaker 2: But I was such a huge fan of the show,
Speaker 2: and you know, I part of joy for me is
Speaker 2: doing things I've never done before, to do the scary
Speaker 2: thing and to never having worked on that kind of format.
Speaker 2: I know because I knew.
Speaker 1: I knew of you because I had worked in sitcom
Speaker 1: in the nighties, I had worked on the New Carry Show,
Speaker 1: and you were doing Grace under Fire right.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was the aptly.
Speaker 1: Named yes, which was with Brett Butler. Brett Butler, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I worked in sitcom for years.
Speaker 2: I mean I would. I did Night Court right right?
Speaker 2: You didn't do the reboot? Did you do the rebook?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I did not. I did have a conversation prior to
Speaker 2: it with our mutual friend John Lara Katt. Oh. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I love Lara. I haven't seen him in years. Where
Speaker 2: the hell is he? He's living in southern Washington state,
Speaker 2: right across the river from Portlan, Oregon. Okay, is he smoking? No,
Speaker 2: he's he's he's totally clean. Yeah. Yeah, here's an insight
Speaker 2: into John. I hope he wouldn't mind me telling this story.
Speaker 2: But he went to a photo expo one day. He
Speaker 2: showed up at the table reading and he's got like
Speaker 2: eight cameras And I said eight cameras. He says, you
Speaker 2: don't understand. When I was drinking, I wanted all the drinks.
Speaker 2: He did. Now I want all the cameras.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he wanted. I was the same when I was drinking.
Speaker 1: I wanted all the all the drink, all the drugs.
Speaker 1: He's a dear man, though, and is a great and
Speaker 1: whip smart. He's a huge bibliophile. He also likes books. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that would be like a thing for us,
Speaker 2: Like we would sometimes meet for lunch at like Musso
Speaker 2: and Frank and then he would take me to these
Speaker 2: antiquarian bookstores and introduce me to Bokowski who was dead
Speaker 2: but these books were was moldering in the.
Speaker 1: Corner or was unsure that he was dead? Yeah, he
Speaker 1: still had wanted all the drinks as well apart. Yes,
Speaker 1: did you ever meet?
Speaker 2: No? No, I'd be afraid to now, Well, he'd be
Speaker 2: a zombie. No, yeah, I know I'd be afraid to be.
Speaker 2: Would you Do you ever worry about Zoe Bees?
Speaker 1: I don't that much, but I feel like I should
Speaker 1: bring it up now that we're on the subject.
Speaker 2: There are times that I see people and I think undead, classified, undead,
Speaker 2: I've been.
Speaker 1: I think I've been a zombie at that point in
Speaker 1: my life. So, so you were working in set Calm.
Speaker 1: Then how did you get into set Calm? So because
Speaker 1: you worked in radio? Right, I worked in radio? And uh,
Speaker 1: I worked in radio while I was still in high school.
Speaker 1: I had Uh where'd you go to high school?
Speaker 2: I went to Birmingham High School in Vanus, California, right
Speaker 2: public school.
Speaker 1: I didn't know you were California for some reason. I
Speaker 1: was you were in the East Coast. I am, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm by biker. But I had a mentor, Gary Owens.
Speaker 1: Do you remember Gary Owens from Laughing with the hand
Speaker 1: over the air? Yeah, he was my radio hero. But
Speaker 1: I called him up one day.
Speaker 2: I just put on my big boy pants and I
Speaker 2: called him one day at the radio station and I said,
Speaker 2: mister Owens, wow, you were you were that young? Yeah,
Speaker 2: you got a little have with a helicopter thing on it.
Speaker 2: Better put a seatbelt on that way. But I called
Speaker 2: him up and I said, I want to be in
Speaker 2: radio and I have my vocation. Teacher said I should
Speaker 2: talk to somebody in radio. And he said, will Tom
Speaker 2: come on down to the radio station on Thursday and
Speaker 2: you can watch me do my show. I mean, what
Speaker 2: a great guy, right right? Yeah, And so he mentored
Speaker 2: me into radio. I got a job. I started a
Speaker 2: radio station at my high school, which was just speakers
Speaker 2: who wasn't on the air. But I made a tape
Speaker 2: of one of those and I took it to a
Speaker 2: coffee pot radio station in Van Eyes and they hired me.
Speaker 1: What's a coffee pot radio station? Tiny little place all
Speaker 1: right with they have a coffee pot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's basically like the right so it snakes and
Speaker 2: small little joint. But it was right on the dial
Speaker 2: next to Shadow Stevens on CAMMI te Shadows Food on
Speaker 2: the podcast, And so the kids thought I was on
Speaker 2: Cammy Tea because they weren't paying attention to the dial
Speaker 2: because he was a big radio start. But anyway, through
Speaker 2: my radio career, I had a buddy, Ken Levine. And Ken,
Speaker 2: I've had a lot of people could do good things
Speaker 2: for me. But Ken mentored me into becoming a screenwriter
Speaker 2: because he and I got fired a week before Christmas
Speaker 2: at a radio station in San Diego. Yeah, he said,
Speaker 2: screw it, I'm gonna I don't care if I have
Speaker 2: to sell ties at the May Company. I Am going
Speaker 2: to be a TV writer. And he had a partner
Speaker 2: who he was writing with and they produced a show
Speaker 2: called Mash Right that's a fairly that was a fairly
Speaker 2: successful television Yeah, and he has a he has an
Speaker 2: Emmy for Cheers also did pretty well. Yeah, and he
Speaker 2: and he worked on Frasier and uh, you know he.
Speaker 1: He he he's no, Yeah, that's but anyway, he helped
Speaker 1: me learn how to write a script and got me
Speaker 1: my first two jobs.
Speaker 2: So what was your first job? And Secom Then it
Speaker 2: was on after Mash? Oh wow, that that one. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like I like to say, you know
Speaker 2: how Purina has dog chow, but then they have monkey
Speaker 2: chow and horse chow. Do you know what I like?
Speaker 2: Do you know how you get pringles? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Right, so pringles and there and their little kind of
Speaker 1: phrases once you pop you can't stop. Yes, well they
Speaker 1: have no golf springles called prongle, right, prongles, brouncles. Their
Speaker 1: mud was once you pope. That's great, that's the B team.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that kind of thing. All right. So
Speaker 2: you're working on after Mass, after Mash, and then I
Speaker 2: wrote a freelance script for Benson if you remember that show?
Speaker 2: Do you remember Benson? Yeah, that was a spin off
Speaker 2: of Soap right, yeah, And they offered me a staff
Speaker 2: job on the show based on the script I turned in.
Speaker 2: Name the Acts of Robert Robert Gillum, Yeah, fabulous actor,
Speaker 2: very funny man. I called Ken. They said, hey, congratulate me.
Speaker 2: I got an offer too, and he says, don't take it.
Speaker 2: And I said, why not? He says, because David, that's
Speaker 2: his writing partner, David Isaac's. We just sold a pilot
Speaker 2: starring Mary Tyler Moore to CBS, and we'd like you
Speaker 2: to be on our show. But this is this is
Speaker 2: kind of a modeling story. But I think they'll enjoy it.
Speaker 2: They said, but we can't commit to hiring you until
Speaker 2: we clear certain hurdles with paperwork at the studio. So
Speaker 2: can you hang on? Can you buy some time and
Speaker 2: not really do anything until with Benson? Until for a week? Right?
Speaker 2: And I said, I don't know I'm going to do that.
Speaker 2: And I called my agent. It was pre Nancy ruses,
Speaker 2: Nancy Josephson. We should full disclosure. Is your agent and
Speaker 2: my agent. That's high.
Speaker 1: It been for about I think five hundred years in
Speaker 1: my case, hasn't know how long for you? Twenty eight,
Speaker 1: twenty eight. She's the best agent in Hollywood. You know,
Speaker 1: I love that woman. She's the greatest agent in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: She just hands down the best one there is.
Speaker 2: I could go on and on, yeah, but I won't
Speaker 2: because I'm going to get back to this story about
Speaker 2: having to stall that's what makes you a professional. So
Speaker 2: I called my then agent right and said, hey, here's
Speaker 2: the deal. I laid out the thing. I said, I
Speaker 2: need to somehow stall Benson so they don't get mad
Speaker 2: and both shows go away for me, right, And he said,
Speaker 2: I'll do what I can. The business affairs person who
Speaker 2: handled Benson right, he was called the Iron Major. He
Speaker 2: was a very tough ast agent out there. All right.
Speaker 2: My agent calls me back two hours later and he said,
Speaker 2: the Iron age or dropped dead at lunch today. What
Speaker 2: he said, how's that for a stall? Wow? He really died?
Speaker 2: He died. So I called my agent asking for a stall,
Speaker 2: and hours later the person held the you know, hold
Speaker 2: the button down. It remind me to give you wherever
Speaker 2: you want. But that was Wasn't that astonishing? And I'm crazy?
Speaker 2: So did But then did you? Did you end up
Speaker 2: on Benson?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I ended up going with Kennon David onto Mary Tied.
Speaker 2: It was called Mary on CBS. It was the first
Speaker 2: sitcom for Katie sigal right. It had they also a
Speaker 2: great woman. Oh she's terrific. Yeah, amazing John Ashton, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was just thinking it was.
Speaker 1: A John Aston shown Aston showing Aston Johnston Joson Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And and uh, I don't know anyway, I won't go through
Speaker 2: all the whole cast. But it was a great thing.
Speaker 2: It was and it was a wonderful experience. The show
Speaker 2: only went thirteen weeks.
Speaker 1: That's no unhaired of my first sick call in America
Speaker 1: went thirteen weeks. But I quit after ten I think,
Speaker 1: or maybe no, I quit after thirteen, but they get
Speaker 1: picked up for another nine.
Speaker 2: But White, yeah, yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 1: I loved doing I loved working with Betty and Betty
Speaker 1: and I, as you know, stayed friends for the rest
Speaker 1: of her life. But making the show, it was my
Speaker 1: first sitcom in America, and I was like eighth Banana
Speaker 1: and I did.
Speaker 2: Not enjoy it. And you had a movie you were
Speaker 2: making too. You didn't that really make shaving Grace, wasn't that? No?
Speaker 2: That was later. That's when I was doing the Drew
Speaker 2: Kerry Show.
Speaker 1: That's when when I was more comfortable being eighth Banana
Speaker 1: because I had figured out how to film my day right,
Speaker 1: Because I think, what people if you don't work in
Speaker 1: as an actor, and most people don't eat, most actors
Speaker 1: don't work as an actor.
Speaker 2: If you don't work.
Speaker 1: As a night, you don't realize how much just sitting
Speaker 1: on your ass doing nothing there is all day long.
Speaker 2: I can't do that. I can't do it.
Speaker 1: So I started writing sc when I got the job
Speaker 1: on the Drew Kry Show. I had written my own
Speaker 1: stand up for years, and I thought, well, and I
Speaker 1: was reading screenplays as you do, you know, as people
Speaker 1: used to write screenplays before I read them, so I
Speaker 1: can steal from them. Well, that was my plan. But
Speaker 1: as I read them, I went, these are garbage. And
Speaker 1: these were movies that were getting made garbage, And I thought,
Speaker 1: I can't I don't know if I can write any
Speaker 1: better than this, but there's no way in hell I
Speaker 1: can write anything worse than this. So and these things
Speaker 1: are getting made. So that's when I started writing. And
Speaker 1: lo and behold, they did get made, you know. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: I think there's.
Speaker 2: Also a certain thing here about being underutilized. I mean,
Speaker 2: when you know, when you have higher aspirations and also
Speaker 2: the chops to deliver those aspirations. Yeah, you see yourself
Speaker 2: sitting in a trailer, waiting and waiting, and you come
Speaker 2: out and you do lines and then not those lines. Well, no, no,
Speaker 2: By then I stopped doing those kind of lines. But
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting to trace your path to all
Speaker 2: the polymath that you are, all the things that you
Speaker 2: the same though, I mean you're the same.
Speaker 1: And it's like because the reason why I'm kind of
Speaker 1: steering you this way is that I find and this
Speaker 1: is definitely what you've done that when soup comes to
Speaker 1: nuts and you know, and the great wheel of time.
Speaker 2: Moves you know, Fortuna's whale.
Speaker 1: And the you know, the and when the dog of
Speaker 1: history lady does a poop on the side of the road.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, It's always about the right, It's always about
Speaker 1: the writing is the freedom. I just to think the
Speaker 1: stand up was the freedom, but the stand up is not.
Speaker 1: I thought it was, but it's not. For that is
Speaker 1: freedom of performance, but actual full blown artistic, mental, emotional,
Speaker 1: and spiritual freedom. I think for me anyways, in writing,
Speaker 1: and I know that is that it's got to be
Speaker 1: that for you because you went back to writing books
Speaker 1: after we finished in the late night, right and still.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, and you know that that was thank you
Speaker 2: for mentioning that. But you know, for me, the joy
Speaker 2: of writing in many forms is for instance, when I
Speaker 2: did the late light show right at the conference table
Speaker 2: ten in the morning for us to talk out our
Speaker 2: day and all that stuff. And we'd go off into
Speaker 2: our sketches and you know, we'd pretend to be working right,
Speaker 2: and and we do the show, skeleton, robot, all that stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: six o'clock, we're done. There's no post production, that's true.
Speaker 2: And I would go home. Yeah, and I would have dinner.
Speaker 2: When I say home, I'm talking about the Oakwood apartments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you were you were eleven. You and your
Speaker 1: wife Arelevin in the East Coast, and you used to
Speaker 1: commute to come and work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, once a month, I would fly to la and
Speaker 2: spend a month there, and then I'd fly back and
Speaker 2: spend a week of our hatus. That's a that's a
Speaker 2: lot of pressure on the it is and it was,
Speaker 2: but you know we're strong and we're still you know, happy,
Speaker 2: and yeah. Well, I'll do a little sidebar here and
Speaker 2: talk about the number of occasions that you would come
Speaker 2: to me right before the show and say, Hey, Tom,
Speaker 2: I have a plane leaving Van Eyed Airport for the
Speaker 2: East Coast. You want to hitch a ride and come
Speaker 2: home for the weekend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I would go that, Craig, but it was great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: after the time almost crashed. Yeah, there was that time
Speaker 1: that was in white Plans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was when people started vrolfing. That was not
Speaker 2: a lot of fun. I still think about that sometimes.
Speaker 2: Oh that was that was the most harrowing flight I've
Speaker 2: ever had in my life. Yeah, it was pretty hary.
Speaker 1: The Craike Ferguson Fancy Rascal stand up to He continues
Speaker 1: throughout the United States in twenty twenty four. For a
Speaker 1: full list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig
Speaker 1: fergusonshow dot com slash tour.
Speaker 2: See you have there. But anyway, what I would do
Speaker 2: then so I would go back to the oak Wood
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, call my wife, you know, before
Speaker 2: she went to bed because she was on East Coast time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then I would write my Castle book. I'd start
Speaker 2: about nine pm.
Speaker 1: That's right, of course, because you were writing the Castle
Speaker 1: Books at the same time, right, So do you know
Speaker 1: take credit for the Castle books.
Speaker 2: I am able to take. I'm able to. I wrote
Speaker 2: the first seven of the Nikky Heats, right, and I
Speaker 2: paid my lawyers to find out if I could do this. Yes,
Speaker 2: I can now take off the mask and say it
Speaker 2: was me as long as I you know, the first
Speaker 2: there's those those ones I did. But I would write
Speaker 2: from nine pm till about three am, right, and then
Speaker 2: go to bed. Okay, get up at six and hit
Speaker 2: the internet so I can have topicals, you know, topical
Speaker 2: things to pitch at the table, sleep in three hours
Speaker 2: a night. Yeah, couldn't you tell? Yeah? I was going
Speaker 2: to say, you look younger than you did. Together. My
Speaker 2: work habits were poort, weren't they. No, I'm kidding, but no,
Speaker 2: you you were. You were a fiend.
Speaker 1: I mean you used to work all the time, and
Speaker 1: you were part of the team that come up with
Speaker 1: Jeff Peters in the rule Boat, you come up with Secretariat,
Speaker 1: the Dance and horse and all that, all of the
Speaker 1: classic bets from our show.
Speaker 2: You were in part of all of that. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I remember something you said, and it's one of those
Speaker 2: little tapes I play in my head. Is that that
Speaker 2: Tommy's always on the clock.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's one of the things he was saying. But it's
Speaker 2: you know, you do the work, yes, like what you
Speaker 2: the way you started this thread. I take my pleasure
Speaker 2: in the work, Yes, And I can be and this
Speaker 2: can be recent in the past year. I can be writing,
Speaker 2: like working on a manuscript for a book, and I'll
Speaker 2: get an email or a phone call with bad news,
Speaker 2: right and damn, oh oh show business, cruel and biscuits. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll go back and I'll hang up the phone. I'll
Speaker 2: take five minutes to kind of cleanse, and then I
Speaker 2: will just go back to writing. Same thing when I
Speaker 2: get great news, because that's the real thing. The writing
Speaker 2: is where it's at.
Speaker 1: It's it's certainly the place where you can escape most
Speaker 1: of all. The first time I ever wrote anything away
Speaker 1: from vulgar vaudevillian stuff. Yes, that I've written was a
Speaker 1: book called Between the Bridge and the River, which is
Speaker 1: a novel.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: I wrote thank you, And that book was in reactions
Speaker 1: because I just made a movie that had steffed and
Speaker 1: I was so frustrated with it because I'd written this movie.
Speaker 1: I started in this movie, I directed this movie. I
Speaker 1: was a producer in this movie. I didn't like it.
Speaker 2: So it was like, oh, man, but I have to
Speaker 2: say to you, because this this is before you and
Speaker 2: I met. Yeah, I read your novel and I thought
Speaker 2: to myself, that's the same guy who does that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it was just like the Snake Handlers and spring Style.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can remember it very vividly because it
Speaker 2: was so very it really caught hold of me. It
Speaker 2: was a great book. Thanks.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting thing about writing because when I read
Speaker 1: the first book of yours I read, I didn't read
Speaker 1: the Castle books. The first book of yours I read
Speaker 1: was The Trigger Episode. Oh yes, Trigger Episode is a
Speaker 1: great book. It's a detective.
Speaker 2: Genre.
Speaker 1: Let's say, it's not strictly speaking of detective, but it
Speaker 1: kind of is. And it follows those rules a little bit.
Speaker 1: And you and I are both fans of Larry Block right,
Speaker 1: Lawrence Blog fans, great crime writer or one of America's
Speaker 1: grand friend and friend. Yeah, and I'm fascinated by that genre.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't go near it. I'm entertained by it.
Speaker 1: You you walk right into it. You're quite comfortable in it.
Speaker 1: Why because it has it has rules.
Speaker 2: Maybe it has rules and it's and it's a great
Speaker 2: stage upon which to play out morality. Yes, for sure,
Speaker 2: because you've really just basically got sort of uh, you know,
Speaker 2: a kind of clastic hero or anti hero who is
Speaker 2: great meeting great resistance with the establishment or somebody who's
Speaker 2: trying to screw him over, or somebody else. And you know,
Speaker 2: for me, it goes back to even Jim Rockford. You know,
Speaker 2: I just I'm crazy. I loved files when James Gardner
Speaker 2: used to punch someone in a fight and then even.
Speaker 1: Go because he has had that's somebody on that say
Speaker 1: it knows what it's like to be in a fight.
Speaker 2: You know, I love that. But but my approach to
Speaker 2: this genre, they say, is and it's really why the
Speaker 2: Castle books. Let me tell you a little how linkage here.
Speaker 2: The publisher of my Trigger episode, right themovie stiffed, Well,
Speaker 2: how about my whole publishing house closed? No, Yeah, so
Speaker 2: he went to Hyperion, which was owned by ABC Disney.
Speaker 2: He takes me to lunch one day and he says, well,
Speaker 2: there's a new show coming on called Castle. And you
Speaker 2: know the relationship between these two people is a lot
Speaker 2: like the relationship between you and your characters in the
Speaker 2: Trigger episode. Would you consider doing a ghost write for
Speaker 2: a one off? And I said, yeah, sure, Well you
Speaker 2: went to number six in the New York Times, and
Speaker 2: then number three, and then number one for the third one,
Speaker 2: and on and on and on. That's right, I know,
Speaker 2: and like I knocked me over with a feather. But
Speaker 2: the thing is there was sort of a joyful and
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to pander here, but there was a
Speaker 2: joyful experience in approaching. And this is what I have
Speaker 2: in a new book that's coming out soon, is I
Speaker 2: try to look at the mystery and thriller genre to
Speaker 2: try to upend the sort of dark, clenched jaw ugliness
Speaker 2: of it and try to approach it in musically in
Speaker 2: a major key, you know music. So it's it's it's
Speaker 2: a mystery and it's a thriller, and there are all
Speaker 2: sorts of things in it that are ugly, intense and
Speaker 2: all that, but there's also a romantic relationship that is
Speaker 2: organic and means something right. The readers and viewers are
Speaker 2: always looking for where's the hook? How do I get in?
Speaker 2: What do I want out of this?
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's what I mean. I'll say that when
Speaker 1: I'm woising stuff with Megan as well. If you was
Speaker 1: in the first episode of something, we'll say you in
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, maybe.
Speaker 2: But people are always looking like they're holding a grappling
Speaker 2: hook and they're looking for the place to throw it, yeah,
Speaker 2: and get it. Get And I think that that particularly.
Speaker 1: I wish i'd known that as a young performer, that
Speaker 1: people want you to succeed. The audience does not anyone
Speaker 1: else in show business. Everyone else in show business wants
Speaker 1: you to fail, but the audience wants you to succeed.
Speaker 1: And I sometimes feel like when I was early on performing,
Speaker 1: I kind of held back a little or tried to
Speaker 1: appear more less genuinely enthusiastic about being there.
Speaker 2: And then do you remember that time?
Speaker 1: Do I tell you this story when I was working
Speaker 1: with Mick Jagger when we were writing that screenplay when
Speaker 1: You Went Ball, So, when I was working with Mic
Speaker 1: Jagger and the first time I saw him performer, I
Speaker 1: was talking to him afterwards and I said, that was
Speaker 1: that was a hell of a performance you gave last night,
Speaker 1: because it was and I didn't what else to say,
Speaker 1: and he said, I said you do that every night
Speaker 1: and he said, oh yeah. I said, now, I never
Speaker 1: paid money to see someone who was shy.
Speaker 2: Oh man, that's great. I wish the audience could have
Speaker 2: seen you do your Mick Jaggery. Yeah, no, it was. No.
Speaker 2: You told the story and it was such a great one.
Speaker 2: About how you were in Istanbul and you went into
Speaker 2: the room and there.
Speaker 1: He they saw in this throne because he was the
Speaker 1: guest of honor make us very gracious and intelligent man.
Speaker 1: So he's sit there and he's he's been very nice
Speaker 1: and very nice to everyone they brought. That's hot, like
Speaker 1: he was the king of something.
Speaker 2: I can see him. Gunna fuck, no propeller around it.
Speaker 1: If there was, it would have left this that was
Speaker 1: huge and it didn't fit him at all. It wasn't
Speaker 1: grounded in any way. I think he felt a little
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with the giant hat one. And had it been
Speaker 1: the time of cell phones, I would have conquered the internet.
Speaker 2: You would have owned the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but sadly this was in the the analogue
Speaker 1: times before the world fucking suck and everything was okay.
Speaker 2: There was a comment made by Stephen King about writing
Speaker 2: also not about writer, a writer and from people I
Speaker 2: know who know him, a wonderful man. He's awesome. He
Speaker 2: was he was. Were you there when he was on
Speaker 2: the late night though I didn't see that one. No,
Speaker 2: he was, he was. I was there, but I wasn't
Speaker 2: paying attention.
Speaker 1: Well, you was that during your tenure or after. It
Speaker 1: was after because he was on and he was wonderful.
Speaker 1: What a cheerful, upbeat, engaged, switched on human being lovely man.
Speaker 2: I can only paraphrase what he said, but his quote
Speaker 2: was that most he didn't say mediocre, but most writing
Speaker 2: that doesn't succeed, Yeah, generally is born out of fear.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. In other words, that triggered me when you
Speaker 2: were saying about, you know, being a little shy on
Speaker 2: stage and so forth, like that, is that restraint isn't
Speaker 2: your friend? No, you know, no, in that, not in
Speaker 2: in the arts. I don't think it is.
Speaker 1: I think that in any form of artistic expression, if
Speaker 1: you're restraining yourself, you're thinking about the audience. And if
Speaker 1: you're thinking about the audience, you're lost. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of I never knew that, Like The Greatest Battle. I
Speaker 1: was talking to my son of it last the other day,
Speaker 1: because he's in you know, Milo.
Speaker 2: Was a creative. He's in the arts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, he's got his own animation studio. Now, I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's nutt. Yeah, you ain't that little anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, your kids are all big, oh yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: weird in their thirties.
Speaker 1: That's weird anyway, So enough about them. But it does, Yes,
Speaker 1: I was talking to him about it. I said, the
Speaker 1: biggest challenge I have when I have an idea to
Speaker 1: write anything is to not convert the first sentence into
Speaker 1: the acceptance speech of the award that I'm going to get.
Speaker 1: So it's like I said, it was a break cold
Speaker 1: day in April, and I'd like to thank the Academy.
Speaker 1: You have to stop that thought. Somehow do you get that?
Speaker 2: Or am I just a you know, I keep trying
Speaker 2: to tell myself I've learned this lesson, but I haven't
Speaker 2: because I keep doing it right. But I used to
Speaker 2: say to writers in the writer's room on shows I
Speaker 2: worked on, where do you spend the most time on
Speaker 2: your script? Answer the beginning? Right? What is the first
Speaker 2: thing you cut when you need to edit your script?
Speaker 2: The beginning? But you need to clear your throat, You
Speaker 2: need to do something to kind of get make friends,
Speaker 2: shake hands with the project. You start right, and and
Speaker 2: you know, again, there's all these lessons that we forget.
Speaker 2: But to me, it's like, Okay, get through the opening,
Speaker 2: overwrite it. That's why you have a second draft and
Speaker 2: a third.
Speaker 1: Right, but I think that I think that that's the
Speaker 1: that's the fun of writing is not the first The
Speaker 1: first draft is is the is you you airn the
Speaker 1: draft afterwards by going through the first draft. I think
Speaker 1: the first draft is hard. The only time that I
Speaker 1: find the first draft fun is when writing fiction, literary fiction,
Speaker 1: because you don't know where it's going, so it's like
Speaker 1: reading it.
Speaker 2: You're not constrained to a form, you know, because there
Speaker 2: is a rigid form to mysteries and thrillers, right exactly,
Speaker 2: it was a pyramid and all that stuff, and that's valid,
Speaker 2: but you have to kind of like do a dance
Speaker 2: to not make it look like it's a recipe and
Speaker 2: a cookbook, you know. People. Well, I think that might
Speaker 2: be the skill of it as well.
Speaker 1: I mean I read my first Agatha Christie about a
Speaker 1: month ago and I was like, my god, this is
Speaker 1: this is genius.
Speaker 2: It was and then there were none was the name
Speaker 2: of the book.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is a spectacular piece of work. I mean spectacular.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why I'd rather written off as
Speaker 1: a kind of murder she wrote type thing and and
Speaker 1: I actually I don't know why I would write all
Speaker 1: that because I don't know about murders she wrote.
Speaker 2: You were part of that. Yeah, but the writing and
Speaker 2: that and P. D.
Speaker 1: James as well, These these English women writers, amazing writers.
Speaker 2: I'm a very big fan of the brit and Scottish writers. Yes,
Speaker 2: then another one, yeah, Ian Rankin, Yeah, you know, a woman,
Speaker 2: but it's still an excellent writer. Yeah. But you know, Mickherron,
Speaker 2: the Slow Horses and trainsporn remind me Evan well, yah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I love those books. I love the Brits and uh
Speaker 2: and the Scots.
Speaker 1: Well, there, it's all kind of you know, it's all
Speaker 1: the same. It's the same language, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is. But there's a sort of a sense
Speaker 2: that and this is kind of like why a lot
Speaker 2: of the Scandinavian noir came out in popularity, is that
Speaker 2: that region first of all greatly unexplored in the American
Speaker 2: sense of Humphrey Bogarten those people like that, right, But
Speaker 2: there's still kind of a very noir thing going on
Speaker 2: in those areas.
Speaker 1: I mean, most of the year it's like this suddenly
Speaker 1: comes up for a couple of hours.
Speaker 2: I know, have you ever been up to the Skandinavia, Yes,
Speaker 2: you know, I ran a marathon, a midnight sun marathon
Speaker 2: in Trumso, Norway. What fourth of July. The race started
Speaker 2: at eight thirty at night and it was sunny. It
Speaker 2: was incredible. Yeah, when was this? This would have been
Speaker 2: six months before the towers came down, so this would
Speaker 2: have been in two thousand and one. Wow, and July,
Speaker 2: and what a great trip. I loved it up there.
Speaker 2: The funny part, Craig, is that people assumed that I
Speaker 2: was one of them because I'm blonde. Yeah you do
Speaker 2: look yeah, you know, you still look Scandinavian.
Speaker 1: You look like a professor of economics of Stockholm University.
Speaker 2: Yes, step in here, don't stop in here. We will discover.
Speaker 1: I can only do Nazis from movies in the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties about you know, or previous war.
Speaker 2: Or Romans as Brits. You know accent, that's Caesar, a messenger, Zia.
Speaker 2: Don't call me Ziah. I'm Caesar Caesar. But people would
Speaker 2: come up to me in in Norway, both in Oslo
Speaker 2: and in Trumpso, and they would talk to me like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: no no, and I'm just looking at them like Bill
Speaker 2: Murray in the in the restaurant when PEPSI Pepsi. You know,
Speaker 2: I'd just be looking and smiling, you know, yeah, do
Speaker 2: your do your Scandinavian on the fjord in the ski
Speaker 2: is down down the slow. It's uh. The interesting people
Speaker 2: I like. I liked going there. I did too. Did
Speaker 2: you go to Stockholm? I did. There's no waight, I
Speaker 2: haven't been to Stockholm. I've read that. You turned me
Speaker 2: on to the Dragon Tattoo books. Yes, right, and I
Speaker 2: feel like I've been there. I haven't been there. I
Speaker 2: want to go.
Speaker 1: Stockholm's amazing. They have this museum there. It's a ship
Speaker 1: that overturned in Stockholm Harbor about five hundred years ago
Speaker 1: or something like that, and it got preserved in the
Speaker 1: mud and they've dug it all up and they put
Speaker 1: it in a museum. It's an old ship, but it's
Speaker 1: totally freaky. They like the bodies and everything are there too.
Speaker 1: Like because scandon Evins, they seem to me an eminently
Speaker 1: practical people.
Speaker 2: They're like, oh, this is a dead body. Look children,
Speaker 2: what can we do with it? Book it for a stick.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my god. And they also have the
Speaker 1: Abbum Museum. If you need something, Yeah, I would like
Speaker 1: to go there. And you know I can do Waterloo
Speaker 1: with them. The greatest hotel perhaps on Earth, I think,
Speaker 1: is the Diplomat Hotel in Stockholm.
Speaker 2: Stay there, I will. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not huge, and it's it's pretty fancy,
Speaker 1: but it's amazing right on the waterfront. It's stock If
Speaker 1: I had my life to live again, i'd probably live
Speaker 1: there in the Diplomat Hotel.
Speaker 2: As a writer, I think I would go there maybe
Speaker 2: July or August, though maybe get some Yeah, I've never
Speaker 2: been there way so is that what they're saying in Scotland.
Speaker 1: But they have this thing in Stockholm is where I
Speaker 1: first come across. They call it Higa and they light
Speaker 1: candles in the morning. I now do it every day.
Speaker 1: People think I'm a deeply religious Catholic or something, but
Speaker 1: I when I have a couple of cap even if
Speaker 1: it's a sunny day, I light a candle in the morning.
Speaker 1: There's something about bright, bright candle light. Not a light,
Speaker 1: but bright candlelight. It kind of like sets you up.
Speaker 2: Can I make a little confession, Yes, I like candles
Speaker 2: when I write, even in the daytime. There's something, you know.
Speaker 2: And I have my feather quill no, I don't do that.
Speaker 2: But but you know, there's something about the ritual of
Speaker 2: lighting a candle, of having that controlled flame nearby and
Speaker 2: to watch it dance a little bit, and then it
Speaker 2: starts to get a little darker during the religious.
Speaker 1: Spiritual right, Okay, So so you believe in God, but
Speaker 1: you're not prefere to go with any particular flame.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was raised. I was an altar boy. I
Speaker 2: was raised Catholic. You know, there was a line in
Speaker 2: French connection to when Jeene Hackman was captured and they
Speaker 2: asked him if he was Catholic and he says retired.
Speaker 2: You know. So yeah, it's still in my heart. But
Speaker 2: the ritual of it, the all of that, it's it's
Speaker 2: more that it's more personal now to me. It's more
Speaker 2: like my own you know, having that spiritual depeche mode
Speaker 2: Catholic yes, Jesus, Yes, I mean I can't play by
Speaker 2: your rules, which we should make you a prosest.
Speaker 1: It's a very interesting thing, I think as because atheism,
Speaker 1: which I've always been rather a acted too as a
Speaker 1: kind of like adolescent footstomp of a thing to have
Speaker 1: is I can't I can't do it, you know, I
Speaker 1: can't do it.
Speaker 2: It's too it becomes its own form of fundamentalism. It is,
Speaker 2: it is, It's fundamental and it's actual statement. There is
Speaker 2: no god that could be more fundamental in that statement.
Speaker 2: And if anybody's listening who has adopted that as a
Speaker 2: philosophy or religion or anti religion, more power to you.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't judge. Yeah, but I just never
Speaker 2: attracted me to feel living in a void. It attracted me.
Speaker 1: I was interested in it when I was younger, but
Speaker 1: I think as you get older, and you know that
Speaker 1: thing C. S. Lewis said about death said, you know,
Speaker 1: death is easy to ignore when it's a horseman two
Speaker 1: valleys away and you can vaguely see it on the hall,
Speaker 1: But when you can hear the hoof beats.
Speaker 2: Gets your attention. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think that, I mean I'm paraphrasing, because he
Speaker 1: was far more like.
Speaker 2: The image is beautiful. Yeah, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: That that was That was what what kind of drew
Speaker 1: me back around and too kind of looking at it.
Speaker 1: Why I ended up doing this podcast. I think it's
Speaker 1: because I wanted to do what how do you cope?
Speaker 2: This is what I like about it, frankly, is first
Speaker 2: of all the fact that it's got no artifice. I
Speaker 2: like the fact that it's just a conversation, but also
Speaker 2: that it is something to reflect on, you know. It's
Speaker 2: it's like, what is joy? You know? Where is it?
Speaker 2: What you know? You know? To me, it's kind of
Speaker 2: a decision oft times. Yeah, it's also you know, and
Speaker 2: this is my own spirit talking. It's what you give
Speaker 2: to other people. In other words, I get great joy
Speaker 2: out of bringing joy, or trying to bring So you
Speaker 2: don't always succeed. Sometimes you do something very bad here,
Speaker 2: let me do you a favor. Oh my god, I
Speaker 2: wasn't there. It wasn't me. But I do think that
Speaker 2: that joy is in the small things.
Speaker 1: Well, it's connected I think to health, yeah, mental, physical,
Speaker 1: spiritual health. If you have you know, if you're struggling
Speaker 1: with health of any description, things get a little more difficult.
Speaker 2: I think. Do you meditate? I do.
Speaker 1: Actually, I am dismissed it as as an indulgence until
Speaker 1: I kind of started doing it a little bit, and
Speaker 1: I get a lot from it. I don't have anything
Speaker 1: particularly formal to practice it. I just set you know,
Speaker 1: I've set a timer on my phone.
Speaker 2: And yeah, there was a book I read thirty years ago,
Speaker 2: I guess by John cabot Zin. Have you heard of him? No,
Speaker 2: A book is called Wherever You Go, There you Are.
Speaker 2: I've heard that phrase before. Yeah, he wrote a book
Speaker 2: and it's and it's really how to how to meditate,
Speaker 2: And it's sort of like as Joseph Campbell was to mythology.
Speaker 2: This book is about meditation. And I thought to myself,
Speaker 2: you know it isn't wasted time, No, it's it actually
Speaker 2: makes me feel better, It makes me more efficient at
Speaker 2: other things. Although the important thing is not to have
Speaker 2: a goal, right.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably why I dismissed it when I
Speaker 1: was younger, because up until I think, probably round about
Speaker 1: the pandemic or just before, everything in my life was
Speaker 1: goal oriented, you know, you know, a result had to
Speaker 1: be connected in some way to just about every every movement,
Speaker 1: you know, the like. And I think that that, particularly
Speaker 1: in career, or you said.
Speaker 2: Comes from can I ask you don't mind me interviewing
Speaker 2: a little bit? Where does that? Where? Where does that
Speaker 2: come from? In your life? Do you think that? I
Speaker 2: think you achiever? I think from me.
Speaker 1: For me, it comes from uh, it comes from financial difficulty.
Speaker 1: Even as young come all yeah, I think I think
Speaker 1: it comes from So I think most things have come
Speaker 1: from the foundations. If a building's going to top, it
Speaker 1: comes to the topples from from there, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: I mean? And I what about you? Where does it
Speaker 2: come from from? You? Do? I was? I was your upbringing.
Speaker 2: It was kind of it was not financially, but it
Speaker 2: was a very you know, I had a very very
Speaker 2: unhappy childhood in terms of my father, right, and was
Speaker 2: he he drunk that old thing. He probably was in hindsight,
Speaker 2: but abusive, you know, not sexually, but you know a
Speaker 2: lot of you know, slapping, beating, val rating, Hey, your
Speaker 2: name is fuck up today? You know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And so what that does is that makes you not
Speaker 2: try not to fuck up, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So that out of that forms a sort of a
Speaker 2: work ethic, a defensive posture. You know. I've thought about
Speaker 2: this a great deal. I haven't done therapy about it,
Speaker 2: but in hindsight, I can see that beginning that I had,
Speaker 2: you know, I created a world for myself where I
Speaker 2: would be accountable and win. I understand that.
Speaker 1: I think for me, it was more about the avoidance
Speaker 1: of discomfort and pain, and maybe even embarrassment. I remember
Speaker 1: when I was about six or seven years old, haven't
Speaker 1: gone the dentist. And I remember that having this thought, thinking,
Speaker 1: if I can somehow get on TV, I won't have
Speaker 1: to go to the dentist. I found out later that
Speaker 1: you go to the dentist much more. I spent most
Speaker 1: of my fucking life the dentist. But it was the
Speaker 1: avoidance of pain and fear and discomfort. And which is
Speaker 1: interesting because if you look at the media now, it's
Speaker 1: not the same as even the television that we inhabited.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 1: I was talking to Seth Meyers last night. We're talking
Speaker 1: about how much stuff had changed in late night. When
Speaker 1: you and I were doing late night television, it was
Speaker 1: still television. I mean, it was coming to the end
Speaker 1: of it, but it doesn't really exist in that form anymore.
Speaker 1: What I see now is the I call it the
Speaker 1: fear industrial complex. That it is like they are selling
Speaker 1: and you're selling engagements in the form of clicks, right, right,
Speaker 1: So what will you click on? You click on what
Speaker 1: you're afraid of? You know, to to remain safe, I
Speaker 1: must have this information, say what, yeah, look at this
Speaker 1: is that you know that what I mean, after the
Speaker 1: bridge thing in Baltimore, I saw this was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know where I was, on some tabloid thing it said,
Speaker 1: you know a list of twenty bridges in America that
Speaker 1: this could you know, look out for these bridges, And
Speaker 1: I go, are you your fucking mind? The chances of
Speaker 1: this happen and once are astronomical, right, you know the chaps.
Speaker 2: It's so it's so fear. But I'm not saying it
Speaker 2: can't happen again.
Speaker 1: It might happen again, but it probably won't, right, And
Speaker 1: that's and it was weird that it happened in the
Speaker 1: first place. And then if you can't explain the phenomenon,
Speaker 1: then you invent a conspiracy to explain the phenomenon. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, oh, the sun is going away?
Speaker 1: What happened right today? This very day we were talking,
Speaker 1: the eclipse is happening. And it's so weird to me
Speaker 1: that when people, particularly there's two times when I hear
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists and then I go, I think this is
Speaker 1: an emotional problem for you, because because when I hear
Speaker 1: people talking about the Hollywood community, I go, first of all,
Speaker 1: you show me where the fucking community is in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: I went in Hollywood for twenty five years. Like everybody
Speaker 1: is there's no fucking community talk about it. Actually more
Speaker 1: you're right, that's just a pack a box of crabs
Speaker 1: trying to destroy each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing, when you talk about government
Speaker 1: conspiracy and you go, have you met anyone in government.
Speaker 2: The thickest pic shit, they're like, I mean, I am shocked.
Speaker 1: And you go to Washington and you meet people who
Speaker 1: are like working in the running of this country, you go,
Speaker 1: oh my.
Speaker 2: God, I wouldn't trust you to walk my fucking dog.
Speaker 2: That's right, It's unbelievable. That's why John le Carrey said
Speaker 2: that the government conspiracies are generally a cover up. Sure,
Speaker 2: because they're because they fucked up. Look what we did. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that's right.
Speaker 1: I mean, but it's it's the whole thing about you know,
Speaker 1: like people who are flat earthers, like you.
Speaker 2: Don't really can you really believe that? Is that a thing?
Speaker 1: And I think it's an emotional rejection of some kind.
Speaker 1: I think it's connected to emotionality. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: about stupidity or anything.
Speaker 2: That's why I think and I'll say it again, That's
Speaker 2: why this forum that you've created here on this podcast
Speaker 2: is one that's important now because it explores not just
Speaker 2: something that's sort of on the positive side of things,
Speaker 2: but it's on It's this kind of thing that's going
Speaker 2: to maybe make a stop a minute and say, you know,
Speaker 2: what's good, what's what is joyful? How can I, uh
Speaker 2: not create the opposite of joy in people? Where can
Speaker 2: we connect? And I think that is something you've accomplished
Speaker 2: with this.
Speaker 1: I think that that's a lovely idea, Tom, and very
Speaker 1: supportive of you and I And I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: reject your hypothesis by it, but I completely reject you
Speaker 1: what no, I mean, it's it sounds loftier then well
Speaker 1: I have in mind for this, which is conversation. But
Speaker 1: even as I say that, I think the actual conversation
Speaker 1: without an agenda is quite a lofty goal.
Speaker 2: Because it's dangerous.
Speaker 1: I think because the consequences of speaking freely right now
Speaker 1: about anything you might an opinion you may not have formed.
Speaker 1: See That's why I understand that, Like I used to
Speaker 1: feel like I could speak about stuff that I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure about, Like I'm not sure about this.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's this maybe it's that.
Speaker 1: But if you say maybe it's this, that's you can
Speaker 1: cut out that little piece where you say maybe it's this,
Speaker 1: and then people you're definitely saying that's the thing, and
Speaker 1: all you were doing was thinking out well, you can't
Speaker 1: think outlet it anymore.
Speaker 2: I remember one time in the writer's room you said
Speaker 2: something again i'll paraphrase, there was somebody who was in trouble,
Speaker 2: like the cancel culture kind of thing. Somebody had said
Speaker 2: something on a hot mic and all that. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I really took to heart what you said. You said,
Speaker 2: you know what, we have the advantage of being recorded,
Speaker 2: we can edit afterward. That's true.
Speaker 1: And you got to give fair play to somebody who is,
Speaker 1: you know, just free wheeling and oops.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, Now if the person you know is
Speaker 2: revealing something truly ugly about what they think or believe things,
Speaker 2: that's a different story.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but I mean the idea of and this
Speaker 1: is the interesting thing I think about writing as well,
Speaker 1: because I want to talk to you about the book,
Speaker 1: which is what I wanted to talk to you about anyway,
Speaker 1: But of course we've ended up talking about many and
Speaker 1: other things. There's stuff that I wrote down jokes that
Speaker 1: I've made, or or or beliefs that I put into
Speaker 1: books that I wrote, you know, fifteen years ago that
Speaker 1: I look at it now and going, I don't.
Speaker 2: Believe that anymore. Yeah, and good for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, in the world of documentation, you
Speaker 1: will always believe that. That's quite an interesting thing. It's
Speaker 1: like I always think about Martin Luther. If he had
Speaker 1: stopped before he went on the anti Semitic branch, it
Speaker 1: really would have helped, just like to say, a great deal,
Speaker 1: like just.
Speaker 2: Had me to this, going right to that. If you stopped,
Speaker 2: there you go, but there you go. No, talk to
Speaker 2: me about the new book. The new book is called
Speaker 2: The Accidental Joe. Right, it's about coffee. How did you know? No,
Speaker 2: joe being the slang term in this in the trade
Speaker 2: for a spy, spy who's being run by handlers.
Speaker 1: And uh so you're going, that's why you mentioned the
Speaker 1: Lacari You've gone spy.
Speaker 2: No, oh, yeah, I've got you know what. Here's the
Speaker 2: idea that I had and I told I told Nancy,
Speaker 2: have we talked about the stage? I said to her,
Speaker 2: I have an idea. It came to me on a
Speaker 2: run and I kind of remembered it. Yeah, it's an
Speaker 2: elevator pitch that only takes one floor. And that is
Speaker 2: what if Anthony Bourdain had been using his show to
Speaker 2: spy for the c I Ah, okay, and that's the book.
Speaker 2: That's good. Yeah, so uh that's the setup. And so
Speaker 2: what we've got is oh my god. And then you
Speaker 2: put because Anthony Bourdin. Yeah, so there it went. And
Speaker 2: and you know the book, it's not by Anthony. I
Speaker 2: created Sebastian Pike, celebrity chef bod Yeah, yeah, what's the
Speaker 2: pop tringlespros? But I created this world and there's a
Speaker 2: romance element in it, and also there's a sort of
Speaker 2: an appeal to see how these shows get made right,
Speaker 2: you know. So it's spying and it's torture and it's
Speaker 2: gunshots and and it's also how you make uh, you.
Speaker 1: Know, flumbay flombay and now you make a crocomb busch. Wow,
Speaker 1: a crokum bush.
Speaker 2: What's a k oh? It's a street in a tower
Speaker 2: crocomb busch.
Speaker 1: I was thinking it was a mouth, like a crocodile
Speaker 1: in your mouth.
Speaker 2: Hey wait a minute, I think I've got a sequel.
Speaker 2: Crocodile in your mouth. But the book, Uh, it's sold
Speaker 2: in a weekend, right. Uh. And I had offers from
Speaker 2: Hollywood and I have made a deal. Really you sold
Speaker 2: the rights to you surprised me? Yeah, to sonyh Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's a fabulous producing team Seth Gordon and Julia Gunn.
Speaker 2: They have a I love the title of their production studio.
Speaker 2: It's called Exhibit a nice. Uh. And they do a
Speaker 2: show on Netflix called The Night Agent. You've seen that.
Speaker 2: It's really great. You should catch it.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of The Night Manager. But that's not the
Speaker 1: same that's not the same thing.
Speaker 2: But this is this is about an FBI agent who
Speaker 2: works in the White House and the conspiracy thing very right.
Speaker 2: But we we of course everything was on zoom.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: We had our Zoom meeting and it was like I
Speaker 2: had such a connection with them. You know. It's the
Speaker 2: it's the two big words, big money. No, the two
Speaker 2: big words are shared point of view. Except yeah, shared too.
Speaker 2: I need to edit. Yeah, yeah, that's your first draft.
Speaker 2: You get me on a hot mic, you know, and
Speaker 2: then come out.
Speaker 1: This is a great darts commentator in Brettona Sports Commentate
Speaker 1: or Breton famously said at the end of it, because
Speaker 1: they watched darts.
Speaker 2: I watched it. I was in I was in London
Speaker 2: not long ago, and watch and they call it sport.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, overweight alcoholic men throwing tiny little arrows. Yes,
Speaker 1: but he said that there was some guy wanted and
Speaker 1: he said there's only one word.
Speaker 2: For that, magic darts, which great greatly. Yeah, Tom, you
Speaker 2: are of course a joy. It's great, it's great to
Speaker 2: talk to you and great to catch up. Let's do
Speaker 2: it again soon.
Speaker 1: I would love to Good luck with the accidental joke,
Speaker 1: which I will read on purpose almost immediately.
Speaker 2: Thank you,