Speaker 1: This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come
Speaker 1: and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually
Speaker 1: it's about an hour and a half and I don't
Speaker 1: have an opener because these guys cost money. But what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway,
Speaker 1: come and see me live on the Pants on Fire
Speaker 1: Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and
Speaker 1: we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five and beyond. For a full list of dates,
Speaker 1: go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com. See you
Speaker 1: on the road, my DearS. My name is Craig Ferguson.
Speaker 1: The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to
Speaker 1: interest in people about what brings them happiness.
Speaker 2: Live from Brooklyn, New York City.
Speaker 1: This is the Joy Podcast, coming to you from the
Speaker 1: Kids Super Studios, the tent within the Kids Show. It's
Speaker 1: a long story. Anyway, we're here and my guest today
Speaker 1: is some and I'm very excited about talking to it
Speaker 1: because he does political stuff and I don't. But he's
Speaker 1: very good at it and that's probably why he does it.
Speaker 1: And I don't look he's very good. He's got a
Speaker 1: new special out called Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse, Maga
Speaker 1: the Next Generation. He talks to the young, the Young
Speaker 1: magas the name of it, Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse.
Speaker 2: Gives you a clue as to who is my guest today.
Speaker 2: It is Jordan Klepper Joy.
Speaker 1: You're six foot four, Yeah, very tall, six foot four.
Speaker 2: How does how can you be a tall six foot four? Well?
Speaker 2: I think I say I, I say that you've got
Speaker 2: high hair? Does that add another? Yes? You know the swoop?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, like I'm sure you've experimented the buzz,
Speaker 3: the short.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, I've done I've done it all. But
Speaker 1: now I just go for a lot of product.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just I feel like we're working with the same
Speaker 2: stuff here. We have.
Speaker 3: We have long faces, long faces. We're lucky enough to
Speaker 3: keep the hair long enough.
Speaker 1: Do you ever go to a bar and anyone say
Speaker 1: to you, Hey, why the long face?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, I've had that. Yes do you have?
Speaker 1: Are you a compulsive drinker? I look at you and
Speaker 1: I don't see that. That's I wouldn't say compulsive.
Speaker 2: I drink.
Speaker 3: I drink more than i'd like to drink. I read
Speaker 3: all those articles that come out warning. I mean every
Speaker 3: article comes out tells you drinking is good, except in France.
Speaker 1: They always have these things come out in France where
Speaker 1: they say at last of one a day, it would
Speaker 1: make you feel fabulous that red wine today cure's heart disease. Apparently,
Speaker 1: that's right, stops heart disease, and a cigarette will cure covid.
Speaker 1: He that really nicotine for covid and arthritis.
Speaker 3: I think that's so French. The ivermectin of France. Yes,
Speaker 3: was the horse tranquility? No, it's not a tranquilizer horse.
Speaker 2: The horse? Was it a de wormer? I don't know
Speaker 2: it was it was I remember him was primarily used
Speaker 2: on horses, right, to help a horse? Do you have horses?
Speaker 2: Do I have horses? Personally? Yeah? Zero horses. Is that
Speaker 2: gonna be a problem with this podcast? Maybe a little bit.
Speaker 1: This is a horse based thing, t I know, mostly
Speaker 1: what we talk about is horses.
Speaker 2: I in my life have.
Speaker 1: Three horses, well two and a half. You still have
Speaker 1: the horses, Well I don't have them. I'm married to
Speaker 1: a woman and she likes horses, and she has two
Speaker 1: proper horses and a kind of a backup horse. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: in case a shehatland pony. Oh so it's no good
Speaker 1: for anathon? Well, what what is the overall purpose is?
Speaker 2: Is it riding? Is a dressage?
Speaker 1: Trisage? I'd like driusage? Do you know who does drisage?
Speaker 1: That's the kind of fancy one. Yeah, William Shatner. No,
Speaker 1: one of the best at it, one of the one
Speaker 1: of the best. He's the Captain Kirk of driusage.
Speaker 2: That guy's been to space.
Speaker 1: He's been to space and the heat us quarter horses,
Speaker 1: which is it's a whole horse, but they call them
Speaker 1: quarter because there's.
Speaker 2: Four of them for them. Turn your feet and turn
Speaker 2: your head.
Speaker 1: And no, I think that uh he said he started
Speaker 1: because have you ever met William Shanner.
Speaker 2: No, it's a treat in store. I believe it.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I was actually watching William Shatner video recently
Speaker 3: of him coming back from space. That that is haunting
Speaker 3: in the clarity that he had in space. And I
Speaker 3: think the feeling he felt was like grief and despair
Speaker 3: for like humanity and what have you. And he was
Speaker 3: sharing that at the same time, Jeff Bezos was celebrating
Speaker 3: with his girlfriend.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, you can see.
Speaker 3: Like the the disconnect between somebody having an actual experience
Speaker 3: and somebody else tried to sell it.
Speaker 1: I wonder why Jeff Bezos didn't go to space. Does
Speaker 1: see has he gone to space?
Speaker 2: I'd like to see him go with the Titanic Submarines. Jeff,
Speaker 2: it'll be fine. It's kind of like an uber underwater.
Speaker 2: You're quite though, quite the explorers. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have to say I'm not a huge fan of
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 2: Do you not like the product?
Speaker 1: I love his product. I mean I love the Amazons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but uh, workout regime? Are you a fan of that?
Speaker 1: I don't know the workout regime? Well, he just looks
Speaker 1: quite Oh yeah, he's jacked, doesn't he? Is?
Speaker 2: He very small? He feels very small.
Speaker 3: Yeah, feels hairless and small and but suddenly bulging in
Speaker 3: ways that he that.
Speaker 1: I wasn't inconceivable years ago. Do you think you got
Speaker 1: them delivered overnight?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, if he pays for the prime, it's almost
Speaker 1: it's almost a crime not to get them. It's a
Speaker 1: crime note to pay for the prime. There you are,
Speaker 1: that's I'll take my million dollars.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Do you use it? Yes? Yes, I mean,
Speaker 2: I have the time.
Speaker 3: I know, I feel like it's it's there was a COVID.
Speaker 3: I feel like created. You can make an argument as
Speaker 3: to why you're using it so often and now it's left.
Speaker 3: It's in a place where I also have a child
Speaker 3: who constantly wants things.
Speaker 2: Do you constantly want to aged? Age?
Speaker 3: Is your kid age of a four and a half
Speaker 3: year old? He's he's aged in that direction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're that's that's a good place to be between
Speaker 1: about three and thirteen.
Speaker 2: They're awesome. It's a great place.
Speaker 3: But they constantly want and they also constantly know that
Speaker 3: there is a device that exists in our house that
Speaker 3: we are sometimes looking on that.
Speaker 2: Can get anything they want. When are you going to
Speaker 2: give them a phone? Oh? My god? I mean I
Speaker 2: think teenage years I read it.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a good luck what there's like a
Speaker 3: Jonathan hypebook The Anxious Generation. Yeah, that's all about like
Speaker 3: I think social media when you're sixteen, I think phone
Speaker 3: when you're fourteen. I've heard there's like a hack with
Speaker 3: a giving them a smart watch that can just call home.
Speaker 2: Maybe early on my sister's doing something like that.
Speaker 1: How is it going for? Is it successful just started. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I have a fourteen year old is my youngest,
Speaker 1: And he said a phone since he was about eleven.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Not on social media, but internet access on that phone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit limited. I mean you can, you can
Speaker 1: kind of. And I always say to him, you know,
Speaker 1: no porn. So I'm sure he's like, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: Great, dad said so I well, yeah, it sounds like
Speaker 3: you're You've really set.
Speaker 2: Up the boundaries very clear.
Speaker 3: I'm a fairy or what they call a helicopter parent.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, you really they put in
Speaker 3: the work itself. Well, you know, my wife's very.
Speaker 2: Good at it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's very kind of on top of it. I
Speaker 1: I resist, I have this. I wonder if you do this.
Speaker 1: I've talked to a lot of performers and people who
Speaker 1: are in sure.
Speaker 2: Business to do this. I have.
Speaker 1: I have a social media accounts, but I go on
Speaker 1: I dump and then I delete the app, and then
Speaker 1: I go on get the app sign and then delete
Speaker 1: the app before it gets me every time every time.
Speaker 2: How often then do you read download?
Speaker 1: Uh? Probably a couple of times a week. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's about it. But it doesn't take that long.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I've added the I've added the time restraints
Speaker 3: onto my phone, so I have like, ok, twenty minutes
Speaker 3: of my phone.
Speaker 2: Like shuts off. But then I can add a code
Speaker 2: and I enter a code, and then I can get
Speaker 2: it back. And so I've achieved that.
Speaker 3: So there's I think it's important to put the speed bumps,
Speaker 3: but I'm still driving through them.
Speaker 2: I think it's well.
Speaker 1: I mean, at least you question yourself a little bit
Speaker 1: if you're going through it. I started doing a thing
Speaker 1: like about a week ago. I thought I would just
Speaker 1: like to just pick up a book and read again
Speaker 1: at night, you know, and before you go to sleep.
Speaker 2: I've been sleeping.
Speaker 1: Great, yeah, like great, Like I was a sixty three
Speaker 1: year old man. I should be getting up thre or
Speaker 1: four times for a bee.
Speaker 2: Not even that.
Speaker 1: Are you urinating on the book? I'm peeding in the bed. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm sleeping the whole line. But it's kind of weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really love it. So I think I was saying
Speaker 1: as back.
Speaker 3: To analog for me, I think I'm I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: a I'm a secret lott or perhaps a hopeful ludite.
Speaker 3: I loved that last night. Last night I did. I
Speaker 3: did the book before bed situation, right we read. Well,
Speaker 3: I got a couple of things going on right now. Well,
Speaker 3: I got a couple of coffee table books. Sometimes let
Speaker 3: me just.
Speaker 2: Look at some art before bed. Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 2: Got some Bob Dylan books somewhere.
Speaker 3: I'm interviewing Bill Clinton on the program in a.
Speaker 2: Week, so I'm working through his his book in.
Speaker 3: A book with James Patterson. That's a uh it's like
Speaker 3: a thriller. It is, Yeah, he wrote it.
Speaker 2: Did either one of them show up for this book?
Speaker 1: I feel like James Potterson that Bill Clinton kind of
Speaker 1: have a It's like what was his name, Lixton Steining.
Speaker 1: He would come in and go, yeah, this is this
Speaker 1: is great, keep going and then walk up. I think
Speaker 1: Patterson has a team. This is what I've heard, you
Speaker 1: know that. I think some of these big time authors
Speaker 1: have a crew that as symbol is literature.
Speaker 2: Is that really writing? Then?
Speaker 3: I don't you know, you're curating. I think it's like
Speaker 3: first step AI in some ways. Yeah, it's like that's
Speaker 3: the thing. I'm sure I could write you a Partison novel.
Speaker 2: No, sure, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean I think like they probably feed it into AI.
Speaker 3: Understand the I mean, it's it's a novel that clearly,
Speaker 3: to its credit, it is a page turner. It has
Speaker 3: the language of the White House, which I'm sure Bill
Speaker 3: Clinton weighs in on. Yeah, but yeah, it's a genre
Speaker 3: that he's in some ways perfected that I'm sure AI
Speaker 3: gets a look at that. I was like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: can put one of these off.
Speaker 2: Do you use AI in your twenty minute foot in journeys?
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean I've started a little bit on things like restaurants,
Speaker 3: like weird like New York questions, Right, I go to
Speaker 3: that for the first time, But I'm I mean it
Speaker 3: makes me feel old. I don't quite know an access
Speaker 3: point for a lot of this AI. I'll talk to
Speaker 3: friends to be like, who are using it for work
Speaker 3: or for reading emails and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I frankly don't understand that you're here. Claude four, No,
Speaker 1: Claude four is an AI program, right. They were doing
Speaker 1: an experiment with it, and they told it that we
Speaker 1: were going to shut it down. Some guys said, I'm
Speaker 1: going to shut down Claude for and Claude for constructed
Speaker 1: blackmail letters letters from the guy who started it, who
Speaker 1: was going to shut him down to his fictional mistress
Speaker 1: and said, if you if you shut me down, I'm
Speaker 1: going to release these today, which it didn't really think
Speaker 1: it too, because if you're shut down, it's very hard
Speaker 1: to release anything, you know, but the idea that it
Speaker 1: would try and leverage something to stay alive.
Speaker 2: There's cruelty in AI already.
Speaker 1: You know, self preservation, I get it, humanity, you know,
Speaker 1: it's there's human business AI.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. It's like you gotta do
Speaker 2: what you gotta do when you gotta do kill or
Speaker 2: be killed. Right, Yeah, it's kind of it's kind of
Speaker 2: a thing.
Speaker 1: You're now, you're I was, I was googling you did
Speaker 1: it today?
Speaker 2: Congratulations?
Speaker 1: I was actually what was interested in the name Klepper.
Speaker 1: I've never heard it before, really Dutch Dutch name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you been to Holland? No, you should go.
Speaker 2: I know, I know nothing of it.
Speaker 1: I know there's a kayak you can stick your finger
Speaker 1: in a dike and save the country. Is that right,
Speaker 1: that's how you saved the country. Yeah, I'm gonn I'm
Speaker 1: gonna quote you on that.
Speaker 2: Well, you're the one that does all the fingering. Jews.
Speaker 1: Just take your finger in the dike, and you can
Speaker 1: save Holland, Like give me the.
Speaker 2: Halland let me let me save a country.
Speaker 1: Now, No, it's it might be you know, a different
Speaker 1: the translation might be different, but that's what you do.
Speaker 1: That's what the little boy did. Is that based on
Speaker 1: an actual story? Is it a fairy tale of some sort?
Speaker 1: I feel like it's nonsense. There's like, there's a Paul,
Speaker 1: but there's probably to me.
Speaker 3: I imagine that as like a Davy Crockett situation, right,
Speaker 3: or the Paul Bunyan.
Speaker 1: The kid had a really big fingers, like she's the giant.
Speaker 2: Do you know that? Do you know the Christmas Holland thing?
Speaker 1: No, Oh, it's really bad. It's really bad. They have
Speaker 1: to get rid of it. It's like a black face. Shoh,
Speaker 1: it's very bad. Yeah, it's Santa and he has I
Speaker 1: think nine.
Speaker 2: Black helpers or something.
Speaker 3: It's you realize there are some countries that are good
Speaker 3: seventy years behind culturally dealing with these things.
Speaker 1: Listen, I when I grew up in Brentain in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, they had a TV show called The Black
Speaker 1: White Minstrel Show. I'm not kidding you really right, And
Speaker 1: it was a guy, white guys black top singing barbershop
Speaker 1: songs on TV on prime Time.
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: And I was like, whoa And we used to watch it? Yeah, wow,
Speaker 1: my parents used to watch them. I don't watch the
Speaker 1: Black and White Minstrel Show, but it was it was
Speaker 1: a real thing, and it was on in Britain in
Speaker 1: the seven I think it made it even into the eighties.
Speaker 1: I don't really do we have Google anywhere? Look up
Speaker 1: the Black and White Minstrel Show. Who's the audience for that?
Speaker 1: I think old racist British people, sure, but I don't
Speaker 1: even know if they were. I don't even know if
Speaker 1: they would. Yeah, I'm not going to stick up for them.
Speaker 2: Old racist British people. I think seven made it to
Speaker 2: seventy e A. Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think what happened does the sex Pistols came out
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six and we're like, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: we should probably get rid of the Black Show. But
Speaker 1: it was a real that's wild, it's crazy, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: You should go over it. Have you been to Britain?
Speaker 2: You went to London, didn't it? I did? I did.
Speaker 3: I did Foreign study at Goldsmith's in outside London in
Speaker 3: New Cross. So I was there for like six months.
Speaker 2: You like it? I loved it. I mean I think
Speaker 2: like Python.
Speaker 3: Partridge, all that stuff became like like awakened everything in
Speaker 3: my head. Oh really, Oh yeah, I mean that's still I've.
Speaker 2: Known for years. Oh yeah, I mean I at the
Speaker 2: same time, is that right? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That character to me is it's a great incredible it's
Speaker 1: a great card.
Speaker 2: It's an agent to it.
Speaker 3: I think he's done such a good job of using
Speaker 3: like formats, like adapting to formats, podcasting, mid Morning Matters
Speaker 3: has such great like short attention span, video stuff, the
Speaker 3: fact that they played with sitcom.
Speaker 2: I just I think there's so much about that character.
Speaker 1: Any character stuff barely. I mean I came up in
Speaker 1: the improv sketch world. Well that's what it's going to say,
Speaker 1: because you were in the Upright Citizens Brigade, Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was.
Speaker 3: I performed there in Second City, in improv, Olympic and Chicago,
Speaker 3: So like, yeah, there's always characters. I think, like, as
Speaker 3: I've gotten older, though, I realized, like my acting range
Speaker 3: is slight.
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be much that much. It's status
Speaker 1: what I can do. I can do status. I can
Speaker 1: do high status. I can do pretty high status. And
Speaker 1: I say high status and high yes, what about I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you could do let's try racist Dutch with
Speaker 1: with a giant finger, with a giant finger, I say,
Speaker 1: it's the contrary. I don't know if that's a Dutch accent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that one that that's a fun accent though, right Dutch.
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the I think it's one
Speaker 1: of the ones you can do. Like German, you can do.
Speaker 1: You can do German because because they've still you know,
Speaker 1: world War Two, you can still it's still kind of thing,
Speaker 1: you know, it's still talking about it.
Speaker 3: You could do German Dutch. I think you could probably
Speaker 3: pull off because not enough people understand what you're doing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I could do Dutch and jail.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell the difference even with a Dutch or
Speaker 1: German parson. I don't think it's like it's like Canada
Speaker 1: and other parts of Canada.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know Canada.
Speaker 3: I'm Midwest too, so Canada gets into northern Michigan as well.
Speaker 3: So it's just like that just sounds like a level
Speaker 3: of like niceness or like or yeah, it's like a
Speaker 3: kindness passive aggression to a lot of passive aggress Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's something behind it, but it's a performative nature of
Speaker 3: like things are okay.
Speaker 1: Hello, this is Greig Ferguson and I want to let
Speaker 1: you know I have a brand new stand up comedy
Speaker 1: special out now on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy,
Speaker 1: and I would be so happy if you checked it out.
Speaker 1: To watch the special, just go to my YouTube channel
Speaker 1: at the Craig Ferguson Show and is this right there?
Speaker 2: Just click it and play it and it's free. I
Speaker 2: can't look.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to come around your house and show
Speaker 1: you how to do it. If you can't do it,
Speaker 1: then you can't have it. But if you can figure
Speaker 1: it out, it's yours. What about stand ups? I ever
Speaker 1: intrigued you as.
Speaker 2: A Yes, I do a bit of it now.
Speaker 1: I basically when I got the Daily Show, all the
Speaker 1: stand ups on The Daily Show were like, you should
Speaker 1: do stand up, right, every stand up thinks you should do.
Speaker 1: You should go do stand up. And so I was like,
Speaker 1: I'll try the stand up thing. And so I've been
Speaker 1: doing it for the last few years. I'm going on
Speaker 1: a bit of a tour now I did stand up.
Speaker 1: I like stand up, honestly, I as an improv guy,
Speaker 1: you're taught to dislike stand up.
Speaker 2: It's such different worlds, at least coming up. Why would
Speaker 2: you be told that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think like in the world of Chicago,
Speaker 3: coming up, you're either an improv or you were a
Speaker 3: stand up guy. So you pick a site you're like,
Speaker 3: you like solo stuff or you like working as a
Speaker 3: team with a bunch of the theater kids, right. I
Speaker 3: think though I grew out of improv, by the time
Speaker 3: I got Daily Show, it was pretty tired of it,
Speaker 3: and I kind of fell in love with the craft
Speaker 3: of stand up. But also in doing that, became very
Speaker 3: aware of, like how how much work it took to
Speaker 3: get where I wanted to be with it. Like my
Speaker 3: first few shows, I was able to by that point
Speaker 3: at thirty five, having done comedy for fifteen years.
Speaker 2: I could put up a show people and watch it.
Speaker 3: I could be all right, yeah, And it was really
Speaker 3: frustrating to be like, shoot, I'm all right, yeah, I'd
Speaker 3: really like to be good.
Speaker 2: But I'm all right. To be good, I need these
Speaker 2: kinds of reps.
Speaker 1: I also think that that there's different types of stand up.
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, not just like the individuals,
Speaker 1: but there's actually different. Like I went down to the
Speaker 1: have you been down at the Comedy Seller? And that
Speaker 1: village underground, which I thought was is fantastic place. I
Speaker 1: love it down there, and I went for the first
Speaker 1: time last weekend and and then I got up and
Speaker 1: did you know.
Speaker 2: They call it a drop in? I guess.
Speaker 1: I did a set at a little short set. I
Speaker 1: did it twice over the period of the evening. And
Speaker 1: you know, because the role shows through and you do
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, and I don't do fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: I do, you know, about ninety to one hundred minutes.
Speaker 1: So in the first set I was like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: I better kind of picked this up a little bit.
Speaker 1: And the second set I got it. But it's a
Speaker 1: different It feels like a different instrument. It's like a
Speaker 1: guitar or a banjo, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: don't know which one is switch, but the or a
Speaker 1: guitar and uh, you know, glockenspiel or something, but they're there.
Speaker 1: It's a different thing because you have to joke, joke, joke.
Speaker 1: The rhythm, the rhythms to stand up are so different.
Speaker 1: Than the rhythms of improv I think also like an audience.
Speaker 1: I was My first reaction was like, as an improviser,
Speaker 1: an audiences is rooting for you and is cheering along
Speaker 1: the process. And so there there's like a.
Speaker 3: Rap attention that holds faces very nice, very very comfortable,
Speaker 3: and then you stand up. But I feel like the
Speaker 3: audience is like sets the clock and it's like go
Speaker 3: and my laugh in every twenty five seconds.
Speaker 2: I was just working. I got used to out a bit.
Speaker 1: That's club stand up, I think, but stand up you
Speaker 1: know when I'm doing a theater, you know, you tell
Speaker 1: stories and you kind of meander, and you got that thing,
Speaker 1: you got that kind of grace to talk and do stuff.
Speaker 1: That's what I kind of shifted over to that in
Speaker 1: the last year and a half. That's been so much
Speaker 1: nicer because I.
Speaker 2: Feel like the club world.
Speaker 3: I would get half the audience wanted me to just
Speaker 3: to talk about politic stuff because I knew daily show
Speaker 3: stuff I did, and the other half was pissed I
Speaker 3: was talking about politics.
Speaker 1: I felt politics for you, though, I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: I made a decision like twenty sixteen actually that I
Speaker 1: would remove it from everything I do everything, everything I do.
Speaker 2: How is that out of the road? Now?
Speaker 1: Do people still want it? Or they feel like, first,
Speaker 1: everybody assumes that you're on the other side, So everybody
Speaker 1: like everyone on the left assumes you're on the right,
Speaker 1: everybody on the right assume as.
Speaker 2: You're on the left.
Speaker 1: And at first it's kind of like it's it doesn't
Speaker 1: go away. But when you keep talking about it and saying, look,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing it in every interview a game like
Speaker 1: I'm not doing it. And when you do the local
Speaker 1: radio things with Zippy Bingo and the Wiiz to promote
Speaker 1: that show, you know, then I say, look, it's not
Speaker 1: about Paul, and I keep doing it. I keep doing it,
Speaker 1: and now they get it. It's like and I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of for me, it's a relief. I just
Speaker 1: don't want to and I'm kind of I admire because
Speaker 1: I remember talking to Stephen Colbert about this. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, he ran right at it. Like if I
Speaker 1: was going doing Late Night right now, I'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I forget it, And then everyone would hate you for it.
Speaker 2: They'd be like, ah, why coward. Yeah, that's exactly what
Speaker 2: they would say.
Speaker 1: You say, you're a coward. Yeah, and I'm like why,
Speaker 1: I just don't want to. I don't want to get
Speaker 1: into it. I'm sick of listening to people I agree with,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, the fuck please. But I guess
Speaker 1: when you have that volume of stuff to fill, Yeah,
Speaker 1: policies is great. Oh, because every day there's a new show,
Speaker 1: especially now there's a new show every day. We're going
Speaker 1: in made Canada. Look out Greenland, they're breaking up.
Speaker 3: I mean, how much how much Trump do you that
Speaker 3: you'd be talking about right now if you're doing a
Speaker 3: monologue tonight.
Speaker 2: I don't think I would be doing any of it.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, because I kind of feel like
Speaker 1: I came up during punk rock, right, and particularly British
Speaker 1: or really English punk rock, and particularly the pistols and
Speaker 1: the kind of the vibe of that and the and
Speaker 1: the kind of the instigator of that was Vivian W.
Speaker 2: S Wood and Malcolm McLaren.
Speaker 1: And and Vivin and Malcolm were great. The whole thing
Speaker 1: was selling the swindle like it's a swindle, it's a
Speaker 1: fucking it's a game, it's a and so the kind
Speaker 1: of the what you kind of gets in your bones
Speaker 1: is like I don't want to be hoodwinked by this fucking.
Speaker 2: The great rock and roll swindle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I feel like politics right now, particularly media coverage,
Speaker 1: is like, you fucking suckers. They're giving you a new
Speaker 1: piece of misdirect every day. Every look at all this
Speaker 1: is going on. That's not the thing. The thing that
Speaker 1: you're not looking at is the thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then of course if you go that way, then
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories and I've.
Speaker 2: Got a lot of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, your flat earther, where you're at with the flat
Speaker 3: earther contrailsh yeah, yeah, contrails.
Speaker 2: Have you ever flown a plane?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Actually really, yeah, you'd like it.
Speaker 1: I guess it's your control free yeah yeah, they're part
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah yeah, sure, yeah, it'll appeal to you.
Speaker 3: I feel like I just watched the rehearsal of the
Speaker 3: Nathan Fielder Show, which I I loved, can't say enough
Speaker 3: good things about it, but boy placed you in the
Speaker 3: I think it really set me into how stressful that
Speaker 3: job is.
Speaker 2: It's easy.
Speaker 3: I walk on a plane and I'm like, ah, I
Speaker 3: bet you push cup buttons. You get on up there
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh no. I think like the pressure
Speaker 3: of that I've never jumped out of a plane. O.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: You'd prepared to jump out of a plane you're flying right, Well,
Speaker 1: I'd rather land the plane. I like the idea of
Speaker 1: landing the plane. Wouldn't jump out of a perfectly good
Speaker 1: airplane to start going. We that doesn't appeal to me
Speaker 1: at all. You have like a you have a pilot's license.
Speaker 2: I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I only did it because I was frightened to fly it.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, yeah, which I you know, I thought. And
Speaker 1: then I was talking about this on late night actually
Speaker 1: to Kurt Russell, who is like a big, tiny aviator.
Speaker 1: I mean he's that's really what he does. He acts
Speaker 1: for money to pay for gas. Yeah, And and he said.
Speaker 2: You're not a You're you're not frightened flying. You're just
Speaker 2: a control freak. I'm like, yeah, I don't think that's true.
Speaker 1: And then he said that this is what really got
Speaker 1: me because Vanity wins every time.
Speaker 2: He said, I just read your book, You're a control freak.
Speaker 2: And I went Russell my book.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, tell me more about yeah, enough
Speaker 1: about you, more about me?
Speaker 2: And he uh, and he kind of got me on
Speaker 2: top with a flying instructor and I got in a
Speaker 2: flying and wow, yeah, and did that do?
Speaker 3: It was suddenly like, oh, writing and a plane is
Speaker 3: no big deal anymore?
Speaker 2: Changed it? Yeah, Now I'm.
Speaker 1: Frightened flying, but I'm frightened to the correct things. Yes,
Speaker 1: as opposed to.
Speaker 2: It feels like that hurdle though.
Speaker 3: It allows you to control something when you're flying, but
Speaker 3: it perhaps gives you more respect for the people who
Speaker 3: are in charge there, and therefore you release, you relinquished
Speaker 3: some of that controls that well, the thing you have
Speaker 3: to relate control.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that you have to be a
Speaker 2: bit more.
Speaker 1: See that's my life is stand up and you are
Speaker 1: a team player, you know, and you're learning to I.
Speaker 2: Mean, you're now, you know, learning to be selfish. Experiment.
Speaker 1: I've been, you know, pathologically selfish since I was I
Speaker 1: nearly drank myself to dath. I'm so selfish, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's crazy. I had to really work on it. But
Speaker 1: kids will do that for you as well.
Speaker 3: Actually, I mean, yes, well, I do think that would
Speaker 3: that that was a giant wake up for me.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I realized where.
Speaker 3: I am selfish and how I am selfish in all
Speaker 3: those ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then a kid is there, You're.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, I thought I'm doing this for that reason
Speaker 3: or this for that reason, but really most of these
Speaker 3: things I'm doing for is for me. And then a
Speaker 3: kid comes along, it's like, oh yeah, the whole name
Speaker 3: of the game is like just protect that thing. Be
Speaker 3: that thing, be nice to that thing, make money for
Speaker 3: that thing, live for that thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was another big thing where I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, got to stay alive. I have to stay alive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like I wasn't thinking about staying alive. I gotta
Speaker 1: fucking stay alive.
Speaker 2: I know. It's kind of a bummer sometimes. Yeah, like.
Speaker 3: I need to I need to grab with that that
Speaker 3: Like now my new job is to like withhold pain
Speaker 3: from this child's life, be able to create space and
Speaker 3: security for this this child for as long as humanly possible.
Speaker 2: And how does it go? It's it's it's okay. Did
Speaker 2: it kick in first day for you? Did?
Speaker 1: Like when the baby was boring me? Was it like
Speaker 1: a like a whoa, this is all Because I'll just
Speaker 1: be honest with you, it took me about six months. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because at first one it's the baby. I'm like babies
Speaker 1: Jesus yea as babies are. They're just But when they start,
Speaker 1: you know, interacting with you, it's fine. But when it's
Speaker 1: just that screaming slug in the middle of the night, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean that that first wave is all of like,
Speaker 3: I just I have to I have to learn a
Speaker 3: new skill to keep this cellular, cellular thing alive in
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 2: This egg that I brought home, Just what do I
Speaker 2: need to do for it? Right?
Speaker 3: And then yeah, when it becomes a human that you
Speaker 3: interact with, right, then I think I could project into
Speaker 3: the future that human like going on a date for
Speaker 3: the first time, are being heartbroken? Human like God like,
Speaker 3: that stuff scared the ship out of me. And I
Speaker 3: also for the first time in my life. Also like
Speaker 3: saw the moment where my son would no longer call
Speaker 3: me and tell me how he's doing every few days
Speaker 3: or what have you.
Speaker 1: I saw it in the future. Yeah, like, oh, I
Speaker 1: that will be a pain that I will feel. And
Speaker 1: I I haven't been thinking about how my parents are feeling.
Speaker 2: Surprised. I okay, that all right? Whatever? Oh hi son? Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, okay, fine, good, you're alive. Good?
Speaker 1: Yeah, brushing your teeth foo SPF great talking four days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fun. I'll get the news for your mom. My
Speaker 1: dad used to say that to me. I'll get all
Speaker 1: the news from your mother and even just hand the
Speaker 1: when I was calling Scotland.
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yeah? Now here's the thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: My wife has a theory the all stand ups, and
Speaker 1: I extrapolate that performers actually all have very similar mothers.
Speaker 1: Oh tell me, she says, cold with bad boundaries, cold
Speaker 1: with bad boundaries. Yeah, I'm gonna say no for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say I mean, yeah, I have. That's why
Speaker 1: you didn't go into stand That's why maybe I didn't
Speaker 1: go in to stand up. I think my brain.
Speaker 3: I had very supportive parents, like working class parents in Michigan,
Speaker 3: who were just excited that I was doing stuff I liked.
Speaker 3: But I was like a without it being put on
Speaker 3: from a parental pressure. I think they were too worried
Speaker 3: about putting food on the table doing all that that
Speaker 3: I was like, I need to do these things to
Speaker 3: succeed in life, to get a college scholarship, to go
Speaker 3: to schollege, to get a job. Like I was a nerd,
Speaker 3: I got like a math scholarship going into college that's great.
Speaker 2: I was. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was all about like, one are the things I
Speaker 3: need to do to succeed in life, so therefore I
Speaker 3: will not let my parents down and I will be okay.
Speaker 3: And then in Kalamzuo, Michigan, the only thing you were
Speaker 3: told you could be is like, if you're smart, you
Speaker 3: could be like a doctoral lawyer, right, you know. So
Speaker 3: it's like, all right, I'll probably be one of those things.
Speaker 3: I can be a smart kid. And I get a
Speaker 3: scholarship to be a smart kid. And then, like the
Speaker 3: improv thing, the bug hits me. They send me to
Speaker 3: England and I get a little bit of this stuff,
Speaker 3: and something in my brain is like, oh, I like this.
Speaker 3: I'm asked to think about stuff in different ways, feel
Speaker 3: in different ways, express in different ways. There's not like
Speaker 3: a path for that, right, And so then it was like, well,
Speaker 3: fuck it, I want to explore this and I do
Speaker 3: get I give my parents credit, like they didn't come
Speaker 3: from a place of like stay on the path, do
Speaker 3: that thing. They were I think, tickled by the fact
Speaker 3: that I was exploring in this way.
Speaker 2: And also it sounds like you were happy.
Speaker 3: I was happy I was doing an interesting thing that
Speaker 3: like they were like, we'll come visit you in London.
Speaker 2: We'll go to Chicago and see your.
Speaker 3: Dumb little shows in the middle of the night, because
Speaker 3: you love pretending and doing all of this. I think
Speaker 3: in some ways, at least for the improviser mindset, like
Speaker 3: it's such a luxury that like my job for seven
Speaker 3: years and not even job, my job as a substitute
Speaker 3: teacher for seven years.
Speaker 2: But what I was doing is like tending on.
Speaker 1: Stage, substitute teaching one, math, everything in Chicago public schools.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I do that for the day job. You
Speaker 2: don't need to do stand up. You've been in front
Speaker 2: of tough. Yeah, they're judging me constantly. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: that is that's hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's constantly crowd work with a bunch of a
Speaker 3: bunch of kids who don't want to listen to things
Speaker 3: you're saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if I could handle them. My
Speaker 1: mother was a teacher. Oh jesu. No, There's a lot
Speaker 1: of people in my family are teachers when I think
Speaker 1: about it, uncles and aunts and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. You don't see a connection to that though,
Speaker 2: with stand up that you've been about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the kind of the standing in front of groups
Speaker 1: of hostile Scottish people. Yeah, I see it now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's yeah, I never thought about it. Yeah, maybe,
Speaker 1: although I don't consider myself in any way in a
Speaker 1: teaching possession with these people, you know, mostly it's a
Speaker 1: bit of survival for me, I think.
Speaker 3: But I feel like one of your I mean one
Speaker 3: of your superpowers though, is putting people at ease?
Speaker 2: Right? Would that'd be fair to say?
Speaker 3: I feel like you famously like your ability to interview
Speaker 3: and get to the quick with people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and put them. I feel like I've known threatening.
Speaker 1: I'm threatening, sure of course. And then maybe you know
Speaker 1: what it is is like I really don't.
Speaker 2: Want to damage you in any way.
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in scoring a point against you, or
Speaker 1: I don't care about that. You got to try to
Speaker 1: get a point in here? There no really win. I mean,
Speaker 1: who's winning now?
Speaker 2: Who's you score? Winning? And I want you to win.
Speaker 2: You're winning and it's no fun if you just give
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 1: You're winning it life. You're tall, you're tall too great.
Speaker 1: Come on, you're winning. You're past the tall post first
Speaker 1: the check and flag of the tall race. I've got
Speaker 1: to be away and you're in. I'm in you're in
Speaker 1: and you did a little extra with the high hair.
Speaker 1: You got to, you know, show me when you're in
Speaker 1: the end zone. I you know what, I I don't
Speaker 1: know if I you know, if I have the test
Speaker 1: off thing anymore to get my hair to go high,
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: You'll just you know what the secret is. The secret
Speaker 2: is less product. Shut.
Speaker 3: I think it's more product. No secret is less product.
Speaker 3: The product weighs it down and you need enough to
Speaker 3: keep it in some sort of shape. But when you
Speaker 3: want height, if you're going for height, I know, I
Speaker 3: don't know if I am. Though it looks good, I
Speaker 3: feel like if I go for.
Speaker 1: Height, you know, at this point in my life, it's
Speaker 1: like I'm the oldest guy in the club.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's like I think I should just you get to
Speaker 1: have certain points and I think it's run about sixty
Speaker 1: where you just you try and not embarrass people by
Speaker 1: being in the room with.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, I hope he does.
Speaker 1: Like last night I was doing a podcast when I
Speaker 1: was sitting talking to these people for about an hour
Speaker 1: and a half or something.
Speaker 2: It was one of those long ones we hold the microphone.
Speaker 1: That shows your age, right now it's one of these
Speaker 1: long one of these exhausted podcasts.
Speaker 2: If you hold the bikes, you got to hold the microphone.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh no, I don't we have one of these.
Speaker 2: I've had to hold the microphone and I start. My
Speaker 2: leg was kind of seized up. I was like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, this is awful.
Speaker 1: And I was limping, and I thought, this is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a it's a little kind of trailer
Speaker 1: of what's coming.
Speaker 3: I'm literally limping now because I broke up. I fractured
Speaker 3: a bone in my foot really from standing on a
Speaker 3: too low from standing on a really yeah, that cannot happen.
Speaker 3: It can happen.
Speaker 2: Can you see?
Speaker 1: You should maybe see a doctor. That sounds like brittle
Speaker 1: legs and syndrome.
Speaker 3: I have the I have the foot bone density of
Speaker 3: like an Ailien sparrow.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. And it's I feel like I'm feeling very
Speaker 2: old this year.
Speaker 3: I've got a lot of like like ailments have suddenly had.
Speaker 1: I'm forty six and so like foot cracked out. You
Speaker 1: have scouts?
Speaker 2: What are you king, Henry? The age you get I
Speaker 2: sup at the table of Kings. How did you get out?
Speaker 1: Because gos like a build up of a mineral of
Speaker 1: some kind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you get it.
Speaker 3: Because you're eating I joke that it is like I
Speaker 3: I have privilege essentially as you're you're you're drinking yeasty
Speaker 3: I pas and you're eating red meat.
Speaker 2: But a big part of it is too. It's a
Speaker 2: it's a genetic thing that like.
Speaker 3: Basically if you get a certain level, you get uric
Speaker 3: acid build up, and diet is part of.
Speaker 2: It, but mostly it's a genetic thing.
Speaker 1: Do you have to go vegan, then I should go
Speaker 1: no booze and no red meat.
Speaker 2: And I know, no red me. That's me. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: live my life like that. And do you like it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny, but the no booze thing is essential, Yes, essent.
Speaker 2: I mean that I get you know, I'm like I
Speaker 2: I go sowhere when I was twenty nine. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: I was you live that life? Yeah, No, it was
Speaker 2: no no for well as it terms, it wasn't for me,
Speaker 2: but it was for me at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had no booze and no drugs and no
Speaker 1: red meat because.
Speaker 2: You know, and you've just now gotten into reading. No,
Speaker 2: I've been reading.
Speaker 3: From what I was going to say, I feel like, no,
Speaker 3: like nighttime reading is to me like when I'm at
Speaker 3: my best and I'm drinking, I'm taking a break, I'm
Speaker 3: eating good. To me, one of the biggest elements of
Speaker 3: social drinking or even just solo at home is like
Speaker 3: marking the end of the day. And so I have
Speaker 3: such a hard time like transitioning into something that feels
Speaker 3: it's a good use of time at night.
Speaker 2: And to me, books does that sometimes. Let me talk
Speaker 2: to you. Let's wind it back a little too. Solo
Speaker 2: drinking at the.
Speaker 3: Day, Come on, I was winning, I was winning this conversation.
Speaker 2: Let's just let's just take a little drinking. This was happening.
Speaker 1: Rest up on this little freeway and go follow drinking
Speaker 1: at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: A little glass of beer or wine or something. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll go.
Speaker 1: I'll go a little, a little bourbon at the end
Speaker 1: of the night, get a little little hard alcohol, a
Speaker 1: little bit. It's better for the feet that you fucking
Speaker 1: go is well deserved.
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't cheese and bourbon at the end
Speaker 2: of the day with a burger. Yeah, this is all right.
Speaker 2: You know what. Now I'm winning.
Speaker 3: Sit on your high horse or or your quarter horse,
Speaker 3: and look down on me one of one of your
Speaker 3: four hoards.
Speaker 2: I love it you come in here bragging about your
Speaker 2: four horses.
Speaker 1: Wife has three horses, she has a reserve horse, she
Speaker 1: has a backup horse.
Speaker 3: Really a horse. It's a Shetland pony. You're still on
Speaker 3: a high Shetland pony perspective.
Speaker 1: The thing is, though I'm frightened of the Shetland pony
Speaker 1: deserves no purpose. Well that it's a very angry thing.
Speaker 1: Oh really, because oh yeah, they're it's a very angry thing.
Speaker 1: It's they're very cranky Shetland pony. You mustn't have one, really,
Speaker 1: you live in New York City. They'd be very inconvenient anyway.
Speaker 1: Although that makes you that guy, and I mean the
Speaker 1: guy with the iguana Starbucks, that guy, that guy I
Speaker 1: don't want to be.
Speaker 2: You don't like that guy. I like him.
Speaker 1: I just don't want to be you know, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't want to be the because that guy's people are
Speaker 1: going to talk to that guy. I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk to you, That's true. You know, I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you here in the tan, but Starbucks. Yeah, I like
Speaker 1: to be ready, do.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Do you ever get like when you get recognized because
Speaker 1: you get recognized them sure recognize you at times for
Speaker 1: you don't want to be recognized at that time.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 3: A lot of times kid usually blocks that out. Sometimes
Speaker 3: New York. New York is a pretty cool place.
Speaker 1: New York is actually the best sit in the world
Speaker 1: for it because if people recognize you, they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's that guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know, yeah. I had the best one a
Speaker 2: few weeks ago.
Speaker 3: I was like parking in Brooklyn on a Sunday and
Speaker 3: I hop out and I'm about ready to pay my
Speaker 3: meter and a guy walks by and he goes like, Clipper,
Speaker 3: it's Sunday, you don't fucking pay and he kept walking.
Speaker 2: That's great. I was like, that is so New York.
Speaker 2: That is very New York.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing I have. Let's go back to
Speaker 1: paid for the mere I never do. You don't never
Speaker 1: just roll it, roll the dice. I roll the dice
Speaker 1: because I figured and I get to I guess, but
Speaker 1: I don't get them every time, and I feel like
Speaker 1: it works out.
Speaker 3: Kind of even I will say I do that. I
Speaker 3: do street parking. Yeah, I got a car and I
Speaker 3: got no parking spot. And so you know, the New
Speaker 3: York thing of like get in your car and then
Speaker 3: wait for two hours as the cleaner comes around, so
Speaker 3: you don't get it ticket, right, Yeah, I've given up
Speaker 3: on that as well.
Speaker 2: Well. I'm like, I'll roll the dice, I'll pay it.
Speaker 3: It's so much cheaper to get a couple of tickets
Speaker 3: a month than it is to pay for parking in
Speaker 3: your Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like if you go try and park
Speaker 1: in one of these structures, it's like it's more expensive
Speaker 1: than getting tickets.
Speaker 2: Doesn't make any sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So what do you you double part? You're
Speaker 1: driving in town? I don't have a car in town.
Speaker 1: You don't have enough when I do because I drive
Speaker 1: around fifteen hundred pickup truck that's.
Speaker 2: A fucking tank. Yeah, but you have tiny ponies and
Speaker 2: big truck. Yeah, I got tiny. I would never let
Speaker 2: a pony in my truck. That's for my wife's How
Speaker 2: many ponies could you put in the back of that truck.
Speaker 1: A ram Dodge around fifteen hundred. I hadn't know one
Speaker 1: shilling pony. You couldn't get a huge, you couldn't. No
Speaker 1: your top, you're thinking of the twenty five hundred, what
Speaker 1: is it?
Speaker 2: What do you.
Speaker 1: You like the beefiness, you use it like the try
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm an immigrant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I feel like you know, when you're an immigrant.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, you know, people that convert to
Speaker 1: a religion are more religious than the people who were
Speaker 1: grew up in the religion. That's kind of like me
Speaker 1: with America. I'm more America than people who were American.
Speaker 1: Like you have you have like a cowboy hat at home?
Speaker 1: Oh more than one two and a half. I have
Speaker 1: a cowboy hat. I drink root beer over crushed ice.
Speaker 1: I yell at the TV. I watch Nascar. You watch
Speaker 1: you like Nascar?
Speaker 2: To watch Nascar? Oh, you are in it.
Speaker 1: I sometimes I fall asleep in front of baseball games.
Speaker 2: I like, I do the whole thing. I respect that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's I I threw myself wholeheartedly into I'm
Speaker 1: Homer Simpson. That's the best place to be, to be honest,
Speaker 1: to enjoy all of the the indulgences of American culture.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's elements that I feel like I
Speaker 1: myself I'm always probably partially pushing against.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, yeah, that's an interesting thing. What did you
Speaker 2: miss about it when you were in London, if anything.
Speaker 3: Well, I was such a sheltered child by that when
Speaker 3: I left, so like, I mean, I immediately sought out
Speaker 3: everything that felt American in London. But I've also like
Speaker 3: nineteen at the time, twenty at the time, So like
Speaker 3: I'm eating at I mean, I'm eating at the McDonald's
Speaker 3: and Tripolgar Square, right, you know, I'm like, I'm just
Speaker 3: eating at chip shops, and so I'm the culture was
Speaker 3: as close to like American fast food culture as I
Speaker 3: could right find. But as I like settled it, I mean,
Speaker 3: I loved I think what I mostly loved about London
Speaker 3: at the time was that I loved big cities. I
Speaker 3: didn't know it Calmezer is a tiny one. Big cities
Speaker 3: have an energy. I love big cities. I loved this city.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love New York City's my favorite city. I
Speaker 1: think every other city is just kind of pretending to
Speaker 1: be in New York. They all are ex I went
Speaker 1: to Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo doesn't give a ship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is to Tokyo. Toyo's Tokyo. Yeah, I think
Speaker 3: you got some of the some of the European cities.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh yeah, but New York is New York.
Speaker 3: You're like Tokyo's three New York's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tokyo is kind of crazy. Yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I fail.
Speaker 1: If I had gone to Japan when I was a
Speaker 1: young man, I would not have come back. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that would have been your that would have been your life.
Speaker 1: And yeah I would have just because I really liked it.
Speaker 1: I really I don't know why. I mean just everything
Speaker 1: about it just seemed great. Yeah, why did you go?
Speaker 2: Were you? Were you working? No?
Speaker 1: That was uh five six years ago. My wife has
Speaker 1: always wanted to go. She loves Japanese culture.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: I did as well, but it wasn't on my bucket
Speaker 1: list necessarily, and so we went. We spent like two weeks.
Speaker 1: We did like a week to Kiyo, two and went
Speaker 1: to Kyoto and then went to the Notto Peninsula.
Speaker 3: Then we're like, we want to go to like a
Speaker 3: small fishing town and spend a couple of days out there,
Speaker 3: and that was amazing.
Speaker 2: I feel like I felt a little bit this with Rome.
Speaker 3: What I loved about Rome is that there's like three
Speaker 3: centuries going on at the same time, like now the
Speaker 3: sixteen hundreds and like Roman culture is like on the
Speaker 3: same block. Yeah, and Japan felt elements of that, of
Speaker 3: like Tokyo felt like a super city in its own
Speaker 3: future that I loved, didn't give a shit about Westerners
Speaker 3: or what they had going on.
Speaker 2: Have you been in Russia now? Russia is amazing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was because I kind of came up during
Speaker 1: the Cold War, so you know, I had been told
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff about Russia that's not true, and
Speaker 1: people are hearing a lot of stuff about Russia that
Speaker 1: it's not true right now, you know. And and like
Speaker 1: when I was in Saint Petersburg, which is as beautiful
Speaker 1: as city as I've ever seen. I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: like Paris but clean. I mean it's amazing. And Moscow
Speaker 1: is amazing too. And the people are so gregarious, you
Speaker 1: know what they're like. They're like Irish people, literate drunks.
Speaker 1: They're all drunk and they've all read everything.
Speaker 2: It's I mean, I feel like that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The literature culture over there is incredible, right. Yeah. When
Speaker 3: have you last been there?
Speaker 2: I went there. I went there.
Speaker 1: I think it was about twenty twelve, was the last
Speaker 1: time I was there. So I'm probably not going to
Speaker 1: go at the moment, not a great time a shape. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, you would get it. You'd have to
Speaker 1: fly in the Middle East and then fly up. I guess, huh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I just I was. I always liked it. It
Speaker 1: was like I also I went to go and see Lennon.
Speaker 1: Was the first dead body I ever saw.
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yeah, we gotta pick one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's in the mausoleum. And yeah, I went and
Speaker 1: see him. I've seen those pictures. It looks very spooky.
Speaker 1: It's it is very spooky. Yeah, But also I kind
Speaker 1: of was like, is that really am really?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I thought maybe it might be you know, it
Speaker 2: feels like wax. It's at a distance, it's dark. I
Speaker 2: thought it was Jimmy Hoffer. Is that that's where it is?
Speaker 1: I think that might be. It might be Jimmie Hoffer. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: they took Lennon out, and Lennon is still alive on
Speaker 1: Iver Megan and yeah, and it's Jimmy Hoffer is in there.
Speaker 2: They steal it from the horses.
Speaker 3: You've got sick horses there, but you still but Lennon
Speaker 3: is still kicking it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Lennon's I think Lennon Putin sounds kind
Speaker 1: of the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah it does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well really, but there's there's definitely certain letters that
Speaker 3: are there. You know, they have a lot of statues
Speaker 3: of Lenin. I don't know if they still have them,
Speaker 3: but they had a lot of statue. Is a Lenin
Speaker 3: holding up a newspaper? Yeah, yeah, I don't really know
Speaker 3: why he's doing that.
Speaker 2: I thought he was hailing a cab of some sort
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: He's always his coat is flopping and he's always like, hey, striving.
Speaker 1: You can't get a cab in this entire Soviet system.
Speaker 3: That's why I went to Estonia and they had like
Speaker 3: one of those. Uh they had a sculpture park of
Speaker 3: all of the decommissioned and you.
Speaker 1: Go there in Moscow as well, really park of totalitarian art.
Speaker 2: It's amazing, amazing.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I mean, because yeah, the art, it's fast,
Speaker 3: fascinating list in nature, all of these figures are. They're
Speaker 3: all striding, they are striding, all moving in some kind
Speaker 3: of direction.
Speaker 2: Big heads, yeah, great, tailored suits. Yeah. And also the
Speaker 2: one in Moscow. I don't know in Estonia, but in.
Speaker 1: Moscow they're all kind of like toppled over, like you know,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of weird. You know, the weird thing
Speaker 1: I found in Red Square first time when you went
Speaker 1: to Red Square. Everybody get you walking into Red Square
Speaker 1: and you start really it's the weirdest thing.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh my god, what it It's just that's
Speaker 2: just that's enormous. It's enormous. And then it's just the
Speaker 2: kind of weirdness of it all.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's maybe it's my generation because of the mystery
Speaker 1: of the Soviets and the terror.
Speaker 2: It's like going to like the Devil's House or something.
Speaker 2: And then.
Speaker 1: And then the graves on the John Reid, the American
Speaker 1: Communist is buried at the Kremlin Wall really yeah, and
Speaker 1: Stalin is buried there.
Speaker 2: And Stalin's grave by far has all these.
Speaker 1: People like leaving flowers, and that's the one everybody goes to.
Speaker 2: That's all right there in Red Square. It's yea too.
Speaker 1: And there's a department store on the other side of
Speaker 1: it called Gum. You can you see it is a
Speaker 1: perfect right there. It's yeah, it's it's a it's an
Speaker 1: old building. I don't know if it was always called
Speaker 1: there's always a department store I think might have been
Speaker 1: the the Czar's wardrobe or something like that. I mean
Speaker 1: it's insane. Yeah, oh man, it's crazy. And Lenin's right
Speaker 1: there like in the no you go down the little
Speaker 1: steps and kind of dark, not on like this, and
Speaker 1: then he's it's like it's like a Dracula or you know,
Speaker 1: sleeping beauty but done by the cure or something like.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah, is it like a line? Is is
Speaker 2: he still a draw? I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean in twenty twelve people are still going by.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're going now because it's an
Speaker 1: Instagram moment now, isn't that you would be going down
Speaker 1: there like here's me and Lenin, here's me and will
Speaker 1: I Am you.
Speaker 2: Know, I mean whoever whoever it is at the time. Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: I Am is fine. By the way, he's not. He's
Speaker 2: not dead. It's fat as this recording, while I Am
Speaker 2: is fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who knows? Fingers crossed. You had a hologram at
Speaker 3: one point, but I think he was still a lie.
Speaker 3: That was more mostly a.
Speaker 2: Have you seen Abba or a hologram?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: Are they really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Abba, I've got a show going on in London that
Speaker 1: you can go to and they're robo hologram machines, and
Speaker 1: that's the whole show. I know that Tupac was a
Speaker 1: hologram for a bit, right, well yeah.
Speaker 2: But for reasons.
Speaker 1: They just didn't want to go, like to be fair,
Speaker 1: but I can't do a sixth night a week run.
Speaker 2: That just doesn't make any sense. He's not available for that.
Speaker 1: But Abba, they could still conceivably go and sing the songs,
Speaker 1: but they know that's power.
Speaker 2: But it's young Abba. Oh, I mean that's you get
Speaker 2: to pick, you get to pick the.
Speaker 1: No, that's what you get, you get young Abba. But
Speaker 1: it's like have you ever been to Graceland? Yes, right,
Speaker 1: well you know when they have Elvis's suits out there?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's not fat.
Speaker 3: But see, I love I level Old rock Stars is
Speaker 3: what I want. I love, I love it, I love it.
Speaker 3: I love I'm a Dylan guy and I love I
Speaker 3: love Old Dill. Did you like that film?
Speaker 2: Yes? Oh? Good, good good.
Speaker 3: I think like it's not it's not the Dylan film
Speaker 3: I would necessarily make. But I think part of like
Speaker 3: part of what I love is all the law around
Speaker 3: him and somebody just being like, all right, this is
Speaker 3: this is the Dylan story.
Speaker 1: We're gonna tell you this, but it's an artist life.
Speaker 1: There's too many different bits. But yeah, I thought Edward
Speaker 1: Norton was great. I like Edward Norton.
Speaker 3: I think I think that's such a fun Pete Seeger. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think he's always in the in the Dylan myth
Speaker 3: been such a kind of a nerve, a dweeb attached
Speaker 3: about Dylan.
Speaker 1: I know next to nothing about bout Dylan. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just didn't press me by Yeah. Yeah, I found
Speaker 1: him late and just his talent, but beyond that, like
Speaker 1: as a performer, his his freedom to he found a
Speaker 1: success as a performer at such an early age and
Speaker 1: then just dumped it and looked for something else. And
Speaker 1: I feel like so much of like being a performer
Speaker 1: and improviser is like trying to find what's your thing
Speaker 1: so that you can you consit at it and and
Speaker 1: find a little success for a moment. And like Dylan
Speaker 1: figured it out and was like, oh fuck it, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do another thing. And you figure that out and
Speaker 1: they're like I'm gonna do another thing. Like the his
Speaker 1: his impermanence is so impressive to me. I think people
Speaker 1: who get very successful very young also get injected with
Speaker 1: the confidence. For sure that sometimes is warranted in the
Speaker 1: case of Dylan, definitely, and sometimes it's absolutely not, you know,
Speaker 1: and then then they get into this odd kind of
Speaker 1: sense of entitlement.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's there's a world where you can
Speaker 1: then completely freeze and this is just who you are.
Speaker 1: You're confident, you're successful, this is this is the gravy
Speaker 1: train you will ride for life. I think it's an
Speaker 1: interesting I worked for a while with Mick Jagger and
Speaker 1: we were working on a screenplay that we were writing
Speaker 1: for a movie that was never made. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: was I remember talking to him about because he was
Speaker 1: eighteen that, you know, and he was like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's I know what I am. And you know, I
Speaker 1: was thinking even as I was working with him. The
Speaker 1: myth of Mick Jagger is like he went to the
Speaker 1: London School of Economics.
Speaker 2: Did he really?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a very clever, astute businessman and he's made
Speaker 1: a couple of mistakes that no one really talks about,
Speaker 1: but I remember them because I look for the negative.
Speaker 1: But did you ever see the movie Ned Kelly, No,
Speaker 1: there's a movie, The Great The Australian Robin Hood or
Speaker 1: Jesse James is Ned Kelly and Mick Jagger to the
Speaker 1: movie in the seventies where he played Ned Kelly. Really
Speaker 1: it's catastrophically bad. It is fucking wonderful. Yeah, and make
Speaker 1: is terrible in it. And now I've seen him perform
Speaker 1: up close a lot of times. One of the best performers.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, it's not news. Mick Jagger is an
Speaker 1: amazing perform yeah, but as an actor, that's not that guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: But he had the confidence to going, yeah, I'll be
Speaker 1: I'll do this film and it'll be awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And it's not awesome, but it's awesome. But you enjoyed
Speaker 3: the performance of it because.
Speaker 1: I love it, because the shodden freud of it is
Speaker 1: just fucking delicious.
Speaker 3: The freedom of that is I mean, I feel like
Speaker 3: Dylan has that in an acting standpoint too, Like I
Speaker 3: feel like he has such allure to be famous on
Speaker 3: screen as well. And you know, he did Ronaldo and Clara,
Speaker 3: he did what the Pat Garrett.
Speaker 1: Film and Billy the Kid, and he's so stiff and stilted,
Speaker 1: but the confidence to be that within it and he
Speaker 1: still pops up.
Speaker 2: He just he literally he popped up.
Speaker 3: You know, he did like a Pond Stars episode of
Speaker 3: years back that popped up. He pops up in the
Speaker 3: weirdest stuff crazy. Literally yesterday he's what eighty three he
Speaker 3: and he just popped up doing the voiceover for the
Speaker 3: trailer for the rapper Machine Gun Kelly's new album.
Speaker 2: Wow. That is they didn't see that coming. He makes
Speaker 2: the weirdest choice. I feel like.
Speaker 3: When you have that level of fame, the Mick Jaggers,
Speaker 3: the Bob Dylans, and you can do whatever the hell
Speaker 3: you want, the ability to just be like, well I'm
Speaker 3: gonna fucking do some weird stuff right now.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Dagger said to thinking to me that I still say
Speaker 1: to my whenever my kids have to do a presentation
Speaker 1: at school or whenever I sometimes get a living in
Speaker 1: my head before I show. I remember the first time
Speaker 1: I saw Jagger was we were they were It was
Speaker 1: the Bridges to Babylon tour and they were playing Istan
Speaker 1: Bull and I just met Meg for launch that day
Speaker 1: and he said, count to the shop, no and you
Speaker 1: shit ship right.
Speaker 2: Down the front and you'll see you. So you were
Speaker 2: able to decipher that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, So I went to the show and they started,
Speaker 1: it was amazing.
Speaker 2: It was this big stadium in Istanbul and.
Speaker 1: There was a you know, they could see the blue
Speaker 1: mosque out the bag and then they there was like
Speaker 1: a thunderstorm around and it was just unbelieving. They started
Speaker 1: with the you know, the Sympathy for the Devil and stuff,
Speaker 1: and they started, It's just amazing show and make through.
Speaker 1: I've never seen a performer like I've seen everybody. This
Speaker 1: guy was unbelievable. And we went for dinner after the show,
Speaker 1: and I was like effusive about his performance.
Speaker 2: I couldn't help.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be that guy back and he said,
Speaker 1: he said, well, I said, you just really threw down
Speaker 1: and he was like, you know why, I look at
Speaker 1: it now. I never paid money to see someone who
Speaker 1: was shy.
Speaker 2: Thought, fuck, yeah's the truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh huh, it's like you put on a show.
Speaker 2: My my.
Speaker 3: One of my improv teachers early on used to say,
Speaker 3: like that effort isn't sexy. And it's not that you
Speaker 3: don't want to put effort into these things, but like
Speaker 3: people aren't there to watch you struggle to figure something right.
Speaker 1: I don't want see you sweat. They're not exactly It's
Speaker 1: like they want to be put at ease. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to see somebody who is great or unique or
Speaker 1: other than me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't want to be nervous. No, no, no.
Speaker 3: I want to I want to be a little I
Speaker 3: want to be a little nervous. So I fucking wake
Speaker 3: up and focus.
Speaker 2: Right, you want?
Speaker 1: You want to be nervous, to think this guy is
Speaker 1: so fucking crazy. I don't know what's going to happen night,
Speaker 1: but not nervous, hasn't I hope he? I hope he's
Speaker 1: not sad? Is he?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: I can't even watch pretend, Like if you see something
Speaker 1: in a movie or something where I stand up is
Speaker 1: meant to be doing badly, I can't even watch it fictionally.
Speaker 1: I'm like, really, I can't fuck look. I also, I'm frightened.
Speaker 1: It's contagious watching somebody fail, watching something like, Oh Jesus,
Speaker 1: I hate that. I just don't want to see it.
Speaker 2: You don't know, I'll never have to do it with you.
Speaker 1: You won't have to do you won't have to see
Speaker 1: it with me because I only succeed, and also because
Speaker 1: I will live in the improperable primarily Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: well we're done.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's it. So who won? It's definitely you.
Speaker 2: Thank definitely you.
Speaker 1: I thought your spectacular job ten out of ten, a
Speaker 1: star on your your workbook.
Speaker 2: And can you know, take the rest of the day off.
Speaker 2: I'll go drinking by myself, you know, if that's what
Speaker 2: you're really doing, give me a call later on. All right,
Speaker 2: get out there.