Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets,
Speaker 1: go to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour.
Speaker 1: See you out there, the Greig Ferguson show dot com
Speaker 1: slash Tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of
Speaker 1: this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people
Speaker 1: about what brings them happiness. My guest on the podcast
Speaker 1: today is one of the founder members of the Upright
Speaker 1: Citizens Brigade, which is a very important force in American
Speaker 1: comedy and theater. He's a very funny guy. You probably know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know how deep a thinker
Speaker 1: he is, but you're about to find out here he comes.
Speaker 1: You live in la at full time? Yeah? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't anymore?
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't. Where did you go?
Speaker 1: How about a magical fairyland called Scotland? Oh? And I
Speaker 1: live there a lot and I'm in New York.
Speaker 2: Oh really?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Do you have family? I don't know your life kids?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I have two kids. Your family, I do
Speaker 1: have three, three kids?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're even poorer than me.
Speaker 2: I'm thirty three percent more prolific at having sex.
Speaker 1: I think is what that? Well, I don't know. Have
Speaker 1: far a part of your kids team fourteen and twelve,
Speaker 1: so every two years we had sex. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. My boys are ten years apart. And I
Speaker 1: tell people Scottish people are like those big orchids in
Speaker 1: the jungle that once every ten years ago and everything
Speaker 1: within a two Biradius gets pregnant. Like even if you're
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if your barren to get within a
Speaker 1: Scotsman in his ten year cycle and he'll go offemen.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I didn't have it, polland polland I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: You're you're an improvvisational man. You know you're your word picture.
Speaker 2: You said a Scottish man. So I just yea linked
Speaker 2: the two.
Speaker 1: We don't make Poland, well that's what we do in Scotland, okay,
Speaker 1: because it contains less sin. Semen has sin, whereas Poland
Speaker 1: is with my sin.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you questions about Scottish people. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: here's a stereotype. My stereotype.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I find that my time in I spent like a
Speaker 2: year in Europe going to school and traveling, and then
Speaker 2: I went backpacking for another year. Right, I'll ask you
Speaker 2: a bit this later on. You need to know I
Speaker 2: found that and this is a stereotype. And I do
Speaker 2: not judge people by stereotypes. But the Scottish people I
Speaker 2: was around when they drank, they got really mean. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're angry and there's an angry undercurrent. And is that
Speaker 2: a Truish stereotype or what would you what would explain?
Speaker 2: This is an experience from like, last time was there
Speaker 2: for any serious amount of time was ninety nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: So I think that's fair. I think that's a fair
Speaker 1: kind of thing, because what happens is, I mean to
Speaker 1: be fair at Schoolish people. I have noticed that quite
Speaker 1: a lot of people get mean. That's true too, you
Speaker 1: know that is true too, except like the Irish get
Speaker 1: kind of mean when they're drinking, fighting fighting, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Scottish get surly, surly, surly and unpleasant and kind of bitchy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Welsh, though, the Welsh just go crazy. They just
Speaker 1: just go crazy, like I'm going to jump off this,
Speaker 1: They jump off insane, They're crazy. And the Angli shirt
Speaker 1: case kind of half in the bag all the time,
Speaker 1: really there's absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like the like a Russian stereotype of a drunk,
Speaker 2: like a vodka soaked Russian guy would just be like noncommunicative,
Speaker 2: mean faced.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've I've been around a bit of
Speaker 1: that too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of drinking in various places, and
Speaker 1: I'd say the best drinking for me? Where is the
Speaker 1: best drinking? Maybe maybe Australia.
Speaker 2: Most celebratory or the least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were just like, let's get drunk, all right,
Speaker 1: now we're drunk, let's go over here.
Speaker 2: And these are stereotypes, but I love it because in
Speaker 2: Scandinavia they have their own kind of alcoholism too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But it's dark, dark, Yeah, it's dark and sad.
Speaker 1: We are very sad. Yeah, very said.
Speaker 2: This alcohol is really expensive over there, is it? Because
Speaker 2: it's taxed so highly?
Speaker 1: Oh that's why they're so sad.
Speaker 2: I remember being over there and somebody had a bottle
Speaker 2: of vuka and I'm like, hey, the beers for you?
Speaker 2: The buck is like really yeah, because it was they
Speaker 2: spent They spent a lot of money on it because
Speaker 2: the taxes are like one hundred percent or whatever.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, this is again eighty nine so like,
Speaker 1: I stopped drinking in ninety two, so all my drinking
Speaker 1: stories are based pre nineteen ninety two as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you still drink? I drink a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: Not really, you don't. You don't look like someone who
Speaker 1: drinks a lot. My drinking days are well behind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you got three kids, and you know, although I
Speaker 1: have to say, doesn't stop everybody having kids. And so wait,
Speaker 1: your kids are what did you say? Sixteen sixteen, fourteen twelve? Wow?
Speaker 2: And also my wife doesn't drink at all. She quit
Speaker 2: drinking like before we met. She's good for her sober.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, sober too, Yeah yeah, I mean it just
Speaker 2: had to be. So if your partner isn't drinking, there's
Speaker 2: no real reason.
Speaker 1: To like, well, it's funny, I'm too crazy. You get
Speaker 1: this this in your relationship with your wife. But I
Speaker 1: get it with my wife because she drinks and I don't.
Speaker 1: But she'll drink and she'll go so like, she'll have
Speaker 1: a glass of wine and I'll watch her drinking it.
Speaker 1: Even though I've been sober thirty two years. She's drinking
Speaker 1: a glass of wine and I'll watch it, and then
Speaker 1: she say I and then she won't finish it, and
Speaker 1: I'll say, well, it's still finished, and she'll say, well
Speaker 1: I had enough. I mean you had enough. You're not
Speaker 1: in hospital or jail. Have you had enough? And then
Speaker 1: she's like I was beginning to feel it, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: beginning to feel it is the start of fucking drinking.
Speaker 1: It's not the end of drinking. It's the start at
Speaker 1: the beginning. But it's she's got a whole different approach
Speaker 1: you a little more like that.
Speaker 2: Like no, I had my no No, I had my
Speaker 2: days where like I needed to pull the plane up
Speaker 2: a little bit, like when I was a younger man,
Speaker 2: and I've had like times where I'm like I didn't
Speaker 2: eat and then I just spun out and you know,
Speaker 2: passed out. Let's say, but I have never had like
Speaker 2: the gene, let's say, or like the the hit of
Speaker 2: crack that just I couldn't turn it off. I never
Speaker 2: had that, right, But it's ancial hazard in comedy.
Speaker 1: Not yet, you haven't had it yet. Yeah, I've seen
Speaker 1: guys who think they skated and then later on in life.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so.
Speaker 2: It's like a dark turn. If it all came down
Speaker 2: or a.
Speaker 1: Really good thing happened. This is what I've noticed it
Speaker 1: something really amazing was like, you you make an unbelievable
Speaker 1: movie that's a vanity project and something you really care about,
Speaker 1: and it goes ballistic, and yeah, that's when i'd look
Speaker 1: out for it. That's when people go crazy.
Speaker 2: Could you start coasting? Or if I won the lottery,
Speaker 2: that's probably when.
Speaker 1: Well you look at stories of people who win the
Speaker 1: Lowry it ruined there, like he's crazy. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1: You're right, So you're right.
Speaker 2: More likely that you're right. That's the situation where I
Speaker 2: would probably.
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm warning you against unreasonably large successes
Speaker 1: in the fure. That's why I've kept my career about
Speaker 1: the middling, middling, sort of middle of the road. Oh
Speaker 1: that was pretty good, And then that said, no more
Speaker 1: than that, no more than that, for safety.
Speaker 2: I am not in danger of the huge meteoric success.
Speaker 1: Well, it's also like, yeah, I mean, like you're from Chicago.
Speaker 1: You've been around a lot of beer drinking and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. You've grown up around it, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I never liked hard liquor, Like I never
Speaker 2: took to the harder stuff necessarily.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if I ever liked it.
Speaker 2: I just it worked. Yeah, marijuana was much more common.
Speaker 1: I think for me. Did you do you still smoke
Speaker 1: the marijuana. I'm feel popular to marijuana, right yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Like but you never were in it in the late
Speaker 2: nineties or early nineties when you were still drinking.
Speaker 1: No, when I stopped drinking, I stopped everything. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the marijuan even when I was and I didn't
Speaker 1: really like marijuana. Yeah, I just hash hash hash was
Speaker 1: around yea a lot of hash. I smoked a little. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but really I liked cocaine. And I'll tell you for why.
Speaker 1: It felt like a felt like a full on class
Speaker 1: A drug and it was like a vitamin that helped
Speaker 1: you drink more. So I do that, but unfortunately the
Speaker 1: spectacular side effects of you know, illness and death. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt and shame, you know.
Speaker 2: And I tried in my life, I have tried it
Speaker 2: and it didn't work for me for whatever we thank god, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because I was willing to try it, but I also
Speaker 2: was with I saw it here in LA when I land.
Speaker 2: I moved to New York in ninety six. Then I
Speaker 2: came to LA and O four oh five and the
Speaker 2: crew I was running with in oh four oh five,
Speaker 2: was before I met my wife, right, and I'd just
Speaker 2: come out of like a break up in New York,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I'm coming to LA. The guys I
Speaker 2: was with were into cocaine, cigarettes and cocaine, and I
Speaker 2: picked up cigarettes, but I ever cared about cocaine. And
Speaker 2: their cocaine use was They're gonna do it all night
Speaker 2: and they're gonna play video games. It wasn't like go
Speaker 2: to the dance floor, girl, get a fight or pick
Speaker 2: up women. It was we're gonna play video games and
Speaker 2: keep the coke going.
Speaker 1: And any of these guys still alive.
Speaker 2: A couple of quit, A couple of them have gotten
Speaker 2: in serious trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't stay at the crazy party forever. Now,
Speaker 1: let's take you back a little bit of Chicago, because
Speaker 1: you like, you're one of the founders of UCB, Right,
Speaker 1: you started it? Who'd you started with?
Speaker 2: Matt Beser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts.
Speaker 1: Right, so that you and there's how many of ucb's
Speaker 1: other night upright pound the table and sound that is
Speaker 1: the song. Guy's hating this, No, No, I think it's good.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're like, you're eating donuts, we're rolling
Speaker 1: do heavy.
Speaker 2: So here's my favorite cookie crack. We're gonna make this
Speaker 2: wall where Yeah that looks delicious, Okay, Amy, Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2: So there's the four of them. There's four of them.
Speaker 2: There's four upright, citizen brigades. Is that I'm aware of?
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Is that the four of us?
Speaker 1: Yes, but there's four to theaters.
Speaker 2: No, we don't. We're not involved in any way. We
Speaker 2: stepped away from it like three years ago. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: had no idea. It kind of tanked during COVID and
Speaker 2: the theaters were.
Speaker 1: In trouble, and of course, yeah.
Speaker 2: It was hard to keep going.
Speaker 1: So do you sell it to Jeff Bezos? Is that
Speaker 1: what I wish we would have?
Speaker 2: We sold it to some predatory, really smart businessman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So did they keep the Because there's kind of
Speaker 1: an ethos with UCB. I always thought that there was
Speaker 1: a did you guys have a manifesto or something? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know it was improvisational, but we kind of had,
Speaker 1: like I think you're speaking to the cult aspect of it.
Speaker 1: We were sort of do it yourself. Landed in New
Speaker 1: York Open to theater in ninety eight, and it was
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, do it yourself, edgy, cheap
Speaker 1: theater five bucks a ticket.
Speaker 2: That was sort of the cult of it all. And
Speaker 2: a lot of people who connected with us early on
Speaker 2: have gone on to become performers, you know, Rob Riggle,
Speaker 2: Paul Cheer, Aubrey Plaza, all these people who came through
Speaker 2: and discovered us as young people have gone on to
Speaker 2: careers and they got their stage time on that stage
Speaker 2: and they learned the craft.
Speaker 1: So that's but it was all improvisational theater, right.
Speaker 2: Sketch the theaters were. We had a curriculum. We wrote
Speaker 2: a book. The three of us wrote a book that me,
Speaker 2: Matt and Ian wrote a book that took like seven
Speaker 2: years that codified our take on improv, and then our
Speaker 2: teachers would work off of that curriculum.
Speaker 1: So can you boil down a little bit for me?
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to boil down the whole book, but
Speaker 1: what is your take on improv?
Speaker 2: What is lately my take on improv is shut your mouth, okay,
Speaker 2: And what that means is listen, relinquish your idea and
Speaker 2: build off of somebody else's. That would be the advice
Speaker 2: if you want to be a good collaborative art player.
Speaker 1: You want to be a late night host. That's how
Speaker 1: it did. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, you guys have to fill time, no one. You
Speaker 2: have to avoid awkward pauses. You can't have like a
Speaker 2: dead moment.
Speaker 1: Oh contrere my French friend. I you ran it ran
Speaker 1: with the awkward pause. That was one of my signature bits,
Speaker 1: and late night was the awkward pause. I would even
Speaker 1: say to people, would you care for an awkward pause?
Speaker 1: And they would do it. We would do awkward pause,
Speaker 1: which which then developed in to smell my finger awkward pause,
Speaker 1: which I have to say probably wouldn't fly as well
Speaker 1: now as it did back then, but you know, things
Speaker 1: change so peculiar. It's funny. Well it was it was
Speaker 1: about I think it was. I was talking to someone.
Speaker 1: They do an awkward pause, and they held their hand
Speaker 1: to their face and their finger was just under their
Speaker 1: nose and they went like that, and I think it
Speaker 1: might have been I think it was Julie Louis Dreyfus
Speaker 1: or something like that, and she smelled. I said, did
Speaker 1: you smell on your finger? And then it became something
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, we're just thinking around funny, but
Speaker 1: I always rather admired the work of improvisational artists because
Speaker 1: I felt like it was it was more exciting to
Speaker 1: watch as an audience member. But I think what happened,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you if you agree with this.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people started doing it who
Speaker 1: perhaps hadn't received enough information about how to do it
Speaker 1: or were schooled in it properly, and it got a
Speaker 1: kind of bad reputation. True, I think stand ups are saying.
Speaker 2: By the way, well, I think it's I've always hated
Speaker 2: watching bad improv because it's like there's nothing worse, because
Speaker 2: you're sort of stuck.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you group the shingles. Shingles is
Speaker 1: a low one. I've never had shingles. Jesus, it's bad.
Speaker 2: I think in a theater seat perhaps how about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? OK, right, but fair enough? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Like or bad? I guess it applies to bad, like
Speaker 2: bad stand up. There's nothing like if you're if a
Speaker 2: comic's on for a half hour and five minutes and
Speaker 2: you're like, this is not going to be good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's nothing worse. So I always feel it might
Speaker 1: being facious as well. I get really uncomfortable, do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I was like, christ, I don't
Speaker 1: want any of this on me. I don't like to
Speaker 1: see any stand ups just in case.
Speaker 2: No, I don't watch a lot of improv either, because
Speaker 2: I get stressed by it. I haven't hot it in years.
Speaker 2: It's it's very stressful.
Speaker 1: Did you do you think you'd ever go back to it?
Speaker 1: I mean you, are you done with it? Now? Is?
Speaker 2: I do a show like once a month here in
Speaker 2: La where we get like a have you ever written.
Speaker 1: A book yet? I've written three? I'll have you on.
Speaker 2: We get a guest author, all right, they read excerpts
Speaker 2: from their book, and then we do scenes off of
Speaker 2: that material.
Speaker 1: Great, I've read I've written two biographical books and one
Speaker 1: work of literary fiction. Yeah all right, yeah, I'll get
Speaker 1: your car's best selling author my friend for real.
Speaker 2: Yeah see, I'm in a everyone's in their own bubble.
Speaker 2: Congratulations on that.
Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout
Speaker 1: the United States in twenty twenty four. For a full
Speaker 1: list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig fergusonshow
Speaker 1: dot Com slash Tour. See you out there. Did you
Speaker 1: ever run in any any real trouble with anything, because
Speaker 1: improvs fast. You don't of trying to censor yourself about
Speaker 1: an area that you're going in. We did a lot
Speaker 1: of aggressive stuff early on.
Speaker 2: I remember one show I told the audience I lost
Speaker 2: to bet with one of the guys in the show
Speaker 2: and I had to eat a can of dog food.
Speaker 2: So I wrapped a can of corn beef hash with
Speaker 2: a generic label that was a believable dog food label,
Speaker 2: and I would just come on stage and eat corn
Speaker 2: beef hash. But it was so revolting to watch someone
Speaker 2: it looked like someone was eating dog food, and that
Speaker 2: was sort of offending people.
Speaker 1: Just gross. Yeah, it is, to what.
Speaker 2: End, it's not really good. And then the other part
Speaker 2: of one we did a prank where during the show
Speaker 2: we announced the audience there's an ambulance trying to get
Speaker 2: into the parking lot next door, there's a red Honda
Speaker 2: Civic blocking the entrance. Please move your car, fittures, And
Speaker 2: then we would come back and say, please move your car.
Speaker 2: A man has had a heart attack and they can't
Speaker 2: get the vehicle in to get him out of the thing.
Speaker 2: And then at the end of the show we would
Speaker 2: say the man died thanks a lot for moving your car,
Speaker 2: whoever you are, and it's like, that's not comedy.
Speaker 1: No, that's just it's kind of a performance.
Speaker 2: Performance thing, And I think we thought they would get
Speaker 2: I think I'd like to believe that we thought, of course,
Speaker 2: we wouldn't shame an audience for not moving their car,
Speaker 2: because how could we be certain that that person was
Speaker 2: in this roof anyway? And also they could get a
Speaker 2: stretcher around, they could lift a man through parked cars.
Speaker 2: Like we assumed that they knew we were joking, but
Speaker 2: they didn't. So I can't assume that the audience is bright.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's.
Speaker 1: Always a nice surprise when they are. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: don't know if you can. So let me say, so,
Speaker 1: you grew up in Chicago, right, so it's working class family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much. There was a thing.
Speaker 2: My dad was a salesman, so he made it. We
Speaker 2: moved to the suburbs, so then we had like a
Speaker 2: middle class life. When I hit like ten or twelve,
Speaker 2: something like, that was Chicago, it was called first it
Speaker 2: was Downers Grove, and then we moved to Darien and Westmont, okay,
Speaker 2: southwest suburbs of Chicago.
Speaker 1: All right, that's kind of nice, right lovely. And but
Speaker 1: you're I mean you're one of seven kids. Yeah, so Catholic, Catholic,
Speaker 1: very Irish Catholic. Yeah, definitely, yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: That was easy. Yeah. And are you still a Catholic?
Speaker 1: Are still a Catholic? Explain what that means? Well? Are
Speaker 1: you observant? Do you go to Mass? Do? I got?
Speaker 2: I might go to church on a Christmas now and then,
Speaker 2: but no, I don't really. But I did baptis baptize
Speaker 2: my kids and they currently go to a Catholic high school.
Speaker 2: I think I baptize them because.
Speaker 1: My parents like, you should baptize them, all right, I'll baptize. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: And then uh so we'll see. That's about most of
Speaker 2: the Catholicism that they've been given. My wife's not.
Speaker 1: So right, so you're not quite deeply into the biscuit
Speaker 1: turning into Jesus or.
Speaker 2: We haven't done that yet. Part of me thinks, like
Speaker 2: just to make them work for something, Like part of
Speaker 2: me thinks like, I'll give you fifteen hundred dollar if
Speaker 2: you go through Communion and Confirmation and I learn all
Speaker 2: that Catechism, just to like force them to run through
Speaker 2: a gauntlet of religiosity and learn a little bit about
Speaker 2: the New Testament.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I have mixed feelings about it myself
Speaker 1: because I have two boys and I never the oldest
Speaker 1: one is twenty three. If I tell me to do
Speaker 1: something that you tell me, yeah, but I never never
Speaker 1: made them through it. They seem to kind of form
Speaker 1: their own opinions anyway. So you never put you grew
Speaker 1: up Catholic. No, I grew up a Church of Scotland Protestant, Okay,
Speaker 1: so kind of like, yeah, it's just the kind of
Speaker 1: flip side of Catholicism. Really, it's guilt without any good artwork.
Speaker 1: It's just a lot of guilt and whitewash rather than guilt.
Speaker 1: And you know, great pictures. I was always fascinated when
Speaker 1: you go to the churches, Catholic churches and you see Jesus,
Speaker 1: you know, all the different Jesus is and he's in
Speaker 1: a lot of pain. And I remember going around churches
Speaker 1: in Italy and seeing that. I think, and for artwork,
Speaker 1: I mean, just stunning. But then when you go out
Speaker 1: to the you know, the countryside, and you see the
Speaker 1: crap artwork, Yeah, they go wait is that is that Jesus.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a bear claim and of fance,
Speaker 1: and it was like it's like really bad, bad crucifixion
Speaker 1: scenes and like badly done and you're like, oh no
Speaker 1: that and suddenly it kind of loses its magic a
Speaker 1: little bit for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's similar to the way people paint like Kobe
Speaker 2: on the side of a garage here in La Clark Gable.
Speaker 2: They're not quite great representations. I remember when the woman
Speaker 2: painted like a she h it was like a leaky
Speaker 2: it was like a fresco that had leaked, and she
Speaker 2: went in night and did her fix it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's so terrible, Yeah, but hilarious.
Speaker 2: Hilarious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, And I wonder if that's no part
Speaker 1: of God's plan too. Sure, you know, if I was
Speaker 1: a Jesuit, I'd say that's part of Gold's plan. I'd
Speaker 1: also be irish if I was a Jesuit. But there
Speaker 1: you go, the advocates for God. So you're in Chicago
Speaker 1: and you're fairly normal, middle class, middle class life. So
Speaker 1: how come you end up getting drawn it into the
Speaker 1: grease paint in the roar of the crowd and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Is there any show beads in
Speaker 1: your family.
Speaker 2: My dad was like a salesman storyteller, and he always
Speaker 2: told jokes like he held cord in the classic tavern style,
Speaker 2: like all right, gather around her joke, and so he
Speaker 2: would hold cord at the table. And I always loved one.
Speaker 2: I always remember. I feel like I just had a
Speaker 2: knack for remembering jokes, like since I was a kid.
Speaker 2: The minute somebody started, I'm like, I know the punch,
Speaker 2: like because I cared about him. I guess the power
Speaker 2: of them perhaps right, like you the attention and yeah,
Speaker 2: and the attention it afforded you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then I also loved my dad would laugh at
Speaker 2: his joke before the punchline, which just was so endearing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I think I was one of the only ones
Speaker 2: in the family who would laugh before the joke like him,
Speaker 2: because I thought that was funny too.
Speaker 1: I think. But it's also it's indicative of a sense
Speaker 1: of joy about it as well, because you know, if
Speaker 1: I if I have a joke and I know it's
Speaker 1: going to make people laugh and I know it's funny,
Speaker 1: it can sometimes make me laugh because I know it's
Speaker 1: coming and I kind of yeah, you know, and I
Speaker 1: very unprofessionally, can't get it out that happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think that drew me to it. And
Speaker 2: I think just like being from a very like my
Speaker 2: mom's the best, my dad was the best, very loved
Speaker 2: and solid family, there was just this acceptance of like,
Speaker 2: this is what you're going to do, and it was
Speaker 2: just sort of all wrote. So I think I was
Speaker 2: in rebellion to that, Like there was just like there
Speaker 2: was no choice. You're gonna go to church, you're gonna
Speaker 2: go to college, you're gonna get a business job. It
Speaker 2: just it wasn't even preach, but it just seemed like
Speaker 2: everyone was doing that.
Speaker 1: And I feel like.
Speaker 2: I had a brother who kind of flirts with acting still,
Speaker 2: but everybody else is like interesting, smart people, successful in
Speaker 2: the best way. Like I don't think our lives are
Speaker 2: any better or worse, they're just different choices. So I
Speaker 2: think in some ways, accepting the status quo is what
Speaker 2: I was probably rebelling against. And then you're going to
Speaker 2: maybe because I wasn't going to be good at business.
Speaker 2: I'm not that smart, I'm not that organized, so I
Speaker 2: probably had to find something else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess. I mean it's pretty organized to start
Speaker 1: a theater company though, isn't it Yeah?
Speaker 2: But it is it is, And also the like it's
Speaker 2: it was our clubhouse. We started it out of need
Speaker 2: because when we landed in New York, everybody was hostile
Speaker 2: about rent, like you can't keep your props here. It's
Speaker 2: like four hundred dollars a night and you got to
Speaker 2: get your own lighting guys. So it was really like surviving.
Speaker 2: And then once we started teaching classes, we needed a
Speaker 2: clubhouse to store our prompts and to teach our classes.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty.
Speaker 2: Simple, simple business model.
Speaker 1: But I think how come you went from Chicago to
Speaker 1: New York? Though? Come? I mean, because Chicago is a
Speaker 1: pretty good reputation for improvisational comedy, and you know you
Speaker 1: could just stay and be there, couldn't you. I think
Speaker 1: our goal was to be on a sketch show. Like
Speaker 1: we moved.
Speaker 2: We had done probably a showcase in La La is
Speaker 2: like a showcase town back then in New York at
Speaker 2: a theater following, so we just like we had done
Speaker 2: a couple live shows in Chicago. I was touring with
Speaker 2: Second City at the time, and you can wait in
Speaker 2: line there, and that's another way to achieve success, because
Speaker 2: Lord Michaels comes through their talent scouts come through there
Speaker 2: and if you wait in line, you might it on
Speaker 2: main stage and that's a high visibility platform. But we
Speaker 2: wanted to stay together as a group, like Python or
Speaker 2: Kids in the Hall. That was our dream, our voice,
Speaker 2: our unified voice. So we decided New York had a
Speaker 2: potential to build a following. So that's why we moved
Speaker 2: to New York. We gave ourselves six months. We started
Speaker 2: doing improv separate, like we had sketch shows that we
Speaker 2: had rehearsed, and we started doing this free show on
Speaker 2: Sunday Night, which kind of fed our other shows, and
Speaker 2: people saw us doing this thing called long form, which
Speaker 2: is there's sort of like what whose line does, where
Speaker 2: all the rules are set out, like we're gonna do
Speaker 2: a scene, we're gonna say pods and we're gonna give
Speaker 2: you a new film style or give us an accent
Speaker 2: to speak in so you kind of know. And then
Speaker 2: long form is like give us one word, or he's
Speaker 2: going to tell a story and we're going to unpack
Speaker 2: those details and do open improv. We were doing we
Speaker 2: were sort of taking like Marco Polo brought Noodles back
Speaker 2: from the Orient. We were taking a kind of improv
Speaker 2: that nobody had seen in New York fortunately, right, So
Speaker 2: they were like, how do we do this? So we
Speaker 2: started teaching.
Speaker 1: People how to do it. It went from there folkloreically. Okay, so,
Speaker 1: but that must have been tough because you are a
Speaker 1: big Chicago sports fan, right. I am a Chicago sport
Speaker 1: all right, so you're like a big Bears fan.
Speaker 2: I'm a Bears fan, and I'm sort of a pretty
Speaker 2: decent Bulls fan, not a baseball guy Hawks fan.
Speaker 1: It's like that, it's weird. Baseball is the one that
Speaker 1: I connect with as an immigrant American. Yeah, it's weirdest thing.
Speaker 2: Do you go to games?
Speaker 1: I've been a few games, but I mean I'm not
Speaker 1: a huge sports fan anyway, but I mean i've been.
Speaker 1: Here's how corporate my life became. When I was doing
Speaker 1: Late night I've been I think three NFL games. They
Speaker 1: were all super Bowls. Yeah you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, you got to say yes to that,
Speaker 1: Yeah you got to go. But I wasn't going because
Speaker 1: I was Although I will say this, I watched the
Speaker 1: last super Bowl, the one that we just I just
Speaker 1: kind of kind of loved it. Yeah, you know, it
Speaker 1: was the Swifties versus Silicon Valley and it really played
Speaker 1: and it was you know, it was a fantastic game.
Speaker 2: It was a fantastically was right.
Speaker 1: I'm not wrong because I'm not a football fan, but
Speaker 1: I thought, this is a highly entertaining.
Speaker 2: Game, super competitive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a great
Speaker 2: super Bowl. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it seems to me what I go
Speaker 1: from all American sports, and baseball falls into this too,
Speaker 1: is that there seems to be it's a little competitive
Speaker 1: for fans to retain stats. Like you if you're not
Speaker 1: a real you're not a real fan unless you know
Speaker 1: like who hit the ball in nineteen forty eight, that
Speaker 1: you know that that's baseball.
Speaker 2: Well, it's really stat driven. I feel like, right, more
Speaker 2: than any sport. I think that's the intellectual sport.
Speaker 1: But also baseball has this and just what I love
Speaker 1: is the most American thing I ever heard. It's why
Speaker 1: I became an American baseball almost I think two reasons. One,
Speaker 1: when I was thirteen, I went to I came to
Speaker 1: America for the first time. I went to a bowling
Speaker 1: alley in Long Island, and I tasted root beer over
Speaker 1: crushed ice, and I thought, oh, whatever the fuck, this
Speaker 1: is amen, dumb man, and that sounds amazing. Oh it
Speaker 1: was great. And the other thing is in baseball when
Speaker 1: I heard the like, you can swing and miss nine
Speaker 1: times out at ten, you miss fail nine times out
Speaker 1: of ten, but if you succeed one time in ten
Speaker 1: at bat, you're a Hall of Famer. And I was like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, I can fail nine times out of ten
Speaker 1: in America and I still have a shot at it now.
Speaker 1: Obviously I don't play baseball, but I felt like the
Speaker 1: ethos of that exists in the American psyche. If there
Speaker 1: is such a thing that you can fail and it's
Speaker 1: just a swing and a miss, that's all it is.
Speaker 1: There's no shame, there's no nothing. It's a swinging a
Speaker 1: miss next, And I love that that's not everywhere in
Speaker 1: the world that that.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a failure sport. I agree with you, most
Speaker 2: of it is failure. But like, what about soccer, Like
Speaker 2: they have games where it's won nothing and they've been
Speaker 2: kicking the ball all game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's a lot of fuss and funk all happens.
Speaker 1: But isn't that a failure sport? Too? Like it's a
Speaker 1: failure sport, but it's not. It's somehow. Look if you
Speaker 1: if nothing, if you miss nine times out of ten
Speaker 1: in soccer, you're not a professional soccer player if you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you are, because the goalie is I mean, not miss,
Speaker 1: but not score not score, yeah, score like you. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's just I wanted to see it that way. But baseball,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's what it is.
Speaker 2: It is a failure sport because I turned my kids
Speaker 2: onto it and they didn't like it, at least the
Speaker 2: boys didn't.
Speaker 1: And my daughter played roller hockey for a while. It's
Speaker 1: roller hockey.
Speaker 2: It's just like ice hockey, but you're on your skates.
Speaker 2: It's outdoors here in California. Oh okay, it's fun, full pads,
Speaker 2: it's fun.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it might be quite rough too. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you play football?
Speaker 2: I played football in high school. I did for a little,
Speaker 2: you know, a couple of years.
Speaker 1: I guess you're not a huge man. So are you
Speaker 1: a quarterback? No?
Speaker 2: I was a tight end back then and outside linebacker.
Speaker 2: So okay, I was average, but I was good enough
Speaker 2: to play.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I played a bit of rugby when I
Speaker 1: was Oh yeah, that's a much rougher sport. It's rough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's rough. And when I go to about fifteen, I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not big enough. Yeah, I'm six foot
Speaker 1: two and a half. Are we two hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: pounds at the moment? I weighed maybe two hundred pounds
Speaker 1: back then. Yeah, I'm not small man. No. But but
Speaker 1: the guys who were shorter than me but were made
Speaker 1: entirely of gristle, Yes, it's just running you in. But
Speaker 1: oh my god, like I can't take this. They're made
Speaker 1: of I don't know what's going on here. Did you
Speaker 1: get that with football players as well? Like maybe killed?
Speaker 2: Well, the size disparity is even crazier in football American
Speaker 2: because you have linemen that are like six ten and
Speaker 2: three point fifty and you know, you're whatever, you are,
Speaker 2: six foot and one ninety, Like it's crazy. So I
Speaker 2: got pancaked a couple times in high school football, and
Speaker 2: of course got my bell rung, which is basically I
Speaker 2: got a concussion. Yeah, I had one of those, yes,
Speaker 2: and my helmet hurt and my ears were ringing, and
Speaker 2: you're like, you're okay, just take a knee and get
Speaker 2: back out there when you're ready. Like so but you,
Speaker 2: I think you also know how to avoid it, like
Speaker 2: you can be a coward on the field too.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm up for that me too.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna get I didn't get pancaked off, and
Speaker 2: but I got blindsided a couple times.
Speaker 1: But I go, I go, have you ever had the
Speaker 1: time I got concussion when I was playing rugby? I
Speaker 1: was so embarrassed because apparently one of the symptoms of
Speaker 1: a concussion is uncontrollable sobbing and I go, I like,
Speaker 1: I was like, and they said to you, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. I just don't know why.
Speaker 1: They were like, but are you upset? I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm that put me in like you have to go
Speaker 1: and see the doctor. Oh thank god they did. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it's a weird, weird thing.
Speaker 2: Well at least you didn't go back in the game
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 1: That No, but you know, they still don't wear helmets
Speaker 1: no for that, which I think is crazy. But it's safe.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they say it's safer because you don't risk headshots,
Speaker 2: like true, and it's an NFL. Yeah, they had to
Speaker 2: change the way people tackle because people use their helmet
Speaker 2: as like a you know, the pin of a dart
Speaker 2: or the pin of the arrow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just really hurt. People that would be
Speaker 1: the temptation. Are your kids sporty? Is your wife sporty?
Speaker 2: My my wife's a good athlete. I don't know if
Speaker 2: she was. She was a cheerleader in high school, so
Speaker 2: like her trajectory was like drama and cheerleading.
Speaker 1: How did you guys? Did you meet at work?
Speaker 2: We met at a theater in New York called the
Speaker 2: Upright Citizens Brigade.
Speaker 1: The one in the Chelsea.
Speaker 2: It was twenty sixth Street. It doesn't exist anymore, but yeah,
Speaker 2: was a meeting in that one, I think, and you
Speaker 2: very well could have been.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I used to.
Speaker 2: Was it a basement below the guests? Yeah, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I used to. Apparently if I was in AA,
Speaker 1: that was maybe an AA mean that you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, I'm glad we opened our doors to you guys.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it was. It was. I remember always being
Speaker 1: at the meeting and think, God, I really should come
Speaker 1: here and see a show. And then by the end
Speaker 1: of the meeting thing, I think I've seen a show.
Speaker 1: I think I've had enough for the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to come back.
Speaker 1: So it was your wife involved in drama?
Speaker 2: She was, She was an actor. She did a lot
Speaker 2: of indies and produced like small movies with She came
Speaker 2: out of high school and went to drama school here
Speaker 2: in LA. She grew up in the Northwest, and uh,
Speaker 2: I think we met when she was still like doing
Speaker 2: some acting and some producing like Indiana. That not really.
Speaker 2: She does a little bit of voiceover, but no, and
Speaker 2: she sort of like takes a lot of the care
Speaker 2: of the kids and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a huge job, especially in LA with the schools.
Speaker 1: Good god, I know, oh man, I our youngest because
Speaker 1: we moved to Scotland, our youngest is not going through
Speaker 1: the LA high school system. And I'm very grateful for that.
Speaker 1: You avoided all the meetings and targeting which school to
Speaker 1: go to for the second one from the first one.
Speaker 1: I know, I did them. All I did.
Speaker 2: It is it's like you're going to college every three years.
Speaker 2: You're like, okay, now the eighth grade tour for the
Speaker 2: junior you know.
Speaker 1: And every teacher in LA. And it started at preschool.
Speaker 1: I remember, is the this is the really important year
Speaker 1: this year. I'm like, it's fucking kindergarten. This is where
Speaker 1: you know the trajectory of its life will begin here.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, really, I.
Speaker 2: Kind of feel like if you're going to shell money
Speaker 2: out for private schools, I kind of believe like the
Speaker 2: early years are the most formative for whatever. But you're right,
Speaker 2: it is just play and love. Like they get a
Speaker 2: lot of love at these schools.
Speaker 1: Like just you've got your psychology degree, right, I have
Speaker 1: a psych major. Yeah, right, so that there is a
Speaker 1: lot of thought that like, and maybe it is the
Speaker 1: perceived was in the first five years or the most
Speaker 1: important is that? Right? Would you do you say that
Speaker 1: isn't that's true? Yeah? Right? Or I believe that's true. Well,
Speaker 1: then I'm fucked. You didn't go to school, you were like,
Speaker 1: oh rabbit wild child for the first five years were
Speaker 1: pretty tricky in my family, really, yeah, I think so, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Somehow your coping mechanisms served you.
Speaker 1: Like eventually, I think I managed to hook up with
Speaker 1: a bunch of people who helped me out. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I don't know how well I was coping, and I
Speaker 1: still I still struggle at bit. Yeah, this is an
Speaker 1: interesting thing. If you go, well, how do you struggle
Speaker 1: were you weren't going to let.
Speaker 2: That one go? Your seasoned interviewer?
Speaker 1: You know, I struggle with like, what is the title
Speaker 1: of this podcast? Joy? Okay?
Speaker 2: Finding joy is elusive? Like that's a great title for
Speaker 2: a podcast. And I feel like I read all these
Speaker 2: books or you know, spiritualism or religion or I try
Speaker 2: to like find ways to like challenge myself, and it
Speaker 2: just it always resets to like I don't know what
Speaker 2: I'm doing. Despair sneaks in. It's just like there's no
Speaker 2: easy way and I'm not complaining, it's just disable it is,
Speaker 2: and that I find that sometimes challenging despair is like
Speaker 2: putting up your arms and giving up. I don't know
Speaker 2: that I'm in that mode ever, but it's it's challenging.
Speaker 2: You know, life can be like certainly career is always
Speaker 2: challenging in this town. Like you you look at this,
Speaker 2: and you look at that, and then your lifestyle expects
Speaker 2: you know, a certain amount of like income, and so
Speaker 2: you're like, what am I doing and what's coming up next?
Speaker 2: And you're like, all right, I'll be okay, and those
Speaker 2: there are those things, and you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear you on it. I mean I was
Speaker 1: very aware of it when I lived in La. A
Speaker 1: certain point, I remember sitting down with my business manager
Speaker 1: and him saying to me, he told me the number
Speaker 1: the money that I had to make every year in
Speaker 1: order to not lose money because of how much my
Speaker 1: life costs. And I was like, I'm fucking that's insane, right,
Speaker 1: that's insane.
Speaker 2: And that's when you packed up and move to Scotland.
Speaker 1: It's when the thought process Okay, yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: takes a while. Yeah, it took a little time, especially
Speaker 1: getting out of La, where you know, the myth of La.
Speaker 1: New York has as it's own legend, whereas you know,
Speaker 1: there's a party going on and if you're not in
Speaker 1: New York, you're not at the party. And in La,
Speaker 1: their legend is you don't mar unless you're in La.
Speaker 1: But interestingly, La is one of the most provincial towns
Speaker 1: I've ever been in in my life, because I wouldside
Speaker 1: the city boundaries of La. I don't think anyone pays
Speaker 1: much mind to it. But it's because when you land
Speaker 1: here and you come in and you see all the
Speaker 1: ads for the different shows that are going on with
Speaker 1: people you know and don't like getting jobs and you
Speaker 1: think I don't even heard of that shit, right, but
Speaker 1: it really matters when you live here, right, It's really interesting.
Speaker 1: It's a real hotel California. Feel about it this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it is like and unfortunately we have three kids,
Speaker 2: and like I think during COVID, everybody imagine, like where
Speaker 2: could we live, like you know, like get out see nature,
Speaker 2: start a new life somewhere else or whatever. And I
Speaker 2: think we've always, like like everyone did during that time,
Speaker 2: I feel like, looked at different parts of the world
Speaker 2: or different lifestyles. We could be farmers in Vermont, or
Speaker 2: we could go Yeah, we could stay near your parents
Speaker 2: and start. But it's like our kids have friends and yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, once you have teenage kids, you can move. And
Speaker 1: that's why I had the like my oldest boy went
Speaker 1: to college and my youngest boy was still young enough
Speaker 1: to move.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gap, right, So we just took that gap. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because the talking about the schooling. The other thing they
Speaker 2: say is like, you're you're sort of buying a network,
Speaker 2: aren't you. Like you're you said you you Ford you
Speaker 2: fortuned into some lads or ladies who helped you out
Speaker 2: with your like deficit first five or six years of life,
Speaker 2: let's say, yeah, because and so some ways you're throwing
Speaker 2: money at the belief that this network of middle class people,
Speaker 2: let's say, who have aspirations, because I, you're buying your
Speaker 2: kid that network in theory, sure, and so I remember,
Speaker 2: like I went to college because my friend at the
Speaker 2: end of my senior year in high school was like,
Speaker 2: are you going to college?
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know. He's like, you should.
Speaker 2: Apply, And like I applied in like April and luck
Speaker 2: and got the one state school that still had a slot.
Speaker 2: But it was because my friend had that goal. I
Speaker 2: inherited his goal. I was such like a and my
Speaker 2: parents were like, he'll probably go to junior college. We
Speaker 2: weren't even talking about it, like I would have figured
Speaker 2: it out. But like, I get how you're not necessarily
Speaker 2: buying the education, but you're buying the values of the
Speaker 2: pure group that your children are associating with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that's important. That's why you see
Speaker 1: all these people that go to fancy schools stay together
Speaker 1: in their whole lives. Yes, you know, I mean, and
Speaker 1: it's infuriating, but I can see why it happens, and
Speaker 1: I certainly want to make it happen for my own kids,
Speaker 1: you know. But you know, when you get that outsider feeling,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you get it, I mean, but
Speaker 1: it's the outsider feeling of looking at all these people
Speaker 1: that know each other from Harvard or before you know.
Speaker 1: And I used to get it Bretton all the time
Speaker 1: with Oxford and Cambridge, like fuck, you know, and then
Speaker 1: you you know, you meet these people, spend time with them,
Speaker 1: like Eric Idel or Stephen Fryers. They're lovely people. But
Speaker 1: you know, but I didn't know that. I just saw
Speaker 1: a door I couldn't get through. You go into psychology
Speaker 1: as a major, but did you ever think of actually
Speaker 1: practicing I did.
Speaker 2: I worked on a psych ward for This is the
Speaker 2: show I've never done. Like you know, how you write
Speaker 2: things or movies or scripts or books all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I spent basically two years working doing grad school, doing
Speaker 2: comedy at night with my sketch group in like an
Speaker 2: apartment with like five guys in like a two bedroom.
Speaker 2: And then during the day I was like an adult
Speaker 2: mental health worker, part of the nursing staff at a
Speaker 2: psych ward for twelve to twenty year old teenagers with
Speaker 2: everything from suicide, eating, disorder, gangbanger court appointed and it
Speaker 2: was super intense. And I left college thinking I was
Speaker 2: going to be a counselor of some kind of psychologist.
Speaker 2: You know, not I wouldn't have gotten through med school,
Speaker 2: but I could have been a perhaps a psychologist and.
Speaker 1: As a culty. You still do you think? You know?
Speaker 2: I still am interested in it. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 2: a lot of like the podcast I listened to or
Speaker 2: the stuff I find interesting, are in the world of
Speaker 2: psychology or philosophy.
Speaker 1: I think that I'm amazed, not amassed. I'm intrigued by
Speaker 1: how many particularly comedic performers, stand up comedians, actors who
Speaker 1: are comedic in their people like you who are in
Speaker 1: that almost like a hybrid world of stand up and improvisation,
Speaker 1: and you know, like creators of comedy if you like that,
Speaker 1: are drawn that are actually philosophical thinkers, deeply philosophical thinkers.
Speaker 1: Because a lot of dramatic actors I get pretend to
Speaker 1: be philosophical thinkers and they're not thinkers at all. They're
Speaker 1: people who say words and play dress up with their friends.
Speaker 1: But the comedic thing is packed with it. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that it's because you're trying to decipher the world,
Speaker 1: and you do you you send it through the filter
Speaker 1: of your own dysfunction if you like. The dysfunction maybe
Speaker 1: is the wrong word. It's a judgmental but your own experience.
Speaker 1: So for example, you're talking about you the spiritual things
Speaker 1: or the books that you read and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I became fascinated recently, and I wonder if this is
Speaker 1: something you've come across or would be interested in. In
Speaker 1: the works of the Desert Fathers, have you ever come
Speaker 1: across that stuff? Fascinating? The birth of Christian monasticism in
Speaker 1: the second and third century before Constantine two con Christianity.
Speaker 2: It's like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the apocryphal sort of No,
Speaker 2: it's more more to do with the Council of nicea
Speaker 2: stuff before that.
Speaker 1: You're right, So it's it's the Desert Fathers, Desert Fathers,
Speaker 1: Saint Anthony who lived, you know, it's an Antony that
Speaker 1: lived in the abandoned fort and then moved to a
Speaker 1: cave for and battled the demons in the cave for
Speaker 1: thirty years. He's fascinating.
Speaker 2: And what part of the world are we are? We like,
Speaker 2: we're in Egypt, Egypt.
Speaker 1: We're in Egypt. We're We're in Egypt, about fifty sixty
Speaker 1: miles south of Alexandria and the desert. We're in a
Speaker 1: town called or a monastery called Skeet and in the
Speaker 1: surrounding area, and there's people like but there's other people
Speaker 1: coming in. It's really the birth of the monastic tradition
Speaker 1: in Christianity. But before the church. This church is still
Speaker 1: being you know, Christians are still being persecuted by Diocletian
Speaker 1: and whatever emperor is deciding that, you know, Christians are bad.
Speaker 1: And so this Christianity, which I was fascinated by because
Speaker 1: I'm a product of you know, post Reformation Scottish, you know, Protestantism.
Speaker 1: But when you look at this early Christianity, the Romans
Speaker 1: thought that the Christians were atheists because they only had
Speaker 1: one God. That was a problem with the Jews as well,
Speaker 1: they know one God, that's crazy. And then the idea
Speaker 1: of the Christians were the first people that like there
Speaker 1: were desert fathers and mothers, like women had a place
Speaker 1: in theological thought. You know, I'm not saying that was
Speaker 1: threatening to the Romans, threatening to a lot of people,
Speaker 1: because it was. It was a change. Yeah, And but
Speaker 1: I think what most of what I was drawn to
Speaker 1: with the early Christian Christian Father's thing in that period
Speaker 1: was a guy called Origin of Alexandria who was excommunicated
Speaker 1: five hundred years after he died because he came up
Speaker 1: with this thing, which I thought was fascinating, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different religions that have this. He said,
Speaker 1: there can be no physical representation of God, not even
Speaker 1: in the mind. So God is is is different you
Speaker 1: can't have now. I think one of the reasons he
Speaker 1: was excommunicated because you know, if you're the church and
Speaker 1: you're selling you know, gegos and pictures and you know,
Speaker 1: and chach because if somebody says you can't have a
Speaker 1: representation of God, then it's bad for business. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't really do that. I don't know if that's why.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's much more theological reason. But he's just
Speaker 1: a fascinating a character, and there's a bunch of them.
Speaker 2: Is he saying because it's going to be different to
Speaker 2: everyone there or there is no one conception?
Speaker 1: I think what I think what he's saying is that
Speaker 1: it's like Augustine of Hippo said, is that that God
Speaker 1: trying to understand the mind of God is like trying
Speaker 1: to pour the ocean into a cup. To use human
Speaker 1: sensibility for something like that, you don't have the tools
Speaker 1: to manifest it. So and also what Origin of Alexandria said,
Speaker 1: which I thought was sweet but got him in a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble, is that he believed in a philosophy
Speaker 1: of total forgiveness, which meant then they said to him,
Speaker 1: does that mean the devil too? And he said, means
Speaker 1: everything means the devil to power of total forgiveness, which
Speaker 1: I think is a challenging concept. But and then you know,
Speaker 1: and it was interesting because his father, Origin's father was
Speaker 1: killed by the Romans in a Christian persecution and he
Speaker 1: became a Christian theologian.
Speaker 2: Check that out.
Speaker 1: The fascinating people. And I'm probably not doing it just
Speaker 1: this is a big subject and I'm kind of like
Speaker 1: dipping it in and out of it in a non formalized,
Speaker 1: non academic way, but I am fascinated by it. Augustine
Speaker 1: of Hippo, Evagrius of Pontus, Origin of Alexandria. There, they're
Speaker 1: just fascinating, fascinating guys and women too. The sayings of
Speaker 1: the desert mothers and Fathers. If you get there are
Speaker 1: different publications of it. It's fascinating stuff and very epigrammatic.
Speaker 1: A lot of it is just like tweets almost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so that's like Marcus Aurelius is almost
Speaker 2: like exactly right, Yeah, like that book is really interesting, fascinating.
Speaker 1: He probably wrote many things, but whatever his apparently not
Speaker 1: I mean journal, journal that got published and saved and
Speaker 1: then put out later because it was interesting. It wasn't
Speaker 1: for publication, No, it was just talking to himself, which
Speaker 1: is amazing because me talking to myself is like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it does not like me, like me, like me,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's like my diary would not
Speaker 1: help anybody, I don't think. It's also like.
Speaker 2: They were so so much smarter than us, just so
Speaker 2: like so they knew so much like throughout history, Like
Speaker 2: there's this arrogance about our modern time. We're so smart,
Speaker 2: but like we're not. We're so dumb, and we're getting
Speaker 2: dumber probably, And it's like there was a book I
Speaker 2: was reading about Lincoln and he was.
Speaker 1: Just going to say Lincoln.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he he figured out how to like land surveying.
Speaker 2: He would like work as a farmer during the day
Speaker 2: for his dad's farm, and then at night he wanted
Speaker 2: to become a surveyor. And surveying is all about like
Speaker 2: math and angles and protracting. And the guy in the
Speaker 2: book says, you want to understand how smart people were
Speaker 2: that did this. He's like, just try to solve one problem.
Speaker 2: And I found the book online. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 2: even know what this means, like, so it was just
Speaker 2: like an example of like it's and like you read
Speaker 2: did you read the Master and Commander series?
Speaker 1: Uh? No? I s Russell Crow And that's fantastic book.
Speaker 1: My wife's read them and she talks about them.
Speaker 2: But they get into like how he navigates with the
Speaker 2: stars or there's like something happens and they're in the ocean.
Speaker 2: They have to figure out how to fuck to fix it,
Speaker 2: and it's just what they know. Like the captain of
Speaker 2: a ship, what he had to know is unbelievable plants
Speaker 2: and stars and winds and angles, and it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I think that was interesting about it as well, because like,
Speaker 1: if you've got Google Maps, you're fine. Yeah, bah, here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Someone else figured out google Maps. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the problems we are having now
Speaker 1: is if someone else figures it out and you don't
Speaker 1: know it to be true, you're just taking it on
Speaker 1: good faith. If you like, this is the truth, you
Speaker 1: know this map is the truth. This. So it's gone
Speaker 1: from revelation, which is, you know, revelation experience, where you
Speaker 1: believe what the priests or the clergymen are telling you
Speaker 1: because you have to because they know the truth and
Speaker 1: you don't. Then it goes to reformation, where you have
Speaker 1: the right to read all the literature yourself and make
Speaker 1: up your own mind. But now we've returned to revelation
Speaker 1: where you just have to believe what you're being told
Speaker 1: because you don't know for yourself. You haven't broken the code.
Speaker 1: You haven't.
Speaker 2: You know you were being told by the algorithm, not
Speaker 2: by the clergy exactly. Yeah, it's crazy, Well it is.
Speaker 2: And how do you deal with recovering so much? How
Speaker 2: do you deal with social media? And you're youngest, Because
Speaker 2: I have a daughter who's like kind of on TikTok
Speaker 2: and she discovered makeup recently.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not, I don't like any of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I we struggle with it a bit. I mean, I'm quite.
Speaker 1: I'm bullish with it about he doesn't have social media accounts, Yes,
Speaker 1: WhatsApp groups with his friends, yeah, and that's allowed. But
Speaker 1: you know, as the youngest boy, the oldest boy, how
Speaker 1: old is he now? My youngest is thirteen.
Speaker 2: My daughter's twelve. And she got on TikTok. We took
Speaker 2: it off and she got on it again. It's like
Speaker 2: an ongoing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been down that road too, and that's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard, and you don't want to be you know,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to be unreasonable about it
Speaker 1: because I trust my kids and they're good kids.
Speaker 2: They are good kids.
Speaker 1: But you know, there's back people out there. It's like
Speaker 1: when I was telling my oldest boy when he was
Speaker 1: laying to drive, like, I know you can drive, I
Speaker 1: know you're good. It's not you I'm worried about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's them I'm worried about. It's who's out there, you know.
Speaker 2: And it's also about enriching experience. Like you get sort
Speaker 2: of one mind, so you want to develop that mind
Speaker 2: to things that are like because you know, if you're
Speaker 2: if you're in a YouTube wormhole for three hours or
Speaker 2: a TikTok or Instagram for two hours. You just get
Speaker 2: like a hangover of like this is nasty. You just
Speaker 2: feel nasty. It's it's not enriching it. There's no nutrients
Speaker 2: in it.
Speaker 1: I agree, and I have the I don't have any
Speaker 1: social media. I pretend I're good, you know, I pretend
Speaker 1: I do. But I pay a company in New York
Speaker 1: and they put out posts and they pretend they're me.
Speaker 1: And I'm quite open about it, but it's not me.
Speaker 1: I'll stand still for the little videos and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and I'll say the things, but I'm not there finding
Speaker 1: out what you think about me. I don't fucking take
Speaker 1: part in that. Yeah, just in the same way as
Speaker 1: I don't like if I get heckler, I've got to
Speaker 1: stop a fucking show and find out why you forget it.
Speaker 1: And I treat it with great trepidation, not just for
Speaker 1: my kids, but for me too. I don't think that
Speaker 1: algorithm is right for the human brain. Like I tried it.
Speaker 1: I went on that Instagram thing where the little magnifying
Speaker 1: glass and you just like scroll through different things so
Speaker 1: you get you know, it's like this search thing or something,
Speaker 1: and you get like a cat playing with a ball
Speaker 1: of wool rocket taking off, rocket crashing, war atrocity, cute
Speaker 1: animals cuddling each other, you know, funny piece of fifty
Speaker 1: year old stand up old movie tap dance routine, horrible
Speaker 1: genocideal image like, oh my god, this is not no,
Speaker 1: you know, and and the maybe half dozen times, if
Speaker 1: I'm honest, I did it you disappear for like two hours. Yeah, unbelievable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh no, it isn't. No. I mean, if
Speaker 1: y'all can handle it, good for you, but I can't.
Speaker 2: And the other it's one hundred percentury. But the other
Speaker 2: side of that is, like I took great pride in
Speaker 2: like my son when he had an iPad and he
Speaker 2: was able to play this game with like like Tom
Speaker 2: Cruise and the movie where they move a screen like this,
Speaker 2: because computers are the future, like they have, Yeah, they
Speaker 2: have to understand computers, and like during COVID they were
Speaker 2: connected to their friends by facetiming on the iPad. And
Speaker 2: now my daughter like does homework with her friends on iPad, right,
Speaker 2: and so it's hard to get the screen out at
Speaker 2: this point. You're never and she doesn't want a phone yet.
Speaker 2: She she's cool with like, but she has her iPad
Speaker 2: after school, and the only thing she wants to do
Speaker 2: once she's done her homework is get on the get
Speaker 2: on the iPad out and chat with her friend and
Speaker 2: then they'll play a dumb game or.
Speaker 1: They'll talk about maybe that's better than being at the mall,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It probably is in her
Speaker 1: room and we know where she is.
Speaker 2: But the you know, the perfect parenting would be like
Speaker 2: go outside and climb a tree, or you know, I
Speaker 2: would be in.
Speaker 1: Some creepy guys up the tree. I mean it's like you'd.
Speaker 2: Be making her learn a piano recital or something like
Speaker 2: I'd be pounding her that way, you know, strictly.
Speaker 1: But anyways, I don't know that there is perfect parenting,
Speaker 1: No there is.
Speaker 2: She said, they're good kids, Like, yeah, we really do
Speaker 2: have good kids, and I'm sure you do too, and
Speaker 2: that's that's not easy either. So I'm grateful for you know.
Speaker 1: And also, I'm not anti technology. I'm cerlling no anti computers,
Speaker 1: I mean, not even anti AI. I was talking on
Speaker 1: this very podcast. I was talking to a surgeon who
Speaker 1: was talking about the AI and how it approaches surgery
Speaker 1: and how much more accurate robotic surgery can be than
Speaker 1: human surgeon now, and he was like, I'm one hundred
Speaker 1: percent for AI. The benefits are way outweigh the scare
Speaker 1: things about you know, terminator and stuff. He's like, that's
Speaker 1: not computers aren't interested to take What are they going
Speaker 1: to do, like steal a beach resort or something that's
Speaker 1: not Like, there's nothing in it.
Speaker 2: For him, there's so much more consistent than human beings
Speaker 2: they can. Yeah, I agree, but.
Speaker 1: It's just this unfettered imagery. I I don't know. I
Speaker 1: like to choose what I look at. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think sometimes with the social media. I'm not anti you know, technology,
Speaker 1: but I'm I'm I feel like that stuff. I haven't
Speaker 1: figured out how I could work with that yet. Well,
Speaker 1: it's solved in it.
Speaker 2: And it's also the muscle of deep thought, like in
Speaker 2: the way that like I can read really focused when
Speaker 2: I'm on an airplane. There's something about that fuselage and
Speaker 2: that hum of the engine. I can get lost in
Speaker 2: a book. There are very few places in life because
Speaker 2: I have add and because I'm not super intelligent whatever.
Speaker 1: But that's why coke didn't work for you, by the way, probably,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, Yeah, it was like I was.
Speaker 2: Addicted to nicotine gum for many years, which was my
Speaker 2: cocaine because it acts on the same center. But like
Speaker 2: deep thought works for me in a in a maybe
Speaker 2: early morning for a moment, or in a plane, and
Speaker 2: so I think all that scrolling weakens the deep thought muscle.
Speaker 1: I think you're right, and that's what we have to
Speaker 1: lines for me anyway. I mean I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: know about how anyone else does, but I can fair enough.
Speaker 1: You know what. I think we're out of time here
Speaker 1: to be honest. I think you and me we solved it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we know.
Speaker 2: Are we irrelevant?
Speaker 1: Do we? Some?
Speaker 2: Once we started talking about kids, I'm sorry, you.
Speaker 1: Know what the thing is about the I don't fucking care.
Speaker 1: I've reached a point where I'm like, look, nobody made
Speaker 1: you fucking listen. Well, it's like joy.
Speaker 2: You said, what brings your shows about joy? Like you're
Speaker 2: just searching. I think joy is like simple things, you know,
Speaker 2: stupid simple things. Laughter. You try to find as much
Speaker 2: laughter as you can and laughter. This is really cornball.
Speaker 2: But in that Lincoln book, his laughter was an act
Speaker 2: of bravery because he struggled with being morose, and he
Speaker 2: was handling the war and so him telling his he
Speaker 2: was always telling stories. Even his aides were like, Jesus,
Speaker 2: I can't be around him. He's always like, tell all right,
Speaker 2: tell us the story. He was that guy. But it
Speaker 2: was an act of bravery too, because like you could
Speaker 2: focus on, yeah, the war and it's we're so screwed,
Speaker 2: and or you could just try to like entertain and
Speaker 2: do something light.
Speaker 1: And you go, you got to try and get some
Speaker 1: balance a little bit, yeah, a little bit not easy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, get the hell out of him