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. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Kids Super Studios here in Brooklyn, New York. I
Speaker 1: am here in the tent, and I am Craig Ferguson,
Speaker 1: and I am the host today of the Joy Podcast.
Speaker 1: Every time there's the Joy Podcast, I'm the host, but
Speaker 1: I'm the host today, so that counts. My guest today
Speaker 1: has not taking ship from every politician he's interviewed.
Speaker 2: Whah, I think is quite predigree.
Speaker 1: He's a great comic and a great interviewer, and he's
Speaker 1: here and his name is Hassan Minaj John. We were
Speaker 1: talking about how at a certain point in the day, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to move to decaf because I can't get
Speaker 1: up all night. P This is all in front of you. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm from the future, and where are we going?
Speaker 2: What's happening?
Speaker 1: Well in the future, when you're my age, you'll have
Speaker 1: to go up and pee like two or three times
Speaker 1: a night, even if you don't have three, well maybe
Speaker 1: not three.
Speaker 2: What are you a doctor? Your my mother is my mother.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's a position.
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing I was going to say, because
Speaker 1: we were talking about this beforehand.
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: So your parents were immigrants, yes, right, and I'm an immigrant,
Speaker 1: and so my kids are in the same position you are,
Speaker 1: was they?
Speaker 2: They?
Speaker 3: They kind of get a little frustrated with.
Speaker 1: My kind of gung ho America stuff because I don't
Speaker 1: know if your parents are the same.
Speaker 3: But I'm like, you know, if someone converts to.
Speaker 1: Catholicism, they feel like they should be a little more Catholic, yes,
Speaker 1: than people who are just like growing up Catholic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm kind of.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of immigrants are like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a with the first generation there very we're here,
Speaker 2: we're here, we met it here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and now it's going to be fine. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Look at this spreading central station. Yeah, crushed up, crushed Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the kids.
Speaker 2: Are like, you know, there's a guy pissing right here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those guys pressing everywhere. But yeah, it's kind of
Speaker 1: It's an interesting thing because I wonder if if I
Speaker 1: you know, if I'm you know, putting into my kids,
Speaker 1: says that in order for them to rebel against me,
Speaker 1: they have to rebel against every because of course it's
Speaker 1: their duty, is the next generation to rebel against whatever
Speaker 1: morals and values and mores than I am? Yeah, do
Speaker 1: you find that? Do you think you did that with
Speaker 1: your own parents?
Speaker 2: Are we're starting this hot? Well? Why not?
Speaker 1: I mean, we could do that, or we could look
Speaker 1: at the idea because the culture that your parents come
Speaker 1: from is Indians.
Speaker 2: Yes, so it might be you rebel against that or yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: so I think, uh, really, what what if I'm going
Speaker 2: to zoom out philosophically, what what actually happened was very
Speaker 2: good yeah, let's zoom it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah philosophically as well. Very yeah, very very happy.
Speaker 2: But yeah, let's put let's pull out on the A
Speaker 2: philosopher is my favorite thing. Let's not do this, Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, go ahead, zoom and philosoph all right. I
Speaker 2: think the big split was, Uh, they came here. My
Speaker 2: dad got here in nineteen eighty two. I think he
Speaker 2: had a vision and certainly America was a particular way,
Speaker 2: and by the time I came of age to live
Speaker 2: in that America, yeah, it changed.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think when he came they were running ms
Speaker 2: DOS as the operating system, and now it's fucking JavaScript
Speaker 2: and Python and yeah, it's all sorts of it just changed, right,
Speaker 2: And So what I what I really was rebelling against
Speaker 2: to some capacity, was I think they had a very
Speaker 2: fixed understanding of what this country is and can be
Speaker 2: and what it can provide.
Speaker 1: I think that's a generational thing for everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that happens. I mean I I and.
Speaker 2: I don't blame them for this, like like who am
Speaker 2: I to Yeah, I mean it will happen to you too.
Speaker 1: You have kids, absolutely, you know, but your kids are young,
Speaker 1: you know, and as they grew.
Speaker 2: Up, but I got seven. I have a seven year old,
Speaker 2: I have a five year old. I can only I
Speaker 2: can already feel it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it does happen.
Speaker 2: So so I don't know if you have this with
Speaker 2: the restaurant QR code. You sit down at a restaurant, right,
Speaker 2: and you go, he can I get can I get
Speaker 2: a menu?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 2: We'll just scan the QR code. Yeah, and I'll just
Speaker 2: start Yeah, welcome to my fucking world. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 2: I get so I get angry, like what what what? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Would you like a receipt?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I would, Yes, I would you like my address?
Speaker 2: Or when they got down a tree and give me
Speaker 2: a piece of pie that I had that I'm about
Speaker 2: to purchase something or I did purchase.
Speaker 1: I still get angry at the Starbucks people when they
Speaker 1: asked me for a name.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I want a coffee. We're not friends, you know,
Speaker 2: And it's like, do we have a name for the coffee?
Speaker 2: The coffee is the name for the coffee.
Speaker 1: And I feel like I'm slowly losing.
Speaker 3: My grip on the on the world.
Speaker 2: You're losing the plot a little bit, a little bit.
Speaker 3: I still like Vinyl, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, well, my thing is is that I didn't
Speaker 2: opt in, mister Thai restaurant. I didn't opt in for
Speaker 2: the q R, right. I came to have lunch with you, right,
Speaker 2: not to have you and me be on our phone,
Speaker 2: right and the.
Speaker 3: Data grab that they're taking all of your stuff.
Speaker 2: And see yeah, and they go, just pay, just pay
Speaker 2: on your phone, please don't make me do this.
Speaker 1: Well that I think that's great though, because that you're
Speaker 1: embracing the crankiness pretty young, pretty young, But that's good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well into it, make it part of your life.
Speaker 1: But of course that kind kind of dissatisfaction and borderline missionry,
Speaker 1: I think is.
Speaker 3: That's what makes a comedian though, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yes, we are very good at complaining. Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2: We're just complainers, is what we are. Humorous complains, humorous complainers.
Speaker 2: So when people say we're philosophers, like we're not actually
Speaker 2: providing any solutions, really we're actually just very good cranks.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, here's the thing, though, I would dispute
Speaker 1: with you the philosophers of any stripe of provided any
Speaker 1: solutions anyway.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean that's true.
Speaker 2: Maybe they just maybe just they clarified, yea they clarified,
Speaker 2: you know, even then I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, like this is me being contrarian, because yeah,
Speaker 1: but the idea of you know, like Socrates saying, now, look,
Speaker 1: I'm any philosophy I know is forgive me is Western philosophy.
Speaker 3: You may know more about you.
Speaker 1: So, but Socrates certainly like knowing the right questions to ask.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I don't know if that's enough, is it?
Speaker 1: But Barnley it was. And then here's the thing I
Speaker 1: was thinking about Socrates recently in cancel culture. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I have this theory like you know, when Athens was
Speaker 1: popping off five hundred BC BCE, the all these philosophers
Speaker 1: were there. I feel like it was like gigs. I
Speaker 1: think it was like the comedy seller. Oh, people, are
Speaker 1: you going to see Socrates? You know, he's got, he's got,
Speaker 1: he's working on fifteen right, he's doing a fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: you know, the Athenone or something.
Speaker 2: But I feel like it was probably like that. It
Speaker 2: was like entertaining for people, and doing the Parthenon was
Speaker 2: a theater gig. But the Beacon, it's it's the beacon,
Speaker 2: or maybe it's the gardens. The garden rhy and but
Speaker 2: there's the seller where you work out your little bit
Speaker 2: of philosophy before you go in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like that happened a lot throughout
Speaker 1: the years of human history.
Speaker 3: I think that, like, here's here's my I pitched. This
Speaker 3: is an idea to you.
Speaker 1: Even like my background is in Christianity, uses in Islam.
Speaker 1: But when we were getting taught about Jesus and they
Speaker 1: would say things Jesus had said, I'd be like, really,
Speaker 1: it's not really that great, I think to say. But
Speaker 1: my guess is a delivery was great. And then so
Speaker 1: I'm guessing saying when Jesus said an ancient Aramaic or
Speaker 1: whatever language is, spad, you know, getting through the eye
Speaker 1: of the rich man getting into heaven is like getting
Speaker 1: through a camel, getting through the eye of a needle.
Speaker 1: I bet delivered correctly in the right language. That's probably
Speaker 1: a great joke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's definitely probably amazing. My technique great at
Speaker 2: an act out right, I'm precuting projecting for sure.
Speaker 1: No microphones, Yeah, like five thousand people, no microphones.
Speaker 2: Let's see that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mister Daily Show, let's see that right, right, right?
Speaker 2: Right? Do you have?
Speaker 3: Do you have?
Speaker 1: Is your background very secular or were you brought up
Speaker 1: quite I was brought up quite religious, really, Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so because I know next to nothing about Islam really
Speaker 1: really honestly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for me though, you know, honestly, I felt from
Speaker 2: a young age my bluetooth was on. Really yeah, I
Speaker 2: kind of I did feel there's got to be something
Speaker 2: more than what what I'm seeing here. Sure and surely
Speaker 2: what's happening right here, this doesn't make a lot of
Speaker 2: sense for me either, right, so, in a weird way,
Speaker 2: the unseen made more sense to me than what I
Speaker 2: was seeing. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, I know it sounds a little weird. No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't not to me, which should worry you more.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, but I think that that that makes
Speaker 1: sense to me. I think the idea of seeking some
Speaker 1: kind of I mean, it.
Speaker 3: Started for me young as well. There's got to be
Speaker 3: more to it than this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, For honestly, I think for me, when I was
Speaker 1: a really little kid, I think America represented that I wonder,
Speaker 1: you know, that it was a place where you know,
Speaker 1: there was more going on, just possibility, possibility and the
Speaker 1: fact that they would you gotta remember, like I grew
Speaker 1: up in Scotland in the nineteen sixties, right while America
Speaker 1: was going to the Moon. I mean, oh interesting, right,
Speaker 1: we weren't getting a lot of information about the civil
Speaker 1: rights marches and stuff, but we got a lot of
Speaker 1: TV about going at the Moon.
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: So so for you. Did you at that at a
Speaker 2: young age? You felt I gotta I gotta go there?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for sure, Yeah, I know it was the thing.
Speaker 1: I just just all the cool, every stuff, everything was
Speaker 1: American and and the like.
Speaker 2: I am totally a.
Speaker 1: Product of American cultural imperially, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: I am.
Speaker 1: I am Coca Cola branded ford More's victim of advertising.
Speaker 2: I'm happy to be it.
Speaker 3: But that's definitely well I am in.
Speaker 1: And it's when you know, when I project this onto
Speaker 1: my children, they're less It's not I'm not saying they're
Speaker 1: anti American right like that, but they're they're just they're
Speaker 1: less enamored by the things I'm.
Speaker 2: In, the shiny stuff that is really Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was taken in by a law and I
Speaker 1: still am. I still am taking them by I like it.
Speaker 2: You know, is it weird if you when you're do
Speaker 2: your kids ever go we should look a look at
Speaker 2: euro up. Look how beautiful and you go that fucking
Speaker 2: old place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because Americans.
Speaker 2: Have the opposite they I love the instrument. I call
Speaker 2: them the Instagram countries. Yeah, Paris is an Instagram country.
Speaker 2: Scotland yeah, yeah, So those countries to me, they're just
Speaker 2: they're they're like whisper Castle Instagram country. Right, you know,
Speaker 2: lady Margaret, No, lady Margaret, you must like they're just
Speaker 2: old period pieces and you go there with your you know,
Speaker 2: your boyfriend or girlfriend and take an Instagram photo.
Speaker 1: It's always it's almost like my wife says, that's about
Speaker 1: rednecks in America as well. It's like poshe people in
Speaker 1: Britain have the same names as American red necks.
Speaker 3: I mean you say, you know been adequ Cumba Batch,
Speaker 3: that's lord. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then you see that same name in America Bennydick,
Speaker 1: combo bag.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like hey Bendick. Yeah, it's like the
Speaker 2: same people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the hyphenated name thing Breton very posh in America, right,
Speaker 1: do it Trampling, you know, it's it's kind of that's
Speaker 1: a great bit, and you know, I think I might
Speaker 1: work it up all right, working out. Hello, this is
Speaker 1: Greig Ferguson and I want to let you know I
Speaker 1: have a brand new stand up comedy special out now
Speaker 1: on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy, and I would
Speaker 1: be so happy if you checked it out. To watch
Speaker 1: the special, just go to my YouTube channel at the
Speaker 1: Craig Ferguson Show and is this right there?
Speaker 3: Just click it and play it and it's free.
Speaker 2: I 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.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: You and I are part of a fairly exclusive club. Okay,
Speaker 1: talk to me, White House Correspondence. Oh that's you.
Speaker 2: Did it when twenty seventeen, this first year. Yeah, well
Speaker 2: he wasn't there though. He wasn't there, of course he
Speaker 2: didn't show up. Yeah, yeah he was actually, yeah, he
Speaker 2: went to the year Seth Myers did it. He attended
Speaker 2: as a guest, right, but he didn't. He wasn't just
Speaker 2: there as a year I did it, but its two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: He was a guest. He think he was there, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, but okay, but he wasn't I didn't reference
Speaker 1: in him in the act.
Speaker 2: Famously bad room, right or did you feel like wash? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Did the sound system work for you? No, it's just
Speaker 2: a shitty as you would imagine. It's I mean, I
Speaker 2: feel like they could get it bare. I mean, you
Speaker 2: are at a Hilton in Washington, d C. And it
Speaker 2: feels like it right, totally. The sound system was awful.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this about me, but
Speaker 1: I have an accent apparently, which you know that was.
Speaker 3: A little tricky too.
Speaker 2: I mean it went okay, yeah, but.
Speaker 3: I felt like it was I felt like it was
Speaker 3: like a dream.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it did feel like a dream because
Speaker 2: you're seeing famous people out there, but in weird kind
Speaker 2: of yeah, because what you're seeing is you're You're like,
Speaker 2: there's there's Wolf Blitzer, right, and there's a man named
Speaker 2: Wolf Blitzer, right, which is a very funny thing. That's right, Wolf.
Speaker 2: There's a man named Wolfe Not everyone doesn't have a
Speaker 2: problem with it. And and he kind of does look
Speaker 2: like a wolf a little bit, a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he's raw me. Yeah, he does. He does it
Speaker 2: really maybe or maybe it does Yeah, who knows. We
Speaker 2: can't confirm tonight, but they'll be like Wolf Blitzer and
Speaker 2: then they'll be like the cast of Grey's Anatomy. So
Speaker 2: it's like, you know what I mean, it's this weird,
Speaker 2: you know. Or it'll be like this person played president
Speaker 2: on TV and then and then there's a real press
Speaker 2: the actual chief of staff for the president is here.
Speaker 2: It's this it's a very strange.
Speaker 3: Who were the big politicians there when when you were there.
Speaker 2: Well, he famously did not want anyone from the administration
Speaker 2: to be there, so then there were just other members
Speaker 2: of Congress. So it became it became this whole like
Speaker 2: kind of flashpoint who will show up, who will not
Speaker 2: show up?
Speaker 3: Right, So it became a politicized, politicized thing.
Speaker 2: Right. But to me, I thought that, I mean, that's
Speaker 2: just great comedy fodder, it kind of because the conflict,
Speaker 2: because it's all just tension. Yeah, you know, And I
Speaker 2: think I don't know if you chatted with Colbert or
Speaker 2: Seth Meyers, like a couple of the people who had
Speaker 2: done it before. I had talked to yeah, and they
Speaker 2: told me the room fucking sucks.
Speaker 1: It does fucking suck. I didn't talk to Stephen or
Speaker 1: Seth about it. Yeah, I talked to Drew Carey and
Speaker 1: Jay Leno about it.
Speaker 3: But you know, that's a generational things, like these guys
Speaker 3: said on it.
Speaker 2: Before, they've done it before. Yeah yeah yeah, and it
Speaker 2: is bad but so so. But but but actually, and
Speaker 2: you know this once you once you know, because it's
Speaker 2: all about expectation. Once you know. All right, so what
Speaker 2: is the gig? So they go look at the casino gig? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: I know what this is. Yeah. So when they all
Speaker 2: told me, look, it's it's you are doing a hotel
Speaker 2: ballroom gig. You've done a wedding year, you've done a
Speaker 2: set at a barmit's fa you know what this is
Speaker 2: you do And so that was the first note that
Speaker 2: leveled my expectation. Then the second thing that Stephen told me,
Speaker 2: which was you're going to bomb in the room but
Speaker 2: played a camera one you're playing to everyone now, And
Speaker 2: that was my whole unlock. Did you bow in the room?
Speaker 2: I don't think you bombed. I think I think I did, Okay,
Speaker 2: but when I worked it out at the cellar, it
Speaker 2: certainly wasn't that right.
Speaker 1: But the sailor is like maybe the greatest yeah right.
Speaker 2: But but I'm working out of the cellar. But I'm
Speaker 2: also doing these like very deep cut references. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm so and so from s NBC is here. And
Speaker 2: at the ten o'clock crow, I was like, what the
Speaker 2: fuck are you? Dog? Are you really making a joke
Speaker 2: about you know, the ten pm anchor on c you know,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I'm making a Don Lemon joke right now,
Speaker 2: you know. And so anyways, once I kind of leveled
Speaker 2: that I just knew and you know this from from
Speaker 2: Late Night, just played a camera one, kind of played
Speaker 2: the room a little bit and it's for everybody at home. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then just kind of stand in it.
Speaker 1: Who who did you run into? Who produced your your your?
Speaker 1: I'm going to say Late Night? So because that's kind
Speaker 1: of I feel like it is like it because for me,
Speaker 1: getting the right producer for these things is like, if
Speaker 1: you get it wrong, you're you're never gonna do Yes,
Speaker 1: it's never gonna work.
Speaker 2: I'm lucky, man. I I found early on, when I
Speaker 2: was doing open mics and stuff, I found a really
Speaker 2: great comedian friend of mine named Pashan Banker Ramana John.
Speaker 2: He became kind of a co writer, co producer. We
Speaker 2: were do shit together and at the time, I didn't
Speaker 2: know that would be kind of like my future collaborator.
Speaker 2: But we really were like two musicians working together. That's great,
Speaker 2: and it was so he knew my voice. He also
Speaker 2: knew how to kind of control me editorially. He knew,
Speaker 2: you know, he's going off the rails a little bit,
Speaker 2: but let him and then all right, we'll get to
Speaker 2: the idea here. He also helped me clarify a lot. Okay,
Speaker 2: what are you trying to say here? Right?
Speaker 1: I had great producers, by the guy Pierre Le Sally,
Speaker 1: who was my guy. And Pierre used to say to me,
Speaker 1: especially about jokes. He'd say, is it worth it?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Interesting?
Speaker 3: And I would you know, some days, some days it
Speaker 3: was worth it.
Speaker 2: You know, some days it.
Speaker 1: Was worth you know, it was going to be trouble,
Speaker 1: but the joke was worth it. And some days you go,
Speaker 1: you know, this joke, it's okay.
Speaker 2: Is it true? You just use bullet points for your
Speaker 2: monolog Is it true?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: That's incredible. It got that way. I mean what happened
Speaker 1: was it was a process. Well you know, this is
Speaker 1: like you turn them and there's everybody from the corporate
Speaker 1: sure is there, and they want it to be a
Speaker 1: certain way, and you have long conversations about the set,
Speaker 1: like anyone gives a fuck.
Speaker 3: Although this is the nicest set, I think, I know
Speaker 3: this is this is amazing, but this is the exception.
Speaker 2: This is not the rule.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is true. And actually, and no one ever
Speaker 1: talked to me about this. Say, I just turned up
Speaker 1: and I was like, this is this is great?
Speaker 3: Anyway.
Speaker 1: You have these long conversations with corporate a bit sat
Speaker 1: and then they would write because I was doing a
Speaker 1: broadcast late night show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and nobody knew who I was, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Was just like I had won some It was like
Speaker 1: I want a competition, so they I came in and
Speaker 1: they had all these writers who were like you know
Speaker 1: all but like cigars and the.
Speaker 3: Typewriters, and they got it.
Speaker 1: They would write me jokes like, hey, you guys see
Speaker 1: the playoffs and like I didn't even know where the
Speaker 1: fucking playoffs where.
Speaker 2: I don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: But I would walk out and I do this with
Speaker 1: my time and go he did you guys see the playoffs?
Speaker 1: And everyone's like, the fucking you're not connecting with this,
Speaker 1: And I would make fun of me doing that, and
Speaker 1: the meme make in fun of me trying to be
Speaker 1: a la became the show. Yes, but I think that
Speaker 1: with these show as the thing is with these did.
Speaker 2: You know there was two things I just got to
Speaker 2: tell you this because we're finally getting a chance to
Speaker 2: hang in real life. There was two things that I
Speaker 2: think you did that were so amazing that I think
Speaker 2: I didn't realize were brilliant tools that you should always, always,
Speaker 2: always keep, no matter what. Number one thing that I
Speaker 2: love that you did, which is you subverted all expectation
Speaker 2: by acknowledging that nobody knew who the fuck you were
Speaker 2: and where you were in at night. You know, it's
Speaker 2: twelve thirty five am. You know you acknowledged My wife
Speaker 2: didn't even know there was a show after left. She
Speaker 2: didn't even know what I'm saying. Yeah, I got the
Speaker 2: show out the left.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't know.
Speaker 2: The worst one. But but but actually playing low status
Speaker 2: is the thing that is the most countercultural thing you
Speaker 2: can do. So when people go, like comedians or rock stars,
Speaker 2: I go, no, no, we've lost don't do that, don't
Speaker 2: do that, don't do that right now, it's actually one
Speaker 2: of the worst things you can do.
Speaker 3: It's setting yourself up for me, Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of problems. So that so that was
Speaker 2: number one, number one, and then number two that I
Speaker 2: realized what was so brilliant is just meet the moment
Speaker 2: where it is. And so even you doing little things
Speaker 2: where you would come up to the camera and like
Speaker 2: tap the lens and you're just fucking with the form
Speaker 2: to let people know, hey, I'm a person, I'm really here,
Speaker 2: I'm in a studio. That joke didn't work, or hey
Speaker 2: are you are you home? Like all of that breaking
Speaker 2: the form gave you this real liberation which was super
Speaker 2: inspiring for me. I think I thank you and I
Speaker 2: think it was and I try to remind myself still
Speaker 2: to this day that you both you And there's this
Speaker 2: other comedian that you should I don't know if you've
Speaker 2: met Rory Scovell.
Speaker 3: Oh I knew exactly who you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Yes he's a brilliant comment, Yes he is, and he
Speaker 2: is a reminder of this is a live art form.
Speaker 2: You know this, right, Yeah, we're actually just performing live
Speaker 2: on stage. So perform live and be be aware of
Speaker 2: a Okay, this is a when a table and we're
Speaker 2: in this.
Speaker 1: There was such so many troubled people because it actually
Speaker 1: and you try. You ever read these surveys and say
Speaker 1: the thing people are most frightened off is public speaking.
Speaker 1: I'm like, then, I have no idea what that must
Speaker 1: be like, because I would sleep on a stage. The
Speaker 1: most comfortable I get is getting up on a stage. No,
Speaker 1: Evan's all right that? Or you know at home, you know,
Speaker 1: under a blanket. These are the two happy pole Those
Speaker 1: are two.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: It's at home under a blanket or that, because I
Speaker 1: think that you know, you know what the rules are.
Speaker 2: At least I do.
Speaker 1: You know it's like be be funny or or it's over.
Speaker 2: Did you when you started out? What a weird survival mechanism?
Speaker 2: Though it is a weird thing because we still have
Speaker 2: this need to do it. Before we started recording, we
Speaker 2: were talking about how the pandemic I realized now being
Speaker 2: able to do comedy, I thought it was my only
Speaker 2: discernible skill set and ability to make money. That's what
Speaker 2: I thought, Okay, I have to do this because I
Speaker 2: got fired from every other job that I've had in
Speaker 2: my life, so you better be good at this. But
Speaker 2: I actually, because of the pandemic and not being able
Speaker 2: to perform during the pandemic. I go, I actually need
Speaker 2: it for my own sanity, and I think I'm actually
Speaker 2: going to do this until I die.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for better or for worse.
Speaker 2: That's when you're a real comic.
Speaker 1: There was a time I think probably it still exists
Speaker 1: a little bit. But there was a time, certainly in
Speaker 1: like the eighties and nineties, when people were only comedians
Speaker 1: to get a sitcom, you know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: there was a huge comedy but like now, in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, you had your.
Speaker 2: Drew Carry moment right exactly all that. But Drew was
Speaker 2: one of those guys.
Speaker 1: I mean, Drew's a stand up, but once you goes showed,
Speaker 1: that was his thing, you know, is to get the
Speaker 1: Drew Carry show.
Speaker 2: He's a good stand up.
Speaker 1: He's actually a really good standard, really fu but he
Speaker 1: I don't think he really does it anymore. Like I
Speaker 1: can't envisage your life. People still say to me, no,
Speaker 1: like you still do stand up. Like it's like going
Speaker 1: to Eric Clapton. You you still play the guitar.
Speaker 3: That's wrong with you? You can have your own orchestra.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I played the guitar. That's what you know.
Speaker 2: But it's also like, and I didn't realize this, and
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was like this in the nineties,
Speaker 2: but showbiz and I think this is old the time.
Speaker 2: It's such a fickle, not real thing. And so to me,
Speaker 2: I've been now doing it twenty years. It to me,
Speaker 2: stand up to me is the cheap code. Everything is
Speaker 2: the only thing I feel in control of mineus the
Speaker 2: pandemic where it was taken away. Yeah, it was everybody,
Speaker 2: but it's the only thing that I go, like, I'm
Speaker 2: telling you I can do this.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you a true story. When I got
Speaker 1: I was doing the Drew Carey Show. So I did
Speaker 1: that until early two thousands. Yeah, and when I got
Speaker 1: the Late Night Show from doing some kind of thing,
Speaker 1: I hadn't done stand up for about ten years.
Speaker 3: I'd been doing independent movies.
Speaker 1: I'd been doing you know things, and you know't.
Speaker 2: Have the time to do it, or you didn't want to.
Speaker 1: Just kind of moved away from it. Maybe I just didn't.
Speaker 1: It's not that I didn't need it.
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't think about it.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, And.
Speaker 1: Then you know, I was writing movie, I'd writing deal
Speaker 1: at Paramount, and I was writing movies and I was
Speaker 1: making movies and I was doing I was working in
Speaker 1: movies and TV and the when I got the job
Speaker 1: in Late Night, I realized that CBS would First of all,
Speaker 1: they owned me for everything. I couldn't make a television
Speaker 1: appearance or a movie appearance or anything without their permission.
Speaker 1: That was part of the contract. And I knew they
Speaker 1: they didn't ownny for live performance. And I knew that
Speaker 1: if I screwed up, they'd cut my throat and dumped
Speaker 1: me in the East River.
Speaker 3: Really even thinking about it, it wouldn't be a thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I knew that if I was going to
Speaker 1: have any autonomy, because I figured this show might make
Speaker 1: me more famous than I had been, if I was
Speaker 1: going to have any autonomy, I would have to go
Speaker 1: to stand up that it was the only place where
Speaker 1: I would exist as me. And that's when I went
Speaker 1: back into it again. I started when I got the
Speaker 1: Late Night show, I was, you know, I started doing
Speaker 1: you know, the chuckle huts and the yuck yucks and
Speaker 1: all that back into it again on the weekends.
Speaker 2: You do yep, yep, holy shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because and I actually had people say to me,
Speaker 1: why are you doing this club? You have a TV
Speaker 1: show where the Canadians in this club won't to be
Speaker 1: on your TV show, Like, yeah, but I I need it.
Speaker 1: I need it, you know. And and actually at the
Speaker 1: time I really did need it. I needed the money too.
Speaker 1: They weren't paying me anything. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: oh shit, you eventually, as you know, but when you
Speaker 1: start out, yeah, right, But I wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: you about how you came to it, because you correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: But my my, my read of you is that.
Speaker 1: You saw comedy that you liked and that's what pulled you.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just the kind of survival school ground bully thing.
Speaker 2: It was like it was you saw a community that's
Speaker 2: it was it Chris. Chris was the one, and it
Speaker 2: was the oh that's allowed, Oh you can do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So what I mean by that is like, at the time,
Speaker 2: I was bagging groceries at a grocery store chain called Safeway.
Speaker 2: I know the store, Okay, depending on where I got
Speaker 2: the Safe Way off Mace Boulevard Parent Companies Vonds. But yeah,
Speaker 2: depending on where I go and I'm doing stand up,
Speaker 2: I'll I'll change it to Kroger's or or whatever. But
Speaker 2: I was as a courtesy clerk at h that safeway,
Speaker 2: which was very funny by the way they call it
Speaker 2: courtesy clerk. I'm just bagging. I'm bagging liketes clerk. Yeah, sure, sure,
Speaker 2: it sounds like a character. I'm in waste receptical management. Oh,
Speaker 2: got it all right, so your garbage manage, right, So,
Speaker 2: uh so I'm I'm bagging grocery. But anyways, I did that,
Speaker 2: and then I was selling printers at Office Max. And
Speaker 2: if you've worked in corporate America, if you if you've
Speaker 2: had any job in corporate America, there is this decorum
Speaker 2: that really is like jail. It really is like prison.
Speaker 2: And so it was a holdover of what I had
Speaker 2: to do in school and kind of of hi, how
Speaker 2: are you. There's you know, the niceties of life, and yeah,
Speaker 2: you can't you can't talk back to a superior that's
Speaker 2: your manager. You can't say it, you know. So I
Speaker 2: remember being in college and this is where kind of
Speaker 2: destiny and kiss all these things are meeting at the
Speaker 2: same time. High speed Internet and kind of napster LimeWire,
Speaker 2: illegal torrents the Internet. Now, other people would download things illegally.
Speaker 2: I would never do that because downloading. That's illegal and
Speaker 2: that's stealing, right that. Yeah, and that's a criminal offense,
Speaker 2: that's right. We do not endorsement, and we don't do that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the kid super Studio never Never, And then on every
Speaker 2: DVD when it says the FBI we're watching it, Hey,
Speaker 2: they're watching you.
Speaker 1: So don't you dare two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: five years in jail?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just for you know, just for copying mission
Speaker 2: to Yeah, yeah, have you seen? Not even like right,
Speaker 2: so why it's not worth the it's not worth the fete. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a great movie. So I'm backing groceries and I'm
Speaker 2: I'm in college and I'm a buddy of mine shows
Speaker 2: me Chris Rock's Never Scared and it's a great special race.
Speaker 2: It's a phenomenal special.
Speaker 3: He's a great comic.
Speaker 2: He's a great comic. But but what he was talking
Speaker 2: about were all the things that would get you either
Speaker 2: fired or sent to HR politics, war, George W. Bush, sex, relationships.
Speaker 2: These are all like just taboo things you cannot say.
Speaker 2: And yeah, man, he he just was saying it, and
Speaker 2: I I go that that to me is what I
Speaker 2: want to do. That I feel all those things. I
Speaker 2: say all those things with my friends. I want to
Speaker 2: do that. I gotta do that. How do I do that?
Speaker 2: And I just started googling. I went on google dot com.
Speaker 2: How do you did you start? Did you literally started
Speaker 2: just going to open mic? You know at the Sacramento
Speaker 2: Punchline that's amazing. Yeah, and just started there.
Speaker 1: So like, what's your first open mic? Like I mean,
Speaker 1: because I I yeah.
Speaker 2: So so long did you do? You only get to
Speaker 2: do three minutes or five minutes? It's crazy, So I
Speaker 2: think that long to say good eat? Yeah, I had
Speaker 2: three jokes. I think the joke was I was living
Speaker 2: at home at the time, and this dates me. It
Speaker 2: was a joke about having landlines and like talking to
Speaker 2: a girl on the phone, right, And then you know,
Speaker 2: I think the jokes was something, why are you breathing
Speaker 2: so heavy? And it's like you're a dad, hang up,
Speaker 2: that's the Yeah, I'm eighteen years old, right, So it
Speaker 2: was like, you know, so it was just a you know,
Speaker 2: dad breaths heavy. You know, Okay, Rebecca, you know you
Speaker 2: think so. So this is like a stupid, stupid joke,
Speaker 2: but I remember it. It kind of connected and once
Speaker 2: you get that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that hit.
Speaker 1: Do you know it's the weird thing. Do you remember
Speaker 1: the first time you died on the stage?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean that was probably maybe the second or
Speaker 2: third set. Yeah, but the first So did your first
Speaker 2: sec so good? The first one went good for me?
Speaker 2: I got I got just enough, Yeah, I got just enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, little bit of the juice like ill come back.
Speaker 1: But you know what I think is weird is that
Speaker 1: because I remember the first time.
Speaker 3: I died, which was spectacular.
Speaker 2: I feel like you're very good at bombing.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm fabulous at it. No one can be ship
Speaker 1: like me. That's I love that. But I remember how
Speaker 1: how I mean it was bad, Like the audience were chanting.
Speaker 2: It was, oh it was.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: It was a punk rock festival in London and I
Speaker 1: was going on between the bands. You ever had that
Speaker 1: do some comedy in the band? So I go on
Speaker 1: between I don't know the spectation.
Speaker 2: By the way, have you had musician musician friends that
Speaker 2: ask to ask you to do fucking Lars from Metallic?
Speaker 2: I said to me, Hey, do you want to open
Speaker 2: for us? I'm like, you know your fucking mind? Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is selfish.
Speaker 1: You should tell me what do you want?
Speaker 2: Me to do it. I love you. They have no
Speaker 2: desire to see you love you. Yeah, I'm not even there.
Speaker 2: Yeah Lawns from Metallica asking you to do that. That's
Speaker 2: the destination wedding. That's how dare you beat the self?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Right right, It's not gonna happen anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm at the between the bands, and I thought
Speaker 1: i'd before I was the kid.
Speaker 3: I was a kid about eighteen. Yeah, I'm wearing a
Speaker 3: kilt because I thought that.
Speaker 2: Would be funny, amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I was so frightened that my knees were shaken.
Speaker 1: And it was all these cockney punks in the front
Speaker 1: row and they're likes, he's a nook and it's a
Speaker 1: nooking and they started to try the wh audience shouting it's.
Speaker 2: A knocking hiss, a knocking boot. And I came off stage.
Speaker 1: After like literally got bood off stage, and I remember
Speaker 1: it clear as the fucking bell.
Speaker 3: I go backstage and win. I gotta do that again,
Speaker 3: Like I don't know what all pathology ex.
Speaker 2: Did you fight growing up? Were you a fighter? Did
Speaker 2: you ever get into fist fighting? Yes, okay, so I've
Speaker 2: been in two or three fights, but I didn't know
Speaker 2: I was in the fight, right I got hit by
Speaker 2: I go hey, like, so I didn't know I was
Speaker 2: in the fight. But I have friends that were fighters,
Speaker 2: that would actually fight and tussled with young men, and
Speaker 2: they told me that the high of like you hit,
Speaker 2: or you when you get hit and then you kind
Speaker 2: of I've never felt that, but I have felt the
Speaker 2: rush of anything could happen.
Speaker 1: And well that's the truth about fight, whether it's when,
Speaker 1: whether it's a war between superpowers or two guys in
Speaker 1: the bar.
Speaker 3: Once it starts, and anyone.
Speaker 1: Who knows violence will tell you this, once it starts,
Speaker 1: you don't really know where it's gonna go. Right Yeah,
Speaker 1: people like to, you know, say well we know this
Speaker 1: is going to be over by Christmas.
Speaker 2: I was going to go.
Speaker 3: And I I I am terrified of violence. I hate it.
Speaker 3: And I've been involved in a couple of times, you know,
Speaker 3: when I was a young man and I and you
Speaker 3: never used so I would a gun.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't see it as a second amendic, but you
Speaker 2: never used it as a as a deflection. I would
Speaker 2: always sometimes be I played basketball a lot growing up,
Speaker 2: and I remember I had I had glasses, I got Lasik,
Speaker 2: But I remember I was thinking about this. I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I would also use comedy as a way to get
Speaker 2: out of Sure. I don't always work though, that's the problem.
Speaker 2: I remember it would work though a couple of times
Speaker 2: with me, Like it would be these like guys would
Speaker 2: go out for a rebound and use their elbows. I
Speaker 2: had these big glasses like, whoa easy on the money maker,
Speaker 2: you know, and they kind of they kind of start
Speaker 2: laughing self deprecation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's a that's a good trick
Speaker 1: I've seen people use in Hollywood as well.
Speaker 3: Is that false beta move?
Speaker 1: You know when you get some studio executive and you go, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like it's an interesting game of chess
Speaker 1: with feeling, especially around like obvious, self unaware alphas.
Speaker 3: Correct, that's kind of fun to play that game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I didn't realize at the time. It's also
Speaker 2: you know, us as comics were very good at dialing
Speaker 2: in and assessing what what are we really doing here?
Speaker 2: You know, what's actually going on, and so that I
Speaker 2: think I didn't realize at the time. These were little
Speaker 2: things that I was doing from a young age. Do
Speaker 2: you see do you see your kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, because the definitely a moment in my life
Speaker 1: that changed kind of everything's been a couple of them,
Speaker 1: but having becoming a father is like it's a real
Speaker 1: kind of story.
Speaker 3: It's a real kind of like everything changes.
Speaker 2: How old are your kids?
Speaker 1: I have a twenty four year old on a fourteen
Speaker 1: year old. So Scottish people we were kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, the big orchids in the jungle. Every ten years,
Speaker 1: everything gets pregnant. That's how Scottish people make. That's how
Speaker 1: it's done.
Speaker 3: So every ten years, this is who you are.
Speaker 2: You're sitting there. Oh gosh, you're pregnant, like an eclipse
Speaker 2: of yeah, exactly, so right, you can tell it's coming
Speaker 2: and you can get out of the way. But but yeah,
Speaker 2: my so twenty thirty seven you should expect something again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's when it's going to run round again.
Speaker 2: Well I don't know. If the that and left, I
Speaker 2: think now at this point it would just be.
Speaker 3: Like nothing.
Speaker 2: Maybe the table gets you know, has a period.
Speaker 1: Sure, so but having the kids was something that I
Speaker 1: think all of my the way that I looked at it,
Speaker 1: especially as they got a little little to run a bit.
Speaker 3: When your kids are actually when they.
Speaker 1: Start kind of becoming much more themselves. You know, there's
Speaker 1: not just this little slug. You have to kind of
Speaker 1: wipe and move and wipe, and it's like there's more.
Speaker 2: Stuff going on, wiping butts and feed Yeah, my god,
Speaker 2: how many.
Speaker 3: Shoes have you tied so far this year?
Speaker 1: It's like, my god, my god, these fucking idiots can't
Speaker 1: tie the shoes.
Speaker 2: I suppose kids have loafers, but I'm also shocked. It's
Speaker 2: also crazy, how win did I get tying the shoes
Speaker 2: where I'm like, I'm like, why am I panting tying
Speaker 2: a pair of Congress Hall stars?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that I feel like it's a deep
Speaker 1: cut corn verse on a child.
Speaker 3: That's a lot are you talking about on you on
Speaker 3: the child? Both?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Because I was like, this is my my fitness test?
Speaker 2: Is this?
Speaker 3: If I don't get out of breath tying my shoes,
Speaker 3: I'm good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't even check my game.
Speaker 1: If I can come out on toils, all right, everything's fine,
Speaker 1: it's okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, look, I think the cool thing about
Speaker 2: kids and I think Mulaney was talking about this, but
Speaker 2: I love the way he articulated. This was when he
Speaker 2: was holding his first he was. He goes, oh, there
Speaker 2: you are. I've been looking for you, and I do
Speaker 2: get I got that feeling with them of like, oh
Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't have to do all these other
Speaker 2: things for and love and yes and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh there, it's it's it's here.
Speaker 1: If there is an amount of service now involved in
Speaker 1: your life that you didn't have before, yeah.
Speaker 3: That's what I feel like. That's something really changes.
Speaker 1: And I think that the idea, you know, I used
Speaker 1: to like and like every young man, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to have kids.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then kids. I was like, I can't believe
Speaker 3: I waited so long to kids. It seems strange to me.
Speaker 2: But you know, I have a lot of friends that
Speaker 2: don't have children, and you know, I like, I respect
Speaker 2: everybody's choice. But and but one thing that was really
Speaker 2: powerful for me as just as a performer was I
Speaker 2: remember holding my daughter and thinking about all the times
Speaker 2: I had felt as a child being abandoned even as
Speaker 2: an adult. I called so and so, they didn't call back.
Speaker 2: I reached out for so and so. They never texted back.
Speaker 2: And that pain you sometimes feel of like oh man,
Speaker 2: I needed you there and you didn't really you know,
Speaker 2: or you were you were in a different place and
Speaker 2: that extending of an olive branch and when you don't
Speaker 2: get it back and guys, we hide it really well.
Speaker 2: But I remember holding her and my son went he
Speaker 2: was born and being like, I'll be I can be
Speaker 2: the person that texts you back, like I'll be that
Speaker 2: for you. Yeahs, And that's kind of beautiful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of like you experienced a law of that when
Speaker 3: you were a kid. Did you feel abandoned when you
Speaker 3: were little.
Speaker 2: As you know, as immigrants were in transit, so you know,
Speaker 2: become my mom's doing a residency, so there was a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff that was in your moment New York,
Speaker 2: and then she was doing a residency in Stockton, and
Speaker 2: then you know, she came to Davis and then so
Speaker 2: there was a lot of stuff that was in you know.
Speaker 2: The immigrant story is almost like a mini house renovation
Speaker 2: of like you're never fully unpacked and.
Speaker 1: You know, is the kitchen done? Is it is kind
Speaker 1: of My kids have been through that as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've had like half a dozen houses in the last
Speaker 1: ten years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're just kind of.
Speaker 1: It becomes kind of a habit Yeah. My wife got
Speaker 1: mad at me about it. She's like, we're not moving
Speaker 1: a yet. Yeah, because we moved around a lot. And
Speaker 1: I think it does. I think because she's not an emigrant,
Speaker 1: but she's the child, the grandchild, and so there is
Speaker 1: that kind of understanding of it. Yeah, it's it's an
Speaker 1: odd thing.
Speaker 2: So that I think maybe that was my joy is
Speaker 2: you can count on me, and I don't know. I
Speaker 2: can't do the balance sheet. I don't have the Excel
Speaker 2: spreadsheet for the rest of the world, but I can
Speaker 2: be that for you, and maybe that's enough.
Speaker 1: I think that's I mean, I think it is. You know,
Speaker 1: Jim gaffickin right of course, right. So I was talking
Speaker 1: to Gen years ago and I thought I was talking
Speaker 1: to him about comedic style, and he was talking about he,
Speaker 1: you know, Jem works clean like famously so any like
Speaker 1: he causes like a normal human when he's off stage,
Speaker 1: but he works clean and he makes it, you know,
Speaker 1: a family friendly show.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I'm intrigued by that, and.
Speaker 1: He said I did it at first to see if
Speaker 1: I could do it, and then it became a stylistic choice.
Speaker 3: I I liked it.
Speaker 1: I kind of liked doing it that way and he
Speaker 1: and he does it and he I mean, he's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and I may when I had that conversation
Speaker 1: with him, I thought, so I was doing Late Night
Speaker 1: at the time, and and late night because you're working
Speaker 1: every day. Politics was every day, you know, the politics
Speaker 1: is the thing. You know, every day there's gonna be.
Speaker 3: Something you can talk about.
Speaker 2: You talk about it.
Speaker 3: But it was just at the time, just as I
Speaker 3: was getting out of Late Night, it started to go
Speaker 3: on fire.
Speaker 1: I mean it really became polarizing and people really got
Speaker 1: upset about Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was like war in Iraq, right, warrantar Oh jeez.
Speaker 1: So so as I'm coming out of it, I said,
Speaker 1: well in stand up now this is rounder twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm not going to do any more
Speaker 1: politics ever. Ever, I'm never going to talk about it,
Speaker 1: and I don't and I still don't. And what's interesting
Speaker 1: because I know that you don't try away from that
Speaker 1: all you.
Speaker 3: Were happy to run right at it totally. It's interesting
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 1: Because I wonder how it feels, do you Because I
Speaker 1: used to get hit with this in when I was
Speaker 1: doing Lena If, I did an anti Republican joke, I'd
Speaker 1: have to find an anti democratic joke to balance it out,
Speaker 1: Like standards in practice would say to me, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: you have to balance got it, got it, And so
Speaker 1: it became a thing. I don't think that happens anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't think they would say to you, no, I
Speaker 1: have to do that. Do you do you feel like
Speaker 1: it's is it something that helps or hinders or just
Speaker 1: unavoidable because you're a political animal and you yeah.
Speaker 2: For me, it's almost like what I love about the
Speaker 2: form is if you have friends at journal it's the
Speaker 2: same thing. Why they encourage long form writing is sometimes
Speaker 2: I'll write to myself what is actually happening in my head,
Speaker 2: and it helps me figure out what's happening, and I'll
Speaker 2: just keep writing until if that, to me is the
Speaker 2: point of the bit. It's to actually what the fuck
Speaker 2: do I actually believe? And whether the position is contrarian
Speaker 2: or not, just what what do you actually think? Or
Speaker 2: it's ah, this is another style of joke you can do,
Speaker 2: which is, oh, this is the way it is. What
Speaker 2: if they did it like this? Right? Can you imagine
Speaker 2: if they did it this way? And it's just now
Speaker 2: you're painting a picture in a new way. So to me,
Speaker 2: that's the whole thing of how can I misdirect and
Speaker 2: how can I solve this little puzzles? To me, how
Speaker 2: I solve this little puzzle.
Speaker 1: But what I think is quite interesting about it is
Speaker 1: that right now is if you do the the if
Speaker 1: one reads the room, it's like there's you know, say
Speaker 1: I went into a room and it was a bunch
Speaker 1: of Glasgow Range of supporters and a bunch of Glasgow
Speaker 1: Celtic supporters right be like, I'm.
Speaker 3: Probably not going to talk about soccer today, you.
Speaker 2: Know, And I feel a little bit like that, But
Speaker 2: you don't get excited at the prospect of going. Let
Speaker 2: me see how much I can get away with let
Speaker 2: me see for sure. But but I.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, I'm not sure that my lane is.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, you know what, hey, what about those.
Speaker 3: The wheels on cars or something?
Speaker 1: You know, Like I feel like, not that I've done
Speaker 1: many wheel things, but the yeah.
Speaker 2: You got twenty minutes on wheels.
Speaker 3: I wish I did.
Speaker 1: The The idea I think for me is I just
Speaker 1: became more personal. I became more anecdotal, I became more
Speaker 1: I went that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I actually liked it.
Speaker 1: I found that Oh look, I mean like I have
Speaker 1: reserves of uh pain and sadness and and upset. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm the Saudi Arabia of unhappiness, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like I have so much fucking oh oil reserves. Normal
Speaker 2: people don't understand just how much you're having a ram
Speaker 2: Coo level of sadness, right exactly. I keep going and
Speaker 2: keep going and never run, never run on and look
Speaker 2: at gold of sadness, and I think that the I
Speaker 2: want wonder if if it do you think it affects
Speaker 2: your Yeah, I mean it's bound to affect how you
Speaker 2: appear in the world. Does it bother you?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Man? You know really, what I've come to come to
Speaker 2: terms with and the reason why I love putting out
Speaker 2: working on a new hour and putting out a special
Speaker 2: is almost like Wimbledon or tennis. It's like, let me
Speaker 2: just control the parameters of the game. Okay. And I'm
Speaker 2: sure you maybe have this with your kids, which is
Speaker 2: there's social media and then there's this and the so so.
Speaker 2: Now you're playing decentralized warfare so o wit so so
Speaker 2: we're in a ditch. We're fighting fucking pre world War
Speaker 2: one style, and then now we're also doing drone drone warfare.
Speaker 2: It's like, I want to pick the parameters. And so
Speaker 2: what I love about the stage is there is a
Speaker 2: very to the best of my ability, we've set the stage,
Speaker 2: We've set the parameters of what this is. And I
Speaker 2: like that, and I hope I can keep it that way.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure you had this with film. Film is
Speaker 2: a different medium. Yes, you know, you can be a
Speaker 2: piece of shit, you can be shittier, you can be
Speaker 2: you can be an archetype of a character. Stand up
Speaker 2: it's a different thing. They think they're seeing Craig and
Speaker 2: they're seeing the workings of Craig. And so I love just.
Speaker 1: You are doing when you're doing a stand up are
Speaker 1: you Is that like is who's is that Hassan?
Speaker 2: Or is that is that like?
Speaker 1: Uh, stage Hassan is different from real side.
Speaker 2: I think it's a little bit of both. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think it's a little it's a little bit of both. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And that's what I love. I mean, the whole form
Speaker 2: is joking, not joking. Yeah, I'm joking joking. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's true. I mean it's but let
Speaker 3: me just say this.
Speaker 2: This, This is the problem is that I think Americans,
Speaker 2: and this is why when people talk about they have
Speaker 2: a very difficult time understanding paradox. Indians we understand the
Speaker 2: world as paradox. You go to India, I mean it's
Speaker 2: it's literally the movie everything everywhere, all at once.
Speaker 3: People.
Speaker 2: You go to a street in Deli, someone's being.
Speaker 1: My favorite movie times you've seen are are of course,
Speaker 1: that's incredible, ratest, it's incredible movie.
Speaker 3: Un fucking believable movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't have wrote it up, but.
Speaker 3: I just I'm see.
Speaker 1: When I watched that movie, I was like, man, it's
Speaker 1: much harder to be a movie star in India than
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: These guys are doing.
Speaker 1: Things, acting and being really good and shouting like fuck.
Speaker 2: Me, yeah you have to do it, you have to
Speaker 2: be everything. You a superhero. Yeah. It's it's un unbelievable,
Speaker 2: unbelievable what these guys are doing. Yeah. And so what's
Speaker 2: interesting though, is that even like life in India, it is,
Speaker 2: it is, it has so many multitudes and there's so
Speaker 2: much chaos. Yeah, you understand that there are things that
Speaker 2: are paradoxical. America is very much about well, we have
Speaker 2: to solve a parent and so you can't solve a paradox.
Speaker 2: You have to you have to just embrace it. Do
Speaker 2: you do you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I do, And I feel that what's quite interesting about
Speaker 1: it as well is that and you make an interesting
Speaker 1: observation about Americans as an American, Yes, And I do
Speaker 1: that too.
Speaker 3: I'll sometimes say about Americans like, well, I'm a fucking American.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is an American, and that's imagine an American. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like I feel like here it's much harder too
Speaker 1: to figure out who you're going to upset, or it
Speaker 1: used to be. I think now I think the truth
Speaker 1: is you're pretty much going to upset everybody at some point.
Speaker 1: The trick is to not do them all at the
Speaker 1: same time.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like I don't you don't set off
Speaker 2: all the landlin Like, It's like it is kind of
Speaker 2: an interesting thing because when I when I made a
Speaker 2: decision not to do politics, it was.
Speaker 1: My friends who were on the left assumed that I
Speaker 1: had moved to the right. Oh interesting, And my friends
Speaker 1: who are on the right assumed I was on the
Speaker 1: right and just wasn't talking and it was really interesting.
Speaker 1: It was like, but I'm not talking about it, but
Speaker 1: they make a decision about it.
Speaker 2: But is it also like the older I get too,
Speaker 2: which is I'm not here to also just talk about
Speaker 2: the day to day cartoon characters that take up the headlines, right,
Speaker 2: and you know this with the Late Night Show every
Speaker 2: day those characters change. Take out Dick Cheney, put in
Speaker 2: Stephen Miller. Yea, these are just characters.
Speaker 1: I have to say that one of the greatest days
Speaker 1: in the history on the joke, right, and Dick Cheney's
Speaker 1: lawyer get showed in the face. Nobody died, everybody's happy.
Speaker 2: It's a great joke. Dad, Oh my god. It's like
Speaker 2: you hardly had to go to work that day. And
Speaker 2: duck hunting is very funny. Dug dug hunting. It's like
Speaker 2: everything you got.
Speaker 3: Cheney in a hat.
Speaker 1: Everything would be you know, it should be that way
Speaker 1: every day, yes, but it's not.
Speaker 3: Of course, then that would be like you know, Christmas
Speaker 3: every days.
Speaker 2: But almost like any clips, like when a couple a
Speaker 2: couple days ago when Elon and Trump were Oh it
Speaker 2: was great, the girls were fighting. What a fun day that,
Speaker 2: you know what, it was interesting.
Speaker 1: I remember when that when they go together, I was like,
Speaker 1: this has all the success of Brangelina written, but I
Speaker 1: feel like.
Speaker 2: That was right and something h And then in that case,
Speaker 2: you just kind of sit back and.
Speaker 1: Let let it app let it ste yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And then then let let it kind of let the
Speaker 2: rice cooker explode and that's fun to but yeah, but
Speaker 2: the older I've gotten is also I recognize the there's
Speaker 2: a demand from the audience to go help help me
Speaker 2: put this in perspective. I'm sure they were asking.
Speaker 1: That comes to me from perspective, But no, I think that.
Speaker 1: I think I'm just like, you know, a sad clown
Speaker 1: in the corner.
Speaker 2: Right, well, what is Greig? But nobody nobo think people
Speaker 2: like you look for your wisdom and you're you're you're wit.
Speaker 2: But the older I've gotten I've also realized is like
Speaker 2: there is there's such rich stuff to mine from just
Speaker 2: life itself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, and that and those subjects can be
Speaker 3: and the aging process a very odd way, yes, very
Speaker 3: strange for everybody.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: It's different for everybody and all that, but it's the
Speaker 1: same for everybody. It's kind of perfect for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then and then you can kind of slide
Speaker 2: and vacillate into other random stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's fun.
Speaker 1: One of the things I thought, but the comedy, but
Speaker 1: the politics thing was that if I do politics, people
Speaker 1: are going to stop hearing me. You know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to stop getting jokes to people because they're only going
Speaker 1: to hear the one that made them angry. And then
Speaker 1: they stopped less sure and that, and then it took
Speaker 1: me back to that what Peter la Sally said to
Speaker 1: me in Late Night, which was, this is the joke
Speaker 1: worth it?
Speaker 2: You know? Yeah? Is it? You know?
Speaker 1: And sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. And that's
Speaker 1: that's really what I think. Talk to me about your podcast,
Speaker 1: what you're doing in your podcast?
Speaker 2: Oh man? So the podcast is, uh, it's called Hassemanaj
Speaker 2: doesn't know. But when when my Netflix show stopped, all
Speaker 2: these people that I would end up interviewing would still
Speaker 2: call right, I want to do Hey, I want you
Speaker 2: to interview Mammy. I want you to so I get
Speaker 2: like governors or you know, members of Senate being let's
Speaker 2: talk can you know, can we do a can we
Speaker 2: talk about this?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: I thought this is very unique where it's it's very
Speaker 2: strange to be d m'd by like the Secretary of
Speaker 2: the Treasury, who you are? Yeah, yeah, Tomedian to be like,
Speaker 2: I'm on their social team.
Speaker 3: Do you want?
Speaker 2: So I was like, what what do I do with this?
Speaker 2: Can you get on the phone let's chat? And so
Speaker 2: I said, all right, let me let me just have
Speaker 2: the conversation where I can basically be I'm basically a
Speaker 2: stand in for the public.
Speaker 3: I just get to ask me the questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is how I think I feel
Speaker 2: about this. I clearly don't know everything there is to
Speaker 2: know about the subject, but look, let me just be
Speaker 2: a stand in for the public and just kind of
Speaker 2: ask you how we feel.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting thing. I I whenever it's very rare
Speaker 1: for me. You've done a lot more or less than
Speaker 1: I have. But I whenever I've interviewed politicians, I find
Speaker 1: myself a little frustrated. Yeah. Sure, I feel like because
Speaker 1: a part of their media training, Yeah, which is right
Speaker 1: there they kind of bristles with me.
Speaker 3: But the media training is they're always told to stay
Speaker 3: on message.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, like I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't want your fucking message. I want you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that's a great talking point. Yeah, can
Speaker 2: you answer the question though, Yeah, I love that, and
Speaker 2: and you sound like a human capture. But can you
Speaker 2: tell me why? You know why this makes no sense? Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, And it's it's it's those little moments of
Speaker 2: just like popping the bubble, which is, hey, I know
Speaker 2: that you do a million zoom calls where you can
Speaker 2: kind of have these haikus of nothing right, but I
Speaker 2: literally don't know what you said. Yeah, you spoke for
Speaker 2: that three minutes. None of it made sense. And it's funny.
Speaker 1: I think it's great that you've got the you're you
Speaker 1: can do that, because what is I start kind of going.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I forget where I am, and then I
Speaker 3: just fucking fight.
Speaker 1: I always tried to cut to a commercial break, but
Speaker 1: of course there isn't one because it's podcasting, right, But
Speaker 1: it's uh, but I've never had a politician on here.
Speaker 3: I don't think I would. I don't think I.
Speaker 2: Don't need to. Yeah, do what you want, man, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's I think that's what you want. I think that's
Speaker 2: it right. And I think that the thing is as well,
Speaker 2: is like you know, where are you? Where are you at?
Speaker 2: What do you want to do? Yeah? You can literally
Speaker 2: do anything. We're in kids superstent. Yeah, I literally that
Speaker 2: you want.
Speaker 3: I like comb the lanes vibe. I like kids super
Speaker 3: I like it out here. Do you know a guy
Speaker 3: called Peter Gouber.
Speaker 1: No, Peter Gouber is like he's a big guy in
Speaker 1: Holly was a big successful producer and the other things.
Speaker 1: He's very successful guy. You win some giant hockey team
Speaker 1: and he's super. He's like a billionaire and all that.
Speaker 1: And but goober, I can run into him. And when
Speaker 1: I was in Hollywood and we used to have lunch
Speaker 1: every now and again. And when I was leaving late night,
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know what to fucking do now.
Speaker 1: And so I had lunch with Peter and and and
Speaker 1: he said, he's a older guy, and he said, what
Speaker 1: you have to do is you have to be be
Speaker 1: around young people who have energy and are doing things.
Speaker 3: I said, okay, isn't that a little weird.
Speaker 2: He was like no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: I said, have them around you and listen to what
Speaker 1: they're saying. Don't do any of it, but listen to it,
Speaker 1: and you will feel enthused by.
Speaker 2: That. And he's kind of right.
Speaker 1: And I feel like this place and I like being
Speaker 1: around the energy of that, you know, and people who
Speaker 1: are trying new stuff.
Speaker 3: So what do I want to do? I don't know,
Speaker 3: that's all I don't know. Yeah, this, I like this.
Speaker 1: I like this.
Speaker 3: I like talking to you. I like talking to people
Speaker 3: that I'm interested in talking to.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: If I can find a politician that I'm interested in
Speaker 1: talking to, I'll talk to them.
Speaker 2: They probably don't need to, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: It's fucking hard for me to find one that he
Speaker 1: can be on the talking point. Yeah, very difficult. It's
Speaker 1: really interesting for me.
Speaker 2: The joy that I get out of it is again,
Speaker 2: it's the same feeling I got I get from stand up.
Speaker 2: Let me just say what i've what I feel when
Speaker 2: I when I read about you in the New York Times. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let me just say it. Yeah. So we had this
Speaker 2: general on General McChrystal, who was like a big general
Speaker 2: during the war and Irack in Afghanistan. Okay, right, So
Speaker 2: one of my favorite moments from the interview is I go,
Speaker 2: mister general, do you are you familiar with the Onion?
Speaker 2: Just a great sentence. Is a great sentence, like one
Speaker 2: of the head of the US Army. You from the
Speaker 2: Onion dot com. The onion dot com satirical.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, I go.
Speaker 2: I showed him an Onion headline article, and it says
Speaker 2: US Army continues to defeat al Qaeda by killing every
Speaker 2: single number two in charge. Fucking great headline. General McCrystal goes.
Speaker 2: The sad part is we only killed number three.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And it's just you know what, it's just fucking incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it's just to me. I mean I was like,
Speaker 2: set up punchline. Yep, it's pretty great. It's pretty great.
Speaker 2: It's pretty great. It writes itself. So twenty years of
Speaker 2: a meaningless war to get the Yeah, yeah, he didn't
Speaker 2: know that. He didn't he didn't get it. He didn't
Speaker 2: get the joe, he didn't get the joke. But to me,
Speaker 2: it's just a hey, if that's all I do. I
Speaker 2: said my piece, I said how I really feel about it,
Speaker 2: how many people feel about it? Cool? And and by
Speaker 2: the way, that's okay, Like I'm I am at peace
Speaker 2: with that. I'm very happy with that. I think you
Speaker 2: should be. I'm happy you were here.
Speaker 3: Thanks for coming, Thanks for having me, all right. Thanks