Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Jeff Garlin

Transcript

Jeff Garlin · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sense Podcast.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: My guest today is Jeff Garland. You know him from
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: The Goldbergs, you know from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Jeff, great
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to have you here. It is an honor to be
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: here as a man who reads your newsletters when actually
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: every day pretty much every day. Yea, I love it.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: And I contacted you to request to be on. I
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: want to be clear. You didn't have to ask me.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I requested to be on with you. So Jeff, Yeah,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: how come you're younger and more beautiful in real life?
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I am. I hear that a lot and I don't know,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: but you know, people say that, which also means the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: flip side. I don't look so good on TV. You
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: know where I do look good? I could, ah, you
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: do use the old Warren baby thing. I look good
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: on film, I really do. I'm even thinking of shooting
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: my Next Day and Up special on thirty five millimeter
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: if I don't do it at Netflix. Netflix for bids
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: film for beds film, and I'm a I'm a pro
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Netflix guy. I don't have any problems with the streaming
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: into the theater. It's like you gotta deal with what's
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: going on, which is what you write about all the time.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: It's like, you, sure, I'd love it if if movies
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: like The Long Goodbye or any Robert altmon moot type
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: movie could play in the theater and sustain itself for
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: six months. That's not the world we live in. You
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: have to make that movie for Netflix. Absolutely, So let's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: go back a little bit, okay, or afford at the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: same time, let's do both. Is Wrighty funk hous are
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: gonna be mentioned in the new season of Curb Your Enthusiast.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: He has mentioned, Yes, we did mention him. Um Bob
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: at first had that being Bob Einstein character playing Marty
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: funk Kauser. He at first had pneumonia and we were
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: all talking to him and I am gonna be okay,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: don't worry. And then shortly thereafter, when he was on
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: the end, he found out he had bone cancer and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: he was gone in weeks. It's unbelievable the way life
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: works with that stuff, you know, it's really devastating. I've
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: been thinking about it that you know, you think you're
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: gonna live forever. I have been to have the CML leukemia,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: which is the only cancer there's a pill four. But
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: it wakes you up when I've diagnosed tangers, deal that
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to live forever and there's a limited
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: amount of Now you've had a heart attack, what was that?
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: You know? I didn't have got a stroke? Stroke at
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: a stroke, and I've had heart problems and I've had
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: all sorts of help. Let's start with the beginning. How
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: does one get a stroke? Is there anything about your physicality?
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: It was a purely chance it was. I had back
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: surgery and after they did it. I'm not saying who
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: did Okay, No, it's funny because back that I'd want
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to talk off Mike. I've been to see all the
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: back doctors in l A. Yeah. Yeah, So I went
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: to one of them, who, by the way, excellent, except
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: for after the surgery, my left eye was drooping and
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: my wife would say your eyes ripping and go, well,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: what does that have to do with you know? And
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: then I was so stressed. I had gotten and I've
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: gotten rear ended, which led to the back surgery, and
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I got so stressed and that I developed through stress
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and injury, I developed diabetes. Also, by the way, I
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: want to throw in being fat and not taking care
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: of myself. But that's all it takes to flip the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: domino and you're off to the races. I woke up
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: one morning the room was spinning. I thought I had
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: vert vertigo of some sort, and it turned out to
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: be a stroke, and I started slurring my words. I
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: couldn't stand all that sort of stuff went to cedars,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and nobody took responsibility for my stroke. It was because
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of this, because of that, and I am and have
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: been for many years. I don't want to say fully recovered.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I never was as quick, both mentally and or physical.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Really it was. Yeah, but I'm talking about nuances that
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I know. No, No, I have the same thing when
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I take medication. I complain to my doctors all the
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: same time. You might think I'm fine, But the way
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I connect words and all these other things, I've lost something, right, right, right,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: right right. I really am bad at names more than anything.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I was always bad, and then it went to all
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I forget lots of things. Here's the thing. In order
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: for me to be at my best as an actor,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: as an improviser, as a stand up comedian, I need
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: to have eaten well and slept well. If I sleep
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: well and I eat well, and I exercise. I have
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: no problems. I am as fast as ever. But if
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I don't do all three, it'll catch up with me
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: in two days. Well, what people don't realize, you know,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: because it's a badge of honor to wake up early
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and get no sleep in straight business. But when you're
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: in a creative business, you don't get a good night's sleep,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you can't function, you can't make it either way. Many
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: of the days that I have worked on the goldbergs
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: and or curb your enthusiasm, I've done it on zero sleep.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: And the only thing that you know is like I
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: have a lot of energy early on that day, and
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: then in the afternoon it's just it's over. And then
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: you better hope that you're not filming the next day
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: because that's the recovery day. So that's the day that'll
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: kill you. So let's say you don't sleep at all
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and you work that day. If you've got to work
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the next day, and even if you get a good
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: night's sleep, you're screwed. Two days. It's a two day screwing. Okay,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: So let's go back to the beginning. Yes, you were
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: born in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, June nine, sixty two. So
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: you're not quite sixty yet, you're still in that fifties.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Will you still think you're young? Yes? Okay, well I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: don't think I'm young, but fifties is a delightful decade. Well.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: The funny thing people don't realize, for all the emphasis
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: on the youth, when you get older, life is better, better,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: lay better. My mental steak as compared to when I
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: was in my twenties, you cannot compare the two oties
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: even for their exactly, but you know, it's a secret
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: of aging, even though they push you off the assembly line.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: So what did your parents do for a living? My
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: father was my family had a plumbing supply business in Chicago, Okay,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: plumbing supply? How many general were your parents born in America? Yes,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: and we're their parents born in America. Yes, that's kind
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: of rare, but it's the generation before that that was
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: not born in America. Okay. And then how did the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: plumbing business begin? Um? That was I don't even I
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: actually don't know what led them. I know my grandfather
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: born in America. My dad's father had a jewelry business
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and before I was born and switched to plumbing. Supply,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: and I don't know it was looking for rings that
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: went on. Yes, yeah, maybe, yes, because there's more money
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: in this Yeah. No, I had no idea. And my
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: mom was an actress and an artist who kind of
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: gave up her acting career. She got into the Goodman
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Theater in Chicago and to raise her children. So my
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: mother always lived vicariously through me. And I can tell
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: you this by the way, I know the exact moment
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: when I knew I wanted to be a comedian. Now,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I was funny from I'm not exaggerating nursery school on.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I was always the funniest kid and pretty popular, not
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: an outcast, which is weird. The funny guys usually oh
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: is he annoying? But no, it wasn't that case. It
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: was strange. Now I'm eight years old, this is seventy.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: My parents take me to the Empire Room at the
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: one hotel. It's the oldest hotel in Chicago, the Palmer House.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: So okay, to see Jimmy Duranty. So I'm watching Jimmy Duranty,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and um, looking at jim watching Jimmy Duranty, I can't
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I'm so engulfed in what he's doing. And then I
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: look at the audience and how happy they are. On
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the way home, I asked my parents if that was
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: a job. They said, yes, that's a job. I said, well,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that's the job that I want. Okay. Well, one would
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: say a friend of mine books Oprah for live dates,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I would say, why would Oprah need to do live dates?
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: As you know, Letterman used to say she has all
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: the money, but he says, there's nowhere else you can
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: get that hit from an audience then live right, Well, yeah,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: it's joy by the way. One, It's right, it's joyful
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: and it's purposeful. So she must feel joy and a
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: purpose when she goes out there, because for her to
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: be home alone in a mansion in uh somewhere here
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: in southern California, Hawaii, she's really not in touch with
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: what she's doing or what people are doing. You know,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: if you're mentally made up to be a fat cat,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I think that that's all you know. But if you're
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: made up to be somebody who contributes like Oprah did
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: for so long, you need that. You need that. She
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: can't just sit at home and go I'm done. Even
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Letterman came out to do you. Okay, But This begs
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the question, yeah, you do you need that hit from
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: an audience? UM, I would have to answer truthfully yes,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: but not from an ego standpoint, but from an ego
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: of knowing that my groove is hitting you know, the audience.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: I feel the groove, and that groove I improvised generally
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: my entire set, so I need them. I need to
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: feed off them in order to create new things. So
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: it goes hand in hand. So for me to have joy,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: and I have discovered like I get joy from your newsletter,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: even the dark ones, I get joy from it. And
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: joy is to me what it's all about now, being
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: kind to myself and being joyful. So when I do
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: stand up and the audience is digging me and I'm
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: grooving with what I do, I'm filled with joy. Let's
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: say you have a great night. Okay, how long does
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: a good feeling last. It's it's over by the time
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I leave stage, by the time I go the same
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: with a bad I mean, the only time I feel
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: bad is if I'm a fault for the bad show.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: For example, some nights I go on stage and Jerry
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Seinfeld and I have had discussions on this and we
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: disagree he says, it's always you. You're that you're the
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: one who if you have a bad show, it's because
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: of you, if you you know what I mean, Everything
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: is because of you, And I disagree with that. To me,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: it's a partnership with the audience. If I've hit a
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: group and they've hit a group, it's gonna go up.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: If I had a groove and they are not there.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And by the way, it's about their d n A.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: It's about their job that day, their love life, there,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: how much money they have, everything that's going on in
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: their lives at that moment. As individuals, they bring it
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: in as a group. So I'll go on stage some
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: nights a man, I've got my groove and they're not
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: digging me. As I say one thing. But the one
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: thing that I don't recover quickly from is when they're
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: good and I know I'm not. That one really hurts. Okay,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: let's assume that happens. Yes, why do you think you're
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: not good that night? Because it's it's just it's I
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: can use baseball. You go up to the box and
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: you're swinging. You're like, I don't have my swing. I
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: don't have my swing. I go up on stage and
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: it's like oh, Especially as an improviser, I'm like, oh,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: this is not gonna be pretty, this is not gonna
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: be fun, and my professionalism and my craft carry me
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: through to where the audience might not unless they've seen
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: me many times, know that it's a less than good show.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I've had this couple of times with musicians where they
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: were very depressed after shows because they didn't think they
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: were right and as a professional you can see the
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: subtleties they're talking about. But they got a huge response
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: from the audience. The general audience didn't seem to resident well,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: it goes with that joke. Okay, we're ready, my favorite
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: joke and I'll tame it for this. Actually, don't have to. Okay.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: So a woman goes up to a comedian, this is
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: your favorite joke, period or no, this is a joke
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: that's about this time, And to me, it explains most
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: comedians I know in this way. A woman goes up
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: to a comedian she says, I saw you on Friday night.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: I think you're amazing. I am going to have sex
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: with you. I'm gonna fuck you crazy, I'm gonna do
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: things to you that you've never had done before. It's
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: gonna be the greatest night of sex in your life.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And he looks at her and she's so beautiful, and
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: he looks here in the eyes and did you see
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the early show or the late show? And to me,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: that's it, man, if you saw that, if you saw
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: the show, I wasn't proud of. I don't want to
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: have sex with you. But if you saw the good show,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: let's go sister. Well that's you know, there's a similar
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: line about the music business. It's not about the money.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: It's about the money, right of course. Well that's whenever
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: a player says in sports, it's not about the money.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Don't say that. So let's go back. Um, when you
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: do the show and you improvise, you know, if you
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Richard Lewis, he he comes out with a series of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: notes and he's always looking notes. He's got long long
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: We've toured together many times. So how much of your
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: act before you hit the stage is somewhat conceptual in
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: your brain most of the time? Zero? Really, Yes, Now,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: when I'm on stage, a story I've told before may
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: occur to me for the moment that I'm in and
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I'll go with it. So I have had shows which
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: are improvised, and I have had shows that are without
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: any intent improvised because I told stories that fit in
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: with where my head was going and where the audience
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: was going. Now, talking about The Deer Departed, Robin Williams
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: found a lot of times was the things he said
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: were really not funny. The people were reacting to the
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: energy and the delivery. Now, when you improvise everything, do
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: you think that and it's a good night that the
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: audience is with you or your material is really hitting
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: always the ad it's with me. As an improviser. By
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the way, I don't get any points for being an improviser.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: It's not like you were kind of off tonight, but
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: you get bonus credit because you made it all up,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, especially as I get older
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: now like I'm about to shoot a comedy special in
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: in May. Okay, this is just let's go. This is
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: for Netflix. I actually, as of yesterday it was for Netflix.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: It might be for Netflix, it might be free. Let's
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: just say as if yesterday it was for Netflix, that
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: would assume that ink is not dry. But you made
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: a deal. I've had a deal with Netflix for the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: longest time, so I just still understand the business. Well, no, no,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: it was it was I approached them with a budget
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and and what I wanted to do. They rejected the budget,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: and they rejected what I wanted to do. What I
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: wanted to do is I want to shoot it on film.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Netflix will not shoot anything on film because I want
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: my Here's the thing, there's it's like making a record album.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's like everyone sounds the same. If you
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: watch you said, watch Netflix one after another every special.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: What's different about the comedian? What's different about how it looks?
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: And I'm trying to make mine look to be really frank,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: like the wedding scene from The Deer Hunter, which which
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: by the way, sounds crazy, but my it's it's it's
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: it's the presentation. You're going to be that dark. No, No,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: that just say me speaking at a wedding. I'm giving
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: a toast the special. Hypothetically, if you do it on film,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: much more expensive? Is it? It's not that much more expensive. See.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Netflix doesn't let anything be shot on film. Everything must
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: be four K, six K. I mean you can just
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: transfer it, you think, but they don't want to do that.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Your father is running. Is a plumber? Okay? No, he's
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: not a plumber? Yes? Was it like? And where is
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: this in Chicago and California Avenue? Okay? And how big
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: on the west side? How big an operation is this? Um,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: it's a big building. I don't know how many employees?
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Do you think? Oh god? I thirty? Okay, so it's
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: a big operation. And did you used to go there
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: and help out? I did, which was mostly meant. I
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: watched cub games on a little black and white TV
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: in the front office because it was all day games.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: And I went into a room and just collected different screws,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and then I went where the guys hang out and
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: there were Playboy centerfolds up on the wall, nine sixties
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Playboy centerfolds. And it was very exciting. Okay, So let's
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: say I love going. And then on the way home,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: my dad would buy me a model that was the
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: that was it, and that was so happy. Revel models
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: that a monogram. Did you paint them or just assembled?
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I just assembled them too. It could be too serious.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I love the glow in the dark monster ones that
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: was after my time, A little older than you. But
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: you're at my house suddenly the toilet breaks, can you
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: fix it? No? Okay, so you know nothing. I know
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: how to plunge. Okay, how many a good plun How
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: many siblings are there in your family? I have one brother,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: a younger brother who runs a temple in in suburban Chicago. Okay,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: to what degree do you consider yourself Jewish? I'm a Jew? Okay,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not religious. You don't go to synagogue? I have
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: gone many times. I was bar mitzvahed, but I am
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: not religious. No, although I am very proud of being
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: a Jew, and I do believe in God, but I
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily believe in a specific God. I believe there's
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: a higher power than me, something bigger than me that exists.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, Okay. And that's something
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: you got from a a or is that just something
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: you have? Well, hey, you have to find a higher
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: power as you see it, and for me, it's more
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: like life experience that I believe in a higher power.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: It also is humbling to know that there's something bigger
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: than me. I'm not the biggest thing, you know that
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: gets out of control. And you see people in the
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: world today in different positions, different artists who they think
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: that their ship don't stink like literally, and that's not me.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: I I like to be. By the way, I've had
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: moments of great ego in my youth, you know, and
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: even in my adulthood. I've made mistakes. But I am
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: all about being confident in what I do and being
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a humble person, and so being humble that means I believe.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: And by the way, the higher power to me is
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the universe. I just believe this stuff. Okay, as a
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Jew in today's society, today's world, yeah, are you scared
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: a little bit? Nope, that's not ignorant. I think a
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: lot of craps going down most definitely. I think there's
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: anti Semitism. But for me in Los Angeles, California, doing
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: what I do, I don't. I don't. It's not so
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not ignorant enough to say it's not happening. It's
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: just not affecting me. It's like poverty is not affecting
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: me except on an emotional level when I see it.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: So I don't like to be you know, you asked
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: me what side am I my liberal or where I
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: was before you asked me that, And I told you
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be labeled anything, you know, because
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I am bothered by it's the groucho marks thing. I
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: never want to be a member of a club that
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: would have me as a member. That's really how I am.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: And I am annoyed by liberals, not as much as
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: I am conservatives, but I'm annoyed man limousine liberals out
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: here in l A and the and the political correctness
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: get the funk out of my way. That goes hand
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: in hand liberal stuff. Unfortunately. That's why I'm saying, don't
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: call me anything, you know. And by the way, to me,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: liberal means I'm open minded, you're liberal minded, So I
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: don't get what the definition is. And then conservatives like
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Michael Moore is one of my close friends I love.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Other than both of you being overweight, what is the connection?
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: There were just great friends and friends for I don't
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: remember how long has this been going on. We've been
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: friends for I'll say at least ten years, fifteen years. Okay,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: you're gonna make a point, I interrupt. No, the point
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make is whenever I talked to anyone I
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: know who's got a conservative viewpoint about Michael, they are
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: they write him off and I say, have you ever
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: seen one of his movies? And of course the answer
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: is no. Um. And they don't realize that Michael could
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: sit and have a dialogue with them, he wouldn't be
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: close minded to what their thoughts. I remember, he's the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: one who predicted that the Trump was gonna win because
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: he's in touch with the people that live in his
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: home state of Michigan. He knows and these are not
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: bad people, you know. So this is one of the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: things we're getting a little off point here. But but
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I knew Trump could win because I heard from his
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: supporters all day long. You're writing in the New York Times.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Unless you're on the opinion page, you don't have a name. Okay,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: so people are blasting me go while something's really happening here.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: It is. It did. But the point I'm making so
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the conservatives very close minded, like and I and I
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: lose my crap over that. It's like, please, let's have
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a dialogue. I want to dialogue with the left and
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the right and their extreme views. By the way, if
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: you hear me eating, I'm having mango. It's hard to
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: not have dried mango. Okay, but isn't dried No my
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: nutrition has says that the dried fruit has is easy
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to eat and has much more sugar, way more sugar,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: way more. I rarely, if ever, I get dried mango
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: twice a year. Maybe Why why why is that not
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: talking about an old joke? Tonight's the night? Why is
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: tonight different from all other nights? Well, here's the thing.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: There was some out there. I don't have any of
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: this in my house. I don't need anything with added
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: sugar ever. And this is actually you know, whenever I
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: go with the stuff there, I cannot resist. Well, I
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: do resist automatically. If this was the mango with the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: added sugar, I would touch it. But that doesn't mean
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: it's good for you. That just means that other one's
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: really bad. Let's go back, Okay, you like going back
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and let you know who somebody is, where they come from.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I'll go as back as you went. Were you the
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: golden boy in your family? Uh? Yes? In terms of
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: my mother, my father, my brother and I, we all
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: lived on equal terms. And my mom loved my dad,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: my mom loved my brother. But as I told you,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: my mom lived vicary vicariously through me. So I was
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the favorite. That there's no, there's no doubt about my dad.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: My brother and I used to joke about it because
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't take it seriously. I didn't hold it over
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: my brother or my father, and then I go, this
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: is just nuts. But that was her thing. She I
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: was her favorite. And all her acting stage stuff was
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: done before you were born, or she still continued a
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: little bit. Well, she did after I was born. It's
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: ironic what she did. She did a lot of community theater.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: She was the lead and the sound of music. She
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: did all these things because she could sing and do
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the stuff. She got my brother to be in it,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: really when he was little, and she got my father
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to be the one guy who went on to become
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: a professional. I would never do it, wouldn't be caught dead. No,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: really why because I thought it was stupid. You know,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: when I was little, she wanted to take me to
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the sound of music. I wanted to go see a
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Kung Fu movie, a monster movie, you know something else. Bullet.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: I remember my dad and I watched Bullet together. Thank
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: God for the invention of BHS because we watched Bullet.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I've seen Bullet a hundred times just on VHS alone,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: let alone, owning the blue ray now and the DVD
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and the digital copy and iTunes. Wow, so you have
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: access to it whenever I got a group for bullet,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I can get it anytime I want my eye bad anywhere. Okay,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: So a good student or bad student? Bad student? How bad? Well?
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: I had a d D and I didn't know it.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Plus I was all about entertaining the other kids. And
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: now you know a d D. Today the kids take medication.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Did you ever take mediation? I did not find out
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I had a d D until it was twenty four,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: maybe twenty five. And did you ever experiment taking the medication? No,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: because there was it wasn't around. By the way, the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: term a d D. When I was in high school
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: ever said that just someone who couldn't been I would.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I was a poster boy for that if I had
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: a d D. Because I'm I think I'm an intelligent person.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: So I think if I had a d D, I
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: would have been more successful in school. And I dropped
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: out of college. I went to University of Miami for film,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: but I dropped out to become a comedian. Okay, let's
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: go back your father. Your father was owning a pretty
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: successful business for when he sold it. But this is
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: thing he sold it, Well, my grandfather sold it, and
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: then my father proceeded to he went. We moved from
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Chicago to South Florida, a little bit slower. So your
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: father owned your grandfather owned it, and your father was
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: working there, was working there, owned a part of it.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: He got a piece of it. So did my uncle,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: my dad's brother. So why did your grandfather decide to
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: sell it? He wanted to retire to Florida and didn't
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: want to keep it going. And uh, it was a
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: bone of contention between my father and him to keep
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: it going in by the way, I don't know if
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: it's still called Bilko, but that company went in to
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: be a hundred million dollar gigantic company. Oh that's like
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: you know, you killed my dad, right, Okay, So your
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: father moved to Florida, Florida with my grandparents were down
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: intending to do what the first first thing he did.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: And when we moved down here, he had to have
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: been early thirties, I mean not here, but South Florida.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: And he went first into real estate and then he
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: became and he did this for years. He was a
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: legal administrator. He ran law offices because when he was
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: working in the plumbing supply. He was studying to be
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: a lawyer. But my father also had a d D.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: And with two very wild children, it was not gonna happen.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: And so would you have considered yourselves upper middle class
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: during your I my life varied from lower middle class
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: to upper middle class to lower middle like back and
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: forth in my Okay, but like, did you go on
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: family vacations? We went on family vacations. But we when
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I was very young, during the plumbing supply years, we
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: go down to South Florida to the Beau Rivage, which
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: cost a lot of money, in nice hotel in Miami Beach.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: And then years later I remember we go on vacation
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: to holiday in places. So I'm saying we bounced around.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: And being from Chicago and with the with the upbringing
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that I had, I consider myself very blue collar. Like
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I'm a self a blue collar. That's the Chicago mentality.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: It's a Chicago mentality with sort of now, yes, I
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: had moments of upper middle class, but I never thought
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: of Okay, would you consider Chicago hot dogs and pizza
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: to be the best hot dogs? Yes? Why? Because they're
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I here's the thing, forget why Vienna hot dogs eaten
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: at the at the cafeteria at the Vienna hot Dog
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Factory are about as good as you can get. I
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: didn't know you can do that. You can do it.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: My friend on Clark Street their movies on YouTube of
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: hot dug being made and they gross you out. Can
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: you tour the Vienna Factory? Well, by the way, I
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: don't know, I'm sure you can. Ira Glass did a
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: story on this American Life, or maybe it was for
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: prior to This American Life. He did a story and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: what it was they discovered they they automated a part
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: of their thing and the hot dogs weren't coming out right.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: So they literally had to do a thing where a
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: guy had to wheel him on a cart for this
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: exact period of time from one building to another. And
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: it still does. I don't know how they do it exactly,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: because it wasn't coming out right and what and the
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: color wasn't right? Because what about pizza pizza? It's a
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: deep dish pizza in Chicago. Loom Male Nadies is my favorite, delightful.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: It does not compare to New York pizza. New York
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: then sliced pizza. Come on, that's the best. Actually, I
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: think have you been Have you been to Peppi's in
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: New Haven? No? No, But what I'm saying I understand,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I understand Northeast. We're talking as it eat or is
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: your last meal? What do you want to eat? Geez,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I don't have that. That's like asking me about bucket list. Crap.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I don't have a bucket list. I don't have a
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: last meal. Okay. So, by the way, I'm happiest in
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: a deli. And what do you eat in the deli? Oh?
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: It can vary everything from mazza bride to locks and
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: bagel to a pastrami sandwich to but those are three, Okay.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Can you get a good bagel in Los Angeles? The
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: only bagel that's really good is one called Bagel Broker,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: which is on Beverly just Um east of Fairfax. Really
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Bagel Broke, because you know, a friend of mine from
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Toronto emailed me that Friedman's has a to to bagel.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: There's Montreal bagels, which are a little bit different. It
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: intrigues because I remember growing up a bagel was something
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: like if you you could break a tooth biting into
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: it and that hard shell. Where's bagel's today are too soft.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: But well they're more role like. That's not my but
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: but by way to me, a bagel should be hard
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: on the outside and soft exactly. Yeah, yeah, I know
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: that's go to New York exactly. Well, New York and
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: hard to find it. So where do you move to
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: in Florida? I moved to South Florida Plantation, Florida, which
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: is just west of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And how old
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: were you when you moved? Oh jeez, I was what great? Uh?
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Sixth grade? So was it a hard transition? It was
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: a very difficult transition. The suburbs of Chicago too, And
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: and I get an argument with my I have a
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: friend from New Orleans and she's like, Florida is not
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the South, especially South Florida. And I'm afraid it is
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the South because as much as there's the ocean in
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: a different type of bye, the more you go inland,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of quote crackers, there's a lot of Southerners.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I was the first Jew. A lot of kids but
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: black and white ever met. It also helped me develop
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: my humor, because my humor got me out of fights,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: and then if it didn't thank God. I'm a big,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: strong guy, so you know not, I didn't get picked
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: on as much as so do you think it affected
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: your comedy and your career moving at sixth grade? Yes,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: without a doubt, without a doubt, because um, it's just
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: any adversity or change for an artist as a as
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a kid is good. And I'm not saying I had
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: a dysfunction here or this happened, and therefore I use
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: that negativity to be a comedian. But all adversity for
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: not only comedy, just success makes you more interesting the
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: more you go through. It makes you way. So the
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: advert city and the difference in moving to Florida only
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: helped my comedic perspective. Okay. And at what point you
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: went to see Jimmy Durant in Chicago? Yes? At what
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: point did you say I'm a professional start working on
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: your comedy when I was I? Um, I was twenty
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: years old and I dropped out of school. Okay, let's
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: pause that for a second. You go to high school
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: being melting pot public high school? Yes? And are you popular?
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I'm the most popular kid in school, really, unequivocally. Okay.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: And if you look up my school on the Instagram,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: it talks about me going out and being famous and no, no,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: not God. And by the way, you know it's so funny.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I don't like people having phones at my shows. But
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm not afraid of stayings thing stupid. I
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: know I'll say something stupid, what But what I do
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: know I'm not gonna say is something ignorant. I know
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I will never say something ignorant. I don't have it
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: in me. Will I say something embarrassing and stupid, you
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: bet I will, it's not if it's when, but not ignorant.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: So when I was in high school, I never, by
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the way, I never know when in my high school
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: did that stuff. We were a very tight high school.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: And I'm talking colors, religions. It was people got along.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: The only time there was a period, I remember there
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: was rioting in in Um part of Miami. I'm trying
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: to remember Overtown in South in Miami, and I remember
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: that the blacks at school were a bit agitated, but
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: they're hanging out with the same white guys that were
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: always there. And I remember two guys and there was
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: crowds around him. Almost came to blow as a black
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: and a white guy it was me that broke it up.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: It was with laughs. I got so many laughs that
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the guy shook hands and there was never a fight.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: And were you did you have girlfriends? In high school?
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I dated girls. I was very popular with girls. I
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: did not have until I got married. I was how
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: old were you when you got married? I got married
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: at thirty two and I'm now just about divorced a
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: wonderful woman who I will never say anything bad about.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: And I should get credit for that. I shouldn't get
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: credit for that. Well, why are you getting divorced them?
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: It's just, you know, things run their their thing, you
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. And I want to talk about,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: you know, the deep personal things of that with her.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: But I have nothing but respect for She's the mother
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: of my children. I never understand how people have split
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: up and they hate each other. I don't. I mean,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I get it, but I don't get it. So, but
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: what I wanted to say is, prior to my wife,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: my record for going out with anybody was two months.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Two months. Well, why was your wife so special that
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: she stuck? I don't know. I loved her and she
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: didn't give up on me. I think all the other
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: ones gave up on me, and my wife did not
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: give up on me. God bless her. Okay, so you're going,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: and I had to have a great life because of her.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: I'm a better artist because of her, you know. And
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: and my children. I have two boys, eight and twenty two.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I'm madly in love with them. What do they do
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: all day? Um? The younger one is interning at a
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: clothing company downtown and the older one works on the
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: set of Curb Your Enthusiasm and he's an extraordinarily gifted
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: comedic actor. Now as a father, I go, it's great
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: to say that, But Larry David will say to me,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: James is his name. James is the funniest kid I've
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: ever met. I just look at him and I want
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: to leave. The dude's funny. But trying to get them
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: motivated to see this is your gift. Because I actually
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: talk about this in my stand up. I tell people,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: don't follow your dreams unless your dreams are what you're
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: great at. Let's say you're a singer, you live in St. Louis,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: about to graduate high school, and you're like, oh, do
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I go pursue my dream in l A. But you
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: know what I'm really good at math. I'm great at math.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I say, become a great accountant, and with the extra
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: money from your successful accounting career, because that's what you're
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: great at, buy some recording time, record yourself. How are
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: some musicians play that music for your friends and let
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: them tell you that you made the right decision. Well,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I think this is very wise advice. I
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: think all the time. You know, in the tech business
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: they call it pivoting if it's not working. I mean,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I believe at most is talent, the other is desire.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: By the way, there's so much that goes in, but
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: so many people don't even have the talent to put
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the idea with this. All day long, people email me
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: there's stuff this, but I don't listen to most of it.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: You can't respond because as soon as you tell them
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: they're not great, they go berserk. I've had a lot
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: of bad experiences, but it's rare that someone has the ability,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: never mind the mindset and willingness to do what it
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: takes to make it. You know, when I get to
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the improv, I'm at the improv here in l A
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: most every Friday. There's they have two rooms. I love
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: this room. Called the lab, and before I go into
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: do my show, I stopped into the other room and
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: I just watched one or two comedians. And rarely, rarely,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I mean I think once or twice have I got thought,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: who's that? That's great? The rest of the time it's
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: either oh straight shrugged my shoulders or me thinking to myself,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: who the hell told you this is something that you're
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: good at? Now. This reminds me of going to the
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Fillmore East uh in December seventies see Laura Nero. I
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: was a big fan of Laura Nero. For those who
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: know rock history, the manager was David Geffen because also
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: the manager of Jackson Brown, who we put on the bill,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: didn't have a record for over a year after that.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: But here's a guy playing alone on the guitar, playing people,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: and you, holy sh it, this guy's got it. This
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: guy's got Notarbably, if you don't know the material, whenever
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: you say hey, you're unimpressed. But I can only tell
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: one story like that. By the way, Jackson is good enough.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: He's my pal too. Okay, So you go to University
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: of Miami and then you drop out at age twenty, Yes,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: aged twenty dropped out. My dad insisted that I keep
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: going to school. I went to Broward Community College because
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: he kept on going. You need something to fall back on.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: He didn't believe in it, but I passed auditions my
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: first night at the comic strip in Fort Lauderdale. Okay,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: you no doubt that that I was doing what he
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: had you done to rehearse for that. Um, I was
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: ignorant enough to think that you could rehearse, so I
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: put together. I did a joke. Oh, the worst joke
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: about uh. I asked my teacher if I could can
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: I go to the bathroom. She'd say, I don't know,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: can you? I felt like paying on her desk, And
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: that was my first joke. Then I did an impression
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: of Adam West, which is the only impression, by the way.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: People don't know he played Batman that I do. An
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: old Black man and an old Jewish man and Adam West.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Those are my three, and they're not embarrassing. I think
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: they're very act I would do all three for you.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Here's here's the first. Here's Adam West. It appears to me,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Commissioner Gordon, that the Joker, Riddler and the Penguin have escaped,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: so help me if they harm aunt Harriet. That's Adam West. Okay,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: we've been doing since I was a kid. Okay, here's
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: old Jewish Man. I gotta tell you, we're gonna go
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: down and we're gonna have the most delicious meal you've
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: ever had. The Old Black Man is so similar. It's
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: just changing a few So what we did was we
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: went down and they were qorded us. We didn't never
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: see the microphones. Is then we go down. I got
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: my guitar, I got I'm playing slot and they're listening.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean, They're very they boat. This
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: is what they have between them. You know, it's like
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: I got that, okay forgetting you, but I was me.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: I'm asking a different question forgetting you. To what degree
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: is comedy changed since you started? Oh geez, well, it's
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: changed in one way and one way only, and that
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: is when I started there. When I started, yeah, there
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: was cable TV in two but in general, we went
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: through the same landscape together as people young old. We
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: knew the same references. I could do a Larry Tate
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: reference from Bewitched, and I knew the audience would know
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: who I'm talking about. No longer can you do any
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: pop culture references. It's like there was always a law
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: early on, don't do sports. Don't talk about sports, you
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: lose the audience. Well, I gotta tell you, I think
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: you have a better shot of hooking in the audience
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: talking about an NFL football team than you do talking
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: about pop culture. That more people are together on understanding
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: a sport than they are about any particular That's one
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: of the reasons I think that SNL doesn't work. It's
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: like they used to have all the Star Trek and
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: all the Samurai stuff whatever, and they don't have those
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: hooks because no one has actually seen all these shows. No,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: but that's why. By the way, the only time that
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: they can do good with anything with pop culture is
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: when they do a game show, because that's timeless. Like
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: when I just saw recently with John Mullania What's in
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: her Name or what's the Name? I was grabbing my
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: stomach laughing, which is rare for SNL. It was fantastic.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: But the stuff that they do with with sort of
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: real husband wife characters and same with stand up man.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: So I when I go on stage, what I talk
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: about is life, my life. The audience is life experiencing
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: things that we all share, no matter who our favorite
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: singer is, no matter what TV show we watch, we
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: share certain things and that so it really does separate
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: comics because you really, you know, I'll watch certain comics
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: and I'll go you think everyone digs what you're saying,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: or you think everyone politically agrees with what you're you're saying,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: it's an assumption that's wrong. It's a wrong assumption. You
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: have to talk about what you're It's like it's a
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: fine line. I think it's really important to talk about
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: what you're passionate about, but also taken to account. So
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: you have to present it in a way that an
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: audience knows, this is what you're passionate about, and lo
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and behold if you guys groove, that's fantastic. Like I
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: talk about what you think is funny because it's popular,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Like every time you read about Ariana Grande. We're at
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: a point in pop culture where it's about being popular,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: it's not about being great. The coach Ello lineup, for example.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: So I can say the same thing amongst comedy. When
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I was a younger comedian, if you were a hack,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: a popular hack, let's say Gallagher, it's not like Gallagher
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: would walk into a local club and people would be
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: nice and ask him if he wants to go up.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: You'd be polite because he's fucking galling just because of
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: decent be a decent person. But it wouldn't be like wow. Now,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: I see this in the comedy world, where if you're
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: a famous comedian, whether you're good or not, everybody's excited
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: and they want to put you on. People are so
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: into the fame of it all, as opposed to this
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: person is great. Who's great today? Um? John Mullaney? I
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: just know John Mullaney. I saw him in the two
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: person show on US right with Nick Kroll. I thought
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: that was greatly makes him great? And I say, I
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: know he hasn't quite resonated yet. The jury's out with me,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: but keep going. I think he's the only person who
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: uh Chappelle is magnificent. Um uh, I mean you have to.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: I'm my better at having someone say a name And Okay,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: I understand. I don't like being put on the spot
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: with because I don't believe me. I totally understand. Let's
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: go back, so you decide. So the very first night
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: you passed auditions, how long after that do you stop
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: going to school if I had my way at that moment.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: But I love my father, and it was a lot
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: of fighting on our parts, even though we had great
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: love for each other in respect. My dad was an
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: affectionate kind man um and I had to work through
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: the years. I dropped out of school maybe a year later,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: and then he probably like three years later, four years later,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: told me I'm as funny as any comedian he's ever seen.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Which whatever how I heard from my parents was I
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: was a shiphead. That's not that's what I play on
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: the Goldberg's a guy who calls his kids from runs.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I would never call my kids. Okay, but your parents
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: are not with us anymore, no, they My mom died
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: this past year. My dad died about five years ago.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: But they were around to see your success very much.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: So I dedicated I wrote a book about five years ago.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: I dedicated that to my father. My father, by both
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: my parents not only saw Curb Your Enthusiasm. They were
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: on an episode of Curb Your Enthusist, which one the
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: one where Larry thinks he's saving a guy who's being
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: baptized in from drowning, But what he does is he
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: makes the guy changed his mind from being baptized. I
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: think he was marrying Cheryl's sister. My parents were the
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: group of part of the group of Jews. Okay, okay,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: So at what point you go on you pass the audition,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: At what point do you start making some money? Oh god,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I so I started a comedy of twenty. I didn't
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: start making money until I was twenty six. I think
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: I made twenty in a year. That was in my
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: first year. Maybe that I made money, Um, but you
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: were not going to give up. No. And I had
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: day jobs, you know, like what, Well, my early on
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: I had everything from working. I worked in lots of
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: record stores because I knew a lot about me. Is like,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: I worked in a surf shop. I was the only
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: guy in the surf shop. That was my favorite job
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: because the girls were so nice to me. When someone
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: came into trying to bikini, they called me over, asked
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: me very very kind. Um. So I always had day jobs.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: And then in Chicago, I moved from Florida to Chicago. Okay,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: So what you're doing when you're doing the day so
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: graves over the phone. Okay, Yeah, when you're doing these
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: day jobs, you're living at home. Yes, living at home.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: So how do you decide to boot to Chicago. I
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: wanted to be in Second City. SETV was a big
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Monty Python and SETV were both big influences on me.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: So I knew that Second City, which was the pipeline
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: to SNL and set V, I'm gonna do that. And
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: also I didn't want to move as a stand up
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: to New Yorker Los Angeles yet I checked them out,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: but I would to check them out me. I went
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: to New York for a little while, I went to
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: l A for a while, and I just thought, Nope,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: not ready for this yet. I want to get better.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: And at the time, your act was not improvised. No,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I mean I could. I had improvised, but I didn't
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: know what I was doing it. So you go to
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Chicago and where do you stay? I stayed with my
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: aunt and uncle and then I got an apartment. I
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: had said, how long did it take to get My
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: dad did something wonderful for me. My dad collected rent
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: when I was in Florida trying to make it because like,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: you want to be a comedian, great, You're gonna have
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: to pay me rent. So I paid him rent and
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: then the day I moved out. He gave me all
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the money back, and then I because he knew I
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: wouldn't save it, So I saved this for you. He
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: gave it to me, and that's how I was able
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: to get an apartment. Okay, and you're in Chicago. How
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: long does it take to get into Second City? Oh?
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: It took me years to get into Second City. I
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: started working as a stand up pretty quickly. But Second City. Well,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: the thing is, initially I started in classes the Second City.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: They're not hiring me. I worked in the box office,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: and I worked in the box office with Steve Colbert.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: We worked in the box Was he Colbert then? Or Colbert?
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: He was Colbert? He was Stephen Colbert then. Yeah, he
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: was never Colbert. Okay, let's go back, because his brothers
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: and sisters are Colbert. Well, but but but he he
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: would have changed it to Colbert. I met him when
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: he was probably in his early twenties. Okay, so but switching.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: He's now the king of late night TV. But forgetting that,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: to what degree is being on one of those late
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: night shows beneficial these days? For a comedian? It's not
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: beneficial at all, except that a little legitimacy. So you
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: can say you did stand up on Colbert Show. You know,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: it means nothing. When I was a kid, and when
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: I was a young stand up, I'm saying we still
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: lived in the age where you'd go on the Tonight
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Show and if Johnny gave you the okay sign and
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: called you over, you probably were a star. I saw
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: rose Anne bar at the time. Of course, Dost goddess
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: saw what's his name who hosts the prices right now?
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Oh Drew carry The other one I saw was out
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: of Boston, what's his name? The very dry wit one line,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Stephen right. No, So that that's the world. Then there
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: was Letterman, where if you could be one of the
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: panel guys, Paul Rubens, Pee Wee Herman, Richard Lewis, Jay
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Leno all became stars from that, so you could become
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: a star. Well since then, and there might be an
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: exception or two. No, no stars, it does. I did
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Letterman back in the day as a stand up. People
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: saw it and it meant a lot, and it was
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: legitimizing and pretty big, But there was nobody calling me
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: the next day to develop something with me. I was
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: doing that on my own, Okay, but okay, so how
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: do you ultimately get into your in the box office?
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: How do you ultimately become a member of Second City?
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: In my case, somebody had quit and they had a
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: tour company, tour company to tour during company, someone had
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: quit and they had a space and they just were stuck,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: and so they go, oh, Jeff, you go on that gig.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Next thing. I know, I'm in the company and I'm
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: working my way up. I was fired and quit many
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: times from Second Why were you fired? Well? I was fired?
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Because why was I fired? I honestly don't know. I
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: think it was your work or your personality. Oh I
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: think it was. Here's why I was mostly fired. When
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: I was fired was because I was a stand up.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: There was great competition if you they felt a Second
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: City from the office, although I had the office on
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: my side. The other actors were like, you wanted to
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: stand up? Go do that? And but what was cool
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: was the stand ups thought it was cool that I
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: was doing Second City. I was doing both and what
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: was I think? This is fascinating At Second City. When
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: I walked out on stage, the audience loved me, okay,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: and my other actors didn't love me or respect me
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: so much, flip it around. When I was in stand
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: up and stand up was so hard. I go on stage.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: The audience couldn't We're just like, what what is this?
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: We're not digging this, But the other comedians would be
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: in the back laughing at everything I was doing. Over
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: time and even doubt. But in that period I had
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: great adversity coming from both ends. Now, Second City, of course,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: is a feeder. As you said to the television show
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: and also to SNL, was that a dream of yours?
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Or you just wanted to be on SNL so bad,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: so bad? And did you have an audition? I had
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: a couple. First audition I had, as I'm walking, it's
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: a night. It was the night that Rob Schneider auditioned.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Who else? Um? It was that era. As I'm walking
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: to the stage, this is true, Um, Lauren Michael's left
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: walk doubt not, I don't think because of me. He
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: just had had enough. And I went on stage and
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: I saw him walk out, and my heart dropped. The
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: audience have no idea what's going on? And I told
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: the audience the truth about how I felt. I said,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: I feel it's like my responsibility to perform for you,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: but my heart has been broken. I can't do it.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: They gave me a standing ovation, but I didn't get on.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Another time in New York, I auditioned for Marcy Klein.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: She was the scout and I destroyed. I mean I
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: could not have been And then she proceeded to tell
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: my manager, we're only hiring women now, and so I
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: never got on. And I know that there's a lack
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: of sexiness to me, and I'm aware of it in
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: terms of hosting it now because um, musically especially it's
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: about pop stars. And then in terms of the host,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: who's got who's hot and who's got the big movie.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: If it's not one of those two, you ain't hosting,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: you know, And I'm not sure it's such a badge
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: of honor anymore anyway. Well, no, it nice to be asked,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: but it is nice to be asked, and certainly it
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't have the same thing. Um. But I actually think
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: they're not bad right now. You know what I don't
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: like SNL. Believe it is the political skits. I think
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: they're boring. I find SNL is someone who certainly grew
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: up with the original cast. Too many of it, I
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: watch too many of the skits don't have a punch line.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: No punch line. It's like the the the one of
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: those movies, not the screen movies, the ones that did
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: the parody of the screen movies. Oh yeah, yeah, I
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: can't remember that anyhow, they did a bunch of those.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Everything was a joke of recognition. It's all about Oh,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: if I say this like that and look this, that's
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: all you need. And it's like, no, And by the way,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: I don't even need jokes. I need scenarios. I need
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: to sit you. I think it's all set up. I
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: don't think anybody who's in this kind. I like to
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: work when i'm motivated, But if you're working against deadline,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: people have no idea how hard it is to get it.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: Very David never got anything on the show. That's all
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: you need to know, as I say, But as I say,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: there's the little tiny thing. It's like I was talking
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: to Irving as off manages the Eagles. We're talking about
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Don Henley. But Don Henley is notoriously finicky, shall we say,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: they we're talking about a specific show, and look at you.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: It's that one percent that makes it. The Eagles. You know,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: you think it was no big deal to him. That's
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: one percent. That makes all the difference. Something about the
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: Eagles only recently. And I used to love them when
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: I was a kid, and then I liked them. I've
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: always liked them, but I'm digging them so much, especially
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: their first album. They were really great and great so
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: I know they're still touring and stuff, but I'm I'm
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: about the original. But what it was was so spectacular
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: that that I I maybe took it for granted. You know,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: look for me, it's about retrospect what was going on.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: And they took a lot of crap. Anybody who's that
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: successful takes crap. And they're not really lovable guys. But
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: the Glenn Fry, they had a memorial for him at
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: the Forum that Irving said I couldn't write about, and
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: most people don't know about. It was an amazing thing.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: In terms of the performer, Stevie Wonder and uh Bob
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: Seger came out and did Heartache Tonight. Everybody wrote a
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: single did that, but Don Headley stood on stage and
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: for an hour told the story of the Eagles and
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: if you know your Eagles history. They were originally the
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: backup band for the Step They flew to play a
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: gig in Washington, d C. First gig of the tour.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: The night before. Linda was there and Glenn Fry sat
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: up all night with Don Henley telling him what the
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Eagles was going to be, literally for hours and hours
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: till the sun came up. It's like they knew what
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: they were doing. And but uh, let me try to
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: wind it back here a little bit. Can I just
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: say one other thing? Right? Sure? Of course? I love
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: um uh moments of uh what's it called when people
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: just sort of catch their breath. Um. I want to
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: thank Dan McCarroll on your show for introducing me to you.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: I had the only people who don't know Dan McCarroll
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: right now. He's working in the Amazon Music for that.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: He was president of Warner brother for that, President Capital.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: But he started out as a drummer, Cheryl Crow's drummer
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: that he being drummed in a band called the Grays.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: He is he's managed to survive with many have not.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: He most certainly has. And he is a gentleman, and
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: he's got a great sense of humor. And I just
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: love the guy, and I just want to say he
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: got me, he said, He told me, I had to.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: And then when I get your newsletter or your email,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: and then I I mean, I can look through my
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: mails of what i've my mail, what I've opened, and
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: it's your stuff. I can go through like the last
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: thirty emails and two are opened and there you Well,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: it's kind of funny you mentioned in that, because you know,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: my mother now has dementia and this will not resonate
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: with her. But I remember it's about fifteen years ago.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: I forwarded her an email from Quincy Jones. Okay, I'm
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: actually gonna see Friday night, and I got no response. Okay,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: So I was on the phone lit by saying, you know,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: what do you think about that email I sent you?
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Quincy just just oh yeah, you know, you know Quincy Jones.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Just yeah, I mean, you know the guy. Just I
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: didn't think it was that Quincy Jones. How would you
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: know Quincy Jones? How great is that? But these are
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: these are motivating factors. But anyway, the ideas that she
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: does randomly someone named Quincy Jones, right right? How many
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: other questions? Crazy? So um, you're how long do you
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: just go back? Let's go back, let's go back to Chicago.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: How long are you. They're working in second City being
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: a stand up. I'm there for well, I was there
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: between getting fired, getting hired, my stand up, this, this, doing,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: this appearance, that appearance. I would go live in New York,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: I go live in l A. I went back and forth.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: But at this point, no day jobs. You're just making
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: as a stand up, making it as a comedian. At
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: this point, yes, making what kind of money at the
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: end of the year, varying from I had lots of
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: debt to varying too. I don't know sixty, you know,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: and i'd paid off most of my debt. I didn't
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: pay off my debt really until my early thirties. And
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: then I was out of debt. I was I was
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: broke again, but never in debt again, right, Okay, um,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: so yeah, and then I finally decided I'm gonna New
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: York's where I'm going. Okay. To what degree were the
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: relationships you made in Chicago beneficial to your career ultimately? Well,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: they're all well it's not see eight, It's not the
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: relationships that were beneficial to my career. It's what I
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: learned there that was beneficial to my career. The relationships
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: are all still friends of mine. They're all people I
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: still work with. Most of them. I've hired on even
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: ones who had me fired or didn't want I've had
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: most the greatest revenge of success. And I've hired everyone
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: who was in the company that wanted to get rid
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: of me. I've hired them all on curb your enthusiasm,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: and are they gracious about It'll see, I don't let
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: them know. I find that during the course of my life,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: people who are great to me I remember, and people
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: who are crappy to me, the ones in the middle,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: I don't remember it. Now here's the revenge. When the
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: crappy ones, I'm nice to them, I do great things
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: for them, and they think they got one over on me.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: But I remember, and it makes me so happy. I
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: don't I don't need to tell them. I don't need
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: to remind them. Why do I want them to make
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: them feel bad? Think you pull one over on me?
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: Have a great time. Well, there's certain people will not
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: kind of break too. It's a very limited list. By
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: the way, I won't spend time with those people. I
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: understand that. You know I wouldn't and then you know,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: but then I'm going to new York. That was also
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: the same situation. It was a lot of what I learned,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: but also like my friends that I befriended there, my
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: early friends all got on to great success. Dennis Leary,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: John Stewart, we were all poor together, um, and great
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: friends together. I mean, I love John. John is still
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: a great now. They went on to great success years
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: ago before your success or mine was. How did you
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: feel about that? So happy for them, not jealous, but
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: I was frustrated that it hadn't happened for me. But
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: I was not nothing but happy for them. What are
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: some of the lessons you said you learned in being
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: in Chicago, Well, it's not as much. Look you go
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: through life, you become a better man, hopefully. But for
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: me it was just how to be a better actor
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: looking someone in the eye. My approach when I'm with
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: another actor in a scene is not for me to
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: be better, It's to make them look better. If God willing,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: they have the same attitude, both performances go up. That's
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: not generally the case. You're the one making them look
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: better and they want to make themselves look better, which
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: they don't necessarily do every time. UM. I also learned
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: how to take what I learned from Second City and
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: do it on the stage when I do stand up
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: improvising from an outline. Now, I may have one or
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: two stories that I think of on the way to
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: the gig, and i'll, if I remember, i'll talk about them.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: But in general I don't even have an outline. But
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: when I shoot my special, I'm gonna have a very
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: strong outline. Okay. So now, when you're in New York,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: at what point you said, when you're in Chicago you
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: were trying to make things happen for yourself, like you know,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: it sounded like you know, you had projects, etcetera beyond
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: stand up. No stand up in Second City in Chicago. Okay,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: but what only did you say, I've got to make
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: it happen for me as opposed to waiting for the
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: big breakthrough. Uh well, if you mean what I'm about
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: to say, I can tell you my early thirties, my
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: early thirties, from starting at twenty, my early thirties, maybe
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: when I turned thirty, but around there is when I
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: decided that all I was going to do was worrying
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: about being great. I was not going to concern myself
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: with my career at all that includes head shots. I
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: mean I had head shots, but I wasn't worried about
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: my head shots, wasn't worried about my representation. I worried
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: about nothing except being great. And I've kept that attitude
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: since then. Okay, since uh the early nineties. Okay, for
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: most people, the breakthrough was when you're working with Larry.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Would you consider to be that first breakthrough for yourself
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: or what breakthrothws came after moving to New York? Well,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: you have to understand the Larry thing. Um, I approached
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: him with the idea because I had been before. I
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: want to hear that between moving to New York and
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: approaching Larry, had you approached other people and you tried
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: to make Okay? Yes, I mean yes, I would try
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: to make things happen. And I had development deals before
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: I met Larry. I had delvelpment development deals at CBS, ABC, NBC,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: and Fox. Okay, so and none of them panned out. Okay.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: So when I was writing a show with a guy
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: named Allen's why belt you know? Okay, So Allen's why
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: Belle and I are writing a show uh four um
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: uh CBS, they're looking for a companion show to everybody
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: loves Raymond. It's either gonna be the Jeff Garland program
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: or King of Queens. We know what it was. However,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: in that suite of offices, Larry David shared an office
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: with Allen's Why bell and Billy Crystal, and I saw
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: all three of them. How do you know why Bells?
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: Why bell Um wasn't a quaintance, but he was teamed
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: up with me with the producers. Okay, so they're all
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: in the office, and so I would go in and
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: sit and talk with Larry every day. We knew each
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: other as stand ups, and then one day we went
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: to lunch and he started asking me about stand up
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: and I said, well, if you ever want to do
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: a stand up special, because that's what HBO was interested in,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: I've got a great idea for one. You know, we
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: go behind the scenes of the making of a stand
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: up special and then at the end, you don't even
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: have to do this, right, the special could be the
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: making of you know. It was his idea that I'd
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: be as manager because I just wanted to actually, in
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: my head, I want to be behind the scenes. I
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: just wanted to direct it did anyway, So he insisted
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: I'm as man that I play as manager, and then
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: he insisted that I'd be the executive producer with him. Now,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: I'd never produced anything, let alone to be the executive
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: producer with the greatest comedic television producer of my generation
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: right now, I mean Larry, he wasn't involved. It's funny
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: because I ran into the movies and Santa Monica one
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: day and you reckon. I mean for though, this is
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: before Currer Enthusiasm. That afternoon movie. They said, you know, Larry,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: you know Seinfeld hasn't been great since you left. And
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: he looks at me because the only two of us goes,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: I don't want to hear that. I'm still part of
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: the bla blah blah blah blah blah, which is so Larry.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: But at that point most people had no idea who
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Larry was. They thought it was all Jerry, right, okay,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: And the last two seasons of the show that he
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: wasn't there, I can say, we're really funny but crazy
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: broad All the minutia of when Larry was there and
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: the actual and all that crazy pain of it was Larry.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: So seeing so you can see Seinfeld without Larry, right, okay?
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: And that's what the last two years were a little
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: bit too broad for me, but still funny as hell,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: but not not now. It was that window when you
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: were all sharing an office. It was after that even
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: it was after the finale of Seinfeld, which he came back,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: of course, and it was after Sour Grapes, so he
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: wasn't like both of those. The Seinfeld got a lot
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: of criticism because they're in jail, and Sour Grapes did
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: not do well. He wasn't miserable because of that. He
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: was Larry David. He's fine, you know. But I would
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: walk in his office and we'd sing, truly, because we
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: had little kids. We'd be singing Shirley Temple songs. Um.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: But then I told him this idea. He said, let's
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: talk about next thing I know where with Ari Emmanuel
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: in Chris all Breck's office HBO, and we pitched the
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: idea and Chris Aubrek said, the thing that you always
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: dream of hearing when you pitch something, how can I
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: not do this? And then when we and it was
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: only for an hour special. While we're filming the hour special,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: first day of filming, we had so much fun. Larry
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: David comes up to me and goes with this be
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: great to do as a TV series. Now in my head,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: I'm like going, yeah, right, it would be amazing to
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: make this a TV series. I'm on a TV series
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: with you doing too. Yeah. Sure, yeah, and we did.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: But also know that our first year on the air,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: even into the second year, HBO referred to our show
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: as their little experimental show. Right now, personally, we all
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: have our opinions. Okay, I do not think the special
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: was as good as Curb Your Enthusiasm. I think Curb
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: Your Enthusiasm took it to a whole Netherlands, the whole
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: different thing. Okay, what's a special improvised? Yeah, all that
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: is improvised. Okay, it improvised because of you. Were because
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: Larry's lazy. He's not lazy, but um because of me?
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Really yeah, the improvisation parts because of me. Well, I
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: thought it was Larry who didn't want to script. Well no,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: he loves not having a script, don't get me wrong,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: But that initial idea was me. So let's assume you
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: go to film an episode and you're deep into the
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: series now, so maybe you have it down, but when
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: you first started, it's like, Okay, you gotta shoot, you know,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: half an hour. How much of it is conceptualized. There's
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: a six to seven page script that Larry David writes
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: where everything you need to have a funny half hour
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: of TV is in there. He's the best there is.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: That's what separates Curb from any other improvised show. And
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: we're going to improvise our show. Well, good luck to you.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: You don't have Larry David. So it's funny my dialogue.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: Every scene changes like I make up different but the
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: story is there and what has to happen is there.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: So let's assume we're shooting. Yeah, how many takes? Will?
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: They all depend to the scene. Just Larry and I
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: much quicker if there's three or four other people, can
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: take longer, if there's three or four other people that
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: are not regulars on the show, even longer. But it's
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: all based on what we do as we shoot a
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: take and then we discuss it. This went on, this,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: don't know about this, Let's do this this time, and
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: then you go do that one again. But don't do
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: this now. Do you ever get the six or seven
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: page outlined and say, Larry, I'd like to make some changes.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Never in over a hundred episodes. That has never happened
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: any notes. This is true. I get the outline. Do
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: you know that any notes that I've given them were
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: just that you repeated that beat or that at the
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: end doesn't make sense here? Because of this, I have
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: never ever given a note, And I can say proudly
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: I've never given him an idea for the show. People
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: approaching people approach me out time. So people come up
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: to me and I said, they say, I've got this
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: great idea. I go A few things I want to
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: tell you. Number One, I'm on the show. I'm a
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: producer on the show. I have never given my ideas.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: I said, no that. Number two, no one, no one
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: has ever come up to me on the street and
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: given me a good idea. And I've gotten hundreds upon hundreds.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: They still insist, and I still have to tell them, yep,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: put yours on the pile. It ain't funny, And they're
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: never funny. They're extra NiFe. I know. I know the
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: same thing in the music business. But when you I
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: got to the part rise, I said, too many bad experience.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: I don't even tell them they're not funny, right because
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: they just can't believe it. Everybody in their whole life
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: is thought. You know, they're the funniest person they ever
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: They shove it down my throat, you know. Okay, So
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: do you have favorite Curb episodes? I have one in
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: particular that I love. And by the way, the current
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: season we're filming, we're wrapping it up soon, um, is
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: my favorite season we've ever shot. There are subtleties to
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: the new season that bring me more joy than you
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: can imagine, and the whole storyline is just it's amazing.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: I love it. Um. My favorite episode is one that's
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: entitled Wandering Bear. It's where Cheryl's vagina it is and
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: Larry's gardner. Wandering Bear tries helping her with her vagina,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: and at the same time, Larry and I keep watching
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Girls Gone Wild and my dog gets run over. I
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: love it, and I know dog gets run over. He's
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: fine at the end of the episode. But the point being,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: is itself contained. A lot of Curb there's the arc
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: of the season. This one particular episode is completely self contained.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: It's not tied into anything. And if I was had
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: to show somebody someone goes, what's your show about, I
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: would show them that episode. I love that episode now
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: You're on the inside. And certainly a number of seasons
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: of Curb were made, and then Larry went on like
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: a hiatus to make that movie, etcetera. Where did that
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: leave you? Well, he didn't go on hiatus to make
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: a movie or to do the play. We were just
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: on hiatus and he didn't know what he's gonna do.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: What it did for me was I had to earn
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: money doing stand up. I made a couple of movies
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: and I took the job on the Goldberg. So tell
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: us how that happened. I got a script. The script
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: kind of the Archer kind of reminded me of Archie Bunker.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: I was writing a movie that uh, I was gonna
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: about to do for Netflix that I eventually did called Handsome,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: which is a Netflix mystery movie kind of like Colombo
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: meets The Long Goodbye. UM still on there, please watch
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: if you can. I'm very proud of it. But um,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: I got this script saying they're very interested in me,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: and they told me they cast Wendy McClendon covey, who
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: I love and I wanted to work with. And I
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: told her that a million times, and yeah, so I
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: was happy to do that, and did you think it
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: was going to be a hit? I had a strong feeling.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: And by the way, I'm a person. I remember I
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: was on a TV show called What About Joan with
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: John Cusack and we got canceled before we filmed an
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: episode one week and I remember people crying and I
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: and I walked around with my friend Wally Langham who
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: had been on the Larry Sanders Show as one of
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: the writers, and we had been through the mill a
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: million and we've said to people, what did you expect
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: to happen? So for me to say that I thought
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: that The Goldbergs, if given a shot, was gonna be
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: a hit, I am not surprised. I mean I thought
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: it had everything that you needed for today to be
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: a hit, and so I'm not surprised by it. People
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: love that show. And are you as you walk through
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: your life, are you more recognized from Curb or The Goldbergs. Well,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: it all depends. If I'm not around where comedy fans
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: are for whatever. Let's say it's the morning, it's the
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: farmer's market at Fairbacks, and third it's all Goldbergs, you
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. Or the afternoon, especially the tourists
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: all Goldbergs. But if I'm in any sort of environment
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: where there's any sort of hip nous or edge or
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: comedy fans Curb and then it's a mixture, depending on
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: where and what you know what I mean, But it
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: all depends because comedy fans don't watch the Goldbergs, you know,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: comedy fans watch Curb with south Park. It's like there's
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: a handful of shows on the list where comedy fans go, Oh,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: I go there for my comments, okay, just because I'm interested.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: Are there any others besides those two? I don't know.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: You'd have to tell me the name of a show. Okay,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: the comedians watch broad City. I think that that would
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: fall in line of a comedic show. Yes, like those
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: types of shows that comedians. You know, Netflix has to
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: do special every week? Do people watch that only to
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: make fun of them? Really? Yes, one is worse than
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: the next, and this is not this is Here's the thing.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: I'm a young comedian. If you had a special that
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: was special, then it came to I'd have somebody opening
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: for me. And two weeks later, and I'm not exaggerating
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: this ship, Oh, I just got my first special. You did.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: You're not even developed yet. You don't even have a voice.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: I don't say that outline. I don't want to hurt
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: you know. They have fun and they're special. Of course,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't go anywhere because they don't have a voice. They
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: just give specials out. They give specials out to people
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: who are kind of well known actors who decide they
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: wanted to stand up. What's a budget for something like that, Well,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: it can be as little as a hundred thousand, and
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: then you go up to what they're they're paying with
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: twenty million for them at one time. Now, I'd have
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: to say, if you're well known, it's kind of leveled out.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: It's about a million um all in with your salary
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: and the thing. And if you're not known, three hundred thousand. Okay.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: What about people who took their brand from The Daily
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Show and went on Netflix like Farhood, Manas and Michelle
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: who got canceled, They still created a voice for themselves
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: and they still have fans. I guarantee. Well, his show
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: is doing what seems to be doing well on Netflix.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: But the point being is if she appears somewhere, she's
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: gonna sell tickets, you know, So she carved out a
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: career for herself, and if she takes it seriously, she's
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: only gonna get better. I mean, she has her voice
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: to contend with. Some people can't get past It's like Rush.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: You know, I've never I think Rush is my friends.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: I have friends that worship Rush. I cannot get past
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: Getty Lee's voice. I try and I just can't. But
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: I understand why why they dig them. They are an interesting,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: good band, great band, but it ain't my thing. Okay
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: without getting deeply into Rush. You can't get late at
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: a Rush concert. There no women there. But uh, in
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: terms of Curb, now, were you jumping up and down
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: said this is my big break once it finally went
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: to series. No, I jumped up and down. Was when
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: Larry David said, let's go pitch it to Chris Albrecht,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: and I thought I was gonna be the director. So
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: I had my own like, oh, this could be My
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: attitude was this could be the start of something. Here's
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: what the secret of Curb. Your enthusiasm is more than
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: anything from the get go, and there is an exception
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: to this, but I don't want to get into. But
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: early on and from the get go, we only did
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: what made us laugh, and we were shocked when anybody
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: called on or dug it. We We had no intention
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: of being an iconic show, zero zero thoughts of it
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: even being possible. Whereas I told you Goldberg's I could
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: see it being a hit. I knew it would never
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: be iconic Curb. I not only did, I never thought
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: it'd be iconic ever, let alone a hit. So now
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: you're in your fifties, you are comfortable. What would you
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: like to achieve before the grim Reaper appears? Oh dear God,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: again your bucket list? You know, what's my last meal?
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: I don't? Okay, So okay, So it's not even a
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: grim Reaper, because the Grim Reaper comes for everybody. What
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: do I want to do? I want to keep contributing.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: I want to compete, keep I want to continue to
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: be relevant artistically, because I think that age doesn't matter
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: if you're relevant, if you've got something to say or
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: something to put out there that's relevant to human beings
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: that I and ease people, continue to ease people's pain,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: and that contribute. I'm good man, What does that? I've
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: got things I'm developing, I've got I mean, you know,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: television series, movies, different things, And to me, I just
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: want to be relevant. I want to be doing I
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: don't want to be doing good work. I want to
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: be doing great work. I want to continue. And I
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: also think I'm one of those people that gets better
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: as he gets older. I don't think that I am.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: What makes me funny is still in me. With the
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: success I've had already, I will never be a fat cat. Okay,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: you know I drive a Tesla. Yeah, you know what
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: I mean. Oh, look at me. I'm not in touch.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: I drive in Tesla, but you know where I pull
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: into fucking Ralph's Fresh Fare and buy my own groceries
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: and deal with whatever ship's going on in there. I
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: do my own stuff, you know what I mean? Man,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: I want to be part of it, because when you
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: stop doing that is when you're not relevant, is when
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: you're not in touch. Absolutely I couldn't agree or yeah,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: So what does it day look like when you're not
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: you know, shooting, well as much napping as possible. So
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: that's the luxury that I take advantage of, is napping. Um,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: I have not I have not had the opportunity to
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: go to I love movies. I've not been to a
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: movie the last movie I saw was a special early
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: morning screening that I took my friend's son too of
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: the Spider Man movie The Spider Verse, which I loved.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: I have not had a chance. I love movies. I
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: love music. I go see live music. Um, I try
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: and arrange it that there's the least amount of irritating
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: people around me that I can. I found certain areas
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: to sit it, like the Hollywood Ball where like, oh,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: I won't be bothered here. This is awesome. And I'm
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: not talking about fame bothered. I'm just about talking about
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: people being idiots bothered. Um. I love music, I love sports.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: I love swimming. So where do you swim? I have
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: a pool. I have a pool, not even like you know,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: it's December, and could eat it up if I want,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: and I did, but right now I turn the heat
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: up and turn on a couple of weeks close, you know.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: But I also But I really, I gotta tell you, man,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: I love I play guitar, not good, but I dig it.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: I did doing an open a learning old blues riffs.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: I'm learning a John Lee Hooker riff right now. So
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: I dig that. I dig chilling. That's what I did
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: doing I'm not. I don't like going to awards. I
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: don't like big parties. I love a good dinner party.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: How about going out to dinner with friends? Whatever? You're
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: just you're stay at home guy. Well no, I mean
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: I might go to Musso and Frank's and and uh
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: meet Dan McCarroll and his wife, um and or Mark Flanager,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: now One's Largo or where my close friends are. I
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: love spending time with my close friends. Um. I'll go
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: to sugar Fish on occasion. But in general, man, I'm
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: a homebody. My life is extraordinary. I don't need my life.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: It's like you know that for me, the thought of
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: going out to dinner on Friday or Saturday night is
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: the worst. I gotta tell you. Nothing makes me happier
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: than going to bed early on a Saturday night. Right,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. Okay, So you mentioned
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: earlier that you can't do pop culture in stand up comedy,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: and now I remember in an era both in movies
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: and music, when you could literally be comprehensive, you could
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: see it all and yeah, but now we're not in
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: that era. No. By the way, I like to maintain
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: a level of understanding. The number of artists that my
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: children will bring up, or that someone bring up that
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: I literally this is a person. I go to the
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: new songs on Spotify. I've Spotify, Title and um Apple Music,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: Amazon Music. What's that? What's the logic of having all
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: of them? I mean, I have all of them. Have
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: to pay well, Title because they pay the artists. Bet
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: the other ones just not a convenience. Sometimes I look
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: for one song and the other ones don't have it.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, there you go. And by the way,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: what I used to spend on c d s, I
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: can afford to buy all those. Um. So I'm on
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: there and I'm checking stuff out and I'll be behind
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: the wave. My kids will laugh at all behind the wave.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: Now there's too much stuff out there, you know. But
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: I do know that a lot of it is is pop.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: By the way, a great pop song is delightful. So
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: do not get me wrong. I'm not that much of
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: a curmudgeon, but I find that most music that I
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: am presented with is completely empty. You know, it's just
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: so so. And I used to like, you know, it's
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: so funny you say that you like like I like
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: Public Enemy. I remember going to see them at the
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: Palace and remember sitting next to Easy in the back
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: of the room watching them. So if I say I
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: don't like rap, you know, some people might oh, he's
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: racist or something. You know, no, which I've heard, you know,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: because you're white. No, man, I dig what I dig.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: I love Coltrane, you know I love Jimmy. I mean,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: I don't care what someone's I care about greatness. Man
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: care about great Okay, And then I couldn't agree more
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: of that. People can't handle that. Just because you made
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: an effort doesn't mean I want to partake. And when
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: what people don't understand when something is great, I love
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: to tell everybody. That's what people don't realize. What's more
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: joyful than that? Right? We everybody has? Firstly talking about kids.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: So kids have a short attention span. They don't have
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: a short attention span. They have an incredible ship detector. Next, next, next, next,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: That's why I love your writing, because you're hip to that.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: People think it's an attention span. No you, but I
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: have a d D. You give me something to watch,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch it exactly. There's somebody who dies every
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: year playing video games for three days straight in Asia. Okay,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: don't tell me about it. By the way, you think
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: I go see Lords of a Ray be at the
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: Cinerama Dome that I'm like, I gotta go take a break. No,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: I'm enchanted for my one time every time, you know.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: So it's not a matter of kids today don't have
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: the attention spans. Their attentions, yes, are in their phones,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: but they're looking for something to connect well the people
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: that I mean, I'm really anti the anti phone thing.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: What could be better than have a device? It's totally
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: personalized to you, all right. By the way, think of
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: having that thing when you're a little kid, would you
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: have done anything different? I you would have had it.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what I've done anything different? I mean,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, you would have been into it
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: about That's what I'm saying. So I'm not gonna judge.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: And by the way, mine is my iPhone is a
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: tool for me exactly. It's personal. I just do you
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: do flipboard. I'm not a flipboard person. I love flipboard
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: because I've designed all these stories of stuff that I'm
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: it used to be because I got really I got
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: a free subscription to a O L and the nineties
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: when he's charged by the minute. So I spent my
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: whole life. I lost the nineties to a O L. Whatever.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: But I tell my shriek. He used to take me
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: an hour in the early part of the century to
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: go through all my sites. Okay, now it's just endless.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: It's something, but I'm really I'm really into it. I
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: like the pulse. The other thing about it is if
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: you're into something, you can become an expert. You can dive.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: You can dive into anything I know. So it's not
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: that that's negative. It's what we're bringing to them. I
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: met a dude and I can't remember the thing. He's
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: a friend of a friend and he was running. He
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: was at the time. I don't think he still is.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: He was put in charge by maybe universe like him
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: or who in charge of verve? Right, the history of
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: verb Oliver and I'm friends with Don was right, So
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: I see the challenge. They all the new whatever. But
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: he had a complete disrespect for owning early holiday and
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: owning people like that. And it's my fervent opinion. You
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: play Billie Holiday for any kid with intelligence, and they're
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: gonna go, how do I get more of that? Listen?
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: Great is great. I'm glad to say. The only other
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: person I've ever said that is something is phenomenal. And
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: it could be anything like the first half of that
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: movie Something Wild, you know that the right where you
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: know she's just totally totally out of control. Or even
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: now we're talking about our favorite movies. Uh Altman once again?
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: Uh Ship, what's his Western? You know with Warren Beatty
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: and Mrs Miller, there's all this other stuff you love.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: To testify about that stuff, it's hard to testify about
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of sheep. That's what you need. Here's the difference.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: If I may, I feel that if I were to
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: show my son's eighteen and twenty two love movies McCabe
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: and Mrs Miller, they might get bored. And here's what
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: they need. They need their own McCabe and Mrs Miller.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: Of course, they need a good movie that has the pacing,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: the actors, the things they're interested in. I have a friend,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: her daughter, who I kind of mentor and I just
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: love like she's my daughter. She refused I try and
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: turn around to stuff. She refuses refuses to watch black
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: and white movies. And then I like people who refuse
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: to watch things with subtitles. Well, I said, you're missing
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: great Hitchcock can make great press and sturgis great, Billy Wilder.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: There's so much stuff. But what these kids need and
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: people need is their own version of that. And that's
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: not coming because Avengers, the next Avengers, that's not it.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: Of course, that is not it. And the other way.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: I love comic books. I collected him as a kid,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: and I still buy them, you know, and buy a
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: lot of back issues. For the most part, I can't
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: stand superhero movies. Right, what about the We're in the
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: golden age of TV? Do you watch Netflix? Do you
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: watch HBO? Watch There's always a show that I'm in
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: And so what shows would you recommend right now? The
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: last show that I watched and incomplete I just finished
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: like a week ago, Fouda find a Phenomenal. That's about
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: that's about the the border between Israel and Palestine and
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: all the shenanigans. But it's like it's like the Wire,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: It's like the Sopranos, it's like everything. That's one of
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: the few series where the second season was better than
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: the first. Second season was better than the first season
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: was great exactly, but the second season was amazing, amazing,
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: And they have some scenes of action where you're so tense.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: That one where they were in the backyard and they
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: were surrounding I never seen a scene like that, and
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: they had to go away and come ben anyhow, I
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: know I'm talking. I don't want to ruin it. But
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: the thing is, the thing I want to tell people
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: listening is know this about Powder. It's Netflix's show, but
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: it's from Israel, and it is subtitled But I'm a guy.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: If you dig the Sopranos, you dig the Wire, you
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: dig Breaking Bad, this is right there with it. It's
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: it's as good as all. Okay, what else can you
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: recommend Jay's I don't know. I mean, have you watched
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: Happy Valley? No? I by the way, I started watching
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: the second season of Happy Valley. I don't quite get that,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: by the way, and I did, wasn't and I thought
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: you I watched the first I liked the idea of it.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: Um Bob babyl um Berlin. I've only heard great things.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's a long time to get into
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: because one of the know. It's one of those things
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: where it's intentionally people say that I no know what's
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: going on. People say that a long time to get
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: into it is Better Call Saul, And in my opinion,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: Better Call Saul is the best show on TV. Better
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: Call Saul is better than Breaking No. One is not no.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: It is not different apples and oranges. Actually I didn't
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: say that. Uh uh, Granny Smith apple and a food
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: jimple the two different types of apples. The point I'm
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: making is that the greatness of both cannot be Who
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: would know that Bob oden Kirk could be so good
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: at that, considering that he is my I have many
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: friends that I started with, but Bob oden Kirky and
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: I used to sit on We'd sit on porches our backyard,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: on the steps of Second City together, dirt broke and
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: best of friends, talking about what do we have to
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: do to have somebody pay attention to us in this town.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: And I remember it was about three or four years ago.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: I'm at Sony that's where we filmed the Goldbergs, and
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: up on the side of Sony in their big you
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: know posters was the Goldbergs and better Cars. And I
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: took a picture and I sent it to him because
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: we were broke together. We and I watched him developed.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: And also he would help me audition, and I would
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: help him audition on tape for different things. And I
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: saw how good a director he is. I knew how
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: good an actor was. So I will stand up and
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: say I knew how great Bob oden Kirk could be.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: I knew he is magnificent. He's also a magnificent man.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: And like I said, one of my best friends. Okay,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: in this long thing, long career, which is far from over,
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: do you ever have doubts? Oh? Sure, yeah, you know, yeah,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: because you get you You feel like quitting. Oh I
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: felt like quitting many times early on. Even now I
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: think like, well, if I don't get to do this,
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: do I really want to keep doing this? Like and
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: I started thinking, all right, a little bit slower, tell
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: us more about what I mean by that is, so
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: I'm doing the goldbergs now, which is a semi cash cow,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Doing curb. Maybe both of
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: those don't last. So let's say my next three ideas
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: I'll get rejected. So do I think to myself, well,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: how much do I sell my car for? How much
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: do I sell my house for? I'll move in a
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: condo where I'll do this and I'll just sit and right,
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: I'll do my stand up and I'll write because I'm
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: at a point now like I told you at fifty six,
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: it's about joy. And if I can't spread joy and
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: enjoy what I'm doing, I don't want to do it.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: I don't want to do crap. I don't want to
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: I just don't you know what. I you a part
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: of the Avengers, Sure for a week for a lot
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: of money. Would I be in in the Avengers for
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: six months? No? No? And how much? Uh? It's by
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: the way, I want to Just for the record, nobody's
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: asked me. Nobody has asked me to be in the
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: Avengers or any And by the way, I love comp
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: I want to be in the Silver Surfer movie if
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: I can, just a local anyhow, Um, I love Silver Surfer.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: How much are you on the road? Not very much
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: at all. The past, I'll say the past since since
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: I've been doing the Goldbergs, you know, um, you know,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: I'd say maybe six months in the past six years. Okay,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: So if you are going to do a special, do
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: you have to do a certain number of gigs? You
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: have to? Well, I'm working in town a lot. I
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: go on stage a lot at the Improv in a
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: Largo and sometimes place called Flappers and Burbank. I do sets, um,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: but I'm going on there. I'm gonna be in Chicago,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: uh next month, uh doing a bunch of sets at
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: Zane East that's the name, and I'm gonna be I'm
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: gonna be in New York doing a week at Carolines
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: and so yes, that's to work out for the special.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: Then I'm coming back to do a bunch of shows.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: I have to do it. What's killed me. And really
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: I'm exhausted and I I wish I have to. I
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: have to. I'm going to therapy now, but after therapy,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: I'm going to bed because I gotta get up early
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: to film tomorrow. Goldberg's um is that I've had to
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: for the second time. And it's not a matter of
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: feeling bad for me, because I'm extraordinarily I have great gratitude,
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: but I've been filming Curb and the Goldbergs at the
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: same time with doing stand up now gratitude that I
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: have that opportunity, But I have to tell you it's
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: knocking me off my feet. I'm doing I'm working sixty
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: hours a week. And by the way, a lot of
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: other people do that, right, A lot of people don't
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: get paid like me. So I'm not unaware. But that
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: doesn't make my body have more energy. It doesn't make
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: me physically By the way, if I was twenty five, oh,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: I could do this all day and all night and
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: not and it is what it is. So I'm doing it,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? But I am it's a lot. Okay,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: So how long have I go to therapy? Oh, well,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: with a great therapist? Now for about five six years
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: I've had I've had other wonderful therapists, but I say
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: had some crappy ones. But I've been going to therapy
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: since my twenties. I love, my love therapy, great therapy.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: By the way, I never knew you could leave therapy
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: feeling like, oh I accomplish something. I didn't know that.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: I feel that I'm a big believer in therapy, and
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: I certainly go I believe at this point this like
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: it's a secret weapon. I mean, I get all these
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: insights out there and I can't believe, by the way,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: it's a secret weapon. And you said the word you
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: obviously have a great therapist. You said the word you
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: get insights. You want insight to this adventure. By the way,
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: a joke is, we lived to eight ninety years old
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: and we still have so much more to learn. Absolutely,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: I was being thrown to the side at a certain
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: are what I was just just like I'm just getting started.
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: That's how I feel a fifty six. When I was
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: twenty years old, I knew everything. Now that i'm that's
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: all I deal with between working with the kids and
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: the Goldberg's lovely working with talking with my children. Everyone
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: knows everything, but that's normal. I knew everything, you know,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: but especially even you know, I think you know, we
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: all have these things where I said ship and I
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: thought I knew ship that I just did not know.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: I know, I wouldn't now people ask me a question
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: I I don't know. Before I would say, oh, I
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: definitely know this is what you should do, or I
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: like to say I think, but you know, I'm just
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: telling you my opinion. I don't know that it's a fact. Well,
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: this has been fascinating, Jeff. You know, we need a
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: whole another podcast that has nothing to do with the
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: anchors of your career and just talking about life. Interesting. Well,
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: your your your pieces, whether they be about life or
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: um uh, you wrote about better things. I write that piece.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: I love her and I love that show. Um I
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: just I can't get enough of your work. Thank you.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: And by the way, I've been told because I only
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: there's an archive, I can go back and look at
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: older ones. Right, well, you are like setting me up.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: It's like being a late night show. Go to left
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: sets dot com slash word press and you can read
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: since two thousand five. Well, fantastic, I'm gonna I'm gonna
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: do that. Now you're interviewing me, Jeff has been by
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: the way, that's that's what it is. It's a conversation
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: right right. You're making me look good, just like you
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: said you do with other actors. Thanks so much. Till
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: next time, it's been Jeff Garland of the Bob Left
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: Sets Podcast