This is me, Craig Ferguson.

I'm inviting you to come and see my brand new comedy hour.

Well it's actually it's about an hour and a half and I don't have an opener because these guys cost money.

But what I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while.

Anyway, come and see me live on the Pants on Fire Tour in your region.

Tickets are on sale now and we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty twenty five and beyond.

For a full list of dates, go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com.

See you on the road, my DearS.

My name is Craig Ferguson.

The name of this podcast is Joy.

I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.

Live from Brooklyn, New York City.

This is the Joy Podcast, coming to you from the Kids Super Studios, the tent within the Kids Show.

It's a long story.

Anyway, we're here and my guest today is some and I'm very excited about talking to it because he does political stuff and I don't.

But he's very good at it and that's probably why he does it.

And I don't look he's very good.

He's got a new special out called Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse, Maga the Next Generation.

He talks to the young, the Young magas the name of it, Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse.

Gives you a clue as to who is my guest today.

It is Jordan Klepper Joy.

You're six foot four, Yeah, very tall, six foot four.

How does how can you be a tall six foot four?

Well?

I think I say I, I say that you've got high hair?

Does that add another?

Yes?

You know the swoop?

Yeah, you know, like I'm sure you've experimented the buzz, the short.

And yeah, yeah, I've done I've done it all.

But now I just go for a lot of product.

Yeah.

Just I feel like we're working with the same stuff here.

We have.

We have long faces, long faces.

We're lucky enough to keep the hair long enough.

Do you ever go to a bar and anyone say to you, Hey, why the long face?

Yes?

Yeah, I've had that.

Yes do you have?

Are you a compulsive drinker?

I look at you and I don't see that.

That's I wouldn't say compulsive.

I drink.

I drink more than i'd like to drink.

I read all those articles that come out warning.

I mean every article comes out tells you drinking is good, except in France.

They always have these things come out in France where they say at last of one a day, it would make you feel fabulous that red wine today cure's heart disease.

Apparently, that's right, stops heart disease, and a cigarette will cure covid.

He that really nicotine for covid and arthritis.

I think that's so French.

The ivermectin of France.

Yes, was the horse tranquility?

No, it's not a tranquilizer horse.

The horse?

Was it a de wormer?

I don't know it was it was I remember him was primarily used on horses, right, to help a horse?

Do you have horses?

Do I have horses?

Personally?

Yeah?

Zero horses.

Is that gonna be a problem with this podcast?

Maybe a little bit.

This is a horse based thing, t I know, mostly what we talk about is horses.

I in my life have.

Three horses, well two and a half.

You still have the horses, Well I don't have them.

I'm married to a woman and she likes horses, and she has two proper horses and a kind of a backup horse.

Really, yeah, in case a shehatland pony.

Oh so it's no good for anathon?

Well, what what is the overall purpose is?

Is it riding?

Is a dressage?

Trisage?

I'd like driusage?

Do you know who does drisage?

That's the kind of fancy one.

Yeah, William Shatner.

No, one of the best at it, one of the one of the best.

He's the Captain Kirk of driusage.

That guy's been to space.

He's been to space and the heat us quarter horses, which is it's a whole horse, but they call them quarter because there's.

Four of them for them.

Turn your feet and turn your head.

And no, I think that uh he said he started because have you ever met William Shanner.

No, it's a treat in store.

I believe it.

Oh man, I was actually watching William Shatner video recently of him coming back from space.

That that is haunting in the clarity that he had in space.

And I think the feeling he felt was like grief and despair for like humanity and what have you.

And he was sharing that at the same time, Jeff Bezos was celebrating with his girlfriend.

Yes, yeah, you can see.

Like the the disconnect between somebody having an actual experience and somebody else tried to sell it.

I wonder why Jeff Bezos didn't go to space.

Does see has he gone to space?

I'd like to see him go with the Titanic Submarines.

Jeff, it'll be fine.

It's kind of like an uber underwater.

You're quite though, quite the explorers.

Yeah.

I have to say I'm not a huge fan of Jeff Bezos.

Do you not like the product?

I love his product.

I mean I love the Amazons.

Yeah, but uh, workout regime?

Are you a fan of that?

I don't know the workout regime?

Well, he just looks quite Oh yeah, he's jacked, doesn't he?

Is?

He very small?

He feels very small.

Yeah, feels hairless and small and but suddenly bulging in ways that he that.

I wasn't inconceivable years ago.

Do you think you got them delivered overnight?

Oh?

Yeah, Well, if he pays for the prime, it's almost it's almost a crime not to get them.

It's a crime note to pay for the prime.

There you are, that's I'll take my million dollars.

I don't know.

Do you use it?

Yes?

Yes, I mean, I have the time.

I know, I feel like it's it's there was a COVID.

I feel like created.

You can make an argument as to why you're using it so often and now it's left.

It's in a place where I also have a child who constantly wants things.

Do you constantly want to aged?

Age?

Is your kid age of a four and a half year old?

He's he's aged in that direction.

Yeah, they're that's that's a good place to be between about three and thirteen.

They're awesome.

It's a great place.

But they constantly want and they also constantly know that there is a device that exists in our house that we are sometimes looking on that.

Can get anything they want.

When are you going to give them a phone?

Oh?

My god?

I mean I think teenage years I read it.

You know, there's a good luck what there's like a Jonathan hypebook The Anxious Generation.

Yeah, that's all about like I think social media when you're sixteen, I think phone when you're fourteen.

I've heard there's like a hack with a giving them a smart watch that can just call home.

Maybe early on my sister's doing something like that.

How is it going for?

Is it successful just started.

Yeah, because I have a fourteen year old is my youngest, And he said a phone since he was about eleven.

Is that right?

Not on social media, but internet access on that phone.

Yeah, a little bit limited.

I mean you can, you can kind of.

And I always say to him, you know, no porn.

So I'm sure he's like, yeah, okay.

Great, dad said so I well, yeah, it sounds like you're You've really set.

Up the boundaries very clear.

I'm a fairy or what they call a helicopter parent.

I was going to say, you really they put in the work itself.

Well, you know, my wife's very.

Good at it.

Yeah, she's very kind of on top of it.

I I resist, I have this.

I wonder if you do this.

I've talked to a lot of performers and people who are in sure.

Business to do this.

I have.

I have a social media accounts, but I go on I dump and then I delete the app, and then I go on get the app sign and then delete the app before it gets me every time every time.

How often then do you read download?

Uh?

Probably a couple of times a week.

Okay, yeah, and that's about it.

But it doesn't take that long.

Yeah, yeah, I've added the I've added the time restraints onto my phone, so I have like, ok, twenty minutes of my phone.

Like shuts off.

But then I can add a code and I enter a code, and then I can get it back.

And so I've achieved that.

So there's I think it's important to put the speed bumps, but I'm still driving through them.

I think it's well.

I mean, at least you question yourself a little bit if you're going through it.

I started doing a thing like about a week ago.

I thought I would just like to just pick up a book and read again at night, you know, and before you go to sleep.

I've been sleeping.

Great, yeah, like great, Like I was a sixty three year old man.

I should be getting up thre or four times for a bee.

Not even that.

Are you urinating on the book?

I'm peeding in the bed.

Okay, yeah, but I'm sleeping the whole line.

But it's kind of weird.

Yeah, I really love it.

So I think I was saying as back.

To analog for me, I think I'm I mean, I'm a I'm a secret lott or perhaps a hopeful ludite.

I loved that last night.

Last night I did.

I did the book before bed situation, right we read.

Well, I got a couple of things going on right now.

Well, I got a couple of coffee table books.

Sometimes let me just.

Look at some art before bed.

Yeah, I like it.

Got some Bob Dylan books somewhere.

I'm interviewing Bill Clinton on the program in a.

Week, so I'm working through his his book in.

A book with James Patterson.

That's a uh it's like a thriller.

It is, Yeah, he wrote it.

Did either one of them show up for this book?

I feel like James Potterson that Bill Clinton kind of have a It's like what was his name, Lixton Steining.

He would come in and go, yeah, this is this is great, keep going and then walk up.

I think Patterson has a team.

This is what I've heard, you know that.

I think some of these big time authors have a crew that as symbol is literature.

Is that really writing?

Then?

I don't you know, you're curating.

I think it's like first step AI in some ways.

Yeah, it's like that's the thing.

I'm sure I could write you a Partison novel.

No, sure, Yeah, I.

Mean I think like they probably feed it into AI.

Understand the I mean, it's it's a novel that clearly, to its credit, it is a page turner.

It has the language of the White House, which I'm sure Bill Clinton weighs in on.

Yeah, but yeah, it's a genre that he's in some ways perfected that I'm sure AI gets a look at that.

I was like, yeah, I can put one of these off.

Do you use AI in your twenty minute foot in journeys?

I don't.

I don't.

I mean I've started a little bit on things like restaurants, like weird like New York questions, Right, I go to that for the first time, But I'm I mean it makes me feel old.

I don't quite know an access point for a lot of this AI.

I'll talk to friends to be like, who are using it for work or for reading emails and stuff like that.

I frankly don't understand that you're here.

Claude four, No, Claude four is an AI program, right.

They were doing an experiment with it, and they told it that we were going to shut it down.

Some guys said, I'm going to shut down Claude for and Claude for constructed blackmail letters letters from the guy who started it, who was going to shut him down to his fictional mistress and said, if you if you shut me down, I'm going to release these today, which it didn't really think it too, because if you're shut down, it's very hard to release anything, you know, but the idea that it would try and leverage something to stay alive.

There's cruelty in AI already.

You know, self preservation, I get it, humanity, you know, it's there's human business AI.

You know what I mean.

It's like you gotta do what you gotta do when you gotta do kill or be killed.

Right, Yeah, it's kind of it's kind of a thing.

You're now, you're I was, I was googling you did it today?

Congratulations?

I was actually what was interested in the name Klepper.

I've never heard it before, really Dutch Dutch name.

Yeah, have you been to Holland?

No, you should go.

I know, I know nothing of it.

I know there's a kayak you can stick your finger in a dike and save the country.

Is that right, that's how you saved the country.

Yeah, I'm gonn I'm gonna quote you on that.

Well, you're the one that does all the fingering.

Jews.

Just take your finger in the dike, and you can save Holland, Like give me the.

Halland let me let me save a country.

Now, No, it's it might be you know, a different the translation might be different, but that's what you do.

That's what the little boy did.

Is that based on an actual story?

Is it a fairy tale of some sort?

I feel like it's nonsense.

There's like, there's a Paul, but there's probably to me.

I imagine that as like a Davy Crockett situation, right, or the Paul Bunyan.

The kid had a really big fingers, like she's the giant.

Do you know that?

Do you know the Christmas Holland thing?

No, Oh, it's really bad.

It's really bad.

They have to get rid of it.

It's like a black face.

Shoh, it's very bad.

Yeah, it's Santa and he has I think nine.

Black helpers or something.

It's you realize there are some countries that are good seventy years behind culturally dealing with these things.

Listen, I when I grew up in Brentain in the nineteen seventies, they had a TV show called The Black White Minstrel Show.

I'm not kidding you really right, And it was a guy, white guys black top singing barbershop songs on TV on prime Time.

I'm not kidding.

And I was like, whoa And we used to watch it?

Yeah, wow, my parents used to watch them.

I don't watch the Black and White Minstrel Show, but it was it was a real thing, and it was on in Britain in the seven I think it made it even into the eighties.

I don't really do we have Google anywhere?

Look up the Black and White Minstrel Show.

Who's the audience for that?

I think old racist British people, sure, but I don't even know if they were.

I don't even know if they would.

Yeah, I'm not going to stick up for them.

Old racist British people.

I think seven made it to seventy e A.

Is that right?

Yeah?

I think what happened does the sex Pistols came out in nineteen seventy six and we're like, you know, maybe we should probably get rid of the Black Show.

But it was a real that's wild, it's crazy, it's crazy.

You should go over it.

Have you been to Britain?

You went to London, didn't it?

I did?

I did.

I did Foreign study at Goldsmith's in outside London in New Cross.

So I was there for like six months.

You like it?

I loved it.

I mean I think like Python.

Partridge, all that stuff became like like awakened everything in my head.

Oh really, Oh yeah, I mean that's still I've.

Known for years.

Oh yeah, I mean I at the same time, is that right?

Yeah?

Yeah?

That character to me is it's a great incredible it's a great card.

It's an agent to it.

I think he's done such a good job of using like formats, like adapting to formats, podcasting, mid Morning Matters has such great like short attention span, video stuff, the fact that they played with sitcom.

I just I think there's so much about that character.

Any character stuff barely.

I mean I came up in the improv sketch world.

Well that's what it's going to say, because you were in the Upright Citizens Brigade, Right, Yeah, so I was.

I performed there in Second City, in improv, Olympic and Chicago, So like, yeah, there's always characters.

I think, like, as I've gotten older, though, I realized, like my acting range is slight.

It doesn't need to be much that much.

It's status what I can do.

I can do status.

I can do high status.

I can do pretty high status.

And I say high status and high yes, what about I mean, I think you could do let's try racist Dutch with with a giant finger, with a giant finger, I say, it's the contrary.

I don't know if that's a Dutch accent.

Yeah, that one that that's a fun accent though, right Dutch.

I think it's one of the I think it's one of the ones you can do.

Like German, you can do.

You can do German because because they've still you know, world War Two, you can still it's still kind of thing, you know, it's still talking about it.

You could do German Dutch.

I think you could probably pull off because not enough people understand what you're doing.

Right.

I don't know that I could do Dutch and jail.

I couldn't tell the difference even with a Dutch or German parson.

I don't think it's like it's like Canada and other parts of Canada.

Yes, you know Canada.

I'm Midwest too, so Canada gets into northern Michigan as well.

So it's just like that just sounds like a level of like niceness or like or yeah, it's like a kindness passive aggression to a lot of passive aggress Yeah, there's something behind it, but it's a performative nature of like things are okay.

Hello, this is Greig Ferguson and I want to let you know I have a brand new stand up comedy special out now on YouTube.

It's called I'm So Happy, and I would be so happy if you checked it out.

To watch the special, just go to my YouTube channel at the Craig Ferguson Show and is this right there?

Just click it and play it and it's free.

I can't look.

I'm not going to come around your house and show you how to do it.

If you can't do it, then you can't have it.

But if you can figure it out, it's yours.

What about stand ups?

I ever intrigued you as.

A Yes, I do a bit of it now.

I basically when I got the Daily Show, all the stand ups on The Daily Show were like, you should do stand up, right, every stand up thinks you should do.

You should go do stand up.

And so I was like, I'll try the stand up thing.

And so I've been doing it for the last few years.

I'm going on a bit of a tour now I did stand up.

I like stand up, honestly, I as an improv guy, you're taught to dislike stand up.

It's such different worlds, at least coming up.

Why would you be told that.

I mean, I think like in the world of Chicago, coming up, you're either an improv or you were a stand up guy.

So you pick a site you're like, you like solo stuff or you like working as a team with a bunch of the theater kids, right.

I think though I grew out of improv, by the time I got Daily Show, it was pretty tired of it, and I kind of fell in love with the craft of stand up.

But also in doing that, became very aware of, like how how much work it took to get where I wanted to be with it.

Like my first few shows, I was able to by that point at thirty five, having done comedy for fifteen years.

I could put up a show people and watch it.

I could be all right, yeah, And it was really frustrating to be like, shoot, I'm all right, yeah, I'd really like to be good.

But I'm all right.

To be good, I need these kinds of reps.

I also think that that there's different types of stand up.

I feel like, you know, not just like the individuals, but there's actually different.

Like I went down to the have you been down at the Comedy Seller?

And that village underground, which I thought was is fantastic place.

I love it down there, and I went for the first time last weekend and and then I got up and did you know.

They call it a drop in?

I guess.

I did a set at a little short set.

I did it twice over the period of the evening.

And you know, because the role shows through and you do fifteen minutes, and I don't do fifteen minutes.

I do, you know, about ninety to one hundred minutes.

So in the first set I was like, oh shit, I better kind of picked this up a little bit.

And the second set I got it.

But it's a different It feels like a different instrument.

It's like a guitar or a banjo, you know what I mean.

I don't know which one is switch, but the or a guitar and uh, you know, glockenspiel or something, but they're there.

It's a different thing because you have to joke, joke, joke.

The rhythm, the rhythms to stand up are so different.

Than the rhythms of improv I think also like an audience.

I was My first reaction was like, as an improviser, an audiences is rooting for you and is cheering along the process.

And so there there's like a.

Rap attention that holds faces very nice, very very comfortable, and then you stand up.

But I feel like the audience is like sets the clock and it's like go and my laugh in every twenty five seconds.

I was just working.

I got used to out a bit.

That's club stand up, I think, but stand up you know when I'm doing a theater, you know, you tell stories and you kind of meander, and you got that thing, you got that kind of grace to talk and do stuff.

That's what I kind of shifted over to that in the last year and a half.

That's been so much nicer because I.

Feel like the club world.

I would get half the audience wanted me to just to talk about politic stuff because I knew daily show stuff I did, and the other half was pissed I was talking about politics.

I felt politics for you, though, I mean, I mean I made a decision like twenty sixteen actually that I would remove it from everything I do everything, everything I do.

How is that out of the road?

Now?

Do people still want it?

Or they feel like, first, everybody assumes that you're on the other side, So everybody like everyone on the left assumes you're on the right, everybody on the right assume as.

You're on the left.

And at first it's kind of like it's it doesn't go away.

But when you keep talking about it and saying, look, I'm not doing it in every interview a game like I'm not doing it.

And when you do the local radio things with Zippy Bingo and the Wiiz to promote that show, you know, then I say, look, it's not about Paul, and I keep doing it.

I keep doing it, and now they get it.

It's like and I think it's kind of for me, it's a relief.

I just don't want to and I'm kind of I admire because I remember talking to Stephen Colbert about this.

It's like, you know, he ran right at it.

Like if I was going doing Late Night right now, I'd be like, yeah, I forget it, And then everyone would hate you for it.

They'd be like, ah, why coward.

Yeah, that's exactly what they would say.

You say, you're a coward.

Yeah, and I'm like why, I just don't want to.

I don't want to get into it.

I'm sick of listening to people I agree with, you know, I'm like, the fuck please.

But I guess when you have that volume of stuff to fill, Yeah, policies is great.

Oh, because every day there's a new show, especially now there's a new show every day.

We're going in made Canada.

Look out Greenland, they're breaking up.

I mean, how much how much Trump do you that you'd be talking about right now if you're doing a monologue tonight.

I don't think I would be doing any of it.

I don't think so, because I kind of feel like I came up during punk rock, right, and particularly British or really English punk rock, and particularly the pistols and the kind of the vibe of that and the and the kind of the instigator of that was Vivian W.

S Wood and Malcolm McLaren.

And and Vivin and Malcolm were great.

The whole thing was selling the swindle like it's a swindle, it's a fucking it's a game, it's a and so the kind of the what you kind of gets in your bones is like I don't want to be hoodwinked by this fucking.

The great rock and roll swindle.

Yeah, And I feel like politics right now, particularly media coverage, is like, you fucking suckers.

They're giving you a new piece of misdirect every day.

Every look at all this is going on.

That's not the thing.

The thing that you're not looking at is the thing.

Yeah.

And then of course if you go that way, then conspiracy theories and I've.

Got a lot of them.

Yeah, your flat earther, where you're at with the flat earther contrailsh yeah, yeah, contrails.

Have you ever flown a plane?

No?

Actually really, yeah, you'd like it.

I guess it's your control free yeah yeah, they're part of it.

Yeah yeah, sure, yeah, it'll appeal to you.

I feel like I just watched the rehearsal of the Nathan Fielder Show, which I I loved, can't say enough good things about it, but boy placed you in the I think it really set me into how stressful that job is.

It's easy.

I walk on a plane and I'm like, ah, I bet you push cup buttons.

You get on up there and you're like, oh no.

I think like the pressure of that I've never jumped out of a plane.

O.

I wouldn't do that.

You wouldn't do that.

You'd prepared to jump out of a plane you're flying right, Well, I'd rather land the plane.

I like the idea of landing the plane.

Wouldn't jump out of a perfectly good airplane to start going.

We that doesn't appeal to me at all.

You have like a you have a pilot's license.

I do.

Yeah.

I only did it because I was frightened to fly it.

Really yeah, yeah, which I you know, I thought.

And then I was talking about this on late night actually to Kurt Russell, who is like a big, tiny aviator.

I mean he's that's really what he does.

He acts for money to pay for gas.

Yeah, And and he said.

You're not a You're you're not frightened flying.

You're just a control freak.

I'm like, yeah, I don't think that's true.

And then he said that this is what really got me because Vanity wins every time.

He said, I just read your book, You're a control freak.

And I went Russell my book.

I was like, oh, tell me more about yeah, enough about you, more about me?

And he uh, and he kind of got me on top with a flying instructor and I got in a flying and wow, yeah, and did that do?

It was suddenly like, oh, writing and a plane is no big deal anymore?

Changed it?

Yeah, Now I'm.

Frightened flying, but I'm frightened to the correct things.

Yes, as opposed to.

It feels like that hurdle though.

It allows you to control something when you're flying, but it perhaps gives you more respect for the people who are in charge there, and therefore you release, you relinquished some of that controls that well, the thing you have to relate control.

I mean, I think that you have to be a bit more.

See that's my life is stand up and you are a team player, you know, and you're learning to I.

Mean, you're now, you know, learning to be selfish.

Experiment.

I've been, you know, pathologically selfish since I was I nearly drank myself to dath.

I'm so selfish, it's it's it's crazy.

I had to really work on it.

But kids will do that for you as well.

Actually, I mean, yes, well, I do think that would that that was a giant wake up for me.

I'm like, oh, I realized where.

I am selfish and how I am selfish in all those ways.

Yeah, then a kid is there, You're.

Like, oh, I thought I'm doing this for that reason or this for that reason, but really most of these things I'm doing for is for me.

And then a kid comes along, it's like, oh yeah, the whole name of the game is like just protect that thing.

Be that thing, be nice to that thing, make money for that thing, live for that thing.

Yeah.

That was another big thing where I'm.

Like, oh, got to stay alive.

I have to stay alive.

Yeah, it's like I wasn't thinking about staying alive.

I gotta fucking stay alive.

I know.

It's kind of a bummer sometimes.

Yeah, like.

I need to I need to grab with that that Like now my new job is to like withhold pain from this child's life, be able to create space and security for this this child for as long as humanly possible.

And how does it go?

It's it's it's okay.

Did it kick in first day for you?

Did?

Like when the baby was boring me?

Was it like a like a whoa, this is all Because I'll just be honest with you, it took me about six months.

Yeah, because at first one it's the baby.

I'm like babies Jesus yea as babies are.

They're just But when they start, you know, interacting with you, it's fine.

But when it's just that screaming slug in the middle of the night, Yeah, yeah.

I mean that that first wave is all of like, I just I have to I have to learn a new skill to keep this cellular, cellular thing alive in a while.

This egg that I brought home, Just what do I need to do for it?

Right?

And then yeah, when it becomes a human that you interact with, right, then I think I could project into the future that human like going on a date for the first time, are being heartbroken?

Human like God like, that stuff scared the ship out of me.

And I also for the first time in my life.

Also like saw the moment where my son would no longer call me and tell me how he's doing every few days or what have you.

I saw it in the future.

Yeah, like, oh, I that will be a pain that I will feel.

And I I haven't been thinking about how my parents are feeling.

Surprised.

I okay, that all right?

Whatever?

Oh hi son?

Yeah, all right, okay, fine, good, you're alive.

Good?

Yeah, brushing your teeth foo SPF great talking four days.

Yeah, it's fun.

I'll get the news for your mom.

My dad used to say that to me.

I'll get all the news from your mother and even just hand the when I was calling Scotland.

Is that right?

Yeah?

Now here's the thing.

Uh.

My wife has a theory the all stand ups, and I extrapolate that performers actually all have very similar mothers.

Oh tell me, she says, cold with bad boundaries, cold with bad boundaries.

Yeah, I'm gonna say no for me.

Yeah, I'm gonna say I mean, yeah, I have.

That's why you didn't go into stand That's why maybe I didn't go in to stand up.

I think my brain.

I had very supportive parents, like working class parents in Michigan, who were just excited that I was doing stuff I liked.

But I was like a without it being put on from a parental pressure.

I think they were too worried about putting food on the table doing all that that I was like, I need to do these things to succeed in life, to get a college scholarship, to go to schollege, to get a job.

Like I was a nerd, I got like a math scholarship going into college that's great.

I was.

Yeah.

I was all about like, one are the things I need to do to succeed in life, so therefore I will not let my parents down and I will be okay.

And then in Kalamzuo, Michigan, the only thing you were told you could be is like, if you're smart, you could be like a doctoral lawyer, right, you know.

So it's like, all right, I'll probably be one of those things.

I can be a smart kid.

And I get a scholarship to be a smart kid.

And then, like the improv thing, the bug hits me.

They send me to England and I get a little bit of this stuff, and something in my brain is like, oh, I like this.

I'm asked to think about stuff in different ways, feel in different ways, express in different ways.

There's not like a path for that, right, And so then it was like, well, fuck it, I want to explore this and I do get I give my parents credit, like they didn't come from a place of like stay on the path, do that thing.

They were I think, tickled by the fact that I was exploring in this way.

And also it sounds like you were happy.

I was happy I was doing an interesting thing that like they were like, we'll come visit you in London.

We'll go to Chicago and see your.

Dumb little shows in the middle of the night, because you love pretending and doing all of this.

I think in some ways, at least for the improviser mindset, like it's such a luxury that like my job for seven years and not even job, my job as a substitute teacher for seven years.

But what I was doing is like tending on.

Stage, substitute teaching one, math, everything in Chicago public schools.

Oh man, I do that for the day job.

You don't need to do stand up.

You've been in front of tough.

Yeah, they're judging me constantly.

Oh my god, that is that's hard.

Yeah, it's constantly crowd work with a bunch of a bunch of kids who don't want to listen to things you're saying.

Yeah, I don't know if I could handle them.

My mother was a teacher.

Oh jesu.

No, There's a lot of people in my family are teachers when I think about it, uncles and aunts and stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You don't see a connection to that though, with stand up that you've been about.

Yeah, the kind of the standing in front of groups of hostile Scottish people.

Yeah, I see it now, Yeah, I think that's yeah, I never thought about it.

Yeah, maybe, although I don't consider myself in any way in a teaching possession with these people, you know, mostly it's a bit of survival for me, I think.

But I feel like one of your I mean one of your superpowers though, is putting people at ease?

Right?

Would that'd be fair to say?

I feel like you famously like your ability to interview and get to the quick with people.

Yeah, and put them.

I feel like I've known threatening.

I'm threatening, sure of course.

And then maybe you know what it is is like I really don't.

Want to damage you in any way.

I'm not interested in scoring a point against you, or I don't care about that.

You got to try to get a point in here?

There no really win.

I mean, who's winning now?

Who's you score?

Winning?

And I want you to win.

You're winning and it's no fun if you just give it up.

You're winning it life.

You're tall, you're tall too great.

Come on, you're winning.

You're past the tall post first the check and flag of the tall race.

I've got to be away and you're in.

I'm in you're in and you did a little extra with the high hair.

You got to, you know, show me when you're in the end one.

I you know what, I I don't know if I you know, if I have the test off thing anymore to get my hair to go high, I think.

You'll just you know what the secret is.

The secret is less product.

Shut.

I think it's more product.

No secret is less product.

The product weighs it down and you need enough to keep it in some sort of shape.

But when you want height, if you're going for height, I know, I don't know if I am.

Though it looks good, I feel like if I go for.

Height, you know, at this point in my life, it's like I'm the oldest guy in the club.

You know what I'm saying.

It's like I think I should just you get to have certain points and I think it's run about sixty where you just you try and not embarrass people by being in the room with.

It's like, oh, I hope he does.

Like last night I was doing a podcast when I was sitting talking to these people for about an hour and a half or something.

It was one of those long ones we hold the microphone.

That shows your age, right now it's one of these long one of these exhausted podcasts.

If you hold the bikes, you got to hold the microphone.

I'm like, oh no, I don't we have one of these.

I've had to hold the microphone and I start.

My leg was kind of seized up.

I was like, oh my god, this is awful.

And I was limping, and I thought, this is uh, you know, it's a it's a little kind of trailer of what's coming.

I'm literally limping now because I broke up.

I fractured a bone in my foot really from standing on a too low from standing on a really yeah, that cannot happen.

It can happen.

Can you see?

You should maybe see a doctor.

That sounds like brittle legs and syndrome.

I have the I have the foot bone density of like an Ailien sparrow.

Wow.

Yeah.

And it's I feel like I'm feeling very old this year.

I've got a lot of like like ailments have suddenly had.

I'm forty six and so like foot cracked out.

You have scouts?

What are you king, Henry?

The age you get I sup at the table of Kings.

How did you get out?

Because gos like a build up of a mineral of some kind.

Yeah, you get it.

Because you're eating I joke that it is like I I have privilege essentially as you're you're you're drinking yeasty I pas and you're eating red meat.

But a big part of it is too.

It's a it's a genetic thing that like.

Basically if you get a certain level, you get uric acid build up, and diet is part of.

It, but mostly it's a genetic thing.

Do you have to go vegan, then I should go no booze and no red meat.

And I know, no red me.

That's me.

Yeah, I live my life like that.

And do you like it?

Yeah, it's funny, but the no booze thing is essential, Yes, essent.

I mean that I get you know, I'm like I I go sowhere when I was twenty nine.

Yeah, but I was you live that life?

Yeah, No, it was no no for well as it terms, it wasn't for me, but it was for me at the time.

Yeah, I had no booze and no drugs and no red meat because.

You know, and you've just now gotten into reading.

No, I've been reading.

From what I was going to say, I feel like, no, like nighttime reading is to me like when I'm at my best and I'm drinking, I'm taking a break, I'm eating good.

To me, one of the biggest elements of social drinking or even just solo at home is like marking the end of the day.

And so I have such a hard time like transitioning into something that feels it's a good use of time at night.

And to me, books does that sometimes.

Let me talk to you.

Let's wind it back a little too.

Solo drinking at the.

Day, Come on, I was winning, I was winning this conversation.

Let's just let's just take a little drinking.

This was happening.

Rest up on this little freeway and go follow drinking at the end of the day.

A little glass of beer or wine or something.

Yeah, I'll go.

I'll go a little, a little bourbon at the end of the night, get a little little hard alcohol, a little bit.

It's better for the feet that you fucking go is well deserved.

I didn't.

I didn't cheese and bourbon at the end of the day with a burger.

Yeah, this is all right.

You know what.

Now I'm winning.

Sit on your high horse or or your quarter horse, and look down on me one of one of your four hoards.

I love it you come in here bragging about your four horses.

Wife has three horses, she has a reserve horse, she has a backup horse.

Really a horse.

It's a Shetland pony.

You're still on a high Shetland pony perspective.

The thing is, though I'm frightened of the Shetland pony deserves no purpose.

Well that it's a very angry thing.

Oh really, because oh yeah, they're it's a very angry thing.

It's they're very cranky Shetland pony.

You mustn't have one, really, you live in New York City.

They'd be very inconvenient anyway.

Although that makes you that guy, and I mean the guy with the iguana Starbucks, that guy, that guy I don't want to be.

You don't like that guy.

I like him.

I just don't want to be you know, yeah, I don't want to be the because that guy's people are going to talk to that guy.

I don't want to talk to you, That's true.

You know, I'll talk to you here in the tan, but Starbucks.

Yeah, I like to be ready, do.

You know what I mean?

Do you ever get like when you get recognized because you get recognized them sure recognize you at times for you don't want to be recognized at that time.

For sure.

A lot of times kid usually blocks that out.

Sometimes New York.

New York is a pretty cool place.

New York is actually the best sit in the world for it because if people recognize you, they're like, oh, it's that guy.

Yeah you know, yeah.

I had the best one a few weeks ago.

I was like parking in Brooklyn on a Sunday and I hop out and I'm about ready to pay my meter and a guy walks by and he goes like, Clipper, it's Sunday, you don't fucking pay and he kept walking.

That's great.

I was like, that is so New York.

That is very New York.

But here's the thing I have.

Let's go back to paid for the mere I never do.

You don't never just roll it, roll the dice.

I roll the dice because I figured and I get to I guess, but I don't get them every time, and I feel like it works out.

Kind of even I will say I do that.

I do street parking.

Yeah, I got a car and I got no parking spot.

And so you know, the New York thing of like get in your car and then wait for two hours as the cleaner comes around, so you don't get it ticket, right, Yeah, I've given up on that as well.

Well.

I'm like, I'll roll the dice, I'll pay it.

It's so much cheaper to get a couple of tickets a month than it is to pay for parking in your Yeah.

I mean it's like if you go try and park in one of these structures, it's like it's more expensive than getting tickets.

Doesn't make any sense?

Yeah, yeah, So what do you you double part?

You're driving in town?

I don't have a car in town.

You don't have enough when I do because I drive around fifteen hundred pickup truck that's.

A fucking tank.

Yeah, but you have tiny ponies and big truck.

Yeah, I got tiny.

I would never let a pony in my truck.

That's for my wife's How many ponies could you put in the back of that truck.

A ram Dodge around fifteen hundred.

I hadn't know one shilling pony.

You couldn't get a huge, you couldn't.

No your top, you're thinking of the twenty five hundred, what is it?

What do you.

You like the beefiness, you use it like the try you know, because I'm an immigrant.

Yeah, and I feel like you know, when you're an immigrant.

It's kind of like, you know, people that convert to a religion are more religious than the people who were grew up in the religion.

That's kind of like me with America.

I'm more America than people who were American.

Like you have you have like a cowboy hat at home?

Oh more than one two and a half.

I have a cowboy hat.

I drink root beer over crushed ice.

I yell at the TV.

I watch Nascar.

You watch you like Nascar?

To watch Nascar?

Oh, you are in it.

I sometimes I fall asleep in front of baseball games.

I like, I do the whole thing.

I respect that.

Yeah, it's it's I I threw myself wholeheartedly into I'm Homer Simpson.

That's the best place to be, to be honest, to enjoy all of the the indulgences of American culture.

I feel like there's elements that I feel like I myself I'm always probably partially pushing against.

Well yeah, yeah, that's an interesting thing.

What did you miss about it when you were in London, if anything.

Well, I was such a sheltered child by that when I left, so like, I mean, I immediately sought out everything that felt American in London.

But I've also like nineteen at the time, twenty at the time, So like I'm eating at I mean, I'm eating at the McDonald's and Tripolgar Square, right, you know, I'm like, I'm just eating at chip shops, and so I'm the culture was as close to like American fast food culture as I could right find.

But as I like settled it, I mean, I loved I think what I mostly loved about London at the time was that I loved big cities.

I didn't know it Calmezer is a tiny one.

Big cities have an energy.

I love big cities.

I loved this city.

Yeah, I love New York City's my favorite city.

I think every other city is just kind of pretending to be in New York.

They all are ex I went to Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo doesn't give a ship.

Yeah, this is to Tokyo.

Toyo's Tokyo.

Yeah, I think you got some of the some of the European cities.

I'm like, oh yeah, but New York is New York.

You're like Tokyo's three New York's.

Yeah, Tokyo is kind of crazy.

Yeah, I loved it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean I fail.

If I had gone to Japan when I was a young man, I would not have come back.

Yeah, but that would have been your that would have been your life.

And yeah I would have just because I really liked it.

I really I don't know why.

I mean just everything about it just seemed great.

Yeah, why did you go?

Were you?

Were you working?

No?

That was uh five six years ago.

My wife has always wanted to go.

She loves Japanese culture.

I was.

I did as well, but it wasn't on my bucket list necessarily, and so we went.

We spent like two weeks.

We did like a week to Kiyo, two and went to Kyoto and then went to the Notto Peninsula.

Then we're like, we want to go to like a small fishing town and spend a couple of days out there, and that was amazing.

I feel like I felt a little bit this with Rome.

What I loved about Rome is that there's like three centuries going on at the same time, like now the sixteen hundreds and like Roman culture is like on the same block.

Yeah, and Japan felt elements of that, of like Tokyo felt like a super city in its own future that I loved, didn't give a shit about Westerners or what they had going on.

Have you been in Russia now?

Russia is amazing?

Yeah?

Yeah, I was because I kind of came up during the Cold War, so you know, I had been told a lot of stuff about Russia that's not true, and people are hearing a lot of stuff about Russia that it's not true right now, you know.

And and like when I was in Saint Petersburg, which is as beautiful as city as I've ever seen.

I mean it's it's like Paris but clean.

I mean it's amazing.

And Moscow is amazing too.

And the people are so gregarious, you know what they're like.

They're like Irish people, literate drunks.

They're all drunk and they've all read everything.

It's I mean, I feel like that.

Yeah.

The literature culture over there is incredible, right.

Yeah.

When have you last been there?

I went there.

I went there.

I think it was about twenty twelve, was the last time I was there.

So I'm probably not going to go at the moment, not a great time a shape.

Yeah, I don't know, you would get it.

You'd have to fly in the Middle East and then fly up.

I guess, huh, yeah, I think so.

Yeah, Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I I just I was.

I always liked it.

It was like I also I went to go and see Lennon.

Was the first dead body I ever saw.

Is that right?

Yeah, we gotta pick one.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's in the mausoleum.

And yeah, I went and see him.

I've seen those pictures.

It looks very spooky.

It's it is very spooky.

Yeah, But also I kind of was like, is that really am really?

Yeah?

I thought maybe it might be you know, it feels like wax.

It's at a distance, it's dark.

I thought it was Jimmy Hoffer.

Is that that's where it is?

I think that might be.

It might be Jimmie Hoffer.

Yeah, Okay, they took Lennon out, and Lennon is still alive on Iver Megan and yeah, and it's Jimmy Hoffer is in there.

They steal it from the horses.

You've got sick horses there, but you still but Lennon is still kicking it.

Yeah, I think Lennon's I think Lennon Putin sounds kind of the same.

Yeah it does.

Yeah, well really, but there's there's definitely certain letters that are there.

You know, they have a lot of statues of Lenin.

I don't know if they still have them, but they had a lot of statue.

Is a Lenin holding up a newspaper?

Yeah, yeah, I don't really know why he's doing that.

I thought he was hailing a cab of some sort like that.

He's always his coat is flopping and he's always like, hey, striving.

You can't get a cab in this entire Soviet system.

That's why I went to Estonia and they had like one of those.

Uh they had a sculpture park of all of the decommissioned and you.

Go there in Moscow as well, really park of totalitarian art.

It's amazing, amazing.

Oh my god, I mean, because yeah, the art, it's fast, fascinating list in nature, all of these figures are.

They're all striding, they are striding, all moving in some kind of direction.

Big heads, yeah, great, tailored suits.

Yeah.

And also the one in Moscow.

I don't know in Estonia, but in.

Moscow they're all kind of like toppled over, like you know, so it's kind of weird.

You know, the weird thing I found in Red Square first time when you went to Red Square.

Everybody get you walking into Red Square and you start really it's the weirdest thing.

You're like, oh my god, what it It's just that's just that's enormous.

It's enormous.

And then it's just the kind of weirdness of it all.

Maybe it's maybe it's my generation because of the mystery of the Soviets and the terror.

It's like going to like the Devil's House or something.

And then.

And then the graves on the John Reid, the American Communist is buried at the Kremlin Wall really yeah, and Stalin is buried there.

And Stalin's grave by far has all these.

People like leaving flowers, and that's the one everybody goes to.

That's all right there in Red Square.

It's yea too.

And there's a department store on the other side of it called Gum.

You can you see it is a perfect right there.

It's yeah, it's it's a it's an old building.

I don't know if it was always called there's always a department store I think might have been the the Czar's wardrobe or something like that.

I mean it's insane.

Yeah, oh man, it's crazy.

And Lenin's right there like in the no you go down the little steps and kind of dark, not on like this, and then he's it's like it's like a Dracula or you know, sleeping beauty but done by the cure or something like.

Oh wow, yeah, is it like a line?

Is is he still a draw?

I don't.

I mean in twenty twelve people are still going by.

I don't know if they're going now because it's an Instagram moment now, isn't that you would be going down there like here's me and Lenin, here's me and will I Am you.

Know, I mean whoever whoever it is at the time.

Yeah, well, I Am is fine.

By the way, he's not.

He's not dead.

It's fat as this recording, while I Am is fine.

Yeah, who knows?

Fingers crossed.

You had a hologram at one point, but I think he was still a lie.

That was more mostly a.

Have you seen Abba or a hologram?

Now?

Are they really?

Yeah?

Abba, I've got a show going on in London that you can go to and they're robo hologram machines, and that's the whole show.

I know that Tupac was a hologram for a bit, right, well yeah.

But for reasons.

They just didn't want to go, like to be fair, but I can't do a sixth night a week run.

That just doesn't make any sense.

He's not available for that.

But Abba, they could still conceivably go and sing the songs, but they know that's power.

But it's young Abba.

Oh, I mean that's you get to pick, you get to pick the.

No, that's what you get, you get young Abba.

But it's like have you ever been to Graceland?

Yes, right, well you know when they have Elvis's suits out there?

Oh yeah, it's not fat.

But see, I love I level Old rock Stars is what I want.

I love, I love it, I love it.

I love I'm a Dylan guy and I love I love Old Dill.

Did you like that film?

Yes?

Oh?

Good, good good.

I think like it's not it's not the Dylan film I would necessarily make.

But I think part of like part of what I love is all the law around him and somebody just being like, all right, this is this is the Dylan story.

We're gonna tell you this, but it's an artist life.

There's too many different bits.

But yeah, I thought Edward Norton was great.

I like Edward Norton.

I think I think that's such a fun Pete Seeger.

Yeah, I think he's always in the in the Dylan myth been such a kind of a nerve, a dweeb attached about Dylan.

I know next to nothing about bout Dylan.

Really, Yeah, it just didn't press me by Yeah.

Yeah, I found him late and just his talent, but beyond that, like as a performer, his his freedom to he found a success as a performer at such an early age and then just dumped it and looked for something else.

And I feel like so much of like being a performer and improviser is like trying to find what's your thing so that you can you consit at it and and find a little success for a moment.

And like Dylan figured it out and was like, oh fuck it, I'm gonna do another thing.

And you figure that out and they're like I'm gonna do another thing.

Like the his his impermanence is so impressive to me.

I think people who get very successful very young also get injected with the confidence.

For sure that sometimes is warranted in the case of Dylan, definitely, and sometimes it's absolutely not, you know, and then then they get into this odd kind of sense of entitlement.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think there's there's a world where you can then completely freeze and this is just who you are.

You're confident, you're successful, this is this is the gravy train you will ride for life.

I think it's an interesting I worked for a while with Mick Jagger and we were working on a screenplay that we were writing for a movie that was never made.

Yeah, and I was I remember talking to him about because he was eighteen that, you know, and he was like, well, you know, it's I know what I am.

And you know, I was thinking even as I was working with him.

The myth of Mick Jagger is like he went to the London School of Economics.

Did he really?

Yeah, he's a very clever, astute businessman and he's made a couple of mistakes that no one really talks about, but I remember them because I look for the negative.

But did you ever see the movie Ned Kelly, No, there's a movie, The Great The Australian Robin Hood or Jesse James is Ned Kelly and Mick Jagger to the movie in the seventies where he played Ned Kelly.

Really it's catastrophically bad.

It is fucking wonderful.

Yeah, and make is terrible in it.

And now I've seen him perform up close a lot of times.

One of the best performers.

I mean, look, it's not news.

Mick Jagger is an amazing perform yeah, but as an actor, that's not that guy.

Yeah, it's kind of interesting.

But he had the confidence to going, yeah, I'll be I'll do this film and it'll be awesome.

Yeah.

And it's not awesome, but it's awesome.

But you enjoyed the performance of it because.

I love it, because the shodden freud of it is just fucking delicious.

The freedom of that is I mean, I feel like Dylan has that in an acting standpoint too, Like I feel like he has such allure to be famous on screen as well.

And you know, he did Ronaldo and Clara, he did what the Pat Garrett.

Film and Billy the Kid, and he's so stiff and stilted, but the confidence to be that within it and he still pops up.

He just he literally he popped up.

You know, he did like a Pond Stars episode of years back that popped up.

He pops up in the weirdest stuff crazy.

Literally yesterday he's what eighty three he and he just popped up doing the voiceover for the trailer for the rapper Machine Gun Kelly's new album.

Wow.

That is they didn't see that coming.

He makes the weirdest choice.

I feel like.

When you have that level of fame, the Mick Jaggers, the Bob Dylans, and you can do whatever the hell you want, the ability to just be like, well I'm gonna fucking do some weird stuff right now.

You know.

Dagger said to thinking to me that I still say to my whenever my kids have to do a presentation at school or whenever I sometimes get a living in my head before I show.

I remember the first time I saw Jagger was we were they were It was the Bridges to Babylon tour and they were playing Istan Bull and I just met Meg for launch that day and he said, count to the shop, no and you shit ship right.

Down the front and you'll see you.

So you were able to decipher that.

Yeah, Yeah, So I went to the show and they started, it was amazing.

It was this big stadium in Istanbul and.

There was a you know, they could see the blue mosque out the bag and then they there was like a thunderstorm around and it was just unbelieving.

They started with the you know, the Sympathy for the Devil and stuff, and they started, It's just amazing show and make through.

I've never seen a performer like I've seen everybody.

This guy was unbelievable.

And we went for dinner after the show, and I was like effusive about his performance.

I couldn't help.

I didn't want to be that guy back and he said, he said, well, I said, you just really threw down and he was like, you know why, I look at it now.

I never paid money to see someone who was shy.

Thought, fuck, yeah's the truth.

Yeah, uh huh, it's like you put on a show.

My my.

One of my improv teachers early on used to say, like that effort isn't sexy.

And it's not that you don't want to put effort into these things, but like people aren't there to watch you struggle to figure something right.

I don't want see you sweat.

They're not exactly It's like they want to be put at ease.

Yeah, I want to see somebody who is great or unique or other than me.

Yeah.

I don't want to be nervous.

No, no, no.

I want to I want to be a little I want to be a little nervous.

So I fucking wake up and focus.

Right, you want?

You want to be nervous, to think this guy is so fucking crazy.

I don't know what's going to happen night, but not nervous, hasn't I hope he?

I hope he's not sad?

Is he?

Okay?

I can't even watch pretend, Like if you see something in a movie or something where I stand up is meant to be doing badly, I can't even watch it fictionally.

I'm like, really, I can't fuck look.

I also, I'm frightened.

It's contagious watching somebody fail, watching something like, Oh Jesus, I hate that.

I just don't want to see it.

You don't know, I'll never have to do it with you.

You won't have to do you won't have to see it with me because I only succeed, and also because I will live in the improperable primarily Yeah, all right, well we're done.

That's it.

That's it.

So who won?

It's definitely you.

Thank definitely you.

I thought your spectacular job ten out of ten, a star on your your workbook.

And can you know, take the rest of the day off.

I'll go drinking by myself, you know, if that's what you're really doing, give me a call later on.

All right, get out there.