Tom Green | Club Random

Club Random is brought to you by the audio marketing gurus at Radioactive Media. Congratulations, you survived 2024.
Now the question is, how are you as a business owner or CMO going to ensure your business survives and thrives? Discover how audio marketing can surpass your current strategies with new and innovative ways that sound better. Go to RadioactiveMedia.com or text RANDOM to 511-511.
Text RANDOM to 511-511 today. Message data rates may apply.
GIMS now offers men's underwear, and I'm here to tell you it's worth the hype. I shoot hoops all the time, but I've never liked wearing that synthetic feeling workout underwear, especially when I'm done at the gym.
Yick! When I tried Skims stretch boxer briefs, it felt like I finally found the missing link. And maybe it's in my head, but I swear since I started wearing these, my jump shot has gotten a little bit better.
Shop Skims men's at skims.com and Skims stores. I have a team around that helps me vet and hire the right people, which I pride myself on, but most employers don't have that support and thus make costly mistakes in hiring the right people.
If you're an employer who can relate, I have one question for you. Have you tried ZipRecruiter? ZipRecruiter has figured out how to solve this very problem.
See for yourself. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash random right now to try it for free.
Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash random. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire.
Well, I don't know what you thought this program was, Mr. Green, but it's a family.
No, I'm just saying. It's a family show.

Who's the biggest election canceler than Donald Trump?

You know, he was my old boss.

He fired me on The Celebrity Apprentice.

I have to hear this story.

Hey, Bill, how are you?

Tom.

Tom.

Listen.

Oh, my gosh.

Are we wearing the same shirt? Yeah, mine's better. Good to see you, man.
Yours is more like a farmer shirt. Yes, exactly, because I'm a farmer now.
I know you are. I am a farmer.
Mine's fresh. Very? Listen.
Pretty far, Mike. I borrowed that weed walker from you 24 years ago, and I have been meaning to give it back to you.
I actually got it back today. I was wondering about that.
Now, for people who are wondering what I'm referring to, you used to live here. That's true.
And I lived next door. Yeah, until it burned down.
I lived here two weeks, and then you burned your house down on purpose. Yeah, well.
Why? It wasn't exactly the way it went, but. Drew did.
Yeah. I do remember having a conversation.
I'd probably just moved to Los Angeles just weeks earlier. And I remember having a conversation with you through the fence once because the dog ran over there or something.
Through the fence. Yeah.
Just like regular people. Yeah.
Just like regular neighbors. Stars are just like us.
I moved here in January of 2001. Uh-huh.
When did you move Next Door, which is now this store? It must have been in 2000, I would say, because it was when my show was on MTV in Los Angeles. Was Drew already living here? Yes.
Yes, she was. Yeah.
Yeah. It was basically...
So you moved into this place, but it was already here.

She already had it.

Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I was basically doing my show on MTV.

I just moved to Los Angeles, and I was here for probably just a couple of months or something like that.

Not too, too long.

But, yeah, it was because the place burned down, so then we moved.

That was a scary thing. Now, were you here the night that that happened? Do you remember the fire? It's so funny.
Two weeks after I moved in, and, of course, you don't really know where you were in the house versus the street. You're just getting reoriented.
There were still boxes in my living room. Yeah.
And I remember emailing my assistant and said, I think it was a Sunday. And I said, I didn't get the Sunday New York Times today.
Do you have to know why? And she emailed back, yeah, because there were 16 fire trucks on your street. Oh, that's amazing, yeah.
So you must have slept pretty good through that, huh? Apparently, my bedroom is, I know it now, is on the opposite side of my house. So this property, it was, and this house was set quite a bit back.
But yeah, you would have thought I would have heard. I don't think I'd sleep that well today.
Yeah, that was a scary situation for sure.

I had just gone, about six months earlier, just gone through cancer treatment.

Right.

Because I had had testicular cancer while I was on MTV.

So my show had ended.

I fear that one.

Yeah, that's not a fun one to have.

But it's a good one because you don't die from it usually.

Right.

How did they detect it?

Well, I noticed something was kind of, I felt some pain down there in my right testicle. Actual pain.
Yeah. It was a throbbing kind of sort of thing.
And I went to the doctor and got checked out and that's, that's what happened. But you didn't feel anything? Well, like, I mean, yeah, a little bit of pain.
No, I mean like when you felt your, did you go, hmm, did I used to have three balls? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, well, actually, the right one had gotten significantly larger as well, which I was kind of thinking.
That's what I mean. Yeah, yeah.
So it felt like there was. So if I check my balls and they feel basically equal, I'm okay, you think? I think so, yeah.
You would feel something, some sort of a dull, aching pain is what I felt. Some people feel more pain, like sharper pain, but I felt a dull aching pain.
And then you'll go to the doctor, and sometimes they'll misdiagnose it. And so, like I was misdiagnosed initially as- Is that right? Yeah, they said it was epididymitis, and I put me on antibiotics for a few weeks, and we went off and shot another show with Monica Lewinsky.
Well, we drove up to, flew up to Canada with her and shot a television show for MTV with her. She's felt a few balls in her day.
You know, I'm just, I'm lobbing these up for you, Phil. I appreciate you taking the bait there on that one.
Oh, any time. Monica Lewinsky said, well, not to get off on a tangent, not that we have an agenda here, so what could buy everything is a tangent.
But, you know, I take a lot of shit for my views about medicine, which I don't think are weird at all. I'm just more skeptical, I think, than most people.
And it's because, partly because, partly, and just anecdotally, I can't tell you how many times I've heard the phrase, and it was misdiagnosed. And it's like, I'm not saying you guys aren't trying in the medical field.
I'm not saying you're corrupt, although there is some of that. And I'm certainly not saying that everything bobby kennedy is right says is right yeah but yes i'm skeptical of everything you guys very often don't get it right yeah so don't fucking look at me like how dare you question what we in the white coats are saying because when have we ever gotten gotten one wrong? A lot.
You get it wrong a lot. So no, I don't take anything you say at face value, and I'm just not going to march to whatever you say, because you are the science.
Yeah, I think, I think. Damn it, Tom, you've got me all riled up about your balls.
Yes, absolutely. These aren't even my balls, and I'm pissed off.
Did you just make yourself a drink there? Yes, can I do it for you? I suppose I should have a drink then, yeah. If you want, yeah, what did you have there? What did you make there? Is it a little...
It's just tequila. Okay, that sounds good.
Yeah, I think... A little rot gut.
Why not? Never heard a farmer like you. Absolutely.
Canadian farmer can have a shot of tequila. Can I make you the same drink I have? Yeah, what are you mixing it with? This is an interesting concoction.
First, we, of course, have ice. Would you like to pour your own ice? I don't want to put my hand in.
No problem, no problem. Yeah, okay.
And then would you just mix it with some water there? We will add the, I'm doing a cooking show now. I feel like our future has a cooking show in it.
Absolutely. I mean, that would be amazing.
If it involved tequila, it's always fun. Cooking with liquor, I'm going to call it.
I mean, it's different. Okay.
So then we add, this is Jing, and this is because I'm a health nut. I love this stuff.
It's a way to make sparkling water into a diet soda without any of the chemicals that are in diet soda. Okay, okay.
Oh, yeah, sure. But not even the stuff that's in the non-sugar ones, which are still chemical.
It's like a flavored sort of chemical. Yes, and then we add the sparkling water.
Okay, excellent. Now, there are some health nuts, real nuts, and anyone who is more to the left than me is nuts, of course,

who don't even think sparkling water is good for you. But you know what? So there's a bunch of carbon in that or something? Yeah, carbonated.
I can't even remember why. I'm sure, you know, is anything as good as clear mountain water? No.
But we got none of that here. What we got is liquor and a good time.
And, you know. There we go.
That looks like a nice drink there for sure. All right.
Cheers, Bill. Thank you.
Great to see you. Great to see you too.
Congratulations. Thank you.
My fiance is here as well. Oh.
I'm engaged. My fiance is out in the control room.
Well, I hope you're engaged to your fiance. Because other than that, it doesn't look like much of a commitment.
Yeah. No, but I saw you on the front room.
Well, I hope you're engaged to your fiancee, because other than that, it doesn't look like much of a commitment. No, but I saw you on the front page of the New York Times, Arts and Leisure.
I was like, wow, this guy is iconic. He always reinvents himself.
The public never doesn't want to read about him or see him in whatever new iteration he's in. You know, he's a real artist.
You are. I mean, when I think of, like, when you first blew up and you were, like, one of those rare rock star comedians, really, cover Rolling Stone type stuff.
Yeah, it was wild time for sure. And now you're a fucking farmer.

No, but, you know, it makes sense because in life you do go through passages.

You aren't the same person you are at 22.

Yeah.

How old are you now?

I'm 53.

Yeah, 53.

And, you know, I'm not essentially doing a lot of farming, really.

I live on a farm. There's hay fields that we cut the hay.
And I have a donkey and a mule. And I ride this mule.
I didn't know anything about mules. What is the difference between the donkey and the mule? Yeah, because I actually thought they were the same before I got the mule.
A mule is half horse, half donkey. So it's like a hybrid.
So it's like her fanny is her name. And her father was a mammoth donkey, and her mother was a Percheron horse.

Horse, half donkey?

Half donkey, yeah.

They have 62 chromosomes.

A donkey has 63 chromosomes.

A donkey has 62, and a horse has 64.

It might be the other way around, but one way or another, the odd number of chromosomes, the 63 chromosomes, means they're sterile, can't reproduce. So the only way you can make a mule, two mules won't make another mule.
You can't breed mules. You have to get donkeys and horses and put them together.
What's odd to me about the whole thing is that donkeys and horses fuck because the definition of a species usually is creatures that will only fuck creatures that are in. Like, you know, leopards don't fuck tigers.
Right. Yeah.
Although you'd think if you're horny one night. Yeah.
You'd be like, okay, I was looking for a tiger, but I mean, is it that different? But they don't. It's generally the male donkey fucking the female horse.
I know. Not the other way around.
Right. So a horse doesn't generally want to have sex with a, I'll say it more politely, have sex with a donkey for some reason.
So, and it's, I don't know, I wasn't there when it happened. You know, I just got, she was 11, 10 years old when I got her, but it was, it's been a lot of fun.
Well, you say you weren't there, but I've certainly seen in enough movies, and that's where I know everything I know about farming from, where someone has to assist the horse in the sexual act.

I think when you're getting two different species to procreate, there's a little bit of human interaction.

Even if it's just two horses.

Yeah, yeah.

They want, of course, the horses to mate because they want a pony.

And who doesn't want a pony for your birthday?

But they have to, like, lubricate sometimes the horse.

Okay, yeah.

So I'm a new farmer, so I don't know everything else.

Well, I'm saying this is in your future.

You're going to have to learn to jerk off a horse.

I could see, you know, if you've seen Freddy Got Fingered, I mean, I know a little bit about that. Right.
Oh, right. I forgot about Freddy Got Fingered.
But, no, it's been an amazing thing. You know, I moved back to Canada, where I'm from, so I live not too far from where I grew up.
My parents live down the road. And, uh, you know, I, um, I found this property and, uh, can we say what province this is? It's in Ontario.
Yeah. Yeah.
Sort of between Toronto and Ottawa, closer to Ottawa. Yeah.
Don't tell the nuts where you live. No, no, it's Ontario is pretty big.
Ontario is twice the size of Texas. So we So they'll have a hard time narrowing it down just from that.

But we're a big country up there.

The future 51st state, potentially.

Well, fingers crossed.

Yeah, it'll be the only state in America where nobody in it wants to be American.

Yeah, I mean.

Except for Jordan Peterson, Wayne Gretzky, and that guy from Shark Tank.

Well, Jordan is sat there. I'm a good friend.
Have you had Wayne on yet? Yeah. Wayne Gretzky? Yeah.
I know. He's a hockey player.
I never followed hockey. The great one.
The great one. Yeah.
Why? Is he a big right winger? Well, I don't know. I do know that he hangs out a little bit at Mar-a-Lago and that it may be that Mr.
Trump was, President Trump was attempting to maybe get him to run for prime minister. Are you happier now that you're in Canada? I am actually.
It's not that I wasn't, it's just a nice, it's nice to be closer to my family and it's a nice change for sure. I like being in nature.
You know, I like being out in the... Is it something you couldn't have done unless you got, we're getting engaged? I mean, And it's a nice change for sure.
I like, I like being in nature. You know, I like being out in the, in the, uh, is it something you couldn't have done unless you got, we're getting engaged.
I mean, it's a very different thing to move alone to someplace. Actually, I met her there.
So I met her after, after I moved, I moved three and a half years ago. I met her up there.
And, uh, and, uh, so she's Canadian and, uh, my, my life's really coming together as soon as I went back to Canada. I don't know what it is, Bill, but.
Do you have kids? No kids, no. So do you think you're going to start a family now? I would like to, yeah, yeah.
And what will you tell your kids you do? Because certainly you're not going to admit to being Tom Green. I mean, that certainly.
I'll show them the documentary. Not until they're like 20.
Yeah, exactly. You know, I don't know.
I'll probably tell them I'm a comedian. I, too, are doing stand-up comedy.
I don't know if I'll bring them to one of my shows in the first 10 years. But, you know, maybe I'll show them the documentary that I just put out.
That should explain it. What about Freddie Fingered? You'll have to wait until they're at least 14 to see that one.
What was the controversy with that? I forget. I remember it was a very big, they wrote about it a lot.
You know. What year are we talking about? We're talking about 2000, I believe it was.
2000. Oh, really? 2000, 2001.
Early 2001. Early 2001.
So it was like the fire and then that. Yeah, it was right.
A lot of things happened in close succession. You should have read your horoscope that week.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mercury was in retrograde or some shit like that.
You know, a lot of good things happened. A lot of weird things happened.
You know, I mean, the fact that they let me direct the movie and do this movie when I was just on MTV. Why were people so mad about it? I think it was just, I mean, it's a good question because it's kind of gotten a little bit of a resurgence yeah that's what happens people actually say they like it now over time time is great for that yeah yeah it was one of these things where it was obviously it was a very now i pushed the envelope as far as the outrageousness and the scenes and it was it was very silly.
I don't know if there was a feeling of why was I directing this thing, or I don't know. It's really hard to say.
It was one of those things, though, where I had that opening weekend experience where there was all of this anticipation. We were all really excited about it.
We thought it was pretty funny. We enjoyed it.
And then when the Roger Ebert came out and sort of did his sort of review of it, it was kind of like, oh, that's not very good, is it, now? So it was sort of very disheartening. Explain to the kids out there this roger ebert you speak of yeah so back in the back in the olden times yes uh yes three movies would come out every weekend and uh it was very important that you went to the right one and spent your money in the right place so they would have these critics who would advise you on how to spend your hard-earned dollar.
So people would watch that as a television show? They would watch critics talk about movies? On this thing called television, of course. Yeah, absolutely.
And it was very, they were very respected, their opinions. Would they tell you which movies had done best at the box office that week? Yes, they would.
Of course, yeah. That was a big thing.
Of course, and it was very... And I remember there were people who complained about it it shouldn't we shouldn't know because we should just be able to decide on the merits of the movie and not by oh it's number one of course i'm going to see the number one movie as if i ever did that as if i ever looked at it well it's number six i don't know yeah yeah it's it's uh it's kubrick but it's six.
It was the head of the studio, New Regency, Arnon Milchon. I don't know if you know Arnon.
Of course I know of him. He took me aside after the Roger Ebert negative review and told me, you know, my very first movie, Tom, was King of Comedy, and Roger Ebert, you know, destroyed it.
And 20 years later, he actually was the only movie he's ever reversed his opinion on it. That's a Martin Scorsese movie.
Exactly. But funnily enough, he did kind of, a few years later, Ebert did kind of give a little bit of a, not a complete reversal.
But he said, well, I'm still thinking about that movie. There's something weird about it.
But what did Gene Siskel say? Well, it was actually Ebert and Roper. Remember there was a short period of time where it was Roper.
And he didn't like it either. But it wasn't really, it's weird because, you know, well, it's very much like stand-up in a lot of ways.
You can sort of choose to shock or polarize your audience or maybe purposefully, you know, push half of the audience away for the entertainment of the other half of the audience.

This is what I thought we were doing. We were making this movie that was going to be so weird that maybe half the audience would get up and walk out of the theater, and then the half that remained would be sitting there like they were in on the joke, right? People like you and me never have the whole audience, and very few people do, and that's okay.
It's a big country, yeah but i mean i i get it the way you're explaining to me it's like that's what an artist does i make the movie i think is funny and some people are not gonna like it and i know that going in and that's okay because i'm not playing to them i mean that's what i go by yeah and i think with that movie of it was, I guess we kind of felt like part of the punchline was the fact that some people just weren't going to get it. Like that was kind of the punchline, you know, like this was so stupid that like, how could you have made something so stupid and then get people get angry about it.
And that's, what's funny. And so I was surprised that, that Roger Ebert and Roper, uh, weren't able to kind of sort of step back a bit and go, as some 28-year-old kid who's just, you know, fell off the turnip truck here in Los Angeles, and he's trying to make a weird movie.
And let's, you know, maybe understand that this isn't, you know, he wasn't trying to make the jazz singer. You know, this is supposed to be stupid.
But instead, it was just sort of treated as it was not as successful. I'm sure you're a fan of Spinal Tap.
Sure, yeah, absolutely. And of course, there's the great line in Spinal Tap where he says, it's a fine line between clever and stupid.
Right, right. Yeah.
Yeah. When they're accused of, yeah.
Club Random is brought to you by the audio marketing gurus at Radioactive Media. Congratulations, you survived 2024.
Now the question is, how are you as a business owner or CMO going to ensure your business survives and thrives? As you've heard me say, Trump may have won the White House, but he's not going to win my mind this time. You have the ability to overcome anything by taking control and steering it in the direction you want to go.
So why not utilize something reliable and stable for your marketing efforts and tap into the power of podcasts and radio. In the U.S., audio reaches more than social media and digital combined.
My friends at Radioactive Media know the recipe to launch, optimize, and scale performance by building compelling audio campaigns which work. Their personal approach and knowledge of the medium is unparalleled.
For advertisers who want to reach the right audience with the right hosts and programs, you need to speak with Radioactive Media. Text RANDOM to 511-511.
Heck, why not do something innovative and sponsor my show? If you're a mid-sized company or a well-funded startup, Radioactive can help. They believe in the power of audio so much they even use it themselves.
Right here, right now. Learn how you can harness the power of text messaging.
Go to RadioactiveMedia.com or text the word RANDOM to 511-511. Discover how audio marketing can surpass your current strategies with new and innovative ways that sound better.
Go to RadioactiveMedia.com or text RANDOM to 511-511. Text RANDOM to 511-511 today.
Message data rates may apply. Even though I wear underwear every day, like most guys, I hope so, I have felt stuck in an underwear rut.
The good news is that for those who haven't heard yet, Skims now offers men's underwear, and I'm here to tell you it's worth the hype. I shoot hoops all the time, but I've never liked wearing that synthetic feeling workout underwear, especially when I'm done at the gym.
Yick! When I tried skims, stretch, boxer briefs, it felt like I finally found the missing link. They give me all the movement I need for working out without feeling like I'm walking around wearing gym clothes the rest of the day.
Plus, they never lose their shape or ride up. And maybe it's in my head, but I swear since I started wearing these, my jump shot has gotten a little bit better.
Shop Skims Men's at skims.com and Skims stores. Let them know we sent you.
After you place your order, select podcast in the survey and select our show in the drop-down menu that follows. Skims is the official underwear partner of the NBA, WNBA, and USA Basketball.
And in a way, there actually is. I mean, it's just how something strikes you.
I mean, there are people who saw Spinal Tap and didn't understand it was a mockumentary at all they just took it at face value and like well this band isn't very good yeah yeah that's amazing because that was sort of uh you know what year would spinal tap have been early 80s or early 80s late 70s early 80s not 70s mid 80s then early 80s i don't know what you're gonna guess so i mean it's rob reiner's first movie right yes let's just say 80s it's kind of amazing to think that people would have actually believed it was was real it's like i remember when i started my show in the 90s and i was pulling pranks on my parents, people didn't understand that they were not actors at first. They thought, oh, those people would say, are those your real parents? You know, they hadn't sort of been inundated with reality TV yet.
So they were sort of unable to sort of process the fact that some kid would go, you know, paint pornography in his parents' car or paint their house. And so they just thought they were actors, which blew me away because, I mean, they obviously weren't actors.
It was obviously a home video kind of thing. Yeah.
I mean, it was, I feel like a bridge to something like Borat. Yeah.
It was like just before that. Right.
Just before that. Yeah.
So it was. Yeah.
So when, so, so so let me ask you this when did you decide you wanted to do a second tv show in your living room here uh well of course it's not my living room i bought your house for sure sure so um this is this this was always a strange room, this building.

Many people told me to tear it down.

I mean, I didn't buy the house directly from you.

Somebody else bought it for a few years, and I bought it from him.

So up top is a tiki bar.

I was told Drew put that in.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

I don't actually recall ever being in this room. Really? Yeah, it might have been the second after me this was built, or maybe, I don't know.
I'm not sure. No, I think this was here when you were.
Okay. I think you were just stoned and didn't see it.
Really? You don't remember? You know, I did not smoke marijuana when I was making my show back in the day. I was, like, afraid of it.
I was, like, this uptight kid who didn't smoke marijuana. I do occasionally now, but back then I was not.
What? Maybe I'll wait a little bit because I might stop. I'll make even less sense than I make now.
They used to be so uptight about just mentioning stuff. Yeah.
I mean, it was like I'm trying to think of what an analogy for today would be, like pedophilia or something, just like, you know, just Nazism. It was an amped up anti-drug era in the 80s with the this is your brain on drugs and Nancy Reagan and the egg and the frying pan, and it's like, that's my brain in a frying pan, frying my brain.
So yeah, I can see why people would have been a little worried about it with that sort of being constantly plugged into our minds. But yeah.
It was a billboard, I remember, on the way to LAX back when I was often on that road, you know, that road that connects like the 405 to LAX. Okay.
I can't remember it. Right, right, yeah.
But I was on it a zillion times. And there was a billboard.
And it was, you know, like one of those, this is your brain on it. But it was about Coke.
And it showed a line. and every time I saw it, I was like, you know, I'm not even a Coke head.

And I want to do some Coke now.

Yeah.

I mean, just seeing the line of Coke.

Right.

It's sort of like an ad for cocaine. Yeah, it's like seeing the egg.

I want eggs.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

No, it's, well, that's.

Do you have chickens?

I have chickens, yeah.

Well, let me tell you. The price of eggs is.
You can make a killing right now. I've been thinking about this, getting into the egg business.
Maybe you and I could work something out. Like, I mean, I'm here in America still.
You can get it to me. You can be my egg distributor, my dealer.
I'll be the. Yeah, well, it's amazing, you know, how many eggs a few chickens will lay.
I don't eat a ton of eggs, so I don't actually go. I have six chickens, and I have these other guinea hens, they're called, which are sort of like a cross between a quail and a turkey, but they run around the property and they eat a lot of bugs and stuff.
It's not quail and turkey fucking, though, is it? No, they're actually there. What is there.
I mean, I don't think that's where they actually look like that, but they're not. They're actually their own distinct species called guinea hens.
They eat a lot of ticks. A guinea hen will eat thousands and thousands of ticks and bugs a day.
So they clear out the whole property of all these. You have ticks up there? Well, you know, we didn't until five years ago.
Global warming, climate change has moved north. They've been in the U.S., of course, forever, but they come up from Pennsylvania and New York on the deer.
But five years ago, there were no ticks in Canada, so climate change is real. That is one you don't want, brother.
Yeah, no. It's Lyme disease.
The Lyme disease, yeah, exactly. I would never go anywhere near any place that had ticks.
I mean, I don't know what I'll do if they come here, and they probably will. They aren't in California, I guess.
Okay, yeah, yeah. Well, there are still some at the Morris office.
No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
I'm actually with them now. I'm making fun of my own agency now.
I forgot. It sounds better at the Morris office.
It does. It's more old school.
It was what I heard when I was a kid.

I thought it was so cool to be in show business when George Burns or somebody would say, like, you know, the Morris office.

And I would think, oh, gosh.

Absolutely.

If I could one day.

I remember when my show was MTV, I was signed to the William Morris Agency.

Yeah.

It's like when you watch Danny Thomas as a kid.

That's like who his agent was. that's all you knew as a civilian right about agencies yeah would have thought that they would have wound up being william morris endeavor yeah it's it doesn't have the same ring to it but no it's not the morris office of old but that's probably good but i get about if i go the chicken coop, back to this egg deal we're working on.
Yes. And I haven't had a, I haven't gone in there for a few days.
I'll go in there, it'll be like 45 eggs in there. Like each chicken is laying one or two eggs a day.
And so, you know, if you have six chickens, you definitely will never be able to eat all the eggs that those six chickens will produce. It is amazing to think that if we weren't a species that was so into chicken abortions, the world would be overrun with chickens.

Every egg we ate had become a chicken.

You know, the thing is, well, you know, they're not fertilized yet unless you have a rooster.

Thank you. The world would be overrun with chickens.
Yeah. Every egg we ate had become a chicken.
You know, the thing is, well, you know, they're not fertilized yet unless you have a rooster. So they're not really.
Oh, is that right? I don't know if it would be considered a chicken abortion until the. So I don't have a rooster.
So if you don't have a rooster, then the eggs are never going to hatch. What does the rooster do to the egg? Well, I think it just fucks the chicken, actually.
But then the egg. Then the egg comes out, and it's a fertilized egg, and there's an embryo in it.
And it's like a sex ed class right now, Bill. You know what a chicken does to a rooster, to a chicken.
I do, but it's before the egg. Once the egg comes out, it's ready to hatch.
That's the difference with a chicken. The egg hatches outside the body, but it still has to be fertilized, I think, beforehand.
So if you don't have a rooster, you never have a fertilized egg. By the way, I didn't know any of this shit until three years ago either, so I have chickens now, so I know a lot of this stuff.
So the rooster does stud service for the entire bunch of hens? Yeah, I mean, if you have a rooster, then you'll get fertilized eggs. But then the chicken still has to sit on it and incubate it for a period of time before it hatches.
So even if you have a rooster, you can still your eggs. That must be where the connection is with calling a cock after a rooster.

Sure. Absolutely.
Yeah. I think so.
It must be. Well, of course it must be.
I haven't thought

about that, but it must be. It must be.
Why would it not be?

Tom, you're so reasonable. I can't believe people think you're a weirdo.
It must be. Why would it not be? Tom, you're so reasonable.

I can't believe people think you're a weirdo.

It makes sense to me.

Yeah.

Okay.

You know, well, it depends who you ask.

You know, it depends who you ask.

But yeah, no, it's... It's so funny that you go from like ultimate weirdo to like ultimate non-weirdo.

I thought...

It's a great arc.

I thought that like there's so much weird shit on the internet now. Right.
How do you sort of weird? You're right. You get up in the morning, you pick up your phone, you're seeing violence and Karens getting chased through malls and screaming at people and everyone fighting and so were you going to compete with that? Right.
No. Or no, I thought maybe the weirdest thing that I could do is to go do something really normal.
You're so right. Become a farmer.
Zig when they zag. Absolutely.
You know, that's it. And there's a lot of comedy in my new show.
I mean, my parents are on it. It's just more situational.
So it's you and Nicole Richie. Simple life type thing? It's a little bit like that.
It's Ava Gabor, but you... It meets the simple life.
Do you remember Green Acres? We almost called the show Green Acres, but it was taken. Wasn't that great? that was a little before my time, not to date myself.
You should watch them. Yeah.
I remember watching reruns of it. I was more of a Beverly Hillbillies kind of guy.
There's a layer to Green Acres that's very sophisticated. It was almost surreal because, you know, the plot was, of course, Oliver, Eddie Albert played him.
He's a New York, you know, I guess he was a lawyer or something. He's wearing three-piece suits, marries Ava Gabor, who's darling, but she's hot, and she wants to live in the, oh, no, he wants to live in the country.
She's like, oh, fuck it. We're leaving Park Avenue for the country, but he wants to, he has this thing in his head about, and so all the people around him on the farm and in the town, they're all like insane.
He's the only sane one there. And yet they also vibe with the wife because she's insane in her way.
So they kind of meld, even though she hates being in the country. And he's just like this, the sane guy in the middle.
And it's really very well scripted. I think you would be impressed.
It was, you know, it was sort of the opposite of the Beverly Hillbillies, right? Which was, they were- I mean, I think that show was funny too. And it had a similar thing where the, the Hillbillies would in their own way meld with some people he wouldn't expect, but yeah, it was more just misunderstandings of, you know, the cement pond and like what, what things were.
And like the writing back then, those writers were good. You know, those green jean shows that they used to call them on CBS, that's what kept CBS alive for years.
It wasn't just the Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres. There was also Petticoat Junction.
Okay. I've heard of it.
And they were all sort of

and Andy Griffith. Right.

Watched that quite a bit. They were all sort of

and they all kind of like

cross-pollinated at a certain

point with the ones on the other shows.

I think it was all taking place

like in North Carolina.

I'm sure it looks very

racist today. But it was

shot probably in the parking lot at CBS

Radford or something. Of course it was.
And it wasn't

overtly racist. It's just that there weren't black people in existence in their world.
The 60s and the South. I mean, they're just, but that's where the world was.
I mean, yes, even liberals didn't think it was the wrong thing. So nobody should like fucking look back to the past and go, oh, we're better than you.
No, you just came later. I've been on TV a long time and have gone through my fair share of hiring people.
I have a team around me that helps me vet and hire the right people, which I pride myself on. But most employers don't have that support and thus make costly mistakes in hiring the right people.
If you're an employer who can relate, I have one question for you. Have you tried ZipRecruiter? ZipRecruiter has figured out how to solve this very problem.
In fact, four of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And right now, you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash random.
How fast does ZipRecruiter's smart technology start showing your job to qualified candidates? Immediately! ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology works fast and find top talent so you don't waste time or money. So relax, employers, and let ZipRecruiter speed up your hiring.
See for yourself. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash random right now to try it for free.
That's the same price as a genuine smile from a stranger, a picture-perfect sunset, or a cute dog running up to you and licking your hand. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash random.
ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. This podcast is brought to you by Aura.
By the time you hear about a data breach, your information has already been exposed for months. On average, companies take 277 days to report a breach.
That's nine months where hackers have access to your personal data, your name, address, phone number, even your social security number, before you even know it's out there. Think about it.
Nine months is enough time for criminals to open accounts in your name, rack up debt, and disappear, all while you're left dealing with the mess. And when the company finally tells you, it's too late.
The damage is already done. Data breaches aren't slowing down.
They're getting bigger, and the delays in reporting them aren't helping. Right now, your personal information could already be on the dark web, and you wouldn't even know it.
How long do you want to wait before taking action? That's why we're thrilled to partner with Aura. Aura monitors the dark web for users' phone numbers, emails, and social security numbers, delivering real-time alerts if any suspicious activity is detected.
Additionally, Aura provides up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, offering a robust safety net in the event of a worst-case scenario. Aura goes the extra mile by scanning the dark web for your sensitive info and alerting you instantly if anything is found.
And if ID theft strikes, no need to panic. Aura's US-based 24-7 broad resolution team works around the clock to fix it fast and get you back on track.
Aura is a complete online safety toolkit, which includes a variety of other features to keep you safe online, including a VPN for secure browsing, data broker opt-out to stop companies from selling your personal information, a password manager to help you create and store strong passwords, and more. For a limited time, Aura is offering our listeners a 14-day trial plus a check of your data to see if your personal information has been leaked online, All for free when you visit aura.com slash defense.
That's aura.com slash defense to sign up for a 14-day free trial and start protecting you and your loved ones. That's aura.com slash defense.
Certain terms apply, so be sure to check the site for details. It's interesting living in Canada as a Canadian, having lived here and then moved back to Canada.
And, you know, with these tariffs that are being implemented or threatened, at least, people are obviously very upset in Canada about this. Now it's going to completely decimate the economy.
And, of course, it's going to have a same sort of effect on the American economy in a lot of ways it's terrible so it really doesn't make a lot of sense no sense but then um you know there's a hockey game u.s versus canada this week and the canadian crowd booed the american national anthem of course now this was not a very nice thing to do normally under my garden okay i'll give that where you'll give that a try. Where you used to live.
Under a normal set of circumstances,

I don't think the Canadians would boo

the Straro Spangled Banner.

But they did.

Not that I love everything that's been going on

in Canada under Trudeau, because I don't.

He did legalize weed, though.

That was one thing he did.

I love that.

But he also resigned, so.

Good.

He was super woke. Yeah.
To a degree I can't hang with. I mean, there is a thing about that it should be very important to someone like you, Tom, freedom of speech.
There is a level of hostility to freedom of speech that's going on. And of course, the Republicans are criticizing it now, but they have no leg to stand on because they're not for it either.
But there are things going on in Europe right now where they canceled an election in Romania because the wrong people won. And I'm sure they were the wrong people.
But you know what? Once you start canceling elections, and again, Republicans, no standing to make this case because who's the biggest election canceler than Donald Trump? He tried every which way to cancel the 2020 election. Still hasn't conceded it.
You know, he was my old boss. He fired me on The Celebrity Apprentice.
I have to hear this story. Yeah, because I went out drinking with Dennis Rodman on the night I was the project manager.
First of all, just Dennis Rodman is hysterical. And that you were drinking with him.
Yeah, well, it was after. We weren't taping the show.
We were done for the day. I had a big job.
I was the project manager. Have you seen the show before? You know it works.
You have to sort of compete business tasks. I never watched that show.
It's a business competition, and I sort of fancied myself a pretty good businessman. We had to build a wedding dress store, and we were competing the guys versus the girls.
I had to sell more wedding dresses than Joan Rivers and Khloe Kardashian and her team. And I had Clint Black and Herschel Walker and Dennis Rodman on my team.
And so it was very serious. But then after the, I could tell we were kind of going to lose because my team sort of mutinied against me.
Scott Hamilton as well, Olympic gold medalist, they kind of wanted to lose and then get me fired. And so I was kind of a little upset about that.
So I went out drinking with Dennis Rodman after the show that night. And I guess we were a little hungover in the boardroom the next day and the president fired me.
The president of the United States fired me. Well, you know, going out drinking with Dennis Rodman, I have to say, is not something that recommends somebody as an employee.
Again, that's just my thing with Trump. It was worth it, though.
It was worth it, though. I'm not going to pre-hate everything.
Firing you, I feel like, was the right move. Yeah, you're probably right, yeah.
It was not a business-like thing to do. You know, you can't trust anything he says because, like, the next day he changes his mind or whatever.
But I think he said last week he wanted to cut the defense budget by 50%. I've been saying that for years.
Am I going to hate it now because he says it? That would be hypocritical. Right.
Or get rid of nuclear weapons. Or get rid of the penny.
Yeah, we don't need those. Well, we can't get rid of nuclear weapons unilaterally, but we should reduce them.

I think he was talking about trilateral, China, Russia, U.S.

There's a plan to lower them.

But I have to know, politics aside, like Dennis Rodman.

Yeah, back to this, yeah.

As a—

Just very curious

I remember

of course

I'm a basketball fan

yeah

you remember the court

was that here

when you were here

the basketball court

I don't remember that

either

it was a tennis court

okay same thing

yeah it was a tennis court

Ben made it into a basketball court

okay yeah

anyway

what was I going to say about it

we were talking about

oh basketball

Dennis Rodman

Dennis Rodman yeah

Thank you. It was a tennis court.
Ben made it into a basketball court. Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway.
What was I going to say about that? We were talking about. Oh, basketball.
Dennis Rodman. Dennis Rodman, yeah.
Big basketball. So I remember Dennis Rodman as a player.
Best rebounder. Yeah.
I remember I was in Chicago for some reason in 1996 when they won the championship. The night they did, and I went to this club where they were partying, I met them on a championship night in the VIP room.
It was like, wow, it's really cool being a celebrity. The show had only been on a couple of years, and I was like, wow, this is great.
He was a lot of fun. We became friends when we were there on the show.
He was the only one that was kind of sort of not really uptight about the game.

He was having fun with it.

These reality shows are pretty nuts.

Like I assume you've never been on one of these kinds of shows.

I got asked to do it, so I did it.

It seemed like a fun thing to do.

And it was fun to do. But, you know, it is sort of like a Stanford prison experiment type of situation.
That's exactly what it is. And it's clearly purposely orchestrated like that.
It's not unintentionally so. I mean, they'll put the celebrities, we'll put the celebrity apprentice, it was called, right? So they'll put the celebrities in a room, a room kind of like this, but it'll be Dennis Rodman and Herschel Walker and Clint Black and Brian McKnight and Scott Hamilton and myself and a couple other people and then it'll be a day you know the television shooting day everyone will come in at you know nine and them was eight in the morning and there'll be cameras all around locked off with you know no camera people in there and then they just basically don't give you anything to do for way too long, like four hours.
And there's a cheese plate and a coffee. And then people just...
And there's a competition that has some rules and there's a bit of a hierarchy that they create within the group because there's a project manager who becomes the leader of that group and then people disagree with the leader and they all form these little sort of uh lord of the flies type sort of groups and then they film it and it's pretty hilarious you know usually and i think that's why people enjoy it but being actually in there and uh being actually you you know, you don't want to be piggy, you know. It does seem, Lord of the Flies, it's so right.
It does seem like a lot of reality television in America is about pitting people against each other. Yeah, absolutely.
We're a cockfighting, loving nation. People who would not normally, perhaps, be fighting.
Exactly. They study this.
I don't, people who would not normally perhaps be fighting.

Exactly.

They,

they know,

they study this.

I,

I,

I don't know for certain,

but I would assume they have studied the science of it.

And if they figure out exactly who's in there and,

you know,

what would get them mad at each other.

And,

you know,

they think they cast it that way also.

I think they cast it that way.

I think they put a bunch of people in there that would probably be,

you know,

maybe a little bit nutty.

People like myself and Dennis Rodman

and Scott Hamilton.

Everyone knows Scott Hamilton's a bit of a wild man.

So you were allied with,

you had an alliance with Dennis Rodman.

That was an, you were a...

Well, so, well, to break down the actual game,

because it did get pretty serious there for a bit. So in the second episode, first episode of my season, each episode, someone gets fired.
Okay, first episode, Andrew Dice Clay, my good friend, who I'm sure you know very well, got fired. I know, Randy, yeah.
He got fired for, he was a bit aggressive with Donald Trump when he asked for, in the first episode, Dice kind of was a bit aggressive with Donald Trump because there was not enough butter for the bagels in the green room. And he got angry about it in the boardroom on the show.
My guess is he actually didn't get angry about it. My guess is he sort of.
Well, I think he was doing it for fun, you know? I think he likes to play the character of Andrew Dice Clay. That's a character.
Absolutely. I'm a very good friend with Dice, too.
But that's not really him. Yeah, I know.
And sometimes he just lets the character drive the bus because it's more fun for the character to be mad about the bagels than for him to be a reasonable person. It was hilarious.
I mean, it was so funny. I mean, it was kind of probably not what you would really do if you were going to try to win the game to start complaining immediately.
What do you get if you win? I think you win money for a charity of your choice. That's what it was.
Why even try? Exactly, yeah. Why even try? Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, it becomes, then it quickly becomes a point of pride to the people in there about trying to prove that they are smart. What was your charity? Sick kids? It was a cancer charity.
Yeah. So you fucked a bunch of kids because you and Dennis Rodman wanted a drink.
No, no, no, no, no. No.
By that point, I knew I not going to uh be uh because i had an alliance against me you see uh bill an alliance again so my team had sort of turned on me and decided to get me fired so i i basically just uh i threw in the towel pretty much and said okay a rough few years bro yeah it was it was funny fire divorce yeah yeah by the president of the united states by By the president of the United States. They had reviews from Roger Ebert.
Something was going on in your horoscope. I'm telling you.
Those were kind of, in hindsight, as I look back on it, they become kind of funny, those things. Those are some of the funniest things that happened.
When you think of what, to overuse a term that's overused, privilege, the kind of life we live, where what we do is something we basically consider to be fun. So do we work? Yeah, we work.
But I've also had jobs when I was younger. That was work.
In other words, I fucking hated it. I didn't want to throw triangles of fish product into a vat of grease is that something you did were you were you were did you ever work as a short order cook somewhere or no i'm fast food have you ever done that i'm i worked i worked at dairy queen i'm bragging about my yes of course one where which mcdonald's arthur treacher's fish and Chips.
Cool. In Ithaca Neera.
Arthur Treacher was this old British actor who was Merv Griffin's announcer, like sidekick, like Ed McMahon. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that was enough in this day. I guess this is the 70s.
That was enough for Arthur Treacher to have gotten himself a franchise because he was British. Yeah, yeah.
A franchise of. It was like a Kenny Rogers roaster.
Exactly. He wasn't that big a star.
Yeah, yeah. But they had, it was a viable restaurant.
It was a fast food shithole that I worked in, yes. So would you deep fry the fish in the fryer? It would be your arms.
You had to wear a uniform. You know, with short sleeves.
And your arms would have long sleeves. Because the grease would come up.
You'd be burns on your arms. Yeah, I know that.
I used to cook the—I got fired because I miscooked a chicken burger at Dairy Queen. These kids who get offended at microaggressions and like they—not that I'm a Marine.
I mean, I'm so fired because I'm a miscooked a chicken burger at Dairy Queen. These kids who get offended at microaggressions, not that I'm a Marine.
I mean, people have had way harder lives than me for lots of reasons. That's definitely not the worst thing that could happen is getting a little chicken grease on your arm.
It really hurts. And then you'd have just all these red marks on your arm.
Yeah, yeah. No, for sure.
I'm not saying it's not enough. At a time of my life when I was thinking about asking a girl out, it wasn't the greatest thing to approach her with red marks all over my arms.
But you had a few bucks, though. I didn't.
Because you were working. I went from that to selling pot in six months.
That was my last year. More lucrative than Arthur Treaters? Way more lucrative and way more fun yeah that's cool that's cool i didn't smoke until i was a sophomore in college um but i went from first smoking it to selling it in six months yeah because i couldn't afford it otherwise see the the i i have honestly not like i did not uh when i first ever tried that I was kind of later maybe I was in my 20s and it made me sort of have a panic attack in a way I found very paranoid the first time I ever smoked marijuana well it can so why does it do that? you asked me before about eating it that's another reason right it makes you kind of paranoid well it's just a more it's more like tripping.
It's a five, six-hour experience, which I'm not up for. Yeah.
Too much energy required. I don't have six hours to give to your trip.
And yeah, you can be almost too high sometimes. It's just, you can't control it.

And for a control freak, it's just not, it doesn't work.

Exactly.

And I've tried to make it work.

It's a fear of a loss of control, which feels, so what, why does that not always happen though?

Why does it happen when people eat that, not when you smoke it then? I mean, everybody's different, you know, I mean.

I'm having a beer, by the way.

Please do.

Do you drink beer, Bill? I fucking hate beer. You hate beer, know? I mean.
I'm having a beer, by the way. Please do.
Do you drink beer, Bill?

I fucking hate beer.

You hate beer, huh?

I do.

I really do.

Why?

Why do you hate beer?

You just never got into it?

It stinks.

It's like, it's cheap.

It's cold.

It's cheap.

It's like low level percent.

It's an art form to make beer, you know?

About.

I don't know how they do it, but I know it's.

It's German, you know. It's like barley and stuff in there.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
All beer tastes different, different kind of, you know, this is a Pacífico and this is a lager. Nice.
No, I could, I could drink it. It doesn't like make me rich.
Yeah. But the idea of, of drinking something with only like 12% alcohol or something.
So not enough alcohol. Well, if you're drinking, you're drinking to feel the effect, whatever it does.
I always think it kills, say, 5% of my brain cells. Not permanently, perhaps, although I guess they are permanent.
Okay. But at the moment, 5%.
And for some reason, that makes you, in a way, smarter sometimes. In many ways, stupider, of course.
Drunks do the worst things. But, you know, if you could control it, just why do people, you know, have a couple of drinks at dinner? I think it takes down a tension level in people.
Absolutely. And it makes you just more you.

But a beer with the 12%, it's still kind of a slower kind of tension.

Right, yeah. It's just a little more, you know.

To me, it's almost like I'm rehydrating a little bit with a beer.

It's almost like a glass of water sometimes, you know.

You don't have to think of it like you're just drinking it to get drunk or whatever, right.

With beer, it's sort of more like just a, come on, Bill, have a beer. Just have one beer.
I just saw this great show, I got to say. I'm a big Billy Bob Thornton fan anyway.
I mean, even if he'd only ever done Pad Santa, I love him. He's done a lot of great stuff.
And his band is great. I've always been a fan.
I was in an episode of The Trailer Park Boys with Billy Bob Thornton. What's that? Canadian legends, The Trailer Park Boys.
Do you know them? I don't. They're very funny.
You have to have The Trailer Park Boys down here on the show. What does that mean? Well, it's a TV show up in Canada.
The Trailer Park Boys? Yeah, it's been a hilarious show. On now? It's been on for a long time kind of uh yeah it's on now too for sure yeah you know my earliest years in comedy were when sctv was on right and i would i had the one one of the first i guess yeah the first generation certainly of um of something i could tape off tv it was like this big right and you had to like record it on a v on a vhs tape yes or a beta a vhs tape vhs tape and you would just like with the old tape recorder you would have to push like two buttons at the same time to record like press and play yeah yeah and record and play yeah so it was on saturday night sctv and i'm that was always a big night to be out at the clubs yeah but at the end of that night i would be like drooling in the cab yeah going home just to go home and watch that i'm going to rewind yeah watch sctv yeah it was like just on a level that was...
And so that would have been...

How old were you when you were watching sctv were you were you 23 yeah you know my first year in comedy yeah and living in or oh no i guess i was yeah probably i'm picturing it in the apartment i i got my main apartment there which was not a nice place

um but i didn't have the dots on my arms anymore so it evened out uh but uh yeah so yeah 79 80

around there 80 81 i mean early 20s and uh you know just at that part in your life where

i've never had more anxiety because it was like you know am i gonna go anywhere in this

Thank you. And just at that part in your life where I've never had more anxiety because it was like, am I going to go anywhere in this crazy job I've picked for myself? Right.
Or, and if not, what? And can I be happy doing anything else? Because I always kind of, as a kid, I kind of knew I'm not going to be happy doing anything else yeah that's a lot of pressure on your that's that and so yeah i felt that way i felt that way that's what you have a backup when you were starting i didn't really have much of a backup plan because i mean i i went to school for broadcasting so i knew i was going to work i wanted to do technically, at least. I guess I could have done more technical side of the business,

too. I do, like, camera work and

editing and stuff like that. That might have been.

But, yeah, so it's terrifying.

You look like a director.

You do.

What does that look like, exactly?

I know you have directed lots of stuff, but I'm

just saying you just look like a director.

Yeah, well, I... Much more than a farmer.
Yeah, well, it's... Yeah, so when you get to interview the cast members of SCTV for the first time, how old are you when you first interviewed Martin Short? And what was that like? Well, Martin Short's become a great friend of mine.
Sure, so when the first time you met him, though, was it just kind of an incredibly sort of weird experience for you? I'm guessing you haven't seen this. You should look this up on wherever you YouTube.
But I had a book out last year. So I was like, in the one-on-one interview section of the show we do after I do a monologue, it's very often an author.
You know, it's a topic. It's a single topic.
And it can be an iconic celebrity. It can be the governor or whatever.
But, yeah, if somebody has like an amazing book, like Jonathan Haidt has this amazing book that's been on the charts for years you know uh the anxious generation about kids and phones and all that shit um but I was like okay but now I'm the person with the book can I have someone interview me and I'm the guest yeah well Jiminy Glick did it for me okay yeah yeah yeah and I'm telling you it's like the funniest 10 minutes I mean I'm just playing straight man yeah I'm just I did do my part well but that's just because I understand that what's going on here yeah and it's you had the VHS tape get out yes get out of the way and let the genius do his thing And, of course, just play everything straight as if he's a person who deserves an answer. I mean, his first question was, why go after Harriet Tubman? Right.
I mean, I had to have a tissue box there. I couldn't, you know.
There is a genius to Martin Short that really he deserves all the accolades he gets. And it's probably you relate to that character because you probably would like to be Jiminy Glick sometimes when you're interviewing people, I would think, right? Would that be kind of a dream to be able to just sort of one night come out and just say? Yeah.
Well, just because it's silly. Yeah.
Because it's, I mean, it's like the the comedy of silly you can't beat it you can't be getting someone giggling you know do you remember when you saw a talk show for the first time who who was it and uh who was your favorite talk show host from before 1980 johnny carson johnny carson okay yeah that was my era i mean little. Of course, it would be.
Other than Johnny Carson, I guess I would say. Oh.
We'll talk about Johnny Carson. I mean, he was so, you know, the Zeus of the universe that everybody, I mean, look, one of my great friends in life was Alan Thicke.
Yeah, I knew him. Came with me on my first.
Canadian. My first Hawaiian excursion I did for 12 years.
I did a thing in Hawaii over New Year's, and he was on that first trip with us. Loved him.
Yeah. He tried.
And Alan, you know, people never really appreciated what an amazing, dry, sophisticated wit he was. Because he was known as the sitcom dad.
Yeah, yeah. But that wasn't Alan.
Alan was like slyly the most hysterical guy. In Canada, he had a talk show, I believe it was before the one he had in the U.S.
too. So we grew up with Alan Thicke on TV a lot more.

Let me tell you an Alan Thicke story that's so funny. You had a show, Thicke of the Night, right? Oh, yes.
Thicke. I have the T-shirt.
He got me the T-shirt. Yeah, he was hilarious.
I got to interview him a couple of times on my web podcast show that I did. Oh, you did? Yeah, so I got to.
Oh, he was a Canadian icon. The best, yeah.
Oh, I loved him. So listen to this.
I remember meeting him one night, and he was

newly engaged to Tanya,

his third wife.

I think she was Miss Columbia.

Barry Allen, a

beauty pageant winner.

But they were like,

I mean, it was hysterical, because it was like

NAFTA, the dry,

unflappable Canadian, and then the Sofia Vergara character. And I love Tanya.
She's awesome. But, you know, she's Colombian and fiery.
So it was just hysterical to have them on the trip. But I remember when they got, I met them at a restaurant.
It it was just me and i don't know why i was i agree but yeah i loved him i saw him a lot and she's like you know she wanted me to notice the she finally got the engagement yeah sure you know and it was you know girls do you know okay so then we were joking about that okay great congratulations we're talking about We were talking about at the time, his kid was like four years old, three or four years old, Carter. And he was playing hockey with that kid who was then 18 when he died.
Yeah, yeah. So Canadian.
Yes. To die playing hockey.
At least a very Canadian way to go. You should get a special Valhalla salute for that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I'm asking Alan about the kid, and he loves Tanya.

That's great. I said, does he understand sex yet?

And Alan said, I don't think so. But he knows it has something to do with the diamond.
He knows it has something to do with the diamond. Oh, okay.
Well, you know, that's funny. He was a great guy.
He was great guy i yeah canadians man it's tough when the roster is like so impressive my i got to know norm mcdonald on when he came to my web show and he's from my hometown of you know ottawa he grew up blocks away from each other uh but he was a not at the same time he was a bit older than me but i remember I saw him for the first time at Yuck Yucks when I was a kid. I would go down to Yuck Yucks and he was performing before he was on Saturday Night Live.
Yuck Yucks in? In Ottawa. I would see him in Ottawa.
Where? What city? Ottawa. Oh, Ottawa.
The capital. The capital.
That's where I'm from. Yeah.
So, yeah. And Yuck Yucks is, you know, do you know Mark Breslin probably? Why didn't I get that gig? You know, well, you have to be from Ottawa and then you probably.
Oh, really? They didn't have American comics? No, they didn't. Because we played, I played Montreal and Toronto.
Yeah, no, for sure. It was a lot of, you know, Canadian comics just started at Yuck Yucks.
I played Winnipeg. Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's, which one did you play? Have you played in the clubs there or Rumors? I mean, it was 1992. You ever play the Rumors Comedy Club in Winnipeg? Shout out to Rumors Comedy Club.
It's a great comedy club. It's been there since the 80s.
That's probably what I was playing. Yeah, I think for sure, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Winnipeg's, did you enjoy your time in Winnipeg or were you just kind of in and out? I did. I'm not going to tell this story, but I actually had a great time.
Yeah. But, I mean, the reason I got there does not favor well on Winnipeg, but that's not their fault.
I only got there because my house had to be tented. Right.
And I called my agent, and they said, get me a gig fast. Well, we got Winnipeg.
OK, whatever. Let's go.
That kind of thing. That's cool.
Exactly. Well, I've had a lot of fun in Winnipeg.
It's good. Go Jets, Canadian city.
Well, Canadians. I don't know.
There's really a reason why their team is called the Jets, by the way.

The hockey team is the Winnipeg Jets, but I don't think there's really a lot of Jets or anything in Winnipeg. I love Canada.

Yeah.

I love the people.

I have some serious connections with friends there.

And I remember moments there that would never happen in America, like somebody refusing a tip. Right.
I remember somebody doing that, pushing the money back and saying, you've been generous enough. And I said, you know, in America, you could be arrested for that.
Refusing money. Yeah, that is.
Boys. You've been to every city in Canada probably, right? I've been That is, boys.

You've been to every city in Canada probably,

right?

I've been,

no,

but certainly I,

on the tour was always.

Toronto.

You've been to Toronto.

Of course Toronto.

You love Toronto.

Toronto.

Vancouver.

You've been to Vancouver.

Yes.

Toronto.

Have you been to Ottawa?

The capital. No,

no,

no.

I'm saying I,

I never played Ottawa.

I don't think you have been to Ottawa.

Montreal.

You've got to come to Ottawa.

You've got to come to Ottawa.

Well, I'm not doing it anymore. You're not, on the road anymore? Yeah, I just stopped.
I did hear you say that, but I wasn't sure if I believed it or not. But you got 100% stopped or just like slow? Well, you can still go and do a couple shows a year if you want.
You know what? I really feel you can't because you have to be in practice to do stand-up, at least the way I want to it because you would feel every time you got up you'd feel like you have to like i mean i've kept in a groove you know for 42 years i've had an act like there was my life on tv yeah yeah and then there was my act now there was stuff that bled between them it was a very good i wouldn't how often are you i mean i don't know if people like to talk about, hear about writing and sand upsets, but how often do you try to slide that material out or do you keep some jokes for years? I never try. I never try.
But, I mean, well, now I don't even have to worry about it because I'm not doing it. But for years.
But hypothetically, we're it there was thing there was there were i'm not going to say there aren't things that um were written for real time that didn't wind up in my act there are um but mostly i wrote that myself um it was just too stand up is just much more personal than like doing aologue each week, which is really just about the events of that week. It's very impermanent.
Stand-up back, I just did a special. I mean, I can watch that for years.
Not everything I'll like. It takes a lot out of you just having to exude that kind of emotional energy live every weekend.
No, I like that part. Is it the anticipation of it? Is there anxiety that you get before the show? The travel, it's exhausting.
It's like, you know, when I said I wasn't going to do it at the beginning of last year or something, we didn't book anything for this year. All year, I kept thinking, oh, my God, I'm not going to be doing this after this.
You know, there's eight more gigs. There's six more gigs.
There's four more gigs. That's not a legal contract.
I mean, you can always change your mind at any time. That's why I never made an announcement.
You decide next year, oh, I think I will do it again. But I was like really wondering when it comes to it next year, am I really going to be okay with this?

And you know what happened?

I was.

I was right.

Maybe another year you might get the itch for it. A couple of weekends ago would have normally been, as it has been for so many years, the weekend when I first went out back on the road, the third weekend in January, the holidays are over.
Okay, people go to a show again. I was so glad I didn't have to fucking drag my ass out of bed on a Saturday and go to Cincinnati after I don't love Cincinnati or whatever it was.
I just wanted to be home. Yeah, yeah.
And that's it. You know, it's not that I couldn't.
I'm not crippled in any way people i mean it's not like well it's it's i just don't fucking feel like it yeah have you ever did you ever take a break before for a year or two never never yeah exactly so that's why it feels weird but it doesn't mean you can't take a break it's because you've never done it before doesn't mean you can't take a break it could just just be a break. Maybe you're just taking a break.
There's other things to do. Yeah, but maybe it's

just a break. Maybe it could be a five-year break.
Yeah, but you don't have, I mean, I just don't

think you should set it in stone. I don't want you to see you quit doing stand-up just because you

decided to quit. Stand-up is just a medium.
Yeah. It's a medium for ideas.
Yeah. That's what this

is in its own weird way. Absolutely.
And there are people who will watch us do this who wouldn't watch us do anything else. And I get that.
I am not that, but I get that. Because it's just like there are people who want to hear a jam band instead of something polished.
Yeah, absolutely. And that's i get it and i'm fine but i want both i want to have a jam band and i also want to make abbey road every week on real time right and that's what that's i was because i was actually about to ask you why you built a television studio in your in your basement here or i...
But there's the answer. That's the answer.
Yeah, it's fun. This is kind of like, you can just kind of...
But it's still... I didn't change anything in this room.
This room was always so cool. I mean, it was a mess when I got it, but...
And I think Drew is the person who built that tiki bar up. It looks, that thing that looks like you're in Mexico.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

I was told, I don't know how I know that.

Yeah, I think that's true, actually.

I think it is true.

It's beautiful.

I still love it.

Yeah, yeah.

As a place to like.

That was, I think she built that before I knew her.

Well, I'm going to have a party this summer

and invite both of you.

It's time you reconnected.

Oh, wait, you're married.

Yeah, absolutely.

In fact, well, you know, I was going to say, relating to stand-up, you know what I've been doing since the pandemic? How do you describe when you say since COVID or since the pandemic? You know, either one. Either one.
When the pandemic happened, that's when I kind of moved, right? I moved back to Canada. Oh, that was the impetus.
Yeah, it was. it was yeah okay and uh and it was kind of like because the i was doing i'm touring all the time and my tour was canceled for the whole year and i was sitting there going okay i didn't have a tv show to go to every day so i'm sitting around my house going like what the heck i'm gonna freaking do this week right and so i got this camper van i got dog, Charlie.
I started going out into the deserts out here and filming some stuff for, basically just because I wanted to go check out the desert, but filming some stuff for social media. And then I decided to move back to, sold my house, moved back to Canada.
Sure, thank you very much. What'd you do with that other one I gave you? I smoked it.
No, here it is right here. There it is, there you go.
Thank you. Trade you.
That sounds like a conversation I would have had at 19. Yeah.
What did you do with that one? Exactly. It was exactly that.
Oh, no, I didn't smoke it. It's exactly what it was.
But I got this camper van, and so now I'm touring. You have that? Oh.
No, I don't smoke. I don't smoke what, Tom? I'm touring with my, I'm now driving on my touring more is what I'm getting at.
I haven't been going to the airport and flying to, instead I've been doing these. So I drove here from Canada in a camper van.
Oh. Right now.
What? Yeah, so I left Canada. That's so Tom Green of.
In my camper van with my fiance and my dog. And we drove and we did gigs all the way down.
You two must be close.

We're having a lot of fun, though.

To be able to be together all day long in a camper.

It's going well.

I mean, it's...

No, I'm not doubting it or wishing it... She's still here.
She's here. No, I get it.
She didn't go. She didn't leave yet.
She's still here. She didn't fly home.
What is it that you think allows one person to be like so easy on your just vibe that you can be around them all the time? Because a lot of I feel like success in a relationship is that. Can you just be around somebody and feel almost as calm as you do when you're alone.
Yeah. You don't fart.
Yeah. Not that calm.
I try not to. No, not that comfortable.
Are we agreed? Well, I mean, I'm not going to say what I'm guilty of in the terms of farting too much department, but I don't try to fart a lot if that's what we're talking about here, Bill. Okay.
Well, the only fart that ever should happen in your mutual space, I believe, is an inadvertent fart. Yeah.
Okay. The way you're like, yes, of course.
Now, you're on Meet the Press. I'm trying to think whether I agree with her.
I mean, you can't help it.

It's like a nocturnal.

But this isn't really, honestly, this isn't really the first thing I want to talk about when talking about my new engagement.

You know, she's amazing, and that's why we're having a lot of fun.

She puts up with the absurdity of this idea of traveling around in a camper.

But we are staying in hotels when we're not. She loves it.
No, we're having a lot of fun. We're having a lot of fun.
Are you funny all the time? I get kind of, I'm pretty tired right now, now that you mentioned it. You mentioned me.
Because I drove here in a camper van. That's amazing.
I slept in the Mojave Desert. I appreciate it so much.
Four nights ago. I really appreciate it.
It's beautiful out there. Putting out like that.
Have you ever slept out in the Mojave Desert? Fuck no. It is so beautiful out there.
I'm sure it is. But there's also- Seeing the sunset coming up over the mountains in the Mojave Desert.
Oh, my God. Making some coffee.
Oh, my God. You drink coffee? I do, but not in the middle of nothing in the morning.
Well, what's not- Why does that why does that sound bad? It's not nothing. There's beautiful practices and wildlife.
You know what it is? Flora and fauna. We're at different stages of life.
Not that I would do it at 53 either. Right, right.
But especially. It's just not your thing.
You're just not a guy. You just don't go camping.
No, I want a comfortable. Have you ever been camping? I want a comfortable bathroom.
Have you ever gone camping? A comfortable bathroom. Okay.
I think after comfortable bathroom, you get the, it's just like. Have you ever slept in a tent? No.
Wow, really? That's amazing. Never slept.
I'm not sleeping. I'm sleeping in a camper van.
It's scary sleeping in a tent. Animals can tear through that tent.
I did not sleep in a tent, but I once slept in a hammock. Okay.
You'll never guess where. Oh.
On Frankie Valli's tour bus. You're right.
I would have never guessed that. I am right, aren't I? Would have never guessed that, no.
That's right. That's amazing.
So was that just kind of, was he a friend of yours? No. I was opening for him.
Yeah, that's cool. What year would that have been? That would have been 1982.
And what venues would you be performing there all around today? Are you familiar with Wolf Trap in Washington, D.C.? Okay, no, I don't know that. No, Wolf Trap is very famous.
Okay, cool, cool. A lawn, you know, seating and then a lawn.
It's a big summer. Oh, nice, nice.
Unless you're playing like stadiums, everybody will, nobody turns their nose up at Wolf Trap in the summer. That's cool.
You know, James Taylor with Jackson Brown. Right, right, right.
Wolf Trapper. Yeah.
So that was one. Sort of like a Hollywood Bowl kind of.
Yes, yes. Got some gravitas to it, but you're outside.
It's like camping, but you're not. You're watching a show.
Yeah. Yeah.
Jim McCann. Sort of like camping.
You feel like you did something in the nature. Right.
Blanket. Yeah, yeah.
Blanket may involve. You've really never gone camping.
It's fun because you get into nature and you really kind of ensconce yourself in that.

It's a very calming, a relaxing thing to do.

I think nature's a great town.

Yeah, yeah.

I love nature.

I do.

I live amid nature.

Absolutely.

I feel like that's one reason I don't need to do that is because I feel like I see a lot of greenery and stuff that isn't urban every day. Yeah.
Because you burned your house down. Yeah.
It always is going to come back to that time. Now, I did not do it, by the way, for the record.
Nobody did it. I'm joking for the record.
You know, it was a fire. I knew you were joking.
I just wanted to put it on the record. I did not do it.
Just in case there's any confusion confusion. I'm very glad we did.
Some people might. No.
I know there was no reason for them to think that, but some people still get confused and think the wrong thing. I just want to make sure I did not burn the house down.
Well, there's just too many people in America with time on their hands, and they also have access to the Internet. So if they can just start some shit for no reason because it entered their mind, they will do it.
So is it more fun doing television when you have the internet as well as a factor, or is it more fun doing television when there was no internet? Because you seem like you're having a lot of fun with the internet. So I would expect that you would say that, but I'd expect you would say that it was probably, this is more fun to have this kind of, but then you also have to deal with the complexity of all that kind of just energy on the internet that we're talking about.
You know, you asked me about, I don't know how long we've been here, like six hours or maybe 20 minutes. It could be the one.
But at some point you asked me about something that is frustrating, which is you said, what about when they take like clips? Right, exactly. To just.
Because you lose control over, you know. It's amazing when you are somebody who's in the middle like me, and not in the middle like in an ambi-pambi way, and it's just like, yeah, I'm a proud old school liberal, but no, I'm not going to go along on the crazy train to Nonsenseville.
So when you're in there, what were you talking about? It was so important to me. Yeah, I was just saying, yeah, you know what? What were we talking about, Bill? Oh, good.
Now we're both too fucking high to remember what the conversation was about. No, but you, I knew exactly what we're talking about until you questioned it and then it made me sort of second guess myself and now my mind's gone blank what the hell were we just talking about bill i don't know but you know if this is what alzheimer's is like it's not that bad you're making a bigger deal out of that sitting around on these extremely soft chairs the way.
I don't feel like it's... I've got a beer.
You know, this is incredible. You know, it's...
What we were talking about, okay, is before the internet... Yes.
We were talking about clips. Yeah.
And how they just take... I know what we were talking about.
I just pretended we didn't see what happened. Good for you.
Good for you. But of course, I actually want to know the answer, too, because...
I want to give you the answer. Yeah.
Because it is very frustrating that when you're in the middle, that's what I was saying, and you, over the course of an hour of real time, you can take like three or four great clips for you on Fox News and show them where I'm calling the left out on their bullshit, or occasionally saying, yeah, you know, this is not the stupidest idea I ever heard of. And then you can do the same thing on the left-wing stations.
If you want to make me look good to your audience, you can show all the times I'm excoriating Donald Trump and calling out that administration and that list of things I hate. Or if you hate me on liberal media, just show the ones where I'm saying the things that the Fox News crowd likes.
That's what I'm saying. So I can't, like, watch the whole show.
You lose control of the narrative because the wrong clips go out. Totally.
And people just want to hear what they already believe fed back to them. So if you already believe on the left that I'm some sort of red-pilled person who's now become a conservative, you can be fed things where all you see me doing is saying, yeah, I don't hate this.
Let's get rid of the penny or whatever it is. Right, right.
And then you can do it. You can manipulate, and they do.
Because that's what feeds their kitty. They want those same eyeballs coming back to them.
So, you know, it's a lonely place in the middle. It can be a lonely place.
Yeah. Fuck them.
I don't care. I've got my middle people.
Yeah. So before the internet, you didn't have to, but there were still people who would write about the show.
Well, they got my first show canceled. Yeah, exactly.
So there was still this sort of different kind of energy pushback. Yeah.
But this is a little bit. I was canceled when it was like literal.
We're actually canceling. We're using that word.
Yes, right. To make sure you're not doing.
Have you been credited with being coining that term possible? No. You don't want to be credited with that.
No. And also, I mean, things like people had been fired.
Those were crazy times. It was 9-11, right? 9-11, yeah.
That was crazy times. And, you know, was that the beginning of this sort of new kind of crazy that we're seeing in our politics? Well, I mean, that was, okay, so I moved in here January of 2001, which is actually the, you know, 2000 is still, I think, technically the last century.
I think the first year of the 21st century. So we're literally days into the 21st century.
Yeah. Okay.
Which is a little, could be something if you were the kind of person who believed in spooky stuff. Okay.
So I move in here January and you're already here. And then the house house burns down and then 9-11.
I'm wondering, maybe it's you, Tom. No? Is that a crazy theory? I mean, it's a heavy thing to blame me with, for sure.
It's a lot for me to consider. You know, it's crazy, though.

Was that the beginning of, that's the beginning of kind of this sort of, things weren't as political before that.

I mean, it seems weird to say.

Obviously, things have been political forever, but doesn't it seem like, have there not been sort of a reprieve on this kind of divisive politics or something for 10 years or 20 years?

It literally goes back to this.

I don't remember it being that crazy. I know, but- Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.
It goes through periods. I mean, the period when you were a formative youth.
Yeah. You're right.
It was, they were always at each other's throats, but there was a civility to it. And also they both played by the rules.
That's exactly what I was asking, yeah. I mean, in 2000, al gore lost or didn't there was a lot of shenanigans they talk about shenanigans with trump in 2020 there was no shenanigans yeah in 2020 no shenanigans i could quote all the people who were involved the election commission many of his own appointees it was one of, fairest, most, they had their eyes on it for good reason.
There were hanging chads. That was two, that, right.
That was Gore. Hanging chads.
Was that Gore Bush? Hanging chads. The secretary of state was Republican in the state of Florida.
The governor was Jeb Bush, the guy's brother. Right, well, that's where the chads were Okay.
In Florida. Whatever it was.
You know what? The truth is Al Gore and Bush, they played to a tie. Yeah.
And then it was like, okay, the Republicans had the Supreme Court and that was it. And Al Gore said, yeah, you know what? I got robbed, but for the good of the team.
That's gone with Trump. Yeah.
And that's why the people who think, you know, oh, Bill, you know, you're so clear-eyed about the problems on the left. Yeah, I am.
But I'm not coming over to your side. That's so much worse that you guys will not acknowledge when you lose an election.
That is a non-negotiable with me. You know, we can't talk about it.
That's it. That's the essence of the country.
Yeah. So I'm moving to Canada is what I'm saying.
By the way. We'd love to have you, Bill.
My girl, Chris Jafreeland, and I say my girl like I'm really close and I'm not. You should move to Canada, by the way.
No, but she used to be on real time. Okay.
And now she's going to be the prime minister. Okay.
I'm a big fan. Okay.
She was always great on the show. Who is that? Chrystia Freeland.
Oh, Chrystia Freeland. Oh, yes, right.
I didn't hear you talking about Chrystia Freeland. She's been on real time.
She's great. Yeah, well, let's see what happens.
She was the minister. She was a minister.

I forget what department, but she was very important.

Finance, I believe.

In the Trudeau government.

Yeah, I believe she was a finance minister.

And then quit and said she basically didn't believe in him anymore.

Come up and campaign on her behalf.

That, to me, is the woke versus liberal debate in Canada, the one I'm having here.

Yeah.

And I'm her. Yeah.
Okay, I'm her. Do you think she could be the next? She could be the next.
I hope so. Yeah.
I think she's smart. Trudeau resigned.
Savvy. But it has still not been an election as of yet.
So they're going to be calling an election soon. And there's going to be a leadership race on the Liberal Party.
Right, because she's. And Chrystia Friedland is running for leader of the Liberal Party, but she's...
And there's also Mark Carney as well. But you're parliamentarians.
Yeah, I am a parliamentarian. I'm not personally one, but a parliamentarian.
No, your country. I used to go up there all...
I used to go up to the parliament buildings all the time, though, when I was a kid in Ottawa. You know, I down there and just play soccer on the front lawn of the parliament buildings.
Are you kidding? No, I actually did do that, yeah. Because? Because I was doing a college radio show in downtown Ottawa.
And I would say at the end of the show, on midnight till 2 in the morning, every Friday night, I'd say, anyone want to come meet me on the front lawn of the parliament buildings? Bring a soccer ball and some pizza and we'll go play soccer out there till four in the morning. Then we go and we play soccer on the, not to cut you off of that story, but it- No, no, no, but it's so, no, I love that.
The fun things I love to do in Ottawa. That's why I, you know, when you talk about, you talk about the Canadian government and Trudeau and all the elections and all the stuff that's going on out there, I also think of it sometimes just in, like, real personal terms.

I basically grew up in Ottawa.

When you say parliament, for instance, I think about, you know, how beautiful our parliament buildings are. Have you seen our parliament buildings? Have you seen them before, Bill? Quite beautiful buildings, by the way.
You know, I wanted to start that way. Yeah.
when I got to Cornell, what you're describing, I wanted to get on the college radio and be the college funny prankster. I thought that was going to be my first entree.
Yep, yep, yep. And.
It was the easiest way to get. I did not succeed.
Into broadcasting, though, through radio, right? No, I mean. Did you do radio for a while? I'm telling you, this is very evocative for me to hear you talk about it.
Because when I went off to Cornell, I had already wanted to be a comedian for 10 years. Yeah, yeah.
I just kept it inside. So now I'm away from home.
I really wanted to be in New York, like hanging out at the clubs. But I got to go to college first.
And I thought, yeah, that's it. And I remember practicing, like in my room, like to be, say things like pre, you know, pre-adlibs.
Right, right. That I could say.
Just announcing. Yeah.
And I never even got the nerve to go audition. Really? Yeah.
You wanted to do radio, but you just never. I was a shy person.
Uh-huh. I was very, very shy as a teenager, a kid as a teenager, into college.
So at what moment do you get up on stage then? What age? How does that decision get made? The first time I ever got on stage was in high school. I emceed the talent show, and it was so exhilarating to get laughs.
Right. That I was hooked like a a drug I've never had since yeah and the next time I got up on stage was at Cornell they had poetry reading unlike Thursday Thursday afternoon in the Temple of Zeus coffee shop and I got up there when people are doing poems Wow and I tried to do like material stand-up sure yeah well it was like a top 10 they must have loved that i mean it's gotta be better than poetry you know it's like something i mean i like poetry i'd rather see someone attempt stand-up than someone sincerely pull off poetry to be honest with you it's fun even watching stand-up when it fails really sometimes it's been in that environment in college you must have been good so you did you do that regularly then or or was it well then i mean all the time i was in college i was like sort of like why am i here learning about homer when i should be like in new york philosophy telling a job i studied all the liberal arts stuff it's a i got an english major degree but history english classics mine.
The education they gave me at Cornell, I cannot front. Awesome.
And I'm a different person because of it. One who can survive in a cocktail party with anybody.
Not dominate, but survive. And not be laughed out of the room.
Right. With any group of, except astrophysicists, not science.
They don't party anyway. But so I give.
Astrophysicists, they don't really go out. Well, I think Neil deGrasse Tyson gets down.
Okay, okay. I know.
Yeah, I guess you know more than I do. You've probably met more.
You've met more astrophysicists than me, so I wouldn't really know. I'm just speaking off of a hunch, basically.
He's just a fun guy. Yeah, yeah.
You know, not only when you see him on my show or any show, but, like, I've been with him at Seth MacFarlane's parties, and, you know, he's just a great guy to hang with. And, you know, he doesn't always want to talk about astrophysics.
You know, he would like actually a break from that, I think. Yeah, yeah.
But people. Yeah, because do people come up and ask him sort of technical questions that they really need answered? I mean, it's like seeing Rocky and wanting to punch him in the jaw.
Right, right, right. I don't want to talk about the wormholes or string theory anymore.
That's it. Who else are you going to, like, throw that question to, you know? So I see an asteroid that's heading toward Earth.
The astronauts? I said I see an asteroid that's heading toward Earth. Absolutely.
No, 2032, yeah. And there's also, I thought you were talking about the astronauts that are stuck up there.
No, I just think it's a great conversation breaker there. Absolutely nice.
I see an asteroid. The entire planet is going to be destroyed in 10 years.
What are you planning on doing about that? That's a good question. Seven years, actually, Tom.
I was never really good at math, but yeah. Well, I'm torn between trying to survive and kissing my ass goodbye.
Saying making an extra effort to survive seven years so you can see the asteroid? Or would you rather just not have to witness that? If it's going to hit and wipe out all life on Earth, I want it to hit me right in the head. Right, right.
Please make it a direct hit. I don't want to be part of the cleanup committee.
yeah now how do you why do you think they're so um exasperated by this because i assume it it's the same reason why the dinosaurs were wiped out because it's not the asteroid itself that's going to dent the earth so bad it's that it creates a the whole atmosphere is full of dust and the sun is bluffed out that's it frigid winter and we all freeze to death that except for those few hardy enough ones who dug little shelters for themselves and lived off uh freeze-dried noodles for the next generation how do you think it would you want to be part of that group that ate freeze-dried noodles underground for a generation to try to repopulate the earth, or would you rather have a direct hit? You say direct hit. Well, when you put it that way.
You get to continue. You could probably open up a little comedy club in there or something like that.
Keep everybody entertained. Repopulate the earth eventually because of you, because of you keeping everybody.

Underground comedy.

There'd be stuff to do.

Literally underground comedy.

There'd be stuff to do, yeah.

So when you built the studio here, this has got to have been a lot of fun, right?

I'm telling you, it hasn't changed at all.

Yeah.

Well, I'm not talking about the structure. Just when you put the cameras in and started doing the show here, that must have been a lot of fun, right? What's fun is that I wouldn't be here with you without it, which is a shame because I'm having such a great time.
I always liked you. I mean, I was disappointed we never got to be friendlier when you were the neighbor um i always thought you were just an innovator and you know so that's what's great about a podcast is that it's like you can summons people now they don't have to answer the summons yeah but it's like i would like to talk to you so i i had built a studio in my house that in now 2005 i was had a lot of people over and did a lot of interviews and and i got to make so many good friends i got to know norm mcdonald i mentioned who i was you know idolized growing up but then i got to know him and become friends with him but you know he uh that's that's a great thing about doing this it's fun so you you but you've got the you you've got a studio here there's like there's there's yeah we got we have to i mean you know look i'm i'm trying to make it the least likely the least like a studio yeah no for sure yeah um but yeah there has to be cameras and and people operating them somewhere i assume.
I don't get involved with the details. So other than Johnny Carson, before 1980, who was your favorite? Well, I'll tell you who else was out.
Including David Letterman. David Letterman didn't come along until 1982.
That's what I say. Right.
It was out of all of the others. Right.
Merv Griffin, Jack Parr. I mean well jack par was before my time did you like jack par i bet you like jack par i as i say before my time i mean have you gone back and looked at his all i know about jack par no i really haven't all i know about jack par it was great is that my parents spoke well of him yeah yeah but my parents are sophisticated so that i can he was a bit of a shit disturber too though yes he was he quit on the air yes and then he came back a week later and went back in the air and said some funny line like uh no i said i said there's got to be a because when he quit he said there's got to be a better way to make a living than this and he quit on nbc live walked off and then he went away to af.
And then he came back. And the show was still a hit.
They gave him the show again. After he quit, he came back live on NBC.
And he said, I went and had a look. And when I left, I said there was got to be a better way to make a living than this.
I went and had a look. And it turns out there isn't.
And then he continued the show for like another, I don't know how many years, few years, not too much longer. And then it was Steve Allen after that.
It's amazing that he had to have that revelation. Or no, it was Johnny Carson after Jack Parr, right? Steve Allen, Jack Parr, Johnny Carson.
Correct. Jack Parr, I know, was 57 to 62.
So I was a toddler. Incredible interviews, though, with Jack Parr.
He interviewed, you know, Kennedy. Well, I again.
Muhammad Ali, you know, all these people. Well, first of all, the country was so different.
The people were... Johnny Carson also used to do an author every night.
An author? Yeah. Can you imagine an author? Was the show 90 minutes? Yes, it was 90 minutes at one point.
In the beginning, yeah. Every night, yeah.
Yeah. The country was different, and so the talk show hosts reflected that.
Johnny Carson himself, as great as he was, wouldn't survive today. Too slow.
Attention spans are different. People's just, with the phone and the pace of things and the depth of understanding uh no you can't do the show he did and that was just into the early 90s you know then jay leno was the right guy for the right time yeah it's always been very controversial the the whole hierarchy and talk television it's it's it is interesting interesting.
It is sort of like a royal family position in the country. That's American.
The talk show person who, and, you know, it's a reflection of where I think, well, it was, where the middle was. I mean, Johnny and Letterman and Leno, they were in the middle.
Now talk shows are just, all of them are to very far left. Not to say I wouldn't agree with them on most of those issues, but they do not attempt to please anybody except the people who are already voting for Kamala Harris.
If you're not voting for her, you are not going to feel welcome watching this. You're not going to feel welcome watching Saturday Night Live.
Exactly. Yeah, and it seems like it's become kind of the priority is to talk about that subject and to talk politics.
It used to be one joke about Reagan or something, and then we'd move on. The whole monologue's about politics.
It's all about the sort of social issues. Oh, well, that is, yes.
I mean, and Leno and Carson, and Letterman did jokes about what was going on politically also, but they found a way to do it in a way that wasn't obvious where their feelings were. And there was plenty to be made as there always is on both sides.
But that's not where we are now. Why is that? Why isn't there not a more, is it because it's just social media has divided things so much that you have to pick a side firmly? Is that what it is? Or is it because the internet made that happen? Because the shows have their internet.
They get all these comments coming through. Oh, we better, like, tease these comments.
Well, it starts with Fox News. Okay.
That's the beginning of the problem. There was no such thing as Fox News, like a right-wing media.
Every media organization tried to be down the middle. That's why Leno and Letterman and Carson tried to be- About being a non-biased observer.
You're not saying to one half of the country, don't even bother. I mean, twice when Trump won, Saturday Night Live did not do an opening sketch.
They had a fucking dirge. Now, they just had their big 50th anniversary.
Look, Lorne Michaels, I don't know him. Never worked for him.
Canadian. But yeah, Canadian, yes.
And I'm just going to say, anytime you mention a Canadian, I'm going to say they're Canadian, just so you know. And he's the biggest Canadian, because literally nobody even comes close to the effect this guy has had on comedy for a half a century.
I mean, it would be easier to name the comedy movie stars who weren't coming through the Saturday Night Live factory. I mean, not to mention the several late night franchises.
Just the stamp on the industry. Yeah, it's unbelievable.
Is just enormous. But to have a dirge.
Okay, so I'm reading this article about him. And he says, I said to the cast, and maybe this is in the early days, you know, we're playing to all 50 states.
Well, you're not anymore. Or at least not all people in 50 states.
Trump wins. Like, I didn't vote for him either.
But I wouldn't do a fucking funeral. Like, where the cast is there somberly oh we're here yeah it's still america yeah you're fine most people will be fine yes there's a lot of shit i don't like i've got a whole hate list but this is how america voted america i thought you loved democracy but you can't do sketch.
You can't be funny. You have to tell us how in mourning you are.
That shit leaves me cold. You feel it's too partisan, for sure.
Is that what you got out of that story? SNL was. It seems to be more of a block.
They won the election, and you're a comedy show, and the left is so far from perfect. So the idea that we have to have a few...
There was always sort of politics in SNL, but now more so than ever. I mean, it was Gerald Ford fell down a flight of stairs.
Yeah, but that's not what's political about it. Yeah, exactly.
So, yeah. So why is that, though? Why has everything gotten so political? Because I guess I think it began with Fox News.
Right, exactly. And then I think they politicized news games.
It was not the internet. It was cable TV.
I think that's the beginning. When the beginning of the division happened.
Because it was competing for viewers. He had to split the audience.
Right. Well, first of all, they felt that.
It was three channels. And Walter Cronkite's on at night well they can be not they can be non-biased and or to be central central and well then when when the when the cable came in okay now fox news would say yeah cbs never went right wing and nbc went left wing back in 1953 exactly against each other exactly what Exactly what I'm getting to.
Yeah. Fox News would say, not without some merit, that it was necessary to have a right wing media organization because the majority of the media had gone so far left and was in the pocket of the left.
Yeah. Now, there is some truth to that.
Okay. It got got crazy worse but this is not how it was then but just as an example there was a whistleblower at npr last year a guy who worked there i think his name was erie berliner okay and he just didn't like the fact that you were squelched if you tried to present anything other than the super, super duper far woke left point of view on NPR.
Right. So it comes out that of the 87 top managers at NPR, the number who voted Democratic was 87.
Right. Okay.
Now, even if you're a Democrat, that's not a good thing. No, no.
That's when you have, that's incest, that's intellectual incest. And you know what incest produces.
Well, is it just because the, is it regional? I mean, you travel around the country, so, you know, is that what it is?

Just because most television has always come out of New York and Los Angeles, I guess, right? So this is what happened? Well, yeah. I mean, the media definitely has an enormous effect on how the country's mores change, often for good.
Gay marriage would never have happened if Americans didn't see gay people in sitcoms acting like regular people and not horrible people and people you love. And TV, and that was a great thing.
That happened after cable, too, you'd say? Well, that happened when was Will and Grace on. Yeah, so Cable.
When the TV expanded, there was, yeah. But it was a network show.
Yeah, network show, yeah. And I'm sure there were other shows.
And, you know, I mean, when I was a child, it was a scandal because at the end of a duet in the late 60s, Harry Belafonte, a black man, like planted, I think, a little kiss on the cheek of a white girl and like lost all the Southern affiliates. Yeah.
Okay. And then at some point, Tom Cruise kissed Thandie Newton in a mainstream movie.
William Shatner as well, Star Trek. Kissed green chicks.
Canadian, by the way. Yeah, and has sat there in that chair twice.
It must be fun to hang out with Shatner. I love him.
Yeah. I love him.
You know, he was my first landlord in Los Angeles. I thought you were going to say first lover.
No, no, no. But this is, that's...
Not what I said at all. I know, but it's...
But he's a good guy, though. But why can't we just go with that? It's a better story.
When I came to MTV, I rented a house. Is that right? He owned the house and rented me.
He would come over and say hi once in a while. Great.
A lot of fun. Yeah.
Great guy. Must be fun to sit to talk to.
I've never gone to interview him. I've gone to interview people, though.
I've done quite a few interviews over the years. I enjoy it.
I enjoy you and- Well, I couldn't help but notice you fall naturally into that role. You're doing more interviewing than I am.
I'm sitting here stoned. You're the guy who's like, and I love it.
I mean, I'm more than happy to go either way. But you have this natural inclination.
It's great. It's like a like a curiosity yeah well it's a not nice opportunity to get to interview i've not got to get to interview i have interviewed a lot of people though before because i've done you know my like that's something that i've kind of enjoyed the really enjoyed kind of trying to uh not just doing it because i am like meeting people and like getting to know people, but it's also,

yeah, it's been fun. It's been fun.
Like, so I built a TV studio in my living room in 2005, right? That's so you to put it in the living room. Yeah.
Well, you know, it was, my house wasn't as big as this. So I had a couple of rooms.
One of them was the living room. That was the room, the only room that was put a couple cameras in.
I get it. But no, it was fun.
It was fun. And it's like there is sort of something about being able to have a – So when you have guests now to do this in your home where you live now – Well, I'm not really doing a podcast right now where I'm interviewing people.
i'm just kind of not doing that but uh but uh i may i may i may build a podcast studio in my barn though i have a barn you have a barn uh i do not have a barn if you mean someplace where i keep hay and you don't have any animals do you have any pets right now yes but they're not horses no dogs or yes dogs how many dogs do you have two from as of as of six o'clock but they're very old oh okay yeah how old are they what kind of dogs are they what i mean one of them's got to be a thousand i don't know he i i mean i've had him since 2010 and he wasn't a puppy then a big dog like what kind of dog no he's uh do you know what kind of dog that's him as kid Oh, like a Chihuahua kind of dog? Yeah, he looks like a Chihuahua. He's not.
A little. It's a little dog? He's a half.
Chico trash dog. Chico, yeah.
Nice. Chico.
Hello. Chico, yeah.
Are they both Chihuahuas or? No, no. Or small dogs? No, and then Chula is half German Shepherd, half Pitbull.
You'd never guess. It looks like a, it looks like a German Shepherd, but not as big.
Yeah. Um.
Good guard dogs that let you know when there's something going on? Oh, fuck no. They're, they're a thousand years old.
One of them is, Chula's blind. You know, it takes a million years just to get up.
You had them since they were puppies? Um, well, again, Chico, I'm guessing was about two when I had them. You've had them most of their lives.
Oh, yes. So they weren't always.
No. When they were younger, were they good guard dogs? No, were they good guard dogs? Did they bark? No.
No, but that's. Always been kind of just a chill dog.
That's my fault because I don't train dogs. Well, you know.
I always say. It's kind of nice when they don't bark at everything that goes by, actually.
Oh, no, he barks at things that don't go by. I mean, Chico just stands in the middle of the driveway.

The reason why he's alive, unlike the other one who never moves,

because she's blind, I can't blame her,

but is because Chico takes his job very seriously as a guard dog. So he stands in the middle of the driveway at night

and just barks at nothing.

He just preemptively wants to tell everybody,

don't fuck with me. I'm Chico.
I'm here. I'm in the middle of this driveway.
I've got one eye, and I can bite, and I will bite. Right.
He'll bite me. You know she's doing that because she's trying to protect you.
Yes. No, no.
Because she loves you. Chico takes his job very— Loves you and wants to make sure that you are safe.
No, no. Chico takes his job very seriously, and that's what keeps him young.
Yeah. Or he's not young.
It keeps him alive. I don't know if he's still alive, but I'm glad he is.
I mean, the last time you saw Chico. Was right before I came over here.
So still alive, I would say. Yeah.
No, I mean, I worry about them like that because, you know, I buried right like maybe 25 feet that way from this building up that hill is my dog graveyard. Oh.
And there's five graves there. Oh, wow.
Yeah. You know, and I personally dug all of them because I found it to be a very cathartic experience to dig the grave yourself.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did one in a howling rainstorm.
It was so therapeutic. Do you? With the tears rolling down my cheeks, mixing with the rain.
Yeah. Well, it's, it is a happy thing.
I'd like to thank the Academy. No.
No, but it's because, you know, it is a happy thing. I'd like to thank the Academy.
No, but it's because, you know, it is one of the worst things you have to do, right?

I mean, animals are family, right?

These are family.

I had two huskies for 15 years.

I went through that.

It's a horrible thing, right?

But you have to kind of move on. move on and they had they had great lives i'm sure you know they're you know they all live uh you know yeah you'll appreciate this from uh apropos to our discussion there about people in the middle and all that shit but i quoted this lady i I read, wrote a story in the Free Press last year.
She had lived in New York with her husband, exactly what you would think of as like a left-wing liberal couple in Brooklyn. Okay.
Not bad people. Again, I would probably agree with them on most issues.
They decided to move up to the country, just like you did. But this is upstate New York.
Sure. The Poconos.
That's Pennsylvania. Oh, yeah.
Right, right. No, it's what I'm thinking of.
It's closer to where I went to college, at Cornell. Okay.
I think of New York. Yeah, yeah.
I think of New York is like outside of Cornell. Yeah.
You'd think you Alabama. I mean shacks and like meth, that kind of stuff.
Like as soon as you get out of New York. There's a lot of shacks and meth in Alabama? You said you'd think it was like Alabama and then you said shacks and meth.
I'm just like, there probably is a lot of shacks and meth in Alabama. I think...
I'm not saying this in a put-down way. No, no, no.
I want to clarify. Appalachia.
Yeah, sure. Appalachia, which stretches over, I think, seven or eight states.
I'm sure there's meth in crack. I think there's definitely meth.
If I can believe what I saw... If you're going to bet on a place to have it, that would be the place probably.

Did you ever see Winter's Bone?

Really great movie.

Jennifer Lawrence's first movie before she was known.

Okay, cool.

And it's about life in West Virginia, Appalachia, and meth, and everybody.

It does not have a false note.

And I say that as someone who would not know what a false note was in a movie about West Virginia, because I don't know about that area, but it just seems very true. Anyway, so why were we talking about that? Why were we talking about that? Yeah, why did we get on to, like, meth in West Virginia? Well, we were talking about...
Something important. Yeah, you know, let's talk about...
We don't have to talk about meth anymore. I don't think we really need to talk about meth.
Well, that's one drug I... Have you done meth? Have you taken meth? I've never taken meth, for the record.
I've never... Yes.
...partaken in the meth. You have actually done...
At Cornell. So really? Cornell was.
It was a different time. You were.
Oh. It was sort of all these drugs were kind of new experimental.
It was the Beatles were just going to. Right? Right? The Beatles, right? The Beatles.
They started all that. Well, the Beatles had split up by this time.
They got the ball rolling on all that, though. They mainstreamed meth.
Now, this is mid-'70s. The Beatles and John Lennon hadn't even appeared in, like, three years.
No, no, but they got the ball rolling on that, and now it's Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. What was music? Zeppelin was huge in the 70s, yeah.
And were you listening to Zeppelin? I was listening to Zeppelin, Jackson Brown. Okay.
Those were my two big ones, big go-tos. You listened on a record on vinyl? You had a record player in your place? Yeah, we were still into vinyl, sure.
Or tapes. Yeah, tapes, right.
Tapes. I was all tapes, pretty much.
Vinyl had just disappeared, basically, when I was a kid. So cassette tapes was pretty much my era, which seemed like it wasn't as cool as vinyl but now at this time you know i would love to be in a cassette tape world right now listening to music on cassette tape or vinyl you know it's a well i don't i don't love having to listen to music on this digital stuff but it's it's great to have access to the music but it was nice to just be able to put in that album, push play, listen to the whole album.
Yeah, I don't miss that at all. You really don't? No.
I have my vinyl collection, though. Yeah.
And kids see it, and they just flip. And do you listen to your vinyl a lot? No, never.
You never listen to it? Why would I? Do you have a record player? No. That's probably why you don't.
You've got to get a good record player. I use the iPod.
OK. Yeah, yeah.
I don't want to to bore people i always talk about my love of the ipod you don't have you ever there are advantages to the ipod that i insist oh the actual original ipod yeah like not your phone you have the actual device still with the circle they still make that or you can get them on eBay. You just have a vintage one.

I have five of them.

Wow, and you love because... There are advantages to it.
I agree with that. I promise you.
I agree with that for sure. I don't have one, but I remember having them because it's nice because all the music's there.
It doesn't disappear. There's no ads popping up.
It's your music. You feel like you own it.
Thank you. And also...
Right? Yeah. I don't think if you're on a streaming service, I think not every artist is licensed to every service.
So I don't think you can have every song you actually want. I mean, can I get all 4,000 songs on one service? I know what I can't do is edit the beginning or end of a song, which I can do on an iPod.
Yeah. Because it's on your computer.
Yeah. And all you got to do is go to options, and you can, and many songs need the beginning or end clipped.
Really? You're not a fan of some over long intros in the 70s rock stuff? You just want to get right to the guitar solo or right to the first verse? It's big intros in some of those old Led Zeppelin songs. People's phone machine messages on some of those songs.
Right, right, right. There's people talking to a live audience for two minutes and telling the same story I want to hear a million times.
So do you actually person? There's applause at the end. Or yes, sometimes musicians do make mistakes, and they just put 30 or 40 seconds of some sort of ambient bullshit that's supposed to set up the song, but it doesn't.
So this is a pet peeve of yours, and therefore you've gone and edited a lot of your songs to remove these? Well, it's not a pet peeve. A pet peeve would be...
It irritates you enough that you've actually done something about it. Like you sit down at a computer and edit the front out of a bunch of songs so you don't have to listen to them ever again.
To listen to the beginning or end. Yeah, yeah, because you just want to get to the meat of it.
You're making it sound worse than it is. I'm telling you, I'm getting rid of stuff that is bullshit.
I'm just fucking around, but like- I know, but you're- It is funny to picture you as you sitting down- But I'm not going to let you get away with it. Okay, okay.
The pretending that what I'm taking off is because I'm just sort of, some sort of nut who's only like a hook junkie. Just give me the middle 30 seconds of that song where they go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah. No, no, no.
I'm cutting off actual bullshit. Right.
I'm cutting off the fat off this steak that I don't want to eat. I'm not saying's it's a nutty thing to do i'm just saying it's like it's a little more you're most people would just not do anything about it that is true yeah and that's why i'm not most people yeah it's not crazy it's just a little bit more than the average person would do they wouldn't go and cut the song cut a little file and only carry a vintage ipod because two seconds the only thing that allows them to do that they just listen to a different song without the intro they don't like or whatever it takes it takes 30 seconds yeah yeah that's cool that's cool i like that the sound quality is better too i think than through the internet the sound quality is actually better like also i'm gonna say more uh more uh resolution or whatever First of all, maybe you can do this on a playlist in Spotify or Pandora or whatever the fuck.

Maybe you can do this, so just don't write me letters if you can.

But with the iPod, you put it on shuffle.

No, with the iPod, you can mark also songs as skip when shuffling.

So in other words, of my 4,200 songs.

Right, right.

You won't get this.

Thank you. also songs as skip when shuffling.
So in other words, of my 4,200 songs. Right, right.
You won't get this. I don't want to hear Christmas music on shuffle.
And there's other stuff I have in there, you know, yoga music. So I marked all those.
Or even particular songs in general, specific songs. I mean, I don't want just like upbeat songs, ballads.
No. But like comedy record, no.
That's not going to come up on shuffle. Yeah.
You know? You're listening to music. It's music.
Some of it might be slow. Some of it might be strong.
I love putting it on shuffle. Frank Sinatra comes up and then Tupac.
So this is on your iPod and then it's plugged into your speakers or you plug it in the car when you get the car? Do you plug it in the car? I have one. You can get in the car.
Yeah. So it's an iPod.
Not the old iPod in the car, but you can get this music of your. Yeah.
Yeah. That's cool.
Yeah, it is. Music is a very important thing, like to actually listen to music and enjoy music.
Oh, so important. And now this This is you're going to say, is not rational and it probably isn't, but I also believe that my iPod on Shuffle does speak to me.
Like there are messages that come through with the songs that it's picking on Shuffle. I mean, it's just, there's too many times and it's just eerie.
This is a bit nutty, but no, no. Even for you.
So you really do think there's sort of a, like some synchronistic sort of. I think the Lord works in mysterious ways.
Songs will come on. It just doesn't make any sense that that would play right now.
Is it possible like a lot of songs have themes of emotion and it sort of reappears throughout us? I thought of that. I swear to God.
Not as much because a lot of songs are both. That's exactly the right answer to what I'm saying.
You're feeling bad a certain day and a sad song comes on and oh. If it was just that simple.
But it's more specific than that. It's so specific.
Like it really is. Yeah.
Wow. Like I'll be thinking about a song for a certain reason and then it'll play the first thing up on the shuffle.
I mean, it's just... I believe in that.
I feel like the Chinese are involved somehow. With TikTok, it's TikTok's algorithm.
No, I'm saying that they're... No.
There is... So you consider yourself a spiritual person? Not up until that minute, but I don't.
No. So, in fact, I'm not even sure what it means.
Even some form of energy coming from the iPod, though, some sort of, maybe that could be God. That's what I'm saying.
It does rhyme. Right, right, right.
I'm just saying, I'm just reporting reporting i'm not making any judgments or conclusions i'm just saying the ipod shuffle does speak to me it does it just it just it just suggests uh things through the music that it could not possibly have known uh we didn't arrange anything i've never met this magician before it just doesn. It just doesn't.
And I'm not saying this is a reason why they shouldn't, you know, make it so that I can't use my iPod. But I do worry about Apple someday just making it so it just doesn't exist at all.
Because, you know, you have to, what I like about it is you can edit all this stuff like on your computer. We have a vintage iPod.
But then you have to put the iPod in the dock to transfer from the computer. I mean, they could cut that off at any time.
They could change the format that music's recorded on. Are they MP3s? No, I don't know what it is.
But I mean, I can't do it. All the songs are in a certain file.
At some point, I did have to get a super-duper computer expert to undo something Apple had changed. With the iPod.
So your iPod wasn't working for a second? It would not. Wow.
Yeah, it would not re... Yeah, sure, sure.
Yeah, because I'm misowning the music in a tangible way, right, where it just doesn't sort of have this organized set of music. You could just get a record player and get back to listening to music, but they can't take that in the car and all that stuff.
I like the fact that I have the music I have, and they can't change it because you see they do change songs because woke Canadian assholes, for example example are the type of people that don't believe in free speech like they don't anymore in germany or england and so like they will change songs i saw freedom of speech and are the canadian charter of rights and freedoms yeah yeah well you got to fight for it you say whatever you want up there, we can. Because I...
I think it's a little overblown.

There was a...

Something about sharing news on social media.

No, it's not Canada.

But England has arrested people for opinions on the internet.

And I'm not down with that.

And so is Germany.

I think there's been some misinformation about...

I'm getting all Canadian right now.

But there's been some misinformation about Canadian freedom of speech, though, that's been floating around out there. Like, we've got freedom of speech in Canada.
It's in our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have freedom of the press, freedom of assembly.
Yeah, well, just because something's in a charter, I mean, we have it, too, and Trump is threatening that, and sometimes the left is threatening that, too. I've never experienced a situation where I can't say something up there.
There are hate speech laws in Canada, so there are things you can't say. But you know what? Who would want to say that shit anyways, right? Well, that's not what free speech means.
Right. It's a slight, but there's a clearly defined definition of what hate speech is.
So it's not overreaching. It specific that's so it's not really pretty much say anything you want except for extreme things that you would not agree with i would think and that nobody would really want to agree with no that's society you don't know what free speech is then you don't know that's not what free speech is that's the definition of not free speech okay like what everybody thinks not Not everybody thinks the same.
The Supreme Court ruled in our country that the Nazis could march in Skokie, Illinois, which they were marching in because it is a community of a lot of Holocaust survivors, many of whom were still alive at the time. And the Supreme Court said, as abhorrent as that is, that is what free speech is about.
Anybody can defend the speech that we all like, but sometimes it changes what people like. And you just don't want to be limited that way.
Now, if you are literally inciting violence or kiddie porn or something like that, yes, there are things, and they're already illegal.

But it gets very dangerous, in my view.

There was a lot of talk about banning TikTok in America, though.

That's almost like clamping down a...

Well, that was different.

They didn't ban it, but, I mean, they were...

Well, actually, they passed a law to ban it,

and Trump, who's king now, just said, I'm undoing that.

Yeah, I think it probably helped in getting him elected. The first most blatantly illegal thing he did.
I think it probably was favorable to him, TikTok. It was favorable to Donald Trump in the election.
So why would you want to cancel that? Well, you know what your old boss is so good at? He's so good at picking off little constituencies. Like he got it on TikTok.
Kids love TikTok. What do I care? I'll say TikTok's legal now.
He picks up, he, RFK. He's like, you know, I don't know when this guy's a nut, but you know what? He's got a constituency, which he does.
Like people who want to make America healthy again. RFK combines like people from the left and people from the right, people, libertarian types from the right, and super healthy moms from the left who want to have raw goat milk and don't want their kids to have unnecessary vaccines.
So Trump's like, oh, I'll pick off him. I mean, he's going to pardon this guy who was running an internet website.
He's in jail. That was like, you know, all the nastiest shit.
And Trump's like, well, it doesn't hurt me. He'll get like a million because this guy's got like a million faithful followers.
Sure. Millions.
He's genius at doing that. Like picking off these little constituency where it doesn't hurt him.
And it travels through the internet at the speed of light more than other things. He pardons rappers.
Kodak Black, he pardoned. Yeah.
So like lots of black guys who. You like Kodak Black? He's pretty.
I'm not sure I could name one of his songs, but I like his music. I do not know his music, and that's all on me.
Why? Is he really great? I mean, I listen to it a bit. I like it.
I don't know. I'm not super aware of everything.
What do you listen to when you're out on the tractor? I listen to a lot of music that I, I was going to ask you that too, but I did ask you that. But if I would go to, I listen to like Joy Division.
Joy Division. New Order.
I listen to Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash, I know him.
Yeah, I listen to Johnny Cash. Neil Young.
I Neil Young, Canadian. Absolutely Canadian.
There is a town in North Ontario. Absolutely.
I live in North Ontario, absolutely. I see.
It hits close to home when you hear some Neil Young talking about Ontario. It's like Tom Petty singing about Ventura Boulevard.
Right. Oh, I get it.
It tugs on the... That's why I sang it.
absolutely no yeah yeah no I listen to uh no let me think of what else I listen to I want to I want to because when I was when I was younger I listened to a lot of rap music but I don't really listen to it as even the music I listened to growing up it doesn't you know I don't feel like listening to I won't say name the particular bands but it just I don't feel like listening to rap music that much as an adult. I want to listen to something more like calming, something that's going to calm me down.
But when you get done with this RV trip that you're on. Yeah, it's sort of, yeah, it's not an ongoing thing.
We're just, I'm heading back up to Canada to tour. You're going to stay put for a while? Yeah, I'm touring and doing stand-up, so I'll be going out and doing shows and working.
When you're on the road, like, so how many do you do, like, a bunch in a row? On this particular trip, it's been driving, so it was one-nighter, so it was in Chattanooga, Nashville. And you drive to, like, a band? I was on this trip.
You know, over the last 20 years, I usually flew out. But when COVID happened, I kind of got this van.
I started enjoying driving around because, you know, rather than going to a comedy club for a weekend and doing four shows, it's more like, oh, I'll just do one-nighters across as I go. And then not have to go to the airport, not have to go through all that.
What do you do after the show? Well, right now I'm traveling with my fiancé, so we're having a great time. We go get dinner and do what a man and his fiancé does after a show.
Well, I don't know what you thought this program was, Mr. Green, but it's a family show, and we don't like intimation.
But other than that, we go get dinner and go visit the city, and we have a few days off here and there. Well, right now, we're not actually doing any shows until I'm in Colorado in a couple of weeks.
So I'm here in Los Angeles for a week. You know, here's something.
I left Los Angeles and had not come back for three and a half, almost four years until three days ago. So I lived here for 18 years.
I lived here for 20 years. Really? When COVID happened, I sold my house when COVID happened that I'd owned for 18 years.
There was nothing that brought you here. Well, I came here to see you.
No, I mean, in all that time. No, there's nothing.
Well, I wasn't trying to purposely avoid it, but I just kind of, yeah, it was sort of, there was no real reason to come other than I have friends here that I missed. But I talk to them all the time on the phone and stuff and FaceTime and stuff.
So I was kind of excited about setting up this farm. But this is actually the first time I've been back.
So it's kind of interesting. And this is on Netflix.
Prime.

Amazon Prime.

I mean Amazon.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it's on Prime.

You know, they didn't tell me to watch it, but I'm anxious to see it.

Yeah, it's fine.

I should have seen it already.

I'm sorry.

It's OK.

I just wasn't told.

But it's on Amazon called.

I don't think we would have talked about a lot of the things we talked about tonight if you had watched it.

So I think it worked out for the best. That was Larry King's thing always.
Like he would do very little crap and he'd be like, hey, I want to be the guy who wants to know. If I know, why am I asking? You know, I was Larry's guest host.
You're going to say love her again and I disappointed you not love her again I'm sorry

god damn

I was his

I guest hosted

his final show

that he was doing

there over

did you ever do a show

in Burbank

in that church

a million times

oh in Burbank

yeah when he was

doing it on

Aura TV

oh Russian TV

no well he had a show

on Russian TV

which is politicking

and then he had a talk show

on Aura TV

I feel like you got to know

when to get off the stage

yeah absolutely

Larry had a great on Russian TV, which is politicking, and then he had a talk show on Aura TV.

I feel like you've got to know when to get off the stage.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, Larry had a great run, and I loved him.

Yeah.

I thought you were talking about us right now.

But no, because we've got real gigs.

But like, you know, Russian TV, I'm not going to hang on on Russian TV.

No.

and i'm not going on that one of those celebrities you know go in the job

you I'm not going to hang on on Russian TV and I'm not going on that one of those celebrities

you know go in the jungle

yeah no

or a business competition

alright

let's wrap it up

I could do it all night

so much fun

welcome back to the homestead

thank you for the weed whacker

I'll get you into what else okay thank you Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Welcome back to the homestead. Thank you, man.
Thank you for the weed whacker.

I'll get you into what else.

Okay, thank you.

That was so much fun.

Thank you.

Thank you.

An honor.

An honor and a pleasure.

Thank you, Bill.

This podcast is brought to you by Aura. Imagine waking up to find your bank account drained, bills for loans you never took out, a warrant for your arrest, all because someone committed a crime in your name.
It sounds like a nightmare, but for millions of people each year, it's reality. And here's the scariest part.
By the time companies tell you your data was stolen, it's already been nearly a year. 277 days.
That's how long, on average, hackers have to use your social security number, open accounts, take out loans, and destroy your credit before you even know you've been exposed. By the time you get that breach notification email, the damage is done.
Your identity stolen, your financial future at risk, and the company that lost your data, they'll just apologize and move on. Hackers aren't waiting.
Why are you? This can all sound really scary, which is why I'm so glad we're partnering with Aura. Hackers don't wait, so why should you? Aura monitors the dark web 24-7 for your phone number, email, and social security number.
Because the moment they show up for sale, criminals are ready to use them. If Aura detects your info, you'll get an instant alert, so you can act before the damage is done.
What if your identity is already stolen?

Criminals can take out loans, max out credit cards, and vanish. That's why Aura provides up to $5 million in identity theft insurance and a US-based fraud resolution team that works around the clock to shut down fraud fast and get your life back on track.
Your personal data is a gold mine for hackers and Aura helps lock it down. With a VPN for private browsing, data broker opt out to stop companies from selling your info, and a password manager to help secure your accounts, Aura gives you the tools to fight back.
For a limited time, Aura is offering our listeners a 14-day trial plus a check of your data to see if your personal information has been leaked online.

All for free when you visit Aura.com slash defense.

That's Aura.com slash defense to sign up for a 14-day free trial

and start protecting you and your loved ones.

That's A-U-R-A dot com slash defense.

Certain terms apply, so be sure to check the site for details.