Jimmy Kimmel | Club Random Classics with Bill Maher

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Well, in this month's Club Random Classics, we go back to my talk with my dear friend Jimmy Kimmel, who you may have seen in the news recently.

It's a freewheeling conversation of trade secrets, celebrity stories, and late-night confessions.

From how radio trained our comic timing, riffing on craft, the glorious Conan Leno mess, to how Jimmy's wife still dresses him.

Enjoy Club Random Classics with Jimmy Kimmel.

Club Random.

Oh, look how sleek you are.

How are you doing?

That sounded very gay.

And I'm touching it.

It's all right.

You look like, I don't know, that shirt looks like some sort of, you're either like a mastermind who runs the world, it's a little Dr.

Evil E.

Or, I don't know, you look like...

Can I tell you what I am?

What?

I am a guy whose wife has grown tired of me asking her what I should wear, and she went and got me like four casual outfits that I can wear to things that have numbers on them them like grandimals.

It's like a child.

That's what I am.

Is this why guys like marriage?

Because there's somebody who does shit for you that you don't want to do.

Is that the main part of it?

No, I don't think it's that, but I do think, I don't know about you.

Do you have trouble figuring out what looks right?

No.

I have a great idea.

In fact, I'm a very

instinctive and decisive shopper.

I will go in.

I'm the same way shopping.

Yes.

If I say

either it speaks to me or it doesn't,

if I'm wondering, then

the answer's no.

And if I want it,

you know, I want it.

I'm good with shopping.

I'm not good with putting combinations of things on.

How often do you shop?

Not that much.

Very rarely.

I was at the mall about a month ago, maybe five weeks ago.

I don't know.

I mean, Fucking A, I had not been, even before the pandemic, I never really go to a store for you.

I'd see pictures of celebrities, you know, coming out of Vawns.

I'm like, why the fuck are they doing that?

I mean, they must have assistance.

You're buying toilet paper at eight in the morning?

Are you nuts?

I don't go to stores because I don't have to.

So, but I thought, you know, oh, it's fun.

They're open again.

And I should see what's out there for my own self.

I'm too in my bubble with shopping-wise.

I mean, it was quite a mind-blowing experience being in the mall.

What'd you you do?

Did you go to Macy's?

I went to the West Side, the one in Century City.

Yeah, yeah.

Part of it is outside.

Yeah.

Interesting, like the people with masks on were the least likely to be felled by the Andromeda strain.

It was all the 22-year-olds with masks on outside.

It just fucking made me crazy.

Do you ever wear the mask so you can't?

I will never wear a mask unless you force me to.

I won't even do it anymore, like just if it was a walk into my studio, okay, we're playing this game.

No, you have to yell at me and then I'll do it.

I wear the mask sometimes just so I can walk around like Michael Jackson with my face covered.

So you're coming right from your show?

I am.

Oh, thank you.

Oh, no problem.

He's such a good guy, Jimmy.

Yeah, sure.

I'll have a little of that.

This is from Mike Tyson.

Is it really?

Guests of Club Random with Bill Maher.

Smoked pot given to Bill Maher by other guests of Club Random with Bill Maher.

Provided by Mike Tyson.

Right.

I've smoked with Mike Tyson before.

Who hasn't?

He doesn't kid around.

He really.

He loves his.

Well, you know what?

For you and I, I mean, pot is whatever it is.

I think for him, it really.

I got my Eddie Vedder lighter.

I don't know if these depots are terrible.

They don't work.

But I think for Mike, you know, he really,

it makes him a mellow, very different guy.

And he's not a guy you want to be on mellow.

I mean, you know, of all the guys, you don't want to be,

you know.

Yeah, maybe he's medicating himself, but whatever he's doing, it seems to be working.

It's totally working.

Did you see that fight?

Who did he fight?

Roy Jones Jr., I don't know, about six months ago.

No.

Tyson, he had a pay-per-view fight.

Of course.

It was totally fixed.

What happened?

Well, first of all, he looked really good.

I mean,

it was surprising how good he looked.

Roy didn't look so good.

He clearly beat Jones, but they'd obviously made some kind of a deal beforehand where they would declare it a draw.

It was not a draw, but it was a draw at the end.

But these two men in their 50s punching each other?

Yeah.

And Mike's quite a bit bigger than...

than Roy.

I think Mike might be 10 years older, too.

How old are you?

I'm 54.

Can you imagine a man punching you?

I mean, how fucking ridiculous is that?

Let me tell you something.

Today, I did something today in which children threw dodgeballs at me while I was trying to shoot a basketball, and it was an absolute nightmare.

I was getting hit with these light rubber balls.

I was like, oh, my God, this is terrible.

So.

I was on your show, when was it, like

a month ago?

Yeah, like five weeks, I think.

And I think it was, I think I was mentioning that it was, is it 20 years since we passed that baton?

It is almost funny, that sign behind you.

Yeah.

I mean,

I love seeing that.

I love that you keep this stuff because it makes me feel okay about keeping my stuff.

The big man show sign, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, never gets going to, how can you throw it out?

That's how I feel.

My wife would tell you how to throw it out.

Yeah.

I mean, there'll never be a better title.

I wish I could use the title.

It's a great title.

Yeah.

And especially was in the day because it was new.

You know, people weren't saying that.

They were saying politically correct.

I remember we had a lawsuit about that because somebody else wanted to use that.

And we said, no,

we made that.

I never told you this, but there was a, when I was a disc jockey here in LA, there was a guy, a producer, who wanted me to host a show called Athletically Incorrect.

Do you ever hear anything about that?

No, but there was a time in the mid-90s after we were on for a year or so when there was a slew of copycat shows.

I remember being very, very worried about it and talking to my producer, Scott Carter.

God bless Scott Carter, all those years.

Such a great guy.

He is a great guy.

Producer.

Super smart guy.

Oh, yes, and just a great human.

And he, and I was like, they're going to take the show.

And he said, you know,

think about the people who have cycled through here that we tried to teach how to do this kind of show and they couldn't get it.

He said, they can't rip it off when they're trying to learn it.

Yeah, when you're telling us we're not ripping it off.

Well, we always were doing something that was different

than the other shows.

And they couldn't rip it off.

When we did the man show, which you were on.

Yeah, of course, I'm sure.

I don't remember it, but.

I remember it well.

It was some kind of a a bit where I married a monkey.

Oh, yeah, I do remember that.

And then at

the end of the bit, I look across.

We were wearing tuxedos for some reason.

I look across the room.

Of course, you're a monkey.

And you were there with your own monkey.

Like it was a thing.

But there was a show called The X Show.

We made this Man Show pilot, and then it took like a year before it was on the air.

And in the meantime, FX, which was a new network, stole the idea.

First, they tried to buy the man show, and we sold it at Comedy Central.

And then they asked me to host this show that they described to me.

I was like, this is just like the show I'm doing, except for it was five nights a week.

And they bought time in our premiere episode of The Man Show.

They bought ads from the local cable operator, and we were...

Just so angry.

And we were just like,

they were like our arch enemy.

It's all we could think of.

And it's funny now.

It's like, it didn't work.

It was terrible.

Who cares?

Yeah, who cares?

But it was the biggest thing in our office.

The brand of show business we're in is the most disposable.

Like movies last forever.

You know, people still watch fucking It Happened One Night.

I mean, it looks like it was made in the Middle Ages, but it was only 1935 and it's on film.

And what we do is gone by the next week.

It's sour milk.

You know,

it's so disposable.

But for me, I come from radio, which is even lower on that disposable ladder.

As low as it gets.

I saw even just the fact that somebody is saving the tape of the show, which, you know, in radio, you want the show.

You buy cassettes, you bring them in, and you take them.

They didn't used to save them.

I mean, not at all.

Carson used to complain that there were not those first few years, there were some were on a kinescope.

I never even knew what the fuck that was.

They used to talk about it and it was like, what is a kinescope?

I don't know.

It was something.

I think it was like making a picture of a picture somehow.

So they had a few of them like that.

But those early Carson years, they don't even have because nobody thought they would reuse those tapes.

They would use them for anything.

It's hysterical, the lack of foresight.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Even, yeah.

How much could a tape have cost back then?

But that was the same with our radio show.

Also, we had a thing where...

Were you at 34

when you started?

If you're 54.

This show?

This is your show.

35, yeah.

35.

Yeah, I was about

that exact age when I started Politically Incorrect.

It's funny, you look back and I'm sure there are people who like our earlier work better.

Yeah, there are.

But I look back and I would just fucking cringe.

I mean, if you really wanted to torture me, make me watch something.

Same here.

I mean, I don't even watch it now,

but if I did, and occasionally I do to check on something,

especially the parts that are written, which I worked on all week,

I can watch that and go, oh, okay, I can totally live with that.

I didn't stumble over one word.

If I stumble over one word, I feel like it's ruined.

It's a bubble, right?

You know, but...

But but to ask me to look at something all those years ago, first of all, I would have zero recollection.

It would be a total shock.

And maybe there'd be parts I'd go like, oh, that guy, that was pretty cute of that guy.

But there would be definitely parts where I would go, oh, what a fucking douchebag.

Oh, yeah.

And that would be just exquisite torture.

Yes, it's terrible.

I've had that.

I think I feel like I've had that my whole life with everything.

Like I wanted to be an artist when I was a kid.

You draw something, you think it was good, show it to your mom or whatever.

Then like two years later you look at it you go oh god i thought this was good

and then you start to question whether what you're doing at that time is good

i i guess eventually you probably reach a point where you've peaked where maybe you'll enjoy looking back because you were better

i don't think i ever would because i feel like

i mean what i really want to be is the most sophisticated i can in the best sense of the word not a pretentious sense and i just was less sophisticated at that age.

I might not have been unsophisticated for my age.

Right.

But when you look back from 50s and 60s at 20s and 30s, you're not that sophisticated.

You think you are, and you're more than you were when you were a teenager, of course.

But there's just, you're just not what they, I think, used to call seasoned.

Yeah, you don't know things.

I heard you on one of the earlier podcasts talking about Gaspacho and how you, when you learned that it was cold soup.

and that's my book that's one of the that's that i think that's a uh right it's a very salient point you know it's yes everything you at the gazpacho thing i was obsessed with this gazpacho because it's you know it's funny what sticks in your mind for some reason i guess because i was so humiliated at that moment when i was making a thing with the waiter about the gazpacho soup being cold uh it must have been seared in my mind and it just i do want to write that book gazpacho soup is Cold, because

every single thing you know in your life, you did learn at a particular instant.

You don't record the instant, but you could.

Can I tell you what I didn't know when I was in my mid to late 20s?

I would,

I thought fish was healthy.

And so I would get fish and chips.

for lunch almost every day.

And now you don't because of the mercury and stuff like that.

Oh, it's just, it's a big blob of fried dough over a fish.

Well, you used to fry fish.

Well, no, fish and chips, like the traditional fish and chips.

Oh, but you just said fish.

Do you think all fish is unhealthy?

No, no, I think grilled fish is great.

This was like, you know, like a fried chicken version of fish.

Right.

And I thought I was eating, I'd have french fries with it, and I was like, I'm eating as healthy as could be.

I would have a bagel every morning and think like, oh, this is good.

I'm not putting much butter on it, you know?

We don't know anything.

We're not taught the important things.

well now you're jimmy wading into my deep end of the pool because this is the area that makes me ballistic i we could spend the whole rest of this time talking about this subject but i feel like maybe i have an ally in you i don't know if i do on all these things really oh yeah okay but just let me just address the general first which is that Somehow at 66, even though I understand that my body is not in the shape it must have been internally and in some ways externally that it was, I'm so much smarter about my health than I was in my 20s and 30s that in some ways I'm actually healthier.

And you can look at even in the numbers.

I feel the same way.

Which is amazing because to your point, I had so many bad ideas.

And of course, when you're talking about bad ideas about health, That's given the fact that we already, with our best ideas, don't know a lot.

So if you have bad ideas based on other bad ideas, that's a lot of bad health.

And yes, I was the same way.

I thought, we all thought that

I can't believe it's not butter,

was what you should eat.

And now it is illegal.

That is trans fats.

Trans fats are illegal.

And that is what they told us to eat 15 years ago.

To be healthy.

This is why I am so skeptical about COVID and all the way we handle it, because the bigger question about health, they just don't know that much and they're wrong a lot.

So don't sit there in your fucking white coat and tell me, just do what we say, because when have we ever been wrong?

A lot.

You've been wrong a fucking lot, including about this.

I seem to remember six months we were wiping off the packages.

Right.

Lots of things you're wrong about.

The vaccine

would prevent you from getting it, no, or giving it, no.

Okay,

you aren't trying to be wrong, but don't be arrogant about how much you're right, because it's not very much.

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Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand.

Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program.

There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zin.

Check out zinn.com slash find to find Zinn at a store near you.

Warning, this product contains nicotine.

Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

If you're a smoker or vapor, ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

But with Zin nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand.

Plus, Zin offers a robust rewards program.

There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zin.

Check out Zinn.com/slash find to find Zin at a store near you.

Warning, this product contains nicotine.

Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Do you feel though that now, knowing what you know, do you feel like you're in that place that you were at 10 years ago or 20 years ago, where the conventional wisdom is what we accept?

We know that grilled fish is good for us.

Some are maybe not.

Some are worse than others, but

maybe we'll find out it wasn't.

I mean, any fish that lives in the ocean is never going to be 100% good for you because the ocean is a fucking cesspool.

There are There are many lakes and you can have

salmon out of a river.

I mean most bodies of water are somewhat polluted just because what falls out of the air falls into the bodies of water.

Mercury gets into the water no matter where the water is because it falls from the clouds.

And fish eat that and we get it in the fish.

Some fish are worse, obviously sushi.

There are people who eat a lot of sushi and have a mercury poisoning.

That's how much fucking mercury there is in the fish.

Jeremy Piven had that thing on Broadway, man.

Allegedly, yeah.

I don't know.

I think he wasn't he trying to get out of that play.

I seem to remember that.

Yes, that's possible.

I remember a lot of scoffing.

That's what I remember from that.

He would write a book about it.

He blamed it on the fish.

The Jeremy Piven story.

But certainly it is bad for you.

Tuna has tons of it.

Swordfish, I used to love to eat.

I won't eat that now.

Yes.

Any deep sea fish is going to be full of mercury.

And mercury is is super bad for what's inside you.

This is another thing about vaccines.

You know, I've never been anti-vax, but don't tell me that you know how vaccines will interact with how much mercury I have in my body, or how much...

electromagnetic energy I get exposed to, how many of the 50,000 chemicals that were never around 100 years ago that we ingest now are in the atmosphere.

There's a million different variables that can affect my health.

So

don't pretend that there are definitive answers about any of this.

But don't you

do you regret having the polio vaccine, the rubella vaccine?

Did you get the shingles?

I would have to go through them case by case because to me, vaccines are always a case by case.

There are some, yes, that I would endorse.

And some,

I certainly didn't want the COVID one.

You didn't want to get it.

No, and I did.

Uh-huh.

Because I couldn't have like led a life without it and still couldn't today.

But I'm not going to get any more of it.

No, I will.

I will for sure.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, we're different on that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

Even the idea that mercury is bad for you, like, how do we know that?

Mercury is bad for you.

We do know that.

But how do we know it?

Who told us this?

Okay, well, peer-reviewed studies told us this.

Right.

And

it's almost commonsensical, but I mean, look,

I'm trying to lay out the case that I'm the medical skeptic.

Right.

But if the question is, is mercury bad for you?

I feel like that's on the side of settled science.

I'm good with that one.

I don't need to look into that one anymore.

Mercury in your system, not good.

Do you feel that?

Neither is lead,

which we also have an artist.

Well, no,

I'm not saying they are good.

I'm not even questioning it.

I'm just saying that.

Well, why do we decide that certain things?

Because metals in people's body is something that they don't look into enough and is very often, I've certainly anecdotally heard from people who say, I know one person in particular who was like, she had all these horrible kind of like,

you know, those diseases they call fatigue diseases, you know, bar,

yeah, Epstein-Barr, which is a virus many of us have in their bodies.

I have it in my body.

Lots of, you know, fatigue syndrome, whatever they want to call it.

And she said, looked at a million different things, many different doctors, had the mercury drilled out of her teeth, problem went away.

Mercury, they used to drill it into, I had it drilled.

Yeah, I had it, yeah.

Did you have it drilled out?

Yes.

I had the mercury.

Right.

Well, if you're...

Yeah, the metal filling.

If you're not sure about that, why'd you do that?

I was a kid.

My parents, I had no decision really in it.

They drilled it in and then drilled it out while you were still a kid?

Yeah.

They drilled in when I was a little kid and drilled it out when I was like 13 or something.

14 maybe.

Wow.

Yeah.

They said they had to.

It was like falling out.

Yes.

Yeah.

And it's bad for you.

Yeah, I don't know what their reasoning was.

Their reasoning may have just been.

It's poison.

We want to sell you another filling.

We don't want poison leaking into your body from your teeth.

Yeah, I mean, that could have been it too, but I tend to think that

I tend to think that they're just like dentists trying to make another 60 bucks.

Not in this case.

Yeah, well, no, why?

If you leave here thinking one thing about club random, I hope it will be mercury bad.

Mercury bad.

Don't get mercury in my body if I can help it.

I was going to ask you why it was club random, but I think I understand.

I don't think I need any explanation.

It's interesting, you and I, you know, we have so many things in common and so many things unin common.

Yeah, we, that's true.

Like you, you're a guy who loves to be married.

Yeah.

And I'm a guy who obviously doesn't.

Right.

I mean, and you even, is your wife still the head writer?

She's the head writer.

That's unsure.

That's the producer of the show.

Talk about someone who you can trust, huh?

Yeah.

Because that's a real trust job.

Totally.

You know, if you

and also, who knows?

It's like chief of staff.

Who knows you?

It's like chief of staff if you're president.

Yeah, right.

Who knows what you would want and not want.

Right.

And even more importantly.

So it's not just the shirts that she does.

Yeah, it's not just the shirts.

It's the show.

The show and the shirts.

That is a hell of a wife you got there.

Yeah.

No, she's good.

Sometimes if I think of something funny in the middle of the night, I'll make a lot of noise so that it wakes her up and then I'll act like I did it unintentionally and then I'll tell her the funny thing that I thought of and she almost I mean she courtesy laughs but I don't think she's

but then she puts it in a bit oh no it's usually ridiculous you have some I must say you do have some classic bits

the the tweets bit

that was her idea my wife's idea Really?

Yeah.

That is a, I mean, you know, not

every bit is a classic.

That's, that's a classic.

Yeah.

And the other one, the

bleeping.

Yeah, the unnecessary censorship.

That's something I started doing on the radio.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

Goes that far back?

Yeah.

It was funny to put bleeps where

they scream.

Where they don't belong.

Yeah, I always got to say that.

Yeah, that's another gold.

Those things, those like recurring

new rules, obviously.

And some of these.

Did you you figure that out?

I don't know if it's true.

I don't know for a fact.

I just know it's true in our 24 things.

I love those refillables because we're old school fans of the old.

We grew up on, I mean, I know you adore Letterman, right?

He's your big hero, right?

Yeah.

Letterman, Howard.

Howard, yes.

Oh, and he's still your boyfriend.

Yeah.

Now, how did you wind up up Howard's ass, but you couldn't get up Dave's?

That's my question for you, Jimmy Kimmel.

I'm sure you tried.

No, I just, you know, I feel like Howard, no matter what he says, seeks human interaction.

And I don't know that, at least with me, I don't know that Dave would be interested in that.

And I would never want to like bother him.

But Howard and I have a lot in common.

We started in, you know, he's still a radio guy.

I was a radio guy.

I got into it because of him, really.

And

my uncle would send me tapes of the show on w nbc he'd make a cassette tape he'd send me one once every two months and i would listen to them over and over again i feasted on them right and

this is the difference between your age which is about a decade before mine and mine because like you're howard letterman whereas i'm carson

jack benny right no not jack

benny i don't know i don't know who the other one

but it was probably somebody on the radio.

You know, I did listen to like the disc jockeys on WABC, Dan Ingram in the afternoon, Cousin Brucey,

I didn't want to be him.

Dan Ingram was very sophisticated,

but definitely Johnny Carson.

And, you know, we wanted to be that guy.

I think that guy to us was, I mean, we were never going to be like the...

athlete of the school, you know, that's not what we're going to be.

We weren't going to be the leading man in the drama club, but we could be that guy.

You know, that was our version of J.

Well, I remember when college kids I would talk to started talking about Conan in the same way that I spoke about Letterman, because it's whatever you're, the first thing, the first one you're exposed to is the one that means the most.

Right.

Johnny.

Right.

To you it was Johnny.

And then everybody else after Johnny is like,

when there was that Conan Leno kerfuffle

ugliness, not since the war between the states, really, or maybe it was the rap feuds between East and West Coast.

I don't remember, but not since something.

Was there something?

That was that contentious.

I remember at the time, this is so funny, it was like 2009, I think.

Yeah, it sounds right.

Okay, so my girlfriend at the time was 25, and I remember, you know, it was a very

important thing in our world.

And I was explaining to her, I said, well, you know, it's a generational thing.

Leno is 59 and Conan's like 46.

And she went, yeah, that's the same thing to me.

And I actually felt better because I was like, oh, you know what?

That's good because that means I'm in the same boat with everybody over 40, you know?

And

that category is, you know.

Yeah, out of range.

Right, fuller, but

I don't know.

I mean, were you a team?

Were you Team Jay or Team...

Oh, definitely not Team Jay.

No.

No.

I was like...

Oh, yeah, you have a feud with him.

I was kind of in the middle of that.

I feud with Jay Leno.

Not anymore.

I did, though.

About what?

He's such a nice guy.

I know.

You always say that, and I go.

What am I not seeing?

You know, there's this evil Jay that I don't see.

Really?

I mean, is that really what you think?

Tell me what you really think.

You think I am blind to a Machiavellian side of Jay Leno?

Maybe.

I don't even know.

Yeah, you can say that.

I mean, unless you're joking.

I'm not joking.

He's quite clearly very a cunning individual, let's just say.

Because he hid in the closet that time?

He who hides in the closet and listens in.

But on his own behalf.

Who's ever done that?

Okay, but he did it on his own.

Sign of soap operation.

Wait a second.

He did it on his own behalf.

He didn't do it to rat fuck someone else.

He did it to rat fuck Dave.

What do you mean?

To rat fuck Dave?

Letterman.

I mean how did that rat fuck Letterman?

Well, it was part of his campaign.

I mean, you know, you go through the whole thing, but basically that was part of him gauging what NBC was planning to do.

I don't recall exactly what that conversation was.

Do you?

But I think it may have been a very...

They were vying for this same,

they were vying for this one coveted spot, the host of the tonight show.

It was the holy grail of comedians that it would be passed on to.

So obviously it's the Super Bowl trophy.

They both want it.

And I don't know.

I find something wrong about the hatred of the people who, oh, you just went for it and got it and won.

And then, by the way, he was like number one.

They fired him twice for the sin of being number one

in his time slot.

I mean, it's not like...

I don't know if that's why they fired him, but yeah.

Well, they fired him because they thought, well, we better look out.

Why?

Because he was such a hard guy to work with?

No, I just think they saw Fallon surging and they saw that as the immediate future.

There was a time where the ratings between those shows were getting close, which is very unusual.

It speaks to the need in this business, kids, if you're watching and you want to get in the business, you need someone talking for you, an agent, a manager.

Somebody, because Jay Leno had no one speaking for him.

He was his own representative.

Whereas I think it was Ari Emmanuel, one of the great talkers of all time and great people, I love him.

I think he was in the ear of the NBC execs saying, you need to think about the future.

Yeah, sure, Jay is number one now, but you know what?

What about the future?

Let's get ahead of this.

And so they fired him for being number one twice, and the successors did not do as well.

I'm just saying, these are the raw materials.

I think it's more complicated than that.

Tell me the complicated part.

Well, there's a couple of things.

I mean, first of all,

Conan wanted

the 1130 spot, and he went to NBC and said, I want the 1130 spot.

If I don't get the 11.30 spot, I'm going to become a free agent, and other networks are going to offer me the 1130 spot.

which was happening, by the way.

You know,

something that was happening.

And NBC said, listen,

we want to keep Jay on.

We want you to be the 11.30 host.

What we'll do is we'll make a deal.

In five years, we'll give you the tonight show.

And Conan now has to make a decision.

Should I go to ABC at 11.30 or stay here and wait and be a good soldier and take the tonight show at the end of it?

Yeah, ABC,

I know.

But at the time, they were talking to him and Fox as well.

To replace you with him?

Yeah, to push me back or whatever, you know, move the show.

I was on at midnight at that time.

And

Conan then had to make a decision, you know, do I go to another network or do I stay here and wait?

And he said, okay, I'll stay and wait.

And then when he put in his five years,

they broke the deal.

Oh, so he did stay five years.

He did stay five years.

And then Jay, who knows a lot about television, a lot about TV ratings, maybe more than anyone I've ever met.

I'll bet.

Was was offered the 10 p.m.

slot.

Now, they don't have to violate Conan's contract.

Jay knew that lead-in is hugely important and that NBC had had dramas that were fairly successful in those slots, and they were bringing a pretty big audience to the tonight show.

He knew that doing his show would have maybe half those ratings, turned out to be like a third.

And even if that show failed, it would make the tonight show's ratings drop.

And that's what happened.

Conan Conan had a bad lead-in from Jay.

But Jay had not taken the 10 p.m.

spot because of that?

Why is Jay always looking out for Conan's interests?

No, I'm not saying he's looking out for Conan's interests.

I'm just saying

it's somewhat diabolical, don't you think?

Diabolical?

I mean, I would never do anything like that.

Why?

So he should not have taken the 10 p.m.

slot?

He should not have kept working

in the job they offered him.

He should say, no, because of Conan's career, I'm not going to work at 10 p.m.

I don't get that.

Yeah, but

I think from the beginning, his plan was to retake the tonight show.

To see the ratings go down.

You just don't like this guy.

I don't know what he did to you.

Well,

what did he do?

Did he touch you, Jimmy?

No, he didn't do a weird show.

Tell me where he touched you.

But I don't want to make this all about, because I'm fine with him now.

We've spoken.

Okay.

It's fine.

But just for the, you know, whatever, just the thing.

I hate it when two people I love don't like each other because I feel like I did something.

It wasn't your fault at all.

Was it?

It's just when ABC was, when NBC was going to

turn the show over to Conan, Jay was talking to ABC about coming on at 11.30.

And Jay

needed to get Bob Iger, they needed to get my permission

contractually because I was contracted to be on at midnight, not 12.30.

So they wanted to get my permission first.

And so at that time, Jay called me a lot.

And, you know, we spoke about all sorts of things.

And I felt like we were having a friendly relationship.

And then the day NBC decided, no, we're keeping Jay,

never heard from him again.

And I didn't even find out from him that he was staying.

He wanted to be on 1130 and I would move to 12.30.

And I finally said, okay, yeah, I think I would do that.

I'd be on at 12.30 after you, because I was on at midnight at the time.

And I felt he'd be a better leader in the night line.

You know that.

Wait, Jay was going to move to ABC?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a lot of stuff.

I, yeah.

Yeah.

Either I forgot that or.

No, I don't think most people even know that.

But I know it because I was

asked to move to 12.30.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

I sometimes feel like maybe

I got a lot of friends.

I don't need to I don't need to like

I understand you know what I mean, but I hope someday as we all walk down the path of life well, this isn't going to make it better that that I get to

somehow do a

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Let me tell you a couple, a good

Jay Leno story.

I met him when I was a teenager out front of

the improv, I think.

And he couldn't have possibly possibly been nicer to us.

I mean, he was super nice and chatty and, you know, so

you know, I'm not indicating he's, you know, whatever.

I just think there are some weird things there.

Well, he is a weird mix of, I think, a very moral guy.

But he's definitely Italian.

He has a

cunning.

Yes, Jay is smart.

about the business.

I mean, he is ruthlessly smart.

But I just didn't think it was at the detriment of others, except if you're going after the same job,

yeah,

I don't find it off-putting that he was in the closet.

Yeah, from my point of view, I got to know who he was from his appearances on Letterman.

And I thought he was cool because Dave put him on, and they seemed to be friendly, and he would give Dave shit.

And he was always so funny.

Oh, so

those were cool.

And then it seemed weird that then after Dave kind of opened that door for him,

that

he'd be squeezing his way through the other one.

Well, Dave opened that door for him.

I mean, he was obviously, I remember those appearances too.

He was obviously a big talent.

You know, Chris Rock for years would always say, oh, thank you.

Because back in 1996, we put him.

On, we were doing, it was the 96 election.

He was our correspondent because he was at a kind of a down moment in his career

in New Hampshire.

It was funny.

I can't find hair products up here.

You know, it gave him a little boost.

People saw him and it, you know, helped the next step.

But I always said to him, Chris, I didn't do anything.

You're a giant talent.

It would have happened anyway.

I'm glad that we were able to like work together at a moment that was beneficial for us both, but it would have happened some other way.

You're Chris Rock.

And I kind of feel like you're not.

That's how Chris feels.

Right?

It's not about how you feel.

It's how Chris feels.

And Jay is Chris in this situation.

And this Chris is not so grateful.

Interesting the way you threw that Trump card down on me.

I must say, I'm a little taken aback.

But, okay, well, someday I'm going to do a Frank Sinatra to your Dean and Jerry.

Not that you were ever Dean and Jerry.

But it's like, because...

You know, there's so many, there's so few people

who can understand

what you and me and Jay, and you know, there's a little club of people who know what it's like to do a talk show and talk to many, many, many different people over the years.

And, you know, I mean, I would be hard-pressed if someone like had a list of every guest I've ever had to read them and make me identify exactly who we're talking about because

I just,

you know, I

don't remember everybody, Regis.

Yeah.

I mean, Jimmy.

That's funny.

Especially because he's dead.

He's not even.

Oh, no.

Is Regis dead?

He did.

He passed away.

That's a relief.

I feel bad.

I mean, I feel good.

I mean, I feel bad.

I feel good that he

was around for so long and terrible that it had to end so quickly.

I had Regis

and Joy and Don Rickles and his wife Barbara over my house for dinner one night.

I cooked them dinner.

And one of the things I love about old guys like that is is nationality means so much in their characterization of you.

Like Reed just, ah, look, he's Irish.

He's like, he's shaky.

He's drunk.

It's like,

with Don, like all he could think about is, you know, my mother's Italian.

It's like, he's a kid's Italian.

He's Italian.

I think he thought I was Jewish

at the outset and was kind of hoping I was Jewish.

But then it became the mob and spaghetti and all meatballs and all that.

What do you think about you, Reed's Jewish?

You say that?

Really?

Yeah.

Almost people think I'm Jewish.

Really?

My last name rhymes with a Jewish word.

And also when I dated Sarah, I feel like a lot of people presumed that I was Jewish.

I never presumed.

Thank you.

No,

you just do not.

You do not.

I don't have Judar.

It was a joke, of course.

You do not set it off.

If I had Judar, you would not set it off.

Is it the big crucifix on my hairy chest?

I feel like it's part and parcel to your amazing success.

Really, 20 years is a long time in that piece of real estate.

It's because like Carson and like

your RGL

and David Letterman, there's something mid-American about you that appeals to the broad, not just the coasts, although you obviously do well there too, but like you strike people as American.

And it's not like there's the Larry Davids and

people love those kind of comics.

But yes, that's kind of like a Jewish sensibility they see there.

I don't see it with you.

Because you're not a Jew.

It's not a giant mystery.

And for America, that's good because Jews are like 2% of the population.

It's very good to be able to do well also in Muncie

and lots of other places, you know.

And I know you hate to be compared, but you and Jay, you both have your thumb well on the pulse of Middle America.

You wouldn't have survived for that long in that spot if you didn't.

I like that ice bucket, by the way.

It reminds me like my parents had one like that in the 70s, you know?

I remember it being, I still have mine right here.

I remember being

attracted to it in some way.

Attracted?

That sounds sick.

You know what I I mean?

No, I don't.

Like you're attracted.

You know what I mean?

No, but like, what do you mean?

One day.

You want to fuck my ice bucket?

One day I'm going to be a man who has an ice bucket.

Oh, not yes.

Well, the people I looked up to, like Manly, who I wanted to be a man, and

if I was a man like these men, I'd be with lots of hot chicks, were Johnny Carson and James Bond.

Yeah.

They were the right age.

And it's interesting, you know, they weren't like young.

They weren't old, for sure.

but the celebrities were older than 40s 40s was like is like the perfect age like fully a man although i was

you know i guess

i don't know like i said looking back i don't want to do it but uh

but you know still like attractive look good dean martin also i must say i could tell that my mother was hot for Dean Martin, like watching the 10 o'clock, he at the Thursday 10 o'clock show we had comes out with the perfect tan yeah sideburns you know the tuxedo and you know just white teeth and like it's like oh yeah i would love to i said well i can't be dean martin

uh and i don't want to be jerry lewis

it's got to be something in the middle cars you know

who's your all-time favorite baseball player

all-time favorite baseball player.

Well, I mean, there will always be someone,

I mean, a connection for someone my age

who grew up in the New York market with Mickey Manle.

I mean, my...

A Yankee.

Yes, my father

appeared at the head of my first grade classroom one morning.

I was shocked because I'd never seen my father at the school.

I didn't know what I thought, maybe that it was an

emergency or a disaster.

I was in trouble, but he was there to take me to my first baseball game.

Like it was like and he didn't tell you, he just showed up when I just showed up like a fucking Marine back from Afghanistan.

Oh, that's great.

And,

you know, I remember I do have it, I have a clear memory of him talking to the teacher, and he must have been saying, Hey, I know I shouldn't be doing this.

I know the school day is not out, but it's our one chance to go to a game, blah, blah, blah.

And so there off I went.

Wow.

And, you know, the first, it's almost exactly the way Billy Crystal describes it often, but like in his show, it's a brilliant show.

That's how it works.

But walking into Yankee Stadium and before it had only been black and white on your television because your black and white TV showed the baseball games.

And here it was, you walk out the tunnel and there's that giant expanse.

of verdant.

I had that same experience because I had a little black and white TV.

I watched all the Dodgers games growing up.

And when my parents took us to Dodger Stadium,

what really stood out to me was that the Dodgers numbers were bright red,

which I never really noticed

in the newspaper.

No, and it was just so big, you know, and there they were.

And so Mickey Mantle, when I was seven, I had a flannel uniform, like a Yankee pinstripe uniform with seven that my mother sewed on the back.

Really?

And I wouldn't take it off all summer, summer and she was begging me to because it was hot and it was flannel, but it was Mickey Mets.

So I guess that's back in my memory somewhere.

I mean when I got more

thoughtful about sports

I went right to Joe Pepitone.

No.

I don't know.

Name some people.

I mean I like a lot of people but you know they're basically they're Tom Seaver was that one of your yeah Tom Seaver was great

because I know you like the Mets.

I just didn't know.

I didn't know it was.

I paid them for a while.

It was fun.

Yeah, right.

And now they're doing great.

I told you that story about the Las Vegas Golden Knights.

Yes.

They offered me a piece of their franchise, and I didn't

do it because I felt you told me it wasn't a great deal when you owned the Mets.

It was a great deal.

I don't know.

You must have been hot.

You told me.

It was.

You told me that they never give you any tickets.

You don't even have a parking space there.

You always have to pay for tickets.

I would never have said that because I never, that was not the case.

I had my own parking space.

I mean, I made a major life decision based on that.

They were always great about that.

I had my own parking space.

And yes, you had to, like at the World Series.

Yeah, there were some things, but you know, I mean, I guess that was in the contract.

Anyway, I went to the World Series.

I had the greatest seats.

The Will Pons were super nice to me.

I have no complaints about that.

The problem was during the pandemic because we weren't playing baseball games.

So they had these things called capital calls.

When you're an owner

and you don't, the team losing a lot of money, you got to pony up.

And so it was.

very scary to be running a baseball enterprise and not playing baseball.

And then when we did play, there was no one in the stands to buy hot dogs.

That was a troubling time.

I was worried about that way more than getting the fucking Andromeda strain.

I was worried about that.

That's so crazy.

You never think about that.

You have a piece of a team that

might not be.

Oh.

You might have to pay up.

Absolutely.

Yes, and I did.

Luckily, Mr.

Steve Cohen came along the next year and the Mets sold.

And it actually turned out to be a great thing.

But

yeah, there was some fucking nervous moments.

Yeah.

But.

Well, now I'm back.

Now I think I made the right decision.

Yes.

You know what?

But of course the Golden Knights went to the Stanley Cup in their first season.

Is that right?

Yeah.

And they're a professional team?

Yes, it's an NHL team.

It's like unheard of.

I don't know.

I know so little about hockey, and I'm so actively against it that I can't really judge that, you know, because hockey, I don't know, and I don't even think it should be here.

It's not really American.

It's boring like soccer.

It's a sport, sort of, just more like exercise.

So I'm not, so I can't judge that.

Have you gone to a game live?

No, of course not.

It's different.

It's more fun.

It's even more boring.

No, it's not.

It's not boring.

You're right up at the glass if you get good seats.

And just, you know, they're constantly smashing in the bowl all covered up.

You can really see them fighting.

I don't care.

And then I'll go to a fight if I want to see them fighting.

But in general, of all the things that goes up in value, this is why I did this deal back in 2011.

Sports teams.

People in this fucking country, you know better than anybody, love sports.

And those investments never go down.

Could they, yes, in a small market, but not the New York baseball franchise.

There's only one National League baseball franchise and it's not going anywhere.

It's like Mark Twain said about real estate, God made the earth, but he ain't making anymore.

And they ain't making any more National League baseball franchises.

So I don't know if that's anything like what this one is in hockey.

Does it sound like it has quite the tradition?

No, but

it's

hugely successful as far as attendance and fan excitement.

Going to, it was a really big story.

Like it hadn't happened in any professional sport since like the early 60s.

But if somebody offers you like something in a legacy team, and when I say legacy team, like I, if there's like a World Series,

as there usually is, without the Mets in it, so I don't really care who wins.

I always root for the team that's been around longest.

I root for the team whose baseball cards I had when I was a kid.

If it's the Detroit Tigers against the Marlins, fuck the Marlins.

The Brewers in the American League.

Not even the Brewers.

It was the Milwaukee Braves

before they went to Atlanta.

And they went to Atlanta.

Wow.

Right.

Yeah.

Hank Aaron.

Yeah.

I also had a card that said Bob Clemente.

Really?

Bob?

Because he couldn't say Roberto.

Because that was for that era.

That was a little too ethnic.

Bob Clemente.

You have baseball cards?

I do.

I have some baseball cards, but they're cards I collected when I was a kid.

You got to come over one day.

I am over.

One of my 10?

Yes, apparently I am.

You've got to come over one day.

Seriously, I'll go through my cards.

You got good ones?

That's amazing.

That's great.

Like the years like 60,

like maybe

3, 4, 5, something like that.

When I was like 7, 8, 9.

Very complete.

Did you

flip cards when you were a kid?

Yeah.

Yeah,

and you put them in the spokes of your bike.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I valued them too much to do that, but

we'd flip them all the time.

It was just non-stop gambling with the cards.

I got a Mets team card once.

The team card.

Oh, the checklist.

The Mets Team card was fine.

Remember the checklist card?

Yeah.

And the kid, this kid Mark, his parents owned the grocery store in Brooklyn, milk and stuff.

And he was so upset that I got the Mets Team card.

He made them open all of the cards in the store.

And they didn't get another Mets team card.

I wound up trading him the Mets Team card for all of those cards.

Hundreds of cards.

It was like a scene out of Willy Wonka.

It was like they're opening these packs looking for this Mets team card.

Do they still have cards?

Oh, yeah, sure.

Yeah, the cards are bigger than ever.

You know, I not only have baseball cards.

Oh, Jimmy, when you come over here,

we're going to have such a good day.

Not only do I have baseball cards, I have other cards that were Beetle cards.

Wow.

Batman cards.

Two kinds, one drawing, one photograph.

Really?

Yes,

two editions.

Martian cards.

There was a movie,

Jack Nicholson was in it.

It was called

something let's go to Mars or Mars Attacks.

I think it was Tim Burton.

Tim Burton, right.

Mars Attacks.

That was from a set of cards that I have

still as a kid.

Did you collect wacky packages?

You know, wacky packs?

No, what's that?

Wacky packs.

That was a big thing.

Like they'd, they take like a

product, like a tube of crest toothpaste, and they change it to crust and crust would be coming out of it.

You know, like that kind of stuff.

I think I have those cards.

Yeah, I love those wacky pack cards.

I have

Munster cards.

Really?

Well, maybe it's Adam's family, one of those.

Yeah.

And you remember buying them when you were a kid?

No.

I don't remember, I don't know how I have them.

The baseball cards I know how I have because I did save my nickels and dimes to go buy cards, packages of bad, remember, you get that stale gum.

Yeah, oh, yeah.

And you would open it up and you're like, oh, who did I get?

A little bit of gum dust would come out.

Yeah, and you'd see.

Sometimes you get like some like shitty San Diego Padre being like, oh, fuck.

Oh, yeah.

The best ones from the, I don't know if they still did it, but there was like, okay, each guy, Bob Clemente, and, you know, Raleigh Fingers, whoever it is.

Then checklist card,

worst.

Team card, second worst.

But best was like when they had two

or three stars, sometimes from different teams

standing together with a special card.

Buck blasters, you know, and it was Clemente and Willie Stargill or something like that.

Yeah.

You know.

for like the American League and National League best first basemen.

Yes.

Like Rod Carew and Steve Garth.

Right.

It would be, yeah, like Hank Aaron and Willie Mays together.

You know, like.

Right.

Yeah.

See, for us, the team cards were big, but only teams we liked.

We didn't care about the expos.

Racist victim bashers.

Have you ever played any of those celebrity softball games where you get to play with like those guys, like Gossage was one, and Winfield, these guys in one of these games.

Games?

What kind of game?

Like a celebrity softball game.

They'll do them in the All-Stars.

I played in the

a couple of years.

I was in something at Dodger Stadium.

They sent over a uniform.

He got in a Dodger uniform with the stirrups, the whole thing.

It was kind of cool.

I remember I went with Alan Thick.

Wow.

And

it was a game.

I loved it.

Yes.

Tony Danza got me out with a little 10 cent curveball, grounded to third.

I remember Jonathan Silverman.

Wow.

Like, really hit it a long way.

Oh, really?

Like, very impressive.

You have so many like of these big celebrity friends.

What's that about?

Like, Jennifer Aniston and like

Howard Stern.

It's funny.

I still have to say that.

Did you just say some other motherfucker that you're friends with?

Some other.

I still have my best friends from high school.

Oh.

I do.

Oh, bring out the award

for a good job.

It's not just.

It's not just.

But do they party?

They might be defensive awards.

But do they party with Jennifer Adams?

No, you keep them separate.

That's actually not true.

Really?

Yep.

Actually,

specifically not true.

In fact,

my friend Jimmy Gentleman, who was

Jimmy Gentleman's name.

Come on.

There's nobody named Jimmy Gentleman.

Jimmy Gentleman.

And there's actually two people named that.

Him and his dad's John Gentleman.

I think of you as Jimmy Gentleman.

it's funny my uncle vinny was like thought it was a nickname he's like because yeah because you're like the jerk and he's like the the gentleman i was like no i'm not

the jerk anyway uh we knew that he's so polite he wouldn't come who if jimmy gentleman to jennifer andison's house if he knew that's where he's going so we lied to him We told him we're going back to our house and just drove there and he was a nervous wreck the whole time.

Why?

Because he felt he was not worthy to set foot in Jim.

Yeah.

Which is not true.

And he loosened up after a while.

Right.

I hope you slapped a snot at him.

He needs to be disabused of that notion.

Yeah, well, I think he was disabused.

Well,

okay.

Yeah.

No.

If you insist,

I'll let you talk to him.

I would like to interview Jimmy Johnson.

I agree with you completely.

And

try to convince him.

What is my wider?

Try to convince him that

just because

he is one of your Memphis mafia

I assume that's why you keep him around Jimmy I assume he's like the Memphis mafia he is your gopher no not at all

he's got he lives in Las Vegas he's got a wife and children

kid just went to college and you make them work for you too is no nobody works nobody works for me I know I'm fucking though

I'm a comedian

you know I've been smoking this so I think it'll be jesus christ and what are you drinking wine i'm drinking wine yeah jesus what are you ever had wells in 1985 with your beard and your wine yes i am

you remember when orson wells was on the shall we say downslide when he was a fat old legend

a fat old legend and he'd always be on like merv griffin and he just made the rounds and it was like You know, of course he's a legend, but that was the elephant in the room.

It's like, okay, you haven't done anything in 30 years, but you're Arson Wells.

And he would, I guess, regale them with rack and tour-like tales of Hollywood.

One time, Rita Hayward

was twerking on my balls.

Wouldn't you love to have, though, a reel of him on talk shows?

you know, from the 70s.

It would not be hard to find.

He's wearing a scarf.

Yes, exactly.

A scarf, a cigar, always a prop cigar,

and a big cloak because he was just big as a house by then.

And, of course, Lana Turner was always twerking on his nuts, which he referred to as the Magnificent Ambersons.

Is that true?

No, it's one of his movies.

It's one of his famous movies, is the Magnificent Ambersons.

It's actually, some people say, his best movie.

I watched Citizen Kane recently again.

It's like one of those movies that you watch every 10 or 20 years

because you think, maybe I missed it the first time, why it was so great.

It was like, maybe I missed it the second time.

Why it's so great.

No, it's not bad, but it's a little like the Mona Lisa.

Very overrated.

Like it just sort of got to this place in the public consciousness, and you know, no one ever accused them of being geniuses.

So like

they just made it, they just anointed this thing to be like the greatest picture, the greatest movie.

And it's neither close to the greatest.

It's an interesting movie.

I like it, but enough.

It's just not what they say it was.

However, Gone with the Wind, as overstuffed as it is, is still.

Casablanca is a good one.

Oh, yes.

Casablanca.

I talked about this, I think, with Quentin Tarantino here.

It doesn't make sense because

the whole thing hinges on the idea that there are these letters of transit which can get you out of Nazi-occupied Morocco.

And if you have the letters of transit, the Nazis will never touch you.

And that is not really how I see the Nazis.

You don't think a letter of transit would

be true.

Letters of transit.

So do you like have movie nights at your house where you watch, like, I'm sure a giant mogul, even though you have your high school friends still like you,

gets like the big movies that are out, so they want you to see it, so you'll promote it.

I get a link to those.

I watch them on TV at my house.

Watch them from where?

Where are you alone?

Where are you when you're watching?

In the living room.

In the living room.

I have a 100-inch TV that's about 13 years old and starting to show it.

100 inches.

It's a huge TV.

I'll take out just enough to beat you.

but um

okay so you're watching in the living room and i watch it with molly yeah usually hopefully so like this often not and then

you talk about it after like your assessment of it or like this is something you want to know really how i could honestly then i wonder if you do this too

i will

if the producers tell me it's good i'll watch it

If they don't, I won't because I don't want to have to give any commentary that isn't positive.

And I think it's better to just be honest.

And I haven't seen it yet.

Exactly the conclusion I came to.

Yes.

Right.

It doesn't come up as much for me because I'm not on five nights a week like you are, and mine is not every internet plugging there.

Mostly, sometimes.

But, you know, I mean, Rod Stewart was on a couple of weeks ago.

I like Rod Stewart.

Plus, New Forever.

He's Rod Stewart.

He's great.

It's not a problem.

He's one of those Dean Martin type guys.

Rod Stewart.

Oh.

That level.

I think he was more, Dean Martin was mostly a myth.

He was not really a drunk or a womanizer.

You know, Rod Stewart really...

He was a golfer.

He was a golfer, yes.

He's a strange guy.

You know, he drank himself to death at the old,

remember the place that was Hamburger Hamlet.

It was on the corner.

Really?

Yeah, it's now some other trendy thing, but it was the corner.

I remember that place.

The corner of, right where Sunset goes into Beverly Hills.

Sunset kind of branches there at Doheny, a little past Doheny.

Okay.

Hamburger Hamlet.

And he just sat in the back.

He had his booth his last few years and kind of like drank himself to death.

I mean, that's what they said, alone at Hamburger Hamlet.

And

like, why?

I know he lost his son early.

I mean, it's horrible when

we...

any parent to face a child that pre-deceases you.

It's got to be rough.

Yeah.

But still, you know, come on, Dino.

I don't, I don't understand why people,

yeah.

Yeah.

But, you know, I never had kids.

And do you, yeah.

Well, it's some, you know, I think about this sometimes that some of these older guys, like Rickles, you know, like,

they just get such a kick out of the fact that younger guys like us, like are interested in them and that they're still relevant.

Mel Brooks still still around and you can express that to him.

And don't you have?

And I have too.

And don't you,

I think like,

I think that that

is one of the things that makes us very lucky because I think that when we're in that position, you know, there'll be

a handful of people at least who are wanting to or interested in our lives and whatever.

And a lot of old people don't have that.

Right.

And I think that that's always nice, you know, and I think I could see how important it was to Don and

to some of these guys.

But every perspective you have must be different than mine because you have four kids.

Maybe not every, but.

Really?

I mean, I'm sure not every, because I think I largely agree with your perspective.

Yeah, but that doesn't, but.

You mean my daily...

Well, I mean, even, I don't know, anything like climate, you know, you're got to be thinking about...

I mean, I'm only thinking about what the world's going to be like,

sadly, for the next 20 years,

you know,

to be real.

But I mean, I like

you've got to be thinking about what the world's going to be like for the next 80 because the kid is 10.

Sure.

And then they're going to have kids.

Yeah.

And,

yeah, I do.

Sure, I do.

But, you know, Norman Lear does, too, and he's 99 years old.

Is he really?

Yeah.

He'll be 100 in July.

What does he think about?

Climate change.

Oh, climate change, right?

He's, you know,

that.

Right.

Well, you have to have that attitude.

You can't, once you feel like you're dead already, you're dead already.

You have to feel like, yeah,

it's all about tomorrow.

I never look back.

I mean, of course, you think.

You don't really.

Well, I...

Do you waste water?

Why?

I don't know.

Because I'm going to fuck up the future for your kids?

No, I'm just asking if you waste water.

I try not to.

I don't do it on purpose.

Right.

Well, you didn't do it on purpose.

But you won't leave their shower going for 15 hours.

Absolutely not.

Right.

No, no, no.

No, I don't do anything that way.

So I think you have an overall.

But even if I did, it wouldn't make any difference.

I mean, I'm one of, you know,

minded people start doing those things, you know.

And I think also for people who do that stuff, it's good to hear that other people will do it.

People are not going.

I don't think we're ever going to get people

to do enough to affect on an individual basis a voluntary terrorism to affect climate change.

I just don't think you will.

People want to live a baller lifestyle.

They want to all of them want to take a private jet.

But the only people who don't take private jets are the people who can't afford a private jet.

They all want to.

If they could, they would.

If a private jet was cheap, the skies would be filled with private jets, which are the worst thing for the environment.

They're not serious about it, and that's okay.

And there's countries like China and India, where the people have been denied for all these years because of poverty, refrigeration sometimes even, certainly cars, and now they're getting them.

And their view is,

oh, we should give it up now.

Now that you already enjoyed it, you rich white people, and now we're getting it.

So

that's not going to sell.

That's not the way we get out of this if we get out of it, which I don't think we will.

Have a good night, Jimmy.

Well, say hi to your kids for me.

I'm just being devil's advocate because

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but

I do, I hope that we make the connection.

with these things to our children.

We actually make that connection where we go like, oh, if I waste all this water, my children are not going to have water to drink and their children are not going to have water to drink.

Yeah.

I mean, we should care about our

actual children.

Well, if we don't care about the children of the world,

at least our own children we should care about.

Okay, but if shuds

and butts were beer and nuts, we'd have a hell of a party.

Yeah.

We should do a lot of things and we're just not.

again it's not my fight even because

like

I think the planet will be somewhat here

when it's ready to get rid of me.

Well the planet will be here yeah right planet's gonna be fine.

Yeah.

People on it are fucked.

Yes

but I'm saying I think

there'll be some way to survive.

You know, a hundred years from now 50 years from now.

I don't know about that.

I don't know.

I mean

I always think things that are depicted in movies as the future always come true, because they do.

And the thing they depict a lot in movies in the future is an apocalyptic wasteland brought about by either nuclear war or environmental devastation.

Well, your original point I'm interested in is that you say that these movies, the things they put in the movies, eventually come true.

Right.

But

I mean that's certainly not the case with everything I mean Jimmy remember we didn't used to have flying cars yeah

the flip okay the flip phone that Captain Kirk had we totally have I mean how about like the Jetsons had those those food pills that were like your whole dinner

you know

some people do eat like a lot of I mean Ray Kerswell like has 300 pills a day.

Remember Minority Report

with Mr.

Tom Cruise?

Okay.

Probably one of your friends.

Emily Blunt.

Did you know Tom Cruise?

Emily Blunt.

Yes.

He was

moving things on a screen with his hands.

I remember watching that and going, whoa,

look at that.

It was completely futuristic.

And within two years, we were all doing it.

And then seven years later, or whatever it was, it was everywhere.

Yeah, but they found out from the company that they were going to be doing it.

so they put no i'm just saying they imagined it on the screen and then it became a reality right and i worry that that will happen with uh

the apocalypse i mean there's just a lot of these movies do you think star trek will happen like where we'll have ships and we'll be shooting around all over the place um not if we do the other one first

we wipe out civilization because i mean think of all those kind of movies the you know mad max and the Barren Wasteland is one where Matthew McConaughey has to go discover another planet because nothing grows anymore.

I mean, I could see a...

No, I think we like to see those things in the same way that we find entertainment in seeing murders.

Like we know eventually our lives are going to end.

And for some reason, like a murder mystery is very

exciting to us, entertaining.

Yeah, but a murder mystery, yes, can be entertaining because we're not the ones.

Or

We're not the ones getting murdered.

The Terminator where people are just getting murdered.

Yeah, but in this scenario, we're all getting murdered.

You know, if nothing grows, I mean, that's the premise of that movie where, and I'm a fan of Matthew McConaughey, but like, come on, a scientist?

He just doesn't read scientists.

Like, the scientist is going to figure this shit out.

I would not pick up

scientists.

I'm not saying he's a bright guy, but I'm just saying he's not that guy.

Okay, but he's got to like find something through the wormhole or something.

And it's just a bad plant.

But the idea that things don't grow anymore, that could happen.

I mean, it certainly has happened in many areas of the Earth.

What if it happened all over the Earth?

You think photosynthesis might come to an end?

Well, I think you can burn out.

You can make things too hot for anything to grow, yeah.

But you know, you can, now hydroponically, you can grow things with very tiny amounts of water.

Yeah, so you're saying we grow all the crops in your mom's basement?

Yeah, basically.

I don't know.

Whenever I fly over the country, it looks like a lot of the country is farmland.

It would be hard to get that inside.

That's what I'm saying.

It would be hard to get that inside.

They do.

You'd be surprised.

The whole country

between the Hudson River and San Bernardino?

No.

I think they should turn every cemetery into farmland.

You know?

Like, I don't know.

Well, cemeteries are a waste.

That's true.

Yeah.

But, you know, people are squeamish about their dead relatives.

I mean, you got to

think my dead relatives would like a potato or a tomato vine on their

crib.

It's more natural.

You're right.

I mean, but that's one thing it's very hard.

I would not want to.

If I'm going to pick my battles, pick that one, like convincing people what to do with their dead relatives.

relatives.

I think I feel like they got their feelings about it.

Right.

It's very personal and emotional and not logical and that's okay.

You know, I got to give them that.

What a job to pick, though, if you think about it.

What?

A job where all day, every day, for weeks and months and years, your job is to console

the relatives of dead people.

Oh, you're talking about like a funeral director?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

There are jobs.

I mean obviously proctologist is another one where you have to wonder like with this one panoply of professions available who, I mean, gynecologist, I could see that's like a goof idea you had in high school.

I got to look at pussies all day.

And then you kind of just kept stayed with it.

But the asshole one, I don't see that one.

I think they get paid a little more.

Oh, well, maybe they're than what?

Than other specialties.

All other specialties?

You mean there's a specialty that they have to throw in, but I do feel like I've looked this up.

I wouldn't even want to look this up because then what would come to me from people who thought this was my area of interest?

Like if I was like, I got to tell you, for my father, it's definitely his area of interest.

I mean,

all we talk about is his bowel movements and...

his farting and um why because he's infirm no not at all he just is proud of his bowel movements and wants to tell me about them.

Like, sometimes he'll walk right in the door and immediately start telling me about a shit he took the day before.

It happens all the time.

He sometimes takes pictures of them and sends them to me.

And I'm saving a file of them for his funeral.

I'm going to do a slideshow for the family.

Just because your father has a good sense of humor and this is a joke?

Part a little bit.

He knows you're laughing at this.

Yeah, but he also loves it.

It's like

it's like people singing karaoke like you know like they oh they're goofing around whatever but they fucking love being I say my dad loves but it sounds like you have a kind of a buddy relationship with your father I do but he also will do this with anyone like never had that with anyone like my sister-in-law he'll tell her about his right like he hit his shits he sounds very laid-back your father but not like he is pretty laid back okay my father was much more uptight than that great guy but like that would not have happened between us.

My dad looks just like Wolf Blitzer, like almost exactly.

And

is

he still, your mother?

My parents are both alive.

Still together.

Still together, yeah.

Wow.

How many years have they been together?

They just last weekend celebrated their 50th anniversary.

Come fucking on.

Yeah.

56 years.

Yeah.

That's.

And are they looking around?

Well, my mother is on an app.

Wow.

I can't even.

I just can't imagine.

That's.

Yeah, they got married.

My mom was 20 years old.

They got married.

Wow.

It's crazy.

And

what's their relationship like?

Perfect?

Because they've been through.

No, it's not perfect, but

it's never big.

There's never any big anything.

It's just a series of little.

Well, I feel like when married, I feel like marriage

is from what, what, of course, not speaking from personal knowledge, but from what I've seen and my parents, I feel like it's good in the beginning, and then there's a

difficult period

for like 50 years,

which, you know, where you're still like sort of,

you know,

subliminally resentful of someone of the other because someone's not getting enough sex and sex is an issue and it's a hard thing to it's a hard thing to manage a good sex life after you've been with someone for a while, blah, blah, blah.

And then you get to a point where you're past that.

I feel like I remember that in my own parents' marriage when they got and suddenly it's like you've traveled together.

I mean it's like you have this great golden years memory of your wonderful life together and all you built together and all those memories and and you don't have this monkey on your back about, and we should be fucking.

And that becomes like the second great period of a marriage.

I think this is the way it is.

It's just that little middle 50s.

She's the 50 years in the middle.

Other than that,

it works like a charm.

Yeah,

it's just that.

I call it an interregum.

But

oh, Jimmy.

Yeah.

So.

All right.

I got to go back to my my job.

All right.

I got work.

I really appreciate you putting up with.

That was fun.

Was it?

It was a lot of fun.

I loved it, but...

It was a lot of fun.

I don't know if you're just putting on an act for me.

But I hope you loved it.

Have a good time.

Because I adore you.

You're just such a great guy.

Ever since you gave me that box of porn

when we changed over jobs, you know.

You could have been a dick about it, and you know, it's just never in your nature.

You know, people,

you've done so well partly because you know when you're on tv that much for that long the old cliche you know you can't hide you can't hide who you are you know and people just like you and they're right well

and they're right nice to say that thank you

you know i i've told you the story of um one of the great uh shows i ever saw was um

you and Seinfeld in at Arizona State University when I was in college.

And you were great.

You were just so great.

I remember.

I remember

I remember jokes from it.

We were both doing stand-up on the same show.

Yeah, you guys were doing a big college tour.

Wow.

It was you and Jerry and

I'm forgetting a third guy, but it was just so great.

And

I remember thinking,

Bill Maher

was the funniest one.

No.

I didn't.

I'm sure I wasn't, Jerry.

You were talking about poppers and goofers and your father.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I guess this was like late 80s.

Yeah.

That's exactly right.

Before Seinfeld.

It's like 1980.

87, 88.

Yeah, because obviously he wouldn't have been doing that.

And then I got politically incorrect in 93.

Oh, where did it go?

It's so funny, you know, like...

My actual life

better now

than back then, for sure, in so many ways it's just that little but I'll be dead soon thing yeah boy I or sooner I relate to that with every fiber of my being

that little fly in the ointment if they could just work on that and every once in a while you have

that little little glimpse that little flash of like being on a trip to California with your friends and like driving around and what that felt like and how.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's just got to be, I mean, it doesn't get any better than that.

I remember my first time out in California so vividly, you know, the palm trees.

Like, I'd never seen that.

And just

it was sort of like everything you'd seen on TV, because it's all over every TV show.

The way the street signs looked.

I remember that so much.

Like I had seen it so many times.

Those blue

LA street signs which we don't have back east they're not blue the street signs and then you would see it I had a gig once in La Jolla

that was my first year out here and I never found the gig

I found La Jala

that's good

But I never found a street called La Jolla.

That could be a contender for your book title, the Gaspaccio book.

I'm going to go back to my real job.

You know, I really do.

I really go right back to working on real time.

I am.

I'm doing it too.

All right, now we can do my homework.

Now we can hug.

Thank you.

That was fun.

This is what we want when we're kids, a clubhouse.

Right.

You know, clubhouse, that word I will accept, not man cave.

Clubhouse.

Clubhouse.

Yes.

Yeah.

Very clubby.

Yeah.

It's more of a disco when the music is on.

Yeah.

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