Paul Reiser | Club Random with Bill Maher

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Speaker 1 Where can we see your special touch? It's on Al Jazeera. And you know what? I thought that was not at all a good match.

Speaker 1 I think you can relieve yourself of that pressure. There's nobody waiting, nobody expecting you.

Speaker 1 So a singer and then you. They promised me Rich Scheidner.

Speaker 1 Hi, Billy.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I've got

Speaker 1 Shelly Ackerman, and then unless Belzer comes in. And then it's D.F.
Swedler, and then you. No, well, and Richard T.
Baer also might want to do, he says just two songs, so it'll be five.

Speaker 1 One of them is in the Gata DeVita. The other one.
So, by the way, nice digs.

Speaker 1 You bought the whole neighborhood. No.

Speaker 1 Don't say things like that because... What do you do? You have five houses.
How many friends do you have? No doubt.

Speaker 1 I'm a simple guy. I've got one house, one car, and one plane.
A simple guy.

Speaker 1 You're a man of simple needs. Very beautiful.
Well, I never got married, and I never had children, and I never had alimony, and I never had stupid hobbies. So the money piles up.
That's it.

Speaker 1 And this is all from late-night weekends at catch, you see?

Speaker 1 Wow, you really

Speaker 1 saved. Remember when we had the union fight? Yes, I do.

Speaker 1 And what do we end up with? $10 a night? Yeah. Well, is that what it was?

Speaker 1 I think it was $10 and then $25 on the weekends, perhaps. Well,

Speaker 1 for me, it was the perfect thing to write my novel about. I wrote a novel about...
Which I enjoyed very much. You did, you wrote it.
I did really, yeah. There's a

Speaker 1 big Michael Caine theme in there. Michael, well, that's the thing, is that he was very pro-union, and I was very anti- and it made a great sort of political spine for a novel about...

Speaker 1 I was just trying to show what it was really like, because I saw so many depictions in movies and everywhere where

Speaker 1 you can't describe what it is like. You can't, you know, Tom Hanks did it in that movie.

Speaker 1 And that's Tom Hanks. He was good.

Speaker 1 He was great. The movie, but the story,

Speaker 1 it's never going to be a 90-minute story. Well, I mean, I remember when he hung out at the improv to learn what it was like to be a stand-up.
What was the name of the movie? Punchline. Punchline.

Speaker 1 Was Sally Field, I think, was the female. The Jersey housewife became a

Speaker 1 comic better than Tom Hanks, but it still was not. It just didn't tell us what the.
So I said, I'm going to write a novel since I wasn't getting hired anywhere

Speaker 1 about this life and do it. And the political spine really was:

Speaker 1 I thought

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 we were in a situation where

Speaker 1 they're using us

Speaker 1 and not really paying us, but we're using them to get the stage time that we need. That it was kind of a fair bargain.
And Mike Caine was more, this is a friend of ours.

Speaker 1 Not Michael Caine, the British actor. No, not the British actor.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, he was all the union.

Speaker 1 And I thought it was like, well, that's your excuse, because he was never, he was a great guy and a funny guy and a great raconteur, but he was never going to make it as a stand-up.

Speaker 1 And I thought he was was using, I'm a revolutionary as an excuse for failure. That's really the theme of the book.
And the other guy, me, he thinks,

Speaker 1 I'm just too ambitious and I'm willing to sell out. And I was like, yeah, I'm willing to sell out.
I'm willing to like.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, we were all grateful for having, you know, that

Speaker 1 chance to get on stage. Where else are you going to do it? But

Speaker 1 they were making a ton of money. And so it seemed, you know, maybe not unionable, but it was reasonable to to say,

Speaker 1 pay to people who are, you know, sitting here. Yeah, there was a reasonable middle ground, which I'm sure we didn't hit.

Speaker 1 Or did we? No, no, you know, but

Speaker 1 I think I felt like it went up from $3 to $25 or something. Three.
I don't ever remember. Three was cab fare.
When I started, it was

Speaker 1 you got cab fare and a hamburger. If you worked that night, you got something from the kitchen.

Speaker 1 I remember that. That's good.
That's very nice. What is that? A little bourbon.
A little bit at your lovely staff while you got that. I don't drink bourbon.
And now you don't.

Speaker 1 So, no, I really, I now I don't. And now I don't.
I remember that you could get food. You just come early.
You didn't even have to work. My recollection is

Speaker 1 right.

Speaker 1 So we would all go, you know, sometimes guys, I remember Larry and Jerry going in in the afternoon to get that burger.

Speaker 1 And it was a kitchen about the size of

Speaker 1 these two chairs. And it was a sweating guy, just angry.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You should have the crack team of people doing that for you. You know, it's so funny.
I was thinking that, and I said to myself, don't say it because

Speaker 1 people are, you know, no one is perfect. No, nobody's perfect.
But it makes you human. But just humanize yourself.
But it's also, but now that you mentioned it, you're exactly right.

Speaker 1 Somebody be fired later. I will not do that.
But yeah. You have a guy who fires people.
And this is, you know, I am. It does.
It says Club Random on the glass. Look at you.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 One reason I'm getting off the road

Speaker 1 after this weekend

Speaker 1 is because,

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 nobody just can do anything anymore.

Speaker 1 I don't want to lay this all on the feet of the last two generations.

Speaker 1 And yet, I'm talking about hotels,

Speaker 1 like everything, like just anything.

Speaker 1 They just cannot sort of get it together enough.

Speaker 1 From what I've seen, except I must say my brilliant producer, Sheila, has a knack for hiring people of those generations who are hardworking. They never fuck up.

Speaker 1 That's why you're getting off the road because the guy in the room service was tardy.

Speaker 1 All of it is just a. Wow.

Speaker 1 That's not the only reason, but

Speaker 1 every time I'm on the road this year, knowing that I'm not going to do it in 2025, I could go back, I don't know, but I feel like once you stop,

Speaker 1 every time I'm on the road, I turn to my great friend Mark, who's with me all the time, and I say, you know, I have mixed feelings about getting off the road, but they're making it so easy for me to not want to do this because the TV doesn't work in the hotel.

Speaker 1 Really? You can't get the TV. This is the best hotel in town.

Speaker 1 You can't get the TV working or air could william shatner was here a couple weeks he was saying the same thing you don't find this no no well you're lucky no

Speaker 1 everybody does everything right on the road no but i i

Speaker 1 i if i if i've slept

Speaker 1 and i'm not particularly cranky i can roll with stuff i do get uh

Speaker 1 no i mean

Speaker 1 in a hotel saying the tvs are working there's always something stupid you know they go oh breakfast downstairs and you go oh it's not breakfast it's a box of cereal and an orange and it's like okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 it's a box of cereal.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But I, you know, but, you know, because I didn't do it for

Speaker 1 years. I didn't forget the road.
I didn't even do stand-up for 20 years. And talk about a muscle.
Now you got a special. Now I got a special with the first every 32 years, like clockwork, Bill.

Speaker 1 like that.

Speaker 1 But it, you know,

Speaker 1 you'll find if you don't do it for a couple of months,

Speaker 1 Joe Brenner, he was good, too. Yo Brenner.

Speaker 1 No, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 I missed.

Speaker 1 He said, you'll find. You'll find.
Wow. Tomorrow.
You'll find.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but it's so funny. And whenever

Speaker 1 I love the idea of going out, and then I look and I go,

Speaker 1 I don't want to get on a plane. I don't want to go.
I don't want to go there. Exactly.
And then, without fail, every time I get on stage, I go, God, that was fun. Oh, I love that.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 That's exactly, of course. And you understand.
And I, and I just,

Speaker 1 and after mediocre set or a shitty trip, I go, I don't need this. I don't want to do it.
And then I go, you know, I'll just go into a club and get one joke that works that I wrote yesterday.

Speaker 1 I went, love this.

Speaker 1 It's our version of likes. Yeah.
You know, this, what, right? Yes. This generation has likes.
Like, they love to get liked about everything.

Speaker 1 I find it pathetic that everything you do has to get the approval of people who are probably actually plotting against you because there's such a bunch of vipers that generation, always judgy and trying to cancel and trying to, ugh, that whole social media thing is a snake bit.

Speaker 1 Pop, pop, it's time for your pills. Anyway,

Speaker 1 you could say that, but it's also true.

Speaker 1 I know what you mean. But yes,

Speaker 1 but I don't think we go down,

Speaker 1 I I don't think we work or get laughs because we need the approval. I think the approval happens to be in the laugh.
No, I'm not talking about them. They need the approval.

Speaker 1 I'm saying this is our version of that. This is our version of a like.
But I feel like it's of a greater value than your lunch, a picture of your lunch or something.

Speaker 1 We thought of something clever, which we think we can give to a bunch of strangers as a gift. Because what greater gift is there than making someone laugh? It's literally therapeutic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I don't think any of us got into like, what can we do for these people?

Speaker 1 I think we did it because

Speaker 1 we wanted, of course, we wanted the,

Speaker 1 and we still do. Yeah.
But at this point, we're not doing it for the money. Right.

Speaker 1 We're doing it because we like that feeling of, I gave you this gift of laughter,

Speaker 1 which is why we hate it so much when they don't laugh, because it's like, what are you talking about? This is a great gift.

Speaker 1 What's wrong with you, Viva? And you're throat. You don't like this sweater? You know,

Speaker 1 I was talking to somebody

Speaker 1 about like, you know, did you ever have a tough night? Did you ever want to quit? And I go, no. And I remember in the early, early days, like, you know, maybe in the first year of doing it,

Speaker 1 on a good night, something went well and you got a great response. You go, oh, fuck, this is the greatest thing.
I can't wait to do it again. And then you go up on a night.

Speaker 1 for that for whatever reason it wasn't good. Either you were off, the audience was off, and it sucked.
And my thought was, I can't wait to do this tomorrow and get this flavor out of my mouth.

Speaker 1 And I thought,

Speaker 1 I must be in the right place because good or bad is leading me towards,

Speaker 1 I want to do this.

Speaker 1 I definitely wanted to do it again more after I did good. I'm not going to lie.

Speaker 1 Those nights, I'm talking about the early days when we were together every night at the clubs.

Speaker 1 Those nights where it went badly, I had a rough time because

Speaker 1 it sapped me of any desire to work on my act. I just couldn't face it.
Like, what I should have done is listen to the tape. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because I taped every set on my little tape recorder, and I should have listened back right away, and I just couldn't get myself to face it. That's for sure.
It's hard.

Speaker 1 Whereas if you have a tape and you go, oh, I want to hear that, that joke killed. Right.
Let me find that. And then I would write down it word for word how I said it.

Speaker 1 And it's, and it's amorphous because like it's totally

Speaker 1 writing it down doesn't do shit. It really doesn't.

Speaker 1 Sometimes it does, because sometimes you have to say something in a certain order or it doesn't make sense or it will not work. They'll get the idea, but there will be no laugh.

Speaker 1 Unless you mention A before B,

Speaker 1 you can't even get to C. No, my favorite discovery now is taking words out and going, oh, look at that.
Take those two words out, and

Speaker 1 that's writing.

Speaker 1 I couldn't agree with that. Erasing is right.
I was having that talk with Rich the other day.

Speaker 1 When in doubt, take out.

Speaker 1 Don't add.

Speaker 1 Don't add. And I heard David Mammet say the same thing about directing.
He said, the more I directed, the more I realized, like, every time I think I've taken out too much, take out a little more.

Speaker 1 The audience is always ahead of you.

Speaker 1 And you see that in movies, you know,

Speaker 1 you have to do so little in movies to move the story. You can show a scene where a couple, a man and a woman, just look at each other across the room and you just get their physical reactions.

Speaker 1 Cut to the wet.

Speaker 1 And we all know what happened.

Speaker 1 We saw the look, and now they're married. We don't need,

Speaker 1 we don't need to see the first date.

Speaker 1 Was your first,

Speaker 1 I don't, I don't remember you coming in. I remember you suddenly being there in the clubs.
Did you, like audition night? Did you do? Oh, totally.

Speaker 1 But when I was still in college, I remember, oh my God, it was like in the summer. That's what I did.
That's what I was doing. I think it was August

Speaker 1 of,

Speaker 1 I don't know, 77 or something. I was still at Cornell.

Speaker 1 And I, oh my god the guts to get just to get into the city from new jersey you know was like

Speaker 1 so i went in and i stood online and what time now what time are you waiting online because this always this memory because i remember going in like 2 30.

Speaker 1 yeah it was the day because here's what happened i remember this i wish i could remember this guy's name he was kind to me

Speaker 1 uh a black guy who took me up to harlem in between the time because it was like we had to come back at like 10 o'clock at night to actually perform. Yeah.

Speaker 1 If you're like, what am I going to do in the city? Yeah. Get a hotel room with the no money.
So who's the guy? Oh, I don't know, but he said, you know, he said, come hang out with me. Another comic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he was also the guy online. Oh, okay.
So another guy who was auditioning. And so we went up to like 155th Street or something, and I got,

Speaker 1 it was just a place to hang. It was great.
Yeah, that's so fun. I forgot about that.

Speaker 1 I remember it would get earlier and earlier. They'd give out the numbers at five o'clock, and then before you know it, it's 3 o'clock.
So you're taking the day off from work,

Speaker 1 I was working in the song. And so you get in at 1 o'clock, you wait till 5 o'clock, they'll give you a number, and if you didn't get in the top 10, you were

Speaker 1 one in the morning. You would get on at one in the morning.
So that's your day, 14 hours to do five minutes. I have the tape somewhere.
I may have told you that. I found a cassette.

Speaker 1 of my very first time in college, between freshman and sophomore year. And I have my little cassette recorder on the table.

Speaker 1 People didn't know that it was me. And I listen to the tape, and in the middle of my five minutes, I hear the guy go to his friend,

Speaker 1 say this, this kid's got balls. Really? And I thought, that's a good review.
That is a good review. He could have said, he's got no balls, but I had balls.

Speaker 1 Like, he had the balls to go up with this shit material. Just to go up at all.
Yes.

Speaker 1 You know, I mean, wow. I don't think I could do it today, nor should I have to.
I mean, that's the passage of life. When you're young, you're you just

Speaker 1 more moxy because you have to have. And you protect.

Speaker 1 My analogy is sort of like, you know, babies can be underwater because they've been in this

Speaker 1 ambiotic fluid. It's like, so I think comedians protected this shield of stupidity and naivety.
You don't, you have no idea how not good you are. And then later you go, oh.

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Speaker 1 Well, it was not good. What you don't realize is that making your friends laugh or a classroom laugh of kids who know you

Speaker 1 is different than strangers. That's what you have to, that's the rude, to me, that was the rude smack in the face from the beginning.
Yes, they're not your friends.

Speaker 1 And also the audacity, think about it, to watch somebody who goes up, I'm going to be funny. It's like,

Speaker 1 don't presume that. We'll tell you if you're funny.
But obviously, that's not the issue now. You go and you're selling out a theater and people know you.
They paid money because you don't have to.

Speaker 1 You still have to be be funny, but you don't have to prove it. To me, one of the biggest changes that solved a problem that I never really solved when I had the problem was the opening line.

Speaker 1 Because when they don't know you, it sucks. When they do know you and they came and they bought a ticket specifically to see you, you don't have to explain yourself.
You know, it's just

Speaker 1 you know, your opening line is: please stop applauding. Thank you so much.
You know, it's like

Speaker 1 we're going to have a great time. It's so natural.
There was a guy at that time. Do you remember?

Speaker 1 He went up and he was in a wheelchair. He had

Speaker 1 something polio or something.

Speaker 1 It was like early 70s. Polio.
Yeah, it's early.

Speaker 1 He was not a kid. Yeah, I do think he had a lot of people.
I do remember this. Right.
And this club is very, I keep wanting to talk to the audience to explain it.

Speaker 1 Narrow, you had to go between chairs. It was tough for anybody to walk through the chairs.
So now you get a wheelchair, and there's three guys carrying my chair and the audience is uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 The audience can't and he just they leave. He's alone and the audience is so uncomfortable.
He waits a minute and he goes, did you notice the chair? I go, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 I said, that's what an opening line should do. It's just like, I know what you're thinking.
Let me pop it and then we can move. Well,

Speaker 1 that's my

Speaker 1 example. It reminds me of Marjorie Gross's opening line.

Speaker 1 Do you remember that? No, I remember Marjorie. What was the line? Don't you hate what humidity does to straight blonde hair?

Speaker 1 And I thought, wow, I wish I could have a, I never could figure out the first line. So, like, I never got that good one.
Or

Speaker 1 Steve Middleman, have you noticed? I don't have a chin. Yeah, it's the same thing.
I mean, you're into it. Yeah, I know what you think.
Yeah, but they appreciate audiences

Speaker 1 if that line serves to say, I know what you're thinking, and I'm with you.

Speaker 1 Or that we're just starting, we're laughing already. Yes.
And okay,

Speaker 1 like when people say, do you ever bomb? It's like,

Speaker 1 only if you're oblivious. Because even if your material's not working, but you acknowledge that and you go, all right, that didn't work.
Then I go, okay, he's not an idiot. He knows.

Speaker 1 So just being on the same wavelength. You remember Leno's opening line? No.

Speaker 1 See the paper? See the paper?

Speaker 1 What can't you get to from that? Did you? Just Muhammad Ali. Yeah.
Well, that. Right.
Yeah. And this is when Muhammad Ali was fighting just way more.

Speaker 1 But it could be any story. Yeah, you see the papers today? See the paper? Yeah, Muhammad Ali's campaign.

Speaker 1 His great segue. It's the same with insurance.
What is? What is the same with insurance?

Speaker 1 By the time you realize there was no connection, he's in three jokes in. But, you know, you were a much more mature person and probably still are.

Speaker 1 than me when we started. We had dinner a couple of years ago and we went over this.
We don't have to go through it for the go through it.

Speaker 1 I sense a compliment at the end of it. So take your time.

Speaker 1 Well, there's a compliment right there. You were more mature.
I'm probably so.

Speaker 1 But, you know, I don't remember being mature. Yes, you were.

Speaker 1 Yes, you were quite mature, and

Speaker 1 I was not, and

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 obnoxious. And, you know,

Speaker 1 I had yet to learn that not everything is subservient to getting a laugh, including insulting people. On stage, you mean? Or off stage.
Or whatever.

Speaker 1 And in my mind, it was like, I'm at a roast and everybody knows these are just jokes. And of course, you're not.
You're in life.

Speaker 1 But you're when you're in that era when we were willing to stand online in the sidewalk and do that, all that shit. In the summer.

Speaker 1 And then that was just the beginning of the heartache for the years when you got no laughs or just couldn't even get on. But I mean,

Speaker 1 that thing that we wanted, you know, that feeling,

Speaker 1 was such a

Speaker 1 magnet, you know, that we could not resist. You know, you would just keep going forward, even with all the pain and the hard work.

Speaker 1 And what was really in our favor is that we had this system

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 rightly or wrongly, we thought, here's what to do. Go to these places and then you'll end up on the tonight show.
Not sure how or that works, but we saw enough people coming out of there.

Speaker 1 And it was true. And it was true.
If you went the different stages. Yes.
And I remember, you know, like sometimes you get inspired by greatness.

Speaker 1 You see somebody great and you go, okay, I want to try and reach for that. And often you get inspired by mediocrity.

Speaker 1 And I remember being in the summer and seeing a guy go up who was like, you know, getting on, he was

Speaker 1 sort of the headliner or the big star, big shot of the club.

Speaker 1 But it was just okay.

Speaker 1 And then I'd go to school, you know, I'd be and then like eight months later, I'm watching the tonight show, and that guy is on.

Speaker 1 And I remember the moment going, like, who, wait a second, like, like, who was it? Well, I don't want to say

Speaker 1 what? Oh, no, like David Say, David Say. Remember David Say? It's like, he was fine.
And then I go, oh, and I was on a tonight show.

Speaker 1 And the only thing he did, he just went, probably went up every night for the last eight months.

Speaker 1 And it suddenly became it was also a case of what he did in a nightclub was not as explosively funny or as successful in a nightclub as

Speaker 1 some more flamboyant act, but it was perfect for TV. Perfect

Speaker 1 for Johnny. For the people who came to the clubs to

Speaker 1 the comic scouts who came out like pigs. Oh, yeah, great.
He's

Speaker 1 a good person. But I certainly don't want to sound like I was disparaging any.
He had a great grade.

Speaker 1 But I remember thinking, like, okay, he was still formative. He was still working it out.
And it's less than a year, and he's on a tonight show.

Speaker 1 And I remember thinking oh that's not out of reach I could do that I mean I'm not there yet but if I just did what he did right and I go

Speaker 1 and that's the thing that really

Speaker 1 moved me and warmed me when I had not worked really for 20 years I didn't do stand-up and when I went back and started doing it it felt exactly the same as I did when I was 18 and I realized There's no shortcut.

Speaker 1 The only possible way to get better is to go up every fucking night or as many nights as you can,

Speaker 1 and just carve it and work it. And you're working the jokes, you're working the material, but you're also working your, for me, anyway.
I mean, I think your personality is pretty established.

Speaker 1 But I felt like I had to refine my,

Speaker 1 who are you? Right. You know? And I would go back, it's like, oh, now you've been on TV.
Oh, we know this guy, which lasts eight seconds. And then it's like,

Speaker 1 what did you want to say? Yeah, that's the part I don't. That's with anybody.
Right. That's with any comedy.
But

Speaker 1 it was

Speaker 1 comforting to me to see that

Speaker 1 it's so low-tech. It's just elbow grease and hard work.
It's almost the last low-tech thing. As far as I can tell.
Yeah. Yeah.
Or certainly of the things I can do.

Speaker 1 Well, that you can do in show business. I mean,

Speaker 1 it is maybe the last thing that looks like that.

Speaker 1 And that the audience doesn't really want that to change. I mean, you can people have tried to do different little things.
I mean, Chris Rock, and I love him for the,

Speaker 1 you know, the spirit of let's try something different. I always love to see people do that, but it was not a good idea.

Speaker 1 He shot a special, taped it in three different cities, I think on three different continents, and then spliced them together.

Speaker 1 Like the beginning of the joke was in London, and then you cut to the punchline. That was really interesting.

Speaker 1 But not right for comedy.

Speaker 1 It'd be jarring, but it was, but it was certainly revealing of how skilled and precise his craft was. It's like, oh, his arm was in the right.

Speaker 1 No, it didn't add anything. It just made, it just like...
I don't know if it added. It didn't add to the comedy, but it was impressive.
It was away from it. It's like

Speaker 1 we want to be... in the illusion that this is a guy who's just spieling off the top of his head.
He's just talking to us.

Speaker 1 And we've all had the experience when we were young comics and brought girls around to see us, and they saw the first time we did the set, and they were blown away.

Speaker 1 And then they come the second time, and they're like, Oh, you told a lot of those jokes before. I thought you were a genius.
You're not that clever at all.

Speaker 1 And the Chris Rock thing just blew that right out of the water. Again,

Speaker 1 interesting idea.

Speaker 1 Not right for, and I think he would probably say the same thing.

Speaker 1 Um, it was an interesting experience, but you know, it's like Woody Allen movies, like some of them are not great, but like he tries to push the envelope. He's like, He's an experimenter.

Speaker 1 Those are the people I admire the most. It's so funny because I think of Woody Allen movies as not particularly experimental.
I mean, but almost like that's what he does.

Speaker 1 And like, I'm going to wear the same pants for 40 years. I'm going to wear the same sweater.
I'm going to make the same movies.

Speaker 1 You know, I remember I did, I did this little off-Broadway play that he wrote and directed, which was in 20 years ago. He directed you? He directed it.
It was really, really fun.

Speaker 1 How was he to work with? It was a thrill. This is before you knew anything, you know, unsavory.
You just go, it's fucking Woody Allen.

Speaker 1 That's more than 20 years ago. No, 2003.
That's 10 years after the unsavory.

Speaker 1 I didn't know about it, though.

Speaker 1 I'm sure you did. No.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Oh, we're talking about the... Yes, Sunyi was 93.
Yeah, that was.

Speaker 1 Half the people wrote him off just for that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I write him off for nothing. I love him and think what's happened to him is

Speaker 1 just a ridiculous travesty of justice and says everything about the rich hunty atmosphere that can obtain on the left. I wrote a thing.

Speaker 1 There's a little, I forget what, oh, you did one. It's called Kindle, those little Kindle books.
They're Amazon. They're like mini books, like 10,000 word things.
And I did one,

Speaker 1 it was on Amazon. And it was just people that I've met.
who I've admired, who I've worked with, from whom I've learned something.

Speaker 1 And so I was, and I gotten to work with Mel Brooks and Carol Burnett, and I always learned something from each of them. And I had a thing in there on Woody Allen.
That's a great idea for him.

Speaker 1 It was, yeah, it was called, How Do I Get to Carnegie Hall?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I remember, and I had, I think, this is, I forget, it was at least 15 years ago. And I had a thing in there about Bill Cosby.
And the editor goes, you can't put that in now.

Speaker 1 I know why. I know what you mean, but this is pre-that.
And this is, and then I said, well, and here's another story about Woody Allen.

Speaker 1 He goes, I don't think we can include that I went Jesus I hope Mel Brooks doesn't get caught with a Boy Scout in a motel room because I got a I got a beautiful story

Speaker 1 it's a now it's a race now it's a race

Speaker 1 just so you did take it out I didn't yeah I didn't include the Woody story but you know but you didn't want to fight for Woody no I didn't want to fight for me

Speaker 1 no it wasn't that you know it wasn't that gold you know it wasn't that important to me either way but what I remember and it was very warming, you'll appreciate this as a comic.

Speaker 1 It was a 99-seat theater. It was two one-act plays.
I was just in the first one. And it was a

Speaker 1 two-hander, mostly, it was third actors, but it was mostly two-hander.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 about a month of rehearsals and previews, maybe six weeks. And that was the best time.
And we'd go,

Speaker 1 we'd do the thing. And then afterwards, he'd come back with notes.

Speaker 1 And it's like, and the minute the show opened, he stopped coming. Well, this is no fun now.
I'm getting $200 a a week. And

Speaker 1 literally?

Speaker 1 Yeah, maybe whatever,

Speaker 1 whatever scale

Speaker 1 for

Speaker 1 equity. Yeah, it was like three, like my room service, it barely made a dent in room service.

Speaker 1 But it was great fun. But the fun of it was getting notes from Woody.
And I remember one night he comes back and goes,

Speaker 1 that line, I don't know why that worked yesterday, but why didn't it work today? And I went, Are you new?

Speaker 1 What do you mean? He goes, no, but why did it work yesterday? I said, because I fucked it up. I said some whatever, but I thought, you know, he's at that point in his 70s.
Did you say that to him?

Speaker 1 Are you new?

Speaker 1 Did he laugh? Yeah. He should.

Speaker 1 You're in his 70s, and he's still chasing that shadow of like, but why did it not work? I went, oh, that's why this is exciting.

Speaker 1 And I thought I was heartened that like, oh, he's still trying to figure it out. Yeah.
I mean, because I would certainly ask the same question.

Speaker 1 And there are times in stand-up when we do that, when we do the law, and you think it's the same thing,

Speaker 1 and you just, sometimes you never get what I used to call the virgin take. Like the first time you say it, sometimes it's just ad-libbing it.
Yeah. Or riffing on something.

Speaker 1 And why did it have that power? And it worked. And then you just, because again, it is so precise.
I mean, one thing I've always liked about

Speaker 1 being on the road and having an act

Speaker 1 is that it was like my hobby of like, you know, building a little wooden ship and inside of a bottle. I was always tinkering to get it perfect.
And you're right, like it's sometimes like a clitoris.

Speaker 1 It's just never in the same place for more than a minute. And that's just what? It is.
It's true. It's always moving around.
I'm going to try and shake that image now of

Speaker 1 what. It's a delightful image.
It's a clitoris.

Speaker 1 No, it's just,

Speaker 1 it's distracting.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, it's distracting. It's not.
It's a shitty clitoris.

Speaker 1 By the way, I want to show you. I know that with the FOMO.

Speaker 1 Is that where you were going?

Speaker 1 Basically,

Speaker 1 just slightly off the to a,

Speaker 1 but that's exactly the right line.

Speaker 1 Shittingly, shouldn't go to

Speaker 1 the bottom. I'm hoping for Julie Budd.

Speaker 1 I think I was going to say I knew a stripper name. There you go.
That'll work.

Speaker 1 It is a very good name. But see, going back to like you're talking about editing, it's like, and it's like, I feel so

Speaker 1 efficient and successful when I've cut out two words and now the joke is tight. Exactly.
But then the next night, I'll go, well, now it's working. Let me see if I can add something to it.

Speaker 1 It's like, okay, and so it's always shifting. Getting it ever tighter.
I mean, there's two things I like tighten. One is a shitty La Taurus and the other figure.
Is my act.

Speaker 1 It's a bit, yes.

Speaker 1 So we'll be back right after these words from Lavoris. Del Monte's.
Del Monte's. Frozen peas.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 where can we see your special time? It's on Al Jazeera. And you know what? I thought that was not at all a good match.

Speaker 1 Al Jazeera. It is on anywhere you can buy or rent stuff, they tell me.
Because I can never, I would love to say time, Netflix. People know what that means.
But it's on like Amazon or Apple.

Speaker 1 Just rent it. My sister called me.
She goes, I have to rent your shit. Wait, you can see something on both Amazon and Apple.
Aren't they bitter rivals? No. When it's transactional, no.

Speaker 1 This thing probably could be

Speaker 1 here. I am talking about it that way, but I'm not the business.
I don't know where this is. I've never seen this.
I'm not the business. I see clips of this.
And people go, where'd you see it?

Speaker 1 I go, I don't know. It just came up.

Speaker 1 I'm on Instagram, but I don't know how to navigate it. So whatever comes up, I look at.
I've never searched for something. People go, you know, I sent you a thing.

Speaker 1 I go, I don't know how to do it back. I didn't want to do it.
I didn't want to do it. Somebody told me to.
So I did, but I'm inactive. And I go, who wants to see the tuna melt that I had Wednesday?

Speaker 1 This is a beautiful tuna melt. No, I mean, and this is again, apropos of what you said before, where they're saying, Pop, you need your pills or something.

Speaker 1 And so you can make all the age jokes in the world you want, but something can also just be true. So why don't we engage with the actual idea instead of just making judgments?

Speaker 1 And is it healthy?

Speaker 1 Is it a great use of time? I could, I think, make easily the argument it is not. That is a time suck.

Speaker 1 Instagram. Yes, all of it, most of it.

Speaker 1 It's a time suck.

Speaker 1 And it's why no one reads a book anymore. So do I have to pretend that that's a good thing because I'm 68 years old? That, oh, you know, I don't want to sound.
That's

Speaker 1 so much of the problems on the left, I think, is that, oh, I want to be with the young and sound young. Yeah, but the young are dumber a lot.
They're stupider. So why do you want to do that?

Speaker 1 Why don't you embrace, why don't you lean into what's actually could be working for you? Yeah, we're not as cute as we used to be, but we're smarter or we should be and wiser.

Speaker 1 You hate young people. You don't like the.
Oh, please.

Speaker 1 If anyone is with young people, it's me, not you. What?

Speaker 1 Oh, that's actually with young people. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What do you think I mean?

Speaker 1 Go finish your thoughts. That is my thought.
I've had four. I mean, I never got married, is what I'm saying.
I'm well over here. So I'm very, I am, I love.

Speaker 1 And I'm here, bro, because I got a girl for you.

Speaker 1 I got a cousin. I hang out with lots of Gen Z and millennials.
And like, usually that generation, yes, they're shit. But when there's a good one, they're the best.
Yes, they are the best.

Speaker 1 They got me through the pandemic when the kids my age wouldn't come out to play. And my millennial friends.

Speaker 1 And I just, you know, if you never got married, you're just more in their kind of. milieu, even though some of them.
You're out in the world more. You're out in the world more.

Speaker 1 And you're just, it's just different. I mean, see, now, is it, I don't love going out.
This was an effort to come here today.

Speaker 1 Well, I was looking forward, and I was delighted to be invited, and I was happy to see you. It's going well, don't you think?

Speaker 1 A lot of this is going to be cut.

Speaker 1 You can make a lovely five-minute spot. Well, I'm having the time of my life.
I am too. This is like the greatest thing that podcasting has done for me.
Whatever the money, I don't know.

Speaker 1 Because it's like having friends over, but you're monetizing.

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Speaker 1 Terms apply.

Speaker 1 Not even monetizing. It's like, would we do it otherwise? We went to dinner and that was fun.
This is much better because I'm told it took, you know, 20 years to find a time to do it.

Speaker 1 But like everything I do that I really enjoy doing, I want to do stone. And it's only a few things in life, but like talking to you is definitely one of them.

Speaker 1 And like you just wouldn't do it if there wasn't like a job.

Speaker 1 This is this is such fucking money whore. This is well, no,

Speaker 1 well, this was this is, but you found a little niche. It's like, I'm going to have friends over, people that I want to talk to, and have a drink.

Speaker 1 They're not always even people I've ever met, but they're just, but it's just fun to talk to somebody.

Speaker 1 Means Jane Fonda had no David Say stories. Yeah, correct?

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 David Say, by the way, I looked up to, first of all, he did have a killer first like five or six. Yes, he did.

Speaker 1 You know, he understood very well that sort of a tonight show spot, which was the sun and bonum of show business for us,

Speaker 1 wasn't that Sheriff's Husband, Sunum Bonum?

Speaker 1 Five to six minute,

Speaker 1 clean, clean. Okay, we're talking about the 1980s here, clean,

Speaker 1 five or six minutes that was clever. It would make Johnny go,

Speaker 1 that is all relatable stuff.

Speaker 1 That's

Speaker 1 clever, clever stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so a commercial. He always had a little tough guy air to him.
Well, he had the accent, the Brooklyn. Yeah, the Bronx guy.
Yeah, it was like,

Speaker 1 so so,

Speaker 1 do you have a problem with alcohol? Call 726-3545. It's Carlisle's Liquors.
I remember. Carlisle was such a great choice.
Carlisle. I remember.
You know what?

Speaker 1 I remember, and this is such, this is the stuff of the comedy club that you were talking about before that maybe doesn't lend itself to a movie. I remember, you know, comics.

Speaker 1 are not really competitive. People are like, oh, competitive.
I said, no, we were never. We were always supportive.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, both.

Speaker 1 You could be envious. Wow, he got that.
I want that. But I always thought, you know, actors, 17 of you go up for the role.
Only one will get it.

Speaker 1 But a new club opens, you'll all go if you're good enough. You're there next week.
I'm there next week. There's room for everybody.

Speaker 1 But we would often go over to somebody, go, hey, I got a line for you. I go, hey, you know, right? And I remember.

Speaker 1 If it wouldn't work for us.

Speaker 1 No, no. You'd give it away if it wasn't something you could do.
Yeah, but another.

Speaker 1 bit, here's a... Shower water doesn't get in your pussy.
I mean, I thought of that. I did that first, and it didn't work for me.
It was always my thing,

Speaker 1 if two guys had the same bit, all right, listen, you can do it in New York, but I can take it on the road.

Speaker 1 I remember that.

Speaker 1 That was

Speaker 1 like the Yalta conference. Here's how we'll settle this.
But I remember he was doing, he was getting ready for a tonight show, and I had not even a line.

Speaker 1 I had maybe two words to add or a little twist on a line. He went, yeah,

Speaker 1 that's good, thanks. And then I saw him do it on the tonight show,

Speaker 1 my two words, whatever it was. And I remember that being

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 a moment for me. It's like, I said it to him here and it came out there.
It was more proof to like, yeah, so this does lead to that. That's great.
And I remember, it was almost more impressive than

Speaker 1 me, more exciting for me than when I actually did the tonight show. It was like, because I was so green and I gave him a line that ended up on television.
I went. Right.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean comic.
That's the most anybody's talked about him in a long time.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He was great. I mean

Speaker 1 he had this I by the way he is one of the comics who sort of is a character in that book True Story that I wrote the novel.

Speaker 1 The people who were

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 everyone has said to me over the years, like, is this one this one this? No, it's not people you would know.

Speaker 1 And sometimes it's not the people who you would think would make the better characters because they

Speaker 1 got more famous. It's the people who were interesting characters.
And David Say,

Speaker 1 I combined with some other comic we would know to make one of the characters because what was so interesting to me about David Say was he was like this ultimate pussyhound. And he lived in

Speaker 1 an apartment in like

Speaker 1 Riverside. Riverside.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Where is that? Like the Bronx? No, Riverside is here. Riverdale.
Riverdale. Somewhere.
Okay. In the Bronx, yeah.
With his wife, who he was divorced from. Oh, I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 They were divorced and had a son and still lived together. But like he was just all about the pussy.
Like everything on the road. I remember him once saying to me about, said, yeah,

Speaker 1 STDs, I just don't get those kind of things.

Speaker 1 And apparently he didn't.

Speaker 1 And I remember him telling me, I think I put it in the character in the book, that he was always so hot for his wife after he got home from the road when he fucked some stranger. Sure.

Speaker 1 That's the healthiest thing for a relationship.

Speaker 1 So this is who I idolize.

Speaker 1 That's in my new book, How to Improve Your Marriage. Fuck someone on the road, come straight home.

Speaker 1 Well, I was 22. Well,

Speaker 1 this to me was like, he was about 10 years old.

Speaker 1 He was full of guys who would never have gotten laid as much as they had did if not for the fact that you were on stage i i never found it to i mean it certainly was not any cathode in the pussy beaker for me to be a comedian i don't you know i think i was so self-sabotaging with women in so many ways at in my 20s that

Speaker 1 Yeah, sometimes, I mean, first of all, yes, girls do like to laugh.

Speaker 1 But again, that thing I told you before about like everything in service, I'm just getting the laugh, that didn't work well with women who are sensitive to begin with. So it took a lot of time.

Speaker 1 But what it did is if you went on stage

Speaker 1 and someone came over, a woman came over to you afterwards, you were already in. It's like, because like you don't have to be cute.
I'm like, I've been looking at you.

Speaker 1 I already know you, and I'm talking to you.

Speaker 1 But they didn't. That didn't happen.
I don't remember. Let me make a call because there's no reason

Speaker 1 you shouldn't have met girls. It's never too late, Bill.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying I never met girls, but I don't feel like they made the big,

Speaker 1 again, because I probably

Speaker 1 scared people a little. I don't know why I have.
Do you know that you are still a reference point

Speaker 1 in my marriage? Oh, of course.

Speaker 1 I'll tell it or you tell it.

Speaker 1 You tell it, because I want to see how you tell it. It's not a piece of material, but.

Speaker 1 We've talked about for a bunch of reasons that we've never figured out. I've been with my lovely wife, Paula, for 42 years now, married for 36 or something.

Speaker 1 For reasons we never understood, we met when I was a comedian in a club in Pittsburgh. She was a waitress.
And for reasons we never understood, the owners, these two Knucklehead brothers, were

Speaker 1 telling her, oh, you're going to like this guy, Paul. I'd never been there, never met me.
And they were telling me, when they picked me up at the airport, he goes,

Speaker 1 We've got a lot of nice waitresses. There's one you're going to like.
I went, oh, I get it. He goes, no, no, she's not like that.

Speaker 1 And he was sort of making this match so that when we met the next day, she wasn't there the first night. We both were kind of like, oh, I've heard so much.
And that was it.

Speaker 1 So, cut to

Speaker 1 we're going out immediately. And months later, you're there.
And she goes, and I said, oh, Bill's a friend of mine. Go say hi.
And she goes, she said, she went over to you and said, Hi, I'm Paula.

Speaker 1 I'm Paul Rise's girlfriend. And he went, I'll show you a sweetheart.

Speaker 1 That was how she was.

Speaker 1 I knew you would fuck up how the retelling of the crux of it. It's my marriage.
I can't see how you do it. By the way, I'll do your version.

Speaker 1 Because you quoted me, and I can quote me better than you can quote me. I didn't say sure you were.

Speaker 1 That is the essence. I understand why you got there to that.

Speaker 1 I love it. Love it.
Go, go. But it was more elaborate than that.

Speaker 1 It was not sure you were.

Speaker 1 It was, yes, if you wanted to boil it down to the... Don't do, do, do, do, don't,

Speaker 1 no, what I, what I remember having a conversation with her where I was just saying you know

Speaker 1 look I'm in the clubs all the time we're at this place with people a lot of clubs opening you know comics you know it's a common thing they were around the waitress and they go out and I was just trying to alert her to the fact that it might not go somewhere it might not really be as serious as you think which is hysterically funny because of irony and the fact that it's such a great successful marriage all these years later.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 Larry Miller's.

Speaker 1 I guess what I'm saying is, however you tell the story, I'm the asshole. No, no, but I love that.
No, you're not the asshole. But you were speaking to a truth.
It's like, oh, here's this story.

Speaker 1 I was really trying to do a mitzvah.

Speaker 1 I was. Yes.
And yes. And it's like, oh, it's not all.
Yeah. And yeah,

Speaker 1 it's such a. I have a much more fundamental question

Speaker 1 that I think I would love to know the answer. Maybe you don't even know it.
But what is it?

Speaker 1 I mean, the way you describe this of these two different people who sort of independently thought you two would go well together? It was one of the two brothers.

Speaker 1 I don't know that they were both of us, but it was one of the brothers. You said one said you'd like her and one said you'd like to.

Speaker 1 No, but I remember, I don't know that. I actually remember the guy, one who said to me, and I think it was the same guy who told her.

Speaker 1 But my question is, what qualities

Speaker 1 did they see in both of you that made them think, oh, these people would be right to go? You know, I remember, you know, literally this knuckle, and it was a shitty club

Speaker 1 where they put you up in their apartment. And I remember this is like the lowest level, like, you know, because comics, like, sometimes you're going to get a hotel.
Otherwise,

Speaker 1 sometimes they would have a comedian condo. Oh.

Speaker 1 This was one step below that. This was their fucking thing.
Literally, here's what I came. Oh, you'll be staying with us.
I'm like, this was so, I didn't have the

Speaker 1 confidence or the wherewithal to go, yeah, no, no, this is not going to work. I'm going to be in a hotel.

Speaker 1 Stay in his bed. It was a water bed, and he was in it.
And when I get there, and they go, whatever his name was,

Speaker 1 Jeff, I think it was something, Keith. He goes, it's Paul.
He goes, oh, how you doing? He gets up and he's in underwear with a copy of Penthouse. And he gets up.

Speaker 1 And the water bed is yours. I went, oh, no.
And yeah, and that's where I was for three nights. Yeah.

Speaker 1 See, that's the kind of thing that I put in the book that I thought that you'd have to live this life. Yes.
If you really want to know what it was like for us, read True Story because I lived it.

Speaker 1 It was a really ironic. Well, it just was first, you know, I never tried to write another novel because I was like, no, novelists have one good book in them.

Speaker 1 It's like about their formative years usually, and then they rewrite the same theme their whole career. I don't know that that's.
What? I don't know that that's necessarily true of all novelists.

Speaker 1 How many novelists can you name that have like more than one or two great books? Murakami. Who?

Speaker 1 Murakami.

Speaker 1 God bless you.

Speaker 1 John Boyne. You ever heard of John Boyne? No.

Speaker 1 Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 All right. Whatever your point is.
Fine. Whatever.
No, no, you're probably right because I don't even know who these people are. All right.
So I guess. Well, you live in the back.

Speaker 1 Do you know that joke?

Speaker 1 That was my parents' joke. There was a radio show.
So you still read novels? Not still. Newly.

Speaker 1 I didn't read for years. I used to even do a bit about how I can't read.
And I certainly, if I did read, it would be like current events. You didn't do stand up.
What the fuck were you doing?

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 so, but in the last two years, I've suddenly gotten really into reading all this. And a lot of it is like, because I don't have to watch the news.
I'm just burying my head in the sand.

Speaker 1 And a lot of times I need more sand. There's not a lot of sand.
And so I've been enjoying reading novels. But only up to like two years ago, I used to do a bit about how

Speaker 1 I can't read. And if I could read, when I do read, it's only non-fiction.
I said, because fiction, I said, wait a second, I can barely hold on to what's happening. Did this shit happen?

Speaker 1 Don't make up new shit because I can only have this much,

Speaker 1 but now I only want fiction because I've seen what's happening.

Speaker 1 And so you're saying, okay, I haven't read in 20 years and I'm going to start with

Speaker 1 Yamamoko or whatever.

Speaker 1 Who is it?

Speaker 1 Like, why'd you start with? I didn't start. Well, how'd you know about?

Speaker 1 Because he's written like 90, him, guy, and I forget his first name, forgotten his first name. He's written like

Speaker 1 40 novels, and he's very quiet. He's sort of like the Kurt Vonnegut of this moment, like in that, like, young people love.
Oh, a new Murakami book is coming out. Check it out.

Speaker 1 I always am happy to learn.

Speaker 1 I'm always happy to say I don't know. I am happy to introduce him to you.

Speaker 1 Are his books long? Some.

Speaker 1 Actually, you know, maybe start with his nonfiction. He wrote a great book called

Speaker 1 Novelist as a Vocation. And it talks about writing.
I think everything is too long.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 Like this?

Speaker 1 This watered down to a lovely seven-minute spot. You know, when you take out the fat, you'll see

Speaker 1 this really sings.

Speaker 1 By the way, why aren't all interviews with Bourbon?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, you keep making jokes, but this is like better than all Mind Tonight Shows put together.

Speaker 1 There's something about really...

Speaker 1 I mean, I really worked hard to make this like as close to like what we would actually be like if we weren't like doing a podcast. It is.
It is. And it is exactly.
It is exactly.

Speaker 1 I love that you have something like 47 cameras. It's two guys.

Speaker 1 It might be overkill, but I salute you. You know what? Better too many than too few.
Yes. Better to have a camera, not need one, than need one and not have one.
You know, that's how I live.

Speaker 1 I live by that statement alone. What do you make of these people who do everything on camera? You know who, you know, in our era did everything on camera? Two people.
Hitler

Speaker 1 was filmed a lot. Yeah, he did like a lens.

Speaker 1 You have

Speaker 1 also.

Speaker 1 I never ever went there when it wasn't filmed. You know, like every time.
I was never stepped foot in the Playboy. I was never invited.
Why?

Speaker 1 Really? I was not.

Speaker 1 Really? Well, you were, you were, you were single. And

Speaker 1 I was

Speaker 1 never in that scene.

Speaker 1 I don't enjoy a party. I love this.
I love breaking down one-on-one, sometimes two,

Speaker 1 three people.

Speaker 1 A party scene is like, it's just, well, it's just constant broken conversations. You know, if you think, what's the best moment of a party? It's like, oh, when you stole,

Speaker 1 you got into a nice conversation with one person. But the general vibe of.
But sometimes it's like so many interesting people.

Speaker 1 But then I feel like, oh, oh, I can't keep all the plates spinning. I'd rather.
Let's keep it. You don't have to keep them spinning.

Speaker 1 I mean, you could stop one conversation, say goodbye, and then have another one. You know, I mean, like if you talk to Harvey Cartel for five minutes and then

Speaker 1 talk to another person, he's not going to shoot you.

Speaker 1 I'll try it.

Speaker 1 I'll try it. I remember

Speaker 1 walking away. I was talking to another comic at the improv, which I used to hate.

Speaker 1 I think I set the record for the shortest amount of time from doing a set at the improv and getting the fuck out.

Speaker 1 The hang was, I found soul depleting. And I remember once I was talking to another comic, and I made some ham-fisted excuse.
He goes, You don't need an excuse.

Speaker 1 You don't have to go, I got to get a tomato juice. I'm like, just walk away.
You don't need a. Wow, see, this is interesting because I always thought of you as a very social creature.
I am, but

Speaker 1 I can be, and I have that skill, but more and more I find it depleting. Wow.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I love solitude. And I love being.
You do too. And I love, and I have, you know, with my wife, we can have great time.
And with certain select friends, go, that was really good.

Speaker 1 But a part of it is because I am social and,

Speaker 1 you know, and a pleaser, that I try, like. A nightmare for me is if we'll have an occasional party at my house and I go, I got to make sure everybody's having a good time.
It's like, right.

Speaker 1 No, I understand. When you're a host of a party, it's like playing a football game.
When you're done with it,

Speaker 1 you feel like you just played football. It's very exhausting, mentally and physically.

Speaker 1 If you're doing it right. Yeah, yes.

Speaker 1 I mean, if you're Puff Daddy and you're just jerking off while everybody else gets the lube on them and goes at it, you know. Jerking off.
Get the lube. No, I'm making notes.

Speaker 1 What? I'm just saying at the freak off, you know,

Speaker 1 I don't think it's a good host to sit in the corner and masturbate. I think you and you.
I've always been against that.

Speaker 1 Exactly. I mean, I've had many parties here.
Some in this very room. I mean, big stars.
Barbara Streisand has been in this room. Okay.

Speaker 1 I didn't sit in the corner and jerk off and watch them, although it was interesting and it would have been fine to do that. I don't think it was anyway.
You would imagine.

Speaker 1 That if Barbara Streisand saw you in a corner, jerk it off,

Speaker 1 she would be

Speaker 1 not enthralled. And rightly so.
And rightly so, because it means you're being a bad host. Well, you know, people who need people, if you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 Kids, that's one of

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 signature songs. Bill Needs Some People.
Look at him alone in a corner whacking himself.

Speaker 1 I just watched for, I don't know, probably the fifth time, The Way We Were.

Speaker 1 To prep for this? With me?

Speaker 1 That's so sweet. No, no, no.
I'm not in it. But it's actually apropos to what we're talking about the political spine of true story being about someone who thinks that people are being,

Speaker 1 you know, a little too self-righteous and a little too,

Speaker 1 I'm for the cause when really the cause is them, versus people who are accused of being sort of Machiavellian.

Speaker 1 And I... he did accuse me of that in those days.
And that's sort of what the way we were is about. She's always for the cause.
And they have that great speech in there where he's like, you know,

Speaker 1 why are we doing this? People are,

Speaker 1 he just got punched because she's in Washington testifying. And why are we doing this? People are going to get hurt.
And for what? In 10 years, some fascist director will make a movie with some

Speaker 1 capitalist producer and they'll do it. They'll make the movie together.
They'll play tennis together. They'll make passes at each other's wife.
And what did anybody ever die for?

Speaker 1 People, people are more important than their principles. And she goes, Hubble, people are their principles.

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 1 you know, that was him.

Speaker 1 What made you watch the movie again? Was she because she was coming? Because I was showing it to somebody,

Speaker 1 with somebody dear to me who I like to expose to movies that

Speaker 1 she has not seen before.

Speaker 1 Because she's 11.

Speaker 1 And she had not seen Kodachrome.

Speaker 1 I watched that not long ago.

Speaker 1 It's just so great. It's beautiful.

Speaker 1 It's got scale and scope. And

Speaker 1 it was, yeah, it was great. It's amazing what the kids like.

Speaker 1 What have you seen lately that you said, that's a great film?

Speaker 1 Great question. And I do see them.
And then like name some things. You know what I just saw the other? I wouldn't say it was great, but I loved every minute of it.

Speaker 1 And I was not prepared to was Jesse Eisenberg and

Speaker 1 Kieran Culkin in Sasquatch?

Speaker 1 A Real Pain. Jesse Eisenberg directed, wrote it, two colours.
Oh, I read about it. Oh, yeah.
Beautifully shot. Beautifully shot.
I'm a big Jesse Eisenberg fan. Oh, fuck.
You'll be throwing it.

Speaker 1 And it was just like, I went, wow, every shot is beautiful. It's a lovely story.
No, and I know him.

Speaker 1 He's a great guy.

Speaker 1 Obviously, smart guy. So smart.
And to your point about in film, you don't have to spell everything out. I kept watching, going, where's he going to go with the script?

Speaker 1 I went, oh, he just actually let us sit with it. He didn't jam it down a throat.
I was very impressed. I thought it was really a beautiful film.

Speaker 1 I remember years ago, I was, I forget where, I think we were at a Met game or something. And

Speaker 1 I mean, this has to be like 10 years ago. It was right after Twilight.
Or no, no, it must be a a little more after that. But he had done four movies with Kirsten Stewart.

Speaker 1 And I said,

Speaker 1 you know, why so many movies with this? He said, I think she feels safe with me.

Speaker 1 And I said, boy, you tell her if she ever got with me, she would not feel safe. No, I don't feel safe right now.
Then, of course, she became completely gay.

Speaker 1 And I was like, I mean, I didn't think I was going to be able to, but I always thought she was so attractive. Like, and some people, some guys did not.

Speaker 1 They she was lesson student yeah they thought she was you know she's not a bombshell type but you're talking about like she's 97 she's 30.

Speaker 1 oh still beautiful yeah yeah yeah but i mean she's you know don't sell yourself short but you got one shot no by the way if this was later in the party i would do this yeah no and i would ask you how's the egg rolls but i wouldn't because you know what that's it's not the kind of comedy i do yeah you know the jokes

Speaker 1 i don't do i don't do ethnic jokes you know the ones

Speaker 1 Who said that? I know every bam comic. You know the ones that I don't do.
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. I can still remember so many

Speaker 1 people's lines.

Speaker 1 Because we saw them every single night. I remember

Speaker 1 when we started, and we did the Dave Davidsay and Belzer. And Elaine Boozler was, you know, taken off.
And she was great. And she was just great every night.
And

Speaker 1 I knew her years ago, I didn't see her, and we sort of became friends a few years ago. We were doing some charity event together.

Speaker 1 We had lunch, and I said, You have no idea how much I used to sit and watch your set. And I said, Remember this line? You had a great line, blah, blah, blah.
And she went, Never heard of it.

Speaker 1 And I would do six or seven of her lines that she had no recollection. I went, why do I remember this 45 years later? And it meant nothing to her.
But she didn't work in New York.

Speaker 1 We didn't start with Elaine Booth. I did.
No, you didn't. I was a few years ahead of you.
But she was on the West Coast.

Speaker 1 When I started

Speaker 1 74, 56, a couple of years ahead of you. Oh, you started in 74?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was my first, audition night.

Speaker 1 But I didn't start hanging out in earnest till 77. But when I would come in audition night and I'd watch and she was there and

Speaker 1 75, 76, she was still, she was already like doing Merv Griffin, doing the tonight show. But she would sweep in and she was clearly on her way.

Speaker 1 yeah um but enough for me to go wow she was just talk about tight her lot her writing was so hey what her her word her her no her jokes were so shellcrafted no she I remember seeing her out here when I drove out drove across country when I was 21 with my college roommate in an $800 car

Speaker 1 and selling hash along the way that's always smart literally sleeping in college dorms that we just crashed what could go wrong there? I know.

Speaker 1 But we got to the West Coast, and I remember seeing her at the comedy store at West. They had a comedy store.
Westwood.

Speaker 1 Was it in Westwood? Yes. Well, comedy store is.
Whatever. I mean, I remember just, you know, I was like, wow, I'm in this, for just being in a comedy club at 21.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 it was actually her, an interview where she talked about, you know, you have to write every day. And by the way, writing includes taking two words out of a joke.

Speaker 1 And I went, oh, that's the smartest thing I've ever heard. So I mean, when we talked about that before, I realized I got that idea from reading an interview with her.

Speaker 1 Yeah, sometimes it's funny how you can,

Speaker 1 one little line or one twist on a joke makes you go,

Speaker 1 they've got it. No, that's it.
They've got it. Because they never have much when they start, because at least on my show, it's just not like other shows.
And so

Speaker 1 there's a very steep, long learning curve. You cannot expect them to be good even in the first

Speaker 1 few years. So what do you spot? Just a funny mind, you know, somebody who thinks funny,

Speaker 1 sometimes somebody who like has a great

Speaker 1 encyclopedic knowledge of politics and history, which is very rare these days. People just, especially younger ones.
I'm always looking for, I'm always looking to get younger

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 femaler and more diverse.

Speaker 1 It's always got to be about merit.

Speaker 1 I learned this on the casting side of things.

Speaker 1 You know, the important lesson is that as an actor, you go in and you're nervous and you just hope they like me.

Speaker 1 And what it takes, and I've been on the other side where producing, it's like, and people are coming in, auditioning,

Speaker 1 you want everyone to be great. It's like, I would be, nothing would make me happier.
And you, could you be the guy? And we were done with this bullshit. Like, you want somebody to come in.

Speaker 1 Like, yes, you had one line. That's all I need.
That's a funny mind. Give me that guy.

Speaker 1 Whenever actor, young actors types, actresses, whatever, have asked me

Speaker 1 advice about that, that's the one thing I always say is like, just remember when you're auditioning,

Speaker 1 they're more nervous than you. They have a problem to solve that they want you to solve, but they've seen other people and they're not, their problem is not getting solved.

Speaker 1 They would like you to be the guy. They would kill for you to be the, you know.
Yes, yes. Answer their problems.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and it is a problem yeah that's so funny so when you so when you spot so it's a funny mind have you ever hired somebody on like one joke

Speaker 1 well i don't maybe i mean

Speaker 1 probably not one but yeah maybe i mean just also it's amazing how much

Speaker 1 indoctrination goes on on the left so that like when we when I read samples from people each year to see what's out there,

Speaker 1 you know, they'll all be writing about, because it's a topical show, about, you know, maybe it was something that was going on three weeks ago and whatever the story is.

Speaker 1 And it's amazing the way the point of view from 12 out of 13 people will be identical. And it will not always be my point of view.
And it will just be the, it's, you know what it is? It's the.

Speaker 1 the late night guys point of view because they all have the same basic point of view about politics, which we don't have to get into specifics, but I don't always have that, you know.

Speaker 1 How many of you have to do that? And that's what I see in their writing, the point of view. They're watching too much TV.

Speaker 1 They're too indoctrinated into just

Speaker 1 the liberal bubble. Whereas I'm always seeing something

Speaker 1 different, I think,

Speaker 1 and seeing a much broader picture than they are willing to go there.

Speaker 1 They understand how this town works and they watch that a lot and they have, they're kind of just locked into that.

Speaker 1 And when I see somebody who is not that, who is just willing to see everything for whatever it is and is not ideologically captured by one side, just wants to see and identify what's true,

Speaker 1 that person will go a long way to impress me. But

Speaker 1 it says a lot to me that I don't see it a lot.

Speaker 1 Like it's a very cookie-cutter, exact same point of view. The jokes might be different, but the point of view in it is the same.

Speaker 1 Are you reading it off of printed? Yeah,

Speaker 1 they submit, and then, you know, I read,

Speaker 1 they write some rules.

Speaker 1 They take a stab at an editorial, which is usually comically inept.

Speaker 1 It's amazing. You watch the show and you know this, and this is still what you think would actually come out of my mouth.
I mean, it's yeah, it's hard to find, you know.

Speaker 1 I mean, you still keep in touch with me. I remember.

Speaker 1 Do you write every word of your own stand-up? Do you ever work with somebody? Once in a while, I'll have a friend who will

Speaker 1 just play with me on this, and they'll write, you know, some stuff, and then I will change it. But no, 90, 95%.

Speaker 1 Because it's very personal. I mean, your stuff was always, you know, I have to tell you,

Speaker 1 there are jokes that stick in your mind just because

Speaker 1 there's something in your life that you do

Speaker 1 that the bit always comes back to you. What's the bit?

Speaker 1 I can't even imagine. Taking a shower

Speaker 1 and there's not enough water for both of you.

Speaker 1 You know?

Speaker 1 Somebody told me, it's funny, somebody else told me, someone was in a shower bit that I did years later.

Speaker 1 And the premise was the areas that we spend the most time cleaning are not the areas that need it most. Like, guys, like 40 minutes here, like, this is never going to be dirty.

Speaker 1 But your bit was that if you take a shower with somebody,

Speaker 1 there's just, it seems so romantic. Yeah.

Speaker 1 but there's just one of you is in the back of one is not getting water and like I have never ever taken it's ruined that one that could have been a pleasure in my life and it's just like in the movies where they see they superimpose the head of the guy coming at you it's like every time I'm there trying to get and there's Paul Reiser's face doing this bit one of them not getting enough water I'm so

Speaker 1 I'm so honored to be a part of that intimate moment in your life. It's just terrible.

Speaker 1 That's like from literally 40 years ago. But by the way, you know, people want to watch new stuff.
I do have this special that you can watch on Amazon or Apple, wherever you can buy stuff.

Speaker 1 And it's newer stuff than even that, by the way.

Speaker 1 What's it about? Give me some, give me some.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 I tell people I'm not smart enough to make anything up. So I'm only going to tell you what happened in my life, in my wife.
And that stuff, see.

Speaker 1 That's not a reason to get married, but you would have a new 40 minutes.

Speaker 1 I mean, I. Because there's only so much you can do on, isn't it great to not be married? Because everyone's in the audience going, wouldn't know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I still can make it. I know, it's working for you.

Speaker 1 But I see, I always,

Speaker 1 I always use you as an example, like, not everybody should be married. My son, my 24-year-old, met a girl, and she's delightful,

Speaker 1 and they're very happy. They're just going out.
It's been a few months. And my wife's mother's, you know, typically, so when are they going to get married? I go, stop stop that.
I go, don't, don't.

Speaker 1 There's no reason to do that. Enjoy this moment.
Don't presume that it's this treadmill that Bill Maher fears. And I always think of like, well, Bill Maher

Speaker 1 should not be married.

Speaker 1 He's perfectly, he would make some woman miserable.

Speaker 1 And it's working.

Speaker 1 But everybody makes each other miserable at some point. I never make anybody miserable.

Speaker 1 That's the thing about not getting married. You're not also in the trick

Speaker 1 I mean, I'm sure there are heights or depths or whatever, you know,

Speaker 1 that are... I don't think everybody needs to have kids.

Speaker 1 Some people are, great. I'm happy they don't need to.
They definitely don't need to. So I salute you on your diligence.
And I salute you because,

Speaker 1 you know, I wish people would just accept that it's personal preference. It's like,

Speaker 1 why do I not like sushi and you do or whatever? You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 It's just, it's just, it's just, we're just, we're created different people with different wiring, whatever went into it in our formative years, the way we were brought up, but probably everything is locked in by the age of five.

Speaker 1 Some people say even two. And I think the die was cast for me at like that age.
Like it was just. Why? How? How so? Because, I mean,

Speaker 1 you had a bad relationship at two?

Speaker 1 With shit, yes. Like, I mean, they say the anal stage, which is zero to two, very formative because it's like, how were you, you're not aware of it consciously, but you're unconscious.

Speaker 1 If you're like, if your diaper isn't changed enough, that kind of stuff, you become certain ways.

Speaker 1 I mean, everything gets locked in at that very formative time when you're not even really aware of when the personality is set.

Speaker 1 I mean, I've had parents, I've asked parents about kids, they all say the same thing. You can always tell

Speaker 1 even at that age, what they're going to be like. Really? Yeah, like that's a wild one.

Speaker 1 That's probably true. That's what there is.
You You don't find that with your kids, yeah. I think you see certain sparks of that, and you go, and you marvel.

Speaker 1 And you, I, I see pieces, I go, wow, I see myself and my son, I go, wow, that is your mother. And in her pieces, I'm going, I don't know what that is.
Like,

Speaker 1 and by the way, why should it's like there's nothing in my parents that you can look at my parents and go, he's going to be a comedian. Like, it's not, it's not in there.
Um,

Speaker 1 but yeah, I

Speaker 1 and I and I enjoy the pieces that surprise me that I see sparks in my kids. I'm going, that's just you.
That's entirely

Speaker 1 you. I'm actually writing, I'm writing a pilot with my younger son that it's really,

Speaker 1 I'm buckling up for an interesting journey because it's like, oh,

Speaker 1 I'm supposed to be the guy that knows what he's doing. And I'm going to try.

Speaker 1 But he's really funny and actually really creative. And it was interesting because you were talking about before, like, you know, being the son, the child of celebrity or whatever.

Speaker 1 We were pitching and we were just playing with like bearish bones of the story. I said, well, what if it's this? Because we had been invited at the studio and asked me to come up with the show.

Speaker 1 And it was his father-son thing. I said, why don't I write it with you?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he's a writer to begin with. And we were just jamming.

Speaker 1 And I said,

Speaker 1 by the way, afterwards, I said, you did really good. I said, you're really good.
He said, you know, I finally understand why you had a hit show. I went,

Speaker 1 A,

Speaker 1 what the hell did I say that you heard that? And B, like, really? Now, just today, you figured out, oh, dad knows what he's doing.

Speaker 1 But like, yeah, it was, I mean, it was a really what a great moment for you. It was

Speaker 1 a beautiful moment. Like, it's like, oh, because we're on level ground, I can't like, oh, I actually see your worth and your skill.

Speaker 1 It's like, yeah, it's hard to get things out of your kids because their kids, you can't blame them for it.

Speaker 1 That's part of just being that you just have this tunnel vision about like my needs, my world.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't want it any other way i wouldn't want a kid who goes well my dad is but like i i originally went through i had a reason to go through all this old family stuff i labeled it in a file and i went through like my father letters that were written to my father

Speaker 1 that he had saved from his parents no no no from other like friends oh okay these are like from like the end of World War II

Speaker 1 into the 60s

Speaker 1 because a phone call cost money and a stamp was three cents.

Speaker 1 And you realize, I'm really, and again, these are just letters to him that he saved. So I don't have the letters he wrote to them.
Okay. Three friends of his, three guy friends.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, you realize

Speaker 1 I was alive, you know, for part of these letters from the mid-late 50s into the 60s when he's talking about things that I was never aware of, even though I was alive, you know, like switching jobs and maybe we can do this.

Speaker 1 And like this other friend of his who was a comedian, and they were, you know, thinking about doing some. And you realize, oh, when I was a kid, he was just dad.

Speaker 1 He's there, and that's great.

Speaker 1 But I don't give a shit what he's doing or where he goes to get the money from my family. But you wouldn't even think to even ask those questions because you don't imagine.

Speaker 1 But of course, he had dreams too. And he had ambitions and he had placed it at times when the job wasn't going well or he had to get a new one.

Speaker 1 he was just taking care of shit. And it just, it never got to my level.
And that's like, I don't think that goes on that much anymore.

Speaker 1 No, but that's a, but that's a, that's this part of life when you get to a certain age and you realize, oh, so my parents were younger people.

Speaker 1 And my son is, you know, my son's 24 and he lives in Brooklyn now and he's, and, and I, I'm 45 years ahead of him, whatever, but I can totally

Speaker 1 remember and relate to, oh, finding your first apartment and how great New York is when you're 24 and you're single. Oh, you met a girl.
That's great.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh, your first, you're walking around, you're walking along the river. Like, oh, I remember that, but I'm the dad now.
I'm not the 24-year-old. Right.
And, you know, I did this

Speaker 1 20 years ago. I did this movie with Peter Falk about my, called The Thing About My Folks.
And it was trying to understand my parents' relationship because I was the fourth of four kids.

Speaker 1 So they were just tired and tired by the time I got there. And I would think, but it wasn't always like this, right? You were 25 and you met and you went, oh, there's a pretty girl.

Speaker 1 And she went, oh, there's a handsome guy. And then you said, let me ask you out.
And now you're sitting watching the news and you're not talking to each other.

Speaker 1 What's that art?

Speaker 1 How did we get from there to here? That's why I never got married. Because that...
That part you described in the beginning, it was, my mind is like, why would you get unless you had to?

Speaker 1 And this is a gun to your head. This is identified even by the people who usually get married as the time they liked.
And they reminisce about it. And I remember.

Speaker 1 And like, why, if I didn't have to, why would I not keep doing that part? But that's just.

Speaker 1 You make an argument, the Tartar argument. It certainly looks good on paper.
I know. And it worked.
No, and it works. And I thought, what's going to happen at the end of this?

Speaker 1 Will one of us convert the other? I will get single or you'll get married. No.
No. And then you move in.

Speaker 1 It's a young couple.

Speaker 1 Now it's garbage, Bill.

Speaker 1 Apropos of that, can I tell you an amazing story about these letters? Please.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 yeah, again, apropos to like, yeah, they were 25 or whatever. So my parents

Speaker 1 met in high school, but my father was two years, two grades younger. He was friends with

Speaker 1 My mother was friends with his sister, I guess. But

Speaker 1 So they didn't really know each other well. Again,

Speaker 1 my mother's a senior. He's a sophomore.
You wouldn't be interested in a kid like that. Then they're both in World War II, and she sees him on stage at a USO thing or something.
On stage. On stage.

Speaker 1 You know, just like being an MC

Speaker 1 of some little show. And Bell's father didn't show.

Speaker 1 And she's like, oh, my God, that's Billy Maher from the neighborhood. And so that's 1945.

Speaker 1 They got married in 1951.

Speaker 1 I don't know what happened in these six years, but the letters are certainly indicative that my father was not just seeing her. Okay.
Or maybe not at all. But they must have stayed in contact.

Speaker 1 Like I never asked them when they were alive. I wish I did, but like, were they seeing other people? Was he...

Speaker 1 like saying he was with her but some of the letters are asking about him with this girl he took to the club the other night or something. So plainly shit was going on.

Speaker 1 And then here's the really Verklempty part.

Speaker 1 He's engaged in the spring of 1951 and marries my mother in July. Not to her was he engaged.
So he broke off an engagement and married someone only a few months later.

Speaker 1 who was not the person he apparently rented the hall with.

Speaker 1 And I think piecing this together, I don't have direct evidence, but I think the whole reason why is in 1951, a Catholic boy just did not marry a Jewish girl. But your mother was Jewish?

Speaker 1 Yes, that's the point of the story. So but what but what? So I think he was, I think at the very last minute he said, this is the woman I love.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I didn't think I could go through with it because again, 1951, way more outrageous, a Jew and a Catholic than interracial marriage is today. Interracial marriage today is

Speaker 1 as it should be, whoever you want. But back then, Jew, Catholic, it just wasn't done.

Speaker 1 Society, families. So I think he was engaged to some other Catholic girl and then at the last minute said, yeah, but that's not who I love.
And I'm going to just fuck it. And you never got...

Speaker 1 Do you have siblings? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Do they have any information?

Speaker 1 No. Nobody knows.

Speaker 1 No. It's so funny.

Speaker 1 First of all, even if they were alive, I don't

Speaker 1 know they would tell me what was going on in those years.

Speaker 1 Well, that was, you know, when I did this movie, this Peter Falk movie,

Speaker 1 it was based on a letter that I found that my mother wrote to my father, but never delivered. Wow.

Speaker 1 Ready, Dr. Freud? While pregnant with me.

Speaker 1 She wrote this while expressing her discontent. And

Speaker 1 she shared, I remember sharing, I'm sharing this with your audience. I had this idea of father-son movie.
And I remember asking my mother, my dad had passed.

Speaker 1 And I remember, no, my dad hadn't passed yet. And I remember saying, I said,

Speaker 1 father and the son go looking for the mother, but why would the mother leave? And my mother said, this may help you. And she sent me a letter.
I went, it was like the fucking Rosetta Stone.

Speaker 1 Like, oh my God, that's like explains my whole life. I get your relationship.
And

Speaker 1 it was basically saying she was now married for 13, 14 years. I was the fourth of four kids.
She realized all the dreams she had for their wonderful marriage weren't going to be.

Speaker 1 He was going to be dedicated to his business, et cetera, et cetera. Her discontent, and I had always felt that discontent, but couldn't, nobody would acknowledge it.

Speaker 1 And then when I reached out to her and said, oh, I get it. And she went, it's just a letter.
I was in a bad mood that day. I went, oh, motherfucker.
That's a great punchline. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But it was like, you know, she, and it's like, I understand that. Yes.
You don't always, you don't feel the 365 days a year. Yeah, it's both.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's both true and some days not true. And so, you know, so to me, that movie was me trying to connect the dots.

Speaker 1 How do you get from two 20-something five-year-olds who meet and find each other attractive and appealing to we're watching? I'll tell you how.

Speaker 1 You fuck it up up and spend every goddamn day together. And there's just no two people on earth that interested.
Nobody's chasing.

Speaker 1 You're still running.

Speaker 1 Nobody's making you get married.

Speaker 1 You make a very fervent argument and nobody's making it married.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying, my whole thing is I'd rather say to somebody, I miss you, and mean it, than be with them every day and say it and don't really mean it.

Speaker 1 I think you can relieve yourself of that pressure. There's nobody waiting, nobody expecting you.
I think your argument has been made. You're 68.
I think you're out of the woods.

Speaker 1 You'd be surprised. You know what?

Speaker 1 I mean, it's in their nature. I don't know.
Do you cut this down or do you edit these or no? No, if you want. No, there's nothing I said.
Nothing I said.

Speaker 1 I'll say. Did you happen to

Speaker 1 read Norman Lear's memoir?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Okay. But I had dinner with him once at Rob Reiner's house.
Fair enough. Does that count? No.

Speaker 1 He was, you know, an exception. But he was a great pioneer of television.
He was a great pioneer. And a great guy, and fucking funny, and really irreverent.
Sharp right into the end, over a hundred.

Speaker 1 Over a hundred. So I remember he was writing for a while.
He was writing

Speaker 1 his memoir. It took him a couple of years.
And I remember we were going to get together. And he said, yeah, I'm still writing.
I said, what are you up to? And this is like mid-2010, 15.

Speaker 1 He said, I'm up to 1992. I went, Norman.

Speaker 1 Don't fuck around.

Speaker 1 I said, you're not a young man. Type faster.

Speaker 1 But so anyway, but in this. Did he laugh? Yeah.
Oh, he was great. See, I wouldn't.
Oh, no. He would.

Speaker 1 I don't think jokes about you're going to die sooner.

Speaker 1 We had a thing. We did Phil Rosenthal's show together at Langer's Deli, me, Norman, and Phil.

Speaker 1 And he said, he got the cheesecake and he said, I'm going to to have maybe a little piece. And I said, well, wouldn't it be funny if this is what kills Norman?

Speaker 1 And he went with it and he took a bite and he went, and I went, okay. I think it was safe.
But anyway, whether I want to say that. That's probably the healthier.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'm insecure about it. Of course,

Speaker 1 I feel like you're going to die soon. Jokes are just wrong.
Well,

Speaker 1 I stop myself from making a joke to the audience. It's like, you know, if I die tomorrow,

Speaker 1 you will remember this. Well, we don't think you're about to die.
No, I mean, you're not a spring chicken, but you don't. not.
But I know that you can get hit by a bus tomorrow.

Speaker 1 But that's not different. That's different than a hundred-year-old who is going to die tomorrow.
True, it is different. You know, it's just

Speaker 1 but anyway, the story I wanted to tell that moved me and stayed with me. Norman told in his book, he wrote a story, and it's phenomenal, really interesting life.

Speaker 1 shot down like 47 German planes in World War II, shot down. In the Civil War.

Speaker 1 That's how a good pilot he was.

Speaker 1 He talked about

Speaker 1 throwing a party for his wife's 60th. His wife was many years younger than him.
So he's in his 80s, I guess, and is throwing a party for his wife's 60th. Robin the Cradle, huh?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he talked about how he did this and he got a band and he put the thing together.

Speaker 1 He got a whole big thing.

Speaker 1 And then at the end of the party, he was so like, look what I did.

Speaker 1 And his wife was going, yeah but i i didn't want any of that and he and he was in the book and he was sharing he's like i wasn't being a husband i was being a producer i produced this great party and i was thinking wow you're in your 80s and you're still going i have much to learn about relationships i'm going okay

Speaker 1 so by the way the fact that i haven't mastered everything that our relationship is still in flux and it's not to be mourned, but rather like, oh, yeah, it's a growing thing. To be perfectly balanced.

Speaker 1 It's not a fight you want. To be perfectly balanced about this.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I totally get that story and will tell you that Norman Lear, genius as he is in television, is dumber than me in relationships because that is something I wouldn't have gotten at 30 or probably 40, maybe 50.

Speaker 1 But certainly by early 50s, I would never have made that mistake of being the producer instead of the boyfriend or the husband or whatever.

Speaker 1 There's a certain point, it did sink into me what women wanted and needed. And it wasn't producing.
That's correct.

Speaker 1 So my takeaway would be though Norman lived to be 102,

Speaker 1 you're saying you were smarter than him

Speaker 1 about that specific issue. Maybe it's because he was married all those years.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 1 what spoke to me was the fact that this is an ongoing journey and there is a a release in saying, oh, I don't have it yet. Perhaps I will get this.

Speaker 1 And by the way, at the same time, I totally, totally do get you going. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's not an arena I want to collect in.

Speaker 1 I was a slow learner and, you know, again, not that mature for so long, kind of a, you know, it's kind of a theme, I think, in my character, a late bloomer on things, that when I do get something,

Speaker 1 I do take pride in whatever lessons I have learned or mastered.

Speaker 1 There are things that I had on my list of New Year's Eve resolutions for 1975. I'm not making this up, that I still am working on.
Like, I was still like, oh, God, I had that on the 75 list.

Speaker 1 This is going to be the year.

Speaker 1 But this goes back to what we were saying about, oh, that

Speaker 1 our act is better now than it was six months ago. It's like,

Speaker 1 that's nothing to be ashamed of that like, oh, I haven't licked that problem yet.

Speaker 1 But, because by the way, if you do check everything off, well, then I guess I should die, you know, like if you get everything right. I mean, I know.

Speaker 1 I mean, I do a bit in this special, I do a bit about, you know, do unto others.

Speaker 1 It works in life, and it doesn't work in marriage because the many things that I would have done unto me, she don't like done unto her. And

Speaker 1 literally last night, we had a really interesting argument. And I said, well, because I expressed what I was annoyed, she did something that annoyed me and I expressed it in my vernacular.

Speaker 1 And she goes, well, but you're being, you know, you didn't just come out and say it. I went, right, because I was trying to say it how I would say it.
She goes, just tell.

Speaker 1 And I realize, what's that balance between here's how I say things, but no, I have a partner. Let me try and accommodate.
And here's how she might best hear it.

Speaker 1 And it's frustrating and it's certainly a battle that you have opted out of.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the one thing I could never take in relationships. It's like you have all these little fights.
Sometimes you don't even know what you did. You look at the waitress for two seconds.

Speaker 1 It was long. Have you had long relationships? Oh, absolutely.
Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't mean with management. I'm talking about girls.
Like five years,

Speaker 1 three years.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I've had, I've had

Speaker 1 the drill.

Speaker 1 I certainly have had the starter program for what a marriage is, monogamous and multi-year. So I feel like I am qualified to comment on it.

Speaker 1 And the problem is that nobody ever really forgets where they buried a hatchet. So you have these little fights.

Speaker 1 And again, you know, she's got a puss on her. Now, why? I didn't even know what I did.
So, you know, then I start acting bad.

Speaker 1 And then you patch it up. You always get over it.
But it's like a car. You get a little ding, you get a little dent, you get a little scratch, and then you're driving a piece of shit.

Speaker 1 Well, listen, it's, you know, it's just like there's certain people who shouldn't drink. You should not get married.
You should not be.

Speaker 1 It doesn't matter. As soon as you know it.
And for years, for many, many years, I was so

Speaker 1 inculcated in this idea that is just in the culture that you do have to like

Speaker 1 find as an Easter egg, this perfect person, you know, soulmate, all that stuff that is seeped into the culture and everything, all the movies, every idea, TV shows, talk shows.

Speaker 1 chicks on TV talking. And it's all that idea of the perfect person and the one and the soulmate and it's like

Speaker 1 I don't for everybody well and and possibly not even out there

Speaker 1 or you know the other thing is people could be out there but it's not something that you're interested in but but the idea of just one person being like

Speaker 1 the only one for you

Speaker 1 people get divorced that people die and then they have another

Speaker 1 person you know so it's yeah we're a little more malleable

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't, you know,

Speaker 1 I couldn't quite imagine somebody being more right for me than my wife. Yeah, but that's but but but

Speaker 1 I could also hypothetically, if we hadn't met, it would have been that person. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And and we would have had the same journey. Um it's like religion.
Like if you're it's not a

Speaker 1 mystery, are you? Yeah. It's not a mystery why if you're born in Pakistan, you're a Muslim.
Right. You know, it's just

Speaker 1 the same thing with, well, I guess Jews is different.

Speaker 1 What do you think about the Jews these days?

Speaker 1 I got to tell you,

Speaker 1 it's not so fun out there as it used to be. Am I wrong? Is there not a lot of

Speaker 1 people?

Speaker 1 Is there not a lot of Jew hate out there? You know, there seems to be. I have noticed.
I have noticed.

Speaker 1 So if I understand correctly, it's not like tomorrow you're going to wake up religious and married.

Speaker 1 If I glean anything from today's little drinking session with you.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 I feel like

Speaker 1 religion and marriage do have a lot in common. Actually, what really has a lot in common is marriage and communism.

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 I feel like they're both grafted onto an ideal of humans that is not realistic. Communism, the idea that we should all be and could all be unselfish.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 you make a valid point.

Speaker 1 You didn't want me to finish with that. No, I know, I know, and that's exactly right.
It's like, yeah, we're not unselfish people. We're not unselfish people.
And thank God. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, I got to say, America, you know. Not a fan.
I am a big fan. I'm a big fan.
Are you? Aren't you not?

Speaker 1 Come on, man. I haven't watched the news.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of America.

Speaker 1 all with all the bullshit i would rather live here than anywhere else

Speaker 1 that's all i'm saying not thrilled with this moment i live nobody's thrilled with this moment well i mean there are actually people who are very thrilled with this moment and they're doing this talking to cash patel this morning he is

Speaker 1 but uh but you know but with even with all the bullshit i mean it's like you know let's see yeah it's still it's amazing it's actually amazing the way it just it's like my dog. It just keeps going.

Speaker 1 You'd think it'd be dead by now, and it just keeps fucking going. Well, this is why, you know, this relates to why we

Speaker 1 love stand up and why we love narrowing, or for me, let me speak for myself, narrowing my focus. Like, boy, if I look at the big picture, it doesn't look good.
So I'm going to work on this line.

Speaker 1 I'm going to read this book. I'm going to talk to this friend and keep it small.

Speaker 1 And the truth is, you're probably going to be able to keep doing that. God willing.
No matter what's going on out there in the world, of course, the worst things could happen.

Speaker 1 Trump could get into office and blow up the world on day one. But, you know, I'm not going through the same spilk as I did last time.

Speaker 1 Really? Yeah. Like,

Speaker 1 when it happens, wake me. But I'm not giving my mind over to it again.
And I'll see what happens. And one thing I've learned about the future is that we're very bad about predicting it.

Speaker 1 And whatever you think is probably likely to happen probably isn't going to happen.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I feel, I didn't actually watch Election Night. Did Harris not win?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 I feel ill-equipped

Speaker 1 to have the conversation. You have not lost a step.

Speaker 1 I remember first knowing of you when you went underwear shopping with Michael Caine and got the part

Speaker 1 from underwear to diner. And I remember thinking at the time when the movie could talk about it, and then I saw the guy, and I was like, oh, I see why that happened.
You know, I see why he got that.

Speaker 1 And you still got it. Still got it.
This is really fun. Do you do this nightly? Because I am free.
I have nothing on the books.

Speaker 1 Weekly. Because I only allow myself a couple of drinks a week.
Is that right? Yeah. So you do it.
Well, I'm so glad

Speaker 1 you squeezed me in before your big show tomorrow. I'm Glad you squeezed.

Speaker 1 You want me to stand up too? Yeah, I do. Do I have to leave?

Speaker 1 But I have so much more material. All right, thank you, buddy.

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, that's not a TV. That's a monograph.
It doesn't help us. All right, watch.
We walk into the sunset, some beautiful music, and it'll be something. You'll have something.

Speaker 1 Oh, I have a microphone to drag it from my.

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