June 17, 2025 • 56 mins
Meet Hasan Minhaj: actor, producer, writer, comedian, and television host. You may recognize him from his political television show Patriot Act, as a correspondent on The Daily Show, or his stand up specials Off With His Head and The King's Jester. Keep up with Hasan on his podcast Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know! I hope you enJOY!
Recorded at Kid Super HQ in Brooklyn, NY
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come
and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually
it's about an hour and a half and I don't
have an opener because these guys cost money. But what
I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway,
come and see me live on the Pants on Fire
Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and
we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty
(00:23):
twenty five and beyond. For a full list of dates,
go to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com. See you
on the road, my DearS. My name is Craig Ferguson.
The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to
interest in people about what brings them happiness. Welcome to
(00:46):
the Kids Super Studios here in Brooklyn, New York. I
am here in the tent, and I am Craig Ferguson,
and I am the host today of the Joy Podcast.
Every time there's the Joy Podcast, I'm the host, but
I'm the host today, so that counts. My guest today
has not taking ship from every politician he's interviewed.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Whah, I think is quite predigree.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
He's a great comic and a great interviewer, and he's
here and his name is Hassan Minaj John. We were
talking about how at a certain point in the day, Yeah,
I have to move to decaf because I can't get
(01:27):
up all night. P This is all in front of you. Man,
I'm from the future, and where are we going?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
What's happening?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well in the future, when you're my age, you'll have
to go up and pee like two or three times
a night, even if you don't have three, well maybe
not three.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What are you a doctor? Your my mother is my mother.
That's right, that's a position.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Now here's the thing I was going to say, because
we were talking about this beforehand.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
What's up?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So your parents were immigrants, yes, right, and I'm an immigrant,
and so my kids are in the same position you are,
was they?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
They?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
They kind of get a little frustrated with.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
My kind of gung ho America stuff because I don't
know if your parents are the same.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
But I'm like, you know, if someone converts to.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Catholicism, they feel like they should be a little more Catholic, yes,
than people who are just like growing up Catholic.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, I'm kind of.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I'm kind of like that.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I think a lot of immigrants are like that.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, there's a with the first generation there very we're here,
we're here, we met it here.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, yeah, and now it's going to be fine. Yeah.
Look at this spreading central station. Yeah, crushed up, crushed Yeah,
and the kids.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Are like, you know, there's a guy pissing right here.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, those guys pressing everywhere. But yeah, it's kind of
It's an interesting thing because I wonder if if I
you know, if I'm you know, putting into my kids,
says that in order for them to rebel against me,
they have to rebel against every because of course it's
their duty, is the next generation to rebel against whatever
(02:57):
morals and values and mores than I am? Yeah, do
you find that? Do you think you did that with
your own parents?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Are we're starting this hot? Well? Why not?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I mean, we could do that, or we could look
at the idea because the culture that your parents come
from is Indians.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yes, so it might be you rebel against that or yeah, okay,
so I think, uh, really, what what if I'm going
to zoom out philosophically, what what actually happened was very
good yeah, let's zoom it out.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah philosophically as well. Very yeah, very very happy.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
But yeah, let's put let's pull out on the A
philosopher is my favorite thing. Let's not do this, Okay,
all right, go ahead, zoom and philosoph all right. I
think the big split was, Uh, they came here. My
dad got here in nineteen eighty two. I think he
had a vision and certainly America was a particular way,
and by the time I came of age to live
(03:51):
in that America, yeah, it changed.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
So I think when he came they were running ms
DOS as the operating system, and now it's fucking JavaScript
and Python and yeah, it's all sorts of it just changed, right,
And So what I what I really was rebelling against
to some capacity, was I think they had a very
(04:15):
fixed understanding of what this country is and can be
and what it can provide.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I think that's a generational thing for everything.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, I mean that happens. I mean I I and.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I don't blame them for this, like like who am
I to Yeah, I mean it will happen to you too.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You have kids, absolutely, you know, but your kids are young,
you know, and as they grew.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Up, but I got seven. I have a seven year old,
I have a five year old. I can only I
can already feel it.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, yeah, it does happen.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So so I don't know if you have this with
the restaurant QR code. You sit down at a restaurant, right,
and you go, he can I get can I get
a menu?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Please?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
We'll just scan the QR code. Yeah, and I'll just
start Yeah, welcome to my fucking world. Yeah, it's like
I get so I get angry, like what what what? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Would you like a receipt?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah? I would, Yes, I would you like my address?
Or when they got down a tree and give me
a piece of pie that I had that I'm about
to purchase something or I did purchase.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I still get angry at the Starbucks people when they
asked me for a name.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I'm like, I want a coffee. We're not friends, you know,
And it's like, do we have a name for the coffee?
The coffee is the name for the coffee.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And I feel like I'm slowly losing.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
My grip on the on the world.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You're losing the plot a little bit, a little bit.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I still like Vinyl, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, Well, well, my thing is is that I didn't
opt in, mister Thai restaurant. I didn't opt in for
the q R, right. I came to have lunch with you, right,
not to have you and me be on our phone,
right and the.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Data grab that they're taking all of your stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
And see yeah, and they go, just pay, just pay
on your phone, please don't make me do this.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Well that I think that's great though, because that you're
embracing the crankiness pretty young, pretty young, But that's good.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, well into it, make it part of your life.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
But of course that kind kind of dissatisfaction and borderline missionry,
I think is.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
That's what makes a comedian though, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yes, we are very good at complaining. Yeah, it really is.
We're just complainers, is what we are. Humorous complains, humorous complainers.
So when people say we're philosophers, like we're not actually
providing any solutions, really we're actually just very good cranks.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Well, you know, here's the thing, though, I would dispute
with you the philosophers of any stripe of provided any
solutions anyway.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I mean, I mean that's true.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Maybe they just maybe just they clarified, yea they clarified,
you know, even then I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I mean, like this is me being contrarian, because yeah,
but the idea of you know, like Socrates saying, now, look,
I'm any philosophy I know is forgive me is Western philosophy.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
You may know more about you.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So, but Socrates certainly like knowing the right questions to ask.
I'm like, well, I don't know if that's enough, is it?
But Barnley it was. And then here's the thing I
was thinking about Socrates recently in cancel culture. Okay, so
I have this theory like you know, when Athens was
popping off five hundred BC BCE, the all these philosophers
(07:12):
were there. I feel like it was like gigs. I
think it was like the comedy seller. Oh, people, are
you going to see Socrates? You know, he's got, he's got,
he's working on fifteen right, he's doing a fifteen minutes,
you know, the Athenone or something.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
But I feel like it was probably like that. It
was like entertaining for people, and doing the Parthenon was
a theater gig. But the Beacon, it's it's the beacon,
or maybe it's the gardens. The garden rhy and but
there's the seller where you work out your little bit
of philosophy before you go in.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, and I feel like that happened a lot throughout
the years of human history.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
I think that, like, here's here's my I pitched. This
is an idea to you.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Even like my background is in Christianity, uses in Islam.
But when we were getting taught about Jesus and they
would say things Jesus had said, I'd be like, really,
it's not really that great, I think to say. But
my guess is a delivery was great. And then so
I'm guessing saying when Jesus said an ancient Aramaic or
whatever language is, spad, you know, getting through the eye
(08:17):
of the rich man getting into heaven is like getting
through a camel, getting through the eye of a needle.
I bet delivered correctly in the right language. That's probably
a great joke.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, yeah, he's definitely probably amazing. My technique great at
an act out right, I'm precuting projecting for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
No microphones, Yeah, like five thousand people, no microphones.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Let's see that.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, mister Daily Show, let's see that right, right, right?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Right? Do you have?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Do you have?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Is your background very secular or were you brought up
quite I was brought up quite religious, really, Oh yeah, yeah,
so because I know next to nothing about Islam really
really honestly.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, for me though, you know, honestly, I felt from
a young age my bluetooth was on. Really yeah, I
kind of I did feel there's got to be something
more than what what I'm seeing here. Sure and surely
what's happening right here, this doesn't make a lot of
sense for me either, right, so, in a weird way,
the unseen made more sense to me than what I
(09:18):
was seeing. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, of course, I know it sounds a little weird. No,
it doesn't not to me, which should worry you more.
But but yeah, but I think that that that makes
sense to me. I think the idea of seeking some
kind of I mean, it.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Started for me young as well. There's got to be
more to it than this.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, For honestly, I think for me, when I was
a really little kid, I think America represented that I wonder,
you know, that it was a place where you know,
there was more going on, just possibility, possibility and the
fact that they would you gotta remember, like I grew
up in Scotland in the nineteen sixties, right while America
was going to the Moon. I mean, oh interesting, right,
(09:56):
we weren't getting a lot of information about the civil
rights marches and stuff, but we got a lot of
TV about going at the Moon.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So so for you. Did you at that at a
young age? You felt I gotta I gotta go there?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Oh yeah, for sure, Yeah, I know it was the thing.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I just just all the cool, every stuff, everything was
American and and the like.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I am totally a.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Product of American cultural imperially, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I am.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
I am Coca Cola branded ford More's victim of advertising.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I'm happy to be it.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
But that's definitely well I am in.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And it's when you know, when I project this onto
my children, they're less It's not I'm not saying they're
anti American right like that, but they're they're just they're
less enamored by the things I'm.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
In, the shiny stuff that is really Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, I was taken in by a law and I
still am. I still am taking them by I like it.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
You know, is it weird if you when you're do
your kids ever go we should look a look at
euro up. Look how beautiful and you go that fucking
old place.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, because Americans.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Have the opposite they I love the instrument. I call
them the Instagram countries. Yeah, Paris is an Instagram country.
Scotland yeah, yeah, So those countries to me, they're just
they're they're like whisper Castle Instagram country. Right, you know,
lady Margaret, No, lady Margaret, you must like they're just
old period pieces and you go there with your you know,
your boyfriend or girlfriend and take an Instagram photo.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
It's always it's almost like my wife says, that's about
rednecks in America as well. It's like poshe people in
Britain have the same names as American red necks.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I mean you say, you know been adequ Cumba Batch,
that's lord. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
And then you see that same name in America Bennydick,
combo bag.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
You know, it's like hey Bendick. Yeah, it's like the
same people.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, the hyphenated name thing Breton very posh in America, right,
do it Trampling, you know, it's it's kind of that's
a great bit, and you know, I think I might
work it up all right, working out. Hello, this is
Greig Ferguson and I want to let you know I
have a brand new stand up comedy special out now
(12:03):
on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy, and I would
be so happy if you checked it out. To watch
the special, just go to my YouTube channel at the
Craig Ferguson Show and is this right there?
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Just click it and play it and it's free.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I can't look.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I'm not going to come around your house and show
you how to do it. If you can't do it,
then you can't have it. But if you can figure
it out, it's yours.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Now.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You and I are part of a fairly exclusive club. Okay,
talk to me, White House Correspondence. Oh that's you.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Did it when twenty seventeen, this first year. Yeah, well
he wasn't there though. He wasn't there, of course he
didn't show up. Yeah, yeah he was actually, yeah, he
went to the year Seth Myers did it. He attended
as a guest, right, but he didn't. He wasn't just
there as a year I did it, but its two
thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
He was a guest. He think he was there, I'm
not sure, but okay, but he wasn't I didn't reference
in him in the act.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Famously bad room, right or did you feel like wash? Yeah? Yeah?
Did the sound system work for you? No, it's just
a shitty as you would imagine. It's I mean, I
feel like they could get it bare. I mean, you
are at a Hilton in Washington, d C. And it
feels like it right, totally. The sound system was awful.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I don't know if you know this about me, but
I have an accent apparently, which you know that was.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
A little tricky too.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I mean it went okay, yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I felt like it was I felt like it was
like a dream.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah, you know, it did feel like a dream because
you're seeing famous people out there, but in weird kind
of yeah, because what you're seeing is you're You're like,
there's there's Wolf Blitzer, right, and there's a man named
Wolf Blitzer, right, which is a very funny thing. That's right, Wolf.
There's a man named Wolfe Not everyone doesn't have a
problem with it. And and he kind of does look
like a wolf a little bit, a little bit. Yeah,
and he's raw me. Yeah, he does. He does it
(13:56):
really maybe or maybe it does Yeah, who knows. We
can't confirm tonight, but they'll be like Wolf Blitzer and
then they'll be like the cast of Grey's Anatomy. So
it's like, you know what I mean, it's this weird,
you know. Or it'll be like this person played president
on TV and then and then there's a real press
the actual chief of staff for the president is here.
It's this it's a very strange.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Who were the big politicians there when when you were there.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Well, he famously did not want anyone from the administration
to be there, so then there were just other members
of Congress. So it became it became this whole like
kind of flashpoint who will show up, who will not
show up?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Right, So it became a politicized, politicized thing.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Right. But to me, I thought that, I mean, that's
just great comedy fodder, it kind of because the conflict,
because it's all just tension. Yeah, you know, And I
think I don't know if you chatted with Colbert or
Seth Meyers, like a couple of the people who had
done it before. I had talked to yeah, and they
told me the room fucking sucks.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
It does fucking suck. I didn't talk to Stephen or
Seth about it. Yeah, I talked to Drew Carey and
Jay Leno about it.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
But you know, that's a generational things, like these guys
said on it.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Before, they've done it before. Yeah yeah yeah, and it
is bad but so so. But but but actually, and
you know this once you once you know, because it's
all about expectation. Once you know. All right, so what
is the gig? So they go look at the casino gig? Yeah, okay,
I know what this is. Yeah. So when they all
told me, look, it's it's you are doing a hotel
(15:20):
ballroom gig. You've done a wedding year, you've done a
set at a barmit's fa you know what this is
you do And so that was the first note that
leveled my expectation. Then the second thing that Stephen told me,
which was you're going to bomb in the room but
played a camera one you're playing to everyone now, And
that was my whole unlock. Did you bow in the room?
(15:41):
I don't think you bombed. I think I think I did, Okay,
but when I worked it out at the cellar, it
certainly wasn't that right.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
But the sailor is like maybe the greatest yeah right.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
But but I'm working out of the cellar. But I'm
also doing these like very deep cut references. You know,
I'm so and so from s NBC is here. And
at the ten o'clock crow, I was like, what the
fuck are you? Dog? Are you really making a joke
about you know, the ten pm anchor on c you know,
but yeah, I'm making a Don Lemon joke right now,
you know. And so anyways, once I kind of leveled
(16:12):
that I just knew and you know this from from
Late Night, just played a camera one, kind of played
the room a little bit and it's for everybody at home. Yeah,
and then just kind of stand in it.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Who who did you run into? Who produced your your your?
I'm going to say Late Night? So because that's kind
of I feel like it is like it because for me,
getting the right producer for these things is like, if
you get it wrong, you're you're never gonna do Yes,
it's never gonna work.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I'm lucky, man. I I found early on, when I
was doing open mics and stuff, I found a really
great comedian friend of mine named Pashan Banker Ramana John.
He became kind of a co writer, co producer. We
were do shit together and at the time, I didn't
know that would be kind of like my future collaborator.
(17:03):
But we really were like two musicians working together. That's great,
and it was so he knew my voice. He also
knew how to kind of control me editorially. He knew,
you know, he's going off the rails a little bit,
but let him and then all right, we'll get to
the idea here. He also helped me clarify a lot. Okay,
(17:23):
what are you trying to say here? Right?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
I had great producers, by the guy Pierre Le Sally,
who was my guy. And Pierre used to say to me,
especially about jokes. He'd say, is it worth it?
Speaker 3 (17:35):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Interesting?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And I would you know, some days, some days it
was worth it.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
You know, some days it.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Was worth you know, it was going to be trouble,
but the joke was worth it. And some days you go,
you know, this joke, it's okay.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Is it true? You just use bullet points for your
monolog Is it true?
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
That's incredible. It got that way. I mean what happened
was it was a process. Well you know, this is
like you turn them and there's everybody from the corporate
sure is there, and they want it to be a
certain way, and you have long conversations about the set,
like anyone gives a fuck.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Although this is the nicest set, I think, I know
this is this is amazing, but this is the exception.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
This is not the rule.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, this is true. And actually, and no one ever
talked to me about this. Say, I just turned up
and I was like, this is this is great?
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You have these long conversations with corporate a bit sat
and then they would write because I was doing a
broadcast late night show.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, and nobody knew who I was, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Was just like I had won some It was like
I want a competition, so they I came in and
they had all these writers who were like you know
all but like cigars and the.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Typewriters, and they got it.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
They would write me jokes like, hey, you guys see
the playoffs and like I didn't even know where the
fucking playoffs where.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
But I would walk out and I do this with
my time and go he did you guys see the playoffs?
And everyone's like, the fucking you're not connecting with this,
And I would make fun of me doing that, and
the meme make in fun of me trying to be
a la became the show. Yes, but I think that
with these show as the thing is with these did.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
You know there was two things I just got to
tell you this because we're finally getting a chance to
hang in real life. There was two things that I
think you did that were so amazing that I think
I didn't realize were brilliant tools that you should always, always,
always keep, no matter what. Number one thing that I
love that you did, which is you subverted all expectation
(19:32):
by acknowledging that nobody knew who the fuck you were
and where you were in at night. You know, it's
twelve thirty five am. You know you acknowledged My wife
didn't even know there was a show after left. She
didn't even know what I'm saying. Yeah, I got the
show out the left.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah, I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
The worst one. But but but actually playing low status
is the thing that is the most countercultural thing you
can do. So when people go, like comedians or rock stars,
I go, no, no, we've lost don't do that, don't
do that, don't do that right now, it's actually one
of the worst things you can do.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It's setting yourself up for me, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
There's a lot of problems. So that so that was
number one, number one, and then number two that I
realized what was so brilliant is just meet the moment
where it is. And so even you doing little things
where you would come up to the camera and like
tap the lens and you're just fucking with the form
to let people know, hey, I'm a person, I'm really here,
(20:26):
I'm in a studio. That joke didn't work, or hey
are you are you home? Like all of that breaking
the form gave you this real liberation which was super
inspiring for me. I think I thank you and I
think it was and I try to remind myself still
to this day that you both you And there's this
other comedian that you should I don't know if you've
met Rory Scovell.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Oh I knew exactly who you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yes he's a brilliant comment, Yes he is, and he
is a reminder of this is a live art form.
You know this, right, Yeah, we're actually just performing live
on stage. So perform live and be be aware of
a Okay, this is a when a table and we're
in this.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
There was such so many troubled people because it actually
and you try. You ever read these surveys and say
the thing people are most frightened off is public speaking.
I'm like, then, I have no idea what that must
be like, because I would sleep on a stage. The
most comfortable I get is getting up on a stage. No,
(21:24):
Evan's all right that? Or you know at home, you know,
under a blanket. These are the two happy pole Those
are two.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
It's at home under a blanket or that, because I
think that you know, you know what the rules are.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
At least I do.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
You know it's like be be funny or or it's over.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Did you when you started out? What a weird survival mechanism?
Though it is a weird thing because we still have
this need to do it. Before we started recording, we
were talking about how the pandemic I realized now being
able to do comedy, I thought it was my only
discernible skill set and ability to make money. That's what
(22:07):
I thought, Okay, I have to do this because I
got fired from every other job that I've had in
my life, so you better be good at this. But
I actually, because of the pandemic and not being able
to perform during the pandemic. I go, I actually need
it for my own sanity, and I think I'm actually
going to do this until I die.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yeah, for better or for worse.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
That's when you're a real comic.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
There was a time I think probably it still exists
a little bit. But there was a time, certainly in
like the eighties and nineties, when people were only comedians
to get a sitcom, you know, a lot of people
there was a huge comedy but like now, in the
nineteen eighties, you had your.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Drew Carry moment right exactly all that. But Drew was
one of those guys.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I mean, Drew's a stand up, but once you goes showed,
that was his thing, you know, is to get the
Drew Carry show.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
He's a good stand up.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
He's actually a really good standard, really fu but he
I don't think he really does it anymore. Like I
can't envisage your life. People still say to me, no,
like you still do stand up. Like it's like going
to Eric Clapton. You you still play the guitar.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That's wrong with you? You can have your own orchestra.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, but I played the guitar. That's what you know.
But it's also like, and I didn't realize this, and
I don't know if it was like this in the nineties,
but showbiz and I think this is old the time.
It's such a fickle, not real thing. And so to me,
I've been now doing it twenty years. It to me,
(23:32):
stand up to me is the cheap code. Everything is
the only thing I feel in control of mineus the
pandemic where it was taken away. Yeah, it was everybody,
but it's the only thing that I go, like, I'm
telling you I can do this.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Let me tell you a true story. When I got
I was doing the Drew Carey Show. So I did
that until early two thousands. Yeah, and when I got
the Late Night Show from doing some kind of thing,
I hadn't done stand up for about ten years.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
I'd been doing independent movies.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
I'd been doing you know things, and you know't.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Have the time to do it, or you didn't want to.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Just kind of moved away from it. Maybe I just didn't.
It's not that I didn't need it.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I didn't think about it.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Oh interesting, And.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Then you know, I was writing movie, I'd writing deal
at Paramount, and I was writing movies and I was
making movies and I was doing I was working in
movies and TV and the when I got the job
in Late Night, I realized that CBS would First of all,
they owned me for everything. I couldn't make a television
(24:34):
appearance or a movie appearance or anything without their permission.
That was part of the contract. And I knew they
they didn't ownny for live performance. And I knew that
if I screwed up, they'd cut my throat and dumped
me in the East River.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Really even thinking about it, it wouldn't be a thing.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, But I knew that if I was going to
have any autonomy, because I figured this show might make
me more famous than I had been, if I was
going to have any autonomy, I would have to go
to stand up that it was the only place where
I would exist as me. And that's when I went
back into it again. I started when I got the
Late Night show, I was, you know, I started doing
you know, the chuckle huts and the yuck yucks and
(25:11):
all that back into it again on the weekends.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
You do yep, yep, holy shit.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, because and I actually had people say to me,
why are you doing this club? You have a TV
show where the Canadians in this club won't to be
on your TV show, Like, yeah, but I I need it.
I need it, you know. And and actually at the
time I really did need it. I needed the money too.
They weren't paying me anything. I was like, you know,
oh shit, you eventually, as you know, but when you
start out, yeah, right, But I wanted to talk to
(25:41):
you about how you came to it, because you correct
me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
But my my, my read of you is that.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
You saw comedy that you liked and that's what pulled you.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yes, it was.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
It wasn't just the kind of survival school ground bully thing.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
It was like it was you saw a community that's
it was it Chris. Chris was the one, and it
was the oh that's allowed, Oh you can do that.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
So what I mean by that is like, at the time,
I was bagging groceries at a grocery store chain called Safeway.
I know the store, Okay, depending on where I got
the Safe Way off Mace Boulevard Parent Companies Vonds. But yeah,
depending on where I go and I'm doing stand up,
I'll I'll change it to Kroger's or or whatever. But
(26:32):
I was as a courtesy clerk at h that safeway,
which was very funny by the way they call it
courtesy clerk. I'm just bagging. I'm bagging liketes clerk. Yeah, sure, sure,
it sounds like a character. I'm in waste receptical management. Oh,
got it all right, so your garbage manage, right, So,
uh so I'm I'm bagging grocery. But anyways, I did that,
(26:53):
and then I was selling printers at Office Max. And
if you've worked in corporate America, if you if you've
had any job in corporate America, there is this decorum
that really is like jail. It really is like prison.
And so it was a holdover of what I had
to do in school and kind of of hi, how
are you. There's you know, the niceties of life, and yeah,
(27:15):
you can't you can't talk back to a superior that's
your manager. You can't say it, you know. So I
remember being in college and this is where kind of
destiny and kiss all these things are meeting at the
same time. High speed Internet and kind of napster LimeWire,
illegal torrents the Internet. Now, other people would download things illegally.
I would never do that because downloading. That's illegal and
(27:37):
that's stealing, right that. Yeah, and that's a criminal offense,
that's right. We do not endorsement, and we don't do that. Yeah,
the kid super Studio never Never, And then on every
DVD when it says the FBI we're watching it, Hey,
they're watching you.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
So don't you dare two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
five years in jail?
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, yeah, just for you know, just for copying mission
to Yeah, yeah, have you seen? Not even like right,
so why it's not worth the it's not worth the fete. Yeah,
it's a great movie. So I'm backing groceries and I'm
I'm in college and I'm a buddy of mine shows
(28:15):
me Chris Rock's Never Scared and it's a great special race.
It's a phenomenal special.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
He's a great comic.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
He's a great comic. But but what he was talking
about were all the things that would get you either
fired or sent to HR politics, war, George W. Bush, sex, relationships.
These are all like just taboo things you cannot say.
And yeah, man, he he just was saying it, and
(28:41):
I I go that that to me is what I
want to do. That I feel all those things. I
say all those things with my friends. I want to
do that. I gotta do that. How do I do that?
And I just started googling. I went on google dot com.
How do you did you start? Did you literally started
just going to open mic? You know at the Sacramento
Punchline that's amazing. Yeah, and just started there.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So like, what's your first open mic? Like I mean,
because I I yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
So so long did you do? You only get to
do three minutes or five minutes? It's crazy, So I
think that long to say good eat? Yeah, I had
three jokes. I think the joke was I was living
at home at the time, and this dates me. It
was a joke about having landlines and like talking to
a girl on the phone, right, And then you know,
I think the jokes was something, why are you breathing
(29:28):
so heavy? And it's like you're a dad, hang up,
that's the Yeah, I'm eighteen years old, right, So it
was like, you know, so it was just a you know,
dad breaths heavy. You know, Okay, Rebecca, you know you
think so. So this is like a stupid, stupid joke,
but I remember it. It kind of connected and once
(29:49):
you get that.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Yeah, that hit.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Do you know it's the weird thing. Do you remember
the first time you died on the stage?
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Yeah? I mean that was probably maybe the second or
third set. Yeah, but the first So did your first
sec so good? The first one went good for me?
I got I got just enough, Yeah, I got just enough.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, little bit of the juice like ill come back.
But you know what I think is weird is that
because I remember the first time.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I died, which was spectacular.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I feel like you're very good at bombing.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Oh I'm fabulous at it. No one can be ship
like me. That's I love that. But I remember how
how I mean it was bad, Like the audience were chanting.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
It was, oh it was.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It was.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
It was a punk rock festival in London and I
was going on between the bands. You ever had that
do some comedy in the band? So I go on
between I don't know the spectation.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
By the way, have you had musician musician friends that
ask to ask you to do fucking Lars from Metallic?
I said to me, Hey, do you want to open
for us? I'm like, you know your fucking mind? Yeah,
this is selfish.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
You should tell me what do you want?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Me to do it. I love you. They have no
desire to see you love you. Yeah, I'm not even there.
Yeah Lawns from Metallica asking you to do that. That's
the destination wedding. That's how dare you beat the self?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Right right, It's not gonna happen anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
So I'm at the between the bands, and I thought
i'd before I was the kid.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
I was a kid about eighteen. Yeah, I'm wearing a
kilt because I thought that.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Would be funny, amazing.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, but I was so frightened that my knees were shaken.
And it was all these cockney punks in the front
row and they're likes, he's a nook and it's a
nooking and they started to try the wh audience shouting it's.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
A knocking hiss, a knocking boot. And I came off stage.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
After like literally got bood off stage, and I remember
it clear as the fucking bell.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
I go backstage and win. I gotta do that again,
Like I don't know what all pathology ex.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Did you fight growing up? Were you a fighter? Did
you ever get into fist fighting? Yes, okay, so I've
been in two or three fights, but I didn't know
I was in the fight, right I got hit by
I go hey, like, so I didn't know I was
in the fight. But I have friends that were fighters,
that would actually fight and tussled with young men, and
they told me that the high of like you hit,
or you when you get hit and then you kind
(32:15):
of I've never felt that, but I have felt the
rush of anything could happen.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
And well that's the truth about fight, whether it's when,
whether it's a war between superpowers or two guys in
the bar.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Once it starts, and anyone.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Who knows violence will tell you this, once it starts,
you don't really know where it's gonna go. Right Yeah,
people like to, you know, say well we know this
is going to be over by Christmas.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I was going to go.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
And I I I am terrified of violence. I hate it.
And I've been involved in a couple of times, you know,
when I was a young man and I and you
never used so I would a gun.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
No, I didn't see it as a second amendic, but you
never used it as a as a deflection. I would
always sometimes be I played basketball a lot growing up,
and I remember I had I had glasses, I got Lasik,
But I remember I was thinking about this. I was like, oh, yeah,
I would also use comedy as a way to get
out of Sure. I don't always work though, that's the problem.
I remember it would work though a couple of times
(33:17):
with me, Like it would be these like guys would
go out for a rebound and use their elbows. I
had these big glasses like, whoa easy on the money maker,
you know, and they kind of they kind of start
laughing self deprecation.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's a that's a good trick
I've seen people use in Hollywood as well.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Is that false beta move?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
You know when you get some studio executive and you go, yeah,
it's kind of like it's an interesting game of chess
with feeling, especially around like obvious, self unaware alphas.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Correct, that's kind of fun to play that game.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, And I didn't realize at the time. It's also
you know, us as comics were very good at dialing
in and assessing what what are we really doing here?
You know, what's actually going on, and so that I
think I didn't realize at the time. These were little
things that I was doing from a young age. Do
(34:19):
you see do you see your kids.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
I mean, because the definitely a moment in my life
that changed kind of everything's been a couple of them,
but having becoming a father is like it's a real
kind of story.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
It's a real kind of like everything changes.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
How old are your kids?
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I have a twenty four year old on a fourteen
year old. So Scottish people we were kind of like,
you know, the big orchids in the jungle. Every ten years,
everything gets pregnant. That's how Scottish people make. That's how
it's done.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
So every ten years, this is who you are.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
You're sitting there. Oh gosh, you're pregnant, like an eclipse
of yeah, exactly, so right, you can tell it's coming
and you can get out of the way. But but yeah,
my so twenty thirty seven you should expect something again.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yeah, I think that's when it's going to run round again.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Well I don't know. If the that and left, I
think now at this point it would just be.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Like nothing.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Maybe the table gets you know, has a period.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Sure, so but having the kids was something that I
think all of my the way that I looked at it,
especially as they got a little little to run a bit.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
When your kids are actually when they.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Start kind of becoming much more themselves. You know, there's
not just this little slug. You have to kind of
wipe and move and wipe, and it's like there's more.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Stuff going on, wiping butts and feed Yeah, my god,
how many.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Shoes have you tied so far this year?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
It's like, my god, my god, these fucking idiots can't
tie the shoes.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
I suppose kids have loafers, but I'm also shocked. It's
also crazy, how win did I get tying the shoes
where I'm like, I'm like, why am I panting tying
a pair of Congress Hall stars?
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Well, I mean that I feel like it's a deep
cut corn verse on a child.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
That's a lot are you talking about on you on
the child? Both?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, Because I was like, this is my my fitness test?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Is this?
Speaker 3 (36:11):
If I don't get out of breath tying my shoes,
I'm good.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, I don't even check my game.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
If I can come out on toils, all right, everything's fine,
it's okay.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah. I mean, look, I think the cool thing about
kids and I think Mulaney was talking about this, but
I love the way he articulated. This was when he
was holding his first he was. He goes, oh, there
you are. I've been looking for you, and I do
get I got that feeling with them of like, oh
I didn't I didn't have to do all these other
(36:42):
things for and love and yes and all that stuff.
Oh there, it's it's it's here.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
If there is an amount of service now involved in
your life that you didn't have before, yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
That's what I feel like. That's something really changes.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
And I think that the idea, you know, I used
to like and like every young man, I was like,
I'm not going to have kids.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Yeah, and then kids. I was like, I can't believe
I waited so long to kids. It seems strange to me.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
But you know, I have a lot of friends that
don't have children, and you know, I like, I respect
everybody's choice. But and but one thing that was really
powerful for me as just as a performer was I
remember holding my daughter and thinking about all the times
(37:35):
I had felt as a child being abandoned even as
an adult. I called so and so, they didn't call back.
I reached out for so and so. They never texted back.
And that pain you sometimes feel of like oh man,
I needed you there and you didn't really you know,
or you were you were in a different place and
that extending of an olive branch and when you don't
get it back and guys, we hide it really well.
(37:57):
But I remember holding her and my son went he
was born and being like, I'll be I can be
the person that texts you back, like I'll be that
for you. Yeahs, And that's kind of beautiful.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Yeah, of like you experienced a law of that when
you were a kid. Did you feel abandoned when you
were little.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
As you know, as immigrants were in transit, so you know,
become my mom's doing a residency, so there was a
lot of stuff that was in your moment New York,
and then she was doing a residency in Stockton, and
then you know, she came to Davis and then so
there was a lot of stuff that was in you know.
The immigrant story is almost like a mini house renovation
(38:35):
of like you're never fully unpacked and.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
You know, is the kitchen done? Is it is kind
of My kids have been through that as well. I mean,
you've had like half a dozen houses in the last
ten years.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, so you're just kind of.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
It becomes kind of a habit Yeah. My wife got
mad at me about it. She's like, we're not moving
a yet. Yeah, because we moved around a lot. And
I think it does. I think because she's not an emigrant,
but she's the child, the grandchild, and so there is
that kind of understanding of it. Yeah, it's it's an
odd thing.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
So that I think maybe that was my joy is
you can count on me, and I don't know. I
can't do the balance sheet. I don't have the Excel
spreadsheet for the rest of the world, but I can
be that for you, and maybe that's enough.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
I think that's I mean, I think it is. You know,
Jim gaffickin right of course, right. So I was talking
to Gen years ago and I thought I was talking
to him about comedic style, and he was talking about he,
you know, Jem works clean like famously so any like
(39:42):
he causes like a normal human when he's off stage,
but he works clean and he makes it, you know,
a family friendly show.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
And I was like, I'm intrigued by that, and.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
He said I did it at first to see if
I could do it, and then it became a stylistic choice.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
I I liked it.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I kind of liked doing it that way and he
and he does it and he I mean, he's fantastic.
Yeah yeah, and I may when I had that conversation
with him, I thought, so I was doing Late Night
at the time, and and late night because you're working
every day. Politics was every day, you know, the politics
is the thing. You know, every day there's gonna be.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Something you can talk about.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
You talk about it.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
But it was just at the time, just as I
was getting out of Late Night, it started to go
on fire.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
I mean it really became polarizing and people really got
upset about Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
It was like war in Iraq, right, warrantar Oh jeez.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
So so as I'm coming out of it, I said,
well in stand up now this is rounder twenty sixteen,
I was like, I'm not going to do any more
politics ever. Ever, I'm never going to talk about it,
and I don't and I still don't. And what's interesting
because I know that you don't try away from that
all you.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Were happy to run right at it totally. It's interesting
to me.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Because I wonder how it feels, do you Because I
used to get hit with this in when I was
doing Lena If, I did an anti Republican joke, I'd
have to find an anti democratic joke to balance it out,
Like standards in practice would say to me, oh, wow,
you have to balance got it, got it, And so
(41:18):
it became a thing. I don't think that happens anymore.
I don't think they would say to you, no, I
have to do that. Do you do you feel like
it's is it something that helps or hinders or just
unavoidable because you're a political animal and you yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
For me, it's almost like what I love about the
form is if you have friends at journal it's the
same thing. Why they encourage long form writing is sometimes
I'll write to myself what is actually happening in my head,
and it helps me figure out what's happening, and I'll
(41:58):
just keep writing until if that, to me is the
point of the bit. It's to actually what the fuck
do I actually believe? And whether the position is contrarian
or not, just what what do you actually think? Or
it's ah, this is another style of joke you can do,
which is, oh, this is the way it is. What
if they did it like this? Right? Can you imagine
(42:19):
if they did it this way? And it's just now
you're painting a picture in a new way. So to me,
that's the whole thing of how can I misdirect and
how can I solve this little puzzles? To me, how
I solve this little puzzle.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
But what I think is quite interesting about it is
that right now is if you do the the if
one reads the room, it's like there's you know, say
I went into a room and it was a bunch
of Glasgow Range of supporters and a bunch of Glasgow
Celtic supporters right be like, I'm.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Probably not going to talk about soccer today, you.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Know, And I feel a little bit like that, But
you don't get excited at the prospect of going. Let
me see how much I can get away with let
me see for sure. But but I.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
I'm kind of like, I'm not sure that my lane is.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
So I'm like, you know what, hey, what about those.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
The wheels on cars or something?
Speaker 1 (43:14):
You know, Like I feel like, not that I've done
many wheel things, but the yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
You got twenty minutes on wheels.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
I wish I did.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
The The idea I think for me is I just
became more personal. I became more anecdotal, I became more
I went that way.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, and I actually liked it.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I found that Oh look, I mean like I have
reserves of uh pain and sadness and and upset. I
feel like I'm the Saudi Arabia of unhappiness, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Like I have so much fucking oh oil reserves. Normal
people don't understand just how much you're having a ram
Coo level of sadness, right exactly. I keep going and
keep going and never run, never run on and look
at gold of sadness, and I think that the I
want wonder if if it do you think it affects
your Yeah, I mean it's bound to affect how you
(44:07):
appear in the world. Does it bother you?
Speaker 1 (44:09):
No?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Man? You know really, what I've come to come to
terms with and the reason why I love putting out
working on a new hour and putting out a special
is almost like Wimbledon or tennis. It's like, let me
just control the parameters of the game. Okay. And I'm
(44:30):
sure you maybe have this with your kids, which is
there's social media and then there's this and the so so.
Now you're playing decentralized warfare so o wit so so
we're in a ditch. We're fighting fucking pre world War
one style, and then now we're also doing drone drone warfare.
It's like, I want to pick the parameters. And so
what I love about the stage is there is a
(44:52):
very to the best of my ability, we've set the stage,
We've set the parameters of what this is. And I
like that, and I hope I can keep it that way.
And I'm sure you had this with film. Film is
a different medium. Yes, you know, you can be a
piece of shit, you can be shittier, you can be
you can be an archetype of a character. Stand up
(45:15):
it's a different thing. They think they're seeing Craig and
they're seeing the workings of Craig. And so I love just.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
You are doing when you're doing a stand up are
you Is that like is who's is that Hassan?
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Or is that is that like?
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Uh, stage Hassan is different from real side.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I think it's a little bit of both. Yeah, I
think it's a little it's a little bit of both. Yeah,
And that's what I love. I mean, the whole form
is joking, not joking. Yeah, I'm joking joking. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Yeah, I think that's true. I mean it's but let
me just say this.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
This, This is the problem is that I think Americans,
and this is why when people talk about they have
a very difficult time understanding paradox. Indians we understand the
world as paradox. You go to India, I mean it's
it's literally the movie everything everywhere, all at once.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
People.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
You go to a street in Deli, someone's being.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
My favorite movie times you've seen are are of course,
that's incredible, ratest, it's incredible movie.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Un fucking believable movie.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't have wrote it up, but.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I just I'm see.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
When I watched that movie, I was like, man, it's
much harder to be a movie star in India than
it is.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
These guys are doing.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Things, acting and being really good and shouting like fuck.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Me, yeah you have to do it, you have to
be everything. You a superhero. Yeah. It's it's un unbelievable,
unbelievable what these guys are doing. Yeah. And so what's
interesting though, is that even like life in India, it is,
it is, it has so many multitudes and there's so
much chaos. Yeah, you understand that there are things that
are paradoxical. America is very much about well, we have
(46:51):
to solve a parent and so you can't solve a paradox.
You have to you have to just embrace it. Do
you do you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
I do, And I feel that what's quite interesting about
it as well is that and you make an interesting
observation about Americans as an American, Yes, And I do
that too.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
I'll sometimes say about Americans like, well, I'm a fucking American.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Donald Trump is an American, and that's imagine an American. Yeah,
And like I feel like here it's much harder too
to figure out who you're going to upset, or it
used to be. I think now I think the truth
is you're pretty much going to upset everybody at some point.
(47:31):
The trick is to not do them all at the
same time.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
You know, it's like I don't you don't set off
all the landlin Like, It's like it is kind of
an interesting thing because when I when I made a
decision not to do politics, it was.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
My friends who were on the left assumed that I
had moved to the right. Oh interesting, And my friends
who are on the right assumed I was on the
right and just wasn't talking and it was really interesting.
It was like, but I'm not talking about it, but
they make a decision about it.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
But is it also like the older I get too,
which is I'm not here to also just talk about
the day to day cartoon characters that take up the headlines, right,
and you know this with the Late Night Show every
day those characters change. Take out Dick Cheney, put in
Stephen Miller. Yea, these are just characters.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
I have to say that one of the greatest days
in the history on the joke, right, and Dick Cheney's
lawyer get showed in the face. Nobody died, everybody's happy.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
It's a great joke. Dad, Oh my god. It's like
you hardly had to go to work that day. And
duck hunting is very funny. Dug dug hunting. It's like
everything you got.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Cheney in a hat.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Everything would be you know, it should be that way
every day, yes, but it's not.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Of course, then that would be like you know, Christmas
every days.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
But almost like any clips, like when a couple a
couple days ago when Elon and Trump were Oh it
was great, the girls were fighting. What a fun day that,
you know what, it was interesting.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
I remember when that when they go together, I was like,
this has all the success of Brangelina written, but I
feel like.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
That was right and something h And then in that case,
you just kind of sit back and.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Let let it app let it ste yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
And then then let let it kind of let the
rice cooker explode and that's fun to but yeah, but
the older I've gotten is also I recognize the there's
a demand from the audience to go help help me
put this in perspective. I'm sure they were asking.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
That comes to me from perspective, But no, I think that.
I think I'm just like, you know, a sad clown
in the corner.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Right, well, what is Greig? But nobody nobo think people
like you look for your wisdom and you're you're you're wit.
But the older I've gotten I've also realized is like
there is there's such rich stuff to mine from just
life itself.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
Yeah, for sure, and that and those subjects can be
and the aging process a very odd way, yes, very
strange for everybody.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
It is.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
It's different for everybody and all that, but it's the
same for everybody. It's kind of perfect for that.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Yeah. And then and then you can kind of slide
and vacillate into other random stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's fun.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
One of the things I thought, but the comedy, but
the politics thing was that if I do politics, people
are going to stop hearing me. You know, I'm going
to stop getting jokes to people because they're only going
to hear the one that made them angry. And then
they stopped less sure and that, and then it took
me back to that what Peter la Sally said to
me in Late Night, which was, this is the joke
worth it?
Speaker 2 (50:32):
You know? Yeah? Is it? You know?
Speaker 1 (50:34):
And sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. And that's
that's really what I think. Talk to me about your podcast,
what you're doing in your podcast?
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Oh man? So the podcast is, uh, it's called Hassemanaj
doesn't know. But when when my Netflix show stopped, all
these people that I would end up interviewing would still
call right, I want to do Hey, I want you
to interview Mammy. I want you to so I get
(51:05):
like governors or you know, members of Senate being let's
talk can you know, can we do a can we
talk about this?
Speaker 1 (51:14):
So?
Speaker 2 (51:15):
I thought this is very unique where it's it's very
strange to be d m'd by like the Secretary of
the Treasury, who you are? Yeah, yeah, Tomedian to be like,
I'm on their social team.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Do you want?
Speaker 2 (51:28):
So I was like, what what do I do with this?
Can you get on the phone let's chat? And so
I said, all right, let me let me just have
the conversation where I can basically be I'm basically a
stand in for the public.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
I just get to ask me the questions.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Yeah, this is this is how I think I feel
about this. I clearly don't know everything there is to
know about the subject, but look, let me just be
a stand in for the public and just kind of
ask you how we feel.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
It's an interesting thing. I I whenever it's very rare
for me. You've done a lot more or less than
I have. But I whenever I've interviewed politicians, I find
myself a little frustrated. Yeah. Sure, I feel like because
a part of their media training, Yeah, which is right
there they kind of bristles with me.
Speaker 3 (52:09):
But the media training is they're always told to stay
on message.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Sure, yeah, like I don't.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
I don't want your fucking message. I want you.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
Yeah, and so that's a great talking point. Yeah, can
you answer the question though, Yeah, I love that, and
and you sound like a human capture. But can you
tell me why? You know why this makes no sense? Yeah,
you know, And it's it's it's those little moments of
just like popping the bubble, which is, hey, I know
that you do a million zoom calls where you can
kind of have these haikus of nothing right, but I
(52:38):
literally don't know what you said. Yeah, you spoke for
that three minutes. None of it made sense. And it's funny.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
I think it's great that you've got the you're you
can do that, because what is I start kind of going.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Yeah, yeah, I forget where I am, and then I
just fucking fight.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
I always tried to cut to a commercial break, but
of course there isn't one because it's podcasting, right, But
it's uh, but I've never had a politician on here.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
I don't think I would. I don't think I.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Don't need to. Yeah, do what you want, man, Yeah,
that's I think that's what you want. I think that's
it right. And I think that the thing is as well,
is like you know, where are you? Where are you at?
What do you want to do? Yeah? You can literally
do anything. We're in kids superstent. Yeah, I literally that
you want.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
I like comb the lanes vibe. I like kids super
I like it out here. Do you know a guy
called Peter Gouber.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
No, Peter Gouber is like he's a big guy in
Holly was a big successful producer and the other things.
He's very successful guy. You win some giant hockey team
and he's super. He's like a billionaire and all that.
And but goober, I can run into him. And when
I was in Hollywood and we used to have lunch
every now and again. And when I was leaving late night,
I was like, I don't know what to fucking do now.
(53:51):
And so I had lunch with Peter and and and
he said, he's a older guy, and he said, what
you have to do is you have to be be
around young people who have energy and are doing things.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
I said, okay, isn't that a little weird.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
He was like no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
I said, have them around you and listen to what
they're saying. Don't do any of it, but listen to it,
and you will feel enthused by.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
That. And he's kind of right.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
And I feel like this place and I like being
around the energy of that, you know, and people who
are trying new stuff.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
So what do I want to do? I don't know,
that's all I don't know. Yeah, this, I like this.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
I like this.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
I like talking to you. I like talking to people
that I'm interested in talking to.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
If I can find a politician that I'm interested in
talking to, I'll talk to them.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
They probably don't need to, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
It's fucking hard for me to find one that he
can be on the talking point. Yeah, very difficult. It's
really interesting for me.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
The joy that I get out of it is again,
it's the same feeling I got I get from stand up.
Let me just say what i've what I feel when
I when I read about you in the New York Times. Yeah,
let me just say it. Yeah. So we had this
general on General McChrystal, who was like a big general
during the war and Irack in Afghanistan. Okay, right, So
one of my favorite moments from the interview is I go,
mister general, do you are you familiar with the Onion?
(55:12):
Just a great sentence. Is a great sentence, like one
of the head of the US Army. You from the
Onion dot com. The onion dot com satirical.
Speaker 3 (55:19):
Yeah, yes, I go.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
I showed him an Onion headline article, and it says
US Army continues to defeat al Qaeda by killing every
single number two in charge. Fucking great headline. General McCrystal goes.
The sad part is we only killed number three.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
And it's just you know what, it's just fucking incredible. Yeah,
I mean it's just to me. I mean I was like,
set up punchline. Yep, it's pretty great. It's pretty great.
It's pretty great. It writes itself. So twenty years of
a meaningless war to get the Yeah, yeah, he didn't
know that. He didn't he didn't get it. He didn't
(56:04):
get the joe, he didn't get the joke. But to me,
it's just a hey, if that's all I do. I
said my piece, I said how I really feel about it,
how many people feel about it? Cool? And and by
the way, that's okay, Like I'm I am at peace
with that. I'm very happy with that. I think you
should be. I'm happy you were here.
Speaker 3 (56:24):
Thanks for coming, Thanks for having me, all right. Thanks
This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come
and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually
it's about an hour and a half and I don't
have an opener because these guys cost money. But what
I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway,
come and see me live on the Pants on Fire
Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and
we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty
(00:23):
twenty five and beyond. For a full list of dates,
go to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com. See you
on the road, my DearS. My name is Craig Ferguson.
The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to
interest in people about what brings them happiness. Welcome to
(00:46):
the Kids Super Studios here in Brooklyn, New York. I
am here in the tent, and I am Craig Ferguson,
and I am the host today of the Joy Podcast.
Every time there's the Joy Podcast, I'm the host, but
I'm the host today, so that counts. My guest today
has not taking ship from every politician he's interviewed.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Whah, I think is quite predigree.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
He's a great comic and a great interviewer, and he's
here and his name is Hassan Minaj John. We were
talking about how at a certain point in the day, Yeah,
I have to move to decaf because I can't get
(01:27):
up all night. P This is all in front of you. Man,
I'm from the future, and where are we going?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
What's happening?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well in the future, when you're my age, you'll have
to go up and pee like two or three times
a night, even if you don't have three, well maybe
not three.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What are you a doctor? Your my mother is my mother.
That's right, that's a position.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Now here's the thing I was going to say, because
we were talking about this beforehand.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
What's up?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So your parents were immigrants, yes, right, and I'm an immigrant,
and so my kids are in the same position you are,
was they?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
They?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
They kind of get a little frustrated with.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
My kind of gung ho America stuff because I don't
know if your parents are the same.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
But I'm like, you know, if someone converts to.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Catholicism, they feel like they should be a little more Catholic, yes,
than people who are just like growing up Catholic.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, I'm kind of.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I'm kind of like that.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I think a lot of immigrants are like that.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, there's a with the first generation there very we're here,
we're here, we met it here.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, yeah, and now it's going to be fine. Yeah.
Look at this spreading central station. Yeah, crushed up, crushed Yeah,
and the kids.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Are like, you know, there's a guy pissing right here.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, those guys pressing everywhere. But yeah, it's kind of
It's an interesting thing because I wonder if if I
you know, if I'm you know, putting into my kids,
says that in order for them to rebel against me,
they have to rebel against every because of course it's
their duty, is the next generation to rebel against whatever
(02:57):
morals and values and mores than I am? Yeah, do
you find that? Do you think you did that with
your own parents?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Are we're starting this hot? Well? Why not?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I mean, we could do that, or we could look
at the idea because the culture that your parents come
from is Indians.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yes, so it might be you rebel against that or yeah, okay,
so I think, uh, really, what what if I'm going
to zoom out philosophically, what what actually happened was very
good yeah, let's zoom it out.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah philosophically as well. Very yeah, very very happy.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
But yeah, let's put let's pull out on the A
philosopher is my favorite thing. Let's not do this, Okay,
all right, go ahead, zoom and philosoph all right. I
think the big split was, Uh, they came here. My
dad got here in nineteen eighty two. I think he
had a vision and certainly America was a particular way,
and by the time I came of age to live
(03:51):
in that America, yeah, it changed.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
So I think when he came they were running ms
DOS as the operating system, and now it's fucking JavaScript
and Python and yeah, it's all sorts of it just changed, right,
And So what I what I really was rebelling against
to some capacity, was I think they had a very
(04:15):
fixed understanding of what this country is and can be
and what it can provide.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I think that's a generational thing for everything.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, I mean that happens. I mean I I and.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I don't blame them for this, like like who am
I to Yeah, I mean it will happen to you too.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You have kids, absolutely, you know, but your kids are young,
you know, and as they grew.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Up, but I got seven. I have a seven year old,
I have a five year old. I can only I
can already feel it.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, yeah, it does happen.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So so I don't know if you have this with
the restaurant QR code. You sit down at a restaurant, right,
and you go, he can I get can I get
a menu?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Please?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
We'll just scan the QR code. Yeah, and I'll just
start Yeah, welcome to my fucking world. Yeah, it's like
I get so I get angry, like what what what? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Would you like a receipt?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah? I would, Yes, I would you like my address?
Or when they got down a tree and give me
a piece of pie that I had that I'm about
to purchase something or I did purchase.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I still get angry at the Starbucks people when they
asked me for a name.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I'm like, I want a coffee. We're not friends, you know,
And it's like, do we have a name for the coffee?
The coffee is the name for the coffee.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And I feel like I'm slowly losing.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
My grip on the on the world.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You're losing the plot a little bit, a little bit.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I still like Vinyl, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, Well, well, my thing is is that I didn't
opt in, mister Thai restaurant. I didn't opt in for
the q R, right. I came to have lunch with you, right,
not to have you and me be on our phone,
right and the.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Data grab that they're taking all of your stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
And see yeah, and they go, just pay, just pay
on your phone, please don't make me do this.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Well that I think that's great though, because that you're
embracing the crankiness pretty young, pretty young, But that's good.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, well into it, make it part of your life.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
But of course that kind kind of dissatisfaction and borderline missionry,
I think is.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
That's what makes a comedian though, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yes, we are very good at complaining. Yeah, it really is.
We're just complainers, is what we are. Humorous complains, humorous complainers.
So when people say we're philosophers, like we're not actually
providing any solutions, really we're actually just very good cranks.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Well, you know, here's the thing, though, I would dispute
with you the philosophers of any stripe of provided any
solutions anyway.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I mean, I mean that's true.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Maybe they just maybe just they clarified, yea they clarified,
you know, even then I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I mean, like this is me being contrarian, because yeah,
but the idea of you know, like Socrates saying, now, look,
I'm any philosophy I know is forgive me is Western philosophy.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
You may know more about you.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So, but Socrates certainly like knowing the right questions to ask.
I'm like, well, I don't know if that's enough, is it?
But Barnley it was. And then here's the thing I
was thinking about Socrates recently in cancel culture. Okay, so
I have this theory like you know, when Athens was
popping off five hundred BC BCE, the all these philosophers
(07:12):
were there. I feel like it was like gigs. I
think it was like the comedy seller. Oh, people, are
you going to see Socrates? You know, he's got, he's got,
he's working on fifteen right, he's doing a fifteen minutes,
you know, the Athenone or something.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
But I feel like it was probably like that. It
was like entertaining for people, and doing the Parthenon was
a theater gig. But the Beacon, it's it's the beacon,
or maybe it's the gardens. The garden rhy and but
there's the seller where you work out your little bit
of philosophy before you go in.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, and I feel like that happened a lot throughout
the years of human history.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
I think that, like, here's here's my I pitched. This
is an idea to you.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Even like my background is in Christianity, uses in Islam.
But when we were getting taught about Jesus and they
would say things Jesus had said, I'd be like, really,
it's not really that great, I think to say. But
my guess is a delivery was great. And then so
I'm guessing saying when Jesus said an ancient Aramaic or
whatever language is, spad, you know, getting through the eye
(08:17):
of the rich man getting into heaven is like getting
through a camel, getting through the eye of a needle.
I bet delivered correctly in the right language. That's probably
a great joke.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, yeah, he's definitely probably amazing. My technique great at
an act out right, I'm precuting projecting for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
No microphones, Yeah, like five thousand people, no microphones.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Let's see that.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, mister Daily Show, let's see that right, right, right?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Right? Do you have?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Do you have?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Is your background very secular or were you brought up
quite I was brought up quite religious, really, Oh yeah, yeah,
so because I know next to nothing about Islam really
really honestly.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, for me though, you know, honestly, I felt from
a young age my bluetooth was on. Really yeah, I
kind of I did feel there's got to be something
more than what what I'm seeing here. Sure and surely
what's happening right here, this doesn't make a lot of
sense for me either, right, so, in a weird way,
the unseen made more sense to me than what I
(09:18):
was seeing. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, of course, I know it sounds a little weird. No,
it doesn't not to me, which should worry you more.
But but yeah, but I think that that that makes
sense to me. I think the idea of seeking some
kind of I mean, it.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Started for me young as well. There's got to be
more to it than this.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, For honestly, I think for me, when I was
a really little kid, I think America represented that I wonder,
you know, that it was a place where you know,
there was more going on, just possibility, possibility and the
fact that they would you gotta remember, like I grew
up in Scotland in the nineteen sixties, right while America
was going to the Moon. I mean, oh interesting, right,
(09:56):
we weren't getting a lot of information about the civil
rights marches and stuff, but we got a lot of
TV about going at the Moon.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So so for you. Did you at that at a
young age? You felt I gotta I gotta go there?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Oh yeah, for sure, Yeah, I know it was the thing.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I just just all the cool, every stuff, everything was
American and and the like.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I am totally a.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Product of American cultural imperially, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I am.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
I am Coca Cola branded ford More's victim of advertising.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I'm happy to be it.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
But that's definitely well I am in.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And it's when you know, when I project this onto
my children, they're less It's not I'm not saying they're
anti American right like that, but they're they're just they're
less enamored by the things I'm.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
In, the shiny stuff that is really Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, I was taken in by a law and I
still am. I still am taking them by I like it.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
You know, is it weird if you when you're do
your kids ever go we should look a look at
euro up. Look how beautiful and you go that fucking
old place.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, because Americans.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Have the opposite they I love the instrument. I call
them the Instagram countries. Yeah, Paris is an Instagram country.
Scotland yeah, yeah, So those countries to me, they're just
they're they're like whisper Castle Instagram country. Right, you know,
lady Margaret, No, lady Margaret, you must like they're just
old period pieces and you go there with your you know,
your boyfriend or girlfriend and take an Instagram photo.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
It's always it's almost like my wife says, that's about
rednecks in America as well. It's like poshe people in
Britain have the same names as American red necks.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I mean you say, you know been adequ Cumba Batch,
that's lord. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
And then you see that same name in America Bennydick,
combo bag.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
You know, it's like hey Bendick. Yeah, it's like the
same people.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, the hyphenated name thing Breton very posh in America, right,
do it Trampling, you know, it's it's kind of that's
a great bit, and you know, I think I might
work it up all right, working out. Hello, this is
Greig Ferguson and I want to let you know I
have a brand new stand up comedy special out now
(12:03):
on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy, and I would
be so happy if you checked it out. To watch
the special, just go to my YouTube channel at the
Craig Ferguson Show and is this right there?
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Just click it and play it and it's free.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I can't look.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I'm not going to come around your house and show
you how to do it. If you can't do it,
then you can't have it. But if you can figure
it out, it's yours.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Now.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You and I are part of a fairly exclusive club. Okay,
talk to me, White House Correspondence. Oh that's you.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Did it when twenty seventeen, this first year. Yeah, well
he wasn't there though. He wasn't there, of course he
didn't show up. Yeah, yeah he was actually, yeah, he
went to the year Seth Myers did it. He attended
as a guest, right, but he didn't. He wasn't just
there as a year I did it, but its two
thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
He was a guest. He think he was there, I'm
not sure, but okay, but he wasn't I didn't reference
in him in the act.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Famously bad room, right or did you feel like wash? Yeah? Yeah?
Did the sound system work for you? No, it's just
a shitty as you would imagine. It's I mean, I
feel like they could get it bare. I mean, you
are at a Hilton in Washington, d C. And it
feels like it right, totally. The sound system was awful.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I don't know if you know this about me, but
I have an accent apparently, which you know that was.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
A little tricky too.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I mean it went okay, yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I felt like it was I felt like it was
like a dream.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah, you know, it did feel like a dream because
you're seeing famous people out there, but in weird kind
of yeah, because what you're seeing is you're You're like,
there's there's Wolf Blitzer, right, and there's a man named
Wolf Blitzer, right, which is a very funny thing. That's right, Wolf.
There's a man named Wolfe Not everyone doesn't have a
problem with it. And and he kind of does look
like a wolf a little bit, a little bit. Yeah,
and he's raw me. Yeah, he does. He does it
(13:56):
really maybe or maybe it does Yeah, who knows. We
can't confirm tonight, but they'll be like Wolf Blitzer and
then they'll be like the cast of Grey's Anatomy. So
it's like, you know what I mean, it's this weird,
you know. Or it'll be like this person played president
on TV and then and then there's a real press
the actual chief of staff for the president is here.
It's this it's a very strange.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Who were the big politicians there when when you were there.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Well, he famously did not want anyone from the administration
to be there, so then there were just other members
of Congress. So it became it became this whole like
kind of flashpoint who will show up, who will not
show up?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Right, So it became a politicized, politicized thing.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Right. But to me, I thought that, I mean, that's
just great comedy fodder, it kind of because the conflict,
because it's all just tension. Yeah, you know, And I
think I don't know if you chatted with Colbert or
Seth Meyers, like a couple of the people who had
done it before. I had talked to yeah, and they
told me the room fucking sucks.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
It does fucking suck. I didn't talk to Stephen or
Seth about it. Yeah, I talked to Drew Carey and
Jay Leno about it.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
But you know, that's a generational things, like these guys
said on it.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Before, they've done it before. Yeah yeah yeah, and it
is bad but so so. But but but actually, and
you know this once you once you know, because it's
all about expectation. Once you know. All right, so what
is the gig? So they go look at the casino gig? Yeah, okay,
I know what this is. Yeah. So when they all
told me, look, it's it's you are doing a hotel
(15:20):
ballroom gig. You've done a wedding year, you've done a
set at a barmit's fa you know what this is
you do And so that was the first note that
leveled my expectation. Then the second thing that Stephen told me,
which was you're going to bomb in the room but
played a camera one you're playing to everyone now, And
that was my whole unlock. Did you bow in the room?
(15:41):
I don't think you bombed. I think I think I did, Okay,
but when I worked it out at the cellar, it
certainly wasn't that right.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
But the sailor is like maybe the greatest yeah right.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
But but I'm working out of the cellar. But I'm
also doing these like very deep cut references. You know,
I'm so and so from s NBC is here. And
at the ten o'clock crow, I was like, what the
fuck are you? Dog? Are you really making a joke
about you know, the ten pm anchor on c you know,
but yeah, I'm making a Don Lemon joke right now,
you know. And so anyways, once I kind of leveled
(16:12):
that I just knew and you know this from from
Late Night, just played a camera one, kind of played
the room a little bit and it's for everybody at home. Yeah,
and then just kind of stand in it.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Who who did you run into? Who produced your your your?
I'm going to say Late Night? So because that's kind
of I feel like it is like it because for me,
getting the right producer for these things is like, if
you get it wrong, you're you're never gonna do Yes,
it's never gonna work.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I'm lucky, man. I I found early on, when I
was doing open mics and stuff, I found a really
great comedian friend of mine named Pashan Banker Ramana John.
He became kind of a co writer, co producer. We
were do shit together and at the time, I didn't
know that would be kind of like my future collaborator.
(17:03):
But we really were like two musicians working together. That's great,
and it was so he knew my voice. He also
knew how to kind of control me editorially. He knew,
you know, he's going off the rails a little bit,
but let him and then all right, we'll get to
the idea here. He also helped me clarify a lot. Okay,
(17:23):
what are you trying to say here? Right?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
I had great producers, by the guy Pierre Le Sally,
who was my guy. And Pierre used to say to me,
especially about jokes. He'd say, is it worth it?
Speaker 3 (17:35):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Interesting?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And I would you know, some days, some days it
was worth it.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
You know, some days it.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Was worth you know, it was going to be trouble,
but the joke was worth it. And some days you go,
you know, this joke, it's okay.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Is it true? You just use bullet points for your
monolog Is it true?
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
That's incredible. It got that way. I mean what happened
was it was a process. Well you know, this is
like you turn them and there's everybody from the corporate
sure is there, and they want it to be a
certain way, and you have long conversations about the set,
like anyone gives a fuck.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Although this is the nicest set, I think, I know
this is this is amazing, but this is the exception.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
This is not the rule.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, this is true. And actually, and no one ever
talked to me about this. Say, I just turned up
and I was like, this is this is great?
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You have these long conversations with corporate a bit sat
and then they would write because I was doing a
broadcast late night show.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, and nobody knew who I was, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Was just like I had won some It was like
I want a competition, so they I came in and
they had all these writers who were like you know
all but like cigars and the.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Typewriters, and they got it.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
They would write me jokes like, hey, you guys see
the playoffs and like I didn't even know where the
fucking playoffs where.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
But I would walk out and I do this with
my time and go he did you guys see the playoffs?
And everyone's like, the fucking you're not connecting with this,
And I would make fun of me doing that, and
the meme make in fun of me trying to be
a la became the show. Yes, but I think that
with these show as the thing is with these did.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
You know there was two things I just got to
tell you this because we're finally getting a chance to
hang in real life. There was two things that I
think you did that were so amazing that I think
I didn't realize were brilliant tools that you should always, always,
always keep, no matter what. Number one thing that I
love that you did, which is you subverted all expectation
(19:32):
by acknowledging that nobody knew who the fuck you were
and where you were in at night. You know, it's
twelve thirty five am. You know you acknowledged My wife
didn't even know there was a show after left. She
didn't even know what I'm saying. Yeah, I got the
show out the left.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah, I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
The worst one. But but but actually playing low status
is the thing that is the most countercultural thing you
can do. So when people go, like comedians or rock stars,
I go, no, no, we've lost don't do that, don't
do that, don't do that right now, it's actually one
of the worst things you can do.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It's setting yourself up for me, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
There's a lot of problems. So that so that was
number one, number one, and then number two that I
realized what was so brilliant is just meet the moment
where it is. And so even you doing little things
where you would come up to the camera and like
tap the lens and you're just fucking with the form
to let people know, hey, I'm a person, I'm really here,
(20:26):
I'm in a studio. That joke didn't work, or hey
are you are you home? Like all of that breaking
the form gave you this real liberation which was super
inspiring for me. I think I thank you and I
think it was and I try to remind myself still
to this day that you both you And there's this
other comedian that you should I don't know if you've
met Rory Scovell.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Oh I knew exactly who you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yes he's a brilliant comment, Yes he is, and he
is a reminder of this is a live art form.
You know this, right, Yeah, we're actually just performing live
on stage. So perform live and be be aware of
a Okay, this is a when a table and we're
in this.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
There was such so many troubled people because it actually
and you try. You ever read these surveys and say
the thing people are most frightened off is public speaking.
I'm like, then, I have no idea what that must
be like, because I would sleep on a stage. The
most comfortable I get is getting up on a stage. No,
(21:24):
Evan's all right that? Or you know at home, you know,
under a blanket. These are the two happy pole Those
are two.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
It's at home under a blanket or that, because I
think that you know, you know what the rules are.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
At least I do.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
You know it's like be be funny or or it's over.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Did you when you started out? What a weird survival mechanism?
Though it is a weird thing because we still have
this need to do it. Before we started recording, we
were talking about how the pandemic I realized now being
able to do comedy, I thought it was my only
discernible skill set and ability to make money. That's what
(22:07):
I thought, Okay, I have to do this because I
got fired from every other job that I've had in
my life, so you better be good at this. But
I actually, because of the pandemic and not being able
to perform during the pandemic. I go, I actually need
it for my own sanity, and I think I'm actually
going to do this until I die.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yeah, for better or for worse.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
That's when you're a real comic.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
There was a time I think probably it still exists
a little bit. But there was a time, certainly in
like the eighties and nineties, when people were only comedians
to get a sitcom, you know, a lot of people
there was a huge comedy but like now, in the
nineteen eighties, you had your.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Drew Carry moment right exactly all that. But Drew was
one of those guys.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I mean, Drew's a stand up, but once you goes showed,
that was his thing, you know, is to get the
Drew Carry show.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
He's a good stand up.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
He's actually a really good standard, really fu but he
I don't think he really does it anymore. Like I
can't envisage your life. People still say to me, no,
like you still do stand up. Like it's like going
to Eric Clapton. You you still play the guitar.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That's wrong with you? You can have your own orchestra.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, but I played the guitar. That's what you know.
But it's also like, and I didn't realize this, and
I don't know if it was like this in the nineties,
but showbiz and I think this is old the time.
It's such a fickle, not real thing. And so to me,
I've been now doing it twenty years. It to me,
(23:32):
stand up to me is the cheap code. Everything is
the only thing I feel in control of mineus the
pandemic where it was taken away. Yeah, it was everybody,
but it's the only thing that I go, like, I'm
telling you I can do this.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Let me tell you a true story. When I got
I was doing the Drew Carey Show. So I did
that until early two thousands. Yeah, and when I got
the Late Night Show from doing some kind of thing,
I hadn't done stand up for about ten years.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
I'd been doing independent movies.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
I'd been doing you know things, and you know't.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Have the time to do it, or you didn't want to.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Just kind of moved away from it. Maybe I just didn't.
It's not that I didn't need it.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I didn't think about it.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Oh interesting, And.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Then you know, I was writing movie, I'd writing deal
at Paramount, and I was writing movies and I was
making movies and I was doing I was working in
movies and TV and the when I got the job
in Late Night, I realized that CBS would First of all,
they owned me for everything. I couldn't make a television
(24:34):
appearance or a movie appearance or anything without their permission.
That was part of the contract. And I knew they
they didn't ownny for live performance. And I knew that
if I screwed up, they'd cut my throat and dumped
me in the East River.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Really even thinking about it, it wouldn't be a thing.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, But I knew that if I was going to
have any autonomy, because I figured this show might make
me more famous than I had been, if I was
going to have any autonomy, I would have to go
to stand up that it was the only place where
I would exist as me. And that's when I went
back into it again. I started when I got the
Late Night show, I was, you know, I started doing
you know, the chuckle huts and the yuck yucks and
(25:11):
all that back into it again on the weekends.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
You do yep, yep, holy shit.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, because and I actually had people say to me,
why are you doing this club? You have a TV
show where the Canadians in this club won't to be
on your TV show, Like, yeah, but I I need it.
I need it, you know. And and actually at the
time I really did need it. I needed the money too.
They weren't paying me anything. I was like, you know,
oh shit, you eventually, as you know, but when you
start out, yeah, right, But I wanted to talk to
(25:41):
you about how you came to it, because you correct
me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
But my my, my read of you is that.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
You saw comedy that you liked and that's what pulled you.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yes, it was.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
It wasn't just the kind of survival school ground bully thing.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
It was like it was you saw a community that's
it was it Chris. Chris was the one, and it
was the oh that's allowed, Oh you can do that.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
So what I mean by that is like, at the time,
I was bagging groceries at a grocery store chain called Safeway.
I know the store, Okay, depending on where I got
the Safe Way off Mace Boulevard Parent Companies Vonds. But yeah,
depending on where I go and I'm doing stand up,
I'll I'll change it to Kroger's or or whatever. But
(26:32):
I was as a courtesy clerk at h that safeway,
which was very funny by the way they call it
courtesy clerk. I'm just bagging. I'm bagging liketes clerk. Yeah, sure, sure,
it sounds like a character. I'm in waste receptical management. Oh,
got it all right, so your garbage manage, right, So,
uh so I'm I'm bagging grocery. But anyways, I did that,
(26:53):
and then I was selling printers at Office Max. And
if you've worked in corporate America, if you if you've
had any job in corporate America, there is this decorum
that really is like jail. It really is like prison.
And so it was a holdover of what I had
to do in school and kind of of hi, how
are you. There's you know, the niceties of life, and yeah,
(27:15):
you can't you can't talk back to a superior that's
your manager. You can't say it, you know. So I
remember being in college and this is where kind of
destiny and kiss all these things are meeting at the
same time. High speed Internet and kind of napster LimeWire,
illegal torrents the Internet. Now, other people would download things illegally.
I would never do that because downloading. That's illegal and
(27:37):
that's stealing, right that. Yeah, and that's a criminal offense,
that's right. We do not endorsement, and we don't do that. Yeah,
the kid super Studio never Never, And then on every
DVD when it says the FBI we're watching it, Hey,
they're watching you.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
So don't you dare two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
five years in jail?
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, yeah, just for you know, just for copying mission
to Yeah, yeah, have you seen? Not even like right,
so why it's not worth the it's not worth the fete. Yeah,
it's a great movie. So I'm backing groceries and I'm
I'm in college and I'm a buddy of mine shows
(28:15):
me Chris Rock's Never Scared and it's a great special race.
It's a phenomenal special.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
He's a great comic.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
He's a great comic. But but what he was talking
about were all the things that would get you either
fired or sent to HR politics, war, George W. Bush, sex, relationships.
These are all like just taboo things you cannot say.
And yeah, man, he he just was saying it, and
(28:41):
I I go that that to me is what I
want to do. That I feel all those things. I
say all those things with my friends. I want to
do that. I gotta do that. How do I do that?
And I just started googling. I went on google dot com.
How do you did you start? Did you literally started
just going to open mic? You know at the Sacramento
Punchline that's amazing. Yeah, and just started there.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So like, what's your first open mic? Like I mean,
because I I yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
So so long did you do? You only get to
do three minutes or five minutes? It's crazy, So I
think that long to say good eat? Yeah, I had
three jokes. I think the joke was I was living
at home at the time, and this dates me. It
was a joke about having landlines and like talking to
a girl on the phone, right, And then you know,
I think the jokes was something, why are you breathing
(29:28):
so heavy? And it's like you're a dad, hang up,
that's the Yeah, I'm eighteen years old, right, So it
was like, you know, so it was just a you know,
dad breaths heavy. You know, Okay, Rebecca, you know you
think so. So this is like a stupid, stupid joke,
but I remember it. It kind of connected and once
(29:49):
you get that.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Yeah, that hit.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Do you know it's the weird thing. Do you remember
the first time you died on the stage?
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Yeah? I mean that was probably maybe the second or
third set. Yeah, but the first So did your first
sec so good? The first one went good for me?
I got I got just enough, Yeah, I got just enough.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, little bit of the juice like ill come back.
But you know what I think is weird is that
because I remember the first time.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I died, which was spectacular.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I feel like you're very good at bombing.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Oh I'm fabulous at it. No one can be ship
like me. That's I love that. But I remember how
how I mean it was bad, Like the audience were chanting.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
It was, oh it was.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It was.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
It was a punk rock festival in London and I
was going on between the bands. You ever had that
do some comedy in the band? So I go on
between I don't know the spectation.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
By the way, have you had musician musician friends that
ask to ask you to do fucking Lars from Metallic?
I said to me, Hey, do you want to open
for us? I'm like, you know your fucking mind? Yeah,
this is selfish.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
You should tell me what do you want?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Me to do it. I love you. They have no
desire to see you love you. Yeah, I'm not even there.
Yeah Lawns from Metallica asking you to do that. That's
the destination wedding. That's how dare you beat the self?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Right right, It's not gonna happen anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
So I'm at the between the bands, and I thought
i'd before I was the kid.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
I was a kid about eighteen. Yeah, I'm wearing a
kilt because I thought that.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Would be funny, amazing.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, but I was so frightened that my knees were shaken.
And it was all these cockney punks in the front
row and they're likes, he's a nook and it's a
nooking and they started to try the wh audience shouting it's.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
A knocking hiss, a knocking boot. And I came off stage.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
After like literally got bood off stage, and I remember
it clear as the fucking bell.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
I go backstage and win. I gotta do that again,
Like I don't know what all pathology ex.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Did you fight growing up? Were you a fighter? Did
you ever get into fist fighting? Yes, okay, so I've
been in two or three fights, but I didn't know
I was in the fight, right I got hit by
I go hey, like, so I didn't know I was
in the fight. But I have friends that were fighters,
that would actually fight and tussled with young men, and
they told me that the high of like you hit,
or you when you get hit and then you kind
(32:15):
of I've never felt that, but I have felt the
rush of anything could happen.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
And well that's the truth about fight, whether it's when,
whether it's a war between superpowers or two guys in
the bar.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Once it starts, and anyone.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Who knows violence will tell you this, once it starts,
you don't really know where it's gonna go. Right Yeah,
people like to, you know, say well we know this
is going to be over by Christmas.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I was going to go.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
And I I I am terrified of violence. I hate it.
And I've been involved in a couple of times, you know,
when I was a young man and I and you
never used so I would a gun.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
No, I didn't see it as a second amendic, but you
never used it as a as a deflection. I would
always sometimes be I played basketball a lot growing up,
and I remember I had I had glasses, I got Lasik,
But I remember I was thinking about this. I was like, oh, yeah,
I would also use comedy as a way to get
out of Sure. I don't always work though, that's the problem.
I remember it would work though a couple of times
(33:17):
with me, Like it would be these like guys would
go out for a rebound and use their elbows. I
had these big glasses like, whoa easy on the money maker,
you know, and they kind of they kind of start
laughing self deprecation.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's a that's a good trick
I've seen people use in Hollywood as well.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Is that false beta move?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
You know when you get some studio executive and you go, yeah,
it's kind of like it's an interesting game of chess
with feeling, especially around like obvious, self unaware alphas.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Correct, that's kind of fun to play that game.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, And I didn't realize at the time. It's also
you know, us as comics were very good at dialing
in and assessing what what are we really doing here?
You know, what's actually going on, and so that I
think I didn't realize at the time. These were little
things that I was doing from a young age. Do
(34:19):
you see do you see your kids.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
I mean, because the definitely a moment in my life
that changed kind of everything's been a couple of them,
but having becoming a father is like it's a real
kind of story.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
It's a real kind of like everything changes.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
How old are your kids?
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I have a twenty four year old on a fourteen
year old. So Scottish people we were kind of like,
you know, the big orchids in the jungle. Every ten years,
everything gets pregnant. That's how Scottish people make. That's how
it's done.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
So every ten years, this is who you are.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
You're sitting there. Oh gosh, you're pregnant, like an eclipse
of yeah, exactly, so right, you can tell it's coming
and you can get out of the way. But but yeah,
my so twenty thirty seven you should expect something again.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yeah, I think that's when it's going to run round again.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Well I don't know. If the that and left, I
think now at this point it would just be.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Like nothing.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Maybe the table gets you know, has a period.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Sure, so but having the kids was something that I
think all of my the way that I looked at it,
especially as they got a little little to run a bit.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
When your kids are actually when they.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Start kind of becoming much more themselves. You know, there's
not just this little slug. You have to kind of
wipe and move and wipe, and it's like there's more.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Stuff going on, wiping butts and feed Yeah, my god,
how many.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Shoes have you tied so far this year?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
It's like, my god, my god, these fucking idiots can't
tie the shoes.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
I suppose kids have loafers, but I'm also shocked. It's
also crazy, how win did I get tying the shoes
where I'm like, I'm like, why am I panting tying
a pair of Congress Hall stars?
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Well, I mean that I feel like it's a deep
cut corn verse on a child.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
That's a lot are you talking about on you on
the child? Both?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, Because I was like, this is my my fitness test?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Is this?
Speaker 3 (36:11):
If I don't get out of breath tying my shoes,
I'm good.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, I don't even check my game.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
If I can come out on toils, all right, everything's fine,
it's okay.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah. I mean, look, I think the cool thing about
kids and I think Mulaney was talking about this, but
I love the way he articulated. This was when he
was holding his first he was. He goes, oh, there
you are. I've been looking for you, and I do
get I got that feeling with them of like, oh
I didn't I didn't have to do all these other
(36:42):
things for and love and yes and all that stuff.
Oh there, it's it's it's here.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
If there is an amount of service now involved in
your life that you didn't have before, yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
That's what I feel like. That's something really changes.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
And I think that the idea, you know, I used
to like and like every young man, I was like,
I'm not going to have kids.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Yeah, and then kids. I was like, I can't believe
I waited so long to kids. It seems strange to me.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
But you know, I have a lot of friends that
don't have children, and you know, I like, I respect
everybody's choice. But and but one thing that was really
powerful for me as just as a performer was I
remember holding my daughter and thinking about all the times
(37:35):
I had felt as a child being abandoned even as
an adult. I called so and so, they didn't call back.
I reached out for so and so. They never texted back.
And that pain you sometimes feel of like oh man,
I needed you there and you didn't really you know,
or you were you were in a different place and
that extending of an olive branch and when you don't
get it back and guys, we hide it really well.
(37:57):
But I remember holding her and my son went he
was born and being like, I'll be I can be
the person that texts you back, like I'll be that
for you. Yeahs, And that's kind of beautiful.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Yeah, of like you experienced a law of that when
you were a kid. Did you feel abandoned when you
were little.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
As you know, as immigrants were in transit, so you know,
become my mom's doing a residency, so there was a
lot of stuff that was in your moment New York,
and then she was doing a residency in Stockton, and
then you know, she came to Davis and then so
there was a lot of stuff that was in you know.
The immigrant story is almost like a mini house renovation
(38:35):
of like you're never fully unpacked and.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
You know, is the kitchen done? Is it is kind
of My kids have been through that as well. I mean,
you've had like half a dozen houses in the last
ten years.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, so you're just kind of.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
It becomes kind of a habit Yeah. My wife got
mad at me about it. She's like, we're not moving
a yet. Yeah, because we moved around a lot. And
I think it does. I think because she's not an emigrant,
but she's the child, the grandchild, and so there is
that kind of understanding of it. Yeah, it's it's an
odd thing.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
So that I think maybe that was my joy is
you can count on me, and I don't know. I
can't do the balance sheet. I don't have the Excel
spreadsheet for the rest of the world, but I can
be that for you, and maybe that's enough.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
I think that's I mean, I think it is. You know,
Jim gaffickin right of course, right. So I was talking
to Gen years ago and I thought I was talking
to him about comedic style, and he was talking about he,
you know, Jem works clean like famously so any like
(39:42):
he causes like a normal human when he's off stage,
but he works clean and he makes it, you know,
a family friendly show.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
And I was like, I'm intrigued by that, and.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
He said I did it at first to see if
I could do it, and then it became a stylistic choice.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
I I liked it.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I kind of liked doing it that way and he
and he does it and he I mean, he's fantastic.
Yeah yeah, and I may when I had that conversation
with him, I thought, so I was doing Late Night
at the time, and and late night because you're working
every day. Politics was every day, you know, the politics
is the thing. You know, every day there's gonna be.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Something you can talk about.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
You talk about it.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
But it was just at the time, just as I
was getting out of Late Night, it started to go
on fire.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
I mean it really became polarizing and people really got
upset about Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
It was like war in Iraq, right, warrantar Oh jeez.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
So so as I'm coming out of it, I said,
well in stand up now this is rounder twenty sixteen,
I was like, I'm not going to do any more
politics ever. Ever, I'm never going to talk about it,
and I don't and I still don't. And what's interesting
because I know that you don't try away from that
all you.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Were happy to run right at it totally. It's interesting
to me.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Because I wonder how it feels, do you Because I
used to get hit with this in when I was
doing Lena If, I did an anti Republican joke, I'd
have to find an anti democratic joke to balance it out,
Like standards in practice would say to me, oh, wow,
you have to balance got it, got it, And so
(41:18):
it became a thing. I don't think that happens anymore.
I don't think they would say to you, no, I
have to do that. Do you do you feel like
it's is it something that helps or hinders or just
unavoidable because you're a political animal and you yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
For me, it's almost like what I love about the
form is if you have friends at journal it's the
same thing. Why they encourage long form writing is sometimes
I'll write to myself what is actually happening in my head,
and it helps me figure out what's happening, and I'll
(41:58):
just keep writing until if that, to me is the
point of the bit. It's to actually what the fuck
do I actually believe? And whether the position is contrarian
or not, just what what do you actually think? Or
it's ah, this is another style of joke you can do,
which is, oh, this is the way it is. What
if they did it like this? Right? Can you imagine
(42:19):
if they did it this way? And it's just now
you're painting a picture in a new way. So to me,
that's the whole thing of how can I misdirect and
how can I solve this little puzzles? To me, how
I solve this little puzzle.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
But what I think is quite interesting about it is
that right now is if you do the the if
one reads the room, it's like there's you know, say
I went into a room and it was a bunch
of Glasgow Range of supporters and a bunch of Glasgow
Celtic supporters right be like, I'm.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Probably not going to talk about soccer today, you.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Know, And I feel a little bit like that, But
you don't get excited at the prospect of going. Let
me see how much I can get away with let
me see for sure. But but I.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
I'm kind of like, I'm not sure that my lane is.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
So I'm like, you know what, hey, what about those.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
The wheels on cars or something?
Speaker 1 (43:14):
You know, Like I feel like, not that I've done
many wheel things, but the yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
You got twenty minutes on wheels.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
I wish I did.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
The The idea I think for me is I just
became more personal. I became more anecdotal, I became more
I went that way.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, and I actually liked it.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I found that Oh look, I mean like I have
reserves of uh pain and sadness and and upset. I
feel like I'm the Saudi Arabia of unhappiness, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Like I have so much fucking oh oil reserves. Normal
people don't understand just how much you're having a ram
Coo level of sadness, right exactly. I keep going and
keep going and never run, never run on and look
at gold of sadness, and I think that the I
want wonder if if it do you think it affects
your Yeah, I mean it's bound to affect how you
(44:07):
appear in the world. Does it bother you?
Speaker 1 (44:09):
No?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Man? You know really, what I've come to come to
terms with and the reason why I love putting out
working on a new hour and putting out a special
is almost like Wimbledon or tennis. It's like, let me
just control the parameters of the game. Okay. And I'm
(44:30):
sure you maybe have this with your kids, which is
there's social media and then there's this and the so so.
Now you're playing decentralized warfare so o wit so so
we're in a ditch. We're fighting fucking pre world War
one style, and then now we're also doing drone drone warfare.
It's like, I want to pick the parameters. And so
what I love about the stage is there is a
(44:52):
very to the best of my ability, we've set the stage,
We've set the parameters of what this is. And I
like that, and I hope I can keep it that way.
And I'm sure you had this with film. Film is
a different medium. Yes, you know, you can be a
piece of shit, you can be shittier, you can be
you can be an archetype of a character. Stand up
(45:15):
it's a different thing. They think they're seeing Craig and
they're seeing the workings of Craig. And so I love just.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
You are doing when you're doing a stand up are
you Is that like is who's is that Hassan?
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Or is that is that like?
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Uh, stage Hassan is different from real side.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I think it's a little bit of both. Yeah, I
think it's a little it's a little bit of both. Yeah,
And that's what I love. I mean, the whole form
is joking, not joking. Yeah, I'm joking joking. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Yeah, I think that's true. I mean it's but let
me just say this.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
This, This is the problem is that I think Americans,
and this is why when people talk about they have
a very difficult time understanding paradox. Indians we understand the
world as paradox. You go to India, I mean it's
it's literally the movie everything everywhere, all at once.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
People.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
You go to a street in Deli, someone's being.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
My favorite movie times you've seen are are of course,
that's incredible, ratest, it's incredible movie.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Un fucking believable movie.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't have wrote it up, but.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I just I'm see.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
When I watched that movie, I was like, man, it's
much harder to be a movie star in India than
it is.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
These guys are doing.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Things, acting and being really good and shouting like fuck.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Me, yeah you have to do it, you have to
be everything. You a superhero. Yeah. It's it's un unbelievable,
unbelievable what these guys are doing. Yeah. And so what's
interesting though, is that even like life in India, it is,
it is, it has so many multitudes and there's so
much chaos. Yeah, you understand that there are things that
are paradoxical. America is very much about well, we have
(46:51):
to solve a parent and so you can't solve a paradox.
You have to you have to just embrace it. Do
you do you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
I do, And I feel that what's quite interesting about
it as well is that and you make an interesting
observation about Americans as an American, Yes, And I do
that too.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
I'll sometimes say about Americans like, well, I'm a fucking American.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Donald Trump is an American, and that's imagine an American. Yeah,
And like I feel like here it's much harder too
to figure out who you're going to upset, or it
used to be. I think now I think the truth
is you're pretty much going to upset everybody at some point.
(47:31):
The trick is to not do them all at the
same time.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
You know, it's like I don't you don't set off
all the landlin Like, It's like it is kind of
an interesting thing because when I when I made a
decision not to do politics, it was.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
My friends who were on the left assumed that I
had moved to the right. Oh interesting, And my friends
who are on the right assumed I was on the
right and just wasn't talking and it was really interesting.
It was like, but I'm not talking about it, but
they make a decision about it.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
But is it also like the older I get too,
which is I'm not here to also just talk about
the day to day cartoon characters that take up the headlines, right,
and you know this with the Late Night Show every
day those characters change. Take out Dick Cheney, put in
Stephen Miller. Yea, these are just characters.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
I have to say that one of the greatest days
in the history on the joke, right, and Dick Cheney's
lawyer get showed in the face. Nobody died, everybody's happy.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
It's a great joke. Dad, Oh my god. It's like
you hardly had to go to work that day. And
duck hunting is very funny. Dug dug hunting. It's like
everything you got.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Cheney in a hat.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Everything would be you know, it should be that way
every day, yes, but it's not.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Of course, then that would be like you know, Christmas
every days.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
But almost like any clips, like when a couple a
couple days ago when Elon and Trump were Oh it
was great, the girls were fighting. What a fun day that,
you know what, it was interesting.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
I remember when that when they go together, I was like,
this has all the success of Brangelina written, but I
feel like.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
That was right and something h And then in that case,
you just kind of sit back and.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Let let it app let it ste yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
And then then let let it kind of let the
rice cooker explode and that's fun to but yeah, but
the older I've gotten is also I recognize the there's
a demand from the audience to go help help me
put this in perspective. I'm sure they were asking.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
That comes to me from perspective, But no, I think that.
I think I'm just like, you know, a sad clown
in the corner.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Right, well, what is Greig? But nobody nobo think people
like you look for your wisdom and you're you're you're wit.
But the older I've gotten I've also realized is like
there is there's such rich stuff to mine from just
life itself.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
Yeah, for sure, and that and those subjects can be
and the aging process a very odd way, yes, very
strange for everybody.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
It is.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
It's different for everybody and all that, but it's the
same for everybody. It's kind of perfect for that.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Yeah. And then and then you can kind of slide
and vacillate into other random stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's fun.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
One of the things I thought, but the comedy, but
the politics thing was that if I do politics, people
are going to stop hearing me. You know, I'm going
to stop getting jokes to people because they're only going
to hear the one that made them angry. And then
they stopped less sure and that, and then it took
me back to that what Peter la Sally said to
me in Late Night, which was, this is the joke
worth it?
Speaker 2 (50:32):
You know? Yeah? Is it? You know?
Speaker 1 (50:34):
And sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. And that's
that's really what I think. Talk to me about your podcast,
what you're doing in your podcast?
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Oh man? So the podcast is, uh, it's called Hassemanaj
doesn't know. But when when my Netflix show stopped, all
these people that I would end up interviewing would still
call right, I want to do Hey, I want you
to interview Mammy. I want you to so I get
(51:05):
like governors or you know, members of Senate being let's
talk can you know, can we do a can we
talk about this?
Speaker 1 (51:14):
So?
Speaker 2 (51:15):
I thought this is very unique where it's it's very
strange to be d m'd by like the Secretary of
the Treasury, who you are? Yeah, yeah, Tomedian to be like,
I'm on their social team.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Do you want?
Speaker 2 (51:28):
So I was like, what what do I do with this?
Can you get on the phone let's chat? And so
I said, all right, let me let me just have
the conversation where I can basically be I'm basically a
stand in for the public.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
I just get to ask me the questions.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Yeah, this is this is how I think I feel
about this. I clearly don't know everything there is to
know about the subject, but look, let me just be
a stand in for the public and just kind of
ask you how we feel.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
It's an interesting thing. I I whenever it's very rare
for me. You've done a lot more or less than
I have. But I whenever I've interviewed politicians, I find
myself a little frustrated. Yeah. Sure, I feel like because
a part of their media training, Yeah, which is right
there they kind of bristles with me.
Speaker 3 (52:09):
But the media training is they're always told to stay
on message.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Sure, yeah, like I don't.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
I don't want your fucking message. I want you.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
Yeah, and so that's a great talking point. Yeah, can
you answer the question though, Yeah, I love that, and
and you sound like a human capture. But can you
tell me why? You know why this makes no sense? Yeah,
you know, And it's it's it's those little moments of
just like popping the bubble, which is, hey, I know
that you do a million zoom calls where you can
kind of have these haikus of nothing right, but I
(52:38):
literally don't know what you said. Yeah, you spoke for
that three minutes. None of it made sense. And it's funny.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
I think it's great that you've got the you're you
can do that, because what is I start kind of going.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Yeah, yeah, I forget where I am, and then I
just fucking fight.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
I always tried to cut to a commercial break, but
of course there isn't one because it's podcasting, right, But
it's uh, but I've never had a politician on here.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
I don't think I would. I don't think I.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Don't need to. Yeah, do what you want, man, Yeah,
that's I think that's what you want. I think that's
it right. And I think that the thing is as well,
is like you know, where are you? Where are you at?
What do you want to do? Yeah? You can literally
do anything. We're in kids superstent. Yeah, I literally that
you want.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
I like comb the lanes vibe. I like kids super
I like it out here. Do you know a guy
called Peter Gouber.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
No, Peter Gouber is like he's a big guy in
Holly was a big successful producer and the other things.
He's very successful guy. You win some giant hockey team
and he's super. He's like a billionaire and all that.
And but goober, I can run into him. And when
I was in Hollywood and we used to have lunch
every now and again. And when I was leaving late night,
I was like, I don't know what to fucking do now.
(53:51):
And so I had lunch with Peter and and and
he said, he's a older guy, and he said, what
you have to do is you have to be be
around young people who have energy and are doing things.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
I said, okay, isn't that a little weird.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
He was like no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
I said, have them around you and listen to what
they're saying. Don't do any of it, but listen to it,
and you will feel enthused by.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
That. And he's kind of right.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
And I feel like this place and I like being
around the energy of that, you know, and people who
are trying new stuff.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
So what do I want to do? I don't know,
that's all I don't know. Yeah, this, I like this.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
I like this.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
I like talking to you. I like talking to people
that I'm interested in talking to.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
If I can find a politician that I'm interested in
talking to, I'll talk to them.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
They probably don't need to, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
It's fucking hard for me to find one that he
can be on the talking point. Yeah, very difficult. It's
really interesting for me.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
The joy that I get out of it is again,
it's the same feeling I got I get from stand up.
Let me just say what i've what I feel when
I when I read about you in the New York Times. Yeah,
let me just say it. Yeah. So we had this
general on General McChrystal, who was like a big general
during the war and Irack in Afghanistan. Okay, right, So
one of my favorite moments from the interview is I go,
mister general, do you are you familiar with the Onion?
(55:12):
Just a great sentence. Is a great sentence, like one
of the head of the US Army. You from the
Onion dot com. The onion dot com satirical.
Speaker 3 (55:19):
Yeah, yes, I go.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
I showed him an Onion headline article, and it says
US Army continues to defeat al Qaeda by killing every
single number two in charge. Fucking great headline. General McCrystal goes.
The sad part is we only killed number three.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
And it's just you know what, it's just fucking incredible. Yeah,
I mean it's just to me. I mean I was like,
set up punchline. Yep, it's pretty great. It's pretty great.
It's pretty great. It writes itself. So twenty years of
a meaningless war to get the Yeah, yeah, he didn't
know that. He didn't he didn't get it. He didn't
(56:04):
get the joe, he didn't get the joke. But to me,
it's just a hey, if that's all I do. I
said my piece, I said how I really feel about it,
how many people feel about it? Cool? And and by
the way, that's okay, Like I'm I am at peace
with that. I'm very happy with that. I think you
should be. I'm happy you were here.
Speaker 3 (56:24):
Thanks for coming, Thanks for having me, all right. Thanks
Host
Craig Ferguson
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