September 2, 2025 • 51 mins
Meet Nellie McKay, an incredibly talented singer and songwriter. She's released many wonderful albums and has performed with Laurie Anderson, Joan Osborne, Suzanne Vega and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra. Her role as Polly Peachum in The Threepenny Operaearned her a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance. She's going to be co-starring in Ethan Coen’s play Let’s Love from Sept 25 - Nov in NYC! More info here! I hope you enJOY!
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Episode Transcript
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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 twenty.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Five and beyond.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
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 interesting people about what brings
them happiness. Hello everyone, it is I Craig Ferguson. Welcome
(00:48):
to the Joy Podcast, coming to you from London, England.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well I'm in London, England.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
My guest today is not there, although she was born
in London, England.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Which is a strange Quinn, It's not really.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
She's a true American genius and someone I really get
a kick out of.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
And I think you wrote to please.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Welcome the wonderful Nellie Mackay.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I am very excited to be talking to you again.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Nellie.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
It's been it's been a while, it's been a it's
actually been a minute or two.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Where are you? Is it Christmas? Where you are?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It looks very, very festive behind you.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It's always Christmas. And in fact, I don't know if
you ever worked at piano bars, but I once got
fired from one for playing Christmas music in July. But
that's the best time to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I've never worked a piano bars, but let me ask
you this. Have you worked a lot of piano bars?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Oh? Yeah, And I still think about it because it's
like the Beatles in Hamburg. You got to play eight
hours a night or you know you actually you probably
know this, but you perform less once you go pro
Oh yeah, I know, that's for sure. Yeah, because then
is always for money. And you're like, I don't die
of not doing it for it.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
But I don't know what I do. You're kind of
ron all the time, really, aren't. Yeah, you're just kind
of talking. I just talk, or I just talk. Let
me ask you about the piano bar though, because I'm
kind of interested. There's a piano bar that I keep
walking by. I don't know if you know it. It's
on the Upper east Side in Manhattan.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I think it's called Hang on a second, Megan, what's
the name of that piano bar, Randy's, Brandy's Brandy's Piano
Bar on the Upper east Side?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Do you know it? No? Maybe it changed name. It
might have done.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
But every time I walk by, there's a lot of
fabulous looking men outside smoking cigarettes, and then they go
back in and start singing again. It seems like Bohemian
Rhapsody is very popular in there. I want to go in.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Maybe I should. Can you play piano? No?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I can't play piano, but I can sing raucously with
a bunch.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Of middle aged gay men, and I feel that's enough.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Well, and you can do their hair too, yes, I can.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Let me ask you this.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Are you in Rehrassal right now? Are you in Hssal
in New York? No? We start right after labor days,
like going back to school, right, Because what's the name
of the play. It's a new play, isn't it. They're
doing It's called Let's Love. Oh that sends upbeat? Is
it upbeat? Well? I think it should be called congestion
(03:27):
tax because I hate the congestion tax so much. But
I'm going to work on Ethan. Yeah, there's a lot
I'm going to do when he's not around for matinees.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
So I wouldn't go confess in that right now at
this early stage in the game. But Ethan Cohen, who
wrote the play, I mean, he's written some very dark stuff.
I mean he did the screenplay for Fargo and No
Country for Old Men, and you know.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Is it but this is this more cheerful or is
there a lot of people getting killed with oxygen containers
and stuff?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I want there to be. I suggested that. I suggested,
like after every love scene, I could stab someone. Yeah,
but uh, you know there's so many reasons. There's that
Wayn's Brothers movie I think is it called Scary movie
or something, and where people just start going on a
rampage and the hasidic guy comes over to people in
(04:25):
the audience starts stabbing and he's like you talk during
Shittler's List, you know, like there's just so many random
you can you can stab people.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I think it's I don't know that it's allowed to
usually go out and stab people who are in the audience.
But you know what, what theaters and tell me that
because maybe it will be Okay.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Where are you? It's on twentieth Street, so I say
anything goes Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I think I think below thirty fourth Street. Yeah, I
think you can stab members of the audience, and that's
all right. I don't It's an old by law in
New York. We should probably find out, do you know.
I want to ask you about it because I'm in
London tho, as you can tell behind me, if you
look out the window, you could probably see there are
chimney sweeps and singing urchins and all sorts of people
(05:10):
with their thumbs behind their lapels.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
You're from London, are you? Weren't you born here? Well?
I was born there, yes, so I have dual citizenship.
That would seem like a fail safe. But I've heard
that the first on the nuclear bomb list is London.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Is it really like if it.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Broke out, they say that's the first place they would hit.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Why would they go for London first?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I guess, well, it's close, it's close if they're going
to be coming out. I don't think about it much.
I used to think about it a lot in the eighties,
but that was kind of way before your time, seeming
I was like twenty when you were born, and during
the eighties we rose terrified in nuclear wars.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Do you worry about nuclear wars? I?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, you know, and I shouldn't. I should be the
last person because I know it humans do so I
should be hoping for annihilation. But all these people who
they like to go kayaking, they're not worried about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Well, I think if you're kayaking, which is a fair point,
if you are kayaking, then it's unlikely that you'll be
in a place that's going to be nuclear attacked because kayaking,
by his very nature, is not usually done in central London.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
You would think that, but they have all kind of
sights all over the world. In fact, you can stay
in bunkers on Airbnb.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Well, no way. Are we happy about this or are
we sad about this? And also as a follow up
kind of question as well, why this hatred of people
kayaking is there?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Do you have a problem with guys yet? I don't
know why.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
There's no smug Yeah, I kind of feel the say,
and I'll take a lot of hate for this, but
I kind of feel the same.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Way about people who cycle.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Not the.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yah yeah people who but people who wear all the
outfits and the tiny little.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Hats and stuff, I can't do it.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Just their tight butts alone that they go ahead.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And yeah, they kind of wave them in your face literally,
kind of saying, this is what you don't have.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That's what I feel like is going on. Let me
ask you this. If you don't kayak and you don't bicycle,
how do you get around New York?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Suty that a hitchhikest That would be very dangerous.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
That would be a very dangerous thing to do. Why
do you think it got so dangerous. My mother used
to hitchhike and one time she had a guy. He
drove her out to the desert and he said, I've
had a lot of Spanish fly and she had to
kind of fend him off and then run through the
cactus and the dark and wilderness to get away from him.
But mostly in the sixties and previous, it was a
(07:50):
legitimate way to get around, and there was a lot
less fear for both the people picking up the hitchhikers
and the hitchhikers.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
What changed, See, I have a theory about this that
may not fit into the narrative I don't think it
has changed.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I think the coverage of it has changed.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So I think all of the scary shit was going
on before, but it wasn't so like hyperbolic all over
the place. I think people have been dreadful for a
very long time, and I don't think that they're getting
any worse.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I think they're just getting more noticed.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
There's more, there's more news to fill, there's more kind
of stories to tell. Every tabloid, every Instagram account. People
have got to tell a story. But I want to
just bring you back to your mother and what happened.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Oh, I guess she got out. I mean might one
time they found a gal who had been you know, hurt,
and I think she had been than her body had
been burned. Oh my god. All they found they said
she was a redhead who wore hoop earrings. And I
think that kind of took it out of my nana.
And then when her mom, my mom called a couple
of days later, she's like, oh, Robin, she was from England. Yeah,
(09:02):
oh Robin. But you know, I mean, it's the kind
of thing that makes your heart stop. So I guess
I guess eventually my mom, you know, she stopped doing it.
I think one time the cops picked her up and
they said, you know, this is illegal, and they drove
her back home. And I'm getting all these stories mixed up.
But she fell asleep to the sounds of the dishwasher
and she felt so safe. It was probably one of
(09:22):
the earliest dishwashers. And then one time she lived with
a guy. I think he was making mess. Again, I'm
probably getting all these stories miss mixed up. But the
cooker and you cook it right, and it's set the
house on fire. So then again the fireman and the
police came, and so she hid under a pile of laundry.
She actually fell asleep and they didn't catch her. You
(09:44):
should talk to my mom.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
She has much better stories. I feel like I perhaps
should talk to your mom, or at least in the
FBI should talk to your mom. The So it must
be quite difficult for your mom, if she had such
a colorful young life herself, to be a disciplinarian with you.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Was she very strict? Was you when you were little?
But you know, it's no fun being the disciplinarian, being
the organizational one. It's fun being you know. And she
always had a taste. She was on tour in Hong
Kong with Albert Finnie and she she wound up getting
in an argument with him at a bar, which is
the best thing you can do with Albert Finnie, you know. Yeah,
(10:27):
so you got to find somebody to manage your tour,
who you know who doesn't want to go have fun?
And you know, because you know who enjoys who enjoys
filling out forms and uh checking in the hotels?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And does anyone enjoy that? I don't know that people
enjoy that.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yes, what's a whole sub what do you call it? Fetish?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Is this a kin people who liked doing like doing hotel.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Filling in forms?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I guess it's like if you're if you, if you're
used to tax forms and stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Do you do your own taxes?
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Hell no, I don't even know they're gonna get me. Yeah,
I should evaded them, right like.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
John Bias, I do think he should have a vade
your taxes. It never goes well for anyone to evade
your taxes.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I just heard about Percy Sledge because we're thinking about
a tuna his for the Ethan Show, and apparently he
got in trouble for that. And also he had to
have a fundraiser for medical care. Craig after a man
loves a woman, he had to have a fund He
lived in Baton Rouge. I mean that's like a fifth
of the price of stuff in New York. He had
(11:39):
to have a fundraiser for medical care.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
We should move to your house. Why would Percy Sledge?
Would Percy Sledge would not be comfortable in my house.
He's not still around anyway, Percy Sledge? Is he?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
No? But I am. But it's just in this country.
I mean, I know, do you have in trouble with
the elites going after the National Health which used to
be sacri sanct in Britain? But I mean here, we
don't even pretend you're just on your own.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Wait a minute, I must I feel I may have
misled you. I am in London visiting. I do not
live in London. I'm in London right now, but I live.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
In New York City.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Oh that's a nice Yes, So I'll be coming to
see the show. Sure, Yeah, of course I don't like
to go below you know, below Midtown, but I'll do
it for you.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I'll go and see the show.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Yes, what's in Meddown?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
The barrier between the Upper east Side where I live
and downtown, which I'm happy to go to, but I
don't like going to Midtown st busy.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
No, you're on the Upper east so that means that
must be the new hip district.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
No, I think it's more than the hip replacement district.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
It's the.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
It's a little more kind of genteel and quiet. That's
why I like it. You know, the heap districts are Brooklyn,
Brooklyn is Williamsburg. And said, uh, where where are you?
What neighborhood are You don't say that, but just like
general area.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Oh, I mean, I can't tell you. And it's not
your race, it's your class because you can't help it.
Once people reach a certain level, yoga studios and cupcake
shops appear, and that's just it's just how Craig, how
can there be so many people? I know they buy
up apartments like a real estate deals. How can there
(13:34):
be so many people who can pay you know, eight
thousand a month in New York?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
You know, so the coming for it.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So you got hey, you go, you gotta hide, you know,
you gotta hide. So where where are you hiding? Where?
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Where's your neighborhood. Give me a rough idea, Give me
a rough idea.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I think I'm gonna be I'm going to be pretty
close to the theater.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
You know, right, that's enough down't townishnish.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah, but get this, I mean you'll Brinner when he
was performed, my mom used to work for you, Brenner.
She was his second assistant. So he would come off
of the stage after shall we dance and go right
to the oxygen machine and go And then his first
assistant was Claire, so he would say, c Clare, I
don't know how to talk with Claire. Claire, I need
(14:21):
uh oh, yes, I need fourthy fourth inch rubber bands
from Fort Dam and Mason's. And she would say, yes,
mister Benner, Robin, mister Brinnan needs fourth inch rubber bands
from Fort and Mason. He says, no, Claire, I need
half inch rubber bands from Fortuham and miss oh yes,
mister Brinner, Robin, mister Brinnan needs And this is this great,
(14:43):
it's really a living it is.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
But what do you need those rubber bands for? What
did you Brennan need the rubber bands for?
Speaker 3 (14:51):
I don't know what. Probably this is between Mattinee and
evening he would go h be with Marlena in and
wherever he was staying. I don't think he got a
lot of rest. And then afterwards, I think after the
show he always liked to wind down. Man, people can
really kill themselves with the performing thing. Well, you can
(15:13):
do that affair with Marlena thing.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, they're fair? Was it Marlina detreat?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Was that?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Who was?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yes? And Mommy thinks that it didn't work because they're
too much alike.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, I think that that's possible.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
I having not met either one of them, I'm going
to decide that that's actually what happened and they.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Were too alike.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Hello, this is Greig Ferguson and I want to let
you know I have a brand new stand up comedy
special out now on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy,
and I would be so happy if you checked it out.
To watch the special, just go to my YouTube channel
at the Craig Ferguson Show and is this right there?
Just click it and play it and it's free.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
I can't look.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
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. I mean, haven't had a parent
who was so involved in show business like that, in
that kind of like really inside the world. Do you
think that that your work travels across and one of
(16:23):
the things I love about your music is it travels
between so many wildly varying genres. It feels like sometimes
it's like Trent Resner was born in the night it
was working in the nineteen twenties, you know what I mean.
It's like you can get very dark and also have
about ooh ah, it's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
How you do that?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Do you think that the diversity of your influence is
to do with your parents?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Because your father's very kind of clever play right as well.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Isn't he? Oh yeah, I think I think there's something
called genetic memory, So who knows how far it goes back.
I mean, I don't know if you've done any I've
done very little. But I do think that maybe some
of my family were part of the pirates of Penzance, Okay,
and so that's why I we you know, and there's
lots of ways to be a modern day pirate, and
(17:13):
you know, you got to live out, to live outside
the law, you must be honest.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
There has to be a certain order amongst thieves and performers,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
My wife always says circus folk. We are circus folk,
and so the rules are a little bit of it.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
You know that. Well, what does she do? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Uh, circusy, she's a little circusy rides horses. You can
ride a horse with one leg and stuff like that. No, yeah, yeah,
can you do that? Do you ever ride horses around
downtown neighborhoods?
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Oh? No, I just want to pet them.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Well, I think that's perfectly acceptable.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
You can pet horses.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
You're quite vocal about animal rights and stuff. Factually, as
I remember on we bonded over veganism. As I recall
the last time I spoke to you.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Oh that's right. Yeah, how is it going for you, Craig?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Well, I'll be honest, there was a time where I
returned to the harsh world of the carnivar.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
I'm not going to lie to you, Nelly.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
During the lockdown, I went beef and chicken a little
bit for a while. But I'm back and uh, and
I have was interesting. I don't know if this is
of any interest to you, but it certainly was to me.
For the first time in my life. I got a
medical exam and the doctor said, your cholesterol is up.
You need to go back to the your vegan diet.
(18:40):
And I said, or take statins. And I was like, well, no,
I don't want to take status if I can avoid them.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So I so I have returned to the way of
the hair.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Before I'm back. That was wonderful. Yeah, but it was
a you know, it was a right.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I imagine you're still where you are with it, right,
You've remained true to.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
The con Oh, it's a struggle every day because everywhere
you go, you know, there's this or that. Yeah, of course,
I think it's very good that you're honest, because you know,
we live in a world where there's constant temptation in
so many ways and so many people. It can be
hard to understand. Other people, like the pianist Mary Lou Williams,
(19:19):
had a severe gambling addiction. That's something I've never had,
but I you know, so it can be hard to
get inside that. When if I play a casino or something,
I mean to me, it just seems like such a scam,
you know, it's such an obvious I ain't waiting around
for that slot machine. But everyone has their thing, and
(19:41):
I think, especially the more pressure you're under, you're under
a thoughtful profession. I mean, if I could make a
decent living, like just working for the park service, you know,
an equivalent, I mean I would. It's so nice not
to think, you know, and you've got to be witty
and you've got to make decisions, and that's it's tough
on you. So you know, everybody's under some kind of pressure.
(20:03):
And food is such a oh it's just it's something
you can rely upon, and it's home and family. It's
it's tricky. It's so you know, we all got to
be kind to one another and ourselves.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
That's a wonderful thing to say about it. I feel
so much better, you know, if the if the musician
thing hadn't worked out, I think some kind of therapy
or spiritual guide position for you would have been great.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
I really feel a little better having listened to you
say that. But Craig, don't you think that if your work.
Actually I know someone who worked in a prison, right,
and it's this this tricky thing, because the worst criminals
aren't in prison. They die on you know, the maximum
count bed sheets, and they go to the fanciest restaurants
and they live lives of luxury. However, if I worked
(20:51):
in a prison, I can just see so, I mean,
people would I you know, I'd be letting people out
of their cells left and right, and they probably stabbed.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Me, you know, yes, they probably would.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Have you ever done a gig in a prison, I've
never done a gig in When I've visited a friends
in prison, but I've never I've never played a prison.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Who did you visit? If you can say?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I can't really, but but it was it was in
a prison in Scotland and it was a friend of
mine who I was actually a guitarist I was in
a band.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
With and he got he got up to.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Some nonsense and he went to a very harsh prison
in Scotland and I went to visit them. It's any
time I've been inside a prison actually, and I thought,
oh gosh, I I really would never like to come
back here ever again, if that's all possible, if I
can avoid ever coming here. And it was at that point, Nellie,
that I stopped cooking mess in the washing machine.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
But well, where's mass legal is there any place.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I don't think it is, and I don't think it.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
No, I don't think it.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
I don't think there's anywhere like you can go and
they say, oh, yes, have six pack of math or
whatever people take it. I don't think it is. We
is legal, but I don't know that that's helped at all.
I used to be very kind of like, yeah, ever
it and should be legal, but.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I'm not sure it's helped at all. But I don't
take Anathan.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Do you take anathing? Oh? The only one working? Oh?
Interesting really because socially it actually it bothers people. But
there was like, do you need a drink? I said, well,
when I need to drink now, I'm happy. But working
is you know. It's that thing. I had a bed
you know, Craig. Actually it's funny you mentioned this because
I got two things. First of all, I had a
(22:35):
bed gig in front of Mike Nichols, who had seen
me as a thing. My mother wrote me this pristine joke,
you know, and it went over so well. So then
Mike Nichols, he was like a butterfly at my side,
and he kept saying things I didn't know, like he
was saying me directing Beckett is like you reciting folkup.
I didn't know what he was saying, so I just
(22:56):
went ha ha. So he came with Diane Sawyer do
the gig. I was like, I'm gonna drop out, man,
you know, but he showed up with the answer. And
I worked so hard on these big band arrangements, not
thinking you got to get your material right right, So
I didn't, so said I bombed the flop sweat, you know,
(23:17):
flooded downtown and he came over to the table afterwards
the meet and greet him and Diane. I could just
tell it was over, and then he died. So that's
so then you realize you either got to get your
material or you got to have some substances. But the
second time was when I played a prison in West
Virginia and I had my gigbag, so I had all
kinds of embarrassing things, including a couple of little vodka bottles.
(23:42):
So who knew that. I think that's a felony in
West Virginia to take that into a prison. But the
worst thing they did is they have now barred me
from ever setting foot in a West Virginia prison, which
doesn't entirely feel like a bad thing.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
It's not a punishment really anyway.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
But yeah, only on the job, you know. But Craig,
you got to make people happy whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, it's true. But whenever I, you know, used aol,
alcohol was my thing. Whenever I used that in performing,
I thought I was doing great with my performance. But
everyone has assured me that since I stopped doting alcohol,
my performing skills have improved immeasurably.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I feel like I couldn't do my job when I
was high. But I think with musicians it's a little different.
I think because they.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Can again to a groove. I know it certainly not
a lot of.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Musicians who who play in a very older state a
lot of the time, some very successful people. But then again,
I know others who can't perform at all unless they're clean.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Right. Well, I know Brett Butler. I think it took
alcohol to be able to get her to start her
whole career. Yeah. For instance, I love her memoir. Yeah,
I I don't know if i've read that, ma'am. Is
it good?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Oh it's good.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Oh, it's so good. And I know there's an audio
version which it probably breaks. It's in her accent. Yeah, no,
it's funny. I know. I right.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
I'm very friendly with Tom Straw, who was the showrunner
of that sitcom.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
She was on what was it called again the Are
You under Fire?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Grace under Fire?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah, and Tom Straw was who's a good friend of mine.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
He's been on this podcast. Tom was the.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Was the showrunner, the kind of lead writer on that
and Tom. Funnily enough, when she and she was having
a very difficult time during this is n her behavior
was very crazy. He will not hear a word against her.
He's like, nope, she's super talented.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
He loves her. It's it's very interesting, you know, she
was having an hard time.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Then. I've never met the woman. I don't know. Do
you know her? I met her once. She played underneath
Madison Square Garden. I guess there's a comedy club there,
and she was very She said, Oh, I wish I
was a little girl named Nelly.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Well, I've wished that in my life too, but not
for a while.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I think you do it so much better than I do,
so I wouldn't want to get in the way of that.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Do you ever, do you ever perform over here in London?
Do you ever do you do? You work over here
a lot? I hope so. I'd loved to. Last time
I was there, I got so sick. But it wasn't
It was Linda McCartney's vegan sausages. But it wasn't the
fault of the sausages that I took them to the
hotel microwave and I think they put them on for
too little time, so it wasn't her fault. But anyway,
(26:42):
I was very sick the next day, and then I
went to go see my friend Richard Kind doing Guys
and Dolls?
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Chard Kind?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Did you see that I saw.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
When he was doing the Producers?
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Richard Kind was doing the Producers and I went to
see him that night he was on this spot. Asked
like a few weeks ago, and Richard. I went to
see him that night and then after it. This is
a long time ago, because after I went out and
I met the woman that.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
I'm now married that night.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
When I went to see Richard cau So, I always
think of Richard Kryd in a very fun way.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
He's a lovely man. Richard, where did you go and
meet your lady?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
It was an event after the theater I had to
go to.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
It was a party. I didn't want to go.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
It wasn't a party, well, it was a party. It
was New Yorkers for.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Children charity event, and I didn't want to go, but
I said I was going to go. So I went
to this New Yorkers for Children charity event and I
met this woman and we've been married for years.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Oh my goodness, always the event you don't want to
go to.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
It's not funny. She says the same thing. I mean,
because she didn't want to go to the thing either.
She was like, all right, and she went.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
And it's an interest.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
And now we say that to our kids, which is
always go to the party because you never know who you're.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Going to meet. That's a beautiful story.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
It's all Richard Kind.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
My god.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
So anyway, I interrupted you because you said you were
seeing Richard Kind and guys and dolls in London.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Oh that I mean, that's basically yeah. And then yeah.
I left him a little Bernie sticker backstage and I said,
you know, if you want to hang out, and so
he came to my gig and it was funny. Walked
me back to the elevator, and elevators can be very
dangerous situation, so I appreciate his protection. Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
I mean, given your mother's experience with the hitchhiker, I
think an elevator is probably a lot safer than you're
used to in your family's history. Really, I mean, Richard
kind in an elevator is not a dangerous situation at all.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
But I don't know if you've ever read it's a
really I haven't even gotten that far into it. But
Susan Brown Miller recently died, and she had wrote a
book called Against Our Will, and whoa Once you read that,
oh holy crow. I mean they say say with prostitutes
that the most dangerous place is more a hotel room
(29:15):
than if you're on the street. So you know, you
just never know be paranoid.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
You know, I think I do a pretty good job
of being paranoid. I stay paranoid a lot of the time.
Are you nervous about that? Do you get paranoid?
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Are you a nervous person? Do you think? Well? You
have to, because if I got attacked, what I would
just be? Woody Allen. I just I tear up my
driver's license. I mean, I knew because I grew up
in Harlem and we had a what do you call it,
a roommate who was a right wing folk singer from Minnesota.
(29:53):
But he was a real white boy, you know, and
he used to get so nervous he would push a
shopping cart and and pee his pants and talk to
himself so he wouldn't get mugged. So you know, everybody, uh,
you know, I always feel like I'll hurt people's feelings,
you know, if I you know, it's like you suspect
(30:13):
any guy that they could, but they are all bigger
than you. You know. No, of course it's not just Harlem.
It's just that at that time it was. It was
in New York in the eighties. You know, was was
was pretty. I remember it was rougher, but but there
was a beauty to it, Craig, because you know, I mean,
(30:33):
it's it's ruled by thieves, but there they'd steal a
lot more. You know, it's it's Dylan. It's uh still
a little in Ittorian jail, still a lot and they
make you king. Yeah, well that it was ever us.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
It's interesting though, that if I was a right wing
folk singer, I don't think Harlem would be even today,
the place where I would choose to live. I feel
like there are other domestic arrangements that may be more.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
It so lubras to your.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Chosen profession, but I get it.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
He was also an opera student, which maybe has a layer,
but also Craig, I mean, it's just the facts of life.
It's working, you afford to live, but go ahead.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah. In the nineteen eighties, I lived in the Lower
East Side and there was a lad, a lady, a
woman that we all knew in the neighborhood, and she
was also an opera singer, but she wasn't she wasn't
very well known, and she was young, and she started
(31:35):
her career. So she worked in a restaurant. She was
a waitress in a restaurant. She worked at a table
at a restaurant, and on the way home every night,
she used to sing.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
These areas really loud.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
We used to hear her walking down the neighborhood because
if ever the music stopped, ifever she stopped singing, people
would look out on the fire escapes to see what
was going on. So it was kind of a way
of protecting herself as she was walking home that she
would sing this beautiful music into the neighborhood and we
would all hear going home. And if she stopped saying, someone, go, hey,
what's going on down here?
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Get the music?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Bat, they would you know, it would come back up again,
no kidding.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
That was in New York.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Yeah, it was on Eleventh Street on First Avenue, right
down like you know where Veneera's Bakery is down there,
right there?
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, yeah, right there.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I used to live above that bakery technique.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah, I thought it was very clever. Oh yeah, yeah,
I still love that bakery. I still love it. Well,
I'm glad you come back here. Are just are you still?
Oh no, you're on your freeze side? But do they deliver?
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I'm sure they would for a price. But I don't
mind getting on the subway and going downtown. I because
first of all, you can get right past Midtown by
just staying on the train, so you know, you get
on the eighty sixth Street and then you mess it
all out and now you're in Union Square and everything's fine.
And the other thing is, like you talked about New
(33:00):
York and they like this. People complain about the subway
in New York. Now I'm like you guys, have no idea.
This thing is plaicial now. Used to the subway used
to be so awful, and now it's like, this is.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Actually pretty nice. It's all right.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
It goes everywhere very I don't see much trouble.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
It's kind of clean ash.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
It's not bad. That's fine. We used to live in Queensland.
I was growing up for Harlem and we were on
the Vomit Comet was what they called the all like that,
and that was where they had the first subway. Fires
was our stop, the Halsey Street station. But you know,
if you're in near eighty sixth I saw Rita Moreno
do a book talk there at the Barnes and Noble
(33:44):
and afterwards, yeah, boy, but I messed up with Rita.
I said, because i'd met her because I did another
off broad ray show. And I said, oh, after all that,
I said, you must be tired. She think she was
in her eighties. She gave me such a look. Oh
you shouldn't say that. Don't mess with the riata.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
You know, it's funny when you meet especially and this
must have happened you quite a lot. But when you
start doing well and people start listening to your stuff,
you start to meet people that you've vitalized, and it
can be kind of awkward. It's an odd dynamic to
be put into.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Do you remember the.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
First of your heroes that you ever actually met or
that you worked with?
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Oh? Gee, I don't know even the first, but well,
Phil Woods used to teach me. He's a wonderful saxophone player, legend,
and he always said you talked too much about music.
But then I remember David Byrne. I think the last
time I saw, one of the last times, I kind
of locked him in the dressing room because I didn't
(34:49):
want to let him go, and I kept saying, Mom,
can I let David out? But you know, people are
just people. I think it's better if you don't know
their work, you know, So I try and I try
not to look at it and watch anything or listen
to anything.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Really, you know, it's funny. I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I spend no time or a very little time talking
to comedians or or like if I if I'm if
I'm talking to a comedian or a writer, it is
probably that I don't socialize with with people that kind
of do the same as me. Not very often anyway,
I can't because especially if I really like what they do,
(35:29):
I'm like, and I'll just make a fool of myself.
I'll say something stupid. It's interesting you mentioned David Byrne though,
because it was this thing that I remember from when
Talking Heads we're doing I guess the album Fear of Music.
I think it says an early album and or fairly
(35:51):
early album. They I found out that David Byrne was
from Scotland. Did you know that. We were all super
excited when we found out.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah, I was like, David Berne is Scottish.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Like the coolest person on earth is Scotty. I mean,
like apart from Boy, but you know, boys no longer
with us. So it is in vit David burn now
and he's from Scotland.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
I hardly believe it. But I've never met him. I've
never he was.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
He's another guy that I kind of thought, like, especially
when I was doing Late Night and I'd be like, no,
I don't want to invite people on that I really like.
I idolize too often. I mean it did happen. There
were you know, people on that I did adlize, but
Boy was one of David Burne was another. I was like,
don't ask them, just in case they say.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yes, no, really you didn't go for it.
Speaker 6 (36:43):
No, no, Craig, Maybe maybe now would be okay, maybe
now would be a little different, because I notice when
you get older, it kind of it doesn't stop you
enjoying people's work or really appreciating it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
But the idea of being intimidated by people like that,
it doesn't do the same to me.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Does it still have that effect on you? If you
meet a giant in your field.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Well, you just want to have something to say. What
do you say that hasn't been said before? You know,
I know you know that that that's it. You want
to work with them, you know. And I'm sure you
have so many ideas I didn't have, but I'll put
it up. But my mug that says tomorrow is just
a future yesterday, which always wigs me. You can't be
(37:28):
saying that the stoners man, you know, but it's right
there in my cabinet. Every morning is ah, you know,
like the monks say they wake up in the morning,
Buddhist monks, and the first thing you're supposed to think
about is death, because that's supposed to kind of orient
your priorities for the day. I don't know. I don't know,
(37:49):
but but you know, now you should? You should? Why
not write songs for David or you guys could do
it with just one song together? And you know, I
mean he has a hue huge library in his studio
and he has he climbs a staircase to get to it,
and he brought me down a lot of music. I
was very sweet of him, which I've never returned because
(38:10):
how could you It has his initials in it. I
don't want to give that back. Written music like manuscripts. No,
it's more like obscure Argentine, Tinian orchestras. It has dB
you know, I mean, look at how he dressed. He
seems quite meticulous.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Oh yeah, yeah, he's a Taurus. You're both Tauruses.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
I should That's what I should say if I ever
run into David Barn I'll say, look, this may sound
a little creepy, David, but I know you're from Scotland
and we're both Taurusts.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
So why not we'll do a song together and we'll
see what he says.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
I I don't know, I think it might work out.
Couldn't you start a feud.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
No, I don't want to have a feud with with
someone I admired.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
That's a terrible idea.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Have you got any feud?
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Do you have a celebrity feud going on that I
don't know about it?
Speaker 3 (39:02):
I suggest I suggested it to Ethan because Neil Pepe,
our director, he was like, we know we're looking for
ways to promote I said, why don't we have a
Twitter feud? And Ethan said, oh, I don't do anything
like that.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
No fun.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
But he's a Virgo. But another Earth sign. I mean,
I do think if the end of the world came,
the last to go should be the Earth science because
you're very grounded. But Scott against Scott. I mean, that's
that's great. You should look up your respective clans. Maybe
there's a whole history.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
I don't think we have to. I think they're burn
and Ferguson. I think that's it. I feel like the
look nearly. I don't want to get in the way
of your masterplot. But this is a terrible idea. I
really like David Byrne. I don't want to be in
a celebrity feud with David Byrne. But a lot of
people would be saying, who is this person that David
Byrne is in a feud with?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Everybody don't even know who this guy is.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
And David Burner would be like, get very angry and
wear this big suit.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
I don't want to do that. Does that great?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
You know the British radio show Desert Island Discs.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Have you ever heard it?
Speaker 1 (40:06):
No? Oh, it's a great show, Nelly. It's a radio show.
And what they do is they have it's been going
on for like sixty or seventy or maybe even more years,
and it's what it is is a guest comes on
every week and they can be from any part of
the world and they choose six songs.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
They call it Desert Island Discs. Like you're on a
desert island.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
You only have six songs that you can listen to
for the rest of your life on a gramophone.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
That's how long it's been going on.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
So you get to pick six discs and you also
get to take you get given the full work of
Shakespeare and the Bible, but you also get to take
one luxury item and a book or something like that.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
And they talked and David Byrne was on it. I
heard David Byrne on it, and he was hilarious.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Hilarious. It's not what I expected at all. That's what
his former Ben may say. They say, now he's mister Rogers.
What the fart?
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, he's he was, He's so he's a very singular,
a true musician.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
I think, like you, someone who whose mind thinks in music.
I mean, not someone who really even learns music as
much as just that's how their brain works. And I
think I think you're very similar. I think you processed
the human experience through music. I think he does the
same thing. Everything is there, don't you think I wish
(41:33):
I was. I wish I was like that.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
I mean, before to prep for you, I was listening
to Noam Chomsky on consumerism.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Which is a perfect choice, you know, you said earlier
on the Buddhist monks say that when you wake up,
the first thing you should do is think about death,
right as you wake up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
I have noticed that the older I get, the more
I do that. I woke up with a month ago,
still here, Eh, Okay, what are we going to do now?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
It's not bad, But do you have a positive opinion
of death? When do you think when do you plan
to live to I was hoping ninety three. I'm sixty
three right now. That'll be thirty more years.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
But it depends on how the health goes, you know,
I don't I don't know. I mean, you know, if
it's going to be very bad for a long time,
then but I don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
I think I have a.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Reasonably positive idea of it. What do you think happens
after it's all over?
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Do you have any any inclination? Do you think about it?
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Well?
Speaker 3 (42:46):
I think we're naturally and of course this shuts out
pretty much everything in our culture, but we're naturally supposed
to live to six times the age of maturation, which
should be one hundred and twenty because we're basically not
fully formed until about twenty. But of course, you know,
there's so many ways that is forced upon us that
(43:09):
goof that up. But I've lost so many people, and
good people, the bloomers, for God's sake. You know. It
used to be when I was playing Nursing Homes Craig,
everybody wanted Tommy Dorsey. Now everybody wants Nick Jagger. They say,
who's Tommy Dorsey? So it's going to be everybody wants
David Byrne, this is not okay. I don't accept this,
you know, you know, and then it's going to be
(43:30):
the song song you know? But but then what do
I hope happens? I do think there's something beyond. I
think all these serendipities are more than just coincidences. There
are too many things that pop up. And it's not
just that the devices are listening to us all the time.
So whatever we're talking about now, I will then receive
an ad for afterwards. It's not just that there are
(43:53):
genuine signs, it seems. And when you listen to people
who have had near death experiences, you get the sense
of such peace and they never want to come back.
And then whatever is happening on the writing table works
and they come back and they're back to pain, but
they've had this near death experience and it's beautiful. And
(44:13):
that's what I hope. I just hope we're reunited and
there's no more misunderstandings or pain, because who needs that.
I don't know how it is in your relationship, but
this whole thing of like, you know, relationships are hard, No,
screw that, work is hard, life is hard. You want
to come home at the end of the day and
just be you know, have a cold one or not
(44:35):
if you want to live to one twenty and be
happy that.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I think you're right. I think that there is such
an odd thing there was once. I'm going to tell
you something now, something I did. The piece of writing
that I am most proud of is a short story
that I wrote for a collection of stories that my
friend Larry Block, who's a very good writer, was putting together.
(45:03):
A collection of stories all based on the paintings of
Edward Hopper. So a bunch of different people, some really
clever people like Joyce, Carol Oates.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Stephen King, you know, Scott Truro. They wrote. Everybody wrote
a short story.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
And I wrote a short story about a church, and
I just invented a whole thing about a Hopper painting
of a church in Massachusetts. And it's the best thing
I've written because it was about death. It was about
a man who dies in the space of the short story,
and I mean, as he's dying, something really weird happens
(45:43):
and he says is he says to the person that
turns out it's basically Elvis turns up as he's dying
and Elvis has been long dead, and Elvis he says
to Elvis, this is just the entertainment of a dying brain,
isn't It's just the hallucination of a dying brain. And
(46:04):
Elvis says, I think you can overthink these things. And
I think that that is such a I felt very
comfortable with that, and so that's where I'm going to
set where it's inevitable.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
So why overthinking it'll happen? But do you feel comfortable
because you're Craig ferguson the end. Also, you have a
lovely lady that your things will be taken care of
in treasured.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
I think that I think I own nothing. I own nothing,
not even your body. You don't even own that. You
can't even control that. So I think everything is everything
is gone.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
And so whatever the lovely paintings or automobiles or anything
that I own, when when I go they're no longer mine,
what does it matter?
Speaker 3 (46:56):
I know? But I just I hate whist. But it's
just interesting because we would talk about David Bryn You
know his song Heaven Do you agree with you?
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Oh? Yeah, it happened is a place everybody's trying to
get to the bar. The I used to listen to it,
and it's funny. I think that life is very is
very perspective driven through the chronology of it. So if,
for example, I listened to that song a lot when
(47:24):
I was a young man, he wrote the song when
he was a young man, and I thought it was
funny and irreverent and and kind of almost defiant in
its stance.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
It was.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
It was, it was a satire almost.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
And now I look at it from the perspective I'm
much further along the beach, so the island I'm looking
at looks like a different shape now, and and I
think that's actually quite a relaxing and cool idea that
nothing ever happens. There's a I think that it's in
(47:59):
Jewish tradition and the idea of shield, which is a
place that the world where everybody goes there after death.
And it's just kind of not very interesting, let's all
really say about it.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
I don't know enough. I don't know enough about it.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
It's not like, but it's not lakes of fire and
people prodden you with steaks around like that. It's just
like it's just a little boring, all right. It's lovely
catching up with you I do want to come and see.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Uh, what's the name of.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
The plagua in love? Love? Love?
Speaker 2 (48:31):
It's love, It's all love. Maybe again, let's love, Let's love, yes,
which I suspect that maybe.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Irony in that title. But oh boy, it's very smutty.
You should know, Craig. I hope you're comfortable with that.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Yeah, actually remarkably so. That's great. I'm very pleased about that.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Are you do Are you doing all the music for
it as well?
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Well? Yes, but some of it I think we'll be
we will be standards. We're still figuring it out now.
But you know, have you done Broadway or theater shows?
I've done a lot of theater.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
I'm done Broadway, but I did the West End in London,
and I've done you know, different theater shows around the world,
but not Broadway.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
I imagine it's much the same.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Isn't it fun to just be you know, I've just
been part of the machine and not have to do
the whole motor yourself. Yes, it is. It is that.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
It's one of the things I miss about it is
that you know, somebody will come over and say no,
what you have to do is stand over there, say
that sing that. Do that and run out there as
fast as you can. Don't mess around, just do that,
and that's your job for the night.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
And then the best advice I got. There's an old
time performer when I was a young performer, he said,
when you he said, when you get on stage, lift
your head up, lift your head up and look up
because the people at the back have paid as well.
Eyes and teeth all the way in the back of
the room.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
I love that, wonderful eyes and teeth as well. And
but do you know Jim Dale?
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Yes, I mean I don't know him, but yes, I'm
very aware of his amazing career.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Yeah, it was fun doing it. He could still do
high kicks in his seventies. When we did throw me
off for together. Did you know Alan Rickman? I did.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I knew him a little bit, a little bit, did
you what was was.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
He onru open? Did he do it? No? But he
went to school with my mother and he was always
organizing things. Yeah, for their final test, he sang a
thousand clowns. Wait a minute, no, not what he send
in the clowns and then they they they were They
were extras on the film A Lucky Man so you
can see them at the end dancing.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Oh my god, boy Alan Rickman and your mom.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
Yes, yes, he was. You know. Then when I got
a record contract, I think it kind of messed him up.
We started calling him uncle Al and he would say,
my name is Allen and my name your uncle. All Right,
we gotta go.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Good luck with let's love, and I will come and
see it, particularly if it's smutty and it's downtown. That's
these are two things that I might to. Okay, so
take care of yourself. No hitch hiking around New York please,
and I captain. Yeah, all right, good, I'll tell you so.
(51:27):
Bye bye, Nelly Bi Graig
This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come
and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually
it's about an hour and a half and I don't
have an opener because these guys cost money. But what
I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway,
come and see me live on the Pants on Fire
Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and
we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Five and beyond.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
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 interesting people about what brings
them happiness. Hello everyone, it is I Craig Ferguson. Welcome
(00:48):
to the Joy Podcast, coming to you from London, England.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well I'm in London, England.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
My guest today is not there, although she was born
in London, England.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Which is a strange Quinn, It's not really.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
She's a true American genius and someone I really get
a kick out of.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
And I think you wrote to please.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Welcome the wonderful Nellie Mackay.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I am very excited to be talking to you again.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Nellie.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
It's been it's been a while, it's been a it's
actually been a minute or two.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Where are you? Is it Christmas? Where you are?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It looks very, very festive behind you.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It's always Christmas. And in fact, I don't know if
you ever worked at piano bars, but I once got
fired from one for playing Christmas music in July. But
that's the best time to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I've never worked a piano bars, but let me ask
you this. Have you worked a lot of piano bars?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Oh? Yeah, And I still think about it because it's
like the Beatles in Hamburg. You got to play eight
hours a night or you know you actually you probably
know this, but you perform less once you go pro
Oh yeah, I know, that's for sure. Yeah, because then
is always for money. And you're like, I don't die
of not doing it for it.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
But I don't know what I do. You're kind of
ron all the time, really, aren't. Yeah, you're just kind
of talking. I just talk, or I just talk. Let
me ask you about the piano bar though, because I'm
kind of interested. There's a piano bar that I keep
walking by. I don't know if you know it. It's
on the Upper east Side in Manhattan.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I think it's called Hang on a second, Megan, what's
the name of that piano bar, Randy's, Brandy's Brandy's Piano
Bar on the Upper east Side?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Do you know it? No? Maybe it changed name. It
might have done.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
But every time I walk by, there's a lot of
fabulous looking men outside smoking cigarettes, and then they go
back in and start singing again. It seems like Bohemian
Rhapsody is very popular in there. I want to go in.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Maybe I should. Can you play piano? No?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I can't play piano, but I can sing raucously with
a bunch.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Of middle aged gay men, and I feel that's enough.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Well, and you can do their hair too, yes, I can.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Let me ask you this.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Are you in Rehrassal right now? Are you in Hssal
in New York? No? We start right after labor days,
like going back to school, right, Because what's the name
of the play. It's a new play, isn't it. They're
doing It's called Let's Love. Oh that sends upbeat? Is
it upbeat? Well? I think it should be called congestion
(03:27):
tax because I hate the congestion tax so much. But
I'm going to work on Ethan. Yeah, there's a lot
I'm going to do when he's not around for matinees.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
So I wouldn't go confess in that right now at
this early stage in the game. But Ethan Cohen, who
wrote the play, I mean, he's written some very dark stuff.
I mean he did the screenplay for Fargo and No
Country for Old Men, and you know.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Is it but this is this more cheerful or is
there a lot of people getting killed with oxygen containers
and stuff?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I want there to be. I suggested that. I suggested,
like after every love scene, I could stab someone. Yeah,
but uh, you know there's so many reasons. There's that
Wayn's Brothers movie I think is it called Scary movie
or something, and where people just start going on a
rampage and the hasidic guy comes over to people in
(04:25):
the audience starts stabbing and he's like you talk during
Shittler's List, you know, like there's just so many random
you can you can stab people.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I think it's I don't know that it's allowed to
usually go out and stab people who are in the audience.
But you know what, what theaters and tell me that
because maybe it will be Okay.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Where are you? It's on twentieth Street, so I say
anything goes Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I think I think below thirty fourth Street. Yeah, I
think you can stab members of the audience, and that's
all right. I don't It's an old by law in
New York. We should probably find out, do you know.
I want to ask you about it because I'm in
London tho, as you can tell behind me, if you
look out the window, you could probably see there are
chimney sweeps and singing urchins and all sorts of people
(05:10):
with their thumbs behind their lapels.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
You're from London, are you? Weren't you born here? Well?
I was born there, yes, so I have dual citizenship.
That would seem like a fail safe. But I've heard
that the first on the nuclear bomb list is London.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Is it really like if it.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Broke out, they say that's the first place they would hit.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Why would they go for London first?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I guess, well, it's close, it's close if they're going
to be coming out. I don't think about it much.
I used to think about it a lot in the eighties,
but that was kind of way before your time, seeming
I was like twenty when you were born, and during
the eighties we rose terrified in nuclear wars.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Do you worry about nuclear wars? I?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, you know, and I shouldn't. I should be the
last person because I know it humans do so I
should be hoping for annihilation. But all these people who
they like to go kayaking, they're not worried about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Well, I think if you're kayaking, which is a fair point,
if you are kayaking, then it's unlikely that you'll be
in a place that's going to be nuclear attacked because kayaking,
by his very nature, is not usually done in central London.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
You would think that, but they have all kind of
sights all over the world. In fact, you can stay
in bunkers on Airbnb.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Well, no way. Are we happy about this or are
we sad about this? And also as a follow up
kind of question as well, why this hatred of people
kayaking is there?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Do you have a problem with guys yet? I don't
know why.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
There's no smug Yeah, I kind of feel the say,
and I'll take a lot of hate for this, but
I kind of feel the same.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Way about people who cycle.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Not the.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yah yeah people who but people who wear all the
outfits and the tiny little.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Hats and stuff, I can't do it.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Just their tight butts alone that they go ahead.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And yeah, they kind of wave them in your face literally,
kind of saying, this is what you don't have.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That's what I feel like is going on. Let me
ask you this. If you don't kayak and you don't bicycle,
how do you get around New York?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Suty that a hitchhikest That would be very dangerous.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
That would be a very dangerous thing to do. Why
do you think it got so dangerous. My mother used
to hitchhike and one time she had a guy. He
drove her out to the desert and he said, I've
had a lot of Spanish fly and she had to
kind of fend him off and then run through the
cactus and the dark and wilderness to get away from him.
But mostly in the sixties and previous, it was a
(07:50):
legitimate way to get around, and there was a lot
less fear for both the people picking up the hitchhikers
and the hitchhikers.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
What changed, See, I have a theory about this that
may not fit into the narrative I don't think it
has changed.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I think the coverage of it has changed.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So I think all of the scary shit was going
on before, but it wasn't so like hyperbolic all over
the place. I think people have been dreadful for a
very long time, and I don't think that they're getting
any worse.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I think they're just getting more noticed.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
There's more, there's more news to fill, there's more kind
of stories to tell. Every tabloid, every Instagram account. People
have got to tell a story. But I want to
just bring you back to your mother and what happened.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Oh, I guess she got out. I mean might one
time they found a gal who had been you know, hurt,
and I think she had been than her body had
been burned. Oh my god. All they found they said
she was a redhead who wore hoop earrings. And I
think that kind of took it out of my nana.
And then when her mom, my mom called a couple
of days later, she's like, oh, Robin, she was from England. Yeah,
(09:02):
oh Robin. But you know, I mean, it's the kind
of thing that makes your heart stop. So I guess
I guess eventually my mom, you know, she stopped doing it.
I think one time the cops picked her up and
they said, you know, this is illegal, and they drove
her back home. And I'm getting all these stories mixed up.
But she fell asleep to the sounds of the dishwasher
and she felt so safe. It was probably one of
(09:22):
the earliest dishwashers. And then one time she lived with
a guy. I think he was making mess. Again, I'm
probably getting all these stories miss mixed up. But the
cooker and you cook it right, and it's set the
house on fire. So then again the fireman and the
police came, and so she hid under a pile of laundry.
She actually fell asleep and they didn't catch her. You
(09:44):
should talk to my mom.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
She has much better stories. I feel like I perhaps
should talk to your mom, or at least in the
FBI should talk to your mom. The So it must
be quite difficult for your mom, if she had such
a colorful young life herself, to be a disciplinarian with you.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Was she very strict? Was you when you were little?
But you know, it's no fun being the disciplinarian, being
the organizational one. It's fun being you know. And she
always had a taste. She was on tour in Hong
Kong with Albert Finnie and she she wound up getting
in an argument with him at a bar, which is
the best thing you can do with Albert Finnie, you know. Yeah,
(10:27):
so you got to find somebody to manage your tour,
who you know who doesn't want to go have fun?
And you know, because you know who enjoys who enjoys
filling out forms and uh checking in the hotels?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And does anyone enjoy that? I don't know that people
enjoy that.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yes, what's a whole sub what do you call it? Fetish?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Is this a kin people who liked doing like doing hotel.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Filling in forms?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I guess it's like if you're if you, if you're
used to tax forms and stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Do you do your own taxes?
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Hell no, I don't even know they're gonna get me. Yeah,
I should evaded them, right like.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
John Bias, I do think he should have a vade
your taxes. It never goes well for anyone to evade
your taxes.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I just heard about Percy Sledge because we're thinking about
a tuna his for the Ethan Show, and apparently he
got in trouble for that. And also he had to
have a fundraiser for medical care. Craig after a man
loves a woman, he had to have a fund He
lived in Baton Rouge. I mean that's like a fifth
of the price of stuff in New York. He had
(11:39):
to have a fundraiser for medical care.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
We should move to your house. Why would Percy Sledge?
Would Percy Sledge would not be comfortable in my house.
He's not still around anyway, Percy Sledge? Is he?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
No? But I am. But it's just in this country.
I mean, I know, do you have in trouble with
the elites going after the National Health which used to
be sacri sanct in Britain? But I mean here, we
don't even pretend you're just on your own.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Wait a minute, I must I feel I may have
misled you. I am in London visiting. I do not
live in London. I'm in London right now, but I live.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
In New York City.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Oh that's a nice Yes, So I'll be coming to
see the show. Sure, Yeah, of course I don't like
to go below you know, below Midtown, but I'll do
it for you.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I'll go and see the show.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Yes, what's in Meddown?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
The barrier between the Upper east Side where I live
and downtown, which I'm happy to go to, but I
don't like going to Midtown st busy.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
No, you're on the Upper east so that means that
must be the new hip district.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
No, I think it's more than the hip replacement district.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
It's the.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
It's a little more kind of genteel and quiet. That's
why I like it. You know, the heap districts are Brooklyn,
Brooklyn is Williamsburg. And said, uh, where where are you?
What neighborhood are You don't say that, but just like
general area.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Oh, I mean, I can't tell you. And it's not
your race, it's your class because you can't help it.
Once people reach a certain level, yoga studios and cupcake
shops appear, and that's just it's just how Craig, how
can there be so many people? I know they buy
up apartments like a real estate deals. How can there
(13:34):
be so many people who can pay you know, eight
thousand a month in New York?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
You know, so the coming for it.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So you got hey, you go, you gotta hide, you know,
you gotta hide. So where where are you hiding? Where?
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Where's your neighborhood. Give me a rough idea, Give me
a rough idea.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I think I'm gonna be I'm going to be pretty
close to the theater.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
You know, right, that's enough down't townishnish.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah, but get this, I mean you'll Brinner when he
was performed, my mom used to work for you, Brenner.
She was his second assistant. So he would come off
of the stage after shall we dance and go right
to the oxygen machine and go And then his first
assistant was Claire, so he would say, c Clare, I
don't know how to talk with Claire. Claire, I need
(14:21):
uh oh, yes, I need fourthy fourth inch rubber bands
from Fort Dam and Mason's. And she would say, yes,
mister Benner, Robin, mister Brinnan needs fourth inch rubber bands
from Fort and Mason. He says, no, Claire, I need
half inch rubber bands from Fortuham and miss oh yes,
mister Brinner, Robin, mister Brinnan needs And this is this great,
(14:43):
it's really a living it is.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
But what do you need those rubber bands for? What
did you Brennan need the rubber bands for?
Speaker 3 (14:51):
I don't know what. Probably this is between Mattinee and
evening he would go h be with Marlena in and
wherever he was staying. I don't think he got a
lot of rest. And then afterwards, I think after the
show he always liked to wind down. Man, people can
really kill themselves with the performing thing. Well, you can
(15:13):
do that affair with Marlena thing.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, they're fair? Was it Marlina detreat?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Was that?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Who was?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yes? And Mommy thinks that it didn't work because they're
too much alike.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, I think that that's possible.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
I having not met either one of them, I'm going
to decide that that's actually what happened and they.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Were too alike.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Hello, this is Greig Ferguson and I want to let
you know I have a brand new stand up comedy
special out now on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy,
and I would be so happy if you checked it out.
To watch the special, just go to my YouTube channel
at the Craig Ferguson Show and is this right there?
Just click it and play it and it's free.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
I can't look.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
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. I mean, haven't had a parent
who was so involved in show business like that, in
that kind of like really inside the world. Do you
think that that your work travels across and one of
(16:23):
the things I love about your music is it travels
between so many wildly varying genres. It feels like sometimes
it's like Trent Resner was born in the night it
was working in the nineteen twenties, you know what I mean.
It's like you can get very dark and also have
about ooh ah, it's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
How you do that?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Do you think that the diversity of your influence is
to do with your parents?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Because your father's very kind of clever play right as well.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Isn't he? Oh yeah, I think I think there's something
called genetic memory, So who knows how far it goes back.
I mean, I don't know if you've done any I've
done very little. But I do think that maybe some
of my family were part of the pirates of Penzance, Okay,
and so that's why I we you know, and there's
lots of ways to be a modern day pirate, and
(17:13):
you know, you got to live out, to live outside
the law, you must be honest.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
There has to be a certain order amongst thieves and performers,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
My wife always says circus folk. We are circus folk,
and so the rules are a little bit of it.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
You know that. Well, what does she do? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Uh, circusy, she's a little circusy rides horses. You can
ride a horse with one leg and stuff like that. No, yeah, yeah,
can you do that? Do you ever ride horses around
downtown neighborhoods?
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Oh? No, I just want to pet them.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Well, I think that's perfectly acceptable.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
You can pet horses.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
You're quite vocal about animal rights and stuff. Factually, as
I remember on we bonded over veganism. As I recall
the last time I spoke to you.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Oh that's right. Yeah, how is it going for you, Craig?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Well, I'll be honest, there was a time where I
returned to the harsh world of the carnivar.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
I'm not going to lie to you, Nelly.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
During the lockdown, I went beef and chicken a little
bit for a while. But I'm back and uh, and
I have was interesting. I don't know if this is
of any interest to you, but it certainly was to me.
For the first time in my life. I got a
medical exam and the doctor said, your cholesterol is up.
You need to go back to the your vegan diet.
(18:40):
And I said, or take statins. And I was like, well, no,
I don't want to take status if I can avoid them.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So I so I have returned to the way of
the hair.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Before I'm back. That was wonderful. Yeah, but it was
a you know, it was a right.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I imagine you're still where you are with it, right,
You've remained true to.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
The con Oh, it's a struggle every day because everywhere
you go, you know, there's this or that. Yeah, of course,
I think it's very good that you're honest, because you know,
we live in a world where there's constant temptation in
so many ways and so many people. It can be
hard to understand. Other people, like the pianist Mary Lou Williams,
(19:19):
had a severe gambling addiction. That's something I've never had,
but I you know, so it can be hard to
get inside that. When if I play a casino or something,
I mean to me, it just seems like such a scam,
you know, it's such an obvious I ain't waiting around
for that slot machine. But everyone has their thing, and
(19:41):
I think, especially the more pressure you're under, you're under
a thoughtful profession. I mean, if I could make a
decent living, like just working for the park service, you know,
an equivalent, I mean I would. It's so nice not
to think, you know, and you've got to be witty
and you've got to make decisions, and that's it's tough
on you. So you know, everybody's under some kind of pressure.
(20:03):
And food is such a oh it's just it's something
you can rely upon, and it's home and family. It's
it's tricky. It's so you know, we all got to
be kind to one another and ourselves.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
That's a wonderful thing to say about it. I feel
so much better, you know, if the if the musician
thing hadn't worked out, I think some kind of therapy
or spiritual guide position for you would have been great.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
I really feel a little better having listened to you
say that. But Craig, don't you think that if your work.
Actually I know someone who worked in a prison, right,
and it's this this tricky thing, because the worst criminals
aren't in prison. They die on you know, the maximum
count bed sheets, and they go to the fanciest restaurants
and they live lives of luxury. However, if I worked
(20:51):
in a prison, I can just see so, I mean,
people would I you know, I'd be letting people out
of their cells left and right, and they probably stabbed.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Me, you know, yes, they probably would.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Have you ever done a gig in a prison, I've
never done a gig in When I've visited a friends
in prison, but I've never I've never played a prison.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Who did you visit? If you can say?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I can't really, but but it was it was in
a prison in Scotland and it was a friend of
mine who I was actually a guitarist I was in
a band.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
With and he got he got up to.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Some nonsense and he went to a very harsh prison
in Scotland and I went to visit them. It's any
time I've been inside a prison actually, and I thought,
oh gosh, I I really would never like to come
back here ever again, if that's all possible, if I
can avoid ever coming here. And it was at that point, Nellie,
that I stopped cooking mess in the washing machine.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
But well, where's mass legal is there any place.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I don't think it is, and I don't think it.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
No, I don't think it.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
I don't think there's anywhere like you can go and
they say, oh, yes, have six pack of math or
whatever people take it. I don't think it is. We
is legal, but I don't know that that's helped at all.
I used to be very kind of like, yeah, ever
it and should be legal, but.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I'm not sure it's helped at all. But I don't
take Anathan.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Do you take anathing? Oh? The only one working? Oh?
Interesting really because socially it actually it bothers people. But
there was like, do you need a drink? I said, well,
when I need to drink now, I'm happy. But working
is you know. It's that thing. I had a bed
you know, Craig. Actually it's funny you mentioned this because
I got two things. First of all, I had a
(22:35):
bed gig in front of Mike Nichols, who had seen
me as a thing. My mother wrote me this pristine joke,
you know, and it went over so well. So then
Mike Nichols, he was like a butterfly at my side,
and he kept saying things I didn't know, like he
was saying me directing Beckett is like you reciting folkup.
I didn't know what he was saying, so I just
(22:56):
went ha ha. So he came with Diane Sawyer do
the gig. I was like, I'm gonna drop out, man,
you know, but he showed up with the answer. And
I worked so hard on these big band arrangements, not
thinking you got to get your material right right, So
I didn't, so said I bombed the flop sweat, you know,
(23:17):
flooded downtown and he came over to the table afterwards
the meet and greet him and Diane. I could just
tell it was over, and then he died. So that's
so then you realize you either got to get your
material or you got to have some substances. But the
second time was when I played a prison in West
Virginia and I had my gigbag, so I had all
kinds of embarrassing things, including a couple of little vodka bottles.
(23:42):
So who knew that. I think that's a felony in
West Virginia to take that into a prison. But the
worst thing they did is they have now barred me
from ever setting foot in a West Virginia prison, which
doesn't entirely feel like a bad thing.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
It's not a punishment really anyway.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
But yeah, only on the job, you know. But Craig,
you got to make people happy whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, it's true. But whenever I, you know, used aol,
alcohol was my thing. Whenever I used that in performing,
I thought I was doing great with my performance. But
everyone has assured me that since I stopped doting alcohol,
my performing skills have improved immeasurably.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I feel like I couldn't do my job when I
was high. But I think with musicians it's a little different.
I think because they.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Can again to a groove. I know it certainly not
a lot of.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Musicians who who play in a very older state a
lot of the time, some very successful people. But then again,
I know others who can't perform at all unless they're clean.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Right. Well, I know Brett Butler. I think it took
alcohol to be able to get her to start her
whole career. Yeah. For instance, I love her memoir. Yeah,
I I don't know if i've read that, ma'am. Is
it good?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Oh it's good.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Oh, it's so good. And I know there's an audio
version which it probably breaks. It's in her accent. Yeah, no,
it's funny. I know. I right.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
I'm very friendly with Tom Straw, who was the showrunner
of that sitcom.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
She was on what was it called again the Are
You under Fire?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Grace under Fire?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah, and Tom Straw was who's a good friend of mine.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
He's been on this podcast. Tom was the.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Was the showrunner, the kind of lead writer on that
and Tom. Funnily enough, when she and she was having
a very difficult time during this is n her behavior
was very crazy. He will not hear a word against her.
He's like, nope, she's super talented.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
He loves her. It's it's very interesting, you know, she
was having an hard time.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Then. I've never met the woman. I don't know. Do
you know her? I met her once. She played underneath
Madison Square Garden. I guess there's a comedy club there,
and she was very She said, Oh, I wish I
was a little girl named Nelly.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Well, I've wished that in my life too, but not
for a while.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I think you do it so much better than I do,
so I wouldn't want to get in the way of that.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Do you ever, do you ever perform over here in London?
Do you ever do you do? You work over here
a lot? I hope so. I'd loved to. Last time
I was there, I got so sick. But it wasn't
It was Linda McCartney's vegan sausages. But it wasn't the
fault of the sausages that I took them to the
hotel microwave and I think they put them on for
too little time, so it wasn't her fault. But anyway,
(26:42):
I was very sick the next day, and then I
went to go see my friend Richard Kind doing Guys
and Dolls?
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Chard Kind?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Did you see that I saw.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
When he was doing the Producers?
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Richard Kind was doing the Producers and I went to
see him that night he was on this spot. Asked
like a few weeks ago, and Richard. I went to
see him that night and then after it. This is
a long time ago, because after I went out and
I met the woman that.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
I'm now married that night.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
When I went to see Richard cau So, I always
think of Richard Kryd in a very fun way.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
He's a lovely man. Richard, where did you go and
meet your lady?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
It was an event after the theater I had to
go to.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
It was a party. I didn't want to go.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
It wasn't a party, well, it was a party. It
was New Yorkers for.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Children charity event, and I didn't want to go, but
I said I was going to go. So I went
to this New Yorkers for Children charity event and I
met this woman and we've been married for years.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Oh my goodness, always the event you don't want to
go to.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
It's not funny. She says the same thing. I mean,
because she didn't want to go to the thing either.
She was like, all right, and she went.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
And it's an interest.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
And now we say that to our kids, which is
always go to the party because you never know who you're.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Going to meet. That's a beautiful story.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
It's all Richard Kind.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
My god.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
So anyway, I interrupted you because you said you were
seeing Richard Kind and guys and dolls in London.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Oh that I mean, that's basically yeah. And then yeah.
I left him a little Bernie sticker backstage and I said,
you know, if you want to hang out, and so
he came to my gig and it was funny. Walked
me back to the elevator, and elevators can be very
dangerous situation, so I appreciate his protection. Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
I mean, given your mother's experience with the hitchhiker, I
think an elevator is probably a lot safer than you're
used to in your family's history. Really, I mean, Richard
kind in an elevator is not a dangerous situation at all.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
But I don't know if you've ever read it's a
really I haven't even gotten that far into it. But
Susan Brown Miller recently died, and she had wrote a
book called Against Our Will, and whoa Once you read that,
oh holy crow. I mean they say say with prostitutes
that the most dangerous place is more a hotel room
(29:15):
than if you're on the street. So you know, you
just never know be paranoid.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
You know, I think I do a pretty good job
of being paranoid. I stay paranoid a lot of the time.
Are you nervous about that? Do you get paranoid?
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Are you a nervous person? Do you think? Well? You
have to, because if I got attacked, what I would
just be? Woody Allen. I just I tear up my
driver's license. I mean, I knew because I grew up
in Harlem and we had a what do you call it,
a roommate who was a right wing folk singer from Minnesota.
(29:53):
But he was a real white boy, you know, and
he used to get so nervous he would push a
shopping cart and and pee his pants and talk to
himself so he wouldn't get mugged. So you know, everybody, uh,
you know, I always feel like I'll hurt people's feelings,
you know, if I you know, it's like you suspect
(30:13):
any guy that they could, but they are all bigger
than you. You know. No, of course it's not just Harlem.
It's just that at that time it was. It was
in New York in the eighties. You know, was was
was pretty. I remember it was rougher, but but there
was a beauty to it, Craig, because you know, I mean,
(30:33):
it's it's ruled by thieves, but there they'd steal a
lot more. You know, it's it's Dylan. It's uh still
a little in Ittorian jail, still a lot and they
make you king. Yeah, well that it was ever us.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
It's interesting though, that if I was a right wing
folk singer, I don't think Harlem would be even today,
the place where I would choose to live. I feel
like there are other domestic arrangements that may be more.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
It so lubras to your.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Chosen profession, but I get it.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
He was also an opera student, which maybe has a layer,
but also Craig, I mean, it's just the facts of life.
It's working, you afford to live, but go ahead.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah. In the nineteen eighties, I lived in the Lower
East Side and there was a lad, a lady, a
woman that we all knew in the neighborhood, and she
was also an opera singer, but she wasn't she wasn't
very well known, and she was young, and she started
(31:35):
her career. So she worked in a restaurant. She was
a waitress in a restaurant. She worked at a table
at a restaurant, and on the way home every night,
she used to sing.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
These areas really loud.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
We used to hear her walking down the neighborhood because
if ever the music stopped, ifever she stopped singing, people
would look out on the fire escapes to see what
was going on. So it was kind of a way
of protecting herself as she was walking home that she
would sing this beautiful music into the neighborhood and we
would all hear going home. And if she stopped saying, someone, go, hey,
what's going on down here?
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Get the music?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Bat, they would you know, it would come back up again,
no kidding.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
That was in New York.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Yeah, it was on Eleventh Street on First Avenue, right
down like you know where Veneera's Bakery is down there,
right there?
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, yeah, right there.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I used to live above that bakery technique.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah, I thought it was very clever. Oh yeah, yeah,
I still love that bakery. I still love it. Well,
I'm glad you come back here. Are just are you still?
Oh no, you're on your freeze side? But do they deliver?
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I'm sure they would for a price. But I don't
mind getting on the subway and going downtown. I because
first of all, you can get right past Midtown by
just staying on the train, so you know, you get
on the eighty sixth Street and then you mess it
all out and now you're in Union Square and everything's fine.
And the other thing is, like you talked about New
(33:00):
York and they like this. People complain about the subway
in New York. Now I'm like you guys, have no idea.
This thing is plaicial now. Used to the subway used
to be so awful, and now it's like, this is.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Actually pretty nice. It's all right.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
It goes everywhere very I don't see much trouble.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
It's kind of clean ash.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
It's not bad. That's fine. We used to live in Queensland.
I was growing up for Harlem and we were on
the Vomit Comet was what they called the all like that,
and that was where they had the first subway. Fires
was our stop, the Halsey Street station. But you know,
if you're in near eighty sixth I saw Rita Moreno
do a book talk there at the Barnes and Noble
(33:44):
and afterwards, yeah, boy, but I messed up with Rita.
I said, because i'd met her because I did another
off broad ray show. And I said, oh, after all that,
I said, you must be tired. She think she was
in her eighties. She gave me such a look. Oh
you shouldn't say that. Don't mess with the riata.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
You know, it's funny when you meet especially and this
must have happened you quite a lot. But when you
start doing well and people start listening to your stuff,
you start to meet people that you've vitalized, and it
can be kind of awkward. It's an odd dynamic to
be put into.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Do you remember the.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
First of your heroes that you ever actually met or
that you worked with?
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Oh? Gee, I don't know even the first, but well,
Phil Woods used to teach me. He's a wonderful saxophone player, legend,
and he always said you talked too much about music.
But then I remember David Byrne. I think the last
time I saw, one of the last times, I kind
of locked him in the dressing room because I didn't
(34:49):
want to let him go, and I kept saying, Mom,
can I let David out? But you know, people are
just people. I think it's better if you don't know
their work, you know, So I try and I try
not to look at it and watch anything or listen
to anything.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Really, you know, it's funny. I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I spend no time or a very little time talking
to comedians or or like if I if I'm if
I'm talking to a comedian or a writer, it is
probably that I don't socialize with with people that kind
of do the same as me. Not very often anyway,
I can't because especially if I really like what they do,
(35:29):
I'm like, and I'll just make a fool of myself.
I'll say something stupid. It's interesting you mentioned David Byrne though,
because it was this thing that I remember from when
Talking Heads we're doing I guess the album Fear of Music.
I think it says an early album and or fairly
(35:51):
early album. They I found out that David Byrne was
from Scotland. Did you know that. We were all super
excited when we found out.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah, I was like, David Berne is Scottish.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Like the coolest person on earth is Scotty. I mean,
like apart from Boy, but you know, boys no longer
with us. So it is in vit David burn now
and he's from Scotland.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
I hardly believe it. But I've never met him. I've
never he was.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
He's another guy that I kind of thought, like, especially
when I was doing Late Night and I'd be like, no,
I don't want to invite people on that I really like.
I idolize too often. I mean it did happen. There
were you know, people on that I did adlize, but
Boy was one of David Burne was another. I was like,
don't ask them, just in case they say.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yes, no, really you didn't go for it.
Speaker 6 (36:43):
No, no, Craig, Maybe maybe now would be okay, maybe
now would be a little different, because I notice when
you get older, it kind of it doesn't stop you
enjoying people's work or really appreciating it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
But the idea of being intimidated by people like that,
it doesn't do the same to me.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Does it still have that effect on you? If you
meet a giant in your field.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Well, you just want to have something to say. What
do you say that hasn't been said before? You know,
I know you know that that that's it. You want
to work with them, you know. And I'm sure you
have so many ideas I didn't have, but I'll put
it up. But my mug that says tomorrow is just
a future yesterday, which always wigs me. You can't be
(37:28):
saying that the stoners man, you know, but it's right
there in my cabinet. Every morning is ah, you know,
like the monks say they wake up in the morning,
Buddhist monks, and the first thing you're supposed to think
about is death, because that's supposed to kind of orient
your priorities for the day. I don't know. I don't know,
(37:49):
but but you know, now you should? You should? Why
not write songs for David or you guys could do
it with just one song together? And you know, I
mean he has a hue huge library in his studio
and he has he climbs a staircase to get to it,
and he brought me down a lot of music. I
was very sweet of him, which I've never returned because
(38:10):
how could you It has his initials in it. I
don't want to give that back. Written music like manuscripts. No,
it's more like obscure Argentine, Tinian orchestras. It has dB
you know, I mean, look at how he dressed. He
seems quite meticulous.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Oh yeah, yeah, he's a Taurus. You're both Tauruses.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
I should That's what I should say if I ever
run into David Barn I'll say, look, this may sound
a little creepy, David, but I know you're from Scotland
and we're both Taurusts.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
So why not we'll do a song together and we'll
see what he says.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
I I don't know, I think it might work out.
Couldn't you start a feud.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
No, I don't want to have a feud with with
someone I admired.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
That's a terrible idea.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Have you got any feud?
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Do you have a celebrity feud going on that I
don't know about it?
Speaker 3 (39:02):
I suggest I suggested it to Ethan because Neil Pepe,
our director, he was like, we know we're looking for
ways to promote I said, why don't we have a
Twitter feud? And Ethan said, oh, I don't do anything
like that.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
No fun.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
But he's a Virgo. But another Earth sign. I mean,
I do think if the end of the world came,
the last to go should be the Earth science because
you're very grounded. But Scott against Scott. I mean, that's
that's great. You should look up your respective clans. Maybe
there's a whole history.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
I don't think we have to. I think they're burn
and Ferguson. I think that's it. I feel like the
look nearly. I don't want to get in the way
of your masterplot. But this is a terrible idea. I
really like David Byrne. I don't want to be in
a celebrity feud with David Byrne. But a lot of
people would be saying, who is this person that David
Byrne is in a feud with?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Everybody don't even know who this guy is.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
And David Burner would be like, get very angry and
wear this big suit.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
I don't want to do that. Does that great?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
You know the British radio show Desert Island Discs.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Have you ever heard it?
Speaker 1 (40:06):
No? Oh, it's a great show, Nelly. It's a radio show.
And what they do is they have it's been going
on for like sixty or seventy or maybe even more years,
and it's what it is is a guest comes on
every week and they can be from any part of
the world and they choose six songs.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
They call it Desert Island Discs. Like you're on a
desert island.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
You only have six songs that you can listen to
for the rest of your life on a gramophone.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
That's how long it's been going on.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
So you get to pick six discs and you also
get to take you get given the full work of
Shakespeare and the Bible, but you also get to take
one luxury item and a book or something like that.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
And they talked and David Byrne was on it. I
heard David Byrne on it, and he was hilarious.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Hilarious. It's not what I expected at all. That's what
his former Ben may say. They say, now he's mister Rogers.
What the fart?
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, he's he was, He's so he's a very singular,
a true musician.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
I think, like you, someone who whose mind thinks in music.
I mean, not someone who really even learns music as
much as just that's how their brain works. And I
think I think you're very similar. I think you processed
the human experience through music. I think he does the
same thing. Everything is there, don't you think I wish
(41:33):
I was. I wish I was like that.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
I mean, before to prep for you, I was listening
to Noam Chomsky on consumerism.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Which is a perfect choice, you know, you said earlier
on the Buddhist monks say that when you wake up,
the first thing you should do is think about death,
right as you wake up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
I have noticed that the older I get, the more
I do that. I woke up with a month ago,
still here, Eh, Okay, what are we going to do now?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
It's not bad, But do you have a positive opinion
of death? When do you think when do you plan
to live to I was hoping ninety three. I'm sixty
three right now. That'll be thirty more years.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
But it depends on how the health goes, you know,
I don't I don't know. I mean, you know, if
it's going to be very bad for a long time,
then but I don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
I think I have a.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Reasonably positive idea of it. What do you think happens
after it's all over?
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Do you have any any inclination? Do you think about it?
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Well?
Speaker 3 (42:46):
I think we're naturally and of course this shuts out
pretty much everything in our culture, but we're naturally supposed
to live to six times the age of maturation, which
should be one hundred and twenty because we're basically not
fully formed until about twenty. But of course, you know,
there's so many ways that is forced upon us that
(43:09):
goof that up. But I've lost so many people, and
good people, the bloomers, for God's sake. You know. It
used to be when I was playing Nursing Homes Craig,
everybody wanted Tommy Dorsey. Now everybody wants Nick Jagger. They say,
who's Tommy Dorsey? So it's going to be everybody wants
David Byrne, this is not okay. I don't accept this,
you know, you know, and then it's going to be
(43:30):
the song song you know? But but then what do
I hope happens? I do think there's something beyond. I
think all these serendipities are more than just coincidences. There
are too many things that pop up. And it's not
just that the devices are listening to us all the time.
So whatever we're talking about now, I will then receive
an ad for afterwards. It's not just that there are
(43:53):
genuine signs, it seems. And when you listen to people
who have had near death experiences, you get the sense
of such peace and they never want to come back.
And then whatever is happening on the writing table works
and they come back and they're back to pain, but
they've had this near death experience and it's beautiful. And
(44:13):
that's what I hope. I just hope we're reunited and
there's no more misunderstandings or pain, because who needs that.
I don't know how it is in your relationship, but
this whole thing of like, you know, relationships are hard, No,
screw that, work is hard, life is hard. You want
to come home at the end of the day and
just be you know, have a cold one or not
(44:35):
if you want to live to one twenty and be
happy that.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I think you're right. I think that there is such
an odd thing there was once. I'm going to tell
you something now, something I did. The piece of writing
that I am most proud of is a short story
that I wrote for a collection of stories that my
friend Larry Block, who's a very good writer, was putting together.
(45:03):
A collection of stories all based on the paintings of
Edward Hopper. So a bunch of different people, some really
clever people like Joyce, Carol Oates.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Stephen King, you know, Scott Truro. They wrote. Everybody wrote
a short story.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
And I wrote a short story about a church, and
I just invented a whole thing about a Hopper painting
of a church in Massachusetts. And it's the best thing
I've written because it was about death. It was about
a man who dies in the space of the short story,
and I mean, as he's dying, something really weird happens
(45:43):
and he says is he says to the person that
turns out it's basically Elvis turns up as he's dying
and Elvis has been long dead, and Elvis he says
to Elvis, this is just the entertainment of a dying brain,
isn't It's just the hallucination of a dying brain. And
(46:04):
Elvis says, I think you can overthink these things. And
I think that that is such a I felt very
comfortable with that, and so that's where I'm going to
set where it's inevitable.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
So why overthinking it'll happen? But do you feel comfortable
because you're Craig ferguson the end. Also, you have a
lovely lady that your things will be taken care of
in treasured.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
I think that I think I own nothing. I own nothing,
not even your body. You don't even own that. You
can't even control that. So I think everything is everything
is gone.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
And so whatever the lovely paintings or automobiles or anything
that I own, when when I go they're no longer mine,
what does it matter?
Speaker 3 (46:56):
I know? But I just I hate whist. But it's
just interesting because we would talk about David Bryn You
know his song Heaven Do you agree with you?
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Oh? Yeah, it happened is a place everybody's trying to
get to the bar. The I used to listen to it,
and it's funny. I think that life is very is
very perspective driven through the chronology of it. So if,
for example, I listened to that song a lot when
(47:24):
I was a young man, he wrote the song when
he was a young man, and I thought it was
funny and irreverent and and kind of almost defiant in
its stance.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
It was.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
It was, it was a satire almost.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
And now I look at it from the perspective I'm
much further along the beach, so the island I'm looking
at looks like a different shape now, and and I
think that's actually quite a relaxing and cool idea that
nothing ever happens. There's a I think that it's in
(47:59):
Jewish tradition and the idea of shield, which is a
place that the world where everybody goes there after death.
And it's just kind of not very interesting, let's all
really say about it.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
I don't know enough. I don't know enough about it.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
It's not like, but it's not lakes of fire and
people prodden you with steaks around like that. It's just
like it's just a little boring, all right. It's lovely
catching up with you I do want to come and see.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Uh, what's the name of.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
The plagua in love? Love? Love?
Speaker 2 (48:31):
It's love, It's all love. Maybe again, let's love, Let's love, yes,
which I suspect that maybe.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Irony in that title. But oh boy, it's very smutty.
You should know, Craig. I hope you're comfortable with that.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Yeah, actually remarkably so. That's great. I'm very pleased about that.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Are you do Are you doing all the music for
it as well?
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Well? Yes, but some of it I think we'll be
we will be standards. We're still figuring it out now.
But you know, have you done Broadway or theater shows?
I've done a lot of theater.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
I'm done Broadway, but I did the West End in London,
and I've done you know, different theater shows around the world,
but not Broadway.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
I imagine it's much the same.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Isn't it fun to just be you know, I've just
been part of the machine and not have to do
the whole motor yourself. Yes, it is. It is that.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
It's one of the things I miss about it is
that you know, somebody will come over and say no,
what you have to do is stand over there, say
that sing that. Do that and run out there as
fast as you can. Don't mess around, just do that,
and that's your job for the night.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
And then the best advice I got. There's an old
time performer when I was a young performer, he said,
when you he said, when you get on stage, lift
your head up, lift your head up and look up
because the people at the back have paid as well.
Eyes and teeth all the way in the back of
the room.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
I love that, wonderful eyes and teeth as well. And
but do you know Jim Dale?
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Yes, I mean I don't know him, but yes, I'm
very aware of his amazing career.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Yeah, it was fun doing it. He could still do
high kicks in his seventies. When we did throw me
off for together. Did you know Alan Rickman? I did.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I knew him a little bit, a little bit, did
you what was was.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
He onru open? Did he do it? No? But he
went to school with my mother and he was always
organizing things. Yeah, for their final test, he sang a
thousand clowns. Wait a minute, no, not what he send
in the clowns and then they they they were They
were extras on the film A Lucky Man so you
can see them at the end dancing.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Oh my god, boy Alan Rickman and your mom.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
Yes, yes, he was. You know. Then when I got
a record contract, I think it kind of messed him up.
We started calling him uncle Al and he would say,
my name is Allen and my name your uncle. All Right,
we gotta go.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Good luck with let's love, and I will come and
see it, particularly if it's smutty and it's downtown. That's
these are two things that I might to. Okay, so
take care of yourself. No hitch hiking around New York please,
and I captain. Yeah, all right, good, I'll tell you so.
(51:27):
Bye bye, Nelly Bi Graig
Host
Craig Ferguson
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