The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now. It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing on a stage, telling comedy words. Come and see me, buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones. I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but you should at least know what's happening, and it is. The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour or at your local outlet in your region. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. My guest today is a gentleman of extraordin in early style and wit and grace and humor. He is a very very clever with a very interesting take on life.
Of course, he lives in New York City, and of course he's originally from Cleveland, and of course he is George Hahn.
George, congratulations. In all the time I've been doing this podcast, which is not you're the first person who was early. Really, Yes, that's because I'm eager and I'm eager and excited to speak with you. Well, I think that's believable and also the I think you're the only person I've ever had on this only guests I've ever had on I think anywhere where I don't know you except from social media.
I only know you from social media because I have to make a confashion to you.
You were my lockdown internet boyfriend. It's one hundred percent true. God, that's the hottest things and if anything, any event's ever said to me in the last five years. So thank you for that.
I was in Scotland during the Lockdown and you were making these stylish, angry, passionate but also very cool little videos in New York and I was like, fuck, I wish I could get back to New York and live in an apartment in the Upper West Side. But George, we'd go to the opera, we'd go and see things, we'd go see. I have this idea of you that you are a complete Upper west Side stylish kind of sophisticate.
Tell me I'm wrong or tell me I'm right. Well, I'll tell you something. It's strange that you bring that up. I was thinking today that I am starting to sort of become that person in the weirdest way that I never was. Never on the itinerary. For example, I will tell you as we record this tonight, I am going to see no No, No. Let me rewind. Earlier this week, I went to the opera. I went to the Metropolitan
Opera House and I saw a production of Tosca. I never I hadn't been to the opera in maybe ten years. So it's so funny that you're mentioning this now because I just went back to the met for the first time in a decade and it was glorious. My friend is a sober buddy of mine, and he said, let's go to the diner old School, and then we went to the opera all dressed up and had this amazing, fantastic night and I just felt so like nourished creatively.
And then tonight to see are you sitting down? You're sitting down and you're wearing a tie and everything. Tonight, I am going to Radio City Music Hall to see none other than Barry Manilow. So you fucking bastard, treat me the same, treat me the same.
I my god, I lost the first time I was ever nominated for an Emmy or for anything, really, I lost it to Barry Manelo or he won it. I was in the same category as him for a moment though. Apparently shows and Barry Man and Loew's we're lumped together.
At one point in the history of show business back in the day.
Interesting, but he rightfully won the Best Bardie man A Loo Award.
But here's the thing. I went to the opera last year.
I went to see Labo M at the met and I have a problem with that opera a little bit because that woman that says that she's got TB and starts singing about having TV this, she doesn't look to me like she's sick.
Yeah she looks a little too good. Yeah she looks pretty healthy, robust character. Right. Are you a fan of the opera? I am cripperably a fan of the opera. And what that means is that for years I was making websites just to make a living, because it was a skill I had in my pocket. And one of
my clients was a manager of opera artists. So I got familiar with the names of them, the composers of them, and got very familiar with, you know, what each of them sounded like, because I was uploading in audio and video samples of performances. So this guy represented yeah, directors and singers and yeah. In fact, one of his clients was Charles Nelson Riley. Oh, he was there the opera, but he sort of was in a way. He was a director. He directed production, did he really did? He
did that? He was when I was a young wanta be actor in in the early days of New York City. We're going back to ninety five, ninety six, ninety seven. I was also a waitress at Joe Allen of course Wow on West forty sixth Street Theater, still a favorite personally anyway. And Charles Nilson Riley at the time was directing a production of The Gin Game with Charles during and Julie Harris and come in during runs of that show. During the run of that show, come in and harass.
Like today, he would have been slapped so hard with a lawsuit, like practically pinching us in the ass. And as we would walk past the table, he would go run Cinderella, Run, Cinderella, and I, you know, some of the other kids had a problem with it. I thought he was hilarious and I love Yeah. Yeah, it would not be examtable today. No, it would absolutely not beat out.
I think a lot of a lot of people I worked with back in the day in theater in London, it would have been tricky for them.
Now, I think pretty pretty tricky enough of that. Let me ask you this because as far as I can glean from social media, which is the anyway I know you. Although I think, and this is considered this podcast me applying to be your friend. You're in all right, right, so this is my application.
But I, as far as I've found out about your walking, glean from your posts.
You're from Cleveland, right, correct? Yeah? So you're from Are you from Shaker Heights to Cleveland. No, I'm on the other side of the town. Shaker Heights is a western or a rather east side suburb. I'm from a west side suburb called Lakewood.
Is that is that posh? Because I thought Shaker Heights is posh. Shaker Heights is posh, but Lakewood is not posh. No, Lakewood was always working the middle class. There were some Now Lakewood's got some posh pockets to it, but by and large, if you took that whole zip code, it would I would call it staunchly middle class. All right, So you grew up. It's a very kind of uh. Let you you tell me how it was. I I think of you as probably being in a kind of Ossie.
And Harry environment. Is that right? Is it is? It was a little more American go ethic? What was it? I would say maybe a little bit of both. I think my parents, looking back, were just sort of alarmingly normal. There was no like in my upbringing, like in our nuclear family. I'm the youngest of five. My mother was married and widowed before and had four kids when she met my dad. So my older siblings are technically half
and we had it pretty good. I say I would say that we were We were I think were fairly punished when we screwed up, and never physically, and we were rewarded when we did things very well, and we were loved and birthdays were like almost embarrassingly celebrated like we had a pretty good I would say, so what leads you? What led you in?
Because I feel like you're a theatery person, and that's a very specific kind of kid.
Were you a theory kid? I was a performative kid. I was never the first time I engaged in anything theatrical with a stage and a script and a director was in college. But the Hans themselves are funny. We have like my dad was funny. You know. My cousin Catherine Hahn, she's she's crazy. Catherine, she'sful, but she's nuts. Welcome to the very nice Yeah, and she adores you and I adore her. It's a love fest. We have to get together and have a hug fest.
I think that maybe the Hans and the Fergusons should maybe have a Thanksgiving together or something.
I think that's a I am down for that. I mean, we we've moved back to New England though, so we're American again. I think we can do that. Yeah.
I was in Scotland for a while and I was like, no, I was I think Proust, you know, I got about richere she Mike Thomas Purdue, and I think, no, No, you cannot go back.
I was just in your country not long ago. You where have we done? I have a friend, my friend, Scott Galloway, celebrated a birthday for himself a sixtieth. He called it a fiftieth birthday in a beautiful old hotel in Braemar. So for forty eight hours we were at the Fife Arms Hotel. It was incredible. You know, then whether Queen died I think in Braemar might be right. We saw the King's king and his motor cane on our way to the airport in the hotel house there. Yeah,
is it Baldey Castle, bow Moor. Yeah, I think he literally drove past. I saw him in the backseat of his car because they'd stopped a traffic because we were en route to Aberdeen Airport and there was the King And did you have a nice was that? Your first time? Was going totally? And I thought I was so charmed by it. Could I live there full time? No? I like the sun, yeah, and I like a salad now and then. But I love it beautiful, Oh my god, Craig, it's like this, It's.
Like is beautiful. It is beauty. Yeah, it's like skyfall. I actually when I love Skyfall as a movie. For me, it's my favorite Bond movie and me both even including the Conneries, which is it almost feels heretical to say that.
But it was the Bond movie that made me cry.
Yeah, And also I felt I it's the first time I really identified with James Wonder. And he's looking at the bleak beauty of Skyfall and where he grew up and he says, I hate this place.
Yes, let's just torch this house. Let's torch this house. No light coming in.
Oh yeah, But I didn't. I didn't come from the kind of dramatic part of Scotland. I came from the just the Cleveland of Scotland.
Actually, So how how did you get into are your family?
I mean, Catherine is very sure, she's very theatrical and very away went.
She was a local TV show and she did local theater. I was always embarrassed the west side of Cleveland to compare, because Katherine grew up on the East side of Cleveland. You know, our dads were brothers. Her dad was Bill. He just died this year on the same date my father died thirty four years ago. But so they grew up in the same house obviously, and then Bill went to the east side. Ultimately, my dad stayed on the
west side. The east side, where Shaker Heights is Cleveland Heights seemed to have a much more liberal minded and it might have been the liberal intellectual Jewish community. I don't know what it was, but like the sort of bohemian crowd was all away on the east side, particularly in this neighborhood called Coventry. That's where the art house movie theater was, That's where the museums were, That's where the cool record shops were. That's where you could get
vintage clothes. The west side, where I came from, it didn't have as much. It was a little more conservative, a little more he not as expressive artistically, I would say, and not as liberal. That's what I saw it.
You mentioned your father, and I saw a media post or something you posted some time, agoys, it's rather moving post about your father taking you to New York City?
Was that the first time that you went.
Was your father interested in in the theater?
Was he? Oh that's where that's where you got it from. Yeah, he was an actor. I have an award of his sitting on one of a chest in my room. He was an actor in local actor. He won awards. I've never won an award for acting. He went to Notre Dame. He did theater there. He was in the theater with Phil Donahue of all people, what mm hmm. They were at Notre Dame around the same time. And then got into He went into the Navy, did some performances in
the Navy. I think he wanted to go into acting professionally, but I think his father, my grandfather, kind of talked him out of it, you know, just in terms of, oh, you're gonna just setting yourself up for failure kind of thing. It's generational. And so my dad went into advertising and marketing and he was good at it, and that's what he ended up kind of doing. Did he look like John Hammond mad Men? He was more interesting to say that he wasn't the creative end. He was literally Pete Campbell,
not minus minus like he was an account executive. I think he's title on his business card was something like account executive. And that was my dad. So he was not you know, when you when you had mad Men, when those agencies were in two parts, it was a creative in the business. My dad was kind of more on the business side, but they did you know intercing.
What I pick up from your style is very kind of like it's very classically like that, very kind of you know, well cut suits and ties and good shoes, and.
I feel like I feel like there's alcohol in there as well. Is that? Yeah? Is it?
But you're correct me if I'm wrong, or tell me to show up from crossing the line.
But you're sober, right twenty two years? Wow?
Yeah, well that's great. Runs in the family. Yeah, it's a funny thing. So was that we're drinking when you went to New York?
When I got here? Yeah, I moved here in ninety four and I didn't get sober till two. Yeah.
Yeah, that would be right. I get sober. I'm thirty two years look at us. Yeah, but can I tell you something? What when I you know, because I always had this sort of act, this image of you know, an aspiring actor, that sort of that Richard Burton ideal brooding, a little messy and dark and chainsmoking and just terminally miserable, right,
always cloudy, always cloudy in my snow globe. And that was sort of what you know, everybody wanted to sort of be like that and look like al Pacino and Carlito's way, like just very sort of angry, bitter out of work. Anyway, I was fortunate enough to do an episode of Sex in the City and then like after that wrapped, there was a party and the showrunner, Michael Patrick King was at this rap party as well.
I'm sitting at a table with him. I'm not sure how or why, but they're passing around Martini's. The servers are giving away martinis and Cosmopolitans, what have you. When I am on antibiotics, I didn't give a shit. I took another martini. I'm getting well on my getting smashed, and Michael asked for a club soda and I said, you're not drinking tonight and he said, oh, I don't
drink at all. I said, ever, he goes, I've never drunk, And I thought this guy and I remember this clearly, this guy, and this is two and a half years before I ultimately got sober. He is highly functional, creatively, vibrant, successful, happy in the mix of this business that I want to be. I want to be in the mix like him. And I thought, this guy who doesn't drink is on to something and the not drinking thing is part of it.
And I remember a seed was planted. Even though I had sober parents, I had like yeah, so the drinking thing was very tricky for me for a long time.
Yeah, I think that I very much believed the myth of you know that the alcohol and you know, I did cocaine, but only is a kind of vitamin to drink more. It wasn't really like a proper cocaine addiction. It was more kind of like a side hustle for the main event. And I felt like the that's why British people do so much cocaine, by the way, it's because they like cocaine. It's just that they can drink more while they're taking cocaine. That's that's what it is.
It's like, oh, yeah, let's do a little bump.
But it's not like it's not like doing a bump in you know, in New York or in Los Angeles or Miami. It's well, then go down the pap.
But that being said, I felt for the myth of the drugs and the alcohol make you loosen, creative, and it was it took me a while to figure out the people who were creative and successful, and usually it was some kind of torture genius. We're doing that despite the drugs and alcohol, not because of it. It was like their talent was so profound that it was it was kind of cutting through because I really don't buy that myth anymore. I really I think it's fucking horseshit.
The you know, Picasso is a great artist. Mcdigliani is a great artist. Mcdiglianni dies in the street and is I guess his thirties or forties. Picasto lives the ninety and keeps, keeps doing things, and keeps, you know, keeps changing. And I I wonder if young people now are still buying into that. I feel like you might be a bit more plugged into that world than may do you think?
So I get I missed a fun I can't remember specifically what it was, but I remember years ago coming across an ad for some kind of liquor. Whether it was a it might have been a gin or a a rum, I don't know. It doesn't matter anyway. The ad feature Ernest Hemingway. I thought, wait a minute, and the alcoholic who blew his head off as your spokes model I'm sorry, there's a disconnect here like this, These guys who are extolled as you're you know, you're brooding
like male archetype heroes. He was a mess, you know. Richard Burton was a mess yep uh. You know these drinker Jimmy Uh, Judy Garland, Marilyn monty Cliff beautiful, creative, vibrant souls. But I would imagine after a certain point to the people who love them, the people in their lives, I would imagine were exhausting and burned people out like rice paper.
Oh yeah, I'm sure. And also that the thing that I mean, I I think I was. I was pretty good at this is putting on some kind of show while I was drinking in public. You know, it was only it was only after are quite a bit of time, and I guess when it became obvious that I had a problem. But I would pretend, even to myself, I was having a you know, I was living a wild life and having a great time. Same the fetal position at four o'clock in the morning, naked and your hotel
room crying. You know, something you shared with people, just like guess what I did last night. It was awesome.
Yeah, or being in that position with someone else in the room gorgeous. Sure, who's going to look like pity.
On people's faces. That's why I hated Jesus. I hated that when when they would just look.
At you like what that? What the fuck you? If I could remember that, my biggest year was the next day or days after hearing about what I did or said. That was so unnerving to me.
Yeah, that's why I took cocaine and took blackouts away.
Ah See, had I only known or had some extra.
Cash well cocaine, or if I I didn't know it about prescription lens sun's glasses, I think I might still be drinking.
Actually I didn't.
I didn't know there was such a thing as you could get prescription lens sunglasses.
And if I had known about that, I'd be like, it's all. See, they don't talk about you know. Sinatra is another one. I don't know if he was an alcoholic, but I mean he was a drinker, and he like he looked like it. You know, after a while, it physically takes a toll. And you look at Frank in the seventies as opposed to Frank in the early sixties,
almost a different guy. He looked like a pincushion, Like really, that brown bottled tan takes a toll and I think, but there is that kind of huge I mean, you you meet with a law of aggression from people who have alcohol problems who don't want to Like if you say I'm sober and I'm sober because I want to be sober, it's like, oh, I you know, it's like you somehow copped out. Or it's like when I say to people, now look like I'm not I'm not stupid. If thinking it was more fun, I do it, and
I stopped having fun. It wasn't fun anymore, No, not at all, And it stopped kind of stopped kind of working as well. It stopped kind of you know, like I would. I used to be friend of flying and I would drink on airplanes to deal with that, and then I found out I was just drunk and scared it did it did nothing other than just that. How are you now with it? Do you?
Are you very connected to sobriety? Do you attend to it a lot? And stuff? I mean I'm kind of dancing around the oh yeah, you know the traditions of.
I do I have a. Let's just say I did not do this alone. My parents went that same route. Well, you're paying suber when you were a kid. Yeah, my dad got so when I was four. My mom got sober when I was five. So you don't really remember them drinking that, right, I have a very I don't have a memory of my mother drunk. But I do have a very vague memory of my father passed out on a couch in our house and I couldn't wake
him up. I remember pounding on his chest. I have a vague memory of that, and to this day, the smell of scotch makes me think of him, even though I have no real clear memory of him drinking. But the smell of scotch that sensed memory makes me think of dad and that was his drink.
Yeah, and I guess look, I feel like you live an urbane life.
Is that? Would that be right to say that you live a kind of a city a city life? Oh? For sure. I love city living, so you you probably run into it quite a lot, right, Oh, all the time. There are many times when I'm like in this this this birthday weekend in Scotland at five arms, I of like the hundred guests because they we kind of commandeered this hotel for forty eight hours. I think I was one of maybe three total people who weren't drinking, and
you know, probably in the whole of Scotland. Yea. Literally when we went to do like the hunting or not hunting, we went to shoot air rifles and throw axes into archery. Turns out I'm good at archery. We were given, you know, SIPs of like the reward is a sip of whiskey, and I just I'm the one who's always passing. But yeah, it's just it is still weird to people when you don't and they kind of look at you sometimes like a broken slot machine, like how do you do this sober? I'm like, I just do.
I How about performing? I've been working as an actor. Did you find it a big change once you go sober?
H I found that less and less. My inhibitions went away more and more. Year after year. I would say, I have become and maybe it's just age, but I
have become less inhibited, less self conscious. Like the videos I became known for making on social media, you know, I'm basically doing a selfie walking down walking down the street, and ten years before that, even five years before I started doing them, I think I would have been too self conscious to actually do it, and I would have given a shit what somebody thought of me looking at me on the street. Now I don't care. Do you look at the comments and stuff when you post that?
Not as much anymore I used to, because it was like, I mean, validation from strangers is like Heroin to me. Yeah, but not as much anymore. I just I do want to know that it's being liked, but I don't read. I will look at comments from ends, and those tend to get filtered to the top, thankfully, right, because it's a sort of a form of high five and communication, and that's lovely. But strangers, it's funny.
I noticed that I just had to stop reading them because I would skip past comments that were positive to find the negative ones. Isn't that fun Yeah? I think that's some kind of twisted narcissism, I think, and I don't like it myself.
Do you have do you have imposter syndrome? Yes?
Yes, definitely, the idea that you know I'm not funny, I shouldn't.
Yeah, all of that, Yeah, oh god, do you have that? Terribly all the time. I think it's funny. I think of you as being super confident. I'm good at faking it. I'm very good at faking it. Yes, I go. We'll go into a room knowing that I'm fine, like the technically I know, I'm fine, like I'm cool, like I got the goods to sort of hold my own in this space here. But there is that dark voice on
one on one shoulder saying you suck. You're not funny, you're not pretty enough, you're not smart enough, you're not talented enough. But I also know that if I don't fake it, nothing's gonna nothing's gonna move. So I have this weird wherewithal to know that I have to sort of power through a very unconfident moment if anything is gonna come out of it. So that's I take that route. I go, and I go.
I kind of I did a bit of a I got a bit of a sea change with it fairly recently because I started doing a lot stand up I've bean I've always done stand up comedy.
I mean, I've done my whole career and.
I and I love it, and I love the kind of the kind of solo work.
I love being on a stage on my own.
And and I I I get very tired of the corporate mindset, not just to like when I want to CBS for a long time, but also it seems like everything is corporate. Like young people will talk about their brand like I know what that? What are you talking about?
You know?
And like everything is a something that Norman McDonald accused me of once that he said I was a seething cauldron of ambition, and I think he's probably true. But but but I'm not anymore. But I but I think that's quite a popular look.
And I I I rejected, but I got. I had this conversation with Jay Leno because I was talking about trying to memorize a stand up thing and he said, hey, just keep talking, just keep talking. Nobody knows what you're meant to be saying. They just keep talking. They don't know the act. To just keep talking. Do that in your act, because that's great.
But what I but what I can love about it is it's kind of true the if you if you can think I'm meant to be here, this is what I I do it. Clearly I've been doing it long enough. This is what I'm meant to be. I was meant to be doing something else, that I'd be doing it.
But and that that is one of the few blessings of age, because I'm I'm kind of struggling a little with my corporal the corporeal decline, you know, like I can't. I can't. I'm not quite as uh.
I don't repair as quickly as I used to, like I get fat because I get fat and then then and fat, and then if I get fat it takes me much longer to get not fat again.
Like this is terrible. It used to be easy. I know. I quit smoking two and a half years ago and I'm still trying to And when I was smoking and fit, I sort of did this devil's dance of being very fit and exercising and eating pretty well. But that vice was cigarettes, which I'm not. I don't crave them anymore, but I do come kind of miss them sometimes.
But oh, I fucking listen, I fucking love smoking, and I have every cigarette over twenty five years.
I loved every cigarette I ever had.
Oh my god, I fucking loved it. And if it didn't give you cancer, I'd still do it. Absolute it gives you, it just does, and but I was such a sexy weight. I was like, I can't fit into the suits I wore. So I'm in the process now of getting back down. So I got to eat my feelings.
That's the carrot that I use for myself as well, because I had this deal when I was in late night that my agent made that I get I got to keep all the suits that I ever had, and like, so I've got like one hundred and fifty suits from me late night shows and game shows and stuff like that I can't wear any So.
I have this idea that if you lose another ten pounds, you'll get You'll win one hundred and fifty suits, you know. So it kind of it's hard though, and I feel like, were you fat as a kid? Your tubby kid. This is the first time I've struggled with taking off weight. I'm It's not like I'm not obese or something. I'm well aware of it and I don't think I have like body dysmorphia. But let's just I can't fit into the suits that I invested a lot of tailoring into.
So it's it's I'm about twenty pounds north of where I want to be and that's hard. It's harder for me than I thought, and it requires a discipline that I thought I had, but I got to work a little bit harder. Well, you know, this is my first about how you feel.
I mean, there are people who carry twenty thirty forty extra punds who are just fine.
But you know it, it's not you know, I wouldn't. I don't think there's a body type that's perfect for everybody. But I know for for me, if I carry extra weight, I feel ashamed. I was my neckname when I was a kid was Tubby. No, yeah, yeah, you wouldn't. You wouldn't be allowed to do that. Kids are such bitches. Oh my god, Oh my god. I've told the teachers as well. I mean it was they were horrible. The teachers would say that to you.
Oh yes, oh horrible Tubby fans didn't come out he yet, fat wee body.
Okay. I don't think I've ever managed to shake it. I really don't. Through all the years of getting sober and therapy and everyone else, I'm do you get therapy? Do you go to therapy? Is that I did? I had a very bad bout of post COVID anxiety that manifested in the form of and I didn't know it at the time. It was when I quit smoking. It was why I quit smoking. Initially, I thought I was
having heart attacks. I was, I was seeing. It first happened when I was seeing To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway with Jeff Daniels, just before he left the show after COVID, Everyone's wearing a mask in the theater. We're all like look at each other, like, don't breathe. And I as soon as the show started, I feel like I'm having a heart attack, and I'm thinking, fuck, I'm going to be the guy they stopped the show for, and I'm leaving this theater in a stretcher. But I
managed to breathe through it somehow. Anyway, panic attacks like that that felt like a heart attacks, anxiety, fatigue. I could not climb. I live on a night floor. Sometimes I would take the stairs just to keep my ass in the same place at Spenson's College, and I would get exhausted by the third floor, like I couldn't get to the third floor without feeling like my chest is going to explode. Did you get COVID was a result
I did? This was what I learned later is that what I would the litany of these horrible, like sort of knocking at death's door feelings that I was getting were from a weird long COVID. I went to a long COVID care center at Mount Sina and she said, we're hearing a ton of this and there's nothing I have for you. You just kind of have to ride it out. And I just thought, oh Jesus so And
there were emotional things I was. I was like a lot of people during COVID and lockdown and loneliness and isolation. I went to see a therapist about it and went for about a year. We had a really good, productive year, and she said, you know, I think you're doing really well. You can. I would love to keep seeing you if you want. But I think if you wanted to, you know, pump the brakes, we're good with that too. So I'm cured. No,
that's a great therapist. But it was. We had a good It was very helpful, very helpful, and so I've done that. Exercise is helpful. I learned how to breathe. I wasn't breathing properly. You do yoga and stuff. No, there was this guy I heard on NPR. His name is James Nestor, and he wrote this book called Breath about three or four years ago, and he was on the book. It's very strange. I'm thinking about what about how we have done such damage to ourselves as a
species through breathing improperly. It was kind of fascinating anyway, extremely helpful, game changing. It was on Fresh Air, I think with Terry Gross and so I gave that a shut it up. I'll send you the I'll send you the link to it. It's, yes, please, a game changer. The big takeaway inhale through the nose. We should not be breathing through our mouth, which I did not know. Yeah, but yeah, therapy. I am all for, really, Craig anything.
I'm not opposed to medicine. I do take some like lipotour but I would like to be at a point where I am you know, food is medicine to me, and I would like to be eating better, exercising a little bit more and not need these medications. But for now, you know, fine.
I think it's it's kind of a part of the Asian process, the modern Asian processes, is to get sanguine with with medication, a little bit, and.
I I about two years ago, maybe a year ago, I.
Had a an endoscope. My father died of sulfagio cancer, and I was experiencing.
A lot of indigestion. So I had to get an endoscope.
And they didn't find any barretts or any cancer stuff, but I was. I was getting constant indigestion, which was really awful.
And they put me on these medications for a while, and I they really worked, but I've got such a resistance to that kind of thing. I just I also I also feel Look, I'm not a doctor, and I'm in no way qualified to say this, but I feel like, if you're on medication for a long time, it's got to be doing something to your lever, to your kidneys, to your it's got to be it's got to be doing something. It's just it's an extra thing. It's a it's another thing for it to deal with.
And I know that modern medicine is a miracle, and I wouldn't tell anyone to stop taking medicine, but I I get a little uncomfortable.
Being on anything for too long. You and me both, I know exactly what you're talking about, and I think, well, you touched upon this just now like without it. Uh, you know, it's this is this is a I don't want to say miracle, but it is a miracle of human ingenuity, medicines, vaccines, all of this stuff. I am all in it. I just there is a part of me. Maybe it's a little bit of a resentment. I don't want to be on the hook to the to the
uh pharma monster for the rest of my life. You know, you know this is not that weight has ever been a struggle. But I know that there are people on it, and I think with GOV and ozampiic and stuff, but it's going to make a They're going to be game changers for so many people, and they were already.
I talked to a couple I had a doctor on the podcast actually I was talking to about it, and he was saying, oh, no, these things were great.
They're they're they're fabulous. The thing is about it. I also talked to a friend of mine who lost a lot.
Of weight and he'd done it through having ozam pic and I said, I said, it works.
Then clearly he said it does supposed to do. He said, you just don't. He's just not hungry. I said, I haven't. I don't eat because I'm hungry. I eat because I'm sad. I haven't been hungry since nineteen seventy four. I feelings, I'm it's just I'm like, that's why I TV. Feelings are delicious. Oh my god. Yeah, I love eating my feelings.
Yeah, but I think it's probably all wrapped up in the same dark magic of alcoholism and and food and sex. And did you ever get into any of the others, the gamblings or the compulsive sex or anything fabulous?
Never with the gambling, And I never did anything stronger than weed. Well alcohol kills more people than any of them. But yeah, there were periods, not for a long time, but there were periods where my my sex drive was in hyperdrive. For sure.
Well, if you're in great shape and you're drinking, those things can that can come together in a hail of a Look?
Yeah, and you know, waking up with people I ordinarily wouldn't sit next to on a bus, but hey, you know it's he kept me company for an evening. It's fine. Yeah. Is there a subway near here? Are in New York? I'm George, by the way, What about Uh? I I think a little bit about young people if they're being irresponsible or or being a little wild.
As I sadly was when I was young. I I feel for them because they're being filmed.
Yes, oh my god, Craig, could you imagine being active with the way people are now we have film studios and radio stations in our pockets. Yeah, no way, I'd be in so much trouble. Well, I think I think it it is.
I mean, they're quite brutal with each other, the young I think they're they're all kind of like you know, they're they're tough, and and those those shame based tabloids and uh and you know these websites where he oh, well tmz.
It's not one I really know very much. But I'm thinking more of like the British tabloid ones. They're they're awful, they're looking for a gotcha moment. I mean, but that that's not new for British tabloid culture though, no, I guess no, or even it.
I mean, look, Hurst was a bit of a it was a bit of a gotcha character as well, but it was more about wars and power, you know, I think for him, well at the celebrity I mean even Did you read this Scotty Bowers book?
Did you ever read that book? No?
Do tell Oh my god, it's fantastic getting a pen. Scottie Bowers was, Uh, he was. I guess he was sort of a hooker in Hollywood.
Oh, yes, I did. And I saw the documentary. I know, right, yeah, Scotty bow right. That's the name, right, Scottie. You might be wrong on the last name, but you might be right on the last name. But I know exactly what you're talking about. Blonde, the little sexually ambiguous. Liked it both ways, Yeah, but liked it more all the ways that can be liked, like a couple of years ago. Yeah.
And the story in the book about Charles Lawnton, I don't know if that can be true. It can't be true. It's so bizarre for the kids at home. Please tell us, well, you tell it. I only saw the documentary. You read the right, but please go ahead.
In the book, it's alleged that Charles Lawton paid someone to do a poop on a sandwich and then he sat down and ate it, and that was a thing for him. I can't believe that that's true. That there is a perversion for everyone. Yeah, I mean a ship sandwich. I mean literally, and yeah, I mean it's still like.
This is a ship sandwich like an expression, it actually is a ship sandwich.
I I mean, I hate to shame them, but I mean, wow, to each one get to that? Do you know what I mean? How do you get to the you know what? I'd like the menu of kinks? Like I'm so vanilla. Oh me too, I'm so vanilla, and just blow on it. I'm happy. I breeze does it for me on a good day? Come on? But wow? Is that in that Breathe book? By the way I learned it? Where I learned it, I don't know. I'm going to read that though, I'm to find some kind of and the audiobook is helpful.
I actually I consumed it via audio book. Doing that all the time now me too. I love them all the time. I've become obsessed with gourvi Dal love. I wish they were still around. There were voices I wish were still around. His was one of them.
Yeah, Gourvidal Jordan Rivers two essential names that I think that we are diminished from. People always going about George Carlin, and he certainly was great, but the Jordan Rivers and gourvi Dal, those voices of dissent and troublemakers.
They are sadly messed right now. I had the privilege of working for John Rivers at the end of the time. Really yeah, I ran her social media. No, I didn't know that true story. I started on Twitter and I was following her and she was whining about her assistant. I found out later was upset she couldn't change the you could change the color on your background on your page or whatever. Anyway, I offered to help, and then
we were connected. And then I got to know her CEO of her company and her friend, and he reached out to me one day out of the blue and said, we're all doing Jones Instagram and Facebook, and we need a little someone to organize. We need someone to run this because we're all doing our own jobs and this we should have just someone doing just this for Joan. Would you be interested. I'm like, uh, yeah, So I
signed that. I signed that NDA June of twenty fourteen and was with her for that summer, and then she died three months later. But I was running her social media and I was really writing Joe really loved her, you know. I never met Oh craig. She was first of all three feet tall. As a friend as a friend of mine said, there's something about that woman, whether you knew who it was or not, she just looked famous. Yeah, I know a couple of people like that. It's the hair,
it's the jewels, it's the tailor, chanelle, jacket, whatever. She just looked famous. But smart, funny, groundbreaker, door kicker, opener, you know all of it. I mean, really a real game changer. Yeah. And Gorfidal as well, I feel is a voice that particularly the young, the young and the queer right now seemed to have a.
Well maybe maybe they do connect to it, but I think he's he was such a great voice for current thinking.
And I be articulate, oh, in a way that young people are not.
I don't think to well, yeah, I mean through no follow their own I think that I think the the handheld devices are used badly or terrible, and you they're they're like, you know, if they're badly used, their you know, they they'll they'll destroy you. And if you use them the right way, they're they're fantastic, you know. And I but who's to say what's the right way? I just feel literacy is really dropping down with with the young. But maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe with me, I'm I read a lot less because I use my phone for for somebody else to read me. I just last year started referring to other guys as bro like I just it's going down. No, not yet. No, I'm not there yet. I'm not going to I'm not gonna brow the the the gore Vidal thing, he was a master and such a such I would I encourage every young person to watch that. Uh find that clip on YouTube? And I think it was was it on
the Cavit Show with him and Truman Capote? No Gorvidal and oh I know what you mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, I can't remember who it is.
This was terrible. I want to refer to the social media world, but oh god, you know what I'm talking about. William F. Buckley, Yes, legendary watching those two cats go at it, but uh uh yeah, particulate, smart and and loved his insights and his the way he had his finger on a certain pulse.
It was just did you ever come across his novelization of Julie and the Apostate, No, the the the Roman Emperor? That tried to steer the world back to helen Hellenistic religion after constantine A changed, you know, it convert to the Roman Empire to Christianity, and it is it sounds like a kind of I think on the surface, it sounds like a rather kind of kind of academic study. And it is so entertaining. It's like fucking Game of Thrones. It's fabulous. I'm writing this down Julian. I think it's
just called Julian. Actually, it's a wonderful, wonderful book. And then and then the Narratives of Empire, the the I think it's seven novels about the political history of the United States. Where are just fantastic. Yeah. I have decided, actually, because I've been banging on on this podcast and everywhere else about how much I loved Gorvie Dale's biography of
arn Bird. I'm going to start petitioning someone to write a rebuttal to Hamilton on Broadway that you should have The Bird musical where you get the other point of view, because it was crazy and much more interesting than perhaps he's been portrayed into this sort of I mean, yes, a murderer, uh huh, Okay.
But we all are going on. We all have our faults. Yes, progress not perfection.
Come on, Yes, that's right. It's it's a you know, the idea that as while you're the vice president, you kill someone and a jewel and you go to try and raise an army, which I feel that's a skill that's been lost. I wouldn't know how to raise an army now. I don't think people know how to raise an army. No, no, would you know? No, it's a lost skill. Yeah.
Would that be the same as well, let's not put it on par with inciting a mob? Well, it kind of is. Yeah, I think it is inciting the mob, but I think it's insite a mob and paying for extra people on top.
Yeah, that's so, it's kay. I think it's probably closest to the ship sandwich. Okay, but but I don't know for sure. Delicious, Oh God, God, listen, we gotta go.
But so we're best friends now? Right? Are we best friends now?
Because that was my interview for to become at least a good friend, and I'm aiming for best friend slot.
But I'm out of New York right now.
I feel to actually get the coveted role of Hans's best friend. It would have to be, which actually sounds like a great show. Actually hands best friend. Oh that is good.
Oh, I like Hans best friend. It's you.
It's your podcast and you talk to people that are your friends, Hand's best friend.
That's a great idea. I think you should do it, and please, if you do it, feel free to include me financially, no, fantastic, no, no, feel feel free to accept it with my with my this is illegally me gifting it to you right now on this podcast. I feel so touched and a good way, yeah, in all the right ways. Well, listen the next time I'm in New York, which I think will be fairly soon, Let's get together and go somewhere great. Please.
I would love that so much. Yes, me too, I really would. And keep doing what you're doing. You are a force for good and high quality entertainment and a world of in a giant shit sandwich, You're You're a lovely raison of deliciousness.
Ah, sir, you make my day with these kind words to your kindness, and I admire you so and thank you for having me on your podcast. I've been a fan for so long. This is such a this is such a kick for me.
Well, it's it's, it's totally me so so thanks and well and most speak So I look forward to all right, all right,