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. I love my guest today. She is part of the ensemble that made for My Money maybe the greatest television
program ever on American television, Kirby Your Enthusiasm. Susie essimond is here, go fuck yourself. Do you ever play golf?
No, I've gone to the driving range, which is fine, But to sit out there for five fucking hours, I hear you.
I can't imagine what's interesting about that.
I only like to play golf on my own, which apparently is not the way you're meant to do it.
I think that's the exact way you should do it, because your competition should be yourself, right.
And also, you fuck up, you don't get some guy going he hey yeah, and then and like you can bet and then win every time. You always win the bat and if you lose, who care you lose? It doesn't mire you bok And it's like going fishing. You go, yeah, I got it, I threw it back. It's fine. You gotta have three holes in one. It was awesome.
Isn't it a wonderful thing to be able to lie to yourself.
I think it's an essential component of mental health to be able to tell yourself bullshit about yourself and then believe it. Like I I look in the mirror and I go, you are fucking awesome.
Well you are, though, Look how handsome you are?
Well you know you see that now now what you're doing there is you're participating in my delusion, and you're delusion that I want. I want to say this and it is a word of congratulations because you are an essential component, which for me is one of the few perfect television shows ever made, ever made. Yeah, it's amazing to me.
It's amazing to have been a part of it all these times. And who you know, It's like, we never knew this was what it was going to be. It was just such a nothing thing when we started.
Yeah, I mean it's it's I don.
Mean nothing thing.
I mean it was just a small, little low but we had no budget, We had nothing.
Yeah. I remember when it started and I was like, Larry David was doing this thing and then and I wasn't really aware of I knew SEIN failed, of course, but I wasn't really aware of Larry as a kind.
Of well that was the whole point of doing it, yeah, of course.
But then when I was like, oh my god, this is this guy's horrible, but I can't stop watching it. And then I think as the season goes on, either I got more horrible or Larry got much nicer. But either Waiting gets nicer.
You just got used to it.
I got used to it. I think that's what it was.
But you know the truth of the matter, he hates when I say this, but he's such a good actor. He's such a good comedic actor. It was all about acting.
But he is.
He's full of course he is, because he's not really like that in real life. No, he's the least confrontational person I know in real life.
Well, I think also when I remember Larry was on the Late Night Show when I was doing it. Yeah, yeah, he came on that and he was great, but I could see he was kind of like, what the fuck is going on here? Who is this guy?
Well he started as a stand up Yeah, I know.
That's right now in front with well you you did you work in like do club dates with? Yeah? And was that Jerry was working back then as well? Yeah, so where were you guys working?
Catchising Star, you know, the improv, the comic strip.
I was going to say that, you know, do you remember Lucien Hold at the comic strip?
Of course I remember Lucian.
Lucian Hold was a guy giving me my first job ever when I came off the boat. Basically really, yeah.
Lucian was a very strange yet wonderful man.
Yeah, I didn't get he was a very strange guy, was he really? He brooked the acts for the comic the.
Comic strip, and he actually was the first one to pass me. You know, you had to audition and pass in those days, and he was the first one to pass me.
And he gave me very in the beginning.
He gave me very protected spots, like he put me on first, like a nine o'clock spot, you know, and he wouldn't give me the two o'clock in the morning.
So he was good to me.
Does that exist now, that kind of I don't know. I think that a lot of kids now when they're starting out, because I talked to young comedians sometimes on this.
Podcast bring audiences they have to bring.
We didn't have to bring their tickety talk followers And do you do all of that?
Well, I don't understand up anymore. But I haven't been in the clubs for years. You should, Well, maybe I should get.
Out, do it, have a little fun.
I'd have to write a whole new work.
Maybe I will. I used to say no.
Crowd work was always my default, and that kind of crowd work made me lazy.
Yeah, it does make it lazy because I was.
Really good at it, so I didn't have to, you know, But now it.
Can be a thing. You can just go out do some crowd work and that's all you do.
Maybe I will craigration, Maybe I could introduce you, I could like open for you.
And I had said coming up. Now she hasn't done it for a while, she has no material, so keep your expectations.
All my material, all my old material, is so politically incorrect. Doesn't do it anyway. Fuck that shit. I don't buy into that bullshit. Well, I don't think you like it. I don't think it really. I don't think it's as quite as on fire as people say it is. Yeah, probably, you know the people like the only time I see people complaining about wokeness is when they're getting paid.
Five million bucks for a Netflix pacialism. Then you go, who the fuck is shutting you down?
Nobody you know?
On Curb, I mean, Curb was particularly vitally incorrect.
When Larry steals the shoes from the Holocaust Museum.
Do you know that we've never there was only one episode in all one hundred and twenty episodes that we did that we ever got major blowback from anything. He
never got blowback on it was it. It was the one where I think it was season seven, where he's taking some medication which is making him urinate like crazy, and he peas into a into a toilet and the urine is so forceful that it splashes up onto a picture of Jesus and it looks like a tear was coming out of Jesus's eye, and the people whose house it was swear it was a sign. So he got people were saying he was urinating on Jesus. He was
not urinating Jesus. Was a splash. But that's the only time I ever went, and I was doing press for the show at that time, that I ever had to defend the show in any way, shape or form.
Was that episode. Never never anything else.
Well, I think the show maybe got Grandfather then a little bit as well, because you guys were being horrendous before the kind of yeah, that's true. The great reset, which I don't know when that happened, really, I guess I don't know what happened that suddenly there was a whole new way of thinking and you had to you know, although like I say, I don't know how real it really is.
You know, I think you're right. I mean I think it was real for like, you know, a minute. Yeah, and then I think that it's there's a backlash against it.
Now. Well, I think people get a little tired of it. You know, you get a little tired of you can't laugh at that. This is America, you know. Well, you remember back in the day, it was like there was Dice Clay or Sam Kennison and Don Rickles.
My god, do you ever watch Don on YouTube?
He was always on my own late night show. I loved Don.
God, how funny was it?
He was amazing. Yeah, he came to a party in my house and like one of the greatest moments. I had this party at Christmas party in La and I invited down and Barbara Wrickles to come the thing, and he said, yeah, I'll come. He came to my house in the Hollywood Hills. He gets out of the cart and he comes over and he gives me a dollar bill. He says, here's a dollar Get a better fucking house. What are you saying that I had to drive up all that, We have to drive up all these winningtels.
Get a house. Get a house on the flood. This is terrible. It's a terrible house. And I was like, okay, but he I loved him him, and uh I was getting quite close with him and Barbara for years. Yeah, yeah, I love did you did you know?
Did not know him?
But when I was a kid, you know, we didn't have DVR or v vhs. Even so when he was on the Tonight Show, I used to, you know, set the alarm to wake up so that my brother and I could watch him because that was my favorite watching him on the night.
So it was huge influence onth.
He and he was an interesting guy because he was like, he was so nice. He was like quite shy and very friendly and and quite an emotional man.
He was sentimental.
Yes, yes, he was very sentimental. And he'd be like, no, I kid, but I love you. I love you. I mean we kid because we love Yeah, that's right. I think that's going to get out of jail card for telling me I've got a ship. You know what.
There's something about that I I kind of refused to do because it's too apologetic, right.
Right, you know. Yeah, And also I think if you're busting someone's balls and they don't know that you're just busting their balls, then you're not really doing it, bro because if you bust someone's balls, like if you were like having fun with someone, they should be able to tell that's what you're doing. Like when he come in and said, here's a dollar, get a better house, obviously, because if he.
Gave you a million a better house.
Okay, if he gave me a million dollars, you can see what he fucking likes. At that point. I don't care if he's being mean to me, But I think that that kind of messing around humor that comes from a different time. Yes, you know, I think I think now it's a little more guarded than that.
Absolutely more guarded.
But the thing about Rickles that was so impressive was the speed that his brain work, you know, and I know other it's just it was just so fascile and so quick.
Yeah, how he would come up with who was so Rickles was one? Who were the other comedians that kind of drew you into that world prior is amazing.
Yeah, I mean I remember seeing when when I I first saw that first concert movie of his, was that Sunset Strip, or before was before that Sunset Strip was the Red Outfit? But this was a black silk shirt. It was a concert movie and I had never seen him, you know, and it was Whoa and theater. Yeah, it was in movie theaters and it was the most brilliant stand up. I had no interest in being a stand up. I didn't know anything about stand up comedy and I
had never been in a club. And then I went out to LA to visit my cousin and he took me to the comedy store because he had just directed a movie. Prior was then called Some kind of Hero. It's a serious part. And he took me to see Prior and Pryor was It was my first time in a comedy club, was seeing Richard Pryor, so you know, that's crazy. Yeah, And he was working on material for sunset strip for his next thing. And it was revelatory to me because not everything was working, you know, And
I didn't know that's how you did it. I thought, you know, when I was growing up, I saw you know, Alan King on Ed Sullivan and he got up there and he told his jokes. I thought, that's what it was. And then I saw Prior, who was like a god. Some stuff wasn't working. He was work shopping and I was like, oh, I get it.
That's see that. That's why I feel like the younger comics and they're not getting a chance to fail because everything is up there too fast. Yeah.
And and when we were I mean, you know, coming up, there was no phones and there was no tweeting and none of that or xing whatever the fuck it's called twist twisting because none of that ship It felt private. Yeah, So you push the envelope until you felt that little thing going up your spine just like I've gone.
Too far, gone too far. But then you pull. That's how I was part of the fun as well. It's like you fight for the edges and then you can
get back from it. But but the thing is, I think now with the with recording, I've noticed I say to audiences, because I still do standard I love doing standing up, and I will say I don't say personally, but you know, to the audience coming in, they're told, just you keep your phone, like if you again emergency, someone calls you, that's fine, but just don't don't record anything and don't do it. And they I'd say, like nine percent of the time people got it, and they don't.
They don't.
Yeah, we went to see Chris Rock upstates that we were upstate and he was in concerts and we went to see it, and you.
Had to give your phone.
Yeah, a bunch of guys do that. I think Dave Chappelle does that. I think Bill does it as well. That they just make sure they put it in a bag or bag.
Or something and then you collect it. I don't like that.
It seems like a law. And also I like to think this is probably wishful thinking because nowadays, I think most of the people to come and see me are too old for this. But I like to think some people come and see me, I've got little kids at home and a babysitter, so they want to have Yeah, But I think really mostly that's not happening.
I think most of them are older than having little kids.
I know, that's what I'm saying. It's like they get call from their kid. It's because their kid is having a kid.
It's interesting about that is I think that comedy is one of the things that appeals to It's not a generational thing.
No, I think styles of comedy are I mean, there are styles of comedy that are going around now with younger communities. I kind of try and stay plugged in to what's coming up. And there's some styles of it. I go, I don't really go for that, and I never did. I suppose to go for parody songs and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, and so he's hated following that.
Yeah, parody songs or a lot of impressions, Like some impressions is fun, but you can't you know, it's like eating all candies.
Or the ones that like take the mic into their mouth doing the impressions.
I hate that ship.
Yeah, but you know, if I anecdotally, who stops me on the street, most is boys in their twenties.
Oh and they want you to say, they want.
Me to but they're curve fans and we're all old on that show. There's not a one of us under sixty on that show.
That's funny. Yeah, you're right, we're all old. But the energy of the show is so fun.
But I'm just saying that comedy kind of.
Yeah, No, you're right, good comedy. Yeah, you're right. I feel like it's so also one of those things that it gets to be like your audience will come with you. I've good people come and see me. Now see me, Like twenty years ago, and they're you know, they're older, and they're you know, I'm doing jokes about my sore hip and they're reaching that point, do you know what I mean. It's like it's like they will come with you.
I think that you do get like musicians get it as well, although musicians get it really easy because you write a song when you're eighteen and you're still playing it when playing it.
But music is another thing.
I mean, I know my kids they listen to stuff from the eighties all the time.
That is true. Actually that is weird. Is good because it's good and it has a certain lack of the whiff of the algorithm in it. It's not it wasn't made for your approval. It was made because it was some drug addict somewhere right playing a guitar, and so it kind of has a little not that I think you have to be a drug addict to make good music, but.
They just that was just they just happened.
To be happened to be drug addicts.
Well, and amazingly some of them didn't die. Most of them are alive.
A lot some of them are alive.
I mean John Mayle, I saw died at ninety last week he was ninety.
Yeah, that's that's Mick Jagger is still performing, he's eighty.
Well look at Keith, Well, Keith put into his body. Well, but you know, I worked with them for a little while. Yeah, and did you open for that?
No? What I did was I was writing a screenplay with Mick Jagger. Oh really, So I was on the road with them for a little while.
Wow. Yeah, do you need to write about that.
I've done it in the stand up and I've talked about it a ton of times. But the thing was that when I was out on the road with him, I was amazed by Keith because Keith is not what I thought he was going to be. Was the Bridge Is to Babylon tour, and that was the tour where Ronnie Wood went in rehab and he had to go into rehab because Keith said that he was you know,
he's getting fucked up too much. Can you imagine walking at a rehab and you said you here, Yeah, Keith Richards thinks I'll get too fucked up to party in the group therapy session. I'm concerned. I'm concerned about you, Roddie. You know you're really letting yourself go. But I was kind of surprise by Keith Richard because he's got a
kind of kind of streaked, tough guy vibe. It's not like a fucked up you know, Captain Jack from the I mean, that's kind of the persona that he's kind of like Larry and kurb you know what I mean.
It's like it's him, but it's not really him. Yeah, you know, it's kind of the way. Keith is more like a like an enforcer kind of a guy.
I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of him. Yeah, I think he I mean, now I don't know, I could probably yeah, he's eighty, but I mean, but I
don't know. Actually, I don't know. He has He's pretty energetic, and Jagger is much more kind of like I felt like Meck was much more took a back seat to Keith's energy and really, yeah, interesting when they were so you know, no, no, they don't really socialize that much, but when they were kind of like being around before they go on stage, right, because everybody used to say, you know, Keith doesn't that, so don't do it, you know, like, okay, all right, but nobody doesn't like that.
Keith was the alpha.
I feel like, yes, now maybe I'm I'm talking about. That was the impression I go. I thought, Keith's the big dog here and Mike is the singer makes the showman. Yeah, that's right, he's the he's the kind of like he's the song and dance man at the front. But Keith is the you know, the Yeah, he's the them. And Charlie was still alive and you know, and so.
He seemed like he was lovely.
Yeah, he is a rose named he was really roses and he made his own Charlie was roses, really yeah, and he made them for his wife. His wife bred horses. It was very kind of genteel I kind of I was a big fan of you, a fan of their own. Stones was huge. Yeah, yeah, she was. So when you're a kid girl, you come from the Bronx, right, is that right?
I was born in the Bronx, but then I grew up in meult Vernon, which is right next to the Bronx.
That's like, that's like you're doing a little better. Yeah yeah, yeah, all right, So your fat what were your family show business? Were you?
No, not my family, but I had cousins and you know, my uncle was a director, of soap operas.
You know, Oh that's kind of that's a way.
Yeah, and that was yes, because he gave me a part of an extra. It was One Life to Live and I played a nurse as an extra because you know there are always hospital scenes. Yes, sure, And and that's how I got my after card and then I got my sad card right out because at that time you could just you know, if you had one job or two jobs, get into the union.
So I got into the union that way.
That's how why I started doing stand up because I wanted to get into the Actors Union. And if you had three gigs, as this is in the UK Scotland, if I had done three shows as a stand up and go paid for him, I'd get in the iCal. Really, yeah, I don't think it's that.
I mean no, I think no, sure, it's not like that at all, but that that so he helped me in that. But that was all the help you every game, all right, giving me a couple of extras as a nurse.
If you get extrass as a nurse, then I had a little hat. Yeah.
Really you were adorable talking about what year, like nineteen seventy seven, I bet you were adorable.
I bet it was really lovely.
So but then I didn't know nobody was hiring nobody was all of a sudden, my phone wasn't ringing.
Well, you know, it's a tough game. But what about the stand up? Then? So what draws you into the stand up you'd seen prior?
Yeah?
Was that it?
You know?
It was?
I think I was in a very bad place in my life. I was completely I was lost. I was twenty eight, I was older already. I was not, you know, a kid, and I just I thought I wanted to be an actress. And I graduated from from college. I didn't take acting there because I was too intimidated and too scared, I understand. And I started taking acting classes, and I was bored out of my mind, you know, scene study. Yet it always seemed like everybody lived right
down the block over here. They were on forty fifth Street, and some walk up that you had to go for some scene study. I hated it, and it just didn't resonate. And then I just didn't know what.
To do, and I was I hated it. When they I mooned, I knew I didn't have a future as an actor. I heard an actress saying, do you want me to honor the comma? When he was talking about the script. Fucked me exactly what fuck mate? I got a listened of this fucking shit honor the comma? Fuck you? Yeah.
But so then I was really in a bit. I was in a depression. I had a horrible relationship and I was waitressing for years. And the way that I made the waitressing bearable is I would go back in the kitchen. I would imitate all the customers. I was always a really good mimic. And my waiter friends were the ones that kept using, you should do stand up, you should do stand I never.
Thought of doing stand up.
That's interesting.
And then I went to an open mic night and there were these guys there, Paul Herzig and Bert Levitt, and I did my five minutes in three minutes because I was and they came up to me and they said, we thought you were great, and we're opening up a comedy club on University and in thirteenth Street downtown, and we want you to come work for us. Can we have your number? I gave my number. I never went
back on stage. I was too scared. And about three or four months later they called me and I was like, yeah, all right, I'll come down, and that's how I started.
Wow did you?
I never thought I was going to be a stand up comic. And then after a I just worked there because they were very what was the name of the club, comedy you comedy. They were very good to me and they gave me. They gave me a weekend spot within like two or three weeks where I made twenty bucks.
And you're starting to do longer stage time of this, yeah, right.
Well first they said to me, can you come down and do ten minutes? And like an idiot, I said, yeah, I'll write ten minutes.
Yeah, this is at the beginning. Ten minutes. It's a long time. Yeah, it takes me ten minutes to can say good evening.
Very supportive of me. I just got lucky with these guys. And then I started, you know, meeting all the other comics, and eventually after about six months, they were like they all forced me to go uptown to catch a rizing star and the comic strip.
And so this is the eighties, right, because of the nineteen eighty three, Yeah, it's a comedy boom has happening. Then. Yeah, it's like everybody's got piano key ties and their sleeves rolled up.
And lines around the block every year.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I lived in New York at eighty four. That's when I got a spot at the comic Strip because.
They used there.
Then. Yeah, well you would have been in the big leagues though, because what happened was I I came to the country and I was I was trying to get on stage, and I heard that if you went up to the comic Strip on Second Avenue, it's like second and eight eighty first, right, So you go there on a Monday morning at ten a m. Yeah, and you get a lot, take a number, take a lot of ticket, right, and then if you get picked in the loado. And so I go up and there's like maybe thirty stand ups,
young people waiting to get on stage, mostly boys. Yeah, and I take a ticket and I do not get picked. So I say to the bartender who's running the little thing, I said, how does this work? Because my number didn't get picked? And he heard my accent. He went, where are you from? I went from Scotland. He went, hang on a minute, and he gave me a ticket. I gotta fucking see this, So he let me do it and the first thing I did it, it was fine, and
Lucian Holmess was there. He was there. He said, come back, come back next Monday, I'll give you a spot. And I went back next Monday.
And I fucking bomb Monday night, if I recall, was the night that they had the beginners.
Yeah, that was me.
Yeah, yeah, well I had to audition for him in the middle of the afternoon in an empty room. Oh my god, horrible, that's horrible. But I think he had a little crush on me, so he passed me.
So then he says, okay, this is someone that we book. Yeah, so did you ever have you have to do it?
Yes, weirdly. And then but then you have to give your availability. And then you would call up every Monday, let's say, and say do you have any spots?
And it was always so fraught, you know, did I get a spot this week? And I guess, and like if.
It was like a couple of weeks in a row, you can't get a spot, you were like, oh they hate me now, and oh god, it was horrible.
Yeah, it was bad. So when did you start, like right by you're working with Joy Behars, Yes, she was working round at the same time.
I read her a comedy you.
Coming up through at the same time, right, Yeah, Joy's her stand up is quite abrasive.
Yeah, she's always been a great joke writer.
Yeah.
And I think people don't know what a good you know, strong. She was a strong.
She influenced me a lot because we became friends when we first met in nineteen eighty three, right, and we're still best friends, right all these years. But when I when I first I used to do these characters. And when I first saw her on stage and we had been talking backstage and then she went on stage, I was like, oh, I see what she's doing. She's just being like how I am sitting around the kitchen table with my girlfriends.
Right.
She was just so herself and so real and natural but telling jokes. But her persona was the same as it was off stage. That's interesting and that affected me a lot. That was where you know, you don't know who you are in the beginning when.
You get one anyway. I mean, guys, well, if you said you were twenty nine, I guess you're getting into that. I also think the stand up this is my theory. People listen to this podcast bored with me saying I'm sure, but but I haven't heard it. Well, so here's what it is. I believe that stand up comedians become good ones become comedians as a reaction to trauma.
That's absolutely true.
I think that's what it is. My wife takes it further. She says, it's a reaction to your mother, but that she knew my mother.
Well, you know, so many female comics. I don't know about male coup, but so many female comics I know had depressed mothers. Yeah, And there was this wanting to make her laugh, wanting to cheer her up, ye, constantly.
Yeah.
But the thing about being funny, I mean I knew when I was like, you know, like two, that I was funny, right, And I saw that this was a survival thing.
Sure, it's a currency, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Because she was depressed, you know, with the lying under the covers, your mom. Yeah, she was in a deep She was a deeply depressed person. And it was like, all right, I need attention from somebody because I'm not getting from her because she's too upp her own asshole.
You know.
So I was funny and I saw it from funny, I get attention. It was like just simple cause and the fact.
I remember exactly the same thing. My mother was very sick when I was a little kid. I don't really I never really found out way exactly what it was. They used to say at say, woman's trouble.
What does that mean?
I don't know.
You never a period that whole time.
No. I think it was probably more to do with like the plumbing in that area or something. But I mean, I never to this day, I don't know what it is.
Like.
My family are like, man, is she alive? No, she died years ago. She never told me. But I was talking to lou Black about, you know, this this mother thing, and I said, my wife's theory is the head. You know, comedians all have the same mom. It's a mom. He liked his mom, I know, but this is funny. I liked.
Nothing.
I didn't like her. She was she was difficult.
Yeah, my moment. So this is my wife's theory is everybody has the same moment. He So Lewis said to me, what is that? He said, cold with bad boundaries.
That's bad boundaries, Yes, cold with bad Meryl Marco has this belief that all the female comedians had the same withholding mother. Yeah, now Joyce was not joy had a very loving mother.
She come.
It's interesting. We talk about it all the time. She came from the complete opposite of what I came from. I was constantly told shut up, stop showing off, and she was told come here and entertain us.
It's a completely different vibe.
Yeah, it's it's funny that because I was talking to Are you familiar with Robert Smike?
You know Robert, love him, He's a friend. Yeah, right, so Robert and how funny is triumph? Oh my god, Triumph is one of those things that can get me into just hysterical.
It's Laureland Hardy level iconic, iconic comedy in America, I think. But he he was talking about his parents were really supportive too. I was talking to him on this podcast and he was like, no, they were great and really so all my theory about that kind of went out of the way.
But I think if you look, there's more negatives than positives comedians.
I think there has to be. That's what for me. That's the only thing that kind of makes sense about it. But I was saying, Luisa, but I want to tell you this that lucaid because his mom died when she was one hundred and four old. Yeah, one hundred and four. And he looked at me when I said the cold with barbers, and he went, oh, my god, that's so accurate. The only time I looked my mom in the eye was she was on her deathbed. But his parents used to come to every shop.
They were very mine.
Oh no, not, I understand. I think you and I are from my mother.
My mother didn't really like me, so I had but she didn't she really Yeah, and a lot of I've analyzed it every which way, but so I had to go out and make the world love me.
I had to do. That's what I had to do. And then I did.
And that's one of the reasons I don't do stand up is I don't have the same need anymore.
Yeah, yeah, I.
Figured that one out.
Yeah, but there's other things that are you know, you could do with I mean, it's such a creative thing.
I think also as well with stand up, because I didn't do it for a long time and I stopped don't stand up? And then when I got the Late Night Show, I thought, you know what these people at CBS and and who are in show business. If I fuck up here, they'll cut my throat throw me in the East River so fucking fast that I better have a fucking plan. B And I thought, if I'm doing late night, I'll go back to doing stand up because
it's so similar. One toll feed the other. Stand up will help make the late night show bear, and the late night show will send people to come and see me. Then you're down and so and so. That's what I did. And that's the only reason I go back in. But when I got back into it, I fell in love with it again. I think, you know, this is why I'm trying to pitch it to you.
You know what, I think that every and I know this from Larry, I think that every comedian's dream is to draw because all those years you're in these showcase clubs and they're not there to see you, so you have to spend so much time winning them over. But when you're drawing, they're there to see you, so you're.
Funny right away you walk on in their laugh. That's right.
There's other anxiety because they're paying a lot of money to see you, so you have that pressure.
You got to deliver.
You got to deliver what. I was just going to say something about what was it about Lewis? That's gone?
Well Larry, you said, Larry, Oh well, Larry.
You know Larry starts a stand up and Larry his material was brilliant. We would all come in the room to watch him because the material was like not like anybody else's material. I believe it out there, but Larry never I don't. Well, he didn't really care, I think, but he wasn't able to draw the audience into If they got him, it was great, but if they didn't, he was not able. You know, we all have a bag of trips about now.
They would come to see him. Sure, So now I think he should do it again.
I think so. And I think also it's kind of like if you learn to play the guitar really well when you were a kid, you probably should go back and do it again, you know, every you should enjoy it and the pressure is off, like like if you go into a club and people say, you know, you did a draw upen somewhere in some club in your work, and then somebody introduce you and you walk up, people are going to go fucking nuts right away. And then and then you can enjoy yourself.
What if I don't deliver right now?
You're delivering right now? Think about it and then you say, you say, what if I don't deliver? Continue?
You can say that, well, that was my act. Was always just totally in the moment.
I never had you know, I was never one of these you know, started a and end.
And Z kind of comedians.
I like that stuff. I admire, but I can't really do it.
I can't do I try. I would try to do it that way. And you know, of course, the master of being all over the place is my dear friend Richard Lewis, who is no longer rich I mean, he would just be so all over the price saying and tied together.
Yeah, he was brilliant Richard. It is funny because he was doing Curb obviously he was sick in the last season, and he and I would email each other all the time because he was. He said to me, he said, I'm fascinated by you because you're not Jewish, and yet I like you and your funny How many years.
Should do the lure? Wow? Did you love it?
Yes? It was yes, everything you know, I mean what it was was is it demystified show business? For me, which I'm very grateful. You know that, you realize to mans, to douchebag ratio and show businesses the same as pretty much any bar or or room you go in.
And people aren't who you think they are.
No, some of them were fucking horrible, and some.
Of them were pleasantly surprised.
Oh my god. I became friends with like people who were here, like Robin Williams and I became friend. Carrie Fisher and I became friends. But I also became friends with like Larry King and I became friend. Really I see that one coming at all, you know, because I was I like, used to make fun of them.
Well he was so make fun of me.
Yeah, and I used to do this horrible impression of him on the show, but it made him laugh and then it kind of.
He was easy.
Yeah, he was easy. He wasn't touchy, no, no, not at all. You know, he was like he was kind of he had that kind of I don't know if you this an old Scottish word. He had the kind of a sugar and vibe, you know what I mean. It's not a Scotch, but he had that kind of you know, what's all right? He kind of like he was a little bit wise guy, a little bit kind of good guy.
Well he came, you know, he was a street guy in Brooklyn, I mean, you know, and and there was all these these Jewish mobsters around when he grew up.
Yeah, he used to run numbers for the who's the name of that guy in Miami, the Maya Lansky Lansky He got arrested.
My grandfather used to run numbers for Louis Lepke. Really yeah, so your family are a little well, you know, they they but they were immigrants. They did what they had to do.
I'm familiar with the condition. They did what he had.
He wasn't that bright. My grandfather.
They said he got hit on the head as a kid, right, and my grandparent's that a horrible marriage. And they they used to say that my grandfather had a twin. Well they that's this is true. He had a twin that died in infancy. And my grandmother used to say to him, the wrong twin died?
Is he?
Oh my yeah?
But he like he did what he could. You know, he was an immigrant, he had no education. You run numbers, You do what you.
Have to do.
Run and he kind of trouble when you were like, because New York in the eighties, when you were coming up as a stand up, do you ever run in any trouble? Like No, only was a lot of crime around, but it was a lot of drugs around. Yeah, you know.
Well. And I lived on seventy third and Amsterdam and right there was Needle Park.
Yeah, man, that was Needle Park.
Joy loves to tell the story about these guys mugged me and I scared the shit out of them.
I just started screaming. I lived on.
Seventy through and it was one of these buildings where you have to walk down the stairs into the vest.
No dorman in those days. You know, I was poor and it was.
Not a good and they fought I'm coming home from clubs at two three o'clock in the morning. Yeah, And they followed me in and it was two of them, and I just turned on them like I felt no fear. Interestingly enough, I just turned I got so fucking angry. Yeah, and I just turned on my sort of screaming at my said if I pressed this buzz and my husband's going to come. I didn't have a husband. My husband's going to come downstairs with a shotgun. To blow your
fucking head off. And they just they were like, she's crazy, man, she's crazy. Let's get out of here, and they left.
Did you feel fear later on once they go, I felt pissed off. I never felt the fear.
No, no, I was pissed off.
Your mom is pretty tough on you.
But you learn how to deal with it, of course, Like you don't walk, you know, on the sidewalk close to the building, you walk, closer to the street, you walk.
And I tried to teach.
My girls, you know, my daughters when they moved, and they say, always have your keys in your hand. Don't be at the door fumbling for your keys. They didn't listen to me. They think everything I said was stupid.
Well that's part of I haven't kids. Yeah, I say stuff now like I try and give advice to my kids, so like fuck, like I feel like I got some information in my life.
Yeah, but they think you're a fucking idiot. They do think you're a way but then they come yours are younger than mine.
I think how old My oldest is twenty three, my younger sister thirteen.
So they're young. Mine are all thirty and over. So now they come to me. Juliana, I remember the most difficult. She was the middle child when she came to me and she said to me, I mean maybe five six years ago, you were right about everything.
It's the greatest day.
Of my life. Oh my god, it's the greatest day live for that. But they're they're young, they will yeah, I don't know, but maybe maybe the little one will. But the older one, he's he's got his ideas until until those ideas yea, yeah, yeah, maybe I don't know, and then maybe and maybe they won't work. Maybe I'm wrong. I want to ask you about a comedian that I loved. I don't know if you and you are. It was Joan Rivers. Did you know Joan?
I knew Joan not well, but I didn't know john.
I never met her once in my life. Oh really, no, no once. I wanted to have her on the Late Night Show, but they wouldn't do it because the producer of the show, my producer was also the producer of Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, and they had that big fight with Johnny and Joanas of this, so they would never let me book Joan.
Jon's interesting. Yeah, you know, she was an interesting person. Yeah, and my very dear friend Larry Amrose. I don't know if you know Larry. He wrote all her books and all her you know, really a lot of her stuff with her. When I first met Joan, she was probably probably younger than me at the time. She's probably sixty ish, right, and she was this was before Edgar died and all. And she was not She did not was not supportive of younger females. At the time. She was more competitive
and I felt that from her very much. But then later on she became much more gracious and much more. She became much more supportive and loving, and in her older age, I think after she went through a lot more, she became much more of a grand dame.
I can see that happen. And I find myself now, like, now that I'm older, a little bit of success does this too? You start to lighten up pulling other people a little bit, don't you think?
Yeah?
Not ever.
And you know I was never competitive with her.
She was just you know, if you look at them, watch the movie, Yeah, that documentary, you see that there's nothing book that there was a hysteria there about about working and having to do it constantly. Yeah, that I never felt that. I'm a completely different animal than that, but I think that was part of you know why. And then I think she got more relaxed as she got older.
Did you have that? Were you competitive when you were younger? Like, did you feel competitive with the other comics or it was only women comics or did you feel competitive with all comics? So you didn't feel it at all?
No, I definitely felt it because you were in the early days. You're competing for spots, right, so.
It's a definite thing, is a competition.
And with other females, they would only put one woman on a bill. They would never put two women on a lineup, so there weren't there weren't that many different I know, there weren't that many of us, so that was one thing. But you know, I'm I mean, you want that spot, so yeah, you're competitive. I wasn't cutthroat competitive. I was just you know, I want what they have, give it to make sure.
Yeah, and I think you kind of need to have that a little bit.
What was interesting with Joy is that I never felt competitive with Joy or she with me. I think that we kind of got very early on that we were stronger together yeah, and then we were kind of like a force. You know, we would walk into catchising, so everybody new Joy and Susie, you know, they didn't mess with us. Chris Rock, he always would ask if we were in the room before he went on, because he knew if he did sexist material, we'd pull him over.
And teach him a few things.
Oh really, that's kind of all. He was a kid, he was eighteen. He didn't he needed to be taught. It's funny though, that because I don't. I don't know. I'm sure that exists now, but I'm not aware of it. Like I'm fascinated by the the way things are with comedy, like you talking to you as a comedian, Right, you kind of came to come because because things fucking sucked and you didn't know what else to do.
And I wouldn't have done it if things had been good and I had another profession. Right, No, it was too scary and too hard, but I didn't know how hard it was.
But kids are coming up and they're like, I would like to be a comedian, and they go to like they can have college courses on how to do stand up, and maybe it's better. I don't know, but.
I think a class can be helpful for a very short period of time because it's a safe place to get up and kind of get your sea legs.
But then you need an audience.
You can't.
You need an audience. You know.
I need to fail.
Yeah, you need to fail. You need to fail big, and we all have big and often it's like, you know, these people come up to me. I'm sure they do to you. I killed it. I gave the roast the toast at my brother's wedding and I killed So I think I could do this. Okay, I go in front of strangers, that's right.
There was a bunch of people who hate you on side. Yeah, like they have to forgive you for trying to make them laugh. You know, they're like they're ready to go. When I started, there were no stand up clubs where I started in Glasgow in Scotland, none, none, no stand up. The only comedian that I knew about was Billy Connolly. It was brilliant, amazing, Billy's amazing Billy. Billy was like Jackie Robinson for me. I mean it was like before Billy there was like no one from where I came
from did that. I was aware of and Billy had kind of created a world, but there was no catch or or or comics to Brinton. So I'd do music clubs, but it was the time of punk rock, so they would say things like they would say, all right that we're going to stop the music for a minute. Now here's some counts. He's funny.
Oh horrible, And especially if you do it, because I've done us. I did music.
I did The Bitter End in the early days, you know, all that stuff and the bottom line, and they would to see this, you know, musician, and they did not want to hear what you had to say.
You know. Lars from Metallica said to me, Hey, uh, we're thinking about maybe having a comedian open for us on the next tour. I'm like, find somebody else.
Yeah, yeah.
Were there clubs in Edinburgh, No, Glasgow, there was clubs in London.
There were clubs in London. And so what I did was after I'd done a couple of shows in Glass, I had done the comic strip in New York, and then I went back to collegause my visa ran out and I didn't want to get deported or get into trouble because I knew i'd want to come back later on, so I go back to the UK. I tried doing these gigs in Scotland and it's not really working that well. And they have these clubs in London, but that was poor.
Yeah, fucking I know, we all we were so nobody understands afore.
So I used to have to get like a greyhound bus from Glasgow to London the overnight. It's that's far too Yeah, it's like five hundred miles and you'd start on the way and everybody's drunk on the bus and it's horrible and people are cold and freezing. And I get to London. I had to wait all day to go and do an open mic spot at one of these clubs. Yeah, don't get no money, and then go back to Scotland on the bus and it never wouldn't even cover my fare. Yeah, and yet I fucking did it.
I did it.
I don't know why. I still look at it now and go, Jesus Christ, what was wrong. It's a good thing you did it is, But that's why I'm fascinated by people like us who fail and then don't.
My husband were watching the Olympics last night. He was saying something.
Imagine you know that we're watching the gymnasts getting on the beam, which is like, what is it four inches in was insane. It's like, imagine getting up there and not knowing what you're doing. But I was like, what do you think it felt like getting up on stage?
Yeah?
What do you think that felt like?
Terror?
Oh?
Man, I don't know how I did it.
Well, it's it's every action to trauma. That's what I'm convinced about it. Did you do you watch the Olympics? So you watch it? Yeah? Yeah, because I like I watched it. I'm like, it's very impressive, but it's like jugglers. It's like, okay, great, good for you.
The thing that kills me about it is that, you know, it's not like I'm not talking about the basketball of the tennis so the people who make shitloads of money, not Lebron James, right, but just these amateur athletes that spend their entire life training and then one little injury and they're done and they never made a.
Dime, or you lose by one hundreds of.
A second and that's it, and they're We've been training for for the past twenty years.
Yeah, that feels insane.
To me, it does like if you if you think, oh, I'm going to sneeze just before the starting gun goes off, and it slows you down by one hundred of alcon.
And that's it.
That's it. So it feels like like I watched the swimming the other day. That's it out there. Every four years they hoodwink me in watching people swimming. What the fuck am I doing watching people.
Watching them race, not swim.
But my wife is like, on the swimming real fast, I'm like, how could you even fucking tell? Like, if you see someone swimming, they're swimming, unless unless you're not diving. Diving is pretty impressive. I think that's impressive. But you watch the diving.
They haven't had it yet, No, they haven't. Ye, yeah, but I've seen it.
I like the track, yeah, I like watching at people run really fasting and how do they do those hurdles?
It's hard. Yeah, it's so hard. I never even tried.
I'm impressed with people that are in that kind of physical condition.
I'd love to be in that case.
Literally, that's not gonna, No, it's not.
Now, I'm not gonna. I'm not going to do the Olympics unless they introduce kind of like, I don't know if there's even a sport I would get to do. Now, maybe ambling, if they had an ambling competition, Yeah, ambling, gandering, gardening, gardening, Yeah I can, I don't really.
I'm pulling that weed really really quickly.
Now.
Greig's going in for a prune. He's going for a prune. He's he's printed it off and he's near the stalk. That's good. That's good. I don't know if that's if there's good? Is there anything that you regret about the career? A great career, you still have a great career, But I mean.
It's like, you know, there's no I mean, I never moved to I might have had a bigger career if I moved to LA, but I never wanted to. I always stayed in New York. This will sound silly, but there are certain I mean, I could name them. It's maybe five six times when I was on stage when I said something I regretted. Oh yeah, you know, and I still remember those things, like once I made fun of this woman's outfit and it was just mean and I don't know why I did that.
That was and I remember it and I regret it.
Yeah, I mean it sounds so silly in a way because I've had ten thousand sets where I didn't do that, but I remember those few.
Well. That's that's the kind of interesting thing about it, because sometimes when you're working like that, if you're doing crowd work, if you're doing if you're improvising, and then you're paying attention to the crowd, maybe you make a mistake and you say something mean when you wish.
Usually when you say something mean, it's defensive. It's because you're feeling insecure or something.
Yeah, but the trouble is, now, if that goes, somebody gets a recording to that, then that's who you are.
That's who you are.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was not what happened, and it didn't happen that often, but I remember them and they stay in my body.
Yeah, I understand it. You're like, ah, I did a joke on late night once and I still think about it, like what it was like. Remember George Clooney had a peg. I don't remember George Clutey had a George Clotey had a pet peg. This is early on. I wouldn't have done it layer, but George Cliney had a pet peg and then the pig died and somebody, one of the guys wrote a joke. It's like that George Clone's pig died and the funeral services are tomorrow, and then baked
damages at George South. It's like, like, that's a fucking mean thing to say about. But I did it. I did the joke, and you know, and I wish I hadn't done it, because it's hard.
We we are in ourselves. There are people who do ship like that all the time, and assholes.
I'm trying to politicians, Yeah, they are too. It's one thing I noticed about having politicians when I was doing the Late Night Show. It's tough because they're they're pretty much universally assholes. Yeah, like all of them.
Well, who wants to be Some people I think are into public service for the public service. Okay, let's run with that as But maybe you know, you want to be president. You say I want to be leader of the free world. What kind of ego is that?
Yeah, it's a little trick.
It's massive.
Yeah, it's a little trick. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how I any politician I've met, I've always been very kind of uncomfortable with, like I feel like your hands in my pocket somehow. Well it is, yeah, a little bit.
But now more than ever because they need so much money they do.
You get these the emails and the game daily all the time. I know, they say your name. It's like, hey, Craig, it's me. Yeah something I was texting me every day. Yeah, but then he doesn't know how to text to text?
This is this is how ridiculous I am.
You could you know, I could like block it, but then I feel bad blocking it.
Now.
The truth of the matter is they don't know it's a fucking bot or but I feel like, well, then they're going to think that I'm not a support whatever it is. Yeah, I get, you know, insane about it.
Well, I get I get fundraising texts and emails from people. I'm like, do you know me at all? It's like it's almost like, uh, we're running on a platform of hating Scottish people. Would you like, like what this is? Why would do you think?
Let me ask you a totally ignorant question. Is Scotland a republic?
No, Scotland is the United Kingdom. So you're not part of the EU no anymore. No, Scotland, England, nor In Ireland and Wales are all part of the United Kingdom.
Right, but Ireland is part of the EU.
Southern Southern Ireland, Ireland, Ireland, Northern Ireland is part of the Yeah, that's a whole mash. You don't want to get into that argument.
That's that's like that's Israel Palestine a little bit.
Yeah, it's like there's no I don't know how you figured this out, but there's that. And then Scotland has a big because.
Aren't they constantly doing referendums forever?
Yeah, and how do you feel about that? I do not want to discuss that with you, okay, because I understand because they will pick it up over there, okay, and you know, and it's like right down the middle. I'll tell you afterwards. Okay, I understand, But but if I do it now, some fucker over there will pick it up and then you know after Oh my god. Yeah, it's just like it's so on fire.
On both sides. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
The interesting thing is I was telling someone is I don't do any politics in the Act. And I made this rule for myself never this is only about four years ago. I used to do it, and then I was like, no, I'm not because when things went on fire usually run about twenty sixteen, things got really heat, and I was like, okay, I'm not going to do any politics ston and I made a stylistic choice no
politics at all in the act. And the only people that gave me a hard time about that were people that I actually agreed with really yeah, it's really funny. People I didn't agree with them like oh good, you know, or it just never occurred to them. But people that I knew my politics were like, why why aren't you that's terrible you should be And I'm like.
Why why why do you have to be that?
Why I have to fucking do it. I'm not a politician, and also my job is And also there are people that do it. I always I never did politic see that, And there are people who do it really well. People they were just.
Talking about Lewis Black, Yeah rarely, but mar I mean people.
Who do it really really.
I could never do it well.
So I just I just stayed away from that.
Yeah, I just do like me failing to work over its basically how much I suck. It's the basic mind that I go to over and over again. Ship that's happened to me and how much I suck. Anyway, this has been great for me. I'm a huge fan of yours, and I always get a little uncomfortable when I have someone on the show that I'm a fan of, because I think are think going to be awful and you are the opposite of that. Oh well, thank you, you are absolutely well.
People always think I'm gonna be Susie Green and I'm going to walk in here telling everybody to go fuck themselves and wearing some crazy fucking outfit.
I was hopeful, act Yeah, I was hopeful you wouldn't be like that. But I thought, you gotta be grumpy, You're gotta be shut down. Are you gonna you know the season? No? You know what?
I actually I love my life, bless you.
I'm not going to push you further than that. Get out of here a paper for two pot