The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour.
See you out there, the.
Greig Ferguson show dot com slash Tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interesting people about what brings them happiness. Tom Lennon is an American treasure. If you only know him from his oiled legs, wearing shorty shorts and Reno nine one one, then you probably know enough. But I know a little more, and you're about to to have a listen to this. We're gonna start talking about Tom Cruise.
That's how you know we started because we're going to talk about Tom Cruise right away because I have something to say about Tom Cruise and it's gonna happen.
I'm not worried about it. You shouldn't be. Feel like at this point, if I was going to get blowback in my life from stuff I'd said and did, it would have happened.
I hope that for me. Nah, I think I mean there's like two and a halfs late night over there.
There's ship that I said, easily scrollable. There's gotta be something in there. God gotta be.
Oh my god, it's fucking two and a half thousand hours.
Gotta be. Yeah, no, it is. I mean we did two but at least luckily you never wrote anything down. Yeah. I don't know, man.
So here's what I was thinking, because we were we You mentioned Tom Cruise because you and Tom Cruz are the same height.
Identical, but yeah, we've hung out twice once with the same height. One time we were definitely not How did that happen? It was mid buckles my mind. I've thought about it every single day since.
You know what, Here's what I think about Tom Cruise, and then we're going to get back to how he can bend the laws of physics. All is that I used to like, say, you like derisive things, but Tom Hughes and Tom Cruise and Tom Hughes, Oh yeah, yeah, Tom Hughes is the worst man. So I used to say, like, naughty jokes about Tom Cruise.
Your live.
Naughty jokes is your is your that's my thing. I would say your million.
As they say in Quebec.
But I have a theory about that, right, Okay, okay, So here's what I think about Tom Cruise. He's a goddamn American hero and I and I approve of him one hundred percent. Same here, and here's why he's crazy. Oh sure, But but he doesn't make anyone else's problem. No, he uses it to provide top quality entertaining into whatever. No, no, no, And I I also wondered why I haven't been asked but he Yeah, well there is that.
No, the best two times hanging out with that guy. So what did you do hanging out with Tom Cruise? One time? I did a table read with him, really, which was neat What was the table read for? It was a picture that never came out.
I've made a bunch of those, most films I've been involved, it's never happened.
You wrote a couple of movies. I've read at least a dozen that movies. I've been in a couple of movies. I'm not positive I saw them just because I heard they were so bad.
Yeah, I've got a collection of those. Yeah, Lady Wonder Dog right there, off the top of my money, this Landy the Wonder Dog is this a real picture. It's a real picture, and I'm in it. I haven't seen it, but it was.
Was it a theatrical picture?
I was certainly, I'm going I'm for sure when I listening to the diffic A big board is a huge word video? Remember that straight to video? It may have been that. Oh, I'm on a couple of straight videos.
Sure. I got a picture on Rotten Tomatoes that's at a zero. Okay, that's tricky. That pretty bad. What's that picture? It's called? It's called Ottersville. It's with Michael Shannon, Ian McShane, some good actors. You're kidding me, Judy Greer, Christina Hendricks, Ron Pearlman. What Uh it's maybe just nobody voted? Oh it's no, No, they did. It's an atrocious film. How can that happen? Yeah? And we're all kind of bad in it. But it's got to be the director of that.
Let's say that. Do you know what the say?
My worst results on I had on the Rotten Tomatoes is I'm in that movie?
And I wrote the movie? Oh is it? Oh? Is it a I'll be there, Oh I'll be there. Yeah. Yeah, And I did write that movie? What is it? How about is it? It's I think it's like fifty something, batter you're shitting. That's magnificent. Is there is My Museum which I wrote, and I'm pretty proud. That's a great movie, thank you. It's at thirty four. Fuck up, that's nuts. That's the world we live in. That's a great movie.
And now my my, so oh this is great. My son Oliver, whom I love you, I don't love him, can't. He's turned this on me now, it's amazing. So like, well, he'll ask if we can go see a movie and I'll you know, he'll be like, let's go see you know, the Nun two or three, or let's go see. He's in a very into horror and lots of stuff like this, right, And so I'll check the tomato meter and I'll be like, oh boy, I'm like, this sounds this one sounds like
a real drag. It's at forty you know two, right, which is a splat.
Right yeah, splots sixty or something, oh.
Yeah, yeah yeah, And he's like higher than that of the Museum. Bro, Oh my god, I'm like, oh that's cold. Oh my, that's good that I raised this, you know, but this is the thing.
Though, to be fair, he's got an interesting position to be only because your Dad at Night in the Museum is and he knows it because he's not an idiot.
It's a fucking great movie. He's working the system. Yeah, he knows that he can that the system is a little bit rigged, and and that he can play that against me.
Well, you know how you could prove that Night of the Museum is a great movie. It's because Night of the Museum too exists, right, and I wrote that right, So if they don't let you do another one unless the first one was totally awesome.
Or or anyway so that it was a table read with Tom Cruise. So he did Night at the Museum the table read. No, although he and still are very close because they did Tropic Thunder, which I just let that see. But uh so, if you want Tom Cruise doesn't he won't read a script. Okay, it's not the way it works. Well, he's dyslexic. Yeah, apparently it's dyslexia, which I found very hard to believe because at the table read of a script he's never seen. Yeah, he
gave an amazing performance. Yeah, I have movie star performance.
Yeah maybe, Yeah, you're sure he hadn't walked through it with someone.
Here to my hand, to god. He everyone tells you, they're like, he won't read it. He doesn't want to read it, right, he wants to put a table together and it'll they'll cast the best person for every part, right, tru I believe it. I had a very small part. I refuse to believe that. But uh Ian.
McShane also with that one, Ian mc senat.
He's a great actor. He's a great actor, not scary in person as he as you think.
He's like al swearing jing and oh god, he's so scary, masterpiece dead would he's.
One of the scariest guys. And then he's a real doll. Yeah you know he's loving man.
Yeah yeah, but that happens he's acting.
He's just it's just pretending to You should know that man. Now there's people that are seem so scary and then you meet them and they're a doll. And Nally Vincent Price was like that doll. Yeah yeah, because you know he he scared me when I was a kid. Then there's big but you meete who are exactly a scary.
There are people who are meant to be nice. Then you meet them and they are fucking.
It wasn't. It wasn't an asshole, but he's scared the sh I met Kendal Fenian and Las Vegas. Right. He yelled at me, what why it? It wasn't.
It was a rough night for everybody, okay, and will you you guys drink in non?
Not together?
No.
But I'd taken his friend away for a little while to go see George Lopez, and then I brought him back. It was part of the big they'd moved the Aspen Comedy Festival to Vegas, right, And uh, it was when Sopranos is the biggest show in the world.
I remember I wouldn't have any of the Sopranos on my late night show because I loved the show so much.
You don't want to ruin it. I didn't want to break it. Don't want to ruin it. So Jenny and I my my wife and are at Caesar's. We're doing the festival, and we come down the elevator and who's walking by with a foot long cigar and roll like a thousand, one hundred dollars bills and that he's counting. Gandelphini. I love this and I'm like, and my shows were done on I'd probably had a glass or two of wine. Am I do we just follow him to see where he's going? Yeah, so we did. Maybe he thought you
were the Feds. He might have, but this was a real trip. Speaking of how much you love the show, don't Meet your Heroes. Followed Gandalfini through the casino to where he was going to the high stakes blackjack area, and the guy that he's meeting start waves hello to me, and Jenny is like, Jenny Hi, And we forgot that we had a mutual friend with Gandelfini. This guy, Gandelfini is playing blackjack at a table with Michael Impiliodie, the guy who is Johnny Sack, Johnny Sack, Polly Walnuts and
like little Stephen. This is crazy. Sure, this is an episode. It was the HBO Festival, so they'd put everybody and gave him a thing. YadA, YadA, YadA. It was really insane to see all those guys together. Later on, I had to go tell Gandalfini where his friend had gone to, and I guess he'd had a really bad night at the blackjack table and he was screaming at the concierge at the Caesars really.
Yes, this is before smartphones, so yeah, yeah, like a twenty something kid is that.
He was like, oh, I mister, you know so uh gnafen, he's yelling at the the concierge. Was he yelling at him? I think he thought that the black jacks the table was rigged.
So he was a little toasted that as well, which, by the way, black Chuck is rigged. It's it's I mean, it's just the odds. Yeah, the whole thing is rigged. You're going it is rigged.
You're gonna lose. Yeah, that's just math. But so he was yelling at the young employee at the thing about how the blackjack table was rigged against him and his friends, who happened to literally be literally the Sopranos. That was just scared the ship. I was so scary. And I see that he's yelling at the concierge, and I think I'm worried that he's lost his friend who I had taken to go see George Love You're you're the friend is mysterious. The friend is real nice, He's just an
actor guy that we know. But yeah, but.
You're keeping him out of it for a reason. Well is he in the witness protection.
All right? But so so I lean in. I'm like, oh, the guy's name is Lenny, And I'm like, hey, yup, So I lean into it. I'm going to back off the mic, yeah, because what happened to the next was so scary. So I lean into Gandolphin. He was screaming at the guy at the desk, and I say, excuse me, mister GANDELFHENI uh if Lenny went to go find you with the nightclub called Pure James. Gandolfini turns to me and says.
Yes, I don't know that.
And that was scary my heart. Yeah, like broke. I just got yelled at by my favorite TV character. He was so mad at me.
Well, you know, you can look at it that way, but you could also look at it the way as like, because he yelled at Carmela and he loved her.
He loved Carmela and and so I think it's okay, and then but then he so I started, I like, my lips started quivering, and I thought I was going to cry. And I grabbed Jenny's hand and I ran round the corner. I'm like, James Kendolphini just yelled at me, and then he came around the corner a few minutes later. Jenny's like, he's right behind you, and I'm like, oh my god, he's gonna yell at me more again. Yeah,
he's gonna really yell at you this time. And he tapped me on the shoulder and he said, yeah, you do a show, Yeah, you have a show. I said, yeah, yeah, I do a show called Reena and II one. He said, oh, yeah, it's great, it's a great it's a great show, really good, and then he walked away. And so then I went back to the concierge and I'm like, what what happened?
He was screaming at you, and then he screamed at me and he said, oh, he said that the blackjack tables were rigged and he was super super mad and he was screaming at me. And then he said and then you came up to him. And I actually didn't know who that was. I haven't seen the Sopranos. But when you after you left, I said, the concier said that.
He said to Kendel Foinie, oh you're friends with Lieutenant Dangle, said you were, Oh that's so funny, and Kendelpinia apparently said, having just yelled at me, he said to the concierge, Yeah, he's just great. He's a great guy, great guy. So it was the scariest night anyway, meeting your Well, yeah, I had this thing.
I do have this thing about meeting heroes that like, I never I wouldn't allow the.
Late night bookers to approach David boyd No. I don't know if he would ever have done the show.
Of course he would have, but I would think he would like, you're not allowed to even get in touch with him because if he turns up and there's nothing you can do.
What if it goes badly? Right now?
Yeah, And the reason why I want to because I had heard through the great he likes you. Though I know you were laughing at the show, I had done a sketch yeah no, no, yeah, he does on his sixtieth birthday, which is seriously how long ago it was, because I'm sixty one now, But on his sixtieth birthday, I did a sketch in the show where like I sang as David Boy because I can do David Boy going, I'm going down the shops to get some bin that's it and some that's it.
You know, that kind of thing.
And it was just like old guy stuff gets off my and he apparently thought it was very funny. And then I thought, but if he comes on, I don't know I would I wouldn't be like that, No, I'd be I was still I still believed in the myth at that point.
It's a bell you can't unring. Well that that that's right, that is it's a bell you can't unring.
Like Morris is a big one for you. You ever meet Mars.
Him a couple of times.
Disappointing, Okay, disappointing.
Yeah, no, it's it's very sort of very imagine Chili's chili thinking about it's just so chilly dells and stuff.
If only we could all think about that. Of course, if we want washed in blood, you know, it's just always a thing. So I had I had speaking of your your bowie thing. I went to see the Springsteen's Broadway show, oh yeah, and uh and it was amazing, you know, and it was like Springsteen and you're sitting right there, you know.
And if I heard he had a peptic ulcer, I was like, of course, of course that would explain it. I've had that kind of ulcerated selfigus thing. It's oh it has to be. I don't know how he could sing for this long. Yeah, no, it's amazing.
So I'm walking out of the theater to see Springsteen and one of his security guys there's like guy kind of wrangles the stage door area, keeps people just a little bit away and stuff. And then there's another guy like at the door, but there's another guy who's just kind of like street guy, keeping it safe for the loss, give it real. And he goes, oh, hey, man, are you are you going to see the boss backstage?
Because I guess he knows me. And I was like, no, no, I wasn't going to.
Now I have to well, and the security guy's like, go ahead, man, no, no, no, go go go on go on back. Just say, Ronnie, just go ahead, go go on back and meet the boss. And I'm standing there. I'm standing in the street and I'm looking at this guy and there's another security guy right, and there's probably another guy after that.
Sure yeah, and then Bell and Jack Nicholson, and I'm.
Like, my next thought is okay, so let's say I get past next Thanks security guy. Great, so I've made it past two security guys who love me. Then I get let's say I get to the boss. Yeah, and his eyes don't light up. Yeah, he doesn't know who you are maybe at all? Right, and that's lightly. I mean you don't know.
I mean you've done a lot of stuff in nine one one is like everybody loves that show.
You would think, but like, what if the boss didn't care and didn't know and didn't care? Yeah, I think you're overthinking it. Did you did you go? Did you get through? I didn't go through because I was so scared. I was like, if on the off chance that he does and go like, what if I get through and he goes.
Ronnie, you're you're fucking me?
What?
How are these randos? We got randos getting back here?
What are we doing? Ronnie? But he wouldn't say that in front of you? Then what if he did? He wouldn't he's boss, Ronnie, you're fucking me.
This is just back here, and he's got his fingers in the seven layer dip and then of a bitch, Ronnie get the get out.
No, but then and then Ronnie loses his job. In this scenario, it's horrible.
This is a terrible and then I take Ronnie has to live with me for a while eleven year house. He's like, man, I really thought.
The Boss Tom and the Roadie is recorded in front of a live studio audience.
Yeah, anyway, I sent I sent him back to see the Boss, and the Boss was just mat I Boss probably pretends to know you. Well, that's so. I mean, haven't you done that when you've been introduced to one day long?
Because I did this once once where I get introduced the Costello backstage and I was like, and he said, hello, Craig, nice to meet you. And I was like, knows you, he knows my name. And then I saw a guy literally a household name though.
You know, there was a guy who it's a Craig Ferguson. He got a handle, he's got handles. Get a guy that goes it's Craig fergus.
Now, the problem is it doesn't work when it's not Craig Ferguson, because the guy only.
Says the guy whisky works for you, exactly, Craig fergus, Craig figus. It's a guy.
There's a guy Coronie that used to work for Chris fucked up till he fucked up and.
He was letting Randos in. Rando's were back.
The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascals Stand Up Tour continues throughout the United States in twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com Slash Tour.
So you are there.
You're on the road right now, right working with the State, which is kind of a rock band situation to be in.
And that's that's a cult outfit, very very very much so in that Remember how the Clash never made any money. Yeah, they had to live in like squad apartments and stuff. Clash that was a lot to do with miss management, drugs. Is that? Is that what you're sure?
Sure?
Yeah, we're too old for both of those. Well yeah yeah, but no, it is a lot like being in a band.
Yeah, I mean, you get a band back together, do you guys have like backstage antics?
And like do we have antics too? We fight a we fight a lot. We're still fighting. Absolutely. It's a good lord. But it's always about the work, you know. It's like never we never have personal stuff. We're all you know, we the State the Comedy Group got together in nineteen nineties eighty eight Shut the Front Door. So we've been together since I was eighteen years old and now I'm fifty three, so it's still God'm sixty one. Man, it's fucking it's fucking bad. Yeah, when do we guess
we get to quit at some point? Yeah? I tried it the way you did not try I know, and then I noticed that. And then the next thing I noticed is dates everywhere, and you got two podcasts and you're on tour everywhere. Quitting my fuck, No, for sure, of course, you know. So by the way, everyone said that about you. As soon as you were like I'm not to chill out for a minute, I'm like, Craig is, yeah, I know, Chris got a chill out for seem like the guy who improvises a twenty minute monologue.
Yeah, it was when you do that at home, Like Megan's like, I think maybe you should go do this.
I'm like, hey, hey, you know what, Megan, you know what happened. But I came in through the kitchen door. I came in through the kitchen door. Let me tell you about the.
Kitchen door and She's like, you could be doing this in Vancouver, Vancouver needs you yourself.
County, Yeah, Merrillville. It's I'm playing all those places. Of course you are. I see you get in the state. You're right in the same gigs, right we uh yeah. We've actually only tested the show out so far once and then we've got a bunch a lot of dates coming up and after November. So yeah, you excited about that? I am. You know it. There is nothing like No, it's nothing. It's great.
It's really fun, and it's it's not replaceable with a I no no, yeah, a little Abba.
Are doing a show which is holograms. There are a K pop out. I think that the or the Japanese I love singer who say I don't want to see an alba Ai show?
Oh you know you do want to see it, and you want to see it with me, and you want to bring Jenny and okay, and I'll take Meghan and I have a written at the two Arena. I'm serious. It's hologram. I'm from the nineteen eight I'm yeah. But it's with their permission. Oh yeah, they're they're making money from it. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's their songs and they're you know, and it's them young.
Yeah, see this is a problem. This is where comes a little bit of a black mirror episode for me. The brunette sort of redhead from Abba. Yeah, let's see it's Benny Bjorn and yeah, yeah, I think it's a. I think it's a I might carry a crush for her that has not died. I hear. Yeah, I'm kind of the same. That's a tough it's it like I'm worried. That's the same way I'm worried about. Like, I don't know if my family is gonna let me just buy
tickets to the Taylor Swift movie because it seems dubious. Well, his dad so excited to go see the Taylor Swift.
Are you excited to see the Taylor Swift noting?
Damn it? I am. Yeah, see, I know unless I get nothing.
But I hear nothing but nice things that Jack Taylor Swift, and certainly the music that I've heard is fabulous and uh balpy and catchy and all the things.
He's not for me, but no, no, everything is for you know. I mean, it's it's but and.
Also she doesn't give six like guy, I like her making music for me.
I like her. I like her guitar playing actually a lot, and she and I own an identical guitar. Because Taylor Swift.
Trying to make you and Taylor Swift kind of be so mazed because you want the same. You're right, your family shouldn't let you go. No, No, it's weird. Why his dad want to go see the Taylor Swift movie is just weird. Well, you're you're allowed to like what you like. I mean, you don't like to go and see the movie. Well, this is what you don't get even weird about it.
Yeah, well, I actually think i'd be finding the Taylor Swift movie. Yea, I do. I worry. You know, part of my happy adult life is that the idea of the young ladies from from But don't exist anymore. So now these monsters with their no but they're holograms. No they they they look really real. No, I don't think this is good for me to go see. Oh, because you've aged, I've aged, and somehow young Agoneatha from Abba. But it's a good black mirror. It's a black mirror.
It isn't interesting stuff I have I have. I thought it was just you know I was in my age because I actually am aging.
And then I think, no, it's not that it's.
Because of robots, it's because of the it's because of ai is. Other people are not aging, they're not And filters, Oh, yeah, of course that'll fair.
Filters. You're on the social medias, aren't you. I am, but I would yeah, I'd love not to be. Yeah. I think everybody talks the same about it. It's funny.
It's like living in La. Like when you leave La and everyone around it, did you leave La? And you're like, yeah, I'd love to do that.
Leave, but yeah, it's hard. You can't. It's hard you and I have And then we're both sitting here.
Yeah, and I'm both sitting in a studio in La, in the middle of La. You know what I think it was some British film director said about La. I think it's a It's the absolutely accurate description of it. It said, La is a town where you turn up, you get off the plane, you go to the hotel, you put it on your suitcase, you go out, you lie out by the pool, you have an app.
You wake up later. It's twenty years.
It's it feels a little bit because I was here twenty three years, like eleven here.
I come here to work, and I come here to see friends.
And I come here to to do business, but I don't live here anymore.
I was sort of thought that Los Angeles felt a little bit like the way people describe like working on an oil rig. You know, you go out and work on the oil rig. You don't stay there for the theater scene and for like the social times. You go get the fucking oil, the oil out and get the fuck and then goes somewhere lovely. Yeah.
But the thing is that the trick with California is that plenty of it is.
Lovely, so lovely, yeah, so close to Yeah, I don't know.
I kind of like we left and now I don't know. We're in New York a lot of the time, and it's like, I love see New York is a good city to get older.
And it's great. That's actually my backup plan.
It's I'm telling you it's great because you just walk outside your show every day. And also you walk around everybody's not like like everybody in La that Garrison Quila thing. Everyone's in the mid thirties. Even the children are in their mid very good point. But in New York, people
like it's just a smortgage boarder. Just everybody like people with one bag, guy, one small eye, big hand, a little hand, you know, one hundred years old, you know, fifteen years old, and people are shuffling around really rich people, really poor people, people without hats.
I never thought I really leave New York. New York was weird when I got to New York. Oh well, I mean you worked at Save the Robots. I did, Yeah, put you ever there? I probably was there. Yeah, I probably worked there. Yeah, I've read that I worked there. So we got I got to New York in nineteen eighty eight. Yeah you would have been there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I stopped working there. But we didn't have any money or anything. We were really poor. Yeah, but it was
the after hours club. I didn't know it, but until two eight that was Can you imagine because two guys who now have dinner at five, I would love to have dinner at five. I'd like to have dinner out of the way by five, a.
Club, And we used to go to places, but the afteros club thing that was going on then you could.
You couldn't have that now. I'm like people were openly doing drugs. We went to a place. There was a place in the East Village that was an after hours place called Brownie's. I can talk about it because there's no weight with there. It was not Brownies the music club. There was another place where it was owned by this guy who had a cowboy hat and he had a revolver. Was he English? No, he was an African American gentleman. And the only things they sold were like cams of paps,
blue ribbon and dime bags of cocaine. I think I've been there, Yeah, yeah, I think that was it. You were not allowed to curse. You could do You could literally sit and have paps and do cocaine with a guy and a cowboy hat with a pistol. If you cursed, which our friend of mine did at the pool table, it was a real issue for the owner and he was just like, fellas, I'm going to ask you one more time with my pistol and my paths. Wow. New
York was it was? Fuck, It was a thing. There was casinos that just were yeah, yeah, I.
Remember, and I wrote about this, but I was in a barcoll Murphy's and the Upper East sized. I don't think it's there anymore. But I keep going looking for it because I live in the Upper East now, and I'm like, is it here?
No.
But we went out one.
Night and then we went over to the West Side and it was during the troubles and there was a lot of IRA stuff and these guys were there. I got a shit kicked out me when we were out for one night, and I mean, like, really, I go, like, they're kind of beaten up that I'd probably go to hospital now. I was hitting the face now you were still. Yeah, well if I could, if I could be up now, I don't.
Know if i'd recover.
God, I go, yeah, I mean like I I turned the wrong way, and oh my god, everything hurts all the time. New York. I make clicking noises just standing up.
We got as the state. We got beaten up twice. At least. Did you get beaten up many times? For the material? I got? No? No, no, just New York in the eighties. Oh right, my first, my first getting this shit kicked out of me in New York. I only be it was eighty fall of nineteen eighty eight. I was wearing it like a bright yellow bow tie. I just come from you know what, you deserve it.
I actually deserved it. I was frolicking up Broadway at three o'clock in the morning, singing, Pippin' got beaten, oh man. But you know, getting beaten on the street in New York used used to be a thing, used to be a thing. Yeah, and here's a weird thing I'm going to say about it that may not be popular. People in New York, I think, have better manners and for the most part, behave well because there's a solid chance you're gonna get clocked. In New York and in LA
everybody's just bitching and moaning in their cars. You can't hear them. Everybody's in a bubble, screaming profanities at you.
I think this is that's not I don't think that's I don't think it's unrealistic.
Well.
I had a friend from Texas who used to wear a hat and carry a gun, and he used to say.
In Texas in Los Angeles, yeah, and he used to.
Yeah, okay, but he would.
Say, an armed society is a polite society. I get weird about that one. Yeah, but you say it. Yeah, I'm not saying that. I subscribe to that notion, But I do. I do think a society where occasionally say their own thing, you gets like somebody gives you like a real quick bop to the face. I'm pretty much in favor of that. Well, you know, you're you're Irish.
That said, you know, that's kind of what it is to be fair, exactly what it is?
Iris? What are you like just off the boat? When did your people get I got to show you just off the boat? Yeah? Did? I didn't show you my twenty three and meters. It's ridiculous. Mostly potatoes. It's literally it sent me a potato. It turns into yeah, I mean because I mean nobody got iris. You know, everybody has like a little bit of something else. Yeah, I
don't all iris. Yeah, I'm all. Well, but what it says is it doesn't differentiate, which is crazy, but it's it just shows the England, the British Isles and nothing else.
Right, Well, that's a lot of different influences there. But yeah, it's I mean, because as the Irish and the Cats.
And the you know, and then I don't know what the Scotts had made.
No Italians. I got no Italians. Is that's the important part for me? That's the important part. I think I've got a lot of Italian obviously. Look I've never done it twenty Street me because I don't want your six Look at your the gorgeous head of hair you have, crazy, I've got to be Italian.
This is not just the hair of a Scots No, it's definitely an Italian. I think that is Well, not that movies. The Scott's had great hair, but they're all dead in battles too, though, yeah, you know they Well, the thing is my family always had good hair.
Yeah, but there was alcohol involved, and I drank a lot. About what I'm saying is that you're an alcoholic.
Your hair will be good. Your hair's fine, right, it's doing right. What were we talking about New York and the eighties getting beaten up? Yeah, well that's overnight. Yeah. The IRA used to be a thing. People loving the IRA, people in New York and Chicago just openly loving the IRA.
Yeah.
It was a little different where I grew up because it was like doorsteps. Yeah. Yeah, and well that was a weird, a very icky part about growing up in the West Side of Chicago, which we never talked about until we all got sort of publicly shamed by Bono.
Oh yeah, yeah, it was very interesting. You would go to you'd go to I was at a YouTube concert very early, yeah, and the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago, and it's you know, all these Irish immigrants, you know, kids of the Irish Diasthmir and you know you two's this is eighty four eighty six something like that, very really early, and Bono would you know, say in the show, like, you know, there's a there's a war half none of my country, and the Chicago audience would go would all cheer,
and I was probably part of that, and then he would say no, he was, well, he was. He was very cool about it. I mean, it'd be like award that nobody wants that's killing children and you can't support this, and this is some kind and where everybody was like, oh shit, and we feel bad. Yeah, and then we feel bad. But it took something like it took someone like that to make everybody realize what a shitty thing that we were, like like publicly just like we're right
ryeing this crazy thing. Yeah, and yeah, it was a lot more. I don't know. I mean it's even now I'm sixty one years old.
Then the you know, the good fight, the agreement has happened that, you know, things have changed so much over there, and I'm still terrified to talk about it because it's fucking dangerous. Yeah, and when you're in a certain company in Scotland and Ireland, for sure, it's still fucking dangerous.
And I don't I can't. I kind of avoided it when I was a kid.
I avoided talking about it at all in the same way actually that now when I do stand up, I don't do any politics.
I don't know anything. I actually think that's why the state is still popular. Yeah, we never you never. We never did like weird impressions of like anybody. We didn't give a shit about. Like if we'd done like tons of George W. Bull and what would we have done. I guess it would have been Bush Senior or so I don't know, you like, what would that would not be? Yeah? So how long were you guys together? You did? Like how many seasons? Like ten seasons? No? No, no, So
we did well, we got together in eighty eight. We were we were just the comedy club at NYU, right, and so we were doing like live theater shows and things like that, and then we did a show with John Stewart for MTV that was fucking awful show. It's called You Brought It, You watch it. It was horrible, but John Stewart was awesome in it. He got the John Stewart Show and we got the State. Right. So we did three seasons on MTV. Right.
We got negative two stars in the New York Post the first season negative. That's one of my first of you in Late Night in the New York Post they said it looked like he.
Was wearing a wake hate speech.
Yeah. I was just like, you wouldn't be allowed to that now. No, you can't just say they didn't like the way I looked, and they just.
Went after me. Oh my god, I didn't think how good you and you were really good at it? I no, I have first I feel like I guess maybe I can't. At first I think you were though, well, this is a great effect. None of us remember stick out together. We did three seasons there. We thought we were real badasses. Weirdly, we did numbers that were awesome, like the ratings on MTV were like, really you can good? Yeah? Uh, And then we thought we were hot ship, which is a great idea.
Always a great I think you are, but to be it is a good thing to look back on.
And then we we thought we were hot shit we got instead of we had we had an offer to do more shows at MTV. We didn't know how many, but it was it maybe would have been good. Or we had an offer from CBS for two specials and if those went well, we would be like a CBS like big show. That's print your own money. Though, That's what everybody was really excited about. So we shot a special for CBS, which got wonderful reviews. Okay, literally, no
one fucking watched. We all got together to watch it, and I remember the most exciting thing that happened is there was a thunderstorm warning came on on CBS during our special. It was legendarily bad ratings. Alan King was on it for some reason, and he was really kind of mean to the whole thing sucked.
Yeah, and then I'm sorry here that well, and then but then we you know, sort of we keep being like we're like, I don't know, We're like Vince Clark in depeche Mode, like so State sort of breaks up half of us turns into a show called Viva Variety, the other house.
I love to do a show called Stello. Yeah, you know. So it's like we we're still on tour. Everybody's been on Reno nine one, We've all been in.
Michael in the frame, Michael and Black Lives and of course in the frame for the in the late night show.
It was me and he wanted that job so badly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was on one of his tryout shows. Yeah, he was good at it. I saw his tryout show. I was like, Okay, he's going to get it. Did you think so? Yeah? I did. Yeah, I totally thought he was going to get it.
I remember calling, uh CBS Michael, who was the producer, You remember, Michael, this, this is the guy you think.
I really love. I love I think he would love to hear that.
No. I thought he was I mean, I didn't want him to get it for obvious reasons, but I thought he was good.
I did a bit with him when he went on one of those shows, and I remember thinking, I, you know, like, this is one of my closest best friends in the entire world. And I remember thinking, I don't know if he's good at talking to people like this. I'm not sure, this is like I think I think I said it. I think he would have done it. That's fine. But he was just coming off of being the pets dot Com sock puppet, so of course he was. He was pretty pretty hot. Yeah, he was. He would be hot
share at that point. I would come sock puppet.
That was two years out from being a banana on the Drew Carrey Show. So I was also, oh god, also peking, that's a good one.
Yeah. Nice.
That's lost media now the Drew carry Show. You can't see it anywhere.
You can't see it all.
No.
I think maybe there's there's some kind of copyright this shit going on with it with music or something, but you can't see it on any of the streaming services.
I've kept the State off of DVD for like fifteen twenty years. Yeah, I think it must be a similar was a music thing, so we actually somebody had to go through and replace every single piece of the famous music.
I think that's a situation.
It's a bummer. Yeah, it's something like that anyway. D Drake Beder knows about it. He Drake is a fascinating cat. He lives bucks away from me. Yeah, yeah, he's an amazing guy.
He's one of the best actors I've ever worked with. Stunning, He's an incredible actor. And there's a guy and I said, he's been on this podcast and I said to him, you really grew up.
I mean because he was when I first met him. He's a bit of a deck and he's I think he can come off like that sometimes. And this is I say this, I love this man and we are very close. I wrote, I wrote his daughter's uh application college? Is that one of those? Is that? By the way, she didn't get it? Okay, so I blew it. That was such a great letter. I'm a great college letter writer. Yeah, I go, I go aggressive. Yeah, that's prob. No, weird. No,
it's actually worked a bunch of times. Really. Yeah, Like I write a college letter that starts with like, look, you do not want to go to war with me? And you know what, it's mostly worked out.
Yeah, but yeah, No, you write the letter for the applicant. Aren't they meant to write their own? No?
No, no, you got to you gotta go like a recommendation left right, Okay, I've written a couple of them. Now, I got a pretty good track record, right, Okay, well, but I go funny. I mean, I go funny and I go aggressive. Well, I've got one more to get through college. So uh maybe for Liam's you can you can do. Oh absolutely, I'll pull up big guns for that one. Yeah, Liam, I know where we're going here. My boy doesn't seem like college material and I love it.
I'm like, that's a million dollars I get to just keep. Yeah. I don't know if Liam will go to college, but they'll be statues. Yeah. I feel like, yeah, it's so funny. Everybody's like, well, make sure the boy gets tutored and really works hard and does these things. And I'm like, really, because like to go where to go to like a stuff you learn stuff on YouTube.
It's it's an interesting thing because I you know, Megan, as you know is my wife is is a very highly educated, clever Area day believer in academia. I dropped out of high school when I was just turned sixteen, and so she can sell the college thing to the kids, but I can't, unfortunately.
But there's a like, well you know about it, yeah, and how's the castle? Yeah? Yeah, you sure didn't have to do. But that's that was luck. It was a little bit a lot of work at Did you go to college? I did?
I went to n YU.
Oh, yeah, of course you did, because that's for the state thing.
Yeah.
But the funny, funny detail. I was accepted to college on academic probation because my high school grades were not great. What were you going to study a college?
Uh?
Well, I actually I started at the theaters school. It was handy because n YU was nice. You could audition because, like I.
Seem that seems realistic for a theater skill idea.
But like Northwestern, uh, which was my first choice, I wanted to go to the theater school.
There's no audition.
He's a ship actor, but he's great.
You just have to be smartest. You just have to be smart, which how smart? Hope says, No, he don't know, doesn't need to be I mean really a talking plant a great actor.
You just have to be able to read a little bit. You don't even really have to really, you know. So I got a bold rejection from Northwestern, right, and Northwestern and n YU accepted me with the asterisk. If I got a C in any class in my freshman year, I would be kicked out. Oh my god, which you obviously did great motivators. Great, you know, dick around. So did you finish college? I did, actually did finish. So
you're not fully qualified. I'm a fully qualified bachelor of the arts, right, So if you have some arts that need to be a bachelor.
I think that that could be a good show. It's a dating show, Bachelor, and it's all the art Bachelor. Do you ever go to the Met? Do you know the Met when they have the French impressionists. That's really good, isn't it. I really like that in there. So I was in there the other day and they have I'm looking at the French, which is the impression that you're looking at somebody who likes specifically. Yeah, there was a pretty I knew you were going to ask you this.
There was a Prisian street scene. I can't remember it, and I love it. I just like going hanging out near it. And I can't remember I who did it, which I'm apologized, But you know what, it might be Renoir, It might be I don't know sure. But I go to the Van Go exhibit because the Van Go exhibits on right now in the Met, and they have Starry Night there and which is amazing.
It's an amazing, stunning same person. It has its own luminescence, it creates its own lene. It's unbelievable.
But as I'm standing there, I have to pick my moment to look at the picture because of everyone holding their phone to take a picture. Just look at it, right. But this is an interesting thing to me because I think all performance, all human society is changing right now. We're in a very odd place in human history where analogue, personal, bionic personal memory is gone. Everything you will be remembered like you can now make abba as they were when you were a young man.
This is a problem because then I go to the show and then I'm like, hey, can I go meet her after? And they're like, sir, you can't meet She doesn't she doesn't exist. And I'm like, I demand I meet her.
And then you go there and it's the same roadie that wouldn't let you in the.
Killing me you.
Want to go to see and yet you get through there and.
She's not there. It's just like a little box. It's like, you know, I'm all of the memories of an armor, you know.
But it isn't a odd thing because memory is wonderful. I like memory because I everybody remembers things a little bit differently, but phones don't.
Phones remember exactly exactly correctly. And you'll soften it for you. I wonder, because you know, we have a great big computer in the kitchen in the house that always runs your photo life. And is it does it make my memory better or worse? Makes it worse? It makes it worse, I'm sure of it, because you're just like, oh, at some point I'll think about let me rephrase that. I don't know if it makes it worse, it makes it different, it's too accurate. Yeah, it's not human.
The human thing is that you create a story of what happened. Remember that time we went to the pizza place and you took your pants off, you know, and your dad stuff the things.
You can have a real fondness. I think I do too, for you know, like there's so I have so many ex girlfriends that I have one photograph of if or if barely right, you know, and that's like such a neat you know, in a way, it's like it's kind of more interesting because yeah, yeah, yeah, and you have to think about it. Yeah, I went to I went to London with Susan for like two weeks and there's almost no photos of it at all. It was just like a I know, I have to think about it.
And I wonder, though, I wonder what happens with that, because no matter how much Quadure is like me and you will approach quaduredom I'm very close. Well you get there, it's not gonna change anything.
It's not.
You can complain about it, but it's not gonna it's not gonna change anything. And I wonder if that's just what it's like to get old. It's like just the world starts to seem scary and alien, and it's not really scary and alien.
It's just this is a great question. I've wondered this exact thing, because the world does seem pretty scary right now, even walking here to this strange, a pretty sketchy area of Hollywood. I mean, this is be scary for a good fifty years were peg in the meter. But yeah, like I wonder, am I just growing into the phase where I bitch about everything? Yeah? You know, yeah, like does everybody just do that at some point?
I don't know it just like my Abba was better, Yeah, she was a human, lady.
Human I prefer robots is not perfect. I would go see album and sometimes they would mess up. No, come on, man, you went to you.
May have got a bet too fat at that point, but I wonder, I don't, I don't know. It might be, but I think that's okay too. Yeah, I think you have to embrace the strangeness of aging. This is I'm talking to myself because you're not at that point. I'm getting real, real, real close.
Yeah, fucking sixty one though, Tom, I mean, yeah, it's on the age that my my grandfather, who basically was my identical twin, dropped dead. So I just kind of, yeah, you gotta make Hey what did he talk about, van go make Hay while the sun shines? Yeah, a strange experimental He had looked at me about a drug that he was allergic to ended up killing him. Right, We're not talking last week then, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is I was a child.
Yeah, right, so but these things, you know, I think that my dad when he was my age, had been retired for a year.
Yeah, but life of a glass Wigan.
Yeah yeah, now yeah, come year, Brack was so outside the it's a little different. But I started, you know, you know, I fucking started brushing my teeth.
That's what brush your teeth.
For.
God, brush your teeth brought last time I went to Ashole, when I went to see you in Scotland a butter t shirt that's there was such a great T shirt that says says people make Glasgow and I love this shirt and I wear it all the time. And then I looked up the hashtag of people make Glasgow and it's always the worst fights. It's a guy. There's like a naked guy fighting a lady and he uses a bike as a weapon.
I know that.
Have you seen under always under the hashtag people make Glasgow. We do that in our family, so funny.
Send each other things the worst use oh my god.
But it's always got that upbeat hashtag.
I can't remember exactly, but there was one about a nurse who lost her lawsuit for an unfair dismissal because.
She had a field come and see had claimed that there was a ghost and in the hospital that was farthing and blaming it on her and she got fired because of that.
People make Glasgow. People make Glasgow.
I mean it's quite a place, but of course it's a very odd hybrid of Ireland in Scotland.
Glasgow. I really like Glasgow. Fucking old hybrid of Ireland in America. I am mostly Ireland.
I know.
Last time I was in Glasgow, I want to go see you. It was it was one hundred and two degrees in Glasgow. Yeah, that's right, go weird there. It was really intense. It's strange. It's not now it's very good, yeah, because it was Actually Glasgow at one hundred and two is not good because you know what happens. It's tough.
People start coming out wearing what they think is the appropriate clothing for hot weather, and it's.
Not fucking pretty. Then I went to Garvin Beach where with weird Al Yankovic and Weird Alan Allen's family, and we went to a great little I'm not going to say the name of it, right, we'll bleep it right around the corner and oh yeah, and I decided to try like the spicy wet pork. And I never eat I don't meat meat hardly really. Ever, what I did was doing a win in Rome thing. Right, So it's one hundred and two in Glasgow. You had spicy web pork. Oh oh was it good? No, car, it wasn't good.
It's a good buddy. Hadn't dealt with pork in like a kind of a long time, and it was. It was one of the roughest nights of my entire life. Just a long walk because you're gurgling full of yeah, yeah. I had that once in Paris. Actually I had.
I had been vegan for four years, and I thought, I'm having an ice cream. Oh, just the lactose dairy ice cream colon, having not had dairy for four years.
No, my tough to a bathroom in Paris, I'll tell you.
I was accepting anything anything like a whole with foot pads on either side.
Tough.
And there was a lot on the way home anyway, you know. That's that's why I had a long walk. Pooping through Paris.
Pooping through Paris, you gotta you gotta do it once.
See, that's how romantic Paris is, even when you've got the trots, it's kind of romantic.
Absolutely.
All right, Well we're kind of done here, Okay, we established what is joy for you?
I will say, and it may seem silly. I would write sketches every day for the joy of it. I would sit for absolutely for no one, and I would just I could, I could write every day for no one but myself and love it and truly truly love it. I think that's kind of nice. Yeah, I mean it's a little bit cheesy, but it No, it's not cheap. Sometimes I people will send me either they'll send me their kid or something and be like, hey, you got to tell my kid how to write movies. Yeah, you're
gonna take my kid. Kid. Somebody will be like, well, you get on like a zoom and just tell my kid what they do.
So they don't like to send the kid around to your house. No, God, No, that's kind of weird, you know what. Yeah, But and then that's my my question is always, would you do this every day for free?
Yeah? Because mostly you will. I'm like, hey, yeah, mostly you're gone. That's fucking true. Yeah, the paydays are sometimes.
But you know what's weird about it, because I totally agree with you. But the weird thing is is that, like I I tried to retire and I couldn't because I haven't been working since I worked in the fucking bar in Glasgow. I haven't had a real job for forty years.
But you worked real hard yep, But it felt like fun. It's kind of war. It felt like fun. Yeah, it's kind of dicking around. It doesn't doesn't feel like work. Doesn't feel like work.
And then the times when I've tried to work, like when I directed movies and stuff like that, they suck because I don't like doing that.
I don't like doing that either, especially I especially hate directing. Oh it's awful. It's not my apparently, it's not my personality. No mine, neither. I meet folks who have that personality and they're great at it. They're still great at it. Yeah, but it's a very different level of drive to be that sort of person and I think I'm Once I got over the idea of this want to direct notion that everybody had. I had that once you get over it, you're gonna feel better. I had it, you know.
When I really knew it was over for me, I had a conversation with Quentin Tarantino about now you can direct like crazy?
Oh sure?
And so I was telling them that I didn't enjoy the directing experience, and he said, well, didn't you have the whole movie in your head before you shot it? And I said no, and he went, well, I do when I make a movie, of course. Well there, no, there we go, there we go. That's why you're Quentin Tarantino and I'm the cheeky monkey man l.
But there you go. All right, Tom, Well you you are a joy. By the way. The other thing that brings me joy, I would say, is like I think I came on your show. Oh gosh, oh are we have fifteen twenty years ago now thirty something times? Yeah, but that I still consider my friendship with you is something that has brought me a tremendous amount of joy. Yeah. It's knowing your family.
Meeting and you're fucking weird, you know, and you're and I like that because I've got some friends who aren't there. You've also got some really cool friends with some fucking great weird friends.
I really do, not really do.
My life is really a Wes Anderson movie. It actually is. It really is live in a fucking Wes Anderson movie. My own time. It's a good one. But if Wes Anderson was to look at my life and be like, it's a little yeah, yeah, it's down, Yeah, it's too much. Well, I mean this is beyond royal tattle ball. All right, we gotta go the best