Tom Papa

My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is joy. I talked to interest in people about what brings them happiness. Here's Tom Papa, a great American comedian who feels somehow reliable and enjoy.

Am I interview and you are your interviewing man.

It's really funny because last night I told my wife I was coming to see you and we adore you, and she was like, oh, that's so great. Have you like checked up on what he's been up to lately and I was like, no, no, no, he's interviewing me, so I don't. I don't have to look at his Wikipedia page, right, Yeah, like no, the pressure's on him.

Well, see now the troubles You mentioned your wife because I mentioned to you very briefly before we started recording that you are my wife's favorite comedian. I like to hear that.

Yeah, I don't like that.

I know it makes me think less of you, well know less of you, but kind of angry at you.

I'm kind of jealous a little bit.

I know.

As soon as you said it, I was like, well, that means that's too bad, because I really like you. And now I know if I liked yeah, that you like me a little less than you did before.

She declared that, well, it's just been watching you on the on the interwebs, the.

Instagram and all that, because she has all that. Ah, is that where she catches it mostly?

Yeah?

I think so?

Is that?

Do you do a lot of that?

Yeah?

You know, I started.

I got a group a company to post my clips because it takes me I six hours.

I just did that. It takes me six hours to edit and then post it and tag it.

I just did. I can't do it. So I got this group to do it about a year ago. And I'm telling you, more people come up to me at my shows and say that they were turned on to me or watched me through TikTok or Instagram. Right then, the Netflix or Comedy Central.

Totally have the same thing. I just started doing it. I think it's probably the same company. But yeah, I started doing it about three or four months ago. And the demographic in my audience, the age has dropped like an average of like thirty years.

Like all of a sudden, there's more.

People and they're young, and yeah they and I said to them, you fuckers better not be here.

Ironically, No, this is Astley.

I want some you know, not that there's anything I do like Rick Astley, both as a man and as a performer.

You're right, he got kind of ironic for a while.

Now.

Yeah, I know you want you want young people, but I have the opposite thing where I'll look at the audience in certain spots and they're older and I'm like, so where did you find me?

Yeah?

Like this must be a face in the library. Yeah, right, exactly, my book in the library. I think I feel like I'm done trying to figure it out and I'm just throwing I'm always mistaken about the trends and what's happening. So if they say throw all your shit this way, it's whatever.

I think it's basically and I am stealing a phrase from my own wife here, my wife, who you're her favorite lover. She says, you just throw toilet paper at the Hollywood sign and see what sticks, and that's that's the entire business. And if she said, if you have to ever write down what your job is like, you don't have to say, well, I perform.

I right, you don't have to do any of that.

You just see you roll up pieces of toilet paper and you throw it at the Hollywood sign and you see what sticks.

It's perfect because that sign is so bigah, and the balls are so small, tiny little spit ball that is kind of actually act like you have to throw that. You have to constantly throw and you'll never cover it when I love if you been out in LA. I have been back and forth from New York in LA for twenty years.

I think of you as an East Coast person.

Yeah, like you're kind of you have that sort of clever, good at stand up vibe about you, that kind of New York thing. It is my roots. It is my thing.

I have a hard time saying I'm here, Like even like you just asking the question, I have to tell a story.

I can't just say I've been here eight year looks it's a thing I have to say. It's not good if you just do yes or no answers. That makes everything very difficult. Yes, yes, but.

I shut down. We shut down our New York place eight years ago. And so we've been here full time without New York for eight years.

And you reached your kids over there then.

Both places, and then they wanted The reason we closed down New York was they got to a point where they wanted friends. Oh, they want friends, yeah, and they want young people I know, very very needy.

Yeah.

And they started there, they were here, then we went back like whenever I'd get a job, they would come and we'd relocate for a little while. And they love both. But now twenty and seventeen, they're both gravitating.

My one daughter.

There's a school in the east, my youngest, my second is going to uh the East as well.

Mine did that too, and they both well one of them is still too young, but the other one, my older boy, grew up here and then like since born here, raised here, and then like, yeah, I'm going to New York.

Yeah, and it's weird because we love New York. And my wife is like, I can already, I can. I heard a zipper the other night and she's like quietly starting to pack bags. I thought she was like, don't messing with your pants, not that she's packing up, and.

Like we're going to go back. I think that I might end up back there as well. Yeah, as I heartle into my dotage, like as I start to like get you know, indigestion a law, and I like I have see but I can't see and I think that New York's a great city for getting older and if you have a better.

Cash I yes, I know it is expensive, but you know, pretty comparable to hear yeah yeah.

But here you I feel like here people hate you if you're over thirty five anyway, And in New York they kind of don't.

Yeah, no, absolutely when I'm here and I see like aging rock stars yeah at Gelson's, Yeah, you know what I mean. Like I'll see someone from you think is from Kiss and they're yeah, and they all kind of like there's no there's no moisture left in them, right, kind of like, yeah, this is not a I don't thrown shade on Kiss.

No, but looks like that Crispy Ghosts from the nineteen eighties.

It's perfect. That's so perfect Krispy Goes from the nineteen eighties. And I think I should go where there's more humidity.

I should go. I should go to New York. I think also in New York you're allowed to be older. You can get old like Samuel Beckett or something. In the New York you can be like kind of cranky and clever, and you know, it's it in a cafe way.

A good suit I know. See that's important.

That might do it for me. Well, because everyone in Ellie wears workout gear, especially when they're note working out.

Well, look what's happened to me? I'm kind of dressing like a child. I literally this outfit. Yeah, converse up to a colorful tea with something on it.

Yeah, this is what I was in sixth grade.

Yeah, but you've added on top of the color to a cardigan, which brings it back around. Yeah.

Well this is my this is my this is this Italian cardigan that I've.

Been It's BEAUTI yeah, it's really nice, thank you, But it is a cardigan. It is a cardigan, yeah, which kind of puts you a little although I have to say again, you know, I'm kind of worried about this because my wife's favorite item of clothing of all the items of clothings that she enjoys cardigans on herself or on you or herself. I'm I have difficulty embracing the card again. Why.

Well, I was a punk rocker.

Yeah, and sometimes things stick, you know what I mean? And I think cardigan's was a symbol of oppression.

And yeah, but didn't they own it? Didn't they take it on their own and have holes in it.

I thinky did I feel like car You know that's right. John Lydon or Johnny Rotten had a crap card Yeah. Yeah, in fact, it looked like my grand's cardigan. But my gran had hanky a tissue up her sleeve. I don't think John Lydon had a tissue up the sleeve, in which case he's a phony.

My nana used to hide her tissue in her in between her boobs.

Oh that's where she.

That's kind of yeah, saucy, that's gonna saucy place for Grandma. She was like, she's going to wipe your face with that. I'm sure booby sweat. I'm sure. I'm sure. It's kind of also that I think it's a specially afity website as well.

That is a category. Yeah, I think it. Yeah, I don't know.

I kind of I'm wrestling with or not wrestling. I'm struggling with the aging process. I turned sixty this year, and actually I turned sixty one this year.

You look great, thank you, and I kind of feel like we're okay.

I mean, I know the internal stuff.

You were younger than me, you were early fifties.

Yeah, but I do feel like we are in a profession and the kind of artist that we are.

Yeah, age helps, it kind of does a little bit oh much.

Yeah, Yeah, I think.

I think when you're a young comedian, I think, in fact, the last time I talked to you that we talked about this, because when I was younger, my my stuff was very angry, like the hell Man and woking up and down, and I'm just I have a hard time putting that together.

Well, I'll say that you're doing great. That you even remember our last interview. That's better what I'm doing.

No, because I remember it well because every but once a week my wife says, you know that.

But funny, isn't it?

Did you see this bed that I've gotten? He did this thing on Instagram? I said, he didn't do a thing on Instagram. He did a specially cut it up. Shut up about Tom Poppa.

The idea of her just holding the phone up towards you with my face.

On it, Well, it's not even that she does is she'll lie in bed and I don't hear good once. It reminds me of Ted Danson was on My Late night show once about more than once. But he's a lovely guy, Ted, but apparently Mary used to like watching my show. Mary his wife used to like watching my show, but not let him. He didn't like him being there when she was watching that. It really made him mad.

That's great.

I love that it makes you laugh?

Then who makes who makes you laugh?

Like? Do you watch commedia? I don't really watch comedians. Do you watch comedians? No? Not that often.

I mean, well, I have this radio show on Sirius XM, and a lot of comedians come on. Yea, so it's really a comedian haven. So I, out of respect for everyone who shows up, I'll watch at least some of what they're pushing a clip on TikTok yeah, and some I'll some, it'll some all go. You know, it really just depends on just I don't even know what it is, but my mood. Like sometimes in the car, I can throw on the comedy channel and I really enjoy hearing

Than I used to it's actually I love it because I feel there is a there's a gentle cleverness about what you do. Is that the kind of thing that you like when you listen to it, that is that you're drawn to?

Oh yeah, yeah, there is definitely a I'm always craving like a hopefulness. My biggest love was Carlin growing up, and there were other great like when Eddie Murphy hit when I was like in high school, and Steve Martin and there's a lot of influences, but Carlin was the one. I mean, he was the one putting out you know, specials pretty much all the time.

He was HBO. He was like it was Home Box Office, like every two years.

And I remember there was one special and I love him being raw, I love him being you know, thoughtful, and it's why I think his material is actually holding up more than a lot of like his stuff is still being plaid one. But there was this one special where he didn't give you hope at the end, like I love hearing about the ship and going through all of the problems, but we're gonna be okay, or but we can do this, and one he didn't, and he just I think it might have.

Been the one with the tombstones in the background.

I know exactly the one you made. Yeah, Edie didn't And I was crushed at the end of it.

I didn't like that one.

I don't. Yeah, I mean I liked it because it's Carlin, but you didn't like it. It's like there are boy albums when I'm like, yeah, it's not it's not your best. Yeah, the one where you know what was some of the later ones when you're wearing span dex.

Yeah, yeah, you.

Can't do that out even if you're David Boie.

So what Drew you went to it in the first place? Was it then as a kid?

Yeah?

Because they I guess when you were at high school.

Yeah, Eddie would have been bringing out Raw right, but then which was a big youthful because Eddie's.

Well, Delirious was the first one. It was, wasn't Delirious Delirious And then raw was Delirious was on. He was like in the red and doing the ice cream man and oh yeah yeah, yeah that's right. Yeah, and that just exploded. Kid was imitating it.

But that was the thing. You could have an a comedy album.

Yeah, man, Well that final that's what got me into it in seventh grade when I was twelve or thirteen, Like, I was funny and I was making my way. I was always funny and hamming it up. And I was in the summer where I was with older kids.

Why were you the drug mule or something?

No, everybody went to camp and the poor kids stayed behind, and so it was me with like a bunch of older girls and guys, okay, And my way to kind of like not get kicked out of the group was like keep them laughing and be have some kind of value. And that summer I heard a class Clown by Carlin and then Steve Martin's Let's Get Small on vinyl at two different friends' homes, and I realized it clicked that this being funny was a job for grown ups.

Yeah, I suppose that. I mean, Belly Connley did that from the exact same thing for me. But you would listen to the album, Yeah, then you listen to it again and hold it and yeah, I don't think people listen to comedy over and over again. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, I mean, it seems to me they consume it in thirty second chunks on Yeah, on their phones, I know, and even on serious like on the comedy channels, you're very rarely hearing a whole thing.

You're hearing, you know, a little short or ten minute bits or something. But you know, I was getting ready to interview someone yesterday and I realized, oh, wait a minute, I don't have to sit and watch his special. I just have it on on my phone and listen to it. Right, And as I was doing it, I was like, this is so much better than watching it.

This is so I love listening. I prefer it too.

I wonder if that's what's something to do behind the rise of the podcast as well. Yeah, the listening to it, because I think sometimes when you're watching a comedian woking up and down and trying too hard and stuff. I know this, soone's going on. You wear that shirt, his face is what is she? What is she trying to be handsome? Or why are you trying to look glamorous? Yeah? Why's sexy? Yeah that's confusing me. You're sexy, but you're also funny.

I can't deal. Do you use the peloton that bike? You ever used that bike? I've never been known.

Well, I'm six years old, so I have to guard my pro state jealously. And the peloton has a seat on it, doesn't it a little? Yeah?

Tain't irritator. Isn't it doing that bother your prostate?

I think it might really well once I got a fever. And is the prostate on the outside, No, man, we watched.

The doctors work on the outside.

Prost isn't there. But because anyone's listening to this show for medical advice, that's really the wrong place to be.

The prostate's up your bomb and run the corner right.

So I sitting on a seat and because there's it's just like your your ass skin is just an envelope, and inside the envelope is the pro state that there?

And you don't want to it's flimsy envelope. There's bubble. We're asking for yourself.

I've got I got my envelopes, a little flimsy run that area, I mean, and then it pushes up against it. And also I'm quite large, so I'm pushing down right, frosty, I'm pushing up on the little thing.

I'm guessing you use the peloton.

I do use the peloton with a callous disregard for pillow on my seat. But I we brought it up because when you said, uh, you're distracting me when I'm watching, when you're watching the video, and it's like, now I'm thinking. And there's there's an array of teachers and you know, it's a video thing and these beautiful teachers out of London in New York, right, and uh. And I go with this guy, Matt Wilpers, who's a gym coach. He's

You know what.

Just give me just you know, why are we beating around the bush. Just give me her number? When did you say they're coming to town?

I don't have her number.

It's in my phone, but I don't know.

Can you remember Andy's phone number?

The only number I know in my life right now, of all the most important people is my wife. I don't know my daughters, I don't know my parents. I don't know. I don't know any numbers. I plug it and forget it.

The only number I can remember is the number of the telephone that we used to have my house when I was a kid, and my dad used to answer it. He put his jacket on first, and then when the phone rang, he put his jacket on, and then answer.

Put his jacket on an answer.

Not really, but sometimes it was like the phone would go and it was sort of an event.

Excuse me.

It was a sort of like, well, your dad answers the phone. He's the man of the house, of course, and like i'd even say, comb an old two, one, six, four or seven.

That's how he answered. That's how he answered.

It didn't talk like that. That's yeah, Yeah, it was pretty good. What was your number when you were growing up? Or is it?

If it's still your number, then don't say it.

No, But I'm not going to say it because I do use it as part of my passwords.

Oh, I never use it as part of my past word. You don't know, well, not your number or indeed my number.

I wouldn't have said it. Yeah, but I remember that one, of course. Yeah, that one just rolls off.

It's kind of the technology change is so odd to me because telephones, I think you didn't really think about it. Tell the telephone was in the house and it was like a kettle, like a tea kettle or a refrigerator. Yeah, and then it just like overtook all these things. It became like the most important thing on earth is a telephone, but yet a whole generation doesn't want to use it

Yeah, Like it's dangerous call people, right, they do not want to use their voice.

Why do you think that.

Is the easier to fake you out if it's a text?

I don't know, it's I don't know.

I mean fear of intimacy, fear that Well, for my kids, it's fear that they think that it's a call means trouble, that we're yelling at them or something like it's one of them, well does it?

But they like to FaceTime.

They don't like the soul, just the voice, but they're happy to pick up if it's FaceTime.

That's weird. I feel like that too now as Yeah, because I think that with the FaceTime if I'm away from home, like if you're on the road or something like that.

Yeah, I put the FaceTime.

I'll call my wife, I'll put it in, you know, and she has to stop watching you, and then I have to see me walking in the background.

You're in the background. God, what about this one, Megan?

So, a guy's on a peloton back, he's got an outside for us date and he's trying to work around it. The I'll put it on and leave it on him. We'll talk like we talk in the house, right exactly. And it's not It doesn't feel so far away somehow.

Yeah, And it doesn't feel like you have to constantly have something to say.

You can have those quiet moments, right the nothing happening thing or like you pass guys say. This is an official invitation to the Fancy Vascal stand up Show. I Craig Ferguson will be performing this fall in your region. You can buy tickets and check out the full list of dates at the Craig Ferguson Show dot com. Slash dour see you there or not? I'm sorry, I get distracted.

I was just wondering if I look fat on your camera right now.

No, these cameras that are here filming us, they first of all, there's no one here but cameras. There's only cameras on their own, which I feel like they look like they just arrived, you know what I'm saying.

There's nobody behind them.

I bet when everyone's out of here, the cameras talk to each other and they're like, why are those meatbags coming in here?

Yeah, they come in here all the time. They kind of look like three legged spiders with one eye and they they're coming to They do look like aliens. They do.

Yeah, I'm kind of getting freaked out. Did you do hallucinogens when you were younger?

Oh? Yeah, did you really? I'm surprised. I thought you were quite a wholesome character. I yeah, but you did do hallucinogens? Yeah? I love them?

Really?

Do you still do them now? I haven't quite some time, and I want to. Okay, but do you want something I could sell you? I know they're kind of they're readily available. Well, this it seems to be that drugs are like, you can have what you want. No.

My friend Bonnie McFarlane's very funny comedian, You're yeah brilliant. She has a funny run about how it's too late for global warming. This is definitely the end of times. We're definitely missed it. It's too late, she goes. I think that's why the government, and the government knows it. That's why they're just handing out free drugs to everyone.

Enjoy your end of times drugs.

I mean the the because the entire I feel like the entire country.

You you still tour alone, right, you still wark?

Yeah?

It seems to me every study I go to smells like weed. Everywhere. Where's Jamaica? Where Jamaica.

Yeah, it feels like I've never been to Jamaica, but I assume it smells like weed.

Yeah, And it's everywhere, it really is. Do you enjoy that?

Do you use? I don't, you know?

Like I was pretty wholesome my whole life, and then in an athlete, and then I got to like when high school was ending in through college, I just freedom and I just I wasn't an athlete anymore. And that's where I really got into all the fun stuff and Uh, it was so great, and we used to pine about how this should be legal. It's ridiculous why it's legal. And now that it's legal, all these years later, and it just doesn't I have a hard time with it

It makes me psychotic. It makes me really kind of down. No I yet because it's.

Legal now, Yeah, it's I wish I could enjoy it, but I know I stopped enjoying it very early.

You did, Yeah, we used to. I used to smoke hashish.

I love that. Yeah, Pakistani black hashish or Lebanese red hashish.

I only had black, Yeah, Pakistani blacks.

Very We should to get the stuff called Nepalese temple balls, which was a mixture of hashisian opium. Whoa, I only had opium once. Yeah.

It's a sleepy time.

It's a sleepy time drug, but a cozy, sleepy, cozy, sleepy time. Yeah. But when I was about eighteen or nineteen, because I started very young, Like I tripped an acid when I was like sixteen. Wow, it's not a good thing. That's really early.

It's not good.

But by the time I was eighteen, I started to experience like I'd get psychotic if I smoked weed, really yeah, like panic attacks and like disassociation and awful.

Yeah, I know, it's really unfortunate. Why did you ask about the wucinogenics in the first I.

Think because.

I feel like you do seem like someone who would enjoy an other worldliness, right do you?

I mean are you you? You wouldn't take them? Now?

I want it?

Mushrooms so well.

Mushrooms and and LSD right, And it was LSD first for some reason.

It showed up at the end of high school.

It was kind of around yeah, and there was a time it kind of was popular for a while, like math go popular for a while. Yeah.

I never did math. It seems so speedy from the outside. It never looked like fun.

Well, you know, I'm from Britain, so teeth are a challenge anyway.

And have you had math on tobola? It's like, where are you going to go with that?

Uh?

And then mushrooms went longer and it seemed more natural and more fun. And I remember hearing Jerry Garcia saying or read in an interview that he he still likes to do it once a year, just to clean the pipes out.

Okay, it was such a nice way to say it, you know what I mean.

And I feel like the pipes a bit really calcified at this point. But I have this weird thing and maybe you can give me some insight on this doctor some days inside that's someone gave me mushrooms. Yeah, And this was several years ago, and my wife was like, oh, we should take them, and I don't know if she ever has And the idea of tripping with my wife, the mother of my children, the co CEO of this fraught enterprise.

The one you rely on really when you rely.

On and if if one child calls with trouble or whatever, like it freaked me out to trip with her.

Yeah, so you didn't do it.

I didn't do it.

They're still in my there's still wherever they are in the.

Yeah they might it may not be legal to have them, so they're in your storage locker.

Right, But I don't.

But I often question, like, what's wrong with you that you don't want to like trip with her?

Is it? I don't know if this is something that doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing at all, Like I know I totally rely on my wife for the sad to you of our partnership, right, and I can't have far Like if she is too much ywain or something, I'm like, because she's not an alco I'm an alcoholic, so I don't drink, but she can drink.

But if she gets tipsy, I'm like, well, what the fuck's gonna happen now?

Right?

Exactly?

Holy shit, the sorge just.

No one's running the base, right, Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think you're right. I think that's what it is.

I think it is that. Yeah, does that is that bad?

Is it Freudian? Is it like that's your mom or something? No, I don't think so. I mean we're very kind of equal.

But what like if she gets cold or like she got COVID and yeah, it's like when she's like if I get sick, the house pretty much you know he's running.

Yeah, nothing really happens. Yeah, she goes down like it's oh yeah, it's trouble. Yeah, Megan got COVID and I had to make her a sandwich and.

It you know, you you've always been a hero.

You know, sometimes you just have to push yourself the extra mile.

She said to me as I gave her the samage.

She said, you haven't made me a sandwich since savage pregnant. I was like, oh, I was like, well, you know, you know, I don't even want to overdo it.

I don't want to raise your expectation. But she just she likes to do that stuff.

Yeah, and they just you just really see, like in their absence. Oh, I'm how much is I'm living in a dumb stary eating beans out of a can if I can get a.

Can without I'm telling you that.

All right?

Have you been married a long time?

Yes, twenty three years. That's a week ago.

A week ago? Congratulations? How did you meet? Was she in comedy? She was a fairy tale. It's a fairy tale.

It's a fairy tale. You So she was in a castle under a spell, right, and you had to climb up the side right of the castle by her hair.

We met in New York City and then a comedy club called the Comic Strip.

Oh yeah, and place I ever performed?

Oh yeah, yeah, Lucien holds, Oh yeah, yeah.

Give me my first gig ever in line? Really wow? Sorry you were tell you met in the Covid struck.

We met there yeah.

And I had a sketch group and she came and introduced herself because she wanted to be in it.

And I was with Ian Bagg and other great comedian. Yeah I know who that is.

Yeah, he's very fun.

And Ian and I were together and she came up and introduced herself and it was like something sparked where she walked away and Ian when what the hell just happened?

What was that? Like?

You could feel like the with the two of us. So we're in the back in the booth during a show later on.

Oh, so she got the job?

Oh?

Yeah, she got And she was going home for Thanksgiving and I said, were you going tomorrow?

I'm going home.

I said, where's home? Where'd you grow up? She goes, you wouldn't know. It's a small town in New Jersey. I said where? She said, uh, Parkridge. I said, Oh, did you have Miss Conway for kindergarten?

No?

Really?

And we had the same I was in that same school third grade, and then I moved one town over.

We were a year apart.

Wow.

And then we had the same summer jobs. We were both worked in this hotel. Never met until the comic strip when we were older.

That's bizarre. Yeah, so we had all this history.

We knew the same people, we knew the same places, we were at the same party.

It was meant to be. It was meant to be. No, does she still work in comedy. No, she did until we had children.

Yeah, and then it's all and then yeah, and then if we stayed in New York, she probably would still dabble in it.

She'd write for you at all.

Over.

No, Megan writes for me.

She does.

She doesn't really write it.

She goes, this is funny, and then she says the thing and I go, yeah, it is. Yeah, but I didn't give too much away in case it's really funny, uh, because then people can say, wow, that was a good bet. Craig we Oh.

Yeah.

She is this weird combination where when I would run jokes by her, yeah, I don't think she said that it was funny once, she was always like nah yeah, and then at a certain point I'm like, I gotta try this. I think she's wrong, and then like shit was working. Yeah, but she was just so tough so I couldn't do that. But she's very funny, so like she just spouts things out and I steal them.

I steal them. That's what I do as well. Yeah, Megan did this one once, but I thought, God, that's the great. But she was just told he wasn't even trying to be funny. She said, she said, you know, seek freedom Roy. She said that proves that God exists. And I went, okay, that's interesting. Tell me why seek freedom Roy proves God exists? And she said, she said, because what are the odds? Like there's always someone for someone said if you're a young gay Austrian lion tamer walking around Austria.

Saying, oh what, it's me.

I am a gay Austrian lion tamer, doomed because of my interests to be alone in life. And then you bump into another guy who's also a gay Austrian lin tamer, like it's like, there you are.

That's you did that as a bit, didn't you.

I did? Yeah, because I remember it. Yeah yeah. And it was from Megan saying though, wow, I think that you know, and I stole it for him.

Yeah, you have to. You ever hear Shimmels bit. No, Robert sim Robert schml you.

I don't know him.

I know he is very funny.

He had one of my favorite jokes of his was Sigfried and Roy that you know the lion at the end turned and yeah and ate Roy or and uh he said, uh, I forget the complete setup, but it was the lions are there. People act surprised at these lions. Ate Sigfried or Roy. He said, you take these lions from the jungle, from the from the wild, and you bring them to Las Vegas and you spray, you sprape, ain't them pink? And they have to do two shows night.

Well as it turns out, because I have to say this because people will go crazy. The tiger the eight Roy didn't eat them.

It's like he had a stroke and the tiger picked him up really pick up there, but yeah, well, was he had a stroke. The tiger picked them up because it was worried about him, and it.

Looked like the tiger was going tiger on him, but he wasn't.

He was moving him, no, because he realized he was sick.

I never heard that. Yeah, And when he came around.

Roy's first thing was they didn't put The first thing he said was like they didn't put down the Tiger?

Do you put down the Tiger? And they said, no, we didn't do it because.

So it was, as it turned out, a Disney ending to the story. That is so nice.

Yeah, you've played Vegas, right?

Yeah?

Do you enjoy it?

I do enjoy It's confusing to me, though, why because I never know who's coming to those shows, Like whenever I have to promote a show in Vegas, yeah, I'm like, who is it locals that live in Vegas? Because everyone else seems to come in for seventy two hours and lead right?

Do you like the I like it though, Yeah, I think the audiences are tricky because I always feel the people that are coming to see you like you're part of the buffet. Really is yea you want shrimp or tom pop? Right, here's some tickets to go.

Yeah, But I find that those audiences are better than other casino kind of audiences, like Vegas now is a little bit more of a city it is.

Yeah, it's good.

When's the first first time you played it?

Am I having a stroke? Or do I smell bacon? I'm you know, somebody might have passed gas. You guys don't smell that, But I don't eat bacon, so I don't do one of you guys pass gas. I think I'm having a stroke. You know, I don't think smelling bay and as a stroke. But if I have a struggle, you put me up in your mouth and take me. Yeah, I will left you up. I'll put you in my mouth like a tiger, and I'll take you to another part of the stage and then people won't put me down.

Yeah, but you you don't like But you didn't even I was on my road to be I was on my way to becoming one.

Okay, how did you stop children? No, I'm hyperchondract for the kids too, for the Yeah, hypochondract by proxy. It is all fearful, it is, I think having kids. It's like I don't until you have kids. Most of the great philosophers didn't have children. Is that true? Yeah?

I don't know, but it sounds like it sounds good.

But do you think of like Schopenhauer, no kids, Emmanuel can't, no kids. Cart I don't think you had any kids. No, I had like twenty.

Yeah, but Plato wrote down Socrates.

Shit, now that we have to remember about Plato is like Plato is so great, Well he kind of wrote down So's bets right, Socrates was doing the bets and Plato was typing it right.

So I'm not sure.

I mean, I suppose he aristotles Aristotles maybe Chile. Why do you think that is? Because because I think when you have kids, you're like, you can't think, your worldview changes, can't think of anything else. Well, you have time, and I mean some like I think Bertram Russell had like thirteen kids, but.

I think it kind of makes I mean, I don't know, without having kids, I feel like you're missing a piece if you're trying to develop a worldview and philosophy, what's why we're all here, et cetera, et cetera. It seems like without going through that experience, it seems like it was kind of like the hypochondriac thing. I was becoming a hypochondriac, and because I was becoming too self involved, it was me, me and my.

Thing, and the whole philosophy is that, Yeah, this peers up his own us right past its outdoor pros thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, So like unless you unless you have that balance and I'm not I'm part of me is saying this because I'm being judgmental of them, but also because I'm not going to read all their stuff anyway, So I want an excuse of why I'm not right.

I'm not going to read you stuff you don't have kids, like you never had kids. Yeah, so I shut up. Yeah, I'll just read the quotes I see on T shirts.

But I think it's it's quotes on T shirts is usually enough. Yeah, like I went down a rabbit hole with all that stuff for a while.

You're drawn to that, Yeah, I am, you know what I'm I'm drawn to it. In podcasts, I like I like listening to people debate about it. I like the when I was like a little after college, like maybe eight ten years after college, I started reading some of it and I realized quickly, like, there's no end to this. This is no this is going to suck up a lot of time. And you know, some of you get some things out of it, which are cool, but this is really endless, and no one each is the end

Well, let's listen to it. Let's muddle through some of those questions. And as a philosopher, we are now too philosophers setting here. Yeah, I know. Does that mean that we're no longer doctors. No, we're doctors of philosophy. Okay, we're kind of like doctor phil or were doctors, but nobody really knows of what and we just talked too much. We just have big opinion. Yeah, we have big opinion that we shout. I'm very judging of other Yeah, judgmental

Is that helpful?

Sound like you're wrong to me? Yeah, No, you're future the bad person.

What this isn't helpful at all?

Really isn't.

No.

Anyway, So we are both I think we're both post Enlightenment philosophers. Yes, all right, so we're we're discussing philosophy after Dycard.

Yes, in the modern world.

All right.

So Daycard in Discourse.

On Method if you read that, No, all right, So as the book he wrote, he's quite young themticut and he wrote a book called Discourse on Method, which I'm going to paraphrase it obviously, but he said that he was going to prove the existence of God using reason instead of faith, so wouldn't be revetlatory kind of like

And I think that's the basis for stand up comedy.

Aha, of the type that you do, certainly and the type that I do.

In the searching like that, this is all for validation of It's well, maybe some level is a SUCHI of validation, but it's also it's a search to try and explain how fucking crazy everything is, or how crazy it seems to be, or or look just looking at something from a different angle.

Yes, not a flower.

It's it's proof of the existence of God. Or it's not just Siegfried and Roy entertainers, although this is my wife's philosophy.

It's proof of the existence of God, you know what I mean.

It's like right, trying to find well, you're saying, not just to solve, not just to make sense of the world, but actually to prove that there is a God. I don't know, do you think there is a God, I do, but it's a tricky it's a tricky like we'll call it God right, But there's so many different definitions of what people write.

I'm not talking about angry Santa own a cloud. I don't think that's real.

I mean, but maybe I don't know. I mean, it's it's people's interpret like. It seems to me at this point that every organized religion, every form of meditation, every small practice, they're all acknowledging a presence of this constant hum right that we all sense is there. And Christians interpret it and pulled it down and tried to make sense of it and say this is this God. And Muslims did that, and TM says, get quiet and tune

Yeah, I think that, but it's unknowable. It is ultimately a noble Well see, I think that that is. There are areas of certainly early Christian philosophy where that was part of the deal.

There was a guy called Origin of Alexandria.

Are you familiar with them? Now? Origin of Alexandria was a late second century early third century, so pre Roman Empire Christianity a lot of his stuff was lost because it was burned in the Library of Alexandria fire. But he was excommunicated about five hundred years after he died because he said that God was unknoble and there could be no physical representation and manifestation of the Deity, which is not what you want to hear when you're selling.

Chajcuse, Yeah, shows up right.

So no, he very much believed in JC but he very did not believe in physical representations of idolatry.

Basically, I guess it would have become crosses and.

As symbolism and stuff that you couldn't know that, And people get very upset with him because of that.

But he was, but he was He believed in Jesus. He did believe. He was a Christian. Yeah, he believed in the in the idea of Christ.

Being the Messiah and the reason It's like I always had a problem with that until it's not that I don't have a problem with it. I still struggle with it. But I read C. S. Lewis or you know who wrote the Narnia. Yeah, he was a very big Christian apologist, and he wrote a couple of books.

What Christians believe is a very.

Good one of them, and he talks about what you just talked about, which is why he's not when he was.

An atheist, and of course he was.

At one point he said, it's too religious apposition to take because you're saying that everybody else is wrong, right, Whereas he said, if you're a Christian, you can say, well, the Hindus and the Muslims are they don't have it right, we have it right, or the or if you're a Muslim, you say we have it right. But what you're not

It's an overwhelming sense of something, of that that thing, that God thing, and we have millions of human beings trying to wrangle that down and interpret it, and and you know, I feel like they're all right and they're all wrong. You know what I mean? Were you raised it in religion? Was raised Catholic in the same church that Bill Maher went to. Okay, he was older than I was, but we lived in the same town. And it's funny because he starts his whole documentary against religion, religiosity.

I think it's.

Religulous in front of the stained glass that I looked at as a kid from the pews.

Interesting. Yeah, he's very anti religion, very anti religion, and I got a lot out of it. I enjoyed it. Catholicism, Yeah, did you're just going to church? Did your kids get confirmed?

And stuff?

They didn't know my wife because kindergarten, that whole story, she went to the same church. She comes out on the Bill Maher side right, more than my side.

I think I'm too afraid to I would be too afraid to be completely atheistic as well, because I'd be like, that's when.

You don't want to get wrong right at the end.

Yeah, you know, I know there's lots of problems with the church, and there's lots of problems, but that's not the same as God.

Yeah.

So, but we didn't baptize our kids, and one kind of gravitated away and kind of like to reason, and my other one is always looking for a church, like she's always she wants looking at that. And I got and I had I was more that way, like I got. I liked going someplace. Not as a kid, I was fighting it, you know, but I like one hour out of every week where you're just tending to that thing, that puzzle, that God, that you, that spirit, that thing. I got a lot out of it. I think it

You still think of yourself as a Catholic.

Yeah, to some degree.

Do you think about the inevitable much?

Yeah? I don't.

Yeah, while I'm thinking about everything else all the time.

You think about it?

Do you think about it all the time? Pretty often? Yeah, I suppose.

So. The older I get, the more I'm like, yeah, this isn't like so distant anymore. No, I always I had ca'd.

I lost some people really young, like some friends when like high school, like eighth grade's ninth grade?

A lord, what happened?

Accidents I've lost I've lost a lot of best I've lost three best friends good from real from fourteen to twenty two.

That's horrible. I'm said, it is hard to hear that. Yeah, it was. It was rough, but it was.

But it definitely gave me a perspective of how death is always there, and it alleviated a fear of it.

Really. It gave me.

It didn't give me like comfort, but it gave me just a perspective that, you know, this is all very temporary. And so I always kind of with a little you know, a little smirk, was like when people would be like, I can't believe she died at eighty five.

Yeah, yeah, I can't believe.

Like, yeah, people seem shocked by death when it happens, or that they're or that they're heading that way, and just so I think from going through that early on, I've always been just kind of like, yeah, guys, this is yeah, it's yeah, it's you're not getting closer to it just because you're getting older, you've been close to it all that's.

All the time.

It's always there. Yeah. The idea of it, though, do you do you ruminate on on.

The apre ski of it old? Do you think of what's next?

Yeah?

I really am hopeful that it's that it continues in some form.

I really do. I really I think that would be.

I feel like when you start to you know, when you start to I have really hard time getting my head around physics and time and space. But like when you start to deal with like there's all versions of this happening all the time, at different laces and everywhere, all at once. Yeah, it's just like I mean, it just seems so spectacular and so magical, this life and that if and if what I understand, these physics people are a looking around that.

There's a great guy. I don't know if you've come across from. His name is Brian Cox, not the actor Brian Cox. He's an astrophysicist and he lectures I think at Cambridge or Oxford, one of the like. Yeah, and he's he's a contemporary probably of you or I somewhere a little older than you, maybe a younger than me maybe, but he like wears Joy Division T shirts and listens to good music and he understands references that we would understand.

Does he help you retain it? Yeah?

If you look, you'll find him on Have you heard You guys, get the Internet in the valley.

Not yeah, but it's coming. You get the internet.

Look up Brian Cox, astrophysicist, and he did. He's done a bunch of shows for the BBC. Okay, he's you.

Know, he's good friends with Eric Idle. Do you know Eric?

Yeah, yeah, I don't know, but yeah, all right, so well Eric is friendly with him, and Eric's very drawn to all of that. Yeah yeah, if you right that, just remember that, just ending on it. That's all accurate, right, yeah, all the physics, all the science in that song. Correct, Eric, that's amazing. But he's very very interesting and very very good.

And I think that I think that that to me because of lack of understanding and having a scientific Brian Cox's mind, I call it all magic, right, you.

Know, I think, which is why semantics.

I think, you know, science, science is magic that's been explained, right, I think a little bit or magic is science that hasn't been explained. Yeah.

So I I am open to all of it, and I really am hopeful for all of it. And I like, like too much weird stuff happens all the time of dreaming and having it happen glimpses, you know. I know people say it's coincidence, but it happens with such frequency of thinking about your wife and her calling me, or like any of those kind of things that are always happening all the time. I totally am all in and embracing and open to any kind of mystical explanation that this is indeed reality.

I think that that's how I like to be with it too.

Yeah.

I think that is.

People get very upset if other people don't agree with their belief system, which.

I can't understand.

Yeah, Like, if you're so secure in your in your belief, why would it bother you? That I don't believe it, or I have a different point of view, I don't understand it.

I don't need people to believe what I believe.

Yeah, well, because you're also, from what I can tell, open to anything. You're fluid, You're not going to be static like no, this is this is the way it or you know what I mean, Like, well.

That, but that's interesting because if you're a Catholic, that kind of is the deal, that this is the only thing that's true.

Yeah, I know, but that's why I'm not That's why you're not all I mean, that's it's to deny that my life and worldview as an influenced by it is wrong. You know, it's definitely in there, of course, but there's a lot of grown up things that I have to put aside.

You know.

I remember being back in church with my for a baptism and I was sitting next to my sister and she hadn't been the church from forever, and she was like seething during the and I was like, just take the good parts, yeah, and she's like, this is misogynist, this is I'm very uncomfortable being here. I'm not into this. And I was like, yeah, but what about all the

And I know, but.

Look at the look at the stained glass.

Maybe one of the darkest things I've ever heard. You tend to those, as far as I can tell from your work. Yeah, you tend to stay away from the controversy of that though, don't you. You kind of you Your company to me seems personal, which I is. I like that I'm drawing to that because no one else can do it, he said Tom Papa, which is great.

So if I'm watching Tonapapa, that's what I'm getting, I'm right doing anybody else.

I don't feel like i'm I have I don't think I'm smart enough to wrestle some of the big things down and then present them as fact, right, you know what I mean. I do feel like I'm more metaphorical. I can tell you something about the world based on my relationship with my father or a story about being with my daughter in the supermarket, like I can metaphorically tell tales that maybe will make sense about the world in their entirety. But for me, I say this is

And I think that the reason why I started doing comedy was to try to escalate dangerous situations that I was in through an accident of birth. So like, if I'm in a violent school yard or as a violent environment, or there's a violent place, then humor to me was this is how we stop should getting worse, right, Yeah, Like take everybody's mind from here and throw it onto something over here.

Yeah yeah, And I.

Wouldn't feel I wouldn't feel comfortable doing the stuff that makes everybody angry, yeah, because that's not how I got.

Into it, I know. Yeah, that's a good point.

Everybody already was angry, right Yeah, Yeah, like they are too.

I think everybody's waiting for it. Yeah.

I mean probably the biggest ones right now would be in the States is abortion and guns.

Right, And nothing you or I is going to change anybody's mind. Nothing we say is going to change anybody's mind on any side of that debate at all. I know.

But it's because it is becoming very glaring having two daughters and being like, oh, here's a list of states you're not going to live, you know what I mean, Like, holy cow. But I just don't. I just have a hard time. Like I feel like there's people that are better at it. I feel like Bill Maher can wrestle down.

And he does it very well.

And he doesn't he doesn't care if people get mad at No, that's another thing that's very you gotta have that. You have to be built that way. Yeah, Bill, Bill is like people when people yell out and call him Namesey's.

Like, I don't care, right exactly. I care deeply me too.

Oh I tell a joke about a cat and someone yells at me.

I'm like, I.

Didn't mean it.

Yeah, like someone I've got a negative thing, like I never read comments. Say it when I do, and I do, I'm like, oh no, it's I can't.

I never read comments unless I sense that they're going in a very positive direction. Right then I'll soak them in and then they hit you with a bad one. Then those are crazy.

Yeah, It's it's like you know when people used to say, I remember at the beginning, people who are saying, if you read the good reviews about yourself, you have to read the bad, do you?

No, you don't, You only have to read the good ones.

I'm with you. I'm so glad you said. I always hear that only read good reviews about yourself. Yeah, why do I have to read the bat It's like when people say my wife is my toughest critic. I say, look, then your marriage is fucking dum my. My wife like like, I'll say, stuff, you are so great, thank You're you're nearly as good as stump Papa, she will say.

Sometimes I'll just stand there with my wife and she's not giving me enough praise, and I just kind of like linger like a puppy, and then she's you can see her clocket and be like, you're really great, thank you, thank you.

This morning with me and I was getting off because she was telling me how good you were, and I was like, I know he's good that I asked him to doing the show because I know he's good, but yeah, but you know he's really good. Yeah, And then there's a hopeful moment she mean, you know he's not you right, yeah, okay, yeah, thank you right late. That's what it is, Tom, It is a joy to talk to you. You too, I

Pretty uh, this is pretty much what you get. I think.

I think that's word on the street is yeah, that you are that guy. Yeah you work with Joe Bolter. Of course, I know. I was just thinking that.

I was just thinking, I really enjoy talking to you a lot, and you know, we see each other not often enough, right, and I feel like, even when there's no podcast going on, we should we should hang. I think it would be lovely and it would be really cool, and we can keep the wives out of it, but it would be really cool, just because I know it would probably bother Joe Bolter that you and I ultimately become friends.

That's a good thing that Joe.

For those of you who don't know which that presum is most people, Joe is the producer of your show. Yes, and Joe writes for me sometimes he's very funny. He's very funny. And also he was the front end of the pant of My horse on the Old Lately Show.

Yeah.

Now when you see Cordon wrapping up that show, what do you get because there's financially not much because no, I mean what do you get from his experience and like wrapping it up? Because you wrapped it up kind of early like he did eight.

Years, I did ten.

Yeah, and that's you know a lot of other guys go for twenty or thirty years.

Yeah. I think James and I had an advantage over because if you watch Trevor Nor wrapped it up too, and I think, what if you grow up in the United States and the tradition of late night soaked into your bones like from then, then you have a reverence for it that I never had. I don't think James has God, and I don't think Trevor has it either. I think it is it's a gig, and it's a good gig, and it's lovely, but it's also you wear

I was early on it seemed it's I like hosting things. Yeah, I do like hosting, thank you, But it's but that gig you just I don't know, I don't it doesn't have the appeal any longer.

I think.

I think the the place that it has in the culture is kind of good. Change changed. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I just feel like it's not the I host other things. Yeah, you know, I host these radio shows and podcasts and things, and it's like we're doing enough of that I'd rather take with the other energy and put it towards writing my books and maybe make that film.

Ultimately, how I felt with that it was it was making me do the same thing over and over again. But I will say this that what really did it for me, And this was about five or six years. If you walk into I noticed it after five or six years. It was happening from the very beginning, from the first day. You walk into a building and your photograph is everywhere, and all the walls of the building,

Make sure you have a good day. Yeah, it's fucking hell. Really, it's hell really, And I.

Didn't realize that because that's not real. That's crazy time.

It is crazy time. But there is a part that sounds very appealing. Yeah, it does sound very appealing.

Yeah, And I think to an adolescent narcissistic personality like mine, it was great. Yeah, until there's a tiny little chink of human decency in me. And I was like, I come fucking life like this, a little humility and it makes you paranoid. Do you think everyone's lying to you? Oh? Really? Yeah? And you also think anyone who says anything negative to you is your enemy.

It's messed up. It took me a while to figure out.

You ever see that Steve Harvey thing that remember that it leaked like a memo basically to everyone on his show. No, I didn't know how to act and how to Oh god, it kind of has shades of what you're talking about, Like it's in this rarefied space.

Yeah, but it's driving him crazy.

Yeah, all the little things are real, Like it was like when not to knock?

When to you know, when when make up with? Like all the little like it was a little it's nutty. And also people tell lies about you as well, because people there are what forms around you, and it's not you, it's just the position you're in. So what forms around you is access is the currency, access to the hostess currency. So people jostle with each other about how to get access to you, and what happens is is they will tell this is the lie that you hear about everyone.

Have you heard that one?

Oh? Yeah, yeah, I heard it about myself. Did you realize, like, don't look at them directly in the eye. I'm like, what the what the fuck about me? He says to you, you don't look me directly in the eye. That so they do that, so that what happens is you as the person that no one's looking you directly in the I think, god, everyone's a bit cold people. Do you look you in the eye?

Get well? At least this guy can look me in the eye. Yeah, and you can, you can talk to them.

Did you did you.

Feel creatively doing the show, doing your things?

I think that's fine because it was fun.

Yeah, because once you get to the stage of things different because I wrote pretty much on stage right right, your MiGs are very different. So it was I felt okay with that. Do you feel like when you do you feel creatively hammed in when you're hosting?

Depending on who it is, maybe.

Yeah, it's a little you know, I'm very curious, so it's like fun to te in it in ours is comedy based, so we very rarely have an actor who I'm not interested in and I've got to go through five minutes with Yeah, it's usually a comic of some regard finding their way, and it's kind of a comfortable space. I do sometimes get a little bit like I should be I should be writing instead of talking about this guy in his career.

Just remember socracies though he didn't write anything. He didn't write a fucking thing nothing. Yeah, and everybody thinks he's great.

Very quickly as well, because I feel.

Like I want to touch on it, although I don't kind of bang on about it. But you know the thing right now, the word that people use is wool obviously, but the idea you can say things and not saying other things. And we talked about it when I was on your show a little bit. What's your position on it? Do you find it inhibiting? Do you find that even a thing in your life? Is it something you complain about?

Or I think it was a useful I mean woke awakening right that word, It was a hey, let's wake up, let's snap out of this for a second, Should we be saying this about gay people, say this about heavy women? Should we like it was like okay, I mean, you know, from going through the clubs and stuff earlier. Yeah, it was like that stuff that people were saying were like, you know, it was it was.

It was rough, and it was I think that was good. I think that was positive.

I think it was I think it was cool, and I think it also in the comedy world it gave room for a lot of people.

I agree.

I think it opened up comedy to people that weren't getting in.

Yeah, exactly, and you're hearing all these different voices and it's great. I think that was all very positive. And then I think there's a negative side to it, where people are using it to advance themselves. It's a power thing and people are getting you know, there's the big cancels, yeah, and the big debates and all that kind of stuff. But there's also a very subtle underthing of people not people losing opportunities and things based just on who they are.

And that's anti woke, isn't it.

Yeah, that's kind of like it's like a racism kind of gone around the wheel, and there's a lot of that, and so I think it's been abused.

I think like humans will take advantage of any situation to advance themselves. Certain humans will do that no matter what the situation is. Yeah, I think the only thing that I felt, but it was the idea of shouting down the blue hair kids if you were like a big timey successful comedian.

Seems a little like bullying to me.

And what do you mean, well, you know that, like you would go like, I remember, because I was doing it. I was like, uh, it was to that same kid I was telling you about my son. I was like, oh, you can't say what you want to say anymore? And he said, what do you want to say? Well, I said, but what do you want to say that you can't say? Well, but nothing. But other guys can't say fuck them dad, You know, I mean, what can you not say that you want to say?

I said nothing.

Actually, yeah, there is a there is a part that I feel like we're not celebrating each other anymore like there was. It was fun to talk about what we are and differences and the warts.

Yeah.

Yeah, like my Italian family and make all those jokes about that and the Chinese family and they all the jokes about that, and it was like, it was cool and it was fun and we are different and we do grow. You know, you talk to all comedians and if I talk to Russell Peters, he'll go off about

Think it's the algorithm. That's that's just AI getting.

In the way of human interactions, like you know, making people believe they all have to be part, they have to agree in order to get along, right me, I have good friends, good friends who I think, are you know, assholes? They're my friends, right exactly. Yeah, I was.

I was trying to work this out on stage that that you know, there's no secrets anymore, like we've we've kind of through technology and research, we've kind of unveiled everything about it.

You know.

It's like and it's kind of it's kind of upsetting because you don't have any heroes anymore. It's like, well, Martin Luther King, you know, cheated and his wife where JFK did this and all these people in it's like and we're tearing everything down.

But I'm hoping that.

It seems like we have to come out of it with the understanding there's no perfection. That kind of is going to be the lesson that nobody's The good things that they did should override the small foibles that they well and also be realistic.

About what life is like.

I've been doing this thing in the act recently about you know, when Megan Markle and Prince Harry said there's a racist in the royal family, Like, yeah, it's a family. You don't know who the racist is in your family is because it's you, you know.

I mean it's like even.

Any Thanksgiving dinner over our grandpa starts talking, here.

It goes, yeah, here we go.

We got it. And I think that people can have views which you find distasteful.

Yeah, but I mean, look, I had one joke in a special and it cost me a game show what Yeah, and you know for my work, this isn't coming from a hateful place. The joke was misinterpreted and I knew what I was doing, and it was very clear in the joke and someone saw it in my special and they caused a problem at the entity and they so we don't have it now. And in analyzing whether or not, they started going through all my stuff where they were trying to figure it out, Craig, they went through all

That's so like fucking so for that.

That's why I'm very cognizant that it can go too far and then.

It and that does sound like it.

Yeah, so it's going to take an adjustment. We we kind of blew it up. This is nice and we can all the positives. Now it's gotten too far. Where's the balance? Where are we going to find? Like, Okay, we all we're all better as a culture, but we haven't lust our sense of.

Humor from your mouth to God wherever that is.

Yeah, I don't know. If if a vibration has.

Ears, probably has a lot of them.

Yeah, maybe mostly That's why