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