Craig Ferguson

Oh, welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.

Wow. We're a day out from Halloween.

We're so close.

Oh, we're so close.

It's getting so exciting. It is. Ghouls and goblins are everywhere. They abound. I have to say, in my years of going on late night talk shows, a person I had particular fun and excitement when going to their show was Craig Ferguson.

He's very fun.

There's no one that was ever more off the cuff and less on script than Craig Ferguson. It was a practice in chaos that was so pleasurable if you're an improv person.

He's so funny.

He's so funny and he looks so cool. He's got awesome gray hair with a cool spike and a very tight fade.

Tats.

Tats galore. He almost looks a little, Anthony Bourdain-y.

Oh, I could see that.

Yeah, real punk rock. I really liked it.

So, on Flightless Bird, there's been a new recurring thing that's been happening where David kind of accident, he doesn't know he's doing it, but he's brought up men's arms.

Muscular arms, usually.

And tattooed arms like multiple times. He'll like throw it in.

Have mine made the mix or? Charlie. Charlie.

Well, because fantasy football, so he went to the fantasy football thing. Draft, yeah. Draft, and then he couldn't stop talking about how many male arms were out.

And then he's- Felt gratuitous.

No, I mean, I think he liked it. I think he liked it. Yeah, it was arousing. And then he brought it up again on another episode, sort of haphazardly. So, I think he would have really liked Craig's arms.

Oh, sure.

Because they were so tatted.

He would have been very aroused.

Yeah, I think he might have, yes.

I think we all were. Craig Ferguson, of course. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson for years. Drew Carey, he was a hilarious cast member of the Drew Carey Show. He has a new podcast out now called Joy, a podcast.

This was a very fun interview.

Absolutely.

I enjoyed it.

Please enjoy Craig Ferguson, and happy trick-or-treating to everyone.

Enjoy, happy Halloween.

Happy Halloween. Shane.

He's an armchair expert.

Hello there. Hello. We're here already.

Hello. Hi, Monica. Hello, Monica.

Hiya.

Hello, sweetheart. How are you? You look great, man.

You do too. You look very cool.

Oh, stop. You do look cool. You're so cool. I'm not cool. You're very, very cool.

You're just European.

Are you even that?

No, no, Scottish aren't European.

Is it okay if I urinate in front of you?

Yeah, actually, I just had a pee-pee time myself,

and what was nice about it,

it's kind of like going to jail or being in the army, but I think you'd have to poo to really be part of it.

Well, feel free at any time.

I don't know that I'm ready for it. I'm not confident enough.

Maybe halfway through the interview, you'll feel really comfortable.

I don't know. I mean, if I feel that comfortable, I might just like...

Just in the pants.

We generally step out for guests that we don't know, like if they have to go, right?

We go stand on the landing.

Rob did that, but he obviously pleases me and higher esteem than you guys. Yeah, for sure. So I feel like I know where I stand.

But what happens is sometimes we're out there for going on five minutes where we could only conclude, they have upgraded this.

We've never come in and smelt poop.

No, but you know, what we don't ever consider also is that maybe someone's peeing, they accidentally fart, and it smells, and they're like, they open a window and they're trying to clear everything out.

Then that's the dilemma. That's my nightmare. You overcomplicated that. I don't think that's what happens. I think nobody poops, or they may poop out the window.

That's something I feel like we were doing our addiction.

Yeah, no kidding. I don't know if I ever pooped out a window. Did you ever shit yourself? We should probably save this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, oh, we're recording.

I wondered if I, I don't know if I, I think I did.

Yeah, what do you mean you think you did? You wouldn't have gotten sober if you were the type of addict who hadn't shit themselves. Get real. I might have. I mean, like, I'm not sure.

Yeah, now, see, you can't say that because there's all sorts of different people, but you're right though.

People say-.

You can't say that, but you're right. Yeah, but you can. But there's so much of that in life now that things that you can't say that, but you're right.

We're kind of done.

We are-.

Are you on the other side? Yeah, we're on, we're saying this stuff.

Many people are, I think. I was on the plane yesterday coming in from London and I watched a lot of episodes I hadn't seen of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. These guys are fucking fearless.

I love them.

They're incredible. Do you know any of them personally?

Caitlin and I worked with-.

Oh, yes, on Drew Carey.

She was on the Drew Carey show.

So Caitlin and I joined the Groundlings together. We're the oldest of friends. And then Rob, her husband-.

Right, I've never met any of these guys.

You would fucking love him. He's in England all the time now with that football team.

Yeah, Wales, I think we have to say Wales. Have we started now? Oh, yeah, we're in. All right, ABR, Always Be Recorded. Right, I know, I like it.

Incredible. Thank you. Congratulations. Truly.

But we were talking about, did you ever shit yourself when you were out there? I can't remember if I did, but I think I might've, and I still, I've got a little bag here, like a little purse, like a little man purse. I still always bring- An extra pair of undies. Clean pair of underpants. Smart.

Well, right in the little-.

Look, see?

They're full boxers. They're not small.

Yeah, no, I like a little air. You know what? These might go back to when I was a portly or gentleman, but I still carry a pair of underpants, just in case I accidentally, now I'm not reaching an age where I might shit myself anyway. Like, when I expressed myself a little there, I think I felt a little- Actually, sure. Nothing moved.

Well, let's just acknowledge things aren't getting tighter as you grow older.

No, they're not.

So the need for those panties are probably ever increasing.

Well, a little bit, but maybe they should be more diapering.

Can we go back, though? Let's just say what we could deduce from you carrying your underwear in the bag. If you had handcuffs in there or zip ties, we could conclude some things. Yeah. That's right.

We don't know.

You're not carrying a fire extinguisher around with you. Okay. Right? Right?

I'm not. I'm not carrying a fire extinguisher around with me.

This is very revealing and telling, and I appreciate your vulnerability.

Oh, that's all right.

Let's go back to using. First of all, I have shit my pants. If I'm being dead honest, it's about a yearly event.

Do you plan it? Is it like-?

Ceremonial.

December 31st, I haven't done it yet. We gotta get it. Honey, you know what day it is today.

Take the kids to the store. I've got a little something to do for the next 15 minutes. No, but about once a year, I have a toot. that surprises me. Not a full evacuation, but just a, oh Jesus, now I gotta go to the bathroom.

I think that's normal. I think a lot of people have that. Right.

It tends to over-index with males. I've done a lot of asking around among friends and family, and men seem to have that incident at least once a year, and women almost never, but maybe a couple of times.

Oh, come on now. I think you may be doing this, falling into the trap of women. also don't toots either.

No, they toot like crazy. Yeah. No, here's what I'll tell you, and you'll like this. Women pee their pants all the time on accident. We don't ever do that.

I have, but not in recent times.

I've peed the bed while asleep, while intoxicated.

Oh, I peed the bed every night until I was 13.. Oh, okay. Until I was 13,, and then I stalked when I was 13..

Yeah, and then resumed.

And then I started drinking when I was about 14.. I picked it up again. Oh my God, one year later? Yeah. The laundry business in Scotland was badly affected in the 1970s with my dry period.

You know what's so weird? I don't think we've ever talked about this, but I was 29 as well.

Were you really? It's a funny time for men, or for everyone, but I've only ever been a man, so I don't know. But I've talked to men, and right about then, it seems quite common to make a change in your life like that.

Or just hopping into 40.. I think there's something about the decade approaching where you go, okay, I just spent the last decade hammered and blacked out and doing regrettable, shameful things. Are we about to embark on another? Because I was three months before my 30th birthday.

That's exactly when I was. Really? Yeah, three months before my 30th birthday.

You're a May baby?

Yeah, I got sober on February the 18th, 1992, and I was 30 on May the 17th.

That's really trippy, because I was September and then birthday January 2nd.

That's funny, I wonder what that is. I think there's something in it, though, a little bit. It's definitely a time to take stock. Inventory, as it's talked about.

Yeah, we knew it somehow before we knew it. We should probably take stock of this. Do you think some of it boils down to, I just didn't have the constitution. Maybe I was very prone to shame.

I was gonna say, it's about shame, I think.

Shame for me was very sticky and weighed on me a lot.

Yeah, I think that's true as well. I used to be very envious of people who would get really hammered, and then they would go, ah, so hammered, ha, ha, ha. And they would think it was kind of funny, or they would enjoy the physical sensation of having a hangover and feeling kind of bad.

Like they had been to war and back. There is some glory.

Right, they had achieved some kind of thing. But the deep hangover of the soul, the shame hangover. Yeah. And it's not really about behavior. It's there before the alcohol.

Were you religious?

I am now.

You are now?

I think so. Not in an orthodoxy way, but I'm much more interested in it now. I think I was probably a bit interested in it then. But when I was a kid, I grew up around a lot of sectarian violence and hatred, and everything was attached to religion.

Will you fill us in, because I'm totally ignorant. I'm aware of the Irish North-South Catholic Protestant.

It's very similar. In Scotland? In Glasgow, yeah. In fact, there's a huge Irish community in Glasgow. So the Rangers Celtic of it, which is the soccer teams in Glasgow, that was connected to Rangers, were predominantly Protestants and Glasgow were predominantly Catholics.

Very clear in and out group there.

And that helped people identify the enemy. Scotland in the 1970s was so violent that even if you were on the same side, you would find a way.

Okay, here's another big overlap for me. So I'm Detroit.

Very similar.

70s, 80s, very blue collar, a lot of people up from Kentucky, a lot of culture of pride and honor. Just fucking violence everywhere. I was just writing about the other day. In my town, no accomplishment would excuse you from getting your ass kicked at a gas station if you took the pump first. Yes.

See, that, I think, is something that right now, and for quite a long time, the contemporary American politicians and broadcasters that are in the political sphere do not understand about growing up poor. If you grow up poor, it doesn't matter what you are, what your color is, all you have is respect. And manners really fucking matter. So, like when you're talking about the gas pump thing or anything like that, they really matter. So if you, for example, exclude or disrespect a whole group of people, like when Hillary Clinton said the deplorables, you're not just talking about what you think of their political thoughts, you've just insulted a whole socioeconomic group.

Yeah, because it's looking like I'm gonna win.

Yeah, if I win, it's all about the people who voted for me, not you guys.

I haven't read any polling data, but I'm pretty certain I'm gonna win and you're fucked.

Yeah, you better vote for me, that's it.

Now, mom and dad, dad worked for the postal service and mom was a teacher. Yeah. Is there any overlap? I'm basing this all on Bukowski and his description of working for the postal service, which is. there was an entrance exam.

I don't know if my dad knew much about Bukowski.

We're gonna find out in a second. But you had to pass a pretty challenging test to become an employee of the postal service, at least in the 50s, 60s, 70s. So it attracted these very smart people that also wanted to just stay kind of not ambitious, but really smart.

I think there's a germ of truth in it. In Britain, it was slightly different. My father was born in 1930.. So he was a telegram delivery boy. when he started out.

I've been to Ireland, not been to Scotland. I've watched Braveheart. That's about the extent of my understanding. There's a very easy detect vibe in Ireland. They're rascals in the best way.

but the Scotland that I grew up and had a very strong Irish component, but it was a component of it. Glasgow, the town that I grew up in, is a port city. And so there was a huge Italian community in Glasgow. There was a Chinese community in Glasgow. When I was growing up, the Pakistani and Indian community was getting bigger and bigger and making a huge improvement in what there was to eat.

Yeah, it sounds like Toronto.

Yeah, it's not dissimilar. It's not as clean.

Well, okay, nothing is.

Oh my God, those Canadians. Isn't it? Toronto? Everything's a condo. They're going to have to change it to condo or something.

That was the only guy. Singing the Edmunds Fitzgerald quietly.

The only condo in Toronto.

Well, the legend lives on of the condo in Toronto. And the big, like, the Colgate Shigumi.

But a lot of Scottish people live in Canada as well.

It's got a juicy chip on their shoulder, I'd imagine, right?

Oh, my God, yeah.

It's the tall poppy thing.

I think that's everywhere now.

Well, but we already talked about it. So where I'm from, everyone feels a little less than. It's half of society to blame, and then it's half their own condition, which is they're looking for it.

I think that's right. And I think for a long time, I don't know about you, but I think a lot of being an alcoholic was that if you treat me normal, that I feel less than. If you just say, oh yeah, it's over there. Then I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? But if he's like, it's over there, sir, may I get you a carafe of wine?

For me, dyslexic, broken home, violence, molested, all these things.

Yeah, that'll do it.

Feeling less than all the time.

That's a good right back dab.

And a little bit of salt.

But the alcohol, when drunk, I was very optimistic. That's how the medicine worked for me. I was optimistic while drunk that things were gonna work out in my favor. And that wasn't nice.

Or you wouldn't keep drinking.

Yes, and then all of a sudden, one day you're like at a bar and you realize I'm bored and I'm drunk and I feel less than and I'm pessimistic. We're using everything at our disposal, cocaine.

Yeah, yeah, nothing's working.

Oh my God, national alert.

Oh, what's happening?

Yes, oh, God, cause you're not here in the States. This has been, oh, you'll love this.

What is this for?

I'm gonna tell you, and you're gonna love what the conspiracy theories are saying. That this is activating a component of the Corona vaccination, that now our bodies are, have you guys heard this? No. I love this.

This is incredible. I love this.

It's as far out as it gets. We have had a warning for a week that the National Alert Service was gonna blast everyone's phone at this time in the whole nation. This just happened to everyone in the nation. How communal.

I love that.

Do you know what I think's interesting though? Well, I'm not telling you, guys, how to live your life, but when we started recording, I turned my fucking phone off.

Oh yeah, no, we can't.

Yeah, two little kids, right? You know, who knows? I've got little, I've got kids too. You can't respond to them from.

No, there's nothing I can do. They're in Scotland. I'm like, I don't know.

Exactly. You've exceeded the perimeter of where you could have.

Their mom will take care of it.

We would have missed out on this unifying moment. I'm really glad we had our phones on.

But you probably have now a British or UK service. You still have an American phone.

Yeah, and I have an apartment in New York City. I love this fucking idea that I live in a croft in Scotland.

When I knew you, you lived across the street.

Yeah, just down the street from here.

Right, so it's my understanding that you have left there. Right. You have a castle in Scotland, I recall.

I have a house in Scotland.

Okay, is it shaped like a castle?

It's a castle shape.

Is it an inordinately large piece of land?

It was built in the 1300s. It doesn't mean it's a castle.

Here's our residual shit. We know if we admit to living in a castle, we're one of them. Yeah, exactly. So you live in a castle.

I live in a house. I live in an old house that's got a few castellated edges.

Okay, and if someone pulled up in horse and carriage, would it look very natural? Yeah, it would, yeah.

In fact, if someone pulled up from the Roman Empire, oh yeah.

William Wallace rolled through.

You left that hanging.

Oh, so there's been this growing conspiracy theory that this alarm that just went out, which is going out over 5G, which you know, there was already conspiracies about 5G, was going to activate some dormant agent inside of the Corona vaccination that would mirror Ebola. So, basically, from what just happened, I don't know how quick Ebola works, but I think it's quickly. I think within the next three days,

we're all gonna share this.

We'll be eating each other. Oh my God, well, not you,

cause you turned your phone off, good job.

Yeah, and also I have a pair of underpants in my bag. So in case the 5G activates my COVID vaccine, I ship myself, voila, clean pants. Take that, Bill Gates, fuck you.

You'll be the only zombie with fresh shorts on. How you doing everybody?

I like zombies. I always think, if zombies could river dance, they would. Oh, absolutely.

They would river dance. Cause they're very stiff. Yeah.

The afterlife is the Irish, I think. Do you believe in the afterlife? Do you believe in the continuation of consciousness?

I wish I did. I'm open to having that revelation. Spirituality for me is very, very hard to hook into. I meditate, that's helpful. I like how that feels, right?

That's love, of course.

It's love, but also something feels celestial. There's something to me that just is beyond my understanding of love.

You admit, and I admit too, of being pathologically selfish. And then someone exists who you care more about than yourself. That's a transcendental experience. I have this theory, I was talking to someone about this recently, that most philosophers, now not all of them, but most of them didn't have any kids. Oh really?

Either a none or a hundred.

See, I think at 25 kids, you probably don't. You're like, oh yeah, there's another one. Do you know what I mean?

I can't think of any names. Right, right.

Most philosophers, now again, it's not an absolute. It's like percentage, wise enough to get you to COVID vaccine level. Do you know what I mean? It's efficacy, it's efficacy as a theory.

Someone told me, long before I had them, that it does cure all your existential crises. And I agree with that.

Yeah, it gives you a whole new bunch of things to be terrified of.

Can I tell you something though? I don't have that. I've had so much pessimism and fear about so many things my entire life. I'd say it's my modus operandi. But from the second we said, let's try to have kids, I was like, this is gonna go great.

That's great. I meant more about the idea that anything bad would happen to my kids.

Shockingly, I have no fear of that. I think they're just gonna thrive. They'll have setbacks and they'll have challenges, but I believe in their spirit. That if they're addicts, they're gonna find sobriety.

You mean more that they would get hit by a car or something.

Yeah.

Yeah, like outside of their personalities.

Ebola virus activated by a cell phone.

Their phone goes off. That's why I wouldn't let my kids have a phone, which is bad for my oldest boy. He's 22.. I'm like, no, you can't have a phone.

He's still a virgin. Yeah.

I don't even wanna think about that.

It's okay if he is. Oh, absolutely.

If you would like to have sex, a phone's very helpful in that pursuit.

Well, that's true. See, I'm very glad that I missed all of that.

It would have taken out probably both of you.

Yeah, there was a big, hard video record of you and I on day three of a bender. Whoa. Chatting with someone about philosophy.

No, it's not good. No, no, no. I really feel for the young and everything documented, because it's a voluntary admission to 1984.. It's like we walked right into it by our own volition.

We stand in line to get the new version.

Yeah, oh yeah, let's film everything and ruin it. Yeah.

It's crazy. I know.

I remember once having a, do you remember Regis Philbin?

Oh yeah, Kathleen Regis.

Rickles was saying he had a conversation with Regis. They were having a laugh, and Regis said, no, no, no, we can't wait for this. We're doing the show tomorrow, so let's talk about it. then. He wouldn't talk about it.

Yes, we'll get to this, but the endless inferno, that is a talk show, right? And once you step into that, every little bit, because you're out, you're just wringing yourself out every show.

Yeah.

And you're trying to gather stuff, and you know better than to waste something. And now people are that way, because they too have to fill this endless void.

Everybody has a talk show. Everybody has a talk show. Everybody is doing a daily show.

If you haven't posted in two days, you're like, oh my God.

People are gonna forget about me. And they will forget about you, that's the thing. They're right. It's funny, I think the talk show thing is fascinating, particularly because I did it in America. So I didn't grow up with the talk show tradition.

Sleep with some other realtors at the convention. Maybe. Things go right. That's right.

It wasn't something that I ran out to be. I annoyed some of my colleagues because I had that attitude to it. I didn't mean it disrespectfully. It just never occurred to me.

I would argue, it's actually what set you up to do, what you ended up doing, which was a pretty novel version of it.

Yeah, it was the only version I could do, because I tried the other version. I can remember, honestly, in the first week or so, when I was doing the late night show, coming on and adjusting my tie and saying, did you guys watch the playoffs? And I swear to God, I swear to God, I didn't even fucking know what I was talking about. I didn't know what a playoff was. I was like, what is a playoff?

Did you guys watch the playoffs?

So did you guys see the playoffs?

What if you just went, can you explain that to me?

I mean, really, the writers are no use. And at the very beginning, because I was so terrified, I thought I'm going to get shaken after a week of this. So I just did whatever they told me.

Yeah, I heard you talking about the fact that you had done two little trial episodes and you were forced, not forced, but you signed a six-year contract because there was no stakes. You weren't going to get this. There was no way I was going to get it. Yeah, and then, all of a sudden, you're in a six-year deal.

Yeah, I wouldn't make that mistake again. There is always that slight chance that you will get the job. So you got to be careful. It's not that I disliked it. I liked it.

I bet the frustrating thing is, unlike a realtor, there are millions of people who are aspiring to be Johnny Carson or Letterman or Kimmel or anybody, right? So to see someone end up fulfilling their dream, who could take it or leave it, is the issue for them.

I think that's right.

And that's fair.

Yeah, and so I tried to be cognizant and respectful of that.

But I feel like you found a way to do it. that was ultimately incredibly true to you and then really novel. We're here, so I'll tell you. I mean, there's two things. Status-wise, Letterman, for me, he's my god, right?

He's the gold standard, I think. That's right.

It's unreal. That's the high-water mark for me, to have been on that show. But I will say, second to that, back in the day, I would always say, well, my favorite show to go on is Craig's, for sure, because it's the only show where you'll go and you'll never get to the pre-interviewed stories that have been prepared. That's right. And if you're the type of performer that I am, and you are, I live for that.

And Kristen is as well. She was very successful.

We're marking that, because I got a whole chapter about her.

Well, that's the interesting thing, because you and her, and people who had improv motivations and felt comfortable in that environment, it was the show for them. But there were people who came on who I think they weren't as comfortable.

And rightly so. I'm sure a dramatic actor who has this one good story about their vacation, they can kind of work that out and get confident. But for you and I to sit down and have some competition, wakes me up, puts my brain in a space that it doesn't normally get to. without that, it certainly won't get there telling you a story.

Right, and the good thing about the competition, especially if you talk about how we grew up, we're in a competition which is fun and exciting, but will very rarely result in any one of us getting hurt.

Yeah, no one's going to the doctor after this.

All right, that's fucking it, fuck you. No one's throwing a headbutt on late night.

No one has to make an excuse of why they lost that fight.

Right, and it's kind of fun like that. And to be fair, and you mentioned Letterman, and I just want to give him props for this, because the only way that I existed on late night was because of an anomaly that David created, which was he owned the time slot. CBS were so keen to get him to go there after the late night wars in the 90s, that they gave him two hours of real estate on CBS. It was his. So they didn't really control it.

Yeah, yeah.

So ultimately I didn't give a fuck what I was doing.

Did he pick you? How did it all come to be?

He was part of it. There was a group of people. It was Dave and Les Moonves, who ran CBS at the time. I don't know what happened to him. And...

Yeah.

Oh, wow. Peter had produced Dave the first five years when he went to CBS.

In the 1130 slot, yeah.

Right, in the 1130, after all that stuff. So he understood that world very well. And Dave holds Peter in very high regard. And Les didn't really.

He had other, bigger fish to fry.

I don't know what else he was up to, but it wasn't good.

Yeah, he was busy, I heard.

I think you do know. Yeah, I think I do know.

When Peter saw me do it, there was a bunch of different people tried out for it. And some of them were really good. It boiled down to Mike Lee and Black, who was great at it. Damien Fahey, who was great at it. And D.L.

I've maybe had that experience a couple times in my life, where someone that you trust believes in you in a way that you don't believe in yourself, and how you can ride that.

It can change your life.

It can. It makes me get chills thinking, I must remember to always offer that to people as often as I can, who I don't think realize how special they are.

Yeah, I think that's true.

Wow, Monica, I was first in on Monica.

Kristen was first in.

Shit, yes, okay.

Yeah, you kind of.

Well, I think I suggested that you come one.

That's right, you did, you did.

Yeah, it flip-flopped a lot, yeah, yeah, okay.

But it's true, you're not gonna make any enemies telling people that you believe in them. For a long period of my life, I felt in competition with the universe, or usually it would be other Scottish people, I guess, or Scottish men. I wasn't really aware of it, but I'd be resentful if I saw somebody, like an actor I had worked with in Glasgow suddenly gets a good job. I'm like, that guy's an asshole. Yeah.

He doesn't hang his wardrobe closed up.

Yeah, yeah, he doesn't carry pants around.

Well, if you're at the gas station and everyone's mad at each other, if that's the world you grow up in, of course that's what you're gonna carry around, that everyone's a dick, but you.

I think it's more like the Gore Vidal thing. It's not enough that I succeed, it's that my friends have to fail. Oh, interesting.

I also think, let's be fair, that if you grow up in limited resources, in scarcity, if someone gets something, it is actually true that you're not gonna get something. Yeah, you'd rather get it. When you're in the household and this is the food on the table, my older brother takes more. Who got the potato?

Yes, that's real. Yeah.

And so how are you gonna snap out of that all of a sudden at 20, when really it has been zero-sum, and then you see someone pop and you're like, well, that's probably the one Scottish person they're gonna see famous this year.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

It's not right, but it's understandable.

It's not, I don't feel that way anymore, though.

I don't think these kids that grow up and go to Crossroads and they see their peers get famous, they're like, yeah, they got, and we're all gonna get famous. Yeah. All of our parents are famous. Yeah, everybody's famous.

I don't think they think about it the same way. But the younger generation, for all their faults, and they're certainly well-documented, they are a bit better with that kind of stuff.

Like rooting for each other?

I think so, yeah. I think they're a bit kinder with each other.

It's a safer place to be vulnerable now.

The mistakes that I see is the same mistake that every generation makes, which is you think, you know everything, and you'll never get old. Every generation believes that. I know everything, and I'll never get old. Let me tell you something. I fucking knew everything, and here I sit at 60 fucking one.

You're lucky if it will. Right.

It's a very, very strange experience. I mean, I find the aging process so bizarre. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

I just really didn't think much about it. And the depressing part isn't actually the aging. It's the accelerating of time. It feels like a double whammy. It's like, not only are you getting older, but a year is now about four months long, and a week is about two days long, and that's getting worse and worse and worse.

Unless you do regular flights from London to Los Angeles. And then time really fucking slows down.

I have tricks. There are things. Novelty slows time down. Sure.

Interesting. you talk about meditation, because I do do that. I feel like you step out of time when you meditate properly. It's shocking to me. Yeah.

Do you TM?

I don't know if it's TM. Okay. I don't have any formal kind of tuition in it, but I became interested in it through apps or yoga classes or bullshit, just living in LA. And you pick it up or being in recovery and prayer and meditation. And then I started to read about different forms of prayer and meditation.

Well, let me just tell you too, I'm doing TM, but in my TM, while doing the mantra, I do work in my first three-step prayers, and then the 10th step.

Have you ever read about, because I've become fascinated by these people, and I think, as someone in recovery, I think you would be too, is the-.

Stoics.

Well, the Stoics, yes. But the Desert Fathers.

No.

Between about 200 and 350 AD, there was a group of pre-Roman Christians that lived to the north of Cairo, St. Anthony, Origin of Alexandria, Vagrius of Pontus. Origin actually, I think, was a theologian and just lived in Alexandria. But they had ideas about prayer and meditation, which I don't think Roman Christianity pulled up on, and they don't think they took it in. Origin of Alexandria was a theologian who was excommunicated 500 years after he died, because he said, God can exist only in the mind.

Just to assuage your fears, you're not presenting as a professor. Right, good, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I thought I was. But the idea that when Constantine took over Christianity, when it became the empire's religion, I think it's a little bit like, there will be a point when Starbucks will open a store at Burning Man, and that is the equivalent. Yeah. I think that Christianity, for the first couple hundred years, the Romans were like, these people, are atheists. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're denying.

And so what Rome did is, they said, well, there is only one God, but you know, then there's his mom.

And there's really three gods.

There's three, and then there's all the saints, the other ones that come in.

Lucifer, he's powerful.

Well, yeah, but he's bad. Sure, but kind of a god. He's naughty, he's naughty, bad.

But also powerful like a god.

Oh, that was another thing that Origen got into trouble for, because he believed that in the final revelation and the end of time, Lucifer could be forgiven as well. And they were very upset about that.

They shouldn't be. That would be the ultimate happy ending to the story, right?

Take it up with the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, because they had some ideas that you would not agree with.

And so meditation in that tradition.

Well, I think it was Evagrius of Pontus, who was one of the Desert Fathers. It was about continuous, contemplative, meditative prayer. And they talk about allowing your mind to be silent, not in allowing your mind to go to imagery of God or even colors or thoughts. Every time you have a thought, this is what I try to do when I'm, I mean, it sounds very fanciful, but when you talk about meditation, it's gonna sound like that. Whenever I have a thought, when I'm trying to meditate, I just try and go, oh, well, there it is.

This fucking Scottish actor is so goddamn famous.

Jerry fucking Butler, who's my friend. The whole thing, just to allow yourself to have thoughts and just let them go by.

At least my understanding of the TM when it was taught to me was kind of that, which is like, yeah, you're gonna have thoughts. That's fine. You can even deal with them for a second and just try to come back to the mantra. That's it.

That's the whole purpose of meditation. It's not to not have thoughts. It's to have them and then let them go.

Right. I didn't know that for a long time. And I thought it was something to do with yoga. And I think it might.

Yeah, they're connected somehow.

I'm fascinated by all of it and I don't rule out any of it, which annoys people sometimes. Like. I talked to my wife about more Uttara religions and I'm like, well, maybe she's like, oh, shut up. These people are fucking crazy. And I'm like, all right, they might be.

Well, it's tricky, right? Because the practitioners of anything are crazy. There's some fucking wackos in AA. It's not like I would trust any certain one of us to co-represent what it is. It is a far from exclusive club.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the last chance saloon. But the best description I heard of, I shouldn't, it's kind of breaking the tradition, but fuck it. The best description I heard of AA was somebody in a meeting who said, we are the elite of the mentally ill. Yeah, there you go, that's it.

What got you sober? Do you mind telling us?

A series of unfortunate events.

Ding, ding, ding, you starred in that, but go ahead.

Oh my God, good slipping.

No, first of all, I'm in that movie for like 30 seconds.

I think there's no counts of starring in it.

You're right, in that section. In Hollywood terms, yes, of course. I was very proud to be part of the, we all, yeah. I actually, as an aside, one of the producers, I mean, I can't remember his name. He's like a really powerful producer guy who was on this movie.

They're so slow. Especially that movie, right?

Oh my God. I was dressed in this very elaborate costume, standing at the craft service table and this guy gave over to me, this producer. And he said, are you enjoying working on a big movie like this? And I went, you know, I'm not.

Good for him.

They are kind of boring.

Okay, so wait, listen. I have two reactions to that, because it's like kind of the third in the same vein, which is one is, I believe you, two is a little bit of a pattern to not want to be doing what you're doing.

Yeah, yeah, very restless.

And I wonder, is that self-defense? Like I'm going to get kicked out of here, so I just plant some seeds that I didn't want to be here for when I inevitably get-.

Yeah, you can't fire me, I quit. It's. I'm terrified of disappointment. I think there's shame attached to not succeeding, which is absurd. It's one of the reasons why I actually fell in love with America.

Or how about that? you only got to hit one of the five pitches?

Right, I mean, that's unbelievable. If you can get that shit in with the bricks, that stops you from, well, what's the point of even trying? I'm not blind to the issues that we have in the United States, but that's great. That should probably be in the constitution, something about baseball.

There's some version of that too, I'll add, which is we have some things that are really, really admirable, one being our college system. At any point, you can go, I'm gonna go to this community college. If I do great there, I'm gonna get a shot at a university. I can do everything. That doesn't really exist, that pipeline in most places.

Right, what America has is fluidity connected with money, but at least it's fluidity. If you have a class system, it doesn't matter how much money you have, you ain't fucking going anywhere. That is a problem. It's here too, but I don't feel like it's institutional in the same way.

I'm reading a very disheartening book called The Myth of Meritocracy. I think that's the title. It's about meritocracy. I get it. It's a bummer.

I'm like, this, does not sound like James Patterson at all.

Yeah, I'm just a little bit like, oh, this thing I kind of believe and defend in, huh? Maybe it really is a class system, with the rare exception.

Look, nothing's perfect. I'm sure somebody could pick a hole in my baseball theory. In fact, by the time this thing goes out, I'm sure a hundred fucking people on the, whatever fucking shitty, little fucking chat room is fucking de rigueur at the moment. for the fucking illiterate, fucking opinionated, they'll let me know.

They'll let each other have it.

Yeah.

Wait, back to, we didn't finish. We left that hanging.

You are good at this. We left it hanging.

Series of unfortunate events.

Well, it's a cumulative. The first time I got drunk, I peed my pants and got arrested, like when I was 13.. So there is evidence there. I didn't get arrested for peeing my pants. That's not illegal in Scotland.

The whole country would be in jail.

Yeah, that'd be a bad look. Everyone over the age of 60 in Florida is under arrest. But what happened was there were signals all along the way. And looking back on it now, there were pivotal ones. But one that sticks to mind for me is I was an Australian.

You saw cocaine as drinking vitamins.

It was a vitamin. You know, if you want to like, it's like, yeah, I'll take it. What I used to say was, look, here's how I know I'm an alcoholic, not an addict. Because when I'm in a bar and if I'm drinking and someone says, hey, do you want some cocaine? I'm like, fuck.

I'm not leaving a bar to go get cocaine. That's where we diverge. That's the only fucking difference that I can see. I'd cross the Sahara if I thought I had a navel. I think that's fair.

Look, that's just preference. That's chicken or fish at that point.

But again, drinking always starts with drinking. Yeah.

So one time I was in Australia and I was drinking pretty bad. The first real dose of the terrors, which, unless you've had them, there's no way to explain them. Some people, when they take cannabis, sativa, get a similar type of psychosis. The reaction I certainly do, and I can't do it, but it's kind of like the psychosis from bad marijuana or a bad reaction to marijuana.

Like paranoia?

Yeah, but it's worse. It's disassociation. It's fucking horrible. And I had it really bad. And if you're an alcoholic, you know, instinctively the only way you're going to get rid of it is to drink.

It's like flirting with a beer.

Yeah. I said, like, send me up 20 stubbies in this bar.

Right.

And I was pounding these things. And eventually I get 10 stubbies in or something. Starting to be okay. Things are starting to calm down. And then I started talking to the barmaid, who was a really nice, goth girl who was just working in the bar.

It's like Evel Knievel telling you you're too reckless on a motorcycle.

But just events like that, ultimately it was, I was in a relationship with a woman who I really cared for and I kept letting her down. Like I'd say, I'm going to the store and I'd come back three days later. And she eventually said, I love you, but I can't be around this. And I understood. See, that was the thing.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, though.

It was strange.

This is a hard question to answer, because you'll have to acknowledge your own charm. But I'm sincere in this. I have watched other comedians wrestle with this and I have recognized that the battle can be a little harder for them, because they do have this crazy antidote, which is you can be at the bottom of one of those three day troughs, go out on stage, still have that magic, get the love of everyone and be able to walk off and go, ah, it's not that bad. Or conversely, you're so charming that you can kind of keep some people around that normally would have gone away. I do think there's a little bit of an added hurdle when you can be the victim of your own charisma.

It's an interesting way to look at it. I mean, I love the idea of describing myself as a victim of my own charisma. I'm fucking stealing that right now. That's beautiful. Thank you.

Let's co-author a book called Victims of Our Own Charisma.

Victims of Our Own Charisma.

Everyone just starts throwing up as they see the title in the airport. These guys are so fucking full of themselves. Oh no, it's ironic, man. I will write in parentheses, it's ironic.

I think that there is some truth to that. What really is, though, is you find people as sad as you are, and you kind of commiserate each other. They call it in recovery literature, you find lower companions, which I always thought was a little unfair. I was the lower companion, I think, for a lot of people.

I was the bar that was lower than my addict friends. Prevented them from thinking they had a problem.

But you got sober when you were 29,, which is interesting, because I run into people who got sober 10 years later. 15 years later. Some of them getting sober now.

Oh yeah, I have friends that got sober at 50..

I'm fucking glad I got hit. when I got hit. I'm glad I got sober.

Oh, same, same. I have so much gratitude for having the version that was really untenable. I feel most bad for people who have a pretty tenable version of it.

Well, they call it functioning alcoholism.

Yeah, yeah, but it's true. When you're just on the line of it, that could gobble up your whole life, because you don't really ever have to fuck with it.

Well, that's what I think. When I see everybody smoking weed, I'm like, oh, aren't you so fucking clever? When people say, it's just a plant, and I'm like, yeah, fucking opium is a plant, you dick.

Hops and barley are plants.

Yeah, I don't get it. It's a weird kind of, like. if you see anything remotely negative about cannabis right now, it's like, you're a fascist. I'm like, well, hold on a fucking minute. What is fair about, you can walk down the street.

Yes, yes.

So you can walk down the street in New York City. If you have a can of malt liquor, you have to disguise that in a brand new can of brown paper bag. You can walk down the street smoking a fucking blunt and everybody-.

But isn't the joint itself a brown paper bag?

Well, it is a brown paper bag, but it's on fire. And everybody within half a city block fucking inhales it. I just think it should be fairer to my people, who should be allowed to walk down the street drinking. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, to be honest, I don't mind the weed thing. I think it's great. I think everyone that can do it. And when I see a guy on the street with a brown paper bag, I'm like, God bless, man. I wish I could still do that.

I just don't think he should have to have a brown paper bag. Well, that's fair, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. It's almost like there should be stores that sell liquor.

Oh, one thing to the friends, though. Have you noticed this? I wouldn't say like my friendships were with lesser or higher caliber people. What I have noticed is the most quintessential ingredient for the friendships back then was loyalty. And that's no longer the case for me in sobriety.

I understand what you're saying. back in the day. We're all going to fuck up, so let's not judge each other. I think now I don't want any more friends. I'm too old.

Okay, so it's your post-friendship period. Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, I'm sure you're a very nice person. Go fuck yourself. I have less in the way of expectations about your behavior. It's not really your behavior that's the problem. It's mine.

Can we talk about one thing before we launch into? About Joy? The musicianship. I think this is what I've discovered about you today. that I didn't know about you in the past, was the history as a drummer, as a kid and being in a bunch of punk bands.

Yeah, I mean, it's funny how many, Carson was a drummer. When I was coming up, I was born in 1962.. So punk hit 75, 76.. So I'm like early teens.

What would we say, is the first band? Crass?

No, the first punk single I remember hearing was The Damned, Neat, Neat, Neat. But Iggy was there before that. And then there was Television. It's all connected.

Here she is. Who?

We have a friend. Oh, hello.

Hello.

Hang on. I'll just have to go. How lovely to see you. Your husband is so handsome.

I know. I know.

He's looking so handsome.

Said the pot to the kettle.

Did you know, by the way, I was just telling those guys that, and I've done this for years, that I carry a pair of boxer shorts around in my bag in case I shit myself.

How at home could he be?