Jon Stewart

25:37Right. We're going to say no. So we knew, I knew like a month into it, this is fucking, we're going to go down when it happens. I don't know. And I had that same, the bear mentality of, but I'm doing a silly show. So there was one night and booking was really hard because it was syndication. So we'd appear at 3am in Atlanta, but 7pm in Phoenix, like it was just all over the place. and we would be there till one o 'clock in the morning every night trying to squeeze every last bit of the Willy Wonka parody that we thought we were going to do. But can we really even afford the hat? If he doesn't have the hat, is he really Willy Wonka?

26:14Like that kind of shit. And in our exhaustion and in our frenetic energy and in our desire to save it and be great. One day we were all in my office. Stevie Higgins was in there. He was the head writer and the door opens and it's the booker and he looks in with a look on his face of that look that maybe doctors had two weeks into the pandemic right and he goes hal linden said no and we all went what barney miller's not gonna do the show right and it was then that i realized like oh i think i'm going to jump off a building because i'm my emotional well-being yes is now wrapped up into whether an actor that nobody had seen probably in eight years.

27:00It was like Herschel Bernardi. He had done Circus of the Stars. He was the headmaster on Circus of the Stars in 1980. So he was still quite relevant. He was still quite relevant, but it was 13 years later. Herschel Bernardi wants to see a script and he wants to approve it. And you're like, but it was the, your whole wellbeing was tied up in these unbelievably incredibly trivial moments that didn't matter even five feet outside of that door. Right. But the other thing too is it was your case and was my case too, where, um, I used to live and die by what our rating was and it would come out on a Thursday and I would all day Wednesday, the tension would be rising.

27:48And then I would go home, not sleep Wednesday night. And I come in Thursday and take the elevator up. And this is back when I was on, you know, three month contracts and they're thinking, we've got a replacement ready for Conan. We just, he isn't quite ready yet, but we'll get rid of him soon. And I take the elevator up and I would come in and I would walk to my producer's office. Like I was going to the gas chamber. Yeah. Yeah. You get these great, like, And what I remember is if the number was a two or above, a 2.0, it was great. If it was a 1.9, it was bad. And what I didn't realize - By the way, a 2.0 now is like a hit sitcom on a network at eight o 'clock.

28:33This was at 12.35 at night. Right, an amazing number. But you know what I found out? You know what I found out was that was the demo. But what I remembered was the demo, if it was a 2.0, It was like, hallelujah. We made it at 1.9. And then I found out much later on that the sample size, because it's a Nielsen rating for that, is literally like there's six people. If one of them has a head cold and turns in, takes some NyQuil and turns in early, you had a bat, you disappointed America that week. And if one person didn't have a head cold and watched it and all six people watched it, you were a hero.

29:14And I always instinctively knew that, that I'm living and dying by this infinitesimal shit. That's called, I think, being young. You're just, you know, you're in your late twenties, thirties, you know, and then into the forties and, and then just perspective. It takes this erosion of I've been disappointed and scared so much that I have none of that juice left anymore. I can tell you, I remember the moment that that changed for me. And it was getting this podcast, this booking. It was coming in here and reading this and realizing that you don't consider us friends yet. No, we aren't. This is a future desire.

30:00Yeah, we'll see. John, I'll let you know. I was about to read this in the past. You bastard. I was, we knew this fucking thing was dead. Yeah. Like you could just see it and you could tell two weeks into it. And I'm still thinking like. This is the Jon Stewart show. This is, yes, it was on MTV. They loved it. Right. Because it was Beavis and Butthead. It was written for seven-year-olds. So, you know, it was a huge success. By eight-year-olds, for seven-year-olds. There, right. We go to Paramount and people were like, I have no idea what the fuck this is. Like two weeks into it, we do a bit. I thought it would be funny if we have Dave Attell, one of our writers at the time, dress up as Hitler and come out like he's a guest on the show.

30:41Like, hey, you know, everybody wonder what happened to Hitler. Oh, I think you brought a clip. And it's him at Nuremberg going, I just didn't fly some clips. So I don't think anything of it. I think, oh, and we're laughing our balls off because every idea you come up with is two o 'clock in the morning. And you think it's hilarious because you're a sleep divine in the way that Stalin would torture people, like it's two in the morning. And so they're like, what if, what if, tell it was Hitler? And I'm like, love it. Let's have him come out holding a bagel with a schmear going, I don't know what I was so afraid of.

31:09These are delicious. Boom, I'm going to kill. He comes out. Ladies and gentlemen, our next guest, it's not on the docket. It's not like you have it like, you know, we had somebody from Beverly Hills, 90210, not the lead, but like somebody who was just sitting at the peach pit, like not even, you know, we couldn't get guests. Wait, so not Joe E. Tata? Whatever it is. Sorry, come on. How did you remember that name? Is that really a person? Joe E. Tata was the actor who ran the, it was the guy that ran the Peach Band. I even know that. Can I say something? I can't think of my son's name right now, but I know Joe E.

31:46Tata. Joe E. Tata, we love you, man. If he's still alive, I'll eat my head. Bingo, I know that one. That is amazing. so we don't like it it's you know we've got nothing this isn't planned so first guest of the night we do the monologue do the whole thing and at that time it's all oj you know it's all okay ladies and gentlemen first guest very surprising uh nobody's heard from him for many many years we are just so uh honored that he chose to do this show first uh ladies and gentlemen adolf hitler yeah atel walks out in full nazi regalia yeah and he's doing this and He's got the mustache and he's holding a bagel.

32:22Sure. And what I didn't realize is the crowd would rightfully boo the shit out of him. It's Hitler. Yeah, yeah. The whole thing devolves. I see in the control room, there's an immediate break. The stage manager comes out and goes, they need to see you in the control room. I go to the control room. We're filming on 26th Street in New York. Paramount, our syndicator. They're watching from a lot in Los Angeles. The phone rings. It's just one guy. And he goes, that will never see the light of day. That will never air. You will never do that again. I actually turned it into an episode when I was writing for Sanders.

33:09We turned it into an episode, Adolf Hankler, where I had on the Wu-Tang Clan and Adolf Hankler. And Rip Torn had to come in and go, that, no, we're not doing anything. They called me immediately. I was two weeks into a show and we're already putting reruns on. So we knew this thing's going down. But I had your experience of like, this is my shot. Like, this is it. My name is on this. This is a manifestation of who I am as an artist, as a person. If it gets rejected, I am rejected. I wasn't sleeping. I was really miserable. I was drinking like a motherfucker, like all those different things. And one night in my insomnia, three o 'clock in the morning, four o 'clock in the morning, I just remember thinking, you're going to have had your own talk show with your name on it where you could do whatever you wanted other than dress up David Tell as Hitler.

34:09And people are going to say, did you enjoy it? And I would have to say, I hated it. And I think it nearly destroyed me. And what a dumb fucking response. Yeah. And that morning I got up and was like, I'm going to enjoy the shit out of this. Yeah. And I don't care anymore. Yeah. And it was revelatory. And it was such a, I felt it physically like that relief. Now the blow of the story is they canceled it pretty soon. I had the revelation and the story should have been like, and I learned to enjoy it. And the show soared. And the ratings, Conan. Oh, the ratings. You wouldn't believe. I was literally shitting money.

34:52It was amazing. It's like you're Scrooge. Yes. And you woke up. Boy, what day is it? And you're shouting out the window and people are like, fuck you. Where's the cranky old man? We liked him. What? Boy, what day is it? It's your eviction day. You're leaving. Get out. So, yeah. But it was the lesson of my career. And it tied into the sort of flip side of that was when I got Letterman a couple of years prior, which had been my sole goal for, you know, five or six years of working in the clothes. And I remember going back to my apartment and it was still like a hole in the floor and it was still one room and I wasn't any taller.

35:33And so that, you know, that sort of, that summit, that Everest that had occurred by going on Letterman I was still the same dude. And when I got canceled, I remember thinking, but I'm not any shorter. Yeah. And I don't live in a smaller and I still have the one thing that they can't take away, which is a desire to write jokes. Yeah. And and that's how I think I was able to, when The Daily Show came, work hard, but not make myself insane. Yeah, I think the saving grace for me was always I was very nervous, self-loathing, you know. That's so crazy. I view you so differently. That's so crazy. All the bullshit.

36:18But when we were doing the show and Max Weinberg and the Max Weinberg Seven are playing and we're doing this comedy that I loved and working with Smigel and working with all these great people. I loved that part. I always loved that part. I loved an audience. I loved, and I remembered thinking, uh, if this only lasts six weeks, I got to do it for six weeks. So I remember that it was the show. It was the doing of the show that saved me because the doing of it brought me joy. And also you can't do these shows unless you're in the moment present and taking it beat to beat. If you're doing comedy on stage, it got you out of your head.

37:01It got me out of my head because now it's just time to go. It was all the rest of it that I found, uh, to be agonizing. But, um, could anyone help you through that? Like I imagine somebody like Lorne who really has been through that experience of show business and ups and downs and had a longevity in that. Is that something you were able to share with him in any way? Or was that, Oh, he knew, I think the thing about Lorne and, you know, Lorne, no one would know me if it weren't for, I think I would have made a name as a. You had already made a name. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I think if Lorne hadn't chosen me, you know, for that job, I think I would have probably through various crimes have made a name for myself.

37:43Pacific Northwest roaming. And then eventually. Is that Conan O 'Brien fighting in the Ukraine? What is he doing? Is he on the front lines in Kharkiv? Look at that hair. But I think - So tall, what a target. They can't seem to hit him. The Wendy, a nine foot Wendy's girl is in Kharkiv and no one seems to hit him. Amazing. But I, you know, Lauren has interesting thing, which is he totally put me on the map and I owe my career to him and I love him to death, but he is not, and he would probably admit this too. he's a throw you in the deep end and watch you figure it out kind of guy. Right. And in a way, I respect it because it works, but he's not a hand holder.

38:31He's not someone who's going to, you know, I know they tore you up, you know, and I know that you were destroyed. And, you know, I know that article came out. I mean, he used to sometimes tell me about articles that I couldn't possibly have read. He'd say like, you know, I think what the Cincinnati Post-Dispatch Register said in their supermarket handout was unfair. I think someone will eventually want to mate with you. I mean, he would say, and I'd be like, what? I didn't know about, oh no, no, no. But then he'd do that, but then he'd say, but listen, he did have an institutional knowledge and he said, you're likable and you've got a good quality, vulnerable quality.

39:14And it'll, all I wanted to hear is your weird comedy is so cool. that's not what Lauren was saying. I think even he early on found it off putting in fucking crazy. But he did say like, you're polite. You're polite and your goodness comes through and that will see you through. And I'd be like, what? You're a well-mannered boy. Yeah, no, but I mean, seriously, I think - Have you thought about wearing culottes? And playing into the well-mannered boy archetype? He did tell me a couple of, I think he did an interview a couple of years into the late night show and it's going really well. And he said, I thought like, well, we're, We're doing such cutting edge comedy.

39:50I bet that's why Lauren, you know, and he said, no, no, no. I chose Conan because, you know, he has good manners. And I thought, fuck. But I could later on, I could see one of the points or not. It's not a point, but a mission that I've had on this podcast that it was not something I set out to do. But the more and more I talk to people like yourself and I'm lucky enough to get to share these experiences. is I like to just be honest with people about how things feel. Sure. And I do think envy is such a big part of our culture. And we are two of the luckiest people on the face of the planet. I feel that every day.

40:27And I know I wake up every day and go, I've just had an absurd amount of luck and I give it up to luck. And I know that I've worked hard and have some ability, but I look is, I give it up in 90 % luck. But I also want people who are listening, especially young people to know that often be polite when you have people like yeah it's the only way to get a talk show yeah you can be so fucking unfunny um and have such an off-putting coif on your head but no i i do try to remind people that you can be doing worthwhile work even when you feel terrible and that everybody i mean we've subsequently been able to meet everybody we wanted to meet who influenced and talked to them at length.

41:16And all of them have the same story. I think Eric Idle was here like yesterday or two days ago. Yeah, the seat is still very British. I can feel it. I feel a certain bloated pastiness as I sit here. Is it imperial? It feels that way. Has there been a twit sitting in my chair? Has there been a colonizing twit in this show? So, no, but he, name anyone who you idolize, President and Company excluded. They will take you through a tale of darkness, woe, and insecurity. And I just like to tell people, yeah, that's what it is. I'm sorry. If you're in comedy, you're always, I think, potentially 20 minutes away from bombing.

42:07It's just the way it is. And I always think about this in when someone says, I'm doing a benefit. You can come out. And I always think, well, okay, but I got to really think about it. And they're like, no, you don't. It's just, it's a benefit. People have already paid the money and they just want to know the name and that you're going to be there. And I think, no, no, no, it has to be good because when it doesn't, I don't care if when I'm 90, if you go out there and it doesn't feel right and it doesn't go well, it feels worse than anything I've ever felt in my life. Where you feel like you've gone out there and they're there to cure, like, we're here to prevent cancer and you're eating it.

42:43And like, they're just like, you know, it wasn't bad enough that cancer is ravaging our community. But now, but now you're set is quite frankly. Yeah. Trite. Trite. And giving us cancer. We're finding, we're finding what you're doing. Like bombing at a benefit. Like there's almost an instinct at the end of it was like, folks, I don't have to be here. You know? Yeah. we're trying to raise some money here you could be a little less judgmental i'm not bringing out my best stuff hey you don't want a children's hospital you don't have a children's hospital it is what it is yeah that grind on it is an is a newer phenomenon that i think that part again the the the idea of grinding on it that sort of sense of striving and kind of neuroses, I think was a newer kind of, it was a strange new manifestation in show business that didn't like Johnny was the guy who used to do these.

43:44And he'd be like, I show up at four 30 for rehearsal. And at four 45, I'm scheduled for my first blow job. I go back. I have my first blow job. Uh, then I play cards with Ed. We have a couple of drinks, We tape at six and then I go home to the blowjob factory that I live in. Like there was no, until Dave came along. A blowjob factory. Do they manufacture people there that give blowjobs? That's a great question. Or do they, do you get the blowjobs at the blowjob factory? Conan, it's, it's the most common question that I get about the blowjob factory. Now, first of all, I will say this. Do I go there to obtain someone who will give the blowjobs?

44:27Or get to blowjob on an assembly line. I don't disagree that it's somewhat confusing. I will also say this. Globalization devastated our blowjob factories. Devastated them. And now it's all outsourced. All outsourced. They're killing us. In China, they're eating our lunch. They're eating our blowjob lunch. Sona, are you going to be okay? Sona, you and I have discussed at length how this country is bleeding blowjob factories. You know, when you were suddenly shocked when Biden said blowjack blowjob back better. I said the alliteration still needs to step out of the race or he could have said build back blowjob.

45:09Either way, it works. Any word can be replaced by blowjob. Build blowjob better. I don't know. Whatever it is, it is. There's a sticker being made right now. I hope a sticker. It better be. It probably already exists. But he really, Dave changed the nature of almost the personalities of the people that took those jobs because he worked. It's interesting because Johnny Carson, we only knew him. He goes on the air around the time we're born. Right. And then I don't come into consciousness, full conscious until my 30s. But I come into, when I'm seeing Johnny, he's literally, and watching my dad laugh at Johnny.

45:52it's the earliest johnny's at that point 11 12 13 years in and it's set so he may have had that period in the early 60s you know i mean he may have had his period of we just didn't see it he was so established he was the only game in town was so different if you watch those shows like what we had to try and do every night is put on a circus like it was you like this entertainment how about this entertainment how about i'll do this his was an hour and a half told a few lovely jokes it was the very idea that these celebrities that you had never experienced in a kind of less formal setting it's richard burton sitting there talking telling a story right uh and it's charming in and of its own right and by the time we got along there's 10 of them yep and everybody's gotta turn that like oh you want to hear the record at 33 how about at 78 and everybody's running as fast as they fucking can i've been talking about this for a while which is uh uh comedy and entertainment in general keeps getting more and more and more and more compressed to the point where things get faster and faster and faster so you can watch just bear with me here but you start with like steve allen the 50s and then you get to jack parr and then you get to johnny carson what you're seeing is things are speeding up going faster and faster and faster then you get to dave and that's feeling fast but we look at those now you look at a david letterman from 1983.

47:14And sometimes, you know, it was at the time, as we were seeing it, revelatory and spectacular, and it still is, but now it looks, huh, this is really going kind of slowly. Then the pace picks up some more, then more, then more, then more. And to the point where I think it's, I'd notice that every time I watch something on HBO or Netflix or anything, they always, they never tell a story in a line. The story starts with the murder, then cuts back to the beginning of the story when they're showing up, but then cuts back to the police showing up because they don't trust you to sit still. And they shouldn't.

47:55No, no, no. And trust me, they know what they're doing. It all started with Pulp Fiction. I remember when you watched Pulp Fiction, you were like, this is, the storytelling is not even linear. I don't know what's happening here. This isn't fair. Right. And now you can't watch like a cartoon on Nickelodeon that isn't like flashback. Yeah, yeah. No, no, we did. I have I'm shocked. I'm when I watch most anything and I say it's gone beyond comedy. But of course, it's in comedy everywhere is it's just, you know, it's all in that molecular level. Think about on the internet, you know, you had, and this was years ago and it's not around now, but it sort of informed some of it, which was Vine.

48:35And Vine was basically six seconds. Give me your best six seconds. And it trained people in sort of that, the atomic nature. It's like the mate, you're seeing the matrix of entertainment or comedy where it it's at its most fundamental building block. And then there were people and you watch it. And I'm always amazed now, like you'll go on an app of TikTok or Instagram, the level of creativity within a compressed timeframe or of, you know, an event that occurs. And then the next two hours are this explosion of neural energy and content creation that takes that. My favorite recent one was, you know, Donald Trump at the debate, you know, they're eating dogs.

49:20yeah they're eating people's pets well five minutes after that i'm on the thing and it's that audio with inner i suppose with pets looking scared yeah like the the and i was just like this is the greatest yeah it's now at a molecular level it's functioning in in quantum comedy world it's also one of the things you know the internet giveth and taketh away there's the there's the pluses there's the minuses uh but one of the things i think has been great is it's been And it's the democratization of comedy in a way because you, me, Colbert, John Oliver, get everybody together and they're all thinking of the best idea they can possibly think of with their big teams.

50:06But the funniest person, the one who comes up with the best thing is probably in a basement in Iowa and they shoot the thing. And it's already out there. And by the way, it's out there seven seconds after the event happened. We are the insurance companies of comedy now. We are the, you know, the guys in leisure suits who are like, we're in some ways, the infrastructure of show business, like there is no more wasteful business than show business. I mean, I think we can all agree with that, which is why I think we need to save the planet. And I vow - I would say the blowjob factory is, you could argue, is the most wasteful business of all.

50:44Because what is, we don't even know what it does. Wait, you don't know what it does? We don't know. You've gotta wait till the end. Yeah, what's that outsource? You've been leaving too quickly. That's the problem. No, you gotta stay with it. Oh, I always leave very quickly. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, I always. It takes minutes, boy. I have, what? Minutes. Well, not for me. I'm efficient. I have a ruthless efficiency when I orgasm. Oh, come on. I'm in and out. Come on, man. What do you mean, come on, man? I don't know. You've heard the stories. You've been around.

51:31You know, that infrastructure and all those things, and what they're showing is, it's the difference between sort of entertainment is, there is this legacy business. And you're seeing it change now as Silicon Valley comes in. The ethos of legacy, you know, entertainment is, we've created this incredibly eccentric business where like, and you need an agent and a manager and a lawyer, and they're going to take about 60 % of what you pay, but without them, there's nothing you can do. And you join the studio and the studio will give you a deal and you'll sit in your room. It's the most inefficient way.

52:05Silicon Valley walked in, like in the way that Elon Musk walked into Twitter and went like, how many people work here? 10 ,000, make it two. So now that Apple and Amazon, they go in and they go, writer's room, wait, you've got 14 writers and they're with you from start to finish on the production. Well, it's important for the writers to be invested. And then also we're showing them how they're on the page because it's different about the page to the screen. They've got to understand how that works and understand how we interact with the props. And they're like, they can have three weeks and it's got to be on zoom yeah and you can have four of them right they're changing us from an analog business to a digital business and i think that's the schism the earthquake that's been going through it i can't function like that like my writer it's like what you know also it's not it's it's a it's across the business many comedy writers uh my vintage or younger have trouble getting work now right these companies don't believe it's changing radically it's changing They don't believe in institutional knowledge that allows people to grow and get better and create more.

53:13What they believe now is the auteur system, which has always sort of existed within film and TV. And then this idea of ruthlessly efficient content factories where what matters is the real estate and not the individual creative. I think the problem, if I had to guess, would be that you can't explain what happens in a writer's room to anybody who hasn't been in one. Imagine a coffee clock with a lot of Holocaust jokes. That's a writer's room. I remember when I was on The Simpsons and it was fairly early days on The Simpsons. There was a lot of excitement and a German film company came. This documentary film crew came from Germany and the director wanted to capture The Simpsons writing room in action.

54:08So I'm sitting there with Schwarzwelder and Jeff Martin and Myers. The legends. All these amazing people. I'm sitting in this room and they set up these cameras and the guy was there and he had like the lens around his neck and he's watching us. And what he saw was a bunch of guys saying, all right, well, we need them into the scene. And it should be, and then it would be, you know, Al Jean would be like, we really need, should probably be Marge that takes us out. And be like, okay. And then there'd be this, and John Vitti would go, what if? No. And long silences and the guy, and you could hear the equipment.

54:46and then at one point the guy just went can something happen and i'm like this is this is writing and there's a famous story of i think it's harry warner or something walked past the writers uh the area on the lot and he didn't hear typewriters going and he was like i better hear typewriters because those guys are getting paid well a lot of writing is sitting and thinking and agonizing and eating a donut and then there's this process people don't realize too that the idea like you're diagramming stories like in some ways it looks like a math problem like you're creating these kinds of tranches of a b and c storylines and right drawing lines and creating arcs and it really is a little bit of like a beautiful mind craziness like you look at it and go none of this seems to but everybody's you're putting the jenga pieces together yeah and then in the edit later the mistakes that you made with your original instinct can get corrected or shaved You know what was the biggest change for me in content creation was the invention of the Avid.

55:49When we stopped editing on those in the online rooms where like if you fucked up, you had to go back to the beginning and you could start to manipulate things digitally in space. It was it was revelatory. Right. Because it was how more your mind works. The technology of it had not caught up with the way that you spatially kind of see structure or plot or character of those things. When you had a tool that would allow you to work more in sync with how you think. Right. That was because in the early days at MTV, I can remember we would do these bits, you know, these parodies and like get the little razor and cut the thing and put it through and tape it up and run it through again.

56:33Like it was. You feel like Charlie Chaplin on the set of The Gold Rush. Right. Yeah. It was. And we were we saw that transition. I've always liked working with young people, A, because I'm a creep. You don't have to pay them. They're still in school. They'll work for credit. Oh, this will help me. But no, there's like, I'm very delighted by when I see young comedic talent that really makes me laugh. Yeah. I feel better. There's this, I guess there's this cliche that people in our stage are supposed to be looking at, you know, young comedians and going, I don't think that's funny. Why am I day?

57:12And I've never felt that way. Mostly I feel like shit. But like I, the other night at the, you know, Emmys, one of the Emmys parties, I ran into the writers that do hacks and I just stopped and said, you're doing such superb work. And you started out with a great show. And then the other seasons are, each one's better than the previous one. I don't know how you're doing it, but I left feeling energized and better about things because I'm always happy when young people are killing it because I think, oh, I think civilization is going to be okay. And I'm putting that all on the writers at Hatch.

57:48But it reminds me of sort of the way that they look at athletics. Like when people go, you can't compare the football players of today to the legends. And you're like, right, the football players of today, like mediocre ones, would blow their fucking doors off. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Dick Butkus was great. These guys are running a 3-2-40. Like he wouldn't have a, he wouldn't even know that they had gone past him. And I look at that sometimes with the content now that's being created by those young comics and all that. And I'm just like, they've leveled us up. Yeah. Like they really have like, you know, people like to talk about, oh, back in the old days, we really, you know, that that comedy was great.

58:24And you're like, well, it was kind of flat footed and racist. But other than that, you're right. Right. Right. No, I'm I'm always impressed by and especially like in the stand up world, like the level that young comics come into it. Like, it's one of those things like I see as my kids went through the college process, I was like, oh, I wouldn't be able to get into college today. Oh, I totally feel the same way. It makes me feel that way about the comedy clubs. Like, oh, I would have to end up really being a bouncer. I am. Oh, you'd be a great bouncer. You better leave. What are you going to do about it?

58:58Nobody expects for you to hit them. Nobody expects for you to hit them low. Nobody expects that. You go right at the knee. I think, you know what? I would love a comedy club where you and I are the bouncers. They're different sizes and both equally ineffectual. I'll hit you high and you won't feel it. And I'll hit you low and you won't feel it. Who are the bouncers? It's Ren and Stimpy. They'll take care of it. No problem. But you know, it's funny. I've had this experience now where, as I said, this all started out with me talking about those early years where I often think, I honestly don't know why I did any of the things I did.

59:41I think it was all compulsion. Like I don't come from a world. I came, my parents had nothing to do with show business. I don't come from a show business world. I went into an environment that was supposed to be the opposite of all that. And I, like a salmon swimming upstream, I don't, I don't understand why I did made most of the decisions I made. There was some sort of compulsive thing that was pushing me into, I think there's this thing I'm supposed to do and I've got to get there. I've got to get there. Right. And so you go through that period and then you get, here we are all these years later and my overwhelming feeling, and I know gratitude is a word that's thrown around a lot and it's become cliched.

1:00:22I'm incredibly grateful, but the other feeling I have is I'm, and I've had this feeling too occasionally, you must have this, where I'll run into someone that graduated from college the same year I did and I didn't know them, but they'll say oh you know conan i i graduated in in 85 like and and i'm filled with this one thought which is hey we're alive i mean that's my overwhelming feeling is i'm sorry i didn't get to know you on campus i can't believe we both went for four years and didn't know each other but that happens all the time and at these schools but the other one is just like we're still here there's a lot of people who aren't and i'm just happy about that and i contrast that guy who i am now with the guy in 1993 who feels like someone's got a gun in his mouth you know what i mean like but the weird thing is it it may be just as you said which is if you hadn't had felt that way yeah you wouldn't have pushed yourself to get to that other side of gratitude that it wouldn't have been yeah and i think compulsion is a really uh apt description of i think for me i don't know if it was compulsion as much as there was a little bit of like Richard Dreyfuss building the potato tower.

1:01:35That's what I'm talking about. And you're not sure. In E.T., yeah. Right. It wasn't E.T., it was Close Encounters. Oh, I'm sorry, Close Encounters. Yeah, yeah. He also does it in E.T. Oh, he does it everywhere. Every movie. In Jaws. If you remember in Jaws, he builds the tower of mashed potatoes. Also, Mary Poppins. We're going to need a bigger plate. That's what they say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It happens in a lot of movies, but anyway. Always Dreyfus, always Potatoes, always Devil's Tower. Constantly covering for my blunders. No one knows why. But I remember. I know exactly what you're talking about.

1:02:10Go ahead. Go ahead. This idea that I was vibrating on a frequency that didn't match my life. It didn't match. And the first place that it began to match it is I worked at this punk club in Trenton called City Gardens. And it's sort of this legendary punk club. There's a great movie written about it called Riot on the Dance Floor. It's about the, there was a little guy who was a postmaster during the day named Randy Now who booked all these bands like Bad Brains and Black Flag and all these tremendous bands. And I was out of college. I didn't know what the fuck to do with myself. And I found this punk club with all the music that I loved and all these incredible artists that would never come to Trenton, New Jersey.

1:02:48Like they'd go to Philly, they go to New York and on their way, they would end up in this shithole neighborhood in Trenton and working there and feeling that creative energy. I was like, these people are vibrating on that frequency. I don't, I can't follow that road because I don't feel that, but I'm going to find it. Yeah. And your version of it, my version of it. And that was moving to New York. So working at city gardens is what propelled me to just sell my shit and move to New York in pursuit of I didn't even really know what. Yeah. But it felt like it had to be something creative and collaborative and something.

1:03:28It's so funny that the, it's a great analogy to the making the mashed potato mountain because in E.T., but also, but also in Mr. Holland's opus. Mr. Holland's opus. Thank you. Mr. Holland's opus and Dead Poets. And also in Dead Poets Society. But anyway. When each of his students came in and tasted the mountain. Each one. Oh, Mr. Holland, how I'll miss your potatoes. But if I look at me, and again, this is, I'm just some sort of garbled, I know I have some wisdom to pass on. I just don't know that I have the eloquence to pass it on, but I - You're doing it. I didn't know, and you didn't know, we didn't know exactly what it is we were supposed to be doing, but there was something that was making, pushing us in these different directions.

1:04:23And I knew when I was around that energy for the first time in college in The Lampoon, like, what is this? I don't know what this is, but, and I thought maybe it's second, I got to go to Second City, but I wrote them a letter and they wrote me back. Dearest improvisational actor, yes, I've got an emotion for you. It's called Wanderlust. Seriously, I wrote them a letter because I thought I was writing to a bank. I think I'd tell that to Tina Fey and they'd just laugh at me like, no, no, no, you go to Second City and you, oh, I wrote them a letter. Didn't seem to work out. Would you have any interest in a young Irish boy?

1:05:02Oh, you'll see. There's big things coming from me. But so much of what I did, I didn't understand at the time, but I knew I had to do it. And that's where I'm in doing improv and meeting all these people who are 10 years away from being super famous and we're just putting money in a jar and I don't know why I'm doing this and I can't explain it to anybody, but it feels, it's like a fever. It's just a fever that you have. Yes. And then later on you're doing your thing. And you can't force it and not everybody does feel that in different ways. It was very clear that, you know, my friends had gone a very different route.

1:05:39And in some ways I felt like, especially in the early years, they were all like somewhat disappointed in me in that I couldn't get my shit together. I definitely drank too much, did too much, because I was just lost. I just didn't know what to do. And also, living that lifestyle at punk clubs, it's not like Stivs, Bader's, and the Lords of the New Church roll through and you're like, have you tried this new green juice? It's phenomenal. How's your cholesterol? Those guys are vomiting on stage. It just wasn't the healthy lifestyle. But the way I've tried to articulate, I think that feeling, and maybe you tell me if you think this is sort of apropos, but is that idea to trust your discomfort.

1:06:18Yeah. To trust your discomfort that I'm in this situation right now and I am uncomfortable and I've just got to find a way to articulate for myself why it's making me uncomfortable and why I need to make a change. And hopefully the act of making change, right, is the antidote to that discomfort and anxiety. Now, do you know that that change will be successful? You have no fucking idea. But the act of doing it teaches you in some respect that you are not a prisoner of your circumstance, mind, situation, any of those things are your fate has not been written, boy. Well, I would say if in some alternate universe, the Jon Stewart show that you started on MTV that went to Paramount and it gets canceled, if that had turned out to be the end and whatever you were doing now, you would not regret a second of it.

1:07:10That's why it takes me back sort of to earlier in the conversation when you said, you know, what was that moment for you? And it really was the pivot point, the cleaving of the life that I was going to lead to the life that I ultimately was lucky enough to lead. Yep. Yep. Was one night and I worked there was so I worked at this place called City Gardens and I worked at this other bar called the bottom half. It was underneath the liquor store on Route 1. uh and I remember saying to them you know what fuck this place fuck this life I'm moving to New York and they were like have fun at the gay pride parade you know like it's like that was the kind of bar that it was yeah and that moment to me was the moment yeah like when they say you know what's what's the best you know when did you know you did made it and I was like I knew I'd made it when I hooked that U-Haul up to the rental truck and just drove yeah and just went up to the city yeah And that was it.

1:08:04I do always try to tell younger people, you have less to lose than you think. No question. You know, just if you think it, try it. Just try it. And you don't know, but you'll learn something from it. And I do end with, because I've kept you longer than most guests, just because I know you're parked in a one. Oh, actually, I have another guest coming. I'm using this room. Oh, go ahead, go ahead. By the way, thank God it's in this building. When we first drove up here, I thought we were taping out of the back of the medical spa. No, no, no. So I almost pulled into that parking lot and was like, wow.

1:08:38We're going to get out of the way. We're going to get out of the way so you can talk to Hal Linden. Who's here? What? Yes, he's here. Looks like we made it. Hey kids, look up Hal Linden. You'll enjoy it. But I'm glad you're alive. Thank you. And I'm glad I'm alive. Yes. And congrats again on all your success. and thanks for doing this. This was really fun. My pleasure. I'd wanted to do it for a while. I'm a huge fan of it. I love listening. You know, there's very little now that you can listen to that elevates your endorphins and your dopamine levels in a way that your podcast does with all the different guests and so much out there that's toxic to the system.

1:09:20And so this is a really nice salve for all of that. I've often thought of myself as a salve or a balm, which is actually the word. Always a balm. Always a salve. Of palm. Yes. John, go with God. Whichever God you want. I didn't have any of them. What now? I don't know what to do. I'm lost. I'm talking about Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The carpenter? Yes. Oh, no. Seated at the right hand of the Father, he will come again in glory to touch the living and the dead. And his kingdom will have no end. Who's it? Is it Rickles? Who is it? It's Rickles. It's Rickles. And then Jesus. Oh, my God. Done. All right.

1:10:02Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam Avsessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leow. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.

1:10:22Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns Additional production support by Mars Melnick Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message It too could be featured on a future episode You can also get three free months of Sirius XM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com slash Conan. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.