Bill Murray

And at that point, I was already the fifth child. So somehow, some part of me realized, okay, this is, something's got to, I got to really get going here. So I learned to read when I was four. I remember fighting over the comics with my brothers going, you can't even read. And then I proceeded to read all the comics to him. He was like, oh. So did he give you the comics? Then I got the comics.

Yeah. And then, so then I became, I had to sort of like start operating, you know. I had a great birthday when I was five. I got like a Davy Crockett bicycle with a rifle sheath and a rifle that came with it that loaded on the frame of the bike. It had saddlebags. I got a coonskin cap. I got a Cubs jacket and a Cubs hat, a baseball and a bat. And I never had another birthday until I was 13.

That was the end of that. So that was the moment where I had to do that. Then when I was 17, when my father died, that was another thing where, you know, that was like there went the sort of family income.

uh and so whatever life we were with nine kids by that point you know was going to be even more uh crimped you know because there just wasn't going to be you know kind of really money for college and things like that and even though i was smart enough i never studied ever you know couldn't make myself so i had to sort of figure out how to get by in life you know so and and

That's a really good question because, you know, that sort of... legend thing is now preceding me you know it's now all around it's all around and i don't know if any of these things are legendary you know truly legendary but i'm probably a little bit tentative about the same uh nature of engagement kind of a little bit but i don't feel like uh I'm afraid to go outdoors.

I was out in Tokyo the other night, and I thought to myself, you know, if this were America, I'd be really conscious about some idiot making this a YouTube thing. But I just thought, And this is really fun. I'm having fun. So it was good for me to go back to Tokyo. I hadn't been back there since I'd made the movie in Tokyo. Loss of translation.

One of the reasons I went back from the baseball game was an excuse to get back. And I reconnected with some friends that I'd made back there. And I was very happy to do that.

What kind of memories?

Well, I went back there and crashed into these couple of guys that I knew back then. that were sort of the kings, the wizards of Tokyo back then, and still are. They still are. And still having an amazing amount of fun. And the second night, I just went to the one fellow's place, who's kind of like a known wizard. What do you mean, wizard?

Well, I think a wizard is someone that has figured out how to transform, like, a moment into something bigger. Yeah.

larger so just to spend four hours in this home and see all the things he had and the music that he was playing all of it was like what is that what the hell is that and then he said oh here's something that i sent you that was returned to me this extraordinary book which came what was the book um It's a book of photographs.

And he's a famous Japanese photographer who's now 80-some-odd years old and still takes thousands of photographs. And the book, it's more than an encyclopedia. It's just this incredible document. And the fact that it got returned to him, it may have come back to him twice. It includes, like, a big piece of tape on it that says, government sucks. What? So I had to carry this thing with me.

He was going to ship it to me again. I said, no, no, I'll carry it. Well, anyway, I realize I'm going through customs twice, you know, theirs and ours, with this big sign on the box that says, government sucks. And I thought, well, there's a profile. You know, I might get questioned here.

How are you?

Okay. You know this is going to last 60 to 90 minutes? I did, yeah. Hi, Annabelle. I'm Bill. Are we on TV, or is it just talking? Just talking. Oh, good.

That's funny. Well, that sounds like a person I know, yeah.

I always appreciated that. So did you ever get it done? Have a child? Well, you did that, obviously.

All right, you guys want anything? They ask you if you want a cocktail.

Well, Naomi called me up and said, you know, these folks would love to have you be in this thing, you know. And I said, okay, you know, get me a hard copy of the script. And so I got a copy of the book. So I read it, and the fact that Naomi was attached got me to look at it in the first place very quickly and so forth. We made a movie called— St. Vincent. St. Vincent. And had a good experience.

And, you know, we liked each other professionally, and then we became friends. So, I don't know what your question was. Why did you do the movie? Why did I do the movie? So, I did the movie because I thought it was good, and I kind of like the idea of being, you know, you're being asked to help, sort of. Someone asks you to do something.

You're kind of a little bit more, well, you know, someone I like, and... And... As an actor, I love it because you're kind of reminded of what the rule was. This great director at Second City, Del Close said, you're worried about how you're coming off in a movie or a scene or something like that. You just think about making the other person look good.

Yes, it is.

And whenever I forget in a movie, and sometimes I'll be working with some intimidating thug actor or actress, and I go like, oh, God, I got to deal with this somehow. And then I just go, okay, I'm just going to make this one look good. Everything changes when you do that.

I don't go too many days or weeks without thinking of what happened, not being mortal. Can you say what happened? Yeah, I can say what happened. I think I'm allowed to.

We were just on the Doggist. Oh, I don't know about that. I didn't either until this week. I don't know if it's a podcast, a TV show, or a scam, but there's a guy that walks around with a TV cameras and takes pictures of dogs on the street and films it and says, can I take a picture of your dog? And starts talking to the dog owner and gets all this information and all this information

Well, you know, I came from the second city, you know, and we didn't consider ourselves comedians, although our shows were funny. We considered ourselves actors. So that's, we always took it seriously that that's what it is. And if you're a good comedian, comedian, you're a good actor because it's the same process. You have to be able to read a straight line to get a joke, to get a laugh.

If you can't read a straight line, You know, you're not going to go very far, you know. If you're just like pounding a, you know, I don't want to compare it to Gallagher. If you're just pounding smashing watermelons, that's not for everyone. But for one thing, there's not as many funny movies written as there once were. You know, comedy used to be king. Comedy used to be king.

Comedies came out in the summer. And if a movie was funny, it would run the whole summer. You know, that was how it was. Have you seen such and such? It's funny. And then you'd go and it would run the whole summer. Then it became like a Marvel summer. It became like, have you seen Mr. Fantastico or whatever the hell? No. Whatever. Yes.

So, you know, the movie industry came and got away from making those funny movies. And it's just sort of inevitable if you stay alive and you keep working that you have to do something different. But making these, you know, I don't want to sound obvious, but, you know, these movies that have melancholy in them, there's definitely funny things in them too, you know.

And you have to be able to, like there's a scene in Lost in Translation where there's this melancholy guy. He's in this bar on the top of the tallest building. hotel in Tokyo, and he's drinking to get drunk. And he meets this young girl in there, and he's drinking to get drunk, and he's dressed in a tuxedo, and he's just come from doing this horrendous commercial shoot.

But, you know, he plays this whole scene, and then he turns his back, and you realize his jacket is all pinned together in the back, so it fits perfectly in the front for the TV camera. But he's so oblivious and so... So fleeing from the horrible reality of his life, he doesn't even bother to take the damn pins out of the back. He's forgotten they're even there.

So that's kind of the unknowing of what's funny about your own life is amusing when you do see it. When you do see what a fool you make of yourself or how blind you are, that stuff's funny. And I appreciate it in my own life. It's kind of great to show it, and it's great to show – the obliviousness of it on the screen.

about people on the street and their dog and how they live with their dog and what kind of dog it is. That seems nice. It was pretty cool, actually.

I think I have... Those definitions are accurate. The one I would kind of lean toward myself is that you have to suffer to play it. Like, it's not... To play a complete jerk or what did you call it? Ding dong. Selfish ding dong. That's why I didn't hear that. I never heard those words together. It's pretty sweet. I liked it. So to play a selfish ding dong,

and this is going to go sideways for a second. One of my, in this movie, the friend, I'm someone that's had three wives, and one of my wives is such a horrible creature that I finally ran into her not at work just a few weeks ago, and I said, I'm sorry, I got to say, I'm so glad you're like a human being.

I thought you couldn't possibly be that good as a horrible creature without being a horrible creature. So that really was great acting. But for me, the penance is like having to live and be the part of that person that... You really have to make people uncomfortable. You really have to make people uncomfortable. And even though it's only acting and even though it's only for a minute, it's real.

You really make people feel it. And to do that, you can't cheat. You can't be...

sort of nice you can't be like a method idiot and be like mean all the time you know i work with those fools but you have to be really consistently a selfish ding-dong in the scene and you have to be unrelenting and when you really bear down on someone if you're doing it well enough it really you really hurt someone it really hurts you re they really feel the hurt because you're doing it

to enable them to express the hurt for the camera, you know? So it's rough. It's rough stuff. And you've got to take a deep breath and exhale afterwards and, you know, like, get over here, you know? That was just, you know, that wasn't us. That was that, you know? And it's, you know... If you don't do it that hard, you know, you're kind of cheating. Yeah. Is it cathartic for you?

Like, do you somehow grow from that experience? Yeah, you can feel that too. When you performed as a horrible creep, you know that, hey, I have been that horrible creep. I have been that horrible creep and not seen it and not been aware of it. And if you're really seeing it, if you're doing it in the scene, you're doing it well, you're seeing it.

I mean, I don't go too many days or weeks without thinking of what happened, not being mortal. Yeah. Can you say what happened? Yeah, I can say what happened. I think I'm allowed to. There was some sort of, you know, I tried to make peace. I thought I was trying to make peace. I ended up being like, to my mind, barbecued.

But someone that I worked with, you know, that I had lunch with, you know, on various days of the week and so forth, we were all, it was COVID, we were all wearing masks, and we were all just stranded in this one room listening to this crazy scene. And I don't know what prompted me to do it. It's something that I had done to someone else before. And I thought it was funny.

It's okay. I can do it. I mean, we're just talking. It's not like I got to work. I don't have to get particularly dressed up. I'm sorry. What's your name?

And every time it happened, it was funny. I was wearing a mask and I gave her a kiss and she was wearing a mask. You know, it was like, it wasn't like I touched her, but it was just, I gave her a kiss through a mask, through another mask to another person. And it wasn't, she wasn't a stranger.

Well, it still bothers me because that movie was stopped by the, whatever they call the human rights or H&R of the Disney Corporation, which is probably a little bit more strident than some other countries. And I, you know, it turned out there was like pre-existing conditions and all this kind of stuff. I'm like, what? Why was anyone supposed to know anything like that? It was like...

And there was to be no conversation. There was no conversation. There was nothing. There was no peacemaking. Nothing. Nothing. And just this, it went to this lunatic arbitration, which I recommend to anyone out there. Anyone ever suggest you go to arbitration? Don't do it. Never, ever do it. Because you think it's like justice, and it isn't.

Annabelle. I'm sorry. I'm bad on names. That's all right. Okay. You don't want, you don't want like cookies or anything like that? Do you want a drink?

You know, I think so. I mean, I, you know, you can teach an old dog new tricks, but I just thought it was a disappointment. It was a great disappointment because I thought I knew someone and I did not. And I thought it was, I certainly thought it was light. I thought it was funny. And to me, it's still funny, the idea that you could give someone a kiss with a mask on. It's still stupid.

It's all it was. And we're talking about a movie, Being Mortal, which is a wonderful book. By Atul Gawande about death and dying. And the subject matter is gruesome. It's about a man whose father is dying before his very eyes. And at that time, we were shooting at the Hollywood retirement home in the

No, no, no. Would you like a drink? You know, I kind of, but I don't want to bother anyone. Hey, John, what kind of drink do you like to have at this time of day? Why not? It's just we three, four. But we can make Charlie drink too.

And you're there with people of your own career that are no longer able to... They're not working anymore. Many of them are invalid. And you're there with people and you're surrounded by them and you say... And somehow you're still healthy enough to work and they're extras. They're just extras or just witnesses. And it was...

I felt like I had even more of an obligation than usual, like, okay, to make this fun. I spent a lot of the day, and when you're dealing with this painful material all day long, part of what I felt my job has always been is to keep the mood light. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

That's my second. If he can make a lion's tail, is it a real bartender kind of guy? We don't know. I'll take an old-fashioned after if he can't make a lion's tail, just because that's my new. Yeah. It's a bourbon drink also, so we're going to be in the same ballpark. All right, perfect.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

It has simple syrup. Yeah. Least important. It has lime. It has Jamaican dram and it has bourbon. And it's cold. I make it cold.

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Yeah. Well, he is a striking dog. He's 150 pounds. He's a Great Dane. His name is Bing. Bing! Bing!

and uh he lives in uh iowa about 40 40 miles from des moines and after a nationwide search he was chosen as the dog of the moment uh he was not wearing a tight sweater or anything he was just the most capable dog he was an extremely well trained dog and uh and beautiful to look at of course and he's magnificent

Okay, that's a good, hard question. And I got to drink a little coffee before I try to answer that. Let's see. Well, the elephant and the dog,

are unusual in that they're consistent they are they have their nature and that is it they're in their nature all the time so the elephant i had an extraordinary time with and i always say it's the only coaster i ever cried over when i left you know i gave her a bath with a hose and i cried like a baby because she was the most beautiful coaster i ever had the smartest coaster i ever had

And the only one I miss, you know. She was extraordinary. And incredibly intelligent. Unbelievably amazing. You could sense the intelligence. Absolutely. Absolutely. Where you kind of go like, uh-oh, the one on four legs is ahead of me. So that's a challenge to show up. You know, every time I'd look at that animal, I would be reminded like, well... Ty's being Ty.

Why don't you try and be Bill and see if you can get it going? Let's go. So it was like that with her and with the dog, with Bing, the same thing. If something happened to you, if something actually occurred to you, and it happens in the movie where things happen, scenes take place, and you see the dog react to it. When I first saw the first cut of it, I said, are you kidding? Is this dog, like,

Stanislavski, how the hell is this dog doing this? It was crazy. The dog actually... Come on in. It's an emergency. So... Oh, boy. It was kind of... It was fun for me to be meeting the dog because I was really meeting the dog. So I was being... authentic anyway. I wasn't being like trying to be a certain way to get the dog to behave a certain way. I was actually meeting the dog. Well, cheers.

Cheers. We just have some drinks here.

No. I know that sounds like, how could you like it in an animal and not a human? My greatest fear or one thing I try to, not exactly forbid, but try to avoid is in a movie you do a bunch of takes. You try it a few times and you do it differently because either you didn't like it or there was a mistake made, an error, the cameraman wants to change the light, something different.

You do it, sometimes you do it just to get into the feel of it. It takes you a few to get going. And I feel like the way I sort of was taught or educated as an actor was there's a sense of play, you know, and you can't possibly recreate that moment that just happened a minute ago. Why try? So I'm puzzled by people that wish to recreate that. performance that just happened a minute ago.

I want something brand new. This is the one that counts because this is the one we're in. This is where we are. I mean, I want you to show up is what I want you to do. That's the consistency I want. I want you to really be, you know, in your own skin and me in my skin. And so we're both like doing our best. And you're always trying to, you know, my brother Brian described it well as like,

You know, actors don't really compete. They just say, you know, that has an ugly feel to it, competing. But how about if I go here? Can you match that and go here? And can you go here? And you keep elevating the scene and you keep adding more dynamics to it, you know, more color, more color.

energy you know just different kinds of energy you just keep trying to play a game like and you get to a level where it's really great you know and then you're seeing like a great exchange between a couple of actors that's when did you realize you were good at um improvising and being in the moment Well, I'm not the best improviser.

I mean, I can do things, but there are people that the real games of improvisation, that's, I never, I never really went as deeply into that as some people, you know, and there were people even back in second city that were far better than I was. I was never a great improviser, but I could do something. I could do something. And, um, I don't know what your question is anymore.

I got lost in the tunnel. Sorry. When did you realize you were good at doing something? Oh, good. Yeah, I had a moment. I started talking about Second City because I did have a moment at Second City. I had a moment on the stage where I said a line, I spoke a line, or I played part of a scene. And at that moment, I said, that was good. That was as good as people do.

At that moment, I went, I could do this for a living. I knew I was good enough to do it for a living. Do you remember what the moment was? Nope. But something clicked. But I remember the moment. That's the key. That's when I went, okay, I can do this. I can relax. Not relax, just relax, but I can also go for it now.

And yesterday I was in Raleigh. Yesterday you were in Raleigh? At a NCAA basketball game. Which game were you at? It was UConn and Florida. Oh, hell of a game. Hell of a game.

It may have been the national championship game.

I think it's absolutely the same game. And for me, I shouldn't say the luxury, but the bliss of it is that my job is a strong reminder of that being present thing. I can bamboozle my way through a day or miss a day or blow a day or waste a day. But when I go to work... I know that there's going to be a document that says this is where this character was. Was he here or was he not there?

And it's going to be like a deposition. You have to swear to tell the truth. This is real. This is going to be proof. It's going to be proof of how much I showed up. So it's kind of lucky that I have that job because I don't know how often I'd be doing it. You mentioned this.

gallivanting thing you know and i'm very much aware of the um carly simon song you're so vain yeah whereas she says you you've charted a learjet to nova scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun someone that she's describing is like a pompous ass you know and i think okay

how do you say, well, I'm going to go to Tokyo and then to Raleigh and then to New York and then to Texas and not be just like a tumbleweed that's just like trying to like, have all these different experiences, you know, and just, and has no ground. So how do you do it?

Well, some of the things I actually have to do well, you know, some of the things I have to do well, you know, I can tell myself, okay, as long as I know that when I go here, I will really make, I will be forced to make an effort to show up, to reenter my body as much as possible to be what, you know, people turn out as called present, you know. So,

So I don't feel like, I could feel like a total twit doing all those things. But if I work hard, I don't feel that way.

No, I didn't always have it. No, I didn't always have it. So where does it come from? Not consciously. I mean, I may have wanted to sort of to express yourself as yourself and be sort of unique or your own thing. But I never thought of being sort of that way until I had a little bit more understanding about what that way might be, some sort of way of living where It's not all exterior.

There's interior.

Yeah, I do. I think I had two events in my life. That was one. And the other one, which I wasn't completely aware of when I was young, was when I was about four or so, my younger sister contracted polio. And I wasn't kind of aware of what was happening, but all of a sudden, you really become like, not exactly an afterthought, but you're not the primary worry anymore.

So, I just walked backstage. I'll speak loudly, because I'm not wearing a mic now. But they said that you're very excited today, because today, you just found out that you have become an American citizen.

I don't know. They told me it was business casual. Business, casual, you know, it's good.

Well, I think most of our lives are accidental, as much as we think we're in charge. Most of it's accidental, and it's just how you are able to live with the accidents that you create, that you're part of. Right. I kind of like the excitement of the unknown and figuring, oh, now look what I've done. You know, so it's been fun.

Well, the conscious choices come and go. They come and go. But, yeah, sometimes they are. So that's why there's sometimes a through line that looks like there's a plan.

Well, I don't think I'm any good to anyone if I'm just in the system all the time. If you're not going out in the world and coming back with something, you're not doing any good to your family or your world. You've got to go out there and do it.

No, you know, you get excited. You know, you get excited making a career, and you start getting busy. And, you know, it's hard. Everything's a distraction. So everything can take you away from, you know, trying to, like, try to remember yourself and try to, you know, keep it together.

Like... Yeah, I knew I was a little too weak to... I mean, it was going to be a whole lot of fame. Like walking down the streets of New York when you've already saved New York. You know? It's, uh... You know, that's true. So, you know... I mean, Aaron Judge doesn't have that problem.

This is the best sense ever. I wasn't really. I mean, I look back now more than I did then. Back then, we were just excited to be having a good time. You know, people didn't take it so darn seriously. We would we would, you know, we change the script every day. We just go out there and have fun. We'd knock ourselves out. And as long as you're tired at the end of the day, it means you worked hard.

You know, you try to be exhausted at the end of every day. And Like, always trying to find new things to do and just a way to work, you know? And also, it's a funny kind of living-making movie. You're in a kind of a gypsy world with, like, 150 people for about three months, and you live very intimately. And then you never see each other again, maybe, you know?

So it's very, you have to be very devoted to the whole process. Everybody's a part of the solution. Anyone can fix any, any can find the answer to the problem. So you're all really connected. So it's, that kind of living is very demanding. I love it. I really do like movies. I like making, I realized just recently, God, I really like making movies. Yeah.

Yeah. This movie's good, and I made another movie that's good called Riff Raff that just came out that's really weird. Not like anything I've ever seen before.

With Pete Davidson and Ed Harris and Gabby Union. A lot of good people. Jennifer Klitsch is insanely funny in that movie, too. But this is a good movie. This has got Naomi Watts. This... Naomi Watts in this movie, The Friend, it's the best performance I've seen by an actress in so long I can't even remember. It's unbelievable what she does in this movie.

Well, I was promoting that movie and I was promoting this movie while I was promoting that movie. I really like, you know, I want people to go to movie theaters and see movies in movie theaters. Because look at this, you're in a group of people, you know. We had a couple of years where you couldn't be in a group of people. And it's like the shared experience. It goes back to the Greeks, you know?

It's a theater, and you all get together, and we share our humanity together. Yeah.

It's the best.

Ronnie, I swear to you, there's no plan. There is no plan. There's no plan. I just like to do what I like, you know? And it happened that those great people, like Sophia and Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch, these are people who have a real integrity, a real powerful integrity, and a real love and history of film culture.

They wanted to make movies, and because, you know, I always say, like, I didn't embarrass myself too badly, so that's why they hired me, you know? I hadn't.

Well, you know, Ryan, when you see the script, You know, like, I got the script for Rushmore, which is Wes Anderson's movie, or Sofia's movie, Lost in Translation, or especially Rushmore. They said, you want to meet the guy? I said, no. You don't want to meet the guy? I said, no. He knows exactly what he wants to do. Let's go. I didn't need to meet him. I was like, I'll see you at work.

I don't need to talk. He knows exactly what he wants to do. And Sofia's same way, and Jim Jarman's same way. They know exactly what they want to do. Their script is so... clear, like, what their intention is, that you have great confidence. You know, when you're watching a good movie, you know it in a minute because you just feel so confident with the way the camera moves, the way everything goes.

And that's how their scripts read. They read like this. It reads like, this is storytelling. This is real storytelling.

I should mention the reason we're here, sort of, but... David Siegel and Scott McGehee, they took this book written by a New York girl, lady, named Sigrid Nunez, who's really fun. You should have her on the show sometime. She's really cool. They took her book, which is a great book, and it won the National Book Award, whatever, and made a great screenplay out of it.

Well, whatever they give those writers, you know? But they made a great script, and they directed this script together, and it's really good. No, it's a good movie.

Yeah, yeah.

but that's how they wanted it yeah that's how they wanted it yeah he's you play a dead guy the whole movie basically well yeah i'm alive some of the time i'm alive but it's very touching it's very dramatic it's a very well written yes story it's really great and there's a there's an extraordinary naomi watts is great and there's an amazing dog in the movie that dog is an is

one of the most responsive animals I've ever seen in my life. When I first saw the first cut of the movie, something would happen in a scene, and there'd be this sort of emotional moment, and you would see the dog react to it. And I kept going. And someone who saw the movie said, that's AI. That's not a real dog. I said, that's the dog. The dog heard it and felt it and expressed it.

It's an extraordinary thing. So it's a great Dane, and it's an amazing animal.

No, you can't.

It has something to do with, there's a lot of actors that just don't want to work with me. So I've got to find, I've got to go into the animal kingdom to get a co-star. But it works out okay for me. I don't know. It is funny that it keeps coming up like that. I should be worried. I don't know. I don't know. But the animals are the real ones. I mean, I got bit by the gopher in Groundhog Day.

The gopher in Caddyshack blew the place up. This dog is really great. I rode an elephant in a movie that was fantastic. I'm not one of those guys, but this dog is smarter than many people that I've ever met. And the elephant I worked with was smarter than virtually everyone I've ever met. So their intelligence is, you know, it's a mystery to us.

And it's probably sort of, for me, it's entry-level dealing. They say, you know, before you try to have children, you should have a pet to see if you can care for someone, take care of something, another creature. So, probably.

A starter, yeah.

You know, there shouldn't be any limits about what can be funny, you know? I've been watching a lot of South Park lately. I never really got to watch a lot of South Park. It's brilliant. Yes. It really is.

It really is brilliant. And they can be scatological. They can be anything. But they do it in such an intelligent way that it's constantly amusing to me. But in terms of the sheen of the great institutions like Second City or Saturday Night Live, well, I go back with them. Like Saturday Night Live, when I was there, there were seven of us in the cast. Now there's a couple dozen.

So there's a lot of people. And Second City used to have, like, two casts, you know? Now they have, like, a university, you know? They've got, like, a seven-story building or something with, like, people taking the classes. So it's sort of... It's not necessarily watered down.

And, like, you can't say Saturday night is sort of watered down, but there's a lot more people, and it's a little harder to get traction if you're one of the actors. But Saturday Night Live, any week... there can be a sketch that's absolutely brilliant, just like in the early days. Any week, they can make one that's absolutely perfect.

But, you know, it's just the group, it's a little harder to wrangle because there's, you know, it's a herd.

There's a huge value. If you can go through those things, if you can go from one, I always say, if you can... go through Second City and Saturday Night Live, you can do anything. Right.

You can do anything, because the intent, the, not the, I shouldn't say pressure, because I believe pressure is sort of imaginary, but the demand to be attentive to what you're doing, and every professional on Saturday Night Live, like every guy on a camera, every prop man, every single person, is the top guy, the top woman in their field. So everybody's excellent.

So if I screw up, he's looking at me like, nice, nice. Yeah. You know? And that's what it was. You were in this environment of real, like just a transformative a spot where you had to perform.

Well, it wasn't exactly... I wanted to say pressure cooker, but I want people to get off of pressure. I don't sort of believe in pressure. I think it's sort of imaginary. I think it's just... It's emotion that you can't control, and that's why it sort of gets up, and it feels like the top of your head's coming off. But it's really just a... There's a demand to show up, you know?

And you have to relax, otherwise that pressure comes up to your brain, and then you don't work so well.

What's wrong? What's right, Ronnie? You heard all the mean things the Democrats said about me, calling me ugly, wrinkly, and yeah, I have warts, but HPV is extremely common. And why? Why? Just because I'd kick 7 million poor and disabled Americans off Medicaid? Uh, I mean, that's not great. Oh, like you're so perfect. This was supposed to be my special day. Call me crazy, I want to be approved.

And loved, and kicked people off food stamps who I think don't deserve food. Okay, well that is kind of an ugly thing to do. Oh my god, ugly? Ronnie, maybe I should just go to my room, lock the door, and veto myself. Is that what you want? Would that make you happy? No, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. It's so hard being a bill.

Like being talked about, being voted on, people treating me like I'm an object. You are an object. All I'm trying to do is be myself. Just live my truth and take healthcare away from trans people. Okay. What? That's in this bill?

I'm fun. I'm cute. And I hate poor people. We should throw them into furnaces to power AI. Okay, no. No, you ruined it. You're hideous.

It was a lot of responsibility.

It was – any actor that has to play either a living person, especially a living person, or a famous person has a real responsibility to – To that person, you can't just be that person for 90 minutes. You have to realize that person was that person for 60 some odd years or 70 or however many years the person was. You've got to try to get all that into your hour and a half or two hours.

Yeah. The one where he's in a cockpit, it looks like. Yeah.

You've got to try to take in as much as you can so you're not lying. At least you're giving the best you can to say this is who I think he was. This is who I think that person was. She was. He was. Yeah.

Well, he was living in the guest house. So you were around him all the time? Yeah. So I would go to work and I would come home and then we would stay up and... Sort of just an hour or so before, maybe an hour and a half before, two hours before dawn, he'd have a NyQuil and scotch in the hot tub and then go to sleep.

Yeah. And he got such a kick out of it because when it rains on you or snows on you like it would in Woody Creek. You come in the house and you smell like a wet dog. And he loved like doing that to people. The people go, what in the hell? Oh, wet dog. You know, that's the dog right there. Yeah. Oh, so this is, are you filming this too? This is whatever you do? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, there he is.

And then I had to get about 90 minutes and then the teamster was knocking on the window saying, Bill! Millie! And then I'd have to go to work. That's what it was like while we were shooting the movie. Wow. Yeah. And he appears in the movie briefly. He appears in the movie briefly. I can't remember all of it, but he appears in the movie briefly. And we did – together we wrote a scene.

I was always constantly changing. John Kay wrote the script, but I was always playing with it because I was always being informed more. And that's what I did anyway. I just pretty much – You know, I felt the freedom to change anything. But we did write a scene, Hunter and I wrote a scene that was late in the movie. Pardon me. They gave me these beautiful, massive things. Cough traps? Yeah.

Want one? No, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, so he was in on a lot of it and the editing of it, you know, we can secretly say that too. And, you know, it was a lot of, he was really involved.

um so you're saying he wrote a scene you guys wrote yeah we wrote a scene together yeah which was um encountering nixon in a urinal because he did have a moment with nixon where in the limo remember yeah yeah and he was told he could not speak politics they could only talk nfl football yeah which nixon was rather you know knowledgeable about you know hunter copter was like yeah the guy really studied it and

And George Allen – it's in the book, you know. Yeah. Nixon even designed a play that he gave to George Allen, who was the coach of the Washington Redskins back then. And it was like – they lost like 10 yards or something on the play. But Allen actually played – ran the play, Nixon's play.

Well, he'd been on the, I mean, he was on the campaign trail. He also, for whatever he was, the people who knew, and you know, like Secret Service guys, you ever run into them? They like read people for a living. This is what they do, you know. They read people. And they can really burn a hole through your head and your body just looking at you. And they'll give you this one, you know.

They'll just really burn you. And, you know, he'd been on the tour. He'd been on the road with them. They knew who he was. They knew what he was after hours and they knew what he was during hours where the people who were really smart knew this guy's really smart. This guy's really smart. He knows politics. And you can't try to dumb down. You can't try to like big time him because he'll kill you.

He'll chop you. He's he's got the words to answer. And he has the intelligence. So he was he was a force. People knew who he was, you know, even the. To get information, you've got to go into the people who work for the guy. So the people that work for the guy know who he is, and they've already established that they have a relationship with him. They can speak with him.

He's talking a certain way. There's a reality check. You know, if you're running someone's political campaign, you have the best jokes about the campaign. You know, not Hunter Thompson, maybe. You have the best jokes because you've seen it all. You know how stupid things get. And, you know, if you can be realistic and savvy about those things, then people trust you.

Well, he knew if he blew it, that was it. And that was going to be the end of it. And it was only, I don't know what month it was.

There's that dog. It's got the head, like big, like tie things. You could tie it under your chin.

Oh, is that your stuff?

Okay, well, we'll try to finish it all off. It's hot. I just feel like yours is probably... It doesn't have to be super. I keep coffee for days. I hear you. At least two days. If it's not hot, it's got ice in it. You just keep drinking? I just keep drinking. Yeah. That smells good. What kind is that?

Where's that come from?

There's a lot of coffee you can't even smell.

This is happening. This has been happening in my life anyway. And I'm sure it's happening in everyone's life for the last, gotta be 10 years where you meet people, we have something in common. We've got a, we've got a, something we got to get done, you know, but if we talk politics, we're leaving the rails, you know, all hell's going to, you know, we're, we're not going to get along.

This is, oh, wow, look at that one. Lawyers, guns, and money? Jesus. Those are later ones. Yeah, he didn't have scopes for a long time.

We're not going to get anything done. We're never going to be friends. And, you know, it could be worse than that. We could be adversaries or even enemies or, you know. So that, I mean, it's, you mentioned it. It's like I go places where, and I'm sure you do too, where you just can't talk.

You just don't want to talk politics with people because there are people that are, you know, whose politics can be the exact opposite of yours, completely 12 to 6. And yet there are people that have lived lives that are so extraordinary and so enormous in terms of what they give to the world and the planet. And you think, why would I ever want to get – it's a mystery. It's kind of a mystery.

But it's – If you don't like value that first instead of your kind of political, you know, handkerchief, you know, you're making more of a mess, you know. That's kind of what's, you know, that's why I feel a lot about what's going on anywhere, everywhere, you know, that people are leading with their handkerchief and not with their whole self, you know, what they understand about what living is.

And it just gets – That's true. It gets so toxic. His name gets bandied about a lot lately, doesn't it? Yeah, it's a good one. But you sort of started it by saying – by bringing up that quotation of hunters, which is so – and I think about that all the time. I can not – but I think about it regularly. Like what was that force that that movement had, that anti-war movement, whatever that was?

You know, it wasn't perfect. You know, it wasn't perfect. I think the thing that if I had regret anything or anyone regrets anything about it was the sort of hostility that was shown towards the actual servicemen.

Well. No. No? We're all learning something about. Maybe. Maybe. What, that one there? Is 86? With the dog? Yeah. Yeah, that's probably, yeah, it was earlier. Blind bat. Where's that? That's funny. It's a historic piece, I guess.

Most of whom were drafted. Right. You know. Right. To fight, you know. So those service people had an experience that I will never have. I was in a military movie. That's as good as it ever got for me. But the thing about being in war together with people is everybody hates war. And who could hate it more than someone that was there?

But the sort of camaraderie that you had is an experience – I'll never have that. I'll never have that thing that Rambo had. I'll never have that thing. And I don't think that – I think that the sort of – there could have been more vision about war. who's who we're talking to or who we're talking to about whatever kind of change you want to make.

And so that the agents of it are not necessarily the architects, like you say, the people who are making this tribal thing. They're not the agents of it. You know, they're the architects of it. And it's and how do you how do you jump over or how do you. You know, you know, excuse or not excuses in the word, but how do you.

Miss the people that are the agents who are just people that have a job or whatever it is. They're doing their work to survive and live, whatever it is. How do you get to the architects with whatever you feel is that – what could be a shared experience and get them to like sort of dissolve the creation of the tribal world? I think it's – you asked a great question.

You have people on here I guess that – know or think about those things and have the ability to do something about it. I don't think I have the ability to do anything more than something for myself mostly.

Well, that's a nice hope. I hope that maybe that'll happen.

Well, right back at you then. Okay. Thank you.

It is crazy. You have elections every four years.

We don't get a break from these people.

Yeah, if I fall asleep too early tonight, we're going to lose the internet. I'm supposed to be on watch or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, that footage made me cry. Now you're going to make me cry. Okay, no, but it's true. Someone's got a... There has to be some sort of a new – I don't know if it has to be a club, but there's got to be some sort of new – you know, it used to be music.

I met him, let me drink your magic coffee here. Whose coffee is this? Laird Hamilton's. Laird Hamilton's Superfoods. I met him – it was one of those years. Maybe it was after my first real year on Saturday Night Live. Maybe it was 1977, like the spring, summer of 77. I was asked by Lorne Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night Live, if I would – I had to go to – our season was head-ended.

I think music played such a big part of whatever that movement was, whatever you call the peace movement or the hippies or, you know, whatever it was. It was an extraordinary moment in time, and the music was part of the experience and part of the – it brought the message, and it sort of – It crashed through everybody's brain. There wasn't a side to it.

It's like, what were the soldiers listening to in Vietnam? Jimi Hendrix. We were all listening to the same stuff no matter where you were. No matter where you were, you were listening to the same music, no matter what your politic thing was. The music sort of told a story and sort of suggested a possibility.

Yeah.

Now you're talking. Yeah. Now you're talking. It got weird. It's a real language. Yeah. It's like when – I never tied it all to that sweeping thing. But when you revisit that, you realize how much harm that did, that kind of lawmaking. Yeah. Let's all agree that the cars don't look as good as they used to. They look like dog shit.

Who are those people that say they're the really good problem solvers? I see them every once in a while, and they go like, how does he do it? He says, well, first I say, what can we agree on? Okay, so we can agree that cars don't look so good no more. Well, they look good now. It used to be that every single year, every single car looked different than it looked the year before. Yes.

And that's mind-boggling nowadays to think about that. And even now, the cars are made of – I don't know, plastic? What are they made of? Yeah, they're made of shit. They're made of nothing. They're not made of steel. They did it with steel back then. Right. And now they're made with, I don't know, some sort of carbon something or other.

And you would think they would be able to, like, I don't know what a 3D printer is, I have to confess. LAUGHTER I have no idea. We actually talked about it yesterday. I have no idea.

But I mean, maybe there's some like super... I mean, if you have a car, if you have a fender bender, there's like seven parts that you have to replace. Panels and panels and panels.

And the sound systems are better.

Oh, those are beautiful too.

And the guy they put in charge was a man who had absolutely no qualifications, who had no qualifications to do any of it.

Yeah. It's kind of a – I've got someone, a friend that's been trying to get me to do a movie about it, but – The person responsible for making all the laws was someone who had absolutely no background in any of the fields, no knowledge whatsoever, just a total huckster that got himself out in front.

I'll carry the flag. I'll carry the flag, whatever it is. I'll run up the hill. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I heard – That Buick is going to make a car, and this could be wrong, but I heard they're going to make a car next year that's not going to look like any car ever. It's going to be like a brand new, whatever the hell, 25 or 26 Buick. And it's not going to look like the 24 or 25.

I'd gone to California. Yeah. And he asked if I would drive his Volkswagen convertible bug back cross-country for him. I'm like, yeah, sure. Well, you know, a week or two later, he was like, where's my car? I'm like, you didn't give me a time limit. So I visited people on the way. So I made some stops. I visited my friend – John Thompson in Reno, biggest little city in the world.

It's going to look like its own individual thing. They're going to try to recommence the idea of making a new car next year.

every year you didn't hear this no like a completely new kind of model yeah like the idea that you would make a car that look didn't look like every i mean like you can look at a car and go like that's a volvo but that part of it looks like a mercedes that part of it looks like an infinity that part of the car looks like you know a toyota that kind of you know they're they're yeah you've heard probably the story about the what's that car called the ford that's got a animal name

Mustang? Taurus. Taurus. Now, there's a story. Now, it could be apocryphal. Okay. That the Ford Taurus. You never heard this one? No. I thought you were like this guy. Taurus is a piece of shit. I don't care about Tauruses. Well, the Taurus, yeah. The Taurus is like, it's not the most beautiful car in the world. But it was a huge seller for Ford. They sold a lot of them.

Yeah, we're live.

And the story is that these guys at Ford designed a car and they took... the rear quarter panel from this automobile, the fender from this, the back fender from this, the rear windows from this, and just did a composite of all these different cars. And the car was, this car is bullshit. And we'll call it the Taurus. And they presented it to Ford, who went, we love it.

And then proceeded to sell hundreds of thousands of them. And this is a story, like... Where's your phone calls here? Hey, caller number one, you heard about this? No one's ever heard this story? You've never heard this one?

But I believe it. It makes sense. You can believe it if you look at the cars that are built now, that they are absolutely like, look at that damn Volvo. It looks exactly like a three-year-ago Mercedes or something like that. They just really just steal.

I wish I'd bought a Shelby back when I first had a paycheck. Oh, yeah. They're such beautiful cars. Look at that. Come on. Well, that kind of funny when I first look at it, it looks a little Chevy to me. It does a little bit. It could be like a Camaro. I mean, look at that. That looks like Chevy.

Well, you know, you could photograph either of us from a certain angle. No, no, I've seen that one in real life. That's a beautiful car.

That's better. Oh, and it sounds amazing. But I'd hate to hit anything with that thing. In what way? I would hate to bump into anything. It looks like I'd have to get the car back for six weeks.

Can you big up that picture there? What's the rear look like? Oh, it's got a spoiler?

Come on. How do you feel about spoilers? Fucking badass. That thing looks awesome.

Well, I think the original one is like the super coolest car in the world. Oh, yeah. That's crazy. Oh, no doubt.

Look at that.

Yeah, Bullitt was 68. I actually have a recreation of that. I was watching it. They found the original Bullitt car. Did you know that? Yes. I was reading about that this week. It was on TV last week. And I've watched it a lot of times, that movie, because I think Steve McQueen's pretty damn good.

But when you watch the movie, it's obviously the roaring through San Francisco and all that sort of stuff it's famous for. And then there's the ending where there's sort of story ends with kind of a flaming crash. You know, it's kind of not really kind of an ending in a way. But watching it this particular time. It was all the moments in between all that that really make the movie. Yes.

And we were, you know, threw our cups out the roof and stuff like that. Had a really nice time there. And then I wanted to go to Aspen. I'd never been to Aspen before. And so I went to Aspen and stayed at the Jerome Hotel. I can talk like this because this show is like endless. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So... Went to the Jerome Hotel, which was like the place to go back then.

All the quiet in between where he's in the grocery store. He's with the girls. He's the mailbox. He's seeing these people and these people. And he has this very quiet inner self that's dealing with people very respectfully. And his blood pressure only moves – the needle only starts to move when he gets with the bad guy, Chalmers, who is obviously a fraud of some sort.

And he's got him like – you see him like not just as an actor keeping his cool but as like a cop keeping his cool with like a person he knows is trying to use him. And those – just watching that part of the performance and that part of the story was much more interesting. The first time I saw all that as its own weave through it. Yes.

The car stuff had very little to do with what I was getting from the people. Yes. The car stuff was nothing. And his boss was a great actor, Simon Oakland, I think his name is. He was great as his boss. He said, I'm going to hold this till Monday morning.

There was some great acting in that. It's a really beautiful American movie like that.

There's a lot of quiet in Bullet. A lot of quiet. Yes.

Is that bullet where he's writing? What movie is he driving like a dune buggy? Is that bullet two? No, that's the other one. The one in Boston. That's a pretty good movie, too.

Oh, come on. They remade it. Thomas Crown Affair. Yeah. And obviously he's having time. How about we shoot some stuff in a dune buggy? And basically they had like a whole day. Yeah, this. Yeah. And he's having a time. And meanwhile, he's got Faye Dunaway in there going, I hope that's Faye Dunaway anyway, roaring around. And he could really drive, right? Oh, yeah.

For sure. You don't know what you're doing. For sure. Yeah, he's going sideways. And she is having the time of her life. Look at that, spinning it out in the water.

No, they didn't have seatbelts back then. Jesus Christ. Well, she might have a seatbelt. She looks like she's belted.

Well, I've been watching – I've come to be watching all the old cowboy shows on the satellite. I watch all the old cowboy shows. And Wanted Dead or Alive was always a super cool show. And I've been watching it just to say, what the hell is he up to? Man, he is just – No one was getting away with that. No one was doing what he was doing, which was so small and so slight.

He was really preparing himself to be a movie actor, you know, because his his performances is so controlled. He's so in his skin, you know, and he's always got like a piece of business to do. He always had a piece of business to do. Like something to do, like the way he like strapped on his goofy sawed-off rifle and stuff. You keep thinking it's a sawed-off shotgun. It's a sawed-off rifle.

And it was off season, which is the best time of year to go to any resort town. It's like when all the tourists are gone and the citizens regain control of their town for a while. Yeah. So the Jerome Hotel, which would have been full of like knucklehead skiers from anywhere, was only full of like the people that worked the town and lived in the town.

So just all his moves were very little. His face gave very, very little away. He would do a half pout kind of stuff. And it's just fun to watch him see how little he could do and get it done, get it across. I like that about him. But he always had like – he kind of challenged himself to do something physical.

So if he'd be talking to you, he'd have just – even that, even something like that to be like, you know, come in here. He would just – The way he did it was a guy who had a real natural way with his body. It was fun.

See, it's a sawed-off. It's not a shotgun. It's a rifle. See that little shtick? He's got it so it locks in and then swings back. So he could actually, if he wished to... You better hope he better not wish to against you two. He could just sort of swivel it and fire while it's still attached to his waistband. I never saw this show. I didn't even know it existed. You never saw this show?

That's all it is. Well, you can find this. There's these new cowboy shows channels. There's like four channels. I have DirecTV, and so you can go and watch. God, that's a famous guy. Oh, God. Oh, who's that? Oh, that's killing me. I know who this guy is. Well, I don't know who he is, but I recognize him. Help me, somebody. Who's that guy? Jamie will find it. Anyway, there's a few channels.

There's one called INSP. There's also the Cowboy Channel. There's also Channel 364, 304, 323. Is this 81? DirecTV? DirecTV. And I just go through going like, what have I got to find so I can see the Rifleman?

Also a rifle guy. Yeah. But he had a full-length rifle. And that was Chuck Connors, who once upon a time was a Chicago Cub. He was a baseball player. Oh, really?

And allegedly did some art films. But also, he was good, too. Chuck Connors was good. The Lone Ranger – Oh, yeah. Sure. And that was – come on. Why can I not remember his name? But there were some Lone Rangers.

Well, I have a very different experience. I only know about you what I've heard. I've never heard your show. I had to ask you, are you Joe? Because somehow I knew you were like into fitness and everyone out there seems to be a weightlifter. Even Danielle seems like she did lower body today. So it's nice to meet you. And people are...

The Lone Ranger came on and then the guy – I didn't realize it because there's some Lone Rangers where it's not our Lone Ranger being the Lone Ranger and who wasn't as good as our Lone Ranger. And then our Lone Ranger comes back and it turns out – I finally figured out that he sort of went on strike. He said he wanted a contract raise after the first season or something. They like said no.

And they took over the bar and they took over the swimming pool, which was outside. So that's, I was there and it was just, I remember being there and they were like, beautiful girls, and this really funny guy. And I didn't know who he was. And we just had the most fun, you know, making girls laugh. That's kind of what... It may or may not have been the reason I was brought here.

Jamie will find it. Jamie, you've got a lot on your plate.

I actually saw him someplace. He came to like a jewel. Is he one of these names? Michael Landon?

Warren Oates.

It's definitely not Colburn. No, it's none of those guys. Lon Chaney's misspelled. But it's not those guys. Cobran's in there twice.

No. All right. I'll try to answer that. See, it started on radio first. That's what you're getting. You're pulling up radio. That's how far back you're going.

Clayton Moore. Thank you. I saw Clayton Moore. He came to a Jewel food store near us. The Lone Ranger was going to appear. But he was not allowed to wear the mask for, like, contract – whatever the hell. So there he was, and I'm like – Mom, that's not the Lone Ranger. You know, whatever the hell it was. But it was funny to see Clayton Moore without a mask on.

Imagine a contract saying you can't do personal appearances. Well, no. It was like he was – the Lone Ranger was copyrighted, you know, nine days from Sunday. So he could go and be – ride on an elephant. I think I may have seen him riding on an elephant in a parade once but also without the mask on. But I should talk about movies because I'm supposed to be talking about movies. Yes.

Since we started talking about movies. Tell me about your movie. I got two movies. I have three movies. I'll work backwards from the one which is least – which is farthest away. I did one with Wes Anderson called The Phoenician Something. That's the title. I'm sorry, Wes. The Phoenician – you know what it is? The Phoenician Scheme. The Phoenician Scheme. Okay.

And I have a lot of trouble with names nowadays. But the guy who did the set design, can you figure that out? This guy is the most famous. He's the best there is now. These are the most beautiful sets I've ever seen in any movie. Come on. It's coming. I'm sorry, everybody, but I just haven't been getting enough sleep. No worries. Anyway, that's a great movie.

Yeah. Benito's really good. He's really good, and he's really cool. And Michael Cera, right? Yeah. Is he the third?

Huh? What's her name? Mia. Thank you. See, I told you. Cupid something. Mia. I have no idea what it's about. You're going to have to pay the money. There she is right there.

Yeah, Willem's got a good part. But it's really those. Keep going. Keep going. Benedict Cumberbatch. Yeah, they're all fine. Michael Cera. Michael Cera is huge. He's fantastic. Yeah, he's a really good guy. Michael Cera, Benicio and Mia are the really the muscles. And they're great. Anyway, that's going to be really good. People are always movies are like they are. They're all great.

So we just had the most fun doing it. And then we had this sort of episode where we did an escape act and it had consequences. I started talking about an escape act, underwater escape act, and I felt like I could do it. You really think you could escape underwater?

And that one's going to be very good. Then it's going to be funny, too. Then I made a movie called The Friend, which stars Naomi Watts and a dog. There's a huge dog. Are you a dog guy? I love dogs. Okay. So there's a massive, really big dog. I mean, it's pretty much as big. There it is. There's Naomi. Great name. And there's the dog. The dog is that big. See how big it is? It's fucking huge.

Yeah. That's the words for it.

Isn't it? And it's an amazing dog. And the script is great. It's from a book written by a woman named Sigrid Nunez. And can you pop up on the titles there maybe? No, the other thing. Yeah, these guys directed it. These guys. Scott McGeehee and David Siegel. And they wrote the script.

from this book and it's a great script nobody can hear you over there unfortunately nobody can hear you over there we're gonna have to come back scott scott mcgee he and david siegel wrote the script and directed it and they're great i love those guys they made a few good movies and this one's really good and this sigrid nunez is a kind of a big deal author people know who she is that read lots and what is the friend what is it about

The friend. Well, yeah, there you go. So that's the question. Well, that's sort of the puzzle, a little bit of the puzzle of it. So who is the friend? Is the friend the friend or is the friend the dog? The dog represents something. So it's a little deeper than a lot of the ones we get to. But it's really good. It's really good. I like it.

It's been to film festivals and people laugh and cry and the whole thing. Yeah.

I'm going to tell you that. But let me finish the last one because today – now, is your show live? No.

Tomorrow. Okay. So that's why I wanted to ask because this movie, the third movie, opens today, which is yesterday. And it's called Riff Raff. And this is a movie that you have to see. You have to see this. This is really something. This is a movie you should take 10 of your friends to and go see Riff Raff. It will be, I guarantee you, this one's a party. Tell me what it is.

Well, there's a trailer for it up there. See, there's... Let's play the trailer. Okay.

And I said, yeah, I think I could do it. I think I could do it because you just – so – We agreed to – I agreed to be a subject. And you have to know, I did not know who this guy was. I just thought he was like a funny guy. So – and we were like showing off for girls and stuff and being stupid. And it was fun. We were just having fun.

Uh, yeah. Well... Yeah, that's... They gave you too much, as far as I'm concerned, but... They always do, though, right? I don't know. Sometimes... Not always. Not always. But it's... It's common. It's kind of nicer to see as a surprise, so... Oh.

It's okay. I mean, what are you going to do? But it's... Some people will think, I must see that. But I guarantee you, this movie is really... Really funny.

I really do. I have no idea how it goes down. You could say – yeah, you could not show the trailer. That would be okay. There was one – I saw one that was like just the first part of that. And then this – they just saw – and I was hoping that was what it was. But this kind of makes it seem like a little bit – You know, it's just a little bit too much stuff in it.

You know, a little bit too much stuff for me. Maybe. Yeah. Let's think about it. But anyway, it's good. It looks great. Yeah. So Jennifer Coolidge has got some unbelievable things to say in the movie. She's got some amazing things to say. And Ed Harris is really, really good in the movie. Pete Davidson, who I had no idea about. We were sidekicks.

in the movie and we had a very good time, did some good stuff. It was Lewis Pullman, who was Bill Pullman's son. It was really good. I mean, and Emanuela, she got out of Italian, Pustacchini, like that. She's just wonderful and beautiful. And Gabby Union. I call her Gabby. Gabrielle Union.

And Miles, whose last name I can't remember because I just want to call him Miles Davis, but that little kid in there. He plays the voice of The Electric Junior Bunny Show or something like that on Nickelodeon or something like that. He does like weird cartoon voices. Oh, yeah? So if you watch a lot of Nickelodeon cartoons. I don't anymore.

Oh, really?

I used to.

Oh, see, I don't know that one. I guess SpongeBob. My brother plays the Flying Dutchman on SpongeBob. Oh, wow. So I watched a lot of that, but that's about it. I don't know. I'm way behind. How do you decide what projects to pick? It's really just what – well, there are certain people like with people that I've worked with before.

So I was tied with socks to a lawn chair and lowered into the pool. But just before we went, I said, hey, just in case I want to take a breath while I'm untying my sock knots – move me over here to where it's like six feet, you know. So if I have to stand up, you know, I can take a breath and go back down and continue my untying, you know.

There are some like Wes Anderson is one and Jim Jarmusch and Sofia Coppola are others. And those three people call and say, I got something. I just say, OK, when? Because I know that they're – I know they know what I can do and they know they – look out for me and they treat people well. I love them as people and I love them as artists. So that's just a thing.

But the other ones are more like, um, or like, uh, uh, you have to read the script because people, you know, the script is pretty much, if the script's not there, um, I mean, you know, I can always help improve a script, but if the basic thing isn't there, it's like... I was scratching at one the other day, and I'm writing, and I'm going, what the hell am I doing this for? This is just terrible.

Every page is like... So, but if it's not good, and usually, you know, you know in like five pages, you know, whether you're not to even continue reading the script at all, you know? Yeah. So...

Those are very few. There's only very few people that I have those kinds of relationships with. And I've done, like, multiple jobs with them. And they kill every time. They're good. They're really good. So when they call, it's like, you don't have to waste my time telling me the story. Just send me the thing, you know. Right. You don't have to waste any time I'm in. You can count on me.

Yeah, I do too.

Yeah, I mean it's like great. And, you know, like people make the living – the making of a movie part of their living. You know, like Wes is probably the most extreme example in that regard. Like we all live in a quasi-dormitory. We take over a small hotel in some city and all the actors and like the key crew live in the hotel.

And you come down for breakfast in the morning and people pad down in their slippers and their jammies and they have coffee and stuff and they look at the newspaper and say, what are we doing today? Yeah. Then they like pad back up the stairs and get on their clothes and they go to work. It's cool. It's really nice. It really is like what you always thought it would be like in the old days.

Like what if we all lived in a dorm and we were just being funny all day, you know, like that.

Well, those guys have more fun making movies than anyone. They really make it fun. I remember like in between shots on Kingpin, we'd be on the side of a road somewhere and it would be like everybody's got to pick up a rock and we got to throw it at that telephone pole. Who's going to hit the telephone pole with a rock? So we would sit there and like –

I don't know, $1, $10, $100, whatever it was, we're throwing and somebody's got to hit the rock. And then people like to pull out cash and pay because it's just like we just got to keep this thing going. We're not going to let the energy of this thing drop. Just fun. Keep the fun rolling. Fun, yeah.

And just creativity and always being loose and always being physical, always being connected, attached, not just attached but connected. And entertaining, entertaining each other, you know, really making this fun. God damn it, we are going to have fun or else. You know, if you don't have fun making a comedy, you've just made a bad movie that's not funny.

Well, you know, and that's like one of those things. Yeah. They had a moment on Saturday Night Live, an in-memoriam thing. They said, oh, I was there the week of the thing. They said, yeah, so-and-so is working on the in-memoriam. And I'm thinking, well, who's gone? Which reminds me. Who's gone? And no, it's not who's passed away. It's what we can't do anymore to be funny.

So I went in and, you know, I was untying and I could tie some knots, you know, even with socks. So after a little bit, I thought earlier, you know, maybe I'll just take a quick breath and go back down. Well, I stood up. Well, try it, Joe. Try and lash yourself to a chair and try to stand up. Yeah, it's hard. Well, I'm a little over six feet.

You know, it's like all these kinds of jokes. And so it was just a whole clip. I didn't even see it, but I just I saw a little bit of it being assembled. But it could be 40 minutes long, you know, just all the sketches that you people would you get like, you know. Internet responses like we're going to burn down the city of New York.

Yeah. Hours long. Yeah, I'm short with 45. But some of the funniest things ever done, you know. Yes. Like head wound hairy. Yeah. Which was one that not many people think about. But how, you know, like somebody would object to a dog eating a brain wound, you know, like licking like the blood coming out of someone's skeletal wound, you know.

But someone told me on the way here, a friend of mine, a musician named Mike Zito, who said he listens to your show. He said that you knew Phil Hartman. Yeah, very well. What did you do with Phil Hartman? News radio.

Okay. I didn't really watch much of news radio.

And did you resent him because you were doing maintenance and he was the lead anchor? No. What do you mean? No, I'm just joking. And where was it? Was it on CBS? NBC. NBC, of course. Yeah. In the 90s. And he was the news anchor. Yes.

He was great. Yeah, he was really good. I worked with him. I mean, I did Saturday Night Live, I guess, when he was there. But he was in the movie we made called Quick Change. And he was... like sterling silver. It was like every single take was just like perfect. And it was so much fun. And you just go, Phil, that was so great.

And you go like, he was so kind of modestly proud of like, yeah, I felt pretty good about that. Yeah. It was really nice. He had real, real modesty.

Oh, I'm sorry.

He did music as well. Why did I say musician? Oh, you said one of his albums. Yes. I was looking at vinyl today, so that's why it went into my head.

Oh.

May he rest in peace. May he rest in peace.

And the lady, I didn't really watch a lot of Pee Wee's Playhouse, but he was a funny guy, that guy. And his lady sidekick died this week or something.

But if you're tied to a chair, you don't get to fully extend your calves any more than that. Right. Tied to a chair, I'm only like five. You couldn't get out of the water. Five, eight or something like that. And I just – it was funny to see like that camera shot of like there are people up there and I can't reach them or speak to them because I'm still underwater. So –

I don't know. On Pee Wee's Playhouse? I'm not up to date on anything.

Lynn Marie Stewart. Lynn Marie. See, I didn't. Oh, I guess I'd recognize her if her face were bigger head.

And then he was a hero. He could do a lot of things. He had a lot of chops. He had a great voice. And he could play straight. And doing comedy is the ability to play straight. And he could really do it. He could really do it. Yeah. Well, I miss that guy. He was good. He was a good guy.

Yeah, and that's also the guy. He would go back and keep trying to make things work.

Well, that's going too far.

See, I didn't have that much faith in the scripts. I knew they were going to change a lot from Wednesday to Friday. If it was a big scene, I knew they would rewrite it over the next two days. Well, there was a lot. Because it's hard to unlearn. Yes. So I would not learn. Yeah. Because unlearning is really hard. Yeah.

Like if you have a sketch that's this long and all of a sudden it's this long, you've got problems. Have you ever met Dave Foley? I think so. He was one of the guys from – yeah, I saw him. He goes out with my brother Joel. And he sings – they do like an improv thing called Whose Line Is It Anyway? Oh, okay. So I never – I only met him recently. I met him recently.

I finally saw my brother's show that he goes out with Whose Line Is It Anyway? Right. With Greg Proops and all those guys. And they kill. Yeah. I mean there's – I knew they were going to kill. Because I know how good my brother is as an improviser. If you get good at it, and my brother is really good at it, far better than I ever was or could hope to be, because he's really kept at it.

And so he really goes and goes hard at it. He's really good at it. I knew that they would kill it. I didn't realize how much fun the show would be from an audience perspective. Like, they drag a lot of people up on the stage, and I think, well, that can go any old way at all. Yeah. And they managed to get – I mean, the show I saw, they had people in the audience that probably should have –

And hired. That was funny. But there's something about the uncertainty of bringing up someone from the audience that raises the energy level and the expectation and the possibility.

And the crowd goes crazy for it. And the actors, the performers go crazy too because it's like – Goddamn, they just killed us. They just came up here and murdered us. And that's where the real fun is. So they're enjoying themselves.

That's when I started to work more feverishly on the knots. And I kind of was going, hey, hey. I'm kind of leaning with my head, like push me down to five feet instead of six feet. But he was strong enough. And because I was buoyant in the water, he just picked up the chair out of the water. So I lived through it. But it was a funny way to meet someone.

Well, you're fearless. And, you know, you're certainly anyone that's ever been in that racket knows you can't be afraid of dying. Right. So if you're not afraid of dying, let's go. Here we go. And anything. And there's a handful of you. So it's like the Magnificent Seven. If I don't kill you. He will. Right, right, right, right. So if I don't get it, he will. Yeah. So it's fun to watch.

It was really fun to watch, finally see it live. I'd only seen it on television. To see the live show was cool. I recommend it, too. They're coming to a town near you. Yeah. It's a great show. It's a great show.

Oh, okay.

I know a lot of those people.

Yeah.

Oh, that's what ended it?

Yeah, there's something about it. It was like that. It was Saturday Night Live. The fifth year. It's like, wait a second. High school is only five years. Why should this show be anyone? Five years is a long time. It's a long time. I know. It's amazing to think. We thought like five years, this is it. We're done. Goodbye, everybody. That was 45 years ago. Who the hell thought that would happen?

I think the Today Show is the longest running show. Oh, is it really? Well, if I had to guess.

Yeah. I'll be right back. Take a leak. Be right back. You're in charge. Okay. I'll do a little bit. See you in a bit. You have so much cool stuff on the walls. A lot of art. Do you do shows where you walk around and show all the stuff?

It's just for us and the guests. Well, there is a photograph in the men's room. Which one? It's Presley. And it looks like it's a mugshot. It's a fake mugshot.

Oh, okay. The gun thing where Nixon gives him a revolver. Yes. Automatic pistol. Yeah. What did he give him? And Nixon gives him a drug badge to be a drug agent. You don't know that part?

Well, he was in pain. Yes. He was in pain. He had physical pain.

I think he did the splits a lot of times. You know, like Chevy hurt himself falling, you know. Oh, yeah. People have pain. Presley had, I don't know, I don't remember all the facts, but Presley had physical pain. And he – I don't know what his back or something like this, sacroiliac or whatever the hell.

And so he had like painkillers. Right.

It is hilarious. Yeah. It's like good fun. Yeah. It's like a great American story. Yeah. You just see – The picture, there's a photograph that exists of Nixon handing him the badge. And, you know, you can laugh looking at it going, right, that's exactly right. Yeah. But, yeah, there it is. And there's the damn badge. Special assistant. Special assistant. Yeah.

And the next day I found out that this was Hunter S. Thompson. He never asked him his name? No. He never asked me my name. I don't know that he knew who I was either. I think he thought I was just a funny guy and we were kind of like holding court and being funny.

You know what I did see the other night? Did you ever see Frost and Nixon? No. It's a movie that was made. And back in the day, after Watergate, is his name David Frost? He was a British interviewer cat. And he staged – he had this idea to – he was trying to like – he sort of lost his place and – the universe of England anyway, or the world.

And he came up with this idea somehow to, if he could somehow get an interview with Richard Nixon, And it's a pretty well-made movie. It's a very well-made movie about it. And they paint Frost pretty much as like maybe what he was like, sort of what the perception – my perception is kind of what he was like.

Not a perfect person but certainly not – but certainly got some juice, certainly has some sort of idea of something going on. That sounds very small, but he was complicated. That's the cheating word. And Nixon, too. And I just want to say that Frank Langella, who I only know from like doing – he's kind of like a Broadway guy and he did some horror movies. He's really good as Nixon.

Very, very, very, very good as Nixon. And it's just a really well-made movie. And I was up in New York and I thought, you know, I'm going to find Frank Langella.

And tell him so. There's the guy. I don't know what this man's name is who plays for us. I can't recall anything. But he's good. And there's Langella playing Nixon. And Langella is really good as Nixon. And Nixon's not easy to do. Does he do the voice well? He does them well. And, you know, when you try too hard. Let me hear yours. Your personal lawyer came to Washington.

There you go.

It's good. Yeah, he's really good. So I never got around to finding out who where Franklin Joe lived in New York or calling him up. But maybe someone who knows him listens to your show will say, hey, Frank, you got a shout out today in Texas.

Okay, I got a shorter version. Okay. You're going to take me down to the Kennedy Road, and where are we going there with that one? I got Richard Belzer tapes I can play for you.

Belzer and I talked UFOs. The Renew guy is going to bring out all the Warren Commission stuff, supposedly release all this stuff. Allegedly.

I like that.

No, here's the way I see the Bob Woodward story. See, you said—I don't know. What did you say first about Nixon, about your way of looking at Nixon? The way I look at Nixon, and part of it is—seeing this, I like this way that—I love the way Langella did this. I thought it was really well done, and it made a character of him, a person of him. But to me— I feel—here's what I feel about Nixon.

It's like, you know, he was hard to care for. He ran against JFK, who was everybody's, you know, my hero. And my father actually pushed me into John F. Kennedy in 1960. You know, just pushed me into the crowd. He just pushed me up so I could bounce up against him. Now I'd have been wrestled to the ground. But back then, you could do that. Anyway—

You know, I felt like Nixon was, you know, and certainly knowing Hunter and knowing all of the history of Nixon and whatever, Nixon wasn't my guy. Oh, agreed. He was not my guy.

Okay, we can agree on that. But however, when I read Wired, the book written by, what's his name, Woodward, about Belushi, I read like five pages of Wired, and I went, oh, my God. They framed Nixon.

All of a sudden I went, oh, my God, if this is what he writes about my friend that I've known, you know, for half my adult life, which is completely inaccurate, talking to like the people of the outer, outer circle getting the story. What the hell could they have done to Nixon? I just felt like if he did this to my friend like this.

And I acknowledge I only read five pages, but the five pages I read, you know, made me want to, like, set fire to the whole thing. Jamie, see if you can find that. Those five pages I went – if he did this to Belushi, what he did to Nixon is probably –

soiled for me too i can't i can't take it and i know you say well you could have two sources and everything like that but the two sources that he had if he had them for the wired book were so far outside the inner circle that it was it was criminal cruel and the reasoning for it is that the most famous person ever to come from wheaton illinois is john belushi

The second most famous person to come from Wheaton, Illinois is Harold Red Grange, the football player. And the third most famous person to come from Wheaton, Illinois is Bob Woodward. Really? Really. Wow. So there's all my controversy for today. That's all I got. I got a bone about that one. You know, I got a bone for Woodward ever since I read that.

I mean, like Belushi made people's careers possible. He made people's careers possible. Mine would be one of them. All all the people that he dragged to New York, he went to New York first. He broke into New York. He took over New York and he dragged all all of us from the second city, you know, to New York. He's the one that got everyone there.

And and there are musicians and lots of them that will thank Belushi for the creation of Belushi. You know, the revivification of the blues and for like the fact that there is like a house of blues chain that blues players can go and play. And there are all these venues that wouldn't have existed without Belushi.

You know, he did a lot of things for people. He did a lot of there's a lot of people that slept on John Belushi's couch. There's a lot of people that stayed for free at his house until they made it in New York. And I'm one. And and any and any, you know, you know, he died in an unfortunate way. But the man when he was he was still the best stage actor I ever saw. He was absolutely magnetic.

You couldn't take your eyes off him. And he did a lot of wonderful things for each other. He was a short hitter. Guy could only drink like four beers and he was drunk. So the idea that he died of an overdose is hilarious. Like that's what my brother said. He said, what do you have four beers? You know, he's John's dad. What do you have four beers? Because he was not really much of a drinker, but.

But it was drugs, right? It was drugs, yeah. Speedball? It was a speedball, yeah. And it was this, I believe, to my knowledge, it was like the first speedball he ever had. Jesus Christ. So what was the Woodward interpretation? What was his version? Oh, it was just he was just he was talking to people like, wait a minute.

You're telling me that that guy over there, that guy who's that far away from the center of things is telling you the facts about John Belushi. That guy way the fuck over there is telling you who John Belushi is. It's like, wait a minute. And he didn't contact any of you guys? Well, I didn't want to have anything to do with it. I would have nothing to do with it.

I didn't like the – it smelled funny from day one, you know. And, you know, Judy wanted people to talk. I was like, sorry. I know where this is going. And it wasn't exactly where I thought it was going. Even worse than where I thought it was going. Even just the title alone, you know. It was cold. So it was just exploitation of his death.

You know, you'd have to hold me down and burn my feet to make me read more of it. So I couldn't say that it's exploitation of his death. But, you know, guys that write books come up with, you know. Bob Woodward's got a new title every 45 minutes for another book, you know. So, you know. Yeah.

it's a very disturbing thing it's just tough you know it's like so what do you you know that's he really in those five pages I read he tore down my friend you know I didn't see any there was no compensation there was no balance in the five I read and maybe maybe I was unlucky but if that much was to me was disturbingly ugly and like

irresponsible to report and then i i can't imagine that i got so that i only found by yeah um you know and i'm sure he's done wilbert does other things i've seen him on tv and he can be smart and everything but you know he's gonna have to answer for that sometime for something you know i think yeah you know it's just like you don't get a free ride for not with my friend

Yeah. And Bob Woodward, like one of the squarest guys in the world, gets to tell the story of what it was like to live in New York City in the 70s.

Really? In the late 70s and 80s? Like he knew what the story was? Come on.

It was cool. It was really fun. You know, it was a smaller city in a funny way. There was a lot more freedom. And it was when I got there, you know, the town was broke. You know, you know, the town was falling apart and, you know, the subways were rough and. You know, people, you know, to me, it was exciting. I didn't what the hell I know.

I came from Illinois, from Chicago, from the suburbs of the city in Chicago. Chicago was pretty. It was a city. And in some it had its own hazards. You know, there was some more hazard. And where I lived in Chicago was more dangerous where I lived in Chicago. But the city was – the economic part of it and the infrastructure was – like the subways were – people complain about the subways now.

It's like, wait a second. These subways are air-conditioned and the windows close. Those windows were open all the time. Summer and winter. And you either froze or you had like metal shavings dust flying through in the summer with no heat, with no air conditioning. And, you know, if it's 97 degrees out. It's even hotter inside a crowded subway car, you know.

That was also back when Times Square was Times Square. And it was cool. Yeah, Times Square is just as weird now, but it's just a different weird. They sort of tried to sanitize it, you know, and it's kind of stupid. I mean, now there's a lot more lights and everything. There's more signs. But the signs were always cool. When they were neon, they were cool.

Now there's just these glow lights and they just keep moving and dancing. And, you know, it's, you know, people with like... vision problems shouldn't be out and people, you know, who are the people that are supposed to watch out for strobe lights? Yeah, epileptics. Yeah, epileptics can't walk through Times Square. And 42nd Street is... It's blah. It's like dull. It's an Applebee's.

Back then it was like, wow.

But it was cool back then. You could see stuff. There was real stuff to see. Not that there's – it's still real, but it's just a different real. There's a lot more – it's a whole international world now, which it wasn't back then. Back then it was just like – The street survivors of the city at the very, you know, the physical center of it. And you saw some amazing things.

And it was alive, certainly alive. Now there's, you know, you're crashing into... Not exactly debutante or not exactly like bridesmaid parties, but like, you know, there's people with flags and people dragging people around and stuff. Well, there's always a lot. There's a lot to see. There's still a lot to see. It's still New York City, New York.

Yes, it was. It was a great experience for sure. And, you know, you saw, you know, your life just changed dramatically from being, you know, Unable to – barely able to pay your rent or afford, you know, a car, a telephone, anything like that, you know, to having a credit card. Like that was a big thing, you know, a credit card and a credit card.

And, you know, we had to – because they wanted a safe, we had this sort of –

cab account with a thing called skulls angels there was a sort of company within the yellow cab company called skulls angels and you could call them and they would pick you up anywhere in the city and take you wherever and it was just you just signed your name you didn't have to have any money and i had a credit card and that account and that's all and i just went lived for a couple of years like that and you just basically all you were doing was going to work

And going to sleep and going – and then in between, when you'd have 12 or 15 hours where you didn't have to do anything, you'd go like, okay, let's go. And then you'd go like – anything could happen. Anything could happen and you could go anywhere in the city and you sort of had a sort of a –

thumbprint of okay you could go into any place and people be like come on in you know and uh you got to you know really you know i mean i probably could have done you know gotten more out of it but i certainly got a lot i put a lot into it you know i got a lot an amazing kind of uh

No, I have these things now. But if you have children, you have to get a cell phone. Right. Because they will not answer a telephone, but they will answer a text. So I had to break down. Yeah.

Education, you know, I got an amazing education, but I guess that gets back to sort of, you know, I got to put my education to use is what I should say. I mean, in this kind of new challenging environment, I got to put what my education had to that point had been to use.

Well, I'll try to do them in order. Well, being broke was – oh, I should tell you. I'm here in Austin, Texas. This is a William Murray golf shirt I brought you. Somehow I got involved with these clothes. The clothes got involved with me. And that's me. That is I in that person right there. And I brought you a pair of shorts. Oh, thank you. I also brought licorice, which you don't want. No.

Some people are very, very excited that I've gotten to come down here to be on your show.

He's a licorice dealer.

Trying to pass out licorice. Anyway, so anyway, the shorts are very, you're not too chubby, but the shorts are very forgiving. Are these golf shorts? I've been traveling. Well, yeah, they're kind of golf. So are you gray? Are you a gray guy? I can wear gray. Yeah, sure, I'll wear that. That's what I thought. I thought you'd be a gray guy. Those are for you. Thank you very much.

I've got my name on them. So if they get lost, they'll be returned to me.

Thank you very much.

And wait, I got your shirt. I thought you might like this shirt because this kind of has the range of possibility on it. Oh, yeah. That kind of has sort of a studious look for you. There's a lot going on in that. There's a lot going on. Thank you. There you go.

Yeah, you're welcome. I have long pants, too, if you want some long pants. No, I'm good. But I think you're more of a shorts guy.

Yeah. Well, it's not that tall. Let's see. So we're the same sort of. And so you like white or blue? Sure. Or black? Yeah. Those are shorts. Hold on. Are you a shorts guy or a long pants guy? I like it all.

You love it all, huh?

It's hot? Texas gets hot when you're playing golf?

I bet.

How chubby are you?

Okay. Well, the pants are pretty good. You want the shorts? Yeah, give him the shorts. These are black. Nice. And that's the Murray tartan right there. That's the family tartan there. There you go. Is that like from your family seal?

Yeah. My email is AOL.com. Is it really? Yeah. So that's that's that was my concession to it.

Yeah. Okay. And then so here. And then so you want a shirt?

Let's see. I should show off this shirt. This is a shirt because my sort of brother has something to do with this one. This has got like all this stuff from Chicago on it. Oh, nice. It's got, I haven't even looked at this yet.

It's like a pizza place. I don't know why there's tambourines and stuff on it. I have no idea. But there's always a glass of beer for some reason.

But there's a bunch of references to people we know and things we did in Chicago. And I see there's like the names of some character in a movie I played. And then there's Slough's Place. That's my friend Jeff Sloughman who's a golfer. I think you're going to like this shirt here, Jamie. How's that for you? Oh, that's perfect. That's Jamie. Okay. What color pants did I throw at you?

How long have you been golfing for? Well, the question is how long have I been caddying for? So I started caddying when I was very young. Our eldest brother, Edward, started caddying.

Yeah, well, Caddyshack came, you know, my brother Brian was the, wrote the, Brian wrote it with Doug Kenny, one of the really great funny guys from National Lampoon, and Harold Ramis, who ended up directing the movie. But all the golf stuff is all Brian's, you know, memories of caddying. The whole golf story comes from Brian, sort of.

I mean, they all write jokes, but Doug was in charge of all the fancy lad stuff. His dad was some sort of tennis pro sometime or other in Ohio. And Harold wrote the jokes that were left and shaped it and directed it.

Yeah, yeah. I started as a shag boy, which doesn't even exist anymore. What is that? There's a thing called a jam boy, which I don't know if it really exists. My friend Duff insists that back in the day there was a thing called a jam boy who walked around – I think it was a slave or something like it who walked around covered with jam to draw the insects away from the golfers.

Now, I don't know if that's true or not. We should ask your listeners. But I was – I didn't have it that bad, of course. But a shag boy was – golfers had what they called a shag bag, which was like a small bag of golf balls, like 100 golf balls or something like that. And they would dump them out on the practice tee and you would run out there with the bag and they would – you would be the target.

Okay, go out about 70 yards, 60 yards, you know, and then they'd start hitting. Did you ever wear that? No, but see, that would be safer than what I was wearing. We didn't have that. But I was just out there. See, can you – yeah. But I was definitely out there, and they would aim at you. And the thing was it would last for an hour or so.

And, you know, you're only – I was 10 when I started doing this. So – So your mind would wander and occasionally you'd hear like a ball land next to you or really close. I never got conked exactly on the head, but I definitely got hit on one bounce on any number of times. But you were just a target.

Yeah, yeah. That was good. We were trying to write something funny. I was with my friend Dick Blasucci on that one. And I can't remember. There were like two or three of us that were trying to write this thing. And we rented like a Klieg light, you know, like a big Hollywood premiere kind of one of those giant lights that they flash up in the sky.

And then he'd wave in the next club and you'd go like seven iron, so you'd have to back up a little farther and then farther. And the bigger the club, the wider the dispersion of the ball. So you had to run back. You really had to run to catch up to where this – Bad golfer was hitting the golf balls. So that was when I was 10. And then like a year or so later, I became like a caddy.

And then I caddied all the way through high school. Paid my way through high school.

Well, if you showed up to caddy on Sunday, you were allowed to play golf on Monday morning. So probably – I didn't really play golf golf like that until really 12 maybe. Maybe a little sooner. But – We used to play golf across the street from our house. There was like a line of telephone poles planted in grass, you know. And we would play from phone pole to phone pole. And that was the pin.

So that's it. And then I didn't really play. I mean, once I sort of, you know, made it through high school, I didn't play for a long time until I made some money. And then all of a sudden you can play golf again because golf – If you're not caddying, it takes money to play. You got to at least play and be organized and have a set of clubs and stuff. So I picked it up then and now I like it.

I was going to give it up a few years ago, but then all of a sudden my son started playing golf. I was like, well, that's what you got to do. So now I'm having more fun playing and I've gotten smarter. Do you ever play golf? No. Never? No, never.

Oh.

Do you have a pool table here?

Oh.

And what games do you play? Do you play like straight pool? Nine ball, ten ball. Nine ball. Yeah. You know, I should work on nine ball. I have a pool table. Yeah. I mostly play with – you know, I mostly play with –

No.

Maybe. Yeah. There's always the rooftop.

Well, yeah, I guess I'm – well, I don't want you to get addicted. Well, I just – I've heard you're a very good golfer. That's why I'm asking. Well, just keep that light going. But it's – But I can play okay. I've hit a lot of golf shots. What's like your handicap? Jamie will know what that means. Now it's about 12. The lowest I ever was was about 7. Pretty good if you can play. Yeah.

It means I can play a little bit. And now it's actually – what's the word? Diminishing? It's going lower because I've figured something out. There's a – I went to – there's a great book. These ladies – I've got Pia Nielsen and Lynn – Peter Nielsen's an easy one to remember, but whatever Lin's last name. They wrote a great book called Every Shot Must Have a Purpose. Did you ever read that one?

You know, you don't even see them very much anymore. Yeah. And we were just outside the Chateau Marmont where Hunter had a room at that moment. And we were doing – we were excited because Nixon's back. And we were interviewing alleged people on the street, men on the street saying, what do you think about this? Because it was after Watergate and Nixon had basically burrowed down.

Well, I should talk about them because they really are on to something, and it's about quieting your brain when you play, which I always thought I'd get better as my brain softened. It seemed to be happening. My brain was softening. It was maybe getting better, but not fast enough for me. And then I started following what these ladies had to write.

They were Annika's teachers at one time, Annika Sorenstam. She's a famous golfer, Swedish. Every shot must have a purpose. There it is, and there's the forward by Annika. Anyway, Lynn Marriott. See, I'm blocking that because it's a hotel name. And I didn't used to be a member of the Marriott Club. Okay, so that's a great book, and they've written a bunch of stuff. They know some stuff.

What does it change as far as – It made me enjoy – I enjoy golf. I've always had a lot of fun. But that made me enjoy golf even more. How so? Like what is it –

Other people are concerned for me. Oh, really? Are they? Legitimately? I don't know. I don't know why. It's the weightlifter thing because I have no predisposed – I have no premonitions. But when I walk in here and I see – I got to look at that. What is that green?

is a problem, so it's the ability to sort of just pull the weeds out of your head, as I read a Japanese man say once. And attend to it when you attend to it. It's a few hours to play a round of golf, like you say, it takes a long time. But the actual playing of the game is only minutes. The actual hitting of the ball is only minutes.

Right, right. So it's similar to that in golf or anything that you have to sort of return to yourself to hit the ball.

And so... You have the freedom in between the shots to move and to speak and to tell jokes and smoke cigars and whatever the hell you want to do. But when you want to hit the ball, this is about you're going to think, make a little plan, and you separate that. You sort of inculcate that. You take it in, and then you separate that, and you step up, and you hit the thing.

And hitting the thing is only hitting the thing. And if you can do that, Then you start having real success with the actual hitting and the sort of joy of the sort of mind-body connection and all this sort of aesthetic, all the kind of like, you know, almost spiritual things about it.

And Hunter had like a – Powerful hatred of Nixon. Really didn't like Nixon, of course. But I just remember Dick Blasucci saying, well, I'm excited. He's tanned, he's rested, and he's ready. I still say it all the time. I say it about myself all the time because I think it's funny. How are you, Bill? I'm tanned, I'm rested, and I'm ready.

Well, for an example, it's like something that can keep you in your body because you have to stay in your body. I believe that anyway. I already believe that. So you've got this dreidel here, right? So imagine it's a golf ball. One thing that they sort of say was like you would just –

In between shots, you would just take your golf ball, if you're on a putting green or if you have a spear in your pocket, and you just toss it up and catch it. Toss it up and catch it. That keeps you physically aware of, I've got to do this and this and that. I've got to do these two things, so I've got to have my attention in my body. I've got to stay home, you know.

So if you can stay in your body, it all begins in the body. Everything we are, everything we hope to be, everything we dream about, it's all within the skin. So you gotta stay within the skin. So if you can make yourself come back, if you can get yourself back inside,

So I'm close. Does that make sense, Jamie? Yes. So – and I've had some discussions with Pia and she says, well – That's what the great golfers are doing. They are pulling themselves back into this thing. That's why they hit so many good shots is because they're home, you know, they're home. And so that's sort of what I got out of her.

And I sort of learned and believe that from other venues, but I never had it put in with practical applications like she gives, they give.

They started televising it lately. It's really cool to watch. It's very cool to watch. Cameras are right on their face and just the torso, just like this. And you're like... God dang, that's beautiful.

But saying it about Richard Nixon, I thought, was a really brilliant thing to say.

Do people watch that live? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they've got to have like big screens because you can't see the faces from a distance, right? No. And you don't want to get between the arrows, of course.

Look at the audience.

Can you go back and freeze that? There. Can you lose the line on the bottom? So that's just interesting to me to look at.

Like their weight balance. Just to look at who's on sort of half his front foot. So it's interesting. They have a little bit more weight on their back foot. Is that right?

So he might settle.

Yeah. And it's Dick Blasucci who did it. And we weren't there for like 45 minutes before like— I work in the industry, and I know you have to have a permit to have that light on. I mean, there were people. They came at us. We were a going concern for about one hour tops.

And so by just torquing your wrist, rotating it?

Or some of them use a thumb.

So that's why they all look different on the release.

So like that chubby guy right there.

But they get it to the position or the area where it's going to go.

And they've got to be right. They've got to be poised forward.

Yes. That tension. So you try to not anticipate. Yes. Surprise.

And that was with, like, professional argumentative people like Hunter and myself going, that is a fabulous watch you're wearing. Where'd you get that? You know, just anything to keep this thing going and to keep the cameras rolling on our super stuff. Yeah. And demands. But, yeah, that was one of the things. I had a lot of fun with the guy. He really was a lot of fun.

Yes. And when you when a thought does come into your head, you don't hit the target.

So how do you affect that yourself? How do you move that away from the...

I don't play enough pool, but I had to shoot some pools in Groundhog Day, so I got with a guy who's a pool expert, and he just gave me drills to do.

No. Okay. But if he remembers, he should say hi. Anyway, he taught me a bunch of things, and I'm still very disappointed because when we actually shot the scene, I think I made – I think I sank – I think I shot, I think I sank like nine balls, seven balls, eight balls in three shots. And I went, we got that? And the cinematographer was like, well, let's set it up. I'll set up a different shot.

I said, what are you talking about? He had half of the table.

Well, that's what I was talking about. I think. Yeah. Yeah. My brother was there, too. He went to school out there at St. Mary's in Moraga.

And so but it turned out he was spending a lot of time in Berkeley.

He wasn't doing that much studying. But he but what a life he had out there. What a fantastic time to have been there. And my other friend went to high school at that time somewhere around there. And I envied that. And I I I really like San Francisco. And I I was there recently. I saw Dr. Not Dr. Father Guido Sarducci.

And we went to an old place called Macaroni or something like that. Old Italian place. And it was really delightful. I just love San Francisco. And I have friends who were like... And we started talking about politics a long time ago. For political reasons, they say, oh, San Francisco, they've ruined San Francisco. And so I was there and...

He really could make a lot of fun.

I know there's homeless people in San Francisco now, lots of them.

But I know I just – I'm sticking up for San Francisco saying it's still – I mean San Francisco survived – The beatniks. It survived the hippies. It survived the earthquake. It survived AIDS. It survived everything.

Well, you can still read it. Oh, yeah. There's still so much more stuff that I hadn't even read then. It just keeps appearing. There are things that are so beautiful that he wrote that are good and people text me things and say about what's going on, how sort of prescient he was about things a long time ago.

It's a mental health issue.

Well, I don't know what the—I mean, you know, when you talk—when you speak, it sounds like more of a political choice. No. Someone's saying—well, it sounds like you're saying they're being— You know, paid to shit on the streets and become mentally ill. No, I'm not saying they're being paid to shit on the streets. They are mentally ill.

I always felt like mental illness happened first before living on the street.

And that was my experience in New York was like Rockefeller way back when, and I could be wrong, but this is how it was attributed, sort of opened up the mental – closed up the mental health hospitals and pushed – these many, many, many people out on the streets that had nowhere to go.

It's really a mental health situation. A great number of these people have no interest in going into a place. They would just as soon live on the street. Their life is like an interior monologue that they can't control.

The conversation is still going on inside the brain. But there has to be a solution for it. Well, okay. So I don't disagree that there has to be a solution. But I don't think that people are – This is sort of like where, you know, I'd like to think about let's not talk politics. Let's agree on what we can agree on.

So that solution is like this is where the great minds of California or the United States need to come together and say, OK, these are why don't we solve these problems that are common to everybody?

And it's hard to say let's – you say there's got to be a solution. Where is that going to come from and who is going to believe it from – if it comes from this direction or that direction or this side or that side? How do you like –

evaporate the walls of separation and say like how do we get how do we get the right people with the right minds to solve these questions you know these are these are real things and and people argue about them when i mean you and i are you know arguing but we're talking about yeah and neither one of us are sleeping on the street right we both feel compassion for it you know and empathy for it but

But how do you get people that are far removed, or you could say we're far removed from it, to allow the solution to take place? From one side or the other. From one side, any side, who gives a damn who's got it right?

There's no argument to what you're saying. No, no, no, no. There's no argument. So you were in this situation. You had this – people call it a platform or a place where you invite people to come here that are – that can speak to lots of people. How many people watch your show? A lot. So there's lots of people watching your show.

And when there's people that make sense, you hear it, it rings a bell. It sounds like that. I wish I knew the answer to solving these things. And occasionally, like I say, you see people who are these problem solvers. And the problem solvers come. But people want to choose their own problem solver.

Yeah. To me, it's a better book. Then Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which is really fun. But the Campaign Trail book is so insightful about America and about Americans.

Just tell me, like, who makes money on the homeless?

So I'm trying to follow you. God knows I'm trying. Are you having a hard time? So no. No, I think we were talking earlier about... the agents versus the architects or something like that. You used a word that explained like the people who are like coming up with the sort of thing.

And I was watching something and I've really tried to avoid watching the news lately. But I saw someone talking about – and it was someone that works – and you say the word bureaucracy and it's a loaded word. And we all hate bureaucracy. There's just a word of it. It gives you like a creepy feeling.

Yeah. And so it's like being on hold for Amtrak or whatever the hell it is. There's someone – Oh, please, God, come back. Okay, so... Please, God, come back. So the idea that... And so this person was talking about the cuts that are going to come and to talk about eliminating the bureaucracy. And I don't know what particular department this person was in or not.

Oh, you're talking about a different person. It's a different person. I don't know what your person is. This is my person. My person is saying... The bureaucracy is like – the bureaucracy gets sort of like fed from above somehow or other. It's fed by these people that are the architects of one side or the other. But the actual bureaucracy includes the people that can solve the problem.

Like encased in this bureaucracy are people that can solve the problems and that if you just sort of – I'm not saying this is the case. But if you sort of just like – zip a bunch of the bureaucracy out, you run the risk of zipping out some of the people that actually have the brains to do the solutions.

And what this person said was the solution to the bureaucracy is within the bureaucracy that is finding the people that know what can be done because they really do have the data. They really do work. They actually do show up for work. And they actually have the data on how to do this thing.

But because it keeps being fed from above all the time, there's just all this extra debris and noise that keeps coming down that causes more clutter and more splitting and more something.

What we have, we have the people. I'm going to go off on tangents now, but I always kind of had an objection to Tom Brokaw's book, The Greatest Generation, because I thought, damn it, that's not my generation. How do they get that? But I did start reading some of it recently, and to his credit, he's finding people that are very singular in that generation.

He's talking about the generation that won World War II. And that generation was formed by the Great Depression. That was part of what they had. And then they had a world war that lasted five years. And it's really hard for people of a certain age to understand. You think you have problems with your relationship.

Have your lover go away for five years and see how well you're doing upon that person's return. See what the hell that's like for five years. You didn't answer my letter. My letter... Your letter? What letter? Your letter never came. I was under fire. Whatever it was. And then they come back shell-shocked. And then you come back with shell-shock on top of it.

And then back then the sort of kind of, I don't want to say macho thing, but back then people just didn't want to talk about it, which to me is part of what created the hippie generation was kids couldn't get their parents to talk about anything that they thought mattered. What their parents were talking about was like, huh? Wait, what's so wrong about peace, love, and understanding?

And they couldn't get to that because even the idea of peace was a completely different concept to someone that lived through a world war or lived through a depression. So these kids were like, I don't even understand who these people are. I know they're flesh and blood, but I don't know that. I don't know what the hell they know and why they're this way.

But he chose people that lived a very intentional purpose during that very, very difficult, challenging time where they just went, I don't know what I don't know. I don't know what all this is, but I do what I do know. I do know what I do know and stay through that. And that's...

I guess that, I don't know how this relates me to this idea of bureaucracy, but people that do know the facts have got to stay with the facts, even in the face of like all the blunderbussing above about, you know, there's this and there's that. You've got to be really dedicated to what you do know and realize that there's lots that you don't know. But if you give up what you know in the name of

you know, jostling over here, you know, then there's even more lost.

So who's this?

And the government people say it's just it's the government.

Well, that sort of makes sense, doesn't it? It does. You get results. Yes. You get encouraged by getting more money.

So does this remind you of anything? It reminds me of everything. It reminds me of the government itself. What does it remind you of?

You see it on the mountains. It's a beautiful, beautiful piece of writing.

I feel like there's no sort of idea that people can agree on that's the source of a reason for our being.

Yeah. Why don't you, Jamie, why don't you see if you can find it? It's about the most famous, it's the most famous line in the world. Let's take this in. It's beautiful. Sure, go ahead.

I'll never forget 9-11, what it was like to walk down the streets of New York after 9-11. There was nothing like it I've ever experienced in my whole life.

It was. People looked into each other's eyes. You walked by someone on the street, and every person on the street looked right in your eyes. And that lasted for weeks. I mean, people in New York walk with their head down. They look like a thing. They're reading a paper. But people just looking by like, OK, we're in this. Yeah. Together. Yeah.

Well, OK, so what we have here with the situation of like just using San Francisco as the idea is like it's just a gentler version of something that we could all say this is something that we have to go to war about.

Let's take this in.

Well, how did that – so that guy, his plan, his way of working needs to obviously get out there. It's got to get around.

I've heard of Loaves and Fishes. I didn't know all of this about it.

We've got to get this guy to San Francisco.

Can they?

Yeah, yeah. They sell them. Where do they go? It's called William & Marie Golf. They sell them online a lot, and I know they sell them in the golf shops some places and some stores. That's right there.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I walked in. I saw all these Hunter Thompson things. I felt automatically like, okay, well, this guy can't be a complete disaster. Yeah. And then I walked down the hall and there's Hunter wearing a hat that I gave him.

It's a beautiful piece. It glistens your eyes to see it, you know, not just – thinking of Hunter and the words that he said, but seeing Johnny and how close Johnny and Hunter became, how much they loved each other and how much they shared with each other. It's really a beautiful piece. Thank you.