Billy Corgan | Club Random with Bill Maher

Bill Maher sits down with Smashing Pumpkins icon Billy Corgan for his second visit to Club Random, diving into free speech, political division, and the rise of AI in music and entertainment. Billy riffs on reaching his own version of Valhalla but finding real joy in unconditional love, shares stories of bringing his kids on stage to dance during shows, and dishes on Dark L. A., song titles that stick, and Taylor Swift’s cultural takeover. Plus: the truths (and tall tales) of castles, islands, and the myths of rock & roll fame. Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://billmaher.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Support our Advertisers: Go to ⁠https://zbiotics.com/RANDOM⁠ and use RANDOM at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics. Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to: https://www.wildalaskan.com/RANDOM. It’s summer, and it's time to heat up your strategy before your competitors beat you to it. Go to ⁠⁠https://www. RadioActiveMedia.com⁠⁠ or text RANDOM to 511-511. Message and Data Rates May Apply. Buy Club Random Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clubrandom.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it. For advertising opportunities please email: [email protected] ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last fourteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous.” Maher has written five bestsellers: “True Story,” “Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? Politically Incorrect’s Greatest Hits,” “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,” “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,” and most recently, “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.” FOLLOW CLUB RANDOM https://www.clubrandom.com https://www.facebook.com/Club-Random-101776489118185 https://twitter.com/clubrandom_ https://www.instagram.com/clubrandompodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@clubrandompodcast FOLLOW BILL MAHER https://www.billmaher.com https://twitter.com/billmaher https://www.instagram.com/billmaher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  It's getting chilly outside. But you know what that means?

• 0:07Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 1:00Speaker 02

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• 1:12Speaker 03

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• 1:19Speaker 02

  Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest.

• 1:23Speaker 04

  Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Now streaming only on Disney+.

• 1:31Speaker 05

  So what's the worst part? He goes, "I had to buy the whole village that went with the cast."

• 1:41Speaker 05

  Because I looked. Are you serious? A rock star, Bill. We look at these things.

• 1:51Speaker 05

  Bill. Here I am in your house again. How are you? I go, "You're looking trim, Bill."

• 1:58Bill Maher?

  I actually never changed, but.

• 2:00Speaker 05

  I know, you look like you lost weight.

• 2:01Bill Maher?

  I did not.

• 2:02Speaker 05

  Really?

• 2:03Bill Maher?

  I'm telling you, I.

• 2:04Speaker 05

  It's just my memory.

• 2:07Bill Maher?

  If I kept losing all the weight people say I keep losing, I just, I'd be like a hundred pounds. No, I'm always, uh, uh, like within a pound or two.

• 2:15Speaker 05

  Did you ever gain weight? Did you, were you ever?

• 2:17Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I was not, I was plumpish, yes. Uh, I would say like late twenties. I have pictures of me like on my first sitcom. And yes, my face was a lot fuller and it's like, this is before I really even gave a thought to what constituted being healthy. Cause before that I was poor. So when you're poor, you just eat whatever shit food. And you're also, you're in your twenties, you don't.

• 2:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:43Bill Maher?

  But yeah, I mean, I was, uh, the older, I mean, it's paradoxical, but I really feel like the older I get in some ways, of course, not everywhere you can't, but. I'm healthier. I mean, I get way less like colds and flu. I used to get that every year. Because I drank more, ate shit food, didn't get proper rest, you know? You take better care of yourself and it's amazing.

• 3:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. Because we occasionally share the same makeup people?

• 3:10Bill Maher?

  You and I?

• 3:11Speaker 05

  Well, because our production worlds cross occasionally. You don't know this, I'm just telling you now.

• 3:19Bill Maher?

  I don't know, we do, really? We do?

• 3:21Speaker 05

  Occasionally. It might be somebody who used to work with you or. Maybe it's just because there's some, some cross.

• 3:27Bill Maher?

  You talking about your podcast?

• 3:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:30Bill Maher?

  Okay. I mean, I, I think I had a hand in your.

• 3:34Speaker 05

  You did.

• 3:34Bill Maher?

  Yes, and I'm very proud of it because you're very good at it.

• 3:37Speaker 05

  Oh, thank you. But, but my point is I was going to talk about your skin because.

• 3:41Bill Maher?

  This is a little weird, Mrs. Robinson.

• 3:45Bill Maher?

  This conversation is getting a little weird.

• 3:47Speaker 05

  Well, Bill, I mean, your, your skin looks so good. So I'm always, I'm always, I'm always, I'm always back channeling, trying to figure out what, what you do for your skin. I won't reveal the secrets I've learned.

• 3:57Bill Maher?

  Well, you know, everything is made in the kitchen, I believe.

• 4:00Speaker 05

  I heard that.

• 4:01Bill Maher?

  You know, that's the old saying, my abs are made in the kitchen, but it's not just abs. You know, it's really what you put in your body. I mean, I was ranting about Kennedy last week. He finally like went too far with me. And I was so wanting to be with him for his quest to relook at how we just in the macro, look at health in America. And I think he's right about so many things. And certainly, one of them would be, I mentioned this on the show. I never had a Western doctor, no matter what was wrong with me, ever said to me, "And what do you eat?"

• 4:37Speaker 05

  Right.

• 4:38Bill Maher?

  As if that shouldn't be like number one on the questionnaire about whatever's going wrong with you, that's gonna have some input into it.

• 4:46Speaker 05

  How can it not?

• 4:46Bill Maher?

  And how could it not? But it was just, that's just not on the chart of Western medicine. Maybe more now. So I was hopeful that he would like, you know, that kind of thinking and not the crazy part, but the crazy part, you know, he couldn't resist. And so.

• 5:02Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, we're in crazy time. Pardon?

• 5:06Bill Maher?

  Well, look, I might drink a little more than usual today because, I mean, I don't know when this is airing, but this is a shit day because a guy who sat there, Charlie Kirk, got shot today. And I can't stop thinking about it.

• 5:20Speaker 05

  Neither can I.

• 5:22Bill Maher?

  And we shouldn't. And if you're on the other side of the political divide and you don't care because the wrong team guy got shot, fuck you. You're what's wrong with this country.

• 5:34Speaker 05

  I love when our country can yell, scream, point, cajole, mock. Anything past that, I just can't. I can't.

• 5:45Bill Maher?

  Right. No, I have, well, I'm gonna be all up with this Friday night on my show, of course, but just the fight I have been having with the left. While I'm, of course, the irony, as a lot of people in my position, is still a liberal, just a traditional liberal, not, won't go along with their, like, a lot of the stuff that's just crazy out there too far, which gets Trump elected, blah, blah, blah. As I always say to my woke friends, "We voted for the same person. You're just why she lost."

• 6:25Speaker 05

  Oh, good, okay. Took me a second, sorry I had to absorb that.

• 6:27Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 6:30Bill Maher?

  You know, they're the people who don't want to talk. It's my main issue with them. They, and Charlie Kirk was a guy who, like, he was always talking. And I talk to him here. You know, the right-wingers, say what you want about them, but they talk to you. They, they're not into this leftist think, that the left really has much more of a, "I don't talk to you, I don't want to deal with you, you're deplorable, I can't break bread with you."

• 7:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:01Bill Maher?

  That attitude, and like, all the right-wingers, they, they don't have that attitude. Now, again, I didn't vote for them. And Charlie Kirk and I certainly don't agree on much politically. But he sat here, he's a human being, he's not a monster.

• 7:16Speaker 05

  And a husband, and a father.

• 7:18Bill Maher?

  Yes, and I liked him. I liked them all. They're all nice people when you meet them in person. And they're not as crazy as they would, nobody's as crazy as they make them out to be. And we're never gonna get, solve this unless it begins with both sides agreeing, we both do it. You know, the right, absolutely is full of...

• 7:40Speaker 05

  Well, violence has to be off the table. It's just, cannot, it's, it can't be well in this instance, or, I just, I can't, you, you just can't. And, and, and maybe people aren't sophisticated enough because they don't really know the world. And I'm not just talking historically, I mean, the world, it's, it's, it's a complicated world. And if you've traveled at all, you're, you're, you become grossly aware of how different the world is outside of America. And if you've been anywhere where sectarian violence has been part and parcel of the history, you know, that, that, that stuff doesn't go away on one election cycle. You're talking to people who like, you know, it's going back hundreds of years, you know, it's...

• 8:20Bill Maher?

  Sarajevo.

• 8:21Speaker 05

  Sure, I mean, a guy works for me who's literally in America because his family was, he had members of his family murdered during that whole, you know, that, I don't even know what you call it, because we tried not to call it a war, but.

• 8:33Bill Maher?

  Well, it wasn't the Balkan wars.

• 8:36Speaker 05

  Sure, but I'm saying, don't forget the propaganda of the time, you know.

• 8:39Bill Maher?

  But I mean, in the 90s, I mean, it's, you've mentioned sectarian, okay. Sarajevo, when it was Yugoslavia, was a city of Muslims and Christians. It was, it was in the, it hosted the Winter Olympics. And eight years later, people were getting shot when they went out to get milk because there were snipers.

• 9:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:06Bill Maher?

  That, it is not crazy to think that something similar could happen here. I mean, people have been talking for a while about a, a low-grade civil war. This is what it means to start one, and like I said, both sides. You mentioned political violence. At the State of the Union, Biden's last one, he said, political, political violence has no place in our society, something like that. And the Democrats all stood and clapped, and the Republicans sat there like, and it's like, really? You can't applaud for that, you fucking assholes?

• 9:49Bill Maher?

  And again, unless we start with both sides, the Luigi Mangionis, which is like, you know, I, I hope this isn't becoming like a copycat thing. Like, oh, this is a cool.

• 10:02Speaker 05

  But that's, sorry, but that's why I think we need to say culturally, societally, left, right, American, don't care, ambivalent. Political violence has to be off the table. It cannot be an instrument to achieve goal. It just can't. And it can't be rationalized, it can't be asterisked. It just can't. It just can't, because. What we have is so rare. And both of us are the beneficiaries of a free market system. And that free market system is not fair to everyone.

• 10:35Bill Maher?

  And free speech system.

• 10:37Speaker 05

  Well, that's always been my biggest thing, you know. Anytime I've ever stepped in the political arena, and it's been very, very brief, I've always made the same point. As an artist, if I don't stand for free speech, I mean, what do I stand for? Because invariably, somebody's gonna stand up and say, "You can't say that, you can't sing that." Right?

• 10:54Bill Maher?

  And we do have limits, as we should, which is something that is directly threatening to, you know, specifically to a person, or inciting violence very specifically. Of cour- and we do, that is already in our canon. But...

• 11:11Speaker 05

  It's like when you have kids, and you say to your kids, like, they wanna argue a point, you go, "Yeah, but you know what you did was wrong." Okay, so I think most people understand where the line is. They wanna pretend that they forgot it, or...

• 11:25Bill Maher?

  Do kids know what they do is wrong?

• 11:28Bill Maher?

  I mean, I...

• 11:29Speaker 05

  My children do.

• 11:30Bill Maher?

  Really? How do they know? Because they're kids.

• 11:32Speaker 05

  Because they just know.

• 11:33Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 11:34Speaker 05

  No, no, I'm saying, I'm just, I'm making a very simple point.

• 11:37Bill Maher?

  But I'm really asking, because I don't have kids. And I feel, I feel like, I feel like kids, being kids, who are, you know, you're not born knowing anything. So, you kind of have to learn it. I feel like kids are feral, and...

• 11:54Speaker 05

  Well, Bill, you...

• 11:55Bill Maher?

  What?

• 11:56Speaker 05

  Well, you don't have kids, I'm saying is, I don't, I don't think they're as feral as you think they are.

• 12:01Bill Maher?

  From, when I'm, when I've been, when I am out in public.

• 12:04Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 12:04Bill Maher?

  And, you know, like, many times over the years, like, going into a hotel, say.

• 12:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:10Bill Maher?

  And, you know, there will be kids coming through in the lobby or something, or when you're going up to your room in the hallway. No, they're feral. They are absolutely feral. And they also are born without any sense of right and wrong. Did you ever read Lord of the Flies?

• 12:27Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 12:27Bill Maher?

  Okay, Lord of the Flies, great book. And it's about kids who, what are they, on a desert island or something? And it just shows how feral they are and atavistic and how awful they are to each other. Because you have to be taught to be a good person.

• 12:42Speaker 05

  I'm not, I don't totally agree with you if you want to.

• 12:44Bill Maher?

  Well, tell me.

• 12:44Speaker 05

  Okay. My sense of it is, and I go back to my own relationship to myself as a child, which was complicated. But, but what I try to talk to my kids about was, when you did that, did you feel good or did you feel bad? And that's what I mean about a sort of innate sense of right or wrong. Like, they, they know deep down that even no matter how they justify their behavior, and oftentimes they have a, you know, "He stole my toy," you know, that type of thing. But the, deep down, they admit that they don't feel good about what they did. And I think that, to me, is the delineating point that says, on some level, humans are hardwired to have some innate moral sense. That's just my, my, my take.

• 13:23Bill Maher?

  Then, why are so many of them incorrigible schmucks? Why is there so much evil in the world? Why is there so much crime? Why is there so much merciless activity wrought by one human being onto another? "Man's inhumanity to man," we all know that phrase. Where does that come from?

• 13:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I, I tend to default to there are systems in place that want to exploit human decency. In, in essence, if you can separate a human from their own decency, well, there's a lot of money to be made. You know, porn is a perfect example.

• 13:59Bill Maher?

  Porn?

• 14:00Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 14:01Bill Maher?

  What, what is evil about that?

• 14:03Speaker 05

  I'm not saying it's evil. I'm saying is, I'm not saying it's evil. What I'm saying is, is porn on some level requires a disassociative frame of mind to enjoy it.

• 14:14Bill Maher?

  I hope so, if you're doing it right.

• 14:18Bill Maher?

  That's it, well, go into that further if you would for me. Disassociative frame of mind.

• 14:24Speaker 05

  Okay, next time, not that you would ever watch porn, I don't watch porn.

• 14:28Bill Maher?

  Every day.

• 14:29Speaker 05

  Okay, God bless.

• 14:30Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 05

  I don't watch porn, I, I, I don't believe in watching porn.

• 14:33Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 14:34Speaker 05

  And no judge.

• 14:35Bill Maher?

  For, for, I'm not judging and.

• 14:37Speaker 05

  And I'm not judging in reverse.

• 14:38Bill Maher?

  And, and if you did, I wouldn't care. You judge me all you want.

• 14:42Speaker 05

  Next time you're masturbating in front of a, a porno bill, I don't, I, I, I hope I don't enter your mind. This is what I'm saying.

• 14:48Bill Maher?

  Uh, you will not. You definitely will not, unless you show up in the video, which I'm not expecting.

• 14:54Speaker 05

  Well, maybe somebody will look like me and it reminds you of me.

• 14:57Bill Maher?

  Uh, you know, with AI, you could absolutely, I mean.

• 15:01Speaker 05

  Anyway, back to my point.

• 15:02Bill Maher?

  Billy with MILF, uh, and stepson, you know, that.

• 15:07Speaker 05

  I guess I'd be a bilf, right?

• 15:09Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you would.

• 15:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, um, point being is that next time you're watching porn, it's a thought experiment, if you'd like to try this, okay?

• 15:18Bill Maher?

  True.

• 15:18Speaker 05

  And I'm, I'm gonna assume for the sake of this thought experiment that you're.

• 15:21Bill Maher?

  Hey, when I have my dick in my hand, I'm all about the thought experiments.

• 15:29Speaker 05

  Okay, and I'm not saying you like young women, Bill, but let's say you're watching.

• 15:34Bill Maher?

  Again, no shame there, I'm, I'm not shamed at that either.

• 15:37Speaker 05

  Okay, so you're watching a young woman in flagrante, uh, and, and, and she.

• 15:42Bill Maher?

  I don't watch Italian porn, no, I'm kidding, in flagrante, yes. You're so erudite, Bill, it's what I love about you, you are, you're very erudite.

• 15:51Speaker 05

  So, you're watching a porn with a young woman and, uh, doesn't matter what's happening, it's just, you're, she's involved on some level.

• 15:58Bill Maher?

  On some level, I fucking hope so. If not, it's gay porn.

• 16:03Speaker 05

  In, in, in, in Billy's thought experiment, okay, stop for a moment, if you can, if you're not, if you're not so caught up in passion.

• 16:10Bill Maher?

  I'm so into this now, I want to hear this so badly.

• 16:14Speaker 05

  Stop and think that that's somebody's daughter.

• 16:21Bill Maher?

  That's so funny. Do I know this person? Do I, in other words, is it a person I know and is their daughter?

• 16:28Speaker 05

  No, I'm saying is-

• 16:29Bill Maher?

  Okay, then I'm good. And maybe even if I do. Uh, I don't know, but that's, uh, sorry. Sorry about this bit take, but not my first, not my first one here. Is that really what's going through your mind?

• 16:42Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 16:43Bill Maher?

  But what, how does me, uh, a world away, uh, in front of a computer with my dick in my hand, how does this affect the daughter in any way? And by the way, why is it such a horrible-

• 16:56Speaker 05

  Because my point was, it requires a level of disassociation. In essence, you have to, on some level, disassociate that this is a human being who may or may not be in that position for all the wrong reasons. Maybe it's all the right reasons. I'm friends with, with a very famous porn star who did it purposely, intentionally, and is not, is not damaged by it-

• 17:16Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 17:17Speaker 05

  And is totally, totally fine with it.

• 17:19Bill Maher?

  Yes, porn stars are nymphomaniacs.

• 17:21Speaker 05

  Generally speaking, yeah.

• 17:22Bill Maher?

  Generally speaking. They really like sex and like to do it a lot. I mean, it's not-

• 17:27Speaker 05

  But by, by that classification, then you're a porn star.

• 17:31Bill Maher?

  I could have been. I may have missed my calling. I've thought of that many times.

• 17:34Speaker 05

  You got, you got the frame for it.

• 17:35Bill Maher?

  Uh, well, let's not, uh, tip our met too much, but, um-

• 17:40Speaker 05

  I mean, I've heard from women, it's usually the skinny guys that are, that are packing the Sinatra heat.

• 17:46Bill Maher?

  Okay, uh, well, it's, it's just unseemly to ever talk about your dick. So I'm not gonna start.

• 17:51Speaker 05

  But is this the first time you've ever talked about your penis on your show?

• 17:54Bill Maher?

  No, but, uh, one of my ex-girlfriends once talked about it on Howard Stern.

• 17:58Speaker 05

  Really?

• 17:59Bill Maher?

  Yes, and I loved it because she blew his mind.

• 18:01Speaker 05

  Okay, good. I have to find that clip.

• 18:03Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you'll have to find that clip. Um, anyway, the, first of all, um, I don't think porn necessarily is something that is, uh-

• 18:14Bill Maher?

  Harmful to the people who are doing it, as they say.

• 18:18Speaker 05

  I mean, in involved in the actual.

• 18:20Bill Maher?

  What what I'm amazed when I do go on Pornhub to find is that it seems like there is a literally inexhaustible number of women who are doing it. It looks, if you just go on Pornhub and keep scrolling and scrolling. It looks like every woman in America under thirty five years old is doing porn. I mean, it is just a lot.

• 18:44Speaker 05

  I I don't know if this is accurate, but this is like sort of anecdotal. I heard somebody talking recently, they were saying with with the numbers on OnlyFans that they estimate that one point four percent of the population of the United States is now doing porn.

• 18:57Bill Maher?

  Doing that, yes, that sounds about right. Yeah, I mean, and when you look, if you parse that down to like what percentage of the population, OK, half of them are not women, so yes, there are some male porn stars. And by the way, kudos to them because like a male porn star, what a brilliant idea. A guy who says, you know what, they're gonna make porn and they're gonna need a real dick. They're gonna need somebody's dick to get sucked all day long by hot chicks. I could do that job. I mean, I I must say, there is a part of me that says, wow, I wish I had that kind of confidence.

• 19:41Bill Maher?

  But anyway.

• 19:42Speaker 05

  Well, it's, you know, like, it's it's a short step from there to comedy, you see.

• 19:49Bill Maher?

  Yeah. The problem is, you know, the people who watch it do get addicted. There is a real.

• 19:59Speaker 05

  OK, good.

• 19:59Bill Maher?

  Issue here.

• 20:00Speaker 05

  So we're going the right way.

• 20:01Bill Maher?

  There is definitely an issue. I'm always been on the page, at least about, look, I never even saw it on the computer until about, I would say, five or six years ago. I was a guy, grew up with magazines.

• 20:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:13Bill Maher?

  And I was afraid to look at it because I was like, oh, what if they get a cookie in here and what if they know what I'm doing and what if they're really watching me? And well, I got over that. But.

• 20:23Bill Maher?

  The the people not our age who grew up on it.

• 20:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:28Bill Maher?

  Um, they do become addicted and it is not benign. I don't think the kids watch it in the same way I do. Like, I don't almost ever see the man in the porn video. Usually it's a girl who comes out and does sexy stuff direct to camera. And for five or 10 minutes and then a guy comes in. Well, I don't need the guy, I'm the guy. Like, like, once the guy comes, I don't actually like to watch them fucking and sucking. I I just like to see them being sexy.

• 20:59Speaker 05

  Oh, I see.

• 21:00Bill Maher?

  You know, so like, um, that's very far from kids who like at 12 years old. They've seen a a a team of Japanese men have, you know.

• 21:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:10Bill Maher?

  Bukkake with.

• 21:11Speaker 05

  Have you, yeah, have you heard the thing where, uh, and again, it's anecdotal, but I've heard these things that that that young men. They've consumed so much porn by the time they hit their late teens, early twenties. They they literally can't have normal sex with the woman.

• 21:25Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  Because they're so, and I have talked to young women.

• 21:28Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 21:29Speaker 05

  Who have complained.

• 21:30Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 21:31Speaker 05

  That they get into relationships with guys and and if the guys, unless the guy's having sort of, let's call it very edgy sex.

• 21:36Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 21:37Speaker 05

  He can't.

• 21:38Bill Maher?

  And that's what is not benign about porn. It's and it's again, something that I don't even want to watch is that it's kind of rapey. It's, uh, you know, I don't need to, I don't, it's gross. There's a lot of spitting and coming on the face and and, you know, ass fucking, things that are, I'm not.

• 21:56Speaker 05

  You just like the sexy.

• 21:57Bill Maher?

  I'm not interested, yes.

• 21:59Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 21:59Bill Maher?

  I mean, uh, you know, I I mean, here's the thing about sex, it's very sexy. And I just don't see the need to dress it up like with all, and if you have to, I just think you're doing it wrong. If you're using devices, if you're using food, like food should not be involved in sex at all. It's just, it's, I find it disgusting just to eat before you have sex. I always think you should have the sex first and then dinner. It's just wrong to do it the other way because you eat, you're bloated, you're farty, your breath stinks. But, you know, but actually involving food, I just don't understand. Or wigs, or fucking I'm a pirate and you're a schoolgirl, you know.

• 22:42Bill Maher?

  I just don't, I mean, if you're, just fuck, you know, just, just learn how to fuck right. And there's enough enjoyment in that. There you go, kids. Advice from Bill.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  It's getting chilly outside. But you know what that means?

• 23:02Speaker 00

  It's time to cozy up with Panera Bread. Let's get toasty, cheesy. Oh, hello, broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl. How about melty? Okay, Chipotle chicken ovo melt. It's dipping bread and soupy goodness season. Oh yeah, we are so back. It's Panera season. Order now.

• 23:25Speaker 07

  Observe the North American dad. 50s, great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, dang, that's a good offer. The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle, no one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply.

• 23:55Bill Maher?

  Um, but you're not wrong that, that porn is not a harmless endeavor.

• 24:03Speaker 05

  That's kind of my point. If you don't have a judgmental thing, which I don't have a judgmental thing. It's like, let's be transparent about that.

• 24:09Bill Maher?

  But I don't think the women who are doing it are, are being exploited terribly much. They, they want to do it. I'm sure they could and should pay them more.

• 24:19Speaker 05

  Well, the dark side of porn is there's a lot of prostitution that goes on around the edges to make the money.

• 24:24Bill Maher?

  Well, as someone once pointed out, if you fuck somebody and they give you money, you're a prostitute and you get arrested. But if they fuck somebody and they give you money, but there was a camera there, you're a porn star.

• 24:37Speaker 05

  I see.

• 24:37Bill Maher?

  You know what I'm saying? It's a, it's a little weird that just because there's a camera there, uh, that makes it legal.

• 24:46Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 24:47Bill Maher?

  But I think both should be legal.

• 24:49Speaker 05

  All right.

• 24:49Bill Maher?

  You don't think prostitution should be?

• 24:52Speaker 05

  I don't really have an opinion. I'm I'm I'm I'm I don't I I'm sort of gotten bored with the whole libertarian movement. At some point, it seems to not live in reality. But generally speaking, I believe in a free society.

• 25:05Bill Maher?

  Well, excuse me, but not thinking that a lot of people can't get sex and would benefit from paying to get it. That's not living in reality. The reality is, most people are sexually stifled, frustrated, inept, and the, you know, there's something called a sex surrogate, which again.

• 25:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, I actually, I think I I think I talked to one once. I feel like I have a memory about talking to someone.

• 25:34Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, it's a, again, if you just rephrased it, it's a prostitute. It's someone who's helping you.

• 25:41Speaker 05

  No, no, she, her whole take was like, she goes in and helps the couple and.

• 25:46Bill Maher?

  Okay, that's, well, that's not a sex surrogate. That sounds like a therapist, but.

• 25:50Speaker 05

  But no, but she would have sex with the people.

• 25:52Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 25:53Speaker 05

  No, you know about this?

• 25:55Bill Maher?

  No, with both of them?

• 25:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:57Bill Maher?

  She'd have sex with the wife and the husband?

• 25:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was like, the idea was like.

• 26:01Bill Maher?

  That's a full service.

• 26:02Speaker 05

  So, and I had this conversation. So, it's something like this, and I'm just paraphrasing for the sake of conversation. A husband and wife, they've been together, they don't want to get divorced, they don't want to have affairs, but they're kind of stuck in their in their intimate life. She comes in and teaches her how to get him off and she teaches him and some, but in order, the only way to do it is she's got to kind of be in the bed.

• 26:26Bill Maher?

  There's a great movie about that. When I say great, I mean, not great, but funny because it doesn't know it's not great, but it's still amusing. It's with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones.

• 26:39Speaker 05

  Okay. And Martin Short is in this?

• 26:40Bill Maher?

  No, no, no. Steve Carell.

• 26:43Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 26:43Bill Maher?

  I don't remember the name of it, but. Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones are a married couple. They've been married for a thousand years. He comes home at night and he falls asleep in front of the Golf Channel. And she has just had it.

• 26:56Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 26:57Bill Maher?

  With this sexless, loveless, peck on the cheek, go to work, fall asleep in front of the Golf Channel marriage. So she sends him to this academy or something run by Steve Carell.

• 27:09Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 27:09Bill Maher?

  Where he's got to relearn how to fuck Meryl Streep. And it's just, I mean, it gets at this exact point. And he, of course, is not into the concept, but when she threatens to leave him, he does it. And, and, and part of it was she was learning how to fuck him again.

• 27:27Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 27:27Bill Maher?

  Because they had forgotten. And she's, the funniest scene, I bet you she did it herself, maybe it's in the script, but she's sitting there and she's reading the manual and it's telling her how to do it with a banana, you know?

• 27:38Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 27:39Bill Maher?

  And so she's like starting to just suck the banana and then absentmindedly starts eating the banana.

• 27:48Bill Maher?

  It's a classic.

• 27:49Speaker 05

  What's the name of this movie?

• 27:50Bill Maher?

  I don't know. I forget the name of it, but you know, just Google Meryl Streep relearns how to fuck Tommy Lee Jones. And, and you will, trust me, ChatGPT will have this interview just like that.

• 28:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:03Bill Maher?

  Are you into the chatter? Are you, are you friends with your chatter? Is, is that something you think is, is bad for society?

• 28:10Speaker 05

  Are we talking AI or are we talking?

• 28:12Bill Maher?

  I'm talking both, but I mean, I have my issues, especially with Chatty.

• 28:18Speaker 05

  I mean, my general thing is using Grok or ChatGPT or even Google, whatever their AI is, for sort of research, like a quicker version of Googling.

• 28:31Speaker 05

  I'm cool with that because I just, I just assume it's an amalgamation of a vibe.

• 28:34Bill Maher?

  Oh, there is. I mean, there's great things about it.

• 28:37Speaker 05

  But in terms of the furious row that's coming down the line for the arts in AI, well, then I have a ton of opinions on those, but I don't want to bore, I don't want to bore you with those if it's not interesting to you.

• 28:46Bill Maher?

  It's very interesting to me. I'm in the arts.

• 28:48Speaker 05

  So pick, pick a lane as much as.

• 28:49Bill Maher?

  I'm in the arts.

• 28:50Speaker 05

  I know you are, but you can't be replaced, so you're good.

• 28:53Bill Maher?

  Uh, so far, that is true so far.

• 28:56Speaker 05

  You're irreplaceable.

• 28:57Bill Maher?

  But, and you think you are?

• 29:00Speaker 05

  I feel I feel fine, but but but but I I'm also very um.

• 29:05Bill Maher?

  It is scary that they have come up with like, I mean, I have an Elvis track that's not Elvis. It's AI Elvis.

• 29:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:13Bill Maher?

  Um, that is a little frightening.

• 29:16Speaker 05

  Oh, it's so it's I what I've been saying, because I get asked a lot about it in in music interviews is my my general thing is it's over, it's already over. The world the world you thought of of music, just start with music, it's over. It's it's already over. You don't see it, but it's over.

• 29:31Bill Maher?

  Well, you're gonna have to put some meat on that bone.

• 29:33Speaker 05

  Okay, um, you're fifteen years old, okay? When you were fifteen years old, when I was fifteen years old, it was the garage playing to Led Zeppelin into infinity to learn how to play something, something, something, right? Okay, that's that's over. If you're fifteen years old now, okay? That that time you're using so you can watch more porn, if you can press a button, if you can press a button and that thing can write a song for you or tell you.

• 29:58Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 29:58Speaker 05

  Even if it gets you eighty seven percent down the road and then you use your intuition and whatever talent you have to kind of finish it and say it's yours, it's over. It's over.

• 30:07Bill Maher?

  And that's where we are.

• 30:10Speaker 05

  Five years from now, so we're in twenty twenty five when we're doing this interview, five years from now, the music landscape will be completely devastated by AI on every level. Every level. Now, I'm not gonna say it's a bad thing. You will have a bifurcated society of people who do organic music and they're literally gonna say, I'm an organic musician, this is what I do, I'm not using all this technology, and there will be this other world that won't give a shit.

• 30:35Bill Maher?

  I mean, organic, it sounds like the next generation from acoustic.

• 30:40Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 30:41Bill Maher?

  Right?

• 30:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, but but people will be celebrated for being.

• 30:44Bill Maher?

  No, just just it it's funny because it really will be a recapitulation of Dylan went electric. And to the, I mean, that's one reason why I thought that movie was so great. Because they picked just that one moment.

• 30:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:56Bill Maher?

  Which I'm sure that eluded some people who were not around for it. Or maybe it got to the smart ones who could put themselves in that moment. But, I mean, even I was too young in nineteen sixty-five to appreciate what was going on. But the idea that the old guard, the folk, because he did start in the folk world, were just, it just seems so quaint now, apoplectic, appalled that Bob Dylan, the great hope of future folk music, the guy who was going to carry the banner of Woody Guthrie and those types, he went electric. And of course, the world was like, great, because that's a great record.

• 31:41Bill Maher?

  Like a Rolling Stone with the great organ and the electric guitar. And you're right, the audience, and by the way, the audience has no responsibility to give a shit. They just want to be entertained.

• 31:53Speaker 05

  That's why I say it's over.

• 31:54Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 31:55Speaker 05

  Right.

• 31:55Bill Maher?

  And they're not going to give a shit.

• 31:57Speaker 05

  That's what I'm saying, it's over.

• 31:58Bill Maher?

  And like, I'm that guy. I always say it, I'm just a young man in the twenty-second row. You know, I'm just, because I have no musical ability, which is so liberating. So I can just like what I like and not like what I like. And not worry and not about like, does it matter? Is it important music?

• 32:17Speaker 05

  That's kind of what I'm saying. If you, if there's an AI artist or there's an artist you know who's using AI to advance their, whatever their musical cause, you won't give a shit.

• 32:28Bill Maher?

  And what you're thinking is that they all are by now. They must be.

• 32:32Speaker 05

  From what I've heard, there's not a song coming out of Nashville right now that doesn't have AI involvement. Particularly with lyrics.

• 32:41Bill Maher?

  I read in the paper yesterday, cartoon movies, you know, I guess.

• 32:46Speaker 05

  How about editing? How about camera work? How about, I mean, every level of entertainment is going to be affected. You pay, do I assume you pay comedy writers? Do you pay comedy writers?

• 32:58Bill Maher?

  Not personally, but my generous network does, yes.

• 33:01Speaker 05

  Okay, good. So the point is, is whatever your budget is a year for comedy writers. Let's say it's a hundred K. If you can go, I don't have to pay those guys anymore, girls. There's a hundred K in Bill Maher's pocket. And by the way, I like the jokes better.

• 33:15Bill Maher?

  We are, I mean, trust me, I've looked into it. Uh, no, I haven't, guys. Um, but they are definitely not there yet with comedy.

• 33:25Speaker 05

  Okay, how about AI porn?

• 33:27Bill Maher?

  Because comedy is just so, like, part of it just can't be sussed out with, um, logic. It just strikes you as funny or as it doesn't. And sometimes, the more off the wall it is.

• 33:42Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 33:42Bill Maher?

  And AI isn't there yet.

• 33:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:44Bill Maher?

  It's like being, so I just, I just can't imagine them writing the, the kind of jokes I do.

• 33:51Speaker 05

  Okay, but you, you know.

• 33:52Bill Maher?

  Also.

• 33:53Speaker 05

  You produce a television show, if you could save half a million a year using AI to do your editing, or to your, to your sound, or your...

• 34:00Bill Maher?

  I mean, those are not my decisions, I mean.

• 34:02Speaker 05

  No, but I'm, but you know how the world works.

• 34:04Bill Maher?

  No, absolutely.

• 34:05Speaker 05

  Bottom line.

• 34:06Bill Maher?

  No, they're gonna do it. But the other thing AI can't do is, um, that I, they could, it's gonna sound catty, but they could do other shows because they're so predictably, predictable in their politics. Uh, and that's one of my issues with AI. It is programmed by the woke. And I know this because they, somebody once asked it, what was my best stand-up special? And, uh, first of all, it shouldn't even be giving opinions, but it gave the wrong one, and I know why. Because it was programmed by woke. So it picked like one from 20 years ago that was woker because 20 years ago, the Democrats weren't funny. The liberals hadn't gone off the deep end on a lot of issues. And it was just Bush.

• 34:50Bill Maher?

  And also, um, we were 10 years away from gay marriage and a lot of the special, or at least the end of it, was about how we should have gay marriage.

• 34:58Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 34:58Bill Maher?

  So the AI thing was like, oh, this is the best. Because, and it's not. It's good, I mean, but 20 years ago. The one I did in December, way better. But AI can't, AI can't do that. Just the way, like, why do I use the old iPod? The old one, the wheel one, Bill?

• 35:16Speaker 05

  The one where Billy Joel is featured prominently?

• 35:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Bill Maher?

  Among others. Why? Because I like to put my playlist together in a way that like no, none of those services can do. Cause they can only, if you say play songs like this, they just take it from the same era. I can play a song forty years apart from another song.

• 35:41Speaker 05

  I see.

• 35:42Bill Maher?

  And they have the exact same vibe, but they're from completely different eras. And Pandora can't do that.

• 35:50Speaker 05

  Right.

• 35:50Bill Maher?

  So they've got a ways to go. Will they get there? I don't know, but look, we had a good run.

• 35:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:59Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 36:00Speaker 05

  We had fun.

• 36:01Bill Maher?

  I mean, didn't you just play a stadium with eighty thousand people?

• 36:03Speaker 05

  Sixty-five.

• 36:04Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, it's a lot of people.

• 36:06Speaker 05

  It's a lot of people.

• 36:06Bill Maher?

  It's a lot of people.

• 36:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, no.

• 36:08Bill Maher?

  And you're going on.

• 36:08Speaker 05

  I'm, I'm comfortable with all that, but I, I, I, cause I have young children, nine, six and a baby. I mean, they're gonna grow up in a world where AI is gonna be pervasive on every level of creativity.

• 36:18Bill Maher?

  You just had a baby, huh?

• 36:19Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:20Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 36:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, and thank God it looks like me.

• 36:22Bill Maher?

  And how many baby mamas do you have?

• 36:24Speaker 05

  Only one.

• 36:24Bill Maher?

  Oh, wow.

• 36:25Speaker 05

  Only one.

• 36:26Bill Maher?

  And you call yourself a rock star?

• 36:27Speaker 05

  In fact, as we're taping this today, my wife just turned thirty-three, so I'm.

• 36:31Bill Maher?

  Oh, so you're robbing the cradle too? Where you're like, you're there like, and Bill, you uh, like young women? I mean, how old are you?

• 36:40Speaker 05

  Fifty-eight.

• 36:40Bill Maher?

  How dare you? How dare you be, so how old was she when you got married?

• 36:46Speaker 05

  Uh, we got married two years ago.

• 36:48Bill Maher?

  Oh, two years ago?

• 36:49Speaker 05

  We had kids before we got married. I wouldn't, I, I refused to get married, so I, I finally capitulated.

• 36:54Bill Maher?

  So you were with her when she was in her young twenties?

• 36:56Speaker 05

  We met when she was nineteen and I was.

• 36:58Bill Maher?

  Nineteen?

• 36:59Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 36:59Bill Maher?

  Beats me. I at least wait till there's a two in front of their name.

• 37:04Speaker 05

  Bill, you're a great, you're a great orator, you're a great comedian, you're a great thought leader.

• 37:11Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 37:11Speaker 05

  But I am a rock star, Bill.

• 37:13Bill Maher?

  Ah! That's so true. That is so true. I cannot fight that. You are so right about that. You are a rock star and you deserve those extra two years. That's awesome.

• 37:26Speaker 05

  God bless her because I don't know what the hell she saw in me. I mean,

• 37:29Bill Maher?

  Oh, shut up.

• 37:30Speaker 05

  There's obvious things, but.

• 37:31Bill Maher?

  Oh boy. You know what? Stop with the false modesty. I hate when guys do that. I don't know. Oh, I'm so lucky. You're so. Shut the fuck up. You know what? You're a rock star. You're really funny. You're you're you seem like a great guy. I mean, I I you got money. I mean, I I I I'm not feeling bad for her that just to put up with Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins.

• 37:54Speaker 05

  She's done all right. She's done all right.

• 37:55Bill Maher?

  She's done all right. Yeah. But she and and a baby, that's gotta be, uh, is that?

• 38:00Speaker 05

  It's a feral baby, Bill, though.

• 38:03Bill Maher?

  Feral.

• 38:04Speaker 05

  Feral, sorry. Feral. Well, there was there was that singer, Feral Sharky, right? So it's I'm confusing Feral Sharky and Feral Baby.

• 38:13Bill Maher?

  Uh, do you remember the song, I Might Like You Better If We Slept Together?

• 38:16Speaker 05

  I covered it at Dodger Stadium, opening for Kiss, Halloween night, 1998.

• 38:21Bill Maher?

  Is that why I remember that?

• 38:22Speaker 05

  Maybe.

• 38:22Bill Maher?

  It may be because the record itself.

• 38:25Speaker 05

  Great record.

• 38:26Bill Maher?

  Suzie and the Banshees?

• 38:27Speaker 05

  No, it was Romeo Void. They had two hits.

• 38:30Bill Maher?

  I.

• 38:31Speaker 05

  I Might Like You Better If We Slept Together and A Girl in Trouble. Bill, I know my rock.

• 38:35Bill Maher?

  I I'm not not good.

• 38:38Speaker 05

  Great band. Great band. I think from Southern California, actually.

• 38:41Bill Maher?

  Wow. I Might Like You Better If We Slept Together.

• 38:45Speaker 05

  What a great song.

• 38:46Bill Maher?

  What a great title.

• 38:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:48Bill Maher?

  You know, like, title's a big thing with a record, right? You gotta.

• 38:52Speaker 05

  Some people are big on titles.

• 38:54Bill Maher?

  Like I say, title's not.

• 38:55Speaker 05

  Some people can't. They say they can't write the like, uh, like, uh, like an Irving Berlin type writer. They wouldn't want the title first. Like, if you knew Suzie like I knew Suzie, you know what I mean? Right?

• 39:07Bill Maher?

  Quite an example.

• 39:08Speaker 05

  Well, we're going back to Eddie Cantor there.

• 39:10Bill Maher?

  I was gonna say.

• 39:11Speaker 05

  No, but I'm saying is that's how those guys wrote. It was like they that the title had to sell the song. And then they would write the song. I'm not a title guy.

• 39:20Bill Maher?

  I mean, I think, I think bands throughout the ages have liked titles. But I.

• 39:27Speaker 05

  I mean, I wrote Bullet with Butterflewings.

• 39:29Bill Maher?

  That's a great title.

• 39:31Speaker 05

  I think I stole it from Freud, actually.

• 39:33Bill Maher?

  I remember in the Eagles documentary, Glenn Frey was like, so I was riding with some guy in a car. We were on coke and he said, life in the fast lane. And he was like, okay.

• 39:42Speaker 05

  That's a good title. I mean, you want to listen to the song.

• 39:45Bill Maher?

  But it was almost like, I have nothing but that, but I'm already like three quarters of the way through with this song.

• 39:52Speaker 05

  How about Desperado? How about Hotel California? I mean, what great titles.

• 39:56Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah, but.

• 39:57Speaker 05

  Are you, are you an Eagles fan?

• 39:58Bill Maher?

  Very much so, but, but, um, I don't feel like they

• 40:04Bill Maher?

  get you as much as Life in the Fast Lane. I mean, what's Hotel California? It could be about anything. We love it because we know the song. Desperado, yeah, that's pretty good.

• 40:14Speaker 05

  Hotel California is one of the great lyrics of all time.

• 40:16Bill Maher?

  Oh, the lyrics, yeah.

• 40:17Speaker 05

  I mean, those lyrics are.

• 40:18Bill Maher?

  Oh, yes. And Don has been asked about it a thousand times and he always says, you know, first of all, he's tired of being asked about it. And he said.

• 40:27Speaker 05

  Well, I would be too.

• 40:27Bill Maher?

  It's just about a journey from innocence to experience.

• 40:35Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 40:38Bill Maher?

  Why does that piss you off so much?

• 40:39Speaker 05

  No, because I'm, I'm, I'm empathetic because I know what it's like to be asked about something over and over again. But I don't buy the answer is kind of what I'm saying.

• 40:47Bill Maher?

  What do you think it's about?

• 40:49Speaker 05

  I think it's about LA. I mean, I think, I think, I think it's the greatest, I call it dark LA.

• 40:55Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 40:55Speaker 05

  Right, dark, it is the greatest dark LA song of all time.

• 40:59Bill Maher?

  You're right.

• 40:59Speaker 05

  Like, I might like you better if we slept together. You could say that's a dark LA song.

• 41:03Bill Maher?

  No, LA is dark. California is dark.

• 41:08Bill Maher?

  Some great writer, I forget, it may have been Dashiell Hemm, had said, you know, LA, it's a sunny place for shady people.

• 41:16Speaker 05

  Well Chandler, I mean.

• 41:17Bill Maher?

  Raymond Chandler.

• 41:18Speaker 05

  He encapsulated the darkness of this place. Or even, uh, what's that book, uh, Day of the Locust.

• 41:25Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 41:25Speaker 05

  Have you ever read that book?

• 41:26Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  I mean, you wanna talk about dark L.A. And that book was written in like nineteen thirty-nine.

• 41:30Bill Maher?

  Well, I think if you asked the average person, like, where do you think, you know, the noir movies take place, or like that milieu, they would think, oh, that's a New York thing. No, no, no. No, no, it's San Francisco.

• 41:45Speaker 05

  Right down the street.

• 41:47Bill Maher?

  It's San Francisco, Sam Spade, it's L.A. It's always out here.

• 41:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:52Bill Maher?

  Chinatown.

• 41:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:53Bill Maher?

  All of them. It's, it's, we're a shady, messy people out here.

• 41:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:00Bill Maher?

  You know, and, but, we're seduced by, of course.

• 42:04Speaker 05

  Can I tell you about my first L.A. trip as an adult? Do you mind if I tell you?

• 42:08Bill Maher?

  Please.

• 42:08Speaker 05

  So, um, I came out here as a kid, we went to Disneyland and all that stuff. But when I came the first time as an adult, about, I was about twenty-one or so. And I came out with a friend and, and we end up staying with the friend's sister. And, you know, we're, we're off Hollywood Boulevard and it's all, you know, you know, it's right out of the movies. I'm walking and looking at the stars on the thing. And, you know, I have that impression a lot of people have, which is that kinda, is that all there is? It's more built up here as a tourist industry, but back in the eighties, it was kinda, there wasn't much to see. You know what I mean? You had the, the stars on the Hollywood Boulevard, to quote Ray Davies.

• 42:44Bill Maher?

  I have one.

• 42:45Speaker 05

  You do?

• 42:46Bill Maher?

  Of course. Thanks.

• 42:48Speaker 05

  Do you, are you proud of it, or?

• 42:50Bill Maher?

  Of course not, it's ridiculous, you can buy one.

• 42:53Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 42:53Bill Maher?

  I mean, I think you could, I mean, not anybody, but yeah, it's not, and if you just walk on the Boulevard, um, and yes, that is a great song.

• 43:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, Stepping on Bello Gosi.

• 43:04Bill Maher?

  Stepping on, yeah, oh, I know that song very well.

• 43:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, great, great song.

• 43:10Bill Maher?

  You know, like, yes, you see a lot of the biggest stars in the world, and then you come across names you just don't even know.

• 43:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's true.

• 43:17Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, I happen to be near Clark Gable, so I'm near.

• 43:21Speaker 05

  That's not bad.

• 43:22Bill Maher?

  No, that's not bad, but everybody's near somebody and then, and then there's like, you know, Biff Cumstein. Like, who the fuck was this guy?

• 43:29Speaker 05

  Biff Cumstein?

• 43:30Bill Maher?

  Well, what? I don't know.

• 43:32Speaker 05

  He was a cameraman for Cecil B. DeMille.

• 43:36Bill Maher?

  You know, he crossed in a Browns sport coat in some movie in the 30s. I don't know. He, it just, you know, it is what it is. But yes, I was happy to go. It was 2010. I remember the ceremony and Larry King and Seth showed up and lots of my friends and, you know, they give a speech.

• 43:50Speaker 05

  I think it's cool.

• 43:51Bill Maher?

  It's cool. It's, you know, I, look, I love Hollywood. I love all the bullshit. I love not, I always say I'm in show business, but I'm not of it. Because I'm not really like them and I'm not really in any category. But like, when I go to the Vanity Fair Oscar party, it's, to me, that's like going to Disneyland. To stand in the middle of a room and everywhere you look is a star. Because the stars in this town, they do not come out at night. I don't know what people think.

• 44:19Speaker 05

  Well, they, most of, I mean, to be fair, a lot of them do work.

• 44:21Bill Maher?

  That's why, exactly. It's a working town and movies start.

• 44:25Speaker 05

  And always has.

• 44:26Bill Maher?

  Has been, and movies start at 6 a.m.

• 44:28Speaker 05

  Yeah. That's a cruel business for that.

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• 45:32Speaker 02

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• 45:40Speaker 02

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• 45:45Speaker 03

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• 45:48Speaker 02

  How is this possible?

• 45:51Speaker 02

  Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest.

• 45:55Speaker 04

  Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  Now streaming only on Disney+.

• 46:02Bill Maher?

  You know why so many, like, male actors of a certain era look terrible now? And I look pretty good? Because I don't spend all day in the sun.

• 46:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:15Bill Maher?

  And they have to. You're on the set all fucking day. There's only so much sunscreen in the world. And you're just out there. And you're just baked.

• 46:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:24Bill Maher?

  This is a working town.

• 46:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:26Bill Maher?

  The people just... It's not a party town. But like, on those few nights when the stars do come out.

• 46:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:33Bill Maher?

  It is fun to look around the room or be able to talk to all of them. And of course, it's show business. Most of them are pretty stupid. But, you know, they're talented. They're... The people are so talented. And there's notable exceptions, but, you know, thinking just ain't their thing.

• 46:52Speaker 05

  I always find people that are in the zeitgeist fascinating.

• 46:56Bill Maher?

  Like, who would be that?

• 46:57Speaker 05

  Doesn't matter. I mean, pick your Hollywood party.

• 46:59Bill Maher?

  Taylor Swift.

• 47:01Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 47:01Bill Maher?

  Zeitgeist, that is.

• 47:02Speaker 05

  I mean, I have my opinions on that whole thing at this point, and I probably should keep it to myself so I don't get attacked by the Swifties, but...

• 47:08Bill Maher?

  No, I say it all the time. I find her, as a person, so admirable. She never does anything I find to be, like, in any way objectionable. She's classy, you know? You never get her with a bad picture. She seems very responsible, very smart, a good sense of humor.

• 47:27Speaker 05

  As a businessperson, first of all, she's very talented, so I'm gonna say that real quick, because as a musician, from a musician to musician, she's very talented.

• 47:34Bill Maher?

  Okay, I don't get the music, but that's just my, but that's just me.

• 47:37Speaker 05

  But just take it from me, she's very, very talented.

• 47:39Bill Maher?

  I'm sure she is.

• 47:39Speaker 05

  But, I was gonna say, as a businessperson, she's brilliant.

• 47:43Bill Maher?

  Brilliant, yes.

• 47:45Speaker 05

  I mean, it's a total coup what she's built.

• 47:48Bill Maher?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 47:49Speaker 05

  So you can only marvel at. In fact, quick statistic that I heard behind the scenes, the demand for her concert tour, the stadium tour, was 900 stadiums. They could have sold 900 stadiums full of tickets. Now that is an accomplishment.

• 48:05Bill Maher?

  No, I always say that too, like, even if you don't personally appreciate something on the artistic level, it doesn't tickle you, you gotta give it up for success. You just have to, or else you're...

• 48:17Speaker 05

  Well, that's what I mean. I like the glow of the Zeitgeist, because I feel like it says something about the American public. Like, for example, why her this generation, why Barbra Streisand another generation, why...

• 48:29Bill Maher?

  And look.

• 48:29Speaker 05

  Why Hedy Lamarr, whatever, you know what I'm saying?

• 48:31Bill Maher?

  Name's your...

• 48:32Speaker 05

  Hedley Lamarr, Hedley Lamarr.

• 48:34Bill Maher?

  Yeah, blazing saffron.

• 48:36Speaker 05

  No, what I'm saying is, what is it about an age that picks certain people?

• 48:40Bill Maher?

  You're so, that's such an interesting point, and you're right about her, and look, she's a little whiny about her exes, but in general, could today...

• 48:49Speaker 05

  It's been good for business.

• 48:50Bill Maher?

  Today's young women have a worse role model? Absolutely. As role models go, I'm very happy with them having their Taylor Swift. Now, do I think it's pathetic that they lived their lives so much through her, that they were like in tears when she got engaged? Yes, I do, because I don't think it's healthy to live your life so much through another human being who you'll never meet.

• 49:14Speaker 05

  Are there Bill Maher groupies?

• 49:17Speaker 05

  No, I'm serious. I mean, do you have, you have your like kinda groupie contingent?

• 49:20Bill Maher?

  I don't investigate this, but somebody showed me on the, one of the dating sites, there is a category like, you can like, on your interest, Bill Maher, and there are, yeah, there was a lot of people.

• 49:31Speaker 05

  Like Daddy Bill or?

• 49:32Bill Maher?

  No, no, just Bill Maher. And I thought that was flattering, but I'm not.

• 49:37Speaker 05

  Cause I'm getting some of that now, now that I'm in my 50s.

• 49:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 49:41Speaker 05

  You know, my social media person will show me, and it's like, they start calling me like Daddy Billy.

• 49:45Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 49:45Speaker 05

  I wish Billy was my daddy, but not like that daddy.

• 49:48Bill Maher?

  That's more like a zaddy.

• 49:49Speaker 05

  Well, I don't know what zaddy is.

• 49:51Bill Maher?

  Zaddy's a, a guy who's like a daddy figure, but also sexy, you know, it's like a zaddy.

• 49:57Speaker 05

  I was, I was named People Magazine's Sexiest Man at 50, like, they, they picked everyone from a certain age. So I got 56.

• 50:06Bill Maher?

  Friend of mine who's around your age, or my age, somewhere in between, like, he said to me recently, I wouldn't say what field he's in, but show business, and he said, you know, this girl came up to me and said, you're so iconic, and he said, can you believe it? I'm getting iconic pussy now.

• 50:23Bill Maher?

  And yes, that's what you would get.

• 50:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, I'm married.

• 50:26Bill Maher?

  But you're happily, very, very happy.

• 50:28Speaker 05

  I'm happy to say I'm happily married.

• 50:30Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Well, I know you had a rough childhood, so that must be great for you, that you can find that kind of stability that was lacking in your earlier years.

• 50:41Speaker 05

  I will, I will candidly say that I, I had a very incredible artistic life, and I thought I'd kinda seen it all twice, and, you know, dark LA and all of it. And, no, I did, I mean, I lived it all, the good and the bad and the crazy and, and, and until I was happily married and I had my own family, I, I didn't really appreciate what I'd done and built. And now that I have that balance, now I have so much more zest and zeal for my musical life. It, it, it was the thing that I, and maybe because I didn't have it as a kid with my family, cause I'd never really knew what it was like to have a family. I mean, I had a family, of course,

• 51:22Speaker 05

  but I'm saying I didn't have the stability that this marriage has brought me, so having that now, it's like, I finally feel like, okay, this all makes sense. You know, if you do something like you chase a career, you know, which is a dirty word in my business. Career, you're not supposed to say the word career. But if you, if you do all that and you do accomplish something and people say, oh, you're this and you know, I love this album. But you always kind of feel this kind of hollowness about it, but you don't really know what it is. And I realized it was because I didn't have the one thing I really wanted, which was a family.

• 51:53Bill Maher?

  I still don't really see how they interact with each other. Like, I get the, the tension, because I certainly have felt it in my own life, between career and love.

• 52:06Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 52:06Bill Maher?

  To me, those are the two things that were always vying. And I might say, if I go back and analyze my own life, the fact that I was dumped so hard in high school. And it, it broke me so badly.

• 52:20Speaker 05

  What was her name?

• 52:22Bill Maher?

  We're not gonna go into that.

• 52:23Speaker 05

  Make up a name.

• 52:24Bill Maher?

  Uh, no, no.

• 52:25Speaker 05

  Sally?

• 52:25Bill Maher?

  Uh, yeah, Sally. Sally Tenfingers. Um, she had ten fingers. Yeah, I know, that's not really that weird. Anyway, Sally, and I feel like from that moment on, I was like Scarlett O'Hara when she says, you know, "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again."

• 52:45Speaker 05

  I see.

• 52:46Bill Maher?

  I was like, "As God is my witness, I will never get my heart broken again like this. And I will put my eggs in the basket of what I can control, which is my career."

• 52:58Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 52:58Bill Maher?

  That is what will make me happy. Because I can't count on this other thing.

• 53:03Speaker 05

  Is, looking back now, not saying that the dream is over, but I do feel that was the right decision.

• 53:10Bill Maher?

  Great question, that, you know, I probably, um, should think about more. And there's a lot to be, it's not a, you know, ninety, ten, it's a fifty, fifty kind of a thing.

• 53:22Speaker 05

  Cause you, cause sorry, cause you, you were poking around about me like you were saying, trying to understand it. No, what I'm saying is I'm trying to sort of answer your question, why I'm asking you one.

• 53:30Bill Maher?

  No, it's a great, it's a great question. I mean, look, I'm not gonna get too specific at all, it just came out in the wash, I'll just put it that way. I think I was never meant to like, um, through, oh, the, the very formative years of my life. And that probably goes on longer than it should have. Um, was never gonna be, uh, tied down anyway. It just wasn't my nature. Um, and part of that, you know, is, again, Rock star, you know, you're probably so inundated that, you know, you get it all out of your system quicker.

• 54:05Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 54:08Bill Maher?

  That's true.

• 54:10Speaker 05

  No, I remember a point, it was, I was actually out here, I was working for an extended period of time. And it was the first time in my life I was just gonna like, it was like, okay, I'm gonna live like free.

• 54:20Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 54:21Speaker 05

  You know, and I would meet people and I would say, look, don't ask, I don't want to be tied down.

• 54:26Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 54:26Speaker 05

  Like, I'm be totally transparent about this. I'd never really been that way in my life and it was, I was surprised how many women were like, okay, cool. Most of them, of course, thought they were gonna try to reel me in on the back end, I'm sure you've had a few of those. And um, and it got to the point where it, the bloom went off the rose of what free, what I thought freedom was. Freedom to me was, do what you want when you want to do it.

• 54:49Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 54:49Speaker 05

  And, and as long as you're having a good time and everybody's.

• 54:53Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 54:54Speaker 05

  You know, it's all adults and everybody's cool. And I, I lived like that for a while and I, and I, I woke up one day, I was like, this is boring. And I never, and to be fair to anybody, and I'm not, I'm not bragging, there's no bragging this. I got to the point where it was like, this isn't really what I'm after.

• 55:09Bill Maher?

  Right, I get it.

• 55:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:11Bill Maher?

  Um, I disagree on the boring, it never, it never gets boring. What, what you hit on there, which I think.

• 55:18Speaker 05

  Bill, let me tell you a story.

• 55:21Speaker 05

  Let me tell you a story. Okay, cuz I'm gonna agree with you on this one point.

• 55:24Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 55:25Speaker 05

  Okay. Uh, I was with this girl.

• 55:28Bill Maher?

  And a circus animal.

• 55:30Speaker 05

  No, no, just a girl.

• 55:30Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 55:31Speaker 05

  Just a girl. And uh, we're, we're in Flangrante. In, in, in, in bed. And she says to me, uh, uh, can you lick my back?

• 55:49Bill Maher?

  Sure, as one does.

• 55:52Speaker 05

  And I said, and she was pretty hot, so I was like, okay, if that's what you want.

• 55:55Bill Maher?

  I've done it without asking.

• 55:56Speaker 05

  Okay, good. And, and, and it was like one of those, like, you know, when somebody asks you to scratch your back, it's like, no, a little, a little more up to the right and to the left and. And in this one spot in her back, she could orgasm from having her back licked in this one spot.

• 56:12Bill Maher?

  Do you have her number?

• 56:15Speaker 05

  Actually, I do. And, um, and the way she explained it to me, and God bless if she ever hears this, she's a very nice person. The way she explained it to me is that, uh, sometimes, and I'm not a doctor, so. But, but apparently like certain nerves get rerouted.

• 56:34Bill Maher?

  I'm sure.

• 56:35Speaker 05

  So how some people can orgasm by, say, having their nipple licked. Sometimes that nerve reroutes to a different spot in the body. So in her case, the nerve was in her back. So as long as you lick this one spot on her back.

• 56:48Bill Maher?

  That's almost.

• 56:48Speaker 05

  So that never got boring, Bill, is let me tell you.

• 56:51Bill Maher?

  That's almost the plot of Deep Throat.

• 56:53Speaker 05

  Is it? Oh, that's right. Linda Lovelace.

• 56:56Bill Maher?

  Do you remember Deep Throat?

• 56:57Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, it's the first pornography I ever saw, Bill.

• 56:59Bill Maher?

  And the, the one that was the first sort of crossover. It was, it was a national sensation. And what was the plot of Deep Throat?

• 57:07Speaker 05

  She could orgasm by.

• 57:09Bill Maher?

  Her clit was in her throat.

• 57:11Speaker 05

  Right. Well, maybe she was just the nerve rerouting.

• 57:14Bill Maher?

  That's what I'm saying. It's almost the plot.

• 57:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:17Bill Maher?

  But.

• 57:17Speaker 05

  So I lived that.

• 57:19Bill Maher?

  I mean, I.

• 57:20Speaker 05

  So I'm saying is that part didn't get boring.

• 57:22Bill Maher?

  A back and a woman can be like the sexiest part.

• 57:28Speaker 05

  Like, I see, you know what?

• 57:29Bill Maher?

  I don't find.

• 57:30Speaker 05

  Despite all your bluster, Bill, you're really a romantic.

• 57:32Bill Maher?

  I do not find a beautiful back, I do not find any less sexy than the front and sometimes more. And so like, I know you're not allowed to show the front, uh, but you are allowed to show the back, which I always thought was like, great. That's fine. Just, just show the back. I'm good. Is this too intimate for you? You brought, you brought up licking back. I mean, I'm not gonna lie. That's, that's how I feel.

• 57:58Speaker 05

  I'm processing it all, Bill.

• 57:59Bill Maher?

  No, I, I, I see that. But what was the important point that we were getting to that I really?

• 58:05Speaker 05

  You were trying to, you were trying to understand, uh, the connection between, uh, me not finding peace by having a successful musical life. And then, and then how love.

• 58:15Bill Maher?

  Oh, good.

• 58:16Speaker 05

  Or, or marriage, uh, successful marriage, how, how they sort of fit together.

• 58:20Bill Maher?

  That's why it's so important that one of us isn't smoking.

• 58:22Speaker 05

  Yeah. Is that, am I paraphrasing you?

• 58:24Bill Maher?

  Yeah, perfectly. And that is really what's in my mind because that, I'm trying to get that connection because.

• 58:30Speaker 05

  Good connection.

• 58:30Bill Maher?

  You're, you're, you're basically saying if I'm, unless I'm getting it wrong. That you weren't able to appreciate, you know, your massive career success before you had the love. And I get that the love is, is you could then find the love and be like, oh, and this is even better.

• 58:48Speaker 05

  No.

• 58:48Bill Maher?

  But why, I don't know why you, you couldn't access the satisfaction from the career before.

• 58:55Speaker 05

  I can tell you why. I can tell you why.

• 58:57Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 58:57Speaker 05

  Um, uh, I had a million dollars by the time I was twenty four years old. Okay. A year before that, I was making twelve thousand dollars a year working at a record store and I was broke. Okay, so I'm a mil-, you know, I mean, we grew up in a time where millionaire, these days millionaires not, doesn't mean as much. But the word millionaire still meant something in my brain when I was twenty four years old. So I have a million dollars when I'm twenty four years old. Uh, by the time I'm twenty six, I'm, I'm TV, platinum records.

• 59:25Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 59:25Speaker 05

  Saturday Night Live, cover Rolling Stone. I mean, I basically did by my mid twenties, like most of the checklist.

• 59:32Bill Maher?

  All the boxes, yes.

• 59:33Speaker 05

  And I never felt this sense of satisfaction about it. And I couldn't quite understand why, because everybody around me is like, this is fucking incredible. And I was like, it is and it isn't. Okay, so to answer your question. The problem with all of it is it's transactional. Cause no matter how many hit songs you write, it's always, what, what about the next one?

• 59:56Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 59:56Speaker 05

  No matter how many records you sold, there's always somebody who's gonna sell more records than you. No matter how good you are, there's always somebody telling you, writing online that you're the worst thing that ever happened. There was always like a asterisk or a qualifier and it, it, I mean, even my band at times would, was transactional with me. I mean, I would write these massive songs and they were kinda like, they didn't give a shit. It was weird.

• 1:00:19Bill Maher?

  Why?

• 1:00:20Speaker 05

  Well, that gets into band psychology and we could talk about it if you want, but just to finish the little spiel.

• 1:00:27Speaker 05

  Only unconditional love in some facet of your life gives you the proper perspective to appreciate what is great about transactional things. But allows you to see them for what they are, which is transactional. There's no Val Halley at the top of Rock Mountain. There isn't. And I've been there multiple times.

• 1:00:46Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:00:47Speaker 05

  So when I stand in front of sixty five thousand people.

• 1:00:51Speaker 05

  In my hierarchical mind, my family is still above that.

• 1:00:56Bill Maher?

  Right, sure.

• 1:00:57Speaker 05

  I tell my kids all the time, and they're still little kids, and hopefully it'll it'll it'll endure in their brain. I tell them, because they'll come see me play, they'll come on stage with me. I mean, we pull up to where the Mets play in New York, and my daughter goes, "How many people am I gonna dance in front of today?" And I said, "Well, forty-one thousand." She goes, "Okay," and then an hour later, she's on stage with me, dancing in front of forty thousand people. They're having these immense peak experiences, but I tell them over and over again, "No matter what you see daddy do, no matter what you hear about daddy, good or bad, you're more important than that. You are so much more important than that to me. I would trade all of this for you." Only unconditional love sort of clarifies what's great and not great about it.

• 1:01:38Speaker 05

  And if you if all you have, and because I came from nothing, it was about, "Am I on MTV?" And if I'm not, I was devastated, because I must be doing something wrong.

• 1:01:49Bill Maher?

  Well, I get all that, because it's ephemeral. Stardom, like beauty, like a lot of things.

• 1:01:56Speaker 05

  You you sorry, you you started talking, we started talking, you know, within the context of the political thing. I mean, you are somebody who stood up for decades and talked about free speech and free thinking. And and and and a political part of this country, because you're not willing to march in lockstep. Suddenly, all the things that you've contributed, suddenly it's out the door. And but you've been doing, how many years you been standing up there in the political ma?

• 1:02:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah, thirty-two.

• 1:02:28Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:02:28Bill Maher?

  On TV, yeah.

• 1:02:30Speaker 05

  So, the world we grew up in, that should mean something. Like, well, I'm mad at Bill Maher today, but it has some perspective. Now we live in your you're you're either swinging from a rope, or you're Chairman Mao.

• 1:02:42Bill Maher?

  But, you know, yes, but there are still lots of people who appreciate it.

• 1:02:46Speaker 05

  Well, I'm with them.

• 1:02:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I appreciate it. And that's who I do it for. And you're and you're right, there are others who went for the exits when you don't fully just go for the team, and that is, first of all, it's not it's not helpful, it's not gonna elect the right people, and it's worst of all, boring.

• 1:03:06Speaker 05

  It is boring.

• 1:03:07Bill Maher?

  It's boring to be predictable. It's what my friend calls, "Let me guess" politics. Something happens, and it, "Let me guess." You know, it's like when there's a shooting. Like right before they even check anything. They know who did it. They knew whose side the person was on. Let, okay, let me guess. Or Trump does something. Let me guess. You know, it's just, it's boring and it's not sophisticated. It's just not sophisticated.

• 1:03:35Speaker 05

  That's why I took myself out of the political discourse.

• 1:03:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I don't blame you.

• 1:03:38Speaker 05

  Because I couldn't. You know, I've had a very unique life and it's not. Not everybody agrees, but the point is I've had a unique perspective. I've been in the White House. I've met smart people like you. I've been behind the wizard's curtain 500 times. I have a very unique perspective on the way the world works. It's not for everybody, but you can't say I don't have a unique perspective. Not many people have climbed up that particular mountain for that length of time. And when you can't have a nuanced, intelligent discussion, that's not even trying to make a point to somebody, just like, let's just talk. And hey, by the way, based on my experiences, this is the way I read the football.

• 1:04:14Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and that's. That's why I love to have people like Charlie Kirk sit there as he did. Because I'm not going to agree with most of what he says. First of all, he was very Christy and all that.

• 1:04:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:27Bill Maher?

  I'm an atheist, but it's okay. He's a human being and not a dummy. And unless people get it through their thick fucking skulls, you're going to have to talk to people. Let me tell you something, Bill. We've had over 200 guests here, sitting in that chair. I, I would guess at least a quarter of them say something that is full on bonkers, in my view.

• 1:04:53Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:04:54Bill Maher?

  You know, like, we didn't land on the moon. Shit like that.

• 1:04:58Speaker 05

  Or I licked her back and.

• 1:05:03Bill Maher?

  That is the least crazy thing. You're not in that category.

• 1:05:06Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:05:06Bill Maher?

  So far, I mean, I don't know.

• 1:05:07Speaker 05

  Well, we got a few, we got a few minutes.

• 1:05:09Bill Maher?

  Yeah, we got a few minutes. But if you start just, just dismissing people.

• 1:05:18Bill Maher?

  For anything other than just the most kind of egregious, you know, I'm a Nazi and I'm proud of it. Although even Kanye has survived and I'm not for cancelling him either. He sat here once, we didn't air it because I would have been cancelled. Or, you know, I'm a cannibal, not like an army hammer who was not a cannibal. And he sat here and I was happy to rehabilitate him. But an actual cannibal, you know, unless it's something like so out there, you know, you've just got to get over yourself and talk to these people. And for all those assholes who are like, you know, I can't believe you talked to Trump.

• 1:05:59Bill Maher?

  Okay, I'm not even going to go into why that's such a stupid opinion, but just where does it end? Or I can't talk to him. What, who's next? People who voted for him? Can I not talk to Joe Rogan?

• 1:06:10Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:06:10Bill Maher?

  Can't even talk to him. What about Sylvester Stallone? He's such a great guy. Stallone, Rocky, really? I can't talk to him? Fuck off with this bullshit.

• 1:06:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:20Bill Maher?

  You know, so, I don't know, we got back onto that. I really didn't want to, I really didn't want to.

• 1:06:26Speaker 05

  No, I wasn't trying to lead you there.

• 1:06:27Bill Maher?

  No, no, I, I, it's on my mind, it's on our minds, it's terrible. Let me tell you something, I got off the road, I'm so glad I did last year, I mean, at the end of last year. I wouldn't want to be out there right now. It's, uh, it's getting a little chippy. It's getting a little chippy out there.

• 1:06:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, let's, let's hope from, from this moment that there's no more of that.

• 1:06:50Bill Maher?

  If I were you, I would stay out of it.

• 1:06:53Speaker 05

  Oh, I know, I do.

• 1:06:54Bill Maher?

  You're in front of 65,000 people? That's not a security.

• 1:06:58Speaker 05

  No, I leave it, I leave it to, I leave it to, the way I look at it and, and I don't, because at one point I wondered if I was compromised, meaning like, should I be saying certain things when I feel, you know, like, like a day like today? It's like, should I say something or not, or?

• 1:07:14Bill Maher?

  But you're.

• 1:07:15Speaker 05

  Just let me finish. No, but, but, because I want to make sure I'm clear because I don't want people to misconstrue what I'm saying. Uh, my best contribution is art.

• 1:07:26Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:07:27Speaker 05

  You're a person who lives in the political

• 1:07:30Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Speaker 05

  firestorm weekly.

• 1:07:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's my job.

• 1:07:33Speaker 05

  You chose that?

• 1:07:34Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:07:34Speaker 05

  And, and you're great at it and, and, and you talk to people behind the scenes. You have, you have very illuminated people on from every walk of the political stripe. Okay. So I'm more of a leave it to the people who are in the fight. And I use that word loosely because obviously

• 1:07:51Bill Maher?

  I want you to, because first of all, you know, you're an eloquent elliptical lyricist. Let that speak for itself. You don't need to give them a reason when you're in front of a crowd like that.

• 1:08:03Speaker 05

  Well, I also came to the conclusion that um, I'm never gonna exactly say what I wanna say not in a song. Like my, my gift is to say it in a song.

• 1:08:13Bill Maher?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:08:13Speaker 05

  Yes. So if I really wanna contribute, then, then write Imagine or

• 1:08:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:20Speaker 05

  Bullet with Butterfly Wings, you know, that's, that's my contribution. That's, that's what the God that I believe in animated me to do. The other stuff is really for people who wanna be in it on a daily level. And I can respect and appreciate that even if I don't always agree.

• 1:08:34Bill Maher?

  Right. So you were talking about unconditional love.

• 1:08:39Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:08:39Bill Maher?

  And that's, I mean, kids, I can kinda get that. Cause I mean, what's the worst thing a kid can do? I mean, they're feral, but you know, they're not like really capable of like murder or anything. But you think you're gonna have that with a human?

• 1:08:53Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:08:53Bill Maher?

  Because like unconditional, so like if you killed somebody, she'd still, she'd stay with you? Is that what, because like I feel like with human, with adult humans, it's a kind of a tough argument to make unconditional because you can think of things someone would do where you kinda would want the other person.

• 1:09:11Speaker 05

  Okay, can I answer that? Uh, no, no, let's see, no, no.

• 1:09:15Bill Maher?

  Why I brought it up?

• 1:09:15Speaker 05

  No, no, but I wanna, cause I, I just, I feel like I got what you're asking. I think to ask another human being to live up to a, a, a, a standard of perfection. If you, you know, when we say unconditional and you bring up like a thing like, okay, well, if you murdered somebody, is she gonna stand next to you? You know, that type of thing. I think the one thing I would say is you're right to point that out. And if you're gonna ask me, is there anybody on this planet that I trust 100%? That aren't my children, the answer is no.

• 1:09:45Speaker 05

  Now, I trust my wife more than most. Right. Like, I don't know what the percentage is, but it's very, very high. And I've made that comment, but the thing I would try to explain to you is, once you have children, it's the highest bond you can have with another human being. I get it. So that's the closest I've ever come. Right. And, and, and if you want to sort of give a kind of standard to it, I didn't have it with my father. I didn't have it with my mother. I didn't have it with my stepmother. I didn't have it with my immediately family. I have a very good relationship with my brother, and I trust my brother a lot. So outside of my brother, my, and his kids, and, and his wife, and my wife, and our kids, it, it, it's, it is all transactional on some level.

• 1:10:29Speaker 05

  And I've had the experience, however horrible it is, where I was a kid ignored by members of my family. I got successful. Suddenly, everybody was really interested in what I had to say. And then when my career went down, they all disappeared again. That's a, that's a tough one if you've lived it. So this is the closest I've ever come. And I don't, I'm not a person who's waiting around for perfection. I think at fifty-eight, I think I've got enough road beneath me to say, okay, if this is as good as it's gonna get, and it's really good, okay, I'm gonna trust that. And if that, there's still that four percent, seven percent, well, that's all I can tell you is, my, my, when, when, when we got down, because I didn't want to get married. And I was very transparent with my wife, said, do not want to get married.

• 1:11:13Speaker 05

  Because I'd been married before and went through a bad divorce and all that, and I was just like, I don't want it. I don't want the state of Illinois in my fucking bullshit, okay? Especially when you're talking about songwriting copyrights and all that shit. And, and, and, and my wife said, you know, we've talked a lot about it. And she was very intent on getting married, and it's not important why, for this. But the one thing that became clear was that she said, look.

• 1:11:41Speaker 05

  I know you're not big on trust. I understand why, but I'm telling you, when we get married, our relationship will get better. And I couldn't for the life of me imagine how. And I'd been with her for eight, nine years at that point, and we had kids. I couldn't conceive of it intellectually. And I'm telling you, the day after I got married, I looked at her and said, motherfucker, you're right.

• 1:12:00Bill Maher?

  Why?

• 1:12:02Speaker 05

  Because it brought us just that little bit closer. Because we were willing to take that that leap of faith. And at the end of the day, I mean, you're here because at some point you bet on Bill Maher. You said, I got something that nobody else has got. And I'm sure somebody told you, you ain't that funny, Bill. And I heard you ain't that great. My own father told me I couldn't fucking sing, and I'm sure there's somebody out there who would agree with him, but, you know, thirty million records later and three thousand concerts later, I guess I do something, right?

• 1:12:30Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:12:31Speaker 05

  So I had to navigate all that. And it's ultimately about, I think life is ultimately about faith. And in that, and I know you're not a religious person, that's where I think you could at least

• 1:12:42Speaker 05

  kind of find common ground with spirituality, which is like, it is ultimately about faith. Like when people say, well, how do you know there's a God? And I go, I don't fucking know. I can't tell you that.

• 1:12:51Bill Maher?

  No, that's what faith is.

• 1:12:52Speaker 05

  That's what faith is. Now, if you want the God to crack out of the sky and go, you know, like Mel Brooks, like, here I am. You know what I mean? I'm God.

• 1:12:59Bill Maher?

  That's an interesting story that that had happened that quickly, like, like the wedding night, you were like.

• 1:13:05Speaker 05

  I felt it.

• 1:13:07Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:07Speaker 05

  And and it's held. And not to be so glib as to say it's like a percentage, but wherever we were on the line, the day after I was married, we were closer and we've gotten closer since. So that's all I know.

• 1:13:19Bill Maher?

  Well, you probably felt good about giving her the thing that gave her peace of mind.

• 1:13:25Speaker 05

  She would say, she would, you know, I'm a guy, I complain all the time. She goes, how many fucking kids do you want? Like, I gave up my body, you know, nine months at a time.

• 1:13:37Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:13:38Speaker 05

  This is my test. If you want me to prove it to you,

• 1:13:40Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:13:41Speaker 05

  I can't.

• 1:13:42Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:13:42Speaker 05

  But I can point to them.

• 1:13:43Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:13:44Speaker 05

  And say, there's my living testament to how I feel about you.

• 1:13:47Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:13:49Speaker 05

  So that's, that's all I know. And I'm not, I'm not saying this for everybody. And I would have told you three years ago, it wasn't for me.

• 1:13:56Bill Maher?

  Right. I mean, that was always my issue with marriage was like, if you, if it doesn't work out, it's like you've purposely put yourself in this prison that is very hard to escape from. And that's sort of the, um, argument that they use for getting married. I mean, I've heard people say that in just so many words.

• 1:14:17Speaker 05

  What, to be imprisoned?

• 1:14:19Bill Maher?

  Well, not imprisoned, but, um, that, it's, we wanna get married because it would be, make it very difficult to break up.

• 1:14:28Speaker 05

  I see.

• 1:14:28Bill Maher?

  They, they feel like they have to put this stricture on them.

• 1:14:31Speaker 05

  I think that's the worst reason.

• 1:14:33Bill Maher?

  Okay, but that, a lot of people do it for that reason.

• 1:14:35Speaker 05

  Well, that's, to me, that's a weak argument.

• 1:14:36Bill Maher?

  If somebody says, you have a big fight, I'm leaving and you can't, you can't, we're married. You can't just leave. They like that. That they then have to work it out because otherwise it's lawyers and money and divorce and terrible. You know, and that's a big reason why people get married.

• 1:14:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I was, I had a meeting yesterday with someone about a film project. And, you know, the guy said at the, at the end of the meeting, you know, he's like, look, if we're gonna do this together, I need final cut on this project. And I'm, I'm gonna say jokingly because I like the person, you know, this is Chicago way of saying it. It's like, motherfucker, if you need final cut, it ain't gonna work.

• 1:15:15Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:15:16Speaker 05

  If we're not in this together, I don't care what the fuck you got on a piece of paper.

• 1:15:20Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:15:20Speaker 05

  And that's the same thing I would say with the right marriage. If, if you need a piece of paper and a fucking ring, like, that ain't fucking gonna go to work.

• 1:15:27Bill Maher?

  But then you did it.

• 1:15:30Speaker 05

  No, no, there, there are legalistic reasons and there are sort of, let's call it, uh, performative reasons. You know, we present like we're married.

• 1:15:41Bill Maher?

  I just think women like it.

• 1:15:43Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:15:43Bill Maher?

  They do, they just like it, it's just, it's, you know, it's just like, they feel like, I, I know.

• 1:15:51Speaker 05

  You just had Woody Allen in here, right?

• 1:15:52Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:15:53Speaker 05

  Okay, my, my wife, not that long ago, when she was working as a maître d' in New York for a restaurant.

• 1:16:00Bill Maher?

  A maître d'.

• 1:16:01Speaker 05

  Mrs. Mrs. Woody Allen would call. And make a reservation. And she knew it was Sunyi, that's Woody's. And, and, and, and I think she even knew Sunyi for some New York thing. And she would call and she'd say, this is Mrs. Woody Allen.

• 1:16:15Bill Maher?

  Of course. Oh, I've known that from many, I mean, I live in, well, I live in Los Angeles, we don't know what area. But I'm just saying, in some of the wealthier neighborhoods out here. You know, that's a very important thing. That the wife who sometimes doesn't even like the husband anymore. But they want to be able to call the restaurant and say, I'm Mrs. Blankety.

• 1:16:38Speaker 05

  Mrs. Bill Maher. Mrs. Bill, Mrs. Mrs. Bill Maher.

• 1:16:41Bill Maher?

  Yeah, well, that's not gonna happen. But it's just, it's stature. I mean, we still have that in society, it's, it's a certain stature and it's a certain. I know we're all in the future, we're living in the future and everything is not like it used to be. But women still are all about, not all of them, but a lot of them are all about. I got a man. I mean, you know, these women who have like three names that have their, their first name and then their maiden name and then it's a dash.

• 1:17:09Speaker 05

  Hilary, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

• 1:17:11Bill Maher?

  Yes, exactly. It's a way to say, I'm an independent woman and also I got a man. Okay, yet I don't want you to forget, I got a man, okay, bitch? Did you get a man? Cause I got a man, his name's Clinton or whatever it is. Like, I'm gonna put that at the end of my independent name. And that's just human nature.

• 1:17:33Speaker 05

  So Maria. Lopez Marr.

• 1:17:38Bill Maher?

  Maria Lopez. I don't remember Maria Lopez. But, yeah, anyway.

• 1:17:46Speaker 05

  Have we run out of gas?

• 1:17:47Bill Maher?

  Great, I, I have to get back, it's one of those weeks. That's why. It's just, it's just one of those weeks.

• 1:17:53Speaker 05

  God bless.

• 1:17:54Bill Maher?

  Like last week, everything was easy. Like the editorial, just like, um, Monday night, it was almost all done. This week is just, some weeks are just get harder and then this big, big story today.

• 1:18:05Speaker 05

  It's true. Less lot to talk about this week.

• 1:18:07Bill Maher?

  Uh, I really do and, and I'm.

• 1:18:13Bill Maher?

  You know, I don't try to get too emotional about things, but there is something about having somebody who was sitting right there and you just got to know as a human being. And then, I mean, death in itself is just a weird thing.

• 1:18:27Speaker 05

  What's weird, and I don't mean this in any other way than the way I mean it. What's weird is we get fixated on how somebody dies. Like, would it have been better if he got hit by a bus? Or, you know what I'm saying? Like, death is death, and that's the sorrow of it.

• 1:18:42Bill Maher?

  Actually, it would have been better because it wouldn't not, it would mean that there aren't this seething group of people on both sides who think the answer is to shoot each other. So, yes, it would, Bill. It would have been better if he was hit by a bus. It wouldn't have been good, but it wouldn't have been like this. This is just a place we don't, we keep heading towards, and we don't want to keep barreling down towards. That's where my mind is at today.

• 1:19:10Speaker 05

  So, let me ask you.

• 1:19:11Bill Maher?

  And also, just the idea that, you know, you gotta stop seeing people as the other. You brought up that whole sectarian thing before. You're so right. In Rwanda?

• 1:19:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, remember they were on the radio saying, "Go out and hatchet your neighbors"? I mean, they were literally...

• 1:19:25Bill Maher?

  Because they were vermin. Because, same thing with Hitler. Because when you, when you make the, the people who you don't agree with the other, the deplorable, the people who you don't even deserve to live. Uh, that's when this shit starts.

• 1:19:40Speaker 05

  So, let me ask you, because you are in the, in the fray on a daily level. What's one thing that you think needs to happen immediately?

• 1:19:50Bill Maher?

  Both sides have to admit they do it. Stop with the, "Yeah, but, you know, the right wing." Absolutely true. The right wing has been terrible. There's a lot of right-wing lunatics and nationalists and fucking violent people and marching in Charlottesville and lots of bullshit that goes on and killing. We can't have that argument, but, because plainly, the left does it too now.

• 1:20:18Bill Maher?

  I don't, I don't care who started it. Everybody both started it always in these fights. It escalates, it goes up and up and up and up and up. And then we're just on these two sides screaming at each other. Stop it. It has to start with, everybody is doing this now and everybody has to stop now.

• 1:20:39Speaker 05

  So we're basically a two-party political system.

• 1:20:42Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:20:42Speaker 05

  You'd agree with that.

• 1:20:43Bill Maher?

  A two-team. It's not even about party.

• 1:20:45Speaker 05

  But I'm saying is, do you think there's enough will in the political leadership on both sides of the political aisle to, whether they have to go into a room and say, hey, we really got to dial this down. Do you think there's enough political will there?

• 1:20:58Bill Maher?

  No, because Trump's not going to do that.

• 1:21:00Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:21:01Bill Maher?

  He's not going to do that. And the Republicans who sat there with their arms folded when Biden said, political violence has no place. And they were like, mm, yeah, that's not really worth clapping for as long as a Democrat said it. No, I don't think these people are going to change yet. You know, I mean, I have a very pessimistic view, so I don't want to bring everybody down, although I probably already have with a little bit of this discussion. But, you know, I, I just don't see this country coming back until Charlton Heston finds the Statue of Liberty almost buried in the sand with just the, just the, you know, remember the Statue of Liberty in the end of the movie?

• 1:21:41Bill Maher?

  And, and then like, okay, it's, it's, it kind of has to hit rock bottom first and, you know.

• 1:21:47Speaker 05

  Okay, so how far are we from rock bottom?

• 1:21:49Bill Maher?

  We're, we're, we're, we're barreling toward it, but we're not there yet because America is still a great fucking country, even with all the bullshit. Would you, you mentioned other places in the world. Would you want to live anywhere else?

• 1:22:02Speaker 05

  Well, when things started to get hairy somewhere in the last eight to 10 years, and I, and I sat at many tables with people openly who had success and wealth, they would sort of have these kind of general discussions like, if something gets bad, bad, bad, where are we going to go? And everybody would always come to the same conclusion, which is, there's nowhere to go.

• 1:22:19Bill Maher?

  Well, a lot of them are going to Ireland. And buying castles because that's what people do when they've had it up to here with privilege. They go buy a castle in Ireland. But yes, I mean, Ellen is de Camp there.

• 1:22:33Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 1:22:33Bill Maher?

  Rosie O'Donnell. I just read, uh, Robin Wright has said she's fleeing.

• 1:22:38Speaker 05

  Robin Wright pen.

• 1:22:39Bill Maher?

  Robin Wright pen, yes. Well, I think she's dropped the pen.

• 1:22:42Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:22:43Bill Maher?

  But, uh, and some other people have, you know, they're fleeing, you know, always the people who lived in.

• 1:22:49Speaker 05

  Would you leave America, Bill?

• 1:22:50Bill Maher?

  Fuck no. Fuck you if you think I'm leaving. I'm not leaving. Everything looks good from afar. Get there, you'll find a lot of shit. You know what? Go buy a castle in Ireland. Those castles are drafty. You'll be back asshole.

• 1:23:05Speaker 05

  But you can't get a castle for cheap. You know why, you know why I know that? Because I've looked.

• 1:23:11Bill Maher?

  Are you serious?

• 1:23:12Speaker 05

  A rock star, Bill. We look at, we look at these things.

• 1:23:17Bill Maher?

  Exactly. Rock stars have to have castles.

• 1:23:20Speaker 05

  Last story. Last story. I know you gotta go work. Last story. I was working with the famous producer, just recently passed away, great guy, Roy Thomas Baker, produced all the famous Queen stuff. Roy, very Poncy, very English. And he was, he had, he at some point bought a castle. And we were fascinated, the band, you know, like, tell us all about the castle. He goes, oh, it was all right, you know, owning a castle. And he said it was drafty. You know, you think you get a castle, but then you find out you gotta get the power and there's no AC and, right?

• 1:23:51Bill Maher?

  The moat is down.

• 1:23:53Speaker 05

  But, but, okay, right. So we're like, okay. And he goes, he goes, but that's not the wor, that's not the worst part. So what's the worst part? He goes, I had to, I had to buy the whole village that went with the castle.

• 1:24:07Speaker 05

  And we said, why did you have to buy a village? He goes, well, who the fuck's gonna work on the castle?

• 1:24:12Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:24:13Speaker 05

  So we had to buy the village of the people who'd been living in the village for generations because only they knew how to take care of the castle. That part he didn't like.

• 1:24:21Bill Maher?

  People here have bought villages. I think I'm maybe remembering this wrong. Forgive me if I got the name wrong, but I seem to remember Kim Basinger.

• 1:24:29Speaker 05

  She bought it?

• 1:24:30Bill Maher?

  Bought a town in the South. Of all the people, she didn't seem like someone who wanted a whole town, but, and of course Jeffrey Epstein had an island. You know, I mean, Brando had his own island, Tahiti.

• 1:24:45Speaker 05

  I did look at an island once.

• 1:24:47Bill Maher?

  Of course, I'd be so disappointed if you didn't.

• 1:24:49Speaker 05

  It was about five million.

• 1:24:51Bill Maher?

  Yeah, where was it?

• 1:24:52Speaker 05

  Somewhere in the Bahamas.

• 1:24:54Bill Maher?

  Oh, nice.

• 1:24:55Speaker 05

  Because Steve Miller had bought an island, the great, the Joker.

• 1:24:58Bill Maher?

  The Joker.

• 1:24:59Speaker 05

  And, uh, and at that point, an island seemed like a good idea.

• 1:25:02Bill Maher?

  And why didn't you pull the string on that?

• 1:25:04Speaker 05

  I just had this vision of being on my island, you know? The stars are, you know, it's beautiful tonight, you know what I mean? You turn to your loved one, here we are on the island, and you're like, what's that boat approaching, you know? With the pirates, I don't know, you know? And we're all gonna die because somebody's gonna come on my, my island.

• 1:25:21Bill Maher?

  Were, were you would have been the sole resident of the island?

• 1:25:24Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:25:24Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:25:25Speaker 05

  That was the attraction, you see.

• 1:25:26Bill Maher?

  So there would be no, well, but then there's no police department.

• 1:25:29Speaker 05

  That's my point.

• 1:25:30Bill Maher?

  There's no.

• 1:25:31Speaker 05

  It's all, it's all good on the island until somebody shows up like, like, like, like, uh, Max Keedy in Cape Fear, you know?

• 1:25:37Bill Maher?

  There's no, there's no hospital.

• 1:25:40Speaker 05

  You know, first you hire him to take care of the island and next thing you know, your dog disappears and.

• 1:25:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Now, that's the thing, you know? You think you're just getting away with five million, but then it just, the, the, the expenses have just begun. And the remodeling? Oh, I mean, that South Beach area that has all the driftwood, I mean, somebody's gonna have to.

• 1:26:01Speaker 05

  Now you're following my flow here.

• 1:26:02Bill Maher?

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:26:02Speaker 05

  So I'm staying, Bill.

• 1:26:03Bill Maher?

  All right, I'm glad you are, you're always such a treat to talk to.

• 1:26:07Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:26:08Bill Maher?

  You're such a fun guy to talk to. So good luck to the podcast, tell them all about it.

• 1:26:12Speaker 05

  The magnificent others, uh, interview a lot of musicians, but also started interviewing actors.

• 1:26:17Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:18Speaker 05

  Thanks to you, you helped me start that and, uh, it's been a lot of fun, usually about seventy-five to ninety minutes, very deep dives, like, uh.

• 1:26:25Bill Maher?

  Like us.

• 1:26:27Speaker 05

  But you're funnier.

• 1:26:29Bill Maher?

  Where's the band playing?

• 1:26:30Speaker 05

  The band is, uh, we're on our way to Asia.

• 1:26:32Bill Maher?

  Asia.

• 1:26:33Speaker 05

  Tomorrow, uh, first time in Japan, we sold out the Budokan twenty-five years apart, so going to play a sold-out Budokan show in a couple of days. Asia tour, first time in the future.

• 1:26:44Bill Maher?

  In the old days, the rock band would play the Budokan and the Japanese audience was like famously quiet, like not because they weren't enjoying, just because it was in the culture.

• 1:26:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:56Bill Maher?

  Is that still the case?

• 1:26:57Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:26:58Bill Maher?

  Great.

• 1:26:59Speaker 05

  No, it's like any other audience now.

• 1:27:00Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:27:01Speaker 05

  I mean, maybe a little quieter just because of the culture, but no. MTV and YouTube made every audience is the same now.

• 1:27:09Bill Maher?

  Shout out to...

• 1:27:09Speaker 05

  Essentially.

• 1:27:10Bill Maher?

  Good, that's so good.

• 1:27:11Speaker 05

  I mean, you notice it like in Norway, it's a little quieter, but...

• 1:27:14Bill Maher?

  But Japan, they're screaming and shouting.

• 1:27:17Speaker 05

  I mean, I mean, Japan's kind of weird in that they're sort of obsessed with the West.

• 1:27:23Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:24Speaker 05

  So they're kind of almost cheering because of what they've seen.

• 1:27:31Speaker 05

  You know, since they adopted a different cultural take to a concert.

• 1:27:34Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:27:35Speaker 05

  Because of the influence of watching how an audience would act in the West.

• 1:27:39Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:27:39Speaker 05

  I don't think they had an organic moment. They sort of said, oh, we'll take that too. Like a form of dress.

• 1:27:48Bill Maher?

  I just remember like the old school bands like The Beatles playing there and it was like, wow.

• 1:27:53Speaker 05

  It was very unnerving.

• 1:27:54Bill Maher?

  It was, I bet you it was.

• 1:27:57Speaker 05

  I mean, I went to, we went, when Nirvana was at their absolute peak around 92, Smells Like Teen Spirit, we went to see them play at a show. And you could have heard a pin drop between songs. And this is when they were the biggest band in the world. I mean, it was literally like deafening silence.

• 1:28:16Bill Maher?

  Okay, how about that for a wrap?

• 1:28:20Speaker 05

  We did all right for a sad news day.

• 1:28:22Bill Maher?

  Oh my god, it was like, I laughed, I cried.

• 1:28:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:28:58Speaker 08

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• 1:29:28Speaker 02

  From the studio that brought you WandaVision. I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore.

• 1:29:36Speaker 02

  The Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy.

• 1:29:40Speaker 03

  That family wasn't real. You sure about that? I had a father called Vision. How is this possible?

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest.

• 1:29:51Speaker 04

  Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy.

• 1:29:55Speaker 02

  Now streaming on Disney+.