John Mellencamp | Club Random with Bill Maher

In this unexpectedly reflective Club Random episode, John Mellencamp admits he never listens to his own songs, sometimes forgets he even wrote them, and proudly calls himself "the biggest liar." He talks about growing up in Seymour, Indiana where, as he puts it, there was nothing to do but fight before the conversation widens to Farm Aid's hard realities, the limits of celebrity activism, and his surprisingly warm early encounters with Donald Trump, including a popcorn run at the 1988 Super Bowl. He also talks about his upcoming tour playing the hits some of which he's rarely, or never, performed live. But it's a parting thought that lingers longest: "A writer writes to what he aspires to be, not what he is." Bill's still thinking about that one. Support our Advertisers: -Head to https://www.squarespace.com/CLUBRANDOM to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CLUBRANDOM. -Protect your car with CarShield. Get 20% off at http://www.carshield.com with code RANDOM -Try Claude for free at https://www.claude.ai/clubrandom -Try Lucy today! Get 20% off your first order at https://www.lucy.co with code CLUBRANDOM 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 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:30Bill Maher?

  Breaking news, our merch just got a full revamp with all new designs and items. So if you want a little more random in your life, head over to clubrandom.com and check out the store. We've got premium hoodies, including our brand-new quad hoodies, with the updated logo. Super soft t-shirts, super soft, for men and women, and even tie-dye shirts. All merch is available exclusively at clubrandom.com. While you're there, catch up on recent episodes, then grab some swag and bring a little random home. Once again, that's clubrandom.com.

• 2:10Bill Maher?

  So from south of the Mason-Dixon line...

• 2:12Speaker 04

  How do you know these songs?

• 2:13Bill Maher?

  Because I listen to them. You made them, you put them on records.

• 2:16Speaker 04

  I know, but I never listened to them.

• 2:20Bill Maher?

  It's the best thing about having money.

• 2:22Speaker 04

  Guess what? I do the same thing.

• 2:24Bill Maher?

  Well, you just said you didn't carry money, you liar.

• 2:29Speaker 04

  That's exactly right.

• 2:30Bill Maher?

  You look good.

• 2:31Speaker 04

  I do?

• 2:32Bill Maher?

  I mean, you know, I always say, at our age, when people say you look good, there should be a Chiron for your age.

• 2:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know.

• 2:38Bill Maher?

  It should appear underneath that. But what else can you do? It's look good for your age. You can't, you know. You were never a druggie, were you?

• 2:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was.

• 2:47Bill Maher?

  Like I say, you were a druggie at a time.

• 2:49Speaker 04

  In 1971 was the last time I took drugs.

• 2:52Bill Maher?

  Seventy-one?

• 2:54Speaker 04

  Seventy-one.

• 2:55Bill Maher?

  Then you're not a druggie. I mean, that's a long time ago.

• 2:58Speaker 04

  Well, let me tell you something. You don't want to be, you didn't want to be around me.

• 3:03Bill Maher?

  Why?

• 3:05Bill Maher?

  Mean?

• 3:06Speaker 04

  Total.

• 3:07Bill Maher?

  Mean? You were a mean drunk?

• 3:08Speaker 04

  Yeah. Got a lot of fights, got the hell beat out of me a lot, had a big mouth.

• 3:15Bill Maher?

  I heard you had a problem with authority.

• 3:18Speaker 04

  Did you hear that?

• 3:22Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, I don't like cops. I don't like cops, I don't like, uh...

• 3:28Bill Maher?

  Well, that's, that's, that's a broad brush to say you don't like cops.

• 3:34Speaker 04

  Well, here's...

• 3:34Bill Maher?

  You don't want to live without them, trust me.

• 3:36Speaker 04

  Here, here's...

• 3:36Bill Maher?

  You don't want to live without them.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  Here's the way it is. One or two together are all right, but you get a whole bunch of them, things get weird.

• 3:44Bill Maher?

  Well, that is part of it. I mean, look, I've done many pieces about my issues with the cops. I try to keep it fair and balanced, but here are my issues. One, whenever there's any trouble, their attitude is, make sure we don't die. Now, I get it, you don't want to die, but it does say, "Protect and serve" on the car, and that refers to us, not you, that protect thing. That's about us. But, and I get it, you're nervous, and it is a nerve-wracking job. People, you're dealing with the drugs of society, anybody could have a gun, and sometimes they do.

• 4:24Bill Maher?

  But the attitude can't be, well, at the least prospect that I'm gonna get hurt, we just completely empty our clips into this guy.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  I'll tell you a funny story. I'll tell you a funny story. I was in, uh... I was in South Carolina and I was with a girl. And we kinda wanted to know where the park was. Cause we wanted to go to this park. And there was a cop sitting there and we kinda knocked on his window. And he, he, he was on the computer. And he went there. Finally, the girl I was with kicked the fucking door and said, hey, serve and protect.

• 5:06Bill Maher?

  You did?

• 5:07Speaker 04

  She did. Hey, serve and protect. And I went, whoa, we're fucked now. But she was famous and.

• 5:16Bill Maher?

  So you celebrated your way out of it.

• 5:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, she did. She did. Hey, serve and protect. I thought it was pretty funny.

• 5:23Bill Maher?

  So luckily, he, the cop was a fan, is that what you're saying?

• 5:26Speaker 04

  He knew who she was.

• 5:28Bill Maher?

  And that got you out of it?

• 5:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:31Bill Maher?

  Some places, that'll get you into it.

• 5:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. They like that.

• 5:37Bill Maher?

  I mean, they like getting scalps.

• 5:39Speaker 04

  Cops. They like it.

• 5:42Bill Maher?

  Well, they, you know, so does the press.

• 5:45Speaker 04

  Well, the press, you know.

• 5:46Bill Maher?

  They like, people like getting scalps. That's what, people are unhappy, a lot of people are unhappy. And what animates their life is, is getting somebody else unhappy. I mean, the, the problem with the cops is that it attracts the wrong kind of person. Which is the kid who got stuffed into a locker in high school. And knows, oh, you know what? You give me this badge, suddenly everyone is respecting me big time. Oh, you better. It attracts bullies the same way the priesthood attracts pedophiles.

• 6:20Speaker 04

  Well, you know, uh, in the town I grew up in,

• 6:27Speaker 04

  there were eighteen thousand people and poor cops.

• 6:31Speaker 04

  So I never had any trouble with the cops. Because there wasn't any. But now, if you went back to that town, there's still eighteen thousand people, and must be four hundred cops.

• 6:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah. No, we definitely, we definitely have a lot of people with guns. If you travel.

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Hey, what's your new ring? I noticed.

• 6:51Bill Maher?

  That's a, that's an Oura ring. It yells at me when I don't sleep well. It's.

• 6:57Speaker 04

  Do you have trouble sleeping?

• 6:59Bill Maher?

  Um, trouble? Um, I'm not looking for trouble. But sometimes I get it, yes. I mean, I would say I get enough, but, uh, you know, not every night. It's not easy to fall asleep. I get up at least once during the night. It's not easy to fall back to sleep. Um, we all know it's harder to sleep as you get older. You, you, you don't find that? You're a different dude. I mean, I mean, I can't believe you haven't lit a cigarette yet.

• 7:25Speaker 04

  Oh, I just had one before you.

• 7:27Bill Maher?

  Oh, you know, I'm not encouraging you, but you're more than welcome, of course. But, um, you're, you're just different. I mean, very few people your age find it easy to sleep.

• 7:37Speaker 04

  I can fall asleep that quick.

• 7:39Bill Maher?

  Really? I'll try not to bore you then.

• 7:41Speaker 04

  If, uh, if, uh, if I have to get up in the night, which, you know, sometimes you should do, I could be back to sleep in two minutes.

• 7:52Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 7:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. I don't have, I don't have trouble like that, uh, sleeping. Matter of fact, I hate going to fucking bed. Hate going to bed. And I hate getting up. What time do you get up?

• 8:07Bill Maher?

  Well, my ring would yell at me and say, uh, that you're not at any fixed time, which is the problem. I stay up too late, so I get up too late. I feel like it's more important to get a full complement of sleep than it is to sleep in any particular hour. So if I don't actually fall asleep until four AM, I'm not gonna wanna get up until noon.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  Right.

• 8:27Bill Maher?

  You know? Um, the ring, uh, again, has a problem with that and yells at me for not sleeping at the right times. And I just wanna go, what if I had a job that made me work these hours? Okay, shut up, ring.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, that's exactly.

• 8:41Bill Maher?

  That's why I never wanted to get married, the ring.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  That, that's exactly what it is with me, Bill. I, you know, I don't get offstage until eleven, eleven thirty. And then.

• 8:51Bill Maher?

  I remember being with you when you got offstage. They're drinking your milk with your cigarette.

• 8:56Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 8:56Bill Maher?

  In your trailer.

• 8:58Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 8:58Bill Maher?

  Do you remember that when I saw your amazing show?

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:00Bill Maher?

  By the way, you're back on the road. Look at me for remembering to do the plug. That's a first. Oh, my God, all through July and August. Oh, great time to be out, summer. We want to see. An iconic star who's still great. Grand Rapids, July 10th. I'm just, just trust me, this is all July. Tinley Park, Illinois, Kansas City, Shakopee, Minnesota, Clarkson, Michigan, Noblesville, Indiana, Cincinnati, Ohio, Caugus, Cuyahoga Falls, Mansfield, Massachusetts, Holmdale, New Jersey. That's my home state. I remember that. It's the Garden State Arts Center.

• 9:42Bill Maher?

  Wanta, New York, Bristow, Virginia, Charlotte, North Carolina, Alpharetta, Georgia, Tampa, Houston, Phoenix, Hollywood Bowl on August 10th. Ending with Mountain View. Ah, I played there, too. The Shoreline Epit Theater, August 12th. Yeah, I mean, you are still.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  You didn't have to do that.

• 10:06Bill Maher?

  I'm thrilled to do that. People are thrilled to hear it and know it because like this, I've told, been told, this is, you're somehow, I didn't get this because they said, well, he's doing his hits. I said, I saw him and I saw plenty of hits.

• 10:21Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 10:22Bill Maher?

  I totally saw you do plenty of hits. In fact, I remember you saying to the audience specifically before you went and did Jack and Diane, you said, you know, I wrote this law, you know, it's a little ditty and it's like it never was my favorite song, but people love it and of course I'm going to play it for you.

• 10:38Speaker 04

  So. Yeah, listen, but, you know, for the last 17 years.

• 10:46Speaker 04

  I may have, I may do four or five hits. But I'm very smart, see, I kinda plaid out the show that, so I'll do a couple of new songs, then throw in a big hit, then, you know, the same thing.

• 11:04Bill Maher?

  I mean, I thought it was great all the way through, so maybe, you know, you, you came into my musical knowledge past the time, like, when I was a teenager, when I wrote down the survey every week and I knew what was hits or not. I didn't know what was a hit or even what was a single. I just knew if I liked it or not. I mean, look, there's two used for me in my iPod. There's, there's the gravel voice guy now, who is a whole different kind of artist. It's some of my favorite stuff. I mean, I got, your last two, there are songs in there that are among my favorites, maybe my most favorites. Maybe that's because I'm older now. But, I mean, Chasing Rainbows, I think is your greatest song.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  Really?

• 11:48Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I do, I love that song.

• 11:50Speaker 04

  Okay, you wanna hear something weird? I can't even remember how that song goes.

• 11:57Bill Maher?

  Well, you're, you're, you start out, you know, when you were old, you thought about chasing rainbows, then you find-

• 12:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, uh, yeah, yeah, I can't, I can't remember that. Bill, I can't, you know. Here's the one thing about my age and your, I'm older than you.

• 12:15Bill Maher?

  A little bit.

• 12:18Speaker 04

  His is that my memory's not worth a buck.

• 12:21Bill Maher?

  Well, you're saying that you were chasing rainbows. Turns out, they're not everywhere.

• 12:27Speaker 04

  Turns out, they're everywhere.

• 12:28Bill Maher?

  No, no, right, turns out, they're not just somewhere. Look around, they're everywhere.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 12:34Bill Maher?

  For someone who cares.

• 12:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's, that's what you, your, the message is, that you, you think that there's this thing at the end of the rainbow, but it's, you know, it's, the end of the rainbow, it's not somewhere, turns out, it's everywhere.

• 12:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:50Bill Maher?

  That, that's, I don't know, I just, that song just gets to me.

• 12:54Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, the reason, I think the reason it gets to you is because if there is such a thing as heaven and hell and all that, it only exists inside you.

• 13:06Bill Maher?

  Oh, well, we totally agree on that.

• 13:08Speaker 04

  I mean, it's just inside you.

• 13:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  It's not like- Up there or down there, I don't think. I think it's it's.

• 13:17Bill Maher?

  I'm not sure it's even there. I mean, I mean.

• 13:19Speaker 04

  Well, no, I think it is. I think there's a heaven inside you.

• 13:23Bill Maher?

  What is, I don't, I don't know what that means. That's, I mean, you may have an idea of what that really is. I don't know what that means. There's a heaven inside of you. What does that mean?

• 13:35Speaker 04

  You know, those moments when you go, fuck, I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

• 13:40Bill Maher?

  I thought it today. I thought, I get to talk to John Mellencamp.

• 13:43Speaker 04

  Now, you, you.

• 13:44Bill Maher?

  No, no, I did. I was like, and really talk, sit down for like an hour or two and like have a drink and talk to. I am the luckiest son of a bitch. I mean.

• 13:52Speaker 04

  Okay, and that's my, that's, that's heaven. And hell, hell is when you think, what the fuck is going on? God damn it. Why do I gotta put up with this?

• 14:03Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, I mean, I feel like you're romanticizing these things by calling it heaven and hell. I just call it, some days are good, some days are bad. And you have some great moments in life and life is filled with, you know, we've had both. And look, and you feel, um, when you talk about we've had both, there are people in this world who just have nothing but bad.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:26Bill Maher?

  You know, if you're one of those people in that Salvadorian prison, I mean, it's just amazing the variance of life. And I don't think most of the kids today really understand how lucky they, they have it compared to the world. But you can be just in such a world of hell. And the worst that goes on in America, you're not in a world of hell, not like that, not like it is in some places.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:56Bill Maher?

  And, um, you know, I mean, I don't know when mankind will get to the point where that kind of thing doesn't exist. But for most of us, you know, yeah. There is, I've had plenty of pain. I don't feel the need to apologize that it wasn't as bad as the worst kind of pain. For me, if it's your pain, it's your pain. But I've also had heaven, as you would call it. Yes, I mean, like so many things. I don't want to die. And the reason I don't want to die is because I like living.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:28Bill Maher?

  I like doing the things. I don't want to miss the playoffs the year after I'm dead. I like doing the crossword puzzle every day.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  I tell you, I just saw a documentary on longevity. And the whole key, at least my takeaway was, is that just don't stop.

• 15:46Bill Maher?

  Stop smoking.

• 15:47Speaker 04

  Don't stop anything. Whatever the fuck you like.

• 15:50Bill Maher?

  Including smoking.

• 15:53Speaker 04

  Smoking didn't, you know.

• 15:54Bill Maher?

  No, I know, we went through this. I, look, you're the one who, you told me, like, your chest x-ray is perfect.

• 16:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, it still is.

• 16:03Bill Maher?

  Right. And that gives me hope because it just says something about, well, the variance of the human being. They certainly have, in recent, even months, come up with lots of new stuff that says, it's about the genetics. It's about who fucked your mom and what they put together in the Petri dish. It's the DNA, it's the genes. There's a longevity gene, there absolutely is. And you can shave some time off your life or put a little on. But basically, you know, I would say, what you do for your health, does it matter?

• 16:45Bill Maher?

  Yes, just the way like a coach matters in a football game. But mostly, it's the players. They're gonna either win or lose the game on their own.

• 16:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's why, that's why you'll never retire and I'll never retire.

• 17:01Bill Maher?

  Well, I got off the road. I did retire from stand-up.

• 17:04Speaker 04

  Okay, hold on for a second, for now.

• 17:07Bill Maher?

  That's true. I never like wanted to make it a announcement because I did. Maybe I will go back. That's true. But it doesn't seem like it now. First of all, I wouldn't want to be on the road right now. I feel like I got off the road at a very good time. There's just so much political anger out there. I could get shot from either side. They could get together and have a joint fucking assassination. They all have a reason to get me. I mean, I just wouldn't want to be out there in the atmosphere we live in today. I mean, it's just, it's chippy out there. Would you not agree?

• 17:43Speaker 04

  I, I worry about a couple of my friends, yes.

• 17:49Speaker 00

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• 18:19Speaker 05

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• 18:49Speaker 04

  I don't worry about myself because I give a fuck about politics.

• 18:52Bill Maher?

  Right, I understa-- right, and you're beloved by both sides. And, and you're also like someone who, you know, you care about America. You sing about America a lot.

• 19:03Speaker 04

  Well, I sing about things that I see. And I'm the biggest liar, you know.

• 19:09Bill Maher?

  What do you mean?

• 19:11Speaker 04

  Uh.

• 19:18Bill Maher?

  I mean, I was trying to say that the last time you were here when we were arguing, but no, go ahead.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  No, I, I, I make things up.

• 19:27Bill Maher?

  Well, you're an artist, you're supposed to.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  I know, and so sometimes that rubs off to my day to day life.

• 19:34Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 19:35Speaker 04

  I mean, I, they're just in a documentary on me, and it says, I can't remember what the exact words are that they said.

• 19:46Speaker 04

  I lie, sometimes I lie to, I always lie to strangers, and I sometimes lie to people I may know. And that's the last words of the documentary.

• 20:02Bill Maher?

  But those aren't even the most dangerous lies. Those are two and three in the order. Number one, lying to yourself.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:10Bill Maher?

  That's number one, because that's the one.

• 20:14Speaker 04

  See, but I don't know myself.

• 20:16Bill Maher?

  Well, you're only 80, you know.

• 20:18Speaker 04

  No, I'm only 74.

• 20:19Bill Maher?

  Well, whatever it is, I mean, whatever it is, you do know yourself. You're as good as you're ever going to. What are you waiting for? 90?

• 20:29Speaker 04

  I'm very young at heart.

• 20:31Bill Maher?

  You are. By the way, you also have a song, "Lie to Me."

• 20:36Speaker 04

  I'm used to it.

• 20:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah, oh, you remember that line?

• 20:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, "Lie to Me, I'm Used to It."

• 20:41Bill Maher?

  So you obviously feel other people lied to you.

• 20:44Speaker 04

  Of course they have.

• 20:45Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 20:45Speaker 04

  I think people, I can't, I used to know the number of how many lies a person will tell in a day, and it was staggering.

• 20:54Bill Maher?

  Can you think of a lie that you told yourself for long enough that you then believed it? People do this, by the way, even with their age, which is something that's very easy to check. But there are people who have done this, who've like, like, they tell theirself, they're 46, when they're really 51, so much that they really come to believe it. But, okay, not that, but can you think of a lie that you told yourself, maybe about a relationship, about relationships, kids, something when you're macking on a girl, that you then came to actually believe and forgot and went, oh, wait. That was the bullshit I made up.

• 21:39Bill Maher?

  And now here I am saying it, because I forgot. I said this bullshit so many times that I really thought, no, maybe I do want kids one day. Yet, no, I knew I didn't. I just said that lie so many times to not turn a girl off that, you know, I came to actually forgot. Oh, wait, that's complete bullshit. I never want kids.

• 22:04Speaker 04

  Well, I think for me,

• 22:09Speaker 04

  I lie so much that

• 22:15Speaker 04

  that it's hard to keep track of the truth.

• 22:18Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, I mean, look, there are, I agree, people who we think of as our idols. And John Lennon, love him though we do. Like, you know, there is a lot of mythologizing there. Like, he was not, he had a song, "Working Class Hero." He was the richest of the, not rich, but he had a middle-class upbringing. And the other ones were much poorer working class. You know, and he lived in the Dakota. I mean, Elvis Costello had a stinging line about him in his "Other Side of Summer" song. You ever hear that song?

• 23:03Bill Maher?

  It's such a great song.

• 23:05Speaker 04

  What did he say?

• 23:08Bill Maher?

  Was it a millionaire who said, "Imagine no possessions"? A poor little schoolboy who said, "We don't need no lessons." That's a reference to Pink Floyd. But yeah, imagine a millionaire who said, "We don't need," you know, he's quoting from "Imagine." Because they did have an entire floor of the Dakota, which was filled with just crap they bought.

• 23:32Bill Maher?

  So I'm, you know, which is fine. We're all hypocrites and we're all liars. You're right. Well, you know.

• 23:40Speaker 04

  Being, you know, if somebody called me a hypocrite, I'd look at him and go, "Yeah, call me anything you like. I don't give a shit."

• 23:47Bill Maher?

  But it's funny that you say that because of all the people, you strike me and millions and millions of Americans and people all over the world, I guess, as the opposite, as one of the straighter shooters that there is, that one of the guys who just stands there with a pair of balls, hits his mark and says what he actually thinks and doesn't give a fuck.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  Well, I, listen, when I say-

• 24:12Bill Maher?

  You don't see yourself that way?

• 24:14Speaker 04

  No. No, I see myself as a, uh, here.

• 24:25Bill Maher?

  Thanks, partner.

• 24:26Speaker 04

  You're welcome, partner.

• 24:30Bill Maher?

  Mmm. Viceroy's. Cool, refreshing flavor.

• 24:36Speaker 04

  But that's not a Viceroy.

• 24:37Bill Maher?

  I'm, it's a joke. I'm doing an ad from 1958.

• 24:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:42Bill Maher?

  Wasn't that a cigarette?

• 24:44Speaker 04

  Huh?

• 24:44Bill Maher?

  Wasn't Viceroy a cigarette?

• 24:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I used to, it's, it's one of the first cigarettes I smoked.

• 24:48Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 24:49Speaker 04

  How old were you when you first started smoking?

• 24:51Bill Maher?

  Twenty.

• 24:52Speaker 04

  Ten.

• 24:54Bill Maher?

  Okay, take top of that, bitch.

• 24:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:58Bill Maher?

  Ten, that's right. You smoked, okay.

• 25:00Speaker 04

  Ten.

• 25:01Bill Maher?

  Well, that even more proves the point that you're a different kind of cat.

• 25:07Speaker 04

  Well, there's, it's not much to do in a small town.

• 25:10Bill Maher?

  No, I, it's not that. It's just like what the body can take. I mean, what are notions about what definitively constitutes health? You, you challenge them all. I mean, I'm always kind of happy that if I did have to start smoking, I at least did it after I stopped growing. Whereas ten is, that's early.

• 25:31Speaker 04

  I was the same height at ten.

• 25:37Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 25:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:39Bill Maher?

  And you, do you think that's because of the cigarettes?

• 25:41Speaker 04

  Uh, probably. I'm the shortest guy in my family.

• 25:44Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  So, and, uh, yeah, I started, you know, I wasn't like a full-time smoker, but, you know, my, my my uncles smoked, my grandfather smoked, my dad didn't smoke, but, uh, you know, all those guys smoked.

• 26:01Bill Maher?

  So you say you weren't a full-time smoker at ten, just when you were drinking?

• 26:07Speaker 04

  Well, let me tell you something. If you knew me and I knew you at twenty in nineteen seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two.

• 26:22Bill Maher?

  Okay, I was fifteen in seventy-one.

• 26:25Speaker 04

  Okay, so let's say that you were, okay, if you were fifteen, you would have been afraid of me.

• 26:33Bill Maher?

  I'm afraid of you now. You're a crazy liar.

• 26:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:39Bill Maher?

  Fucking.

• 26:40Speaker 04

  You would have been, you would have been afraid of me, but you could have probably whipped me. Because my bark was really big, but my bite, I lost every fucking.

• 26:50Bill Maher?

  And where does this, where did this chip on your shoulder come from?

• 26:54Speaker 04

  My Mellencamp.

• 26:56Bill Maher?

  What does that mean?

• 26:57Speaker 04

  What do you mean, what does that mean?

• 26:58Bill Maher?

  You say it like we all know, a Mellencamp, famously in history, are people who are pricks. No, what does that mean, your Mellencamp? What kind of, what kind of ethnic name is that, anyway?

• 27:10Speaker 04

  German.

• 27:11Bill Maher?

  German, of course.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:13Bill Maher?

  German, so you're saying, you're saying you're warlike and mean, like Germans? Germans really aren't, except for the couple of the times, but, you know, come on, anybody can have a bad decade.

• 27:25Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, uh, no, my, my uncle was the toughest guy in Seymour. He'd fuck with, nobody fucked with Joe Mellencamp. Didn't do it, didn't do it. And like I said, there wasn't much to do. I can remember being a little kid in the back, I mean, sitting in, in his truck, and he's driving me, and he's babysitting me. And he goes, hey, just stop, I'm gonna stop here for a second.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  He gets out of the car and he walks over to this guy and beats the fuck out of him. And I'm like a little kid just watching all this shit. He gets back in the car, the guy, he leaves the guy laying there like a wet rag. He gets back in the car. He looks at me and he says, "Don't tell your mom about this, okay?"

• 28:22Speaker 04

  I said, "Okay, I won't tell anybody."

• 28:25Bill Maher?

  But I feel that story is very telling because I hear people say this all the time. It's a big flex that, "You don't fuck with me or some guy, whatever we're talking about. You don't fuck with, like, okay, that's the ultimate great person, that you don't fuck with them." But I feel like in life, actual everyday life, people generally don't fuck with you. I mean, yes, can they? Of course. And I'm sure the lower down you are on the economic scale, the more it happens.

• 28:55Speaker 04

  When you grew up in Seymour, Indiana, in 1966, 64, you know, 1960, there's nothing to do but fight.

• 29:09Bill Maher?

  That's also a silly thing to say.

• 29:12Speaker 04

  No, it's true.

• 29:13Bill Maher?

  Come on, man. There's nothing to do but fight.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  That's true, that was it.

• 29:17Bill Maher?

  What about cow tipping?

• 29:19Speaker 04

  I never cow tipped.

• 29:20Bill Maher?

  Well, okay, but that's the kind of things you could do.

• 29:23Speaker 04

  No, it never, no, it never even occurred to me to cow tip.

• 29:28Bill Maher?

  And I don't advocate it at all. I'm a PETA board member, for Christ's sake. I don't, I'm just saying, there are things, butter churns, like barn raisings, things that you people do in the Midwest. Things with corn, that thing where you walk through a wheat field and just touch the wheat for some reason with the bottom of your hand. I mean, there's lots of stuff to do like that.

• 29:51Speaker 04

  I know, I never did any of that.

• 29:52Bill Maher?

  If we just talk about the Dairy Queen, I could go on for an hour.

• 29:56Speaker 04

  No, I never did any of that.

• 29:57Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, maybe you should look into it.

• 30:00Speaker 04

  Why?

• 30:00Bill Maher?

  It's your heritage.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  No.

• 30:02Bill Maher?

  That is your heritage.

• 30:03Speaker 04

  No.

• 30:04Bill Maher?

  The Dairy Queen.

• 30:05Speaker 04

  No.

• 30:05Bill Maher?

  The malt shop.

• 30:07Speaker 04

  No.

• 30:07Bill Maher?

  Little pink houses. Stop it. Come on.

• 30:09Speaker 04

  No, my heritage is, is how I grew up was...

• 30:16Speaker 04

  Drinking whiskey, smoking pot, fighting, chasing women, riding motorcycles.

• 30:24Bill Maher?

  Okay, that you got from your mother. What about your dad?

• 30:27Speaker 04

  What about I got all that from my dad? You kidding me?

• 30:31Bill Maher?

  Yes, I'm kidding you. It's a comedy show.

• 30:34Speaker 04

  My dad used to fucking make me and my brothers put on boxing gloves and go upside and fight each other.

• 30:40Bill Maher?

  How old were you?

• 30:42Speaker 04

  Fourteen, fifteen.

• 30:44Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  Every fucking friend I had, Bill, at that age, that, you know, that I hung, that I hung around with, they're all dead now.

• 30:52Bill Maher?

  Okay, okay, sad note. Noted sad. Now, getting back to dad. In a town where you yourself say that it was all about fighting, that's the only thing we were at least, the least bit interested in doing was fighting. Isn't that wrong that your father then taught you how to fight? I would think in a town like that.

• 31:17Speaker 04

  No, I didn't say it was wrong. I just said he, I just said, that's what he used to do.

• 31:22Bill Maher?

  In that town, social services would come if the kids weren't fighting.

• 31:27Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 31:33Speaker 04

  You gotta remember, this was, you know, you were alive. You could do a lot of shit.

• 31:39Bill Maher?

  You know, I had such a levity for upbringing. I did, I don't know if it's just where we grew up that was different. I grew up in New Jersey. I feel like it's the same town. Little pink houses. That's my experience too. That's why, one reason people relate to that so much.

• 31:59Bill Maher?

  Ain't that America?

• 32:02Bill Maher?

  Land of the free, you know? I'm telling you, you sing about America. I love the song, "The Americans."

• 32:09Speaker 04

  Where you just say-

• 32:10Bill Maher?

  Yes, where you just talk about, you don't even bother to like make it rhyme. You just go like right through what ma- I'm an American, I wear jeans, I'm from the Midwest, I'm from south of the Mason Dixon line.

• 32:22Speaker 04

  How do you know these songs?

• 32:23Bill Maher?

  Because I listen to them, you made them, you put them on records.

• 32:26Speaker 04

  I know, but I didn't listen to them and I forgot that I even fucking wrote that.

• 32:29Bill Maher?

  Oh no, that's a great one. I could send-

• 32:31Speaker 04

  I was surprised.

• 32:32Bill Maher?

  You know what, I'm gonna send you your best song.

• 32:35Speaker 04

  Good, then maybe I can play it.

• 32:37Bill Maher?

  No, really, because you should play that one. "I'm an American from south of the Mason Dixon line." Do you remember that line?

• 32:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:45Bill Maher?

  Okay, yeah, now you-

• 32:46Speaker 04

  But I've never played that song a lot.

• 32:49Bill Maher?

  "I mind my manners most of the time." Do you remember that?

• 32:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:54Bill Maher?

  Okay. Is that still-

• 32:56Speaker 04

  Most of the time.

• 32:57Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's the line.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:59Bill Maher?

  No, you, it's a very sweet song, it's about what it means, I think, to just to be an American. This is who I am, there's some parts of it that aren't great, but basically, you know, we are not the worst people in the world, despite some people's efforts to paint us that way.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  Right, listen, and I agree with you a hundred percent, but I have to tell you that, you know, uh...

• 33:25Speaker 04

  A writer writes to what he aspires to be, not what he is. Cause if I had to write about myself, it'd bore the fuck out of me, cause I'm boring.

• 33:38Bill Maher?

  Okay, th- this is deep, so I'm gonna, I wanna replay it because I could tell it was deep.

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• 35:14Bill Maher?

  But I gotta like, a writer writes what he aspires to be, not what he is, is that what you mean?

• 35:20Speaker 04

  Right, what he aspires to be.

• 35:23Bill Maher?

  Which to you was what? What do you aspire to be?

• 35:26Speaker 04

  Well, you're talking about the Americans.

• 35:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah?

• 35:30Speaker 04

  That's not who I am.

• 35:32Bill Maher?

  You're not an American?

• 35:33Speaker 04

  No, I'm not, I'm not a guy who tries to manage my, you know, manners most of the time.

• 35:44Bill Maher?

  That's the, that, that, I would agree with that.

• 35:47Speaker 04

  So, you know, I mean, that's just...

• 35:49Bill Maher?

  That's what you aspire to, right?

• 35:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, it would be nice if I could do that, but I can't, you know.

• 35:56Bill Maher?

  You have a lot of beefs with people?

• 35:58Speaker 04

  I used to, now I don't much anymore.

• 36:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I do. I never want them.

• 36:04Speaker 04

  Who do you have a beef with?

• 36:05Bill Maher?

  Oh, there's a whole list.

• 36:07Speaker 04

  Well, just give me one.

• 36:10Bill Maher?

  I mean, there are ones who I'm not even beefing with, who I purposely quash the beef. But the media tries to make like I have a beef with Wanda Sykes now because something that happened at the Golden Globes. I talked to her that night, we're all good. But, you know, Dave Chappelle, he took a shot at me. That's all quashed, you know. I don't want beefs. But, I mean, going back to like Liam Neeson, because like he believes in like horses in Central Park, and I think that's animal cruelty. So we had beef. I just have, look, I'm the nicest guy in the world. You know it, I know it. But like, yeah, I mean, when you speak your mind, you know this too. You wind up with some beefs.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, I can be, I can be one. What's this from?

• 36:55Bill Maher?

  What?

• 36:56Speaker 04

  What's this from? I can be one nice guy, or I can be one mean son of a bitch. It's all up to you.

• 37:03Bill Maher?

  I don't know.

• 37:06Speaker 04

  Did you never see the film Cool Hand Luke?

• 37:09Bill Maher?

  Oh, I did, like 40 years ago.

• 37:13Speaker 04

  I saw it every fucking night. They had played at the Von Lee.

• 37:17Bill Maher?

  That shows what a liar you are. You said there was nothing to do but fight. But actually, you could have seen Cool Hand Luke every night.

• 37:24Speaker 04

  I saw Cool Hand Luke every night, saved my lunch money. Me and my friends all went. And by the time the thing closed, we knew every fucking line.

• 37:34Bill Maher?

  You know, here's what I remember about Cool Hand Luke. He ate 100 eggs, right? Isn't that?

• 37:40Speaker 04

  He ate 50.

• 37:43Bill Maher?

  Okay, point remains. He ate a lot of eggs, right? What was that all, I don't remember why. Why were they making him eat eggs?

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Because George Kennedy was going around going, he can do, he can eat anything. I've seen him eat broken bottles and this and that, and this and that. And he can eat, he'd even eat your fool head if you cut it off. And, you know, all kind of stuff. And then Newman goes, I can eat 58.

• 38:12Speaker 04

  And George Kennedy looks at him like, nobody can eat fifty eggs. He goes, I can eat fifty eggs. And then walks up to Newman Kennedy does and he goes, Luke, why didn't you say thirty or but fifty? And then another guy chimes in and says fifty eggs will blow a guy up. It'll pop him.

• 38:37Bill Maher?

  Right. But he does it.

• 38:40Speaker 04

  But he does it.

• 38:41Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I don't even remember what his job was, this Luke guy.

• 38:45Speaker 04

  He didn't have a job.

• 38:46Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I'm guessing that's what it was. But he was super cool. I get it, Paul Newman. I love Paul Newman. But here's what I remember. You've jarred a memory. I remember the ad on TV because it was, I forget the name of the actor, character actor, and he goes, what we got, what we got here is a failure to communicate. That was the big line. And then about two seconds of this hot blonde chick.

• 39:16Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 39:16Bill Maher?

  Like washing a car.

• 39:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:20Bill Maher?

  That's what I dredged up.

• 39:23Speaker 04

  That guy that said that line, I can't think of his name right now, but he was from Indiana. He was in three or four movies with Newman.

• 39:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 04

  What the fuck is his name?

• 39:35Bill Maher?

  Oh, you know, it's, it's.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  No, he was, he was a great character actor.

• 39:40Bill Maher?

  I know, but we don't have to feel guilty because we can't come up with the name now.

• 39:44Speaker 04

  I don't feel guilty. I just, I just feel.

• 39:47Bill Maher?

  Right. I feel bad.

• 39:48Speaker 04

  I feel.

• 39:48Bill Maher?

  I do feel guilty. Let me take that back. I feel terrible. It's an iconic line. We should remember it. I want to say Scatman Crothers, and I know it's not him.

• 39:58Speaker 04

  No.

• 39:59Bill Maher?

  Because they're not, Scatman Crothers was in The Shining and he's not, yeah, okay. So, anyway, it doesn't matter.

• 40:06Speaker 04

  Hey, Kristen.

• 40:10Speaker 04

  If you're watching from the other room, look up who, what that guy's name was that said that line.

• 40:16Bill Maher?

  There's no one in the other room. Is that what they told you?

• 40:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're watching it on a TV somewhere.

• 40:20Bill Maher?

  No, they're not. There's nobody here. There's no cameras. There's no mics. We're just doing this. I fuck with you like this. This never goes out anywhere. Are you kidding? Do you follow what's on the internet? Then how would you know? Do you listen to podcasts?

• 40:35Speaker 04

  No.

• 40:35Bill Maher?

  You don't. You just go home and fight every night because that's all they're to do.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  The do is to do, yeah.

• 40:40Bill Maher?

  Well, you still live in Indiana.

• 40:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:43Bill Maher?

  Has the ratio to things to do that aren't fighting to fighting improved in the last 50 years?

• 40:52Speaker 04

  Bill, you can't, I haven't been in a fight, a fistfight probably in, I don't know, 30, 40 years.

• 41:01Bill Maher?

  Well, the night is young.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  Well, I guess I'll have to get beat up again.

• 41:08Speaker 04

  But I, you know, I'm talking about when I was a teenager.

• 41:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:13Speaker 04

  That's when.

• 41:15Bill Maher?

  And yet, someone very famously said, "Hang on to 16 for as long as you can." Somebody. I don't remember who, but it was a very, very famous line and it always resonated with me.

• 41:30Speaker 04

  Well, the reason, if it did, the reason it did was because you have to stay young at heart and that's.

• 41:39Bill Maher?

  I couldn't agree more.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  That's what that whole line is about.

• 41:43Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:43Speaker 04

  Staying young at heart.

• 41:44Bill Maher?

  Oh, I've worked hard at it and I think I've succeeded.

• 41:48Speaker 04

  Good.

• 41:48Bill Maher?

  It takes a lot of work. First of all, you can't get married. You can't have kids.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  Maybe you get married a bunch of times. I've been married three times.

• 41:55Bill Maher?

  That's true, I guess. But like, I feel like marriage and kids, you're saying like, life has these, you know, moments in the passageway, moments in the path down life. And once you cross that, I'm not against it or, you know, putting it down in any way. But you are definitely saying, okay, now I'm not in this phase of my life anymore. And then when you have kids, it's like, well, I'm actually trading this life, sort of in a way, for their life. That's all noble and everything. I'm just saying, my choice was, I'm never gonna go to step two. Because I really like step one.

• 42:32Speaker 04

  Well, I have to tell you, at my age.

• 42:39Speaker 04

  I am so thankful for my kids.

• 42:42Bill Maher?

  Oh, I'll bet.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  I mean, you know, they're.

• 42:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 42:45Speaker 04

  You know, uh, my son, Ed, was just out here with me and he went back and I told my girlfriend, I said, I hate when Ed leaves. And she goes, yeah, because you guys are like connected.

• 42:59Bill Maher?

  But you see the key where there is girlfriend.

• 43:03Speaker 04

  What about it?

• 43:03Bill Maher?

  I got it, bro. Thank you.

• 43:06Bill Maher?

  Not that I don't love you. It's not about that. But like, there's something about the word girlfriend that's sexy and just, and something about the word wife, don't get mad at me, wives, I know you're beautiful and sexy, still forever, blah, blah, blah. Just to my ears, like, when I hear wife, it's like, it's different, like, and Sinatra had a song back in the day, wives should always be lovers too. He could have said should always be girlfriends too, you know, because girlfriend.

• 43:41Speaker 04

  My girlfriend is great. I mean, she's.

• 43:43Bill Maher?

  How long you been together?

• 43:45Speaker 04

  Three years.

• 43:46Bill Maher?

  Three years. See, that says a lot.

• 43:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:48Bill Maher?

  Three years, you're still in the good window.

• 43:51Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, and, you know, I'm so, I'm so old that, you know, three more years, I should still, I should still be good.

• 43:58Bill Maher?

  Oh, I'm sure you will be. Oh, you, you got the genes.

• 44:01Speaker 04

  No, she's, she's, she's a nice gal and she takes care of me and she looks out for me and she tells me, John, you're acting like an asshole, so why don't you stop? And, you know, she's very helpful.

• 44:16Bill Maher?

  See, I'm down with everything except that part.

• 44:18Speaker 04

  What?

• 44:19Bill Maher?

  I, I never understood that whole thing that guys do with like, she's the best because she just keeps me grounded and she just tells me.

• 44:26Speaker 04

  I didn't say that.

• 44:27Bill Maher?

  You just said she tells you when you're an asshole.

• 44:30Speaker 04

  That's not grounded.

• 44:33Speaker 04

  That's not grounded.

• 44:34Bill Maher?

  Well, I'm not saying she's grounding you like you're a child. You're grounded, go to your room. I'm just saying, you know, grounded like, oh, she, you know, and when I got a big head, she takes me back to.

• 44:43Speaker 04

  Now.

• 44:44Bill Maher?

  Fuck that, I want someone who.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  She, she, she, she doesn't do that. She doesn't, you're.

• 44:48Bill Maher?

  Well, you just said she did.

• 44:49Speaker 04

  No. No, we're having a little negative entropy here, my friend.

• 44:56Bill Maher?

  You said she tells me when I'm an asshole.

• 45:00Speaker 04

  But that's not grounded.

• 45:02Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, all right, then, take away the grounded part. I don't like that either. I don't, I don't need the woman in my life to ever tell me I'm an asshole. If I was acting like it, but like, at this age, I just don't act like an asshole. You're right, there was a time when I did. But like, if you're still acting like an asshole, like, we're in our seventies, something went seriously wrong.

• 45:26Speaker 04

  Nothing is seriously wrong. Nothing seriously wrong. And Bill, I've watched your show. I, I watched your show every, every time, and I see you get angry and asshole-ish sometimes with people. So don't tell me you don't get it.

• 45:45Bill Maher?

  I don't get asshole. It's what I get is probably arguing a point that you don't agree with. So you interpret that as asshole.

• 45:51Speaker 04

  No, no, no.

• 45:52Bill Maher?

  No, no, no.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no, I think you and I agree on a lot of stuff.

• 45:57Bill Maher?

  Well, we agree on a lot of stuff, yes, absolutely. I bet you we voted for the same person last time. Which is.

• 46:05Speaker 04

  I'm voting, that's why they have curtains. So nobody can see who the fuck you vote for. I don't, I don't, you know, uh.

• 46:17Speaker 04

  Fuck these people, you know, that run this country. I just, I don't.

• 46:23Bill Maher?

  You mean that both sides, or you mean that just?

• 46:25Speaker 04

  On both sides.

• 46:25Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Well, that's my message. Not that I think it's equal. I'm, I am not a big fan of trying to what about ism everything because the Democrats, yes, there are a certain woke part of this country that hates me because I will, I refuse to just let them get away with insanity that they never used to try before and never used to say things like that before. But in general, I find them less alarming than the Republicans and the conservatives who don't believe in conceding elections and lots of other basic democratic stuff.

• 47:02Bill Maher?

  But, yes, I think both sides have to be called out. And like, I live in Hollywood. This town just does not believe that. They do not believe in calling out both sides. They're not well informed.

• 47:16Speaker 04

  Let me tell you, I, I, I, I watched you last week and heard about Buttons. And it was just like.

• 47:25Bill Maher?

  It was so funny.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  It, it was.

• 47:27Bill Maher?

  It really was funny. You gotta give it that.

• 47:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was. And it's funny because outside of this ball of people that live here, nobody gives a shit.

• 47:36Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Nobody cares.

• 47:37Bill Maher?

  But that's what I was saying.

• 47:38Speaker 04

  I know.

• 47:38Bill Maher?

  It's like, the Democrats, I mean, the people who didn't see it, the point of it was, you gotta cut your celebrities loose. You think they're helping and they're actually hurting. Because people don't see celebrities in any way like they can relate to their life, and they can't. And that was where the funny came in, showing.

• 47:58Speaker 04

  The, the other funny thing is, is that, you know, most people, you know, we don't know anything. You know, we don't know shit.

• 48:09Bill Maher?

  We really don't.

• 48:10Speaker 04

  We don't know shit. We don't know shit. What's really going on, we don't know, you know. And it's always been that way, ever since, ever since I can remember, you know. I mean, you were alive during Vietnam.

• 48:24Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 48:24Speaker 04

  What the fuck was, and people are talking about how awful it is here. You guys know that, you know, a few years ago, we had nuclear missiles pointed right at us in Cuba?

• 48:36Bill Maher?

  Well, more than a few years ago.

• 48:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, it doesn't matter.

• 48:39Bill Maher?

  I know, but.

• 48:40Speaker 04

  It's, you know, so what's, what's changed? Marlon Brando tried to save the Indians by not accepting his Academy Award. I love Marlon Brando. He's my, one of my favorite actors. But, you know, the show of having the girl show up and pick up the, his Academy Award form and wouldn't accept it. What did it amount to? Nothing.

• 49:06Bill Maher?

  No, of course.

• 49:06Speaker 04

  Nothing.

• 49:08Bill Maher?

  Well, yeah, I mean, it's interesting you point that out because it was performative. It was performative, but we're talking about 1973 here. We're talking about the Oscars of 1973. Brando won for The Godfather and he sent up Sashin Littlefeather, who, by the way, turned out to be Mexican. She was not an Indian. Do you know that?

• 49:31Speaker 04

  I do.

• 49:31Bill Maher?

  Oh, that came out after. She died last year. I did a whole thing on it. And it's so interesting what happened in the room that night. Just shows you why liberals should like, just take a beat before you think you're always the good people. 1973, the crowd booed her, okay? Because it was seen as very disrespectful. John Wayne, they said, had to be restrained from actually rushing the stage, ala Will Smith, dragging her off. But I don't know, because he was a cowboy, she was an Indian. I mean, this is where we were in 1973.

• 50:10Speaker 04

  And really, what progress have we made?

• 50:14Bill Maher?

  A lot.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  Like what?

• 50:15Bill Maher?

  Well, this is the argument we had last time. That you don't understand, in my view, that 2026 America is just very different. I mean, I can paint this picture with statistics. I can paint it with polling. You know, there are actual, like, I mean, all you have to do is open your eyes to see that we are a very different country.

• 50:38Speaker 04

  Here's the difference, is that we're all against each other. After World War II. We seemed to be a country in unison.

• 50:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 50:49Speaker 04

  After World War II. But then us hippies showed up and it all changed.

• 50:55Bill Maher?

  Well, we were, after World War II, we were a country in unison because only the white people counted. The black people were still not even invited into the conversation as to politics. You couldn't imagine running for president as a black person in the 1950s.

• 51:13Bill Maher?

  They had meager representation in, they just, they weren't, they weren't shown in the.

• 51:18Speaker 04

  What's, what's the difference? We have elected officials that we elect. Us stupid Americans elect another stupid American to come in and represent us. And he's bought off immediately by, you know, you, you named the, you named the corporation. And what?

• 51:44Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 51:45Speaker 04

  We don't know shit about it.

• 51:46Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 51:47Speaker 04

  I was doing a show, a corporate, and my opening act was Bill Clinton.

• 51:52Bill Maher?

  When was this?

• 51:54Speaker 04

  Right after Clinton left office.

• 51:56Bill Maher?

  Right after he left office, okay. Early part of the century.

• 51:59Speaker 04

  And so he, he was there. I did a sound check and he came up and he goes, if you don't mind me asking, John, how much, how much money are you making?

• 52:12Speaker 04

  And I told him and he went, what?

• 52:18Speaker 04

  What? That's true.

• 52:20Bill Maher?

  Cause he was impressed that you were making so much more than.

• 52:22Speaker 04

  And he was making so much less.

• 52:24Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 52:26Speaker 04

  So, you know, I know what I was making.

• 52:28Bill Maher?

  You deserve it.

• 52:29Speaker 04

  I mean, it doesn't matter. The, the point of it is, is that, you know, you can't get as rich as some of these politicians get on that kind of fucking money, you know?

• 52:42Bill Maher?

  You should have.

• 52:43Speaker 04

  And, and, you know, Bill, I, I mean, I commend you for getting a half a million dollars for speaking.

• 52:49Bill Maher?

  I didn't say I took the job.

• 52:51Speaker 04

  Well, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it.

• 52:54Bill Maher?

  There's nothing wrong with it, except even that amount of money, and I'm not that rich, you know? I'm in like, I'm comfortable, but like, there is no day that you can buy from me. Time is so much, like, even if I had, first of all, five hundred thousand dollars. It's not five hundred thousand dollars to me. The government takes half right off the top. Manager, agent. Now, I'm not saying that coming away with like three hundred thousand dollars or two hundred, whatever it is, isn't still great. But does it change my life? No, because I don't live an extravagant life. I don't have kids, I don't have alimony. I don't have the things that people, I mean, my mortgage is paid off. I don't have houses all around the world.

• 53:38Bill Maher?

  I don't collect cars and motorcycles and jewelry and stupid shit and hookers and heroin and cocaine, none of that shit. I'm, I'm, I'm, my tastes are simple. So like, you can't buy me, you can't buy one day. No matter where you are, what you, what you are offering, you just can't. This, the price is ten billion. Okay, let me amend that right away. I will do it for, I, but, you know, I mean, I, I read about these stars who are worth billions, like Beyonce, like do these private gigs and I'm like, really? What the, how, how could that make sense to you? That, that you put another, what, ten million on the pile? That you already don't know how big the pile is?

• 54:21Speaker 04

  I know, so let's just take another step. Let's take it another step. Forget Beyonce. Think about, think about.

• 54:29Bill Maher?

  How dare you?

• 54:30Speaker 04

  Think about the, the politicians.

• 54:33Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 54:36Speaker 04

  And the money that they take and the judges and the, you know.

• 54:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 54:44Speaker 04

  Think about the money that they are getting kickbacks on that we don't even know about.

• 54:49Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, the Trump administration has taken this to levels.

• 54:52Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, well. He's just doing what they've always done, but he's doing out in front.

• 54:58Bill Maher?

  And on a much higher level.

• 55:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:00Bill Maher?

  And I'm, I mean, when I think of how quaint it is that Spiro Agnew, do you remember him?

• 55:05Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, he got in trouble for fucking getting free groceries.

• 55:08Bill Maher?

  It was, it was on the level of, here's a Christmas turkey, Ted.

• 55:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:14Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, that was what was considered a scandal. He had to go.

• 55:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:19Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 55:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, I remember that.

• 55:21Bill Maher?

  You cannot make the case, really, that America in our lifetime has, the trajectory has been up.

• 55:31Bill Maher?

  It sadly has been down morally.

• 55:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:34Bill Maher?

  Just like the rot from within.

• 55:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:38Bill Maher?

  Have we done better economically? Yeah. I mean, we still kick ass. America, for all its horrible shit, is still the place. People wanna come from all over the world because you could rein-

• 55:49Speaker 04

  Because they don't know any better.

• 55:51Bill Maher?

  Nah, nah, nah. They do know. What they know is that unlike in my society, I can be what I want. I can reinvent myself. I can just, I can just be something new tomorrow. That is not something that people take for granted in most of the world. You cannot do that. Here you can. There is a kind of a freedom that is still here, including economic freedom. I mean, there's a reason this place is still a magnet.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, listen, I, I, I, I hear you. I mean, I actually hear you and I joke about.

• 56:28Bill Maher?

  Ain't that America?

• 56:29Speaker 04

  Ain't, and I always-

• 56:30Bill Maher?

  Home of the free.

• 56:31Speaker 04

  And I always lie to strangers.

• 56:32Bill Maher?

  It's, okay, but ain't that America? You know, I mean, come on. Compared to where you could be, um...

• 56:44Speaker 04

  Well, what do you think about all these guys leaving the country now? I mean, George Clooney and these people.

• 56:49Bill Maher?

  Well, George Clooney is not leaving the country. First of all, I'll tell you something interesting, cuz I learned this when I went to the DMV um, last time to renew my license and they have pictures of all the celebrities. That, you know, if you are a celebrity, they are very nice to you and they take you in their little office and they do it there.

• 57:07Speaker 04

  They don't in Indiana, but go ahead.

• 57:08Bill Maher?

  Yeah, no, Indiana, I mean, you're you have to fight with the other celebrities to get into the DMV.

• 57:14Speaker 04

  I had to borrow, last time I, last time I went to get my driver's license, I never carried.

• 57:20Bill Maher?

  They had a picture of you and Letterman.

• 57:21Speaker 04

  I, I, I, I, I had a, I, I, I, I never carry money. I had to go through and ask people for money. Can you give me two dollars?

• 57:32Bill Maher?

  That's like the president. The president doesn't carry money.

• 57:35Speaker 04

  Who?

• 57:36Bill Maher?

  The president of the United States doesn't carry money. They, they've gotten caught before, because why would they ever need it? What do they need to like pay for the plane ticket? No, I mean, you know, they have.

• 57:46Speaker 04

  I but I've never, I never.

• 57:48Bill Maher?

  Why don't you carry money?

• 57:49Speaker 04

  Because I've never had to. I never, I never, there was never anything.

• 57:54Bill Maher?

  What do you mean? You you depend on the kindness of strangers?

• 57:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:58Bill Maher?

  What are you talking?

• 57:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:00Bill Maher?

  Uh oh, now it's a knee tap. Yeah. What is that signal?

• 58:03Speaker 04

  Bill.

• 58:03Bill Maher?

  Is this that part of the night that I was?

• 58:05Speaker 04

  Sometimes, sometimes.

• 58:07Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 58:09Speaker 04

  In small towns.

• 58:12Speaker 04

  You borrow things.

• 58:13Bill Maher?

  You borrow things?

• 58:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, you just borrow.

• 58:15Bill Maher?

  Steal?

• 58:16Speaker 04

  Borrow.

• 58:17Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 58:18Speaker 04

  Just borrow.

• 58:19Bill Maher?

  Borrow without the person knowing?

• 58:20Speaker 04

  Borrow, you know, you just borrow. Yeah.

• 58:23Bill Maher?

  But that's your way of life?

• 58:25Speaker 04

  When you're a teenager.

• 58:26Bill Maher?

  You don't get, oh, we're back to your teenage years. Okay. But since then, you carry money?

• 58:32Speaker 04

  No, I don't have any money. I mean that.

• 58:34Bill Maher?

  What?

• 58:34Speaker 04

  No, I I grew up not carrying. But what? Well, I didn't need much. I needed a guitar.

• 58:39Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 58:39Speaker 04

  I needed a motorcycle. I needed.

• 58:42Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but what if you need a hamburger? I mean, you can't pay for that with a guitar.

• 58:47Speaker 04

  Well, you could, you mean today or?

• 58:49Bill Maher?

  Yeah, today.

• 58:50Speaker 04

  Today, today?

• 58:51Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 58:53Speaker 04

  Oh, I I have a credit card.

• 58:58Bill Maher?

  Can you use a credit card at the drive through at Fat Burger?

• 59:02Speaker 04

  I don't go to these places.

• 59:03Bill Maher?

  I don't think you, I don't think you can. Maybe you, maybe only can.

• 59:06Speaker 04

  I don't, I don't, I I generally don't go to those places.

• 59:10Bill Maher?

  I I generally don't either, but I love to be a big tipper. I I I carry like plenty of fifties and hundreds. I pass them out like Skittles. I just enjoy that.

• 59:20Speaker 04

  And and guess what?

• 59:21Bill Maher?

  It's the best thing about having money.

• 59:23Speaker 04

  Guess what? I do the same thing.

• 59:25Bill Maher?

  Well, you just said you didn't carry money, you liar.

• 59:28Speaker 04

  My girlfriend does.

• 59:30Bill Maher?

  Oh, your girlfriend does. She carries. Oh, there you go. You carry a girlfriend and she carries the money.

• 59:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:36Bill Maher?

  I get it.

• 59:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. You got a girlfriend?

• 59:40Bill Maher?

  I am somebody I love, yes.

• 59:45Speaker 04

  Really?

• 59:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah, why? You don't think I'm capable of love?

• 59:48Speaker 04

  No, I'm not, I'm not saying that at all. I'm just, I don't ever hear you talk about it.

• 59:54Bill Maher?

  I don't talk about it. I'm not even talking about it now.

• 59:57Speaker 04

  Well, let's talk about it for a little bit.

• 59:59Bill Maher?

  No, let's talk about yours.

• 1:00:00Speaker 04

  No, let's talk about, let's, let's talk about your.

• 1:00:04Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 1:00:06Speaker 04

  How did you meet this girl?

• 1:00:07Bill Maher?

  Well, Christian Mingle.

• 1:00:10Speaker 04

  Don't know that.

• 1:00:11Bill Maher?

  Christian Mingle, it's a, it's a website for Christians.

• 1:00:15Speaker 04

  Oh, bullshit.

• 1:00:17Bill Maher?

  No, I'm sorry, I'm kidding. We're both furries. We're both furries and.

• 1:00:22Speaker 04

  I don't know what that is.

• 1:00:23Bill Maher?

  Furries are people who, who dress up in furry animal costumes. That's like a big, like, sub porn sort of thing that people are into in this country, really. I mean, people, the kids are sick, John. The kids are fucked up, they really are. I don't mean it as a judgmental thing, I'm just telling you.

• 1:00:44Speaker 04

  Hold on a second.

• 1:00:45Bill Maher?

  The kids are fucked up.

• 1:00:47Speaker 04

  If you're a furry, what does that make you?

• 1:00:49Bill Maher?

  Well, I, I'm kidding, we weren't really furries. I don't do anything weird. I never have, and I think, like, you'll see this in other civilizations, Romans, Egyptians, yada, yada. When people start doing weird shit, it is a sign.

• 1:01:07Speaker 04

  Okay, well, hold on, stop. What, what, what are you talking about, weird shit?

• 1:01:12Bill Maher?

  Like, like dressing up as animals, like not being able to get a hard on unless you're a hamster. That is some weird shit. And like, that's not the only weird shit. Have you been on Pornhub lately?

• 1:01:25Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:01:25Bill Maher?

  Me neither, but I hear from friends that.

• 1:01:28Speaker 04

  You heard, you heard from a couple of people, yeah.

• 1:01:32Bill Maher?

  A lot, a lot of it. No, I've seen it, I, I'm on Pornhub, and not afraid to admit it. Nothing wrong with it, I mean, there's plenty wrong with it. What am I saying? It's terrible, but it's wonderful.

• 1:01:45Speaker 04

  But see, it's not terrible.

• 1:01:47Bill Maher?

  It's well, but here's the point. A lot of it is about step sister, step brother, stepfather porn. Lot of, for some reason, this scenario. You know, when we were kids, porn was like the pizza delivery guy, right? That's not what it is anymore. Out with the pizza delivery guy, in with your stepbrother. And I think this is.

• 1:02:09Speaker 04

  Whoa!

• 1:02:10Bill Maher?

  I'm just telling you factual, this is factual. I think the reason for this is that there are so many broken families in this country. So many people living with or in contact with the stepbrother, the stepsister. That this is just a big fantasy. Oh, my stepsister, I'm not supposed to fuck her, but I kinda want to. And then the porn video serves as your, you know.

• 1:02:38Speaker 04

  Go between. Your mag- yeah, your imagination.

• 1:02:42Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:02:43Speaker 04

  And not doing it.

• 1:02:44Bill Maher?

  Yes, exactly. It's, it's, you can vicariously.

• 1:02:47Speaker 04

  Do it.

• 1:02:48Bill Maher?

  Be, do it.

• 1:02:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:49Bill Maher?

  So, um, the point being, the kids are fucked up. But, here's the, here's the problem.

• 1:02:55Speaker 04

  Can I, can I help you with something?

• 1:02:57Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:02:59Speaker 04

  When the word but shows up in a conversation, Bill,

• 1:03:03Speaker 04

  the next following sentence is generally a lie. So, change the word but to however.

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  However.

• 1:03:16Bill Maher?

  Well, that is the very definition of a distinction without a difference.

• 1:03:20Speaker 04

  Yes. That's right.

• 1:03:22Bill Maher?

  Which means it's meaningless, but it helps you all do it. However.

• 1:03:27Speaker 04

  There you go!

• 1:03:30Speaker 04

  I'm gonna be watching the show and I'm gonna, if I hear you say but, I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna text you. Bing, bing, you said it, you said it, you said it.

• 1:03:37Bill Maher?

  What if it's in the context of, I like big butts?

• 1:03:40Speaker 04

  And I cannot lie?

• 1:03:41Bill Maher?

  And I can't, oh, you know that one.

• 1:03:43Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, I know that one. I know that one.

• 1:03:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah. See, so don't say we don't like modern music.

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's only thirty years old.

• 1:03:54Bill Maher?

  We like a lot of this.

• 1:03:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:55Bill Maher?

  Jamiroquai, I love him. I think he won the best new.

• 1:03:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:59Bill Maher?

  This year. I was at the, I was at the Clive Davis Grammy party. You don't go to that?

• 1:04:03Speaker 04

  I have never been to the Grammys in my life.

• 1:04:06Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:04:06Speaker 04

  Never.

• 1:04:07Bill Maher?

  You were not up for Grammys? You must have been.

• 1:04:09Speaker 04

  I've been up for like 20 Grammys.

• 1:04:11Bill Maher?

  You just didn't go?

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  Didn't go.

• 1:04:13Bill Maher?

  God, I love you for that.

• 1:04:14Speaker 04

  I, I didn't go to the.

• 1:04:15Bill Maher?

  They lured me to the Golden Globes again this year.

• 1:04:17Speaker 04

  Why?

• 1:04:18Bill Maher?

  Because they put, because you know, you think you're finally gonna get, if you win, you get a chance to go up there and tell them to go fuck themselves.

• 1:04:25Speaker 04

  You know what a Golden Globe is or a Grammy? It's fucking nothing. It means nothing.

• 1:04:31Bill Maher?

  It's, believe me.

• 1:04:32Speaker 04

  It means less than nothing.

• 1:04:34Bill Maher?

  I totally understand.

• 1:04:36Speaker 04

  It's, it's.

• 1:04:37Bill Maher?

  Once in a while.

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  I could, I, I, I have, now, I like the Grammy Museum.

• 1:04:46Bill Maher?

  What's that?

• 1:04:47Speaker 04

  Well, there's a whole museum that's.

• 1:04:49Bill Maher?

  Where?

• 1:04:49Speaker 04

  That's.

• 1:04:49Bill Maher?

  Cleveland or is that the Rock and Roll?

• 1:04:51Speaker 04

  No, here, here.

• 1:04:52Bill Maher?

  Isn't Cleveland where the?

• 1:04:53Speaker 04

  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is.

• 1:04:54Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's your neck of the woods.

• 1:04:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, anyway.

• 1:04:59Bill Maher?

  Indiana, Ohio. Is there really a difference?

• 1:05:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, there is.

• 1:05:03Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 1:05:04Speaker 04

  There is.

• 1:05:04Bill Maher?

  Really? What is it? What is the difference at the Tasty Freeze in Indiana?

• 1:05:09Speaker 04

  I'll tell you what the difference is. It's colder than Cleveland than it is.

• 1:05:13Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:05:16Bill Maher?

  Someone's making the goo come out of the machine to make an ice cream cone. That's, I mean, come on.

• 1:05:21Speaker 04

  You know, and I wish you'd stop referring to the Tasty Freeze because my girlfriend used to work at the Tasty Freeze when she was a kid.

• 1:05:27Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:05:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:29Bill Maher?

  My girlfriend still works there. That's the difference between.

• 1:05:40Speaker 04

  How old is your girlfriend?

• 1:05:41Bill Maher?

  Oh, we don't need to get into specifics.

• 1:05:48Bill Maher?

  Anyway.

• 1:05:52Bill Maher?

  It's so good to see you.

• 1:05:54Speaker 04

  It's always, it's always fun to spend time with a liar.

• 1:05:57Bill Maher?

  It's different, isn't it?

• 1:05:59Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's always fun to spend time with a liar.

• 1:06:01Bill Maher?

  It's not like, uh, it's not like doing the Colbert Show.

• 1:06:07Bill Maher?

  You know, but you're doing my show Friday, and that's gonna be more conventional.

• 1:06:12Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:06:13Bill Maher?

  We only have 10 minutes. What should we talk about? What would you, and we wanna plug your, I'm doing my hits, which again, I thought I saw a lot of.

• 1:06:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:23Bill Maher?

  What are the ones that like you're, that you're gonna do that you think that you were holding back from us all these years?

• 1:06:28Speaker 04

  Well, I haven't played R O C K in the USA since I wrote it.

• 1:06:31Bill Maher?

  Oh, okay, yeah.

• 1:06:33Speaker 04

  I have, I, I've never played that song, you know, that's the first one that comes to mind. But I didn't even wanna put it on the album.

• 1:06:41Bill Maher?

  But you're gonna play the Authority song, like, didn't you always?

• 1:06:44Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:06:45Bill Maher?

  Like I said, you didn't do that one.

• 1:06:47Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:06:47Bill Maher?

  Uh, what about it hurts so good?

• 1:06:50Speaker 04

  Gonna do that.

• 1:06:51Bill Maher?

  What, did you do it back in the day?

• 1:06:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Bill Maher?

  So you did it back in the day?

• 1:06:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Bill Maher?

  Okay, good.

• 1:06:56Speaker 04

  I had to.

• 1:06:57Bill Maher?

  Exactly, I had to do Jack and Diane.

• 1:07:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, I had to.

• 1:07:00Bill Maher?

  And Pink Houses.

• 1:07:01Speaker 04

  I had to.

• 1:07:02Bill Maher?

  Right, I get it, okay.

• 1:07:03Speaker 04

  I had to. Let's face it, we had it pretty good.

• 1:07:07Bill Maher?

  Very good.

• 1:07:08Speaker 04

  We had it, we had it pretty good.

• 1:07:10Bill Maher?

  You're talking about musically or just in general?

• 1:07:12Speaker 04

  Just in general.

• 1:07:13Bill Maher?

  I agree, cuz I've always thought, um, we came along

• 1:07:19Bill Maher?

  at a time before A I, before like the pollution was really gonna like destroy the earth. I'm not saying it necessarily is, but it certainly could, and A I certainly could. Lots of, you know, bad things, and, um, you know, the food was still pure.

• 1:07:39Speaker 04

  See, that's another thing too, we ate.

• 1:07:45Speaker 04

  The way that they tell us to eat now, you couldn't eat that. That's the way we ate back then, but the food was real food.

• 1:07:52Bill Maher?

  Real food.

• 1:07:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, when we started Farm Aid, Willie and Neil and I, I think all of us were naive enough to think that if we do this show, that the politicians will go, these guys have a good point. We need to help the small family farmer. No.

• 1:08:12Speaker 04

  It's gonna take more than a fucking concert. It's gonna take more than a march to get rid of.

• 1:08:18Bill Maher?

  Trump wrote a lot of checks to farmers.

• 1:08:21Speaker 04

  Huh?

• 1:08:22Bill Maher?

  Trump wrote a lot of checks to farmers because he fucked them often with like tariffs and stuff.

• 1:08:29Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:08:29Bill Maher?

  Like he did stuff, or the first term, there was like, you know, trade deals with China that we, he wanted to show China who's boss and who pays. It's the people who sell soybeans to China.

• 1:08:41Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, but if. So if you watch, if you watch in the video that I made for a song called Rain on the Scarecrow, it's talking to some young farmers and it talks about that. And that was 1983.

• 1:08:58Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:09:00Speaker 04

  That was 1983. So when was the first time you met Trump?

• 1:09:06Bill Maher?

  I met him probably the first time at the Playboy Mansion at the Midsummer Night's Dream Party. Oh, no, no, no, I think I met him before that. I met him once I was in New York. It was the 90s. I was at a club, I believe it was called Moonba. If not, it should have been. It is exactly what you would think for a club called Moonba at a time when I was going to clubs named things like Moonba. And of course, he was there.

• 1:09:36Speaker 04

  Did you talk to him?

• 1:09:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah, briefly, like it was always very, he was always very cordial. Then I did see him at the Playboy Mansion at the Midsummer Night's Dream Party. Everyone is in their pajamas, he had the power suit on. And it made him stick out, you gotta say. And he like walked around once or twice and also very nice then. And then I think the next time was at the White House to have dinner with him.

• 1:10:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I've met the guy numerous times.

• 1:10:04Bill Maher?

  Under what circumstance?

• 1:10:06Speaker 04

  Well, the first time I met him was like in the late eighties at the, at the Super Bowl in Miami.

• 1:10:12Bill Maher?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:10:13Speaker 04

  And that was back before they had those boxes, you know, those fancy boxes.

• 1:10:20Bill Maher?

  Bunchery box.

• 1:10:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. They didn't have those back then.

• 1:10:22Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:10:23Speaker 04

  No. So I'm sitting there and, uh,

• 1:10:29Speaker 04

  and I've been doing pretty good at, in nineteen eighty-eight and eighty-five. And people were coming and asking me for my autograph because I was sitting in the audience. You know, I mean, on the benches. And next to me was this guy and his wife. And they would then ask him for his. And I looked at him and go,

• 1:10:55Speaker 04

  I don't mean to sound stupid, but maybe I am, but why are people asking you for your autograph? And he goes, well, I'm Donald Trump. And I go, yeah? So what does that mean? He goes, well, I'm a big builder in New York. I go, well, I'm not from New York, so how the fuck would I know? But he bought me popcorn. He bought me cokes. He couldn't have been nicer.

• 1:11:19Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:11:20Speaker 04

  And, and cut to another time I saw him, uh, at some award for, I don't know, something. Couldn't have been nicer. Then I saw him again. Couldn't have been nicer. And then, when I saw him running for president, I thought, who the fuck is this guy?

• 1:11:41Bill Maher?

  Exactly. It's exactly what I said when I gave my report about the White House dinner and people were attacking me. And I said exactly that. I went to that dinner and he was this nice guy. And, you know, never argued with me, like, allowed me to dissent on anything and just confront him with anything. It wasn't blustery. And then I went home and when I got home, I turned on Sixty Minutes. And there he was, like on Sixty Minutes, you people are terrible people. I'm like, who the fuck is this guy?

• 1:12:10Speaker 04

  I know. Exactly.

• 1:12:12Bill Maher?

  And, you know, the, the, again, the small-mindedness of so many people on the far left that they can't under, they're so emotional about Donald Trump. They, they don't get it that, yeah, of course, he is this crazy person. He's playing in public.

• 1:12:29Bill Maher?

  Like, you keep two thoughts in your head at the same time. He's not that person always. He's a very different guy. Like, let's figure out how to use that to our advantage. Instead of just saying, "Don't talk to that guy." No, let's talk to that guy.

• 1:12:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, because, you know, I couldn't. Honestly, Bill, when I saw his demeanor and attitude when he ran, I thought, "Is this the same motherfucker that bought me popcorn and shit at the fucking Rose at the, at the Super Bowl in 1988?"

• 1:13:07Bill Maher?

  A friend of mine, I don't think he would mind me telling who it actually is. A.J. Ben's a good friend of mine who used to do the gossip column in New York. He's got a great podcast. He's a funny guy. And he was a real man about town in the 90s when Trump was single, and they were both dating the same girl. And he just told me this story. He said, you know, "When Trump found out we were dating the same girl, and I won't go into detail, but the horrible things he said about her." And his conclusion was, "He's not a bad guy, except when he gets into a fight, and then he's the biggest asshole in the world." It's just always a bar fight. He picks up whatever he can to fucking buck you with it immediately

• 1:13:51Bill Maher?

  and as hard as he can. The problem with, in politics, everything is that. Everything is a fight. So if you're always doing that, yeah, it doesn't make for great domestic or foreign relations a lot.

• 1:14:04Speaker 04

  No, and, and, and it, it really has. Since Vietnam, it's really... I mean, because you remember what it was like in Vietnam. I mean, the fucking kid. They were shooting people in kid's state. I mean, you know.

• 1:14:22Bill Maher?

  For people who, for kids who don't, and they don't, like, study history at all. Yes, I was like a young, just old enough, like 12 years old in 68, to be aware of what it looked like when there was just this tremendous amount of violence in the streets. The Chicago Democratic Convention in 68 with the blue.

• 1:14:47Speaker 04

  Beating the hell out of you.

• 1:14:49Bill Maher?

  Beating the hell, the nightsticks with, you know, the hippies against the hard hats.

• 1:14:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:53Bill Maher?

  I mean, there was, this is not the first time we've seen this.

• 1:14:58Bill Maher?

  You know, it's, there's always gonna be these two halves of America, you know? And then there's the part in the middle that I think is the majority. But they always get in elections pushed to one side or the other. You know, only 27% of Americans are either Democrat or Republican. 45% are independents. You'd think the independent party, if there was one, would win. But there isn't one.

• 1:15:26Speaker 04

  Let me ask you a question, and you can shut off the cameras whenever you want. But where the fuck, where the, where the fuck are these people that were president? Where are these people coming forward and saying, "This is wrong. This is wrong," and arguing, or not even arguing, just stating the truth about what we need to do to fix what's going on?

• 1:15:53Bill Maher?

  Well, some of them do. I mean, Obama does, I mean, obviously, but he's, what? You think not enough?

• 1:16:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:01Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, I'm of two minds about that. I've heard that criticism a lot. Why doesn't Obama get in the game more? Well, first of all, he did serve his time. He did do the big solid for America. He got to be the first black president.

• 1:16:18Speaker 04

  Let me, let me.

• 1:16:19Bill Maher?

  I would say that's the hardest hurdle anybody could ever have to.

• 1:16:22Speaker 04

  Let me tell you something. If somebody broke in that door right now.

• 1:16:25Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:16:25Speaker 04

  They would hit me before they hit you.

• 1:16:27Bill Maher?

  Why?

• 1:16:27Speaker 04

  Because I'd be in front of you trying to protect you.

• 1:16:30Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:16:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:32Bill Maher?

  Thanks.

• 1:16:32Speaker 04

  Well, I'm, I would just.

• 1:16:35Bill Maher?

  I accept that.

• 1:16:36Speaker 04

  It's a good.

• 1:16:37Bill Maher?

  I accept your protection.

• 1:16:38Speaker 04

  It's the good neighbor policy.

• 1:16:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:41Speaker 04

  It's the good neighbor policy. I mean, you mind your fucking business, I'll mind my business. If you need help, I'll help you if I can. And that's basically what the fuck this country needs to get back to. You mind your business, I'll mind my business. And if I can help you, I will. That's the good neighbor policy.

• 1:17:04Bill Maher?

  That's, that's what you sing about in that song, "The Americans."

• 1:17:08Speaker 04

  Well, and...

• 1:17:09Bill Maher?

  "I'm an American."

• 1:17:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, that's what, that's how I think it should be.

• 1:17:13Bill Maher?

  You may think it's just aspirational, but I, I think you actually have gotten there.

• 1:17:18Speaker 04

  I have.

• 1:17:19Bill Maher?

  All right, pal. It's always great to see you.

• 1:17:28Speaker 04

  Old, old people.

• 1:17:30Bill Maher?

  Old people.

• 1:17:31Speaker 04

  Every time I stand up, it's old people.

• 1:17:38Speaker 02

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