Ron Livingston | Club Random with Bill Maher

Ron Livingston has somehow managed to build a Hollywood career while remaining just under the radar. On Club Random, Bill Maher gets into the art of staying low-key while appearing in everything from Band of Brothers to Sex and the City, where Ron played one of Carrie Bradshaw’s many boyfriends. They tackle the peculiar designation of “sitcom handsome,” the inevitable transition into dad roles, and the existential dread of never quite knowing where your next acting job is coming from. Ron also reveals that he’s in a dad band, proving that some midlife crises come with a setlist. Plus, Christmas horror movies, the indignities of getting older, and a puppy named Pickles who has yet to grasp the concept of indoor plumbing. Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1 Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom Support our Advertisers: For a limited time, try OneSkin with fifteen percent off using code RANDOM at https://oneskin.co/ RANDOM. If you’re 21 or older, get 30% OFF your first order @IndaCloud with code RANDOM at https://inda.shop/RANDOM ! #indacloudpodReady to have an AI that can tackle real work? Try Claude Cowork today on any paid plan at https://Claude.ai/RANDOMRula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/random #rulapodFor free and unbiased Medicare help, dial 984-217-3643 or go to https://askchapter.org/billmaher Buy Club Random Merch: https://clubrandom.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM In Club Random, Bill Maher unleashes his comedic wit on an unpredictable lineup – from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Quentin Tarantino and Neil deGrasse Tyson – digging into everything but politics. It’s Maher in his familiar element: one-on-one vibes, unfiltered laughs, and the kind of freewheeling banter only he can deliver. ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last 23 years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 41 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 six 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,” “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass", and most recently "What This Comedian Said Will Shock You". 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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• 0:26Speaker 00

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• 1:30Bill Maher?

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• 2:14Bill Maher?

  Try Claude Co-Work today on any paid plan at claude.ai/random. That's claude.ai/random. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. Claude.ai/random. 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 Quads hoodies with the updated logo. Super soft t-shirts, super soft, for men and women, and even tie-dye shirts.

• 2:57Bill Maher?

  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.

• 3:13Speaker 05

  I have a plan to dad band.

• 3:14Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 3:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:15Bill Maher?

  Wow. You're in a Viagra band?

• 3:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:22Speaker 05

  Oh, okay, all right.

• 3:24Bill Maher?

  You know what I'm talking about?

• 3:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:26Bill Maher?

  Okay, that blew my mind.

• 3:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:31Bill Maher?

  Ron?

• 3:32Speaker 05

  Hello?

• 3:36Bill Maher?

  Well, you've aged well.

• 3:37Speaker 05

  Hey. We haven't aged today. How were you?

• 3:39Bill Maher?

  Do we ever meet? I've always been a fan of yours.

• 3:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, thanks. No, I did, uh...

• 3:45Bill Maher?

  We did a series together for three years.

• 3:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it was politically incorrect.

• 3:51Bill Maher?

  Oh, you did?

• 3:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:52Bill Maher?

  Still got the sign. You saw it?

• 3:54Speaker 05

  I did.

• 3:55Bill Maher?

  Isn't that awesome?

• 3:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:57Bill Maher?

  I mean, it just fit there.

• 4:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. This is your place?

• 4:03Bill Maher?

  I don't know. If it's not...

• 4:06Speaker 05

  I don't know. It could be just like art-designed and you guys rent, you know, but yeah.

• 4:10Bill Maher?

  No, this was here when I bought this house.

• 4:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:15Bill Maher?

  I live next door.

• 4:17Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 4:17Bill Maher?

  I don't live here at Club.

• 4:19Speaker 05

  Okay, that's what I was, you know, I was gonna say, that's what...

• 4:22Bill Maher?

  No, no, no. Luckily, fate smiled on me and I got a party house. You know, and you gotta have one. And this is really one because it's underground. It's like, you know, it's a conquer... You can't, you can't ruin it. And that's, you know, you could spill shit, you could kill a guy in here. I'm telling you.

• 4:43Speaker 05

  I just love that you could leave your own party at 9:15 and just go home and go to bed.

• 4:48Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's, it's awesome. No, it is. Who wants people in your own house?

• 4:54Speaker 05

  Right, yeah, no.

• 4:55Bill Maher?

  Even like, it's amazing how people in a mob, which is a party, it's a type of mob, you know, they just act differently and they just, wow, these are, I know all these people. And yet, this like slovenly thing, like who puts a cigarette butt out on your lawn? You know what I mean? It's like, I thought we were friends, but somehow, it's still, there's still some shittiness to having a bunch of people over.

• 5:21Speaker 05

  A bunch of people over, I don't know, there's...

• 5:23Bill Maher?

  I don't know. How do you, I don't know anything about your personal life, Ron. You really like kept, is that, was that always intentional?

• 5:32Speaker 05

  Fly under the radar. I don't think, I didn't have to work that hard to fly under the radar.

• 5:41Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 5:42Speaker 05

  But I also didn't fight it too much. I really, I kinda saw, yeah, I kinda saw what it was like for people that you get another level up and you can't go to the grocery store anymore and, you know. And I've had, I had moments of sort of flirting with that and I didn't like it.

• 6:04Bill Maher?

  Who would? I mean, there are people who do, but it's like saying some people like heroin, sure. People like their addictions. Fame can be an addiction, obviously.

• 6:15Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 6:15Bill Maher?

  And the proof would be celebrities who, you know, are, shall we say, in the denouement of the story of their career. And they go on like, you know, reality shows where you gotta eat worms or some shit. Like, you know, like the things that they will do to keep the spotlight at least on a little. Don't, don't turn it, they're all Norman Desmond, you know? Don't turn it off, don't turn off the light. I'm, they still love me and, you know, and they're just, they really do things that are, you know, debasing.

• 6:50Speaker 05

  I like to think they just didn't invest well.

• 6:52Bill Maher?

  Dancing with the stars.

• 6:56Bill Maher?

  But I mean, that's, that became a, you know, that's an American classic now, Dancing with the Stars. It's as iconic as Fonzie's jacket and...

• 7:08Speaker 05

  That takes stones to go on something like that, you know what I mean? Like Hollywood Squares, you sit in a chair and...

• 7:14Bill Maher?

  No, and I think over the years, because it's gotten more popular and stayed on, and I'm sure it is entertaining if I saw two seconds of it. But, you know, they, I noticed, because, you know, again, a big shout, they get their stories in the news, like who were the dancers? And I feel like they keep going up a little bit in like name value. You know, at first it was like, oh my God, it's only gonna be the bottom of the D-list that's gonna go on Dancing with the Stars. But I knew a time when they wouldn't let the Kardashians in a certain snobby restaurant. And the maître d' said, if I let the Kardashians in, then Jennifer Aniston won't come.

• 7:58Bill Maher?

  That's where the Kardashians were at one point.

• 8:00Speaker 05

  Right.

• 8:03Speaker 05

  Jennifer'd still come. You know what I mean? Like, she's not running from the Kardash... I don't know.

• 8:09Bill Maher?

  No, I actually think they were seen as such white trash.

• 8:15Bill Maher?

  As opposed to what they are now, rich white trash.

• 8:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, they really had like, I remember when we thought the sex tape was bad? Like, that was a bad career move? We don't think that anymore.

• 8:27Bill Maher?

  Ron?

• 8:29Bill Maher?

  Not that I want to, or if you want to, I don't care. I guess you see, there's no rhyme or reason to getting into politics, but like, apropos to that point you just made, there is like literally nothing that is not completely non-controversial. There used to be things that were like, everybody disagreed. There was no controversy. Hitler was bad.

• 8:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:54Bill Maher?

  Hitler bad was very non-controversial.

• 8:57Speaker 05

  Right.

• 8:57Bill Maher?

  And now, controversial.

• 8:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, you'll get a counterpoint on that.

• 9:01Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah. It's like there's the Hitler misunderstood, you know, it's just, woo. It's so, I don't think anything's off limits. Younger people don't understand things from my era and I don't from theirs. Because, I mean, you know, when somebody like escapes the one realm, Tom Cruise, the kids know Tom Cruise, but, you know, and I know clavicular.

• 9:30Bill Maher?

  I don't know.

• 9:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, I think I was quizzed on.

• 9:32Bill Maher?

  I mean, we dated briefly.

• 9:34Speaker 05

  Oh, okay, there you go.

• 9:35Bill Maher?

  When I say I know him, we're friends. Okay, we made out a little. No, I hear he's in trouble.

• 9:40Speaker 05

  What now? What do you do?

• 9:42Bill Maher?

  Clavicular? I mean, maybe I read this wrong. It's like nasty sex assault charge. You know what I'm talking about, right?

• 9:52Speaker 05

  I don't.

• 9:52Bill Maher?

  You don't know clavicular?

• 9:54Speaker 05

  Honestly, I swear to God, I don't.

• 9:56Bill Maher?

  I think that says good things about you, Ron.

• 9:58Speaker 05

  I mean, not only do I fly under the, I kind of live under the radar.

• 10:01Bill Maher?

  Do you?

• 10:02Speaker 05

  I try to stick my, yeah, I'm trying to, you know.

• 10:04Bill Maher?

  Have you not even heard the name?

• 10:05Speaker 05

  I've never, I heard it maybe fifteen minutes ago.

• 10:09Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 10:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, one of the producers mentioned it as I came in, yeah.

• 10:12Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 10:13Speaker 05

  Everyone's talking.

• 10:14Bill Maher?

  Why is everyone always talking about clavicular?

• 10:17Speaker 05

  I have no idea.

• 10:17Bill Maher?

  I suppose I, I've never brought him up before.

• 10:20Speaker 05

  And I'm not, I'm not proud I don't know who it is.

• 10:22Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 10:22Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? I'm like, how would I know?

• 10:24Bill Maher?

  Be neither proud nor ashamed.

• 10:25Speaker 05

  I might feel silly once you explain who it is and I'll go, ah, I should have probably pretended I knew that person.

• 10:30Bill Maher?

  Certainly, certainly one of those people you shouldn't know and you shouldn't know what a pet rock is either, but you do. It's a, he's, you know, one of these internet sensations, influencer.

• 10:42Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 10:42Bill Maher?

  His whole thing is doing anything, he's a great looking guy, who then decided he could be even more great looking if he like broke his jaw.

• 10:53Speaker 05

  Ooh.

• 10:53Bill Maher?

  And reset it, you know, so it was perfect. So he looks.

• 10:56Speaker 05

  Wait, did he have a doctor help him with that or he just did it himself?

• 10:59Bill Maher?

  Yes, I think there were enablers there. I do, I mean, I don't think he did it.

• 11:04Speaker 05

  To make it?

• 11:04Bill Maher?

  But maybe, I could be wrong, maybe.

• 11:06Speaker 05

  Longer or shorter or was it like a procedure or just a weird like I'm turning into a cat?

• 11:12Bill Maher?

  I, I don't know, you know, but people, look, you have a nice face, like you just have one of those faces. People, it's part of your success as an actor, like. You know, this whole anti-aging industry is backwards. Waiting for deep wrinkles to buy a miracle cream is like waiting for the engine to explode before you check the oil. Nobody does that with a car. Everybody does it with their face. OneSkin actually focuses on prevention and biology. It was founded by four PhD longevity scientists who engineered a proprietary peptide, OS1, that works at the cellular level. Instead of sitting on the surface like regular lotion, it targets

• 11:54Bill Maher?

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• 12:35Bill Maher?

  That's 15% off oneskin.co with code RANDOM. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. You have one of those faces very easy to look at. I mean, maybe people are different, but there's some people I just don't like their face. I've heard people say to me, did you see this movie? And I go, I don't know. Really? It was so good. I go, they go, why? I don't like her face. I don't like his face. Like, that's okay. I'm the audience. I'm allowed to do that.

• 13:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:05Bill Maher?

  I don't think anybody ever did that to you.

• 13:07Speaker 05

  You can pick the?

• 13:07Bill Maher?

  You have one of those that, that works.

• 13:09Speaker 05

  No, you know, I think I, my, my face was nice and safe and right in the middle. It was.

• 13:15Bill Maher?

  Cute enough to be like the guy the girls would.

• 13:17Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 13:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah, let's make that clear.

• 13:21Speaker 05

  I could, like, because I started out in the 90s.

• 13:24Bill Maher?

  You were plenty, uh, you did plenty.

• 13:26Speaker 05

  I could do, I could, I could be sitcom handsome. I couldn't be spelling show handsome.

• 13:31Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 13:31Speaker 05

  There was like, that was a level, like the auditions I got for the spelling show were for like the.

• 13:36Bill Maher?

  I don't know, I, I feel like.

• 13:37Speaker 05

  Greatest guy or something like.

• 13:38Bill Maher?

  Well, yeah, there is, but very often that's not really what, you know, gets women's nerves going. It's, it's, it's nice, you know, you don't want someone creepy, but like, uh, you know, just like with us, sometimes the sexiest girl is the one who's like, ooh, gettable.

• 13:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've always been gettable, Bill.

• 14:05Speaker 05

  I've never not been gettable.

• 14:07Bill Maher?

  And, and did they mostly get you?

• 14:09Speaker 05

  They, you know, I mean, it's, there were a few who got me.

• 14:12Bill Maher?

  Like where, who did you play a boyfriend on? You must have played somebody's boyfriend on a million shows.

• 14:17Speaker 05

  I mean, oh, yeah, I, uh, Sarah Jessica Parker, um.

• 14:24Bill Maher?

  Oh, on Sex and the City?

• 14:25Speaker 05

  On Sex and the City. I was, I was one of the boyfriends on that.

• 14:28Bill Maher?

  Oh, for a season or just a?

• 14:30Speaker 05

  For like a half, yeah, maybe a season, about a season.

• 14:32Bill Maher?

  And what was your character?

• 14:33Speaker 05

  Which that's a, that's like 20 years on that show.

• 14:36Bill Maher?

  In what way did you prove that all men are very deficient? I think is the question I want to ask about that.

• 14:43Speaker 05

  I, I don't, you know, I don't know. I think, uh, I, I think I was on a different track.

• 14:51Bill Maher?

  I'm just asking about the character. Why did Carrie like you? Why did she pick you? Because she, of course, could have any man in New York and she was, she was still fucking Mr. Big, I assume? That was always going on in the background?

• 15:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:05Bill Maher?

  Or they were broken up?

• 15:06Speaker 05

  It was, they were broken up. There was Aiden and, you know.

• 15:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I remember some, yeah, yeah. So why did she like, where'd you meet? How'd you meet Cute?

• 15:16Speaker 05

  The meet Cute, I believe, was a, like a book party and, you know, she's an author.

• 15:21Bill Maher?

  Perfect for the 90s.

• 15:21Speaker 05

  He's an author.

• 15:23Bill Maher?

  Something you'd never do today.

• 15:24Speaker 05

  Right.

• 15:24Bill Maher?

  You'd play, you'd pitch that and the Gen Z in the meeting would go, what's a book?

• 15:33Bill Maher?

  Okay, so a book party.

• 15:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:36Bill Maher?

  Uh, right, because she was a writer, uh, and.

• 15:39Speaker 05

  They sort of da-da-da-da-da, but then he was engaged, like if you find out that, oh, he's engaged.

• 15:44Bill Maher?

  Oh, so he was cheating on?

• 15:47Speaker 05

  He was, they were, they were just talking at a party. So then I disappear for, I don't know, half a season. And then a little, in the next season, he comes back and engagement is off. He's, he's available.

• 15:59Bill Maher?

  Oh, so she had a crush on him, we see that.

• 16:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, so then there was a little bit of that. The first episode sort of set the hook, like, oh, I like him, but he's taken.

• 16:08Bill Maher?

  Right, ah, hmm. But that didn't stop her with, wasn't Mr. Big, uh, not faithful or something?

• 16:19Speaker 05

  I, you know, it, it seems like the engine of that show is really hard to come up with, uh, a different relation, like a different way to date a guy, uh, every week.

• 16:32Bill Maher?

  But I mean, it just shows how society, wow, changes so fast compared to, you know, 200 years ago. People live basically like they did 300 years ago.

• 16:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:45Bill Maher?

  But the, the, the difference just from when we're adults.

• 16:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:49Bill Maher?

  And how things are, including in romantic matters. People used to meet at bars. Are you, you're married?

• 16:55Speaker 05

  I am.

• 16:57Bill Maher?

  Did you, where'd you meet? At a bar?

• 16:58Speaker 05

  On a TV show.

• 16:59Bill Maher?

  On a TV, oh, of course, actors, of course.

• 17:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:03Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 17:04Speaker 05

  I had a, I visited, uh, I went to my daughter's school. And, uh, you know, the, so we were having discussions with the kids in the class and the teacher was sort of like, okay, let's, tell me about, like, uh, you know, your sort of like boundaries and your limits and like what, what the, the, you know, the thing. And, and of course, mine was, we were talking about like curfews and you had to be back by 2:00 AM and, and stuff like that. The kids, it was all about screen time. There, you know?

• 17:36Bill Maher?

  As it should be.

• 17:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:38Bill Maher?

  But there's no way to actually give a, they can outfox you when it comes to technology.

• 17:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:45Bill Maher?

  So you think you could do a curfew on the phone and you probably can't.

• 17:48Speaker 05

  Oh, no, God, no.

• 17:49Bill Maher?

  I mean, they're, they're changing, I mean, there, there's laws now about screen time. That, that's new in the last few years.

• 17:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:56Bill Maher?

  Um, but I still think kids are gonna see, again, to the point about.

• 18:01Speaker 05

  They're, they're, they're four steps ahead.

• 18:03Bill Maher?

  How much things have changed. I mean, I'm 70. I don't know what you are.

• 18:08Speaker 05

  You look fine for 70, Bill.

• 18:09Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I can, yeah, that's all you can do.

• 18:11Speaker 05

  I'm pushing 60.

• 18:12Bill Maher?

  Look fine, okay. So, I mean, when we were kids, I mean, just this idea that you could see porn when you were eight years old or there was this device that you could be bullied on. I mean, I had enough trouble with the bullies and the ostracizing that went on IRL.

• 18:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:32Bill Maher?

  You know, if, if I thought it followed me home on a device.

• 18:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:37Bill Maher?

  I would, I see why they kill themselves sometimes.

• 18:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a, it's a scary thing, you know? Uh, as my kids kind of get into that age, it's a, yeah, it's, it's, there's a lot of travel. I got kids. I got, I got an eighth grader and a fifth grader, so we're in the belly of the beast.

• 18:54Bill Maher?

  Our lives are so different.

• 18:58Speaker 05

  Do you have kids?

• 19:01Bill Maher?

  No, there's people who call me daddy, but I wouldn't say I have kids. No.

• 19:06Bill Maher?

  Uh, no, I've never married and never had kids and, uh, I, uh, I know everything, everybody's different and I certainly know lots of people who are, uh, well, not lots, but I know people who are absolutely so much happier because they're married and they would be lost really without the spouse. But, um, it just looks so bad.

• 19:29Bill Maher?

  There's so many people, it's so bad.

• 19:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's hard. When it goes well, it goes well and when it doesn't go well, it's rough.

• 19:35Bill Maher?

  That's, that's what everybody says and it never makes me go, ooh, good, I want to like get in on that where it's like half the time I'm happy.

• 19:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, half if you're lucky, yeah, it's like.

• 19:48Bill Maher?

  Half if you're lucky. Yeah, I mean, and also like.

• 19:51Speaker 05

  Not half the relationship time, but half of the rela, you know, like there's a lot that where it just doesn't work out.

• 19:57Bill Maher?

  And people say, well, you know, you gotta put, put in the work. Ooh, goody, goody.

• 20:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:04Bill Maher?

  Putting in the work. You know what? When I think about romance and sex, that's what I wanna do is put in the work. Forget a blowjob and a martini. Give me pump and iron any day. That's, these are the people who are like, oh, I love to work out. It's like, you love it?

• 20:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:20Bill Maher?

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• 20:58Bill Maher?

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• 21:40Bill Maher?

  Your subscription ships regularly and discreetly with free gifts and free shipping on qualifying orders. Don't forget, when you order, fill out the quick survey to support this show. Enjoy responsibly and huge thanks to Indacloud for helping everybody keep November gatherings entertaining.

• 21:58Speaker 05

  I just try not to do it. That's, I try to stay away from it. But I have stairs.

• 22:02Bill Maher?

  From exercise?

• 22:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:04Bill Maher?

  What?

• 22:05Speaker 05

  Uh, I kinda, I mean, the, the saving grace is that I have a lot of stairs in my house and I have ADHD. So I will, you know, I'll forget my keys and that's three flights of stairs. And then I realize I forgot my glasses and that's three flights of stairs. And then my wallet is two and, and by the, you know, that's kinda my-

• 22:22Bill Maher?

  So you have dementia from not enough exercise?

• 22:24Speaker 05

  A little bit. Might be.

• 22:26Bill Maher?

  Really, you have no, that's rare, uh, modern man to not have any, uh, like, like regimen. I'm starting a lesbian basketball league.

• 22:36Speaker 05

  You are?

• 22:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 22:38Speaker 05

  Don't we have one already? I thought-

• 22:39Bill Maher?

  No, it's just me and lesbians.

• 22:41Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 22:41Bill Maher?

  See, if I play with, if I play with guys, I get hurt.

• 22:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:46Bill Maher?

  You know, last few times, it was just, the night, it's like my feet for a week were hurting and, um, you know, my back or something. It's just, we just are too competitive. But at 70, I don't know if, if I wanna push myself that hard. And the girls play great. But it's just, I don't, I'm not hurt at the end of the game.

• 23:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I, I was saying, I mean, I've, there's some, uh, oh, man, there's some women I would definitely, uh, not feel comfortable playing with. But then I suck at basketball too, so that's, that's probably-

• 23:17Bill Maher?

  Oh, what a shame. You live in the area?

• 23:19Speaker 05

  What are you gonna do? Uh, yeah.

• 23:22Bill Maher?

  Oh, too bad. Well, actually, I'm not looking for guys anymore. What am I saying? That's old thinking. I'm not, I'm looking for lesbians. With an 18-foot, with an 18-foot jumper.

• 23:35Bill Maher?

  So what do you do? What's, so what's your, like, uh, like basketball, that is my, like, exercise passion or my, whatever your hobby or whatever you like to do when you just wanna have pure joy. Like, what's your thing that you do?

• 23:49Speaker 05

  Uh, every, you know, I used to train, like, boxing, just, you know.

• 23:54Bill Maher?

  Boxing is joyful?

• 23:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, really, I really enjoyed it. I, I, I'd fallen off the horse a bit, um, but, uh, that was the one thing-

• 24:04Bill Maher?

  Don't you get hit in the face?

• 24:06Speaker 05

  I mean, yeah, yeah. I, I moved past and through the part of getting hit in the face to the part where you're really just training and not getting hit in the face.

• 24:17Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 24:17Speaker 05

  Um, yeah.

• 24:18Bill Maher?

  But all boxers get, come on, Muhammad Ali got hit in the-

• 24:21Speaker 05

  Well, if you're, if you're gonna spar, you're gonna get hit in the face. If you're, you know, like, it's like-

• 24:25Bill Maher?

  What are you doing?

• 24:26Speaker 05

  I wasn't doing golden, just training, just hitting the bag, hitting focus pads.

• 24:29Bill Maher?

  Oh, just hitting a bag?

• 24:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:30Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 24:31Speaker 05

  You know, jumping rope.

• 24:33Bill Maher?

  Is that really boxing, Ron?

• 24:34Speaker 05

  It, it's training for boxing. Who knows? Someday, if I have to box somebody, I'll be, I'll be ready and to get hit in the face.

• 24:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Now, I don't understand people who do, like, the, the most extreme thing. I mean, to some, to the point where they die, you know, uh, rock climbing.

• 24:54Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:54Bill Maher?

  Like, wow, there's just such a different human being than me.

• 24:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:00Bill Maher?

  Do you, you ever think that about, you see things, you go like, wow. People are really on a spectrum, a wide spectrum. That human being, their brain, their, I guess you could say also their courage.

• 25:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:12Bill Maher?

  I would call it stupidity, but it's courage. And, or it's, it's a type of addiction that you, adrenaline is a drug.

• 25:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:20Bill Maher?

  It's just one you have to score by scaring the shit out of yourself.

• 25:25Speaker 05

  I remember there was the thing about that free climber who did, uh, El Capitan or whatever.

• 25:31Bill Maher?

  Free climbing.

• 25:32Speaker 05

  Like, they scanned his brain or something and the, like, part of his brain that was supposed to make you scared of things, he didn't, he just didn't have, or there was no activity there. And it was kinda crazy, cause he, he just sorta had this thing of like, he didn't sweat things, you know?

• 25:49Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Uh, and I sweat everything. I mean, if there's something to sweat.

• 25:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:56Bill Maher?

  You know? I mean, I, I would, my approach to worrying is like, don't give yourself anything to worry about. Because you will. And it's not fun worrying. It's just, it's just negative thinking. It doesn't really, but you always, at least me, my Machiavellian mind always thinks, it's, you know, it's like, Don Corleone, he was always like turning it over in his mind, thinking. And Michael Corleone, he learned that you gotta keep thinking about it. And that's what I would do about any problem.

• 26:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:28Bill Maher?

  And now it's like, now I'm, got older and wiser and I feel like, it's like, well, I just, I don't have problems like, you know, like stupid things anymore. Cause I just don't do stupid things, cause I'm not young and stupid.

• 26:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:41Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 26:42Speaker 05

  I survived all the ones I did and, uh, I'm happy. I, I have the thing where, uh, I don't, I only, like, you have kids and you, it's just all kinds of stuff to worry about.

• 26:55Bill Maher?

  What is that like?

• 26:56Speaker 05

  Um, it's like-

• 26:58Bill Maher?

  I like to know because I have no connection-

• 27:01Speaker 05

  You can't explain it, you, you know what I mean?

• 27:03Bill Maher?

  I never, I never like see a child, cause people know I don't like kids. So like, even if my friends have kids.

• 27:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:10Bill Maher?

  So I never really interact with a child in any way.

• 27:12Speaker 05

  How about like animals, dogs, cats?

• 27:15Bill Maher?

  I love animals, yes. So I like to, I need to-

• 27:17Speaker 05

  Start there.

• 27:17Bill Maher?

  No, but I, everything I know-

• 27:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:20Bill Maher?

  About child rearing is what I see in TV and movies. And from there, it just looks like a nightmare.

• 27:28Speaker 05

  It's worse.

• 27:30Speaker 05

  It's much worse. They sanitize it in the movies.

• 27:33Bill Maher?

  Either there's a giant conspiracy among every television writer in the world to portray this the way I see it.

• 27:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:40Bill Maher?

  Or it is the case, the parents command no respect, the kids just walk all over them. They don't talk to them like they're anybody different than any other person on the street. They'll, they'll curse at them, they'll, they'll defy them, they'll roll their eyes. They're constantly demeaning them and making them feel stupid and old. They're stupid and all.

• 28:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, they ignore you too, though. They're not doing that all the time. Sometimes they'll just ignore you and be off doing their thing.

• 28:10Bill Maher?

  That's not the way it was when I was a kid.

• 28:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:13Bill Maher?

  I mean, it just, and I know that-

• 28:14Speaker 05

  Well, that's because they could still beat you. Like, we stopped beating them.

• 28:18Bill Maher?

  That was part of it.

• 28:19Speaker 05

  15, 20 years ago.

• 28:21Bill Maher?

  I think that's a great argument for beating them. I really do. Not often and not hard, but I got, did you ever get spanked?

• 28:29Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:30Bill Maher?

  Okay. Spanked, it was like the nuclear option.

• 28:33Speaker 05

  Yeah. I, I wasn't spanked a lot, but I feel like if you were spanked once, it was a proof of concept that you could be spanked again. And, uh, but, uh, no, our kids kinda, they know-

• 28:48Speaker 05

  I I I'd like it, actually. I like it the new way. Like, my kids will look at me and be like, dude, you're out of line. You know, like if I'm yelling.

• 28:58Bill Maher?

  And you like that?

• 28:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, I like it, cuz it's like, you know what? If you're if you're grown up and some dude is yelling at you like that, that's exactly what I want you to say to him, you know?

• 29:07Bill Maher?

  You think they're old enough to know about when a a grown ass man is out of line? It really work?

• 29:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, they they have a stronger, I mean, I hope they do. I really hope they do.

• 29:19Bill Maher?

  At that age?

• 29:20Speaker 05

  I hope so. I think they pick it up. They pick it up pretty quick. Where the the thing they really have to wrestle with uh that takes them about eight or 10 years is they hit the age of 12 and they think they're ready for adulthood.

• 29:31Bill Maher?

  Well, that's what I'm saying.

• 29:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:32Bill Maher?

  They're not.

• 29:33Speaker 05

  No, they're not. Of course not.

• 29:34Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, but you're giving them you're giving them the credit for being there by accepting this criticism that they're leveling at you. Like, it's valid. And I'm saying.

• 29:46Speaker 05

  It often is.

• 29:47Bill Maher?

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• 30:31Bill Maher?

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• 31:00Speaker 05

  It often is, yeah, sometimes. Like, you know, that's I the kid, I our kids.

• 31:05Bill Maher?

  And you really think they're the ones who should be doing that to father?

• 31:09Speaker 05

  I mean, if they're when they're right, you know? Like, when they're right. Uh, it's they're not they're not always right, but it's like, uh, yeah, you know, um.

• 31:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I guess.

• 31:20Speaker 05

  If, um, here's a great example. This is, I, uh.

• 31:25Bill Maher?

  I just wouldn't trust a 12 year old to like be be my my judge and jury on, unless it was like something obvious. I mean, I certainly have seen enough TV movies and things like that where it's like dad cheats. And then he's just always apologizing to the kids. Sorry, buddy. I let you down, buddy. Oh, fuck off. You know what? Stop apologizing to your children. Your buddy doesn't know what it's like to be a grown ass man who gets horny and, you know, that doesn't know that the couple hasn't had sex in five years. And like, there's lots of things that kid can't know. So I I wouldn't, I I mean, it's just, I feel like there's too much apologizing to the kids.

• 32:08Bill Maher?

  But, you know, I'm not the one raising him. You don't think they're they're a generation that's a little too, um, spoiled and entitled?

• 32:18Speaker 05

  I'm here for it. I'm here for it, actually. I'm I'm I'm ready for it cuz I feel like we kind of cocked things up uh in the world in some ways that.

• 32:28Bill Maher?

  Who's we?

• 32:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, like our generation, you know? Like, we kind of, you know, that global warming thing, we kind of, we kind of shit the bed on that.

• 32:37Bill Maher?

  Their kids are no better.

• 32:38Speaker 05

  They're no better, but I.

• 32:40Bill Maher?

  Absolutely no better.

• 32:41Speaker 05

  I think to have any chance, it's gonna take a generation that's willing to like look at everybody. You know, in the old days, don't trust anyone over 30, you know, to go, yeah, fuck those guys. They they were we're taking this over now. And then they'll either fix it or fuck it up more.

• 32:55Bill Maher?

  Look on any kid's Instagram feed or whatever, TikTok or whoever's.

• 33:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:00Bill Maher?

  Uh, communicating with them. It's a lot of celebrities getting on private jets, which they think is the coolest thing in the world. So, you know, and how do they get their food? They pick up their phone and they have someone bring it to them from across town.

• 33:17Speaker 05

  Pretty handy, I gotta say.

• 33:19Bill Maher?

  It is. But don't tell me that you're an environmentalist. If that's.

• 33:23Speaker 05

  No, yeah, no, no, no, I I.

• 33:25Bill Maher?

  What it takes to fucking, like, deliver everything right to everybody's door, not just food, but like, it that's a fairly recent thing. Everybody got their dinner by picking up their phone and pushing. That takes a lot of gas, a lot, you know, it's just, it just is a terror. A lot of cardboard and packaging.

• 33:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:47Bill Maher?

  You know, that's just, it's, uh, look, I'm for going out strong. This, I don't think we're gonna last forever, AI, whatever. So like, I'm not, I I certainly believe in, uh, doing everything we can for the environment and much more than what we're doing. But I also wanna live. We could just do it so much smarter, you know? You don't really have to have every meal cause a full baggy garbage bag, baggy of waste.

• 34:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:20Bill Maher?

  For one meal, for like two people.

• 34:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's hard, though, because.

• 34:24Bill Maher?

  It's convenience. We're hooked on it.

• 34:26Speaker 05

  We're hooked on it, and we used to have, you know, like, we used to have like generations of women in servitude that's just stayed home and made our food for us.

• 34:37Bill Maher?

  True.

• 34:38Speaker 05

  You know, and like, once you kind of go, ah, you know, they should probably have a choice or some say about that.

• 34:44Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 34:45Speaker 05

  All of a sudden, it's like, oh, okay, so I guess I'm soaking my lima beans overnight. You know, or, ah, fuck it, I'm gonna call. You know what I mean? Let's get a pizza.

• 34:55Bill Maher?

  But even at my age, I never had a girlfriend that I can remember who where it was in any way connected with, I'm a great cook. And or I I mean, I I think over the years, I guess I've had a few meals made by a few girls. But even from where I was starting dating, you know, in the 70s, I just don't think it was a thing. I I I cer- I certainly didn't ask for it. I didn't want a girl. It was a good, like, I cook, I can get food.

• 35:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:29Bill Maher?

  You know, I don't need you to make me food. And, you know, never thought about eating at the same time necessarily. Do you have a big family meal every night?

• 35:40Speaker 05

  We can't, you can't, it doesn't.

• 35:41Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 35:42Speaker 05

  We try to, cuz it's like, you know, Mondays, there's hip hop class and Tuesdays.

• 35:48Bill Maher?

  For you?

• 35:48Speaker 05

  Math. No, the kids, they have the, they have these crazy, you know, and then there's basketball and soccer. So it's hard to cobble together, uh,

• 35:57Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 35:57Speaker 05

  a half an hour where everybody's on the same page and home at the same time.

• 36:02Bill Maher?

  Now, what if you call up your kids' secretaries and say, could you pencil? Could you?

• 36:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, you're looking at them.

• 36:09Bill Maher?

  It's almost like that, right?

• 36:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:11Bill Maher?

  See, that's also so different than my childhood.

• 36:14Speaker 05

  Very different.

• 36:15Bill Maher?

  With we were not scheduled. I had no after school activities except go play.

• 36:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, they just kicked you out of the house.

• 36:22Bill Maher?

  I was thrilled to, you didn't have to kick me.

• 36:25Speaker 05

  Right.

• 36:25Bill Maher?

  You didn't have to kick me.

• 36:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:26Bill Maher?

  I couldn't wait to get home, get out of my school clothes, into my play clothes, and run the fuck out the door.

• 36:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:34Bill Maher?

  And into, you know, suburban lists of going down by the creek.

• 36:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:41Bill Maher?

  Like I was Huckleberry Finn. I mean, this is the 1960s and really.

• 36:45Speaker 05

  Go anywhere you want. It was like.

• 36:47Bill Maher?

  Huckleberry Finn.

• 36:48Speaker 05

  Open sandbox, you know, you just go where you want.

• 36:50Bill Maher?

  Woods.

• 36:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:52Bill Maher?

  There was a woods. And you go in the woods and like, I don't know, we were mesmerized by the woods. I guess it was, we were, what were we doing there?

• 37:01Speaker 05

  Woods are awesome, though, you know, it's like, it's it's good.

• 37:04Bill Maher?

  I know, but it's not like we were having a circle jerk or a coven or something or doing something interesting in the woods. We just thought the woods were dark and deep.

• 37:14Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 37:15Bill Maher?

  As the poem says. All right, so I've probably exhausted you, Ron, with my tales of non-secreters. And.

• 37:26Speaker 05

  Not yet. Not yet, Bill.

• 37:28Bill Maher?

  Do you, uh, have a, like, a kitchen cabinet of guys you hang with? That like, uh, people we know, maybe, um, other actors? Like, your little gang, like, like Burt Reynolds used to have?

• 37:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, not really. I, uh.

• 37:51Bill Maher?

  Who's your?

• 37:52Speaker 05

  I'm kind of antisocial.

• 37:54Bill Maher?

  Uh, really?

• 37:55Speaker 05

  So there's there's guys that, like, I keep in touch with uh and love to see him when I see him. Uh, but I don't have, I don't have like a regular poker. Oh, you know what I do? Here's what I have. I have a, I play in a dad band. Um, so.

• 38:10Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 38:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, playing a dad.

• 38:12Bill Maher?

  What do you play?

• 38:13Speaker 05

  Uh, keyboards and a little harmonica.

• 38:16Bill Maher?

  Wow, you're in a Viagra band?

• 38:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:21Bill Maher?

  That's cool. What kind of stuff do you play?

• 38:23Speaker 05

  It's all eighties covers.

• 38:25Bill Maher?

  Eighties covers?

• 38:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:26Bill Maher?

  Cause that's your era. Looks like when you were a young buck coming up.

• 38:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's funny. I didn't like eighties music, actually, because I didn't, I, I didn't like all the synthesizers coming in and like.

• 38:38Bill Maher?

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• 39:18Bill Maher?

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• 39:48Speaker 05

  You know, yeah, and now I play synthesizer in an eighties cover band. So it's sort of come full. But I appreciate it a little more now because I'm like, okay, I guess this is.

• 39:58Bill Maher?

  Like anything in the arts or life, really, usually, um, if it's done well, it's okay. Synthesizers.

• 40:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:10Bill Maher?

  You know, fake tits, whatever. If it's done well, it's okay. If it's done shittily, you know, sitcoms, you know?

• 40:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:19Bill Maher?

  You can have to do a very traditional kind of sitcom that kind of like, you know, in this era would make people and sometimes does roll their eyes. Oh, that's like kind of Archie Bunker era. But you know, when it's in the hands of really good people.

• 40:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:34Bill Maher?

  Who do it well.

• 40:35Speaker 05

  When it's good, it's good.

• 40:36Bill Maher?

  I mean, fuck, they're still watching Friends.

• 40:39Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Modern Family. We did a deep dive on Modern Family.

• 40:43Bill Maher?

  What do you mean, a deep dive?

• 40:45Speaker 05

  Like we watched, like, you know, the kids, you watch, you start with season one.

• 40:49Bill Maher?

  So you watch stuff with the kids?

• 40:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, we watched stuff with the kids.

• 40:52Bill Maher?

  Boy, you're really, you're Mr. Good Dad, huh?

• 40:55Speaker 05

  I mean, some of it is the kids have the remote, so it's, it's they're watching what they're watching and if you're in the room, you're watching that.

• 41:02Bill Maher?

  Our lives are so different. The idea that I would let other people.

• 41:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:06Bill Maher?

  Especially smaller ones.

• 41:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:08Bill Maher?

  I should have the right to say I have that to me, that, okay, so that answers my question. And what I'm seeing on TV I see is actually.

• 41:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's what it's like. Yeah, it is what it is.

• 41:22Bill Maher?

  But have you ever seen a psychiatrist about this? Because it just seems like.

• 41:26Speaker 05

  Seen a couple.

• 41:28Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 41:28Speaker 05

  You know, a couple, not necessarily about this, but you know.

• 41:32Bill Maher?

  So it just seems like a desire, almost like a masochistic desire. Like when people like somebody digging their, you know, the heel of the high heel into their neck when they're on the ground, you know, those people who need that.

• 41:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:49Bill Maher?

  To me, that's, if you're, kids have the remote. I feel like it's very similar to that.

• 41:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:56Bill Maher?

  Like you, you, you, you have to like, uh, want to be hurt a little bit.

• 42:01Speaker 05

  I guess the, the best way I could describe it, because you say you like animals, right?

• 42:08Bill Maher?

  I'm a PETA board member since the nineties.

• 42:10Speaker 05

  Got it. You have pets, you have.

• 42:12Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 42:13Speaker 05

  Yes, okay. So we have.

• 42:15Bill Maher?

  Pets and everything around here where you walked in, like, is fucked up because I won't kill the groundhog.

• 42:22Speaker 05

  Right.

• 42:22Bill Maher?

  Like you saw my lawn, it's not a lawn.

• 42:24Speaker 05

  I didn't see it.

• 42:25Bill Maher?

  It's, looks terrible.

• 42:26Speaker 05

  I'll, I'll walk around it after.

• 42:28Bill Maher?

  Yes, like, and they take advantage of me. I have beautiful gardens. I eat the food.

• 42:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:34Bill Maher?

  Like I, I have ducks in the swimming pool. I mean, I am super nice to the animals. So.

• 42:40Speaker 05

  Awesome.

• 42:40Bill Maher?

  Go ahead. Yes, I like animals.

• 42:42Speaker 05

  We've got a new puppy, a four month old puppy.

• 42:44Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 42:44Speaker 05

  Right? He's, uh, his name is Pickles. Um,

• 42:50Speaker 05

  I don't quite, they, they say that hi- his mother was a Yorkie, but he's definitely got some pit in him. So I don't know how that works out. But he's kind of at the age where he, he pisses and shits all over the floor.

• 43:03Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 43:04Speaker 05

  He like chews up my shit. He like bites my arm, but I love him. You know what I mean?

• 43:10Bill Maher?

  You gotta train him not to piss.

• 43:12Speaker 05

  We, that's, we're, we're working on it. We're working on that, Bill.

• 43:15Bill Maher?

  Cause that's the, that's the one, that's the one that's so hard.

• 43:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's, uh.

• 43:19Bill Maher?

  It's terrible.

• 43:20Speaker 05

  It takes a while, you know?

• 43:22Bill Maher?

  It does.

• 43:22Speaker 05

  Especially the bladders about the size of, you know.

• 43:24Bill Maher?

  And they're young and they're animals, you know?

• 43:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:27Bill Maher?

  I mean, um.

• 43:28Speaker 05

  But you still love, you know what I mean? Like you've had, you just, you're not, you don't give up on the puppy because they're horrible to you.

• 43:35Bill Maher?

  The only thing that can probably really compete with how much you actually, if they could measure it, love to be greeted by and then spend time with a puppy is like very new hot love. Like if you're, if you're super hot for somebody and you were really also falling in love, that might compete with the puppy thing, but only that.

• 43:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:59Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 05

  And the kids, it's, it's in that thing, you know? It's just that you gotta get the puppy like some, you gotta get the puppy into Dartmouth somehow. You know, it's like a long-term, there's a long-term project happening.

• 44:12Bill Maher?

  Dartmouth? Why? Is that where you went?

• 44:14Speaker 05

  No.

• 44:15Bill Maher?

  Where'd you go?

• 44:15Speaker 05

  I went to Yale.

• 44:16Bill Maher?

  Oh, fuck. That's hysterical. It was like, I thought you were gonna say Chico State. No, I went to some place better than Dartmouth. Yeah. Wow. I went to Cornell.

• 44:28Speaker 05

  Right on.

• 44:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah. So were Ivy League brothers.

• 44:31Speaker 05

  We are.

• 44:32Bill Maher?

  Not that there ever really was a brotherhood of.

• 44:35Speaker 05

  Not really. Yeah.

• 44:36Bill Maher?

  I mean, we were just in the same football league.

• 44:39Speaker 05

  Right.

• 44:39Bill Maher?

  And we sucked.

• 44:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:41Bill Maher?

  Right? I mean, generally, I mean, Cornell, I think, had a good hockey team.

• 44:45Speaker 05

  Princeton always had a good basketball team for some reason. They always made the tur- oh, okay.

• 44:49Bill Maher?

  Bill Bradley of the Knicks.

• 44:50Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 44:51Bill Maher?

  Went to Princeton, absolutely. Yeah, I guess occasionally, but you know, we're not like, you know, these fucking.

• 44:59Speaker 05

  Some great fencing teams though, you know?

• 45:01Bill Maher?

  Fencing, I took.

• 45:02Speaker 05

  The cruel world, you know?

• 45:03Bill Maher?

  Took fencing at Cornell.

• 45:05Speaker 05

  Did you?

• 45:06Bill Maher?

  Yes. I don't know why. It was like one of those.

• 45:08Speaker 05

  Like a PE elective thing or did you get credit for it?

• 45:11Bill Maher?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 45:13Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 45:14Bill Maher?

  I graduated with just the minimum number of credits I needed, 120 in seven semesters.

• 45:20Speaker 05

  So fencing put you right over the top.

• 45:21Bill Maher?

  Yes, it did. I remember that and got nothing out of it. It was just so stupid. No, I mean, like, like first of all, it's not the kind of thing you're going to use in your life. I mean, you're gonna use.

• 45:33Speaker 05

  You never know. You haven't had to yet, but you know.

• 45:36Bill Maher?

  Geometry will come up before fencing and I'm not gonna use that either. But yeah, fencing. And then I just feel like there was, I also took a philosophy course at Cornell that I felt contributed absolutely as much as the fencing one did. Zero, absolutely nothing. I didn't understand what they were talking about at the time. Uh, I faked my way through like exams and could not have been more turned off to the concept of philosophy. Now, maybe it's this professor and what he chose to teach. But it was just like, what the fuck are you talking about? You know, and maybe I'm, I just was too dumb to get it. I don't think so.

• 46:21Speaker 05

  I never took any specific philosophy classes, but, uh, yeah, no, some of that reading, it feels like, oh, this is where we talk about talking about things. You know, this is the.

• 46:33Bill Maher?

  So well put.

• 46:35Speaker 05

  And it's like, oh, okay. That's a lot of.

• 46:38Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 46:39Speaker 05

  It's a lot of talking.

• 46:40Bill Maher?

  Well, there is epistemology. You know what that is?

• 46:43Speaker 05

  So meaning, the study of meaning, of knowledge.

• 46:45Bill Maher?

  Knowledge itself. Yes, meaning also. Um, which is, that isn't legitimate study.

• 46:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:52Bill Maher?

  I mean, it's not how I want to spend Saturday night.

• 46:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:56Bill Maher?

  But actually, there was a time when I did, you know, I mean, I, I had no social life in college. So I really, that was the era when I really got off on like intellectual epiphanies.

• 47:10Speaker 05

  What was your, uh, what was your course of study or what was stuff you liked?

• 47:15Bill Maher?

  First it was history major.

• 47:16Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 47:17Bill Maher?

  And then I had some consultation with a professor, some old guy. I mean, old, I was nineteen.

• 47:25Speaker 05

  Twenty-seven.

• 47:28Bill Maher?

  Forty. I thought he was nineteen.

• 47:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:32Bill Maher?

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• 48:16Bill Maher?

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• 48:42Speaker 05

  Slash random to get started. That's R U L A dot com slash random. You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

• 48:52Bill Maher?

  But uh, and you know, I remember he was so discouraging. I don't know if he was trying to be, but he was just, I was asking some question and he basically said, you know, we're talking about the Middle Ages. That was the period I loved. I'll talk, I'll talk your tits off if you want to talk the Middle Ages sometime. And I'm sure you don't, but like, um, and he was like, well, you can't really add anything new. And I was like, oh, then why am I doing this? And I just love history. So then I'm, then I switched to English. It didn't matter. I knew it was gonna be a comedian.

• 49:23Speaker 05

  Right.

• 49:23Bill Maher?

  But uh, I'm glad I went. I mean, they gave me, I'll give them this. They did give me in, in a different era when college was very different, a great, like, broad education of what it means to be just what we used to think was like, just a sophisticated adult. You know?

• 49:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:43Bill Maher?

  There, there's like, like we were saying before, nothing is non-controversial. Back then it was like some things everybody kinda knew. You could mention this. Now I feel like there's nothing there. There's almost nothing you can say where some people won't be like, I hadn't heard about that.

• 49:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:59Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 50:00Speaker 05

  Certainly not clavicular.

• 50:02Bill Maher?

  You know, just not, not, clavicular, yeah. It's just like we live in-

• 50:05Speaker 05

  It's so spread out. There's so many, you know, niches and it's, it's uh, yeah, this like, something, the six, seven, I feel like was the only thing that became like, uh,

• 50:17Bill Maher?

  You heard about that?

• 50:18Speaker 05

  permeated the whole culture. Yeah, I mean, okay.

• 50:21Bill Maher?

  Well, uh, oh yeah. Well, I think if you heard about that one, that's all you need to know about that generation. They thought that was genius. And, and the reason why they loved it is because it confounded us. It's all about trolling. It's all about trolling. It's like six, seven, and we're like,

• 50:39Speaker 05

  What is that?

• 50:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah, we had to know what it was.

• 50:42Speaker 05

  Wouldn't you like to know?

• 50:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Exactly. Wouldn't you like to know is exactly what it is.

• 50:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:49Bill Maher?

  It's just a big fuck you to the people who um, brought you into this world and gave you everything.

• 50:56Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:57Bill Maher?

  That's what I really feel about kids is like, I don't think they are told enough that perspective, you're luckier than most people in the world. You're probably luckier in this family. You know, there's just a lot of bad shit that could be happening around this big old world of ours and you're in one of the more, um, I hate to word the word privileged spots, but yeah.

• 51:27Speaker 05

  Well, we don't beat you and we give you the TV remote. So you're doing, you're doing really well, you know?

• 51:33Bill Maher?

  And we feed you and I mean, there's a lot of, you know, sob story legitimately, you know, stories out there with people, even a lot of celebrities have like crazy fucked up childhoods because the era that I lived in where families stayed together, that's gone. It's much more likely that you, if you're a kid today, that in some way your family was fractured. I mean, there are families that stay together, obviously, but like, it's just, you know, divorce is, you know, nothing.

• 52:08Speaker 05

  Oh yeah.

• 52:08Bill Maher?

  You know, it's, yeah. And having parents who like have my mother's boyfriend, my father's girl, second wife, and you know, it's just, it's not, it can't be stabilizing for a child.

• 52:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, I uh-

• 52:22Bill Maher?

  I was lucky.

• 52:23Speaker 05

  I feel like the, the one good thing is it's not like it was in the eighties where there was like one kid whose parents were divorced and like they kinda carried this big cloud. Now it's kinda common enough that people are like, oh, okay. Uh, I guess now I'm in the same boat as these other eight people, you know, in my class. Um, but nah, it's, it's rough. We've got some friends that are, that are going through it right now and uh, it doesn't-

• 52:50Bill Maher?

  Going through what?

• 52:51Speaker 05

  Going through divorce.

• 52:52Bill Maher?

  Oh, a divorce, I know. There's always somebody going through divorce.

• 52:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:55Bill Maher?

  And it's always amazing-

• 52:56Speaker 05

  It looks terrible. It looks hard.

• 52:57Bill Maher?

  Always amazing to me how often when they announce they're splitting up, it comes as a complete shock to people. Because married couples are geniuses at keeping it together in front of everyone else. Right into the end.

• 53:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:16Bill Maher?

  They, it's the last thing they can work on together. It's lying.

• 53:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:21Bill Maher?

  To everybody else and then suddenly, who was it that I just saw got divorced, somebody? And I thought, oh my God, this guy was just here telling me how much he, the whole thing and she comes with me on the road and like,

• 53:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:35Bill Maher?

  And then it's like, ah, divorced. I, I don't know.

• 53:40Speaker 05

  Sometimes I've seen it where the kids know, like when they, they, they spring in on all the friend group is, you know, the adult friends are like, oh my God, what? And the kids are like, yeah. Well, I saw that coming.

• 53:54Bill Maher?

  Well, that is the kind of thing that I will give kids credit for being able to understand. Because that's something you don't need any sort of like schooling about. You can tell when mommy and daddy are, you know, maybe it's not overt, but they sense it. I mean, we're all very sensitive social creatures, even as children, especially as children.

• 54:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:16Bill Maher?

  So you sense when mommy and daddy, you know, there's a cold war going on. And uh, it's probably worse than like letting it out in some ways, sometimes. Um, but you know, I, I was lucky. I didn't see my parents fight a lot. And when they did, it didn't alarm me.

• 54:34Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. Were they good at it? Did they like fight and then work things out through fighting or would, would, did the fighting just escalate into more fighting?

• 54:45Bill Maher?

  No, I, I never saw that and I don't think it happened. I think they were pretty good at resolving it. They were in World War Two.

• 54:53Speaker 05

  Uh-huh.

• 54:53Bill Maher?

  Both of them. You know what? It was like-

• 54:56Speaker 05

  Like active duty service?

• 54:58Bill Maher?

  My mother was a nurse.

• 54:59Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 54:59Bill Maher?

  My father was in Patton's army.

• 55:01Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 55:02Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 55:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:03Bill Maher?

  World War Two people, they were different-

• 55:05Speaker 05

  Right. So they're like, you think this is fighting? This is not fighting. This is us having a loud conversation. Nobody's getting shelled. You know what I mean? No, yeah.

• 55:15Bill Maher?

  I went up against Rommel.

• 55:17Speaker 05

  Right.

• 55:17Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 55:18Speaker 05

  I can handle you.

• 55:19Bill Maher?

  I can handle where we wanna go to dinner.

• 55:21Speaker 05

  Right.

• 55:22Bill Maher?

  They just, but they just, it wasn't like a fighty era. Like, it's not like my mother was a doormat, but it's like, they didn't, you know, I feel like at a certain point, women for understandable reasons kinda got a chip on their shoulder a little bit, just about, oh, you're thinking, no, I don't think, we're, we're good now. You know, like I'm not trying to put one over on you, but you know, certainly in that era. I mean, it was like, you know, probably a little more me, Tarzan, you, Jane, if the man was respectable, as my father was. I mean, he was a wonderful, loving guy. So he, you know, but they just, you know, they, I don't think they just thought about a lot of shit. And when they did, it was just like, you know,

• 56:04Bill Maher?

  little things like, I wanted you to pull over sooner. I said I was hungry. Now I'm not hungry anymore.

• 56:11Speaker 05

  Oh, that's literally flipping it around. That's like the hardcore martyr movie. Like, no, no, no, I won't eat.

• 56:18Bill Maher?

  That's about as bad as it got.

• 56:21Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 56:21Bill Maher?

  I asked if we could pull over.

• 56:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:23Bill Maher?

  And you said, well, one more, you know, one more-

• 56:27Speaker 05

  And now I'm not hungry anymore. That kinda seems like, well, that's on you. You know, are you hungry or not? I don't, you know what I mean? It's one exit.

• 56:35Bill Maher?

  That was like, that was like a fight.

• 56:37Speaker 05

  Uh-huh.

• 56:37Bill Maher?

  You know, and you saw mom was not happy with dad and, but it never, I was very fortunate, you know? I don't know if, a lot of kids, I know a lot of kids don't, are not that lucky and that's at a formative time in your life, which, which forms your opinions about people in general, how much you can trust them. How good they are as people, you know, are they honest? Are they lying? Are they fronting? You know, and uh, you know, so, uh, I don't know. Family breakdown, educational breakdown. It is amazing in some ways, we're still like chugging along.

• 57:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:18Bill Maher?

  Now AI is gonna kill us in four years. Did, did that one get on your radar, Ron?

• 57:22Speaker 05

  I've been thinking that for a while. That's uh, yeah, that definitely, that's definitely on my radar, but I mean,

• 57:29Bill Maher?

  Me too.

• 57:30Speaker 05

  Didn't we, wasn't that the plot of the first Terminator? I think was it AI was gonna kill us?

• 57:35Bill Maher?

  I said the same thing. Just the movies. Movies always

• 57:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:39Bill Maher?

  predict what's really gonna happen. You know, I remember going to see um, Steven Spielberg's, one of his many, many, many genius movies, Minority Report, Tom Cruise.

• 57:54Bill Maher?

  Were you in that?

• 57:55Speaker 05

  No.

• 57:55Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 57:57Speaker 05

  I was under the radar.

• 57:59Bill Maher?

  You were in something like that.

• 58:02Speaker 05

  Maybe, something. I'm not sure what.

• 58:04Bill Maher?

  No, you were.

• 58:07Bill Maher?

  You were in like Band of Brothers?

• 58:08Speaker 05

  I was in Band of Brothers.

• 58:10Bill Maher?

  That was a World War Two movie.

• 58:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:13Bill Maher?

  And a great one.

• 58:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, thank you.

• 58:15Bill Maher?

  Oh, I love that. Was that Spielberg?

• 58:17Speaker 05

  It was Spielberg.

• 58:18Bill Maher?

  And Tom Hanks.

• 58:19Speaker 05

  And Tom Hanks.

• 58:20Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they're the last guys who actually care about that generation. And they're sort of, and God bless them, unabashedly proud of people who, I know, they lived at a time when people did terrible things, yes, and everybody did them and I don't know, they also did some good things, like saved the world from fascism.

• 58:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, they stepped up.

• 58:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but they stepped up.

• 58:44Speaker 05

  When it was time to step up.

• 58:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah. They were known as the greatest generation. I asked my mother once about that and she said, we weren't great before the war. We were like having fun, like crazy kids do, and then we just had to, but like we weren't like born great.

• 59:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:03Bill Maher?

  We weren't even thinking about having to be great, we just had to. You know, people were-

• 59:06Speaker 05

  Must have been some great generations in the Middle Ages, though, like when they say greatest generation, I feel like we're not going how many can we remember, really?

• 59:14Bill Maher?

  Is that your way of trying to get me to talk about the Middle, because I'm telling you, I will, I will, uh when, when do you think the Middle Ages started?

• 59:22Speaker 05

  Uh.

• 59:25Bill Maher?

  Yale men.

• 59:25Speaker 05

  Are we talking Holy Roman Empire?

• 59:28Bill Maher?

  That-

• 59:28Speaker 05

  Four hundred, five hundred?

• 59:30Bill Maher?

  Yes, pretty good, pretty good.

• 59:33Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 59:34Bill Maher?

  And what was your major at Yale?

• 59:35Speaker 05

  I was, uh, I was English and Theater Studies.

• 59:39Bill Maher?

  Theater Studies, of course.

• 59:41Speaker 05

  Theater Studies.

• 59:42Bill Maher?

  Shouldn't even be a major.

• 59:43Speaker 05

  I, it was kind of a minor. It was basically English and there was a Theater Studies major, the one that I did, it was sort of, it was basically an English ma- major with a Theater Studies minor.

• 59:53Bill Maher?

  College became such bullshit. It just, like, you can just take such bullshit and call it college. You know, not that I'm saying we should go back to this, but like Yale, not that long ago, like less than a hundred years ago, you had to learn like Greek and Latin.

• 1:00:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Bill Maher?

  Greek and Latin. Can you imagine?

• 1:00:12Speaker 05

  I did a-

• 1:00:13Bill Maher?

  And like fully understand history and like civics and grammar, you know, like just the basics. And that's all gone. You don't need to know shit.

• 1:00:25Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:00:26Bill Maher?

  You, you need to know, white people did some very, very bad things in this world, and that's true, they certainly did. But so did Genghis Khan. I'm telling you, he was, he, they say he, uh, fathered eleven percent. Like his DNA is an eleven percent. That's a lot of raping.

• 1:00:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's, that's a lot.

• 1:00:47Bill Maher?

  I'd say there were a lot of raping or a lot of-

• 1:00:48Speaker 05

  That's putting in the work.

• 1:00:49Bill Maher?

  A lot, a lot of dinners.

• 1:00:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Bill Maher?

  Listen.

• 1:00:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Bill Maher?

  I've gotta get back to conquering.

• 1:00:55Speaker 05

  Just think of all the birthdays you gotta remember.

• 1:00:59Speaker 05

  Good God.

• 1:01:00Bill Maher?

  I got hoes in different conquered areas of the globe. Yeah, so, uh, so you were a, uh, English theater. So I guess you knew you had the acting bug earlier.

• 1:01:16Speaker 05

  I had it, I had the acting bug.

• 1:01:18Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:01:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, I had, I had it in high school. Um, and, uh, yeah, so I think I sort of knew in the back of my head that that's what I was gonna do, but I had to pretend for my parents' sake, that, uh, might really my dad's sake, that I was going to do something else that was not that. Um, but I only had, I had to pretend for a few years and then it was-

• 1:01:39Bill Maher?

  I started in high school.

• 1:01:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:41Bill Maher?

  I did a play and also-

• 1:01:43Speaker 05

  Did you do stand-up in high school?

• 1:01:44Bill Maher?

  Yes, you know what? I, I, I did twice, I did, uh, stand-up basically. Once

• 1:01:52Bill Maher?

  was, um, oh no, maybe it was just once, because then they canceled it. Uh, there was this, um, thing called the, uh, pop show, which was like, you know, the kids who were theatrical, put on a thing and all the parents came, it was a big deal. And the English teacher, I should, this guy changed my life in a way. No, I always knew I was gonna be a comic, but this helped a lot. He suggested, he must saw, must have seen in class that, oh, this kid's kind of funny.

• 1:02:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21Bill Maher?

  He just said, I'd be the emcee.

• 1:02:24Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:02:24Bill Maher?

  For, and that's really what I always have been, is a host, emcee, whatever, talk show, so, um-

• 1:02:30Speaker 05

  Did you write your own material?

• 1:02:31Bill Maher?

  Well, I stole it off of Johnny Carson, which is a late night adult show.

• 1:02:36Speaker 05

  I remember Johnny Carson.

• 1:02:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and some of the jokes were way too risque, and the parents objected, and they they stopped doing the pop show after this, but I got laughs.

• 1:02:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:48Bill Maher?

  And it was, you know, probably the greatest drug rush I've ever had was that first time.

• 1:02:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Bill Maher?

  Getting la- laughs.

• 1:02:56Speaker 05

  That's the bug. Did you, where'd you grow up? Did you-

• 1:02:58Bill Maher?

  New Jersey.

• 1:02:58Speaker 05

  In New Jersey. Were there like comedy clubs that you could go to?

• 1:03:02Bill Maher?

  Yes, well, yes, soon after. I mean, when I, when I got out of Cornell, I went right to New York and hung out at the clubs, yes, that, that's the era when they were thriving.

• 1:03:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:12Bill Maher?

  Nineteen eighty, yes, the comic strip and the improv and Catch a Rising Star and all across the country, there were clubs then. But, uh, I also in high school did a, a play, it was a play, yeah, I guess it's a play, it's called Spoon River Anthology.

• 1:03:28Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's a high school one, right?

• 1:03:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:31Bill Maher?

  It's not, but it's not really a play, it's like-

• 1:03:33Speaker 05

  Kind of a choral reading.

• 1:03:35Bill Maher?

  Yes, exactly. It's like, this town, this fucking corny old white ass town from like eighteen hundred or some something in the past, I don't know, and like you'd have eight people, like four girls, four guys, they'd stand in front of a podium, and then the light would hit you, and you played different characters and you told your story, you know? I'm the pastor in the town and I'm blah, blah, blah.

• 1:03:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:59Bill Maher?

  That was Spoon River Anthology. Oh, I wish they picked a-

• 1:04:03Speaker 05

  That's a classic.

• 1:04:04Bill Maher?

  It is?

• 1:04:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, oh, yeah.

• 1:04:05Bill Maher?

  It's, it's so sucked. I knew it then that it sucked. I was like, why can't we do a play? Like, I remember the year before, they, they did a musical. I went to, like, oh, maybe it was not the, maybe, I think I was in eighth grade, and I went to a high school production of, uh, How to Succeed in Show Business Without Really-

• 1:04:25Speaker 05

  Oh, okay, all right.

• 1:04:26Bill Maher?

  You know what I'm talking about?

• 1:04:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:28Bill Maher?

  Okay, that, I, that blew my mind. I mean, numbers, musical numbers? Yeah, I Believe in You, Singing to the Mirror, and, you know, I mean, fuck. And like a girl and a guy, and they had to kiss, and like, okay, I got stuck with Spoon River Anthology.

• 1:04:46Speaker 05

  You got Spoon River Anthology.

• 1:04:50Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:51Speaker 05

  We're playing the wind.

• 1:04:51Bill Maher?

  Monologues, it was great. What, what did you do in high school?

• 1:04:56Speaker 05

  Uh, we did, uh, Midsummer Night's Dream, we did The Crucible.

• 1:05:01Bill Maher?

  The Crucible?

• 1:05:02Speaker 05

  We did Pippin.

• 1:05:03Bill Maher?

  That, Pippin?

• 1:05:05Speaker 05

  We did-

• 1:05:05Bill Maher?

  Pippin?

• 1:05:06Speaker 05

  Yes, we did Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Uh.

• 1:05:12Bill Maher?

  In high school?

• 1:05:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, in high school. We had, uh, again, it was like-

• 1:05:16Bill Maher?

  Who Ben Vereen was on Broadway, correct?

• 1:05:18Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:05:19Bill Maher?

  Ben Vereen, the great Ben Vereen?

• 1:05:20Speaker 05

  Uh-huh.

• 1:05:21Bill Maher?

  Okay, what?

• 1:05:23Speaker 05

  I played the Ben Vereen part.

• 1:05:25Bill Maher?

  I was just gonna say.

• 1:05:26Speaker 05

  I did, yeah.

• 1:05:27Bill Maher?

  You played the Ben Vereen part.

• 1:05:28Speaker 05

  I played the Ben Vereen part.

• 1:05:29Bill Maher?

  And how do you think you stood up next to Ben Vereen? Yeah.

• 1:05:32Speaker 05

  That was under the radar a little bit, probably.

• 1:05:34Bill Maher?

  I would say too, that.

• 1:05:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, he was, uh-

• 1:05:36Bill Maher?

  Ben Vereen was so great.

• 1:05:37Speaker 05

  I was no Ben Vereen.

• 1:05:38Bill Maher?

  You were no Ben Vereen.

• 1:05:39Speaker 05

  But, uh-

• 1:05:40Bill Maher?

  I like you, but you were no Ben Vereen. That was not your day.

• 1:05:43Speaker 05

  Who is, really?

• 1:05:44Bill Maher?

  No, no, but that involves singing.

• 1:05:46Speaker 05

  Involved singing, yeah.

• 1:05:48Bill Maher?

  So there's a medieval tale. Do you know, you know who Pippin is?

• 1:05:52Speaker 05

  Oh, uh, yes, Charlemagne's son and, yes.

• 1:05:56Bill Maher?

  Grandson.

• 1:05:56Speaker 05

  I didn't know what, how much it was actual history.

• 1:06:00Bill Maher?

  Charlemagne's grandfather.

• 1:06:01Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 1:06:02Bill Maher?

  He, uh, Charlemagne was crowned, as we all know, uh, Holy Roman Emperor in the year eight hundred. Christmas Day, eight hundred, easy day to remember.

• 1:06:10Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:06:11Bill Maher?

  Uh, the reason why he was able to be the Holy Roman Emperor is because the Muslim army that had swarmed out of the desert after Muhammad's death in six thirty-seven took over almost the entire world in a century. Much like the Mongols did later, you know, very successful at taking over the world. I'm guessing this involved more machetes than pamphlets? But who am I to judge? They did it. They went all through the known worlds, not India, but as far as the Persian Empire and, and the other way. Went all through North Africa, all of Spain. Spain was Muslim for seven hundred years.

• 1:06:55Bill Maher?

  In seven thirty-seven, they were stopped at the Pyrenees by Charlemagne's grandfather, Pippin Le Bre.

• 1:07:03Speaker 05

  Ah.

• 1:07:03Bill Maher?

  That's who he is.

• 1:07:05Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:07:05Bill Maher?

  Yeah, isn't that what this show is about?

• 1:07:07Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I think there's maybe one number about that. They have the-

• 1:07:12Bill Maher?

  What else is it about then?

• 1:07:14Speaker 05

  It's like little, some jazz hands, I think.

• 1:07:17Bill Maher?

  What's it about? What's the story?

• 1:07:19Speaker 05

  No, it's the coming of age. Pippin is like trying to find himself.

• 1:07:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:26Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:07:27Speaker 05

  He's trying to find himself, yeah. Uh, he's a young man. He, uh...

• 1:07:32Bill Maher?

  But it's a place in the eighth century?

• 1:07:35Speaker 05

  Uh, not really.

• 1:07:37Bill Maher?

  Not really?

• 1:07:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, it's, uh, it's...

• 1:07:39Bill Maher?

  What's he wearing?

• 1:07:42Speaker 05

  Oh, boy. Well, in, uh, the high school production in eastern Iowa, I think he wore like a sleeveless tee. Uh, it was, maybe it was mesh. I don't remember.

• 1:07:54Bill Maher?

  So it could have been medieval.

• 1:07:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it was, it was, you know, I think there's the character of Charlemagne is in it, but it's, it's sty- you know, stylized.

• 1:08:03Bill Maher?

  What about pants? What pants was he wearing?

• 1:08:06Speaker 05

  Um...

• 1:08:07Bill Maher?

  Very important. You know, Joan of Arc wore pants.

• 1:08:11Speaker 05

  I don't remember. I had these fake black leather tight, uh, pants and this harlequin vest that's the goofiest thing you've ever seen.

• 1:08:18Bill Maher?

  You sure that wasn't you after the show? That's what you were just wearing?

• 1:08:22Speaker 05

  I only dreamed, I only dreamed, yeah.

• 1:08:25Bill Maher?

  Let's be honest, Ron, you're talking about what you were wearing back then.

• 1:08:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:29Bill Maher?

  How old were you when you got married?

• 1:08:31Speaker 05

  Uh, two thousand, no, I gotta do the math. Um...

• 1:08:36Bill Maher?

  Oh, so you're already...

• 1:08:38Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I, I, I'm a late bloomer. I was a late, I was a late bloomer.

• 1:08:42Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, talking to...

• 1:08:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:45Bill Maher?

  The latest bloomer.

• 1:08:46Speaker 05

  So wait, just move.

• 1:08:47Bill Maher?

  I don't know.

• 1:08:48Speaker 05

  I was forty, forty-two, I think, something like that, forty-two, forty-three.

• 1:08:53Bill Maher?

  Yeah, people always say like, you know, yeah, I had my wild era and, you know, but that ended and I'm always like, why are we ending the wild era? I like the wild era. Why are we ending it?

• 1:09:07Speaker 05

  One gets tired, Bill.

• 1:09:08Bill Maher?

  Do we have to?

• 1:09:10Speaker 05

  If you don't do Pilates, you know, you're just...

• 1:09:12Bill Maher?

  No, I think it's all about children.

• 1:09:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Bill Maher?

  I think the, there is, look, I don't have children, but I'm, I'm not a stupid person. And I've lived in this world long enough and looked around enough to know there is just no connection and love, because it's you. It is kind of you, it's your mini-me. It's, it, you're former goo, now a human. Now, I know that's not the most...

• 1:09:35Speaker 05

  My kids are adopted, so it's not entirely, that's not entirely accurate.

• 1:09:40Bill Maher?

  Not your goo.

• 1:09:41Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, they're...

• 1:09:42Bill Maher?

  Not your goo, but still love you.

• 1:09:44Speaker 05

  Which is great, because I don't fall into that trap of like, I know who you're supposed to be, like, I'm kinda learning. You know what I mean, like...

• 1:09:51Bill Maher?

  Oh, both adopted.

• 1:09:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:53Bill Maher?

  Aren't you noble?

• 1:09:55Speaker 05

  I, I don't know.

• 1:09:56Bill Maher?

  Well, yeah, you, because, you know, kids without a parent need a parent.

• 1:10:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, that's...

• 1:10:02Bill Maher?

  Just like the dog.

• 1:10:02Speaker 05

  Yeah. Uh, parents without kids, you know, they want kids, they need kids, so it kinda goes both ways.

• 1:10:09Bill Maher?

  Oh, no, it, it totally fits.

• 1:10:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:11Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Oh. Is it a, uh, onerous task to adopt in America?

• 1:10:18Speaker 05

  Uh...

• 1:10:19Bill Maher?

  Are your kids, uh, from America or...?

• 1:10:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:22Bill Maher?

  From, okay.

• 1:10:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, they're, they're both California girls.

• 1:10:25Bill Maher?

  More complicated if they're from a different country.

• 1:10:28Speaker 05

  There's all different, there's all different shapes of how it comes together, and I think they ha- there's different experiences. Um, but it's, yeah, I mean, it's funny how they, they just turn, they're your kids, you know?

• 1:10:43Bill Maher?

  I mean, I, I'm not, I'm a dog in this fight, but I think it's great because, uh, pregnancy looks like a fucking nightmare. I mean, and, uh, you know.

• 1:10:54Speaker 05

  Well, I wasn't gonna have to go through that anyway, but, uh, it was, uh...

• 1:10:57Bill Maher?

  No. No, but like somebody does and, uh, you know, I mean, obviously what we've heard about lately is postpartum depression, which I don't doubt is a real thing.

• 1:11:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:09Bill Maher?

  I mean, it obviously is, it makes people just go crazy. I don't think that lady is faking it.

• 1:11:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:17Bill Maher?

  You know, it's just...

• 1:11:18Speaker 05

  I mean, I don't know, but I, it's, she's not the first to have postpartum depression, so...

• 1:11:23Bill Maher?

  And it's like, how could we, as men, ever really understand that? Like, we just can't, because that's all about hormones we do not possess.

• 1:11:33Speaker 05

  Well, you, I mean, the body to the, yeah, all the stuff that, like, it's kinda crazy, it's kinda crazy what...

• 1:11:38Bill Maher?

  What's that mean?

• 1:11:39Speaker 05

  Not pregnant, it's like there's another human comes out of the human, that's like, uh...

• 1:11:44Bill Maher?

  No, it's unnatural.

• 1:11:45Speaker 05

  That's pretty...

• 1:11:46Bill Maher?

  I mean, for something that's very natural, it's so unnatural.

• 1:11:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:49Bill Maher?

  It really is.

• 1:11:50Speaker 05

  It's, it's pushing the edge, for sure.

• 1:11:53Bill Maher?

  The closest we could ever know about that is when you have to take a very difficult shit.

• 1:11:57Speaker 05

  Uh-huh. I've heard, I've heard some people say kidney stones are, are a good, uh...

• 1:12:03Bill Maher?

  But kidney stones are tiny.

• 1:12:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:07Bill Maher?

  Let's not talk about it.

• 1:12:08Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:12:09Bill Maher?

  I don't need to go into further detail, but, no, I mean, I know, we all know the feeling of terrible cramping. And it must be like that, I mean, yes, you, look, it's not just that, what, what a woman has to go through, um, throughout months of pregnancy must be, yes, there's somebody else who's, you know, he's, the thing is stealing your nutrients. You know?

• 1:12:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:37Bill Maher?

  You know, it's a, it's a sacrifice.

• 1:12:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's, it's a sacrifice, the whole thing's a sacrifice.

• 1:12:42Bill Maher?

  And then the pain. I mean, the passing of bowling ball is just like, it's, it's crazy.

• 1:12:49Speaker 05

  It's pretty crazy that, like, that's kinda how, and, you know, unless you're a C-section, like, that's how all of us came into the world. Is somebody had to do that.

• 1:12:59Speaker 05

  Right? I mean, that's nuts.

• 1:13:01Bill Maher?

  And it is amazing that there are places in the world where the woman does it down by the creek, and then they slap some mud on the kid and she goes back to like, you know, work in the fields. I mean, like, there's no, uh, epidermal.

• 1:13:14Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:13:14Bill Maher?

  There's no, uh, post anything. It's just like, back to work. I mean, the world is a rough place.

• 1:13:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:22Bill Maher?

  These brats who think they have it so tough in America. Do your kid, you think your kids understand how lucky they are to be Americans? Or do they think America's the worst place ever?

• 1:13:33Speaker 05

  No, they, I don't even think they, they don't even really kind of identify as Americans yet, because they haven't seen...

• 1:13:40Bill Maher?

  Well, they should.

• 1:13:41Speaker 05

  Well, they, they are Americans, but like, America's kind of their world, so it's, I mean, and they, we've been, we've traveled places and been out, but I don't think they really understand the difference between we're, you know, now we're in France, these are French people. You know, because I, I...

• 1:13:59Bill Maher?

  But do they, they don't have an understanding of what makes us unique?

• 1:14:04Speaker 05

  No. They're, uh...

• 1:14:06Bill Maher?

  Nothing to be proud of?

• 1:14:07Speaker 05

  No, they're...

• 1:14:08Bill Maher?

  Nothing to be proud of?

• 1:14:09Speaker 05

  They're just, I think it's that they just haven't really, they haven't gotten to that part of studying the history, uh, of...

• 1:14:17Bill Maher?

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:14:18Speaker 05

  Of the identity of it all. You know, it's, um...

• 1:14:23Bill Maher?

  All right, well, I hope when, when they do, somebody tells them that, uh, you know, somebody had to, uh, bring, uh, democracy into the world and, uh, somebody figured out the idea of a government that was divided into three spheres of power that would check each other, which was kinda cool at the time, and

• 1:14:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:45Bill Maher?

  that nobody ever before that had ever had a, any kind of, there had been Parliament, there had never been a, a leader who, whose power was checked. You either were a king or you weren't. That was the first, oh, a president, but he's not a king, and, you know. We, you know, trial by jury, you know,

• 1:15:04Bill Maher?

  the Geneva Convention, we thought of some pretty good

• 1:15:07Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:15:07Bill Maher?

  things, and we did some bad things and we corrected some...

• 1:15:11Speaker 05

  We may need somebody to do all those things again.

• 1:15:13Bill Maher?

  Ah, that is very true. Very true. I just always want people to teach the full story. And it, and I feel like in the media world we live in, I never can get the full story from one source, which is kinda sad. But you have to always check on everybody, because you're always just pushing your narrative.

• 1:15:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:36Bill Maher?

  Not, I just want the truth, just tell me the truth.

• 1:15:40Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:15:40Bill Maher?

  I, I'm old enough to make up my own mind, but no, it is, I guess there's no money in it. People wanna hear what they already believe.

• 1:15:49Speaker 05

  Uh, twenty-four hour news, I think, changed everything, because it's like, when Walter Cronkite had a half an hour?

• 1:15:55Bill Maher?

  You're so right.

• 1:15:56Speaker 05

  You know, it's like, all we have time for is here's the straight up, you know, here's the skinny.

• 1:16:01Bill Maher?

  That's the way it is.

• 1:16:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, and, you know, once you gotta fill the other twenty-three and a half hours, you can't do it without like...

• 1:16:08Bill Maher?

  So you remember Walter Cronkite?

• 1:16:10Speaker 05

  Bullshit for a while. Yeah, I remember, yeah.

• 1:16:11Bill Maher?

  Okay, so you say you're sixty, yeah, okay.

• 1:16:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, Bush is sixty, I mean, you know, he was, yeah.

• 1:16:18Bill Maher?

  Well, you know.

• 1:16:19Speaker 05

  I mean, Dan Rather was closer to my guy, but uh, but yeah.

• 1:16:23Bill Maher?

  So what, so, okay, now you're in a different era, a different casting era.

• 1:16:28Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:16:28Bill Maher?

  I mean, you know, Ron, uh, I was in the acting game myself in the eighties.

• 1:16:35Speaker 05

  I saw posters in the bathroom.

• 1:16:37Bill Maher?

  Those are jokes. I wasn't in those.

• 1:16:38Speaker 05

  Oh, you weren't in those?

• 1:16:39Bill Maher?

  No, but I was in, I was in Cannibal Women and the Avocado Jungle of Death.

• 1:16:43Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:16:43Bill Maher?

  I was in Pizza Man, I was in DC Cap, I did two Murder She Wrote's, I had three sitcoms. Oh, yes, House Two, I think we all remember that. Um, what else was I in? I mean, you know, lots of stuff. Oh, a very memorable turn as the bad guy on Max Headroom.

• 1:17:02Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 1:17:04Bill Maher?

  Did I mention two Murder She Wrote? So I know my way around the acting game.

• 1:17:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:10Bill Maher?

  But I remember even then thinking, uh, there was like an anxiety about. Well, first of all, I knew I was in the wrong game. I was, I should always be doing what I wound up doing, but okay. We all had this idea in our head. You go out to California, you get a sitcom. Yes, you do. You do Johnny Carson, then you get a sitcom. I did, okay. And so you're an actor. It was always a bad fit, but I enjoyed some of it. But I was aware that like, wow, you know, whatever parts I'm going up for now, like in 10 years, I can't even go up for these parts.

• 1:17:43Speaker 05

  Oh, definitely.

• 1:17:45Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:17:46Speaker 05

  Oh, sure. I can't.

• 1:17:48Bill Maher?

  Because your face changes.

• 1:17:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a different, um, it's a different product.

• 1:17:52Bill Maher?

  Right, now you're a dad.

• 1:17:53Speaker 05

  I'm a different, you know.

• 1:17:54Bill Maher?

  You can be dad now.

• 1:17:55Speaker 05

  I, yeah, a dad. Oh, I've been dad, I've been dad for a while.

• 1:17:58Bill Maher?

  But you could even be a dad that the babysitter wants to.

• 1:18:01Speaker 05

  I'm coming up on grandpa.

• 1:18:03Bill Maher?

  That the babysitter wants to fuck.

• 1:18:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:05Bill Maher?

  You could still do that.

• 1:18:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, except nobody writes that movie.

• 1:18:10Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:18:10Speaker 05

  The kids don't wanna see the movie where the babysitter's fucking the dad.

• 1:18:13Bill Maher?

  I've seen a few of them. I've seen more than a few of them.

• 1:18:17Speaker 05

  Okay, alright.

• 1:18:17Bill Maher?

  I seek them out.

• 1:18:18Speaker 05

  I gotta talk to my agent.

• 1:18:19Bill Maher?

  No, yes, just, he still can be the dad that the babysitter wants to fuck.

• 1:18:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:26Bill Maher?

  But yes, that's, that is an era. That is, it's still a good era.

• 1:18:30Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:18:30Bill Maher?

  You know, your hair is dark, you're totally.

• 1:18:33Speaker 05

  I have to catch myself, cause I get a script and I'll read a script and I'm like, this is a great part. And then I realize, wait, that's not me. That's somebody, I'm this guy.

• 1:18:42Bill Maher?

  I just saw this movie called The Girl in the Pool and uh, it was only a few weeks ago and I don't remember too much. Why, where was it? It must've been on one of the channels that you scroll through and I kinda liked it, but uh, she's uh,

• 1:19:02Bill Maher?

  half the age of the guy. He's married, you know, he's married with a, you know, he's, he's 50 and, and fucking her in the pool. Okay, and then she, dad, I won't spoil the whole thing. Anyway, um, yeah, you could still play that part, but you're right. You do have to get ready for bad grandpa.

• 1:19:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, pretty, you know, pretty much.

• 1:19:21Bill Maher?

  It's okay.

• 1:19:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:22Bill Maher?

  You know, play this out for as long as whoever's doing your hair.

• 1:19:26Speaker 05

  I wanna ride it into the sunset.

• 1:19:28Bill Maher?

  Whoever's doing your hair and beard's doing great.

• 1:19:30Speaker 05

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:19:30Bill Maher?

  It's really, no, I'm serious. I know it sounds very gay, like a man complimenting another man.

• 1:19:37Speaker 05

  I do my own beard.

• 1:19:38Bill Maher?

  It's very natural and yet, yeah, you're still pulling it off the like, um, but yes, bad grandpa geezer movies, I call them.

• 1:19:45Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:19:45Bill Maher?

  You know, where if you're, if you're someone the audience wants to see, cause they've liked you over the years as you are, then there will be a place for you in geezer movies.

• 1:19:57Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:20:00Speaker 05

  Yes, not a lot of places though, you know.

• 1:20:02Bill Maher?

  Well, they, they, the audiences do like to see people who they like, uh, through the ages.

• 1:20:09Speaker 05

  Hop up.

• 1:20:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they, they do. It's, it's, it's fun. And it's just like, oh, it's an old friend. You know, but they, and they accept people in different, uh, you know, Michael Douglas is not playing the detective in Basic Insect now. You know, he's Benjamin Franklin. You know, I mean, that's, that's life. If you don't think.

• 1:20:30Speaker 05

  No, you gotta, you know, you gotta look at, okay, now there's the politicians and the corporate overlords and the, you know.

• 1:20:38Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:20:38Speaker 05

  But what are you gonna do?

• 1:20:41Bill Maher?

  What about the politicians and the corporate overlords?

• 1:20:43Speaker 05

  Someone's gotta play them and uh, you know what I mean? And a lot of them are old.

• 1:20:47Bill Maher?

  I thought you meant you were controlling these movies.

• 1:20:50Speaker 05

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:20:51Bill Maher?

  Because, you know.

• 1:20:51Speaker 05

  Oh, no, no, no, they're just the great parts to get sometimes.

• 1:20:54Bill Maher?

  Yes, you're right. They are. No, there's a lot of great stuff for, for an actor like you, who's uh, established himself so well and like, they still wanna use this, there could be a golden time of like part.

• 1:21:07Speaker 05

  Knock on wood, knock on wood.

• 1:21:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, there is a lot of anxiety with being an actor, isn't there? About like, because there's no security.

• 1:21:16Speaker 05

  No, there's no security and I was okay with that for really most of my life. Uh, I, I, I was okay with no security. I actually preferred it that way. I liked to not know what next year was gonna be. Um, and uh, when I say, I hate to take it back to the kids, but the kids changes that. Because now all of a sudden you got, you're like, oh, it's not just me and eating ramen noodles anymore. It's like, I've got school tuition to pay for and all of that.

• 1:21:46Bill Maher?

  Yes, you're responsible for, you know, like I said, it's, it's noble. I never say it's not, not noble. I, I admire it. I, I don't wanna do it at all. I mean, I think it's insane to like, you trade your life for somebody else's, but it is a noble thing. And there are people who needed, need kids, their life traded. Kids, you know, they can't do it on their own.

• 1:22:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:22:13Bill Maher?

  Um, I think we, we keep them in childhood way too long.

• 1:22:20Speaker 05

  The kids or the adults?

• 1:22:21Bill Maher?

  The kids.

• 1:22:22Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:22:22Bill Maher?

  You know, certainly 18, I think it could even be younger than that. It certainly is in other societies, but um, I mean, I've said this before, but it always amuses me. A girl I knew once said to me, I ran away from home when I was 18. And I said, honey, you can't run away from.

• 1:22:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's just leaving.

• 1:22:43Bill Maher?

  You're supposed to be away from home.

• 1:22:45Speaker 05

  I mean, you know, may have been running.

• 1:22:47Bill Maher?

  Their mentality was that, like, I'm still on the tit here, 18.

• 1:22:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:22:53Bill Maher?

  And uh, you know, I don't know what your policy is.

• 1:22:57Speaker 05

  25 is the new 18, if you're like.

• 1:22:59Bill Maher?

  Right, that's.

• 1:23:00Speaker 05

  I mean, cause really it's like, when can you, when can you get a job and afford an apartment? You know, uh, with roommates, you know, with eight, get six roommates, figure it out. But I feel like that age is bumped up a little bit. It's like, uh, that's a little tougher to do in a lot of, lot of places anyway.

• 1:23:21Bill Maher?

  It is. Part of the reason is cause they all wanna be in a cool city. And of course, supply and demand.

• 1:23:28Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:23:29Bill Maher?

  Everybody wants to be in LA, New York, San Francisco, Chicago. It's gonna be extremely expensive.

• 1:23:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:38Bill Maher?

  And somehow we have to find a way to make Three Forks Iowa very cool. It's now where you're from, Iowa.

• 1:23:46Speaker 05

  I am. I don't think there's a Three Forks, but uh.

• 1:23:49Bill Maher?

  Well.

• 1:23:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:50Bill Maher?

  Would you like one?

• 1:23:50Speaker 05

  There's a musketeen. Um.

• 1:23:53Bill Maher?

  I know, I know Iowa. I was engaged to a girl in Iowa.

• 1:23:56Speaker 05

  Really?

• 1:23:57Bill Maher?

  Knoxville, Iowa, you know?

• 1:23:58Speaker 05

  Okay, is that on the west?

• 1:24:00Bill Maher?

  The fuck knows. I don't know, I've been there. That's really, that was the eighties.

• 1:24:05Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:24:05Bill Maher?

  This when I was uh.

• 1:24:07Speaker 05

  So you got close?

• 1:24:08Bill Maher?

  I got close.

• 1:24:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:10Bill Maher?

  I mean, I was 29.

• 1:24:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:11Bill Maher?

  And uh.

• 1:24:12Speaker 05

  You popped the question.

• 1:24:13Bill Maher?

  I thought, you know, at that age, yes, I did because I felt like I was losing her. It was like a poker game where you just like, put everything on the table.

• 1:24:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:23Bill Maher?

  So that, you know, you don't get bluffed out of the game. And uh, that worked, but it was not a wise decision. But uh, yeah, I liked Iowa. So, and people don't realize, it's a wealthy state.

• 1:24:36Speaker 05

  Is it?

• 1:24:36Bill Maher?

  Yes, because agriculture, it's, I remember their home was quite wealthy.

• 1:24:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, some of that is cause land is cheap and you can.

• 1:24:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah, whatever it is.

• 1:24:48Speaker 05

  You know.

• 1:24:49Bill Maher?

  But it wasn't a bunch of hicks.

• 1:24:51Speaker 05

  No, oh, no, no, no. It's not, even, even, yeah, even the farmers are.

• 1:24:55Bill Maher?

  I'm not saying there aren't.

• 1:24:56Speaker 05

  Even the hicks are not.

• 1:24:57Bill Maher?

  I am not saying there aren't a bunch of hicks in Iowa. I'm just saying, I didn't run into them and they're not everywhere.

• 1:25:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, I was a really, I, I, it's a really interesting place. Um, I'm really happy that, that's, you know, that's where I came up. Um, it's quirky. It's a really quirky place. There was a, this is how I'd describe Iowa. There's um, there's this, in the eighties or something, there was like Maharishi University, right?

• 1:25:28Bill Maher?

  Like the Maharishi, the Beatles dude?

• 1:25:30Speaker 05

  Moved. I don't know if it was him or a different Maharishi, but he founded, he came in and he took over like an old college or something and, and like transcendental meditation people came in for, you know, miles around. And so you had them, you had Amish, you had regular old farmers. And the crazy thing about Iowa is they kinda all got along, cause the farmer's like, oh, you know, those Maharishi people are good neighbors. They keep the lawns mowed and, you know, like everyone, everyone was crazy, but it was uh, we're all crazy.

• 1:26:06Bill Maher?

  Why do you think they picked Iowa?

• 1:26:08Speaker 05

  I don't know. I really don't know. I mean, it's a nice town.

• 1:26:11Bill Maher?

  Off the radar.

• 1:26:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think maybe cheap land and there's a college available, I don't know.

• 1:26:19Bill Maher?

  Don't want people to notice.

• 1:26:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:22Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 1:26:22Speaker 05

  Although they're in the papers. They did a thing. They had a, they called it a levitation contest. And so, once a year, we would see in our local paper, someone sitting in the lotus position about a foot and a half off the ground.

• 1:26:38Bill Maher?

  Is that real?

• 1:26:39Speaker 05

  Well, it wa, I thought it must have not been real, until I saw the video uh, version of it. And it's people in a lotus position on a gym mat, hopping as high as they can. And they snapped the picture at the thing. But that's, the competition is how high can you get? Because I guess levitate, you know, so.

• 1:27:02Bill Maher?

  Even back then.

• 1:27:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:04Bill Maher?

  Fake news. Nothing changes.

• 1:27:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:08Bill Maher?

  Well, do we have anything to plug? Can we plug anything for you? I've loved talking to you. I owe you some sort of plug.

• 1:27:15Speaker 05

  Uh, I got, I got one coming out called Christmas at the Kringle's.

• 1:27:20Bill Maher?

  Oh, the Kringle's?

• 1:27:22Speaker 05

  Christmas at the Kringle's.

• 1:27:23Bill Maher?

  That's a very big franchise.

• 1:27:24Speaker 05

  Uh, it's a new one, I think.

• 1:27:26Bill Maher?

  Kringle's?

• 1:27:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, Christmas at the Kringle's.

• 1:27:29Bill Maher?

  Isn't the Kringle's a big, weren't there many Kringle's movies?

• 1:27:33Speaker 05

  It's public domain, so we, uh, it was like Santa's kind of name, so I think, uh, I think you can just cop to it.

• 1:27:41Bill Maher?

  I love a Christmas movie. I've seen every, I've seen every fucking Christmas movie.

• 1:27:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:47Bill Maher?

  Like, even the bad ones. And even when they're corny, someone called Last Christmas, I think. It's, I fucking loved it. Uh, you know, it's, I don't know, that's how I get into the spirit. What's the classic now that they show? Um, you know, the English one.

• 1:28:07Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:10Bill Maher?

  Like, Love, Love the.

• 1:28:13Speaker 05

  Not Love Actually.

• 1:28:14Bill Maher?

  Love Actually.

• 1:28:15Speaker 05

  Love Actually, okay.

• 1:28:16Bill Maher?

  Love Actually.

• 1:28:17Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:28:17Bill Maher?

  I mean, if you, if you can't love Love Actually at Christmas time, you're an unfeeling person. Yeah, I feel sorry for you.

• 1:28:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, It's a Wonderful Life was like, I always, I always went back to that one. I loved that one. This is like, none of those. Yeah, this is more, this is sort of like Christmas horror slash comedy.

• 1:28:38Bill Maher?

  Yeah, those are good too. I mean, I don't take Christmas seriously, so you can't offend me.

• 1:28:44Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:28:44Bill Maher?

  I'm an atheist. I don't believe in, you know. But I have wonderful memories of my own, we celebrate, I was raised Catholic. We, you know, that was a big deal, Christmas. Not just because the religious part and you know who, born.

• 1:28:59Speaker 05

  Sure, the secular part's a huge, you know.

• 1:29:02Bill Maher?

  Gifts.

• 1:29:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:29:03Bill Maher?

  Presents. Relatives came up, big party.

• 1:29:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:29:06Bill Maher?

  I mean, it was an exhaustive party.

• 1:29:08Speaker 05

  Food, feasting.

• 1:29:10Bill Maher?

  Food and the, you didn't see.

• 1:29:12Speaker 05

  It was like Thanksgiving and your birthday, like, at the same time.

• 1:29:16Bill Maher?

  Thing. Um, very, yeah. So, what's this, so, Christmas with the.

• 1:29:22Speaker 05

  Christmas at the Kringle's.

• 1:29:24Bill Maher?

  And are you Santa Claus? Are you, uh?

• 1:29:26Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:29:26Bill Maher?

  What, are you a bad guy?

• 1:29:27Speaker 05

  I, no, I just play a guy that moves to the suburbs against his will. And, um.

• 1:29:33Bill Maher?

  Did you ever play a real bad guy?

• 1:29:35Speaker 05

  I played some bad guys. I played like, uh, I played more like weasels bad guys than like heavy bad guys, because I, I don't know that people tend to be scared of me. But, uh, yeah, but I played some weasels. Yeah.

• 1:29:52Bill Maher?

  All right, well, Christmas, the Kringle's, when is this?

• 1:29:57Speaker 05

  It's October 30th.

• 1:29:58Bill Maher?

  Professional talk show this is, as if suddenly after all this 90 minutes of me being stoned and drunk. It's like, and, uh, on April 30th.

• 1:30:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, it's all good.

• 1:30:10Bill Maher?

  When's it come out this year?

• 1:30:11Speaker 05

  It's coming out, uh, October 30th.

• 1:30:14Bill Maher?

  Oh my god, you know.

• 1:30:15Speaker 05

  It's pretty early.

• 1:30:16Bill Maher?

  It's, uh, it's what we call, uh, Thanks Halloween Christmas.

• 1:30:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:30:21Bill Maher?

  When all the, they might as well just combine them. It's one of our first new rules. Why don't they combine them all? It's, because they start, they start it now. I mean, it's already.

• 1:30:30Speaker 05

  I think it's a brilliant model, because it's, because it's Christmas horror. They're gonna release it for Halloween, and then it'll hit streaming in time for Christmas.

• 1:30:39Bill Maher?

  Perfect.

• 1:30:39Speaker 05

  So they're gonna take two bites at the apple.

• 1:30:41Bill Maher?

  All right, wow. That was a real pleasure.

• 1:30:43Speaker 05

  Appreciate it. Well, yeah, a lot of fun.

• 1:30:45Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:30:45Speaker 05

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:30:51Bill Maher?

  Okay, did we say anything to get us canceled? Who cares? What are they gonna do?

• 1:31:00Speaker 03

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• 1:31:42Speaker 03

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