EP.240 - DAVID LETTERMAN

Adam talks with American talk show legend David Letterman about his favourite people on the current British comedy scene, hanging out with comedy legends in the 70s, why he talked about being blackmailed on a 2009 episode of Late Night, why Bob Dylan wound him up in 1992, the brilliance of comedian Norm Macdonald, the challenges of parenthood, and why Dave hates photographs. Conversation recorded face-to-face in NYC on January 29th, 2025. Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and conversation editing. Podcast illustration by Helen Green https://helengreenillustration.com/ Thanks to Wolf at WTF Media Studios https://www.wtfmediastudios.com/ in NY EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal https://nordvpn.com/buxton Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! PLEASE DONATE TO STAND UP 2 CANCER Are you able to spare £30, £20 or £10 to help advance life-saving cancer research? Text THIRTY, TWENTY or TEN to 70404 to donate to @SU2CUK. Text costs £30, £20 or £10 +1 standard rate txt. 16+, UK mobs only. Query? Call 0300 123 1022. Ts&Cs: channel4.com/terms http://channel4.com/terms PRE-ORDER 'I LOVE YOU, BYEEE' https://lnk.to/ILoveYouByeee by Adam Buxton - 2025 ADAM AND LETTERMAN PICS AND LINKS https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/podcasts/rhwkafw2z2x3xe6-6ysb3-pfp9n-6xxa2-jnpn5-2cacw-6cz8f-gx8fb-nkb87-c6mae-bd5zy-yby4r-6392t-jf5tm-ph55s-cktl3-dsw49-r8ccg-sj9we-wzpe5-nzgjl-hn42k-r46sa-bp623 (on Adam's website) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:00Adam Buxton?

  I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buckston, I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan.

• 0:31Adam Buxton?

  Hey, how are you doing, podcasts? It's Adam Buckston here. Now, look, for those of you who don't want to hear the rest of this entertaining and informative introduction to this week's guest, if you skip forward roughly seven minutes from this point, then the two-way waffle will begin. Hope you enjoy it. For the rest of you, hey, good to see you. I hope you've been doing all right. Now, look, first things first. Rosie, my best dog friend, is at home today. She's fine, she's very well, in fact, but the bird-scaring guns have been back in the fields around where we live out here in the Norfolk countryside, where I am currently

• 1:15Adam Buxton?

  taking a lovely walk, and Doglegs finds them very distraughtening. One went off right next to her on a walk yesterday. She didn't like it. She's also worried about Trump and just the general atmosphere of global instability, uncertainty, which I think is fair enough. Anyway, she's back in the kitchen, on the sofa where it's warm and things make sense. But, yeah, as I said, she's doing well. Otherwise, I've been doing fine, thank you very much. My big news is that I have finished my book, finally. It's going to be out at the end of May, but there's a link in the description to pre-order.

• 2:00Adam Buxton?

  No extra tariffs on it currently, I'm happy to say. I was also on Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer. Actually, I recorded that last year, but it's finally going out. On Sunday the 6th of April at 7:40pm on Channel 4, but listen, I'll tell you more about that and the book at the end. Right now, let me tell you a bit about podcast number 240, which features a rambling conversation with American talk show legend David Letterman. As John Cooper Clarke would say, "What the huh?" David was born in the mid-western American city of Indianapolis, Indiana in 1947.

• 2:42Adam Buxton?

  His father was a florist and his mother was a secretary at a local Presbyterian church. After studying media at college, where he was also involved in student radio, Letterman got a job at a local TV station where he endeared himself to viewers with his sometimes idiosyncratic weather reports. Going through a very crunchy patch here. Here's some crunch for the ASMR gang.

• 3:13Adam Buxton?

  Little teeny weeny dried up husks that have fallen down here from what kind of tree? No idea, because I'm so stupid and ignorant, even though I've lived in the country for over 15 years. Where were we? Oh, yes, the idiosyncratic, whoa! Blimey, that gave me a shock. That was a secret partridge there. Okay, come on, focus buckles. Yes, the idiosyncratic weather reports. Encouraged by his first wife and friends to pursue a career in comedy, David moved to California in 1975, where he hoped to make a living as a writer. He tried his jokes out at open mic nights, including one at the famous Comedy Store in

• 3:54Adam Buxton?

  May 1975, where in front of important comedy folks, he smashed it. Thereafter, David impressed audiences with his offbeat presence so consistently that just three years later, he was asked to guest host for another talk show legend, Johnny Carson, on NBC's The Late Show.

• 4:16Adam Buxton?

  By 1982, Letterman was hosting his own nighttime talk show, Late Night with David Letterman, where his first guest in February that year was Bill Murray, still a close friend today, as you will hear. That show ran for 23 seasons, during which Letterman hosted well over 4,000 episodes, delivering sardonic monologues at his desk against a twinkling nighttime New York City background, and bantering with bandleader Paul Schaffer between chats with an eclectic mix of celebrity guests and oddbods. Letterman also took part in stunts and comedy bits, and introduced performances by an array of music legends and up-and-comers. He wrote the playbook for the modern late-night talk show that others have followed ever

• 5:01Adam Buxton?

  since. In 2015, he called it quits, but returned to the interviewer's chair, albeit on a less grueling and relentless basis, in 2018, when he began hosting a new show for Netflix, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, a series of long-form interview profiles with guests that have included Barack Obama, Kanye West before full meltdown, Will Smith before Oscars meltdown, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey, Billie Eilish, Tiffany Haddish, and John Mulaney. Seamus Murphy Mitchell, who regular listeners will know provides invaluable production support on this podcast, is an executive producer on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.

• 5:46Adam Buxton?

  And that is the reason that I got the exciting opportunity to talk to David, an opportunity I used as an excuse to get myself out to New York City in January of this year, 2025, so that we could record face-to-face in a small podcast studio with slightly loud air conditioning in Canal Street. We began by talking for a while about a couple of British friends of the podcast that it turns out Dave is a fan of too. Then, amongst other things, I asked David about hanging out with comedy legends in the 1970s in Los Angeles, why Bob Dylan wound him up in 1992, the brilliance of the comedian Norm MacDonald, the challenges of parenthood, and why he hates photographs.

• 6:32Adam Buxton?

  I also was curious to ask Dave about the episode of The Late Show that he did in October 2009, when he told his audience that he had been sent a letter by a man who said that unless he was paid $2 million, he would go public with a book and a screenplay he was writing, in which he detailed several sexual affairs Letterman had had with female members of staff at the show. His blackmailer, who was an Emmy award-winning TV news producer, was arrested and ended up serving four months of a six-month sentence at Rikers Island jail for grand larceny. But we started our conversation by exchanging notes on the sadness of having to make dietary

• 7:16Adam Buxton?

  concessions to the remorseless march of age. Back at the end for a bit more book and Bake Off Waffle, but right now with David Letterman. Here we go.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  You guys wanna just talk amongst each other?

• 8:10Speaker 02

  One, one, hello, hi, hello, hi.

• 8:12Adam Buxton?

  What did you have for breakfast, Dave?

• 8:14Speaker 02

  I had a protein shake, two, two varieties of powder and like a half a glass of almond milk.

• 8:23Adam Buxton?

  Yum.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  That was breakfast.

• 8:25Adam Buxton?

  The almond milk is where the joy comes from presumably, or is the shake nice?

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Well, the shake is actually tasty. It would be even better if you had a couple of scoops of ice cream and some chocolate syrup.

• 8:35Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  But I've had this fight with my wife and that hasn't so far manifested.

• 8:41Adam Buxton?

  Is that because you need to follow a strict diet regimen?

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Yes, that's exactly right because of managing glucose levels.

• 8:49Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, join the club.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 8:51Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. It's been a fairly recent change that I've had to make.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Same with me.

• 8:55Adam Buxton?

  And I'm adjusting to it and trying to figure out like what corners can I cut? What treats can I include? What treats have you been able to sneak in?

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Well, not, not many. What I like is in the beginning when this, this alarming news is given to you. And then they, they offer, oh, well, don't worry. There are plenty of things that you'll be able to eat that are just as much fun as what you used to eat. And so you think, great, let's try them. And they're all a combination of fiber, board and dust. And, and things found by the quarter round mold at the floor. And they're completely tasteless and something that you would buy unseen, untested and regret having eaten. It's just god awful. So then you have to take it more seriously and just realize, oh, in terms of something fun to eat, I'll just be miserable the rest of my life.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  And, and once you've made that deal, the door closes snugly behind you.

• 9:57Adam Buxton?

  That's rough. Where does the fun come from? I mean, do you miss those sensual pleasures a great deal? Do you think about them?

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, in dining, my sensual pleasures are limited to three meals a day. And now it's down to a shake and maybe one meal a day. And what I miss is huge loads of carbohydrates. I really didn't realize how much my diet was anchored that way. And because I just loved it, you know?

• 10:24Adam Buxton?

  Were you ever a smoker?

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, smoked from the time I was a kid, as we all did back in those days. I think I started smoking when I was like 11 or 12.

• 10:33Adam Buxton?

  Seriously?

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, just even with sneak cigarettes. My, my father smoked. We always had cigarettes around the house and continued smoking from early on, early in grade school through 24 when I finally quit. And it was the most difficult thing I've ever done, as people will tell you. You?

• 10:51Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I smoked, I was never a heavy smoker and I only really stopped quite recently, a couple of years ago. But I was very dilettantish, so I sort of fooled myself that it, I didn't really have anything to give up, really.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 11:04Adam Buxton?

  But I did, of course, and I was gradually smoking and smoking.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Well, I came back to, after I gave up cigarettes, and then later, twenty years later, I came to cigars.

• 11:14Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  And, and I really began to enjoy cigars, really enjoyed them, uh, and then realized, well, I'm right back at this. So then I had to give those up, too.

• 11:25Adam Buxton?

  But you're not inhaling cigars.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  I was, yeah, that was the thing, because, uh, the more of the nicotine you get and the bigger the delivery, uh, I would always cherish that moment when your lips began to vibrate and your hearing was diminished. I, I just thought, this is where I want to be for the rest of the month. And when that happened, I realized, oh, it's the same problem as cigarettes.

• 11:47Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Hey, it's so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for doing this.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  Pleasure to meet you.

• 11:52Adam Buxton?

  We have mutual friends, right?

• 11:53Speaker 02

  I hope. Yes, I hope they're friends.

• 11:56Adam Buxton?

  You're an acquaintance of Richard Iawade?

• 11:58Speaker 02

  Yes, uh, only an acquaintance, and, uh, I met the man, oh, well, I didn't meet him. I, I, I found him, uh, via YouTube and happily researched everything I could find video-wise that he was part of. And just fell in love with the guy, uh, unique to me, to my experience, and I think to the world. And found him to be a delightful performer, writer, director, everything else, comedian. And also, I'm very fond of him just as a guy. Now, I've only spent time with him once, but I cherish that and am constantly trying to find ways to manipulate myself into his life.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  And I had a pretty good shot. Bill Murray was doing a movie in Berlin with Wes Anderson. And I knew that Richard was gonna be in that movie, cause he was looking forward to working with Bill Murray. So I called Bill Murray, and I said, Bill, uh, and I explained this ruse to him, you're going to Berlin, and he said, yeah, I says, but my friend, uh, Richard Iawade, and I don't really have right to introduce myself as his friend, but Bill doesn't know. I said, "This is a guy you should meet also." So now I get Bill in on this scheme. And I said, "Would you talk to Wes Anderson? I would like to be in this movie." So how pathetic is my life that I'm randomly calling friends, inviting myself into films?

• 13:23Speaker 02

  I mean, that's not the way it works. So Bill says, "Well, let me call Wes." And I thought, "Okay, so this is out of my hands now." A month later, Bill Murray calls back and he said, "Wes Anderson, when I told him about your idea, he couldn't stop smiling." So to me, that's enough of a commitment. So now I think, "Oh, this is great. It'll be me, it'll be Bill Murray, and it'll be Richard Iawati in Berlin. I mean, let's go. Let's make that movie." And then one thing led to another, and there was some trouble in my home. My wife was stricken with something called Meniere's disease, which is just god awful.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  Anyway, so I was unable to go to Berlin. Is that a long story with a bad ending?

• 14:11Adam Buxton?

  No.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Because I got a million of those.

• 14:13Adam Buxton?

  Surely, though, we can make it happen in some other way. There's got to be another project.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  I keep thinking that there might be.

• 14:20Adam Buxton?

  Would that be your first acting role for quite a while?

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Yes, but to be clear, I didn't want to act. I just wanted to be... See where that guy's sitting over there?

• 14:30Adam Buxton?

  That's Wolf, our producer.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Yes. You and I would be the central characters. This is where the focus would be. I would be over there.

• 14:38Adam Buxton?

  You'd be hanging around.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Just right there, doing whatever he's doing.

• 14:41Adam Buxton?

  Would you be on camera?

• 14:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably lost in editing. But for the purposes of the production, I'm right there.

• 14:49Adam Buxton?

  Just cameo as guy with beard in background.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  That's right. And once we were done for the day, it would be a delightful evening with me, Richard, and Bill Murray in Berlin.

• 15:00Adam Buxton?

  I mean, you hear that the Wes Anderson set is a very convivial place.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  I know nothing about that.

• 15:05Adam Buxton?

  They have big suppers, all the cast together.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  You're breaking my heart.

• 15:09Adam Buxton?

  It's gotta happen. Well, listen, if you get out there, could you find me some kind of role as well?

• 15:15Speaker 02

  No.

• 15:15Adam Buxton?

  Oh, please.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  No, I'm not gonna do that. First of all, it hasn't worked yet for me.

• 15:20Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Let me just make sure.

• 15:21Adam Buxton?

  I'm not saying immediately, just after a few days.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  All right, fine. Let me just make sure there's some viability here.

• 15:27Adam Buxton?

  All right, good. And have you encountered Richard Iowade's latest literary project, The Unfinished Harold Hughes?

• 15:35Speaker 02

  See, the thing about, one of the many things about Richard, it's like reading a good book.

• 15:40Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Chapter to chapter, you may be surprised. And this accomplishment was a complete surprise to me. Not just the biography, but the whole collection of books that predated the biography. I had no idea. I mean, there must be six installments of Richard Hughes?

• 16:01Adam Buxton?

  Harold Hughes.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Harold Hughes, yeah.

• 16:03Adam Buxton?

  I think it's sort of loosely based on Harold Pinter.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Well, Richard sent me the whole collection before the holidays, and I was thrilled and delighted. But quite a lot of reading ahead of me. But there again, I thought I knew pretty much all one knew about Richard and surprised. This represents a lot of work, for God's sake.

• 16:23Adam Buxton?

  I mean, what a madman.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. You've spent time, you've worked with him, haven't you?

• 16:27Adam Buxton?

  I have, yeah. It doesn't surprise me that he did that. But at the same time, I just thought, whoa, how, how do you find? The time he's got children.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Yes. How is he regarded at home? Is he a man of letters, certainly, a Renaissance man, a genius, an intellect?

• 16:46Adam Buxton?

  He's a polymath. I mean, he really is a very unique figure. He can turn up on panel shows and be very funny. And he sort of, you know, plays the East Theat and maybe will turn up in a tuxedo or something. And play up to his educated roots. But then, he can also be very silly and juvenile.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  And churlish.

• 17:10Adam Buxton?

  Churlish.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Which I can't get enough of.

• 17:15Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, he can do that. He's a good guitarist.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:18Adam Buxton?

  Uh, he, you know, he, he's written several books and now this latest one started out as just this kind of fictionalized story of him and as an alter ego, making a documentary about this fictional Harold Pinter type personality. And then he releases three more books to go with it, which are the complete works of that fictional personality, Harold Hughes.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:45Adam Buxton?

  And yeah, I don't know anyone else who does that.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  When these are published in whatever increment, are they, are they well received and eagerly awaited? Oh boy, the new Richard Iawati work is out?

• 17:56Adam Buxton?

  In my circles, yes. I couldn't speak to how many records they're breaking in the wider world.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:03Adam Buxton?

  Because it is a big ask, isn't it?

• 18:04Speaker 02

  It's a huge ask.

• 18:04Adam Buxton?

  Four books.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, but the success or the measurement irrespective, because the accomplishment is the achievement there, for heaven's sake.

• 18:12Adam Buxton?

  It's an art piece.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:14Adam Buxton?

  That's the thing. I like people, and I think it's probably true of you as well, that you like people who are sort of on the art spectrum. And some of what they're doing blurs the boundaries between perhaps comedy and performance art and weirdness.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:29Adam Buxton?

  And, you know, you used to have a lot of those people on, on your show.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Right. Well, I, I can't exactly identify why I'm so eager to, to know more of the guy and I'm attracted to the guy. But I think it's what you're saying there. I've never quite thought exactly what it might be, but he's, I've, I've not seen anyone like him. But that's true of everyone. Everyone is unique. There's just something about him I find wildly appealing.

• 18:55Adam Buxton?

  Did you ever see Garth Merengi's Dark Place?

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Yes. And, and what a head scratcher that is. Because first of all, how did that get made? For God's sakes. You don't see things like that. Uh, and then I, I've watched it twice because the first time through I was just puzzled. And I thought this warrants a second viewing. And I, I looked at it the second time and then it was more than delightful. Uh, and Richard with cigars and. Machine guns. Well, you can't imagine that, but there he was.

• 19:28Adam Buxton?

  And they're brilliant, all those people that put that together, Matt Holness and the rest of them, Alice Lowe and Matt Berry. But they as well, there's a real art dimension to it, the obsessiveness with which they did that.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:40Adam Buxton?

  They would sort of dub on footsteps that were inappropriate.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 19:45Adam Buxton?

  Every single detail.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, and and out of sync by a frame and a half or something. It was delightful.

• 19:51Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. The other person that you know, that I know, is Jessica Knappett.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:58Adam Buxton?

  Is that right? How do you know Jessica Knappett?

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Well, again, via Richard and she was on the Travelman show. And they went to, I forget where they went to.

• 20:09Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah, they went to Ibiza.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right. And she, from beginning to end, is purposefully, and you can tell calculatedly annoying. For the, and I, after having seen that one two or three times, I think for the purpose of nudging Richard. Just to see what this behavior might result in from him. And I loved that. I loved her. I loved Richard. I loved Ibiza, although I won't be going, but so that's how I knew her. And then later, years later, I run into her, just in a Bang Zoom. We go to a play in London.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  And I'm there with a friend of ours that we were working with, Morgan Neville, and he knew her husband. So I didn't know any of this was happening. So I'm there with my associate, Mary, and we sit down and in walks Jessica Knappett. And I sat there just dumbfounded, like, wait a minute. And it, it, things were rolling around. And finally, I answered the self-question, I do know this woman. How do I know her and who is she? And bang, bang, bang, I realized this is Jessica Knappett from Ibiza. But yeah, through Richard, I've been able to routinely make a fool of myself.

• 21:31Adam Buxton?

  Good. Well, I look forward to seeing you both.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  Anyway, she was delightful.

• 21:34Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, she's great.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  And then it's through Richard that I know of you as well, from that same series. Yeah, you guys were in, I think, in Portugal.

• 21:41Adam Buxton?

  Oh, we went to Lisbon, yeah. Yeah, that was great. Have you ever been to Lisbon?

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Yes, I have been to Lisbon.

• 21:47Adam Buxton?

  Beautiful part of the world.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  Yes, all of Portugal, to my experience, was delightful.

• 21:51Adam Buxton?

  If you could snap your fingers and be anywhere in the world right now, where would that be?

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Probably the state of Montana.

• 21:58Adam Buxton?

  Where you live for part of the year?

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Well, I wouldn't say live. We have some places to go there and we go out in the summer. But it's one of those places, and there are many of these around the world. Like, we were in Greenland last year. Who knew? And I guess you're well-traveled. It's just the best idea to get out of the house is travel.

• 22:18Adam Buxton?

  Right. So Greenland is lovely, is it?

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Stunning.

• 22:21Adam Buxton?

  That's why Trump wants it?

• 22:23Speaker 02

  I think there are military logistical reasons that not only Trump, but others find it desirable. I would hate to see any greater interference in what goes on up there than has already taken place.

• 22:36Adam Buxton?

  Maybe he went there, he thought, "This is great, but it needs more subways." As in sandwich shops.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  Well, I see, I know you're mistaken there because you suggested that he thought. And I know that's not part of his profile. Anyway, it's fascinating. It's a huge island. You know all about it, right?

• 22:59Adam Buxton?

  No.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Huge island, less than 50,000 residents. Most relatives are descendants of the Inuit people. It's a difficult life because there's really no summer to speak of. They have a very short growing season. They live off things that they can hunt and catch. And I can't believe anything would improve for them by a Trump incursion.

• 23:23Adam Buxton?

  What's the experience of going there as a tourist then? Like, how long do you spend there?

• 23:27Speaker 02

  We were there a week and a half or so, and... Very nicely toured along the western coast. The eastern coast and north eastern coast are enormously remote, I mean frighteningly remote. But you see the mountains and you see the glaciers and you see these villages where the people of Greenland live. And it's a fascinating combination of stunningly beautiful wonders and subsistence life. But what is true about life is it goes on. And to compare how we go on with our life, everybody in this room, to how they go on with their life is stunning. So everything about it was stunning.

• 24:10Adam Buxton?

  How does a place like that compare to Montana?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Well, Montana also blessed with beautiful physical loveliness, stunning landscape and such. The standard of living is better than it is in Greenland. They have figured out the economics and how they can protect their country and also make money from it. All ag business, all agriculture and raising animals and raising crops and such. So the standard of living is much higher, of course.

• 24:38Adam Buxton?

  Is it true that you do a bit of that yourself and you have herds of bison out there?

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Yes. Not herds, I mean, I'm not in, that suggests madman, just everywhere I go, traveling with a herd of bison. Yeah, yeah, we have a small bison operation and yeah, it's been a fantastic experience. It's one of those things, and I think this is true of almost any part of the world or experience to which you're not a native, you learn everything each time you go out again and new stuff again and, you know, I'm expressing that badly, but it's a great learning experience.

• 25:19Adam Buxton?

  Oh, I'd love to go. I actually went when I was young. My dad was a travel writer when he was alive and Montana was one of his favorite places.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Really? Where did you go in Montana?

• 25:30Adam Buxton?

  I was, I was young. We went to a dude ranch. I was very young. I loved it. But I wasn't really aware of exactly where I was geographically.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:40Adam Buxton?

  But.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Horseback on horseback.

• 25:41Adam Buxton?

  Horseback and it was back in the old days, there's a certain amount of fishing and it was pre-health and safety concerns. So we were just bouncing along on these horses, galloping across the plains and the sagebrush. Would that be?

• 25:56Speaker 02

  Could be, sure, depending on where you are.

• 25:58Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, and spending the night out and kind of using Native American techniques for making bedding from fir trees or whatever it was. And it was incredibly romantic, even as a young, jaded nine or 10 year old who just wanted to be watching TV.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Your father being a travel writer, published where then after he would?

• 26:18Adam Buxton?

  Well, he was a journalist. He wrote for the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. He was the travel editor in the, in the UK for that.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Was that a, a big paper?

• 26:26Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah, it was. He did that for years and years. So we had the privilege of being very well traveled when we were young. And going to all these places. But he particularly loved America and he particularly loved the West. He loved Alaska and he loved Wyoming and Montana and places like that. We never went to Canada, actually, come to think of it, you know.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  But beautiful places in England as well.

• 26:50Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, sure, but I mean, on a different scale. But yes, you're right. And actually, only recently have I explored a bit, a bit more with my family and realized how many amazing things there were on our doorstep.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  Well, we, we sound stupid because that's the thing. I'm from Indiana and I now, there's a series of travel videos about Indiana, places, a dozen, two dozen, three dozen places I never knew existed in my home state that are stunningly beautiful. And I think that's possible with everybody, everywhere, except I, most people probably know more than I knew about my home place. But anywhere you go, you find great things, you know, it's, and you just feel ignorant when you, it's like somebody taps you on the shoulder and explains, yeah, if you leave the house once or twice, get ready. And, and to me, that's every reason to leave the house.

• 27:39Adam Buxton?

  Would you do a travel show?

• 27:41Speaker 02

  No.

• 27:42Adam Buxton?

  Why not?

• 27:42Speaker 02

  Too much work.

• 27:43Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  I've done a little of that on a minor scale where you're in a van all day and you hop out and the camera crew and the sound crew and okay, that was great, let's do it again. And you've done it now eight times and okay, here's lunch, well, I'm not hungry, well, hard boiled eggs, no, I don't want any of that. Okay, back in the van. And you do that for a couple of years and you think, alright, that's just fine. That's plenty. I heard on the radio this morning that for the first time in eight years in Mongolia, they were going to restore springtime horse racing. And I thought, okay, fine. You know, they have something that they enjoy. I don't know why it was banned for eight years, but they've

• 28:25Speaker 02

  lifted the ban now and it's coming back. Speaking of reasons to travel, springtime horse racing in Mongolia. Well, get your tickets now. And then they explain why it had been banned. Horse racing with child jockeys. So to me, I'm thinking, whoa, that's a twist on horse racing. I mean, child jockeys. I mean, right there, your brain just stops, doesn't it? Okay, we're gonna have horse racing. Yeah, the Kentucky Derby. But guess what? Little children will be riding the horses. And of course, you're not gonna believe

• 29:06Speaker 02

  this, no protective gear. It's their little kid outfits for they come right from school, hop on the horses and race. And they were being knocked off the horses and injured and I'm sure the mortality rate was giving child horse racing a bad name. Well, don't worry, it's back.

• 29:23Adam Buxton?

  Still with children, though?

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah. But now the kids will need to be wearing protective goggles.

• 29:30Adam Buxton?

  Okay, yeah.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  So I wouldn't worry anymore about that, Adam. Jesus.

• 30:08Adam Buxton?

  These days, though, you are doing more sort of long-form chats. You get to take it easy a little bit more. Do you feel that it's less intense, the pace of the kind of shows that you're doing, than those nightly shows where everything is so fast-paced?

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Well, the nightly show, I look at that experience and wonder, how the heck did I do that? How did I have the energy to do that night after night after night? And it takes a bit of an adjustment. But now, having the chance to sit down and talk to people, I am enjoying, I think, much more. I don't want to suggest I didn't enjoy what I was doing. But like you and I, sitting here, I don't know to what extent there was preparation for this. But if I had my choice, I would just sit down with whomever, not even, somebody could say, this is whomever they were in the new Marvel movie. Okay, great, thanks. And then we just go and talk. But that would probably be deadly dull, but that

• 31:09Speaker 02

  would be my preference. And then there would be two or three teams of people in editing till Labor Day, trying to piece that together. But that would be my preference. Because as you may have noticed, I can't stop talking. And I like talking mostly about myself. So there's pathology there. And you're gonna be up all night editing this nonsense, and I'm sorry.

• 31:29Adam Buxton?

  I mean, as a podcaster, you're the dream guest, obviously, on many levels. But someone who likes talking and enjoys talking and is good at talking, that's all you're dreaming about. Sometimes people angle to come on the podcast, and then they get all uptight.

• 31:45Speaker 02

  Well, we used to go through that. People in show business come out and sit down, and this is show business. And they don't seem to, it doesn't translate. But a few years ago, the idea of a podcast, everybody was thinking, oh, do a podcast, and maybe we'll do a podcast. And so then, a friend of ours, Seamus.

• 32:08Adam Buxton?

  Seamus, my producer?

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Yes. Said, well, here, I'll send you some of Adam's podcasts. And before that, I didn't realize you'd done a podcast. So I listened to, the first one I listened to was you and Tom Hanks.

• 32:21Adam Buxton?

  Oh, that's, that's not a good place to start.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  No, you're kidding.

• 32:24Adam Buxton?

  Well, it was, that's a good example of an opportunity. I, I felt it was a, a missed opportunity because I think that he'd been badly briefed and I think he was expecting it to be one thing. And it wasn't.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  Badly briefed. I love that. What, no, see, again, that's misapplied. It's, it's Tom Hanks. Was he in person or was this on?

• 32:45Adam Buxton?

  No, it was on Zoom.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  On Zoom.

• 32:46Adam Buxton?

  I think he was expecting a kind of more literary review type conversation.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  He had written, was it a book of poetry?

• 32:54Adam Buxton?

  He's written his first novel.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  First novel.

• 32:56Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:57Adam Buxton?

  So he was in, let's talk about my novel mode.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:00Adam Buxton?

  And I think was less up for being sort of chatty and.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Well, let me tell you something. I'm, I can't wait for the Brad Pitt novel. That's when I'm gonna, that's when I'm gonna start reading, or the Matt Damon book of poetry. So anyway, whatever your perception of it was, and I understand that your perception of it and the finished product can be 180 degrees. I do, I used to do that all the time and I'll do it here. I love the show.

• 33:27Adam Buxton?

  Oh, good.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  And I thought, holy crap. I said, if this is a podcast, I'm not going to be able to do shows like this. And that's when I quit being interested in podcasts. So thank you. I think you did me a favor and, and it was a good example to prove to others. Oh yeah, he can't do a show that well.

• 33:44Adam Buxton?

  Well, I hope you're not being serious. Obviously you would be great at podcasting.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no. I, I would rather come on and ruin yours than ruin mine. But yours is wildly successful. And, and as we know, there's an infinite number of podcasts.

• 33:58Adam Buxton?

  Yes.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  So to succeed in this neighborhood is like succeeding on the internet. It, the numbers are stacked against you. So nice going.

• 34:06Adam Buxton?

  Thank you very much. When you're doing the shows now for Netflix, do you feel like you have to be careful of what you say? Do you ever sort of censor yourself or are you just having free wheeling conversations and thinking, let's leave it to the edit to make the decisions about what's okay and what's not?

• 34:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I, I mean, that is the, the fine line because we like to do them with, with an audience. And so because of, we're all adults, you, you need to be careful of what an adult might say or think.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  So that's, I don't, I'm not sure how to answer that, but there is caution, yeah. It's like this, I don't know, I don't, I don't feel that pressure. But it's a, a program, it's a big money operation for a big money outlet and it's got to look a certain way and it's got to feel a certain way. So there is pressure, yeah. But in terms of editorial matters, I always find out later that I've said something stupid or something inappropriate or, yeah. And then it's like, well, what do we do? Geez, I don't, I don't know, what do we do? Yeah, I don't, yeah.

• 35:11Adam Buxton?

  But you never put your foot in it badly?

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:13Adam Buxton?

  On The Late Show, did you? Did you ever say anything that was?

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Well, it was, I was doing it at a time when there was no such thing as putting your foot in your mouth or putting it in a puddle of mud because there was nobody breathing down your neck. But now, you know, I don't need to tell you, I'm, I'm sure people have winced occasionally when you've said things and then you have to apologize. The worst it got for us was I would offend guests. And we had a, I think a producer or a talent coordinator who thought the way to make amends with these people who had flown in from California to New York and then I had inadvertently or on purpose mistreated them was to send them citrus fruit trees. So there for a while, that became the marker.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  All right, send them a lemon tree. And I think we had a deal with an orchard somewhere where we were constantly air freighting lemon trees to Beverly Hills.

• 36:13Adam Buxton?

  Do you ever watch your old interview pieces? Do you ever have an opportunity to do that?

• 36:18Speaker 02

  No. Well, I have the opportunity, I choose not to.

• 36:21Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  I mean, it's not that big a deal, it's just like, I was there, I lived through it, I don't, most of it, I don't feel like reliving, you know? I don't like looking at pictures, I don't like looking at old video, and I, I just think that's part of the human mechanism. It's just another sign of, oh, yeah, that, that happened, time keeps moving and we don't need to go back.

• 36:42Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Did you have in those days rituals for preparing for a show, like getting yourself in the zone?

• 36:50Speaker 02

  Uh, the ritual was preparing. That's, that's what got you. It, I look back on it and one of the biggest problems when I left that was I left the ritual behind. I knew what time I would have breakfast. I knew what I was gonna have for breakfast. I knew what time I'd go to a meeting. It was always the same, day after day after day. Six thousand or more repetitions of that. So, that was the preparation for the show. And it came right down to the moment when I was introduced. I would do A, and then I would do B, and then I would do C, and it just went, it was a checklist. And you didn't have to check anything because it was the lifeblood of, of the organism, you know? Uh, it's, it's 2:30, I pick out a tie. Uh, it's 2:20, I put on the tie. You know, it just was all

• 37:34Speaker 02

  like that, but all second nature. I, I think for, for anybody who does a, a job, the routine of it is the preparation, or at least it was for me. But everybody has a routine.

• 37:44Adam Buxton?

  Did you like that routine?

• 37:46Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, I loved it. Uh, but the problem is I never had to do any, I, I still to this day don't know how to make phone calls. It's maddening to me that I don't, I, I hate this, and I, but I can't, I couldn't call you. Give me your number and just wait for me to call. You know, it's not gonna happen. Somebody will call eventually for me and then put me on the phone.

• 38:06Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  I can't answer a phone. When I was a kid, the phone was plugged into the wall. It would ring. You would pick up the big, heavy, uh, what's the thing that preceded plastic some, anyway?

• 38:17Adam Buxton?

  Bakelite?

• 38:17Speaker 02

  That's right. And then you would say hello. I can't answer a phone now. My wife calls me, I, you know, it's, I, I, I start typing. I don't know how to get a voice out of the phone.

• 38:28Adam Buxton?

  (laughing)

• 38:29Speaker 02

  So it's pathetic.

• 38:30Adam Buxton?

  Are you claiming that you were infantilized by the job?

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. I, I honestly, I didn't have to do anything. Shoes? No, I don't, I didn't buy shoes for 30 years. They were always, oh, put these shoes on. Fine, I'll put them on.

• 38:43Adam Buxton?

  Sounds nice.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  Socks? I, I, I've never bought socks. I know this is embarrassing, and I'm not bragging. It's desperate.

• 38:51Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Don't worry, you're not missing anything. Can I ask you, tell me if these are questions you don't want to talk about. But, you know, I've been watching a lot of your bits and pieces and knowing that I was going to talk to you. And one thing that I thought was fascinating out of the bits that often come up when people talk about The Late Show was that blackmail in 2009. And I was interested by the way you handled it and the decision you made to talk about it on the show and how you arrived at that decision.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  It seemed like I didn't, there wasn't a decision to be made. It seemed like the only thing to do. Because I, it happened and I had to announce that it happened. There was, I couldn't pretend it had not happened. And I just felt like, okay, I would, I would talk about virtually anything else that had happened. And I felt like, this is what a responsible, well, forget the word responsible. This is what a person should do with various aspects of their life that are good and bad, but in this case, bad. So I just felt the response, again, responsibility is not the word. Nothing responsible about my behavior, but I just felt like, yeah, you know, what am

• 40:14Speaker 02

  I going to do other than say, here's what happened?

• 40:16Adam Buxton?

  Well, I suppose what you could have done is pay off the guy to keep the story out of the press.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I could have.

• 40:23Adam Buxton?

  But that didn't cross your mind?

• 40:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 40:26Adam Buxton?

  In that situation, then, do you sit down with your producer on the show and talk it through? And is it a fairly short conversation or were they saying like?

• 40:35Speaker 02

  It was a fairly short conversation. It was a gathering before the show and I explained to them what was going on. And I think the following day, it was going to be announced by, I don't know what justice officer it was. Anyway, it was going to be made public the next day. And I said, here's what's happened and this is what I'm going to do. And then that's what I did. The thing I can remember, sort of on the lighter edge of this sort of thing, the first guest after this announcement and discussion on my part was Woody Harrelson. And

• 41:16Speaker 02

  He just, you could tell he didn't really want to come out. He just thought, ah, I may be on the wrong show.

• 41:24Adam Buxton?

  How do I follow that?

• 41:25Speaker 02

  And I remember running into him years and years later and having the same kind of conversation with him about it. Which was like, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to walk into that.

• 41:38Adam Buxton?

  Were the audience primed at all? Because it sounded like they didn't know how to respond. They thought that you were doing a bit, almost.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  I guess. I mean, how do you respond?

• 41:49Adam Buxton?

  But did you not think like, well, we have to say to the audience beforehand, okay, this is going to be serious. Dave's going to talk about something serious and just can you go along with it? And it's not a bit?

• 42:00Speaker 02

  No. There was, there was no preparation of the audience. Guess what, folks? You're here on a good night. Dave's got, Dave's gotten himself into some trouble and he's going to talk about it, so get ready to have fun. Uh, no, other than telling the staff what was going to happen, I just went out and did it.

• 42:17Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. And the other thing that I was looking for was the monologue you did after nine eleven. And that's not there anymore. I mean, it's, you can find it, but it's not easily available on YouTube. But it's something that I'd read about so many times. And it's something that meant a great deal to people. And I was wondering why it's not part of your Worldwide Pants archive on YouTube.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 42:45Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  I, I, yeah, I have no answer. I mean, I'm sure there is an answer. I don't know if it was just, I don't know. We'll have to ask somebody.

• 42:54Adam Buxton?

  I was, I was wondering if it was because you were so complimentary about Giuliani.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  Oh, no. But I mean, isn't that the A and the B of it? Because not only for myself, but for the entire country, this is the man who lit the flame of hope.

• 43:10Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  Uh, and beyond. And I can remember dreading this whole experience. And listening to his explanation of what was required, we had to go forward. We were strong. And so I felt like, well, this is a message not just to everyone, it's a message to me as well. I, I do a nightly show there. I got to go back. I don't know, you tell me what what misfired there. I don't know.

• 43:38Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 43:40Adam Buxton?

  But it was tremendously inspiring. I mean, there's so many people that I came across writing online about how important it was to them for you to be there. And it was very moving. I was visiting, you know, I hadn't been to New York for a few years, and I'm staying down in Wall Street, where I've never really visited before.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a great area.

• 44:00Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Tremendous area, and I was just down in that very area a week ago, looking around at what is there now versus twenty years ago, twenty-five years ago.

• 44:09Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  It's remarkable.

• 44:11Adam Buxton?

  And I was, I was just walking around, rather than take the subway, I've just been walking everywhere, and found myself randomly at World Trade Center.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:20Adam Buxton?

  And suddenly confronted by the memorial and what's there now, and was completely, you know, polaxed emotionally. And it was really heavy, just to be there and look at the names around the memorial.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Yep. I was, I was, my wife and I went down there, I think, two weeks after the attack. And you could go down there and sort of, visit is the wrong word, but experience it. And I just remember a tower of rubble, hugely tall and round and a mound. And the only way to describe the size, there was a caterpillar, like a bulldozer, and it was up on the side of this mound of debris, and so dwarfed by the mound that it looked like a child's toy.

• 45:17Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  And here's the thing, you couldn't get in this room, it's so big. And wedged, seated in place on top of the debris consisting of god knows what. And then considering that to what they have done now, remarkable. And a true testament to the Resourcefulness and resilience of the human spirit. And everybody who lives in this area should, especially everybody who was here when it happened, should go down there and have those two influences.

• 45:51Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, it's very moving. But yeah, you know, not to belabor the point, but I thought, I think it would be good if you put that clip back. It's nice to be reminded that actually what people like you do is communicate and make connections with people, and that's a valuable thing, especially in those moments, you know.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  I will look into this as soon as possible.

• 46:16Adam Buxton?

  Okay, thanks. If I could have some action on that within the week, I'd be...

• 46:19Speaker 02

  We'll get right back to you.

• 46:20Adam Buxton?

  I'd be pleased.

• 46:39Adam Buxton?

  One of the clips that I enjoyed watching on YouTube, Letterman Wise, was Bob Dylan on some of his appearances on your show. He was your last musical guest in 2015, right?

• 46:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:51Adam Buxton?

  Not bad. And he first appeared in 1984. Very good performance, like sort of weirdly, totally anomalous as far as what he was like around the time. And just generally, like, he really pulled it out. He had this sort of young Tex Mex punk band or something with him as his backing band? And he's brilliant.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  Yes, I know little about that. I know Bob Dylan, and I remember when he was first on the show, we were thrilled because Bob Dylan was not on TV.

• 47:25Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  You know. And it was great for us, and he was nice enough to be on the show many, many times. And I just watched the Bob Dylan biopic, Out of the Blue, or Welcome Back, or I Know Where I'm Going. What's the name of it?

• 47:39Adam Buxton?

  A Complete Unknown.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  A Complete Unknown.

• 47:41Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  I would have gotten it later today. And I loved it. I just loved it. And to have been a small part of his life... You know, to me, that was a great compliment for him to be on the show.

• 47:55Adam Buxton?

  It's a good film, isn't it?

• 47:56Speaker 02

  Oh, it's a great film, yeah. And, and, you know, yeah, I didn't find nothing wrong with it. I loved it.

• 48:01Adam Buxton?

  Chalamet's brilliant. The fact that he sings all those songs.

• 48:04Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 48:05Adam Buxton?

  The woman who plays Joan Baez is amazing. Yeah, I, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. But I also saw a clip where you're at Radio City Music Hall.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:15Adam Buxton?

  10th anniversary of the late show.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:18Adam Buxton?

  And he's your musical guest.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:20Adam Buxton?

  And you've got this giant, amazing band with Paul Shaffer, but you've also got like Emmylou Harris and Michelle Shocked and this massive great horn section and backing singers and everything.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Do you know the, the story of this? Do you know the whole story of this? Uh, Bob Dylan, at that point, had been on the show, I don't know, four times, a half a dozen times? And, uh, he agreed to be on this anniversary show at Radio City Music.

• 48:44Adam Buxton?

  1992.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  92. And the story goes that, uh, Bob was under the impression that it, he would be performing by himself, or maybe with just Paul in the band. He did not realize, as the story goes, that there would be other well-known musicians in the, this is the day of the super band, you know, you just had to have... Anyway. So Bob rehearses the night before with, with Paul. And that goes pretty well. Paul's pleased and Bob's pleased and, uh, Paul is playing the keyboard and Bob is guitar and singing. And so now Bob is comfortable. And then he shows up for rehearsal in, in the Radio City Music Hall and there are the people that, some of whom you mentioned.

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Now Bob apparently feels that he's been had by his manager, by our show, by whomever might want to play a trick on Bob. Anyway, a misunderstanding. Uh, and the story goes that his performance of, like a Rolling Stone, uh, is, it, it should, you, we should have had someone out there signing. Because you couldn't really understand what he was saying. So after the show, we're all... Puzzled and then people kept saying, yeah, but you know, the truth of it is that's what you get these days with Bob Dylan. Well, it turns out, no, that's not what you got in those days with Bob, maybe on an off night, but this seemed to have been deliberate.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  And, and the idea was Bob so miffed that he was the, the front singer for this super band irritated him. So he thought, I'm just gonna give the kids a little something to talk about. And it, it kinda hurt my feelings. And then as the years went by, I realized, I love that about Bob Dylan. If that's true, thank God we were a part of it. Geez, that's tremendous. Sure, he won a Nobel Prize, but look at this for heaven's sake. And right there, the big stage, yes, it's Bob Dylan. And you can't understand a word, not a word. Even if you memorize the song, you don't know what he's singing. So I find that to

• 50:50Speaker 02

  be just delightful, heroic on his part. And I'm just so proud of that moment.

• 50:56Adam Buxton?

  It was amazing.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  Was that, was that your impression that you couldn't understand much?

• 51:02Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  And did you think that was the regular Bob Dylan or something?

• 51:05Adam Buxton?

  I thought there was a chance it was regular Bobbles, but at the same time, it was very extreme. It was just sounds. The thing is that Elton John has become a little bit like that, not as extreme. But Elton John mainly just does the vowels of the songs now and, and sort of makes the vague sound.

• 51:29Speaker 02

  And good for him. Well, I mean, honestly.

• 51:32Adam Buxton?

  And that's Rocket Man.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's fine.

• 51:39Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. And as you say, it's fine when it's Bob. And I do think though, now that you mention it. He is smirking as well, like he-

• 51:48Speaker 02

  During the performance?

• 51:49Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 51:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:50Adam Buxton?

  Every now and again-

• 51:51Speaker 02

  I'll look at it again. I saw a, there's a kid, the guy who does a show on YouTube called Professor of Rock. And he provides music profiles of the artists, of the music of my generation and beyond, earlier and later. And he devoted a whole show to Like a Rolling Stone. And what inspiration caused the song, what it meant to not only Bob, to everybody, to every musician since. And how it was iconic, it was anthemic, and it was this, and it was that. And I thought, wow, I, the buildup of the song was heroic. And I thought, I'm gonna go take a look at that thing at Radio City Music Hall. And so I loaded up and I watched it, I just couldn't stop laughing.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  Because everything he described of that song, completely nonexistent in that performance. It was like, Bob, have you had too much to drink? It was just, I mean, the comparison was delightful.

• 52:51Adam Buxton?

  I didn't realize he worked quite closely, or at least he had some contact with the director of A Complete Unknown. So he was involved with it. It wasn't one of those things that happened kind of despite him.

• 53:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I heard that as well. Uh, and people were saying, should he have actually been allowed to get in there? And he, I guess, introduced a possible scene that had not appeared in the original script. This is just stuff I've heard. I don't know if it's accurate. I don't care. I loved every dang minute of it. It was like somebody had recorded a part of my life that it was great to see replayed like that again.

• 53:25Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Uh, what were you doing? You were a little bit young for that, weren't you?

• 53:30Speaker 02

  No, I was right there. But I think Bob and I are the same age. He may be a year or two older than I am.

• 53:34Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 53:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:35Adam Buxton?

  So what were you doing in those days then?

• 53:38Speaker 02

  Well, I was lucky enough, early enough.

• 53:40Adam Buxton?

  Smoking.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, smoking, sure. I was working in a TV station when I was twenty, so I was lucky enough to be doing what I wanted to do the rest of my life, early in my life.

• 53:51Adam Buxton?

  Was that when you were a news reporter?

• 53:53Speaker 02

  Did the weather on a TV station in Indianapolis, Indiana.

• 53:58Adam Buxton?

  That was the first TV job you got?

• 54:00Speaker 02

  Yep, yep, yeah, right out of...I was hired when I was in college to be their summer announcer, and from there, after two years of that, worked there another three or four years, full-time. For me, a big deal.

• 54:14Adam Buxton?

  Did you know a great deal about meteorology?

• 54:16Speaker 02

  Nothing. I knew you had a cold front, you had a warm front, and you have the occluded front. That's all I know.

• 54:24Adam Buxton?

  But you were just good at talking?

• 54:28Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, it's...what does Martha Stewart really know about cobbler? Does that make sense? I don't know.

• 54:38Adam Buxton?

  So you got that gig, and then what was the thing that made you want to be a stand-up?

• 54:43Speaker 02

  Well, I didn't want to be a stand-up, but I knew I couldn't continue in local TV, so I quit the TV station, and a kid came to Indianapolis and bought a radio station, and he said, "Will you work for us?" And I said, "Yeah, I'll work here for a year, and then I'm going to California." So I gave myself that deadline to get to California, and that's what I did, and it worked out.

• 55:05Adam Buxton?

  Thinking that in California, that's where you'd be able to pursue your show business?

• 55:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, in those days, it was pretty easy. You just go to a place called The Comedy Store, and from there, you get to be on The Tonight Show, and from there, you get to be wonderfully famous, and that's...

• 55:21Adam Buxton?

  I mean, that's sort of the way you did it, then?

• 55:22Speaker 02

  It was the way everybody did it, yeah. I don't know how people do it now. I guess they do it by recording shows in their bedrooms.

• 55:29Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I guess so. Who was there, then, in The Comedy Store when you got out to Los Angeles, mid-seventies?

• 55:37Speaker 02

  Nineteen seventy, nineteen seventy-five, yeah, exactly, mid-seventies. Freddie Prinze was huge. I guess people don't know these names now. David Brenner was huge. The guy from Welcome Back, Cotter. Gabe Kaplan was huge. Joan Rivers was getting really big. Um, and then in my class, it got to be Jay Leno, got to be Robin Williams, got to be Elaine Boosler. Uh, Ri- oh, Richard Pryor was, was there previously. So it was a pretty muscular gathering of comics, you know.

• 56:11Adam Buxton?

  And were you all carousing together?

• 56:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it was, it was delightful. It was a great bit of fun. I'm sure you had your own experience of this sort of thing. It's you and your buddies and everybody's funny. I was thrilled because I had to explain to myself, here's what I get to do is I get to go to this place when it's dark and spend two or three hours. And everybody I'm with are really funny, really funny. And they are funny and they make me laugh and I try to make them laugh. And I get to do it again the next night. And I thought, I've never had a job like this where anybody was funny. You associate your job with nobody being funny. Uh, so this was an upside down world for me and

• 56:55Speaker 02

  and whenever I talk to my friends about it, everybody has the, the same fond impression of those days.

• 57:02Adam Buxton?

  I mean, I, stand-up was never my background really, and I do the odd show now and go on charity, mixed bills and things like that. And nowadays comedy green rooms are fairly sterile places as far as I can tell. Everyone's got their eight by tens and they're working out their stats and they're booking their shows and and they're very, there's kind of a serious atmosphere. Um, but presumably that's not what it was like.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Not what it was then. It's a huge business now, which I, I, at first I wasn't aware of. And then I realized it's, it's an enormous industry. And back then, the goal was simple. Somebody comes into The Tonight Show from, a guy named Merv Griffin had a talk show. And The Tonight Show was the pinnacle with Johnny Carson. Your next best opportunity was Merv Griffin. So you put together material to get on the Merv Griffin Show. And with that, maybe, under your belt, you'd get to The Tonight Show. It's not like that anymore. Now, it's, I need a multiple show deal with Netflix at several million dollars a show. And it's serious stuff.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Somebody was telling me about John Mulaney, who is currently working on his next Netflix special. And he thought that the whole thing would take more than two years, and maybe it was even three years. That's a lot of work for a lot of money. When we were doing it, you have a good five minutes on The Tonight Show, and you'll be on a situation comedy. And that was it. You know, that's what Freddie Prinze had done, that's what Gabe Kaplan had done, that's what David Brenner had done. Richard Pryor was the outlier in that, you know, he's big powerhouse concert comedy guy in those days.

• 58:41Adam Buxton?

  Right. And were you, were you sort of aware nowadays, you know, rightly, the conversation is much more about people's mental health and how they are doing, and whether they're struggling, and behavior that needs to be looked at? Were you guys having those conversations?

• 58:59Speaker 02

  No, no, no. It was, it was a lot of cocaine and a lot of, excuse the expression, romantic conversations. A lot of being on the road.

• 59:12Adam Buxton?

  What kind of romantic conversations?

• 59:14Speaker 02

  I just, you know, in show business, you have men, you have women. And then you have romance.

• 59:20Adam Buxton?

  Okay, okay, yes, yes.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  I mean...

• 59:22Adam Buxton?

  I was thinking...

• 59:23Speaker 02

  So, and people talk about it.

• 59:25Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I was imagining you and Robin Williams sort of sitting there and talking about poetry or something.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  Oh, I see, a different form of romance.

• 59:33Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 59:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, Robin Williams was a very literate fellow. He could have had that conversation.

• 59:38Adam Buxton?

  What was a typical, what was like, do you have a memory of a fun day in Los Angeles back then where you just thought, "This is fucking great"?

• 59:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would get up in the, whenever I got up, and go to Park at North Hollywood and play basketball in the park. And then come home and maybe try to write jokes, very bad at writing jokes. And then, you know, you shower up, you get ready, and you go to the Comedy Store. And that's when the fun began. That's what it was.

• 1:00:06Adam Buxton?

  And then you go out afterwards and...

• 1:00:08Speaker 02

  Some, uh, people like to go out and stay up all night because this was uh, kind of the, the, the profile, the, the pattern set by uh, real show business people. You do your show, you stay out all night. I couldn't do that, didn't really want to do that. I did it a couple of times. Enough to realize, I, I think I'll just go home, go to bed.

• 1:00:26Adam Buxton?

  Okay, so you weren't bumping into the Hollywood vampires, Alice Cooper and John Lennon and...

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  No, we, we, I think we were after that, after that period.

• 1:00:37Adam Buxton?

  A little bit after, yeah.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  And we were, you know, we had our own little group that we marauded with.

• 1:00:43Adam Buxton?

  When did you first encounter Norm MacDonald?

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  I believe it would have been on the show, on the show I did. I think he was a guest on the show. I think he was a guest many times. And, uh, you don't realize how delightful the guy was until he drops dead. And then you realize, holy shit, thi- this was, whoa. Where, where are these guys? Uh, and the, the fact that he's still celebrated is great, but it's, you know, he'd still be great alive. We'd rather have the alive version, but what an impression he left on the world of comedy.

• 1:01:20Adam Buxton?

  I mean, that's another clip. I've watched it so many times, his last appearance on your show. Even just mentioning it starts bringing up the emotion of it because it's such a roller coaster. He's really funny on it. And then he gets choked up and it's, uh, it's devastating.

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  The, the stuff that I enjoy watching, and I, I didn't see it at the time because I was out working at the time, is when he would do the Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live. And Norm just defied you with these jokes. Here, here's something I think is funny. I don't care whether you think it's funny or not. And he would just sit there and gun people with this stuff. And the intent and the satisfaction that he achieved that way, remarkably delightful. Just great, good, Norm, good. And he allegedly had, we heard this, uh, and I guess all comedians might have had this. If the audience is shitty, they don't worry about their good set.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  They'll go to the shitty audience set and give these people something really to be shitty about. And Norm apparently, uh, was the master of that art. Oh, you're shitty tonight. Well, guess what? You're gonna get the shitty material.

• 1:02:34Adam Buxton?

  Were you ever shocked by him like because he could be so sort of sweet and silly? That was such a big part of him. But then also he was just sort of gleefully able to push these big buttons, race buttons, gender buttons in the jokes, that is. And it was shocking sometimes.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:02:52Adam Buxton?

  And and obviously he was, he was delighted by the fact that people were shocked. What did you make of it?

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  Well, I, you know, is, is, uh, yeah, I probably in those days probably was, uh, just, oh, what happens there? But, you know, the confidence of the man, so you just, okay, this is what he is.

• 1:03:10Adam Buxton?

  You sort of have to trust him, I suppose. You sort of have a level of trust in him as a person.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  Well, it's, it's more practical than that. Okay, if you think you can defend yourself against this material, go ahead. You know, you can make jokes about anything if you're living, willing to live with the aftermath. And Norm seemed to relish whatever aftermath there might be.

• 1:03:33Adam Buxton?

  He seemed not to give a shit.

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  Yes, and and I think, yeah, and I, as far as I knew, that was genuine. But it's so delightful. And I was just the opposite. I, I felt like, ooh, if I don't get a laugh, I'll be under the house.

• 1:03:47Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. And yet he used to talk to you on, on your show about times when he bombed and and it was, it was interesting because I thought, uh, I wonder if he does care, like on some level, he seems to be aware when he hasn't done well and he would prefer that he did.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:04Adam Buxton?

  But at the same time, he just, it seems to glide off him.

• 1:04:08Speaker 02

  I think he was like, to me, I, I'm a bit of a worm. I have a very low threshold of embarrassment. Norm doesn't seem to be capable of embarrassment at all. And I admire that. Because I've embarrassed myself pitifully here today, nine or 10 times. And it's gonna, I, I won't be leaving the house. Uh, but Norm, I mean, he was a gladiator, God bless him. And, and the idea that, uh, the people at Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels gets a call from Don O'Meyer, who was running the network at the time, and told Lorne, tell Norm, he's got to fly out here for a meeting in Los Angeles with me, the head of NBC.

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  Norm gets on the plane, probably has not really an idea what's going on. And Don O'Meyer says, you're fired. And I just think. Well, that, that does, why does that happen? You know, stop doing OJ Simpson jokes. That apparently was the root of the.

• 1:05:06Adam Buxton?

  Don O'Meyer was a friend of OJ's, was he?

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  Apparently, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:10Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, and he, and Norm was just relentlessly going after this OJ is a murderer thing before the verdict had come out.

• 1:05:17Speaker 02

  But I, I don't know, I mean, I, I recognize that NBC is a publicly traded company and they can choose and pick whatever they want on their air. But the idea of make Norm get on a plane and fly him out here, so, uh, uh, Don O'Meyer, Mr. Cufflinks, the man who invented the starched shirt and the cufflinks, they're gonna fire Norm, I just thought, good for Norm, you know, that's just, that's delightful, the stupidity of that is hilarious.

• 1:05:46Adam Buxton?

  I loved when he did Bob Saget's roast. Have you seen that clip? So this is a thing that we don't really have so much of in the UK is the, the roast culture.

• 1:05:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Adam Buxton?

  Everyone takes turns to say the worst things they can possibly think of about a certain person. And the comedians just go for it and say appalling things that are, obviously they genuinely feel some of the time, it seems fairly obvious, about, uh, about this comedian, but they, but the, the whole tradition of the event is that you just have to suck it up and laugh it off, right? Anyway, Bob Saget, who, how would you describe Bob Saget to people who didn't know?

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  Well, uh, uh, to me, well, you see him on The Full House Show. And, and he was America's father. That was a self attained nickname, I don't know. Happy, nice, kids, family, show, very popular among families, and presentable, he, he looked like it might be a Sunday school teacher or a youth minister or something. But his material was just, just god awful.

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  How do you describe it? Just biologic, just sexual, just any ugly turn on any human behavior? That was Bob. And foul language and couldn't get enough of it.

• 1:07:02Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 1:07:03Speaker 02

  And then, you know, offstage, "Nice set, Bob?" "Oh, good, great. You wanna get a sandwich?" You know, he was just back to normal. But his material was that of a man possessed.

• 1:07:15Adam Buxton?

  So Norm turns up at the roast of Bob Saget and everyone, all these other comedians are going up and saying terrible things about Bob Saget. And Norm, uh... I wrote down... So he's supposed to go out there and be absolutely appalling to Bob Saget. And he just makes this string of tame, sweet jokes and says, "Bob, you have a lot of well-wishers here tonight, and a lot of them would like to throw you down one. A well. They want to murder you in a well. No, but Bob has a beautiful face, like a flower. Yeah, a cauliflower. No offense, but your face looks like a cauliflower."

• 1:07:53Speaker 02

  See, so, let's stop right there. What has Norm done there? You know, they're not funny, but yet they're funny.

• 1:08:02Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:02Speaker 02

  You know, they're stupid. And they're not insulting, but they are. I mean, how do you construct that? That's wizardry, isn't it?

• 1:08:10Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, it really is. Just, and at the same time to sort of defang the whole event and to kind of reveal it as kind of pompous in its own way and self-serving, all these comedians trying to outdo each other for who can be more horrible.

• 1:08:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:08:26Adam Buxton?

  And he goes out and just makes a joke like, "You've got a face like a cauliflower."

• 1:08:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I would guess, not having seen the effort, but I would guess that he's what people talked about after the fact.

• 1:08:36Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, oh yeah, definitely.

• 1:08:58Adam Buxton?

  What are the rewards of getting older?

• 1:09:00Speaker 02

  Wow, rewards. Well, you get to see family members living a life you've already come to know and live. And that's rewarding, if not troubling. Because whatever, and I'm speaking of my son. Whatever my son is happy or troubled about, I have been happy and troubled about the same thing. As a parent, this is universal, right? And that's rewarding to see them respond to something great in a way we as younger people would have responded to. So that's a real connection. Not just between a father and a son, but of life. The thing about growing older, I find I have more time to actually, you know, question, "I don't,

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  I don't know what's going on." And I can't stop thinking about it. And I wonder why, when I was younger, I, this didn't occur to me. Stuff doesn't, just doesn't make any sense. But yet, it seems like,

• 1:10:02Speaker 02

  I mean, here we are. On the, on the other hand, we're still shooting and killing people. But yet, here we are, and you look around at the solar system and you have planets, and they're all burned out and dead. And does that mean at one point they were all alive and green, like Earth? I don't know. And then they put the, the James Webb telescope up and everything that we thought had nailed down, answerable, seems to now be in question because of new evidence. A lot to think about.

• 1:10:35Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I was just looking for some snack recommendations.

• 1:10:40Adam Buxton?

  For your diet regimen. Now, I heard you talking about the fact that you yourself were shy when you were a kid.

• 1:10:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:10:48Adam Buxton?

  And your son was shy. I don't know if he still is.

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  He's shy around me. I've seen him around his friends and, uh, you know, he's a Mr. Chamber of Commerce around his friends. But around me.

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  Can you wait in the car? No, please. Just wait in the car. A lot like that. And it's hard, I don't know if your kids were like that, but it's hard not to be offended by that. And, and my wife and I would, oh, no, he likes you. Really? Did you, it didn't seem. So, yeah, that's something to deal with.

• 1:11:23Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. But I remember you saying that seeing him shy, certainly when he was younger, made you worry that you had done something wrong, even though you yourself were shy and you got through it fine. But it is true, isn't it, that you see those things in your children and your, well, I suppose not for everybody, but for perhaps people like us. Your first response is to think, ah, I fucked it up.

• 1:11:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I, I'm so glad to hear you say that because even as a man who's motivated solely by guilt, only by guilt, the, the only, only true motivating factor in life, beyond measurement, I assume that with every breath the kid takes. So thank you for that. I'm assuming because you have that experience, identical to mine, that likely it's not founded. Thank you.

• 1:12:08Adam Buxton?

  I would hope not. And also, unless you're a total monster as a parent, what you do doesn't make that much difference to how they turn out. I think that, you know, obviously within certain parameters and you can influence this a little bit and you can be a great parent, but fundamentally, they will be who they are and they, and you can't change that much about it.

• 1:12:31Speaker 02

  Don't all parents worry about this? And that's confounding. And then the other thing, it's not just your wife and you, it's recombinant DNA. It's dozens and hundreds of genetic influences that are distilled in that kid.

• 1:12:46Adam Buxton?

  I'm also in full agreement with you about photographs, which I, you express something that I, I don't hear very often, which is how. How dangerous they are, how looking back through family photos and snaps from ten years ago, or even just five years ago is painful. It's violence. Photos are violence.

• 1:13:09Speaker 02

  Do you feel this way? Does your wife feel this way?

• 1:13:11Adam Buxton?

  I don't. Uh, yes, I think she does, actually. And I think she felt it before I did because I'm the archivist of the family. I take photographs all the time and I would compile family albums every Christmas and loved doing it. But I I never understood why my wife wasn't as enthusiastic about it as me. And I think it's because she arrived there before I did.

• 1:13:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't, I can't do it. I I admire the fact that you uh, put these things together. I I can't do that. I can't, I I I turn down photos all through the house now when the kid was six months, three months, four months, eight years, ten years. I I can't, I just can't look at them. I can't look at pictures of myself. I can't watch old shows. Uh, I don't know. I I and I don't care, you know, I I is that, that's, believe me, that's not my biggest problem.

• 1:13:59Adam Buxton?

  You have a smartphone. Yeah, I can see you have a smartphone.

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  One right here, buddy.

• 1:14:02Adam Buxton?

  And do you get sent so-called memories by Apple?

• 1:14:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, every now and then they'll come up, uh, holiday fun, two thousand twelve. And I think, who the fuck put holiday fun on here? I I'm not paying for this. And sure enough, there's holiday fun from two thousand twelve. I don't know how it happens. But again, that's not my biggest problem.

• 1:14:23Adam Buxton?

  Have you ever had one of getting memories? Because the the algorithm is so good now that they can very accurately identify each member of your family and, you know, agglomerate them into memory bombs. And I got one that was all about my mom who died in twenty twenty. And fairly soon after she died, I got one that included her a few days before she died.

• 1:14:48Speaker 02

  Grizzly.

• 1:14:49Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, and she was in hospital. I didn't, I took, I mean, in a way, I'm to blame for taking too many photographs.

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  It's all your fault, isn't it?

• 1:14:56Adam Buxton?

  It is. Do you know any tech bros?

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  Ah, yeah, I guess. I, I, it's just, again, it's, it's a part of town I never go into. I just don't want to go over there. I don't want to know people from that part of town.

• 1:15:10Adam Buxton?

  Elon hasn't been to stay in Montana.

• 1:15:12Speaker 02

  We were trying to get Elon Musk years ago to do a thing at Lincoln Center. It would be a night with Elon Musk and I would chat with him. And so, and Elon Musk had been on the show a couple of times, maybe once. I, at that point, owned two Teslas, the, the Sportster and the sedan and stuff. So I called him and I said, would you like to be a part of this night with Elon Musk at Lincoln Center? It'll be a lovely evening and we'll chat. And I said, this would be great. And he said, yeah, I, I only do things like that for people who have done things for me.

• 1:15:53Speaker 02

  Okay, okay, thanks. And I was angry at myself because I didn't say, hey, you motherfucker, I own two of your goddamn cars. And when you released the new sedan, you were on my show. Isn't that enough to do for you? And maybe that's what he was waiting for. But I was so cowardly that I just thanked him. Oh, okay. You know, I got it.

• 1:16:14Adam Buxton?

  We'll send this to him.

• 1:16:23Adam Buxton?

  This is an ad for Squarespace.

• 1:16:26Adam Buxton?

  Okay, we'll return to the AI apocalypse in just a wee, wee moment. But first, I wanted to talk about Squarespace. Do you know about Squarespace, Steve? Uh, yes, Monty. I think I might even be a little bit more tuned into modern tech, websites, et cetera, than you. I don't know, just guessing. Oh, Steve, I love this dynamic. I'm old and conservative and you're young and progressive and that's what makes the Newswind podcast such great listening. But yes, you're right. I must admit, I didn't know much about Squarespace. But because my new grumble book, Hell in a Handcart, is out this month, and I look forward to getting enraged by that, so I should hope. Anyway, the publishers, Bluestar and Dogwhistle, made a beautiful website for the book using Squarespace. I know, I got the newsletter that you sent out using Squarespace, and the website does look great. Videos of you airing your views, members' areas for your mad fans, you've even got a merch store, I see.

• 1:17:11Adam Buxton?

  That's right, a Union Jack top hat is a big seller, but they constructed it all so fast with Squarespace. They did most of it over one lunchtime, Steve. Well, you wouldn't want to spend much longer on it, would you? Shut up, Steve. But here's the thing, anyone listening to this can start a free trial right now at squarespace.com/boxton and see how easy and versatile Squarespace is. And when they're ready to launch a new website or domain, they can save 10% off their first purchase by using the offer code BOXTON at checkout. Right, well, maybe I'll visit squarespace.com/boxton and start a new website just to refute all the nonsense in your new book. Oh, don't do that, Steve. I will. Oh, shut up, Steve. Eh. Shut up. Now, back to more depressing matters on Newsweek.

• 1:17:50Speaker 02

  Continue. Thanks so much, Steve, that was brilliant. That seems to be Seamus's work. Oh, no, that was brilliant. Everyone walked out. No, no, it was brilliant.

• 1:18:09Adam Buxton?

  Hey, welcome back, podcats. That was Dave Letterman talking to me there, I call him Dave, and I'm extremely grateful to Dave for making the time to talk to me. It was great to meet him, I loved every second, he was a dream podcast guest, and I am so thankful to him, but also to his team, he's got lots of people helping him out and organising, he's a busy guy. So, thanks to them, but thanks most of all to Seamus Murphy Mitchell, who, as I said at the top, works with Dave. And was really instrumental in making the whole thing happen.

• 1:18:52Adam Buxton?

  I really appreciate it, Seamus, and I hope you don't get fired as a result. There's a few links in the description of today's podcast of clips that I particularly enjoyed watching when I was preparing to meet Dave, some of which I was familiar with already, others which were new to me, lots of compilations of great moments. I mean, it was an amazingly groundbreaking show, which was so influential on a whole generation of American comedians who went on to work on The Simpsons and shows like that. Anyway, you've got links there to some great moments. I think I also managed to find a clip, albeit a very low quality clip,

• 1:19:33Adam Buxton?

  of him doing his 9/11 monologue. That's on Dailymotion. There's Norm MacDonald, that wonderful clip, which I've posted before, of him on the last ever Late Show episode, as well as a compilation of some of his other appearances with Letterman. And there's one or two other links to some of the things we spoke about in the description as well, including a link to Richard Iwaddy's book, The Unfinished Harold Hughes, at least the first book in that quadrilogy. But there's even more Richard Iwaddy coming your way. In a couple of weeks, he's going to be a guest on the podcast.

• 1:20:16Adam Buxton?

  And that was a conversation we recorded recently, although it will also include one or two bits from the live show that we did last year as part of the podcast tour.

• 1:20:28Adam Buxton?

  So yes, I was on Bake Off for Stand Up to Cancer. We taped it last summer, in fact. And I blabbed about it a few times in shows around that time before I was asked by the production team for Bake Off to stop blabbing about it because they prefer to keep it a surprise. Until just before the show, but now I'm allowed to talk about it. It's going out, I think, next weekend as I speak, Sunday the 6th of April at 7:40pm on Channel 4. I was on there with comedian and friend of the podcast Tommy Tiernan, and with Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem, the music artist. And I was on there with writer, actor and comedian Mira Sial,

• 1:21:10Adam Buxton?

  who I'd never actually met in real life before. It was very nice to meet her. And I won't do any spoilers for how it went. It's nice to say that I took it quite seriously, maybe too seriously. And you will see how it turned out on Sunday the 6th of April.

• 1:21:30Adam Buxton?

  But it would be amazing if you were also able to make a donation to support Stand Up To Cancer. The money from donations will accelerate life-saving cancer research. You know, that's an area where you can really appreciate a change that has happened in the way that cancer is treated over the last few decades, all thanks to research that has been done, much of it with donations from charities like Stand Up To Cancer. So anyway, if you are in a position to do so, it would be great if you could make a donation. The details are in the description. It takes a couple of seconds. You just text to a number and that's it.

• 1:22:09Adam Buxton?

  Thanks.

• 1:22:11Adam Buxton?

  I do actually write about my experience of going on Bake Off in the introduction to my book, I Love You Bai. My book is called, Cornballs suggested the title. And I was writing about Bake Off as an illustration of why it's taken me so long to write the book. I was just explaining that these kind of things kept coming along every now and again when I was supposed to be writing. And I couldn't say no to Bake Off. But the book is finally done. I think it's two years late, something like that. I'm fairly sure my publishers will be relieved that they no longer have to badger me.

• 1:22:56Adam Buxton?

  When the book is finally published at the end of May this year, 2025, there is a link in the description of the podcast for you to preorder copies, which I would be very grateful if you did. If lots of people do it, it makes me seem important and I think that's good. And of course, you can also preorder the audiobook. I haven't actually recorded the audiobook yet. I'm going to be doing that next month and I'm very excited about it. There's going to be a lot of bonus material in that audiobook, little clips and bits of music and new jingles and things like that. There's also a whole bonus chapter in there about Zayvin in the mid 90s and

• 1:23:41Adam Buxton?

  my relationship with his music at that point and fandom in general and how difficult it is sometimes for a fan to let their heroes cha cha cha cha change. That's a deep level reference there for you Bowie fans. And also in the audiobook, there's going to be a bonus bit of waffle with Joe Cornish. So he will have an opportunity to respond to some of the things that I have written about him in there. Because there's a lot of Adam and Joe stuff. Well, look, this is the text that I've just written for the flap, like the inside flap of the hardback. So I'll try it out on you. I only just sent it off to the publisher this morning.

• 1:24:28Adam Buxton?

  Says, hey, how are you doing, casual browser? Adam Buxton here, because I'm imagining someone picking it up in an airport or something and looking at it. Are you ready for some hot hyperbole about this book? Here we go. In I Love You Bye, the highly anticipated follow-up to the bestselling Ramble book, I reminisce with hilarious and heartwarming candour about the highs and lows of working with Joe Cornish and revolutionising the worlds of DIY TV and podcasting in the process. You'll hear about my crazy times hanging out with notorious rock and roll hellraisers like Travis and Radiohead. I write with humour and heartbreaking poignancy about the challenges

• 1:25:10Adam Buxton?

  of parenting, losing my mother to death, that is, we didn't get separated in a shop, and the drug hell that led me to nearly dying in the arms of a comedy legend. There's also a bit about arguing with my wife, getting instructions on edginess from Louis Theroux, going on Bake Off and much more that you didn't ask for but definitely need.

• 1:25:36Adam Buxton?

  There's the bird scarer. Anyway, there you go. So that's a kind of hyperbolic overview of what you can expect from I Love You Bye. Link in the description.

• 1:25:50Adam Buxton?

  All right, I think that's enough. Back next week and roughly every week thereafter for a couple of months. Thank you very much once again to David Letterman and especially Seamus Murphy Mitchell for getting it all together and his production support. Thanks to Wolf for engineering the session. Thanks to Helen Green. She does the artwork for this podcast and she has been working unbelievably hard on my book and it's looking great. Her stuff is so wonderful and I'm so pleased that I get to work with someone that talented and also that nice and kind and patient. I feel very lucky. Thanks to everyone at Acast who continues to help keep the show on the road, liaising

• 1:26:35Adam Buxton?

  with sponsors, et cetera. But thanks most of all, more than any of all those other ones, to you because you came back. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you won't think it appalling if I lean in for a hug. Would that be all right? Here, come here. Oh, it's good to see you.

• 1:27:02Adam Buxton?

  Alright, go carefully out there, it's nuts. And until next time, we share the same aural space. For what it's worth... I love you. Bye!