Paul Reiser | Club Random with Bill Maher

Bill and legendary comedian Paul Reiser go deep on all things comedy, from the early days at comedy clubs like Catch a Rising Star and the Improv, the terrible pay of early comedy, the difference between being “club funny” and what works on television, Richard Belzer, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, and the New York comedy scene, Paul’s experience with Woody Allen, the tension between performing “works in progress” versus polished final sets, the concept of soul mates, hiring young comedy writers, and the importance of spotting talent and the subtle spark that differentiates a promising writer or comedian from the rest. Go to https//www.oneskin.co to get started today with 15% OFF using code RANDOM, today! Reverse hair loss with @iRestorelaser and get $625 off with the code RANDOM at https://www.irestorelaser.com/RANDOM #irestorepod Go to https://www. Ziprecruiter.com/RANDOM to give it a try for FREE! Go to https://www. HeatHolders.com and use the code RANDOM to save 15% OFF through Cyber Monday! Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to https://www. RocketMoney.com/RANDOM Follow Club Random on IG: @ClubRandomPodcast Follow Bill on IG: @BillMaher Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/ClubRandom Watch Club Random on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ClubRandomYouTube 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

  Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  I'm Dexter Morgan. I've been killing killers for half my life. It gets to you. You're having a midlife crisis. I'm not ready for that.

• 0:11Speaker 00

  He's back.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm older. I'm wiser.

• 0:15Speaker 00

  And sharper than ever.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Things are gonna get messy. But if I can't believe in myself, I can't believe in anything.

• 0:24Speaker 00

  Dexter Resurrection. New season now streaming on the Paramount Plus Premium Plan.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  Glimmer, the new eau de parfum by Estee Lauder. An amber floral fragrance with a gourmand twist with notes of macaron rose accord, amber embrace accord, and shimmering patchouli. A glimmer is a small, unexpected moment of joy that shifts your energy and how you feel. A scent to be felt, remembered, and shared. Discover more at estee lauder.com. What makes you glimmer?

• 0:59Speaker 03

  Host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are no antibiotics in their meat department, ever, so carve up turkey and spiral cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 Brand. And guess what? All their delectable pies are made with no high-fructose corn syrup. Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.

• 1:29Bill Maher?

  Where can we see your special?

• 1:31Speaker 05

  It's on Al Jazeera. And you know what? I thought that was not at all a good match.

• 1:39Speaker 05

  I think you can relieve yourself of that pressure. There's nobody waiting? Nobody expecting you?

• 1:48Bill Maher?

  So a singer and then you.

• 1:50Speaker 05

  They promised me Rich Chidnham.

• 1:53Speaker 05

  Hi, Billy.

• 1:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah. I've got Shelley. Shelley Ackerman. And then unless Belsa comes in.

• 2:01Speaker 05

  And then it's D. F. Swedler, and then you.

• 2:03Bill Maher?

  No, well, and Richard T. Bear. Also might wanna do, he says just two songs. So it'll be five.

• 2:11Speaker 05

  One of them is In the Garden of Edna. The other... So, by the way, nice digs. What'd you do? You bought the whole neighborhood?

• 2:19Bill Maher?

  No. Don't say things like that because then...

• 2:22Speaker 05

  What do you do? You got five houses. How many friends you have?

• 2:26Bill Maher?

  No, no.

• 2:28Bill Maher?

  I'm a simple guy. I've got one house, one car, and one plane. A simple guy.

• 2:34Speaker 05

  You're a man, you're a man of simple needs. Very beautiful.

• 2:37Bill Maher?

  Well, I never got married, and I never had children, and I never had alimony, and I never had stupid hobbies. So, the money piles up, that's it.

• 2:45Speaker 05

  And this is all from late night weekends at Catch?

• 2:50Speaker 05

  Wow, you really saved.

• 2:52Bill Maher?

  Well, remember when we had the union fight?

• 2:55Speaker 05

  Yes, I do. And what did we end up with? $10 a night?

• 2:59Bill Maher?

  Yeah, well, is that what it was?

• 3:02Speaker 05

  I think it was $10 and then 25 on the weekends, perhaps.

• 3:06Bill Maher?

  Well, for me, it was the perfect thing to write my novel about. I wrote a novel about.

• 3:12Speaker 05

  Which I enjoyed very much.

• 3:13Bill Maher?

  You did, you read it?

• 3:14Speaker 05

  I did, I did read it.

• 3:15Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 3:15Speaker 05

  There's a love, very, a big Michael Caine theme in there.

• 3:19Bill Maher?

  Michael, well, that's the thing, is that he was very pro-union, and I was very anti, and it made a great sort of political spine for a novel about, I was just trying to show what it was really like, because I saw so many depictions in movies and everywhere where you can't, you can't describe what it's, you can't, you know, Tom Hanks did it in that movie.

• 3:40Speaker 05

  I was about to say Punchline.

• 3:41Bill Maher?

  And that's Tom Hanks. He was good, he'd be, I remember him.

• 3:44Speaker 05

  He was great, the movie, but the story, it's, you know, it's, it's never gonna be a 90-minute story.

• 3:49Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, I remember when he hung out at the improv to learn what it was like to be a stand-up. What was the name of the movie?

• 3:55Speaker 05

  Punchline.

• 3:55Bill Maher?

  Punchline, with Sally Field, I think, was the female?

• 3:58Speaker 05

  The Jersey housewife became a, wanted to become a, yeah.

• 4:01Bill Maher?

  I mean, nobody's ever gonna do it as an actor playing a comic better than Tom Hanks, but it still was not, it just, it didn't tell us what the, so I said, I'm gonna write a novel, since I wasn't getting hired anywhere, about this life and do it, and, and the political spine really was, I thought that...

• 4:24Bill Maher?

  We were in a situation where they're using us and not really paying us, but we're using them to get the stage time that we need. But it was kind of a fair bargain. And Mike Caine was more, this is a friend of ours, now deceased.

• 4:40Speaker 05

  Not Michael Caine, the British actor?

• 4:41Bill Maher?

  No, not the British actor. And, you know, he was all the union and I thought it was like, well, that's your excuse, because he was never, he was a great guy and a funny guy and a great raconteur, but he was never gonna make it as a stand-up. And I thought he was using "I'm a revolutionary" as an excuse for failure. That's really the theme of the book. And the other guy, me, he thinks I'm, I'm just too ambitious and I'm willing to sell out. And I was like, yeah, I'm willing to sell out. I'm willing to like, uh...

• 5:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, we were all grateful for having, you know, that, that, that chance to get on stage. Where else were you gonna do it?

• 5:21Bill Maher?

  And they were making a lot of money.

• 5:22Speaker 05

  They were making a ton of money and so it seemed, you know, maybe not unionable, but it was reasonable to say, yeah, pay the people who are, you know, sitting here.

• 5:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah, there was a reasonable middle ground, which I'm sure we didn't hit. Or did we?

• 5:37Speaker 05

  No, no, you know, but...

• 5:40Bill Maher?

  I thought, I think, I felt like it went up from $3 to 25 or something.

• 5:45Speaker 05

  Three? I don't ever remember three.

• 5:46Bill Maher?

  Three was cab fare. When I started, it was...

• 5:48Speaker 05

  Really?

• 5:49Bill Maher?

  You got cab fare and a hamburger. If you worked that night, you, you got something from the kitchen.

• 5:56Speaker 05

  I remember that. That's good. That's very nice.

• 5:59Bill Maher?

  What is that?

• 5:59Speaker 05

  A little bourbon. A little bit, that's your lovely staff. You got that?

• 6:03Bill Maher?

  I used to drink bourbon.

• 6:04Speaker 05

  And now you don't.

• 6:07Speaker 05

  So, no, I really, I...

• 6:09Bill Maher?

  And now I don't, yeah.

• 6:11Speaker 05

  And now I don't. I remember that you could get, you could get food, you'd just come early. You didn't even have to work. My recollection is...

• 6:18Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 6:19Speaker 05

  Right, and you'd, so we would all go, you know, sometimes, guys, I remember Larry and Jerry going in the afternoon to get that burger. There was a kitchen about the size of this, these two chairs. There was just sweating guy, just angry.

• 6:34Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 6:36Speaker 05

  You should have a crack team of people doing that for you.

• 6:38Bill Maher?

  You know, it's so funny. I was thinking that. And I said to myself, don't say it because you people, people are, you know, no one is perfect.

• 6:48Speaker 05

  No, nobody's perfect.

• 6:49Bill Maher?

  But.

• 6:50Speaker 05

  It makes you human. You just humanize yourself.

• 6:52Bill Maher?

  But it's also, but now that you mentioned it, you're exactly right.

• 6:56Speaker 05

  Somebody be fired later.

• 6:57Bill Maher?

  I will not do that, but yeah.

• 6:59Speaker 05

  You have a guy who fires people.

• 7:00Bill Maher?

  And this is, you know, I am.

• 7:02Speaker 05

  It does. It says club random on the glass. Look at you.

• 7:05Bill Maher?

  Yeah. One reason I'm getting off the road.

• 7:10Bill Maher?

  After this weekend.

• 7:13Bill Maher?

  Is because.

• 7:16Bill Maher?

  Like, nobody just can do anything anymore. I'm not, I don't want to lay this all on the feet of the last two generations. And yet, I'm talking about hotels, like everything, like just anything. They just, they just cannot like sort of get it together enough. What from what I've seen, except I must say, my brilliant producer Sheila. Has a knack for hiring people of those generations who are hardworking. They never fuck up.

• 7:44Speaker 05

  That's why you're getting off the road because the guy in the room service was tardy?

• 7:49Bill Maher?

  All of it is just a.

• 7:51Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 7:51Bill Maher?

  It, that's not the only reason, but it's it. Every time I'm on the road this year. Knowing that I'm not going to do it in 2025, I could go back, I don't know. But I feel like once you stop.

• 8:05Bill Maher?

  Every time I'm on the road, I turn to my. Great friend Mark, who's with me all the time and I say, you know, I have mixed feelings about getting off the road, but. They're making it so easy for me to not want to do this because. The TV doesn't work in the hotel. Really? You can't get the TV? This is the best hotel in town? You can't get the TV working or air could. William Shatner was here a couple of weeks. He was saying the same thing. You don't find this?

• 8:33Speaker 05

  No, no.

• 8:35Bill Maher?

  Oh, you're lucky.

• 8:36Speaker 05

  No.

• 8:36Bill Maher?

  Everybody does everything right on the road.

• 8:39Speaker 05

  No, but I. I if I if I have slept. And I'm not particularly cranky, I can roll with stuff. I do get. No, I mean, in a hotel saying the TVs are working. There's always something stupid. They go, oh, breakfast downstairs. And you go, oh, it's not breakfast. It's a box of cereal and an orange.

• 8:58Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 8:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, so.

• 9:02Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's a box of cereal.

• 9:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I, you know, but. You know, because I I didn't do it for for years. I didn't. Forget the road. I didn't even do stand up for 20 years. And talk about a muscle.

• 9:15Bill Maher?

  Now you got a special.

• 9:16Speaker 05

  Now I got a special with the first, every 32 years like clockwork, Bill. Every like, like that. But it, you know. You'll find if you don't do it for a couple of months.

• 9:29Bill Maher?

  Yul Brynner, he was good, too.

• 9:31Speaker 05

  Yul Brynner.

• 9:33Bill Maher?

  No, I'm sorry.

• 9:34Speaker 05

  I missed, I missed.

• 9:35Bill Maher?

  You said you'll find.

• 9:37Speaker 05

  You'll find, wow. Wow, you'll find. Yul Brynner, wow.

• 9:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, but it's so funny. Whenever. I I love the idea of going out. And then I look and I go, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to get on a plane. I don't want to go, I don't want to go there.

• 9:56Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 9:57Speaker 05

  And then. Without fail, every time I get on stage, I go, God, that was fun. Oh, I love that.

• 10:02Bill Maher?

  Exactly. That's, of course, you understand.

• 10:06Speaker 05

  And I, and I just. And and after mediocre set or shitty trip, I go. Ah, I don't need this. I don't want to do it. And then I go. You know, I'll just go to a club and get one joke that works that I wrote yesterday. I went. Love this.

• 10:20Bill Maher?

  It's a, it's a, it's our version of likes.

• 10:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:24Bill Maher?

  You know, this, what, right?

• 10:26Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 10:26Bill Maher?

  This generation has likes, like they love to get liked about everything. I find it pathetic. That you, everything you do has to get the approval of people who are probably actually. Plotting against you because there's such a bunch of vipers, that generation. Always judgy and trying to cancel and trying to, ugh. That whole social media thing is a snake bit.

• 10:48Speaker 05

  Pop, pop, it's time for your pills.

• 10:50Bill Maher?

  Anyway, that, you could say that, but it's also true.

• 10:54Speaker 05

  I I know, but yes, but I don't think we go down. I don't think we work and we'll get laughs because we need the approval. I think the approval happens to be in the laugh.

• 11:04Bill Maher?

  No, I'm talking about them. They need the approval.

• 11:07Speaker 05

  Right.

• 11:07Bill Maher?

  I'm saying this is our version of that. This is our version of a like. But I feel like it's of greater value than your lunch, a picture of your lunch or something. We thought of something clever, which we think we can give to a bunch of strangers as a gift. Because what greater gift is there than making someone laugh? It's literally therapeutic.

• 11:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I don't think any of us got into like, what can we do for these people? Do you know what I mean? I think we did it because.

• 11:35Bill Maher?

  Yeah, we want, of course.

• 11:36Speaker 05

  We wanted the.

• 11:37Bill Maher?

  And we still do.

• 11:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:39Bill Maher?

  But at this point, we don't, we're not doing it for the money.

• 11:42Speaker 05

  Right.

• 11:43Bill Maher?

  We're doing it because we like that feeling of, I gave you this gift of laughter.

• 11:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:49Bill Maher?

  Which is why we hate it so much when they don't laugh, because it's like, what are you talking about? This is a great gift.

• 11:57Speaker 05

  What's wrong with you people?

• 11:58Bill Maher?

  And you're, you don't like this sweater?

• 12:00Speaker 05

  You know, I, I, I was talking to somebody about like, you know, did you ever have a tough night? Did you ever want to quit? And I go, no. And I remember in the early, early days, like, you know, maybe in the first year of doing it, on a good night, something went well and you got a great response, you go, oh, this is the greatest thing. I can't wait to do it again. And then you go up on a night, for that, for whatever reason, it wasn't good. Either you were off, the audience was off.

• 12:25Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 12:26Speaker 05

  And it sucked. And my thought was, I can't wait to do this tomorrow. And get this flavor out of my mouth. Because, and I thought, I must be doing, I must be in the right place, because good or bad is leading me towards, I want to do this.

• 12:40Bill Maher?

  I definitely wanted to do it again more after I did good. I'm not gonna lie. I, those nights, I'm talking about the early days when we were together every night at the clubs. Those nights where it went badly, I had a rough time because.

• 12:57Bill Maher?

  It it it sapped me of any desire to work on my act. I like just couldn't face.

• 13:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:02Bill Maher?

  Like what I should have done is listen to the tape.

• 13:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:05Bill Maher?

  Cause I taped every set on my little tape recorder. And I should have listened back right away. And I just couldn't get myself to face it.

• 13:12Speaker 05

  No, for sure. It is hard. Whereas if you have a tape and you go, oh, I want to hear that that joke killed.

• 13:16Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 13:17Speaker 05

  Let me find that.

• 13:18Bill Maher?

  And then I would write down it word for word, how I said it.

• 13:20Speaker 05

  And it's and it's amorphous, cause like it's.

• 13:22Bill Maher?

  Totally.

• 13:23Speaker 05

  It's like writing it down doesn't do shit.

• 13:25Bill Maher?

  It really doesn't.

• 13:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:26Bill Maher?

  Sometimes it does, because sometimes you have to say something in a certain order. Or it doesn't make sense.

• 13:32Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 13:32Bill Maher?

  Or it will not work. They'll get the idea, but there will be no laugh. Unless you mention A before B, you can't even get to C.

• 13:40Speaker 05

  No, my favorite discovery now is taking words out and going, oh, look at that. Take those two words out and that that's writing.

• 13:48Bill Maher?

  I couldn't agree more.

• 13:50Speaker 05

  Erasing is.

• 13:50Bill Maher?

  I was having that talk with Rich the other day, like when in doubt, take out. Don't add.

• 13:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:57Bill Maher?

  Don't add. And I I heard David Mamet say the same thing about directing. He said, the more I directed, the more I realized, like every time I think I've taken out too much, take out a little more. The audience is always ahead of you.

• 14:09Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 14:10Bill Maher?

  And you see that in movies, you know, the the you have to do so little in movies to move the story. You can show a scene where a cup, a man and a woman just look at each other across the room. And you just get their physical reactions. Cut to the wet.

• 14:28Bill Maher?

  And we all know what happened.

• 14:29Speaker 05

  Right, right.

• 14:29Bill Maher?

  We saw the look and now they're married. We don't need to, we we don't need to see the first date.

• 14:34Speaker 05

  Taking, was your first, I don't I don't remember you coming in. I remember you suddenly being there, did you in the clubs? Did you like audition night? Did you do?

• 14:43Bill Maher?

  Oh, totally. But when I was still in college. I remember, oh my God, it was like in the summer.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  That's what I did. That's what I did too, yeah.

• 14:50Bill Maher?

  I think it was August of, I don't know, seventy seven or something. I was still in at Cornell.

• 14:57Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 14:57Bill Maher?

  And I, oh my God, the guts to get, just to get into the city from the jersey, you know, it was like. So I went in and I stood online.

• 15:06Speaker 05

  And what time, now what time are you waiting online? Cause this always, this memory, cause I remember going in like two thirty.

• 15:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it was the day, because here's what happened. I remember this, I wish I could remember this guy's name. He was kind to me. A black guy who took me up to Harlem in between the time because there was like, we had to come back at like 10 o'clock at night to actually perform.

• 15:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:30Bill Maher?

  So what am I gonna do in the city?

• 15:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:32Bill Maher?

  Get a hotel room with the no money?

• 15:34Speaker 05

  So who's the guy?

• 15:35Bill Maher?

  Oh, I don't know, but he said, you know, he said, come hang out with me.

• 15:38Speaker 05

  Another comic?

• 15:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah, he was also the guy on line.

• 15:41Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 15:42Bill Maher?

  So another guy who was auditioning. And so we went up to like 155th Street or something and I got, it was just a place to hang. It was great.

• 15:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's so fun. I forgot about that. You get, I remember you have to, it's, I remember it would get earlier and earlier. They'd give out the numbers at 5 o'clock and then before you know it, it's 3 o'clock. So you're taking the day off from work when I was working and so, and so you get in at 1 o'clock. You wait till 5 o'clock, give you a number. And if you didn't get in the top 10, you were 1:00 in the morning. You would get on at 1:00 in the morning. So that's your day, 14 hours to do 5 minutes. I have the tape somewhere. I may have told you that. I have, I found a cassette of my very first time in college, fresh, between freshman and sophomore year. And I have my little cassette recorder on the table.

• 16:29Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 16:30Speaker 05

  People didn't know that it was me. And I listened to the tape and in the middle of my 5 minutes, I hear the guy go to his friend, "Oh, say this, this kid's got balls."

• 16:40Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 16:40Speaker 05

  And I thought, that's a good review.

• 16:41Bill Maher?

  That is a good review.

• 16:42Speaker 05

  He could've said, "He's got no balls." But I had balls. Like, he had the balls to go up with this shit material.

• 16:49Bill Maher?

  Just to go up and all?

• 16:50Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 16:51Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, wow. I don't think I could do it today, nor should I have to. I mean, that's the passage of life. You're, when you're young, you're, you just got more moxie because you have to have it.

• 17:04Speaker 05

  And you're protect, my analogy is sort of like, you know, babies can be underwater because they've been in this ambient fluid. It's like, so I think comedians protected this shield of stupidity, naivety. You don't, you have no idea how not good you are. And then later you go, oh.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  He's back.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  I'm older, I'm wiser.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  And sharper than ever.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Things are gonna get messy. But if I can't believe in myself, I can't believe in anything.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  Dexter Resurrection. New season now streaming on the Paramount Plus Premium Plan.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Glimmer, the new eau de parfum by Estee Lauder. An amber floral fragrance with a gourmand twist. With notes of macaron, rose accord, amber embrace accord, and shimmering patchouli. A glimmer is a small, unexpected moment of joy that shifts your energy and how you feel. A scent to be felt, remembered, and shared. Discover more at estee lauder.com. What makes you glimmer?

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are no antibiotics in their meat department, ever. So carve up turkey and spiral cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 Brand. And guess what? All their delectable pies are made with no high-fructose corn syrup. Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want. Only at Whole Foods Market.

• 18:52Bill Maher?

  Well, what you don't realize is that making your friends laugh, or a classroom laugh of kids who know you,

• 18:59Speaker 05

  Is different.

• 19:00Bill Maher?

  Is different than strangers. That's what you have to... That's the rude... To me, that was the rude smack in the face from the beginning.

• 19:08Speaker 05

  Yes, they're not your friends. And also, the audacity, you think about it, to watch somebody who goes up, "I'm gonna be funny." It's like, "Well, don't presume that. We'll tell you if you're funny." But obviously, that's not the issue now. You go and you're selling out a theater, and people know you, they paid money because you don't have to... You still have to be funny, but you don't have to prove it.

• 19:28Bill Maher?

  I mean, to me, one of the biggest changes... That solved a problem that I never really solved when I had the problem was the opening line. Because when they don't know you.

• 19:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:39Bill Maher?

  It sucks. When they do know you and they came, they bought a ticket specifically to see you. You don't have to explain yourself, you know, it's just.

• 19:47Speaker 05

  They know you.

• 19:48Bill Maher?

  You know, your opening line is, please, stop applauding. Thank you so much, you know, it's like.

• 19:53Speaker 05

  There was a guy.

• 19:53Bill Maher?

  We're gonna have a great time, it's so natural.

• 19:55Speaker 05

  There was a guy at that time, do you remember? He went up and he was in a wheelchair, he had some polio or something.

• 20:03Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 20:04Speaker 05

  And had a great, it was like, it was like early seventies.

• 20:07Bill Maher?

  Polio?

• 20:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, truly. He was, I mean, he was, he was not a kid. Yeah, I do, I do think he had.

• 20:12Bill Maher?

  Right, I do remember this.

• 20:14Speaker 05

  Right, and, and this club is, I keep wanting to talk to the audience to explain it.

• 20:20Speaker 05

  Narrow, you had to go between chairs, it was tough for anybody to walk through the chairs. So now I get a wheelchair and there's three guys carrying my chair and the audience is uncomfortable. The audience is kind of, and he just, they leave, he's alone and the audience is so uncomfortable. He waits a minute and he goes, did you notice the chair? I go, Jesus Christ. I said, that's what an opening line should do, just like, I know what you're thinking, let me pop it and then we can move.

• 20:45Bill Maher?

  Well.

• 20:45Speaker 05

  That's my, that's my, my.

• 20:47Bill Maher?

  It is funny.

• 20:48Speaker 05

  Example.

• 20:48Bill Maher?

  It reminds me of Marjorie Gross's opening line. You remember that?

• 20:53Speaker 05

  No, I remember Marjorie, what was the line?

• 20:55Bill Maher?

  Don't you hate what humidity does to straight blonde hair?

• 21:02Bill Maher?

  And I thought, wow, I wish I could have, I never could figure out the first line. So, like, I never got that good one, or.

• 21:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's hard.

• 21:12Bill Maher?

  Steve Mittelman, have you noticed I don't have a chin?

• 21:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's the same thing.

• 21:17Bill Maher?

  I mean, you're into it.

• 21:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know what you think, but they appreciate, audiences. If that line serves to say, "I know what you're thinking and I'm with you."

• 21:29Bill Maher?

  Or that we're just laughing already.

• 21:31Speaker 05

  Yes, and, and okay, like when people say, "Do you ever bomb?" It's like, only if you're oblivious, because even if your material's not working, but you acknowledge that and you go, "All right, that didn't work." Then they go, "Okay, he's not an idiot. He knows." So just being on the same wavelength.

• 21:49Bill Maher?

  You remember Leno's opening line?

• 21:51Speaker 05

  No.

• 21:52Bill Maher?

  "See the paper? See the paper?" What can't you get to from that?

• 21:57Speaker 05

  Muhammad Ali?

• 21:58Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 22:00Speaker 05

  Right. Yeah, this is when Muhammad Ali was fighting just way below his...

• 22:03Bill Maher?

  But it could be any story.

• 22:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, see the papers today.

• 22:05Bill Maher?

  See the papers, yeah, Muhammad Ali's coming out of it.

• 22:07Speaker 05

  His great segue, "It's the same with insurance." What is? What is the same with insurance?

• 22:13Speaker 05

  By the time you realize there was no connection, he's in three jokes in.

• 22:16Bill Maher?

  But you know, you were a more, much more mature person, and probably still are, than me when we started. We had dinner a couple of years ago and we went over this. We don't have to go through it for the...

• 22:27Speaker 05

  Go through it.

• 22:31Speaker 05

  I sense a compliment at the end of it, so take your time.

• 22:34Bill Maher?

  Well, there's a compliment right there. You were a more mature and probably still.

• 22:38Speaker 05

  I don't remember being mature.

• 22:40Bill Maher?

  Yes, you were. Yes, you were quite mature and, and I was not. And just, just obnoxious. I had yet to learn that not everything is subservient to getting a laugh, including insulting people.

• 23:00Speaker 05

  On stage, you mean?

• 23:01Bill Maher?

  Or offstage, or whatever, even, and in my mind, it was like, I'm at a roast and everybody knows these are just jokes. And of course, you're not, you're in life. But you're, when you're in that era when we were willing to stand online in the sidewalk and do that, all that shit.

• 23:17Speaker 05

  In the summer.

• 23:18Bill Maher?

  And then that was just the beginning of the heartache for the years when you got no laughs or just couldn't even get on. But, I mean, that thing that we wanted, you know, that feeling, was such a magnet, you know, that we could not resist. You know, you would, you would just keep going forward even with all the pain and the heartache.

• 23:39Speaker 05

  And what was really in our favor is that we had this system. That rightly or wrongly, we thought, here's what you do. Go to these places and then you'll end up on The Tonight Show. Not sure how that works, but we saw enough people coming out of there.

• 23:56Bill Maher?

  And it was true.

• 23:57Speaker 05

  And it was true.

• 23:57Bill Maher?

  If you went the different stages.

• 24:00Speaker 05

  Yes, and I remember, you know, like sometimes you get inspired by greatness. You see somebody great and you go, wow, okay, I'll try and reach for that. And often you get inspired by mediocrity. And I remember being in the summer and seeing a guy go up who was like, you know, getting on. He was sort of the headliner or a big star, big shot of the club. But it was just okay. And then I'd go to school, you know, I'd be, and then like eight months later, I'm watching The Tonight Show. And that guy is on, and I remember the moment going.

• 24:32Bill Maher?

  Like who?

• 24:32Speaker 05

  Wait a second.

• 24:33Bill Maher?

  Like, like who was it?

• 24:34Speaker 05

  Well, I don't want to say.

• 24:36Bill Maher?

  What?

• 24:36Speaker 05

  No, no, David Say.

• 24:39Bill Maher?

  David Say.

• 24:39Speaker 05

  Remember David Say? It was like, he was fine. And then I go, oh, and I was on Tonight Show. And the only thing he did, he just went, probably went up every night for the last eight months. And it suddenly became.

• 24:49Bill Maher?

  It was also a case of what he did in a nightclub was not as explosively funny or as successful in a nightclub as, you know, some more flamboyant act. But it was perfect for TV.

• 25:02Speaker 05

  Perfect for Johnny.

• 25:04Bill Maher?

  For the people who came to the clubs to, you know, the, the comic scouts who came out like pigs.

• 25:11Speaker 05

  Oh, he had great, he had a great life.

• 25:12Bill Maher?

  For truffle.

• 25:13Speaker 05

  But I certainly don't want to sound like I was disparaging anybody. He had a great, great, but, but, but I remember thinking like, okay, he was still formative. He was still working it out. And it's less than a year and he's on Tonight Show. And I remember thinking, oh, that's not out of reach. I could do that. I mean, I'm not there yet, but if I just did what he did.

• 25:33Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 25:33Speaker 05

  And I go, um, and that's the thing that really. Moved me and warmed me when I I had not worked really for 20 years. I didn't do stand up. And when I went back and started doing it, it felt exactly the same as I did when I was 18. And I realized there's no shortcut. The only possible way to get better is to go up every fucking night, or as many nights as you can, and just carve it and work it. And and you're working the jokes, you're working the material, but you're also working your, for me, anyway. And I think your personality is pretty established, but I felt like I had to re-find my, who are you?

• 26:13Bill Maher?

  Right, right.

• 26:14Speaker 05

  You know, I remember when I would go back, it's like, oh, now you've been on TV. Oh, we know this guy, which lasts eight seconds, and then it's like,

• 26:20Bill Maher?

  Sure.

• 26:20Speaker 05

  What did you want to say? Yeah, that's the part I don't have.

• 26:23Bill Maher?

  That's with anybody.

• 26:23Speaker 05

  Right.

• 26:24Bill Maher?

  It's with any comic.

• 26:24Speaker 05

  But but it was it was comforting to me to see that it's it's so low tech. It's just elbow grease and hard work.

• 26:35Bill Maher?

  It's almost the last low-tech thing.

• 26:37Speaker 05

  As far as I can tell.

• 26:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 26:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, or certainly of the things that I can do.

• 26:42Bill Maher?

  Well, that that you can do in show business. I mean, it is it is maybe the last thing that looks like that. And that and that the audience doesn't really want that to change. I mean, you can, people have tried to do different little things. I mean, Chris Rock, and I love him for the, you know, the spirit of, let's try something different. I always love to see people do that. But it was not a good idea. He shot a special, taped it in three different cities, I think on three different continents, and then spliced them together, like the beginning of the joke was in London, and then you cut to the punchline.

• 27:19Speaker 05

  That's really interesting. I mean,

• 27:21Bill Maher?

  Not but not right for comedy.

• 27:23Speaker 05

  It's jarring, but it was but it was certainly revealing of how skilled and precise his craft was. It's like, oh, his arm was in the right, you know, like,

• 27:35Bill Maher?

  It didn't add anything. It just made it just like,

• 27:38Speaker 05

  I don't know if it added. It didn't add to the comedy, but it was impressive.

• 27:40Bill Maher?

  Took away from it. It's like we we're we want to be in the illusion that this is a guy who's just spieling off. The top of his head. He's just talking to us. And, and we've all had the experience when we were young comics and brought girls around to see us. And they saw the first time we did the set. And they were blown away. And then they come the second time and they're like, oh, you told a lot of those jokes before. I thought you were a genius.

• 28:06Speaker 05

  You're not that clever at all.

• 28:07Bill Maher?

  And the Chris Rock thing just blew that right out of the water. Again.

• 28:12Speaker 05

  Interesting.

• 28:12Bill Maher?

  Interesting idea. Not right for, and I think he would probably say the same thing.

• 28:16Speaker 05

  It was an interesting.

• 28:18Bill Maher?

  But you know, it's like Woody Allen movies. Like some of them are, are not great, but like he tries to push the envelope. He's like, he's an experimenter. And those are the people I admire the most.

• 28:31Speaker 05

  It's so funny because I think of Woody Allen movies as not particularly experimental. I mean, but almost like that's what he does. And like, I'm gonna wear the same pants for 40 years. I'm gonna wear the same sweater. I'm gonna make the same movies. You know, I remember I did, I did a, this little off-Broadway play that he wrote and directed, which was in 20 years ago.

• 28:52Bill Maher?

  He directed you?

• 28:53Speaker 05

  He directed it. It was, it was really, really fun.

• 28:55Bill Maher?

  How was he to work with?

• 28:56Speaker 05

  It was a thrill. This is before you knew anything, you know, unsavory. You just go, it's fucking Woody Allen.

• 29:00Bill Maher?

  And that's more than 20 years ago.

• 29:02Speaker 05

  No, 2003.

• 29:03Bill Maher?

  That's 10 years after the unsavory.

• 29:07Speaker 05

  I didn't know about it.

• 29:09Bill Maher?

  I'm sure you did.

• 29:10Speaker 05

  No.

• 29:11Bill Maher?

  Yes. Oh, we're talking about the, yes, Suni was 93.

• 29:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, no, yes.

• 29:18Bill Maher?

  Half the people wrote him off just for that.

• 29:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:21Bill Maher?

  I, I write him off for nothing. I love him and think, uh, what's happened to him is a, it's just a ridiculous travesty of justice. And says everything about the witch hunt atmosphere that can obtain on the left.

• 29:34Speaker 05

  I wrote a thing. I, I, there's a little, I forget what, oh, you did one. It's called Kindle, those little Kindle books. Uh, they're, or Amazon, they're like mini books, like 10,000 word things. And I did one, um, it was on Amazon and it was, and it was just people that I've met, who I admired, who I've worked with, from whom I've learned something. And so I was, and I'd gotten to work with Mel Brooks and Carol Burnett, and I always learned something from each other. And I had a thing in there on Woody Allen.

• 30:01Bill Maher?

  That's a great idea for him.

• 30:02Speaker 05

  It was, yeah, it was called, uh, How Do I Get to Carnegie Hall? It was the name of, and, um.

• 30:09Speaker 05

  And I remember, and I had, I think, this is, I forget, it was at least 15 years ago. And I had a thing in there about Bill Cosby, and the editor goes, "You can't put that in now." And I know why, I know what you mean, but this is pre that, and this is, and then I said, "Well, here's another story about Woody Allen." He goes, "I don't think we can include that." I went, "Jesus, I hope Mel Brooks doesn't get caught with a Boy Scout in a motel room, because I got a, I got a beautiful story." It's, now it's a race, now it's a race.

• 30:38Bill Maher?

  Just so you did take it out?

• 30:40Speaker 05

  I didn't, I, yeah, I didn't include the Woody story, but, you know, but-

• 30:43Bill Maher?

  You didn't want to fight for Woody?

• 30:45Speaker 05

  No, I didn't want to fight for me.

• 30:49Speaker 05

  No, it wasn't that, you know, it wasn't that gold, you know, it wasn't that important to me either way. But what I remember, and it was very warming, you'll appreciate this as a comic. It was a 99-seat theater, it was two one-act plays, I was just in the first one. And it was a two-handed mostly, it was three, third actors, but it was mostly two-handed. And about a month of rehearsals and previews, maybe six weeks, and that was the best time. And we'd go, and we'd do the thing, and then afterwards he'd come back with notes, and he's- And, and it's like, and the minute the show opened, he stopped coming, "Well, this is no fun now, I'm getting $200 a week," and-

• 31:28Bill Maher?

  Literally?

• 31:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, maybe, whatever's, whatever scale is for, for equity. Yeah, it was like three, like my room service, it barely made a dent in room service.

• 31:40Speaker 05

  But it was great fun, but the, the fun of it was getting notes from Woody. And I remember one night, he kind of, I guess, "That line, I don't know why that worked yesterday, but why didn't it work today?" And I went, "Are you new? What do you mean?" He goes, "No, but why, why did it work yesterday?" I said, "'Cause I fucked it up, I said some whatever." But I thought, you know, he's at that point in his seventies-

• 32:01Bill Maher?

  You said that to him? Are you, are you new, did he laugh, did he laugh? You should, that's funny.

• 32:06Speaker 05

  You're in his seventies, and he's still chasing that shadow of like, "But why did it not work?" I went, "Oh, that's why this is exciting." And I thought, I was, I was heartened that like, oh, he's still trying to figure it out.

• 32:18Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, because I would certainly ask the same question. And there are times in stand-up when we do that, when we do the line, and you think it's the same thing- And you just, sometimes you never get what I used to call the virgin take. Like, the first time you say it, sometimes just ad-libbing it.

• 32:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:35Bill Maher?

  Or riffing on something.

• 32:36Speaker 05

  And why did it have that power and it worked?

• 32:38Bill Maher?

  And then, you ju- because again, it is so precise. I mean, one thing I've always liked about doing, being on the road and having an act, is that it was like my hobby of like, you know, building a little wooden ship inside of a bottle. I was always tinkering to get it perfect. And you're right, like, it's sometimes, it's like a clitoris. It's just never in the same place for more than a minute. And that's just, what, it is, it's true, it's always moving around.

• 33:07Speaker 05

  I'm gonna try and shake that image now of.

• 33:11Bill Maher?

  Well, it's a delightful image.

• 33:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, it's just, it's distracting.

• 33:17Bill Maher?

  Hopefully, it's distracting.

• 33:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, hopefully.

• 33:19Bill Maher?

  If not, it's a shitty clitoris. By the way, I want to know.

• 33:22Speaker 05

  I saw that at the home one.

• 33:25Speaker 05

  Is that what you were calling?

• 33:27Bill Maher?

  Basically, slightly off the, I was gonna say, I don't know why, but that's exactly the right line.

• 33:34Speaker 05

  Two nights only, shitty clitoris. I saw it open for Julie Budd years ago.

• 33:40Bill Maher?

  I think I was gonna say I know a stripper name.

• 33:42Speaker 05

  There you go, that'll work.

• 33:48Bill Maher?

  It is a very good name.

• 33:49Speaker 05

  But see, going back, like, talking about editing, it's like, and it's like, I feel so efficient and successful when I've cut out two words and now the joke is tight.

• 34:00Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 34:00Speaker 05

  But then the next night, I'll go, well, now it's working, let me see if I can add something to it. Like, okay, and it's, so it's always shifting.

• 34:06Bill Maher?

  Getting it ever tighter. I mean, there's two things I like tight, and one is a shitty clitoris and the other thing.

• 34:12Speaker 05

  Is my act.

• 34:14Bill Maher?

  It's a bit, yes.

• 34:18Speaker 05

  So, we'll be back right after these words from Lavoris.

• 34:22Bill Maher?

  Del Monte.

• 34:23Speaker 05

  Del Monte's frozen peas.

• 34:28Bill Maher?

  So, um, where can we see your special?

• 34:32Speaker 05

  It's on Al Jazeera, and you know what? I thought that was not at all a good match.

• 34:38Bill Maher?

  Al Jazeera.

• 34:39Speaker 05

  It is on, uh, anywhere you can buy or rent stuff, they tell me. Cause I can never, I would love to say, it's on Netflix, people know what that means. But it's on like Amazon or, or Apple, just rent it. My sister called me, she goes, I have to rent your show.

• 34:52Bill Maher?

  Wait, you can see something on both Amazon and Apple? Aren't they bitter rivals?

• 34:56Speaker 05

  No, when it's transactional, no.

• 35:00Bill Maher?

  This thing probably could be, you know, both. And here I am talking about it that way, but I'm not the business owner.

• 35:05Speaker 05

  I don't know where this is, I've never seen this.

• 35:07Bill Maher?

  I'm not the business owner.

• 35:08Speaker 05

  I see clips of this, and people go, where'd you see it? I go, I don't know, it just came up. I have, I'm on Instagram, but I don't know how to navigate it. So I, whatever comes up, I look at. I've never searched for something, people go, you know, I sent you a thing. I go, I don't know how to do it back.

• 35:21Bill Maher?

  I didn't wanna do it.

• 35:23Speaker 05

  I didn't wanna do it, somebody told me to, so I did, but I'm inactive. Because I go, who wants to see the tuna melt that I had Wednesday? This is a beautiful tuna melt.

• 35:32Bill Maher?

  No, I mean, and this is again apropos of what you said before, where they're saying, Pop, you need your pills or something. And she can make all the age jokes in the world you want, but something can also just be true. So why don't we engage with the actual idea?

• 35:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:48Bill Maher?

  Instead of just making judgments. And is it healthy? Is it, is it a great use of time? I could, I think, make easily the argument, it is not.

• 35:58Speaker 05

  That it being what?

• 36:00Bill Maher?

  Instagram, yes, all of it, most of it. Um, it's a time suck. And it's why no one reads a book anymore. So do I have to pretend that that's a good thing because I'm 68 years old? That, oh, you know, I don't wanna say, that's so, so much of the problems on the left, I think, is that. Like, oh, I wanna, I wanna be with the young and sound young. Yeah, but the young are dumber a lot. They're stupider, so why do you wanna do that? Why don't you embrace, why don't you lean into what's actually could be working for you? Yeah, we're not as cute as we used to be, but we're smarter, or we should be, and wiser.

• 36:35Speaker 05

  You hate young people. You don't like the

• 36:37Bill Maher?

  Oh, please. If anyone is with young people, it's me, not you.

• 36:41Speaker 05

  What? Oh, that's actually with young people?

• 36:44Bill Maher?

  Yeah. What do you think I mean?

• 36:46Speaker 05

  I go finish your thought.

• 36:48Bill Maher?

  That is my thought. I mean, I never got married is what I'm saying.

• 36:51Speaker 05

  I'm well aware.

• 36:52Bill Maher?

  So I'm very, I am, I love

• 36:53Speaker 05

  And I'm here, though, because I got a girl for you. I got a cousin.

• 36:58Bill Maher?

  I hang out with lots of Gen Z and millennials and like usually that generation, yes, they're shit. But when there's a good one, they're the best. They are the best. They got me through the pandemic when the kids my age wouldn't come out to play. And my millennial friends, um, and I just, you know, if you never got married, you're just more in their kind of milieu, even though some of them

• 37:21Speaker 05

  You're out in the world more.

• 37:22Bill Maher?

  You're out in the world more and you're just, it's just different. I mean,

• 37:25Speaker 05

  See now, is it, I don't love going out. This was an effort to come here today.

• 37:30Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 37:31Speaker 05

  Well, I was looking forward and I was delighted to be invited and I was happy to see you.

• 37:35Bill Maher?

  It's going well, don't you think?

• 37:37Speaker 05

  A lot of this is going to be cut. Uh, you can make a lovely five minute spot.

• 37:42Bill Maher?

  Well, I'm having the time of my life.

• 37:44Speaker 05

  I am too.

• 37:44Bill Maher?

  This is like the greatest thing that's done podcasting has done for me. Whatever the money, I don't know.

• 37:50Speaker 05

  Because it's, it's like having friends over, but you're monetizing.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

• 37:56Speaker 01

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• 38:01Speaker 06

  You're having a midlife crisis.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  I'm not ready for that.

• 38:04Speaker 00

  He's back.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  I'm older. I'm wiser.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  And sharper than ever.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Things are going to get messy, but if I can't believe in myself, I can't believe in anything.

• 38:18Speaker 00

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• 38:24Speaker 02

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• 38:53Bill Maher?

  Not even monetizing, it's like, would we do it otherwise?

• 38:56Speaker 05

  Right.

• 38:56Bill Maher?

  We went to dinner and that was fun. This is much better, cuz I'm stoned.

• 39:00Speaker 05

  It took, you know, twenty years to find the time to do it.

• 39:02Bill Maher?

  But like, everything I do, that I really enjoyed doing, I wanna do stoned. And it's only a few things in life. But like, talking to you is definitely one of them. And like, we just wouldn't do it if there wasn't like, a job.

• 39:18Speaker 05

  This is, this is true.

• 39:19Bill Maher?

  We're such fucking money whores.

• 39:20Speaker 05

  This is, well, no, there, well, this was, this is, but you found a little niche. It's like, I'm gonna have friends over, people that I wanna talk to, and have a drink.

• 39:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they're not always even people I've ever met. But they're just, it's just fun to talk to somebody.

• 39:33Speaker 05

  I'll bet you Jane Fonda had no David Say stories. Am I correct?

• 39:37Bill Maher?

  Right. Yeah. David Say, by the way, I looked up to. First of all, he did have a killer first, like, five or six.

• 39:47Speaker 05

  Yes, he did.

• 39:48Bill Maher?

  You know, he understood very well that sort of, a Tonight Show spot, which was the sum and bono of show business for us, was...

• 39:57Speaker 05

  Wasn't that Cher's husband's sum and bono?

• 40:00Bill Maher?

  Five to six minute.

• 40:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:02Bill Maher?

  Clean, clean, okay, we're talking about the nineteen eighties here, clean. Uh, five or six minutes, that was clever, it would make Johnny go, "Mmm, that is, that is all relatable stuff." That's, that's clever, clever stuff.

• 40:16Speaker 05

  He had a line, he goes, "Yeah, so a commercial, he always had a little tough guy air, air to him."

• 40:22Bill Maher?

  Well, he had the accent, the Brooklyn.

• 40:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, the Bronx guy. And it was like, "So, hey, do you have a problem with alcohol? Call seven two six three five four five, it's Carlisle's Liquors."

• 40:34Bill Maher?

  I, I remember that.

• 40:35Speaker 05

  Carlisle was such a great choice. Carlisle.

• 40:38Bill Maher?

  I remember that.

• 40:39Speaker 05

  But you know what, I don't remember, and this is, this is such, this is the, the stuff of the comedy club that you were talking about before, that maybe doesn't lend itself to a, a movie. I remember, you know, comics are not really competitive. People are like, "Are you competitive?" I said, "No, we were never, we were always supportive and, well, I mean..."

• 40:55Bill Maher?

  Both.

• 40:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, you could be envious, "Wow, he got that, I want that." But, I always thought, you know, actors, seventeen of you go up for the role, only one will get it. But a new club opens, you'll all go, if you're good enough. You're there next week, I'm there next week, there's room for everybody. But you would, we would often go over to somebody, go, "Hey, I got a line for you." Or go, "Hey, you know..."

• 41:17Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 41:17Speaker 05

  Right? And I remember...

• 41:19Bill Maher?

  If it wouldn't work for us.

• 41:22Speaker 05

  No, no.

• 41:23Bill Maher?

  You'd give it away if it wasn't something you could do.

• 41:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I know there's somebody did a bit, it's like, here's a.

• 41:27Bill Maher?

  Shower water doesn't get in your pussy. I mean, I thought of that. I did that first and it didn't work for me.

• 41:33Speaker 05

  It was always my other thing, uh, if, if two guys had the same bit, all right, listen, you can do it in New York, but I can take it on the road.

• 41:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I remember that.

• 41:40Speaker 05

  That was the, like the Yalta Conference, here's how we'll settle this. But I remember he was doing, he was getting ready for Tonight Show. And I had not even a line, I had maybe two words to add or a little twist on a line. He went, eh, that's, that's good, thanks. And then I saw him doing on the Tonight Show, my two words, whatever it was. And I remember that being so, uh, a moment for me. It's like, I said it to him here and it came out there. It was more proof to like, yeah, so this does lead to that.

• 42:14Bill Maher?

  That's great.

• 42:14Speaker 05

  And I remember, it was almost more impressive than, for me, more exciting for me than when I actually did the Tonight Show. I was like, cause I was so green. And I gave him a line that ended up on television. I'm like, wow.

• 42:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, comic.

• 42:28Speaker 05

  It's the most anybody's talked about him in a long time.

• 42:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 42:33Speaker 05

  He was great.

• 42:33Bill Maher?

  I mean, he had this, I, by the way, he is, uh, one of the comics who sort of is, uh, a character in that book, True Story, that I wrote, the novel. Um, the people who were, like, everyone has said to me over the years, like, is this one, this one, this, no. It's not people you would know. And sometimes it's not the people who you would think would make the better characters because they were, got more famous. It's the people who were interesting characters. And David Say, I combined with some other comic we would know, uh, to make one of the characters because what was so interesting to me about David Say was, he was like this ultimate pussy hound. And he lived in, uh, an apartment in like, um,

• 43:19Speaker 05

  Riverside.

• 43:20Bill Maher?

  Riverside.

• 43:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:21Bill Maher?

  River, where is that, like the Bronx?

• 43:23Speaker 05

  No, Riverside is here, Riverdale.

• 43:24Bill Maher?

  Riverdale, somewhere, okay.

• 43:26Speaker 05

  In the Bronx, yeah.

• 43:27Bill Maher?

  With his wife who he was divorced from.

• 43:29Speaker 05

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 43:30Bill Maher?

  They were divorced but, and had a son, and still live together. But like, he was just all about the pussy. Like, everything on the road. I remember him once saying to me about, said, yeah, STDs, I, I, I just don't get those kind of things. Like, I, you know.

• 43:48Bill Maher?

  And I, and he apparently, he didn't. And he, and I remember him telling me, I think I put it in the character in the book, that he was always so hot for his wife after he got home from the road when he fucked some stranger.

• 44:00Speaker 05

  Sure, that's the healthiest thing for a relationship.

• 44:06Bill Maher?

  So this is who I idolized.

• 44:10Speaker 05

  That's in my new book, How to Improve Your Marriage. Fuck someone on the road, come straight home.

• 44:19Bill Maher?

  Well, I was 22, okay, this to me was like, he was about 10 years old.

• 44:23Speaker 05

  Were full of guys who would never have gotten laid as much as they had, did, if not for the fact that you were on stage.

• 44:30Bill Maher?

  I, I never found it to, I mean, it certainly was not any cathode in the pussy beaker for me, to be a comedian. I don't, you know, I think I was so self sabotaging with women in so many ways at, in my twenties, that, um, yeah, sometimes, I mean, first of all, yes, girls do like to laugh. But again, that thing I told you before about like, everything in service, I'm just getting the laugh. That didn't work well with women who were sensitive to begin with, so it took a thick skin.

• 45:03Speaker 05

  But what it did is if you went on stage, and someone came over, a woman came over to you afterwards, you were already in. It's like, because like, you don't have to be cute, I'm like, I've been looking at you, I already know you, and I'm talking to you, so.

• 45:16Bill Maher?

  But they didn't, that didn't happen, I don't remember.

• 45:19Speaker 05

  Let me make a call, because there's no reason you shouldn't, you shouldn't have met girls. It's never too late, Bill.

• 45:25Bill Maher?

  I'm saying, I'm not saying I never met girls, but I'm, I don't feel like they made the big, again, because I probably, well, I've always scared people a little, I don't know why.

• 45:34Speaker 05

  Do you know, do you know that you are still a reference point in my, in, in, in my marriage?

• 45:39Bill Maher?

  Oh, of course, tell this, I'll tell it or you tell it. How you tell it, because I want to see how you tell it.

• 45:47Speaker 05

  I it's not a piece of material, but for we know we talked about for a bunch of reasons that we've never figured out. I've been with my lovely wife Paula for forty two years now, married for thirty six or something. For reasons we never understood, we met when I was a comedian in club in Pittsburgh. She was a waitress. And for reasons we never understood, the owners, these two knucklehead brothers, were telling her, oh, you're gonna like this guy Paul. I'd never been there and they never met me. And they were telling me, when they picked me up at the airport, he goes, yeah, we got a lot of nice waitresses. There's one you're gonna like. I went, oh, I I got it. He goes, no, no, she's not not like that. She's you're gonna she's real. And he was sort of making this match, so that when we met the next day, she wasn't

• 46:30Speaker 05

  there the first night, we both were kind of like, oh, I've heard so much. And that was it. So, cut to, we're going out immediately, and months later, you're there, and she goes, I said, oh, Bill's a friend of mine. I go, say hi. And she goes, she said, she went over to you and said, hi, I'm Paula. I'm Paul Reiser's girlfriend. And you went, I'll show you, sweetheart. Like, that was that was how she remembered it.

• 46:55Bill Maher?

  I knew you would fuck up how the retelling of the crux of it.

• 46:59Speaker 05

  It's my marriage. I can you know how you do it. By the way, I'll do your version.

• 47:03Bill Maher?

  Well, because you quoted me, and I can quote me better than you can quote me. I didn't say, sure, you are. That is the essence. I understand why you got there to that.

• 47:13Speaker 05

  I love it. Love it. Go, go.

• 47:15Bill Maher?

  But it was more elaborate than that. It was it was not sure you are. It was, yes, if you wanted to boil it down to the

• 47:23Speaker 05

  Tell do do do do.

• 47:24Bill Maher?

  But no, what I what I remember this having a conversation where there were, I was just saying, you know, look, I'm in the clubs all the time. We're at this place with people, a lot of clubs opening, you know, comics, you know, it's a common thing. They were around the waitress and they go, wow. And I was just trying to alert her to the fact that,

• 47:47Speaker 05

  It might not go somewhere.

• 47:48Bill Maher?

  It might not really be as serious as you think, which is hysterically funny because of irony and the fact that it's such a great, successful marriage. Well, it's yours later. So

• 47:59Speaker 05

  And Larry Miller's like

• 48:00Bill Maher?

  I guess what I'm saying is, however you tell the story, I'm the asshole.

• 48:04Speaker 05

  No, no, but it's not.

• 48:06Bill Maher?

  And I love

• 48:06Speaker 05

  No, you're not the asshole. But it but you were speaking to a truth. It's like, oh, here's this

• 48:10Bill Maher?

  I was really trying to do a mitzvah. I was.

• 48:14Speaker 05

  Yes, and, and yes, and it's like, oh, it's not all, yeah, and, yeah.

• 48:19Bill Maher?

  But I have a much more fundamental question.

• 48:21Speaker 05

  Uh oh.

• 48:21Bill Maher?

  That I think, I, I would love to know the answer. Maybe you don't even know it. But what is it, that, I mean, the way you describe this, of these two different people who sort of independently thought you two would go well together?

• 48:35Speaker 05

  It was one of the two brothers. I don't know that they were both involved, but it was one guy.

• 48:37Bill Maher?

  You said, one said you'd like her and one said she liked.

• 48:40Speaker 05

  No, I, I, no, but, but I remember, I don't know that. Actually, I remember the guy, one who said to me, and I, and I think it was the same guy who told her.

• 48:48Bill Maher?

  What, but my question is.

• 48:49Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 48:49Bill Maher?

  What qualities?

• 48:50Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 48:51Bill Maher?

  Did they see in both of you that made them think, oh, these people would be right together?

• 48:57Speaker 05

  You know, I remember, you know, literally, this knuckle, and it was a shitty club, and they, where they put you up in their apartment. And I remember, this is like the lowest, like, you know, because comics, like, sometimes you get a hotel, otherwise you get, there's a, sometimes they have a comedian condo.

• 49:14Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 49:15Speaker 05

  This was not, this was one step below that. This was their fucking thing. Literally, here's what I came. Oh, you'll be staying with us. I'm like, this was so, I didn't have the confidence or the wherewithal to go, yeah, no, no, this is not gonna work. I'm gonna be in a hotel. Stay in his bed. It was a water bed, and he was in it. And when I get there, and they go, uh, whatever his name was, Jeff, I think it was something, Keith. He goes, hey, it's Paul. I go, oh, how you doing? He gets up and he's in underwear with a copy of Penthouse, and he gets up.

• 49:44Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 49:45Speaker 05

  And the water bed is yours. And I went, oh, no, and, yeah, that's where I was for three nights.

• 49:49Bill Maher?

  Yeah. See, that's the kind of thing that I put in the book, that I thought that you'd have to live this life.

• 49:55Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 49:56Bill Maher?

  To, if you really want to know what it was like for us, read True Story, because I lived it.

• 50:01Speaker 05

  It was a good book. It was a really, I remember really.

• 50:04Bill Maher?

  It just was first, you know, I, I never tried to write another novel, because it's like, no, novelists have one good book in them. It's like about their formative years usually, and then they rewrite the same theme the whole career.

• 50:16Speaker 05

  I don't know that that's.

• 50:17Bill Maher?

  What?

• 50:17Speaker 05

  I don't know that that's necessarily true of all novelists.

• 50:20Bill Maher?

  How many novelists can you name that have like more than one or two great books?

• 50:25Speaker 05

  Murakami.

• 50:26Bill Maher?

  Who?

• 50:27Speaker 05

  Murakami, Japanese.

• 50:29Bill Maher?

  God bless you.

• 50:29Speaker 05

  Uh, John Boyne, you ever heard of John Boyne?

• 50:32Bill Maher?

  No, Jesus Christ.

• 50:33Speaker 05

  All right, all right, all right, whatever your point is, fine, whatever.

• 50:36Bill Maher?

  No, no, you're probably right, because I don't, I don't even know who these people are.

• 50:39Speaker 05

  All right.

• 50:40Bill Maher?

  So I guess.

• 50:41Speaker 05

  Well, you live in the back. Do you know that joke? That was my, that was my parents, there was a radio.

• 50:46Bill Maher?

  So you still read novels?

• 50:48Speaker 05

  Not still, newly. I newly, I didn't read for years. I used to even do a bit about how I can't read. And I certainly, if I did read, it would be like current events.

• 50:58Bill Maher?

  You didn't do stand up? What the fuck were you doing?

• 51:02Speaker 05

  So, so, but in the last two years, I've suddenly gotten really into reading all this. And a lot of it is like, because I don't have to watch the news. I'm just burying my head in the sand. And a lot of times I need more sand. There's not a lot of sand. And, and so I've been enjoying reading novels. But only up to like two years ago, I used to do a bit about how I can't read. And if I could read, if, when I do read, it's only nonfiction. I said, because fiction, I said, wait a second, I can barely hold on to what's happening. Did this shit happen? Don't make up new shit. Because I can only have this much. But now I only want fiction because I've seen what's.

• 51:41Bill Maher?

  And how did you? And then, and so you're saying, okay, I haven't read in 20 years. And I'm gonna start with Yamamoko or whatever. Who, who, who is it? Why'd you start with?

• 51:52Speaker 05

  I didn't start.

• 51:53Bill Maher?

  Well, how'd you know about?

• 51:55Speaker 05

  Because he's written like 90, him, guy, and I forget his first name, forgotten his first name. He's written like 40 novels and he's very quiet. He's sort of like the Kurt Vonnegut of this moment. Like in that, like, young people, oh, a new Murakami book is coming out. Check it out.

• 52:11Bill Maher?

  I'm, I always am happy to learn. I'm always happy to say, I don't know.

• 52:16Speaker 05

  I am happy to introduce him to you.

• 52:19Bill Maher?

  Or is it, are his books long?

• 52:21Speaker 05

  Some, some. Actually, you know, maybe start with his nonfiction. He wrote a great book called Novelist as a Vocation. And it talks about writing.

• 52:28Bill Maher?

  I think everything is too long.

• 52:31Bill Maher?

  What?

• 52:32Speaker 05

  Like this?

• 52:35Speaker 05

  This watered out to a lovely seven minute spot. You know, when you take out the fat, you'll see this really, this really sings. By the way, why aren't all interviews with Bourbon?

• 52:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, you keep making jokes, but this is like better than all my Tonight Show is put together. There's something about really.

• 52:54Bill Maher?

  Uh, I mean, I really worked hard to make this like as close to like what we would actually be like if we weren't like doing a podcast.

• 53:02Speaker 05

  It is, it is.

• 53:03Bill Maher?

  And it is exactly.

• 53:04Speaker 05

  It is exactly. I love that you have something like forty seven cameras. It's two guys. I, I, I, it might be overkill, but I salute you.

• 53:12Bill Maher?

  You know what? Better too many than too few.

• 53:15Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 53:16Bill Maher?

  Better to have a camera, uh, not need one than need one and not have one.

• 53:21Speaker 05

  You know, that's how I live. I live by that statement alone.

• 53:24Bill Maher?

  What do you make of these people who do everything on camera? You know, you know, in our era did everything on camera, two people. Hitler was filmed a lot.

• 53:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, he did like a lens.

• 53:36Bill Maher?

  You have also, I never ever went there when it wasn't filmed. You know, like every.

• 53:44Speaker 05

  I was never stepped foot in the Playboy. I was never invited.

• 53:48Bill Maher?

  Why? Really?

• 53:50Speaker 05

  I was not, uh, well, you were, you were.

• 53:53Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 53:53Speaker 05

  You were single and successful. I was, I was.

• 53:56Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 53:56Speaker 05

  Never in that scene. I, I, I don't enjoy a party. I, I love this. I love breaking that one on one, sometimes two, three people. Uh, a party scene is like, it's just.

• 54:09Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 54:09Speaker 05

  Well, it's just constant broken conversations. You know, like if you think what's the best moment of a party, it's like, oh, when you stole, you got into a nice conversation with one person. But the general vibe of.

• 54:21Bill Maher?

  But sometimes it's like so many interesting people.

• 54:24Speaker 05

  But then I feel like, oh, oh, oh, I can't keep all the plates spinning. I'd rather.

• 54:29Bill Maher?

  You don't have to keep them spinning. I mean, you know, you could stop one conversation, say goodbye, and then have another one. You know, I mean, like if you talk to Harvey Keitel for five minutes and then talk to another person, he's not gonna shoot you.

• 54:44Speaker 05

  I'll try it.

• 54:47Speaker 05

  I remember, I remember walking away. I was talking to another comic at the improv and I, which I used to hate. I see, I think I set the record for the shortest amount of time from doing a set at the improv and getting the fuck out. I, I would, I, the hang was, I found soul depleting. And I remember once I was talking to another comic and I made some ham-fisted excuse. He goes, "You don't need an excuse. You don't have to go, 'I gotta get a tomato juice.'" I'm like, "Just walk away. You don't need a..."

• 55:16Bill Maher?

  Wow, I'm, see, this is interesting because I always thought of you as a very social creature.

• 55:21Speaker 05

  I am, but I can be and I, I have that skill. But more and more, I find it depleting and, and I love solitude. And I love being...

• 55:34Bill Maher?

  I do too.

• 55:35Speaker 05

  And I love, and I, and I have, you know, with, with my wife, we can have a great time. And with certain select friends go, "That was really good." But a part of it is because I am social and, you know, and a, a pleaser, that I, I try, like, a nightmare for me is if we'll have an occasional party at my house and I go, "I gotta make sure everybody's having a good time." It's like...

• 55:57Bill Maher?

  Right. No, I agree. When you're a host of a party, it's like playing a football game. When you're done with it, you feel like you just played football. It's very exhausting mentally and physically. If you're doing it right.

• 56:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, yes.

• 56:11Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, if you're Puff Daddy and you're just jerking off while everybody else gets the lube on them and goes at it, you know...

• 56:18Speaker 05

  Jerking off, get the lube, no, making notes.

• 56:20Bill Maher?

  What? I'm just saying, at the freak off, you know, I'm, I don't think it's a good host to sit in the corner and masturbate. I think you need to be...

• 56:29Speaker 05

  I have always been against that.

• 56:30Bill Maher?

  Exactly. I, I mean, I've had many parties here, some in this very room. I mean, big star, Barbra Streisand has been in this room. Okay, I didn't sit in the corner and jerk off and watch them, although it was interesting and it would have been fine to do that. I don't think it's anything...

• 56:45Speaker 05

  I would imagine that if Barbra Streisand saw you in the corner jerk it off, she would, she would be not enthralled.

• 56:54Bill Maher?

  And rightly so. And rightly so, because it means you're being a bad host.

• 56:58Speaker 05

  Well, you know, people who need people, if you know what I'm saying.

• 57:03Bill Maher?

  Kid, that's one of, yes, that's her signature song.

• 57:06Speaker 05

  Bill needs some people. Look at him alone in the corner whacking himself.

• 57:10Bill Maher?

  I just, I just watched for, I don't know, probably the fifth time.

• 57:16Bill Maher?

  The way we were. And.

• 57:18Speaker 05

  To prep for this? With me? That's so sweet.

• 57:21Bill Maher?

  No, no, no.

• 57:22Speaker 05

  I'm not in it.

• 57:23Bill Maher?

  But it's actually apropos to the, we're talking about the political spine of True Story being about someone who thinks that people are being, um, you know, a little too self-righteous and a little too, um, I'm for the cause, when really the cause is them. Versus people who are accused of being sort of, um, Machiavellian. Um, and I, I, he did accuse me of that in those days. And that's sort of what The Way We Were is about. She's always for the cause. And they have that great speech in there where he's like, you know, why, why are we doing this? People, he, he just got punched because she's in Washington testifying and, why are we doing this? People are gonna get hurt. And for what?

• 58:08Bill Maher?

  In 10 years, some fascist director will make a movie with some capitalist producer and they'll do it. They'll make the movie together. They'll play tennis together. They'll make passes at each other's wife. And what did anybody ever die for? People. People are more important than their principles. And she goes, Hubble, people are their principle. And, uh, you know, that was him.

• 58:32Speaker 05

  What made you, what made you watch the movie again? Was she, because she was coming?

• 58:36Bill Maher?

  Because I was showing it to somebody, with somebody dear to me, who I like to expose to movies, that.

• 58:44Speaker 05

  It was a beautiful movie.

• 58:45Bill Maher?

  She has not seen before.

• 58:48Bill Maher?

  Because she's 11.

• 58:57Bill Maher?

  And she had not seen Kodachrome.

• 59:06Bill Maher?

  I watched that not long ago for.

• 59:08Speaker 05

  It's just so great.

• 59:09Bill Maher?

  It's beautiful. It's, it's got scale and scope and, and, uh, it was, yeah, it was great.

• 59:15Speaker 05

  It's amazing what the kids like.

• 59:18Bill Maher?

  What have you seen lately that you said, that's a great film?

• 59:24Speaker 05

  Great question, and I do see them, and then, like, name some things. You know what, I just saw the, I wouldn't say it was great, but I loved every minute of it. And I was not prepared to, was Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin in.

• 59:39Bill Maher?

  Sasquatch?

• 59:40Speaker 05

  A Real Pain. Jesse Eisenberg directed, wrote it.

• 59:45Bill Maher?

  Oh, I read about it, yeah.

• 59:47Speaker 05

  Beautifully shot, beautifully done.

• 59:48Bill Maher?

  I'm a big Jesse Eisenberg fan.

• 59:50Speaker 05

  Oh, fuck, you'll be thrilled. And we're just like, I went, wow, every shot is beautiful. It's a lovely story.

• 59:55Bill Maher?

  No, and I know him. He's a great, he's a great guy, so.

• 59:58Speaker 05

  Obviously a smart guy.

• 59:59Bill Maher?

  So smart.

• 1:00:00Speaker 05

  And to your point about in film, you don't have to spell everything out. I kept watching going, where's he gonna go with the script? And went, oh, he just actually let us sit with it. He didn't jam it down a throat. I was very impressed. I thought it was a really beautiful film.

• 1:00:15Bill Maher?

  I remember years ago, I was, I forget where, I think we were at a Met game or something. And, I mean, this has to be like 10 years ago. It was right, like, right after Twilight. Or no, no, it must be a little more after that. But he had done four movies with Kristen Stewart. And I said, you know, why so many movies with this? And he said, I think she feels safe with me.

• 1:00:39Bill Maher?

  And I said, boy, you tell her. If she ever got with me, she would not feel safe.

• 1:00:43Speaker 05

  No, I don't feel safe right now.

• 1:00:46Bill Maher?

  Then, of course, she became completely gay, and I was like, I mean, I didn't think I was gonna be able to. But I always thought she was so attractive, like, and some people, some guys did not. They thought she was like.

• 1:00:57Speaker 05

  Kristen Stewart?

• 1:00:57Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they thought she was, you know, she's not a bombshell type, but.

• 1:01:01Speaker 05

  You're talking about like she's 97, she's 30.

• 1:01:04Bill Maher?

  Oh, still beautiful, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, she's, you know.

• 1:01:08Speaker 05

  Don't sell yourself short, though, you got a shot.

• 1:01:10Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:01:11Speaker 05

  By the way, if this was later in the party, I would do this.

• 1:01:14Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:01:14Speaker 05

  And I would ask you, how's the egg rolls? But I wouldn't, because, you know what? That's, that's, that's not the kind of comedy I do. You know the jokes. I don't do, I don't do ethnic jokes. You know the ones.

• 1:01:27Bill Maher?

  Who said that?

• 1:01:28Speaker 05

  I know every bad comic. You know the ones that I don't do. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

• 1:01:35Bill Maher?

  Oh, man, I can still remember so many, like,

• 1:01:40Bill Maher?

  people's lines.

• 1:01:41Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:41Bill Maher?

  Because we saw them every single night.

• 1:01:43Speaker 05

  I remember when we started, and we did the Dave David Say and Belzer, and Elaine Boozler was, you know, taking off, and she was great. And she was just great every night. And I, I knew her years ago, I didn't see her, and we sort of became friends a few years ago. We were doing some charity event together. We had lunch, and I said, you have no idea how much I used to sit and watch your set. And I said, remember this line? You had a great line, blah, blah, blah. And she went, never heard of it. And I would do, I would do six or seven of her lines, and she had no recollection. And went, why do I remember this 45 years later? And it meant nothing to her.

• 1:02:22Bill Maher?

  But she didn't work in New York. We didn't start with Elaine Boozler.

• 1:02:26Speaker 05

  I did.

• 1:02:27Bill Maher?

  No, you didn't.

• 1:02:28Speaker 05

  I was a few years ahead of you.

• 1:02:29Bill Maher?

  But she was on the West Coast.

• 1:02:31Speaker 05

  When I, when I start, when I started, 74, 56, a little, a couple of years ahead of you.

• 1:02:37Bill Maher?

  Oh, you started in 74?

• 1:02:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was my, audition night. But I didn't start hanging out in earnest till 77. But when I would come in audition night, and I'd watch, and she was there, and, and 75, 76, she was still, she was already like doing Merv Griffin, doing The Tonight Show.

• 1:02:53Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:02:53Speaker 05

  But she would sweep in, and she was clearly on her way.

• 1:02:56Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:57Speaker 05

  But enough for me to go, wow, she was just, talk about tight. Her, her writing was so, hey.

• 1:03:04Bill Maher?

  Her, her word, her, her, her jokes was so well crafted. No, she, I remember seeing her out here when I drove out, drove across country when I was 21 with my college roommate in an $800 car, and selling hash along the way.

• 1:03:21Speaker 05

  That's always smart.

• 1:03:22Bill Maher?

  Literally, sleeping in college dorms that we just crashed.

• 1:03:26Speaker 05

  What could go wrong there?

• 1:03:27Bill Maher?

  I know. But we got to the West Coast, and I remember seeing her at the Comedy Store at West. They had a comedy store.

• 1:03:33Speaker 05

  Westwood.

• 1:03:35Bill Maher?

  Was it in West?

• 1:03:35Speaker 05

  Well, Comedy Store is.

• 1:03:36Bill Maher?

  Whatever. I mean, I remember just, you know, wow, I'm in this. For just being in a comedy club at 21.

• 1:03:42Speaker 05

  But it was her, it was actually her, an interview where she talked about, you know, you have to write every day. And by the way, writing includes taking two words out of a joke. And I went, oh, that's the smartest thing I've ever heard. So, I mean, when I, we talked about that before, I realized I, I got that idea from reading an interview with her. There's sometimes, isn't it funny how you can, one, one little line or one twist on a joke makes you go,

• 1:04:08Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 1:04:08Speaker 05

  They've got it.

• 1:04:09Bill Maher?

  No, that's it.

• 1:04:09Speaker 05

  They've got it.

• 1:04:10Bill Maher?

  Because they never have much when they start, because, at least on my show, it's just not like other shows. And so, there's a very steep, long learning curve. You cannot expect them to be good even in the first few, few years.

• 1:04:26Speaker 05

  So what do you spot?

• 1:04:27Bill Maher?

  Just a funny mind. You know, somebody who thinks funny. Sometimes somebody who, like, has a great encyclopedic knowledge of politics and history, which is very rare these days. People just, especially younger ones. And I'm always looking for, I'm always looking to get younger. And femaler and more diverse.

• 1:04:51Speaker 05

  You know, people, you know.

• 1:04:53Bill Maher?

  It's always gotta be about merit.

• 1:04:54Speaker 05

  I, I, I learnt this on the casting side of things. You know, the important lesson is that, as an actor, you go in and you're nervous and you just, I hope they like me. And what it takes, and I've been on the other side where, producing, it's like, and people are coming in auditioning. You want everyone to be great. It's like, I would be, nothing would make me happier than, you, could you be the guy? And we were done with this bullshit. Like, you want somebody to come in like, yes, you had one line, that's all I need. That's a funny mind. Give me that guy.

• 1:05:24Bill Maher?

  Whenever actor, young actors, types, actresses, whenever have asked me, you know, advice about that, that's the one thing I always say. It's like, just remember, when you're auditioning. They're more nervous than you. They have a problem to solve that they want you to solve.

• 1:05:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:05:43Bill Maher?

  But they've seen other people and they're not. Their problem is not getting solved.

• 1:05:47Speaker 05

  So you'd like you to be the guy.

• 1:05:49Bill Maher?

  They would kill for you to be the, you know.

• 1:05:52Speaker 05

  Yes, yes, answer their problems.

• 1:05:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and it is a problem.

• 1:05:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's so funny. So when you, so when you spot, so it's a funny mind. Have you ever hired somebody on like one joke?

• 1:06:04Bill Maher?

  Well, I don't, maybe, I mean, probably not one, but yeah, maybe, I mean, just. Also, it's amazing how much indoctrination goes on on the left. So that like, when we, when I read samples from people each year to see what's out there. You know, they'll all be writing about, because it's a topical show about, you know, maybe it was something that was going on three weeks ago. And whatever the story is, and it's amazing the way the point of view from 12 out of 13 people will be identical. And it will not always be my point of view. And it would just be the, it's, you know what it is?

• 1:06:47Bill Maher?

  It's the, the late night guy's point of view. Cause they all have the same basic point of view about politics, which we don't have to get into specifics, but I don't always have that, you know.

• 1:06:59Speaker 05

  How many, how many?

• 1:07:00Bill Maher?

  And that's what I see in their writing, the premise.

• 1:07:02Speaker 05

  They've been watching too much TV.

• 1:07:04Bill Maher?

  They're too indoctrinated into just, you know, the liberal bubble. Whereas I'm always seeing something different, I think. And, and seeing a much broader picture than they are willing to go there. They, they, they understand how this town works and they watch that a lot. And they have, they're kind of just locked into that. And when I see somebody who is not that, who is just willing to see everything for whatever it is, and is not ideologically captured by one side, just wants to see and identify what's true, that person will go a long way for, to impress me. But it's, it's, it sounds rare.

• 1:07:48Speaker 05

  Says a lot to me that I don't see it a lot.

• 1:07:51Bill Maher?

  Like it's a very cookie cutter, exact same point of view. The jokes might be different, but the point of view in it is the same. And.

• 1:07:59Speaker 05

  Are you reading it off of printed?

• 1:08:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they're, you know, they submit and then, you know, I read. They write some rules, they write, and they take a stab at an editorial, which is usually comically inept.

• 1:08:13Bill Maher?

  It's amazing. You watch the show and you know this, and this is still what you think would actually come out of my mouth? I mean, it's, yeah, it's hard to find, you know. I mean, you still keep in touch?

• 1:08:23Speaker 05

  I remember.

• 1:08:24Bill Maher?

  Do you write every word of your own stand up? You do, you ever work with somebody?

• 1:08:28Speaker 05

  Once in a while I'll have a friend who'll, I'll just play with me on this and they'll write, you know, some stuff and then I will change it. But no, ninety, ninety-five percent.

• 1:08:37Bill Maher?

  Cause it's very personal. I mean, your stuff was always, you know, I have to tell you. There are jokes that stick in your mind just because there's something in your life that you do that the bit always comes back to you.

• 1:08:52Speaker 05

  What's the bit? I can't even imagine.

• 1:08:55Bill Maher?

  Taking a shower. And there's not enough water for both of you.

• 1:09:01Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 1:09:03Speaker 05

  Somebody told me, it's funny, somebody else told me, someone was in a shower bit that I did years later.

• 1:09:09Speaker 05

  The premise was the areas that we spend the most time cleaning are not the areas that need it most. Like guys were like forty minutes here, like this is never gonna be dirty.

• 1:09:19Bill Maher?

  But your bit was that if you take a shower with somebody.

• 1:09:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:23Bill Maher?

  There's just, it seemed so romantic.

• 1:09:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:26Bill Maher?

  But there's just.

• 1:09:27Speaker 05

  One of you is in the back.

• 1:09:28Bill Maher?

  One is not getting water. And like, I have never, ever taken, it's ruined that one, it could have been a pleasure in my life. And it's just like in the movies where they see they superimpose the head of the guy coming at you. It's like every time I'm there trying to get, and there's Paul Reiser's face doing this bit. One of you is not getting enough water.

• 1:09:49Speaker 05

  I'm so. I'm so honored to be a part of that intimate moment in your life.

• 1:09:54Bill Maher?

  It's just terrible.

• 1:09:55Speaker 05

  That's like for literally forty years ago. But by the way, you know, people want to watch new stuff. I do have this special that you can watch on Amazon or Apple, wherever you can buy stuff. And it's newer stuff than even that, by the way.

• 1:10:05Bill Maher?

  What's it about? Give me some, give me some.

• 1:10:08Speaker 05

  What I, you know, I, I, I tell people I'm not smart enough to make anything up. So I'm only going to tell you what happened in my life, in my wife. And that stuff, see, that's not a reason to get married, but you would have a new forty minutes.

• 1:10:24Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 1:10:25Speaker 05

  Because there's only so much you can do on, isn't it great to not be married? Because everyone's in the audience going, wouldn't know.

• 1:10:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but I still can make it.

• 1:10:33Speaker 05

  I know, it's working for you. I always, but I see, I always, I always use you as an example, like, not everybody should be married. My son, my twenty-four-year-old, met a girl, and she's delightful, and, and, and she, and they're hap, they're very happy. They're just going out, it's been a few months. And my wife's mother's, you know, typically will go, so when are they going to get married? I go, stop that. I go, don't, don't, there's no reason to do that. Enjoy this moment. Don't presume that it's this treadmill that Bill Maher feared. And I always think of like, well, Bill Maher should not be married. He's, he's perfectly, he would make some woman miserable. And, and, and why, and it's working.

• 1:11:15Bill Maher?

  But see, but everybody makes each other miserable at some point. I never make anybody miserable. That's, that's the thing about not getting married. You're not also in the, in the trough. I mean, I'm sure there are heights or depths or whatever, you know, that, that are.

• 1:11:31Speaker 05

  I don't think everybody needs to have kids. Some people are like, great, I'm happy they don't have kids.

• 1:11:36Bill Maher?

  Definitely don't need to.

• 1:11:37Speaker 05

  So I salute you on your, your diligence.

• 1:11:40Bill Maher?

  And I, I salute you because. You know, I wish people would just accept that it's personal preference. It's like, why do I not like sushi and you do? Or whatever, you know what I mean? It's just, it's just, it's just, we're just, we're created different people with different wiring. Whatever went into it in our formative years, the way we were brought up. But probably everything is locked in by the age of five, some people say even two. And I think the die was cast for me at like that age. Like, it was just.

• 1:12:12Speaker 05

  Why? How so?

• 1:12:14Bill Maher?

  Because, I mean.

• 1:12:15Speaker 05

  You had a bad relationship at two?

• 1:12:18Bill Maher?

  With shit, yes. Like, I mean, they say the anal stage, which is zero to two, very formative. Because it's like, how were you? You're not aware of it consciously, but you're unconscious. If you're like, if your diaper isn't changed enough, that kind of stuff. You become certain ways. I mean, everything gets locked in at that very formative time. When you're not even really aware of when the personality is set. I mean, I've had parents, I've asked parents about kids. They all say the same thing. You can always tell, even at that age, what they're gonna be like.

• 1:12:52Speaker 05

  Really?

• 1:12:52Bill Maher?

  Yeah, like, that's a wild one.

• 1:12:54Speaker 05

  Uh, that's probably true. That's what there is.

• 1:12:56Bill Maher?

  You don't find that with your kids?

• 1:12:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think you see certain sparks of that and you go, and you marvel. And I, I see pieces, I go, wow. I see myself in my son. I go, wow, that is your mother. And then her pieces are going, I don't know what that is. Like, and by the way, why should? It's like, there's nothing in my parents that you could look at my parents and go, he's gonna be a comedian. Like, it's not, it's not in there.

• 1:13:19Speaker 05

  But, yeah, I, and I, and I enjoy the pieces that surprise me. That I see sparks in my kids, I'm going, that's just you. That's entirely, uh, you. I'm actually writing, I'm writing a pilot with my younger son. That it's really, uh, I'm buckling up for an interesting journey. Cause it's like, oh, I'm, I'm supposed to be the guy that knows what he's doing. And I'm gonna try, but he's really funny and actually really creative. And it was interesting, because you were talking about before, like, you know, being the son, the child of celebrity, whatever.

• 1:13:56Speaker 05

  We were pitching and we were just playing with like barest bones of the story. I said, well, what if it's this and could we have invited studio asked me to come up with the show? And it's this father, son thing. I said, why don't I write it with you? And, and he's, he's a writer to begin with. And we were just, just jamming and, and, and I said, by the way, afterwards, I said, you did really good. I said, you're really good. He said, you know, I finally understand why you had a hit show. I went, A, what the hell did I say that you heard that and B like, really? Now, just today, you figure out, oh, dad knows what he's doing. But like, yeah, it was, I mean, it was a really.

• 1:14:33Bill Maher?

  What a great moment for you.

• 1:14:34Speaker 05

  It was beautiful moment. Like, it's like, oh, because we're on level ground, like, it's like, oh, I actually see your worth and your skill. It's like.

• 1:14:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's hard to get things out of your kid. Because they're kids that you can't blame them for. That's part of just being that you just have this tunnel vision about like my needs, my world.

• 1:14:55Speaker 05

  I wouldn't want it any other way. I wouldn't want a kid who goes, well, my dad is.

• 1:14:58Bill Maher?

  But like, I, I originally went through, I had a reason to go through. I had all this old family stuff. I labeled it in a file. And I went through like my father, letters that were written to my father that he had saved.

• 1:15:14Speaker 05

  From his parents?

• 1:15:15Bill Maher?

  No, no, no, from other like friends.

• 1:15:17Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 1:15:18Bill Maher?

  These are like from like the end of World War Two into the sixties.

• 1:15:23Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:15:24Bill Maher?

  Because a phone call cost money and a stamp was three cents.

• 1:15:29Bill Maher?

  And you realize, I'm really, and again, these are just letters to him that he saved. So I don't have the letters he wrote to them.

• 1:15:37Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:15:38Bill Maher?

  Three friends of his, three guy friends. And, um, you know, you realize I was alive, you know, for part of these letters from the mid, late 50s into the 60s, when he's talking about things that I was never aware of, even though I was alive, you know, like switching jobs and maybe there, we can do this. And like this other friend of his who was a comedian and they were, you know, thinking about doing something. And, and you realize, oh. When I was a kid, he was just dad.

• 1:16:07Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:16:07Bill Maher?

  He's there and that's great. But I don't give a shit what he's doing or where he goes to get the money for my.

• 1:16:14Speaker 05

  And but you wouldn't even think to even ask those questions because you don't imagine.

• 1:16:18Bill Maher?

  But of course, he had dreams too. And he had ambitions and he had places at times when the job wasn't going well or he had to get a new one or. He was just taking care of shit. And it and it just it never got to my level. And that's like, I don't think that goes on that much anymore.

• 1:16:34Speaker 05

  No, but that's but that's a it's this part of life when you get to a certain age, you realize. Oh, so my parents were younger people. And my son is, you know, my son's twenty four and he lives in Brooklyn now and he's and and I. I'm forty five years ahead of him, whatever, but I can totally. Re- remember and and relate to, oh, finding your first apartment and how great New York is when you're twenty four and you're single. Oh, you met a girl. That's great. Oh, my gosh. Your first, you're walking around, you're walking along the river. It's like, oh, I remember that, but I'm the dad now. I'm not the twenty four year old.

• 1:17:11Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:17:11Speaker 05

  And, you know, I did this. Twenty years ago, I did this movie with Peter Falk about my called The Thing About My Folks. And I was trying to understand my parents' relationship because I was the fourth of four kids. So they were just tired and tired by the time I got there. And I would think, but it wasn't always like this, right? You were twenty five and you met and you went, oh, there's a pretty girl. And you went, oh, there's a there's a handsome guy. And then you said, let me ask you out. Now you're sitting watching the news and you're not talking to each other. What what's that arc? How did we get from there to here?

• 1:17:46Bill Maher?

  That's why I never got married. Because I that the part you described in the beginning, it was my mind is like, why would you get unless you had to? And this is a gun to your head. This is identified even by the people who usually, you know, get married as the time they liked. And they reminisce about it and they remember. And like, so why, if I didn't have to, why would I not keep doing that part? But that's just.

• 1:18:11Speaker 05

  You make you make an argument that Tata, it certainly looks good on paper.

• 1:18:14Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 1:18:14Speaker 05

  And it worked. And it works for you. And I thought, what's gonna happen at the end of this? Will one of us convert the other? I will get single, or you'll get married. No, no.

• 1:18:22Bill Maher?

  And then you move in.

• 1:18:24Speaker 05

  It's the odd couple.

• 1:18:27Speaker 05

  Now it's garbage, Bill.

• 1:18:31Bill Maher?

  Apropos of that, can I tell you an amazing story about these letters?

• 1:18:35Speaker 05

  Please.

• 1:18:36Bill Maher?

  So, uh, yeah, again, apropos to like, yeah, they were 25 or whatever. So my parents, um, met in high school, but my father was two years, two grades younger. He was friends with, um, my mother was friends with his sister, I guess. But, um, so they didn't really know each other well. Again, my mother's a senior, he's a sophomore, he wouldn't be interested in a kid like that. Then, they're both in World War II, and she sees him on stage at a USO thing or something.

• 1:19:10Speaker 05

  On stage?

• 1:19:11Bill Maher?

  On stage, you know, just like being an MC. Uh, of some little show.

• 1:19:16Speaker 05

  And Bell's father didn't show.

• 1:19:19Bill Maher?

  And, uh, she's like, oh my God, that's Bill, Billy Marr from the neighborhood. And so that's 1945. They got, they got married in 1951. I don't know what happened in these six years, but the letters are certainly indicative that my father was not just seeing her.

• 1:19:38Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:19:39Bill Maher?

  Or maybe not at all, but I had, they must have stayed in contact.

• 1:19:42Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:19:43Bill Maher?

  Like I, I never asked them when they were alive, I wish I did, but like, were they seeing other people? Was he like saying he was with her? But some of the letters are asking about him with this girl he took to the club the other night or something. So plainly shit was going on. And then, here's the really verklempty part.

• 1:20:05Bill Maher?

  He's engaged in the spring of 1951, and Murray's my mother in July. Not to her was he engaged. So he broke off an engagement and married someone only a few months later.

• 1:20:21Bill Maher?

  Who was not the person he apparently rented the hall with.

• 1:20:25Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:20:26Bill Maher?

  And I think piecing this together, I don't have direct evidence, but I think the whole reason why is in 1951, a Catholic boy just did not marry a Jewish girl.

• 1:20:39Speaker 05

  But your mother was Jewish?

• 1:20:40Bill Maher?

  Yes, that's the point of the story.

• 1:20:42Speaker 05

  So, but what, but what?

• 1:20:43Bill Maher?

  So I think he was, I think at the very last minute, he said, this is the woman I love. And I didn't think I could go through with it because again, 1951, way more outrageous of Jew and a Catholic than interracial marriages today. Interracial marriage today is, as it should be, whoever you want. But back then, Jew, Catholic, it just wasn't done. Society, families. So I think he was engaged to some other Catholic girl. And then at the last minute said, yeah, but that's not who I love. And I'm gonna just fuck it and.

• 1:21:20Speaker 05

  And you never got, do you have siblings?

• 1:21:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Speaker 05

  Do, do they have any information?

• 1:21:25Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:21:26Speaker 05

  Nobody knows?

• 1:21:28Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:21:28Speaker 05

  It's so fun.

• 1:21:29Bill Maher?

  I mean, it's, no, they would, first of all, even if they were alive, I don't, I'm not sure they would tell me what was going on in those years.

• 1:21:38Speaker 05

  Well, that was, you know, when I did this movie, this Peter Falk movie, the, it was based on a letter that I found that my mother wrote to my father, but never delivered.

• 1:21:48Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 1:21:50Speaker 05

  Ready, Dr. Freud? While pregnant with me. Well, she wrote this while, expressing her discontent and, and, and, and I, and she share, I remember sharing, I'm sharing this with your audience. I had this idea, father, son movie. And I remember asking my mother, my dad had passed and I remember, no, my dad hadn't passed yet. And I remember saying, I says, ah, well, father and the son go looking for the mother, but why would the mother leave? And my mother said, eh, this may help you. And she sent me a letter and went, it was like the fucking Rosetta Stone. I'm like, oh my God, that's like, explains my whole life. I get your relationship. And.

• 1:22:29Bill Maher?

  Well, what was it?

• 1:22:30Speaker 05

  It was basically saying she was now married for. Thirteen, fourteen years, I was the fourth of four kids. She realized all the dreams she had for their wonderful marriage weren't gonna be. He was gonna be dedicated to his business, et cetera, et cetera. Her discontent, and I had always felt that discontent, but couldn't, nobody would acknowledge it. And then when I reached out to her and said, "Oh, I get it," and she went, "It's just a letter," I was in a bad mood that day, I went, "Oh, motherfucker."

• 1:22:57Bill Maher?

  That's a great punchline.

• 1:22:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, and it was like, you know, she, and it's like, I understand that, yes. You don't always, you don't feel the three sixty-five days a year.

• 1:23:05Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's both.

• 1:23:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, and.

• 1:23:07Bill Maher?

  It's both true and some days not true.

• 1:23:09Speaker 05

  And so, you know, so to me, that movie was, was me trying to connect the dots. How do you get from two twenty-some, five-year-olds who meet and find each other attractive and appealing to, we're watching.

• 1:23:23Bill Maher?

  I'll tell you how. You, you, you fuck it up and, and spend every goddamn day together. And there's just no two people on earth that interesting.

• 1:23:32Speaker 05

  You know, nobody's chasing, you, you, you're still running. Nobody, nobody's making you get married. You see, you, you make a very fervent argument and nobody's making you.

• 1:23:41Bill Maher?

  I'm just saying, my whole thing is, I'd rather say to somebody, "I miss you," and mean it, than be with them every day and say it and don't really mean it.

• 1:23:51Speaker 05

  I think you can relieve yourself of that pressure. There's nobody waiting, nobody expecting you. I think your argument has been made, you're sixty-eight, I think you're out of the woods.

• 1:24:04Bill Maher?

  You'd be, you'd be surprised.

• 1:24:05Speaker 05

  You know, I, I.

• 1:24:06Bill Maher?

  I mean, it's in their nature, women.

• 1:24:09Speaker 05

  Do you cut this down or do you edit these or no?

• 1:24:11Bill Maher?

  No, if you want.

• 1:24:12Speaker 05

  No, I, there's nothing I said.

• 1:24:14Bill Maher?

  Nothing I said.

• 1:24:14Speaker 05

  But I will, I will, I, I'll share, did you happen to, did you read Norman Lear's memoir?

• 1:24:22Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:24:23Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:24:24Bill Maher?

  But I had dinner with him once at Rob Reiner's house.

• 1:24:26Speaker 05

  Fair enough.

• 1:24:26Bill Maher?

  Does that count?

• 1:24:27Speaker 05

  No. He was, you know, an exceptional guy.

• 1:24:31Bill Maher?

  But he was a great pioneer of television.

• 1:24:33Speaker 05

  He was a great pioneer, and a great guy and fucking funny and really irreverent.

• 1:24:37Bill Maher?

  Sharp right into the end, over a hundred.

• 1:24:40Speaker 05

  Over a hundred. So I, I, I remember, he was writing, for a while, he was writing his, his memoir, and took him a couple of years, and I remember we were gonna get together and he said, "Yeah, I'm still writing," I said, "What are you up," and this is like mid two thousand and ten, fifteen. He said, "I'm up to nineteen ninety-two," I went, "Norman."

• 1:25:01Bill Maher?

  Don't fuck around.

• 1:25:02Speaker 05

  I said, "You're not a young man. Type faster." And, but so anyway, but in this-

• 1:25:07Bill Maher?

  Did he laugh?

• 1:25:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. Oh, he was great.

• 1:25:09Bill Maher?

  See, I wouldn't.

• 1:25:10Speaker 05

  Oh, no, he would, he-

• 1:25:11Bill Maher?

  Like, I don't think jokes about "You're gonna die soon" or-

• 1:25:15Speaker 05

  Oh, I, we had, we had a thing. We did Phil Rosenthal's show together at Langer's Deli. Me, Norman, and Phil. And, and he said, uh, he got the cheesecake and, and he said, "I'm gonna have maybe a little piece." And I said, "Well, wouldn't it be funny if this is what kills Norman?" And he went with it and he took a bite and he went, "Ah!" And I went, "Okay, I think it was safe." But anyway, whether I wanted to-

• 1:25:35Bill Maher?

  That's probably the healthier-

• 1:25:36Speaker 05

  It is.

• 1:25:37Bill Maher?

  Maybe I'm insecure about it, but-

• 1:25:38Speaker 05

  It is, of course.

• 1:25:39Bill Maher?

  Like, I feel like "You're gonna die soon" jokes are just wrong.

• 1:25:44Speaker 05

  Well, I, I, I stop myself from making a joke to the audience. Like, you know, if I die tomorrow, you will remember this night.

• 1:25:52Bill Maher?

  Well, we don't think you're about to die.

• 1:25:54Speaker 05

  No, but I do.

• 1:25:55Bill Maher?

  I mean, you're not a spring chicken, but you don't, but you don't-

• 1:25:57Speaker 05

  No, but I know that you can get hit by a bus tomorrow or-

• 1:25:59Bill Maher?

  And, but that's not different. That's different than a hundred-year-old who is gonna die tomorrow.

• 1:26:04Speaker 05

  True, it is different.

• 1:26:05Bill Maher?

  You know, it's just-

• 1:26:06Speaker 05

  But you know, do you, but anyway, what I, the story I wanted to tell, that, that moved me and, and stayed with me. Norman told, in his book, he wrote a story, and it's phenomenal, really interesting life, and he shot down like forty-seven German planes in World War-

• 1:26:20Bill Maher?

  Yes, in World War II, shot down.

• 1:26:22Speaker 05

  In the Civil War. That's how, that's how good a pilot he was.

• 1:26:27Speaker 05

  He talked about, um, throwing a party for his wife's sixtieth. His wife was many years younger than him. So he's in his eighties, I guess, and he's throwing a party for his wife's sixtieth.

• 1:26:40Bill Maher?

  Robbing the cradle, huh?

• 1:26:42Speaker 05

  And, and, and he talked about how he did this, and he got a band, and he put the thing together.

• 1:26:50Bill Maher?

  A band?

• 1:26:50Speaker 05

  He got a whole big thing, he made, he'd think, and then at the end of the party, he was so like, "Look what I did." And his wife was going, "Yeah, but I, I didn't want any of that." And he, and he was, in the book, and he was sharing, he's like, "I wasn't being a husband, I was being a producer." "I produced this great party, and I was thinking, wow, you're in your eighties and you're still going, I have much-" To learn about relationships, I'm going, okay. So, by the way, the fact that I haven't mastered everything, that our relationship is still in flux. And it's not to be mourned, but rather like, oh, yeah, it's a growing thing.

• 1:27:25Bill Maher?

  To be perfectly balanced.

• 1:27:27Speaker 05

  It's not a fight you want.

• 1:27:28Bill Maher?

  To be perfectly balanced about this?

• 1:27:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:30Bill Maher?

  I totally get that story. And will tell you that Norman Lear, genius as he is in television, is dumber than me in relationships. Cause that is something I wouldn't have gotten at thirty or probably forty, maybe fifty. But certainly by early fifties, I would never have made that mistake. Of being the producer instead of the boyfriend or the husband or whatever. There's a certain point, it did sink into me, what women wanted and needed. And it wasn't producing, that's correct.

• 1:28:04Speaker 05

  So, so, so my takeaway is, though Norman lived to be a hundred and two, you're saying you were smarter than him. Yeah.

• 1:28:12Bill Maher?

  About that specific issue. Maybe it's because he was married all those years.

• 1:28:18Speaker 05

  Twice, yeah, I mean, yeah.

• 1:28:19Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:28:20Speaker 05

  But, but, but what, what spoke to me was the fact that this is an ongoing journey. And there is a release in saying, oh, I don't have it yet. Perhaps I will get this. And by the way, and at the same time, I totally, totally do get you going.

• 1:28:35Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:35Speaker 05

  That's not, that's not an arena I want to come back in.

• 1:28:39Bill Maher?

  I was a slow learner. And, you know, again, not that mature. For so long, kind of a, you know, it's kind of a theme, I think, in my character, a late bloomer on things. That when I do get something, I, I do take pride in the, the whatever lessons I have learned or mastered. There, there are things that I had on my list of New Year's Eve resolutions for nineteen seventy-five. I'm not making this up, that I still am working on. Like, I was still like, oh, God, I had that on the seventy-five list. This is gonna be the year.

• 1:29:13Speaker 05

  But this, but this goes back to what we were saying about, oh, that we're, our act is better now than it was six months ago. It's like. That's nothing to be ashamed of that like, oh, I haven't licked that problem yet. But because by the way, if you do check everything off, well, then I guess I should die.

• 1:29:32Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:29:32Speaker 05

  If you get everything right. I mean, I, no, I, I do a bit in, in the special, I do a bit about, you know, do unto others. Uh, it works in life and it doesn't work in marriage because many things that I would have done unto me, she don't like done unto her. And, and, and we literally last night, we had a really interesting argument. And I said, well, because I, I, I expressed what I was, she did something that annoyed me and I expressed it in my vernacular. And she goes, well, but you're being, you know, you didn't just come out and say it. I went, right, because I was trying to say it how I would say it. She goes, just tell, and I realize what's that balance between here's how I say things, but no, I have a partner. Let me try and accommodate and here's how she might best hear it.

• 1:30:17Speaker 05

  And it's frustrating and it's certainly a battle that you have opted out of.

• 1:30:21Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's the one thing I could never take in relationships. It's like you have all these little fights and you don't even know what you did. You looked at the waitress for two seconds, it was long.

• 1:30:31Speaker 05

  Have you had long relationships?

• 1:30:32Bill Maher?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 1:30:33Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:30:33Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's like.

• 1:30:34Speaker 05

  I don't mean with management, I'm talking about girls.

• 1:30:37Bill Maher?

  Like five years.

• 1:30:39Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:30:39Bill Maher?

  Three years.

• 1:30:40Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:30:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I've had, I've had.

• 1:30:42Speaker 05

  I didn't know that.

• 1:30:43Bill Maher?

  I, I get the drill. Uh, I certainly have had the starter program for what a marriage is, monogamous and multi-year. So I feel like I am qualified to comment on it. And the problem is that nobody ever really forgets where they buried a hatchet. So you have these little fights. Uh, and again, you know, she's got a puss on her now, why? I didn't even know what I did. So, you know, then I start acting bad and she, and then you patch it up. You always get over it, but it's like a car. You get a little ding, you get a little dent, you get a little scratch and then you're driving a piece of shit.

• 1:31:18Speaker 05

  Well, listen, it's, you know, it's just like there's certain people who shouldn't drink. You should not get married. You should not be...

• 1:31:25Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:31:25Speaker 05

  It doesn't...

• 1:31:26Bill Maher?

  As long as you know it. And for years, for many, many years, I was so inculcated in this idea that is just in the culture that you do have to like find as an Easter egg, this perfect person, you know, soulmate, all that stuff that is seeped into the culture and everything, all the movies, every idea, TV shows, talk shows, chicks on TV talking. And it's all that idea of the perfect person and the one and the soulmate. And it's like, hmm, I don't...

• 1:32:00Speaker 05

  Not for everybody.

• 1:32:01Bill Maher?

  Well, and possibly not even out there. Or, you know, the other thing is, people get to...

• 1:32:08Speaker 05

  It could be out there, but it's not something that you're interested in.

• 1:32:10Bill Maher?

  But the idea of just one person being like the only one for you. People get divorced, people die, and then they have another person, you know, so it's...

• 1:32:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:32:23Bill Maher?

  We're a little more malleable.

• 1:32:25Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, I don't, you know, I couldn't quite imagine somebody being more right for me than my wife.

• 1:32:34Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but that's...

• 1:32:35Speaker 05

  But, but, but I could also hypothetically, if we hadn't met, it would have been that person.

• 1:32:41Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:42Speaker 05

  And, and we would have had the same journey.

• 1:32:47Bill Maher?

  It's like religion, like if you're, it's not a mystery...

• 1:32:50Speaker 05

  You're a religious guy, aren't you?

• 1:32:51Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's not a mystery why if you're born in Pakistan, you're a Muslim.

• 1:32:56Speaker 05

  Right, yeah.

• 1:32:56Bill Maher?

  You know, it's just, just the same thing with, well, I guess Jews is different.

• 1:33:01Speaker 05

  So, so...

• 1:33:02Bill Maher?

  What do you think about the Jews these days? I gotta tell you, it's not so, it's not so fun out there as it used to be. Am I wrong? Is there not a lot of...

• 1:33:11Speaker 05

  Am I right, ladies?

• 1:33:12Bill Maher?

  Is there, is there not a lot of Jew hate out there?

• 1:33:15Speaker 05

  You know, there seems to be. I have noticed. I have noticed. So if I understand correctly, it's not like tomorrow you're gonna wake up religious and married. If I gleaned anything from today's little drinking session with you.

• 1:33:30Bill Maher?

  No, I, I feel like religion and marriage do have a lot in common. Actually, what really has a lot in common is marriage and communism.

• 1:33:43Bill Maher?

  Because I feel like they're both grafted onto an ideal of humans that is not realistic. Communism, the idea that we should all be and could all be unselfish and.

• 1:33:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I, I, you make a valid point.

• 1:34:02Bill Maher?

  I love that you didn't want me to finish with.

• 1:34:04Speaker 05

  No, I know, I know, it makes exactly right. It's like, yeah, we're not, we're not unselfish people. We're not unselfish people.

• 1:34:10Bill Maher?

  And thank God, I mean, I gotta say, America, you know.

• 1:34:14Speaker 05

  Not a fan.

• 1:34:15Bill Maher?

  I am a big fan. I'm a big fan.

• 1:34:18Speaker 05

  Are you?

• 1:34:18Bill Maher?

  Aren't you not?

• 1:34:19Speaker 05

  I, I.

• 1:34:20Bill Maher?

  Come on, man.

• 1:34:21Speaker 05

  I haven't watched the, yeah, I'm a big fan of America, not, yeah, in, in theory.

• 1:34:26Bill Maher?

  With all the bullshit.

• 1:34:27Speaker 05

  I would rather live here than anywhere else, but I'm so.

• 1:34:30Bill Maher?

  That's all I'm saying.

• 1:34:31Speaker 05

  Not thrilled with this moment.

• 1:34:32Bill Maher?

  I'm not, nobody's thrilled with this moment. Well, I mean, there are actually people who are very thrilled with this moment, and they're doing this.

• 1:34:41Speaker 05

  I was talking to Cash Patel this morning. He is.

• 1:34:45Bill Maher?

  But, but, you know, but with, even with all the bullshit, I mean, it's like, you know.

• 1:34:51Speaker 05

  Let's see, yeah.

• 1:34:52Bill Maher?

  It's still, it's amazing, it's actually amazing the way it just, it's like my dog, it just keeps going. You'd think I'd be dead by now, and it just keeps fucking going.

• 1:35:02Speaker 05

  Well, this is why, you know, this relates to why we love stand-up and why we love narrowing, or for me, let me speak for myself, narrowing my focus, like, boy, if I look at the big picture, it doesn't look good, so I'm gonna work on this line.

• 1:35:16Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:35:17Speaker 05

  I'm gonna read this book.

• 1:35:18Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:35:18Speaker 05

  I'm gonna talk to this friend and keep it small.

• 1:35:21Bill Maher?

  And the, and the truth is. You're probably gonna be able to keep doing that.

• 1:35:26Speaker 05

  God willing.

• 1:35:27Bill Maher?

  No matter what's going on out there in the world. Of course, the worst things could happen. Trump could get into office and blow up the world on day one. But, you know, I'm not going through the same shpielcus I did last time.

• 1:35:40Speaker 05

  Really?

• 1:35:41Bill Maher?

  Yeah, like when it happens, wake me. But I'm not giving my mind over to it again. And I'll see what happens. And one thing I've learned about the future is that we're very bad about predicting it. And whatever you think is probably likely to happen, probably isn't gonna happen. So.

• 1:36:01Speaker 05

  Well, I feel, I didn't actually watch election night. Did Harris not win?

• 1:36:08Speaker 05

  I, you know, I feel, I feel ill-equipped.

• 1:36:11Bill Maher?

  Man.

• 1:36:12Speaker 05

  To have the conversation.

• 1:36:13Bill Maher?

  You have not lost a step. I remember first knowing of you when you went underwear shopping with Mike.

• 1:36:21Speaker 05

  With Michael Caine.

• 1:36:22Bill Maher?

  And got the.

• 1:36:23Speaker 05

  And ended up in diner.

• 1:36:24Bill Maher?

  Diner.

• 1:36:25Speaker 05

  From underwear to diner.

• 1:36:26Bill Maher?

  And I remember thinking at the time when the movie could talk about it. And then I saw the guy and it's like, oh, I see why that happened. You know, I see why he got that. So, and you still got it.

• 1:36:39Speaker 05

  Still got it. This is very fun. Do you do this nightly? Because I am free. I have nothing on the books.

• 1:36:45Bill Maher?

  Not weekly, because I only allow myself a couple of drinks a week.

• 1:36:50Speaker 05

  Is that right?

• 1:36:51Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:51Speaker 05

  So you do it we, well, I'm, I'm so glad we, you squeezed me in before your big show tomorrow.

• 1:36:56Bill Maher?

  I'm glad you squeezed.

• 1:36:57Speaker 05

  You want me to stand up too?

• 1:36:58Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:36:59Speaker 05

  Do I have to leave? But, but I have so much more material. All right, thank you, buddy.

• 1:37:11Speaker 05

  Ladies and gentlemen, that's not a TV. That's a model. Doesn't help us. All right, watch, we walk into the sunset, some beautiful music. And it'll be something. You'll have something. Oh, I have a microphone dragging from my.

• 1:37:26Speaker 00

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