Write Down the Stupid Thoughts with Jon Stewart

On this episode of IMO, comedian, writer & producer Jon Stewart opens up about being a child of divorce, his brutal early days on the New York stand up scene, and how he discovered his comedic voice. He also reflects on the challenge of balancing work and family life during The Daily Show’s rise, and the responsibilities of comedians in an intense political climate. Have a question you want answered? Write to us at imopod.com http://imopod.com. In this episode: Dr. Kathleen Jordan, Chief Medical Officer, of Midi Health 🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily data plans! Download the Saily app or go to https://saily.com/imo Use code IMO at checkout ⛵ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  What was the feeling like? Because it is a crucible. Like that, you feel the weight of that house and every room and every piece of furniture that exists in that house. And the responsibility, I imagine, is it is a weight you bear every day that you walk through there. The day you walk out, is that, is the experience one of liberation? Is it one of exhale?

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Are you, are you now interviewing me, Jon Stewart?

• 0:31Speaker 00

  No, this isn't gonna make it into the show.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  How you doing?

• 0:48Speaker 01

  I am doing good. I'm a little chilly, you know? I will share with our listeners that our little studio, our, our spot, is freezing cold all the time. It's freezing.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  You know, that's interesting because I'm usually the one who's cold. Out of all four of our, us left in the house, I'm the one who gets cold, but I'm not cold.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Uh huh. I'm freezing.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  I think it's because I'm sitting, maybe I've got more lights warming me up, so.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  I don't think that's it.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  But anyway, tell us about your Airbnb this time. Is it big? Is it small?

• 1:24Speaker 02

  It's actually more manageable. It's more manageable this time around and I've, but you know, I like this place because off every single room, there's a balcony.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  So no matter what time of day, you can find the sun.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Have you gone out on the balcony since you've been here?

• 1:41Speaker 02

  I do, and I've been out on the patio.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  If you like taking a cup of tea, is there a view? What are you seeing on your balcony?

• 1:47Speaker 02

  That's the beauty of Airbnb. It's all furnished, so everything is

• 1:51Speaker 01

  set to go.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  set to go, so every part of the house you can live in.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  So what's the best view?

• 1:58Speaker 02

  The best view is of the city.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Oh, you get a city view?

• 2:02Speaker 02

  You get a city view. Now, we're not that high up, so it's a little obstructed on the sides, but right out of the back, you can see most of Hollywood.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  You are really an urban adventurer.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love it.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  So proud of you.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  I've been a city kid my whole life.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  So proud of you.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Yes, thank you. Well, we, I'd say the Robinson household's gonna be really excited about this because

• 2:26Speaker 01

  I think everybody's gonna be excited about this one.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, Austin and Aaron, for those of you who haven't listened to our show, I talk about them all the time, but they are 16 and 14, so they're just getting to the point where they watch newsy type shows and they love Jon Stewart.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  That's who we have, y'all. We have Jon Stewart here with us today. The tables have turned.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  He is now in the guest seat. Let's do an introduction and get Jon out.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Let's get him out here. All right. Jon Stewart is one of America's foremost voices in political satire, known for his 16-year run on The Daily Show and his recent return as its host and executive producer. And Monday nights are perfect because the boys stay up to watch The Daily Show, Monday through Thursday, but Monday it's on for an hour. The rest of the day is it's on for like half an hour, so I just thought I'd throw that out there.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  I'm just letting you talk.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  He is also a dedicated social activist whose efforts were instrumental in passing landmark legislation, including the PAC Act and the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund Bill, securing vital support for veterans and first responders. He currently hosts the podcast, The Weekly Show.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  And without further ado, Jon Stewart.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Jon Stewart!

• 4:00Speaker 00

  Hello! Hello, hello, hello.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Thank you for being here.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Welcome. Thank you so much. That was lovely. I was listening back there to what you were saying and I thought, oh my God, did I die?

• 4:16Speaker 01

  It's like

• 4:16Speaker 00

  It was a eulogy.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  No, you were, no, you were alive. We're happy to have you here.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  And thank you, Greg, obviously, for letting me stay at the Airbnb. I so appreciate it.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  It's really nice, isn't it?

• 4:28Speaker 00

  It's lovely. Although I have to tell you, no disrespect, but if you are in an Airbnb where every room has a balcony, that's called a hotel.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  So I apologize. I don't know what they told you. I don't know how much they charge, but you, you're living in a hotel.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  Airbnb, yeah.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  But have fun.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. How, how are you doing?

• 4:51Speaker 00

  How are, how are you guys doing? It's, it's lovely to see you. You guys look great.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  You look rested. You look healthy.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  You do too, yeah.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  But you're doing better than we are because you're only working one day a week.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  I'll tell you something, that's the, if I'd known that, if I'd known that.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  That, that, like the daily thing is kind of a ripoff.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  It kinda, it ground you down to a nub a little bit, but this one day a week thing has been revelatory.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  I can't, that, when I look at, you know, talk shows, comedians, folks who are on every night, I can't imagine, that's the first thing. Ellen used to say, you should do a talk show. You should do, I was like, there's why? Why would I go from what I was doing to another thing that is really scary and hard?

• 5:35Speaker 00

  It's hard for me to explain to you the kind of pressure that, you know, comedians and talk show hosts face. It's not something I don't think you'd be able to bear up to. And so I agree. There's a lot of times, a lot of people say, what's the most important job in the world? And, and they go, I don't know, whoever took over for Ellen.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  But it is hard. I mean, you've gotta come up with something. You've gotta have an opinion about the world every day, especially your commentary.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  But not hard. It's, uh, it's, it's a real gift for performers when you come up. You know, there really is, there's a ladder and you really do make your bones doing the hard work, the kind of grunt work of comedy, like, you know, driving from Rochester to Buffalo and then, you know, down again over to Hartford and, and doing all those comedy clubs and all that. So when the opportunity ever presents itself for a regular gig, where you can live in one place and maybe like raise a family, it's, it, it really does, it, it feels like kind of you made it to the island. You've been in the life raft, but you kind of made it to the island doing that whole thing.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Now, did your mother say, well, that's wonderful, Jon. I'm so glad that you are

• 6:58Speaker 00

  It's an interesting question. And also that idea of like, you know, did your parents encourage you? And I was like, now say that again, what's that?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  What is that word?

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Encourage? I mean, they knew I lived in the house. But, and I also, I had the advantage of my parents split when I was probably 10 years old. So at that point, you really are

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Your mom was holding it down.

• 7:20Speaker 00

  She was holding it down. Her mantra was, we will not lose the house.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  You know, because we had, this was 71, 72. So this was just in that era of I'm okay, you're okay, feminine mystique. Suddenly there was a consciousness in America for women that, oh, if my husband isn't ass, I don't have to take that.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  And so that's what happened.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Had she worked before? Was she a stay-at-home mom?

• 7:48Speaker 00

  She was a special ed teacher. So she taught gifted program, special ed program. She was a teacher. And then she'd also taught younger kids.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  Had done that in, in New York City, in the Bronx, where she grew up in, uh, Washington Heights as well. She did it for a little bit in El Paso when my dad was in the army. She taught in Texas for a little bit and then a little bit when she came back, but so we were only, there was only, we only knew of two families that had divorces. And the other family lost the house.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  So we weren't gonna lose the house. And she, to her credit,

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Didn't lose the house.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  Put it on her shoulders and went out and became what they called a teacher of teachers. She began to give seminars to other teachers and then became like an assistant principal and then, and really worked her way through there.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Did you, could you, did you know that about your mom when you were young? I had 10 when your dad left and he left you all high and dry. Did you understand the situation that you guys were in at the time?

• 9:02Speaker 00

  I was just glad that the, honestly, like, that the yelling had stopped. I mean, honestly, it's one of the greatest things about, and it sounds counterintuitive to talk about, one of the best things about divorce. Let me tell you something. If you're ever in this position, get yourself one of these divorces. They're fantastic.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  You know that feeling when you're trying to sleep and a car alarm is going off?

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:26Speaker 00

  And there's no real rhythm to it. You can't quite get into it. You can't even use it as a white noise. The feeling that you get in your soul when it stops. That's what it was like.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  But I was, I wasn't aware of the psychological trauma that she had been taking, that you're just glad the noise has stopped.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  See, I was gonna ask you which one of them is funny, but now that doesn't seem appropriate.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  The one that drank.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  See if you can guess.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  But do you think your humor developed out of sort of as a coping mechanism? Or were they funny?

• 10:12Speaker 00

  My grandfather probably was a pretty funny guy, but I don't.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Your maternal.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  My maternal grandfather, Nathan, my son is named after him. And he was just a character, lived to be 94, died when he got a stroke, playing poker with his friends in an OTB at 94 years old, smoking. He's just one of those dudes, born in China, raised in China. Family was wealthy till the Japanese took over China and then they had nothing. And he, you know, he used to say to me, when I had the money, I lived very well. But without money, I did not. And I was like, that's profound.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  But so, but I, I mean, it's like anything else. I think sometimes, I think it's just how I'm wired. And I don't, I don't know that it was a response to anything more than it was just, these are the genetic wirings that I've been given.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  What's your, your relationship with your siblings? Were you guys tight growing up?

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Uh, well, so I have two, so my father had two other, so he remarried. And then I have an older brother who, and we have a very good relationship. So we're very close, but I never lived with, you know, the other guys. And it was born of such complexity.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  I don't know how your family's history is run, but like.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Oh, everybody's got a history.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  It gets, it's.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  It's gnarly.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  It happens.

• 11:44Speaker 00

  I will tell you this, I can remember as an 18 year old, doing the landscaping at the apartment, cause I was, I worked for a landscaper in the summer, doing the landscaping at the apartment building that my father lived in with his new family that we had not been told about. That's how complicated, that's how complex it can get.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, and I hate to say, yeah, I know a few people who are in that, you know, but you know, you, when you grow up in the world, folks do some stuff.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  You know, um, but I bet you were pissed.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  Oh, if you think I did a good job on the landscaping, you'd be, believe me, there were some divots.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  You know, you don't, I, I think,

• 12:34Speaker 00

  I think to a large extent, I did not clock any of the damage until much later.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  The damage to yourself or.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, to your psyche or to your soul or to any of those things. You don't really reckon with it.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  Until much later, and I, I was relatively oblivious.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  And we, we also come from a generation where nobody talks about anything. Nobody, kids are just, you know, like they don't, it, it, there was a generation where you thought kids were just, they weren't taking in anything.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  And that if you didn't talk to them about it, it just didn't bother them, you know? It's the same thing, our, our parents weren't worried about what we were doing in life. You know, now you drop your kids off to college, there are college tours, you take them, you unpack them, you take them to lunch. None of us, it's like you go to college and it's like, how am I going to get there? You know, and luckily I had him, so my dad was dropping him off, you know? But there, you know, there's just no coddling, no conversation.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  Do you, do you wonder, you know, there was always a mindset for me, which was, I was going to remedy that, that when I had, because of the feeling ultimately of being estranged from your father, which is, you know, for a kid, it's a big deal. But once you have kids, it becomes a bigger deal. I think that's when I really started to reckon with it.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  Because you go, wait a minute.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  So I love, I love this thing this much.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  And to just walk away from that.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  And do that, yeah.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  Insanity.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  But I keep wondering, the steps I've taken remedially, what will, what am I doing wrong? How much margin of error do I have? How will my seeking to remedy those wrongs create new wrongs?

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It's like we're, you know, going too far in the extreme. I think that's something that our generation has to reckon with. And now we're over parenting in some ways, you know?

• 14:48Speaker 00

  And I also think, and they had this, you know, my dad was a, you know, he was a depressive and, you know, and I make no, you know, I've come to terms with whatever it was. And I can remember when he was dying, he had dementia, I remember, he and I were estranged.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  And when I knew he was passing, so I went to see him. And I remember thinking, you know,

• 15:15Speaker 00

  I felt badly for him, this man who was going through this difficult time and the family that clearly loved him, that were going through this time with him. But I did not feel as though that was a part of me in any way. I just felt like this poor man, these, these poor folks, I hope it's not too bad for them, I hope it's not too bad for him.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  But it was a relationship that, you know, when you talk about bitterness or anger or those things, I didn't, it was a relationship drained of that through estrangement and apathy.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  And it just, it, it withered. So by, by the end there, it, you felt it for the human condition of it, but not for the, the familial condition of it.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  This episode of IMO is brought to you by our sponsor, Midi Health.

• 16:19Speaker 01

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• 16:26Speaker 03

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• 16:46Speaker 02

  Can you tell us what exactly is Midi Health?

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• 17:32Speaker 03

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• 17:39Speaker 02

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• 20:28Speaker 02

  Did you always know you wanted to be a comedian?

• 20:33Speaker 00

  No.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  When did that, when did that nugget start?

• 20:39Speaker 00

  It's a great question. It started right after I was fired from everything else. Where they were like, you're unreliable.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  You can't do anything.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  And glib. Which is really.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  What were some of those jobs?

• 20:53Speaker 00

  It's one thing to be unreliable. It's another thing to be glib.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Glib on top of it all. Man.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  Joking about your unreliability. I had always, I was raised in that same era as you guys, where there was no social media, there was no aspiration to influencing. So it was never in the ether of this idea that I'm gonna, you know, I'll go into show business or I'll be, but I knew I wanted to create something.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  And I started working in this punk club in Trenton, New Jersey called City Gardens, which was this, you know, warehouse in the middle of Trenton. And all these bands would come through, like Black Flag and, you know, The Ramones and Bad Brains and really incredible performers and creative people. And they would be going there only because they were passing between New York and Philly.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  But it opened up this world of possibility.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:52Speaker 00

  And one day I just decided, you know what? I'm gonna sell all my, I'm gonna get in the car and I'm gonna drive to New York and I'm gonna live that life. And that's kinda.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  How old were you when you were working in Trenton?

• 22:06Speaker 00

  So I was 20, 20 through 23 or 4, before I decided to move up to New York City. And, and not, no one was waiting for me. No one was encouraging me. It's not like I would tell the guys at the bar like, I'm gonna be a comic in New York. And they'd be like, that makes complete sense. It was more like, alright, see you in six months.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  So this was right after college then?

• 22:31Speaker 00

  No, right after. So I lived and worked in these bars and for the state for a couple of years.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  After getting out of school. Yeah, yeah. Living with a bunch of friends in Trenton.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  When you were first getting started, like, what was that like?

• 22:44Speaker 01

  When you were just coming up?

• 22:46Speaker 02

  When you were just coming up, when you left Trenton and you hit the road.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  It was brutal. Oh, it was terrible.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Can you talk about that?

• 22:52Speaker 00

  Sure. I'd be delighted to.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Talk about how horrible that was.

• 22:57Speaker 00

  Well, like anything else, so unlike things like sports or, you know, a lot of other things that you do, there is no doing, but you learn, your first time on stage, nobody gives you grace with the idea that like, oh, I bet this guy probably sucks because he's never done it before. And, and I was, I was up in New York for, I ended up getting a job at this Mexican restaurant on MacDougal Street called Panchito's. And the Bitter End was right up the block on Bleecker. And they used to do, the thing about comedy is you have to, to work in a club, they have to accept you. It's called passing you.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  So you perform there and the major clubs, Comic Strip, Catcher Rising Star, Comedy Cellar, have a hierarchy. You can't just walk in there and be like, guys, you're not gonna believe this. I'm here. I know you've been, I know you've been waiting. And part of the structure, so then there were open mics beyond that, where you could maybe get some stage time. You'd put, you know, 50 comics would show up. You put your number and a hat and they'd pull them out. So if you had a high number, 48, 47, you're performing only in front of the three other comics that are left, because everybody else did their thing and got out. And there's a place called The Bitter End, more famous probably for music, but Cosby and Carlin

• 24:22Speaker 00

  and Pryor, I used to work in those clubs as well. And they would do an open audition night, but after like four Doors cover bands. Like it was, you know, 1 o'clock in the morning. And so that was my first, 1987. May of 1987, got up at The Bitter End with my little, had written a whole little thing out. And got up about 30 seconds into it, a guy goes, you're terrible.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 24:53Speaker 00

  And I hit him full barrel. I was like, no, I'm not. And then, and then he was like, that's it? And I was like, what? And he's like, well, this, even this is terrible. And I was like, well, according to you, you know, boom. And so you can imagine, everybody's like, is Robin Williams here? Because this is, no, it was awful. You know, I lasted probably, I didn't get back on the horse for like another six months. Like it was brutal.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Really?

• 25:27Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Brutal. And, but I realized like, the urge never went away. The desire, the waking up in the middle of the night and writing down stupid thoughts never went away. And, and so I just started, what you learn is there's a process. And so if you immerse yourself in the world, if you get yourself in trouble.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:51Speaker 00

  The people that are around that process are great guides. They're not mentors, but they're guides. They tell you, generally what you wanna do is you wanna hit this, this, this, and this. Good luck. But there isn't anything to it but to do it. So that's how you, and I got really fortunate. About a year into it, The Comedy Cellar, which is right up the street from the Mexican restaurant that I was the day bartender in. Who's the day bartender in a Mexican restaurant?

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true. Now that you pointed it out.

• 26:19Speaker 00

  You just make margarita mix for the night guy to clean up with.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  That's right. But aren't you happy there?

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Oh, I actually loved it. And so this woman named Esti, who was the booker at the comedy club, and this guy Bill Gronfest, who was also one of the bookers, they put me on every night, Sunday through Thursday. It wasn't allowed on the weekends because that was when the good people went. And they made me the last person. So the shows would usually start 8 or 9 o'clock and they'd go to whenever the last person left. So it could be 2:00 in the morning, it could be 3:00 in the morning. And that's how I learned the thing you wanna learn as a performer, which is who are you? What do you actually think? What's your rhythm?

• 27:05Speaker 00

  What, you know, stop doing an impression of Seinfeld and start doing who you might be. And that's the ground. You know, that's how you sort of, and it's growth.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Who were you when you first started discovering who you wanted to be?

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Who was that, John?

• 27:24Speaker 00

  You don't have the confidence to know if what you're doing will have any kind of staying power as a skill yet. So you can have a night where you're just killing it, like on top of it. And you're just thinking like, I am Robin Williams. Like, and then the next night, nothing. Same stuff, nothing. And you're feeling like, I am the worst person to ever have done that. And you, this is the ride you go on those early years. The win is when you establish a baseline of where you go like, oh, I'm starting to develop this. At like, like guys like Jerry, who are such, he's maybe the best craftsman,

• 28:07Speaker 00

  probably since Carlin, like to do, like just of craft. When you start to feel like there is a craft to it and you're, you're not going just joke to joke anymore, that's when you finally develop that confidence a little bit. But it takes a while.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. How old were you when that happened for you?

• 28:27Speaker 00

  So what time is it now?

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:33Speaker 00

  I think it, it was, I don't think you ever cross a threshold. It's that you've, you suddenly realize, I'm not riding this roller coaster as hard as I was.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  And, and part of it is, comics talk about their development in terms of, it's always, the metric is always time. You don't ever say like, I've gotten funnier. You say, I got 10 minutes.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  It's purely a function of time. Because to make money, you gotta have to do time. If you can do 15 minutes, you can emcee. That'll pay you $600 a week.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Wow, wow.

• 29:15Speaker 00

  If you can do 35, you can middle. Now you're going out there for 900, maybe a thousand a week. If you can do 45 or 50 and do it in the middle of a check drop.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Uh huh. What, what do you mean, check drop?

• 29:28Speaker 00

  So a check drop is, so when you go out to a club and there's not so much in the city, they're the same. But when you're working like in improv in another city or yuck ducks or any of those kinds of things, if you're the headliner, well, everybody that's sitting there gotta pay at some point.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  And they're not gonna wait till after the show because they gotta turn it over.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Can you keep the attention while the room is turning over?

• 29:49Speaker 00

  In the city, it's called the check spot. So once you get to a point where you have a certain amount of time and you can handle your business during the check spot, that's when you go, okay, now I can, now I can make a living. And that's, those are the metrics that you wanna hit as you go. And that's all it was about.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Any girls? Any, you know, were you cute? Were you, you know?

• 30:16Speaker 00

  I think we all know the answer to that.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  I would, you know, I didn't meet my wife until I was thirty-two years old.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  And you didn't date before then? You were just hustling?

• 30:28Speaker 00

  No, I had a couple of girlfriends.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  See there?

• 30:31Speaker 00

  But the girls that you basically ended up going out with were the waitresses at the Comedy Co. That's your whole life.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  You know, you don't, most girls at that time wanted to go do things. And most girls, you'd be like, so here's my day. We're gonna get high till four in the morning and we're gonna watch a ton of Three Stooges movies. And then I'm gonna sleep till around one.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  Then I'm gonna disappear, probably wander around trying to get some jokes. And I'll meet you, I guess, around three in the morning at the Kettle of Fish Bar.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  And we'll do it again.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  And we'll do it again, baby. And a lot of girls, as you can imagine, would be like, sign me up.

• 31:15Speaker 00

  It is not a lifestyle conducive to the healthiest of those kinds of relationships.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  You make a good point. I never thought of it like that.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:24Speaker 00

  Even when I first met my wife, she had a regular job. And so she had to be up at seven and I'd roll in, two-thirty in the morning.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  And when you met her, at what stage of your career were you at?

• 31:38Speaker 00

  I was in, had to, I was freshly canceled. I was, I met her, I had had a talk show on MTV.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, right.

• 31:51Speaker 00

  Famously known for its

• 31:52Speaker 01

  We know about it.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  Talk, MTV was this known for, for Hot Talk.

• 31:59Speaker 00

  And it went real well. And then Arsenio retired, decided he didn't want to do his show anymore. And Paramount, who owned MTV at the time, got the great idea that what makes more sense than making me the next Arsenio? So I took that time slot. And so you can imagine the confusion.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Didn't work out.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  That's exactly right. So, and we knew it wasn't gonna work out pretty quickly. You, you get the ratings.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:24Speaker 00

  So I was visiting friends who were filming things in Greenwich Village. And on one of the sets, there was a makeup artist who, when I came in, said, do you have a girlfriend? And I said, no.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Of course not.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  She said, well, I've got this girl. And she describes this girl in ways where I'm like, this is a lie. Is it funny, is sweet, is smart? You can't even, she's the blah, blah, blah. So I'm like, all right, I'll go out with her. So she writes the number on a dollar bill. She gives it to me. I go home. I call, who turns out to be my wife, Tracy, and we have a long conversation. I mean, like, two hours.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  On the phone?

• 33:07Speaker 00

  On the phone. She

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Phone call.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  And the kind of phone

• 33:10Speaker 01

  We're all like, young people

• 33:12Speaker 00

  That's in the wall.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  It's called a telephone.

• 33:13Speaker 00

  The kind that had a cord on it where you could wander around.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  And she's lovely, funny, smart. We're raised in sort of the same area. And I'm like, we, you know, I'd love to take you out some night, you know, I'll call you on Friday and I'll take you out. Well, at the time, I was a pretty heavy smoker. And cigarettes cost money. And some of the money that the cigarettes cost are the ones that I had written her number on.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Oh, John.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  Okay, okay.

• 33:46Speaker 00

  So I did not call her when I said I was going to call her.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  That's, I get it. But the story has a happy ending. Relax.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  I know, but that just hurts. I mean, it just like, ouch.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  So that was our original part. So what I ended up having to do was go back to that movie set. Because I knew they were roommates. So when I found their call sheets, I saw her, the number of the makeup artist. So I knew that was the number. So I was able to call, but it took a lot longer.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Too long, too long.

• 34:16Speaker 00

  Called her again, it was a lot of like, hey, what's up? So it took a little while to get back in.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. You know, I like keeping things simple and that's exactly what Apple Card does. When you use Apple Card with Apple Pay, you can earn up to 3% unlimited daily cash back on every purchase you make, no matter where you shop. And let's talk about fees because honestly, nobody likes those, which is why Apple Card doesn't have any. No annual, foreign transaction, or late fees. No fees, period. Plus, when it comes to security, you can shop with peace of mind knowing Apple Card is built with the advanced security of Apple Pay, including Face ID and Touch ID, so you're the only one who can use it.

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• 38:34Speaker 01

  So how was the first date?

• 38:36Speaker 00

  Fabulous. She, when I'm nervous, I talk too much. And when she's nervous, she doesn't talk at all. So we went to a little restaurant on Sixth Avenue called Lupita's East L.A. Kitchen.

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Or, no, Lupe's, Lupe's East L.A. Kitchen.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  We don't know the difference.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  And I could make up anything.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  You could.

• 38:58Speaker 00

  We went to Le Cirque. I said, this woman deserves the most expensive meal. We stopped first at Tiffany's. No, I figured first day quesadilla.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  And so I sat and I ate my delicious burrito and her delicious burrito.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  And all the drinks and talked and thought, this woman cannot stand me.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  And we're walking home and I thought, we're going by this one bar that I liked. Do you mind if we stop in there, have a drink? Two Scotches in, she comes alive.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Two Scotches in, she just went

• 39:41Speaker 00

  And, and I was, I was smitten. That was it.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Wow. How long did you guys date?

• 39:49Speaker 00

  How long was it? She, she knows the answer to this. I believe she said it was too long. She said you dated, we dated too long. I asked her, remember, I mean, probably

• 40:01Speaker 00

  three and a half years in. So we've been going out for three and a half years. We lived together for a couple of years. And had all the dogs and all those things.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  How long did you guys know? How long did you know? Did you know with your

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Which one?

• 40:15Speaker 00

  The one that stuck.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  No, I didn't know right away because I was going through a major divorce.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  And we don't, we don't have enough time for me to tell my favorite story of meeting my wife, so I'll save that one for you. But when I met her, because I was going through this horrible divorce, when, and I moved back in to my apartment, our family's apartment that we lived in growing up. And my parents had moved, my mom had moved downstairs where my aunt lived.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Sure, he was living at home with mom.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  I was back at home.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  Your older sister just put you in your place.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  It's like, what are we talking about here?

• 41:02Speaker 02

  So whenever I would go out anywhere, my mom would be like, you meet anybody? And I'm like, no, mom, I'm not interested in meeting anybody. So I met my current wife, Kelly, and didn't ask for her number or anything. I just met her and I was like, after my mom asked me that when I came home, I was like, maybe I should have gotten her number.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  He's such a slow burn. He's always that way.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  I understand that. You're recovering.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Clueless.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  I waited till Thursday because she told me where she worked. And I looked it up and I saw her phone number there. And I, as I'm dialing her number, she sent me an email at the exact same time.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Oh, really? The kismet of, of the digital age.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  But then we dated for five years before we got married.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Slow burn.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  It was, it was because of me.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  Did you know how long before he introduced her to you?

• 42:01Speaker 01

  I'm bad with time. It was probably within the first year.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  It was definitely the first year.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was the first year. I mean, whenever he was ready to, did we meet her before the kids met her?

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he, you know.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  Did you know that when you met her, did you go like, oh, yeah, this is, this will?

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Well, because he was bringing somebody around. I mean, I don't, my brother is a slow burn. I mean, he's had like three girlfriends his whole life because he was a basketball player, right? So he was always, you know.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  Yes, basketball players famously monogamous. You can't, you can't shake a stick and find a basketball player that isn't dedicated to whatever relationship he has at the heart.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  He was also a very monogamous young man.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  So he was very, you know, he's a good man. So if he, if he was bringing somebody around, it was like, okay. How are you feeling about the state of our, our nation?

• 42:54Speaker 00

  You know, I'm glad you asked me that. Thank you. I'm gonna tell you something, and this is recent, and I don't know if we're making news here or not. I'm really beginning to sour on this president.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  I feel like, you know, you know me, I was with him, you know. And I remember after January 6th, watching the insurrection and watching the police being sprayed with bear spray and being beaten with poles, I remember thinking to myself, I don't love this.

• 43:25Speaker 00

  You know, I'm gonna, I'm thinking of maybe not supporting him next time, but then obviously he won me back. But, uh, no, I, I mean, uh,

• 43:34Speaker 00

  I, I don't even want to, because I imagine for you and your family and having been, that it's, it's a surreal experience for you guys because of the effort that you put into building something up. And to watch it be corrupted, to, to have this perversion of leadership. I imagine it's especially, uh, difficult to digest. It's, there's, there's a surreal quality to it. Although I have to say, uh, you guys left money on the table, a Michelle meme coin.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Didn't even know it was possible. I mean, there were so many things.

• 44:18Speaker 00

  You guys didn't do a pump and dunk. It really, you left some money on the table.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  You know, we could have been, we could have had a Netflix deal a decade ago.

• 44:27Speaker 00

  Netflix deal, you could have had a weapons company.

• 44:31Speaker 00

  You could have sold missiles to yourself.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  Don and Eric have a drone company. I don't even know what to say.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  You know, it's the level of corruption that is, is, in some ways, maybe it's doing a favor by making this, the, the current power structure and dynamic of this country untenable because of how explicitly corrupted it is. Maybe that's, I don't know.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Well, it's sort of, you know, what I say, you know, what we were saying about the rolling back of women's rights. I mean, you know, if, if, when things are okay, you know, um, it's easier to take what you have for granted. And to think, well, you know, um, there will always be somebody there who wouldn't possibly do this, you know?

• 45:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  You know, we, we've never had somebody who would do this, right? And you just assume that's gonna be the way it is. Um, yeah, I think at some level, we were there as a country, just a little unclear, just a little like, maybe we can get a little more, you know, maybe I can get more of a tax break, you know? I mean, maybe we can get richer than we are. Um, you know, maybe we can get rights changed faster than ever before, right? Um, because, you know, our kids didn't witness much of the struggle at all, right? They didn't experience it, and that's, you know, that's the kind of growth you would hope for, for the country, that each generation, everything gets better and better and better.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  And that was actually happening, right? Until we get to a point where there's a generation that didn't even remember what was wrong in the first place. Never saw it, right? I mean, you think about all the young people who only have known, only knew Barack Obama as their president. Like, that was the America. There is that truth too, right?

• 46:36Speaker 00

  What was the feeling like? Because it is a crucible, like that, you feel the weight of that house and every room and every piece of furniture that exists in that house. And the responsibility, I imagine, is, it is a weight you bear every day that you walk through there. The day you walk out, is that, is the experience one of liberation? Is it one of exhale?

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Are you, are you now interviewing me, Jon Stewart?

• 47:08Speaker 00

  No, this isn't gonna make it into the show.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  I was, I'm just, I would never be interviewing. That's not what we're here for. I was just curious.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  No, no, I mean, I've, I've, so I wrote about this in, in Becoming. I mean, when we got on that plane after, you know, the election and the, you know, the outcome and the disappointment and young people and, you know, all of it.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  I got on that plane and that last trip on Air Force One, and I barely remember much of anything. But the minute I walked through those doors, I burst out in tears. And I think I cried for like 30 minutes straight.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  And for me, that is a, a show of, a release of, it wasn't sadness. It was, thank God, we made it to the other side of that experience. Because it's not just the responsibility, but as a mother, it's like, okay, my kids are whole. My husband is whole, you know? Um, it didn't, there was no guarantee that we'd get to this other side in one place. Um, we were proud of what we did, um, but it was like, it was over. It's like, phew.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  You know, um, and I, you know, who would know that? There were 40 some odd people who've ever had that experience. Um, and it is a, it's, it's a weight because it's, it's not about you, right? You, you are responsible for every, every emotion, every sense of, of, of a young person's being, you know? I mean, everything we were doing, we understood what we were modeling, you know? And it's like, you don't want to get it wrong, you know? You don't want to.

• 49:04Speaker 00

  So you were cognizant of the effects your policies and thoughts might have on the lives of, of others? That's so interesting. So you, what you're saying is, in the middle of, let's say, a war, you wouldn't necessarily bring out, I don't know, the specs for a ballroom?

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Jon, let me tell you, as, as, as their brother, or her brother and brother-in-law and

• 49:34Speaker 02

  all black people, we were, it, it feels like I was holding my breath for eight years.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  Really?

• 49:44Speaker 02

  Because of the magnitude of what they had in front of them. And how, if they had somehow, uh,

• 49:56Speaker 02

  accidentally or maliciously done the wrong thing, how it would have affected the entire race.

• 50:04Speaker 00

  Right.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  That's, people don't talk about that.

• 50:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  And, you know.

• 50:09Speaker 00

  The Jackie Robinson.

• 50:10Speaker 02

  It's the, it's the.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  It's like, well, that's it for, that was your turn.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  All right, let's try a Jew.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  But, but it's, you know, so, uh, not that you asked me, but I was relieved on that, at the end. Relieve all of the worry.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  That's an interesting part of it too, is to be the family, but to not be in the house.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 50:39Speaker 00

  Also, because you're not ensconced in it, you're on the outside feeling all of the outside noise. I imagine the house can somehow function as a bit of a.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  They're bubbled up.

• 50:48Speaker 00

  Right, right, right.

• 50:50Speaker 02

  But I'm out, I'm out in the streets like a civilian and I'm dealing with all that.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  Now, as, as the, the brother, was it hard to hold your powder when? Because I know, listen, noise is noise and everybody hears it, so I would imagine.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  You know, I, I think the, at the time, I was still coaching.

• 51:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:08Speaker 02

  So, um, what I always said to people was that, as long as I know they're in there, I know they're trying to do the best for the most people.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  So what, the noise I was hearing wasn't that bad.

• 51:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Um, and plus, people were telling me I couldn't coach and needed to be fired anyway, so.

• 51:30Speaker 00

  You had your own noise you were dealing with.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  No, no, but it, it, it, um,

• 51:37Speaker 02

  I had the utmost confidence in him, so I wasn't worried about the noise because it didn't mean anything.

• 51:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  I've always admired people who bet on themselves. The friend who starts roasting coffee in their garage, the side hustle cake decorator, my wife Kelly. She loves flipping my old sports merch online. It's very fun to watch. Inevitably, anyone who wants to sell something online comes across the big question, how do I actually do this? That's where Shopify comes in. Shopify is a platform built to help people start, run and grow a business. You own your storefront, your brand and your customer relationships, but Shopify helps put your products in front of people wherever they're already shopping. From Google and YouTube to social media, the shop app and more.

• 52:34Speaker 02

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• 53:16Speaker 02

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• 53:59Speaker 02

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• 56:29Speaker 01

  Did you know you would be doing what you're doing with comedy at this level? I mean, was there always a political curiosity, a passion? You know, and finding a way to incorporate it into your, into your comedy?

• 56:46Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, so that's, you know, we talked earlier a little bit about like your first 15 or 20 minutes is almost always biographical.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:53Speaker 00

  And then you move into kind of observational. And observational can be, you know, the sort of behavioral, the, from the minutia to the trivial to something more consequential about relationships or things like that. But I was never particularly interested in those dynamics. I was interested in power dynamics. I was interested in, in the way that the world functioned and had always been that way. In school and everything else. And so that was, I think if you wanted to feel like you were being authentic, you try and write material that reflected your passions and interests. And that's sort of where that, that all came from.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  And then how did the, the whole Daily Show come about?

• 57:43Speaker 00

  So the Daily Show came about, Doug Herzog and Madeline Smithberg and Elise Roth were these two producers. And then the head of, at the time, Comedy Central, Doug had wanted to do kind of, what's the Comedy Central answer to SportsCenter? What's, what would make this network feel like it was a sort of living entity? And so the Daily Show is what Madeline and Elise produced to that end. And they had a host, a basketball player, Craig Kilburt.

• 58:16Speaker 02

  Craig Kilburt.

• 58:16Speaker 00

  And he had decided to go off to do network. And I'd been out of work for a while. I'd written a book and done some other stuff and kicked around the clubs and done some incredibly memorable independent film roles.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  And yeah, that, that wouldn't happen. And, and they asked me if I wanted to do it. And, and I had said, you know, let me, let me think about it. And, and I thought about the way that, that I saw that the show was and the way that I wanted to make it. And, and so we had discussions about, I, I thought that it, it could be a vehicle to explore those themes of power and politics and the distance between. I was always really interested in the room before the room, the room where the meeting took place. And then the politicians would go out and they would give their speech. And you always wonder, okay, every, because as you know, like everything's purposeful, everything is intentional.

• 59:18Speaker 00

  So how are they designing that?

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Sometimes.

• 59:21Speaker 00

  Used to be. Sometimes now you just have a guy wake up at three in the morning and go, I think I might be Jesus. Point is this. But, but that's what I wanted the show to be, to deconstruct what we see as power's reality. What, what's the reality behind that? And that seemed like the right forum for it. And also this surrounded by just great writers and performers. And, you know, and the list of them is endless.

• 59:50Speaker 02

  Speaking of, you know, we had Jessica Williams on.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Oh, God, she is amazing.

• 59:55Speaker 02

  She's amazing.

• 59:56Speaker 00

  She's the best.

• 59:56Speaker 02

  She raved about your mentorship and you should be very proud.

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  Listen, it's like, you don't want to screw that. Like it, she is such a rare, I watch videotapes all day looking for talent. And, you know, and you watch them with sort of that idea of you're, it's like scrolling on before Instagram, you're just doing this.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Speaker 00

  Going through. And then every now and again, you go, huh? That's Jessica. She, and I mean like, not a produced, like some low rent, old Sony, Handycam, like nothing video. And she just explodes off it.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:41Speaker 00

  And is, and what a lovely person. And, but a talent that, I mean, she's obviously doing, but, you know, we knew that the minute you saw her, and she was, I think, 20 years old, 21 years. Like it was crazy. We couldn't even believe that.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  And she had never done it.

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  Never done it. Came in and was just, she's, certain people vibrate with no delay. Like in, like an electrical, she, she has like an electrical.

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Speaker 00

  So it's, the synapse is just fire.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:01:16Speaker 00

  And she's that as a talent. And the best thing that I tried to do was try and find the most talented people I could and let them be them. I'd love to say that it was like my guidance of that, like I was.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Well, you wouldn't say that, but a lot of other people have said that about you. I mean,

• 1:01:35Speaker 00

  Well, that's very, that's kind of.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  You know, they have talked about you being the leader at that table. I mean, you know, the table that they were surrounded by, there was still your work ethic. There was still the example of your, and I'm, I'm using the words that I've heard.

• 1:01:51Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  You know, it was still your work ethic. It was still the tone that you set around that table. And you know that there are tables, other comedy tables.

• 1:02:01Speaker 00

  I've been at some of the tables.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  Where, you know, no, it's just the opposite. It's a little rough and nobody's rooting for you. And there isn't the, you know? So I don't know whether that's a question because you won't take it. You won't say, how did you do that, John? How did you feel?

• 1:02:19Speaker 00

  But yeah. Once I read Sun Tzu's Art of War. I think I'd been in a lot of places that were not healthy and.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  And when I first got there, I don't think it was healthy. I think it was rough.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  And, and quite toxic. And that people's ambition was, I think it's hard for people to sometimes understand, and maybe in the show, is that if the show's good, we all win.

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:47Speaker 00

  And so if we all, the energy that it takes you to create toxicity, or selfishness, or to be overly combative, is energy that you're not using to elevate.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Listen, America. Can you say that again?

• 1:03:07Speaker 00

  El partido de fútbol, donde vas con tanta prisa. It was, you know, there's only a finite amount of, of energy in the day. So I had to learn how to parcel that energy for myself, but also for the staff to understand that like, we're, it's, in some respects, it's a refinery, and we're taking raw materials in the morning, and we're trying to create a, a process that can refine those materials into something that we feel is, and I don't want to say great, not great thing, but the, the greatest execution of our aspiration or intention.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:46Speaker 00

  Every day has to set an intention. And, and that's why for me, it's almost more fun to work on the process. Cause the, the process was so crucial in creating the product. And that was what, that was the gift of having people around me who also really sort of dug that idea.

• 1:04:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:08Speaker 00

  Like, let's sit and talk about, cause five minutes at 9 a.m. is 45 minutes at 6 o'clock, but now there's an audience waiting there. So if we can figure out how to create a process that's repeatable, but not stifling, that was like, it was this great dynamic of challenges.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:27Speaker 00

  And, and, uh, and what I loved about it, it, it, I felt like it was the first time it, it used every part of anything that I thought I was able to do, to its totality.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  And that's why it was so nice to be able to come home to my family completely drained.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:49Speaker 00

  And spent.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:50Speaker 00

  So that I had nothing left for them. I think the answer here is this.

• 1:04:56Speaker 00

  Work hard, deplete yourself.

• 1:05:01Speaker 00

  Have nothing left for others.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  For your family. Well, what was family life like for you before you realized that you were, you know, I mean, was Tracy patient with it? Was she getting a little pissed off about it? What, did she understand?

• 1:05:20Speaker 00

  I think that it's hard whenever you have young children.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:05:26Speaker 00

  And, and this is probably for just me and Craig.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Dumb boys.

• 1:05:34Speaker 00

  Dumb boys.

• 1:05:37Speaker 00

  Is when you walk into the house, when there are two young children there, and you've been working all day, the first thing you might not want to say is, how tired you are.

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes, you can't do that. So no, no.

• 1:05:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  You know, and that's, you know, that we should put that on a T-shirt.

• 1:05:56Speaker 00

  Don't say how tired you are.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Don't, don't.

• 1:05:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  You know, don't do it.

• 1:06:01Speaker 00

  But she's also like, she's just a rare bird, like incredibly supportive. But it took me a while to understand, and to really, and really understand it,

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  how hard it was for her in those, in those years. It was really hard.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:19Speaker 00

  And, uh, and, uh,

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:06:23Speaker 00

  And the, the, the person that's coming into that, that you've been ensconced in the whole day, is also can come into it as the amusement park.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  Oh, God, yeah.

• 1:06:32Speaker 00

  So you can walk in, it's been a long day of tears and, uh, limits and trying to set, you know, raise them to be responsible thing. And then this one comes in, is like, who wants to ride on my back? And you, you know, you're, you're a wrecking ball.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:06:49Speaker 00

  In this entire operation, and you think it's, but I don't get any time with them and I do this.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  And so it, you know, dealing with all that is, it, it can be really, it can be really fraught. But what's so interesting is, as they become autonomous, and, and obviously the, you know, the, those, those old ways of raising them when they're little, you know, that it's, you know, nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice, you know? And then, but as they get older, you're like, you know, they put fentanyl in coke, right? Like, just, you know, be, be aware, right? Like, but then it's just the two of you again.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Speaker 00

  And it's a really kind of lovely, like, it's a comfort. Like, you've been through all these wars, and now you're kind of just together again on the couch. And you obviously, you know, the, the energy and excitement of the kids being around is so incredible.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  I don't. I love them. I'm gonna see them night, tonight for dinner. I love them.

• 1:07:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  But, you know, Barack cried when they went to college. I was like, bye, little.

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  Goodbye. Now, now Friday nights aren't wrecked with terror and fear about, where are you? Where are you?

• 1:08:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  You know, I was, I love their emancipation and growth and.

• 1:08:11Speaker 00

  The thing I miss though is the job. Like, don't you miss? See, your kids are still in high school, so it's still a job.

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:08:17Speaker 00

  Like, the, it gave a, a meaning and like pattern to my life.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  I'm good. I, look at all this meaning I have. I have a wonderful pattern, you know?

• 1:08:29Speaker 02

  I love my kids' schedule. I love it.

• 1:08:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's something about this schedule.

• 1:08:33Speaker 02

  I love their schedule.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  I love my schedule. I have a great schedule, and it's all mine.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  But I think fathers can be that way because you weren't there from 6 to 9.

• 1:08:46Speaker 00

  And we missed a lot of it, that's right.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  You missed a lot of it. I mean, I've had so much quality time with my children.

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  That's so funny.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  So much. We know, I know them inside and out.

• 1:08:54Speaker 00

  It must drive you crazy. I'm sure it must have driven my wife crazy. When, when, when I first left the show, and so it was all about then driving the kids to school and driving them home, and I'd come back with them, they were in the car and they were talking about this. They were laughing, and you know, I, it never occurred to me, but I'm sure my wife was thinking, how lovely.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You just soak it all in.

• 1:09:16Speaker 00

  But we, at that time too, we moved out of the city. So we went through a kind of a strange, I don't know if you guys have ever experienced this, but so, when we were in the city, we went, they went to school in Greenwich Village, called, a little school called Little Red, literally like the school Pete Seeger went to.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I've heard of that school, yeah.

• 1:09:33Speaker 00

  Ends with, you know, Honey and the Rock feed all the children. We all hold hands and somehow just levitate, you know, it's all just magical. And we moved them out to, to Jersey, and this was 2015. I remember dropping them off at school, and the first bumper sticker I saw was Hillary for prison. And I was like, oh, okay. I don't think Honey and the Rock is, is how this thing is, is gonna go. But that was a big adjustment, and they, in some ways, I'm really glad that that happened. Because we were ensconced in something that was really eccentric and kind of cloistered.

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do you think comedy helps or hurts the political climate?

• 1:10:20Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  Cause here's what, you know, I, I mean, sometimes I just can't watch anything political.

• 1:10:31Speaker 00

  Sure, sure.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  Right? Um, especially then, because it was like,

• 1:10:36Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  Is this, is this funny?

• 1:10:39Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  You know, or is it, yeah, yeah. But I, I, you know, I, I wonder what you, you think? Because it, sometimes I think, is it, is it good that most young people are getting their news from The Daily Show?

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Or that they, you know, they want you to run for president? Or, you know, I mean, that we're in that position of where, you know, especially with social media.

• 1:11:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  It's like, the funny guy.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  Social media has, look, I think the shows that, that we do now,

• 1:11:17Speaker 00

  they go out on social media on the thing, but to, to a large extent, because we are infrastructure heavy, we are, we do, we are in some ways a relic of a previous era where it's sort of like, I'm running a blockbuster, a video store inside of a Tower Records, you know what I mean? Like, it is where people will just be like, so you sell what now, CDs?

• 1:11:38Speaker 00

  But in other ways, it has more reach because social media places it everywhere. The question is, what does, I, I never confuse cultural power with power.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:50Speaker 00

  I learned early on that the, one of the frustrations of, one of the joys of it is catharsis, and being able to express yourself and do that thing that we talked about, like, what do you want to be as a comic? I want to be, I want my personal thoughts and dreams and whatever to be filtered through whatever art form it is that I'm pushing through.

• 1:12:09Speaker 00

  Second item of it is, but it's impotent. And, and does it, is it an opiate? Is it creating, uh, you know? And having worked on, on some of those things on Capitol Hill and all that, I know the difference now, which I didn't before. The difference between activists who are in the trenches, doing that day-to-day work, trying to bend that arc of the moral universe slowly towards us. It's not realizing there's a bunch of people trying to bend it back. And so, you know, I wish there were metrics. I'd almost, I, I wish there was a double-blind study, where you could find out like, am I hurt? Like, does this help? Does it corrode? Does it pervert?

• 1:12:51Speaker 00

  Is it something to be? Is it ultra-processed, you know, food? That's given the country a kind of political diabetes? You know, I don't, I don't know. I think, I also have to step back on, it may not be an honorable thing we do, but we do it as honorably as we can in that it is not in bad faith. So the way that I try and judge it is, any good faith art, material, speech, talk that goes into the universe, I feel like is a win. There's so much bad faith. And, and I try to hold that, but I can't sit here and honestly answer like,

• 1:13:35Speaker 00

  it's a win for society. Like, what I've done over these past 25, you know? I don't, I, I, I'd hate to think, obviously.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:46Speaker 00

  But there's many people on social media who would tell me, you know, that that is the case. And, and the other side of it is, you have to be agnostic about, you don't get close to the people like, the relationships with political figures are always fraught. Or with media figures. I always just say to people at the show, look at the people around you. When you leave here, if we do this right, these will be your only friends.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:14:14Speaker 00

  Because one of the things about the sort of media industrial complex and the political media industrial complex is, the associations diminish the purpose of what some of those disciplines are. They can't exist in that. And so that's hard. You know, um, because you do feel there are people you really like. You really admire, but you know at work, like, you're gonna have to, and I'm sure for you guys, there's people you might like who do those things. And you go, I think I'd like to punch that guy in the face. You know, that kind of.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  Well, and to answer my own question of you, I do think, um, the, the cultural impact is important. I mean, I've always thought that, you know, that that power is, it's, it's not the same, but it's really important. I mean, I felt that way even when I was First Lady. You know, and I think our administration understood that. There was the, the, the Washington power. But it's like, if you wanted to talk to anybody, if you wanted anybody to hear you really, you needed to go at it from the culture.

• 1:15:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  Right? Where people are. And not try to buck it. I mean, I didn't do one interview with Face the Nation or Meet the Press. Right? I never sat down with the New York Times editorial board. But I came on The Daily Show.

• 1:15:42Speaker 00

  And you never tried to have us arrested?

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  Oh, I didn't, I didn't. Although if I knew, I could've.

• 1:15:48Speaker 00

  Or taken off the air. No, but it's a function of, it's a function of a confidence in your worldview. There is nothing more, uh, I think fragile than someone who wields real power, who feels that that power will be diminished by satire or commentary. You know, it's kind of a shocking fragility. For someone who wants to, you know, project alpha male dominance and yet be so incredibly, you know, wrecked by something that happens at 12:30 at night.

• 1:16:29Speaker 00

  I mean, he's made all of our shows relevant again in a weird way.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  Well, um, I thank you.

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  Listen, I thank you guys for coming over. It's been such a delight. Now, you know, I turn this room, my book club is gonna be here.

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  It's true. Are you enjoying the podcast? The podcast space?

• 1:16:51Speaker 00

  Oh, the one that we do?

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you know, the one where you should be interviewing people and not.

• 1:16:57Speaker 00

  I get to talk to all kinds of different people and I get to do it in my house. Which is just.

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  That's perfect.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  That's so cool.

• 1:17:05Speaker 00

  And it's also a way, you know, as you guys, we talked about earlier, I am not the most social, socially inclined individual.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was the, the most surprising thing when I met you.

• 1:17:15Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I mean, oh, he's so shy. And he's extremely anxious about the world.

• 1:17:21Speaker 00

  Yes, that is correct.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  But is it true that you keep your Emmys in a box? In a?

• 1:17:28Speaker 00

  Yes, I'm sure. I've never been attached to material or awards or any of those sorts of things. I've always, my wife found me, uh, when, when she found me, I was a, I lived out of those milk crates that you used to get with all this stuff. And, and I'm.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Barely out of those.

• 1:17:47Speaker 00

  Barely out of, barely out of that. So, uh, but no, this is, it's been, it's lovely to talk to you guys.

• 1:17:54Speaker 02

  Well, you know, we have a listener question that we need to answer that will.

• 1:17:59Speaker 00

  Sagittarius. You're fire, girl. I don't know where that is. I don't know what camera I'm looking at. I'm in surround sound over here.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  All right, who's our listener question from?

• 1:18:13Speaker 04

  All right, so this is from Eric. Hi, Michelle and Craig, my dilemma is this. I am certain that fixating on politics and political conversations right now will not improve the negativity, divisiveness and hopelessness that I have and that seems to be everywhere. At the same time, it can feel naive to ignore things altogether because so many things ail the world right now. The economy, loss of rights, deaths at home and in wars overseas, the environment. So where does that leave the average person like me who both wants to escape or at least ignore the nightmare of our current political landscape, yet also understands that doing nothing won't actually improve anything? What is the kind of work we can be doing? And what are the conversations we should be having that might make a difference?

• 1:18:57Speaker 04

  But also allow us to keep our sanity? From Eric in Vermont.

• 1:19:02Speaker 02

  Okay, Eric.

• 1:19:04Speaker 00

  Your listeners are deep. We do something like this on my show and it's always like, what's your Taco Bell order? Are you a Chalupa guy? Eric's going through it, man.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  I don't think he's alone.

• 1:19:18Speaker 00

  Oh, wait, are you looking at me to answer this?

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:22Speaker 00

  I turned to answer, Craig's looking at me like this, like.

• 1:19:26Speaker 02

  You're the expert.

• 1:19:27Speaker 00

  Let's see what you got.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  We'll, we'll, we'll all jump in, but we don't, we want to be polite and let our guests go first.

• 1:19:34Speaker 00

  Action is the antidote to anxiety. And I've, I've always felt that, like, he's, existential anxiety is something you can never get your hands around, but what you can get around are tactile. It's so funny that this is coming up. So, so I'd had this conversation with Trevor Noah about anxiety and, that's why I like woodworking, I like, I've learned how to play the drums. There are things that are, uh, they're mechanical, they're tactile, they are rhythmic, they are repeatable, and they are grounding for me mentally. And he just sent me this, uh, apparently Winston Churchill felt the same way.

• 1:20:15Speaker 00

  He sent me this thing about Winston Churchill used to be visited by depression. I don't have that, but, uh, uh, he'd be visited by depression and he would call it the black dog. And when the black dog would visit, uh, he had to do things with his hands. He had to make things, he had to. And so Trevor was just sending me that, you know, this is your coping mechanism put to explicit eloquence by Winston Churchill. And then I just wrote him back and said, uh, that's so crazy. It explains why I always feel like I want to bomb the Germans. But, um, I, I would think, you know, young people feel this way.

• 1:20:58Speaker 00

  You know, in, in the olden days, you got rid of that with booze. Like, that's kind of how people dealt with that existential anxiety because they couldn't talk it out. But I don't know, like, that was very, anybody that I think that is able to articulate it in that way can get through it. Because that's naming it is one of the hardest things.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  I mean, one thing I, I totally, totally agree because some of you, you just gotta work through it. And I totally agree with the tactile piece. I mean, I knit, I knitted my way through COVID. I played tennis like three times a week. And the repetition of the thing, because you're on there, it's like, I have to run and hit that ball. I can't think about anything else while I'm doing. And I'm trying to figure out how to hit the ball better. And I can do that for 90 minutes. And it, you know, that's 90 minutes of not thinking about anything except for that thing. So I completely agree with that. The other thing I often say to, to people is, you know, I, I think we

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  run into the challenge of thinking that all change has to be big change. I think young people think that too. You know, and you hear about the young people doing something, well, I, you know, I got a thousand people to vote, or I raised this. I mean, it's just like they, they, they're often biting off so much. You know, how do I end drug dealing in my neighborhood? How do I fix this huge gigantic problem right under my nose? And the answer is, you can't. You, you know, what you need to do first of all is just focus on what you can control. You know, focus on small right now, especially young people. It's like right here. You know, it's like, are you in school?

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  Stay in school. Do your homework. You know, that's, that's, you know, that's some power right there.

• 1:22:52Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And it's also sort of the quiet activism of living pleasantly. Like, in the sense of everybody that you encounter in your world, whether it's at a deli nearby or when you go to the thing, if you interact with them in, in a way that.

• 1:23:10Speaker 00

  Recognizes their shared humanity. I'm telling you, man, that makes.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  That's a win.

• 1:23:14Speaker 02

  It works.

• 1:23:15Speaker 00

  It's kinda huge.

• 1:23:16Speaker 02

  It works. And it's funny, it's funny that Eric is in Vermont because that goes to what, what I was gonna say to Eric, you know, you, I probably never told you this, but when you all were first running, I used to be a surrogate. So on Sun, I'd have practice during the week and then on Sundays, they'd send me somewhere.

• 1:23:35Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 1:23:36Speaker 02

  And I'd give the team off and then we'd practice late on Monday so I'd be able to travel back.

• 1:23:41Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:23:41Speaker 02

  And one of the first places I went was this small town up in Vermont, really small, right by the water. And I remember there's a small little general store that I got dropped off at to be picked up by somebody else and be taken somewhere else. And I went in the general store and I'm like in a suit and everybody's wearing flannel shirts, right? And this guy says to me, you're not from around here. And I was like, oh, you figured that out?

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  Oh, just the suit, you think?

• 1:24:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and, no, and it's, I didn't say because I was black. I said, it's because I had the suit on because he knew why I was there, but he pretended that he didn't know.

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:30Speaker 02

  And he's, he's like, you know, we got a lot of politicians coming up around here. You got anything to do with that? And I was like, yeah, I do. I happen to, I happen to be coming up here to talk about Barack Obama. And then I went to this whole thing. He's like, well, I don't know about that guy. And I said, well, why not? He said, well, he hadn't done much. And so I went into this very calm and quiet discussion about why you have to every now and then give a chance to people who don't have the same experience that other people have because they haven't had the same opportunity. Real basic stuff,

• 1:25:06Speaker 02

  but it was quiet and it was calm and it was an hour of it. And by the end of it, he was, I don't know who he voted for, but he acted as if I had convinced him.

• 1:25:22Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 1:25:23Speaker 02

  And I say this to Eric, to John's point, there's nothing like conversation with people. And to your point, Mish, it doesn't have to be with a thousand people. Just hit them one, one, one person at a time.

• 1:25:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:25:39Speaker 02

  And talk to them about how you feel and how you think. And if you're, if you're smart and can put a few sentences together, people will listen to you.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:25:53Speaker 00

  How crazy would it be if that guy Eric, is that guy that you talked to?

• 1:25:57Speaker 02

  That would be.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  He's Vermont.

• 1:25:58Speaker 00

  And he was just like, oh, I had this question I wanted to ask him in the store. I couldn't do it.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  Like, wow, that's great.

• 1:26:02Speaker 00

  Now I gotta wait 16 years.

• 1:26:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:05Speaker 00

  I'm gonna throw it in there.

• 1:26:05Speaker 02

  Eric sounds younger than the guy.

• 1:26:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  Well, Eric, hopefully that helps you out a little bit and anybody else who's listening. Thank you, John Stewart.

• 1:26:14Speaker 00

  Thank you guys.

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  You're a very intelligent young man.

• 1:26:17Speaker 00

  I heard there was a PA job available. I saw the fruit.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  We don't pay much.

• 1:26:23Speaker 00

  By the way, I just want to point out the difference when you do a podcast with a former first lady and her brother, the fruit selection in their green room puts basic cable to such shame. I was literally marveling. I was like, is that a raspberry? The exotic nature.

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  It's only, only for the guests.

• 1:26:47Speaker 00

  No, it was so nice to see you again and to catch up.

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you for spending this time. Hopefully we'll see you again soon.

• 1:26:52Speaker 00

  Beautiful.

• 1:27:16Speaker 05

  I'm Emma Greed, host of Aspire with Emma Greed, the podcast where I sit down with people who don't just dream big, they build big. If you love Michelle and Craig on IMO, just wait until you hear their episode on my show. Michelle told me about the moment at 26 when she lost her father and her best friend in the same year. It made her walk away from her corporate law career to figure out her why. That's the kind of conversation you get on Aspire. We talk about mindset, ambition, and doing the work that actually moves the needle. So if you're ready to raise your standards and take charge of the life you're building, Aspire is where you start. Follow and listen to Aspire with me, Emma Greed, available wherever you get your podcasts.