Joy, a Podcast. Hosted by Craig FergusonMeet Paul F. Tompkins, comedian, actor, and writer. Those who love comedy know him well - from the podcast Comedy Bang! Bang!, Bojack Horseman, Mr. Show, or Best Week Ever to name a few of many. I had a fantastic time chatting with Paul and I hope you EnJOY!
The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now. It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me, buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones. I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but you should at least know what's happening, and it is. The tour kicks off late September and goes through the end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They're available at the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour or at your local outlet in your region. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. My guest today is Paul f Tonk, and I suppose at some point in the conversation I should ask him what the F stands for, But my guy says, I'll forget because He was the voice of mister Peanut Butter and BoJack Horsemen, the greatest cartoon ever made. Fight me if you don't believe me anyway, enjoy all F.
Tompkins. Hey, Paul, thank you for joining us. I know that we had a little bit of.
Technical problems as beginning there, and I was informed by you and their producer that you are using maximum quality on your computer.
Now.
Well, you know, I see in the quick time drop down menu it gives you the CHP between high and maximum, and you know what, I feel like this is a special occasion, and so I went with maximum quality.
When you were you know, and you're well dope, you minted crazy drug years did you did you go high or maximum most of the time?
Well, unfortunately, I went maximum most of the time, and that's why I can't do those drugs anymore.
Really, is that true?
I was speak facetious, but you actually did have a high maximum drug time.
I did not have a high maximum drug time.
This is probably my high maximum drug time with the advent of legal weed. Probably having an edible every once in a while is my maximum drug use.
That seems very civilized.
I don't know that if there might be legal weed when I was doing drugs.
I don't think it would have made any difference to me. But I tell you this. I tell you this.
Had I known about prescription lens sunglasses, I don't know if I would ever go sober.
Really mm mm hmm. Now why is that?
Because when you put on prescription lens sunglasses, I am maddened. I've never done it because I didn't find out about them until after I stopped drinking. But I feel like if you put them on and you had a hangover, you'd be like, it's all right, it's all right. I can see pretty well. No one can see my eyes, and everything's darkened down.
A little bit.
I think I think it would have certainly prolonged my drinking and maybe have maybe killed me.
Maybe I've killed I have a theory correct, Okay that in a hangover state, being able to see more clearly is a disadvantage.
You know, you make a point, but having it through the lens of darkness, it can still be like, well, I have a hangover, but that's perfectly appropriate because it's nighttime and I can start drinking again.
That's probably what I was looking for. I'm not an alcoholic drinking the morning. Yeah, because it's nighttime. Yeah, right, there you go.
Can I say, by the way, you are part of an elite gang of people and extremely ill elite guy of people, which is probably what elite means. But you are a cast member of the great BoJack Horseman series.
That is correct, That is correct.
Yeah, you were mister Peanut barn right, correct, yes, right, which I think, to my mind, is the greatest show ever made about Los Angeles ever, in the history of the most accurate ones there.
Absolutely, yeah, I think that I was. I was such a fan of that show, you know, being on it is it's strange to be I don't know, I get. I guess you should be a fan of your own projects. Oh yeah, but I you know. The way I came to that show was I was just asked by the creator, Raphael Bob Blacksburg to to do a guest role in the pilot, which was mister Peanut Butter. And I didn't know anything about the show. I did not know that it was. I just knew like, oh, this is a cartoon for grown ups.
I get it.
I think it was like the third episode where, uh, it ends on a very down note and I realized, oh, this is something different than what I thought, and that I was even more thrilled that I was a part of it. And I would not read the scripts in advance. I would only read them at the table reads, so I could kind of be surprised along with as the audience would be surprised. And it was such a such an exciting thing to be a part of and to really get invested in these in these stories and to have some of those some of the lines in those scripts were like real gut punches and real, you know, serious life stuff that I you know, a lot of it. I related to a lot of it. I knew people who had experiences like that, and yeah, it was it was quite a ride. That was quite a ride doing it.
It was It's it's a video and school. Because if the thing for me the rest, if you've never been to Los Angeles or never worked in the entertainment business in Los Angeles, if you combine BoJack Horseman, Modern Family, and Ray Donovan, you have an completely exact picture of what Los Angeles is like to live and work.
And I feel like that's it, That's exactly what it's like.
Yeah, yeah, are you are you a native Los Angelino.
No.
I was born in Philadelphia, and I moved to LA in nineteen ninety four.
That's when I moved to LA. Really well. I went there and then I had to come home for a couple of weeks.
Then I went back, So it was ninety five technically, I guess, but that's when.
I Okay, So you lie, I did.
I did believe you.
But that's something I learned in LA.
Now, listen, how did the fire thing work? Before?
You?
Are you okay?
So far, so good. We've been extremely lucky. We have just been here at home with suitcases by the door. We are in the pink zone, which sounds like it's a marker on the Kinsey scale, but we are so far we have not so we're like, sort of the danger is at a distance, but could get closer. So we're just ready to go at any time.
But it's been I feel like that that happened a few times when I mean, nothing likes going on right now.
But I don't live in LA anymore.
But when I left there, there was a few times where we had were doing exactly that, suitcasing by the door, kids in pajamas, sleepy in the car and all that.
I mean, it was.
It's a scary thing. But I think with this fire, this one, it feels like a real kind of game changer. This one, though, doesn't it. I mean, these fires, it's a really different thing.
I would like to believe that it is a game changer, but my my sort of demoralized feeling is that it won't be a game changer. It should be and you know, it should be a big wake up call to a lot, you know what, not even a wake up call, but it should be a signal that we need to talk about what is going on with our environment and what we're doing about it. And you know, it's it's a little distressing to see the the press conferences and just no mention of climate change at all. And that is I mean, there's no way around that. That's a huge factor. And like we are, we are an area that has a fire season, you know, and the fact that it's getting worse and worse and to this point, combined the fire combined with the winds is you know, it's uh, it's bad and getting worse.
And I don't think.
That there's some deniable about climate change. I don't think any serious person would deny that the climate change is something that would face the I think though, what I meant as well, for in the terms of game changer, because like you, I'm kind of ethically will be you know, a game changer around a global or even a national scale. But I think in terms of Los Angeles itself, it feels like a real gut punch. I mean, like, oh, yeah, you know, first the pandemic, and then the actors strike and the writer strike and the labor disputes, and then this, I mean, and then the advent of streaming and the way the industry is changing. Anyway, it really seems like I have no map for this. I don't know where it goes now.
It's too many things at the same Yeah, it's too many things. And you know, I think I think we're going to see a lot of people leaving LA, which happens every once in a while on the wake of these big disasters. There's people that just decide I can't, I can't be here anymore. It's just too scary. Yeah, And you know, in terms of the business itself, I mean, I don't know what's going to happen because nothing shoots here anymore.
And that would.
Be a huge revitalization of the town. But I just, yeah, I don't know, I know, it doesn't in the thing I was just gonna say, it seems like there's not enough people that are interested in fixing those things because it is cheaper for them not to fix them.
I think that's true of like the corporate overlords, and I think it's true of the what I kind of think is And I think, like you, you and I have were apart from me lying about nineteen ninety five, we worked in LA about the same amount.
Of time, about the same amount of time.
And of course you.
Don't always interact with big stars. You're talking to you know, proups guys and the carpenters and grips and lighten people and people who it's a middle class just it's a kind of working jojobs, not a jojob, but it professional people.
But there are super healthy you know, it's just.
You know, it's just a qualified job, like working in any other kind of factory. Yeah, And I think these are the people that are going to like, what the hell do you do?
Yeah, when they change it like that.
I know, and people think that.
I think a lot of people outside of LA think that everybody here is just the people that you see on the covers of magazines, you know, and it's not what it is. There's a lot of people that have you know, been here for generations, that you know, bought their houses when they were you know, very cheap years and years ago, and you know, now that's not there anymore, and the work's not there anymore.
And you know, I've.
I've worked on things that shot in Atlanta or Vancouver or whatever, and you have people from la that crew, people that moved there to these places because there was more.
Work there than where they lived.
And the thing that really sucks is that the people that are involved in in these that are overseeing the networks, the studios and everything. It's it's not the days of you know, the the Xanac brothers and the Warner brothers anymore. You don't have people that sort of take a pride in that business. And they were businessmen, but it was their business and so they there was still room for artistry. There was no algorithm they they like. It wasn't a bottom line thing. It was this is our business of making these things. We are trying to guess what people like, what people you know, what is quality. Put it out there, and now it really is these these dudes that come in from you know, different businesses that are looking at it like, well we'll cut this, this, this, and this, and it's like that's the whole and that's that's what makes it good. You all the things that you're getting rid of is what makes it good.
I think though that you know, if I look at the generations of young artists that are coming up now, I don't think that Hollywood is aspirational for them in the way that it was perhaps for my generation. That you know, I would see the black and white photographs of movie stars that we have been airbrushed to perfection and this, you know that the this swindle and the myth that was sold by Hollywood, which I which I liked, which I wanted, you know, I liked the artifice of it. And then when I got there, I don't know if you had the same experience when I got there, and it was demystified, slowly, it was demistified because I even to this day, I haven't done it for a few years. But when you drive on a law and the bar goes up, and you drive on a movie law and you see the spaceman and the you know cowboy and the shoe girrels and that, you know, and it's like, ah, this is awesome. I think all of that goes away now. I think that it's and it's I think. I mean, you have young children or your kids a little I have zero children. Oh you have zero children? Well then then will you leave?
You can leave that.
I could, but this is this is our home, you know.
Yeah, we we love it here, my wife and I and we've we've lived here for a long time, and you know, it's it. You realize in the wake of these things, what a what a real community that exists in Los Angeles, and that it's not it's not even.
What we pretend that it is a lot of the time, it.
Really is like it's it's a city like anywhere else, and people care about each other and people are helping out. And as many as many horror stories you hear about landlords, you know, raising rental prices eight thousand percent, and you know, looters and stuff like that, most of what you see is people coming together and helping each other out, donating you know, stuff and money and time, and and you know, it's it's a really heartwarming thing to see.
You know, it's funny that you should mention that.
I was watching coverage of it on the BBC last night and the reporter was out in the field and bumped into someone who was working the line handed out water people and it was will Arnette bo Jack Horseman himself and you go, And it was I just I heard the voice. I was like, whoa, and it's it's as you say, because I remember when I moved to la in the nineties, it kind of had a it seems weird to say it, because it was still a huge city then, but it had a kind of sleepy feel about it. It had a kind of oh, I remember it very well. I think it went away when when they invented iPhones or something. But I like it changed when people could, you know, drive as close as they could to the Hollywood Sign, or when the maps of the stars homes were on your phone instead of being sold to you by some dodgy customer at the side of the road waving a map and stuff. And I kinda miss all of that, but you know, things do change.
What what is it done for you business wise?
Do you I mean, do you still follow the model of you know, developing taking an idea too. I'll tell you where I'm going with this. If I have an idea, now, I don't go to anyone who works in show business. I go to someone who will give me money, right, and then I just do it myself. Yeah. I The last vestige of corporate shittiness in my life at the moment is doing this podcast, and and my contracts up for that in six months and then and then these guys can kiss my ass and I continue to do the podcast. But I don't need them. I have a computer.
Yeah, it's exactly.
What about you? I mean, are you gonna.
It's it's a mixture of uh, still trying to go through the old channels, but also figuring out how to do stuff by yourself. And the double edged sort of that is that on the one hand, it's never been easier to do stuff by yourself in terms of the technology right like, which is fantastic. And one of the things that I that I really love about the time that we're living in is that people can make their thing, whether it's a movie, TV show, podcast, whatever, people can figure out a way to make it. Getting it out to people is easier than it used to be, But there's so much noise that it's a scary prospect to sink like your life savings into your passion project and then have nothing happen, have nobody find it, you know. So for me and the people that I know at the sort of showbiz level that I'm at, there is still like a pressure to go try to go through the old channels and see what happens. But it's harder than ever because even though it's the curse of there's so many outlets now, but because there's so many outlets now, to try to stand out, to try to get to cut through all that noise is harder than ever because there's so much shit. It's so much and now when you're it used to be you could pitch an idea and they either liked it or it didn't. Now, before you even pitched the idea, it's like you have to attach these people, you have to attach this guy, you have to touch and it's like this is not even a thing yet, it's not even a thing yet.
We're attaching all these people on a on a wish and a.
Prayer and you know who moves a needle, You know, all this shit and it's like, look and a funny idea.
Yeah, it's the It's the weirdest thing about it though, because there's a story the friend of mine who's a big old timey you know, he's doing fail Hammer. He started in Run's Langsgate, right, and fail Hammer is a friend of mine in and he was telling me about back in the day when the we're selling MGM.
To Sony I think it was Sony, is that right.
I had to go to Japan and everything was done through you know, board level meetings, through interpreters and stuff, and they were talking to some high powered Japanese executives through an interpreter and they were asking about the film business and the Japanese executive said, tell us, you know, basically the product in a year.
He said, well, look, you know, as you do like.
MGM, we'll make maybe forty movies in a year, and you know, twenty will do okay, you know, maybe five of them will be hits and the rest will be kind of like, you know, well, we tried and we fell and they were kind of does. And it went through the interpreter, and the interpreater came back after some and he said, my colleague says, could you possibly just make the hits?
Is it?
Yeah?
That would be great if we could just make that terrific idea.
I know it's a great look, but I think that that kind of because unless you're in show business whatever. Look John Felheimer is a great executive, but he's still show business.
He's still you know, he's he's still that guy.
And and I think that, you know, the these kind of guys are going away, and like you say, people are coming in.
Who are who are?
Like, I don't know what your qualifications are for this other than you.
Went to school.
I mean, yeah, it's School's not a great place for artists a lot of the time.
Very true.
It can slow them down, you know what idea of yours? I love this when you do that podcast when you were H. G. Wells, Oh the Dead Authors podcast. Yeah, Dead Author's podcast when you were H. G. Wells and going through time interviewing dead authors. See I love that. Yeah, Now did you in that podcast? Did you ever have HG. Wells talk to and C. S.
Lewis. I don't think we ever had C. S. Lewis. Interesting, Yeah we had. I think Tolkien was as close as we got. C. S.
Lewis and C. S. Lewis were friends, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Because what I think is interesting is that I believe I could be wrong with this, but it doesn't matter if I'm wrong.
Nobody checks any shit anyway.
But so let's just say this is one hundred percent true and we don't need to check.
But HG.
Wells and C. S. Lewis were certainly collegiate. They were friendly, and I've always been fascinated by that because HG. Wells, of course was a committed atheist and a bit of a communist I think even so, yeah, and C. S. Lewis, of course was absolute Anglican baby Jesus, all the bells was the smoke and the Angels. And both terrific writers, by the way as well, which I think is fascinating to me.
I've read both of them at great length.
I love them both. Are you a big reader? Is that what you started the pot? Why you started it?
Well, you know the I am a big reader.
The podcast came out of there's a literacy program called A two six that is in various places in the country and for the LA chapter, uh, they were doing this. The Dead Author's thing was something they had done every once in a while. There was not a dedicated host for it, but it was an event they would do every once in a while and I was approached to host one and thought, oh, it would be funny to be HD Wells and then interview people from two different time periods. And I enjoyed the experience so much that I asked them, Hey, could I do a podcast with this and we'll we'll do a live show and that all the proceeds will go to A two six. And it was a really enjoyable project because I got to it made me learn about other authors that I did not know much about, like about their personal lives and careers and things like that. And it also it tested my interview skills because I had to. It was a very specific thing where I had to, you know, be the host, keep it moving, but I also had to set the people up so they could be funny. So the questions were all I would tell people, you don't have to do any research about your author. It is just I'm going to ask you a question and because it's improv you respond however you want. You're welcome to do research if you want, you don't have to, and some people did extensive research and some people did nothing at all. And the idea was I would ask a question that did not have to be tied to facts. I could state the fact in you know, eighteen seventy six, you said this or whatever, and then they could be funny respond however they wanted. So it was a combination of getting the the real information out via my questions and then the comedy coming from what they have to say, and then our subsequent interaction about that.
Who was both author and guest who kind of like really kind of lit it up for you?
Who you think you were more successful with.
The one that that comes back to me the most is in terms of being a very special experience, was Lennon Parham played.
Oh why am I blanking on the name?
Now?
Shit with the book book?
I'm trying to think of that. I can't think of the book I'm blanking. It was a Southern author h Harper, Lee Murder Mitchell.
Mitchell.
Can I cheat and look it up? Yeah? Of course, all right. I hate to do this. People complain.
In the meantime, I'll put the podcast on hold. Music it's generic and music I'm doing right now.
Flannery O connor.
Okay, Flannery o connor.
And her her uh.
Nothing about Flannery O'Connor, by the way, nothing nor did I nor did I. And her performance was it was really I felt like I was sitting with a real person.
She made it.
She played it so perfectly like and didn't she didn't know anything about Flannery O'Connor either, but she she played it so comfortably that I felt like, this is becoming real, Like this is this is stopped becoming goof around and this is becoming real. She did such an incredible job. Like the thing I remember the most is she at one point said she was talking about these specific birds. I think it might have been peacocks where she lived, and she was like, and they had a very specific call, and then she did the peacock call and it was like it it really I get chills thinking about it because it really she just embodied this person so well.
It was It was a really wonderful.
It's like close up magic that when you when you see something like that.
Oh I had on the Late night show. Barry Humphries came on as day Ed and I am, oh wow wow.
And that was weird because I knew Barry from not being day made from all of stage. So yeah, so when he came on, I thought, well, you know, this will be a note and a wink and funny and and it will be Barry wearing her dress.
But it wasn't.
And it was really strange, and I kind of it was like he's possessed or something.
Absolutely is really a wonderful thing those character people that that that's their thing. It is astonishing how the thing that I always get that always gets me is how well they remember the rules of their own character, that this is what makes this person this person and not just me, Like you know, there's no there's not there's not a ton of winking. It's like I'm being funny being this person. I'm not like, you know, Barry Humphries is not saying like it's isn't it funny? It's me to addressed, you know, it's it's it's totally you feel like this is a three dimensional person that stuff like marvel at that stuff.
It's beautiful.
I think that the Medea movies that are a bit like that as well, you know, like, oh my god, I didn't know that was a dude for ages.
Absolutely, Yeah, yeah. Wow.
It's it's like when you find out like something you really like in the shoe is actually uh British, that happens the law.
Absolutely did you what did you watch Yellowstone?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah Beth Dutton, I'm like, yeah, wait, Beth Dutton's from England.
That's the thing.
Any say, so, I don't wan to me the accent the actress, I mean, it's amazing.
Yeah, absolutely, because it's it's especially when you're doing an accent like that, it's not about just making the sounds right. There is a certain you have to really there's a physicality to it. There is a uh, there's a timing to it that's more than just I pronounce ours this way.
You know, you really have to. You really have to.
If I'm doing it, it's just I pronounce ours'. That's what you're gonna get. Maybe I wear a hat, maybe I don't wear I might, okay, but I'm not going to be working out or anything like that.
That's not going to happen. I saw.
I mean the way like Tyler Perry does it, the way By does, or even like the guys who do the Marvel movies, like I heard I think it was on Graham Norton's talk show Henry Cavill talking about but he had some Superman scenes. He had to not drink water for a few days because it would make his veins pop.
I'm like, yes, fuck me, man, get up, it's acting. It's get someone to draw it on you.
Come on so like you're already shredded. You know what I mean, You're already there.
I know who's who it's sod veins. Yeah. Although I have to say I'm very intrigued by the idea of ozambic. I haven't gone there yet, but I.
Worry about my weight and I think, is that is that a way to go? But having struggled so much to get away from drugs that that things for me, I'm not that huge hardy to go. I know it will happen at some point, do you know what I mean? At some point I'm gonna have to take something. You know, I don't want to rush into. Would you ever do that?
What about plastic surgery? You gotta do that?
Oh?
I don't. I don't think I ever would.
I I.
Mean no, no, shame on people who do. It's like, do what you what you feel you need to do.
But I feel like I've And it's not like I'm thrilled with every aspect of my body and face, but there is a certain there's a certain piece that you an uneasy piece that you make with you know, the aspects of yourself that you're not thrilled with that.
I don't know.
It just feels I never got braces, you know. I feel like it's this is, this is who I am, And.
I will get my testicles done. I might get my test I might.
Make you start smooth them out.
Smooth them out?
Yeah, I mean, see what because because even if if they like if they if they may, you know, if they bought you, if it becomes a terrible job, it's still your tasticle. I mean they're they're kind of weird and creepy looking anyway, at least mine are. So I don't think it's going to be a huge change. It's more thing myself into it. Maybe I should try and get zembic and mathesticals.
Well, you can see, you can just do steroids. Is that what happens?
But I see, I like the idea of steroids. If they give you muscles, but I have they make you very angry. I don't need to be any angrier than I am.
I feel that I'm I'm my max level of rage right now.
I all the time.
And it's what people don't understand about comedy. It's like when I hear a choke. Sometimes I'll hear a joke or my wife hears a joke and go, oh the rage, and that joke is so funny, it's so and you know what I'm talking about absolutely, yes, yes, yes. And it's because the absolute darkest motherfuckers I ever met in Bollywood are the people who write or construct or perform romantic comedies.
Those are the those people are and the people who make horror movies are.
Adore They're adorable.
Yeah, the romantic comedy the idea that people are essentially saying, like, isn't it funny that people think this could happen?
That you could that you could fall in love, you.
Could find somebody, I'd go to the empire that a layer building.
Run through the airport. Who the fuck's running through the air You could run through the airport. That's ridiculous. Run through the airport. Stop in the plane. You forget, You get tased if you try and stop in a plane. It's ridiculous.
Could you imagine being on a plane that somebody stopped because of love.
I don't care how much in love you are. I want to get to dan V. I have a connection.
This is miserable. You're making it longer, you know, I.
Think about that. You know, obviously, I'm sure you do the same. I travel a lot for work, getting you're constantly on airplanes. It's rare to see bad behavior on planes that for as far as I can see, But I see a lot documented.
Absolutely, I've never.
Been on a plane where, in all my years of travel where something crazy has happened, where someone had to be escorted off the plane, where people had their phones out. You know, I don't know why I've you know, not gone not happen yet, but but yeah, it is. I'm sort of surprised that it doesn't happen more because it's such a it's such a stressful environment. Being on a plane is such a stressful environment. But I think I have noticed that I did more touring the last year in twenty twenty four than I have in years, maybe ever. And I was on the road a lot, and I was really embracing it. After you know, quarantine and everything, and it just happened. There were a bunch of gigs. I had my own tour, I had another person's tour that I was part of, another tour that I did with musicians at the end of the year, and it was the year that I realized I have been telling myself that I don't enjoy traveling around and doing all this stuff, but I realized that I actually do, even though being on a plane is miserable. I love the fucking vaudeville.
Love it. I love going to a different place every day. I fucking love it.
And I think I tried to tell myself that I didn't, but god damn, I realized at a certain point.
When I was a kid, this was all I wanted to do.
This was all I wanted to do.
Like the idea of this going from this place to this place and doing a show and then packing up and leaving. Mike's awesome.
I fucking love it, man, I.
Fucking love it. Early on in my life when I started performing.
I don't know if it was the same for you, but I would get very nervous before performance, like immediately terrified, terrifying, And now before I go on stage, if I'm in a theater that hopefully I've never played it before, but even if I have played it before, there's so many of them. And you're back stage and you hear the higher the crowd and you can hear the noise and you can kind of get a vibe and the lights are coming down and this show is about to happen, and that them I've been playing the same warm up music for years, so that you know, the woke in music is the same, and I know what it's going to be is the sense.
Of peace that I get.
And every night when I woke on, like in the audience, hopefully they applaud And just as I watched my hand go to reach for the microphone, just as it was across.
That moment there, I fucking lived for that moment. It's the craziest thing.
It took me a while to to kind of be to interpret the different types of feelings that I would have before a show, because there were when I was younger, there were shows that when you know that you are not the right person for this show and that you're gonna go out there and it's not going to be good, And that's at movies like that.
Oh and I and I directed the movie.
Yeah, then there's.
That feeling of and I realized it on the on the days that I had my own show that I was doing, that I was putting on and that day of show is a certain feeling, and I it took me a while to realize the feeling is I just wanted to start.
I just want to be out there. I just want to be doing it.
I'm I don't want to be anticipating this all day. Let me just go. And now realizing that that feeling I have is ninety nine percent the feeling that I have before I go on stage, that that feeling in my stomach is, oh yeah, I just want to get out there. I just want to get out there and do it. It's not it's not that I'm afraid. It's not that I'm I don't know how it's going to go. It's that I am embracing I love being out there, and I also am embracing I don't know what's.
Going to happen. I don't know how it's going to go, and that's exciting.
It's it's a really it's a once I once I kind of dialed into that that that's what it was then I loved it, loved that feeling.
I loved that into.
When it goes wrong, do you get a kick out of that?
I finally finally have gotten to that point. And it took seeing somebody else bombing and knowing, oh, he thinks this is funny. Like it was a friend of mine that was trying out this character on the show. He was just fucking eating it and.
But he you never you never would have known it.
And I realized, knowing the guy that he is, like, oh this is funny to him, how badly this is going. He didn't want it to go badly, but he's enjoying how much he is bombing. And then I realized, oh that can be a thing too, that could.
Be Oh definitely definitely for me, that right, Yeah, that for me, that was when late night became something I started to love because I would go there espasically at the beginning, I'd be writing jokes and I wasn't writing the jokes that you know, some guys would be writing in late night for years and raise the jokes that guys say, Hey, you guys see the playoffs and I'm like, know what a playoff is? I'm like, hey, you was a playoffs about those tigers and stuff, and I as I could not connect to the joke and therefore could not connect to the audience. You know, I was bombing, and I found a strange thrilling it because especially because it was somebody else's joke that was bombing.
Absolutely, yes, great, And then I.
Just thought, then it became more interesting to bomb than for it to work.
And that became the show.
The show became we're making a piece of crap show in a basement. It doesn't really work, and here's my discount robot with my buddy doing the voice, and and you know, and that was what the show was.
The show was the failure.
And I think that I think when I see particularly young performers. Now there's some very good ones around, but they everything they do is documented, you know, yes, yes, And I think that means your failures are up there all the time, and some things, your failures are much more.
Useful that you can keep them a little more private.
Absolutely yeah.
I don't envy people that are that are coming up now, although I mean it's the same for most of us now that you know, having and you can appreciate this having been doing this for such a long time. Everything has changed in such a short amount of time from what we thought showbiz was when we got into it, and now it's like, I feel like I'm playing catch up with a lot of that stuff.
But younger people have to have to follow so many things.
I'm lucky enough that I got somewhat established before a lot of this shit started becoming the norm, But for somebody that's starting out now, it has to be second nature to to be engaged with all these social media things. There's a certain tone that you have to strike. Where I've seen it fluctuate from you're not supposed to look like you're trying, no one wants to. You're not supposed to You're not supposed to make an effort because that's not cool.
And now I feel like it's more.
Yes, it's it's it's acceptable to look like you care about what you're doing. But you still have to strike strike a certain tone, you know. I feel like figuring out your voice is maybe I could be wrong, but might be harder today for for younger performers.
I think it's a different language for sure. I think that also what I doing, I doing envy them. There was a certain amount of cool in being underground. I think when sadly, when I was young, you know, it's like you didn't really want too many people to know what you were doing. You only wanted cool people to know what you were doing. Yeah, I mean listen. I so the minute somebody came along and said, will you do a Liptus tea commercial of like, but it's not Uh, it felt like it belonged, at least for a short time that it belonged to us. That I wonder if if they get that now, I mean maybe they do, maybe, And maybe the thing is the young people who are doing that kind of thing, I don't know who they are because I'm not a young person. Then they don't want me to think they're cool, so they're not interested in engaging with me.
I don't know.
There is kind of a belief in that sense to be out of that conversation. It's like when you get to a certain point where you're watching young people do the thing, like, hey, man, fucking do it.
Do your thing. You don't need to hear from me. You absolutely don't need to hear from me.
Yeah.
No, I have no opinion on it. And I used to pretend I didn't have an opinion on it so that I wouldn't get yelled at.
But no, I just really don't. It's like I don't give a fuck.
Fake it till you make it.
Absolutely, it's so funny as well, but because the whole I you know, when people bang on about oh you can't say that because of the woke generation and stuff, I'm like that, I've been hearing that my whole fucking life.
There's nothing to you, you fucking war. Absolutely.
Yeah.
I think when comedy, the state of comedy right now started to erode, when people thought people started to think comedy was tough or like a tough guy thing, and it's like, no, it's not.
The idea is you're supposed to be.
We got into this because we're misfits or whatever, you know what I mean, Like it was not to I don't know, I could. I could just talk about that forever, but nobody wants to hear that complaining.
But it's a really well you.
Know, it's funny that like comedians now that look like you know, models, you know, and I'm like, male and female, I'm like, wow, you guys look great, Like where's the fat guy with one eye bigger than the other eye because he's the guy I want to say, and I suppose I don't know. I mean, it's it is an interesting thing I think along the way. See, I the reason I came to comedy is because I really it was accepting of me.
It accepted me that I couldn't fit in anywhere else.
But when I hear people now, the young people you know, discuss it as you know, I it's my dream to have a career in comedy, I'm like, fuck no, it was my dream to do pretty much anything else.
But you know.
How people go.
But but then you start tasting it and you realize how awesome it is and how great it is, and I'm glad I wouldn't do anything else. But it is an odd thing that it became so incorporated. I blame Netflix a bit for it, actually, and I've made and I've made a couple of specials for them, but they are.
The fucking devil.
I mean, you know, there's there're a big you know, like make all one thing.
And you fuck no, it's all.
Although if they ever me twenty million for us space, I'll be like, oh, we better go back and find that podcast with Paul F. Conkin and cut that out when I said they were the fucking deal, but they fucking out of the devil fuck them. I have no problem, you know, like they I'll tell you how much sense the fucking algorithm thing is. I was looking for an airline ticket today, Right, it's done the same way as fucking you know, modern streaming techniques. So you first look at it, and then the ticket price was twelve thousand dollars. It's a complicated trip, twelve thousand dollars. And through I was mean that it it was tamaster did it, but just you know, going in going a different way, do the different thing and putting end one layover, which is not that big a deal.
It went down to six thousand dollars. See, and actually the class went up.
That's how smart fucking AI like, you're not a smart I just don't buy it.
No, the whole a thing that the idea that it's uh not doing anything other than just like scraping ship.
It's not. It's not. There's not.
It's not as sophisticated as as I think that we are told it is, and as we are afraid it's going to be. The problem is people using it. It's not really the itself. It's that this is making shit worse, Like you can't you can't use Google anymore because it's so shitty.
Yeah, I know you talk about you talk about fucking green, the green effect as well.
You talk about planet, amount of power of that ship needs. I mean, you know, AI.
Companies are talking about building their own nuclear reactors so they can fuel these things.
I mean it's insane.
Yeah.
And then the eye.
But the idea of the a I you know what people have these. I think it's like you remember back in the day in the back of comic books, you would see that thing. It was the X ray specs, and you can I think they're x ray specs.
You know.
It's like it's like, oh, shut up. I tried to get shot. GPT write me a some stand up.
Oh I did that too.
I tried to chat GPT write some sketches and I would give the premise and everything, and then a funny and I performed on stage. The thing that was so interesting to me was all the sketches resolved with the people being friends. Like that was that was the ending. Was somehow through their differences they found a common understanding and.
It's like, fuck, not robot. Not funny robotten about COVID.
That's not funny robot.
I love that, though I said to it, hey, chat, GPT write me a short Craig fergus stand comedy routine. It wrote some bullshit about hey, aren't giraffes funny looking when they drink water and stuff?
And I'm so angry at it. I was like, this is bullshit, and then I thought, you know, there might be something this though, but it's going to need a major rewrite. It's gonna need a I mean, I'm gonna need to get the robot.
You're fired. But we're keeping the idea of.
The giraffe thing and maybe it's something that maybe there's not, but it isn't no business. I'm fascinated though, because I think it will change. I think the AI will change and expand, and I think it will at a certain point because I remember when I started as a drummer, and I was like, drum machines will never replace drummers, right, it's.
The first fucking thing to go. And I don't know much.
Drumming is so much. You have so much ship that you have to that you have to be simple. And I remember being on being on tour this year, and you know, I tour with a I do a riety showing I have a band.
And early on, you know, I.
Everybody was packing up the ship after the show and our drummer Darla. I turned away musical director and said, should we help Darla with that stuff? And he said she made her choice.
That's everybody else in the band looks at drummers.
It is a bite. I used to hate it when you find.
Everyone would be like going to the bar and meeting all the kids that were in the club and I'd be like.
Putting symbols in the big case.
And it's horrible.
But I also but the thing is the great thing of being a comedian is you you just leave?
Yeah, you just leave. It's true.
I get this.
I get into this for a while that I would leave before the audience. So I'd be like, good night everybody, and I would have the uh stays door open as he's front street, end.
Of the crowd. Absolutely, mister Ferguson has left the building. That's right.
But nowadays part of the thing, I don't know. If you're doing this, you do the meet and greets, Yeah, I'll do them. Yeah, And actually I love it. Yeah, it's a really I love it.
It's such a here's the thing I dreaded every time, and then after it's over, I think that was absolutely wonderful.
Yeah, that's exactly how I feel.
You meet people, and you know, sometimes you hear some stories that are really hard to hear, but absolutely it's a level of connection with the audience I was surprised about.
Yeah, you know, it's a it's a really wonderful thing to to. It's very humbling to hear somebody say, you know, what you do has helped me in some way, has helped me through a bad time, or something like that. But it's also there's there's a there's a connection there in terms of what what.
You both find funny, the way that you look at the world.
Like you're you're you're meeting people who came to you for a reason and you just have that moment of communion with them that maybe only lasts a few minutes, but it's a really wonderful thing to just because it makes us both more human to each other.
You know, I think that's right.
And the mistake that I made early on with it, as well as that people would say things like when you were a late night I was very sick, or my parent was ill or something, and then they would say it helped me out, and I would and I regret it now. I would say, oh, no, it wasn't me, you did it, or it's not to do with me. But now I feel that that's unfair because it kind of diminishes it for them. And so if somebody says that to me, now, I'm like, I'm really glad that happened. I'm really glad that somehow. Obviously I wasn't aware your mom was sick or you were sick, but I'm glad you had a laugh. I'm glad you had to laugh tonight, you know what I mean. That's that's what it's about.
And thank you for sharing that with me, you know, because it yeah very because you know what it feels like, you've been in a dark time where a piece of art helped you cope, you know, just helped you, just gave you a moment where you're like, Okay, I can I can do this another day?
I can?
You know, I there's there is brightness out there somewhere. I just have to I just have to trust that I'm going to get to it, like, you know, that feeling and to be that for somebody else and to have them tell you is such a privilege.
It is.
Yeah, it's incredible.
It is and it's and it's kind of it's one of the great things about I mean, I'm not happy about all the barriers.
Breaking down between the perform and the audience.
I think that, you know, I kind of used to like the idea that there was a kind of artist's entrance, But.
I think that's one of the really good parts of it.
Yes, you know, I mean the bad part is that everybody's a fucking expert now, you know it. Some fucking guy he's saying in a chat room saying, that's no comedy. Yeah, you know what I mean, like, what do you fuck?
You?
And I and I kind of that kind of annoys me a little bit. But I think I might just be getting older and crankier. That may just be simplest. Yeah, if you find yourself get a little crank here.
Yeah, absolutely absolutely. And I get it now. I get old people. I get it now. It's like you've lived a long time, a lot of this ship you've heard before, you're sort of you get you get less patient with certain things, you get more patient with other things, though, which is really one.
Story that is true.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I made that decision about the aging process this very day.
Actually is that I've decided.
I made it because that's it's been I've been thinking about a lot of people.
Have been moreting this podcast. I'm sure it's sick of hearing me talking about I'm getting older and thinking about things.
But now I've I've reached a complete new feeling about it, which is this fucking ignoring it.
I'm ignoring it.
Until it makes its presence failt until that type it's none of my fucking business.
I'm older, so is everybody else. Everybody else is older too. What am I going to do about it? You know, So until my hip starts hurting or my ears get super big or.
Whatever is, you know, you take it as it comes.
You take it as it comes.
One thing I do I do appreciate in a way that I and it's it's funny to me is when I was younger and I would hear older people talking about the weather, and I would think, what the fuck, why this boring conversation that you're having about what a nice day it is? And now I get it because it's like I've I'm here another day, I'm i'm my, I'm appreciating things in a way that I couldn't appreciate them before and seeing.
How beautiful life is. And part of that is it's a nice day today, you know, And.
It's it's I get how enjoyable it is now to discuss that with somebody else.
I also I also think that you know, if it's a nice day, you're much less slightly to slip.
And fall and hurt your head.
Very true.
So it's like it's it's a nice day outside.
Do you know a thing, A thing that I think about a lot, is I probably think about this once a day. When is the next time I'm going to fall? Like, when's the next time I'm going to trip and just eat shit, just go right down? When's the next time I'm going to like scrape the ship out of my knee on the sidewalk. Because it's going to happen at some point, But when is it going to be?
Well? Do you ski?
I do not ski.
If you put a ski in there, you'll be like ramp it up.
I think I avoid most activities that require falling as a as a part of the learning process.
So we'll see I do it.
I never skied until I was in my mid forties, but I married into a family of skiers, and now my children's ski and wow, and I have to go on there like like with really tiny little kids on that conveyor belt, like toddlers. So then there's me, like, I'm kind of giant creeper with you know, it's gonna have to go up the thing and do pizza French fries and ski is.
Very very humiliate. Wait what pizza French fries? What? Well, that's how you learn to ski. You do pizza, It's how you slow down.
And then french fries is when you're when you're going fast, when to slow down?
Pizza, go fast French fries. That's so they tell it the little kids.
Normally, if anyone who's on a ski slope and they're sixty fucking two, they either.
Know what they're doing or they're drunk, you know, or sometimes both true. But that's what it is. I well, look, it's been a delight talking to you. I wish we could go longer, but I'm getting too old for this ship.
Yeah, understood, this is this is one of those times where you feel it.
Yeah, I do.
I feel it in my hip and my water. So it's such a nice day I want to go outside to join it.
We get done exactly exactly.
Listen, stay well in Los Angeles, Paul. I continue success and and thank you. I thank you so much for being on the podcast. You are indeed a joy. You bring so much to others and certainly to me. I remain a fan of mister peanut Butter. But you know that's a component part of my regard for you, is that absolutely so much.
We're done, get the hell out of here.
