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TBPN is a live tech talk show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays, streaming weekdays from 11–2 PT on X and YouTube, with full episodes posted to Spotify immediately after airing.
Described by The New York Times as “Silicon Valley’s newest obsession,” TBPN has interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Mark Cuban, and Satya Nadella. Diet TBPN delivers the best moments from each episode in under 30 minutes.
We have Jay Leno joining us here in the TBPN hotel. Jay, thank you so much for coming on the show. Business, man. Science. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yes. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate you coming on. We're shooting porn.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Why is
Speaker 3:that? Because just the studio.
Speaker 1:Just the studio is a little a little DIY for you?
Speaker 3:Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:What what what does it take to make a great studio?
Speaker 3:I'm I'm not really sure,
Speaker 1:but Okay.
Speaker 3:But this is this is certainly qualified. Yeah. My GPS, I said, Coahuenga. For somehow, it read Cochrane. I'm going Okay.
Speaker 3:Why am I downtown? Oh, okay. Sorry.
Speaker 2:I'm No. No. You're We're happy to
Speaker 3:have you. We're hanging out. Let's talk. What did you
Speaker 1:drive here?
Speaker 3:I drove a 2012 McLaren.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. One of the first ones. I... I've been involved with the company since the beginning.
Speaker 3:So... Yeah. Really good. I I enjoy them. Terrific cars.
Speaker 3:Terrific cars. Terrific cars.
Speaker 1:What do you like about them most? What what do you think of the criticism? It's the rich guy go fast car.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm a rich guy and I go fast. So... I said, I'm guilty. Guilty. Well, no.
Speaker 3:Well, you know why I like it? I like it because I was in on the Ground Floor. I find customer service has been... You know, when I bought the car Okay. I I...
Speaker 3:I'm specking it out Yeah. And I, you know, I said, let me carbon fiber. He goes, do you track the car? I go, no. This is gonna be a chica.
Speaker 3:He said, don't need a carbon fiber brake. You can save $20.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Instead of trying to upsell it.
Speaker 3:I did that. I had the car six months. They called me and said, oh, there's an upgrade from whatever it was to 617 horsepower. You want that? I said, how much is it?
Speaker 3:Oh, it's free.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay. Okay. And, you know, I I bought it... I I bought the p one. I bought the the new the new w one for them.
Speaker 3:One.
Speaker 2:Track only w one?
Speaker 3:No. Not so. Street street. You know, I'm a see. I don't wanna be that guy, the fat guy in leather racing suit.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It doesn't quite fit. Yeah. If I'm gonna race, I'm gonna race Miatas. You know?
Speaker 3:I I don't wanna... Because, you know, I did the Yeah. I did a celebrity I once with with Dan Gurney. Right? So I'm right right behind Dan.
Speaker 3:One of the things about everybody at Toyota Celica. I'm right behind Dan Gurney. Okay. I'll do... He brake lights.
Speaker 3:Brake lights. Turn. Turn. Okay. Good.
Speaker 3:And then he's a little bit ahead of me. Okay. And I... Now he's in my rearview mirror. I go, how how did that happen?
Speaker 3:Then he passes me. He lapped me. I have no idea how he did. I go, okay, that's not it. I'm not a race car driver.
Speaker 3:I enjoy automobiles. Enjoy working on them, but I am not a race car. Driving is like sex. All men think they're good at it. They're not.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No. It's the most it's the most like actually driving on a track is the most humbling thing ever.
Speaker 3:Plus, you know what?
Speaker 2:There's something about like something about cars. It's like the reason that f one is is still, I would say, almost challenged as a sport is that in almost every other sport, you can tell what the athlete is going through and you can tell how intense it is. You can see the Right. You can see the sweat. You know that they're running back and forth, all these different things.
Speaker 2:And in a in a race car, you can't, one, you can't tell that it's physical unless you've been in a race car.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And two, they make it look so easy that it it almost... Right. Right. And it's just like, oh, they're just going around in circles.
Speaker 3:Well, that's what... We live an hour now where everybody thinks everybody else's job is easy. Yeah. You know, no matter what you do. Like, oh, you have a night show, so you come in at, three and you have jokes to read, then you leave at, like, 05:30.
Speaker 3:Yeah. No. No. I get there at seven in the morning. I leave at midnight.
Speaker 3:You know? Why? Well, I gotta see the movie. I gotta read the book. I gotta pre pre interviews.
Speaker 3:You know? I mean... Yeah. But that's that's that's kinda... See, I'm a huge believer in low self esteem.
Speaker 3:Sure. You know? It's the key to success. If don't think you're the smartest person in the room, you just shut up and you pay attention. That's what I did when I got to the Tonight Show.
Speaker 3:Give me the best lighting guy, give me the best director, give me... And please tell me when I suck. Just tell me when this show sucks. Sure. The show sucked.
Speaker 3:Okay. Like, what do we gotta do to make it better? But, you know, I have friends of mine in the business, and, you know, nobody lies. Nobody tells them the truth. They go, no.
Speaker 3:You're good. You're really good. No. You weren't. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay. Whatever you're doing, change it because it's not working. So that's what's worth.
Speaker 1:Did you have any rules for The Tonight Show? I was listening to a interviewer. He said he has one rule, which is that the the current guest cannot trash talk the previous guest. He didn't want his show to
Speaker 3:be
Speaker 1:in place. This is a random podcaster, Joshua but he was saying that he didn't want each interviewer to be... Each guest to be a referendum on the previous one trying to score points on the last interviewer that
Speaker 3:he talked about. That was never a problem. Okay.
Speaker 1:But did you have any, like, rules that you felt...
Speaker 3:Well, the rule I had was anybody can pull a cord and stop the train. Okay. You know, we had interns. You guys are in your twenties. Okay?
Speaker 3:I'm old. Tell me if a joke sounds corny or if it's if it's dated. Sure. Or just let me know if it sound like an old
Speaker 2:I'll tell you if it's cooked.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. And I'll go, you know, that's kind of an old reference. Yeah. I remember one day, I'm watching TV, and the stones are on, and all of their endless comeback tours, you know.
Speaker 3:And I said, my god, they look pretty good, you know. And look over and the interns are... They're all laughing. They go, mister Leno, they're really old. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But this, no. They don't look... It just it just made me laugh.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It just made me laugh. I'm like, oh, you know, you're right. You're right. Guys, they look like old guys playing guitar.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So
Speaker 1:Back on cars, the z r one axe. Fabulous.
Speaker 3:You know something? That is the greatest performance in the history. Yeah. For less than the sales tax on a Ferrari, you get a car that's faster. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay. Not quite as sophisticated and all these all these things that go with it. But, you know, it's very, very good. Yeah. And the nice thing about American Supercars is you get in with your phone or your devices and everything syncs up right away.
Speaker 3:Yep. You get in, even McLaren or, you know, Koenigsegg, Bugatti, hang on. Oh, my phone.
Speaker 2:I forgot about that.
Speaker 3:It doesn't quite work. You know? And plus, you you know, a lot of them don't meet emissions or don't crash standard. Do the phony Montana plate thing. Okay.
Speaker 3:Now you're in jail. You know? That's the great thing about it. It's... And it's extremely well met.
Speaker 3:You know, the greatest thing that happened Detroit was going bankrupt. Yep. Because they fired all the marketing guys, the guy from Whirlpool and, you know, I'm with Maytag, but I can sell cars. And it's all engineers now. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And even Mark Royce, the president of Jim, he's at Nuremberg Ring like once a month. Yeah. He went two thirty three the other day in the new Corvette around Nuremberg Ring. What CEO? What company would allow the CEO to run two thirty three miles So...
Speaker 3:An and it makes for a better car, a better vehicle.
Speaker 1:Is that worth chasing? Because the z r one x has, you know, track car performance from just a few years ago, and now it's a road car. Is that worth the automobile chasing?
Speaker 3:I don't think you've ever seen an ad for the z r one. No. Because they're all sold out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:GTD Mustang sets a record at Le Mans. Yeah. I've never seen an ad. The new Mustang with a guy, you know, with two days stubble and the girl, oh, looking over. Know?
Speaker 3:None of the... If a product's any good, it sells itself. Yeah. And, you know, in the in the early days of automobiles, it was race on Sunday, sell on Monday. Yep.
Speaker 3:And that kind of fell into... It just didn't work anymore. They just stopped. GM had a ban on racing and, you know, all that. But once they got back into racing, once you could see American stuff as competitive, people like to root for the home team.
Speaker 3:I mean, I do. I mean, I love my McLarens, think, but I love to see Ford and and Chevy
Speaker 1:be Cadillac's doing f one now.
Speaker 3:I know. How hilarious is that? I mean, you know, the last or the last...
Speaker 1:You go to the race on Sunday, you buy an Escalade on Monday.
Speaker 3:That's right. Or or, you know, the great one is is the Blackwing.
Speaker 1:That's what I got outside?
Speaker 3:Isn't that a great car?
Speaker 1:It's
Speaker 3:fantastic. Know, it's fantastic. Yeah. The last stick shift Cadillac was 1948.
Speaker 1:Been a long
Speaker 3:time. And then you go up to... And you know... Yeah. And the fact that whoever thought that Cadillac would have a stick, but Ferrari, BMW, Lamborghini, no.
Speaker 1:Well, they're bringing them back. What do you think of the e manuals, the Manuale, the manual by wire?
Speaker 3:Well, same thing I think of a blow up doll. If you can't get a real girl, I guess it's it's okay. You know, I mean, it's kind of embarrassing and I hope nobody sees you, but, you know, I like... No. You know...
Speaker 1:Seems like the young people might still... It might be good enough. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, they won't know the difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Maybe.
Speaker 3:Well, the young people... You know, when I was a kid, every guy pretended to be in certain cars because it got you girls. So even if they knew nothing, hey, what's the mill? You know, it's kind of stupid. Now, when I meet car guys, boy, they're committed.
Speaker 3:Men and women.: Because there's lot
Speaker 1:of YouTube videos, all the data...: Way more information.: can learn
Speaker 3:all Like Sidney Sweeney, you know her, the actress?:
Speaker 1:Yeah.:
Speaker 3:She is a welder, a fabricator.:
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 3:I mean, she really knows her stay. It just makes me laugh now. She's like, oh, the sexy girl. Oh, she's always attracted. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, she used to... Well, she worked for Rod Emory. Yeah. And I worked with him, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know? But she apprenticed in his shop and he taught her a lot. It just makes me laugh. So the young people I meet, men and women, are really into cars. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And unfortunately, manual sells. They... I mean, it gets them in the showroom. Mhmm. You know?
Speaker 3:And then then the wife goes, I'm not driving this. Alright. Honey, my wife doesn't like the the stick. Yeah. What
Speaker 1:do you think of the idea that the car industry is currently going through their equivalent of the quartz crisis where auto... Customers will either be buying an appliance, which will be a self driving Well, Tesla I probably think or something that's completely manual, completely, you know, real engine, just a motion, and they'll have...
Speaker 3:Well, that. Yeah. I I think what you have now, electric cars are the quartz Yeah. Vehicles Yeah. And mechanical cars.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think Supercars will be like snowmobiles or any other recreational vehicle. You take it out on weekends. Yeah. And people will continue to buy the one with the most valves, the most cams. Yep.
Speaker 3:I mean, this watch,. I mean, it's the most complicated way to tell time. Yeah. A Timex or Citizen for Yeah. $50 is even more accurate because it's electronic.
Speaker 3:But there's a certain... I enjoy winding it. It has a certain feel to it. Yeah. I I like it.
Speaker 3:So... And I think I think people will seek out the car. You know, like, I've got the the Dodge the Demon, and I've got the Challenger. And the Challenger is six speed manual. And then, obviously, the 10 speed is quicker with the automatic, but I I like driving the stick better.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you like Do you think
Speaker 2:that watches?
Speaker 1:Go for it. Do you like driver's watches?
Speaker 3:Oh, I've got
Speaker 1:a got a history.
Speaker 3:In that. 1921. Yeah. We have the Jay Leno watch we actually put out. It's out three times.
Speaker 3:We're in our third or fourth. Amazing. Do
Speaker 2:you think going to the track, participating in motorsports will become more popular as more of the cars on the road are self driving?
Speaker 3:I don't know. I think so. You know, we have a situation now where unfortunately, the whole company... There's no middle anymore. You have poor people or you have rich people that can afford.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm like with the Mission S, the new Porsche. I see Porsche moving upscale. And I want to be like Ferrari, sell fewer cars to more money to fewer people. I'm starting to see... In the old days, every Porsche, you know, Ferrari had 800 miles and Porsche had 60,000.
Speaker 3:Corvette, same thing. They used do the shootouts, which is fastest. The only ones that showed up would be Corvette and Porsche. Everybody else just didn't, you know. And now you have cars like people buy a GT3, and I'm putting it away.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They know it's going to be okay. I mean, that's the sad part. I would hate to see them become parts have always been expensive, but they're not rare. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of them around. They make a lot of cars. Yeah. But using that Ferrari model, well, you can make more money with fewer cars.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But now you have this elite clientele. Know, the great thing about Corvette is it's an aspirational car. If you're a guy with your own plumbing business, boy, you can aspire to own... Yeah. It's over 100,000, but it's not a million.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So at some point in your life
Speaker 1:You can get one.
Speaker 3:You can get one. And that's that's what I like about it. I hate... And everything is that way now. Hotels are either...
Speaker 3:You're either Motel six or it's a Four Seasons. Yep. The middle dies. Yeah. Restaurant.
Speaker 3:You fast food or top end restaurant. The Applebee's, the Denny's Yeah. Just regular restaurant because we we have no middle class anymore. That's a sad thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Sad.
Speaker 2:Were LA's roads always horrible or have you felt them get it?
Speaker 3:No. They've always been horrible.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because I joke I joke about the G Wagon being like the LA car because you need Yeah. Like a four by four to get around.:
Speaker 3:Well, that's because gee, these roads are awful. That's what people say.: Jesus.: Yeah. You know, it's so funny, and there's no excuse for... Mean, you go to Detroit, you got frosties, and it's winter. Okay.
Speaker 3:Understandable.: Yeah.: It's a beautiful day every day, except for that Thursday when it rained.: Yeah.: I don't know why the roads have to be so awful. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's crazy.
Speaker 3:It's it's really a... I've... And Tesla especially is susceptible to this. I've had five blowouts.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Just bam. I hit a pothole and you go and and just just a huge... And it'll take weeks for the pothole to be fixed. Yeah. And when you hit the same one twice Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's when you you really go crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. There's a huge pothole on my commute here. It's been Yeah. I've hit it every day for a year. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's constantly, I need
Speaker 2:to report it or something. Our friend Jason had the idea of like going in and doing a performance art going and filling up overnight, filling up all the potholes with Yeah. Dirt and flowers Oh. As a way to try to, you know, I draw attention to don't I don't think it would fix it. No.
Speaker 2:Maybe LA has bigger problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Do
Speaker 1:you think Mission S will be fun to drive?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think so. All Porsches are fun to drive. Yeah. The electric one is nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But that that's the classic example of quartz versus mechanical. Sure. Porsche people don't like electric. It's just, I mean, it's fast, it does everything it's supposed to do.
Speaker 3:You know, I drove the REMAK. Yeah, That's the
Speaker 1:--.
Speaker 3:It's, although it's $2,500,000 more, it's a tenth faster than the plan.
Speaker 1:Male Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's... Yeah. And that's it. There's no there's no click to the shifting, you know, the same way you wind with these, you hear the... Yep.
Speaker 3:It's either get it or you don't. I...
Speaker 1:Well, it feels like Mate learned a really valuable lesson from that project Yeah. Which is double down on heritage and
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And mechanics and the emotion, and it doesn't seem like he's gonna be going deeper down that path.
Speaker 3:No. I I think... Because remember, they were all supposed to be electric by 2030. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that that went away.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:So now I think you'll you'll you'll have your high end Yeah. Extremely complicated mechanical
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Cars Yeah. Which is what people like. The more valves, the more pistons, more weather.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's interesting. What do you think of the Tesla Roadster demo? The circus act of the kick flipping...
Speaker 3:Well, I I think...
Speaker 1:People don't want electric cars. They put rocket engines on it. That's not technically electric.
Speaker 3:No. But I think you I think you're seeing Tesla move from a car company to a space company. Yeah. I mean, what you're doing is showing off your space technology. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay. Because you've got cars from China. You've got cars... Tesla's getting hit on every side, plus the politics of it somehow getting involved in that Totally. Cost him a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But with with the gas prices, well, Tesla sales were back up again, so it did okay. But I think the car business is it'll be hard to make money because somebody will always have something cheaper. Mhmm. You know?
Speaker 3:So I I think I think that's their transition into driverless and outer space
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think.
Speaker 1:How did you grapple with the pull of politics through your career as a talk show host? It feels like there's a lot of pressure from audiences to address the current Take a stance. Take a stance and...
Speaker 3:Well, yeah. I I'm I'm, you know, write joke, tell joke. Yeah. Get checked. Very simple.
Speaker 3:It was. Very simple. Very simple. Know, it depends. Johnny and I had the same theory.
Speaker 3:I'm not putting myself in Johnny's class. I just mean the fact that you may smell both sides equally. And that worked fine. Yeah. And then all of a sudden other talk shows come out to you, you've to take a side.
Speaker 3:You go, well, it's not my job. It's not my job. You know, when you go out in the real world, when you perform in Hollywood, where you get exactly the audience, you do a chump joke and they all cheer. Okay, fine. You go to Indiana, and half of them or a third of them boo.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. That's unfair. It's whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And when you sell real tickets to real people... So, you know, I announced... I'm just taking politics out of the action. I made a few references already.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Of course.
Speaker 3:You know? And ticket sales are up 20, 30% because people are just... It's like when I go see James Taylor, I don't wanna hear a lecture. Well, yeah, like the rainforest. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's good. Yeah. I don't... I don't know. That's a tree and Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, I I can't hear it, sweet baby James. You know, I I wanna hear I wanna hear the music. Yeah. So it wasn't that hard when I did it.
Speaker 3:It wasn't that... I mean, when I knew, you and your Republican friends, hope... You and your Democratic buddy, when both sides like you and hate you at the same time, well, then you know you're doing something right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Else did you learn from Carson?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, that as as a model, that format is dead. I mean, podcasting is the new thing.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 3:I mean, the thing that really killed it is not the fact that Letterman and I were so good or any of that nonsense. We just happened to be there at the right time.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:It's it's the last days. They passed a law since they weren't making this much money. After 11:30 at night, you could have another eight minutes of commercials in an hour. Oh. You know, if I see Jake from State Farm again, I'm gonna shoot myself in the head.
Speaker 3:You know? I mean, I try to I try to watch late night. I watch them on log. Yeah. And then there's six minutes of commercials, and and the thirty second spots are so well done.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They look like two minute spots.
Speaker 1:Have
Speaker 3:cars and explosions and airplanes.
Speaker 1:Oh,
Speaker 3:okay. Really? And I go, jeez, this is still... Then we come back.
Speaker 2:The the the market open on CNBC is brutal too, in that you have, like, one minute of content and then back to ads for Yeah.
Speaker 3:Lots of Yeah. It's terrible.
Speaker 2:And it's like It's all. It's I I... It's actually sad.
Speaker 3:And it's funny because TV used you'd to go out and say, you ever seen that commercial with a guy? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'd say, Nobody knows.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right because everyone's seeing slightly different ads
Speaker 3:and he's connecting you. Sees.
Speaker 1:It's really hard
Speaker 3:for me to break through. The only thing where network or traditionally sports
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 3:And some event happening right now. Yeah. Let's go with our cameras right now and that kind of...
Speaker 1:Everyone used to know like the Clydesdales or the Right. The lapel bear and like those Well,
Speaker 3:for example, they shoot game shows now in Ireland and they fly Americans over.: Woah.
Speaker 1:To be in the audience?:
Speaker 3:To be in the audience. So you think it's shot in America, but Yeah.: it's shot in I don't know why it cost so much. You know, we did an awful show for Mattel, this Hot Wheels show. It wasn't a very good show. And we...
Speaker 3:For two years, three years, we shot at my garage and I donated the garage.: Yeah.: And they made a donation to a charity.: Cool.: It was cheaper to send a 175 people to Ireland, put them up for two months, pay them a redeem
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Than it was to shoot in my garage
Speaker 1:for two days. That's crazy. Is that taxes in Los Angeles and California
Speaker 3:Well, that's all.
Speaker 1:Or tax incentives
Speaker 3:Well, all all the things. The other get the incentives here. Okay. Like here, if you go down Coahuenga, it's $5,000 You make a left, oh, it's another $7,500 But you can go right. There's a formula.
Speaker 3:They figure out where you want to shoot. You can just go on those streets. You go down the other street. Saw you go down the other street. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know? I mean, it's starting to change a little bit now, but it's a bit like the barn door, you know? The the the the horses left. I mean, everybody's in Atlanta and every other place now.
Speaker 3:Yeah. How do you how
Speaker 2:do you navigate this relentless nature of of show business? Mhmm. This is something, you know... Didn't
Speaker 3:It's not...
Speaker 1:You didn't find it relentless.
Speaker 3:You know...
Speaker 1:7AM to midnight every I
Speaker 3:had real jobs. They sucked. Okay. You know, you get paid pretty good. Sure.
Speaker 3:You know, if you're a cop or a nurse, your days are hell. You get hurt, you get beat up Yeah. And you make $400 a week. Yeah. You know, I always tell people, the way you don't worry, you're gonna get screwed.
Speaker 3:But when you get screwed, you get a big pile of money. Mhmm. Okay. So, here's the thing. You're gonna get screwed.
Speaker 3:You know, I always tell I always tell guys, don't fall in love with a hooker because that's what show business is. Eventually, it's gonna end badly. Mhmm. But when it does end, hopefully, you have a big stack of cash.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You
Speaker 3:know, my favorite joke... Did a joke about Charlie Sheen. You know, Charlie Sheen went through $200,000,000. Remember when he did that whole thing? Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And the joke was, he spent it on cocaine, gambling, and women. And the rest of the money, he just wasted. That's that's my that's my favorite joke. My favorite joke.
Speaker 1:What... Can you explain to me Yes. Difference Yes. Between what it takes to perform at various time slots? 10:30, 11:30, 12:30.
Speaker 1:This informed so much of the late night wars, and I never fully understood why someone would work at midnight but not 11PM. We came up in the on demand era.
Speaker 3:Well, I think It doesn't matter. That's right. It did. That's what it
Speaker 1:What what was it?
Speaker 3:Well, who's up late at night? College kids, out of work people, whatever it might be.:
Speaker 1:Okay.: So the audience is
Speaker 3:different.: Yeah. Who goes to bed at nine? This person, that person.: Okay.: I mean, that's really the way they do it.: Yeah.: because when you watch every ad now, it's Advil all kinds of pain relievers and... Yeah.
Speaker 1:For the late nights.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Got it. Yeah, all that.
Speaker 1:And so you would see that feedback of someone took a particular slot and they're not performing well in the ratings because they had a more mature or maybe a younger target audience in mind for those jokes and they weren't landing...
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, it's really you see what people laugh at. This is why I went this is why I was on the road every weekend. Because when you're in the studio, a guy pushes a button, laugh, Sure. Applause.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So you do something... Exactly. I rest my kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We just got...
Speaker 2:So much... It's actually... People that make content today have it so easy because you put something out. Yeah. Like, we'll get text messages live from our friends that are that are laughing, whatever, something's funny or hey, you should have this person on right now or this thing just happened or the chat will update us or someone will leave a review and say, you know, John just talked for ten minutes straight, no one else said a word, stuff like stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And we we take all that. Some of the stuff you naturally take to heart, other stuff you Right. Ignore, whatever. But you guys, you're just kind of like in a bubble. And so, for you...
Speaker 3:Well, trick is not to be in the bubble.
Speaker 2:You go on the road and you just deliver... Yeah, you try
Speaker 3:if this is real, and you get a sense of where people are, and what's fair or unfair when you... The real... The joke should be pure, you know? People always say to me, I bet when... I bet you wish you were you were on TV now with Trump.
Speaker 3:I go, no. Because I don't like Trump. I can't stand the guy. And when you don't like someone, it's harder to be... You know, with George Bush, I go, you know, I don't think president Bush quite understands.
Speaker 3:And and people would start to giggle because you're alluding to the fact that maybe he's not the brightest guy. But you... You're not just saying he's a big jerk. He's stupid. You know?
Speaker 3:You're not doing that. Just got It's long time. Yeah. I don't think he quite gets it. And then there's snicker snicker, you know.
Speaker 3:And that's what worked for me, you know. Yeah. When you truly dislike a guy, it's hard to be funny
Speaker 1:about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Used to say there was a comic, I wouldn't say who he is, but he got divorced. It was the worst thing that happened. He'd I'd say, anyway, my ex wife. She had a lot.
Speaker 3:And then she's... And the joke wouldn't be... Get funny because something... That's perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Did you ever have, is there anybody that stands out as somebody that you you would sort of joke at or criticize on the show, but in real life, you were you were... You got along really well?
Speaker 3:Well, that's just about everybody. I mean, that's what the show is. Yeah. Yeah. That...
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's basically what you did. That was your living. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Think that's fair to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah. How do you think about the importance of repeatable formats, like top 10 lists and certain headlines?
Speaker 3:Well, if something works, you do it again. Headlines work for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:The man on the street stuff works for us. Because we never talked to any... And we never had a ringer. We never talked to more than 20 people a night. We'd use 16 of them.
Speaker 3:How was Mount Rushmore formed? Erosion. Really? Not only five... Five of our greatest president.
Speaker 3:I mean, the wind, the rain. Yeah. Magic. And in the right order.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, it's that's In the right order. I mean, what... What's the odds Yeah. Of nature doing that?
Speaker 1:You know? People on the
Speaker 3:street. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that that...
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, Letterman had the top 10 list Yeah. And we had headlines Yep. Jaywalking and some of the other stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I I enjoyed it. It was fun. I Yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you and the team try and incubate those? Like, think of new formats that would be repeatable?
Speaker 3:Yeah. And you try some of the ones that are not repeatable. You don't repeat. Yeah. And if they don't work, don't keep doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, that that... Comics are inherently lazy. And they'll get, you know, this joke worked in Denver two years ago. Okay.
Speaker 3:That was in Denver two years ago. Yeah. Okay. It hasn't worked in two years. You either go move to Denver and keep doing the joke or you can come up with something new.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The holy trinity. I wanna hear your reflection on the Holy Trinity and then Of Supercars, you mean? Supercars. We're back to cars.
Speaker 1:Sorry.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then I wanna hear, do you think we are about to enter the new Holy Trinity with the W one, the F 80 and the Mission S? There's been some grumblings about that, but people are debating. Well,
Speaker 3:I mean, that's kind of... I think the P-one has proved itself.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:The nine eighteen was good. Yeah. But now the standard GT three nine eleven faster than nine eighteen was. I mean, moves. It's I mean, it moves tremendously fast.
Speaker 3:You never quite know what it's going to be, what it is to one generation. I mean, when I was a kid, the 04/27 COBRA, that was it. Mhmm. You know, Cal Shelby used to put a $100 bill on the dashboard, and then he nail it. If you could you could get the $100 bill, you could keep it.
Speaker 3:And nobody ever could because you just, you know, you just so that was sort of the standard there. Before that, was asked in Martin, zero to 60 to zero in like nine seconds, something. Oh, wow, that's lot of stuff. It breaks and it goes fast. Now those are...
Speaker 3:An old lady in Nissan Altima can do that. So... Yeah. I mean, I don't really buy the holy trinity. And you know the holy trinity.
Speaker 3:It sells magazines. People people need... Wanna take a side. Your your dad like Ferrari or you like Red or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1:They want structure. They want a format.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 1:People people like these formats.
Speaker 3:Well, they don't really read magazines anymore. I would hate I would hate to be in that business. Yeah. The magazine bit.
Speaker 1:There's a couple that are still doing well. Read The Economist. I read The Financial Times.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah. But yeah, those are those are too well, but it it just...
Speaker 2:Surprising thing is a coffee table book business is booming.
Speaker 1:Oh, really?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Is that true? Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 3:Well, my favorite, I love celebrity books. Okay. Celebrity, know, I've written a book Yeah. And it's a children's book Yeah. And it'll say page one, cat, and I have some clever drawing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay. That's not a book bomb. Okay? That's a pamphlet.
Speaker 3:It says cat, school, car. Okay. This is for someone with a prepubescent, some child at age five to six. You did not write a book. But I would have celebrities come.
Speaker 3:I've been working on this book for a while, Jane. I think it's it's a children's book. It's just the most simple poem, and it's usually roses... Begins the way they always... And I would pretend that, oh, this is really...
Speaker 3:Yes. That's not really a book. But all you need is a good illustrator and then you put the word cat or tree or something in there.
Speaker 2:Cat. What business... Why don't you make the final children's book then? If it's so easy... I
Speaker 3:have a children's book. It was called A Roast Beef Could Fly. It did it did really well.
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 3:No, it was really...
Speaker 2:But it was... You you think it was more of a book more of a book than a pamphlet?
Speaker 3:Well, was it was a it was a children's book. Sure. And it came with a CD where you...
Speaker 2:Children's books for me, pamphlets for thee kind of Yeah.
Speaker 3:Think... I think... We'll get copies. If you have more than 300 words, okay, it can be a book.
Speaker 2:Okay. Okay. That's When
Speaker 3:you have 15 words, mine was based on a true story. Did you ever read the book?
Speaker 2:No. No, but I I'll order it. I mean, we burn through books.
Speaker 3:Well, this you should burn through. And you can burn this one when you're done. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Vehemently against burning books. What... Were there any particular business opportunities that you turned down while you were in the thick of
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Your team.
Speaker 3:Bucks to hold them a Budweiser can. Okay.
Speaker 1:Would that be on the show? Like, does that happen? Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't drink. So I don't wanna I don't wanna be a guy, go to a bar, and I don't drink. Well, you... And plus, you can't get greedy. I was on TV every night.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I don't need to be on TV And when I'm in commercials in between when I'm on TV.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:To come off TV and go, hi. I'm Jay Leno. You know? So and so and so. You know?
Speaker 3:My favorite was, hi. I'm so and so. I'm here to tell you about... No. Shut up.
Speaker 3:I don't care really what a celebrity has to say. Okay. But it just makes me like, you don't know what you're talking about. You know?
Speaker 1:What about, something more behind the scenes? Instead of being a spokesperson, someone comes to you. I mean, the car... The famous Carson story is the suits that he was not compensated for appropriately. Right.
Speaker 1:Right. I'm wondering about other business... I some...
Speaker 3:I have car accessory business. Sure. Do polishes and things. Something that has a shelf life.
Speaker 1:But did that come up after you had finished your run-in Hollywood mostly?
Speaker 3:Or were you That came after The Tonight Show.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. After The Tonight Show. Yeah. But were you getting your door beaten down by business opportunities throughout The Tonight Show?
Speaker 3:Well, people come with, you know, watermelon on a stick. This is gonna be a big thing. Sure. Okay. Great.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Bob. Yeah. You know? No. No.
Speaker 3:I... No. Stay focused. You know, I had... I make money doing this.
Speaker 3:Yeah. This seems to pay extremely well. Yeah. I will stick with this.
Speaker 1:That's
Speaker 3:great. Know, had a friend of mine. He was a doctor, optometrist. Yeah. He always wanted to open a hot dog stand.
Speaker 3:Okay. So, he opened a hot dog stand. And it was doing okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then, well, let me open another one on the other side of town where there's more people, and that did okay. And then he's running between... And then he lost his optometry business.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Because he... Really? Really, Bob? The hot dogs? Yeah.
Speaker 3:The eye thing is... I think it pays a little bit more money. Yeah. You know, but this...
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. My my thing is when I have, like, I have a guy that I've got my haircut.
Speaker 3:And lovely, I must say, yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do. I'm aiming for... I believe
Speaker 3:that is called a quaff.
Speaker 2:Anyway, so I'm sitting there, he's cutting my hair. Right. And he starts pitching me on the business that he's working on overnight. And I'm sitting there thinking like, you're sitting there with scissors around my head
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:Cutting my hair. I want you to be dreaming about cutting hair. I want you to be going to sleep. The last thought that you have is about the haircut that you're gonna do in the morning. I don't want you to in this case, he was, you know, building some AI mumbo jumbo.
Speaker 3:Know? Yeah. Not gonna know. You're correct. You know, this...
Speaker 3:In my business, there's nothing harder than writing a joke. And I see comedians, hi, I'm so and so, but I'm being serious now. And I wanna do a a special on it. Well, no. There are people that do this better than you.
Speaker 3:You know? Write write the joke. Just... That's what you do. You write a joke.
Speaker 3:Why would I hire a comedian to give me a serious eulogy about whatever it might be. You know, why would I do that? But people... To me, it's a lot of time. Oh, they wanna sing.
Speaker 1:Oh, sure.
Speaker 3:Or they wanna act. Yeah. You know? You know? Seinfeld and I always used to say, what if we went on vacation and we liked it?
Speaker 3:Then we'd be screwed, so we don't go on vacation. Yeah. Because telling jokes is... It's... You show up, you get a huge amount of money.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, I was in... Where is that? Alabama. Plane landed at 06:30, quarter to seven, got to the theater at 07:20, went on at 08:00, the tech come home.
Speaker 3:Fabulous. You know? No rehearsal. No teams. No.
Speaker 3:The drunk... The bass player is drunk. We gotta go find a replacement. You know, that's comedy is if you can do it, it's pretty easy and it pays very well. And you get paid for doing the same thing over and over.
Speaker 3:You know, you can either do one HBO special and get this much money, you can do 100 dates and make twice that much money and you didn't give all your material away for free, you know? You make you're on HBO, you're making a tenth of a penny per customer. You do a live show, you're making $25 a customer or maybe even $50 a customer.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Did you prefer comedy tours via plane or tour bus? Did you ever...
Speaker 3:I travel by myself. I
Speaker 1:don't... So plane? Yeah. Makes for a good tour bus experience?
Speaker 3:I have no idea. I don't believe there is such a thing as I don't believe there is such thing as a good bus experience. Okay. Okay. You know, this this just...
Speaker 2:List your four wheels over here.
Speaker 1:The time. All the about being into motor vehicles and...
Speaker 3:No. I... You know, I I......
Speaker 1:Hop in a plane the first chance he You
Speaker 3:know, the trick is I can go to work. Yeah. And when you have a plane, you fly and you can do something else. I work in cars during the day. Yep.
Speaker 3:And then I go out and I work, like, you know, that's that old saying, the heart is healthy just where the head and the hands work together. Yeah. You work all day or something. Oh, then you stand on stage and go, this is so much easier than putting a transmission in. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And if I put a transmission on, I might have made $80 Yeah. For that day. I tell jokes. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:No. It's it's it's it's good. It's good.
Speaker 1:How much were you traveling? What was, like, your your peak travel year?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm doing 200 dates this year.
Speaker 1:200 dates?
Speaker 3:I... I've done that... What I do in The Tonight Show, I'd probably limit it to a 140 or so because it's only on weekends.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Or I would do Vegas after The Tonight Show during the week. Okay. That kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:You fly?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So... Yeah. I'm I'm still work. I...
Speaker 3:You know, I enjoy it. It's a lot of fun. You know, you think of a joke and you you tell it. You know? Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where where does your... Like, where are you where are you sourcing? How are you how... You're in this bad spot. You're like, I I need some new jokes.
Speaker 2:What's your process? Is it sitting down and just and just, you know, not getting up until you got something?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'm dyslexic, so I have nothing written down.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:I don't carry it in my
Speaker 2:head, that's why Yeah. I like to
Speaker 3:You remember stuff that that that's funny. You know, sometimes just simple jokes are easy to write, like this like this joke. Guy goes to the doctor. Doc says, what's the matter? He says, Doc, it hurts when I press on my rib cage, hurts when I press on my forehead, hurts when I press on my cheekbone, and hurts when I press on my shoulder.
Speaker 3:Doc says, You've a broken finger. It's stupid, it's simple. You know, it's not...
Speaker 2:I didn't even need the laugh track for that one.
Speaker 3:It took the audience no longer to get it. But I mean, just those kind of things, it's just, it's fun when you think of something like that. I would share with people anyway, so why not get paid?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 3:Very simple.
Speaker 1:Did you always have the drive to continue creating, continue telling jokes, or was this something that, like, steamrolled you...
Speaker 3:No. I always have. You know, I had depression era parents. Yeah. And if I don't work this week, I think I'm broke.
Speaker 3:You know, I have a pool Sure. In my house. Yeah. I haven't been in it in thirty years. Every time I get near the pool, I hear, oh, is that what you do?
Speaker 3:You're a rich guy now? You sit in the pool. Okay. And then you're like, well, you got nothing broken here? No.
Speaker 3:Alright. Yeah. Got the McLaren. Yeah. I go back and...
Speaker 3:Well, but the McLaren, I'm driving it to fix it to do it. Yeah. It does... See, I I justify.
Speaker 1:Sure. Sure.
Speaker 3:You're not way to justify sitting in the pool. You're not... The only time I did sit in the pool is when I went in to fix the light. Okay. Okay.
Speaker 3:And I fixed the light. Yeah. Now I'm wet. I'm wet for a reason.
Speaker 2:Well, do you maintain do you maintain your pool yourself? Like, do you do all the...
Speaker 3:Well, I I try to do what I can.
Speaker 2:I mean, I, know, I don't do... Well, no. But it's a good motivation because if you're you've gotta pay somebody else to maintain the pool, you're like, if I don't if I don't go to work today, I'm gonna go broke.
Speaker 3:Something. Exactly. But that... No. That's the way I think.
Speaker 3:I mean... And, you know, funny stuff happens. You know, I I I did a corporate event for McDonald's, and they gave me, a stack of Happy Meal coupons. So I'm not gonna throw them around. I'm gonna...
Speaker 3:I might call you. So I'm driving the McLaren SR, which got so good. So I pull into the drive thru, I said, may have a two Happy Meals. Sir, we only limit to one Happy Meal per customer. I said, oh, well, okay.
Speaker 3:They just want... And he go, hold on. Oh, oh, you're. Let me get the... No.
Speaker 3:Don't get the... No. Don't get the manager. Okay. Then the manager comes out.
Speaker 3:He's got the paper hat. You know? I'm busy. Could you pull up to the side here? Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay. Pull up. Now the door goes up. Now all the kids see the door go up, so they come running over.
Speaker 3:Yeah. The guy goes, now we... Normally, we only allow one happy meal. I'm listening to this, and I hear a guy go, it's Jay Leno who's arguing over happiness. I'm not I'm not arguing over.
Speaker 3:I'm just talking to the the guy, you know. And it it just to me, it just seems... It's just like it it it just really made me laugh. It just it just the fact that he's... Well, here's normal...
Speaker 3:And we're gonna do this for you. Yeah. But normally, we would only allow one happy meal. Yeah. You'd have to get in line again to get the second happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I feel like you... Yeah.
Speaker 2:You got the paparazzi being like Jay Leno holds up...
Speaker 3:I like getting recognized. It's like high school with money. Have known?
Speaker 1:Has anyone's changed the interaction?
Speaker 3:No. It's always... You know, somebody, I generally like people. I like to talk to people. Nothing annoys me more than celebrities that just...
Speaker 3:Yes, what is it? I'm sure. Why are you in this business?: Yeah.: Okay. And does it take a little longer? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like, for example, in the real world, one out of every 50 people I meet is a car person. So I can actually have a conversation. Sure. When I go to Pebble Beach, every single person there is a car. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So you can't go 10 feet. Yeah. They tended to get so swamped. So... And now I find that kind of void though because I don't wanna be...
Speaker 3:I don't wanna say no to people. I know what you're... Yeah. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I'm... It used be four hours to
Speaker 3:get Yeah. Right.
Speaker 1:One mile or something.
Speaker 2:Did you... I'm sure a lot of your peers over the years retired. Is retirement... Well, have a stroke. That's when
Speaker 3:you retire.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But did any... Is there a way to do it well?
Speaker 2:Because I haven't seen No. I haven't seen anybody, at least so far in my life, like, retire that well.
Speaker 3:Yeah. What are you gonna do? Drink? Gamble? I mean, are gonna do?
Speaker 3:What are you gonna do? Retire? I mean, to most people, it's it's your life anyway. If you have a if you're selling insurance, okay, that can get a bit tedious. You don't have to sell insurance when you're retired.
Speaker 3:But just... I mean, you're still gonna think of funny things to say when you're retired, but you don't want any place to say them. And the... See, the the thing about comedy is when you stop, you can never go back. You can't go back five years later because people now expect you to be five times better than the last time they saw you.
Speaker 3:And they think, you know, they think you're just talking off the top of your head all the time. They don't realize you've done this a million times, and we've tried to perfect it and hone it and all this kind of stuff. You know? So when you haven't done it and when you haven't done it for a long time, the stage is on a a strange place to be. When you're on stage every day, it's a second nature.
Speaker 3:When you do it once a month and someone somebody somebody call... Your your goes to that. You know? So you have to keep doing it. I mean, I remember Eddie Murphy said, oh, he's gonna get back into stand up, and I would love to see him do it, but he was out of it for ten years.
Speaker 3:And where do you practice? Eddie Murphy's gonna be here tonight. Oh, he wouldn't have. Well, he... He's trying new stuff.
Speaker 3:You
Speaker 1:know? Muscle back.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I heard people say to me, I I I was on... Let him... Let let him...
Speaker 3:A Fallon or somebody. And I saw I did new materials. The guy goes, you know, saw you two weeks ago at the Comedy and Magic Club. You did the same material, so it wasn't new. I go, no.
Speaker 3:It's the first time I did it on TV. You have to... Yeah. I tried to... You see, you have to practice.
Speaker 3:I could see this is just Yeah.
Speaker 1:It feels like people have sort of lost the comedy conventions. Like they don't fully...
Speaker 3:No, they haven't. Know, it's exactly the same.
Speaker 1:No. I I I mean the audience understanding the conventions.
Speaker 3:No. I don't find... No. Think it's always this. You know, somebody...
Speaker 3:If I showed you a Rudolph Valentino movie from the twenties, it was... Had women swooning, you'd be laughing. Yeah. It's boring. It just takes a long time.
Speaker 3:You know? It's all... But if you see Keaton Chaplin, you know, fat guy with a tuxedo falls in a mud puddle, I'm sorry. People laugh Yeah. Just as much now as they did.
Speaker 3:It really has a funny is fine. That stupid joke that I just told you, you could have told that in any time from from from the...
Speaker 1:The discovery of
Speaker 3:the Yeah. Broken From any point in history, the Renaissance to now Yeah. It would work.
Speaker 1:It still works.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Is that all... I mean, it's funny because in tech world everybody's been watching and and more broadly everybody's been watching the new Nathan Fielder movie and it has this reference to Who's On First. Right.
Speaker 2:And so people have been watching that back and saying it's like it's a little hard to get through now because it's like six minutes long and they're going around and Yeah.
Speaker 3:It takes long time. And you have to... I remember watching the... You know, that came out right after Hiroshima. Wow.
Speaker 3:And they and they they... I forgot to tell you, you see, Hiroshima? Looks like Emmett's field after a dodger game. I go, okay. Well, that that that wouldn't, that wouldn't work now.
Speaker 1:That would not apply now. No.
Speaker 3:Wow. But you just fought these people for five years. Yeah. The Japanese were the worst to the American prisoners of almost any people, torture wise. It seemed justified to say at the time it got a big laugh, but it wouldn't work now.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know? But you you you... Comedy's gotta change with the times. Sure.
Speaker 3:I mean, when I was a kid, you'd see racial jokes on TV. Oh my god. Yeah. Or women drivers. Well, women are fine.
Speaker 3:Why why can't... Why why couldn't a woman drive? What are talking about?
Speaker 1:For
Speaker 3:Sure. You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. All the tropes change.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's right. Remember when
Speaker 1:The structure.
Speaker 3:I think it was when Harry Reasoner retired, he said, Bringing women in to be anchors is not something I think because people will listen.
Speaker 1:I said,
Speaker 3:Oh, shut up. It's something... That kind of stuff, you know? Yeah. He also said, I'm glad I'm leaving now because I don't wanna have a computer in my house.
Speaker 3:I mean, people talk that way. Why would you want a computer? Well, how how bothersome and annoying would that be? Yeah. But, you know...
Speaker 3:No. Everyone does. There you go.
Speaker 1:Everyone does. Do you like the cell phones going in those sealed bags during a comedy show?
Speaker 3:I I don't care.
Speaker 1:You don't care?
Speaker 3:I I I don't care. I mean, it's like, if your stuff is good enough for somebody to steal, I guess that's flattering, I suppose. Yeah. You know something? What are you gonna worry about everything?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Somebody... Or somebody told them the jokes I told. Oh, yeah. Well, okay.
Speaker 3:You know, you didn't pay anything for the joke. Just thought of them. Yeah. I mean, if somebody steals your movie, I won't cause that's different.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 3:No. I don't do that. I I don't like I don't like charging people for autographs or or a picture. Yeah. You know, it's $300 to take a picture.
Speaker 1:Really? People charge for photos and Yeah. Autographs?
Speaker 3:I've never... A lot of people get...
Speaker 1:The thing that I've heard is people will grab the photograph and say, I'd love to sign it. Who should I make it out to? Because they don't wanna sign to no one so that it
Speaker 3:Oh, when it shows up on eBay. Yeah. When it shows up eBay.
Speaker 1:Who cares?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Oh, and somebody paid $50 for your picture. Oh, that's that's that's pretty good.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Pretty nice.
Speaker 3:Somebody actually bought my picture. Well, that's... You know, it's fun. Be happy. Be happy.
Speaker 3:You know?
Speaker 1:Just be happy.
Speaker 3:Be happy you don't have a real job. Yeah. Because real jobs are horrible. I read my case.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's true. This is a pretty big gig.
Speaker 3:No. No. But it is. No.
Speaker 1:You're a 100%.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's fun. You come to work and, you know, it's not the same thing every day.
Speaker 1:No. No.
Speaker 2:Because the news moves... That's so refreshing. Yeah. People people have asked us. I mean, we we never...
Speaker 2:John had done to media stuff prior to this, but I had always been more behind the scenes. And I never would have imagined being on being on camera. It wasn't something I aspired to. I didn't Yeah. I I didn't, necessarily do it, for attention.
Speaker 2:But the fact that every single day, like, John and I would be having the same exact conversations whether or not we were getting... It was a career or not. Right?
Speaker 3:Well, here's the thing that will save you.
Speaker 1:Please.
Speaker 3:No matter how much you're in media now, nobody knows who the hell you are. Yeah. They they really don't. Yeah. You know, the people.
Speaker 3:One guy came to see me. He said, oh, I didn't know you're a comedian. I thought you just, like, would bring a couch out and interview people. No. No.
Speaker 3:I was a comedian. Good. Yeah. Most Yeah. Nobody pays.
Speaker 1:Yeah. World's huge.
Speaker 3:Nobody gets reckoned. I mean, unless you're the the it girl or you're the athlete or Yeah. Yeah. Something. Like, when I when I was...
Speaker 3:When we were doing The Tonight Show in the seventies and eighties, every... Next day, everyone... Hey. You hey. That's that guy I saw you last night.
Speaker 3:Now you you you would have to do 25 or 30 appearances to get more than a dozen people because nobody... It's so fractured now. Everybody's watching streaming. Yep. And we all just there's no central...
Speaker 3:You know, I used to watch like the network news because I would learn about stuff I'm not interested in. Mhmm. So, oh, now I have that. Now I don't have that knowledge I just watch the news that I wanna watch. Yep.
Speaker 3:So you watch either your Trump news or you watch your, you know... Or members of
Speaker 1:the media.... Perfectly to it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. People only agree with you.
Speaker 1:Yep. They're in the bubble.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's what I mean. So I I... That's why I like the road. You get outside your bubble and it's fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What advice do you have for people that are afraid of AI?
Speaker 3:Well, the same thing I had. You know, I have a steam engine from 1866 in my garage, a big thing. And Luddite used to break in and smash it because with the big wheel, it ran a thing and it put a 125 people out of work at a factory because it's a big... You know, you didn't need all the people doing that. You know, in the...
Speaker 3:You know, there's a book you guys are probably like like, by the time we were interested, called Precision. It's the history of precision. And before mass, you know, the... What do you call it?
Speaker 1:Mass manufacturing.
Speaker 3:Mass manufacturing. Every town had a craftsman. Yeah. You had a guy... You'd have a gunmaker.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:He would make a gun. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 3:Or maybe three a year, and a few people in town would have it. Sure. And then Colt comes along and the mass manufacturing of guns and everybody can have a gun. Not quite as precise, not quite as nicely made. Yep.
Speaker 3:But at least you can have it, you know. And so the craftsman went out of business because craftsman... You don't really have craftsman anymore. Even woodworkers that couldn't really make furniture.
Speaker 1:What about Christian von Koenigs? Like, he's craftsman, isn't he not?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, is.
Speaker 3:But he... I think he's independently wealthy. I Sure. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's...
Speaker 3:He can afford to build $5,000,000 automobile. Yeah. You know? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. It feels like the craftsman do stick around. They just become incredibly Well, what I'm They're saying is not a vital part of every town.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They'll always be they'll always be crashing.
Speaker 1:Sure. Sure. Sure.
Speaker 3:It's just... It's not like it used to be. The reverence is not there. A 100%. You know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Name and all that kind. Yeah. Now we're sort of getting back to it. You...
Speaker 3:When you buy a Corvette, the guy who built your engine, his name is on the Yeah. On the block and black.
Speaker 1:I understand.
Speaker 3:Oh, and I I... In fact, I had the guy and his family come out to visit my car, and the kids got to see their dad's name on the... You know? They like... That's cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, that's kinda cool. Yeah. So to a certain extent, we're getting back to that a little bit. But...
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. I'm a very optimistic person. I think it's fine. I mean, for all the...
Speaker 3:You know, I like watches. I have a very obscure watch, 1873, and you wind it by... When you open the the case. Yeah. That...
Speaker 3:That's how it winds.
Speaker 1:Very interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Built eight... Oh, the guy only made three of them.
Speaker 1:I said Woah.
Speaker 3:Let me see if there's anything on the Internet. Second and a half.
Speaker 1:Full history.
Speaker 3:The guy exactly... Well, all this... I was trying to find how long the stem was. Yeah. All the information I I went, oh my god.
Speaker 3:Yeah. This is unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, that would not have been possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If you're if you're like enthusiasts in like a very niche category, it's like the most amazing
Speaker 3:Well, that's a...
Speaker 2:Thing in the world. Yeah. Before I I mean, I just remember It's awesome. Cars, you're like, let me spend eight hours Yep. Some forum Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or or let me look at all these old YouTube videos. And again, it's just like, as much as it's part of the process of like searching and hunting for information, I don't really miss like spending three hours That's right. Trying to find one fact that I'm just trying to get that so...
Speaker 3:Well, the sad thing is the disappearance of libraries. And that's really sad because that... Now you have poor people who could not afford a computer or whatever, could go to a library, and they were now equal to everybody else because they had access to the same information. Yeah. That's what's bad.
Speaker 2:Really, I don't know. Everyone has...
Speaker 3:I would almost... Would... And everyone can
Speaker 1:get information but the phone also has all the distractions on it whereas the library didn't. Right. Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah. What do think? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Was just gonna say, mean, I I I... Technology is more... I thought you were just saying the disappearance in libraries is like a, you know, a place that that people would go. I mean That too. We still massively utilize our local library and...
Speaker 2:Yeah. But you do the most... I'd go into any library. When I was
Speaker 3:a kid, it would be very crowded.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Now there are a few people milling around. Sure. Sure. Sure. You could get the homeless guy looking at porn and, you know, that...
Speaker 3:That's that's about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh, well.
Speaker 3:You can't look at... See, you have to go to the library to look at porn. That's sad. See? You should You can't look
Speaker 2:at Apple Vision Pro. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Well, you could you could start a new library or museum or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. But, no, I I think it's all good. It it... You know, you can't stop progress.
Speaker 3:Sure. You know, this... That's the stupid thing with these tariffs. Yeah. You know, the the great thing about America was you could get stuff that was restricted in other countries.
Speaker 3:Sure. You know? It's like...
Speaker 1:It wasn't the Soviet jeans thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's right. So you could just buy... Get whatever you want. Now, oh, no.
Speaker 3:We we can't have that because, you know, we're gonna build a wall. So so we don't get the new technology. We'll live on the old technology. Meanwhile, everybody else is Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 3:This is why we got to where we are now because we didn't have tariffs. So Yeah. That's that's my idea.
Speaker 1:Do you have a bucket list?
Speaker 3:No. I'm trying to get out of doing stuff, actually. Nothing. I don't wanna go anywhere. No.
Speaker 3:I'm I'm fine. I'm doing alright. I'm okay. That's Write joke. Tell joke.
Speaker 3:Get checked. Very simple. Simple process.
Speaker 1:I love it. That's a great philosophy. Well, that's a fantastic place to end it. Thank you so much for...
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. Thanks,
Speaker 1:you guys. Thank you. We'll close out the show with you. You can just hang out.