THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.240 - DAVID LETTERMAN

Starting point is 00:00:00 I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan! Hey, how are you doing, Podcats? It's Adam Buxton here. Now look, for those of you who don't want to hear the rest of this entertaining and informative introduction

Starting point is 00:00:42 to this week's guest. If you skip forward roughly seven minutes from this point then the two-way waffle will begin. Hope you enjoy it. For the rest of you, hey good to see you. I hope you've been doing all right. Now look, first things first, Rosie, my best dog friend, is at home today. She's fine, she's very well in fact, but the bird-scaring guns have been back in the fields around where we live out here in the Norfolk countryside where I am currently taking a lovely walk and dog legs finds them very distraughtening. One went off right next to her on a walk yesterday. She didn't like it she's also worried about Trump and

Starting point is 00:01:29 Just the general atmosphere of global instability uncertainty, which I think is fair enough anyway, she's back in the kitchen on the sofa where it's warm and Things make sense But yeah, as I said, she's doing well. Otherwise, I've been doing fine. Thank you very much. My big news is that I have finished my book. Finally! It's going to be out at the end of May, but there's a link in the description to pre-order. No extra tariffs on it currently, I'm happy to say. I was also on Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up to Cancer. Actually I recorded that last year but it's finally going out on Sunday the 6th of April at 7.40 p.m. on Channel 4 but

Starting point is 00:02:17 listen I'll tell you more about that and the book at the end. Right now let me tell you a bit about podcast number 240, which features a rambling conversation with American talk show legend David Letterman. As John Cooper Clarke would say, what the huh? David was born in the mid-western American city of Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1947. His father was a florist and his mother was a secretary at a local Presbyterian Church. After studying media at college where he was also involved in student radio, Letterman got a job at a local TV station where he endeared

Starting point is 00:02:56 himself to viewers with his sometimes idiosyncratic weather reports. Going through a very crunchy patch here. Here's some crunch for the ASMR gang. Little teeny weeny dried up husks that have fallen down here from what kind of tree? No idea because I'm so stupid and ignorant, even though I've lived in the country for over 15 years. Where were we? Oh yes, the idiosyncratic weather reports. Encouraged by his first wife and friends to pursue a career in comedy, David moved to California in 1975, where he hoped to make a living as a writer. He tried his jokes out at open mic nights, including one at the famous comedy store in May 1975, where in front of important comedy folks, he smashed it.

Starting point is 00:04:01 Thereafter, David impressed audiences with his offbeat presence so consistently that just three years later, he was asked to guest host for another talk show legend, Johnny Carson, on NBC's The Late Show. By 1982, Letterman was hosting his own nighttime talk show, Late Night with David Letterman, where his first guest in February that year was Bill Murray, still a close friend today as you will hear. That show ran for 23 seasons, during which Letterman hosted well over 4,000 episodes, delivering sardonic monologues at his desk against a twinkling nighttime New York City

Starting point is 00:04:40 background, and bantering with bandleader Paul Schaeffer between chats with an eclectic mix of celebrity guests and oddbods. Letterman also took part in stunts and comedy bits, and introduced performances by an array of music legends and up-and-comers. He wrote the playbook for the modern late-night talk show that others have followed ever since. In 2015, he called it quits, but returned to the interviewer's chair, albeit on a less gruelling and relentless basis, in 2018 when he began hosting a new show for Netflix. My Next Guest Needs No

Starting point is 00:05:15 Introduction, a series of long-form interview profiles with guests that have included Barack Obama, Kanye West before full meltdown, Will Smith before Oscar's meltdown, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey, Kamala Harris, Billie Eilish, Tiffany Haddish and John Mulaney. Seamus Murphy-Mitchell, who regular listeners will know provides invaluable production support on this podcast, is an executive producer on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. And that is the reason that I got the exciting opportunity to talk to David, an opportunity I used as an excuse to get

Starting point is 00:05:54 myself out to New York City in January of this year 2025 so that we could record face-to-face in a small podcast studio with slightly loud air conditioning in Canal Street. We began by talking for a while about a couple of British friends of the podcast that it turns out Dave is a fan of too. Then amongst other things I asked David about hanging out with comedy legends in the 1970s in Los Angeles. why Bob Dylan wound him up in 1992, the brilliance of the comedian Norm MacDonald, the challenges of parenthood, and why he hates photographs. I also was curious to ask Dave about the episode of The Late Show that he did in October 2009, when he told his audience that he had been sent a letter by a man who said that

Starting point is 00:06:45 unless he was paid two million dollars he would go public with a book and a screenplay he was writing in which he detailed several sexual affairs Letterman had had with female members of staff at the show. His blackmailer who was an Emmy award winning TV news producer was arrested and ended up serving four months of a six-month sentence at Rikers Island jail for grand larceny. But we started our conversation by exchanging notes on the sadness of having to make dietary concessions to the remorseless march of age. Back at the end for a bit more Book and bake-off waffle, but right now with David Letterman. Here we go.

Starting point is 00:07:26 Rammel chat, let's have a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's chew the vat and have a ramble chat. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat Yes, yes, yes La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la You guys want to just talk amongst each other? One, one, hello, hi, hello, hi. What did you have for breakfast, Dave? I had a protein shake, two varieties of powder and like a half a glass of almond milk. Yum. That was breakfast. and like a half a glass of almond milk.

Starting point is 00:08:25 Yum. That was breakfast. The almond milk is where the joy comes from presumably, or is the shake nice? Well the shake is actually tasty. It would be even better if you had a couple of scoops of ice cream and some chocolate syrup. But I've had this fight with my wife

Starting point is 00:08:39 and that hasn't so far manifested. Is that because you need to follow a strict diet regimen? Yes, that's exactly right because of managing glucose levels. Yeah, join the club. Oh really? Yeah. It's been a fairly recent change that I've had to make. Same with me. And I'm adjusting to it and trying to figure out like what corners can I cut, what treats can I include? What treats have you been able to sneak in? Well, not many. What I like is in the beginning when this alarming news is given to you and then they offer, oh well don't worry there are plenty of things that you'll be able to eat that are just as much fun as what you used to eat. And so you think, great let's try them. And

Starting point is 00:09:25 they're all a combination of fiber board and dust and things found by the quarter-round mold at the floor. And they're completely tasteless and something that you would buy unseen untested and regret having eaten. It just got awful. So then you have to take it more seriously and just realize, oh in terms of something fun to eat I'll just

Starting point is 00:09:50 be miserable the rest of my life. And once you've made that deal, the door closes snugly behind you. That's rough. Where does the fun come from? I mean do you miss those sensual pleasures a great deal? Do you think about them? Sure, yeah. Well, in dining, my sensual pleasures are limited to three meals a day, and now it's down to a shake and maybe one meal a day. And what I miss is huge loads of carbohydrates. I really didn't realize how much my diet was anchored that way, and because I just loved it. You know? Were you ever a smoker? Yeah, smoked from the time I was a kid as we all did back in those days. I think I started smoking when I was like 11 or 12. Seriously? Yeah, just you would sneak cigarettes. My father smoked, we always had cigarettes around the house and continued smoking from early on, early in grade school through 24 when I finally

Starting point is 00:10:46 quit and it was the most difficult thing I've ever done as people will tell you. You? Yeah, I smoked. I was never a heavy smoker and I only really stopped quite recently, a couple of years ago. But I was very dilettante-ish. So I sort of fooled myself that I didn't really have anything to give up really. But I did of course, and I was gradually smoking and smoking. Well, I came back to, after I gave up cigarettes, and then later, 20 years later I came to cigars.

Starting point is 00:11:15 Oh yeah. And I really began to enjoy cigars, really enjoyed them, and then realized, well, I'm right back at this. So then I had to give those up too. But you're not inhaling cigars. I was, yeah, that was the thing because the more of the nicotine you get and the bigger the delivery, I would always cherish that moment when your lips

Starting point is 00:11:37 began to vibrate and your hearing was diminished. I just thought, this is where I wanna be for the rest of the month. And when that happened I realized oh it's the same problem as cigarettes. Yeah. Hey it's so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for doing this. Pleasure to meet you. We have mutual friends, right? I hope. Yes. I hope they're friends. You're an acquaintance of Richard Ayoade. Yes, only an acquaintance and I met the man, well I didn't meet him. I found him Via YouTube and happily researched everything I could find video wise that he was part of and Just fell in love with a guy

Starting point is 00:12:15 unique to me to my experience and I think to the world and Found him to be a delightful performer writer director everything else, comedian. And also I'm very fond of him just as a guy. Now I've only spent time with him once, but I cherish that and am constantly trying to find ways to manipulate myself into his life. And I had a pretty good shot. Bill Murray was doing a movie in Berlin with Wes

Starting point is 00:12:46 Anderson and I knew that Richard was going to be in that movie because he was looking forward to working with Bill Murray. So I called Bill Murray and I said, Bill, and I explained this ruse to him, you're going to Berlin and he said, yeah, I said, but my friend Richard Iowati, and I don't really have right to introduce myself as his friend But Bill doesn't know and I said this is a guy you should meet also so now I get Bill in on this scheme And I said would you talk to Wes Anderson? I would like to be in this movie So how pathetic is my life that I'm randomly calling friends inviting myself into films I mean, that's

Starting point is 00:13:26 not the way it works. So Bill says, well let me call Wes. And I thought, okay, so this is out of my hands now. A month later Bill Murray calls back and he says, Wes Anderson, when I told him about your idea, he couldn't stop smiling. So to me that's enough of a commitment. So now I think, oh this is great. It'll be me, it'll be Bill Murray, and it'll be Richard Ayoade in Berlin. I mean, let's go, let's make that movie. And then one thing led to another, and there was some trouble in my home. My wife was stricken with something called Meniere's disease, which is just god-awful. Anyway, so I was unable to go to Berlin. Is that a long story with a

Starting point is 00:14:12 bad ending? No. Because I got a million of those. Surely though we can make it happen in some other way. There's got to be another project. I keep thinking that there might be. Would that be your first acting role for quite a while? Yes, but to be clear, I didn't want to act. I just wanted to be... See where that guy is sitting over there? That's Wolf, our producer. Yes.

Starting point is 00:14:34 You and I would be the central characters. This is where the focus would be. I would be over there. You'd be hanging around. Just right there doing whatever he's doing. Would you be on camera or just... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably lost in editing, but for the purposes of the production, I'm right there doing whatever he's doing. Would you be on camera? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, probably lost in editing But for the purposes of the production, I'm right there

Starting point is 00:14:51 Cameo as guy with beard and background. That's right And once we were done for the day, it would be a delightful evening with me Richard and Bill Murray Well, they in Berlin. I mean you hear that the Wes Anderson set is a very convivial place. I know nothing about that. They had big suppers, all the cars together. You're breaking my heart. It's got to happen. Well listen, if you get out there, could you find me some kind of role as well?

Starting point is 00:15:16 No. Oh please. No, I'm not going to do that. First of all, it hasn't worked yet for me. Let me just make sure it works. I'm not saying immediately, just after a few days. Alright, fine. Let me just make sure it works. I'm not saying immediately, just after a few days. Alright, fine. Let me just make sure there's some viability here.

Starting point is 00:15:29 And have you encountered Richard Iowaddy's latest literary project, the unfinished Harold Hughes? See, the thing about, one of the many things about Richard, it's like reading a good book. Chapter to chapter, you may be surprised. And this accomplishment was a complete surprise to me. Not just the biography, but the whole collection of books that predated the biography. I had no idea. I mean, there must be six installments.

Starting point is 00:16:01 Richard Hughes? Harold Hughes. Harold Hughes, yeah. I think it's sort of loosely based on Harold Pinter. Well he, Richard sent me the whole collection before the holidays and I was thrilled and delighted, but quite a lot of reading ahead of me. But there again I thought I knew pretty much all one knew about Richard and surprised. This represents a lot of work for God's sake. I mean what a mad man. Yeah you spent time, you've worked with him haven't you? I have yeah.

Starting point is 00:16:29 It doesn't surprise me that he did that but at the same time I just thought whoa how do you find the time he's got children. Yes. How is he regarded at home? Is he well a man of letters certainly a? A renaissance man? A genius? An intellect? He's a polymath. I mean, he really is a very unique figure. He can turn up on panel shows and be very funny. And he sort of, you know, plays the East Thete and maybe will turn up in a tuxedo or something and play up to his educated roots. But then he can also be very silly and juvenile. And churlish.

Starting point is 00:17:11 Churlish. Which I can't get enough of. Yeah, he can do that. He's a good guitarist. He's written several books and now this latest one started out as just this kind of fictionalized story of him as an alter ego making a documentary about this fictional Harold Pinter type personality and then he releases three more books to go with it which are the complete works of that fictional personality Harold Hughes

Starting point is 00:17:45 Yes, and yeah, I don't know anyone else who does these are published in whatever increment are they are they well received? Eagerly awaited. Oh boy. The new Richard. I a wadi work is out in my circles. Yes I couldn't speak to how many records they're breaking in the wider world Yeah, because it is a big ask, isn't it? It's a huge ask. Four books. Yeah, but the success or the measurement, irrespective, because the accomplishment is the achievement, for heaven's sake.

Starting point is 00:18:14 It's an art piece. That's the thing. I like people, and I think it's probably true of you as well, that you like people who are sort of on the art spectrum and some of what they're doing blurs the boundaries between perhaps comedy and performance art and weirdness. Yes. And you know you used to have a lot of those people on on your show. Right. Well I can't exactly identify why I'm so eager to to know more of the guy and I'm attracted to the guy but I think it's what you're saying there. I've never quite thought exactly what it might be, but I've not seen anyone like him. But that's true of everyone.

Starting point is 00:18:53 Everyone is unique. There's just something about him I find wildly appealing. Did you ever see Garth Marenghi's dark place? Yes, yes, yes. And what a head scratcher that is. Because first of all, how did that get made, for God's sake? You don't see things like that. And then I watched it twice, because the first time through I was just puzzled, and I thought

Starting point is 00:19:15 this warrants a second viewing. And I looked at it the second time, and then it was more than delightful. And Richard with cigars and machine guns, well, you can't imagine that, but there he was. And they're brilliant, all those people that put that together, Matt Holness and the rest of them, Alice Lowe and Matt Berry, but they as well, there's a real art dimension to it, the obsessiveness with which they did that.

Starting point is 00:19:41 They would sort of dub on footsteps that were inappropriate. That's right. Every single detail. And out of sync by a frame and a half or something. It was delightful. Yeah. The other person that you know, that I know, is Jessica Knappett. Yeah. Is that right? How'd you know Jessica Knappett? Well, again, via Richard, and she was on the Travelman show and they went to I forget where they went to. Oh yeah they went to Ibiza. That's right. That's right and she from beginning to end is purposefully and you

Starting point is 00:20:18 can tell calculatedly annoying. For the and I after having seen that one two or three times, I think for the purpose of nudging Richard, just to see what this behavior might result in from him. And I loved that. I loved her, I loved Richard, I loved Ibiza, although I won't be going. So that's how I knew her. And then later, But so that's how I knew her. And then later, years later, I run into her just in a bang zoom. We go to a play in London. And I'm there with a friend of ours that we were working with, Morgan Neville.

Starting point is 00:20:56 And he knew her husband. So I didn't know any of this was happening. So I'm there with my associate Mary. And we sit down and in walks Jessica Knappett. And I sat there just dumbfounded like, wait a minute. And things were rolling around. And finally I answered the self-question, I do know this woman. How do I know her and who is she?

Starting point is 00:21:22 And bang, bang, bang, I realized this is Jessica nappet from Ibiza, but yeah through Richard. I've been able to Routinely make a fool of myself good. Well, I look forward to see anyway. She was delightful Yeah, she's great and then it's through Richard that I know of you as well from that same series Yeah, you guys were in I think series. Yeah, you guys were in, I think, Portugal. Oh, you went to Lisbon. Yeah, that was great. Have you ever been to Lisbon? Yes, I have been to Lisbon. Beautiful part of the world. Yes, all of Portugal, to my experience, was delightful. If you could snap your fingers and be anywhere in the world right now, where would that be? Probably the state of Montana. Where you live for part of the year? Well, I wouldn't say live. We have some places to

Starting point is 00:22:04 go there and we go out in the summer. But it's one of those places. And there are many of these around the world. Like, we were in Greenland last year. Who knew? And I guess you're well-traveled. It's just the best idea to get out of the house is travel. Right.

Starting point is 00:22:20 So Greenland is lovely, is it? Stunning. That's why Trump wants it. I think there are military logistical reasons that not only Trump but others find it desirable I Would hate to see any greater interference in what goes on up there than has already taken place. Maybe he went there He thought this is great, but it needs more subways as in sandwich shops

Starting point is 00:22:45 but it needs more subways as in sandwich shops. Well, I see I know you're mistaken there because you suggested that he thought and I know that's not part of his profile. Anyway, it's fascinating. It's a huge island. You know all about it, right? No. Yeah. Huge island, less than 50,000 residents, most relatives or descendants of the Inuit people. It's a difficult You know all about it, right? No. Yeah. Huge island, less than 50,000 residents. Most relatives are descendants of the Inuit people. It's a difficult life because there's really no summer to speak of. They have a very short growing season.

Starting point is 00:23:15 They live off things that they can hunt and catch. And I can't believe anything would improve for them by a Trump incursion. What's the experience of going there as a tourist then? Like how long do you spend there? We're there a week and a half or so and very nicely toured along the Western Coast. The Eastern Coast and North Eastern Coast are enormously remote. I mean frighteningly remote, but you see the mountains and

Starting point is 00:23:45 you see the glaciers and you see these villages where the people of Greenland live and it's a fascinating combination of stunningly beautiful wonders and subsistence life. But what is true about life is it goes on. And to compare how we go on with our life, everybody in this room, to how they go on with their life is stunning. So everything about it was stunning. How does a place like that compare to Montana? Well Montana also blessed with beautiful physical loveliness, stunning landscape and such. The standard of living is better than it is in Greenland. They have figured out the economics and how they can protect their country and

Starting point is 00:24:30 also make money from it. All ag business, all agriculture and raising animals and raising crops and such. So the standard of living is much higher of course. Is it true that you do a bit of that yourself and you have herds of bison out there? Yes. Not herds. I mean, I'm not a... That suggests madman. Just everywhere I go, traveling with a herd of bison.

Starting point is 00:24:55 Yeah. Yeah. We have a small bison operation and yeah, it's been a fantastic experience. It's one of those things, and I think this is true of almost any part of the world or experience to which you're not a native. You learn everything each time you go out again and new stuff again. And, you know, I'm expressing that badly, but it's a great learning experience. Oh, I'd love to go. I actually went when I was young.

Starting point is 00:25:23 My dad was a travel writer when he was alive. and Montana was one of his favorite places. Really? Where did you go in Montana? I was young. We went to a dude ranch. I was very young. I loved it but I wasn't really aware of exactly where I was geographically. Yeah. But horseback on horseback. Horseback and it was back in the old days, there's a certain amount of fishing and it was pre-health and safety concerns. So we were just bouncing along on these horses, galloping across the plains and the sage brush, would that be? Could be, sure, depending on where you are.

Starting point is 00:26:00 And spending the night out and kind of using Native American techniques for making bedding from fir trees or whatever it was. And it was incredibly romantic even as a young jaded nine or ten year old who just wanted to be watching TV. So your father being a travel writer published where then after he would? Well he was a journalist he wrote for the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. He was the travel editor in the UK for that newspaper. Was that a big paper? Yeah, yeah it was. He did that for years and years, so we had the privilege of being very well traveled when we were young and going to all these places. But he particularly loved

Starting point is 00:26:37 America, and he particularly loved the West. He loved Alaska, and he loved Wyoming and Montana and places like that. We never went to Canada actually, come to think of it. But beautiful places in England as well. Yeah, sure, but I mean on a different scale. But yes, you're right. And actually only recently have I explored a bit more with my family and realized how many amazing things there were on our doorstep. Well, we sound stupid because that's the thing. I'm from Indiana and I now, there's a series

Starting point is 00:27:08 of travel videos about Indiana of places, a dozen, two dozen, three dozen places, I never knew existed in my home state that are stunningly beautiful. And I think that's possible with everybody everywhere, except most people probably know more than I knew about my home place. anywhere you go you find great things you know it's and you just feel ignorant when you it's like somebody taps you on the shoulder and explains yeah if you leave the house once or twice get ready and and to me that's every reason to leave the house. Would you do a travel show? No. Why not? Too much work. Yeah, yeah. I've done a little of that on minor scale where you're in a van all day and you hop out in the camera crew and

Starting point is 00:27:52 the sound crew and okay that was great let's do it again and you've done it now eight times and okay here's lunch well I'm not hungry with hard-boiled eggs no I don't want any of that. Okay back in the van and you do that for a couple of years and you think, all right, that's just fine. That's plenty. I heard on the radio this morning that for the first time in eight years in Mongolia, they were going to restore springtime horse racing. And I thought, okay, fine. You know, they have something that they enjoy. I don't know why it was banned for eight years, but they've lifted the ban now and it's coming back. Speaking of reasons to travel, springtime horse racing in Mongolia. Well, get your tickets now. And then they explain why it had been banned. Horse racing with child jockeys. So to me I'm thinking, whoa that's a twist on horse racing.

Starting point is 00:28:48 I mean child jockeys. I mean right there your brain just stops doesn't it? Okay we're gonna have horse racing. Yeah! The Kentucky Derby. But guess what? Little children will be riding the horses. And of course, you're not going to believe this. No protective gear is their little kid outfits for they come right from school, hop on the horses and race. They were being knocked off the horses and injured and I'm sure the mortality rate was giving child horse racing a bad name. Well, don't worry, it's back.

Starting point is 00:29:26 Still with children though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now the kids will need to be wearing protective goggles. Okay, yeah. So I wouldn't worry anymore about that, Adam. Jesus. The These days though you are doing more sort of long-form chats you get to take it easy a little bit more. Do you feel that it's less intense the pace of the kind of shows that you're doing than

Starting point is 00:30:22 those you know nightly shows where everything is so fast paced? Well, the nightly show, I look at that experience and wonder how the heck did I do that? How did I have the energy to do that night after night after night? And it takes a bit of an adjustment. But now, having the chance to sit down and talk to people, I am enjoying, I think much more. I don't want to suggest I didn't enjoy what I was doing But like you and I sitting here, I

Starting point is 00:30:49 Don't know to what extent there was preparation for this, but if I had my choice, I would just sit down with whomever Not even somebody could say this is whomever they were in the the new Marvel movie. Okay, great. Thanks And then we just go and talk but that would probably be deadly dull But that would be my preference and then there would be two or three teams of people in editing till Labor Day Trying to piece that together, but that would be my preference because as you may have noticed I can't stop talking and I like talking mostly about myself you may have noticed, I can't stop talking. And I like talking mostly about myself. So there's pathology there. And you're going to be up all night editing this nonsense,

Starting point is 00:31:29 and I'm sorry. I mean, as a podcaster, you're the dream guest, obviously, on many levels. But someone who likes talking and enjoys talking and is good at talking, that's all you're dreaming about. Sometimes people angle to come on the podcast and then they get all uptight. Well, we used to go through that. People in show business come out and sit down and this is show business and they don't seem to, it doesn't translate. But a few years ago, the idea of a podcast, everybody was thinking, oh, do a podcast and

Starting point is 00:32:04 maybe we'll do a podcast. And so then a friend of ours, Seamus. Seamus, my producer. Yes. Said, well, here, I'll send you some of Adam's podcasts. And before that, I didn't realize you'd done a podcast. So I listened to, the first one I listened to was you and Tom Hanks. Oh, that's, that's not a good place to start. No, you're kidding. Well, that's a good example of an opportunity. I felt it was a missed opportunity because I think that he'd been badly briefed and I think he was expecting it to be one thing. And it wasn't. Badly briefed. I love that. Again, that's misapplied. It's Tom Hanks. Was he in person or was this on?

Starting point is 00:32:46 No, it was on Zoom. On Zoom. I think he was expecting a kind of more literary review type conversation. He had written a book. Was it a book of poetry? He's written his first novel. First novel. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:59 So he was in, let's talk about my novel mode. Yeah. And I think was less up for being sort of chatty and well, let me tell you something. I'm I can't wait for the Brad Pitt novel. That's when I'm going to that's when I'm going to start reading or the Matt Damon book of poetry. So anyway, whatever your perception of it was, and I understand that your perception of it and the finished product can be 180 degrees. I do I I used to do that all the time and I'll do it here. I love the show. Oh good. And I thought holy crap. I said if this is a podcast,

Starting point is 00:33:33 I'm not gonna be able to do shows like this and that's when I quit being interested in podcasts. So thank you. I think you did me a favor and and it was a good example to prove to others. Oh, yeah, he can't do a show that well. Well, I hope you're not being serious. Obviously, you would be great at podcasting. No, no, no, no, no. I would rather come on and ruin yours than ruin mine. But yours is wildly successful. And as we know, there's an infinite number of podcasts. Yes. So to succeed in this neighborhood is like succeeding on the internet. The numbers are stacked against you, so nice going. Thank you very much. When you're doing the shows now for Netflix, do you feel like you have to be careful of

Starting point is 00:34:15 what you say? Do you ever sort of censor yourself or are you just having freewheeling conversations and thinking, let's leave it to the edit to make the decisions about what's okay and what's not. Yeah, well, I mean, that is the fine line because we like to do them with an audience. And so because of, we're all adults, you need to be careful of what an adult might say or think. So that's, I'm not sure how to answer that,

Starting point is 00:34:42 but there is caution, yeah. It's like this, I don't know, I don't feel that's, I'm not sure how to answer that, but there is caution, yeah. It's like this, I don't know, I don't feel that pressure. But it's a program, it's a big money operation for a big money outlet and it's gotta look a certain way and it's gotta feel a certain way. So there is pressure, yeah. But in terms of editorial matters, I always find out later that I've said something stupid or something inappropriate or yeah. And it's like well what do we do? I don't know what do we do? Yeah I don't yeah. But you never put your foot in it badly on the

Starting point is 00:35:15 late show. Did you? Did you ever say anything? I was doing it at a time when there was no such thing as putting your foot in your mouth or putting it in a puddle of mud because there was nobody breathing down your neck. But now, you know, I don't need to tell you. I'm sure people have winced occasionally when you've said things and then you have to apologize. The worst it got for us was I would offend guests. And we had a, I think a producer or a talent coordinator who thought the way to make amends with these people who had flown in from California to New York and then I had

Starting point is 00:35:51 inadvertently or on purpose mistreated them was to send them citrus fruit trees. So there for a while that became the marker. All right, send them a lemon tree. And I think we had a deal with an orchard somewhere where we were constantly air-freighting lemon trees to Beverly Hills. Yeah. Do you ever watch your old interview pieces? Do you ever have an opportunity to do that? No. No.

Starting point is 00:36:20 Well, I have the opportunity, I choose not to. Okay. I mean, it's not that big a deal. It's just like I was there, I lived through it. Most of it I don't feel like reliving. I don't like looking at pictures. I don't like looking at old video. And I just think that's part of the human mechanism.

Starting point is 00:36:37 It's just another sign of, oh yeah, that happened. Time keeps moving and we don't need to go back. Yeah. Did you have in those days rituals for preparing for a show like getting yourself in the zone? The ritual was preparing. That's what got you. I look back on it and one of the biggest problems when I left that was I left the ritual behind. I knew what time I would have breakfast, I knew what I was going to have for breakfast, I knew what time I'd go to a meeting. It was always the same day after day after day. Six thousand or more repetitions of that. So that was the preparation for the show and it came right

Starting point is 00:37:15 down to the moment when I was introduced. I would do A and then I would do B and then I would do C and it just went it was a checklist and you didn't have to check anything because it was The lifeblood of the organism, you know It's it's 230. I pick out a tie. It's 220 I put on the tie, you know, it just was all like that but all Second nature like I think for for anybody who does a job The routine of it is the preparation or at least it was for me. But everybody has a routine.

Starting point is 00:37:46 Did you like that routine? Oh yeah, I loved it. But the problem is I never had to do any, I still to this day don't know how to make phone calls. It's maddening to me that I don't, I hate this, but I can't, I couldn't call you, give me your number and just wait for me to call. You know, it's not going to happen. Somebody will call eventually for me and then put me on the phone. I can't answer a phone. When I was a kid, the phone was plugged into the wall.

Starting point is 00:38:12 It would ring, you would pick up the big heavy, what's the thing that preceded plastic, some anyway. Bakelite. That's right. And then you would say hello. I can't answer a phone now. My wife calls me. I start typing. I don't know how to get a voice out of the phone. It's pathetic. Are you claiming that you were infantilized by the job?

Starting point is 00:38:34 Yes. Honestly, I didn't have to do anything. Shoes? No, I didn't buy shoes for 30 years. They were always, oh, put these shoes on. Fine. I'll put them on. Sounds nice. Socks. I've never bought socks. I know this is embarrassing and I'm not bragging. It's desperate. Yeah. Don't worry. You're not missing anything. Can I ask you, tell me if these are questions you don't want to talk about, but you know, I've been watching a lot of your bits and pieces and knowing that I was going to talk to you. And one thing that I thought was fascinating out of the bits that often come up when people talk about the Late Show was that blackmail in 2009. And I was

Starting point is 00:39:18 interested by the way you handled it, and the decision you made to talk about it on the show and how you arrived at that decision? Well, it seemed like I didn't, there wasn't a decision to be made. It seemed like the only thing to do because I, it happened and I had to announce that it happened. I couldn't pretend it had not happened and I just felt like, okay, I would talk about virtually anything else that had happened and I felt like this is what a responsible, well, forget the word responsible, this is what a person should do with various aspects of their life that are good and bad, but in this case bad.

Starting point is 00:40:06 So I just felt the responsibility is not the word. Nothing responsible about my behavior, but I just felt like, yeah, what am I going to do other than say, here's what happened. Well, I suppose what you could have done is pay off the guy to keep the story out of the press. Yeah, I could have. But that didn't cross your mind. No.

Starting point is 00:40:28 In that situation, then do you sit down with your producer on the show and talk it through and is it a fairly short conversation or were they saying like, it was a fairly short conversation. It was a gathering before the show and I explained to them what was going on. And I think the following day it was going to be announced by I don't know what justice officer it was anyway it was going to be made public the next day and I said here's what's happened and this is what I'm gonna do and then that's what I did the thing I can

Starting point is 00:41:03 remember sort of on the lighter edge of this sort of thing, the first guest after this announcement and discussion on my part was Woody Harrelson. And you could tell he didn't really want to come out. He just thought, I may be on the wrong show. How do I follow that? And I remember running into him years and years later and having the same kind of conversation with him about it, which was like, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to walk into that. Were the audience primed at all? Because it sounded like they didn't know how to respond. They thought that you were doing a bit almost.

Starting point is 00:41:47 I guess. I mean, how do you respond? But did you not think like, well, we have to say to the audience beforehand, okay, this is going to be serious. Dave's going to talk about something serious and just can you go along with it? And it's not a bit. No, there was there was no preparation of the audience. Guess what folks, you're here on a good night. Today's got Dave's gotten himself into some trouble and he's going to talk about it. So get ready to have fun. No, I other than telling the staff what was going to happen. I just went out and did it. Yeah. And the other thing that I was looking for was the monologue you did after 9-11.

Starting point is 00:42:27 And that's not there anymore. I mean, you can find it, but it's not easily available on YouTube. But it's something that I'd read about so many times, and it's something that meant a great deal to people. And I was wondering why it's not part of your Worldwide Pants Archive on YouTube. I don't know. Right. I have no answer. I mean, I'm sure there is an answer. I don't know if it was just...

Starting point is 00:42:53 I don't know. We'll have to ask somebody. I was wondering if it was because you were so complimentary about Giuliani. Oh, no. But I mean, isn't that the A and the B of it? Because not only for myself, but for the entire country, this is the man who lit the flame of hope and beyond. And I can remember dreading this whole experience and listening to his explanation of what was required. We had to go forward. We were strong and so I felt like well this is a message

Starting point is 00:43:28 not just to everyone, it's a message to me as well. I do a nightly show there, I gotta go back. I don't know, you tell me what what misfired there, I don't know. But it was tremendously inspiring, I mean there's so many people that I came across writing online about how important it was to them for you to be there. And it was very moving. I was visiting, you know, I hadn't been to New York for a few years, and I'm

Starting point is 00:43:56 staying down in Wall Street, where I've never really visited before. Yeah, it's a great area. Yeah, tremendous area and I was just down in that very area a week ago looking around at what is there now versus 20 years ago, 25 years ago. Right. It's remarkable. And I was just walking around rather than take the subway, I've just been walking everywhere and found myself randomly at World Trade Center. Yeah. And suddenly confronted by the memorial and what's there now and was completely, you know, polaxed emotionally and it was really heavy just to be there and look at the names around the memorial.

Starting point is 00:44:40 My wife and I went down there, I think two weeks after the attack. And you could go down there and sort of visit is the wrong word, but experience it. And I just remember a tower of rubble, hugely tall and round and a mound, and the only way to describe the size, there was a caterpillar, like a bulldozer, and it was up on the side of this mound of debris and so dwarfed by the mound that it looked like a child's toy. And here's the thing, you couldn't get in this room, it's so big, and wedged, seated in place on top of the debris consisting of God knows what. And then considering that to what they have done now, remarkable.

Starting point is 00:45:35 And a true testament to the resourcefulness and resilience of the human spirit. And everybody who lives in this area should, especially everybody who was here when it happened, should go down there and have those two influences. Yeah, it's very moving. But yeah, you know, not to belabor the point, but I thought I think it would be good if you put that clip back. It's nice to be reminded that actually what people like you do is communicate and make connections with people and that's an important, that's a valuable thing, especially in those moments. I will look into this as soon as possible.

Starting point is 00:46:17 Okay, thanks. If I could have some action on that within the week, I'd be pleased. We'll get right back to you. the week I'd be pleased. One of the clips I enjoyed watching on YouTube Letterman wise was Bob Dylan on some of his appearances on your show. He was your last musical guest in 2015 right? Yeah. Not bad and he first appeared in 1984. Very good performance like sort of weirdly totally anomalous as far as what he was like around the time and just generally like he really pulled it out he had this sort of young Tex-Mex punk band or something with him as his backing band and he's brilliant. Yes I know little about that I know Bob Dylan and I remember when he was first on the show

Starting point is 00:47:22 we were thrilled because Bob Dylan was not on TV yeah you know and it was great for us and he was nice enough to be on the show many many times and I just watched the Bob Dylan biopic out of the blue or welcome back or I know where I'm going what's the name of it a complete and a complete unknown? Yeah, I would have gotten it later today And I loved it. I just loved it and and to have been a small part of his life You know to me that was a great compliment for him to be on the show. It's a good film, isn't it? It's really a great film. Yeah, and and you know, yeah, I didn't found nothing wrong with it I loved it Chalamet is brilliant. The fact that he sings all those songs.

Starting point is 00:48:05 It's crazy. The woman who plays Joan Byers is amazing. Yeah, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. But I also saw a clip where you were at Radio City Music Hall. Yeah. 10th anniversary of the late show. Yeah. And he's your musical guest.

Starting point is 00:48:21 Yeah. And you've got this giant, amazing band with Paul Schaeffer. But you've also got like Emmy Lou Harris and Michelle Shocked and this massive great horn section and backing singers and everything Do you know the story of this? Do you know the whole story? Bob Dylan at that point had been on the show. I don't know four times a half a dozen times and He agreed to be on this anniversary show at Radio City Music. 1992. 1992.

Starting point is 00:48:47 And the story goes that Bob was under the impression that he would be performing by himself or maybe with just Paul and the band. He did not realize as the story goes that there would be other well-known musicians in the, this is the day of the super band, you know, you just had to have... Anyway, so Bob rehearses the night before with with Paul and that goes pretty well. Paul's pleased and Bob's pleased and Paul is playing the keyboard and Bob is guitar and singing and so now Bob is comfortable. And then he shows up for rehearsal in the Radio City Music Hall

Starting point is 00:49:25 and there are the people that some of whom you mentioned. Now Bob apparently feels that he's been had by his manager, by our show, by whomever might want to play a trick on Bob. Anyway, a misunderstanding. And the story goes that his performance of like a Rolling Stone is it should you should have had someone out there signing because you couldn't really understand what he was saying. So after the show we're all puzzled and then people kept saying yeah but you know the truth of it is that's what you get these days with Bob Dylan. Well it turns out no that's not what you got in those days with Bob. Maybe on an off night, but this seemed to have been deliberate. And the idea was Bob so miffed that he was the front singer for this super band irritated

Starting point is 00:50:18 him so he thought, I'm just going to give the kids a little something to talk about. And it kind of hurt my feelings and then as the years went by I realized I love that about Bob Dylan. If that's true, thank God we were a part of it. Geez, that's tremendous. Sure he won a Nobel Prize but look at this for heaven's sake. And right there, the big stage, yes, it's Bob Dylan and you can't understand a word, not a word, even if you memorize the song, you don't know what he's singing. So I find that to be just delightful, heroic on his part, and I'm just so proud of that moment. It was amazing. Was that your impression that you couldn't understand that much?

Starting point is 00:51:04 And did you think that was regular Bob Dylan or something? I thought it was a chance it was regular Bobbles, but at the same time it was very extreme. It was just sounds. The thing is that Elton John has become a little bit like that, not as extreme, but Elton John mainly just does the vowels of the songs now and sort of makes the vague sound. And good for him. I mean, honestly. I'll lay in the car with a vague key, man, the car on the hill. And that's Rocket Man.

Starting point is 00:51:39 Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, and as you say, it's fine when it's Bob and I do think though now that you mention it He is smirking as well like you're doing the performance. Yeah every night again. I'll look at it again I saw a there's a kid the guy who does a show on YouTube called professor of rock and he provides music profiles of the artists of the music of And he provides music profiles of the artists, of the music, of my generation and beyond earlier and later. And he devoted a whole show to like a Rolling Stone. And what inspiration caused the song, what it meant to not only Bob, to everybody, to

Starting point is 00:52:18 every musician since, and how it was iconic, it was anthemic, and it was this and it was that. And I thought, wow, the buildup of the song was heroic. And I thought, I'm gonna go take a look at that thing at Radio City Music Hall. And so I loaded up and I watched it, I just couldn't stop laughing because everything he described of that song,

Starting point is 00:52:41 completely non-existent in that performance. It was like, Bob, have you had too much to drink? It was just, I mean, the comparison was delightful. I didn't realize he worked quite closely, or at least he had some contact with the director of A Complete Unknown. So he was involved with it. It wasn't one of those things that happened kind of despite him. Yeah, I heard that as well. And were saying should he have actually been allowed to get in there and he I guess introduced a possible scene that had not Appeared in the original script. This is just stuff. I've heard. I don't know if it's accurate. I don't care

Starting point is 00:53:17 I loved every dang minute of it. It was like somebody had recorded a part of my life That it was great to see replayed like that again. Yeah. What were you doing? You were a little bit young for that, weren't you? No, I was right there. But I think Bob and I are the same age. He may be a year or two older than I am. Okay. So what were you doing in those days then? Well, I was lucky enough, early enough, smoking. Sure sure I was working in a TV station when I was 20 So I was lucky enough to be doing what I wanted to do the rest of my life early in my life Was that when you were a news reporter did the weather on a TV station in Indianapolis, Indiana?

Starting point is 00:53:59 That was the first TV job you got. Yep. Yeah. Yeah right out of I was hired when I was in college to be their summer announcer and from there after two years of that worked there another three or four years full-time. For me a big deal. Did you know a great deal about meteorology? Nothing. I knew you had a cold front, you had a warm front and you have the occluded front. That's all I know. But you were just good at talking. Well, I mean, what does Martha Stewart really know about Cobbler? Does that make sense? I don't know. So you got that gig and then what was the thing that made you want to be a stand-up? Well I didn't want to be a stand-up but I knew I couldn't continue in local TV so I

Starting point is 00:54:50 quit the TV station and a kid came to Indianapolis and bought a radio station and he said will you work for us and I said yeah I'll get I'll work here for a year and then I'm going to California so I gave myself that deadline to get to California and that's what I did, and it worked out. Thinking that in California, that's where you'd be able to pursue your show business. Yeah, in those days, it was pretty easy. You just go to a place called the Comedy Store,

Starting point is 00:55:15 and from there, you get to be on The Tonight Show, and from there, you get to be wonderfully famous. And that's... I mean, that's sort of the way you did it. It was the way everybody did it, yeah. I don't know how people do it now I guess they they do it by recording shows in their bedrooms yeah I guess so who was there then in the Comedy Store when you got out to Los Angeles at mid 70s 1970 1975 yeah exactly mid 70s Freddie Prinze was huge.

Starting point is 00:55:45 I guess people don't know these names now. David Brenner was huge. The guy from Welcome Back Cotter. Gabe Kaplan was huge. Joan Rivers was getting really big. And then in my class, it got to be Jay Leno. Got to be Robin Williams. Got to be Elaine Boozler. Richard Pryor was there previously.

Starting point is 00:56:08 So it was a pretty muscular gathering of comics, yeah. And were you all carousing together? Yeah, yeah. It was delightful. It was a great bit of fun. I'm sure you had your own experience of this sort of thing. It's you and your buddies and everybody's funny. I was thrilled because I had to explain to myself, here's what I get to do is I get to go to this place when it's dark and spend two or three hours and everybody I'm with are really funny, really funny and they are funny and they make me laugh and I try to make them

Starting point is 00:56:42 laugh and I get to do it again the next night. I thought I've never had a job like this where anybody was funny you associate your job with nobody being funny so this was an upside-down world for me and whenever I talked to my friends about it everybody has the same fond impression of those days. I mean, stand-up was never my background really, and I do the odd show now and go on charity mixed bills and things like that, and nowadays comedy green rooms are fairly sterile places as far as I can tell. Everyone's got their eight by tens,

Starting point is 00:57:18 and they're working out their stats, and they're booking their shows, and there's kind of a serious atmosphere. but presumably that's not what it was like not what it was then it's a huge business now which I at first I wasn't aware of and then I realized it's it's an enormous industry and back then the goal was simple somebody comes into the Tonight Show from a guy named Merv Griffin had a talk show and the Tonight Show was the guy named Merv Griffin had a talk show. And The Tonight Show was the pinnacle with Johnny Carson.

Starting point is 00:57:49 Your next best opportunity was Merv Griffin. So you put together material to get on The Merv Griffin Show. And with that maybe under your belt you'd get to The Tonight Show. It's not like that anymore. Now I need a multiple show deal with Netflix at several million dollars a show. And it's serious stuff. Somebody was telling me about John Mulaney,

Starting point is 00:58:11 who is currently working on his next Netflix special. And he thought that the whole thing would take more than two years, and maybe it was even three years. That's a lot of work for a lot of money. When we were doing it, you have a good five minutes on The Tonight Show and you'll be on a situation comedy. And that was it. You know, that's what Freddie Prinze had done, that's what Gabe Kaplan had done, that's what David Brenner had done. Richard Pryor was the outlier in that, you know, he's big powerhouse concert comedy guy

Starting point is 00:58:41 in those days. Right. And were you, were you sort of aware nowadays, you know, rightly, the conversation is much more about people's mental health and how they are doing and whether they're struggling and behavior that needs to be looked at? Were you guys having those conversations? No, no, no. It was, it was a lot of cocaine and a lot of, excuse the expression, romantic conversations. A lot of being on the road. What kind of romantic conversations? I just, you know, in Shoba since you have men, you have women. And then you have romance. Okay, okay, yes, yes. I mean, I was thinking- So, and people talk about it. Yeah, I was imagining you and Robin Williams

Starting point is 00:59:28 sort of sitting there and talking about poetry or something. Oh, I see, a different form of romance. Yeah. Yeah, well, Robin Williams was a very literate fellow. He could have had that conversation. What was a typical, what was like, do you have a memory of a fun day in Los Angeles back then where you just thought this is fucking great?

Starting point is 00:59:48 Yeah, I would get up in the, whenever I got up and go to a park in North Hollywood and play basketball in the park and then come home and maybe try to write jokes, very bad at writing jokes, and then you know, you shower up, you get ready and you go to the comedy store and that's when the fun began. That's what it was. And then you go out afterwards and... Some people like to go out and stay up all night because this was kind of the profile, the pattern set by real show business people. You do your show you stay out all night. I couldn't do that, didn't really want to do that. I did it a couple of times

Starting point is 01:00:25 Enough to realize I I think I'll just go I'm going to bed. Okay, so you weren't bumping into the hollywood vampires Alice cooper and john lennon and no we we I think we were after that after that period little bit and we were Yeah, we had our own little group that we marauded with. When did you first encounter Norm MacDonald? I believe it would have been on the show. On the show I did. I think he was a guest on the show. I think he was a guest many times.

Starting point is 01:00:57 You don't realize how delightful the guy was until he drops dead. And then you realize, holy shit. This was, whoa. he drops dead and then you realize holy shit this was whoa where are these guys and the fact that he's still celebrated is great but it's you know he'd still be great alive we'd rather have the alive version but what an impression he left on the world of comedy I mean mean that's another clip. I've watched it so many times his last appearance on your show even just mentioning it

Starting point is 01:01:29 Starts bringing up the emotion of it because it's such a rollercoaster he's really funny on it and then he gets choked up and it's It's devastating The stuff that I enjoy watching and I didn't see it at the time because I was out working at the time, is when he would do the weekend update on Saturday Night Live. And Norm just defied you with these jokes. Here, here's something I think is funny. I don't care whether you think it's funny or not.

Starting point is 01:01:59 And he would just sit there and gun people with this stuff and the intent and the satisfaction that he achieved that way remarkably delightful. Just great. Good. Norm, good. And he allegedly had, we heard this, and I guess all comedians might have had this, if the audience is shitty, they don't worry about their good set. They'll go to the shitty audience set and give these people something really to be shitty about and Norm apparently was the master of that art. Oh, you're shitty tonight? Well guess what?

Starting point is 01:02:33 You're going to get the shitty material. Were you ever shocked by him? Because he could be so sweet and silly. That was such a big part of him. But then also he was just sort of gleefully able to push these big buttons race buttons gender buttons in the jokes that is and it was shocking sometimes and obviously he was he was delighted by the fact that people were shocked what did you make of it well you know is yeah I probably in those

Starting point is 01:03:02 days probably was just oh what happens there But you know the confidence of the man, so you just okay. This is what he is you sort of have to Trust him. I suppose you sort of have a level of trust in him as a person Well, it's it's more practical than that Okay, if you think you can defend yourself against this material, go ahead. You can make jokes about anything if you're willing to live with the aftermath. And Norm seemed to relish whatever aftermath there might be. He seemed not to give a shit.

Starting point is 01:03:36 Yes. And I think, yeah, as far as I knew, that was genuine. But it's so delightful. And I was just the opposite. I felt like, ooh, if I don't get a laugh, I'll be under the house. Yeah. Until the end of the month. And yet he used to talk to you on your show about times when he'd bombed.

Starting point is 01:03:55 And it was interesting because I thought, I wonder if he does care. Like, on some level, he seems to be aware when he hasn't done well, and he would prefer that he did. But at the same time, it seems to glide off him. I think he was like, to me, I'm a bit of a worm. I have a very low threshold of embarrassment. Norm doesn't seem to be capable of embarrassment at all. And I admire that because I've embarrassed myself pitifully here today

Starting point is 01:04:26 nine or ten times and it's gonna I won't be leaving the house but Norm I mean he was a gladiator God bless him and and the idea that the people at Saturday Night Live Lauren Michaels gets a call from Don Oldmire who was running the network at the time and told Lauren, tell Norm he's got to fly out here for a meeting in Los Angeles with me, the head of NBC. Norm gets on the plane, probably has not really an idea what's going on, and Don Ohlmeyer says, you're fired. And I just think, well, why does that happen? You know, they stopped doing OJ Simpson jokes. That apparently was the root of the fire. Don Olmeyer was a friend of OJ's, was he?

Starting point is 01:05:10 Apparently, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and he and Norm was just relentlessly going after this OJ is a murder thing before the verdict had come out. But I don't know. I mean, I recognize that NBC is a publicly traded company and they can choose and pick whatever they want on their air. The idea of make Norm get on a plane and fly him out here. So Don Ohmier, Mr. Cufflinks, the man who invented the starched shirt and the cufflinks and going to fire Norm, I just thought good for Norm.

Starting point is 01:05:42 You know, that's just, that's delightful. The stupidity of that is hilarious. I loved when he did Bob Saget's Roast. Have you seen that clip? So this is a thing that we don't really have so much of in the UK is the roast culture. Everyone takes turns to say the worst things they can possibly think of about a certain person.

Starting point is 01:06:02 And the comedians just go for it and say appalling things that are obviously they Genuinely feel some of the time it seems fairly obvious About about this comedian, but they but the whole tradition of the event is that you just have to suck it up and laugh it off, right Anyway, Bob Saget who how would you describe Bob Saget to people who didn't know? Well, you see him on the Full House show, and he was America's father. That was a self-attained nickname, I don't know. Happy, nice, kids, family show, very popular among families, and presentable.

Starting point is 01:06:42 He looked like it might be a Sunday school teacher or a youth minister or something. But his material was just god awful. How do you describe it? Just biologic, just sexual, just any ugly turn on any human behavior. That was Bob. And foul language and couldn't get enough of it right and then you know off stage Nice set Bob. Oh good great. You want to get a sandwich? You know he was just back to normal, but his is his material Was that of a man possessed? So norm turns up at the roast of Bob Saget and everyone all these other comedians are going up and saying terrible things about Bob Saget and everyone all these other comedians are going up and saying terrible things about Bob Saget and norm So he's supposed to go out there and be absolutely appalling to Bob Saget and he just makes this string of tame

Starting point is 01:07:35 Sweet jokes and says Bob You have a lot of well wishes here tonight and a lot of them would like to throw you down one a well They want to murder you in a well. No, but Bob has a beautiful face like a flower. Yeah, a cauliflower. No offense, but your face looks like a cauliflower. See, so stop right there. What has Norm done there? You know, they're not funny, but yet they're funny. Yeah. You know, they're stupid and they're not funny, but yet they're funny. You know, they're stupid, and they're not insulting, but they are. I mean, how do you construct that? That's wizardry, isn't it?

Starting point is 01:08:12 Yeah, it really is. And at the same time, to sort of defang the whole event and to kind of reveal it as kind of pompous in its own way and self-serving all these comedians trying to outdo each other for who can be more horrible Right and he goes out and just makes a joke like you've got a face like a cauliflower Yeah, and I would guess not having seen the effort but I would guess that he's what people talked about after the fact yeah Oh, yeah What are the rewards of getting older? Wow, rewards. Well, you get to see family members living a life you've already come to know and live and that's rewarding if not troubling because whatever, and I'm speaking

Starting point is 01:09:16 of my son, whatever my son is happy or troubled about, I have been happy and troubled about the same thing. As a parent, this is universal, right? And that's rewarding to see them respond to something great in a way we as younger people would have responded to. So that's a real connection. Not just between a father and a son, but of life. The thing about growing older, I find I have more time to actually question. I don't know what's going on and I can't stop thinking about it. I wonder why when I was younger this didn't occur to me. Stuff just doesn't make any sense.

Starting point is 01:09:59 But yet it seems like, I mean here we are, on the other hand we're still shooting and killing people but yet here we are and you look around at the solar system and you have planets and they're all burned out and dead and does that mean at one point they were all alive and green like Earth? I don't know. And then they put the James Webb telescope up and everything that we thought had nailed down, answerable, seems to now be in question because of new evidence. A lot to think about. Yeah, I was just looking

Starting point is 01:10:37 for some snack recommendations for your diet regimen. Now I heard you talking about the fact that you yourself were shy when you were a kid and your son was shy, I don't know if he still is. He's shy around me. I've seen him around his friends and you know he's Mr. Chamber of Commerce around his friends. But around me, he's just going me can you wait in the car no please just wait in the car. A lot like that and it's hard I don't know if your kids were like that but it's hard not to be offended by that and my wife and I would go oh no

Starting point is 01:11:17 he likes you. Really? Did you, didn't see him? So yeah that's something to deal with. Yeah but I remember you saying't see him? So, yeah, that's something to deal with. Yeah. But I remember you saying that seeing him shy, certainly when he was younger, made you worry that you had done something wrong, even though you yourself were shy and you got through it fine. But it is true, isn't it, that you see those things in your children and your well, I suppose not for everybody, but for perhaps people like us. Your first response is to think, ah, I fucked it not for everybody, but for perhaps people like us, your first

Starting point is 01:11:45 response is to think, ah, I fucked it up. Yeah, yeah. I'm so glad to hear you say that. Because even as a man who's motivated solely by guilt, only by guilt, the only true motivating factor in life, beyond measurement, I assume that with every breath the kid takes. So thank you for that. I'm assuming because you have that experience, identical to mine, that likely it's not founded.

Starting point is 01:12:09 Thank you. I would hope not. And also, unless you're a total monster as a parent, what you do doesn't make that much difference to how they turn out. I think that, you know, obviously within certain parameters and you can influence this a little bit and you can be a great parent, but fundamentally they will be who they are and you can't change

Starting point is 01:12:31 that much about it. Don't all parents worry about this? And that's confounding. And then the other thing, it's not just your wife and you, it's recombinant DNA. It's dozens and hundreds of genetic influences that are distilled in that kid. I'm also in full agreement with you about photographs, which you express something that I don't hear very often, which is how dangerous they are. How looking back through family photos and snaps from 10 years ago or even just 5 years ago is painful.

Starting point is 01:13:08 It's violence. Photos are violence. Do you feel this way? Does your wife feel this way? I don't. Yes, I think she does actually. And I think she felt it before I did because I'm the archivist of the family. I take photographs all the time.

Starting point is 01:13:22 And I would compile family albums every Christmas and love doing it but I never understood why my wife wasn't as enthusiastic about it as me and I think it's because she arrived there before I did. Yeah I can't I can't do it I admire the fact that you put these things together I can't do that I can't I I turned down photos all through the house now and the kid was six months three months four months eight years ten years I can't I just can't look at him I can't look at pictures of myself I can't, I turned down photos all through the house now when the kid was six months, three months, four months, eight years, 10 years, I just can't look at them. I can't look at pictures of myself, I can't watch old shows.

Starting point is 01:13:52 I don't know, and I don't care, you know. Is that, believe me, that's not my biggest problem. Ha ha ha. You have a smartphone, yeah, I can see you have a smartphone. Got one right here, buddy. And do you get sent so-called memories by Apple? Yeah every now and then they'll come up a holiday fun 2012 and I think who the fuck put holiday fun on here I I'm not paying for this and sure enough. There's holiday fun from 2012. I don't know how it happens, but again

Starting point is 01:14:21 That's not my biggest problem Have you ever had one of getting? I don't know how it happens. But again, that's not my biggest problem. Have you ever had one of getting memories, because the algorithm is so good now that they can very accurately identify each member of your family and, you know, agglomerate them into memory bombs. And I got one that was all about my mom who died in 2020. And fairly soon after she died, I got one that included her a few days before she died.

Starting point is 01:14:50 Rizly. Yeah. And she was in hospital. I didn't, I took a, I mean, in a way I'm to blame for taking too many photographs. It's all your fault, isn't it? It is. Do you know any tech bros?

Starting point is 01:15:02 Yeah, I guess. I, it's just, again, it's a part of town I never go into. I just don't want to go over there. I don't want to know people from that part of town. Elon hasn't been to stay in Montana. We were trying to get Elon Musk years ago to do a thing at Lincoln Center. It would be a night with Elon Musk and I would chat with him. And so, and Elon Musk had been on the show a couple of times, maybe once. I at that point owned two Teslas, the Sportster and the sedan and stuff. So I called him and I said, would you like to be a part

Starting point is 01:15:38 of this night with Elon Musk at Lincoln Center? It'll be a lovely evening and we'll chat and I said this would be great and he said Yeah, I I only do things like that for people who have done things for me Okay Okay, thanks and I was angry at myself because I didn't say hey you motherfucker I own two of your goddamn cars and when you because I didn't say, hey you motherfucker, I own two of your god damn cars and when you release the new sedan you were on my show, isn't that enough to do for you? And maybe that's what he was waiting for. But I was so cowardly that I just thanked him.

Starting point is 01:16:13 Oh okay, you know I got it. We'll send this to him. Wait. Continue. Thanks so much, I thought it was brilliant. That seems to be Seamus' word. Wait, continue. Thanks so much Dave, that was brilliant. That seems to be Seamus' word.

Starting point is 01:16:29 Oh no, that was brilliant. Everyone walked out. No, no, it was brilliant. Hey, welcome back, Podcats. That was Dave Letterman talking to me there. I call him Dave. And I'm extremely grateful to Dave for making the time to talk to me. It was great to meet him.

Starting point is 01:16:57 I loved every second. He was a dream podcast guest. And I am so thankful to him him but also to his team. He's got lots of people helping him out and organizing. He's a busy guy. So thanks to them but thanks most of all to Seamus Murphy-Mitchell who as I said at the top works with Dave and was really instrumental in making the whole thing happen. I really appreciate it Seamus and I hope you don't get fired as a result. There's a few links in the description of today's podcast of clips that I particularly enjoyed watching when I was preparing to meet

Starting point is 01:17:40 Dave, some of which I was familiar with already, others which were new to me, lots of compilations of great moments. I mean it was an amazingly ground-breaking show which was so influential on a whole generation of American comedians who went on to work on The Simpsons and shows like that. Anyway, you've got links there to some great moments. I think I also managed to find a clip albeit a very low quality clip of him doing his 9-eleven monologue That's on Dailymotion. There's Norm MacDonald That wonderful clip which I've posted before of him on the last ever Late show episode as well as a compilation of some of his other

Starting point is 01:18:25 appearances with Letterman. And there's one or two other links to some of the things we spoke about in the description as well, including a link to Richard Iowadi's book, The Unfinished Harold Hughes, at least the first book in that quadrilogy. But there's even more Richard Iowedi coming your way. In a couple of weeks he's going to be a guest on the podcast and that was a conversation we recorded recently although it will also include one or two bits from the live show that we did last year as part of the podcast tour. So yes I was on Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer. We taped it last summer in

Starting point is 01:19:08 fact, and I blabbed about it a few times in shows around that time before I was asked by the production team for Bake Off to stop blabbing about it because they prefer to keep it a surprise until just before the show, but now I'm allowed to talk about it. It's going out I, next weekend as I speak, Sunday the 6th of April at 7.40pm on Channel 4. I was on there with comedian and friend of the podcast, Tommy Tiernan, and with Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka Self Esteem, the music artist, and I was on there with writer, actor and comedian Mira Sayal who I'd never actually met in real life before. It was very nice to meet her and I

Starting point is 01:19:49 won't do any spoilers for how it went. Suffice to say that I took it quite seriously, maybe too seriously, and you will see how it turned out on Sunday the 6th of April. But it would be amazing if you were also able to make a donation to support Stand Up To Cancer. The money from donations will accelerate life-saving cancer research. You know that's an area where you can really appreciate a change that has happened in the way that cancer is treated

Starting point is 01:20:24 over the last few decades. All thanks to research that has been done the way that cancer is treated over the last few decades, all thanks to research that has been done, much of it with donations from charities like Stand Up to Cancer. So anyway, if you are in a position to do so, it would be great if you could make a donation. The details are in the description. It takes a couple of seconds. You just text to a number and that's it. Thanks. I do actually write about my experience of going on Bake Off. In the introduction to my book, I Love You Bye, my book is called, Corn Balls suggested the title, and I was writing about Bake Off as an illustration of why it's taken me so long to write the

Starting point is 01:21:05 book. That's just explaining that these kind of things kept coming along every now and again when I was supposed to be writing. And I couldn't say no to Bake Off. But the book is finally done. I think it's two years late? something like that. I'm fairly sure my publishers will be relieved that they no longer have to badger me. When the book is finally published at the end of May this year 2025, there is a link in the description of the podcast for you to pre-order copies, which I would be very grateful if you did. If lots of people do it, it makes me seem important and I think that's good. And of course you can also pre-order the audiobook. I haven't actually recorded the audiobook yet. I'm going to be doing that next month and I'm very excited about it.

Starting point is 01:21:59 There's going to be a lot of bonus material in that audiobook. Little clips and bits of music and new jingles and things like that. There's also a whole bonus chapter in there about Zayvid in the mid 90s and my relationship with his music at that point and fandom in general and how difficult it is sometimes for a fan to let their heroes Chachachachach change That's a deep level reference there for you Bowie fans and also in the audiobook there's going to be a bonus Bit of waffle with Joe Cornish

Starting point is 01:22:38 So he will have an opportunity to respond to some of the things that I have written about him in there because there's a lot of Adam and Joe stuff. Well look this is the text that I've just written for the flap, like the inside flap of the hardback. So I'll try it out on you. I only just sent it off to the publisher this morning. It says hey how you doing casual browser Adam Buxton here because I'm imagining someone picking it up in an airport or something and looking at it are you ready for some hot hyperbole about this book here we go in I love you by the highly anticipated follow-up to the best-selling Ramble

Starting point is 01:23:20 book I reminisce with hilarious and heartwarming candor about the highs and lows of working with Joe Cornish and revolutionizing the worlds of DIY TV and podcasting in the process. You'll hear about my crazy times hanging out with notorious rock and roll hell raisers like Travis and Radiohead. I write with humour and heartbreaking poignancy about the challenges of parenting, losing my mother, to death, that is, we didn't get separated in a shop, and the drug hell that led me to nearly dying in the arms of a comedy legend.

Starting point is 01:23:57 There's also a bit about arguing with my wife, getting instructions on edginess from Louis Theroux, going on Bake Off and much more that you didn't ask for but definitely need. There's the bird scarer. Anyway there you go, so that's a kind of hyperbolic overview of what you can expect from I Love You Bye. Link in the description.

Starting point is 01:24:24 Alright I think that's enough. Back next week and roughly every week thereafter for a couple of months. Thank you very much once again to David Letterman and especially Seamus Murphy Mitchell for getting it all together and his production support. Thanks to Wolf for engineering the session. Thanks to Helen Green. She does the artwork for this podcast and she has been working

Starting point is 01:24:49 unbelievably hard on my book and it's looking great. Her stuff is so wonderful and I'm so pleased that I get to work with someone that talented and also that nice and kind and patient. I feel very lucky. Thanks to everyone at Acast who continues to help keep the show on the road, liaising with sponsors etc. But thanks most of all, more than any of all those other ones, to you because you came back. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you won't think it appalling if I lean in for a hug. Would that be all right? Yeah, come here. Oh, it's good to see you. All right, go carefully out there. It's nuts. And until next time, we share the

Starting point is 01:25:41 same aural space for what it's worth. I love you. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Like and subscribe, please like and subscribe Give me like a smile and a thumbs up I stick a pant where me bums up Give me like a smile and a thumbs up I stick a pant where me bums up Like and subscribe, please like and subscribe Like and subscribe, please like and subscribe Give me like a smile and a thumbs up I stick a pant where me bums up

Starting point is 01:26:24 Give me like a smile and a thumbs up Nice like a button, put me thumbs up Give me like a smile and a thumbs up Nice like a button, put me thumbs up Like and subscribe Like and subscribe Like and subscribe Like and subscribe Like and subscribe

Starting point is 01:26:40 Like and subscribe Like and subscribe Like and subscribe Like and subscribe I wanna touch something I wanna touch something I wanna touch something I wanna touch something I wanna touch something I wanna touch something I wanna touch something I wanna touch something

Starting point is 01:26:56 I wanna touch something I wanna touch something I wanna touch something I wanna touch something I wanna touch something I wanna touch something Thanks for watching!

THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.240 - DAVID LETTERMAN

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