Yeah, that's what, so do you ever say something and you're like, damn, I can't believe that came out of my mouth and I can't say it again? Or will you repeat it?

Well, that's a good question.

I've riffed the last five albums, and I can't remember anything hardly from them.

Sometimes I listen to them over so I can remember the things I said.

And then, of course, I always wish I reworded it, but then now you have the chance to, don't you? But, I mean, Largo, that was such a...

A warm bath, man.

I mean, that place was so comfortable.

Now,

when you're in

full flow you're walking backwards right so you know where you've been you don't know where you're going and because Because I have it all in my head, I like just try to blow like a jazz musician, right? And get it all out.

Imperfections and all.

So my biggest qualm and my biggest note to myself when I make these albums is stop using so much profanity.

Stop beefing jokes up with fuck.

Try to be more eloquent and use more illustrative and descriptive phrases.

So because people say to me, you use a lot of descriptive phrases more than most people you know.

yeah

So like how did y- how did you end up on that show?

Um, I was gonna do a tour in England, and I'd booked this whole tour with my English manager and a whole tour thing.

It's like 70 dates.

And I came back to LA, and these two cats, the Anderson brothers, uh, who are still buddies of mine.

Bradley passed away, but Max is alive.

And, um, they were working, they'd had some deal with Comedy Central where they got a on-air commitment for-

Oh, wow.

Right? So, uh, they go, "Cleavon Little's gonna come to the party later." And I'm like, "Awesome.

Olerud looked like C-3PO.

Yeah.

There was the, the, uh, this player said when they were in the clubhouse and stuff, he just played cards.

But then Will Clark had a story the other day.

He goes, "We played him all the time in spring." And he goes, uh, the question was put to Will, uh, who was, who was your favorite person to have down at the bag, right? And he goes, "Ricky." And he goes, [laughs] he goes, "We were at a spring training game and Ricky's on first." And he goes, "McGuire and Canseco are up next," right? Or it was Canseco, McGuire.

He goes, "So La Russa's got him holding," you know? He's like, "I wanna," you know, they see, they want, you know, "I need to see them hit," you know? Like, stay on first.

And R- he goes, "I could tell Ricky's fucking jumping up and down to steal and shit." And Will Clark goes, "And I'm egging him on." He goes, "Come on, Rick," you know? "Fucking go down there, baby." Like they, you know.

It was an arranged marriage.

Oh, I

love business cards.

I don't know that you lose half the people.

I mean, to be honest, if you're a Nazi...

i don't give a shit whether you like my material or not and two i've met so many nazis over the years and they always find me hilarious and they want to be my friend and that's that's the anomaly of being a fascist is like i think i met ben shapiro years ago and i like i used to do this thing in pasadena called politicon which was kind of a The premise was that the right-wingers and left-wingers were all going to be together and have this crazy interaction and shit.

So I ended up on a panel with Ann Coulter, and I called her an Islamophobe.

I didn't call her a whore or anything.

Oh, poor Ethiopia.

My first question is just like, have you taken part at all in this optimization craze? Like, what has struck you about it?

uh i'd love to i really would but i haven't the time i've got to get high a lot and i have to procrastinate and i have to um worry about myself and i have to there's so much um selfish activity that comes before me optimizing everything i see the videos too and they go uh people come on uh uh instagram or tick tock or whatever they go if i only had three minutes to exercise in the morning These would be the 17,000 things I would do.

And you're like, you know what? Have you ever just had coffee and kind of scrolled for a while? You know, that's pretty relaxing too.

I've got an idea.

Why don't you interact with other people and stop worrying about everything that you, yeah, I think it goes along with them.

We all feel a lack of control right now because we can't control society and we can't control what's going on in the world.

So everyone feels like, oh my God, if I do 77,000 crunches and I learn to speak Portuguese and I play the oboe, everything's going to be okay.

It is the least chill fucking like thing, the idea of optimization.

Greg, what do you think?

Well, I think both of you, the elements of both of what you said are true.

First of all, we have to dispense with the notion that expertise and policy have any bearing on what's going on in presidential politics.

If it did, he wouldn't have been elected in 2016, and he wouldn't have been elected again when he talked about cats and dogs during a debate.

He would have been ridden out of town on a rail.

for the narcissistic, felonious, rapey lunatic that he is.

He's not going to change.

And especially

It's a comedy club that likes everything but comedy.

Right? I was three days in or two days in and I got this call.

And I was with N'Gayo Belem.

Yeah.

And we were in my hotel room getting high.

And I was like, N'Gayo, I got a call from Len and I'm fucking leaving.

And he's like, you can't leave in the middle of the week.

Or

That's correct

... full of people who, you know, not that I only play to my team.

I don't.

I play everywhere.

Um, but a- in this instance, it wasn't so much that I thought I'd win, it's just that I thought there's an untapped vein here that everybody really, like you just said, they're tired of being told who they're supposed to bloody...

I was on the road when it happened, the day your, your fell publicity tour got completely derailed because of something that should have been, and let's be honest, a story in the news that day.

[laughs]

... and I make a series of baffling noises, and then something ha- I go, "Hmm, ha, ah." And then, "Pong, bong, bong." Um, [clears throat] there's always a little bit of an idea, but, like, last time I really did go on with almost nothing.

all-time favorites.

Right? And Robin Williams all went through there.

And so that crucible...

The ethos in the early 80s in San Francisco was be intellectual, be challenging, don't be a hack, and by hack, don't do sexist, racist, easy jokes.

Not that there wasn't.

There was plenty of hacks.

But the general ethos was we didn't like magic.

What were some of your darkest moments in the business? Or maybe could you share a moment that maybe really was tough that you had to pull yourself through and what it was that pulled you through?

Yeah.

... everything's getting, you know, uh, oh my God, there can't be DEI and we're gonna erase history and everything.

And he gives me hope to carry on because he's so together and never says die and is always positive.

And I also think about, and I didn't love my dad that much, but my father was in the Coast Guard in World War II and my dad was Jewish.

And my mother and, uh, my father went through World War II and The Depression, and they didn't stop.

And I think about all the great artists, um, from World War II, from World War I, from the Civil Rights era, from the '70s for goodness' sake.

Doris Lessing, the writer, said, "It's never gonna get less crazy.

That's what the leather pants say to me.

(laughs)

...

but (laughs) having said that, uh, the other night we did, I did a joke in Atlanta, in Buckhead, which is a very wealthy place.

So, wealthy white people scream, uh, Republican.

I said, uh, "You can say whatever you like, because up until January, this used to be a free country." And that one gets a huge howl for, in a, you know, very blue place.

And it got a big howl.

And then the conservatives tend not to boo at the improv show.

It's always darkest before the dawn.

Right.

But I'm on the road all the time with Who's Live Anyway?, and we do like 100 dates a year.

So I'm really in clubs maybe a couple of weekends a year.

So I just don't have time to do it.

So I try to use my improv skills and think of the things I want to talk about, and then be very careful choosing the wording.

I get four shots at it, John.

So, uh, you know, there's four sets.

That's some money laundering.