Andrew Sullivan | Club Random with Bill Maher
01:28:24 Share

My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friend's still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn.com slash results.

LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. I always called this the Afhas El-Assad chairs because like, I remember whenever I used to see like, you know, pictures of like Madeleine Albright or somebody like talking with Assad, it was always like, and she would complain that, you know, he would, you know, bitch for like eight hours and

about the plight of the Arab world and, you know, the history and Syria and like before they go, okay, but can we do something about the water rights and the Golan Heights, you know, whatever it was. And I feel like, I feel like I could do better than bore you for eight hours. But also I'm just glad you're here because I,

you know, I feel like I've known you forever, but we never really sat down. I know, never. It was always on the show or like a little bit after. You're very professional about that, though. I appreciate that about what you do. Oh, you mean like trying to be friends with, yes. It has to happen slowly.

And organically. Yeah. The way I grow this. Yeah. No, I don't grow it. But, you know, I feel like you and I are overdue for slowly and organically. We are because the truth is you barely ever say anything I don't agree with. And the same with you. I just feel like this man gets everything I fucking believe. And you say it so much more eloquently. Oh, no. What you do. All you fucking limeys are...

are just naturally more communicative. You just are. It's amazing the way the facility you have with the English language. Well, part of it is, is, is,

coming from a big Irish family. No, it is something in the schooling in the British history and, you know, it is the mother language. I was president of the Oxford Union, Bill. You what? I was president of the Oxford Union when I was 19. Well, there you go. I was like chair of the Oxford Debating Society. I'm like, this is, I've been doing this forever. Well, I was captain of my little league baseball team, so fuck you. You're an American now, Bill. I didn't move to your fucking country, you moved to mine. But, you know.

But really, for the amount I really love you, it's a very overdue thing that we would sit down here and smoke our respectively sized cigarettes. Especially because England may have the big balls. Well, like Big Ben. Big balls on the end of Big Ben.

Like when they ring the thing at midnight. But we have the big joints over here in America. Cannabis in England is a really weird thing because they're still terrible about it. It's not legal? It's not. Not anywhere. Not only that, but the public debate is terrible. Not in any of the four countries? No. Really? No. No. And it's this...

Well, I found it. Maybe we should wait until we do the podcast. We're doing it. Is this happening right now? That's the beauty of this podcast, is that you just don't know it's happening. Well, the thing about weed is that I grew up, when I was in college, I mean, I was a totally uptight person.

completely doing my homework, terrified little gay Catholic boy. I was the same thing if you take out the gay. Okay. Terrified, doing my homework, terrified of, I don't know what, but like a lot of things, like a lot of anxiety, way more than I have it as an adult. Yeah.

I was terrified mainly because socializing would mean I had to go with girls. Getting beat up. No, but I was also the girl thing. I couldn't hack it with the girls. I couldn't either, and I'm not gay. So I guess you feel... I may as well have been gay in high school. This is why some of my most bonding moments with straight guys is with nerdy Jewish guys who had exactly the same experience in high school. Well, I'm not Jewish.

Well, you have to, kind of. I didn't even know that until I was 13. Okay. Well, I just mean that there's a certain nebbishy. But it was the Catholic upbringing, I think, I had that made it even worse because they're so demonic about sex and that sex is so bad. I never once had a discussion with my parents. Like, once my father, like, gave me the facts of life and it was, like, very awkward and we were both glad to get over with in five minutes. Right.

But, you know, it was just a point of such embarrassment at home to even bring the subject up. Or if I was watching TV. And something came on that was sexual, you would feel excruciating. And in those days, it was nothing. It was like, oh, Christ, we're watching some like it hot and look at that dress on Marilyn Monroe and I'm getting a boner and mom probably knows it. And I remember watching that on TV and just like flying up to my room to jerk off.

I just remember thinking, how does my mother launder my pajamas when they actually at this point can stand up by themselves? It's so funny you say that. I had the same situation. I just had this like a complete blizzard of... Come, I know. Tell me if you had this experience. I doubt. Catholic upbringing. When I started masturbating, I didn't know what it was.

Me neither. Okay. No idea. Right. No idea what the fuck was happening. Anything was happening. Well, first of all, the only thing I'd ever seen come out of my dick was urine. So I assumed it was urine. And because I was so scared of it, I was doing it.

Only under the covers, in the dark. I never, I mean, the idea of looking at something like people do with porn, never crossed my mind. And nor there was any access to anything like that. It would be everything that was just in my memory. Girls I saw at school.

hot women I saw on television, pictures I saw in risque magazines like TV Guide and Time, you know, but it was enough to get a boner. I mean, anything was at that age. So I would just be jerking off in my flannel pajamas. So the cum would go into the pajamas.

Okay, so listen to this. I get to be like 14 or something, and I'm still doing it this way. And my sister goes off to college. My mother had a nursing job, and then she worked one night a week. The night I was home alone, I would take my crusty pajamas off,

and go down to the laundry room. And while my mother was away, I put the pajamas in the wash. That's what my sneaky thing was. And I feared the day my mother would like forget something and come back to the house and she'd be like, Billy, is someone doing a load? And I'd be like, someone's cleaning a load. I mean, what the fuck? What did I think? I just gave it to my mom. It was like,

I didn't care. It's funny, like, I actually, the weird thing about me was that I remember, I remember the first time it happened. You know, this happened down here, and I had no idea what was happening at all.

feeling intensely the best. It was basically the best thing that happened to me in my life. Masturbation? Just becoming sexually alive. It was the most. It's often still the best thing in my life. Like, like definitely on Mondays, often Tuesdays. No, it's. No, but I was just like, so I'm supposed to think this is sinful and terrible.

And my actual experience of it was this is fucking amazing. Right. I remember having the thought in my head when I didn't know what it was, but I was sort of scared of it, thinking to myself, oh, I hope this isn't hurting me, but it doesn't feel like it hurts. You know, like there's something about this. But the fact that I just wouldn't ever like physically lay my eyes on it when it was happening. Really? Yeah. I was doing it under the covers. I was just...

You know what? I was rubbing it against this stuffed animal named Crazy. I used to fuck my teddy bear as well. I did. I'm not kidding you. Well, you're a pervert. You were fucking it. I was just rubbing my dick against it because it was convenient. After a while, I realized I can't give these self-walking pajamas to my mother. Basically...

Maybe if I just get all this goop into this thing, they won't see it. When did you realize that it was something different than urine that was coming out of the end of your dick? Very. I mean, first of all, I do remember the first time it happened, which was kind of a little painful, like a little painful, like this little pearl, this white little pearl, this not clear little pearl came up. And I'm like, what is that? Oh, so you did see it?

You did it in the light. I did it in the light. Absolutely. I was not... And how did you... With your hand? Oh, yeah, of course, with my hand. I didn't think of the hand until like... I didn't think of that until like year three. Really? I'm telling you, it was just crazy. I mean, I was just... You were repressed. Well, I mean... I didn't know where I got my...

Where I just was like, well, this is so fucking great. This is the best thing that happened to me. I would run home from school, so I'd have like 45 minutes before my parents would come home. Right. Lock myself in the bathroom, get my mother's lotion, moisturizing lotion, because they cut my usual foreskin off at a terrible age. What, your circumcision? I got circumcised, yeah. So did I. Aren't you thrilled?

Well, you wouldn't need moisturizing if you didn't, if you wouldn't need moisturizing. But your dick would look awful. I mean, I do this bit in my act, but an uncircumcised dick to me looks like something that lives in the ocean. Yeah.

it's one of the grossest looking things. And I've had people, when I've talked about this publicly actually protest because they see it as some sort of genital mutilation and all this, you know, cause stuff. I'm hard. I'm sorry, but we're going to, this is an error. I just, I, I really, I'm really pissed. I have my foreskin taken away from me. We can disagree on that. I'm, I'm, I think you should be thrilled. Um,

I really do. I know people say... But you're right. People say you can die from it. And I say, I don't give a fuck. I have to look at porn. I don't have to. I choose to, but...

You know, I don't want to look at that thing. I can't look at any porn with an uncircumcised dick. It's just too disgusting. How anyone could put it in their mouth, let alone look at it. I mean, look at it, let alone put it in their mouth. Well, I feel the same way about vaginas. Right. No, I actually like foreskin a lot. But we don't have the... I'm kind of a bit of a fan of foreskin myself. Really? Yeah. So when...

This is something you would choose in a mate. It's a plus. It's a plus. But you've been with both. Oh, yeah. Well, in America, mainly none. In my generation, everyone's basically circumcised. And this is when I grew up. One of the first things when I was going to school and I was in the showers with the other boys, because in England, no one gets circumcised.

And I was... Yeah, no one does. It's... Maybe that has something to do with the teeth. You know, back... But I honestly thought that means I'm gay. Maybe that's why I'm gay. That I have a different looking dick than these other dudes. Oh, I see. We used to call them cavaliers and roundheads. What's cavaliers?

The English Civil War, the Cavaliers had these big floppy hats and the Roundheads had these little short hats. And that was how... So I'd be a Roundhead. You'd be a Roundhead, yeah. It sounds like something we could get canceled for. You've called him a Roundhead. But it's... I never... And this is when people say to you, were you not consumed by guilt?

I really wasn't. And this is a thing. I knew I shouldn't be doing this. I knew that I was told it wasn't, but it was so intuitively, physically, obviously wonderful that I honestly just dismissed it. And like you, no porn, absolutely no porn at all. Right. And, but unlike you, I'm suddenly looking at dudes.

Which is another thing that just, I can't keep that. So what I used to do was I used to cut, I'd go to the Sunday magazines and occasionally they'd have like a fashion spread and there's some dude with a shirt off. I'd wait till it was the very bottom of the pile before it was thrown out. Then I would get it. I'd cut them out. I'd throw them out and then I'd put them, I had a scrapbook. It's uncanny, V.

these similarities because I did the same thing with, I still have it by the way. I saw it recently, something I made when I was 12 and 13 and it has notebook, so sweet,

you know, white line notebook paper that I, what I had, notebook, scotch taped onto it are pictures I cut out from, again, Life Magazine, Time, the newspaper of Raquel Welch, Anne Margaret, Sophia Loren, Brigid Bardot, Diane Carroll, you know, the hot women who I saw. I dream of Jeannie. I can close my eyes now and see

in my imagination, a fashion spread in the Sunday Times magazine called Boxers in Boxer Shorts. Oh. That was the kind of... Sure. But of course, I get to see all these fucking hot boxes. So how old were you?

So you... Nine, 10, 11. So you knew you were gay at nine. Oh, yeah. Earlier than that. What year? That's so interesting. As long as I can remember. I mean... But I didn't have... But again, being gay means... I didn't mean... Oh, that means I'm one of these people that shoves their dick in somebody's... That's not what I'm talking about. I... Sure, what I'm talking about.

I mean, it's a relevant part of it for me. Oh, it is a relevant part for me now. But when I was figuring it out at four, five, six, I was like, I don't know how that... It's curious to me. But I developed a crush. I had a crush on a friend and I had a crush on a cousin. And I didn't know how to deal with it. I really felt kind of weird. I got a little hot and bothered when I was around them. At six? Yeah.

Yeah, just as a young kid. See, that's curious to me because I would not have thought of gay or straight when I was six or nine. I remember learning that there was the latent stage. Of course, I learned this after I was in it, but it made perfect sense to me because I had a very serious latent stage. In other words, they say you're sexual when you're an infant. I don't remember that. But knowing me, I probably was jerking off all the time in the crib. Yeah.

Crazy probably was like, oh yeah, we used to do this when you were a baby. We could look outside, see the pram rocking gently to and fro and thought he's okay. But from as far back as I can remember until I was about 12, 11, 12, I think it started maybe at 11, but I wouldn't let anybody know.

I had no interest in girls, which was going to be my big interest, but no interest. I was interested in baseball and playing and shit like that. And it was, you know, boys hung with boys and girls had cooties. So, you know, I don't know if that's a gay thing. No, it's a very normal thing. But what I'm saying, I'm not, I'm just saying. You're just precocious. No, I just, I just, there were just feelings I had. They were not sexual feelings. They were just hard to explain.

that I just longed. And then, of course, I had no way of knowing how that could work out in life. So I used to dream maybe I could be... Because of where society was at the time? Yeah. And where was society? When I was born, it was still illegal in England. Still illegal. Right. And...

Literally no one ever spoke of it. It was one of these things that was so awful. And yet I think of it as such a gay country. I know you do. I'm kidding. Well, the truth is there's no gay in anywhere else. But the upper classes have this long toleration of it. Very gay. They can be. They're also not some of the time. But...

But work and be like me, a sort of, you know. So you were like a guy who was a kid who's thinking, I'm going to have to live a life of subterfuge. I just didn't know. I didn't even have that. I just saw a big black hole in front of me. I had no idea what I would do as a grown up. I had no idea how I would get married. I didn't. I just had to have these slight nightmares of what I would do. What kid wants to get married?

You just want to have some idea of the future. When they said, oh, you grow up, you'll do this, you'll do that. I had an idea of the future. It was avoiding marriage. And I've been awfully successful at it. I hate to brag, but it is my birthday today. I think I can let out that brag that I got to this age without ever catching my big toe in the trap. Yeah, it's like that old New Yorker cartoon where

these two old duffers this old couple is together in like the upper east side and reading the paper and one says i hear the gays they want to get married right and the other woman the wife says haven't they suffered enough but you were married i am you are married i'm trying i'm trying he's gonna come over i hope i'm allowed oh i thought i thought that uh

It didn't work out. It is not working out. It's complicated? I kind of don't... Oh, of course. We're not going to talk about it. I'm just happy if you're happy. We're happy. We love each other. Oh, that's fantastic. We're great with each other. The question of how are we going to live the rest of our lives is just a question. Well, that's always a problem for everybody is that they can't figure out a dynamic that really works and can... In the very long term. Because you change. Right. It conforms with human nature, which is both...

something that gets tired of things, including people, as hard as it is to say it. Certainly sexually, you know, I mean. Well, that's, I think, a male thing too, more than a female thing. Well, yes and no, yes. It's like the Chris Rock line that there's,

There's no such thing as good and bad pussy. There's just old and new pussy. And the attraction to the newness, the new exploit, the new body to explore, something else that's there, that is so driven into the male psyche, I think, and in the male... It's not driven into the male psyche. We're born with it. Yeah, that's what I mean. Oh, okay. It's driven by our genes. It's driven by our entire evolutionary strategy. Yeah. And we just have to acknowledge that. Well, exactly. Exactly.

So, I mean, I never got... The other thing that we're doing is living so fucking long, the marriage is now like, it's three times the length of marriage as in the 80s. I mean, it's just, it's hard to be together with someone that long when you have other options. The other thing is that people didn't have any other fucking options. Exactly. Women had no options. They had no fucking options. Right.

And the social stigma of not being married was overwhelming. And certainly that was the case of me growing up. So I kept thinking, who do I get married? I can't marry her. I just had this panic. That's all. And that's why, in a way, for me later on in life, when marriage became this sort of obsession of mine, not a personal obsession, but I realized...

That moment when you figure out I have no future is the moment you start separating yourself out from the world as a gay kid. You start thinking I'm not as good as everybody else. I'm not worthy as much as anybody. Did you ever have suspicions or actual friends who were gay about other boys where you're like, oh, I could be friends with him because I think he's the... No, because you thought you were the only one? Nobody else? So even when you were a teenager, there wasn't like a little...

There was, you know, like the group in school, the Goths and the, maybe the fat guy and the, you know, I mean, just. No, but wasn't there a little, there wasn't a little. There was, there was. And we kind of knew, but they certainly wouldn't say what they were. There was no articulation of this. But you did have some friends who were going through the same thing you were. Yes, but certainly that we would never acknowledge with one another. Right.

In fact, we were intent on not acknowledging one another in case we were caught out. There was one dude in my high school. I went to an all-boys school, so it's rugby at its center and also academically excellent. Rugby?

Everyone played rugby, and the school worshipped the top rugby team, and we were a really good rugby team. You look like you could be good at rugby. My dad was in rugby. I have the rugby build. They put me in the middle of the scrum. I have a thick neck. I have that. But I hated it, and I... LAUGHTER

You hated being in the middle of a scrum? Well, no, there were disadvantages. You're sitting there, you're asked, well, what do you put your head down among all these butts? It sounds sexual. It sounds like something that would be in a scrum. When I grew up, they would not take showers afterwards. They took a bath together. In a platonic way?

Yeah, but it's all... And of course, all of that... All of that, they have these... So my dad was in the rugby club, so I'd go up occasionally. For example, they had a big fucking poster on their main pub wall of just a naked woman with big tits. So it's... And rugby club, that's the ethic, the ethos of it. It's a real...

But anyway, but what was I saying about Rosenthal? Soccer seems to be more violent, the people in the stands, than our American sports. Not anymore, though. It's kind of completely gone. And again, because the main reason it's gone is, first of all, they actually put seats in there. Before, if you get men in a massive, thank you, brother, in a massive... Massive.

crowd of just men, just men. It develops certain dynamics. Well, anytime you have just men, it's going to go south. I mean, whether it's the Taliban or Wall Street or the Catholic Church. When I was growing up in school, we were all boys, so assembly would be everyone standing in a big rank, so packed into this hall, and you'd get away with shit. What do you mean?

Get away with what? Well, for example, if we were supposed to sing a hymn and we would not sing it except for the various words that would come out of it, like hard. And

Of course, yeah. Right? Yeah. Hard! And the teachers, of course, would just fucking hate it. They were really pissed off. But because we were all doing it, they couldn't find a way to stop it. Or we just started to go... As boys, it was incredibly fun. I was not the real...

the real mischief maker, but I definitely enjoyed it. But again, it took, it doesn't. And were you popular? Were you ostracized? Because I had a lot of ostracizing. No, I was, I was the, what we call the SWAT. I had a role, which is I was the nerd. I was the guy that got all the best grades and et cetera, et cetera. And I was the smart one. And to somehow, they kind of respect it in a way. It was a, it was a crazy class of boys. There were 30 of us.

One of them turned out to be Fatboy Slim. The other one who sat next to me is now the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, who I sat next to for five years and fought with every fucking day on the bus there and during school. And the other one was the chief pollster for the Remain campaign. It was a really incredible bunch of guys, you know,

I read your column recently and you were quoting a stat about London, which resonated with me because I sort of said the same thing in a different way anecdotally that the first time I went to London was 1984 and it was a completely white city. And then I went back and I think, I don't know, but the last time I was there, it looked like New York, which I'm saying happily, celebrating that. Yeah.

But you were making the point that I think the stat was like it went from, in 50 years, from 86% white to 36%. 39%, yeah. Okay, so... In 50 years. And your point, one I'm often making also, is like, just don't gaslight me. Don't be like, the world is irredeemably racist, or it can't change.

Because we have the statistics. It can. We're not people who should be deprived of the joy of celebrating our progress. And, you know, but they equate it with you can't say we've done all this without them going. There's still work to be done. Right. Right. Yeah. Adults assume that before the conversation started. That's why you're not adults and you're so fucking tedious. Right. Because adults assume things differently.

The nuance part of it that doesn't have to, but you saintly people have to hear it. Okay, yes, of course, we get it. It's fucking amazing the things that happen today that we take for granted and all they complain about. I mean, again, this is like, what was I going with that? But I mean, London to go, but just let me pause. But yes, and also in Byron Park. To go from 86% to 39% is like,

Don't tell me things don't change. And show me the white supremacist marches. Show me the... The other part of this is, look, to me, look, your regular English people, traditional people out in the countryside or out in the small towns, the Londoners, they're going to find this kind of weird. They're going to be absolutely find this a little bewildering. You know, they're going to find this a little hard.

to take in and they're going to have reactions to it. What, that London looks so diverse? Yeah, certainly. Or that it's so rich or that it's the center. Like when I used to go to London, it was a totally different city when I left it. Now I feel like I'm going to an American blue city. I have the same facilities. But of course, in the march of human history down the road of progress, there are always going to be stragglers.

There are stragglers in this country. Yes, stragglers by the millions. The point is exactly you can't like just stop every set of ideas that doesn't, you know, make you go. There's more work to be done. Yeah. Just acknowledge they won't actually celebrate. Stragglers don't have power anymore. They don't by and large. But also my feeling is and they're not popular.

It's not popular to be racist. Of course it isn't. It isn't. So like, yes, is there work to be done? And then there's, you've also written about this. I love the kind of like attitude that some wokesters have about, well, if only the older white people would die.

Like, you're perfect at handling the world, I'm sure, darling. Like this, hurry up, die. I think you wrote that, hurry up and die. It's like, what a terrible attitude to have. I know. Even with people, and people essentially on your side politically, even. But also, of course, the Trumpsters. If they would just die, then things would be perfect. I mean, again, do they hear themselves? Yes.

So they hear themselves, the way they talk about large groups of people. My feeling is, look, in all of human history, the vast majority of it, like think of England. This is another stat. In 2015 alone, 2015 alone, more people net migrated into the United Kingdom than all the people that migrated into the United Kingdom from 1066 to 1950. In one year? In one year. 2015, okay. The pace of this...

Right. Is unprecedented in human history. Now, America's different. America's always had this massive amounts of new people coming in New York. Right. The fact that London goes to a little island off the rainy island off the top across the view to seek their fortune. Some people did from the Commonwealth and elsewhere, but no, people left those islands by and large. That's that's.

And the people that stayed there had such an incredibly homogeneous, even genetically, they're enlightened, they cut off. Suddenly their whole world is revolutionized. Of course you're going to have people who are going to feel upset and confused and feel like they're losing a sense of their country and who is this and whatever. And the worst thing my brother said to me about London when we were talking, I'm going to London over the weekend, he said, well,

It's not our capital anymore, is it?

Yeah. I mean, he didn't mean it racially. No. And that's again, that's not mean it. That's the nuance that they refuse to see. It's not like the English have their English capital. It's a totally different world. It's like a spaceship landed from globalization land in which all these super smart and very wealthy white people and all their multicultural, diverse, multiracial servants essentially live in these big, bustling cities. And they're

I mean, London today is, I would much rather live in it than London in 1984. But I don't begrudge the people that feel like, shit, what's happened to my world? I don't understand this. And when I say what's happened, I'm called a racist and fuck you and vote for Brexit. And that's what happens. What is London like? Last time I was there, I think I've been to London five times.

I was there in '99. We did Politically Incorrect there for a week. That was kind of a bust, but I enjoyed being there. And then I was there in 2015, some other times. I once did the Bob Monkhouse show. Do you remember Bob Monkhouse? Oh my God. Oh my God. Bob Monkhouse was like, they described to me as a combination of

Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson? Not quite, no. But just the most incredible, there was something just... And you had a big show. Huge show. Okay, so for an American comedian to go over there and do that show was a gig. Big. It was like the best gig I'd had up until then. I remember. They gave you, they had to, Union Rules give you first class airfare and two tickets. And first class ticket was like $10,000. Wow.

round trip. And you could trade him in, as of course I did, for one person in coach and make more money than I ever made on any gig in my life. That was the Bob Monkhouse show. I didn't think I did too great on it. I have a... But yeah, he was an interviewer. I just have this complete free association with that show, which is, I think it's that show, it's either that or Dez O'Connor. Maybe it was Dez O'Connor. Oh yeah, Dez O'Connor. A similar character of the time. These sort of variety show people who...

who were allegedly funny. But here's the thing. So it's like, I don't think of me, I'm like a 10-year-old boy watching the Bob Monk as Des O'Connor show. That's all there is to watch. And I see this sketch in a doctor's office.

And this guy comes in, he's the patient, he lies down, the doctor tells him to take off his shirt. He takes off his shirt and he has this incredible mass of body hair. I'd never seen a man with like, it looked like a forest. A sweater. It was a sweater. And I just was looking at the screen just mesmerized by this. I could not take my eyes off this chest. And I literally, the next day I said,

And then he not only that, but the doctor got to like tap on it, listen to it, tap here and there. And so next day I'm like, Mom, how do you become a doctor? That's how I knew that was the only way in which I knew I was gay. I just thought, oh, is that the way you could? The only way you can do that was if I if a man can touch a man's chest, but only if he's a doctor.

And so how do I do, that's what I have to do. So you're spending your whole childhood thinking, trying to figure this fucking thing out because no one said anything to you. And I mean, if you really want to be happy with that proctologist, you could be a proctologist. Yeah.

Just the way a straight man can choose, and I always thought it was suspicious, to be a gynecologist. Of all the specialties and practices, I want to know why these people pick vaginas and assholes. I do. I'm not saying it does not need it, and I'm sure you make a nice living, but it also could have been hard lungs, kidneys. I mean, I could think of a thousand parts of the body, but to go right for the asshole, I got to know. But you know, that's...

I assholes putting your in there. Oh, I can't even. Well, they just, but hold on. Let's let's before I get, I'm just holding a second. Just hold on. Calm down. I'm not even going to talk about it much. I'm just, I'm just introducing a concept here that it didn't, that was not part of anything I thought about as a gay person forever. I had no idea about it. I didn't know that involved sticking something up your butthole. Okay. I don't know.

I didn't. I had no idea. So don't think I wanted it. It was the furry chest I was into, not the butthole. And don't think I am in any way homophobic or don't love you and every gay person, gay man, when I say like, for whatever reason, probably because the way I was, they say everything happens in the... Wait a second. Can I finish? Yes, yes. In the anal stage...

for whatever reason. I mean, no one likes shit, but I really feel that I dislike it more than the average person. And so just the idea, I mean, I don't like to do shit itself. Now I'm going to fuck in it. I just, and I know you can clean it out. It would never be clean enough for me. It's just, I mean, that's where the shit comes.

comes out, I just don't get you guys. I mean, there's got to be something. I mean, it's very Johnny Depp, you know, getting into bed and finding out there's worse places to sleep than the wet spot. But anyway. No, no. Here's what I would say to you. I do not. Look, here's the thing. I think it's perfectly natural that

and people get mad if you're saying this, but I know this because I'm a man, but the other way around, to feel not just, I don't understand that, but that makes me want to vomit. It's one of the things, I'm actually repelled by that. By what? You thinking about a butthole, by having sex in a butthole, makes you want to puke. It's a disgust mechanism, right? I'm glad you're saying it. I'm just saying, that's what it is. It's disgust. And I think the fact that... But now I'm telling you this, in remuneration,

Of course I understand that. It doesn't mean you're homophobic. Of course it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. And in fact, quite the opposite. What it means to me is that the fact that I can absolutely love it, that you can like that thing that I don't, is kind of the very definition of tolerance. It's cool. It's not for me, but we tolerate each other's tastes. Of course we do. Especially if it doesn't inflict on me. And even sometimes when things do inflict on me, I'm like, yes, I will do that for my fellow man for one reason or another.

Also, it's a much, it's just more interesting world. Yeah, it's a real... People are funny. But it is fucking gross. I just don't know what the... But gay men feel the same way. Of course they do. About vaginas. The idea of going down there. Right. I can see...

In both cases, there's an odor that's associated with it. And maybe, you know, I don't like the one and I like the other and vice versa. I think this is even prior to our liking things. I think it's completely fucking mysterious. It's personal taste. No, it's not. It's not taste because it's not even at the level of rationality. You're right. It is driven in some way. It's fascinating to me. Like why, for example, would a man's

B.O. Give me the hardest, hold on. Well, I think it's something to do with being gay. I'm no doctor, but let me tell you. No, I know. It is so fascinating. So I don't begrudge my straight male peers of having these responses. But what do you mean?

And I also don't begrudge them feeling uncomfortable in certain circumstances, which is why I try not to put them in those circumstances. I've got an important question I've got to ask you, Dr. Homo, while you're here. Ask Homo. Sharing your expertise on this subject. What do you make of a civilization like Rome, where unless I got...

The information wrong, and I don't think I did. I'm no John Meacham, but I was a history major. But, I mean, ancient Rome, the Rome of Mark Anthony and Julius Caesar and Cato and O.J. Cato and Cicero.

These guys, if you could, you fucked men and women. They didn't really have a distinction of gayness like we did. It was more like, who's cute? So like Mark Anthony had 12 year old boys and hot women. And that was much more considered the norm. It's like, if you can be rich and

Be a baller in old Rome, you know, you get your pick of the... But notice it's boys and women. It's not men. But it's still... It's not male... It's still something without a vagina. Yes, absolutely. Well, that's, to me, the big one. Right. Okay, it's still boys, men, whatever it is. You're talking... Could you see a...

well that's not sorry it's no it's lose lose no no tell me you can't do that i mean there are women for example that i can see and recognize and as as shockingly beautiful and sexy i know right it's like i know i know i'm not of course we're not blind right and and i can also think of them

as beautiful in many ways. I could be transpired. There was something deep down there. Some button is just not turned on. Again, I think it's the gay thing. It is the gay thing. That's what it is. I swear to God, I'm onto something here. But I do think there were gay men in Rome who are not these people that are interested. But the other thing you have to understand is that nobody was gay. Everybody was sort of like bisexual. Yeah.

And it was, that was more the norm. It says something very interesting about, you know, something that's very current today, which is like the teaching that we're all sort of on a sliding scale. Now you and I have railed against it because they're telling it to, they're doing, and we talked about it on the show tonight. We have to go into it here, but you know, kids too young to understand this stuff. But the idea that we are all like strictly straight or gay is,

Rome kind of makes me think, yeah, they're definitely in a different civilization. And this was the civilization that led the world for almost a thousand years. The creator of the world, the Western world. Yeah, created the world. Well, the Greeks did. And the Greeks were... Do I have to take more? We've talked about various aspects of this. For example, so...

The feelings I had for another boy, just a crush, had nothing sexual about them at all. There are the feelings of deep... This is the other thing that the ancients are better at. There are relations between two men of real passionate friendship.

They're not erotic, but are really intense. The ancients had a much better... You mean like Achilles and... Well, no, all the notions of spiritual friendship among men. In fact, it was regarded as higher than any other form. Achilles in the Odyssey, he's in love with that... I forget who it is. But there you are, in love. You see, now in love, I think you can... I think that's a very... It's a much more...

I'm too stoned to talk about this. No, I know exactly what you're saying, I think, which is like just the way women can only understand women on a certain level, it must be true of the same of men.

So to have both that kind of understanding that only that kind of person can have for you, plus the sexual element, that is a way to go. It's not my way to go, but I get it. That is a natural part. But you can have... I think one of the things that the Christians didn't like about the Romans and their sexuality was kind of instrumental. This is hot. Yeah.

And women were treated as merely childbearing instruments and they weren't treated in any way as equal. So while contemporary understanding of heterosexuality wasn't happening back then too, in that sense, there were lots of straight guys who would say,

vie with each other to get both the cute girls and then those the hottest cutest guys before they hit puberty when it all went south for them the Greeks always in their aesthetics had worshipped male bodies with little dicks like the littlest was the hottest is that right yeah

It's a culture in which smaller dicks are more attractive. And they didn't fuck the little boys up the butt at all. What about now? There was no butt fucking back then. It was what they called intracural, which was between the thighs.

uh but okay but going back to the little dick what about now like i'm just curious like what is the is the fashion uh like i understand why big dicks are attractive to women they actually make it feel better i would almost guess the reverse it is so little dicks are still in fashion

No? No. Why? Don't ask me the deepest questions. Oh, come on. Now you're going to pull this on me? I don't know. I'm just saying, why? Because the big ones look better? Why do gay men prefer bigger dicks to smaller dicks? Probably because it just looks better. Or it's America. We like everything big. That's true. No, but it seems to be universal, this thing. But isn't it interesting that humans will... Somehow they're more attractive, I think, because...

The dick is your most masculine feature. And if it's the biggest, you're kind of the biggest man. It just looks better. Small dick looks terrible. Not as bad as an uncircumcised dick, but a small uncircumcised dick. Oh, no. And I love dicks. Oh, no. That's you. Wait. OK, but isn't it interesting that humans will fuck anything?

Totally fuck it. Men will fuck anything. Well, yes, men. Yes, correct. Men will fuck anything. Fuck anything. Any society, right? Any point. You have very different arrangements and ideas about what's right and wrong. The question for me is what's actually going on under the surface? So, for example...

I have no doubt that even though it was forbidden, really, and you don't see in the literature, two grown men in Greece or Rome having a long-term relationship because they kind of fell in love with each other and were actually also sexually attracted to one another, that's not really valid in a lot of the texts back then, but I bet it happened. Oh, really?

The feeling, the experience happened. The experience of gay men loving each other and falling in love is throughout history. It's constructed in different ways in different circumstances. But men also are different than women in as much as men want to fuck anyway. And if they can't fuck women, in those circumstances, the situational homosexuality, they're fine with fucking buttholes anyway.

and getting blown by men. It's funny that I've had you on real time, like more than any other guest, because you are my favorite. And whenever you're on, like, I remember you on once with Barney Frank and the staff was all like pitching gay. I was like, no, the coolest thing is we don't mention gay at all. Right.

And that's how I played it. Yeah. It's so funny. And now here all we're talking about is violin. Dicks. It's kind of fascinating, though. It's just been an hour of dicks in your ass. Yeah. But you know what? I never get a chance to actually find these things out because it's great to find out because I am curious. I didn't get...

Where would I ever have this conversation other than like with you? I hope with your good gay friends. No, but I mean, I do have good gay friends, but we don't. But you're not going to talk about the mechanics of the whole thing because frankly, it's inappropriate. But you're curious. It's so alien to you. Ask me about gay sex. Okay. Okay. Well, first of all, it was not. How do you know? Getting fucked in the ass is not.

easy experience and certainly not something that comes in any way easily and that I considered at all for a very long time for the obvious reasons. Right. So then you got to like it? That's a very hazardous period. You didn't get to like it? No? No, yes. Oh, you do? Of course. But aren't, Bert,

How do you decide which guy is going to win? These really are the questions you always wanted to ask. Yeah. How do you flip a coin? No. It's funny. You don't. First of all, you don't. You can...

These are the questions you always order. You don't have to be constrained to either. You can do both, each of you. I mean, you're capable of... And that's the most common, I would think. Because one great advantage that gay men have is that we know, unlike anybody else, any other group,

what it's like to fuck and what it's like to be fucked. Yeah. You don't, you'll never know that. I'll never know that. I hope. I mean, you know. But we do. It puts us in a very unique category. We kind of understand what it must be like for a woman in those circumstances. Right. And how much...

how vulnerable you are in those circumstances and therefore how power dynamics are not just superior strength. This is, I was saying this the other day, I'm like, people talk about consent and all these very elaborate, and it's all right, consent, and absolutely, I'm all for ethical sex, but at some point, it's simply a fact.

that the human species to reproduce one member of one sex has to physically repeatedly jam an object into not just once or twice, but quite a lot for quite a while until it's likely to hurt, right? No, it doesn't hurt. Well, how do you know? Oh, I thought you were talking about women. I am talking about women. Well, I know.

It doesn't hurt, ever. Oh, I'm not saying that. Well, I'm just saying... No, but I'm just saying it is... They generally like it, and it's... But I'm just saying, objectively... If something hurts, they can hurt... But isn't that a miracle? Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, it requires... To let someone else into your body is such an act of...

of open vulnerability. And I think sometimes men don't fully really understand that. I agree. And then also at that moment, they're not understanding anything. They're fucking animals. And...

one thing that gay men have, a lot of gay men have, not everyone, is that understanding, which I think is something that... It's kind of wasted since you're never with women. That's why it's like hanging out with us. Because we get it. You know, we get it. You'd be the perfect fuck, but, you know. But we're also victims of being men. Right. We can also be, the general thing is we can also be really callous with one another. And the

the cruelty of the aesthetic hierarchy can be brutalizing to lots of men. I mean, it's just like, you know, everything you hear about the objectification of women and all the rest of it and utilitarian use of women like that, it's true of the gay male culture too. Yeah. Because men want the perfect thing. They want that we're more motivated than women are by very superficial physical things.

You just put two big boobs in front of a man and it's... Well, that's a cliche, but yes. But it's true. At some level, it's true. I mean, not everybody wants two big boobs. No, no, no. But I'm just saying, you know what I'm saying? There's a point at which you're not thinking straight, right? And... Yeah.

Yeah, it's happened a few times. I mean, but... But I consider it kind of, you know, it's fascinating, both sides, both ways. And relationships can involve both, or they can be quite rigid in which one is definitely one and one is definitely the other. So, okay, here's my next question about this.

In a heterosexual relationship, mostly what I've found is that there has to be a kind of a me, Tarzan, you, Jane dynamic. Really? Yes. You know, sexually, it doesn't mean you're an animal. I think Tarzan was a complete gentleman to my recollection. But...

Like some, there has to be some sort of, you can't exactly be the same thing. You know, you're my co-equal partner is not going to get anybody hard or wet. You know what I mean? There's a dynamic going on whether people want to admit it or not. And yes, you can do it in a non-rapey, horrible way. It's just life and everybody knows what I'm talking about. Yeah. Okay, so. In fact, in getting consent and then getting to that is kind of a high stage of civilization. Yes.

So do you have that same thing with a gay relationship where you're like, somebody is Tarzan and somebody is Jane? Uh...

It's funny way of putting it. No, no. I mean, you can. Absolutely. Yes, you absolutely can. One could be a sub and one was to be a sort of rapey top. Sub sounds so bad. No, I don't mean it in a bad way at all. No, I don't either. I just mean that's the position you want to... That's the kind of role you want to be. There's also people that have that kind of role in their sex and the opposite role in their lives. You know, there's so many...

you know, uptight, very bossy control people who really just want to get fucked to bejesus in the bedroom. And they found someone who feels the other way around. So I'm just saying there is no rule, obviously. We're all humans. And I know there is, but there isn't the same expectation in a way. Oh,

All right. That you're the man, you've got to really prove yourself. All right. My next question. Okay. How do you know, like, say you're, I'm just trying to picture. I can't believe I'm doing this. No, you're like any other couple. You're out to dinner and you had a few drinks and you both, first of all, I've always asked this question of heterosexuals, but like when you've been together for a while,

How do you know when to throw down? That was always my big problem. Like, how do you know when to do it? Like, we could always do it because we're a couple. We could do it anytime. So it was like, okay, so say tonight you're going to do it. You go home, you know this is going to happen. Both hadn't done it in a couple of weeks and it's a Friday night, whatever the kind of thing that couples do. Okay, so you go home, you brush your teeth,

if you're you know because you had dinner which i think is gross to after food but that's how people do it okay i think it's reversed okay but okay so now you're you know what you want to one of you takes the other's hand to lead um to the bedroom let's say that how do you know what it could be either one so but so there's no like no person either one has to be like the

Tarzan. It could happen either way. You get to the bedroom, like someone's going to get blown. How do you know which one? Who's blowing and who's... Well, because you can start with one and then it goes to the other. You could, but how does it get decided? That's what I want to know. How does it get decided?

Somebody has to like... Somebody makes the first move, right? But there's no sort of pattern with it in the gay world? You're making it sound like it's so arbitrary. Like, how do we get to... Sometimes, but there are some relationships in which it's always one of the dudes is going to just be the top and the other guy's not. And then there are... But I've always found it difficult with that. I've always found domesticity and sex hard to put together because...

I don't know, when you're all, you know, you've had lunch, dinner, you've had some friends, you watch TV, and you know you're going to have sex, it somehow just takes the whole erotic charge out of it. I couldn't agree more. Do you know what I'm saying? It's horrible. I just feel like... I don't know how people... I don't want to do that. I know, it's just... I just don't want to do that. No.

It just feels, I don't know, it's like making someone a cup of tea. I agree. I'd rather play piano in a whorehouse. I really would. So that was, you know, that can be a problem in a marriage, certainly, because after a while... Trust me. How do you... I'm telling you, sometimes...

I'm in a restaurant and I see a couple and they're sitting across the room and I know they're married because they're not talking to each other. And it's not because they hate each other. They just have completely run out of things to say. And every 10 minutes, one of them will burble up some, you know, I see the school is getting a new coat of paint, you know.

And I just want to walk over to that table and put a revolver down and say, if either one of you wants to use this on each other or yourselves, everyone here will understand. No one will judge. And that's what I guess I don't get about

relationships. Yeah, I understand that. At the beginning, it's so exciting and you're on a canoe and it's going this wonderful rapid river, but you know it's heading toward a cliff. At some point,

If you go all the way to Baghdad, it's going to get boring. Yeah. I mean, I... And you can lie to yourselves about that, I think. But I think at some point you also... You can love someone...

That's the problem. The love remains. Yes. But that thing you're talking about, that tingly thing. Right. That, you know, but I think that is, you know, this is no, but maybe we can't feel that our whole lives. We're never going to feel that with them. So we have to accept that. And then it becomes an act of will and it becomes an act of sacrifice and an act of love. And that I think is, you know, that would be what the, that's what happens when I see couples who've

bored themselves to death for 40 years. Yeah.

Well, still helping each other, still picking up, still helping each other to the air, picking up at the airport, giving them a hug in the end of the night. This is who we are, Bill. I know. And I think also, I just don't get it. The alternative, the single life, your life. Yeah. It's just hard for most people. Yes. Well, it can be hard for me and has been hard for me many times. But to me, that thing that you're talking about that's so hard to get. Yes, that's the desire of the moth for the star.

as one of your British poets said. And I'm sorry, but that's my, you know, I can't fake. I can't fake. Obviously. But that's like what my, you know, I'm selling on TV. It's like, and it's okay, you know. When it gets to, is it your turn tonight or mine? What? When it gets to, is it your turn tonight or mine, you know? I don't know. I mean, again, this is a birthday, so...

You're getting me on a night when I'm obviously, you can't help but be some reflective, bit reflective on years, on changes. And like, it's a strange juncture because like what's actually in my life has never been better. I love it all pretty much.

love doing this a lot, which is a new thing in my life, you know, so new things do come into your life. And, you know, the bad is that, you know, it all could end tomorrow because you're, you know, obviously your body could just start falling apart. But as long as it hasn't, I mean, I'd pretty much do everything because I didn't have a marriage or kids. I pretty much do everything I did 30 years ago. I got,

do it the same. I began to feel the same way in some ways because I am. And that could be arrested development. You could hate me for that. Or you could say, eh, he does what he likes and why change? Did you see the Banshees of Innocent? I have almost seen it. I'm almost at the end.

And let's talk about it. The Banshees have been a-sharing, yeah. My friend Jimmy said, oh, you know, he and his wife saw it. They cautioned me off of it, so...

It came on cable, which I can watch. I can tape it and watch it in the kitchen. So I thought, oh, this is a kitchen show because I watch things in different rooms depending on how much I want it. And I thought it's going to be kind of, you know, talking and ponderous, which it is. But in the kitchen, it works perfectly. And I'm almost to the end. Spoiler alert.

the cutting off of the fingers, you know, I'm almost at the end and I don't quite see how it pays off. I think he, the sister left. But the scene I'm thinking of, just by what you were just saying, that's what I thought about, was when...

who's come to this realization that just being this normal person with a friend, no one's going to remember us. So I have to be more than that. I have to produce some music. You have to do your thing. So that's the point of the movie? Well, that's part of it. There's a point at which there's this... Yeah, and it is that conflict. And there's a point in the movie where...

Parik's sister, Siobhan, comes, goes up, brings him his finger back, actually. Yeah. And then they have this conversation and says, okay, I'll tell him not to do this anymore. And then, and she says, you know, that wouldn't be good for your music, would it? If you chopped all your fingers off. And he said, I will now we're getting somewhere.

No. And then he does it. At some point he said, sorry, this haunted me, this line. He said, you know, sometimes I think we just entertain ourselves to stave off the inevitable, don't you think? And she said, no, I don't. And he looks at her and says, yeah, you do. Oh.

So Irish. It's so Irish, isn't it? So Irish. So very Irish. My people. And yours, probably, Sullivan. Very much. Sullivan and Marr. Two Irishmen having a drink. His fucking name, Padraig Sorovac, is there. And every time I get my 23andMe back, I become whiter and I become more Irish. But the Irish, you know. The West Coast of Ireland, these people, I mean. A lot of suffering and a lot of that poetic in the soul from the suffering. I don't.

know why i i don't polish i really don't believe this is possible i just felt like black people everyone's there's been a lot of suffering in the world yeah and i i i see that i just feel this deep connection to it in some kind of way the way they um for example they mix this uh

dark humor with, you know, or they mix this real anger with sudden intimacy. This better have a big payoff with, because like, okay, since we ruined the movie already. So there, what year is this taking place in? 1923. That's right, because he mentions the war, the one after, okay, that's what we're, so 1923 Ireland, the war

By the way, the beauty of where they shot it is astounding. All those stone fences and that. It's just gorgeous. And the drone photography really helps that too. Yeah, it's amazing. And it's not, it doesn't seem like an R spring commercial. No.

But Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, such a great, both great actors. And they're in the village and they're buddies. And one day Colin finds out that Brendan Gleeson just doesn't want to talk to him anymore. And he's like, what the fuck? And he's like, you just bore me. And Colin Farrell, you know, who one of the most charismatic actors of the last 50 years, he's a bore. Okay, I got past that.

He's just too boring to even talk to. I'm like, this is an interesting premise. And then where the fingers come in, ladies and gentlemen, is that Brendan Gleeson so much doesn't want to talk to the boringest person ever, Colin Farrell, that he says, if you talk to me one more time, I'm going to cut my fucking finger off. And he plays the violin, so he needs his fingers. The fiddle. The fiddle, okay. So, of course...

He talks to him and he does cut his finger off. And then he cuts all his fingers off. And then Colin Farrell burns his house down. I got that far. And then the sister leaves. And then something happened at the end to redeem this story. You're almost done, buddy. Five minutes left. Is there any? Yeah. I haven't seen every end. What happened? Well,

I spoiled it for everybody else. Don't spoil it for me. I don't care. Well, you know, this is going to happen. It's not like a fucking superhero comes down and shoots rays out of his fingers. Something happens or doesn't happen. Doesn't happen. Doesn't happen. That's what Jimmy said. He said, we're waiting for this big payoff and there is none. No, no. Is that good or bad?

Did you like that? I didn't need a payoff at that point. You liked it? I think it's a masterpiece. A masterpiece. Okay. I've written my column about it. Wait, the theme of this is that

I think with the look of Colin, the guy who's behaving this way. Cuts his fingers off. Crazy, crazy. He's facing mortality. He's exactly where I picked up from you. Me too. But, you know, how am I going to jerk off with a bunch of stumps? I have to get crazy back out of the closet. Crazy's like, oh, I had you as an infant, I had you as a teenager, and now we're getting together when you're 67. Yeah.

We are constantly right now talking about the dangers of atomized society, individualism, no common meaning. Everyone has a choice. And you look at that island and you see this old world where everyone knows absolutely everybody. Yeah. 923. Oh, yeah. There's no radio. No. There's not even electricity as far as I can see. They've been there for fucking hundreds of years. Yes.

This is their life. But my point is that this is what everyone is now talking about missing. And you can see why, because those people are having, they are embedded in it. Okay, but what is the larger idea I'm taking away from a guy who says to his friend, just one day out of the blue,

You bore me to tears. It's what you're saying, mortality. In other words, he's like every day. I only have so many days left because I'm feeling older. So every day must be filled with like what else was in the village? I mean, there was nothing better. It's not like I could see like, hey, he wants to write music and go beyond the village in some ways. I was talking to that guy at the pub preventing that.

What about the other... I mean, Bill... Taking it too literally? Yeah, I think the core decision of him to do this is baffling. Makes no sense at all. It is absurd. Oh, good. This is a darkly absurd film in the way that...

You know, like Flannery O'Connell's short stories, you suddenly get this grotesque thing happening in it. So it's not, you know, it's a, and it's also obviously a parable. This is not an actual island.

It's his fictional island that he's created. So it's basically, I think, just a way for him to explore these ideas and to ask us, do we want to be where we are with all this freedom? Or do we miss something there? And then he's asking, what is the point of our lives?

Is it really to just be with one another and to listen even if we're bored? Or is it to create something? And at some point you kind of face that crisis. But the fact that he couldn't create anymore because he cut off the fingers he needed to play the violin, it's almost like... That's the point. It's the Irish grudge. You are so fixated on your bitter grudge that you will literally cut off your nose to spite your face. It is that Irish... It was a little bit Gift of the Magi,

Remember the gift of the Magi, the famous story where the poor couple, and she cuts off her hair, which is like her prize, her long hair, to get something, I can't remember, for him. And he sells something he loves to get combs for her hair.

And whatever it was, whatever they did for each other's gift makes it so that neither one of them work out. It's a little like this story. Yeah. Stupid. No, it's not stupid. There is something about the Irish. I see it in myself, too. I get it now. When I would say things and do things, and you do this, too, that you know will be detrimental to you.

And sometimes you think, yeah, fuck it. Well, you take risks. You say things that you know will have big blowback, et cetera, et cetera. But you're not going to, you know, at some point. It's still rational. I know it's rational, but there is. I'm making a decision. I will take. Have you never in your private or personal or any life just stuck to your guns in a way that even at the end of it, you know you're hurting yourself, but you still won't give up? Yes, because, but for a reason. Like, I

I will spend political capital, if I can use that term, on something on real time where I know there'll be blowback, but it's an important point that has to be made. You know, obesity, trans stuff. I've done it a zillion times and so have you.

But I'm not going to spend political capital on something stupid. You know what I mean? I pick my moments. There's something very Irish about hurting yourself to make a point. I understand this movie better now. We're like Siskel and Ebert. If one of them was pretty stupid and the other one had to explain the movie to him. But

But you're literally hearing the Irish kill each other on the mainland. You know, this is the Irish, you hear the firing squads of the IRA, of other Irish people in the distance. You do? Yeah.

In the movie? You hear those bombs going off on the mainland. They talk about the war happening and the guy's going to volunteer to do an execution. When you watch it in the kitchen, you miss a few things. I may have been at the refrigerator at that moment. Not that I'm saying I didn't give this movie its proper due. God, the poor guy who directed this must be like, what a dick. Watching my movie that's up for like every award while he's making a fucking sandwich.

Do you know any other McDonagh stuff? His plays are amazing. Oh, this is a play? No, this wasn't a play. This is a screenplay. But he became known for these incredible plays. And because you can see it too, can't you? Because in a way... All right, you convinced me. I'll watch it in the bathtub.

You know, but listen, I do watch movies. I specifically, you know, DVR them in three different rooms in the house based on

like what I, how much I want to pay close attention. I'll watch it in my bedroom, like the TV that's in my bed. That's, I'm just watching it before I go to sleep. And I watch movies in the bathtub and I watch them in the kitchen. And like the bathtub movies, sometimes I reviewed them here. I'm going to start doing it again because they're like, I usually watch ones that are like from

I don't know, they're just the past that I saw a long time ago, like Terms of Endearment, or I just watched Rain Man again. By the way, you couldn't make that today. By the way, how many movies would we have to say, or have you heard the term, oh, they couldn't make that now? Like basically everything. Everything. That says so much about how we've gone off the deep end, and I'm so resentful of that. Like, it's like...

The people who are always asking for apologies should apologize for all the things I haven't heard because somebody kept it in their mind because they didn't want to say it out loud. All the jokes I could have laughed at. You people should be paying penance for that. And the movies that...

Yeah, you couldn't... You know what? The one movie I try and watch every year is Airplane. It's my favorite. One of my favorite movies of all time. I love it. It's fucking cheating. And the second one where they go to Mars or they go to the moon. That first one is just... Oh, yeah. There is not a moment. No. David Zucker. Brilliant. Yeah. It's...

And you just feel like... And that was, by the way, I remember... And all the crazy-ass jokes, all the crazy stereotypes, are all based on true things. That's the other thing. It's like, you know, the most established finding in social science is the truth of stereotypes. But that movie, Airplane...

was groundbreaking because before that, people set up jokes a lot longer and there were less jokes per minute. And his thing was, let's make a movie where just from top to bottom, we cite gags, like something's happening. No minute goes by without we're actually laughing. It's not a stupid joke.

There is a plot, but yeah, and you could not make it to, there's a scene where the black guys are on, they're in the courtroom testifying about the crash over Macho Grande. Are you over Macho Grande? No, not yet.

Did it happen? Yeah, whatever. All those word plays. And they speak in jive. I mean, right away you'd be... But I've been watching movies where, I mean, the things they do just routinely. And these are like some of Hollywood's biggest liberals. And nobody said a word. That's my thing about when the woke look back to 1492 and said, we wouldn't have... Yes, you would have.

have been one of the same people who had never even occurred to them. You know, in the Bible, it doesn't occur to anybody to not have slavery. It literally doesn't occur to them because they have lots of rules about it. And no one goes,

what if we just didn't do it at all? No, you could, like, read your Aristotle as a whole chapter, well, not a chapter, but several chapters, defending it. So you watch movies from, like, and I see these in the bathtub, like, from 10, 15 years ago. First of all, they're often completely white. Right. There's zero diversity. And I'm talking about Hollywood's biggest liberals, again. So if it didn't occur to them in 2010...

Yes, you can blame them and hate them, but I have to assume that the liberals are sort of the tip of the spear of how enlightened we are, or at least they think they are, and it didn't occur to them. No. What you're describing is just really self-righteousness. That's what you're describing. Yes. I mean, that's all it is. And America is particularly hooked on that, and they always have been. I mean, this is a Puritan country. It's like in some ways...

Bill, the work movement is really the inheritors of the old mainline Protestant improvers of society. Ironically, they are, yes. That is what it is. They're busybodies. And it's with this, I always say that Harvard has basically returned to its roots as a divinity school. Right, yes. But now, I mean, think about it. The old, they had to control their language.

you had infractions of minor parts of sin you had to take care of, you had to be constantly aware of what you said.

And who you interacted with, you had to separate yourself constantly. And they were always looking for witches. Oh, well, of course, the pursuit of heretics is the way in which you prove your virtue. Right. That's how it happens. And they also had that thing, like, if you, we think you're a witch, so we'll put you in the water. If you float. Yeah, right. Right, you're innocent. Yeah. And if you drowned, you were a witch. Yeah. Or was it the other way around?

Yeah, I think if you floated, you were a racist. Either way, you lost. Right. And it's kind of like when they say, you're either a racist or you're a racist and you don't know it. That's when I want to go, oh, come on. Those are my only two choices? The subtler one is like, you're a racist. I'm not. Oh, that proves it because you have such wide fragility. Right. You're like, how could I not prove it? You can't. So you're kind of sneak. You're just guilty until proven. And they get to pick.

And I go, fuck you. At the end, you just say, fuck you. And, you know, in so many ways, I think they don't quite understand that I'm not, you know how I feel about Trump. I mean, you and I are completely in agreement on this. But, you know, how pissed off a lot of people were to say we'd rather fucking that guy than you. I was so fucking sick of this shit. Oh, the people on the show today? They were just saying to all these liberals, fuck you. That's what it was. It was the only way they knew how.

You're saying because they're so critical. They had all these resentments of being basically condescended to, told their this, that, and the other. Right. And they hear this and they see immigration doing what it's doing and they know both parties don't care. But like me, you must meet zillions of people who are saying –

oh, thank you for not being either, for being sensibly about, I think you're the most sensible person about everybody, but that's because we think alike. But even if people don't agree with us completely, they kind of get

how far out the two wings are now. I mean, that's my hope for the new year is that, you know, some of this is going to, there's got to be a backlash unless you think it's already happening. The midterms were incredibly encouraging in terms of people's sanity. You know, people made distinctions and they don't want to break the country apart. But they came to their senses about that. The midterms proved that they came to their senses about the right, which they did. Right, right, right.

Now we're saying we need some proof that you're going to come to your senses about the left. Yeah. I think the threat of being called a racist or a bigot or a trans or whatever has such a power in the liberal mind. They're so terrified of that.

that they can be, they're so easily bullied. And it's like, look. You have to sometimes agree to be insane or sound insane or else call the bigot. Yes. Which is a crazy, it's like, I'm sorry. I don't, you know what? I don't bend the knee. Or why don't we just stay silent and just fucking deal with it and let it go on. And like most people, you know, I know this, the teenage boys going through high school getting taught all this stuff, you know,

And the sane ones are just saying, let it happen. Let's just get on with our work. Let's fucking ignore this. Who are you going to try and fuck this weekend? There's also some part of human nature, I think, that... And I think this is what I try and do, say to myself in some ways, is look, I believe that...

human nature is pretty stable. You know, I can recognize human behavior in Shakespeare's plays and in the ancient world and so on. And therefore, you know, people can call each other Zee, Zher, and Tree if they want to. But essentially, people are not crazy. And essentially, in fact, there are

too sexist. It's just a matter of time before they realize it. This stuff is just a weird fucking way of saying you want to be a goth this year. Just don't fucking put all this bullshit in our fucking laws and our constitution and make it mandatory. Wait, wait, I've got to stop you or else you'll get in trouble, but I've read this from you, so I think you just left it out.

We are completely on the page that trans is a real thing. I have to fucking believe it. So just include that or else you'll get killed. I do. I believe in trans rights. Of course, I know. I'm happy you say it. It's a real thing, real but rare. It's just, that's really, I think you said it that way. It is. Real but rare. And that's, it's not a...

It's a real experience. It's a human experience. It sometimes happens. It is valid as a straight person, as a gay person, as anybody else. And...

And no one should be discriminated against it. And if you're an adult, you should be able to do whatever you want to do. And we should respect that. We don't have to undo everything we understand about sex and gender to accommodate this. Right. We don't have to all pretend that we're some version of trans along the way because we're not. And it's, you know, and we're, you know, again, all our love if you are, but

Yeah, and especially with children. I mean, and again, I'm not like the last guy who should give a shit about children, but it just bugs me on a bullying level. I do too. I think there's something... Look, if you go to a Catholic elementary school, they will teach you... They won't teach you Aquinas, but they will teach you...

Earth was created by God, there's a Trinity, it's very basic. I had that. And love your neighbor and all the rest of it. But it's very basic. Yeah.

This is exactly the same way. It is a kind of religious doctrine. Everything you see around you is, you know, there are no men and women. There are just bodies that you could ascribe different, you know, it's, and they're starting that that young and in public schools. I mean, come on. It's like creation. I mean, Jesus, these kids are still learning that glue isn't food. I know.

And what I worry about, Bill, is that and I hear this is very frustrating as a gay person is you hear all this privately all the fucking time. Thank you. Or, yeah, I'm really kind of nervous about this. I'm really freaks me out. I don't know what to say. And there are lots of people that give you the line and are very upset you even. But a lot of people are just like, oh, and also they're worried that that the blowback is going to affect their

genuine tolerance of trans adults and gay people that we're beginning to get these very ugly strains coming out of the right. And, you know, you get, you want a legitimate thing like we'd like to slow down and make sure we're not overdoing medicalizing kids too soon and just hold on a bit to, you

These red states banning any medical intervention whatsoever and also then banning any mention of it in school. And it's just as if you can't find this same way in the middle. I think it was you who's also made the point that to lump gay and trans together is just inherently unworkable because the essence of fighting for gay rights was always we're born this way.

Don't say we can be cured. That's insulting, which it is. We're born this way. Trends is the exact opposite.

You get to choose whatever you want to be. The way we're born is... So there's a division within that block. I mean, I get why they're blocked. Well, the other thing is that... That is always going to be a problem. What we... The reason we're gay is because we're attracted to one sex rather than the other, right? And then we're back to fucking in the ass. Well... But...

That's binary. That's binary. Yes, no, I know. And to get rid of the binary, what the fuck happens with homosexuals? So then we get back to vaginas and asshole skin. People telling me I have to go down again on a vagina if I'm not to be a bigot, if the person is taking testosterone. What?

Being gay is now sometimes regarded as what's called a bigoted genital preference. Being gay is a bigoted genital preference. I can't even follow this. Let me tell you. You're going to fucking cut my fingers off. You are. Someone is a woman who becomes a man, but still has a vagina. Born a woman, becomes a man, so they add on a penis? No, they don't add on a penis either. Okay.

But you meet them and you decide you don't want to date them, even though they have a beard or a masculine physique in some ways because they build up their muscles with testosterone. But no penis. No penis. Actually, no. Not a penis. A vagina. You're not allowed to not want someone who doesn't have a penis when you're gay? Yes. Well, yeah. Yes. I find that. That's where we are. I've gone from... I was once told... But it's just a preference. Yeah.

it's like i like dick oh christ i hope they don't snip that out here bill maher says uh no but that's it's that i can't even no i can't even you're a bigot you're a bigot if you don't agree with that and i'm like you know the last person that told me i needed to so needed to a vagina was a priest before i asked you you're telling me this how i mean

How does it end? How does that get rolled back to where that stupidity becomes the marginalized belief when really everyone is, like you said, in private? You can't, how do we get? Well, I don't want to be in the position of saying to someone, I couldn't date you because you have a vagina. I don't want to go into that. I mean, I don't want to have to say I can't date you. You don't owe any human being on this earth anything.

any explanation for why you don't want to date them. Most of them don't want to date you either. There's always a certain pool of people who will be interested no matter who you are. There's a lid for every pot. I've seen it in action. But you always should have that choice. Absolutely. And when I'm, when they're actually trying to control. It's about choice. It used to be about, I just said, the gay rights movement was about liberation. This is about controlling people.

And it's also controlling gay people. Gay men are being told if you do not want to have sex with someone with a vagina, you're actually a bigot. And I've been told that myself. It's out there. It's not that common. But the sense that you can't discriminate that way, my view is the best thing anybody ever said to me growing up being gay was one of my friends in college.

Actually, anyway, he when I told him I was gay, he just said to me, well, you know, you can't help what makes you hard. I'm going to put that on a pillow and have it somewhere here in Club Random. I'll be at the Hard Rock Live in Sacramento, actually, Wheatland, California, this Saturday, February 25th, March 11th. I'll be at Bally's Lake Tahoe.

And Sunday, March 12th, the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco. I haven't played actually the city of San Francisco in a long time. I'm really looking forward to that. But what do you have to plug, Andrew? You have a crazy good podcast. I put out the weekly dish every week and you have a podcast every week too. I couldn't live without your writing. I really couldn't. You're so kind, Bill. Even if I didn't know you personally or all this information about how you take it in the ass,

I swear to God, if it was just from your writing, I would do anything for you to keep you in this world and keep you doing what... And you're so prolific too. You know, you put out a lot. Are you getting... Do you get enough rest? Oh God, I'm turning into Ariana Huffington. I am. Are you sleeping enough? It's a struggle. Really? I don't have the strongest lungs. I'm not the strongest...

and I know I look good, but I... You do look good. Yeah, I'm doing... You look hell. Yeah. You know? You look like you could play the parts that Michael Chiklis plays. I don't. It fucks with me. I mean, I'm looking... And... Yeah. So I'm fine. You know, I'm going to be fine. So were you...

celebrate my rest of my birthday with me here at Club Randall? Absolutely. This is really nice. Of course it's nice. The other guests will be arriving in moments. Fantastic. We also have to realize I can get married and we can both smoke weed. Well, we're not getting married. I told you, I don't marry. But I love you. I love you too. Can't we just love without making it official? Thank you, yes. Who needs the piece of paper, is what I say. Come on.