Fran Lebowitz | Club Random with Bill Maher
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I got to L.A., I don't know, I think Saturday, and the manager of the hotel, you know, greased me at the desk, comes to the room with me, and the bellman has my luggage. The bellman's standing there, and the manager asked me a question, and I turned to the bellman and I said, it's Saturday, right? And I could see him thinking, what a fucking country. Why am I carrying the bags of someone who doesn't even know what day it is? You know, fuck.

Wait, you mean you're saying he thought he shouldn't be working on the weekend? No. Or that you were so... He thought he shouldn't be carrying the bags if someone doesn't know what day it is. You're so privileged that you don't have to know the day. No, I'm so stupid. I can see him thinking, what kind of moron doesn't know what day it is? Why isn't she carrying my bags? I sometimes don't know what day it is. Do you always know what day it is? On the road, no. I never do. Like, I mean, rarely do. I rarely do. And I'm a creature of...

you know, pattern and habit. And I like the fact that on Monday I do this and on Tuesday I do this thing and Wednesday, you know, that's my life. But when I'm off, yeah, I can lose track of a day. And I think that's glorious, you know? So I carry my schedule and say, is this today? Someone said, you're doing this. I said, no, that is on Sunday. They go, it's Sunday. But

And hotel living. I mean, you don't mind hotel living, do you? I don't like hotels. You do? I do. I mean, I'm at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It's one of my favorite hotels. Right. So I prefer really great hotels. But truthfully, I'd rather be home. Well. I'd really rather be home. And it's not that my home is more luxurious than the Beverly Hills Hotel. It is not. No, of course not. But also at home, I don't wait for the coffee. Right. And it's not $20. Right.

$20. For a cup of coffee. What? For a cup of coffee? In a hotel? Easily. Excuse me. It's $30. $30. For the coffee that we host at home in the morning. $30. With a tip and... No. Just for the coffee? $30. Come on. $30? I pay it every morning. I mean, I sign the thing every morning. For a pot? It's a pot of coffee. It's not a giant pot of coffee. Right. But it's coffee for $30. Yeah. No, I know. It's $30. $30.

I ordered an omelet, $70. The next day I thought, that's stupid. I'll get scrambled eggs, $45. Right. But you do know that people nowadays actually largely would love to be in a hotel because mostly where they go when they travel is Airbnb. Yeah. You know what? They travel for something called pleasure. I travel for work. Otherwise, I'm home. Do you want to go on vacations? Give me a vacation, I'm home. But-

To be in an Airbnb, which is very popular, and I know people who prefer it to a hotel. To me, it's just the most disgusting thing. I agree. Totally disgusting. To be living in somebody else's house. Revolting. And somehow possibly seeing a pube on the soap, I would just jump out the window. No. And also, usually they're on vacation doing that. And I always think...

You're in the airport. Well, you're not in the airport because you go by a private plane. But if you go by a commercial plane, you're in the airport and you see these people. They have three little kids screaming.

5,000 pieces of luggage. And I always think, what's in that luggage? How many baseball caps do you need? Right. Like how many pairs of flip-flops? You know, you're dressed like a five-year-old boy. And I think, how bad is your regular life that this is more fun? Oh, I know. I mean. Well, just the idea of going on a vacation with a family. Or just the idea of family.

Just the family itself. Yes. I mean, I'm trying not to be too snobby about that. I don't. I know. But honestly, you know,

It's personal preference. You can't deny that we are just very different human beings. That's how we come out. We have different chips in our brain for whatever reason. And for some people, the great joy in life is family. It's not the path we have chosen, but it's no less valid. Do you think it's less valid? No, I don't care what other people do. I am not that interested in other people.

You know, only if their kids are screaming, I'm at the airport. Otherwise, I don't care. I don't care at all what they do. It's like, I know you were very interested in this. I wasn't. But when there was this big fight to make marijuana legal, people kept asking me about it. I said, I don't care. Do whatever you want. Right. You know, it doesn't matter to me. But, you know, smoke marijuana, I don't care. Do whatever you want. Just be. The noise is what I, don't be noisy. Otherwise, I don't care. Well, and the problem with children is that they are. Well, they're feral.

They're past noisy. They were always noisy. You know, if you go to a pool, a public pool, you will always hear kids just, they're just screaming. I don't know what they're screaming about, but when they're outside, especially in near water, they're just screaming. You know, if you're a

safely distant. It can be kind of, I guess, if you're a family lover, kind of a soothing din. But if you're near it, it's like, I mean, it's like root canal in Somalia. It's just got to be the worst. But also because they're allowed to scream. So we were never allowed to scream. It isn't that, you know, we just weren't allowed.

Oh, come on. You think when we were kids, pools were not full of screaming kids? I think they were. Pools maybe, you know, but in general, we weren't allowed to yell. No, no. Outside in the backyard. Yes. But we weren't allowed to yell. We weren't allowed to yell in the house. We weren't allowed to yell in a restaurant. We weren't allowed to yell in public. We wouldn't have thought of yelling.

Because we were scared of the parents. We were scared of the parents. Also, another big difference is that between kids nowadays, I noticed, is that we had to be invited into an adult conversation. Which we never were. Yeah.

Once in a while, you would be pressed into service to testify for something that only someone of your age or generation could do. Kind of like the way the Nazis used little kids in the camps to do certain work with the bullets. I think it's in Schindler's List.

You know, their little fingers. Oh, right. You know, we were, it was like that. We were only useful for something very specific that adults couldn't do. You know, like, hey, Billy, get in here and tell us what, you know, whatever the thing was about what's going on in school or something, or a sports maybe question that only I would know about the New York Yankees.

But we were not, we just did not assume that we could join the adult conversation. Whereas now, anytime I've been in the last, I don't know, 20 years really. - More. - Probably more. With my contemporaries and they have kids, the kids absolutely feel free to join in the adult conversation or even criticize. I've been criticized by 15 year olds. - Five year olds. - Yeah.

And that's a big difference. I had an argument with a three-year-old child. She said to me, you shouldn't smoke. It's very bad for you. Oh, my God. And I said, you're a little girl. You shouldn't tell adults what to do. Wow. She said, I'm not a little girl. I'm a woman. Three? Three. I said, you're not a woman. You're a little girl. Okay. But you have to... That story takes the cake, I got to say. Because...

I mean, you know where... A child is not born thinking that. No, they're methodical. Of course. Of course, yeah. I mean, just...

You know, I talk about it all the time on my show, the craziness is going on in the schools and I get a lot of shit from liberals and Democrats who, less now that they see that I'm not lying about it. But three years ago, they were like, oh, what are you turning into a conservative? What do you mean the schools? Because, you know, schools are the province of the Democrats. That's their, that's their, they own education as a issue, right? Not Florida.

No, but the teachers union is like 99% Democrat. And the reason for this, you know, the Republicans are so mad about it. The reason for this is that Democrats became teachers. They became teachers because they were interested in education and the Republicans wanted to make money. You can't make money teaching school. It's impossible.

And that's why they- Well, are you talking about charter schools? No, I'm talking about colleges. Private schools. Colleges. Yeah. Well, who do you think controls colleges, Republicans or Democrats? Well, it depends. State universities- Because it's not the Republicans. No, in state universities it is. That's what DeSantis is doing now. All these rules, they're not for private schools. He can't do that. They're for all state schools in Florida. But state schools, okay. Well, there's state schools, which I still think are probably mostly run by Democrats-

and certainly all the elite colleges. This is where the insanity comes from, by the way. There is a line that goes from a three-year-old saying to you, I'm a woman, right to Harvard. If you don't know that there are dots to be connected. On the other hand, how often have you heard that DeSantis went to Harvard? Like a million times. They hate these schools. It's like they hate the New York Times, and they're always saying, and he wrote a New York Times bestseller. And I think, what do you care? You hate the New York Times.

Oh, that's right. He did go to Harvard, didn't he? Oh, how do I know that? Because he constantly says it. And I think, well, that must be some different kind of welfare organization they had for like, and we need to have some stupid people. You know, I don't think I've ever heard DeSantis speak because I'm surprised you have. He's constantly on the news giving speeches. You can avoid it if you want. Apparently I have. No, because I read the news. I gave up on cable news.

Here, let me be Cary Grant. Thank you. To your Grace Kelly. Thank you. You're welcome. A pleasure to light a cigarette for a woman. Thank you. I'm not a woman, I'm a girl.

I remember when that used to be such a suave thing to do when I was a gay blade in the 80s, like in bars, you know, picking up on women, you know, lighting their cigarette was like something we saw Humphrey Bogart do and it looked cool. And, you know, if you were quick with a joke or to light up your smoke, as Billy Joel put it, I mean, that was kind of a...

A cool thing. No, but I don't think I've ever seen DeSantis, and I hear all the time from other people, and I don't doubt it, that he has no personality. That he's very dull and boring, which, first of all, in a politician, I find that fantastic. I don't want personality. Well, you know, yes, but what he says is not boring. He himself...

Sometimes. He's totally without charisma. He's very dull looking. He's very waxen looking. You know, I mean, his hair is, I mean, he's just a very like waxen looking figure. Right. But compared to Trump? Well, I mean, Trump. That's what we'd be running against. I mean, compared to Trump, he doesn't have a giant ass. He has hair. You know, he's got, I mean. Compared to Trump, he has policies, which Trump doesn't have. And the policies are really horrible.

Well, he does a lot of performative art. Yes. Some of it is a reaction to policies that were insane to begin with, like the don't say gay bill. First of all, it doesn't say that in it. It doesn't say don't say gay. Parents were not... Look, he does a lot of stupid things. I agree. He campaigned for election deniers. That's a big red flag with me. But...

Parents were not unreasonably concerned that schools had become a place where kids were being exposed to ideas about gender and race that were completely inappropriate for someone three years old. You're making my case for me. They may have been. However, I don't think I think he does these things to distract from his real policies, which are inappropriate.

Let's stop Social Security, cut Medicare. You know, those are the real things. Look, and especially in Florida, where 90% of the people are already on Social Security. Right. You're saying he's for... Maybe the party is... He is, too. I mean, he is, too. I mean, I'm less worried about him than other people are because...

because he has these very, you know, very clear policies and they're not the policies of most people. I'm not talking about, you know, don't say gay or whatever. You know, he's virulently anti-abortion. I don't know what more they could do. You know, there's not enough guns. You know, there's too much abortion. There's too much, not really for birth control. You know, these things are not popular, even among Republicans. Right. No, he does, again, I don't know whether he's playing the part

of the Republican asshole, which you have to to get the base. He's never going to get Trump's base. No one is. Trump has that base. I

You know, I don't know. Well, he's not going to get that base as long as Trump is alive. Trump's not dying. This is just a dream of people that Trump's going to die. I say the same thing. And this has to do with the fact that he's fat. And everyone I know says he's going to die. He's Big Max. And I always say, you know, people we know think the worst thing you can do is eat a hamburger. But I have news for you. He has never smoked a cigarette in his life. He's never had any drugs.

He's never had a sip of alcohol. You know, the Big Macs are apparently not that dangerous. He looks horrible. You're not taking into account so many variables. You don't know what his genetics are probably just luckily very good. Yes, that's right. Both his parents seem to be 1,000. But Big Macs are horrible for you. I'm sure they are, but he's still alive.

Everyone I know thinks... Okay, but that's one person. That's anecdotal. I know, but this is the person we're talking about. I know, but it's not a scientific study. Oh, no, no. I'm not saying people should eat Big Macs. I'm saying they're not going to kill him. The people talk about it in the hopeful, he's going to die if he eats Big Macs. Okay? He's already lived past what you would think you would die from Big Macs. I'm just saying medical science is nowhere near the point, we will someday probably be there, where they can actually tell you, you know what? Uh,

If you put food, and I'm talking about bad food, next to cigarettes and drugs and alcohol, let's say those four categories, I can actually tell you which is the worst. And I would not bet $10 on which one it'll be, and it could be the food. Well, I have no idea. Because the food is what everybody does and what most people, it's what you run your body on.

Of course, we know alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, depending on the drug. But food is the one that slips by because people just, in their mind, they don't think of it as poison. But most of what they eat is poison. It's true. And the kind of people that we know don't eat this stuff. You know, on the other hand, some of them die anyway. So...

What do you mean the kind of people we know? I don't know people who eat this stuff, okay? Well, what do they bring in? I see you every year, I have for many years, at the Vanity Fair Oscar party. Not lately, you haven't. No, I... Really? Do you not go? No. Oh, okay. Bad blood? No, I stopped working at Vanity Fair. Right.

So like five years ago. So I don't have to go anymore. Oh, you went on because you had to? I used to complain to it. And he used to say to me, I asked you to do one thing all year. And you know what? He was right. So I did it. But, you know, I don't have to go anymore. You liked it. Sometimes I liked it.

you know, after a certain number of years. You like parties. I like parties. I do. Yes. I do. If you didn't, you probably would sit home and do what you should do is write because you're a great writer. But let's not go. You know, I just realized, is this on already? Of course. I really did not realize it. Everybody says that.

I love that. The cameras are built into the walls. I did it purposely like this so that we could just feel like we are as we are. And we are as we are. As you were. As we have always been. But the Oscar party, what do they bring in at like midnight?

You don't remember? Yeah, those In-N-Out burgers, which I've never had one. What? I never had one. Okay. And also some kind of donuts that especially people like. Yes. And you look around the room and every A-lister in Hollywood is stuffing their face. Yes, but you also have to take into account not a single one of them has eaten a thing for three months. Okay. No one has had a thing to eat, not a lettuce leaf, for three months. You're right. I always am amazed that

You know, it's the night when, of course, the 10s come out, people who are a 10 in their normal life. And somehow on that night, they've managed to find a way to turn it up to 11. Like Margot Robbie's always a 10, but I promise you, next month she'll be an 11. Whether it's colonics or fucking skin abrasion or they oil themselves, they tan themselves, they plump themselves, whatever it is.

Tens are now 11, sixes are seven, sevens are eight. But also, Margaret Robbie really is quite young still. You know, I mean, you know, some of them at that Oscar weekend, lots of times at the 5,000 parties that preceded the Oscar party. Right. I would be sitting and I would say to someone, oh, there's someone, she looks fantastic. And someone would go, Fran, that's her daughter. Oh, yeah. No, I know a funny story.

One year during the Oscars, I was in Australia, and it was very delightful. Margot Robbie, however, was nominated for an Academy Award that year. It was about five years ago. And so when I came back, someone said, was the Oscars a big deal in Australia? I said, only Margot Robbie. They never mentioned it except like you would turn on the news, and they would show you, this is where she went to junior high school. This was her bicycle. This was they were only interested in her.

But so many of our actors are Australian. She's hardly the only one. No. Have you ever been there? No. Too far. Exactly. So I had to go there. Yes. Really? And for months before I went, I was incredibly worried because the flight is like, you know, the first flight. Now, first you fly to L.A. and then you fly to... I was going to Melbourne first. It's like...

officially that flight is 19 hours. It was 25 by the time we landed. And my concern was the last time I didn't smoke for 25 hours, I was 11. So I was like incredibly worried about this. And I kept asking people about it. Did you ever do this? Do you smoke? How could you possibly do this? What did you do? I was really, really worried about it. And it was even worse than I thought. And I really felt that my...

greatest accomplishment in life is that I didn't get arrested on the flight, that I didn't kill anyone. I was so tense. It was horrible. And I thought I was sitting quietly, just reading my book and just pretending that I wasn't not smoking. And during the course of this flight, three different strangers came up to me and said, you really ought to have a drink.

That's how apparently I was radiating this tension. It was horrible. Or maybe they just wanted to meet you. They didn't meet me because I was so tense. But did you... I didn't get arrested.

Did you ever think when you got off the plane, hey, you know, I made it 25 hours. Maybe I. I did not think that. You did not. I absolutely did not think that. It was not an inspiration. No, when I finally got out of the airport, like nine hours later after you landed, the driver met me. I kept looking for light. Are we ever getting out of here? And he took my bags and I lit a cigarette and he turned around and he said, you can't smoke here.

I said, call the cops. The no smoking's over. He said, you can't smoke here. You have to smoke there. I said, fine. When I finish this, I'm going to go over there and smoke there. No, I never gave it a single thought. Oh, I remember how pissed off you were at the Met game when

That was really far. I mean, we were outside. It's a ballpark. Yeah, you can't smoke in them. And they made you walk all around. Thousands of miles away. To the other side of the stadium. Yes, thousands of miles away. Right, as people are eating hot dogs and the jets are flying overhead. Right, and people are drinking beer. Beer. By the gallon. Right. One hand beer, one hand ice cream. I think like...

It's not a hopefully regime. I mean... You can't smoke in any... Well, I've only been, I think, to two different...

ballparks. You can't smoke in any of them. No, you can't. I mean, you used to smoke in movie theaters. You used to smoke on planes. Of course. They used to give you the cigarettes in first class. They would give you these little promotional packs. Have you tried these cigarettes? I used to purposely seek the back of the plane, not just because the smoking was there, because I thought the chicks who smoke on a plane would be the ones I want to pick up on.

But I remember when there were no smoking sections on planes. You could just smoke wherever you were sitting. Of course. And then when there was a smoking section, you could be in the row right next to it, which is hysterical. Right. I mean... Right next to it. Or right across... And I was once on a plane, or getting... I was on the ground in New York going to L.A., and a guy got on the plane...

And he didn't fit into the first class seat, which then used to be very big. They're not that big now. He didn't fit in the first class seat. So they moved him across the aisle from me. And they had to come on the plane and take whatever the dividers are out and then give him this big seat belt. And he sat down. We took off. And the no smoking sign went off. And I lit a cigarette. I was in the smoking row. And he said,

You can't smoke here. I said, this is smoking row. But there was a rule. If they had to put a no smoking person in the smoking row, it became no smoking. So the flight attendant, he told the flight attendant over and he said, I'm entitled to my no smoking seat. I said, yes.

your no smoking seat, not your no smoking seats. You're not entitled to two seats if you don't pay for two seats. Oh, man. And the guy was going, really yelling at the flight attendant and she was practically crying. She said, what can I do? I said, obviously, if the man is a health nut,

He weighs 800 pounds and he's worried about this little stream of cigarette smoke that's next to him. Well, you've just described a battle between the smokers and the fatties. And in today's world, at least in this country, one is a completely protected species. How dare you?

make fun of... I wasn't making fun of him. No, I'm just... Well, I mean... I wasn't making fun of him. I was just simply pointing out... No, I understand. That... You can't even point out. Yes. You can't... That's not... This is the... What you're doing there, putting your cigarette out, that is the ultimate evil. But anything else... But, you know, I don't want to... And there's also the idea... I don't want to get on my high horse about that. There's also the idea that marijuana smoke is okay. But...

Marijuana smoke is okay. It's better than okay. It's fantastic. I'm saying it's smoke. Correct. I'm not saying it's secondhand smoke. I agree. It's smoke. It is smoke. You're right. And also, what comes off a barbecue is smoke. You're right. It's smoke. Yes. But...

We don't do it all day. Some of us do. Not him. Not I. You're right. New York has become a place where the streets are weak of weed. There's no neighborhood you can be in. I have a friend who lives on the second floor. She has to keep her windows closed because there's so much marijuana smoke on the end of her apartment. I don't think it's even legal yet in New York. Yes, it is. Oh, it is. Absolutely. And you can sell it, I think.

Well, she's not calling the police. She's just like, she was on the Upper East Side. Look, my mother smoked almost to the end. And in her, when her widow years, when she wasn't that happy anyway, she didn't like being a widow, but she's still a smoker. And it was that era when people really started to turn against cigarettes and they decided that this was the one evil in society.

that we could extirpate and, you know, go out on the sidewalk. And so all her life she'd lived smoked and say, okay, we get it. We don't, you know, people sure don't want to be around. Don't be such assholes about it. I used to be very protective of her in those years. I always wanted to say to people, she was in World War II. Shut the fuck up. You know what? And the depression. And yeah, but I mean, like I,

smoke is not the worst thing she's seen or you. I was once way before COVID, before restaurants in the street, but just when there were some restaurants had seats outside in the warm weather. So at a certain point, you could smoke in those seats and then you couldn't.

And I was outside the restaurant, outside the seats, standing, smoking a cigarette. There's like a little railing. And right at the edge is a young Italian couple, a man and a woman, having dinner. The man lights a cigarette. The waiter comes over and goes, you can't smoke here. He goes, I'm outside. He said, you can't smoke here. So the guy looks at me. I said, you can't smoke here.

It's a law. He said, it's stupid. I said, it's stupid, but you can't smoke here. He said, you're smoking. I said, but I'm here. So you're sitting down. I'm standing up. I'm actually having dinner inside. So I'm standing here. So he comes around. And while he comes around, he picks up his wine glass and he takes a sip. He's talking to his girlfriend. The waiter comes over and he goes, you can't drink here. So-

He said, what are you talking about? I said, let me explain the rules here. You can't smoke here and you can't smoke there. You can't drink here. I said, I realize we're talking about four inches and I realize it's all outside and no sane person cares, but they're afraid of getting a fine.

So maybe this makes people understand why some of us who called out a lot of the nonsense with how we handled COVID were so skeptical. Because we've done stupid health theater for a long time. It's not new. We've handled almost every health crisis badly, not all of them.

And, you know, I found it just arrogant to have such a bad record in the past with health matters and just tell me, just do what we say. When have we ever been wrong? And then it's like, oh, OK, we're washing the mail. And they told us, you know, like, wear any kind of mask. They're all good. Just some bandana. Put a diaper on your head. Doesn't matter. Everything's fine. And I remember...

Don't Touch Your Face was a big hit song for about a year, Don't Touch Your Face. I'm not up on which COVID rules you were opposed to. They all turned out to be stupid. Not all. Which ones? It was not on the mail. No, oh no, that I know. They just did a study, the masks, unless they were N95 and maybe not even them, useless. Well, that I'm unaware of. I stopped wearing a mask and you don't have to wear it anymore, but-

But that's just... But I... The vaccines? Good. I'm glad there were vaccines. Yes. I'm glad there were vaccines. I don't... Don't... Please... You know what? If that's your choice, great. There are some vaccines I would love to have and might need and would fight you for. But...

But I should be able to make my own medical decisions. Well, you are not a nurse, okay? You're not in the hospital. I think it depends who you are. Well, you're saying they would have to get the vaccine. Yes. Well, I mean, okay, but here's something stupid we did that other countries didn't do, countries I think you would respect. By the way, countries you're going to. I'm going to do your plugs. What a great segue. But, like...

Europe much more recognized natural immunity. If you're a nurse and you had it naturally at the beginning, which a lot of nurses did, then it was stupid and pointless and probably unhealthful to make them take the vaccine after they already have the natural immunity. We didn't used to do that with other stuff. But anyway, Europe, I want to, first of all, I got to tell you,

I'm so happy for you that you are finally getting the props you deserve as far as like a touring act. You know, like you're a hot commodity all around the country and in Europe. Oh, this is mine. Okay. Like, I'm looking at your fucking schedule. You're everywhere. You're like fucking poison in the 80s. The band, not the... I know what you meant. Okay.

Wayne, New Jersey, February 22nd, and then March 3rd in Pittsburgh, and Marietta, Ohio, March 5th, March 6th, Columbus, Ohio, March 8th, Boca Raton, Florida, and the 9th, we're in Boston, and, you know, Red Bank, New Jersey on the 30th. This is like, I don't tour like this. I mean, that would fucking kill me. You don't have to. Well, it's great. And then fucking Europe. You're going to Europe. I did last year, too. I did, I don't remember. You must be even more popular in Europe. Netflix.

What happened? Netflix. Netflix. Oh, that's special. Yeah, of course. No, it's, I mean, I always did this. And your boy Scorsese on HBO.

Yeah, but that didn't have this effect. You know, I mean, I've always done this. I've done this since I'm 27. I always did the United States and Canada. Right. But after Netflix, which is unbeknownst to me since I've never seen it, in 192 countries. Right. Yes. Much more of a foreign reach, I'm sure. So it's all over the place. And it also came out during lockdown. But I mean...

Certainly, there must be people all around the world, sophisticated people, and let's face it, lots of places are a lot more sophisticated than America. We're a young country. We're a teenage country. You can't hate us completely for that, although I'm always trying to stop myself.

They must see you and think, oh, there's a sophisticated American. We found one. Well, I was in the UK last year. I did a number of days there. And it was right after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

And night after night, I'd take questions from the audience. The first thing would be, why did you overturn Roe v. Wade? I kept saying, I did not overturn Roe v. Wade. I am not on the Supreme Court. You cannot blame me. Oh, they thought you were Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They were blaming him. And then luckily for me, Boris Johnson. That Boris Johnson scandal happened while I was there. And so some of them would go, Roe v. Wade? I'd go, Boris Johnson. And that was like... Which scandal? He had to resign. He was... Oh, yeah. What did he do? He went to a party that...

Well, he had done many things, but there was a scandal in his administration, and he defended the person who perpetrated the scandal. And it was like absolute lies. I mean, it wasn't like it was an iffy situation. So what European capitals, when you're on the continent, can we look forward to seeing you? Well, last year I did Paris.

Athens. Athens? Copenhagen. Twice. And I'm going again to Copenhagen. And I said to my agent, I was already twice in Copenhagen. Copenhagen is a delightful city. It's the size of this room. I said, haven't I run that place dry yet? Really? Yeah. So I'm going again to Copenhagen. Oslo. See, those I understand because when I toured Europe once and yeah, you can, for an American comedian, you got to go to the cities where they speak perfect English. But

I wouldn't try Paris. There's no city where people don't speak better English than a native-born American. Even in Paris? Yes. Wow. I mean, not everybody speaks English, you know. And in those cities that were in non-English-speaking countries, the person who interviews me on the stage stays on the stage because here they leave in case someone thinks they don't speak English.

they don't speak English, but they do because I, like all Americans, am monolingual, except unlike most Americans, I speak English. Right, right.

Mostly people wouldn't come to see me if they didn't speak English. Of course they wouldn't. But I'm just saying to play Paris and places like Athens, places that are not on that typical circuit where they speak like almost better, you know, barely an accent. Germany, the Nordic countries, of course, England. The hardest people for me to understand in the U.K.

Yeah, I remember. Edinburgh, I was mystified. And I don't want to insult people, so I keep saying, I can't hear you. And I'm thinking, she's deaf. But I really couldn't understand her. I thought, how did you retain this extremely strong regional accent that no one can understand? When I was in London, I said, it's very hard for me to understand the people in Edinburgh. No one can understand them.

No, I can't stand those British movies where it's just what you're talking about. Like,

What the fuck are you saying? What are you talking about? You know, like three smoking guns. There's some, I can't remember, but there's like the British gangster movies and their Cockney accent is so thick, I guess, because they're gangsters. No, because they're Cockneys. But that's disappeared mostly. I mean, now. It's just annoying. I mean, I find the British accent, it can be lovely and lilting and it can be fucking grating and annoying. This is true of everything, Bill. Surely you've noticed that. Yeah.

This is not confined to the British accent. No, but I feel like that's the paramount example. Anyway, I will be at the... Oh, I'm changing hotels.

This is very, I'm very verklempt. I was at the Mirage for like seven years. It was fantastic. They were great. And they have a, they're owned by the MGM Grand folks and now we're moving the operation over there. The David Copperfield Theater. But folks, let me make it clear, I will not be doing magic. Magic with words, of course.

February 17th and 18th, the Hard Rock Live in Wheatland, California. I think that's Sacramento. It is. February 25th, the showroom in Bally's Lake Tahoe. March 11th, the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco. I haven't been there in a while. I can't wait for that one. March 12th. Yeah, isn't it great that... First of all, I would never have predicted 10 years ago if you said to me podcasting would be a thing. It's basically AM radio, which was like the most...

least hip thing was AM radio. But this is basically that. It's people talk. I would never have guessed it became so big. But the fact that, you know, I can sit here and smoke. You can smoke. We can just do things without all the

appurtenances that I grew up with. When you did The Tonight Show, you know, you're wearing a suit and a tie and the band, you're sweating like a pig behind the curtain. And it's all very stylized and ritualized and, you know, compartmentalized. And we just, it's one good, I mean, yes, the country is falling apart, but one good thing is as they take down the barriers of formality,

It is a pleasure just to do like, here, I'm doing these dates and I don't have to like pretend and we'll be back in a minute after a word from Del Monte. It's just it's I've always wanted to get whatever we're doing as close to real life as possible. And TV was always a bit of a barrier. It still is a bit of a barrier.

Yeah, it's much different than it was, though. I mean, except for your show, which I'm not sure this is still true, but when I started doing television in the late 70s, in the green room, there was always a bar, and everybody would be drinking. And then that completely stopped, and I remember once...

I was in New York doing, I think, the Conan O'Brien show. And the kid in charge of me, Alan King, was doing the show. Alan King. And the kid didn't know who Alan King was. But he came in and he said, there's this guy here, Alan King. Do you know who he is? I said, yes, he's a comedian. He said, he asked for scotch. I said, yes. He said, we don't have alcohol. Oh, my God. So I said, you don't? He said, no.

Do you have any? I said, I don't drink. I didn't ask for it. I don't care. He said, well, what should I do? I said, get him a scotch. He said, I don't know where to get it. This is the Rockefeller Center. I said, go outside. There's probably a liquor store within six feet of the place. I get him a scotch. He said, do you think he should drink before he goes on television? I said, are you his mother? But your show, you still have the bar.

I hope so. I'm going to check on it. I'm glad you reminded me. But again, not to beat a dead horse with the conversation we were having, but when people act like this, don't you blame a little more the type of person that you would call left-leaning, that would raise a kid who is like this undisciplined and this entitled person?

It's a disease on both sides. But I'm just saying, when I picture the family that this little shit comes from, who doesn't know who Alan... Okay, I'll forgive him for that. I'll forgive Alan King. Although kids have a terrible attitude about the past, which is, if I wasn't alive for it, it doesn't matter. No, or they don't know about it. Like, lots of times I'll say something, and they'll look at me blankly, and I'll say... I'll say...

In fact, I don't know his name, but many years ago, like I don't know when it was, like eight years ago maybe. Oh, let's see. Thank you. I was at a dinner in San Francisco, and I was sitting across from the guy who started Uber, I think. Yeah.

Yeah, Travis Kalanick. Yes. They made a show about him. This was not a match made in heaven. I can see why. I'm talking to him, and I was really astounded by him, I have to say. Like, how could you not know anything about anything? Right. And so at a certain point, some people... I'm not the kind of person who, like, you know, mixes around at a party. I sit down, that's where I am. So people started walking around, and people would come over and talk to me. And...

He would be sitting there. And now I can't think of his name. What was the name of the De Niro character in Taxi Driver? Travis Bickle. Bickle, yes. So I kept saying, do you know Travis Bickle? And he was, and finally he said to me, why do you keep calling me Travis Bickle? My name is Travis, whatever it is, Cadalagak. So I said, didn't you ever see Taxi Driver? So he said, that's a movie, right? I said, yeah, that's a movie.

He said, "No, I never saw it." I said, "You never saw it? It's a great movie. You should see it." He said, "Well, when was it made?" I said, "I don't know, in the early '70s." He said, "I wasn't even born then." I said, "Guess what? I wasn't born during the Civil War, but I heard of it." Right.

And also that's- I thought it was perfect his name was Travis. I've heard that same thing from kids about something like a movie, which is okay, history, I understand you didn't want to go to class, but a movie, it's not an indictment, first of all. Just, you don't have to be so defensive. I wasn't born. Yeah, that's why they put them on cellulose. So we get all, and I love watching, well, actually, lately I've been watching some movies. I won't name them because I don't want to insult anybody, but from the 80s,

90s and some of them really do not hold up that we just love everybody in America. I wish I could mention, but that would insult the director, but like movies that we just the whole country thought this is the shit. Then you watch it again and you're like, wow, things were just different. This art form is not as advanced and you could get away with contrivances that the audience would not put up with today.

That's true. But I mean, that's true of everything. I mean, you know, like I looked a lot better in the 80s too. You know? A lot. You know? Like a lot better than I'm sure the movie looks from the 80s. It's not just movies that don't hold up. Very few things hold up. Yeah, but you and I, we kind of like have just like

We and Larry David, there's a few of us who like, yes, of course we get older, but we kind of never looked really young. So we we kind of just have a brand. Well, I would say, you know, I'm old at heart, you know, and I've always been old at heart. And when my first book came out, I was 27. And lots of reviews said, I don't understand. What do we have here? A young curmudgeon?

And I thought, yes, but I'm just practicing for when I'm old. Right. But to look at you, it's just like, it's sort of like a, I don't know, I don't see any difference. Because you kind of like,

always like had that certain look and you can't see anymore bill that is the the this is the brilliance of nature just when we start to look a certain way we can't see anymore uh you know and it's like i said to someone recently someone my age i was at a party or something everyone keeps telling everyone how great they look and i finally said you know when we really did look great we never told each other now we just mean you're alive you don't look horrible right you're

You know, sometimes I'll think, what the hell happened to him? Because a friend of mine always says, you think only you get old. You know, now, if you don't see someone for six months, forget it. You know, they're on some other planet of disintegration that you miss the decline. But, I mean, living in New York, oh, first of all, your thing about the smoking on the sidewalk, it's not even the smoking, just people.

Eating on the street is so gross. Well, this is our present mayor, who is horrible. Is horrible? He's horrible. Eric Adams? Horrible. I didn't vote for him. I voted for the socialist candidate. I like him.

I'm not a socialist. I don't remember her name. I wouldn't recognize her in a crowd of one. But I do not. I did not want to be one billionth responsible for Eric Adams. Not a billionth responsible. What is so horrible about Eric Adams? He is a crook. A crook? Well, let's put it this way. You may or may not notice. You don't live in New York. I don't. But seven times a day, he changes his clothes. Why does that make him a crook? He has his clothes made. The mayor doesn't make enough money to buy those clothes.

I'd like to know where. He's been in public service his whole life, okay? He's been in public service his whole life. He shouldn't be able to buy those clothes. I find that to be preposterous. First of all, public servants sometimes make a very nice salary. Not if you live in New York, and he doesn't. I mean, now he lives in Gracie Mansion, but he doesn't, and he didn't. Well, he lives in Brooklyn.

Yes, Brooklyn's pretty expensive. Okay, but- If you live there, which he doesn't. But I'm not, I wouldn't be surprised. And he was something of a celebrity in town. I mean, to run for mayor, he had to be, he was the borough president or something. He was the borough president. Okay. But here, he won the same reason Trump won. Here's what happens.

You know, the parties control the primaries and stuff. The parties should not allow there to be 20 candidates in a primary. Because if there's 20 candidates, the loudmouth always wins. That's how Trump won. There were 20 candidates in that Republican primary. He's Trumpy. He's very Trumpy. Let's get back to he's a criminal.

criminal because he's got seven nice suits. He's Denzel in training day and he's going to stick up Scott Glenn and take the money under the floorboards. That's where the money came from. I don't know where the money came from. They might have given the clothes where you're not allowed to do.

You cannot take these things if you're the mayor. Of all the problems in the world, this is what obsesses you? You don't think that this... Because I mentioned something that doesn't mean I'm obsessed by it. Okay. I was giving you an example I thought you would understand. The clothes are an example of the money, the

I don't like him. All right? I don't like him. Okay, just say that. Yes. I did say that. Okay. I didn't vote for him. I don't like him. And the restaurants in the streets, which were supposed to come down when you didn't have to eat in the street, he announced they're permanent. My thinking is permanent. You know what's not permanent? You. Nothing's permanent. So the restaurants are in the street. I object to this now. When you had to eat outside, fine. This is...

a takeover of private ownership of public property. They don't own the streets. They put the restaurants in the streets. They're restaurants that have 100 seats outside.

you know, without paying for the space, which in New York, that's what you're paying for all the time. But also he keeps announcing, like we didn't know there is an unusually high rat problem in New York. Yeah. I mean, there's always rats, but now. Isn't there a guy who volunteered to be his rat czar? Yes. There's someone who's now. Oh, Curtis Sliwa. No. Yes. He volunteered to be. He may have volunteered, but he didn't get the gig. Really? The gig was given to this woman whose last name is Tish. She's married, I guess, to one of the teachers or a big real estate family in New York.

Yeah, sure. So they have, and it was like, we don't know why there's all these rats. And I thought, really? I mean, my belief is that the rats in New York are calling rats all over the country saying, you can't believe what's going on here. They bring you the food. They tell you the specials.

I mean, there's restaurants in the street. That's why there's rust. But see, that's why I never really warmed up to New York. I mean, I have a certain love for it because it's where I grew up near and then lived twice. And many friends and the sensibility of New York, the New York media market, the sports teams, the TV stations, the newspaper that was in our house, all that stuff.

But actually living there, I thought sucked. I mean, just the living in a building, maybe insects in it, you know. No, maybe.

Well, here's the thing. You don't have to live in New York. You can live where you want. You know, I like to live in New York. I love New York. I know. You know, and I a couple times have rented houses in the country because of construction in my apartment or whatever. And I was always terrified. I was completely terrified living in the country. And people would say –

You live in this lovely, you know, I once rented a little cottage on a farm outside of Princeton, New Jersey. I was in a total panic the whole time every night. And people would say, why? I would say, here's the really bad thing about living on a farm. There are no doormen.

One thing I like, it's doormen. I don't like a doorman. Because you don't want them to know about you. I understand that. They know everything about you. There's no question they do. Right. And also, I don't want to be obligated to say hello to somebody all day. I just don't want to. I don't want to like...

I make little chit chat and like seeing people in the elevator. Also, you're in a building. No matter how nice the apartment is, I'm aware that right on the other side of this wall, there are other people. They're like two feet away. I like that.

I like that. Because I'm afraid to live in a place where I'm myself. It's so gross. Well, then you don't live there. No, I know. That's why, like, when I think of eating on the sidewalk, even though it's done in other cities, I think of it as a New York thing because I think it's gross and sweaty. You know, picture a hot day. I've done it in New York. It's like, you know, you're pouring sweat and the stinks are in the air because it's summer and everything's outside and garbage and cars, exhaust going bonkers.

And you're eating. I never ate outside until COVID. You know, I would always say like, but before COVID, people only ate outside in the warm weather. You know, I never ate outside. I would say, why would I want to eat outside in New York? It's disgusting. I never did. You know, during COVID I did because you couldn't eat inside. You know, and so I ate outside during COVID literally in snowstorms.

I would like look in my closet before I went to dinner thinking, what's the best coat to eat dinner in? And it turns out there's not a good coat to eat dinner in. But I was very happy not to be in my apartment eating because there is no worse food in New York than the food in my apartment. So I was very happy to do that. But I don't like to eat outside. I don't care if other people want to. Were you eating out when before COVID? Did you eat out every night? I would say I would say eat out like maybe four or five minutes a week. So that's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

And always in nice restaurants, I'm sure. Well, to me, any restaurant is nicer than my apartment to eat at. Right. Yeah, pretty nice. Yeah, but, I mean, you always had a very vivid social life. The best kind of people always wanted you there. I mean, that's why, like, when I saw you or would see you at the Vanity Fair party or something, I would be like, oh, what a great gig. The person who, you know, the cool people want around them, you know, maybe to, like, just they would, like, rub off. Yeah.

I think a lot of celebrities want to have you rub off on them a little bit. They don't really...

I don't think as much as I would like to think I do. But they just know. They don't know why you're great. They just know you're the cool people. Someone told them. Someone told them. And Scorsese loves you. There's something going on there. And I got to get a little near it. You know, Marty is amazing.

A lot of people who are famous say they hate being recognized, but it's not true. But Marty really hates being recognized. Really? That is why Marty lives in a house in New York instead of an apartment because he doesn't want to be in the elevator with people. He doesn't want to talk to the doorman. So he lives in a house and he avoids that. How do you live in a house in New York? There's houses in New York. Townhouses. Townhouses. Yes, they cost a zillion dollars.

Yeah. Well, did you watch- And they have no doormen. I mean, HBO had a show about a year ago, like the Gilded Age or something. It was about 19th century New York. And boy, could you have a baller spread back then. I mean, you could have like the whole block. Well, I mean, the Morgan Library was a house. Right. Stuff like that. The Frick was a house. Right. Yes. Yeah.

It wasn't my house, but it was a house. So I doubt there are houses that big anymore in New York. But during the period of the Russians being allowed to be in New York, they would buy two or three houses and put them together. Russians? Yeah, the Russian billionaires. Oh, and they are not allowed anymore? No. What? How can you bar a certain... You can't bar...

They call it the oligarchs, you know, the criminals. Right, if they're specifically guilty of a crime. There's not a clean penny in Russia. No, that's true. Oh, I know. Okay, and every penny comes from Putin. No, I'm prejudiced against Russians, and I don't care who knows it. It's not prejudice. No, it's exactly. And the people are good people, but communism made them cynical. The legacy of communism has not really been written...

fully until somebody gets on to that some the type of person who writes books which is certainly not me the psychological damage of living under a system of

where you know you can't get ahead. You know, the old joke, they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work. That legacy is what makes Russians so, well, you wouldn't want to fuck with the Russian mob. There was a viciousness there and a ruthlessness that I think comes from

having that kind of cynicism beaten into you. It started before that. Yes, it did. Russia has had the worst form of every kind of government. They had the worst monarchy. Tsarist Russia made the quarter of the 16th look like a rotary meeting. They had the worst monarchy. They had the worst communism. They had the worst capitalism. And that is because Russia is too big.

It is too big. The only way to govern a place that big is with brutality. And all they try to do is make it bigger and bigger. The whole history of Russia is trying to make it bigger. And so I say to people, look, if you have two children, you could be a nice parent. If you have 12 children, you have to be brutal. There's no way to deal with 12 children. And that's what Russia does.

And that's why the Russians are that way. And it started way before communism. That's true. I mean, that's a very interesting theory. And you're right. They do always get big and get bigger. Soviet Union was just the supersized version of Russia. I happened to be in Stockholm the day that Russia invaded Ukraine.

And the people in Stockholm were hysterical. And they kept saying to me, Russia's right here. Do you know where it is? I said, I know where it is. It's right here. Yes. Aren't you worried? I said, you mean for my personal safety? Yes. No. Why? He's not going to invade Sweden. That's why. I'm not worried he's going to invade Sweden. But they were really concerned about...

Now, perhaps the concern is gone. I don't think he's going to invade Sweden, but I didn't think he was going to invade Ukraine. I did. You did? Yes. From the get? No, not before anyone knew. But I mean, I wasn't shocked. I mean, I hate to say this, but and I wouldn't say it's not Obama's fault. But Obama did not respond when he went to Crimea. UK.

You can't do that. You have to respond. You have to respond in some way. I'm not saying we shouldn't send troops, but you can't just say, well, I take your point and I kind of agree, but

I don't know what you, I'm sure there were sanctions and short of, you know, like. There was nothing. Almost nothing. You know, and, you know, one thing about Obama. I don't know about that. Yeah, one thing to me about, you know, you may not notice this, but Bill Clinton was the first president we ever had that didn't serve in the military. Yeah, I remember. And. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. You're welcome. And I think it caused them, now it's like no one notices, but Clinton was the first one. And I think, you may not remember this, but there was a bombing of an American naval ship. Yeah, the Cole. The Cole, yeah. Right.

Before 9-11. Right. You can't. A bombing of an American naval ship is like a bombing of the United States. You can't not respond. You have to respond in some way. I'm glad to hear you sound so hawkish. It's not hawkish. It's sensible. And I always thought Clinton didn't respond. Clinton was afraid to use the military because he thought he'd be criticized because he didn't serve in the military. Right.

The problem is that it's very easy to say, we have to do something. And then as soon as you take troops off the table,

OK, everything else is, yeah, it can be effective, but it's not really. I mean, you know, Genghis Khan wouldn't have been like, yeah, sanctions first. You know, I think people say, well, what should you do? Do you have a solution? I would say I'm not the president. If you run for the presidency, this has to be a thing you think about. This has to be a thing that you believe you would have some way of dealing with. That's part of the job.

The president isn't just saying that works well plain. So what should Obama, you say you don't want Obama to have sent troops to Crimea, then what?

There's something he could have done. I'm not the president. I understand. I didn't say that is the first you do the president. I'm not a dump truck, but I could have an opinion on the highway bill. You could have an opinion, but it's meaningless. People put too much... People put now too much faith in opinions, okay? There is certainly something he could have done. He really... There was no response. I mean, there was no apparent response. You talk like there's this...

It's a mysterious subject. The things we could do to respond to dictatorial... I didn't say we. I said him, the president. But it's not a mystery what these things are. You can send troops. You could bomb from the sky without sending troops. That's what we did in Kosovo, right? But look how long it took. Serbia. Yes, but look how long it took to do that. It was way too late. No, I'm saying, but that is an option. I'm just saying the things you can do, it's not a mystery. It's not like we're going to invent a new thing that we could do. But Kosovo is a very different thing.

Economic sanctions, bombing from the sky, troops. That's pretty much it. Yes, but these things are not all the same. Kosovo is not the same as Crimea. I know, I'm just saying those are the options. So Obama in 2014, when Putin invaded Crimea, could have A, sent troops. No, we agree not that. B, bomb them?

I don't think we want that. Or C, economic sanctions, which I think he did. No, he didn't. None? Not real ones. It was just like, enjoy your day, Vlad. There were no real economic sanctions until Ukraine. Are you, Shirley? I'm positive. I mean, first of all, before that, New York was packed with this filthy Russian money. All right? Not now. No.

everywhere you know what they call it no they call it they fled because they were taking the stuff they were in other words the united states government you know was taking the stuff right and taking this apartment taking these boats these planes they're all now basically in saudi arabia that's where they went right you know they went or the other gulf states but you know they're more than welcome there london grad yeah london is really in london that section with them yes it's like

The second biggest property owner in London next to the royal family is Saudi Arabia. Right. That's their problem. They have enough problems the U.S. made, but that's one of their problems. They allowed it. But of course, I've met individual Russian people who were lovely.

But they weren't Russian oligarchs. No, no. My grandfather was Russian. He was a lovely Manhattan. None of them were. But he was a short order cook. He wasn't an oligarch. None of them were wearing a track suit. No, that's true. That's how I judge. Is that wrong? No, completely correct. Right. Because they're white people, so we can make jokes. I hadn't thought of it that way. Yeah. So, oh God, what was I going to ask you?

Oh, we were talking about the movies. You don't go to the Vanity Fair party anymore. This is like now award season. This is when I feel like I used to bump shoulders with you. Yes, I used to see you at many gatherings. Right. And you, you know, were— But for many years, way before, I kept saying, they shouldn't have the Academy Awards anymore. It's too old-fashioned. And I used to think, I'm old.

It seems old-fashioned to me. How old-fashioned could it be? You know? And then last year, when Will Smith hit Chris Rock, I thought, here's your chance. You could say, you know what? We're done. Thank you very much. Good night. No.

There's a billion people who watch it, haven't you heard? No, they're not. Well, I know. Every year fewer people watch it. Right. And every year they say, how can we get more people to watch it? I know. And now maybe people watch it this year to see if anyone hits anyone. But other than that... But that's not how bean counters think. They don't think like...

oh gosh, so many fewer people are watching it and maybe we're too woke and they're thinking it still is a bigger audience than we get for almost anything else all year. So we could probably sell some fucking Juergens lotion, right?

I don't really know how many people watch the Academy Awards, but... I know, but they do. They can measure it. We have Nielsen. Right, but every year they say, this is the number of people that watch it. It's unwatchable. It's far fewer than the Lear before. Or it's fantastic if you're bored. If they want people to watch it, they should put it in the Super Bowl because I just read that...

208 million people watched the Super Bowl last year. There are only 300 million people in the country. So that's obviously the thing everyone watches except me. I don't think it was that high. 200 million? 208 million. It said in The Times the other day, 208 million people watched the Super Bowl last year. Just in America? Yes. People only watch American football in America. You know, they don't have it other places. Canada? Canada.

They do. They're interested. I know it's a separate country. And their football teams play in London now. Yeah, but it's still not as big. Not as big, no. Not even close. No. Soccer is much bigger there. No. But I thought, like, why don't they put the Academy Awards in the Super Bowl when everyone's watching it? Oh, I see, like in the middle of the halftime show. Right in the middle, yeah. Like after they have the singer or whatever, then they can have this Academy Awards and then it could be over.

So have you seen any of the movies that are up for the big? None of them? You didn't see Banshees? No. I can't even pronounce it. And when I saw the guy win some other award, I can't think what it was, and I could hardly understand him.

Who? Some Irish actor. Oh, I like them both. Colin Farrell. Yes, I like them, but I can hardly understand them. Brendan Gleeson. Yeah, they're both great actors. Yeah, I mean, I had mixed feelings. You know what I watched the other night? And I watched, it's a three-hour movie, so I watched the first half, like Thursday night. And I was like, oh, I can't stay up for the whole thing. I got the show tomorrow. And so, and I split up movies anyway. But I thought the first half of Babylon was fantastic.

And I told everybody. And then I got home. And you watched the second half. And it's, I still liked it. And I thought he kind of stuck the landing. But I, like almost all movies, it's just so would have been well serviced by cutting out a half hour. And this is true of everything in life. Everything, but especially in art and especially in movies. But the way I feel is like if something seems, I don't care how long it is.

As soon as it seems long to me, I'm done. That could be 10 minutes in. So you don't do streaming at all? No, you need a Wi-Fi connection. Why don't you get that? Because then you have to put another phone line in and you have to be there. I don't care. You don't have to be. I don't care. It's not that I'm against it. You know, all this. I just don't care. I don't care. Okay. I'm just going to say. If I'm home, I read. I don't care. If there's something I really want to see, everyone I know has it, I can go see it there. Oh, my God. I just don't care enough about it. Right. Right.

I mean, I don't understand why it bothers other people so much that I don't have it. It doesn't bother me. But I think because we love you and we want you to... To see the... Well, to think that there's something... If we know something that we think could make you happy, we want you to be happy with it. But, like, you're right. It's not...

completely necessary streaming. And I must say, a propos to the conversation we were just having, the problem I have with streaming is that they make everything into a series. And I'm always watching this shit going, you know, this would be good if you just smushed it down into one decent two-hour movie instead of 14 hours, which I don't have. And you're not worth, you're not worth 14 hours. You're worth two. Well, they call it streaming, but they used to call it soap operas. So a thing that's continuing like that, I never watch.

you know, because I just don't care. Even if I might watch the first few and then I just like, I'm sorry, I'm done. But you are the definition of the cliche voracious reader. I mean, people... Yes, and I never, like, I'm not going to run out of books. I feel like if we...

put a penny in a jar for every time someone in America read during the day and another penny in another jar every time you were reading in the day, the jars would be about equal. Well, if you actually got paid for reading books, I would be fine. I know. But you don't get paid for reading books. Right. And your eyes don't get tired? I actually have horrible problems with my eyesight. And I just had like these operations, not...

cosmetic. And it took, no, no, no. And it took, I don't know, months to get the right eyeglasses for reading. And it was like, I finally got them and now I'm happy again. Oh, good. With the eyeglasses for reading. And what would you do if you couldn't see well enough to read? Would you go braille? You know, that is the one thing that I think I could not bear.

I would find it embarrassing. You know, I mean, not to...

bringing to a sad subject, but suicide is something, the only time I've ever thought of it is if a doctor once said I might be losing my sight. He was wrong, but I thought, I can't do that. I can't do it. Not that I'm a brave person otherwise, but I absolutely can't do it. I couldn't do it. So that would be really, for me, unbearable. Totally unbearable. But one thing I do, I don't want to strike an optimistic note. I mean, when people kill themselves,

And you ask why. They say they were depressed. I realize I've never been depressed. I've been sad, obviously. I've been gloomy. But I've never thought about killing myself. Right. Except when the eye doctor said, you might be losing yourself. I did.

But I realized when I look back, if I got laid once, it would-- It would carry you up. It was when I was 19, like around that time, like right after high school. I had one girlfriend in high school. She dumped my ass. I was like moping for a whole year. And I was just not good with girls. And I was very horny, but not nearly a cathode in the pussy beaker. So I was just-- and I was at Cornell. There was no girls.

I couldn't get them. So I was like suicidal. And I read all these books about suicide and all the quotes. And like I treated it like it was some sort of philosophical question. Let's see, should I kill myself next week? It certainly is something that has occurred to a lot of great minds. And I have read their thoughts on it. And I'm weighing it. And it was just like if one girl had shown me a little of attention, it all would have gone out the window. See, this is why 19-year-olds shouldn't really be allowed to vote. Exactly.

I was reading a letter that I wrote a friend I took on my Hawaii trip this year, and he was a friend from college. And for some reason, I wound up with a letter that I had written him. He must have given it to me years later because it was so funny. And I read this letter. I hadn't seen it in years. And that exact thought crossed my mind.

20-year-olds cannot be allowed to vote. I mean, if you saw this letter, it is just so laugh-out-loud funny. And they shouldn't be allowed to sign contracts, and they shouldn't be allowed to make these decisions, you know, because I cannot think of a single decision I would have come to at the age of 19 that I'd want to be bound to now. But this is really something that I must say applies not exclusively but overwhelmingly to American kids.

I think other children in other countries mature a lot faster. Our kids, college is what high school used to be and not even that. And they're still, you know, very dependent on their parents in many ways, if not financially.

just psychologically, you know, a lot of my mom's my best friend. Well, I mean, that's a real change that happened, you know, in our young lifetime. You know, and I think it was because... I know you're younger than I am, but I can't remember how much younger you are. It doesn't matter. Well, it matters from the point of this conversation. But to anybody 25, like, if we're both over 40, we're in the same category. The fact that there's five years difference between us is meaningless to anyone. Like...

Like someone said to me something about their son. What's he doing? Well, he doesn't know. I said, how old is he? He said, he's only 27. I said, let me explain something to you. By the time my father was 27, he had fought and won World War II. Right. He had gotten married, started a business and had a child. He did not think he was a kid and he wasn't a kid. And he had no doubts what gender he was.

That's a separate issue. My father would not have them now, but my father was the kind of man who would look askance at a man who was maybe wearing a pink shirt. So I mean...

I know exactly what you're talking about. Or my father would look, when we were children, me and my sister, when we were kids, if we saw a man and a woman in a car and the woman was driving, it was like jarred our world. Because my father would never let my mother drive if he was in the car. Really? Never. That's interesting because my grandmother, who was way ahead of her time, she was a single mother in the 20s. My mother...

Didn't know her father. As soon as she was born, he was gone. And that was not the common thing. And she told me, my grandmother told me, when she drove in the 20s, the other men on the street would yell at her from the other cars. Yeah, I'm sure that's true. Yeah. And one of them could have been my father. He didn't care if women drove, but why were they driving if a man was in the car?

Oh, I see. That's where it had advanced into the... Yes. Because this is not the 20s. My mother drove the car all the time because my mother took care of us. But you're not talking about... I'm talking about the 20s. What decade are we talking about where this would happen? 50s. The 50s. 50s. Okay. See? There is progress. Who says America doesn't? And America does progress, by the way. You know, I know it doesn't look like it. It's so easy to be the people who hate everything that happened before more than the next guy. But the truth is that America looks very different than it ever did.

Well, there's a lot of things that are better now. Yeah. You know, I mean, you wouldn't know this, but it is a billion times better to be a girl now than when I was a girl. Right. There you go. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. There's no comparison. Right. I mean, there's not, it's not good. It's not perfect, but it's a billion times better. No, keep talking to me. I mean, there's just, there's no, there's no comparison.

You know, I mean, when I was when I was a girl, if you asked to do something and your parents said no and you say why, the answer very frequently was because you're a girl. Yes. And and the response was, oh, right. I mean, my response wasn't like to start, you know, right. A feminist movement. My response was, oh, right. No. And that was common that, you know.

I just object to this thing. Steven Pinker, I stole this from him. I didn't steal it. I give him credit, but I did a thing about it. He called this...

progressive phobia, that there is something on the left that does not want to admit progress because somehow it equates with, but we should be doing more. Yes, of course, we should always be doing more. Can we just be adults and just imagine that as we begin the conversation, we've already agreed on that, as we have. We should always be doing more. We are not perfect and we are not just enough. There's a lot more work to do, a lot more. And there's this other side of the story which should be celebrated. I mean,

Progressives, it's right in your name. That's what you should be celebrating, progress. Take a fucking... I know we don't agree on this, and I also didn't mention this. But you just said you... I agree on that. Oh. But this, which I'm about to say. I know last night I did a speaking day here in L.A.,

And I take questions from the audience for one hour. First question shouted at me. Why did Bill Maher say this and this and this, which I didn't see you say because I didn't see the show. And he's becoming a conservative. And why? Why is that happening? I said, first of all, I'm not in charge of Bill Maher. OK, like he does not consult me and what his opinions are. But he supposed I said, and second of all, as far as I know, Bill Maher is not Democrat. He's a libertarian. Is that not true?

I don't ascribe to any of those names. I've never formally said I was a Democrat except maybe once when Trump was in office and I was like, "Okay, we can't fuck around anymore, whoever the Democrat is." And look, I voted mostly for the Democrat. I would say more than libertarian, Joe Rogan, I heard him talk about it and very appreciative, he was saying,

You know, old school liberal is really the right term. Well, that's what I am. I always say I'm a very conventional... And it is. And that's a very different thing than woke.

If you want to be ignorant and think being old school liberal is the equivalent of conservative, you're naive about politics and you're just, you're tribal, which is our big problem. No, I'm not a conservative. I'm always going to call it as I see it, always have. And it always has been somewhat from both sides. But yes, the left is nuttier now than they used to be by a good measure. Yes, but the right is much worse. They are too. I agree. No, no, not much worse than they used to be. Much worse than...

And I don't fail to make that point. I was not the one who said, why did Bill Maher say this? And I'm so sorry that you have to answer for me. It's so ridiculous. It just happened that night. Sometimes in the street, people stop me and go, why did Bill Maher say this? And I say, I don't know. Why don't you ask him why he said this? I would say to those people, if you don't have an open mind,

don't watch the show, 'cause that's who I do it for. Really, I could take it. I have lost some audience and they're tribal people and it's fine, you know, it's like Good Riddance. I'm not interested in people like that. I'm interested in people, especially the ones who are like, you know what, I am mostly in the liberal bubble. It probably would be good to hear another point of view. And again, I do most of my material against the right, but doesn't matter. They are in the tribal bubble of where I only wanna hear what I already think I know.

And I don't want to have my side challenged because the other side is so bad. The other side is so bad. I still want to hear the whole truth. I don't. Because it's not the truth. If it was the truth, I would. But I said to someone recently, I didn't used to hate Republicans. I just disagreed with them.

There's a difference, you know, but the people who are Republicans now, I mean, professional Republicans, they're nothing like Republicans used to be. Of course they're not. And they're basically... And neither are the woke. Anything like Democrats. But here's the thing. This woke stuff, I mean...

Like, the reason that it bothers people so much, I think, is because there's a lot of silly stuff attached to it. I agree. Some of it is just silly. It's silly stuff that actually affects a lot of lives. But the center of it is not silly. The center of it is real. I wouldn't call it the center. The past of it. When the word was first out there, it meant alert to injustice. Yes.

Yes, great. No one can argue with that. Certainly not me. Certainly it's been a theme of mine since I was on television beginning in the '90s. So OK, it morphed into something that was an eye roll.

Yes, but not all of it. Not all of it. To me, I don't really care about it. A lot of it. A lot of it is silly. I don't pay attention to the silly. But it's silly that's affecting lives. It's silly that they're teaching children. It would be fine if it was silly and it was a cartoon in a magazine or something, but it's not. It's on a very granular level. Why do you think parents...

Why do you think DeSantis got 60% of the vote? In Florida. In Florida. Florida's not the world. Let me say something. Florida's not the world. It's not the world, but you know what it is? It is an absolutely great epitome of America because it's a little of everything. It's ethnic. It's Jews. It's rednecks. It's the panhandle. You got it all in Florida. It's the Confederacy.

It's not the Confederacy. Okay, it wasn't the Confederacy? South Beach is the Confederacy? No, South Beach is... Okay, well, that's where most of the votes are. Not his votes. Yes, the Redneck Riviera is not only the Confederacy, it's the seat of the Confederacy. There's nothing more Kid Rock-ish than the panhandle of Florida. So to me, there's a difference. I don't care what Kid Rock thinks. He's

He's a great musician, by the way. He may be. But I mean, I don't care one way or the other what he thinks. You know, he's not the governor. No. He doesn't make laws. You know. He does visit the White House when Trump's in office. People, including you, just a few minutes ago, he's a great musician.

Say things like, New York is a bubble. It's a bubble. You have no idea what's going on. New York City, you live in a bubble. I didn't say New York. No, you didn't. I didn't. Oh, I didn't. No, you didn't. There are other people. The people who say New York is a bubble, you don't understand. I always say almost 9 million people live in New York City. Every possible kind of person on the planet Earth lives in New York City.

I take the subway, and sometimes I look around the subway car, and with a gun to my head, I could not identify the race of most of the people in the subway car. Everyone's so mixed up. Everyone's from everywhere in the world. Isn't that great? It's great. But here, to me, is the solution, which I have. The problem with what you want to call the left or whatever is this idea that people have to love each other.

And truthfully, most people like to be with people that are like them. That's what average means. Okay? So I don't care. Be with people that are like you. I mean, I'm not like that because I'm not average. But...

You can be in a subway car in New York, and I can look across, and I can see sitting there is a young girl with a headscarf. Standing next to her is what normal Jews, by which I mean atheists, call the crazy Jews. So standing next to her is a crazy Jew, meaning like a Hassid. They're like three inches apart. If I...

could say to each of these people, do you like this person? Tell the truth. They would say, no, I hate this person. However, they ignore each other. They get off the train. There's no bloodshed. That is the most you can hope for. And that's what you mostly have in New York. I couldn't agree more. And that is New York. And that is America. Again, progressophobia. Let's not have it. I mean, yes. But it's not true. In most of America, people don't care if the person next to them- But certainly more than Karachi.

Come on. You know, I think it's a sad thing that we have to compare ourselves to Karachi. Well, that's kind of insulting to Karachi. No, it's like when that thing happened in Brazil and they said, it's just like Brazil's January 6th. All we have to compare ourselves to is other countries and other places in the world. And compared to not just Karachi, but almost all other places, that doesn't happen where the three people are on the subway and it isn't a fucking riot or it just wouldn't happen.

And certainly you couldn't be an atheist in many countries. That would be blasphemy. And there's many places in this country where you can't be an atheist. Oh, stop it. Many places. Christopher Hitchens used to say his favorite places to go tour was the South. This is when he was Mr. Atheist because the atheists would come out of the woodwork. You really think that you can't be an atheist in Alabama? Well.

Well, you know, I would always be happy when Christopher Hitchens was not in New York. Really? You don't like him? So he could say these deliberately provocative things which he may or may not have believed in order to attract attention to himself. Okay. Now, Eric Adams, I let pass, but you are... I know men love Christopher Hitchens. I'm aware of that.

I love the way you cast it as a male thing. It's a totally male thing. Me Tarzan, me love Hitchens. No, because once a friend of Hitchens said to me, you know, I don't understand why you don't like Hitchens. And I said, name one woman who's a friend of Christopher Hitchens. And he said, he has, I said, I'm not saying name one woman that's slept with Christopher Hitchens. I know he's supposed to be very attractive to women. I'm not talking about that. A friend.

Name one woman friend. No one could name one woman friend.

I find that very surprising. Christopher Hitchens was attracted to women? Yes. To some women. No, I'm sure. Okay, so maybe this is a male thing. It's like The Godfather. Do you like The Godfather? You mean the movie? Yeah. Yes. Okay. But it's a movie. But if you ask me if I would like to live next door to an actual Godfather, no. No one would like that. No, I would not. I'm just saying, men generally like The Godfather and women generally do not. Is that true? Yeah, absolutely. I thought everyone liked The Godfather. I thought so too, but no. No.

A lot of women, you're just like, you know, you never saw the guy. No, no, no. It's just, you know, it's violent. And I don't know. I don't know. It's just a male thing. I didn't even know that. Yeah. But Christopher Hitchens, I did not know. Now, I certainly have heard him castigated as a sexist. Yeah. Right? And that's part of what bothers you about him? I wouldn't say part. You know, I mean...

I mean, one of the things that that makes you is extremely old-fashioned. Me? No. Him? One. Okay? One of the things that makes one, a man who is described by other men as sexist, one of the things that makes a man that is to be very old-fashioned, very conventional, very old-fashioned, and that's what he seemed like to me. And also very British, like a particular British way of being. Have you read him? Yeah. Luckily not recently. Okay.

You have to admit, he had a way with words. He was very articulate. You know, I mean, extremely articulate. Great writer. And this is true of almost all English people. Yes, I agree. And so I don't give them that much credit, you know, because I always say it's their language. They invented it. They're much better with it than anyone else. It's true, but not at that level.

Well, no, but there are more English writers at that level than American writers. And that can't be just talent. That is their language. But if we have a scale of, let's say, you and Chris Fritch and then TikTok. All right. Yes, I give you that. But I'm saying we're talking about a human population now that

Reading, as you know, that's gone. It's just scrolling. I don't agree with you that it is. Well, except for a very small percentage. If you write a novel and it sells 50,000 copies, that's a big hit. 50,000 in a country of 300 million? No, that's completely true. I mean, if it's a good novel, I wouldn't sell 50,000. Very few. Yes. And the ones that do are by Robert Ludlum. Yes. No, I agree with you. Okay. But that is...

in a way, almost always been the case, Bill. It's that, you know, popular, when people, everyone read novels, there was no other form of entertainment. In other words, once radio came, fewer people read novels. Yes, you're right. And once movies came, fewer people read novels. And then television, fewer people read novels. You know, and that's always been true. And novels that generally, there have been some great novels that sell a lot, but generally, novels that sell huge amounts are not very good. They're just very entertaining. Have you ever seen TikTok?

most people shown it to me yeah isn't it amazing you know i don't care about this i don't i know but like the fact that people are just all day doing this and and like i've looked at it and like i can watch

cute, funny dogs and cats. I mean, if you really just put me in a room, I could drool my life away, like, looking at this shit. It is amusing. But I purposely, just the way I would put down a giant piece of cake,

I just put it aside. And I'm like, OK, I could. And yet this apparently seems to be a level of discipline that eludes. And I'm trying to big myself up on this. I'm just saying I don't think I'm doing anything that outrageously great. But other people can't seem to pull this off. And they are just mesmerized by not just that app.

But all I mean I get your thing about the phone although you know also you could have a phone and just not use this bullshit part and just used it as a to talk and

But I don't want to talk. Well, we're talking now. No, no. Yes, but you're here. I'm here. Or I have a phone in my apartment. People say, you don't have a phone. I say, yes, I have one in my apartment. Oh, you mean a landline? Yes. You know, I mean a phone that works, first of all. You know, on my phone, my landline, no one's ever saying, I can't hear you. Wait a minute. I'm losing you. I have a phone in my apartment. It's sufficient for me. People I know...

you know, always like mad at me. I can't reach you. And I always say, it doesn't matter. I can't help you. In other words, I don't have to be reached in an emergency. I'm not a doctor. There's nothing I can do. If you need help, don't call me because I don't have the skills. Right? Like I cannot save you. No matter what is wrong with you, call someone who knows how to save you. That is not me. I don't need to be reached. Things like TikTok and stuff like that, you're talking about kids mostly who do this all the time, right? Right.

No, it's not just kids. TikTok has taken over. And you know it's a Chinese company, right? I know it's a Chinese company. I mean, it would be the equivalent of, in 1968, Chairman Mao running CBS. No, seriously. Well, I don't have it because I don't have the thing. I know they banned it in certain places. They shut it off. Apparently in government phones now you can't get it. It's... You know, I mean, I...

Well, I mean... There's nothing we can do about this. You know, I think, you know, there's certain things that maybe can be fixed, but that's not going to be one of them. Kids, you said it before, they know nothing about anything. They don't, they, and again, not to indict the education system, but I mean, what else conclusion can you draw? They just let kids out of school without knowing anything. There is nothing that you can...

I've seen these videos, like where they're men on the street kind, and they're saying to people at the mall or wherever, 19-year-olds, you know, when did America start? I don't know. Take a guess. 1901? You know, like... Well, Jay Leno used to do that, remember? Yes. Jaywalking. Right. Yes, same bit. How many people are on the Supreme Court? Four?

How many planets are... But I always, you know, before I had the opportunity to ask him, I thought they deliberately picked out the people who didn't know this. And he assured me that was not the case.

Look, all videos are edited. So they talk to 50 people. Of course they're going to use the 20 funniest ones. Jay, that thing was more, I think, indicative because I don't think those people were pre-screened that way. It's like, oh, we're going to get the four idiots in the audience. Right, that's what he said. He said that they just... Right. They actually didn't. I believe him that they didn't. That's the fault of the school system. There's no question. That's the fault of the school system. How could it... I mean, that is...

That is criminal. That is because at a certain point, you know, the education system may be connected to the fact that we were saying earlier, perhaps we were actually filming. I was unaware when we started. So I don't, maybe this is already on this. When I was a child, which is before you were one, no one ever asked a child a question because what would a child know?

Morning to night, all you got was instructions. In my house and almost all houses, it was nonstop instructions. And in my house, a lot of it was grammar.

My mother was constantly correcting my grammar nonstop to the point at which I do this in my head. My mother is dead. I am old. I'm much older than my mother was when she was telling me this stuff. It's nonstop in my head to the point where this actually happened to me. I was walking across Washington Square Park, not in the park, but across on the street. And it was like three o'clock in the morning. And coming toward me was a very tough looking guy, like a guy who had

a tattoo of barbed wire around his neck. The kind of person that you don't want to get into an argument with this guy. And you take that as a sign. That's a sign of someone I'm not going to get in an argument with. So he's walking toward me and we're walking toward each other and

They were renovating Washington Square Park, which is like every five years they take more trees out of it. And there were a lot of mice, which I am terrified of any rodent. I'd rather have a wolf in my apartment than a mouse. So a mouse ran across my foot. And I screamed as if like a bear was coming toward me. Like in a comic. Yes, like that. And this guy like laughed. And he said, oh, what happened? Did one of those little mouses run across your foot?

And I said, mais.

And he turned around and looked at me. And he said, what? And I said, the plural of mouse is mice, not mouses. And luckily, the guy clearly thought this woman is nuts and kept walking. So I thought, like, I am a person who contradicts and corrects the grammar of a clearly dangerous 20-year-old thug because it's in my head. So this is what my childhood was like. I would say to my mother,

can I please have an apple? She would say, may I please have an apple? I would say, may I please have an apple? She would say no. Now that's an entirely different person that grows up from that. So they stopped teaching. Grammar is a very, very boring thing to learn. The only way to learn grammar is by memorizing millions of rules. You can't make it entertaining or fun or interesting. You can't make it be about you. It's just about these rules which are actually totally arbitrary. So they stopped teaching it.

And that is why people make these mistakes. - But the provenance of this problem is parenting. Because as we were alluding to before, and yes, we've been on since the second you sat down, in our day, the big difference in schooling was the parents and the teachers-- - Were on the same team. - An iron triangle. - Yes. - Or biangle, whatever it was. - When I got in trouble in school,

you then got in trouble at home. - Exactly. - Now you get in trouble at school, the parents sue the school. - Exactly. - Yes. - Exactly. - Because it was not the, then it was the children against the adults. You know, not my child and me against. - I'm just saying, to the average voter, whether it's in Florida or whatever city you're talking about in America, the average guy you were saying before who doesn't whatever you were saying, that guy,

who doesn't follow politics closely he's gonna go that kind of yeah i think desantis will stand up to that it means to grammar to to parents uh not being uh on the side of the teachers

Well, there's also this idea, which I believe you seem to share in some way, that the teachers' union is some malevolent force. It's not a malevolent force, but it has created a lot of malevolence because it's produced...

A lot of children who don't know anything. Again, I'm trying to trace this back to what we are agreeing on. Kids don't know anything. Where did that start? Whose fault is that mainly? Obviously, there's a lot of blame to go around, but not insisting that kids know anything when they get out of school. I got to say. Parents like that. They want to be friends with their children.

So my mother used to say to me all the time, without the slightest bit of irony, I'm not your friend. I'm your mother. Like I could mistake her for someone who liked me. That seems like more of a thing that the people are going to think is in the blue bin. It's not true. It's partly true. It is not true.

No, these parents who are hysterical that their children might learn about evolution, you know, they are wrong. Yeah, that's true, too. OK, they're wrong. But they're definitely they're certainly seen. Maybe they're not, but they're certainly seen as the side of the country that's more into traditional values and discipline.

And a lot of it is religious in nature, Bill. Some of it is. A lot of it is. Okay. And I really object to that. You know, homeschooling, which should not be allowed, homeschooling, a lot of it is so half the schooling, if you want to call it that, is about religion. But they've studied this. And a lot of times the kids who are homeschooled actually wind up knowing more than the kids who went to regular high school because those kids didn't learn anything. They

That's possible. But some people are homeschooled from the very beginning. No, I know. And obviously, mostly the homeschooled are being inculcated with religious stuff, but they're going to get that at home anyway. You know which schools actually do the best these days? Catholic schools. And trust me, as an old Catholic who fucking hated catechism more than anything else in my life ever...

at least Catholic schools still like teach kids the basics. So a lot of people who are not Catholics want their kids to go to Catholic school. And they just tell them, you know, when they start in on the Jesus bullshit, just tune that shit out. But then they're going to teach you grammar and math. You know, I have a list.

it's very short, of people that I know who went to Catholic school. Now, I mean people my age. So people my age who went to Catholic school really learned grammar because if you were my age, the nuns were allowed to hit you then. And being hit is the way you learn grammar. - I was hit by nuns. - It's so boring, grammar, and so it doesn't make any sense. You can't like logically figure it out. So I know this one guy who went to Catholic school from kindergarten right through college.

Like he's a grammar expert. He knows every possible thing. And that's the only way you learn grammar. So you have to compel people to learn it. And so since we don't compel people to do things anymore in that way, so it's one thing to say we should compel people to learn grammar, which I believe we should. And it's another thing to say we should compel people to believe things that are patently not true, which is many things from the right bill, patently untrue.

I couldn't agree more, and I never shy away from making that point. I'm just putting the salt and the pepper together to make a balanced meal. And by the way, I read Strunk and White every year. And it's very helpful.

And then not to be too privileged, I read Strunk and Black. No. But, you know, I went to Cornell, and that's where that was written. I know that. What was it? Strunk was the professor, and E.B. White was the student, right? And when you went to Cornell, it was all boys, no, right? It was close to all boys. It certainly was in my circle, and not by choice. I was what they would call today an incel. Are you familiar with the incels?

I know what they are. I hope I'm not familiar with it. I know who they are. They used to be just unlucky and now they shoot people. Well,

Well, it stands for involuntarily celibate. Just the idea that they would fucking name themselves and start a movement. When I was one, because I certainly was one, the last thing I ever wanted was to be part of a group of other losers. But you also didn't think it entitled you to go into a Walmart and shoot people. Yeah. Well, most of them are not doing that. I don't know.

No, most of them are not doing that, but many people who do do that are those people. And that is, they don't like look down on them. Many of them don't look down on the people who shoot. There was a guy in Santa Barbara. I remember this. Yes. He drove down the street shooting at people? Correct, in a Mercedes. Right. He was a nice looking guy. He was just at that age, and I remember that age.

where you can't get laid because you're bad at that as you are at everything at 19 because you're just at the very infancy of your adulthood. So just like in your real infancy, you're smaller than everybody, at least in stature and life. You're powerless. You know less. You're just a fucking idiot about everything and you're going to be bad at everything. And I was bad at that and these guys are bad at that. But the difference is this guy...

Nice looking guy in a Mercedes just took it upon himself to take this out on the people who really deserve the whooping for this and shoot some women who I guess turned him down at a party or something. I think they were random. I mean, this was several years ago. I remember it. This was like 10 years ago, yeah.

He just... He went to school there. Yeah. Right. And again, a very privileged area, Santa Barbara. Extremely. I went... I did a speaking day there several years ago, and I had never been there before. It was in Montecito. And... Or Montecito, however you say it. And someone in the audience said, what do you think of Montecito? And I said...

It makes Beverly Hills look like Detroit. Is that true? It is true. It's like you cannot believe. First of all, just the lavishness of the natural environment. It's so psychotically beautiful that you can't believe this is like a real place. Really? I got to get up there. It's really beautiful. It's really beautiful. Is that why Prince Harry moved there?

Is that why he moved there? I'm guessing. No, I think he moved there because she told him to. I doubt he had heard of it. What is your opinion on Prince Harry? Well, here's my opinion. Well, first of all, here's my first observation. I say to people, can you imagine a family where William's the smart one? Okay, so that's the family. He's not an idiot. Who, Prince Harry? Prince William.

Prince Harry's not an idiot either. But and look, he served in Afghanistan. He says he killed 25 Afghanistan Afghanis. The rest of the wedding went off without a hitch. I saw that. But no, but I like the whining. It really annoys me. I'm sorry. This is like this is a spoiled Brad Bion belief. I watched the interview he did with Anderson on 60 Minutes.

And, you know, I like Anderson. He's actually a really good journalist. A lot of people dismiss him because he does that silly stuff with Andy Cohen, but he is a real journalist. And I've developed this habit since Trump of actually yelling at my television set. I know it's idiotic, but it just... And so he asked him, I mean, Anderson asked Prince Harry, well, then why don't you, after he was like, you know,

whining about how horrible the royal family was, that life was impossible, my brother hit me, my father was mean to me. I felt like he acted like he was in a Syrian refugee camp. And then Anderson said, well, then why don't you give up your title? And Prince Harry said in a very princely manner, what good would that do Anderson?

And I was like, Anderson should have said, well, because you're not here because your name is Harry. You're here because your name is Prince. And if you're complaining constantly about too much media attention, the place to do would not be 60 Minutes. I couldn't agree with that more. All of that.

And he could have also said John Lennon returned his Medal of the British Empire. You can renounce these things. Yes, you can. But then you can't get a 16 minutes. No. Because there's a lot of people named Harry and they're not on. But that's the only thing that gives him saving grace with me because I do think he's a whiner and a horrible hypocrite and just go away. But anybody who was a prince who still went to war, I mean, I thought it was a silly war to be in.

But I'm sure there were some. But he said he liked being in war. I said I liked being. No, no, he did. Oh, he did. He did? Yes, he said it was the only time he felt he had a purpose. Right. And that people treated him like everyone else. Although I do seem to remember, I could be wrong, that at a certain point they pulled him out of wherever he was. Well, they let him get his 25 kills. Yeah.

I don't know if that's a lot or a little, you know. Well, isn't that kind of a backhanded slap to the wife if you say this, the only time I felt like I was worth a damn? I thought the wife was the person who, like, upped him up so he felt like he could leave the royal family and be his own man, and no? I don't know. I don't know them. I do not know them, even though someone who, a woman who works in my building, there are many people who,

We originally started on that Netflix, which is all over the world. And someone who works in my building was leaving, and I was talking to her, and she said, tonight is Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on Netflix. I said, oh. She said, you're going to watch it, right? I said, no. She said, no? She said... I said, you're going to watch it? Yes. She said...

I said, do you like them? Oh, I love them. I said, oh, you like them? I said, no. She said, but you know them. I said, no. She said, yes, you know them. I said, of course I know them. How would I know them? She said, from Netflix.

So I said, Netflix is not a place. It's not like she had in her mind. I said, yes, it's a place. It's like a bar. We all go there. All eight billion people on Netflix. And every night when you go to a different bar, we go to Netflix and we hang out. And that's where I see Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. I always love it when Russell Crowe has a movie on Netflix because then we can have a drink together at the cafeteria. Yeah.

Who is this woman? She works in the building. She's a... She's a... She believed that this is a place where I would know Prince Harry and Meghan Markle from. People. The problem that will go away. Yes.

All right, well, I'm going to release you back into the wild. Well, thank you very much. It's a delightful place you have here, Bill. Any place is delightful when I get to sit down and talk to you. Remember San Francisco? We'll always have San Francisco. It was Silicon Valley. What was it? Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley. Yeah. It was three nights. What year was that? 2017 or something?

I don't remember. I don't remember, but it was like three nights at the same theater. Yes, three nights. It was fun. It was fun. It's always fun to be with you. What are you doing now? I'm having dinner with some millennials. You'll love it. Oh, I'm having dinner with someone. You always do this. I've told you a million times. I'd love to have dinner with you. You have to tell me before dinner time. I can't spring you one over. You're one of a kind. Thank you.