May 14, 2024 • 49 mins
Meet Craig’s friend Tom Straw. Straw published his first mystery novel, The Trigger Episode, in 2007. Subsequently, writing as Richard Castle, he authored seven more crime novels, all of which became New York Times Bestsellers. Buzz Killer is Tom Straw’s first book under his own name since that blockbuster Nikki Heat series. He is also an Emmy- and Writer’s Guild of America-nominated TV writer and producer having written and produced Night Court, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Dave’s World, Grace Under Fire, Cosby, Whoopi, and Nurse Jackie. A former National Board member of Mystery Writers of America, he lives in Connecticut, where his home is his castle. He also has a connection with Craig’s old Late Late show, you can learn more about it in the episode. Check out Tom's new book: THE ACCIDENTAL JOE The Top Secret Life of a Celebrity Chef which is little bit like “What if Anthony Bourdain were using his travel show as cover to spy for the CIA?” Go buy it here.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout
twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets,
go to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour.
See you out there, the Greig Ferguson show dot Com
slash Tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of
this podcast is Joy. I talked to interest in people
(00:23):
about what brings them happiness. Welcome to my conversation with
Tom Straw. Now, I'll be honest with you. It's not
my first conversation with Tom. He was a writer on
my old late night show and I've known him for
many years. He's a very clever, intelligent and funny man.
As you're about to find out, Ed Begley was on
(00:52):
the Ed Begley Junior Because I've never met Ed Begley Senior,
but Ed Begley Jr. Was on the podcast and he
told me, Has Parkinson's you've worked.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
With Ed with Ed. I had the great pleasure of
working with Ed on a pilot. When I see the
nicest guy into a business, it is terribly nice. I'm
or Henry Winkler. It was either Ed Bagley, Joel or Henry.
We did some stuff with Henry Winkler on the Late
Late Show. Yeah, but Ed was in a pilot that
I did at Castle Rock when I was there back
in the Castle Rook. Yeah, that was the Rob Reiner's company.
(01:21):
And yeah, they made a little show called Seinfeld. You
may have heard of. Nah, No, I didn't get it.
Is that still on side? Felt relentlessly? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
You of course are you do you don't have any
of that sweet sign field money?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
No, No, I have a story of somebody who lost
a lot of it. But help me. Yeah, I can't
mention names, all right, I'll put the names in, Okay. Later.
There was a guy I knew very well and he
had points. You know how points work, right it?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Points are a percentage of the of the game, the mood,
the profits, right right.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
He had fifteen points in Seinfeld. He's a writer or
a producer. You've got to be at fifteen points. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
And again no names, I'll try to avoid too much context.
But he had fifteen percent of the bank vault, right,
that's huge. As you may know, Seinfeld was on the
bubble when it started. It wasn't it almost yeah, make it. Yeah,
(02:20):
that's right. Yeah, And he ran into some financial needs,
family loss, and so he went back into the boss
at Castle Rock and I said, I'd like to sell
my points back. And the boss, who's still a friend
of mine, great guy, he said, never give your points back.
And he said, I really need to get a new
(02:41):
house and because my family's expanding and all that. So
he sold it for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Man,
because it's got to be that'd be worth like one
hundred million dollars. Yeah, I mean that's the big few money. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
They think about few money though that I've known as
I got a little bit of it myself, Bacon.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yes, it really can. You people don't know that about
a few money. It can.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
It's like when people win the lottery, you know, and
they say and then suddenly within five years there you know,
their lives are trashed in there.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
You know it's a double It's the worst good news
you can get, Isn't it weird?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I mean, because because you think money is going to
solve all your problems, it doesn't bring joy. It does
not bring joy that you tie the end of the
podcast home, Well, I'm going to do that because I
you know, yes, and I'm a big fan of this podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I noticed you're sponsored by Bacon. Bacon, Bacon. The ads
are great, sponsored by Bacon sponsors, just Bacon. I love bacon.
And I said, I've got to see Craig today. Yeah,
so here I am, because you're sponsored by Bacon.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
No, no Francis Bacon, No, no, just no bacon.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Even Kevin Bacon. There's not even six degrees a separation.
It's just bacon. And you're It's all over you. I mean,
every break, the yank dank dank dank dunk comes and
then there's some guy talking about bacon, wow, and how
good it is. You know, I don't eat bacon. I
didn't know that, but I don't eat that. Oh really No,
(04:12):
I don't need Can I finish yours? Then? Yeah, you
could have my bacon.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
The giant play of bacon that's in front of so
provided by our sponsor, Bacon.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
He doesn't eat it, but he's wearing a bacon suit.
I do wear bacon. I do wear a lot of bacon.
That is true.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Now, listen, you and I worked together. I first became
aware of you when somebody said, Tom Straw will come
and work on your show. And I'm like, Tom Straw,
the writer from of sitcoms, will come and work on
the show.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Now. You came and worked on the late night show
because you wanted to do it.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Right, I did. You're the only guy. I didn't even
want to do it. I just did it because I
needed a job that kept me in town. You were
the only guy that wanted to be on the old
late night show.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I was a huge fan of the show when you
took it over, and it was like it was a
late night staple for my wife and we would stay
so cool and and the phrase that she would always
use is, you know that Craig Ferguson's really coming into
his own and so that kind of became our code.
But I was such a huge fan of the show,
(05:13):
and you know, I part of joy for me is
doing things I've never done before, to do the scary
thing and to never having worked on that kind of format.
I know because I knew.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
I knew of you because I had worked in sitcom
in the nighties, I had worked on the New Carry Show,
and you were doing Grace under Fire right.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yes, I was the aptly.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Named yes, which was with Brett Butler. Brett Butler, Yeah,
but yeah, I worked in sitcom for years.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I mean I would. I did Night Court right right?
You didn't do the reboot? Did you do the rebook?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
No?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I did not. I did have a conversation prior to
it with our mutual friend John Lara Katt. Oh. Yeah,
I love Lara. I haven't seen him in years. Where
the hell is he? He's living in southern Washington state,
right across the river from Portlan, Oregon. Okay, is he smoking? No,
he's he's he's totally clean. Yeah. Yeah, here's an insight
(06:07):
into John. I hope he wouldn't mind me telling this story.
But he went to a photo expo one day. He
showed up at the table reading and he's got like
eight cameras And I said eight cameras. He says, you
don't understand. When I was drinking, I wanted all the drinks.
He did. Now I want all the cameras.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, he wanted. I was the same when I was drinking.
I wanted all the all the drink, all the drugs.
He's a dear man, though, and is a great and
whip smart. He's a huge bibliophile. He also likes books. Yeah,
well that's good.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, but that would be like a thing for us,
Like we would sometimes meet for lunch at like Musso
and Frank and then he would take me to these
antiquarian bookstores and introduce me to Bokowski who was dead
but these books were was moldering in the.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Corner or was unsure that he was dead? Yeah, he
still had wanted all the drinks as well apart. Yes,
did you ever meet?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
No? No, I'd be afraid to now, Well, he'd be
a zombie. No, yeah, I know I'd be afraid to be.
Would you Do you ever worry about Zoe Bees?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I don't that much, but I feel like I should
bring it up now that we're on the subject.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
There are times that I see people and I think undead, classified, undead,
I've been.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I think I've been a zombie at that point in
my life. So, so you were working in set Calm.
Then how did you get into set Calm? So because
you worked in radio? Right, I worked in radio? And uh,
I worked in radio while I was still in high school.
I had Uh where'd you go to high school?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I went to Birmingham High School in Vanus, California, right
public school.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I didn't know you were California for some reason. I
was you were in the East Coast. I am, you know,
I'm I'm by biker. But I had a mentor, Gary Owens.
Do you remember Gary Owens from Laughing with the hand
over the air? Yeah, he was my radio hero. But
I called him up one day.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I just put on my big boy pants and I
called him one day at the radio station and I said,
mister Owens, wow, you were you were that young? Yeah,
you got a little have with a helicopter thing on it.
Better put a seatbelt on that way. But I called
him up and I said, I want to be in
radio and I have my vocation. Teacher said I should
talk to somebody in radio. And he said, will Tom
(08:11):
come on down to the radio station on Thursday and
you can watch me do my show. I mean, what
a great guy, right right? Yeah, And so he mentored
me into radio. I got a job. I started a
radio station at my high school, which was just speakers
who wasn't on the air. But I made a tape
of one of those and I took it to a
coffee pot radio station in Van Eyes and they hired me.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
What's a coffee pot radio station? Tiny little place all
right with they have a coffee pot.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah, it's basically like the right so it snakes and
small little joint. But it was right on the dial
next to Shadow Stevens on CAMMI te Shadows Food on
the podcast, And so the kids thought I was on
Cammy Tea because they weren't paying attention to the dial
because he was a big radio start. But anyway, through
my radio career, I had a buddy, Ken Levine. And Ken,
(08:55):
I've had a lot of people could do good things
for me. But Ken mentored me into becoming a screenwriter
because he and I got fired a week before Christmas
at a radio station in San Diego. Yeah, he said,
screw it, I'm gonna I don't care if I have
to sell ties at the May Company. I Am going
to be a TV writer. And he had a partner
who he was writing with and they produced a show
called Mash Right that's a fairly that was a fairly
(09:17):
successful television Yeah, and he has a he has an
Emmy for Cheers also did pretty well. Yeah, and he
and he worked on Frasier and uh, you know he.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
He he he's no, Yeah, that's but anyway, he helped
me learn how to write a script and got me
my first two jobs.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So what was your first job? And Secom Then it
was on after Mash? Oh wow, that that one. Yeah. Yeah,
it's kind of like I like to say, you know
how Purina has dog chow, but then they have monkey
chow and horse chow. Do you know what I like?
Do you know how you get pringles? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Right, so pringles and there and their little kind of
phrases once you pop you can't stop. Yes, well they
have no golf springles called prongle, right, prongles, brouncles. Their
mud was once you pope. That's great, that's the B team.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah. I love that kind of thing. All right. So
you're working on after Mass, after Mash, and then I
wrote a freelance script for Benson if you remember that show?
Do you remember Benson? Yeah, that was a spin off
of Soap right, yeah, And they offered me a staff
job on the show based on the script I turned in.
Name the Acts of Robert Robert Gillum, Yeah, fabulous actor,
(10:30):
very funny man. I called Ken. They said, hey, congratulate me.
I got an offer too, and he says, don't take it.
And I said, why not? He says, because David, that's
his writing partner, David Isaac's. We just sold a pilot
starring Mary Tyler Moore to CBS, and we'd like you
to be on our show. But this is this is
kind of a modeling story. But I think they'll enjoy it.
(10:51):
They said, but we can't commit to hiring you until
we clear certain hurdles with paperwork at the studio. So
can you hang on? Can you buy some time and
not really do anything until with Benson? Until for a week? Right?
And I said, I don't know I'm going to do that.
And I called my agent. It was pre Nancy ruses,
Nancy Josephson. We should full disclosure. Is your agent and
(11:13):
my agent. That's high.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
It been for about I think five hundred years in
my case, hasn't know how long for you? Twenty eight,
twenty eight. She's the best agent in Hollywood. You know,
I love that woman. She's the greatest agent in Hollywood.
She just hands down the best one there is.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I could go on and on, yeah, but I won't
because I'm going to get back to this story about
having to stall that's what makes you a professional. So
I called my then agent right and said, hey, here's
the deal. I laid out the thing. I said, I
need to somehow stall Benson so they don't get mad
and both shows go away for me, right, And he said,
I'll do what I can. The business affairs person who
(11:48):
handled Benson right, he was called the Iron Major. He
was a very tough ast agent out there. All right.
My agent calls me back two hours later and he said,
the Iron age or dropped dead at lunch today. What
he said, how's that for a stall? Wow? He really died?
He died. So I called my agent asking for a stall,
(12:09):
and hours later the person held the you know, hold
the button down. It remind me to give you wherever
you want. But that was Wasn't that astonishing? And I'm crazy?
So did But then did you? Did you end up
on Benson?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
No?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I ended up going with Kennon David onto Mary Tied.
It was called Mary on CBS. It was the first
sitcom for Katie sigal right. It had they also a
great woman. Oh she's terrific. Yeah, amazing John Ashton, Yeah,
I was just thinking it was.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
A John Aston shown Aston showing Aston Johnston Joson Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And and uh, I don't know anyway, I won't go through
all the whole cast. But it was a great thing.
It was and it was a wonderful experience. The show
only went thirteen weeks.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
That's no unhaired of my first sick call in America
went thirteen weeks. But I quit after ten I think,
or maybe no, I quit after thirteen, but they get
picked up for another nine.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
But White, yeah, yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I loved doing I loved working with Betty and Betty
and I, as you know, stayed friends for the rest
of her life. But making the show, it was my
first sitcom in America, and I was like eighth Banana
and I did.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Not enjoy it. And you had a movie you were
making too. You didn't that really make shaving Grace, wasn't that? No?
That was later. That's when I was doing the Drew
Kerry Show.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
That's when when I was more comfortable being eighth Banana
because I had figured out how to film my day right,
Because I think, what people if you don't work in
as an actor, and most people don't eat, most actors
don't work as an actor.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
If you don't work.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
As a night, you don't realize how much just sitting
on your ass doing nothing there is all day long.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I can't do that. I can't do it.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So I started writing sc when I got the job
on the Drew Kry Show. I had written my own
stand up for years, and I thought, well, and I
was reading screenplays as you do, you know, as people
used to write screenplays before I read them, so I
can steal from them. Well, that was my plan. But
as I read them, I went, these are garbage. And
these were movies that were getting made garbage, And I thought,
(14:16):
I can't I don't know if I can write any
better than this, but there's no way in hell I
can write anything worse than this. So and these things
are getting made. So that's when I started writing. And
lo and behold, they did get made, you know. I mean, well,
I think there's.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Also a certain thing here about being underutilized. I mean,
when you know, when you have higher aspirations and also
the chops to deliver those aspirations. Yeah, you see yourself
sitting in a trailer, waiting and waiting, and you come
out and you do lines and then not those lines. Well, no, no,
By then I stopped doing those kind of lines. But
I think it's interesting to trace your path to all
(14:50):
the polymath that you are, all the things that you
the same though, I mean you're the same.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And it's like because the reason why I'm kind of
steering you this way is that I find and this
is definitely what you've done that when soup comes to
nuts and you know, and the great wheel of time.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Moves you know, Fortuna's whale.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And the you know, the and when the dog of
history lady does a poop on the side of the road.
Oh yes, It's always about the right, It's always about
the writing is the freedom. I just to think the
stand up was the freedom, but the stand up is not.
I thought it was, but it's not. For that is
freedom of performance, but actual full blown artistic, mental, emotional,
(15:35):
and spiritual freedom. I think for me anyways, in writing,
and I know that is that it's got to be
that for you because you went back to writing books
after we finished in the late night, right and still.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Right, yeah, and you know that that was thank you
for mentioning that. But you know, for me, the joy
of writing in many forms is for instance, when I
did the late light show right at the conference table
ten in the morning for us to talk out our
day and all that stuff. And we'd go off into
our sketches and you know, we'd pretend to be working right,
(16:07):
and and we do the show, skeleton, robot, all that stuff. Yeah,
six o'clock, we're done. There's no post production, that's true.
And I would go home. Yeah, and I would have dinner.
When I say home, I'm talking about the Oakwood apartments.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah, because you were you were eleven. You and your
wife Arelevin in the East Coast, and you used to
commute to come and work.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, once a month, I would fly to la and
spend a month there, and then I'd fly back and
spend a week of our hatus. That's a that's a
lot of pressure on the it is and it was,
but you know we're strong and we're still you know, happy,
and yeah. Well, I'll do a little sidebar here and
talk about the number of occasions that you would come
to me right before the show and say, Hey, Tom,
(16:50):
I have a plane leaving Van Eyed Airport for the
East Coast. You want to hitch a ride and come
home for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, And I would go that, Craig, but it was great. Yeah,
after the time almost crashed. Yeah, there was that time
that was in white Plans.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, that was when people started vrolfing. That was not
a lot of fun. I still think about that sometimes.
Oh that was that was the most harrowing flight I've
ever had in my life. Yeah, it was pretty hary.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
The Craike Ferguson Fancy Rascal stand up to He continues
throughout the United States in twenty twenty four. For a
full list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig
fergusonshow dot com slash tour.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
See you have there. But anyway, what I would do
then so I would go back to the oak Wood
and uh, you know, call my wife, you know, before
she went to bed because she was on East Coast time. Yeah,
and then I would write my Castle book. I'd start
about nine pm.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
That's right, of course, because you were writing the Castle
Books at the same time, right, So do you know
take credit for the Castle books.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I am able to take. I'm able to. I wrote
the first seven of the Nikky Heats, right, and I
paid my lawyers to find out if I could do this. Yes,
I can now take off the mask and say it
was me as long as I you know, the first
there's those those ones I did. But I would write
from nine pm till about three am, right, and then
go to bed. Okay, get up at six and hit
(18:18):
the internet so I can have topicals, you know, topical
things to pitch at the table, sleep in three hours
a night. Yeah, couldn't you tell? Yeah? I was going
to say, you look younger than you did. Together. My
work habits were poort, weren't they. No, I'm kidding, but no,
you you were. You were a fiend.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I mean you used to work all the time, and
you were part of the team that come up with
Jeff Peters in the rule Boat, you come up with Secretariat,
the Dance and horse and all that, all of the
classic bets from our show.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
You were in part of all of that. Thank you.
I remember something you said, and it's one of those
little tapes I play in my head. Is that that
Tommy's always on the clock.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
That's one of the things he was saying. But it's
you know, you do the work, yes, like what you
the way you started this thread. I take my pleasure
in the work, Yes, And I can be and this
can be recent in the past year. I can be writing,
like working on a manuscript for a book, and I'll
get an email or a phone call with bad news,
(19:14):
right and damn, oh oh show business, cruel and biscuits. Yeah,
I'll go back and I'll hang up the phone. I'll
take five minutes to kind of cleanse, and then I
will just go back to writing. Same thing when I
get great news, because that's the real thing. The writing
is where it's at.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
It's it's certainly the place where you can escape most
of all. The first time I ever wrote anything away
from vulgar vaudevillian stuff. Yes, that I've written was a
book called Between the Bridge and the River, which is
a novel.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I wrote thank you, And that book was in reactions
because I just made a movie that had steffed and
I was so frustrated with it because I'd written this movie.
I started in this movie, I directed this movie. I
was a producer in this movie. I didn't like it.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
So it was like, oh, man, but I have to
say to you, because this this is before you and
I met. Yeah, I read your novel and I thought
to myself, that's the same guy who does that. Yeah,
and it was just like the Snake Handlers and spring Style.
I mean, I can remember it very vividly because it
was so very it really caught hold of me. It
(20:27):
was a great book. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
It's an interesting thing about writing because when I read
the first book of yours I read, I didn't read
the Castle books. The first book of yours I read
was The Trigger Episode. Oh yes, Trigger Episode is a
great book. It's a detective.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Genre.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Let's say, it's not strictly speaking of detective, but it
kind of is. And it follows those rules a little bit.
And you and I are both fans of Larry Block right,
Lawrence Blog fans, great crime writer or one of America's
grand friend and friend. Yeah, and I'm fascinated by that genre.
But I wouldn't go near it. I'm entertained by it.
(21:06):
You you walk right into it. You're quite comfortable in it.
Why because it has it has rules.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Maybe it has rules and it's and it's a great
stage upon which to play out morality. Yes, for sure,
because you've really just basically got sort of uh, you know,
a kind of clastic hero or anti hero who is
great meeting great resistance with the establishment or somebody who's
(21:33):
trying to screw him over, or somebody else. And you know,
for me, it goes back to even Jim Rockford. You know,
I just I'm crazy. I loved files when James Gardner
used to punch someone in a fight and then even.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Go because he has had that's somebody on that say
it knows what it's like to be in a fight.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
You know, I love that. But but my approach to
this genre, they say, is and it's really why the
Castle books. Let me tell you a little how linkage here.
The publisher of my Trigger episode, right themovie stiffed, Well,
how about my whole publishing house closed? No, Yeah, so
(22:10):
he went to Hyperion, which was owned by ABC Disney.
He takes me to lunch one day and he says, well,
there's a new show coming on called Castle. And you
know the relationship between these two people is a lot
like the relationship between you and your characters in the
Trigger episode. Would you consider doing a ghost write for
a one off? And I said, yeah, sure, Well you
went to number six in the New York Times, and
(22:32):
then number three, and then number one for the third one,
and on and on and on. That's right, I know,
and like I knocked me over with a feather. But
the thing is there was sort of a joyful and
I'm not trying to pander here, but there was a
joyful experience in approaching. And this is what I have
in a new book that's coming out soon, is I
try to look at the mystery and thriller genre to
(22:55):
try to upend the sort of dark, clenched jaw ugliness
of it and try to approach it in musically in
a major key, you know music. So it's it's it's
a mystery and it's a thriller, and there are all
sorts of things in it that are ugly, intense and
all that, but there's also a romantic relationship that is
(23:16):
organic and means something right. The readers and viewers are
always looking for where's the hook? How do I get in?
What do I want out of this?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
And yeah, that's what I mean. I'll say that when
I'm woising stuff with Megan as well. If you was
in the first episode of something, we'll say you in
and I'm like, oh, maybe.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
But people are always looking like they're holding a grappling
hook and they're looking for the place to throw it, yeah,
and get it. Get And I think that that particularly.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I wish i'd known that as a young performer, that
people want you to succeed. The audience does not anyone
else in show business. Everyone else in show business wants
you to fail, but the audience wants you to succeed.
And I sometimes feel like when I was early on performing,
I kind of held back a little or tried to
appear more less genuinely enthusiastic about being there.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
And then do you remember that time?
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Do I tell you this story when I was working
with Mick Jagger when we were writing that screenplay when
You Went Ball, So, when I was working with Mic
Jagger and the first time I saw him performer, I
was talking to him afterwards and I said, that was
that was a hell of a performance you gave last night,
because it was and I didn't what else to say,
and he said, I said you do that every night
and he said, oh yeah. I said, now, I never
(24:30):
paid money to see someone who was shy.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Oh man, that's great. I wish the audience could have
seen you do your Mick Jaggery. Yeah, no, it was. No.
You told the story and it was such a great one.
About how you were in Istanbul and you went into
the room and there.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
He they saw in this throne because he was the
guest of honor make us very gracious and intelligent man.
So he's sit there and he's he's been very nice
and very nice to everyone they brought. That's hot, like
he was the king of something.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
I can see him. Gunna fuck, no propeller around it.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
If there was, it would have left this that was
huge and it didn't fit him at all. It wasn't
grounded in any way. I think he felt a little
uncomfortable with the giant hat one. And had it been
the time of cell phones, I would have conquered the internet.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
You would have owned the day.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yeah, yeah, but sadly this was in the the analogue
times before the world fucking suck and everything was okay.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
There was a comment made by Stephen King about writing
also not about writer, a writer and from people I
know who know him, a wonderful man. He's awesome. He
was he was. Were you there when he was on
the late night though I didn't see that one. No,
he was, he was. I was there, but I wasn't
paying attention.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Well, you was that during your tenure or after. It
was after because he was on and he was wonderful.
What a cheerful, upbeat, engaged, switched on human being lovely man.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I can only paraphrase what he said, but his quote
was that most he didn't say mediocre, but most writing
that doesn't succeed, Yeah, generally is born out of fear.
That's interesting. In other words, that triggered me when you
were saying about, you know, being a little shy on
stage and so forth, like that, is that restraint isn't
(26:31):
your friend? No, you know, no, in that, not in
in the arts. I don't think it is.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I think that in any form of artistic expression, if
you're restraining yourself, you're thinking about the audience. And if
you're thinking about the audience, you're lost. And it's kind
of I never knew that, Like The Greatest Battle. I
was talking to my son of it last the other day,
because he's in you know, Milo.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Was a creative. He's in the arts.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, yes, he's got his own animation studio. Now, I
mean it's it's nutt. Yeah, you ain't that little anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah, your kids are all big, oh yeah, yeah, it's
weird in their thirties.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
That's weird anyway, So enough about them. But it does, Yes,
I was talking to him about it. I said, the
biggest challenge I have when I have an idea to
write anything is to not convert the first sentence into
the acceptance speech of the award that I'm going to get.
So it's like I said, it was a break cold
day in April, and I'd like to thank the Academy.
(27:27):
You have to stop that thought. Somehow do you get that?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Or am I just a you know, I keep trying
to tell myself I've learned this lesson, but I haven't
because I keep doing it right. But I used to
say to writers in the writer's room on shows I
worked on, where do you spend the most time on
your script? Answer the beginning? Right? What is the first
thing you cut when you need to edit your script?
The beginning? But you need to clear your throat, You
(27:55):
need to do something to kind of get make friends,
shake hands with the project. You start right, and and
you know, again, there's all these lessons that we forget.
But to me, it's like, Okay, get through the opening,
overwrite it. That's why you have a second draft and
a third.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Right, but I think that I think that that's the
that's the fun of writing is not the first The
first draft is is the is you you airn the
draft afterwards by going through the first draft. I think
the first draft is hard. The only time that I
find the first draft fun is when writing fiction, literary fiction,
(28:36):
because you don't know where it's going, so it's like
reading it.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
You're not constrained to a form, you know, because there
is a rigid form to mysteries and thrillers, right exactly,
it was a pyramid and all that stuff, and that's valid,
but you have to kind of like do a dance
to not make it look like it's a recipe and
a cookbook, you know. People. Well, I think that might
be the skill of it as well.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I mean I read my first Agatha Christie about a
month ago and I was like, my god, this is
this is genius.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
It was and then there were none was the name
of the book.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Yes, that is a spectacular piece of work. I mean spectacular.
And I don't know why I'd rather written off as
a kind of murder she wrote type thing and and
I actually I don't know why I would write all
that because I don't know about murders she wrote.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
You were part of that. Yeah, but the writing and
that and P. D.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
James as well, These these English women writers, amazing writers.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I'm a very big fan of the brit and Scottish writers. Yes,
then another one, yeah, Ian Rankin, Yeah, you know, a woman,
but it's still an excellent writer. Yeah. But you know, Mickherron,
the Slow Horses and trainsporn remind me Evan well, yah, yeah,
I love those books. I love the Brits and uh
(29:57):
and the Scots.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Well, there, it's all kind of you know, it's all
the same. It's the same language, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah, there is. But there's a sort of a sense
that and this is kind of like why a lot
of the Scandinavian noir came out in popularity, is that
that region first of all greatly unexplored in the American
sense of Humphrey Bogarten those people like that, right, But
there's still kind of a very noir thing going on
in those areas.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
I mean, most of the year it's like this suddenly
comes up for a couple of hours.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I know, have you ever been up to the Skandinavia, Yes,
you know, I ran a marathon, a midnight sun marathon
in Trumso, Norway. What fourth of July. The race started
at eight thirty at night and it was sunny. It
was incredible. Yeah, when was this? This would have been
six months before the towers came down, so this would
(30:50):
have been in two thousand and one. Wow, and July,
and what a great trip. I loved it up there.
The funny part, Craig, is that people assumed that I
was one of them because I'm blonde. Yeah you do
look yeah, you know, you still look Scandinavian.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
You look like a professor of economics of Stockholm University.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yes, step in here, don't stop in here. We will discover.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
I can only do Nazis from movies in the nineteen
fifties about you know, or previous war.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Or Romans as Brits. You know accent, that's Caesar, a messenger, Zia.
Don't call me Ziah. I'm Caesar Caesar. But people would
come up to me in in Norway, both in Oslo
and in Trumpso, and they would talk to me like no, no, no, no,
no no, and I'm just looking at them like Bill
Murray in the in the restaurant when PEPSI Pepsi. You know,
I'd just be looking and smiling, you know, yeah, do
(31:44):
your do your Scandinavian on the fjord in the ski
is down down the slow. It's uh. The interesting people
I like. I liked going there. I did too. Did
you go to Stockholm? I did. There's no waight, I
haven't been to Stockholm. I've read that. You turned me
on to the Dragon Tattoo books. Yes, right, and I
(32:04):
feel like I've been there. I haven't been there. I
want to go.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Stockholm's amazing. They have this museum there. It's a ship
that overturned in Stockholm Harbor about five hundred years ago
or something like that, and it got preserved in the
mud and they've dug it all up and they put
it in a museum. It's an old ship, but it's
totally freaky. They like the bodies and everything are there too.
(32:28):
Like because scandon Evins, they seem to me an eminently
practical people.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
They're like, oh, this is a dead body. Look children,
what can we do with it? Book it for a stick.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It's like, oh my god. And they also have the
Abbum Museum. If you need something, Yeah, I would like
to go there. And you know I can do Waterloo
with them. The greatest hotel perhaps on Earth, I think,
is the Diplomat Hotel in Stockholm.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Stay there, I will. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
It's not it's not huge, and it's it's pretty fancy,
but it's amazing right on the waterfront. It's stock If
I had my life to live again, i'd probably live
there in the Diplomat Hotel.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
As a writer, I think I would go there maybe
July or August, though maybe get some Yeah, I've never
been there way so is that what they're saying in Scotland.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
But they have this thing in Stockholm is where I
first come across. They call it Higa and they light
candles in the morning. I now do it every day.
People think I'm a deeply religious Catholic or something, but
I when I have a couple of cap even if
it's a sunny day, I light a candle in the morning.
There's something about bright, bright candle light. Not a light,
(33:39):
but bright candlelight. It kind of like sets you up.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Can I make a little confession, Yes, I like candles
when I write, even in the daytime. There's something, you know.
And I have my feather quill no, I don't do that.
But but you know, there's something about the ritual of
lighting a candle, of having that controlled flame nearby and
to watch it dance a little bit, and then it
(34:03):
starts to get a little darker during the religious.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Spiritual right, Okay, So so you believe in God, but
you're not prefere to go with any particular flame.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah. I was raised. I was an altar boy. I
was raised Catholic. You know, there was a line in
French connection to when Jeene Hackman was captured and they
asked him if he was Catholic and he says retired.
You know. So yeah, it's still in my heart. But
the ritual of it, the all of that, it's it's
more that it's more personal now to me. It's more
(34:33):
like my own you know, having that spiritual depeche mode
Catholic yes, Jesus, Yes, I mean I can't play by
your rules, which we should make you a prosest.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
It's a very interesting thing, I think as because atheism,
which I've always been rather a acted too as a
kind of like adolescent footstomp of a thing to have
is I can't I can't do it, you know, I
can't do it.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
It's too it becomes its own form of fundamentalism. It is,
it is, It's fundamental and it's actual statement. There is
no god that could be more fundamental in that statement.
And if anybody's listening who has adopted that as a
philosophy or religion or anti religion, more power to you.
You know, I don't judge. Yeah, but I just never
attracted me to feel living in a void. It attracted me.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
I was interested in it when I was younger, but
I think as you get older, and you know that
thing C. S. Lewis said about death said, you know,
death is easy to ignore when it's a horseman two
valleys away and you can vaguely see it on the hall,
But when you can hear the hoof beats.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Gets your attention. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
And I think that, I mean I'm paraphrasing, because he
was far more like.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
The image is beautiful. Yeah, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
That that was That was what what kind of drew
me back around and too kind of looking at it.
Why I ended up doing this podcast. I think it's
because I wanted to do what how do you cope?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
This is what I like about it, frankly, is first
of all the fact that it's got no artifice. I
like the fact that it's just a conversation, but also
that it is something to reflect on, you know. It's
it's like, what is joy? You know? Where is it?
What you know? You know? To me, it's kind of
a decision oft times. Yeah, it's also you know, and
(36:35):
this is my own spirit talking. It's what you give
to other people. In other words, I get great joy
out of bringing joy, or trying to bring So you
don't always succeed. Sometimes you do something very bad here,
let me do you a favor. Oh my god, I
wasn't there. It wasn't me. But I do think that
that joy is in the small things.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Well, it's connected I think to health, yeah, mental, physical,
spiritual health. If you have you know, if you're struggling
with health of any description, things get a little more difficult.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I think. Do you meditate? I do.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Actually, I am dismissed it as as an indulgence until
I kind of started doing it a little bit, and
I get a lot from it. I don't have anything
particularly formal to practice it. I just set you know,
I've set a timer on my phone.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
And yeah, there was a book I read thirty years ago,
I guess by John cabot Zin. Have you heard of him? No,
A book is called Wherever You Go, There you Are.
I've heard that phrase before. Yeah, he wrote a book
and it's and it's really how to how to meditate,
And it's sort of like as Joseph Campbell was to mythology.
This book is about meditation. And I thought to myself,
(37:51):
you know it isn't wasted time, No, it's it actually
makes me feel better, It makes me more efficient at
other things. Although the important thing is not to have
a goal, right.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
I think that's probably why I dismissed it when I
was younger, because up until I think, probably round about
the pandemic or just before, everything in my life was
goal oriented, you know, you know, a result had to
be connected in some way to just about every every movement,
you know, the like. And I think that that, particularly
(38:26):
in career, or you said.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Comes from can I ask you don't mind me interviewing
a little bit? Where does that? Where? Where does that
come from? In your life? Do you think that? I
think you achiever? I think from me.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
For me, it comes from uh, it comes from financial difficulty.
Even as young come all yeah, I think I think
it comes from So I think most things have come
from the foundations. If a building's going to top, it
comes to the topples from from there, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
I mean? And I what about you? Where does it
come from from? You? Do? I was? I was your upbringing.
It was kind of it was not financially, but it
was a very you know, I had a very very
unhappy childhood in terms of my father, right, and was
he he drunk that old thing. He probably was in hindsight,
(39:14):
but abusive, you know, not sexually, but you know a
lot of you know, slapping, beating, val rating, Hey, your
name is fuck up today? You know that kind of stuff.
And so what that does is that makes you not
try not to fuck up, right, you know what I mean.
So that out of that forms a sort of a
work ethic, a defensive posture. You know. I've thought about
(39:35):
this a great deal. I haven't done therapy about it,
but in hindsight, I can see that beginning that I had,
you know, I created a world for myself where I
would be accountable and win. I understand that.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I think for me, it was more about the avoidance
of discomfort and pain, and maybe even embarrassment. I remember
when I was about six or seven years old, haven't
gone the dentist. And I remember that having this thought, thinking,
if I can somehow get on TV, I won't have
to go to the dentist. I found out later that
(40:10):
you go to the dentist much more. I spent most
of my fucking life the dentist. But it was the
avoidance of pain and fear and discomfort. And which is
interesting because if you look at the media now, it's
not the same as even the television that we inhabited.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
I was talking to Seth Meyers last night. We're talking
about how much stuff had changed in late night. When
you and I were doing late night television, it was
still television. I mean, it was coming to the end
of it, but it doesn't really exist in that form anymore.
What I see now is the I call it the
fear industrial complex. That it is like they are selling
(40:50):
and you're selling engagements in the form of clicks, right, right,
So what will you click on? You click on what
you're afraid of? You know, to to remain safe, I
must have this information, say what, yeah, look at this
is that you know that what I mean, after the
bridge thing in Baltimore, I saw this was like, I
don't know where I was, on some tabloid thing it said,
(41:13):
you know a list of twenty bridges in America that
this could you know, look out for these bridges, And
I go, are you your fucking mind? The chances of
this happen and once are astronomical, right, you know the chaps.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
It's so it's so fear. But I'm not saying it
can't happen again.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
It might happen again, but it probably won't, right, And
that's and it was weird that it happened in the
first place. And then if you can't explain the phenomenon,
then you invent a conspiracy to explain the phenomenon. And
you know, it's like, oh, the sun is going away?
What happened right today? This very day we were talking,
the eclipse is happening. And it's so weird to me
(41:53):
that when people, particularly there's two times when I hear
conspiracy theorists and then I go, I think this is
an emotional problem for you, because because when I hear
people talking about the Hollywood community, I go, first of all,
you show me where the fucking community is in Hollywood.
I went in Hollywood for twenty five years. Like everybody
(42:14):
is there's no fucking community talk about it. Actually more
you're right, that's just a pack a box of crabs
trying to destroy each other.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
And then the other thing, when you talk about government
conspiracy and you go, have you met anyone in government.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
The thickest pic shit, they're like, I mean, I am shocked.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
And you go to Washington and you meet people who
are like working in the running of this country, you go,
oh my.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
God, I wouldn't trust you to walk my fucking dog.
That's right, It's unbelievable. That's why John le Carrey said
that the government conspiracies are generally a cover up. Sure,
because they're because they fucked up. Look what we did. Yeah, yeah,
I think that's right.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I mean, but it's it's the whole thing about you know,
like people who are flat earthers, like you.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Don't really can you really believe that? Is that a thing?
Speaker 1 (43:06):
And I think it's an emotional rejection of some kind.
I think it's connected to emotionality. I don't think it's
about stupidity or anything.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
That's why I think and I'll say it again, That's
why this forum that you've created here on this podcast
is one that's important now because it explores not just
something that's sort of on the positive side of things,
but it's on It's this kind of thing that's going
to maybe make a stop a minute and say, you know,
what's good, what's what is joyful? How can I, uh
(43:35):
not create the opposite of joy in people? Where can
we connect? And I think that is something you've accomplished
with this.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
I think that that's a lovely idea, Tom, and very
supportive of you and I And I'm not trying to
reject your hypothesis by it, but I completely reject you
what no, I mean, it's it sounds loftier then well
I have in mind for this, which is conversation. But
(44:03):
even as I say that, I think the actual conversation
without an agenda is quite a lofty goal.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Because it's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
I think because the consequences of speaking freely right now
about anything you might an opinion you may not have formed.
See That's why I understand that, Like I used to
feel like I could speak about stuff that I wasn't
sure about, Like I'm not sure about this.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Maybe it's this maybe it's that.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
But if you say maybe it's this, that's you can
cut out that little piece where you say maybe it's this,
and then people you're definitely saying that's the thing, and
all you were doing was thinking out well, you can't
think outlet it anymore.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
I remember one time in the writer's room you said
something again i'll paraphrase, there was somebody who was in trouble,
like the cancel culture kind of thing. Somebody had said
something on a hot mic and all that. Yeah, and
I really took to heart what you said. You said,
you know what, we have the advantage of being recorded,
we can edit afterward. That's true.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
And you got to give fair play to somebody who is,
you know, just free wheeling and oops.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
You know. Yeah, Now if the person you know is
revealing something truly ugly about what they think or believe things,
that's a different story.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
But yeah, but I mean the idea of and this
is the interesting thing I think about writing as well,
because I want to talk to you about the book,
which is what I wanted to talk to you about anyway,
But of course we've ended up talking about many and
other things. There's stuff that I wrote down jokes that
I've made, or or or beliefs that I put into
books that I wrote, you know, fifteen years ago that
(45:34):
I look at it now and going, I don't.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Believe that anymore. Yeah, and good for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
But the thing is, in the world of documentation, you
will always believe that. That's quite an interesting thing. It's
like I always think about Martin Luther. If he had
stopped before he went on the anti Semitic branch, it
really would have helped, just like to say, a great deal,
like just.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Had me to this, going right to that. If you stopped,
there you go, but there you go. No, talk to
me about the new book. The new book is called
The Accidental Joe. Right, it's about coffee. How did you know? No,
joe being the slang term in this in the trade
for a spy, spy who's being run by handlers.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
And uh so you're going, that's why you mentioned the
Lacari You've gone spy.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
No, oh, yeah, I've got you know what. Here's the
idea that I had and I told I told Nancy,
have we talked about the stage? I said to her,
I have an idea. It came to me on a
run and I kind of remembered it. Yeah, it's an
elevator pitch that only takes one floor. And that is
what if Anthony Bourdain had been using his show to
spy for the c I Ah, okay, and that's the book.
(46:48):
That's good. Yeah, so uh that's the setup. And so
what we've got is oh my god. And then you
put because Anthony Bourdin. Yeah, so there it went. And
and you know the book, it's not by Anthony. I
created Sebastian Pike, celebrity chef bod Yeah, yeah, what's the
(47:10):
pop tringlespros? But I created this world and there's a
romance element in it, and also there's a sort of
an appeal to see how these shows get made right,
you know. So it's spying and it's torture and it's
gunshots and and it's also how you make uh, you.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Know, flumbay flombay and now you make a crocomb busch. Wow,
a crokum bush.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
What's a k oh? It's a street in a tower
crocomb busch.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I was thinking it was a mouth, like a crocodile
in your mouth.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Hey wait a minute, I think I've got a sequel.
Crocodile in your mouth. But the book, Uh, it's sold
in a weekend, right. Uh. And I had offers from
Hollywood and I have made a deal. Really you sold
the rights to you surprised me? Yeah, to sonyh Yeah.
There's a fabulous producing team Seth Gordon and Julia Gunn.
(48:05):
They have a I love the title of their production studio.
It's called Exhibit a nice. Uh. And they do a
show on Netflix called The Night Agent. You've seen that.
It's really great. You should catch it.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
I'm thinking of The Night Manager. But that's not the
same that's not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
But this is this is about an FBI agent who
works in the White House and the conspiracy thing very right.
But we we of course everything was on zoom.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
We had our Zoom meeting and it was like I
had such a connection with them. You know. It's the
it's the two big words, big money. No, the two
big words are shared point of view. Except yeah, shared too.
I need to edit. Yeah, yeah, that's your first draft.
You get me on a hot mic, you know, and
(48:49):
then come out.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
This is a great darts commentator in Brettona Sports Commentate
or Breton famously said at the end of it, because
they watched darts.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
I watched it. I was in I was in London
not long ago, and watch and they call it sport.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
It's like, you know, overweight alcoholic men throwing tiny little arrows. Yes,
but he said that there was some guy wanted and
he said there's only one word.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
For that, magic darts, which great greatly. Yeah, Tom, you
are of course a joy. It's great, it's great to
talk to you and great to catch up. Let's do
it again soon.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
I would love to Good luck with the accidental joke,
which I will read on purpose almost immediately.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Thank you,
The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout
twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets,
go to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour.
See you out there, the Greig Ferguson show dot Com
slash Tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of
this podcast is Joy. I talked to interest in people
(00:23):
about what brings them happiness. Welcome to my conversation with
Tom Straw. Now, I'll be honest with you. It's not
my first conversation with Tom. He was a writer on
my old late night show and I've known him for
many years. He's a very clever, intelligent and funny man.
As you're about to find out, Ed Begley was on
(00:52):
the Ed Begley Junior Because I've never met Ed Begley Senior,
but Ed Begley Jr. Was on the podcast and he
told me, Has Parkinson's you've worked.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
With Ed with Ed. I had the great pleasure of
working with Ed on a pilot. When I see the
nicest guy into a business, it is terribly nice. I'm
or Henry Winkler. It was either Ed Bagley, Joel or Henry.
We did some stuff with Henry Winkler on the Late
Late Show. Yeah, but Ed was in a pilot that
I did at Castle Rock when I was there back
in the Castle Rook. Yeah, that was the Rob Reiner's company.
(01:21):
And yeah, they made a little show called Seinfeld. You
may have heard of. Nah, No, I didn't get it.
Is that still on side? Felt relentlessly? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
You of course are you do you don't have any
of that sweet sign field money?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
No, No, I have a story of somebody who lost
a lot of it. But help me. Yeah, I can't
mention names, all right, I'll put the names in, Okay. Later.
There was a guy I knew very well and he
had points. You know how points work, right it?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Points are a percentage of the of the game, the mood,
the profits, right right.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
He had fifteen points in Seinfeld. He's a writer or
a producer. You've got to be at fifteen points. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
And again no names, I'll try to avoid too much context.
But he had fifteen percent of the bank vault, right,
that's huge. As you may know, Seinfeld was on the
bubble when it started. It wasn't it almost yeah, make it. Yeah,
(02:20):
that's right. Yeah, And he ran into some financial needs,
family loss, and so he went back into the boss
at Castle Rock and I said, I'd like to sell
my points back. And the boss, who's still a friend
of mine, great guy, he said, never give your points back.
And he said, I really need to get a new
(02:41):
house and because my family's expanding and all that. So
he sold it for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Man,
because it's got to be that'd be worth like one
hundred million dollars. Yeah, I mean that's the big few money. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
They think about few money though that I've known as
I got a little bit of it myself, Bacon.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yes, it really can. You people don't know that about
a few money. It can.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
It's like when people win the lottery, you know, and
they say and then suddenly within five years there you know,
their lives are trashed in there.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
You know it's a double It's the worst good news
you can get, Isn't it weird?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I mean, because because you think money is going to
solve all your problems, it doesn't bring joy. It does
not bring joy that you tie the end of the
podcast home, Well, I'm going to do that because I
you know, yes, and I'm a big fan of this podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I noticed you're sponsored by Bacon. Bacon, Bacon. The ads
are great, sponsored by Bacon sponsors, just Bacon. I love bacon.
And I said, I've got to see Craig today. Yeah,
so here I am, because you're sponsored by Bacon.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
No, no Francis Bacon, No, no, just no bacon.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Even Kevin Bacon. There's not even six degrees a separation.
It's just bacon. And you're It's all over you. I mean,
every break, the yank dank dank dank dunk comes and
then there's some guy talking about bacon, wow, and how
good it is. You know, I don't eat bacon. I
didn't know that, but I don't eat that. Oh really No,
(04:12):
I don't need Can I finish yours? Then? Yeah, you
could have my bacon.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
The giant play of bacon that's in front of so
provided by our sponsor, Bacon.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
He doesn't eat it, but he's wearing a bacon suit.
I do wear bacon. I do wear a lot of bacon.
That is true.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Now, listen, you and I worked together. I first became
aware of you when somebody said, Tom Straw will come
and work on your show. And I'm like, Tom Straw,
the writer from of sitcoms, will come and work on
the show.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Now. You came and worked on the late night show
because you wanted to do it.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Right, I did. You're the only guy. I didn't even
want to do it. I just did it because I
needed a job that kept me in town. You were
the only guy that wanted to be on the old
late night show.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I was a huge fan of the show when you
took it over, and it was like it was a
late night staple for my wife and we would stay
so cool and and the phrase that she would always
use is, you know that Craig Ferguson's really coming into
his own and so that kind of became our code.
But I was such a huge fan of the show,
(05:13):
and you know, I part of joy for me is
doing things I've never done before, to do the scary
thing and to never having worked on that kind of format.
I know because I knew.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
I knew of you because I had worked in sitcom
in the nighties, I had worked on the New Carry Show,
and you were doing Grace under Fire right.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yes, I was the aptly.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Named yes, which was with Brett Butler. Brett Butler, Yeah,
but yeah, I worked in sitcom for years.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I mean I would. I did Night Court right right?
You didn't do the reboot? Did you do the rebook?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
No?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I did not. I did have a conversation prior to
it with our mutual friend John Lara Katt. Oh. Yeah,
I love Lara. I haven't seen him in years. Where
the hell is he? He's living in southern Washington state,
right across the river from Portlan, Oregon. Okay, is he smoking? No,
he's he's he's totally clean. Yeah. Yeah, here's an insight
(06:07):
into John. I hope he wouldn't mind me telling this story.
But he went to a photo expo one day. He
showed up at the table reading and he's got like
eight cameras And I said eight cameras. He says, you
don't understand. When I was drinking, I wanted all the drinks.
He did. Now I want all the cameras.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, he wanted. I was the same when I was drinking.
I wanted all the all the drink, all the drugs.
He's a dear man, though, and is a great and
whip smart. He's a huge bibliophile. He also likes books. Yeah,
well that's good.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, but that would be like a thing for us,
Like we would sometimes meet for lunch at like Musso
and Frank and then he would take me to these
antiquarian bookstores and introduce me to Bokowski who was dead
but these books were was moldering in the.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Corner or was unsure that he was dead? Yeah, he
still had wanted all the drinks as well apart. Yes,
did you ever meet?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
No? No, I'd be afraid to now, Well, he'd be
a zombie. No, yeah, I know I'd be afraid to be.
Would you Do you ever worry about Zoe Bees?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I don't that much, but I feel like I should
bring it up now that we're on the subject.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
There are times that I see people and I think undead, classified, undead,
I've been.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I think I've been a zombie at that point in
my life. So, so you were working in set Calm.
Then how did you get into set Calm? So because
you worked in radio? Right, I worked in radio? And uh,
I worked in radio while I was still in high school.
I had Uh where'd you go to high school?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I went to Birmingham High School in Vanus, California, right
public school.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I didn't know you were California for some reason. I
was you were in the East Coast. I am, you know,
I'm I'm by biker. But I had a mentor, Gary Owens.
Do you remember Gary Owens from Laughing with the hand
over the air? Yeah, he was my radio hero. But
I called him up one day.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I just put on my big boy pants and I
called him one day at the radio station and I said,
mister Owens, wow, you were you were that young? Yeah,
you got a little have with a helicopter thing on it.
Better put a seatbelt on that way. But I called
him up and I said, I want to be in
radio and I have my vocation. Teacher said I should
talk to somebody in radio. And he said, will Tom
(08:11):
come on down to the radio station on Thursday and
you can watch me do my show. I mean, what
a great guy, right right? Yeah, And so he mentored
me into radio. I got a job. I started a
radio station at my high school, which was just speakers
who wasn't on the air. But I made a tape
of one of those and I took it to a
coffee pot radio station in Van Eyes and they hired me.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
What's a coffee pot radio station? Tiny little place all
right with they have a coffee pot.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah, it's basically like the right so it snakes and
small little joint. But it was right on the dial
next to Shadow Stevens on CAMMI te Shadows Food on
the podcast, And so the kids thought I was on
Cammy Tea because they weren't paying attention to the dial
because he was a big radio start. But anyway, through
my radio career, I had a buddy, Ken Levine. And Ken,
(08:55):
I've had a lot of people could do good things
for me. But Ken mentored me into becoming a screenwriter
because he and I got fired a week before Christmas
at a radio station in San Diego. Yeah, he said,
screw it, I'm gonna I don't care if I have
to sell ties at the May Company. I Am going
to be a TV writer. And he had a partner
who he was writing with and they produced a show
called Mash Right that's a fairly that was a fairly
(09:17):
successful television Yeah, and he has a he has an
Emmy for Cheers also did pretty well. Yeah, and he
and he worked on Frasier and uh, you know he.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
He he he's no, Yeah, that's but anyway, he helped
me learn how to write a script and got me
my first two jobs.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So what was your first job? And Secom Then it
was on after Mash? Oh wow, that that one. Yeah. Yeah,
it's kind of like I like to say, you know
how Purina has dog chow, but then they have monkey
chow and horse chow. Do you know what I like?
Do you know how you get pringles? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Right, so pringles and there and their little kind of
phrases once you pop you can't stop. Yes, well they
have no golf springles called prongle, right, prongles, brouncles. Their
mud was once you pope. That's great, that's the B team.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah. I love that kind of thing. All right. So
you're working on after Mass, after Mash, and then I
wrote a freelance script for Benson if you remember that show?
Do you remember Benson? Yeah, that was a spin off
of Soap right, yeah, And they offered me a staff
job on the show based on the script I turned in.
Name the Acts of Robert Robert Gillum, Yeah, fabulous actor,
(10:30):
very funny man. I called Ken. They said, hey, congratulate me.
I got an offer too, and he says, don't take it.
And I said, why not? He says, because David, that's
his writing partner, David Isaac's. We just sold a pilot
starring Mary Tyler Moore to CBS, and we'd like you
to be on our show. But this is this is
kind of a modeling story. But I think they'll enjoy it.
(10:51):
They said, but we can't commit to hiring you until
we clear certain hurdles with paperwork at the studio. So
can you hang on? Can you buy some time and
not really do anything until with Benson? Until for a week? Right?
And I said, I don't know I'm going to do that.
And I called my agent. It was pre Nancy ruses,
Nancy Josephson. We should full disclosure. Is your agent and
(11:13):
my agent. That's high.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
It been for about I think five hundred years in
my case, hasn't know how long for you? Twenty eight,
twenty eight. She's the best agent in Hollywood. You know,
I love that woman. She's the greatest agent in Hollywood.
She just hands down the best one there is.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I could go on and on, yeah, but I won't
because I'm going to get back to this story about
having to stall that's what makes you a professional. So
I called my then agent right and said, hey, here's
the deal. I laid out the thing. I said, I
need to somehow stall Benson so they don't get mad
and both shows go away for me, right, And he said,
I'll do what I can. The business affairs person who
(11:48):
handled Benson right, he was called the Iron Major. He
was a very tough ast agent out there. All right.
My agent calls me back two hours later and he said,
the Iron age or dropped dead at lunch today. What
he said, how's that for a stall? Wow? He really died?
He died. So I called my agent asking for a stall,
(12:09):
and hours later the person held the you know, hold
the button down. It remind me to give you wherever
you want. But that was Wasn't that astonishing? And I'm crazy?
So did But then did you? Did you end up
on Benson?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
No?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I ended up going with Kennon David onto Mary Tied.
It was called Mary on CBS. It was the first
sitcom for Katie sigal right. It had they also a
great woman. Oh she's terrific. Yeah, amazing John Ashton, Yeah,
I was just thinking it was.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
A John Aston shown Aston showing Aston Johnston Joson Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And and uh, I don't know anyway, I won't go through
all the whole cast. But it was a great thing.
It was and it was a wonderful experience. The show
only went thirteen weeks.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
That's no unhaired of my first sick call in America
went thirteen weeks. But I quit after ten I think,
or maybe no, I quit after thirteen, but they get
picked up for another nine.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
But White, yeah, yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I loved doing I loved working with Betty and Betty
and I, as you know, stayed friends for the rest
of her life. But making the show, it was my
first sitcom in America, and I was like eighth Banana
and I did.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Not enjoy it. And you had a movie you were
making too. You didn't that really make shaving Grace, wasn't that? No?
That was later. That's when I was doing the Drew
Kerry Show.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
That's when when I was more comfortable being eighth Banana
because I had figured out how to film my day right,
Because I think, what people if you don't work in
as an actor, and most people don't eat, most actors
don't work as an actor.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
If you don't work.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
As a night, you don't realize how much just sitting
on your ass doing nothing there is all day long.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I can't do that. I can't do it.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So I started writing sc when I got the job
on the Drew Kry Show. I had written my own
stand up for years, and I thought, well, and I
was reading screenplays as you do, you know, as people
used to write screenplays before I read them, so I
can steal from them. Well, that was my plan. But
as I read them, I went, these are garbage. And
these were movies that were getting made garbage, And I thought,
(14:16):
I can't I don't know if I can write any
better than this, but there's no way in hell I
can write anything worse than this. So and these things
are getting made. So that's when I started writing. And
lo and behold, they did get made, you know. I mean, well,
I think there's.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Also a certain thing here about being underutilized. I mean,
when you know, when you have higher aspirations and also
the chops to deliver those aspirations. Yeah, you see yourself
sitting in a trailer, waiting and waiting, and you come
out and you do lines and then not those lines. Well, no, no,
By then I stopped doing those kind of lines. But
I think it's interesting to trace your path to all
(14:50):
the polymath that you are, all the things that you
the same though, I mean you're the same.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And it's like because the reason why I'm kind of
steering you this way is that I find and this
is definitely what you've done that when soup comes to
nuts and you know, and the great wheel of time.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Moves you know, Fortuna's whale.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And the you know, the and when the dog of
history lady does a poop on the side of the road.
Oh yes, It's always about the right, It's always about
the writing is the freedom. I just to think the
stand up was the freedom, but the stand up is not.
I thought it was, but it's not. For that is
freedom of performance, but actual full blown artistic, mental, emotional,
(15:35):
and spiritual freedom. I think for me anyways, in writing,
and I know that is that it's got to be
that for you because you went back to writing books
after we finished in the late night, right and still.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Right, yeah, and you know that that was thank you
for mentioning that. But you know, for me, the joy
of writing in many forms is for instance, when I
did the late light show right at the conference table
ten in the morning for us to talk out our
day and all that stuff. And we'd go off into
our sketches and you know, we'd pretend to be working right,
(16:07):
and and we do the show, skeleton, robot, all that stuff. Yeah,
six o'clock, we're done. There's no post production, that's true.
And I would go home. Yeah, and I would have dinner.
When I say home, I'm talking about the Oakwood apartments.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah, because you were you were eleven. You and your
wife Arelevin in the East Coast, and you used to
commute to come and work.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, once a month, I would fly to la and
spend a month there, and then I'd fly back and
spend a week of our hatus. That's a that's a
lot of pressure on the it is and it was,
but you know we're strong and we're still you know, happy,
and yeah. Well, I'll do a little sidebar here and
talk about the number of occasions that you would come
to me right before the show and say, Hey, Tom,
(16:50):
I have a plane leaving Van Eyed Airport for the
East Coast. You want to hitch a ride and come
home for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, And I would go that, Craig, but it was great. Yeah,
after the time almost crashed. Yeah, there was that time
that was in white Plans.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, that was when people started vrolfing. That was not
a lot of fun. I still think about that sometimes.
Oh that was that was the most harrowing flight I've
ever had in my life. Yeah, it was pretty hary.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
The Craike Ferguson Fancy Rascal stand up to He continues
throughout the United States in twenty twenty four. For a
full list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig
fergusonshow dot com slash tour.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
See you have there. But anyway, what I would do
then so I would go back to the oak Wood
and uh, you know, call my wife, you know, before
she went to bed because she was on East Coast time. Yeah,
and then I would write my Castle book. I'd start
about nine pm.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
That's right, of course, because you were writing the Castle
Books at the same time, right, So do you know
take credit for the Castle books.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I am able to take. I'm able to. I wrote
the first seven of the Nikky Heats, right, and I
paid my lawyers to find out if I could do this. Yes,
I can now take off the mask and say it
was me as long as I you know, the first
there's those those ones I did. But I would write
from nine pm till about three am, right, and then
go to bed. Okay, get up at six and hit
(18:18):
the internet so I can have topicals, you know, topical
things to pitch at the table, sleep in three hours
a night. Yeah, couldn't you tell? Yeah? I was going
to say, you look younger than you did. Together. My
work habits were poort, weren't they. No, I'm kidding, but no,
you you were. You were a fiend.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I mean you used to work all the time, and
you were part of the team that come up with
Jeff Peters in the rule Boat, you come up with Secretariat,
the Dance and horse and all that, all of the
classic bets from our show.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
You were in part of all of that. Thank you.
I remember something you said, and it's one of those
little tapes I play in my head. Is that that
Tommy's always on the clock.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
That's one of the things he was saying. But it's
you know, you do the work, yes, like what you
the way you started this thread. I take my pleasure
in the work, Yes, And I can be and this
can be recent in the past year. I can be writing,
like working on a manuscript for a book, and I'll
get an email or a phone call with bad news,
(19:14):
right and damn, oh oh show business, cruel and biscuits. Yeah,
I'll go back and I'll hang up the phone. I'll
take five minutes to kind of cleanse, and then I
will just go back to writing. Same thing when I
get great news, because that's the real thing. The writing
is where it's at.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
It's it's certainly the place where you can escape most
of all. The first time I ever wrote anything away
from vulgar vaudevillian stuff. Yes, that I've written was a
book called Between the Bridge and the River, which is
a novel.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I wrote thank you, And that book was in reactions
because I just made a movie that had steffed and
I was so frustrated with it because I'd written this movie.
I started in this movie, I directed this movie. I
was a producer in this movie. I didn't like it.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
So it was like, oh, man, but I have to
say to you, because this this is before you and
I met. Yeah, I read your novel and I thought
to myself, that's the same guy who does that. Yeah,
and it was just like the Snake Handlers and spring Style.
I mean, I can remember it very vividly because it
was so very it really caught hold of me. It
(20:27):
was a great book. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
It's an interesting thing about writing because when I read
the first book of yours I read, I didn't read
the Castle books. The first book of yours I read
was The Trigger Episode. Oh yes, Trigger Episode is a
great book. It's a detective.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Genre.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Let's say, it's not strictly speaking of detective, but it
kind of is. And it follows those rules a little bit.
And you and I are both fans of Larry Block right,
Lawrence Blog fans, great crime writer or one of America's
grand friend and friend. Yeah, and I'm fascinated by that genre.
But I wouldn't go near it. I'm entertained by it.
(21:06):
You you walk right into it. You're quite comfortable in it.
Why because it has it has rules.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Maybe it has rules and it's and it's a great
stage upon which to play out morality. Yes, for sure,
because you've really just basically got sort of uh, you know,
a kind of clastic hero or anti hero who is
great meeting great resistance with the establishment or somebody who's
(21:33):
trying to screw him over, or somebody else. And you know,
for me, it goes back to even Jim Rockford. You know,
I just I'm crazy. I loved files when James Gardner
used to punch someone in a fight and then even.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Go because he has had that's somebody on that say
it knows what it's like to be in a fight.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
You know, I love that. But but my approach to
this genre, they say, is and it's really why the
Castle books. Let me tell you a little how linkage here.
The publisher of my Trigger episode, right themovie stiffed, Well,
how about my whole publishing house closed? No, Yeah, so
(22:10):
he went to Hyperion, which was owned by ABC Disney.
He takes me to lunch one day and he says, well,
there's a new show coming on called Castle. And you
know the relationship between these two people is a lot
like the relationship between you and your characters in the
Trigger episode. Would you consider doing a ghost write for
a one off? And I said, yeah, sure, Well you
went to number six in the New York Times, and
(22:32):
then number three, and then number one for the third one,
and on and on and on. That's right, I know,
and like I knocked me over with a feather. But
the thing is there was sort of a joyful and
I'm not trying to pander here, but there was a
joyful experience in approaching. And this is what I have
in a new book that's coming out soon, is I
try to look at the mystery and thriller genre to
(22:55):
try to upend the sort of dark, clenched jaw ugliness
of it and try to approach it in musically in
a major key, you know music. So it's it's it's
a mystery and it's a thriller, and there are all
sorts of things in it that are ugly, intense and
all that, but there's also a romantic relationship that is
(23:16):
organic and means something right. The readers and viewers are
always looking for where's the hook? How do I get in?
What do I want out of this?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
And yeah, that's what I mean. I'll say that when
I'm woising stuff with Megan as well. If you was
in the first episode of something, we'll say you in
and I'm like, oh, maybe.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
But people are always looking like they're holding a grappling
hook and they're looking for the place to throw it, yeah,
and get it. Get And I think that that particularly.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I wish i'd known that as a young performer, that
people want you to succeed. The audience does not anyone
else in show business. Everyone else in show business wants
you to fail, but the audience wants you to succeed.
And I sometimes feel like when I was early on performing,
I kind of held back a little or tried to
appear more less genuinely enthusiastic about being there.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
And then do you remember that time?
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Do I tell you this story when I was working
with Mick Jagger when we were writing that screenplay when
You Went Ball, So, when I was working with Mic
Jagger and the first time I saw him performer, I
was talking to him afterwards and I said, that was
that was a hell of a performance you gave last night,
because it was and I didn't what else to say,
and he said, I said you do that every night
and he said, oh yeah. I said, now, I never
(24:30):
paid money to see someone who was shy.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Oh man, that's great. I wish the audience could have
seen you do your Mick Jaggery. Yeah, no, it was. No.
You told the story and it was such a great one.
About how you were in Istanbul and you went into
the room and there.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
He they saw in this throne because he was the
guest of honor make us very gracious and intelligent man.
So he's sit there and he's he's been very nice
and very nice to everyone they brought. That's hot, like
he was the king of something.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
I can see him. Gunna fuck, no propeller around it.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
If there was, it would have left this that was
huge and it didn't fit him at all. It wasn't
grounded in any way. I think he felt a little
uncomfortable with the giant hat one. And had it been
the time of cell phones, I would have conquered the internet.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
You would have owned the day.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yeah, yeah, but sadly this was in the the analogue
times before the world fucking suck and everything was okay.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
There was a comment made by Stephen King about writing
also not about writer, a writer and from people I
know who know him, a wonderful man. He's awesome. He
was he was. Were you there when he was on
the late night though I didn't see that one. No,
he was, he was. I was there, but I wasn't
paying attention.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Well, you was that during your tenure or after. It
was after because he was on and he was wonderful.
What a cheerful, upbeat, engaged, switched on human being lovely man.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I can only paraphrase what he said, but his quote
was that most he didn't say mediocre, but most writing
that doesn't succeed, Yeah, generally is born out of fear.
That's interesting. In other words, that triggered me when you
were saying about, you know, being a little shy on
stage and so forth, like that, is that restraint isn't
(26:31):
your friend? No, you know, no, in that, not in
in the arts. I don't think it is.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I think that in any form of artistic expression, if
you're restraining yourself, you're thinking about the audience. And if
you're thinking about the audience, you're lost. And it's kind
of I never knew that, Like The Greatest Battle. I
was talking to my son of it last the other day,
because he's in you know, Milo.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Was a creative. He's in the arts.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, yes, he's got his own animation studio. Now, I
mean it's it's nutt. Yeah, you ain't that little anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah, your kids are all big, oh yeah, yeah, it's
weird in their thirties.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
That's weird anyway, So enough about them. But it does, Yes,
I was talking to him about it. I said, the
biggest challenge I have when I have an idea to
write anything is to not convert the first sentence into
the acceptance speech of the award that I'm going to get.
So it's like I said, it was a break cold
day in April, and I'd like to thank the Academy.
(27:27):
You have to stop that thought. Somehow do you get that?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Or am I just a you know, I keep trying
to tell myself I've learned this lesson, but I haven't
because I keep doing it right. But I used to
say to writers in the writer's room on shows I
worked on, where do you spend the most time on
your script? Answer the beginning? Right? What is the first
thing you cut when you need to edit your script?
The beginning? But you need to clear your throat, You
(27:55):
need to do something to kind of get make friends,
shake hands with the project. You start right, and and
you know, again, there's all these lessons that we forget.
But to me, it's like, Okay, get through the opening,
overwrite it. That's why you have a second draft and
a third.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Right, but I think that I think that that's the
that's the fun of writing is not the first The
first draft is is the is you you airn the
draft afterwards by going through the first draft. I think
the first draft is hard. The only time that I
find the first draft fun is when writing fiction, literary fiction,
(28:36):
because you don't know where it's going, so it's like
reading it.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
You're not constrained to a form, you know, because there
is a rigid form to mysteries and thrillers, right exactly,
it was a pyramid and all that stuff, and that's valid,
but you have to kind of like do a dance
to not make it look like it's a recipe and
a cookbook, you know. People. Well, I think that might
be the skill of it as well.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I mean I read my first Agatha Christie about a
month ago and I was like, my god, this is
this is genius.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
It was and then there were none was the name
of the book.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Yes, that is a spectacular piece of work. I mean spectacular.
And I don't know why I'd rather written off as
a kind of murder she wrote type thing and and
I actually I don't know why I would write all
that because I don't know about murders she wrote.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
You were part of that. Yeah, but the writing and
that and P. D.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
James as well, These these English women writers, amazing writers.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I'm a very big fan of the brit and Scottish writers. Yes,
then another one, yeah, Ian Rankin, Yeah, you know, a woman,
but it's still an excellent writer. Yeah. But you know, Mickherron,
the Slow Horses and trainsporn remind me Evan well, yah, yeah,
I love those books. I love the Brits and uh
(29:57):
and the Scots.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Well, there, it's all kind of you know, it's all
the same. It's the same language, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah, there is. But there's a sort of a sense
that and this is kind of like why a lot
of the Scandinavian noir came out in popularity, is that
that region first of all greatly unexplored in the American
sense of Humphrey Bogarten those people like that, right, But
there's still kind of a very noir thing going on
in those areas.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
I mean, most of the year it's like this suddenly
comes up for a couple of hours.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I know, have you ever been up to the Skandinavia, Yes,
you know, I ran a marathon, a midnight sun marathon
in Trumso, Norway. What fourth of July. The race started
at eight thirty at night and it was sunny. It
was incredible. Yeah, when was this? This would have been
six months before the towers came down, so this would
(30:50):
have been in two thousand and one. Wow, and July,
and what a great trip. I loved it up there.
The funny part, Craig, is that people assumed that I
was one of them because I'm blonde. Yeah you do
look yeah, you know, you still look Scandinavian.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
You look like a professor of economics of Stockholm University.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yes, step in here, don't stop in here. We will discover.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
I can only do Nazis from movies in the nineteen
fifties about you know, or previous war.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Or Romans as Brits. You know accent, that's Caesar, a messenger, Zia.
Don't call me Ziah. I'm Caesar Caesar. But people would
come up to me in in Norway, both in Oslo
and in Trumpso, and they would talk to me like no, no, no, no,
no no, and I'm just looking at them like Bill
Murray in the in the restaurant when PEPSI Pepsi. You know,
I'd just be looking and smiling, you know, yeah, do
(31:44):
your do your Scandinavian on the fjord in the ski
is down down the slow. It's uh. The interesting people
I like. I liked going there. I did too. Did
you go to Stockholm? I did. There's no waight, I
haven't been to Stockholm. I've read that. You turned me
on to the Dragon Tattoo books. Yes, right, and I
(32:04):
feel like I've been there. I haven't been there. I
want to go.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Stockholm's amazing. They have this museum there. It's a ship
that overturned in Stockholm Harbor about five hundred years ago
or something like that, and it got preserved in the
mud and they've dug it all up and they put
it in a museum. It's an old ship, but it's
totally freaky. They like the bodies and everything are there too.
(32:28):
Like because scandon Evins, they seem to me an eminently
practical people.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
They're like, oh, this is a dead body. Look children,
what can we do with it? Book it for a stick.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It's like, oh my god. And they also have the
Abbum Museum. If you need something, Yeah, I would like
to go there. And you know I can do Waterloo
with them. The greatest hotel perhaps on Earth, I think,
is the Diplomat Hotel in Stockholm.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Stay there, I will. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
It's not it's not huge, and it's it's pretty fancy,
but it's amazing right on the waterfront. It's stock If
I had my life to live again, i'd probably live
there in the Diplomat Hotel.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
As a writer, I think I would go there maybe
July or August, though maybe get some Yeah, I've never
been there way so is that what they're saying in Scotland.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
But they have this thing in Stockholm is where I
first come across. They call it Higa and they light
candles in the morning. I now do it every day.
People think I'm a deeply religious Catholic or something, but
I when I have a couple of cap even if
it's a sunny day, I light a candle in the morning.
There's something about bright, bright candle light. Not a light,
(33:39):
but bright candlelight. It kind of like sets you up.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Can I make a little confession, Yes, I like candles
when I write, even in the daytime. There's something, you know.
And I have my feather quill no, I don't do that.
But but you know, there's something about the ritual of
lighting a candle, of having that controlled flame nearby and
to watch it dance a little bit, and then it
(34:03):
starts to get a little darker during the religious.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Spiritual right, Okay, So so you believe in God, but
you're not prefere to go with any particular flame.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah. I was raised. I was an altar boy. I
was raised Catholic. You know, there was a line in
French connection to when Jeene Hackman was captured and they
asked him if he was Catholic and he says retired.
You know. So yeah, it's still in my heart. But
the ritual of it, the all of that, it's it's
more that it's more personal now to me. It's more
(34:33):
like my own you know, having that spiritual depeche mode
Catholic yes, Jesus, Yes, I mean I can't play by
your rules, which we should make you a prosest.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
It's a very interesting thing, I think as because atheism,
which I've always been rather a acted too as a
kind of like adolescent footstomp of a thing to have
is I can't I can't do it, you know, I
can't do it.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
It's too it becomes its own form of fundamentalism. It is,
it is, It's fundamental and it's actual statement. There is
no god that could be more fundamental in that statement.
And if anybody's listening who has adopted that as a
philosophy or religion or anti religion, more power to you.
You know, I don't judge. Yeah, but I just never
attracted me to feel living in a void. It attracted me.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
I was interested in it when I was younger, but
I think as you get older, and you know that
thing C. S. Lewis said about death said, you know,
death is easy to ignore when it's a horseman two
valleys away and you can vaguely see it on the hall,
But when you can hear the hoof beats.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Gets your attention. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
And I think that, I mean I'm paraphrasing, because he
was far more like.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
The image is beautiful. Yeah, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
That that was That was what what kind of drew
me back around and too kind of looking at it.
Why I ended up doing this podcast. I think it's
because I wanted to do what how do you cope?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
This is what I like about it, frankly, is first
of all the fact that it's got no artifice. I
like the fact that it's just a conversation, but also
that it is something to reflect on, you know. It's
it's like, what is joy? You know? Where is it?
What you know? You know? To me, it's kind of
a decision oft times. Yeah, it's also you know, and
(36:35):
this is my own spirit talking. It's what you give
to other people. In other words, I get great joy
out of bringing joy, or trying to bring So you
don't always succeed. Sometimes you do something very bad here,
let me do you a favor. Oh my god, I
wasn't there. It wasn't me. But I do think that
that joy is in the small things.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Well, it's connected I think to health, yeah, mental, physical,
spiritual health. If you have you know, if you're struggling
with health of any description, things get a little more difficult.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I think. Do you meditate? I do.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Actually, I am dismissed it as as an indulgence until
I kind of started doing it a little bit, and
I get a lot from it. I don't have anything
particularly formal to practice it. I just set you know,
I've set a timer on my phone.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
And yeah, there was a book I read thirty years ago,
I guess by John cabot Zin. Have you heard of him? No,
A book is called Wherever You Go, There you Are.
I've heard that phrase before. Yeah, he wrote a book
and it's and it's really how to how to meditate,
And it's sort of like as Joseph Campbell was to mythology.
This book is about meditation. And I thought to myself,
(37:51):
you know it isn't wasted time, No, it's it actually
makes me feel better, It makes me more efficient at
other things. Although the important thing is not to have
a goal, right.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
I think that's probably why I dismissed it when I
was younger, because up until I think, probably round about
the pandemic or just before, everything in my life was
goal oriented, you know, you know, a result had to
be connected in some way to just about every every movement,
you know, the like. And I think that that, particularly
(38:26):
in career, or you said.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Comes from can I ask you don't mind me interviewing
a little bit? Where does that? Where? Where does that
come from? In your life? Do you think that? I
think you achiever? I think from me.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
For me, it comes from uh, it comes from financial difficulty.
Even as young come all yeah, I think I think
it comes from So I think most things have come
from the foundations. If a building's going to top, it
comes to the topples from from there, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
I mean? And I what about you? Where does it
come from from? You? Do? I was? I was your upbringing.
It was kind of it was not financially, but it
was a very you know, I had a very very
unhappy childhood in terms of my father, right, and was
he he drunk that old thing. He probably was in hindsight,
(39:14):
but abusive, you know, not sexually, but you know a
lot of you know, slapping, beating, val rating, Hey, your
name is fuck up today? You know that kind of stuff.
And so what that does is that makes you not
try not to fuck up, right, you know what I mean.
So that out of that forms a sort of a
work ethic, a defensive posture. You know. I've thought about
(39:35):
this a great deal. I haven't done therapy about it,
but in hindsight, I can see that beginning that I had,
you know, I created a world for myself where I
would be accountable and win. I understand that.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I think for me, it was more about the avoidance
of discomfort and pain, and maybe even embarrassment. I remember
when I was about six or seven years old, haven't
gone the dentist. And I remember that having this thought, thinking,
if I can somehow get on TV, I won't have
to go to the dentist. I found out later that
(40:10):
you go to the dentist much more. I spent most
of my fucking life the dentist. But it was the
avoidance of pain and fear and discomfort. And which is
interesting because if you look at the media now, it's
not the same as even the television that we inhabited.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
I was talking to Seth Meyers last night. We're talking
about how much stuff had changed in late night. When
you and I were doing late night television, it was
still television. I mean, it was coming to the end
of it, but it doesn't really exist in that form anymore.
What I see now is the I call it the
fear industrial complex. That it is like they are selling
(40:50):
and you're selling engagements in the form of clicks, right, right,
So what will you click on? You click on what
you're afraid of? You know, to to remain safe, I
must have this information, say what, yeah, look at this
is that you know that what I mean, after the
bridge thing in Baltimore, I saw this was like, I
don't know where I was, on some tabloid thing it said,
(41:13):
you know a list of twenty bridges in America that
this could you know, look out for these bridges, And
I go, are you your fucking mind? The chances of
this happen and once are astronomical, right, you know the chaps.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
It's so it's so fear. But I'm not saying it
can't happen again.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
It might happen again, but it probably won't, right, And
that's and it was weird that it happened in the
first place. And then if you can't explain the phenomenon,
then you invent a conspiracy to explain the phenomenon. And
you know, it's like, oh, the sun is going away?
What happened right today? This very day we were talking,
the eclipse is happening. And it's so weird to me
(41:53):
that when people, particularly there's two times when I hear
conspiracy theorists and then I go, I think this is
an emotional problem for you, because because when I hear
people talking about the Hollywood community, I go, first of all,
you show me where the fucking community is in Hollywood.
I went in Hollywood for twenty five years. Like everybody
(42:14):
is there's no fucking community talk about it. Actually more
you're right, that's just a pack a box of crabs
trying to destroy each other.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
And then the other thing, when you talk about government
conspiracy and you go, have you met anyone in government.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
The thickest pic shit, they're like, I mean, I am shocked.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
And you go to Washington and you meet people who
are like working in the running of this country, you go,
oh my.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
God, I wouldn't trust you to walk my fucking dog.
That's right, It's unbelievable. That's why John le Carrey said
that the government conspiracies are generally a cover up. Sure,
because they're because they fucked up. Look what we did. Yeah, yeah,
I think that's right.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I mean, but it's it's the whole thing about you know,
like people who are flat earthers, like you.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Don't really can you really believe that? Is that a thing?
Speaker 1 (43:06):
And I think it's an emotional rejection of some kind.
I think it's connected to emotionality. I don't think it's
about stupidity or anything.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
That's why I think and I'll say it again, That's
why this forum that you've created here on this podcast
is one that's important now because it explores not just
something that's sort of on the positive side of things,
but it's on It's this kind of thing that's going
to maybe make a stop a minute and say, you know,
what's good, what's what is joyful? How can I, uh
(43:35):
not create the opposite of joy in people? Where can
we connect? And I think that is something you've accomplished
with this.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
I think that that's a lovely idea, Tom, and very
supportive of you and I And I'm not trying to
reject your hypothesis by it, but I completely reject you
what no, I mean, it's it sounds loftier then well
I have in mind for this, which is conversation. But
(44:03):
even as I say that, I think the actual conversation
without an agenda is quite a lofty goal.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Because it's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
I think because the consequences of speaking freely right now
about anything you might an opinion you may not have formed.
See That's why I understand that, Like I used to
feel like I could speak about stuff that I wasn't
sure about, Like I'm not sure about this.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Maybe it's this maybe it's that.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
But if you say maybe it's this, that's you can
cut out that little piece where you say maybe it's this,
and then people you're definitely saying that's the thing, and
all you were doing was thinking out well, you can't
think outlet it anymore.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
I remember one time in the writer's room you said
something again i'll paraphrase, there was somebody who was in trouble,
like the cancel culture kind of thing. Somebody had said
something on a hot mic and all that. Yeah, and
I really took to heart what you said. You said,
you know what, we have the advantage of being recorded,
we can edit afterward. That's true.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
And you got to give fair play to somebody who is,
you know, just free wheeling and oops.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
You know. Yeah, Now if the person you know is
revealing something truly ugly about what they think or believe things,
that's a different story.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
But yeah, but I mean the idea of and this
is the interesting thing I think about writing as well,
because I want to talk to you about the book,
which is what I wanted to talk to you about anyway,
But of course we've ended up talking about many and
other things. There's stuff that I wrote down jokes that
I've made, or or or beliefs that I put into
books that I wrote, you know, fifteen years ago that
(45:34):
I look at it now and going, I don't.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Believe that anymore. Yeah, and good for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
But the thing is, in the world of documentation, you
will always believe that. That's quite an interesting thing. It's
like I always think about Martin Luther. If he had
stopped before he went on the anti Semitic branch, it
really would have helped, just like to say, a great deal,
like just.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Had me to this, going right to that. If you stopped,
there you go, but there you go. No, talk to
me about the new book. The new book is called
The Accidental Joe. Right, it's about coffee. How did you know? No,
joe being the slang term in this in the trade
for a spy, spy who's being run by handlers.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
And uh so you're going, that's why you mentioned the
Lacari You've gone spy.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
No, oh, yeah, I've got you know what. Here's the
idea that I had and I told I told Nancy,
have we talked about the stage? I said to her,
I have an idea. It came to me on a
run and I kind of remembered it. Yeah, it's an
elevator pitch that only takes one floor. And that is
what if Anthony Bourdain had been using his show to
spy for the c I Ah, okay, and that's the book.
(46:48):
That's good. Yeah, so uh that's the setup. And so
what we've got is oh my god. And then you
put because Anthony Bourdin. Yeah, so there it went. And
and you know the book, it's not by Anthony. I
created Sebastian Pike, celebrity chef bod Yeah, yeah, what's the
(47:10):
pop tringlespros? But I created this world and there's a
romance element in it, and also there's a sort of
an appeal to see how these shows get made right,
you know. So it's spying and it's torture and it's
gunshots and and it's also how you make uh, you.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Know, flumbay flombay and now you make a crocomb busch. Wow,
a crokum bush.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
What's a k oh? It's a street in a tower
crocomb busch.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I was thinking it was a mouth, like a crocodile
in your mouth.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Hey wait a minute, I think I've got a sequel.
Crocodile in your mouth. But the book, Uh, it's sold
in a weekend, right. Uh. And I had offers from
Hollywood and I have made a deal. Really you sold
the rights to you surprised me? Yeah, to sonyh Yeah.
There's a fabulous producing team Seth Gordon and Julia Gunn.
(48:05):
They have a I love the title of their production studio.
It's called Exhibit a nice. Uh. And they do a
show on Netflix called The Night Agent. You've seen that.
It's really great. You should catch it.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
I'm thinking of The Night Manager. But that's not the
same that's not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
But this is this is about an FBI agent who
works in the White House and the conspiracy thing very right.
But we we of course everything was on zoom.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
We had our Zoom meeting and it was like I
had such a connection with them. You know. It's the
it's the two big words, big money. No, the two
big words are shared point of view. Except yeah, shared too.
I need to edit. Yeah, yeah, that's your first draft.
You get me on a hot mic, you know, and
(48:49):
then come out.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
This is a great darts commentator in Brettona Sports Commentate
or Breton famously said at the end of it, because
they watched darts.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
I watched it. I was in I was in London
not long ago, and watch and they call it sport.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
It's like, you know, overweight alcoholic men throwing tiny little arrows. Yes,
but he said that there was some guy wanted and
he said there's only one word.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
For that, magic darts, which great greatly. Yeah, Tom, you
are of course a joy. It's great, it's great to
talk to you and great to catch up. Let's do
it again soon.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
I would love to Good luck with the accidental joke,
which I will read on purpose almost immediately.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Thank you,
Host
Craig Ferguson
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Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.