“In show business, I find that I have pretended to be someone I’m truly not,” says David Letterman as he sits with GQ’s Zach Baron at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, in Indiana, where Letterman grew up.
Join David & Zach for an intimate conversation, as they talk the art of interviewing, the cost of showbiz on the soul, the impossibility of retirement, Letterman’s years of late night wars with Jay Leno, his influence and total aversion to nostalgia, his skepticism of fame (“If fame has crushed you personally, I prefer that kind of person than somebody who wears it well”), and much more.
Join David & Zach for an intimate conversation, as they talk the art of interviewing, the cost of showbiz on the soul, the impossibility of retirement, Letterman’s years of late night wars with Jay Leno, his influence and total aversion to nostalgia, his skepticism of fame (“If fame has crushed you personally, I prefer that kind of person than somebody who wears it well”), and much more.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00In November, David Letterman invited me to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the
00:14Indy 500.
00:15Dave grew up in Indianapolis.
00:18Now he is a part owner of a team here.
00:20To the extent that he's happy anywhere, he's happy here.
00:24If you read pieces about you, pieces of press, profiles, stuff like that, from the 80s and
00:3090s, even a little bit in the 2000s, you were often portrayed as miserable.
00:34Yeah, that's great.
00:38I love that.
00:39Yeah.
00:40Can we talk about interviewing?
00:41Yeah.
00:42Interview technique.
00:43Do you have any?
00:44I don't know why.
00:54But here lately I've thought about this, and my preference would be, I'm having dinner
01:00with you, you and your wife, you and your family, and we go to dinner and then we start
01:06talking.
01:07That would be my preference.
01:09Because of the constraints of television and time and attention span, the interviewing
01:14that I did on TV, not really interviews, people would have a pre-production interview with
01:19you to find out, oh, you just had another baby, how do you feel about this, and how
01:24fast have you driven, and on and on and on.
01:27So it would be a fixed fight.
01:29What do you feel like, like to you, a good interview, what does that look like, what
01:33does that feel like?
01:34Well, I think it is something that you feel.
01:36I'm enjoying talking to you.
01:38Now I'm not just saying that to kiss up to you, because I don't need to kiss up to you.
01:43No, we just don't.
01:44Definitely do not.
01:45We don't.
01:46Nobody would.
01:47My husband, who is often described as the longest serving late night host in the history
01:50of television, does not need to kiss up to me.
01:52He has done more than 6,000 shows on national TV, and I have not.
01:56I don't know, there's something about the casual aspect of this, and that I'm dominating
02:01things.
02:02I'm fine.
02:03You, early in your career, I think were criticized, I don't know, fairly or not, for not being
02:09a great interviewer, right?
02:11Probably, yeah.
02:12Yeah.
02:13I think that's true.
02:14I think there's something that has befallen me.
02:15I'm sure I had it coming.
02:17Here's the issue with me.
02:19When I got to California ...
02:20Whatever moved to California in 1975 with dreams of making it in show business, not
02:25long after he got there, he started doing stand-up at the Comedy Store, where he was
02:28quickly discovered.
02:30Just three years later, he was guest hosting for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.
02:34It was like, okay, I'm here.
02:38Let's get ready to go.
02:39I thought, I'm the guy we've all been waiting for, and operated like that for a little bit.
02:48The first time I realized it was a mistake, I had a morning show on NBC.
02:52This show was called The David Letterman Show, and ran on NBC for less than a year.
02:56Wild show.
02:57It was on for a day and a half, and then it blew up the network.
03:00That's when I realized, oh, you know that thing about me being the guy everybody ... Maybe
03:05that needs to be ... Take another look at that.
03:07The interesting thing about some of the interviews from earlier in the run is, they could get
03:12confrontational.
03:13Yeah, I guess so.
03:15I will say that I also, in those days, was probably under some real or imagined mandate
03:23that that would provide energy that would help the show succeed.
03:27When you look back on those now, how do you ...
03:29I wince.
03:30You do?
03:31Yeah.
03:33Having the notion that I was the guy American television was waiting on skews your perspective.
03:40If I think that that's who I was then, I have to question almost everything I did.
03:45At that time, would you walk away and say, oh, that was the guest, or would you walk
03:48away and say, oh, that was me?
03:50Always me.
03:51You're in a restaurant and somebody gets food poisoning, it's your fault.
03:55By the way, I'll say this, in all the years we were on, not one guest had food poisoning.
04:01You can Google that.
04:04Do you feel like you, these days, approach conversations differently than you would then?
04:10Well, these days, whatever causes curiosity, and probably, I see people do it now on TV,
04:18I think, well, God, this is so much easier.
04:22Why did I think it was so hard?
04:24Easier in what way?
04:25It just seems to come effortlessly.
04:28Occasionally, people have been nice enough to have me on their shows, and they are just
04:32so comfortable and gracious that it makes me feel like, why did I think this was a fistfight?
04:40Why did you think it was a fistfight?
04:41I can't help you there.
04:43It doesn't feel like that anymore.
04:44I think it was, in my head, the struggle, everything's got to be perfect, and if there's
04:49even a dent in this, I'm going to be embarrassed and made to look foolish.
04:54Because you remember, I was the guy American television was waiting on.
04:58I mean, you weren't not the guy, to be fair.
05:00Yeah, I was not the guy.
05:01Believe me, I was not the guy.
05:04Do you feel ready?
05:05You good?
05:06I am ready.
05:07Let's go.
05:08So I heard you say, and please clean this up if I have this wrong, I heard you say that
05:10you felt like you were glad that you were mostly out of showbiz because showbiz had
05:13been making you kind of a worse person.
05:15Yeah.
05:16Yeah.
05:17I have it right.
05:18Yes, you're exactly right.
05:19And maybe it's only because I went through show business, I got that out of my system
05:22eventually, that I can concentrate on being a better person, and probably couldn't have
05:26reached this point if I had not gone through the exercise of trying to succeed at showbiz.
05:31I kind of wonder what you meant by that, like making you a worse person.
05:34I just feel like, personally, I have greater humanity than I did when I was in showbiz.
05:39Because it was all single-minded and great pressure, real and imagined, and I felt like
05:44it's all on me, and it's all on me, and like that.
05:47It was all nonsense.
05:49What?
05:51No, what I need is a tracheotomy.
05:53Tracheotomy.
05:56The adrenaline hit of the show, do you miss that?
05:59Oh, yeah.
06:00Yeah.
06:01Yeah.
06:02Yeah.
06:03I do.
06:04And everyone does.
06:05Some people really thrive on it.
06:06Some people couldn't do it if their life depended on it.
06:09And if I can make somebody laugh just walking into a drugstore to buy gum, that's helpful
06:17to me.
06:18Is that where you get the adrenaline?
06:19Like, I was going to ask, where do you get it now that you've got the adrenaline?
06:22Every time I go into a hamburger place a couple of weeks ago, we go in once a month or so.
06:27And every time we go in, it's different people working, different staff every time.
06:31So they don't recognize me from the week before, because they weren't here the week before.
06:36Right, right.
06:37So as a result, I have a lot of trouble ordering.
06:39So I go in, and I order.
06:40I want the cheeseburger.
06:41I want the onions.
06:42I want the pickles.
06:43I want the tomatoes.
06:44I want the lettuce.
06:45I want cheddar cheese and mustard and ketchup, mayonnaise.
06:50OK.
06:51You got it.
06:52I got it.
06:53I can tell by looking at the person, they may not have it, because they've only been
06:57here a week.
06:58So I say to the young person, I say, listen to me.
07:01And it wasn't threatening, though.
07:02That sounded threatening.
07:03I said, when I get my cheeseburger, will it look like that picture up there?
07:08Yeah.
07:09And now I'm joking.
07:10The kid turns around and looks at the cheeseburger.
07:12And my wife is like my lawyer, throws herself between me and the kid and says, oh, he's joking.
07:19He's joking.
07:20He's teasing.
07:21Don't worry about it.
07:22Yeah.
07:23Long story short, the order was completely screwed up.
07:26Did you have any more jokes for the kid after that, or you left them?
07:29That wasn't enough, Zach?
07:30Yeah.
07:31I don't know.
07:32You're going to go back and do the punchline.
07:33Some of these things, I'm just making up.
07:35Which ones?
07:43Well, I was thinking probably Zach, not Zachary, which would be Z-A-C-K.
07:47Oh, it is Zachary.
07:49It is Zachary.
07:50Yeah.
07:51Yeah.
07:52I noticed you're asking a lot of questions about me, which I appreciate.
07:55You know you are being interviewed though, right?
07:57Yeah.
07:58But it's good for me to get out and see people.
08:01I know that sounds sad.
08:03I think your reputation and your show years, I don't know accurate or not, was not social.
08:08I felt like whenever I would go out, there would be an expectation to which I could not live up.
08:13Really?
08:14Yes.
08:15What was the expectation?
08:16Oh, here he comes.
08:17He's going to do a show.
08:18We're going to be funny.
08:19We're going to be entertained.
08:20And I kind of felt like that expectation takes quite a lot of energy.
08:25Yeah.
08:26So I didn't want to bleed it off before or after the actual show, which was always in
08:31desperate need of entertainment.
08:32Do you feel like that was like your entire measure of energy for the day went into the show?
08:37Oh, without question.
08:38Yeah.
08:39Yeah.
08:40And then so the rest of the day, skeleton day, hardly there.
08:42That's right.
08:43So I would then spend time preparing, time ruminating about what may have gone wrong
08:48or trying to enjoy what may have gone right.
08:50Right.
08:51And anything else didn't matter.
08:52And that's the mistake of having a career where it's the same thing each and every night.
08:57Now, I still advise people not to retire, but it was so single focused.
09:01If we can make these three, four hundred people laugh every night, that's our responsibility.
09:07So the idea that it actually transported beyond that would always come as kind of a glaring surprise.
09:13And now that you don't have to conserve energy, do you find you're more willing to see people
09:17or it's just that habit got ingrained and it never got...
09:20I still enjoy it like this.
09:22I'm loving it.
09:23I just think, great, another opportunity for me to just yak till I drop dead about myself.
09:29Yeah.
09:30Okay.
09:31Well, I mean, we have plenty of time.
09:32Do you feel like a happier person now than you used to?
09:37Yep.
09:38Yep.
09:39Yep.
09:40I do.
09:41And I just...
09:42And I'm sorry, I'm a dumb ass show business moron talking about himself.
09:47And that's stupid.
09:48But...
09:49I know that is the point of this exercise.
09:51It's one of your old magazine, ain't it?
09:54So all I cared about was television, one hour of television that I was responsible for for 30 years.
10:00That's all I cared about.
10:01Everything fell apart or went away.
10:04I didn't even know if it was falling apart or not.
10:06And now I have the energy and the broader focus to recognize humanity has other fulfilling pursuits.
10:15Such as?
10:17Oh, for love of God.
10:19Well, like helping people who need help.
10:22And just to be a nicer person because I don't feel like I'm always in the electric chair.
10:30What do you chalk being happy up to?
10:32I've heard you say meditation in the past.
10:35Yeah, I do a little meditating.
10:36Sometimes I just meditate hoping I fall asleep.
10:39Does that work?
10:41Yeah, sometimes it does.
10:42Yeah, it's pretty good.
10:43But I did when I was working, I would meditate.
10:45Because when you're doing five nights a week, you got to go out tired, sick, lonely, happy, scared.
10:51You got to go out.
10:52And the meditation sometime would give you a boost of energy.
10:57But what I found when I did it religiously, it just gave me more energy to be angry.
11:05So I thought, well, this may not be what they're talking about.
11:09And then you've said medication too, right?
11:12Yeah, yeah, medication.
11:14My doctor, the guy who saved my life, begged me to go on an SSRI.
11:18Because I used to get so upset and we had an office, an adjunct office, an office in the office.
11:25I'm sorry, a closet in the office full of telephones.
11:28Because if things went wrong, I would pick up my telephone, yank it out of the wall, and heave it across the room.
11:35So we had to deal with Wessinghouse, the people who used to make the phones.
11:39And they'd have a regular delivery stop resupplying us with phones.
11:43So that was a cue to one and all that maybe I needed help.
11:47And you don't have that feeling anymore, that urge to hurl a phone?
11:50How have I been today?
11:51I haven't seen you throw one phone.
11:53I think I've put up with quite a lot.
12:03I'm 42, so my life run coincides pretty closely with the run of your show.
12:10And it almost would be hard to explain to someone now how much attention was paid to what you were doing and when you were doing it.
12:19I mean, kind of think I know what you're going to say.
12:21But is there a way to even put into words what it's like to be at the center of a phenomenon like that?
12:27There was a lot of attention when we moved from NBC to CBS.
12:32And I just got to a point where I kind of experienced that, where it was just, OK, can we stop this now?
12:42And it was one after another.
12:44And then it built exponentially.
12:47And I kind of got a glimpse, not a full understanding, but a glimpse of people who are superstars and super well-known global people who live with that the rest of their lives.
13:02But then when I started, after a while, people didn't care.
13:06And then that diminished.
13:08Well, it was a great fascination.
13:10It's funny that one might have to explain this now.
13:12But I think one might actually have to explain this now.
13:14Which is that you had a rivalry.
13:16There's another show on at the same time as yours, a guy named Jay Leno.
13:19Oh, Jay Leno.
13:20Well, that was part of it.
13:21It was a war, the late night war.
13:24Right.
13:25People took sides.
13:26And you maybe represented a cool, ironic, sarcastic form of comedy.
13:29And Jay was maybe seen as the everyman.
13:33Everyman.
13:34Yeah.
13:35The guy you'd want to have a beer with.
13:36For basically most of the run, except for right at the beginning, he drew more ratings than you did.
13:41Which, again, seems quaint now.
13:42But at the time, it was a huge deal.
13:44Yeah.
13:45And I've always been struck by your conclusion, which I don't know when you arrived at it.
13:48But it's something that you've shared.
13:50So it ultimately said, more people like Jay than like me.
13:53Right.
13:54Yeah.
13:55And in the beginning, it's a huge assault and insult to your ego.
13:59Because you think, well, no, I'm the show.
14:01I'm the guy America's been waiting on.
14:03And for a while, I was.
14:05And then Jay overtakes me and continues to overtake me for the duration of the runs.
14:11So I had to figure out what that was.
14:14And I just think it was that simple.
14:16Was that a source of pain to you at some point?
14:20To have kind of conjured the reason it happened was a relief.
14:25I mean, I know for a fact that certain elemental mistakes were made on my part.
14:33But at the end of the day, he is just, and was, his show was more likable than the show I was doing.
14:41Did you ever make peace with that fact?
14:43Yeah.
14:44I mean, it's a fact of life.
14:46Well, I think the thing I was trying to get at, and this is another thing that at one point you would not have had to explain.
14:51And maybe now you would, which is that there's this kind of comedy.
14:55Some of the dominant comedic voice now.
14:58Wry, arch, sarcastic, maybe a little meta.
15:01Before you were on TV, that basically had no mainstream representation.
15:06You sort of brought that with you when you came on.
15:09You're nodding your head.
15:11I'll accept that.
15:13Do you feel like you see your influence places now?
15:18You see something and you say, oh, I can kind of see that that has lineage.
15:22I can see that it kind of connects to something I was doing.
15:25Maybe, maybe.
15:26I can't identify any of those now because I'm thinking of things that we did that I know were created prior to me.
15:33A lot of the stuff that we did was stuff that I remember Steve Allen doing.
15:37Again, people don't know who I am.
15:39People really don't know Steve Allen.
15:41He did a wacky show.
15:42Couldn't get wacky enough for Steve.
15:44So there was that.
15:45We used that as a source.
15:47And I thought, yeah, let's bring this stuff to mainstream.
15:50You know, I mean, I think another thing that you're very influential in, and I wonder if you agree with this.
15:55I'm talking about like wry and ironic comedy.
15:57But some of the most famous shows, especially toward the end of your run, are like the show after your bypass surgery.
16:03Right?
16:04Or the show you did after September 11th.
16:06Right?
16:07There's a crazy show after an episode in your life where you're being blackmailed.
16:10It's a crazy show.
16:11It is a crazy show.
16:12That was a wacky show, wasn't it?
16:14Well, I think that's my point in a way, which is like these shows that were actually very sincere and earnest.
16:19It's like you're telling it.
16:20So it's like sort of funny, but it's sincere.
16:22And in some ways, I actually feel like I see a lot of that.
16:25I see the descendants of those shows, too.
16:27Perhaps.
16:28I don't know.
16:29I wish I had cogent, specific answers for some of these thoughts.
16:35We were just doing a show.
16:38We do one Monday, and we do one Tuesday.
16:41And then we do one one year, then two years, and then the next thing you know, it had been close to 30 years.
16:46Yeah.
16:47And I don't know.
16:48Maybe my memory is sagging.
16:50I just don't remember it other than it's what we did.
16:55There's like almost a part of you that seems reluctant to like look at the light, like look directly at the thing.
17:00Is that accurate?
17:02Yeah, I think so.
17:04I think so.
17:05In addition to the show, I can't look at pictures of certain parts of my life.
17:11I just can't.
17:12I find them heartbreaking.
17:14Really?
17:15Of me, of my son, of my wife, of my parents, of my family.
17:19Let's just keep going.
17:21Let's just keep going.
17:22Sadly, you do keep going.
17:24And you don't want to look at them because it reminds you of the past in some way?
17:29I find them heartbreaking.
17:31And what breaks your heart about them?
17:33I don't know.
17:34I just see that as, oh, yeah.
17:37I guess it's the passage of time.
17:39Sure.
17:40Yeah.
17:41Maybe.
17:42It sounds like you judge yourself partially, so maybe you're looking at that person.
17:45I'm going to need to make an appointment to see you next week.
17:48Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:49I'm available, I mean, if you want to do it.
17:51Oh, I know you're available.
18:00I don't know if people understand that this is your hometown.
18:03Indianapolis, Indiana.
18:04Born here, yep.
18:05Do you feel more or less like yourself when you're here?
18:08Ah, that's an interesting question.
18:10The kind of thing a person should have a good answer for.
18:14I don't feel like myself anywhere.
18:16Now, here's the adjunct problem.
18:18In my life in show business, I find that I have pretended to be someone I'm truly not.
18:26In my life here in Indiana and at my home with my family, I am probably the person I actually am.
18:34And I regret that they don't kind of cross at any point.
18:39So who is the person you're pretending to be?
18:42Dave, Mr. Indiana Big Shot.
18:44Going to be part of the magazine here at the racetrack.
18:47But at home, it's, honey, is the casserole hot?
18:53That's me.
18:54Okay.
18:56By the way, that was full-on sexist.
18:58I made the goddamn casserole.
19:00I wanted her to tell me whether it was hot.
19:02Because she's the only one with any sort of sensory abilities.
19:05The strange thing about you is you've been doing this so long that in some ways you've been like stage Dave, maybe more than real Dave.
19:12You're absolutely right.
19:13And I'm telling you, the imbalance is difficult to reckon with.
19:17You've had a little bit of time to figure it out.
19:20Yes.
19:21Are you figuring it out?
19:22No.
19:23Obviously.
19:24Would you call yourself semi-retired?
19:26Retirement is a myth.
19:27You won't retire.
19:28The human mechanism will not allow you to retire.
19:31You may change what you do.
19:32People do, for the record, people do retire.
19:34But what do they do?
19:35Sit there and wait for, give me the name of your show, Judge Judy to come on?
19:40Late Night with David Letterman?
19:41Oh, but you know what I'm saying.
19:44You can't, as long as you are healthy, you still want to produce.
19:49And you will find ways to produce.
19:51Once I stopped doing the show, it took me a couple of years to figure out that, oh, this is a completely different rhythm.
19:57And without the rhythm that you're accustomed to, largely unsatisfying.
20:01So you've got to find something that's important to you.
20:04And for you, what was that?
20:05Well, like doing this, I leapt at the opportunity to do this because it includes many things I'm fond of.
20:11Mostly talking about myself.
20:15You don't actually like to talk about yourself?
20:16No.
20:17No.
20:21You talk to a lot of well-known people in the show and did so for years on the show before that.
20:28Do you feel like you've learned anything profound about fame or celebrity having been around that machine for so long?
20:36Some people wear it pretty well.
20:38I'm always impressed by that because to me, if the fame has crushed you personally, I prefer that kind of person than somebody who wears it well.
20:48You like to see someone kind of like trembling under the weight?
20:51Yeah, because you've achieved exactly what you had hoped to achieve and beyond, but yet it's left you a little, if not broken, dented.
21:00So that to me is fascinating.
21:02See, that's interesting to me because I feel like I could always kind of sense that from you.
21:07That you kind of like the cracked version or the dented version and not maybe the most polished.
21:12Perhaps.
21:13And yet you chose this line of work where you were around it every single night.
21:17Does that ever feel like a paradox to you?
21:19Yeah, directed at myself, the only time I would feel really happy and satisfied with the person I am is if the show went well.
21:28If the show doesn't go well, then I'm crushed, crestfallen, bereft, fill in the words.
21:33And then I get to try it again and then I'll come back up.
21:36But I'm always suspicious of people who seem to be joyful with their success and fame in show business.
21:44And yet your show was the place where someone would come to peacock and...
21:48Yeah, a lot of this stuff, Zach, I can't help you with.
21:53If you read pieces about you, pieces of press, profiles, stuff like that from the 80s and 90s, even a little bit in the 2000s,
22:01you were often portrayed as miserable.
22:06Yeah, that's great. I love that.
22:09So first of all, fair characterization?
22:12I think so. There's a couple of things going on there.
22:16I was drinking heavily in those days.
22:20That may have provided some fuel for misery.
22:24And I guess not achieving what I imagined to be...
22:29You take Johnny Carson, there's never going to be anybody as good at that kind of show as Johnny.
22:35Nobody better.
22:36Maybe there are people now who are excellent broadcasters and as good as Johnny, but nobody better.
22:41So here I am thinking, oh crap, I'm not going to be as good as Johnny.
22:46What am I doing here?
22:47I like the idea that I was characterized as miserable.
22:50That's delightful.
22:51You have talked about how your father was somewhat unhappy in his career as a florist.
22:58Yeah.
22:59Do you think there was something hereditary about that almost?
23:03Like that it was modeled or...
23:05Maybe. It very well could have been.
23:07But it became apparent to me of my parent, my father,
23:13that he was not happy and not doing what he wanted to do and not successful
23:19the way he would want it to have been.
23:21It was always his primary job was adjunct to what he really wanted to do.
23:26I came across family information that the guy could sit down and play the organ.
23:31He never took a lesson in his life.
23:33And an organ is not like a piano.
23:35A piano is a complex in and of itself.
23:38An organ times eight, you know, you got keyboards out in the parking lot.
23:43It's just crazy.
23:44And then your feet are...
23:45But he just could sit down and play this thing.
23:48So he had applied to a radio station in Louisville, Kentucky, WHAS,
23:5450,000 clear watt channel, still in business.
23:57And he applied to a position as the station organist when he was a kid.
24:02You know, in his 20s or so.
24:04Someone in the family got wind of this.
24:07This is a horrible story, by the way.
24:10Keep going, let's go.
24:11Someone in the family got wind of this, contacted the station and said,
24:16you're making a mistake if you hire this guy.
24:19Oh, no.
24:20Because to that person, pursuing that line of life work was,
24:26you might as well join the circus.
24:28How can you be anything, a full human being,
24:32if you're going into show business?
24:33When did you discover this?
24:35I had it confirmed this summer, honestly.
24:40I always had a different version of this story.
24:43And then I had it corrected for me this summer.
24:45God, that sounds horrible, doesn't it?
24:47It does.
24:48Why don't you tell something embarrassing about yourself?
24:50Man, it's amazing to interview David Letterman,
24:52because it's like you ask a question and a question just comes right back.
24:55Well, now I'm embarrassed and mortified and self-conscious
24:58that I've explained this tragedy from my father's life.
25:01And by the way, I don't know that he ever knew about this.
25:04And the fact that I now know about it is,
25:07I don't know, it's beyond, what is that?
25:10What's going on there?
25:11That's a lot to carry is what's going on there.
25:14You've...
25:15I wrote the letter.
25:18You said at times he would have been happier in your career.
25:24Did you ever think about how you would have fared in his?
25:27Impossible.
25:28Impossible.
25:29I can't count.
25:30I'd be in debt.
25:31I thought that you could keep writing checks
25:33as long as you had checks.
25:35The last credit card I had, I swallowed.
25:38I don't know how to use a phone.
25:40No, I couldn't.
25:41No.
25:42No.
25:43The only thing I enjoyed doing about that kind of life
25:45was I didn't mind licking stamps.
25:47Was there a lot of stamps involved?
25:50When my dad was in business,
25:51that's when you send out the bills and stuff and the orders.
25:54And when I was lucky enough, he'd let me lick the stamps.
25:57Some of this is not true.
26:00Which part?
26:04You mentioned this just a moment earlier.
26:07You guys both at various times in your life became alcoholics.
26:12Do you think that was in relation
26:15to the particular circumstances of your life
26:18or do you think that was just coming for you
26:20regardless of what you were doing?
26:22Was it hereditary?
26:23Was it particular to my life?
26:25Or for him?
26:26He's in a career that he doesn't like.
26:28I can't speak for him because it was a surprise to us
26:31when we found out that he was drunk.
26:34It was a big surprise.
26:36We knew he drank, but we didn't know he was a full-on drunk.
26:39And then he went into AA and he flourished in AA.
26:43He loved it.
26:44And I went to a meeting to see him
26:47and he was in charge of the AA group.
26:50And he was like Ed Sullivan
26:52who used to have a variety show on CBS.
26:55He was running the show.
26:56He had jokes.
26:57He had material.
26:58Everybody was smoking.
26:59It really saved him
27:01because it gave him the outlet of performing,
27:04if you call it that.
27:05And then it stopped him from drinking.
27:07So that was great for him.
27:09And me, I don't know.
27:11I just always felt better when I was drunk.
27:14You got sober,
27:15but you've said the show
27:17became kind of its own form of addiction, right?
27:19Yes.
27:20Yeah.
27:21And again, I felt better when I was drunk
27:23and the same I felt better when the show would go well.
27:26So I think it's interchangeable.
27:28Well, I was going to ask.
27:29Do you feel like that addiction
27:31was more or less healthy than the one to alcohol?
27:33This is an excellent question
27:35for which I do not have an understandable answer.
27:39Understandable?
27:40To myself.
27:41I don't know if there is a difference.
27:43It's healthier the one over the other,
27:45but I assume they are sisters, brothers.
27:49Brothers, sisters.
27:50Cousins?
27:51Yeah, cousins.
27:52Step-sisters.
27:53Step-brothers?
27:54No, cousins.
27:55Neighbors.
27:56Neighbors, yeah.
27:57They talk every once in a while.
27:59Can I talk about my wardrobe for this?
28:07You have a new Samsung Fast Channel.
28:10I barely know what that is.
28:12When you say you barely know what it is,
28:14you then know more than do I.
28:16Okay.
28:17We have one.
28:18It's ready to go.
28:19Showroom fresh.
28:21I'm sorry.
28:22I'm not done.
28:23And when you see this,
28:24you're going to say to yourself,
28:26whoa.
28:28So my understanding is
28:31it's content from your show,
28:33meaning the late night show
28:35that you did for years and years and years on CBS.
28:37And so it's sort of clips from that
28:39and highlights from that
28:40and shows from that.
28:41Remarkable thing about that to me
28:43is that it turns out you own all that stuff.
28:45Yes, it is remarkable.
28:47And owing it all to good representation
28:50when I was representable.
28:52And I will tell you,
28:55I've come to the digital world
28:57and I'm barely,
28:59not even inside the boundaries,
29:01but I have such great admiration
29:04for what it can be
29:05and what I've seen of it
29:07that it makes me
29:08somehow want to be a part of it.
29:10Not in a huge way,
29:12but I just, I realize
29:14that what I always wanted
29:15in the world of television
29:17is now being accomplished
29:19a thousand times beyond
29:21what I wanted
29:22in the internet world.
29:24What was the thing
29:25that you always wanted?
29:26I just wanted to grow up
29:27and have a TV talk show.
29:29Do you think much about this show
29:32in general these days?
29:34You know, it's awful.
29:35It's just God awful.
29:37From the day I stopped doing it
29:39to last night,
29:40two or three times a week,
29:42I have an anxiety dream
29:44related to the TV show.
29:45Really?
29:46Yes.
29:47And it's maddening.
29:48It's just maddening.
29:49What's the dream?
29:50The dream is
29:51I show up and here I am.
29:52I'm ready to do the show.
29:54I'm on the old show schedule.
29:55I've been to rehearsal.
29:56I've been to hair.
29:57I've been to makeup.
29:58I put on my,
29:59and I come down
30:00and it's people I don't know
30:02looking around me saying,
30:04okay, we'll get to it.
30:06But what about the audience?
30:08I guess they're here.
30:10So it's me in the same mode,
30:12everything else incomplete.
30:14And it's that anxiety
30:15that usually wakes me up
30:17in a start.
30:18What do you think it means?
30:21I think it's akin to
30:23the college dream of,
30:24oh, I forgot where
30:25the English building is.
30:26I think.
30:27I don't know.
30:29Or it could be
30:30some sort of psychosis.
30:32Let's hope it's not psychosis.
30:34Yeah, probably.
30:35We talked about
30:36how the retirement
30:38wasn't actually a retirement.
30:39But did you,
30:40did you think at the time
30:42that you were done working?
30:44I didn't even give it
30:45any thought
30:46because I knew
30:47that it was time to go
30:49and I went
30:50and I don't know.
30:52I just didn't think
30:53beyond that.
30:54And so suddenly I realized,
30:57what am I going to do?
30:59And then my good friends
31:02at a major talent agency
31:04took me in hand
31:06and took me
31:07to many, many meetings
31:09and every meeting
31:10began the same way.
31:12Executive A or B
31:13who's no longer
31:14at B or C
31:15would say to me,
31:16well, what would you
31:17like to do?
31:18And I thought,
31:19well, this is pointless.
31:20I did what I wanted to do.
31:21So luckily the good folks
31:24at Netflix
31:26were happy to have,
31:27well, I won't say happy,
31:28but they have me.
31:29And that's been
31:30a great experience,
31:31by the way.
31:32It's gratifying.
31:33Do you feel like
31:34you've learned
31:35the work,
31:36doing it the way
31:37you do it
31:38for the Netflix show?
31:39No.
31:40No.
31:41I don't think I have.
31:42Incredible.
31:43And I think
31:44if you compare
31:45this show to the old show,
31:46you'll realize
31:47I've learned nothing.
31:48Incredible.
31:49Do you,
31:50how long do you think
31:51you'll keep doing it?
31:52I don't know.
31:53I keep,
31:54I'm surprised
31:55that I'm still doing it
31:56at my age.
31:57On the other hand,
31:58I still get a kick
31:59out of what we're doing.
32:00So what does that mean?
32:01I don't know.
32:02This question will sound
32:03more morbid
32:04than your age
32:05you mentioned earlier,
32:0677.
32:07What do you think?
32:08I don't know.
32:09Like I said,
32:10I'm surprised
32:11the number
32:12that I'm still doing it now.
32:13Yeah.
32:14I was doing some show
32:15for Netflix
32:16a couple of years ago
32:17and the schedule
32:18was ridiculous.
32:19We were doing
32:20three shows a night
32:21twice
32:22and then three shows
32:23another night
32:24twice
32:25and it was just insane.
32:26And the stage manager
32:27came up to me
32:28between
32:29one of these
32:30production shows
32:31and she said,
32:32you're going to have
32:33to sit up straight.
32:34Look,
32:35I know you're exhausted
32:36but can you just
32:37sit up straight?
32:38And I just thought,
32:39well,
32:40maybe that's a sign.
32:41Maybe that is a sign.
32:42I don't have
32:43any more questions.
32:44Actually,
32:45I have one.
32:46How did I do?
32:47I thought it was
32:48pretty good.
32:49I like you.
32:50I feel like
32:51I failed you,
32:52honestly.
32:53In what way?
32:54Just stupid things.
32:55Like I said,
32:56a lot of this stuff
32:57is just flat out lies.
32:58Which ones?
32:59I'm not telling.
33:00But you seem
33:01earnest and likable
33:02and I've seen
33:03some of your work
33:04and I feel like
33:05I'm just a gas bag.
33:06You know,
33:07just all I am
33:08is just
33:09ego
33:10and a pair of jeans.
33:11So when you
33:12they're great jeans though.
33:13When do you
33:14so when you say that
33:15it's interesting to me
33:16because
33:17I've watched a lot
33:18of your work,
33:19right?
33:20You sat across
33:21from people in my chair
33:22asked many questions.
33:23Did you consider
33:24any of them gas bags?
33:25Yeah.
33:26Yeah.
33:27David Letterman,
33:28thank you.
33:29Hey,
33:30are we done?
33:31We're done.
33:33I'm grateful.
33:35Yeah,
33:36it was something
33:37I've been
33:38happy about
33:39and I'm happy
33:40to be here.