The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 233: Jay Leno Makes His Own Sandwich

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

Mike and Jay talk for an hour. Hilarity ensues.

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Post a job for free at ziprecruiter.com slash row. And watch what happens. Odds are you'll find a human resource that just happens to be a great fit for your company in 24 hours or less. ZipRecruiter.com slash row. ZipRecruiter.com slash row. Hello, friends. It's the way I heard it. Episode number 233. This one's called Jay Leno makes his own sandwich because he does.

He also drives his own cars, parks his own cars, writes his own jokes, and does all sorts of other things. A man like Jay Leno might not be expected or inclined to do. I wanted to talk to Jay for all the obvious reasons, but on the not so obvious side, I wanted to feature a very successful person who fame has not appeared to change. ideally somebody whose work ethic has been constant despite their unparalleled success over decades of work. I'm sure Jay Leno is not the only celebrity on such a list, but he's the only one I know, and he's the only one who would take my call, so I'm glad I called him. What follows is a completely unscripted conversation with a true icon in the entertainment industry, and what you might learn over the next hour is nothing less than the secret to success. regardless of the industry in which you labor. Aside from some really funny stories and more than a few jokes, you'll hear a rumination from Jay on the differences between happiness and contentment

and why the former is a trap and the later a consummation devoutly to be wished. We also talk a little bit about money in this episode because, well, he's got a lot of it and money's important. And though it doesn't come up in this conversation, I do want to address a rumor that's been circulating for years about Jay Leno's money. The rumor alleges that Jay never spent a penny of his earnings as the host of the Tonight Show. He has purportedly supported himself and his family and his extensive car collection with the money he's earned over the years doing stand-up. Well, the rumor's true. Jay Leno is a true stand-up who has never relied on any dollars other than the dollars he's made telling jokes in clubs. Something to

keep in mind as you listen. Also, you might notice a new level of frustration from yours truly about the technical problems that seem to plague me every week on this podcast, problems that have led to an important decision regarding Chuck's future as a producer, a decision I'll explain after my conversation with Jay Leno, a man who proudly makes his own sandwich. When's the last time you took a seriously cold shower, apropos of nothing? I don't think I ever have. Seriously cold shower? Probably the last time the water heater broke. Can you come over?

Oh, you have the problem? I just went for a jog, which is already out of character. I came home, and I thought, you know what, Jay Leno is going to be early. He's early for everything. So I ran upstairs to grab a quick shower. Water heater's busted. Oh, it is? Yeah.

It's bracing on the positive side. How old is that water heater? I think it came with the house, so probably like 17, 18 years. They don't last that long. I can't be. You know, I have to replace water heaters about every six to seven years because the water here is so corrosive. It just eats through everything.

It can't be 17 years. It's not a tank. right? It's a regular water heater. Boy, that's a heatless. Yeah, right now it's a heatless water heater. Right, right. Hey, if you get 17 years out of that, you're a better man than I am. Do you flush it out with vinegar? How do you keep it 17 years? Honest to God, man. Look, we talked about this before.

You saw me on a TV show doing handy type things, and you've assumed that I'm that guy who comes in and fixes a water heater. How foolish of me? No. I think what we're talking about here is the second law of thermodynamics, right? We're living in a disintegrating universe, entropy, everything is corroded, everything is falling apart. How are you feeling these days? Good, good, but I fix my water heater, so I'm okay. You're a guy who looks after his own pipes, metaphorically, literally.

Now, I don't have you on screen anymore, is it? Oh, me? Nah, it's okay. This stuff all goes to the hard drive and then gets uploaded. You can hear me, right? I can hear you, yeah, yeah. That's the important part. We'll look great later.

but it could be Dana Carvey doing you. I don't know. Dana Carvey does a good Mike Roe. Yeah, yeah. God, that would be the ultimate. Ultimate compliment. So thank you, seriously, for doing this. I know you're busy. Well, yeah, thanks for having me. No, of course. God, man. Full disclosure, I'm a little in my head because I've spent the last four days as a guest on podcast promoting Dirty Jobs is coming back next month. Oh, good. And I've just overwhelmed once again by the fact that we spend a lot of time answering the same questions over and over and kind of telling the same stories.

And I don't want to ask you the same questions. People always ask you. But on the other hand, I can't imagine there's a question you haven't been asked. No, no. But I was doing one of those things where are we recording now? Should we talk about this on the air? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're recording.

This is as good as it gets, Jay. We're on the show. I did a thing. I was promoting something, you know. whatever it was, a little TV thing. But wait a minute, before you tell this story, since we did sort of stop there, Mike, why don't you leave and come back just to try to get you on screen? Oh, I'm off screen?

Yeah, it says the camera is disabled due to slow internet connection, but the video is still recording. I'll just hop back in. That's fine. You know what? Maybe I'll just plug this stupid Ethernet thing, and that should probably be better. I'll hop out and hop right back. How does one leave a call exactly?

Oh, he's doing a coffee commercial. It looks like the Maxwell House said. Have you seen these things, Jay? They're called embers. You would appreciate this. It's got a heating element. No, I call out a coffee mug. It's a mug with a heating element in the bottom.

So you charge it, and then you put your coffee in it, and it keeps it hot for like an hour and a half. Oh, or you could just heat your coffee before you pour it in the mug. So now you have to blow it. on it extra hard to cool it because it's heating itself up. Correct. You know, it would be nice to put a small compressor in the cup that would blow down on it to cool the top of it as the bottom was heating.

This way you would get a normal cup of coffee. Right. Or a straw that had its own sort of conductor that you could sit. Right. And that way, that's... doesn't make any sense at all, does it? Well, you get a straw that has like the Benuli effect where running through a tube it would cool. You know how gasoline will become cooler?

It gets cold as it goes through a tube? Yes. Yeah, same type of thing. As it's heating at the bottom, it's cooling coming through the straw, and then with a compressor blowing down on it from the top, that would cool it. I don't want to overstate it, man, but I think we're on to something here. If we can get this to market, this is the gift that's going to change everything. Although I thought, Jay, wasn't the Brunuli principle based in aviation, like the wind going over the wing and under the wing? Well, I'm referring in terms of gasoline and an aircraft, an aircraft that was powered by gasoline rather than kerosene.

It would freeze up on the intake manifold as it came through. And so that's where manifold heaters came from and that would heat it up and the whole deal. Banula, I think it only applies to gasoline, though, doesn't it? No, I guess not. No, it doesn't. No, it's not. I thought it had to do with the fact that lift is created, paradoxically, by the fact that air goes over top of the wing, as well as beneath it, creating some sort of principle, which I think Brunuli got credit for on account of his name. Right. I also applies with gasoline. Gasoline going through aluminum intake manifold on a car will get colder. As the opening gets smaller, it has to go through a smaller area, it will cool. cool literally to the point of freezing up. That's why you have an intake manifold. So the point is, if we do this coffee mug right, there's an intake manifold employing basic

concepts of cooling and heating vis-a-vis Brunuli, but we're also going to have a heating element underneath it and some sort of compressor on the top to blow cool air down so it doesn't get too hot. Right. The trouble is now you've got a coffee mug that runs about $1,500, $2,000, something like that. So that's going to get a little price. The idea is make it cost efficient. Someday in the future, they will have air compressors the size of your thumbnail. It will be able to blow down on it. As far as right now, the coffee mug would have to be the size of a 55-gallon drum to accomplish all that you want. And then getting a handle on it would be another. That's a whole right, right. You would need separate people to pick it up and pour it.

Well, it comes to the team of men. Right, right, right. Right. Again, Yeah, go back to the basics again. You won't remember this. I don't remember it. We had a similar conversation in Malibu driving around in Jim Rockford's old Firebird, which you were kind enough to procure for me. We were just discussing the joy of a car like that, but at the same time, some of the redundancies or some of the technology that outsmarted itself,

and now you look at a great car like that and you think, you know, it's still kind of a piece of crap, although you still sort of love it, in spite of all of its maybe at the time, over-designed components? I don't know. Is there something in there like a question? Over-designed component in the early 80s firebird? Yeah.

I'm trying to think of what that would be. Well, it would have been the fact that you got me the actual car they used in the show, which means it was filled with all those audio things. It was rigged for the show. That car lived so large in my memory. it was so strange to see it there in real life. I really wasn't sure how to behave when I sat in it. And then much less dealing with your questions, driving around in this old thing that... I find cars act pretty much the same no matter how you behave. I've never seen a car,

oh, suddenly become insulted or that's it, then's here type of. They're pretty tolerant of almost any behavior. Unless... You're the perfect example. Unless a reporter is writing about how a car drove through a crowd of people, for instance. Something tragic happens, and it was the car that did it. I've been noticing that in the headlines here of late. Well, that was a James Brolin film from 1976. The car, do you remember?

I do. It's probably the stupidest movie ever made. And they wanted to make sure they insulted every major manufacturer, so it was part Lincoln Contla, part Cadillac, part Chrysler Imperial, and a little bit of every kind of car in it. I don't know what the engine was. Did I see you last in your garage, I guess it was? We were shooting something with Optima,

and I think you walked in in the midst of something. Well, the last time you saw me was right now in my garage, where I am. That's where you are. This is the last time you saw me. You can't argue with that logic. When did you become so literal? You know, right now, actually. You're still doing it.

I figure we had nothing to say, so we might as well do it, literally. All right. Well, if we're going to do that, if we're going to live in the moment, journey with me, if you will, to the very first time we met, which would have been 2006. Right. I was a guest on your show, and I want to pay you a compliment. You said something when you introduced me that actually kind of changed everything. I was nervous. I was backstage. I was looking at all the old paraphernalia Carson Pictures and guests and everything. and I'm just standing there, having a hard time believing I'm on the Tonight Show,

and you introduced me. I think your exact words were, Hero to the Working Man, Mike Roe. And I swear I can still hear the sound of my sphincter slamming shut. I was so flattered. You know, that's called too much information, really, at that point. That's almost the point where now that's an image. Sadly, I will not be able to get out of my head for a while.

Okay. But go ahead. You're welcome. I'm just saying being on your show and being introduced that way was so weird and so flattering. And I never thanked you for it, but three days later, Ford called. And they had seen that appearance, and we wound up being in business for eight years. Oh, that's great. That's great. Yeah. And, of course, I didn't make a dime on it. But yeah, yeah, no, that's great. That's great. So I get a firm handshake.

Well, thank you. Thank you very much. No, it was very kind. And for that reason, I was... Well, it was true. Was it? Yeah, I think it's true. I mean, the funny part about it is, as a country who are always very suspicious of intellectualism here. So when you can combine it with a little blue collie, you get almost the perfect deal.

I always say, like, whenever you watch news in Europe and they want to go in it, we're here in front of the Hague. We're at Oxford University where we talk to Professor So-and-so. In America, we're at a truck stop and Lehman. Ohio. And we're speaking to truckers now about how they feel about the debt reduct, whatever it might be. And somehow, wisdom of the common man in America is like the funniest thing ever, you know, just crazy people. I guess what I'm saying is, see, I'm one of those people leaves, the heart is healthiest when the head and the hands work together. Like I work in my garage during the day, and then at night I go out and I stand on the stage and I tell jokes. Okay, so at night,

oh, I work with my head. And during the day, I kind of mindlessly just do things with my hands. But each one gets a chance to rest and work together. Does that make any sense at all? Well, here's how much sense it makes. See this thing? This is... No, I can't because you have a terrible there's no visual way. I don't even know who I'm talking to yet. This is Dana Carvey. We established that. Dana Carvey. Yes. As Mike, it's Mike. Yeah, Mike, it says that your internet is really bad and it says zero percent is uploaded so far, whereas like for Jay and I, it says 99% is uploaded. So you're having an internet issue for sure. Really?

Yeah. I just assume you were horribly disfigured and you didn't want us to see. Well, Chuck, the question is, do you have audio? Yes, I can hear you. Yeah, we can hear you. It's a little garbily, but it's there. You know, we just can't see you. And it says camera is disabled due to slow internet connection, video is still recorded.

Oh, okay. So it'll be there. We just can't see whatever you're doing. doing. So save that mime shit for another day. Well, Jay, what I was holding up was the Microwworks work ethic curriculum, which attempts to articulate the same thing you were just trying to describe. Brains and handwork are two sides of the same coin, blue and white collar. Like the coffee mug we discussed in a more complicated way. Exactly. People are always delighted when working people say something intelligent in the same way they're surprised when intelligent people do something physical,

right? Because it's like you're not supposed to be able to do both. Well, that's probably true. And that's a funny thing about show business. You know, the higher you can go to that in the show business, the more incompetent people think you are in the sense that when I go to a show, I'll pull in and I go, how'd you get here? I drove myself. You drove himself. Jay drove himself. He drove himself to the studio. Where'd you park? I parked him with the space to find. Well, we had a space. You just picked a space and parked it. Yeah.

He picked his face and parked himself. That's unbelievable. I mean, people so amazed that you can accomplish simple tasks. Yeah. Because you're in show business. I made myself himself. He made his own sandwich. He went in the kitchen and he took some cheese and ham and made a sandwich himself.

I mean, they're astounded by that. Why? Why are they astounded? I don't know. It's just one of those things. It just always makes me laugh. Well, you're still chewing and swallowing too, right? That's all you?

The what? The chewing and the swallowing as well. Yes, yes, I wasn't where I was chewing and swallowing. But yes, that's all me. I would get that all the time, especially with music people. When I was doing the time show, I remember knocking on the door and the person going, I hear the person, I want to speak to go, who is it? I'll find out.

Who is it? It's Jay. It's Jay. What does he want? What do you want? Jay wants to come in and say hi before the show. I said, I can hear you in there. I can hear you talking to the other guy.

Just open the door. Oh, and I've also had people go, I remember we had some big rap group on once, and I went to the door, and the guy said, you have to text. I said, what? You have to text. All right, give me the number of us.

So I text my question, and I hear this guy say my question to the person I want to talk to on the other side of the door. I go, I'm right outside the door. Why are we texting? Because that's what they do, man. That's what we all do now.

We've got this stupid thing in our hands. We can text anybody anywhere. Yeah. You know. Chuck, are you worried about this? I'm looking at your face. Jay's thing just fell out of his head. That's all.

I only need one. I don't know. It says that it's still recording you. and we can hear you. Zero percent is uploaded, which means that once this call ends, you need to just keep it open for a long time. But I wonder,

is Sandy like downloading a ton of movies or something? No, but I mean, the hot water heater went up. I don't know what the hell else might have happened. I can't imagine that the hot water heater is. Jay, are hot water heaters attached to Internet as far as you know?

I don't know if you have an Internet-based water heater or not. The thing is how you have a self-heating coffee cup that blows on itself. anything is possible. I don't know. It seems like you have a very complicated life. You have no idea, man. You, on the other hand,

seem to have an incredibly simple existence, even though you're busy. That's why I'm doing this show. Duh-DU-DUDU-DU-D-D-Dum. Well, are you sick of it yet? Are you sick of AI hogging up all the headlines and sucking up all the bandwidth? You find yourself wishing we lived in a simpler time.

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What's your day? That's probably the smartest question I can ask you. What did you do this morning? What are you going to do if you ever get off this call? Actually, today I'm not doing much. I'm just kind of fooling in the garage. I have a benefit tonight. I think I got a cop Christmas party to do,

which are always hilarious. You know, when you do police Christmas parties, I did one last year for the sheriff's department, and you just assume people are showbiz savvy, you know. So I get to this function room where the, show is, you know. And the stage is right next to the guy slicing the baron of beef, you know, whatever it is. I mean, literally, I can feel the heat lamp near me. I got up, thanks you guys, and I'm starting to tell jokes and talk. There's a guy right next to me with

his plate. Hey, can I help? Oh, I thought he wanted to talk to me. He's just waiting for a slice of roast beef, you know. And so now a lot of cops, begin to get behind him to get the roast beef, you know. So, and I'm trying to move this way, but the stage is not big. I just can't get away from the roast beef and the heat lamp, you know, and you go, that's why free shows are the worst. They're the hardest to do because they're free. So everybody just assumes, you know, but it was just like the oddest thing to stand

next to the guy with the heat lamp and the roast beef trying to do your act, you know. And they're eating. Sure. So you get a lot of this. So their bank is to you, and you sort of struggle through. And well, say, thanks for coming. Well, thanks, thanks, you guys, and I appreciate you. And they're very appreciative.

It's just very odd. Well, you said once that as a comic, what you need to do is not go to the places where they necessarily love you, right? Right. Go to the places that are in some way challenging. And I think it's interesting that at this point in your career, The only place you can find that's a challenge has roast beef and a heat lamb. It happens.

You know, I remember I did a guy was having this huge wedding. He hired me, Dana Carvey, and Rod Stewart. Okay. Now, Rod Stewart with his setup was at least a half a million dollars. So this guy was spending serious money. So we get there and Dana goes up and it's a wedding. people are drinking, carousing. Nobody has a word.

Dana comes off like he's been just shell-shocked, you know. And then I go on, bomb horribly. How's everybody doing? I mean, not even nothing. Dana and I are both bombed now. I go, well, Rod Stewart will save the day. Do you think I'm saying? I'm trying to sink.

Nobody. Just a complete weight. I go, how much money did this guy spend on this? What a complete waste of it. of time. People literally walking past Rod Stewart with food and, hey, how are you doing? You're hilarious. Just hilarious. No matter how far you get up there, there are still awful gigs out there. The question is, was there a videographer? And was this taped? Because if that exists on tape, you, Carvey and Stewart, all crap in the bed at the same time, that's gold.

I think most people have it in their contract. It's not to be taped. But everybody has cell phones. I'm sure there's some tape that exists. Seeing you be not funny for a half hour is really not that hard. But if you intercut it, right? So you bomb a quick cut to Carvey bombing and then a montage of Rod Stewart singing through the whole thing. Yeah. It really could be one of the greatest instructional videos. You know, I'll try and track the guy down.

That's a great idea. It's no coffee cup as ideas go. It's pretty good. whose idea was Jay Leno's garage? Well, that was my idea. I have cars and I have a garage, so it seemed obvious just to put the two together. My thing has always been,

if you make your hobby, your job, it's not work. I like cars, I like collecting them, I like working on them, that kind of thing. So I said, oh, why not see if we make a gig out of this? So we started the YouTube channel, and that did really well. And then we expanded it to CNBC, where it became more of a like a rolling tonight show. You're in a car and you're discussing something with somebody

that's got a car-related aspect to it. In your episode, you were a Rockford guy, so we found the actual car from the Rockford file. Let's put Mike in that and see what happened. And it turned out to be a great segment. People really liked it. They learned a little bit about you, to learn a little bit about the show,

why you like the show, you know, that's everything. I'm just curious because, obviously, you're in a position where you can do anything that you want. Well, not really. I think you'll see a number of people in prison that are bigger than I am. Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein. They all did what they wanted. And, well, I think you've seen the outcome.

So that's technically not true. Okay. Technically, you can't do anything you want. Right, right. But in the crazy, stupid world of TV, after 22 years on the Tonight Show, it's not like people are going to say, no. You can call your show anything you want. Yeah, they say no. You're only as good as your last joke.

That's a truism that has been since the very beginning. Because there are so many people, all you have to do is be off the Tonight Show for five or six years, and you've lost an entire generation. I meet young people who might know me from the car show or maybe even from Tim Allen's show have no recollection or know anything about the Tonight Show, which shows on for 22 years. I think that's a big mistake people make in show. When I go on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, I do stand-up.

I try to go on like a brand new young comedian. I go out and I try to prove myself and do the jokes. Whenever I see people that I used to like on TV, well, in my day, you know, it wasn't like now with this social media crap and they just complain and whine and try to take people back to time they have no recollection of. You just sort of move forward. You keep doing new jokes. No.

In some cases, you have to work harder. There's a couple of comedy clubs around town here that. opened up during the pandemic and I would go in there to try stuff out and I would see young comics who kind of knew me but didn't know what I did and they would be like oh was this guy going to do anything you know so when you go up and you have real jokes suddenly oh oh they're impressed you know youth has a certain arrogance I had it when I started the old-time comedian I was all that what's this guy going to do and then wow he really is funny you know they there's that thing to sort of rebel against anything your parents like your parents thought was funny, you know.

And I think that has remained throughout history. That's what always amazes me when I talk to people. You know, now people are so different. I grew up in the 60s. People were worse than the 60s. They were going out, blown off the Bank of America and the SDS and just crazy stuff going on all over the place. I think they're better behaved now than they were when I was young. But that's just my opinion.

Every generation always has this thing in their head that the world's just gone to hell in a handbasket in the last 20 years, which is not true. Well, what I meant to say wasn't that you can do anything you want. What I meant to say was you don't have to do anything. Doing Tim Allen's show is great and doing your stand-up is great and doing a benefit with the heat lamp and the pot roast is great. And doing, you bet your life, which I stumbled across a few months ago, that's great. But you don't have to do any of it.

Well, you bet your life. if we did six shows a day for 12 weeks. There's no more efficient gig than a game show. Yeah, but it's six a day for 12 weeks. It's bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Yeah, you bang them out. Was it fun? It was fun.

I liked it because you had to live on your wits. You know, it did the Tonight Show. You had to read the book, have to listen to the album, you had to watch the movie. This, you're just meeting people the first time. It was like jaywalking on the Tonight Show. We just go up and ask people questions and edit and use the best part of it.

Although we don't really edit on this show, it's pretty much reshoot it in real time. And I like that. I like having to live on your wits. I think it takes you back to the early days. That's the fun thing about being a comedian, as opposed to doing a show where someone writes a script and you've got to go home and memorize it,

and then you've got 175 people you have to interact with constantly just to get it to work. And then you just go down to a club, you just get on stage, and you talk. I remember when I first thought I had a bit where I used to take out a pair of sunglasses and do something with it. And one day, I forgot the sunglasses. And I got, well, this is terrible.

I'm never going to use a prop again. I just want to be able to do a show with a drop of a hat, get on stage, and start without, oh, I can't do my thing. I don't have my bit. I don't have my glass, you know. So I always like that aspect of it. The thing that struck me the most, I saw you in a club years ago. And I can compliment you on a couple of things. but the better compliment was when I saw you that day we shot with the Rockford car.

You were there probably six or seven hours with the crew. You said to me at one point, these guys are all really great at what they do. And I really don't tell anybody to do anything at all. I show up. I'm in their hands. I get in the car. I talk to my guest. And I trust everybody around me to be as good at what they do as I am at what I do.

do. And that's why this show is fun. And I thought that is smart and that it's also rare. I am a huge believer in low self-esteem. Absolutely. I think it's the key to success because you listen. You don't imagine you're the smartest person in the room. You realize everything is a team effort. I always try to say we instead of I. I would get these people on the tonight show all the time. Well, here's my vision. Oh, shut up. Nobody can. You know, just stupid vision. Let other people, I don't even like to say I'm a comedian, I let other people make that value judgment.

They could go. Well, thank you. That's very nice. I appreciate that. Because in my mind, some people like you and some people think you suck. You're always trying to win over those people. I'll tell you a funny story. I was dating a girl once, and on the third or fourth date,

she brought her parents to the show. So I said, okay. So I'm on stage, and I see her sitting in the front row with her mother and father. the dad's like this. So I'm just, da-da-da-da-da-da. You know, throwing the joke his way. Nothing, you know.

And now I'm like sweating bullets. I'm like, and I'm kind of ignoring. I'm playing the other side of the room, you know. Dada-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah. So I think, okay, the guy doesn't like me. I'm dating his daughter. I don't know.

So I come back, say, go, Jay, this is my father. I just want to tell you, he has Bell's palsy so he can't move his face. I said, well, why did you just. tell me that before the show. I'm sitting there. I'm working my ass off here. Trying to get a laugh from this. Everybody else is laughing except this guy.

I couldn't get anything at him. I mean, I'm just pounding the jokes there. Nothing. I'm thinking, what does it take? And the guy's going, oh, very funny. You're really good. Well, thank you, sir. Just a nightmare.

I'm not sure what's funnier. that that happened or the fact that she affirmatively did not tell you. No, she didn't tell me. It didn't tell me. That's the end of the relationship, right? I mean, that's how it ends? No, no. Well, I mean, it didn't last much more past, but that's not why we broke up. I didn't think it was hereditary and our children would no longer laugh. I mean, no, no, that wasn't dead. No, no. Do you remember, this is apropos of nothing, but it was on that same day. It was during a lunch break, I guess, and I think it was your director. Somebody had a birthday. And everybody, I think they sang happy birthday, or that or maybe it was like they did the

100th show or something. It was all very casual and we were sitting there eating. Right. And somebody said, look, just wanted to express my gratitude for being a part of this show for so long. And when I look to the future, it just fills me with hope and optimism. You said under your breath, loud enough for everybody to hear, but just under your breath, you said, yeah, about that. You just kind of throw. You just kind of threw it away. Right. And for whatever reason, that everybody spit their food out and laughed for about 10 minutes. And I don't think they were just trying to suck up to you. It was just, it wasn't even what you said that was so funny. It was just a perfect example of timing. You won't even remember it, but it was my favorite part of that day. I don't remember that.

I wonder what it could have been. It must have been a birthday because when that wasn't near our 100th episodes. How many episodes have you done? Well, of that show, that's the one-hour show. I think we've done 80-something. So you do a one-hour version. You do, what, a half-hour that takes place in the garage? We do 52 half-hours a year, and we do usually 16-1-hour. And you just did 72 half-hours of You Bet Your Life?

No, 181. Good God, man. No, it's six shows a day for 12 weeks. People just, I don't think they understand. individually, that's all a lot of work. Collectively, good on you for your work ethic, but at what point do you slow down? That's my favorite thing is everybody assumes everybody else's job is easy.

People assume you go and work at four, they hand you some jokes, you read them, and then you go home at six, which is what you want them to think. I mean, that's the best way to do it. You know this from your show. There's no such thing as a 10-minute job. People say, how long it takes to fix this car? Give me 10 minutes. Okay.

No, there's no such thing. Everything takes forever. I used to get this night show at 7.30 or so. And then you'd finish maybe at 7 o'clock at night. And then you go home and you write the monologue from usually 10 to 2. And that's the day. It's like everybody thought Dean Martin was drunk. He didn't drink at all, actually.

Hardly at all. But he always had apple juice in the glass and always pretended to be drunk. And people like that. You don't want to go out to go, here's a joke. it took me weeks to get this joke. Okay, I spent hours working on it. Okay, it's better to be from, yeah, it's not that. So somebody that comes across is an ad lib or off the cuff remark is always going to be funnier.

Comedy is the economy of words. It's the ability to say something in the least amount of time with the fewest number of words, so you don't waste people's time. And that was my point, Jay. Your comment during lunch was an aside. Right. And it took less than a second. But everybody around, I promise you, it was the biggest laugh of the day.

Well, you know the best example that James Gandalfini, remember from The Sopranos. He was in a movie with Steve Corell. I can't remember that Steve Carell played a magician. Gandalfini was the Vegas nightclub, quote, gangster owner. And he wanted Steve Carell to play at his kid's birthday part. and Steve Krell says, hey, how old is your son? And Gandalfini goes, I don't know.

I don't know. That, I don't know, is the funniest thing I ever heard. It just killed me. It was just the brevity. It just, the incredible Wonderstone, I think, something like that was the name of the movie. Yeah, that's what it was. But Gandalfi goes, I don't know.

To me, just the one word is the key. Bob Newhart was the master of that. My favorite Bob Newhart line. He used to do this bit about an astronaut having the first contact with extraterrestrials. And he comes back to Earth. There's a press conference and he's talking. And one of the reporter says, astronaut so-and-so, how far ahead of us are the aliens? And New York says about six weeks.

And six weeks, you know, two weeks you can catch up to. Six months will never be here. Right. But six weeks, you can't catch six weeks. Nobody can make up six weeks. You know, it's just finding the right, that's what Newhart always did, Beth. He always had just the right word, the right phrase. About six weeks.

I fell off my chair at that because you had to listen, you had to pay attention. But if you did, you were rewarded with just the funny line. I mean, when you think about it, there's no other amount of time that it's funnier there than six weeks. Why is six weeks funnier than a month and a half? Because you can't catch six weeks. But a month and a half is also six weeks, but six weeks... Yeah, but a month and a half sounds a lot longer.

And the other thing was about Newhart, a line like that came out of a body with a face like the father of your girlfriend. Right, right. So there's no expression on his face when he says this. It forces you to think even more and focus even more on what he's saying. Yeah, when you watch Early Newhart, in the old days of the tight show, you did a seven to nine minute monologue. Nowadays, they have you to four and a half because I don't know what the rush is.

I never could watch that show last comic standing because the comic's got two minutes. Right. So in two minutes, what do you throw a pie? I don't know, you do something just to get a reaction. but you can't build, you can't create a world and then have the whole thing implode. That's what Newhart did so well. Yeah. And not to drive the point into the ground, but that's what you did during that lunch.

It only took you a second, but what preceded it was a big happy birthday song, a surprise cake, and a guy making a heartfelt speech and trying to express his gratitude to you for your generosity. not just in the past, but in the future. And then you just take all the piss out of it. And it's, yeah, about that. You know, it's like... Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's what makes things funny.

Do you ever... I guess everybody does it now, but when you go online and you look back some of those new heart days, or maybe even your early shows on the Tonight Show, are you surprised by what you see? Maybe that's a wrong way to ask it, but I see clips on you,

of me, like in the early 90s, and I have absolutely no recollection of what I'm going to say or what I did. That's funny because as a comedian, you tend to remember every joke you did. When you do over 4,000 Tonight Show, you realize it's 4,000 monologues. So whenever I hear a joke, I can judge it whether it was funny. I saw one the other day. I remember doing this joke, too, but I didn't remember the joke until I heard it was about. there was a baby born in China and the baby was born with the vestiges of a third eye

it didn't have an act but had the vestiges of a third eye and today lens crafters said they can make him glasses in about an hour and a half now that's old enough that it makes me want to do something I would never otherwise do which is explain the punchline because there are probably a lot of people who don't remember Lenscrafter's promise

15, 20 years ago. Yeah, we got glasses in about an hour. But I never met anybody that didn't get that joke. Oh, really? You know another one that was like that? I said that I had done a gig in Alaska in February.

And I got to Alaska and it was the time of year when the sun came up at like 11.30 in the morning, it went down at 1.30 in the afternoon. The hotel I was staying at, It was like 40 degrees below zero. The hotel instead of windows that had that thick, I call it urinal glass like they have in the New York subways.

Light comes through, but you can't see. And it's so thick, you know, because it's so cold. It was 40 degrees below zero. Yet when I went into the thrifty drugstore, the ice cream was still soft. I don't understand how that could be. You know, that's an example of taking totally unrelated. things but that's the one thing people always would complain about thrifty ice cream that it was soft you know

like the ice cream with i don't understand how it can be 40 degrees so my question about that is yeah is that a joke or is that a story were you really in alaska yes i really was in alaska and i really was in a thrifty i have no idea whether the ice cream was soft or not right but i'll tell you a true story that you'll part like it's actually true it seems rather sad but it involves another community in rodney dangerfield and rodney and i were good friends you know when i was a kid my favorite thing is to watch rodney on the tonight show and watch rodney watch johnny be the straight man rodney sit down like i tell you things are bad johnny things are bad oh that bad you know johnny go things are bad he'd always repeat the last word or rodney said uh my doctor was tough tough doctor oh tough doctor and then he'd do the

jokes, you know, but, but, but, but. And I always to love that. And one day I saw Rodney on Merv Griffin, and Roddy comes out, I'll tell you, he says, I take in some rough hotels, rough hotels, and Merv's go, what was the name of one of those hotels?

And he goes, what? What was the name? Oh, okay. Okay, then Roddy gets back on tracking, and I tell you where I live, it's a dump, and it's a dump a place of the, and Randy goes, and then Merv, quite instantly goes, well, you're up on the west side with me, you're up above 753. It's beautiful there,

isn't it? And Rodney, what? Yeah, hilarious. Anyway, so I never wanted to make that mistake. Right. So, whenever I'd have Rodney on the Tonight Show, I always would take his last word and throw it back. Things are bad? Bad, aren't they?

Oh, they're bad. So I had Rodney on a dozen times, I don't know. And then one time, I had him on, and Rodney seemed a little off his game. His hand, he'd always do this, with the tie, but the hand was over here. You know, little things, if you have a favorite musician, you watch them play, you know,

he might still hit the note, but it doesn't sound quite as crisp as. I said to Debbie, our producer, while Rodney is doing his act, I said, call it paramedics. I think Rodney's having a stroke. She said, what are you talking about it? I think he's having a stroke. Just call a paramedics. If I'm wrong, I'm. Okay, so Rodney sits down, and he's really sweating.

And this is 2004, and he's sweating more than normal, you know, and everything. And he did fine. He's great on the show, finish the said. He did the things of bad, oh, Jay, to bed. You know, he's throwing all that way. Okay. Then the show ends, Rodney's dressing. The paramedics come.

I go, Rodney's in his room. And then they take him out in the stretcher. And he had a minor stroke. I said, he did have a stroke. Okay, Ben, so I kept in touch. Rodney died not long after that. But Joan, his wife, she called me. She said, Jay, Rodney, can you come to the hospital?

Rodney's in a coma. He can't speak or react, but I think he can hear us. I think he might like it. Okay. So we go and I talk to Rodney a little bit, tell him, you know, you know how great he was and work with him and being a friend and all kinds of stuff. So then Joan says, Jay, do this. She goes, Rodney.

She goes, Jay, put your finger in Rodney's hand. So I put my finger in Rodney's hand, you know. And she goes, Rodney, if you know what's Jay, squeeze his finger. so I felt just a slight squeeze and I leaned over and I said Rodney, that's not my finger and he did this and then John went

and she started yelling you know and we got a reaction he died not long after that but to get a reaction from him and to make him laugh and for Joan to appreciate you know your comics that's what comics do you know nobody thought oh that was insensitive

or cruel, you're being mean, to make a comic laugh or to get you to laugh, it was just a great thing. And that was just, so that would be just between a story in the joke. Yeah, to make a comic like him laugh in a coma. Right. That's some pretty good material. That's what was fun. That's what you always wanted to do with Johnny, to make Johnny, I'm making Letterman laugh. I love that in the 80s more than anything.

Because Dave was hard, and he had to find exactly the right kind of, I just, knew the right kind of jokes that would get Letterman's attention. And so that was fun. Do do do do do do do do do do. My guest today, Tom Albanyce, is an American giant. And I'll tell you why. Tom understands on a fundamental level that the business of mining is a non-negotiable prerequisite of our civilization and our economic independence, just like the business of making things. American Giant knows this, which is why they committed themselves 16 years ago to make all their excellent clothing right here in this country. It wasn't easy, but they did it. They sourced locally grown cotton, and they built factories in towns across the nation where they could hire hardworking locals who cared about making a quality product.

And then they went about the business of gently reminding people that when you buy a piece of clothing from American. Giant, you're not just buying a high-quality sweatshirt or T-shirt or another pair of jeans. You're investing in a local supply chain. You're supporting communities from the Carolinas to California. And you're getting a piece of clothing that won't just survive the wash. You're getting a garment that'll get better with age. Check out their high-quality staples, hoodies, teas, denim, built to be worn year after year at American-giant.com slash Mike.

It's quality you can feel and a true American success story that you can be proud to support. Use code Mike. Get 20% off your order at American-giant.com slash Mike. American Giant, American Made. American Giant American Made. I don't know how to articulate the point. Obviously. Well, your appearances on Letterman, followed by your, dare I say,

say your ascendancy. You became just a very, very comforting presence. Well, you know, it's funny because when I would do talk shows before, growing up in New England, you have that certain New England ethic. I would always call Johnny Mr. Carson. I wasn't comfortable. Well, you know, Johnny, you know, whenever I meet my dad's friends, hello, Mr. Siverto. I couldn't call him Claudio, whatever his name was. It would always be, like, this is the first place I came to where people introduced their parents by the first name. This is my parents, Betty and Joe. I go, how are you, Mrs. DeMarco, whatever your name is.

So there was always, I couldn't be rude to Johnny or rude to Merr Griffin or Mike Duggar or any of those guys. It felt uncomfortably. So Lutterman was a contemporary. I knew Dave from the clubs, thought I could go out. And my favorite thing to do was I knew Dave was always nervous before he went on. So whenever I did the Letterman show, I would get it like a huge meatball sandwich. And I would stand near the makeup room. When Leibon came around the corner, I'd go, hey, cry your meatball.

How can you eat that thing before you go on? Oh, David, delicious. Delicious meatballs. You've got to try this sauce. No, I'm not trying. And I would just keep pushing this meatball sandwich his face all time, you know. And his awkwardness, it just was funny. And then a couple of times I'd bring the meatball sandwich out on the stage, you know, put on the desk.

And, you know, just get tomato sauce all over everything on his desk. He would just be just disgusted, you're furious, you know. Not really, but in a funny way. And it was my favorite time in my career doing those shows. Your favorite time in your career was being a guest? Yeah, because you could do whatever you wanted. You had the opportunity to hone a piece of material. When you're hosted tonight show, you can't be outrageous every day

because eventually it reaches the point of no return. I remember Sam Kennyson was outrageous. Then he had about necrophilia having sex with dead people. Okay. Well, where do you go from there? What's your next thing? What? That's kind of what happened.

You see that happened with a lot of comics, you know, as Louis C.K. and everybody, I mean, it gets so outrageous that it's not outrageous anymore. Right. It's like moderation on all things. Someone asked me if I was happy, and I say, I never shoot for happiness. I shoot for contented.

Because contented you can last a long time. Happiness is like drinking champagne every day. Okay, by the end of the month, you're just an alcoholic. You know, that's all of this. Because you can't be happy every single day. Now you're like a crazy person. Or Winston Churchill. Yeah, if you just shoot for contented, you're fine.

That's probably a good thing to riff on for a second. That curriculum I mentioned before. It's really about job satisfaction. Everybody talks about how to be happy in your work. I think I said to you, Chuck, after shooting with Jay, I said, one of these days, that guy is probably going to write a book on how to stay sane in this business and how to be content in what you do. And it's really not about being happy. It's about hitting a lot of singles, it seems like, and finding a way to maintain some equilibrium.

Like you say, you can't be Kinnisone every night. Right, right, right. And then suddenly you become a host. Maybe that's the distinction. When you're a comedian and you show up on Letterman's show or anybody's show, you're a guest. Right. But then you become the host. That's an interesting transition to navigate, I would think.

It is. It's a very interesting transition. And you lose people along the way because you're now a member of what you used to rebel again or make fun of. You're the man. So you either roll. they didn't accept it and make fun of it, or you're a hypocrite, you know. Well, I guess the question then is, how do you get that into minds of kids today? How do you get work ethic?

You mentioned sort of a New England work ethic, a Puritan work ethic. You're the best example I know of somebody who works. You know something. If you look at the population, you have 10% or this, 10% or that, 70% of, 70% of that, 70% are followers, 10% are leaders. It's been the same all the way through history. 10% of every population will usually be gay.

10% will be dead. I always hear that, oh, this generation, they don't do this, or this generation. I even take umbrage with like the greatest generation. It was a great generation, but you know, we had people like Pat Tillman who died, later killed, but on 9-0-11, here's a guy

had a multi-gazillion dollar career in professional sports, gave it up, because he was so moved by the events of 9-11, that he joined the service and paid for it with his life. You know, and you go, okay, there's millions of those people. I meet people with work ethics every day. It's like when you're a classroom, you've got a classroom with 30 kids, 27 of them are really. And about three of them are exceptional students.

Those are the ones that you'll find. I don't find it changes a whole lot. I meet young people today that work really, really hard in a different way than what I did. And when you sit back and examine what they're doing, you know, when I was in my early teens and 20s, we were told you won't see people as rich as Howard Hughes anymore because the taxes and everything that need to be invented has been invented. I would hear all these reasons why you'll never see success like Henry Kaiser or any of these kind of people had. But now you have more self-made billionaires in the last 25 years, and you had almost all of America up to that point.

The rules change a little bit, but the people don't. I think you still have a lot of young people with a really strong work ethic. I meet them all the time. There were people who would sit in their apartment and send me jokes to try and get a job on The Tonight Show. And then there were a couple of guys that drove across the country. stood outside NBC with an envelope. Mr. Lano, okay, now I look at him. I make contact.

I go, boy, this guy looks determined. I read this stuff. This is pretty good. You want a job? Boom. I remember I was at El Polo Local once I met a kid. He told me he's a sound engineer. He just got a college.

And I said, and I looked at him. I said, you want to be sound engineer in the tonight show? He said, yeah. I said, hey, come tomorrow. And he got the job. And he was good. So I meet those people all the time. I mean, they're out there.

It's not that unusual. Where is that guy now? I mean, Jay Leno hired him to be a sound engineer. He was sound engineer for 20 years. Well, when he started, he was assistant to the sound engineer. I didn't give him the head job. I had come in. I told my sound engineer, take a look at this kid.

There's something about him. I think he's really good. And he said he is really good. And he stayed with us the whole time. Patrick was his name. And if he wanted a burger that day, that never would have. That's because we're in a Polo Local. But he was in the mood for chicken.

Oh, right. Yes, yes, that's correct. I think about those little moments a lot. I was in Sarasota airport the other day, and a guy came up, said hello, said he liked the show, he had a painting business, and I asked him how many people he could hire right now if they showed up ready for work, ready to be trained. And he said 30. We could hire 30 people right now, but we can't find them anywhere.

Anyhow, I posted his picture and our exchange on Facebook. I just heard from him two days ago. They got something like 200 applications. Yeah, there you go. So you really never know. You could be in an airport and take a photo with a guy. And you know, that's where the best comedy comes from. You know, I was doing a show up in Canada.

I think it was in Hamilton. Well, Hamilton Place Theater. Anyway, I'm staying at just a regular hotel. that's on the highway. I have no car. On the other side of the highway is like a strip mall with a dollar store.

I said, well, I'll walk over there. So I walk over and I see there's a cafeteria. All right, so I go on the cafeteria. I get hamburgers. I'm sitting there. And I see this guy watching me, you know? I go, can I help me?

He goes, oh, yeah, how are you doing it? You're that TV fella, hey? You're the fellow on the TV that I see? I said, yeah, I'm doing a show here. Oh, okay. So I gave me a ticket. And you said, you want to come to the show? Yeah, I'll give me a ticket.

And then he said, you know, and then he said, keeps looking at me, you know? I said, did you want to ask me something? He goes, yeah, can I answer you a question about show business? Is that cool? I said, yeah, yeah. He goes, you know, you know those pro commercials you see on TV where like, you know, the girls in the shower and they're worse than hair? I said, yeah. He says to me, yeah, did they have any clothes on in those commercials? So I figure out, this is great. I said, oh, yeah, they have to be naked because you can't say you're taking a shower if you're not taking an actual shower. so they have to be naked and they have to take an actual shower

and this guy goes, oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah. I said, in fact, a friend of mine, that's his job. He casts those. He has to pick the girls, watch him take a shower

and decide if they're good enough. Of course, he goes, oh, man, I didn't get a job like that. He'd have me some job to have me. I said, well, oh, no, you've got to be very professional. He goes, oh, no, I would be professional. He goes, oh, yeah, that's what you have to do.

And I said, he must look at 15, 20 women a day just watch them take showers. This guy's getting so worked up he's so excited about this prospect of going to what these audits I said no but you can't go watch the auditions and say he goes no no I'd be professional

by that's no no I can't get to any audition but I just like the fact that here he is freezing in Canada like 50 miles north of Toronto watching Pearl commercial he's thinking at some way that the guy in Hollywood just watching girls take showers all day.

What's better than that? Watching TV, I think, does something to people's brains, otherwise rational people. My grandmother asked me one day years ago, she said, when you see Jerry Seinfeld, would you tell him she had some note about Elaine? And also, Tom Brokaw, I was wondering, So my grandmother, I think she believed that everybody on TV kind of lived on like a TV island.

Right, right. And we all just kind of saw each other. I mean, I've never met Jerry Seinfeld. I never met Tom Brokaw. And she's not the only one. People look at a pro commercial and might seriously wonder. My mother, every afternoon, she would have her glass of wine, and she'd watch her story, and then she'd watch Oprah. and the older my mother got, the bigger the glass of wine.

By the time my mom was 81, it was the 44 hours of big gulp of wine. You know, the one where the whole bottle fits in the glass, the glass like this big. So I walk in and I see the glasses just about empty, and my mother's from Scotland, you know. He goes, Jamie, can I ask you a question, Jamie? I said, yeah, Mom, what is? She goes, I'm watching the Oprah, and Oprah's talking to the lesbian people. she goes now Jamie I don't understand what the lesbian people do when they get together

I go you know Ma's a lot of my wheelhouse I said not being a lesbian myself I don't want to give you bad advice I talk to Daddy Daddy he'll explain it to you I'm not really sure I don't know my I have no idea what they do when they get together yeah hilarious hilarious I'm not sure if the lesbian

things funnier than the Oprah that's what my mother would call her I'm watching the Oprah. Anytime you put the in front of something, like the science is a good one, right? You know who does that? It's not science anymore. It's the science.

Foreigners always make plural single and singles plural. Like foreigners will say, I have to get the transmissions fixed on my car and change the wheel and rotate the wheel. No, you rotate the wheel. and changes transmission. They always get the plural and singular mixed up, yeah. You remember the old Steve Martin bit when he thought he could be understood in Paris

by speaking in English with a French accent? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would like to go to the hotel. Well, that was my favorite thing. Remember the TV show Mission Impossible? They would always be in make up a country, Uzbekistan, something, you know. And they would just put a Z on the end of like a police car. Police Z.

Oh, that must be how you say police in that language. Right. Or they went into a phone booth. Telephone Z. Oh, telephone C. Oh, that's European for telephone. That's very good. Did you ever meet any of those guys?

Peter Graves, Martin Landau? Martin Landau, I met. Yeah, I think I had Martin Lando on the Tonight Show. Yeah. Oh, wow. It's amazing. Yeah. I just love that.

Yeah, the original face off. It was incredible. I don't want to keep you. It's been an hour. Fucking technology is a nightmare. That gets perfect. See how it's all coming together? I don't want him here anymore and he wants to go.

Chuck, it's perfect. It's an over an hour. That's serendipity right there. I don't know her, but he's very talented serendipity. Goal. Just sounds like a folk singer from your city. Please welcome. Serendipity, ladies and gentlemen.

Put your hands together. And there's an audience filled with Bell Pauzy. You like the Bell Pauze. I swear to that is so horrifying because you know when you're bombing like that, just the idea of you trying harder and harder and harder. I'm just throwing the jokes, just nothing from this guy. You're playing to an audience of one and he's a statue. Right.

That's such a great story. Again, it's not just because he's a tough crowd. It's because he's the father of the girl. Right. You're dating. You want to impress her. You want to do a good show. and he's just a statue.

Yeah, and he wasn't a tough crowd. He actually liked the show. I just had no idea. All right. Well, look, you're a very generous man, and I appreciate the hour. Well, thanks to take of the time, my friend. Anytime.

Are you kidding? Come by the garage and say hello. I promised I will. Good luck with the new show. When does it start? It looks like January 2nd. We're back with six hours of this thing. It's a bloodbath.

It hurts, man. When does this air? This was live. Oh, this is live. Two weeks. Oh, most of these are shown posthumously, you know, that's hell. All right. Well, thanks for taking the time.

Hey, have a good, well, I can't say have a happy holiday. He goes, well, I hope you had a happy holiday two weeks ago when we taped this. Okay. No, Valentine's Day's Day is going to be great. Thanks, you guys. Hey, look, and I am going to cut you in 50-50 on the coffee cup. I think it's going to be big. I think it's a good idea with a little air compressor blowing down on it.

All right. Thanks a lot. Thanks, brother. We never got to the story, you know. Which story? The story about asking the same questions. Oh, that's right. Yes, you were going to tell the story.

The story was I was doing one of these things where reporters wait in line. You sit next to whatever it is, your advertising is a big poster. And this guy had asked me, how did you get started? Okay. He leaves. Female reporters is down. How are you? Good to see.

She goes, so tell me, how did you get started? I started telling him story. And then she goes, hang on. That's the same thing you told the other guy. I said, well, you ask me the same question. I can't get started differently each place. You have to ask a different question. You can't ask me how I got started.

I already hear the answer. And I expect a different answer. Oh, well, actually, I got started in Brazil. I want an exclusive, damn it. Conversely, and maybe to my shame, I went the other way. I got, what's your dirtiest job, Mike, maybe, I don't know, 200,000 times. Oh, yeah, that definitely makes sense, yeah. And so I used to answer the question.

The dirtiest job is replacing a ruptured lift pump in a wastewater treatment plan. And I have a whole story that goes with it, and I tell it. I just couldn't tell it anymore. So then the dirtiest job became, you know, cleaning out the back of this. cement mixer. And then it became skull cleaning. Actually, I remember seeing the worst job. I don't know if I told you this when I saw you. I remember I was like 10 years old. And Life magazine, everybody used to get back in the day because the pictures were big and there's usually events of what had happened earlier

the week. They said, it had a thing on the worst job in the world. This is my favorite thing. It shows a guy in a giant sewer tunnel. New York. And the tunnel is huge, like maybe 12 feet tall. And there are these giant iron bars like every foot and a half. And this guy's job, when the water started to rise and all the crap got caught, he had a pole, he would push it through so it would flow. But the water got high. He only had to work really hard to keep it good. But my favorite thing was, in the corner of the picture about a foot and a half higher than the guy, I see his lunch pail. At some point, during the day, he's pushing crap through. He stops, takes a break, eats a sandwich.

I'm thinking, well, at least he never has to leave to go to the bathroom. He can just stand there. It doesn't really make any difference. But I just remember seeing that the worst job was not doing this. having your lunch pail right there, right there. That was not good. Well, look, man. That was not good. But anyway, thanks for having me out. That was one of the early lessons on that job, man.

It's just when it comes right down to it, you got to eat. It doesn't really matter where they are. That's right. You've got to eat. That's right. And you've got to go, so you got the best of both for us. I was always told never to poop where I eat. But you know what?

That went out the window, too. That's right. You do it every day, my friend. All right. Thanks, Jay. Thanks. Thanks. So just a quick post script about the conversation you just listened to.

I hope you liked it. I loved it. Full disclosure, I was deeply unsettled for most of it because I was pretty sure none of it was being recorded as it was happening. It was such a weird hour. The water tank really broke. I took a freezing cold shower, got down here as soon as I could, and there's Jay, been waiting for 20 minutes, right? So it's a bad way to start a conversation with a guy who really doesn't have much time at all for the likes of me, but he was so generous with his time,

and I was so grateful that he was here that I just didn't even know what to do when my internet crashed about two minutes into this thing. You heard us talking about it, right? The internet didn't really crash. It just lost some of its robustness. The connection got a little weird. Jay could hear me, obviously, but he couldn't see me during our entire conversation.

All he did was stand there for an hour and a half in his garage, staring at my big frozen face on his computer screen as we spoke. Now, this might not strike you as weird or extraordinary, but believe me, no celebrity at Jay Leno's level is going to spend an hour standing there talking to some dude's frozen face, not being sure if any of it's even being recorded. Meanwhile, I could see both Jay and Chuck in my monitor, but the indicator on my screen said 2% uploaded throughout the entire conversation,

which did not bode well for a complete episode. And I really didn't know what to do. When I first noticed it, we were like 20 minutes into this thing, and I couldn't stop, and I couldn't say, look, man, I'm not sure any of this is being recorded. So we just kept doing it. And Jay just kept talking, and I just kept hoping against hope that somehow or another, everything I was saying was being stored on my hard drive,

and maybe this platform, Riverside, that we use, might be able to retrieve it later and sink it all up. Anyway, obviously, that's what happened. And thank God, because I would have had to have called Jay to apologize or ask him to do it again. I would have had to fire Chuck for sure, even though it really wasn't his fault, because when you waste an hour of Jay Leno's time, somebody has to be fired, and I can't fire myself.

Anyway, Chuck still has his job, and now he also has a brand new Maxim named in his honor. I call it the Casey Papp or the Klaus Meyer Celebrity Podcast Audiovisual Phenomenon. The KC. Papp simply says that the odds of a technical problem unfolding during a podcast increase in direct proportion to the level of celebrity in question. In other words, the more famous the guest, the more likely it is that the producer will experience some kind of technical difficulty. The KC. Papp has been proven time and time again

on the way I heard it. Most recently, with Tim Allen, just a couple of months ago. Tim recorded his podcast without a microphone, which was super exciting, on a runway of an airport. It was terrible. And now with Jay Leno.

So after this episode, I thought it was a phenomenon that deserved its own acronym. So when it happens again, as it surely will, you'll know what I mean when I curse the KC. Papp. Anyway, I hate to ask, if you could give us a five-star review over on Apple, that'd be great. We don't deserve it, obviously, but it really does help, especially with all the KC Papping going on.

See you next week.