How are you doing during quarantine?
How are you as a human being, not an alien,
a human being handling quarantine?
Well, you know, one aspect of it has been very lovely,
I've been alone with my wife
and it's been four months now
and it's almost as if we've been making up
for all those times in our like 40 year marriage,
when her business or mine have separated us,
she's a professor, I'm an actor,
I've spent like 30% of that time on location,
20% on a film set in LA.
This was like making up for all that,
we just, it turns out we realized
we were even better company for each other
than we ever dreamed, it was lovely.
Beyond that, I actually had a creative project,
that kept me going up until about three or four weeks ago
and that was I wrote an entire book.
I had a book contract to do a followup
of my political humor book, of "Dumpty,"
which came out last October, that was a big success.
My publisher begged me to do another one
in time for the election, I said, no, no, no, no,
I finally said yes and then I thought, oh, my God,
how am I ever gonna do this?
I'm working on a TV series.
Well, along comes a global pandemic,
the series is suspended, I have nothing to do,
but eat, sleep and cook.
Okay, I'll be able to do this
and I wrote the entire book of 32 poems,
110 pages, did all the illustrations
and it'll be out on September 29th
in plenty of time for the election.
When the first book came out,
you appeared on the show and you did a reading from it
and the book was a big success
and I was really impressed with the poetry
and with the illustrations, really, really fantastic.
Well, and I got the Conan bump.
You made me a New York Times bestseller, Conan.
Yes, I can do that too, I can get you an Oscar
or New York Times, either one.
That's why I'm here really.
Yeah, you loathe to talk to me, but you know you have to.
I can read you from this new one too.
Great, this is called a "Trumpy Dumpty Wanted a Crown,
Verses for a Despotic Age"
and I wanna tell you one thing,
that should be very flattering,
I wanted to hold up the book here in person to show it
and it was sent to us and we're here at the theater
and it arrived at the theater and someone stole it.
Oh!
That's a fine compliment that your book was stolen,
Yeah, wow.
from right here at the Largo Theater.
But we will put it up and make sure
that we prominently display it here on the screen.
This is about Bill Barr very much in our recent-
Bill Barr, Attorney General Bill Barr.
Yeah, I'll show you the illustration first,
because when you read the book, this is what you would see.
(Conan laughing)
As you see, it's Bill Barr as a frog,
which how can you not portray Bill Barr as a frog?
[Conan] There he is.
Sitting outside the Oval Office standing guard,
it's called "Bill Barr, the Door."
AG Barr, that faithful sentry guards the Oval Office entry,
though he stays all legal action,
he should check self satisfaction,
add a single scandal more
and he'll be frogmarched out the door.
Frogmarched out the door, get it?
I get it, that's classic. That's the short one,
that's the short one,
some of them are two or three or four pages long,
but I thought I'd give you a bon bon.
That's terrific, now do you think it's gonna be
highly read in the White House when it comes out, you know?
Do you think it's gonna be a big hit with his crew?
Well, I certainly hope they'll read it,
because if they read it, maybe I'll get a Tweet out of him,
I'll sell thousands.
I mean, you know, of course it's a book
to delight and amuse liberals,
never Trumpers,
Democrats in anticipation of the election,
but I'm counting on a lot of right wing fanatics
buying it too, they'll wanna buy it in order to burn it.
But they will have to buy it.
A lot of us are angry,
but as you know, when you're in the comedy business,
you're trying to walk a line
of not just being outraged,
you're trying to still remember that your job
is to entertain people and to get a smile out of them
and you took that
and I think that's what you've done with this.
I have to say, Conan,
you are a much more interesting interview subject
than I am in this matter.
I mean, I am fascinated by the challenge,
that all of you are facing,
all of you late night wits and satirists and commentators.
How do you, I mean, how do you feel about that?
You asked me how I felt not having an audience
[Conan] Right.
How do you feel when things are so dire and so difficult
and so enraging, when your job is to be funny?
Well, there are times where,
there are times recently when things have gotten so dark,
especially right after George Floyd's killing,
that I just decided, you know,
if someone knows how to try and make
this situation we're in right now funny, God bless him,
I don't know how and I don't even think it,
it didn't feel appropriate to me.
So there are times when I think
you just have to be a human being
and when things get really dark, you have to say,
this is not, I'm just gonna talk about this,
I'm gonna talk to people about it
and so you surrender, you surrender I think
a little bit the comedic role
and then the rest of the time,
if you think it's at all possible, you try and do it.
But is it at all a relief, Yes.
that you don't have to be funny on the subject?
Sometimes it is, but mostly if it's so serious,
that you can't even, that you can't do what you,
I feel like I was put here to do,
which is to entertain people and make them laugh,
if I can't do that, it's, you know,
I think it's at least cathartic to talk to people
and say how do you feel about this?
And we can have a discussion,
even if it's not a funny discussion,
I think that's one of the rules.
I mean, Johnny Carson, I watched him growing up
and he would have guests on and he wouldn't go for laughs
and I think sometimes that's completely appropriate.
I think it's.
Well, and you and a few more of your cohort,
I mean, there are those moments,
when things are too grave to be funny.
I mean, you think of Letterman when he addressed the nation,
when he first came on the air after 9/11.
Yeah.
If you put up, had a list
of the 10 greatest Letterman moments,
that would be right up near the top.
Yep. Moments when a funny person
just stops being funny and talks from the heart
and is capable of doing that, Right.
with real integrity and authenticity,
that's got a tremendous amount of power
and I think it's essential for us all,
in a sense that's more comforting
than making people laugh in dark times.
Yeah, I still think I always am relieved,
when we get back to a situation where I can be silly again,
silly is my, that's.
I've never seen you be silly, Conan.
I know, I know.
I know you as gravely serious.
You're right, occasionally,
I'll find evidence that I was occasionally silly.