Lock the gate. All right, let's do this, how are you? What the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fuck? Nix what the fuck are delegates? What's happening? Where you at? You are right. Hey. Hey, you. I'm talking to you, man. SNAP out of it. You've heard you've watched that dish for ten minutes. What are you drifting? Are you losing it? Have you had enough? Can you see the finish line that you want to fuck the game up.

That's in that the worst. Oh, man.

Look how close we are to the finish line I got. I'm going to throw the game. Tim Allen is on the show today. You know him. Home improvement big.

He's a product. He is like the genuine product. Of the. Comedy boom of the 80s of the comedy club Boom, he's a guy that came up, he is he there's not many of them around and not many of them had succeeded as big as he did. You know, he wasn't like in New York or L.A. guy.

He was a Midwest guy that built his fucking machine, has his funny vessel during that boom.

It's very specific.

And like, you know, Tim is known for a lot of things. He's done a lot of things that I know people judge him because of his politics. But the truth is this.

Like we did the thing that, you know, when I got to ask, you want to talk to Tim Allen? Yeah. He he's a comedy story that I haven't really heard. You know, I know the road.

I've been out on the road, but he is a product.

Of the road, who made a billion dollars as a comic, he's the real deal. So we did what I do here. Sometimes we need a comedian. We talked about mostly comedy.

You know, we touch on other parts of the of the Tim Allen experience, but it's really just a couple of comics talking.

So that's going to happen.

And also, you know, I just need to reach out to you if you're feeling anxious or you having trouble sleeping or you're stressed or depressed or, you know, you're struggling to accomplish your goals, don't go through it alone.

Better help is available. Better help offer secure online professional counselors who can listen and help you.

Just fill out a questionnaire to help assess your specific needs. And better help will match you with your own licensed professional therapist.

Start communicating with your counselor and under 48 hours in exchange, unlimited messages. Any time you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions and everything you share is confidential. You can change counselors if needed at no additional cost. This is an affordable option and financial aid is available. Sometimes it just feels like you have to go through these things alone. Believe me, I know. But things always improve if you have someone to talk to and more importantly, someone to listen WTF with.

Marc Maron is sponsored by Better Help and our listeners get 10 percent off their first month of online therapy when they visit. Better help dotcom slash WTF visit, better dotcom slash WTF and join the over one million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced, better help professional.

All right. So. I have these fucking I'm assuming they're allergies, you know, I did I did have a sort of a panic attack. Around, I guess, one of these things, like a few days ago, I think I talked about this, I was cutting a slab of mahi and the phone rang and I answered it.

And I'm in the middle of slicing the mahi. And, you know, that horrible feeling of slicing into your hand, into your finger where it's just like it doesn't hurt. But, you know, you've just done some it's a weird specific feeling, a knife running through your flesh. And I knew I did that and I knew it was pretty bad.

And I pulled my friend Sam on the phone. I'm like, fuck, man. And I lopped a small chunk of my thumb off and those kind of things. Yeah. You know, when I saw the flap was there, but the flap that wasn't going back there was no the flap was not going back. So I had to go. Flap was I pulled the flap off and those are gushers man there, gushers. And it was Gushin. And it's hard to get to stop bleeding because there's no there's nothing to coagulate the congeal there.

You know, it's just a hole. You just missing a slab.

So I wrap it a bandage, I get off the phone. I planned to go to a socially dist. outdoor AA meeting, which I needed. And I'm keeping my hand elevated.

You know, I don't want to bleed. Blood is soaking into the bandage, but I'm at the meeting double masked. And it was good. It was a lot of lit up newcomers and they were fucking talking the talk. It was good. I needed it. I hadn't been to one in a while. I don't like the zoom business nonetheless, you know. OK, so look, I'm not anonymous, but that's what I did.

Keep my sanity ground myself into the rhythm. Talking about control.

There's a context to the secret society. There's a framework and you sit in it and you hear it and you feel it and people raise their hands. Everyone who's an alcoholic, please raise your you know, acknowledge here.

I can witness that.

Look at me and you kind of get in it and you feel the feels in you know, it grounds you, it humbles you. It gets you back into it. I've been going in those things for, you know, half of my life.

So on the way back, I'm like, I got to put gas in my car.

I got to go to self serve 76 over by my house because my gas is getting a little low and I always like to have a full tank in case I have to run. That's my thinking. It's like, what if we got to get out and I've got a quarter tank that, you know, we probably will get out anyways because the traffic. But I don't want to be the asshole that didn't have the gas to to get out from under the kuhnen attack on liberal Los Angeles.

So I stop, I get gas.

I'm worried about my hand holding the hand up to fill the gas up. I do the nozzle. I pay on the paper to get back in my car and I'm driving home and I rub my eye with my hand and in the middle of my nose, maybe I'm picking my nose with my finger on my other hand. And I realize, dude, you didn't fucking sanitize. I always sanitize. I'm a vigilant motherfucker. And there I am with my finger in my nose.

And it's been on the gas pump. It's been on the paper. Had I mind to have just stuck my face into a toilet bowl filled with fucking covid. What a fucking idiot. So there you go.

So then I get home, I take the sanitizer and I sprayed it up my nose, sprayed it on my hands, and I'm like, I'm fucked.

And then it was pointed out to me that, you know, the odds are low, it's really not how it's getting around, but think about how many people are. So I'm still in a holding pattern around that, but I believe I do not have it, I believe that I have allergies. I have not. Gotten that confirmed yet, but I believe it's allergies. Right, because like sometimes like, I don't know. Maybe you guys can email me on this like I'm not congested, but a little runny, my throat a little scratchy, sometimes my chest is a little tight.

I sometimes I'm feeling like like like it been in a long pillow fight, like I'm all hazy and foggy and fucked.

And sometimes it feels like there's a weight on me and it feels like that my face. There's a lot of pressure behind my face.

But I'm not sneezy, I'm a little runny and I'm not stuffy, but like my throat was scratchy and it's just I just feel fucked up. And this has been going on and off for a while now, but I never had him as a kid. Is that an allergy thing?

Is it a cancer thing? I don't think it's a cover thing, though.

You know, I should not have licked that fucking pay pat on the gas pump. I mean, it's one thing to touch my face, but like, I was just on my knees licking the keys on the fucking punch pad, the fuck is wrong with me? Just trying to fucking keep it together, man. Hey, you know what?

Most of us don't pay a lot of attention to staying hydrated.

That's the truth. I think that's got something to do with it, too, with me staying hydrated, barely any of us drink enough water. Do you ever get thirsty? Do you know what that means? It means you're dehydrated. It means you've needed water for a while and now your mouth is telling you. So you know what I'm going to do right now?

I'm going to murder my thirst, people going to murder it. I'm going to just straight up kill it with liquid death.

Oh. Yup, that's a can of water, it's a big can of water, 100 percent mountain water from the Alps in a tallboy can and it's called liquid death.

I barely understand what's going on. This stuff came to my house and I thought someone sent me a sober guy, two cases of some kind of beer or alcoholic beverage. But nope, it's just good old water. What's going on here, apparently, is liquid death.

Death to plastic. Death to thirst. Death to dehydration.

Look, folks, you've got to drink water.

We all do. So you might as well do it out of an ice cold can with a skull on it. Right. It's crazy shit, right? Right now, get two free cruises with your first order of any case of water at liquid datacom. So I just hit up their merch store ad, which whichever cuzzi to pack you want and you'll get it for free with your first case only at liquid death.

Dotcom slash WTF, murder your fucking thirst people. A friend, John, turned me on to the. Dramarama song, I hadn't heard it in a while, that song Work for Food, my buddy John Jades in the music racket does I write in the music business. And he said, a lot of people actually do all right in the music business, but there's a lot of he said 60000 new songs a day are put out into the world.

60000. That's fucking nuts. And some people aren't going to make it, man, no matter how much they feel they should or how good they think they are or even how good they are or how much they should. It's a tough racket, the entertainment game.

And there's a moment that few people have, it's in that fucking dramarama song that he pointed out to me, no one wants to pay me for my broken heart. Mm hmm, tough moment, man. Look, Tim Allen, it's a good story there's jail involved. His show, Last Man Standing is in its final episodes that airs on Thursdays on Fox. He's also in a new show for History Channel called Assembly Required. It's a competition series for builders like Home Improvement meets Chopped that airs on Tuesdays.

And this is me talking to O o Tim Allen.

Where are you? I wasn't really prepared for this with the big shift into the plague, you mean did you get it?

No, I literally everybody around me got it. I did. We were at the studio and we have like a Disney cop that watches our show at all times.

And I like and he's such a you know, which in your face, don't touch this. Don't touch that.

He gets it and he brings it to the set. And it was really remarkable. He got my assistant sick. He didn't do it. Of course, no one's doing the wardrobe and transport, which takes care of my bus.

And everybody around me had it and I lucked out. End up getting that first vaccine scene about a month and a month and a half ago and then the second vaccine last week.

Oh, so you got in under the old guy wire? Yeah. Maybe you could put it that way. Old guy wire. Yeah. The lucky thing about that is that I got out there and I got there, kind of got at me at Dodger Stadium because they didn't think I looked old. So it was it was a good was it was a little compliment. Somebody says, are you sure you should be getting this? I said, yeah, it's because you're not old enough for this.

I went, wow, you know, that's very sweet.

So I did. But everyone got through it. I'm terrified of it. So I don't know what have you got through it?

Except my my brother in law is a dear father passed from it. And it was quite a shock to all of our systems. His one of his kids got it. The other kid had and didn't know it, his wife got it. And then his poor father just passed and it was. It's just like you here for some of us that are either can't live in fear and deny it. I just can't be around constantly worrying about stuff.

And I didn't I wasn't cavalier, whatever people comfortable mass, my neighbors always stopped by their house, they got kids and I got kids masks, shake hands, antiseptic, whatever.

I've been going to my office from day one and we have offices and production offices are separated. And I have a car shop. We've got hot rods and we've been taken care. It brings it home.

When you have a family member or local family member that passes from it. It's it's a. Even for a guy like me, I like. I mean, I mean, I'm interested in viruses as an entity like what are they would have always have been and it when it it's so strange that it kills. In this, you know, no matter what I say, it sounds like I'm making light of it, you're going to have two million people dead.

If anything, there's nothing to say that's true.

Well, so it's interesting that you have this curiosity about machines, cars, viruses.

I mean, is that is that something you've always. Were you a science kid? I mean. Yeah, yeah.

Science kid. And I love cars and tanks and military and stuff and machines. I asked science questions and I took philosophy for five years in college, which is a I don't know. I don't know. Are there any is there any use for philosophy?

I think there's some I think there's something to ta to taking philosophy. I think whether you know it or not, it probably trains your brain a certain way, makes you think about certain things. I mean, don't you reflect are you a reflective guy?

I'm more than a reflective guy. I always when I talk to our Professor Dilworth, I remember it. The you know, when you get to the fifth year of it and you're become a minor in it, there's about eight guys in the class that never speak because eventually you just ask big questions. And I said, did any of these guys ever have a happy life where they all, like, desperately depressed? They're not. There wasn't like a comedy philosopher.

And these days people mistake my philosophy for a political view. And I said it's more like an observation. I just watch natural philosophy than really. Uncomfortable because I'll ask people an overview question. That's interesting. Where did you get that information? Why do you care? Well, it's important to get as an observer to pick up facts that are outside of you. Is is there an objective truth is, what I ask sometimes is, is there something a priori?

And it's an old philosophical comment. He makes up truth as we go along. It would appear today that we do. Is there a truth outside of your belief and I tell my family, is that the sun exists, whether I believe in it or not, the right thing to do. I believe in no denying that.

But what is it thinking? Tim, what is this son want from us? What is it? What's it trying to say? It just says, get it, read it.

But eventually again, my kid I told her this the other day, I had a mental breakdown of Bill used to be a model or what was it called. Yeah, it was. I grew up in Denver when I was a kid. We had a whole. Big, long movie about the sun, and I was fascinated about this big furnace, and at the end of it they said the sun will turn into a red, big, red sun than a white dwarf and it will go away.

We all die. Yeah, the whole class went home for Easter. And I said, wait a second, what's the point? Yeah. And I sat there so depressed, the teacher would tell me, you've got to go. What's the point? Why study? What do we do? This is horrible. Didn't you guys hear it? It was right there in the movie. It's over.

The movie we're dead. What are we waiting for? What do we study? What do we take in books for forget the like it's four point six billion years away. I don't care.

I see you almost became a philosopher. Yes. You grew up in Denver, grew and grew up in Denver.

Dora Moore. Was our elementary school still there? Oh wow.

I went to Mark Twain Elementary in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Oh, that's where my aunt was really well, it sort of connected Colorado, New Mexico, Southwest when you're when you come there.

My father was killed when I was a kid. My mom moved us back to Michigan. It's so different when you come from the Midwest and the Southwest. That whole different I said it. I never home when I grew up. I never saw any difference between when they were Hispanic, came up later in my family. I didn't know anything different from people that were spoke Spanish anyway. Well, I never heard that they were any different.

Yeah. When we grew up, when I grew up in Albuquerque with probably seventy percent Latino Denver, it was just. Yeah.

I mean, you know the names when I grew up and score Chavez, Martinez, Archie led Sanchez, all the guys.

The guy was Manuel Apodaca. We had a governor up a Dacca. He was the king of our high school because he had the first spatial here.

Oh yeah. Did he ever think we went, oh, my God, the guy had a mustache and he got a mustache at six six. Yeah, that's that's young. So wait, your old man passed away when you're young.

Traffic accident when I know I've always I never knew much about it.

He went to a University of Colorado football game with my other I have brothers, six of my natural family really who's nine now. And my mom remarried and we had they took them to a Buffalo football game, the University of Colorado, and never came on the almost car allegedly inebriated driver flipped on top of his car, killed him in my mom's lap and to my older brother's whole car was filled with kids. It was very, very fortunate nobody else died.

Jesus, that's fucking horrendous. I don't need. Do you do you ever like have you ever processed or tried to figure out what effect that had on you? It's about as a philosophy major and a pretty churchgoing guy, friends, we've been churchgoers whether we liked it or we like it or not. And I've always been it had a name.

It's, as they say, a God of my misunderstanding. I never could understand. Never had a good answer from the prime minister at age 11. Where where is he? And he's he's in a better place. And I was like, pissed off. I said, better place. Why don't we just start there? What are we doing here? What's what's this better place thing? And who is this friendly God that takes your dad from you cut to.

I love my children and I love my life, so if I'm going to blame for all the anger in my life, I've got to give it credit for all the good things. It's really hard to process that that a bad thing can. If it hadn't happened, I'd still be living in Denver. He was an insurance man and probably would have gone in that business. I don't know. Can you? That's interesting.

Yeah, I think as you get older, I think that's the choice. You know, you can't really afford to be you know, to have sort of would have should are blaming, you know, you have to spend it the other way. I mean, you have to. Yeah, that's a I mean, that's a pretty healthy position to have to realize, like, well, if anything would have happened any differently, I wouldn't be where I am right now.

And you're a pretty, you know, lucky motherfucker, right? Yeah.

It's very uncomfortable, though, when I use that same philosophical perspective to anything, I tend to get philosophical about it.

And there is a woman, a wonderful woman, Donna, her going to work for the Reagan administration. She was just the brightest, brightest mind. And she started talking about history. And she always would say, when people argue, especially politics, well, it was all Clinton's fault or all Reagan's fault, whatever. And she goes, when is the point? When is the day that we stop? History starts here, right and right. Everybody always goes back a day.

Well, what about the day before that? What about the day prior to that? And it gets very uncomfortable when you chase things up river. And I used to love that as a kid. We used to go up in the mountains of Colorado with my father when he was alive in search. I love to search where Rivers came from. Yeah. And it's it's kind of alarming when you get to the very beginning of the Colorado River, which is way up above Rocky Mountain National Park, and that starts with snowmelt and a couple little creeks.

No, there's no hole with water coming out of it. Right. It's it's sort of uneventful that you go uneventful.

You've got to be careful up river. You might not find you might, as they said on the Planet of the Apes. Well, if when Taylor's got the horse is what will I find?

Zera said he goes, You might not like what you find, but you felt like you did carry like a chip on your shoulder for years. I still have. I asked I spent some time in incarcerated and I used to ask in there all the time. I said, why do you why is it that you're talking as Abraham? I used to love reading about Abraham in the Bible, that he was innocent enough. He could talk right to God.

I don't think that's good God. Why don't we why do we kill everybody? And God says, well, what about 30 percent? I mean, I love that. If you could have that conversation and I asked a couple of times, why is it always a bus full of Catholic girls, girls school that flips and dies instead of a bus on its way to prison?

Yeah, it's it always seems like it's innocent people that you kill. I find you very cruel sometimes and sometimes the vision or the answer. I got back from my version if I was ever humble enough to hear the creator said this isn't quite what you think it is. If I showed you what was behind the curtain, trust me, you're not going to understand it. And you'd go, Oh, I get it. And then you wouldn't want to be here anymore.

So it's not quite what you think it is.

So that seems like a fairly genuine religious experience.

Yes, well, I've had a series of them every now and then. I said I think Solomon in Proverbs said, ask for wisdom. It's all you got to do is ask. You'll get an answer. And I add to that, but you might not like what you hear or you might not understand it. Right.

Well, what was the like what led up to were you doing comedy before you you did prison?

No, I was a it was an F up. I just did know this. I kind of relate to the dismissed kids that don't have a I didn't listen to anybody after my old man died. I really just played games with people and told adults what they wanted to hear and then stole their boots. I never really I could. I could really. I was Eddie Haskell. Yes, Mrs. Cleaver. No, Mrs. Cleaver. I knew exactly what adults wanted.

Make your bed. Yeah. Be polite. You know, use a napkin. Right. And then I'd go steal everything in the house. And so I really was a I look back, I, I should have gone in the military and a military friend of mine said you probably would be a good officer if you could get out of the brig because the way you are, I hate authority. And I would have never because I don't trust it. I would have never been I could have never gone through the military.

I think I would have gotten myself in jail or does what they when they throw you out, because I just won't take directions. Well, then I was lost.

So you're like you were you're heading into a life of crime. Yeah, it I didn't realize that's what I was doing.

You know, it when you get into it like I relate to those movies, were all of a sudden you turn around and go, am I going to be doing this the rest of my life? And I it it's it's a terribly stressful. Existence, what crime, drugs? Yeah, but you were you were drinking and drugging at the time, too. Well, I did.

It's odd that movie Scarface did everything that he said, don't get greedy and don't do your own stuff. Right. And you did both the things he said. No, he was my little friend. I did a Sheen game. I eventually succumbed to it where I was getting greedy and I was doing my own stuff.

And and then they they got you. Well, it was that it was several it was a group of people that got me a bunch of college kids and a bunch of bunch of the people that overdid it rolled on two of us. So two of us took it for about 20 guys.

Now, this the prison situation. It's just interesting to me and I'm just only pressing it in the sense that I just read this book that a comic wrote. He's self publishing. And it's a great book. It's called Running the Light. And the protagonist of that book is a guy who was of your generation, who did some time.

And, you know, he claims in the in the book that, you know, he learned how to be funny in prison. Now, I don't know what your experience in prison was, but it just dawned on me maybe that you were the inspiration for that character. I don't know.

I learned literally how to. Live day by day, and I learned how to shut up. You definitely want to learn how to shut up. Really? Was it a hardcore prison or a level three federal prison eventually got to.

I went through three different ones. They move you around. This is for federal prisoners that were on had done five of 10 or seven or 14. They're halfway through their sentence. And so they exhibited a modicum of good behavior. But it's still people that. Of course, nobody was guilty, right? Just shut up, do what I was told it was first time ever I did what I was told and played the game. But I'll tell you what, you're right.

People don't laugh. It's there's an edge to it. You don't want to be sarcastic. It's being fun. You're doing funny voices and spun sarcasm doesn't go over to that sarcasm. It's not. There's no place for me to. I'll see you later. I'm going to run over here. There's no running over here.

You don't want to be the misunderstood smartass that happened twice and that never happened again.

Goofy faces, funny jokes and weird voices. One thing being sarcastic that it didn't work out.

So it wasn't so much your prison was working. It was the population of prison that was terrifying. It is.

It's not even terrifying. It's funny that and I don't say this lightly and anybody who's been incarcerated, it's surprising with the human being we're getting used to. And eventually after eight months, they got I got used to it. There was OK times. This guy like Saturday, we got better food. Eventually we got one from a holding cell reading to my own cell, which is. Embarrassingly funny to me, I called my parents and my mom at the time that a Thanksgiving dinner was interrupting dinner, I got a phone call.

Yeah. And I told her how proud I was. I got my own style. And you're really proud of it. And she goes, well, that's good. You graduated. You just watched it on his way to Michigan State. And my oldest one of my oldest sons got one cell. So don't ever call here again.

They wouldn't talk to you anymore.

Well, she was clearly child.

Well, I guess sort of like it's sort of like like it's kind of like college, but you can't leave or party or, you know, what it was more like to me was camp.

You ever went to a big you know, you got really uncomfortable getting to know who's who. There's always the tough guy. There's always people that are funny. There's the people that are I've run that I've changed schools twice and anybody who's moved military families or anybody's mood. You see the platform, which is funny. I'm looking at it now in today's world, there's nobody responsible anymore. It's like the whole world is calm or high school. I remember that commons in high school, there's a cool group that athletes and cheerleaders, a big group that I hang out with, kind of like the guys with the film together.

There's a shop guys, the geeks, and there is kind of Chameleon's moved around and then there was the people that had no friends or they're very quiet. Which one were you? I kind of floated around. I'd been to junior high school, so I knew how to play the game. And but I'm I'm funny, man. And when you're funny in my case, I love it when you're truly funny. And I believe I'm really funny. You own it.

People like being around. Right. You can go wherever you want, go wherever you want.

I had a I had a real bad complexions. I wasn't real handsome. And still girls kind of like me. And guys want to hang out with me and I hung out with the football players is like going to the gym or the gym. So they've taught me that I love being on the football players. I love the shop guys. I kind of floated around.

When did you start hitting the booze hard? I just told one of my family, I watched cowboy movies, every cowboy movie I saw is a kid, they'd ride horses, they're dusty and they pull up and they wrap the horse real quick around that bar. They'd run and they get that brown liquor and they go, give me a whiskey and a bottle comes. Not then they just a shot of whiskey and they go, Yeah, all right.

Yeah, they dig right off.

And I go, but that stuff's got to be pretty darn refreshing. That one shot of that in like 10 years old.

I went down to a friend's house for Jim Beam into a jigger, not a shot, but it's two and a half shots up and down. It just like the TV, just the cool thing. It was like I drank a bottle of gasoline. I couldn't believe it. Any normal person would have said, that's it. I said, well, maybe I needed more water. I got used to it. And alcohol for me, I'm 20, going on twenty three years sober and clean of everything and said that alcohol never affected me like the other guys.

I never I could drink copious amounts even as a young kid. And the guys are vomiting or driving through glass windows never affected me.

I think that's fine though because I got it too. I got, I got, I got twenty one year sober. And it's just that that that feeling of like, you know, you get sick and you're like, maybe I'm not doing it right.

It's not because I never had like I never I had one blackout in my life when I had just gotten my grandma died and she gave all my brothers nine grand. And she said, Biocon, I know how you boys love cars. Don't save it by yourself. Yeah. And I love that car. And I I came home and I was walking sideways in my driveway to help and everybody in class. The next thing you had never been funnier, which is the most frustrating part of that blackout.

I go, what have you you are jumping in front of this that that explains the dent in my hood and go yeah, you slip into your elbow, hit your own hood. And that drove everybody home. And those are the days. And I drove everybody drove everybody home. I don't remember a thing. And until I look back on those things and I realize this is the sober guy stuff, I have so much shame. If the things that I did today, I was OK.

Yeah. Especially driving people around it and coming from a dad that was killed that way. It's difficult to get past that what you what we heard a I heard it last night at a special meeting about why the stuff that's happened that you think is OK. And I said that's a that's a vicious little drug alcohol. And I my one of my buddies is a very famous doctor won't out of here. And we were doing he's on TV a lot.

And I said if they they were going to powder alcohol and I think I remember this probably three years ago and they would be OK with it in there. She could put it in anything. Right. And I think even the FDA, when this is really a good idea.

Yeah, this is necessary. If you if you powdered alcohol, you realize what it was.

This is it's not a it's not a very good thing for us.

I'm incredibly grateful to be sober. And I know things would have went differently. And yeah, it is sort of when you when you think about what you are able to rationalize rationally, you know what I mean?

And part of it was like you were proud of yourself, man. I mean, if you got away with it or if you didn't wreck the car or you made it home, you know, you like.

I did it. I did it. The thing that you said earlier, as I said in it's. Even if you're not curious enough, the first 80 pages of that, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, story four, I wish I'd never read it with an alcoholic still alive and I wish I'd never read it because I read it. So this is a weird book in the 20s or something. Right.

And I'm going how to unrelated to this. Yeah, this is horrible, but try it different.

Maybe I'm not doing it right. And I think of all the times, you know what, I'm going to have just heavy days and I just put it on a calendar. I actually the Thursday and Friday that's going to be heavy and then wine or.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It is a grateful is the word.

I love my life. I'm not any more mentally stable than I have the same issues I had. I can't now I can't hide from.

Well I mean but also it seems that you know, you process through the comedy.

I mean this, this show The Last Man standing that character, you know, whether you know, you you feel that way, you don't it's a way to sort of deal with that. There's a there's there's sort of a mild river of anger through that guy, you know.

It's a very curious thing that you just said that because we are watching the History Channel show I just finished and I don't know which guy I am, Tim the Tool Man Taylor was kind of the early mentor of Pigs tour I did for Showtime into a sitcom and just goofy. Still, I said and I've said this many times, I was a masculinist. Most of my life were raised by a very strong mother and grandma. And I've just a lot of very.

Not just women that were so much women, they were men and they don't mean it like that. I didn't think of them. When women are strong, they have a different kind of strength than I'm used to from men. So I'm used to that strength from women. And it's intimidating and it's also emasculating because they're they come off as smarter and maybe they are. I don't. But I became very male oriented and it came out in my first act and I said, men are pigs.

That was my joke. And I'd go, aren't they? And the women go, Yeah. And I go, Women are pigs. Dirty guys, better pigs, right? Women. Yeah. It's just too bad we own everything. And then, hey, wait a second.

And that was my joke. Mike Baxter is that same guy with an edge to him. And then I find the comedy. There's a part of me that is angry all the time.

That and it's just it's just a PC guy. And it's funny that I don't know, because the last tour I did was just, God, when are we going to go back into rooms sitting right next to a guy with his mouth open going, yeah, I never thought you'd miss that.

I miss it. I miss it terribly. I don't I can't deny it. And I said that. And the guy that I was doing the last of the last tour, I'd get angrier and angrier on stage. And it's funny, the guy's the guy that I present and then I don't know which ones which here at home with my wife, even my wife and kids go, you're kind of a patient guy. And I said, you wouldn't know it internally.

I'm not. But I've learned that from twenty three years. Right. I got twenty three seconds now where I don't say anything. I don't, I don't respond. And there was an old sober guy that I that passed away that one day.

One time I said you don't say much.

And he goes because no one asked me and you realize, you don't realize how often you give your opinions and nobody asked him.

Yeah. And that's what I'm seeing today, is I don't see Serenity or somebody a thoughtful person or somebody with ethics. Yeah.

You know, I don't see yourself.

I I only see it in myself because I learned to listen to other individuals. It's a really weird skill where I don't I've learned it in my program or you just listen.

Yeah, I learned it doing this show and you just listen.

You don't the guy didn't ask make it. It's OK for the other person just to talk.

And without you going, you know, what you should do is amazing how many times you have the impulse to to jump in with nothing where you sort of like, oh, I get it. Yeah. You know what? Why am I here?

And it's a remarkable skill. And I watched the two guys argue, both on different sides of the political fence. And I said, if you would both allow each other just to finish that thought and don't say anything, then walk away. The next guy comes back an hour later and gets to have his whole point of view. You you would be very difficult to deny. The other person had a point. Right.

But but then the audience will be gone and no commercials would be. So that's a long shot.

But so when did you so you did a couple of years inside in the prison for Coke, right? Yes. And when you got out, I mean, how did the hustle become comedy? I mean, you were still when you got out. I didn't think I was there.

I really thought I once they realized I'm not a flight risk, I'm not going anywhere, they could have put me in my garage for a year. I would have done that. Yeah. I was very contrite. I, I put a lot of things together in my life on during sentencing and it was like eight months. I didn't really I didn't think they would do that and neither did my attorney. And then they came hard on me. And right before I went, I went to I put my list together, what I wanted in my life for the first time ever, and put down a list of the things I wanted to do, which I still to this day, I can't believe how simple it is.

And I did all and then I kept making lists. And so I went to a local comedy club based on a dare from another dear friend of mine who worked in an ad agency, said, Why don't you do that? What are you, chicken? I can't believe I did something because some other guys called me chicken and I did it. I went up and did thirty minutes at the Comedy Castle and walled Lake Michigan. And save the best for last, which is a great thing to remember, because the audience really only remembers the last what you say good night right before you say good night.

That was a great joke. And they remembered it. I didn't do so well, but I did. What I recall was what would happen if the lady was doing the Pillsbury commercial, got drunk and put the doughboy in the oven instead of the crescent roll.

So then you'd have the little Pillsbury Doughboy banging who baked our little doughboy? We'd really like to know. He's banging on that window and swells of golden brown. And it got a big laugh. And I said all that up at the owner of the comedy club, Mark Ridley. He said, come back in a way. Could you got something?

I said, I'll be back, but it's going to be a while, because I think when we do see him and he was shocked when I set everything up to give me something to do, because I realized at one point, I think I'm going to do time. And I said, so I set myself up, I sold, I put my car away and really prepared myself and my family for this. I, I was I knew think bad things were going to happen.

But I want something to come out. I wanted to be able to have come out with something.

How old were you? Twenty three, so you knew they saw you in the back of your mind, you had a plan, you were going to do standup. I wanted to be on the Johnny Carson show that I just said, however, that would be I love that show and Don Rickles and all the guys are on that. Yeah, I love that. When you wave them over, I just love the early Carson Show.

That's what I want to do, is be one of those guys.

Well, you know, I must have been like when you were younger and angry and pissed off and sad about your old man. I mean, you know, you got to get some laughs.

Well, I was always never not a cutup, no matter what. I never considered that that was something you could do, especially the way I made jokes. Still, I don't I don't write jokes like some of the great guys.

I don't do that. I do bits and then make up characters. It's pretty peculiar what I do, really. And I did. I've always been funny like that. I've just never thought you could do. I didn't know how to translate that into an app we do long form pieces. I mean, they become pieces. You've got an act. Oh yeah, I, I looked at Rodney. I knew pretty well Dangerfield before he passed away his wife.

We went by his house, the paperwork in that house and his bits and all of his sketches. Here go Jesus.

I felt I've got like now I've got a lot of legal pads. I do it in little sentences that I know what the key want me to say.

Yes. How I do it. Just to make lists.

You make a little list of stuff. And then I got key words that remind me of the joke. And I don't think I write like some of the some of the guys.

So it's so funny to me, though, because, you know, it's like you're beating yourself up about that on some level.

And I do the same way, too, because I you know, I do long form bits and I do pieces and they evolve over time on stage.

But there's still a part of me I watch David tell when I watch one of the guys who I know are joke guys. And Mike, I'm not not working hard enough.

The again, like, well, I think I hang around a lot with Leno. It is. Jay is out when. When we were out. Yeah, he does. He did a whole bunch of last stand and I'm just doing on this week, one of our last four breaks my heart. But he said he was out like three hundred days or something like two hundred days doing anything. And Jay comes out.

Nobody does like the nineteen fifties jokes better than Jay when this guy comes in. None of this stuff he does on stage because I'm a little blue. Yeah. All blue in the way that I'll use I use testicles or balls or f this f that I'm, I use language and my wife just she brings her she says I can't tell you how much you swear.

Oh my God. I, I literally even my management said, you see I think you said fuck 70 times. I said sometimes I'm in that mood and it's that I'm not doing it to piss anybody off. I don't know what it is about me in language.

Sometimes I say on stage it's lazy.

There's probably a better word I guess. Yes. And I don't know. I said I don't make a big deal about it. It's I'm kind of mean on stage, which I love. I said, what are my favorite bits? As I said about kids, I said, everything about kids. Is that like this? Let me be honest. I hate goddamn kids. And that joke, for some reason my wife hates erm my I get the biggest laugh.

I said I hate your kids, I hate my I'm not that fond of my kids but I really hate nothing, nothing that's dumber than human children. And above all they take the attention away from me in a room. But the fact that I make jokes of kids and truly the kids in my neighborhood sense this and they're like cats. The more they know I don't like them, the more they hang around me. Yeah. This neighbor's kid who every time I come over, I, I give her a nickname.

Yeah. And this kid remembers it and she talks about me all the time and I'm not there.

It's and now I am starting to like her.

Well the thing is it's like you're the guy like you know you're mean but you can't not be funny. I mean, you know, so kids are going to get a kick out of you. They're not going to read it that way.

You got they don't said that I was a mean, horrible Santa Claus off stage. And when I wasn't on camera, I was an angry, made up comedian that didn't have any idea what five hours of makeup was like. It was horrific. And then these kids wouldn't behave. And I'm swearing, swearing, dressed like Santa Claus until I finally realized.

Even then, one of the Disney people says, Tim, you can't keep dropping the F bomb dressed as Santa Claus around. These kids know. Of course I'm going. I'm not goddamned Santa. I'm an actress.

If they don't know that you can't tell these kids literally scream. There's no such thing as Hannah. And I went, OK, I got it. And I had to play this. It was the most amazing experience for a guy like me. I don't like kids that much, but these kids love being around this kind of pissy Santa. And I learned to be a pissy, nice guy.

Well, the thing is, like, I think kids resonate when they see adults behaving a certain way. They don't see at home. They know it's not quite right and it's exciting, you know, I think so.

I think kids like, say, with pets, it kind of like it when you're not this this gushy guy or gushy person. Maybe I shouldn't say that because I said I like when people are nice to kids. Of course. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I would never hurt a child or do anything inappropriate might be inappropriate all that. But I like being a smartass and right in their face. Are you looking at me. Yeah. Stop looking.

Yeah. I love doing that with babies because they just don't stop it.

Look someplace else.

I don't want to look at you but when. So. How long have you been doing it, though, when when everything started happening, so you come back, you get out of jail and you just start knocking it out? I knew what I wanted to do immediately.

Immediately I said this is not something I want to do. And literally, I put my nose and what I really wanted to have worked at a gun store, believe it or not, then I swear to God, why was I why wouldn't I believe that you worked at a gun store?

That I worked on steroids? I like I like weapons.

I always like weapons, weapons, cars, technology, viruses.

Like, I always there's guns and cameras have that clicking here. And I love and I worked in a gun store is like outdoorsman. I worked in a store just like that. And I was a great salesman at night. I went and did the clubs and at one point. I've sold a Browning or a Beretta. It was an over and under shotgun. And I wasn't in the gun department, probably shouldn't on parole, I don't think you're allowed to, but I don't I don't think we ever checked into that.

And I saw the shotgun. I wasn't allowed to sell the shotgun because I wasn't in that department. But I know that there was a customer that kind of like my attitude. And I learned about a sort of a Browning Bambu of Orvis Bamboo Rod, which are very expensive. And then I went and sold them a shotgun because the gun guy, Leo, was not there. And that the owner who I still know, I think he just passed away.

And I said, listen, I just sold an eighty five hundred dollar shotgun and a for forty two hundred dollar fly-fishing seller and I want a commission of that. And he goes, no, we don't do that. I know, but there's no reason for me to work here and do that if I don't get a commission off that. And he goes, well, then the worker and I left and I said, I had to turn comedy into it.

Sounds like a nothing, but I had to turn comedy into five hundred bucks a week somehow. So I started going to different gigs. And that was when we rioted. The Comedy Store did this whole thing where comics should get paid for, why we're where we were slave labor.

You were there in 73. I wasn't there. I was done. I was in Detroit. It spread everywhere where every comic had to get, what, twenty five bucks a set? Yeah, I think we're still making twenty five bucks react to comics.

Then they opened up all the road work and I started I was quickly able to get my rent five hundred bucks a month and then I would Bobby Slayton I think, or whoever did The Tonight Show, they were getting up to nine grand a month or nine grand.

But I really are a product of that.

That boom, you're the guy they all of a sudden you're gone. How much are you making and doing door deals? I can't remember the guys that were Tom Sharp. I was thinking the guys are starting a headline. Jake Johannsen.

Yes, yes. Yes. Chainlink, yeah. Shandling Yeah.

Yeah, it's making big money. And I'd go, oh my God, you could do that. You could make a living. And that's when the two worlds collide.

Is Yianni those. Yeah, shit. He and I switched acts one night. I loved him so much. He did my act. I did his. That's how good his act was. I could just do his act and he had um we were road comics. We were very different breed than the, the guys that hung out to catch in New York and the guys that hung out. No. Yeah. The Comedy Store. I come out to L.A. and look for Macaulay and I'm now I'm doing forty five minutes on the road and killing myself.

I mean between drinking and drugging and doing comedy, it was just so you and you and Rich Janni were buddies.

We had real close. He was I said, never knew his torment. I never knew, I never knew that he'd never seen. I never read any of that.

I was working his weekend in shamberg improv when he committed suicide.

I just never saw any of that coming. I mean, nothing. You never was like that. He was one of the guys.

I think he had a break. He had a psychotic break.

But I never he I mean, I knew real well. I never knew any of that part of him. And it broke my heart because he was is a wonderful guy. And I've said this to many guys, we don't last long. It seems like comics seems like it either burns you out or something. I don't know. And there's not many of us. I don't know. Some of us do.

Some of you do. I mean, it's like, you know, he the weird thing is, is like, how would you know? You guys? There's a I think the scary thing is, is both that you deal with your demons and your anger and your sadness in the same way. So, like, you know, how the hell are you going to know unless, you know, someone's going to be you know, you can have those conversations, the sort of rogues gallery of 80s comics, you know, really ran the spectrum.

And we did. We did. You started making great money on the road and then come out to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and they want you to do six, three to six minutes. Yeah, it was nearly impossible to translate what the guys couldn't do it and they couldn't do it.

The premier and Jim McCauley says, I can't I can't put you on The Tonight Show with doing your sack jokes about your balls. I said, I told you that's in the middle of you. Come and see me at the ice house and I got I got an hour. Just what you're supposed to be there eight o'clock. I said, just watch the beginning. I didn't feel like it did. He told me so many times I saw McColley probably eight times.

He goes, you're funny. But this this is not Tonight Show, right.

So so Makkawi was like because that was always the thing. That was always the problem with the road guys. It's like I got to do five minutes. I can't do five minutes.

Queensland can't do five minutes. You can't do five minutes clean. Would you scratch my balls in five minutes. I can't do this in five minutes. And then the short truth is I eventually get a call to do The Tonight Show and I didn't want to do it because they want me on is a TEMEL because the home improvement hit and the number one show I go, I don't want to go on there is it is a sitcom. You didn't get to do it.

People had to stand up before you go. I get there and right before I'm back there is it can I go do some jokes and pretty decordova. And then they go, what can I do? I want to do some jokes. And they said, well, they didn't know how to say no to me. And they said, Do you know where to stand? And I went, I lied. I guess I took my glasses off and I stood Tim out.

I stopped and there's I had no idea where I was. It's a much smaller room than I thought it was going to be. And the noise and the camera pedestal was right in front of me. So I stopped and the curtain hit me in the side of the head. It shut. So I'm panicking. I'm sweating. I didn't see this are they're moving all the Bible. I frickin died. And then they said and then Johnny was the guest, so he had me come sit down.

And in the break he leans over. He said, Kid, you got to be funnier than that.

And I said, I just I just died. It was the last month he was on the air and that kind man. Looked at me and I said, I can't believe I screwed that up because look, come back next week, I came back the next week, drilled it. I mean, I got it. That's all that I wanted in that whole my whole life is to do that. Stood there, killed it. You did the thing with it.

Come over. But I'm going to come over anyway. The court of the difficulty, of course. Now, my best friend, you drilled it. I said this is all I ever wanted to do. I can do this thing. And that was off that checklist. Be be courageous enough. I told myself to write down what I really want. I want to be on the Today show. Yeah.

But like, it's so interesting to me. So you got booked as a panel guest for home improvement in its first season. Yeah. And they didn't really acknowledge you as a stand up.

So you're like, I want to do stand up and they the show is fine. I love that TV show. I get it. I get it. So you kind of bullied them into letting you do stand up and they weren't prepared for that. And you went out there and bombed a bomb?

They did. The week later, I went out there and killed it. I killed them with Johnny. You still don't. Oh, God. In my life.

You're lucky he said he would do that for you at that point if they if I was such a big I mean, the home improvement went was here. Look at the little it was 23 million people watch that show every Tuesday night.

How'd you get that show that I did the Showtime special.

Right pigs. And it was it it killed everywhere. It was big time. And then Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner wanted to meet me and they wanted to see me. So I went to the Improv, which I never worked, really. And I worked. I did the show, The Improv, to show them they sat and had dinner with me. We met at Disney and they said, we want to be in the Allen business. We want to be in a marriage with Tim Allen.

And I said, I'd like to see the ring first. And we made a joke and they offered me Turner and Hooch as a sitcom.

And I just said, no, Tom Hanks. And then they want to be that well.

But what was the one with the Dead Poets Society? I think with Robin Williams when he did, I said no. Williams ah, he did a movie like that. And they I said, no, I don't want to do that. They said, Disney wants to be in business. Yeah, well, I don't want to. They had no idea what kind of money I was making on the road. So they offered me money that was happy.

So I had no idea of money that you could make in television? No, but I didn't care.

I didn't want to do that. Right. And they said I was brought back to Michigan. I'm on my outdoor mower. I had loved lawn mowing my own lawn with the big John Deere. I'm sitting on that lawn mower.

My wife called. She said, Jeffrey Katzenberg is on the phone. I get there and he goes, I'm stunned that you went back to Michigan. I said, well, we we had this conversation. I don't want to do that. He goes. He never had been said no to her like that, and he goes, let me rephrase this. You know what I was offering? I said, Yeah, I appreciate the offer. I just want to do that because what would you want to do?

That's what I would want to do, is make a parody of this old house with Norm and Barbiere.

Yeah. And have a neighbor that I can't see. And I pitched it. I want three boys, not just I would do what I do in Michigan. I never really see my neighbor. I just wave at this figure that we had and I want to do that and then have a show within a show that is I break stuff all the time. And he just said, I don't know. And then he got me together with the people that did The Cosby and Roseanne.

And we all agree that CAHSEE Warner knows of Matt Williams wind dancer.

And he did.

They took my act my dad had done to Showtime and kind of merged it into a character. And the rest was Goldie. I mean, luckily, I had extremely competent director John Passman and great writers and people, all good actors that taught me how to be an actor.

Well, that was the model then, right? You know, you were enough of a defined character.

Now, was there a moment where you because you sort of were one of those guys that I you know, I would say you had a hook when you.

Oh, yeah, yeah, so like, you know, did you know that the day that you came up with that hook and you're like, Oh yeah, oh yeah. That he had. I did. And I did a regular show. And then it was as I recall, it was in Cincinnati, Ohio, or Akron, actually, for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. I did their corporate sales meeting early on in my career and I was doing my bits and there their men just eating and smoking cigarets in the room.

No one was listening to all I. I said, I'm not I'm never going to do this again. I hate this. And I started mimicking the growling and grunting. I hear I started doing that bit and all these men. But it's funny. And I started mimicking what men sound like when they're eating. And that became that grunt. Then I started doing lawn mowers and paint and hardware store stuff and we did a show for genomically in Los Angeles.

He taped me, put in the it was a Friday funnies or something. Yeah.

You get eight or nine calls, 20 calls. Who was that guy? Instead, they got like 800 calls right away. Who's that guy doing the lawnmower stuff? As soon as you have something, as Bob Seger once told me, you've got to go to a town and come back instead in a month, not six months, come back a month later and see if they remember you, if they remember who you are and you could put butts in the seats, you own it.

And I learned that lesson. Do morning radio. I don't care how late I stayed out. Do morning radio. Yeah, I do morning radio and get a look. Get it. So they remember it's much like pop music. If there's a thing in there that they remember. Oh you remember that barked like did that caveman thing and talked about lawnmowers. Yeah. And the rest was really history because they can remember who maybe not my name but they remembered the you're the guy that barks.

I almost said that's me. And you like doing radio.

Yeah I, I loved it in college. I loved the I learned, I did voice over.

I've done voiceovers for Chevy Kodak Craft.

It's so funny that it's also funny that you have this weird relationship with the a tense, not tense, but you have this kind of cranky relationship with kids and you're like, you're like a kid's icon. I mean, you're Buzz Lightyear, for God's sake.

It's my biggest joke ever with God would go, what is it you want? I said, I want to do I want to be on the Johnny Carson show. And then you've got to be able I used to say, you tell tell God exactly how you want that to happen. Otherwise it might not happen like you want it to. Yeah, because I want to do The Tonight Show and God said, OK. Next thing I'm doing, Santa Claus, Buzz Lightyear, home improvement family shows and said, wait a minute, I forgot to tell you I hate kids.

Now I'm like this. If you never told me that you just want to be on The Tonight Show, you got to be careful. We get to be very specific with me. Otherwise you're going to get it. But this is how you did it. And I said that, believe me, that did not go on. I can't believe I was Santa Claus. The script was Steven Leo. The comedians wrote it and it was dark and it was so dark.

I shot and killed Sam that that opening scene of the original movie. I shot it. Yeah. And he fell off. The kid goes, you killed Santa and said, we should have been on the road. You should have been at the mall where he belongs. I thought it was robbing the house and they didn't.

As I recall, the head of the studio said, we want you in this movie. We think it's funny. And I said, it's funny movie. I've literally one of the funniest scripts I've ever read that didn't get changed except for the opening scene, which they said we can't start a Disney movie with you murdering Santa. And I said, why you kill all the parents in every other movie? But they wouldn't let you know. They said we started off Sopore disappears.

So it's interesting you've had this lifelong relationship with Disney now.

And it's interesting that, you know, I mean, I guess it speaks to the fact that you publicly you know, you are a old school conservative and not a a right wing whack job.

It I never I never really I just don't like once I started making money, I had the silent partner that just took almost half of my money and never gave me anything for it. And that was the tax. I've never liked taxes, whoever takes the taxes and never tells me what they do with it. I'm a I'm a fiscal conservative person getting money from my families. That's it. That's all I don't like get taken. I work pretty hard for this stuff and I accomplished a lot and I was handicapped by my own errors.

It's all my fault. I get that. Yeah, but I had the silent partner. Never like taxes, never like what they do with taxes and the bullshit. Both sides. It's not their money.

The silent partner being the government. The government. I never really like that. I don't like that.

Are you concerned or has Disney ever said anything to you? Are you too big an earner for them to give a shit? Now, because they said the powers that be, I don't I literally don't preach anything, right?

I said what I what I've done is I've just not joined into this. I call it the we culture. I don't I don't I'm not telling anybody else how to live. I don't like that or that we should do this or we should do that.

And then once I realized that the last president piss people off, I kind of like that. So it was fun to just not say anything, didn't join in the the the lynching crowd.

But yeah, you got to kick his belligerent anger. Right.

Just I did. And I even know the Clintons. Yeah. And Bill Clinton has been very genuinely nice guy to me. And I used to send when he was president, I sent them Christmas stuff. Yeah. Is it from Disney? And I sent all the movies that we did at Merry Christmas from them. I sent it to Bush too, and I sent it to the Obamas. I'm just I'm a Bolstad. I just didn't think that Hillary should have been president.

So it's like in the end, they're like she just you go the other direction. And I said, it is no, nothing personal, but if you don't like it, then wait till the next election.

So you stay you you don't you don't engage with that stuff. No, I said it. If you want to engage philosophically, that's great. And that's where I get into trouble these days. If I get in philosophical discussions. That's interesting. Where do we where do we where do we start? Right.

In the end, you know who has time for that and what outward would that be? And then, you know, you don't want to get hoisted on your own petard by depending on what is it?

Do you have ever been in a debate class which I had debate itself is a winning and losing proposition. It doesn't mean you're right or wrong. You just won the debate. You scored a point. It's it's an old Roman thing, cui bono, who profits by this. And I bet any time we get an argument, I said, what's your point? Wouldn't you? Let's just get to the point.

Do you want me to love this or dislike this? No, I just want you to see clearly. I can see clearly. I don't that's not my problem. I just said, what is your point, cui bono? Who profits by the position that you're pushing? Oh, nobody. Why are you asking me this question? I just have to be clear about what it is we're doing here. Do you want me to have a what would be your point at the end of this?

Yeah, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Most people said nothing.

I just want you to know the truth. Right. OK, so do we agree on fundamental elements of the truth?

No one, as I said earlier, and then debates over nobody watching the star. There's people in high positions that outand out just make shit up and they kind of look around and realize that there's no penalty for that.

And it's just that that's that's insane. That's insanity, dude. And yeah, and and nobody and the thing is, is any all well everybody thinks they can get get away with shit.

Now what a lot of dubious sources out there. Yeah.

What the or no sources make it up. There's nobody, nobody around to say you were wrong. So you go ahead. Right.

So now are you now what's the emotional sort of feeling about the last man standing endings that you've been with these people for years now?

I can't. Yeah, I'm so sad, I'm having a tough time because I adore the crew, what we've been through, we've had life death canceled, not canceled. The crowd resurrected us on Fox. Fox has been great. ABC was great. But the writers have been great. Got better and better than we added Leno. We had the youngest daughter went on to be a movie star and she keeps coming back and she it's it's like a real family to me.

And I can't say that I'm not it. Knowing it was the last year home improvement, we decided it was last year, we'd had enough. This one you we're still going and end to end it right now. We've got four more to do and I'm relishing every moment of it. Reminds me, unfortunately, that you have a very sick relative that's on life support and you get but they're not going to last. I said it. It saddens me.

I'm not right now excited about moving on because I I've spent so much of my heart and soul into keeping this thing going. And I loved every minute of it. I loved where. But I'm looking around the set every day like today, God, that I've looked at this stuff for nine years and Hector Elizondo and I become close friends, I said, we've grown together. The kids were little girls when we started this. And and Nancy Travis and I said, become great friends.

And I said, it's it's it's it's very difficult. Yeah.

And this new show now, do you I'm assuming that you've got money saved. You just you don't you don't want to stop working, apparently.

No, I don't. I love what I do. I love being funny. This assembly required was a young producer, Kate Fox, that I've been pushing this around for quite a while. And I like mentoring people, women included, about getting stuff done. And so we put an idea together about celebrating the people that do solve problems like a line producer and my people in my business that just didn't care about politics. We got to get the movie done for this price is what you can do.

The builders I I'm an old designer and I like building. The contractor has got to solve all the problems as a designer. It'll be great to have windows everywhere and contract was can't really afford all that. And it reminds me of politics. The designer is the Democrat. That'll be beautiful and it'll be wonderful a little. This slighted, the contractor goes, but you're going to need 30 foot windows and all your furniture will get faded quickly. Oh, I invented the beauty.

But you got to compromise somehow. And I want to celebrate the people that solve problems for the assembly. Quiet.

It's funny that the metaphor is that the Democrats are going to have to compromise as well as bolster the economy in the middle somewhere.

The contractor would like to build a brick building and the the the designer, the liberals have this beautiful idea and it's wonderful. Their hearts are big and open and it'll be great and light in and it'll be eco friendly in the country goes. Well, it can't be because the plumbing's got to do this. And can we do it this way, put the generator, blah, blah. And I said so as required, started off that way. The virus hit.

They had to change the format. Huh. I'm thrilled at how they were able to develop the show.

It's changed a bit set down. How does it work? Is it a game show now?

It's a competition. You go three different builders get three different boxes, some random parts in there. They've got to figure out what the parts are, build something out of those parts next build. They add those parts, expand it, modify it. And the last one, you've got to combine it with something big and make a big build get shipped. Now, it used to be the idea was to be all done in the same big studio. Now it's at their own because of the virus.

We had to send everything down and made it kind of interesting because you see men and women problem solvers in my God, we whatever we screw up, humans we can fix.

So it's like Apollo 13 every week. Yes.

In some parts of it, I know a lot of struggles and we didn't get through. I've been in movies, theater, stand up television. This format is very hard on me because it's two years on, it's real, and I sometimes I get I lose it and get moody and I had to get the director said, You've never done this before, have you? I said, what?

Stand around for eight hours, get filmed talking about shit.

Now is half the time I'll say crap and they go, You can't say no. I got myself into some you know, I get into doing comedy raw. I mean, working without a net comedy.

Well, that's exciting. Well, Tim, I wish you the best of success with it.

Well, thank you, Mark. I really appreciate the time. Yeah. Yeah. It's good talking to you, man. It really was. You know, we'd never met before. And I've known I've known your stuff for years. And, you know, we're both comics and it's always good to talk to a comic. Yeah, it really is. Take care of yourself.

All right, buddy. Thanks for everything. There you go, Tan Allen wrote Comic Real Deal Last Man Standing is on its final episode that airs on Thursdays on Fox. In the new show, Assembly Required is on History Channel that airs on Tuesdays. And don't forget, if you're struggling right now, check out Better Help. It's a secure, affordable online service providing professional counselors who can listen and help you just fill out a questionnaire to help assess your specific needs and better help will match you with your own licensed professional therapist.

WTF with Marc Maron is sponsored by Better Helping Our Listeners Get 10 percent off their first month of online therapy when they visit better health dotcom flash WTF that's better at Yelp dot com slash WTF. Join the over one million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced, better health professional. And also just a side note. It looks like I'm having drop ins on my Instagram Leive, which I do most days in the morning.

I do a guitar one usually on Sundays, and there was a Kevin Marvy situation. I didn't know who Kevin Maubee was and I still don't know his music that well. But I started talking about not knowing who he was and we ended up getting closure on that on my Idjwi on Sunday yesterday. Also sad were Vaden. I did too. Yesterday I was playing my guitar part. He was watching. He plays guitar for Jason Isbell and he hopped on.

We talked we talked some Jason stories. He did a couple of Mike Campbell bits and show me his bender. Yeah, he whipped out his bender so you can check my Instagram lives or you can go follow me on Instagram at Marc Maron. Anyway, look, I'll play some this is the guitar I was working on when I was rudely interrupted by A or Vaden. These great records. Great. Anyway, here. All right. All right. Enough.

Monkey. Cat angels everywhere.