🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Featured: Mike Chisholm, David Letterman, Johnny Gaudreau, Jack Hughes, Sidney Crosby, Austin Matthews
What’s in This Episode
- 2026 Winter Olympics men’s hockey gold medal game USA vs Canada
- nor’easter weather impact on East Coast
- Johnny Gaudreau tribute during Olympic medal ceremony
- Comparison of nor’easters to historical weather events
- World Cup hockey tournament upcoming
Questions Answered in This Episode
Who won the 2026 Winter Olympics men’s hockey gold medal?
The United States defeated Canada in the gold medal game, with American player Jack Hughes scoring the winning goal.
What happened with Johnny Gaudreau at the 2026 Olympics hockey ceremony?
Players retrieved Johnny Gaudreau’s jersey and brought his two children onto the ice for the medal photo, honoring the late player who tragically passed away.
How severe was the nor’easter that hit the East Coast during this episode?
The storm brought significant snow inland and Category 2 hurricane-force winds with 20-foot waves off Long Island, causing school closures in New York City.
When did Mike Chisholm first hear the term ‘nor’easter’?
Mike first heard the term in the mid-1990s when he worked at WOR Radio in New York.
What is the significance of the 1980 Olympic hockey game in American culture?
The famous 1980 ‘Miracle on Ice’ game is frequently referenced in popular culture and movies, making Olympic hockey a culturally significant event in America.
Full Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.
Caloroga Shark Media. From the hockey capital of the world, the United States of America. I’m Johnny Mac. Joining us from Canada is Mike Chisholm, host of the Letterman podcast. Mike, Anything New, What’s going on?
I can’t dispute what you just said. Congratulations to the American hockey Olympic Hockey teams, both the men and the women’s for that matter. One of the greatest games of all time that I’ve ever I’ve just I, uh wow, what a game that was yesterday. I’m doing good all things considered. Considering my boys, we thought that we were going to get gold, but ran into a hot goalie and it turns out an American team.
Had had so much heart. I just I was astounded at the heart that the US hockey team had. Congratulations the Hockey capital of the world. Will have to accept that until the World Cup at least. But other than that, I’m I’m doing very very well.
It’s good to see you. I would like, if possible, for you to compare to me, someone who lives on the West Coast. Whatever we hear of something called a nor’easter. Over the years, we have seen various effects, especially in my view, Letterman having his show either audience free or postponed because of it. Compare this nor’easter that you guys are going through to ones of the past.
Sure, so so much to unpack there. First of all, I want to point out the difference between Americans and Canadians. I went out of my way to get my USA jersey. For those of you listening on audio, you don’t see it, but Mike does. So I have my USA jersey on, which of course I wear every day, and you know I come on here to raz you and you just are very gracious and congratulate the winners.
So there’s that. As for the nor’easters, that is a term I never heard until the mid nineties when I worked at WOR Radio in New York, and then all of a sudden there was a nor’easter. It just seems to be one of those things that like a duret sho, like I never heard of derecho until like ten years ago. This one we probably got just I’m a little Inland. Maybe the coast was harder hit as we record on Monday morning Inland we got kind of the same amount of snow a month ago.
People were talking about the equivalent of Category two hurricane winds. I saw a watch tweet about twenty foot waves off the coast of Long Island, So maybe a little further east it’s bad. But here up in the hills, it’s just another winter snowstorm, a big one. It was up to my knees. But you know, I’m sure others also get snow.
It’s not the biggest deal in. The world, okay, but a snow day for the kids. Kids are staying home today. Yeah, all the schools are closed in New York City. The mayor didn’t even make them do virtual He gave them an old fashioned snow day.
Nice, but you know, you’re not going anywhere. You got to dig your cars out, and there are safety restrictions in place. You’re not supposed to go anywhere. There’s nowhere to go even if you get out. So it’s just kind of a it’s a snow day, good.
Excuse to get some more podcasting done. Exactly. So, I want to ask you about hockey a side fil service, yes, sir, so stereotypes aside. How big a deal was that game? Is the nation watching?
Are you guys crushed or you know, what’s the what’s the feeling there. I have friends who are certainly crushed who I spoke to throughout the day yesterday that were you know, their whole day was was well, and it’s because of the way this day started. So I’m on the West coast. So the game was five am, and I mean, we had restaurants that were open, ticketed events, things like that that were so so there was activity definitely happening at. Five in the morning.
I got up and just watched it in my house and then was you know, through social media, you know, and text messages going back and forth through friends. This is a gigantic, gigantic thing up here. We winded back to twenty ten when we when we host didn’t now that at that time the Olympics were in Vancouver, but the gold medal game, the men’s hockey gold medal game, Sidney Crosey, what we call what’s known in Canada up here as the Golden Goal, just you know, pandemonium, pandemonium, and I’m certain that would have happened yesterday as well, but you know, it didn’t go that way, and so you had a lot of people. I went to get my wife a coffee at around eight in the morning and driving by the Starbucks there was. A long, sullen line going through that drive through.
There were a lot of people at eight in the morning that were that were, you know, punched in the gut, and it was it was a big deal. But I mean, at the end of the day, most people that I know, when you look at how the Americans finished, and it was it was an unbelievable Johnny Goudreau. I don’t know if you’re how big of a hockey fan you are, but Johnny Gudrou, who had played for the Calgary Flames, Johnny Hockey, we loved him up here. That’s the thing about Canadians is that that when an American comes up here, I think of the Toronto Maple Leafs captain by Austin Matthews. You know, unbelievable, unbelievable talent.
When an American comes up here and in his place for one of our teams, typically they’re very, very embraced, and Johnny Hockey was certainly that. When the game ended, before the team picture was taken on the ice, players went and got Johnny Gudrou, who who tragically passed away far, far, far too soon. They went and grabbed his jersey, brought it out and then his kids, his two kids, one of whom had. Their I believe it was his first birthday for. Johnny Junior yesterday, and so they brought them on the ice to have the picture taken with them, and at that point, I’m just like, Okay, the hockey guds are at play here.
The Canadians played the best possible game we could play and it was ours to lose. I mean, the chances so so so I think most folks, most of my hockey loving friends all kind of accept that as to as it was our game to lose and we the Americans were so resilient, and so yeah, it was. It was. It’s a huge thing. It’s a huge, huge, huge thing up here.
But at the same time, all it does is build fire for the World Cup, and I were already talking about that. So I think we had the perfect team. I don’t think there’s gonna be any second guessing. I think that it was just one of those things where we ran into a hot goalie and a team that was leading with their heart, and absolutely the heart won that day. So that’s the way I see it.
I don’t want to make it sound like it’s nothing down here. Going into the game. It was a big deal the famous nineteen eighty Olympic hockey team and the movie Miracle that comes up in popular culture all the time. You might know, maybe three weeks and somebody will bring up that game. So it’s not like it’s bigger than if say, America made a run in the World Cup.
And that might be different with the World Cup being in the three countries this year, yep, But you know, if if the Americans had made a run in the World Cup four years ago, I still think the hockey is a bigger deal because nineteen eighty always gets dusted off, and now we’ve got new folk heroes and Jack Hughes’s and a couple of teeth and getting back out there and happening to be the one scoring the goal. I mean that’s movie stuff, right, Oh. Yeah, oh yeah, it was. It was Uh, like I said, the hockey guys were at play, and I love that. I love the drama of sport and and and sometimes the things that come out of it and and I mean, you can’t it’s funny.
I had uh. I remember people were talking about our first two games to get to the gold medal game, and you know they’re come from behind. You know, over time for the for the one game, and and and people were were scared and like, oh no, Canada is not dominating. I just look at them and go, it doesn’t matter if Canada just dominates. You can’t have that.
You have to have the chase. You have to have the drama, you have to have the the back and forth. You know, I don’t want us to be a dominant I want us to win. Of course it’s our game, but man, it’s got to have. Like I think about the Canada Cup eighty seven, you know, you know, Gretzky Lemieux on the same team and playing the Soviets.
It just I mean, and again you go back to the maraklon Ice again playing the Soviets. Isn’t it fun that we have gotten a chance to see the Soviets kind of rise and fall.
And now it’s Canada and the US that are that are those two dominant teams, an…
And I just I love the hockey culture when it comes to that. I thought the Olympics were wonderful this year and seeing the Americans take it. Both of the men and the women was a sight to be seen. And again tip of the cap back in twenty ten. It’s one of my favorite Letterman clips and it’s not available anymore.
I remembered it. I remembered it because it was such a wonderful night, the night after the golden goal. So this is be The golden goal was scored on a Sunday Olympics end and then Monday night you go and watch Letterman and he did a desk piece after the monolog and he sat down and he said, hey, everybody watched the hockey game, and everyone a cheering and all that sort of stuff, and he he kind of leans into the cameraon he goes, you know, I was watching the game and as it’s going, and as it’s going, and as it’s going, he looks into the cameraon he goes, I wanted the Canadians to win. And I just really appreciated that because you know, we’re on our home ice and all that, and it was just this the fervor was unbelievable and I appreciated that, and and and I could appreciate the sentiment especially at like I say, once, once I saw the US win yesterday. So but yeah, it was it’s it’s been a it’s been a it’s been a pretty crazy week, John, I’ve had a pretty bonker’s week this week.
Well we’ll get to that. Just before we do. I have a note here. The President asked me to remind you we do have an offer for you to join the United States of America, and I stay with me. Huh, that would solve your problem because you would then be part of the greatest hockey playing nation in the world.
You would be winners, and to be fair, you would immediately have the best state flag. I mean that would easily be the of the fifty one, the best state flag. So you guys might want to consider our offer and join us, and then you could say things like we haven’t won the Stanley Cup since twenty twenty five, we are gold medal winners in the Olympics, and it would solve a lot of your problems. So just consider that, all right. Well, it’s something to go workshop, and I think you know we’ll have We’ll get the team on it to see if they can iron out a potential thing there.
But Dave certainly talked about that when he saw something when we saw him in Vancouver. But we’ll get to that. Let’s get let’s get to the reason we are together today. They say, don’t meet your heroes, and you made your way over to Vancouver and there was one David Letterman and you met him because I know that, because I saw a picture of you and David Letterman. What happened?
How did that go? Was he a jerk? Was he like you have a podcast about me, loser? Or was he super cool? Tell us about David Letterman in real life?
It was amazing. It was an amazing experience. I’ll talk about the don’t meet your heroes like it was cool. It was one of those world colliding kind of moments. I love when worlds collide, like when the things that I’m interested in kind of mix up with each other.
This one here is a little bit more nostalgic. Perhaps. I used to go to Vancouver, so I live in a place called Colonna. Colonna is about four hours east of a drive and a mountain range. You gotta drive over a mountain range to get to Vancouver.
Since I was a child, I would go to Vancouver to go see concerts because every major act, for the most. Part, would come through Vancouver. Vancouver’s is an amazing city, and most artists who do come through are just struck by its beauty right away because it’s surrounded by mountains and water and it’s just this beautiful place. And I would go to see my favorite bands play, and there’s there’s a couple of venues in particular that I would go see them play, and I would go and hang out by the stage door so I could meet some of my favorite acts as they would either arrive or you know, sometimes I would go see the sound checks and that was fun. But I’d remember when I was maybe nineteen or twenty, I think I was going out to see Faith No More.
And there was a bunch of us at the stage door behind the Commodore Ballroom, and I met this old guy and I then he was an old guy. He was probably about forty five, okay, but I was nineteen and to that, to me, that was an old guy. And it was a bunch of these kids who were waiting to meet Faith No More. And there’s this old guy that was there as well, and I mean he started telling his story. So there’s a lot of downtime when you do this, and and he was started telling.
Us these stories. He’s telling us the story. But when you two showed up when you know, in seventy nine, and he met them when they were going up before they went up for their show, and and and different different bands that he met, and and and he gave me a piece of advice that I’m forever grateful for. And it was exactly what you’re talking about. Don’t meet your heroes.
Well no, he said, meet your heroes, just make sure you have zero expectation whatsoever when you meet them, Just zero, because what if you meet. Him on a bad day. What if you meet him after they just had a fight with their wife or their husband or whatever. What if you just met them after, you know, something something major happening. They’re also probably jet lag.
They’re also waiting to do a show, they’re you know, they’re they’re in a different spot. And if they’re your hero, chances are this part here, I’ve kind of refined over the years, this part here, like, you know, if they’re if you’ve got notoriety, chances are they get him of a stressful life and they may be able to make time, they may not. But either way, just enjoy the experience because you just got something that most of the people that are going to be in there watching that show that night didn’t get, and so I carried that with me. Now with Dave, those kid gloves have an extra kid glove on top of each of them, because he’s known. He’s got this personality that is unique, I think, misunderstood personally.
I you know, people call a shaff famously, you know, call them an a hole on on on on national television. But I don’t think it’s so much that. I just think it’s a It’s just a different, unique personality. And when you have somebody with that much talent, guess what, they may have some quirks in their personality, you know. So so, But that being said, those of us who were there and met him that day, you know, not even a week ago, we all knew the score.
There were no autograph hounds out there other than us who just would love to get something signed. The small group of people that were there there were fans of my show, which was very very interesting. We were all decked out in letterman stuff, and so I think because of that he decided to stop and take some time and spend it with us. It was a fantastic experience. He had a wise crack For every single one of us who who said something to him, immediately he had a wise crack back, which delighted us all.
And yeah, it was it was a very very positive experience. So that’s what we did. We went to the stage door. But it wasn’t going to the stage door to see a you know, a band that I’m kind of into at the moment. It was to see my childhood hero.
And so merging the world’s colliding of those two moments was unbelievable. That’s super awesome. So he was just walking out from the stage to the town car or whatever, and that’s it the other way. So so we show up at the stage door and you know, we’re sitting there talking and it was cool because I got a chance to get some of my you know, nervous energy whatever you want to call it out. Because the guys when I got there, they were like stoked to see me.
And so they start asking me all these questions about stuff about staffers, about you know, stuff that I talked about on the Letterman podcast, and they wanted to talk to me about stuff that I. Don’t say on the show. And and and there are things that are kind of in that little neutral zone of here’s the stuff I say on the show, here’s the stuff that’s in the circle of trust for all of these staffers and these people that I know that I would never say out loud. But then there’s some of this stuff in the middle here that is probably okay to talk about, but I wouldn’t talk about it necessarily on the show. So a lot of that stuff came out.
I want to unpack all that, because you know, we’re not on any kind of clock and we can get to Dave I’m fascinated by. So I’ve been in media for thirty something years, so I’m a little more used to this than I think you are. Of running into Letterman podcast fans, and one of the things I learned in talk radio in the nineties and I’ve talked to people, is you mentioned your cat Fluffy one time, and seven years later you run into a fan and they go, hou’s Fluffy the cat doing? And You’re like, how do you know the name of my cat? And it’s because one time, at six fourteen in the morning on a blizzard Monday, you mentioned Fluffy the cat, and your fans create these parasocial relationships with you, and they they think they know you, so they know Mike from the Letterman podcast, who I assume is a shade of the real person, just like I often talk about how Johnny Mac is an exaggerated version of john that’s all real.
I don’t like Adam Sandler comedies, but I don’t rent and rave about Adam Sandler comedies being an example of that. So I find that really interesting. You also alluded to and I’ve tried to explain this to folks over the years. The people who get access don’t talk about it. It’s kind of like the people who were actually getting laid didn’t need to tell you they were.
And it’s like you can just go about your business and have stories and then because you know how to role people trust you. Like I’ve talked about sidebar. So this is the thing I find in my own life that if I just talk about my own life, I wind up name dropping. And I’m not trying to show off. I’m just talking about my life.
My wife and I went on a long drive on Friday and we were listening to Bruno Mars, and factually I have met Bruno Mars and he was very cool, and we just talked about that, and I was just reflect on my own life that I’ve been fortunate and I’ve been able to do things. I met Bruno Mars. I met him for two minutes once and he was super cool. But I’ve met Bruno Mars and most people haven’t met Bruno Mars, and you just alluded to that. Yes, you know so in my own life.
The example I usually use is I worked with Stephen van Zant from the E Street Band for maybe five years before I said the word Springsteen. But then our relationship was I was just John that produced the show, not Springsteen fan. Who’s gonna askt even for tickets someday. Yes, you know, maybe by us mosis you pick up that I speak the language or I know what’s going on. But I was in the role of I’m here to produce your show, mister van Zant, let’s let’s work on this today, not oh my god, I’ve seen you forty five times and I watched his friend hasn’t all that?
So your instincts are correct. There are things we talk about. There are the things that we might talk about. There are things that we never talk about, and especially things that are clearly off the clock. You know.
So back to the celebrities. If you’re David Letterman, you probably just want to walk the fifteen feet and get inside and get your head into the show. But here are these people who love you, and you’ve got to turn it on for a couple of minutes and you have to be there for them because and we’re all human. If Dave or van zandt to Bruno Mars has a bad day that one time you met them, Oh so and so was a jerk. I don’t like so and so, and it can ruin it.
So for the celebrity, they’ve got to be on all the time. Some of them choose not to and don’t care. Some of them are really really good at it, and you’ll walk away going wow, I feel like I’m David Letterman’s best friend. He knew most so much about me. So I just find that all interesting as you found yourself in those waters with people who listen to you, because we do this right, and it’s like, all right, you know, my guy in on the guy in a basement doing a podcast, it’s a Letterman podcast.
I don’t know who actually listens. Well, people actually listen, and fans of yours and that’s all interesting, right. It was, uh, it was, it was fascinating. And and the good news with me is that I’m me just with the volume turned up. But for the most part, I’m pretty high energy.
I’m I’m I’m like in real life, you meet me, and and if you get me excited about something, the enthusiasm just can’t help but come out. I’ve got the I’ve got a boylike enthusiasm that just pops out. So that part there is super easy. Now, if I had just had a fight with my wife again, that that’s that’s you know, the situational part of it, I might not be. But that day, because everybody was sort of on the same page and everybody had a singular focus.
We were all little kids and and and so they start asking me questions, and most of the questions are like, hey, like like, let’s talk about what’s Rupert really like. So I’m like, all right, well, let’s get the let’s get the FaceTime out. Let’s FaceTime Rupert and and you know, and to them, they’re like, oh my god, like they just their heads exploded. So I didn’t need to even really like, I’ll go I’ll give you an example of I’ll give you an example of what you just said, and and something they asked me and they said, okay, so are. They going to record this?
Is it going to come out? Is it going to come out? And I said no, and they said, well why not. I said, here’s the thing. Dave has a show on Netflix.
It’s called My Next Guest needs no introduction. It is, as far as Netflix goes, a very prestigious show for their brand. It’s one of their most prestigious shows. Netflix views David Letterman as one of their signature stars, and he is. He absolutely is.
And the show has a very distinct flavor. Over the seven or eight years or whatever they’ve been doing them, they have really, really, you know, it’s got an identity of its own. And when Dave does something like this at one of the comedy festivals where he interviews somebody or has a conversation with somebody on stage, it is similar to My Next Guest. And if they were to record that and put it out anywhere, that would diminish the star power or the prestige of the uniqueness of what Dave is to Netflix, and that wouldn’t be a good thing, especially when you consider Dave’s got a staff and producers and people and a team where their livelihoods depend on that show and if it gets diminished, well that’s not a good thing for anybody. And so you know, they completely understood that when I said them, great, I’m not telling him where I got that information from.
I’m not telling them who if anybody specifically told me that or if so. There’s an example of sometimes you can let information out without saying necessarily where it came from and how you know, and all that sort of stuff. And so I had a few little moments like that, and then there was a couple of ones where somebody said, ask me a question. I’m just like, I don’t know, you know, and I just I can’t answer that. It’s also because you are expert in the Letterman verse.
You just know stuff by osmosis or you just pick up on things. No one has told me anything that you said. No one has told me anything about a Netflix deal or whatever. But it makes total sense. Netflix has a comedy festival, JFL is a different comedy festival.
Yes, of course they don’t want Dave to step on the Netflix brand with something really similar. That all makes sense, But I have no inside information there. But just top of mine, because we’re on this corner. I’m picking up that Stephen Colbert keeps going out of his way to say he thanks Letterman, he thanks CBS for the eleven years. And I keep noticing he keeps phrasing it a certain way, and my spidery sense is just going, huh, that seems deliberate.
And I don’t know why, but it seems deliberate. No one has told me that, but I’ve just been doing this long enough and I notice things. Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. I’m grateful for the eleven years that I’ve had on CBS or something like that. Yeah, he’s very and I mean I would think that it like, what a unique way for his show.
It’s gonna be interesting to look back, you know, five years from now, to look back on this time and how how Colbert show ends. I mean, you think about how Conan ended his Tonight show run. You think about how and then then his uh, his TBS run for that matter. You think about how Dave of course left uh CBS and and and it’s just gonna be interesting to see what Stephen does after this and reading the tea leaves that you’re reading right now, how the tea actually tastes on the other side one when it served to us. It’s gonna be very very interesting to see how that goes.
But with all of the polarization that’s happening, Dave sure got out when he did at the right time, because I look at the reaction he got in Vancouver, and I mean, the guy is an icon and Colbert will be an icon as well. We’re just gonna see how that shapes out. But yeah, I I uh. When you talk about seeing the seeing things that are going on, U, that’s exactly right. And sometimes it is common sense, but sometimes you also have things confirmed that with a little bit more specificy.
So more with Mike Chisholm from the Letterman Podcast after this, So I love talking to you. We’re a half hour in the topic is you met David Letterman? And so far half hour in we’ve gotten as far as you’re standing there and David Letterman’s about to get out of a car. That’s as far as we’ve gotten into the story. Half an hour in.
Yeah, it’s. So. What happened was the stage door for the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen of his Elizabeth Theater is a beautiful, beautiful Theater, you know, and it’s about three almost three thousand people. And you know, Dave did thirty seconds on named after Queen Elizabeth after her legendary run of whatever it was. In the seventies, and that’s why the theater was named after her.
And it was just, you know, he. Made a an amazing Stanley Park joke, just such a such a wonderful, wonderful night that was completely curated for the audience that was in attendance. But the Queen Elizabeth Theater has a main entrance and then there’s a stage door. We were by the stage door, and what happened was it was actually Dave’s entourage. In the entourage is two people, his assistant and UH and and his guy.
They showed up and they showed up in front of Dave. I was around the corner. So the other four fans, two of them of our show or three of them actually of our show. UH, were there and I was around the corner. Wait, is Heave a limo guy or a town car guy?
No, it was an it was a it was a white tahoe. Wasn’t a black tahoe or anything like that. Zach came in a black one Dave came in a white one but shows up and Park’s partner. That alone is interesting to me because I have this whole story I won’t tell her right now of uh looking a white limousine for Jamie Fox at the super Bowl one time and he wouldn’t ride in a white limousine. The short version of this story is white limos are for proms, and we had a black limousine out of our hat and it was very, very stressful.
But it’ll take me half an hour tell that story, all right, So it’s a white tahoe. Dave is okay with all sorts of palettes for his vehicles. That’s good to know. A R. Yeah, it was spit dropting, no, no, no, please.
And anytime it was it was uh. It wasn’t even like it didn’t even look like there was no pomp and circumstance with it whatsoever. It was. It was not I would even say, nondescript. And uh.
So, So I was around the corner doing something and one of the guys texted me get here now. I’m like, oh, okay, So I go back around and uh and as I’m walking towards I’m seeing Mary Barkley who you know. Dave’s Dave’s right hand. She’s on the Barber Gain show. Everyone loves Everybody loves Mary.
She’s awesome. I see her, she is just going into the venue. I think we caught eyes, and I was just kind of like, I’m terrified of Mary. I’ve said that from the very beginning. Every time I’ve seen her in an event where she’s there, I just kind of look at her.
I’m like, I’m terrified of you. It’s just I don’t know if it’s a bit, but I really am terrified of her. She’s the gatekeeper, she’s she’s you know. I don’t want to piss Mary off. Ever.
I see her, I see Dave starting to talk to the guys, and she goes into the venue. I’m like, okay, and then I see Dave’s guy as I’m walking over. The second was maybe the third of the of the group that were there had their moment with Dave, and I just kind of sidle up to Dave’s guy and I kind of, you know, let him know that I’m there and I’m just watching Dave blow these guys’ minds. And it was cool because I didn’t get starstruck at all. I had a care package, a little care package for him that I didn’t end up giving to him, but it had like funny things that had picture of Bruno Jerusi, who the beachcomber.
I had that Dave was on Bruno Jerusy’s Celebrity Chefs. That was his first television appearance once he became a comedian, and it happened to be in Vancouver. So I had a picture to. That some Canadian snacks and things like that that I would give to him if the opportunity arose. So I’m sitting there just that with that patiently, and he finishes with I guess the fourth guy and I and I just said, Dave man, I please take a selfie.
And this is where people said to me, did you tell him who you were? Did he recognize you? And all of that. Never in a million years would I identify myself as to who I was. If if if if it happened, great, if he recognized me, great, I know the deal.
There’s no way I’m gonna do that. Dave, I find wasn’t really looking up each other in the eyes or anything like that because they were late for rehearsal. Dave’s other producer Walter, who runs the let YouTube channel. He’d shown up about twenty minutes earlier and get a big hug, good to see you, and he’s like, I got to get in I’m late for rehearsal, and. We’re like, okay, no problem.
And Dave didn’t show up for another twenty minutes after that, so you know, they needed to get in there. And so I think Dave just wanted to give us our moment, but he needed to get in there because he had stuff to do. The show was much more complex than anybody ever realized it was going to be. There was a need for a rehearsal and a blocking, there’s no question about that. But he did take that time for us.
So when he came over to me that the selfie was great, he took us out. We made sure it was a good picture, which was which was. I love that.
And then I got him to sign a que card.
I’ve got David lit him an autographs. There’s one que card in particular that I have that I just love. It’s actually a CBS joke and and and so he signed it, and as he signed it, I was I was hoping that maybe, just maybe we could get him to perform the joke, and I’ve got. It right here. I know it’s it’s yours’ audio mind’s video though, So this is from I believe it’s ninety six.
It might have been the very first year of Survivor, and this is the first show after the Survivor finale. Welcome my Name is Dave. So Dave comes out, the monologue is about to start, Welcome my Name is Dave, CBS’s only true Survivor, which to me, with the benefit of hindsight, is ironic as all get out. Dave the only guy that has that called his own shot at CBS. He started when he started, and he ended when he ended.
While Survivor is over, now forty million Americans can now get back into the habit of not watching CBS, which to me is funny beyond all measure. There’s Dave’s signature on the bottom there. By the way, if somebody is ever going to look to get an autograph from one of their favorite celebrities, make sure you test the pen, even if it’s a brand new pen. Get it rolling here. Dave made a comment about how crappy of a pen it was.
It was brand new, but I hadn’t tested it, yet on the back of the card the head monologu writer at the time gave Abelson, he signed it for me and stuff. So this is a very special piece of cardboard to me. And I said to Dave, I said, Dave, I would love maybe if you could perform the joke, and he goes, if I was any good at performing jokes, I’d still have a show, which again was worth the price of admission rate there for me. But I was wearing a Barbara Gain shirt and so Dave’s guy, as we’re going through this, points at my barber Gain’ shirt and he says, hey, Dave, look look like he tried to give me. And of course Dave’s guy knew what knw I was, and so he’s pointing at my barber Gain shirt.
And I appreciate that very, very very much, because if there was more time or in another, you know, slightly different tick of the universal time clock, Dave might have looked at it and it might have created another opportunity to then have that. But he was late for rehearsal, so it was like no, no, no, you gotta go. There you go, guys, and we’re all just flabbergasted. And it blew our minds. It blew our minds.
It was an amazing encounter before an even more amazing show. So so that was that was That was a very very very. Special moment for these guys, especially like most people who love David Letterman don’t ever think they’re going to have an encounter with David Letterman, and they all did. It was a positive experience. I think you saw the video of all of us afterwards.
We were all giddy as schoolboys. It was just a it was a phenomenal experience. So yeah, and then the show, well, this one other thing happened. One of thing happened. But anyways, keep going ask that question and I’ll tell you the other thing that happened.
You also have a selfie with our good friend Paul Shaeffer. Okay, so Dave goes he goes in, and we’re all standing there and we’re all letting the moment kind of breathe, but also like, what the hell just happened, and we were just kind of decompressing, and we had all this crazy, univerous energy that was going out, Like I think there was a little bit of dancing at one point. It was just lovely, and then another very shiny, you. Know, you can tell it’s kind of a high end rental. But again, nondescript minivan shows up and we’re all guy like, all right, let’s go meet Zach.
And we’re just like. Okay, And there’s a you know, maybe one hundred feet or fifty feet between the where the vehicle stops in the stage door, and we’re like okay, and out pops Paul Shaffer and all of us just kind of looked at each other and we’re like what because he was not advertised for the show, makes a lot of sense that Paul might be there because they’re up here in Canada. But it’s West Coast Canada, you know, that ain’t where Paul resides. Paul’s yeah, you know, Canada is a big country. It’s it’s pretty big.
But yeah, I was I when I saw the selfie, I was like, I don’t think they announced Schaeffer and you know, well he’s Canadian, so of course he would. But like like I said, like, you know, I’m not showing up in La today, right. It it was. It was. It was a coda, and a surprising one, to say the least for all of us, Completely unexpected and we’re like, okay, so what’s better than meeting Dave.
Let’s meet Dave and Paul. And Paul gets out of the van and he looks and he goes, guys, guys, guys, I’m really late, but I can’t. I can’t. I gotta go. I gotta get in there.
And and he just we’re like okay. He goes after like all right, true to his word. About forty minutes later, Paul comes out immediately recognizes me, which I was so stoked about because I met Paul a few times and he’s been on the show and whatnot, so I’ve been it a few times. So he which delighted me to no end. Again, the inner child in me is just alive and well at this point, gives us some gives us all the glad hand and selfies and all that stuff.
One of the guys, who’s. A really really really old school late night fan, asks Paul about a song that he did for a bit called Mister Humidity. Paul’saying, I think, so, I think I think I kind of remember it the guy sang it. He goes, yeah, I think I remember it, and uh and and that was fun and and and we had a we had we had a good time with him, and then and he’s like, Okay, I gotta go. He left, and then we messaged, like Don Giller to find out about mister Humidity, and we found out all the details about that, and he messaged us back and told us about the dates and times and the lyrics of the song and so that was fun.
But yeah, we had no idea Paul was going to be there. Now I had heard that the original thought was that Marty Short was going to be the guest. And it makes sense. The Canadiana of it all makes sense, and having Paul there and whatnot. Marty Short has now been announced that he is going to be one of two guests that Dave will speak to at the Netflix as a Joke Comedy festival in May down in La So one would think that Paul is of course going to be a part of that because he and Marty have this connection and whatnot.
So it makes sense if that was the case. I don’t know for a fact that it’s the case, but I know that there were some people that were scratching their heads before the show as to why Zach Galifanakis was chosen. But during the show it became very parent why it was Zach that was on stage with Dave and I can go into that here. But at the end of the day, seeing Paul there definitely threw us through a loop. But when the show began, everything at all kind of all the pieces kind of came together.
This was a very very well curated show. David Letterman is seventy eight years old. He could have very easily just come out, made a couple very surfacy jokes. Everybody would have been so happy about that, brought Zach out, had a meaningful conversation with him. He could probably do that on autopilot, because you know, he’s had him on My Next Guest before and it was a very very good episode.
I highly recommend it. But that wasn’t this. This was a very well put together show and a very well curated show, and having Paul there is a part of that curation. Where does Paul live these days? I think New York is where That’s what I thought, where he spends most of his time.
I think that’s where he is most of the time. Yeah, you know, just living my life as a New Yorker. I was on Ninth Avenue at some point. I don’t know in the last forty years getting food, and so was Paul Schaeffer. But as New Yorkers, that happens, and New Yorkers tend to leave the celebs alone, and you know, just you’d notice.
So, yeah, this Paul Shaffer and you just go about your business. So that’s why I thought he was from New York as well. He plays a lot still, like like he and Will Lee will do gigs down at the Bitter. End with with OSINOI and and different musicians as well. He plays a lot of gigs out there still.
And the night I saw him do that a few years ago, you know, Paul’s wife Kathy was there and all that you could tell. They just they came from home. You know, she stayed there for the first show, she went home and then and then Paul did the second show as well. So yeah, I think I’m pretty sure he spends most of his. Time in New York.
And he also blew my mind. I guess I just don’t pay attention that David Letterman is seventy eight, which is kind of sort of almost eighty. Yeah, boy, time goes fast because he seems younger, whereas I’m running into clips of the worst person who ever lived Jay Leno, and Jay seems old at these Like Jay all of a sudden got aged. His speaking voice has aged, He looks old. I’m sure it’s the stress with Mavis doesn’t help, but Jay has gotten old.
Like I feel like I could throw a suit on Dave and maybe ask him to shave the beard, and he could fill in for Colbert next week, and you would be like, yeah, this makes sense. And I’m not one hundred percent sure I could throw Jay Leno on the Tonight Show for a week in twenty twenty six. I don’t say that with malice or anything. We’re all getting older for everybody else. The first thing I said to Mike before we hit record, I jumped on the camera, looked at myself and said, oh my god, I’m getting bald or whatever I said about my own hairline.
So you know, it’s not a dig, it’s just time passes. But yeah, I I didn’t think of Dave as somebody who’s sort of almost eighty. Yeah. And and and for me thinking about that kind of watching him on stage, I was in the second row. And and and I no offense to Zach, but I basically was watching Dave almost the entire time just to see mannerisms and things like that.
You talk about when you know he might have to turn it on for the fans or whatever. I think that I think that you know, similar to when you know shortly after nine eleven, within a couple of years after nine to eleven, Dave stopped going to rehearsals and and and part of that was energy conservation. When he came out on stage, he was the Dave that we the energy was super high, was super high. The way the show started was he did his own intro, and his intro was hilarious. He was off stage and he’s like, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Queen Elizabeth Theater.
And then he starts talking about the curling scandal that had been happening at the Olympics with the Canadians with the double touch and things like that that were happening. And Nice did not have a good week. I forgot, why are you cheating at curly? What are you doing? And it was more than once right the Swedes.
The Swedes were not happy with with the way that the Canadians curled, and and and uh yeah, it was it was oh man, and and and funny to hear because it had just because we saw him on the Wednesday, I think it was the Monday where where where that all happened. So clearly he’s he’s he’s uh, you know, clearly his introduction for himself is a living document because you know, let’s throw in this, let’s. Throw in that. And he comes out on stage and he any and he starts. You know, when Walter Kim was there and and and Walter was is the guy who runs all of Dave’s his his his curated content, his his late night his late show stuff, the YouTube channel, all of that stuff that’s Walter’s world.
Walter runs all of that, the Barber Gain show, you know, he films that and and edits and puts it all up. So Walter was there, and and as Dave comes out on stage, she’s sitting there talking about his history. And he would go through his history and then Walter would put clips up, and so we got clips of Dave. By the way, a lot of people don’t remember this or or have noted this necessarily, but back in the day when Dave was at the radio station, I believe it was in Muncie. I don’t know if it was at Muncie.
I just like saying Munsie, but he was there, and it showed a picture of him and he had this huge beard and now it was a hutter right beard. He had no mustache, but he had a big beard at that point and it was it was neat to see that. So they would show pictures of him. Then they showed as he was building his They showed the clip with him and Bruno Jerusy Canadian own beachcomber Bruno Drewsy. They showed clips of that.
They showed the Mary Tyler Moore clip, the famous clip where where Dave and Michael Keaton are doing the singing and dancing on stage, and it was fun. It looked like Walter was messing with him a little bit because the clip was on and then Dave’s like, Okay, that’s enough, and they let the clip keep going and he’s like, Walter, no, like he’s really to stop the clip. They let the clip go all the way, showed. Clip from my shows. Listeners just really quickly explain, please sorry.
After the Mary Tyler Moore show, Mary Tyler Moore at a variety show on CBS, and the cast did include Michael Keaton and a youngish David Letterman. And if you want to see Dave dressed like a nerd doing typical I guess that’s early eighties variety show, singing and dancing, picture the Brady Bunch Kids Variety Hour, and throw David Letterman on that and you’re close enough. Sorry I have interrupted again, Mike. No, please, do I do that all the time. I assume people know what I’m talking about, which is rarely the case.
And so he uh, you know, went through his history and hilarious as he did it. I mean, he brought up the they brought up the Trump tweet where you know, whatever happened to David Letterman, no talent, no this or like you know, it’s it’s a kind of worked like a badge of honor. But then he he started talking about how much he loved loves Canada and and and uh, I don’t know. It was almost like if there was a theme of the show was acting as an emissary, you know, to say, hey, you know, we acknowledge some of the stuff that’s being said in the greater narrative of the world right now, and what’s happening in the Canada US tensions and things like that, and and and he really really did a great job of playing on that, not in a way that the current late night talk shows do, not to create more polarization. Not to I mean, he poked.
Fun at at at Donald President Trump, of course, you know, because of the tweets and some of the direct things or whatever, But he didn’t really it wasn’t a it wasn’t a bashing or anything like that. It was just more of a recognition of what was going on, and hey, let’s let’s. Make this better. By the way, the ovation that Dave got I should I really need to note that when he brought himself out the place. To say the place went nuts is not accurate.
It was way more than that. And and I’d never seen Dave in a space that big before. I’ve seen him at the Rector Mantamon Theater and and another theater in la And then of course he had Sullivan Theater, you know, at Sullivant Theater four hundred seats, five hundred seats. That’s the most Manzban’s least like the other ones are intimate, they’re smaller, but this place three thousand seats, and the entire place erupted in a standing ovation that would shake the foundation. It was, and it was long, long enough that Dave got really uncomfortable.
Okay, like it was a long, long, long thing. Then he went through what I just talked about, uh, you know, roll at Walter and and and and and and the video clips and whatnot, and then he brought Paul Shaffer out on stage, and everybody went crazy for Paul Shaeffer and uh as almost as crazy for Paul as Dave. And Dave said here, this is a. Song that I’ve I used to get Paul to play every once in a while on the show. And he goes, it’s a song that I love and we’re going to sing it together right now, and a huge Canadian flag comes from the rafters down and we sing Oh Canada, and Paul leads us to sing o Canada with his beautiful Steinway and Soun’s grand piano that’s on stage just off to the left of the chairs that Dave and Zach would occupy.
So we sing O Canada together and that was a lot of fun. So that was how the show started. And this is probably twenty minutes before Zach even comes out, So that alone the prep for that, you know, the writing of it, the rewriting, the revisions of it that would have taken a lot of effort to do. That wasn’t necessary because the place sold out in four minutes. So they rose to the occasion to give us something that was unique.
And this is all before Zach comes out. So it was a beautiful, beautiful precursor to what was then about to happen. Take one more break and we’ll come back and talk more with Mike Chisholm from The Letterman Podcast. My mind is now thinking more about this event, so let me break this support several ways. We’re just for laughs.
We’re going to throw a comedy festival. It’s not our big one. Our big ones in Montreal, we have some international ones. This is a bit of a newer one. Let’s book some comedians.
Okay, So and so’s touring. We’re tight with these agents, We’re tight with these managers. These people are friends of the festival and off and do the festivals. Let’s get some local people in.
And then somebody said, let’s ask David Letterman like that just seems odd.
I’ll continue. If you’re David Letterman, Okay, yeah, I’m reasonably retired. Ish if I need to scratch a creative itch. I’ll just go on the Barber Gain Show. If I’m I want to comment on current events, I’ll go on the Barber Gain Show.
Or I could, I guess, just go on YouTube myself. I could give an interview with The New York Times. If I feel like I need to be heard, if I need to perform, I can go to Los Angeles and the Netflix Comedy Festival, with whom I have a relationship. So why is David Letterman at JFL Vancouver. Even JFL Montreal would be a one hour flight in and out and I’m back home for dinner.
Why is David Letterman going to Vancouver? And all Schaefer comes that just this is I’m adding up two and two and I’m getting seventeen here. Well, and I mean, it’s funny at seventy eight that this kind of of a path might reveal itself. But first off, JFL Vancouver, I believe this is ten years, like I remember just before the pandemic, and I’m talking maybe weeks before the pandemic. In twenty twenty, I went and saw Bill Burr for the just for laughs.
So this is back in twenty twenty, I saw Burrs one of the headliners. But I hear where you’re coming from. Yeah, it’s it’s. And there was a at some point, just for laughs, teamed up with an existing Vancouver comedy festival. I believe the actual festival is longer than something titled JFL Vancouver, because exactly I remember this being around when I was that serious and some of my serious stories are twenty years old now.
But the this is adding up to as a one off. Dave’s in Vancouver and Paul shows up and yeah, okay, Paul’s Canadian. Fine. Uh, just seems like something is afoot. I think it’s a blueprint personally, and I don’t necessarily have any information to back that up other than to say to me where Dave has carved himself out.
You know, they kind of positioned him that he was headlining the festival, which is kind of neat, and I think I believe where are we here? I think tonight Jerry Seinfeld finishes the festival at the same theater Dave was at. I believe that’s tonight. I believe that’s happening. So there’s probably some sort of connection there as well, because I believe they have some common people in their administrative teams that that that might have maybe made that happen.
So that’s one way you know you’re gonna get Seinfeld. Well, hey, what if we also brought Dave? That might be part of it. I don’t know. I’m not exactly certain about that.
But the idea though, to have a comedy festival that’s all stand ups is one thing, okay, But what if we included performance art? What if we included some podcasts? What if we included which which they did at JFL Vancouver this year.
And then also, oh, here’s a unique way.
What if we brought Letterman in and he talked to Zach isn’t necessarily known as as as a stand up, but certainly a performance artist. What if what if David Letterman came in and had a conversation with one of the top stand ups. He’s been doing that for a few years here, He’s been doing it on Netflix, but also on these little one off shows for other festivals and things like that. To me, that’s a that’s a bankable different face or a different event to put into a festival. Some of my favorite bands, they don’t really tour anymore, but they will go to all the different festivals in Europe and all the different big festivals and things like that, it’s an easier road to travel to me, if Dave did need to scratch this itch, which clearly he does, because he loved it.
So you could tell he loved being up there. He loved that moment, just like he used to talk about, you know, my whole day is a terrible day except for the hour between five and six o’clock, and that is my you know, the favorite part of my day. He got a chance to experience that there. I think the idea of him doing this at other festivals or perhaps even going out and having an evening with you know, David Letterman and somebody in different cities, to me, that is something that he would have access to whenever he wanted to at this time in his life. And that’s a that’s a beautiful, beauty thing that he has that.
Okay, I’m adding up too and two and I’m getting nine hundred and forty four. I want you to write this conspiracy theory down. Okay, uh huh. So you’re David Letterman. Remember the Cone Intour?
Yes, of course, you remember the Cone Intour. Remember the Cone Intour you, David, Yes, Dave does seem a little bothered by the news of the day. More often the key hit out for a while and he’s a little commenty. Now, so let’s put that out there. Mm hm.
The Ed Sullivan Theater becomes vacant in June. Yeah, okay, but just put that there. Maybe you go to Vancouver because it’s a three thousand seat theater, so it’s even if jfl overpays him, it’s not a oh my god, I got I can’t turn this down. I’m playing Wembley Stadium typeay day. It’s a three thousand seat theater.
So even if you overpay the man, you still have to run a festival and it has to makes sense. So it’s not about the money. It’s about the performance. And if you workshop a show at the Netflix Festival in Los Angeles, you’re being noticed. Maybe perhaps possibly maybe perhaps we’re looking at some sort of theater run involving Paul Schaeffer, and there’s going to be a theater available.
And again I added up to and two and just got four thousand. But let’s just write that down and maybe in August you and I can connect and be like, see, I almost had it right, except for the part with the datata. Yeah, Dave’s former executive producer and one of my favorite people in the world. His name is Robert Morton Morty as he was known on the show. He came on my show, I don’t know how long ago, six months maybe, and we.
Talked about that. We talked about the Insullivan Theater and the idea was thrown out Netflix should buy the theater. Yeah, right, you think about what we forgot to verbalize that as part of my conspiracy theory, yes. Yeah, like what if they did that and what if there was an opportunity that once a month, once every three months. You think about Billy Joel, you know, playing Madison Square Garden once a month, you know, just to leave the house, go to MSG, play a show, go home there you go.
Pretty pretty cut and dry, right, Imagine if they had that tool at their disposal where some of their performers could go and utilize that theater with this with its history, with now its technology. They upgraded that a lot of that place and like a year ago or a year and a half ago for the first time the audio room, there’s a guy by the name of Harvey Goldberg who who is the the maestro of the musical performance there. How they blend live and produce music and create this amazing opportunity for live performance for artists. I mean, they spent a lot of money on that thing to upgrade that. The recording studio they have there in the and the and the mixing studio they have there a lot of money.
So there’s a ton of technology in that place as well. Well. Imagine if they had that for when they. Have some of their featured comics to do specials and and and to be able to use it as a utility tool for what Netflix is trying to build. To me, that’s a it’s it’s it’s a no brainer.
But again I’m coming from a fan perspective saying that as well, right, being excited about the idea. But it all makes sense. You want to tell me? Saturday, September whatever, ten pm, Live from the Ed Sullivan Theater. My next guest is yep, Stephen Colbert, who we haven’t heard from all summer.
Yeah, that’s Netflix’s playbook. Again, I’m deep in the weeds. But why would David Letterman go to Vancouver? Whye I know who is lovely but he’s David Letterman. Why?
Yeah, yeah, I uh, I couldn’t agree more. There’s some stuff I’ll tell you offline as well that the parts of this that I can’t I can’t say here, but I will. I do not believe this is a one off. And I’ll say that and and and and I’m pretty sure if it’s not a one off, there are gonna be other places that that that have the opportunity, uh to to experience what I got to experience last Wednesday. And and I certainly hope that that is the case.
And anybody out there who does enjoy David Letterman, if you have the chance to go see him, it is worth it. It will be money well spent. Highly recommend it. So, yeah, which Letterman am I getting? Am I getting watermelon?
Letterman? Am I getting? Throwing cards? Am I getting Elder Statesman Dave? Or?
Is it depend on the minute? What Dave am I getting? I think it depends on the guest. I think the Dave that came out and and and and you know, but pre show, the pre show Dave, you’re getting somebody who really cares about what you’re gonna see to make you laugh, to to enjoy. Is he gonna throw macaroni and cheese in the audience, like the Bare Naked Ladies do sometimes when they perform in Canada.
No, not necessarily. I don’t think you’re gonna see that zany part. I think you’ll see reference to it perhaps, But then it depends on the guest. And the guest that we had here was Zach Galvinakis. And let me tell.
You, Johnny, it was a There were a couple of moments there that were Andy Kaufman. There was an Andy Kaufman moment during this show. Now it’s not watermelons being thrown off a tower, but it was that same manipulation of feelings that isn’t just we’re gonna make you laugh. Now, we might touch you a little bit, then we’re gonna make you laugh and make you laugh more. No, it was, it was.
It was more than that. So I would say the answer to that question is it depends on the guest, because I think Dave can as as as in my opinion, the greatest broadcaster of all time. Dave can be Barbara Walters and ask the tough questions and and and and or not even tough questions, but maybe the heartfelt questions and and and go for a narrative. He’s got that skill. But he’s also got the skill where he can shoot the shot the bull about comedy, where comedy comes from, where these premises come from, and and and and and like he like I saw him do with Nate Bargassi a few years ago, or he can do what he did with Zach, which which which is yes, ask about some of the things going on with Zach.
Why was Zach chosen? He lives you know, in Vancouver now or just off Vancouver, one of the islands out there, with his Canadian wife, and and and has kind of he talked about how he did not want to be in la anymore. He did not like the way he does not like the way technology is driving things, He does not like the way the show business is and and wanted to get away from that, despite still wanting to be a performer. He just couldn’t live in it anymore.
And now we’re all in the audience going, oh my goodness, oh my goodness.
And he starts to you know, articulate on some very very serious things, but then would go on a dime to zany and then on another dime to something completely Andy K. Kaufman esque. So really I think it’s your question. Is it depends? Okay, I’ve got a quick Kaufman story that I have to get out of my system, please.
So the New York Comedy Festival had started the Kaufman Awards and Christian Shall had won it, and that’s how I got to know Christian Kristen a little bit. So I got to know Michael Kaufman, Andy’s brother, and we started to talk about what we could do to honor whatever term you want to use Andy Kaufman. At Serious we used to have these things called town halls where you would book a celebrity and have some super fans come up. So David Letterman’s coming up and twelve people like you would kill to be in that room, and we would broadcast these things. So Michael Kaufman agreed we would do Andy Kaufman town Hall.
He was totally in on this. I couldn’t convince my boss that this was a great idea, and I’m sad we didn’t do this. So the idea was we were going to announce the Kaufviman estate was willing to announce that on you know, whatever day, Andy Kaufman town Hall was going to happen. And Andy was going to come, and then we were going to have the event and invite people up, and Andy would run late and continue to run late, and continue to run late, et cetera, et cetera. And we were going to have Kristin Shaw kill time for us, and we never really got to how that would all resolve itself.
But he was willing to put out a press release with a quote from Andy, et cetera. And this but the other thing. As I’m sitting there having lunch with him, since he’s Andy’s brother and many years have gone by, I start going down in my brain. I’m like, wait, maybe this is Andy Kaufman and he’s doing a bit to me. Maybe there is no Michael, and I’m in my own head getting crazy with this thing.
But we never actually did it. Around that same time, I got to know Bob Zmuda a little bit who was in the Kaufman cycles, and some people think talking some people think Bob would sometimes play the role of Tony Clifton, but but Zmuda was kind enough to book Tony Clifton to come up to Sirius the next day, and mister Clifton showed up in the lobby and didn’t have any id that said Tony Clifton, so security would not let Tony Clifton in the building. And Tony Clifton, being Tony, threw a tantrum and stormed off and never came in.
And then Bob called me later and told me what would happen and out come Clift…
Fun stuff. Tony Clifton is one of my dream guests for The Letterman Podcast. He would be the ultimate because I love featuring people who have been on the show on our show and I want, I hope that that grows into that more. And Tony Clifton has always been He’s. In my top five guests to be on the Letterman Podcast for for reasons just like that.
The idea that he’s down on the lobby and can’t get up is just hysterical to me. And I feel bad for whoever. Not just the security guards because that’s what they’re meant to do, but the people who are behind, like the counter the administration people that day. I just I feel so bad for them. They had no idea what was coming for them that day that they came to work.
That is just a beautiful, beautiful story. I love that. So let me just for again my listeners who may be less hip to this. So back in the day Andy Kaufman, there were people who believed that sometimes Andy Kaufman would perform a character known as Tony Clifton, who was this big, loud guy who thought he had invented show business. Now, of course Andy Kaufman is not Tony Clifton.
Tony Clifton is a completely distinct, separate person. But talk shows would book Tony Clifton thinking they had booked Andy Kaufman. But of course Andy Kaufman and Tony Clifton are two different people, so they would have Tony Clifton on the show thinking they booked Kaufman. However, there are some who believe that sometimes they would book Tony Clifton and Bob’s Muda would dress up as Tony Clifton, and the talk show would think they had booked Andy Kaufman, but they had actually booked Bob’s Muda pretending to be Tony Clifton. Winkwig, nudge, nudge, Know what I mean, say no more?
Love it so great? I love that stuff. And and and Zach did one of these to Dave, and I want to like I’m I don’t like destroying. I don’t like revealing bits, right, you know I I don’t. I don’t ever want to do that.
You know you? You you got me credentialed to go see a couple of a couple of comics at JFL outside of Dave red Richardson comes to mind. I want to I want to celebrate, like three of the bits that he did there. There was a nine to eleven bit, there was a canceling bit, and there was something else. I want to celebrate them and articulate them with people.
But he is clearly working on them for another special, so I’m not going to go into how he made it clever and even. Innocent, even though he did this one. However, I believe is A is a one off, and I think that I’m okay to talk about what Zach did on stage here because there’s a little bit of a codea to it afterwards that I just adore. One of the things that famously about Dave out there is that he doesn’t like to be surprised. Early on, they had to create in in Dave’s run, they had to create, uh, they had to create a sort of a I don’t know, a culture where instead of surprising Dave with something and and and and enjoying his wit, his off the cuff wit which is second to none, you let Dave in on it.
But it’s okay because he knows he’ll react to it the way that he would have if he were surprised. He’s he’s got the ability to do that because he just gets irket being surprised. Well, I believe Zach did that to Dave on stage, and and and and I don’t believe that he was ready for it. So they were going about having a lovely conversation about life and what they uh. You know, Zach was amazing.
He at one point hands one hundred dollars bill to somebody in the audience and it’s a real one because it’s he handed to the guy right in front of me. You know. He he was messing with. The audience talking about how he married a Canadian girl. We all clapped, and then Zach’s like looks at all of us and he goes, yeah, but she’s from Calgary.
And the entire audience turned. On him for a second because the rivalry between the Vancouver Canucks and the Calgary Flames, and it was just like like playing with us, right. He called the leader of the of the Conservative Party here in Canada’s aames Pierre Paulia. He called them Pierre poutine. You know, just did did a great job showing us.
Who he was. They were going back and forth, and then they started settling down and getting serious a little bit, and they started talking about their personal lives and and and and it came out, does your wife like when you like, do you do bits in regular life, like with like, you know, servers at a restaurant or people or whatever. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, does your wife like that? No, my wife thinks I’m very unfunny. Oh yeah, mine too.
Both of them going on about how they have these goofy personalities and how their wives do not think that they’re funny. They do not like when they do bits, And Zach starts telling a story about his mom, and he starts saying, growing up, it was like that in Dave’s like Guests for Me as well, you know, you know, kind of the round peg in a square hole kind of scenario. And Zach was talking about out how he would love to make his mom laugh, and she had this guffaw, like it was an involuntary kind of a thing that would happen when he said the right thing in the right combination of things. But the problem is is most of the time it would be inappropriate. And so Zach got this weird back and forth because he would get the guffaw, but then he would get in trouble and it was just like okay, good, but then bad.
And and that happened a lot. And he brought up a couple of stories about that, and then he told one and it was just so powerful, like he was talking about how he got the guffa and and he goes in this one here and I got the gaffa from my mom. And he stops and he goes h and and and and. Just I just need and Johnny, I swear to God, A tear is coming out of his eye, like I’m there, I’m watching it and it’s happening, and I’m looking at Dave, and Dave’s entire energy changed and shifted and became extremely uncomfortable, like extremely because Zach galifan Akis is crying on stage right now, and Dave was unprepared. It was it was just a moment talking about comedy and suddenly and he like like literally I’m watching the tear fall down his face.
And Dave, even though he’s got the lapel mic on, he says very softly, oh is this this is this is real? Like he’s really really really softly, and zachly, I’m so sorry. I just I just lost my mom last month. And the entire audience just oh, like like the just all the breath went out of the room because it was just sotal and then you’re the empathy for him was just you could feel the empathy for him, and it was just and. Dave was like, oh, I and and he didn’t know, you know.
He talked about how he watched the entire run of Between Two Friends, and he watched The Hangover and he watched them these other things, and it was unprepared to know that Zach just lost his mom.
And then Zach said a couple more things and it was like, and he goes, I was j…
I didn’t really lose my mom last month. It was like what Dave included, And then a few sentences later he said, oh no, no, no, really no, my mom really is dead. And we were all just not knowing what to do with that, and Dave kept preferring he this is where I think it wasn’t. That wasn’t script. I’m ninety nine percent it wasn’t script.
Dave wasn’t in on it because he kept coming back to it, and when he came back to it, he was doing it almost as grumpy Dave. Oh yeah, it’s as good. It’s every bit as good as a dead mom bit. You know. He would say say things, but he called it back maybe two or three times.
So anyway, the code of that story is. Apparently after the show, David and his team went out for dinner, not with Zach, but David is to his team went out for dinner, and for a good portion of that dinner, they were trying to figure out if Zach Kalvinax’s mom is dead or alive or not. And that, to me was just lovely. And I’m not the first person to put that out there. The Georgia Strait put it out there.
I feel, okay, The Georgia Straits like an indie Vancouver, an indie Vancouver publication or newspaper, so they put it out there, so I don’t feel like I’m wrecking anything by putting it out there. It was a phenomenal moment to be a part of And if Zach actually got one over on Dave. Good for him. And if he didn’t, and Dave was in on it like he was when Jerry Lawler slapped Andy Kaufman back in the day on the show, Dave was in on that, you know, then even more power to Dave because he fooled everybody making us think that he didn’t know about it. So that encapsulates the show really at the end of the day, without me destroying any of the other stuff that they they said, that was my favorite moment of the show.
It was just such a lovely experience. John, I can’t even I can’t even tell you. It was just such a such a lovely experience. I’m so glad you got to meet him and you got to see a show which is great as well, and. A phenomenal show.
Like there wasn’t anybody who left there wishing that they they didn’t come the Goodwill. It was just the energy afterwards as people were leaving. It was just it was a lovely, lovely experience. And I just highly recommend it if you see him, If you see if you’re able to see Dave live. Go see him.
If you have any affection for him whatsoever. You will regret not seeing him in years to come, you know, when the inevitable that happens to all of us happens. If you have the opportunity to see him, go see him. What did Shaeffer do at the show? Oh?
Sorry, yeah, so this is the way to finish the show.
And then I’ve got six minutes and then I’ve got a bolt.
So this is a perfect way. Thank you very very much for saying that. Oh my gosh, leading leading everybody in O Canada at the beginning. But then at the end, after they finished all of the footage they had at Zach because I mean the big screen behind them, so they’re showing clips in between two ferns. They’re showing clips of the hangover.
They’re showing clips and talking about some of these things. Dave says, I have a wonderful way to end the show, and he and he dedicates it to Zach. And Paul comes out and he starts playing on the piano and he plays it’s raining men. Zach is killing himself, laughing like like this is what like like it almost felt like it was a bit of a surprise to Zach as to how they were going to finish the show, and Paul sings It’s raining men as soon as the show, and it’s a very high energy song, and so we’re all Paul of course a writer of that in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame for that song alone, I believe, and so so so that’s how they finished the show, which I thought was spectacular. It was.
It was quirky, but at the same time high energy and fun, and people were singing along with it.
And then they got up and they thanked everybody and they all kind of walked.
Off stage and it was. That was lovely, awesome good grats. Yeah, thanks man, it was. It was. It was fantastic.
And I just got to say, I adore our friendship, I adore our our, our kinship. I love your show. I love this show so so so much. And I can’t thank you enough for reaching out to them and having them kind of take a chance on me to cover a couple of the other stand ups that were there. It was really really fun to do that, So Johnny, thank you so much for giving me that opportunity to go out and do that as well.
That was that was more trimmings on a beautiful beautiful, beautiful experience. No thanks for going, and I you know you’re helping me.
And also I think it’s good for the listeners to hear you reacting to somethin…
And you were in small rooms and you clearly enjoyed it. So that made me happy to see that you weren’t like what did he sent me to? And you saw the magic of comedy festivals, yes, sir. And the difference, you know, seeing when you’re in a small room for an open mic and you’re seeing people kind of stumble their way forward. That’s one thing when you’re in a small room for some people to see people who are not open micers.
They’ve clearly established who they are, their voice, their personality, their character, if you want to look at it that way, and then you see them played to a small room. It’s the same thing as watching your favorite season band. You watch Pearl Jam play to a room of four hundred people, that’s a very special thing. Seeing Red Richardson, for example, he sold the room out, but it was one hundred and thirty people. As a sellout phenomenal and intimate and beautiful.
And Catherine Blandford, same room but only thirty two seats sold, and her playing with that the way that she did, because she isn’t just an open micer that’s oh it’s another room of thirty two people. No, she is sharp as attack and she gets a chance to go play a small room and boy did she have fun with it. So yeah, those were both two very very good shows. Yeah, I’m telling my listeners Catherine Blandford learned that name. That’s definitely somebody to keep it.
I haven’t seen Red, so I’ll take your word for it, but Catherine I’ve seen, and that’s somebody to keep an eye on. All right, I’m gonna go shovel and you probably have a job or something, so I’ll let you go and we’ll talk some more. Thanks man, I appreciate you. You’re just I love your friendship, I love your show, and thank you for being you buddy. Back at you, all right, talk to you soon.