Howard Stern Comes Again

Madonna

MARCH 11, 2015

Back in the early nineties I had a TV show on New York’s WOR. I was up against Saturday Night Live. We only had a $50,000 budget, compared to the millions they spent, but we regularly beat them in New York. Then one week Madonna came out with the video for Justify My Love. There was this huge uproar. MTV refused to play it.

That really pissed me off. This was pre-Internet, so there was no other way for people to see it. That week we achieved a blockbuster rating without having to write as many sketches. We just played the video in its entirety. In the two years I did that TV show, it was one of the highest-rated episodes.

We were always trying to get her on the radio show. When people ask Gary, How long did it take you to book Madonna? he says, About thirty years. When she finally agreed to do it, we had to push the show back an hour to accommodate her schedule. That’s the only time I’ve ever done that. There aren’t many people I would do that for. That’s how important it was to have Madonna on. (Any celebrities out there who are reading this and thinking of coming on the show, please don’t make me do this again. I love all of you, but I have my routine. I need my lunch at a certain time. I need my nap at a certain time. I have everything planned to the exact minute. I’m at my best early in the morning. I fade out by eleven o’clock. There’s no gas left in the tank. It’s over, Johnny, as the great Richard Crenna said in the first Rambo movie while trying to talk Sylvester Stallone down from killing everyone.)

She was as great a guest as you’d expect her to be. Totally candid. She talked about her childhood in Michigan and her early career struggles when she got to New York. She even revealed her relationship with Tupac Shakur, which made a lot of news. I don’t think she ever talked about that before. But the thing I most appreciated was what she had to say about shocking people and causing controversy.

Obviously that’s something I can relate to. When I look back now, it’s very clear that Madonna was a kindred spirit. We were both pissing off religious groups, and fighting censorship, and pushing against America’s puritanical boundaries. It would’ve been great to call her up and say, Geez, I’m going through a nightmare. How are you getting through this? How do you deal? What’s it like for you? Maybe she could’ve helped me. Maybe I could’ve offered some comfort to her too. Unfortunately, at that time, I couldn’t see her as an ally. I couldn’t see her at all. Where my head was back then, I was just so competitive and angry, and I had a very negative attitude toward anyone.

Which is why it ended up being a good thing that it took so long to get her on the show. When it finally happened, I’d been through years of therapy and I could have that type of substantial conversation with her. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Madonna. I’m staggered by what she has achieved, and I was honored to speak to her.

Howard: Let me gaze upon you. Wow! Come on in, you look great. We are so excited you’re here. I was just reading your credentials.

Madonna: My credentials?

Howard: Three hundred million albums sold. That’s pretty damn amazing. Are you neurotic like me and you go, It doesn’t matter I sold three hundred million albums or I had a big radio audience, I worry about how to continue this whole party?

Madonna: Yeah, I don’t focus on my accomplishments, I focus on things I haven’t done yet. Extremely neurotic.

Howard: Why do you think that is? Is there a part of you that doesn’t believe that you made it? Do you still see yourself as this little girl from this small town?

Madonna: My manager always says, Stop acting like you don’t have any money. But it’s just ingrained in me. I’ve got to work.

Howard: Is that because you grew up with no money?

Madonna: Yeah, I grew up with no money and a big family and a hardworking father and I had to work a lot to do simple things. Like if I wanted to take a dance class, my dad said, Well, go get a job, I’m not paying for it.

Howard: I have the same affliction. I even say to my kids, Oh, I have to work, I have to work. And they go, Well, you’ve made enough money. I go, No, I feel like I’m running out of money.

Madonna: It’s not just I feel like I’m running out of money, it’s also I like to do things. I like to be productive. I like to be creative.

Howard: Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and you—that’s the highest-selling artists of all time, which to me is phenomenal.

Madonna: That’s good company.

Howard: That really is good company. And you are the only woman in that whole group.

Madonna: I’m practically the only one alive.

Howard: I interviewed Billy Joel and he said he sometimes pinches himself. He can’t believe it. There’s a handful of artists that can actually still sell stadiums and do all of that, and he’s one of them. He’s like, Yeah, of course I go out and sing. I have to. It would be almost weird not to.

Madonna: He’s hardwired.

Howard: You know him at all?

Madonna: I do. I mean, I don’t know him. I met him once.

Howard: Is that a great part of fame? Having fabulous friends, getting to meet everyone?

Madonna: I do get to meet everyone but they don’t necessarily become friends. Celebrities are really weird around other celebrities. They’re actually quite shy.

Howard: You don’t have a lot of celebrity friends?

Madonna: I don’t.

Howard: Those relationships are hard to maintain?

Madonna: Yeah, because everybody is busy working.

Howard: Don’t you also think that it’s hard to be friends with you because you’re so successful and that even other successful people want to be the star in the room? They want to be the one that draws the attention. Don’t you think that sometimes?

Madonna: Possibly. I haven’t really analyzed it. I certainly think that happens when it comes to relationships. Celebrities hooking up with celebrities is pretty rare.

Howard: When you get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, does that mean anything to you? Do you get excited about that or do you sit there and go, This is such bullshit?

Madonna: I think I’m somewhere in the middle. I know it’s an honor, but at the end of the day I don’t really care about awards and those kinds of things. I care about how I live my life, how I treat people and if I raise good children.

Howard: You love being a mother?

Madonna: I do love it. It’s also exhausting.

Howard: It is. When you went to adopt your children, the world gave you such shit for this. I remember being on the radio and going, Why the hell would somebody want to prevent a kid who doesn’t have parents or a home and someone wants to give them a good life? Was that mind-boggling to you when you went through that?

Madonna: It crushed me. I have to say, it was one of life’s great disappointments.

Howard: You didn’t give up, though. You kept pressing.

Madonna: I went through the adoption and then I adopted another child. So I did keep on, but it was really a bizarre experience.

Howard: When that kind of pressure comes on you—and you’ve had pressure in your career. You go out, you do a video, and the Catholic Church is after you.

Madonna: Like I get excommunicated? That’s happened three times, by the way. It’s okay.

Howard: That type of pressure . . .

Madonna: I don’t care about the pope. I don’t care what the Vatican thinks—that I’m, like, Catholic material or not. That’s cool with me. But I find it really strange that people gave me a hard time for adopting children.

Howard: It’s amazing. I didn’t even understand their arguments. I truly didn’t. Do you think people generally perceive you as a person they’re against? It seems to me you’re always fighting a battle with people, and it just sucks. It just has to be exhausting. I would crawl into a hole.

Madonna: I have certainly wanted to crawl into a hole, and that was one of those moments. Are you asking me why people give me a hard time?

Howard: They do, though, don’t they? Here’s the question, Madonna. People think you’re doing something to shock them. And people think that when I’m on the radio I’m trying to shock them. That’s what they think my goal is.

Madonna: Sometimes you are. I mean, you certainly have in the past, and so have I.

Howard: But do you believe that you’re shocking?

Madonna: I think that thinking for yourself and having a strong opinion and going against the grain is shocking to most people, certainly in my business.

Howard: But are you shocked when people are shocked by you? Aren’t you going out there just to entertain them? You want to make people feel good, you want to sing a song, you want to dance, you want to entertain them. But then they’re being shocked by you—I’m shocked that anyone can be shocked by anything I say.

Madonna: We live in a very puritanical country, you do understand that. Killing is okay, but . . . When I did Like a Virgin, when I performed it live for the first time, actually my shoe fell off onstage. I had come down on the wedding cake, and my shoe fell off, and I was like, Oh, shit, I can’t dance in one shoe—can I say shit on the air?

Howard: Yeah.

Madonna: I was like, How am I going to play this out? So I just dove for it on the ground. And when I dove for it my dress went up and my butt was showing. Everyone is showing their butt now, but back then nobody saw anyone’s butt, and I didn’t know my skirt was up. So I proceeded to sing the song laying down on the ground. I was just making the best of the situation, which is what I do. Like when I got yanked off the stage by my cape the other day. I’m hardwired to just keep going. After I got offstage during that performance, my manager was white as a ghost. He looked at me and said, Do you know what you just did? I said, Yeah, I sang a song and I lost my shoe onstage. And he was like, No, your butt was showing for the entire song. Your career is over.

Howard: And did you believe him?

Madonna: How would I not? I felt really bad, but I didn’t do it on purpose.

Howard: Yeah, but there’s a panic setting in. I’m going to lose everything. I’m trying so hard here. I didn’t mean to be controversial.

Madonna: No, I’m not like that. I wasn’t that apologetic. I was just like, Fuck it, I made a mistake.

Howard: You don’t go somewhere and cry and say, I just lost my career?

Madonna: No.

Howard: See, I was just terrified all the time because I was told I was going to lose my career.

Madonna: I think that when that happens to you year after year, decade after decade, you just . . . it’s just noise. At this point it’s noise. People just like to give me shit.

Howard: You were just growing up—I’m going back to when you were a little girl.

Madonna: I’m still growing up.

Howard: Aren’t we all? You are from a large family, and it’s pretty legendary that you had a rough childhood and your mother died. When your mother dies and you’re five years old, it’s a black hole in your heart and that never goes away. And the fact that you have kids . . . how do you learn how to be a mother if you’ve never had a mother?

Madonna: That’s a good question. I think you just learn as you go, and I try to be the mother that I didn’t have. I try to be all those things that I wanted. I try to be nurturing, I try to be their friend, and I try to be there for them. I try to give them advice. Sometimes I make mistakes. Sometimes things don’t go the way I plan, and I ask my sister for her advice because she was raised by my grandmother and she is a good mother.

Howard: Your father raised you, essentially?

Madonna: Yeah, when he wasn’t working.

Howard: Your father married the housekeeper?

Madonna: Yeah.

Howard: And when that happened, she was your stepmother. You hated her. You couldn’t stand her.

Madonna: Okay, you’re going there. You’re just going there, Howard.

Howard: I am. I’m curious, because to me this is fascinating. If you’re not comfortable going there, I’ll leave it.

Madonna: I’m with my psychoanalyst right now.

Howard: You are. Get on that couch.

Madonna: I’m on the couch. It was three years later. I was almost six when my mom died. So I was almost nine when my dad remarried. And she was our housekeeper for a bit, but she disappeared. It’s a long story.

Howard: You mean she left you?

Madonna: This is like a soap opera. She was pregnant, but she went away to have the baby. It was somebody else’s. Then she showed back up and my dad said he was marrying her. We were really shocked by it because we were still mourning and grieving my mother’s death, which my father never spoke about.

Howard: He never sat you down and said, Your mother died and this is—

Madonna: No, he never said, How do you feel about it? We never had a group hug. We never had a cry. My father is very stoic and old-school, and I think he was devastated too. I don’t think he had words for his pain.

Howard: My mother lost her mother when she was nine. Living with a woman who had lost her mother was maybe the most difficult thing. Sometimes I felt I had to be her father. It was a very difficult thing for me. That’s why I asked you about it. That’s why I was so curious about it, because I know how difficult that is. But I get two completely different pictures of you as a kid. One is of a rebel. At school you would be the kid who would hang out with the gay dance teacher. And then you were also the valedictorian or something. You were the super student. You got straight As.

Madonna: Well, I was smart, but I didn’t socialize really. I didn’t have friends.

Howard: Why do you think that was?

Madonna: Because I just thought everyone was an idiot. I always felt like an outsider growing up. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I didn’t have a mother and I was the eldest daughter, so I had a lot of responsibilities. There was not a lot of free time in my life. It was school, come home, housework, help with dinner, do your schoolwork, clean the house, take care of the little kids, blah-blah-blah. My house was not a fun place to bring people to, number one. Number two, we first grew up in Pontiac [Michigan], which was a very racially mixed, mostly black environment. We went to Catholic schools and we wore uniforms, and that was normal life to me. Then when I went to high school, we moved to a suburb. It was all white and we were living above our means.

Howard: Did you feel out of place in a white community?

Madonna: I did. And because now I didn’t have a uniform, I was aware that my clothes were not as cool as everybody else’s or as nice as everyone else’s. I’d wear the same clothes every day. I just didn’t fit in. I just felt like I was with rich people, and I felt out of place. I felt like they were members of country clubs and they had manicures and they wore nice clothes and I didn’t fit in. I felt like a country bumpkin, and I was resentful because I didn’t fit in, because I felt people were judging me all the time. I chose not to socialize with people.

Howard: You graduated early from high school, right?

Madonna: Yeah.

Howard: And then you decided to go to New York, which is really freaky.

Madonna: No, I went to the University of Michigan for a year and I was a dance major.

Howard: The way you saw your future and your way out of Michigan was you were going to be a professional dancer. You never even imagined you’d be a singer, right?

Madonna: No.

Howard: Isn’t that weird?

Madonna: Very weird.

Howard: And then you go to college and some teacher says to you, Hey, why don’t you go to Alvin Ailey and go dance.

Madonna: No, he said, You’re too good for this. You don’t need this. This is an environment for people who don’t know what they want to do with their lives. Go. Go to New York.

Howard: So when you came to New York . . . the story I heard was you get off the bus, you have thirty-five dollars or something in your pocket. You’re wearing your winter jacket in the summer. You get off the bus and you don’t even have a place to live. And some dude walks up to you and asks you why you’re wearing your winter coat. You talk to him and he says, Come live on my couch. And you lived on his couch.

Madonna: Kind of.

Howard: Can you imagine?

Madonna: I know. The angels were protecting me. I met him at the flea market. I was just wandering around the streets. I actually took a taxi into the city. It was my first plane ride and my first taxi ride. So I said, Take me to the center. He dropped me off at Times Square. You can imagine me looking up at all these skyscrapers and all the crazy people and the homeless people. Times Square was very different at that time.

Howard: I want to make this point because people think this shit happens overnight. It doesn’t, and it’s hard.

Madonna: Yes.

Howard: And it’s not really luck. It’s a lot of hard work.

Madonna: Sweat and tears.

Howard: So you come to New York to become a dancer. You’re living on some guy’s couch.

Madonna: He only allows it for, like, five days max.

Howard: How do you make money?

Madonna: I started going to auditions and I got into some dance companies, got a partial scholarship to the Alvin Ailey school. And then I started just making little bits of money. I was taking jobs. I did everything. I worked at Dunkin’ Donuts. I got fired from the Russian Tea Room for wearing fishnets. I was the coat-check girl. I’m like, You can’t even see my legs. I’m behind a door.

Howard: But it’s your nature to say, Fuck you, I’m going to wear fishnets.

Madonna: It was just my nature to do the opposite of what people told me to do.

Howard: Did you explain to them you were Madonna?

Madonna: I wasn’t Madonna then.

Howard: They didn’t recognize you.

Madonna: They didn’t see the future.

Howard: Did you find comfort in a friend like Michael Jackson? Because he’s on par with you, in the sense that he’s sold a lot of records, and wherever you go people are taking pictures of you and the whole thing. I remember you went to the Academy Awards with him. He was your date. Was he someone that you could reveal yourself to and really talk to?

Madonna: Well, I could certainly relate to him on many levels—many of the things that you’ve brought up. But he was also a very shy person and he grew up in a very different way than I did. He was famous since he was a child, and I think he never really had a childhood and he was painfully shy. So we didn’t have a relationship that was so much about me revealing myself to him. It was more about trying to . . . like, making fun of the crazy world that we were working and living in, you know what I mean?

Howard: So he wasn’t a guy you could sit there and talk to and treat him like someone who you could confide in. That wasn’t him?

Madonna: To a certain extent. But we didn’t talk about our childhoods. I think he felt eternally tortured by people. I think Michael was never happy with the way he looked. It was hard for him to look into people’s eyes, and it was important for me to let him know that I wasn’t judging him.

Howard: Do you like Letterman? I watched those old interviews, and I can’t tell if you like him or you’re just kind of annoyed.

Madonna: That’s how I flirt with people.

Howard: Is that the flirt?

Madonna: Yeah.

Howard: Oh, it seems contentious and uncomfortable.

Madonna: Well, one time I was mad at him, when I said the f-word a lot. But the rest of the time was good.

Howard: You were really mad at him?

Madonna: I was in a weird mood that day. I was dating Tupac Shakur at the time, and the thing is he got me all riled up about life in general. So when I went on this show, I was feeling very gangsta.✦

Howard: I didn’t know you dated Tupac Shakur. That’s shocking to me. That’s never been out there, I don’t think.

Madonna: I think people know if you’re in the know.

Howard: I kind of know everyone you dated.

Madonna: Really? Well, give me the list, baby.

Howard: All right, you ready? Warren Beatty.

Madonna: Okay, everybody knows that.

Howard: As an observer, I thought you were really in love with him.

Madonna: I was.

Howard: Yeah, I thought that was love. You cared about him.

Madonna: I did.

Howard: With those breakups, do you go into a funk? Can a guy wreck you?

Madonna: Super-personal interview, my goodness.

Howard: I know. I do need to know this thing.

Madonna: Why?

Howard: I don’t know. I’m curious. I’d like to know you get your heart broken.

Madonna: Have you heard my new record? There are a couple of songs about heartbreak. Of course I’ve had my heart broken many times.

Howard: Wait, I was naming the people you’ve dated. Sean Penn.

Madonna: Well, I married Sean. And I married Guy Ritchie. So I was in love with them, of course.

Howard: Do you see a psychiatrist?

Madonna: I used to.

Howard: Do you ever question why your marriages can’t stay forever? Or do you just not believe in that?

Madonna: Why they didn’t work?

Howard: Yeah, why they didn’t work.

Madonna: I did. I figured it out.

Howard: What’s the answer?

Madonna: I’d rather not go into that. That will be revealing things about those other people, and I don’t think that’s—I take responsibility too.

Howard: The relationships were bad. They went bad.

Madonna: No, they just weren’t right in the end. I mean, I didn’t want to stay unhappy and miserable. It’s very hard if you’re an artist and a creative person and a woman, a strong independent female, to be in a marriage with a man who isn’t threatened by that and is comfortable with all the things that I stand for and what I do. Some guys just want someone to stay home and take care of the kids. And that’s valid.

Howard: But that’s not you.

Madonna: No.

Howard: And it’s never going to be you.

Madonna: No.

Howard: Do you drink?

Madonna: Not much. But I’m pretty fun when I’m drunk.

Howard: You are?

Madonna: Yeah, because usually I’m very in control.

Howard: What do you mean, you’re fun when you’re drunk? What happens?

Madonna: You’re going to have to stick around and find out.

✦

For more on this from Snoop Dogg, turn to page 530

.

Tracy Morgan

AUGUST 16, 2016

I got turned on to Tracy Morgan by Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy is a fan of the show, so he campaigns for people he wants to hear. He wrote me a bunch of times and said, You have to get Tracy on your show. He’d be so great. I respect Jimmy’s opinion, and he was absolutely right. The first time we had Tracy on was around 2007. The guy is just a home run every time. He’s the guest who probably requires the least amount of work on my part because it almost doesn’t matter what you ask him, he’s got his own agenda.

Over the years we got to know each other, mainly from seeing each other at Knicks games. One of the perks of being famous is I get to sit in the front row. I’m not a huge basketball fan, but I love sitting there and watching a game. It’s such a treat. Even more so when Tracy is there. He’ll do his own play-by-play and yell out advice to the players. It’s hysterical. ESPN should seriously hire him to do play-by-play on their broadcasts.

In June 2014, Tracy was in a horrendous accident. A Walmart tractor-trailer plowed into a Sprinter van carrying him and a few other comics. One of them, James McNair, was killed, and Tracy was airlifted to a hospital. He was in a coma for two weeks. I was really worried, and I was hearing all sorts of things. Someone would say he had no brain function and was being fed through a tube. Someone else would say he was getting better. I didn’t know what to believe. From time to time I would reach out through a card or a note, but I never heard back.

Gary kept checking with Tracy’s publicist, who is also Jimmy Kimmel’s publicist. We weren’t trying to get him on the show. We just wanted an update on his condition. The publicist kept saying Tracy was going to be okay, and promised that when he was ready to talk about what happened, it would be with us. It took about two years. Then we got a call from the publicist: He’s ready.

This interview was really emotional. Physically Tracy was healed, but I had never seen him so vulnerable. He cried a couple times, and he kept talking about God and his purpose on the planet. You could tell he was very moved by everyone who’d tried to reach out to him and all the love and support he’d received. If there was a blessing in the accident, it was that he realized people really do care about him.

Howard: An old friend to the show. On many, many times. We all know he had a horrible accident. But he’s back. He’s back. Let me look at you.

Tracy: I love you, Howard.

Howard: My brother. Are you all right?

Tracy: I feel like I tapped into something, man. A lot of love and goodwill out there for me. And I tapped into it.

Howard: I was so upset, and I couldn’t get in touch with you.

Tracy: I wasn’t talking to nobody, man. I wasn’t in the state of mind for that. I didn’t even know how to spell my name. I could barely talk, and my feet—I was in the wheelchair for six months with my feet like this, man [uses hands to show how feet were angled]. I wasn’t ready for none of that.

Howard: The thing that freaked me out the most that I read, and tell me if this is true: after you came out of your coma—you were in a coma for almost eight days, am I correct?

Tracy: Yeah, like, nine and a half.

Howard: When you opened your eyes, you could not see. You were blind for—

Tracy: Five days.

Howard: For five days. Did they think that maybe your vision wouldn’t ever come back?

Tracy: They didn’t know. These are neurons in your brains that are destroyed, and it takes time to heal. They’re still healing now. This nurse, Laurie, stayed with me every day, all day, from when I first came out of the helicopter. She’s the one that cut my bloody clothes off of me. My wife went back home to get some clothes, because they had a hotel across the street. She says she was getting clothes, and then the phone rang, and Nurse Laurie said, He’s up. And he’s asking for you. So she just rushed back to the hospital with my son, and I was blind. I was touching her face.

Howard: From what I read, you say you don’t even remember the accident. You don’t remember any of the details, nor do you want to.

Tracy: I was gone. They keep you in a dark room, so you don’t stimulate your brain. So the swelling goes down. I just feel fortunate. You say, You are blessed. I was blessed when I was born. We all are blessed.

Howard: No, you are blessed because doctors gave you less than a 2 percent chance of living. I mean, this is serious stuff.

Tracy: Well, God gave me a second chance.

Howard: He did. I’m really curious: When you come that close to death and the actual incident happens, do you feel any pain?

Tracy: What my wife said is that I’d try a couple times to get up in the bed. I didn’t even know my femur was pulverized. I got a titanium rod in my leg for life, from my knee to my hip.

Howard: Wow.

Tracy: And the trauma to my head was kind of bad. I broke every bone in my face. My face was this big.

Howard: But you don’t feel any pain when the actual accident happens?

Tracy: No, no. You don’t even know you’re there.

Howard: Your brain shuts down.

Tracy: That’s what the brain does. It goes into protection mode. And you don’t want to remember it.

Howard: Tracy, everyone wants to know: When did you jerk off for the first time?

Tracy: Oh my God.

Howard: When did it happen?

Tracy: That was going on in the hospital.

Howard: Really?

Tracy: All I do is masturbate. I beat my dick like it owes me money. My dick got a restraining order out on my hand. I woke up one morning and my dick was dialing 911. My heart machine started going off one day, and they started running to my room and they opened the door. I was there beating my dick.

Howard: Is that really true?

Tracy: Yeah, it’s true.

Howard: Beating off relaxes you.

Tracy: You’re going to beat off the pain.

Howard: God bless you, Tracy. I love you. I want to be serious for one second. I love you, and I want you to know: I was so fucking worried about you. Because at first I was like, How serious is this? And when I got word from a couple of people who are on the inside, they said, Man, this is the real deal. He might go.

Tracy: I was gone.

Howard: Then I didn’t hear from anybody for a while. I kept calling people, and I tried reaching out to you. Listen, you had your hands full. But I’m just so happy you’re with us. You’re just such a funny guy, and you’re such an upbeat kind of guy. I remember sitting with you at a Knicks game, and you were carrying on like a lunatic. And I went, This guy isn’t doing this to get paid right now. He’s just having a good time.

Tracy: Howard, let me tell you something, man. It’s going to take more than eighteen wheels to get that away from me. I still have a lot to do.

Howard: Was it hard to be funny again?

Tracy: I was worried. I had other things on my mind. It was beyond show business in the beginning. It was life and death. I was looking at my daughter. My daughter was young. She was ten months old when it happened.

Howard: What were you in, a limo or in one of those big vans?

Tracy: I’m in the Sprinter. If we weren’t in that, we would have been squashed like accordions. I didn’t know the dude was up for twenty-eight hours. I didn’t know that until a week later.

Howard: The guy who was driving the Walmart truck. That’s a real danger in our country, actually. A lot of truck drivers—

Tracy: Cell phone use and all those things. So many distractions while you’re driving. I am pissed. I didn’t like that.

Howard: A lot of truck drivers are up for a tremendous amount of hours.

Tracy: You can’t do that.

Howard: No.

Tracy: It cost a good man his life.

Howard: You’re a very spiritual man. And you believe that when you were in the coma, you saw your father. Your father died when you were nineteen.

Tracy: I don’t know if I was in the coma—in or out. I just remember that vision. Like a dream or whatever.

Howard: What did he say to you?

Tracy: He was not ready. He was not ready for me. And I just was crying.

Howard: You wake up and suddenly you’re in the hospital. You can’t walk. You can’t move.

Tracy: I remember those days laying on the hospital bed and just looking out the window at night. I was looking out the window one particular night when it was raining. I was laying in the hospital bed about two in the morning. And I was just looking out the window.

Howard: When you can’t walk and your memory’s all fucked up from the accident and you can’t speak, you have to literally go into years of therapy. You’re probably still in physical therapy, am I correct?

Tracy: Yeah.

Howard: So you have to learn how to walk again.

Tracy: But it’s the mental or emotional—that crash turned me into an emotional wreck. To anybody out there listening, you try to get hit by a truck going that fast at eighty-five thousand pounds. Watch what it would do to you. It’s going to turn you into a wreck. My wife said that the first thing I said to her, I whispered in her ear, There’s freedom outside those doors. Because I wanted to get out of the hospital.

Howard: Do you think you’ll become an inspirational speaker? Is that in your future?

Tracy: Me? If I do anything, I’d give them my sense of humor. That’s the gift He gave me. I tell people in interviews all the time. They want to talk about my material. I say, "It’s like what Bruce Lee said in Enter the Dragon. ‘It’s like a finger pointing the way to the moon. Don’t focus on the finger or you’re going to miss all that heavenly glory.’ "

Howard: Tracy Morgan is back.

Tracy: You know why I love coming on this show? Because I get to be so immature, talking about pussy and all. I like to talk more about money, but that got to be on the low-low. Walmart would sue the shit out of me, because they’re confidential.

Howard: I read $95 million.

Tracy: The only ones that know what’s in my pocket are my two girls.

Howard: Is it smart to tell your wife what you got from Walmart?

Tracy: Where’s she going? I’m not getting married again. You know, in court there’s no taxes come out. Child support can’t even fuck with me. You get all of it. Only thing that comes out is the lawyer’s fee.

Howard: Are you investing this money that you got, whatever the amount is? What are you doing with it?

Tracy: I got some money on the streets.

Howard: No, come on. What are you doing? You know what you ought to do? Grow a beard and get one of these farms like Jon Stewart.

Tracy: I might finance a couple of movies. I don’t know.

Howard: But you’re not going to blow the money?

Tracy: I don’t care what people say. I’m going to buy a Ferrari.

Howard: You got servants and stuff going on?

Tracy: I ain’t paying for no servants. I can make my own burger cheese sandwich. I’m from the hood, man. I’m from the projects.

Howard: Do you have an elevator in your house?

Tracy: Yeah.

Howard: Oh, shit.

Tracy: Yeah.

Howard: And a bowling alley?

Tracy: A basketball court, all that. I got a big movie theater. I won’t leave my house, never. I’m chilling.

Howard: You’re goddamn right.

Tracy: But it’s all for my family. All I need is $1,500 in my pocket and a new pair of sneakers. That’s all I need.

Howard: Any black people in your neighborhood?

Tracy: I told my brothers, So you have your eyes on my neighborhood? I’m going to call the cops on you my motherfucking self, because you got no business here, goddamn it.

Howard: Do the cops hassle you? Do they say, Oh, there’s a black man?

Tracy: They love me now.

Howard: They know it’s you?

Tracy: They know. They love me.

Howard: You look good. Are you working out too?

Tracy: Yeah, I work out. I’m doing it right this time. I’ve got a second chance.

Howard: You’re a fucking sex symbol.

Tracy: Yeah, I’m a sex symbol, but my daughter’s three years old. I’m trying to be there for her.

Howard: But doesn’t she need some black friends? In that whitey neighborhood aren’t there just too many white people for her to find her identity?

Tracy: No, she doesn’t have any problem with white people. With me, I’m not going to raise her with white and black. We’re not going to raise our daughter that way. That’s nuts. That’s not the way me and her momma did. My wife is biracial, but I don’t see that. I only see my wife. My mother-in-law’s name is Christy Wollover, whiter than you. And I love my mother-in-law. That’s mines. When I see my mother-in-law and my wife and my daughter standing right there—all that belongs to me. So if you don’t want to lose a toe or finger, walk away, because I’m going all out for mine.

Howard: I love you. I really truly do. I’m so goddamn happy you are alive and doing well. I just appreciate you so much. And I’m glad I got to say that to you today, because I’ve been waiting to say it for two years.

Tracy: Thank you. I love you, Howard.

Howard: I’d blow you if your dick wasn’t so big.

Jerry Seinfeld

JUNE 26, 2013

Whenever Jerry came on the show in the early days, I was super adversarial. Back then, I couldn’t properly be a fan of anyone. As my style and perspective started to evolve, it became important to me to get a second chance with certain people. Jerry, being the saint that he is, gave me one.

I was so curious about his process. How does he write material? Is he constantly thinking about it? Is he on all the time? It was like being able to ask Picasso, What kind of paint do you use? What brushes? How do you approach a canvas? I wanted to treat Jerry the same way I would a great painter or filmmaker or chess player. What’s the key to it all? Maybe some young comedian out there would be listening and say, "That’s how you do it."

I think Jerry was absolutely flattered and impressed that I had that level of interest. He loved the experience. A few weeks later, he invited me to his home for dinner, and he said, I have to tell you, I’ve never gotten so much feedback. Everyone in the world comes up to me about this interview. Everyone.

I said, The reason, Jerry, is because you really spelled it out. It was a primer on how to be a comedian. You gave a master class.

And then he said, I can never come on your show again.

Why? I asked.

Because, he said, it was so perfect. We could never do better than that interview.

This comment really upset me. I thought, You mean I don’t get rewarded for doing a good job and getting it right? Why am I being punished? But that’s so Jerry. That’s his MO. He turned down more than a hundred million dollars to do one more season of Seinfeld. He felt he had reached perfection, and he wanted to go out on a high note. In this interview, he talks about walking away from Seinfeld and his uncanny sense of timing, but for me the standout moment is what he says about never being able to be fully present with anyone—even his wife and children. I think it is the most authentic and honest answer anyone has ever given me. It’s something I relate to. I sometimes struggle to be completely in the moment, because I’m constantly thinking about the radio show and searching for material. For Jerry, this isn’t a problem. For me, it’s exhausting. I have given up a huge chunk of my life being Howard Quixote on a quest to find the next funny thing. But I do believe that is what it takes to be on top of your game in comedy. That’s what it truly requires to be great. That’s what Jerry’s level of commitment is: he’s always looking for the joke. So for any aspiring comics reading this, you might want to think twice before you attempt to make a living at it.

Howard: I was thinking about your new show, because I watched it, and I love it. I love the one with Letterman you just did. It is called Getting Coffee with Comedians.

Jerry: No, that’s not what it’s called.

Howard: Oh, I mean, Getting in the Car with Comedians.

Jerry: No, you’re going to get it right, because that’s why I’m here.

Howard: It’s called . . . Cars Getting Coffee.

Jerry: No.

Howard: Cars Drinking Coffee.

Jerry: Oh my God. This guy.

Howard: It’s called Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Jerry: Thank you.

Howard: All right. So in that show, I was thinking about it, you’re interviewing comedians, but you could never really go back and do another sitcom, because the feeling would be, "How could I ever top Seinfeld?"

Jerry: It’s guaranteed. You can’t top it.

Howard: You can’t.

Jerry: You can’t even get close to it.

Howard: It’s iconic. Everything was lined up, everything was perfect. The casting was right.

Jerry: I’m not arrogant and stupid enough to think I did that. I know that I got caught in a perfect storm. Me and Larry fit together perfect. And then the cast.

Howard: Settle that for me right now. Larry David. He was 50 percent. He was your partner in this.

Jerry: Yeah.

Howard: But he never was on camera.

Jerry: Right.

Howard: And people always debate, Well, gee, Larry really never got enough credit. Jerry, well . . .

Jerry: Aw, really?

Howard: Yeah, it’s like you were the front man.

Jerry: Who has these conversations that you would hear?

Howard: I have it with other people who are in the industry. You don’t think he regrets not being on the show?

Jerry: No, no. At that time, he really was out of that mode of wanting to be in front of the camera. He really was writing, and thinking about writing, and really wanted to be a writer.

Howard: How did you know to team up with him?

Jerry: Because in comedy, as you know, it’s about the bar, and you’re waiting to go on. And you wait mostly. You’re there all night. You get there at eight, you’re going on, you hang—it’s a long hangout, right? You know this. So you talk with a lot of guys and you go over to a guy, you start talking to him. And certain guys, it’s funny right away. You’re talking and all of a sudden, in two minutes, you hit into something hilarious.

Howard: Did you respect him as a stand-up comedy guy?

Jerry: Yes, I did.

Howard: You liked his act?

Jerry: I loved it.

Howard: And he never really caught on with his act the way you did?

Jerry: Stand-up takes a lot of work, a lot of talent, and an equal measure of temperament. You have to have the right temperament.

Howard: Like going on the road and not letting that get to you?

Jerry: No, no. It’s onstage. You have to have the resilience and that kind of energy onstage.

Howard: Right. And Larry didn’t have that mechanism?

Jerry: He was a little fragile onstage. If it wasn’t going well, which most of the time it’s not—

Howard: He fell apart?

Jerry: Well, it’s a tough thing. You’re judged.

Howard: Why do I think it was so easy for you? I feel like a lot of things went right for you onstage, not wrong. Things didn’t go wrong for you. You just had a way of—

Jerry: I had a flair for it.

Howard: And so when Larry was sitting at the bar with you, you guys start to talking. You say, Hey, we gotta write this sitcom together.

Jerry: No, I had this meeting at NBC where they said, [talent manager] George Shapiro sent a note to [NBC executive] Brandon Tartikoff. This is how the show started. I apologize if you’ve heard all this before. It’s an old story. George Shapiro sent a note to Brandon Tartikoff. One sentence: Call me a crazy guy, but I have a feeling Jerry Seinfeld’s going to be doing a TV series on NBC. I had been on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for nine years. Nobody at NBC, nobody, not one person after nine years of going on Carson three and four times a year, and killing, nobody said, Why don’t we talk to this kid? Maybe . . .

Howard: Why do you think that was? Isn’t it weird?

Jerry: Really? Why? Because network television companies struggle with the entertainment field. They struggle to create entertainment. It’s a struggle for them. They’re not good at it.

Howard: You think?

Jerry: Have you watched TV?

Howard: You think that network executives are not good at predicting the needs of the public?

Jerry: No, at seeing talent, and knowing what to do with it. That’s their job.

Howard: It’s a very difficult job. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. And with you, they missed it, because nine years of killing on the Carson show should have triggered something in them.

Jerry: Something. Nothing.

Howard: Nothing.

Jerry: So he sends this letter: Okay. Why don’t you come in for a meeting? Nine years later. I come in for the meeting. They go, Do you have anything you would like to do if you ever did a show for us? I said, Not really.

Howard: Great meeting.

Jerry: Yeah. I said, I just always wanted to have a meeting like this. This was my goal.

Howard: The meeting was the goal.

Jerry: The goal. So a week later—this is all true—I’m talking with Larry David at the Improv, telling him the story. We start talking, and then we go across the street to a Korean deli. We’re making fun of everything in the deli. Larry goes, This is what the show should be. Two comedians just making fun of stuff as they walk around during the day. And that was it.

Howard: Then did you go to a room somewhere and write together?

Jerry: Yeah.

Howard: And that’s the process. So how many hours a day do you sit there and write?

Jerry: All day.

Howard: You always say the biggest regret you have about doing Seinfeld is that you didn’t enjoy it more. And I totally get that. I’m never enjoying myself in the middle of a process. I didn’t enjoy myself making my movie. Because it’s so much angst.

Jerry: Well, I’m not big on enjoyment. I don’t think it’s that important. I think what’s important is they enjoy it. That’s what makes it work. I just think the Louis C.K. model should be the model for comedians. You know how Louis got his show, the whole story? He said to them, You want me to do a show, I’ll do a show. I saw him on Letterman do this thing. It was so funny. They said, Well, we want to know what you’re going to do. He says, I’m not telling you. They said, Well, we can’t do a show like that. He says, You’re right, we can’t do a show like that. Let’s not do this.

Howard: Louis described that on our show, and I was just like, Yeah, right.

Jerry: It’s great. Because here’s what comedy is: we’re going to blindfold you, we’re going to give you a dart, and you try and hit the dartboard. That’s comedy. Maybe you’ll hit it, maybe you won’t. Nobody really knows what they’re doing here. It’s not you steering me, coaching me. It’s just, Let me throw the dart. Either I hit it or I don’t.

Howard: Are you particularly sensitive to that? Because when Seinfeld first came on, it wasn’t doing that well.

Jerry: Didn’t do well for four years. We had a very high-income demo. Horrible ratings but the people we got were high-income.

Howard: I think in this environment today, they wouldn’t even keep Seinfeld on.

Jerry: Yeah, they would. Same reason. You get rich people to watch your show, you’re going to stay on.

Howard: Did [NBC executive] Warren Littlefield keep the show on the air?

Jerry: No, it was Brandon Tartikoff.

Howard: That was Brandon?

Jerry: Uh-huh.

Howard: Because now everybody sort of takes credit for Seinfeld.

Jerry: That’s fine.

Howard: You don’t care. Let them take credit.

Jerry: I don’t care. Howard, I’m sixty. I don’t care.

Howard: Wait, I’m going to pick one of your bits. I think you did it years ago. You go to a Chinese restaurant, and you’re like, I really admire Chinese people, because they’re really sticking to this chopsticks thing.

Jerry: The line is, I like how they’re hanging in there with the chopsticks.

Howard: And you say hanging, because they’ve seen the fork. Then you compare them to farmers trying to dig a hole with a broomstick. Like, why would you do that if you know the shovel has been invented?

Jerry: That’s: It’s like a farmer taking a couple of pool cues to plow the field.

Howard: To me, this is a brilliant observation.

Jerry: Thank you.

Howard: Can you go to a Chinese restaurant and not sit there and work on material?

Jerry: I’m never not working on material. Ever.

Howard: So even when you’re sitting with your wife, you’re sitting with the kids, it’s the material.

Jerry: Everything. Every second of my existence, I’m thinking, Could I do something with that?

Howard: Right. I imagine you like that, and that to me sounds torturous. You cannot let go. So if I came over to your house, and we were hanging out, you’re kind of really looking for material.

Jerry: Not kind of. I’m looking for material all the time.

Howard: That’s being at work twenty-four hours a day. It’s neurotic.

Jerry: Making jokes is not work. It’s a gift.

Howard: Have you ever been in therapy?

Jerry: No.

Howard: So when you’re with your wife, are you authentically with your wife?

Jerry: No. I’m not authentically with her, nor am I authentically with you right now.

Howard: Right. You are somewhere else.

Jerry: Yeah. I’m looking for a joke right now. There’s nothing here. Nothing!

Howard: I’m going to take one of the most brilliant observations you ever made, in my opinion. And I’ve actually heard this from other people who now seem to have incorporated it into their thought process like they thought it up. You did a bit early on about being in New York City with taxicab drivers, and you said, Wow, who are these guys?

Jerry: This is an old bit. What does it take to get a cab driver’s license? I think all you need is a face—that seems to be their big qualification—and put it on the license. No blank heads are allowed to drive cabs. And the name was like eight consonants in a row. And I don’t even know how I would report the guy. His name was Amal, and then the symbol for boron.

Howard: When I hear the symbol for boron, I cannot help but think how brilliant that is.

Jerry: Thank you. And you like the choice of boron?

Howard: Boron is the right element.

Jerry: Yes, a lot of the other elements I could have picked.

Howard: Now, when you were writing that bit, did you worry that outside of New York, or big cities, that maybe people wouldn’t get that joke? Do you worry about who it’s going to appeal to?

Jerry: If it didn’t work on the road, I would have not done it on the road. But it did. Because in the end, funny is funny.

Howard: So maybe a guy from Kansas understands that the symbol for boron is what we see on a cab?

Jerry: I watched Richard Pryor talk about how it feels to be hooked on heroin. And I get it. I’ve never done it. I don’t even know what those drugs are.

Howard: Yeah. That is compelling.

Jerry: That the guy takes you there, that’s the thing.

Howard: All right, so you’re in a cab . . .

Jerry: Then I realized, Why am I not scared, even though this is ridiculously dangerous? I would never drive like this, I have no seat belt on, and I’m not scared.

Howard: When that occurs to you, do you immediately write it down in a book?

Jerry: This question I get all the time. Why?

Howard: I’ll tell you why. Because I have thoughts all the time. If I don’t immediately write them down for my radio show, they’re gone.

Jerry: I do write them down.

Howard: And did you write down the boron?

Jerry: No.

Howard: Where does that come from?

Jerry: Sitting with it.

Howard: What do you mean, sitting with it?

Jerry: I don’t know. I think of the joke. It’s like a symbol from the chart of the elements. So then I thought, Okay, which element? I’m going to use an element as a reference here, and that will be funny.

Howard: Boron was your first choice?

Jerry: No, it was not.

Howard: What was your first choice?

Jerry: I can’t remember. And then I looked up the chart of the elements. And I saw it, Oh, boron. That’s the funny one.

Howard: You are naturally funny, and you do have that ability to figure that stuff out. But people don’t realize the amount of work that goes into it.

Jerry: Nah, so what.

Howard: Okay, you’ve written it down. Now you’ve got to go perform it somewhere onstage. Before you go onstage, what do you do? Stand there in front of a mirror and memorize it? And also the delivery: you have this thing where you’re getting worked up over something. And that’s what sells the thing. It’s more than just writing the material. You’ve got to be able to deliver it. And then you go up on a stage and deliver boron, and then fifty million other jokes. Who the hell remembers all of this?

Jerry: What else have I got to do?

Howard: That’s your day? You memorize this material?

Jerry: How does Tiger Woods remember which club to use? What the hell else has this guy got to do?

Howard: Do you ever dream of the day where you could go with your wife to a Chinese restaurant and sit there and not think about the chopsticks?

Jerry: As long as I shoot myself in the mouth with a bullet. What fun is life if I’m not making jokes all the time? It’s a torture I love.

Howard: Wow. You really know yourself.

Jerry: I guess I do. I guess I do.

Howard: Getting back to Seinfeld. Warren Littlefield wrote that if you would have given him another season of Seinfeld, he would have paid you $110 million for the year. A hundred ten million dollars.

Jerry: I could have got more than that.

Howard: You could have gotten more than that. And you said no?

Jerry: Right.

Howard: Is that the ultimate integrity? In other words, you said no because you felt you were done?

Jerry: Integrity is a nice word, and it’s a flattering word. I appreciate that. But to be honest, the love affair between the people that were making the show and the audience was so intense. It was so white-hot, I had to respect that. And I could not go to that point where it starts to age and wither. And it doesn’t take long. For example, you go see a comedian, and for an hour and ten minutes you’ll love the guy. And at an hour and thirty, it’s like, I thought he was never going to finish. And you walk out with a whole different feeling. It’s a small amount of too much—too much cake, too much anything. I wanted it to end with a fireworks burst.

Howard: And also that last season, you lost Larry David, so . . .

Jerry: Two seasons.

Howard: Right. Two seasons. Even harder.

Jerry: It wasn’t really possible for a person to be the head writer and executive producer.

Howard: If he had stayed, do you think you might have done another season?

Jerry: Yes, possibly.

Howard: Why did he have to leave? What was his problem?

Jerry: It was hard, Howard. It’s hard work. It’s frustrating. And it wasn’t his show, it was my show.

Howard: That’s true. And I think at that point he got the bug to go do his own.

Jerry: Perhaps. And I think it worked out great for both of us.

Howard: Do you like his show?

Jerry: I love his show. I loved running the show on my own. That turned me into someone I never thought I could be. I never thought I could run the show on my own. It was great. So I’m grateful to him for that.

Howard: But when you think about $110 million—and I know you had a lot of money at that point—but $110 million. If I had said to young Jerry who was laboring away doing material, There’s going to be a $110 million payday the final season—

Jerry: It’s pretty crazy.

Howard: You would think you were nuts.

Jerry: