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Certain filmmakers seem intent on documenting the culture they love and trying to keep it alive.
Im thinking of Scorsese with his Film Foundation or Truffaut interviewing Hitchcock.
I just did it for myself.
Looking back, that seems like a really strange thing for a young person to do.
I paid my friend to write it in, because he had better handwriting than me.
Im a bit of a hoarder.
I like organizing all of the material and finding a way to tell the story of somebodys life.
It makes me sad to think of these experiences and performances disappearing down the digital black hole.
Something that popped out to me was Carlin talking about how doing acid changed the way he did comedy.
They were both part of the tribe of comedians, but they blazed their own paths.
You didnt see George at the clubs; he wasnt hanging around.
He was very nice to comedians, but he wasnt part of the social world of it.
They both had overbearing mother figures that affected how they moved through the world.
They liked to be alone, but George loved being on the road.
Garry lost his brother to cystic fibrosis.
So it certainly makes for very sensitive, thoughtful people who are looking at the world suspiciously.
They werent classically religious.
They werent people who believed in heaven and hell.
They were people who believed that we are all in this together.
Then he had more thoughtful political and philosophical ideas in the second part.
Thats what is really amazing about him: He succeeded at high comedyandlow comedy.
Probably youre not going to suddenly think women should have the right to choose if youre a 50-year-old.
Are there comedians you see carrying on his legacy?There are people who do brilliant work.
Trevor Noah could not have been better at theCorrespondents Dinner.
What Seth Meyers does is a really remarkable feat.
People hed totally disagree with seem to misinterpret his work.His positions on most of the major issues are clear.
He was certainly for gun control and a womans right to choose.
He was very concerned about the behavior of the military and our interventions around the world.
He thought there was something immoral about the drug war.
Sometimes the right wing tries to claim him, because he had such a distrust for the government.
He talked a lot about how it was all a grift.
But his main point of view was that we should all be taking care of each other.
He seemed to be distraught about the behavior of people.
You famously used to cold-call a lot of comedians when you were growing up.
Oh wow!That really depressed me, although Im sure I did a terrible job.
And the other interviews I found were much better.
Its lost to history.
So I probably would ask him if Im right or wrong about that.
That movie seems to have gotten a much larger audience, because everyone who turns 40 watches it.
Hopefully, well get a chance to make that.
The only problem is Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd dont look like theyve aged.
It might look likeThis Is 41, and we may have to use reverse-Irishmantechnology to make them look older.
Im all for it.
Since you were a writer onThe Critic, do you think we could get that back?
The first jobs I got on scripted shows wereThe Larry Sanders ShowandThe Critic.
I was doing half a week on each show in 1993 and 94.
Then the other days, I was with Garry learning his way of writing comedy.
That was really the most formative year of my career.
There was nothing funnier than watching Jon Lovitz in a table read.
Anything else?The Bubbleis still up on Netflix.
It will be there for the rest of peoples lives.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
