Steve Young Returns to Blow Us Away With His Hilarious Music and Hilarious Insights

a spiritual reminder from the streets of New York City come to me all who labor and are heavy laden I will give you rest just remember no parking 24 hours active driveway Vehicles will be to at vehicle owner expense welcome once again to the Letterman podcast my name is Mike Chisum and I am so happy that we're bringing Steve Young back Steve uh you know legendary writer for late night and Late Show with David Letterman you know still speaks in the voice of the show it's surreal hanging out with Steve we've become friends uh since this endeavor began and I I just can't tell you how how how grateful I am for that friendship um you know and Steve is just such a when I when you speak with Steve uh he speaks in the voice of Late Show with David Letterman he just does like the things that he says the way he reacts to things it is surreal talking to this guy and uh but it's also so much fun um this episode here I wanted to talk we talk Letterman don't get me wrong there's definitely Letterman stuff that we talk about we talk about his return to the Ed San theater when we went and saw uh Rupert's retirement he was he was there that night of course and and and we spent time together we've talked about that on a previous episode um his reaction there uh talking about other things to uh Genesis of certain bits and and and and and really we actually get into some of the um um the sensibilities of writing comedy for Late Show he he does a great comparison um with a with a with a letterman sensibility versus uh aonan sensibility and it's really neat um they're kind of the exact opposite of each other actually and it's NE neat talking about that but we also spend time talking about the thing that Steve is doing right now and and the thing he's doing right now is writing uh comedy music and he's doing it in two forms he's doing it long form um and and that you know it hasn't really been released there's a couple things on his website Steve Young Steve youngworld uh.com and and and his YouTube and whatnot um not really populating the long form stuff yet but he's got some stuff in the can as they say but also he's releasing these very short uh you know Tik tokes he's actually even on Tik Tok now um uh type videos you know YouTube short perfect for YouTube shorts and things like that 30 second videos of of just little song jokes is is is really uh very well produced well- written uh clever song jokes and it's so much fun we're going to Pepper the episode with uh some of them as well and uh just so happy that he has come back on here and just talking about what he's doing currently obviously we talk talked about bathtubs Over Broadway and um as well and how that has taken a life its own and all these things are kind of converging for him which I really you know all the folks who worked so many years uh for late night and late show that are still out there busting it that are still out there working these creatives he talks about his creative process uh or process and um we have we just have a really nice conversation um it's so much fun just catching up with him and uh I just appreciate Steve so much the Letterman podcast is one sponsor one sponsor only is hellodd deli.com don't forget the dash because you won't go to the hello Deli uh you won't go to the the site that sells Late Show with David L merchandise like mugs like shirts all sorts of great things uh by Rupert sold packaged and sent uh lovingly lovingly and professionally by our good friend Rupert G former owner of the hello Deli hellodd deli.com head on over there in the meantime thank you very much for all the support please like share subscribe all that crap please jump on to the uh if you want to interact with the show uh the best place to do it right now um because I am inept is a Facebook group I know I'm a dinosaur it's okay it's all right it's you're allowed to be a dinosaur it's all right my favorite dinosaur is a Stegosaurus which one's yours uh come on over to the Facebook group the Letterman podcast Facebook group interact with us you want to throw questions up for a future guest that kind of a thing ideas all this sort of stuff uh we'd appreciate having you there and uh letting your voice be known so without further Ado we would love to present the return of Steve Young click how are you my friend it's really good to see you yeah always a pleasure yeah you've been uh you've been talking to lots of interesting people and uh you probably know more much more about the show at this point than I do oh I I certainly wouldn't go that far uh the interesting people part is certainly uh certainly true uh before I get to the interesting people I want to start with one we just finished with Jeremy Wier and he just opened up a time capsule uh of sorts a cardboard one anyway um that has stood the test of time and and I want to talk to you a little bit about some of the things that came out of that box for a second but before I do there's a piece of business that I need to uh I need to address and I mean I'm not the guy that likes to air dirty laundry on this show but um there's a gal uh by the name of Irene Hoffman who uh is the uh is the significant other uh the gal pal of of of rert G and she has um expressed her uh unadulterated um unfiltered love for you and adoration for you and when she found out we were doing this again today uh she told me that Rupert is well aware uh that you certainly have the capability to steal her away from him she loves you so much and she told me to tell you hi and how much she appreciates you so much so Irene says hi uh I feel awkward now doing this uh you know sorry Rupert love you but uh you know I don't know what you've captured juicy Scandal that would uh get us a lot of ink in the tabloids maybe there's something to that um she likes so many of us love your mind appreciate the things that come out of it the uh um the interesting way that you view life and the observances you pull from that um talking to Jeremy and and opening this thing up he produced a menu from a restaurant that you all used to frequent uh burger burger heaven does that sound right sound right I believe I know what this is and that it was actually uh yes marked up by all of the writers as if it were a script and all sorts of headwriter objections and rewrites and production notes were going on it I remember that very fondly in fact I believe Lee and Jeremy reproduced it at one point on a t-shirt fantastic he found the original and uh I I I believe he's going to now when he saw that you just saw kind of the smile on his face um another thing that he produced out of the box was and it was so cool steve seeing it um I've had this experience with you before when you've kind of opened up uh your your your box and shown me some of the things that you've kept um this I think you'll get a kick out of this because it was something that he did he said he came in early one day and it was during the election cycle probably in 2012 and uh he he he he opened up this piece of paper and you can see there was colors there red and blue colors and he opened it up and he just got this little smile on his face because he immediately remembered the context of it similar to what you just did with that menu and uh it was a map of the United States uh drawn electorally and if the election went in a certain way um you know for example if it went Republican in a certain way uh you could spell the word ass in red on the on the map uh it was just watching his uh realization of seeing what it was again it was such a such a neat little moment and uh that's a great episode and and it felt very similar to that day when I was at your place going through the box of of stuff that bring that that that brought up memories out of the nooks and crannies back into the Forefront yeah we're at the point I think all of us who worked on the show it's coming up on nine years since it ended and for many veterans like me it was decades leading up to that end point memories get telescoped and compressed now to the point where I have the impression that I remember a fair amount of stuff about the show but I may not I may only remember like the few towering mountain peaks that uh come up above the plane in the vast plane of 25 years or so is going to be more and more a mystery to me absolutely and uh which which makes uh um you know the importance or at least the self-importance of this show of what we're doing here uh even that much stronger because this is this this is what we want to do is we want to keep these memories intact and be a record for them uh there were two of your uh Christmas gifts by the way that came out of that box uh number one is one that you and I have gone through and and and you have given me so many laughs about was the uh the Chiron quiz a and Bs uh that came through um and I mean you know fantastic I have it in a document form thanks to you and uh that was neat sharing that but something else early on I think it was 03 uh you got the staff a calendar of basically just boring uh around the office pictures of of of around the Ed Sullivan Theater office building or or or the workplace uh a a 12-month calendar of just things in the office like here's the photocopier here's a stairwell here's a and it was just it was so so funny the premise but I'll tell you something that happened he got to the writer's table and he looked at it and he got this nostalgic like oh like I miss that place and and and and it literally is the gift that keeps on giving because you know 20 years later whatever it is he looks at that place that you guys went to and and and as originally intended as a joke uh just a boring part of the workplace much like the show of the office something you know celebrating the ordinary things in life and uh and anyway that was a I got a real kick out of seeing that that was a very Steve Young gift I had completely forgotten about that as soon as you mentioned it I had a foggy memory of it and I I I definitely don't have one of those oh well there we go so uh well at least you'll be able to watch it um and maybe the digital files are somewhere else I don't know maybe they're on one of the CDs you guys kep but uh it's so neat seeing um what made an impression on you all who who worked there and what you kept and then viewing it uh through this lens another thing that we talked about I don't know if you remember this or not this is a a rabbit hole that I want to start I think I want to take this show down this path to see if there's something that we can do do you have any Recollections of Late Show the movie Late Show the movie I'm not quite sure what that is okay so he said it was Tommy's like Tommy was helming it he said but basically that that the premise that the way Jeremy kind of uh it's something that never aired it's something that was worked on for a long time yeah I faintly faintly remember okay a lot of things being shot for it and somehow it just never went yeah like you have this gift kind of like celebrium you have this opportunity where every day there's an a-lister coming in and if they were game for it they could shoot something for Late Show of the movie whatever it is whether it's something scripted or whatever and they could be a part of it and I guess all this footage was just getting amassed and and and and it was kind of taking shape but it became so I don't know I don't know what the word is I want to talk to Tommy about it but anyway so that was when when that came up um I thought okay this might be a little rabbit hole we could go down all this aless celebrity footage that's somewhere that's some on on a on a hard drive somewhere it would be kind of neat to explore that um anyway I I started a project once that didn't get very far I was trying to do a a song called backstage at the late show and trying to get a bunch of celebrities coming in to like sing a verse and I think I got a couple people to do something I've definitely have a memory of playing guitar and sting and I were singing backstage at The Late Show I I don't remember exactly how it ended up that that footage May exists somewhere I don't have it um yeah and I mean this is where we miss our boy shecky so so so much um you know that was he was the he was the official gatekeeper of a lot of that stuff and uh the hard drives are around and what not it would be really cool if we could figure out a way uh for someone who who who who is a pancer or becomes a pancer or something like that could go through some of this stuff and maybe some of this some of these things can be given a um I don't even know if there's rights issues for that like okay so say we find the footage of and sting and we wanted to throw a clip of that on say a YouTube channel or something like that would there have to be like payments made and things like that is that how rights work when it comes to entertainment I I guess it would be worth a question to some knowledgeable person and I also I'm not 100% sure that I recall the details of it was Sting singing something that I wrote was I there in the same room with sting I I honestly don't know so interesting get your army of lawyers uh we'll get right on that yeah um let's uh I I really am so excited that um of of what you're doing and I thank you so much for all the things that you're sharing I want to talk about the music that you're making um and by the way for anybody who hasn't uh seen Steve Young on on his social media platforms whether it be the Facebook or the Instagram or the Tik Tok uh you're putting out a lot of shorts uh music that is just so funny and it's very very in the sensibility of of you certainly but those who enjoyed the sensibility of late show and late night The Echoes cannot be uh ignored there's it's cure it's very much down the same path I want to talk about that um so let's start the show off okay if people want to follow you where's the place to follow you um I guess the the main thing right now is Instagram and I'm pants Steve at Instagram oddly enough and this is part of my Brave New World I am on Tik Tok now God help us all I barely know any other people who are on Tik Tock so my presence there is somewhat muted but I'm putting my little bits there that's uh Steve Young World on Tik Tok yep and uh yeah the whole thing with these little short bits I've got longer like big songs beautifully produced with people in Nashville but as I try to figure out how to put that stuff out and that's a whole series of hundred cascading questions I thought I can at least Clear My Throat by like I always have little ideas for songs and now these little videos based on just things I observe when I'm out for a walk or whatever and I thought I can play guitar well enough a a pleasant amateur player for a living room setting that's fine I I have uh like a decent phone that shoots video like everyone else in the world learned how to do a few things with editing I I thought there is no barrier to entry at all for me just putting this stuff up here and it's low stakes it's just 20 or 30 seconds at a time and just fun to do and I I want to be in the habit of doing that and not being too precious about any particular one and apparently this is the exactly the ethos of Tik Tock which I have been skeptical of but in theory it's like it's people just kind of putting it all out there in a very homemade way and with the caveat that it shouldn't look terrible and shouldn't sound terrible but yeah it doesn't have to look like it was shot by a Hollywood stud Studio to be appealing so I thought okay well maybe this is kind of my my sweet spot after all and I don't know if I'll ever be a big thing on Tik Tok but my friends on Facebook and Instagram seem to be enjoying my little bits so that's fun yeah uh there are times and I'll tell you this that that that I sing to myself uh whether in my office or not I'll sing start singing dental school and uh I just if you've looked around the internet like I have you've probably noticed there's just not enough content well I'm going to do something about it here's a little song I wrote called dental school I went for a walk by the dental school only dentists can park there that's the rule D school dle school dental school dental school restricted parking by the dental school um they're they're they're extremely clever but simple um you know it's one of those things where where where where you see it or you hear it and you're like oh I I could have thought of that but we wouldn't have thought of that because it comes from this mind uh that has this just um this perspective I just appreciate your perspective so so much and they're very funny we're gon to get into them I I'm G to insert a couple of the clips into this episode uh with your permission of course and uh and and please everybody follow Steve Young follow everything that he is doing um you know we know that we've we' we've we've beaten the bathtubs to death uh somewhat but the bathtubs Over Broadway um boy does it just keep creating lives of its own for you and I I do want to talk a little bit about some of the things that you've been doing some of the live shows you've been doing recently um the performer in you seems to be alive and well as well as the archist as well as the writer you seem to be kind of feeding all of these things here you just had a really uh cool show in in California yes uh so we have talked uh about bathtubs Over Broadway before the 2018 documentary made by David whisenand that I'm the main subject of and uh that continues to be out in the world on the various streaming platforms but I'm trying to you know make a little money and have Adventures by going places and doing shows where I get up on stage and talk about this other world of corporate show business that I found and show some clips and all that the big one in California a couple of weeks ago was at the mallum theater in Palm Desert and uh that one was over a year in the making it was myself but also six singers and dancers very talented people some of them have been on Broadway uh a terrific uh musical director pianist who was doing some of the Music Live we had some orchestrations reconstructed from vintage songs that we had the singers and myself singing to I did one song myself on guitar there were amazing projections of album covers and moving elements and some film clips and uh it was a lot to pull together on uh really a very short rehearsal schedule and people had day jobs and couldn't get all in the same room at the same time very often but as they say we landed the plane it was a a little nerve-wracking but heroic efforts by so many people my co- co-writer and collaborator Stuart Ross theater veteran uh a guy named Wayne Brian was the director I met him in Witchita Kansas a few years ago when we were going around with bathtubs Over Broadway so yes somewhat to my surprise I am getting more comfortable with being on a big stage in front of 800 people and saying I'm going to take you on a journey tonight and it's going to be crazy and it's going to be hilarious and it might just make a lump in your throat by the end yep well and and very much like the movie uh the same the same feelings the same emotional uh trajectory and and and and journey that that that you do take uh that's a good word for it um very cool and and the live audience is where you have SC has it been the same show every city that you've done or are you kind of tweaking as you go and you're keeping elements that you know that you can you know uh uh bring self-sufficiently that doesn't necessarily require like or is it is it a show that's still kind of finding its voice and evolving or are they all just unique there are currently two versions of it there's the one main show where I'm just rolling into Chicago or Houston or whatever and it's just me on stage yep talking and showing clips and doing a little bit of live music and and then there was this Extravaganza which does not bear a huge amount of resemblance to the oneman show I was doing the oneman show before the pandemic but since then I've found some wonderful new film clips and have updated it and I am still tinkering with it people get in touch with me and have Treasures that they uh Point me toward or give me so I'm uh going to Chicago the end of this month for a couple days I'm doing a show there I may try out a couple new clips Chicago but the problem is they're so good that oh how can I not show this one but I want to add this one I have to not make it much more than an hour and a half so it's a dilemma not a bad problem no not at all uh a plethora of material and you just got to kind of you know trim the Bonsai as to as to how things uh are are going how many dates uh can we uh this episode's going to come out in about two weeks um so you know we're we're we're at near mid-February here near the end of February uh any dates that we can plug here March 2nd in Chicago so we may be too late for that okay but online we can do that so March 2nd in Chicago yeah right and actually March 1 also in Chicago I'm joining a friend's improv show and being a special guest and showing some clips there and March 30th I'm going to be in Woods Hole Massachusetts which is a lovely town I've been to many times for their film festival and they're bringing me in if people want to uh visit uh Charming Cape Cod March 30th down there and I will be trying to add more I'm always looking for suggestions and ideas for cool artsy theaters and venues different parts of the country and if somebody says oh my God I bet blah blah blah theater would love this I I'm all ears I'm always looking for those Hot Tips um and it's funny because you know in some ways you are a oneman show um you know and when you're a oneman show like that you you gotta kind of wear multiple hats the business side of things promotion all of that sort of stuff you've been thrown into that World um are you are you looking at getting a little bit bigger when it comes to this stuff and in the you know uh dipping your toe as they say yeah I would like to right now it's all been me just reaching out to theaters and sometimes you get a lucky break and oh yeah we love bathtubs over Broadway oh we'd love to have you come in and do your show other times if it's not an inquiry coming from a publicist and it's just in the slush pile you may not you may not get any response so in the long term I'd like to have versions of this where uh some smart uh experienced people are figuring out at least some of the business side of it but uh we'll see if people think it has the legs to get big enough to to justify that well it's uh it's it's it's incredible it's certifiably a cult classic bathtubs Over Broadway and and the The Echoes of of the the the the amazing documentary um and I still want to have daava on here to talk about it one day too by the way so I'm not done talking about this by far I would definitely love to have daa on here it's it's masterfully done and she did an absolute incredible Job showing the Artistry that she has uh you know behind the camera uh unbelievable one of the books that Jeremy Wier pulled out of that box he pulled out a stack of books one of the books he pulled out of course was uh everything's coming up profits which is is is your book uh that is a a spin-off from a letterman um bit Dave's record collection are you are you still collecting have you gotten anything recently that uh you never had before from my own collection of the industrial show records yes sir uh yeah I'm trying to think of what was the last piece of vinyl I got I mean this is the vinyl collection ction pretty much down here and doesn't look like much this category is so tiny and narrow that that can represent the best collection in the world although there are a few other good Advanced collectors now I seem to get a lot of things now like programs and uh tapes and bootleg video yep uh people flow that stuff toward me here and there so I like that vinyl is pretty hard to find new examples now I have like a want list with like 20 things on it that I know exist at least one copy is known somewhere but sometimes it's 20 years before I knock something off the want list Ah that's the fun thing about collecting though and I appreciate that very very much now um do you remember the first thing you ever performed on Late Show the first song that you ever were a part of all the way back to 93 Rob brunett and I wrote the strong guy fat guy genius theme song right yes yes so you wrote that you didn't perform it though correct yeah I was Pauling the band will Lee doing the lead vocal and yeah and it was always wonderful if you had some crude demo or foggy audio note about what you thought a song could be and then you hand it to Paul and then like five hours later it's this it's this bone crushing experience in a good way of like all this magnificent music and the threads and elements of the band are all coming together and just like that sounds legitimate from our dinky little song that that that happened over and over again you I'd record a little demo in my office okay Paul schaer hey Steve Young here this little song goes a e DC whatever and and you'd get down to rehearsal and You' go oh my God that shouldn't be that good for me just goofing around upstairs but there it is um that you know you've just encapsulated one of the things that I think uh might be the most understated parts of the show because I mean the show was so focused on on on Dave the the ultimate host in in many ways and and I get uh I understand why his name's on the Marquee but the thing about it is the team that he assembled around him could do that at the highest level whether it was whether it was musicians uh writers of course but like editors uh you know special effects people the the people who would would costumers things like that where they at a moment's notice could put something that was extremely high level into play I'm really curious about you though and your and your music the first memory I have is the Thanksgiving song of you actually being on camera playing a guitar and singing something was that the first one I think that's the first time that I ever wrote a song with music and lyrics that I actually performed I'd been taking guitar lessons from a number of year for a number of years I think starting around 2004 yep after a few years I was getting okay at fingerpicking and part of me was just saying oh this is just the music side of things my day job is the words and ideas those are two different spheres and then slowly it occurred to me what if you did try to touch these two spheres together your music and your guitar and your your particular Viewpoint with the words and ideas and the turkey processing song was one of the very first times that I ever said let's see what happens if I wrote something with lyrics that I could play the reason I ask about that one in particular is because the sensibility of that song very of course uh you know in the voice of of late show and I think one of the reasons why um I'm fascinated by you like I think about the last time I was in your place and you were letting me listen to some of your current music some of which I don't think has been released yet and I can't wait to hear people's reaction to it and there's one song in particular I was literally falling off your couch laughing from and part of it was The Echoes of late like it's a very similar sensibility and your voice was very very very much that of late night and and late show and and um that song there I think uh going back to that Thanksgiving song was probably in my mind um you know as important as important as it was for a show from an entertainment standpoint it feels like that moment also sent you off on a trajectory that is being explored really really deeply right now yeah and of course it is very intimately tied to all these years of the Letterman show and the development of certain mental muscles and creative muscles and what I've come to realize about writing songs whether they're three minutes long or 30 seconds long so much of it is parallel to thinking of a bit for the Letterman show where you say all right I have the idea I have the core idea what I need to do next is flesh it out with a couple good bits of development musically lyrically but then the ghost of Dave is in my head saying all right I think we need to get out now I think everyone's had enough get out finish it get out so don't drag things on endlessly the good compact say it have fun for 30 seconds or two minutes and then get out that is the way we tried to approach all the bits on the show and it's also excellent sort of template for doing anything like a song um one of the things that you and I have talked about and it came up in in in Jeremy's episode and then it came up through it was something through Joe Joe had recorded I don't know if it was a gift for the staff or whatever it was but he had um similar to your calendar recorded ambient sounds of the office place okay I just saw I have that CD nearby actually the day in the life of a late show writer with a here's the squeak of the door opening to The Men's Room here's the coffee maker here's the intern restocking soda the intern restocking soda that's that's uh that word intern changes it too uh that's fantastic um yeah one of the things you and I have talked and that led to conversation about one of the things you and I have talked about and I'm curious if this is part of your uh songwriting process and I know for a part of it it is um the example that that that that Jeremy and I talked about uh was if you guys are doing a bit that was actual things heard on the subway it has to be actual things heard on the subway it can't be embellished it can't be let's use our creative minds to make up something that would be funny on the subway you want to keep it as as real as possible and it was almost like I don't know if they were written rules but Unwritten rules that that that many of you had and it seems to be a similar kind of a vein you would go down as you're writing this music uh does that does that or rules like it exist there is something that I I think I was ready to be a big believer in even before I met Dave or the show but he was very much this sort of separation of church and State there's some stuff that we make up and we acknowledge that and then there's other stuff that's only fun if it's real and we didn't monkey with it and if you contaminate that side of the real stuff with monkeying with it it's disqualified and yeah that's like dumb ads and Supermarket finds and all that you they had to be real that was just the only way to do it because if the audience started thinking oh I bet that's not real then then then nobody's going to have a fun time on the show but Conan O'Brien I remember on one of his very first shows ever exploded that whole uh ethos with something called like real ads or something and they were like ads in newspapers but they were clearly all written by the writers and were 10 times over the top but he just with a straight face continued to maintain these are all real and so I thought that's that's a very brave postmodern step to take that comedy nerds are going to like that uh will average viewers like it apparently enough average viewers are comedy nerds for a show like that that it succeeded but for us uh there was a bright line of yeah real or not real like if I I'm on a walk and I notice that there's this NYU dental school and there's this long row of cars parked by it and they all have dentist plates because only dentists can park there I didn't like uh go online and find other dentists license plates to put in they were all those cars really there so I thought well that's the only reason it makes it fun is because that was real the uh I I love that and you have just done a really really we haven't talked about this on the show like we talk about uh process or process uh depending if you're Canadian American uh we talk about that um you know all the time but that's one thing that just has with all the writers we've had on the show we haven't talked about that being a sensibility but I'm so grateful you brought up the Conan example because that's their sensibility that's what they're doing here um the idea that part of the DNA of what made you know Letterman's Productions point of view um from the beginning was exactly what you just said there and I mean I guess you can't take that out of you so so so again you know you've got a sign that uh where where where um you know the syllables of that sign fit perfectly of of of the saying on the sign fit perfectly into a Melody that we all know um oh yeah you know that's that's that's parody or whatever but it's just again it's a simple that you're not making up that sign to make up that thing like maybe Weird Al might or something like that just to use a you know a really broad comedy music uh example um it's something that's based on the Genesis of it was something that inspired you from real life yeah and I don't think all my songs are going to be like that but that particular one I'd walked past these composting bins on the streets of New York City I started seeing them last summer I don't know how long they'd been around but it was like a list of things that could be in it and one of the phrases was food soiled paper and so I just started singing food soiled paper food soil paper I thought well that kind of works perfectly and then I eventually thought oh well this will be a good 30 second little song you shoot a little bit of video and you'll sit there with your guitar and now I'm Adept in enough that I can record decent sounding audio and then go in my walk-in closet and record a Harmony track so it sounds like the is it Shard I think sh yes absolutely shout out to Shard so I've I've entered the Weird Al realm a little bit there just on the basis of realizing subconsciously at first that food soiled paper fit exactly with smooth operator so what can go in this composting pin well for example food soil paper food soiled Paper Plus food scraps and plant waste that's what I was going to ask was that yeah immediately as you're seeing the sign was that later as you get home like like like when does that switch flip I think it was pretty instantaneous and not attempting to it's just these things float past your field of vision and some algorithm trained by a lifetime just click click click click up there it is that's what song that fits with do you have I don't it's a useful talent but it's a I'm not sure it's even a talent it may just be a weird mental tick do you have a notepad that you carry with you like standups do or do you have a note in your phone a floating note that you just add little things yeah I've got a got a song lyrics note in my phone I've got a miscellaneous notes thing I've got always documents open on my computer desktop where I'm writing down uh possible bits for either the little songs of I've got the I've got like 15 documents open at all times with songs that uh that are in progress or I've recorded the guitar but need to go and do the anyway yeah it is a kind of playground for me now and part of the appeal is I don't need to have a multi-million dollar Corporation involved like this barrier to entry thing like I was saying anybody with average modern equipment can make something that sounds not terrible yeah and for a lot of the kinds of little bits I'm doing the short ones not terrible is is okay for now so that's that's all I need for the moment um and we'll talk to you know where we where we might see this going and and and in a minute here but I want to talk about the creative part um as a you know there are some stand-ups there are some comedy writers who who uh I believe in structure I need to write x amount of hours a day uh some who you know they they literally kind of write as they go and and they just evolve things kind of organically as they go through life and they're kind of constantly working on these things um you know you obviously had so much structure for so long um were your days you know the the Groundhog Day effect except everything being completely different but some of that structure being very similar now as you're doing this kind of as a creative entrepreneur almost um do you structure it at all or how do you how do you uh get the creativity like are there do you have times where there are like dry spells and then there are times where it's just a torrent where you can't even write fast enough how's your what's your process like these days uh I wish it was uh more organized the Letterman show world was mostly a blessing because I got very good at just thinking it was normal to turn out a lot of stuff very quickly every day for weeks and years at a time the downside was once those uh deadlines and expectations were taken away sometimes it feels like I'm on a dark week that has lasted eight years and uh uh so it's reconstructing my own ways to be productive without these external forces and some things work pretty well for a while like I've written a few scripts I've WR written a lot of songs but it's curious to me like what gets me into the creative flow where 8 hours can go by like that and you don't realize oh the sun went down did I forget to eat dinner I love those times and they rarely occur with anything now except uh writing and recording songs other stuff if there's a deadline okay I'm doing this lecture at uh Northwestern University next week and it's similar to one of my shows but I know the date and time that's coming and I got to be ready and have my ducks in a row with all my elements so that will happen it will be fine but uh so that's an example of okay here comes the deadline so that's that's its own thing but for the many things that nobody in the world cares if I ever finish project X except me how do I sit down and not look at the internet for four hours and just work and I I do think the internet era has shattered a lot of people's attention spans and mine mine uh certainly among them so that's maybe harder than it would have been a generation ago I got a piece of advice I'd like to offer you if I could it'll make your life nice if you follow it like you should don't worry about perfection the enemy is the perfect of the good that how it goes don't worry about perfection cuz the enemy is the perfect of the good close enough um Stephen PR pressfield's the war the war of art talks about that uh the distraction how distraction is like the enemy of of of creativity and and uh there have been times where and I mean you know not not telling any Tes out of school you and I sometimes will chat where I'm three hours behind you and and I'm sitting here editing I'm in the studio or whatever and suddenly we start a conversation and it's like midnight my time or or or you know it's it's it's late and I've wondered to myself oh I bet you Steve's been writing I bet you Steve's been creating tonight and and doing some things which is why you know in the middle of the night you're still up because when you're in that flow um well for me personally my flow was this I love this so much and and and and and my uh the job job that's paid me up to this point is is being a financial planner I love connecting with people that's the part of the job I love um the office work and all the other stuff that comes with it I can kind of leave that the thing that I know that I love the kernel of of of me is this I love this and I think that's why I love podcasting so much when I meet a lot of creatives uh whether it's stand-ups whether it's writers um that flow state that you're talking about that's kind of an I don't want to put words in your mouth but is that an optimal state for you is that the state that you kind of love to be in where the time doesn't matter and you're just you know whatever it is whether it's good bad ugly um you just do you love being in that flow State yeah because it means to me number one there is a horizon that I'm working toward this song is g to be done today or tomorrow it's not something that's going to be done in five years and then I have to have 100 pitch meetings about it and then it may never get off of my desktop uh like getting these little songs or medium-sized songs done whether home recordings or in a real Studio seems so much easier and satisfying just because I know they can be done and if you write a movie script what are the chances that you're ever going to see a movie from it and and you know that I've written and acted into some short films and that can be done if you're working on a small scale with just a few friends like to work with like like Dava and I have made a couple of short films and so I know that can be done also but I really treasure that feeling of if I keep working on this by this time tomorrow I'll have something I'm really pleased with is the um you know you talk about you and Dava being you know incredible collaborators you obviously were incredible collaborators with with many of the uh the writers on Late Show um this is this more of a lonely process like I mean you told me about one of the one of the one of the experiences down in Nashville it seems to be uh that that was a beautiful collaboration at that point is this a little bit more personal a little less collaborative or are you in your sweet spot when there is some collaboration going on like do you ever see yourself taking on having a partner of some sort for uh for this endeavor there's definitely been a lot of helpful people all along the way of this uh my friend John Shane in Nashville's helped me get off the ground with the the quote unquote real songs and getting them recorded and he has notes on like I send him a demo and he says I like this but I wonder about that or is there a way to make and so I value all of that that it seems to me that usually the first phase of it is is solitary but then I'm hopefully wise enough now to say I need fresh ears on this and uh what don't people see in it or that I think that is there but it is not there after all all those good things about uh smart people with with good opinions I'll I'll take that definitely you know what the is the plural of premises premis ey I don't know if that's uh no well you just said premises and I think that is it that's its own plural okay oh premise and premises okay yeah that makes sense do you have a lot of pringle premise yeah and then premises there's a a 1973 General Electric sealant musical called premises premises outstanding uh do you have a lot of uh song premises sitting there like do you have a do you have a whole list of of of of little nuggets that haven't been polished off yet like like the one I want to talk about more than anything is the German I don't know if if we can talk about the German one or not uh yeah but the premise of of that one is just it's that one there flattened me on my back laughing and and and and so I think it's a prime example uh of a premise that you come up with for some of these longer songs um and and I'm just curious how many you have sitting in the hopper ready to be explored and lyed out and and and kind of blown up and given the the long form or the short form treatment for example um do you want to talk about maybe can you talk about that song like I don't know when you're ready to release that song or not but yeah someday I mean that one is such an outlier musically and everything else but uh that one is a a comedy bit masquerading as a song really my friend John Shane who I mentioned uh has a couple of uh grown-up sons who are doing different things in the music business one of them is quite involved in making beats and is very successful with working with internationally known hipop artists and they use his beats and and when I heard this I thought beats right wonder what I would do if I had a beat to play with and I thought I I know really nothing about hip hop but I'm at this sort of Magpie like stage of my life where anything shiny that could be an element in some creative project I'll just pick up and examine and I asked John would would your son be willing to give me one of his Beats to play with and turned out well he's enough of a striving professional he thought all my stuff is going to my big gun collaborators but there are millions of people selling Beats on YouTube and so I went on YouTube and looked around and downloaded something for a small price and used that as the sort of musical backdrop for this meditation about U how I don't speak German but I like to make up German sounding words like vinder stuned and strengthed and plen and then I started making up longer ones and giving the extremely Arcane meanings of the German words that I was making up which were all comedic little riffs and my friend John and Nashville was so Charmed by this he said oh let me Tinker with this and he like mixed it and produced it to the point where it sounds like something it's I think completely illegitimate as hipop it's completely illegitimate in any other kind of music it's just this Singularity that yeah I don't know and it's unlike anything else I've ever worked on either so I'm the guy who cannot stay in a lane that may be my brand in the end that I don't I can't keep keep a hold of a brand but yes it was very encouraging to to see you respond to some of these things including the song your welcome Germans I have bit my tongue with so many people about that because I've been wanting to keep Shield the privacy but you shared that song with Irene and you shared it with me and and there have been so many times when she and I will just be on the phone and we will be laughing our asses off still to this day about that song and the lyrics any idea when and how that's going to be released or is this just part of the mystery that's unfolding for you right now of going okay what is the application here's some here's some stuff what's the application here and that's is that what you're going through right now yeah it's a puzzle I've got six songs that were done in a some real Nashville session with Ace musicians and like Grammy winning people involved and then all right so that's kind of its own batch then I've got these bizarre outliers like the Germans and a few other homemade things I've cooked up and sometimes I've hired a drummer to like do a real drum track on something because I can kind of do my amateur job with the guitar now and maybe bass but I I'm I not going to touch drums anytime soon so I'm trying to figure out do I put things out myself like via CD Baby and those places will distribute all your stuff to Spotify and apple and all that you're out in the world but do I need to find a a sort of sympatico publicist who would say oh my God this is so fun I've got to tell yes and you'll pay me but I also want to spread the word about your music so I'm trying to talk to a couple people about things like that and then there's the whole thing about record labels and it seems like record labels only want you if you're already somebody with a million Instagram followers which I'm not but maybe some quirky labels run by people with certain sensibilities would like me and would get excited so I'm in the long slow murky process of exploring all these questions and I don't want it to be still up in the air when I'm 88 years old I want to figure this out in the next few months so uh again just with the as with the show venues if anybody says oh I know the perfect music publicist who would love a letterman esque sense of humor or uh a record label that has a certain odd flavor to it that might like some country-ish but weird and funny or as you heard some of it is country flavored some of it's not again can't stick to a lane sorry I think it's better that you don't I I I think I think it to me it's more charming and more fun when it just kind of hits you out of nowhere like like again and you're right the German the German song certainly could have been on Letterman somehow some way or a version of that uh you know could have been on that for sure there's no question to me um now that being said I'm looking at things like Conan is doing with serious satellite radio and and and what there's a there there seems to be places where comedy um and I don't know if there's comedy music on that or not um have you I guess you're looking for somebody who might have ties into serus and things like that right because they seem to be paying money for for things right now yeah I would uh anybody with any interesting suggestion and I I barely know what questions to ask at this point I feel so outside the music industry I'm in a a interesting songwriters group based in New York and try my songs out on people there and people talk about strategies of how to get on Spotify and get the algorithm to notice you and all that so I'm at the edges of some of these conversations but it does seem like a pretty tough time to try to be somebody in the music world who does it as anything more than a hobby because I was just reading about how some of the big companies now are doing well again in the music industry but that's only because they've figured out how to monetize things with streaming platforms and Spotify and all that but the artists themselves are not not really making money off of that so in the long term I would be shocked if I got lifechanging money out of my music and so I just said well you're doing it because it's fun and satisfying and if anything else ever happens great but don't go into it thinking ah I better start planning which Mercedes to buy as soon as my album drops the uh you know the folks I I know a few folks in the in in in in the music industry and and one of the things that uh that they talk about is like I think you're I think you're creating I really honestly feel like you're creating a puzzle here and you're just working on different parts of the puzzle all simultaneously the the the the folks that I know um who are who are just they're just on the cusp of of taking their music uh to the next level like they're talking with serious right now and and their rep is or or whatever it is and and that's going to take them to this and whatnot but the one thing that they're sustaining themselves with is live is live performance and and and if and if as you do this um I assume and I mean maybe you've just Fallen you know backwards into this and they just happen to be evolving at the same time but it's interesting to me that you are evolving relationships with venues uh you know with an building an audience that sort of a thing um as at the same time you're building this content and and and you know it seems like if the two merged that's the simplest way for a musical act to get um you know to to to be sustainable is to have people actually put butts in the seats and pay to see you and and go from there are you do you ever play any of this stuff on stage or do you have a a very serious line of demarcation between uh the live shows you do and the music that building well I mentioned how years ago it was here's my guitar playing which is instrumental and here's my day job world of funny ideas and I slowly cautiously touched them together I'm in the process of doing that touching the two Realms together right now I have uh become pretty comfortable doing a few songs on stage live like uh this 800 person audience in California I did one song solo on guitar that very well but it was not a song of mine it was a song written by Alan Sherman 50s something years ago right and there have been other times I have been up on stage at a couple venues a handful of times doing my own songs and it's a a little nerve-wracking but it gets better the more you do it so that's one of my goals for this year is find more of these like uh open mic night for songwriters and just get comfortable and get practiced up on a good solid batch of my own material so I feel like yeah in the same way that I love doing the industrial musical show now and I'm comfortable being that guy if I could get that same kind of comfort here here's a batch of uh strange and and surprising and funny songs and a few sincere ones maybe again hard to pick a lane and stay in it for me but uh that that that is one of the goals is to not just be a guy who sits in his living room and edits together audio files but to actually get up in front of people and make it happen sometimes stupid all you need sometimes stupid all you want this time was one of those times you took the words out of my mouth um okay we'll get to we'll we'll get to Muer in a second I'm going to ask about Gary Muer in a minute here but uh but you took the words right out of my mouth one of the things I was going to ask was you talk about these Open Mic nights whatever um it seems to me that there's also a lane potentially if you wanted to play with it uh May perhaps a little more terrifying uh the idea of of of standup with this um is that something that you've ever thought about like going down to the seller and trying some things out with some audiences and playing that way um and and exploring this in that in in that respect I have seen some standups who do funny things and play a guitar and have some musical elements I suppose it's possible that that that could be somewhere in the future it feels further away for me partly because I still feel like uh quote unquote regular comedy feels like a more distant realm to me right now in terms of standup and there were years and years ago I did do standup a few times and it was kind of gratifying but uh I feel like there's so much standup out there I think there must be that uh yeah you You' probably need a very distinctive Voice or gimmick or whatever and I guess part of my gimmick could be hey look I'm old and part of my gimmick could be uh yeah I could play guitar it'll be interesting to see if like something about comedy versus music where that plane ends up tilting so the longwinded answer is I don't know I mean that's the short answer the the other one was the long- winded answer um I I okay my friend we've spent enough time together and I've seen you uh you know personally and then of course in in some Social Circles and whatnot uh you you certainly have a voice um you know outside of the Ed San theater after Rupert's Rupert's thing we we chatted with a small group of people for about an hour and you had us in stitches with with with the things that you were saying unorganized of course just just throwing stuff out there shooting the bll as as as as we were doing but um you know again and by the way I want to I still want to have even if it's one episode I don't care I want to have an EP a podcast called three comedy writers named Steve where it's it's it's it's you it's Donald and Steve Wier all just at a table and we throw in a couple little you know conversation pieces and just listen to the three of you go um that is hysterical to me the stuff that just pops out of that uh you do have a voice so I I I that's a long-winded way of saying I've seen you enough to know you have a voice first off you have a very distinct again I don't know if it is a a mighty mighty baritone or what it is but I you know I don't know these things but you've got that uh The Voice itself the Dead Pan is is is perfect um you've of course got the sensibility and then you've got this musical Talent too to me there's a standup act there um but I whether it's worth exploring I don't I don't know I want to ask about Gary mu deer did you ever did you ever meet Gary when he came on the show at all do you remember Gary at all I do remember him uh I I cannot summon much about him was he the one with the red sweater or was that mortal no no uh Gary was the the the guitar with the bow and arrow and and he would come on and just and he would go from and he was more obviously in in his style but he would go and he'd start playing a song and it was a comedy song and he would do a little bit um I highly recommend by the way for everybody out there he's an old friend of Dave's he was from The Comedy Store uh days but uh you know touring comedian um and very much musical with comedy at the same time and just uh phen phenomenal phenomenal mind um the Gary Muer documentary just came out I highly recommend it to everybody and also we're going to throw a shout out Gary Gary's um you know he's he's not doing the best as he could be medically and so we're going to shout him out but I look at a guy like that who who toured for a long time and and found but then he ended up at the Grand old Opry and he found an audience who absolutely loved exactly the Synergy that you're talking about the comedy and the music all together um that could get a lump in your throat that could bring up em motion that could you know and I don't know if that's uh that southern or that Midwestern kind of kind of charm but this to me it feels like it has similar things it feels like it feels like you you have a oneman show that could be pretty special man I just that's that's what I see when I see this how can it be that it's 53 years since the celebration seems like yester day how did time slip away from the national industrial cafeteria Managers Association thank you for that uh encouragement and the reference of sometimes people say well you have to be able to say what your comparables are who are you like if we want to talk to somebody in the business I say I don't know and sometimes I think well Flight of the Concords I've seen some of that and they've got some funny songs that are just like two guys playing guitars and I'm one guy playing one guitar but something seemed in the same universe there sometimes so I I struggle to find comparables uh I suspect that 27-year-old record executives are are going to be less excited about the Gary Muer reference but uh I think you're right uh that being said that being said I mean you know um I you got something and and and it is unique and it is its own thing and I just I will support it to no end as much as I possibly possibly can um it's so good uh um do you have a YouTube channel that you uh that you throw stuff up on I do there's Stevey youngworld domcom which I've not put too many things on although two two songs of mine up there right now you may remember one called look at all the people yep does that one ring a bell yeah that once in a while I've made something where I've actually made my own video for a two or three minute song that's the underwear song right that's right yes and then one couple years earlier about New Year's resolutions that one has extremely minimal video but those are kind of uh uh warning shots to the world of uh what what might be coming although that Nashville stuff is a uh far bigger deal uh in terms of production value yeah um there's the one song The where where where the guitar in that song the the speed uh finger picking guitar in that that that it's I don't even know the style that you call it it's country uh almost a Bluegrass type that is just absolutely spectacular um I forget the artist you you told me the name of the artist who perform was just unbelievable probably the song called fitted sheet which there is a absolutely genius uh guitar player named Trey Hensley there you go yeah in Nashville who uh did a little studio session and uh just machine guned crazy country Telecaster guitar all over the top of this thing is just wow okay so good um well I appreciate it and everything that we can do to support you in this we will do Steve Young World uh and and as as I'm allowed to throw stuff out there please do send me stuff that I can throw out there I assume all the stuff that's out that the shorts uh you know and after we finish this or whatever I'll make sure that I have all the ones that I want to include them in this episode um and and anything else that can throw out there I will throw it out immediately um and and it would be uh it'd be so cool to see a Following start to build for this and and and and I know endlessly gratifying for you uh that that that the audience would be found because there is one obviously I mean it just it just we need to crack that code um let's go back to the world of Dave for a second here have you kept up with anything did you see when Dave was on coar when he came back to the Ed I didn't I I I don't know uh I was never great consumer of late night media even when I was in it so uh I I was noting that he was on and it was historic and it was his first time back at the theater but I have not watched it so um that that being said like and that's one of the things that I find so Charming about you uh you know famously or infamously I guess I mean uh you know for the comedy nerds out there the Letterman nerds Steve Young's hired for the job and people are talking about Calbert Calbert Calbert Calbert and you don't know was I love that that's so Charming to me because it shows that while you do have a very similar sensibility humor-wise you also brought in a crazy amount of freshness to it and that's probably part of the uh part of the secret sauce as to why you were so uh successful and revered with the show as long as you were because you did have that fresh perspective you didn't consume everything but the reason I'm asking about that is uh was Rupert's get together the first time you went back to the theater was that the first time you were back in the in the Lobby because there's a lot of folks that was the first time that they were there since the show closed off I had only been back to the building a couple of times since I guess the summer of 2015 things were still winding down and I was back a couple times but Co Bear's first week on the air in September of 2015 uh my friend Cheryl who you may know uh Sheryl Levan Brown she got tickets to the uh I think it was the Friday show of the first week of cold bear at the Ed Sullivan Theater and said do you want to go and I said well I am interested but please be aware of a couple of things uh it's going to be interesting but weird for me to just go into this place but also when I'm sitting at the show you know the comedy damage I'll probably just nod politely at the comedy and I I I will not be a satisfying audience member laughing like I should be because we've talked about that I'm sure just I can say yep that works but uh it's rare to make me laugh but I did laugh a couple of times but they were at the wrong things like during a commercial when it's this otherworldly version of the theater and the show and nothing's the same except then during the commercial Pat farmer the stage hand walks out and I go well that's hilarious right there yep I get it and one one other time I was back uh friend of mine who was uh working in some capacity at the co Bear show a couple years later said oh do you ever want to come in and just look around the office and I said I kind of am curious about that and uh offices had of course been completely renovated yep and walking down hallways you were kind of at Sea like I think I know where I am because this hallway probably can't have changed but everything else all like this wall was knocked down and this is is a little Pantry area where the hipsters have their C cereal dispensers and yogurts and organic things and then this room is different and that room that must have been my office because that view out the window is my view but everything is different and then I went into the 14th floor men's room that had not been touched at all that was like oh wow the one zone that was like uh the unbreached uh Tuton common tomb that had never been destroyed by grave robbers and that was Eerie because that 100% the same but then after that I think it had been years and years since I was back before the rert thing okay so the night of the rert thing it was fascinating to me um watching because like Dave many of the staffers the last time he was at that theater was was before you know the show was uh closed up closed up shop forever and and it was his first time back and I mean you know I think I think I don't know if it's loyalty I don't know what it is I don't know if it's it's PTSD whatever but a lot of them had stayed away um and and and wouldn't go in but one of the things that is fairly untouched is the lobby and the uh you know the restroom going downstairs with the production is and and and many much of that is is nearly identical maybe a Fresh coat of paint or whatever but very very similar and it was fascinating um watching you many of your of your contemporaries like at one point there was uh we were bringing in drinks from the deli because it was Rupert's retirement and he furnished he emptied out the cooler because the hello Deli was you know closing up so he they donated the drinks for the for for the event and so the best way to get to the deli from where we were is is taking a shortcut through the theater and boy was it crazy watching some of the staffers go like like go from this really familiar place to a place that was totally foreign and the feelings that were expressed that night uh was were really really interesting I'm super curious about your perspective of being in that foyer again in that night and if there was any I don't know I don't know if it's therapeutic or if it's I you know just just memories being jogged anything like that was it weird for you to be in there that night a little bit I don't think I even peaked into the theater itself maybe I did but I I knew from 2015 visit that it would not look inside like I remembered it but I do remember that time I went to the September 2015 Co Bear show and being in the queue of people snaking through the lobby and the lobby was as you say completely familiar and re really not touched at all to the point where I thought oh I wonder if I have a minute to run down to the tape room and say hi to Randy and then say hi to people oh wait none of those people are downstairs now yeah it seems like they're all gut to be there eternally how could anything be different and then you have to make an intellectual uh effort to say that is not down there anymore none of my office is upstairs anymore none of my things are still there anymore yeah a lot of uh lot of laughter that night of rubert Rupert's retirement um fun experience for you I assume so I mean we hung afterwards for that hour after after we all got kicked out we hung up for an hour shooting the bull the under the Marquee um it was a like a very weird but wonderful High School reunion I uh it was it was an honor to have been there and to be yeah it was surreal to have been a part of it um might be the last staff uh photo ever taken too which was weird like like I do you have a cop if you don't have a copy of that photo I'll make sure I send it to you but there's the the staff photo with everybody there um in that foyer too it was just a it was just a really cool thing Dave appeared on uh Strikeforce 5 the the the podcast that all five of the current Late Show um hosts or late night host I should say uh put together during the strike and Dave appeared on that episode he talked about how uh when he went back to um uh 30 rocks studio and he just looked at what Fallon and Company had done and what it looked like there and Seth and had done and that like you know he's like I love the lenum like it's just such a such a neat place he had a very similar reaction uh to going back to the theater for the first time too he's like it's like a mall in here um completely different but I just found it interesting that so many of you hadn't been back to the theater and I wanted to ask you about that feeling when I worked on Maya and Marty the NBC variety show in 2016 that was at 30 Rock and in fact it was in studio uh 6 6A or whatever the old late night world was so that was Eerie to be back there it was being rebuilt and reconfigured for this new show didn't have too many emotional cues about the Letterman esque past even the hallways had been refurbished uh once in a while you'd get to some Rockefeller Plaza elevator landing and go oh right I remember this this kind of marbled Stone here and this chrome thing one time I tried to go up to the old Letterman offices on the 14th floor of the West part of building and I got up to the 14th floor on the elevator and I was faced with this sort of glass glass enclosed modern office Zone that was so uh disorienting I thought it's not going to be worth it to go in there zero is going to recall to mind anything about my past it's completely redone so I didn't go look oh I uh I can understand that but then you talk about like when you were talking about uh year old office um at the at the office building there's your view you know there's the window where Meg there's Meg Meg was across the way Meg par was across the way there or whatever and that's really the only thing that's similar but those Eerie little teeny tiny Echoes um I can't thank you enough for for coming on here again and I want to do this as many times as we possibly can I know we're gonna have an episode with odonnell at some point speaking of which um is wanting to uh to be a Prof is wanting to teach take some of these amazing uh things that you have learned and sensibilities that you have you know he's done his thing at NYU is that something that you would enjoy doing I did do uh a class at NYU for several years about TV history I about that where I being an indifferent consumer of Television for much of my life had to panic and race to catch up on in order to talk about some of these shows I have I had never watched The Mary Tyler Moore Show i' never watched The Dick Van djk show and 10 other things that is assumed that I am knowledgeable about backwards and forwards that I had just never watched so there's the huge amount of impostor factor for that ended up feeling like I did okay on that comedy writing I also feel like well no 20-year-old wants to hear from me although apparently O'Donnell has uh carved a very genial and effective presence in that world I don't know if I'm that kind of teacher I'm almost a little bit professorial in some aspects of my show where I'm talking about this hidden secret world of 20th century business culture and entertainment yep I don't know if there'll ever be an academic setting for that or not although I as I did mention I'm doing a presentation at Northwestern in a week and that that will be similar to my regular show but tilted a little more towards uh sort of academic or pseudo academic observations so you do take speaking gigs as well oh yes I did a a keynote address to a group in uh Kansas uh in the fall that was exciting that was a new experience and you know you're just supposed to try to say yes to things even if you're a little nervous or unprepared or not the right person but you find your way and that ended up being very successful so yeah all varieties of these shows and speaking engagements I am I am up for uh if people want to get a hold of you for that what's the best way to do that social media uh I'm sorry through what social social media is that the best way to get a hold of you wants to book you there's I I will reveal my email address if safe uh pants Steve gmail.com if people want to find me about coming somewhere and having an adventure yeah I think um you know again I see how all these things can converge with each other I mean I feels like it uh I know I'm endlessly fascinated when you when you start talking I also feel like I'm sitting under a Learning Tree uh I think you um but again you also have that sensibility that so many of the people did who who who worked for that show for so long you also uh very self-deprecating and no necessarily the Imposter syndrome thing just again I can relate to it cuz I felt it um I felt it with this show it's it's it's it's it's slowly kind of going away uh so I I I 100% understand where you're coming from yeah you're way too cocky now I know um but from me to you I I I find it baffling and I think it's a really beautiful message about humanity and how we're wired I find it baffling that you could feel imposter syndrome because I do look at you and it's like I I hang off your every word um if you did teach a comedy class I would want to take it uh you know because the the the the depth of experience that you've had is just is absolutely tremendous it's so fun to see you still creating and uh thank you for being a friend of the Letterman podcast you know that's something we've adopted and we've taken uh you know rip shamelessly ripped off of of of Leo a friend of the show we use that thank you for being a friend of the show but I got to tell you uh publicly and proudly I am so grateful to be your friend thank you so so much for everything that you have done um in front of the cameras this is your third appearance here um and but of course behind the scenes and things like that Steve I I love you man and I appreciate you very very much oh thank you now we got to the we've gone from the funny stuff to the lump in the throat stuff little little bit of lump in the throat little bit awkward so we won't spend very long on it um okay so those who uh have the opportunity to go see Steve live go see him uh what can we plug bath pubs Over Broadway if you haven't seen it uh go buy it go go go to the iTunes and actually buy the thing it's not that expensive and uh uh stream it if you gotta but buy it if you can and um and uh oh and again let's get Dave on here too to talk about it as well this thing has a life of its own it is a a certified cult classic and uh let's grow the cult and uh see what happens and maybe we can get a commune somewhere that'd be a lot of fun um big okay Cults and communes got it um I'll do a really quick outro and we could say goodbye privately if that's all right with you okay all right um boy oh boy I just uh I I could never not be endlessly delighted by Steve Young and uh and his Antics and his creative Endeavors and I'm so grateful that um we can share them here on the Letterman podcast is an absolute honor to be um a vessel is that what I am I don't know whatever this is a vessel for this oh go ahead yes sir when we were talking about uh some of my earlier songwriting yeah I I think you're a fan of this but I had that Super Bowl history song that's still floating around on on YouTube and the Letterman Channel and all that that that was a probably a watershed moment where you can realize you can take a stupid idea and burnish it up so it's right on the line between stupid and clever and and make something of it I I I and i i i i v and then there's V right is that is I think I think that's it I might got the numerals wrong but that's the tune it is it's incredible I post it every year at Super Bowl uh the Super Bowl song uh from the mind of Steve Young prime example of something where it's like an eye roll uh at first when you realize what it is and then it starts to get catchy and then it comes back around it becomes hilarious at the end um amazing that you can predict that yes yes absolutely and uh if you go on the Letterman podcast Facebook group uh you will see that recently because the Super Bowl just recently happened so we've shared it and we will continually share it as as as well um yeah absolutely that's another again perfect example of the voice of the show and if you like that song uh and and think that that's funny that perfectly encapsulates what you get when you listen to Steve's current the bridge is built everybody we just need to start Crossing it and find ways to cross it uh that's clearly happening so um that's been another episode of the Letterman podcast with Mike Chisum coincidentally I am Mike Chisum thank you and good night there's someone I'd like you to meet it's my favorite windup toy watch I think it's some kind of metaphor or a defective unit