Jon Rineman had just graduated from college and was living at home with his parents when the phone rang at 11pm on a Monday night. It was Jay Leno on the other end. A family friend had sent the-then Tonight Show host some jokes the young Rineman had written, and Leno was impressed. The two spoke for 45 minutes, and soon Rineman was faxing Leno jokes on a daily basis.
Four years later, Rineman managed to charm another soon-to-be Tonight Show host into a job as a staff writer at Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, where, in his first week on the job he got fifteen jokes on the air. That never happens.
This week on the Inside Late Night podcast, Rineman shares his late-night journey with Mark Malkoff. In addition to the nine years he spent with Fallon, he’s also contributed jokes to Seth Meyers, both for “Weekend Update” and for the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Earlier this year Rineman published his first-ever book, The Garden is Always Greener, an alternate NBA timeline of the Boston Celtics. It’s available at Amazon and wherever books are sold.
Visit Jon Rineman’s official site and follow him on Instagram and Twitter/X.
Show Transcript
Mark Malkoff: John Rineman, thanks for talking with us.
Jon Rineman: Yeah, thanks for having me, Mark. You know, I gotta say, I was, I’m such a fan of The Carson Podcast. I came along. I think, towards the end and went back and listened to them all. And so, uh, this is really cool. This is, uh, this is an honor for me to meet you.
Oh my goodness.
Thank you for having me on.
For someone that wrote for Fallon for nine years and you’ve done so much, um, in your career, you wrote a very famous, uh, joke for the White House Correspondents Dinner that, um, you know, looking back in history, uh, people still talk about there’s, there’s a lot to talk about. I do want to mention one thing I was on your Instagram and I, I saw that, uh, and speaking of Johnny Carson, there’s one person I’ve gotten to talk to on the phone many times and that is Doc Severinsen, but you actually got to meet him at Fallon.
Yeah.
What was that like?
It was awesome. It was surreal in that He still just looks exactly like Doc Severinsen and he, he dressed exactly. I think he just had his, uh, farewell performance. I think he just retired from the road, but he was still hitting them every night, uh, when I was there and when we would go out to LA, which I loved, uh, I absolutely loved going out there and doing shows, especially in the winter. It was, you know, reinvigorates you when you go out there and you get the palm trees and you know, the history and everything. I just turned to him and I said, Doc is here. You know, and then he kind of said, yeah, I got that a lot. And, uh, I just took a picture, man. And, uh, he was great. It was so surreal. Cause I think he’s the only person from the Carson Tonight Show. That I’ve ever really gotten to meet that. I mean, I’m, I apologize if I’m forgetting anybody. There may be somebody that worked there for a little while and they’re going to say, “Rineman, what the hell, man.” But you know, he was, uh, he was awesome. He could still play and, uh, immediately sent it to my dad who was a huge Carson fan and, and he wrote the same thing back. Doc is here tonight. Yeah. Doc is here. So yeah, it was really cool.
I knew that he played in L.A. with the band when he, when he was there. Was the, the photo taken in New York? This one?
The photo was from L.A. Um, he was there two years, he was there in 2015. And then again in 2016.
Yeah, he’s an amazing guy.
Yeah, yeah, he was great. You know, it was, it was definitely a generational thing. Some people were like, what do you so…? I was like, you don’t you get it, man? It’s Doc Severinsen. Like, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s Doc from all the, the famous clips. And, you know, they’re fighting about what they’re going to do for Thanksgiving and who’s going to go over to whose house and why they don’t hang out and everything. And it was just amazing. It was, it’s just so cool, you know. But we just talked about music, really, like, we just kind of talked about, you know, we talked about, uh, Tommy Newsom and, and, um, O’Shaughnessy and all those guys, like, cause I’m a big music nerd. And so we really just talked about that, cause you only get so much time with somebody like that. Part of me wished I’d talked more about Johnny, but. You know, it’s, it’s like, uh, he, he really knew his band. He knew the guys in the band and he could really answer those questions. And, uh, he liked talking about Tommy quite a bit. And so that was cool. And, uh, with Johnny, it’s like, what is someone going to say? You know, no one really knew him all that well, but it was cool. Just to talk about the old Tonight Show band and, and all that stuff. So it was really neat. He was awesome.
I’m glad you got in these opportunities. So you’re growing up in New Hampshire. You graduate from Emerson in 2005 and you’re home one night on a Monday. And your phone rings, your dad says somebody’s on the line for you, and who is it?
Well, dad told me exactly who it was, uh, so, long story short, we had a family friend who grew up with this person, and they were really good friends, and they, you know, for months I had bothered him and said, man, I, you know, I, can you give me a break? Can you send me some, send some stuff to this guy? And, uh, uh, And, uh, you know, help me out. And he just kept saying, no, he kept saying, look, man, he’s really busy. If he ever reads your stuff, he’s only going to read it once. And I don’t know if you’re ready. And finally, I just went for it and said, you know what? I think I’m ready. And so this guy, our friend Barry said, okay. And he sent my resume and a cover letter out on a Saturday morning and then cut to. Uh, in fact, the calendar date we’re recording this interview, as a matter of fact, Mark, was October 24th, uh, 2005, and I’m watching the end of Monday Night Raw, the go home. And I’m not going to give that up. So the phone, the house phone rings, at my parents’ house just graduated from college. I don’t answer it. I figure it’s my sister or maybe my grandmother calling from my mom. And you know, whoever would call at 11 o’clock at night for a quick second. And there’s a knock at my door. My dad comes in and he just kind of was looking at me like something happened. And my first thought was, what did I do? You know, it was sort of that thing, like the police are on the line or something. And he just says, uh, it’s Jay Leno. And. That’s it. Like, it’s not Jay Leno’s assistant. It’s not someone where it’s, it’s Jay Leno. And I took the phone and, um, you know, I say hello. And then I hear, Hey, is this John? And I say, uh, yeah, that’s me. I was like, Hey, this is Jay Leno. And my, you know, my first thought was, you know, no, this is my buddy who impersonates Jay Leno. There’s no way it’s really him. And then I remembered, I am the one in the friend group that impersonates Jay Leno. So I couldn’t be calling me. And so, um, it was him and we talked for like 45 minutes. And, um, mainly, he gave me a lot of life advice in that time. Uh, he kind of got to know me and, you know, the two things that he’s quoted a lot saying in interviews he said to me in that time on the phone, which were, you know, they pay you a lot of money, so when they screw you, you have something left over, so, you know, live, live cheaply. And that stuck with me when I decided to stay in Astoria for all those years when people were trying to get big fancy apartments. I said, no, I’m happy with where I am. And I’ll order a cheeseburger when I’m out. I was out with, um, Eliza Coupe and her family the other night. She was getting an award here in New Hampshire and they all got nice stuff. I said, no, I’ll just get the burger. I’m good. And, um, the other thing was, uh, don’t go falling in love with a hooker, which sounds a little bit, maybe dated. But that was Jay’s way of saying the people you meet in this business are people you meet in this business. You’re going to be friends with them as long as you’re in the business with them, as long as you’re working with them, uh, as soon as the business is over, there’s a pretty good chance they’re not going to be your friend. Uh, not for any reason that’s mean or not for any reason that’s hostile. Uh, but it’s just, it’s show business. And when you’re a showbiz friend and you part ways, you’re not always going to talk. He said, your friends are the people that you’re friends with now. He says, the people you went to college with, they’re going to be your real friends. Maybe a few people you went to high school with. Uh, but those people from your formative years are really going to be your friends. And he was, he was right about that. I don’t think I did as good a job following that advice. I know I kept all those friends that I grew up with, but yeah, I think like I made that mistake in the business in that, you know, when someone acts nice to you, you think it’s easy to think they’re my friend, you know, we’re gonna be friends for life. And, uh, then they maybe move on, do something else or you move on or whatever. And you don’t really talk anymore. And so the end of that conversation with with him was, yeah, I’ll give you a shot to send in some monologue jokes. And, you know, he, No one ever left Jay’s show. They all loved working there. So there was no turnover and he was honest with me with that, but he said, I’ll pay out of my own pocket. You know, it’s I own the production company. So I can do that. And you’re not as soon as you’re in the guild, you know, first of all, congratulations. But second of all, games up. Can’t do this anymore. So just learn how to write some jokes for a little bit. And that’s what I did. And I did that for several years for him. And it was, uh, it was a really great experience.
How much do you think it helped in the conversation you two bonding over the fact that you both went to Emerson?
I think it helped quite a bit because. He had already been told by other people that there was some, there was some resemblance and there were some similarities, but I think he knew that I felt, as a writer, frustrated the way that he had felt frustrated as a comic, you know, like when he went there, there weren’t, there wasn’t a ton of stand up. They were all kind of sketch people or, you know, eventually some of those people went on and perform, but it was. Uh, it was all actors and they all did dramatic performances and stuff. There was no one just going and telling jokes. They didn’t really have comedy clubs at the time in Boston that e was there. And on my end, we had just gotten Facebook, which I don’t think you could do status updates yet. Blogs were, had not really even taken off. And so we weren’t anywhere close to Twitter. So, for someone like me that discovered this skill of writing jokes, of writing news jokes and set-up, run-up punchline jokes, uh, I didn’t have anywhere to do it. And there was no programs at Emerson at the time. They were still in their kind of formative, uh, years and even the facilities were being updated. Uh, so they had a place to go do this stuff and, and do mock-late night shows and things like that. And so I think he got a sense that I, as a writer. I got more out of Emerson than he did, uh, for sure, because I had a really good experience there. I really loved it there. And particularly my senior year at Emerson was as fun a year as anyone could have, but still, as a writer leaving, like I said, there was there was no social media. So there’s no place to really take your jokes for a test drive. And when I told him that. I could feel him breaking a little bit, kind of going, okay. Like, all right. Yeah. You know, and saying, that’s kind of how I felt as a standup and okay, well, let’s, let’s give this a shot. And so I think he has an empathy towards. Having a, you know, going through getting the degree, having a pretty good experience, but being like, man, still don’t feel like I quite have what I need. I don’t know where to do any of this stuff. And so he gave me that chance to really try it out.
He had a professor at Emerson that told him he was never going to make it. And he, whenever he’s been given an award from Emerson, I know that some students, I was told, went to the set in Burbank and gave him an award from Emerson. He just, he had to tell them the story about, the professor, and it seems like it still bothers him after all these years and I, I get it.
Well, you know, Emerson, I can’t go into too much detail, uh, cause the last time he and I talked on the phone, I mean, I saw him earlier this year and there was other people there, so it was more of a just, you know, Hey, how you doing? Sort of thing. The last time we talked on the phone. I can’t get into too much detail, but I think they’re sort of back on perhaps a strained relationship. Maybe it’s been improved since then, but yeah, there’s something with Emerson where they just kind of trip over their own feet when it comes to dealing with Jay. And I don’t understand it. Uh, he’s their most famous alum in comedy. I mean, whether they want to say you could, yeah, I know they have Denis Leary. I know they have Bill Burr. It’s Jay Leno. You know what I mean? Like, it’s first ballot Hall of Famer comedian who hosted The Tonight Show.
Things have changed, but there are a lot of schools and um, I went to NYU, and I put NYU in that group, that they didn’t have a lot of respect for the comedians. They really didn’t. For sketch and for any comedy. Um, it’s just, I’ve talked to a bunch of well known famous people that went there and stuff, and it was. It’s been pretty consistent with people I’ve talked to that, that when they wanted to do comedy and, um, yeah, things have changed though, that, which is great. I know, um, especially at Emerson. Uh, which is nice. So you’re getting one to two jokes on a week for Leno. You’re 22. You’re getting $75 a joke, which, you know, I mean, it’s, you know, you’re still getting your stuff on The Tonight Show. The competence must have been incredible. And you’re, are you literally faxing the jokes?
I’m literally, I’m literally faxing the jokes in. So when it started out. Uh, I would do it for my parents house. I, my dad had a fax machine and it ran on the phone line and everything. And so it was just like that. It was very outdated, but, uh, I would use my parents fax machine and fax in the jokes. And Jay was honest. I mean, he said one thing that shaped me and I don’t know that was for the, there’s two, two things he said that that night that as I jokingly call it, funny ball. Um, I may or may not be working on something that, uh, something else, uh, that has to do with that, uh, kind of telling the story, but I sort of had this checklist of what I would do every night to write jokes and it got out of hand, uh, as down at the end of my monologue career, uh, it got just way too crazy. But one of the couple of things that I got from Jay were “first come, first serve,” meaning that the first time he reads the joke from somebody, that’s the person who gets the credit for it. Yeah. So that put in my mind, Hmm, if I stay up until, because this is before Trump and everyone tweeting and mayhem happening 24 hours, so you could get ahead and write 10 hours in advance and be okay. You know, like George W. Bush wasn’t suddenly going to become smart, you know, like quicker. Dick Cheney was not going to become kind or, you know, John Kerry was not going to become exciting. You know, there was pretty good handle on the news back then on what was going to happen. So I thought to myself, gosh, if I stay up till two. Uh, and get my right, like, say, 3 pages. That means as soon as Jay gets in in the morning, there’s going to be 3 pages of jokes right on that faxer tray that I wrote and he would read him 1st. And that’s how I got a lot of jokes on was just playing with the time zone and saying, you know, I’m going to stay up late and make sure my stuff’s in early. And the other thing he said was, I remember him saying this saying, yeah, I, I can’t even, I can’t even sleep. I can’t put head to pillow until I write half my monologue the night before. And so that was a big role for me too, was I got to have at least half my jokes written the night before. So I would send a lot of stuff in and my dad was rightfully skeptical about my career choice. He was a Navy man and an airline pilot and had seen his industry crater after 9/11, and he didn’t want to see, uh, me go into something else that was very, um, suspect and kind of shaky as comedy is, but faxing those jokes in really kind of helped rebuild and reframe my relationship with my dad because I, a lot of times I’d forget to clear out the fax tray. You know, it’s late at night. You’re like, okay, I’m done. These are off. And I still remember the fax number, by the way. He would, he’d go in the next day to do his work and stuff and he grabbed the jokes and he’d read the pages of jokes and he went from being skeptical to kind of being upset with Jay that he didn’t use even more of my jokes. He was like, these are really good. And so he became like my biggest fan and I told Jay that that, um, he called after my dad passed away, and I reminded him, I said, yeah, you know, it’s like that. Dad was my biggest cheerleader, and that’s because he read the jokes I was faxing in to you, but when I moved out and I was living in Boston, I would drive to Kinko’s, and I’d get there about 2:30, 3 in the morning, and they were open 24 hours, and Jay would only take fax, didn’t do email back then. Now he’s mercifully moved on. So if I need to contact him, I can just send him an email. But yeah, same thing. FedEx Kinkos. And then, uh, when I was out in LA living in North Hollywood, same thing. Find a, you know, some place with a copy machine middle of the night. Sometimes it’d be like on a studio lot or something if I was working as a PA, just go in and hope, hope I don’t get caught, uh, sending this local fax as silly as it may sound. Um, but that’s the way they did it.
The term was Faxers?
Yeah, that’s it.
You were also doing this for Saturday Night Live when Seth Meyers was there and you got you’ve got jokes and not as many is is Leno obviously like 20 a year. It’s not as frequent, but you still got jokes on for Seth.
I think I got. I remember getting two though. I’m told it was three or four. Shoemaker said it was more than two, but I remember because I only remember the two, but he insisted it was more because he remembered my name. Maybe he was thinking rehearsals or something. But I remember, I know I saw at least two air, and maybe I did get paid for three. I don’t know what the third one was, but, uh, this was just for like half a season that I did it. And I didn’t know that that was a big deal. Like I was kind of down on myself. I was like, God, I can barely get anything on this show. And then they explained to me the odds, how slim it is back then when they’re…
Alex Baze, you’re, you’re in trouble.
You’re going up against Alex Bays and you’re going up against and you’re going up against Seth. And so, and then at the same time, Mulaney was there. And, uh, Jost was there, and Doug Abeles. Megan Callahan was working her way up. So, yeah, it was not a friendly, you know, bay to try to swim around in. Uh, but I didn’t know that. And that, that worked to my advantage because I was just like, Well, let’s try this. Who knows? Yeah, I got a couple on there. Uh, that was insane, because with Jay, it was like, it felt like a family friend. I felt like I grew up knowing him, sort of, through these other, you know, this other family we knew. And with Seth, though, that was the first time that I really had that distant, Oh my God, someone else kind of thinks my writing’s pretty good. You know, this person doesn’t know me at all and has used a couple jokes. And, uh, it’s Saturday Night Live, you know, like it’s, it was awesome. So it was really cool.
Tell me if I have this right and explain the logic, because I do not understand. You on your own dime, you fly from, I guess it would be New Hampshire. You fly to Los Angeles and you, you go to NBC Burbank to take a meeting with Leno’s show to be a possible writer, but you know, going in that they already hired the person. Why would you eat the money and go into a meeting? And sometimes they, do they just have these meetings for bureaucracy sake to say, we interviewed enough, all these people is that…
Well, this is a crazy story. So, but I can remember it was all in one week that this all sort of happened. Uh, it’s funny when I think back on this now, like my life changed for the better. In a one week span, and it also, uh, you know, went down the mountain in a one week span, uh, many years later. So there’s something, as a Bare Naked Ladies fan, I guess I’m just haunted by One Week. Um, but, what happened was, I had been faxing jokes in to Jimmy. And doing pretty well. I was doing about the same as I did with Leno, but I was getting a little bit more. I was getting like three or four a week.
This is the infancy of late night at 12:30.
The beginning, the beginning of Jimmy’s 12:30 show. And it was literally just because the Tonight Show with Leno had ended, Saturday Night Lives off for the summer. And. I really didn’t want to do it again. I felt like I had taken my best shot and it didn’t work out, but I had heard that Jimmy was taking submissions from people. And so I just started doing the same thing, but then they let me email my stuff in. It was Wayne Federman. I just Googled Jimmy Fallon head monologue writer one night and Wayne’s website came up. His email was on there, sent him an email. And the next morning at, like, nine, I have a whole bunch of emails, it’s him saying, you know, you know, John, welcome aboard, yeah, I’m happy to have you, you know, so, okay, great. And then there’s the rules, and here’s the premises.
I want to interject, you were very smart to mention Jay’s name, that you wrote for Leno, because that gave you credibility with Wayne.
Yeah, Wayne loved Jay, so I didn’t know this, um, but Wayne was a big Leno guy, because Jay put Wayne on his show, gave him his first standup shot. So I’m getting about four jokes a week on Fallon. And to me, that felt slightly better than Leno, but about the same, you know, like it was a little bit better money, but I didn’t know that there were, I can tell you from working there for years, there were people that struggled as staff writers to get four or five jokes on a week, they just couldn’t find the voice of the show. So I’m the, I’m the useful idiot who just doesn’t know how he’s doing well. So I get an email from Wayne on a Wednesday night. It was July 22nd of 2009. And he says, uh, Hey, we just want to let you know you’re incredibly talented and we’re really enjoying your jokes. And I’m like, that’s kind of strange. Like, why would, that’s great. Like the first time I got, I was on over the moon getting that email, but it felt like a head’s up about something. And I was like, okay. So I have that in the back of my mind where he’s like, we think you’re incredibly talented. And I’m like, okay, that’s great. So I still have this trip to LA coming up. And through back channels, I find out this is sort of just a, a meeting for, uh, to be polite. And it’s just so I won’t bother Jay anymore. Cause I had, I had really harassed him. I had really called him for favors and I…
What kind of favors?
Just, just like if I needed a reference for anything. See, here’s the thing. Jay made the mistake of saying to me, Hey, call anytime you need something. In show business, in show business. In show business, call anytime you mean some, you need something means call me two times and that’s it. And if it works the first time that that’s it. It’s like your challenge in basketball. It’s like you got it. It’s over. So, but man, I kept calling him and, and to the point where he just didn’t come to the phone anymore. I blew that contact. I was immature and made a mistake. And whenever I needed a friend. Like, uh, a friend from Emerson, she was writing a book about comedy writing, and she wanted a quote from Jay. If I put her information down, said, hey, can you give Marty a call? He’d call her. If my sister, if she was writing a term paper for BU, and she needed to talk to Jay about communications. Uh, and I put her number, he’d call her. If I said, hey Jay, I really want to come, uh, write for your show, and I put my number. Uh, nothing. I, he wasn’t calling back anymore. So, but they given me this meeting and so it was almost like a George Costanza thing where I knew there was no job and they knew there was no job, but we didn’t know the other one knew. And it was like a standoff. And I was like, well, I’m going to go out there, you know, and I’m somehow I’m going to get this job. So on Saturday, the 25th of July of 2009, I go with my sister and her now-husband to see the Beach Boys, my favorite band of all time in Boston at the Hatch Shell. And there’s, uh, I think 150,000 people at this concert. It’s just way out of hand, way overcrowded, but it’s the Beach Boys. It’s a free concert on a Saturday night. So you’re, you know, bigger than the 4th of July crowd at the esplanade there with the Hatch shell and everything in Boston. So we’re just trying to find a place to sit and this voice says, Hey, you can sit next to us. And it’s this pretty girl. And she’s there of course, with a guy and I’m thinking,oOh, of course, you know, there’s this beautiful girl that I immediately feel drawn to, but she’s there with this guy. And of course, he’s got nice hair and all this stuff. So then we get to talking and we figure out, I figure out that’s her brother. She figures out that the girl I’m with is my sister and then I say, well, hi, I’m John. Nice to meet you. Well, I’m Rebecca. And that one day would go on to, she would go on to become my wife and we would have a daughter together and… But I was in love with her in that moment, like I, I knew I had, like, I was like, this, this is special. I’ve never really felt quite like this before. So by the time I went to L. A. I think it was Monday morning. So this is on a Sunday. And then that Monday morning I went to L. A. I’m going out there just to get them to blink. Like, I just want Jay to come in and go. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but I don’t have a job, which is never going to happen, but I’m like, I want to, you know, I, I want to call his bluff and you know, I’m going to prove that I’m going to go out there. So I go out there and I have the meeting and it was. It was like, yeah, they admitted that we were full of writers, but we’re looking for like a, like associate producer who would work with the writers. And then if you work your way up, then you could work on the show and blah, blah, blah. And I ended up having a great interview. It was with a woman. I don’t remember her name. She was a producer on the show, and I won her over by the end.
It wasn’t Debbie Vickers, though.
It wasn’t Debbie, but it was like, I forget her name. I want to say it was Linda or something like that. And I ended up really impressing her because I think I didn’t care. So I’m driving after the meeting. I say goodbye to my friend I’m staying with. I’m driving the airport and she calls me back and she says, Hey, uh, good news. That went great. And next week, uh, Jack Cohen wants to meet you and Jay wants to come by and say, hi. Can you stick around until next week? And I thought about Wayne’s email and how that week, since I’d been in LA, I’d gotten two or three more jokes on Fallon. And I thought about Rebecca, and I said, no. And she went, I’m sorry? I said, no, I can’t. I’m going back today, you know, give me a call if, you know, I’d be happy to talk to anyone on the phone and a week or so go by and Rebecca and I are going out and it’s going pretty well. And then they called me on a Monday night in August, finally, and said, we’re going with somebody else. And then the next day I woke up. On Tuesday to an email from the Fallon show saying, can you come down this week for an interview?
This is Mike Shoemaker’s assistant that reaches out to you.
Erica Lancaster, who’s now a big agent at CAA. And, but that’s the crazy thing about this, the Leno after years, the Leno window closed on a Monday night and then on Tuesday morning, I get the email. Unrelated, they had no one’s talking to each other. It’s just unrelated coincidence saying, Hey, can you come interview for the Fallon job? And so when I look at some of my immaturity throughout my career, some of my brashness and things like that, that I feel bad for, I feel bad for it. But think about it, when you piss off Jay Leno and you tell Jay Leno, no, and he basically tells you to take a walk. And the next morning, Jimmy Fallon says, come work for me, you know, you’re going to have some unrealistic expectations that like, oh, well, goddamn man, I, things are always going to work out for me.I’m always going to figure it out, you know, so that summer of 2009 was a crazy, crazy time. I started out in such an empty, depressing state where I really didn’t know what I was going to do. And by the end of 2009, I was one of the best years of my life. Um, maybe the best year until my daughter was born.
I want to talk about when you go in to meet with Fallon and you meet with everybody you’ve talked on podcasts, you’ve done interviews where you’ve mentioned you, you can be a little socially awkward. I think we all can be, but you’ve, you’ve talked about this a bunch of times. So you go in. the meeting, and for people that don’t work in television or don’t work in entertainment, when you go to a meeting like this, you’re not supposed to, for the most part, dress up fancy. Normally people that go to these, work at these places, dress down, uh, you know, some of them dress sharp, but how do you, you go into the meeting dressed how?
Okay. So. Uh, I went into the meeting wearing a very nice pressed khakis. Uh, I think I had socks with a really like Navy socks with ducks on them, you know, like those old kind of like fancy gold toe socks, uh, boat shoes or even nicer loafers, um, big baggy dress shirt, probably from when I was in high school, a blue blazer. Which was a little bit ill fitting at that point, and, um, one of my dad’s neckties from, uh, probably the mid to late 1990s. This is in 2009. And so I looked a little bit like a Chris Farley character.
They were amused.
They were very amused. To say the least. Yeah, it was a, it’s a story that I’m told is, there’s a, there’s a lot of Rineman stories, um, as Jimmy has said, but. That’s a story that I’m told is still told to this day that when Rineman wears a tuxedo. It wasn’t a tuxedo. It was a, it was a shirt and tie and nice shoes and all that. But here’s, here’s the thing behind that is that I met with Rick Ludwin one time, uh, via Jay and I made the same mistake. I wore a suit. A dark suit with a tie and everything and he and uh, Nick Bernstein made fun of me and made jokes. And they said to me that in L.A. you don’t have to do this just from now on like just don’t dress like this now And then maybe in new york you do it, but you never do it out here
Just to interject Rick Ludwin vice president President of NBC late night, responsible for Seinfeld friend to Saturday Night Live, um, was really in, in Leno’s corner. He had an amazing career. I knew him. You knew him just a really, really good guy. Please continue. And Nick Bernstein. We love Nick as well. Please continue.
Yeah. Head of late night over at a CBS, uh, a friend. Um, but it was, um, I went in there and thinking, well, it’s New York. You know, I’m thinking Mad Men. I’m thinking, yeah, you wear a tie when you go in for an interview in New York by God. And, uh, I go in there and it was, uh, I looked like a clown, uh, coming in and these all, they’re all dressed. You know, I think the most dressed up person in the room was Shoemaker because he was wearing a blazer. But I mean, there are no, you know, Jimmy’s wearing a polo shirt and jeans and Miles is wearing like a sweater vest and, you know, uh, maybe, maybe a tie because he was a head writer and Wayne’s just wearing a. You know, nice shirt and jeans and Chuck Taylor sneakers and everything. So I go in there and I felt a little bit like, um, what’s the name of that? Uh, the movie that there’s that Halloween picture that goes viral. The woman that’s dressed as the monster at a party for, for Halloween. And she’s, uh, the, the, the Bob, the Bob, a dank or something like that. The, uh, the there’s some, some monster movie from Australia and it goes viral every year. She didn’t get the memo, it wasn’t a costume party. So she’s dressed up as this like monster and everybody else is normal. That’s how I was in the interview. The Babadook, that’s what it was called. And I’m, that’s who I was in that moment where I’m dressed up in a full, you know, hi, how you doing? Nice to see you. I’m going to, I’m going to sell you some, some prescription drugs. Uh, and they’re all like, what are you doing? But It was the icebreaker and it, it set up who I was, I think, to them, which is this guy’s different. He’s weird as Miles would say, but funny in a way. And, uh, at the end of the interview. It went great. Uh, it was like, it felt like my life was being saved. Like, I could not believe how nice they were, and meeting these people just felt, I was like, finally, you know, like, just because with Jay, like I said, I burned things through, like I burned out that contact and he never really said, like, “great jokes.” You know, he thanked me by sending me money and giving me that credit. But I never got really the pat on the back, you know what I mean? And when I went into the Fallon interview, there were a lot of pats on the back that I’d never gotten before. I could feel myself being discovered as a writer. Like I was like, this is, you don’t usually feel it. You don’t usually get to have that moment, but I got to have it. And at the end of the meeting. They just said ell, thanks for coming in. And God, I was like getting blue balled. I was just like, what? Like I was, I thought like, man, I’m thinking my knees were weak and everything. I’m getting that thing that I’m about to get hired. And it was like, well, thanks for coming in. And I get up and I kind of turn around and then I go back and I kind of hesitate and I go, I’m basically like a dog that doesn’t know whether or not to leave the room. And then, uh, Miles was like, you alright there, man. And I just go. Yes, and then I set up a… They still do it every now and then, I guess, in the ma I heard him do it once and then I hear they do it. I hear from other people. They’ll do it sometimes. But the thing with Rineman and the random impression is you always got to do like, um, are we going to have the meeting at 1 er. Like there’s an, er, at the end of the thing. And that was established in that meeting where I said, are you guys interviewing for an open position or, and they go, yeah, that’s, that’s why we had, I go, are you going to call me next week or like, what’s it going to be?
You really said that?
Yeah, I didn’t, yeah, a hundred percent .
That’s great.
And now I’m feeling, now I’m feeling it slipping away. I’m like,
It’s charming though. You charmed them.
But I had just killed it in that interview and I’m feeling it now like, I’m like, now you’re blowing it. Like you just, you just lost a no hitter. Now another guy hit a triple, now they’re now, here comes a three run home run. You know, like it was just like, oh God. And Shoemaker says. He made some joke about my tie. Now, earlier in the meeting, Jimmy had said he knew my hometown. He said he knew North Hampton cause he just did a show there. And I knew he’d been in Northampton, Mass. And I said, I think you mean Northhampton, Mass. And there was this silence and I said, I always like to correct the person I’m trying to work for in the interview. And so, when. Shoemaker’s like, yes, there is a position here. He goes, we didn’t fly you down to New York just to compliment you on your tie. And then at the exact same time, Jimmy and I go, “Which was purchased in North Hampton,” and we look at each other and he came over and gave me a hug. Like he didn’t just, he gave me, shook my hand and pulled me in for a hug. And that night at 7:21, uh, I got the call from Wayne that I got the gig and I was told that it was like you, you had that prop of the crazy outfit, and you had the presence of mind to save yourself with Jimmy. And you had that nice callback joke at the end and we were, they decided, I think they had two interviews after me, but it was funny. It was the same thing where they were like, we’re going with Rineman. Like, they already knew they were going with me and they, I think they had the other people in as a formality, but it was, um, yeah, it was, it was that thing. And when I saw Rick at the show, because he was still there for a year or two, um, he would come by even years later. He’s kind of like an emeritus executive. And I’d always say, man, you know, you, you telling me about that suit thing and how you guys got to kick out of that. That was a little bit in the back of my head when I was getting ready for New York. I was like, you know, if you go in and you’re dressed funny, use this to your advantage. Somehow. So yeah, that’s how it worked out.
I have to ask you about this. So this is on a Friday. It’s the hundredth tape in. Is that correct? It’s September 8th, 2009.
Boy, you do your, Mark, you do your research, man. You know, stuff, you know, stuff better than I do. It was a hundred. It was, I know you do. It was, it was the, it was the hundredth episode. A little bit of some more context too, is that I think that morning, Jimmy had to shoot a scene for 30 Rock and he had to be there at like 6 a. m. or something. And then I, someone, I don’t know if it was Jeselnyk or Bronson or somebody told me that he, I think he’d forgotten about it. So, uh, Jimmy had a Jimmy Fallon Thursday. And then, oh sh*t the car’s at my place at 5 a. m. on Friday. Yeah, I was walking in, uh, there was, as someone there would say, there was a bit of a headwind that day. And uh, it was tough, it was tough getting to, cause at first he was a tough, tough egg to crack, but like I said, just being goofy, I think he just felt bad for me, in a way, but I think it, but I think it worked in my advantage, cause he was like, this poor guy, he’s like, we have to, they even said, we have to hire him, like, what’s gonna happen to this guy, he’s like a puppy on a highway, you know?
I have to ask you this, though, cause I did, I listened to a bunch, and read a bunch of interviews, um, with you, and tell me if I have this right, that you kind of worked them to use a wrestling term. ’cause I know you worked for the WWE, you knew that Rick and Nick got a kick out of you dressing up. So did you purposely do that to go into Fallon knowing that they might, they might get a kick out of it or, or not?
I, I didn’t, I think in the back of my head I was, I sort of had that in the back of my mind, which was, I’m going to look presentable to them and if the, if nothing else, I mean, I thought Shoemaker would be wearing a tie. I thought Gavin might be wearing a tie. Miles was wearing a tie. I don’t know. Where the hell does he get off making fun of me all these years? Goddamn, he was wearing one too. But it was a little bit of a work in that the, when they acted like, you’re not supposed to dress like this. I kind of already knew that in the back of my head. But at the same time, I’m a bad dresser. I’m a really like I’ve gotten better at it now, as you can see, I dress like a grownup, but, um, at least at that point I was a New Hampshire kind of trashy dresser and I didn’t have that sort of in the middle, I didn’t have cool shoes that I could wear that would go with it.I mean, I had t shirts, I had Hawaiian shirts. That’s it. I mean, that’s…
Like Lorne back in the day.
Yeah, but I was, but I was literally, I literally dressed like Jimmy Buffett all the time. And you can’t dress like that necessarily going into that kind of interview. And I knew that I was the deer in headlights anyway. So I was like, dress the part. And what made it especially ridiculous, though, is it was about 96 degrees that day. So they’re all dressed like they had a party and everything after work. So like, you know, Jimmy and Wayne and everyone else now they’re all dressed to have fun. And then comes this guy looking like Hannigan, the salesman from Conan. Uh, it looked like a Brian Stack character. Uh, but I just, that’s how I am as a person where it’s like, I struggle with the, the in between game, so to speak, where, you know, either I’m dressing like garbage and Morgan Murphy and Eric Ledgin and Justin Shanes are making fun of me because I wear an Oscar the Grouch shirt to work every other week, or I put on the jacket and tie, you know, and it was just like, um, I think another thing about it though was it was, it’s the dream. It was the dream show that I always wanted to work for. I always wanted to work for the 12:30 late night NBC show. Uh, it’s New York City. It’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza. It’s a, just a gorgeous sunny day. And I was like, let’s just go balls to the wall. Like, let’s just, let’s just give everything we can to this interview so that if it doesn’t work out, at least I’ll always have it in my mind that I dressed nice and I, I acted polite. And, uh, half of that happened. I acted pretty awkward, but…
You’re 26 years old. Are you the youngest writer at that point?
Mike DiCenzo is younger than me. He had been there since the beginning and he’s a few months younger. His birthday is in the summer, I believe. But other than that. We were the youngest. I mean, everyone else there was at least, I think, three or four years older than me.
And you’re in an office with Anthony Jeselnik. You’re sharing an office with him.
Yeah. Yeah, it was me, uh, Wayne Federman, Jeremy Bronson, and Anthony Jeselnik when I first got there. And then, uh, Wayne was there through, uh, Thanksgiving, and then, uh, they transitioned to when he left, I mean, I think he moved back to L.A., Bronson became the new head monologue writer, but yeah, I was with Anthony for almost a year, I think, in there, so yeah.
What was that like, to be 26, and you don’t really have any other experience working, um, in person at a late night show, hired on staff that you’re just getting so many jokes on right away. I mean, sometimes it takes a while or somebody maybe in the beginning gets a lot and then just plateaus. Um, it is a grind, but you are, I mean, your batting average is extremely high from the get go and you, you maintain that.
Look, I mean, the first year at Fallon, especially like when everyone, the whole group was there, people Jeselnik left and people started to leave Tim McAuliffe left, um, then I think Michael Blieden was gone and then Morgan was gone at some point, um, it changed, but. Dude, it’s funny. I never until just recently. You know, my wife and I, we got divorced, but have since reconciled and are now really good friends and hang out together. And we’ve started, you know, it’s, it’s, we’re co parenting and it’s, it’s positive. And as she says, one step at a time and, you know, you never know. But so we started talking a little bit more and she’s helped me remember a lot of stuff that I’d forgotten over the years. And, that first year at Fallon, I’d forgotten how magical it was. It really was just unbelievably great. Um, you know, from the apartment I got, which I absolutely loved, and just, you know, it was in Astoria, but it was, it was great.It was just renovated. It was, uh, it was on 41st Street between 31st Avenue and Broadway.
Oh nice, I know that section. I lived near there. I’m, I still live in Astoria.
Oh yeah. Yeah. I could feel the vibes, man. And I, no, I loved it. I loved Astoria and neighbors and everything. It was cool. And it was just fit me.mAnd there was a lot of standups that I met living in the neighborhood to work where I loved everybody. And it was just, um, I, the first person that came over to shake my hand on my first day was Jeselnik and I had heard that I’d be sharing an office with him and I, I’m not gonna lie. I lost sleep. I was really scared. Cause I’d had another job where I’d had an office mate who was Like Jeselnik’s character in real life and that had been very difficult on me. So I was like, here we go again. And he gets up from his chair and he comes over and gives me the biggest handshake says, you know, are you John Rineman? Yeah. He goes, welcome to late night, I’m Anthony Jeselnik, you know, like right away. And I’m like, oh man. And then he’s just so nice. He took such care of me. Shoemaker took care of me. Uh, Jeremy Bronson taught me how to be a professional. It was just great, but you’re right in that my first full week, there working for the show, I got 15 jokes on that week,
if you get five on, that’s a good thing a week.
If you get 10, that’s like what you’re expected. Okay. You know, if you get, if you get eight, you know, if you’re new and you get like eight. That’s really good. If you’re new, I got 15 and there was jokes that got cut for time. So I would have had closer to 20, you know, but there was stuff that got cut from rehearsal because we, because, you know, sometimes you bounce your own joke out. You have two jokes about the same story, but they say something different. Okay, which way are we going to go with this? Jimmy? You know, I feel this way about it. Okay, lose it. And but here’s here’s what it did. It’s established another one of those crazy rules where I now I had stay up late writing the night before so you get half your jokes written and you got to get at least 15 jokes per week. You have to. That’s crazy. Like 15 is… that’s three jokes a day at a show where you’re competing with Jeremy Bronson, Morgan Murphy. And Anthony Jeselnik, and then Eric Ledgin would come along soon after. So, I mean, those four people I just mentioned are, I hate to get dark here, but Anthony would appreciate it, so, Hi Anthony. Uh, but they’re In Memoriam people. They’re gonna be on the In Memoriam someday. You know what I mean? Like, they’ll be in the Hall of Fame, that’s, that’s the Hall of Fame for writers. Unfortunately you get it when you’re dead, but. I mean, Ledgin’s got St. Denis Medical coming out. So he’s, he’s going to be big time. And he’s done all the sitcom writing. Jeremy’s done everything under the sun as a sitcom writer. And he’s had his own shows on TV, like The Mayor. Jeselnik’s Jeselnik, Morgan’s Morgan. And she also ran Modern Family and Wayne Federman is the one reading the jokes. And at 26, you say, I have to get 15 jokes on every week against these people. And if I don’t, it’s a failure. And if I fail, I have a choice. I can either be really down on myself, which really creates an aura. People feel that you’re negative or you’re angry or anxious or whatever. Or I can lash out at the person who’s picking the jokes because they cost me my 15 jokes that week. And now it’s Friday night. And Rebecca’s there, and she wants to be boyfriend and girlfriend, but I can’t be happy at all because I only got 13 jokes that week, goddammit. And it’s, if only Jeremy had put a couple more of mine in, you know, I would have done better, you know. So it was a magical time, but it set expectations really, really high. And I think that looking back, I wish that I wish two things. I wish that I either gotten off to a little bit of a slower start. So I kind of ease my way in and appreciate it more. Or, you know, there are a lot of times that A.D. Miles. Could have really smacked me down a little bit and could have really said you either stop, you know, being like this and you either kind of drop your personal expectations. You be more of a team player or else… we’re going to part ways or maybe you’ve actually could have done it. You know, maybe he could have said, go away for two weeks and learn your lesson and come back. But, um, You know, yeah, at 26 to do that well, right out of the gate to have your second cycle option picked up the third week you’re working there. I mean, my third week there, I knew I was going to be there for at least six months.
That doesn’t happen very often. And I also want to mention, is it your recollection that Anthony Jeselnik wasn’t getting anything on?
Bullsh*t. I’m sorry, like, you caught me.
That’s what he says! I’m just, I’m repeating what he said.
Like, I’m, I’m getting my, uh, I’m finishing my Master’s, and, uh, about to start some other TV work. So you got me on a day, Mark, where, uh, I, I, look, I’m full of coffee, and I’m gonna say things I regret. So goddamn, it’s great for your podcast, but I don’t know about me. Um, No, I mean, I’ve always… Anthony did fine. He, I mean, at the end he didn’t get anything on cause he was writing Jeselnik jokes just to kind of, you know, he knew he was leaving and, uh, he knew that everyone loved him and he could get away with it and it was funny. But I remember Anthony getting like four jokes a show, like, you know, for a while. I remember him getting… Anthony was until he got anxious and rambunctious and knew he was going to be famous. Rightfully so. And he did the right thing. He got out. He didn’t stay there like me and so many other people and b*tch and get, you know, jaded and unpleasant to be with. He left when he knew he was starting to get that way. And God bless, so many of us should have done the same thing. But he could, he’s a, he as a person is one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met. He’s one of the most supportive people to comics and to writers. And. He was like almost in a way like I’m gonna get quoted somewhere for this and he’s gonna get pissed, and that’s fine. But he felt like the anchor of the monologue team sometimes. Like he really felt like the backbone because You could count on him to write that good heavy smart joke when we really needed it.
Sounds like Pat McCormick on Carson.
Yeah, it’s funny. It’s like I would say either he or Arthur Meyer over on the sketch side where people that you could, you could count on to do the job and, like, lead by example. And, uh, Anthony was, he was great and I learned a lot from him, but another one of the rules is that his thing was, I remember him saying like, I can’t even, I can’t even sleep until I write 15 f*cking great jokes the night before. And I was like, just 15 jokes. And he’s like, no great jokes. Not just jokes, they have to be f*cking ing great. Whatever I need to write to get to 15 great jokes, I can’t even sleep. Because what if I oversleep the next day? And he went on this thing and everything. So now I had, write half your jokes the night before, get 15 jokes a week, and also make sure 15 of those jokes you write the night before are quote unquote excellent, fantastic, you know?
I read an interview with you that you were, you were going to bed around 2am. Is that around then? Writing, you were up writing until 2am.
I would, I think on the Late Night show, when I first got there, I wasn’t that bad. I would usually go to sleep. I think before our show even came on. Um, so I would be asleep by like 12:15.I might stay up a little bit later. You know, this is when Conan was doing The Tonight Show and I was curious, you know, I was rooting for Conan.
I think we all were. Yeah,
I was rooting for Jay too, but I was rooting for Conan in that. I saw the writing on the wall. I knew that we were going to get pushed a little bit too early if Conan got bounced and I had friends that worked for Conan more so than people who worked for Leno and things were tense between me and the Leno people at that point because of the way I’d been that summer and the way they kind of had me in when they didn’t really have a job at the time. So I would watch Conan and especially if I had a friend that was doing stand up or whatever and then I’d usually go to bed and I would try to get there around 8:00 or 8:30 and usually Jeremy Bronson and I’d be the first two in there. And I liked that time because I really loved Bronson and I really looked up to him and learned and learned a lot about taking that job seriously and embracing it from him. And he wrote similar jokes to me, so we pushed each other. You know, there was a friendly rivalry there. You know, I grew up a basketball fan. We’ve all seen those speeches of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson saying, you know, I knew when I was a kid, I was out there shooting. There was somebody else that was doing an extra half hour. So I’d stay out the extra half hour. And I remember when I met Jeremy, I was like, he’s the guy for me. Like, like, every time I was faxing in jokes, At 2:30, instead of 2:00, cause I spent an extra half hour. He was that guy that put in the extra time and really tried to do the best he could. But we figured out that I wrote better stuff late at night. And so it just started to creep later and later. And so it was usually about 1am until about 2016 or 2017. And then when Miles started to get phased out and Trump was president, That’s when it began to become 2:00, 2:30, you know, whatever. And the flip side was. I wasn’t able to sleep in, so I was, you know, but in the early years of Late Night, when it was the boring, wonderful days of Obama where all you cared about was just what goofy thing Biden did that day and how big Kim Kardashian’s butt was, you could kind of write your jokes the night before. And so I’d, I’d write ’em and I’d sleep in, I’d roll into work around, uh, 10 or whatever, and it, it was great. And, you know, but it’s risky. You can’t bring your work home like that, though. Like, that’s what I say to people now where I’m like, get up early. You know, if you’re especially if you’re, if you have a wife or a girlfriend that’s living with you, don’t bring that sh*t home. You know, like it’s, you know, because it gets you in trouble. Like when you write jokes about Trump and you don’t really think much of it. And. Then the next thing you know, he’s running for president allegedly because of it. So, you know,
I want to talk about your book. You wrote a book in June. The Garden Is Always Greener, which has won praise from Gary Gulman, Wayne Federman, who we talked about. I know that you’re a big Celtics fan and you got to work with Larry Bird at Fallon, which I’m sure was a huge thrill of yours.
Yeah. Garden’s Always Greener. Got a copy right here. Yeah. The premise of this book was much of it was written during the writer’s strike. Uh, when people, you know, and I didn’t really know what I was doing with my life anyway, strike or no strike, but it goes back to a pandemic project where when we were all locked down, I had NBA 2K and I had a PlayStation 5. I got like the last one from the store near me because I just had a hunch we were going to be inside for a while. I am a big Celtics fan. Uh, I got to produce that bit with Larry Bird when he was on the show that time. And I just love them. And I noticed on the game, you could, there were so many people modding it at the time, meaning modifying it and creating different scenarios and stuff. You could go back in time and play forward from like a different era, like a different season. So you can go get the roster from like 1987 and the draft classes and everything from there. And so I said, I wonder what would happen. If Len Bias had lived and played for the Celtics. Now Len Bias was this great player that the Celtics drafted second overall in 1986. He’s gonna be Michael Jordan’s rival. Uh, they’re gonna just keep on winning forever because they had Larry Bird and Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish at the time. Len Bias, uh, two days after he’s drafted overdoses from cocaine and it’s a very tragic thing and it’s a fluke thing and they break it down and they realize he had a laced, uh, shipment or whatever you want to call it and, uh, died very tragically doing something that a lot of people were doing at that time. Because of that, Millennials like me never really had that guy as a Celtics, you know, we had Paul Pierce, we were older by then, you know, he was, he was more like, uh, almost a Gen Z kind of dude. So the book is a comedic look of a character based on Len Bias had come along and played for the Celtics starting in 1986 and how it would have changed, allegedly, pop culture. So I ran the simulation, I played a couple of games, uh, I recorded everything in a Google doc that happened and there was a lot of funny stuff. There was a lot of like, you know, oh man, imagine if Dennis Rodman had played for so-and-so a team or imagine if Shaq did get drafted by whatever. And it was really funny. And then when it was all done, I wrote a story around it. That’s like a fake sports almanac. So it’s like, you’re reading a fake sports history from the NBA from like 86 on, but other stuff happens to0, like Tupac gets saved. OJ gets stopped before he can do anything. You know, Seinfeld has a different act or different arc, and it’s sort of just a redo of the 90s, sort of, tongue in cheek. It has a lot of late night to it. Like, it’s got monologue jokes to open parts of each chapter. There’s a couple mock Top 10 lists in there as if someone had gone on Letterman and done that. Uh, there’s a Cheers scene, a Perfect Strangers scene, home improvement scene. Um, it’s, it’s a dude read and it’s, it’s, uh, it’s just a fun thing. And it’s written in memory of my dad who passed away from Alzheimer’s, um, because it’s been revealed how reading can really help you and keep your brain sharp, especially if it’s fiction and there’s not enough men reading fiction right now. And this has a ton of callbacks in it, a ton of running gags, a lot of jokes, um, and funny NBA, like cartoon versions of Bill Walton and Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman and Shaq and, you know, all that stuff and, uh, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s basketball fan fiction, basically, but people who’ve read it so far, have liked it. I know it’s been, I guess it’s gone around the writer’s room at a Family Guy. I heard, which is really, really cool. And I’ve heard from a lot of those guys that I’m friends with now. I didn’t know them until I did this book saying how much they like it. And, you know, they’re showing their Celtics friends and stuff. So, yeah, um, for the holidays, it’s out there. It’s gardensgreenerbook.com. Uh, it’s on sale, I believe at Amazon right now too, with a discount. And, uh, I’m donating from the proceeds I get to the Alzheimer’s association, uh, in memory of my dad.So it’s, it’s a really fun book.
That’s fantastic. Uh, my, my friend, Dan Pasternack, who’s a comedy, big comedy guy. He, he kind of makes fun of me because I always say this on the podcast, but it’s true. I have several pages of notes left to ask you. Would you come back on the podcast to do another episode?
Totally! Yeah.
I just want to mention there, is it, it’s fair to say that there was, there was a lot of drama when you left Fallon. I mean, there was, I mean, you’ve been very open. I, you know, I hear stories from people. I’ve worked in TV. I know a lot, but you’ve been publicly open on a bunch of these. You did stand up actually on both Late Night and the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. There, there’s so much more to talk about. I want to talk about the Correspondent’s Dinner as well. Yeah, that would be great. I would really like that. And we, um, yeah, we need to do that.
Yeah, I’d love to Mark. Yeah, that’d be fantastic. Thank you so much for having me. This was great.
