Returning to Scotland and Final Reflections

Bullseye with Jesse Thorne is a production of maximumfund. org and is distributed by NPR. Hey's bullsye I'm Jesse Forn Craig Ferguson is Scottish. He was born and raised in Scotland. That's probably not a big surprise to hear if you have ever heard him talk Like for example, on the Late Late showow on CBS, which he hosted for about a decade. I remembered that I had fifty dollars on my desk. I keep money on my desk in case I have a bad guest, like that would ever happen Yeah I keep usually I have fifty dollars in singles on the desk. The CBS is money. It's not my money. I don't have that kind of money. But CBS and there's fifty dollars fif in singles. And if there's a bad guest and they're like, you know, I'm say like what was it like on the movie?ave you met George Clooney? and they're like, I don't know, I don't know, Then I give him a dollar Th then you know, show business people who do anything for money, they're like Carneies but with less class. So I know we had a lot of carnies in tonight Craig Ferguson is also American. He's lived here for over forty years. He became a naturalized U. S citizen in two thousand eight Ferguson, and I do not think that I am overstating this loves being an American He loves to talk about America, American history, about what it means to be an American. So much so that he has a new TV show about exactly that It's called Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose It's a five episode cross country series where Ferguson interviews dozens and dozens of people about the stuff that makes this nation great, not so great and everything in between. Here's a little bit of the show In this scene, Craig comes face to face with Thomas Jefferson's very own copy of the Declaration of Independence. This was literally printed on july fourth seventeen seventy six. That's unbelievable to me. like to touch it? Can I touch it No, don't touch it so close to the Declaration of Independence And I can't see a thing. I really wish it had brought my readers doctor Anita Allen, legal scholar and member of the American Philosophical Society, is walking me through the thought process, the American philosophy, if you will, that led to the genius of the First Amendment. No touching the document Craig Ferguson welcome to Bs. I so happy to you on the show. Thank you for coming Thank you very much for having me on the show. It's delightful to be here. I think you are a really famous America enthusiast. What are you enthusiastic about about the United States? Yeah, I'm a big fan, actually. As countries go, I think we're pretty good. I became an American in what officially in two thousand eight, but I think Long, long before that. What am I fond of America? What do I like about America? This is too much to say There's too much to say. I had to make five hours of documentaries for CNN in order to get some of it in And I feel like I didn't reach all of it either. In fact, I know I didn't It's just a very big place. There's lots going on. I don't know if you've noticed But it's huge. When you came to the United States, was it because you thought it was a land of opportunity or because you were not getting what you wanted out of Scotland or the United Kingd I think yes to all of that and more. I mean, what happened to me is a kind of formative thing. For me, I When I was thirteen years old and it was nineteen seventy five and And that year, A guy called Freddy Laker, who was an early pioneer of budget aviation started running flights from Scotland, DC ten airplanes from Scotland to JFK for like twenty five bucks or fifty bucks or I don't know what. I mean, he went bust pretty fast. but when those flights were on my dad and I came over When I was thirteen to visit my dad's little brother, my uncle James and my aunt Susan, who lived in Smithtown, Long Island, they had immigrated here in the nineteen fifties. So and they're still around. They live in upstate New York. they're still going and still married. thingsings have worked out great for them. I came to visit them when I was thirteen, so I came from directly before I ever went to England Before I ever went to other parts of Scotland I came from Glasgow to New York City When I was thirteen years old and it never left me the vibrancy. was it was almost like stepping into a cartoon for me I mean, I felt like I had walked out of black and white into a technicolor picture. It was unbelievable. I loved it. And I still do. Every now and again when I walk down the street in New York and I'm in New York now, Hell like I'm just shocked by the vibrancy of it. There's a story every ten feet in this city. I went to New York when I was about that age. Maybe I was ten And the thing that I remember going to New York from my, you know, I'm from the city. I'm from San Francisco. It's not like I lived on a pig farm Right The thing that I remember from visiting New York City as a kid was that I was so sensorially overwhelmed including by the smell of air Oh yeah, we yeah weed weed has been added to it. It used to be just pe pee and pizza and rat No know it's pee, pizza rat and weed now So it's got an extra pecons. But I remember I was so physically overwhelmed that I threw up And that's a true story. Well, I think the breezes from the beautiful Paalo Alto childhood The state that you grew up on it probably had kept your lungs clean. First of first of all, Craig, I did not grow up in a palo Alto lifestyle. Let's G get this straight. I'm from the inner city Okay. Jesse's from the mission district, okay? Okay. fifteenth thingar If you're from the mission district then I mean that's pretty, that's very New York vibe, the mission district, isn't it It was a real place. However Yeah New York City is next level. What was it like for you coming from Glasgow, which is a very real city in and of itself, but a very sort of is industrial It's not a skyscrapers big city in the same way that New York. No it's skyscrapers. No Glass the city in America I think is most like Glasgow and Scotland I think there's a cross between Cleveland, Ohio and Portland, Oregon. And it's very simil. if you mashed those two cities together you probably and made and threw in a lot of Irish and Italian. So mayaby Boston but it Glass school. where I grew up and the time I grew up, I mean, Glasgow has changed a lot. So I'm not describing a city which is there anymore. But when I was When I was a kid, it it was pretty rough and it felt very bleak. And and New York just felt like I felt like Everywhere was a movie Everything felt like peopleople talked in American accents. I don't ever seen that in the movies. And I mean, American cars and dollar bills and I remember one gentleman and there' still this archetype of this gentleman is still very prevalent New York City. He was a, you know, he's a heavy set gentleman I was boald And he had a half chewed cigar coming over his mouth and talking about, Hey these guys over here. And I was like Wow, there's really people who are really like that. This is awesome. I really love it And I had only ever seen it on TV in the movies, it felt like a fictional wonderland America to me, New York is my gateway drug. You know, it was my gateway drug into America. and I find why I find interesting in in Britain, And certainly this this impulse is in America is in the United States as well that they somehow think New York is not America as the rest of America. But I feel the opposite. I think it's like It's steroid America. I think it's like full on America. I mean, New Yorkers will tell you it's kind of a nation state, but you know, Texans say that about Texas and you know, people in the South and people have their own little things, but it's very America and was it was my way and I still love it. I still love this place You dropped out of school pretty early. You stopped going to school in your mid teens Did you think that you were going to be an entertainer Yeah. I wanted to be a a Punk Rck star. I want to be a rock star. and punk rock, when I was a teenager, punk rock was in its first real flush of being the thing and I I wanted to be was my nickname when I was a kid was Tubby So I want it to be thin and being a band And I go into a bar, I never go particularlyly thin but I want to be and band and be part of the roock scene. I wanted to be cool Um, It's hard to explain it now, but punk everybody was in a band during punk rock. everybody It wasn't like it wasn't a genre. It was the teenagers. It was what we were and U we didn't have Instagram or we didn't have, you know, there was no social media or that kind of thing. So it was It was what set us apart from the other generations, including the you know slightly older flower power boomer people and all that. we You know, we didn't want to be part of that either. And so that ethos, that rebellion that that madness was very attractive to me. I was a very troubled kid. I was I was a I was very frightened all the time And I think that probably wasn't helpful to a young person. You are a drummer, which means that You know, if you're a decent drummer, you can be in a lot of bands U because everybody needs everybody needs a drum has their own drum set. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't that good, but I did have my own drum kit. You're exactly right. was like so you get to be in a lot of different bands. I was okay. It was possible I was in some bands that You know, if if you can tell whose dad has the van Because you know, very few rock bands punk bands need a clarinet player But if you've got a clarinet player, it's probably His dad has a van or a large car. And that was indeed true We still have a ton to get into with Craig Ferguson Before he hosted the Late Late showow, he was a guest on it several times. Did it ever occur to him that he'd get the host job? It did not. We'll talk about it after the break. It's bullseye from maximum fund. org and NPR It's Bll'seye. I'm Jesse Thorne. I'm talking with comedian and TV host Craig Ferguson His latest project, Craig Ferguson, American onn Purpose, is available to watch now on CNN. At some point, you were in a band with the actor Peter Capaldi. from was loocal hero and the thick of it and doctor Who? Yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah. He's one of my faves. How did you end up in a band with Peter Capaldi. Yeah. Peter iss a lovely man. he in many ways, Peter was instrumental in kind of steering me into what I do now because When we were kids, Peter's a bit older than me. He's about five or six years older than me. so he was really cool. and he was the singer in the band and I idolized Peter. I loved him so much I still do love him. was he was so elegant and clever and He had this collection of amongst other things, he had a collection of stand up comedy albums from American stand upp comedians Richard Prior, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, he had You know, he had these albums and we would list him I had never heard anything like this before And I thought these guys sounded really cool as well. Th guys sounded it was a whole thing I really knew nothing about. I mean, I knew Robin from Moran Mendy, but I didn't know he was like a stand up orthon. It was it was f and also Bob Newhar You know, when he there was all these uh I was of Bob Newhart pretending to phone people in history, which were I just remember them being hilarious They are. I mean they hold up too. Yeah. What a genius He was great. You know that Bob Newhart was the last guy on my old Light night show? Really? Yeah We had this we ended the show with a dream sequence. I don't know. Did you learn anything, man? I didn't I don't think I really learned much other than, you know, always let your conscience, you know. Yeah, something Yeah, something like that. Ill tell you what we should have learned. What's that? Who is inside seecretariat? The fake horse? Who's inside there? Yeah, right. Hey, it's lastash. lift up your head. Let's see who you really are. You are What doing here? Hey guy, it's your dream I went to his house once. That was like a highlight of my life. We booked him on the show for something. I don't remember what he was promoting And they were like, well, you know, Bob would rather not go somewhere And we were like, Yeah, we' go to Bob Newhart. This is not a problem. It's like, load up the car. We'll see you in half an hour He had such a beautiful friendship with Don Rickles and that He and Dwn with their wives would go on vacation together and My wife and I had dinner with them a few times in Los Angeles. This is a high point. I mean, it's a real feeling of being part of show business when you get to sit at the table with these Like the Migun eff factor, it's lovely Did you think that you were going to become a famous professional musician or did you think that you were going to be punk rock dirt bag, and that was the cool thing to be. I don't like I saw forward a lot. I mean, I developed Alcoholism prettyre earirly. So my My kind of career plan wasn't thought out like that. You know, it's funny now when I talk to young comics or I listen to young comics and I or young artists any of any stpe and they talk about their plans for what they want to do. I never had any of that And I think it's very wise to have that, but I just didn't have it. and I I kind of stumbled from one thing to the next. I really did. in it almost looks weird now because it If I look back on a lot of it looks like, well clearly You know, you had a plan, but I didn't I really didn't have a plan of how it was going to turn out I liked being in the company of musicians And I still do because I love music. I like to make it and I like to be around it and I like the way I like the way musicians think for the most part, I love music. it's that was I think Basquayette said about music? Art is how we decorate space, but music is how we decorate time which I think is such a lovely approach to it. So, you know I just wanted to be in that world. I found it acceptable to me and it was very forgiving of who I was You know, I would kind of have like a Kind of a car crash drunk Yeah, I was try to say by who you were, do you mean drunk Yeah, I do. I mean, I was I was, you know drunk but interesting. mayaybe drunk but interesting, let's say. I don't know how interesting. I think I think maybe just noisy. I you know, I was noisy and I was enthusiastic and I was I like to have a, you know, have a good time. I like to hang in bars and You know, and do all the stuff that we did But when the others would go home after an evening or a day or a week. I couldn't I just kept going. I can stop. So it It took hold of me. It whatever it was, it took me. you know, I wasn't I wasn't following any plan or trajectory that I had in mind Did you at some point think that you wanted the kind of show business career that you Imagined when you visited New York City, did you ever think I'm going to have a you know U a wides screen show business career I think I thought about that in different forms at different times in different moods. Like you know if you see a James Bond movie, you want to be James Bond. you see a Robin Willams movie, you want to be Robin Williams to see Star Wars. you want to be in that movie. you know or I had this kind of like, scatterbrain kind of desire or, you know, you see a stand upp who's really good in a club and you think I'd really like to be able to do that. I remember A stand up comedian I ran into a couple of times. He was really good stand up. He tragically died by his own hand some time ago, but Like I called Richard Jenny who was and Richard was a very kind of like a cerbic, you know, kind of like You know, he was just very it's kind of scary actually. and I thought I'd quite like to be like him, but I couldn't be like Richard. I liked Richard and I had him on the late Night showow a couple of times, but I couldn't be like him. Cool, too scary, but All of that was aspirational It was all aspir America felt aspirational That was kind of it felt like there were possibilities here. I remember as well Where I grew up, the class system in Britain is probably still around, but I think it's a little more muted than it was when I was a kid, but it was going full pelt when I was young you know, that I came from a background where There was a I didn't have a path laid out for me, but the world did, you know, and I like that. When you got to the United States as an immigrant, how did it compare to the United States that you had imagined based on having visited one time when you were thirteen years old and you know I having seen taxi driver or whatever Pairars very favorably and still does Like I came when I was thirteen, then I went back. and then I came back over when I was about twenty and I stayed for about six months and then I went back And I came in and I did a cuub I got a couple of. so I wasn't It wasn't like I came at thirteen, then I came back when I was thirty two when I actually moved here I've been coming back forward. I actually I got a job In nineteen eighty seven and a pilot shooting in New York when I was twenty five. for a show called High which was about high school and I played a teacher in the in the high school. There was a bunch of us in that. Gwyneth Powrl was one of the students and Zach Braff was one of the students and The. And I played the teacher, but the show was called high and I unfortunately was completely high the whole time. But it wasn't picked up. So I'd been in and out U, and I wasn't unaware of I wanted to work here, but and I wanted to live here. But it wasn't until I got sober in the UK that I could come back and actually make it work. Everything comes around to the sobriety thing. Until I got sober, nothing worked, America or not, notothing worked Did you always have immmigration status when you were in the United States? Did you always have a visa? and Well, they used to give me this O one there was something called an O one visa. You would come in and it was to do a job and then you had to leave. When I was here when I was twenty, I got a six month visa And then I left before it ran out because I was scared that I was going to get caught. So I was always kind of frightened to to let it stay beyond a visa or anything like that being a little tricky People dead That was one of the things I was thinking about as I was watching your new show. One of which has one of the episodes of which is like called I think, New Americans becoming American. Yeah, I know the w. Thank you. And it's about immigration stories You have a conversation with a Somali American writer whose name is Abdin Norifin the Yeah and he got he got a visa through the Visa lottery which is, you know, tens of thousands of visas that are given out by country in the sort of opposite proportion to how badly the residents of that country need to be in a better place All right you know there's and so places like Somalia, where he came from often have very, very few visas through this lottery program and many applicants I don't know anything about that lottery program other than Ay's experience. I know that that's how he came in. I don't know how they'. Yeah It's really it's really into I mean, like I'm not an expert in the field, but I did I worked in an immigration law firm, not as an attorney for uh a little bit And we had lots of clients who had been on the waitlist, you know, had been applying to that lottery every year, had been in that lottery every year for ten, twenty, twenty five years Yeah Everyone in their family, you know, just everyone applying every year. Yeah. Were you thinking when you were talking to new Americans, people who were becoming citizens about How difficult it is to be in the United States U quotequote,egally. I mean, the immigration stories that we focused on were people who had been through the immigration process. So we weren't really looking at anyone who had We weren't looking at the story of how it's done. It was more about the emotional reaction of when it's done So what my focus was on that show was more about what you and I were talking about. The idea of America doesn't match up to the America that you come to. So the actual process of it was more about the emotionality of someone who's gone through the process rather than someone who's trying to go through the process The fact that I did that was because That's kind of what I wanted to look at. That felt more personal. I don't My experience was I think it was fair fairly kind of run of the mill. I mean, I I got a job, the people that hired me helped me get a visa. I worked through the visa. I eventually got a green card, the green card eventually turned into permanent residency just turned into citizenship. So it was a long process, though. I didn't become a citizen in two thousand eight. I've lived here since nineteen ninety four So, I mean, It wasn't something I just it wasn't the focus of what we were doing. It was more about the You know, how it felt really to the individuals as opposed to the And so when Abdy talked about his I mean, Abdy's story is remarkable. It's crazy. how 's what I thought was interesting And Salmon Rushy brought this up and I thought it was he was a very good example of it. that Salmon hadad an idea of America U before he ever came here. So did Adi, so did I So that everybody has this idea about America, including people who have never been here. I mean, you can get plenty of documentaries or talking heads on TV around the world that will tell you about America that have never been here. In fact the kind of smaller version of that is Los Angeles. People will tell you Los Angeles Lake having been there for a weekend. And they go that it's not what it's likeake You, I love when people say things like the Hollywood cocktail circuit. I'm like, li I lived in LA for twenty years. There's no Hollywood cocktail circuit. People don't like each other. It's a factory town. What are you talking about Yeah, I live in Lincoln Heights. I have never been surfing. I don't I've lived in Los Angeles twenty years. I've been to the beach eight times Yeah, yeah. it it's kind of like a You know, it's like people say,, you live in New York, I bet you hang out with that Empire State building crowd. Well no, no, I don't. I didn't know there was one. New York is all observation decks from what I hear. They're all up in that deck where those things you put a quarter in looking at you with their PPIs. Yeah everybody everyverybody's up there, got they got the quarter binoculars and they're going Hey, I'm looking here L had to get a half chuned cigar. Hey, what's going on are we When you talked to Abdiid Noristin, had the president already sort of been publicly obsessed with Somali Americans No, we were it was before all of that. I think. it was, you know, we weren't I mean, and I purposely stay away from all of that Michigo. So what I wanted to do with the show was was not focus on that That was that was it was very important to me to make a show which was that was optimistic, I guess in its feel. that was that was u I kind of upbeat for for John Bon Jovy song as opposed to, you know, it's kind of like a D Like something that was U It wasn't jinguistic, but it was accessible, you know, and we kind of stayed in that. And also to make it personal, I wasn't talking about immigration policy, I was talking about AbD. You know, I was talking about him. I wasn't talking about pololicy Why did you want to make a show like that? It felt like a creatively and interesting thing to do. There was the two hundred fifteth anniversary of country, so it was appropriate I feel like you know, picking holes in America, which is totally fine. I mean, it's but it's a It's a kind of oversubscribbe market, if you like. I wanted to make something which you could se. this is still great This is still great here. You don't have to lie about you know, how great it is great. It's great here and and it's There's so many good things and interesting things and unusual things about the United States. and because Because I wanted to do a show which was Pal in a way. My personal kind of experience with it A lot of American comedians who are your age? Yeah. In fact, almost all American comedians who are your age Grew up obsessed with the Tonight Show, which was late night comedy in the United States until the you know nineteen ninety Yeah Because it was the center of the stand upp comedy universe In addition to being one of the centers of the comedy universe, more generally, right? Like the, you know, in the seventies and eighties, the tonight show was how careers were made. Sure in stand upp comedy. Yeah. Drew Cy, that's how he came through And so every Drew Carey and, you know every Jimmy Pardo and every all these great comics They all aspired to do Johnny Carson's job. almost without exception. L to an astonishing extent. And You got a talk show and you didn't aspire to that. No No, I didn't What did you think of late night TV before you got into late night TV Late Night talkalkhows specifically I didn't really I didn't really pay any attention to it to be honest. It was not that I wasn't a fan. I was happy I would turn on Dave if I was in the house and you know, I'd watch Dave or If Lanna was on, I'd see the monologues or whoever, you know, I flip between this but that's who I was aware of. Dav and Jay. that was that's all I knew about really And as I started in is a As an actor here, I would go on shows in that and You know, I went on Conan's show and that was a lovely environment and they were I liked him very much and I became aware of him after that. He He was he's very clever and very good and it was really good to be a guest on a show. I really liked it. and then I would do other shows and really the reason why I think I ended up doing late night is because I did My predecessor on the lit show, the late late show was Craig Kilbourne and I had been on that, you know a few times as a guest And um And that's why I ended up in the frame. u to host it because I had been a guest on the show and fit with withith really what it was was Peter Lasallle And Peter Lasally was my producer and his the greatest mind who ever made these things and was the Im Peter worked with Johnny Carson for thirty five years. and Peter worked with Dave for the first five years on CBS get Dave set up and then he wanted to go back to LA and Peter had worked with Johon Stewart and he'd worked with so many different people. he was such a a massive mind. he really understood for some reason the world of late night talk shows. And it was Peter's idea that I be a late night talk show host, not mine. I was a guest on the show and And then when Craig Kilbourne left the show, they had this kind of like rolling guest spot to try people out and I was offered two nights to be the guest host of the show and I took it because it's a job and it's fun. and I never really I wasn't thinking then about being a late night host. That evening I met Peter for the first time and he was the one that put me in the frame to be a guest host And he said to me, and I will never forget because I said, thanks for having me do this. This should be a larar This is exactly what I said to her And he said He's very gentlem man. he said, This is not aar He said If I have any disiscernable skills. It's spotting people like you And he said, If I'm right about you and I don't know if I am But if I'm right about you, you're lightenning in a bottle And you're going to spend the next twenty years of your life doing stuff like this I was thinking about Larry Sanders show because I happen to read, I read the other day Jud Appatau's book about Gary Chandling. And or Gary Shandling's book about Gary Shandling that Jud Apppertell put together. Right. And I think it was in that book that Conan O'Brien described that show as like a perfect distillation of making a late night talk show except for It didn't depict the relentlessness of a daily show. Yeah. That's a fair comment. Yeah. That's a fair like the terror and the egos and all of these things were reasonably representative But the fact that you had to put out a show every single day and then put out a show the next day as well was the thing that you couldn't capture on a, you know, on a semi dramatic sitcom. It is a grind. And like One of the defining characteristics of your show when you were a late night TV host was that You abandoned The thing that is the most convenient tool of the person who has to put a show on television every day, which is the news cycle, especially the political news cycle. Yeah. Like if you're going to commit yourself to doing personal monologues you very quickly run into the problem that like You have to do a monologue every day and You only have the thirty minutes between when you woke up and finished eating your oatmeal and headed into the office to develop something to talk about. Yeah. Yeah it' a challenge some days. I wn't lie, but was it didad create some interesting things That feeling. I mean, look, eventually I burned out with it. and I think every well, I don't know if everybody does, but I did. But for a while there was things like the Latvian Independence Day monologue. I mean, would never have happened if I had you know, the the magic week episodes where we tried to get, you know C list magicians. I mean, it was stuff that proud of and the improvisation that happened particularly with people like well, with Josh and I when we were doing the robot the it's all just like we would People would send in tweets and say, Hey, Craig, have you ever been to you know Spain? and then we would just go, Spain. And so it was improvisation. There's nothing wrong with improvisation, except if you're an executive and you want to know what everyone's going to say But we had a great executive the executive Alex Jaffe was the executive for CBS in our show and she was really cool and hip And she kind of, she got it. She understood it And, uh and that really help We're going to take a break. When we come back, we will finish with Craig Ferguson. Keep it locked. It's buullse eye from maximumfund. org and NPR. Hey, Max fun listeners. It's me, Jackie Kishation. I have a podcast with Laurie Kil Martin. sayay Hi Laurie. Hi, Jacqueline. Hi Max fun listeners veryy formal. We have a podcast and it's about standup comedy and how much we love it. And how much we dislike some of it. So listen to that podcast. It's called the Jackie Laurie Show. We drop new episodes every Wednesday that gives us plenty of time to decompress from our comedy weekends and discuss things with sane level heads. No, it doesn't. But if you are a woman our age or a man our age Or you know what? any person of any age, I think you'll enjoy your. Jackie and Laurie show on maximumfun. orgot bye We have so much more to get into. stay with us It's buullseye from maximumfund. org and NPR. Welcome back to Bullsseye. I'm Jesse Forne I'm talking with Craig Ferguson. He is of course the former host of the Late Late Show and the current host of the game show Scrabble In observance of the United States two hundred fiftieth birthday Ferguson is hosting a special documentary called Craig Ferguson American onn Purpose. It's five episodes. You can watch them on CNN and the CNN app now When you were done, doing a daily TV talk show? What was it like to not have an office to go into with incredibly high stakes and a show you had to put on at four hundred thirty that afternoon every single day of your life Gorious I still roll around in it. It's it's It's Where I live, there used to be some power lines across the front yard And I fought with the power company for a long time and eventually we got them buried And now the power lines are not there. And whenever I look out I always see the not power lines. And not doing late night was a bit like that. It like Oh That's that's good. It's good What's interesting about when you describe the the reverence to which other people have for late night I think it sometimes makes people angry that I don't have that but I couldn't have done the show that I did. If I did have that So I don't know what you want what do you want from me That is what it is When you became a citizen yourself, Yeah Why did you decide to do that? I'd been thinking about it for a long time. I mean It didn't happen overnight. I didn't feel really like a decision. It felt more like a natural process. I had been My children my first son had been born I had been living in America since nineteen ninety four. At certain point actually, when I had my O one visa In Los Angeles, I had to take I had to drive down at San Diego Walk over to the Mexican side get my visa stamped at the consulate in Tiuana and then come back and drive up to stay legal to work on the Drew Cery showh. and everyone who worked in the American consulate in Tijuana lived in San Diego. they would watch me on television. they coming like it was such a weird little anomaly, but I'd been doing that for a while And then It was during. I was towards the end of the Bush administration And there was a lot of It wasn't dissimilar to echoes of now actually. There were a lot of kind of H dudgeon and a lot of ao kind of political hyperbolic rhetoric And I suspect that you have read or know a lot about American hory so I won't patronize you with it, but it's But it's always been like this. It's always been hyperbolic. It's always been a huge argument. It's always it's always this is that's the idea of a country that's born from, you know, you get to say, the idea is that everyone gets a say, that everyone gets a say. So So we did this thing on the late Night show two thousand seven where I became an honorary citizen. of all the different states And then it just it kind of snowballed into well, I should really actually take care of this properly and become an actual citizen. So it came U it came really from a bet, I think, only. I mean, it would have happened eventually. I would' have done it. I just hadn't got around to it I suppose I mean, there's an element of like pro forma to it. You'd lived in the United States a long time. There's an element of Convenience to it, you know, it's a hassle to be going back and getting new visas and so on and so forth There's an element of like, I don't know, I know when my stepmother became a citizen, Irishborn.. She became a citizen because she told me. I'm gonna hit a cop and get deported Yeah, she's Irish. So but like so there's all these there's all these sort of like, quotadian reasons, but When it actually happened, Did it sink into you that you had made a pretty profound choice in your life about who you were Yeah, it actually is quite interesting. And what I equated to if you live with someone And then you decide to get married to them and you think that it's not going to change your relationship and then you get married and you figure it does change your relationship. But it's better or if you're lucky,'s better And for me, that's what happened with I became much more patriotic, I think after I became a citizen. I became a citizen in two thousand eight, Pomona Fairgrounds. It was two thousand two thousand dollars And I'm pretty sure Everyone else was a Mexican American that day. and you know, and I was one Scottish American and it was great And it was emotional and everybody was It was just it was such a great feeling and and We were making a decision and we were part of something. And I felt the same thing when we went a film in Ellis Island for the for the show for the CNN show And I got a very strong sense of it then. that sense of People come in here It It's an extraordinary thing, America. Extraordinary. We mustn't forget how strange and weird. An idea in human history America is for whatever, you know, whatever way you think it's going. I mean, whatever you like or don't like about it, it's such an an extraordinary thing to have happen in human life It's crazy And I'm fascinated by it Scottish identity is pretty intense. it's forged by geographical proximity to a like Brutal colonialist power And a sort of like cultural and political interdependency with that power. It's like people who are Scottish are really Scottish. It's important. Juia Scot be Scottish. Well, I think that's forgive me, I think that's quite a simplistic approach on it. If you talk to a Pakistani immigrant third generation in Glasgow or someone from Italy or someone from China or all of the different the Polish community or the Irish community, which is huge in Glasgow The Glasgow is a port city and the Scottish identity is u, you know I was hammered with that a little bit when I was young, but I don't I don't believe it to be all shortbad tins and plaid and you know, that's not the way it is and and it's kind of like I extrapolated that into my idea of Americanness. It's not one thing. It's it's everybody. It's everybody's got a Everybody's got a take on it. So I think that you know I think the idea of a Scottish idea, I'm from a very definite group of people. until you scratch the surface a little bit. my grandmother was from Donegal, you know, I mean, I mean people move around. It's like so the north of the Republic of Ireland. Right. So it it's I just don't think it's that simple. I think that when you make it that simple, you rob yourself of the richness of how interesting it can be. And and I I love Scotland. It's a great place. I'm American though, and I feel like I've probably been an American since I was about thirteen. Maybe even before that, maybe when I was seven and I watched the mooon landing. And was like whatever it was that And America is that. That's what I think is interesting. One of the things very interesting about America is that you Kind of like, oh, I belong there. that's where I should go U And I get it and and I still believe that When you're on stage in Scotland, which I know you've done stand up there a little bit. Yeah recently. I hadn't done it for a long time. Yeah, yeah. When you're on stage in Scotland, is it like That's our man that made good in American show business or is it like that's our man that sold out and become American. I think I think yes to all of the above. you know, I mean, I think it depends on who you ask How does it feel for you on stage or walking down the street? I played Glasgow for the first time in about thirty five years, about a month ago And we'll be honest, I was a little nervous about it because I thought, I don't wonder how this is going to go I was great becausecause I forgot that Scottish people just like everywhere else. Don't have a hive mind Some people like you and some people don't. And I remember saying to my agent And I told I actually said this on stage because I was nervous about, you know, so I said this to the Scottish audience I said, you know, my my agent Los Angeles was saying You know, I was saying I was nervous about going And he said, well, you know People that hate you, they're not gonna pay money to come and see you. And I was like, Oh, you've never met any school And And they laughed at that and I laughed, but that's kind of how I felt about it. But the truth is I think some people think you know, some people like maybe some people don't. sameame like in America, sameame like everywhere else. Some people like it, some people don't I'm not in charge of that. I just I'm in charge of who I am. That's all Did you feel American when you were in Scotland? a little bit. But I don't know what that feels like really. I mean, I felt like me, you know, I ft like me. You know, I was Back It's not like I haven't been It's like finding Forrester with Sean Cray. I have to go back. I haven't been there in forteen years, you know? I mean, it's like I go back to family weddings or go and visit my auntie Betty or you know, I go back, you know, I go back and forward There's planes all the time. I'm Craig Ferguson, I'm so grateful for all your time and to get to talk to you and I really enjoyed your show. Thank you for coming on Bullsseye Thank you. Thankks for having me. I enjoyed your show and I am enjoying it right up to the end right now Yeah Craig Ferguson Cedian, actor, television host, novelist. Now documentarian. You can stream all five episodes of Craig Ferguson American on Purpose via the CNN app. The whole season runs on CNN, starting Sunday, july fifth at eight PM Eastern That's the end of another episode of Bullseye Bullseye recorded at the World headquarters of Maximum Fun in the historic jewelry District. of downtown Los Angeles here in the whole east side of Los Angeles, we have just been choked by smoke from this giant warehouse fire in Boyle Heights and Thank goodness, it is finally out and the smoke is clearing. Let's all take our dogs for a walk Our show is produced by speaking into microphones. ourur senior producer is Kevin Ferguson. No relation to Craig Ferguson, as far as we know Our producers are Jesus Ambrorosio and Richard Roby, our production fellow at Maximum Tun Hannah Miraz. Our video producer is Daniel Spear. We get booking help from Mera Davis. Our interstitial music comes from our friend Dan Wally, DJW You can find his music at dJWsounds. bandcamp. com. Our theme music was written and recorded by the Go team. The song is called Huddle Formation. Thanks to the Go team, thanks to their label Memphis Industries for providing it One of the best labels, one of the best bands. Go check them out You can follow Bll'seye on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, where you will find video from just about all our interviews Ecluding the ones you heard this week, I think that's about it. Just remember All great radio hosts have a signature sign Bullseye with Jesse Thorne is a production of maximumfund. org and is distributed by NPR