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This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come and see my brand new comedy hour. Well, it's actually, it's about an hour and a half and I don't have an opener because these guys cost money. But what I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while anyway. Come and see me live on the Pants on Fire tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and we'll be adding more as the Tour continues throughout 2025 and beyond. For a full list of dates, go to thecraigfergusonshow.com See you on the road, my dears. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Joy Podcast. My name is Craig Ferguson. I am your host for the Joy Podcast today. And I got to tell you, I've got the fever. I've got the fever today I've got taint fever. Now, I know that sounds like maybe a film that you might have accidentally rented or one that I accidentally wrote and produced and starting all by myself, but actually, Taint Fever is this time of year. What happens is it tain't Christmas and it taint New Year and it's still the holidays, but it's kind of the doldrums or the taint, and I've got the taint fever and I'm driving everybody crazy around here in the house. I've been banished here to go and do your podcast. They said in their voices that sound suspiciously like my Scottish mother. Which is weird because none of them are. But I've been antsy. What happens after Christmas? I get a little antsy and before New Year, I get. I don't know. It's weird. Any other holiday I don't get like this, but I get, I get. I think a lot of people get like, everything's closed, sort of, and online is open, but online isn't real. I mean, this is. I'm not even me. This is AI. But it's just this weird time of year. I think a hangover from being in Scotland when I was a wee boy and between Christmas and New Year was always. It was like ten days of Sundays. Now, Sundays when I was growing up were pretty religious. Well, you had to. The society observed things like all the pubs were closed, which when I was a child, that wasn't that much of a big deal. But the. But the stores were closed and we had to go. When I was young, we had to go to church. I don't suppose we had to go, but we went to church because. Well, I had to go because I was a Kid. And I was meant to go. And I didn't have free agency. I had no free will at the time. And so we'd go to church and everything. I just remember being itchy all the time. Itchy. My wee Scottish trousers. My wee tubby boy sitting in the church, all itchy on a Sunday. And then there was nothing to do. There was a Scottish poet called Ivor Cutler. Very funny, very observant man. And I think it was him who said, the Sunday is the long, dark tea time of the soul. That may have been Douglas Adams, though I can't remember. But Ivor Cutler definitely said, changing your pants is like taking a clean plate. That was definitely Ivor Cutler. And I feel that that is in many ways true. The old rug. Anyway, I'm driving everybody crazy around here because I cleaned the. I cleaned things. I'm not normally a housey person in the sense of cleaning up and stuff. I. I do my bit. I do my bit, but I'm not usually manic about it. But I cleaned the kitchen pantry, which got me in a bit of trouble. And I also cleaned the laundry room. Now, the laundry room is also where the dogs sleep. And I don't know if you've got dogs, but let me tell you a thing about dogs. We have an Alsatian German shepherd and a Jack Russell. So Irish and German. Sort of organized, but also kind of crazy. So crazy and organized. And their beds are where they sleep at night. They like to hunker down in the laundry room. Their beds are in there, and they're very hairy. And they keep their bones in there, not their actual bones in their body. I'm supposed to keep them in there, too, but they keep bones and. God, what a mess it was. It was horrible. At least I thought it was a mess. Everyone else thought it was unnecessary for me to clean out the laundry room, especially the dogs. Everybody was very upset with me. Stepping out of my lane is what's happening. Because I've got the fever. I've got the taint fever. And I'm stepping out of my lane. I'm causing. I'm causing problems around here. I'm upset in the apple cart. There's no actual apple cart. But anyway, I hope you had a nice Christmas. We had a nice Christmas. It was a lot of Christmasy things going on. Do you know what I did? I watched. I watched two movies this Christmas. I watched. Well, I watched more than two, but I watched Holiday Inn, which is the first movie that Bing Crosby sings White Christmas in. And then White Christmas which was made about 10 years after, which he sings White Christmas in again. It's kind of a sort of hall at the end where he sings. White Christmas was made during the Second World War. And, you know, it's very kind of, oh, we'll be dreaming of a white Christmas. So getting home. And also the thing is about it, there's a whole scene in Holiday Inn which I was like, oh, my God. Suffice to say, if you don't know about it, attitudes have changed, hopefully since then. And it was a bit of a shock because I hadn't seen that film. And I was like, what? But there you go. I'll leave you to find that out for yourself. Now, given that it's a podcast and obviously I have no guests today because I've got the Taint Fever. And I'm. I've been put in this room at the end of the house where, look, I have to say, the Taint fever isn't just because it's between Christmas and New Year, therefore the taint. It's also. I was working away from home. I had, like, one week at home from August until pretty much Christmas. I was only home for one week. I was in New York, but I was only at home for about one week. And in that time, you kind of get a little institutionalized. The British band Blur call it. They've got a name for it, I think. I think it's Blur called it this. Where after you come off tour, you've got what they call the. Well, I'm going to paraphrase the jerk flu. It's not. They don't say the word jerk, but you get the jerk flu, in which case you're kind of like, you know, you're a bit of an asshole for a few days because you're used to things being done for you. Like when I'm working, we used to stay in hotels. So you go out in the morning, you come back, the room's cleaned and the bed's made, and there's some chocolates on your pillow. If it's a fancy hotel sometimes, which I think is weird, I wonder where that comes from, the chocolate on the pillow thing. I mean, I don't do that at home, but we could probably put a Snickers bar or something on the pillow. But my fear is it would melt and then the thing that would look. That would look bad if you had a melted Snickers bar in your bed, it could give the wrong idea. Anyway, look, the. I don't know where. Why I go to that but what happens is when you're looked after, when I'm working in. In show business, they tend to look after you a bit, which is very nice. You know, they kind of like. People say, oh, have you got, you know, get in the car there and go there and then have you got coffee? And people do things for you. It's very. It's very nice. It's. But it's not like real life, you know, it's not like at home. And you kind of like, when you're walking around, especially if you're an actor or if you're in front of the camera, you will hear people in the crew, and because they're doing their job, they'll be on headsets or radios and stuff and they'll say, yep, I've got Craig and we're walking the litany. Everybody know where you are? I've got Greg. We'll be in the set two minutes, or we're just leaving the hotel or. And you hear your name mentioned on walkie talkies, and it makes you feel like you're important. And I suppose you're important in the way that everybody's important, that you're all doing a job. But I think it makes you feel like you're, like, super important and it gives you a bad, I think, excuse your perception of yourself, and you start to take it for granted, or at least I do. It takes a bit of a while to disengage from the idea that, you know, well, I'm walking, so you're probably all wondering where I am. That's not how the vibe is when you get home. So anyway, I've got the. What I will paraphrase as the jerk flu. But I think it's clearing up now. I made the bed this morning by myself and things are looking up. I'm not looking for praise for doing this, by the way. I'm just saying that these are the things I read to us. Oh, this is an exciting moment. My lady wife. He's all coming in. Oh, no. All right. But thanks very much for that. I'm just telling them I had the jerk flu. Oh, jerk flu. Yeah, I was paraphrasing it. All right. Say what it really is. No, no, you'll just make everybody mad. But I was telling them because of the teen. I had teen fever. I've got taint fever today. Oh, have you? What are you cleaning about? Myself. Bye. That was. That was Mrs. Ferguson, who declines to appear on camera. But look, here's what I was drinking right now, which is, well, if you can't see what I was drinking, right, there was a some water over my snake cup. Delicious. But what has arrived is a cup of tea in a Tunnock's caramel wafer cup. Now, for those of you who are not Scottish, and that might be a lot of you, Tunnock's caramel wavers may be something you're not familiar with and I feel sorry for you if you're not. Tunnock's caramel waver is one of the more delicious treats in the world. It is a wafery biscuit covered in chocolate biscuit in the British sense of the word. So a kind of wafery oblong wavery cookie covered in chocolate. And there's certainly been some of them eaten around the house in the past few days. We had a consignment flowing in. My brother in law found some in a British store and brought them. But it may contribute to what happened this morning as well, because I weighed myself and I've gained five pounds. I'm like, ah, I don't know if you've been following my weight loss journey, everybody, but I've been trying to get a weight down. I got a bit chubby the last time I was looking at. I recorded a stand up special about, I don't know, 18 months ago or something and I was looking at it and the edit, I went, oh my God, I've gained so much weight. So I went on a weight loss journey and a proper one, like, not well proper for me. I'm not judging anyone else, but I just, I didn't take any injections or any fad diets or anything like that. I just started walking, walking, walking, walking every day a lot and going to the gym and running and sometimes if it wasn't walking, walking, running and going to the gym and I didn't do any of that over Christmas and I ate a lot of caramel Webers and so I've gained five pounds. So science is real, I'm afraid, and calories in, calories out. So anyway, the upshot is out here. Oh yeah, I know. I was going to say it's the Joy podcast. I'm your host, Craig Fernsten. I'm going to take your tweets and emails. I'm sorry, I get chat and, and I noticed that last week's podcast, I didn't do any tweets and emails because I was just talking about Christmas and filling you in on what was going on. So here are the tweets and emails people have been tweeting and Emailing me. This is from Sawala from Lagos, Nigeria. Wow. I've never been to or Lagos, perhaps Nigeria. There's a Lagos in Portugal. I suspect it's connected in some way to Lagos, Nigeria. But there's a Lagos in Portugal that I've been to. It's very nice town. Anyway, Suala, I think that. Forgive me if that's not the correct Suala. Sounds good. Yeah. Suala from Lagos, Nigeria says, I've been rewatching the Paris episodes of the late night show, the old late night show. And I wonder, you still in touch with Kristen Bell? Well, I'm not in touch as much, but friendly enough. The last time I saw Kristen, I was doing Dax Shepherd's podcast. Dax has a very popular, very famous podcast called Armchair Expert and I was on it and he does it pretty much like the way I do this. Like in a corner of his house. Well, he has a shed. I'm not in my shed. I do have a shed, but I use it for shed, like equipment. I don't want you to think I'm slumming it without a shed. I'm a. I'm a shed guy actually, truth to tell, I actually have a barn, but a barn. If you're not familiar with them, it's just like a really big shed. Anyway, I saw Kirsten then I was doing Dax's Dice is very clever in did a podcast and I was chitty chatting with him and Kristen came over. It was lovely and it was a bit of a reunion from the old days. Very nice people, the pair of them. Always enjoyed their company. But they live in LA and I'm here on the east coast, so. And that's the least of it. I mean, everybody's got. They've got young kids. My kids are older, what age their kids are now, actually, who's to say? David Myers from Nashville, Tennessee. I'm playing Nashville pretty soon. There's a bunch of gigs I had to reschedule towards the end of last year. If you were in, if you were waiting for me to come to your region, your region and do a gig, I'm sorry, I had to reschedule 14 shows. I had to change in the fall and I'm doing. I'm picking them all up in this. In the spring of this year. Next year. Well, this year, yeah, next year of 2026. I'm picking them all. I'm doing them all. So if you want to come and see me in your region, go to the website. Craig Ferguson is coming to your region or something. Org Gout. There's a link to it here, I'm sure. Anyway. Oh yeah, Nashville. David said, I know you're coming to Nashville in February. Well, I just said that you mentioned that you wouldn't tour with a punk band again, but would you consider a one off gig in East Nashville? I'm listening. What are you suggesting? You suggest that I come out to East Nashville and you guys have a band and I come in sitting with your band for about. Yeah, yeah, I'm up for about that maybe, but you know. No, but if people are, you know, if people are young people are spitting and stuff, I'm not up for that. Although I don't think in the early days of punk rock there was a lot of spitting. People used to spit and it was gross then and it's gross now. I didn't like, I never liked the spitting, but it was kind of a, you know, we're so crazy we spit. I think though, since the advent of horrible diseases, communicable diseases that have sprung up from the late 70s onwards, like people are less, less into spitting, particularly after Covid. I can't imagine anybody wants to spit their Covid on anyone else. So as long as there's no spitting and what else? As long as everyone's in bed by 10 o'. Clock. That doesn't sound like I am going to East Nashville to be in a punk band, but maybe I am. I don't know. Maybe I am. So yeah, I'll be in Nashville in February, I guess. This is from Matthias Bohm from Vienna, Austria. It's very international today. I've been to Vienna, you know, know I went. One of the first jobs I got when I got sober. Here's, here's a challenge for you. One of the first jobs I got when I was sober was to film a travel video for British Airways. About. I got this job, it was like I would present these travel videos for British Airways and I went to Stockholm and I went to Vienna. I mean I was, I. If I was two months out of rehab, I mean it was, it was early on, Stockholm and Vienna and I think I did another. Oh yeah, and I did one in Charlotte as well because British Airways opened up a flight to Charlotte now this would have been 1992. In 1992 I did this, promote these promotional videos, promotional videos for our, for British Airways and we filmed in Vienna, Austria in the run up to Christmas 1992. It would have been. So I guess I was sober almost about 10 months. And in Vienna, it's very beautiful in Vienna, especially in the run up to Christmas. Lovely cakes and we went all around. I saw the Lipizano Stallions and I heard the Vienna Boys Choir perform. I went to Danschule, which is Austrian for dance school, and I saw people learning to dance. I learned to waltz a little bit. It was all the usual travel shows stuff, but I'd never seen those things, so I don't know if they exist on the Internet. I suspect. No, they're probably somewhere, because this was before stuff was digital. I think I must have been on videotape. Good Lord. So I probably shot this stuff in videotape, but it would have been film, so I would have shot it on videotape. And it'll be on a videotape somewhere in British Airways, in their. In their shed. They've probably got a shed or maybe even a. Maybe even a barn. They might have a barn. So somewhere British Airways. There's a few old promotional videos that I made for them when I was newly sober. I suspect it's not my most relaxed performance, but I wasn't that relaxed at the time. Stockholm, Vienna and Charlotte. And I remember Charlotte in particular because we went on the NASCAR track there. They have a NASCAR little school. NASCAR experience, I think it was called. I think they've still got it at the Charlotte track. And British Airways paid for it. I didn't pay for it, but I got this NASCAR lesson. And you get in, there's a special NASCAR with two seats in it. They added then. I don't know if they have it now. And I go in the car and it was driven away by a driver who was a NASCAR driver. I can't remember who it was. And it was a long time ago. And I think he floored it pretty hard because I blacked out. Blacked out going around the first turn. And then after that, you know, things get a little easier. And then they let you drive a NASCAR on your own. It's amazing. They don't. It was. It was an amazing experience. Anyway, I did that. What the hell am I talking about? Vienna, Austria. Right, sorry. Matthias Bohn from Vienna, Austria. He says I'm currently planning my wedding. Should I do it in an accent? Yeah, probably. I am currently planning my wedding and my fiance has entrusted me with organizing some music. Do you have any suggestions for which music genre I should pick or which I should definitely avoid? Well, given it's Austria, I would think waltzing is the way to go. Pick a 3, 4 time, the Blue Danube, all that. That'd be good for a wedding. Waltzing At a wedding. Sounds appropriate, doesn't it? I think what you probably want to stay away from is marching. I know there's an impulse at that part of the world. Like play a little bit of marching music. Steer clear of that, my friend. And Stacey, marching. I don't want to confuse you. I've got two cups here. I'm not. I don't want to. If you're watching this. If you're not watching this, you're just listening to this, this will be meaningless. But I have two cups. One has water, one has tea. Two fabulous cups, a snake cup and a Tunnex caramel waiver mug. And there you go. All right. So waltzing for your wedding, I should say. And let's take one more. I think that would be enough. This is Joseph from Cary. Cary, or Carrie, N.C. he says. This is a controversial question. I don't know if I should answer it. I'd like to know, how do you really feel about bagpipes? Bagpipes, of course, the national instrument. Scotland, where I'm originally from. And I'll be honest with you, I love bagpipes. I really do. Now, it's an interesting thing in the United States, bagpipes, if you're Scottish. Because I think as a Scotsman or a Scottish American man, or as an American who is from Scotland originally, I think of bagpipes as being Scottish. But apparently a lot of it here, people like. If you go to Boston and you hear police pipe bands or New York pipe bands, they're kind of Irishy. But I think that's because the Scots Irishy. But then the Irish have bagpipes, too. But apparently. And here's the shock. Apparently bagpipes are for the Middle East. That's what I was shocked, too. Bagpipes are from the Middle East. Well, I suppose you go back far enough. We're all kind of from the Middle east, aren't we? But it was a shocker. It was a shocker to me. I do like bagpipes. I feel like sometimes, though, they can be in the wrong place. Like when I hear bagpipes in rock music, it's a very tricky thing to get right. There's a couple of songs. I'm trying to think of them recently. Not recently, but I'm trying to think of songs that have bagpipes in them. I know that Paul McCartney's Mulluvkin tunnellar contains a great deal of bagpiping, but to be fair, that is a song about Scotland, about a place called the Mul of K. It's a lovely part in the world. Get yourself a ton of caramel waiver the next time you're in the mull of Kyre. Paul McCartney had that song, the Mull of K bagpipes, and that works out fine. But if you put. Put it into a rock song with. With lead guitars, I. I question it. I question. It's a risky. It's a risky strategy. And also the thing about bagpipes is they take up while they spool up a little bit. There's a lot of. Before things get started, which I actually love. But, you know, if it's like guitar solo, you know, you can suddenly. Drum solo. Let's not do that. But, you know, solos in the song are fine. But when you've got a. You can't just cut to bagpipes. I don't think. I think the bagpipes. I think it would be tricky, is what I'm saying. I think it would be tricky. So how do I feel about bagpipes? Well, it depends. Like most things, it depends on the place and time. But generally I'm in favor of bagpipes. They are very emotive instrument, and whenever I hear them. I was in Philadelphia recently, and it was a Sunday, and it was the Veterans Day parade, and I just happened to be in Philly doing a bit of work, and it was the Veterans Day parade, and I heard the bike pipes before I saw them, and I thought, oh, wow, that's it. Kind of if you're from my part of the world, if you're from my people, you hear bike babes. Kind of catches in your chest a little bit. At least for me, I kind of let go. Oh, you feel a bit lump in your throat and you start thinking about tonics, caramel wavers and rain and all the things of the old country. It's an instrument of great nostalgia for me. But music is that, isn't it? Music creates music a little bit like smell. Music is one of those things that can transport you instantly to a different time, which I think is fascinating. Smell does that for me. You smell a particular scent or odor or perfume, and it will take you right to the person or the thing or the time. It's amazing. And. And I think music does the same, but in a slightly gentler way. And it's funny because I think of my parents used to listen to this radio show on a Sunday. Siren takes me back to this Sunday where I am the tent fever. Sundays. One of the great awfulness of a Sunday was that there was nothing even Any television on a Sunday in Britain in the 1970s, Scotland, the 1970s. So we would turn on the radio, the television shut down. I think there might have been television in the morning, but I don't think so. But television started about 7 o' clock with a TV show on the BBC called Songs of Praise. And it was hymns, you know, people. It was, you know, shot in different churches and there was people saying Jesus, you know, and lots of different hymns. And, you know, that was. That was entertainment. And then something happened at 7:25 that was really good. There was a good show on. I can't remember what it was. It was a comedy or something. And I think Monty Python might have been on on a Sunday night. But anyway, the. The Sunday afternoons, there was no TV and there was nothing to do. And ofttimes, I don't want to surprise you with this, but Ofttimes, the weather's a Little Grease. It's called In Scotland's A Little Ropey. So we'd put the radio on and my parents would listen to a show on the BBC called Sing Something Simple. It's the name of the song I hated. I hated this show, Sing Something Simple. It was very, you know, then, remember I was a young. As a young person, because I think I'd love. Sing Something simple now. It was all like 1940s, you know, we'll Meet Again music, maybe White Christmas or. And then maybe. But it was all nostalgic, kind of looking back, soft songs. And I. I hated it. My parents loved it. They would go, oh, I remember this one. I remember that. And I remember thinking at the time, I wonder if in the future, you know, punk rock, T Rex or something will be on Sing Something Simple. Of course, as the years go by, I'm in my 60s now myself. I hear T Rex singing 20th Century Boy and I think, wow, that's great. Isn't that takes me back. It's a great song. And I am, in fact, a 20th century boy. This 21st century. I mean, we're in it, but I'm not of it. I think I'm of the 20th century. And. I get nostalgic from music, which probably sounds aggressive, not aggressive, but rocking music, but music takes on its time is what I'm saying. And so it doesn't have to be soft trae alarm music to take you to a place in time you feel nostalgic about. In fact, it could be a real thumping Slayer track that takes you back to a beautiful evening you spent with a friend you no longer see. So that's my take on on the day. This has been the Joy Podcast. This has been the Taint Fever episode of the Joy Podcast. I apologize if I've transmitted my taint fever to you, but my hope is that in some way, if you have the taint fever or the ass, the jerk flu, then, then I hope it's it's alleviated that for you a little bit. My dear friends, I will see you next time for the Joy Podcast, which my guess will be in approximately one week from today, depending on when you listen or watch this good. Sa.