Pete Holmes (3:27)

I think I told Valerie something very similar. I felt like a kindred connection with you. I really enjoy that, and I'm glad.

Jeff Foxworthy (3:34)

How's your life? How's things?

Pete Holmes (3:36)

I'm doing great, man. I'm a little sick. That might be what you're picking up on my face. And I just did a neti pot. You ever do a.

Jeff Foxworthy (3:45)

You ever go on a neti pot?

Pete Holmes (3:46)

Yeah. Are you bene? I didn't know if a neti pot was beneath you because it made a huge difference. And we are not sponsored by neti pot.

Jeff Foxworthy (3:53)

It made a huge difference, but it opens your head up. Yeah.

Pete Holmes (3:59)

I wish I had done it a week ago because, you know, once you have kids, when they're little, when they're like three, you're just sick for like two, three years. Just constantly sick. And now it's less. But I've had this cold for about. It feels like maybe 10 days.

Jeff Foxworthy (4:15)

Well, we at Thanksgiving every year, we go down to our farm and we have like 30 people. Well, my grandson came the Monday before Thanksgiving and he started getting a cough and a cold. But he's. He doesn't leave me. I'm his favorite human being. So he's laying in my lap and I'm going, I'm going to get it. I mean, I've had that, you know, but that's it.

Pete Holmes (4:41)

That's a type of love, right? I mean, it's an underreported type of love where you're just.

Jeff Foxworthy (4:45)

It is an underreport because you know you're going to get it, but it's like, ah, it's worth it.

Pete Holmes (4:49)

Yep, that's exactly right. You're just like, I remember my daughter. I think I'm remembering this correctly. It's such a blur. She had Covid. Like, she was a, you know, probably like whenever. That was 2020. So that. Whatever. Let's not do math. We not here for math. But I was just holding a baby with COVID So at that time, we were all, don't get co. Don't get Covid. Then my daughter had Covid. Then I'm just snuggling her, kissing her. I was like. It was really sweet. It was just like the whole family, we're all going to get it. We all got it.

Jeff Foxworthy (5:20)

I'm going to get it. And then with. It's okay, because I love you more than I hate Covid.

Pete Holmes (5:25)

That's right. And I'll do you one, one Mush year as dads. I'll go. I already have it. You have it. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not getting Covid, Just the rest of me is getting Covid.

Jeff Foxworthy (5:37)

Because you have it, if you have it. And then I've already got it.

Pete Holmes (5:41)

That's right.

Jeff Foxworthy (5:42)

You would always say, I wish it was me instead of you.

Pete Holmes (5:46)

That's right. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, it's interesting. Whenever I. We're recording, if that's okay, we'll just jump, just like we did last time. Is that okay?

Jeff Foxworthy (5:57)

Yeah.

Pete Holmes (5:58)

Okay, good. You know, because you already mentioned something that I'm very interested in when I did your show and just now. You're always with family. You're always hanging out with family, which I think I don't want to say that. That somehow saying that's on brand for you seems like condescending. I just mean, like, you seem like legitimately invested in being with family, taking your family on trips. Like they all kind of went on this big journey that you did. You're touching your face. Is it stressing you out? Just thinking about trips with your.

Jeff Foxworthy (6:31)

Well. Well, my dad left early in life.

Pete Holmes (6:36)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (6:36)

And you mean do.

Pete Holmes (6:38)

I'm sorry, you mean passed away?

Jeff Foxworthy (6:40)

No, no, no. He and my mom split up. He. He passed away 25 years ago.

Pete Holmes (6:46)

Okay.

Jeff Foxworthy (6:46)

But he and my mom. And regardless of when that happens, regardless of what the parent says, what the kid feels is I wasn't worth sticking around for.

Pete Holmes (6:59)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (7:00)

And I just decided real early in life my kids were never going to feel that way, My family was never going to feel that way. And I didn't know I was going to have a job that was going to take me on the road all the time. But I just. They were always the priority. I mean, to the point that, you know, kind of in my heyday, I would rent a plane and I would fly home every night. I'd fly From Atlanta to St. Louis, do a show, get back on the plane, fly back to Atlanta, get in at 1:30 in morning, get up at 6, take my kids to school, take them back up from school, take them home, then get back on a plane and fly to Minneapolis. I mean, it's so. And I look back and I go, crap, when did I sleep? You know, I just. But they. But it was like, okay, they're the priorities. So figure out a way to make this work with what you do to make a living.

Pete Holmes (7:57)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (7:58)

And because without them, none of the rest of it means very much.

Pete Holmes (8:06)

Right. Yeah. Did you watch the Eddie Murphy doc on Netflix.

Jeff Foxworthy (8:10)

I did.

Pete Holmes (8:11)

Remember when he says, like, if you put your family first, you'll never make a bad choice. I was very touched by that. I thought it was really sweet, you.

Jeff Foxworthy (8:18)

Know, and that was. And I've never met Eddie and don't know Eddie, but that's. That was my takeaway from watching that, is this just loves his family.

Pete Holmes (8:28)

Yeah. And. And the peace of mind part. Remember when he was like, pray for peace of mind. I was like, I think he has it. I was like. And that made me really happy. I'm happy if anybody finds peace. Right. And that seems to be a priority for you. Did that. Did that touch you as well when he was backstage at snl?

Jeff Foxworthy (8:47)

And so because the world is set up in such a way for you to not be at peace. Right.

Pete Holmes (8:56)

Yeah, that's right.

Jeff Foxworthy (8:57)

It's the go, go, go. Constant attention, all these things to create anxiety. And I think when you are able to find peace in the world that we live in, that's. You can't put a price tag on that.

Pete Holmes (9:17)

Yeah. And talk about underreported. I just. So what you were just saying about flying back to see your family, even when you were in this kind of inescapable. I don't want to say heat, but this real moment, a cultural moment, you were still going like, okay, I gotta keep a foot on the shore. I gotta keep doing this. That, to me, seems like an effort towards equanimity, towards some sort of good feeling that's bigger than your agent saying, you know, jeff, baby, they wanna make a ride, a Jeff Foxworthy ride at Universal, you know, Like, I mean, that. That doesn't sustain you. Right. There's no substance to that.

Jeff Foxworthy (9:51)

No, but I. But I turned down on so many things, You know, I. I know when I once, I had kids and we lived in LA for, like, seven and a half years, but when NBC invited us not to return for the fall schedule, when I was doing the. I. I thought, I want my kids to grow up around their family. And so I said to my wife, I want to move back to Atlanta. I want my kids to be around their family. And I had agents and managers saying, you're killing your career. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't think I am. But even if I am, it's not worth the quality of my children's lives. And. And obviously, you know, that was 1997. It worked out okay. You know, but you're right.

Pete Holmes (10:48)

There was a time when that was unheard of. It's. It's more common now. Like when I. Obviously, I didn't think for a second you lived in la, and that's a compliment. But I was like, now you hear about so many people living where they want to live and going for that. But, like, in 1997, they really thought you were. It was like, career suicide.

Jeff Foxworthy (11:10)

Oh, yeah, you're killing. I don't think so. You know, I can write books. I can do stand up from anywhere. I didn't enjoy doing the sitcom, so I didn't feel like I would miss that end of it. But, you know, Lord, that was before. There were so many things that. That was before Blue collar and all those other things.

Pete Holmes (11:33)

Oh, wow.

Jeff Foxworthy (11:34)

After I moved, you know.

Pete Holmes (11:36)

Yeah. Yeah. This makes me like, Danny McBride doesn't. I think Danny McBride lives in North Carolina. And they're all. There's, like, a precedent for this now. But I really think you might be among the first to kind of go Jeff Daniels, I think, to lives in, like, Idaho or something. But these were outliers.

Jeff Foxworthy (11:54)

Yeah, it was. You know, I remember Pete, and it's been 15 years, but I was doing an interview, and the lady said to me, she said, okay, you do stand up. You write books, you draw, you host game shows. You. Which one are you? And. And I thought, that's. That's a weird question. I said, well, all those things you listed, I said, are things I do. And I love. I love what I do. I feel so lucky to have gotten to be creative and make a living that way, but those are things I do. Who I am is. Yeah, I'm a husband, and I. I'm a dad, and I'm a brother, and I'm a son, and I'm a person of this community, and I'm a child of God. And, like, so what I do may change 50 times, but hopefully who I am. That line needs to stay consistent. Right. And. And so I always thought, well, that's the more important of the two things.

Pete Holmes (13:02)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (13:03)

My identity is not what I do.

Pete Holmes (13:07)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (13:08)

It's more who I am.

Pete Holmes (13:09)

And did. Where did you learn that? This is the more leading question. My wife, Valerie. My zoom name actually says Valerie because I'm on her account. So, Valerie, you're sounding like my wife. I'll tell you one that really touched me, and I'm embarrassed about the first part, but it's worth it. The first part is I said, we had a baby, and I was like, what if by the time she's old enough to care about what I do? What if I'm. What if I'm not doing anything. What if I've, like, washed up? Nobody gives a shit. And Val goes, pete, you're her dad. And I just was like, oh, my God. You know what I mean? Like, I was so locked up in the lifestyle, understandably, I got caught up in, like, what I do is who I am. What I do is who I am. Even probably deep down thinking, valerie, you probably like me because I have this flashy skill. And then I started, like, Frankenstein, going friend, like, started to believe in the possibility that there are people that love me for who I am, not for just what I produce, but it took me that long to really start to soak that in. Does that resonate?

Jeff Foxworthy (14:22)

Very much so. You know, where it really hit home for me is my grandkids in that they have no idea what I do. They have. They have no idea that I'm famous. They have no idea that I'm wealthy.

Pete Holmes (14:39)

They.

Jeff Foxworthy (14:40)

They don't know. They just love me, you know, And. And I think there's something inside every artist that struggles with that, that goes, if I don't produce. Yeah, then maybe I won't. I'm not lovable anymore.

Pete Holmes (14:59)

Yeah, that's.

Jeff Foxworthy (15:00)

We.

Pete Holmes (15:00)

We. I think you correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the sense that we have that same sort of inciting incident, that same sort of wound your father left. And you got the sense. And I've heard you say this other places. You said it on this interview or this conversation. Oh, there must be something unlovable about me. And I also was just, like, trying to keep things copacetic. Trying to. I had a mom and a dad that were very different. Life of the party father. And my mother was more the churchy person, more that part of the household. So I had. Similar to you, those two energies and comedy being the, like, the Rosetta Stone. Like, everybody wants to laugh. My mom wants to laugh and my dad wants to laugh, and we can get it in there. But, like, I'd like to hear about that. But I'd also like to hear about, like.

Jeff Foxworthy (15:47)

Well, you were the. You were the attention diffuser, right?

Pete Holmes (15:51)

The tension. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tension diffuser. Exactly. The tension diffuser. Tell me, tell me.

Jeff Foxworthy (15:58)

And that's. That's exactly the way my folks were in that. My dad ended up being married six times and had a thousand affairs in between. Oh, wow. And my mom went to church five. Didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't cuss, went to church five times a week. And so whenever we went to stay with my dad, you could do anything you wanted to do. I mean, he had 400 Playboy books in the house. If you wanted to smoke a cigarette, you could, you know, but. And now I look back and go, what a crazy, mixed up message for a kid, especially an adolescent male. Right?

Pete Holmes (16:41)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (16:42)

Was that everything that was unacceptable in my mom's home was totally okay in my dad's home?

Pete Holmes (16:50)

Yes. This is where.

Jeff Foxworthy (16:52)

Time between the two.

Pete Holmes (16:54)

I'm so with you. And I'm not calling either of our parents angels and devils, but it sets up that dichotomy, right? You're like, we have like halos and we have pitchforks. We have one shoulder and the other. The way I relate to that too is I remember asking my dad to buy me a Playboy. And I kind of think that was sort of sweet that I, that I felt safe to ask him for that. And then it would be my mother that would be like, absolutely not. But I, I did have that, like that, those two flavors. But then the tension between them being diffused with comedy. Was that the kind of dinner table you had?

Jeff Foxworthy (17:28)

I think so, because I could make my dad laugh. And I learned very on. Because he could. He was the life of the party. That, that's. But he could get mad easily too. And he had a short fuse. And I, and, and I kind of learned, hey, if I keep everybody laughing, we stay out of the mad stuff. Right?

Pete Holmes (17:55)

That's right. That's me too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you become a little showman. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (18:01)

And now you know that I'm old, I look back and go, was, was that my natural inclination or was that a skill set I developed or.

Pete Holmes (18:12)

Yeah, yeah. Am I hearing you correctly? Because I asked the same question. I go, is that me or is just my survival mechanism? Has it just taken over everything? And, like, do I owe myself an apology? Is there like a, a real me behind the kid with the jacket and he's doing the jazz hands and like, is there like. And in my case, there is a sadness behind it. And talk about mixed message. The greatest gift of my life was this wounding. You know, it ended up becoming something that I give people. And I know you've touched millions and millions of people and made them laugh.

Jeff Foxworthy (18:49)

You've made me laugh.

Pete Holmes (18:50)

Like, I always go to Spider Man. It's the radioactive spider bite. It wasn't pleasant, but it led to this good thing. But at a certain point, Peter Parker even has to go, that was a mixed blessing. You know, it wasn't all good.

Jeff Foxworthy (19:02)

Have you ever thought this? Like, I, I've all I've always thought I would hate to go to, like, a psychiatrist, because if I ever figured out why I did what I do, maybe I wouldn't be able to do it anymore.

Pete Holmes (19:18)

I. I hear that. Yet I've done it. I've gone the other way.

Jeff Foxworthy (19:22)

I'll be the.

Pete Holmes (19:22)

I'll be the version of this that did it. Like, I go to therapy in my experience, I just look at it, nobody's going in and going, like, get out of here. Like Bigfoot. Like, get.

Jeff Foxworthy (19:34)

Go.

Pete Holmes (19:35)

I just go like, oh, wow. That must have been this, this or this. We're just kind of listening to these parts that got sort of compartmentalized or quiet or silenced or. But like, you know, I'm 46 and I'm going, like, really trying to go, like, wait, who am I really? Like, what do I really. Because that wasn't what I was asking as a kid. I was going, what's the most effective calming. You know what I mean? Like, pragmatic version of myself that I can be for everyone's benefit. And let me ask you this. When you go up, especially when you were starting out, because I imagine you tour now, but when you were doing the road before you were touring, you go out and they're drunk and they're rowdy. And I'd go, I'm right at home. My hand is steady. I'm not saying I wouldn't be nervous, but I'm like, I know how to diffuse chaos.

Jeff Foxworthy (20:30)

Like, I'll go do it.

Pete Holmes (20:32)

What can you relate to that?

Jeff Foxworthy (20:33)

You had a lifetime of practice before you got on that stage.

Pete Holmes (20:37)

Yeah, that's right. That's it.

Jeff Foxworthy (20:38)

And you could. And, and, and, and you. There was an innate sense within you to know when to use it, to want to know when to pull that tool out of the power belt. Yeah, yeah. Oh, this is getting. Mom's getting uptight and Dad's getting. Now, let's, let's, you know, make them laugh.

Pete Holmes (20:58)

Hyper attunement, too, like an eyebrow. I, you know, I relate to the Jason Bourne movies how he, like, knows where everything is and what's going on. I'm like, those are children. It might be of children of alcoholics or all different types of different upbringings that notice, like, oh, dad did the breath that he does when he's starting to get angry. You know what I mean? And when I see oblivious people that. That probably had great, easy upbringings, all that sort of stuff, I'm always like, you're not safe. Like, you're going to get. You're in big trouble. You need to stop. Like, I'll give you a random example. Don't talk about the movie while you're walking out of the movie. Like, don't be like, I didn't know. Like, there's people that haven't seen it. There's people that have different feelings. Shut your mouth. Wait till you're in the car. That's just something I learned. And if I see somebody going, like, I didn't know Leonardo DiCaprio, like, you're like, not just you're dumb or foolish, you're not safe. Like, you need to get hit the grass, you're in trouble. Does that.

Jeff Foxworthy (21:58)

Well, as an, as an all girl dad, I was. Mine was more of a safety thing. Don't be discussing the movie going across the parking lot because you're not being, you're not paying attention to somebody back in the car. Yeah. You know, walk to the car, being attentive of your surroundings. Get in the car, then you can talk about it.

Pete Holmes (22:20)

That's right. It's not relaxing time.

Jeff Foxworthy (22:22)

So. Okay. So as kids where we like, costs. Like, one of my best friends used to be a cop, and he hadn't been a cop in 30 years. But if we go to a restaurant, instinctively he takes the chair where he can watch the room.

Pete Holmes (22:42)

Yeah, back to the wall. Back to the wall. Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (22:45)

And, you know, I kind of want the other. It works out well because I'm like, I don't want to be facing the room.

Pete Holmes (22:50)

Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (22:51)

But he, but, but he's always like, watch. And it's just an innate quality at this point.

Pete Holmes (22:57)

Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (22:58)

Maybe as kids, that's what we were. The, the kids sitting there watching the.

Pete Holmes (23:03)

Room going, oh, we're literally the comedy police. When people say, what are you? The comedy police. It was us, actually. We're, we're, we were. I wasn't doing comedy. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes it was, but it wasn't just for like the joy of it. It was like, this is to kind of keep everything. Very similar to alcohol. I stopped drinking a long time ago because I wasn't drinking to, like, have fun at dinner. I was drinking to, like go nuts or, like go numb, basically. It was like, I don't want to feel something. If I'm drunk, I can leave. That was a big one for me. It wasn't like I was gonna get rowdy and pee in a plant. I just want. If I'm drunk, I can go, I'm. I'm too drunk. I gotta go. I, I didn't know. I was an introvert. I was like, I gotta leave. So I'd get drunk and I just wanted to have a lazy Chinese food day the next day. And I'd be like, oh, I'm hungover. It was all these added things that I wanted, but I couldn't get honest about that. Let me ask you, was your dad, when we say the life of the party, was that his authentic state? Or when. When everyone left, was he kind of like, oh, gee, like, not energized by it, exhausted?

Jeff Foxworthy (24:08)

Well, yeah, you know, it's, It's. It's very weird. Dads have an enormous impact on people. And his father, when he was five years old, it's like the old joke, his father left to go get a pack of smokes and never came back. And they found him 20 years later in another state and he had another family.

Pete Holmes (24:38)

Wow.

Jeff Foxworthy (24:39)

And so I give my dad a lot of grace in that. You know, at least with he and my mom, I still had a relationship with him after he left.

Pete Holmes (24:56)

Right. He did better than his. Not to put down your grandfather. I'm just saying it's our job to do better than the people who raised us. That's how we're supposed to do.

Jeff Foxworthy (25:04)

But, but as, but as an adolescent, then, as a, as a young person, I used to think, well, he had to know what it feels like to have a dad that left. Why would he do that? But, you know, now as I'm older, I give him a lot of grace for that because I don't know what it, what it did to him. He couldn't be by himself. And, And I think for him, so many people, because his dad left like that and then the war started and his mom went to work in a shipyard and sent him to live with his grandparents and she met some guy and didn't come back for years. And so I think he got left so many times that, that he probably developed a mindset that was, I'm going to leave before you can leave me. And I. So I don't, I don't take it personally anymore. Yeah, it was more his demons than. It was a statement about how worthy.

Pete Holmes (26:10)

That's right. It wasn't personal. It wasn't. It wasn't personal. Yeah, that. But that's really lovely and really beautiful, and you deserve a lot of credit for that. I. I think it's taken me four decades to. People that listen to the show all the time have seen me, I hope, starting to soften towards my folks. And it's. And I love Them. And they. And they did a good job. And it wasn't like a nightmare childhood by any means, but, like, their stuff was their stuff, and it came from their parents in the same way that my stuff comes from them and my daughter's stuff. This is hard to say, but will come from me. And we're all just trying to move the ball forward. But if you didn't go to therapy, that's your therapist right there. The doggy.

Jeff Foxworthy (26:53)

Yeah. Lily. Lily sits in every podcast.

Pete Holmes (26:57)

Oh, get a good shot of Lil.

Jeff Foxworthy (26:58)

Hey, Lily.

Pete Holmes (26:59)

Oh, man. Beautiful, Jeff. I'm not sure. I think that's a fox. I think there's literally a fox living in your house.

Jeff Foxworthy (27:07)

She's called a Foxy Pomsky.

Pete Holmes (27:11)

Yeah, that sounds like someone on the spot that comes up with dog names. Couldn't think of one and was like.

Jeff Foxworthy (27:17)

I call her a Foxy Pomsky.

Pete Holmes (27:20)

Leave me alone.

Jeff Foxworthy (27:21)

She's half husky, half Pomeranian. Pomsky. But most of them look like huskies, and she looks more like the Palm.

Pete Holmes (27:28)

I love it. Oh. So I'm wondering, I really think, even if we just ended this now, that's a real gift you've given us, is trying to. Have you said grace? We could also say compassion, Just some sort of deliberate understanding, some efforting towards understanding. Yeah, we watch movies. I just watched the Frankenstein movie. I thought it was beautiful. And it's a lot about forgiveness and it's a lot about parents and children. Actually, I'm just bawling as I watched it. I loved it. And even a guy. I can watch a movie like that and go, but there's parts of my heart that I still won't soften because of that vigilance we're talking about. Like, I'm so aware that the best game in town is mercy, love, acceptance, understanding, grace. These are the best things. And yet it can be so hard to soften, to release. Your father left. You know, like, we could do that. We could play that game where. Who taught you this? How did you learn this? How do you cultivate it? How do you encourage it?

Jeff Foxworthy (28:37)

You know? Well, I think there's a couple of things. I think when you come from less than desirable situation, you. You either, you either commit the same mistakes or you do a 180. And I saw the damage when my dad walked away. Like. Like he left my mom, and then he got married to his secretary, and we weren't going to care about her because that was what caused my folks to split up. But over the course of time, I grew to love her. And after nine years, he did the same thing to her and left again. And so for me, I, you know, you. You, like, learn, okay, don't get real attached to anybody he's attached to because he unplugs from the wall very easily and walks away. But I saw the damage that happens when you just pull the hang grenade and walk away. And so I just kind of made it an internal thing. When I was young, I'm like, I. I know what the carnage looks like. I'm not going to cause that kind of carnage.

Pete Holmes (29:53)

So this is. So you deserve credit for this.

Jeff Foxworthy (29:56)

Self taught.

Pete Holmes (29:56)

Self taught. Like, witnessed.

Jeff Foxworthy (29:59)

And so I would start. I would watch guys that were good dads are good husbands, and they, Even before I knew what I was doing, do. And I would pick their brains, you know, like, so how do you, you know, what do you. How do you do this? And. And I. And I can say that for the thousand affairs my dad had, my brother and I live next door to each other for most of our lives, and neither one of us did that. Neither. We. We were loyal, committed husbands and loyal, committed dads. And. And I think that's cool. Break that. Break that chain. Yeah.

Pete Holmes (30:44)

Yeah. Wow. Wow. What did they say?

Jeff Foxworthy (30:47)

What.

Pete Holmes (30:47)

What stuck with you? Or what do you tell people? Because I'm sure what you tell people is an amalgam of what you learned from all these people that you bend their ear.

Jeff Foxworthy (30:58)

Yeah, well, like my aunt, my dad's sister, she was. She was. She's still with us. She just. She's 89. She just came to Thanksgiving at our farm, but she lived her life so wisely. And so I would. I would say to her, okay, I'm about to turn 40. What do I need to know in my 40s, you know, what do I need to know in my 50s? What do I need to know in my 60s? And she would write me these long letters, you know, and spell it out. All right, here's. Here's how you're going to feel when your kids leave. Here's how you're going to feel, you know, when you're a grandparent. Here's how. And I just think there's wisdom in that, you know, you. And I think when. When you did my podcast, I said that to me, wisdom is knowledge plus scars. And scars are where you stepped in the holes along the way. And all you can do is other people can point them out to you, you can avoid them, or you can fall in them yourself, you know, And. And so for me, it was like, all right, how Do I avoid some of these potholes that my dad wasn't able to stay out of?

Pete Holmes (32:15)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (32:15)

And you know, to the point like hell, like when we were doing blue collar, we'd get through with a show and, you know, we'd all be staying in the hotel. Hotel. And Ron and them would say, hey, come on, Fox, let's go. We're going to meet downstairs and have a beer. Well, hell, I don't think there's anything wrong with having a beer. But I knew if I had one and we were laughing and cutting up, I might have two and I might have three, and I might have four. And if there was somebody good looking that, you know, saddles in next to, and it was like, damn, dude, be wise. Don't put yourself in a position where you can end up jacking up the things that are most important to you.

Pete Holmes (33:03)

Yeah, that's right.

Jeff Foxworthy (33:04)

Be wise. And. And so it, you know, and. And I'd go, nah, I'm going to go order room service and call home. And they were like, you funny, daddy. Well, it wasn't. I wasn't doing it because I was a fuddy daddy. I was doing it because I knew where I was vulnerable and it was like, you know, I need to be wise. And to avoid that because you build trust is like a cup of coffee. You know, it's. It's a drop at a time. It's like you with your kids. It's a drop at a time. It's a drop at a time. But when you lose trust, it's like somebody, you lose it all at once. It's like somebody just dumped the cup out.

Pete Holmes (33:45)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (33:46)

And what. And as I look back with my dad, did I love my dad? Yes. Did I trust my dad? Honestly, no. Because too many times he told me things and then he went back on them. So, you know, I wanted, for my wife and my kids if I wanted to. It took a long time to fill that coffee cup up. I don't want to pour it out right. I want to create that trust.

Pete Holmes (34:15)

Yeah, well, you're wise too. There's some humility there that I'm hearing, which is we could flatter ourselves and say, no, I. I don't have an affair. I'm a good person. You know what I mean? I'm a good boy. I know right from wrong, whatever you want to say. But like, power, which is celebrity, is a type of power. Now people are coming up to you. Potent. You know, people might be interested in your allure and alcohol that leads to some mistakes. Like we could say, better men than us have made mistakes in that situation. You know what I'm saying?

Jeff Foxworthy (34:49)

And that's how my dad made mistakes. They would. They would get off work and they would go out for a drink, right? Yeah. And that's how it would start every time for my dad. And so. And. And I'm not against alcohol. I just know that where I come from, it led to some really bad decisions in life. And so it's like, be wise, man. You know, the most important thing is the most important thing. Right? So keep it that way.

Pete Holmes (35:19)

I was just talking to my. Valerie is so cool. We can just speak frankly. She does the podcast on Fridays, and we were having a conversation about affairs and how it's so funny that, like, I'm sure they're fun. Like, I'm sure it's amazing, like, the secret and all this stuff, but I'm like, there's nothing that I would want to do that would blow up my entire life like that. But then I'd. I added to it. I go, and I don't drink. Like, you're not going to get me. I don't want to be cocky here. I'm just saying my chances of that go so far down when it's never Miller time. Like, I'm just like. Like, that is right. There's a reason why in the.

Jeff Foxworthy (35:57)

So it's. Well, if you ever make a pros and cons list, you know, you quickly realize the only people that like being around drunks are other drunks. Right. If you're. If you're the sober one, if you're the designated driver. It's not fun.

Pete Holmes (36:11)

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Jeff Foxworthy (40:28)

Let's talk a little bit.

Pete Holmes (40:29)

Thank you for going. We always go into that deep stuff, and I appreciate you spelunking with me. I wanted to talk about your comedy because there's something specifically I wanted to compliment you, which is there's this combination. It's an Arnold Palmer of effortless. So you seem very natural, comfortable, and that makes the crowd comfortable. So it's just like, you're very good at getting into it, easing into it, and before you know it, we're like, oh, we're in the middle of a routine. You know what I mean? And then the other thing, though, so there's this. And I think people go, oh, it's that southern slow. Nate Bargazzi has that, too. Very like, I'm comfortable, I'm calm. But then. And you and Nate both had this as well. Like, geez, man. No, part of the buffalo is not used every way. You know, like, you never miss a callback. You never miss a theme blending. Three jokes later, we're going back to that one. It almost like. There's almost something mathematical about it, which might be antithetical about what I said about the first part. You're just a guy with a hand in his pocket. Hey, don't worry. I'm just like you. But then right under the surface, I see a guy that's, like, doing comedy at a very high level. It's rapid fire. Take the redneck stuff, which isn't all you do, but, like, you'll do 15 of those in two minutes. Like, it reminds. It's like.

Jeff Foxworthy (41:57)

And everyone's. A sentence. It's a sentence and a laugh.

Pete Holmes (42:01)

So you trimmed all the fat. And then the way that you structure it is. I know this is the best one. And that's. You only know that by doing it over and over, all this trial and error, and then before you know it, not to butter your bread too hard here, but, like, you're like casting a spell. You're like, I gotcha. Are you listening? I know you are. Here we are. Here we are. This one will warm you up. If you're. If you. You have a mobile home, a car, a home that is mobile, and 10 cars that are not. You might be redneck, but that Base hit. Base hit. Now we're just off. I just did that to prime you next one. And then before you're done with that next one, now you're training them like seals, going like, keep up with me. Keep up with me. And then you hit them with the hot one. They're all hot. But the last one, you get the applause. And then you're like. And then Jeff moves on into the story about Hawaii. So he knew that was the end. I know this is basic comedy. I just want you to know that I'm like, this isn't the redneck guy. This is a guy that's up there with the greats of going, like, I know exactly what I'm doing. Will you tell me? Clearly you love it. Tell me about your process a little bit and what that brought up for you.

Jeff Foxworthy (43:16)

It's funny because I was thinking about this stuff this morning because I'm working on another special, but I told him the only way. I swore I would never do another special because I'm an old guy and nobody wants the old guys. But I said. I finally said, I'll do it, but you've got to show me. The first half hour has to be me in a club on a Tuesday night with a note card in my hand going, hey, is this funny? And then come back the next week, see what I did with that thought, and then come back two weeks later on a Tuesday night and watch this thing grow. I said, and then the last half of the show, show it all as a polished half hour. Right?

Pete Holmes (43:59)

Nice.

Jeff Foxworthy (44:00)

Because I. The process. And I was thinking this morning. So they all start with note cards, Just a thought on a note card. Then it goes from a note card to written, handwritten in a notebook, goes from there, because I. There's Something about having that pen in my hand and crossing a word out or moving an error down here. Then it'll go in the computer and I will print it out. And now I was in the process, this new stuff I'm writing of taking it from the computer and going back and putting it back on note cards so I can start to load it in my head.

Pete Holmes (44:45)

Yes.

Jeff Foxworthy (44:45)

But in every step of the process, I'm trying to tighten and clean it up and. And it's like, it. And I don't know if every comics like this because there's no school. You know, we all. We all do it. Like, we do it.

Pete Holmes (45:01)

But.

Jeff Foxworthy (45:01)

But like, to me, my tendency is I put too much in there. And then it's like Marshall Child says, he. He. He says, you need to be intimate with your material. You know? And I thought, well, that's an interesting word, intimate. But it's like to look at that sentence and go, yeah, don't be married to. I don't need this part. All I need is this. And it's. It's like visually like trimming steak fat off a steak.

Pete Holmes (45:34)

Yes.

Jeff Foxworthy (45:34)

Going, you don't need that.

Pete Holmes (45:36)

Can I interrupt here? You ever bring something back? Because that's what happens to me. Sometimes I trim it. Trimmed it too much. Bring something back, trimmed it too much. Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (45:44)

Oh, I need a little more information here to set this up or whatever.

Pete Holmes (45:48)

Or my attitude. Like, we're not sure. Can I tell you. Sorry. The advice I give most comics as I go. How do you feel about what you're saying? And it doesn't have to be sad or scared or lonely. Can just be, like, unjust angry or interested or curious or I'm an idiot or whatever. Like, I just need some sort of anchor. Sometimes I trim something because it's a dumb joke. But I realize, like, oh, that was setting up the dynamic between me and my daughter. Like, that's a real example. There's a joke that I cut.

Jeff Foxworthy (46:18)

Yeah.

Pete Holmes (46:18)

And then I just started doing the second joke. The second joke didn't work. It dropped by 30%. I'm like, what's going on here? And it's because the joke that led into that big chunk of establish that my daughter is fierce, that she's got a lot of attitude, and that she's very, like, kind of playfully rough with me. It's not that funny, but it sets the tone for the whole piece that follows. I've gone, you have to trim too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's trial and error, and that's.

Jeff Foxworthy (46:47)

The only way in some nights do you ever find, like, you find it on stage, you find it's like the tumblers falling into place, and you go, oh, that's the way that goes.

Pete Holmes (46:57)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (46:57)

In order for this to work, I do do need a little bit of this at the top, and. But I can clean some of that off afterwards. And, you know, I think if other people could. I think that's what makes the comic mind fascinating to me, is because you realize other people don't think about this crap.

Pete Holmes (47:22)

The minutia. Yeah, Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (47:24)

I remember. I remember one night sitting. Sitting in the green room at the Comedy Magic Club in Hermosa beach, and Gary Shanling was getting ready to host some award show, and he had his jokes, and it was me, Shanling, Leno, and Seinfeld sitting there, like, helping him with his jokes. And. And I thought on the way home, I thought, God, if normal people would have been sitting there, they would have thought, these guys are insane. You know, because, like. Like, Lena would be going, yeah, you know, Gary, I think the car needs to be blue. It's in. In Seinfeld's, like, no, Jay, Green. Green's funnier than blue.

Pete Holmes (48:08)

Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (48:08)

Green's the comedy color. It's the comedy color, Jay. And. And. And people would be going, they're nuts. But they were being dead, dead serious.

Pete Holmes (48:21)

Dead serious.

Jeff Foxworthy (48:22)

Serious. Maybe I mentioned what would make this job. It's so.

Pete Holmes (48:26)

Judd Apatow made this comparison once. He was like, being obsessed with making people laugh is absurd. It's like being obsessed with making people yawn. Like some other involved. Imagine a group of people being like, no, they'll yawn faster if you. If you blink slowly to, like, show them that you're tired. That'll make them tired. And then you yawn. That's your closer. Because when you yawn, they, like.

Jeff Foxworthy (48:48)

It's.

Pete Holmes (48:49)

It's a weird compulsion. But I've had conversations like that, too, where you're like, take. Take the joke of yours. I know it's like 30 years old, but, like, if you have a home that is mobile and 15 cars that are not now. I just said 15. I don't know what you said in the joke. My pitch is 15. I think that's a funny number. You might say 30. Then Jerry might be like, sway. Too many rednecks have four cars. It should be four and four. That's not enough. It's got to be more.

Jeff Foxworthy (49:20)

We know it's like the F word. It's four letters. It starts with F, you know? Yeah.

Pete Holmes (49:27)

Exactly.

Jeff Foxworthy (49:27)

You know what? But I remember back, Pete. Like hell. Close to 40 years ago. And Mark Schiff. I was working. I can still tell you where I was. I was at Zany's in Nashville, and he was doing a bit about his dad when they got in the car to go on vacation. And his dad was trying to make sure all the kids peed before they got in the car. And he said. He said, I'm. I'm warning you. I'm driving straight to Bulgaria. Nobody. We're not stopping this. And I thought, why Bulgaria? You know, Florida.

Pete Holmes (50:05)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (50:06)

Bulgaria's funnier because it's in Europe. You know, you can't drive to Europe.

Pete Holmes (50:12)

And as the word bulge and kind of. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (50:16)

It's like. It's just a funnier word, and it's a funnier mental image. And you just take those little lessons and go, well, maybe if I exaggerated even more. Yes. I get a better laugh.

Pete Holmes (50:29)

How far will it bend before it breaks? Because it will break. If he says, I'm driving to Mars, to the sun. It's not funny.

Jeff Foxworthy (50:37)

It's not funny.

Pete Holmes (50:38)

A dad that thinks maybe there's some sort of sea bridge.

Jeff Foxworthy (50:42)

Yeah. That we can seabridge. That we could drive to Bulgaria, we can get.

Pete Holmes (50:47)

I would bitch that Lithuania would be funny there. I think Slovakia is getting greedy. You might. You might be pushing it.

Jeff Foxworthy (50:55)

Yeah.

Pete Holmes (50:55)

Say something like that.

Jeff Foxworthy (50:56)

Too far.

Pete Holmes (50:57)

Well, we know this. If you say Chattanooga, it's like, well, now he's trying to be cute. Bulgaria is a good choice.

Jeff Foxworthy (51:04)

Bulgaria is a great choice. Yeah. And. And so that's what we do, is we learn those lessons. And I think I was lucky.

Pete Holmes (51:13)

You.

Jeff Foxworthy (51:13)

Know, in the beginning, like, somebody said to me, knowing what you know now, would you have quit your job at IBM to be a comic? And I said, oh, absolutely not. I didn't know what I was up against. You know, all I knew were the headshots on the walls of the punchline in Atlanta. That's the. The.

Pete Holmes (51:34)

That was your marker. Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (51:37)

And then you go work at Zany's in Chicago, and you. There's 500 people on the wall that you've never heard of before. And then you go to denver and there's 500 more, and you go to Boston, there's 500 more.

Pete Holmes (51:47)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (51:48)

And. But. And so we were all desperate for somebody to know who we were. And I wasn't smart enough when I came up with the redneck jokes to think, oh, this might be a hook or a book, or I was just trying to come up with stand Up. But they were one liners. And I think of myself more as a storyteller, but they were easy to remember. They were easy to retell. You could get a laugh at the water cooler by remembering one line.

Pete Holmes (52:17)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (52:18)

And. But what it taught me, it taught me to be very efficient with words because I had to. The whole joke had to be one sentence, right?

Pete Holmes (52:31)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (52:31)

It's same setup. Same setup every time.

Pete Holmes (52:35)

Just one of them.

Jeff Foxworthy (52:36)

1.

Pete Holmes (52:37)

But you're doing that punchline in your stories. You're doing that. It's like you could. We're staying right on the beach. You can tell which room is ours because it's the only one with underwear hanging over the balcony. You know, like. Like, yeah, that's a. That's a three liner, but it's the same. I wonder if you're the same as me. Now. We might be two old guys, but the. The younger comics, I think, would benefit from learning some of the ABCs of that. Like, I think that can be somewhat of a lost art form is like. And you learn it from doing the one.

Jeff Foxworthy (53:07)

Ever do this. Even people I enjoyed like. But I will watch some of the younger comics.

Pete Holmes (53:13)

I can't not do it. I know what you're gonna say.

Jeff Foxworthy (53:16)

Well, but I'll be thinking, you've gone 60 seconds without a laugh. And to me, it's like they say that NFL quarterback has a clock in his head, you know, snaps the ball and he's got to be rid of it by two and a half seconds.

Pete Holmes (53:31)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (53:31)

He's got that clock in it going. Throw it out of bounds. Throw it to this guy.

Pete Holmes (53:37)

Yes.

Jeff Foxworthy (53:37)

You know, Yes, I have that clock in my head. That is, as I'm working on something on stage, I go, it's been long without a laugh. So either. Or I've got to figure out how to get a laugh in the setup.

Pete Holmes (53:50)

Or.

Jeff Foxworthy (53:51)

And to me, what I tell young comics is, I said the setup is the part without the laugh. So once you've set it up, and I don't know if I learned this from doing the redneck jokes or whatever, but don't just take the. The joke that's laying right on the surface. Start critical thinking. Go down to the next level. Go down to the next level. Gaffigan's a great example. Yeah.

Pete Holmes (54:15)

Yeah. He won't leave any stone.

Jeff Foxworthy (54:17)

Anybody talk for 20. It's on the bake. And. And so you've done the setup, you've done the premise. But. But mind that hole for all it's worth before you pick up your excavator and move on to the next hole, right?

Pete Holmes (54:32)

Yeah. Dig as deep as you can. And don't. And don't leave it. And the other thing I thought you're.

Jeff Foxworthy (54:37)

Gonna say is deep as you can.

Pete Holmes (54:40)

I can't watch another comic. And I know Birbiglia is this way, too. We'll just like Sudoku. We'll just go, you could change this, you could change that. You could lose that line. It's fun, it feels good. But someone will do a joke, and I'm like, almost, almost, almost. But sometimes it's on their special, and I'm like, man, I wish we had. We had talked about it, because that's. That's like six rewrite rewrites away. And I'm guilty of it too. I know I have jokes that could have been improved for sure, but I like talking about it. I like thinking about it.

Jeff Foxworthy (55:10)

If there was a job where you could be a comedy coach, like a, Like a college head football coach. Yeah, I would be very good at that job because I could sit there and go, you need to move. You need to move this part to here. You need to cut this off. And I watch people and I do that. And, yeah, you know, it's going back to the thing up front. When you were saying the more serious thing. One of my. I get up before anybody in the house, and I do my quiet time. I, I, I read my Bible and all. But every. So every day, as I'm kind of getting ready for the day, I'm like, all right, let me be thankful for all the, the little things. And I go, don't let me sit on the judgment seat. It's not my job to judge everybody else. And then the next day I'm back going, all right, I didn't do a very good job of it yesterday, but today, don't let me sit on it. But, But I'm even like that in my craft. I'm like, man, if you would let me, I could tighten this thing up for you and make it.

Pete Holmes (56:16)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (56:16)

And what is that? I mean, that. Is that ego or is that.

Pete Holmes (56:20)

I don't know. Because you could say it's compassion, too. I want people to. I want people to murder, you know, I want them to go up and really get on that roll. And these, these again, maybe this is old guy talk, but, like, there are things that certain comics taught me, screws to tighten that get you in that state. That's like surfing. It's not just a joke that works. You're actually in this great flow it's good for the audience. It's good for them. So stand up is like the one place where I feel safe. If I watch your joke, I would say without shame, but with respect, obviously, I'd be like, I think you should swap that part and that part. Have you tried that? Because I know that you know that that's a loving judgment. It's not, it's not, it's not even a judgment. It's like a. Oh, I'm in the.

Jeff Foxworthy (57:05)

Lab with my friends. I do it to, to the people I know I have permission with all the time.

Pete Holmes (57:11)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (57:12)

Of saying, hey, I got a suggestion.

Pete Holmes (57:14)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (57:15)

Cut this one part. But that part you did at the first. You can, you could you. There's a natural callback, right. That, you know, like, okay, cool. I'll try that. Yeah.

Pete Holmes (57:25)

I would write Montreal sets for some of my openers. I'd be like, if you want. I don't know now I would say, if you want, I have a pitch for your Montreal set. I think back then I would just say it. I had to learn, you know, cool the jets a little bit. Not everybody wants to hear your hot take.

Jeff Foxworthy (57:43)

Well, and, and I just went through that with a, with a young comic here in Atlanta, Andrew Stanley, who's really funny, but he was going to do a, do a audition thing for the Tonight Show.

Pete Holmes (57:56)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (57:56)

And I'm like, I can't help you with your social media because I'm, I'm an old guy. I don't know. You know, my kids have to help me change my wallpaper on my phone. But I know how to do a Tonight show set, if you'll. And, and he sent me what he was thinking about doing.

Pete Holmes (58:18)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (58:19)

And, and then he came over and we sat down and I said, you're going to think I'm crazy. Don't do the end of this bit. You need to close right here. You need to take this. Yeah. And he's like, really? I said, yep. Trust me. And here's a segue to get from your mom over here to the, To.

Pete Holmes (58:40)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (58:40)

Family car thing.

Pete Holmes (58:42)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (58:42)

And he went and did the audition and got the spot. And he, and he said later, somebody told me, he said, they said, yeah. Andrew told, told me he said, if you need Foxworthy to help you with social media, you're in bad shape. He said he knows nothing about that, but he knows what he's talking about when it comes to doing a six minute set for tv. And I'm like, well, I did. Other people taught me. I just, I learned to do it? Yeah, because, you know, I did it a lot.

Pete Holmes (59:14)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like you can play the piano and a late night spot is like, can you play it underwater? It's, it's like really pressurized and tight and it really is like a. I don't know, a rite of passage, wouldn't you say? It's like you can kill in a club, but can you do it under intent? It's like the Olympics. Intense pressure, six minutes, and you're the visiting guy. You're. You're not even on your home court. Nobody's comfortable. Go out and do it. And you're absolutely right that, like the studio audience at 2pm they're on coffee, they're not on alcohol. They get it. That's why Mitch Hedberg, Stephen Wright, Gary Goleman, these guys murder even harder for the TV audience because they're these craftsmen. They're real mechanics.

Jeff Foxworthy (60:04)

They were doing, they were doing really smart jokes. Right.

Pete Holmes (60:07)

And that's. Right. They're. Now. They're smarter than you think they are. And when, when I hear you say cut the end, it's because it's like they get it, hit it, move on. You got the credit for being clever, for being funny, for telling us a little bit about yourself. Get out of there. Go on to the next thing. Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (60:23)

100. Have you, have you read a book called From Strength to Strength?

Pete Holmes (60:28)

No.

Jeff Foxworthy (60:29)

Okay, so you.

Pete Holmes (60:30)

From Strength to Strength.

Jeff Foxworthy (60:32)

I'll have to buy that and send it to you, please. But it's talking about. This guy was studying every kind of profession, lawyers, doctors, writers, musicians. But you, you have a span, a very short span in your life, usually young, like 20s, 30s, maybe in the 40s, where you're just, where creatively, you're producing the majority of great quality stuff you're ever going to do, whether it's a writer or a doctor or whatever.

Pete Holmes (61:12)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (61:13)

And he said, so the book is kind of about the second half of life. And it says even though the amount you're producing is not as great, the value, your value is still great. Because now you're like the librarian. You, you have a lot of knowledge in your head. And so even if you're not creatively doing your best work, you know how to do it.

Pete Holmes (61:42)

That's right.

Jeff Foxworthy (61:43)

How to. And, and I, in. Obviously I'm at that point because I'm an older guy, but it's like, yeah, I'm not. You know, when I was 40, yeah. I, I wasn't scared to follow anybody. You put the dirtiest guy in the world on. Yes, I'll go up and clean. I'll follow him, and I don't care.

Pete Holmes (62:03)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (62:04)

And. And it doesn't mean that I still can't produce good material, but it does. It certainly doesn't flow as fast or as easily as it used to.

Pete Holmes (62:13)

This is what Bob Dylan, in a 60 Minutes interview, he talked about that. He's like, I put out an album every three years, four years, or whatever because it takes me way longer. But he's like, but the stuff I make is way better. It just. It just. He goes. He didn't say the faucet. But he's like, the faucet just doesn't run as. As fast. But like, he's.

Jeff Foxworthy (62:32)

And that's exactly right.

Pete Holmes (62:34)

He's a king. I mean, in the archetypes, like, you're a magician when you're younger. You're the lover, you're the hunter, and then later you become the king. And the king is all of those things, you know, moving a little slower, less to prove, but still has. Now we are two old guys being like, we sell value, but, like, this is why I want my. When I had younger openers. Now my opener and I are peers, but when I had younger openers, I always wanted to be like, no, I'm. I'm cutting you to the front of the line. This advice is five years of bullshit that you can just skip if you learn to say this or this or that. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm going for.

Jeff Foxworthy (63:12)

But, you know, but if you think about it, so, like, I'm 67, you know, so obviously my, like, travel beats me up much more than it used to. I did eight years in a row. I did at least 500 shows a year when I was young. And never, never got tired, never got sleepy. Now, well, you know, now if I go do five nights in a row, I'm. Five cities in five nights, I'm toast. Yeah, but. But at a point where my body's breaking down, you would think, oh, well, that would make you unhappy. But I say, at this season in life, I am as peaceful and as happy as I have ever been in my life. Which is kind of counterintuitive. Right?

Pete Holmes (64:03)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (64:04)

So it's. It's like, okay, well, that's not based then, on circumstances.

Pete Holmes (64:10)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (64:10)

It's more of a. Of a mindset thing. Yes, I think a spirit thing.

Pete Holmes (64:17)

I agree. It's a spirit thing. And wouldn't you say that there's something about satiating those drives, those passions. Right. I'm going to be known. Mine is, I'm going to be seen. I'm going to be understood. That's my big one. I'm going to be understood and, and be funny, obviously. And then, like, once you kind of get to a cruising altitude, just like we were saying with our childhood selves, we're like, okay, that's been. That dog has been fed. Who am I really? You know? Like, what do I. Who am I behind all that? Now that that drive has gone away, what's still here and what was there the whole time? And that, I would say, is your spirit. That is your, Your true self. And you can start to get to know that.

Jeff Foxworthy (65:07)

Yeah. And do you find this. It's like the things like, I, I. I don't want to do something if I suck at it. Right. Which is like, why I quit playing golf, because it just wasn't fun. I, I sucked at it. Yeah. So if I'm gonna do it and. But I'll. I'll go read and study it and do everything I can to learn about it. But once I get to where I'm really good at it, then I'm almost like, all right, I want to go learn something else.

Pete Holmes (65:40)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, there's. Go ahead.

Jeff Foxworthy (65:45)

It's like. It's like I don't have enough lifetime to do all the things I want to do.

Pete Holmes (65:51)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (65:52)

Which is kind of cool, right?

Pete Holmes (65:54)

Yes.

Jeff Foxworthy (65:54)

Like, I'm not bored. It's like, no, I still want to do this and I still want to do that. And.

Pete Holmes (66:00)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (66:01)

God, if I was only younger. I do this, too. And.

Pete Holmes (66:04)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's great. I think about that sometimes. I'm like, isn't it weird that the planet is big enough that you can't hold all of it in your mind? This will either make sense or it won't. It's like you just forgot about Egypt. Like, remember Egypt and the pyramids and. But then you forgot about South Africa. Then you forgot about New Zealand. Like, those are obvious ones. But there are parts of the world that are, like, frozen over but inhabited. And it's big enough and a life is long enough that you can have all these second, third, fourth acts. I'm just like, what? That's so amazing that there's enough, is what I'm saying. There's enough to stay interested and engaged and to continue on. Like, I'm glad we live on a planet this size. I'm glad we have lives this long. All of that. It seems like a gift.

Jeff Foxworthy (66:55)

I think it is a gift. But. But I think you have to be. There's a mindset there and being open to the possibility of. I'm going to. You know, I've always told my kids, any. Any quality life has got several hold your nose and jump moments and where you don't know how it's going to turn out, but the alternative is not to know. And, you know, when you don't end up. You end up regretting more the things you didn't do than things you did. Yes.

Pete Holmes (67:30)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (67:30)

And I just like. Like, I invented a game because we were at Thanksgiving four or five years ago, and the kids. I say kids, they're in their 20s now, all the cousins, but they're playing cards against humanity. Well, the grandparents were there and the aunts and uncles, and I'm like, you can't. You can't do this at the kitchen table. You know, it's. It's funny, but it's way too. Yeah.

Pete Holmes (68:00)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (68:02)

And they. They agreed and they went somewhere else to play it. But I'm sitting there and I'm going, well, why couldn't you play a funny game like that that you could play with your grandparents there and all? And I went and got a stack of note cards and. Which. I mean, my whole house is note cards. And I started writing punch lines. I wrote 400 punchlines. And then I thought, all right, what does everybody have in common? Everybody's got a family. Everybody's family's crazy. We make that the setup. And literally in two days, I created a game, and then I had them play it, or they were all still there on those note cards at the kitchen table, and it worked. And a year later, it was the number one game on Amazon. Wow. And. But. But so the point of that is the fact that I didn't know how to make a game or had never been in that realm before did not deter me from going, yeah, I make a game.

Pete Holmes (69:09)

That's right.

Jeff Foxworthy (69:09)

I. And so I think you have to be open to the possibilities of, hey, let's go to. Let's go to Kenya. Let's see what it's like in Nairobi. Yes, I'm open to that. And I think a lot of people, they're just. They're not wired that way. My sister's not wired that way. She's like, well, where will we stay? Well, I don't know. We'll find a place, you know, and that's not good enough for her. You know, Is it safe? Yeah, well, you know, and so there's a. There are some people that have that mindset that go, I am going to try new things, I am going to try new places, I'm going to try new jobs, I'm going to try new adventures. And that's great. And if you're not wired like that, that's great, too. I mean, but there's something within us with what we do that. That we are willing to hold our nose and jump. Right? You're holding your nose and jumping every time you go up and try a new bit.

Pete Holmes (70:12)

Yes. And I think that's. That's exactly right. There's a muscle to that. Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (70:18)

You. You know, if they're gonna. Because I don't know about you, but if I write something and I think, oh, my God, this is great, that 70% of the time it's not gonna work.

Pete Holmes (70:32)

Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (70:33)

And I can write something and I think, oh, this is stupid. It's silly. And. And then you go up there and throw that out and they're beating the table and you're like, really? Okay, well, yeah, but that's. That's why I love stand up.

Pete Holmes (70:49)

Yeah. Well, you can't win. You can't figure it out. There's no. There's no end point.

Jeff Foxworthy (70:53)

It's like. It's like the woman who after 40 years, still surprises you and you go, yeah, yeah. That's why I love you, because I can't quite figure you out.

Pete Holmes (71:05)

You know, let me take a stab at your marriage. Does your. I said this on stage the other night because it's something I think Valerie said to me. I was like, the key to one of the keys to my marriage is what's annoying about me. And I'm saying it's. I know it's annoying. My wife thinks is funny. Like, she delights in what's annoying about me. And the example is I'm nervous at a party and I won't stop saying twat to, like, shock people. She, in one hand will go, that's. That is annoying. And on the other hand, equal. She'll go, that's my man. Like, I wouldn't take it out if I was doing surgery on his personality. I love that he's uncomfortable, and when he gets uncomfortable, he starts trying to shock people. I love it. Would you say? I mean, you've been married a long time and in show business, showbiz years, you've been married for three centuries. I mean, it's. It's remarkable.

Jeff Foxworthy (72:00)

Four centuries. Yeah.

Pete Holmes (72:03)

I got 40.

Jeff Foxworthy (72:04)

40, 40 years.

Pete Holmes (72:06)

Oh, wow. 10 years is a.

Jeff Foxworthy (72:13)

So yesterday I was down in South Georgia looking for arrowheads. And it started to rain on us and I got in the car and, you know, so I got four hours of driving to get back to her. But when I get in the car, I'm like, headed home. Xoxo. And I'm excited about seeing her. I'm like, the closer I get. I'm like about to see my girlfriend in just a little bit.

Pete Holmes (72:36)

I.

Jeff Foxworthy (72:37)

Based on the life my dad had. I didn't know you could love somebody for four decades.

Pete Holmes (72:42)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (72:42)

You know, yeah, not only love, love them more than you did when you first met them. Right.

Pete Holmes (72:50)

See, that's something. I forget who I heard say this, but they were like, when you end a relationship, you start a new relationship and then you're doing something that you've done before. You've been in a new relationship, you've done a year anniversary, you've done a two year anniversary. But when you stay with somebody, you're always going. And I'm not saying every relationship needs to go the distance. I'm just saying when you do, you're going into new territory. You've never been in a relationship this long with anybody. This is new. You're on, you're on new terrain.

Jeff Foxworthy (73:24)

It's all new to it. You know, it's I, I look at life as seasons. You know, you have the season of life when you're dating, then you have the season of life when you're falling in love. And then you're seasonal life, a newlywed season of life, having babies, seasonal life, having teenagers, season of life. And so it's always new, It's a new season.

Pete Holmes (73:48)

That's right.

Jeff Foxworthy (73:48)

And there's great stuff in every season. Sometimes it doesn't seem like it in the moment, and then you look back at it and go, oh, that was a sweet season. But this is a sweet season, right? You know, I mean, I mean, it's so funny after we've been together 41 years and like, I still could, like I got up this morning early and I thought of a joke and she got up and then I just, I just want to tell her, you know, and she's sitting there and I'm like, how many. This poor woman, her, her life is me going, hey, is this funny?

Pete Holmes (74:32)

Yes. Or can you write this down for me because I'm driving.

Jeff Foxworthy (74:36)

I said, is this funny? I said, you know, 40 years ago, you used to be sitting next to me. You'd look at me and go, you have the prettiest green eyes. I said, 40 years later, you sit next to me, you look at me and you go, you have an inch long hair right in the middle of your nose. That's fantastic. I said, that's, you know, that's how long we've been together.

Pete Holmes (74:58)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (75:02)

She started laughing. But it's. Yeah, it's where we are.

Pete Holmes (75:05)

I'm brainstorming things about length. It used to be about length of blah. Now it's about length of, you know, rogue hairs. It's very funny. Did you write it down or did.

Jeff Foxworthy (75:16)

You write it down? I did. I did. It's on a note card in the bathroom. Yeah.

Pete Holmes (75:21)

That's beautiful.

Lemonada Media Announcers (75:23)

Hello, I'm Gretchen Rubin. And I'm Lori Gottlieb. We're two friends, one a happiness researcher and the other a therapist. And we are here to tackle the problems of everyday life with all of you, from big issues to small. We'll share advice and fresh perspectives, and we'll also highlight responses from you, our listeners, to the questions we discuss. Whether it's that pet peeve that's been bugging you for years, a tricky dilemma, or just something you've always wondered about? We'll talk it through the since you asked podcast from Lemonada media premieres on September 23rd. Wherever you get your podcasts.

Pete Holmes (75:56)

All right, well, let, let. We'll bring this in for a landing. I. Can I ask you your. I'm sure you get this all the time, but for the fans, what was your first redneck joke? Does that do you remember?

Jeff Foxworthy (76:10)

I do remember. And the only way I remember was I wrote the first 10 I ever wrote on a sheet of yellow notebook paper. And as I said to you, never thinking, oh, this will be a hook or a book, but I was just trying to write something to talk. Try at the club the next night. And years later, my wife found that piece of yellow notebook paper and had it framed. I mean, it's a faded wow, but she framed it and she put it next to the front door of the house. And. And so you've got a house, you know, that's decorated very nicely, and then a framed piece of notebook. And I kind of laughed, and I'm like, what the heck? She goes, well, it did pay for the house, you know, and. But the first, the first one was if your mother keeps a spit cup on the ironing board. That was the first one I ever wrote.

Pete Holmes (77:18)

Wow. And did. Was it always.

Jeff Foxworthy (77:21)

I started like. So I, I did. I'll tell you the interesting thing about this. So I wrote 10. And then I thought, well, if I can write 10 can I write 50? If I write 50, can I write 100? And I got to where I had two or 300 of them. And I thought, maybe this is a book. Maybe this is a little funny book. I got turned down by the first 14 publishers that I sent it to.

Pete Holmes (77:46)

Oh my God.

Jeff Foxworthy (77:47)

And the 15th one, the guy called me and for a meeting and he said, I think this is, this is funny. He said, how does fifteen hundred dollars sound? And I thought he was asking me for 1500 bucks, which I didn't have. And I. Some was like, quiet. And he's like, no, no, no, no, we'll pay you 1500 bucks. And I'm like, oh, hell yeah, you got a deal, you know.

Pete Holmes (78:12)

But I.

Jeff Foxworthy (78:13)

Said to him, I said, how many do you think will sell? And he said, I bet we sell 5,000 of them. That book sold almost 4 million copies. And. And I would say to him every time I would see him, I'm glad you don't know anything more about the book business than I do, you know, but. So I. He didn't see it coming. I didn't see it coming. I mean, it just. Wow, it just worked.

Pete Holmes (78:40)

Where do you get that resolve? I mean, most people. I really think we deserve a U turn here because 15, 14 rejections. I think most people could stomach 3, 4, 5, 10. Pushing it 14. You're still gonna send it to the 15th guy?

Jeff Foxworthy (78:58)

Yeah, I don't know. I thought it was a good idea, you know, amazing. But it worked, you know, I mean, I. And there's a weird thing about like what my favorite thing in the world to do would be for you to call me and go, Jeff, I need, I need 15 jokes about doing a podcast. Yeah. And. And I'd go, okay, I'll. I'll send them to you.

Pete Holmes (79:30)

That's your crossword.

Jeff Foxworthy (79:31)

Yeah, yeah, that's my happy spot. You know, my brother had a T shirt business and he would call me, he's go, we want to do funny T shirts about home security. I go, all I need, you know, and an hour later I'd send him 30 jokes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's my happy place. It just give me a list to make. My son in law was playing NCAA football and he said, I need a list of funny names. I'm creating my own team. I need a list of funny football names. And he's thinking, I'm going to send him a dozen. And I sent him like 300. You know, I mean, that's my happy spot.

Pete Holmes (80:10)

Yeah, you got the green light thing. See, I See that in my daughter, too. It's not just confidence. It's just a green light. It's like. I thought it was a good idea. Like, if you're making 300 fake team names, you can't slow down and look at each one and be like, the Denver Duckwads. You can't slow down and. And. And second guess. Green lights. Green lights. Green lights. Green lights. Green lights. And even with the book, pitching greenlight, green light, you have the inner belief in yourself, which is invaluable.

Jeff Foxworthy (80:43)

Well, I think. Don't you think you have to.

Pete Holmes (80:44)

I definitely do. I. I definitely do, yes.

Jeff Foxworthy (80:49)

Like, I remember one time somebody had said, well, you know, you're just. You're. You're not one of those comics that you just play into the room. You're not playing for the comics. And I'm like, yeah, because I'm a comedian, I'm trying to make as many people as I can laugh. And if the only people that are laughing at me are comics, then I've.

Pete Holmes (81:17)

You're in trouble. You're in trouble.

Jeff Foxworthy (81:19)

Yeah, yeah, I'm in trouble. Yeah. Comics don't laugh at stuff anybody else laughs at, right? Yes. Yeah.

Pete Holmes (81:24)

Yeah. No, that is something I notice about your stuff is like, oh, he's going for it. You know what I mean? Like, he's. He's really going. The job is, you want all of these people to laugh. Go, I'll go for it. Like, but you're not holding back.

Jeff Foxworthy (81:42)

Or.

Pete Holmes (81:42)

Or when you say trying to make the comics laugh, that's like being preoccupied with being cool or being hip or something. You're like, I want to make everyone laugh. That's. That's what I'm going to do.

Jeff Foxworthy (81:53)

Well, so, Pete, I think for anybody creative, whether it's a chef or a painter or the. The number one ingredient that you have is your instinct. It's your gut. Right? So I. I was telling somebody this story yesterday. So when we decided to do the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, the. The guys that were promoting it wanted us to come up with some big ending, like a song or, you know, something. Something big as the grand finale of it. And I. And I said. I said, you know, my favorite moments of comedy were when I was a little kid watching the Carol Burnett show and they used to make each other laugh. I said, so instead of doing something big, can we just bring out four stools? And we've. We've been buddies forever. Get each other to tell stories and just try to make each other laugh. And they were like, I don't think it's going to work, but okay. So the very first night we did it, we had 9,000 people in Omaha. We all go through doing stand up. I'm the last one, and I get to the end. And I said, hey, let's bring the guys out here. And they all brought stools. Well, it wasn't something you could practice. Right. It wasn't like rehearsing a song and dance number. It just had to kind of happen organically. And it was a scary moment. And I thought, as they're coming out, it's like, this is either going to be a giant heard or it'll be great. And plus, when comics do our job, like, right, we don't laugh. People don't see us laugh, Right?

Pete Holmes (83:54)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (83:55)

And we got to the end of it, and 9,000 people stood up and applauded. And I went, holy hell. And years later, I was doing, are you smarter than a fifth grader? And Vicki Lawrence was on there. And I was telling her, I said, the way we ended the blue Collar tour things was us sitting on stools. I said, that was inspired by the Carol Burnett show. And she said, do you know. She said we would rehearse for three days. She said, Tim Conway would do it the exact same way all three days as we rehearsed it. Then we would bring the studio audience and turn the cameras on, and he would do something completely different for no other reason than to make us laugh.

Pete Holmes (84:41)

Wow.

Jeff Foxworthy (84:42)

And.

Pete Holmes (84:42)

Oh, he kept. He was hiding what he had. Yeah, he was ready to go.

Jeff Foxworthy (84:47)

Hiding his. Hiding his hand until the audience got.

Pete Holmes (84:50)

Of course.

Jeff Foxworthy (84:51)

And. But it was. It was gold, right? It was gold when you see him doing something and the rest of them trying so hard to stay in character and not laugh.

Pete Holmes (85:04)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (85:04)

And that was instinct on his part. He didn't know if it was going to work.

Pete Holmes (85:11)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (85:12)

And so I think what we do, it's just. It's just a gut feeling, like. Well, and this is like the funny kid in class. Other people may be thinking of it, but there's something about us that goes, I'm gonna throw it out there.

Pete Holmes (85:27)

The inner green light.

Jeff Foxworthy (85:28)

Say it out loud. Throw it out there.

Pete Holmes (85:30)

It's the green light. I don't. I don't know why. Green light. You gotta have it.

Jeff Foxworthy (85:34)

It may not work, but I'm throwing it out.

Pete Holmes (85:36)

And I think we talked about this when I did your show. Like, if it doesn't work, that's the show. Like, you can watch me crash and burn. Like, either way, if you want to Watch me.

Jeff Foxworthy (85:48)

You're willing to take that chance, though, right?

Pete Holmes (85:50)

I'll die. If the joke died, I'll die with it. You can laugh at how red I turn or whatever it is, but that's the show. I forget who told me that, but it was like, whatever happened.

Jeff Foxworthy (86:01)

That's so cool that your daughter has that confidence, right?

Pete Holmes (86:05)

She does. It's pretty absurd. It actually gets to the point where we're like, sweetheart, do you want me to show you how to cut a tomato? And she's like, I know how to cut a tomato. And Val's like, oh, no. Is she, like, arrogant? And I was like, now she's got the green light. She's got the green light, and I wouldn't change it. And then if you want to teach my daughter how to cut a tomato, just cut a tomato in front of her. She doesn't want you to go like. And then you say, just let her watch you do it. She doesn't. She doesn't want to feel like the student. She wants to feel because she's. She believes in herself. It's absurd, but I love it.

Jeff Foxworthy (86:36)

Well, there's. There's this thing. I always thought, well, if they can do it, I can do it right to me, too.

Pete Holmes (86:44)

That's why my advice for comics is go and watch an open mic.

Jeff Foxworthy (86:48)

You'll.

Pete Holmes (86:49)

If you're like me, you'll leave and go, I can do that badly. Like, I can do that badly.

Jeff Foxworthy (86:54)

Yes.

Pete Holmes (86:55)

Yeah, no worries. I can do that. Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (86:58)

But it's like anything. Shooting a bow or. Yeah, you know, I'm like, well, hell, he can do it. Why can't I do it?

Pete Holmes (87:06)

They're just people.

Jeff Foxworthy (87:07)

And I've always thought that about myself. I go, well, he's doing it. Yeah, I can learn to do this.

Pete Holmes (87:12)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. Jeff, just so we don't miss on something that we both like talking about, let's end talking a little bit about the meaning of life. You mentioned your quiet time, which was a term I used back in my young days of going to church. We'd have our quiet time. It was very nostalgic and sweet to think of you doing your quiet time here in your 60s. I am curious, so I'm going to start with a very practical question. When you're reading the Bible, where are you? Where you go? What's your strategy for reading the Bible? I'm. I. I enjoy the teachings of Jesus very much, but I also go like, you can't just flip around, Hosea. You know what I'm Saying with all respect to, like, the Book of Ruth, like, you gotta have some sort of game plan. It wasn't designed to just be flipped around.

Jeff Foxworthy (88:08)

No, it wasn't. But if you.

Pete Holmes (88:12)

I'm.

Jeff Foxworthy (88:13)

I'm not leaving you.

Pete Holmes (88:14)

He's grabbing the family Bible. Is it enormous? It's small.

Jeff Foxworthy (88:20)

No, it's. It's. It's. It's not enormous, but. So, like, this is just mine.

Pete Holmes (88:30)

You have a big one in the entryway. I hope you turn pages like bed sheets.

Jeff Foxworthy (88:35)

With. With. With. But see, like. All right, like, so on this, I'm just opening it up. But, like, I've got things written in the margin, first of all.

Pete Holmes (88:46)

What. What translation are we working?

Jeff Foxworthy (88:48)

Niv.

Pete Holmes (88:49)

Niv.

Jeff Foxworthy (88:50)

But I've got notes inside. Got things written in the margin.

Pete Holmes (88:54)

Hold it up a little bit, Jeff. We can't see it.

Jeff Foxworthy (88:56)

So, different color highlighter.

Pete Holmes (88:59)

I'm sorry, is this the life application Bible?

Jeff Foxworthy (89:01)

Yeah.

Pete Holmes (89:02)

Yeah. So weird evangelical flex right there.

Jeff Foxworthy (89:06)

Pages have, like, five different color highlighter pens, which means at some time in my life, that means five different times in my life I was there, and five different times, something different.

Pete Holmes (89:20)

Oh, wow.

Jeff Foxworthy (89:21)

Spoke to me.

Pete Holmes (89:22)

Wow.

Jeff Foxworthy (89:23)

Right?

Pete Holmes (89:23)

Yeah. So different pens for different years.

Jeff Foxworthy (89:27)

Different. Well, or, you know, I'm not that organized. I'm just. Whatever. Pens laying around. But, you know, sometimes I look in the margin. Something's in pencil and something's in blue ink, something's in blacking, and it's. So I'm like, oh, well, that's kind of cool that you can keep reading something that every time you go through it, something else might speak to wherever you might be in that season in your life or. Or whatever. I just find when I try to run the ship, I don't do a very good job. Right. And I don't need to be in control. And it's. It sounds so moronically stupid. I think the key to life is this. Let it go. I'm not in control. And I will physically do that. If I'm driving down the road and somebody cuts me off. In my youth, I would. I. I'd follow them and get right on their butt. And. And now I'm just like. I will literally clench my fist and go, let it go.

Pete Holmes (90:38)

Yeah, Surrender, surrender.

Jeff Foxworthy (90:41)

Let it go. And covet taught me that I'm like, hell, I'm not in control of anything.

Pete Holmes (90:48)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (90:51)

I'm not in control of my next breath. I'm not in control of the food supply or what? So. And. And instead of that being frustrating, it's actually. It's very Liberating. And, you know, there. There's a phrase I didn't understand when I was a kid, which was a piece that passes. Understanding meaning it doesn't make sense. Right. You shouldn't be at peace because the. The world is politically.

Pete Holmes (91:22)

That's exactly right.

Jeff Foxworthy (91:23)

Maligned with each other, and we got the threat of wars and all, and it's like, well, but I'm not in control. Right. So, yeah, I'll just. I'll trust the one that is. And, yeah, I'm okay with that.

Pete Holmes (91:36)

Yeah, that's a big one for me, too. What is the pearl of great price? What is the piece of understanding? Jesus tells that story about somebody who buys a farm. I don't know if it's a farm, but he. It's because he knows there's a treasure buried in the field. So, like, a lot of the parables are pointing us to the idea of something precious that's hidden but also kind of ordinary. It's kind of like it's buried in a field or it's. Or it's. It's just out of reach, or it seems like it is. And tuning into that and what's kind.

Jeff Foxworthy (92:07)

Of counterintuitive to the world, Pete? I think a lot of the things. And, you know, and that's, I guess, that second. Second half of life stuff, but because the world will want to know, what kind of car are you driving, what kind of watch you wear, and what kind of. And the world will tell you, hey, being famous will make you happy. Being rich will make you happy. And I'm not saying anything. I wouldn't say to her, but like, when I did a sitcom in the mid-90s, we filmed between Seinfeld and Roseanne, and Roseanne had the number one show, and Roseanne was making a million dollars an episode, and she was miserable.

Pete Holmes (92:51)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (92:51)

And I would just sit there quietly and go, well, the world tells you being famous make you happy. She ain't happy. World test. Being rich will make you happy. She ain't happy.

Pete Holmes (92:59)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (92:59)

The world's lying to you, you know.

Pete Holmes (93:01)

And that's a gift, right?

Jeff Foxworthy (93:03)

You go ahead, find something. Find something that soothes your soul and gives you peace and go do that.

Pete Holmes (93:13)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (93:19)

I just think a lot of. And I. And I don't think it's complicated. I like, the best jokes are simple. The best recipes are.

Pete Holmes (93:28)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (93:28)

You know, the best ideas are simple. And I. And I think, you know, it's. And I think that's the thing that gets misunderstood about. And I'm not. It's funny. I'm kind of weird. I'm not a big fan of organized religion. Yeah, never have been. But I. I think it, it comes down to two things. Either we are a big accident.

Pete Holmes (94:03)

Or.

Jeff Foxworthy (94:03)

Or we were created. Now, everything that I'm looking at in your room was created, right? Your picture frames, your microphone, the mic cord. Somebody created that with a purpose to do, to do so. And so it just never made sense to me that everything in your room would be created except for you, who is by far the most complicated thing in the room. And you're a big accident. That would be like throwing the parts to a 747 down a flight of stairs and expecting them all to come together and for you to have a functioning, working airplane at the bottom. So it's either a big accident or it's creation. If you can't decide it's a big accident, then it was created. Then. Then we have a purpose. And I think that purpose is that we all have a gift that we all have something that we're good at and we can all be kind to each other, you know, and that's the way I try to live my life. It's like, this is my gift. I love. I love my gift. I can make people laugh. It's a. It's a. It's a. It's letting somebody set their burden down for. For a little while and resting and replenishing themselves and then picking it back up. There's value in laughter. And the rest of the time accepting that I'm not in control, which is freeing. Oh, my word. Is that free to go? Oh, I don't have to be. You know, there's a God and I'm not it. Right.

Pete Holmes (95:39)

There's a story that when I run.

Jeff Foxworthy (95:40)

The show, it doesn't go well.

Pete Holmes (95:42)

Yeah, that's right. There was a. I heard the story that this guy went to a monastery or something. It was like a silent meditation place where people went to be on retreat for 30 days alone, meditating, praying, whatever it was. And so one guy was going in while another guy was coming out. This sounds like a joke, but it's a true story.

Jeff Foxworthy (96:02)

It sounds exactly like.

Pete Holmes (96:04)

Exactly. It's a street joke. But one guy's coming out, the other guy's going into his 30 days. One guy's coming out from his 30 days, and the guy coming out has tears of joy streaming down his face and he's smiling ear to ear, and he goes, what? What did you figure out? And he goes, I realized I don't have to solve my problems. And I was just like, oh, my God, that surrender, your beautiful gesture. You and I, when, when I did your show, we keep referencing it, it was a great chat, but talking about Richard Rohr saying, accept that you are accepted, that Jesus kept talking about God and Father terms, being like, you can't be more or less somebody's son. You're born their son. No matter what you do, you're their son. That you're already chosen, you're already in the fold.

Jeff Foxworthy (96:51)

I liked your term when you said, you just have to remember, oh, I'm a child of the king.

Pete Holmes (96:56)

That's right, you just remember. But it's not about like cleaning up or any of that. But then I'll also say the fruits of that recognition are kindness, gentleness, patience and peace. All of these things. I just. And you can't really explain this to a 13 year old, but when I was in the church young, I thought I had to fake that I was nice, even though, you know, maybe I wasn't, or pretend that I wasn't horny, even though I was horny or whatever, or selfish or angry or whatever it might be. And now that I'm older and I really couldn't figure it out, except by living, you realize that the revelation of your true nature, of your. I wanted to tell you this too. Alan Watts says, you didn't come into this world. You came out of this world. You're a product of it. The apple comes off the tree. You grew out of the world. That's belonging. That's acceptance. You're not, you know, a cell of animation placed over a painted backdrop. You're in it. You're stitched into it already. And that recognition means you are too, Jeff. And I am. And your families and my. And our friends and people we don't know are. And that leads to not an effortful kindness, but a natural kindness that comes from, well, if I'm this, then so are you. And therefore this is going to be how I behave.

Jeff Foxworthy (98:20)

Well. And I think that's probably the biggest misconception, whatever you want to call it about Christianity, is you have to perform well. And it's. And it's like, no, look, who was Jesus hanging out with? He was hanging out with the whores and the thieves and the tax collectors. We, we, we, we're gonna screw up. I'm. I'm not gonna outperform anybody. Right?

Pete Holmes (98:45)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (98:46)

But I do have a creator that I'm, I'm his child. So he still loves, like your child. It doesn't matter.

Pete Holmes (98:54)

See the picture Leela drew right here over my microphone?

Jeff Foxworthy (98:58)

The little flower.

Pete Holmes (98:58)

Yeah, we talked about that. Richard Roy said, our efforts to make God love us are like when our children give us art that is maybe like, you know, it doesn't go in the MoMA, but when I see it, it's better than any Picasso. That's the lens that I think if you want to personify God as. As another that's looking at you. That's the level of affection.

Jeff Foxworthy (99:19)

Father Boyle tells us if he had a refrigerator. Pete Holmes. Pete Holmes would have a painting right on the front of.

Pete Holmes (99:26)

That's right. And so would you. Isn't that beautiful? Father Boyle? Father Greg Boyle, who I think I told you about him, too. Tattoos on the Heart is his first book. I think this is in there. He talks about this guy whose father is dying. This is a true story. And he would read to him at night. So it was this beautiful role reversal. He read to me when I was a kid. Now I'm reading to him in the hospital and he's trying to read to him. He's tired, haggard, it's been a long day. And the dad, he's reading for the purpose of having his dad go to sleep. He needs him to go to sleep. But the dad won't stop opening his eyes, gazing at his son and smiling. He can't stop loving him. He just. Even though he needs rest, even though he's sick, he can't stop beholding and delighting in his son. He goes, that's it. That's what I think. That's what Jesus is pointing us to. It's this irrational. And that's why he keeps going to the father and the son in healthy families, this love that, like, my daughter could light me on fire. My daughter drop kicks me in the balls all the time in bed by accident, but still, it's like I don't even feel it. It's crazy. And I think that's why he's always going, it's like a family. It's like blood. It's like. Because family is the closest we have to understanding interconnected belonging, cherished, kinship. And I think that's. And we did lose the narrative at.

Jeff Foxworthy (100:57)

Some point, and it's all of us, you, but you either accept that, that. That you're loved like that or you don't, or you reject it. Right?

Pete Holmes (101:05)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (101:06)

And it's. It's. It's. Again, it's simple.

Pete Holmes (101:10)

Yeah, but.

Jeff Foxworthy (101:11)

But I knew when my dad left, I needed a dad, and I sort of kind of set the parameters for that. What does that mean? Somebody that's going to be here every day? Somebody loves me when I perform well, and somebody loves me when I perform shitty. And they don't care. They just know. They know everything about me and they love me. Yeah. And then I went, oh, well, I think that's God. So I'm like, you know what, God? I'm. I'm gonna let you be my dad. You. You be my dad. Yeah. And I'm 67, and there's still nights. I'll go, God, today was a bad one. Can I. Can I just crawl up in your lap and will you rub my head? Can I just come sit in your lap and rub my head? And that's the way I think of God.

Pete Holmes (101:57)

Yes.

Jeff Foxworthy (101:57)

I know you love me that much. Can I just crawl up in your lap?

Pete Holmes (102:01)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Lay it all down. Yeah, just put it down.

Jeff Foxworthy (102:05)

It's. It's, you know, like, you talk about your daughter. I say that about my grandkids. They make my stomach hurt. I love them so much. It. Stomach hurt.

Pete Holmes (102:14)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (102:15)

It's.

Pete Holmes (102:15)

It's deeply upsetting sometimes. My wife. I did a show in New York. My wife came with me. People would ask us about our daughter, and I'd. I wouldn't say it, but I'd be thinking, can we change the subject? I can't handle this. You know what I mean? It's causing me pain to talk about my baby. Because my strategy is, I feel like an assassin. I'm on the road. I'm here to do a job. It's for the family. It's also for me. I enjoy it. It's a gift. I enjoy all of it. But, like, it gets to a point where I don't want to talk about it. I think that's another thing Greg Boyle says is when we talk about, does God have a plan for you? He has a rather interesting answer for that. He goes, I think God is far too busy loving you to have a plan. It's not really like that. And Jim Finley, another good. Because I know you like this stuff, because I do. And we're similar. I think he says, I believe in a God that protects me from nothing, but sustains me in everything. Isn't that good?

Jeff Foxworthy (103:15)

Yeah.

Pete Holmes (103:16)

Isn't that it?

Jeff Foxworthy (103:17)

Well, simple recipe, like the. The way to him. You know, Bono said. He said, there's two kinds of songs. Running away from God or running towards God.

Pete Holmes (103:27)

Oh, wow.

Jeff Foxworthy (103:28)

Those are the. But like, if you said to me, how do I get from Atlanta To Chattanooga. The. The most direct way is to get on I75 north and it's a straight line. But I can get on I85 south and go to Florida and then take a left and go to Alabama, and then. And I'm. And I can get there. There's a million ways to Chattanooga. And I think that's the same way with all of us finding our path. And so when you're like, the plans, God's like, yeah, you can go however you want, but, you know, if you go this way, you're gonna have to turn back this way to get back, you know?

Pete Holmes (104:09)

But, yeah, we're back to the.

Jeff Foxworthy (104:12)

Which is free will, which is the only way. It's. It's true love. If it's not free will, it's never true love. Right. You can't make somebody love somebody and not be real. Yeah. It has to be of your own free will.

Pete Holmes (104:28)

Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. And we all. We're all on our way to Chattanooga. You know, it's funny, I think of you as a. Even though you're older than I am up here, so I'm. I'm feeling more of.

Jeff Foxworthy (104:39)

I love that. I love that. Really?

Pete Holmes (104:42)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (104:42)

Yeah.

Pete Holmes (104:42)

Well, especially as we're. These couple times we've talked, I'm like, this is my peer, so more of a brother thing. But in the past 20 minutes, you've been. I never had grandparents. They all passed away. I've been like, I think you're giving everybody this really precious grandfather vibe that I think is really. It really, to use a Christian term, ministered to me. I was like, oh, this is beautiful. I never really had the guy, the. The older patriarch kind of guy that was like, it's okay.

Jeff Foxworthy (105:15)

Let go.

Pete Holmes (105:16)

Trust, wisdom is knowledge, plus a scar. All this stuff. And I. I think people are going to really dig this conversation. So I appreciate it.

Jeff Foxworthy (105:25)

We, my wife and I, this morning, and. And if you asked me the secret to a relationship, we. We go to bed talking to each other, and we wake up talking to each other. But we were talking about this morning, I said, it's very interesting that people that. That through the course of your life, you hear a million things, but sometimes that a sentence will just stick to you. Right? Like. And she was talking about one of my dad's wives saying, well, you're just a sit in the corner and look pretty girl. And she said, you know, I've always taken pride in. I'm going to do not only my share of the clean of the work, but I'll do more than my share. And it's. And it's weird how just that stuck to me, you know, that it. And I was giving her a couple of examples. And now. Dad Gummet, I have lost the point of what I was going to say.

Pete Holmes (106:26)

No, I'm gonna find it. I'm gonna podcast the hell out of this moment. We were talking about. Well, you were saying the secret to a relationship, and then you were talking about talking, and then your. Your wife doesn't want to be a sit in the corner, look pretty. And I was talking about maybe we're.

Jeff Foxworthy (106:44)

Both going to lose. What were you talking about? Because that's what it was.

Pete Holmes (106:48)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (106:48)

Yeah.

Pete Holmes (106:48)

If we get.

Jeff Foxworthy (106:49)

If we didn't have grandparents.

Pete Holmes (106:51)

Oh, you. Yeah, I didn't have grandparents, but you're giving me grandparent energy. I think that's ministering to people because people need to be told they're okay. There's a plan. You can let go. Wisdom is intelligence, plus scars. Like, it's all right. That's what we want from our. I don't want to call you an elder. I'm just saying. But from the people that have been there, we want them to say, it's all right.

Jeff Foxworthy (107:12)

It is okay. It's. It's all going to be okay. And there's. Even as is. I'm 20 years further down the road than you. You got some great seasons in front of you. Yeah. You know, you.

Pete Holmes (107:25)

This is all we need. We just. This is what I didn't know I needed. We just need this. We just need someone who's been there to go, like, hang in there. And I can say that to someone who's 36. I'll be like, this is great.

Jeff Foxworthy (107:37)

You don't.

Pete Holmes (107:37)

You don't understand. It's gonna be weird.

Jeff Foxworthy (107:39)

You've got. You've got stuff ahead of you. You have no idea how many great moments like. Like, you don't know that moment when you're facing one direction and your daughter taps you on the shoulder and you turn around and she's in her wedding gown.

Pete Holmes (107:56)

Wow.

Jeff Foxworthy (107:57)

Cried like a baby. My little baby girl in a wedding gown. You don't know that moment when somebody hands you your grandchild.

Pete Holmes (108:05)

That.

Jeff Foxworthy (108:05)

And you. You sit there. I mean, there's so much great stuff ahead of you yet. And that's what I want to be to people is like. It's because you realize the biggest secret in life is how fast it goes by. In my mind, I was one of the new comics just a few years ago. Well, the old guy, it Just went by so fast. And you get one lap around the track. Don't. Don't waste it fighting with people. Don't know. We don't all have to agree. I don't have to agree with you politically or. But I can still love you, right? And we're all. We're all masterpieces. We're all like. You go through a gallery and go, man, she's a masterpiece.

Pete Holmes (108:58)

It's so funny that you say that on my mirror. I have the. I wrote the word flawless, and I drew this funny Oscar, like a melting, deformed Oscar. And I just. I had this vision. It wasn't like a religious vision. I just mean it was something I felt and understood in my bones. Was that, like, we're all perfect. And my mother, who I love very dearly, but the way she might be this way or that way, or maybe she irks me this way.

Jeff Foxworthy (109:23)

Flawless.

Pete Holmes (109:24)

No, she's doing it perfectly. Even the people who drive you nuts, they're doing it perfectly like I do.

Jeff Foxworthy (109:33)

And I do like the Bible's words for that. Fearfully and wonderfully made, right?

Pete Holmes (109:38)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (109:38)

Every one of us. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

Pete Holmes (109:41)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (109:42)

Just a little masterpiece. And if you take the time, you know, I've worked with homeless people for 20 something years, and you get to realize, oh, man, once you learn somebody's name and somebody's story, you're a masterpiece. They just. Something bad happened to them along the way. No less a masterpiece than you are, or I am or. Yeah, kid, it's. Yeah. And that's why it's. I just. To me, it can't be a grand accident.

Pete Holmes (110:14)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I think this is beautiful. It's beautiful one. May I ask you one final question, Jeff?

Jeff Foxworthy (110:23)

Whatever you want.

Pete Holmes (110:24)

All right, I get that sense. Well, now, I want to ask you three things, but.

Jeff Foxworthy (110:33)

I thought. Tell me if this is funny, Pete. The other day, I haven't tried it on anybody, but it was something about. One of the cool things about getting older is you can kind of call things what they are. You don't have to worry about being canceled. And I said, I am a old, white Southern male. I got canceled the first day canceling started, Right? It's like, oh, we're gonna. Oh, yeah. No, he's out.

Pete Holmes (111:00)

Yeah. You were skimmed right off the top.

Jeff Foxworthy (111:02)

Yeah, right off the top.

Pete Holmes (111:05)

Of course. This guy.

Jeff Foxworthy (111:06)

That's good. I like that.

Pete Holmes (111:10)

Well, my question is, can you remember the time in your life where you laughed the hard. Harder than you've ever laughed? Like, maybe you Were a kid as a church going kid, Maybe it was in church. That's often places where you're not allowed to laugh. Maybe it was with your best friend. Maybe somebody fell, maybe somebody farted. Maybe it was on the blue collar tour. But if you're laughing and tears are streaming down your face and you're begging someone to stop doing what they're doing.

Jeff Foxworthy (111:35)

Who are you with?

Pete Holmes (111:36)

I'm not looking for a great story. Like I opened the door and there was Larry. And I know his name's not Larry, but Larry. The cable guys in a diaper. I'm not looking for that. I just want the, the feeling and the place and the time where you laughed so hard you, you were scared.

Jeff Foxworthy (111:53)

It's, it's almost always my family, right? I. I'm very lucky. I have this. Most of the same friends I had when I was a kid. But I've lived next door to my. Next door to my brother and his kids. His kids are like my kids and all. So I've always just been very family oriented. But like my brother is funny as crap and he would never get on stage for a billion dollars. But, but we've always been close and so, so here's my story. You didn't ask for a story. But we were kids and at the end of our street, they were. There was construction going on. Well, I'm five years older than him, so I had to be 10. He was about five. And my mother used to fuss at him all the time because he would forget to go to the bathroom for days at a time. So we're down there at the end of the street playing in this construction area and we noticed that the mud looked just like poop. I mean, it was like mud there. So I was the mastermind. And we got a two by four and we made a fake turd that must have been three feet long. I mean as long as a yardstick and about as big around as a Coca Cola can. And we tapered one end of it and we walked it down the sidewalk, snuck it into the house. I put the big end down the hole and this thing wrapped around the toilet like three. I mean it was, was. It was like a python. And I told my brother, I said, you sit in here for like 10 minutes and then call mom to wipe you. And he's five and he pulled it off. He could have won an academy award. So I'm in the next room and I'm in the next room with my head against the bathroom door. And after 10 minutes, Mom, Mom. Come wipe me. And I hear my mother's shoes walking down the hall. I hear the bathroom door open. And I hear, oh, my God, Jay. When was the last time you went, this is not normal? And she was. By the end, she was out in the hall calling the pediatrician when I got up out of the floor.

Pete Holmes (114:23)

This is not normal is a great.

Jeff Foxworthy (114:25)

This is not normal. Our lives, we've gone. Oh, my God. This is not normal.

Pete Holmes (114:31)

Good book title. This is not Normal.

Jeff Foxworthy (114:34)

Yeah. This is not normal.

Pete Holmes (114:35)

This is not normal.

Jeff Foxworthy (114:39)

I could write that book.

Pete Holmes (114:40)

Yeah. Yes, you could. I didn't want to pressure you for a story, but glad you had one. That is a fantastic. I'll never forget that answer. I'll never forget that answer, Jeff. Thank you so much. I'll plug anything you need me to plug in the intro, but it's. It's been a pleasure becoming your friend over two conversations. I think we have the new record.

Jeff Foxworthy (115:02)

Talking to you.

Pete Holmes (115:03)

Yes.

Jeff Foxworthy (115:04)

You know, when it fills my heart when you talk about your family, it it same. Because literally, that's what I want for everybody. I want everybody to love their kids like I love my kids. I want everybody to have a relationship with their partner like I have it.

Pete Holmes (115:30)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (115:31)

And, you know, it's. Life's too short. We don't have to fight. We. It's so much easier to be kind to people. Yeah. And. And I think it starts, you know, we. We kind of find our sweet spot when you. When you have that little air of gratitude. So I. I say stupid things to myself. When I get up, I go, put on the slippers of gratitude, you know, and I will go, man, thank you. I. Last night I warmed up lasagna in the microwave, but I've been to places where that would have been the best meal people had ever had in their life. So.

Pete Holmes (116:08)

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Jeff Foxworthy (116:09)

You know, don't view it as leftovers, you know.

Pete Holmes (116:13)

Yeah.

Jeff Foxworthy (116:14)

Thank you for that. Thank you. I had a place to sleep, roof over my head, People that love me. Yeah, my cup runneth over.

Pete Holmes (116:21)

Well, you can't feel fear and gratitude at the same time. I'm sure you've heard that before, but it's true.

Jeff Foxworthy (116:27)

And anger, you know, like, that. Fear is the opposite of.

Pete Holmes (116:31)

Yes.

Jeff Foxworthy (116:32)

Anger.

Pete Holmes (116:33)

It's also just being. Without saying it. It's being present. If. If you're in traffic and you take a moment to go, like, I have a car. That's amazing.

Jeff Foxworthy (116:43)

Do you know if you have a car, you're in the top 5% of the world that's. I I 95 of the world's population doesn't own a car.

Pete Holmes (116:52)

Wow. It's amazing. And then if you look at time, the amount of history where there were no cars. You know what I mean? Used to envy the guy that had an ox. And now you're in a car. And look, I've been in my car a million times and been in a bad mood, but if you can just feel the steering wheel feel, hopefully you have air conditioning or music, your chair. You know what I mean? Like, drop into what's happening. It's another way of practicing presence. The lasagna isn't just a means to an end. It's. It's all that's happening in your experience right now is this lasagna. So, like, be there for it. I catch myself doing that all the time. In the morning, I get up and I like to get sunlight in the morning. Try to do like 10 minutes just in the sun, getting some air. And I catch my. I caught myself going like, has it been 10 minutes yet? And I'm like, what are you rushing to? You're in your yard beholding the California sun.

Jeff Foxworthy (117:49)

Yeah.

Pete Holmes (117:49)

And my dog was next to me. I'm petting my dog and I'm like, you're rushing through this to what, answer emails?

Jeff Foxworthy (117:56)

Better. What's better than this? Right.

Pete Holmes (117:59)

They call that the thought that kicks you out of heaven. You're on your Byron. Katie said that you're in your hammock, beautiful day, listening to your kids playing. But then the thought that kicks you out of heaven is, I wish I had a lemonade. You know what I mean? Just stop.

Jeff Foxworthy (118:15)

Comparison is the death of contentment.

Pete Holmes (118:18)

That's right.

Jeff Foxworthy (118:19)

Just be content in the moment. Yeah, that's right.

Pete Holmes (118:23)

Yeah. Well, I've been content this entire time. And thank you very, very much for giving us so much for your time. The guest ends the show. I like to give you that power. You say, keep it crispy. It doesn't mean anything weird. It's not like 6, 7. It just. It just means everything we've been talking about is crispy. Family, love, life, connection. So if you would just give us a keep it crispy, we will end this episode.

Jeff Foxworthy (118:49)

Do you want my name or no.

Pete Holmes (118:51)

It'S not like the old days.

Jeff Foxworthy (118:52)

Okay.

Pete Holmes (118:53)

I love. Because I used to do that too.

Jeff Foxworthy (118:56)

Yeah.

Pete Holmes (118:56)

The guys that have been there will go, this is Jeff Fox, where you're listening to. You made it weird. Keep it crispy. You can just say it however you want. You can do it. Old school, but however you want.

Jeff Foxworthy (119:06)

Well, I think there's only one thing left to say. Keep it crispy.

Pete Holmes (119:13)

It doesn't. It never fails to delay. Thank you, Jeff.

Jeff Foxworthy (119:16)

Thank you, brother.

Lemonada Media Announcers (119:24)

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