Do you have like a heart out?

6:00 a.m., man.

Okay.

I have to go to a pediatrician on appointment at 4.

So, you still see a pediatrician.

That's good.

I I remember not wanting to leave my pediatrician.

She loved Ron White, the comedian.

Do you know Ron White?

Like, damn.

When you find out your doctor's taste in comedy, you kind of start questioning your your doctor.

Yo.. like your doctor better like Mort Saul or something.

Like, it better be it better be like really heady.

Yeah, she was great.

So, you got a pediatrician of four.

Okay, we'll get you out of here by then.

Okay, great.

This is American Masters Creative Spark.

I'm your host, Joe Skinner.

Our guest today is Chris Fleming, a wordssmith, a fashion icon, and a wildly physical performer who pushes observational comedy to its absurd and manic limits.

We're talking about his special Live at the Palace and how he got here.

Starting in Stow, Massachusetts, population 7,000.

It's it's so depressing to be um to be the lesserk known Stow.

Everyone knows Stow Vermont cuz it's like the cider capital of the world and everyone's like I think the X Games are there and and stuff, but Stow without the E is just Yeah.

So, paint a picture of Stow without the E. Okay.

No street lights.

a lot of uh there was something called um well there's there's a farm there and the big the big event for our family would be going to see when the when the lambs are sheared and uh we we called it we when we were young we called it lambie day and we thought we thought this was kind of a what it was called and my sister found out the rough way I think later I think I think maybe even high school being like hey y'all going to Lammy day we like what the Lammy day but Um, that was one of the big things was going to see the lamb's freshly shorn.

Um, yeah.

Yeah.

Whenever I take an Uber from Logan, when I go visit my family and I take the Uber from Boston to Stow, the drivers are always like, I'm never coming back here again.

Like at night, it it people get lost a lot.

It's very labyrinthian, right?

Um, hilly, uh, just very deciduous.

A lot of the canopy.

It's um I mean the the the Vich is the is the best representation of my um of Stow that I've ever seen.

That takes place there.

It it it doesn't, but it does to me.

Just just just the way they do the slow zooms on the woods that just with like a that's that is Stow I love it.

I love it.

What was the creative spark that got you going at that at that age?

Hm.

I seeing my dad laugh as a child at Robin Williams made me be like, "Okay, well, that's what I want to do."

Even though I was really shy, but it was this it was this piece of being like, "Oh, yeah.

I'm going to be a comedian."

And even in kindergarten, I would I would sign my name, Chris, the comedian.

And it was even though I was like silent, but I was like, "That's what I'm going to do."

And that I think I think the um I think the lack of things happening was really good for me and my friends.

We were constantly sketching.

We were putting on shows.

We were making movies.

Like we were needing to entertain ourselves and create.

We were we were very creative as as youth.

I I think it was like a very small world and in and in a way I was like I want to fill this world.

It wasn't like get me out of here.

It was like this world rocks.

I want to be I want to I want to make things like my first bit in standup was like it was a bit about how people love to tell you about when they see deer which just shows how rural I grew up.

I was just riffing on very deer centric comedy.

I had like eight minutes on people competing about the number of deer they saw, like adults competing about the the deer they saw that week and how that was a point of pride.

And that's what I was doing as a teen.

And um if anything, I was a little bit resentful of having to leave the nest and be like, "Ah, there's more."

Like you have to expand your pallet.

It's bigger than just deer.

So what else is on the stove?

Like 10 minutes on Stow.

Oh, I mean the 10 minutes on Stow became hours on Stow in my I did a a character called Gail.

She was in my standup which was um a woman from from that town.

My Labradoodle just got accepted to Carnegie Melon.

Early acceptance.

Still waiting to hear back from Yale and Pomona.

Fingers crossed.

I I think about uh where I started in standup and I started in kind of a funky collective in Cambridge where people were stranger than me like it was I I had an inferiority complex.

It was a place called the comedy studio and there were people that were so eccentric older older people Gen X. I was really inspired by Gen X I think because that they were the generation above me like then and that was so cool to me how free they were on stage and I felt the way that we were taught standup too Rick Jenkins at the studio was always to teaching us to to go deeper and deeper into our authentic self and same thing with my acting teacher in college.

I think of that as a formative thing.

Um Kate Kelly was my acting teacher.

The way that she told me to throw that all away.

Like it's like you can't go into an a performance with an idea of how you're going to do it.

Like you have to you're there right now and what's interesting is the release.

And so that means you're gonna like you have to get comfortable up uh throwing throwing away the per the idea of perfection because Stow everything like the my family I come from perfectionists and I'm and I'm far from a perfectionist like I'm I don't think I could be and and release the amount of work that I do because yeah you just you just can't in in this special I think we did a really good job of that of like we didn't want like a really polished thing.

We wanted a real thing in a beautiful space like the the space is beautiful and and stuff but we wanted to keep the energ like there is an entropy to my show like there is like um things fall apart.

I get really emotional.

I get upset with the audience.

And I was also responding to at that time when I was starting out comedy, I was responding to what was happening in America, which in comedy, which was every standup was wearing like a button-up shirt and a hoodie.

everyone looked the same or plaid shirts and even the best, you know, and I and I was more into like null Fielding and and British comics who were wearing the craziest and not even talking about it.

And and I found that I when I when I discovered that that clicked for me too because I was always trying to blend I don't know if glam's the right word, but like something bigger than just like a guy on stage with a mic.

What drove that impulse?

Like why why did you want it to be bigger?

That is a good question.

I always loved costume as a child.

I grew up with girls and so I was always like they're they get to wear this like like in a in a clothing store.

I remember being like are you kidding me?

Like it's like Oz versus Kansas.

Like it's like women's section.

Yeah.

Come on.

It's like boom boom.

Like these cool shoes and then the men's the men's just like this Willie Lman tragic stuff.

just like grays and beige occasional like taupe at best and I I just was like are you kidding me?

So I think I think it was um a desire to assimilate as well because it was I would spend summers mostly with my my mom, her sister and uh my sister and then my two girl cousins Kaylin and Molly.

And I remember being like like why do I have to be this?

Why do I have to be the dope in the in a shirt and tie?

Right.

I think it was I think so... pageantry.

I loved like I loved um where like when we could wear costumes and do and do uh skits for a lack of a better word.

I I felt such liberation in that.

Uh and I was always prone to crossdressing as a child.

All right, cut it up, you know, clip it.

I don't know.

I felt um there are times where I feel I feel I mean, I talk about in my special.

There are times where I feel remarkable in like a in in in the right men's attire.

And then there are times where it's like, no, I'm more inclined to wear this kind of a thing.

And also in okay Boston pretends to be liberal.

It's not like that.

That place is terrifying.

Of all the places in the world is one of the scariest places I've ever been.

Like it is the most judgmental um uh bigoted place, right?

And so the wearing crazy clothes there was radical back then.

It was a you it was that that like so I I would wear stuff that I didn't actually even fully my full evolution happened in in California because I would have been I would have been killed in Massachusetts.

I would have Elizabeth Warren would have put a musket to the back of my head if I had if I had if I had gone as fully to where I am now there.

But a lot of it was you got like this this you guys it was you want to go to a real party.

All right.

Okay.

You know, I've always loved like punk music and sort of like noise music, things that are sort of like saying f you to convention in different ways and filmmakers too, like that.

But then I know that you've described yourself as an empath in social settings and I I have middle child syndrome, so I also sort of So, you just got.. talking to one.

One second.

One second.

One second.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wait.

Well, she's got a point, you know.

Hear them out.

No.

No.

Okay, guys.

No.

No.

Well, I hear you.

Yeah.

Those two things, those two sentiments seem at odds with each other.

They are.

What drove you as a performer to want to say, "F you."

But then you're also an empath.

I mean, a lot of it is like, you know, in the mob when they break your hand, but then they give you the money to pay for it.

You know, it's the afterare.

That's a lot of my career, you know.

It's it's letting air out the tires, you know.

It's like it's not like it's not you to death.

It's you a little bit.

It's like it's not like a destructive um desire.

And again with fashion, I don't want to freak people out.

I do think that um my mom was she was very she's she hates the show off more than anything, especially espe she and she despises um male grooming in particular.

She thinks that there was something like that that it's almost like men have had enough.

It's like, you know, men have men have they have it good enough.

They don't need to also like anytime a man like cares about the way he looks, it's it's sinful.

So her um opposition to to showing off had makes me at odds with myself in that like I do try to like I do try to contain it to the to but it was always okay on stage.

Mhm.

It was so so anything.

So, so it's like putting so much on stage as a safe thing and then moving differently in the world, you know, like um I I I don't feel the need to to dress that flashy in reality.

I It's more um it's more the statement on stage, I think.

Right.

But but but the empath thing is that's very interesting because I also I really in Massachusetts also like I will I will cool down my flamboyance because I I again I I don't want to say you on the streets.

I want to say you in the controlled space on stage in in the short statement that I that I can make.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

So it's I'm a coward is basically what it comes down to.

social environments can be really stressful and high anxiety and trying to keep that balance and then the stage has like an outlet essentially.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean it's part of why I really want wanted fame as a young person was that so people could like to like contextualize my most extreme and then we can kind of chill the out.

Chris Fleming's new special, Live at the Palace, lets you take a peek at that most extreme version of himself.

It's kaleidoscopic, and you can feel the labor that went into it, carefully honing his craft over years of playing venues across LA until he honed it into something chaotic, but deeply relatable.

It's kind of rare to run into a work of art that speaks very specifically to a slice of a generation, which to me, I felt like the special speaks to a mid millennial.

the the the the slur of the millennial is also funny right now.

Like millennial like there there there is a derogatory and it came out of nowhere.

All of a sudden it was like kept up on us, didn't it?

Cuz there was Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's beautiful.

It means that we're aging and you know there there there was also that brief time.

Remember that brief time where we all everyone was like Jenz is going to save us and then that kind of stopped because that was before we learned that they take Spongebob seriously.

you know that that is what is the slur of millennials, dude?

I mean, okay, it's um I think Zoe Day Chanel did a lot of damage.

I think, you know, like there's that um the the adorable stuff.

Um and again, it comes it comes to what we were talking about.

It's like it's like pe there's like a charact like like the charact making yourself a like a a character like silly old me and then my little things that I you know that that I think is the thing that is most mocked in in the millennial culture.

So, what makes that such fertile ground for comedy in a way?

Because I feel like you're kind of riffing on that, but you're sort of transcending it because you are doing characters in a way in the special.

Oh, totally.

One.. statements is to never get cute with it.

I I think there I think there needs to be a brutal reality to it.

I think also the adversarial uh nature quality that I have with my audience I think is important and and sometimes you see this in comedy now.

There are certain like movements right now that are like that have like a hu huge following and it can become a mega church really fast.

Like I've gone to live shows where it's 3,000 people and they're like cheering at you know short form improv and you need to you need to you need to occasionally be like stop it enough.

Hey, don't do No, you can't be clapping at everything like because otherwise you're creating a bubble like it's gonna burst like it can't be it can't like you you are also like a bit of a you you have to reprimand.

It's like a it's like I don't want to say it's like dog owning but it's like there's a little bit where you have to be hey stop like don't love me that much.

So then are you kind trying trying to just evolve as a comedian all the time to kind of stay ahead of that curve in a way that's that's the way to do it I think um when something works you've got to throw away that formula and it's really hard as a writer I I find myself even right now starting from scratch it's a really vulnerable thing you know like people see this piece of work that you've polished you know that you were touring all summer and is really the best representation of where you are at that time and then you start from scratch and you're inclined to like revisit tricks and everything, but you can't.

And I I I think yeah, to evolve as an artist is brutal.

And it's why you see a lot of people stop standup when they become huge and they can they just be a personality or or do podcasts or act or whatever because it's like you really you're starting not from zero.

you're starting at like negative a thousand because the crowd has seen you especially getting new fans from the special.

They've seen this like you know a lot of people made that really great HBO like it's there was a lot of stuff that went into that.

It's beautiful.

JB Smooth is in the special thanks.

Yeah.

I mean JB Smooth he's in the special thanks.

Good eye.

JB Smoo I opened for him at at when I was in college and he blew my mind.

He blew my mind.

So that's why he's in the special thanks.

Talk about a guy who is leading an audience.

He will he will do a setup for a bit.

There's a clip of him at the Apollo where like for the first minute these people everyone's like, "What the hell is is he doing?"

And then the way he gets them because he's just he's going to do what he's going to do and he's he's leading them without pandering.

It's so easy to pander now.

It's so easy to signal and to pander and um on both sides and you have to you have to forget all that I think.

So you're at a critical moment right now then because you are getting a lot of attention.

You are a stand-up standup in a lot of people's minds but you are getting a lot of attention as like an identity as like a persona.

So how are you balancing that?

Oh do you just not even think about it?

I don't.

No, no.

For me, it's like it's um I just have such conviction with what I with with what I think is funny and what I want to do.

Writing is always the the the thing that saves me.

I I if I weren't writing, I could easily be like, "Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

These people are right.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

Maybe I am good."

But it's like if you're writing and you're trying out new like you see how not great you are so fast and it's just that's why standup is so wonderful and um yeah writing constantly just keeps you uh keeps you realizing how pathetic you are.

No, that's not helpful.

That's when you when you stick to the process.

It sounds like it keeps you humble and keeps you in the in the craft of it.

Yes, because if you when you when you make a special where I'm like that is I I w like we had a screening of that and I was like like in the audience like laughing if if when you make something where you're like you're firing at the height of your powers and then you you the world thinks that's oh that's that's Chris.

It's like that's me a after with a lot of people helping me out um with putting a lot of work into that and that's that's that is a great that is an A+ paper that I and now now that I've passed that in I'm uh I'm like just being being okay completely starting over is the is is a is a way that you will never get um too ego maniacal I think I mean because you have to the the work is just what I think saves it I think and you can't you know you're not a gladiator when you like or or a successful gladiator when you start working again and writing again and that makes me want to ask about process a little bit more because what's scary about process is when all eyes are on you that's that's when process becomes scary cuz it's easy you know to grow in the shadows as a fungus you know when you're when no one when you don't have the buzz, it's easy to write bits.

But when everyone's like, you know, woo, you know, like and and you're part of this media machine where you're doing things every day, you don't have as much time to kind of retreat.

And when all eyes are on you, I think that can also be the um a destruction of process cuz also talking about process can be dangerous.

It's too much because it's so how do you how do you do it?

It's supposed to be like a little magical.

It's like asking a magi.. tell you, you know, how the trick is done really in a lot of ways.

But if there's any joke or bit or se segment from your special that you are willing to sort of like pull back the curtain on a little bit, I'd love to hear about sort of just the beginning to end arc of how you arrived at that final polished piece that people are seeing.

Sure.

So, the Oreos bit comes to mind.

I do a bit about Oreos being disfigured in yogurt uh frozen frozen yogurt places and why that's okay.

and and originally so I I was sitting eating Oreos in in in the woods and I started thinking about I started thinking about like I just had flash images of just these like horrible um you know crumbles of Oreos at places and it's like how is that how is that okay?

this is like a really like thriving I I think I was thinking about my like like when when a career is going well like you don't need to you know diminish yourself like that like why why are why is that okay and so I started writing about it originally it was what happened to you old friend was the was the premise of of that was like the and I tried to liken it to the scene in the deer hunter where Dairo have you seen the deer hunter where Dairo and Christopher walkin they're friends and then Christopher Walkin is taken prisoner in Vietnam and he finds him and he's playing Russian roulette um with with the locals for money and he's like non-verbal and I I originally tried to make I tried to liken that scene to seeing like Oreos being completely like crumbled and mashed in and the crowd was like no like yeah like what are you talking about?

So, I was like, "Okay."

Then I tried another world where it was something about the way insurance companies will like occasionally use uh Snoopy and the Peanuts gang as like their logo and it's like how are they getting away with this?

Like that B and that that wasn't quite right.

And so I just I developed it through um through over time and then eventually it became um this sadistic uh almost like James Bond type villain or maybe even Inspector Gadget whose like head you never see.

And I loved that.

I loved like I loved removing um that tool cuz like in standup you have x amount of tools and you want to use all your tools at once to you know you throw everything in the cannon to get the job done.

But that was the first time I I I subtracted something to to achieve something and that seemed really funny to me degrade and humiliate them.

Chop them up.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We can totally chop them up, but we promise to do so equally and uniformly.

Do it differently every time.

Mr.

Nabiscoco, so to speak, is turning and facing away from the audience.

Yes.

Depriving th.. expressions and Yes.

Yes.

this sadistic, twisted character.

Uh, and you don't you don't know why he's doing what he's doing.

And, um, yeah, that was really gratifying making that discovery and doing that on the road.

Oh, I love doing that bit on the road.

It's so fun.

It absolutely killed me when I first watched the Oreo bit.

Thanks, man.

But see, that that is a that is an example of like um not to sound like the American Beauty quote, but like there's so much in the world.

Like if I just I need to remind myself all the time just like it's it's just it's just observing and not like getting in your head too much.

It's like it's all there.

There's the the the world is so vast to talk about.

Like it's it's it's overwhelming how you could spin anything that we've seen into something beautiful and funny.

So it's like you have to remember that.

I have I have to remember that.

So you mentioned entropy earlier.

What is it about entropy?

Showing the entropy that makes it so powerful.

Okay.

I think it's how long my road was.

I got attention early on.

I did it in Aspen new faces thing when I it was like 2 years in and I was too early.

It was like it was like Melanie, Eric Andre, all these guys and gals that were just incredible.

And I was I was really young.

I was like 20 and I it was too soon.

And then um then there was a long period where there wasn't where I was I think that then my real development started.

It was realizing like wow these people are so good.

I need to I need to get that in myself.

And so when you're a comedian, you you just the the levels of disgrace at live shows that you experience are just you wouldn't believe it.

Like like even to this day, I have nightmares about performing standup that are not not nearly as dark as what I've experienced.

Like and to the I even did like a gig a couple weeks ago that was so bad.

It was beyond my wildest nightmares.

Just like tech issue, everything goes wrong.

Things fall apart.

And so when you when you get used to that arena um that becomes that becomes comfort for you that becomes home in a way and and seeing specials where the comic everything's like it's like like every joke crushes.

It's like that's not that has not been my experience.

And so I want to show my experience and trust me, I want to crush.

I do want to crush and I get mad when I don't.

But I'm um I think truly I think it's a it's a product of my training and and um the way that I was taught how for acting and for dance and and dance.

I loved modern dance in college and a lot of it was contact improv which is throwing your body weight around your partner and learning to learning to fall learning learning what learning what the drop is and I do it with you know literally with my body on the time all the time on stage and everything but like um that's also a you to the perfectionism of of of Massachusetts and the family with love.

It's it's like it's like you know you know what I'm going to I'm going to transcend this sque clinging on to perfectionism because it's because it's a lie and and um and you for trying to um trying to make people live up to unrealistic expectations.

And I think that I think that I think that interesting stuff happens in there.

and also just my own resentment of things that are too precious.

Also, I don't think I have everything is a rolling piece where I have never figured every like it it's like does that is that good like with the crowd is like wait like because you're collab collaborating with the crowd in a way where it's like hopefully this works.

Yeah.

Do you Yeah.

Okay.

Ye.. constantly in communication with the crowd in a way that's not at all crowd work.

It's not it's not like interaction literally, but you are very much playing off their energy.

People are always going to be chatting with you.

And um I I I see it as less my problem with crowd work, the way people do it, it's like you're holding the mic.

Like if mic them if you're going to do that, give them the mic, you cowards.

Like of course you can dominate these people, right?

But put a lav mi.. they're going to be a lot funnier than whatever you're saying.

And that's also funny like and that's what you learn doing crowd work a lot of time they're saying funnier stuff that's why yeah right it's kind of like a form of punching down in a way totally totally and you you've prepared you're amplified but yeah it never feels like your your.. punching down I try not Oh I definitely try not to I I I thrash I definitely punching everywhere sideways stanking whatever the sca dance But uh no, no, no.

I absolutely hope to not be punching down.

Yeah.

So, not punching down, not punching up, skanking.

Really?

Skanking and thrashing.

Great.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And and and and throwing gren.. holding the ears.

Since we're talking about punching down, punching up, skanking, um are you trying to do anything?

Are you trying to say something?

No.

At all?

Or do you think about.. you're when you're writing?

To me, it's like f it's like a lantern that that's right in front of you and you're just following in the dark.

Um, and everything's everything's dark until you illuminate it right in front right in front of you.

And then that that's that's the way I look at it.

And when you So then when you go back and like watch one of your bits or you're touring a bit that you've really brought to its culmination, then are you able to kind of realize like, oh, it's kind of saying this in a way or do you not really even think about it?

No.

I'm really bad at noticing um sometimes accidentally so so I'll have a thing where it's like you know my my friend uh Patty Watty I did a show in DC and he's like yeah man that was great but you talked about rotissery you had a rotisserie chicken punch line like six times and it's like sometimes like I'll get stuck in a loop and I'll I'll notice these these repetitions I go on.

So I try to avoid that even even in terms of and you see this with comics you see too much simile you see too much um uh rhythmic similarity like I I want to have like you know for that one it was like you know have a story here character piece here um strange random um diet tribe that's petty here you know you want you want to give a variety a platter of stuff so that it never it always feels surprising and never feels um predictable but in terms of thematics I I I I don't have the intelligence to do that.

I I don't self-examine well like that in that way.

Um, I will say that I do feel cleansed.

The the more I express myself in that way, I do feel freer and lighter in a way that's almost like when people say like, "What's next?"

You know, I'm like, I don't I don't know, hibernation.

Like I I in some ways it feels like um when I put out something that I love I'm like I'm pretty I'm pretty content right now.

I will say I took away from it feeling like oh expressing is important.

Yes.

So kind of.. you know if an authentic expression you know and not just doing what you think you should be doing.

I think always pushing it further, surprising yourself, uh, scaring yourself and more authentic expression of myself.

I do find that people are always very receptive towards.

It's it's great and I and I encourage it.

This is also why it's so important to have a good audience and to know when to insulate yourself as a comic.

I was really privileged to have the the comedy studio which which was in Harvard Square.

So it was a very there were a lot of like really you were pushed to um to do not just the the the the basic comedy that like at that time especially was like kind of like brash and kind of like hateful.

It was like they wanted they were curious audiences and they wanted to discover you.

And I think there's a lot of comedy clubs where the culture is not that.

And I think that it's really important for young comics to find places that hold them.

And again, not too much clapping and all that stuff, you know, but like I do think that a curious audience is what has made me who I am and why it's like why it's different because if I if I started if I was performing at the comedy store every night, I would belittle myself.

I would it it just it just flattens, I think.

Sorry.

It does.

I I I think like I think tourist traps you you learn to survive cuz cuz I performed in them too but I I knew not to do it too much.

I you know that's just my two cents.

I mean, I think something I run into a lot with our brand, our series American Masters, is, you know, there tends be there's a tendency in America to think about the individual achievement in everything that's being done, but so much is social.

So much is communal.

And what you're describing to me sounds like a communal achievement.

Of course, completely.

There it's a it's a full collaboration.

Otherwise, we would just be Twitch streaming or something, you know, like like if you're they're they are so because because I'm not a psycho.

Like I'm not going to go on stage and thrash around like that in front of a crowd that's not not feeling it.

Like they they it's like kindling their their laughter and support is what is fuel.

Like it's like someone pedaling, you know, to give you energy.

It's like they're helping me get through these things.

they're helping me fly.

And so when when they're not, you have to find a way to survive.

And um and exactly what you said, it's communal.

It's chemistry.

It's like so much so much as like who are you as a performer?

Who it's like well or who are you as a person?

Identity stuff.

It's like not to say that that you should let go of yourself or whatever, but like chemistry changes you.

Like you're who you're around is going to really change you.

If you filmed me in front of like a crowd that didn't see me, you would be horrified at what at what would happen.

And like I I I I am stronger now, but like yeah, it's it is uh my audience is is such a part of of who I am as a performer because they I mean I've also been able I've had the luxury of doing theaters for like 10 years and they've been um they've they've let me they they've let me in investigate things that a tourist trap comedy club would not.

When you put out a special like like what like the one we're talking about today, um that is in a vacuum for most people watching it.

Most people didn't see you at Largo 12 times seeing where you're developing, right?

You know, what do you hope.. away from the special?

M um when you're starting out writing, you have this um idea that everything that something has to be everything where you're like I remember being really bogged down by this.

Oh, I have so much to say and I have so much abil I think a lot of young creatives or people starting out creatively have this feeling of knowing what you could do and wanting to squeeze it.

I still do this wanting to squeeze everything into everything.

I do it I I do it with my late night appearances.

definitely try to do too much cuz I have like seven minutes to play with.

And as you get older, you realize that showing where you are right now is the best thing you can do for yourself, the most interesting thing you can do for yourself.

I I want people to get out of it.

Um I want I just want them to get something out of it.

I don't I that's completely out of my control.

Um what they get out of it.

I have no interest in that.

I other than I hope they like it.

I hope they enjoy it.

And I um I hope I I hope there is a little bit of like um wow damn I can't believe that's on HBO in some ways.

Like wow.

Okay.

Like you know when you're seeing stuff when you're younger like Jesus this is being this is being broadcast.

Wow.

Okay.

like, yeah, I guess to be that formative to be a formative moment of like like when I saw the Mighty Bouch when I was young, I was like, you know, to to to kind of like like shake things up a little bit.

That's I I would I would be really happy if that if I did that for somebody.

Well, thanks for giving us time today.

I appreciate Thank you, Joe.

Thank you for.. That's our show.

A big thank you to Chris Fleming for taking the time to talk.

American Masters Creative Spark is a production of the WNET Group Media made possible by all of you.

This episode was produced by me, Joe Skinner.

Our executive producer is Michael Caner.

Original music is composed by Hannis Brown.

This episode was mixed and mastered by Josh Broom.

Funding for American Masters Creative Spark is provided by the Rosalyn P. Walter Foundation, the Anderson Family Charitable Fund, the Mark Hos Foundation, Sue and Edgar Wenheim III, the Trina Endowment Fund, the Ambrose Monell Foundation, the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, the Philip and Janice Leaven Foundation, and by PBS viewers like you.

Thanks.