There's an air of mystery around the Masons, but the reality is that they're mostly a bunch of veterans getting drunk in a lodge that they've built to look like a temple. It's just a bunch of guys trying to get away from their wives.
I'm always looking to the next thing. There are always hurdles, whether it's the White House dinner or hosting charity events or that night's show: Until they're over, I worry, then I move right on to the next thing. It's hard for me to enjoy the moment. I'm just thinking about not failing.
Our politicians debate this, but our scientists don't. A huge majority of climate scientists say climate change is happening. They say we're causing it and we need to do something about it before it has a terrible effect on all of us.
I started doing a half-hour Sunday night talk show on college radio station KUNV. That excited me more than anything I'd ever done. I went through the Yellow Pages to find people who seemed interesting. I'd goof on these people, but they were so excited to be on the radio that they didn't even notice.
I know people who have literally quit their jobs to spend more time with their children, and I go, 'Wow,' my dad used to go to work at 7 o'clock in the morning and he'd come back at 7:30 and we'd kind of see him walk in and then he'd go upstairs and suddenly he'd be in a T-shirt and grumpy. There wasn't much in the way of conversation that went on.
I do have a treadmill desk in my office, and for a while, I would walk on it while checking email and going through jokes. I haven't walked on it in probably four months. Now it's more of an upright dining table for me. At some point, moss will grow over it, birds will build nests, and nature will reclaim the treadmill as its own.
When I was on the radio, I used to be able to go a lot farther than I can now. You don't really remember until you're on the radio again, sometimes in your old radio station and sitting with the guys you used to work with and you go, 'Oh yeah, I can't say these things anymore. I'm handcuffed.'
There's no debate about the greenhouse effect, just like there's no debate about gravity. If someone throws a piano off the roof, I don't care what Sarah Palin tells you, get out of the way because it's coming down on your head.
On Monday and Thursday, I eat fewer than 500 calories a day; then I eat like a pig for the other five days. You 'surprise' the body: keep it guessing. I got the idea from a BBC documentary about this Indian man who seemed about 138 years old and said his secret was severe calorie restriction.
Almost half our representatives in Washington apparently know more about science than our scientists. Or they pretend to, because big corporations give them a lot of money to make sure they can keep doing the destructive things that they do.
Producer Michael Davies - who did 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' - offered me a TV show, but I turned it down. I wasn't negotiating: It just didn't sound like a good idea. Then he offered me another show, and I said, 'No thanks' again. When I heard about 'Win Ben Stein's Money,' I thought, 'OK, that sounds like a good idea.'
The Republican National Convention is a great place to hear people talk about politics and values and all that sort of thing. But there's one thing brings me back year after year, and that's white people dancing. The RNC is the world's premier Caucasian amateur dance festival.