>> from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. charlie rose: how did you come to this? >> well, it is weird and i feel like i found a family in my head and i got interested in doing a show without the audience and the laugh track and the need for constant jokes that sitcoms have. what you are left with is a live feeling. it feels like it is a drama or something. i got the idea of a show like that. charlie rose: it is a drama? what is the story?

>> it is about a are runs by horace and pete in brooklyn that was opened i two brothers named horace and pete. they had sons named horace and pete. this has always been owned by a horace and a pete. sometimes, it has been brothers. others, cousins. alan alda plays uncle pete from the previous generation. >> it is a new form. >> very different. a grabbed me when i started writing it. i have had a lot of ideas for

it different kinds of shows. you get out the script and i started writing this is summer and it just kept coming, episode after episode. i realized i was writing some -- writing something that was worth shooting. >> what about talking to the actors? >> steve buscemi talked to me about doing a benefit. i said, do you want to do the show? he had just come off of boardwalk empire. had i come with this a year ago,

it would not exist. he just came off of a show and he said he was looking for stuff to do. i said, you want to do a series with me and we will play brothers? he said, sure. falco said that she is done with nurse jackie. i wrote her into this. i sat next to her and i said, i wrote a part for you in the new show. she wanted it. the writing is what attracts people. if you do not write the way that interests them, they will not be in it. i had written alan alda's part for joe pesci. she said, get someone you don't expect. alan wanted the part and he was great. that was a faith move.

alan alda will find a way to make this work. i found it really interesting, the way shows are presented to their audience, they tell you as much as possible, ahead of time. they want you to look at it. they don't care how. charlie rose: you assimilate information about it. >> you see how it feels, who is in it, what it sounds like, as much as they can. if it is the kind of thing you like, you take a look. to me, it feels afterwards. it is like tasting something before you eat it. you want to discover things. i want them to have no idea and know that there is something there and watch. you should be a little disturbed, when you start watching. there should be this tension of, i do not know what is going to happen.

and then when it is done, wow, that is really great. you say, i am glad i watched it. after the first episode, you should not think, that is great. they should say, i want to keep watching. that's what i want them to feel. after two episodes, i want them to feel like they still do not understand, but they are curious. after the third, you go, ok, i really like this and i want to be watching this. at 10, you should say, wow. tv cost so much money to make and they want you to say wow before you see it.

you should start with nothing and work too well. >> you have to pay for it. >> there is the intent to watch. charlie: i have the sense that you want to own stuff you do. louis: when you ask somebody to fund something, you are asking them to take a risk with you. i knew this would be a strange road and i didn't want to have to convince someone else. i did not think it was right. i did not want to tell someone this would be a success. charlie: do you still think it will be a success? is it your favorite thing you have done? louis: i think so. charlie: did you think it would he a success? do you care? louis: i would like tons of people to see it. i would like to do a show like

this again. charlie: what makes this unique? you can only get this through your website. louis: that is right. you have to go to the website and buy it. i do not know if this will work for other people. i know how to make tv for nothing and do all of it and distribute it. charlie rose: how? louis: it is not just me. i know how to direct, write, produce, edit. my website was set up to sell tickets to my shows and special. charlie rose: you want to be in charge of the way you do things and you have cut out the middleman. louis: yes. i like that part. charlie: it is control and it is direct.

louis: i think the thing that people like about horace and pete is that they get the e-mail from me from me that says that the next episode is ready. they go to my website and they watch it. there is nothing else going on and they pay for each episode and i go and make more. charlie: you self-finance this? louis: yes. what is the money for? it is more interesting than having it stored up somewhere and accruing interest. you can always get checkmated. you know that 1-2 things can go wrong. everybody lives that way. charlie rose: what is the creation process?

you decided and you loved the idea of a drama. louis: i thought about a family that owned a place. people work and live in the same place. family is something you cannot escape. it is the relationship you cannot get out of. >> this is not cheers. >> not at all. if in with the sound off, you would say, this is not cheers. it gets very down. it is funny, in moments. it is surprising and startling, in moments. the creative process is to create the people in the world and see if you can sit down and write. it flowed, because i believed in the people. charlie rose: it just pours out?

louis: some things come out that way. this one did. i put people in rooms in my head that i have the talk and it is like i'm hearing it and i am copying it down quickly like a stenographer. when it is over, i am like, that was crazy. it is pretty good and i have one done. charlie rose: is it a stream of consciousness when you do it? louis: a lot of it happens ahead of time. before i write the episode, i walk around and drive myself crazy. i do all the carving up here.

i know what is going to happen and it think about what it means in each interaction and what direction it is going to go. it is like being pregnant and having it regurgitated on the page. we do a rehearsal for a whole day and i will look at this and go, there are a few things i can change. i will keep the dialogue the same. but, i may add things. i do not change little lines. it feels like tampering. charlie: how is this different than stand up? louis: won't you get to go up and on what you say. it is better to pull it out. charlie: you listen to them and they will add it. they have the smaller club that teaches you what works and what not. do you find a lot of things you think will work doesn't? louis: yes. but you keep trying it.

if you just show them what they want to see, there is something boring. if you make them like something they expect to like, that is really bold. "that is so great and i did not expect that to be something i would like." episode tell me about 7. transgender. the dialogue is fabulous. you wrote it. tell me about it. louis: well -- charlie: any reason not to tell me?

louis: i did not expect it to happen in that story. it was about horace confessing something to her first, about his life and that is what the scene was about, initially. they had a one night stand and they have this intimacy and, the next morning, they do not want to look at each other and it is how people sometimes feel in the morning. but he invites her to have some eggs. want to be don't here. he says, i don't want you here. they both know that they do not want to see each other again. they are more truthful than with someone who do have a future with. he has a shocking detail about his life and he goes and tells her and that is when i sat down to write.

i had her tell a joke. he says, you have a nice -- she says, that is where my -- used to be. and i just have her tell that joke. but she makes the joke and he laughs. i go in the room and go, what if she is not kidding? she if she is kidding but wants to toy with him more on the subject?: i just started to change lines down the road and she is interested in talking about this. she says, if i am transgendered, aren't i a woman? when someone becomes trans, that is a woman?

i'm told 50/50 by people what you are supposed to say. caitlyn jenner is a woman now, with all the rights of a woman. and, it is not polite to say, that is bruce jenner in a dress. who gotis bruce jenner an operation. if caitlyn jenner sleeps with a man. does she have to tell him that she used to be bruce jenner? i think that is unresolved. for the average person, who does not think about this all the time, which is who horace is, that is uncharted wilderness. i do not know, in the end. i do not know if she is

is agendered or not, that character. i still do not know. horace doesn't know. charlie rose: she says to him, at the end, i am a woman. louis: he says, well more time, were you always one? part of it is the ambiguity. he likes it. i think horace is turned on by not knowing what or who. he is excited by her command. being able to stand on that shaky line. she excites him by toying with him. that is what happened in the scene. i'm telling you all of this from having watched it. when i was writing it, i didn't know what was going on. l is like, what would she say? i was like, it is crazy she said that. it happened in my head and i wrote it down.

charlie: tell me who horace is. louis: he is a "nothing" guy. he has no agency. thruste doesn't have a in life. the greatest generation and those guys, the vietnam veterans, the baby boomers, they have terrific names to their generations and they had to overcome something or create something. our guys, we were called generation x. we were nothing. a lot of us did not want to be cool like our parents or hate our kids. we didn't know what to do. i feel like i'm a good parent and i have an idea of what it means to be a citizen. i think it is more interesting

to write a guy who does not know what to do or how to care about it. charlie rose: you are not writing yourself, clearly. louis: there are parts of me in horace. he is a little bit slow. he's a bit of a schlub. charlie: do you feel that way? louis: yes. my gut is hanging out of my t-shirt half of the time and i get ice cream on my chest and i watched shark tank. that is who everybody is. i am an ordinary guy. charlie: do you think you are ordinary?

louis: yes. charlie: through all the creativity? you reach inside the human experience and tell stories. louis: i am an ordinary guy and i can tell stories about the ordinary guy. you love language. i really do. i really do. lewis:

♪ charlie: there is a quote from garry shandling. the users is in these islands. toks set themselves on fire make point. >> he wrote this to me in an e-mail and he wrote that to me a few weeks before he died. a couple of weeks before he died. he was a great friend and the kind of guy who i could talk to him for hours and there would never be enough time. my mouth would get dry. i would get a headache because i did not want to drink water or do anything to stop talking to him. i wouldn't want to stop talking

to him and we would have to part company. charlie rose: i'll waste thought with garry shandling that i wish -- i always thought with garry shandling that i wish he was doing something right now. greats.e is one of the charlie: why isn't he, you would ask yourself. louis: he gave a lot of great stand up and series. a lot of tv was built on the back of that. i showed larry sanders to my daughter and she loved it and it was fresh. she watches 30 rock and shows up against him and -- it began to them, you know? charlie: your role in this is as a listener. yes.: i mean, of course is very quiet in to does not talk much.

i wanted to do the show and not have a lot of lines. go and steve and alan and jessica lange. -- edie falco and steve and alan jessica lange. they are all better than me. so, for sure, i want to give them the platform and be a sounding board. charlie rose: you have been doing some acting. louis: i have a lot of terrible moments on screen, that i cannot take back, including the show. i am stiff. with the end of horace and pete, the feelings were real and i felt like pete was my brother. when hard things happened to pete, i got upset. charlie rose: it is an amazing thing. you created the characters. louis: and then i got involved

like i was in the family. these show -- -- when we shot the last episode, it took me a while to recover from that. i was very upset. i did not have conjure anything from my asked or how to get there. i was just very upset for real. we traded e-mails, all of us, saying that we were within -- we are in withdrawal and it was hard to walk away from the show and it was hard how it ended. charlie rose: does it have to end? .ouis: not necessarily the story we told is over. play then it10-act is like a series. the thing with a series, you have to keep everything in tact and all of the balls in the air. you cannot have anything big happen, because you cannot take it back. every show has to reset.

you know? television has a thing where it shows up your house vacuum like a vacuum cleaner salesman, where they make a mess on the floor and they have to clean it up. tv is supposed to leave you like you found you. then you want to watch it next week and forever. the idea is to write something that takes a piece out of you and leaves you a little broken and you wonder how they keep doing it. we don't have to. i didn't have to make more than three. charlie: what is the level of satisfaction, compared to the other things you do? can you even judge it? can you way it? louis: it felt very real to me and it was satisfying. you learn a thing you have never done and do it well. i had never done a show like this. none of us had.

i mean, nobody had made a show -- it was closer to saturday night live, versus a sitcom. we would shoot it on wednesday and thursday and have it on the website on saturday morning. so it was a very quick -- charlie rose: they were written, though. by the time you started shooting. hads: it was, but we current events. people in bars talk about the news. that is why we shot it so close to the air date. there was this color coding with the camera that was tricky. charlie: here is what i hear. you write standup that is the best. you're acting, yunnan only get good reviews but you get more and more roles. you are a director and a producer. have you come to a point where you feel it you can do anything

you want? louis: when you are in the army, a friend of mine was in the army in the 1980's and he was a sergeant and went to jump school. they would go and he was a reserve. on his weekend, instead of sitting around and playing ping-pong, they would go to jump school. then, they would go to medic school and they got this patch. unfortunately, the war broke out and he was sent. so, he had to do all of this. all of a sudden, you can do to you know, late in what is the movie, the matrix.

if there is a helicopter, he says, do you know how to play helicopter? she loads that program. and then anyone can do that. i know how to make a multi-camera drama and direct many great actors, which i had never done. charlie rose: exactly. you had never done it and you did not know what was good and bad. louis: you just go and do it. you start to say, i have done this before and, i have not done this before and, i have done other things i haven't done before and it came out ok. also, if this does not go well, what is the worst deal? the thing you learn the most is how to recover from failure. if you can recover from things not going well, the worst that happens is, this a total wreck

and i will recover. charlie rose: you don't worry about it because you always have your talents. louis: that is another thing by getting all these different skills. i can go write for somebody's sitcom. quietly i could just go write. charlie: you are doing summary things and doing all of them well. what isn't it building to? what journey is it? louis: in the end it is really one show at a time and one story at a time. i'm not trying to be some guy who does all these things. i just really wanted to tell this story about horace and pete and their families. whatever stories i come up with, that's all. it was so different.

of people in the studio all day. indoors. louis was single camera, which means that you shoot little pieces of it and then you sew them together in the editing room. this thing, we shot about 20 pages without stopping. we did it like a play. we let people feel like they were at a plate performance. so it was about rehearsing and preparing. and then just letting it happen. it was a completely different kind of directing. charlie: i bet all of these experiences have somehow said to you, why don't i try a broadway play? louis: i would do it but i have to write it. being a writer is what i am best at. i have been a stand-up comedian since i was 18.

i never stopped being one. charlie: it you said i didn't , get good until i was in my 40's. louis: it takes 30 years to get good at it. i only got good at it recently. it's been about five years that i have been worth watching. that is the thing i can claim, i put in my years with stand up. i put in the work and i made the sacrifice. a lot of hard years. that is why i can do it. writing would be second. and then directing, acting is the last. if i had to drop one it would be acting. i am not the best at it. i'm not great at it. i can do it.

i love doing it. it is super fun. i'm not the best at it. i haven't put as much commitment into it. you have to do one thing all the time to be great at it. i am going on the road as a comedian for a year. not doing any productions. i haven't been as good a standup comedian as i was in 2008 to 2010. it bothers me. it is an awful feeling. i feel like i'm betraying the audience. and i'm betraying the thing that i'm doing. i did three or four years where all i did was stand up comedy. i wasn't doing anything else. i think that was the best i ever was. between 2011 and now, i have put out a few specials that i'm very proud of and i did my best but i would've been better if i wasn't making television shows. charlie rose: did you know you were the best at stand up anywhere?

louis: that's very subjective. some people hate what i do. plenty of people. it depends on who your favorite comedian is. i am as good at doing it as anybody. i don't think you can compare standup comedians. artwork isn't really qualitative. i know it's hard about standup comedy. by watching it and doing it over and over. i have been on stage millions of times. it is a constant thing. if i don't do it for two weeks, if i go back i am not as good again. charlie rose: aside from being a dad, are you happiest on stage? louis: i love being on the set shooting.

i love the feeling of exhaustion after a lot of work. there are days when i walked away from horace and pete and i would say, that was a home run today. i felt like i hit a home run. those are hard to compare. those are all big happy moments. being a dad is the best. charlie rose: the new yorker said comedians are populist. louis: we talk like other people. we don't talk like the new yorker. people identify with us. when i am able to be more social, i come up with more material.

charlie: is what makes you laugh what makes the audience laugh? louis: sometimes. it is hard work. it is fun but it is hard. charlie rose: what does cringeworthy mean? louis: i don't know. it is a new word. i don't know. i guess people are talking about things that make you go, only god. that is cringing, right? ♪

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♪ charlie rose: are there places you will not go? louis: only if it is not funny or boring or if someone else has been there heavily. then i will not go there probably, because it it is boring. i remember saying one time that saying that a joke is too terrible to joke about is like saying that the disease is too terrible to treat. i mean, that's what you do with awful things, you joke about them. that's how you get through it. .hat is how you survive life to say that that is so terrible i can't joke about it is totally counterintuitive. it is like, if it is that awful,

you better start joking about it . charlie: is it all about truth? i think lying is an effective way to get laughs. lying is like magic. there are so many lies in my act. i have so many stories that i really convince them that it's true and that's why they are laughing. like this really happened, man. that makes them laugh because i'm sharing something. but it is riddled with lies. where i see it happened and how many of each thing. i lie all the time just to make stories interesting. all of the statistics in a joke. charlie rose: i'm not sure if i'm disappointed about this or not. louis: you don't want the truthful version of my act. it is really bland this makes it . funnier. charlie rose: does it start with

an idea? louis: jokes have different forms. observations like i have this thing that happened. or this is what people are like. or an observed story. -- absurd story. this thing will happen and i fingers] that is a bit. sometimes things are in my head for years before it recognize why have i never talked about this on stage? there is a new bit i've been doing about when you're in a e-mail fight. in june when i told you that we had this issue you promised to be sensitive. you work on the e-mail for a long time like you are beethoven and you're going deaf. and that he sent it to a friend and say what you think. this is a new phenomenon. then they do a draft of the

e-mail. and they tell you, i would take this out because it seems a little excessive. then you send it to somebody else who lets you put that back in. he worked on it for a long time with all this collaboration area and then you send it. and then you realize you left a sentence at the top it says this is the latest draft what do you think? i have done that and it is humiliating. know thate people all you have a team of writers working on the e-mail. only about a week ago did i say why have i not told that story on stage? they found out that they have by telling the story. there are a bunch of places in there to work on it. when i say e-mail fight, how is that different from a text fight? that's more like screw you, i hate you, screw you.

for an e-mail fight that is more like -- when i wrote you in june, and people know what that means. all the little details will get bigger and bigger. charlie rose: are you going to tell me when you will do another series? louis: i don't know. if i crash into it as a thing i'm really dying to do. i have to want to do it. i didn't want to make a show because i have to do it. i can honestly keep making episodes of that show just because it was doing well and it was there. i did it as long as i could because i was very grateful to the people who gave me the show. once we were getting enemies and stuff, that meant a lot to them. some people that work for me make a living working on my show.

it is very hard to tell them, "you are all fired." that's a lot of pressure. i didn't have a choice. i only did what i said i couldn't do it anymore. i still work for these guys. they work with me now on "horace and pete," and they will elsewhere. but between each thing there is like a, what? where did it go charlie rose:

would you have any interest in building a creative factory? louis: we are making an animated show with albert brooks. we make pamela adlon's show " better things. zach galifianakis's show. tig notaro's show on amazon. so we make a lot. charlie rose: donald trump. louis ck: jesus christ. i went pretty far. i said so much. never has anyone said so much about something of which they know so little. charlie: did you want to take it back? louis ck: you live with what you say. the second after i sent it i was like, ok. i told her what it was. my 10-year-old. and she said they are going to kill you on this. she said they are never going to stop bugging you on this. but it is not as big as it used to be.

every four years we have this obsession. it's like a family thing. a family decision. it is very personal. if you had an election in your family, is mom or dad going to be in charge for the next four years?

or is our brother going to take dads spot? or is our brother going to take that spot. that's what it felt like to me when clinton won. it was like our brother took over for dad. or maybe three of your siblings brought some woman that you don't know in said we are going to replace mom with her. and we have the votes to do it. and you say what? the amount of anger and passion that an election in your family would have, that is what is is like. it is very emotional. it is not a rational thing. it is based on how we all feel and what we want to say to the rest of the world. what we are afraid of. it is a big deal. i'm an american citizen. whoever is president affects my life. a vote is a personal thing.

but your vote also affects everybody else. it is a tricky thing. it is always going to be a big messy fight, that is what democracy is. people would feel more united and that peace that we were all being oppressed by the same government. but when we try to decide, it is a big ugly fight. it is painful. this campaign has a lot of pain involved. i was feeling a lot of fear. i wrote my e-mail saying horace and pete is ready for download. enjoy. i wanted a little nap. and then i wrote "p.s."

say, "stop with the trump. anymore."unny and i just kept going. i wrote this whole malignant tumor of the thing. this wasp's nest of thoughts. i sent it to my mom and she said it." e, send there is part of me. it was saturday morning. so i sent it. it is a very weird thing. i was just sending it to a little select group of people. but it was on twitter in seconds. i knew more people would read it than who i sent it to. i figured a few people would say this guy is a jerk.

and i knew that. i said, whatever. let's just see what happens. and then it is on every news publication in the world. the more it grew, the more i said what i done? this is so dumb. and then, all of these things that i kind of just thought. it was just feelings i had. some of them contradicted each other. some of them were like, jeez i don't know this. suddenly these words are being tested and none of them hold up. it was just one guy talking with because a beer in his hand. it is just my opinion of the moment about the election. and it was based on some big feelings. i stand by some of it. charlie rose: you compared him to hitler. louis ck: not hitler when he was done. but coming up.

charlie: in his rookie years. in you said, what? louis: there is a similar dynamic there. i think it is a scary time. every time someone terrible comes along and then we kill them and we say there will never be another one of those, he was from another planet, that wasn't a human being. humans don't make people like that. that guy was hatched from an egg. as long as we don't hatch people from eggs we won't have those. no, he had a mommy and daddy and he was a baby and he played and went to school. he had friends. whoever i am describing he is done all these things and been nurtured by parents. he has been a good friend to somebody somewhere. he has listened to someone who needed to be listened to.

and then this thing builds and , then he ended up doing all these terrible things. that happened through him. you know what i mean? so i don't know. , i think trump is more from my world then he is from politics. you know? he is one of us. he is a show business guy. he's an entertainer. i feel like we are responsible for him. charlie rose: i hear that he's making his way into your routines. louis: i don't think so. i think i've said everything i need to say about donald trump. jesus christ. i felt a little bit bad because, some people got mad at me and they said, just shut up. don't tell me what to think. right? i'm not telling anybody what to think. i am expressing myself during election year.

but i did come into their lives through the funny ha ha door. and then i took a big political thing on their table. so i get it. i get why people would be irritated with me about writing that. it is not what i am known for. it is not what i am asked about. if you invited somebody to your house as you do they really funny and they settle this stuff, you would say what are you doing to me? so i get why people are irritated. because a loting of liberals got mad because i suggested that maybe conservatives and liberals have equal value and they should each have a shot at running the government. i came from mexico when i was a little kid. i remember coming to america and discovering that. as a little boy from another country. democracy and free speech was an

incredible thing for me. andok at it with wide eyes it is incredible to me. the way i look at it is, i feel a certain way about how the country should be run. but everybody feels that i do. when there is enough of me to push the election over to our side we get a president for a while. but the other people should get an equal shot. democracy doesn't mean you always get things the way you want them. democracy means sometimes i am really frustrated. then i know is working right. that is the way i look at it. and i'm in my 40's. to me obama is a liberal. to some people he is a huge arch conservative. but i don't think trump is any of these things. i think trump is a guy who will

dismantle the actual process. i'm not known for making political statements. i have never done this before. i have no track record of running my mouth politically. i would probably not do it again. but i wrote this because this guy feels like he could chuck it all away and he is even saying he wants to. he wants to make it easier to sue somebody for writing something you didn't like. it is insane. but anyway, i shouldn't have said even what i said now. charlie rose: but you did. louis: i apologize. i don't mean it. not at all. no. charlie: let's talk about family for a moment. the kids are older now. do they laugh at you? louis: we all laugh together. we laugh about life together. the 10-year-old, is jovial. the daughter she is a very

, intelligent kid and curious and thoughtful. it is the greatest part of life. talking with your kids. the thing about being with your kids, you don't have to be doing anything. you could be waiting in line at the grocery store and you are having a good time. charlie: have they seen horace and pete? louis: my daughter came to the taping, it was good to have her there. they are bored by what i do. which is probably a good thing. they have their own television they watch. sometimes i will say there is an episode of my show that is appropriate. and they will say i would rather watch portlandia or gravity falls or bob's burgers, a very popular show with them. charlie: there was a time when you were not going to do another episode of louis? i think it may have been between four and five. louis: yes, i took a thought. charlie: and then you have a

thought and it seizes you. so all of a sudden you have another series. what might happen having to do with louis depends on some idea that grabs you. louis: then i have to do it. no matter what it takes. charlie: thank you. louis: a pleasure. always. ♪

mark: you are watching bloomberg west. five northeastern states hold presidential primaries today. if democratic front-runner hillary clinton's suites the contest, she most likely will be the party's nominee. they determine donald trump's prospects of winning the republican nomination. endorsing a partial cabinet reshuffle proposed by the prime minister that comes after protests and demonstrations by thousands of followers. trying to enlist with islamic state in iraq and syria has dropped by 90% according to the pentagon which says 200 people a month are looking to sign up.